NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: Greetings. This thread is not made by a newbie, a n00b, a twink or whatever you wish to call new nations trying this. Godmodder... well, I suppose that could fit. But try to reserve judgement until AFTER you read it all. Thank you.]

The fleet of four hundred starships was sitting above the asteroid belt, observing the movements around Tosev III and IV. They had been there for six months, hiding in the 'dead zone'of the Belt, where few ships patrolled regularly.

"Exalted Fleetlord," one of the reptilian officers spoke in a deep gurgling hiss, "the system is full of Big Ugly fleets. All speaking different languages. We have stayed unnoticed for the most part by staying out of the inner system, barely crossing over the asteroid belt."

The two males watched the activity, then the Fleetlord, a male named Krintor whose bodypaint was much more elaborate, spoke, "Hold position for now. We must hold another meeting of the Fleetlords. Have them shuttle over immediatly."

Soon the fleetlords were all gathered. Krintor stood in front, body paint the most elablorate, indicating his supreme rank in the fleet. "Brave males of the Race, we have a choice before us. Become world conquorers or world fleers. As we have seen, niether is an easy choice. To fight, we face several fleets and countless armies. To flee, we face eternal shame, but save this fleet for another conquest. There must be a choice made at this meeting."

That got hisses and shouts of discontent from the assembled fleetlords. "How can we face them?! They are so..." the fleetlord refused to say 'advanced', "different from what the probes showed."

Indeed the probe had shown Tosev III as the only inhabited planet and that with warriors fighting a world wide mechanised war, ending with the shocking use of two primative atomic weapons. Now, they faced fleets that were serious threats and armies larger than the entire invasion fleet.

For eighteen hours they argued. Three shift changes. Finally Krintor hissed for silence, which he got immediatly. "Enough. We can no longer debate. I have heard all arguments, all opinions and have decided. We attack."

[OOC: Mmkay... now you may judge. And yes, I adore Turtledove novels.]

ooc: Just so you know, if you were trying to invade earth, you'd be so far up shitcreek, you'd need an outboard motor and it would be better in I.I than NS

OOC: Hell no. Earth is invulnerable. But its fleets aren't. And Mars is much more vulnerable. So are the outer colonies.

OOC: Er, well, you see, Mars (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Mars) has a few very big nations, and all told about two dozen states with populations of over two billion, nations that have spent RPed decades fighting off everything from hordes of insects to one another, Quite honestly, you don't stand a chance &^-^. Jupiter (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Jovian_League) has the likes of Menelmacar (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Menelmacar) and Melkor Unchained, and Saturn is so heavily defended it'd be suicide for nearly anyone to try to attack them. Hell, look at this (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=417419&highlight=neptune) if you don't believe me.

Sol, the most heavily populated, traveled, and monitored system in the galaxy, seemed too crowded to Sin, and yet her job was so much easier amidst the confusion of the system's daily life. She reflected at this sometimes, in the loneliness of her needleship, amidst the quiet, low-power systems that were the only sign that the Distributed Kingdom was capable of subtlety in its constructs. In contrast to the mirror-polished plating of the aging Self-Defense fleet, the Garix was utterly black, coated with a heavy layer of composite that was designed to absorb any active scanners. Nevermind that Sin could only see a few blobs on her own scanners unless she opened the outer plate to reveal the narrow scanner bands, risking detection. The inner hull, coloured a brilliant azure from the induction coils, had no protection against active detection methods.

But Sin wasn't worried much about this force she had been told to investigate and watch. Nevermind that her craft's induction drives were not nearly as powerful as more traditional methods of acceleration, at least not in terms of forward acceleration. That a needleship carried nothing heavier than a pair of light point-defense cannon was not something she took notice of, because her job wasn't to fight. She kept her armor plate open now, just a crack, sitting inside a crater of a nice comfy asteroid and watching the strangers on passive scanners, her craft's logic stacks analyzing any emissions coming from the fleet.

The SDF had probably detected these strangers a while ago, but with only a few needleships in service not everything interesting could be investigated immediately. Sin relaxed in the tiny pilot couch of the miniscule craft, and did her job, which meant that at the moment she was sleeping. After all, this job was not nearly as interesting as a good dialogue on the data nets about how to best infiltrate Saturn and maybe get some juicy data on the Triumverate (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Triumvirate_of_Yut)'s defense systems, and maybe even sell them to Metus (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Arda)

[OOC: I know. I gave Metus their latest large scale project and have been scoping out the whole supreme burrito that is the Sol System. ToY, Metus, Mars Defense Force... Earth. *shudder* Damn I don't envy ANYONE trying to take on Earth in a ground war. Space is a different story.]

Comm traffic picked up between the ships, in the same hissing, gurglly language of the Race. Fighters were starting to launch in more numbers, the ships powering up their drives.

Over visual, Krintor appeared, addressing his fleet, bodypaint meticulously applied so it would add to the announcement. Though it would be hard pressed for anyone to catch anything but the basics of his speech, it was obvious he was giving a large order. "Glorious males of the Race, today you awake from cold sleep and fight to conquor the fourth system of the Empire. This will not be like the last two, who were primative. This will not be like the probes said. The Tosevites have interplanetary travel and we even travel that takes them faster than light. To have achieved so much in so short a time, while it took the Empire five milenia to get from the level of technology on the probe to what we have now poses a great concern to us all. May the Emperor's", his eyes lowered, as did all those on screen at the mention of the soverign, then rise again, "spirit fill you all on this first attack. Fleetlords... Attack! Engage the first non-Race ships you come across!"

Over half the fleet began to accelerate away from the asteroid belt, into the Inner System. The large starships flanked by fighters and smaller escorts. The rest began to move as well, but stayed within the 'safety' of the Belt, probably to flank any large force attempting to block the main thrust.

T'koras flicked down the observation visor to cover its eyes, all nine of them, and moved its hands, all six of them, to his control panel.

"Concentration of iridium, mostly at core....only a few unimportant rocks around it. Preparing Deep-Core systems....initiating top turrets one through three, under-turrets two through four."

James glanced up at the Ophelian, whose scaled hide had become a fixture on the Graphite Bore (http://www.deviantart.com/view/14357310/), a Deep Core Mk-IV Armed Mining Barge of the Ventuusi Acquisitional Mining Coporation, presently harvesting stray asteroids in the system - one of the scout drones had picked up an asteroid with a heavy concretration of the rare Serpyrium metal, and so the Graphite Bore had been sent out to find it, and harvest it. Naturally they were also expected to mine out any 'roids they found en-route.

"You go, whatever-sex-you-are."

The Ophelian chuckled.

"Lemale, is what the Corporation calls it, one of the four sexes we have"

This produced, understandably, a long pause from the human Barge-Overseer.

"Never...ever...explain that to me."

"Righto, James. Railgun under-turrets initiating, breaking up the 'roid."

"Fragments dispersing as predicted, T'koras. Keep it coming."

"Initiating laser-tractor systems, bringing in the rock. Re-scanning....damn, that's good iridium...half our quota, I reckon"

"Well, bring it in...if we get well above quota They might even give us an extra few days of holiday this year, Company keeps me away from Kate too much. You got anyone? I know Jerthy Bear has a girl back on Uranus."

"Why, yes. Surprisingly mining seems to draw the other Ophelian sexes, probably because we're away for so long - absense makes the heart grow stronger and all that. To be sure, I'm looking forward to seeing F'garlin, J'kaal and T'rosann again."

Another lengthy pause from the overseer.

"Don't tell me any more, please. Four sexes is just....strange."

"Fair enough, just don't try and describe what you and Kate do...I mean, yuck!"

"Gentlemen, could we stop this? I'm trying to concentrate, I just picked something up on sensors."

The human and Ophelian glanced over at the Sentient Koala (a species created as the product of an experimental genetic altering serum) who was currently labouring over the ship's sensors.

"Sorry, Jerthy Bear"

"Not a problem, gents, but if you'd have a look on your sensors, mine seem to be a bit scrambled."

"Righto. What....the....hell...?"

The Overseer moved over to his scanning array and glanced through it. HE blinked, and checked that the device was working properly.

"Get a message through to CAN one, Earth's closer than Uranus. Hurry!"

They didn't look as Jerthy tapped out a message, adding vocal comments and imaging scans before sending it back to the VAMC Terran Holdings. James was busy setting engines and initiating FTL sequence as T'koras readied the ship's weapons.

"Message sent, gentlemen."

"Thank you...engines online, FTL loading. How far are they?"

"Too far, James. Still, we'll go down fighting."

"At least the Company knows, and they can't pin this damage on us!"

As the Race opened fire, so did the mining barge. Light railguns designed to shatter asteroids rather than for military use opened fire, accompanied by high intensity mining lasers - strong enough to slice through almost any material like a hot knife through butter, but not enough against such a fleet. The Graphite Bore never stood a chance.

ooc: Ya'know, it's kinda hard to hide the EM radiation of several hundred starships. Even in the belt. But nevermind. Oh, and I'll take a few liberties, as all I'm interested in is losing a random craft as collateral damage or whatever, and I'm not exactly intending to get any more involved than that.

Reasonably close to the inner Asteorid Belt

The Scout Vessel isn't a particularly impressive craft. A sphere, about 200 metres in diameter, in reasonably good shape, now that the Jovian Faction has managed to get itself pulled up a little, allowing for a mildly higher standard of quality.

It was out here for a fairly simple reason: Searching for usable resources. Resources Jupiter needed, given the currently, well, low flow of resources from Earth to Jupiter.

A few asteorids here, a few others there... Iron, carbon, various other elements. It wasn't actually meant to do this kind of thing, having been build as a somewhat excessively armed, diplomatic craft with perhaps half the combat capacities an actual warcraft of its size would have managed.

Alas, in this particular situation, it (Well, Jupiter) didn't really have many options.

So it mined, its formerly civilian quarters having been changed into something resembling a mineral processing complex.

In this particular sphere of space, it was alone, or at least it thought it was, until it noticed the sudden burst... No, bursts, plural, of EM radiation, preceded only by a short burst of incomprehensible rambling in a language it didn't understood, its fairly comprehensible data files showing no matches.

Still, given the sudden appearance of such a considerable fleet, as well as its decided lack of definitely peaceful intentions (At least it didn't notice anything resembling such a thing as peaceful gestures), it decided that it was better to run for it.

Unfortunately, the Scout (The Irritating Gesture) was an Angstian craft, and as such, not what one would generally considering a fast craft. It started accelerating with what it could manage, slightly more than 3 gees, but that wasn't enough, especially given its initial velocity of only about eighteen km/s.

The (Potential) threat came closer, the bursts of radiation became more and more massive, and Irritating Gesture was mildly frightened, seeing them advancing.

Then it watched two of their vessels leave the main body of the fleet... heading for it.

Well, damn.

It checks its options. It was small, and had nothing even remotely resembling the armament of, say, a Strategic Engagement Unit. All it had was the equipment of a medium Tactical Engagement Unit, divided by 2.

Woo. I wonder if there is someone near who could, say, help me... HELP! HELP!

A few detailed checks while they were coming closer, a few kilometres per second.

The milliseconds tick by as Irritating Gesture readies its weapons. Destroying this opponent wasn't exactly within its capacities. It made no sense to wait until the opponent came close enough to bring the somewhat more effective weapons to bear. If they came so close to begin with, it would already be over.

Almost down to two million kilometres. Irritating Gesture checked its sensors. A burst of radiation from somewhere. A few more checks... Someone had been killed a few million kilometres away.

So much for hoping for peaceful intentions. It thought.

Two million kilometres. Fusion Reactors suddenly start burning gram-heavy pellets of hydrogen. Resulting radiation is cumulated in a beam of intense EM radiation, the lower end of the spectrum, X Rays.

13.5 seconds later, Irritating Gesture mutters something about engagements over a distance of several lightseconds and the inherent inaccuracies. It had missed.

The chasing scene (For that is what it was) continues with the opponents exchanging fire, Irritating Gesture simply to keep its opponents from coming in a straight line at her, her opponents to prevent her from running in a straight line.

1.99mio kilometres. A lucky hit, but not enough to take the attacking vessel out. For a moment, Irritating Gesture wondered if she actually managed to kill someone...

A fraction of a millisecond to long. Its drives are hit. Nothing terrible, but acceleration went down to no more than 14m/s^2.

It ponders engaging the opponent with other means. Frying brains, eventually forcing the captain of one of the opposing vessels to realise his mistakes, turning him into a pacifist... But it isn't close enough to bring this kind of weapon to bear. Less than a lightsecond, that would work...

Stopping? Why not? It's not like it can win this chasing scene.

So Irritating Gesture suddenly turns, once a quick check provides her with sufficient statistical evidence that it wouldn't last longer than perhaps a minute, until the enemy is supposed to hit it, anyway.

Want some tea? it sends, including a short video file of Alice in Wonderland, involving said tea, before sending a message of surrender.

Unfortunately, it missjudged its opponents. A few more hits, parts of its hull vaporising, at one place, the holes goes straight through it.

Luckily, the core remains save, and apart from some sensors lacking proper wiring, thus turning out to be useless, Irritating Gesture is still quite capable of waging war.

Well, as good as one can do it when one isn't a warship.

It fires, again. Particle beams, by now capable with hitting at approximately 0.42% of their original energy density. X ray lasers, a mixture of everything, hoping to do significant damage. Then it turns, suddenly, hoping to fool its opponents.

And flies straight into one of their salvos.

Sensors go out, superheated air expands inside the ship, a miniature-version of a nuclear explosion crushing walls, and suddenly, the core cracks.

The vacuum. Shit, I didn't exactly want to go this way.

It was its last thought. It didn't even get to see if its last salvo managed a hit.

~Tag for later post

tagged for observation

The main group continued its slow march into the inner system. "Fleetlord, sir! We have engaged multiple targets."

--------

Hisses and gurgles came over the comm. One ship was not destroyed, but devastated beyond use. Killercraft(fighters) dove around it and several males let their jaws drop in amusement.

The jaws shut as they saw the other exchange. Railgun versus railgun and missiles. The scout after the Bore fired several military grade railguns and missiles at the miner. It was allmost a second before they saw the incoming fire though... too late to try and alter course. "Brace!" the commander, a male named Corr shouted, eye turrets spinning to look at two different monitors. One showed the incomming fire, the other hull integrity.

The scoutship bucked hard, sending two males across the command deck, but Corr stayed in his seat, staring at the two screens... hull was being ripped apart! How could these Big Uglies hurt his ship so bad?! They were primative... their ship was probably being torn apart(sensors had failed), but so was his. One of the shells slammed into the command deck, the vacum claiming all on it.

Corr floated away from his ship and his heart ached, not because he was going to die in about three seconds, but that he saw how bad they had hurt his ship. His first command... as the cold claimed him, he saw the reactor start to overload.

---

Krintor observed, both eye turrets on the holo-pad as the scout exploded. "The first of the Race have died. They are with the spirits of the past Emperors."

The only Commonwealth presence in the Sol system was Fleet Control Group-E (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=410803) , and they were there for a quick pick up of the Navigator Engineer Urso. They had been moving at a slow rate since leaving the Kuyper Belt , as they had encountered several alien craft and were taking time to scan everything to add to The Autarch's Databanks.

The Varangian Algiers lounged lazily on the bridge, every now and again allowing her gaze to flicker over the backs of the Thilite pilots, causing them to quiver in their seats. The Voltaug's Construct bobbed down from the ceiling array, yet again, disturbing Algier's amusement.

"Your excellency, my sensors have picked up a disturbance in the asteroid belt behind us. It appears to be a concerted discharge of weaponry, perhaps a battle." the Construct deadpanned.

Algiers sighed "Do a deep scan of the area near the disturbance and let me know what you find Voltaug. Keep the CFG in defensive formation. Stay on course, but give yourself plenty of time to scan and catalog everything."

With the the CFG moved on at it's relaxed pace.

*bump*

OC: The Zaon Imperium is Veskaland’s military arm.
IC:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/isev/EarthandAlpha.png
The two Sumatras had just finished their patrol from Earth to Proxima Station, which orbited Alpha Centauri. They were on their way back to Earth when they detected several disturbances, definitely weapons fire.

Commander Claven Anara of the Thunder child was sitting in her command chair. “Raise shields and charge weapons, increase speed to maximum!”
The Sumatra class was classed as a fast attack battleship, meaning it was fast and armed to the teeth.

The two Sumatras zoomed towards Earth at surprising speed.
When they arrived they immediately noticed a new fleet in the system, every ship that was in the system for a while knew who every other ship was, so the Sumatras were noticed immediately as not being hostile. The intruder fleet however was hostile, the Zaon ships immediately started scanning, recording and sending their readings to Titan, the home planet of Veskaland, and to Titanus, the Starbase in charge of the Imperium.

Tag for possible inclusion

The small object, disk-shaped and only fifty metres in diameter, hung in empty space, analysing transmissions and sending them on to a greater interpretation platform far out beyond the solar system.

It detected the Race Fleet, analysed it and sent on the information. It cared not that it lay within the armada's path, nor that it was outnumbered. The Mechanised Intellects that controlled the numerous systems simply recorded, coded and distributed.

Living Metal stirred gently within hard alloy walls, the vacuum within the object having no effect upon the automated systems and artificial intelligences that controlled the object. Monitoring devices that had recorded the birth and death of stars collected information, condensed it to data, and transmitted it all.

It simply waited, uncaring and unconcerned, as the fleet drew closer.

"Shiplord, we encounter little Big Ugly resistance. Only a handful of ships lie in our path." a sensor male said to Hessook, commander of the starship 206th Emperor Yower.

Hessook let his jaw hang open in delight for a few seconds before spotting the disk on a sensor screen. "This reads different. No Big Uglies on it."

The other mal nodded. "Yes, superior sir, it seems to be nothing mor than a holow disk of a metal we are not familiar with."

"A mine?" Hessook asked, seeming suspicious of the disk. Like all males of the Race, he dispised the unknown.

"Doubtful. There is only one. I would classify it as debris." The male said, with certainty.

"Very well... alter course four degrees. It is no threat to us."

---

The 206th Emperor Yower did as it's shiplord ordered, the round hulled ship being obscured by thrust vectors that altered the ship's course to skin past the disk at barely 500 meters, but it would miss. No weapons were fired at it, as it was seen as a waste of ammunition.

---

"Exalted Fleetlord. We are being scanned by ships in the system." A male with midranking body paint, who looked even lower when standing beside Krintor's intricate weave of paint, stated. "They are Tosevite and apparently are wary to attack our fleet."

"As they should be." Krintor said, his ships exiting the Belt and cruising to the outer system. "We will strike at the small colonies and disrupt convoys leading to them. If and when the Tosevites start fighting back, which I doubt, we will contain their colonies to the inner system."

The Light Carrier Qei'ta'las was orderd by the High Council of The Draconis Federation to begin exploration of a little known star system, that could possibly be inhabited by advanced intelligent life.The Captain of Qei'ta'las, one Captain Den'iuk Ken'tan was more then eger to please the council with her acceptance of this duty. Aboard her ship were two SI sisters, Jun, and Wei, Jun the navigator and pilot, and Wei the spuadron leader of the drone interceptors.

As Captain Den'iuk readied her ship for translocation, a feat possible only due to the anisible device, a device all moderen Draconis ships were equiped with. She began systems checks and readied her men for the possibility of combat, by putting the Moblie Armor Spuadron, and Drone Interceptor Spuadron, as well as all support craft on high alert.

This was an important assignment to her, and like all others she was going to acheive it with the utmost millitary efficencey, and return home in one peice. As they waited to finish last minute preperations the flight deck was a ritualized chaos of Armors being loaded down with heavy ordanances and ammunition, and support craft as well as the drones were being loaded on to the launch tracks were they would be shot out of the launch tubes.

As Jun reported their time till departure the crew readied to translocate, and moved into their posts.

At the moment of translocation the entire ship froze, no movement could be seen, it was as if time itself had stoped, and in a way it did. Then after what seemed to be an enternity of that exact moment, they appeared in the sector without a single trace of their arrival.

As Jun began scanning the surounding system, Wei and her drones launched to closer survey the area, and to defend the light carrier, if it was attacked by an unseen foe wating in the shadows of the surrounding astroid belt.

The only apparent reaction to the approach of the Race warship was a spike in power levels.

The (relatively) small object maintained its slow spin as Mechanised Intellects awoke and analysed the new data being received.

The disk's appearance was unusual. Five metres tall and fifty in diameter it bore upon each circular side the symbol of its masters, a large fireball and a small, chasing one another in an ouroborous cycle. Upon the curving edge of the peculiar object was engraved a number of unusual symbols. There is no apparent method of entry, but a liquid metallic substance could be detected stirring within it.

As the warship passed, it might feel the emissions coming off the disk. Not in some form of energy or the more common types of wave transmission, but a form of mecha-psychic informational wave that might result in those aboard the craft feeling...unusual, with lists of numbers and calculated information materialising in minds not designed to handle the data. Each section of data would appear only once before it went upon its way, changing communication form as it travelled to meet the requirements of the disk's masters.

Hessook held his head for a moment, as strange symbols filled it against his will. He looked around and saw almost all teh rest doing the same. "Full stop!" He hissed, twice to get the helm male to realise he was being ordered to do something.

As the ship came to a relative stop, they looked at each other through the haze. "What's around us, sensory?"

"Just debris and that disk, superior sir!" One of them said, using the allmost first nature response to a superior. That got Hessook's eye turrets to both face the sensor screen with the disk on it. Was it causing this? If it was, what could be gained by it? Confusion could be one use for this weapon, but... if it can put information in his head, could it take it as well? That could not be allowed.

He hissed, stepping to the weapons officer. "Gunners! Destroy that disk!" He reciever the usual 'it shall be done' response and watched as three railguns fired at the strange oblong disk thing.

----------

Krintor's 40% of teh fleet was allready away from the belt, travveling towards a convoy that stood no chance. His jaw dropped in amusment as they started to scatter like a herd of beasts. "Intercept and destroy."

"It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord." someone said behind him. He didn't look to see who it was. "Fleetlord, probes are coming from the asteroid ring!"

"What? We were just there, how could they get behind us?!" He hissed, turning to face the screen showing the probes. "Send two wedges of killercraft to see who is there. Order them only to engage if they have a reasonable chance of survival." The male nodded and gave the 'it shall be done' answer and walked off. That was another of the engrained responses all males of the Race had.

>>Message Destination: Asgard Station, Kajal Mars
>>Message Source: Farhirra (http://palara.sularan.net/ships/farhir.jpg) type Battlecruiser Alari no Farhirra
>>

"We have emerged from subspace transit near Sol's asteroid belt, and are proceeding with the final leg of our shakedown cruise."

The message sent back from the station was recieved quickly.

"Acknowledged. We have you on farsight, and will proceed with performance monitoring."

A quick reply to the effect of "Thanks" was sent back from the Alari, and it proceeded to disgorge a cloud of target drones from its launch bays.

"Beginning Tactical Simulation now."

Three railguns fired.

Three projectiles fired at near the speed of light

Three projectiles propelled by electromagnetism

A tongue of blue flame curved from the recording/transmitting disk, shimmering into existence within the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction of a second to protect the objet. A blue reflection gleamed off the dully reflective material of the disk, illuminating ancient symbols engraved upon its sides.

Nothing lived within the disk, but the intelligence put there was alert, and had been alert for millenia, recording, analysing and transmitting.

The disk remained as before, more alert, but otherwise unchanged.

As Wei entered one of the drones she received a message from her sister, Jun. "Wei, your orders are to investigate the surrounding area, if you encounter hostiles, you know what to do. If you have the advantage press the attack, if they have the advantage retreat, got it? Come back alive, you understand, if you don't I'll never forgive you."

Wei answered, "Will do baby sis, over and out." Wei then entered the drone craft and entered the launch tube. As she integrated with the drone, letting it's sensors become her eyes, ears, and skin, she felt an erie calm wash over her as she launched, the one someone has before a battle to come.

She then joined her drones who had already been launched and began to issue orders to them at a speed faster than light. As they did a few practice runs on the surrounding asteroids, the drones began to react at her will. It was so natural for her to control them once again, it was as if the drones were a part of her body that she had reconnected with, and in a sense ... they were.

As Wei came around a large asteroid her sensors began tracking the movements of several small craft moving in formation. She instantly knew what they were, "Fighters, well, lets see if their friendly." Wei then adjusted her course to intercept the unknown fighters.

Krintor stuck a claw into a control and scolled through information. "We have still not attracted much attention. With our fleet split, perhaps we may not lose many ships." he said, to no male in particular.

His killercraft were speeding towards the belt, the six craft containing one pilot each, with a mass of electronic warfare equipment behind them. They reached the first asteroid and the two wedges of three spilt around it. As they came to bear, they saw the carrier, then the drones. "Contact!" the lead pilot gurgled, twisting his craft and 'diving' to move in a corkscrew across any line of fire. His wingmales followed suit, while the others mirrored it, going up in a simmilar course. All six flipped on ECM, flooding the area with varying levels of radiation.

----

Hessook's jaw dropped, but not in amusement. In shock that the disk was still there. Three railguns failed to obliterate it. Failed to scratch it... "Gunners! Resume fire!" He hissed, the shiplord now growing irritated at this floating hunk of metal.

Meanwhile the 127th Emperor Hetto was in the middle of the fleet, speeding towards Martian space. "Enemy is deploying... objects. Most likely a minefield of some sort, Shiplord."

Shiplord Rarn leaned over a display. "Interesting. Any sign that they have seen us, sensory?" Getting a no, he hmmphed. "Then they are deploying against another force. Perhaps these Tosevites are involved in a war allready. Divert course to avoid the field. Tell the others to do the same, or to blast through, if they believe it worthwhile."

And so about 200 starships bore down on the formerlly red planet, intending to make the space around it very red indeed...

---Projectiles Apporaching---
---Full Shield Initiate Protocol Initiated---
---Full Shield Initiating---
---Full Shield Active---

The blue flame returned, forming not a single curling wisp but instead an entire network of slender threads. Threads that repulsed the incoming fire with a contemptuous ease.

The energy expended flashed up, energy costs increasing as the shield activated.

Slightly too late for the first projectile, the railgun shot slammed into the hull. Surprisingly, rather than the disk expelling the gas of a life support system, or the hull material crumpling under the impact, the railgun made a neat hole. Whether or not the projectile continued further into the craft or not is unknown, but the thing could be damaged.

However, although the artifact could apparently be damaged by railguns the shield was another matter. At a massive expenditure of energy the shield absorbed that which was sent against it, providing more energy for the disk.

---Initiating Conversing Protocols---
---Extrapolation Of Language Initiated---

As Wei saw their approach she instantly knew their approach was hostile and that no doubt they intended to fire on her. She acted before they could even fire a shot. Within the first few seconds of engaging the unknown enemy she was able to destroy two and severely cripple a third without receiving any serious damage to herself. While on the next attack she destroyed the remainder of the squadron, while this time one of her drones was crippled and sent into a spiral, she reacted quickly and was able to get it back to the Qei'ta'las for repairs.

Jun then sent her a message, "Wei I thought I told you only to fire if they were hostile!"

Wei replied, "Then I believe they were hostile, sis. But chances are they came from a ship nearby, extend your sensors and locate their origin. Also send the Mobile Armors as reinforcements, I can assure you that those pilots need more experience."

"Wei don't you dare think about attacking them, we don't know who they are or even what they are, so do not engage you hear me do not ..."

Wei was tired of her sisters worrious nature so she cut her comms.

Jun sighed as she heard the static that would only come from someone cutting comms. 'Sis, come back please, just come back ... alive.' "All pilots to your Mobile Armors and prepare to launch. Fall in as Wei's reinforcements, shadow her but don't let the enemy see you, there are hostels out there that need to be neutralized. So good hunting!"

The Mobile Armors launched and shadowed Wei's squadran about a thousand meters behind her, as they were ordered.

"One hit out of twelve? Not acceptable..." he hissed, pushing a claw into a hole, then speaking. "This is Shiplord Hessook of the 206th Emperor Yower. Scouts, begin ECM bombardment of the disk. I want whatever it is to have it's hiss taken away if we can't bite it."

Obediantly, three scout came around the starship and approached the oblong disk. "It shall be done, Shiplord." One responded, as he hit the controls of the electronic warfare units behind him. Instantly they throbbed to life, broadcasting massive amounts of white noise and general jamming signals on all but a select, coded frequencies. Though they couldn't be sure they were jamming it. It didn't have any outgoing transmissions, that they could see.

"Main computer reports target drones ready."

"Initiate test one."

"Moving to engage."

"Sir, drones have reported unknown contacts."

"Relay to Asgard, and continue with the first maneuver."

The drones disgorged by the 600+ meter vessel broke formation, and began swarming towards their deployer. Intended to simulate fighter attack, the first test would reveal the effectiveness of the point defense weaponry. While it wouldn't be prudent to damage the ship overtly, the plasma fire was irritatingly live. Within a minute, the majority of the target drones had been destroyed, the remainders crippled outright.

"Force neutralized. Simulation report sent to Asgard..."

"Preliminary analysis shows 87.5% destroy rate against light fighter craft. Fire control experienced some problems with the forward turrets. Overall 100% neutralization rate achieved."

"Asgard reports no records of vessels scheduled for approach from the vector we reported, sir. They've ordered us to intercept. Support units are standing by."

"Well, this will be an interesting shakedown."

The Alari (http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/ships/bcruiser1.jpg) maneuvered away from the small field of asteroids that had been towed to the location for the shakedowns, and turned to head towards the vessels approaching Martian space. Under normal conditions, the ship would have had fighters aboard, but as they had been replaced with the drones for the first test, the hangars were effectively empty. If there was trouble, the weapons would have to prove sufficient.

"Alright, standard procedure... Defensive posturing."

"Aye sir, deflector shields online, fire control at standby."

OOC: Been out of town. Sorry.

IC: "Fleetlord!" A tech screeched, getting many eye turrets turned his way. "Our kilercraft are destroyed!"

Krintor spun on the male. "How?!" he demandedd, beforerealizing the stupidity of the queston. "Send five wedges and two scouts! Destroy whatever did that!"

The seventeen ships sped away from the relative safety of the fleet, back towards the belt, firing a few railgun shots into the belt as they did so. To them, it was a show of power. To the targets, it was a really stupid warning that those destroyed fighters had friends.

------

Rarn looked at the Tosevite manuevers. "Training. Interesting. Relay this information to the shiplords with us. Take us to our original course to Tosev IV."

As he watched, the dots representing the Race began to reform into approach formations, many towards the training ship. Then he saw it turn to oppose them.

Looking at the gunners, he let his jaw drop in amusement. "Fire."

"Farsight shows spikes in energy output.."

"Detecting objects approaching... Railguns, I think."

"Return fire, and log for performance data."

The Alari lined up her assault weapon on the nearest hostile vessel, and spat a large bolt of violet plasma towards it.

"Recording shield impacts... Deflectors currently holding."

"Present our port quarter to them. Fusillade protocols, please."

The ship did as her captain ordered, presenting her port side to the advancing hostiles. The multitude of turrets bristling along the curved forward prongs of the vessel turned towards the hostiles, most of the turrets firing. They emitted a veritable cloud of smaller green bolts, themselves far more standard within the Kajali navy than the spinal mount cannons. As the Alari put plasma fire between herself and the hostile vessels approaching her, the crew began to worry.

"Respectfully, sir, we are outnumbered here."

"Shields buckling, sir."

"I had noticed. Bring us about, maintaining fire, and prep for a shortjump."

And thusly, the Alari turned towards Mars.

>>Message Type: General Broadcast
>>Destination: Mars

"This is the Four Worlds vessel Alari no Farhirra, requesting assistance. We have come under attack by an unknown force en route to Mars. Repeat, this is the Four Worlds vessel Alari no Farhirra..."

The Voltaug's Construct noted and recorded the running battle that was occurring to the FCG's rear, displaying it on the main screen of the bridge, where it was watched intently by the Varangian Algiers.

She nodded as all the alien ships intercepted each other and some were destroyed and others victorious. She was amused by the 'fighter' craft, and watched them closely, small individual combat ships were not in the realm of Navigator thought or experience, only over powering large weapons , like the Voltaug. Even a Cruiser like the Dyan was hotly debated as 'too small to be useful' before the Guild of Engineers actually built it.

Algiers stood, hissing chlorine gas again, the Thilite marines had donned their helmets after the last couple of deaths.

"Voltaug, Turn and show the aliens our guns, put the MOBAT drones into a defensive arc and set the Dyan-XD cruisers in attack formation. Alert the Huskarls and have them readied, charge the main Razer Cannons."

The Construct bobbed "Of course your excellency. Shall I also alert Warlord Abatos of our situation?"

Algiers sat "Nah, I don't think it's all too terribly important."

*****

The Fleet Control Group quickly moved into action. The Voltaug slowly rotated, pointing it's 2200 foot Razer canons in the direction of the ongoing hostilities. The five MOBAT drones likewise turned, giving the arena a look at their broadside of torpedo batteries.

The ten Dyan-XD Cruisers scattered in all directions, their spectral masking shields activated and they melted from sight, their disruptor fields also activated and they disappeared from sensors.

The Fleet Control Group then sat, in it's 'defensive formation and silently watched the unfolding scene

Ominously, the Commonwealth Fleet Control Group made no attempt to contact any of the combatants or reply to the Four World's ships call for assistance.

*****

Deep in the Voltaug, a door opened and the ten Navigator Huskarls emerged from quarters, armoured from head to toe in viridium steel armour and cloaks with faceless eyeless helmets, they thrummed to each other as they adjusted their rifles and activated their 'Devices' to stream data from the Voltaug's sensors and identified likely targets for boarding actions, if so commanded.

As Wei neared the edge of the asteroid feild she stopped her drones and postioned them for an ambush. She then picked up some approaching signals and instinctively knew that they were the same type of fighters she had destroyed earlier. 'Knew it, there is a carrier craft out there some where.' Wei thought to herself.

As Wei postioned her own drone into the cavity of a large asteroid she began to scan her data base for possible stratagems, with only one 'exceptable' stratagem surfacing. She was going to repeat the ambush of the Truy'la asteroid rings. A risky move with the numbers she had, but one that offered instant victory over a superior foe.

She then laughed to herself, 'Superior only in number.' She moved her drone deeper into the chasm using it's eight small clawed metallic tendrils.

OOC: Well, the TYCS alone has a few thousand ships in Sol, I believe....

Near the Race, Inner-system force

"Ooh, so you've finally decided to move," Sin chuckled. This was getting more interesting. Those ships definitely didn't match anything in her extensive database, and she was quite sure that even without high-resolution scans the output was correct. Probably a new civilization from the outsystem, she had decided already, and it didn't seem all that friendly. Else, why would they have waited for so long before making a move, and why did they choose the middle of Sol to observe from instead of the outer system. The Kuiper and Oort were definitely better and saner places from which to make observations. Sin dropped the line of thought; she had gone through it already. The asteroid belt's asteroids were incredibly far apart, each body thousands of kilometers from its neighbour. Hiding a fleet in it was....silly, she thought.

A small antenna extended from between the narrow slit between her small craft's armored plate. A narrow beam locked onto the distant Instel beacon over Mars, sent out a high-compression burst of data. Somewhere in the First Distributed Kingdom, a logic stack belonging to the Self-Defense Force made a banking transaction in favor of Sin. It was payment for the intelligence, just as stated in the contract.

"Leaving the fleet behind," she muttered. "Kinda stupid, but then again maybe you've got something I haven't seen."

Sin sighed, again, scratching the back of her head. She could technically leave, but then she'd miss the fireworks, and the chance to be the first with the new intel. She locked the Garix's armored plate, becoming just another small mass on gravimetric scanners, hopefully so small it would be filtered out before even reaching a technician's console, and nudged her craft forward, out of the crater and slowly after the main body of the fleet, though not before leaving a tiny, low-powered beacon behind. It wouldn't do much more than gather data and hopefully survive to transmit it, and it was definitely less powerful than her own passive scanners, but Sin didn't want to miss anything interesting. Keeping an eye on her EMF, she fed a bit more power to her induction coils, making sure to stay far away from any of these strange craft, which were....

"Damn, that was an Agstian," she checked back to what the computer had said about the now-destroyed craft. "Definitely not friendly, aren't we?" Sin chuckled, flicking off additional systems she may have forgotten. You didn't fire at Angstian ships, unless you had a death wish or an interest in pissing off neutral parties.

****
Fleet Staging Area
Weyr Self Defence Force (Ares)
Mars Space

A fleet of the FDK operated as a self-contained unit. With normal cruise velocities placing theater groups days or even weeks apart from one another, the FDK made sure its small forces could handle most things. Most things did not include an oversized fleet. Most things did include giving help to anyone who asked. A series of back and forth relays along the new instel data route between Terra and Mars resulted in all twelve of the Self-Defense Force, Ares theater's fleet pushing their fusactors to full power. Because it took time to spin up fusactors from standby to combat mode, the only ships bound for the Kajali craft were a pair of cruisers just back from trials, testing out a few modifications. Which meant that the oldest ship in the FDK's navy was the first to respond to the call for assistance.

Inertial buffers moaned underneath the steady thrumm of accelerating fusactor shafts, the two craft dumped all of their power into rear drives, accelerating towards their Kajali counterpart.

Bounce.open{
Gloomy Sunshine here, we've got your transmission and are on the way. Gonna be there in oh, $time, give or take. Got any data we can use to start shooting? Or should we just aim for your position and hope to hit something? Gonna take a while for the shot to fly that far, but never know. ^-^
}Bounce.close

>>Message Begins
>>Source: FWS Alari no Farhirra
>>Destination: FDK Gloomy Sunshine

"We're transmitting what we have now, but it may be incomplete. We're fairly sure we're faster than whoever they are, though.

Oh, and for reference, they seem to be using projectile weapons. Railguns, I think."

>>Message Ends

The Alari transmitted the gathered farsight data on the Race fleet, making full use of the standard FTL commsystems prevalent in the Kajali navy.

Meanwhile, the support ships standing by over Mars moved to intercept as well. Less exotic in appearance, the two Lirel type destroyers would offer missile support once they had arrived.

Krintor suddenly lost interest n the damage his fleet was doing to the Tosevites. He looked at what they were doing to his fleet.

He watched something unthinkable. Fire from ships that were otherwise ignoring them took a bite out of one of his starships. Another lost control of navigation and had to resort to station keeping to not run into another starship.

He watched the Eye Turret Display of the wedge leaders as they roared silently into the belt... and went out of contact in a haiof weapons fire. "Scout feed!" He hissed, getting it instantly. The scouts, being bigger and better armored, were still alive, but one was losing atmosphere fast and had broken off to flee to the fleet. The other two stopped dead in space and returned fire to the drones ad were just dead moments later.

He pressed a talon into a control and got a wide view of the system and felt like screaming or crying, or both. Of course, it would not do for a Fleetlord to do either. But still... his whole fleet was in dissaray. Some had stopped, others sped up, some turned and... two just collided. He brought up scans of them. Minor damage, but still...

So Krintor looked at the comm officer with one eye turret, then his second in command with his other. "Order... order the fleet to fall back to the orbit of Tosev Nine. We must reform." Those words left the two dumbfounded for a second, but both replied 'it shall be done' and proceeded to flood space with the strange hisses and gurgles that sounded like a leaky cauldron.

The orders caused more trouble, as... Krintor forgot to tell the Shiplords where in Pluto's orbit they were to go. So the fleet seemed to panic and scatter, but stay in place at the same time. It was as if the crews had never seen combat before... because none had.

Wei was even more supprised then the first ship she destroyed. She moved her drones out and surrounded them, switching from normal combat systems to melee. As she switched their combat systems over, eight metallic tendrils sprung to life and exited the drone's side turrets and ripped the enemy ships apart leaving their pilots to decomprese in the vacume of space.

After the masacure was through Wei switched her drones back over to normal combat systems and exited the asteroid feild only to see the enemy fleet in utter chaos.

Algiers returned to her seat as she watched the Race Fleet 'retreat' as they sustain casualties. The Voltaug's Construct bobbed down from the ceiling near Algier's head.

"The large alien fleet is pulling away and there is increased communications between the smaller alien groups , probably calling for reinforcements. This area will probably soon be filling with more and more ships."

Algiers nodded "Well, let's get back underway, we still have our rendezvous at Terra. Have the Dyan-XD Cruisers see if they can grab a disabled alien vessel or two , and maybe some live aliens."

The Construct bobbed and reeled itself back into it's control module, and the Voltaug and Mobat Drones began their journey to Earth.

*****

Meanwhile the Dyan-XD Cruisers regrouped and paused just long enough to 'grab' a disabled Race Fleet ship with a tow beam, to deposit aboard the Voltaug later.

OOC: Interesting. I do believe I have learned how to FAIL invading Sol in the most humorous way fashionable. Congratulations! Next time, I would suggest attacking ONE person at a time, or at least get a bunch more people to help out. Thank's again for the VERY entertaining (and well written) battle.

[ooc: it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings. And she's still in wardrobe.]

Rarn stumbled as his ship, the 127th Emperor Hetto, was latched onto by several ships. He stared at a screen for only a moment. "Propulsion unit status?"

"Half power port, quarter starboard, Shiplord." A male below him answered, then went back to trying to increase those numbers.

Rarn gave the screen a sour look. He didn't have enough to break free. But if he could get those beams to shut down for only a few seconds... Spinning, he nearly bounded to the comm. "Cargo bays! Deploy nuclear mines!"

Immediatly, doors across the surface of the large starship opened and started dumping nuclear devices into the beams, which(if Rarn's logic was correct) would be drawn rapidly towards the ensnaring ships. The only option to avoid damage would be to cut the beams off. To add to the attack, about fifty railguns also began firing on the Tosevite ships.

----

Most of the fleet had at least scattered enough to not be hunted by a mass of ships. That didn't make Krintor feel any better though... he would have to rethink attack strategies. Obviously the inner system was out of the question, which was a great blow. To be in the outer system meant being relegted to even colder worlds than Tosev Three, which was so appallingly cold that it had frozen water on it's mountains.

Add to that fact the fleet had suffered loses it couldn't repair and that the next fleet due to arrive carried mostly colonists. The Fleetlord scowled at the map of the system. "Contact Home. Give them a full report and make updates every ten days." He kne that the turnaround time for a message was months, even with powerful subspace. The Race had come a very long way to conquer the Big Uglies. Krintor began to wonder if it was too long way.

[ooc: it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings. And she's still in wardrobe.]
But of course. But invading Sol with anything but battle-hardened veterans is tantamount to suicide, IMHO. I was just saying that it seems that your first wave has been decimated. Still, lovely RPing going on. Keep up the good work.

Aumanii fleet command had been searching the asteroid belt for months, hunting pirates and other dealers of ill-repute such as smugglers, non-sanctioned slavers, enemies of the state, etc. When the first reports of attack came in High Command saw an opportunity to crush their enemies. When more reports came in that ships under MIDAS jurisdiction had come under attack, Fleet Command was ecstatic. Not only could they engage in live fire training in a combat environment, but look good doing it.

Two rapid reaction fleets, the 1st and the 16th were to join with Aumanii fleet units already on station in the most hard pressed sectors in the belt. Fleet units in the belt had tried their best to keep as low a profile as possible until reinforcements had arrived, but not all had that option. The 2/8th flotilla under Fleet Colonel Zemel'Kaine had been forced into retreat, hotly pursued by the Race, Zemel'Kaine had no choice but to turn and fight the enemy. Zemel'Kaine and his flotilla were never to be seen again, the only memory of their final battle with the enemy was a brief action report sent to High Command.

'The enemy is numerous. We've done our best to thin their numbers, but they just keep coming. We've lost several ships already, ammunition is running low. We dont know how many of the enemy we've destroyed thus far, we'll keep you posted. Colonel Zemel'Kaine, out.'

The final words of the beleagured commander rang ominously in the ears of High Command. Obviously the pirates had banded together, but for what purpose? Would they be bold enough to challenge the dominance of nations in open conflict?

OOC:

This is the lamest post Ive ever written...though being a Martian I feel I must put something in before this post gets cluttered and I lose track of what's going on.

Wei watched from the edge of the asteroid feild as the two alien fleets engaged one aother. She then watched as the out numbered fleet used suprise and strategem. When it was obvious that one would claim victory she set her drones to work scavanging the wrecked fighters and scaning the dead pilots. As the larger fleet fell back she saw they were enroute and that nothing they tried would reduce their causualties. Wei quickly became disinterested in the route as one of her drones sent her some images of the pilots species.

'They look almost Dracon.' Wei thought. And in fact they did, or one should say an ancient Dracon. They were completely covered in scales and even had tails, much like the Dracon of ancient Draco. The structure of their skull was also very simular to ancient Dracon, and no matter how she looked at them, they had became her enemy even though they could have been distant cousins.

Wei looked out of the asteroid feild and wondered which side was retreating.

[ooc: it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings. And she's still in wardrobe.]

Rarn stumbled as his ship, the 127th Emperor Hetto, was latched onto by several ships. He stared at a screen for only a moment. "Propulsion unit status?"

"Half power port, quarter starboard, Shiplord." A male below him answered, then went back to trying to increase those numbers.

Rarn gave the screen a sour look. He didn't have enough to break free. But if he could get those beams to shut down for only a few seconds... Spinning, he nearly bounded to the comm. "Cargo bays! Deploy nuclear mines!"

Immediatly, doors across the surface of the large starship opened and started dumping nuclear devices into the beams, which(if Rarn's logic was correct) would be drawn rapidly towards the ensnaring ships. The only option to avoid damage would be to cut the beams off. To add to the attack, about fifty railguns also began firing on the Tosevite ships.


Thilite Lord Antheus watched as his XD Cruisers locked onto the 127th Emperor Hetto and watched again as nuclear devices began tumbling from the cargo bays. The helmsman turned.

"Our tow beams are dragging up those fission devices."

Antheus nodded "Drop the tow beams and scatter. Neutralize the ship, then grab it again."

The Cruisers dropped their tow beams and began firing on every still active weapon, power plant and at the cargo bays. The ten Dyan-XD Cruisers pummeled the ship with their particle cannons as the point defence disruptors began picking off the mines, they continue until the ship showed nothing but emergency power and is unable to move or fight, unless reinforcements arrive to help the 127th Emperor Hetto, if this happens the XD Cruisers engage spectral and disrution masking and run, looking for a less fiesty ship, that is further away from the main fleet.

The Cruisers move around rapidly, never staying static for more than a few seconds , giving little time for the railguns to target them, the mines and guns buffet the Cruisers making their task harder.

*****

On the Voltaug Algiers watches on the main screen as the Cruisers attempt to subdue the injured alien vessel.

"Oh for the love of pete, what are they doing?"

The Voltuag's construct moves to manipulate it's sensors "The alien ship is fighting back, with fission mines and railguns. If it gets close enough to the cruisers it does pose a signifigant threat to them, but at range the Dyan-XD's shield and armoured hull can turn aside most of their weaponry. It's engines appear to be damaged, without full engines I doubt it can close in and severly damage the Cruisers."

Algiers nodded "Bring us about again and charge the Razers, if they don't knock it out by the time they're charged, target the power plant of the alien ship and hit it."

The Construct bobs "Of course your excellency."

*****

Of course Algiers and the Voltaug don't see 'signifigant threat' but the XD's see it differently. The Cruisers continue to swarm and harass the Race Fleet ship, taking hits, damage and casualties, but of course the Dyan-XD Cruisers are crewed by Thilites, and their losses aren't signifigant to The Autarch.

The Sirens of Titan Containment Commission©

{open communication frequency - direct ether uplink}
{message to: The Race Fleet}
{message from: SoT CC}

::We welcome the new nation to the wide stretched and seemingly infinite void of space. You are here with choices, and to start off blunt, you will learn things the easy war or the hard way in the future. But we are not here to talk about whatever wars you may or may not fight. You are here to announce your existence and we appreciate the looks of new promising nations to the space scene. We have abandoned Earth many ages ago, and we have found a new home, made new friends and families. A word of caution, never ever thread where a Siren outpost is located, it will only bring you and your crew misfortune and most possibly, death.

The Sirens of Titan Containment Commission is here for you. We fight fire with fire, aliens with an even worse breed of aliens we control. No alien race has ever dared to touch our trade fleets or war fleets because they know our revenge seals a rather permanent and unpleasant faith for them. Now, the SoT CC isn't a mercenary gang. We clean up trouble made by aliens with pleasure. Feel free in space, live well and prosper!::

{Closed communication - direct ether uplink terminated}
{message sent to: The Race Fleet }
{message composed by: George Costinack, CEO of the SoT CC.}

[OOC: Yeah Auman... that was sorta lame. But hey, we're all entitled to be a bit lame every once in a while.]

Floating past the wrekage of a scout, killercraft pilot Hessoof cursed the Tosevite... things. He didn't understand how he had been bested, but he knew the enemy was still there.

He was the only one still living out of the attack wave, as his craft was still mostly intact. Oh yes, the drive was decimated and with it his weapons useless, but the enemy fire had avoided cracking his canopy or splitting the craft like an egg. He tentavily hit a control. A distress beacon started to whine through space. Hessoof knew it would probably not be picked up by the Race, but he'd rather live as a prisoner than die alone in space.

-------

The Hetto's weapon groups all fell silent, ridding that threat to the cruisers. The cargo bays were equally rendered useless for weapon deployment. Unfortunatly, the good luck of the attackers ended there.

The deck bucked hard under Rarn as it absorbed fire. "Status!" He screeched, trying to stagger to his feet. He didn't get an answer, as the bulkhead behind him buckled inward from an explosion deep in the core of the ship. The shiplord fell, sliced in two. His ship was in the same shape, fusion plants overloading as the thrust systems were destroyed.

It did not explode though, as many ships in the same strife would have. It merely became a decmpressed and irradiated death trap in space, not to mention a coffin for the thousand or so males aboard.

-----

Krintor was on the verge of throwing up at the losses he was suffering as his fleet abandoned the attack. But a screech fom the comm male made him put that on hold. "Report."

"We are recieving transmissions. The computer has identified it as being directed at us!" the male answered, so shocked he forgot to acknowledge the Fleetlord's rank. Krintor noticed, but overloked it as the transmission was more important.

They ran it through the computer's basic lingusitic databank, compiled from intercepted transmssions going every which way through the Tosev System, then sent the poorly worded and structured result to the Fleetlord. He quickly worded a response and fed it through, hoping the result was more understandable.

From: Fleetlord Krintor
To: Tosev V Moon Dwellers

We are The Race. Tosev system is to be fought and absorbed. Your fleet will submit with time. It is inevitable that the Race prevails, no matter the not normal leap of technology.

If you are wishing surrender, we are accepting it. The Empire welcomes new members with open talons and may provide trade with your moon.

Prospering is our way, there is no question.

"Sir, message from TacCom."
"Put it through."
"Attention Bakemono class corvette Terio. One of our fighter patrols has picked up a distress beacon in the Sol system. We want you to find the ship before any of the locals do. Whoever is attacking may pay to see one of their fallen isn't really dead."
"Understood, sir. Moving out." TacCom cut out the transmission. "I swear, it's the only reason we're ever out this far is to pick up the latest scrap to fly out of Sol's ass..."
The Bakemono leapt into hyperboost, coming out moments later. Amidst the wreckage, it was easy to find the vessel that was still intact.
"Hail them, let them know we're bringing them aboard. Have an escort team ready, in case the pilot is hostile."

Wei received the distress beacon first being within the immediate area, but instead of answering it, she knew that some one would come looking for it, some one who could tell them where they were. So she then set up an ambush as before but this time arround the disabled ship to capture any unwary answering the beacon.

Wei didn't have to wait long, she sensed their approach and when they appeared on the sensors, she saw they weren't a milltary ship in the least.

They advanced into the feild without scanning first, a mistake that would have normally ended deadly for the pilot and crew. When they were in range Wei sprung the trap and surrounded the ship with her drones, she then quickly postioned her drone infront of the canopy between the two ships. Her insect like drone an imposing figure with it's weapons locked onto the pilot of the retreival craft.

So when they fell into the trap instead of firing on them she gave them an alternitave. "Surrender, you are out numbered, out gunned, and surrounded, so surrender and you will be treated honorably."

The Hetto's weapon groups all fell silent, ridding that threat to the cruisers. The cargo bays were equally rendered useless for weapon deployment. Unfortunatly, the good luck of the attackers ended there.

The deck bucked hard under Rarn as it absorbed fire. "Status!" He screeched, trying to stagger to his feet. He didn't get an answer, as the bulkhead behind him buckled inward from an explosion deep in the core of the ship. The shiplord fell, sliced in two. His ship was in the same shape, fusion plants overloading as the thrust systems were destroyed.

It did not explode though, as many ships in the same strife would have. It merely became a decmpressed and irradiated death trap in space, not to mention a coffin for the thousand or so males aboard.



Lord Antheus blinked as the ship fell silent, he stood and observed the screen "Status report."

One of the Thilite Officers turned "Both E-009 and E-003 have sustained major damage and have loss of compression on several decks and damage to the ATMOS power plants. They will have to be towed and will require repairs. The alien ship appears to have suffered a core breach, there are currently only fading life signs. The ship looks dead my lord."

Antheus nodded and opened an encrypted link to the Voltaug "Varangian Algiers, the alien ship has been disabled. It has suffered a catstrophic core breech. We can now safely take posssession of it. We have taken acceptable casualties."

The XD -Cruisers beagn towing the disabled alien ship and their own two injured ships, making best speed to catch up with the Voltaug and it's drones.

*****

Onboard the Voltaug Algiers listened to Antheus' report and responded "Very good work capatin, I'm sure The Autarch will be pleased." and closed the line and turned toward the Voltaug's Construct.

"What do your sensors say?"

It bobs and replies "The alien ship is filling with radiation, nothing will be alive on it, but aside from the fusion core and structural damage it is intact enough for an Engineers study. The atmosphere on board will kill any Thilites, but Constructs and Engineers should have no problems. The radiation will also prevent the alien corpses from rotting and they will soon be deep frozen as well. There should be at least some intact specimens."

Algiers nodded "Well, that's good I guess. Make for Terra again, we can pick up Engineer Urso and his Construct and they can have first crack at the alien vessel."

She signed and relaxed "Still, I was hoping to catch a live alien."

With that FCG-E was underway, again.

The commander blinked a moment, did some mental math, then turned on his communicator. "We received a distress signal and came to answer. What you are doing is an unprovoked act of war against the Confederacy of Muktar. If we do not report back the status of the distressed vessel in the next four minutes, as per standard proceedure, a Titunac cruiser will be dispatched to investigate our disappearance. Even if we did surrender, you would inevitably become the hostage. I suggest you make yourself scarce to avoid any unneccesary violence between our nations."
Flipping off the communicator, he turned toward his weapons officers. "Turrets, be ready to adjust and fire if things get ugly. Rockets, get targets, trivolley. Shields to full. Be ready for evasive action into through the belt."

Wei responded immediately to their threat, she ordered her drones to destroy their turrets and other offensive systems. When the Muktar ship's weapons were all neutralized, Wei sent them another message, "The Draconis Federation does not respond to threats in a positive light, you will retreat or you will be neutralized. The damaged vessel is property of the Draconis Federation, and any attempt to remove it will be classified as an act of war against the Dominion. Now I suggest that you make yourself scarce before I make you scarce."

After making her statement Wei took the fighter in one of her drone's appendeges and delivered it through the asteroid feild back to the Qei'ta'las, were it's pilot would be questioned. The drones held back to make sure that the Muktar ship didn't follow and retreated from the area as Wei had told them to.

OOC: Yeah, like I'm just going to sit back while you fire at my shields, then let you waste my weapons? Try to be realistic. Let's turn back the clock to when the drones begin firing, shall we?

IC:
"Sir, the drones are attacking!"
"Waste 'em!"
Three missiles flew out of the tubes, each going toward a seperate drone. The turrets shifted and began unloading Depura shells at the drones on the flanks, their angle automatically adjusting as the Bakemono pulled toward the fighter pod.
"TacCom, this is Bakemono Terio, there was a hostile with drones waiting by the beacon to ambush us! Send reinforcements! Ensign, unload the Outriders!"

On the rear of the Bakemono, a quartet of squat looking fighters with missile pods flew out of the bay with autoguns blazing.

OOC DF you are like the singularity of damage calling. And my Bounty still stands on your noggin.

Asteorid Belt

It was another mining vessel, at the other end of the asteorid belt.

The Man in Thights.

Yes, it was an odd name. Yes, it was completely uninvolved, being a couple hundred million kilometers away, with the sun between it and the space where the conflict was fought.

Still, unlike certain idiots who would never manage to actually acquire a licence to command a spaceship, the Man in Thights actually knew that the asteorid belt was not a tightly packed ring of asteorids the way certain video games would suggest it, but, indeed, almost empty space, with the asteorids being extremely rare, with distances of thousands, even millions of kilometres between them.

Of course, everyone even remotely educated knew this.

Needless to say, a civilisation collectively incapable of grasping this basic fact would be utterly incapable of building working spaceships, with the possible exception of cardboard boxes.

Such a civilisation would, if encountering a serious opponent, be slaughtered.

Such a civilisation would have problems creating primitive bows and arrows, and not have the slightest chance of climbing up the evolutionary ladder.

Such a civilisation would never manage to create or use spacedy squid drones, especially not drones that would manage to get past things like point defence.

Last but not least, such a civilisation would be so utterly ludicrous that it would just be laughed at.

Of course, it was far, far away, and as such, such knowledge didn't matter. After all, it barely knew what was going on...

OOC: In my defense to arguments other posters have not adressed, my IC statement never specified "firing," it said "attacking." This could easily include tendrils with rending capability moving toward one's weapon systems. You never made any attempt to take him until I began my operation to pick him up. Finally, the human ships in the Matrix only get torn up when they don't fire back.

IC:
"Status!"
"We lost our left turret, and our missile tubes are badly damaged! I'm shutting down the pipes that would risk premature impact."
"Do we have any reinforcements?"
"The Hugust will be arriving any second, now. It's a Titunac."
"Have the fighters cover us. Open the upper bay. Pilot, we're going to try to scoop it out. Have crews ready to fire down any tendrils."
"Yessir."

As the ships began moving according to their orders, the Titunac hyperboosted in nearby, but distant enough to (hopefully) avoid notice. It began moving toward the fight, with it's frontal crag design giving it at least a degree of camoflauge to get the jump on the drones.
"All forward batteries, fire at will. Try to avoid destroying the ship they were trying to rescue."

(That has nothing to do with it, and besides Wei figured that if the pilot was worth something to, he would be worth returning to the ship, also you had already posted when I signed in so don't pull that shit on me, obviously you've never seen the Animatrix short- Flight of the Osiris. And shut it DA no one wants your smart allic remarks. But still It would be risky to move a ship larger then a fighter through there, given it takes a while to turn a large ship.)

The drones may not have been as intelligent without Wei commanding them but they still noticed the approach of the Titunac class ship. Instead of trying to fight they moved behind the other ship and scattered. They each wond their way through the asteroid feild making sure to mask their signals, they each began activating their optical camoflauge and dissapeared one by one.

Once they were all camoflauged they returned to the Qei'ta'las.
_

When Wei appeared on Jun's sensors she was suprised to she her towing an alien ship. "What did you do this time Wei!"

"Oh, uh, got into another fight and meet some very rude aliens who wanted this pilot."

"Did you say pilot? Don't tell me you brought ... oh never mind, I'll have some marines down there to make sure it doesn't try anything. What did you do with your drones?"

"I told them to hang back for a little while and make sure the other ship didn't try anything. They'll be here soon enough, oh and I ran into the mobile armors on my way back."

"Did you tell them to return to the ship?"

"Ofcourse I did, see there they are."

Jun extended up her scanning range and picked them up on her sensors. "OK, Wei land and let the marines take care of our freind, maybe we can learn where we are from him ... hopefully."

DF: You do know that the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is not nearly as dense as what you see on TV,yes? The average distance between asteroids in the belt is measured in thousands of kilometers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt) We are not talking about the Hoth asteroid field or something. And no, it doesn't matter what sort of ass-space tech you ripped off. NOTHING gives you the right to call damage on someone else. NOTHING.

Anyway, I really doubt anything could just waltz up to my ship, getting through its electromagnetic field without some serious problems and automatic defense turrets whose response if you really want to start wanking numbers would be measured in tenths if not hundredths of a second, and rip off a meter or two of high-density armor plate and then get through at the ship's shell. Besides, Matrix sentinels are designed for work in the atmosphere, not in null atmosphere. And just for the record anyone using gundanium will be autmatically ignored, because indestructible wank metal is just silly. Granted, I'm not Muktar, so.....it's up to him.

And please do calm down, DF, because it is a known fact that asteroid belts are quite empty and that the combined mass of the asteroid belt in question is 1/1000 the mass of the Earth. And considering the sorts of shields and armor you would need to withstand high-powered railguns and such, a few asteroid impacts would not be much of a problem, especially when said asteroids would be quite nice targets for point-defense systems.


Unnecessary Cleavage was a cruiser in the Weyr Self-Defense Force, which meant that it performed the functions normally assigned to main battle line ships. But since the line, or wall, depending on strategy, of battle did not exist as far as anyone in the WDF was concerned, the two cruisers were for all practical purposes just overpowered craft about the size of anyone else's frigates.

"Right, and away we go!" Gloomy Sunshine was definitely in one of those moods, Unnecessary Cleavage decided. To be more exact, the person controlling that ship's systems decided. The engineering and marine detachments were unimportant as far as the combat capabilities of that vessel were concerned. "Listen, you go left, I go right, we dump twelve salvos and deccel around for more. Deal?" Gloomy Sunshine chuckled, putting more power into drives, her inertial field stretching into a teardrop.

The actual communication was more detailed than could be put into words, despite being just as concise. It flashed from hull to hull, until they went into evasive maneuvers, bleeding energy away from main drives and slowing down their acceleration run which, after two odd hours, was putting them at quite a nice relativistic velocity. It meant that they would have trouble getting good target locks, even with speed-of-thought and fully computerized controls, but when one had two ships with six forward-facing turrets of three guns each, one could sacrifice some accuracy in return for greater damage and more safety.

Bounce.open(Fleet){

Er, any reason for your little suicidal bout? Or should we not ask and just blow you to hell in....say thirty minutes? Assuming you believe in hell, of course. Maybe we'll blow you into heaven, or better yet just some interstellar gas. Gas sounds good. Then we can collect the salvage fees. So what do you say, a few high-density shells up the ass sound good?

}Bounce.close

Streaking through space, their drive ports flaring a brilliant blue, the two cruisers, each the size of their surface counterparts, turned their forward cannon at the enemy fleet, going by Kajali data as well as their own passives.

"Ready scanner flare," Unnecessary Cleavage grinned over the data net. It was good to have weapons that suposedly outranged anything in known space. And when one was going at relativistic speeds, one could just as well throw things at a target and have it cause an inordinate amount of damage. Having adjusted their vectors slightly in case someone on the other side was bright enough to try and target them based on their transmission coordinates, the cruisers routed power back to forward scanners, and began dumping naval-caliber kinetics in the direction of the enemy which meand, in essense, firing more or less forward. It meant even less power for forward acceleration but, with almost no energy being expended on accelerating the shells themselves that power was put to better use in the scanner and shield departments. Scanners flickered, and a good opponent could possibly time their sequence to score a hit in that moment when a field was down, but that required the ship captain to be predictable and Weyrean captains were anything but.

The Gloomy Sunshine and Unnecessary Cleavage raced towards the Race Fleet, induction drives throwing them from side to side to hopefuly confuse enemy gunners, accelerating or deccelerating slightly, lobbing 32-shell salvos at the targets before them every ten or so seconds. Some of those salvos were not really kinetic, being made of shrapnel shells that would, hopefully, clutter up enemy scanners when they exploded. It also made the Weyrean scanners less useful, but with the power levels involved, and with the size of the target, it was not really much of a problem as far as the two ship captains were concerned.

The Pristine Wilderness moved through space, way out, in the Kuiper Belt. She was large, very large. She had to be, being one of the (New and few) Factory Craft used by the colonies in order to gain a little bit more independence from DA Earth' manufacturing capacities.

Despite her excessive size, she turned considerably quickly, once she encountered a suitably-looking asteorid.

It was a funny thing, in space. Moving, turning, all this things where earth standards would suggest that bigger ships would suffer problems smaller vessels wouldn't have, didn't pose a problem, for things like friction or masses of water requiring to be moved out of the way...

They didn't exist.

Apply a force proportional to the mass of the ship (Say, one Newton per ton), and it doesn't matter just how big or heavy the ship is.

It turns, moves just as fast as a smaller vessel would when using a force of equal proportionality (The one Newton per ton).

It were things like this certain people didn't understand.

The Pristine Wilderness chuckled. She was listening to a few lost EM radiation sources, apparently from the inner belt.

She was sort of, well, listening in to the conflict taking place there.

And hell, she enjoyed it, always having been some kind of military junkie. Aliens invading sol? Suicide, sure, but still thrilling.

And of course, out there, it was a real war, which made it all the more exciting for her. She had been a member in a few Roleplaying communities, but jackasses with less understanding of consensual roleplay than her ex-boyfriend had of cunnilingus had ruined it for her. Really... Calling damages, magically appearing/ disappearing/ succeeding... As if one is the greatest power in the universe, wearing the greatest strapon of them all (And making oneself look like a useless wanker)... Not Especially enjoyable to watch them in their bukkake parties.

Luckily, this was reality, not some roleplaying community filled with adolescent megalomaniacs.

As such, she would simply enjoy it.

The Terio pivoted quickly to get a full firing arc on the drones as they retreated, sending heat seekers and depleted uranium shells at their mechanical asses.
"Focus fire on the one with the pod, we aren't going through all this without getting what we came for!"

The Hugust, however, had more personal plans in mind.
"Focus all fire on the controlling vessel to prevent further orders from getting to the drones. This grunt has been nuisance to fellow Muktari and will be dealt with accordingly."
The Titunac class cruiser surged forward, firing missile and blast cannon batteries at Wei's ship directly.

The Outriders deployed by the Terio began firing their missiles as they persued the fleeing drones.
"Be careful not to get too close. They may double back to attack. Lock missiles and give 'em hell."
"Yes, sir!"
Bursts of light and screaming* missiles confirmed the fighters were following their commander's orders.

*they would be if there were any fluids surrounding them to carry the sound

OOC: DF, you are being attacked with a lot of stuff and there aren't any rocks to hide behind to make all the explosions go away. Granted, there's debris, but that won't be a fix-all solution. The Terio took damage from your initial attack, and you never made an attempt at anything else. Hate to burst your bubble, but you aren't invincible.

OOC: THIS is why I don't RP space very much. So, let me go down the list.

Der Angst: please keep such condsension out of my thread. Do it again and I won't be pleased.

Draconis and Muktar: I am pretty irritated at both of you. You should only have posted one detailed post each until I replied. I can forgive that, though. I cannot, however, forgive your clogging of my thread.

IC:

Hessoof was killed in the battle over salvage rights, which he didn't understand. All he wanted to do was get rescued and he ends up catching a blindside shot from the Muktar ship. The pilot never knew what hit him as his ship was torn apart.

[OOC: Draconis, you are now invited to leave this thread and not return. I was irritated at your damage calling, but didn't want to start a whole blow up. Seeing as it happened anyway, take your GMing and kindly go elsewhere.]

----

The loss of the Hetto was a blow. It had served as a bannership in the last conquest and the most senior of crews, surpassing even Krintor's ship. As he watched the dead ship be hauled away by the Tosevites, he sighed and turned to Sarna, the shiplord in command of his Bannership, "Any response to our message?"

Sarna looked away from the image of the 127th as well. "No sir. Though that may be their normal proceedures. We were rather blunt."

"If we don't get allies in this system, we'll be dead or forced out in the next battle or two." Kritor murmered, walking to his office, Sarna in tow.

"That would look bad in the records. Not how we wish to be remembered." Of course, that meant 'not how you wish to be remembered', Krintor knew. A Fleetlord allways took the glory or the disgrace in a conquest. So far, it had been allmost unsmudged glory and he did not want to be the first to have unsmdged disgrace. "Send out a general visual communication. The database is hopefully good enough to allow legible translation."

The visual part of teh message had un-altered audio, allowing the Tosevites to see and hear the Fleetlord as he naturally was. The message that followed was a text translation.

From: Fleetlord Krintor of the Race
To: Leaders of the governments and militaries of the not-empires of Tosev.

We have orders to conquor this planetary system at any cost. That cost has grown too high allready. We request aid in this and the promise that all who aid us will be held in high regard in the new, united government of Tosev. If you oppose us, you will recieve the full wrath of the Race under the talon of the united government.

OOC: Apologies for letting things get out of hand. Lack of self-restraint and a hatred of GMing overpowered my better judgement. I'll make this my final post, I hate leaving without a proper goodbye.

IC:
"Sir, the package has been destroyed by secondary fire."
"All forces, launch one last salvo, then pull back to the Muktari System. Word has it we're going to need to mobilize for the Tyr System shortly to fight some Chaos-Borg alliance."
"Understood. Moving out."
Leaving a pulse of heat-seeking hell in their wake, the Muktari ships kick into hyperboost and leave the system.

(What ever this is why I hate war threads, no one sets any rules then everybody gets pissed when I do something they don't like, oh well hope I don't see any of you again.)

When the Drones and Mobile Armors were saftly aboard the Captain called for an immediate translocation out of the area and claimed that the area was to vilotile for further exploration.

From: Fleetlord Krintor of the Race
To: Leaders of the governments and militaries of the not-empires of Tosev.

We have orders to conquor this planetary system at any cost. That cost has grown too high allready. We request aid in this and the promise that all who aid us will be held in high regard in the new, united government of Tosev. If you oppose us, you will recieve the full wrath of the Race under the talon of the united government.

The Voltaug received the transmission just as the Dyan-XD Cruisers caught up with the Voltaug and passed off the Hetto to the Voltaug, the Voltaug was easily able to tow the ship without breaking speed. The FCG was now rearrayed and was preparing to head past that traffic jam commonly called Mars.

The Voltaug Construct coiled around the main viewing screen as it played the message from The Race Fleet Lord. The Varangian Algiers leaned forward as she watched it.

"Huh, what is it saying, Voltaug?"

The Construct translated the message and Algiers leaned back "What in the hell is a Tosev?"

The Construct shrugged "I believe that this is their name for the Sol System."

Algiers nodded "Slap up a direct link to the Fleet Lord and transmit the following." she paused and spoke directly into the Construct's large eye.

"Fleetlord Krintor of the Race, I am Algiers of The Autarch's own Varangian Guard. Your reasons for entering this system are yours. I have been ordered by The Autarch, master of all he surveys, to retrieve Urso of the Engineer's Guild from the planet of Terra in this system. Hindrances in completeing my mission will be eliminated. You may do as you please once I have completed my mission.

If you do not hinder us, The Autarch may look favourably upon you."

The Voltaug's Construct also added a Race translation as best he could. FCG-E then continued on towards Terra, with no sign of relinquishing their prize.

Algiers smiled "Urso is going to sh*t when he sees this ship, those Engineers get all creamy to be the first to see alien technology."

"Uh... did they restate that all who oppose them will be destroyed?"

"Sounds like it... By the way, what exactly happened with our shields, anyways?"

"It's a flaw in the generator design. I'm recommending it be replaced when we return to port. I've optimized them against projectiles for now. They shouldn't buckle so easily."

The two Lirel type destroyers, Sjola Keral and Cala i Delsa had flashed into existence in flanking positions along the Alari no Farhirra, having utilized their subspace transit drives.

"Alright then. Let's bloody their noses a bit... more..."

It was, of course, shortly after the Hetto ceased to do anything other than float about and emit dangerous levels of radiation.

The Alari and her escorts targetted the nearest Race vessel, and unloaded their weapons at it. The Alari spat forth the requisite cloud of green plasma bolts, while the two destroyers lined up their broadside torpedos, releasing a multitude of needle-like missiles.

Reiorienting to bring their guns to bear, they joined the Alari in filling the space in front of them with bolts of plasma.

OOC:
Summary of whats happening: two FDK cruisers, each about 260 meters long, are heading straight for the fleet heading towards Mars (assuming that fleet still exists) and chucking kinetics at them. And....just throw lots of railgun shot at them and that'll overload the deflctors and for all practical purposes negate them, since each piece of metal flying at those ships will get less and less force excerted on it by the field. I'm not expecting to do any real damage, although each impact by a shell would probably be in the megatons considering the velocities. So....prolly two/three posts and those cruisers will be out of the action.

"Oooo...." Sin registered the Kajali flare on her severely dampened passives. Whistling in admiration, she prodded her induction coils to send her around the fleet and back towards the asteroid belt, and probably towards Jupiter after, depending on what she could dig up. "Now if you bastards don't notice me," she kept up a constant stream of chatter. "I can get on with life."

This was already turning academic. The Aumani were involved, to say nothing of the Kajali, and that meant it was only a matter of time before that entire fleet was going to be turned into so much slag. Unless the Defense Force was insane enough to use one if its precious tacticals, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Arrogant, too," she chuckled. "Giant arrogant lizards. Someone probably made a movie or a book that has this exact plot line. Now if their flagship has a giant ray of doom inside.." Her EMF screen spiked for a second, fuel injectors sending a gram of too-pure material into the fusactor at the heard of her ship.

The egg-shaped little craft adjusted its course to sling around the Race Fleet and into the belt.

****

bounce.open(Alari no Farhirra){

We'll be coming in at roughly this corridor. If you could not shoot at it for a few minutes we'd be really grateful.

}bounce.close

OOC: As far as the Kajali ships go, the Alari no Farhirra is something of an experiment. She's got a ludicrous amount of turrets by Kajali standards, but the loadout basically goes from Light for all the turrets, to superheavy for the spinal mount cannon. The Lirels are more conventional Kajali design, which is to say they were designed primarily for long range missile barrages or orbital bombardment.

>>Message Source: Alari no Farhirra

"Ah, sorry. We'll be holding our fire until you're clear. Missiles are inbound towards the hostiles - please take care if they've not already passed you."

>>Message Ends.

And so the Kajali vessels stopped firing for the moment. The missiles, of course, having a somewhat lesser speed than the plasma bolts, continued on their merry ways.