The Aven Armada
05-02-2006, 05:27
Tyranis System, Aven Prime
Military Spatial Observations Station, Aven Armada Headquarters
4:01 AM Aven Time
The Communications Center of MS 013, bristling with activity during the day, was nearly empty this night, with only four spatial monitors at their stations. A fifth was currently standing at a small, food-laden hovercart he had pushed in, pouring himself, and the others it seemed, from the four extra cups on the tray, some coffee.
With a sigh, one of the monitors leaned back in his swiveling chair, propping his legs up on a nearby table. “Say Ana, ever wonder why they have us work night hours? It’s not like we ever pick up anything besides the usual freighter or two, and we aren’t at war or anything.”
The woman to his right looked up from her terminal, glancing at the speaker. “I don’t know, Jim. What about those Aarexi? I heard they were gathering an invasion force or something.”
One of the monitors sitting behind them let loose a chuckle. “Don’t believe everything you hear. That rumor’s been going around for the past few years. Besides, they wouldn’t dare break the treaty.”
The woman shrugged, returning to her computer. “Yeah, but I don’t know…”
The original monitor chuckled for a second, before resuming his work as well. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway-“ He stopped mid-sentence, something on his screen catching his attention. “What the…This is weird…Anyone else’s equipment saying that there are four large ships-make that six ship-…ten ships?”
“Yeah, I’m getting that too…Wait, that’s twenty ships. What the nerk?”
Each of the monitor’s eyes widened as they watched ship after blip after blip appear on radar, the number of vessels soon nearing one hundred, not including the multitude of smaller craft, about frigate-size, that accompanied them. The massive swarm of vessels, all moving in a triangular formation, were headed towards the same point: Aven Prime.
“Oh my God…”
_________________________________________________________________
“Twilight Views” Apartments
4:24 AM Aven Time
Arthur Iraan, general of the Aven Armada, lay asleep in the nondescript bed of his apartment, a small pool of saliva, the eventual happening of dozing off with an open mouth, gathering on his pillow. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon, and would not for another three hours, leaving the two moons to shine amidst the stars and the General to continue with his rest, undisturbed by any sun that would shine through his window.
What would disturb his rest, however, was the officer that would come barging through his door in five seconds, seemingly oblivious to the time. As the door swung around and hit the wall with astounding force, the resulting crash causing the general to stir.
“Sir! Wake up, emergency!”
Iraan slowly got to a sitting position in his bed, rubbing his eyes as he frowned at the officer. Taking a glance at the LED display of his clock, which read 4:25, his frown turned into a glare. “Damn it, Aerck. I told you to never wake me up before six! It’s the middle of the night!” He grumbled something vulgar as he found himself being pushed out of bed. “Alright, alright, I’m up! The least you could do is let me get some coffee…” The general, still in his nightshirt, started towards the kitchen, grabbing a mug from the cabinet. “What’s this emergency?”
“Sir, about twenty minutes ago, several monitors at headquarters picked up the energy signatures of a large number of approaching ships, nearly four hundred and of large size.”
The sound of shattering crockery filled the apartment.
The general’s stood still, wide-eyed in disbelief, and surrounded by the shards of his favorite coffee mug. “F-…Four hundred?! What the hell? Are they hostile?”
The lieutenant seemed to ignore the fact that his commander had just asked one of the stupidest questions he’d heard in his twelve years of military service. “I’d think so. The monitors found the signatures to be of Aarexi origin.”
“Aarexi? Those damn, treaty-breaking…I knew we should have checked out those rumors of them building up a fleet.” Muttering a curse, Iraan stood up, sliding into the robe hanging on his nightstand. “Well, let’s get going.”
_________________________________________________________________
Several Billion Kilometers from Aven Prime
Bridge of The Transgressor, Flagship of the Aven Armada
6:19 AM Aven Time
General Iraan sat in the uncomfortable, neosteel captain’s chair, located on a raised platform in the middle of the Command Center of The Transgressor. Around him, against the curving wall of the large, circular room, sat Spatial Monitors, technicians, and various other officials, punching various data streams into their computers. As he sat, watching them work at their terminals, he quietly wondered why they couldn’t have put some padding on his chair. The cold metal was beginning to annoy him.
He turned to look out the window that spread across the entire wall of the bridge, observing the other two hundred-or-so ships of the Aven Armada. Despite that it was smaller than the Aarexi fleet, the vessels themselves were more impressively sized and defensively equipped. Not that they were actually that big; massive ships had never been very cost-effective for the people of the Aven Empire. They were simply of a more imposing size that those of the almost-barbaric Aarexi, whose shoddy, makeshift ships looked like they could barely hold together in the vacuum of space, and many times didn’t.
Returning his gaze to the bridge, Iraan let loose a sigh. “You,” he ordered, pointing to a nearby monitor, “what’s the status on the Aarexi fleet? We should have encountered them by now.”
The designated officer turned in his swiveling seat, looking up at the general. “I don’t know sir. It’s like they just…Vanished. Their signatures aren’t appearing on-screen anymore, and the radar isn’t detecting a thing.”
The general let loose a long-winded curse. “They’re up to something…I just know it…“ He turned to look at a nearby attendant. “I’ve had one hell of a night. Get me some coffee-“
Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, one of the communications officers spoke up. “Sir, incoming transmission from Commander Ikari!”
On the main Vidscreen, located in the exact front of the bridge and measuring a grand fifteen by twenty-five feet, blinked as it came to life, revealing the face of a very worried-looking, middle-aged man with dark, neatly-trimmed hair and a mustache to match. He began to speak, but was interrupted by an explosion and the shaking of the surrounding area. As the screen settled, he began to speak in hurried tones, with the occasional dust-filled cough interrupting his words. “General Iraan! What the he-hell happened?! Don’t tell me, it does…doesn’t matter now! The Aarexi are launching a full-out assault on the planet! Get back here on the-“ Another explosion rocked the building the commander was in, and the screen instantly went blank, leaving the crew, wide-eyed, to stare at the darkness.
Arthur stared at the screen in pure, undisguised horror. This wasn’t, couldn’t be happening. By all reports, the Aarexi vessels were supposed to be coming from this direction. If they were already at the planet, the Armada should have passed them by now. It was impossible. Their scans hadn’t even detected-
A massive explosion of blinding light suddenly filled the senses of the general and knocked out whatever he was thinking, coming from outside the command bay window. Turning, Iraan turned just in time to see an Aven ship, a Mariposa-Class cruiser and one of the largest ships in the fleet, erupt into a massive firestorm, the blast unleashing a shockwave of rippling energy and disorienting all the nearby ships.
The general quickly turned back to the officers around him. “We’re under attack! Prepare the weapons, and order the troops to get the hell into their fighters! Lieutenant, have you pinpointed the origin of the attackers?”
An important-looking man, garbed in a medium-blue military outfit that was adorned with several medals and sitting on a slightly lower platform to the left of the general, turned to look up at him. “Forty-two degrees to the port side! Scans are detecting at least two hundred vessels approaching!”
“Two hundred…” Iraan, already irritated that they had let the enemy slip by, slammed his fist down onto the armrest of his chair with a, “Damnit!” Sighing, he turned to look at a communications agent. “Fine then. Order all ships to launch their Proteus and Predators. Leave the Hornets in case we need them later.” Muttering, he lay back in his chair, this time speaking to the entire crew in the bridge. “Aim all XIM missiles and particle beams at the enemy, and keep the railcannons online for any fighters they send! Save the orbital mines in case we need to make a, God forbid it…Retreat.”
_________________________________________________________________
Several Billion Kilometers from Aven Prime
Space
6:23 AM Aven Time
The first signs of the Aarexi fleet came into view, and they were just as sloppy and crudely-made as one would expect. The vessels, while numerous, appeared to be welded, at horrible, ill-formed angles, out of rusted pieces of mismatching metal, similar to those one would find in a junkyard. No one ship looked even close to another, despite that it was obvious some, especially those of the same class, were meant to be by their basic shapes. However, despite their rudimentary appearances, they were equipped with some fairly powerful weaponry. No one quite knew how the Aarexi, with their simplistic, and downright shoddy spacecraft, managed to create the sleek technology that their weapons employed, without having the brains to incorporate it into their ships. But they did, and if not for the fact that their vessels would often implode upon themselves due to the strain on their basic power cores from these advanced armaments, they would be one of the greatest forces to be feared in the galaxy.
The fact that their weapons could almost raise them to that level of power was the main reason that General Iraan was worried. Sure, the numbers were about equal, since this wasn’t the entire Aarexi fleet; sure, the ships of the Aven Armada had stronger defensive systems, and of course, the Aarexi ships tended to blow up one-out-of-five times. But that didn’t make up for the fact that they both outnumbered the Aven vessels and that their weapons held incredibly destructive potential.
Iraan was going to need some coffee.
_________________________________________________________________
Unknown Galaxy
Unidentified Space
11:49 AM Aven Time
Almost as if someone had opened the zipper that held together the coat that was universe, a large, tear-like, light-filled hole appeared in space, growing in size until it became a massive, swirling vortex of pure, shining white light. The interior of the portal, which looked similar to that of a wormhole’s, blended in with everything else in it; it was all pure white, with each curving tendril of energy barely discernible from the next.
Several darker masses became visible within the maelstrom of light, revealing themselves to be fairly large vessels, and left the nexus of energy that they had entered only minutes ago. Together, the ships numbered eighty-seven, a meager remainder of the once-majestic fleet. Of that measly gathering, there were only eight Mariposas, the pride of the Armada, left of the thirty-two they had begun with. Scattered among these still-impressive vessels were the groups of smaller ships, mainly the corvette-class Maddox’s and GPU Military-Grade Transports, along with the odd fighter here and there that hadn’t been able to return to a hanger before the jump.
Iraan sat upside-down in his chair, a slight malfunction on the part or whatever activated the jump. He stayed like that for about a minute, still disoriented from the recent journey the Armada had just resurfaced from; the engineer had told him that he would feel as if he was drunk for the first few moments, but to him, it felt like he had both the drunken stupor and the hangover that should have come later. He watched a badger dance across his vision as he struggled to right himself. “Damn scientists…Damn DF Drive…Damn…Just damn it all…I need some coffee…”
By the time he had gotten up, the dimensional tear had closed and the fleet was already well on its way to…Nowhere, exactly. He remembered that the scientists had also said the jump would leave their system drives depleted of most of their energy until they could recharge. Iraan rubbed his throbbing forehead as he took a glance around the bridge at the other members of the crew. He was about to question the absence of the lieutenant when he fell from the ceiling and back into his chair with a thud. “Everyone alright?...I don’t mean you, lieutenant. Put your hand down…Would someone get him to the medical bay? Thank you…Now, I just want to know two things. Where are we, and where’s my coffee?”
A spatial monitor to his right swiveled to face the General. “Unknown space, sir. The Dimensional Fold Drive was untested, remember? According to the system log, we experienced a malfunction in the stabilizer number four twelve seconds after entry. For all we know, we could be in a different system, galaxy, heck, we may even be in a separate dimension. The spatial re-entry knocked out our sensor array for the time being, so we can’t get a clear signal on where we are. The Fold Drive’s also down, along with all jump systems.”
Arthur muttered something under his breath, more likely than not something obscene. “Sensors offline, fleet decimated, jump systems..." He shuddered at this last thought, not wanting to experience like that again. "We can’t survive out here forever. Hopefully this...Whatever it is we’re in, has some other life out there. Passive life, of course. Worst case scenario, we just hopped, skipped, and jumped ourselves right into the Aarexi home system.” He muttered as he leaned back in his chair. “Activate a distress beacon, and get me some coffee. I feel worse than those Aarexi bastards look. And I mean all of them.”
With those last words, the button was pressed that would activate the distress signal, powerful enough to be heard for lightyears.
And Arthur got his coffee.
((PS: By "for Lightyears," that's lightyears by Aven audio equipment, which isn't exactly the most sensitive of machinery. As Other-Dimensional humans, their technology has developed much more erratically for its seperate branches than what would generally be expected.))
Military Spatial Observations Station, Aven Armada Headquarters
4:01 AM Aven Time
The Communications Center of MS 013, bristling with activity during the day, was nearly empty this night, with only four spatial monitors at their stations. A fifth was currently standing at a small, food-laden hovercart he had pushed in, pouring himself, and the others it seemed, from the four extra cups on the tray, some coffee.
With a sigh, one of the monitors leaned back in his swiveling chair, propping his legs up on a nearby table. “Say Ana, ever wonder why they have us work night hours? It’s not like we ever pick up anything besides the usual freighter or two, and we aren’t at war or anything.”
The woman to his right looked up from her terminal, glancing at the speaker. “I don’t know, Jim. What about those Aarexi? I heard they were gathering an invasion force or something.”
One of the monitors sitting behind them let loose a chuckle. “Don’t believe everything you hear. That rumor’s been going around for the past few years. Besides, they wouldn’t dare break the treaty.”
The woman shrugged, returning to her computer. “Yeah, but I don’t know…”
The original monitor chuckled for a second, before resuming his work as well. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway-“ He stopped mid-sentence, something on his screen catching his attention. “What the…This is weird…Anyone else’s equipment saying that there are four large ships-make that six ship-…ten ships?”
“Yeah, I’m getting that too…Wait, that’s twenty ships. What the nerk?”
Each of the monitor’s eyes widened as they watched ship after blip after blip appear on radar, the number of vessels soon nearing one hundred, not including the multitude of smaller craft, about frigate-size, that accompanied them. The massive swarm of vessels, all moving in a triangular formation, were headed towards the same point: Aven Prime.
“Oh my God…”
_________________________________________________________________
“Twilight Views” Apartments
4:24 AM Aven Time
Arthur Iraan, general of the Aven Armada, lay asleep in the nondescript bed of his apartment, a small pool of saliva, the eventual happening of dozing off with an open mouth, gathering on his pillow. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon, and would not for another three hours, leaving the two moons to shine amidst the stars and the General to continue with his rest, undisturbed by any sun that would shine through his window.
What would disturb his rest, however, was the officer that would come barging through his door in five seconds, seemingly oblivious to the time. As the door swung around and hit the wall with astounding force, the resulting crash causing the general to stir.
“Sir! Wake up, emergency!”
Iraan slowly got to a sitting position in his bed, rubbing his eyes as he frowned at the officer. Taking a glance at the LED display of his clock, which read 4:25, his frown turned into a glare. “Damn it, Aerck. I told you to never wake me up before six! It’s the middle of the night!” He grumbled something vulgar as he found himself being pushed out of bed. “Alright, alright, I’m up! The least you could do is let me get some coffee…” The general, still in his nightshirt, started towards the kitchen, grabbing a mug from the cabinet. “What’s this emergency?”
“Sir, about twenty minutes ago, several monitors at headquarters picked up the energy signatures of a large number of approaching ships, nearly four hundred and of large size.”
The sound of shattering crockery filled the apartment.
The general’s stood still, wide-eyed in disbelief, and surrounded by the shards of his favorite coffee mug. “F-…Four hundred?! What the hell? Are they hostile?”
The lieutenant seemed to ignore the fact that his commander had just asked one of the stupidest questions he’d heard in his twelve years of military service. “I’d think so. The monitors found the signatures to be of Aarexi origin.”
“Aarexi? Those damn, treaty-breaking…I knew we should have checked out those rumors of them building up a fleet.” Muttering a curse, Iraan stood up, sliding into the robe hanging on his nightstand. “Well, let’s get going.”
_________________________________________________________________
Several Billion Kilometers from Aven Prime
Bridge of The Transgressor, Flagship of the Aven Armada
6:19 AM Aven Time
General Iraan sat in the uncomfortable, neosteel captain’s chair, located on a raised platform in the middle of the Command Center of The Transgressor. Around him, against the curving wall of the large, circular room, sat Spatial Monitors, technicians, and various other officials, punching various data streams into their computers. As he sat, watching them work at their terminals, he quietly wondered why they couldn’t have put some padding on his chair. The cold metal was beginning to annoy him.
He turned to look out the window that spread across the entire wall of the bridge, observing the other two hundred-or-so ships of the Aven Armada. Despite that it was smaller than the Aarexi fleet, the vessels themselves were more impressively sized and defensively equipped. Not that they were actually that big; massive ships had never been very cost-effective for the people of the Aven Empire. They were simply of a more imposing size that those of the almost-barbaric Aarexi, whose shoddy, makeshift ships looked like they could barely hold together in the vacuum of space, and many times didn’t.
Returning his gaze to the bridge, Iraan let loose a sigh. “You,” he ordered, pointing to a nearby monitor, “what’s the status on the Aarexi fleet? We should have encountered them by now.”
The designated officer turned in his swiveling seat, looking up at the general. “I don’t know sir. It’s like they just…Vanished. Their signatures aren’t appearing on-screen anymore, and the radar isn’t detecting a thing.”
The general let loose a long-winded curse. “They’re up to something…I just know it…“ He turned to look at a nearby attendant. “I’ve had one hell of a night. Get me some coffee-“
Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, one of the communications officers spoke up. “Sir, incoming transmission from Commander Ikari!”
On the main Vidscreen, located in the exact front of the bridge and measuring a grand fifteen by twenty-five feet, blinked as it came to life, revealing the face of a very worried-looking, middle-aged man with dark, neatly-trimmed hair and a mustache to match. He began to speak, but was interrupted by an explosion and the shaking of the surrounding area. As the screen settled, he began to speak in hurried tones, with the occasional dust-filled cough interrupting his words. “General Iraan! What the he-hell happened?! Don’t tell me, it does…doesn’t matter now! The Aarexi are launching a full-out assault on the planet! Get back here on the-“ Another explosion rocked the building the commander was in, and the screen instantly went blank, leaving the crew, wide-eyed, to stare at the darkness.
Arthur stared at the screen in pure, undisguised horror. This wasn’t, couldn’t be happening. By all reports, the Aarexi vessels were supposed to be coming from this direction. If they were already at the planet, the Armada should have passed them by now. It was impossible. Their scans hadn’t even detected-
A massive explosion of blinding light suddenly filled the senses of the general and knocked out whatever he was thinking, coming from outside the command bay window. Turning, Iraan turned just in time to see an Aven ship, a Mariposa-Class cruiser and one of the largest ships in the fleet, erupt into a massive firestorm, the blast unleashing a shockwave of rippling energy and disorienting all the nearby ships.
The general quickly turned back to the officers around him. “We’re under attack! Prepare the weapons, and order the troops to get the hell into their fighters! Lieutenant, have you pinpointed the origin of the attackers?”
An important-looking man, garbed in a medium-blue military outfit that was adorned with several medals and sitting on a slightly lower platform to the left of the general, turned to look up at him. “Forty-two degrees to the port side! Scans are detecting at least two hundred vessels approaching!”
“Two hundred…” Iraan, already irritated that they had let the enemy slip by, slammed his fist down onto the armrest of his chair with a, “Damnit!” Sighing, he turned to look at a communications agent. “Fine then. Order all ships to launch their Proteus and Predators. Leave the Hornets in case we need them later.” Muttering, he lay back in his chair, this time speaking to the entire crew in the bridge. “Aim all XIM missiles and particle beams at the enemy, and keep the railcannons online for any fighters they send! Save the orbital mines in case we need to make a, God forbid it…Retreat.”
_________________________________________________________________
Several Billion Kilometers from Aven Prime
Space
6:23 AM Aven Time
The first signs of the Aarexi fleet came into view, and they were just as sloppy and crudely-made as one would expect. The vessels, while numerous, appeared to be welded, at horrible, ill-formed angles, out of rusted pieces of mismatching metal, similar to those one would find in a junkyard. No one ship looked even close to another, despite that it was obvious some, especially those of the same class, were meant to be by their basic shapes. However, despite their rudimentary appearances, they were equipped with some fairly powerful weaponry. No one quite knew how the Aarexi, with their simplistic, and downright shoddy spacecraft, managed to create the sleek technology that their weapons employed, without having the brains to incorporate it into their ships. But they did, and if not for the fact that their vessels would often implode upon themselves due to the strain on their basic power cores from these advanced armaments, they would be one of the greatest forces to be feared in the galaxy.
The fact that their weapons could almost raise them to that level of power was the main reason that General Iraan was worried. Sure, the numbers were about equal, since this wasn’t the entire Aarexi fleet; sure, the ships of the Aven Armada had stronger defensive systems, and of course, the Aarexi ships tended to blow up one-out-of-five times. But that didn’t make up for the fact that they both outnumbered the Aven vessels and that their weapons held incredibly destructive potential.
Iraan was going to need some coffee.
_________________________________________________________________
Unknown Galaxy
Unidentified Space
11:49 AM Aven Time
Almost as if someone had opened the zipper that held together the coat that was universe, a large, tear-like, light-filled hole appeared in space, growing in size until it became a massive, swirling vortex of pure, shining white light. The interior of the portal, which looked similar to that of a wormhole’s, blended in with everything else in it; it was all pure white, with each curving tendril of energy barely discernible from the next.
Several darker masses became visible within the maelstrom of light, revealing themselves to be fairly large vessels, and left the nexus of energy that they had entered only minutes ago. Together, the ships numbered eighty-seven, a meager remainder of the once-majestic fleet. Of that measly gathering, there were only eight Mariposas, the pride of the Armada, left of the thirty-two they had begun with. Scattered among these still-impressive vessels were the groups of smaller ships, mainly the corvette-class Maddox’s and GPU Military-Grade Transports, along with the odd fighter here and there that hadn’t been able to return to a hanger before the jump.
Iraan sat upside-down in his chair, a slight malfunction on the part or whatever activated the jump. He stayed like that for about a minute, still disoriented from the recent journey the Armada had just resurfaced from; the engineer had told him that he would feel as if he was drunk for the first few moments, but to him, it felt like he had both the drunken stupor and the hangover that should have come later. He watched a badger dance across his vision as he struggled to right himself. “Damn scientists…Damn DF Drive…Damn…Just damn it all…I need some coffee…”
By the time he had gotten up, the dimensional tear had closed and the fleet was already well on its way to…Nowhere, exactly. He remembered that the scientists had also said the jump would leave their system drives depleted of most of their energy until they could recharge. Iraan rubbed his throbbing forehead as he took a glance around the bridge at the other members of the crew. He was about to question the absence of the lieutenant when he fell from the ceiling and back into his chair with a thud. “Everyone alright?...I don’t mean you, lieutenant. Put your hand down…Would someone get him to the medical bay? Thank you…Now, I just want to know two things. Where are we, and where’s my coffee?”
A spatial monitor to his right swiveled to face the General. “Unknown space, sir. The Dimensional Fold Drive was untested, remember? According to the system log, we experienced a malfunction in the stabilizer number four twelve seconds after entry. For all we know, we could be in a different system, galaxy, heck, we may even be in a separate dimension. The spatial re-entry knocked out our sensor array for the time being, so we can’t get a clear signal on where we are. The Fold Drive’s also down, along with all jump systems.”
Arthur muttered something under his breath, more likely than not something obscene. “Sensors offline, fleet decimated, jump systems..." He shuddered at this last thought, not wanting to experience like that again. "We can’t survive out here forever. Hopefully this...Whatever it is we’re in, has some other life out there. Passive life, of course. Worst case scenario, we just hopped, skipped, and jumped ourselves right into the Aarexi home system.” He muttered as he leaned back in his chair. “Activate a distress beacon, and get me some coffee. I feel worse than those Aarexi bastards look. And I mean all of them.”
With those last words, the button was pressed that would activate the distress signal, powerful enough to be heard for lightyears.
And Arthur got his coffee.
((PS: By "for Lightyears," that's lightyears by Aven audio equipment, which isn't exactly the most sensitive of machinery. As Other-Dimensional humans, their technology has developed much more erratically for its seperate branches than what would generally be expected.))