NationStates Jolt Archive

The ship slipped out of the slipspace silently. Thanks to the new technology it was stolen from, the fleets of Nurgle could finally sneak up on its prey, unlike with the warp, your presence could be seen and felt lightyears away.

As soon as this lone ship exited slipspace, a shimmer came across its odd hull. Giant pus bubbles and seemingly open sores mixed with hard steel were covered by the cloaking generator. In the blackness of space, it was practically invisible.

The ship itself was small, 400m long only. Normally it was a Swarm ship, or in normal terms, a carrier. But this had a special mission. All fighters and hanger bays were removed. The super-fast plasma drives were cut in half so the small ship went even slower in real space. These parts were replaced with vast, sophisticated technologies meant for one purpose: eyeing the enemy.

The super longrange sensors were meant to probe lightyears away with absolute precision. All manners of sensors were used. Ones tha tpicked up radio waves, subspace waves, all spectrums of waves. Infra-red and heat sensitive sensors probed far and deep. Special sensors meant to pick up the signatures of certain types of metals usual used in ship hulls were active. If it wasn't for the cloack, the ship would be emitting a radio signal louder than a star.

Nearly a hundred of these ships were spread all across the border of a single nation. The Maritime Republic of Tidan, the next target for Nurgle's 'Blessing'. Soon, there would be nothing hidden from the great eyes in the sky.

On board the SAS Riptide, one of the many monitor agents sat staring numbly at a screen. Sensor readings for a small insignificant sector endlessly displayed themselves before the disenchanted tidani. "Join the Shofar Intelligence Agency" he said, "See the galaxy" he said. Damn recruiter. He thought to himself as his attention drifted. Suddenly, the endless emptiness was disturbed by something, a rather distinctive something. The audible tone and visual data awoke him from his daydream. By the time he noticed, it had disappeared. That was strange. He opened up the sensor playback and reviewed the last few seconds. Sure enough there it was, a medium sized mass composed of biological matter.

Likely this would not have even been noticed, had tidani sensors been specifically developed to detect biomatter after the invasion by Hive Fleet Nergal decades ago. In the effort to see that no infestation took root on Aquila ever again many precautions had been taken, biological sensitivity was one of them. If a ship dumped a load of waste while travelling past Tidani space, they would know about it.

The readings were different than that of investing hive defeated long ago, but no one knew what improvements could have been made since then. They took no chances. The data before the mass disappeared was sent back to Fleet Command.
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The Shofar Intelligence Agency had over 200 Sonar class ships at its disposal. Many were out 'monitoring' enemies or exploring, but over half were within 5,000 lightyears of the Aquilan System. Their deep space sensors overlapping and constantly watching their little corner of the universe. With the current breakdown between the Federation and the Galactic Empire, the space was monitored even more fervantly.
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Marshal Rho sat in the Fleet Command Council room with the other Councillors. A holographic image of the system and surrounding space was floating in the middle of the room. It played back a data loop of the last few hours, red blips appeared for a second then vanished all around the system. There were a few dozen of them in all.

"We've been over this data for almost an hour now. Clearly, this is not a coincidence. Whether this is the return of the hive or not, the fact that it comes on the eve of our fleet's departure for No Endorse space is blatently suspicious." One of the Councillors said.

"The hive could not cloak, and these ships are clearly cloaking as they enter the system." Another replied.

The first shook his head. "We have no way of knowing how they have evolved or advanced since then."

Rho had heard enough. "Clearly we can learn nothing more from this. We have contacted No Endorse they can survive without our help, and we cannot send our fleets away now. Spread the fleets out across the system, have Shofar find a way for their Sonars to detect these ships through their cloaking systems. Put all forces on alert, until we can find them or they make a move we must wait." The others nodded agreement.
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Across the system the six battle fleets spread themselves out. To get in close to the planets the enemy would have to pass the ships. The closer they got, the better chance they had of detecting them. The two Defense Fleets formed around Aquila and Draelis in defensive formations. Whitestars flew in and out of the larger ships' formations, while Typhoons began erecting every know jamming and blocking field in an attempt to find a way to detect them, prevent them from being seen so easily, or possibly even disrupt their cloak.

Embassies of the Maritime Republic in other allied and friendly nations reported the situation and informed them that the Aquilan System, and thus Tidan was under lockdown for now.

Tidan was an eel, who's cave was being explored. Careful you don't get shocked.

The one hundred or so ships had become accutely aware of the lockdown. Instead of continuing with the longrange emissions, they shot down all sensor systems except for medium and short range detection.

So far they had gotten the location of all the battlefleets they could see, and had gotten quite detailed informaiton dealing with the massive space stations orbiting two small worlds in the system.

Now they wanted to get closer, but that would risk detection. So they took a course that is usually neglected by their enemies. They went downwards, straight down. The plan was to go under the wave of ships searching for them, then come up in the middle of the system, and get an accurate read-out of the system's planets.

About twenty of these ships dived down, though they were spread out. The remaining ships waited outside the border, and then resumed their high-intensity scanning. But this time they loosened their cloaks on their emissions. They wanted to be detected, but they didn't make it apparent. They were trying to make it seem like the closer the ships got, the less the cloak was effective, this luring in a good portion of the combat fleets away from the planets so the ships following the bottom plane could slip in.

(ooc: 6 fleets, 3 planes, I didn't forget about z. The z plane fleets can be further away from the others though if you want. For an aquatic nation thinking in three dimensions should come with walking.)

The Tidani ships watched their sensors for holes or movement in the fields created by the Typhoon frigates. If they saw any change or noticed anything unusual they locked on and fired their gravimetric neutron cannons. The high powered and highly accurate beams would do serious damage to anything they hit.

They began to see more of the enemy now. Something was wrong though, they had already detected twice as many as they expected. Already some of the ships began chasing after the exposed enemy.

Marshal Kanya watched the fleet start to drift appart, in her mind an alarm was blaring. She slammed the fleetcomm button on her chair. "All ships fall back to formation. Hold the line." She had seen a similar thing happen during the cold war with Watatuneetsu. Gently divide the enemy ships to allow one to sneak through. The Watani were all about stealth, and they had driven the Tidani naval commanders berzerk trying to counter their tactics.

The Tidani lines pulled even tighter, letting the enemy get closer now, but hopefully block any incursions. Even where the lines spread the thinest, the scouts would have to deal with the erratic flight paths of the Whitestars as their AI's weaved them recklessly through the formations. If they were right, and the enemy couldn't resist coming in closer despite the danger, then they would know this was an advance scouting party of some kind.

On Aquila, scientists and engineers readied the bioweapons they had spent years working on. Bacteria, viruses, and phages designed to target parasitic and infectious biomatter like that of the Hive Fleets and the rebel infection. There were not the only new weapons they had develop to stop a hive incursion though, they still had secrets. Last time it had taken a nuclear clensing of the entire infected area, this time they hoped to use a few lessons they had learned and fight on their level.

All ships went to full stop, and shut off all sensors and cloaked completely. They were invisible now. The plan had failed, the recon ships would not be able to infiltrate without risk of catching atleast one or two ships.

The recon fleet knew the enemey knew they were there, but they wanted to seem like ghosts. Invisible until its too late. Things were difficult, but they did their job. They could futher recon the actual planets... once the enemy combat fleets were destroyed.

The silent order was given. Tidinian sensors would flare at this. At the same time, all ships exitted cloack, then flashed out of existance as they entered slipspace. Only two ships were left in the system, to keep an accurate count on the enemy fleet and their movements.

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"My Lord Warmaster, we have the recon readouts needed. Sending them through to you now. It appears we will be dealing with a nearly standard enemy... Nurgle has smiled on us this day." The com crackled through to a robed man, sitting upon a lavish, yet grotesque looking chair.

"Indeed, fleet master. The swarm fleets are en route as we speak. They will meet at the regroup point in less than a day. When they arrive, you have command of them. Listen well Fleet Master... do not call me unless their defense fleets are destroyed... if you fail.. do not return."

A gulp could be heard on the other side of the radio. "Of course, my lord. It will be done."

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It was no secret something big was coming. Fleets came from all directions, heading towards one point. The meeting point was less than 100 light years from the Tidinian system. Objectives had changed from ghost recon to blatant show of force. Anyone even pointing a minor sensor dish in that direction would be able to see the massive signals converging on that singular point.

Fifteen thousand ships would soon meet at this point, thus the battle would commence.

In fact there were at least 10 ships monitoring that region at the moment. Even ships monitoring other sectors picked up the fleet and relayed data back to Aquila. This was it, and for the first time they got a good look at their enemy.

More ships of similar size, but thousands of them converged. The readings now conflicted with their original assessment. They were not hive ships. The sensors must have picked up something of the forms and mistaken it for parasitic hive.

Orders went out over the QEUICS network. The Soul of Draelis and Shield of the Republic loaded with resources and slowly pulled out of orbit around the sleeping planet. when they cleared the planet they opened wormholes to Aquila and made their way into orbit along side the Angel platforms. The Draelis Defense Fleet also left orbit, their gravimetric drives carrying them swiftly to the rest of the fleet converging at Aquila.

Draelis now abandoned by the orbital shipyards was worthless, a barren rock in the night. They would make their stand at Aquila. So all six battle fleets, the two defense fleets, and the four platforms gathered around the blue planet and its protective ion batteries. The entire might of the Maritime Republic focused on one mission: Clip the sails and stand the storm.

A message went out over the QEUICS from Shofar Command to their ships spread across the galaxy. "Guardians are recalled immediately." Nothing more.

Now they waited.

(ooc: I had an ally ask to send a small force. You arn't around right now so I'm going to send them the information now. If you have a problem with anyone else joining let me know.)

Now that the invaders had shown themselves things were clearer, somewhat. The Maritime Republic began streaming updates of the situation to all of its allies via embassy QEUICSs so that the communication could not be picked up by the invader. Included in the update was data on the enemy ships, their position, and the position of the tidani forces. Those who had expressed a desire to aid Tidan would have all the information they would need.

EDIT: ooc: nevermind we don't need a new thread.

(ooc:Nevermind about the ally thing, change of plans. Back to what we were doing, do you need something before we continue? I have been spending 13+ hours every day for the last few in the computer lab working on a big assignment, thus no im. Sorry, but there is little I can do about it.)

The Tidani made what preperations they had left. There would be no time to resupply during the battle, so all the military transports loaded up with civilans and with a fleet of civilian ships jumped to the XSS1 Station with the hopes of riding out the battle in the safety of the neutral space. The navy would see to it they had somewhere to return to.

Wideband tranmission to trespassing fleet.
What business do you have in our space and our system?