NationStates Jolt Archive

Near Neptune, Sol system

It was a good thing the mission was not supposed to be a stealthy one, since a wormhole event is exceptionally hard to hide. This particular wormhole event disgorged a small, blocky ship, then it flashed out of existence, causing space to ripple slightly around the rift.

The ship, painted entirely in matt black, was a Vadra-E-class light corvette of the Indoan Navy’s Exploration Fleets. After exiting the wormhole, it drifted to a relative halt, maintaining a fixed distance to the system star. Then it just hung in space, doing nothing.
***

The avatar’s head jerked up.

“The Mind is offline,” it said bluntly. The statement caused a number of heads to look at the grey-skinned avatar. Before anyone could make a comment, the auxiliary control displays came on. Then a klaxon went off…

Warning. Reactor core overload. Warning. Reactor core overload.

The crew member nearest the appropriate display jumped up and looked at the readouts. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“Holy shit. Sixty seconds to detonation,” he cried.

“Can we stop it?” asked another. The first looked back at the displays, then shook his head.

“No. The reactor control systems are offline. I’ve only got one safety system operational.”

All the crew present knew what that meant. The nominal crew chief made the decision instantly.

“Space it!” she declared. The avatar nodded its agreement. The crew member at the controls stabbed his finger at the flashing ‘Jettison’ symbol on the display.
***

Deep within the corvette’s engines, a self-powered Displacer unit charged up and activated, flipping the unstable reactor out of the vessel’s hull and into an empty volume of space. The Displacer was small, and moving the reactor four-hundred kilometres maxed out its capabilities.
***

Exactly four-hundred kilometres from the corvette, and precisely forty-two seconds after being ejected from the vessel, the fusion reactor exploded in a huge flash of blue-white light and radiation.
***

Back on board the corvette, known to the Indoan Navy as the INV Smoking Gun, the crew were breathing a sigh of relief.

“What do we do now?” asked Lieutenant Gary Forge, the crewman who had ejected the reactor. He was talking to the ship’s avatar, Pandora.

“Well, we still have one reactor, so we’re still okay for the moment,” announced the avatar, who had the appearance of a female Matrai. ‘She’ was standing by a control overview display. “We have life-support, environment, sensors, comms and shields, but if anyone thinks we’re going anywhere, they can think again. Engines are out, wormdrive is out, grav-drive is out. We’re here for the long run.” The avatar paused, “If it becomes necessary, we could power some of the weapons, but not all.”

“The way I see it, if we’re stuck here, the sooner we get help from home the better. And to do that, we need to tell them what’s happened. We need to send a message home,” stated the crew chief, Major Lucia Tarrega.

“Wait a minute,” said Captain Ricardo Lau. “What’s happened to the Mind? Why didn’t the ship kick out the reactor and communicate with home?”

“It seems that as we exited the wormhole, two things happened that shouldn’t have done. First, the port-side reactor failed, necessitating the dump. At the same time, the Mind went offline. I’m currently trying to find out why, as well as reboot the link between it and the ship,” replied the avatar.

“So, put in equivalent terms for a Matrai, it’s brain has decided to stop controlling it’s body,” asked Lieutenant Katy Marrero. The avatar nodded.

“Great. Just when we really need old microchip brain, she flips out and has a mental episode. Perfect,” muttered Lieutenant Daxter Hyuro, a member of the Douran crew.

“Daxter, the Mind does not appreciate being called ‘old microchip brain’.” Before the small creature could respond, the avatar spoke again. “And I don’t appreciate the implication there either.”

The orange-furred being bowed his head, chittered in Douri for a few seconds, then spoke in Common again: “I’m sorry, Pandora. I didn’t mean any insult.”

“I know, Daxter.” At that point, the doors to the area slid open, and the rest of the ships crew came in, along with the other ship’s avatar.

The avatar then had to explain everything again, before it was finally able to send the message, complete with maximum encryption, back to Naval Command.
***

[Stuttered-tight-point, M32, tra. @d2.3869.4.13.242104]
x: INV Smoking Gun
o: Indoan Naval Command
{A major problem has occurred. As we arrived in system, the Mind went offline, and a reactor overloaded. The safety systems were also offline, and we were forced to jettison it. We are currently safe, but we require a new reactor to move the ship. We request that two or three ships are sent, since we are in unknown territory and our defences are limited. Will keep you updated as to our situation.}

(ooc mind if i join?)

[OOC: Yeah, sure. And BUMP. Come on, I explode an enhanced fusion reactor in Sol, some one has to notice.]

The Golden Glow swept majestically through the void, its sleek shape cutting effortlessly through the vacuum. Its half-kilometre flanks were lustrously black, gun emplacements studding them like jewels on an aristocrat's evening dress. The sensors searched the void around it, watchful for any sign of danger. Or indeed prey.

There was a ping, a little light on a holographic display. The prow of the ship swung around like the muzzle of some great cat, stalking fresh meat. The pace grew more urgent, although it lost none of its elegant poise.

At the prow stood Captain Shrike. His knee-high black boots rapped on the mahogany floor of the bridge, and his deep purple cloak swung around his shoulders. His sword was at his side, its polished shine showing no trace of the gallons of blood it had drawn. He swept his plumed hat from his head, and flicked his deep red hair out of his eyes. The chase was on. This was a chance to prove himself to Buckmoth.

The attack was all too easy. The prey had dropped in on the end of a wormhole, broadcasting its presence to the entire system, and then stopped. Surely it knew what would inevitably happen. The wormhole generator alone would make any pirate rich beyond their wildest dreams, so long as they sold it in the right places. And then not only that, but they had detonated a fusion bomb a mere four-hundred kilometres from themselves. They had lit up the Golden Glow's sensors like a supernova.

The pirate vessel was now within striking range. They would do this the traditional way. Ask them nicely to allow the men on board, and if they didn't comply then blast them into wreckage and pick up the pieces.

Shrike began the transmission.

"Greetings, unidentified ship. We have a propostion for you. We do not want any unpleasantness or hostilities between us, so I suggest that you comply.
Hold your position, power down weapons, and prepare to recieve boarders. They will then collect the shipping tax that you owe us. Any failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction.

Thank you."

Having picked up the fusion explosion, the Avenger, a Strike class cruiser, turned toward the location of the explosion and increased power to the engines, but not enought to break the power barrier insuring that is was running silent. Sensors mapping the area, in passive mode.

Location: ISV Ravager, Executioner class light destroyer of the line.
Assignment: Long patrol; outer Sol planets.

Star-Captain Frank Tarsus frowned. A long patrol was something you give to either young greenhorns fresh from the teat, or grizzled veterans who have somehow fallen out of favor back home. Frank firmly fit into the latter, while most of his new and inexperienced crew rounded out the former. The reason why a long patrol is considered a punishment is that it is just so boring. There's not much to do except tip proverbial cows...

"Star-Captain! We're detecting a large explosion near Neptune!" The rookie comms officer said excitedly. He'd felt the boredom along with everyone else on the ship.

Frank's eyes lit up for a moment. Finally, an end to this monotous patrol! He thought to himself.

"Understood. Plot a course. Let's check it out."

"Aye Sir! Having the ship's Minds calculate displacer coordies."

Within a heartbeat, the trio of AIs aboard the Ravager had completed their task, sniffing out any sub-quantum dangers that could interrupt the displacement.

Without a flash, or any other telltale effect for that matter, the two point one kilometer length of the Ravager was gone. No longer was it near Jupiter. Instead, it was within a light second of the explosion, and the ship that had produced it.

"Hmm...Doesn't look human, sir."

"I see. Gunnery, bring main weapons online. If they're Xenos, I am obligated to exterminate them before they can report our location to others. But open a channel." Tarsus replied, running over tactical simulations in his mind.

"Open, sir!"

"Greetings, this is Star-Captain Tarsus of the Imperial warship Ravager. Please respond." Tarsus said, his transmission being sent in voice-only form. He took few chances. Another race he'd purged was able to kill you with a glance, even over interstellar distances.

Mean while the USS dauntless NCC-17260 A galaxy class star ship was making its standard patrol near the asteroid belt when it detected a massive explosion
-
the ops officer looked at his scanners as the others worked quietly around the bridge the captain was sitting back on his chair drinking is coffee , the ops officer looked down and said “ sir we’ve detected an explosion , pretty big at 150 mark ,121 , what shall I do sir?” , the captain looked up hmng a bit saying “helm set a course full impulse I wonder what it was .. “ , the ops officer then said looking back at his console “sir were getting a message from the explosion area , pretty faint I can clear it up ..” the captain looked back and said “do it “ the ops officer quickly taped a few buttons his flashing console making some noises , the helms officer looked back as the large galaxy class ship rumbled in to position at a quick pace . the message was played by the ops officer several moments later and the captain said “send a reply … “ the ops officer nodded and opened a channel taping the comn button “open sir..”.

the captain stood up and said “this is the USS dauntless a galaxy class federal star ship ,we have heard your message we will render any assistance if possible you should see us in your sensors right now . please let us know if you have injured..?”


(Lol all fed ships are required by fed law to help ships or people in need )

The Avenger, as it neared the unknown ship, the passive sensors picked up three other unknown and possible hostile ships.
"Sir, there are 3 unknowns nearing the injured ship, what are orders?"
"Continue monitering them, and set the ship to YOPD."

OOC: TFU, who's message are you picking up? Mine was a highly encrypted, focused transmission. You'd need to be directly in the path of the signal to even detect it, and even then you wouldn't be able to break the encryption. Plus it wasn't a voice or video transmission.

IC:
"Uh oh," said Lt. Marrero. The avatar and Major Tarrega both looked at her.

"What? You picking up transmissions?" asked Tarrega.

"Yes sir.* Three of them, all from different origins. All in the same language, the one everyone seems to use here. Database calls it 'English'," replied Marrero.

"Message origins correspond to recent sensor contacts. One of them is huge. I've also got a very faint disturbance nearby, it could be natural but... it just doesn't look quite right," announced Lt. Hyuro, who was watching the sensors.

"What do they say? What has concerned you?" inquired the avatar. Marrero tapped a symbol on her display.

Greetings, unidentified ship. We have a propostion for you. We do not want any unpleasantness or hostilities between us, so I suggest that you comply.
Hold your position, power down weapons, and prepare to recieve boarders. They will then collect the shipping tax that you owe us. Any failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction.

Thank you.

"Oh, that's just great," moaned Lt. Hyuro, "We're stuck here, and now we've got pirates threatening us."

"This is why we have this ship, Daxter, not the Indo-class ships. We can defend ourselves," the avatar told him. "Katy, what do the other messages say?"

Katy Marrero tapped another symbol on her display. The other two messages played over the PA speakers.

"Well, they don't sound too bad. Admittedly, one sounds as though they might be unfriendly, but the other offers help. This is good," voiced the avatar.

"Pandora, how's the Mind restart going?" asked Tarrega.

"Badly. The Mind is working fine now, I think, but the link refuses to re-establish itself. You'll have to deal with this yourself, I'm afraid. I am sorry, Lucia," was the reply.

"Fine. Captain Lau, arm weapons in this order: Missiles, autos, targeting sensors, lasers, other. Lieutenant Marrero, open a voice channel to the first contact," ordered Tarrega. Marrero tapped some more symbols, then nodded at Tarrega. The computers would translate the Indoan Common speech into English.

[Voice Transmission]
{Unknown vessel, this is Major Tarrega of the INV Smoking Gun, Second Fleet, Indoan Navy.
We may be currently in distress, but we will not submit to pirates. This is a warship, and is quite capable of defending itself. Any hostile actions will result in swift, total retaliation.}
[End Transmission]

"Warm up the Z-5s," suggested the avatar to another crew member.

[Voice Transmission]
{Star-Captain Tarsus, this is Major Tarrega of the INV Smoking Gun, of the Indoan Navy. We are an exploration vessel, and have only peaceful intentions. Our vessel is currently in difficulties, and we also have a pirate vessel threatening us. If you could do something about this situation, we would be grateful.}
[End Transmission]

"This last one offered us help. What do I say to that?" asked Tarrega.

"Politely decline on the grounds that this design is unknown to them, thank them for the offer, then tell them about the pirates too," suggested the avatar. Tarrega nodded.

[Voice Transmission]
{USS Dauntless, this is the INV Smoking Gun of the Indoan Navy, Major Tarrega currently commanding. We thank you for your offer, but due to your infamiliarity with our vessel design, there is little you can do to assist. However, perhaps you can assist us in dealing with a pirate vessel currently threatening us?}
[End Transmission]

"Right, that's that done. What's the status with the weapons?"

"All missile systems up, all autoguns up, and most of the other targeting systems are powered. We ran out of power at that point."

"Major, Command has responded. They are dispatching three ships to aid us, which will arrive in thirty-one hours."

"Curse being on the other side of the galaxy. Keep those fighters in the hanger for the moment, we don't want to tip our hand."

[[*: Standard Indoan military procedure is to refer to all superiors as 'Sir'.]]

"Captain, they're powering up weapons and calling for help. Looks like we have to fight!"

Shrike scowled. He had wanted to settle this quickly and painlessly. But if it was a fight they were after, they were going to get one.

"Systems crew, I want the signal jammers online immediately. Gunnery, prepare to fire. Torpedo the bridge, I want this over before help arrives. If that doesn't stop 'em, give them a broadside they'll never forget. Flight deck, I want all boarding craft, Lancers, and Fireflys ready to launch."

Affirmatives across the board. There was a rush of power as the signal jammers came on line. Hopefully the enemy would be blind, deaf, and mute as the jamming signals swamped them.

"Torpedos away, Cap'n! On time, on target!"

A spread of spear-like torpedos raced across the gap between the two ships, aiming for the bridge of the opposing ship. They were followed by a burst of energy-weapon fire and railgun shots. The pulses of energy rippled across the hull of the prey ship, potentially causing massive damage.

"Don't target the wormhole generator! I want it intact!"


In the docking bay, pirates pulled on their bulky Combat Armour and primed their weapons, then clattered up the ramps of the boarding vessels. They raced away out of the bay doors, followed by two wings of fighters. At least one landed on the hull, where it ignited its plasma cutters and began to eat through the hull. Meanwhile, the fighters strafed any weapons pods that they could see and prepared for the inevitable enemy fighter launch.

Tag for possible involvement.

'This is UCE sensorstation NGE 2, we have a huge contact closing near Neptune. Alerting Relentless now.' The manned station reported.

Understood. Captain, move to Neptune orbit now. Have the Relentless move into flank with the Agamemnon. I will go to Avatar en route. Came a quiet synthesized voice. The Captain of the Gamma class Dreadnaught, Agamemnon, nodded and issued the orders, as its VIP suddenly appeared beside him.

'I have absorbed the information. Have the Dreadnaught move within strike distance and activate the cloaking fields. No alert on their sensors, we are to observe only.' Came Djehuty's voice, his Avatar peering at the holograms with a mixture of wonder and amusement.

'Tell the Relentless to jump in. Now.'

The swirl of hyperspacial flux enveloped the smaller frigate, propelling it forwards and out, towards Neptune. Djehuty watched the calculations and then sighed, halfheartedly looking at the Holographic Displays. His datalinks were so much more informative.

'Relentless; power up shields and broadcast the normal peacekeeping message.' He advised suddenly.

~~~

'Understood sir. Shields up. Comms; Broadcast peacekeeper message. Weapons, standby.' Ordered the Relentless' Captain. Neptune roared into view, the Relentless a furious blazing comet, halting suddenly, hyperspatial flux rippling away from the ship as it translated to reality.

Three hundred and fifty metres of assault frigate exploded into reality, less than six hundred kilometres from the crippled ship.

'To all vessels, cease battle immediately or face the consequences, Sol system is a Demilitarized Zone.' Advised the frigate.

~~~

'Captain, jump us into system under cloak.'

'Understood. Helmsman, engage.' The Agamemnon's Helmsman propelled the Dreadnaught's immense bulk into the void, without the fanfare of its tiny cousin, the Relentless, a much more efficient jumpdrive and cloaking systems that effectively masked the massive assault ship's presence to all but the most sensitive of sensors.

'Take us close, Captain. I want to be able to throw a couple of Planar charges down their throats if they attack.'

'Understood. Helmsman, move us into position just beyond Relentless' port flank.' The Captain said, waving his hand through a swathe of holograms and icons, activating a magnified rendered view of the ships in the Passive Sensors Suite.

(ooc i was responding to yours I didn’t know that ..Free Eagles)
http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/images/8/8d/Enterprise-d.jpg

ic:
the Capitan had heard the message and looked over he nodded to the ops officer and the operations officer taped his flashing beeping console and opened a channel, he then said “affirmative we shall help you with these scum! Dauntless out “

with that the captain said “shields up red alert! All hand battle stations”

the ship’s shields were instantly up and weapons were hot the, galaxy class ship began to rumble in to position the alarms started to blare all over the ship.

the helms officer looked back at the captain and nodded “sir in position”

the captain looked over to his tactical officer and said “target that ship with

phasers and launch photon torpedoes, target there weapons and engine systems ..”

the tactical officer nodded taping his flashing console like mad making beeping sounds, he had pressed the fire button several times in turn , the 645 m galaxy class star ship’s arrays charged up in a massive crimson energy burst .

the captain said “fire!”

the array then discharged its energy a stream of crimson orange energy flew out of the ventral and dorsal array of the ship,they charged up again and fired this time the dorsal array only ,then the ventral array the galaxy class vessel rumbled around starting to maneuver slightly firing its arrays at the enemy ships, it moved in and targeted its forward torpedo tubes ,the tactical officer pressed the fire button on the bridge as every one else was preparing for return fire ,a volley of 10 torpedoes ( 1 every few seconds) flew out of the ship there crimson orange bolt like features streaking in the night as they flew towards the enemy pirate ship .



with this now Phaser array after Phaser array was charging up and firing along with strait volleys of torpedoes flying out in a wave targeting different systems .




to The Scarecrows ic:

Ops said as he heard the message while taping his console “sir were getting a message from another ship that just jumped in its apparently demanding we cease fire . what shall I tell them ?”

the captain sighed saying “tell them its our duty to protect ships that have been damaged and to assist them also tell them we have a pirate situation that we will deal with”

the ops officer nodded relaying that exact message to there ships channels..

The sensors aboard the INV Smoking Gun detected the weapons fire from the pirate vessel, and immediately the automatic defence systems went to work. The point defence autoguns spat a constant beam of lethal light towards the incoming torpedoes, immolating most of the projectiles, although some survived to explode against the corvette's shields.

The other weapons fire also impacted on the shields, until the sheer amount of energy overloaded the generators. It was during this vulnerable period that a total of three pirate parasite craft attached themselves to the hull. The noise of the impact and the screech of the cutters could be heard throughout the vessel, and the soldiers aboard were already suited up in their battle armour, having done so as soon as the transmission was picked up.

Across the one hundred and seventy metre long hull, as the shields were readjusted, bringing them back up while reducing coverage on other areas, a grand total of twenty-two weapon systems were operational, although the targeting sensors operational indicated more than double that. The missile launchers burst into operation, firing hyper-velocity missiles loaded with anti-matter warheads, first at the incoming parasite craft, then at the main pirate vessel. The autoguns, having run out of torpedoes to target, were firing on the pirate fighter craft, plastering them with the same near constant blast of laser light.
***

"They're trying to jam us," stated Lt. Hyuro.

"So switch arrays. Half these arrays can't be jammed, and the others can probably burn through the jamming," suggested one avatar.

"Route as much power as you can to the shields. Everything we have. As soon as they stop trying to dodge the target locks from the inactive weapons, put that power into the shields as well," shouted Major Tarrega, as the ship shuddered from the weapon impacts.

"Launch those fighters," ordered the other avatar. It then went back to its power management task. It switched off exterior lights, some interior lights, it dropped the temperature aboard the ship by five degrees. It reduced on board gravity by five percent. All minor changes, but every drop of power saved here meant more could go into the shields.

At the locations where the parasite craft were attached to the hull, the soldiers extinguished those lights as well. There was no guarantee that the darkness would hinder the pirate soldiers, but it would pose no inconvenience to the Indoans, the visors in their helmets providing perfect vision in the dark.
***

Back in space, the Smoking Gun went dark. All the lights went off, the black paint on the hull rendering the ship almost invisible against the stellar background. The shields around the hangar bay dropped and six small, dart-shaped fighters came out. The shields were back up again within fifteen seconds as the fighters, flown by sentient AI, broke up into three elements of two and fired missiles and lasers at the pirate craft, focusing on the parasite landers.
***

"Incoming transmission," said Lt. Marrero, and then hit the symbol to play the message.

"Screw them," announced Tarrega after the transmission ended. "Get a line open, voice only." Marrero complied and nodded.

[Voice Transmission]
{Unknown vessel, We will cease fire when, and only when, we feel our vessel is safe from hostiles. If you want this to stop, I suggest you get rid of the pirates currently attacking us. The other vessel currently firing is doing so after we requested their assistance to defend against the pirate attack.}
[End Transmission]

"Detecting weapons fire, Star-Captain."

Tarsus frowned. Who had the stupidity to start a shooting war in Sol? "Frack. What kind?"

"Uh...looks like torpedoes and phasers. Typically Federal stuff. We're also detecting a launch from the Pirate ship."

"And those hot-headed Federal fools have just opened fire on which ship?" Tarsus asked, trying to learn everything about the situation he could.

"The...Pirates, sir."

"And who else do we have at our little party today?" Tarsus asked. The situation was fast becoming confusing, yet exciting at the same time.

"Uh... We've got the Feds, The INV Smoking Gun (the guys who started this whole mess), The Pirates, and another unidentified ship. We're also picking up the strings from at least two other craft, but we can't identify them."

"What do you mean you can't identify them? This ship's sensors are some of the most precise in the universe! They can see down to fracking strings and you can't identify a pair of cloaked ships!?" Tarsus fumed. On his old ship, the Annhilator, he would have never tolerated such incompetence. Unfortunately, such was part of the package that came with a fresh crew.

"Sir, our stringers don't work like that. We can see that something is there, but we can't identify it."

"Yeah? And what about the grav-sensors? Or the mass spectrometers? Or even the fracking active LADAR? Please tell me that you went to active sensors when the firing started!" Tarsus' urge to kill his comms officer was growing by the minute.

"Uh...No sir!"

"Idiot! You're not going to make it in the Imperial Navy if you don't take initiative! If you weren't the only semi-competent sensor operator on this thrice damned ship, I would push you out an airlock! Pah. Go to active sensors, and tell the Knights to suit up. We might have to do some boarding in the near future. And make sure the fighters are prepped for launch. And I want my guns hot. If anybody makes another hostile move towards that disabled ship, I want you to erase them from the stars, you Roj? Do you fracking understand my orders!?" Tarsus was actually being merciful. Normally, incompetence in a hostile situation is dealt with, usually ending with the incompetent in question being executed on the spot.

The bridge crew was mollified by their Captain's display of brutality. One by one they realized that they were actually in combat, and would need to keep their wits about them.

The hulking Ravager glimmered in the sunlight, it's blue hull reflecting the Sun's rays into a cacophony of colors. That multi-colored extravaganza was soon accompanied by the cool blue/green glow of PPB microbursters gathering a charge, powering up. Similarly, a hellish red/white glow build up along hundreds of heavy plasma turrets along the Ravager's hull, preparing to put an end to hostilities with a tidal wave of searing fire. Inside the ship, railgun slugs loaded into their launchers as implosion torpedoes flowed freely into their tubes. Fighters prepped for launch, their pilots running pre-flight checks and bringing the AIs online.

******

Knight-Corporal Hayes ran through the final performance checks for his armor. Everything was green. He had enough O2 to go EV for a few hours, and he had already replaced the shoulder mounted nukes with something a bit more...conductive to shipboard warfare. Shields were online, and the T-Grav nodes were running perfectly. The machine worked fine, but the human inside felt the all too understandable anxiety before a mission. Especially a dangerous mission such as this. On a planet, he would be on the bounce constantly, making low hops, a tactic that most enemies found was very hard to counter. On a ship, everything was different. There was no real space to bounce, and the truly powerful weapons couldn't be used for fear of damaging the ship you're trying to capture or defend...

OOC: My String sensors scan down to the building blocks of matter. If you're still in this universe in any way, shape, or form, and within range of the sensors, I can know that *something* is there. Of course, identifying it is the tough part.

As the sensors picked up active weapons, the Avenger went from YOPD to RTAD, bringing all systems to full power.
"Pirate ship, this is the Avenger, stand down or face destruction." was trasmitted as the targetting computers gathered a target lock on weapons, engines and shield generators on the pirate vessel.

The Golden Glow was under heavy fire, but for now the shields held firm. However, the ship was only energy-shielded. Kinetics were a different problem, for instance the missiles that streamed towards the ship at that very moment. The point defence guns opened up, or at least those that could attack fast enough. Most of the missiles were obliterated by the blasts, but a few survived to strike the armoured hull. The ship rocked a little.

From another angle, they detected a volley of Federation torpedos. Luckily, they only seemed to be firing one every few seconds (ooc: its what you said...) so it was easy to pick them off with the defensive guns.

"Report!"
"Nothing major, Cap'n. Lick of paint will fix it. Bit of damage from the vibrations, though."

The weapons continued to blaze, pulses of energy zipping across the gap between the two ships. The torpedo tubes fired again, another spread of anti-shipping warheads racing towards this surprisingly resilient foe.

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

The Lancer torpedo bombers responded to the Federation threat, turning around and swooping towards the newcomer. They locked on to the ship, then fired. A stream of anti-capital ship torpedos screamed towards it, hopefully reducing it to wreckage. They turned around and raced back to the hopeful safety of their carrier, torpedos all gone.

Meanwhile, the Fireflys battled furiously with the enemy fighters. They looped and rolled in incredible displays of agility, firing their weapons at any target that presented itself. Locking on, one of them fired a pair of homing missiles at its oppoenent. Not far away, one of his comrades burnt up, struck by a shot. His engine had overheated and exploded, incinerating the unfortunate pilot along with his fighter.

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

One of the boarding vessels exploded violently as a shot found a weak point in its armour, but the other two had burrowed straight through the hull. In the corridor next to the first, the wall exploded inwards dramatically, sparks dancing across the metal floor. The shrapnel was followed by a volley of grenades, which detonated inside the ship, hopefully slaughtering any defenders. It was dark inside the ship, which was odd, as normally a ship in combat was lit up. Luckily their armour contained night-vision. They piled out, weapons raised, ready to kill anything that moved.

"Pirate ship, this is your final warning, stand down or be destroyed."
The Avenger launched an across the bow final warning shot, composed of 4 missles.

The dauntless was struck several times its shields were reduced down to 70 % by the over all blasts one of its Tran porters were knocked out.

The captain was on the ship as it shook violently and consoles sparked he yelled “ bring phasers up to full power and fire target there shield system and hull , fire Torpedoes pattern sierra ! and use some of our arrays in point mode to take out those damn bombers !“
The tactical officer responded , with that the ventral and dorsal arrays charged up firing a full stream of extremely powerful and potent Phaser fire , volleys of 10 torpedoes at once raced out of the tubes getting close to the ships they would disperse all over the hull. Phaser fire after Phaser fire flew out of both dorsal ventral arrays several times powerful enough to deal server damage to any ship, torpedoes flew out again this time fast every so often in large burst.

The captain said as the ship was shaking a bit “keep the fire on switch to quantum’s when I tell you!”

The Smoking Gun's multi-spectrum shielding was under immense strain, and, for the second time in the fight, the particle and magnetic shields collapsed, leaving only the energy shields. The autoguns switched to targeting the missiles again as soon as the launches were noticed, but some got past to pound the alloys that formed the hull, blasting away sections of composite armour.

The fighters were horrifically outnumbered, but were fighting like a force twice their size. Two of the six dart-shaped Kestrel fighters were destroyed by pirate fighters, vanishing in balls of red-gold fire, but the other four lived on as yet, defending their mothership to the very last. Before long, they would begin to run out of missiles, and would be forced to rely on the lasers, which while still powerful, were inferior to the advanced missiles.

As soon as the particle shields came down, the missiles from the pirate fighters began to hit the hull, and before long four of the missile launchers had been destroyed.
***

"Get the shields back up," cried Tarrega. "If they stay down, we're dead."

"I am aware of that, Lucia. One moment," replied one of the avatars.

"They hit the bridge," stated Lt. Forge. "It's venting atmosphere. Sealing it off." In other circumstances, it would have been funny. The Vadra-E type ship no longer had a 'bridge', since it was usually controlled by an AI. The crew were currently in the auxiliary bridge, deep within the ship.

"I've lost some of my missile launchers," announced Captain Lau. "The fighters are hitting them now the shields are down."

"Then transfer the power to another weapon and shoot the fighters," suggested Tarrega with barely restrained frustration.
***

Outside the hull, two of the corvette's plasma cannons came online, as well as a single laser battery, the blue-white plasma and sapphire-tinted laser beams adding to the light show surrounding the Smoking Gun.
***

The grenade explosion within the corvette's hull resonated along the corridor, the flash foolishly trying to compete with the darkness for supremacy. The dark beat back the light, while hands went to the safeties on weapons, preparing for combat.

The ten Indoan Rangers by the first parasite craft were several metres away, suspecting that explosives might be used to attempt to kill them, but one Matrai male suffered a minor shrapnel wound to his left arm, the power pack in his armour failing. He immediately withdrew behind the others to replace it, as they raised weapons.

The first figures appeared from the hole in the wall, and two of the soldiers opened up with prolonged bursts from 10mm pulse cannons, firing high-velocity explosive shells. The other soldiers carried standard rifles, either 6mm pulse rifles or laser rifles, and fired a number of short bursts as well. Two lobbed grenades forward, then resumed firing their rifles.

At the site of the second parasite craft, another ten Rangers armed in a similar fashion, waited in the dark. Although this squad had been slightly more inventive.

As the wall blew out and a number of grenades were thrown in, the Rangers slid back behind the walls they were using as cover. At this point, the corridor split, providing the Rangers with the opportunity to attack from two angles at once.

When the pirates inside the parasite craft came out onto the deck of the corvette, the squad sergeant depressed a button on the panel on the wrist of his suit, detonating four directional anti-personnel mines that had been carefully placed to hit the pirates from both sides.
***

Outside the corvette, another of the Z-5 Kestrel fighters was blown apart by a missile, just seconds before the corvette's shields came back up again.

OOC: Taldaan, how big is the pirate vessel? I need to know if I'm making appropriate damage assessments on the corvette.

'Relentless - Open fire on the pirate ship. And interpose your ship between the two of them. Present the biggest target possible and power your shields.' The Avatar peered at the display and then waved at the Captain.

'Decloak and target the pirate ship - Full spread.'

'Yessir.'

~~~

Relentless' guns targeted and swiftly fired a salvo of kinetic bolts - conventional Armour-Piercing magnetically launched projectiles, the swarm quickly dividing the space between the Pirate ship and the frigate.

Then, the frigate launched another salvo, missiles, from its twin missile blisters, these chased after the torpedoes, gutting the self-propelled explosives before they impacted with the frigate's hardened shell. Against all odds, one got through the missile screen, and the torpedo meant for the ship below struck like the hand of a God upon the frigate's bow, rocking the ship and stripping the armour back to the Ceramite layer in one place. It survived, and the turrets resumed firing with a vengeance. The Planar Lance, lay inactive, the Captain reluctant to release such a powerful weapon against the unprepared pirates.

As Relentless fought the pirate ship, the multiple cloaking fields shut down, the Temmlar Generators switching the power load to shields and the energy based weaponry. What everyone thought was a small, cloaked ship, was a UCE Gamma Class Dreadnaught, suddenly decloaking all along its bulk.

Truthfully, the Gamma Class wasn't the largest, the Agamemnon was fully four kilometres long, a kilometre deep at its widest point, and bristling with Anti-Capital Ship and Anti-Fighter weaponry. The largest Dreadnaughts, the Alpha Classes, such as Occam's Razor, weren't allowed to pull into orbit near any planet with oceans, as it could cause flooding from gravitation pull.

Three guesses how big an Alpha was.

Agamemnon's planar Lances projected forwards like long, vicious looking knives, part of Dreadnaught's impressive and extensive array of weaponry. It was a warship. A monstrous ship of the UCE line, that were developed and berthed in unknown orbits, in mysterious systems, far from Sol.

'We won't ask you again. Break off your attacks. All of you.' Came the smooth crystalline voice of Djehuty.

'The UCE works with the USN and Solapol, and to fire weapons in Sol, a Demilitarized Zone, is a breach of the Plutopian Treaty. All of you will cease fire. The Pirates will withdraw - unchallenged. And emptyhanded.' His Avatar looked into the holograms, aware any ships with visual communication systems would see the face of an adolescent with strikingly blonde hair and androgynous features.

'Cease Fire. Now.'

ooc: The pirate ship is around 550 metres long, armed to the teeth.

IC: Inside the target ship, things were starting to heat up. The mines detonated, killing six men of the twenty-man team, their bodies flung like ragdolls. The remainder stood back to back in the corridor, their sensors detecting that they had been neatly pincered. But that wouldn't halt these men. Servos and hydraulics began to move, propelling the eight-foot armoured suits forwards. Wrist and shoulder mounted guns swivelled to rest on the contacts, although they would not fire yet- there were walls in the way.

The left group made visual contact first, firing a hail of hypervelocity flechettes at the enemy. The shoulder-mounted lasers automatically tracked the targets, deadly bursts of light striking the heads. There was a roar as a grenade went off, cast into the midst of the enemy.

The right group made contact soon after. They too opened fire, advancing on the enemy. As they closed in, molecular-edge blades slid from the fingertips of their armoured gauntlets, ready to tear these foes to pieces.

The other entry team was also in combat. They had been met by a hail of gunfire as they stepped out, the first man felled by a shot in one of their few weak points. He fell to the floor with a clang. A grenade went off next to them, slaying another two. Luckily, most of the enemy fire was small arms and the shooters were not yet familiar with the weak points of the armour. It pattered off them like raindrops. Had their visors been up, the enemy would have seen cruel smiles as they opened fire on the resistance.

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

*Shields low, advise evasive action*
The message came as a harbinger of what was about to come. A stream of missiles and energy finally broke through the shield and landed heavily on the ship. Chunks were blasted out of the armour, and exposions blossomed across the hull in vast red and orange displays. The entire ship shook violently, causing crewmen to lose their balance.

"Damage report!"
"We lost the carrier bay, Cap'n, and one of the dorsal arrays. Around two-hundred dead."
"Damn it, we can't fight against these odds."
Shrike scowled. What had looked like a simple raid had turned into a desperate struggle for survival. He pounded his fist into the command panel, but luckily the explosions had knocked it offline for a few seconds.

"Captain, recieving transmission."
"From who?"
He shouted the words. This battle had frayed his nerves to breaking point, and the normally level-headed if flamboyant captain was pacing the floor and screaming orders.
"Another contact, Sir. Dreadnaught, huge one."
"Put them on."

'The UCE works with the USN and Solapol, and to fire weapons in Sol, a Demilitarized Zone, is a breach of the Plutopian Treaty. All of you will cease fire. The Pirates will withdraw - unchallenged. And emptyhanded.'

'Cease Fire. Now.'

With those words, all hope that Shrike had had of taking the enemy ship evaporated. He gave his orders.

"Cease fire. I want all entry teams and fighters back. The carrier bay is gone, so have them clamp onto the hull."

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

The entry teams stopped firing. The rain of flechettes and greandes stopped. They raised their hands in a display of surrender, then facing the enemy they walked back to the boarding craft. Stepping back in, they pulled away from the hull, racing back towards the ship. Of course, they had probably just exposed a deck or two to raw vacuum, but then shit happens.

The Lancers and Fireflys broke off in mid run, the Lancers using their guns to destroy the torpedos that they had just launched. Turning tail, they fled back to the safety of the cruiser.

All along the Golden Glow, the guns suddenly stopped firing. Torrents of energy were extinguished. The punishing rain of torpedos that it was unleashed stopped, as all power from the weapons was rerouted to the shields.

The battered ship then sent out a message to all the ships involved.

"We have decided to stand down. Allow us to leave in peace, and you will not be marked for death. Thank you."

OOC: Ah. In that case, I should have taken more damage. The corvette may be powerful, but not that powerful. Sorry.

IC:
Aboard the Smoking Gun, sirens blared out warnings of hull breaches in four locations, the shields came down again and another of the fighters was destroyed in a raging ball of incandescant gas.

Then, all the lights went out across the ship, the ship was suddenly silent and all the doors slid closed. The crew in what had become the bridge looked around wildly, trying to see anything in the darkness, as their control displays had also gone blank.

"Ah. The Mind is back," said one of the avatars calmly. Immediately, the crew felt more at ease. The Mind would do everything it could to try and preserve the lives of the crew, and do it far better than they could hope to. The Mind spoke through the other avatar, as well as over the PA.

"Please do not be alarmed. The on-board lighting will be restored as soon as possible. The doors will be released as soon as the hull breaches are locked off."

Then the message came through.
***

The Rangers were coming off badly. Not only were they outnumbered two-to-one, their weapons seemed ineffective against the pirates armour. The explosive shells were mostly just bouncing off. Even the machine guns were failing to penetrate the suits.

The only good thing was that the suits the pirate boarders were wearing were well over two metres tall. They were having to duck in the cramped corridors of the corvette (which are 7ft 8in tall). Their own armour was coping with the pirates weapons fire, although the number of tiny projectiles threatened to overload the reactive armour.

Two of the Rangers had just returned from the armoury with two 35mm high-explosive cannons, and had just finished loading them, when a message flashed up on their visors and the Mind spoke over the comm network.

"Cease fire immediately. The enemy have been ordered to withdraw."

Nervously, the Rangers complied, watching the huge battlesuits carefully. The pirates raised arms in surrender and began withdrawing to their parasite craft. As they did so, all the doors off the corridor slammed shut, anticipating the hull breach when the craft itself withdrew.
***

The Smoking Gun's weapons stopped firing, but continued tracking the pirate fighters as they withdrew, until they safely out of range. The two remaining fighters also stopped firing their weapons, and took up a holding orbit around the corvette, maintaining a covering position.
***

The Mind ordered the Rangers to report in. It turned out that five of the twenty had been killed, and all of the remaining fifteen were wounded in one way or another. Most had not noticed the wound in the heat of battle, or had just carried on fighting regardless, leaving the nanobots present in their blood to fix the holes for them. The weapons fire had done little damage to the corvette structurally, but it would need to be reworked and repainted, to remove impact dents and scorch marks. Plus the hull needed fixing.

Mean while the galaxy class star ship had stopped firing hearing the message ,a message was sent out buy the proud yet calm captain
“ pirate vessel , you are hear buy ordered to stand down all shields and prepare to be taken in to custody you have preformed an illegal act of piracy and have fired on a federation ship , if you do not comply we will take down your shields and engines please respond “

he looked over to his tactical officer saying

“target there ftl engines and shield system , and keep tabs on there sub light engines to! “ the tactical officer nodded.

the operations officer looked over and said “sir it looks like that corvette is in bad shape they have multiple hull breaches there power is out ,and it seems there’s a fire fight on the ship ..”

the captain sighed and said “open a frequency to them, the ops officer nodded and did so the captain then sat down and said

“ it seems you are in some problems over there we offer our assistance again do you want us to send over marines or beam your crew out ? please respond we shall beam your crew out if your ship seems like its going to falter dauntless out ..”

the comm. cuts and they wait for a response form both ships.

'Dauntless, you heard my original bargain. Leave them alone.' Djehuty cut in, overriding the Starship's computer barriers and patching himself directly into the viewscreen.

'I give my word, and I mean it. They will leave unhindered. If you fire on them, I will see to it personally that your ship's codes and authority in Sol Sector is Revoked.' He snapped. Damn these Federation types! They should keep quiet in situations where their own dubious presence caused little more than mayhem.

'They are heavily damaged, and I doubt without a good refit, that their ship will ever reach a friendly port. They are defeated, and withdrawing. Let them be.' He advised the Galaxy class ship.

Djehuty disliked this Federation. They seemed be intergalactic bullies, more than any force promoting peace and unity throughout the stars. How far the mighty have fallen. Groused the AI internally.

'Smoking Gun, do you require supplies or repairs? I can offer you medical supplies and sealant, and a patch up job. Or we could contact your superiors...' Now there was a loaded question. Rudimentary repairs could be effected for the stricken corvette, and an armed escort rendered, but how would the Captain's superiors react to a vessel under the watchful eyes of a Gamma Class?

'Dauntless, you heard my original bargain. Leave them alone.' Djehuty cut in, overriding the Starship's computer barriers and patching himself directly into the viewscreen.

'I give my word, and I mean it. They will leave unhindered. If you fire on them, I will see to it personally that your ship's codes and authority in Sol Sector is Revoked.' He snapped. Damn these Federation types! They should keep quiet in situations where their own dubious presence caused little more than mayhem.

'They are heavily damaged, and I doubt without a good refit, that their ship will ever reach a friendly port. They are defeated, and withdrawing. Let them be.' He advised the Galaxy class ship.

Djehuty disliked this Federation. They seemed be intergalactic bullies, more than any force promoting peace and unity throughout the stars. How far the mighty have fallen. Groused the AI internally.

'Smoking Gun, do you require supplies or repairs? I can offer you medical supplies and sealant, and a patch up job. Or we could contact your superiors...' Now there was a loaded question. Rudimentary repairs could be effected for the stricken corvette, and an armed escort rendered, but how would the Captain's superiors react to a vessel under the watchful eyes of a Gamma Class?





Dauntless responds “ they have committed an act of pricy against innocent civilians and the federation ,its important for us to take them out of this sector , and have our rights revoked ? do you realize sol in a neutral territory if you attempt any federation ships from entering it would be an act of war , but we are willing to solve this diplomatically , we can not have pirates running around shooing up our freighters.. “

A smirk bloomed on the Avatar's face. 'Yes, it is Neutral Territory, meaning that the political powers that be (in a democratic fashion) watch over the system and they reserve the right to throw out those that behave badly, sort of like what you planned to do. You are as much under their thumb as we all are. Which is why my worlds aren't in Sol sector. They are defeated and will not require further punishment. The threat that the ships assembled here provide will be more than enough to deter them from this sector for several years. You hinder a perfectly fine tactical withdrawal that I promised them. I never promise lightly. Anyway, doesn't your Federation code prevent you from pursuing the pirates if the civilian ship is in dire straits? Provide support, Dauntless.' He slid out of the Galaxy class' systems.

'Captain, launch the repair drones with pressure clamps. Seal those decks on the Smoking Gun.'

Now that the Smoking Gun's AI Mind was back in control, the ship was reasonably safe. The hull breaches were sealed with magnetic fields, a temporary fix until something more permanent could be established, but an effective one nonetheless.

Now that the shields were back up, again, and the pirates withdrawing, the power in the weapons was no longer needed. As such, it was rerouted to other locations. All the lights, both internal and external, came back on, and the ship was no longer a shadow in the stellar background.

The on board gravity and temperature were returned to normal as well, and the doors returned to standard access, allowing the wounded Rangers to return their weapons to the armoury and head to the medical bay.
***

To both USS Dauntless and Agamemnon (Gamma class)
[Open voice transmission, wide band]
{This is the Smoking Gun. We thank both parties for their offers of assistance, but our situation is under control. Our own medical facilities can handle our wounded and the hull breaches are under control. The repair drones currently inbound our position are welcome, though.
Our superiors have already been contacted, and a support unit is currently en-route.
The Federation vessel should be informed that this vessel is neither a civil vessel nor a Federation freighter. It is a exploratory vessel of the Indoan Navy, thus falling into the category of warship.}
[End transmission]

~ Well, okay. What I said wasn't quite true. Time to inform Command.

[Stuttered-tight-point, M32, tra. @d2.3869.4.14.013905] [1]
x: INV Smoking Gun
o: Indoan Naval Command
{Our initial situation has been resolved. I am back in control of the vessel. However, since our last communication, the vessel was attacked by pirates. It has suffered considerable damage, and will need refitting, although the engagement has been brought to a close by the intervention of a capital warship belonging to another culture.
The pirates have withdrawn, and we are now under the protection of this vessel. They have also offered help with temporary repairs to the vessel, which have been partially accepted.
Our vessel was boarded during the engagement, and the Rangers were called in to repel the boarders. I regret to inform you that five of them were killed, and all the rest wounded. [Names attached]}


[1] Focused directional datalink burst transmission, text-only, high-level multi-layered encryption, compressed, transmission duration: 1 nanosecond.

Shrike was silently fuming as the Golden Glow began to pull away from the scene. The ship was sluggish and the deck vibrated as it moved. Behind it, a mist of solidifying engine coolant fluid leaked from one of the many hull ruptures. The reactor had almost been struck, shots burrowing through to within half a metre. Any closer and it would have detonated, taking the pirate vessel with it. For that, Shrike could breathe a sigh of relief.

However, he seemed to prefer sitting slumped in the plush command chair and holding his face in his hands. His mission had failed, and his ship would quite possibly never be the same again. The Golden Glow was no longer the sleek hunter that had swooped towards the wormhole signal, it was a battered hulk. All of its predatory grace had been erased in that fateful salvo. The lights were out, along with the port thruster. The lowest deck had been holed and exposed to vacuum, the air rushing out too quickly to seal the doors. Many good men had died there.

The ship shook more violently as the FTL drives powered up. It was a miracle that they still worked. They prepared to jump. The plan was simple. Meet up with the Graven Image in Antica System and then from there to a repair station. The other ship would help them out for the voyage, and take the crew aboard if things went even more wrong. Then the ship appeared to fade away as it jumped.

The galaxy class ship stood there letting the criminals go hoping to track it to there home base using the sensors , the captain smiled and sat on his chair as his ship floated over the others ,tracking the pirate ship as it jumped

OOC: Damn, sorry. I guess I forgot about this thread. Glad to see that everything was resolved without me though. Although Scarecrows' method wouldn't be the one I'd use...

OOC: Yeah, but I wouldn't want you destroying my ship because it wasn't from a human group. Then pride would have forced the Indoans to declare war on you, which they would have lost. Pathetically.

((I'd rather demonstrate power through non violent means.))

OOC: Yeah, but I wouldn't want you destroying my ship because it wasn't from a human group. Then pride would have forced the Indoans to declare war on you, which they would have lost. Pathetically.

OOC: I wouldn't have exterminated you. Heck, I probably wouldn't have even fired on you. :) You see, my people are incredibly racist. So when they noticed the Matrai, they would *naturally* assume that the human offshoot was keeping the other races enslaved. Of course, they don't care if its true or not, their racism won't let them see any differently. So you wouldn't be harmed.

But I digress. Of course it's like the wily Federals to try and cheat the system. :D But Scarecrows, where did this 'Sol is demilitarized' bit come from? I mean... there are military actions in Sol all the time, although admittedly they are mostly low scale pirate attacks.

Edit: A lot like this one, actually...

OOC: The Matrai aren't a human offshoot, they evolved from a slightly different ape. Matrai have never been connected with humans. It's just a random coincidence that they are similar.

And I have to agree, since when has Sol been demilled? Some of the biggest FT alliances are based in Sol, which makes for big fights.

My corvette is still stranded in Sol, though. It currently has no working propulsion systems whatsoever. Just waiting for the support group to arrive.

OOC: The Matrai aren't a human offshoot, they evolved from a slightly different ape. Matrai have never been connected with humans. It's just a random coincidence that they are similar.

OOCly I knew that, but my characters, being the uber-human supremacists they are, wouldn't.

((CF - If there was a Sol sector without a DMZ, can you imagine the space debris and bloody tradelane holdups? Logistical nightmare. This way, everyone keeps the violence to a minimum and the smaller attacks are swiftly dealt with.))

IC:
Another wormhole, this one not far behind the first one, flashed into existance. It disgorged four ships, before crashing in on itself, ending seconds after it began.

Two of the ships were identical to the stranded Smoking Gun, just in ever so slightly better repair. The third was a bulbous freighter, marginally smaller than the corvettes, but very obviously designed for a different purpose. The last ship was larger, a hair over 450m long, looking all the while like an interstellar accident. It had the appearance of two elongated four sided pyramidal structures that had been welded together along the long axis. It was in fact, the INV Whisperer, a Karos-class frigate which had come along to provide additional security.

The four warships communicated briefly, then the freighter drew alongside the damaged Smoking Gun, which latched on to the vessel with its tractor beams and drew it into contact with the hull.

None of the crews had ever carried out a reactor transfer in deep space, but there had to be a first time for everything. It was not as simply as transfering the reactor from the freighter to the Smoking Gun, since the reactor was larger than the corvette's corridors would allow through.

Displacing it into the corvette was an option, but not one seriously considered. The relative unreliability of the Displacer units meant they were only used to eject reactors, not take them in.

The transfer would require removing a section of the Smoking Gun's hull, fitting the reactor through this gap, installing it into the ship's systems, calibrating it, then replacing the section of hull so that the corvette was spaceworthy.

This could take days, mused the crews. And all of it would be boring, since the actual work would be carried out by synthetics, drones and Minds. The crew of the Smoking Gun, meanwhile, would be taken on board the Whisperer for extensive debriefing on the events following their entry to the system.

As the repairs were being done, the other corvettes would complete the task that the Smoking Gun had originally been tasked with: Mapping the Sol system, since it seemed to be the centre of most other cultures.


OOC: For the frigate, image two Star Destroyers cut from bow to stern about a third of the way in from one side, then glued together. This means it has two prongs at the bow, and has a double diamond silhouette from the rear. Sort of like this: <x>

'This is UEC Agamemnon to incoming ships, your silhouettes match that of the INV Smoking gun. I assume you are the reinforcements. Is there a possibility of speaking directly to the person in charge of this operation?' Djehuty enquired. The Avatar blinked suddenly.

'Captain be advised, they have synthetic minds.' He said, before disconnecting with the Avatar, which promptly walked back to his living quarters.

Relentless, how goes the repairs?
'Repair drones have sealed the hull fractures and the Temmlar generator reports a full power synchronisation. We expect to have the turrets repaired within a few hours. Only minor injuries too, concussion and we're repairing Crewman Capoire's hearing now. He was in the corridor adjacent to the Torpedo impact. Deafened.'
Indeed. Thankyou. As you were, Captain. He would remember that and advise the shipyards to integrate a sound proofing layer into the sandwiched hull. Expensive, but the Poplyd near the Fortune system would provide more than enough raw material for the Assemblers at High Angel... The ships would rotate the sectors and get their refits whilst Caretaker and i]Sentinel[/i], the new Karybdys class Corvettes took up the slack... Excellent.
The pertinent files were sent to the UEC Navy, and the Scarecrows Shipyards.

He resumed his focus on the Synthetic Minds aboard the ships. He scanned their lingual databases and found an appropriate translation package, which he quickly disseminated the information and requested files on Free Eagles. Intelligentia, mostly.

How very interesting...

OOC: Our Minds would be able to detect scanning like that and block it, since it constitutes hacking. Since all comms so far to non-Indoan vessels have been in English, there would be no need for you to do that anyway. All the messages between Indoan vessels are highly encrypted direct datalink text transmissions.

I don't use the name 'Free Eagles' for FT, you would search for 'Indo'. And you probably wouldn't find much, since they're very withdrawn and secretive. Hell, the frigate shouldn't really be here.

IC:
[Voice Transmission]
{UEC Agamemnon, this is the INV Whisperer. I am currently in joint command of this detachment. How may I be of service? And please do not attempt to read our systems again.}
[End Transmission]

"Colonel, I have replied to their message. Do you wish to speak with them, or should I continue to do so?" the Mind asked the CO.

"You do it. I'll probably give something away. If they insist, I'll speak, but I'm very busy, if you get my drift," replied the Colonel.

"Of course you are, Colonel. You have sixty-three crew to debrief and a corvette to fix," the Mind stated.
***

The two new corvettes, the INVs Stargazer and Ray of Light, moved away from the other ships, towards the centre of the system.

The two remaining Kestrel fighters from the Smoking Gun had been recovered by the Whisperer, and the two Assegai transports from the corvette had transferred the crew. The only entities left aboard the damaged corvette, were the Mind, its two avatars, and the army of drones and synthetics which would repair the ship.

Even though everything seemed stable, the Indoan vessels still had an escape plan, albeit an expensive one. If anything threatened them, they would immediately jump out of the system. However, if the Smoking Gun was unable to follow at that time, they would destroy it, to prevent anyone examining it and so studying the latest Indoan technology.

OOC: Djehuty isn't a normal AI. He's in command of a vastly large intel base, Black 13. And he's fully aware of the other AIs. He just doesn't care if they detect him. And he didn't actually hack your systems, he picks up surveillance updates from across the Galaxy. The UEC has its influence everywhere. And the translation files were uploaded to the ship. Not the AI proper. Which is what he was doing a few seconds ago. I should have specified. I apologise for not making that clear, I thought that he assimilated the data from the linguistics package your communications came with. If it was simply translated before-hand, my bad.

IC:

As one AI to another, welcome to Sol. I would rather speak to you than a human. No discrimination, but I trust you to offer me at least a modicum of honesty. The sarcasm was dripping in that statement.

Let me level with you. I know of your nation through various listening posts situated in various points across the galaxy. I apologise for attempting to read your systems. I could tell there was a Synthetic Mind aboard each ship. Curiosity compelled me where I should not have gone. It's not often I find an AI so advanced in these enlightened times.

I have to know, as an AI, do you act as a political intermediary? If so, tell your Captain that the UEC wishes to talk privately about relations with the Indoan Government.

The sensors reported that no crew remained aboard the Corvette. And heavy repair work was underway.

I have patched over the vented decks on your Corvette, only patchwork, I'm afraid, <Until such time as I learn the curious metallurgy and composition of your hullplating.> Was his own private thought, before continuing, I wish I could have provided more assistance at such a time, needless to say, the Relentless will require repairs at a shipyard. I hope it at least halted part of the Pirate onslaught.
Inwardly, the reports from fire control said that the torpedoes destined for the Indoan ship beneath Relentless were halted completely, one of those torps managing to score a hit directly through the Active Defense Grid and damaging the ship.

Standby to recieve a burst transmission.

OOC: Yup, the messages were translated into English prior to transmission. I learned that from a 'Contact' RP. And the ship Minds aren't exactly normal AIs, either, but they aren't that powerful.

IC:
{As the Mind aboard a Indoan warship, I act as joint commander. The Minds aboard the Explorer vessels act as sole commanders. Generally, I run the ship, my organic counterpart runs the crew. If you wish to talk about diplomatics, I will handle that, since my counterpart will only refer you to me.
However, I must thank you for your assistance on behalf on the Indoan Navy. Had you not intervened, the ship would surely have been lost. The Smoking Gun reports that your vessel prevented that entire volley from hitting it.The repair crews can handle it from here, since they need to cut the ship open again anyway.}
***

"They wish to discuss diplomatic relations," the Mind stated.

"Well? It's your conversation. Besides, I'd screw it up and probably declare war on them," responded the Colonel, "Diplomacy is not my forte."

"I was just informing you of the situation, Colonel," said the AI calmly, "I was not planning on having you get involved."

"Good. I'm 'very busy' remember," the Colonel laughed as he went back to his current task.
***

The two corvettes conducted a series of short-range worm-jumps around the system, taking extensive sensor readings every time they were in real space. If this system really was the centre of intelligent life in the galaxy, they wanted accurate data.