NationStates Jolt Archive

***Grahsfberg: The Praetors chambers***

The Praetor was busy toying with a model of an ancient Tannelornian battle cruiser, replete with secondary solar sail and full outrigging when he heard a chime at his door. He wasnt expecting anyone, casually he placed the model back down on his desk and answered the tone. "Enter" he stated rather annoyed at the intrusion.

To his surprise a squad of GAP replicant soldiers, their lithe feminine forms still showed through their full combat armour, as they entered the room. At the head of the formation quickly fanning around him a rather cocky looking lieutenant of the GAP glared at him. "Praetor Yannef, I come here under the authority granted to the GAP by the contract with heaven to depose you for crimes against the people of Tannelorn." he practically sneered the statement. Yannef raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "What in the name of heaven did I do?" he asked in rather bitter astonishment.

"The list of crimes is long, but it is in the latest that the Prefectures council has issued a proclamation declaring you in breach of the contract." the cocky lieutenant grinned. He really seemed to be enjoying himself. The Praetor did not particularly enjoy that fact. "And what, pray tell would be this offense?" the Praetor was most certainly not pleased now, this was evident by the rather nasty sneer on his face.

"Failing to properly deal with the Revan threat while keeping civilians, even foreign civilians out of harms way." the lieutenant unlimbered the manacles he had at his belt and approached the chair.

Yannef would have none of this. "Impudence!!!" Yannef shouted as he drew his antique 50' eight round revolver. The first shot came from out of sight, still under the table as the bullet split the wooden boards in half, the table falling to pieces infront of the now rising Praetor. When the bullet impacted the lieutenants skull, particularly that sneering mouth, most of the lieutenants face and skull went with the round.

The GAP soldiers, though highly trained had never before truly seen death, in fact this was the first death they had ever seen up close. It really didnt help it was their officer. One of them started screaming as the rest rushed to take the Praetor in to custody. Seven gun shots followed in quick succession as the Praetor moved in between them, cocking and firing as he stepped around them in a tannelornian battle dance designed to avoid most possible angles of fire. Especially effective in such tight quarters. In a few seconds the entire squad of GAP soldiers was incapacitated. Including the one now screaming and bawling in the corner. The Praetor simply walked by her with a rather sour look on his face as he reloaded his pistol and took his sword from the wall, walking out in to the corridor.

He started to walk down the hall when suddenly the group of GAP soldiers providing security detail, who had really not been paying any attention, assuming that nine soldiers should be enough to subdue an unarmoured and lightly armed national leader, noticed him. With some rather shocked stares they attempted to unsling their rifles before the spooked Praetor ran. It was alright for them though, as he had no intention of running. Instead he broke out in to a run towards the lounging squad of clones firing off accurate shots with his 50' revolver.

Two of the clones and the officer dropped to the ground with large gaping holes in their chests as the praetor jumped a good six meters to the side, rolling to his feet in an effort to avoid the return fire. A few bullets hit him, but he didnt stop. In fact it didnt even look like he felt it. Of course the next few volleys sent him crashing to the ground. The squad members carefully circled him, practically on tiptoes as they attempted to confirm the kill.

They were rewarded for their diligent devotion to regulation by a now pissed off Praetor, rising to his feet using the leg of one of the GAP clones as a hand hold. Of course he ripped her down to the ground in the process. The clone was supposed to be looking over a dead or near dead body, not sailing to the ground. She fired a burst of her weapon, rounds flying in to one of her comrades as the Praetor suddenly lunged at one of the clone-women with a savage punch to the kidneys. Even through the armour she was likely to feel the punch of a knight, let alone one with a nova pancream. She crumpled like an emptied sack. The last two women looked at him nervously. "Stop please, your under arrest." The braver of the two girls was trying to negotiate with him now. "You have broken the law and must be punished!" she exclaimed. Then she took a step back, not quick enough to avoid the heavy kick to her shin or the elbow to her throat. He was angry now and simply snatched the rifle away from the only standing and very very surprised GAP soldier. He then walked away as she stared at him in astonishment.

After all he wasnt supposed to just take her gun like that! Then again, he wasnt supposed to kill over a dozen people in the space of three minutes.

She reported in to her commander. "Commodore, I am afraid we have lost the subject." She stated nervously over the comms. "Where is he now." An angry voice sounded back through her earpiece. "I dont know now, after he disabled both of our troupes he left and i was unable to pursue him as he uh, disabled my firearm. We tried to reason with him sir." she finished. "understood." The comms simply cut off, leaving the GAP soldier on her own, in the middle of now likely hostile territory.

It seems that they were having a little trouble sending reinforcements to the Praetors quarters. The PTPS had not simply followed the Prefect councils lead. Then again why would they, they saw themselves as knights-errant under the knights themselves. Also Proconsul Yanislev was not present. It had seemed he may have erred in his decision to stage such a coup, especially while so far away in the cluster...

OOC

In the process of moving my background threads from Mars forum to II forum at the moment, this precedes many events from In to a sea of stars.

***Outside of Grahfsberg***

"Status, who is striking at us." Lord Donedal exclaimed. "My lord, GAP vessels have opened fire on the patrol, supported by fire from grahfsberg fortress'1 5 7 and 13." the zweihander's bridge rocked as it was struck by another round of fire from Ubecht weaponry. The Arondight was hit rather well on her left side and she had 4 GAP vessels currently chasing her.

Much of his command was fleeing now as well, not from the GAP attack squadron now facing them, but from the fortress rocks that had just obliterated the sword of faith, the hope, heavens flame and the Rock of virtue. The einhander destroyers and the single morgenstern destroyed had constitued much of the flotilla. However the other flotillas around grahfsberg were faring about as well.


The GAP vessels were pursuing attempting to prevent them from gaining enough range to be able to fool the masses of Loengren fire coming from the fortress rocks surrounding grahfsberg. Who ever had planned this coup, had made some serious mistakes. Not all of the GAP vessels were firing on the DCNT ships, instead they were assaulting the fortress rocks with massive salvoes of C frac fire, hoping to break them up to aid the confused DCNT ships. Others were firing upon their comrades in the GAP..and not the DCNT.

This boded well for their chances. But it was time to accelerate and turn about to show these GAP clones what true warriors were made of. The vessels turned while allowing their forward momentum to keep carrying them away from the loengrens on the fortress rocks. They were notoriously innacurate once they had been firing for a minute or so, as the heat build up often got to even the heavily protected bio-computers that rested within the hearts of the porous rocks.

The Divine navy flotilla opened fire on the GAP bad-hertzfeldt assault ships now, they had started to let fly with massive drone-missiles carrying graser warheads. A sure sign they had moved beyond the clones effective firing range on their planetary assault weapons. The Divine navy flotilla started to fire on them, millions of kilometers between them crossed in mere seconds by massive beams of energy and bolts from pulsar cannons. It was a testament to the ability of the clone crews that even their formidable, heavily reinforced combat vessels lasted against the massive stream of fire heading towards them. The enemy was moving at full flank speed towards the divine navy flotilla, and to make matters worse for them, they were pointed directly at them.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Except of course for the massive swarm of
drone-missiles now approaching the flotilla, like hungry sharks homing in on a wounded seal. The Tannelornian ships now found themselves directing much of their fire at the GAP drone-missiles, rolling their PPBS systems in a defensive arc anticipating the discharge of the heavy graser warhead designed for them by divine navy engineers. They knew full well what the impact of several of those missiles meant.

Sword of courage started to move, attempting to get out of the way as four of the missiles reached within 400 000 kilometers. The ship managed to evade the first beam but the next three caught her amidships. It was saved only by moving the PPBS systems to cover the heavily damaged section of the vessel. Still she started to slow down now, most of her back had been burnt away. Sections of the ships massive spine could even be seen through the melted armour. Tannelornian grasers were incredibly efficient, after all they had been building ships mounting the deadly weapons since mankind first moved out from their caves to
form the first river valley societies.

Rather then finish off the damaged GAP vessels, the flotilla acted quickly to
save the sword of courage from her fate. The stricken einhander needed all the help she could get. Her ubecht field was failing, power loss was starting to mount as much of her interconnecting systems had been damaged. The huge crew contingent of engineers was working desperately to reroute the various back up systems, but they needed time for this.

Time that was being bought for them by their comrades. Flotilla resplendent ray of light was fighting far in the distance, trapped amongst the fortress rocks and GAP vessels. Here and there dark shapes flitted amongst the hostile GAP vessels. Members of the divine celestial Cavaliers, or the Naval Troopers as the first poor translations had been given to the aumanii called them, were fighting. It had dawned on Donedal that it was likely the presence of the DCC that had prevented the fortress rocks from obliterating them at the outset. The presence of such a high number of massive masers would explain why the rocks had been so terribly innacurate in the first crucial volleys. They were blind.

That wouldnt save the Skoffnung from her fate however. She was hit by over a dozen blasts from loengren cannons, each from a different quarter. The vessel didnt so much break up as simply melt. 1.2 kilometers of very dense dreadnought was simply transformed in to slag, and with it her crew of three hundred and twenty souls.

Even the DCC might not be able to save flotilla resplendent ray of light from its fate. Much of the unengaged DCNT was far from the battle, preparing to attack the Revan fleet if the defenders were unable to hold out. Worse still most of the in close fighting ships had been sent to fight the Revans and were fully engaged and utterly unable to help.

It started to make sense why so few members of the DCC had actually taken part in the revan battle. Normally in large fleet engagements the tiny, stealthy ships of the DCC would take part in electronic warfare and boarding action. Crippling enemy ships with theirmasers to allow boarding parties to sieze enemy commanders. It appeared the DCC had suspected this for some time.


Once again in the long history of tannelorn, had it not been for the readiness, skill and quality of the morgenraetes and their pilots all would have been lost. As soon as the first shots had fired the pilots had started to launch, readying themselves to engage the waves of Fausts and TASS-14 heavy fighters, armed to the teeth with antimatter warheads from engaging the capital ships before they were aware of them.

The morgenreates fought them as close as they could, keeping the enemy fighters from gaining the proximity they would require to make use of their larger weapon payload against them or their mother craft. Still it was a tense first few minutes, many DCNT ships were scored with hits from antimatter warheads, gouging craters in to their dozens of meters thick phased armour.

It was a testament to the skill of the GAP pilots however, that the combined
tactics of the hellebardes on point defense duty working together with the fausts managed to limit the damage they morgenraetes caused them. This however was mainly due to an intrinsic knowledge of operational procedure and the weapons used. Hellebardes were agile enough to get in the way of anti ship missiles and stop them with their bulky frames.

The Divine navy around Grahfsberg decidedly had the upper hand. With that
knowledge, Lord Donedal ordered a full counter attack from all present and loyal forces. Those that were able followed the Lords orders. Lord Kurangal had died aboard the Skoffnung. It was simple revenge, with the full knowledge the DCC were fighting with them, as well as some of the GAP vessels, the flotilla took heart and started to accelerate forwards now. Plasma-fusion shock expansion engines worked with a now rapidly changing falling orientation to power the ships up and over take the enemy. The PPBS strained under the weight of C fracs coming from the 10 or so vessels that were chasing them, but the battle damage they had recieved had taken its toll. The Bad-hertzfeldt could take a secondary battle position as a support ship, but it was not designed for non orbital combat.

And in the fifteen seconds that followed the badly damaged GAP group succumbed to a blistering close range barrage of pulsar and Loengren fire, Heavy X ray laser turrets were firing on full power, tracking the ships as they passed them. The massive energy requirements of a fully operational tannelornian divine navy war ship was enough that the urenbecht fields actually started to flicker as the engineers desperately tried to maintain enough power for all the systems. There was a very good reason fully half of the crew of a tannelornian star ship were engineers primarily focusing on power flow and main power maintenance. Even with the automation they were notoriously tricky to keep running at full operational efficiency.

As they passed the twisted burning remains of the GAP vessels they targetted the fortress rocks with massed Antimatter torpedo salvoes. Tannelornian torpedoes were considered to be relatively close in affairs, as more was pushed into accelerating the projectile to high speeds and cramming as much antimatter as possible in to the tip then to giving it an guidance system. Still recent advances in bio-com technology allowed for tiny computers based off the brains of much simpler animal's then the standard high maneuver missiles had allowed for to be placed.

Thus the hai bio-com was born. It was designed to aggressively sniff out the
trail of an enemy war ship and take an exploratory bite. That was all, the bite would be its last but would release hundreds of kilograms of antimatter against in to the enemy ships hull.

This would mean disaster for the fortress rocks that were firing at them. Despite the amount of fire the fortresses brought to bear on the flotilla and the missiles arching towards them, it was not enough. Without their main sensors they were almost blind. The torpedoes homed in on their targets, hardly giving a second thought to their own existence, only wishing to "taste" the fortresses flesh. They got their chance in a brilliant flash of light. Several of the fortress rocks started to break up, in the chaos of the massive explosions signifying the death of the fortresses in their line of fire Loengren bolts raced out, one last blind strike at those that killed them.


Donedals ship, the Arondight was struck by one of the beams as it passed through the flotilla, though the brunt of the beam had missed the vessel a few seconds worth of energy was pouring in to it. She moved her PPBS shields towards the arc of deadly energy, her dozens of meters thick armour and the poor aim of the rock in its death throes saved the ship. Still she was hurt badly and any impacts on that side would penetrate to her inner skeleton. When that happened the ship would soon lose its structural integrity and start to fall apart.

Donedal ordered the crew to roll his vessel to present a new facing towards the dying rocks, as well he ordered that two of the PPBS shields be placed over the damaged sections, replacing them as they start to short out. It didnt matter if they had just lost six fully operational x ray laser turrets, or that they had lost 8 fully operational pulsar/brightlance turrets. It only mattered that the vessel survived. Help had to be on its way.

It was indeed on its way. 75 vessels emerged from Ubecht columns almost 5 million kilometers away. However only one flotilla was of DCNT vessels, those that were to guard enlil station, the rest of them were not standard designs. They were still tannelornian however and as the new fleet advanced to attack the fortress rocks from extreme range with massive batteries of missiles and heavy X ray lasers the crews of the loyal ships gave out a cheer.

The Bio-mech fleets had arrived, and with them they knew the battle was won. Massive X-ray laser batteries started to cut apart the fortress rocks that remained as the DCNT, loyal GAP and DCC vessels attacked the remaining bad-hertzfeldt assault ships...

***Pure waters***

A great host of GAP assault ships had been sent to Pure waters and had immediately set about the task of dismantling the ship yard there. In fact at the outset of the coup strict orders had been given to attack ship yards, communications centers and mining infrastructure. This would ensure that the DCNT even if not defeated would not be able to rebuild their numbers.

These vessels had come to destroy balmung. They had quickly overwhelmed the guard flotilla, however the morgenraetes were putting up such a stiff fight the GAP vessels were having a hard time making headway. Still they had managed to destroy over 50% of the facility so far and were making it closer to balmung every second.

The GAP wasnt aware of a certain fact however. Unlike Fafnir, Balmung was finished. It would seem she would have her final test sooner then one would think.

Lord Rendacil paced across the Balmungs bridge, making sure everything was prepared and ready. The first impacts against the construction walls had been noted, as well as the proximity of the GAP vessels, moving in great numbers to ovewhelm fortress rocks. They were still taking casualties, but were confident they would only need to reach the Balmung to be succesful.

Lord Rendacil was tired of watching them destroy one of the largest shipyards inTannelorn, and he was going to put an end to it.

"Ursa" he spoke the words softly, almost like a father to his child."Are you prepared?" With a growl the vox came to life."I am ready." The bio-com was already well known for her gruffness. "Bring dark matter injectors online, prepare for combat." Lord Rendacil stood now, watching as the great walls protecting his craft from prying eyes started to fall away.

The great red and black form of the Balmung started to come in to view of the rather bewildered GAP assault group. They started to move away attempting to fire, most of the shots however struck the now collapsing assembly housing the great ship.

With a growl that could be heard across the solar system and a power spike that could not be hidden no matter how much one wished to, the black hole at the heart of the star ship formed and flared to life.

There would be no mercy. The fore section of the 3.7 kilometer long war ship started to re configure, opening to form a single, massive split boom as Balmung accelerated out to meet the foe. As she moved a visually detectable patina of energy started to form between the twin booms. Ursa was feeding the helvinter reaction cannon gamma rays, pure gamma rays formed in the roiling heart of the black hole that she struggled to keep under control. Of course in the last few tests she was starting to get much better at it..she could still feel the hunger. Suddenly the reaction stopped and she fired. A brilliant beam of light emerged from between the twin booms, she swept it across the enemy after notifying any loyal units to get out of the way.

The massive gamma ray laser consumed three of the GAP vessels before they even had a chance to try to evade, the beam never seemed to end as she brought it along in a deadly arc. Finally the charnel house that the space around Pure waters had become, was apparent. Six of the GAP bad-hertzfeldts were crippled and losing power. Four of the vessels had been vaporised in the initial blast.

They had wandered far too close to Balmung, they were careless in their head long assault. The booms reconfigured quickly for such a massive starship as she sailed out to meet the foe, her acceleration unheard of for such a vessel. Weapons fire was literally bouncing off the incredibly powerful Urenbecht field now, those hits that did score took out tiny, meaningless gouges in the hundred and thirty five meter thick phased armour. Balmungs crew of 600 was working around the clock to ensure that internal factories were ready and the morgenraetes and X-HMF-4's undergoing testing would be able to launch quickly.

Balmung would show these traitors what it was to face a true knight in battle. She was one against many but this did not mean she could not win. She had surprise on her side. As well as likely far more armament then even the GAP fleet group could bring to bear.

Eight cannons the size of loengrens started to fire at the enemy fleet group, at this range each shot brought down one of the assault vessels, such was the accuracy of the veteran crew assigned to be the ships first compliment. Then they fired again..and again..and again. This timethe GAP ships started to maneuver trying desperately to avoid the beams while firing back with their own engagement missiles.

It seemed to be working, drone-missiles started to make it through the considerable PDS fire that was now flying towards them firing at far longer ranges then they normally would. These beam's left great gouges in the armour or shorted out PPBS discs, however temporarily.

To an observer it would seem that the balmung was losing. That would be unless they noticed that the balmung itself barely even reeled from the attacks. The surprise and ferocity of her counter attack had left the assault ships at an even greater disadvantage then they would have been at against her from the start. Balmung was meant to hunt warships, not ground targets. The Grande army of the Prefecture would pay now for their decision to equip their forces entirely with the stout but slow bad-hertzfeldts. For they had no ships with which to face true battle craft.

It was at this point that the balmung turned to show its port side to the enemy. A squadron of GAP vessels had attempted to flank the Balmung, perhaps to get along side of it and riddle her with C-fracs. It was foolish to attempt to engage Balmung with such weapons unless at the closest of ranges. Her urenbecht field would stop all but the largest rounds up close. However their Urenbecht fields would not stop her C-frac weapon.

Suddenly massive slabs of meters thick armour opened along her side revealing deep dark recesses in the armour. Inside of these recesses lay the urenbecht fleet engagement system. It opened fire, millions of C-fracs pouring out of space time conduits opened several hundred thousand kilometers ahead of her. The unfortunate GAP detachment was unable get out of the way in time, and in such tight formation they were unable to evade the now close range C-frac fire. The vessels started to disentegrate as the storm of rounds hit them, many thousands of rounds were deflected by the urenbecht field, but tens of thousands more made it through.

As she fired these massive weapons Rendacil smiled. He sat back in his command throne and watched as the battle continued. The GAP ships were now in complete dissaray, morgenraetes were forcing them to change course in to enemy fire rather then be strafed endlessly by heavy rifled C-fracs, grasers and ship killing graser or antimatter missiles. These actions caused the GAP vessels to move in to the path of dozens of high powered graser beams as well as now clouds missiles coming from the Balmung. She would soon exhaust her kinetic weaponry however, as the internal factories were already struggling with the burden of keeping the fleet engagement system operational. The missiles would soon be exhaused as well.

Balmung was meant to be as powerful as a conventional fleet. So far against these assault ships, designed as they were to be able to defend Tannelorn as well as fulfill their primary task, she was proving to be even greater then they had expected. Rendacil smiled, he had petitioned high command for many years to finally add a battleship class to the tannelornian navy. High command would be pleased they had listened to him...now more then ever. He had asked for a battle ship and they handed him an armada mounted on one hull, and it had pleased him. It was truly a tannelornian warship of old, from before the days when Auman had scuttled their fleet, as punishment for causing such a toll on the Aumanii fleet almost 1000 years go. Only her heart was not a tiny star, but a gaping, bleeding point of darkness, with untold amounts of power.


***Inside grahfsberg***

The PTPS had been holding out rather well against the Grande army of the prefecture soldiers inside of grahfsberg itself, though they had been stretched very thin assuring that the civilians would not be harmed. The GAP also quite handily outfirepowered them, though the PTPS did have some toys of their own.

Currently Captain Mannheim was leading a squad of men and women on an attempt to rescue the praetor.They werent aware yet of course, that he didnt need rescuing. Along the way they had rather strangely picked up a group of GAP soldiers who proclaimed their loyalty to the praetor. They had been standing around in a defensive position around their officer. Who had lain dead at their feet when they found them.

The Captain hadnt trusted them at first but after they saved them from an ambush at the cost of two of their own, the squad had warmed up to them. Of course this had nothing to do with the fact there was only one woman in the entire squad, or that she was well known for enjoying the fairer sexes company over that of the men. Of course in tannelorn that was the limit of what would be considered proper to speak of anothers sexual preferences. Still they smirked, the captain had enjoyed her on and off for some time. She just couldnt stop straying to a pair of pretty eyes and hips that might share her habits.

The men couldnt help themselves and wasted time flirting with the GAP soldiers. They were utterly innocent in that regard and found themselves confused, even flustered before the captain demanded they stop such shilly shallying and dilly dallying and focus on the mission at hand. There would be plenty of time for that when they were celebrating the defeat of the Prefecture's councils forces.

As they entered the upper levels of the palace, they noticed something strange. They encountered primarily dead GAP bodies and a few of the knight-marines assigned to protect the Praetor. They had expected the area to be crawling with enemies. That was until they encountered a few survivors. The soldiers of the GAP were not blood mad psycopaths, they were trained their lives were important as well. Yannef never would have agreed to anything else. The women they encountered looked at them in a way they never expected. A look of fear.

The Captain interrogated them and discovered that the Praetor had been through here, and not only this he had defeated almost full three squads of the enemy! With a hearty cheer the PTPS officers and the loyal clones prepared to find him. Even stranger the three prisoners asked if they would be allowed to help them. After all if heaven didnt want the Praetor, then they would have been victorious. This was the logic of children, suddenly he understood what was happening. The GAP soldiers had followed their officers, not the GAP high command. Those that were loyal to the Praetor continued to fight for him, even though many did not.

The coup had already failed...

***Pure Waters***

Balmung stalked her prey as they attempted to scatter trying to use anything as cover anything to get away. She had completely exhausted her missile compliment and it would be 15 minutes before either her fleet engagement system nor her missile launchers would be capable of action.

The thirty two vessels that had started the attack on Pure waters had tasted the full weapon payload of the Balmung. At one kilometer in length, hardy and robust as they were, designed to smash through planetary defenses the bad-hertzfeldts were still formidable vessels.

Compared to Balmung they might as well have been life pods set adrift on stellar winds.

Balmung had coasted around one of the large factory facilities, now ravaged by the GAP. Her fighter escorts had shown her that three of the vessels had been trying to run using the ravaged facility as cover. They were good, they had tried to reduce all emmissions and run the craft as silent as possible..however this was impossible considering their bulk, size and purpose was counterproductive to stealth.

When balmung broke the cover of the floating flotsam and jetsam the captains of the three bad-hertzfeldts powered up their engines and tried to run. Balmung contained the firepower of entire armada's of Tannelornian vessels. Her new power system and reaction weaponry were able to operate for longer and with more punch then any of the bomb pumped weaponry common to the DCNT.

After all she was armed with grasers fed directly by the ravening black hole that was her heart.

She struck out, brilliant and blinding beams of energy carving the first of the vessels to pieces, blasting holes straight through its very thick armour. The beams had not even finished their duration when they were swung on to the next target. She was crippled by it. Balmung simply powered past her, they did need prisoners. The final GAP vessel sent to destroy the balmung was in her sights. At this range neither of them could miss and the enemy captain seemed to think it best to turn and try to fight.

They obliged the enemy their fight. The forward section of the vessel once again split and reconfigured in to twin booms, a patina of energy began to dance between them. Ubecht rounds bounced harmlessly off the highly centered PPB systems and glancing off of the high powered urenbecht field. This vessel stood no chance.

In a form of salute, Balmung moved her PPBS to her dorsal arc and fired its helvinter reaction cannon. The massive brilliant beam of energy lanced out, and then there was nothing.

It had taken less then four minutes for the Balmung to completely disassemble the enemy task force. She powered up her jump engines, recalling her high maneuver frames as quickly as possible. There was a true battle now raging around Enlil. A large force of unknown black ships had attacked in concert with loyal GAP vessels, many ships on patrol had come to assist, but a battle was now raging now over the tiny planetoid and its moon.

Space and time itself seemed to twist and warp as Balmung itself disappeared from the ship yard. The only indicator of her previous presence was the growing field of man made debris now being added to the asteroid belt.

***Grahfsberg***


Ibrahim Yannef was running down the streets of the knights ward, it didnt matter if anyone had heard him now. He needed to make it to one of the armouries, then he would rally the Knight-Marines now fighting off the GAP scum in the massive vaulted chambers and rooms that made up the knights ward. They were inside the center of the one hundred and twenty six kilometer diameter asteroid which grahfsberg was hewn from. Once long ago these halls were factories and ammo stores, however after the asteroid had been thoroughly mined out, it served a much better purpose as the knights ward. A place where almost sixty thousand knights of Tannelorn dwell.

The GAP had sent many soldiers to grahfsberg, after all siezing the capital city of the knights was pivotal to destroying the Praetors power base. Now fighting raged across the ten kilometer diameter cavern, deep in the heart of the massive asteroid.

The praetor could hear the sounds of combat and only had to look up to see hellebardes and morgenraetes duelling in the heights of the cavern, laser and particle fire filled the air lest they accidentally compromise the city itself with wide spread nuclear attacks and kinetic attacks. Still infantry level nuclear weapons like the morgenraete 15kt "shrike" mirv warhead would still be authorised in the proper circumstances. This meant two things for the unarmoured praetor. One it would be best to shield his eyes from the air and two that he had best get in to a suit of armour quickly. Even the shockwave from a nearby blast could cripple him and the heat could kill him.

It wasnt long until he found a suitable depot. They were everywhere in the knights ward, in fact the only places with armouries as comprehensive as the knights ward of grahfsberg were that of the PTPS wards of grahfsberg. The GAP had sent almost three hundred thousand troops to fight. They should have sent more.

The Praetor ducked in to the main alcove leading to the armoury and activated the command code allowing him entry. He stepped through the darkened halls, he was happy to notice that most of the equipment was already issued. The knights were fighting in full swing. It was not just what resistance that was able to mustered but likely a full scale counter attack was in progress.

He had watched three Hellebardes attempt an aerial duel with a single morenraete in which all three of the GAP high mobility frames had been shot down.
The civilians who had designed the hellebarde had opted for a more economical design and though it was rugged and agile, it was based off the battloid form of the first morgenraetes. The first morgenraetes had been a transitional mecha while they worked out the bugs for the Mark II variant. It was flawed and the knights of the DCNT understood each of those flaws.

The GAP would lose many men and women this day the Praetor thought to himself as he finally donned his heavy suit of power armour. He strapped his large bastard sword to his side and took hold of one of the heavy rifles of the knight marines. A long rifle closer in design to many of the weapons used by earther militaries during the great world wide conflicts in the first half of the 20th century.

Tannelornians despised pistol grips. Their own pistols resembled knives more then earth born weapons. Only a few rare antique copycat designs based on Aumanii pistols bore such traits. There were advantages to the pistol grip as their were advantages to the knife grip. Namely speed of the draw. A simple long barrel attached to a slightly curved grip could be drawn from a holster far faster then one with a pistol grip, simple humanoid mechanics guaranteed the accuracy of a weapon drawn and fired in one motion with that form of grip. It was not something dictated by manuals of war, but by evolution, sentients threw knives, rocks and spears for hundreds of thousands of years before they even learnt to fire a bow or whirl slings.

The Praetor was extremely well equipped now, with knives, pistols and heavier weaponry. He himself would lead the charge against the GAP and push them from the divine celestial city.

As he emerged he activated his communication system and set it on wide area broadcast. Any Tannelornian communication system in reach would hear his message.

"Warriors the Praetor lives and fights with you! Do not surrender nor give in to any doubt the enemy has failed already for without the death of the Praetor and those loyal to him they shall never succeed. This is a day of death, the death of the corruption in our midst, of the disloyal traitors who had lurked in our midst since the days of the secession. Retribution shall be written in great flaming letters across the heavens, men and women of Tannelorn rally to me."

The praetors voice boomed across the vast cavern as every operational broadcast system in the city relayed his message. He started off towards the direction of the fighting, his heavy knight-armour enhanced his already prodigious physical abilities and speed was one of the armours virtues. He activated neurally controlled tiny jump jets as he bounded down the streets in the strange hopping gait that typified Tannelornian knights on the charge during the ancient hellesponto's wars.

Ibrahim had once been a knight of the line, before the first fleet expansion under the service of the first king. In the first hellesponto's war he had been responsible for defending a small series of hills and tunnels in what would one day become Carpentaria base, now Carpentaria city. His actions allowed Aumanii and Tannelornian reinforcements to route attacking Yvressan soldiers in those dark days.


He moved down the streets, utilising the tactical systems in the armour to find the largest concentration of knights as well as Colonel Gawyn Shadowbinder the head of the Knight-marine garrison inside Tannelorn. He led the twenty thousand knight marines stationed at grahfsberg and the Praetor knew that the best chance to end this quickly would be to meet up with them.

Ibrahim had noticed he had a shadow with him almost the entire time. Replicant soldiers recover quickly, it must be that girl he thought to himself. Rather persistant the Praetor finished his line of thought as he scaled the final walled building blocking him from a clear view of the raging battle.

He made three bounds up the building utilising the small gargoyles that adorned it as steps. He came to the edge of the roof and gazed down at the scene before him. GAP and Knight fought in the streets in bitter hand to hand fighting. Detonations filled his view as war machines clashed.

He was home.

****

***Grahfsberg: the Knights ward***

The city of grahfsberg had been designed so that the civilian and scientific caste wards would be accessible only through a series of corridors that would be easily defendable. The larger access tunnels, those that could move heavier equipment through them would all lead to the center and the cavernous knights ward. This had been the defensive plan for as long as the city had stood, in this way they could turn the fires of war away from innocents.

So far the battle was raging its fiercest in the streets and sky ways of the massive cavern at the heart of the floating city. During the darkest moments of the siege, when the counter attack began to falter under the sheer weight of replicants hurling themselves at the knight-marines and PTPS officers defending the city, the Praetor had made his appearance. He leapt in to a veritable rush of enemy warriors, his blade singing in his hands as he hewed his way through them to his comrades.

Colonel Gawyn Shadowcaster had immediately lead his own troops in a charge against them. The enemy had been pressed in between several buildings leading to the main access bulkheads to the ward. The fighting was messy, explosions and rapid fire weaponry claimed hundreds of lives and the fighting often degenerated to hand to hand within seconds before the melee's would break off and return to close range firing matches.

The fighting had become desperate now, the knights were being pushed back.
They were outnumbered and the enemy had been able to bring heavy armour in to play to assist their beleagured Hellebardes.

++++

Warriors fought and died by the dozen over mere inches of ground. A pair of hover tanks rounded a corner after rushing past a knight defensive position, they were met by a morgenraete who fired a burst from his pulsars, the tanks smashed in to the building to avoid it, their armour scorched as they returned fire, removing the mechas leg and much of its torso. It was revenged by its partner, a U variant with a reaction cannon, it swept the weapon across the vehicles as it dashed to the side, avoiding the enemies highly accurate and powerful kinetic weapon fire. The tanks burned in the knight as the Morgenraete moved ahead to support the compromised position, incinerating warriors and destroying armoured vehicles with its massive weapon.

++++

A single knight held the line against an on rushing company of replicants. He emptied each of the weapons of his fallen comrades, withstanding a barrage of fire and explosives before he finally collapsed, still holding on to the trigger of the hyper velocity machine gun he had been clutching before he fell. The enemy retreated in confusion from the position, almost thirty of their comrades had fallen to just one warrior. Things like these brought doubt to the replicants, who had been raised on the belief that the just shall always vanquish the wicked.

++++

Colonel Shadowcaster had been wounded by an enemy plasma weapon discharge. Their position was totally compromised, they had to fall back to the fortresses leading to the civilian and scientific wards. There were so many of the replicants, they kept coming on in mass waves, tripping over the bodies of their fallen comrades to get to grip with the knights. They were battle mad now, running on pure instinct and adrenaline..as well as whatever concoctions the good doctor used to ensure loyalty to him.

"Colonel you must take the men and retreat to the fall back positions, we can hold them there until reinforcements arrive, but you must move quickly." The praetor stated sharply. He took up a few weapons from the dead, an oversized anti tank Graser rifle and a large particle based rapid fire support weapon. As he started to fire on the enemy he gave the order to leave. The men wouldnt budge. "My lord, it is only a flesh wound." The colonel responded, the bloody stump of his left arm had stopped bleeding for now thanks to the hardened pulminary system every Tannelornian enjoyed. "Until you have replaced it, it is a liability, now take the men and go." Yannef snarled the words as he levelled the large particle weapon on the enemy, killing dozens of them as they attempted to take advantage of the slow fighting withdrawal of the knights. They ducked back in to cover after that and they would think twice about such a stunt.

"Colonel it was a pleasure to fight with you, but we cannot defend a city without warriors, now go!" Yannef started to fire again, standing up to get a better view as rounds and energy bolts whizzed past him.

His men started to withdraw slowly, they couldnt bear to leave their praetor to fight alone, though they knew he would be right behind them. He didnt even notice when the last of them had left, he simply kept firing till both of his weapons were exhausted. He looked around realising his men had made good their escape. Quickly he took up a particle beam rifle and retreated down the street. A hail of fire followed him as he made good his own escape, breaking in to a run now to avoid the rush of replicants.

The enemy was so eager to get to grips with him they didnt even notice the surprise left amongst the dead for them. Knight-engineers had set up several small reaction mines. Enough to gouge a crater in the floor and bring down the buildings surrounding the street, but not enough to destroy the city itself.

As the Praetor ran he was greeted by the sounds of the weapons detonating and the deaths of hundreds of the enemy.

++++

Viola could not find the Praetor and every second she could not find him she grew ever more desperate. Those large explosions had been right where the praetor had last stood. She started moving again hoping beyond hope to find him alive. The just always vanquish the wicked, he had vanquished her..they were vanquishing the GAP and it was known now why, her leaders were wicked. She had even met up with several other soldiers who had come to the same conclusion, had put down their weapons and attempted to surrender.

She had no time for such, she had to find the Praetor and ensure he survived. She didnt know why it was so important to find him, why she felt these burning sensations, why she felt such a need to simply gaze upon him. All she knew was she did feel these things.

She moved past the site of the explosion, careful to conceal herself from the replicants now swarming through the streets. She moved for some time through abandoned buildings and alley ways hoping to find any sign of her Praetors. She was rewarded by the sounds of a commotion close to the Fortress walls protecting the rest of Grahfsberg from the enemy..and the battle now raging there.

++++

The Praetor had been caught, but he would not give up without a fight. He was almost to the fortresses and his armour was dinged and dented , even pierced in many places. He was fighting the enemy hand to hand now as he attempted to make it to safety, he knew it was unlikely but every replicant he defeated here would be one less to storm the walls.

He used the jump jets in his armour as well as his lightning fast reflexes to get amongst groups of the enemy, smiting them with a righteous fury before retreating from the weight of fire from the enemies thinned numbers.
An explosion sounded behind him and he was knocked off his feet. Reaction grenades , the enemy had used them in proximity to their own soldiers.

As the enemy came at him in a great rush as he attempted to stand. They werent going to bother taking him prisoner, he could see them aiming weapons and preparing to fire upon him the moment he moved. He knew he had done his best and that if heaven had truly seen this battle he would soon be joining the honoured ancestors. Suddenly a burst of fire caused the enemy soldiers to take cover, the praetor scrambled to cover.

It was that girl again. She was fighting alongside him this time. "The just shall always vanquish the wicked!" she was shouting now, not even bothering to take cover. The Praetor moved quickly, knocking her to the ground and forcing her to take cover. "Silly girl, your death is not needed! Be more careful next time." The praetor stated. She wasnt used to being called a girl, she was her serial number or Viola, nothing else. "The just always vanquish the wicked, you are just it was my duty to serve you my lord." her lips were trembling slightly, she was layed out on the ground underneath him, she had no idea why she felt so weak. Perhaps she was wounded. He grinned at her. "Well then we can die together, both just, how does that sound?" he asked her. She looked at him and nodded, this time her face flushed red in a blush of embarrassment, not of rage.




OOC
Balmung. http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o133/Conan2525/Balmung.jpg?t=1168106459
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o133/Conan2525/BalmungprepfireII.jpg?t=1168106504

***Hel Station***

Sarya sat in her quarters brushing her long brown hair with fine strokes of her brush. She was looking in her mirror, admiring her very round tummy with a wistful smile. In Tannelorn having a child meant everything, it was your future and your afterlife together..it was also the ultimate symbol of love.

This child was special, for many reasons aside from that it was going to be born to two of the greatest knights Tannelorn had ever seen. Sarya was the last Albericht living in the prefecture.

She stood up, her long white tunic, fitted for her expanding stomach and long white dress looked a little crinkled. She had been a bit too sore to bother with taking off her clothes before sleep or even changing in to new ones after. She yawned and looked over the days reports. Nothing unusual was going on, though the GAP wing of the fleet base was tiny and rather easy to watch. Sarya was getting bored, she knew she couldnt fight in the battle against the Revans, she was far to close to term for that. She was worried for Johannes of course, but still knew he would be just fine.

The researchers were rather excited at the prospect of the battle in the inner system however, as it meant an opportunity to test all of their new toys. Rumour had it the drone fleets and two of the three defensive flotillas at Enlil would likely be joining the fray as soon as they were readied. high command wanted to see how they would fight and an additional 100 ships designed for "line" combat in deep space would be very well appreciated by the defenders. Also these bio-mechs had instinctual knowledge in how to fight in the depths of space, or more appropriately any 3d environment.

She was distracted from her thoughts by an incoming transmission. FTL comms inside sol had little to no time lag, though this far out from the inner system she might have to wait a second or two.

Johannes face appeared on the holoslate, a soft grin crossed his features.
"Hello, my hart how are you holding up." She grinned and looked at him. "Its rather lonely here without you, there are certain needs to be taken care of i cant quite reach myself." she pouted for emphasis and giggled softly, flushing red. "I will be back soon enough and i guarantee that you will not need nor want for anything then."


She smiled softly at him. "Things go well here beloved husband, I must meet with the head of security, i forget his name so often." she shook her head softly. "Either way when i am done i shall have a bath and think of you." She winked, then for emphasis adjusted her clothing to give Johannes a glimpse of what she was, or more appropriately not wearing. "For luck my hart." She smiled at him and stood, they kissed, holographic image to flesh. "Return home soon, something worries me and..its nothing i just worry for our child." She frowned softly, giving out a little sigh.

"Do not fret my love, soon everything shall be alright and we shall see our son or daughter for the first time, hold them together before we prepare to send them to schooling." he smiled softly. Tannelornian parents were allowed to visit their children whenever they wished, but the future of tannelorn was considered too important to not allow for them to be monitored by professionals throughout their early years. There were no infant fatalities in Tannelorn, there hadnt been in 500 years.

"Warm laughter and sweet water till next we meet my hart." Johannes said softly, a frown was creasing his features. They were entering the Revan FTLi field..and soon. "I will miss you my love return to me soon." She smiled softly at him, they embraced each others holographic forms and bade farewell.

Sarya then exitted her quarters and moved down the corridor, attempting to find her way to the security offices..for the third time this week.

***Enlil Fleet base***


Giftzahn, do we really swim to the hunt this day? a hundred voices from a hundred bio-coms filled the awareness of giftzahn. Giftzahn was the oldest Caschelott, 4 months old and the first of the bio-mech fleet to be christened.
The Bio-com's had been allowed to choose their own names, they were indeed citizens of tannelorn though they were of different birthing.

We go to hunt, to drive the kraken to the depths of the stellar seas back wence they came, to protect our young and the young of our peoples
the mind voice seemed gruff and pragmatic, but belied a hint of compassion and understanding. Many of the bio-coms were scared, they had never known real battle..the lowes were eager to fight and die for Tannelorn but the knurrwhals were not sure. They wished to protect but fear clouded their judgement. They doubted their own readiness, they doubted they could protect the schwertwhals and the caschelotts from harm.

Giftzahn would have none of that. Do not fear this enemy nor death,

for in an honourable death we serve each other and persevere, ensuring the survival

of all of our peoples. There is no fear but fear itself, Righteous indignation taught me

this, that to fear is to doubt and to doubt is to already have been vanquished. We are

Tannelornian, we have no doubt for we shall never be vanquished if even one of us

remains fighting. Take heart and know we prove ourselves today. Fear not for we

were made to be superior in mind to the ship-AI's of the enemy, for our minds were

birthed in the great seas of sol, to forge the great oceans inbetween stars, to stalk

our prey across those oceanic tides and currents, to herd and harvest the sweet

bounty of the deaths of our enemies. Today we do this, a red day a day of death to

prove ourselves in the conflagration of life.

With this not 100 but 10 000 screams of joy and readiness filled Giftzahns awareness. The Lowes, normally arrogant and so sure of themselves had been listening and they approved of their new "captain".

100 vessels powered up their dem Drives and prepared to jump within 5 million kilometers of martian orbit. Just outside of the enemies FTLi range. With them were 2 of the three defense squadrons of Enlil fleet base. They were eager now and ready for whatever conflict may arise. The defenders of mars would be hard pressed by now and they would be crucial to this conflicts resolution. With a silent signal the ships suddenly accelerated to a third the speed of light using their ubecht cats and fired their DoD devices, tearing one hundred and twenty four holes in the veil between the dimensions. The ships disappeared as one in to the rifts they had made for themselves...reinforcements were on their way.

*****

***Above Enlil***

The serenity of Enlil, nestled on the edge of the solar system so far from the cares of the inner system had been shattered. Hundreds of black ships were now over the tiny world on the fringe and they had come with a purpose. They had attacked the flotillas on patrol duty remaining almost unseen amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the kuiper belt until it was too late. In the first minute those defenders of Tannelorn who had been outside had been reduced to drifting hulks, they barely had time to launch a wave of morgenraetes before the weight of the enemies fire power had come down on them.


The high maneuver frames however performed far better then the ships that had carried them. The enemy craft were known to them. They were fausts and hellebardes, given a facelift and some form of stealth coating. They were grand army of the prefecture vessels and daughter craft. The majourity of the ships they encountered in this battle were not bad-hertzfeldts but a smaller vessel based off of the garfish that had been turned down by the civilian administration as unnecessary.

They had not been designed for orbital bombardment and supremacy but fleet action, something the GAP had never needed to do. For various reasons these formations would most definetly prove more formidable then those the GAP had sent to war.

So the morgenraetes had started the first step in the righteous retribution that would indeed come to these usurpers. For now however it was all they could do to hold out against the swarms of faust interceptors and hellebarde high mobility frames, or whatever name the creators of these formations had given them.

Less then a minute after the attack had begun the now activated lowe bio-mech's had started to join the fray in numbers. There were tens of thousands of them stored on Enlil, awaiting ships to carry them. Ships started to sally forth from the moon itself, Enlil fleet base was rather well armed and returned fire. The enemies stealth systems made them harder to hit at range and the assault craft they were now launching towards the surface seemed to stream from the carriers and lighter ships of this black fleet.

Everyone took part in the defense of Enlil, scientists were now aiming experimental weapon systems at the enemy fleets, resutling in brilliant flashes of energy arching towards enemy vessels, or just brilliant flashes of light.

They couldnt even begin to stop the assault now, many of the lowes and morgenraetes on Enlil were now fighting on the surface of the world against hellebardes and landing craft. It was utter chaos and thousands upon thousands of soldiers made their way inside of the base itself, overwhelming the totally uprepared defenders in an instant.

Once they made it inside however, things were not as easy. Two minutes after the attack Tannelornian vessels started to arrive on scene, answering the distress signal from security HQ. Among them was the ship of the PIOUS unit, Lux Aeterna. With them came two flotillas from the martian defenders, preparing to sell their lives for more time for the space lords to mobilise a counter attack.

It was quickly turning in to a real battle. Ten minutes after the attack had started Balmung had arrived to the shock of the defenders. She had even been scored from previous battles. The coup had started ten minutes previous to balmungs arrival and she had already seen combat. Balmung was here she had not just seen combat she had been victorious. This emboldened the heavily outnumbered defenders and those that had come to the call early. There were barely five full flotillas of tannelornian war ships present now, facing an armada of enemy vessels.

With the chaos still going on inside the boundaries of the prefecture itself they knew they had to make do with that for now.

Balmung had immediately attacked, tearing in to them with long range reaction cannon fire, the brilliant beams of energy igniting the particles of ice as they lit up the sky around Enlil, creating trails of quickly frozen steam from the weapons themselves to their targets. Her morgenraete squadrons and single squadron of X-HMF-4's would add heavily to the defenders position on their own.

The enemy had breached the defenses of Enlil and now the battle would rage upon Enlils surface and underneath it.


***PIOUS***

The Lux Aeterna was holding up all right, after all her stealth systems were the same ones being used by the enemy..only hers were the finished model. She crept along quietly at the edge of the battle as her morgenraete' pilots assisted in the battle as best as they could. She was doing a pretty damn good job of it as well and had already sunk three of the enemy light vessels and had damaged the engines of one of the larger capital vessels. Captain Maralles was known for his skill at ship to ship fighting as well as lightning attacks on military convoys.

Johannes was piloting one of the new X-HMF-4's and he was putting it to work.
He was like a breeze upon the battlefield, there one moment gone the next leaving a trail of fiery destruction in his wake. The enemy could not find him, their missiles could not touch him as he whirled and danced the intricate ballet of death taught to him since a young age by his father. He was the best, there was no doubt. At least not in the minds of those he was killing by the score.

Jan Azantine and Katherine Delathina were trying to fight along side him but it had proven impossible for them to keep up. Jan had long ago exhausted his FAST packs
in a rather brilliant rain of death against several squadrons of Fausts that had locked on to him. Now they were more focused, as the rest of the members of PIOUS were on supporting the tannelornian fleet and possibly clearing a path for PIOUS own assault troops to land. This was unlikely for some time however. Even with balmung tearing in to the enemy fleet. She was taking damage but she was dishing it out in return. It seemed that some of her weapons were not yet operational, or had been damaged.

"Knight Delathina more transports incoming." Jan didnt have to do more then think to send her the coordinate for the enemy landing craft and she didnt even have to think about diving her Kernschatten on them, opening fire with the twin pulsar turret that comprised the head of the unit. Nominally an assault weapon, the two lasers were designed to for missile defense, however the designers had added a signifigantly more powerful laser, resulting in the twin horned helm look of the mecha's sensor head. On her underside were twin bright lance weapons attached to the variable fighters arm shields, which made up part of the underside in superiority fighter configuration. Technology had advanced in Tannelorn since the days of the hellesponto's wars, as had advances in the unique field of high maneuver frame technology.

The tannelornians were masters at building these craft, they had built viable mecha when others were arguing over whether or not they could be. They had proven the effectiveness of the designs and these two new fighters were the last word in current daughtercraft technology in sol. She started her attack run attacking the transports in a whirlwind of destruction as she reconfigured her mecha moving amongst their own formation unleashing massive bolts of energy in to them at close range.

Jan was dealing with the hellebardes that had been assigned to protect them, acting as her second with admirable dilligence. Though his mecha was long exhausted of its missile supply, he had found a rather new liking to the twin pulsar carbine's the U variant offered. The wrists allowed him an even greater field of fire and he put that to good use as he disassembled the enemy units with highly accurate bursts of energy bolts.

They were barely stemming the flow of enemies in to Enlil and time was not on their side.

***Hel Station***

"Brace the doors, prepare to repel the invaders!" Knight-Marshall Gearhardt shouted, the sound being broadcast through his power armour. There were several hundred knights and PTPS officers standing ready to meet the first assaults through the shuttle bays. The GAP were crawling all over hel station and first priority had been in getting the scientists to the relative safety of Enlil fleet base. Many lives had been lost and even more Lowes sacrificed themselves to get as many scientists as possible off of the station.


They were far to valuable to lose here. The signal had been given that most of the scientist caste members were safely aboard their shuttles., their defending flights of lowes hurling themselves at the enemy as they prepared for their frantic flight to relative safety. The scientists had to be moved. If the enemy cracked the crust in an attempt to destroy the facility all aboard the station without a pressure suit would be lost.

Once the signal was given Knight-Marshall Gearhardt ordered his knights and the PTPS officers fighting alongside them to fall back to more defensible positions, the shuttle bays being one of them. Though there were enemies now running amock amidst the station they had been cut off from relatively anything or anyone of value. If they could simply hold them there they had a chance. However there were far more urgent crisis on the mind of the Knight-Marshall. Morgan and the scientists who had refused to leave MAIA behind were in grave danger and he had not enough men or time to warn her. He had tried to raise her but the enemy was jamming their signal now.

He only hoped that woman Sarya could get to her in time, even though she was with child she was a trained soldier and heavily armed.

The bulkheads a hundred feet ahead of them finally thudded to the ground. The GAP engineering teams had burned through them fasted then they had liked.
They took cover activating defensive equipment such as mag screens and heat shields. Heat shields were huge, foldable but very light shields a knight carried with them in case an enemy used nuclear or other high powered mass assault energy weaponry in a theater. They were able to, with a knights armour absorb and radiate outwards a huge amount of heat. In fact standing in front of a group of knights who had been hit by a close proximity nuclear blast could kill you as fast as the weapon that was used.

They were no use at ground zero of course not much was, such is the ammount of gamma and ultra violet radiation released. They had proven useful in the defensive engagements of the past and their validity was still shown during the war of seccession. The first blasts rocked the hallway, men and women died but many more survived. They fired back now with everything from standard issue hyper velocity machine guns to the energy and c-frac weaponry of the knight-marines to unstable but deadly experimental xaser and esoteric soliton field guided antimatter weaponry. They were holding their own here and Knight-Marshall gearhardt hoped that the rest of the knights defending Hel Station could do their job as well.

++++

Running was hard for Sarya, especially with a breastplate that would fit loose on Ivan pavlowski strapped to her. She was holding a Laser rifle in both of her hands as she attempted to make it to the labaratory containing Morgan Devir and her DEM compatible electronic AI, MAIA.

The corridor was clear and she was alone except for the whirring noise of defensive turrets confiming she was authorised entry in to the inner sanctum of the scientist caste's facility. Her breathing was laboured by the time she reached the door, she attempted to activate the codes but she found herself locked out.

Too late! someone was after MAIA, that was likely the entire point of this attack. There were nearly three hundred thousand people living here and the majority of them were still here, trying there best to fight. A few thousand of the most important scientists had fled with what data they could, while they could but the rest had been locked in by the assault.

She gritted her teeth and aimed the laser weapon at the door starting to cut it open. It took her some time to carve a hole through the first bulkhead, the second took even longer. She pulled a pistol from one of her holsters and kicked the door in, the laser had failed near the end of the charge. It didnt matter she had to apply her metal shod exoskeletal boot to the door in an exertion she really didnt need at the time. She could feel pains that told her something that couldnt happen right now, was happening.

++++

"Alfred please put down the gun, lets talk about this." Morgan pleaded with the wiry little tannelornian now staring at her with a look of utter contempt. "What should we talk about, the fact that your little project never would have got off the ground without me, or the fact that you refused me for that boorish knight Aden." he grinned laughing now, he even twirled his pistol. Morgan didnt try anything, he had already shot two people and she knew the only reason he hadnt shot her was the rather perverse look in his eye. "I am taking MAIA with me for Yanislev, the good doctor appreciates my abilities and my inputs, unlike you who wouldnt even have left that advanced calculus center if it wasnt for me" he was snarling, obviously delusional. MAIA was panicking now her holo image was frantic.

"Stop it! Stop it! dont hurt her!" the little AI shouted at him. "And what will you do about it once your in here hmm little one?" he laughed showing her a download crystal given to him by the doctor. It was specifically designed to hold this most elusive of programs and keep her from entering any other systems until she was safely in New Carpentaria.

The little AI grew red in the face as she stared at him, a grimace crossing her features. Leaps and bounds had been made in her programming, she was now appearing as a twelve year old girl to her mother. She was growing up. "Please Alfred you dont have to do this, we can say nothing happened i promise it can be ok." she smiled at him and reached out to him. He smacked her across the face. "Shut up!" he shouted. MAIA grew furious now and started screaming at him to stop.

As the man and the AI shouted at each other a loud thudd and clang resounded across the room. "Drop the weapon or die here Traitor!!" Sarya screamed at him. He panicked, MAIA watched as his finger squeezed the trigger.

She formulated a plan to save mommy and everyone in a nanosecond.
She was almost as fast as a mentat already. She would purge the atmosphere and then release nano's in to the air to immediately preserve the people now flash frozen, the nano's would work to stop and repair cellular damage as well as stimulate the heart and lungs to function again. She had to do it all within the space of one minute but she knew she could do it.

Time seemed to slow as Sarya fired on Alfred and Alfreds bullet left the chamber, morgan threw herself to the ground the bullet narrowly avoiding her as sarya's struck home. During this time MAIA blew the atmosphere, not just in the inner sanctum but across the entirety of Hel station. She had made a mistake but it was alright, she just needed a second to calm down. She watched as her mother froze. smiling at her, she felt like crying inside but had to remain strong.

++++

Sarya could feel herself losing consciousness, the little helpers in her body would let her survive the atmospheric loss even in her current state. Her body would freeze and go in to hibernation and if the atmosphere was not returned soon even the Nova Pancrea couldnt save her. Of course the child inside of her would die, the nova pancrea would see that she survived above all else, the mother was revered in tannelorn as much as the child, almost more so. The little helpers would ensure she would live to have another child.

She couldnt let her child die. She knew in the few seconds she had remaining before she entered a deep, cold sleep that she had to make a choice. She could override the programming of the cells and save her child.

As she felt her life slipping from her, the intense cold freezing her before any effects of being unable to breathe, she prayed for her child and willed her own life in exchange. She slumped to the ground cradling her swollen belly.

++++

MAIA acted, the atmosphere returned to the station in a matter of seconds as she pumped quadrillions of nano's in to the atmosphere. It started to work, she could tell that much but still it was too early. They had to be thawed slowly or it would kill those without little helpers already being made by their body.

MAIA was crying now, her holo-image resting on her mommy begging her to wake up and be ok.


++++

As the battle grew more and more intense Aden voxed his second, Tarena Alflicht. She looked at him with worried eyes, noticing the chill now creeping in to the station. They had lost atmosphere. This shouldnt happen. The weapon discharges were now melting ice, which was turning to steam then back in to ice. They kept fighting, communications officers attempting to raise nearby quarters and holds.

If the atmosphere had failed here they may have been breached by orbital artillery..in which case hundreds of thousands may be dead. He watched as on of the knight-marines next to him was hit by a high powered energy weapon, falling to the floor with a hole straight through his chest. He continued to fire praying that the inner sanctum had held, he felt selfish. Right now he only cared that his beloved Morgan was alive...

A few minutes passed and they were retreating down the corridor as more and more GAP soldiers tried to force there way in. They were slowed by the utter cold that froze the bulkheads together and had to fire on them with energy weapons in an attempt to heat them up enough to enter. Suddenly atmosphere was returned. Not only this the knight-marines sensors could detect an obscene amount of little helpers in the air.

The Knight-Marshall continued to fight, hoping beyond hope that all was well in the station. He knew though it was not, something had gone horribly wrong.



OOC DCNT Morgenraete III HMF's [red] and Lowe Bio-com HMFs.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o133/Conan2525/Loweandmorgenraetes.jpg?t=1168106736
Bio-mech ship Flotilla. http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o133/Conan2525/GFNBiomechFlotilla-1.jpg?t=1168106784

***Above Enlil***


Ships had come from across tannelorn to answer the distress call and less then twenty minutes after the battle had begun, the enemy forces had a real fight on their hands. They outnumbered the Tannelornian armada now fighting to gain back their world, but the tannelornian vessels of the DCNT were superior to them in every way.

At least that was what they thought at first. With over two hundred tannelornian warships now fighting over Enlil, victory had seemed certain. Then the enemy reinforcements had struck. Whatever reason they had for attacking Enlil they seemed hell bent on taking her. They refused to give up even though they were losing ships at a far faster rate then their former brethren. They couldnt keep it up forever, more and more tannelornian vessels would arrive, of course this could take hours and so far it was more of a trickle then a flood.

The battle at this rate could easily continue for hours before one side or another was unable to continue the fight, not only this even if they won here the Tannelornian vessels would take signifigant casualties. They had to act before hel station fell to the soldiers rampaging across the surface of the tiny frozen world. They had to reach the surface of the world and evacuate everyone they could, failing that they knew their duty. The Black fleet of Yanislev could not be allowed access to the secrets of Enlil.

***Aeternus***

The Aeternus had jumped in near Enlil moments before and already the General and his finest warriors were preparing to land on the planet and defeat the enemy now likely overrunning the facility. Of course more then likely he would be assisting some form of evacuation under the guns of the Tannelornian ships before blowing the installation, but time was of the essence.

***The surface and Hel Station***

The drop ships escorted by the morgenraete wings of the Aeternus descended to enlil on a hot drop, riding plumes of plasma to the surface. The drop ships released a large amount of ordnance on the drop site, allowing themselves an easy deployment as they rushed out to gain entry.

One hundred and twenty cavaliers were on the ground now, attacking confused and injured pockets of resistance as they made their way to the main compound lift. It seemed the enemy still hadnt gained access to it. The naval troopers attacked the engineers attempting to gain entry in a blindingly fast retributive strike.It was over in seconds, almost an entire company of the black clad replicants was vanquished by accurate and deadly fire from the advanced energy and kinetic weaponry the divine celestial cavaliers carried.

They pressed on, activating the command codes to allow entry using the Generals own override's. It was a text book insertion, the time from drop to entry in to the compound had been less then fourty five seconds.

General schneider forced the group to move slower now, the enemy was crawling over the installation, even though their fleet assets were starting to break off. It was only a matter of time till the cavalier assigned to comm's had managed to uplink the regiments combat computers to those of the surviving PTPS and Knight-Marines inside Enlil. As soon as it was done they were bombarded on every channel by frantic officers and knights desperate to hold off the attackers. They fought with almost suicidal zeal, throwing themselves at the beleagured defenders.

The general split the regiment in to three platoons, they were to assist the defenders and keep the enemy occupied until the evacuation would be complete. It was too late for defense, they had to leave the station. Though his warriors were fighting like ancient hero's there were too few of them.

As the fighting grew heavier top side, the Cavaliers under the general started to make their way deeper in to the facility, to the living and research areas of the scientist caste. The general and his first knight's were awaiting the only functional lift in to the depths of the station when he heard a crack on his comm's unit.

"Father wait for me!" a desperate voice cried out. It was his son Johannes, he had made it to the planets surface and on his own had scrambled to the one place he could gain entry to the lower levels. Hoping to find Sarya safely with the civilians and scientists who would have taken refuge there.

Both of them had sensed something terribly wrong in the station, Johannes could not stay behind, he had to go. "My son, very well we shall wait for you but no more then three minutes for you, the lift will automatically descend and we have no time to wait for it a second time." his father stated, a tone of worry in his voice.

The General sat in silence waiting for his son, he knew he would be there on time. He knew everything that was to happen, he had seen it during his waking dream's. When one was as old as the General often the Aether would speak to them, teach them things best left unknown. Time did not flow as it did in the physical universe in the Aether, all things past present and future flowed through that place.

Tannelornians of the old and mixed blood had a link to it not even the Tannelornians of the new blood had. It was far stronger and enabled them to see glimpses of what may be, perhaps a second or two before they happened. Other times they would have prophetic dreams.

The oldest and most powerful Tannelornians, were gifted with waking dreams and prophecy, giving insights in to and even glimpses of the future. Everything the General had did had ensured that this future would happen, why now was it failing to appear before him. His son should not be down here.

Johannes rounded the corner of the long narrow corridor that lead to the lift to the lower levels. The men immediately embarked upon the lift and the general took his sons arm, helping him on board. Johannes was not tired in the least but his fear made him edgy, prone to mistakes. General Schneider could not tolerate any mistakes, they were too close to his goal.

He could see it clearly now, the establishment of a new Arendacil empire, a new hope for his people and those outside of the realms and boundaries of his lands. That which had been sundered would now be repaired though the price would be blood. Rivers of blood which would flow in to oceans of misery for those unlucky few, for those not of the true blood. For those victims of the long ago experiments by Piotr and Yanislev, from the dark days of the awakening and the times of sorrow when tannelorn was nearly destroyed before it arose.

The lifts movement shook the General from his reverie. In the few minutes it took to descend three kilometers to the laboratories many dark thoughts passed through the minds of those presents.

Nothing in their imaginations could be as dark as what greeted them in the cold depths of hel. There was still ice on the walls and the chill could be felt through their power suits, acclimatised for the upper levels and an atmosphere. Though there was definetly an atmosphere and the cold levels were not enough to outright kill a tannelornian, it was enough to chill them to the bone in the time it took for them to adjust the environmental preferences with a thought.

The chill hadnt come from the cold in the air, it came from knowing what it meant. Tannelornians lived in space, moisture was a part of any atmospheric dwelling in space. Once exposed to vacuum and the cold, everything would freeze. The upper levels had not been as bad, the heating systems were far more effective after a depressurisation event then they were below.

Divine Celestial Cavaliers were bred to be the finest warriors in the galaxy, yet even all their training, experience and fortitude could not prepare them for what greeted them in the first shelter.

++++

Mommy wouldnt talk and MAIA didnt know what to do, she was just standing there. Sarya couldnt help her she was just laying down, still sleeping she guessed. She kept prodding her mommy to wake, doing anything she could to get her attention. MAIA soon regretted it.

Mommies head lolled over to the side in a sickening sort of way, as if the muscles werent sure how to turn her head. There was no luster in her eyes, her dead gaze looking right through her. MAIA started to scream, in her panic she didnt realise that she was broadcasting all across the lower levels now.

++++

"The devils, what have they done!!" shouted cavalier Destin over the comm's. Another voice joined his in a strangled horrified proclamation of hatred towards the members of the Black Fleet. The General stood motionless, watching as hundreds of civilians stared at them with dead eyes. They twitched and lumbered about, there nervous systems functioning due to the derth of nano machines running through their bodies, but nothing else.

They were brain dead. There hearts beat only with the stimulated pulse of a million little helpers, attempting to save the patient. They would continue this until they burnt out or stopped reproducing. Either way these corpse-things would be here long after the cavaliers had left with whatever survivors they could find.

Johannes was as silent as the former residents of Hel station as they moved, he didnt say a word to anyone. The General knew his son was tormented now by fear for his wife, but he was holding up as a true knight would, he knew he hadnt lost hope. After all she had a pancrea nova.

Suddenly a scream erupted through the vox casters of hel station, then another. The cavaliers knew what it was, MAIA had not been taken yet and she would know what had happened. They rushed to the inner sanctum now, hoping for some sign of a survivor.

Two hundred thousand people had just died on Enlil, deep in the reaches of hel.

++++

MAIA couldnt stop screaming and crying, she barely even noticed as a group of men and women in the armour of cavaliers entered her room. Her sobs now subsiding. "Mommy she wont talk." the avatar sniffed. "There's something wrong with her." she said this as if she didnt know what was wrong. It wasnt that she was hiding anything, its that her plan should have worked. She hadnt even realised she had waited almost six minutes to return the atmosphere. She had caused massive brain death amidst the populace of Hel Station. She had killed them all.

She could not have simply blown the atmosphere in the inner sanctum, the city didnt work that way..it was never meant to be depressurised. She had to remove atmosphere from the entire city to do it. Her plan would have worked. If she had just not panicked. Not even she knew this fact.

++++

General schneider looked on in grim fascination at the security recordings and logs preceeding the event. Every time he did he looked back at MAIA with a forlorn, sorrowful look. His son was cradling his dead wife in his arms and it had not been the fault of the enemy. This was as it had to be. Medical devices were being used on her in an attempt to revive her, the cavaliers who specialised in medicines gently took her from him and placed her in a collapsable biocare unit. There was still hope for her, unlike those MAIA had tried to revive.

Johannes stood up and went over to his father, watching the logs and recordings of the final moments of his wifes life. It brought a smile to his face. That smile quickly vanished.

"My son, we must leave here now, we wont be back here for a very long time remember to take the stored memory core and shut off MAIA." the general stared in to his sons eyes, putting his hands on his shoulders. "Please my son, you must do this its very important you do exactly as I say." the general pleaded.
"Yes, father." Johannes responded. "I would like a moment alone before we leave please." he stated flatly, no emotion or tone rang in his voice.

He didnt know why but he agreed to it. After all his son had just lost the woman he loved and likely his first born child. He ordered his men to leave, taking everything they required.

Johannes walked over to the main computer console and opened it, retrieving the main back up HD unit. It was a simple information crysta, nothing that required a full Bio-com memory matrix. He closed the console and turned to MAIA looking at her holographic form. With cold eyes he cut off her ability to interact with any portion of the station but the inner sanctum. "Johannes, whats wrong where are you going?" she asked frantically. As an afterthought he had allowed her full access to the security recording devices all across the station. So she would see and hear everything that happened inside.

He walked out of the room, continuing down the hall as she called after him, he ordered the automated computer system to shut off the lights as he left. The last sliver of light her avatar saw disappeared slowly as he watched her peeking through the damaged bulkhead.

The door closed and she was alone. Across hel she could see everyone fleeing. Her father argued with the sad older man before leaving himself. She called to him, begged for him not to leave her there, begged for him to come back to get her. He couldnt here her. As she wept alone in the dark the last thing she saw was Johannes exitting the compound, he never looked back. Not even once.

++++

The thousand or so survivors of the massacre were crammed in to drop ships with the cavaliers. Some of the drop ships practically had Knights riding on top of them as they left, only the miniscule gravity of Enlil allowing them to get airborne. Lowes and Morgenraetes were supporting them now as they made their way to the Aeternus. Her cavernous flight bays could accomodate the extra personnel, they replaced the massive spinal weapons of their dreadnought counterparts.

One drop ship in particular did not make its way to the Aeternus however, nor did the X-HMF-4. The X-HMF-4 continued to kill the enemy, attacking anything it could find, instead Johannes had handed the data crystal to the closest knight-marines he could find and told him to give it to his father. He then mounted his high maneuver frame and started to attack the enemy. His father had a plan to keep this place safe until they could return to occupy it. This was the best way to help.

He threw himself in to the fray with the suicidal determination born from great loss. The enemy recoiled from his assault, they feared him now. They could not reach him though he could reach them, they could not catch him, and he struck them again and again.

He would kill them all if he could.

***Enlil Fleet base***

Warning klaxons were blazing as the ships still inside of Enlil were powered up and filled to the brim with the scientists and soldiers now fleeing the base.
Siegfried lay berthed here, he was almost finished. Even though he was not complete he would still be their saviour.

The General was in the Siegfrieds engineering section. Main dark matter control to be precise and he was not alone. "Scientist tell me, no long words or techno-babble, how will we use this to prevent the enemy from reaching the surface of Enlil." the general snarled. He had just endured three and a half minutes of urenbecht gravitic compression theory and he had heard enough.

"If the Urenbecht field's hold the event horizon would not be able to gain enough mass to become self sustaining, in fact it would simply degrade after a few years time until it had drained all of the dark matter from the reserves." Professor Polaski stated. "Then how would it affect the surface of the planet in such a way as to make it impossible to land without obliterating everything in reach?" the General asked.

"The urenbecht field will prevent much of the interaction and will prevent matter from entering the event horizon." the doctor stopped nervously. "What is it." the general asked him. "Well, the moon will likely be destroyed in the event, and start to orbit the event horizon, well the debris field will and of course that much matter and mass wouldnt matter much in the course of things..." the general cut him off. "Stop your shilly shallying and tell me what could happen." Professor Polaski cleared his voice. "If a piece of debris hit the Urenbecht field generators and knocked them out of alignment the event horizon would be loose." he stammered.

"Well if that happens scientist i am sure you could stop it, I would give you any resources you required to do so." Polaski looked nervous. "Sir if we dont notice it, it could swallow the entire solar system before we could "stop" it." he stammered.
"I have faith in your machines scientist, they run well, now what must we do we are the only ones left here, it is up to us now."

Polaski started to talk with Ursa. It took a few moments before the General stepped in. "Ursa this is important, I need you to override the safeties and allow your capacitors to overload, this will destroy your ship and release your heart. You must allow your veins to flow in to your heart even after your body dies, your heart must live..do you understand." Ursa 005 was younger then Ursa 004 of Balmung, but he understood the urgency in the Generals voice. Ursa knew he had to do this.

The General moved over to one of the hatches in the bulkheads, revealing the control feed of the dark matter injectors. He reached in. "Scientist which levers do I break." Polaski picked up a fus-torch and tried to hand it to the General. "The red ones that dictate flow in to the urenbecht field and the green ones dictating flow in to the event horizon." he responded. "Dont break the red ones we want the feed to be slower, just leave them open." the professor was busy reworking the Urenbecht field, ensuring it would encompass the event horizon itself and nothing else, allowing the flow of dark matter to be regulated. Still the black hole would be releasing massive tidal stresses and certain steps had to be taken that the equipment would hold up to the gravitic forces to be released. After all breaking the manual mechanism in to place and disabling the safeties left alot of room for error.

That was why the professor had brought some "butresses" in the form of small Urenbecht generators to be placed around key pieces of equipment. Anything not contained in these fields aboard this ship would add to the event horizon, quickly transforming the singularity in to something capable of ravaging the surface of the world and preventing anyone from entering until it collapsed on itself. Then there would be nothing for it to feed on, slowly it would die and the Tannelornians would return to claim what was theirs.

The preparations were finished. The pair was ready to go. "Ursa I want you to count to five hundred seconds, then i want you to activate the dark matter injectors they will lock in to place, Ursa sleep well and know your sacrifice shall be remembered for all eternity in the annals of the hero's of Tannelorn." Ursa smiled, it was his duty and what he had lived for, to serve his masters and please them.

He knew they owed him a great debt as he started the count down, the two men ran for the drop ship that carried them there. At four hundred seconds they made it inside the waiting dropship, by three hundred seconds they were almost at the Aeternus, the last of the vessels still engaged in a fighting withdrawal as the black fleet started to make landings on Enlil. By the time Ursa 005 had counted down to one hundred Balmung had already activated her STC jump system, taking with her the morgenraetes as well as the Lowes that had survived their carrier's demise. They had fought like hero's, even the bio-mech's would be honoured as warriors.

As the Aeternus prepared to jump the general made last minute checks to insure everything was perfect. "Let us leave this tomb." He stated as the Aeternus registered the massive power spike from the Siegfrieds reactor.
Aeternus disappeared once more in to the Aether, the last vessel to leave of the mighty formation that had come to the aid of Enlil.

Time stopped above Enlil.

++++

Ursa 005 could feel the pain burning in his chest, the fire moving up through his capilleries and arteries until it exploded about his body. He knew he had succeeded and then he knew nothing at all. Chains of explosions were now erupting through the ship, the event horizon deep within it started to take on mass, the containment field was not able to get enough power to completely contain it. It had worked. The Urenbecht fields ensured it would be a slow decline but the tidal stresses being released now literally started to tear pieces from Siegfreid, sucking them deep in to the maw that was now barely contained in a fast deteriorating engineering bunker.

Siegfried was wholly consumed by its ravenous heart, soon the moon itself started to crack under the enormous gravity being unleashed. By this time it was too late for the Black Fleet. They were caught in a newly birthed black hole. One destined to die young.But not before they were utterly destroyed by the tidal stresses that broke apart enlil's moon, tearing cracks and gouges out of the planet below.


Enlils moon, or what was left of it stopped orbitting Enlil. The planetoid started to orbit the event horizon now, slowly it started to move, pieces of it coming off in the ensuing maelstrom of tidal energies being released. The esoterically contained singularity now slowly dying in the kuiper belt would be noticeable to those who looked for it. It didnt matter if others found Enlil..it only mattered that it stayed safely abandoned until they could return.


Siegfried had achieved his purpose. He had been designed to be able to defeat entire battle fleets. In his death he exceeded everyones wildest expectations.
He had destroyed a moon and crippled a world in the persecution of the enemies of his creators, he had died well.

*****

***Hel Station: Inner sanctum***

The sounds of groaning rock and metal filled the facility until the whining of the anti gravity generators, straining to prevent widespread destruction of the facility had started. Deep in its dark recesses now only a few things could be heard. The constant droning of the anti gravity generators working at full power and the sound of heavy shambling foot steps.

There was another sound as well, the sobbing of a young girl. MAIA had clung to her mommy for some time until she had let out a hideous gargled shriek. MAIA had been terrified then, her mother looked right at her with those dead eyes, rolling dry lips back in a gargled howl as she started to walk heavily towards the pierced bulkhead.

She could hear the noises as Morgan shambled down the hall for what seemed an eternity, moans and gargles, shrieks and other horrible sounds emerged from the dead womans throat as she moved through the station, for whatever reasons.

Soon MAIA was alone again, lost without her father or her mother deep in the center of a dead world, wracked by tidal storms that had cut her off from the rest of sol and all she knew and loved.

She was alone now with her grief. MAIA started to sob again....

***Grahfsberg***

The general had lead the divine celestial cavaliers that had been assisting the fleet actions and had fought on enlil in to the heart of grahfsberg. The enemy fleet was utterly vanquished and they could do nothing to stop the thousands of furious naval troopers from obliterating the units left to hold the docks. Many of them surrendered rather then fight, their will sapped by the utter ruthlessness with which the tannelornian navy had smashed the coup. Heaven had not willed it to succeed and their natural defensive mechanisms had taken over. Replicants were not expendable.

It took less then two minutes for the naval troopers to slaughter their way towards the main battle and only another five minutes for them to reach the main fighting. This was the end for those forces still attacking loyal tannelornians outside of the verdant belt, the fields of cities that surrounded the home of the prefects council on the western reaches.

The divine celestial cavaliers slaughtered any that stood before them, not even the highly advanced nervous systems of the replicants could keep up with the furious cavaliers.

++++

Screams and shouts started from the rear of the enemy formations now attempting to close on the praetor. The fighting had grown desperate and the GAP soldiers were being pushed between the divine celestial cavaliers and the knight-marines defending the fortresses seperating the knights ward from the rest of the city. The praetor stood to see what was happening as a rush of frantic GAP soldiers started to drop their weapons, strip their armour to do anything it took to survive. They were terrified. The counter attack of the divine celestial cavaliers had been too furious for the girls, whose minds could still be likened emotionally to children. They were broken and only a few scattered pockets of resistance remained.

The Praetor was busily accepting a large group of terrified replicants surrender, all the while trying to get them to stay in their armour. After all replicant soldiers wore very little underneath.

Viola was standing next to him, perhaps a little too close for his comfort but he didnt mind so much. She was a nice girl, pretty too. The coup was now over and all that was left was to count the cost and punish those responsible. The Professor could have the cluster, all except Esys3. However he would be punished, those who planned this military action would be executed..the first such punishments to fall upon a tannelornian in almost five hundred years. The Professor would swear fealty to the new lord of Tannelorn and serve him as his governor in the Prefecture. He had been in his rights to start this coup, after all the Praetor was no Grand duke Jan alberecht.

But this was all for another time. The Praetor watched as General Schneider approached him, saluting him. "My lord, the coup has failed and we are victorious." the general bent on one knee.

The praetor seemed to be lost in thought. "It did not fail, it proved i was never worthy as Praetor, for i allowed this to happen." he stated mournfully. "A leader makes mistakes, my lord." the general responded, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You would not have made the same mistakes General, as i have, I am an admiral of the fleet not a king." he looked at the general now as the knights moved around them, taking control of the city streets once more.

"Even the lowliest of us may rise to greatness my Lord." The general smiled encouragingly at the praetor. "My Lord i have been proven a poor leader for our people, not all of us shall follow me." The words were chosen carefully. "Ibrahim, I am not your lord." the general started. "You planned the forging of an empire in the stars and saved the one we had here, without you all would have been lost..i abdicate my position and choose you as my replacement, General." the Praetor finished. "For many long years you served with the kings of Tannelorn, you know better then I what is best for our people, i only know what is best for my men and women, those under my command." he smiled softly and turned to walk away.

"Grand duke Yannef, you have your wish..soon things shall change for the better, much damage has been caused and a new home awaits those who wish it..even those who fought against us have a place with that pig Yanislev in the cluster..do not worry one day he shall be punished, for now he has his uses this you must understand." The general spoke of many things, not least of which was the likely hood that those who still bore the proconsuls flag at home would fight to the death if their beloved chosen leader was executed. Instead it was simple. The general would forge a divine celestial empire, with his new capital as its head..there were many things to do now..including talking with an old friend he had not seen in some time...


It was time now to pick up the pieces and begin anew, to take the first necessary step in the people of Tannelorns journey in to the future.

****

***Grahfsberg***

The day was finally over. It was the most tumultuous in the history of Tannelorn.
In one day a war had raged and ended over mars, another almost started and one was fought inside Tannelorn. Many were the hero's made today, many the candles that would be lit in the honour of the fallen. Even those of the ZMI unnecessarily slain by terrorist action.

The coup had failed miserably, do to either poor, or excellent planning the GAP were unable to attack their original list of targets, the only majour offensives they were able to make were against Pure waters and Grahfsberg itself. The moment they had come the divine celestial cavaliers were ready and waiting for them.

Damage had been done. In the days fighting seventy tannelornian capital ships had fallen either against the Revans, GAP forces or the black fleet over Enlil. Thousands of soldiers had fallen and Enlil was lost to them for thirty years. Of the sixteen majour shipyards, three had been utterly destroyed, four more would take several months to repair. This was inconsequential. There were many more shipyards beyond the stars for Tannelorn to use, many more worlds to prosper in.

If it had not been for the loyal members of the GAP and the divine celestial cavaliers the damage would have been worse. Only the black fleets that appeared over Enlil were a true threat to Tannelorn and then only because of the chaos in orbit over mars and at home.

The coup had succeeded in the Cluster, there were barely three flotillas of DCNT vessels, as soon as the GAP had attacked those that had managed to flee made it to Esys3. Yanislevs forces had not followed at least not yet. Events in the Cluster were still unclear.

Grand Duke Yannef was busy rallying the people to rebuild even as the navy was preparing to visit the area of space known as the prefects march. It contained three hundred and twenty six cities, all of which were reported to be fanatically loyal to the Proconsul. It also contained GENESIS 1.

The General would arrive there and try to disarm the situation peacefully. They controlled GENESIS and could cause much damage with it before it could be destroyed. Not only this but twenty six million tannelornians called those cities home.
Despite the necessity of the now regent General schneiders presence in the Duma, this was a far more pressing matter. Space Lord Abarrakh was still at Esys3, awaiting reinforcement. The general would give up all in the cluster but that world. It was far too important to lose..Yanislev would not have it. He and Yanislev would speak yes, but his death would wait for a time.

After all he didnt need a martyr for those loyal to the ideas of his "prefecture". That would only lead to twenty million or more civilian deaths at home.
++++

The general was walking briskly to his morgenraete, preparing to board the Tannelornian naval flagship, the Aeternus. He was about to board when he heard a familiar voice call out to him. "Father!" Johannes shouted. "Father, allow me to take the Balmung and the pods to the Cluster to deal with Yanislev." Johannes was enraged, he wished only to avenge his beloved. "My son, listen to me..now is not the time for revenge but to focus on what must be done now, if you slay him now millions of innocent tannelornians would die." Johannes stared at him blankly. "Father, he deserves to die." Johannes growled the words. "The just shall always vanquish the wicked, thats what you say do you not? Then why shall we not remove this cancer from our midst and take back what is ours."

Johann was white faced with rage now. "My son, listen to me, have i ever lead you astray before?" the general asked his son tenderly. This visibly shook Johannes. "No, my father." he responded without tone or emotion. "My son, please understand that if he is crushed in the Cluster he will take millions of innocents with him, we cannot call ourselves true warriors if we allowed that. Temper your fury my son, he has been defeated, his ploys have failed and soon it shall be known that his role will not be emperor of an empire, but a governor under us." he grinned roguishly.

"His dreams are forever shattered my son, for now he has no impetus for another coup, cassus belli would go against him if he tried and one day I promise you will be the one to remove his black heart." Johannes was stunned. "But father.." he started. "My son i know your grief but please, think of what would happen if we struck, you can see that future as clearly as i can and i know it."

Johannes stood shakily, shoulders slumped down. "Yes my father." he
stated softly. The General smiled at his son. "Good my son, I know this is much to ask of you now, but i promise you..he will get what he deserves." Johann nodded softly. The general boarded his craft and took off, Johannes stood silently.

He started to walk off, then sharply changed his direction, moving with conviction once more. He was headed to the X-HMF-4 he had used in the battle against the Revans and black fleet. It was not officially his property and he was not really cleared for launch, but as the new regent's son, no one tried to stop him.

The heavy high maneuver frame powered up its plasma-fusion shock thrusters and its gravitic impellor and accelerated quickly out of the hangar. The frame accelerated sharply and fired its tiny DoD generator. The high maneuver frame disappeared in to the Aether. The new experimental high maneuver frames were equipped with something new. A small short range DEM unit, capable of a five hundred light year jump.

*****

OOC So ends the Coup of the Prefecture. This event happened one year ago and prompted the mass migration and creation of Empire and Federation of Tannelorn. These events continue in the thread, In to the sea of stars.

***The Prefects March***


The ships defended tranquility city had made no motions to attack the DCNarmada now facing them. This was of course as the DCNf they had wished an immediate fight would have opened fire long before they had reached this proximity. Still weapons were powered up and they were making it very clear that the DCN would not accept anything less then a full surrender statement from the Prefects Council.

Consul Bergmann had given up on trying to maintain order. As the ships
approached, the young ones of the prefects march started to panic, even arming GENESIS 2. With the continued silence of the guns of the DCN armada that faced off against tranquility, many breathed a sigh of relief.

A message was sent to the council chamber, originating from the bridge of the Aeternus. "Consul Bergmann, the Praetor is no longer in charge of the prefecture, I am in command." the voice started, booming now. "Three hundred and twenty four thousand, nine hundred and sixty two tannelornian's died in the attempted coup, those that planned the military aspect of the actions taken under the mandate shall be brought to trial and executed for the loss of Enlil."

Bergmann looked shocked. There was a still silence in the air as the other members of the Prefect council looked about in horror. "Prepare to recieve the chancellor of the Federation, Consul." That was the final statement before the holo image vanished. The chancellor was coming in person to speak, likely with a large and well armed body guard.

The Consul ordered all military units to stand by and bid the Chancellor and his bodyguard pass, then he and the rest of council waited nervously. Those that were responsible, the Consul's mind was racing to figure out who amongst them could have been involved in planning an attack against Enlil, then it hit him. Everyone involved in war room planning was to blame for the action, so many participated in the planning of the raids and actions. The consul was cut off by the sound of the main chamber bulkhead sliding open.

They turned almost as one, so frightened were they that one could almost smell it on the air. Many in this room had been implicitly involved in planning the attack. It had been one of the first great mistakes of the Prefect's coup. Young ones totally unskilled in the arts of war had the arrogance to attempt to plan an attack. However it had not been these men and women who had planned the attack on Enlil. The blood of Enlil was on Yanislev's hands, but the blame would fallsquarely on the conspirators. Yanislev had avoided getting his hands dirty with any direct proof, of the Prefect's crimes, however the PTPS had volumes.

So the chancellor approached the center of the room, flanked on either side by his finest warriors. "This is an outrage General Schneider, where is the Chancellor!! You have no authority here!!" A panic stricken Prefect Jaadim shouted at the General. "Shoot him." The General ordered. Knight-commander Yannericil pulled his pistol from its chest holster and fired five shots. Three to the heart and two to the head, to insure a kill.


"Silence in the presence of the Chancellor!" The Knight commander's voice boomed across the stadium, his dark eyes and fiery blonde beard gave him a look of sheer menace. The room fell silent. "The names of those that I shall call, shall leave the room with much haste." Yannericil shouted, pulling out a piece of parchment. For things such as executions, only hard copies of the entire proceeding would do as proof of final and complete retribution.

The list of names was read, the man now laying dead on the floor was not amongst them. The Consul sighed softly as he left the room. The divine celestial cavaliers outside standing watch over them didnt seem to give any indication of the murderous rage about to be unleashed upon them. They had done their duty however, all was as it should be. The Consul tried to console the weeping of some of the members of the council, all about to die in the hall way. Then they heard the shrieking from inside the chamber.

++++

"For the crimes of conspiracy leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents and for the ignorant assumption your rank entitles you to priviledge and duties beyond your capabilities, leading to the wasteful deaths of hundreds of thousands of your soldiers and hundreds of ships of Tannelorn, you are to be put to death." Yannericil was shouting now. The Prefects now still in the chamber were panicking as the Chancellor leapt atop the first row of podiums, drawing his sword.

Prefects started to scatter as he danced amongst them, leaping from podium to podium as he lopped off limbs and heads with unerring accuracy. Yannericil was still reading. "The evidence is inscrutable, your guilt is definete, your deaths shall be swift, they shall serve the Federation of Tannelorn in knowing that kind such as yourselves will not live to pollute the gene pool. In your deaths you serve our nation better then you ever have in life, you have completed your duty to the mandate well, now you may reap your just reward." Yannericil rolled the parchment back up, drew his own blade and moved to join in the execution.


As it has been for aeons past, the changing of kings in tannelorn has always been written in blood. In this changing, it was the blood of the impure that fell in great rivers upon the steps of a monument to a great failure. The future had truly begun today. Finally Tannelorn would step out of the dark age it thrust itself into upon the ascension of Richter and his aristocratic elite.



***1 week later***

The Divine Celestial Federation of Tannelorn's first acts were to initiate full scale settlement programs. Those who had sided with Yanislev could leave if they wished to join him in the Prefecture. Of course they were taking the opportunity as none would have before, the sheer idealism they exuded more then countered any doubts they may have left. To survive and prosper in ways they had never been able to before, Tannelornians had to leave Sol.


There was no room left for them in their home in the fields, to spread out further in to the fields was wasteful, it left them all in the same place for any sort of disaster to find and kill them all with the rest of those who clung on to it so dearly. They would not let that fate befall them, nor would they allow themselves to ever be in a position where they cannot act with conscience, out of dealing with the conscience of the consequences.

Within three days of the announcement of the Tannelornian federation's creation, millions upon millions of Tannelornians had already left to their new home in the stars. Within a years time nearly 8/10ths of tannelorns population will have left sol. The rest would stay behind, those that could not give up the tradition's and the homes they worked so hard to create. The SDF's would be busy shuttling citizens back and forth for some time to come, the ancient ships still had many years of life left to them. They were built in the old ways, built to last.

Despite the death and the tragedy that had befallen Tannelorn, there was nothing but elation in the air. A new era was upon them..the first transmission between Grahfsberg and the Divine kingdom on mars in thirteen years had been sent. There was also a reply and the new Chancellor would meet with the old King soon enough. For now the Divine celestial Federation of Tannelorn would exist as three seperate nations, under one ruling council chosen by the people of Tannelorn.

The Federation of Grahfsberg, the Prefecture and the Celestial Republic of Tannelorn,would form the greater Divine Celestial Federation of Tannelorn. Each body of people, each culture that would develop would bring diversity to the greater tannelorn as they worked together to keep it safe, strong and wealthy. For the Divine kingdom on mars to rejoin would only add to the greatness of Tannelorn. The king in recent years has had his own strifes, his own doubts..those of which will be told of another time..

***A private room somewhere in the Grahfsberg Federation***

Two men sat talking about old times and glories past, as well as those of the future. The night had passed as they shared tales and drinks. There had been great business at hand however, things had to be done..to be discussed. "So you saw this then? Your sure its the right path." one of the voices stated, a deep voice young and vibrant full of bass tones. "Aye, it is what must be, your recent troubles have shown you havent they, what has become of us." the figure nodded in the dimly lit room. "Is it truly my fault, old friend?"

"Nay, it was the fault of corruption and greed, of the wicked lusting after power in a time when they could have it, a good leader always delegates to those who know more, but they must also know when to step in and deliver justice."

"What of my niece and your son?" the taller, younger man asked with regret. "My son is not to be found, let him do what he needs to now, he knows better then us what is best for him now." the other figure nodded. "And of my niece?"

"She died at enlil." the figure said with a hint of remorse. "Her child?" The other man rose now as the meeting ended, a barely perceptable nod. "We shall see." He stated flatly as they left the room, the door shutting in to blackness behind the two men as they left.