NationStates Jolt Archive

There are, upon this world (more specifically, that world named "Earth", subject to so many alterations and seemingly insane conglomerations and fractures), a great many surprises. Entire realms cease to exist entirely or suddenly and abruptly appear, while further still occupy the same physical space and yet flights between the two are regularly chartered.

The rather fickle nature of this planet in particular lends itself well to hiding objects, or enclaves otherwise unknown, and, for some, the pacing had been entirely too slow for their liking.

On the upside, of course, it had given ample time with which to attempt to recapture lost glory.

Verion Alsance, Sorana Terioss, AD1987

Dievan yawned, leaning back in the high-backed chair attached to one of many stations within the Alsance Hall of Records. The room itself contained several such stations, arrayed within a central corridor along the length of a massive mahogany table that stretched towards either end of the corridor itself. There was no particular mastery of holography present, or even ubiquity of interactive panels. Each station itself consisted of a matched pair, an input device of practically archaic design, and a slim display that hung suspended on a deceptively thin arm. Such items were, themselves, commercially available from a number of sources, though given the relatively low population of the small archipelago, such things were not needed in grand numbers.

The far end of the corridor was occupied itself by a large, circular desk, currently unstaffed but normally occupied by the Attendant of the Hall, and branching off from the main corridor were alcoves hemmed in on either sides by the massive servers that contained all extant data concerning the Sorani, and their exploits upon this Earth.

There was a time, long ago, when they had come into contact with a group not unlike themselves - immeasurably advanced beyond the majority of civilizations the Sorani had bartered with, though frustratingly unable to render assistance in the matter decreed most important.

Remnants still remained from that day, buried within the sides of the small mountains, scattered across the seabed, and, in some places, intact in large sections, corroded and jutting unnaturally from faces of rock and soil.

There were a few who still remembered that catastrophic day, though Dievan was not among them. Those who had survived landfall had largely done so in the escape craft, watching in horror as their only means off this planet smashed itself against rock and died.

There had been 287 of them, the records said, and over a thousand years ago they had fashioned out of the remains and limited supplies that had survived a civilization that, however small, existed yet today.

The Attendant, an older woman, going grey but otherwise healthy, tapped Dievan on the shoulder, having returned to the hall without a whisper.

"Dievan, it's morning," she said. "You've been here all night?"

"I know... It's hard, sometimes, trying to make sense of all this..."

"The data from Serion? Lords, you know how little of that even survived landfall..."

"Well, yes... It's just, so few people remember how we got here in the first place... It has to be in here, somewhere."

"What, exactly?"

"Why. Why we're here."

"By the local calendar, it was the year nine hundred and forty seven, when the Serion fell out of the heavens..."

---

Klaxons blared, as red light filled the command cabin. Something was horribly wrong, though no one knew what. For all they knew, it could have been Mejari sabotage, but no one in the Sorani chain of command was even supposed to know about this mission... Whatever had happened had, however, damaged the Serion heavily, and the command cabin, like most others aboard the ship, was rather distressed.

"Damage report! What the hell was that?"

"Unknown, sir... I've got scrambled reports from all over the ship..."

The commanding officer, a relatively young man, swore at the reports that streamed in over the ship's datastream. "Verun, any idea where we are?"

Verun, one of the tactical officers, returned the captain's query as best he could, though it was obvious that he was somewhat rattled by this turn of events. "External sensors are badly damaged... I've got a few cameras showing starscape, but with serious interference..."

Serion continued to shake violently as she began to plow through the atmosphere. Few, if any of her crew had any real idea of what was happening, and those who did were quick to act on what little information was available to them. The ship had been thrown - though the means of which were specifically unknown - several hundred light years from home, and it had the great luck of being caught in a gravity well to boot.

The ship itself was quite large, for the era, measuring slightly over two hundred meters in length, though she grew smaller at the moment as frames collapsed and entire sections burnt away. She had been reassigned from line combat to this mission, in what was largely believed to be a last-ditch effort to attempt to force a stalemate in a war that had been ongoing for the last few decades without interruption. They had found artifacts before, of course, but the large device in the ship's hold - engraved itself with numerous patterns and text that was only most crudely translated, had been discovered only six months prior, and what little they could decipher told of objects of great power that, if obtained, may have indeed been able to sway the course of the war the Mejari had started.

There had been odd happenings aboard ships after they had hacked the device into Serion and her systems, and some of the crew had viewed them as portents, as the amount of power the device required caused lights to flicker or to fail to illuminate altogether, while computer systems behaved increasingly more erratic.

But, as the engravings on the device said, it was a key, and with it the might of the heavens may be unlocked and wielded.

No one ever considered that they had misinterpreted the writings on the device. They had, of all things, one or two fragments of pottery, and a cartouche from a burial site with other examples of this particular writing, each of which was subject to the same extreme uncertainty.

It could have been the key to heaven, but it seemed that the gods had punished Serion, before she could even attempt to steal fire from them.

And now she was falling into the sky of this alien world, with all the stars in the wrong places, dim and distant, as if they had forsaken this world entirely.

"All hands, this is the captain. We've failed. Abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship... and gods speed."

Escape pods detached with frightening ease, even as panels of armor covering them were stripped away from Serion by friction, and those more sheltered were discarded. Deep within the stricken ship, the ancient device remained, unchanged for ages except for the crude interfaces Serion's crew had fashioned for it.

"I've got a bead on a small island chain... Most of the escape pods are headed towards it..."

"Try to land us near it... We'll need whatever we can save..."

For many different peoples, there would doubtlessly be stories of a great fireball in the night sky, falling out of the heavens in the east, disappearing over the horizon to the west, and for those closer, a great explosion as it finally disappeared over the edge of the earth.

Escape pods would later wash ashore, and for those that had survived the descent, fragments of Serion that had been torn from her jutted from the canopy of the forests covering the islands, while along with the escape pods, fragments of her hull, and smaller devices also washed ashore.

The majority of Serion lay deep underwater, the ancient device still aboard.

Kajali Embassy, Verion Alsance, Earth. Present Day

On a normal day, the embassy was not particularly busy. It wasn't even very large. Located within a modest glass tower, the only other occupants of note were the staff of the local Menelmacari consulate. Today, though, it was bustling, communications devices saturated with requests and calls.

"What do you mean, you can't get through to homeworld? It must be a problem on your end. No, I haven't tried. We're not in regular contact with Homeworld here."

"No, I haven't been able to get through to Homeworld. Mars says they're monitoring a subspace disturbance. These things happen, it should clear up soon..."

"I already told you, we haven't been able to get through to Homeworld all day. There's too much subspace interference. No, I can't use YutLink for you unless you can prove that you are a member of either of the Combined Services or a member of the Kajali government."

"...What do you mean the Menelmacari can't contact Homeworld?"

"YutLink to Homeworld is also inoperative? They can't all be down. Try SYSNET again."

"...No, for the last time, we can't contact Homeworld on _any_ channel. Yut, Kajali, or anything else. Nothing works."

---

Council of Yut, Some time later...

"As some of you may have learned, as of 0732 hours local time, we have effectively lost all contact with Kajal. We have been unable to raise the central government or any elements of the Homeworld Defense Fleets. Furthermore, we have been unable to raise any elements of the Pleiades Border Fleets since 0735. Before we lost contact with the Border fleets, a single file was distributed to Combined Federal Services facilites in Sol."

The speaker brings up a small file. It's simple cartographic data, and looks normal enough. It's obviously a picture of the locations of the four Core Worlds of Kajal, though with one notable omission.

"As you can see, Kajal itself is missing. Based on the fact that not only is our home star not visible, but several other stars within Pleiades in the general vicinity are also missing, that some sort of artifical gravitic event has occured, creating a bubble approximately one light year wide, through which no signal - not even subspace communications - can escape. Subspace scanning confirms that this bubble appears to be centered upon the Homeworld, and also suggests severe gravitic disturbances that may affect the entirety of the Pleiades cluster."

"As you know, aside from fleet elements orbiting Mars, the majority of the Kajali fleet is stationed near the Homeworld. If elements not initially within the disturbance responded as dictated by Combined Federal Services protocol, we can assume that the majority of the Combined Federal Services has been trapped near or within it. The Federated Imperium has been rendered essentially defenseless."

"There have also been reports," the representative continued. "Of devices believed to be of ancient Kajali origin "turning on" throughout the extent of the Imperium. One of these devices has been recently located to Camp R, after Menelmacari forces discovered it on the ocean floor north of Menelmacar proper. We believe it to be some sort of interstellar drive, as it was found mounted within the wreckage of a primitive starship that has been confirmed to several hundred years before the founding of the Old Kajali Imperium."

OOC: Of course, anyone that does any regular trade with Kajal would know about this by now. Sorta difficult to miss that everything from that area has stopped entirely.

TYCS Camp Restricted

"Have you figured out what this thing is yet?"

Dr. Kavaan's team (and a few persons wearing purple and neon yellow jackets with MELTA emblazoned across the back) looked up from their work for a moment.

"We have a theory..."

"Oh?"

"The device itself has been nearly impervious to conventional scanning methods. That said, it did have a few, uh... cracks, and we were able to get some small cameras into it."

Small is an understatement, of course. The largest casing crack was a little over three hundred nanometers across, and they had injected the thing with a tube of basic nanomachines that circulated around inside for a bit before being recalled to the entry site.

"We were able to get a basic image of the interior structure, and from that we've presumed that it is some sort of faster than light drive. The mechanical design has similarities to numerous extant drives... But we haven't been able to determine exactly how it operates. When it first arrived it was emitting a generalized power signature, no good for actually figuring out anything, just that it was on. But when we hooked it up to a diagnostic terminal through this port over here..." The researcher taps a device bolted onto the outer shell, which is quite obviously much newer than the rest of it, though still primitive. "The power signature changed entirely. We were able to pinpoint a few specific power sources within the device, but the rest of the internals seem to have gone dormant."

"Oh, don't forget what happened when it changed."

"Right. At first it changed color a little, got shinier. Then there was this... song, I think, and that GFG over there..." of course, the scientist points at it. "...freaked out."

"...that was a gravity field generator?"

"...uh, it was, yes. We had it on to contain anything like, uhm... explosions."

"...and it turned into a crumpled ball... how?"

"Oh! Right, right. This device, it causes an effect that we're not sure how to define, and we think it must be generating a field of some sort. As near as we can tell this field is only detectable by the effects it has on gravity, whether it be natural or artificial. It seems to behave as antimatter does when combined with matter, though with a few more quirks."

"Quirks. Such as?"

"Well, in a natural environment it doesn't seem to do much at all. The laws of physics still operate like you'd expect, down is still down towards the local mass, etc, except by all conventional measurements and scanning devices, this room should be in zero G right now."

"...You mean..."

"Ah, yes. We think. We're pretty sure that this device is designed to operate using the antiforce of gravity. We'd call it an antigravity engine but people don't think of the right concept when they hear that."

"Wouldn't that mean that... annihilation events.... borders..."

"Oh, no, near as we can tell it compensates for that in some way. The further away from the source the less severe the effect becomes, and the two forces combine to maintain an otherwise normal effect in an area."

The senate chamber was one of three, this one outside the capital for reasons of continuity. Nonetheless, it was difficult to tell who were where, as the summons simply directed senators to head for the most convenient location. Many, as such, were simply appearing at the location via long range holography, and those who were physically present at the other two sites were visible too, both sets of holograms indistinguishable, unaided, from physically present people.

Charles Braimen frowned from the back row of the chamber, his own various insignia of office draped from the computer terminal before him. He glanced inward at the news feed in his mind; there was complete uproar. Not long ago, contact had been lost with Kajal; and now, scheduled Kajali ships had not arrived.

Sensor examination, it was said, currently suggested that the entire region had collapsed. Perhaps this would shed some light. He knew that billions were watching the events of the senate floor more avidly than ever, now. This was no secret information; though the erisavedran permitted such senate hearings, they were exceedingly rare, and a matter of such importance as this would require an extraordinary justification.

An expectant hush swelled in the chamber as a figure stood at the presentation podium; the Void Dragon himself, it was not particularly surprising, but it was surely graves. He was not part of the senate, but nominally its servant. And such a servant as always brought either bad news, or triumph.

“Come to order!” barked Princeps Dean, (there were several jokes about his name) the current presiding member of the body. It was an unnecessary formality, but a comforting one, “The representatives of the necrontyr people are assembled, herewith to act in their name and their name only.” As he made this benediction, the guards of the senate, skull-faced blood-blue armoured figures with crimson trim to the robes that hung from their armour, retired beyond the chamber’s ever-open doors, crackling cerulean-glowing warsycthes held horizontally before them. There was symbolism in that – the doors were never closed on the people, but just as surely, the guards, both ceremonially and practically, ensured that no one would be permitted onto the floor who would disrupt its business.

“Senators,” the Dragon said, speaking, of course, in necrontyr, the body’s official language, “I have to report that we have officially lost contact with the home-worlds of Kajal.” There was uproar, but only briefly, as everyone in the chamber let loose a torrent of inquiries, speculation and curses.

“We do not believe this to be a fractality phenomenon at present. Our long-range instrumentation detects a space-time-discontinuity surrounding the Kajali home system, superficially similar to the Enemy’s geomantic englobements in the War. Other systems are affected to lesser degrees, and even now, our smaller ships are embarked in stutter jumping around the area to map the range of the communications disturbance. We will be attempting to approach the affected systems themselves within the next few minutes.

“We summarize from this that the home system of Kajal is cut off, and may even now be under attack. Consequently, I request the Senate’s approval for a Pending Anathema of Hateful War upon any sapient agency found to be knowingly responsible for this act, should that transpire to be the case.

“Alternately, we may need the senate’s endorsement of a mobilization call, to provide transport, relief, or other aid, depending on the situation we find,” he was interrupted by Lord Senator Braimen leaping to his feet with a most undignified call of support.

“You have it!” he shouted, quite simply.

It was beyond even him to be dispassionate when he knew that his wife was presently on Kajal Prime, after all. In their name only was the benediction; but, well, she was one of the people, after all...

As one, discarding their normal civility, the delegation rose and cheered their approval, mentally authorizing and dispatching their votes, pounding on the wooden surfaces of the great chamber in anger and frustration. The anger and determination was quite simply unprecedented in modern history, reminding some there of the wars against the Old Ones. Across the nation, the call was taken up, and an authority beyond the senate, as was needed, proclaimed that same call to arms...

Kajali Border-regions, Far Edge of Pleiades from Sol

Something odd had happened here. This particular region of space was host to one of a small number of border stations, an artificial monstrosity twelve kilometers tall, and home to a number of starships. It had not been placed within a solar system, and while it technically orbited the star cluster as a whole, one thing it should never do is drift relative to Pleiades.

It, however, was. When Necron vessels first arrived on the scene it was evident that the station itself was without primary power, and oddly enough, drifting into the cluster. Only a few vessels remained alongside to defend it, the majority apparently gone to defend the Homeworld. Curiously, subpsace was unexpectedly chaotic in the region, and as vessels would find in other areas around Pleiades, it appeared that the anomaly had an effect on subspace similar to opening the drain of a large basin. In some regions, this effect was so strong as to begin to exert tangible effects upon physical objects, especially against those objects that themselves were able to artificially isolate themselves from conventional space-time for faster than light travel or other means.

While all of the border stations were apparently experiencing the same general effects, only one appeared to have actually come under attack. The structure itself was intact, though no power sources, of any magnitude, were detectable. Whatever vessel or conglomeration of such had passed nearby had rent great sections of the hull free, and without access to what recorder systems may have been active aboard it, there was no way to tell if any had survived. The remainder of the fleet that had been deployed alongside it was disturbing. In many cases the majority of the vessels were simply missing, as if disassembled at a dockyard, and used for other purposes. what pieces did remain were either of foreign manufacture or suitably common throughout the region to be worthless, though nothing showed signs of any damage. It was as if the attackers had absconded only with pieces of value, and only those pieces that would allow them to be identified.

Nearer to the anomaly, Necron ships had encountered more elements of the home fleets, though these too appeared to be abandoned. Many smaller ships were simply drifting, completely dormant though undamaged. Larger craft were conspicuously absent, though perhaps for a reason. With each jump closer to the anomaly, the efficiencty of even Necron drives seemed to jump higher without explanation, but any attempts to move away from the anomaly itself would take longer and require much more energy to complete than normal. The size and location of abandoned vessels varied with distance from the anomaly, and with few exceptions, it was quickly obvious. The closer to the anomaly one travelled, the more difficult it would be to escape it. Those vessels left behind had ventured too far, and had found themselves unable to generate sufficient power to escape. Those that had escaped...

They had yet to be found.

Telvaid sat in the command throne of one of the smallest ships used by the Necrontyr, and fired another volley of scarab drones against his target. His target was the faster than light drive section of a Kajali Nightingale; the little ship (albeit bigger than his glorified patrol boat) it had come from had disappeared, but for whatever reason, its inertialess drive remained.

The smaller craft of the necrontyr fleet had been tasked with this little piece of housekeeping; there were some seventy such drives, and not one of them could be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Fortunately, finding them was quite easy, and this was the last on the border posts. Destroying them, on the other hand…

That was difficult. The standard drive was an enclosed cylinder almost a hundred meters long. The scarabs would fly with it a safe distance from the damaged border post, and then explode, each with a potent blast of atomic power, synchronized around the middle of the device to break it into two. While whole, the device was difficult to destroy, when broken, it became exponentially easier to destroy it. The ship’s energy weapons fired, blasting one piece apart into hundreds of fragments, and then bathing those in further successive bursts of power until the strange exotic matter broke into pulses of radiation and matter, chiefly iron.

He had no irritation at this task; preserving the secrets of the Necrontyr was amongst the most noble of callings, and he would ensure that not a single atom of the forbidden machines escaped to be discovered by those lesser in the Necrontyr’s respect than the Kajali. Despite his contentment with his task, he did wonder, though, how the immortals that had boarded the wrecked station were getting on...

The necron lady and her escorts appeared on the surface of a dead world. It had taken them hours to get here, even at the full speed of the already fast Shroud-class light cruiser. There were scant few stars visible in the sky above, and no real details on the crater-pecked gritty plains of the world’s surface. What they sought could barely be seen, a few deactivated monoliths, mostly buried under the surface, like icebergs, were the only signs of necron presence on this world. A tomb world, this, it was one of several that had never seen the breath or touch of life forms, placed in galaxies where organic life did not thrive, in this case, due to terrible levels of radiation.

The group of fifty immortals arranged around her were part of a Ressurection War Cell – a group formed to awaken just such dormant machines. They were not only her bodyguards, but signal repeaters. She stood on a spur of worn-down rock, climbing atop it and lifting her staff-like weapon high above her head as her escorts fanned out, alert for who knew what threats.

The ship had doubtless moved on, leaving the group to their own devices. This world only contained part of what they had come for. Others would need to awaken and supervise other worlds in this sector.

She sent the signal, a tangle of encryption keys and commands, to begin the process of calling this small, isolated tomb to life.

There would be, she knew, a total of just under ten thousand necron bodies – around five hundred minds – here, left behind by the aeons.

There were countless such places – the active Necrons having left the majority of their kind to slumber – the work of rebuilding their civilization was in its infancy. To awaken too many Necrons would be to call them into existence without the means to support them in the lifestyle it was agreed was desirable. This was something that had been planned millions of years ago, the immortal Necrons had become nothing if not patient, and after the fall of the Enemy, they had known it might take thousands or millions of years to fully awaken once more and change the universe to their liking.

Nearby, a squad of maintenance scrabs appeared. It would take some time to get what she wanted from this world. But it would happen.


Charles Braimen was being operated upon by Doctor Watson; or rather, he was being operated on by a starship avatar who happened to look like that fictional character. It was quite disturbing to see the positively antique methods, but he had to admit that there was no real problem. It just looked crude.

Both the famous detective character, standing on the opposite side of the lounge-cum-observation deck, and his medical companion, were avatars of the Barrow-type tomb-ship Jalkalaissatana, one of the most senior ships of the fleet.

Charles’ arm was sliced open, deep between his bones, the cut not bleeding due to restraint fields, as a field generator was placed into it by a slim pair of brass tongs. The process wasn’t painful, but it was laborious, so he sat back in the deep armchair, waiting for it to be over. When it was complete, he would have the full suite of internal effectors, shields, gravitics, lasers, further improved musculature. He had asked to be housed on the incident-coordinator ship, and this was it. It seemed only prudent to prepare himself to fight.

“We have cleared our secure shipyards, and begun building new vessels. We should have another engagement element from them within a little over a month – we’ve also begun dispatching excavation missions,” Holmes explained, “that should bring another engagement element online within two to three weeks, giving us a total of thirty four new ships.”

“What’s that?” Charles said, pointing with his good hand, at a slim shape displayed through the false, magnified window.

“That,” Watson said, “I deduce to be the Light of Truth. It is a vessel of the Old Ones. Almost a hundred million years old – it is essentially a demon ship of considerable age. It defected to us in the Ninety-seventh Centennial Battle of Ulmaran, after being ordered to exterminate the population.”

“I’ve heard of such things, but I didn’t think any such vessels still existed,” Charles asked, leaning forward, earning a tut from the surgeon.

“Most of our convert-craft were destroyed with the downfall of the Enemy. Unfortunately, they were vulnerable to the vacta overload effect and the resulting swarms. However, the Light of Truth, was one of the few that was able to seal off its links in time, and protect itself with its fields. It has been slumbering until now.

“Given that this effect has some similarities with what we’ve previously encountered, we woke the Light and asked it to take a look. I can put you through into communication if you” Holmes stopped suddenly.

“I’m receiving a hyper-wave signal of considerable power, needle-beam,” Holmes said, “from within the blackout zone. It appears to be from the Erisavenus.”

“One of our lost ships?”

“No, the Erisavenus is one of our cruisers. Currently in Sol. I’ve just pinged it, and it’s still there. So this may be a forgery…”

“Or it may be the same ship from a different perspective?”

“Quite,” Holmes said, not seeming terribly surprised, “an impressively swift deduction. I am planning to head for the origin of the signal, with my escorts. If you’d like to remain here, I can transfer you to another vessel.”

“No, thank you,” he said, “I would like to find out what it is too… What did the message say?”

“Nothing of note. It was merely a location. Curiously, there’s something interesting about that… I’ll just finish with your arm, and we can go take a look. I’m standing up my ground forces complement, and setting course for Solanna.”

“You won’t be waiting for Asirnoth?”

“No. He may travel with me, but I do have considerable independent capacity, you know!” Holmes said, sounding a little annoyed.

Border Station

For a station that had been so gravely damaged, the interior showed precious few signs of damage. No doubt, the station itself could be restored at far less cost than replacing the installation, though it would require a great amount of time to do so. Still, environmental systems were entirely non-functional, and the internal temperature of the station was only marginally higher than that outside. While the artificial gravity systems were also offline, though the corridors were devoid of any items resting in the air. It would seem that the systems had been shut down rather than interrupted, as throughout offices, recreational spaces, and even kitchens, objects were at rest and motionless, making everything encountered seem pristine.

There was, unfortunately, a complication concerning the station's central command centers. Primary locations had been rent from the hull by unknown means, though several data centers were still intact. Given the total lack of power, accessing any data contained within server racks would be... difficult.

Solanna

Solanna, being the site of the second oldest continuously inhabited Kajali settlement, was also quite close to the homeworld, astronomically speaking. At the time of colonization, Kajali vessels were not yet capable of travelling faster than light. A colony ship had been purpose built, capable of travelling at a fraction of the speed of light that allowed for a transit well within the lifetimes of even humans. Solanna had been surveyed from afar by robotic probes that had taken considerably longer to arrive, stretching the limits of their primitive gravitic drives to arrive first within a handful of decades.

Still, while hostile, many had wondered about the convenience of discovering a world - even one as marginally habitable as Solanna - all of 1.031 light years distant from the homeworld.

Even the Enemy had pondered this, upon arriving in the system. It was ancient enough to recognize Iu's work, and had glimpsed it from afar. Indeed, the Enemy believed that the core cluster, as the Kajali called it, was an artificial creation, stars nudged and planets moved to create a safe haven for the Kajali within the heart of a bright and hot formation. No habitable planets should have developed here, not naturally, and even artifical means would not shield them from the intense radiation that the young blue stars of Pleides would bathe them in.

For everything, of course, there was an explanation, and the Enemy was capable of detecting such things even while Kajali remained unaware. Solanna, like the other core worlds, possessed an exceptionally strong magnetosphere. Kajali were of course aware of this, theorizing that the environment within Pleiades had predisposed planets to forming such fields early in their lives, due to the vast amounts of energy they were bombarded with promoting and accellerating the development of core dynamos.

Theoretically, it was possible, though unlikely. Iu, or a force preceding him, had constructed installations deep within the planets that were responsible for such things. The Enemy had detected one such installation buried deep within Solanna's crust, several hundred miles below the sands. When it arrived to claim it, the discontinuity had appeared. Solanna lay on the outer edge of the discontinuity, her star dimpling the surface inwards. At any given point the discontinuity could be found to be perfectly opaque, disallowing even the passage of tachyons, yet, here, at Solanna, and unlike near those few other stars that also dimpled the surface, those same particles were permitted to pass.

This system, perfectly sited, could only be one thing. Solanna, in Ljosai myth, Na'Solla, was a gateway to a closed realm, a realm held sacred and to be visited only by the children of Iu.

If it were possible, the Enemy would smirk. Iu's texts had contained vast amounts of information concerning both his realm and the machinations within it. Modern civilizations simply did not believe that the texts were anything but a fantastic tale, or metaphor.

How wrong they had been.

The defense forces of Solanna had fought valiantly, slaughtering many of the Enemy's own, and while the vessels in orbit had been destroyed, the people below remained staunchly secure. Still, whatever their beliefs, they were not the target, and deprived of their vessels they would lack the ability to oppose him across the entire planet.

The Enemy dipped low, skimming above the sands far from the single massive city of Solaan. Iu's undoing lay out here, deep below the dunes, and while they would no doubt be accessible by ship, the Enemy's bulk was too great for such a venture.

No, it would wait. It could not gain access to such a facility directly. Others were coming, others untainted by corruption and, with some intuition, capable of accessing the facilities themselves.

It mattered little if they were younger or older than Iu, as long as they hadn't the taint of the Enemy upon them.

The disappearance of a good portion of the Kajali Imperium is... troublesome, to say the least. A lot of trade goes through Kajal. A lot of foreigners visit Kajal. The Combined Services and Special Services coordinate a great deal with the Combined Federal Services. This makes it, as they say, relevant to everyone's interests. The initial chaos hits everyone, from the Triumvirate superfederal government to the average citizen making a long-distance call. The first and most severe warning comes when a regularly-scheduled on-the-second handshake on the secure quantum entanglement links between the Kajali CFS and the Triumvirate of Yut Combined Services Headquarters fortress in Port Aurora doesn't occur. After three in a row don't come through, automated warning systems trip.

Central Communications (aka "The Switchboard"), TYCSHQ, Port Aurora, Titan

Officer of the Watch, Central Communications (OWCC) is an acronym'd title for an extremely dull job, at least as far as Lieutenant James "Joe" Bloggs was concerned. He'd asked the other officers in the Central Communications department what they thought, and they all agreed. It was really only the high-and-tights and the broomstick spines who insisted it was a serious, important, all-your-attention-all-the-time job: the Switchboard is, due to the physical limitations of QE networks, the bottleneck of the Combined Services' first line of communications and only truly and perfectly interception-proof communication method. If Sky Marshal Rico needs to send a message from Valhalla Station to Sky Marshal Farentino in Sslaa oh, sure, he could use the HPG or send a courier but more like than not he'll want to use the secure QE link. QE links are two-way between only two points, so that means that the QE station at Valhalla needs to send it up the line to TYCSHQ, where the Switchboard transfers it and sends it back down the line to the Galactic Antispinward Colonial Theatre Headquarters fortress on Sslaa. Responses such as "well, why don't they use the redundant trans-theatre links" only garnered a cold stare and the lecture that every QE linked piece of equipment, every single one, had one link to the Switchboard. No matter the disruption in the chain of command, every part of the TYCS can communicate to every other single little cog and spring part through the Switchboard if necessary. The Switchboard ensures the best access to communication and information through the entire Combined Services. It is the lynchpin of the fleetnet that joins the various theatre and component tacnets into one coordinated whole and allows the efficient and effective execution of the Combined Services "centralized command, decentralized execution" doctrine. Yes, there were redundant systems. The theatre switchboards can talk to each other and form a gestalt fleetnet if need be, in the explicit case of a decapitation strike on Titan. If the Switchboard breaks, there are redundant connections in the CINCTYCS' various mobile and static offices, in secure bunkers in undisclosed nations, and at national capitals of Trium members. That doesn't mean the Switchboard isn't important; that just highlights how important it is: it's backed up.

This is all well and good, in the lieutenant's mind, but it doesn't change the fact that when you're OWCC your job consists of watching screens all day. There are the various summary readout screens, executive and technical readouts of connection status, and line-by-line coded screens thrown in for the mechanoids who wanted to see the patterns behind the communications; these last scroll so quickly that to Bloggs' unaugmented Mark One Mod Zero human eyeballs (and his lack of a built-in encephalon brain-speeder) they were just blank white screens. They were good to read by, at least; in fact, he uses one now to light the pages of his Magnus Hesche comic book as he leans back in his chair, feet propped up on the console--turned over, of course, so he doesn't press any buttons or toggle any switches--set up on an articulated cantilever arm extending from the base of his chair, just like on starships. Technicians, junior officers, and enlisted sit at their stations, occasionally doing tweaks when prompted, but otherwise just waiting for things to go wrong. The centerpiece, though, is the Central Communication Visual Control screen, also known as "Jason's Technicolor Lawn Art" or "The Psychadelic Christmas Tree" depending on who in Central Communications you asked. Taking up a screen that wouldn't be out of place in a movie theatre is a visual representation of the entire TYCS QE network, with millions upon millions of connections denoted by the lines of a branching fractal tree. Each branch was a link, each link has a little box on it to make it easier to see. The tree is three-dimensional, extending towards the inside of the room, to show all of the redundancies in the system and forming a sort of pine tree shape; at the point of the christmas tree is TYCSHQ, with very transparent little spiderweb strings connected to everything. Each thin line is colored; normally green, but occasionally going to yellow when bandwidth is maybe half-used, orange when bandwidth is completely full, and red when the line is broken. Hence, tiny little lines in the tree constantly flicker between green and yellow and occasionally orange, the patterns always changing as the Switchboard, and its smaller bretheren in each theatre command and starship, adapt and work to level-load communications.

Those with a background in meditation have been known to stare at it for their entire shift. One or two guys claimed that they'd had epiphanies in watching it; they were immediately sent down to Psychological, who cleared them, but they were still weird. Bloggs had thought of maybe bringing a little bit of reefer in one day and getting stoned to the Psychadelic Christmas Tree, but psychoactive depressant and hallucinogenic drugs were patently illegal by TYCS regulations and even the shrinks wouldn't be able to save him from the ass-chapping he'd inevitably get as he passed through the body-scan security into the Switchboard.

Anyway. Magnus Hesche had captured the ZMI corporate hive minds and had just evaded their Internal Security forces in a smashing car chase when--

--the world exploded. Or, at least, you'd think it, listening to the alarm klaxons based on the best psychological response research the Combined Services could get its hands on. The worse the problem, the more effective the klaxon, and this was a very big problem. Startled from his relaxation, the lieutenant looks at the biggest, brightest thing in the room, just like the psychologists who helped design it predicted. Jason's Psychadelic Lawn Art remained, as it usually did, mostly green with flickering bits of yellow and orange.

Except for the two long, thin Lichtenburg figure-shaped gashes of red; one along one edge of the cone, the second a little more in the middle, near that edge.

That's bad. Obviously bad. Bloggs recalls that things along the edge of the cone had to do with peripherals; connections to other agencies and such. His eyes trace the pattern back to the source at the base of the tree, sitting on the far wall. It seems pretty localized. If it's localized, then he glances over at one of the executive screens. Theatre connections, all green. Ground Forces connections, all green. Component connections, all green except for one glaring red: the Guard fleet stationed in Kajali space. National connections, all green except for one glaring red: the Federated Imperium of Kajal. Military connections, all green except for one glaring red: central command of the Combined Federal Services.

They'd told him, in training, that if an emergency happened he'd have plenty of information to start making decisions at a glance. He hadn't trusted that, but had followed along dutifully anyway. Even the drills didn't convince him. Now, with something having actually gone wrong and quickly pointed out, he felt a little better and started to give orders more calmly than he expected to. "Technical section, get me a status report on our links to Kajal, check for local hardware failures first. Communications section, start going through the contingency books and raise Kajal through secondary methods."

As the ratings go to work, the lieutenant leans back a bit and stares a little more closely at the tree. In addition to the frozen-lightning of red, all of the other little spiderweb threads that link those Kajali-related connections to anything else in the network are also red. The problem is therefore probably on their side, but a status check on the TYCS side won't hurt either. Flipping his console over, he toggles the hot button to the Commander In Chief, TYCS, takes a moment to work around his dry throat, and reports in.

* - * - *

TYCS Fleet Conference, the Fleetnet

The CINCTYCS stares eyelessly over his folded hands, large MacArthur aviator sunglasses reflecting the spaceless conference table and the projections of his Sky Marshals in their color-coded places at the table. His elbows rest in the rectangle of white light that delineates his section of the virtual conference table, and artificial white rays of light that have no effect on the hue or specular of the bits and bobs of his uniform spotlight down from above him. "At TST 0732 hours," he begins in his deep and yet quiet voice, lowering his folded hands to the place-setting in front of him, "we lost all contact with everything within one light year of the Kajali home star, including the entirety of the Ninth Triumvirate Guard Fleet stationed in the Pleiades." He glances over towards the man sitting at the red-lit station.

Sky Marshal Gregor Pandousco recognizes it to be his cue to speak and does so, one hand idly drumming on the red rectangle in front of him. "I dispatched the 130th MCRC to investigate but, when they attempted a tesseract jump, got a jump unsafe error. The canary link system in their jump engines denied the jump and reset the system. They were still the closest to Kajal and so I authorized them to go to their backup tesseract and go on an assisted warp towards the Pleiades. They decided to consider the one-light-year area of signal loss as a hard limit and thus stopped at the distance of the remaining core system, knowing it to be safe, to take readings. This is what they came up with." Pandousco's drumming becomes meaningful, his fingers tracing and tapping the red placemat in front of him. The previously featureless rectangle resolves into a user interface at his commands, and in the middle of the conference room a three-dimensional sensor return appears; in the center is the rounded tip of a cone which extends to the far end of the spherical projection. Around the cone, there are nebulous clouds and lighted points. Inside the cone, there is nothing. "That was their first return: some sort of large spherical object casting a sensor shadow. To confirm the shadow, they changed position and..." A few taps later, and the image updates to one mostly filled in, except with a black and roughly spherical chunk in the center. "There does appear to be a spherical... something where the Kajali core worlds used to be. It rejects all electromagnetic and FTL sensor returns and looks, for all intents and purposes, like a hole in space. It doesn't match up with any weapon system we know of."

He sighs and removes his green officer's cap long enough to brush a hand through his curly hair. "There are some gravity readings coming from it, but they don't make sense. Rimward Fleetmind has been poking with the numbers a bit and she thinks that if she runs numbers for pushing gravity it may make some sense, but it's obviously not her area of expertise so she doesn't trust her results. I've put the entire Rimward Theatre on alert and currently have the 130th, 123rd, 91st, and 87th medium cruiser components patrolling the volume around it. As far as we can tell so far, though, it's outside of our context."

The CINCTYCS nods slowly. "And the status of the Ninth Guard?"

"Completely uncertain, sir." Pandousco sighs. "We tried launching some probes into the... sphere but they splatted right on the surface. Mushroomed into flat sheets a few microns in thickness that are now floating away. We then tried launching one in high distort; it detonated on the surface, and the energy return suggests no energy whatsoever got into the sphere. It's like whatever's happening is completely isolating the inside from the outside." He frowns and shrugs. "Whatever it is, sir, if there's a military solution we don't have nearly enough information to enact it."

"Recommendation?" the white-lit Chinese man asks simply, from behind his mirror-black MacArthurs.

"Get the scientists in on it. I know Gec's never been very happy with acting as our unofficial reconnaissance service, but there has to be some professional journal papers in this one. Other than securing the area around the sphere, there's not much we can do at the moment."

The CINCTYCS nods. "It will be done. Sky Marshal, coordinate with the local SPIR chapters in your Theatre and contact the Scolopendran Civilian Defense Corps; they'll probably want to arrange aid packages for any survivors. Blair," the head of the TYCS turns his head towards the blond man sitting at the blue-lit station of the table, "you help as well. I will address the Council and inform them of my recommendations." He allows a short pause for emphasis. "Does anyone else have any ideas?"

* - * - *

Council of Yut, Yut Building, Port Aurora, Titan

"The Combined Services confirms the Kajali delegate's statement." The CINCTYCS in reality looks just like he does in cyberspace: greying and age-worn, shortish but stockily built and with a definite Chinese heritage about him. He wears his signature dark sunglasses just as he does in virtual reality. "We lost contact with the Ninth Guard Fleet supporting the Kajali homeworlds at the same time we lost contact with the Kajali central government and military command, although we have established links with the highest-echelon survivors as per our contingency plans. The Galactic Rimward Theatre Fleet has been put on alert and so saying that the current Kajali remnants are defenseless is perhaps something of an overstatement."

He never was much of a politician.

"We have begun to secure the volume around this event, which we are designating Large Spatial Anomaly One. Our initial reconnaissance indicates that LSA-1 is slightly more than a light year in diameter and perfectly opaque to electromagnetic and FTL signals. Attempts to cross the boundary of LSA-1 with probes have failed, but our data currently indicate that LSA-1's boundary may have a gravitational quality of a kind we have not seen before. Therefore, I have directed the Galaxy Exploration Command to assist in analyzing the anomaly and to work with the scientists of the Triumvirate to develop countermeasures or a way to reverse it."

* - * - *

Triumvirate of Yut Research Ship-Research Cruiser Armstrong, Titan Orbit

Captain Stephan Pelagetti rubs his temples, leaning against the wall of the personnel displacer compartment while his science staff and a few marines prepare to hop down to the surface. "Wonderful. Deputized by the Combined Services. This is a perfect day." He is a brown-haired man with statuesque features and blue eyes. A very thin layer of baby fat rounds out the corners of his face just a little, adding to the androgyny of his character; while he'd never be mistaken for manly, in most cultures he would be considered quite beautiful. Unfortunately, this quality is slightly wasted by the fact that he really doesn't care how he looks so long as he is in regulation, and while no one can complain about his hygiene, with the occasional hair out of place and bit of eye crust he doesn't look anything like the movie star he potentially could.

The nearest marine shrugs. The 'security' forces aboard GEC ships used to be Mobile Infantrymen; now they're generally either second-line TYCS Ground Forces personnel or people who joined the GEC directly to become groundpounder-explorers. "It's in our contract, sir."

"Hmpf. Well, we may as well go steal what we need to defend the glory of the Triumvirate." He steps into the spherical displacement chamber and arranges himself with his chief science officer and the two marines. "Okay, let's go." Fields gently raise the four above the deck plating by a few millimeters and

Triumvirate of Yut Camp Restricted, Kajali Team Area

they drop a couple of centimeters onto the ground in a momentary gentle breeze as the atmospheric pressure equalizes to meet them. The captain steps forward from the group and looks around the laboratory momentarily. "So, ah, which one of you might be in charge? I'm Captain Pelagetti of the GEC, and apparently we're supposed to save the galaxy together."

Border Regions, Far Edge of Pleiades from Sol

It had been quiet here for the entire duration since the arrival of Necrontyr vessels, at least, until now. There had still been no sign of any crewed Kajali vessels belonging to the Home Fleets, and while larger vessels would be able to retrieve those abandoned ones currently drifting at some point, those larger ships would first have to appear somewhere.

It would be, at least to some, startling, though the ships of the Necrontyr had witnessed this phenomenon before. It started slowly, a small occultation forming at what was normally defined as the station's "jump point". Such an anomaly was initially similar to that currently ensconcing all of the Kajali core worlds except for Solanna, though rapidly degenerating into a much more recognizable, and understood, event.

As it expanded, stars peeked through a cloudy hole in space, obviously spilling their light from another location, and around it, there were brief flashes and pinpricks of blue.

Abruptly, as it usually was, the remnants of the Third, Fifth, and Eighth Pleiades Theatre Defense Fleets appeared. Their numbers were dauntingly reduced, the combined remnants barely comprising a single Expeditionary Fleet. As their individual jump points disappeared from view, they maneuvered deftly away from the still present anomaly indicative of a much larger vessel, and the distinctive, if simple, form of something much older slid through. The Home Fleet vessels were, understandably, dwarfed somewhat, appearing as if to be the gigantic vessel's escorts. It had been discovered years ago, orbiting an artificial planetoid. A Cartographic Division vessel had indexed the planet decades before, from the system's outer boundary, but when a small cruiser had mis-jumped nearly into the rings of the outermost planet, things got interesting.

That incident had ended in another system, classified, of course, and of which there were few records. Even more, the incident had seemingly erased that particular system from the galaxy. Those who were aware of it had sent probes regularly, and observed only an empty expanse.

Present within the remnant fleet, was one vessel that not even Kajal's closest allies had likely yet seen, itself having emerged only very recently from Kajali shipyards.

Her current commanding officer had been fortuitously lucky in her choice of touring dates. Aras i Kajur had slipped moorings and burst forth into the unknown for a pleasure cruise mere hours before the anomaly appeared. Of course, this meant that she had barely as much as a skeleton crew aboard, though she had taken on a great deal of personnel from smaller craft as a result. At Titan weight class, and carrying a flag officer, she had taken command of the remnant fleets and ordered an outbound jump, best possible speed.

A single link - perhaps the only active link from Kajali homespace - would turn green on the Tree as Avatar, as she was referred to by nearly all of her crew, placed a priority call to Sky Marshall Pandousco. It was a bit outside of normal procedure, though given that CINCCFS was unreachable, and also given the situation, logical.

"This is Avatar-actual, commanding elements of the Third, Fifth, and Eighth Combined Naval Services Home Guard Fleets. Undoubtedly you are aware of the... event currently in progress. We have as of yet been able to locate any elements of the TYCS Ninth Guard, though we received a garbled transmission from SDF Matariki. Elements of the Third Fleet were also able to make contact with Solanna Theatre briefly before an apparent equipment failure on their end. We are transmitting it and all data gathered so far now."

The data from Matariki appeared to be comprised of routine communications, abruptly cut off. Data from Solanna, on the other hand, was comprised primarily of battlespace data and varied imagery, most of it corrupted heavily. The last image that had made it through was of a large vessel, far outside of the range of planetary defenses. It was elongated, though with a spherical "core" set within it towards the aft third of the ship. Battlespace data suggested it was operating in some sort of command capacity, though it was quite obvious that it wasn't something familiar. It was also apparently quite large.

---

Camp R

"By Iu'... uhm... never get used to that... That would be me. I'm Dr. Kavaan..."

The artifact is, of course, sitting contently in a large, uninteresting crate, ready for transport. Whether it was at Camp R, or aboard a Research Cruiser, it could still be poked.

Stephan scratches the back of his head and sniffs quietly as he nods to his science officer, who walks over to the crated device with the marines and starts checking it over for shipping. "Yes, well, sorry to surprise but billions of lives and trillions of monetary units are at stake so we're on something of a schedule and the displacer's the fastest way, isn't it? There's already a Scarab on the way to pick up the device but this'll let us mutually brief each other so much more efficiently. Now if you'll stand right here, yes, thank you, and... Armstrong, are you reading this?"

"-Yes, Captain,-" replies a voice coming from the steel communications brick on Pelagetti's belt. "-Ready to displace.-"

"Okay. We'll all jump on three, then. One, two, three." Everyone hops up into the air

TYCS-RCR Armstrong, Titan Orbit

and lands on the curved floor of the displacement chamber back on the ship. The instant after his feet touch deck metal, Pelagetti is already off in a brisk walking pace. "There's already a ship-wide technical and situation briefing scheduled for after we finish taking the device aboard and while we're cruising towards the Pleiades." He glances over his shoulder to see if Kavaan and his people are keeping up. "How much do you know, or have already been told?"

The great crescent shaped vessel shot out of hyperspeed directly into orbit of Solanna, broadcasting its identity loudly on all radio bands, as it decelerated and rolled to point the vast array of needle-like probes and sensors that clustered upon its underside toward the surface.

On board, Charles frowned, watching a display. “Is that?”

“Yes,” the ship said, having already analyzed and probed every one of the millions of pieces of debris around the planet, “The Solanna System Defence Fleet. The weapons used appear identical to something we have encountered before. I am teleporting satellites into orbit on the far side of the planet, however, it will take almost a whole minute for them to align properly to give me full planetary surveillance.”

“You say you know what this is?” he asked.

“Asinsata reported something very similar. These ships appear to have been attacked by the entity known as Solus. If so, we may be in danger – our previous mission is perhaps less important than returning this information. Nonetheless, there have been rumours; talk of raids, on the Kajali periphery. No one has ever been able to do anything about them though. They were already our number one suspect in this. I am now transferring my ground forces to the planet.” On the display, near the pyramids they had come to investigated, green lights appeared, and those same lights appeared in some of the parks of Solaan.

“Shouldn’t we be getting out of here, then?”

The Sherlock Holmes avatar waited, “Not quite yet, I am attempting to make contact with the Solanna local government. This vessel has the capacity to evacuate twenty million people. I will wait, and see what we can find in the system, and see if they wish to use that capacity, before we leave. There are no hostile contacts on my sensors yet…” just then, he stopped and took the pipe from his mouth, an autonomous action by the robot within that living flesh, rather than an act of the ship, but one provoked by the ship’s sudden reaction.

“I have it. Proto-Kajali design, appearing to match Solan ships enctountered by the Asinsata, in-atmosphere on the far side.”

“Are you going to attack it?”

“Not yet. The last time we saw one of these ships destroyed, it took an entire system with it. We need to lure it away from Solanna. I cannot reliably defeat it on my own. We will disengage…”

---

Meanwhile, upon other parts of the planet, skeletal forms shook sand from their forms as they appeared in the desert, or brushed through plants in parks as they took up positions.

These were not running as ordinary Necrons did. Instead, their intelligence was entirely local, a mode of operation that was highly unusual and uncomfortable. Under normal circumstances, they would not risk it – such near-mortality – but these were not ordinary circumstances. The ordinary soldiers arrived in the city first – important, as they took forms that seemed, to visual inspection, to resemble living Necrontyr; something the Kajali would recognize and (hopefully) not shoot on sight – the more intimidating necron models, on the other hand, would, while also distinctive, likely cause some panic.

---

On the far side of Kajali space, a solitary necron ship observed the appearance of the Kajali survivors. A few moments later, a signal bounced from it, aimed at the vessel they had tentatively identified as Kalaan.

From: INS Asinsata
Kalaan?

Now where have you been hiding lately? More importantly, do you know what's going on in that sphere? We're guessing Solus (or its agents) is responsible, any information would be appreciated...

At the same time, the escort sent its own message.

From: INS Athnelan (Necrontyr Raider Vessel Warchild)
To: Kajali Fleet

Do you require any assistance? We have medical and fabrication facilities available. Our commanders will be here presently to coordinate. We have mobilised all available resources to assist you, and are in the process of investigating this disaster. Any information you have would be greatfully recieved.

TYCS-RCR Armstrong Titan Orbit

Kavaan was a bit whiter than usual. This would, normally, be distressing, given his chocolate-brown complexion, but he was still staggering along behind Pelagetti. Displacers displaced, at least as far as he understood, so he was still him and no one had killed him in a messy molecular disintegration and built a clone somewhere else.

"Well, ah... We started hearing things from our colleagues back home, stuff about weird power signatures and other artifacts, but this one we've got was the only thing we found out here in Sol. After a few hours we stopped receiving _anything_ from homeworld or even from around homeworld. I'm guessing this thing we found has something to do with it? I mean, we wouldn't be carting it off to homeworld otherwise, would we..."

Kavaan tries to keep up, but he's sort of running out of breath and alternating between excitement and panic. "Uhm... It, it generates antigravity of some sort, real antigravity, not repulsorlift or any of that gravitic stuff we use to fly cars or ships or whatever, if that makes any sense. Of course you already knew that, it's all in the preliminary report..."

Solanna

Small shards danced amongst the debris over the planet, perhaps no more than ten meters in length at most. There were few of them, though all of the same design, and they cartwheeled about aimlessly, seemingly without any reason. Upon Jalkalaissatana's arrival, one here would dart away towards another, which would repeat the act, and after a few moments would resume the same random dance throughout the wreckage. Small bursts of radiation indicated some sort of communication, easily traceable back to the immense craft on the other side of the planet. Even so, the shards continued to dance and play about within the wreckage at random.

The intent was quite clear, or rather, it wasn't. The Enemy was aware of Jalkalaissatana, but had chosen to ignore it. There were more important things to do than chase down every ship that arrived in system, after all.

Annoyingly, the surface settlement - indeed, the only real city on the planet, was largely unresponsive. Orbiting communications satellites had also been destroyed in the attack, and surviving surface transmitters were unable to cut through intereference due to the englobement upon which Solanna sat. Those within the city had hunkered down for siege, though as of yet had experienced none. Soldiers would find the streets largely abandoned, though they were surveilled through electronic means in various areas.

It was, of course, simple enough to find the government palace, sited as it was towards the center of the city. Due to the structure's prominence it had been evacuated early on, though as no harm had come to it the local garrison was only now returning to it and bringing the more powerful transmitters within back to life.

"This is Solaan-Actual. We appreciate your offer of evacuation but there are many more people down here than could be moved in any reasonable amount of time. That aside, we don't seem to be the target so much as we got in It's way. It's left us alone since we lost the 4th Home Guard..."

Far Side of Solanna

Searching a desert is a slow process. It had already been out here for some time, scouring and searching for power signatures or magnetic anomalies, anything that could indicate an artificial structure.

And It had found one. Hovering thousands of meters above it, it set upon clearing the desert away from the face of it, creating a swirling vortex in the process that easily rivalled the largest desert storms. The Kajali had themselves discovered a set of three pyramids far, far away from Solaan, arranged in a diagonal line largest to smallest. It had, conversely, detected the forms of similar structures, buried under millions of cubic meters of sand. The largest was sited over some sort of portal, and even Jalkalaissatana would be able to detect the open shaft beneath it that extended for kilometers beneath the surface.

That is, of course, if anything could be seen through the gigantic storm that It had created in the process of unearthing the structures. Directly below It, the tips of the tallest structures had become visible, though it would still take much time before they would be uncovered completely.

Kalaan

An aegis, inviolable. The Children of the One shall find their way. His Legacy awaits, beyond the Gates at Na'Solla.

Kalaan had never been particularly comprehensible, and he had never been particularly controllable, either. A short data burst indicated that he had remained with the Kajali for a short period, but had later left of his own accord, travelling far beyond the Kajali Rimward Colonial Theatres. He had found something, but data concerning the event was sparse and often corrupted. It was likely he had encountered something, and had spent a great deal of time afterwards to effect repairs.

An aegis, inviolable. The Adversary seeks usurpation. His Legacy awaits beyond the Gates. Contact is inevitable.

The Fleet

"Several of the smaller craft have suffered FTL drive failures. It will take some time to effect repairs. Some of our larger craft possess fabrication facilities, though we would be grateful for any assistance in this regard. Medical assistance is not required at this time."

As was standard procedure, data accompanied the voice transmission, though there was likely little of use. Until it became possible, through whatever means, to peer through the surface of the anomaly, little data had been gathered that did not confirm data already acquired.

TYCS-RCR Armstrong, Titan Orbit
Passageway Near Displacer Compartment Three

Stephan nods succinctly with a slight frown, stalking with a purpose through Armstrong's passageways. The Beagle-refits are built to the same general specifications as all other Triumvirate WarShips, so despite their semi-civilian nature they still sport the usual exposed ducting and access boxes. Beyond the standard color-coding of various conduits and buses crew-applied morale paint is common, and little bonsai trees often sit harmlessly on top of junction boxes and other flat spots, assuming a local book trade drop secured with elastic straps hasn't already taken the spot. It's almost like a hippie university staff got the run of a WarShip, which is essentially the case. Operations crew in slick Class As with green plastrons and belts like the Captain or green digitized smoke-cloud patterned fatigues mix with non-uniformed academics ranging from the tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches kind to the t-shirt-and-sandals kind. It can be jarring, if one isn't used to it.

"Yes, the preliminary reporr." Pelagetti's French accent starts to slip through. "I've got or-hanjez all over my ship, each one with a different set of data they've collated. Combined Services MilIntel, Special Services, WarWANCC... they've all the exact same data but different stories. Trop gratter cuit, trop parler nuit." He shrugs. "They can't even properly agree on the science, because of their individual contexts."

Pivoting on his heels, he catches Kavaan with an intensity in his eyes that belies the smirk on his face. "It's hoped that your little toy that my men are packing into a shuttle and carting up here will help clarify things somewhat. In ten minutes, we will be powering out of the system on full tessassist and heading for the great unknown. In fifteen minutes there will be an all-up briefing of the science department in which we will share what we know and you will share what you know. A summary of this will be relayed back to me so I can make sure we won't get Beagle'd when we drop back down to a more leisurely speed.

"Along the way we are going to rendezvous with the scoutships Cumulus and Suloi, just so you know the scale of the operation. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what's at stake," the Captain grumbles, "but they're all near and dear to me."

Around a corner stands a group of fatigue-wearing enlisted waiting about without any real military bearing. "There's not enough time to show you to your staterooms," Pelagetti says nearly apologetically, "so these ratings will take your bags there and this rating"--he nods to one wearing the light grey stairstep on a dark grey square of a technical sergeant on her sleeves--"will lead you to the auditorium. My apologies, but I'm needed on the bridge." Bowing shortly, the Captain pivots again on his heels and speeds off while bags are exchanged and most of the enlisted head off down the passageway in a different direction.

That just leaves Tech Sergeant Wilchenski in charge. "Sorry about the Captain," she says, shaking her head slightly and making her in-regulation ear-length bowl of black hair accentuate the movement from side-to-side, "but he's not exactly used to spatial anomalies, much less saving billions from one. Follow me, please."

* - * - *

Auditorium Seven

"Now that we're underway, let me introduce myself to those who don't know me." It's the science officer from back down on the surface: a tall man with thick straight white hair cut into a regulation part, a build a little on the light side, and a subdued schoolboy attitude about him. He tends to smile a lot. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Tristian Church, and I'm the chief science officer aboard Armstrong." He stands behind a podium on the middle of the stage, and there are three chairs behind him. One is empty. One contains Dr. Kavaan. The last supports someone in an A7L space suit (http://www.globaleffects.com/B_pages/02_Space/apolloA7Lh.JPG). "You know where we're going and why, so I'm not about to waste your time by rehashing all that." By his tone and cadence, he means this in a purely good-natured way. "My head's still spinning a bit from everything that's been said, so we have Research Cruiser Armstrong here, who will tell us the basics of what we know scientifically--"

The space suit waves one rubber-gloved hand.

"--and Dr. Kavaan, a Kajali scientist from Camp Restricted who's apparently been working on some sort of ancient artifact which may be related. Without further ado, Armstrong, sir, if you could take the stage...?"

"-Certainly, *beep*-" is the Apollo-era suit's response as it stands and bounces comically towards the podium. One starship's apparently been playful with its fabber budget. Coming to a low-g stop behind the podium, it grips the dais with both hands and feigns a look around by tilting its shoulders from side to side, the golden sunshield of the helmet following along. "-Thank you, Tristian. Now, the situation... *beep* ...how can I describe it... *beep* Well, it goes a little something like this:-"

TYCS-RCR Armstrong

"...17,000 years ago an earlier Kajali civilization existed. *beep* Whether or not this is true is a matter of public debate, though as we have aboard an artifact apparently from that era there is some credit to the idea. Our pointy friends have found similar things in the past... *beep* ..though this is the first to be found intact in our neck of the woods. We're talking mostly things like light fixtures, or small power cells, nothing particularly complicated."

Kavaan stepped in to continue. "This morning, many of my colleagues out on scientific or military expeditions started reporting detecting signals or power readings from odd places. Some of them were close enough that they were able to divert to investigate. I don't know what they found, but around the same time we found the... device, so we're assuming that any other finds would be similar in nature. Shortly afterwards, we lost contact with the Kajali homeworlds."

An image of the hole in space known as Large Spatial Anomaly 1 floated into existence.

"This... *beep* is the Large Spatial Anomaly. It has a diameter of just over one LY and, as our friends in the Combined Services have demonstrated... it is perfectly opaque to, well, everything. There is no way to tell if it even has an interior, and any such contents within it would be completely isolated from the rest of the known universe."

"Since it cut us off from the Homeworlds, we don't have access to the resources of the Combined Federal Services Science Directorate _or_ the Design Bureaus, but the anomaly has exhibited a gravitic... uhm... well, all we know right now is that it is gravitic in nature, but it is entirely new to us. Our people on Mars and Venus have been running numbers but so far nothing makes sense."

"We have limited detailed data, but the initial survey shows three distinct points on the surface of the anomaly that may be instabilities. There are also a few points that seem to be more prominent, if that makes any sense, but the difference between the weakest point and the strongest... *beep* is less than a tenth of a percent."

Kavaan coughed. "My team was able to confirm that the artifact we found is a gravitic device, though it does not operate in any fashion we are familiar with. Based on observations of interactions with 'traditional' gravitic fields and their generating systems, it manipulates the antiforce of gravity. Any of our known gravitic systems will not operate within close proximity, and I wouldn't recommend trying it. It has a tendency to, ah.... break things."

"How did this device wind up on Earth, of all places?"

Kavaan shrugged. "We're not sure. It seemed to have been on the ocean floor for a few thousand years. Even with access to the archives on Homeworld we don't have a lot of records from that time period. Best bet is that someone had found it before we did."

"And now that we have it, we get to play with it. Since we're a bit short on time, we're going to set it up and see what effects it has on the surface of the anomaly... *beep* Any other questions?"

TYCS-RCR Armstrong, In Transit

"So... 'the antiforce of gravity.'" The question comes from a man in the third row, a little to the left; an overweight guy wearing a black t-shirt with some sort of aerospace craft on it that has crossed wings and long spindly bits on the end of its wings. Long, stringy brown hair, getting a bit sparse on top and in the middle, with a scraggly short beard and thick glasses. All in all, a walking stereotype. "What do we mean, 'antiforce?'"

"Uhm... it's a good question," Kavaan starts. "The device seems to nullify the normal forces of gravity to a varying effect, but otherwise also produces a local effect that behaves identically. Whenever we run numbers or take measurements it doesn't seem to make any sense, but the effect generated seems to interact with gravity much in the same way as antimatter and matter do. The device itself seems to be equipped with some very sophisticated control mechanisms, too... I can't say what the effects might be if an unmoderated field such as the one our device generates would produce upon contact with something like that sphere."

A good portion of the physical sciences departments visibly bluescreen as they try to wrap their heads around something that can nullify gravity and yet do the same thing as gravity. Another man in a light-colored flannel shirt stands up, reverse-clearing his throat to deal with a slight nasal problem he's had forever. He has reddish-brown hair that, while thin, has remained more or less equal around his head, which sports a ruddy complexion and a generally jolly look. He does have a visibly mischievous sense of humor around the eyes, though, so the cherubic image falls to somewhere around the impish range. "So, ah, lemme think this one out aloud, snrk. We've got two kinds of gravity, which are related to each other like matter and antimatter."

"-That's about right,*beep*-" the research cruiser's avatar replies.

"Now matter and antimatter are generally the same except for spin, snrk, and that they tend to blow each other up when they come in contact, snrk."

Armstrong nods by bowing very shallowly repeatedly.

"So what he's saying generally is that this new gravity, which we'll call countergravity, snrk, will have a domain of influence and a gap of nullification wherever it touches normal gravity, snrk, like where there's a gap of annihilation between clouds of matter and antimatter."

Someone else in the dark-lit auditorium speaks up. "That seems to make sense..."

"Now, where gravity doesn't properly exist, there shouldn't be any space based on relativity, snrk, because gravity is a property of space. You can't have space without gravity to show for it according to Einstein, snrk."

"But if that were the case," says one of the graviticists in the back, "then LSA-1 shouldn't be so L. Space would collapse in on it, because it can't stand nothing--just like high-distort drives."

"No, those are infinities, snrk, and the discontinuities between infinities going in different directions," the red-haired man says with a grin, "and the universe can't stand infinities, snrk. It can, however, apparently tolerate zeroes because the LSA-1 is large and is there." He sniffs triumphantly.

"So there's volume where there's no space?" Someone asks confusedly.

"No, this demonstrates that gravity really isn't exactly the curvature of spacetime because space is volume and there's volume where there's no gravity. Snrk. Spacetime curvature's been a perfectly good model so far because we've not come across this, snrk, but think about it this way: if we consider gravity to be working in vortices that generally go in one direction but come across a vortex going in the opposite direction, snrk, what would happen?"

"There'd be a boundary between the two where the net force would, if you could balance something perfectly, be zero... Forrest, you bastard."

"I was right all along." The impish cherub positively beams.

"Bah. This has nothing to do with your matter diminutization theory and pots or whatever the hell you call them. Your model simply works in this special case, you damned engineer." Ah, the immortal battle between applied and pure science.

"Good enough for me." Forrest pulls a binder bound in green canvas, like the kind used by schoolchildren, and filled with neatly tabbed notes from behind his back. "I have a series of experiments I've had planned since forever snrk that I'd like to run to see if my model holds up. Can I have access to your device and technical notes, Dr. Kavaan, snrk?"

Space and time twist and buckle, doubling and redoubling back upon themselves as neatly and delicately as origami. In the fold point the light of distant stars is bent and occluded, and their faint gravitational pull is crooked. When the wrinkle unfolds itself - as it must, for Nature abhors such an unnatural shape in the fabric of the universe - a starship has appeared, three hundred meters of off-white metal bearing the chevron and stars of the Nova Federation.

Captain Devon Rodriguez crumples the paper crane in his fist, and regards the sensor reports now flashing up on his vessel's screens.

"That shouldn't be ..."

The astrogator nods, tugging at the tight braid of her hair in a nervous habit. "Right, sir. We're much too close to the anomaly. It looks like the space-time warping has shifted our exit point further in."

"Thank you, lieutenant. Drives! Turn us around, full burn to main thrusters. We don't know what that thing is, and until the scientists can give us some answers, I don't want us any closer than we have to be."

He scowls at the anomaly now occupying a full third of the NFS Magellan's forward screens. Entire star systems are not supposed to just up and disappear, but this one has, which makes the Federation understandably nervous. The Magellan has been redirected from a nicely uneventful astrophysical survey further rimward to investigate.

"Fold Drive Control, see if you can figure out how the anomaly is affecting the drive - I want to be able to compensate for drift if we have to get out of here in a hurry. Astrophysics, what are we looking at?"

The face of Chojiro Jones, the Magellan's head of sciences, pops up on Rodriguez's overhead screen.

"Captain, at first glance it looks superficially similar to a singularity - it's swallowing all EM, and it's creating gravitational effects. But the gravitational effect isn't the simple well it should be - and of course a black hole a light year across doesn't pop into being overnight. At this point I'd say it's probably artificial."

And if the Kajali can create system-eating black holes, Rodriguez thought, They picked an unfortunate place to do so. And if it's someone else ... who, and how, and why? We're still working on what!

"Thank you, Jones. Keep working on it - actually, launch some fold probes further in towards the anomaly. We may glean something from the results."

"Hai. Preparing probes."

"Astrogation, are there any Kajali ships within hailing range? Given that their homeworld has just disappeared, they may need our help. And they may have some light to shed upon this anomaly..."

"I've no transponders showing up, sir. They could be here but damaged, or the anomaly could somehow be affecting ansible traffic. It looks like we're on the far side of the anomaly from Solanna, though, so they might have regrouped there."

"Right. Well, it was worth a try."

Chijiro pops up on the overhead again.

"Captain, the probes are ready to go. Launching now."

Rodriguez nods, and further aft a trio of small pods detach from the Magellan's hull. The probes are hardened against radiation and damage of all kinds - they're more normally used for investigating the surfaces of stars - and have ansible links back to the Magellan. Hopefully sending them further in will yield useful data - and hopefully they'll survive to report back.

One-two-three, and the probes fold spacetime around themselves, blinking from here to there in little artificially-contiguous wrinkles in the universe. Rodriguez's fingers twitch, but there's nobody aboard the probes to fold a paper crane, and nobody aboard to require the luck it brings. Computers are things of logic and probability, and do not need superstition to ease their travels.

Kavaan's notes on the device are expansive, given the short period of time he had to examine it. Of particular interest are the diagrams of the interior, gleaned through penetrating the otherwise seamless casing with nanomachines and mapping the internal structures over a course of several hours. The mechanisms within would imply that it was a drive system of some sort, at first glance, as it appears similar in principle to Kajali and other superluminal and sublight drives. Granted, the field generating units appear wholly unfamiliar, but the rest of the device seems quite mundane. Also included are extensive notes regarding the apparent control interfaces, as well as a rudimentary interface protocol based on Kajali standards.

Of course, no one's tried to use that yet. Initial tests took place with only a power connection and an external throttle, which of course implies that the device itself has some onboard logic of it's own that allows it to operate safely in such a manner. At least, that's the theory.

---

Magellan's probes blink back into existence tens of meters from the surface of LSA-1. For the few moments they have, they report an incredibly strong apparent gravity well.

And then, they're gone. The brief telemetry indicates that they seem to have crashed into and pancaked on the surface of LSA-1.

Medium Cruiser TYWS-MCR Akizuki, LSA-1 Security Zone (LSA1SECZONE) Near Kajal

When Pandousco said that his theatre fleet's ships were at alert, he meant it. Across the burnished steel structures, dark blue utilitarian traction 'carpets,' and inexpensive but sturdy canvas seating that comes in a simple range of blues that are the standards of WarShips in the Combined Service, the light plays with a definite tint of orange in it. Sixteen WarShips all share the same vaguely contrasting internal color scheme inside, the level of contrast determined ahead of time by psychologists to make crews more alert without causing undue eye strain. Everything aboard is very much in cocked-and-locked condition: all weapons charged, loaded, and running hot; gunnery crews spending their watches jacked into the control systems until relieved in four-hour intervals by their relief jacking in first and making sure all is ship-shape before clearing the relieved to jack out; screens up and sensors on full combat active. It's a very loud way to patrol, and it is intentionally so; the idea being that being loud increases the chances that those interested in fiddling about in the area become less inclined to do so when several overpowered WarShips are doing their best white dwarf impressions.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

"Ma'am, sensors are picking up a new contact," Lieutenant Commander Freeman says from his seat in the officer's arch, two to the left from the captain's chair. Now, it's not really his seat, although he really is sitting in his seat and in the command compartment of Medium Cruiser Akizuki. What's really happening is his blond-haired blue-eyed recruitment poster meat body is in a sleep-paralyzed fugue state while his meat brain has been partially uploaded into a representation of the WarShip's sensor suite identical to the one that he would be looking at normally, except in that now his reaction time has been dramatically improved. The programmers retained the metaphor of the ship's bridge because it is more naturally intuitive and requires no additional training. "New pattern, not scheduled, no sign of hostile intent."

Flag Captain Meneely sighs, going through the virtual motions of pinching the bridge of her nose and acting as though this inconvenience is adding just another gray hair to the salt-and-pepper pixie cut that strikes a bit of a cognitive dissonance--a traditionally young woman's haircut on one with a youthful complexion and yet graying hair. This is purely intentional on her part. "Non-hostile--what's it doing, then?"

Freeman glances down at his not-entirely-real summary display. "Hauling ass away from the anomaly on sublight. I guess they got too close... more data coming in. Sub-destroyer size, doesn't particularly look like a warship. Running ops-hot but I'm not seeing any concentrations that would suggest weapons emplacements."

"Alright, then. FleetCom," Meneely growls, looking over to her right at the virtual avatar of the blue Seldane wearing a lieutenant's copper triangles on his collar and filling the furthest-starboard seat of the officer's arch, "direct Understanding to divert and interrogate."

"You have an ironic sense of humor, ma'am," the Seldane cracks a grin, then turns serious-faced. "Acting."

Meneely's expression loses none of its steel. "I will remind the lieutenant that we're one minor statement of admission away from a shooting war and that he will govern himself accordingly."

* - * - *

Destroyer TYWS-DD+ Understanding, LSA1SECZONE

"Call for you, Captain." The communications officer's report is perfunctory and as full of respect as something so short can be.

"Put it through." Commander Dalibor Vermilyea leans back in his artificial chair and steeples his fingers while a real transmission filters through what he considers--in the back of his primal Iron Age mind, not in the front of his well-learned Overtechnology Age brain--imaginary public address speakers. "-FleetCom, Understanding Actual requested.-"

"Understanding Actual, FleetCom. Go ahead," Dalibor says with a quiet smile to himself. Ah, protocol. He's surprised they hadn't gone to battlespeak yet. Then again, if the shit really hit the fan, he'd probably be dumped straight into the tacnet and none of this old-fashioned radio procedure would continue to apply. Odd, really. The TYCS abuses its short-range QE bandwidth on voice messages even when they've been partially uploaded thanks to the SEELE system invented in Camp R and yet, when things really go downhill, they start going back to QE teletype, relayed through screens and text displays. The worse the situation gets, the more efficient the TYCS tries to be... especially since the Mars Factory Incident.

"-I'm sure you've noticed the new sensor contact that jumped a little too close to LSA-1. Cee-Oh-Ninety-First wants you to intercept and interrogate.-"

"Am I to escort them out of the seczone?"

"-Not specified. I think she's leaving that to your discretion, barring orders from Cee-Oh-LSA1SECZONE.-"

"Fair enough. Understanding Actual out." Vermilyea glances around at his officers with a smirk. "Well, she does have a sense of humor, doesn't she? Understanding, you heard the word. Take us there."

"Acting, sir," replies the Coptic nun sitting to the commander's left.

LSA1SECZONE Realspace

The TYCS forces have been keeping well-enough away from the C'tani assets on the one hand because they're joined-at-the-hip allies who have their own interests that work well with the Trium's, on the other hand because their command-and-control networks aren't perfectly linked and so there'd be a bit of confusion, and on the gripping hand because they tend to have situations well under control. The last thing Kajali survivors needed were to be harassed by a few zillion concerned souls asking the same questions, so Flag Colonel Qi Xan of Medium Cruiser Adventurer had sent some courtesy questions to the C'tani just to keep informed.

Beyond that, the Puma III-class destroyer Understanding of the predatory visage breaks off and pulls a quick short-range jump to bring it within respectful distance of Magellan. It's still running hot, but is at an even more respectful distance because of it.

* - * - *

Unidentified vessel:

This is Commander Dalibor Vermilyea of the Triumvirate of Yut destroyer Understanding, currently patrolling our security perimeter around the large spatial anomaly that has appeared around Kajal. Please identify yourself and state your purpose.

Commander Dalibor Vermilyea
CO, TYWS-DD+ Understanding
91st MCR Component, assigned LSA1SECZONE

"Probes lost, sir. It looks like they were sucked into the anomaly. Very strong gravity well there."

"Hm." It is not a Captain's place to say Goddamnittohell will spatial anomalies. "Not surprising, since this thing acts at least a little like a normal 'hole. They shouldn't have come out that close, though."

Spacefolding around the anomaly is clearly dangerous, which is patently a given with spacetime buckling around it like it is; folding into, or out of, a steep gravity well is more likely to leave a ship a planck-length wreck than at its destination. The Kajali anomaly may not act much like a black hole (it's many times larger than Sagittarius A*, the monster maw around which the galaxy turns, and yet has far less gravitational effect. Something to be thankful for, that) but it's clearly no less hostile.

"Word God! Uh, sorry sir - we've got a warship within sublight range, weapons hot!"

"Thank you, astrogation. I can see that."

Rodriguez scowls at the big glowing mark on the screens that's just hopped in. They don't feel any compunction at jumping into warped space. Military types are all gung-ho.

"Receiving a transmission, sir. Lightspeed radio tightbeam, in the clear."

"Good." Or bad, the thought occurs to Rodriguez suddenly. If they're the perpetrators of this incident out looking for stragglers..

Unidentified vessel:

This is Commander Dalibor Vermilyea of the Triumvirate of Yut destroyer Understanding, currently patrolling our security perimeter around the large spatial anomaly that has appeared around Kajal. Please identify yourself and state your purpose.

Commander Dalibor Vermilyea
CO, TYWS-DD+ Understanding
91st MCR Component, assigned LSA1SECZONE

"Huh." It is not a Captain's place to say Goddamnittohell with all militaries either. "Fire up the sublight comms to reply ..."

* - * - *

TYWS-DD+ Understanding, this is Captain Devon Rodriguez of the Nova Federation Ship Magellan. We are a science vessel operated by the Astrophysical Survey Mission of the Federal Science Directorate, assigned to investigate the Kajali anomaly. We are currently exiting the anomaly's immediate area to observe from a safer distance. We are not, repeat not, armed. Please don't shoot us!

Captain Devon Rodriguez
CAPT NFS Magellan
Federal Science Directorate Astrophysical Survey

TYWS-MCR Akizuki

In the difference in perceptive time between the jacked-in Combined Service spacemen and the Nova Federation explorers, the TYCS learns a lot. "Uhm, ma'am," Freeman says apologetically as he reads off his displays, "my statement of a new pattern may have been overstated."

Flag Captain Dorothy Meneely simply nods. "How overstated?"

"The new contact, identified Magellan, is an EXEMPLAR-class research ship of the kind used by the Nova Federation," he says sheepishly. That the TYCS reporting name of the ship has nothing to do with its actual class name--all research ships getting a name that starts with "EX"--isn't really that important. "That much of their story checks out. The Nova Federation is a relatively small interstellar nation twenty leeches antispinward of Sol, well within the AntiSpinward theatre and the Sakkran Periphery. Sky Marshal Farentino's reports of them says that they're mostly concerned with commerce and technology, are a parliamentary federation, and sort of like a slightly stricter micro-Triumvirate. Three star systems, no strategic military threat. We should get along with them pretty well, actually."

"Pass it along to the tacnet, lieutenant. So much for first impressions." The rest of her statement she leaves safely inside her own head, or at least a computronium upload of it: but that's what they get for going so far afield.

TYWS-DD+ Understanding

"Goddamnittohell with bloody researchers," Vermilyea grumbles. "'Ooh, something pretty, let's go look at it. What? The local allies with the ludicrously armed warships may be concerned? Never mind,'" he says, rising slightly in his seat, one arm pointing towards the simulated ceiling, "there's SCIENCE!"--his finger jabs upwards towards the higher and faster future--"to be done!'"

The ship's virtual avatar, wearing the same sooty gray and very simple Coptic nun's habit that her physical avatar wears, coughs gently in a way she learned from Mullah Kadira.

"Hrm. A--hem." The commander clears his throat in something approaching an apology. "I knew that the Geckos would be showing up shortly, but this was... ah... unexpected. They'll have someone to play with, at least."

Understanding merely glances at her captain.

"Right. Spin up another message, they sound positively desperate and the silence on our end must be deafening... oh, wait, jacked in. Heh. Hopefully they won't even notice a delay."

* - * - *

Magellan Actual,

My apologies for being so brusque. A good deal of one of our allies happens to be inside that anomaly, so I hope you understand why we're on alert. Rest assured that while we're running about loaded it's not for you; it's just a precaution because if this is an attack we need to be ready to strike back.

Be advised that a research cruiser from our Galactic Exploration Command will be arriving shortly; hopefully you'll be able to coordinate with them so we can all figure this out just that much faster.

Commander Dalibor Vermilyea
CO, TYWS-DD+ Understanding
91st MCR Component, assigned LSA1SECZONE

Solanna

While It has been aware of the other ship in system, It's been busy. Unfortunately, now, the deed is done, and sitting at the bottom of a six hundred meter deep crater in the desert is a (relatively) small complex of pyramids, arranged such that they'd appear as an X twenty kilometers wide from the air. There's five, the largest of them sitting in the middle of the complex, and, if one was so inclined, they would notice that the edges line up perfectly with each other, and to tolerances that most large industrial fabbers would be envious of.

Still, the digging was the hard part. Getting inside, that's easy.

There's a brief flash, as the brute force method is used, and a thunderclap that'll be audible across most of the hemisphere, though the target is no mere door. Too much force and It'd risk destroying whatever lay within; just enough, though, could atomize the large hanger doors without disturbing the interior contents too much.

There is, of course, going to be rather considerable exterior damage incurred in the act of attempting to remove such doors in this fashion. Especially doors this big.

Unfortunately for Jalkalaissatana, It is not particularly amenable to the idea of raiding this facility and then disappearing to parts unknown with a witness. With another thunderclap the large hangar bay doors on the largest pyramid disappear into a plume of smoke, oddly exploding outwards. Small shapes seem to drop from the hull of It, themselves already of considerable size, considering the bulk of their carrier vessel, and dart into the forced opening.

The larger craft, having observed Jalkalaissatana through various shards around the planet, moves away. First to a higher orbit, and then, rather annoyingly, to intercept. Jalkalaissatana was not a particularly small ship... but It was bigger.

It wasn't also particularly subtle. Zapping something with enough force to create thunderclaps across half a planet is detectable enough in system. Flying out into proper space as it was, and so close to the surface of the anomaly, It easily possessed an energy signature that could be defined as gigantic.

Perhaps it had simply become bored with slinking about.

Realspace minutes of lightspeed lag tick by as the Magellan's message wings its way to the Understanding and the destroyer's reply flies back. For a species which evolved on so small a scale that they never once encountered relativistic effects for millions of years, humanity finds the limits imposed by the speed of light endlessly frustrating. Humanity in general, and Captain Devon Rodriguez in particular.

If the warship were to open fire, he thinks, It would get here no sooner than if they were to send a message. Three-and-a-bit light minutes, and no way to tell which we get until time's up ... but I'm being silly. They're Yut Spacy, the White Knights of Sol. They'd no sooner open fire than ... than ... than bizarre light-year-wide black holes would appear without warning? Fie!

Thankfully, anomalous astrophysics does not correlate with anomalous politics, and Understanding's message arrives on schedule.

* - * - *

Apologies accepted, Understanding. I'm afraid we rather overreacted to your appearance over here! This anomaly has us rather on edge. We look forward to the arrival of your GEC cruiser; I'll have my astrophysicists ready to contribute what they can.

Captain Devon Rodriguez
CAPT NFS Magellan
Federal Science Directorate Astrophysical Survey

TYWS-DD+ Understanding

"You know, sir," the comm officer says between trained scans of status screens and indicator displays, "I think overtechnology has really spoiled us."

Dalibor raises an eyebrow. "Lightspeed lag, hm?"

"Exactly, sir."

"We play to the strengths of the people we like, Hari. Anyway, what's FleetCom got to say now?"

"Akizuki's saying we can leave them alone; the Gecko ship Armstrong is going to rendezvous with them and that'll be that. The EXEMPLAR-class is unarmed anyway--"

"And Beagles aren't--"

"--exactly, sir. That's the plan."

"Is the order to regroup immediately or are we to wait to be relieved?"

"Open question, sir."

"Right. Inform the Flag Captain then that we're going to keep an eye on this explorer just in case they know more than they're letting on. Unlikely, I know, but there are two forms of paranoia."

"Sir, we're not in the Antispinward Theatre."

"I know, but these people are, and I'm certain that wop"--despite the racial slur, he speaks of Farentino in only the most jovial of tones--"is in charge there."

"Maybe because the Sakkrans get along so well with the Dominion?"

"We're on alert, and the Flag Captain would have our hides for unprofessional conduct," the commander growls good-naturedly. "Get on it already."

"Acting, sir."

* - * - *

TYRS-RCR Armstrong, LSA1SECZONE

The research cruiser jump cuts its way back into existence a safe distance away from the distortion engulfing Kajal, emerging from infintity over the span of a few chronons. As space goes more or less back to normal, eddies around LSA-1 not withstanding, those inside Armstrong's command compartment buckle down to something approximating military alert. Captain Pelagetti unconsciously forces himself a little deeper into his seat and adjusts his green wheel cap on his brow. "Go to yellow alert," he barks, quite a bit more forcefully than he intended; the lights immediately take on a yellow hue as the ship goes to what the TYCS would call Alert Condition One.

"Fields charging, sir, setting party and eraser capacitors to standby," Lieutenant Commander Ahohnils (unfortunately nicknamed "A-Hole") Cairnflame the Karmabaijani metahuman elf announces as his arachnodactylic fingers dance lightly over his display. "Situation indicator updated; two ships local area, Destroyer Understanding and Nova Fedrat explorer Magellan."

"Mhm." Stephan nods as he looks into the nebulous blue sphere of the ship's master situational awareness display, noting the black orb of LSA-1 in the far distance and the two icons indicating the ships Armstrong now happens to be sharing the local area with. "Alright, then. Lisa, please contact our jackbooted comrades and let them know we're relieving them; meanwhile, also please set me up with an open channel to the Federation ship."

Lieutenant Commander Lisa Dail, the communications officer, nods and starts typing up a secure communique to the destroyer even as she sets up a tightbeam channel to Magellan and flips the transmit microphone switch with an audible with the other.

* - * - *

Captain!

I'm sorry that our less... hospitable comrades jumped upon you but please forgive them; they're trained to be paranoid and consider military issues first. I'm Captain Pelagetti of Research Cruiser Armstrong, Triumvirate of Yut Galaxy Exploration Command. We have aboard several Kajali scientists with an artifact that appears related to LSA-1 over there, so how do you think we should coordinate and proceed?

Captain Stephan Pelagetti
CO, TYRS-RCR Armstrong
Galaxy Exploration Command

Pleased to meet you, Captain Pelagetti. I'm sure your less hospitable comrades have given you the sitrep, but if not, allow me to introduce myself; Captain Rodriguez of the NFS Magellan, Federal Science Directorate, Astrophysical Survey Mission. Your friends over there seem rather twitchy, but given the circumstances I think we'll forgive them.

Please expand upon "appears related to"; I'm afraid my immediate reaction would be "study it via FTL probe, at a distance of several lights". Assuming that it's less immediately dangerous, however, I'm happy to send over any appropriate scientists I may have to assist you. It's good that you've been able to make contact with Kajali remnants - they hopefully know more about this than any of the rest of us.

Captain Devon Rodriguez
CAPT NFS Magellan
Federal Science Directorate Astrophysical Survey

From: Imperial Necrontyr Ship Reaper of Light, Part the Second; Fleet Flagship
To: TYCS Patrol
Subject: Kajali Anomoly

Since we’ve been here, we’ve noticed the initial spike of communications interference dropping with a rather short half-life. Contact with Solanna should be possible soon. The other two home systems outside the sphere will follow shortly thereafter. We received a high power signal on our own systems from Solanna, and have sent a ship to investigate. It has not yet returned or reported.

We are about to dispatch ships to the other two Kajali home systems, and have a distributed fleet around this volume investigating the sphere and various outposts – we believe you’re probably in contact with the Kajali survivor fleet – details attached – that transited recently at one.

Also, this vessel is one of ours – recognition for Brigantine-vessel Uplifting-Empowerment-Phenomenon attached – and part of our investigation.

We’ll keep you appraised of anything we find.
____

There was no siren, no alert, as the enemy ship approached. Just a silence across the ship as it changed velocity to meet the opponent, the screen showing the long modified sliver shape of the vessel ahead. Here and there, specks danced across the screen as the swarm of scarabs surrounding the Jalkalissatana spread out to a radius of thousands of kilometers, primarily before it, to attack incoming projectiles.

“Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” Senator Braimen asked, watching this.

“No…” the ship said – bypassing its avatar and speaking directly from the walls, “I’m going to kill it.”

As it said so, a flickering line of green shot from the vessel, the hot orb of Solanna dropping away to the left of the window. A moment later, another shot from the other leading edge of the tomb-ship, shooting through the void closer to Solanna. There was no tactical finesse in this engagement; both ships were in orbit, a short, brutal weapons range. Faster than one could see, the leading weapons converged on the enemy, and the ship added flickering bursts of lightning that would illuminate the entire night side of Solanna when they struck.

“I thought you said that the outcome of this engagement was uncertain?”

“That was before,” the Watson-avatar said, “we’ve found something that changes that.”

Braimen looked back at the screen. The Solus-vessel was longer than a Cairn, but thinner, and lower, they seemed to have roughly equivalent displacement.
____

The Solus-vessel was not the only one seeking entrance to the pyramids of Solanna. But not all of those pyramids were created equal. The source of the signal that had brought Jalkalissatana running had been found.

The necrontyr had examined the pyramids of Solanna long ago, and decided they were unrelated to their own designs – pretty much any species would build pyramids at some point, they were a basic form of building.

But when they had compared the surface map to their archives, the Arnstoan Rhian-class cruiser had been in the future. They had not recognized its design in the peaks by the Lesser Desert Mountains of Solanna. Now they did.

That was of course, impossible to most people’s minds, for that class was new, around a century old. However, the necrontyr had their standards of what was possible. Clearly the magnitude of the occasion was sufficient that they had, at some point, deemed it necessary to time travel: something they knew how to do, even if it was a little more complex and a lot more limited than ordinary space travel.

Such was the way of the universe – one could have any two of relativity, causality and faster than light. In the universe they had come from, as here, necrontyr sciences said relativity and faster than light were the proven facts – causality was merely a nice idea.

The process of awakening a recumbent vessel was a long one – but the ship beneath the sands had apparently set its internal systems to do so. When the Necrons had arrived, they had found it rapidly nearing operation. Now, that revivification process was complete.

They knew it, it was one of the existing vessels, Erisavenus; now in two places at once.

An earthquake swept the desert as miles of dark green metal ripped itself from mountains and sand-planes; the sand falling from its flat upper surfaces enough to start sizeable sand-storms, as the ship began to rise.

It fired, turning much of the thick layer of sand upon its surface to a tangled maze of fulgurites as lightning arcs surged through the sand, ancillary bolts turning it to glass, the main bolts simply vaporizing it.

The ship twisted a barrel roll surpassingly agile for something so large, shedding the excess material, five hundred yard long pieces of fused fulurite falling to the sands below as it powered out of the atmosphere in a curving arc that would bring it up behind the Solus vessel.

Both Erisavenus and Jalkalaissatana had the same goal in mind – unsurprising, as warships, they thought alike, and before it had left, Erisavenus had been thoroughly briefed on what it would find. Both were focussing their fire on their best guess for the location of the enemy ship’s engines.

Even as it received incoming fire, more parasite craft detached from the hull and descended rapidly into Solanna's atmosphere. They appeared as shards of bone, several hundred meters in length, and similarly armed as their carrier was. Undoubtedly they would become priority targets, though those that made it through would take up stationary positions high above Solaan.

What do you care for these insects? They are nothing to you, limited beings without true understanding. You and I, we are more alike than any of these small creatures.

It returned fire, focusing on Jalkalaissatana. The weapons appeared as if they were red lightning, deep in hue and annoyingly effective, at least against the System Defense Fleet.

You... yes, you are old. Older than Iu or any of his heresy, yet so misguided. No matter. If you truly care for these insects, these "children," hinder me no more. But, perhaps you are as I am... and their deaths will become an amusing diversion.

The Solun ship continued on a high-powered approach towards Jalkalaissatana. It was itself quite maneuverable given it's size, though not to the same extremes as the Necron ships. Dividing fire amongst Jalkalaissatana and Erisavenus would be a mistake. If it continued on the same vector past Jalkalaissatana, though, it would be headed directly for the surface of LSA-1. That would likely be a one way trip, unless it had found something underneath the sands...

Meanwhile, on the other side of Solanna, "small" craft that had earlier detached from It emerged from the pyramid complex, accompanied by one that had not entered with them. It was sleek and far lengthened in comparison, and of familiar design though much smaller than other vessels had encountered. They streaked away from Solanna. taking a course that would take them behind the system star from the viewpoints of the other vessels in system, and then to the same point on the surface of LSA-1 that the parent craft was vectoring towards.

Erisavenus spun about on its axis, coming to face the two ships rising from the pyramids. A bolt of flensing emerald fire shot across the intervening space to hit the Solus-vessel that had descended to the pyramids. At the same time it was communicating with the larger necron ship, which still eagerly traded fire with Solus. Together, they fired the most rarely used weapon in their arsenals.

The Star Pulse consisted of a blast of energy from all parts of a vessel’s hull, almost omni-directional. In this case, it did not emit energy onto Solanna, but every other part of the surrounding space. Where that energy spread out, it seemed only to grow in strength at the same rate it should have dropped off according to the law of inverse squares. For each of the affected ships; any ship not directly between the necron vessels and Solanna, or hiding behind Solanna, it was akin to being directly immersed in a particularly violent star.

There were still ships unaffected by this, of course, and Erisavenus’ other weapons turned upon them, flickering out with energy gathered from Engralis, a hot young star in the Maia Nebula, four arcs of lightning surging across space to attack the survivors.

Meanwhile it’s other gauss whips fired, two more shooting at the Solan ship heading for what it called the timehole, and a fourth ‘attacking’ the Iuan craft.

The guass flayer was probably the most over-complicated weapon in the universe. Relying on exotic combinations of magnetic fields to form its distinctive action of flaying a target from the outside, inward, the processing power required and energy wasted in even the simplest and least lethal variation of the weapon was inordinate. However, they had their advantages. They were also a scanner system that made Heisenberg Uncertainty uncertain, and could even dis-materialise matter and absorb it. Here, however, Erisavenus used one of the simplest possible variants. It simply used the weapon to wrap a magnetic field around the fleeing craft, quite a gentle one, at first, but rapidly ramping up in power.

Cease all powered accelleration at once it sent, and you will be unharmed.


You have clearly been under some misapprehensions about our will. Jalkalissatana sent, a little taken aback by the other vessel’s swift response itself – it would have hesitated, but then, it had received firing instructions, authenticated. It was, on a nanosecond’s reflection, the right decision – if these ships found Kajali deaths amusing they would surely fire anyway. Surrender, it sent, arcs of lightning still crackling and snaking towards the enemy vessel’s enginges, Disarm and you will not be destroyed - and we keep our word it added, launching a flurry of what seemed to be compact, hundred-meter missiles from its under-side toward the enemy craft’s ventral side.

Please expand upon "appears related to"; I'm afraid my immediate reaction would be "study it via FTL probe, at a distance of several lights". Assuming that it's less immediately dangerous, however, I'm happy to send over any appropriate scientists I may have to assist you. It's good that you've been able to make contact with Kajali remnants - they hopefully know more about this than any of the rest of us.
Apparently it's an ancient device of mysterious origin that does the same sort of oddness with gravity that LSA-1--that's what we're calling the anomaly--over there does. It's a relatively low-power device, so I've given authorization for some preliminary tests to be done on it, where our sensor suites can study it in detail and see if we can't figure out something about the anomaly via comparison. You're free to come over if you'd like.

~Captain Pelagetti

* - * - *

TYRS-RCR Armstrong, Armor Bay Three

Back when the Beagle-class carried aerospace fighters, it carried them in armored airlocks along the bottom of the ventral hull. Aerospace fighters no longer serving any sort of role in actual space combat or defense, these armored bays still have two purposes: one, they can still hold small craft about the size of aerospace fighters, more useful than it sounds because the old Peregrins the GEC used to use were actually rather large compared to most spacys' snubfighters. Two, they are armored just as well as the external hull, in case of collisions or deck accidents, so they're a wonderful place to put dangerous experiments, especially if the doors are set to vent on a hairtrigger.

Forrest doesn't really have this on his mind right now, though, as he stands looking at the console hooked up by some thick multicolored wires to the Device on the test stand. It has some buttons, and lights, and switches, and dials. He's been trained in their use--as well as could be--by the Kajali during the transit out here. Still, it's momentous. Something could happen.

He reaches out and turns a dial anyway.

Apparently it's an ancient device of mysterious origin that does the same sort of oddness with gravity that LSA-1--that's what we're calling the anomaly--over there does. It's a relatively low-power device, so I've given authorization for some preliminary tests to be done on it, where our sensor suites can study it in detail and see if we can't figure out something about the anomaly via comparison. You're free to come over if you'd like.

~Captain Pelagetti

I'll send you my Chief of Sciences, Dr. Chojiro Jones, and whatever personnel he deems appropriate. Expect them at $time.

~Captain Rodriguez

* - * - *

"I always wanted to join the TYCS when I was a kid," Dr. Jones comments idly. "Too much Super Space Adventures, I suppose."

"Do they let in foreigners? I always thought it was Yut nationals only."

Chojiro shrugs, an expressive gesture considering the impressive breadth of his shoulders (he is tall and dark and handsome, and at least two of those are unusual in a New Kamchatkan; courtesy of his mother's DNA). "I never actually bothered to find out," he admits, "After all, I was ten at the time. I think it was the inherent idealism that attracted me."

Sian O'Hara (in name and appearance a perfect Ulsterwoman, right down to the red roots of her dyed-brown hair) snorts at that. "Nobody's an idealist out here, Cho. It's a supranational federation, and - well, look at ours."

"It was Super Space Adventures," Jones replies. "The Evil Undead Elf Army didn't exist either."

"Or at least not so we'd heard about." Berne Wild Wind (spacer tall and as dark as space, but not particularly handsome; from one of the podunk little moonlets of Trinity, and something of a conspiracy nut) leans forward in his chair. "Sol is Sol, after all, the universe's biggest Crumpled Terrain. And then there's Hellsing."

O'Hara rolls her eyes. "Sure, sure. And the Alien Space Bats are covering it all up, Windy."

"There are no Alien Space Bats that I know of." Kevin Fukuyama regards her with an expression of benign puzzlement, as if he cannot quite understand why she would say such a thing. But then Kevin (a mutt, like most Novans; Kamchatkan-Carribean skin and a shock of bright red Ulster hair) is high-functioning something-or-other, and his social skills come in a prescription foil.

"It's a phrase, Kevin," Jones says kindly (and a little patronisingly, to be completely honest). "Any conspiracy or coverup on a societal scale is supposedly the work of fictive Alien Space Bats."

"Ah. I see." Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn't, more probably it's simply filed differently to the rest of them. Society is complicated enough without invoking fictional entities to explain it.

The launch comm does it's usual hysteric little warble of approaching-docking-procedure-now; the Armstrong is a few tens of meters away now, and their little craft is turning to orient itself properly with the proffered airlock. The pilot brings them in with mathematical precision, the airlocks coupling in a maneuver as old as spaceflight. The doors whoosh open with a little gasp of overpressure, and they're aboard the Armstrong.

Airlock

The Novans are met at the far side of the universal adaptor's airlock by the smiling white-haired face of Lieutenant Commander Tristian Church in his green-and-black Class As, grinning behind closed lips, and the highly reflective golden faceplate of an A7L moon landing suit. The space suit waves, in the universal gesture of greeting, a glove whose palm is coated in knobbly gray rubber. "-Welcome aboard me, *beep*-" it says in a tinny professional aviator's voice.

"Yes, indeed." Tristian is just such a jolly fellow. "This is Research Cruiser Armstrong's avatar and I'm Lieutenant Commander Church, chief science officer. We'll take you down to the armored test bay where we've got the device all hooked up and you can have a look at it. I hope you don't mind if I brief you while we walk; time is probably of the essence, after all..."

* - * - *

Armor Bay Three

"And apparently it generates an antiforce to gravity that acts like gravity but nullifies it on contact, sort of like antimatter and matter. It's the damnedest thing."

Kevin Fukuyama gives Church what, in people more socially adept, would probably be called a "stink eye". In Fukuyama, it's mixed with his usual I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about-but-that's-standard to become a look of who-gave-this-man-a-degree?

"Gravity is curvature of space-time," he points out. "This is proven. Spacetime cannot nullify itself. Your models are in error."

"We'd been assuming it was some kind of "pocket universe"," O'Hara says hurriedly, to cover up Fukuyama's social gaffe. "With internal inflation balanced precisely against the external pressure imposed upon it by our own universe. Like an arm-wrestling match between two equally strong opponents. It could account for the observable space-time distortions around the anomaly ..."

"If you twist the theories," Berne says. "And even then I don't know how you'll account for the fact that it's just popped into place a light across, as opposed to expanding outwards from wherever - I assume you haven't noticed the Kajali home system squooshed across the outside in a thin shell of ionized hydrogen? No? And if that were the case it would still be expanding now, so I think we can assume it's stable in size, and was created as we see it."

"You could do something similar if you could create higher-dimensional topographies, twist space-time about like Crumpled Terrain," Jones muses. "Pinch the system off in its own little bubble of space-time. Except it wouldn't account for the Anomaly, and once you'd wrapped it you wouldn't be able to unwrap it - it'd be its own separate universette."

OOC: Yeah, my science is probably highly flawed and will cause ninja physicists to hurl throwing stars at my head. O'Hara's pocket universe idea, and Berne's criticism, is vaguely based on the novo-vacuum in Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder. The Crumpled Terrain is closer to the mythago thingus in Robert Holdstock's novels; essentially a bigger-on-the-inside folded up topography created through the Wonders of Spacetime Folding.

Church grins just a little, and somehow it doesn't have the friendliest vibe associated with it. "Reality trumps models, gentlemen, and the reality of what we're seeing outside--and from the Device--does not seem to fit the models you offer. Is that the models' problem, or reality's, hmm?

"Aaaanyway, here we are." One internal airlock later and they're inside Armor Bay Three... and take it away Kajal.

Solanna

The largest craft found the 'Star Pulse' amusing. Like the Necron craft, it had, ages ago, been partial to sundiving. While it possessed no detectable shielding technologies it had certainly been sturdy enough to survive one previous cataclysmic war and to continue to operate for the thousands of years separating that war and the present. It had decimated the Solannan fleet utterly, a feat that would set the Kajali back several years in terms of reconstruction, presuming of course that the shipyards at Ljosal Dan were available.

And now, the Necrons had destroyed the remains of that fleet, removing the possibility of even any salvage of material in orbit. It laughed, even as exterior layers of It boiled away.

You are determined! Were my mission not so, I might deign to continue with this game. As to your doubt concerning my word...

The small ships above Solaan began to glow. They hadn't exhibited any external weapons systems, though it was likely obvious now that they were, instead, bombs.

Perhaps you can save them, if you give up this chase. I have someplace to be.

The "Iuan" craft generated an inverse field, calculated carefully to attempt to negate the grip that slowly tightened upon it. As it did so it continued to accellerate, and, from the viewpoint of an observer on Solanna, it began to experience blueshift. The two craft alongside did not break formation, even as large chunks were rent free by the withering fire they had come under. The larger vessel had also begun to display similar effects, even as clouds of material tore free behind it. It was not immediately clear if such was due to damage or an intentional act on It's part, though no doubt it would frustrate conventional missiles. Still, many tracked true, impacting upon the underside of it and causing the superstructure to visibly ripple.

A last transmission rang out from it, even as it began to break up into many ballistic fragments.

The loss of this shell is... acceptable. I will survive such. My heralds will return...

The Iuan craft remained ensnared, though still unresponsive. It was likely that the original intelligence aboard had been purged; it behaved identically to the craft that had been escorting it. Greivously damaged, they had fallen behind.

My mind yet survives...

The craft over Solaan died without so much as a deflagration, dropping from the sky as if rock. They had obviously been controlled and powered from afar; with the mothership in pieces there was no further means to direct them, and they were much too small themselves to generate the power necessary for their gambit.

The Iuan ship, otherwise undamaged, began to generate a field of an unknown quality, detectable only through other effects. As it did this, it opened a junp point, slipping into it and quite possibly drawing the captor with it. As all of this occured, the surface of the anomaly rippled; the Iuan craft was apparently so equipped to pass through it.

TYRS-RCR Armstrong, Armor Bay Three

A red button, set under a plastic shield, started to blink. It was labeled, quite clearly, "COMMIT". Somewhere along the way, someone had suffered a fit of sanity and installed it just in case.

After lifting the shield and pressing it, a certain klaxon sounded in the bay. Anyone in the TYCS or CFS would know it well. This particular klaxon was intended to alert one that artificial gravity in the particular section had apparently failed. Armstrong had been alerted that this would happen, of course, and given the earlier observed effects on active conventional gravitic devices, the klaxon ceased and the section gravity was turned off, to put it bluntly.

Aside from that, nothing appeared to happen. Forrest was still standing in front of the device, nothing was floating away, and no discontinuities had appeared anywhere around the device. Communications to the particular section, however, did suddenly fail.

At higher power settings something more interesting might happen, though whether or not that would be advisable immediately was debatable. Kavaan arrived to find Forrest, and the others, as well as lights flashing to indicate that the section was still apparently in microgravity...

"Oh. I see you've turned it on... and we're still alive. That's good... I was afraid that we might break something important."

After a few minutes, which was about as long as it'd take to detect anything on the surface of the anomaly, a small disturbance seemed to develop. There was no apparent reason for it to do so, given distance from LSA-1, though curiously it was very small, about the size of an airlock, and positioned directly below Armstrong on the surface of LSA-1.

OOC: i mean no offense to the abilities of the necrons, but my plot requires that at least one craft escape into LSA-1. Sorry. :(

"An antiforce of gravity cannot be reconciled with proven facts of reality," Fukuyama insists. "There is certainly some simpler explanation that does not throw out the basic structure upon which modern physics is - you turned it on?" His voice rises to a yelp. "We need to know what it does before we turn it on!"

Jones rolls his eyes. "Relax, Kevin. We're still alive and all ... and yes, it does seem to affect your gravitic sensors, if all those klaxons mean the same thing they would on the Magellan ... and yet we're clearly not in zero-gee. Very odd. I have to admit I would prefer not to have to reinvent spacetime from first principles ..."

"Bah! Where's the fun in that?" Berne Wild Wind wanders over to the device to poke it with one spiderlike digit. "Reveal to us your secrets, dread machine!"

Erisavenus considered, for a moment, shooting the Iuan ship. It would take a few milliseconds to ramp the firepower up by a factor of a billion, and destroy it with all the brutality of an icepick striking a wallnut stuck in a clamp. That would be the wise thing to do.

Unfortunately that wasn’t what it knew it would do. Stupid predestination.

More than that, it was drained – it had, until now, not been connected to the energy sources of the necrontyr, instead relying on glorified batteries. Now, it began to re-align its power nodes to draw energy anew, watching the Solus-vessels disappear, flicking off its energy fields.

So, it simply watched, and as the ships in orbit of Solanna had lost power, it focussed its fire, in considerable annoyance, on Solus itself, a few withering volleys at the aft engines. These were joined with by Jalkalaissatana, which was towing fragments of its port tip in its widespread field of scarabs and support drones.

You’re not following? it demanded.

No. And nor should you…

Jalkalaissatana began to decelerate, Why?

About time for a long story, Erisavenus said, as the two ships turned back to Solanna, teleporting Solan debris out of orbit, examining bits and pieces of it, but mostly wanting to keep tabs on it. The “missiles” returned to Jalkalaissatana, too, and the ships gathered the debris of Solus up, fields attenuated around its mass.

A few of the falling ships were moving too fast for them to do anything about, letting them plough into the deserts – thankfully the world wasn’t heavily populated, and they were headed for the deep desert.

With a parting message, and the dispatch of its own complement of Necrons, the two ships leapt into hyperspeed, headed at a very languid speed, their trophies in tow, toward the rest of the fleet, where they re-appeared minutes later.
____

From: Imperial Necrontyr Ship Reaper of Light, Part the Second; Fleet Flagship
To: TYCS Patrol
Subject: Kajali Anomoly

Our ships have engaged and defeated a hostile fleet over Solanna. This fleet is known to us, please stand by, we are currently discussing this information ourselves. We should be able to provide a briefing aboard this vessel within ten minutes, if you wish, otherwise, we will dispatch a briefing by courier.

When poked, the device exhibits a curious property. First is a slight shock, such as that induced by static electricity. The other is a curious force, feeling as if magnetic, though clearly not as fleshy fingers are not usually subject to such attractions. As it is the poking digit is easily withdrawn though the sensation is... odd.

One other curiosity. While the device is covered in inscriptions that appear to be some sort of runes, none of them had glowed previously. A single rune, which had been in contact with the finger, flashes red three times and then is no longer lit. Dr. Kavaan notices this, and while none of his team dared touch it when it was on... he reaches out and touches the same spot.

The rune that had flashed thrice instead lights with a blue light, and remains lit. Grooves and what appeared to be decorative linework also lights, and patterns on the surface that resemble some sort of control panel slowly become apparent. Of course, no one in the room can read anything inscribed upon it.

"Huh. Your doodad is statically charged ... and the air is sticky. Weird." Berne moves his finger through the zone of effect in empirical analysis. "Some kind of force field? If it's a protection it must be out of charge ... or it's the equivalent of a big red "do not touch" sign."

Of course, then Kavaan goes and pokes it again. Science is not for pussies.

"Looks like you found the manual controls," Jones says. "I don't suppose anyone has a clue what these squiggles mean? No? It's probably going to be hard to find a Kajali archaeologist right now ..."

Armstrong's avatar folds its arms, meaning it steeples its fingers in front of the insulated control box on its white chest, tapping them together gently. "-I've lost communications to the rest of the ship. One moment. *beep*-" The A7L suit waddles out the nearest airlock, then comes right back, trailing a wire. "-Apparently the device is perfectly jamming communications. Let's see if the wire helps. *beep*-

-Also, there's been a reaction on the surface of LSA-1. *beep* Just a moment... there appears to be a disturbance on the surface of the discontinuity, approximately a meter and a half in diameter, centered around a point which is the interception of the surface of LSA-1 and the radial between us and LSA-1's center point. *beep* In other words, it's doing something weird directly under us, if you consider towards its center of mass 'downwards.' *beep*-

"-We may have a few archaeologists aboard, who would be best suited to checking the GEC xenoarchaeology databases. Assuming, of course, that we don't accidentally make a SSA-1 by needlessly poking the now glowing Device. *beep*-"

Pleiades Border Regions

In the time that had passed since the initial group of ships had exited subspace transit, more vessels had arrived, both from near the sphere's vicinity and elsewhere. Something had happened, and while no one was quite sure what it was, the immediate effect was unexpected. FTL communications between the three core worlds residing outside of the sphere began to come back up, and back at The Switchboard many red lines soon turned to orange, and then yellow. Connections to Derivan and Ljosa were established first, and given the nature of the event the available officials were relieved to hear that the shipyards at Ljosal Dan were, in fact, still there.

Still, there were some odd issues. A connection to Kajal proper was still impossible, and communication with Solanna was also impossible through official channels, though several unofficial and otherwise private sources had begun to sync with previously connected networks.

Just as abruptly, Kalaan had moved away from the fleet, proceeding back towards the anomaly. One final transmission seemed to state his intent...

The might and machinations of men are here undone, by slightest touch and lightest breath. They fight the headwaters, yearning towards their source. All of this has happened before.

A jump point opened, impossibly small given Kalaan's size, and he disappeared through it.

Solanna

Analysis would confirm that the large vessel was indeed a chosen avatar of the entity Solus, matching descriptions in ancient Kajali texts. Unfortunately, nothing of use could be gleaned from the wreckage. The Necrons would likely understand the nature of the construction, but to most other powers the vessel itself appeared to leave only chunks of dense metal, within which very few discrete components could be found. The work of nanomachines it was apparently not, though once able to reshape itself as it pleased, that ability had been lost eons prior. It was almost as if it had become fossilized, and subsequently rendered incredibly fragile. It was most odd. Still, there was the possibility that the event that had resulted in the vessel disintegrating into a cloud of debris had very well destroyed the majority of any particularly interesting technology that may have been aboard; Disturbingly, though, much of the debris seemed to be composed primarily of some sort of hybrid mechanoid/organic matter...

On the surface, small skimmers had begun to venture out towards the excavated complex, though this was likely in error. while it had lain dormant during the theft of the Iuan craft, it now seemed to be in the process of awakening. Whether or not this was due to the presence of Kajali or others was not clear, though whatever the cause, the complex was now easily detectable on a variety of scanners. The immediate vicinity also appears to be afflicted by earthquakes of various magnitude, though none are particularly violent... yet.

TYRS-RCR Armstrong, Armor Bay Three

Kavaan has been staring at the now-illuminated device in silence for some time now. Ignoring the fact that some sort of disturbance had developed on the surface of LSA-1 directly "below" them, there was something about it that he hadn't noticed before, other than the obvious.

"...some of these almost look like riikan... Like this one, it's sorta shaped like the letter i, but tilted on it's side..."

Kavaan remains seated, staring at it. It has, incidentally, been on longer than it ever was while at Camp R. Given that a few other Kajali scientists are also sitting cross-legged on the floor simply staring at it, there may be some sort of mental effect...

Of course, that it never glowed before probably doesn't help.

"Why is it jamming the wireless, do you think? Is it because of countergravity? Maybe when the signal reaches the edge of the field the properties of it cause the signal to be reflected back towards the source..."

"...but no one's reported anything like _that_ happening."

"...more likely it's like the surface of LSA-1. Anything directed towards the field is just eated, but at this power level it only affects things that are relatively weak, like EM emissions, and not things like, um, us."

The relatively silent environment is interrupted as Armstrong heaves noticeably. This is not something that a spacecraft should normally do. Concurrently, the surface of LSA-1 starts to ripple, as the surface of the ocean would.

This is also something that it likely should not be able to do. Such events are... worrying. After the initial turbulence, as it were, everyone in the room, and indeed, aboard the ship, seems to experience a strange sensation, as if "down" had suddenly been redefined as "Towards LSA-1", even though shipboard gravity is continuing to operate normally. Armstrong's avatar beeps.

"-Some sort of larger event seems to be occurring on or within LSA-1... *beep*. Also, we are starting to drift towards it, despite current measures."

Solanna

Three vessels emerge from the complex, streaking towards the surface of the anomaly. They stop mere meters from it, and the surface begins to ripple. It becomes difficult to observe them for a moment, as if obscured by fog, and then they disappear as the fog becomes perfectly opaque, obviously being an extension of the surface of LSA-1. Within moments it folds back into the surface within a tolerance of a few millimeters, though the entire surface continues to ripple.

"-Some sort of larger event seems to be occurring on or within LSA-1... *beep*. Also, we are starting to drift towards it, despite current measures."
"-And as my current measures are gravitic and emergency fusion stationkeeping, I find this somewhat concerning. *beep*-"

Bridge

"So what are our options?" Captain Pelagetti sounds none too happy.

"-Well... *beep*-" the ship replies over the PA speakers, "-I could attempt a jump. I'm not sure what the tidal effects would do to that, though. *beep*-"

"Let's not and say we did. Full burn on the emergencies? That is what they're there for, after all."

"-Can't hurt. Engaging emergency secondary drive. *beep*-"

The secondary drive on Trium ships are modifications of the massive fusion torches that drove their forebears. Now based on uprated versions of the Territory's reactionless drives, they still consist of throwing massive amounts of energy around rather than just cleverly slipping curved space a mickey and riding the results. Brute force, but sometimes that helps.

In this particular case, brute force seems to be the answer. It is at first slow, but the attraction to the surface of LSA-1 is soon overcome as Armstrong successfully moves away from the surface of LSA-1. It also appears that the event is somewhat related to the change in state of the surface. Tidal forces have become notably more diffuse, though further reaching. One might even say they were slightly more 'normal', all things considered.

More runes upon the surface of the device light, while others go out. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the device itself may have been responsible at least in part... Kavaan slowly dials the power down, before turning it off altogether. As he does this, the runes on the surface change to red and all but a few go out entirely. Those few that remain lit seem to indicate some sort of standby state, though more importantly, Armstrong no longer seems to be drawn through any means towards LSA-1.

Of course, the necron ships were outside Solanna now, but as the communications-interruption shrank past the system, the forces they’d deployed to the surface were once more in communion with their brethren in the rest of the galaxy.

The average ‘Pylon’ type gun platform was equipped to track and engage both ground and space targets, a number of lenses distributed across its surface producing high quality optical analysis of things in orbit and nearby, as well as more esoteric systems.

These tracked the ships headed for the Timehole, conversing amongst themselves, as they relayed the details of them to their parent ship Jalkalissatana.
____

From: Imperial Necrontyr Ship Reaper of Light, Part the Second; Fleet Flagship
To: TYCS Patrol
Subject: Kajali Anomoly

We’ve completed a preliminary analysis of events.

The ship currently designated Erisavenus-β has been extremely useful in providing an analsysis of what we’re now calling the Kajali Timehole. We have also identified the agency most likely responsible for this. We are dispatching the destroyer Melissalelta to carry a data-ark to you, and custom OTP encryption packages. We are also relaying this message and dispatching the same information storage media to saturnspace via Menelmacar.
____

The ship that appeared a few light seconds from Adventurer was about a mile wide, and a kilometer long, give or take, studded with vanes, needles and pyramids, as well as strange cylindrical pits that delved deep into the planar surfaces of its crescent shaped dorsal side, arriving about half a minute after the message was received, sending a message that it would like to dock or displace a delegation aboard to talk to Flag Colonel Qi Xan, or any flag officer available, to relay briefing materials.
____

Meanwhile, on Solanna, a group of Necron immortals, heavily armoured shock troops, teleported, along with one of the ‘Lord’ class leaders of their force, to the site of the Solus vessel’s interest, and the recent departure of the three latest ships. Like almost all Necrons, the squad was controlled as a group by a single uploaded necrontyr mind. Thus, Rhakman, (a necrontyr name meaning Coldwind which had beneficial connotations) was in one body, carrying scanning equipment locked to the back of its ribcage, with another two, leading the slow advance, weapons ready, with others, carefully examining the edges of the aperture to the undergound complex.

The lord was technically of a different sub-group, a hovering, leg-less necron known as a wraith, leader of almost fifty similar Necrons, that would even now be passing intangibly into the complex – he, however, had the direct route into the unknown.
____

Elsewhere, necron ships – sizeable contingents of two heavy cruisers and entire squadrons of escorts, each lead by a tomb-ship – appeared at last at Ljosal Dan and Derivan; now that the communications interference had subsieded, the Necrons were more willing to send greater forces to discover what had happened these other systems. Of course, had one been observing the necron ships at Earth, Duat, Garm and elsewhere, one would have seen thirty five other ships, including Erisavenus-α, disappear.

There was a brief spike in local radiation levels, no doubt causing alarms on most ships near the anomaly to sound. Under the aegis of modern shielding it wasn't anything that would be immediately deadly, and as it lasted but a moment it would also lack sufficient duration to be particularly hurtful.

Anything unshielded would not enjoy the experience, granted, though in this particular case any such object would have to have already been extremely dead or stupid.

Visual sensors were momentarily blinded as the surface of the anomaly briefly emitted white light, and then... nothing.

LSA-1 was, for all intents, gone, and the region of space contained by it seemingly released. Still, however, The Switchboard displayed swathes of red, and new attempts to raise the CINCCFS and other elements of Kajali government would continue to fail. LSA-1 was gone, and it appeared for the moment that the Kajali homeworld was as well.

Elsewhere, examples of horrific destruction filtered out to the media of the Triumvirate. Images of the wreckage of the Solannan fleet danced across networks, in stark contrast to the relatively undamaged surface settlements. It would seem that, at the moment, the unearthed complex in the deep desert had not yet broken the evening news.

Ljosal Dan, however, seemed untouched. The massive shipyards remained, as if isolated from the incidents. Ljosal Dan had also been located the furthest distance from the surface of LSA-1, though aligned with Solanna on a particularly deep subspace strand. That travel corridor had been particularly well documented, as had all leading towards Solanna. It was a vastly unreported fact that access to Kajal proper was quite difficult except when traveling from Solanna, though understandable when one took into account the internal arrangement of the Pleiades.

Still, something should have been able to raise Kajal. That it remained wholly unresponsive was extremely suspect.

Annoyingly, the red runes upon the surface of the device went out. It seemed to have gone dead.

The first ships to arrive at Derivan were, perhaps unsurprisingly, elements of the remnant Kajali fleet that had escaped LSA-1's grasp at the outset of the incident. The continued comms blackout from Kajal was worrying, and a small number of science and defensive ships remained while the larger group continued to Kajal proper. As they waited, they performed an extensive surface scan of the planet, seeking any indications of technology similar to that discovered at Solanna.

It was when word returned from Kajal that they had found it; a complex, hidden deep within the northern mountain ranges but otherwise identical to that in the deep desert of Solanna had been found. Even while news that the planet that had been Kajal appeared barren and lifeless filtered out to those with appropriate clearance, a small expedition was mustered to explore the complex. And even as the details regarding Kajal were revealed, they made another discovery.

"This is the Third Division of the Kajali Remnant Fleet. We've located Kajur Lan within a complex on Derivan. We repeat, we've located Kajur Lan. It appears to have been dormant for over two thousand years..."

Medium Cruiser Adventurer
From: Imperial Necrontyr Ship Reaper of Light, Part the Second; Fleet Flagship
To: TYCS Patrol
Subject: Kajali Anomoly

We’ve completed a preliminary analysis of events.

The ship currently designated Erisavenus-β has been extremely useful in providing an analsysis of what we’re now calling the Kajali Timehole. We have also identified the agency most likely responsible for this. We are dispatching the destroyer Melissalelta to carry a data-ark to you, and custom OTP encryption packages. We are also relaying this message and dispatching the same information storage media to saturnspace via Menelmacar.
INS Reaper of Light, Part the Second:

Message received and understood. We will be standing by for data transfer and visitors. Question--why the designation "timehole?" We've had no indication suggesting this is some sort of time-based anomaly. Admittedly, our experience with such things is slim.

Flag Colonel Qi Xan
CO, LSA1SECZONE
TYWS-MCR Adventurer

* - * - *

The ship that appeared a few light seconds from Adventurer was about a mile wide, and a kilometer long, give or take, studded with vanes, needles and pyramids, as well as strange cylindrical pits that delved deep into the planar surfaces of its crescent shaped dorsal side, arriving about half a minute after the message was received, sending a message that it would like to dock or displace a delegation aboard to talk to Flag Colonel Qi Xan, or any flag officer available, to relay briefing materials.
Adventurer's shipmind quickly grants permission for displacement and, after a few minutes' delay, transmits coordinates to the TYCS ship's displacer compartment, allowing for the Flag Colonel to make his way off the tacnet and down to the displacers to greet his guests. Physically, he could be the CINCTYCS' younger brother: short, relatively stocky for someone of Eastern Asian descent, and imbued with a martial rigidity that comes from more than a mere professionalism; perhaps the military is in his blood. His face, in a word, is sharp: all angles, hard edges, and forced lines around thin but penetrating eyes and severe brows.

Whenever the Necrons appear, he bows shortly as politeness demands but perfunctorily as his demeanor is wont. "Welcome aboard Adventurer. I am Flag Colonel Qi. You have information regarding this anomaly?"

* - * - *

Research Cruiser Armstrong

Back in the command compartment, Stephan frowns a little to himself. Something--call it his intuition--is saying he missed something. Well, I wasn't about to dive the ship into an anomaly from whence there seemed no return, after all. No reason for it. Nevertheless, he addresses the helm--manned by the shipmind, whose avatar is currently elsewhere--with an annoyed gesture. "Excellent work, Armstrong. Do we have normal maneuvering power again?"

"-Yes, sir. *beep*-"

"Take us insystem, then; let's investigate why we're still not hearing from Kajal proper. Oh, and Comms?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Draft a quick response to the Kajali Remnant Fleet--how quickly they changed names?--and ask them what the significance of Kajur Lan is. Be apologetic as to why we don't recognize it."

"Aye aye, sir."

The Necrons that appeared consisted of what seemed to be the typical necron lord, an eight-foot skeletal monstrosity, clothed only in an elaborate blue-gold cloak that seemed a little moth eaten here and there. A closer look at the holes in the cloak, however revealed that the damage had actually been done by melting and bullets. Under its other arm, it carried what seemed to be a sizeable tome, made of black metal, with the covers decorated in jade and what seemed to be ivory, depicting elaborate scenes of man-like green figures fighting with what appeared to be silver spears. On the front a strange, star shaped depression rested within a wide circle.

“I am Lady Eyralint’tar,” she said; of course, the actual title protocol was more complex than that, she merely said it because in this form, there was no other way to tell which gender she was. Her voice came without any movement of the perfectly still white deathmask face, aside from the glowing emerald-like gems that seemed to serve as eyes, “though if you wish you may call me Elin. Thank you. Yes,” she said, stepping out of the displace chamber toward the flag captain, “This contains all the relevant data so far. In short, however, our enemy is the entity known as Solus. We have destroyed the craft that was host to its intellect, but it will no doubt assume other hardware. We recently received a signal from a perfect duplicate of one of our ships on Solanna that led us to engage it. This Erisavenus-beta was the result of the Erisavenus having used the anomaly to travel back in time, and bury itself in Solanna over two thousand years ago.

“One of our fleets, and Erisavenus, traveled through the anomaly,” she didn’t specify how they’d gotten through the strange gravity effects present, “having cast itself into the deeps of the Kajali oceans in the distant past. As you know, our vessels can last a very long time. If Kajal Prime still exists, they should have awoken on her surface when the timehole first appeared. This contains all known information on Solus, as well as some interesting links with Kajali mythistory, especially the Book of Laan, from our analysis of the entity’s references after our last encounter.” She extended her free hand toward Qi, with the heavy ‘book’ on two fingers, passing the over-wrought thing over.

“Its interior contains attachments for every small data-port we are aware of the Triumvirate using, as well as being able to display information itself. It also contains encryption for contacting us. Solus is highly advanced and not to be underestimated, so we felt it necessary to generate new codes for this matter. She then reached up, taking an octagonal box from midair, the item just appearing, and giving its top section a quarter turn, revealing a strange mass of cables and metal probes inside, slotting it into the front of the book.
____

At much the same time, the Jalkalaissatana was sending the same information to the remaining Kajali ships and systems, though of course, they shared recent top level encryption with the Kajali, and so had no need of sending a physical receptacle for the information, so it was much swifter, producing an update on the information of their plan. Including the aspects that Eyralint’tar had not yet mentioned.
____

Elsewhere Jalkalissatana combed its memories for references to Kajur Lan, the first was an explorer ship, that Asinsata had been familiar with, but it dismissed that, no one would be so excited at such a thing, then, they considered the name Kalaan, and soon arrived at a conclusion.
____

Meanwhile, over Derivan, the Asinsata appeared, along with her escorting vessels, based on its trajectory analysis, that was where Kalaan had gone; and Asinsata expected, based on prior experience, that Kalaan knew more than it was letting on.

The flag colonel takes a step back when the Necron speaks, merely so he doesn't have to crane his neck quite so much. The rest of the ship is actually appropriately scaled to the Lady; having to fit kzinti and Sakkrans comfortably tends to do that. "Time travel."

Xan takes a moment to process that statement, and represses a sigh. "So the 'timehole' allowed your ship Erisavenus to go two thousand years back in time. I suppose then that the past changed and history inside the anomaly is now different?"

Accepting the gilded grimoire in both arms, the TYCS officer shifts his stance to accept the remarkably heavy data ark and stages it in a few short steps to a nearby equipment bench. Upon being informed of the dataports, and just after Eyralint'tar leans over to plug in the strange module, Qi locates the ports with a quick inspection and runs the fingers of his left hand over them.

He may not be quite as baseline as he looks at first glance. "I'll forward the codes through the tacnet to get the local area updated. I'm certain the ark coming via Menelmacar will be used to update TYCSHQ. What additional information do we have? Is this some sort of temporal attack? What are the current risks and projected countermeasures?"

Elin tilted her head to the side, “Possibly. Erisavenus-beta reported that the insertion into Kajali oceans went adequately, without the inhabitants of that time noticing. However, several Solan and Solan-Compromised craft were observed headed into the anomaly. Our current readings suggest that the current Kajal Prime is regressed to a state prior to our own vessels’ destination, this could be their work.

“We ourselves have no substantial history beyond a few centuries back, that would be accessible by this method, prior to what you term ‘the break.’ We believe you are in the same situation. If Solus intends other attacks along these lines, it would probably target other nations’ histories, such as Menelmacar.

“Our analysts do not think this is likely, however. We believe substantial forgotten equipment present within the Kajali worlds generated the Timehole, possibly not even caused by Solus.

“At the moment, our chief countermeasure is however, find and shoot holes in Solan forces.”

Xan rubs his chin with his free right hand, his left resting lightly upon the 'book' as he looks at the Necron. While he listens, he watches the overlays created by the headware hooked up to his optical nerve display rough summaries of information in the data ark while an encephalon set to subconscious data retention begins to file it away in the memory structures of his grey matter. It's not quite learning, as it's not as associative as natural learning is, but it at least gives him more data to associate later. "If that's the case, then the risk of continued attack is minimal and. The devices, should they still exist, may also offer a possibility to reverse the process... That being the case, is it feasible to capture a portion of Solus' assets to acquire intelligence as to what exactly was changed?

"After that, we can shoot holes through them. As the damage is done, there's no time factor on reverting it, but the possibility does seem to remain."

Eyralint’tar tilted her head back, as if communicating with her mother-ship, "Unfortunately, not that we've observed. In all previous encounters, Solan ships have been prepared to self destruct. We are examining the wreckage we have at the moment, but we expect to find nothing of informational use there."

In General...

TYRS-RCR Armstrong:

Under normal circumstances this information would be classified top secret, generally available only to persons of extreme importance. However, given the nature of this event... Kajur Lan is the designation given to a vessel discovered several years ago in orbit around a planetoid a few hundred lights from the edge of the galaxy within the Rimward theatre. We are forwarding data now, however I don't believe it'll be of much use to you... It is, however, only somewhat younger than Lady Sirithil, with an estimated age of 17,000 years.

Until we are able to confirm whether elements of the Federated Imperium are still extant upon the surface of Kajal, please note that all CFS elements will self-identify as Kajali Remnant and not Federated Imperium craft. This is in accordance with established legal and continuity of government protocols.

Rear Admiral Li Vaan
CO 3rd Division, Kajali Remnant Fleet
FKT Aras i Kajur

TYRS-RCR Armstrong, en route to Kajur IV (Kajal)

Dr. Kavaan had been pondering the device for a few minutes now. He strained to remember where the patterns had shown up on the surface at first... What he would give for some pictures! Still, it was still covered with inscriptions... just find that one that looked familiar...

Ah! There it is. Looked like the riikan equivalent of i, rotated 60 degrees clockwise... It can't hurt, can it? The device has been completely unresponsive to the kludged control panel since LSA-1 disappeared...

"Well, here goes nothing..."

The single rune glows white for a moment, and then something unexpected happens. Whether or not Kavaan disappears or ceases to exist or what have you would seem to depend on which theories about time travel one subscribed to, though as it is whatever happens is meaningless.

From Kavaan's perspective, his surroundings are unchanged, though everyone in the room has moved. Most importantly though, looking out the window shows a vast expanse of black instead of the stars of Pleaides. This is, to him, somewhat startling.

"What? LSA-1 is back?"

Everyone else in the room seemed to glare. Kavaan's assistant was the only one that spoke immediately.

"Back? It hasn't gone anywhere. Are you alright?"

Derivan

The complex here was quite large, and though exploration of the structure on Solanna continued, it seemed that this installation was deeper. It took some time to reach the level where Kalaan was berthed, though when the Necrons finally arrived they would find that it was not exactly as advertised. Kalaan was indeed present, though quite visibly damaged, moreso than when initially discovered. Still, there was something odd about the complex, and when one attempted to address Kalaan a response came not from the vessel itself but from various transmitters within the complex.

I yet survive within these hallowed walls. The avatar is damaged beyond capacity to repair, sacrificed and pulled from the river with all alongside. This place is sacred, worthy of protection. An aegis, inviolable, from this place may yet spring.

Kalaan's penchant for flowery speech aside, he provided data on the facility to the best of his abilities. It and the complex on Solanna were indeed identical, intended for a certain purpose, though more surprising was that there were ten other complexes scattered within Pleiades. While there was little data concerning their location in terms that would be immediately recognizable, it was easy enough to extrapolate that each had sat very close to the surface of LSA-1 during the event. Curiously, not all stars close to LSA-1 had generated dimples within the surface. Analysis of the surface of the anomaly would reveal quite quickly that there had been only twelve such dimples detected, all spaced equal distances apart and, when mapped, shown to lie as such that should they be points on a sphere, that sphere would completely envelop the expanse that had been delineated by LSA-1.

The fires of even this sacred place grow dim. There exist here machinations to unmake a great many things, but only for those chosen. A multitude of possibilities, yet only a single opportunity to adjust them remains...

TYRS-RCR Armstrong, Kajur IV (Kajal)

After entering the Kajali home system, it is fairly obvious why communications with Kajal are still down. The defenses and infrastructure of the system were fairly well known, and the multitude of space stations, mining colonies, and what have you are simply missing. There is evidence of primitive spaceflight near the fourth and fifth planets, but nothing beyond the asteroid belt that encircles them. The two gas giants further out are abnormally close together, though not artificially so, as data on their orbits suggests that such an occurrence would be possible in once in tens of thousands of years. There's no historical data from Kajali databanks regarding such, given that most data was lost during the world-spanning war that spawned the Imperium, but the latest data available from the Federated Imperium seems to suggest that the gas giants would have been in a similar position two thousand years prior...

Achieving orbit of the fourth planet, often referred to interchangeably as Kajur or Kajal depending on where one was raised within the Imperium, more evidence of primitive spaceflight is present. The planet is surrounded by debris, largely the result of bootstrap space exploration as one saw on Earth. There are no apparent surviving long term structures in orbit, nor wrecks of spacecraft. While the War of Unification saw some limited involvement from orbiting craft, none were able to operate or maintain such orbits indefinitely.

The surface was, in contrast to popular imagery, discolored. The oceans were notably smaller than data would suggest, and possessed of a rusty hue, while major continents were themselves absent of much plant life. Atmospheric radiation levels were well within tolerances for most creatures, though the soil of the planet was itself quite contaminated.

It had been one possible outcome of the War. The Mejari, those who would later found the Imperium, had been blessed with one of Kajal's greatest tacticians, a defector from the Sorani, and after decades of warfare they had decisively crushed the Sorani and their allies, finally ending hostilities.

If that person had never defected, or had died before defecting, it was presumed that the war would have continued on for many more years, ultimately ending in a nuclear exchange.

The world below seemed to confirm that such an event had occured, though it was an event that was clearly out of place with Kajal's known history. Given the state of Kajal, though, such had obviously happened. Oddly, there were odd power readings present in many places upon the surface. Some were undoubtedly known signatures, though others were unexplainable. Scanning the planet also yielded interesting sensor data, in that it seemed that if one peered deep enough some traces of what was known to be Kajal could still be detected, up to and including faint power signatures localizing to areas that had previously been the sites of known power generation facilities. It was as if Kajal, as it was previously known, still existed, shrouded behind this wrecked planet...