NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Obviously, no uber-fleets of death will be accepted. Anyone bringing in said fleets will, however, be entitled to one kick to the groin, free of charge. Since the defenders of this planet don't have very much time left, you're going to need to bring in a reasonable amount of force that was luckily in this area at the time being.

"Gwah! We're under attack!". The Minister for Offense ran into the office of the Leader, shouting as he did so. "Leader, Leader, we're under attack! UNDER ATTACK!"

A mere five minutes ago, over two hundred spheres had emerged from the heavens, raining down celestial cleansing white fire as they did so. It had scoured the countrysides already, and the extensive defensive network the planet had established had availed them little.

The shields that covered their cities were designed to hold comfortably against fission weaponry, however, the weaponry being used against them made unpleasant red splotches against the shimmering shields, which quavered and quivered as they were slowly run down.



For the forces of the Maker-Mind, this was simply another cleansing of another threat. Forces had been dispatched to scourge a planet of life, as it could possibly one day pose a threat to the Maker-Mind. Already, the countryside was bare of vegetation.

Sixteen frigate-type ships, all armed with nuclear weaponry, and rudimentary shields, had been dispatched, their rubble falling to the planet below, causing massive craters, although the ones caused by the powerful weaponry of the Battlespheres was more so. Streaking blasts of red tearing away the atmosphere, delivering massive shocks to the shields of the pitiful defenders as they did so.

Missiles, or at least strange warheads, made out of the volatile lattice-energy, had been dropped onto the ground, where they exploded with white fire, leaving perfect circles of destruction as they did so.



However, the Leader was afraid. It had taken the mysterious, enigmatic invaders a minute to exterminate his fleet, another to destroy the defensive orbital stations, and two more to scourge his planet. However, they could hold for up to an hour, or for as little as twenty more minutes. The massive geothermal and fusion generators were holding the shields, the bubbles above their city absorbing the deadly red blasts for as long as they could.

He decided to send out a distress call. After all, if he called another.. abomination, it would only hasten what was inevitable. However... Craaaaack! A building collapsed due to pure stress, the conflicting energies near where it was tearing it down. The Leader pressed a button, and his entire room began to drop, down, down, into the earth. He would have a few more minutes there.

He wiped sweat off his forehead, and hastily penned a call. The software he knew of would aid him in translating it into several language bases, so hopefully whatever was out there would understand what was happening...

Priority Transmission: This is the Leader of Maisharith. We are under severe attack by an unknown alien lifeform. It has already devastated most of the planet. We are holding under shields, however, they will last an hour, perhaps two at best. Please help. Or, at the least, may God have mercy on us, and make our deaths painless.

He made the transmission strong, and easily trackable. He didn't know where his system would lie on the scale of things, so he made it easily followable.. Hopefully, someone was out there..

Meanwhile, the red blasts pounded down upon the surface with a near beautiful precision, each blast hitting exactly where it was supposed to. The green and blue world of Maisharith was now a devastated world of burning soil and blackened rock...

Priority Transmission: This is the Leader of Maisharith. We are under severe attack by an unknown alien lifeform. It has already devastated most of the planet. We are holding under shields, however, they will last an hour, perhaps two at best. Please help. Or, at the least, may God have mercy on us, and make our deaths painless

Brother Captain Juan was on the Bridge of the Claymore, one of the Battleships in the Storm Guard's Fleet. Having recently arrived home after Waaagh! Guzlog, they had been despatched on a perimeter check, on the bordering Systems, just to see how things were going. It had all been quiet, but now this.
The Astropaths plotted the course of the message on the huge screen at the front of the Bridge.
" We Help. " He uttered a single word, and the bridge became a hive of activity as the flotilla [1 Apocalypse Battleship and 3 Light dauntless Cruisers] swung into action enacting warpspace travel and homing in on the planet.
As they arrived, all that could be seen was a fleet pounding the hell out of the thing that vaguely passed for a planet far below.
"Hail them..."
He ordered discreetly, and a vox and pict link was brought up.
"Unknown Ship, decease from your activites now and Indetify yourselves."
The whole crew waited for a response.

If the Battlesphere had not been perfect spheres, they would've swivelled around, in unison, to face the newcomers. As it was, they did not. After a brief moment of what, had the newcomers had access to the myriad workings of the Maker-Mind, would've seemed like eternity, they moved in unison.

They were merely the equivalent of fighters, in size, at least. Nonetheless, they were powerful enough to lay waste to worlds, and, as such, they wasted no time speaking.

A malicious red glow sprung up around the two hundred spheres. It rippled for a few seconds, trying to escape the spheres, and, then, it was let go..

Two hundred bright blasts of deadly red energy flashed towards the enemy ships..

As the energy was released, the Battlespheres moved quickly, jumping into the lattice. For a moment, another set of bright flashes heralded their departure into the mysterious dimension, and a second set of flashes heralding their arrival, in position around the enemy fleet, albeit far away from them.

A single message was sent out. We are cleansing. Leave. Now.

The Brother Captain glared at the rude red message laying on his command screen, calmly a response was put together, as the Ships formed Battle group Beta, the two Cruisers blasting out from the Xeno's ship's and circling them. The message was sent.
"Identify yourselves Xenos. Our scan's show the world to be Human, reason for cleansing?"

One 'Defiance'-Class Monitor, Two 'Aero'-Class Superdreadnaughts, Ten 'Aristosa-C' Class Battlecruiser, Eighteen 'Firelord'-Class HEavy Cruisers, and One Hundred 'Warrior'-Class Gunboats transisted to Real-Space near the planet being bombarded. By regulations, all ships were at general quarters, shields up. Because they were going into a possible hostile situation, their weapons were charged, and flight decks were ready to launch fighters. The taskforce had been en route to the home worlds for down-time and regular mantinence, including being armed with the new hyper-missiles, and was unusualy light of light ships, though it had a large number of the new gunship

"Sir, detecting two fleets. One consists of four ships, the other is two hundred plus ships."

"Send a message to the larger force. Message Starts: Cease activity or be destroyed. Message Ends. Launch all fighters. Target the spheres, Hold fire untill my command. Move to two light-seconds out."

"Executing orders now."

The ships formed up into an irregular battle formation, neccesitated by the odd conglamoration of ships, but still in the books for unlikely situations. Then they sped off at the speed of the slowest ship, but were quicly in position, slow speed nonwithstanding. The message had already been sent, but it was sent again. "Cease Activity or Be Destroyed."

The Captain gazed long and hard at the screen which now showed a huge fleet approaching battle formation on it. He strolled over to the Choral Pyskers bay, and whispered a few instructions. Immediately shields were brought to bear and Lances were charged to such a rate where they could destroy a large battle cruiser if needed. Hail new Ships, instructed Juan, and sent forwards a new message.

"Hail Unknown Fleet. The Emperor Thanks you for your timely intervention."
Then he turned to the Inter Craft Vox Systems.

" Marines to Launch Bays. Ready Equipment."

Again he turned to the Pyskers, a message had been sent to the Chapter Fortress for Guidance. Intervention Rites had been granted, the small, but lithe and deadly fleet maneuvered into a superior position, ready to use the grav of the planet for a lightning fast attack run if necessary.

The Inquisition Black Ship Terra's Fury and it's escorts of Long Serpent-class Battlecruisers heard the transmission and onboard the Black Ship was an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Turgoth and onboard his vessel was a company of the Thunder Hammer Space Marine Legion and a small company of Deathwatch Marines. The Inquisition was exploring nearby systems hoping to reunite Humanity under the banner of the Emperor. Then they picked up the transmission from the nearby world under attack then subsequent transmissions from the battle-brothers of the Storm Guard. The Inquisitor furrowed his brow and said, "Fold space to the planetary location. Ready all stations for combat. Once we are in system deploy fighters and ready the Marines for planetary landing via Drop Pod." In moments the vessel folded space and the Battleships chose they're firing solutions and in the seconds after that the battleships readied themselves to attack and now the Xenos scum would see the full fury of the Imperium.

The Fury class destroyers received a message through quantum tunneling ansible. A probe had picked up the presence of possible berserker activity. Activate jump cycle alpha. Two ships jumped towards unknown space. Their absorption shielding on full. The heavy kinetic weapons were charged and armed. Missile tubes were armed. They entered in the edge of the system. The probe fed them data. Apparently, the enemy had been cleansing a new world. The probe fed them range finding data keeping its hyperphase cloak activated a state between normal and hyperspace. Four tubes on each ship opened the missiles shot out then phased into hyperspace, following telemetry data from the probe, they phased in one kilometer from the battle spheres. Nanoseconds would pass before the exploded.

"Hail Unknown Fleet. The Emperor Thanks you for your timely intervention."

The Admiral on the Command bridge of the Stellar Realm, the 'Dauntless'-class monitor, recieved the message. Being an admiral and being breifed on all known empires, he easily recognised the Space Marines of the Imperium of Man, and responded in kind.

"The Emperor will surely protect you, for your valiant stand against such odds."

pop! sss...pop

Six probes of the Melii had been phased a few parsecs distant of the Reaver Incursion. They were set to arrive in about six years to investigate the results of the Incursion. Even at this extreme distance, caution was advised... Abominations: both machine and organic varieties are/were/will be infamous for their rapid technological progress. That and these entities could possibly trace the homelines back to Theta Listening Outpost. From there it was just possible for the Enemy to retrace records and emissions to Theta Base and then to the Homelines.

So six unmanned probes disguised as interstellar wanderers were translated at a reasonable distance and sent towards the system. They would attempt to establish another listening post at the Lagrange Points if possible. If not, then they would conduct a rapid flyby, and continue to the adjacent system in this sector. Here, they would replicate and continue the exploration of this Subsector of the Infinite.

OOC: Dratheria, we're not performing any sort of ground invasion. The entire world, apart from a few shielded cities, is a mass of liquified soil and the like. It's probably not a friendly place to send people down to.

Commonalitarianism, what precisely is the target? I'm not following you on this one.

We are cleansing, as per the law of existence. You have failed to leave. Disincorporation imminent

The Battlespheres noticed that they were somewhat outgunned. Perhaps a little, although hopefully not too much. If the planet was going to be protected, it was a moot point. The planet after their bombardment could not recover from the ecological and geological devastation they had left in their wake.

They would fight, for a time, and then simply open a rift into the system, waiting until such time they could come back and attack. Nevertheless, assumptions could cost them dearly. For the time being, it was probably wise to finish off the planet. The fleet here could be destroyed, but it would require a useage of resources the Maker-Mind was unwilling to spare.

A slice of red light appeared in the sky above the seething planet. From it, thousands of tiny black objects whirled down, streaking through the atmosphere, their outer casing burning up as they did so.

Dirty fission explosives, each one precisely moving to outside a city on the planet. They would not penetrate the shielding, however, they would make the land outside the cities radiated beyond belief, making the cleansing process nigh-permanent.

This was the first time the Maker-Mind had been interrupted by a significant fleet whilst cleansing, and it made a decision. The ships here would be destroyed, as many other planets in this particular sector of the galaxy required cleansing.

The Battlespheres, motionless for the tiniest fraction of a second, suddenly had red light flicker around them. What was termed their 'shielding' was up. This, of course, detracted from their weaponry power, however, Battlespheres were simplistic craft at best, preferring numbers to win a battle, rather than superior 'technology'. Whatever got the job done was what was created.

Meanwhile, in the swirling dimension of the lattice, whirling blades of death spun towards the system that was being cleansed... They were enough to reinforce the group at the system, and ensure that cleansing was carried out to the extent of their abilities..

"Message received and actied upon. Exploration/Survey Taskforce units will be arriving soonest. God be with you. Admiral Stapleton (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/jeudesprit/trinity/stapleton.jpg) commanding Fleet Exercise Trench (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=469103&page=2) out.

" Get everyone to their jump stations. War status overburn on my authority. I want us button down and in Semi-Space two minutes ago. MOVE!"

****

It the time it took to read this, the gate was closing behind the last of the ships from the Trench exercise. Their arrival pattern would be broken up, but all speed would be burned to arrive in time.....Hopefully....

One of the Pyskers onboard lept back from his screen in horror, his veins pulsating rapidly and his face etched in a horrific mask.
"DEATHHHH!" He screamed before being taken down by some Imperial Navy Ratings. Brother Captain Juan knew what this meant. The enemy were powering up, and judging by the little red things, it was going to be nasty. It was not the nature of the Marine to be a Reactive Force, rather Pro-Active actually. Hastily he strode over to where the Pilots sat, guiding the Ship on it's immensly quick course using the Grav Fields.

"Action Stations, Action Stations. Pre Emptive Strike, 1 Pass." Immediately claxons blared and the ship was transformed. Immediately 3 squadrons of Fighters and 1 Squadron of Assault Boats were launched in orbit of the Mother Vessel. The Ship swung round and now was in line with the Enemy Fleet. Juan breathed a single word.

"Fire"

Suddenly space was ablaze, two long blue lances of energy ripped forwards from the ship, smashing into the Smaller Craft. A Salvoe of 10 Torpedoes were launched into the Mass also, along with the smaller Cruiser's Armament. As the Ship passed through the mass of smaller craft, the Weapon's Batteries opened up, lacing the sky with bright reds and blues as the struck out to hit the enemy. Now the Cruiser's and Fighter-Bombers were amongst the enemy, sending out lethal payloads of Torpedoes and Bombs. It had begun.

"Open fire, Full slavo. Keep the fighters as a forward screen, let's see how well they fare against this."

1935 KEW missiles shot from the fleet, and in a matter of seconds had reached the burst point. They burst open like ripe fruit, sending trillions of tiny metal balls at the 200 enemy craft.

The 3700 Laser Cannon onboard the Fleet vessels opened fire on the BattleSpheres, the tiny pricks of light taking two seconds to reach their target, their targeting computers compensating for the direction that each target was taking. The 3100 Ion cannons then spat their gouts of Ionic energy towards the targets, taking the same amount of time to reach their targets, only arriving later because they fired later.

The 2870 TigerStrike Fighter-Bombers had already been launched from their bays, and quickly formed a Combat Aerospace Patrol around the Fleet, intent on finding any other threats.

A second salvo of 4 missiles burst from each of the 2 ships. Moving in and out of hyperspace towards the battle spheres.

Drop standoff torpedoes. The magazines emptied ten multicyclic fusion torpedoes from each ship, they moved into a cluster pattern in front of the 2 destroyers. The engines of the torpedoes cut off waiting for the approach of any battlespheres or hostiles.

When the torpedoes activated acquiring targets the ships would jump into hyperspace to the far side of the solar system.

At four seperate points +90 degrees from the ecliptic ships decclerated from Semi-Space...sloughing plasma like mini comets in the night. Allies could see them forming four Trinity "Open Hand" formations even as the last plasm flickered off their hulls.

Each hand had a battleship (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/jeudesprit/trinity/oldbattle.png) as a "palm" behind five spreading "fingers", each of which had a light cruiser (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/jeudesprit/trinity/gilmoreredux.jpg) and three scout cruisers. (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/jeudesprit/trinity/Bandoredux.png) Thus each hand had 21 ships.

Just as the three hands sped ahead to engage any enemies at primary range, with the fourth behind in a support/breakthrough mode, behind them a large rift opened to semi-space where forms could be seen moving but only one ship was visible. (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/jeudesprit/trinity/battleship.png)

Fleet Transmission:
All units Pull back, do not engage. This planet is under quarentine. Repeat, all Trinity units do not engage - Stapleton commanding Trinity Prime attack force, out.

*****

"Send to fleet: Treat all spacecraft in area as enemy. Avoid approaching alien naval units and under no circumstance fire, but keep weapons lock on them until IFF established.

The Stellar Realm responded.

"IFF pattern confirmed. Battlespheres are the only known enemies at this point."

At four seperate points +90 degrees from the ecliptic ships decclerated from Semi-Space...sloughing plasma like mini comets in the night. Allies could see them forming four Trinity "Open Hand" formations even as the last plasm flickered off their hulls.

/OOC: Obviously, no uber-fleets of death will be accepted. Anyone bringing in said fleets will, however, be entitled to one kick to the groin, free of charge. Since the defenders of this planet don't have very much time left, you're going to need to bring in a reasonable amount of force that was luckily in this area at the time being.

OOC: Trinity Prime. If you've got four hands, and each hand has 21 ships, that's a total of 84 ships. My ships are the size of fighters, and maybe, at the absolute limit, powerful enough to take on a frigate 2-1. (in my favour).

84 ships is not a reasonable amount of force for 'flying by'. Please either revise this, or leave the thread. I'll be disregarding your posts until such a time as one of those happens.

Oh, and Stellar Nations, please drop the numbers. I'm not a calculator, and I don't really care precisely how many blasts of energy, or gouts of fire you throw at me. If you want to incorporate it into the RP, in terms of a character seeing it, and estimating, or something like that, fine. And note the fact that I am surrounding the Storm Guard. Anything you fire at me (and considering Battlespheres are 5 metres by 5 metres by 5 metres, it's not hard to miss) is just as likely to hit them.

Commonalitarianism, descriptive posts would be nice. It's hard to gauge precisely what's happening when I have a sentence for each major action.

Whew. Now let's get on with this. I'm going to be appending each of your names to the front of each bit directed towards you, so there's no confusion.

IC:

On the planet below, several lights winked out. Raging fire consumed cities, people, plants, and animals without mercy, their shielding failing, or already failed. Despite the lack of bombardment, a single mistake could easily let the roiling flames of the destroyed world rip apart an entire city. The Maker-Mind saw this, and was pleased. Cleansing would continue without intervention from its forces, at the very least.

The Storm Guard: A bright flash of blue energy caught a Battlesphere unaware, vaporising it within the instant. As was the wont of the Maker-Mind, a tiny rift opened up, consuming the matter it was made of, taking away anything that could be studied by the enemy. Such a miniscule light left a massive expenditure of energy behind it, rippling through the heavens, which would no doubt be detected by the ships they fought.

Two in total had been destroyed, however, it was the nature of Battlespheres to be either destroyed utterly, or to be unharmed. Their delicate nature, combined with their formidable shielding ensured this. It was unusual for so many of them to fall so early, a mistake the Maker-Mind regretted. Even the loss of two Battlespheres was greater than the worth of a single world, after all, it sought to cleanse the entire universe, and it did not have a Battlesphere for every world that existed.

The enemy were darting amonst them, and the Battlespheres held, firing again, and again. They would flee only at the last, attempting to cleanse what they could. And, after all, until the fullness of the enemy attacked them, they could hold.

Seemingly stationary, they shifted, without the red glow that generally heralded the arrival or departure of Battlespheres. They were in the same formation, however, this time far away from all three fleets.

Stellar Nations/Commonalitarianism: As the Battlespheres shifted, simply ceasing to be in one place, and existing in another, the mass of projectiles was left, searing its way towards the fleet of the Storm Guard. The legacy of a cunning mind, the attack that would've surely damaged them further would now be brought to bear against their enemies, forcing them into unwitting conflict.

It was an act that had cost them their shields, for a few seconds, which flickered dimly until they slowly were brought to their full glare, however, it was an act that had cost an enemy their attack. The art of using one enemy against another was one that would be practiced to win such a battle...

The deadly weaponry levelled against the Battlespheres had now become a barrage of unwilling friendly fire, forcing one enemy's hand against another. If the Maker-Mind had possessed the capacity for humour, it would've chuckled.

OOC: You didn't follow the links in my original post did you? I'llrepost the link about Operation Trench. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=469103&page=2) You may notice the date preceeds this thread by a day...so yes they were in transit and "flying by."

I'll gladly leave since there is no reason to break up the Trench group for another week. You don't want them here so I'll take them elsewhere.

No worries, catch you later.

The Claymore made a hasty swivel, and struggled to turn about to face the oncoming storm of projectiles, a favoured tactic in the Astartes. Most of the ordnanced simply past along the lines of the Ship, several more were destroyed by Point defence, but one of the Destroyers was caught in a savage hail of weapons, and ruptured, spilling men and marines into space, before detonating in spectacular fashion. Luckily for the Marines they were in Air Tight suits anyway, as it was standard procedure in a battle. The Men, however, either exploded due to the lack of atmosphere or suffocated. Thunderhawks were despacthed and survivors rounded up. Unwilling to fall to a similar trick, the fleet was cautious before firing off a volley at such an angle that it couldn't be deflected onto the Allied Ships. The crew were satisfied when several hits were recorded froma slavoe of torpedoes on a single ship.

However, losses were mounting on this already tiny fleet, and they engaged high energy boosters to gain the Protection of the otherside of the planet, harnessing yet again the gravitational power of the planet.

The hyperspatial ball lightning missiles exploded in the area where the battle spheres previously were, shooting gouts of plasma, and electromagnetic radiation in large spheres. Any ship which was too close or moving to engage the spheres close in would take bursts of EMP and sun hot plasma.

The captain gritted his teeth. By nanoseconds we missed them. He focused, his wetware making the battle seem to run in real time, we will need to do something unexpected. He thought at the AI, arm the twin repulsor cannons (kinetic beam weapons, the opposite of tractor beams). Load railguns.

The probe used graviphotonic, and neutron scanners on the battlespheres taking in their specifications, design, weaknesses, energy patterns. The AI would sacrifice itself for the greater good. A wide beam radio, optronic, and ansible signal with the scans of the battlesphers was broadcast to the near ships. For a brief moment it was visible in space, uncloaked, a cylinder with multiple sensors and instruments protruding from it.


OOC: Basically, the projectile is designed to jump to the location of the enemy, then explode nanoseconds later in a sphere. They do not continue traveling after the jump. It takes time for them to translate back to this universe making them vulnerable for a brief moment to counter battery fire.

"CEASE ALL MISSILE FIRE! CEASE ALL MISSILE FIRE!"

this command came too late to stop the first missile slavo, and the second slavo was already launched, but they were de-activated and drifted at speeds that would take months to reach across a light-second.

The Laser and Ion fire continued on the Battlespheres, pouring in every joule the powerplants could put out.

Fifteen gunboats flared and died in the first attack, an 'Aristosa-C' Battlecruiser's front 50 meters were outright obliterated, and several other ships took varying degrees of damage. The heavily damaged 'Aristosa-C' jumped into FTL drive, though it left many dead behind.

"Fighters, Engage"

The nearly 3000 fighters flew out of the fleet and moved to engage the spheres. Speed being the fighter's best friend, they dropped their missiles that would simply have been a hinderance and only weighed down on their small reactionless drives, and engaged the spheres with their laser cannons

Ah, fighters. The tiny, buzzing craft. They were what Battlespheres had been designed to truly combat. Inertialess movement, combined with shields that absorbed lesser weaponry.. The fighters had been the downfall of the awesomely powerful Maker-Mind's first assault on the rest of the universe. The Battlespheres had been designed to combat that.

As laser blasts zipped at the Battlespheres, they simply dissipated on the shields, doing nothing. Of course, this was due to their power source. They had access to nigh-unlimited power, but could only use a small amount of the power through their internal rifts at a time. Enough attacks, or powerful enough attacks could overload the system, leaving a Battlesphere's defensive means offline, making them vulnerable.

(OOC: Essentially, a Battlesphere's a binary object. It's either destroyed, or it's undamaged. A damaged Battlesphere is unlikely, due to their size)

The enemy fighters, or, at least a small group of them, seemed to figure this out, a large group of them firing, and firing again, at the same 'sphere. The red glow around it dimmed, and it quickly skipped away, avoiding death by a hairsbreadth.

Its undoubtable inferior forces could not be engaged, as the enemy fighters danced with them, as it was more likely that the enemy would hit a fighter, rather than their own craft. As it was, however, superior numbers meant little against Battlespheres, especially when they were fighting what they had been designed to fight against.

Down on the surface of the steaming planet, amidst the glow of the liquid rock, and the seething, molten surface, another shield winked out, and the city beneath it was consumed. There were only six cities left on the planet, and they would not last long. Another winked out. Five cities left. If those who had come to save the humans of this planet were to save them, it would have to be within minutes.

They were to combat the fighters, and to use the fighters as a shield, against using the enemy's own cleverness against them. One hundred and ninety-eight Battlespheres left... A scythe of laser fire brought down the fleeing Battlesphere, puncturing its innards, melting the seething mass of nanites inside. One ninety-seven. A pity. There would be reinforcements, but not for some time. If there was to be a victory, they had to fight intelligently.

Again, as fire spurted at them, they waited, however, this time, they used incredibly quick 'minds', or links to the Maker-Mind, and found out when the enemy would hit. They would skip aside, as well as they could with the enemy harrying them, and hope that it was enough. As it was, their forces were sufficient to defeat this enemy, although it would be a close thing...

The ship transited back into existence at the edge of what had once been planetary defensive grids, its Wassermann fields already on full power for the threat that it had expected to emnate from planetary defensive systems. The threat that was, of course, no longer there, having been slagged by the Maker's ships.

"Mother of God...." gasped the officer sitting at the monitoring port. "Captain, I think you may want to have a look at this."

Captain Amadeus Benson was arguing within moments with the Guild Navigator who had brought them in-system. "So why the hell didn't you see this path converging? I'm not a fragging prescient so I'm relient upon you who are to advise me in these matters!"

The thing that appeared human floated inside its tank, the golden particles of floating Hash creating an effect similar to dust particles caught in a beam of sunlight. "I saw this path, yet it was not supposed to happen this soon. Something has clearly tangled the threads and we've run into something that is almost assuredly off the Golden Path. I'd suggest that we return to the Compact for further instructions."

Benson swore violently at the Navigator. "Like hell we are! I don't care if this isn't part of your damned Golden Path- it's for humanity's survival so let's go help some humans survive. Do note the fact that that is not a suggestion." With an angry shake of his head he stormed out of the room once more, leaving the Navigator to ponder the possible threads of the future. Benson was right, of course. Aiding would be the right action and it deviated no further from the path than they already were.

Benson was already at the bridge by the time the Guildsman had decided upon the proper course. The argument was fresh out of his mind- he was now attempting to understand what he could of the actions that were taking place from his personal mentat, Benjamin Adeno.

"So Benjamin, if i have this straight those spherical vessels were attempting to perfom some sort of sustained bombardment against the planet?"

"Correct sir. I've calculated that their relative effeiciency at such a task is astoundingly high, perhaps 300% more effective than even our vessel. And of course that increases by multiple orders of magnitude when aided by other vessels, as it appears they were."

Benson shook his head. "Not good enough Ben. Not quite good enough. Situation on ground?"

"It appears that the smaller continental mass was entirely consumed in massive fires presumably started by the devices employed by those spheres. I would estimate standard laser device, gradiation of-"

"Spare me the semantics. What's left alive?"

"A few major cities. Of course I've calculated that their chances of shield failure are well within critical zone and are in imminent danger of falling victim to those fires."

"86.34% by my calculations sir!" yelled a lower-ranking mentat from the crew pit. Adeno nodded. "Within acceptable margin of error of less than one-tenth of one percent. AS per standard. I would have to suggest that we figure out some way of changing the frequencies on our Wassermann mines to enable directed travel. We're going to have to move their cities to..... I would suggest the Epsilon-Tau-Alpha planetoid."

"How did you know I wanted to save them Benjamin?" asked Benson, staring incredulously at the mentat.

"It was quite simple sir. I'm a mentat. That's something entirely within my training, observation of morals and attitudes." He gave a slight smile. "Quite basic, really. And yes, you did turn off your toaster when you left your home. You can stop worrying about it- you've thought about it non-stop for the past three hours."

Benson simply stared as the mentat walked away. He clearly had a lot of things to learn about serving for the Compact on board the Realspace Navy.

********************
The whole operation was carried out within mere moments of the decision being made to do the action and the technology altered enough to do it. Since there was no way to put out the fires or bolster the shields, the Wassermann generators on board the small interstellar mines would have to be re-routed and combined to form a drive large enough to encompass the cities still in existence and transport them a short micro-jump away, a mere twelve systems towards the galactic plane.

The fact that no mentat would be observing and no Guildsman would be directing the movement through matter didn't concern anyone too much- the people on the planet were doomed if they didn't take the risk. So navigation through the small gaps between quarks after realspace was folded had to be left to the prescient computers installed in the mines.

There were no theatrics and, indeed, no message of the course of action. The Ixian ship simply appeared over the planet (from where it had been at the edge of the system), deposited the mines, and jumped back to where it had been. And with no sound, no flash, and no fanfare the cities vanished. The flames were still behind and the planet was still ravaged. But the surviving cites were gone.

********************
The startled prairie dwellers on the fifth planet orbiting the star that the Ixians had called Epsilon-Tau-Alpha had no idea what was about to happen and were in no way prepared for what did happen. One moment it was a peaceful day. The next, four very damaged cities winked into existence. They ahdn't been there and then they were. There was no gradual appearance. (Along with the cities came a few kilometers of rock, but that wasn't really intended. It was a rushed job, true, but mentats rarely made errors in their calculations.)

The people who had been in the cities were fortunate to be alive. Of course, one of the cities had simply vanished. That was the problem with wassermann drives- a slight error and you could be turned out, crushed, scattered back into atoms, or actually erased from existence. Bending quarks was a tricky thing and there were some errors. It appeared that one of the cities had enjoyed the patronage of one of those errors. At least it was painless.

The Commonalitarianism captain opened the data packet from the probe. His weapons except for the gravity wave guns would not work against these spheres. They would anticipate most missiles.

He scanned it with his wetware nanoseconds passed. Ah, hyperspacial transmission protocols along a data stream. He checked the linkage frequency, yes they were transmitting along these lines. He loaded the transmission protocols. Maybe he could transmit AI overload protocols along the primitive binary sequences these spheres used. He fed the sequenced data packets into the signal stream.

Replicate binary sequence endlessly in any open communication channels, probe and replicate in all open nodes, overload enemy computational ability. The ships began pulsing transmissions through open communication channels at the spheres as well as along the hyperspatial channels detected from the Maker Mind.

Quantum encryption and protection was engaged on the Destroyers computers.

OOC: My fighters have chainguns, too. See sig. (Just rememberd to add it, sorry about that)

The Super-Monitor Hellbore appeared over where one of the cities should have been.

Grand Admiral Andon Aisesat looked at the pit... and said "What the HELL happened here? I want answers, NOW!"

On board the Stellar Nations fleet, the Admiral saw the ineffectiveness of his fighters.

"Recall the fighters. Re-Arm them with AFMs, and send them back out. Instruct them to return to base and re-arm with AFMs as soon as they expend them. Contact the Hellbore, have them launch thier Lynx and Tigerstrikes. Inform them of the arming of AFMs, and instruct their fighters to use our bays and munitions for re-supply."

The Hellbore had recieved the message and launched it's missile-toting small craft into the mix, their Lynx heavy bombers, slower but still capable of high speeds, capable of carrying twice the amount of missiles.

The Fleet fighters and the Hellbore's fighters reached AFM range at nearly the same time, sending half of their missiles in, then closed and engaged their targets with chainguns, lasers, and when the opportunity presented itself, their AFMs. When their AFMs ran out, the squadron would return to one of the multiple ships in the Fleet and re-arm, to be launched again.

The Gunboats, unable to switch their weapons load-out, dived in, engaging with their stronger laser and ion weaponry, the twelve-man craft being able to defend themselves much easier than a fighter could, actually posessing shields and thicker armour.

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Melii Probe 3 of the Incursion Recon which was approaching the area of infestation in micro jumps. It made note of a translation a few systems inward of the Incursion... After a brief analysis, it labeled the event interesting, and after a few "tricks" sent the data package ahead to the Allied forces via ansible. Then, it continued hopping inward towards the Conflict.

Only Five Universal Years and a few month to go!

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