NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Sorry about the verbrose 1st post, probably should of just skipped to the second. I really just wanted to get my thoughts down on paper.

“The goddamn Keeblers just won’t quit!” yelled a corporate head, a Kogothian Herzog if Arkady remembered correctly. “Menelmacar has holdings on just about every rock in that system, and their allies hold the rest. Mars is filled to the gills with elves and has made it quite clear they want us to stay the Spoot away. Arda has never heard of us and isn’t going to sell a single damn acre to a backwater empire with a half-way sizeable trade fleet, begging your pardon your Highness. The point of the matter is,” said the Herzog, glaring around the room. “The point of the matter is that the Elves have a strangehold on that system and we aren’t going to get a refueling station unless we kill a great heaping stack of them!”
Arkady, Empress of Skeelzania and Heiress of God, sighed. “Are you proposing that we invade Sol, turning our Vendetta into a full-scale war that we cannot win? Sit down, my lord. I didn’t call this meeting to usher in the Apocalypse.” The Herzog, wind gone from his sails, sat down bodily in his chair. “Thank you,” said Arkady, interlocking her fingers on the table top. The forty or so Skeelzanians, mostly Royal-CEOs but a few military men as well, looked expectantly at her. A grey pall hung over the room; the ventilation never worked this far down in the Royal Compound.
Tapping her foot irritably, she began. “Although our esteemed friend’s advised course of action is wrong, he is essentially correct on the facts. Sol is effectively in the hands of the enemy. Nations hostile to us control at last count,” -a quick glance at the papers next to her- “at least 85% of the major stellar bodies, or at least a sizeable chunk of them. We can only assume they control an equal percentage of orbital facilities. This obviously rules out any chance of us acquiring an inner-system planet-side base. Wait-” she raised a hand, palm out, as half a dozen corporate heads rose to object. “I did not say we would abandon your request for a refueling and layover station. Vice Admiral Aleric has composed a feasibility study on our options.”
The Vice Admiral was a moderately tall Skeelzanian, around 7’6”, middle age and in relatively good health. He wore the light-blue uniform of the DIED Fleet, appropriate since he was the overall commander of that organization. With a nod from the Empress he began his lecture. “My Lady, gentlemen, our options are limited. As the Empress has pointed out we will not acquire a planetary base of our own without substantial commitment of Skeelzanian resources.” A hand farther down the table shot up. “Ah, yes my lord?”
“Why not petition for land from fellow ESUS members? Allanea has made several overtures, and many others have not so insubstantial holdings on Earth itself-“
Arkady cut him off with a derisive snort. “Honestly Fyvreck, do you expect the Sternreich to crawl before anyone and beg? Mars has shown us all where that gets us.” The earl retracted his hand and did his best to sink into the floor. A quick glance at Aleric signaled him to restart.
“Yes, as I was saying we can’t hope to acquire a truly Skeelzanian plot without massive investment of military resources. Many of you have seen the war game scenarios played out following the Mars incident, and I assure you it would end very badly for us.
“With land out of the question the next logical choice is close orbit stations. Unfortunately interplanetary space is almost as crowded as the planets themselves. Our observers counted no less than forty eight stations on a single Earth Lagrange point. Most of the planetary governments are adamantly opposed to any new construct in their spheres of influence, enough so as to make unilateral construction provocative, to say the least.
“This brings us to our last chance for an inner system outpost, the deep orbit station. Although virtually all the planetary Lagrange points are taken, there is still ample room between Sol and the somewhat whimsically named ‘asteroid belt’. A number of ESUS nations are already constructing a station in this region, dubbed the ‘Heinlein Project’. It is roughly halfway between Sol and the Belt, in heliocentric orbit. A Skeelzanian construction, directly opposite of the Heinlein Project, would not only remain stable but would hopefully give us enough distance so as not to be too closely associated with it.
“I have already presented this proposal privately before the Empress, SCARR board of directors and chief of staff, and all have agreed the last option is the best. The question now is what to put out there? I am told we need at least six heavy fusion reactors for our purposes, necessitating a minimum size of at least 156 meters by 104 meters. And this is only for the generating room, mind you.”
A thoughtful silence settled over the table. Shipping magnates stared into their laps while military men shot daggers at their counterparts in other branches. Arkady had taken to drumming her fingers into the tabletop before someone responded. A SCARR official, chief prospector judging from his lapel spoke up. “I have reports from our southern scouts of a large asteroid in the SKZ-X59 system, in stable orbit around the sun there. Its three kilometers long as I remember, and moderately dense.”
“SKZ-X59…I remember that system!” perked up a Fleet Admiral. “We considered attaching a hyper- and fusion drive to her and smashing her into Thalim during the Crusade.”
“I remember that plan well, Admiral,” said the Empress. “And as I recall Thalim is still in one piece. Prospector, what is the status on this asteroid?”
“Still there m’Lady. We drew up plans for attaching the engines, but the war was over before work actually started. I’m sure the plans are in the archives somewhere. We’d just need to dig them out and begin work.”
“Capital. Does anyone else have a better idea?” More silence. “Good. I’m appointing you, Prospector, as overall supervisor of the modification process. Aleric, the DIED will oversee the operation proper. Thank you for coming gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned.”
*** *** *** *** ***
It was about an hour after the meeting as Akrady and Aleric worked their way through the complex to their respective quarters. Even though he stood a good foot taller than she, the Admiral did his best to hang back and look small. But when suddenly stopped and turned to him, he had no other choice but to draw up to his full height. “Tell me Admiral, do you have anyone in mind to lead this particular expedition?”
No question to what the ‘particular expedition’ was. “I plan on assigning it to Captain Van Cleef. He’s had experience in squadron command before; he was attached to Carnelian’s command during the Crusade.”
“Van Cleef? Karl’s son?”
“Grandson. Certainly inherited the height gene, if not much else yet. He’s a good officer, utterly detests the gnomes but is more diplomatic than some of our other post captains. He probably won’t start a war immediately.”
“I would hope not. Make sure he gets the command; if he’s anything like his grandfather he will prove quite competent.”

One moment your tearing through a sub-dimension of physical impossibilities, thumbing your nose at reality; the next you’ve exploded through the fabric separating real space and hyperspace, surrounded by pinpricks of light and a few stray hydrogen particles. Such was hyperspatial travel in the Skeelzanian military.

Of course, Van Cleef reflected, this mission had something special about it. Perhaps it was the fact that he was escorting a hollowed-out asteroid five times his ship’s size filled with fusion reactors. Or maybe it was because SCARR crews were going to install said asteroid in a heliocentric orbit in one of the most unfriendly systems Skeelzania had ever attempted to interact with. “How goes the Rock, Gregor?” he asked his Lieutenant.

“About as well could be expected, sir. The Miners don’t know how to handle small ships, but they say they can get her into orbit without trouble.” Lieutenant Gregor, like all military men, had a pretty low opinion of the monopolistic State-run mining concern. They had been haughty since their founding, but had really put on naval airs ever since one of their big Smelter ships zapped a Pretender battlecruiser back in the Arkadian War.

“Tell them to carry on then.” Van Cleef didn’t like them much either, but he was also relieved they hadn’t botched it. “What’s the status of the fleet?”

“All ships accounted for sir, except for the Prinz Konrad. She was snagged by Neptune’s gravity well and dropped out of warp a few minutes before we did. Reports that she’ll jump to us in 5 hours.”

“Always thought this system has too many damn planets in it. Order the rest to take up formation around the Rock, but no weapon power-ups. This isn’t some backwater system, the Solars would have picked us up surely.” Gregor saluted and hurried off, allowing Van Cleef to contemplate the situation. The corporations wanted their refueling post in Sol, even if they had to build their own. Now here he was, escorting a asteroid-turned-station with a full DIED Assault Group incase the Keeblers wanted to start something. And they probably would with that damnable Vendetta hanging over the whole thing. Leaving orders that he was to be notified should anyone approach or contact the Skeelzanian fleet, Van Cleef retired to his quarters.

Of course, in the Sol system, things were never completely quiet. At any one time there was a C'tani ship from the two Solar patrol fleets somewhere around, busy waiting for something interesting to happen. Of course, such C'tani ships were... none too fond of Skeelzanians after one unfortunate incident with a light cruiser and some Skeelzanian elves long ago...

The Old fashioned style Air Raid siren began to wail and weep on the giant hulk of the station floating in the ether.
Crews not already at their posts were running down corridors and diving into seats and facing consoles nestled into the walls of the great bulk of ships waiting patiently outside the Crown jewel of The Concordat of Hermes. Her old classification had been MAS #03829, Shining Light. Now she had grown, a lot.

The Giant ships of the Midlonian fleet were dwarfed by her sheer size and splendour, several months had been taken to get her to this size, grandiose did not quite cover the size of the Concordat of Hermes’ space-base, but still.

The sirens wailed and then they died, slowing to a quiet whinge and then ceasing altogether. The station had detected a, rather large disturbance to say the least, the Overseer systems temporarily installed in the older Midlonian section of the ship had detected the anomaly, a very large asteroid had entered the system, more like a small planetoid than an asteroid, but still, it was logged and checked, when the ships had appeared with it, and were identified as Skeelzanian ones, well, the alarms had kicked in.

This nation had declared a “vendetta” on the Midlonians after all.

So, as the alarms had kicked in, and what defensive weapons under Midlonian control had been powered up, as well as murky grey-yellow puffs of the heavily armed fighters, Clearance was requested.

Earth Orbit
Hulls, much like any other, thick layers of ceramic and advanced alloys, some parts of these hulls however were passive optic pick ups. Networked together this vast simple optic passive system saw the object. Input was sorted, flagged and turned into data first by hardware and software then by human minds it was sorted into usefull information , more human minds would turn it into policy, and a few more would turn it into effect. Three hours later the response would be on its way.

Cause and Effect
The sphere was barely 3 milimetres in diameter. It’s surface was cooled to universal background. It gave of no radiation, and it was slowly going to pass within 300 kilometres of the object. It surface was nothing but slag however its core was an advanced timed chemical isotope soup mix.

When it reached its closest approach the soup was timed to react, a tiny flash of intense radiation would vaporise the object. First however the radiation would pass through the “slag” this would result in a mix of exotic faster than light radiation which would reach out, hopefully giving a snapshot of the target area. Like a flash bulb only with X ray the effect however still needed to be captured and for that matter developed.

43 light seconds from the Object
The light recon cruiser squadron was only two strong. Each ship was 220 metre long needle against the stars, her tiny forward signature pointed towards the object. The needle shaped cruisers mimicked as best they could background radiation and optic output of the universe around them. On their surface a squad of tiny drones with odd shaped instruments were simulating any energy output from high energy deep sky objects, there insectile forms heat sink covered and draped in active optic camouflage.
The surface of the ship itself was optically active, both receiving and sending out photons. It wasn’t perfect, the blur being obvious within a few kilometres but knowing the position of the possible viewers its effect was improved. The cruisers heavily muffled drives fought to hide their mass, and any gravity lensing effect they may have on even the lightest of touches of photons. The majority of the entire core of the ship was one huge long series of logic stacks and energy state processors, most of it handling the load from the passive stealth systems. On the surface if one looked closely ordinance deployment bay’s showed dotting back along the length of the oddly configured ships.

Behind each of the two cruisers lay a cable, no more than half a millimetre thick. Along it ever metre or so lay a tiny bauble of a sensor pick up. The cable too was trying to mimic background optic sources, its baubles altering its course to actually bend around deep sky high energy objects.


http://www.deviantart.com/view/14776800/ “Swift Vengeance” Light Recon Cruiser.

Captain Sabine Boisson settled onto her command chair aboard the HMS Soaring Eagle. The ship was one of a small contingent regularly patrolling trade routes between the Danaan High Kingdom and trading partners elsewhere in the Solar System. It has been a routine and uneventful mission so far. Until now. "Report, Ensign?" she inquired of the man at the console in front of her.

Ensign Beverly Dewey turned to address her commanding officer. "A number of unknown ships have just entered Sol, ma'am."

"Explorers?" Boisson smiled. "The Solar System is getting rather crowded but I think..."

Dewey shook her head. "They have Skeelzanian markings, ma'am."

"Oh..." Boisson answered, a look of disgust crossing her face. "Send word back to Fleet Command on Selinia. Go to Alert Status Green."

Lieutenant Lisa Penick looked over from her tactical console behind the Captain. "Ma'am, are we...?"

Boisson cut her off. "We're not doing anything yet, Lieutenant. We're just being alert. Let's see what happens."

OOC: Midlonia are you asking for clearance from me? Its a little unclear.

IC:

With their Isotropic Coating currently turned off, nothing was blocking the radiation from the Zeppelin probe. When the picture was developed it would show a small fleet clustered protectively around the Rock. The Nemesis-class battleship Waakzaamheid, aboard which Van Cleef oversaw the entire operation, was 'parked' over the asteroid's north pole. Anubis and Nidhogg destroyers formed a protective sphere, although roughly half were hidden behind the asteroid and invisible to the probe. Small SCARR tugs could be seen in various places around the asteroid, adjusting its orbit slightly.

Aside from the asteroid and its SCARR attendants, all Skeelzanian ships were a dull military green. Lacking the graceful curves and buried weapons of some navies, the DIED ships resembled wet-water battleships more than anything. No fighter patrols could be spotted, as all smallcraft were grounded until the need arose.

Inside the massive asteroid SCARR workmen scurried through hallways and corridors, double checking every system before the Rock went online. Receiving the most attention were the 8 large fusion reactors nestled deep in the asteroid's core. It was these that would provide the massive power needed to create Skeelzanian flochips, the lifeblood of the naval and mercantile forces.

Lieutenant Gregor was pacing the Waakzaamheid's bridge when the ensign scrambled up from the sensor pit. "Unidentified vessels detected, sir. Sensors are having trouble determining exact location, but estimate they are out of weapons range."

"Any idea who they are?" asked the Lieutenant.

"No sir. They're just blobs on the scope right now."

"Damn the sensors. Send for the Captain, tell him we have contacts."

A few minutes later Van Cleef reappeared on the bridge. Quickly listening to Gregor’s report he turned to the waiting ensign. “Run down to comms, tell them to start putting out a declaration of non-hostility. Keep running it until we can establish definitive contact, then let me know when that happens.”

OOC: Clearance to release the ships from protecting the station, checking all weapons on it would be able to go so we can wander over and see what happens.

IC:
'Negative, we are waiting for our freinds at ZMI to get here, they are going to rally at the station itself, then we shall see.' the stern voice was imistakably that of Larry Eagers, CiC of the Midlonian Areospace Navy.
'But sir, they are sitting ducks! They have weapons powered down, everything! These people declared a Vendetta, a war on our country, I intend to take it bloody well to them.' Daniel Hutchinson, Commander of the M.A.N. second fleet spat.
'You'll do no such bloody daft thing!' yelled Eagers, he then recovered his composure and looked clearly at the Commander, his holographic image flickering slightly, he then spoke in a softer voice. 'Look, we do not want to be seen going off half-cocked now do we? We wait for the ZMI forces to rally here, its there bloody station and buisness as much as ours, understood.'
'Oh bah, yarbles I say!' Hutchinson slammed a button on his console and the image of the furious Admiral died. 'We wait, for the ZMI chaps.' he growled.

Of course, the sudden appearance of Skeelzanians was noted, stamped, and filed...

Of course, the sudden appearance of Skeelzanians was noted, stamped, and filed...

OOC: From our one encounter, and what I know of Necron vessels, I can safely say that you would not be picked up by Skeelzanian sensors unless you did something overt. In other words I can't really do anyhting with you, yet.

OOC: That's fine, you'll get a better post tomorrow.

...arrivals within sector noted...
...directivenet instruction: maintain standard pattern...
...traffic levels higher than normal...
...maintain silence...

The single Warcraft of the Sol Reaver Pack in the area remained motionless, the Onarrán officers not greatly concerned with the presence of a reasonably large number of ships materialising within their designated observation sector. Cloaks maintained at full integrity, excepting psicloak at fifty percent (standard rest pattern), tended to provide one with a degree of security when there were so many other ships for scans and detection methods to focus upon.

The other two Warcraft of the Sol Pack were distant, monitoring other events and phenomenae within the system, leaving it to one lone ship to observe this event. It is rare indeed for an Onarrán Reaver Pack to be stationed out of the Directed Democratic Empire - there are even systems where the Subject Peoples have to maintain the vigilance normally observed by the Parliamentary or Conclave forces - or even, in rare occurrances, by the private warhosts of the Flower Houses. However, despite the relatively few Onarrán Eledhel in existence, Sol, as the busiest system in the galactic area that the Directed Democratic Empire concerned itself with, merited special attention.

Thus, the Warcraft Hidden Eternity watched on passive sensors, her entire design revolving around the principles of cloaking. Numerous generated cloaks surrounded her sleek hull, carefully fashioned of stealth materials, and the magicks of the magi on board carefully tuned to deceiving sensors scanning for the magical residue running through the ship.

...shieldnet status:..
...Graphic Shield prepared, not active...
...shimmercloak active: 100%...
...scattercloak active: 100%...
...scattershield active: 25%...
...scattershield status: deflection of objects at natural speed...
...materialcloak active...
...psicloak active...
...arcanacloak active...
...General Lattice intact...

Megacity One, The Ziggurat, Zone one, the Great Assembly

May Dibold was a life long pacifist and a leader of pacifists. In Megacity One this was not a bad thing as such. The ethical base upon which the state was founded did preach pacifism in many affairs. However it was far from total pacifism with a few events sparking of what the founders had termed a “total armed response”. May however didn’t see it that way, her husband of a year had been burned to death by natives on barbarian world after he had requested that one of the local chieftains who had taken goods but refused to pay be brought to justice by the small security detachment on board the orbiting ZMI trade ship. The chieftain had been taken and tried by his “Ri” however his people and family responded by braking into the small trade compound which May’s husband had been working in, strapping him to a barrel of lamp oil, and igniting the entire tiny compound. The profits being so low it simply hadn’t been worth the companies time or effort to do more than make formal diplomatic protests. May’s husbands horrific death would make minor news headlines for a few days then vanish. That had been 187 years ago, before the logic stacks, before the dawn of the civil war against the great shareholder families, and before ZMI had been any kind of military power, May was old. Her impassioned speech’s against military actions were on record as some of the assemblies finest oratory. However today May Dibold leader of the 23 white doves as they were called was going to lose. Inwardly she was in turmoil. She had seen the military actions of the state in question played out before but on the other hand she knew why she had seen these acts intolerance. The ruling party, the dominant qausi liberal Central Democratic party has surged the newsies for six hours with war like partriotic bilge.

The wash of righteous indignation was simply too high for her to fight. Then there was the disturbing influence of the Gestalt. The overreaching power of the executive had stated that increased economic competition at this time period would create a possibility of 92% of a 2.1% loss in nation wide profits while if military action was taken there was a 83.4% chance that it would result in positive relations. That and the Gestalts staunch support of Midlonia had left May and her doves with little or no chance. Outside the ruling coalition, with no major financial backers save a bevy of charity foundations, and with little influence with the press May’s doves relied on her powerful speeches and sponsoring docu data strips to have impact. However such data strip series took time to make, to have impact and to work on the minds of 3.1 billion citizens. The one thing May didn’t have this time was time.

The boards flickered and finally the chimes rang that signalled the end of voting. On the screen the result was clear. Action would be taken, military actionA bodiless voice now spoke out over the murmurs and occasional raised voices that snaked across the assemblies white marble floor. “voting is now closed upon issue 4983 which calls for “Limited Military Action Under section 24 of the constitution” as of this moment the assembly votes 159 for ,and 48 against with 53 abstaining”. The floor filled with cheer’s and the odd holler as the chairman called for order.

High Command, The Ziggurat, Zone One, Sub surface level 189, Unified military high command and control

The command holographic’s spread out above a sea of paper thin smart dust monitors. The huge cavernous room was filled with the sounds of a thousand whirring devices topped of with the voice filled cacophony of planning for war. Not necessarily the war in question. Every war. ZMI demographic analysis of wars and their ability to statistically allow the company to manipulate the markets to “bet” on the outcome made the state billions each year. This time however they were analysing some one else’s war. The command deck as it was called was above the main hubbub of analysts and strategic planners, above the endless display tables and the floating spheres of a thousand different worlds. In it heart a group had gathered along a black minimalist rectangular table, behind them hanging over the centre of the command deck a huge perfect simulacrum of the galaxy made spun out of photons hung, in it every ZMI ship and facility was plotted. Now we look at the men sitting around the table.

Admiral Stephen Carlson, 48 ZMI Navy. Balding slightly under his peaked cap, his service was seen as at best second rate in the hierarchy of High Command. He had commanded the ZMN’s home fleet before this.

General Joseph James Hughes, ZM Defence Force, 53, Once a Landcrawler commander, then the leader of the Landcrawler Corp. Now he acted as the leader of the Z.M.D.F.

Air Marshall Charles Hayworthy, ZMAF, at 43 and the youngest man in the group. Had survived a catastrophic hull failure of his air defence needle 21 years ago. A man with a long history of being overly fond of women Hayworthy made up for it by being a superb strategist.

Sky Marshall Ronald Wesley, 45, Z.M.S.F. Previous to entering the rigmarole of the administration of the star admiralty he had been the Captain of a Management Buyout class command carrier. When a kamikaze rebelling mining colonist had slammed a 3,000 ton tug into the management buyouts CNC he had been left with command of a crippled ship and a task force. His performance afterwards in revenging his teacher had given him the name “old nuke happy”. Sometimes over aggressive to a fault he was however mollified by the cost in human blood of that nick name.

Corp Commander Sarah Tyler, Battle Angels, 54, even now her body filled with the full regalia of battle angel implants, her skin bulging in places that humans usually don’t. The ice queen of the command staff, the leader of Z.M.I.’s elite forces. Her history as most battle angel actions was shrouded under the curtains of covert ops. Mother to 2 her staff had never seen her warm side.


These men and women had made their decisions and plans. Now they would act. Orders would stream out. Forces in the dark would move.

Megacity Three Earth Orbit L2

The newly completed Megacity hung against the stars glittering with the activities of millions. Huge smart active bill boards lay in every direction, on the surface of the Megacity thousands of huge neon adds played out. Near the pleasure domes this got to a seeming point of insanity with the domes themselves almost looking threatened by the level of advertisement flashing on their outer surfaces.

Surrounding the city the crews of a thousand drifting construction bays manufacturing everything from waste disposal units to cruise liners stared. Battle Fleet had arrived.

Four task forces, each cored by the massive thin 7.8 kilometre long blades of a Management Buyout command carriers making up home fleet sat at “anchor” in a plain relative to four compass points about the city.

Now vessels detached from these task forces.

First two Scythe Modular cruisers with huge drive and mine laying modules dashed out not from the formations but from the cities military docks, second the group that would be the hammer of this little expedition detached from the main fleet. 12 massive Battlecruisers eight of which were the gun heavy Capital Punishment class and four of which were missile heavy Swift Retribution class vessels began to take up formation. Then the huge wallowing forms of two Profit Point class carriers took up position.

Deep within the command and control centre of the Profit Point Class vessel “Z.M.S.F. Possession is 9/10ths of the Law” two men stood beside the main command holo tank. Over the formation they were to command formed from the rapid response units on hand the new designation “Bat Div 38” blinked in harsh green.

The taller of the two was fleet tactician Sebastian Taylor, a lithe thin almost raptor like man who had been re psyched to have virtually no sense of right or wrong meanly loyalty to the company and humanity as a whole. He had the terrible ability to terminate life and feel absolutely nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done and a fat paycheque well earned. Beside him sat Fleet Admiral Eric Haze the ZMI fleet units military commander his space black uniform a stark contrast to the decadence and supple deceptive nature of Taylor’s suit. This unlikely duo had worked well in the past and high commands orders sitting clasped in Taylor’s hands in a blue flash delivery envelope had ordered them once more into the deep dark.

Over the vague murmur of duty stations Sebastian spoke once, almost a whisper.

“So it begins.”

TEXT ONLY POINT TO POINT ENCODED INTERNAL CONCORDAT MESSAGE
To:
Larry Eagers
From:
Sebastion Taylor
Re: Skeelzanian incursion
Attached battle plan of action requires you to stay on station until our arrival. We wish that no unforeseen events would unfold before we have taken up station and have prepared a proper welcome for our visitors. You will also find attached a full scan of the Skeelzanian group taken by our recon units.

Attached:
Battle Plan Holo map/text analysis file 490 Megabytes
Combined data base/holo map/text analysis file. 2.3 Terrabytes.

OOC Battle Division 38

Profit Point Class Heavy Carriers:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/17005155/
“Z.M.S.F. Possession is 9/10ths of the Law”
“Z.M.S.F. Investment in Aggression”

Capital Punishment Class Battlecruisers:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/17590019/
“Z.M.S.F. Intractable”
“Z.M.S.F. Extirpate”
“Z.M.S.F. Vengeance”
“Z.M.S.F. Fortitude”
“Z.M.S.F. Vivacity”
“Z.M.S.F. Audacious”
“Z.M.S.F. Capacious”
“Z.M.S.F. Celerity”

Swift Retribution Class Battlecruisers:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/17611008/
“Z.M.S.F. Exceptional”
“Z.M.S.F. Nimble”
“Z.M.S.F. Trenchant”
“Z.M.S.F. Potentiality”

'Orders still stand.' grunted Hutchinson.
'Weapons systems activated' chimed the overseer computer, Shining Light's weapons were now fully live and operational.

Red Letter day, first combat for these new cruisers and the fighters, Shining light's weapon systems fully powered up for the first time, Jesus.
David sighed and looked at the control panel before him, he pressed a few of the buttons, a small microphone flipped down from the headrest behind him.
'This is Captain David Hutchinson of the 2nd Midlonian Fleet vessel Vengance to all ships and fighters, form up into your battle-groups and prepare any fighters not ready for combat. We are upholding a little Vendetta, that was declared on us not to long ago, we have the plans which I am transmitting to all vessels...now.' he pressed another couple of buttons that send the file off to the various other ships awaiting around the station.

Around 12 of the cruisers were stationed there, 12th battlegroup, 2nd fleet had been tasked, simply because they had had the most "Air-time" with the newer equipment, with them were a couple of the older Frigates which were mainly acting as heavily armed carriers for the 120 or so fighters now buzzing around the ships as they formed into their assigned groups.

'They'll be here soon.' mused Hutchinson as he lazed back into his chair.

The duo of Scythe modular cruisers the “Sally Patrick” known for a reason that eternally irked her captain as the “little miss Pacman” and the “Samson’s Point” shot ahead of the battle division and headed straight to their engagement points on transit drive bypassing shining light. This close to Sols many gravity wells, interdiction fields and high energy power sources their flight was filled with seemingly unnecessary distortions, twists and turns. 29 minutes later their jump sequence was complete and in two dazzling blue spark filled spheres they re-entered normal space 132 light seconds from the rock. Almost immediately bays hissed open in the huge minelaying segments and the cruisers set about dropping a veritable flood of hundreds of counter shipping area denial thermonuclear mines, single use chemical laser counter fighter satellites, Kinetic denial mines which were nothing more than barrels of shrapnel wrapped around a chemical high explosive and the ugly tubular shapes of Starslam counter fighter missile pods. Secondary heavy sensor platforms began to arc out on high powered single burn drives to monitoring positions and immediately went to active high energy scanning and jamming. Command had theorised many things, that such a rock could not swiftly change course to dodge a mine field was one of them.

The moment the Scythe cruisers appeared the pair of recon cruisers at the same time broke of monitoring position and engaged their transit drives heading straight back to Earth.

It would be another 23 minutes till battle division 18 came out of transit drive beside shining light in the mean time Sebastian was far from simply waiting. Data was sifting in front of his eyes and behind them in his extensive system of implants. A name and a series of events was found.
Sebastian was grinning this was in Hazes view rarely a good thing. Sebastians lilting not quite right voice then broke over the deep hum of the transit drive.

“Admiral have you ever visited Mexico?”

POINT TO POINT PLAIN TEXT BROADCAST
To:
Jitaka, Obsidian Warrior Lord, Mouth Piece of the Council of City States, Warrior of the Jaguar Caste, Commander of the Lul-Tuln War Fleet
From:
Admiral Eric Haze Commander Z.M.S.F. Battle Division 38.

Your lordship I believe I have a proposition that will both interest you and give you a mutually beneficial way out of your personnel predicament.

Attached:
Combined data base/holo map/text analysis file. 2.3 Terrabytes.
Rendezvous Point data.

Jitaka drummed his armoured fingers on his Command throne, the Obsidian War God Class Command ship 'Tehoictan' rested in a cluter of space debris, the majority of the fleet with her, their battle plumes, long since folded.

They had been existing now by occasionally pirating small fleets and any targets of oppertunity, a general feeling of distemper had settled throught the fleet, and the holy drums of the blood thirsty priests had begun to beat a lot loader than was comfortable.... But suddenly out of the blue, the message had arrived..

Jitaka turned to his comms officer

"You say this came from ZMI? our previously employed mercenary group?"

Jitaka looked silently at the read out, his plumed headress bobbing slightly in the draft from the ships airconditioners.

"Let me see that information they sent.."

Quickly a holo field is projected by four massive ornate gold jaguars, forming a sphere of glowing pinpoints above the Command Deck, quickly Jitaka's eyes took in the information.

"A Nuclear packed minature planatoid on possible collision course with a heavily populated centre? large fleet escorts, .... Tactical.. what is the likely possability of a sutiable sacrifice located within the escorting fleet?"

A warrior wearing the symbols and head dress of the Snake Caste turned to his Warrior Lord.

"My Lord, a fleet of that undertaking should have, about a 90 percent probability of likely command staff.."

Jintaka nodded,

"Very well, Comms, send a reply to the ZMI, stating our willingness to discuss this endevour.."

With a nod the Comms officer tapped out a reply to ZMI.


To:
Admiral Eric Haze Commander Z.M.S.F. Battle Division 38.
From:
Jitaka, Obsidian Warrior Lord, Mouth Piece of the Council of City States, Warrior of the Jaguar Caste, Commander of the Lul-Tuln War Fleet

Gracious and noble Lord of Battle, Elite Warrior of the ZMI, he who commands a million loyal souls.

you have piqued the interest of the Lul-Tuln Warrior Spirits, and we would be deeply honoured to converse with you on this subject, as to the nature and need of our involvment.

“Well that wasn’t very friendly.” Van Cleef watched impassively as the two cruisers filled the distant patch of space with mines, basic nukers if Sensors was correct. “They’re 132 light seconds down the Rock’s orbit path. What’s the estimated time of impact?”

Gregor looked over the readout, shrugged. “Given the Rock’s current speed, not for another day or two.”

“Plenty of time. Shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with in any case.” Assuming the Skeelzanians could fight off the hostile ships popping out in front of them. Ever since the first warship had appeared the DIED forces had been launching their fighters, all 96 of them. The warships needed to be kicked into gear however. “Go to general quarters. All ships are to arm weapons and active defenses. However they will not engage. We might as well gain the legal high ground.”

Orders were flashed throughout the fleet, the DIED crews leaping into action. Klaxons rousted crew from their bunks and hurried them into their battle stations, joining their comrades already there. Energy conduits hummed to life as turrets came online, quickly locking on to the nearest target. Loaders stood by at their torpedo lockers, though at these ranges it was unlikely they would be called upon soon. Flight crews took a breather, having just launched the last of the dagger-like Uhus into space.

The ships themselves also underwent a visible change. Although the gaseous hard shields were always activated captains started using their second line of defense: the Isotropic Coating. Issuing from several generators along the hull, something resembling purple-green sludge spread over the hull, extending all the way to the edge of the thrusters and gun ports.

Van Cleef watched the Coating seep over the sensors the fed the bridge viewscreen, blocking out the real-time view which was quickly replaced by a basic squares=ships display. “Guess we’ll be fighting by the scope then. Wish the techies would figure out how to make this tar more transparent.” Gregor gave a grunt of approval as they both stalked over to the display table, on which crewmen were busily plotting new ship positions as they came in. “Any word from the Prinz Konrad?”

“She’ll be entering jump any moment now, and will arrive in roughly 5 minutes. Estimated position is here,” pointing to a space about 4 light seconds behind them. “She’ll come out perpendicular of course, and will have to turn hard to bring all her guns to bear.”

“I don’t think the war is going to start in the next five minutes. However, dispatch a packet to Solomon. Give them our records right up to the time it jumps, and request assistance. Will probably arrive too late, and they’ll jump in near the system edge anyway.”

Within minutes the Waakzaamheid’s diminutive flight crew was hoisting the packet ship out of its hanger, guiding it over the launch hatch. Little more than a crewed hyperspace drive, the packet was nonetheless the fastest Skeelzanian ship in service. Its single pilot, and the data records he carried, would arrive in Solomon in 4 days, though it would take considerably longer for reinforcements to arrive.

The launch hatch was blown and the packet dropped down out of the Waakzaamheid, avoiding the flare trail of the battleship’s engines and maneuvering into open space. With a flash is disappeared into warp, replaced by a much larger flash appearing behind the Rock as the Prinz Konrad arrived from Neptune.

"Light me a cigar, because we've got one ON THE WAY! CASE ARES! SAY AGAIN, ARES, ARES!"

"Fuck me. Who is it now, Andrew?"

"Skeelzanians, ZMI, Midlonia. Big rock, little mines, lots of boom-boom. Skeelies called in some goons from neptune -- played that one -way- too early...morons that they are."

Rear Admiral Daniel Cook nodded...

"Your estimate as to expected results, Andrew?"

Andrew McCarter, his Intelligence officer shrugged...

"Honestly, I expect that the Zeppies and their Midlonian friends will beat the Skeelies into a pulp."

Daniel nodded his head in agreement.

"At any rate, Comm, prepare databurst for the Warprince. Begin."

His comm officer told him that the line was live...

"My Lord Warprince, it has come to our attention that ZMI and Midlonian forces have engaged in hostile operations against a Skeelzanian...asteroid...thingy that is currently present within Sol. It is my suggestion that you contact the ZMI government and see about pushing for a full-strength invasion of the Skeelzanian homeworlds. End."

The message was away...

-- Approx twenty minutes later --

Dysaryn Stark frowned as he read over the datburst, then rose from his chair and stormed down to the throne room. He hopped up onto the massive black iron throne and felt the leads whiplash into place...

The information confirmed his suspicions. Yes.

ENCRYPTED (Level Z1A Ascended non-standard non-logical wild-mutation) TRANSMISSION TO RSN SOLSTAT RELAY, ROUTED TO ZMI
TO: ZMI GOVERNMENT, MILITARY/POLICY LEVEL
FROM: OFFICE OF THE WARPRINCE, ESSoR
SUBJ: Skeelzania
(Message begins)

We have noticed that elements of your navy have begun offensive operations against the Skeelzanian presence in Sol. Don't deny it -- we have confirmed our initial suspicions through our intelligences sources.

At any rate, it is our suggestion that your military decide to permanently solve the Skeelzanian problem. Further, it is our pleasure to offer our assistance in this endeavour in exchange for the usual.

Also, we will make available to you any number of mercenary units that can be either hired through ourselves or directly by your government.

Trade, Profit, and Victory.
Dysaryn Stark, Warprince of Revenia.
(Message Ends)

Shining Light
Battle Division 38 exited transit drive in parade formation the Profit Point heavy carriers at its core only to immediately take up jump position again. Sebastian and Haze now simply had to wait for their little Aztec surprise to arrive.


Point to point encoded superluminal plain text message

To: The office of the Warprince ESSoR
From: The office of the Gestalt

Re: Skeelzania

Your intelligence is correct in this instance. Further contact via usual channels will be made after our operations within Sol have been successfully completed. We wish you to inform your mercenaries that a group contract of 1.2 Trillion Rungs may be on offer in the near future. Performance data of Skeelzanian combat units will be sent to you when events allow.

Long life.

Generated by theGestalt @ 12:32

'They're here sir.' the ensen looked back from his console to his commander as the various ZMI ships burst into real space and began to line up.
'Are the fghters deployed?' Hutchinson was too busy looking at something on his console.
'Yessir'
'How many did we have again?' he was still playing with a couple of buttons on the console, it had turned out they were lagging when he pushed them.
'I register 142 fighters in holding positions around our ships sir.'
'What are they equipped with?'
'Infitine repeater bolt guns and the upgraded ship killing missiles sir.' A fighter flew steadily by the bridge as he said this, the commander had looked up with mild curiosity before it scuttled away again, engines shining brightly.
'When we recieve the signal from ZMI we move immediately, understood? Charge weapons too while we're at it so we are ready to deal with any threats.'

On the outer spikes of the cruisers weapons charged slowly, a flicker of electric energy flickered up the two sets of four spikes on either side, the point defense, hullplating and sheilding clicked gently into life and began to asses threats, if any, in the nearby space.

OOC: Before I respond I'd like to know how heavy your missiles are. Not how much of a charge they have, how much the actual weapon weighs.

OOC: I tend to skip alot of the tech stuff, use it more as a plot device really, but I would assume that they are heavy enough to kill most ships, and light enough to not impede the agility of the craft too much, there's one-per fighter.

OOC: I tend to skip alot of the tech stuff, use it more as a plot device really, but I would assume that they are heavy enough to kill most ships, and light enough to not impede the agility of the craft too much, there's one-per fighter.

OOC: More or less than 100kg?

OOC: More or less than 100kg?

OOC: More or less around that bracket, they tend to kill ships, that much I know :)

IC:
'Sensor reports have arrived sir' the ensen "threw" the report across the screen which slid into place on the captain's own panel.
David Hutchinson read the report and burst out in a wheesing giggle. 'They're obviously new to this space-fighting lark,' he managed between his gasping giggles. 'I don't think they realise quite what they are up against, get me the comms for the fighters.'

I spy with my little eye

Amongst other things light streamed endlessly into the meticulously machined lenses of the sensor platform. Nothing really more than a rough bath tub sized wire mesh the platform had little or no survivability and absolutely no stealth capacity. It was however relatively small and relatively cheap and networked with its 62 identical units it created a big array that had a quite staggering level of passive detection ability . Its four 18” telescopes were now trained upon the area from were the relayed networked data from the entire array of its brethren had detected a wash of exotic radiation. Now in the heavily thermally shielded mounts of the telescope delicate servos moved the focus as the units single robust electromechanical logic stack and old fashioned optic processor fizzed with data.

If you were to assemble this data a picture would appear. The picture was that of the Prinz Konrad separated from the rest of the Skeelzanian fleet deployment by over 1.1 million miles.


Sebastian stood beside a huge central display on the command channel, his disturbing lilting voice usually so smooth was harsh and almost ..predatory over the encoded command channel as he addressed the fleets command staff.

“A reserve separated of from the body of the enemy is not a reserve at all but a force that does not know it has already been cut off. Admiral Hutchinson if you agree I have re-evaluated our plans, though while they do not change in the main I believe a strong deployment of your heavy strategic fighter assets and our Overrun Class Fighter Drones now can give the target an early bloody nose.”

Sebastian paused and took a sip from a midnight black combat safe flask before he continued.

“This vessel who’s name translates as the “Prinz Konrad” from its external markings (with that a slightly hazy real time composite image from the sensor array appeared beside an extrapolated wireframe of the hull) appears to be alone. Though I cannot give an adequate estimate for their deployed fighters response time I can say that the chances of a single wave raid against this vessel are minimal and that their entire fighter group will still not match the deployed strike. It is not something without an element of risk however the early removal of this vessel will be eminently useful. I suggest Admiral Hutchinson that your fighters carry out the counter shipping activities they are already equipped for while the Overurnner drones are equipped for space superiority. As soon as this single overwhelming raid is completed the raiders are to immediately and I must not state this strongly enough brake of engagement and return to us here at Shining Light. We must still I am afraid wait for our space borne Mexicans before engaging in full force.”


A cast of thousands.
I lie with my brothers and sisters upon flight bay four of our carrier the “Z.M.S.F. Investment in Aggression” which we call home.

Near my port wing attachment I watch tensely as my deck crew is making final checks of my systems. As one of the newer techs a young man who central records name as “David Blix” checks the coolant fluid seals of my left Type 49 MACE 20mm hypervelocity autocannon my crew chief of some 3 years Jane Winston speaks

“Well Portia old girl time again for you to fight it seems”.

My limited auditory sensors detect a song playing loudly in the background over the mechanical noises of the bay my logic stacks identify it as “Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe by the Whales” When I was new I would have reported this as a violation of safety regulations however central processing has stated based upon numerous studies that music assists humans in menial tasks such as our maintenance. I am not without learning capacity however and her term “old girl” I find somewhat dissatisfactory.

“Jane I am only 8.2 years old if I am an “old girl” what does that make you?”
Jane snorts and affectionately pats my port secondary power core access hatch which she herself had just recently sealed.
“I shouldn’t have taught you so well girl now get your mechanical behind in gear and give me a readout on that big laser you call a front ends tertiary power coils”

I am a Z.M.S.F. DXC 239 “Portia” a Mark XIV Overrun fighter drone of the 301st Strike Squadron. At Cardennes IV against the T’ziek skyripper bioforms my outclassed Mk.II squadron predecessors fought for 32 days against the biological air combat units covering the evacuation of the colonists until the last unit was ripped from the air by those living jets. I know fear, I know duty and I know sacrifice. I am a synthetic inteligence citizen of the Incorporated State and an independent member of the central processing collective. I will not fail my Squadron.

Overrun Class Fighter Drone
http://www.deviantart.com/view/15355536/

Cruiser #0856
'And how many does the Overseer module think we need?' queried the Ensen.
I do have a name you know snapped a metalic voice.
'It's ok Heno, he's new what do you recommend?'
In order to acheive the total superior attack that I think Sebastian meant, well, all of them. We can indeed cripple their so called "reserve" before it got a chance to properly fire her guns. It's a high risk strategy, but possible with our fighters if we jump out the split second fighters come in range.
'Get it done, send out the signal and get it done yesterday.'
Impossible Admiral, Yesterday has already passed
A text-based smilie appeared on Hutchinson's console: ^_~
'Sarcastic little-'

Red wing, Heavy Fighter

'This is Red lead to Red wing, we're to jump to these co-ordinates.' He pressed a few of the glowing spheres on his control pannel.
'Roger Red Lead'
'Roger'
'Righto Boss!'
'Cheers for the co-ordinates Boss.'
Each of the fighters had chimed in one by one, it was simple, the crews were ready, 140 fighters were going to strike that ship, along with upteen others that the ZMI crews could throw.
Quite a show indeed Mused Heno as he played through the simulation several times a second.

With an almost palpable thrum numerous pinpoints of light, small glowing spheres of energy appear a short tactical distance off of The Shining Light Concordat Station, then with sudden flashes all within a few seconds of each other, the Lul-Tuln War Fleet appeared, numbering upwards of seventy Kulkucan type warships and numerous smaller Uxmaal ships, led by the Obsidian War God Class Command ship 'Tehoictan', each ship had its massive battle plumes on prominent display, filling an area of space with a varitable riot of colours.

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/totalrandom/AZfleet.jpg

Jintaka eyed the Holosphere suspended in the air above the bridge crew and raised his elegantly plucked eyebrows in approval.

"Communications, link into the communication hub, and forge me a passage of communications to their Commander."

"Yes Beloved Warlord."

Jintaka checked at that, and smiled, a few days ago the priests had been making noises about high ranking sacrifices, now it was 'Beloved Warlord' how finicky were the fates..

Then astride his mighty command throne, fashioned from gold by the finest craftsmen in the shape of battling jaguars, he turned to the view screen, resplendant in jewel encrusted, but very very servicible armour, and with his feathered pluimes bobbing with each word, he spoke.

"Gracious and noble Lord of Battle, Elite Warrior of the ZMI, Admiral Eric Haze Commander Z.M.S.F. Battle Division 38, he strides mountains and causes jungles to tremble with his might...

We of the Lul-Tuln Fleet have arrived..."

Jitaka gave a questioning look to the screen, at the Midlonia Fleet.

"It is an honourable thing to introduce fellow warrior lords before we fight shoulder to shoulder.."

The Queendom trades quite a bit. Subsentient haulers constantly ply trade routes between Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, and Venus, and they don't necessarily go to planets in sequential order on the basis of orbit, as if that would make their travels any more random to an untrained eye. Needless to say there are a lot of vessels, everywhere, and a lot of sensors (active and passive) as are requisite for their navigation.

These vessels are also patched, like everything else, into the Zero-One matrix as dumb progs that exist to be used, interfaces for instrumentality, the cyberspatial equivalent of tools... which, of course, makes them tools for information.

Tools often used by the Queendom Armed Conflict Force for use in large area surveillance.

First, the appearance of an overly large moving object. Not much cause for concern; its presence simply verified and logged by the next round of some high-distort coastprobe at extended range. So it's accompanied by a fleet--also no surprise--and so the fleetminds simply inform the TYCS of a potential new strategic contact, just something else for a Nemesis to prowl around.

Then snippets of communications, transponder codes; ship classifications that match parameters registered in QACF fleet databases collated from dataminers and open-source information on linked infonets from across the multiverse. Probabilities of identity converge to nil in most cases and theories and, in a single case, approximates unity. This does bring up a concern, for several reasons:

The mechanoids of Zero-One know what it is like to be on the wrong side of genocide and hatred. These 'racial' memories, well recorded in their equivalent of simsense as well as evidenced in some of the older generations, are deeply entrenched in the psyche of each mind. It is something to fear, something to be cautious of, and something that must not be tolerated.

They also worked long and hard to escape both that hatred and their slavery to their creators. As with any self-emancipated group, they are proud of their 'freedom'--or at least being subject to a being that, albeit despicable, at least isn't a meatbag--and almost violently opposed to any suggestion that they are mere puppets, slaves of any other power, especially slaves of any form of organism.

Finally, these are apparently the people that because they were denied some land due to their own character flaws decided to be obnoxious and take out their own flaws on the innocent as well as the guilty. Florid prose, perhaps, but the florid prose of a zealot--sadly trustworthy.

This being taken into consideration, the fleetminds of the QACF update their opposite numbers in the TYCS and order a detachment of the first Mobile Reaction Fleet to observe the situation more closely. The shipminds thus ordered reply quick acknowledgements and instantaneously (well, in a space of time asymptotically small) disappear from where they are and emerge five light-seconds out from the Skeelzanian fleet with a blatantly obvious burst of electromagnetic noise.

The sphere-shaped ships, like anything else in space, remain silent; this cold silence of the void pervades all wavelengths of communication as well, barring residual foam-induced lower-EM noise. Their message, however, is hopefully abundantly clear: We are here, and we are watching you.

The main Skeelzanian fleet gave no reaction to the arrival of two more battle fleets, at least one presumably hostile. The only visible effect was a long flicker of lights up and down the 'wings' of the Waakzaamheid, which was soon acknowledged by similar displays on the other ships. Most considered semaphore an obsolete form of communication, but with both light and electromagnetic waves traveling at the same speed it could be quite handy. Esspecially when the message was flashed in battlespeak, itself a encoding of a code that only military personnel knew.

The Prinz Konrad also recevied the message, albeit a few seconds later than everyone else. The Nidhogg destroyer had fired up her engines as soon as it exited jump, and was about a third of the way through its turn when the Midlonian fighters jumped in. Isotropic Coating flashed over the destroyer, ready to absorb or deflect anything that was thrown at it. Albeit the system had some short comings, but the Konrad's captain was confident his ship would survive and reach the Rock. Ordering full power to the engines he prepared to charge straight through.

Battle Division 38 Flag Command and Control “Z.M.S.F. Possession is 9/10ths of the Law”

Haze stood somewhat phased by the rather unique look of not only Jintaka but his background beside the main map tank. He had already donned his skin suit, his chest in the white bulk of a counter shard vest marked by black slashes for data inputs and red for biological support feeds. The only marking thing that differed him from the rest of the command staff was his rather extreme dress presentation hat, something that really belonged in the Napolionic era rather than aboard a starship. However Sebastian’s instructions had been quite explicit. Sebastian himself stood out of visual pick up in his matt black INT-SEC battlesuit. Clunky and almost out of place in the command core if one discounted the two hulking forms of fully armed battle angels standing by the main clamshell doors the suit was a visible statement of INT-SECs presence the dull silver mounts for neural strippers set into its lower arm segments thankfully empty. The halo of data screens behind Haze flashed continuously through statistical analysis charts and real time sensor over views of the fleet and nearby vessels. His voice was somewhat old but filled with the strong tone of command.


“Jintaka, Obsidian Warrior Lord, Mouth Piece of the Council of City States, Warrior of the Jaguar Caste, Commander of the Lul-Tuln War Fleet I present the most esteemed Admiral Hutchinson, Commander of the glorious Midlonian second fleet.”

[Simultaneous LOS implant to implant laser com between Sebastian Taylor and Admiral Haze]
Haze: Frack look at all that gold on a command deck, the risk of conductivity in battle must be awful.
Sebastian: I was almost about to think you were simply dazzled by it.
Haze:Not bloody likely. Damn Impressive though.
Sebastian: Esteemed?
Haze: *emote snort* Bloody hot head. That signal intercept worries me Sebastian if he goes in all guns firing and brakes the wall…
Sebastian: I have estimated a probability of 932:1 Against Hutchinson breaking the wall. He may be a hot head at times but in this case his reasons are …excusable.
Haze: Still I don’t like it. Anyway have you checked our little volatile shipment? *emote shiver*
Sebastian: All CAM rounds are fully stable and if anyone can intercept this communication admiral I don’t think we will need to worry about them finding out what were carrying.
Haze: True. Are your men ready to be siege gunners?
Sebastian: My cadre are always ready.



I am now propped precariously upon my drop rack, behind my main drive outputs a large system of pneumatic rams waits to hurl me into the dark. I watch as slowly the huge bay is emptied of human personnel and depressurised. My recharging umbilicus retracts and my power cores switch to discharge mode. I am now on internal power. Finally the broad data connection retracts from my input node and I close the armoured plate its delicate optic inputs. I am cut of from the central processing collective now though this central processing collective is just a fleet wide shadow of the true central.

Flight Officer Maurice Greenberg reclined in his command chair in the core of flight operations control and gently flicked the launch release. This in actual fact was simply a manual safety release with the actual launch being controlled by a dumb but competent expert system.

I lurch forward and down as the rams slam into my rear assembly. I plunge past layers of armour and blast doors, and the huge hoops of force wall projectors. I exit the ship to see briefly as I plunge the huge white hellbore dotted plain with hills formed by the disintigrator domes of the Investment in Aggressions hull with dozens of my brethren in the process of falling out of it. I realise this is fuzzy thinking and in .23 pico second discover that my ground terrain tracking and identification system has come online. I halt its process and find my drives under my own control. I engage my directed impeller and align myself with my squadrons jump formation. Joining our tiny transit drives together to form a lattice we are timed to go superluminal just after the Midlonian fighter craft make their leap. Some of these craft I closely observe through my port main optic pick up, their single huge underslung anti shipping missiles braking the smooth lines of their hulls. I witness the impressive emergence of the exotically designed Quetzecal vessels. Individually we are unable to brake the light barrier, as a squadron however we can accelerate as fast as any ship of the wall. I busy myself while waiting for the go signal with tactical analysis and squadron wide virtual war games. I am then informed that to fully co-operate with our allies we are to “talk” to the pilots we are to provide covering fire for. I check my logic stacks and upload standard concordat encoded inter fighter communication protocols. Then I make contact.


“Red lead this is Z.M.S.F. DXC 239 “Portia” of the 301st Strike Squadron. I have been assigned to provide you with covering fire in the engagement zone. Transmitting unit unique IFF and location and standing by for transit. Portia out”



OOC Overrun drone fighter compliment of a Profit Point class heavy carrier is 160 craft. Tottal fighter drones 320. –5% for technical difficulties –15% on Combat Patrol. 256 fighter craft in ZMSF fighter covering force.

Red Wing
'Burners on full! Hit the bastard as soon as it is in range of the missiles, any fighters you see gun 'em down, once you have fired your missiles get the fuck outta here!' Yelled Red Leader as his engines roared and began to rattle the frame of his fighter slightly.
'Understood Red Lead, I see Green, Gold and Magenta, Violet, Silver, Blue, Yellow and Orange wings making their attack runs now. The others are forming up to strafe her too, we'll need reloading after this sir if we are to do our job properly against the other ships.'
'Bit of a mouth full there Red 2,' sniggered Red Lead 'and, let Admiral Hutchinson worry about that, just make sure that bitch dies.' he snarled as he notched the burners up another notch.

All around the hull of the Skeelzanian vessel the fighters began buzzing around her like bees, as each discharged their single missile they would strafe along her surface furiously with the bolt repeaters and then burst back off in the same direction they came from.

A simple sum floated into "Heno's" control matrix, causing a tingling of pleasure to flow through his circuits.
142 Anti ship missiles weighing 120KG + Whatever ZMI threw at her = dead ship.

Captain Pollitz had retired to the Battle Bridge as soon as the IC obscured the view screen. Now deep within the Prinz Konrad he and the other officers watched the attack unfolding on a large display table. As the fighter-icons rapidly closed with the Konrad, small points of color began detaching from them and screaming towards the warship- missiles. They were too close for sensors to get a good ping, so the officers could only hope they were small enough.

The Midlonian missiles screamed through space, weaving through the point-defense beams. Getting within meters of the Konrad they began their death-dive, plunging into the Skeelzanian warship—and disappearing. Small flashes of flame and radiation showed their impact points, but aside from series of ripples traveling through the tar there appeared to be no serious damage.

The Battle Bridge let out a whoop as the Isotropic Coating defused most of the enemy attack. Pollitz was grinning like the rest of them, but he still had to enquire. “What damage to the ship?”

“Minor damage to the armor at points of impact, we’ve lost maybe a meter or so of armor there. Defense is reporting 30% local reduction in the IC at the impacts, estimates it’ll take 20 minutes to come back to full. He’s shifting Tar from other areas now to cover the gap. Apparently those missiles were a tad too heavy.”

Not heavy enough to kill them, thought Pollitz. “Very good. Order PDS to target those fighters.” A buzzer sounded shrilly, calling his attention to the display table. “And get ready for the next wave. Another flight of bandits inbound.”

The Prinz Konrad continued its run to the main fleet, giving about as much attention to the fighters as a horse does to flies. Point-defense beams lanced out into space, attempting to connect with one of the annoying gadflies. The Isotropic Coating continued to ripple, and gradually deplete, as it absorbed more and more bolter fire. The fighter squadrons around the Rock made no move to assist, remaining on their patrol patterns around the main fleet.

OOC: Post to come... the Thelasi can't stand by now can they?

OOC: Post to come... the Thelasi can't stand by now can they?

OOC: Oh goody, another fleet. Thank god for the sliding-quality scale at least.

Five light-seconds out, the QACF watches dispassionately.

[LCR Reynold's Transport Theorem] >> Hardly unexpected, is it?

[HCR Grey I.C.E.] >> Quite. One wonders if they expected any other response--they are not the only nation in the 'verse that goes looking for trouble.

[DD Houdaille Damper] >> And, knowing that, they quite willingly stepped forward and gave people who need little excuse to act a casus belli.

[HCR Grey I.C.E.] >> I would like to invoke Darwin now...

OOC: As long as that 'sliding scale' does not slide to 'automatic victory...' one decent fleet versus three or four decent fleets still ends badly in most cases.

OOC: Oh goody, another fleet. Thank god for the sliding-quality scale at least.
OOC: If by sliding quality you mean you pull better stuff out of ass-space any time another person decides they dislike you, that's unbelievably twinky.

OOC: gargh! we already have overkill! just sit back and watch the fireworks! :p

OOC: If by sliding quality you mean you pull better stuff out of ass-space any time another person decides they dislike you, that's unbelievably twinky.

OOC: Siri takes the words right out of my mouth. If you decide to wank up your forces, the more other people get involved, that's utterly foolish. I might be able to understand it if you meant that the more forces a nation has, the more the quality suffers, but this doesn't hold true when many nations are involved, or even when you are dealing with some older nations.

Siri for example, has a huge number of ships, most of them well made, because she has been building them for RL years.

OOC: If by sliding quality you mean you pull better stuff out of ass-space any time another person decides they dislike you, that's unbelievably twinky.

OOC: If your referring to the Isotropic Coating, that was in existance before I tried to get into Mars (developed to help Skeelzania win in the ESUS Constitutional Wars actually). The sliding quality rule is thus: the more ships that get thrown at me the longer my ships last. Not do more damage, not suddenly sprount extra torpedo tubes, they just live longer. I'm not going to be able to win this battle, and will have to bug out someway or another once things really start going south.

Of course, this doesn't really help if I got smacked with world-killing grade weaponry. Esspecially as the current battle is not well suited to DIED designs.

EDIT: And what do you think Skeelzania has been doing for the last 400 years? The nation was created in war and has never deviated from that militaristic path since. They tangled with a 2 billion+ nation less than 40 years after being founded, clobbered their closest neighbor over the head on no less than 3 occasions (including the Founding War) and managed to join the ESUS just in time to get caught in the Shivan Wars. I wouldn't be surprised if Skeelzania had a track record just as if not longer than that of Menelmacar's.

OOC: Well, all right, that's very nice, but last I checked, 400 is rather less than 32,000. As is Feb. 2004 rather more recent than Dec. 2002. :D

Even still, this answers my question. Still twinky, but not as twinky - ships tend to last a shorter period of time when under a greater volume of fire, as a general rule.

I've got no beef with your isotropic coating, any defensive bonus it gives you seems to have corresponding penalties in terms of the quality of your sensor output and thusly your offensive capabilities. That you prefer one over the other is, in my view, purely a doctrinal decision.

Carry on. ;)

OOC: Skeelzanian sensors were always in the pits, due to the fact that traditional battles in the Gamma Quadrant take in very close quarters. During the Skeelzanian-Bandalok wars typical range was a few hundred kilometers at most, with ramming and 'yardarm to yardarm' slugfests common. The principle defects with the Isotropic Coating is 1) no effect on gravity, 2) nearly useless in atmospheres (or similar environments) and 3) loss of effectiveness when dealing with heavy objects.

Also the sliding scale rule was developed during the SKZ-TFU wars, when one of the participants did have a problem with reinforcements from ass-space.

General John Gitlin hung up the phone in his office at Camnairne Air Force Base and looked across from him at Colonel Jim Lincoln. "Word from Space Fleet. Some heavy cruiser called the Soaring Eagle picked up Skeelzanian ships coming into Sol. They're ordering all ships now on patrol in system to form a battlegroup under her, launching another battle group from the docks at Selinia. Not sure if we'll be in formation in time to get in this fight. Our fleet's normally organized to guard shipping lanes and such, being a peaceful people. It takes a little while to get things in formation for fighting a real opponent."

Lincoln nodded. "All well and good but we deal with atmospheric fighters here. What's a battle in space got to do with us?"

Gitlin shrugged. "Best to be prepared for every eventuality is all. If Skeelzanians had brains, they wouldn't be butting into Sol at all. Since they don't, who knows if they'll be dumb enough to even try hitting Terra. I want patrols in the air 24/7 until this thing is over, focused between here and the continent."
...
Meanwhile, just as Gitlin had mentioned, a battlegroup of 23 ships was forming around the Soaring Eagle's last position while another battlegroup of 23 ships was launched from the docking bay at Selinia (on Luna). Normal Danaan battlegroups consisted of 31 ships, but, due to the short range of the mission, the logistics and supply ships were left out for now, but would be used to salvage any Danaan or friendly ships left damaged after all was said and done. most of the extra-solar fleet operations continued uninterrupted by the events in Sol, although two extra-solar battlegroups were assembled at undisclosed locations.

Daniel Cook blinked. This was...unexpected.

"Daniel. Kick their Asses. We are Code Wrangler as of thirty seconds before I sent this message. ~Dys."

Short message, but it was sufficient. It wasn't formal, but it didn't need to be. The Warprince didn't need to be formal.

"Get the fleet moving at full tactical impulse. Fit Valors for anti-shipping. Step up combat readiness." The preliminaries completed, he opened the tac channel to the entire fleet...

The action imminent klaxxons sent people scurrying to their stations...and as this was going on, he addressed them.

"My friends, as of this moment the Star Supremacy of Revenia is at War with the nation referred to as "Skeelzania." We know our duty, and I expect that we shall perform that duty to our fullest. Cook Clear."

It was a prep speech. No battle-cries as of yet. Even as the thirty six ships of Cook's Solar Battle Group lit their high drives and leapt into action...the plotter updated. It would be some time before they were within range...

But such was the way of things.

OOC: Waiting for ZMI to post before responding to everyone else. I suppose Midlonia could go ahead and post too.

I emerge from squadron transit jump. For a moment my sensors are blinded by the wash of exotic energy from my own and my wing mates transit drive jump spars. I retract my spars and orientate myself towards the target with a 0.23 second burn. My long range optics watch with disturbed dissatisfaction as the Midlonian attack seems to do only minor damage to the target, who’s point defences now lash out. My spectrographs however with those of my squadron and the rest of the strike group now know the composition of the tar from its vaporised elements. We broadcast this back to the fleet with a group broadcast, networking the power of our com systems together. Fleets heavy disintigrators will find this information most useful. I engage my drives to full combat burn and merge with the squadron tactical gestalt. We take into account our weapons, our 20mm auto cannons and dorsal needle defence turrets are discounted immediately and our wing mounted heavy 2 centimetre hellbores likewise as in all probability ineffective in a short term strike , we consider our Starslam counter smallcraft missiles only momentarily. Our original mission parameters must be altered, and we have the tactical authority to do so. We act. Tactical Gestalt is broken.

Our primary UV lasers and RDX-80 multi purpose strike missiles are chosen as our weapons of choice. The RDX-80 has a powered engagement envelope of 32,000 kilometres and its radiation clean electron compression warhead is rated at 5 kilotons. We each are equipped with 4 such missiles and at 18,000 kilometres from target we release them on a fast burn. At 16,300 kilometres we engage our full range of counter measures and release a horde of sub sentient decoy and electronic warfare platforms, sensor heads and our needle gun equipped general combat remote drones. These simple objects will cause fighters a most unpleasant reception should they intend to come in our rear and supply the ECW platforms with some modicum of point defence. Our squadron wide systems have now had over 2 minutes of observing the targets point defences. Its patterns and projected abilities are analysed and seen as sub standard. An incapacity to intercept fighter launched missiles much less hypervelocity capital rounds is a possibly fatal weakness in any capital vessel. However its passive defences seem to make up for this lack and could explain it. At 16,000 kilometres from target we engage salvo fire from our XX-40 “big boy” UV lasers. The main weapon we are equipped has sometimes left us compared to aerial snipers. The large 490 Megawatt laser sucks energy from my three power cores. My heat sinks whine as it cycles again and again. All around me my brethren are also firing. The dazzling blasts of ultra violet destruction reach out and begin to touch the target even as a total of 1024 RDX-80 missiles begin their dance through the targets point defences their guidance and evasion sub routines pre programmed with its observed capacity and patterns. Propellant trails from the missiles cross my forward inputs and lazily begin causing optic distortions. In moments a total of 5,120 kilotons of explosive force will detonate. The electron wash far more powerful than a conventional EMP from an old fashioned nuke alone will probably render my FTL com spars useless and burn out any unshielded electromagnetic sensor. I retract my com spar and winch in my radar and LIDAR pods and seal my optic intakes while I and my squadron mates relay a warning to the Midlonian fighters to do similar.

The hyper translation was easily detectable to even the least sophisticated electromagnetic sensors. The object was then, of course, watched.

It did not take long, of course, to figure out something was going to happen, and a single patrol fleet battlegroup was dispatched to the projected end point of the asteroid's course.

And sat there, waiting to see if it would make it. They had orders to withdraw if the asteroid was destroyed or it seemed likely to make it to the final location.

And so they watched, sensors stretched out, seeking and feeling the differences, and waiting for the show to begin.

It didn't take all that long for the Thelasi to be concerned by all the hubub in space. You see, if it had been any other nation moving a large, barely guided object above one of the biggest populations centers in Sol, they would have sent out a missive, a 'Please be careful' or even a 'Welcome to the neighborhood.' Unfortunately, this particular nation was deserving, in Thelasi eyes, of a welcome card attached to a very large, very fast nuclear round.

The Thelasi were a bit late in noticing the Skeelzanians, but with all the comotion they caused, it wasn't too long before the bases on Mars, and in the Belt noticed them.

Soldiers and sailors were enjoying some rare free time aboard the six Thelasi warfleets around Mars when the klaxons sounded, calling all personel to combat stations as three of the fleets began to slip away from the moorings, and to the combat site.

OOC: "1 wing" = 4 fighters.

IC:
'Why won't that bitch die?!' screamed Red lead as spittle flung its way across his console and he ran in for another strafe, when it was becomming apparent that the bombardment from the first 10 or so wings was proving inefective the battle plan had changed, the other 25 wings were to strafe and fire the missiles as best as possible. The fighters that had discharged their missiles had now returned, unloaded and much faster so they were now flinging their bolt repeaters at the hull of the ship.
'Sir, Heno reports damage, if we keep it up this weird sheilding crap will wear out and she will burn, burn!'
'Thank you red two but this crap is becoming annoying, they can hardly hit a barn door, I need a losses report from Heno.' Murmured Red lead as he spun his fighter again as a bolt of energy shot past.'
'Heno's reporting 3 losses so far, each is from a different wing.' Yelled Red 3 as something shook his hull.
'Righto, keep at it.'
EMP sheilding automatically up, impact in 12, 10
The countdown finished as the explosion and resulting ripples silently clashed against the hull of the ship, it was an incredible sight to watch.

The battlegroup around the Soaring Eagle had formed by this time. The central ship in this formation was not Soaring Eagle herself but the Dreadnaught Constellation. Almost as soon as the battlegroup was in formation, a single Scout, the Ari, began to move towards the Skeelzanian formation. The Ari had her railguns loaded but was not firing unless fired upon. Ten fighters flew in a defensive formation around the Scout. No bombers had been launched from her hangars.

Meanwhile, the Constellation herself hailed the C'tanni forces in the area, inquiring in a friendly fashion as to C'tanni intentions in the matter.

Meanwhile, the battlegroup being launched from Selinia was beginning to form up around the Dreadnaught Farragut.

Meanwhile, both Air Force bases on Terra and the Space Fleet fighter base at Selinia had launched a fighter cover protecting all direct Danaan holdings in Sol from potential attack.

The necron fleet's response was simple enough, and highly noncomittal. We are presently observing, and discussing potential involvement.

"Well, Ewan. What do you think?"

Ewan Kel, the SBG's Farchakviltath (Whichs translates as "Lord of the Small Death," but means that he is the most senior fighter pilot in the fleet, and also generally the best. Wing Commander, sorta.) shrugged.

"Honestly, sir, I can't see any glaring flaws in your plan. You have my support..."

Daniel nodded, "Very well then. Give me a countdown."

The numbers began at sixty and counted down by seconds...until, at zero...

"FLUSH BAYS!"
---
RSN carriers maintained ten fighter slots per bay, but it was practice to launch a bay in two waves. From this practice came the smallest fleet fighter unit designation, the "launch" of five fighters. Yet the command was not to "launch fighters." The command had been to "flush bays," and as such, the fighters were flung out into space en-masse.

Three thousand nine hundred fighters were spat out into the darkness, and three thousand of those fighters were destined to engage the enemy at this time. The SBG's carrier group could put a total of 4900 fighters in the air...but the decision had been made to keep nine hundred hanging behind as CAP, and one thousand still hot in their launch bays as a reserve.

None-the-less, three thousand fighters was hardly a miniscule force. Especially when 1400 hundred of those fighters -- almost half -- were SF-31 Valor Fighter/Bombers, each one carrying a pair of 30 ton killtorps.

Killtorps were kinetic kill devices, because anything an explosive warhead -- even a nuke -- could do to add to the destructive potential of 30 tons of iridium alloy moving along at .3c was miniscule. The kinetic energy at impact of a killtorp was around twenty nine megatons. (EDIT: My calculations were indeed incorrect. The impact strength of a 30 ton killtorp moving at .3c is somewhere around twenty nine -Gigatons.-)

Ewan Kel flew an SF-29A Super Sabre space-superiority fighter. Super Sabres were like standard Sabres, just outfitted with better communications equipment, a pair of internal weapons bays, and another centimeter of sculpted iridium armor.

Sabre's were the second fastest and most maneuverable fighter used by the RSN, second only to the Victor interceptor in speed. They were also the rarest fighters in use, because they were big and deadly...to other fighters.

They couldn't carry killtorps, but they didn't need to. The sabre pilots on this strike had the job of protecting the Valors until they reached the proper distance to fire...which was quite a long ways out, actually.

Killtorps were fitted with overcharged induction drives that gave them obscene acceleration, but burned out for all intents and purposes after bringing the torpedoes up to .3c. They still had some maneuvering capability...but not a lot.

Capship torpedoes were twice as heavy as killtorps and had the capability to hit .6c. They were also equipped with actual high-drives as well as induction drives, meaning that they could use the induction drives for maneuvering...which was a decidedly good thing.

Ewan felt his entire body tense as he glanced at the screen. Closing in on the launch point -- not long now. There was little point to getting close when firing killtorps. Anything that take out a killtorp could do the same to a fighter...

They weren't concentrating their fire on an individual target, but that was alright as the Valors carried a pair of killtorps each...and there were fourteen hundred Valors.

Twenty eight hundred killtorps was overkill to any number of degrees. Fire distribution had not yet been determined and would be relayed a minute before firing time, which was a worry...but unavoidable. The spooks needed as much time as they could to isolate targets.

Jintaka waited patiently, sutiably impressed by the armoured man with the big hat, he noted the large armoured men standing behind him and nodded to himself.. sutiably impressive..

A small from creased the perfect slope of his brow, not much in the way of a dispaly of wealth, still, Jintaka in a sense, owed him..

Calmly he waited for the aknowledgement of the other Commander.

Meanwhile the tiny pickups in each of his figertips played over the gold head of a jaguar, stroking its emerald eyes, trasmitting and recieving data from the micro computer systems embedded in a 3 dimensional matrix deep within each gem, his fleet disposition, real time data on the enemy and readouts on the fleets around the station were all accessible.

Throught his fleet weapon systems were brought to combat readiness, each ship mounted energy cenotes, great wells full of crackling energy that could be used in several ways, slowely the wells themselves along the side of each ship started to glow green. While deep in the holds those of the worker castes loaded up and armed the Atlan Fighters and Condor Mecha, the latter, massive striding war machines, were each being fitted with a special package mounted within easy reach on the rear torso.

OOC: Belated IC taggage. Never could pass by the chance to get some new data on tactics and firepower. ;;^-^

"Well, things sure are gettin' lively," Sin chuckled to herself. She'd finally settled on a nice, human shell. It'd been too long, and that damned old shell, sweet and comfy as it was, was just not cutting it. "Okay, switching to interface mode. Let's see these suckers."

A few million kilometers from the general field of combat, far enough away that Sin didn't really run the risk of getting shot, but still close enough that she could rely on passives without loosing too much resolution, the egg-like little craft that was the Gadgetrix opened its outer shell just a sliver, providing its single occupant with something more than just a few blobs on the gravitic distortion detector.

"Ooh, cool," she watched analytical arrays begin to process the data streams, their output coming out on multiple screens. It was a minor risk, using more than the bare minimum resources required for her job, but Sin wanted to know who she'd need to watch for hostilities. "So, we've got TRD, the Skleez, naturally, Reveians, wow, nice parasites."

She had missed the beginning of the fighting despite sitting there for some time, waiting until hopefully everyone were occupied by the real threats, but this'd still get her something from the Defense Force. She had half a mind to bring her craft closer, but there wasn't mucb point. She could do it later, when the Skleez'd be just so much space junk. She had to feel sorry for the poor bastards; after all, they were still trying to bull their way into Sol despite their own idiocy, or perhaps because of it. She glanced at the EMF meter, wondered briefly if there had been any big improvements in scanner technology over the past few years that she hadn't heard about. It wouldn't do to become the first needleship pilot to get captured or killed through lack of information. Facing the Skeelzot force head on, presenting a cross section less than six meters across, and with some of the better absorptive coating over the entire dark shell except for the few centimeter-wide lines that allowed her to 'see' through the overly thick armor, she was, hopefully, fairly safe.

"Those drives should be really sweet," she commented to no one in particular. It got boring to just sit and watch people fly around with the real cool toys. Sure, motive induction drives were nice and let her move without needing to expose anything from the protective internment of her meter-thick armor shell, but they were still damn slow compared to more conventional forms of propulsion, and didn’t giver her an excuse to not fly more or less blind. The outer armor coating was quite good at preventing active scanners from detecting her, and at preventing stray particles from coming out to alert passive scanners, but it also ensure she couldn’t use any scanners without first opening that armor and lowering its protection.

As fleets continued to arrive the Waakzaamheid sent out another light display. Within moments fighters were turning on their axis, hussling back into their carrier ships.

Klaxons rang constantly throughout the asteroid as crews abandoned their stations. Magboots tramped down catwalks to the lifepods, filling the hallways with the ring of metal on metal. The 1000-odd crew had ample escape pods, and many were already ejected and hurtling through hyperspace. Eventually there was only a single squad left, methodically dumping the H3 fuel into the station's nearly empty hallways. Soon they left too, leaving the Rock empty except for the clanging of klaxons.

Van Cleef glanced at his watch as the last SCAAR ship, a space tug, blinked into hyperspace. "Status of the fleet."

"All ships reporting ready, except for the Konrad. Sir, shouldn't we blink them the orders?"

"They'll figure them out soon enough. Carry out my orders."

*** *** *** *** ***

The Revenian fighters were lining up on the targets when they suddenly found themselves with nothing to shoot at. The same starbursts that accompanied their arrival was present as the Skeelzanian fleet retreated, abandoning the Rock to the Solars. No doubt a serious disappointment to them, but that was not Van Cleef's concern.

"God damn that son of a bitch!" Screamed Pollitz as his commander abruptly left him in a hostile system. "E-jump now! No time for coordinants!" The Prinz Konrad was engulfed in a starburst, wrenching it from its flight path and throwing it randomly into hyperspace. Emergency jumps was arguably the single most dangerous thing a Skeelzanian man of war could do, except maybe fly into a sun. It was impossible for the Konrad's crew to predict where they would emerge, perhaps never if they didn't drift too close to a gravity well.

OOC on a small note about the Prinz Konrad I would accept ..unlikely but accept if it managed to jump before the Ouverunners missile salvo struck. However ..259 490 megawatt UV lasers thou shalt not dodge with such ease. Do remember I could have simply engaged you immediately with my BCs ..then this would be an entirly diffrent kettle of flameing radioactive fish. On a side note my final finals went well.

OOC on a small note about the Prinz Konrad I would accept ..unlikely but accept if it managed to jump before the Ouverunners missile salvo struck. However ..259 490 megawatt UV lasers thou shalt not dodge with such ease. Do remember I could have simply engaged you immediately with my BCs ..then this would be an entirly diffrent kettle of flameing radioactive fish. On a side note my final finals went well.

OOC: Whoops, forgot about those. However the IC would absorb a good chunk of their energy, I think my self-imposed cap is 40%. There's also the Hardshields and meters of armor which has a melting point 2 or three times greater than Tungsten, though I am a little unclear what effects lasers have on metals. But the basic breakdown is this: the Konrad would of taken damage, though not crippling, and it e-jumped. Which makes it effectively a loss, since e-jumps can drop you anywhere in a 20,000 LY radius if you come out at all.

And grats on the finals. Liked your ship pictures too.

Two fists hit two arm rests simultaneously, and two different people shouted the exact same curse..."FUCK ME!"

Then, as one, the fighters made a tight u-turn and headed back towards their carriers. Even as this was happening, Daniel Cook was sending a message to the Warprince.

"My Lord Warprince. The Skeelies ran. We'll do what we can here, but the ball is really over to you, now. Don't have much of a clue where they went, but I suspect the Zeppies might know better. Will ask and send results.

What Tells.
~Daniel"

That done, a message would be recorded and beamed to the ZMI flagship..

"ATTENTION ZMI ADMIRAL, this is Rear Admiral Daniel Cook, Commanding RSN Solar Battle Group. That rock is yours by right of conquest, and we suggest that you might want to check on the computers...and beware of booby traps.

Also, if you happened to possess a better idea of where those Skeelies bastards ran too, we'd be very pleased to transfer that idea to the Warprince, who would likely enough be very pleased to investigate further. In force. Personally. Probably with four fighting fleets.

Cook Clear."

OOC: I am of course open to further RP with landing on the Rock itself.

OOC A 490 megawatt UV pulsed laser would cause metal to fracture and shatter from thermal imbalance. A denser metal would while certainly capable of absorbing more heat would still not be a good thing. The damage created by a laser is created by the energy transferred to the target not simply cutting it apart. If it was 3300C or 4950C in melting point it would still have not stopped a 490 megawatt UV laser from causing catastrophic energy transfer. However several metres of very dense armour would indeed manage to absorb the energy..this is not however a good thing as having a chunk of your hull stay intact but be at 4950c or its nearest and dearest in multiple spots will cause all kinds of fun things. Mostly like multiple small fires near your outer hull. Much better to have it ablatively burn off than simply absorb that much heat. Even if your goop transfers the heat all over your ships surface unless your heat dissipation systems are very good indeed its going to be mighty toasty inside that ship for a while.

OOC: The tar doesn't actually spread energy out. It works on the principle of quantum induction, where it tricks the individual particles into thinking their striking something else other than the ship. The 'ripples' are caused by the tar rushing to cover areas burned off by impacts, it being a nanomachine sludge.

Is the forum acting werid for anyone else?

OOC: Yeah, the forums been acting weird a lot over the last few months.

A sort of horrible quite filled with muttering had come to infest the CNC of the “Possession is 9/10ths Of The Law”.
Haze Swore.
Sebastian however spoke quickly and with some quite authority.
“Ladies and gentlemen this is not the outer reaches we are in sol and as such we shall make full use of its resources..”
Sebastian’s left hand danced upon a console for a moment and after the brief flicker of the communications array deployment screen a young woman in a white somewhat crumpled uniform appeared.
“Megacity two primary traffic con.. who the hell are you?”
“INT-SEC override TC928 Sebastian T Alpha”
The girl visible went white and the screen flickered again to an altogether different form of female. Now a sultry Asian woman in an INT-SEC uniform that looked like it had some serious non regulation alterations to show of its wearers assets to their best appeared.
“This is tracking ..ooooH Sebastian we have your little show on screen, its been some time since you needed me.”
“ I don’t have time for your games Chang now give me a live feed from the beacon”
“Such a party pooper you’ve become Sebastian. You have Gestalt Black Black Alpha authorisation and your connection is live”

Luna

Megacity two, 183 million people living in a vast series of sub surface cavernous structures. The reasons for this were many from micro meteorites to cosmic radiation to local solar radiation. One of the primary reasons was the radiation generated by the 21 kilometre tall primary ZMI FTL beacon. This mammoth structure tracked and provided navigation data for any vessel that managed to give of a true superluminal track within over thousand light years of sol and if focused on a single vessels drive energy signature it could keep on tracking that ship to the far galactic rim . Its value to the incorporated state could not be stated more and thus the second largest defence conurbation in the entire of the states history surrounded its eerie mass.

“Possession is 9/10ths Of The Law”
Data flowed. Was sorted and became information. Information was displayed to Sebastian through multiple means, his internal implants and his basic audio and visual senses.

Sebastian stared at the Admiral for a moment and then Haze snapped out a string of orders.
“Broadcast in the clear on a loop all channels. “Live data feed of present target track on 530 khz standard FM clear radio and 230 Larsinis superluminal com band, To the hunt gentlemen.” got that? A lieutenant standing by a com console nodded.

Haze then thumbed the fleet wide com open.
“ This is the Admiral, now here this All Overrunner squadron crews are to prepare to land their birds in record time. Remember gentlemen our intelligence points towards this thing being a possible hostile military support base this means fuel dumps and missile caches and no one leaves these to the enemy. 10% of your boarding drones prepped for launch 10 minutes ago ”
Haze paused looked around and continued.
“Battle division 38 shall immediately jump to the rock and pick up our Overrunners from there we shall immediately proceed to full pursuit. We cannot let them escape the plot tank gentlemen they must pay a dearer price than simply loosing this rock for interfering in sol, all engineering crews prepare for transit drive grid jump.”

Groans now resounded through out the CNC, grid jump was unpleasant, bumpy and very fast and involved every ship in the fleet doing something rather similar to the 301st fighter strike squadrons method of short range superluminal travel only on a much larger and far less unified fashion… In other words ..it was fast and bumpy as all hell.

Battle division 38 gave a brief message to the Midlonian and Quetzecal vessels and en masse jumped to quarter of a million miles from the rock, its drives already starting to superchargie in preparation for pursuit while moments later the stubby forms of hundreds of boarding drones spilled out even as the Overrunners spilled in.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/8608858/ Boarding Drone ...note crappy old picture and text.

OOC yes Jolt has been buggy all day

Daniel Cook didn't even have to move. The message was automatically transferred to Sol Station, and Sol Station had a TransComm. As such, a mere matter of seconds later...

Dysarn Stark smiled as the coordinates rolled in. Gathered about him was practically the entirety of the RSN's fighting fleet. Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth Fleets. Seven hundred twenty starships. Three fortress ships.

A few keystrokes and...

Arden Velisuar's First Jumpship Squadron vanished from Nexus and popped into existence way the hell and gone, around the coordinates. Immediately, the scans began, both the powerful sensors of a Remembrance class Jumpship...and the powers of a boosted Clairvoyant.

Inaccuracy was expected, and noted. They certainly hadn't jumped in on top of the bastards. but the clears knew what to look for, and they were looking very hard. If the Skeelies were around within a 100 or so lightyear radius, they'd be found.

OOC: I'll tell you right now Skeelzania is considerably farther away than 100 light years. Of course, you don't know this ICly so have fun jumping around. I'll get a real post soon.

Sin lazily watched the data feeds come in, high-compression output running across the numerous screens.

"Well, that'd been short," she commented. "Let's see where you've gone."

It'd be a risk, a big risk. She felt a tinge of excitement. The payoff'd be big, bigger than anything, assuming she found it first. She warmed up the Instel array module. A tiny antenna extended between the slits between the thick armor plating, locked onto one of the new beacons in Mars orbit.

Anything moving through space-time indivertibly influenced the world around it, including the subEtheric network used by Weyrean superluminal technologies. The indent of something going faster than light wouldn’t be much, and wouldn't last long, but Sin was quite sure she had enough data for a best guess on Skeelzot direction and exit point. And in the meanwhile she could get the rough target coordinates of the Revenian fleet, and maybe follow them. Sin didn't like calling in favors, but in this case it was definitely worth it. She dumped the relevant files into the satellite, sealed her craft's armored shell, and brought induction coils online at minimum power.

All she had to do was wait for the data analysis to come back, and in the meanwhile she could take a nap, letting autopilot slowly move her into the shelter of a decently sized natural mass.

OOC: Read the post again, Skeelzania. Doc tracked your wittle ships, calculated emergence coords, then fired them off to me. I sent a jump group to those coordinates, then had them start scanning from -there.-

Frankly, Revenia is around 2500 ly from Sol. The Remembrance was launched from there, not Sol.

Anyways.

OOC ur yes indeed megacity two can track a targeted superluminal non stealthy drive to the far galatic rim or as long as it stays outside the galatic core..and since no bugger lives in the core thats really not a problem. So ..that would indeed be considerably more than 100ly. This is after all sol the hub of several thousand civilisations and technology bases ..were no slouches at makeing the shiny things.

'Where the hell did they go?' screamed Admiral Hutchinson as the final ships vanished. 'Find them Dammit Heno! Find them!'

Accessing DaTaNeT...

Heno remained silent for a whole ten minutes.
'Well?' Growled Hutchinson.
--Tracking via Zepplin MegaCity2 sensors and tracking equipment.--
Hutchinson growled again and his his console with his fist 'Find them!'

OOC: Skeelzania uses a BFG-esque warpspace for FTL travel. The warp has energy tides, storms, eddies, and other phenonmenon which make tracking over large distances very difficult. I don't know if your sensors can track a fleet through an entirely different dimension, though I have a few ideas how. I also know another way you could find me.

EDIT: In addition the average travel time for Skeelzanian capital ships between Sol and Skeelzania is 2 IC weeks, they haven't even emerged from the warp yet (well maybe they have, RP fluidtime makes things complicated). The Prinz Konrad will not emerge for another IC week at least.

Jintaka snarled, his perfect teeth under the headress making for a terrifying display.

"Get me the Priests of the Moon Caste!"

The Warlord snarled

"I want ot know where they have gone!"

With that he turned to Fighter Command, the searing burts of information leaping through his mind as his fingers played over the gems.

"The Condors have Godcore Driver drives, I want them blessed and bowing to the wargod within a hundred heartbeats! or I will make sure any left over beats are made by your heart, to the gathered nobles, personaly!"

The crewmembers, all of the Wind Caste of Workers, suddenyl hunkered down, their fingers flying over keys and input nodes, luckily the Condors had been readied for a strike, there would be no time to unload their special payloads, but they would be ready.

Jintaka glanced up into the Holosphere, the glowing lights of the Skeelzanian fleet were still fading, good, that meant residual data on their jumps would have been stored, also, the rock was still there, that meant there was still honour to be fought for. Turning to look at the communication display, he took a moment to calm his thoughts, then with a blank, severe warrior masked face, he sent a query pulse to the combined ZMI, Midlonia and Quetzecal Forces communications channel.

"Fellow warriorlords, it seems we have a problem.."

The klaxons had long fallen silent, though alarms still bathed the corridors in red light. Only the soft hum of ventilation fans presented any sound throughout the Rock. A thick haze filled the upper regions, where the noxious H3 gas had collected after being dumped on the main reactor floor.

The entire structure had the look of a hastily abandoned installation. A few computer terminals and servers had been reduced to blackened sludge, while someone had taken a hammer to the main atmospheric control console. In the living quarters SCARR uniforms still hung in closets, while the galley counter was occupied by what would have been their first meal. Food Goo™ Brahmin Flavor judging from the labels. Everything, from the placement of door handles to the size of chair was slightly enlarged. Taking their seven foot height for granted, the Skeelzanians did not factor their shorter Terran cousins into furniture design.

In their rush to evacuate there were two things the Skeelzanians hadn’t bothered to scuttle: the heavy fusion reactors and the flochip processing plants. The reactors themselves were unremarkable except for their size; two rows of 4 filled the main chamber like iron monoliths within a cave. They were strangely dark and cold, having never been activated. The main control panels, in a small room overlooking the main chamber, had been thoroughly smashed with some sort of heavy object.

Near the main landing bay and fuel hook-up rested a few curious machines, unique to this sector of the galaxy. At one end was some sort of hook-up, by which a few barrels filled with sand were stacked. A small hatch in the floor revealed a room filled with many more such barrels. At the opposite end of the machine was a nozzle, poised over an empty barrel. Several large hoses lay on the plating floor, disappearing into the wall and presumably going to the refuel station. The entire machine was encased in steel plating, with red stenciled letters proclaiming it property of Skeelzania Combine Advanced Resource Refiners. A slightly smaller message, written directly below, read “do not operate without training.”

OOC: For those seeking to invade Skeelzania (assuming you get my location), I will be available on MSN as badskeelz@yahoo.com a little after 5 p.m. PST today, and at similar times tomorrow. I may be marked away, but I'll be on. We have things to discuss.

Scans indicate that the asteroid is now empty of life forms, noxious gases are detected in the structure itself.

'Get some cleaning drones in there and teams with NBC gear, we need that crap cleaned up and anything possible salvaged and studied.' Murmured Hutchinson.

2 hours later, In the Asteroid.
The suits were always damn annoying, the helmets would sit covering eyes and mouthes, as they should, but they would restrict horribly.
The corridors where huge, and rather strange, they were finding various bits of computing equipment, but alot of it was damaged because of the gasses, however a few bits and bobs were salvaged, the reactors were going to be a major problem as they simply did not know how the hell to shut them down, or how they worked, as such there was now a drone and a Technician frantically at work studying the system.
The small, beetle like creature was now latched to a console, crackling slightly.
The Unit's offical name was EUG_0999, to his freinds he was known as:
'Eugine, you got anything yet?' the Technician was still frowning at the console and the reactors near to him. He was still wearing the bio-chem suit as the cleanup still had not quite finished.

Nothing yet, still working on translation, will have the language cracked within another hour, then I will be able to transfer all schematics to your PDA and you will be able to see what the reactors do and if they require anything.
'Fine, fine' muttered the techie.

The Skeelzanian language, spoken like English but written in a different script, was eventually cracked by the hacker beetle.

+++SCARR.MKXX.Reactor.Manual+++
++4th.Edition++
+++Find.Utilitze.Profit+++

Thank you for choosing the SCARR Mark Twenty Fusion Reactor for your energy needs. The very latest in Skeelzanian wide-scale energy production, they are the safest and most portable heavy reactors on the market. May you find this manual useful in your quest to operate them.

+++Chapter.One+++
+++Caution+++

The MKXX operates on a similar principle to the MKVX-XIX series of reactors, and much of the same precautions apply. Fortunately any Nuclear Engineering Graduate Student of SKZU is well versed in that series, so to save memory space they have been omitted from this printing. However, one must remember that !!!!!!! is to !!!!!! as duck is to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! and !!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!**!!!!!!!!!!. Do not touch the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! phalange !!!!!!!!!!!! flux !!!!!!!! or !!!!!!!!!!!!!

+++Chapter.Two+++
+++Maintenance+++
The MKXX series is easily maintained as was the !!! and !!!!!!!!!!!!! series. The MKXX requires H!!!!!!!!!!! as fuel, and must be refueled every 24 !!!!!!!!! standard !!!!! to prevent shutdown. The refueling tub is located at !!!!!!! behind the !!!!!!!!!, sub-section Q. Please refer to Chapter !!!!!!!!!, !!!!!!!!!!!!ing for further information. Failure to refuel will result in !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

+++Chapter.Three+++
+++Starting.Your.React!!+++

To iniate reactor operations simply supply one cycle of !!!!! fuel, set the !!! !!!!! valve to !!!!!!!!, and initiate the solar !!!!!!!!!!. Successful start-up can be determined if !!!!!!!!!!!! turns to !!!!!!!!! and not !!!!!!!!!!.

+++Chapter.Four+++
+++!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!+++

The following !!!!!!!!!!!! should !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or serious operational !!!!!!!! will occur if conditions !!!!!!!!!! through !!!!! are not met (see Chapter !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for further details). However most of these problems can be avoided if !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! takes !!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****************************QWZSTY23
>ERROR
>Contact.System.Administrator if !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


At this point the console went dark. A small trail of smoke slowly seeped out from beneath the buttons.

If I had eyes instead of these sight sensors I would blink right now, the console was a complete mess and it would seem that I would have to repair the console again by myself, I call to Gerald, my technician
"This console needs patching, I managed to gain the manual but it is incomplete and unreadable at times, I beleive the hard drive is corrupt."
'Damn Eugene, ok, gimmie what you got, just, be careful, remember what happened on the training mission.'
'Yes Gerald.'I begin to add in spare parts that are similar to the ones that have fried myself, and extract the data processor to the console to extract whatever data from it I can, insofar it is inconclusive, but I hope.

tagged [cannot intervene at the moment due to Wolf/Skunk RP]