NationStates Jolt Archive

Thessalonica, Empiricalis
The Thessalonica system had always been an area where the outcasts of society lived; In the numerous space-habitats, stations, and the one habitable planet, rebellions had formed and been suppressed very rapidly by the Empiricalite Third Fleet, which held station-keeping in Thessalonica. Pirate attacks became frequent, happening enough times that the Admiral of the 3rd had to make a fast decision. Either they hold their ground in Thessalonica, or write it off and destroy it. Despite the relatively long distance from Thessalonica to the capital, Empiricalis Prime, the Admiral did not have autonomy in this case. Request after request to destroy Thessalonica was denied.

Admiral Olaf Bronkaski was described as "a fucking nutcase" by the other Admirals. He advocated a more 'aggressive' foreign policy, despite Empiricalis not having neighbours for several thousand light-years. As a naval commander, he was brilliant, having suppressed numerous armed rebellions in Thessalonica without the threat of force, and some with one shot from his Union class battleship's main guns. His control over his fleet was maintained with an iron fist; Any dissent from his ranks was dealt with harshly, and if one looked hard enough with active sensors, spaced crewmen could usually be found floating about in the void. Despite these occasional spacedy executions, the majority of the fleet agreed with Olaf and his views, and the distrust of the Empire Naval Authority mounted.

Asteroid Base Delta-7, Thessalonica
D7 was an asteroid carved out at least a dozen years ago by armed rebels, fitted with as much gear as could be bought off the black market, and remained hidden for years. A crew of two hundred souls called D7 home, and they finally were preparing to make their move against the armed occupation of what was once their home. For you see, the rebels of D7 were there when the occupation of Thessalonica began. It was not always an Empiricalite system. Natives of this system once lived here in peace and comfort, when an Empiricalite exploratory party stumbled upon it. They declared the system as part of the Empire, and quickly suppressed the few spaceships the Thessalonicans had developed. The Third Fleet arrived some weeks after to officially take control over the system and suppress the remaining rebellion.

"Boys.. Today we're going to make our move, we're going to strike at the Empiricalites, destroy their armies on our Homeworld, and make them hurt. We'll probably die in our mission, but we'll make our mark in their history, and they'll forever remember us. Let's hit it!" Those words were spoken by one Travis Shar, the de facto commander of Delta 7. The Deltans, as they called themselves, cheered as their commander spoke what could be his final speech, and boarded their stolen Avenger fighters and B27 bombers.

Assembled in front of the asteroid station, Travis Shar transmitted, "We will maintain radio silence as of the end of this transmission. Avenger Wing up ahead, Bee Wing behind us. Move out."

The fighters began to move out, their microfusion reactors powering them through space at the maximum safe acceleration. When they got the velocity necessary, they cut engines, cruising through space nearly invisible to sensors, as their power output was ridiculously low without engines on. They would be in position in approximately 3 hours, and the Deltans had no need to rush. They had waited 7 years for this moment, and they would savor every minute of it.

Three Hours Later
The fighters slowly activated their engines and decelerated at their first position point. The Deltan assault group knew what to do. They had simulated it dozens of times using the stolen computers on D7, and the pilots could do this with their eyes closed. They'd rather not do that, but they could. Avenger wing began their terminal run, running escort for the B27 wing, which carried the most lethal type of bomb they could obtain - the three hundred megaton fusion warhead used in the anti-capital torpedoes. There were larger fusion bombs used in the Empiricalite Grand Navy, but those were much more difficult to obtain, naturally. It was a wonder that the Deltans could even obtain the three hundreds. Anyway, the Deltan fighter wings progressed quite slowly to Thessalonica, their plan timed to the exact moment when the largest Empiricalite military base on the planet would be directly ahead of them as the planet rotated.

No sensors were tripped. Pirates raided sensor stations almost daily, and Admiral Bronkaski gave an executive order to "not bother with the damn stations anymore", as they were being destroyed daily. This was almost the perfect environment for a daring suicide raid on Thessalonica. The Deltans no longer cared about civilian casualties. The only thing on their minds was destroying the invaders.

As they closed to 85,000 kilometres, some sensor stations picked up on the fighters incoming as they did, in fact, have mass, but failed to report it to the Third Fleet, as there was no optical confirmation that they were anything but small meteorites. No power signature, after all.

55,000 kilometres. They were now technically within range, and the Avengers activated their engines and accelerated, shooting at pretty much everything in sight. Sensor stations in orbit of the planet were targetted with kinetics, anything else within range with the small pea-shooter lasers used in their Avengers. No word yet to the Third..

Finally, the moment of truth, and the B27s fired off their torpedoes, and set their course to engage the fleet if they ever actually responded..

Thessalonica
The largest military base stood 200 kilometres away from the capital city of the planet. One hundred thousand marines called it home away from home, and it was the commanding presence on the planet. Any armed insurrections were dealt with almost instantly, as fighters could be dispatched at any time and ground troops could reach anywhere on the planet in half an hour. As such, the planet was peaceful at most times.

None of them expected the torpedoes until it was much too late. Everything at ground zero of the blast was vaporised, the atoms annihilated almost instantly as the torpedoes impacted. As death rained down upon Thessalonica, word finally got out.

EGNS Imperial Guard
"Admiral! Admiral!" a young ensign from the sensory division ran off a lift, taking breaths and saluted to the Admiral as he got onto the bridge. "There have just been a bunch of nuclear explosions on the planet, and there's a wing of rebel fighters approaching the fleet!"

Admiral Bronkaski sat up stiff, and said, "Lieutenant, confirm that."

"Confirmed, Admiral. Numerous fusion warheads were used against Fort Davis on the planet, and I am not detecting any power signs from the Fort. There are also 8 Avenger type fighters and 5 B27 type bombers on an attack course."

"Destroy the planet. Do it now. Deploy the corvettes to intercept the rebel fighters, send a transmission to the Naval Authority that we have dealt with the rebels in Thessalonica once and for all. Send I Frigate Division and IV Frigate Division into the asteroid field. They are to destroy every rebel base and ship they find. There will be no mercy for these swine."

The Captain of Imperial Guard stared, wild-eyed at Admiral Bronkaski and said, "I must advise you, sir, that you are disobeying a direct order from the Naval Authority. They gave you a direct order not to destroy Thessalonica at any cost."

Olaf looked at the Captain and said, "I don't care. They have struck at us for the last time, Captain, and if you do not like it, I advise you leave this ship right now."

Captain Dunn glared at the Admiral with eyes saying something like "One day, I'm going to kill you." and sat down, staring at his control panel.

"So, damnit, do it!" Olaf yelled, and the bridge crew snapped back into their duties, transmitting orders and the like.

The Deltan fighter wings ignored the incoming fire, and just flew straight at the charging Empiricalite corvette squadrons, and were quickly torn apart in hails of particle beam fire, their atoms being the last vestiges of the Deltan Resistance. Two Frigate divisions left the main fleet, headed to the asteroid field, to sweep the field and find the base from where this attack was launched, and destroy all rebel activity once and for all.

In the case of the Imperial Guard, she moved into geostationary orbit of Thessalonica, accompanied by several Dragonnaire class attack carriers. As one, hundreds of hypervelocity fusion torpedoes crashed against the planet, killing thousands wherever they touched, wiping out life with impunity. The bombardment would last for hours, the planet scorching to the point where it would be highly implausible for the smallest bacteria to remain living.

EGNS Imperial Guard
Captain Donald Dunn left the bridge, under the excuse that he was going to end his shift early, as he had developed a headache. After the lift went up to the non-rotating section, he felt that familiar floating feeling as gravity left. He gave a quick push to his legs as the lift doors opened, grabbing onto the rails used to propel oneself in the zero-g sections of the ship. The only way to transmit messages from Thessalonica to Empiricalis Prime was by means of FTL message probe, and this was handled in the Probe Division, near the hangars. Donald entered the section quietly, the men mostly goofing off and not noticing his entry. He tapped a crewman on the shoulder and said, "Crewman, I need to use your console briefly."

The crewman, who will never be seen in this roleplay again, said, "Aye, sir." and vacated his console to go on break.

Donald, being trained in this, of course, quickly typed out a message for the Naval Authority using the crewman's information, and downloaded it to a probe. As he tried to launch the probe, the computer threw up an error, stating that all comm probes required the approval of a senior officer.

There goes my cover.. Dunn thought, and put his authorization code in, and launched the probe.

It quickly shot away from the ship, activating it's micro-Alcubierre drive, beginning it's journey to Empiricalis Prime.

As Captain Dunn left the probe division, he was stopped by two large security guards, carrying kinetic rifles and generally being large people. One of them said, "Admiral Bronkaski told us to watch you, and if you do anything suspicious, to kill you. I'm sorry to say, you've done something suspicious. Bye."

The guard shot Captain Dunn once, before he could even react. They grabbed his now-inert body, and floated towards the nearest airlock. Twenty minutes after his death, Captain Dunn joined with the void as his corpse floated, for the rest of eternity. Or alternately, until he flew into a sun or something a million years from now. Them's the breaks.

Admiral Bronkaski walked (floated?) down to the probe section after the mess was cleaned off the walls, ceiling, and the like, and said to the first crewman he saw, "Write a message to the Naval Authority, then I will use your console and write the body."

The crewman quickly vacated his post, watching the message the Admiral wrote carefully. It was simply, "I declare the Naval Authority to be an enemy of the Empire, and I will dispose of it as I deem necessary." The crewman cringed as he watched the Admiral write. He was torn between his loyalty to the Emperor and the Navy, and his loyalty to Admiral Bronkaski. But because this crewman will never appear again, he doesn't matter.

Admiral Bronkaski finished his message, launched the probe, and gave the post back to the crewman. He walked to a computer panel on the wall (ceiling? Depends on your point of view), and punched in the keys for a fleetwide communication. He said,

"The Naval Authority has declared us to be enemies of the Empire for our actions against the rebels of Thessalonica. For this I say, we will stand by our actions, and we will be victorious over the weak forces of the Naval Authority that wished to let the Pirates live. We will be victorious, soldiers, and nobody will get in our way!"

The Empiricalis Civil War has begun.

bump. I know it's long, but please read it and post!

The I/R vessel Mouse was in the area and was doing its assigned duty of gathering information. The unarmed ship depended on it's insanely small sensor profile and host of ECM systems for protection. While not capable of intercepting a hyprespace capable probe, (that had been written down somewhere as it was the first form of communication discovered that this type of ship could not intercept) the crew had witnessed the brutal attack on the planet. A report had been sent via burst transmission back to command, but they weren't expecting anyone to come, not with most of the military preparing to assault another planet in its bid to retake an invaded system. Still, the crew wished they knew what had brought on this sudden onslaught of violence. They had only been there a day or so and had no knowledge of the inhabitants.

"Sir! We've intercepted a fleetwide transmission. Decrypted and replaying now.

"The Naval Authority has declared us to be enemies of the Empire for our actions against the rebels of Thessalonica. For this I say, we will stand by our actions, and we will be victorious over the weak forces of the Naval Authority that wished to let the Pirates live. We will be victorious, soldiers, and nobody will get in our way!"

Now the captain was in even more of a precarious situation, there might be a full scale war here soon. He wished he knew more; if this fleet were in the right, while the Dominion would be unlikely to divert forces from the taskforce here, they would surely grant these people asylum. It seemed like a win-win proposal: the Empiriclite military would hardly attack another nation, especially when there were the military forces of four or five nations gathered there, thus protecting this rogue fleet. In return, the Dominion would gain another fleet with experienced crews. The captain idly wondered if he could make such an offer, or whether or not these people would even consider it.

One hundred million sentients died during the Devastation of Thessalonica. Admiral Olaf Bronkaski must be brought to justice, either on his own free will or by force. It appears, then, that he will be brought home by force.

Empirici System
Exactly ten minutes apart, two message probes dropped out of the Alcubierre drive space. Cruising past the sensor systems at the 'borders' of Empirici, they were virtually ignored by everything. Their destination was Spacedock I, the largest space station believed to be in existance, in between Empirici IV and V. At five klicks in length, it was a marvel of Empirical engineering and the spacedy capital of the Corporate Empire. Emperor Khan Z'Gal IV made his residence here, as well as the Naval Authority and the other ruling bodies of the Empire. Both message probes signalled for docking with Spacedock I, and tractor beams lashed out to bring the probes into the hangar bays.

Spacedock I
As the hangar bay repressurised after closing, message technicians wandered over the probes, opened their side panels with a quick slide of a screwdriver, and downloaded their messages to a datapad. The technicians gave the pad to their superior, who gave it to his superior, who gave it to his superior, et cetera until it finally ended up in the hands of someone who had the authority to read the message pads, Grand Admiral Richard Nixon (no relation to the Earth Richard Nixon, naturally). He sat in his office in the main rotating section of the spacedock, being a Grand Admiral, he got to sleep in the gravity area instead of the zero-g area. Anyway, he played back the first message to himself, and listened rather alarmed. Admiral Bronkaski had violated a direct order of his, and flouted the authority of the Naval Authority in the process.

Then he listened to the second message. Before it was even finished playing back, Nixon put his admiral's jacket on (with the cool shiny badges and the like), and ran out of his office, to the main command bridge. He looked at some random message person and said, "Get me the Council. Now."

Corporate Council, Spacedock I
The authority directly below the Emperor was the Corporate Council. Composed of representatives from the five largest Corporations in the Empire, these five men made the laws and ran the bits that the Emperor didn't care to. Every citizen in Empiricalis was born into one of these five Corporations, and they stayed with it for life unless they chose to enlist in the Armed Forces. Anyway, Grand Admiral Nixon entered the massive Corporate Council chambers, with two datapads in his hands and a rather anxious look on his face. He stood at the podium briefly, and the five Representatives exited separate doors to form a stereotypical semicircle around Grand Admiral Nixon. The de facto leader of these five, who shall forever remain unnamed, said, "Grand Admiral Nixon, state your business. Why have you summoned the Five?"

"I come today, to ask that the Second Fleet be deployed in an offensive operation against the forces of Admiral Olaf Bronkaski in Thessalonica. He has declared himself an enemy of this Empire and your Corporations, and he must be brought to justice. I have two messages to play back before this Council; The first is Captain Donald Dunn of the Imperial Guard, describing Admiral Bronkaski's actions in Thessalonica. The second is Admiral Bronkaski's message to us."

Grand Admiral Nixon put the datapad in the centre of the podium, and the message began to broadcast. Every Corporate Council member looked disgusted as the message played back, and Grand Admiral Nixon swiftly switched pads to the message from Admiral Bronkaski.

After both messages played back, the nameless leader of the Council said, "Grand Admiral Nixon, please step out of the chambers while we vote on this matter."

Five minutes later, Nixon stepped back into the Council Chambers, and the still-nameless leader said, "Grand Admiral Nixon, we have determined that Admiral Bronkaski has declared himself a rebelling faction against our Empire. We also agree that the Second Fleet shall be deployed to stop him, and that you are to command this mission from the EGNS Thermopylae. Godspeed, Grand Admiral."

Nixon bowed, said, "Thank you, gentlemen." and left the room.

Spacedock I, Hangar Bay
Richard Nixon sat in a gravity-less L99 transport shuttle, waiting for the lazy-ass pilot to get to to the cockpit so they could go to Nixon's destination - the Union class battleship Thermopylae. He was placed in command of the Second Fleet, which was admittedly smaller than the Third Fleet by approximately seventy-five ships, but Nixon was easily as good a military commander as Bronkaski. He knew the battle would be excessively bloody, and probably end up in a total stalemate, but gosh darn it, you couldn't just go about declaring rebellion and what-not without facing the consequences.

Nixon made it safely onto the Thermopylae, and the Second Fleet, already assembled, activated their Alcubierre drives and began their thirty hour journey to Thessalonica..

bump

[OOC- Taggity tag-tag]

Getting lost seems to be a Cassiopeian trait.

The CNS Jefferson Airplane was another one of those exploratory corvettes. Another small ship in a small fleet of explorations. They were wandering around the universe, looking for new like. Of course they didn't find anything. As such they were going to go home until something horribly wrong happened and they ended up inn this place. But what happened really? Well, umm, it's quite simple. I mean, it's... okay okay okay!

Well while the corvette flew all silly nilly back home, somebody had an emergency. But it was like a big emergency. All right fine, a crewmember urinated on the warp drive/hyperspace capacitator/that thing that makes the ship go really really fast. He peed on it. Then all of a sudden sudden sparks and things of that nature started appearing and pretty soon, the engine died. I mean they were fixed but they couldn't go really really fast anymore. What happened to the crewmember, he was killed in a ceremonial pagan ceremony where the women danced and sang of the Great Tribble Hunt and they said "I wanna touch you!" .... okay I made that last part up but he was punished.

But you may ask, why couldn't you waterproof it? Well... then I wouldn't be posting in this thread and then you wouldn't have fun. So yes, the CNS Jefferson Airplane cruised through space... looking for anybody to help.

The Captain, a Mr. Joseph Henderson, sighed. "Hmm... Ensign." He said dryly, not one to kid around. "Where the hell are we?"

The Ensign looked at his sensor readout, he paused. "I have no F(WOO!)ing idea... sir."

The Captain slammed his head against the console in front of his chair. Repeteadly. For five minutes. While Roxanne (the song by the Police?) played in the background.

The Ensign raised his brow. "Sir?"

Joseph cleared his throat. "Errrm.... sorry. Anyway, there are two things we can do. Wander around for years or, find help. Of course I have a feeling if we call for help, it would be a very very bad thing... and I have a feeling that I might be right."

Another Ensign chimed in. "We don't have a choice, sir."

Joseph nodded. "Very well. Send an SOS signal and turn off the engines. No use moving around when we're trying to be found."

The signal was sent, and there sat the CNS Jefferson Airplane alone in the vastness of space. A willing to victim to any hostile and maybe the start of a war. If anything, you know, it's easier to find. I... can't find a punchline I'm sorry.

Joseph snorted. "Bah, that's it? That's the best you can do? We're lost in space surely you can find more chances for storytelling. Why don't you say how the crew is feeling? Give me some background. Tell people how I look, how the uniforms look! You sir, are a mediocre writer."

I now I have to respond to my characters again. "Look you, I have a life. I can't go to all the details. Now shut up before I give you a red shirt and make you die prematurely."

Joseph gulped. "No, not the redshirt!"

I posed. Dang right, I am the author. This is my post! My post! And I shall not have rebellion coming from my own characters. Now then, let's go on with the thread. I just hope I passed the 500 word limit.

coms to empricalis high comand
from the highgaurd of sephrioth high comand
subject : your rebelion

the high gaurd will be able to send medical convoys but not militiry aid

Thessalonica
Where there was nothing but some sparsely packed hydrogen, a lot of ships almost magically appeared. They didn't appear just from nothing, like poof!, but they came in using their Alcubierre drives to make them go very, very, fast, to traverse the multi-hundred light year distance between Empirici and Thessalonica. If they appeared without any warning, ie just poof!, hey, there's a fleet, that would violate the laws of physics. Oh, anyway, the mighty Empiricalite Second Fleet appeared in the Thessalonica system, first the Thermopylae, quickly followed by the other thousand or so ships. Grand Admiral Richard Nixon stood in the command bridge, thankfully in the rotating section, watching the fleets get into formations to face each other. There would be no negotiations with Admiral Bronkaski; He had declared himself a rebel and would be executed. Simple as that.

Admiral Bronkaski's Staging Point, 3 AU from Thessalonica IV
Bronkaski's fleet, now called the 3rd Independent Fleet, surrounded themselves around Battlestation Enforcer. Admiral Bronkaski moved himself to the Enforcer, which had much higher survivability than the Imperial Guard. Anyway, Enforcer sported a semi-holographic combat bridge, showing accurate positions of most ships in the field by size and type, updated as sensory input was added to the system. It wasn't /quite/ 100% accurate, but combined with the limited visual locks using the sensor satellites around the system, it was enough to give Bronkaski a good idea for tactics.

"Order the fleet to make a microjump to this point, away from the 2nd Fleet. Open fire, concentrate fire on their frigate line. Recall all frigates, order them to tactical AD to the lines. Admiral Byrd isn't experienced with this sort of combat, it'll throw him off guard. Get on it!" Bronkaski said into a fleetwide communication, which was encrypted and broadcast to the fleet.

The 3rd Independent, the portion of it stationed at Enforcer, almost as one, made a tactical FTL jump, placing them within quite literally, knife-stabbing range with their opposites in the Empiricalite fleet. They opened fire, the Imperial Guard leading them with hails of particle beam fire and laserfire. Some of the units in the 3rd Independent hadn't changed their IFF codes to the 3rd Independent standard, which meant that targetting systems among their allies targetted them and opened fire, destroying allies alike in relativistic particle hell.

Admiral Nixon's 2nd Fleet
As the fleet accelerated, Nixon saw the rebel fleet on his viewscreen, zoomed in a million times or so, apparently unprepared for an attack. He would be proved very wrong, as the enemy was almost literally in his face.

"Fire, return fire damnit, fire off the Exes and launch all the fighters!" he yelled.

There wasn't much need for order at this point; the battle quickly degenerated to the various Captains of the fleet becoming autonomous and engaging on their own. Avenger fighters, escorted by Wasp fighters, engaged their opposites amongst the enemy fleets (after all, the enemy were Empiricalites too), grudgingly killing their friends and species to survive. After all, the Naval Authority would likely kill them just for associating with Bronkaski. Nixon was somewhat experienced in close-range combat - Before his promotion to Grand Admiral, Nixon commanded a Frigate division, which specialised in getting down-and-dirty against enemy fighters and capital ships alike. Admiral Bronkaski assumed the commander of this fleet was Admiral Byrd, a relatively inexperienced Admiral. His loss.

Explosions rippled across the fleet as the two opposing sides collided together, engagement ranges dropping to mere metres as attack cruisers opened fire, dodging fire occasionally, mostly having their armour pocked and plastered by neutral particle beam fire. Torpedoes were pretty much unused, because there's a good chance that torpedoes would smack into a friendly as much as it could smack into a hostile. Empiricalite X9 series bomb-pumped GRASER torpedoes dropped out of torpedo tubes, acquiring their targets almost upon launch and expending their charge, sending a hugely powerful beam of energy at it's target. They destroyed targets almost with impunity, but the Dragonnaire attack cruisers and the Union battleships could essentially shrug off the damage done.

The Cassiopeian ship floating mid-system was basically ignored. The frigates hunting for pirates in the asteroid field were recalled to join the battle, and some Captains hastily activated the Alcubierre drive and smashed into asteroids. Oops. Also, the communication from the Sephrion Empire was ignored because A) The Empiricalites couldn't decode it and B) They aren't capable of recieving messages sent across the galaxy using a single burst. Oops.

[HGNS MARAUDER, NALTHORAN J5 BATTLECRUISER, EN ROUTE TO THESSALONICA]

A single blue dot appeared 1.8 AU from the Thessalonica system primary. The dot elongated into a blue line, and then further into a very very familiar rectangle, just enough for the ship to pass through without any sensors or greebles being cut off by the hyperspace window. This rectangle being familiar because Nalthoran J5 cruisers have been seen about 5 times in this new galaxy. In any case.

"We're here." Haruya Erusono nodded and grinned. “All hands to level three battle stations!"

"Aye aye, ma'am. All hands level three battle stations acknowledged. Controls responsive. We have arrived."

"Bridge, this is Engines. All controls responsive. Thruster safeties released. First stage velocity reached in three. Two. One. Ignition."

“Oi, Haruya.” Another of the officers on board the Marauder popped up on one of the smaller viewscreens next to her commander's chair.

“What do you want now?” She smirked at the officer, the only other person on board who could argue with her, partially because they were the same rank, partially because they were good friends.

“Why go to battle station directly when entering an unknown system? It's unnecessary paranoia.”

“This is true. But a probe we've sent here has sent back data of things going horribly awry.” She grinned slightly. For those following HGN EXTF15 actions so far, you should know that there was another similar vessel, HGNS Majestic, commanded by a woman by the name of Kifung Manaan. You should also notice that this entry has been performed approximately 6 times. Feck! In any case. While it was already difficult to become any sort of starship captain by way of being a woman, it was made even tougher by Erusono's background.

She was a Taiidani.

"Weaps, this is Bridge. Load hypervelocity weapons into all tubes! All pulse lasers on standby for discharge! Electronics, Bridge, activate ECM, ECCM, and ECCCM on the double!"

"Understood. Bridge, Electronics, ECM active. ECCM active. ECCCM active.”

“See what's going on, I don't want anything getting through. If anything shoots us, ask questions and open fire with PD systems, and afterwards shoot back if they're not friendly. Got it?”

“Aye, ma'am.”

Battlestation Enforcer
"Admiral Bronkaski, we have two new contacts. One of them is broadcasting electronic countermeasures out the wazoo, and the other one is broadcasting...something. We can't tell."

"They're supporting the Authority. Deploy DX Frigate Squadron and DXI Frigate Squadron to destroy them. We can deal with who they were later."

"Aye, sir. Broadcasting orders. Squadrons have confirmed, preparing to make tactical jump to coordinates given."

Admiral Bronkaski paced the bridge. He was pretty much unable to give any serious orders to the massive fleet waging war out there, because the Naval Authority forces knew all of the encryption codes and their Grand Admiral could counter any of them. Each and every captain had autonomy in this situation, and they were doing a halfway decent job of acting on their own without a real organised battleplan. After the initial 'SURPRISE!' jump into the Authority fleet, it degenerated to "Hey, look, there's an Authority ship! Let's shoot at it! Oh, no, we're about to get ganked by the Thermopylae. Bye bye!"

Losses were fairly steadily mounting on both sides, with frigates and their tiny crews being swatted out of existance by bombers, destroyers, cruisers, well, pretty much everything but interceptors. Even the interceptors were smashed, because, let's face it. Corvettes > Interceptors. The torpedo cruisers, 12 in number for the Authority and 11 for the Independents, were firing torpedoes at an insane rate of fire, essentially ignoring all those rules about 'friendly fire' in the process. Friendly and hostile ships alike were vaporised, crippled, or otherwise blown up when they were in the general vicinity of the torpedo cruisers. Thermopylae racked up kill after kill, her secondary particle beam guns reaching their overheat level and continuing to fire. Guns melted under the intense heat, and the gunners were afraid that would happen to the mains if it continued, so the rate of fire was slightly slowed.

The battle continued to rage with no signs of stopping any time soon..

Frigate Squadron DX
Frigates tended not to be what most people thought of when they joined the navy. Most people wanted to serve on the Unions, the Dragonnaires, the VXs, or some other large, survivable ship. Or hell, even a fighter pilot because fighters were pretty sexy, albeit not at all survivable. In the last major Empiricalite war, fighters had a 40% attrition rate, which...sucked. But people still signed up for the Grand Navy in droves and became fighter pilots, frigate crews, frigate captains, etc. Anyway, DX Frigate Squadron was the twentieth frigate squadron in the 3rd Independent, and Admiral Bronkaski assigned them to investigate one of the new contacts a few AUs away from the battle. It consisted of two anti-fighter frigates, one anti-capital beam frigate, one anti-capital torpedo frigate, and one 'command' frigate. They angled themselves away from the running battle, and entered FTL once, dropped out, pointed themselves in the correct direction, and fired off their drives yet again to stick them approximately 85,000 kilometres away from the first contact.

"FFDX - This contact is broadcasting ECMs out the wazoo. Target the center of the jamming and we'll be able to hit it." was the standing order from the command frigate, EGNS Daffy Duck.

The command frigate took the rear, as it was the largest and most heavily armed. The anti-capital frigates were ahead of that, and the anti-fighter/PD frigates were ahead of those. Neutral Particle Beams sliced through the void at the unknown contact, followed up with a salvo of anti-capital fusion torpedoes and bomb-pumped GRASER torpedoes. They maneuvered around the area they were in, so the return fire wouldn't hurt quite so much.

That treatment was being repeated with the Cassiopeian ship, and the author is much too lazy to write out exactly what's happening when it's pretty much the same. Anyway, the frigate squadrons left the battle and engaged the two hostile contacts..

Boredom is an understatement.

The CNS Jefferson had been sitting there for a few hours already. Bored as hell and whatnot. Some people were playing cards, other were playing the blues (cause, you know, we're into that sorta thing) and others were probably doing things that shouldn't be mentioned in this thread. But anyway, the point is they were bored. Especially the Captain.

"Don't you want somebody to love? Don't you want somebody to love? Wouldn't you love somebody to love, you better find somebody to love!"

The Bridge was clapping along to Joseph's rendition of the classic Jefferson Airplane hit (of which the ship is called after) while some random Ensigns did musical backing. Others meanwhile were on LSD... no not really. But they should be, but then.... dun dun dun

One of the Ensigns who was manning the sensor console thing picked up the frigates. "Sir!" He shouted. "Frigates. I tried to send a message but their communications seem closed. They want to kill us it seems. They're coming from behind!" He paused. "They're shooting!"

Joseph fell down due to the surprise attack and got back on his Captain's chair. "Attention all crew men, all hands to battlestations. I repeat all hands to battlestations. Turn the turrets around and start firing, also, run!"

Oh and the corvette shook a little due to its shields... and stuff.

The corvette's engines activated, its speed being quite fast since, you know, it's a bloody corvette. Its turbolasers firing quite frantically at the frigates. They knew they would probably die, but service on a corvette was always much safer then service on a frigate. At least corvettes were less likely to see battle, frigates in the Navy meanwhile, were meatshields. Either way somebody wasa gonna blow up today.

Man this is a short post, I hate myself so much.

Empirici IV, Empirici System
The vessel was enormous. It was massive. It was gargantuan. And it was sitting in the middle of some very busy space, the space directly above the second largest construction yard in the entirety of the Corporate Empire. Any presence, hostile or otherwise, would never be tolerated where the ship was. And yet, there it sat, with the thousands of detection systems across the system not breathing an electronic sigh about its presence.

Captain-General Asa Hawk smiled as he looked at the magnified view of the shipyards over which the newest ship of the Ixian fleet waited. Workers scurried about inside superstructures beginning to come together, while robotic forms moved over almost every surface, welding together parts with mono molecular welding tools or transporting stacks of raw materials. The almost finished outlines of two battleships were the most awe-inspiring sights in the shipyard, but the sea of metal was a sight in itself to behold. A pity that it had to be smashed, thought Hawk to himself.

He turned his attention away from the viewing screen and observed the marvel of engineering that was this No-Ship he commanded. Built with the newest technology available, the No-Ship was, when activated, invisible. Invisible to the human eye, invisible to sensors, and invisible even to prescients and psykers. There were very few non-experimental models, the majority of which were transport vessels for persons of ultimate importance. This vessel, the Atreides, was, on the other hand, a massive weapon of war.

Over 20km in length, it was the first in a planned line of vessels. Vessels designed not only with the capability of near-limitless stealth, but the capabilities to lay waste to any vessel or planet that it was deemed necessary to immolate. And this mission, the first run of the ship, was as close to a decree from the gods to immolate something as was possible. The Ruling Council itself had imparted on Hawk the importance of this mission in the flesh- an honor so great that the number of Ixians who had received could be counted, if not on only two hands, then on very few. The Golden Path for humanity demanded that this shipyard be vaporized, along with a fairly good-sized chunk of the planet that lay below it. Getting close enough to allow the course of action Hawk wished was all the hard work that was going to be required.

Instead of the standard apparition into a system along the edge and then an apparition to whatever point was deemed most beneficial, this mission had the Atreides slowly sneaking up from below the galactic plane, from a neighboring system. It had taken over three days and the entire crew was tired of having to be on edge every damn time some new piece of technology started to go screwy on them. Luckily, most had been ironed out before they had entered the heavily monitored zone, but there had been one near-brush with a patrol sent out to investigate what turned out to be an asteroid near the ship. That had led to tense moments, but when it was ascertained the frigate had come to see the rock and not any traces of the ship, everyone had breathed a sigh of relief.

And that laborious work had led to where they were now- ready to begin the devastation of an industrial epicenter and the unlucky portion of the world that happened to lie underneath it at the time. There was no warning shot or signal given. The No-field was turned off the same instant that the Wassermann fields were put up and the ship began firing. Massive particle beams targeted the partially-completed ships under construction, smashing them into dense clouds of matter in instants. A beam larger than the frigate it passed through annihilated the center of the patrol squadron that was stationed at the dock, vaping three ships outright and sending another two spinning off into the nearest gravitational body. Grasers played across the dock structure, etching lines of destruction into every surface they were set upon, while keel breaking torpedoes began impacting across the entirety of the shipyard, 500 megaton charges detonating one after another and returning vast parts of the infrastructure back into their constituent atoms.

The opening volley tore the heart out of what had been a fully functioning naval shipyard moments earlier, while any forces in the immediate vicinity were slagged almost as quickly. The attack came literally out of nowhere and caught everything designed to stop intruders by surprise- the fire was coming from inside the perimeter! As particle beams played across the structures that still maintained some semblance of order, missiles began raining down onto the planet below the docks, fusion charges going off like a string of firecrackers on the surface below. There was no rhyme or reason to the strikes- it was a blanket bombardment across every surface that was below the ever-orbiting space station. The slaughter of millions sent a slight pang across Hawk's conscience, but he brutally suppressed it as he watched yet another portion of the dock be vaporized by a fusion torpedo. If humanity's Golden Path demanded the sacrifice of millions, then so be it. Better the trillions to be saved than the millions now sacrificed.

Less than three minutes after firing first began, the massive no ship folded space and disappeared to its home base. There was no dry dock left. There was no shipyard left. There were no in-system patrols left. In the course of three minutes it had totally annihilated the second largest shipyard in the Corporate Empire, three patrol squadrons, and a goodly chunk of Empirici IV. One could say that the destruction of Thessalonica had been avenged, in a method simply reeking of karmic justice. Something the universe is surprisingly full of.

OOC:Yay for Samtonia. In case anyone cares, I've roleplayed with Samtonia before on my other nation, and I'm cool with what he just did.

IC to come

If the Empiricalites had any Jedi, Psions, Psykers, or any similarly twinky orders, they would all be going 'zOMG' right about now and dying. Of course, this begs the question, "Why aren't all the Jedi dead? After all, this universe is always in constant warfare and billions if not trillions die every day. Why should the twinky orders care about a measly little 209 million planet?"

The answer is because of a twinky Jedi thing that means that "They only need to care about their own civilization and no others." Anyway..

Empirici
Empirici III was almost totally destroyed. Chunks of the planet broke off as the particle beam and fusion torpedo hell reached it, drilling through city, metal, rock, and magma. Millions died as every blast of energy touched, the scorching energy killing even the smallest bacterium. Even underground settlements were destroyed, as the safety of packed earth and rock did not prevent the energies from ganking those settlements as well.

Patrol cutters attempted to respond to the disaster, only to be destroyed by the massive no-ship as it destroyed ships with impunity. The luckiest ones survived the first hit and managed to blast a couple ranging shots off, striking the enemy vessel's hull and doing nothing. This was split-seconds before they, too, were swatted from space by the massive GRASERs and particle beams of this new enemy.

Among the thousands of distress calls and responses, one battlegroup remained out of range of the fighting at Empirici V. Led by Battleship Efharisto, they were expressly ordered not to join the fighting so they could search for survivors, if any, after the fighting ended. Efharisto was one of the older Salamis class battleships, so it was not as powerful as the new Unions or even the "BBX" battleship in designing. Even being a battleship, it was obvious to it's Captain, Zapp Brannigan, that attempting to engage this no-ship would be a futile gesture at best. As such, his battlegroup held back, and as the no-ship faded from view, it advanced to Empirici III.

EGNS Efharisto
The Efharisto decelerated from FTL almost as quickly as it entered, showing up at Empirici III with all guns loaded and ready to blaze at the first sign of weapons fire, making the crew extremely testy. They were rather worried about the chunks of Empirici III preparing to plummet towards the planet, and looked at Captain Brannigan expectantly for orders.

"Scan for survivors and launch all transport shuttles. Contact all civilian liners in this area and order them to divert to Empirici III to pick up survivors. Hell, order whatever atmospheric capable frigates are in the area to land on the planet and get survivors. We probably don't have a long time left before anyone who's still on the planet is dead.."

“Aye, sir. Transport and assault shuttles are launching now. We are receiving hundreds of responses from civilian liners in-system, redirecting to Empirici III. Spacedock I reports that it is launching message probes to all Empire systems. Also, Spacedock I sends orders for you to take command of the relief effort.”

Brannigan stayed silent. This was his moment of glory, the man who saved millions of refugees from disaster. It would be rather cynical of one to think that’s the reason Empirici III was destroyed, but it actually wasn’t Brannigan’s fault. And now he can ride the coattails of the Ixians for some time to come.

Battle of Thessalonica
The battle raged on, dozens if not hundreds of ships dead or dying. Naval Authority forces seemed to have the upper hand in some engagements, with Magister destroyers cutting through rebel frigates like butter, while having to fall back in others. It was a gigantic stalemate, one that would only end when one side had totally exhausted its ships. Assault frigates dropped out of fleet carriers to latch onto hostile capital ships and board, only to get swatted away by a pinpoint capital shot from another ship, or even an ally shooting at the boarding target. None of the gunners cared anymore. They just fired ahead of them and knew they would hit something. Suddenly, message probes dropped out of Alcubierre drive space, broadcasting violent videos of the Destruction to everyone who could listen. The communication was set to such a powerful level that it overpowered all communications from both fleets.

It showed the Ixian no-ship appearing near Empirici III and her drive yards, and the opening salvos of fire from Empiricalite patrol ships. Particle beams did nothing to the massive Ixian ship, and the return fire absolutely devastated whatever was in it’s path. The message was so brutal that an immediate order was broadcast to the Second Fleet by the Thermopylae to disengage immediately..

[I]EGNS Thermopylae
“Order the fleet to disengage, damnit, get back to Empirici. Bronkaski can wait, we have more important things to deal with now.”

“Aye, sir. All ships confirming orders, disengaging.”

Hundreds of remaining fighters docked with their home carriers, dodging fire from allied and enemy counter-fighter batteries to return. Frigates and corvettes hit their Alcubierre drives immediately, turning on their y axis to point at Empirici. Capital vessels continued to rip open enemy vessels as they turned around to join the rest of the fleet in their withdrawl. Almost as quickly as they came, the 2nd Empiricalite Fleet left Thessalonica to Admiral Bronkaski, not conceding the battle but withdrawing, for a much larger crisis had arrived..

[I]Battlestation Enforcer
“Admiral, the Authority fleet is retreating. Their communications indicate that there’s been a disaster at Empirici III, a massive alien ship appeared seemingly from nowhere and destroyed the planet. Displaying the video on-screen.”

Admiral Bronkaski and his bridge crew saw exactly the same things the 2nd Fleet did, and after a brief pause, Bronkaski said, “Bring me to the Guard. Prepare the fleet to jump to Empirici..We’ll assist any way we can, put our differences aside for now..”

“Admiral, are you sure? We lost a third of our fleet in that battle alone, and if the Authority decides not to accept your little truce..” The captain of the battlestation said, and was cut off by Bronkaski.

“Do you know what the chain of command is, Captain? It’s the chain I’m going to BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who’s in command! Transmit the orders, communications, I’m heading over to the Guard.” Bronkaski yelled, and left the bridge.

Soon after Bronkaski’s shuttle made it back to his ship, the Imperial Guard, the 3rd fleet accelerated to faster-than-light speeds, heading back to Empirici to help their enemies..

Shub-Niggurath IV
“A factory world. How quaint.” thought Admiral Hawk to himself. Just back from the total devastation of Empirici IV, he'd been (almost literally) dragged into a briefing room for the next operation that he would be called to lead. No No-Ship this time; instead, he'd be commanding from a Hawat-class battleship. Which, due to the peculiarities of the Ixians, was in reality as large as most nations' larger dreadnoughts.

And now, at this moment in time, his battleship was maneuvering through the wreckage of what had once been portions a rather sizable defense force around the industrial world. It's not that the ships were poorly made or anything of the nature- it's the fact that an entire fleet had appeared almost on top of them in an instant. At the ranges that the fight was taking place, 40-meter wide MAC slugs were actually able to hit enemy vessels with accuracy and smaller frigates that were hit in such a matter tended to be disemboweled. Add in the fact that the total forces around the entire planet numbered only about 100, compared to the 30 ships sent by the Confederation and you had the makings of a bloodbath on your hands.

But the Ixians weren't trying to destroy the defensive force. Although a number of vessels continued to engage, the largest Ixian ships moved into position over the planet and missiles and energy beams began lancing out. Any military officer watching on view screens was almost sure to be sick at that moment- it looked like a repeat of Empirici IV was about to happen.

Surprisingly enough, it did not. Instead, the amazed controllers watched as fusion bomb after fusion bomb and massive particle beam spreads smashed into the large chain of mountains along the northern continent of the planet. Far too rugged to allow any activity to take place on them, they were almost totally deserted. Of course, a few minutes after the ships opened fire, the mountains were no longer rugged. They also didn't exist, but that's just minor. Instead of mountains, there was merely a massive crater in the land.

Manufacturing Complex A-17, Shub-Niggurath IV
The sound of fighting in the hallway outside the quarters of Anders Newman roused him from what had been a deep sleep. Having to seize every opportunity possible for some R and R, he had chosen to utilize his two-hour break for some well-earned rest. Instead, the sounds of rapidly increasing fighting roused him.

He therefore was still a bit addled and completely surprised when one of the complex's guards came crashing through the door, sans head. Or upper torso. Those parts of him landed a few meters beyond, in the break room Anders was sitting in. And immediately following this entry came a number of strangely-clad soldiers, carrying weapons that Anders had never seen the likes of. One shot from one was enough to send him immediately back to sleep.

Shub-Niggurath IV
“Subject has been attained and teams are back on board. Total casualties three.” Hawk nodded as he received the message and turned to his subordinate. “I rather think it's time to go, don't you?” His long-time CO nodded silently as Hawk turned back to give the relevant order. Unbeknownst to him, however, an escape pod from one of the Heavy Cruisers had just been fired and was streaking towards the planet below, a miniature No-field obscuring it from view. He probably would never know that it had left and, a moment later, it was too late. The entire fleet vanished- and the escape pod re-appeared. It was broadcasting an open signal to all ships in the area- a message pleading for its cargo to be picked up.

They just appeared..And they started firing, they caught IX Frigate Squadron off guard and destroyed 4 of the frigates before they could even move, and destroyed the last as it unloaded it's missile racks. The Siren responded next and got into a massive slugging match with an enemy destroyer..and the Siren's attacks did nothing. I honestly thought I would die that day, when the panicked voice came over the intercom, the man behind the speaker obviously shaking in sheer panic. "Hull breach," he reported, "Sector 5A through 5B..Casualties reported..Sections sealed off." The ship just shook and shook and groaned under the stress of the combat, and hull sections snapped and broke as the armour couldn't handle the stress..

Shub-Niggurath IV
Dozens of Shub-Niggurath Corporation security ships dropped out of lightspeed near the fourth planet in the system, engaging and being destroyed by the superior Ixian fleet. Frigates threw themselves in front of the enemies to prevent what they knew would be incoming doom for their factory world, getting off a few futile shots that were destroyed by the Wassermann Shields of the Ixian ships. As the destruction finally ended, ships held their fire, hesitant, waiting for orders. One vessel, damaged through the horrors of battle, the SNI Siren, an attack cruiser, picked up the distress signal from the Ixian escape pod, and opted to respond to it. Siren pulled the pod into it's hangar bay, escorted by a pair of damaged point-defense fighters. Security became exceptionally tight around the damaged attack cruiser - Frigates hugged the hull in places, with point-defense fighters forming a protective circle - if the Ixians wanted their defector back, they'd need to get through the remnants of the fleet.

SNI Siren
Security guards rushed to the recently repressurised hangar bay, not doing much bantering. Nobody was sure whether this was a clever alien trap, to wipe out the rest of the fleet with a single bomb or whether it was a genuine defector. The Captain himself strode through the rotating section of the Siren, as the smoke cleared and hasty repairs made to bulkheads, power conduits, consoles, and the other victims of battle damage. Thousands of fuses had blown out throughout the ship, meaning that all surviving engineers now had the rather painstaking task of finding each and every blown fuse and replacing it. Moving on..the battle damage was rather severe, showing the Empiricalite technological inferiority to Ixian goods. In massive numbers, Empiricalite ships could do damage, but even in 3-1 odds, the Empiricalite fleet was still devastated.

Captain Bruce Boxneiter entered the hangar, and the guards lowered their weapons, which were facing the Ixian pod. He said, "Open the pod. Lieutenant Soong, come here. You can speak Galactic Basic and Standard Terran English, so you can talk to this guy hopefully."

Lieutenant Lorien Soong was the linguistics officer onboard the Siren, and indeed, one of four officers trained in that specialty in all of Shub-Niggurath. His specialties were Basic, a mishmash of languages to form some sort of galactic standard in some parts of this galaxy, and Terran English, which oddly enough was spoken in thousands of empires that had no relation whatsoever to any Terran Empires. The container's entry bay lowered down slowly, and the guards pulled their weapons to ready. Alone, an Ixian man walked down, and said in Terran English, "I have defected from the Ixian Confederation. I am not hostile, in fact, and I wish to speak with your representative."

Lieutenant Soong thought for a few seconds about his response, and said, "I am Lieutenant Lorien Soong of the Corporation Shub-Niggurath. I am a representative of the Empiricalite Corporate Empire. Would you prefer a conference room?"

The Ixian man hesitated for a second, and said, "Provided that your guards do not search my vessel immediately, I agree."

"Good, then. These guards will escort us to the conference room."

The guards hastily formed an escort circle around the two men, and escorted them through the winding, still slightly damaged halls of the Siren.

"Your ship seems rather rugged," said the Ixian man, "It survived head-on combat with one of their Letos for some time during the combat. Most of your other ships did not. What type of ship is this?"

Lorien's thought processes slowed to figure out his next move. It wasn't exactly classified information to tell him what type of ship they were on.

"We're on a Dragonnaire type Attack Cruiser, called the Siren. This is one of the largest capital vessels in private ownership."

"I see."

The group reached a conference room, and the door slid open. All ten guards positioned themselves outside the room as the Captain, Lieutenant Soong, and the Ixian man entered.

The three men sat down, and the Ixian said, "My name is Dominic. I am of the Ixian Confederation, the group that destroyed your shipyard and planet Empirici III. I have..defected from the Confederation because of these actions."

"Why is your former government doing this?"

"A full explanation would take days - I will give you a shortened version, and if we have time in the future, I can give a full story. The Ixian Confederation believes in something called the 'Golden Path', which supposedly will allow humanity to flourish and avoid extinction in the future. The military watched your civil war with interest, and decided that it would be in the best vision for the Golden Path to destroy Empirici III and it's shipyards."

“Why?”

“That, I can’t tell you. But I can tell you more, if you tell me about your society and if you grant me asylum from my former government. I know things they would rather not tell anyone.”

“I can tell you about our society. The Corporate Empire is large, spread out over more than seventy star systems and thirty-six planets. Our leader is the Emperor Khan IV, and underneath him is the Corporate Council. You see, most aspects of society are governed directly by the Corporations, and the five largest corporations get the majority of fiefs granted, more favour, and a seat on the Corporate Council. Those five Corporations are Shub-Niggurath, Cthulhu, Dagon, Empirical, and Nyarlathotep. Every civilian is born into a Corporation, and the Corporation usually provides most things for them in one way or another. This ship belongs to Shub-Niggurath, for example. That’s a short description of our Empire.”

“It sounds rather similar to the Landsraad of old.” The Ixian man remarked.

“Landsraad? I am unfamiliar with that word.”

“It is what we called our governing council during the Imperium. Again, given more time, I can explain these things in depth. Anyway. Your Corporate Empire was attacked by the Ixian Confederation, and caught off guard, yes? I know how the Confederation’s ships managed to show up undetected, and I can tell you assuming your government can grant me protection.”

“As a representative of Shub-Niggurath Corporation, I can grant you protection and asylum in any planet of your choosing.”

“Good. I will tell you then. First, a bit of history, so you will understand why these devices were created. During the age of Imperium, our God-Emperor Leto Atreides II ruled over all of humanity with an iron fist of prescience. The Imperium ran on one vital substance known as mélange spice, and there is one source of that in all known space – the planet Arrakis. The mélange granted amazing benefits to its users – Massively extended life spans, prescience, and almost superhuman control over one’s reflexes and body. The reason it was so valuable is because the only reliable way to use our drives is to know where the destination is, and to know where all the obstructions are. Spacing Guild Navigators need the spice so they can be prescient, and with that, plot safe paths for our ships. Without them, our economy and way of life would grind to a halt. Anyway…The God-Emperor was a mighty being of prescience, and he led the Imperium based on his ‘Golden Path’, a method of preventing humanity’s extinction through structured order and docile living. The way he achieved absolute control over all the houses, Great and Minor, is because he controlled the small stockpiles of mélange remaining in the Imperium.”

He paused. He had just told approximately 3,000 years of history in 30 seconds. Dominic moved on, saying, “Numerous groups plotted for his downfall, but being completely prescient, the God-Emperor saw all of them long before they came to fruition. Ix was then and is now the most technologically advanced House. Their design was the ‘no-ship’, a ship that projected a field preventing prescient vision and detection through conventional sensors. Fortunately, Siona Atreides killed the God-Emperor before the Confederation attempted to kill him, but the no-ships remained in use as a defense against any other prescients. I have a no-field generator in my escape pod that your technicians can inspect, but I am afraid that it is pretty much destroyed and you won’t get much out of it. I was a technician that helped manufacture these, so I can give you some technical information about how to detect them.”

Lieutenant Soong nodded, and said, “We can provide you with a testbed for technology. We’re about to launch the Serenity, a dreadnought. Thankfully it wasn’t in Empirici III when your former government destroyed it, but we did lose several battleships near completion. Can you provide us with coordinates to Arrakis and your home planet?”

“I can provide you with coordinates to every planet in the Confederation.”

“Excellent.”

Empirici
The Empiricalite Second Fleet dropped out of faster-than-light travel rather close to Empirici III, broadcasting their intentions to help out with the relief effort. Thousands of transport shuttles dropped out of hangar bays, headed to the surviving areas of the planet. There was widespread panic, rioting, death, and looting. Any surviving house was liable to be raided and it’s inhabitants killed for their possessions, as electrical power, water lines, and sewer lines had been cut by the surprise Ixian attack. Military forces found themselves attacked as they landed on the planet to help out the relief effort, by newly formed mobs that thought that they would die that day regardless of help. The planet was in a bad shape, and quick estimates showed that only 30% of the planet’s population would be able to be relocated in a very rapid time, leaving at least twenty million Empiricalites to sit on their hands and be killed by hostile mobs, the dust rapidly polluting the air and blocking sunlight. Low-powered pressor beams from capital vessels were attempting to push as much dust away from the planet as possible, but millions of tons had been kicked up by the brutal attack and it would take many more beams than that to even get close to clearing the atmosphere.
Following the Second Fleet dropped an entire surprise to the sensor stations on the outer rings of the planet, the Third Independent Fleet. The remaining vessels of what was once a completely battle-ready fleet advanced at high speed to Empirici III, broadcasting their intent to help evacuate the survivors and that they were not hostile.

The Second wheeled around, bringing their main batteries to track the Third. They would wait for the Third to shoot first, but as the transport shuttles and assault shuttles launched to the planet, they relaxed significantly. It was good to know that the citizens of Empirici III still meant a damn to Admiral Bronkaski, which ironically essentially ended the Empiricalis Civil War before it had even started.

This kicked off a new and much bloodier chapter of the history of the Empire, the War of Retribution as it would be called..