NationStates Jolt Archive

Drala’toth, Minbari Federation:


The strike force slipped across the imaginary line that marked the beginning of the Federation’s territory. The ships were operating under full stealth and the strike leader’s ships were cruising ahead within T-Space scanning for the target’s signatures.

The information they were using was recon obtained by many of the ships and crew of outside nations that arrived aboard civilian transports and freighters. The info was collected by agents just pretending to be listening to the stories told by the crew while on leave. A simultaneous Mind Scan made sure they were telling the truth.

Using the data collected, a picture of the trade routes of the Minbari Federation was mapped out and targets were given.

The privateers met at Thorn and each was given ships to be targeted. The shipping lanes were to be disrupted and freighters were to be severely damaged. After enough attacks, the mercantile shipping will stop unless the Federation uses it’s military to guard them. That would keep them out of the War.

The ships stayed away from the sensors stationed near Drala’toth, skirting the system to take the optimum position for the ambush. According to the contacts, there was supposed to be a convoy of three freighters that would come through this area.

The Metal Storm, The Black Magic, and The Tormentor arrived at the position where the Jumpspace lanes would be obtainable and subject to the effects of the gravity of their drives. Calculations predicted it would be enough to pull them out of transit so they could be ambushed. The three frigates silently Emerged from T-Space and faded into existence as they entered Real Space. Their drives created a trio of gravity wells each equivalent to a small star. They waited for their prey to literally fall into their laps.

Shipping Lane In Between Drala'toth and Drala'fi
Minbari Shipping Freighter Capital Expenditure
The Capital Expenditure was one of the larger shipping vessels of Federated Shipping Company, a Worker Caste company. This particular vessel was carrying consumer goods produced in the Drala'toth system factories to the Midiri system for sale there; FSC was making a large profit on this deal, for good reason. The cargo was easily worth six billion Credits, and FSC offered hefty insurance to the destination in Midiri paying for the freight.

Little did they know.

"Captain, we are detecting an anomaly in jumpspace. We're heading in it's direction, impact estimated in five minutes."

"Maneuver around it, it's probably just a jumpspace eddie."

"My controls are locked, we can't maneuver."

The Captain ran to his chair, pressed the communicator and said, "Captain to engineering, what the hell is going on down there?!"

"I don't know, Captain, the maneuvering is totally gone, I can't fix it here, we need to head to a station."

"God damnit, Scott!" the Captain yelled at his human engineering head as the Capital Expenditure hit the anomaly and exited jumpspace..

"Where are we, comm?" Captain Jonathan Buss asked his Minbari communications officer.

"We are currently in empty space in between Drala'toth and Drala'fi. We're detecting three vessels that are of unknown origin on our starboard bow."

"Hail them."

"Channel open."

"Unknown vessels; identify yourselves. You have ripped us out of jump space and we will be contacting the Minbari military unless you explain yourselves and get us back on our route."

Captain Buss signaled to his comm officer to cut the communication, and said, "Send a communication to Drala`fi IV, the Minbari military has a patrol there. If these are pirates, or worse, ESUS raiders, we're dead and the best thing we can do is let the Minbari military know."

The comm officer gulped and said, "Aye, sir. SOS is transmitting."

"Arm our weapons. Fire on my mark.." Buss said to his weapons officer, another Minbari man.

"Aye sir.." the weapons officer said hesitantly. They had anti-fighter and anti-gunship weaponry, nowhere near the anti-capital grade weaponry that the Galaxial Shipping Service used on their freighters.

They would die today, but they would make it known to the Federation that the ESUS attack on Minbar had begun..

The ebon frigates ignored the broadcast. Instead one of them fired its load of torpedoes at the freighter. Half a dozen birds flew from their berths and began to arc towards the floundering freighter. The three frigates began to circle The Capital Expenditure much like vultures or even sharks of old Earth. As the torps closed in, an emerald greed light formed in front of them. The light faded to black as the singularity completed forming. They were targeting the engines and six 1 meter holes through the block would not only do harm to the maneuverability, but also to the power generation capabilities of the ship, hopefully.

As the ships circled, they opened up with their Ion Cannons. The two cannons mounted on each frigate fired at the ship, hoping to saturate it with enough ion radiation to cause the electronics to become useless.

The three 60 meter ships continued to circle and fire their ion cannons at the ship trying to cripple the huge vessel.


OOC:

You decide what happens with the weapons fire.

Capital Expenditure
"Captain, the frigates are opening fire!"

"Return fire with the railguns, get us out of the way of the torpedoes as best we can. Keep transmitting the distress cal--" Captain Buss said as a torpedo impacted and breached the gravitic shield grid that the Capital Expenditure had. The ship shook and vibrated, and Captain Buss was knocked out of his chair and fell to the floor, sliding slightly. He pulled himself up, and another torpedo impacted, ripping up chunks of armour from the thinly protected vessel.

The Capital Expenditure was a Belushi class freighter, and all freighters of that class had a 275mm railgun and two 155mm railguns for defense. The gunners pointed the larger railgun at the vessel that fired the torpedoes, and fired three rounds in succession, and the railgun was now forced to recharge for two minutes, which would prove to be too long. The 155mm railguns opened fire on the other frigates, however, the ion beams impacted.

On the bridge, power flickered and began to fail as the ion beams wreaked havoc with the electrical systems. Circuits shorted out and fuses blew on the bridge, sending small showers of sparks across panels as engineers desperately tried to shut down failing systems to prevent casualties. The engines failed after the third torpedo impacted, and the ship was drifting forward at .2c, dead in the water. There would be no more resistance from the vessel.

Captain Buss pulled himself off the ground once more, to see two of his bridge crew dead, their blood pooling on the floor of the bridge. He felt a sudden, stabbing pain in his left arm, realizing it had been broken. Jonathan tasted the blood in his mouth as he said to the remaining bridge crew, "Jettison the cargo, prepare to self-destruct the ship. The shockwave from the destruction will destroy the cargo."

"Are you sure, Captain? They could just want the cargo, they'll leave us alone once they get it.."

"They wouldn't have tried to destroy us if they just wanted the cargo. They're.." Captain Buss choked briefly as he spat out blood and continued, "raiders. They're ESUS raiders, and the war has finally touched Minbar..We have no hope, the nearest base is too far. We'll try to do our part, the only thing we can.." he said, moving onto a panel dimly lit by emergency power, typing in the code for the self-destruct.

The emergency lighting finally came on, giving the room a faint red lighting, further illuminating the carnage. Jonathan pressed his communicator and said, "Bridge to engineering..Prepare to blow the engines, we're self-destructing the ship."

The response from the engineering compartment was slightly delayed, but it finally came, "Aye, sir..Fifteen seconds."

"Say goodbye, gents.."

Those were the last words of Captain Jonathan Buss of the Capital Expenditure, as the fusion engine exploded, annihilating the cargo and possibly destroying the nearby ships..

Drala'fi System
On the Ne`shatan, the first ship of it's class, the comm officer recieved a flurry of S.O.S. calls from the Capital Expenditure.

"Alyt Durhan, we are recieving numerous distress calls from a cargo freighter. They say they've been yanked out of jumpspace by pirates, they're under attack."

"We will move to assist then. Navigation set a course for the coordinates the communication stated, we'll be moving in under full combat condition. Red alert."

The combat bridge illuminated itself with the holographic projections, showing the Ne`shatan and surrounding ships in Drala'fi. It showed things to painstaking detail, down to the continents of Drala'fi IV, to the texturing of the Mor`shin class carrier in the system.

"Engage jump engines, maximum burn."

"Aye, sir. Entering jumpspace."

The Ne`shatan entered jumpspace at maximum burn, going on a 15 LY trip, which would take 10 minutes in this emergency state. The Alyt prayed to himself, to Valen, that the Capital Expenditure would be around to save, that they could catch the pirates attacking them..

Soon after The Tormentor launched its torps, the freighter returned fire at the ship. The first round missed but the next two scored hits upon the small ship. There was a brilliant purple flash as the Dimensional Shields distributed the kinetic energy evenly across the dimensional matrix. The remaining energy carried the shells through the barrier into the armor of the hull. Moments before the slugs struck, the armor seemed to grow thicker to absorb the impact. A cloud of black metallic particles flew off the impacted hull and the ship spun from the impact. After a few moments, the ship righted itself and joined it’s brethren in the Ion Cannon attack. The other two ships fared better in their defense against the smaller railguns, The Black Magic was struck in its starboard wing structure but the armor absorbed the impact.

Once the freighter was dead in the water, the three ships pulled back to where The Tormentor was hit. It held position in the cloud of fragments as they were amazingly drawn toward the stricken ship. As they touched the hull, they were absorbed into the black metal. The Black Magic and The Metal Storm held position, almost like a bird of prey guarding a stricken comrade. After a few seconds, the hull of The Tormentor seemed to ripple and it took off toward the Freighter.

Suddenly, a blinding white flash of fusion energy swept violently through the area. The three frigates were tossed about in the concussion wave of ionized gasses and fragments of the freighter that were yet to be obliterated by the heat. They were left drifting in the wake as it rolled away from their forms.

If there would have been anyone left to observe the results of the blast, they would have noticed the three ships were glowing as if they were energized. The glow came from the black metal itself. As the damage from the blast was repaired, the glow faded. After another couple minutes the three ships were again moving.

Ne`shatan
"Alyt, we are now in the general vicinity where the SOS was broadcasted."

"Exit jumpspace, do not enable active scanners, keep the passives running and enable the stealth device. Look for wreckage of the Capital Expenditure and any lingering enemy vessels."

"Aye, sir. Jump point opening now."

The Ne`shatan opened up her own jump point, with the standard swirling blue vortex of the Minbari Federation. She emerged with shields up, ablative armour enabled, and gunports open and armed.

"Alyt, sensors detect three small vessels around what appears to be the wreckage of the Capital Expenditure. Passive scans are not picking up survivors."

"Lock onto the three ships, open fire when in range. Do not call for reinforcements, we don't want to give away our position quite yet."

"Aye, sir. Moving in."

The Ne`shatan accelerated fast, covering the void quicker than anyone could imagine, closing in on the vultures that attacked the Minbari. She blew past .2c, and continued to accelerate. On the bridge, the mood became tense fast. Unknowns had attacked the Federation, and nobody knew if it was a feint to draw a Federation military ship out, or if they were mere pirates, or if it was part of a larger enemy raid. The crew continued their jobs, though, stereotypically stoic.

"Alyt, we are now in range." the navigation officer reported.

"Fire." said Alyt Durhan.

Ne`shatan opened fire on the three frigates, the closest one recieving the brunt of the fire. Six gravitic neutron cannons attacked with their beams of yellow neutronic fury, enough to cleave lesser ships in half in a single salvo. Secondary main weapons, the gravitic fusion beam cannons, better known as 'Whips' among the gunnery crew, lashed out at the enemy vessels, aiming for what appeared to be engines. The tertiary weapon mounts, the Electromagnetic Neutron Pulse and Electromagnetic Fusion Beam guns lashed out at the two vessels not hit with the main guns. This Minbari strategy of surprise attack had devastated Earth Alliance fleets, and very few vessels known could stand up to the full fury of the Sharlin, or it's smaller cousin, the Ne`shatan.

Drala'fi IV
"Commander, the Ne`shatan suddenly pulled away from orbit and jumped into jump space, Alyt Durhan left a cryptic message about pirates near Drala'toth and left."

"Yes, I know this. I recieved the distress call from Capital Expenditure myself. I was going to deploy the Mor`shin but Durhan entered jumpspace first. We'll determine what to do about that trade lane after Durhan comes back."

"Aye, sir. Should I raise the defense level of the system?"

Commander Shan of Drala'fi IV, one of the few Human-Minbari hybrids in the Warrior Caste, thought for a moment about this request.

It's a mere pirate raid. Why raise panic among the populace if that's all it is? he thought.

"It's just pirates, Lieutenant. Durhan can handle them, we don't need to raise the defenses."

"What if it's the ESUS? They're probably at least indirectly behind the raids, if not directly attacking us themselves."

"Stop worrying about it, Lieutenant. Ne`shatan is on it, and Durhan is one of the finest Alyts in the Wind Riders fleet."

"...Aye, sir."

The three frigates seemed to be stunned by the unexpected detonation of the freighter’s core. It took them a few seconds to “clear their heads”. Unfortunately that allowed The Ne’shaton to exit from Jumpspace undetected, something that would normally have been very easy to detect otherwise.

The vicious attack against the imperial frigates was completely unexpected.

The Ne’shaton fired its gravitic neutron cannons and the gravitic fusion bean cannons at The Black Magic. As the yellow energy weapons lashed out at their target, something unexpected happened. First the weapons struck the Dimensional Shields. The gravetic energies were drawn into the drive which in turn fed upon them. The shields, which were created by the engines, strengthened as the drives devoured the gravitic energies. This resulted in a Total Shield Manifestation as the drives pumped energy into them. The barely seen violet tinged bubble became an opaque ovoid.

The other two frigates fared less well.

The Metal Storm took the attack from the electromagnetic weapons in its port side. The Dimensional Shields diverted much of the energy away but enough got through to burn off several layers of the reactionary armor. The hull of The Metal Storm began to glow in the area of the strike.

The Tormentor was less lucky. The weapons struck the frigate right in the center of its topside. The shields did their best at damage reduction but the energies were just too much. The result was a crater nearly burned through the ship in front of the bridge. The ship drifted listlessly as the shock of the brutal attack stunned it. The entire crater and the surrounding ship were glowing in the same manner as The Metal Storm.

The Black Magic, unable to fire through the Shield Manifestation, did the next best thing. It tried to interdict itself between the alien ship and its wounded brethren. The Metal Storm slowly drifted over to The Tormentor and made contact with the vessel. The two ships seemed to melt together where they touched and they both faded into nothingness of T-Space as they Uplifted. The Black Magic stuck around for a few more seconds before it followed The Metal Storm into dimensional space.

A cloud of black fragments was all that was left of the three ships.



OOC:

Sorry about the ships getting away. If you had any, it would be less of a mystery. For the record, you severely damaged The Metal Storm and crippled The Tormentor. The uniqueness of my drives unfortunately allowed The Black Magic to escape the brunt of your primary and secondary weapons only because they are gravity based. I figure they might have vaporized the small ships otherwise.

TACTICAL REPORT - SECRET


Ne`shatan encountered three pirate vessels on the trade route in between the Drala'toth system and the Drala'fi system. She opened fire on the three vessels, doing no apparent damage to one, and severely damaging the other two. Using playbacks of the combat, it can be concluded that;


Our gravitic weaponry is totally ineffective against this enemy
Our electromagnetic weaponry is more effective than on most other ships
Our stealth system took them totally by surprise, as the pirates did not react until shots were fired.
They use some type of dimensional shift to enter FTL
They use some sort of regenerative armour scheme
Their shields are powered by the drive system, which appears to use gravitic energies


It is the conclusion of this tactical report that if we encounter any of these vessels again, the ship responding to the call should not use it's main weaponry and instead focus fire using electromagnetic weaponry. We have also concluded that the pirate vessels were similar in construct to Balroggan vessels encountered by Victorious in the Trill system some months ago. Further investigation is necessary. It is also the conclusion of this report that all trade vessels should be escorted by military vessels until the conclusion of hostilities between the Extra-Solar Union of Systems and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances.

Drala'fi System
A blue jump point opened up away from Drala'fi IV, disgorging the Ne`shatan. Her hold carried something special; the black hull fragments of the three Balroggan vessels. Her captain, Alyt Durhan, looked somber on the bridge. He was unable to save the Capital Expenditure, and unable to destroy the pirates. Durhan said to his comm officer,

"Hail Drala'fi IV. Request permission to land." Ne`shatan was one of the few Minbari ships capable of entering an atmosphere, as it had specially designed shields that allowed it to survive atmospheric entry.

"Aye, sir. Landing permission granted."

"Hail the military base on the planet, tell Commander Shan that I wish to speak with him."

"Aye.."

The Ne`shatan made it's atmospheric entry, the shields raising and illuminating the skies of Drala'fi IV with the screaming red ball that was the Minbari vessel. It touched down safely on an enlarged landing pad specially made for the Ne`shatan class, and Alyt Durhan left the ship, alone, headed for the military base. He entered without a problem. Everyone knew Alyt Durhan. He took the lift down the lower levels, where Commander Shan made his home, office, and everything in between. He entered, and said, "You've heard."

Shan looked up from his computer screen and said, "Yes, I've heard. It's too bad."

"Did you read the fucking tactical report?! The first ship was totally immune to our main guns, our MAIN GUNS. How many ships in the universe can do that?"

"Calm down, Durhan. They were pirates, you drove them off. We don't need escorts on every freighter, we don't need to raise the alert level, calm down and go back to your ship."

"The ships were Balroggan."

That made Commander Shan pause. That little bit of confirmed information wasn't in the tactical report.

"Were they, now.."

"Balrogga is a member of the ESUS, Commander, and they're raiding us now. I reckon it's to keep our military concerned with the internal pirates, so we can't assist our allies that are being attacked."

"I suppose..I will talk to Kalan, I'll find out our course of action. In the meantime, go to Drala'toth. There is another freighter scheduled to leave Drala'toth soon, and we'll see if we can't draw them out."

"Yes, sir."

Alyt Durhan turned and ran out of the military base, slowing down to a jog as he hit the lift. He made it to the top floor, jogged out, and ran back onto the Ne`shatan. He made it to the bridge, and said, "Navigation, we have clearance to lift off the planet. Once we clear atmo, set a course for Drala'toth III."

"Yes, sir."

The first officer of the Ne`shatan looked at Durhan and said, "What is the purpose of our going to Drala'toth III? There's only a trading outpost there, not much else."

"We'll be escorting a freighter, attempting to draw the pirates back out."

"Ahh...yes, sir."

The Ne`shatan pulled itself off of the planet, rocketing out of atmosphere faster than was probably regulation. It left the gravity well of the planet, heading for open space. The blue jump-point opened, sending Ne`shatan on her way to Drala'toth III..

[ABOARD HGNS MAJESTIC, NALTHORAN J5 SCOUT CRUISER]

“Ma'am, we're going to emerge into the Minbar system in one minute.”

“Understood, thank you.” Kifung Manaan sighed and glanced at the three-dimensional plot, displaying a midsized planet with a large ice cap and two moons. “The Minbar Federation has requested that we exit hyperspace and maneuver to their Voidkeeper Station. We will remain on station approximately 500 kilometers from it, providing additional hyperspace sensors and hyperspace inhibitor systems.” She nodded and tilted her head to the left. “Our true purpose here is to observe the actions of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, which is why we will continue using full ECM and ECCM until we are given orders by the Minbar to open fire.

She stood up and pointed a hand towards the forward viewscreen. “Keep in mind that we are one of the only two purpose-built Nalthoran scout cruisers in the 15th Expeditionary Fleet, and that our business here has two purposes as well – one, to provide early warning systems for this Voidkeeper Station, and two, to not get shot and die!”

“Exiting hyperspace in 5 seconds.”

“Thank you. Upon exiting, spool up the laser systems so that we can quickly engage targets if necessary, and activate the ECM and ECCM systems.” She sighed and calmed down a bit. Battle seemed to get her excited too much. Perhaps it was in her blood as a member of Kiith Manaan? Or did it have something to do with the aura of the unknown? Yes, that was it. Being one of the first Hiigarans in this system definitely had something to do with it.

A blue dot appeared approximately 800,000 kilometers away from the planet of Minbar in the orbital plane. It elongated into a blue line, then opened again into a blue window, just large enough for a Nalthoran star cruiser to exit. The window remained open for ten seconds to allow the kilometer-point-one vessel to pass through, closing in a similar manner to its opening. The Hiigaran Grand Navy Ship Majestic, aided by the powerful hyperspace fields of her earlier escorts, emerged into the Minbar system.

“Communications, this is CO. Open up a signal on most elecromagnetic bands and try and aim it at the Voidkeeper Station. I want the same message on all EM bands. Message reads as follows, repeat after each transmission to allow their translator software to get used to us.”


This is the Hiigaran vessel HGNS Majestic, dispatched to Minbar System on 24-07-102 AH under orders from HGN High Command to perform scouting actions and become an ambassador ship to the Minbar Federation. Message repeats.


[OOC: Yes direct copy and paste, I'm lazy now, and I feel that I did a right smashing good job with this post the first time around thank you very much!]

Ne`shatan - Jump Space
"We are five minutes away from the Drala'toth system, Alyt, and the Rubber Biscuit has been informed that we will be escorting them."

"Good, good.." Alyt Durhan mumbled to himself, still stinging from the defeat near Drala'fi.

Ne`shatan exited the jump gate in Drala'toth, and cruised to a position fifty thousand klicks away from the Rubber Biscuit. She had her shields lowered, ablative armour disabled, and weapons down-powered.

"Comm, hail the Rubber Biscuit." Durhan said absentmindedly.

"Channel open."

"Attention freighter Rubber Biscuit - This is the Minbari military ship Ne`shatan. We will be escorting you on this run, because, as I'm sure you've heard, the Capital Expenditure was attacked and destroyed by what are believed to be Balroggan raiders on this route. We have one fast stop to make, on Drala'toth III's moon, and we will be ready to go. Ne`shatan out." and the comm line was closed.

"Navigation, set a course for Drala'toth III, drop the 'cargo'."

"Cargo?"

"The black hull fragments of the three Balroggan vessels, ensign, and the scientists on Drala'toth III are going to examine it."

"Oh..Yes, sir." the navigation officer said, in surprise. Durhan wasn't an Alyt known for his forthcomingness, and the fact that he just let their purpose out like that shocked the nav officer.

The ship acclerated off to Drala'toth III, and her cargo bay opened up, to reveal the large vaccumed container with the black armour fragments in it. She left the container in front of the station, which tractored it in, to be examined later by Worker Caste engineers. She pulled back alongside the Rubber Biscuit.

"Hail the RB again, comm." said Alyt Durhan.

"Aye, sir, Channel open."

"Rubber Biscuit, we're ready to leave when you are."

The Rubber Biscuit, a Belushi class carrier captained by Captain Jack McCoy of a colony of Earth, responded back with, "We're ready, Ne`shatan, lead the way."

Both ships, lead by the Ne`shatan, entered the jump point, headed for Drala'fi at a slower pace than usual, since the escort was necessary and a slower pace was needed for safety..

Midiri System
Shai Alyt Kalan ra Shai'barnik, on the command bridge of Voidkeeper Station, was a very stressed Minbari. He had been recently placed as the supreme commander of all Minbari naval forces, and there were requests for assistance all across the board. Every GFFA member was under attack in some form or another, and even more vessels weren't under attack but felt 'unsafe' traveling a GFFA member's trade lanes, and requested a military escort. Many carriers were raising their prices because of this war, and increasing insurance premiums through the roof.

War is hell.. he thought to himself, as he read yet another request for military aide, this time from a small freighter leaving the Tortuga system, an indepedent star system 19 LY outside the reaches of the Federation. Tortuga was a known pirate haven, and he had it on the tip of his mind to send a ship to investigate Tortuga to look for these newest raiders, when his comm officer said, "Shai Alyt?"

He snapped out of his almost trance-like working state, and said, "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"The Hiigarans have arrived, as expected, sir. Orders?"

"Deploy the Hiigarans to Eshar, there's a freighter scheduled to leave there soon headed to the trade station. Put them to some use." he grunted.

Eshar had at least one freighter screaming for an escort, the Blue Whale, a mammoth Omega class. It was a converted Omega class destroyer purchased from an Earth Alliance shell company six years ago. It was demilitarized and converted into a freighter, then later remilitarized with illicit weaponry purchased in Tortuga. It was better armed than most freighters, but in terms of armour and shielding it was made of paper. The owner was looking at armouring it and buying shielding, but this would cause him to raise his prices so much nobody would purchase his services. So he gave Kalan yet another headache and screamed for a military escort.

I'll send the bloody Hiigarans chasing these pirates, and if they turn out to be useful, I'm money ahead..

While Kalan was pondering, the comm officer sent a transmission.

"Voidkeeper to HGNS Majestic, Voidkeeper to Majestic. Shai Alyt Kalan is requesting that you run escort duty for a freighter threatened by ESUS assets operating in Federation territory. These are the coordinates, in the Eshar system. The freighter needs an escort to our trade station at these coordinates, and it is believed that ESUS raiders are operating in between this trade route. Voidkeeper out." The comm officer set that message on limited repeat, to allow the Hiigarans to get used to their messages, and went on break. One hell of a job..he thought.

Minbari Space, Some Lightyears from Eshar

On one hand, it might be suicide. On the other, it might be a small victory. Either way, the best-case scenario didn't justify the worst-case. But that wasn't a decision that Captain Emil Shelby was privy to make. He had been given command of the mission. At least, if all went according to plan, he would be the one to recieve the commendation, the shiny medal, celebratory remarks, and his name written in the Manuscript. That counted for something.

But that something wasn't enough.

Nevertheless, Emil ordered his small, two-ship fleet to the designated intercept point. There his destroyers crept from Protospace. They distanced themselves and aligned facing nose to nose. Then, they did something that no other Megan warship had done before. They fired on each other. A burst leapt from the forward Protoculture cannon on both ships; their streams met in the middle of the jumpspace route. Hopefully, it would be enough.

Freighter Blue Whale, Eshar-Trade Station Route
The Blue Whale was one of the largest freighters of it's class - at 1.3 kilometres, it appeared like a battleship in size. Sadly, it was not such. It did indeed have sixteen guns, and when operational those sixteen guns would be able to drive off all but the most determined pirate. In a perfect world, sixteen guns would work. This was decidedly not a perfect world. Out of sixteen guns, a grand whopping total of three were operational. Three. The owner, a human named Ian Stravsovsky, refused to hire more gunners and refused to pay for the guns to be fixed. His excuse was something akin to, "Who's going to raid this deep in Minbari space?"

Now he would learn who would, in fact, raid this deep in Minbari space.

On the bridge of Blue Whale
The Blue Whale had not been 'modernised' to Minbari standards in terms of quality of life for the crew; It didn't have efficient artificial gravity. It used a rotating section in the centre for gravity, but on the bridge in the front of the ship, it was annoyingly zero-G. So as Captain Daniel Nguyen half-floated half-sat on the captain's chair, the swirling river of jumpspace cascaded around him as he watched the altogether boring sights.

"Captain, there's an odd sensor reading you may want to see." the sensor officer said to him.

"What is it?" Captain Dan responded.

"It appears to the sensors to be a large gravity well. I haven't been able to confirm it, but the sensors are freaking out."

"And if the sensors sense a gravity well.." Dan begun.

"..the engines will take us out of jumpspace." the navigation officer finished.

"And we'll be half an hour off schedule while we wait for this bucket of bolts' jump engines to recharge!" Captain Dan screamed as he kicked at nothing, sending himself floating across the bridge. He collected himself, pushed himself towards his chair, while saying, "Navigation is there any way we can avoid the damn thing?"

"Not without getting us perilously off-track, Captain. This sensor blip is huge. It looks like the size of a small sun."

"God damn it.." Dan groaned. He pressed the communicator on his chair, and said, "All hands - Prepare for jump-space exit. I want the engineering department to work on a way to speed up the recharging of our jump engines, so we won't be too badly off course."

"Aye, sir." the engineering department head responded, sighing.

"Captain, we will be exiting jump space in four seconds. Four...three....two....one...Jump space exit now."

The freighter not-so-gracefully opened a jump point, spewing itself into open void.

"Sensors, where is this damn gravity source? I want to know what caused the gravity well!"

"We're detecting two military vessels that our sensors are calling destroyer-types. Attempts to match them up with known ships have failed, although that's probably because the Minbari refuses to allow freighters access to the military known ship-list. All we do know, however, is that they are approximately 390 metres long and carry some forms of projectile and energy weapons. They do not bear markings of any specific nation, and there is what appears to be cannons linking the two ships with a beam of energy."

Captain Dan pondered this, racking his brain to think of possible options.

We can't run..This ship is a snail. We can't fight...

"Comm, send a distress call. We were supposed to get an escort from the Hiigarans, but they didn't show up at Eshar. Power up the guns, aim them at the destroyers. I already know they're hostile, don't bother hailing them. Power up the defense grid, it'll give us some degree of protection."

"Aye, sir." the weapons officer said with a slight gulp. "Guns are powered, gunnery has locked onto the enemies. The defense grid is running at 79% power and raising. It won't defend us from much, sir, but it should allow us to last for a little while. The armour is also in good condition."

The Blue Whale idled in between the two Megas destroyers, with her three guns pointing at them. The gravitic defense grid powered up, providing better stopping power against projectile weaponry, although nowhere near the level that the Minbari proper had on their military ships. The Blue Whale also sported a rather large armour layer. It was stripped down from the original specs, being that the Blue Whale was originally an Earth Alliance destroyer, but it was better than most freighters currently in service.

Now their only hope would be that someone heeded their call, and that the cavalry would come..

Emil allowed himself a feint smile. The Blue Whale emerged from jumpspace, her bulk easily larger than the two destroyers combined, sporting several large guns. Emil was, at first, taken aback, as he had expected a freighter, not a battleship.

"Shut down the Protoculture cannons and scan that vessel, I want to know everything about it, now!"

Seconds later, the tactical officer responded, "Sir, scans indicate three guns powering up, decent shielding, and moderate armor. She's a ghost of what she used to be."

Emil suppressed a sigh of relief. So far so good. The Protoculture has worked to our advantage.

"Bring us to bear on that ship, close within weapon's range, and fire the main cannon; full power. Have the Kissimmee do the same. Let's see how decent their shielding is."

The destroyers closed on the Blue Whale in seconds. Emil was pleased. They would disable the ship, raid her cargo, then return to Thorn. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong. Ironically, as if on cue, something did. The tac officer reported the problem. The Protoculture cannons would not charge.

"Is the reactor functioning?"

"Aye, sir. Engineering reports no problems, and the engines are still running smoothly."

"By the Finders'," Emil cursed. "What could possibly-"

"Sir," The comm officer interrupted. "The Kissimmee is reporting the same problem, sir."

Emil clenched his fists, bit his tongue and tasted blood. This wasn't supposed to happen. Finally, as if trying to defy fate, Emil ordered a full missile barrage from both ships; 40 missiles total. It would be enough firepower to moderately drain most ship's shielding, as each missile carried a small Protoculture payload in the 300kt range.

The sleek, gray and blue hued missiles leapt from their tubes on either side of the destroyers, aligned themselves with their targets, and fired their thrusters, propelling them at speeds just over half that of light.

Blue Whale
"Captain, hostile vessels are firing!" the weapons officer yelled, across the noise of the bridge.

"Fire the guns at the oncoming missiles! Shoot down as many as you can!"

The Blue Whale's gunners attempted to rapidly track the forty odd missiles incoming, and they racked up at least four kills and one unconfirmed kill before the missiles struck the gravitic defense field. Minbari-designed gravitic defense fields were designed to decelerate kinetics at an absurd rate, but sadly, this was a freighter, and it only decelerated kinetic weapons at a slightly silly level, not absurd. The missiles were decelerated to a comparitive crawl of their launch speed when they smacked into the thick armour of the Whale, causing medium-sized pits and craters in the seven metre thick hull. Her sensors were temporarily blinded as the energies washed over the ship.

When the sensors were active again, Captain Dan yelled at the weapons officer, "Fire the guns at the pirates! Pick one, shoot at it! Resend the distress call! Set it at maximum priority, DO IT NOW!"

"Aye sir!" the officers said as the ship vibrated from the vicious attack.

The one main gun that was actually functioning on the Whale, a particle beam turret rated at three hundred forty-five gigawatts, opened fire on the Kissimmee. The two smaller one gigawatt guns opened fire on the other Megas ship.

On the bridge, Captain Dan floated back to his chair and gripped the armrests tightly as he barked out orders, knowing that these would very well be the last orders of his career, and of his life..

Near Drala’toth:

The two Frigates, The Bloodline and The War Zone waited in Real Space for The Rubber Biscuit to run afoul of their gravity wells. Hidden within T-Space was a third frigate, The Wicked. She was to remain here in case the Minbari war ship appeared and use their own sneak attack against them.

The Bloodline and The War Zone spread themselves out so they were not close together, widening the effect their gravity wells would have upon the freighter that should be approaching them soon within Jumpspace.

The Wicked was ready with a full load of Grav Torps just waiting to be let free of their confining firing tubes. They were hungery and if it showed, the Minbari warship would be the main coarse.

Emil studied his PCC, watching as some of the missiles were intercepted, but most impacted the hull of the Blue Whale. His readouts told him that they had done some minor damage to her, but had not yet crippled her to the point that was desired. That didn't matter, a second barrage would certainly do the trick.

"Sir, missile tubes are now re- Sir! Blue Whale is returning fire with particle beam weapons!" the tac officer reported.

"Helm, evasive maneuvers!"

Unfortunately,those orders had been given too late. The Sebring took both of the Blue Whale's smaller guns in the forward shielding arc. Emil gripped the arms of his command chair as the ship shuddered, its welding groaning in protest. She remained relatively undamaged, however, her forward shielding was drained.

The Kissimmee fared far worse. Her captain ordered her to accelerate, attempting to close the distance between her and the Blue Whale and pass by before the weapon could fire at her. She was seconds too late. The particle beam struck her exposed underbelly, shattering the shielding and breaching the armor therein. The section was promptly sealed off, and the breach contained, but the damage was done.

"Status!" Emil uttered.

"We've sustained minor damage to the forward shield arc, nothing more, captain." the comm officer replied.

"And the Kissimmee?"

"Sir, Kissimmee reports minor hull breach has been contained. Weapons and engines still operational, shields functioning at seventy-two percent. No casualties."

"Alright then, have them back off, we'll finish this. Tac, are those tubes still ready?" Emil responded.

"Waiting for me launch 'em, captain."

Emil nodded. "Target their engines, fire full barrage."

"Aye, cap'n. Missiles away."

Twenty more missiles then slipped out of their tubes, aligned themselves with their target, then thrusted themselves at the Blue Whale. Emil once again allowed himself to be comfortable, knowing that nothing could go wrong at this point.

[NEAR VOIDKEEPER STATION, MINBAR SYSTEM]

“This is HGNS Majestic, we read you clear. Understood completely, we're maneuvering to coordinates. Majestic out.” Kifung replaced the microphone on its stand and leaned back in her chair. “Engines, this is the bridge. Input coordinates and hyper on my mark.”

[ABOUT SEVEN MINUTES LATER]

“Exiting hyperspace now! CF-185, -194, and -237 ready to hyper in at a moment's notice.” The familiar blue dot appeared about 5000 kilometeres from the dying Blue Whale.

The captain immediately stood up from her chair, floating up several inches due to the gravity plates still trying to rearrange the gravity in the ship. “What the hell is going on! ECM, ECCM, and ECCCM at full power, now! Let's find the bastards who did this. Sensors, this is Bridge. Get a lock on all possible vectors for those missiles.”

“Aye, captain.” Blipping noises could be heard from the sensor readers, plotting different conic sections as tracks before locking on to one source. “Locked on!”

“Weapons, this is bridge. Are we free to open fire?”

“Aye, ma'am. Free to open fire.”

Kifung grinned. “Weapons, this is Bridge. Continue on this track and fire one HV missile from turreted mounts. Cold launch, fire directly aft. Eight missiles, one per two seconds. After the eighth has launched, give them commands to enter sprint mode and fly at maximum acceleration at enemy units. Understood?”

“Aye, ma'am, implementing flight plans now.”

The captain nodded. “Once those fire, fire another salvo from all tubes at sprint-mode. Try to minimise damage done to the Blue Whale.” The ship shuddered from each missile launch slightly, at least enough for the captain to feel in her boots. “Okay! Let's do this!”

The eight missiles and another ten streaked at the two enemy destroyers, the cloaked ship moving along in a slightly parabolic curve.

[OOC: In short! 18 missiles. Right at you. Set to detonate doing area damage, not point damage. Have fun. >D]

Drala'toth Trade Route, Jumpspace

"Alyt, our forward sensors have detected the jumpspace anomaly. Orders?"

"We will proceed normally. Sensors, are the enemies detectable?" Alyt Durhan said.

"Realspace sensors are detecting two Balroggan vessels, creating the anomaly. We will be exiting jumpspace in thirty seconds."

"Red alert! Ablative armour at 50%, power up all electromagnetic weaponry, do not power gravitic weaponry. Power all point-defense, shields up, and we'll be going in full stealth. Prepare for combat, Minbari!" Durhan bellowed at his bridge. He didn't need to bellow, naturally, but it made him happy so the bridge crew didn't mind. They followed his orders to the letter, raising the ablative armour to exactly 50% levels, powering all secondary/tertiary weaponry, point defense, stuff like that.

The ablative armour could be modified and controlled - This particular combat would have the armour set at 50% of maximum level, because the maneuverability hit would be much too high for this situation. Cameras were snapping running feeds of the ship as it prepared for combat, of the Rubber Biscuit, and of the jumpspace anomaly they were four seconds away from hitting. Tactical officers watched from the gunnery rooms of any slight weaknesses in the tactics of the Ne`shatan itself, of the freighter, and soon the Balroggans.

"Two...one..Exiting jumpspace now!" the navigation officer yelled as the blue vortex disgorged the Ne`shatan first with the freighter following.

"Alyt, we have confirmed detection of the two Balroggan frigates similar in construct to the first three we encountered." the sensory officer stated calmly as the combat was about to begin.

"Open fire! Electromagnetic weapons have priority, fire the anti-strikecraft missiles, maneuvering pattern Durhan-zeta-nine. Keep us over one hundred fifty thousand klicks away, we probably outrange them. Order the freighter to move in the opposite direction at maximum burn. Prepare a call for reinforcements, don't send it immediately." Durhan yelled as the combat bridge changed into a tactical display of the Ne`shatan, the two Balroggan frigates, and the Rubber Biscuit. He saw the Ne`shatan aggressively maneuvering to point the forward electromagnetic neutron guns at the nearest frigate, the Bloodline.

Ne`shatan opened fire, with a merciless hail of neutronic beams and pulses. Electromagnetic fusion beams raked the Bloodline with high-powered doom, even higher power due to the power from the gravitic guns being shunted to the EM guns. Dozens of missiles left their tubes, running cold for 50,000 kilometres before accelerating madly to hit their targets, targetting both ships. The twenty Nial fighter craft prepared for launch, as they would probably be needed to act as point-defense for the Ne`shatan, and to support it in case of..enemy reinforcements.

Eshar Trade Route
Blue Whale
"Captain, we have heavily damaged one of the enemy frigates and lightly damaged the other. We are recieving return fire!"

Captain Dan Nguyen pressed his command communicator and said, "All hands, brace for impact!"

The gunners attempted to shoot down as many of the twenty incoming missiles as possible, achieving only three kills as the missiles overloaded the already-fragile gravitic defense grid. There was almost no decleration experienced by the incoming missiles as they overpowered the grid, imparting massive amounts of damage to the outer armour as the explosions pockmarked the hull even more.

After the shaking ended, a sensors officer yelled to Captain Nguyen, "Hull breach in Sector 9. Automatic systems have sealed the area, but we've lost three crewmen! Fires have started in Sector 10 and 11, fire-extinguishers are dealing with those. We also have sensory of a third ship entering the system!"

Captain Nguyen groaned and said, "More hostiles?"

"No, sir, they're...thank Valen..Hiigarans! The Majestic has arrived! They're opening fire on our attackers!"

"Recharge the main particle beam cannon, fire it at the damaged ship, we can possibly destroy it. Get us moving, open fire using the light particle beams on the damaged frigate."

"Captain, the main cannon will take at least four more minutes to recharge, if not longer. Light particle beams opening fire."

The Blue Whale's ion engines powered up, accelerating the freighter away from it's former location slowly, as the two working light particle beams opened fire with small pulses of energy at the Kissimmie. The gunners attempted to recharge the main cannon as quickly as possible, coming very close to overloading the gun altogether. If she could list in space, she would be, with a large gash in her hull, where exposed void met freighter. Three men had died from a hull breach, and half a dozen others had been killed because of the weapons impacts across her hull, from causes being blunt force trauma to explosions.

Her saviors were here, the Hiigarans had arrived. It was only twenty-six minutes until the freighter's jump engines could bring itself back into the safety of jump space, and to the Trade Station..

As the ships were detected within JumpSpace approaching the ambush, the two frigates launched two volleys of torpedoes. The torpedoes leapt out of the launch tubes into the emptiness of interstellar space. Once they reached their target zone, they shut down and waited. Two dozen silent killers waiting for the signal to attack.

Suddenly the bright blue jump gate formed and the two ships were ejected from JumpSpace. Almost simultaneously, the warships of both sides began to fire as the freighter tried to move away from the battle. Another dozen Grav Torpedoes were launched and the main Ion Cannons were fired. The frigates concentrated their fire on the warship but at least three torps from The War Zone were targeting the freighter.

The electromagnetic weapons discharged, filling the space between The Ne’shatan and The Bloodline with writhing crackling energy. The blasts struck the shields of the frigate resulting in the violet dimensional shielding to be visible. Much of the energy was dissipated across the dimensions but some of it made it through. The Reactive Armor thickened as the ship’s computers tried to provide as much armor as it could to absorb the attack. Layers of the armor was pealed off by the brutal attack, laying the hull bare in spots. The ship was trying to create more of the armor when the second shot struck the shielding and penetrated it, destroying the replicators designed to create the armor and boiling the hull creating warped spots in the outer later. The outer hull was lain stripped open showing the inside of the ship, or rather the internal mechanicals of it. The edges of the rent began to glow energetically as it began to heal, slowly closing the great wound in its hull.

The War Zone skirted sideways placing the freighter between the frigate and the warship using it as cover for the incoming missile attack, revealing the ships used a highly efficient gravity drive. The point defense came online as the incoming missile barrage was detected. Forty PD lasers as well as the five flack cannons tracked the incoming missile attack. Red beams struck outwards as they targeted the projectiles. Flack clouds surrounded the ship with target confusing chaff designed to mislead the missile guidance systems. The freighter also provided cover from the wave of missiles that were bearing down on the frigate. Explosions of nuclear fire blossomed in space, completely obscuring the frigate and the freighter from The Ne’shatan.

The Bloodline was really unlucky today. With part of her hull removed, she also lost some of her point defense. The remaining lasers and flack cannons attempted to make up for the deficiency but there really wasn’t a chance. The hole in the defense was too great and several missiles were able to get through. The frigate took a direct hit in the damaged area and fragmented into several large pieces. A wash of violet energies rippled outward from the explosion. The purple waves of energy struck the shields of the Minbari ship causing strange readings but nothing else unusual.

Then The Wicked struck.

The frigate faded out of nowhere and fired its Ion Cannons point blank range of less than 100 meters. Immediately afterwards it launched all six of its torpedoes at The Ne’shatan, hoping the Ion Cannons weakened the shielding, aiming for the highest energy contacts detectable, theoretically engines and weapon placements. The frigate moved in close to the rear of the ship and fired it’s cannons at any available target.

The Frigate broadcast a signal and the 24 dormant torpedoes woke up and aquired The Ne'shatan as a target. They homed in on the beleagured warship as The Wicked again fired its Ion Cannons.

Battle Zone
The Ne`shatan maneuvered like no ship of her size should, dancing around ion cannon blasts and making the crew cringe slightly as inertial dampners strained in places to contain the massive amount of gees that the ship was experiencing. Gravity torpedos attempted to run through the point-defense gauntlet and were annihilated, only to fly past the shielding and their singularities ripped shield particles out, lowering shield energy. Ion beams impacted the shields, draining power immensely. One of the main gravitic neutron guns, thankfully not powered, took ion energy that leaked through the main shields. In the gunnery room, the gunner controlling the gravitic neutron cannon shielded himself as sparks began to fizzle from his console as fuses blew and circuits broke to stop the flow of ions from affecting any further computers.

On the bridge
Alyt Durhan saw the Bloodline tear itself apart as the nuclear energies combined with electromagnetic hell destroyed her. He saw the Rubber Biscuit attempting to maneuver out of the way, her gravitic defense grid dealing with leftover energies from nuclear explosions. Durhan was tempted to maneuver to the freighter and open a jump point for it to escape, but his thoughts were jarred when the Wicked downlifted and unloaded. Ion beams shattered the side shielding, raking across ablative armour, protecting the insides of the ship from the majority of the ion damage, but the damage was done as the shields were broken.

"Bring our front weapons around to face the new ship, set rear weapons on widebeam and shoot down any incoming missiles!" Durhan yelled at his crew, as the ship groaned from the pounding it was taking.

The Ne`shatan began to maneuver away from the Wicked, getting away from the lethal ion cannons as the torpedoes became active and started to chase the Ne`shatan around. As Durhan ordered, the rear guns became rather large point-defense mounts, as widebeam electromagnetic fusion beams destroyed some missiles by just vaporizing them, and others had their drives destroyed. The singularities opened up as they passed by the hull, tearing ablative armour off in chunks to feed themselves. The Ne`shatan began a defensive maneuver, causing some missiles to run into themselves and eat each other, while others smacked into a point-defense bolt and activated, tearing off yet more ablative armour.

Durhan, on the combat bridge, saw his armour being torn off in large chunks, and he had the odd feeling that that would not be the end of those torpedoes. He yelled, "Bring all fore weapons to face the newcomer, maximum power--"

He was cut off when a singularity torpedo tore off metres of open hull. The ship vibrated as four metres of open hull were sucked into the singularity, bringing three men to their doom in open space. Durhan almost fell down, but he rabbed a railing and held steady. He continued his yelling, "All fore weaopns to face the newcomer, maximum power. Fire a gravitic neutron blast at the ship closest to the freighter!"

The weapons officer looked at him oddly, as Durhan had just ordered the use of a weapon on the Balroggans that everyone knew they were immune to. Durhan said, "Just do it, commander!"

The Ne`shatan was almost directly in between the Wicked and the War Zone, and another main salvo of electromagnetic fury leapt from the forward arc, connecting the Wicked and the Ne`shatan with more energy than a lot of planets produced in a year. Point-defense turrets continued to gun down torpedoes, their engineless hulks activating and tearing ablative armour off in massive blue chunks. It appeared as if there were dozens of small ants, chewing away at the great Minbari vessel piece by piece. A single gravitic neutron beam lanced out from the rear arcs, connecting the War Zone and the Ne`shatan. Durhan's silent hope in this case would be that the gravitic energies would again be shunted to the shields, preventing the other Balroggan vessel from seeing, hearing, or shooting.

Another salvo of sixteen nuclear fusion missiles left the tubes, aimed to complement the massive energy salvo of the forward arcs. Durhan had watched carefully as the point-defense worked it's magic on the War Zone and how the destruction of one arc was lethal on the Bloodline. The Wicked and the Ne`shatan were in almost close enough range that the point-defense guns could be used as main guns, and in some cases they were, being the only turreted guns on the ship.

The Rubber Biscuit was faring less well, as it had no shields to speak of and not at all a thick hull. Before the quantum gravitic beam was fired from Ne`shatan, her small railguns were firing nonstop at the War Zone, aiming to do some small amount of damage as she ran. She had no jump engines, and was totally relying on the Ne`shatan surviving this battle to open up a jump portal for both ships. The Captain of the freighter prayed to himself that Durhan would survive, that his ship would survive, that the Balroggans would be driven back..All these thoughts ran through the minds of every crew member of the freighter in that instant.

The Hiigaran ship was unexpected. She had been identified as such from the information passed along by the Balroggans. She would prove to be a flaw in a plan that was, until now, working fairly smoothly. It presented a obstacle that Emil knew he probably wouldn't be able to overcome. Then, as if feeding from his fear, taunting him, the Hiigaran launched her missiles. Precious seconds seemed like hours. Emil reluctantly resolved himself to the fact that he might not return from this mission. Still, he would make sure the mission was completed.

"Helm, quickly, take us closer to the Blue Whale!"

"Aye, sir!"

The Sebring's sublight engines roared to life and thrusted her even closer to the Blue Whale, even as the missiles rapidly depleted the distance between her and the Hiigaran.

Meanwhile, the Kissimmee fared far worse. She rolled, exposing her top side to the incoming missiles. Power was re-routed to the dorsal shielding arc by her AI, and her point-defense turrets scored several kills. Her captain prayed that it would be enough. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The detonating nukes overloaded the sheilds, quickly spreading their superheated wake to the Kissimmee's armor. That, too, fell prey to the blasts. Hull breaches dotted the Kissimmee's topside where the armor was burned through, venting atmosphere and crew into the void. Forcefields were quickly activated by the AI, minimizing the internal damage. Her fold drives were overloaded and critically damaged, as well as most of the point-defense system. Her captain saw only one choice. The Kissimmee righted herself and steered directly at the Hiigaran, opening fire with her railgun. High-density protoculture-saturated shells leapt from the mouth of the bow every few seconds as the Kissimmee lunged toward the Hiigaran.

The War Zone launched its volley of Grav Torpedoes, four targeting the warship and two targeting the engines of the nearby freighter. The frigate then fired its Ion Cannons at The Ne’shatan but the incoming gravity weapons from the Minbari ship interrupted them. The shields Manifested, absorbing the blasts from the Ion Cannon and saving the ship from another attack. The brilliant violet shields formed an opaque sphere around the frigate.

The Wicked detected the massive power build-up in the Minbari vessel and took drastic steps. It launched two grav toprs and activated the singularities right away, triggering it’s own Shield Manifestation. Moments later a massive attack of electromagnetic energy slammed into the shields harmlessly. The Wicked remained cocooned within its violet shields.

In the wreckage of The Bloodline, fragments began to slowly drift together.

[WITHIN 20,000 KILOMETERS OF THE BLUE WHALE]

“Turn to evade! Now!” The captain stood up in her chair as otherwise slow railgun shells went floating past. “Honestly, I don't see why people use railguns nowadays...” She sighed as the ship hypered out several inbounds, shooting down several others, and generally dancing around the battlefield. “Weapons, Bridge. Fire raking pulse beams from the side turrets at the ship close to the Blue Whale, and fire off a salvo at the other. Fourty missiles, 10 megatons, from the side tubes. One every half second, do it now. Sprint mode, as usual.” Kifung was calmed down quite a lot, somehow.

“Aye, ma'am. Opening fire with orders now.”

Nevertheless, the ship moved onward, firing pulsing waves of energy into the strange vessel near the merchant ship.

“Comms, Bridge. Get signals over to the Minbari vessel. Ask them to see if they need help, and that we can tow them through hyperspace if necessary with the line cruisers.”

[OOC Note: Sorry, feeling lazy.]

Aboard the USS Allanea

There was a powerful flash of light as the enormous Management Buyout Mark I Mod B battleship Around it, more, smaller Allanean ships tore into realspace with a happy firework of flashes. And aboard the ship, Captain Josh McKinley was standing at attention, as he listened to the voice of Grand Admiral McCoy, rebroadcasted through a thousand loudspeakers all over the Management Buyout and other ships of the fleet – the monstrous Freestar III carriers, the small-sized Mgweni-class cruisers, and the miniature Hugheys.


“Crew. Sailors. Allaneans. We is about t'enter combat aginst th' Whyatican Minbari wifin a few hours. This hyar is our duty t'th' safety of th' galaxy. This hyar is our duty t'th' ESUS alliance. This hyar is our duty t'Allanea, t'liberty itse'f. “

The sailors – happily, except for a small badge bearing the symbol of the ship and a pair of armbands with your rank, there is no uniform duty in the Allanean navy, except of course on parade – stood at attention. Some wore elaborate (though assless) fursuits, some wore the shirts of their favorite TV shows, and one strange fellow wearing a Roman toga.

“This hyar is a duty – an' this hyar is a duty in which ah knows yo' will perfo'm fine. Yer Allaneans – Hashi, Mgweni, elves, Ferengi, human, Dohwar – ah knows yo' will all perfo'm fine today. Th' Whuffo'aticans is weak. Their culture is based on an outdated caste system, dawgone it. Their navy is small, ah reckon. ah tell yo', varmints, we will easily triumph! Fry mah hide!”

Next to Captain McKinley, a Ferengi female in traditional garb (except for the obligatory badge and armband) nodded happily at this. Next to her, a Hashi officer with a head shaved bald winked at her and touched her earlobes slightly. The whole 'attention' thing was very loosely followed in the Allanean navy, really.

“Th' Minbari navy is inferio' t'th' Allanean fo'ces in ev'ry respeck. Due t'this, all off-duty personnelnel is to repo't t'th' recreashun decks of their vessels as of this hyar moment. ah recommend yo' git out th' wine, th' beer, th' hemp an' th' eckies, an' proceed t'drugs, sex, an' rock'n'roll, on account o' by th' time it's yer shif', we is a-gonna haf won this hyar war an' celebratin' on th' beachces of Midiri III! Fry mah hide! Now, hoof it! Gunners, t'yer turrets! Ev'rybody else... it's party time.”

Forty minutes later, Deck 567-B of the enormous USS Allanea was full of sailors, Space Marines, and so forth, drinking and carousing in all sorts of strange ways. High-power loudspeakers roared – they had a ten-meter safety zone around them that people were prohibited from going into for their own safety – they were playing a song, the same song that was now transmitted all over the Allanean fleet and all over the star system on a multi-frequency broadcast playing at full power – strong enough to fry some old receivers outright if they were too near it.

“I Never Gonna Leave You Alone
The Tide Is High And The Groove Is On
She Said Her Name Was Cindy
'Would You Like A Drink Of Me?'
Bikini On The Left, Daquiri On The Right
Come And Give Me Lovin' All Through The Night
Do The Wild Thing, Dingalingaling

The Captain bent over his table and sniffed down a long line of UltraCoke. This was a great night. Below him, he could see that Mgweni officer, now without his shirt, kissing the Ferengi lady's earlobes He saw meth and PCP beng 'smuggled' out of the party room – for the on-shift people, he guessed. He didn't mind – as long as it wasn't beer or THC, which would make them fall asleep on shift. These particular drugs would actually enhance their capability to do their duty. And so they were good, thought the Captain.

And so did the Allanean ships approach the Midiri III system. And they were many, and they were powerful. And their music also made them painfully obvious.

I Wanna Have Sex On The Beach
Come On Move Your Body
Sex On The Beach
I Wanna Have Sex On The Beach
Come On There's A Party
Sex On The Beach
Come On There's A Party Tonight!

OOC:This is going to be a massive post, so I'm going to split it up into three individual posts..Battle in Drala'toth Route, Battle in Eshar Route, Battle of Midiri.

The Second Battle of the Drala'toth Trade Route
Alyt Durhan saw that the Wicked had Manifested itself to save it from the hellish blow that Ne`shatan unleashed. He saw the War Zone trapped in it's violet cocoon, so he decided that this would be the ideal time to make a break for it. He yelled to his combat bridge, "Prepare to open a jump point, signal the freighter, they'll enter the jump point first and we'll go in afterwards! Move, move move!"

Gravity torpedoes ripped ablative armour off the ship as it dodged, shaking the ship as it made a break for it. Covering the light second distance in three seconds, the Ne`shatan quickly decelerated to match the speeds of the freighter. Durhan, on the combat bridge, said, "Hail the freighter!"

The communication officer yelled back, "Channel open!"

"We will be opening up a jump point, you go in first!" Durhan said, waiting for the freighter's response.

"Acknowledged, Ne`shatan." the captain of the Rubber Biscuit said.

"Navigation open up a jump point slightly ahead of the freighter, we'll go in after they're safely in jump space."

"Aye, sir. Jump point opening now."

The blue vortex opened up in realspace slightly ahead of the freighter, and it's engines glowed brightly for a few seconds as it entered the parallel dimension of jumpspace. The Ne`shatan quickly followed it, leaving behind the fragments of the Balroggan vessels.

Once in jumpspace, both vessels slowed to a halt. On the combat bridge, Alyt Durhan said, "Damage report."

"There is a hull breach on deck 29, the force-fields have contained it, but three crewmembers died when the hull breached. Ablative armour integrity is at 9%, shields have buckled all across the grid. Nine CIWS emplacements are disabled, two have been totally destroyed. One of the rear electro-pulse cannons has been ripped out of it's mount, presumably floating around in a singularity somewhere. We're missing half of the barrel for one of the rear gravitic neutron cannons. Overall hull integrity is estimated at 89%. Fires on deck 27 and 28 are contained with automatic systems."

Durhan winced at this report, as it's the most damage his ship had ever sustained in combat. He said, "Hail the freighter."

"Channel open, on-screen."

The face of the Rubber Biscuit's captain appeared on the video screen, and Alyt Durhan said, "How's your ship doing?"

"Well, Alyt, one of the rear cargo containers is halfway detached from it's mount, we have no guns left, and our gravitic shield grid was shattered. Our hull integrity is estimated at 70%, and only one of our ion engines is functioning. Is that good enough for you?" he said with a slight snarl, as the Ne`shatan had suffered less overall damage than the freighter.

"We'll tow you to Drala'fi IV. Ne`shatan out."

Durhan looked at his executive officer, and said, "That man certainly is angry."

"As well he should be. We couldn't prevent the damage to his ship." Commander Vashaed said.

"He certainly ended up better than the C-E did. Set a course to Drala'fi IV, medium speed."

"Aye, sir. The freighter is signaling us to begin tow."

"Lock tractor beams, fire when ready, medium burn."

The Ne`shatan fired off two tractor beams at the freighter to stabilise it's course, and both ships headed at medium burn to the Drala'fi system, now a half hour trip to make sure the freighter doesn't collapse during travel..

They were outgunned. It was as simple as that. However, the Blue Whale still seemed to have some flicker of life in it. That was unacceptable. With another volley of weapons fire rapidly approaching the Sebring and the Kissimmee making a suicide run, Emil made his decision. Another volley of missiles leapt from the Sebring's tubes, her Protoculture Reflex Reactor strobed with life, and she engaged her fold drives. Before the missiles could even align themselves with the Blue Whale, a blue shimmer spread itself across her hull, and she vanished.

A void remained where the Sebring had once been, surrounded by twenty missiles which had located the Blue Whale and engaged their thrusters, quickly closing the distance.

The pulse beams from the Hiigaran sliced through the Kissimmee like soft cheese. However, she was not done just yet. Resolving herself to the fact that she couldn't hit the Hiigaran with only her last-resort weaponry, she brought her railgun to bear on the aft portion of the Blue Whale, and fired two rounds.

[WITHIN 20,000 KILOMETERS OF THE BLUE WHALE]

The captain grinned. “Vanished, eh? Detonate the nuclear weapons around the last known location of the enemy vessels.” Then the unthinkable happened.

The hypervelocity torpedoes from before suddenly exploded for no apparently good reason. “What the hell was that!?”

“Bridge, this is Weapons. The missiles hit a preprogammed barrier, so that we couldn't do any damage to the freighter. They're too close!”

“Damn it!” She slammed her fist on the armrest. “All hands! Aim the entire ship at that destroyer and bring all the pulse lasers to bear. Rake their hull and aim to detonate it. As for the other vessel, fire two hypervelocity torpedoes at their last location. Dial yield to 250 megatons.”

OOC:This is for the Battle of the Eshar Trade Route

First Battle of the Eshar Trade Route
The Blue Whale was very well wrecked. The hull was venting across five decks, dozens of men were dead, and the engines were very close to dead. All the weaponry was out, and the gravitic shield grid fell long ago to enemy fire. Now, when this next salvo impacted, it spelled the end for the Blue Whale.

"Captain, there's another wave of missiles incoming..They're aiming for the hull fracture."

"We're dead..Transmit the order to abandon ship, we won't have long before the reactors breach and we're all dead anyway. See if the Hiigarans will pick us up."

The remaining bridge officers hesitated briefly, and said over the communicators, "All hands to the escape pods, repeat, all hands to escape pods."

One of Captain Nguyen's crewmembers looked over his computer panel, one of the few that worked, and said, "Captain.."

Captain Nguyen looked at the crewman and said, "What?"

"There are no escape pods."

Captain Dan looked at him in disbelief. "That's a bug in the software. Check again." he said.

"Captain, there are no escape pods."

This happened in about thirty seconds, and this brief conversation ended as the missile wave impacted the Blue Whale. The twenty missiles slammed through the weak force field preventing further deaths, exploding, gutting the ship from the outside in. Dozens of decks were exposed to vacuum, causing explosive decompression across the ship. Arms depots were smashed, although thankfully, the ammunition in those were merely for hand weapons and didn't contribute a whole lot to the destruction of the ship. The relatively unmolested starboard armour, however, faced impacts from the inside moving out. Hull crumpled from the inside as a missile's payload impacted against it, causing a massive explosion to belch out of the side of the freighter, carrying several men with it.

As if the ship couldn't be humiliated more, it could. A missile impacted the railgun ammunition depot, where several antimatter rounds were stored. Thanks to a poorly planned design flaw, this ammunition depot carried rounds for guns this freighter neither had or were designed to have, but were leftovers, carelessly left there from it's military days. Anyway, a missile impacted this storage depot, sending several pounds of antimatter up along with it. This explosion of massive proportions exploded along the top and bottom, causing fragments to begin to float away as the ship was essentially snapped in two. Fusion reactors began to shut down, and one went nova and exploded, carving away an engine block with it.

Even a heavily damaged enemy vessel, the Kissimmie, had to add it's own two cents to this. Two railgun shells impacted the bridge, penetrating whatever armour remained and traveling through the bridge section, it's impact crumpling the bridge electronics and killing men instantly. The second shell buried itself in the section connecting the bridge to the rotating section and exploded, separating the bridge from the rotating section. The first shell exploded soon afterwards, killing the one man left standing on his bridge, Captain Daniel Nguyen.

There was no life support any longer. No power, food, or water. Every human, Minbari, and otherwise alien life form had been killed. The Blue Whale had been destroyed. Score one for the ESUS.

She had completed her task. She had served her purpose. Her crew would be remembered as heroes. They’re families would be contacted and given the condolences of the government and senior officers. An elaborate eulogy would be composed for each one of them, honoring their commitment to duty and service to their country. The name Kissimmee would be retired from service in honor of the mission. Her story would become an example, a standard that every good soldier would strive to live by for the rest of the war; a perfect instrument of propaganda.

Her hull was slashed apart by the constant buffeted of the Hiigaran’s energy weapons. Deep gashes spewed atmosphere, crew, and internal components into the void. The neck section of the ship was severed, and her bridge and the rest of the command section slowly rotated away from the main body. As if this wasn’t enough to signal her defeat, another beam lacerated the starboard wing, rending another large section from the ship. The final blow came as yet another beam penetrated the engine compartments, impacting an already unstable Protoculture reactor. A strange, light-blue glow emanated from the aft section of the Kissimmee, nearly as bright as a star, and then she detonated. A shockwave emanated into the immediate vicinity, enough to damage a nearby ship, but not very heavily.

She had served her purpose.

She had completed her task.

She was gone.

The area was silent and empty except for the two brilliantly glowing violet spheres. One by one they winked off and the frigates contained within moved to where the fragments of The Bloodline floated in small clumps.

As the ships neared them, they curiously began to float to meet the frigates. As they contacted the ebon metal of the warships the fragments seemed to melt and merge with the craft.

Moments later the two frigates faded from view as they left the universe and Uplifted into T-Space for their trip back to Thorn, their mission successful.




Elsewhere a sentience awakened…

Drala'fi System Jump Gate
The four pylons of Minbari jump gates glowed brightly, sending energy to the aft of the construction, opening a great blue vortex. Out of this vortex came the Ne`shatan and the Rubber Biscuit, both heavily damaged. Fragments of armour continued to break and drift off of the Ne`shatan, while one of the cargo containers of the freighter was perilously close to drifting away, being held carefully by a tractor beam of the destroyer. Black and grey ablative armour mingled with the blue hull of the Ne`shatan, as well as the hull breaches across the aft side, showing the heavy damage it suffered in the battle.

Bridge of Ne`shatan
"Hail the drive yards, comm." Captain Durhan said to his battered bridge crew, noticing the tired looks on some of them.

"Channel open, Alyt."

"Ne`shatan to Drala'fi IV Drive Yards. Requesting permission to dock for repairs."

"Permission granted, Ne`shatan, and Alyt Durhan, the Commander wishes to see you on the planet when you dock."

"Acknowledged, Drive Yards." Durhan said and cut the transmission. "Alright, navigation, bring us in to dock, and comm, tell the freighter that they'll need to dock as well and their repair bill will be fronted by the Minbari military."

"Aye, sir. Docking approach beginning."

Durhan sat in his captain's chair, laying back. The battle had taken a toll on him, although it had barely lasted fifteen minutes. This was one of the few times where they were matched with an opponent who was technologically greater than the Minbari. Ships that were perfectly capable of destroying Minbari vessels, as reports flooded in continually about raids destroying freighters and even small military escorts.

Durhan opened his eyes and looked at his computer console, and he saw a tactical report written by one of the tactical officers down in the gunnery compartments watching the battle. He saved the report and pledged to himself to read it later, after his meeting with Commander Shan. He got up, said to his first officer, "You're in command until I return."

The first officer nodded, and Durhan left the bridge, headed to the hangar. Durhan entered the pilot's ready room, where pilots generally relaxed waiting for their duties. Nial pilots and shuttle pilots alike, they had almost no duties on the ship other than their flying duties. He said to a pilot lounging in the pilot's ready room, "We're going down to the planet, ensign. Take the Lintira."

The pilot scrambled up, said, "Aye, sir." and entered the hangar.

Durhan climbed up the stairs to the Lintira's passenger bay, which closed behind him. The pilot rattled off orders to the hangar crew, which had the mechanical arms of the hangar point the Lintira in the correct direction, out of it's stacked area along with the other two Lintiras and twenty Nials. The crew evacuated the hangar ten seconds prior to depressurization, and the Lintira shot out of the hangar, headed to Drala'fi IV.

Durhan's shuttle landed without incident, and he entered the military base, showing his ID briefly to the guards out front. He got onto the elevator, descending the depths quickly to the lowest level, where Commander Shan ran the show from what seemed like an almost impenetrable maze of corridors and lifts.

After finally entering Shan's chambers, Durhan said, "What do you want?" without properly greeting.

Shan lounged back and said, "I have news for you, Dur. The Grey Council is considering reprimanding you for your handling of this most recent battle. The religious caste members say you should have approached the situation with the freighter first in mind, and destroying the attackers second."

"How the hell have they heard of this? The attack is barely 20 minutes old, I haven't sent the battle logs out to anyone yet!"

"One of your tactical officers sent it out as per regulation, Alyt, and the Grey recieved it before anyone else did. The Warrior Caste representatives are fighting like hell, and the Workers appear to be neutral in this one, but a contact of mine in the Worker Caste has a present for you and your ship." Shan pulled a piece of paper out from his desk and showed it to Shan.

Durhan looked it over briefly, and said, "What the..."

Shan interrupted him with, "These are the newest generation of Minbari jump drives, Durhan, the phase drive. We've been able to replicate Shadow technology using our own nonorganics, so we don't have that danger of the Shadow technology eating our ships. Your ship, seeing as it's the front-runner in these raids, has been chosen for the first prototype."

"When can I go again? There's a civilian liner with a thousand or so beings on it leaving tomorrow from Raiata headed on a round trip around the Federation, it must be a huge target for the raiders and I want to defend it myself."

"No, Alyt, your ship will be in the drydocks getting it's upgrades. I've assigned the Sentinel to guard it."

Durhan wracked his brain to remember which ship the Sentinel was, when Shan reminded him with, "The Sentinel is a Sinclair, one of the newest in fact. Commander Vahan ra Shaibar'nik is in charge."

"Vahan isn't especially competent, he got that damn command because of his connections."

"I will point out, Durhan, that he is a member of your clan, and he was given the command like you were, through his skill."

"When they raid him, he'll panic, trust me."

Durhan got up in disgust and left Shan's office, heading through the maze and back to the lift, going to the ground level. He boarded the Lintira, waking up the pilot, and yelled, "Back to the ship, now. We'll be staying there for a little while.."

The flyer hovered in the air briefly, and fired it's thrusters, going into the atmosphere quickly, ending back up in the Ne`shatan's hangar.

Drala'fi IX
The patrolling vessel for this section of Drala'fi was the Sentinel, the ship Shan assigned to escort the liner, the Brokados. She cruised over to the system jumpgate, not having jump engines of her own, and entered jumpspace, headed to the Raiata system. The Brokados was at this moment loading up civilians from Raiata V, and would require an escort around the Federation's space as the liner made it's cruise.

Raiata was an hour's jump away or so, and the Brokados would be ready then for it's first leg of the tour, the trip from Raiata to Tragati..

The ships sped through T-Space at 80 parsecs per hour, the typical speed achievable using the 7th dimension. The Black Magic, The War Zone, and The Wicked accompanied The Fictional Reality, an Interceptor Destroyer to the target zone between Tragati and Drala’fi. The area was the furthest the Minbari ships would be from help while still remaining on course for their tour.

The plan was to simulate the last encounter; lulling the Minbari into thinking they were using a definite pattern to their attacks. The first thing they would notice is their signals were being blocked by the scramblers. The two frigates would pull them out of Jump Space and the third would complete the triad they have used so far, until now.

The Fictional Reality will wait until they are distracted by the third frigate and then jump in and surprise them.

The ships neared their target zone and held position, waiting.

Frigate Sentinel, Tragati System
Every Minbari onboard the Sentinel was tensed up, all expecting the ambush to be sprung in between Raiata and Tragati. This constant readiness spread to the Brokados, where guards onboard the ship constantly whispered of ESUS raiders, trying to remain calm as if nothing could possibly happen, while in reality, they were almost breaking down under the pressure. The Sentinel and her crew took the lead in jumpspace as the Tragati jump gate loomed ever closer, civilians and military alike took a collective deep breath. The ambush did not come here, and 1,000 civilians continued to live on the Brokados. Alyt Irilenn did not know why these thousand people paid for this trip - There was an official travel warning against taking long distance trips through the Federation unless on a ship escorted by a capital vessel, and although the majority of trips ended up okay, the occasional freighter destroyed put everyone on edge.

Both Sentinel and Brokados exited the jump-gate unmolested, and as they passed the system defenses everyone on the liner relaxed and began to do what they boarded Brokados to do - have fun. People swam in the massive Earth Olympic size pool, drank in the bars, played pool, and did other such recreation as the liner cruised to a stop in the Olympia Border Station, for refueling and pit stops. Sentinel began to patrol the area, not quite sure if the ambush was to be sprung or not. After six hours of a pit stop, the Brokados detached dock from Olympia Border Station, and rejoined her escort to the Tragati System jumpgate.

The next stop was Drala'fi, the port of call for the Sentinel and the Ne`shatan. 55% of the raiding activity had been between Drala'fi and Drala'toth, so the paranoia level went up even further on the Sentinel and her crew. There was a very low tolerance for mistakes in this business, and the Sentinel only had one jump-point torpedo, so she had to use it wisely to escape, if necessary..

[ABOARD HGNS MAJESTIC]

“Well, that was no good.” Kifung slumped down in her chair, obviously disappointed at the loss of the Blue Whale. “Took us too long to get here. I won't let that happen again.” She stood up. “Dispatch the combat shuttles and pick up whatever cargo we can find. Let's bring it to the trading post anyways. CF-194 and CF-237, remain on station to guard any other freighters.”

“Aye, ma'am, remaining on station. We have coordinates to the trade post, do you need them?”

“No, we already have the coordinates.” She put her chin on her hands, elbows on the desk and looked over to the side. “Damn it.” She sighed and sat up in her chair, watching the shuttles flitting around in space, picking up pieces of dead starship and cargo. “Well. Send a hyperspace buoy to the trade station, after we've picked up everything, let's hyper over there. Remain on Level 2 battle stations.”

Tragati-Drala'fi Route
Sentinel
The sensory officer looked over his panel, and he saw an anomaly. He mumbled to himself, "Oh, Valen.." and rechecked the sensor panel. There was no mistaking it - Jumpspace anomaly.

"Alyt..I have detected an anomaly." he said calmly, knowing the battle was soon to come.

"Okay..Tac, bring the ship to red alert. Launch all fighters when we exit jumpspace, fire all secondary and tertiary guns. Get the liner.." Irilenn hesitated, which was a moment too much as the Sentinel and the Brokados exited jumpspace with a jolt and a little shaking.

The weak ablative armour on the frigate activated, raising armour values a little at the expense of mobility. The shields rose as a translucent bubble around the ship, adding to the mediocre survivability of the ship. The only effective weapons against the Balroggans were the tertiary guns, of which the Sentinel had ten. Electromagnetic neutron pulses streaked across space at the closest enemy frigate, the Wicked, curiously enough the ship that damaged the Ne`shatan so badly. Because of Irilenn's hestiation, the captain of the Brokados was in the process of panicking.

The Bridge of Brokados
"Damnit, man, keep hailing the Sentinel, our jump engines are charging, we can get out of here in 10 minutes!" the Captain said.

"I'm trying to hail the Sentinel, but they aren't responding, Captain. I recommend we open fire on the pirates and escape on our own, the Sentinel is going at this recklessly."

"I suppose. Tactical, fire all particle beams at the Sentinel's target, direct all extra power to the jump engines."

"Aye, sir, but you do know that we can only fire two of the main guns? We didn't hire enough gunners.."

The Captain didn't respond to this, but continued to fume in his chair as the first blasts leapt from the cannons of the Brokados. The Brokados had four anti-capital particle beam turrets, however, only two were firing because they didn't hire enough gunners. A small oversight, for when this trip was planned the Federation was not at war.

Sentinel charged into battle, fusion beam 'whips' lashing out at the Balroggan vessels, electro-pulse guns firing pulses of ion energy at rapid rates . There was one nagging doubt in Alyt Irilenn's mind, and that was, "If these three ships so damaged the Ne`shatan, how much of a chance do I have?"

Within T-Space, the violet energy surges flashed and shot randomly past the four shadows seemingly floating in a sea of turbulence. Many times a bolt that would have the energy to disintegrate a small planet discharged harmlessly off their dimensional shields which were specifically designed and attuned for travel through the maelstrom of T-Space. The Black Magic, The War Zone, The Wicked, and overshadowing all three, The Fictional Reality.

Aboard the Interceptor Destroyer, Captain De’Shan was looking at his ships, formulating his final plan of attack. He compared the tactics shown previously by Minbari captains and attempted to compose the most efficient battleplan.

“Captain, we are getting a signal. It is our forward scout at Tragati. They sent word the liner has left accompanied by an escort.”

“Excellent, this show will finally get going. ETA?”

“Twenty four minutes.”

“In twenty minutes I want The Black Magic and The War Zone in Real Space. They will have their jammers active so word does not get out of the attack. Prepare The Wicked to Emerge, completing our supposed triad pattern.”

”Yes Sir.”

The two frigates took their places and Emerged into Real Space, activating their jammers and waited for their guests to arrive.

“Sir, we have incoming in Jump Space. They are just about at the anomaly. They just got pulled into Real Space.”

“Move The Wicked into place.”

“Yes Sir.”

The Wicked appeared off the starboard bow of The Sentinel.

“As soon as they detect weapons charging, initiate the plan.”

The Sentinel fired their electromagnetic weaponry while the liner also fired theirs. Both ships were aiming at the same frigate, The Wicked. Normally that would have caused worry but The Plan was already in action. The Wicked simply faded away as energy beams crossed the space where it had been moment before.

The War Zone and The Black Magic began to move, fast. They circled the pair of trapped ships almost a blur due to their great speed. They Uplifted and Emerged as they flew, joining The Wicked in their dizzying frantic seeming dance around the ships. Each time they Emerged, they fired their Ion Cannons at the ships attempting to affect the shields. Many times the shots fired at them simple passed through the spot they were moments before or missed because the ship wasn’t in Real Space anymore.

Things will soon get worse...

Power out here.

Using phone to post.

If its not back soon I will post from work Friday.

T'valen~Midiri Trade Route, approx. 15ly from T'valen

In the midst of the void, a shape appeared. The silhouette, slightly opaque, shined a light blue. The light soon calmed down and formed the MIS Caloosa, a Valivarre-class light cruiser. Her hull was pristine and red, and the symbol of the Entente was painted on her bow. Her captain, Rhea Brieva, was in her quarters during the transit into Whyatican space. Fleet Admiral Roran Telasnor had carefully chosen her, as she was known throughout the fleet as competent and trustworthy. She had commanded several successful missions against pirates and other unwelcome space-prowlers.

She received notification of their arrival at the intercept coordinates from the ships AI. As she made her way to the bridge, she spoke briefly with an engineering officer, who reassured her that the Balroggan technology would work with no problems whatsoever. The Balroggans had made the systems efficiently compatible with hardwiring.

The bridge door slid open and Rhea stepped through, catching the attention and salutes of every officer currently stationed there. Her stride was confident, with a hint of swagger, and her short, silver-gray hair bounced slightly. Her keen, light-green eyes scanned the area as she commanded the bridge crew at ease. She was quickly updated as to the situation by her first officer, a man whose stature was only surpassed by the intense force of his booming voice.

“Ma’am, mission time for launch of the torpedoes is nearing zero.” He said.

“Very well; have the rest of the fleet hold their places in Protospace, we’ll not want them to show themselves until we’ve successfully drawn off any escort vessels.” Rhea replied in her raspy, somewhat monotone voice.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rhea activated the PCC in front of her, quickly bringing up the status of her small fleet. There were six warships in all: the Calossa and the Bonita, both Valivarre-classes, the Ocala, the Arcadia, the Tice, and the Alva, all four Oberth-class destroyers.

“Ma’am, time is now zero. Window is now optimal for grav-torpedo effect.” The comm officer reported.

“Showtime, then.” The captain smiled, she had always had a whim for Terran idioms. “Launch the torpedoes.”

The tac officer responded with a hearty “Yes, ma’am” then tapped his console several times. The torpedoes leapt forth from the Balroggan construct mounted on the Megan warship, a marriage of two separate technologies, and a subtle reflection of the benefits and imparts of ESUS membership.

“Torpedoes away, captain. Detonation in 3…2…1…gravitic anomaly established.”

Rhea was pleased. The trap had been laid, now all that was missing was the prey…

OOC:

Since Whyatica hasn't responded to my last post I will assume there is no action being taken. I will compost a post and get it up in a couple hours.

OOC:Jeez...I'll get to a damn post. I'll put it up tonight or tomorrow.

OOC:

I didn't mean it that way, I was just making a statement that I was going to assume you were not going to respond to the change in tactics the ship took. I have been having internet connectivity problems over the past week or so. I assume you might have tried to contact me but was unable to.

It is just things has gotten bogged down extremely so over the time I was forced offline and I want them to get moving.

If it sounded like I was mad, I am sorry. I didn't mean it to sound like that.

OOC:

Other parts of the war have overtaken us so we are losing our bragging rights of being the most active part. We need to get this moving again.

As I see it, it's the GFFA's turn to post in the two current battles and ND needs to post their intro into this with their ships arrival so Megas can post his attack.

Please...?

Last GFFA post: 25-07-2006 3:55 PM


17 days since last GFFA IC action

Whyatica ~ New Dornalia Trade Route
Approx. 18 ly from Drala'toth

First, the sillouette; and then the Megan starship herself appeared, filling a relatively negligable amount of void. Preparations for yet another ambush had to be readied. This particular ship, a Valivarre-class cruiser christened Nicomas, was charged with two responsibilities of absolute importance; she was to command the mission, and she was to test the newly developed Megan FTLi device.

The former of the two was nothing new or surprising to her seasoned captain; a bear of a man named Whatley. The latter, however, Whatley was sure would never have been delegated to him in peacetime. He considered himself quite priviledged, allowing a smug expression to grace his face as he glanced at his first officer. This was better than a field promotion. The bridge door slid open. A man walked in.

"Captain. I assume we are in position?" The man asked, an inquisitive glare in his eyes. Whatley hated those eyes.

"Else I certainly wouldn't have summoned you to my bridge, Commander Nava. Yes, we've arrived at the coordinates and are ready to deploy the device."

"Excellent, I shall begin right away."

The small man hunched over a console, much to the dismay of the crewman who belonged to it. After several seconds of glaring at Nava, the crewman resigned himself to his fate and continued his monitoring. Whatley felt for him, he certainly wouldn't want the annoying man hovering over his own shoulder. Actually, he didn't even want Nava on his ship. However, it was not for him to decide, but the higher-ups in the research and development branch of SOTA, acronym for Special Operations for Tactical Advancement. Any and everyone who belonged to SOTA was denoted by black patch on their shoulder in the shape of a circle with a menasing blood-hued 'S' centered in it. Thus, SOTA became a subject spoken of only in fear or jest. The fear stemmed from the ominous Nous'gran Diel, a product of SOTA bio-research, the jest from the age-refined stereotype that all SOTA members were eccentric officers that didn't quite 'fit in' anywhere else in the military.

Whatley realized that his musings had wandered far from the mission, and he shook himself back to reality.

"We're ready, captain." Nava reported.

"Alright then, release the device."

From the missile tubes on the Nicomas slid not her usual Skylark missiles, but something far different and somewhat the same. Six long objects floated in the expanse, objects that had once been missiles, and had once carried payloads intended to destroy GFFA supplies, now carried a most important and far more unique weapon. The modules, as they were called by Nava, assumed positions in a hexagonal formation.

"Modules in place, captain."

"Initiate the sequence. By the Finders' I hope this works."

Small plates retracted and slid open on each module, revealing a stem that faced each neighboring module. The stems began to glow a bright blue. The hue danced in Whatley's eyes as he watched the progress on the bridge's viewer. Suddenly, from each module erupted a stream of blue light, originating from one stem and ending at the stem of the next module. Then fired a stream of blue from each module to the one opposite it in the formation. So continued this pattern until each module was connected to it's each of its five brethren.

"Captain, Protoculture Webbing established."

"It's beautiful." Whatley commented, clearly awestruck at the sight before him.

"Aesthetics are of no consequence, captain. The webbing was not created to leave the enemy dumbstruck, but to radiate a strong Protoculture signature in the hope of temporarily overwhelming their respective FTL drives with foreign energy. Our own fold drives are, of course, unaffected by the Protoculture, as they are powered by a Reflex furnace."

"Yes, yes, I know all that, commander. I just, forgot that you SOTA guys are quite incapable of human emotions."

"I beg to differ, captain. We are-"

"Captain, mission time suggests that New Dornalian vessels should arrive any second, sir." the first officer interrupted. He shared in Whatley's sentiment, a strong dislike of Nava.

"Excellent. Signal the others to prepare for the attack. We shall soon see just what our new toy brings us..."

The Mary Anne, Doryu Maru, Tomcraft, Sink or Swim, Barrel Roll, and Haley warped in--actually dropped in a screeching halt--right as they spoke, with their escorts, 2 Lin Biao heavy cruisers and two Mao Zedong Battleships. A convoy carrying replicators and valuables to help the Whyatican war effort (and make some cash on the side), they were aware of the dangers, but this was a problem.

Aboard the Stephen Chow, the leader of the escorts, Captain Krystina Poniatowska, exclaimed, "What in the blue blazes going on!?"

Her helmsman replied, "Comrade Captain, we have been forced out of Warp."

Krystina frowned, and said, "This is a bad thing.....I sense a trap. Tell the freighters to prepare their defenses, and raise shields, and get into a box formation. The Lin Biaos to the bottom of the box, the Maos to the top. Start scanning for nasties."

Helm began scanning, as the orders were relayed out, and the freighters and escorts consolidated into formation. The helm replied, "Comrade Captain! I am detecting an unknown vessel!"

Krystina, realizing the trap, said, "Shit."

OOC: OMG! I'm SO sorry, ND, I didn't realize that you had posted!

IC:

Whatley was quickly informed of the convoy's reactions through the PCC in front of her and the verbal report of her science officer. Her response came quick and decisive. The Nicomas would accelerate past the formation, weapons firing from all pertinant arcs, and attempt to draw some of the defenders with her. Whatley's reckoning lay in the hope that the New Dornalian captains, seeing a single antagonizing ship, would grow overconfient, and thus persue her. Now was the time; they would test that reckoning.

The Nicomas accelerated to her maximum sub-light speed, appearing at first to bear down on the convoy formation, then slowly arching her nose upward. Her five forward s-Reflex cannons fired every few seconds, her missile tubes unloaded 60 of her deadly, ship-to-ship, 300kt Spacelord missiles, all in the general direction of the formation, and Whatley ordered that the main Reflex Cannon be charged. He had a suspicion that it would be needed. It would be ready to fire in less than a minute.

"Send a message the rest of the task force, tell them to hold back until we've seperated the convoy." Whatley commanded, his ship resonating with the sounds of accelerating engines and returning weapons fire. "Use the ESUS entanglment. The Kanuckistani promised that the GFFA wouldn't be able to trace communications through it. I guess we'll find out now."

"Aye, sir." Was the response.

As the Nicomas sped past the formation, Whatley entertained a short notion of doubt. What if the New Dornalians didn't bite? He quickly shoved the thought aside, allowing himself solace in the belief that it was natural for commanders to silently doubt themselves. He only hoped that it wouldn't happen again.

OOC: OMG! I'm SO sorry, ND, I didn't realize that you had posted!

IC:

Whatley was quickly informed of the convoy's reactions through the PCC in front of her and the verbal report of her science officer. Her response came quick and decisive. The Nicomas would accelerate past the formation, weapons firing from all pertinant arcs, and attempt to draw some of the defenders with her. Whatley's reckoning lay in the hope that the New Dornalian captains, seeing a single antagonizing ship, would grow overconfient, and thus persue her. Now was the time; they would test that reckoning.

The Nicomas accelerated to her maximum sub-light speed, appearing at first to bear down on the convoy formation, then slowly arching her nose upward. Her five forward s-Reflex cannons fired every few seconds, her missile tubes unloaded 60 of her deadly, ship-to-ship, 300kt Spacelord missiles, all in the general direction of the formation, and Whatley ordered that the main Reflex Cannon be charged. He had a suspicion that it would be needed. It would be ready to fire in less than a minute.

"Send a message the rest of the task force, tell them to hold back until we've seperated the convoy." Whatley commanded, his ship resonating with the sounds of accelerating engines and returning weapons fire. "Use the ESUS entanglment. The Kanuckistani promised that the GFFA wouldn't be able to trace communications through it. I guess we'll find out now."

"Aye, sir." Was the response.

As the Nicomas sped past the formation, Whatley entertained a short notion of doubt. What if the New Dornalians didn't bite? He quickly shoved the thought aside, allowing himself solace in the belief that it was natural for commanders to silently doubt themselves. He only hoped that it wouldn't happen again.

The Nicomas' movements did not go unnoticed, and weapons fire from the enemy was getting plenty of attention as well. Captains all over the merchant fleet were getting nervous, they wanted some kind of action from Krystina, especially since their vessels were just raked by fire and sustained damage; the missiles were intercepted by the Miniguns onboard, but the energy weapons had hit.

Krystina contemplated a course of action. She did not want to leave the ships unescorted, but she wanted to act. After all, this was a sign of possible trouble...

She ordered Ion torpedo shots fired at the passing vessel, to bring it to an early stop. Meanwhile, she also ordered the merchant ships to maintain formation, and let the Mao Zedongs defend them. The Lin Biaos, faster on the draw, moved out of the formation, and then unloaded a volley of 50 torpedoes and Demolisher Gun fire at the Nicomas, moving to try and flank it from the top and bottom.

The ion torpedoes were intercepted, for the most part, by the point-defense lasers scattered across the Nicomas' gleaming hull. Those lucky enough to get through were stopped by her shielding. However, the overabundance of ion particles achieved the desired effect, and the Nicomas' sublight engines faltered. She slowed to half her cruising speed, and, faced with no alternative, came about to face her pursuers.

It was then that she took the full impact of the Demolisher Gun.

Her sensors had read the steady buildup of energy in the opposing vessel, a clear sign of a dangerous weapon. Anticipating this, Whatley had ordered shielding diverted primarily to the forward arc, but that still wasn't quite enough. The massive amounts of damage were too much to compensate for, and the Nicomas' shields went down.

Left with nothing further than her armor and point-defense lasers as a defensive measures, the enemy took the opportunity to flood her with yet more torpedoes. The p-d lasers once again intercepted most of them, however there were no shields to stop the rest, and her armor took the beating directly. Several small breaches occured, mostly on the forward section of the ship, but were quickly contained by the crew.

Meanwhile, the Reflex cannon had fully charged. Whatley figured that it was time. The Nicomas' forward boom section began to crackle with energy, and a concentration of light blue Protoculture gathered at her bow. Seconds later, a solid stream of Protoculture leapt forth from the Nicomas', headed direclty for the lead Lin Bao.

The lead Lin Biao powered up its shields and moved out of the way as fast as possible, though a grazing hit still rendered damage, superheating the plating, messing with the vision of the men inside, and generally causing the shields to bubble. Meanwhile, the others replied by moving in closer to the Nicomas; they would finish the kill by opening fire with a volley of 650 conventional torpedoes.

The plan was working perfectly. Two Oberth-class vessels suddenly folded into the battle, emerging directly behind the four Dornalian warships, between them and the Dornalian merchant vessels. Seconds later they opened fire on the warships, onloading a barrage of 80 Spacelord missiles, along with several shots from their s-Reflex cannons.

The Nicomas took this opportunity to initiate her own fold drive, causing her hull to shimmer slightly as the fold bubble created a light-blue skin over the surface of her hull, and carrying her out of danger and into a dimension only accessible through the use of Protoculture-based fold drives.

The remaining three ships; another Valivarre-class cruiser and two Oberths, emerged directly behind the merchant vessels. The Valivarre, her l-Reflex cannon already charged, fired the massive energy weapon at the lead merchant vessel. The Oberths, meanwhile, targeted the next two in line, each firing volleys of 40 Spacelord missiles and two shots from their s-Reflex cannons, respectively.

Through the use of the ESUS entanglement, the blessing that the Kanuckistani had bestowed upon the war effort, Captain Whatley was able to observe the continuation of the battle from his bridge, even while his ship remained in Proto-space. Communications technology on Megan starships had never before allowed this, as they were unable to transmit between the dimensions.

Whatley was partly able to relax his tense frame. His ship was safe from immediate danger, at least. His fleet remained in midst of battle, however. He turned his attention to the frieghters and their Megan attackers. He only hoped that they would be able to finish the frieghters quickly enough that the remaining two Megan ships, which now faced overwhelming firepower, would be able to avoid annihilation. The target here was never the Dornalian warships, they only needed to be distracted long enough so that the goal of the mission could be realized: the destruction of the arms cargo headed for Whyatican space.

The plan was working perfectly. Two Oberth-class vessels suddenly folded into the battle, emerging directly behind the four Dornalian warships, between them and the Dornalian merchant vessels. Seconds later they opened fire on the warships, onloading a barrage of 80 Spacelord missiles, along with several shots from their s-Reflex cannons.

The Nicomas took this opportunity to initiate her own fold drive, causing her hull to shimmer slightly as the fold bubble created a light-blue skin over the surface of her hull, and carrying her out of danger and into a dimension only accessible through the use of Protoculture-based fold drives.

The remaining three ships; another Valivarre-class cruiser and two Oberths, emerged directly behind the merchant vessels. The Valivarre, her l-Reflex cannon already charged, fired the massive energy weapon at the lead merchant vessel. The Oberths, meanwhile, targeted the next two in line, each firing volleys of 40 Spacelord missiles and two shots from their s-Reflex cannons, respectively.

Through the use of the ESUS entanglement, the blessing that the Kanuckistani had bestowed upon the war effort, Captain Whatley was able to observe the continuation of the battle from his bridge, even while his ship remained in Proto-space. Communications technology on Megan starships had never before allowed this, as they were unable to transmit between the dimensions.

Whatley was partly able to relax his tense frame. His ship was safe from immediate danger, at least. His fleet remained in midst of battle, however. He turned his attention to the frieghters and their Megan attackers. He only hoped that they would be able to finish the frieghters quickly enough that the remaining two Megan ships, which now faced overwhelming firepower, would be able to avoid annihilation. The target here was never the Dornalian warships, they only needed to be distracted long enough so that the goal of the mission could be realized: the destruction of the arms cargo headed for Whyatican space.

The merchant ships didn't react well to the attack. Despite their moves to try and evade the shots, and perhaps use their Gauss Miniguns on the Missiles, they took severe hits. The main vessel, sure enough, was crippled and exploded, the others recieved severe hits, and loud trippy music began playing as the engines failed, such was the nature of the Protoculture.

Thus, the New Dornalians moved quickly to try and cover their cargo. They swooped over them, and tried to dump tons more Demolisher Guns and Proton Torpedoes onto the enemy Megans, as they tried to figure out a way to get the men from the freighters out.

Somewhere in the New Territories, meanwhile:

Mulay Achmed Al-Juhziz simply waited in his private vessel, the Hand of God, for the order to move out. He was the black sheep of the Al-Juhziz Family, having once worked with the government--or rather, one of the agencies they sponsored, the People's Acolytes--and thus incurred the wrath of his father. His dear old dad hated the MacIntyre Administration with a vengance; it had ejected them from their ancestral homelands in Arabia for refusing to become Communist Party members. So when Mulay's pirate fleet did contract work for a group affiliated with them, it was troubling to him.

Now, Mulay thought, Dad will probably kick me out of the inheritance for sure. Well, damn him, times are tough, and damned cousin Abu ran off with some of my soldiers to the Aphotic.

He was referring to Siward's Raid, the crusade into Eshirian territory that ended up in a massive loss to the Pirate hordes that tried to rule it as their own kingdom. When the ES collapsed, they were swept up in the anarchy, never heard from again. The Pirate community had never recovered from that, and as a result, they had been weakened, and had broken up. Mulay was lucky not to have been too greatly involved in it; the Al-Juhziz organization survived mostly intact. But, it had also cemented government dominance over the New Territories spaceways.

So when the news that the MacIntyre Administration had decided to establish a force made up of pirates, military men, volunteers, and assorted riffraff called "Tiger Force" began spreading about among the bars, the back alleys, and the watering holes of the pirates, many joined in. They had no other choice. Besides, the offers of free equipment, training, and half of the booty was a big draw for many starving pirates. Mulay was one of them; he had not had a catch in weeks....

So it was that he signed up with Tiger Force, and had his men get equipped with standard New Dornalian equipment. Commandos taught them how to shoot with railguns, Navy men taught them the art of gunnery with Demolisher Guns and torpedoes that weren't overglorified IEDs.

Given that he was a bigwig in the world of smuggling and underworld politics, the handlers left him well alone to do his business, though he had a Commissar, of all things, attached to him--apparently, for "supervision" though he knew that it was to prevent him from straying one bit.

His total force was, so far, 6 of his own ships, equipped with 24 Demolisher Guns, 15 Torpedo Launchers, transporter capable, and had last generation plasma shielding supplied by the government--there were some things they refused to let him use, and 2 Mao Zedong Battleships--all ships had cloaking devices. They covered a convoy that was going from the New Territories to Talaax, and Mulay had his vessels acting as q-ships--they hid their weapons under the guise of ordinary shipping vessels. Reinforcements from Al-Juhziz's fleet were out there, along with regular Navy.

He also had some Talaaxians aboard, Yuuzhan Vong. Well, only his Commissar knew they were there; they were under Masquer coverage, so they didn't betray their true nature just yet. But, the Catgirls and the more superstitious members of the crew regarded them nonetheless as "Los Mensajeros de Muerta"- the Messengers of Death. Not that they called them that to their faces.

The job? Word had floated down from Whyatica that the enemy had begun raiding shipping there. ISB had estimated it was but a matter of time before the ESUS began taking privateering to the Workers State. Not only that, Tiger Force was unproven, and many felt that it was unwise....so, this would be their first test. They would use the skills they used hunting merchants, and turn them to protecting merchants.

Seemed simple enough.

He then turned to his First Mate, Jing, who had "The Weight" playing on the ship's radio, and said, with a voice suspiciously like Sean Connery's: "What's our course, Jing?"

Jing replied only, "Some distance out of New Hong Kong, following Struan's Trail. We'll be at East Wind soon, we're but ten light-hours."

Mulay nodded and said, "Aye. Carry on."

The Commissar assigned to him, Commissar Denikin, said, "Mr. Juhziz, you are aware of our mission?"

Mulay nodded and said, "Yes, I am Commissar. You doubt my navigational skill?"

Denikin shook his head, merely saying, "No. But I thought we were to attract people, not shirk away from them."

Mulay then chuckled, and said, pointing at Denikin, "Now Commissar, here is where you are wrong. Struan's Trail is a well traveled path; heavily trafficked by the local merchants--we don't just use the Gates, y'know. It is well known to the locals, and it is where we can get close to the furthest world and begin our trading rounds. Besides, it's not like we're hiding. I'm just taking a local path I know best."

Denikin said, "I would wonder why scum like you don't use the main roads."

Mulay then frowned and said, "Be kinder to your charges, Comrade. We are, after all, bailing you out."

OOC: Balrogga, your cue. I wanted to consult Talaax about what kind of Vong were onboard, but this was not possible.

Nhur-Galladu sat meditating. He was far from sitting there serene and unmoving; he was practicing some of his abilities by keeping tabs on several agents outlined in Grand Admiral Ga’Ton’s reports. He reached out and gently touched the minds of an agent without them even knowing they were contacted.

He checked with the progress of one of the Childer bust at work sabotaging No Endorse’s military production facilities. They were busy bypassing security to several power conduits resulting in them shorting and fusing yielding a serious period of downtime to hurt production. The host was just a custodian who had no knowledge of the electronics systems but the Childer had extracted the necessary knowledge from a High-Voltage Electrician earlier that day.

Next he touched the mind of a dockworker unloading a freighter. She checked the cargo manifest and relayed the inventory and destination to her contact. He should be seeing that information tomorrow at the latest.

Yet another contact was a “serving wench” at a popular tavern where crews would gather while they had leave. The Childer rode her mind without the host even knowing and picked the minds of the port bound crewmembers while they drank the watered down grog and ale. The information was again passed to their Control to be relayed further up the chain.

Suddenly Nhur-Galladu came across the mind of a dock worker who had just heard about a shipment from a trade caravan traveling along something called “Struan’s Trail”. According to the shipping list there was several blank spots just labeled Consignment Shipment. To the Emperor, it sounded like either beads and trinkets, or a hidden cargo of munitions headed for reinforcement of GFFA front lines.

Just to be safe he contacted the minds of one of the Battlegroup Commanders.

“Gar’Loun, I want you to send some ships to harass a convoy. Here are the coordinates.”

“Yes my Sire.”

About fifteen minutes later several ships slipped across the border of the New Territories deep within T-Space searching for the rumored caravan. They spread out into groups of three to make a larger search area. The dimensional sensors were peering our of T-Space, searching…

Aboard A New Dornalian Freighter

The Yuuzhan Vong warriors occupied a single cargo bay on the freighter, using it as personal quarters and a place to come together and enjoy good Yuuzhan Vong food - none of them could tolerate the garbage served aboard this vessel. There were twelve of them aboard, as well as a trio of Intendents, acting as infiltrators for now. In a few days they would become saviours, but for now their presence had to be kept secret lest an enemy mole report their presence. That was why they were all confined to masquers whenever not in quarters.

No Yuuzhan Vong ever liked the ooglith masquers. The process of donning one was excruciating, thousands of tiny hooks stuck themselves into the pores of the wearer and the masquer in essence became a second skin. They could be made to look like most any humanoid species. Usually they were human disguises but Duros and Givin had been used in the past. The Yuuzhan Vong looked human, albeit tall, oddly slender and overly muscular humans. Even so, something was just "off" about them.

Executor Nim Yarg'e, commander of the strike force, went about his rounds as usual. Ostensibly he was checking power conduits, but really he was just killing time. After a few days aboard, he'd stopped paying attention to the odd looks turned his way by members of the crew. Usually they avoided him and he avoided them. Today was different, a female engineering officer approached him, obviously noticing that he wasn't performing his duties. "Ensign, would you care to explain why you aren't properly scanning these power conduits?"

Yarg'e looked down at her, confused and momentarily at a loss for words. The tizowyrm in his ear "whispered" a translation and he thought fast for a response. "I... am off duty...."

The officer didn't believe him for a moment. "Let me see your duty roster."

Reluctantly he handed it over and sure enough, he was technically on duty. "It says here that you're on duty until 14:00 hours. Now, care to explain to me again why you aren't scanning these conduits?"

Now he was angry. The last thing he needed was to be hauled off to the brig, even though it was extremely doubtful this tiny human could ever take him somewhere he didn't want to go. He could just refuse to answer her any more, technically he wasn't under her command, but that would blow his cover. He HAD to say something, but what? "Lieutenant O'Riley ordered me to check out the main reactor. Said something about a fluctuating power output yesterday."

The woman stared at him for a few seconds, turning the story over in her mind. Eventually, she decided to buy it. "Very well Ensign, carry on."

Elsewhere in the ship, other members of the strike team went about their various "duties", mostly acquainting themselves with every inch of the ship. People generally avoided them, some because of their sheer size and others for somewhat justified superstitious reasons. Each day they were more and more likely to run into ESUS privateers and raiding forces. When that time came, the Yuuzhan Vong would show the ESUS why they are revered warriors the galaxy over.

About fifteen minutes later several ships slipped across the border of the New Territories deep within T-Space searching for the rumored caravan. They spread out into groups of three to make a larger search area. The dimensional sensors were peering our of T-Space, searching…

Their scans would have seen the convoy moving, with its complement of ships and 2 escorting vessels, formidable Mao Zedong battleships (as mentioned before). The q-ships would have been harder to spot, though....

However, one of the Maos detected something was up. Something on the Mao's scan indicated they were being watched....

"Comrade Captain, there is a signal off the port bow. Might be a scanning signal."

The Captain replied, "Any sign of who it is?"

The officer replied, "None yet. Still, I don't like it one bit, sir. Better inform Commissar Denikin and that Al-Juh-jeew-."

The Captain said smartly and quickly, "Al-Juhziz. Yes that fellow...."

He mulled it over, but he took no chances. Part of the success of this job was to spot threats quickly, and make sure everybody had a heads' up, all within a disciplined time. He then said, "Send a message to them, advise them of situation."

The officer nodded, and sent a secret transmission over the FTL frequency to the Hand of God. Jing picked it up, saying, "Captain. It seems the Qinghai is informing us of what may be an attempted scan on them and the convoy."

Mulay replied, beginning to pace the bridge: "Hmm....it may or may not be something else. Still, I've been in this business too long not to know the tricks of the trade. Somebody's pinging us, and with active signals too--the audacity. Might be a feint, I'd use it as a feint. But such is the fog of war. Either way, somebody's here, and they're knocking."

Denikin then said, "So, what do we do?"

Mulay replied, "Only reply to the Qinghai, tell them not to not act out of the ordinary, and tell the other combatants as well, quietly, using the signal we agreed on. Keep radio silence otherwise."

He then said to Jing, "Did you get that?"

Jing nodded and said, "Aye, sir."

He then pulled down the Gertrude unit, the standard communicator for any New Dornalian Pirate ship, and then spoke into it, calling to the other q-ships and the mao Zedongs on secure FTL, saying, "This is Mother Hen checking on her goldfish. Be advised, Smokey's got the flies out, repeat smokey's got the flies out. Advise swim on, don't take the bait. Start doing the trout dance only if he tangoes with you, but git ready, over."

The other q-ships got the message, and the Mao Zedongs had to rush to consult their New Dornalian Gertrude Dictionaries to figure it out. But, the order was clear, and thus, they kept going on, though the q-ships went on alert, not charging their weapons to stay off the scans of the enemy but certainly preparing for that eventuality.

The Gemini:


“Sir, I detected some activity but it subsided.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seemed there was an increase in the energy draw of their Comm Relays for a moment. I was unable to get anything else but the trace.”

“When did this occur?”

“Right after we began deep scans of the convoy.”

“Hmm. Either it was just a coincidence or somehow they detected the scans. Without knowing what was in those possible transmissions, there isn’t any way to know.”

Commander Gar’Loun thought for a few moments while reading the results of the scans. The hull densities of the ships seemed to be a little off from normal freighters but every nation allowed different armor specifications for their merchant marines. He was not sure what exactly would be considered normal in New Dornalia for civilian armor. The data banks were curiously vacant of such details. It held various scans on several of their military ships like their Drama Casserole and the Mao Zedong encountered in the Mirfak System.

“Send The Black Magic, The Kill Again, and The Exile ahead of the convoy and instruct them to use their scans. If there is some sort of reaction, then we know they are detecting the Deep Scans. Otherwise continue to monitor their every move. I want to know areas of weaknesses to target when we take the convoy.”

“Yes Sir, relaying commands now.”

“Good, now all we can do is wait.”



OOC:

What exactly am I looking at when I see the convoy? All I know is a number of ships and two battleships. Can you give me some OOC details so I could get a better grasp of what I can and cannot allow my forces to see?

My action I took is to see of you can detect the direction of the scan or just the presence guaged by your reaction. Of course if you take no reaction it would mean you are not detecting and the increase was just a random fluctuation in your systems I detected...

OOC:

What exactly am I looking at when I see the convoy? All I know is a number of ships and two battleships. Can you give me some OOC details so I could get a better grasp of what I can and cannot allow my forces to see?

My action I took is to see of you can detect the direction of the scan or just the presence guaged by your reaction. Of course if you take no reaction it would mean you are not detecting and the increase was just a random fluctuation in your systems I detected...

OOC: About 16 ships altogether. The Freighters, of which there'd be 8 real ones, would be arranged in a loose, boxy diamondoid formation, with the escorts at the sides and the Q-Ships--which would not be readily visible and only show up as merchant vessels with some what look like extra cargo spaces, they are Q-ships, after all--placed in groups of two at the front, back and middle of the formation.

BTW, these frieghters get the benefit of SW-level shielding and Gauss Miniguns and Ion Cannons for defensive measures, nothing really bad. The Q-ships, however....

IC:

The scans did not go unnoticed by Mulay aboard the Hand of God; indeed, two of the merchantmen in the front of the convoy foolishly broke radio silence and said, "Mother Hen, this is Cat-Puni. Smokey's casting flies, repeat, Smokey's casting flies, over."

Mulay then said, grunting cynically, "Hrumph. Guess they do mean business after all. They're fools to use active scan, unless they want to draw us out. If that's their plan.....bastards..."

He then said to Jing, "Inform all ships; tell them to keep going, make preparations as quietly as you can and not to break radio silence further unless in emergency."

Jing then replied, "Roger."

He then picked up the Gertrude again, and made a short, secure call.

"Mother Hen checking up on goldfish. Mother wants you to keep quiet and holler only if the fisher's casting nets. Having said that, Mother Hen wants the fish to pick up the pieces with grace and pay no mind to the peeping tom, just keep swimming. Smokey's up to something, over."

The Q-Ships and the Maos went to battle stations; men rushed to their stations and readied for the go-code to begin activating weapons. The rest of the merchantmen proceeded to get ready to activate their shields and defenses (though they didn't activate them yet). All the while, they continued to move as they had done....

“Sir, there has been a reaction.”

“What was it?”

“As soon as they should have detected our scans, the two lead ships broke radio silence.”

“What was their message? Run it through the descramblers and compare it to the info we acquired at Mirfak for the translation.”

“Yes Sir. Here is the translation now.

"Mother Hen, this is Cat-Puni. Smokey's casting flies, repeat, Smokey's casting flies, over."

“They use wonderfully complicated code wording. Apparently we are Smokey Bears and our sensors are flies.”

Gar’Loun thought for a few moments before issuing the next command.

“Command all ships to activate their Avatar Systems. We will use the Doppelgangers on them.”

“Yes Sir.”

Beneath the ships of the battlefleet, a shimmering began as the systems integral to the ship began to construct a replica of themselves. Slowly the form of the ship began to construct itself and took form. It started from inside and constructed itself to the outside hull. The immense power drain from this was fed directly from the Space Minus Taps.

“Sir, Avatar Systems completed. All ships report successful reproductions.”

“Place Patent Ships on autopilot and transfer controls to Child Ship.”

“Control transferred. Parent fleet on autopilot. Doppelganger fleet ready to go.”

Control systems were transferred from the ship and then redirected to the replica. The Mothership would only operate on Autopilot, meaning if anyone could get into T-Space, they were sitting ducks. All their systems now connected to their counterparts which now showed signs of life as they maneuvered out of the tractor beam locks and then collected a short distance away.

“Doppelganger Fleet ready to transfer, all control’s are routed through the Space Minus Transmitters. All systems are ready to go.”

Gar’Loun studied the displays of the positions for the convoy below. Something about their formations was bothering him but he could not place his finger on it.

“Be sure to get complete scans of all ships. Power levels, molecular comparisons, and everything else you can. I want to know what the crew ate for breakfast. Send in the Frigates and open up with a volley of Grav Torps aimed at the escorts. Be sure to activate the Jammers. Take out as many of the Escorts as you can in the first attack. At the very least, get them to abandon their charges. Let’s make them hurt.”



Real Space:

The sudden appearance of the frigates ahead was not unexpected but their full load of singularity missiles might have been. Eighteen torps from each frigate hit Void and began to zero in on the escorts. Moments later three more appeared below the convoy, releasing their loads into the enemy. The last two frigates faded into Real Space behind the convoy. They let their loads of eighteen torpedoes loose upon the enemy.





OOC:

Here is the ship roster I have in the Battlegroup:


Gamma Battle Group

Avatar
1. Gemini

Battleship
1. Violent Pacification
2. Spiritual Law

Cruiser
1. Overt Enemy
2. Unguarded Instinct
3. Threshold
4. Spirit In Black
5. Ghosts Of War

Destroyer
1. Here Comes The Pain
2. Seven Faces
3. Can’t Stand You
4. Death’s Head
5. Born Of Fire

Frigate
1. Black Magic
2. Crionics
3. Show No Mercy
4. Kill Again
5. Epidemic
6. Blood Red
7. Mr. Freeze
8. Exile

Explorer
1. Memories Of Tomorrow

Only the frigates have appeared so far. The Carrier, the Cruisers, and the Explorer did not construct Avatars and don’t plan on entering combat unless needed. The Avatar Systems cannot turn into Kythons and are not infectious but you can assume they are if you want to use Mirfak gained knowlege in this.

Only the frigates have appeared so far. The Carrier, the Cruisers, and the Explorer did not construct Avatars and don’t plan on entering combat unless needed. The Avatar Systems cannot turn into Kythons and are not infectious but you can assume they are if you want to use Mirfak gained knowlege in this.

OOC: Noted.

IC:

The masses of torpedoes was met with Gauss Minigun fire from all sides. The Merchantmen quickly raised shields as well. However, despite these measures, damage was felt as the ships were rocked, especially from the rear, where minor damage was recorded to thrusters from the merchants, and the escorts, which suffered minor damage.

Scans, meanwhile, found the New Dornalian Q-ships to be something apart from their merchant comrades, though this fact would soon become irrelvant....

Mulay quickly then ordered, "All units, commence defensive measures!"

Jing quickly translated that as, "Mother Hen to all goldfish, Smokey's come calling. Roll out the welcome mat, over."

The Q-Ships then roared to life, as did the Mao Zedongs.

Mulay then cried, "Commissar, do you think it is time for the Package?"

Denikin only replied, "You run the damn ship."

Mulay then said, "That's a yes then. Jing, turn on the package! Have all units retaliate, deploy ECM!"

Jing then said, "Yes sir. However, there seems to be ECM jamming us."

Mulay then replied, "Then begin frequency hopping. Use the Force, if needed."

Jing then said, "Aye, sir."

-------

The Package in question was an experimental Mannerheim II FTLi unit, concealed onboard the Hand. Tuned to maximum power, the unit, targeted to distrupt not only the common gravitic FTLs but also the more esoteric dimensional and time-based types, projected a bubble around the fleet as wide as they could, though admittedly, the FTLi bubble was only going to go so far, and it did take plenty of power.

Then, as some semblance of communications got through to one another, Tiger Force opened up their arsenal, and opened fire with overwhelming spreads of Ion Torpedoes upon the Frigates, targeting their weapons and power systems, while the Tiger Force deployed their own ECM, targeting the Frigates and attempting to deny them communications with one another....

T-Space:

Gar’Loun continued to look at the display of the convoy’s formation when it struck him. He chuckled and called up information on the scans of individual ships of the convoy. The Commander noticed there were about half a dozen nearly identical ships on point, rear, and mid guard. He then compared the mass readings of the two different types of freighters and found there was a significant difference in the molecular density of their hulls. The suspicious ships also seemed to have different power structure readings than the other freighters. There was power diverted to different structures throughout the ships hull while the other freighters were mainly shields, engines, and a couple weapons placements.

“Hehehe. They thought they could disguise their ships as freighters but they didn’t count on someone with superior sensors. Command the fleet to concentrate fire on all the targets I have indicated.”

“Yes Sir.”

He watched the results of the initial flight of Grav Torps as they impacted against the two battleships. The next attack would include all the escorts instead of just the two visible ones.

“Sir, I read return fire from the targets. They are retaliating from the attacks. I am also picking up dimensional disturbances. Nothing major, a class IV disturbance that seems to be emitted from one of the ships.”

“Is it affecting the Space Minus Relays?”

“There are mild problems but the interference can be powered through by a 17% increase in signal strength.”

“Pass your recommendation to the rest of the ships. Good thinking.”

“Sir, what happens if they manage to cut us off?”

“Good point. Send Contingency Command Omega. If the Avatar looses contact with the Space Minus Transmitter, it will attempt to close with the closest target ship on auto and detonate.”

“Relaying the CCO order. Order received and being downloaded into Avatars.”

“Damage report from their return volley.”

“Torpedo damage seems to be minor for the main part. The Reactive Armor managed to absorb a general 82% of the damage while systems are attempting repairs.”

“Delay reprisal. Command the ships to power down like they have lost power. Make them dead in the water. Let them think their FTLi trick immobilized them. Cut engines and let them drift, even if they collide with each other. We are dead. We are powerless. We are beaten.”

“Yes Sir, orders relayed.”

“Switch scans to passive and watch what is going on. This might prove to be interesting to watch."




Real Space:


The Frigates took several torpedo hits and then the FTLi went on. The ships seemed to drift lifeless. Power reading showed minimal at best. The scans were no longer detectable.

Real Space:


The Frigates took several torpedo hits and then the FTLi went on. The ships seemed to drift lifeless. Power reading showed minimal at best. The scans were no longer detectable.

Jing then reported, "Sir, the enemy's lost power. No signs of scanning or anything."

Denikin then said, "Just like that?"

Jing then reported, "Just like that. They've lost power."

Mulay then said, shaking his head, "Too damn easy, they must be manually cutting off the power to lure us in....they never deal with pirates before? They have guts, I should say."

He then smiled and said, "Jing, have all vessels ensure they stay dead. Lure them in close with tractor beams, and pepper their weapons with Ion Torpedoes. Keep the guns disabled. Have the men prepare boarding parties."

The Frigates were thus targeted in this manner, with ion torpedoes firing at their weapons systems to disable them, then using tractor beams to latch onto them and drag them close, whilst the call to assemble boarding parties was assembled.

These parties consisted of quite possibly, some of the most interesting (to say the least) individuals to raid the spaceways. They included Catgirls and Elves driven to the edge of society looking for quick cash and adventure, human ne'er-do-wells, ex-cons, mercenaries, and adventurers, plus crazies and Acolytes alike that could handle Mindworms, fearsome wormlike creatures that congregated in bunches and could use nasty psychic attacks to defeat their prey before consuming them. This would be a fun ride, as skiffs were prepared, and plenty of explosives and cutting lasers were prepped for breaching the hull....

Real Space:

The eight frigates remained drifting, unless their course was altered by collision or being reeled in with the tractor beams. They were hauled in without any resistance and they still appeared to be completely dead. Here and there, a marker light feebly tried to light or blink but that was a rare case and the only sign of life for the 60 meter vessels.

As the frigates were drawn to their captors, they were irradiated with ion radiation. The feeble lights that were once attempting to retain the faded glory of life, simply ceased to glow, other than the occasional crackle of ion energy grounding out.

The Enemy’s sensors found it very difficult to read anything from within the hull, almost as if there was a layer of dense plating. What they could tell is there was no hint of internal power nor was there any detectable hatch other than the torpedo tubes. There were no doors, launch bays, or other means of egress in sight.



T-Space:


“Sir, it appears they are drawing the Avatars in and irradiating them with Ion weaponry.”

“Damages?”

“The outer hull is affected by the radiation. The Adaptive Armor will be non-functional and any electrical system not protected by the inner hull will be completely non-functional. Emitters are down and Shields are null.”

“Was Containment breached?

“Negative, Containment is still secure and not breeched in any way.”

“Continue to have them play dead.”

“Yes Sir.”

The thickness of the hull dismayed Mulay and the crews. He promptly ordered them to hold back, saying sadly, "Hmm...it'll take too much time to break in with lasers and detpacks. By that time, they may bring in help, not good."

Denikin merely rolled his eyes again. He then said, "You know, we have teleporters. Why use such barbaric measures to sieze a ship?"

Mulay then said, "Hmmm...if it will expedite the process, fine--I'm more used to the old ways though. Still, you have a point, instantly warping in highbinders may do the job...."

Denikin then said, puzzled: "Highbinders?"

Mulay then said, "My men. What you call Marines or Infantry, we call Highbinders in my organization."

He then continued: "Very well. Prepare teams for teleport, two teams of Highbinders per ship--bring Mindworms. Keep up ECM coverage, let no communications in and out--intensify it to try and throw off their scans, and keep messing with all frequencies."

Denikin also said, "Watch for possible infectious agents, like Kythons."

Mulay then said, sighing, "That too."

The order was carried out, the ND ECM was maintained and intensified, as the ships began making transporter lock onto the wounded vessels and the Highbinders, two teams of 21 men each (20 Highbinders and 1 Regular NCO or Officer accompanying as command) were teleported onboard the enemy ships, with accompanying Marine commanders. They immediately began to fan out, watching themselves as they scanned the vessel armed with Gauss Rifles, Shotguns, Railpistols, chainswords, lightsabers, hatchets, detpacks, RPG-Krak missiles and grenades, and whatever weapons they could bring, along with Mindworms acting like dogs to sniff out life or traps, for that matter, with their psychic powers.

The boarding teams were standing ready when the Transporter Computers activated their fail-safe subroutines as they detected the inability to achieve a proper transporter lock through the interference generated by the inner hull which was preventing scans. To continue, they would have to disable the fail-safes.



OOC:

The Enemy’s sensors found it very difficult to read anything from within the hull, almost as if there was a layer of dense plating. What they could tell is there was no hint of internal power nor was there any detectable hatch other than the torpedo tubes. There were no doors, launch bays, or other means of egress in sight.

I was not sure if you caught that part so I made a short post detailing your fail-safe activating. I was not sure your systems would port into an unknown location and you didn't mention anything about it.

The boarding teams were standing ready when the Transporter Computers activated their fail-safe subroutines as they detected the inability to achieve a proper transporter lock through the interference generated by the inner hull which was preventing scans. To continue, they would have to disable the fail-safes.



OOC:

I was not sure if you caught that part so I made a short post detailing your fail-safe activating. I was not sure your systems would port into an unknown location and you didn't mention anything about it.

OOC: Interesting judgment. I am surprised you did as such, but then again, I can let it slide this time. The way my post was set it, it implies they would have let them go through to the unknown spot--I've done site-site teleportation before, with the torpedo drops at Mirfak.

IC:

Jing then reported with surprise, "Captain, the transporters have locked up."

Mulay then said, frowning, "Why?"

Denikin then said, slapping his head: "You fool. They're programmed to activate only when they get positive confirmation that they have locked onto a clear area. It prevents incidences of people warping into walls and such. I thought you knew this."

Mulay then replied, "Usually, men on my ship don't talk back like this...now's not the time....fine. They want confirmation." He walked up to Jing's station and said, "Unlock them, I'll enter my go-code."

Jing then began the process, and Mulay then entered his go-code. Denikin insisted on entering his too, after it was discovered his authorization was needed too....afterwards, Mulay ordered, "Tell the others to intensify scans of the vessels. I want to see everything in them, use as much power as you need to break through the interference being put up. Once we determine its safe, then we deploy. Get moving, tow them with us!"

A massive increase in active scans was made, scanning the ships over and over in an attempt to examine their contents...this was done as the ships were towed along with the vessels in the convoy via tractor beam, FTLi and ECM up, and all.

OOC: In other words, I am putting up a humongous amount of energy into my scans which should be enough to break through the inner wall and see what's inside. And I have ECM being thrown up, so you may not notice much.....

The massive power channeled through their sensors managed to penetrate the inner hull for a ways. The results showed mostly closed space. Machinery and other systems seemed to take up most of the space they were able to get a solid scan of. The largest empty space was in the weapons bay.

The frigates were drawn alongside the New Dornalia vessels without any sign of resistance. They just floated in space where they were allowed to.



T-Space:

“Sir, they appear to be throwing a lot of energy at the drones.”

“Is it affecting the Containment?”

“It appears to be leaving those systems unaffected. None of the Avatars show sign of breech at this moment.”

“Keep me informed of any changes. If they seem to get bored of them, we will give them something to cure them of that boredom.”

The massive power channeled through their sensors managed to penetrate the inner hull for a ways. The results showed mostly closed space. Machinery and other systems seemed to take up most of the space they were able to get a solid scan of. The largest empty space was in the weapons bay.

The frigates were drawn alongside the New Dornalia vessels without any sign of resistance. They just floated in space where they were allowed to.

Mulay then said, "Send a squad of Highbinders to each ship's weapons bay. It looks like there's not much besides....watch for infections. An intelligence man will go with each team to inspect things, and then we will go back. We'll then fire regular torpedoes at them, and then collect the scraps for later."

Thus, the Highbinders were finally teleported into the weapons bays, just a single squad of 10 men with either an ISB man or a Marine Commando weapons expert, and then they proceeded to begin inspecting the weapons bays...

The merchant ships didn't react well to the attack. Despite their moves to try and evade the shots, and perhaps use their Gauss Miniguns on the Missiles, they took severe hits. The main vessel, sure enough, was crippled and exploded, the others recieved severe hits, and loud trippy music began playing as the engines failed, such was the nature of the Protoculture.

Thus, the New Dornalians moved quickly to try and cover their cargo. They swooped over them, and tried to dump tons more Demolisher Guns and Proton Torpedoes onto the enemy Megans, as they tried to figure out a way to get the men from the freighters out.

OOC: Sorry it's taken me so long. I've no excuse except that RL is a bitch.

IC:

The Valivarre recovered from her pass at the merchant vessels and sped around in an attempt to flank the approaching Dornalian warships. She unloaded another volley of Spacelord missiles, forty slendor projectiles erupted from her missile tubes and leapt in the direction of the lead Lin-Biao.

Even as two of the Oberths pounded the freighters, they came under barrage by the Dornalian warships, suffering a great amount of damage to shielding. Compensating for the incoming fire with point-defense cannons, they executed a series of evasive maneuvers, all the while continuing to berate the freighters.

Meanwhile, the other two Oberths took advantage of their opponents' momentary ignorance of them. They maneuvered to the Dornalian ships' flank, and unleashed a torrent of missiles and s-Reflex cannon fire directly at the Dornalian rear.

OOC: Sorry it's taken me so long. I've no excuse except that RL is a bitch.

IC:

The Valivarre recovered from her pass at the merchant vessels and sped around in an attempt to flank the approaching Dornalian warships. She unloaded another volley of Spacelord missiles, forty slendor projectiles erupted from her missile tubes and leapt in the direction of the lead Lin-Biao.

The lead Lin Biao tried to evade the missiles or shoot them down, but a few got glancing hits to the shields and hull, before retailiating with Demolisher Gun fire.

Even as two of the Oberths pounded the freighters, they came under barrage by the Dornalian warships, suffering a great amount of damage to shielding. Compensating for the incoming fire with point-defense cannons, they executed a series of evasive maneuvers, all the while continuing to berate the freighters.

The freighters were freaking out, calling for assistance as another one failed, crippled by the enemy. The warships en route dumped more of the same fire onto their erstwhile foe....

Meanwhile, the other two Oberths took advantage of their opponents' momentary ignorance of them. They maneuvered to the Dornalian ships' flank, and unleashed a torrent of missiles and s-Reflex cannon fire directly at the Dornalian rear.

...before the Protoculture did unpredicatble damage to shields, all of it moderate heavy, with wildly varying effects ranging from people hearing Keith Moon sing badly, to the engines shorting out. The missiles were the insult to injury, breaking through in some cases and damaging the engines. The ships were damaged, but then switched to emergency drives, using their shields to propel themselves in some cases (OOC: ND Shields are capable of that.) to fire some more upon the enemy....all the while, plans were made to evacuate...

The Boarding Team materialized in the weapons bay. The space was tight and filled with machinery that could easily be determined as being for reloading the launch tubes. There were tracks that the torpedoes would follow. One end terminated at the housing where it was loaded into the launcher. The other end of the short track was a holding area for several waiting torpedoes. On the other side was another track leading away to a strange device with a half-formed torpedo still lying upon the work surface. There were almost a half dozen torps in the waiting area, on the tracks, and loaded ready to fire. The machinery seemed to be dead still at the moment.

Instruments showed there was not an atmosphere contained within the weapons bay.

The silence seemed to hang heavy over the team as they floated and otherwise tried to maneuver in the zero gravity space.

The only power sources they could locate was the self contained systems inside the Torps.



T-Space:

“Sir!”

“What is it?”

“We have an intrusion in a couple ships. I picked up an energy reading and then movement inside the weapon bays.”

“Monitor them and keep an eye on the condition of the Containment.”

“Yes Sir.”

Photos were taken of the interior, the method of autoloading and the half-formed torpedo proving to be of great interest as the Highbinder team manuevered about through the corridorswith flashlights. They had to put on their oxygen masks; the lack of an atmosphere would prove problematic otherwise as they manuevered as best as they could through the halls, to aft, forward, and sides.

It seemed these Avatars, as they were called, were indeed drones, but drones with perhaps capacity to replicate torpedoes. And, they had a lot of redundancy in their torpedo racks-each tube had its own bay, unlike the simpler New Dornalian system. This meant that the torpedo launchers could keep firing, independent of one another's failure. They took the half formed torpedo and a full one (the size was massive, it took two of the Highbinders to lift it and place a transporter beacon on it), and had them teleported aboard the ship to waiting containment areas (and sent the pictures back), and attempted to remove the device as well for future study...they were careful, though, not to provoke anything that could be infectious. They were warned of the Baroggan Kythons. Perhaps there might be some here? (OOC: There won't be, but they're ICly still kinda fearful...)

Mulay then said, "Send a squad of Highbinders to each ship's weapons bay. It looks like there's not much besides....watch for infections. An intelligence man will go with each team to inspect things, and then we will go back. We'll then fire regular torpedoes at them, and then collect the scraps for later."

Thus, the Highbinders were finally teleported into the weapons bays, just a single squad of 10 men with either an ISB man or a Marine Commando weapons expert, and then they proceeded to begin inspecting the weapons bays...

Shall I assume the same thing is happening on each of the ships?

Also, there are 18 weapons bays on each ship. Every launch tube has its own weapons bay with racks. It is designed that way to prevent the possibility of taking them all out with a lucky shot, each needing to be seperately disabled.

Gotta love excessive redundancy

Shall I assume the same thing is happening on each of the ships?

Also, there are 18 weapons bays on each ship. Every launch tube has its own weapons bay with racks. It is designed that way to prevent the possibility of taking them all out with a lucky shot, each needing to be seperately disabled.

Gotta love excessive redundancy

OOC: Yes. Assume they find that bit out, and take from one tube when they do the job. Lemme make the appropriate edits.

T-Space:


“Sir.”

“Yes?”

“I now read foreign intrusions in all Avatars. Movement registers in the weapons bay. Boarders have entered them using a teleporter and according to data, they have removed some of the munitions. I detected an energy spike indicating a beam-out.”

“Is it the same in all eight Avatars?”

“Yes Sir, the data backs this up. Each ship sent away teams into our drones and returned with munitions.”

“Position of the Avatars in relation to the enemy vessels?”

“They were brought alongside before the boarding attempts.”

“Hmmm… If they want them so badly, let’s give it to them. Signal activation of Torps. Follow that command with the deactivation of the Containment Fields stabilizing the Core.”

“Yes Sir, Avatar self-destruct initiated.”



Hold of a random New Dornalia ship:


The Torpedo the boarding team sent back remained where it was placed. Inside the unit, a signal was received sent through the Space Minus Receiver circuits. A red LED turned green and the energy the torp contained was channeled into the projectors in the nosecone. The energy focused about five meters “ahead” of the Torp and it coalesced into a bright event. As more energy and raw gravity was focused into it, the manifestation grew brighter until it could no longer be viewed without protective lenses or the retinas would burn. The fact the gravitational forces would have torn the eyes from the viewer is irrelevant. The manifestation suddenly collapsed into a sphere of blackness. The fully formed singularity began to pull everything it could into its hungry maw; warping and twisting metal like it was a newspaper in a hurricane.



Weapons Bay of random Avatar Frigate:


The partially formed torpedo on the work surface had a green LED light up. Since the Emitters in the nose were not formed, nothing else happened to that Torpedo. The other torpedoes in the racks all activated in a similar manner as the ones that were beamed over to the New Dornalia vessels. Half a dozen Singularities were formed and the weapons bay began to be shredded and sucked into the hungry ebon maws. All through the ship in all 18 bays and in the seven other frigates the same thing happened.

Deep within the ship behind a heavily shielded barrier, the containment field in the Singularity Drive faltered. The carefully balanced energy system lost the ability to remain self-contained. The technology compressing the huge singularity failed and it burst out of its shackles, devouring the core and the ship as it expanded. It would very quickly engulf the entire Avatar, as it was designed.



T-Space:


“Sir, destruct sequences initiated.”

“Results?”

“All Avatar vessels read as disintegrated.”

“What about the ND Vessels?”

“Currently unknown, awaiting data…”

There were internal forcefields around the torpedoes, active as they were beamed aboard. Meant to hold explosions, they now had to hold one of the most powerful forces of nature ever encountered. Power was quickly increased to them, the personnel rant the hell out of the respective bays, and they were able to hold, just barely, for now...

Mulay felt the buckling, and said, "What the hell?!"

Jing said, "Sir, ships are reporting massive singularities...they're coming from within and without! Highbinders report singularities. IT'S A TRAP!"

Mulay then said, "Inform all vessels, get those damn torps out beyond our forces! NOW!"

All over the fleet, the fields were hastily used to contain the torps just before they fully went insane, and before they were prompty beamed out into a random set of coordinates very far away from the forces. In fact, they were flung out to the original approach vector the enemy had come from, though they made sure to put them very, very far away. However, only a few ships were able to pull off this epic manuever--two of the Q-ships were taken out in the process, and the rest suffered interior damage, owing to the massive forces involved. They then warped out as many of their comrades as they could-they still lost some to the fierce gravity storms the enemy had made--but were forced to stop due to the fierce gravity storms. Thus, about fifty men died in the capture attempts..... They then proceeded to exit out of the Area, at Bosun Jump, to a short but meaningful distance away from the mess.

OOC:/me returns triumphantly to FT..sorta..anyway, time to kick-start this thing.

Within T-Space, the violet energy surges flashed and shot randomly past the four shadows seemingly floating in a sea of turbulence. Many times a bolt that would have the energy to disintegrate a small planet discharged harmlessly off their dimensional shields which were specifically designed and attuned for travel through the maelstrom of T-Space. The Black Magic, The War Zone, The Wicked, and overshadowing all three, The Fictional Reality.

Aboard the Interceptor Destroyer, Captain De’Shan was looking at his ships, formulating his final plan of attack. He compared the tactics shown previously by Minbari captains and attempted to compose the most efficient battleplan.

“Captain, we are getting a signal. It is our forward scout at Tragati. They sent word the liner has left accompanied by an escort.”

“Excellent, this show will finally get going. ETA?”

“Twenty four minutes.”

“In twenty minutes I want The Black Magic and The War Zone in Real Space. They will have their jammers active so word does not get out of the attack. Prepare The Wicked to Emerge, completing our supposed triad pattern.”

”Yes Sir.”

The two frigates took their places and Emerged into Real Space, activating their jammers and waited for their guests to arrive.

“Sir, we have incoming in Jump Space. They are just about at the anomaly. They just got pulled into Real Space.”

“Move The Wicked into place.”

“Yes Sir.”

The Wicked appeared off the starboard bow of The Sentinel.

“As soon as they detect weapons charging, initiate the plan.”

The Sentinel fired their electromagnetic weaponry while the liner also fired theirs. Both ships were aiming at the same frigate, The Wicked. Normally that would have caused worry but The Plan was already in action. The Wicked simply faded away as energy beams crossed the space where it had been moment before.

The War Zone and The Black Magic began to move, fast. They circled the pair of trapped ships almost a blur due to their great speed. They Uplifted and Emerged as they flew, joining The Wicked in their dizzying frantic seeming dance around the ships. Each time they Emerged, they fired their Ion Cannons at the ships attempting to affect the shields. Many times the shots fired at them simple passed through the spot they were moments before or missed because the ship wasn’t in Real Space anymore.

Things will soon get worse...


The last post in our encounter was #36.