NationStates Jolt Archive

Since the dawn of time, Elune, the immortal Goddess, has given peace and rest to the creatures under Her care. She created the great Asrengarde from the world's fiercest predator to worship Her and protect all beings in existence.
Eluedora 24.52

When the fiery demon of war, Mun'raa, saw that the Goddess' creation was grander than his own works, he set upon the world a nameless plight. This primitive being was a mockery of the Goddess' creation, and though it had neither the strength, cunning, nor wisdom of the Asrengarde, Mun'raa poured into this plight his own burning malice and hate. And so, the plight set upon the peaceful Asrengarde like a hawk to the hare. Though they fought valiantly, they were no match for the warlike barbarians. Elune gathered Her strength and chased the cruel Mun'raa across the sky, though could never catch the demon. Seeing that She could not stop this plight Herself, She focused Her powers and banished Her children to a far away land, hoping that they would be safe there. Though it pained Her to do so, She knew that, one day, Her beloved Asrengarde would return to rid her of Mun'raa's deadly plight.
Eluedora 24.59

Seek thee out the demon, Mun'raa, who holds dominion over nine realms. His color is pale yellow, his size of medium stature. He has stripped barren all but one realm, a realm of water and life. Upon this realm shall thee find and free Elune, the grand Goddess of life. It is Her will that keeps Mun'raa from destroying all.
Words of the prophet Cenarius, circa 2036 C.E.


Border Security Checkpoint
Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy

A freighter dropped back into normal space just beyond the security checkpoint. It was only one of thousands scheduled for passage that day into the birthplace of human civilization and the myriad governments that claimed it. There was nothing unusual about the freighter, the guards had seen it hundreds of times before. Only a routine scan was needed for access to be permitted.

But the freighter carried extra weight this time.

The Remora was very small, only twenty-three meters long and six meters high. It hid near the backwash of the freighter's engines, its shield keeping residual heat at bay. It had a cloaking field in place just for good measure.
"I can't see a damned thing," said Leftennant Halfmoon.
"We haven't been able to see a damned thing since we got on this piece of junk. What's our ETA?" inquired his partner, Riverflight. Riverflight ran a paw through his blue fur, straightening it for the upteenth time.
"'bout twenty ferlgs. Just gotta get away from the border patrols. Then we jump off this noggenfogger and hitch a ride one of those other ships. This one ain't going to the third."
"What if we're seen?"
"Probly wont matter, there's so much fracking traffic here. They'll probably just write us off as a personal ship, another civvie thing."
"Aye. Prepare to detatch. This ship's too slow for my liking."

And with that, the small Remora-class vessel detatched, undetected, from the oblivious freighter. It made its way towards the line of ships heading further into the system...
...toward Terra.

((Just a bump. Post coming later))

tag

"Yo, Seraf!" yelled Halfmoon to Riverflight. "I think we got something here!"
"Just like that big ol' gas giant wit' the 28 satellites? None of 'em had nothin'."
"Nah, look at this! This one's really the third planet, watery sonofamare. One moon..."
Something obviously clicked in Halfmoon's brain. He began furiously tapping buttons and accessing the ship's database. He pulled up the prophesies of the ancient Cenarius, the prophet who had fortold that the Goddess would return.
"Look at this!"
"Don't tell me you believe that old shit," said his partner. "We're on a survey mission, numbnuts. Not some pilgrimage. We're supposed to find what we can on the hoo-mun homeworld..." Riverflight too became captivated by the scripture. "By Bou'dun's grave..." he whispered. "Let's check it out. Fire thrusters, let's detatch from this stuff."

The small Remora jetissoned from the patrol cruiser it had adopted as its host and fired its small ion engines. It headed straight for the now-nearby moon of Terra.



A short Slipstream jump away, the destroyer Zul'aman sat listening to the two leftennants, who were oblivious to the fact that command knew everything they said and did.
"What're those two up to?" wondered the Zul's CO. "Helm, lay in a course, activate stealth field."

The Remora was pinged several dozen clearance code requests, but the computer simply responded with the same message it had been programed with: "We are having communications problems at the moment, stand by."

Again, since nothing out of the ordinary ever happened in the Sol system, they were left alone.

"You got anything yet, Seraf?"
"Naw. Nothin. Just a buncha hoo-mun settlements,"
"Yeah, that's all I'm getting over here as well. Wait...what's this?"

The Remora had just shaken violently. It began descending at a rapid pace towards the surface of the moon. However, no damage was reported by the internal diagnostics. The weren't crashing. Someone, or something, was pulling them in.


The Zul'aman jumped just outside the gravity well of the farthest planet from Sol, a planet known as Pluto. It instantly re-applied its stealth field, but someone would have definately have seen the tear from the Slipstream.

"That's a new one," a female voice gave words to thought, the soft sound loud in the vessel's small bridge.

Somewhere behind the speaker, the vessel's captain - his towering lupine stature dominating the small room - turned to face the sensor operator, ears perked forward in interest.

"What've you got, Katrina?"

"Looks like a Slipstream drive sig, skipper," the woman, presently wearing feline form, replied.

It was then that Captain Augustus Stone cocked his head - those weren't exactly what you would call uncommon in sol system, much less 'new'.

"Yeah, I know skip," officer seeming to read her captain's mind, "But this one's a little different than we've seen befor, and nothing apeared to come outta it. I'd like to pull the main arrays from their standard monitoring pattern and give the area a good sweep."

Augustus only took a moment to consider the request; they were only out here to keep a cursory eye on their sol-side neighbours, afterall.

----------

And so moments later, the Dark Valor-Class 'Pocket Dreadnaught' KHGV Of Fire and Void - technicly, at 350 meters length, a glorified frigate - directed her active and passive sensors towards the area in question; her actives of particular note, in many cases pouring out enough raw, focused wattage to boil the paint off of an unsheilded vessel a million kilometers away.

And as chance would have it, they were just over half that from the slipspace rupture.


OOC:
Does that cloaking feild of yours hide the ship's mass/gravity?

OOC - You're bound to detect a slight gravity distortion around the ship. It does mask the gravity, but the technology is far from perfect.


"We're being pinged pretty hard, sir. Looks like one of those Kanuckistani frigates."
The ship's Hauptmann chuckled.
"Nothing we can't handle. Still, let's not get into a fight with all this traffic around. Helm, what's the Remora's last known position?"
"Entering a high orbit of the third planet, Hauptmann. Parallel to the planet's only moon."
"Lay in a course, but take it slow. I want full power to the stealth. Let's see what our two bumbling friends have found."

OOC:
Ah, if only that Hauptmann knew why 'those Kanuckistani frigates' are nicknamed Pocket Dreadnaughts. ;)

MSK = one million kilometers.

IC:

"Gotcha!" the sensor officer's muttered exclimation nevertheless drawing heads.

"Report," Augustus didn't bother looking at her, instead pulling up her screen on his repeater.

"Eh? Ah; some pretty nice stealth, sir, but I've got 'em pinned on gravitics.. Reading's damn low, however, so they're probally using something to reduce their 'shadow."

The Captain nodded, more out of habbit than anything; a minute later, the words of his next order dying in his throat as the feline spoke again.

"They're movn' off, skip; looks like... lesse.. yeah, Terra."

'I can -see- that,' Stone thought reflexivly, befor mentally scolding himself; she was just doing her job, afterall, and couldn't know he had her own screens displayed befor him.

"Set a persuit course; engage when they reach one point five emm-ess-kay and hold that range." Leaving back, he mused aloud, "We've got more time to kill than we know what to do with, so we might as well give Kat there something to play with."

Several chuckles filled the small room, and with a grin, Katrina returned to her sensors; range would soon be trice what it was, but her instruments were good, and so was she - and soon thereafter she was engrosed in the task of collecting and refining sensor data, her mind deep within several of the ship's conputer cores.

'If only they'd gotten the new gravitic resonance array in on the last refit,' she mused inwardly, 'then I could get a -real- good look at 'em.'

The Void, however, wasn't scheduled for that particular upgrade for some time, and so the kitten would have to make due with what toys she had.

"Sir, they're giving chase."
"What?" the Hauptmann spun and faced the sensor operator.
"The Kanucks, sir. That frigate has changed course and is tailing us."
"BAH! Blasted noggenfoggers. Alright, full power to sublights, we'll lose them in that...big...circle...thing of asteroids."
"The belt?"
"Yeah. That's it. That asteroid belt. Full speed ahead."

The ion engines of the stealth destroyer, though invisible to the naked eye and sensors alike, sprung into life. The destroyer disappeared into the system's asteroid belt, hiding amongst the magnetic and gravitic interference of the spinning rock chunks.

There was still no sign of the Remora.

"Sir, they're giving chase."
"What?" the Hauptmann spun and faced the sensor operator.
"The Kanucks, sir. That frigate has changed course and is tailing us."
"BAH! Blasted noggenfoggers. Alright, full power to sublights, we'll lose them in that...big...circle...thing of asteroids."
"The belt?"
"Yeah. That's it. That asteroid belt. Full speed ahead."

The ion engines of the stealth destroyer, though invisible to the naked eye and sensors alike, sprung into life. The destroyer disappeared into the system's asteroid belt, hiding amongst the magnetic and gravitic interference of the spinning rock chunks.

There was still no sign of the Remora.


OOC:
The belt between Mars and Jupiter? That's over 95% of the way to Earth from Pluto, and some 5+ lighthours.

I'm pretty sure that's what you mean, but it seems.. odd, for the aforementioned reasons.

Also, wouldn't an ion drive leave a trail of expelled ions?

IC:
"Course change! They're accellerating s'more, sir; hmm.. vector change's pretty minor - they're now heading for the belt."

"They think they can hide in that sparce collection of rocks?" the Captain mused, looking towards his sensor operator with an amused smile.

"They can think all they want, Skip," Katrina replied, glancing back with a preditory grin, "The Napalm Enema pulled survey duty through there two days ago; maps're so fresh the ink's still wet - nah, Skipper; they ain't gonna find any cover in there that they can use - 'least not against us."

Augustus nodded, the feline sensor officer returning to her screens.

"In that case, let's give our own stealth systems a shake down; maybe we can make them go active on their sensors to try and spot us." Leaning back, the large wolf smirked, "Volly a pair of very loud recon drones onto their butt and rig for full stealth. Close to four light seconds and displace one hundred kilo-klicks to port when we're full-black; make it harder for 'em to spot us if they don't know where to look."

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

Outside, the armoured hatch concealing one of the KHGV Of Fire and Void's missile tubes slid open; a pair of non-stealthed recon drones, not launched, but accellerating on their own drives, loudly pinging, even as the overpowered little frigate's reactors spun up to match the Feazanthian's pace with her own reactionless Inertial Direct Drives - an impressive power curve, one might observe; one that hinted at far greater things. The armoured door closing as the probes clear, vanishing flush with the hull.

But this did not last; active sensors and other emmissions dying as dampers, insulators, and countervails were activated and moved into place, the vessel's silhouette in the non-visible sprecturm blending into the background radiations - the ebony craft's image flickering as freespace holographics plotted stars and other things blotted out by the matt black ship's bulk, while concealing any reflected light, even as gravitic effectors cancled the effects of the ship's mass with virtually perfect precision.

The ship vanishing from virtually every sensor, the alien ship would likly have little choice but to go active if it wished to know where it's persuer lurked(although that wouldn't necessarily do them any good); for even as the recon probes neared the destroyer, the Void began closing, shifting to the left - coming to a relative rest some 4 lightseconds, or 1.2 MSK, away.

And the pair of drones continued to close, more to anoy the DD than track them; the frigate's passive gravitics doing the job - really the only thing that could track them, regaurdless of actives. The first settling into an evasive random-walk roughly one light-second from the Feazanthian ship, while the other closed to orbit the ship at a range of fifty thousand kilometers.

And to make matters worse, they did not just ping loudly, not just relay their findings invisibly via entanglment, but broadcast, openly, for all to hear, the location of the vessel they tracked, along with it's speed, vector, and route thusfar sense entering the system.

A fleet from Dratheria jumped from a transwarp conduit. The fleet comprised of 1 Draconic-class Supercarrier, 2 Warbird-class Stealth Warships, and 3 Prometheus-class Cruisers however following suit was a new O'Neil-class Space Station known as ExGal 1 it was designed to be a new fleet and diplomatic port near the Tauri. Admiral Archon stood strong as the new station positioned itself just outside Sol system.

Comm: "Sir. We read a message from nearby forces some we have not encountered before. But it says something is moving rapidly towards Terra."

Admiral: "What? Are they dangerous?"

Comm: "No word as of yet but they seem to be cloaked and moving rapidly towards Terra."

Admiral: "Well lets not take any chances. Send 2 Stealth Warships and one Prometheus-class to greet them tell them we wish for immediate contact and explantion of their motives. Send a message to Fleet Command tell them to ready a small contingency force just in case. If they are a threat to the Tauri we must be ready to assist them it is our sworn duty to protect them."

Comm: "Yes sir."

Suddenly the diplomatic force appeared in the path of the unknown craft sending a communication to the unknown craft requesting a meeting also informing them that their duty is to protect the Tauri from any threat.

Captain Klein: "Hello unknown vessel we request you stop all engines and decloak for a diplomatic discussion as to your purpose here as what appears to be an infiltrator."

OOC-Yeah, I know, but this makes it interesting. Realism doesn't always make for good RP, and I need that destroyer to approach the moon fast.

"Pinger drones? Ha! Who do they think they are?" asked the Hauptmann to no one in particular. "Fire control, rig a pair of torpedoes for immediate launch from tubes eighteen and seven. Auxilliary, ready all tractor beams and send control directly to my codec."
"Torps, sir? Wont that give away our position?" asked the comms officer.
"Our position just got given away. Kanucks wont let us be, so we wont let them be. Fire control, are those torps ready?"
"Cha, Hauptmann. Tubes eighteen and seven are loaded and ready."
"Tie those into my codec as well. Sensors?"
"Aye, sir. Rerouting to your codec."

The Hauptmann jerked as several different streams of information were fed directly into his cortex. Within several seconds, the advanced Asrengarde brain had targetted the two drones. They were putting off enough of a signal to make it quite easy for even a anti-capital ship torpedo to track them. These were smaller torps, and didn't even need to hit them.
"Seven and eighteen away," announced to the Hauptmann as he re-transferred fire control to the officer's station. He then focused on controlling the four tractor emitters on the vessel's hull. He lassoed a group of asteroids with the strong gravitic beams, tossing them like paythings before grabbing a few more and repeating the procedure. The cascading asteroids collided with more stationary hunks of rock. In the ensuing chaos, the two torpedoes trailed after the drones, exploding right when the ensuing plasma orbs would mask the Zul'aman's acceleration out of the field and towards Mars.

OOC:
No mention of my ship stealthing? Or Dratheria's apearance?

Or my question about ion drives leaving a trackible drive train?

IC:
Augustus idly scratched the flank of his lupine muzzel, "Well, that was different."

"Yessir," came the sensor tech's reply, "Almost lost 'em for a sec, too, but the arrogant buggers didn't even bother to change course. Not that it would've done 'em much good; they're under power - accellerating - and I've got their mass shadow's deformation pluged in - easy enough to pick out once the smoke clears, sir."

The wolf gave an absent nod, "Continue following them; and get me the Dismemberment - they're on Sol Station this month, right?" At a nod from the communications section, he continued, "Flag it low priority and patch the request through via entanglment; I'll take it at my terminal when it clears."

"Aye, sir, sending reques... uh, request accepted, sir." The young tech obviously suprised at the immediate response.

And as the hunam face apeared upon his screen, a measure of boredom therein to the observant, the wolf grined as few creatures can, "Why Admiral, what a pleasure to see you..."

Conn: "Ma'am we just detected fire in the asteroid belt. Either they are testing a new craft or this is a battle."

Klein: "Obviously its evident these guys are a threat move to intrcept and engage go to cloak all weapons armed."

With that the diplomatic force came upon the unknown craft firing torpedoes. Suddenly the three ships decloaked and powered shields. They surrounded the enemy and readied for a fight.

Klein: "Cease fire immediatley and stop all engines. We wish to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed dammit. You continue to fire upon each other without an understanding we will fire upon the agressor."

OOC Cloaks cant remain stable when weapons are fired so it was easy to find your ship.

OOC - Dratheria, I'm not firing on the Kanuckistani ship, I'm keeping his drones from being able to track my ship. My crew doesn't think they have the technology that they do. Also, I'm not based on Star Trek technology here. My ships can fire from a cloaked position. Even if I was based on ST, remember the Scimitar from Nemesis?

I'll post tomorrow. Gotta compile my thoughts.

OOC The Scimitar however shouldn't have been detected via gravametric distortions like a Warbird thus making your cloak as primitive as the Romulan and Klingon tech. I am a huge sci-fi buff and the Shinzon cloak was perfect. There was only one other case of that kind of cloak in Star Trek 6 and it was even more detectable. Your cloak is primitive at least on that vessel my electrochromatic cloak is the same ad Shinzon tech except they have to decloak to fire and nehow it cant keep shields up its only good for sneak attacks bc if u dont destroy ur enemy they will destroy u. Also its simple physics and common power distribution knowledge. Its the same with all sci-fi things the Shinzon were able to do that bc they had a large ship and two powerplants that worked independently those kind of ships are very expensive to construct and maintain thats why there was only one Scimitar. Also they used a revolutionary new cloak that did not use gravity to bend the light.

((bump))

OOC The Scimitar however shouldn't have been detected via gravametric distortions like a Warbird thus making your cloak as primitive as the Romulan and Klingon tech. I am a huge sci-fi buff and the Shinzon cloak was perfect. There was only one other case of that kind of cloak in Star Trek 6 and it was even more detectable. Your cloak is primitive at least on that vessel my electrochromatic cloak is the same ad Shinzon tech except they have to decloak to fire and nehow it cant keep shields up its only good for sneak attacks bc if u dont destroy ur enemy they will destroy u. Also its simple physics and common power distribution knowledge. Its the same with all sci-fi things the Shinzon were able to do that bc they had a large ship and two powerplants that worked independently those kind of ships are very expensive to construct and maintain thats why there was only one Scimitar. Also they used a revolutionary new cloak that did not use gravity to bend the light.

OOC:
You may be a 'huge sci-fi buff', but only in your choosen tech base; you have no aparent concept of IDIC (http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=IDIC&Find=Find), or that folks can do things differently without being more or less 'primitive'.

Translation: things usually don't work the same way in different sci-fi - it's all up to the author to determin how their tech works.

It's just that in the case of free-form RPGs like NS, you have to keep things fairly reasonible, or you get ignored.


And star trek cloaks never used gravity; they use some technobabble solution. Gravity would be some fan-based speculation.

The Guardian was posted on a patrol route from Sol 3 to Sol 9. The population of the Sol system called these planets Earth and Pluto respectively.
Captain James Stuart was the commander of this newly commissioned Ophidian class star cruiser. Ophidian was the name of a species of reptile on the home planet of the Imperial Star Empire, Kahlden.
Captain Stuart had been waiting for something more than a usual patrol. Now he got his chance, the Guardian had intercepted enough radio communication to tell that a ship had entered the Sol system without codes.
There was a word that James tried to get out of his head, “Invasion”.

.:.The Bridge of the Guardian.:.
Captain Stuart stepped out of the turbolift and walked to his command chair. Before he sat down he looked at his communications officer Lieutenant Joanne Young.
“Captain, the intruder ship is ignoring all attempts at communication by anyone and some kind of gravity distortion is detected.”
Stuart nodded and sat down, he spoke to his helmsman, “Ensign, set a course to…” He then looks at Joanne and she responds, “Erm…” looks at her console, “Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt, grid one-four-eight.”
James smiles and gives his orders, “Shields up weapons to 50% charge, load one torpedo cannon and set a course.”

OOC: Tag for intrest, although I see no plausible reason to get involved in this part of the galaxy given it's a minor mission, and we aren't even in this galax. Maybe if Kanuckistan kicks up a fuss or something, I'll join in.

<snip>

OOC:
Who are you talking about?

Feazanthia, the nominal 'intruder ship', is cloaked, and if you can detect him, would be the 'gravity distortion'; he fired, but he can fire while cloaked, regaurdless of Dratheria's aparently trek-dominated views.

And Dratheria's small fleet there never made any mention of codes when he arrived; I supose it would be amusing if you mistook him for the 'intruder'.

I should also be invisible, unless you consider your gravitic sensing abilities to be really uber(and even then it could be mistaken for a stray hydrogen atom) or have some fairly exotic sensors. Of course, my ship's been in Sol System for a good while, so it's probally not them.

OOC - I guess that an Ion trail would ~technically~ be trackable, if you were looking for exactly that and could pick mine out amongst the numerous traffic that's undoubtedly in the system.


"We appear to have lost them, sir. Kanuckistani frigate no longer appears on any of my scopes."
"Do the records tell of any Kanuckistani stealth technology?"
"None known by the Old Empire, sir."
"Excellent! Once again, Asrengarde technology triumphs. Helm, take us down to one-half thrust, put us around that moon."

About an hour later, the Zul'aman was within one AU of Earth's moon.
"Conn, sensors. No sign of the Remora."
"Recommendations?"
A young leftennant stepped forward. "Sir, we have a team of marines issued to us. We also have a single Nebudchadnezzar in the docking bay. Now, normally, Hunters don't carry support craft, but recently we've all been getting at least a single boarding vessel in the hopes of capturing enemy technology."
"Yes yes, leftennant. I know all this. What's your point?"
"Well, Hauptmann, we may be able to jury-rig the ship with a stealth device, load it with our marine team, and send it to the approximate location of the Remora's disappearance."
The Hauptmann sat back in his chair for a moment, his claws scratching his blue lupine muzzle.
"Make it so. Leftennant..."
"Whisperwind, sir. Ashanni Whisperwind."
"Leftennant Whisperwind, I want you to suit up and join the team down on the surface. If anything happens to the ship, you will be in command. Is that understood?"
"Y-yes, Hauptmann. Thank you," the young leftennant had been startled by this sudden responsibility. Though she had marine combat training, she had never expected to have been given command should the ship be incapacitated.
"I want you and your team to depart within the hour. Dismissed!"


About thirty standard minutes later, the Nebudchadnezzar vessel left the still-invisible Zul'aman and headed directly for the moon.

OCC:
OOC:
Who are you talking about?

Feazanthia, the nominal 'intruder ship', is cloaked, and if you can detect him, would be the 'gravity distortion'; he fired, but he can fire while cloaked, regaurdless of Dratheria's aparently trek-dominated views.

And Dratheria's small fleet there never made any mention of codes when he arrived; I supose it would be amusing if you mistook him for the 'intruder'.

I should also be invisible, unless you consider your gravitic sensing abilities to be really uber(and even then it could be mistaken for a stray hydrogen atom) or have some fairly exotic sensors. Of course, my ship's been in Sol System for a good while, so it's probally not them.
The codes I am refering to are the codes mentioned by Feazanthia:
The Remora was pinged several dozen clearance code requests
Also even though our sensors are sophisticated, but not as you say "uber".
The "intruder" ship would be the one known as the Remora.
Does this answer all your inquiries?

OOC Ok they used the artificial singularity generators which supplied both power and cloak by causing a heavy gravity distortion to bend light and in order to fire while cloaked you would need a brand new type of cloak definatley not a gravity distortion cloak which means you couldnt be detected like my vessels unless you knew what to look for. Also the power requirements would be enormous for such a small vessel if yours can do that it must not be heavily armed. Im sorry Im in Research and Development for the US Navy and I have to learn this stuff like quantum physics at least try to make it realistic do some research into cloaks. And I have attempted to stop your ship a number of times and even surrounded it you should at least acknowledge that.

OOC Ok they used the artificial singularity generators which supplied both power and cloak by causing a heavy gravity distortion to bend light and in order to fire while cloaked you would need a brand new type of cloak definatley not a gravity distortion cloak which means you couldnt be detected like my vessels unless you knew what to look for. Also the power requirements would be enormous for such a small vessel if yours can do that it must not be heavily armed. Im sorry Im in Research and Development for the US Navy and I have to learn this stuff like quantum physics at least try to make it realistic do some research into cloaks. And I have attempted to stop your ship a number of times and even surrounded it you should at least acknowledge that.


Here's a tip that all your roleplaying should have taught you. Freeform roleplay doesn't have rules. Whether or not you think it's possible, or have proof that it's possible/impossible, remember many different sci-fi universes cross paths, all with impossible technology and nobody can set groundrules how they react. Realisim has little place in FT roleplay, except to prevent massive godmodding. We have psychics, the force, the warp form warhammer 40k, god knows what else (Alternate dimensions is one), all which defy laws of physics, and what we know about quantum physics, which isn't a great deal in that subject either.

Plus, to solve that power problem, Zero Point Energy, Quantum Conversion, etcetera. Plus, from what I know of Feazanthia, their ships are heavy on offensive power, not defense, so that would be their ships weakness.

OOC:
Well, knowing where to look, particle density wouldn't be hard to spot. Rather difficult now, however, without active sensors; my last generation of gravitics ain't that good.

The new stuff, however, 'specially the big, multi-trillion dollar arrays on the supercapital ships - those are good, especially Active Gravitic Resonance when yer under a million klicks away, as you'll soon discover.


IC:
A minute passed befor Katrina turned to her captain.

"I don't think they're taking the bai..." Suddenly turning back to her station as a her neural lace flaged a change in readings, "Hello!; they've just killed half their thrust! ... Why would they do that?"

The wolf's eyes turned from his repeater to his puzzled officer, a grin upon his lips, "I do belive they think they've slipped us."

"Without even droping a drone to ping us?" The question coming from a middleaged hunam manning the conn

The captain reclined in his plush chair, "The best advantages are those that remain unknown, my good officer; our stealth may be excelent, but not exactly something we are well known for."

A chuckle came from the young officer manning the comms, "Yeah, imagine a Battleplate trying to be subtle."

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

Ninty Minutes Later; 1.2 MSK from the Zul'aman

"Divergence! Looks like they've launch a smallcraft of some sort... enroute to the moon. Damn! We're gonna loose that little bugger soon if we don't persue."

Augustus nodded, aware that such could easily be a diversion; drop a weighted stealth drone with only little mass cloaking onto your course, ramp up your main cloak so the net mass looks the same as it diverges, and fly off pretending to be a drone or shuttle. A persuer can only chase one, afterall - usually. Finally, he decided.

"This is as good a time as any; singel the good Admiral, and set course to persue the second bogey - 4 ell-ess, same as befor."

"Aye sir; angling for persuit course."

A minute's silence then, as distance builds, befor the call from sensor ops:

"New contacts! Make it twelve forerunner probes - Ours. ... ... And one Battleplate, spilling FTLi."

"Huh; sloppy. Took 'em almost five seconds to follow their drones."

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

Roughly 13 Light Minutes Away; Holding Station Aproximatly 90 MSK Above Earth - One Minute, Thirty Seconds Ago


"...a dozen forerunners, sphere formation; one light second radius centered on the stealthie. Ping 'em loud and follow five seconds later."

"Five...? Uh, ayeaye, Admiral."

The hunam Admiral, resplendent in his Naval-White Dress Armour, festooned with ribbons, gold braid, enamel insignia, and other decorations associated with the military and high rank, chuckled, "This ain't a war; might as well let 'en know we're..."

"Sir! The Void's signeled the all ready; they're giving chase to what looks like a cloaked smallcraft that just launched from the main."

"Alright; give 'em a minute to accumulate some distance."

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

2.5 Light Seconds in front of the Zul'aman, Zero Relative Velocity; One Minute Late


It happened much as Katrina said, a dozen small Forerunner recon drones, each little larger than a child's fist, launched fron distant displacer platforms, suddenly apearing in spherical formation around the unknown craft, three hundred thousand kilometers out; pinging loudly, actives focused inward, direction and velocity matching that of the Feazanthian craft.

And five seconds later, the imposing, thirteen kilometer bulk of a Kanuckistani Tunguska-Class Battleplate apeared some Point-Seven-Five MSK in front of the 'hidden' destroyer, zero relative Vee - a distance well within the reach of Kanuckistani weapons.

In all liklihood, it was easily the most intimidating triangle they had ever seen.

But those weapons weren't powered. Nor was her inversion feild; barrier feilds a mere fraction of their strength - albeit an even match for most planetary sheilds, even so reduced.

What was powered, however, and prehaps more telling, was her FTLi; stretching outward at half the speed of light, the barrier would stop at ten light seconds radius - enough to make escape rather difficult, without too greatly hindering system traffic.

The other thing of immedate note were her active sensors, easily thrice as powerful in raw wattage compared to those the frigate had first used, they scoured the smaller, cloaked vessel as if seeking to overload her cloak with brute force.

And then came.. something else; rapid, oscillating waves of weak, low-gradiant gravity ever-so-slightly rattling the destroyer - imperceptible to the living - the High Gaurd's newest and largest gravitic sensors capible of mapping a target down to string- and point-particle resoloution at this range. And few mass-concealing systems could adapt rapidly enough to defeat the rapid, shifting gravitic oscillation that allowed the great ship to see details so fine with such clarity.


Now, five seconds after her arrival, once the edge of her FTLi has passed the unknown destroyer - her computers still crunching the AGR scan data, as they would be for some time; work was still needed in that aspect, existing computers taking minutes to compile even the most basic usible data, beyond basic overall mass - a hail was made; a tight beam, directed towards the alien. The barrage of active sensors dying to a trickle, so as not to inadvertantly jamm the recivers - if they hadn't been melted, that is, but that didn't happen very often with mil-spec hardware, atleast not at those settings.

"Cloaked Vessel, this is Admiral Hayes of the Kanuckistani High Gaurd Vessel Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment," Admiral Hayes began, gleaming in his dress armour for effect; the reflections of several persons of assorted species seated around the bridge suprisingly visible in the mirror-polished surface of his metalic, almost bandolier-like sash, "Welcome to Sol System; regretfully, your sight-seeing tour must be temporally suspended while we deal with the matter of a little vandalism on the part someone amoungst your tour group; it seems they got bored and decided to pot a couple of our recon drones. Now, I know it may not seem like it, but those things aren't exactly cheap; I'm afraid that this someone has earned themself a rather nasty fine..."



OOC:
Dress Armour is basicly the local take on a formal Dress Uniform, except that the KHG uniform consists of light, slimline powered armour, so their dress uniform is built around the same concept. It's mostly white, with gold, silver, red, and blue details.

"Hauptmann! Kanuckistani Battleplate emerging 2.5 LS twelve degrees off bow! Sensor drones are pinging us like crazy!"

The Hauptmann choked on the piece of meat that he had been snacking on whilst waiting for the Nebudchadnezzar's report.
"Confirm that report, leftennant!"

"Holographic confirms, one Tunguska-class super-capital ship bearing down on us, they're in weapons' range!"

"Deactivate stealth, full power to shields, load all tubes!"

"Sir? The Agammagon could go up against a Plate, sir, not us."
"Thank you for that report, Imizadi, now carry out my orders."
"Sir! Yes sir!"

"Comm here, Hauptmann. We've got a hail coming in from the Plate."
"Are we in battle readiness?"
"Aye, sir. All hands are reporting to battlestations."
"Put it through."

"Cloaked Vessel, this is Admiral Hayes of the Kanuckistani High Gaurd Vessel Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment. Welcome to Sol System; regretfully, your sight-seeing tour must be temporally suspended while we deal with the matter of a little vandalism on the part someone amoungst your tour group; it seems they got bored and decided to pot a couple of our recon drones. Now, I know it may not seem like it, but those things aren't exactly cheap; I'm afraid that this someone has earned themself a rather nasty fine..."

The Hauptmann brought himself up to his considerable height, being sure to smooth out the ruffles in his skintight uniform.
"This is Hauptmann Kayes Razorleaf of the Galactic Feazanthian Naval Vessel Zul'aman. You must be mistaken. This is a simple scouting frigate. We have no weaponry of any sorts," bluffed the Hauptmann. "My government has sent me to survey the area for possible trade agreements. We, uh, detected some anomalous readings near that belt of rocks between your fourth and fifth planets. Is that what you are referring to? I assure you, we had nothing to do with it."



The Nebudchadnezzar darted through space away from the Zul'aman and the looming Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment.
"Leftennant? We're approaching the moon's outer magnetic field. Recommend switching to pads."
"Do it, sho'jun."

The sublight ion engines of the corvette-sized vessel cut out and the ship deployed a series of circular hoverpads. The pads ignited with blue electricity as the ship aligned itself with the moon's magnetic field. Using the planetoid's own ecology, the ship darted downward to the last transmission of the Remora craft, oblivious to the pocket dreadnought on their tail.

"Indeed?" the Admiral mused, quirking an eyebrow; his image suddenly replaced with a system-plot displaying the Zul'aman's course through Sol-space, a box highlighting the area of the 'incident' in question after a moment - then expanding to display one of the ill-fated probe's last few moments of visual record, as first it's companion, and then it, are destroyed; the view suddenly falling back to a 'live' picture of the event, light almost two hours old captured by the specialised optics of a specificly deployed 'Time Catcher' recon drone.

"Unarmed, you say?" the Admiral continued, the picture cutting back to him after a moment, "I supose that those were signal flares, eh?" He chuckles, "My good.. Asrengarde, isn't it? Well, let us just say that he weight on evidence is not in your favor. Regaurdless of your intentions, I'm afraid I must insist that you pay that fine befor moving on."


Meanwhile, near Luna, the KHGV Of Fire And Void closed with it's quary; gravitic slipfeilds allowing it to proceed heedless of the moon's gravity.


OOC:
Are those pads blowing a hole through the cloak? Bridge chatter from the Void's pending clarification of that.

After witnessing all these events the Dratherian Forces decided enough was enough they began to call for assistance. Suddenly behind them appeared 3 more Warbirds and 1 Megacarrier and 1 Prometheus-class cruiser. And then from an intergalactic jump appeared 3 Interdictor Cruisers. They jumped to the area of the Zul'aman and engaged their gravity wells to stop all travel now they couldn't escape easily they'd either have to fight their way out or discuss this calmly. 1000 Mjolnir drones dispersed from the Megacarrier. Suddenly a transmission went out to the hostile vessel.

Archon: "This is Admiral Archon from the USS Midway we are sking for you to cease all operations in this area or be fired upon this is your final warning we wish no bloodshed."

They calmly waited a reply from the trapped vessel.

OOC: In order to escape you have to destroy my Interdictors. Also we only wish to protect the Tauri of the Sol System. Also every ship is painted black, red, or white. There is one Megacarrier 2 Prometheus-class and 5 Warbirds as well as the three Interdictors.

Out of a wormhole a small fleet painted blue that consisted of 2 supercarriers 1 megacarrier 2 warbirds and 2 Phoenix-class Dreadnoughts appeared behind the Dratherian fleet the then let out a large force of fighters and drones. These ships were of the Alpha Tauri military the recently split off colony of Dratheria.

Captain: "This is Captain Honorus of the USS Tauri the flagship of Alpha Tauri. We have come to assist our ally in the fight to protect the Tauri as Dratheria and us are all of the same blood. Stand down or be fired upon where as Dratheria focuses on cloak and dagger we focus on power through might. Over and out."

They waited the response of the enemy. For the founding members of the UWA appeared.

Hayes sighed when the Dratherian fleet showed up and started sabre-rattling, "Excuse me, Hauptmann," he added, befor silently cutting the channel to the Feazanthian vessel with a mental command.

Leaning back, the ancient High Gaurd officer groaned, "Stupid, over-agressive, impertinent children; how do such nations survive long enough build interstellar navies?"

With another sigh, he waved dismissivly; sitting up, "Never mind; get me a channel to the interlopers. Maybe I can talk them out of something stupid."

"Aye; channel open."


"This is Admiral Hayes of the Kanuckistani High Gaurd Vessel Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment to Dratherian and Alpha Tauri fleets; what we have here is most likly some E.T. pulling recon of our busy lil' system with a glorified picket - if you seriously consider that tin can a threat to the security of the largest armed camp of a star system in the known universe, I recomend you make best speed towards your home ports so that you may tender your own resignations post-haste.

"As it stands, you may consider the Feazanthian vessel as residing in my custody, and as such under my protection, until such time as current matters between us are resolved, or I decide otherwise. Hence, if you initiate hostilities, you will immediatly thereafter find yourselves in whatever afterlife your faith dictates, wondering what the hell it was that just hit you. And the answer to that question will by 'exactly three-point-one-four Metric Assloads of Prime Kanuckistani Battleplate'. And yes, that is a scientific measurment.

"Hayes out."

Transmission to the Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment

We do not intend any agressive action short of detaining but rather to find out more and we have been observing their cloaking technology as well as their ability to use decoy vessels also we detected fire coming from one of their vessels. We are worried for the Tauri as we swore to protect them many eons ago before we were virtually wiped out by the Akuma an ancient race that are far more powerful than most races seen before. However we will honor your wishes but ask you to please take 2 of our Interdictors for detaining purposes. Thank you for your fairness wee were really rash in our actions and we apologize its just we were a little on edge. If you need our help at any time communicate with ExGal 1 and we will be to whatever position you need within seconds.

Live strong, fight strong, and always survive. Archon out.

End Transmission

With that the two fleets returned to port at Exgal 1 minus 2 Interdictors.

Transmission to the Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment

We do not intend any agressive action short of detaining but rather to find out more and we have been observing their cloaking technology as well as their ability to use decoy vessels and are worried for the auri as we swore to protect them many eons ago before we were virtually wiped out by the Akuma an ancient race that are far more powerful than most races seen before. However we will honor your wishes but ask you to please take 2 of our Interdictors for detaining purposes. Thank you for your fairness wee were really rash in our actions and we apologize its just we were a little on edge. If you need our help at any time communicate with ExGal 1 and we will be to whatever position you need within seconds.

Live strong, fight strong, and always survive. Archon out.

End Transmission

With that the two fleets returned to port at Exgal 1 minus 2 Interdictors.

A response was soon in coming, once the rest of their fleet had left; audio-only, and directed at the pair of Interdictors; Hayes voice hinting of controled anoyance.

"We have already deployed our own form of interdiction. Please move beyond it's feild of effect and scat. Thankyou."


OOC:
FTLi = Faster Than Light(travel) inhibbitor. Something I have in spades, and have already deployed out to a radius 10 light seconds, or 3 million kilometers.

The Interdictors quickly returned to ExGal 1 to wait for their next course of action.

OOC Sorry again about that I just wan't thinkin when I typed it I was just a little annoyed that he ignored me whenever I tried to speak with him or intercept him. I'm not usually this brash but I will help you if and when you need it and ya know its our job to protect the Tauri (humans) me and my dad were just tryin to help but he backed me up and I was the one who was brash. Again I apologize and hope this will not make a wrong impression of us we were just a little annoyed.

As the Guardian approached their destination approximately 10 light seconds out from the target their light speed engines failed to cooperate. Captain Stuart opened a communications channel to the engineering department.
“Commander, where have my engines gone?” Stuart asked calmly.
“Well captain, to put it technically, their broken…” The engineering chief replied.
“Chief, why are they broken?” The captain said slightly frustrated.
“Captain,” the science officer called across the bridge, “I can answer that question. There is a FTL dampening field active in this area.”
The captain looked at his science officer and shook his head.
“Get us to the target location at full sub-light speed.” Captain Stuart ordered.

OOC- The small ship's stealth would have been rudimentary at best to begin with. The hoverpads would definately show up on your scopes.


"I am afraid, my good Admiral, that we are not authorized to carry anything of value aboard this vessel. We lost our only support vessel weeks ago to a micrometeor impact, and this class of vessel is not equipped with a matter reclamation unit. Unless you're interested in a few Imperial credits, we can't help you."

Hauptmann Razorleaf closed the channel.
"Helm, get us out of range of this damn field."
"We're leaving them, sir?"
"What choice do we have? If we can get out of here, we may be able to return in time to pick them up."

OOC:
Veskaland, the feild is only 10 light seconds in radius.

Feazanthia, do your sheilds stop gravity?

IC:
When the channel to the Feazanthian destroyer reopened, the Admiral's expression was reminicent of that of a disapointed parent, "Hauptmann Razorleaf, you should know better than to try lying to me; we're tracking a vessel that recently launched from your own enroute to Luna at this very moment."

He frowned, then; the Battleplate suddenly in motion, matching the smaller craft's course.

"And fleeing if futile. But if you insist that you have nothing of value on board, then I supose I can belive you, to the extent that you have nothing you belive you can part with. In that case, I will be forced to temporarily detain your vessel until such time as your government can be contacted and a settlment arranged."


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

Near Luna;

"Another change in Bogey Two," the call came up from sensors, "EM spike.. they've stoped putting out an ion trail, too. They're still under accelleration; I'd say they switched drives."

The Captain, sensor readouts now upon his reteater, nodded, "I concur. Helm, take us in to three kilo-klicks; I want to get a good look at whatever they're planning down there." A pause, befor, "And get word to the Admiral that we may want to have some marines on stand-by, just in case."

And with a chorus 'aye's, it was so.

"I'm afraid that shall be unacceptable. This is a ship of the fleet, and we cannot for obvious reasons allow a potentially hostile nation to gain access to Feazanthian technol-"
The Hauptmann grabbed the command couch and yelped as the ship violently bucked.

Outside, the port side engine erupted in a jet of blue flame. The Zul'aman spun violently out of control due to the force of the explosion.

"REPORT!" screamed the Hauptmann through the calamity of numerous alarms going off. "ENGINEERING, WHAT THE FRAK IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?"

"Dunno, Haupt! Gimme a sec...looks like a gravitic coil's ruptured on the Field Transient Engine! We're ventin' plasma down 'ere! Drive's blown to hell!"

"Well what the frak happened? Gravitic coils don't just rupture on their own!"

"Aye, Haupt! I may be just a conspiracy theorist, but I'd say we got ourselves an intruder down here!"

The Hauptmann swore under his breath. "This is Hauptmann Razorleaf. Security teams to engineering immediately! Fire control, lock on to the largest source of energy aboard that Plate and re-open that channel!"

"Torpedoes locked, Hauptmann. Opening channel."

"This is Hauptmann Razorleaf! I don't know how the frak you got a sabateur aboard my ship, but congratulations. Know this, this is an act of war. I have just sent off a HPG drone to the outside of your inhibitor field, good luck tracking it. You may have destroyed us, you human bastards, but it shall be the Asrengarde that finish this! What have you to say for yourself?"
There was no lie on the Hauptmann's lupine face.

While the Hauptmann and his bridge crew were distracted, a single escape pod jettisoned from the Zul'aman.




The Nebudchadnezzar slowed and came in for a landing along one of the unihabited stretches of the lunar surface, its insectoid legs stretching out and touching lightly into the dusty earth.

"Alright, people. Our goal is to find the Remora and secure whatever it is they found," said Leftennant Whisperwind as she loaded an egg-like capsule into the teal muzzle of a Callisto NTG. She pressed a control on the chest of her space suit and a shimmering forcefield formed around her head, locking the air in. The shimmering faded, and it would appeared as if she wore no helmet out on the surface. "Lock and load."

"Hauptmann Razorleaf! If I wanted to destroy you, I could have done so much more reliably with a single point-defence blister, or let those triggerhappy yokels at you rather than talking them into backing down; in both cases with no risk, in both cased you would have been dead befor you could get word out. Do not insult your own inteligence by assuming this to be some convolouted plot to destroy you on our part, when I could aconplish that end with a thought."

The Admiral's genuinly indignant expression suddenly lapsing to a more business-like neutrality, he continued, "I doubt you will accept any assistance we offer, but the offer exists, and shall remain open. Meanwhile, we're tracking an escape pod just launched from your vessel; if it was a sabateur, they are likly in that pod. Or it's a decoy; maybe a bomb.

"If you are willing and able, go ahead and retrive it - if it was an agent of my government, you will have your proof. Otherwise I will be vectoring tractor-equiped interceptors to interdict it, and deploy a tincan - a metal box with gravity and life support - upon which to detain anyone in the pod, without endangering my own, or your, vessel, while operating with remotes.

"Once you have stabalised the situation on your ship, you will of course be given access to who- or whatever was in the pod. In the mean time, unless you have a better idea, I'm going to deploy a frigate to contact your government via Tarsonis.

"Hayes out."


And even at he spoke, medical facilities prepared, grav-tractor modules fitted to the missile pylons of Daemon's Bane-class unmanned interceptors, and a 'tincan' preped.

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

KHGV Napalm Enema, Kanuckistani Fleet Yards: Holding Station Near Capital Displacer Station #03, Somewhere Beyond The Rim;

A minute had passed between Hayes closing the channel to the Asrengarde vessel and her new orders arriving.

A minute later she looked up from her screen.

"New orders; sound general quarters and prepare for platform-jump; we've got an alien government to contact real quick-like. Has the Sword of Inevitible Justice cleared the jump rig yet?"

"What? Uh, no ma'am.. wait, they've just cleared it."

"Alright, hail the platform."

"They're already on the horn, sir; we're clear to embark but they say it'll take 'em a few minutes to reconfigure for a ship our size."

And with a mental nod, Captain Rose Martin, thankful for the small delay, set about preparing her crew for what might be the fight of their lives if the Feazanthians decided they were responsible, and that war was warrented.

And of course a Battleplate or Superfortress would have been 'too threatening for diplomatic purposes'. Right. And protected sex was tantamount to genocide. 'What the hell is Hayes thinking?!'


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

Meanwhile, above Luna, the crew of the Void watched, and waited...

"Do NOT attempt to fool me, insolent monkey! We Asrengarde have beaten your kind before, we have suffered under the imperialistic thumb of humanity, and we shall not do so again! Your mind games will not fool me, human. This is a ship of the Imperial Fleet! We do not have sabateurs in our midst. May Elune have mercy on your souls. All batteries, open fire!"

Thunderbolt-120 torpedoes streaked from seemingly every opening on the Zul'aman, and continued to do so like water coming from a faucet. They torpedoes were coupled by a burst from the ventral-mounted ion cannon, meant to disable shield technology for the torpedoes to burst through. Though crippled, the Feazanthian stealth destroyer began to pull back on its sublight drive and try to get out of range of the far larger Battleplate.





"Leftennant! I think I found somethin'!"
"What is it, marine?" asked the leftennant as she trotted over to his location, roughly a klick from the Nebudchadnezzar.
"Looks like wreckage from the Remora. Poor buggers, it's a gun turret."
Whisperwind stroked her vulpine muzzle in thought.
"Any sign of the rest of it?"
"No, ma'am. Hey, lookit this!"

The marine had just kicked over a large boulder, revealing a perfectly circular hole leading down into the lunar crust. A burst of air shot forth from the hole, and the shaft leading down was revealed to be obviously artificially made.
"By Elune...marines! Get those thruster packs!"

Fireballs erupted against the invisible barrier that surrounded the massive behemoth, torpedo and ion cannon testing themselves against the vessel's standing barrier feilds, and found... wanting. The slight increase in overall reactor output to compensate likly hidden by the radient energies left in the wake of the destroyer's impotent fury. Her sheilds never faltered; never wavered; the tide Feazanthian fire breaking upon them as if waves upon a breakwater; effort spent but for not.

And yet, the great ship's guns remained silent; the armoured doors of her launchers sealed. No retaliation forthcoming.


"Do you have a death wish, Razorleaf?! Are you so willing to throw away the lives of your crew for your own blind arrogance?" The Admiral cursed over the open channel, "Comms, recall the Napalm Enema; we're taking this fool to his own people ourselves. Rig for tow-jump and recall the..." Hayes momentarily glancing down at his screens, "Inferiority Complex to deal with that escape pod befor we leave."

As 'aye's sounded, the hunam turned back to glare at the screen; "How the hell did a loose warhead like you get command of a starship, anyway?"

Meanwhile, the Battleplate continued lock-step with the destroyer, weathering it's barrage.

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


Three minutes later, the Thunderhead-Class Superfortress KHGV Inferiority Complex apeared at the edge of the Dismemberment's FTLi, smack dab in front of the escape pod's route, her own inhibbitors filling space, reaching outwards to the same ten light second radius that the Dismemberment had choosen to deploy - drives holding her velocity zero relative the other two vessels.



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


Meanwhile, near Luna;


"Yeah, Kat, I see it; looks like they found..."

"Sir, the Dismemberment's signaled that she's preparing to move out."

"What?" Augustus looked up, then sighed, "Never mind; Guns, tube a pair on Infiltrator rounds and get'em down there. And have a squad of our own 'marines' suit up, just in case."

Moments later, a pair on 'infiltrator rounds' - stealthed, holocloaked hover-drones with light armament, originally concived by the Adventurers' Guild to act as Forerunners for boarding ops against enemy vessels and instalations - were enroute to the surface.

"Hauptmann! Enemy vessel is matching velocity!"
"By Elune...is that field still in place?" asked the Hauptmann, ignoring the admiral's quips.
"Aye,"
"Frak! This human has just about annoyed me. Helm, course change: 90 degrees rear ventral thrust. Take us toward that planetoid. If I'm right, that massive noggenfogger isn't as manueverable as we are."

"Haupt! Thrusters ready for six-second burst followed by three seconds of brake thrusters."
"FIRE!"

The destroyer suddenly turned on its head, now facing in a "down" direction. The main ion engines of the vessel went to full and it made a break for the planetoid orbiting Terra.

"Helm, lay in a course. We'll slingshot around the moon and get the frak out of here. Engineering, what's the status of the gravitic coil?"

"We got ourselves a temp patch up and runnin, Hauptmann. We'll be good for maybe...one hour of slipstream. Then we'll be able to call a tug."

"Do what you can, Razorleaf out."





The sixty-so Asrengarde marines and the five man crew of the Nebudchadnezzar had strapped on tiny thruster packs, lowering themselves slowly into the chasm.
"I ain't seen engineerin' like this afore, leftennant. You?"
"Aye," said Whisperwind, lost in thought. "I have."
"Where?"
After a pause, "The Karos Graveyard."



OOC-The Karos Graveyard, if you remember from Old Feazanthia, was discovered in the Asrengarde home galaxy. The Asrengarde have turned many of the ancient derelects into functional vessels and defensive systems. The seat of the empire is now in the Karos graveyard, as it has become a holy site for the Asrengarde, as they believe it is the remains of one of Elune's temples. The architecture and engineering is very sophisticated, probably more sophisticated than your own, but impossible to duplicate.

Razorleaf's assessment of their relative maneuveribility at first apeared to be of merrit, but as inertia was overcome and reactors and drives got up to speed, they would find the massive craft posessed a notible edge in accelleration.

It was closing.


"Sir, engineering reports we're green for jump."

Hayes looked up from his plot - a map of Tarsonis gathered by the KAGV Suicidal Audacity - and nodded, "Good; close to twevty five hundred kilometers and reconfigure gravitics to tractor mode. And queue up a few dozen Forerunners; I'll have a jump pattern worked up momentarily."

"Aye sir."

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


Inferiority Complex, 120'000 km Off of Feazanthian Escape Pod

"Holding Zero-Relative Vee at Point-Four Ell-Ess, Commodore."

"Excellent," the grey furred wolf that was Commodore Axen Stone mused, "Flight Ops, deploy tincan and interceptors; let's see if we've got our culperate."

"Aye; drones away... ... Tincan at zero vee five kilo-klicks out; two fighters angling to intercept the pod with grav-tractors...."

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

Lunar Surface

The small infiltrator probes posessing a thrust-to-weight ratio more befitting a fighter, they weren't long in reaching the Asrengarde.

Upon arrival at the site, they split up; the closest maintaining a twenty five meter distance, the other a full hundred - the frigate's on duty Flight Ops coordinator reasonibly sure that handheld units couldn't spot the probes at those distances.




OOC:
I expect I'll be jumping to Tarsonis with the Zul'aman in tow in my next post.

OOC-Yeah, just don't except a warm reception. Razorleaf's going to get his ass handed to him by military command anyways, but the fact that you drag a ship of the fleet back will probably get a couple of railgun slugs up your butt. Asrengarde are sort of...proud...



"Enemy vessel is closing, Hauptmann! Looks like they're locking tractors!"

"Isolate tractor emitters and FIRE AT WILL!"

Another volley of torpedoes and ion cannon blasts began peppering the Battleplate, honing in on the sources of gravitic emissions.

OOC:
I gathered; but don't forget about that escape pod, or are you just waiting for me to pull it in and crack the hatch?

IC:
"In range, Admiral."

"Alright, pull them to a relative standstill; and watch the gradiant, we don't know how badly they were damaged."

"Smooth as silk sir; they'll hardly feel a thing."

Glancing back at the map of Tarsonis, Hayes gave an absent nod, "Bring Barrier Feilds to full power; inversion effectors to blink-standby. And keep the guns cold, but ready."

As afirmations sounded, he continued, "Prepare to blink FTLi and immediatly redeploy to ten lightsecond radius. Standby to broadcast as soon as we jump. Are the Forerunners ready?"

"On your word, sir."

"Good; all right, people, lets make this tight. Signal Forerunners to launch and follow as soon as you get the all clear."

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


Tarsonis: One Light Hour / 1080 MSK Above System Primary, Relative The Eliptic;



Where space had been quiet, empty, it was suddenly not; 64 small, golfball-sized drones simply and suddenly apearing, arrayed in a four by four by four grid - each spaced a light second apart, a moment later pounding space with active scans.

A second passed.


And with equally sudden stealth, something much more noteworthy apeared slightly off of the formation's center.

For the crew of the Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment and the Zul'aman alike, it seemed as if the universe shifted around them.

...

"Jump complete, all boards report..."

"FTLi configured and away..."

"Forerunners acknowledge and are inbound for hangar number..."

"The Feazanthian ship looks good; well, through the weapons fire that is..."


Hayes waited the oblatory three seconds for his officers to report befor clearing his throat, "Release tractors and give me an open channel."

"Yer on, sir."

Gaze level at the visual pickup, the Kanuckistani Admiral began;

"This is Admiral Hayes of the Kanuckistani High Gaurd Vessel Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment to Feazanthian Naval Forces in the area. Not long ago, the Zul'aman, here, suffered internally-originating drive damage of an undisclosed nature while condicting operations in Sol System. Seeing as their commander decided to blame us for it and take the opertunity to try and start a war, I felt it prudent to give them a lift back and present the matter to his superriors.

"Hayes out."

OOC-Pretty much just waiting for you.

Seemingly out of nowhere, six square-shaped tug craft arrived and took control of the Zul'aman, dragging it by force away from the Battleplate. A pair of Warden-class battlecruisers emerged from behind a large asteroid and locked their massive ion cannons onto the Battleplate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Official Document
Source: Tarsonis System Defense Headquarters, Tarsonis Prime
Relay: (Battlecruiser) Galactic Feazanthian Naval Vessel Ana'thek
Origin: Hauptmann General Isha Awak, Commander of Tarsonian Fleet

Begin Transmission:
Kanuckistani vessel, you have intruded upon territory of the Feazanthian Empire without permission or notification. You are found to be in violation of Tarsonian System Defense Credo number 42.
Your claims of unwarrented aggression by Galactic Feazanthian Naval Vessel Zul'aman (Destroyer) are invalid, as such action would be against Feazanthian Military Doctrine article 230, subsection 4.
You are required to remove your vessel to (minimum) international space or face punishment, as listed in Tarsonian System Defense Credo number 42. System Defenses have been alerted and are locking on.

If the Battleplate had any alarms, they would be screaming from the sheer amount of targetting wattage put out by the surrounding defensive platforms and hidden vessels, which were now revealing themselves.

The GFN Agammagon, the command vessel for the Tarsonian fleet and Awak's flagship, jumped to 20 LS away from the Battleplate and charged its immense Trinity Cannon.

If he was nervous, or worried, Hayes showed none of it; tone nuetral, his face a businesslike mask as her replied.

"Hauptmann General Isha Awak, contrary to your accusation, we did notify your forces immediatly upon arrival - although why you would think that forgine powers with no formal contact with your nation could be aware of your government's regulations eludes me. That we were not better informed as to your protocalls is regretible, but aparently, largly unavoidible.

"In addition, my claims regaurding Hauptmann Razorleaf and his command are indeed valid, and readily verrifyible; in both our logs, most probibly the Zul'aman's, and by the observible lightspeed echo the incident, which you are free to document at your leasure. To dismiss the claim out of hand, well, I'm afraid that your faith in that particular officer was more that he deserved.

"Now, the purpose of this visit was to head off possible conflict, and in line with that, we will gladly withdraw to the edge of the system. The only issue with such being that a system's edge is a subjective varriable; our current location was in fact choosen because it conformed to most conventional definitions of system's edge, while being conviently placed for your response. If you would kindly define the area you specificly claim - either in Standard Meteric, or using a local planetary orbital radius as a baseline, to insure there can be no mistake - we will gladly withdraw to that distance until the matter is resolved."


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

Sol System

Commodore Stone watched couriously as the escape pod was gently maneuvered through the tincan's airlock, observational speakers coming alive with a thunderous boom, even as the scene displayed upon the main screen switched from starfield to white washed walls; the Feazanthia pod laying in the middle of a mid-sized room.

"The 'can is secure; all board show green."

"Alright, see if you can find something like a hatch release with the main robotic arm..."

Sol System

The robotic arm need not have moved, for at that moment the hatch of the pod did not open, but blew off, striking the wall. A single Asrengarde female stumbled out of the pod, coughing and wheezing. Smoke and sparks also left the pod, highlighted by red warning lights throughout the craft. Something, obviously, had gone wrong in the pod. The female herself was the epitome of Asrengarde beauty, appearing to the human eye to be the perfect mix of vulpine and humanoid features. Her fine, blue fur was matted down and her tail twitched sedatedly. She carried only a single teal Callisto NTG, which she dropped as she fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

Somewhere within the depths of the superfortress, a startled teleoperation tech yelped - reflexivly directing the tincan's alpha-arm to grab the ejected door rather than be struck by it.

He blinked, suprised he'd caught it, befor laying it on the deck, off to the side.

Meanwhile, a soft humming sound could be heard; the atmospheric recycler's normally inaudible ionic impellers ramping up, drawing away the potentially hazardous smoke that was now escaping the open pod.


OOC:
What's a "Callisto NTG"?

OOC - Callisto NTG: Standard Anti-personnel weapon of Asrengarde marines and naval officers.
1st Function: Rapid Fire
2nd Function: High Impact Shells
Clip Size/Max Ammo: 32/800
Rate of Fire: 1st Mode - 14.1 rps 2nd Mode - 5.0 rps
Reload Time: 3.0 sec.
Zoom: N/A
Specialties: Door/person penetration
http://www.planetnintendo.com/perfectdark/pd/weapons/weapon19.jpg

Post forthcoming.

Post forthcoming.

*bump*

OOC-Sorry, mate. Been busy IRL.


You shall withdraw coreward .68 LY immediately and cease all communication with Feazanthian vessels. Failure to comply will result in immediate termination.

As if to emphasize their point, one of the orbiting asteroids deployed a cylindrical tube. The once-seemingly harmless asteroid was, indeed, a defensive platform. It fired a heavy railgun slug at the Kanuckistani Battleplate, erstwhile deploying rows upon rows of more cylindrical tubes.




Back in Sol, the Asrengarde female looked around the room in puzzlement and alarm.

"Bada oo'chear du gobo kieara! Ect bato se bat! Se bat!"

Hayes reclined in his command chair, a soft chuckle in his throat; but he didn't waste with words, instead issueing mental commands through his neural lace.

And even as the railgun sluged, her FTLi collapsed and the mamoth harbinger streaked off with impossible speed; her inertialess SLDS drives accellerating the Battleplate without motion, first cee-fractional, and then smoothly past lightspeed.

She did not suffer the warning shot; did not even evade - sidestep. She out-paced it, Outran it, as if mocking it's credibility as a weapon.



And .68 lightyears coreward, when she killed her SLDS, FTLi once again redeployed; this time to a radius of five lightminutes.



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

Sol System: Inside the Tincan;

The voice was calm, authoritive, and omnidirectional, with a quality that somehow bespoke 'canid'; suprisingly, it didn't echo in the metal room.

"This is Commodore Stone of the Kanuckistani High Gaurd; identify yourself."


Unseen, burried behind a wall a Truth Detector quietly went about it's business; the centuries-old technology able to ascentain if what was spoken was truthful on any number of levels through a convolouted probibility-based quantum-construct. Even today, only a few thousand people really understood how the things worked - but they did, and while their results were sometimes.. fuzzy, they had never been wrong; it didn't matter what species you were, or even what language you spoke.

Tarsonis System; Coreward Periphery

"Hauptmann General, Kanuckistani Battleplate now slightly past our borders. They're in international space."
"Are they activating their eff tee el drives?"
"Negative, Hauptmann General."
Awak pondered for a moment.
"Keep all defenses on high alert, recall the Delta Patrol. I don't want to take any chances with these noggenfoggers."




Sol System; Inside the Tincan

The female seemed puzzled at this announcement. She attempted to stand, but fell short of success. The Asrengarde equivalent of exhaustion was prevalent on her face. She opened her muzzle and spoke in strained Common.
"L-leftennant...Silvermoon...Fean'tian...N'avy."

((...bump?))

((...bump?))

OOC:
Sorry, I've been stupidly busy, and not feeling that great to boot; I'll crank a quickie out now, tho.

IC:

0.68 Lightyears Coreward from Tarsonis System:

"Eff tee ell aye reports fully deployed at ninty emm ess kay, Admiral."

"Any sign of persuit?" Hayes asked, needlessly; the answer befor him on his repeater. But it was polite to ask.

"Neg, Sir, tho they've still got us on sensors - for what it's worth to 'em through the FTLi."

"Alright, while we're waiting for their response, I want recon drones deployed; we've deployed the FTLi deep this time, and it'd be nice to have a real-time sensor feed in spite of it."

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

Sol System:

Commodore Stone watched the feed, frowning; an interogation, it seemed, no longer viable. Atleast, for now.

"Sweep the alien and her 'pod with sensors," the lupine commander casually ordered, while mentally composing his reply; as the 'aye' sounded, he keyed the comm;

"Leftennant Silvermoon; you are safe, and presently within quarentine while we make sure you're not unknowingly carrying around anything poientally dangerous to our people.

"Now, this shouldn't take too long, but you apear to've have something of an ordeal, so I sugest you take the opertunity to get some rest; we can discuss getting you home when you've had the opertunity to rest up."

And as, in the tincan, a polished silver box folded down to reveal a rather confortible looking bed, the tech administering the Truth Detector gave the Commodore an odd look from behind his back.

12 cloaked slipfighters droped out of warp

12 cloaked slipfighters droped out of warp

OOC:
Where?

OOC-It's Sephiroth. I say we ignore him unless he decides to RP like a normal person.


"So far, Hauptmann General, they're just sitting there. No FTL buildup, no sign of reinforcements. They're just...sitting there."

"I want them scanned. Find a weakness. They're humans, and there's no doubt that they'll attack. Keep all weapons on low power, but ready to go full blast if we need them. No sense giving away our strength."

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

The female uttered a startled scream, pawing frantically at the wall.

"NO! No go back! Asrengarde exekut! Must...find hoo-mun leaders! Hoo-muns danger! Must help!"

OOC-It's Sephiroth. I say we ignore him unless he decides to RP like a normal person.


OOC: Aye; he's nae responded for a bit anywho.

And Kanuckistan is roughly 95% non-hunam.



The female uttered a startled scream, pawing frantically at the wall.

"NO! No go back! Asrengarde exekut! Must...find hoo-mun leaders! Hoo-muns danger! Must help!"

"Calm down, ma'am; we're not coing to send you somewhere you don't want to go."

"No go back! No...go back! Must...help...hoo-muns...great...danger..."

The female's eyes drooped and she slumped against the wall. She had fainted.



Meanwhile, beneath the lunar surface...

"Leftennant? You, uh, may want to see this..."

Whisperwind turned to the marine, who had just depressed a panel in the wall. Lights turned on throughout the corridor, temporarily blinding the nocturnal humanoids. A message in a foreign language blared out throughout the hallway, seemingly demanding something.

The moon itself began to quake, with the center being the "ruins" were buried.

"No go back! No...go back! Must...help...hoo-muns...great...danger..."

The female's eyes drooped and she slumped against the wall. She had fainted.


Stone sighed, slumping in his chair, "Just as well; disarm her and deploy a combat medivac unit for retreival - full hasmat procedures."

As 'aye's sounded, orders were put in motion; a robotic arm removing the vixen's sidearm, a medivac team of DS avatars assembled and suited up, soon departing - if she'd brought anything remotly dangerous or strange, they'd know about it soon enough.

OOC:
Yet abother quickie; still feeling off.

bump

"Still just sitting there, Hauptmann-General. No movement, no transmissions. Nothing."

"Wily bastards, aren't they? Alright. Comms, open up a channel. Audio only."

Several seconds later, he got a response.
"Channel open. You may begin."

"This is Hauptmann General Isha Awak of the Galactic Feazanthian Navy to Kanuckistani vessel. Would you mind telling us why you're sitting just outside of our borders?" There wasn't a trace of fear in his voice, but a tremor of slight annoyance...the way one might address an unruly toddler.

"This is Hauptmann General Isha Awak of the Galactic Feazanthian Navy to Kanuckistani vessel. Would you mind telling us why you're sitting just outside of our borders?" There wasn't a trace of fear in his voice, but a tremor of slight annoyance...the way one might address an unruly toddler.


"This is Commander Carter of the Kanuckistani High Gaurd Vessel Jagged Razor of Methodical Dismemberment," the reply began, a stunning example of vulpine beauty now occupying the Razor's command chair; the vixen's curves and ample bust concealed but not hidden under the steel of her slimline Duty Armour, "We are waiting for word of your government's action regaurding the recent incident in Sol system involving your vessel, the Zul'aman, and payment of the fine that vessel earned when it destroyed Kanuckistani government property, either by or on behalf of said vessel's commanding officer. I'm sure you can understand that we don't take unprovked agression lightly, as was displayed by the Zul'aman."

"They actually want us to pay for defending ourselves?" asked Awak to a lower officer.

"Would appear so, sir."

Awak scratched his muzzle idly.
"Perhaps we can twist this to our advantage. Send a message to the Plate. Tell them to drop their inhibitor field and prepare to recieve a diplomatic envoy. Get my personal craft ready, and get me Hauptmann Silverwing!"