NationStates Jolt Archive

With a flick of her head the annoying lock of rich brown hair was thrown out of her violet eyes temporarily, allowing her to take in the spectacle that lay before her. Jessaá Cataldo stood atop a third-floor balcony overlooking the small city that they called home, which, what it lacked in size it more than made up for in pure beauty. Neither a concrete jungle nor a metallic maze, few buildings rose beyond three storeys high, and all were clean and most aesthetically pleasing. The reddish star of their system shone down on the glistening city, reflecting off the windows and brightly-coloured walls like the morning sun dances across the rippling surface of a pond, and as the rays of light reflected from all manners of surfaces the city seemed to glow with radiance and sparkle with life.

That strand of hair tickled her flushed cheek again as it fell down to drape across her well-formed face once more. Like all of her species, she was similar to a Caucasian human in appearance, though her cheek bones had a slight golden mottling to them, with her cheeks being heavily flushed naturally. Her body was slender and toned, giving her a height of five and a half feet and a very attractive appearance. The thin white dressing gown she wore left little to the imagination, with a plunging neckline and a rising thigh line, and fluttered gently in the morning breeze.

Though she never tired of the cityscape, she did have work to be getting on with, She reached back and pulled her long, naturally flowing brunette hair back into a pony tail as she turned away from the balcony and walked through the thin curtain drapes and back to her bedroom.

Alas, she was no longer alone.

"Prime Leader," a harsh voice called to her from her bedroom door. She wore little of substance, but such concerns were irrelevant here. The man at her door wore a sleeveless suit, white for the most part but with some violet highlights on the lapels and the skirt-like base.

"Yes, Gódelle?" her gentle, feminine voice replied with the exotic accent their language was typified by.

"Apologies for disturbing you, ma'am, but I thought you would be interested to know that the expedition is about to commence," he informed her rather cryptically. She appeared to know what he referred to though, as she gave a nod - giving that stray lock of hair the chance it needed to break free and dance across her face once more, to which she gave a meek growl.

"Thank you, Gódelle, I shall be present shortly," she smiled with naturally red lips. He seemed satisfied, and after giving her a somewhat disrespectfully lustful gaze he disappeared behind the door from whence he came.



Mere fractions later, Prime Leader Cataldo strode confidently into a room that was almost alive with activity, now wearing a somewhat informal and summery dress, which hung loosely from her delicate frame. It seemed appropriate for the temperature, but perhaps less so for the occasion, though nobody appeared to have any interest. Her pace slowed as she came to stand beside Prime Defender Hulos Miscarand and Prime Educator Establo Perzay, two cabinet members whom she worked with often - though never on something so monumental.

The room itself, was quite out of place for the function it served. Made from a white stone not entirely dissimilar to marble, with one entire wall being exposed to the outdoors thanks to numerous, door-less arches. It could just as easily have been used for barbecues on a hot Mediterranean day, yet that was not its fate. Numerous mainframe computers had been placed into the room, with a number of desktop terminals around the central areas and more people buzzing around in lab coats than a small university. It was a control room, built into the heart of the government palace.

"Prime Leader," Miscarand addressed Cataldo as she stopped beside him, placing a hand on his bare shoulder friendlily. He was the member of the cabinet responsible for their somewhat minuscule and almost unused armed forces, and he looked fit enough to be a member of that organisation himself. He was tall, at just an inch over six feet, and looked to be conscious of his health and fitness as his bare arms were quite muscular. He wore a similar type of suit as Gódelle, though it had golden highlights and appeared quite a deal more expensive.

"Hulos, nice to see you again, how are you?" Cataldo greeted him warmly. She was about to greet Perzay similarly, but he was quite engrossed in a computer monitor to be disturbed.

"I am fine, if bored, Jessaá," he said with a sigh. "I find myself hoping that my job becomes no more important as a result of this experiment."

"Do you truly believe other beings reside outside of the universe?" Cataldo asked him doubtfully.

"I do not know," he shrugged. "You know as well as any, I don't speculate. I must consider all of the possibilities, however. Personally, I don't believe anything exists there. But we shall see."

Cataldo nodded enthusiastically as the scientists that milled all around them began to get even more excited than they already were. It was about to begin. They peered curiously at the monitors placed all around them, in a scene being replicated in all of the offices and households in the city, and even in whatever outlying villages and isolated residences had access to televisions.

************

The Vescopa System was unique, as it was completely isolated from the outside world. A red-orange dwarf star, roughly equivalent in size, mass, temperature and luminosity to Sol, sat at the heart of a massive orange field that completely surrounded it and its accompanying planets, all six of them. The field was full of volatile and explosive gasses and clusters of asteroids, but most importantly it was densely packed with gravitational singularities, subspace anomalies, dimensional 'tears' and a whole host of other dangerous and exotic anomalies. Truly, navigating through such a natural minefield was dangerous, and despite several decades of frequent space flight the Vescopans themselves had never managed to penetrate it - and neither had any outsiders. The barrier interfered with almost all forms of faster-than-light travel, and the Vescopans didn't even have that.

The barrier had become known as the Edge of the Universe, or more commonly the Eotu as the acronym became a regular word in their vocabulary. According to the last polls, over 80% of the small population of Vescopa believed that nothing existed beyond it. Many probes and manned ships had been launched into the field, never to return, and Vescopan scientists could not even begin to understand its composition. It had become a great symbol of mythology to the Vescopan people, and numerous science fiction writers dreamed up what could lie inside and beyond.

Planet Vescopa was the second planet in the system, roughly 0.98 A.U. from the Vescopa star, making it a little warmer than Earth. For the residents of Vescopa II, it was quite normal for the night sky to be almost as bright as daylight, with no stars - only the eternal orange expanse of the field that surrounded them.

Today, the people trapped inside this dangerous barrier hoped to change all of that, and learn once and for all what lay on the other side. The Ventrius pressed forwards with her glowing blue xenon gas ion engines, cruising dangerously close to the edge of the volatile cloud of death. Technically a military ship, and the most powerful of the five capital ships they possessed, it was armed with dozens of rail guns and numerous nuclear warheads, as well as conventional explosive warheads, and was armoured with thick layers of tough metal alloy composites, which could be electrically charged for added durability. It was almost three hundred metres in length, and at its heart beat a powerful MOX fission reactor. From the outside it was metal grey, with various Vescopan symbols painted on near the bow and a flag painted on at the rear. It almost looked like an aircraft carrier, though it much more angular at the bow and curvaceous at the stern, and obviously had ion engines and an assortment of other necessary equipment.

Today, the ship hoped to fulfil the most important duty of any vessel every built by the Vescopans. It was going to penetrate the impenetrable barrier. Using powerful magnetic fields, even more powerful than those employed on other ships to repel space dust at high speeds. and equipped with sensors finely tuned to help avoid the densely-packed anomalies, it intended to simply plough its way through the field as fast as it could. This was actually a revolutionary approach compared to previous attempts, which attempted to use all sorts of sciences they did not really understand to manipulate the field.



Commander Frelli had the dubious honour of captaining this suicidal attempt at changing scientific history and challenging thousands of years of spiritual belief. The fact that survival was unlikely did not seem to deter the crew, who worked diligently in preparation as the ship approached its almost-certain doom.

"Bridge, this is reactor room," a hail echoed across the command deck as speakers blared out the announcement. Frelli reached over to the wall he stood near and unhooked a telephone-like object, placing it to his ear.

"Frelli, go ahead," he spoke. His gruff voice lacked any apparent emotion, though his violet eyes and more prominent gold mottling belied his nervous anxiety. He ran his hand through his short black hair, which was beginning to show signs of greying, and reached down to tug his brown navy uniform straight - both of which were nervous habits he couldn't control, and were manifesting themselves all too often of late.

"Reactor is operating at one hundred percent capacity," Chief Jerion said from the other end, his geeky, high-pitched voice giving away all his excitement in a single sentence. "I am confident that we are as ready as we will ever be."

"Acknowledged reactor room, we are T-minus three cents and twenty millis from entry, Bridge out," Frelli informed the engineer. He then clicked a button on the wall for general intercom, feeling it appropriate to inform the entire crew. "Bridge to all decks. Eotu penetration will occur in three cents and ten millis, all personnel are advised to report to their duty stations immediately. Bridge out."

He hooked the communicator back onto its mount and promptly took his own advice, strapping himself in to a chair that resided in a central position, elevated slightly. Helmswoman Vagrette looked over her shoulder at him, a nervous expression on her face as he nodded to her.

The ships ion engines glowed brightly as it suddenly pressed ahead at full speed, and plunged into the cloud like a bird diving into water.

************

Cataldo found herself clasping her hands together tightly. The transmission they were receiving was almost an hour behind them, though it was quite clear to see. They could see and hear the crew on the bridge of the Ventrius on one monitor, and another monitor showed an external view via a camera mounted on the starboard side of the ship.

The tension in the room was palpable, as many Vescopans held their breath waiting to see what would happen. The ship approached the Eotu at a higher velocity, and as its bow plunged into its fiery orange depths... static.

"What happened?!" Cataldo asked, panicked, leaning forwards. Miscarand was similarly anxious, but far more demanding in his requests.

"Get them back up on those monitors immediately!" he said, somewhat dismayed though determined to know what happened to them.

"I... I can't," the scientist at the terminal nearby protested. "The signal has been terminated. It could be interference... or..."

"Or what?" Miscarand asked.

The scientist shrugged. "I shall call VSEA at once, and have them aim our deep space observation telescope at the penetration point. If there is any debris... we shall know for certain."

(OOC: Nothing will be visible on the outside until if/when the ship emerges on the other side. The Ventrius is the largest ship capable of fitting between the various anomalies inside the Eotu, and faster-than-light drives won't penetrate it. And hello, by the way!)

<<Bump>>

ooc im having a space marine ship great you


ic a battle barge exited the warp the brother comander snaped raise void shields arm weapons

Edge of the Vescopa System

One of the closest neighbours of the Vescopa system was a cloud of asteroids, space dust and other assorted debris. This formation of space clutter housed a small outpost, complete with it's own artificial atmosphere. It's inhabitants had always wondered about the contents of the orange cloud, but the field defied all attempts to enter it, and confounded the sensors that sought to scan it.

This was probably beneficial for the Vescopan people, as these were not the nicest of neighbours. The small spaceport was under the thumb of the Black Feather Federation, a loose organisation of space pirates with scattered ports throughout the known universe, always on the very fringes of society and law.

Today was like pretty much any other day at the base, two frigates hung at anchor adjacent to the largest asteroid in the chain. Another prowled empty space a little way away, looking for prey, although there was scarce to be had out here away from the main shipping lines between systems.

The arrival of the battle barge a little way away from the base registered mild interest, but as long as it stayed away it would be left alone, it looked to be a military vessel and as such it wasn't worth the risk of engaging.

ooc nasha take a shot att my battle barge


the tech priest at the weapons said brother captian calm your self

oocness: A bit difficult to reply when nothing is visible. But I suppose - given the bump - that the ship's supposed to be on the other side now, the field being responsible for the broken contact with home once it had penetrated sufficiently deep into it. If not... My bad.

The rather unremarkable, and more-or-less spherical... Ball? tumbled through space at a rather sedate speed of a few dozen kilometres per second, unbothered by things such as sapience, and with a fair number of perception-related instruments - that is, sensors - extruding from its otherwise unremarkable body.

It'd originated from the explorer Astral Romance, which - after finding that any attempt at penetrating the hazardous labyrinth it'd stumbled upon was effectively suicidal - had dropped off a few dozen of its kind, surrounding the star (Dubbed 'Pandora' due to certain similarities with older fiction) - getting a proper look into the system was difficult, but some radiation got out, allowing the ship to determine that a star was in there - in the hope of maybe penetrating into the system - that the anomaly itself was of considerable interested to a mind like it was of no question, but it'd eventually been required elsewhere, and spending a few decades on a project such as this was just a bit too time-consuming, all things considered.

So there it was, a generally unremarkable object of rather limited size (About sixty cubicmetres, all told) tumbling along the outer edge of the anomaly/ anomalies, pinging it on assorted frequencies in the EM- and G bands, trying to penetrate the field with an assortment of FTL radiations, high-velocity sensordust (Readily manufactured with the mass made available by the occasional comet), sending remote microdrones out to chart the area for a bit...

Generally speaking, all its endeavours had in vain, and had it actually been sapient, the past few months would've been severely frustrating to it.

This was changing when it - General Purpose Reconnaissance Drone #32 (S0) - stumbled upon a rather unusual emission profile, though.

It ran the incoming information through the usual assortment of analysing algorithms and tables, and shot off a message to the Astral Romance, unthinking but - almost gentleman-like, except that it was a hard-coded function - already preparing bits of its computronium to host a sapient mind, hardware shifting appropriately on sub-microscopic levels to allow for the wasteful and irrationally 'Efficiency' of spontaneous actions to take place.

FTLCOM@1E15&EM1E-1; Beamspread x 1; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S0)
To: IEU Astral Romance
Subject: Automated Reponse; Unusual Activity @ [Coordinates] ('Pandora's Star')

Time=13392072 (Local; Bias)

Registered Emission: Ionised Xenon @ [Velocity]; Consistent with typical mid/ late-subslight civilisation technology (26% Error Margin)

Registered Emission: Photons @ micrometre-range wavelengths; Consistent with heat radiation requirements of low/ mid level accel interplanetary craft in the 0.1- 1 mt range (6% Error Margin)

Time=13392074 (Local; Bias)

Extrapolated velocity and position of suspected interplanetary craft; Origin inside local anomaly (76% Accuracy); Engaged in low-powered sensorsweeps (Microwave Spectrum); Engaged in sending standard 'I'm here' pulse frequency

Return expected @ Time=1339102 (Local; Bias)

Situation (Current): Analysis of environment & apparent technological capabilities of the local civilisation suggests a high risk factor; Probability of catastrophic damage to the detected object @ 46% (52% Error Margin)

The 'I'm Here' pulse consisted - rather unimaginatively - of series of pulses, first three, then one, then four, then one, then five, then nine... Then it started again... And again...

It was, after all, unlikely that the locals - assuming that they'd survive for the next few minutes, if they weren't already dead or sufficiently damaged to make it impossible for them to notice the signal - lightspeed lag is fun like that - would understand the little drone's languages. Besides, it was a decidedly dull conversation partner.

OOC: Give me a reason and a post of more than a line then. Like I said, I've got no reason to attack you.

( Hobbeebian Milky way Explorationary Outpost)

" So your saying that you believe a livable planet exists beyond This barrier? Right Commander.." asked A man who obviously never liked his job. He stood from his desk and looked into space as he spoke.

" Admiral... I know you think its a risky move but..." said the commander before being sharply interrupted

" Commander! Your asking for one of the few ships we have that have Dime jump capabilities... a very rare commodity here in our neck of the woods... but very well you have 3 weeks... make them count." Replied Admiral Truliant.

The Commander nodded and and turned to leave, but before he could exit the room the Admiral gave his last words of caution. " You know we have had... sightings around there... Keep your eyes open."

The Commander didn't reply and left the room. His thoughts focused on readying his ship and getting sleep when they finally left port. But being the kind of ship it was he wouldn't have time to sleep. They would be at the Eotu within seconds and the commander knew you can sleep much in 3 seconds.

************* 3 hours later************

With the ship loaded and prepared and the Commander on board the ship detached from the port and quickly glided into the void. Seemless and silver the ship was named the HCS Silverline. It was almost like a bullet traveling through space, reflecting almost any light that made contact with it hull. The Commander made his way to the Bridge where he took his seat and looked over the manifest.

" All clear for Dime jump sir. Gate drives are active!" announced the Propulsions Officer That sat to his right hand side.

The Commander nodded and gave the order...
" All Hands prepare for Dime jump. I repeat all Hands prepare for Dime jump. On my mark"

The Commander had a floating orb above his arm console. He slowly placed his hand over it and gave the thought to begin. The orb which was red... began to glow green. The outside of the ship as shinny as it was was engulfed in a blinding light then it dissappeared. Without a sound the ship and slipped out of existence.


********Eotu edge...other side**************

The Silver Line Once again came into existence with a blinding light, seemiler to the one that made it disappear. Once the light faded the ship as back and operational. the Commander looked at the clock on his console.

" 5 seconds... Man this was farther then I thought... REPORT!" ordered the Commander

" All systems are green, another Perfect jump sir". Reported the Second officer.

" Good I want all Hands to work around the clock tell me exactly what that is I am looking at ( the Eotu ). " Ordered the Commander as he walked to his quarters......

[AUSC Davenport, Patrol Vector 9233-D]

You know it's the future when bending the very fabric of space and time itself to travel vast, incomprehensible distance become a rather mundane and routine exercise. The very mundane and routine aspects of this method of travel were not lost upon the crew of the vessel which happened to be using it. Except one. She sat in the combat intelligence center, deep within the armored and shielded core of the AUSC Davenport, a 'Davenport' class long range patrol frigate on the very rim of Allied Union-controlled space. Well, 'sat', was a rather, well, incorrect term. The CIC of the Davenport was, in reality, an immersion tank of fluid, to which to the 'pilot' of the vessel, was neurally connected to the vessel's control systems and their subsystems. She wore naught but the barest of covering to protect her more 'vulnerable' areas from the immersion fluid, and a respirator to convert the fluid to waste-free breathable oxygen and subsistence. For millions and millions and millions of miles around the two hundred fifty seven meter vessel, her complex and let's not kid ourselves, expensive sensor suite pounded away with a myriad of both active and passive devices, using every detection method from laser light to gravity itself to give the Davenport a real-time view of its surroundings. She was the master of the vessel, some could argue apart of the vessel itself, but in the eyes of the budgeters of the Allied Union Defense Force and her comrades, she was apart of the crew, which bowed to a much higher authority.

The commander of the vessel sat in the crew ready room, linked to a DSR (digital sensory recording) which neurally projected a most welcome vision to his five greatly deprived senses. Patrols like these were always long, and the crew needed devices such as the DSR to keep their sanity from colliding with the sterile and cramped crew compartments of the Davenport and shattering like a brittle plate of china. His name was Sion, a name that had been bestowed on every firstborn male of his family since the early twenty-first century. His surname was emblazoned on the exterior hull on the 'port' side of the vessel, preceded by the initials that represented the Allied Union Defense Force, one of the most professional and effective military bodies in the known universe. It was that very service that his distant ancestor, Sion I, had proudly served, in the time when navies still cruised the blue oceans instead of the black void. He had retired a Grand Admiral, commanding over five hundred combat vessels before he had lain down his sword for the last time.

Almost a half millennium later, his descendant sat in a sterile, metallic room of a starship that was hundreds of light years from the crystal blue waters of Terra. The DSR was a dream-like, almost cationic state, which allowed the user real rest and relaxation, a luxury otherwise impossible on such a vessel. Hey, at least they had artificial gravity during non combat situations. He was at his hometown, the metropolis of Southport-Directus, which had crawled to encompass a massive portion of the Courtanian peninsula, in one of the lush parks on top of a huge citadel rising hundreds of stories into the air. With him was a beautiful young woman whom he struck up a conversation with. He was close to making the move, he was sure. He knew inside his mind it wasn't reality, but, heh, scoring is scoring, right? He began to say his 'game' when the women opened her mouth and let out a deafening shriek like that of banshee, but deeper.

Sounds like a..oh, you have to be shi-

The neural jacks detached and his dream fluttered away like a dove in the sun. The klaxon was blaring, calling all of the forty crew to their stations. He felt his feet slowly rising off the floor, indicating that the artificial gravity generators throughout the spine of the ship were slowly tuning down. He grabbed hold of a rail located near him, propelling himself through the air. It was forty meters to his combat station, a forty meters he crossed with minimal effort. Settling into his chair, in the crew's command station, he locked himself in and jacked in through the four thin prongs located near where his neck would rest. He once again faded from this world, and was among the stars.

"Crystal, what do we have?"

A soft, feminine voice greeted him.

"Commander Davenport, a synthetic sensory emission has just passed through the photosphere of the Pandora Anomaly. Accessing..." His viewed shift to a view of a targeted reticule over a small speck over the surging orange conflagration that loomed in the distance. The conversation was in hyper-reality, crossed from pilot to commander and back again in mere nanoseconds thanks to their neural implants. It sure beat a radio.

"The emission patterns are vague, but match that of an ionic propulsion drive, commander. Probable sensory emissions are being emitted.

If his brow could furrow in this state, it would've.

"Classify bogey as Unknown Track-1. Is it armed?"

The voice paused for a "second" before responding.

"Unknown Track-1 is too densely packed in the Anomaly's depths to determine, sir."

'What's it trying to do...' he thought, before again interrogating his pilot.

"Any transmissions?"

"None, sir. However, I am detecting a Der Angst reconnaissance drone as well as it's mother vessel in the immediate vicinity, as well as what appears to be a Hobbeebian warship. Shall we hail them?

"At once, Crystal. Maintain contact with them, and offer to share intelligence. Send a data-burst to DEFCOM on the contact and maintain real-time with both them and the foreigners. In the meantime, get us back to sublight and maintain a patrol vector around this thing. Get us armed as well, if this bogey could burst through the Anomaly it's a possible hostile, and we're not getting caught with our pants down."

"Understood, sir. Out."

His vision returned to that of space, and the neural processors returned to a slower speed to observe the contact and his surroundings. The ship began to slightly turned while still bending space, beginning a elegant curving motion around the approaching contact. Three electromagnetic data-bursts, one heavily encrypted, were sent out to both their own higher ups and the local foreign vessels. While the communications bursts were sent out, the ship began a transformation not readily visible on the outside. Her inertial fusion confinement drive begin to fire up, fueled by a pair of anti-matter reactors in the rear (and most) armored cavity.

Crystal gently brought the Davenport out of her warp bubble, allowing her to slow to sub-light speeds. Now at a more Einstein-friendly speed, her eight anti-shipping C-frac mass drivers to begin to track the approaching contact each loaded with anti-matter warheads. Triple-F thermonuclear warheads, each mounted in a hypervelocity spinal launch cell and bearing a yield measured in gigatons, were activated (although they would not be armed until until firing). Her fifty six point defense drones were magnetically jettisoned from their port and starboard launch tubes, each packing multiple hypervelocity missiles and LASER domes, while the larger domes on the vessel began to calculate probable firing solutions for intercepting potential enemy ordinance.

The Davenport, for now, sat on the fence, wishing for peace and preparing for war.

[OOC: Der Angst, Hobbeebia, consider my hail to be a request for combined efforts, and Vescopa, consider mine to be a sort of 'identify yourself' request as soon as you breach the outer edge.]

the strike cruiser drifted lazily near the the daven port coms to xenos vessel who are you tsaid the brother captain train all weapons on the davenport

the captain said if she fliniches feduce it to some thing smaller then an atom

Silence. Frelli had expected to be long dead by now, but there was nothing. Only the throbbing hums of the Ventrius' systems dutifully plodding along. Through the nanophase windows, orange light flooded into the darkened bridge, and one could not see much further beyond the gasses that were being pushed aside harmlessly by the magnetic field projected around them. Perhaps the divinities were guiding them through for some reason?

"Anything?" he asked quietly, breaking the silence. Chief Jerion had by now arrived on the bridge, thinking he would have to coordinate massive damage control efforts, though so far he was under-utilised.

"All systems are functioning normally," Jerion said, confused.

Vagrette turned and shook her head. "We are travelling at maximum rated speed. I'm not getting any resistance sir."

Frelli sat back in his chair in deep thought, placing his fingertips together and leaning his head against them. All previous ships had disappeared without a trace, and it had been assumed that they had been destroyed. Now, he wasn't so sure. His anxiety began to give way to cautious optimism - the hull was intact, nobody had died, and they were well on their way into the field.

Alas, it wasn't to last.

"Commander!" Jerion called, just as numerous alarm klaxons began to wail deafeningly in unison. Red warning lights flashed across all of the computer monitors as the ship began to shake violently. The rattling of deck plating and falling objects began to overtake the noise of the klaxons and was certainly far more daunting.

Out of the window, the field seemed to set on fire as gasses began reacting with each other, generating massive explosions that were unaffected by the magnetic field and through the small ship around like it was a child's rattle.

"Multiple explosions detected!" Jerion screamed above the noise of the klaxons and the booming sound of shockwaves impacting against them, holding on to a computer terminal for dear life until it started to break lose from the wall.

"Attempting to adjust our course to compensate..." Vagrette yelled, working with her keyboards furiously.

The ship lurched violently to one side as it was caught in a powerful gravitational field; their simple optical and radiation-based sensor systems, obscured by the explosions and distorted by their own magnetic fields, had failed to identify the presence of a gravitational singularity.

"We are losing forward momentum sir!" Vagrette called out in panic. "Firing all port thruster jets to compensate!"

Numerous chemical rockets dotted down the side of the ship blasted to life, desperately trying to shift the ship's bulk out of the gravitational field it was caught in. They were still at the edge, so hopefully had a chance of breaking free. But the thrusters had little effect short of slowing it down.

"Commander, thrusters are overheating," Jerion shouted. "They are not powerful enough to resist the effects of that singularity, sir."

Commander Frelli unhooked his seat restraints and stumbled clumsily towards the communicator on the wall, lifting it to his head and holding on to a handhold on the wall as hard as he could as the ship continued to be battered around.

"Weapons control, this is the bridge!" he shouted. "Load an RCE warhead into tube one, port side! NOW! Do not vent the tube!"

"Aye sir!" came a confused response.

"Sir, you couldn't even destroy that singularity with a nuke!" Jerion shouted in protest.

"I don't intend to fire it, Chief!" Frelli told the Chief in no uncertain terms. "I suggest you strap yourselves in! Lieutenant, are our thrusters having any effect?"

"No sir!" Vagrette yelled. "We are still being pulled in!"

"Keep firing them, Lieutenant!" he called.

"Bridge, this is weapons control," a voice called across the intercom. The Commander held the communicator back up to his ear.

"Go ahead," he called.

"Warhead loaded and ready to fire!" the weapons control officer told him. "Target?"

"We are not going to fire it, Sublieutenant," the Commander shouted strictly. "In T-minus twenty millis, I want you to detonate the warhead while it is still in the tube. Evacuate all surrounding sections immediately! Is that understood?"

"Sir?"

"Just do it, Lieutenant!" Frelli snapped. "Bridge out."

He stumbled across the bridge and fell roughly back into his chair, quickly strapping himself in. "I suggest everybody holds on to something!"



The small ships engines were powerless against the powerful singularity, which dragged them towards its orifice like a hungry child looking to devour a cookie. Thrusters down the side of the vessel fired furiously but had about as much effect as digging one's nails into the sand. Suddenly, a large internal explosion tore a large chunk from the port side of the bow, the force of which blasted the ship hard to starboard, almost breaking the ship in half in the process. Its rear ion engines were then in a position to directly resist the gravity of the singularity, and resist they did - they glowed brighter than ever as they were pushed well beyond recommended heat tolerances.

But it worked. The ship slowly pushed away from the gravity field, and picked up greater speed as it accelerated away.



"We are free!" Vagrette called out victoriously. A large slash now marred her smooth, sweaty forehead where the blast from the explosion and the subsequent turn had seen her slam her head against the console in front of her, which now had blood splashed across it. "Forward velocity returning."

Unfortunately the explosions began again, rocking the ship harshly and scorching its armour plating. Hull breaches began to form, spewing vital gasses from within and, in some unfortunate cases, bodies as well.

"I am beginning to receive damage reports from my teams all across the ship sir," Jerion called. "We have multiple hull integrity breaches, fires are reported on deck seven and eight. Our ion drive is operating well beyond recommended tolerances! We're going to have to start dumping our water supplies on the thermoconductors at this rate!"

"I am noticing increased forward momentum sir," Vagrette chimed in. "It's nothing that I am doing though..."

"Another singularity ahead!" Jerion called, pointing ahead. Sure enough, the gasses cleared enough to reveal an enormous black 'blot' in the midst of the fiery orange cloud they were trapped in, with a spiral of gasses circling into it. It was almost beautiful, if they weren't being drawn towards it.

"Attempting relativistic halt... full reverse thrusters... cutting ion drives now..." Vagrette called out.

"No!" Commander Frelli snapped. "Ahead full! Try to plot a course along the outer edges of the gravitational field, keep us out of the worst of it!"

Jerion was about to protest when he realised what the Commander was proposing. "A slingshot, sir!"

"Exactly, Chief," Frelli said, clasping his hands together firmly. He began to sweat, hoping he knew what in the Eotu he was doing.

"Yes Commander, all ahead full," Vagrette said nervously.



Once more the blue ion engines glowed brightly as they were pushed beyond their limits, becoming almost white as the heat grew uncontrollably. Numerous coolant leaks began to dribble as the superheated liquids burst free from their pipelines. One way or the other this ship was going to lose its ability to propel itself.

Its speed grew uncontrollably as it pushed ahead with all its might towards the singularity, with the intense gravity pulling it even harder still. The magnetic fields could not repel matter at such speeds, and forward armour plating began to sheer, melt and tear away as the friction from the surrounding gasses managed to break through. Some of it reacted violently to contact with the ship, exploding against its hull and tearing off chunks of the armour. Railguns were stored in sealed alcoves when not in use, but numerous turret alcoves were broken apart and the weapons beneath were torn away.

The ship continued to accelerate regardless. It left a stream of smoke as it broke all previously known speed records, going at such a pace that its velocity could only be easily measured as percentages of lightspeed. It passed by the singularity dangerously close, with much of its starboard armour being torn away by the gravitational sheering effects alone, and quickly left its gravity well behind.

Unable to slow down, the crippled ship burst through the outer side of the cloud at colossal speeds like a whale jumping from the ocean, travelling sideways, and zooming off into the distance with a trail of gasses, molten metal hull plates and vaporised organic matter left in its wake. In spite of its ordeal, it was possible that people could have survived in the aft areas, though with no friction or gravity to slow it down, it didn't look to be stopping any time soon.

(OOC: Sorry for the confusion. The ship had not yet left, though I suppose the closer to the other side it got, the easier it would be detected.)

[OOC: I've edited my post accordingly.]

" Commander! A Serverly Damaged ship has just exited the Barrier. And it is moving fast. It should be passing us soon. Orders!"

The Commander Debated for a second and acted

" Hail them, if they dont reply Hit them with a tractor beam and activate our three port side Grav-holds. Try and draw them in."

" Aye Sir!" announced the Helms Officer as he tried to hail....

The ship was not responsive to hails. Its radio antennae had been the first things to get yanked off, leaving scorched craters in the hull where they had once been. It was not responsive to anything else for that matter. All power systems were offline as the ship continued its epic sideways sprint across space. The magnetic field was destroyed, and space particles were beginning to gradually erode what was left of the ship's outer hull. There wasn't much time left before a catastrophic integrity failure occurred, and an alarmingly high amount of radiation was being emitted, particularly from the most central areas of the ship.

The bridge was dark. The nanophase windows had held, just about, but they were scorched black and for the most part, no longer transparent. Most of the computer monitors had either been sheered from the walls or smashed by falling debris. The hum of functioning systems was replaced with a deathly silence, until something stirred.

Commander Frelli emerged from beneath a pile of brittle metal sheets with a clatter, clutching his ribs where he had broken them. He coughed slightly as he struggled to stay upright, bringing up some blood to go with the stains that were already forming on his torn, earthy brown uniform tunic. He reached into a compartment on the side of his dislodged chair and pulled out a simple projectile sidearm, which had a flashlight mounted underneath the barrel. Flicking on the safety to be sure, he switched the flashlight on and aimed it around the bridge. He heard a whimpering moan from the forward area of the command deck and quickly made his way through the wreckage.

"Co... Commander?" a woman's voice called out. He rounded the navigation console and winced as he saw Lieutenant Vagrette sitting in her chair, blood trickling down from her mouth, and a long metal pole impaled through her chest just below her ribs. It was still attached to the roof above and had passed straight through her, becoming stuck in some of the metal grating on the floor.

"By the Divinity, Lieutenant..." he placed the pistol on the console with the flashlight aiming towards her and kneeled down beside her to inspect her wounds. Fortunate, the pole had missed her vital organs - he presumed - though her bright red blood was not ceasing to escape from within.

"Sorry... Commander..." she said with a strained voice. "I suppose I should have... *cough*... ducked huh?"

"Can you breathe well enough, Lieutenant?" Frelli asked her, standing upright again. He didn't dare touch her, as he would likely make things worse. The only hope was to keep her conscious long enough to get her a proper medic.

"As well as... ugh... could be expected, sir..." she spluttered. "Did we make it, sir? Are we on the other side?"

"I don't know, Lieutenant," he shook his head. "Just... sit tight, I'll try to get you some help."

"I'm... I'm not going anywhere, sir," she shook her head, regretting it immediately afterwards.

Frelli grabbed the pistol and panned the flashlight over the bridge. He heard another crash of debris and aimed the flashlight in that direction. Jerion was scrambling at a dead computer terminal to pull himself up to his feet, mumbling something in the process.

"Chief, are you OK?" Frelli called out.

"Negative, Commander," Jerion said. "Broken arm... couple of broken ribs... one Eotu of a headache and... and I think I broke a tooth! Gods damn it!" He saw Vagrette behind the Commander and shook his head. "Could be worse though I suppose. How is she?"

"Stable for now, but not for long," Frelli said. "Think you can get out of here and find out what's going on?"

"I'll try sir," Jerion nodded. The ship rumbled slightly, swaying them and giving Vagrette a cause to cry out. "I think we're moving." He looked around briefly and found a toolbox, pulling out a radiation metre. He took a quick glance at it and then looked up anxiously. "And we have a major radiation leak. I'd better get to the reactor room, quick."

"Get to it Chief," Frelli nodded. "Try and find a medic on the way."

"I'll stop by the infirmary on the way there, sir," Jerion nodded. After grabbing a flashlight of his own from the toolbox he hobbled towards the main doors of the bridge and activated the manual release, pulling one of them open with his good arm and slipping through. Frelli began checking the other crew members who had still not risen, dismayed to find most of them dead or very near to the end.

[AUSC Davenport, Patrol Vector 9233-D]

"Captain, the contact has just passed the outer edge!"

The strangely excited voice of the Pilot known as 'Crystal' broke into Sion's thoughts again. He focused his view on the approaching contact, and began anew his previous activity. Time seemed to slow to his whim, and his voice pierced the void of space.

"Crystal, what's the bogey's status?"

She analyzed the data she had been collecting, and reported.

"Unknown Track-1 is a confirmed warship, and has sustained severe damage to her hull during her passage through the Pandora Anomaly, with focused destruction on her bow and starboard side. She's coasting at a fraction of C, and probable biologics have been detected in the relatively undamaged aft section, although the wreck is badly shaken and shows signs of radiological contamination."

He again would have furrowed his brow, should it be visible.

"Crystal, ready Away Teams Alpha and Bravo on drop alert. I wanted them suited up and armed within ten minutes. I want you to get us alongside the track and match speed, heading and alignment with her."

She sounded inquisitive. "Purpose, sir?"

His brow would have then softened, and a sly grin would arc across his face.

"We're going to try and rope us some cattle, Crystal."

Within mere minutes, the Davenport had throttled forward, paralleling the drifting wreck at fifty kilometers port only by the grace of God and their big, powerful (and expensive) power-plant. But, any merchant Pilot could match speed. Now the difference between they and her showed as the entity at the reigns of the Davenport slowly but gracefully began to edge her vessel to right, the fusion drive's exhaust plume glaring into the dark void as the numerous vector maneuvering thrusters on her sides rotating, applying thrust where needed and holding the ship steady as she approached.

It's an urban legend that the fluid that surrounds a Pilot in their capsule is not a sustaining substance, but actually the Pilot's own sweat. This would certainly appear true as Crystal brought her ship alongside the tilted hulk. They made a rough thirty degree angle, and at this moment, Crystal cut off the thrust to the main engines, leaving only the smaller veiner thrusters for maneuvering. Using her cybernetically assisted touch, she slowly turned them up until the ships were barely twenty meters apart and parallel, so much that the visual sensors could make out the tiny scratches that lined the hull where the paint hadn't been ripped off along with armor plating. Her voice sounded somewhat relieved as she reported to her superior.

"We've matched course and alignment with the derelict, Commander, course of action?"

He smiled at his luck.

"Get the away teams to the aft starboard release hatches, and prepare to extended boarding tubes."

In a display never seen before by Velkyan spatial navigators, two relatively thin alloy and composite tubes began to extended from the starboard side of the Davenport, bridging the gap between it and the possibly inhabited section of the derelict. Six men, steeped in protective armor stepped into the forward tube's airlock, which would prevent either ship's atmosphere from intruding on the other's. Slowly, they made their way across the tubes as a second six-man team filled the aft. The first team soon made contact with the rather well damaged section of hull plating and began to use a sort of powerful welding tool to to slowly cut away the alloy. The alloy had to be tough to withstand the beating it had taken, but nothing could stand up to the combined force of these futuristic jackhammers for long. Soon, the second team had joined in, and within a few minutes, the first one, Alpha, had broken through to the other vessel and stepped in whatever laid ahead, their enhanced optics scanning the darkness.

As the away team tirelessly worked to assess the wreck and locate survivors, the Davenport still attempted to hail neighboring ships, asking for potential intelligence and assistance.

[OOC: Whatever response works for you, Vescopa]

Bridge of the Lucky Dragon

The Black Feather Federation frigate wove it's way slowly around the edges of the orange field, relying on the dense sensor clutter to hide it from prying eyes as it searched for prey. They had already noted the Der Angst probe and exploration ship in the area, as well as the several converging warships, nothing appealing or particularly easy there.

The pirate frigate was of the Tiger Class, an indigenous design that had been plundered from the Imperial Naashan Navy and since copied many, many times. Two more of these copies, the Lucky Dragon's sister ships, lay at their berths in the asteroid port nearby, having already given up on the day's hunting.

The ship rocked as the Vescopan vessel rocked out of the cloud right in front of them, about half a kilometre away, still trailing fire and leaving rippling explosions in its wake as the gases trailed off its crippled hull.

"What the hell was that?!" Captain Nassan exclaimed as he clutched a handrail to steady himself.

"Looks like a good sized vessel, sir. Damaged and heading away from us at an alarming speed."

"Bring us about and give chase as best you can! Let's see what they're about!"

"Subslight civilisation indeed. Adaptive hard- and software is great, but who would've thought it can cause typos?" the Astral Romance - in her organic form - said, looking only mildly amused, for once (And it happened rarely enough) not in the vicinity of the Erisavenus and engaging in the D/s games her inhabitants had since turned into a running gag.

The 'Barrier' around 'Pandora's Star' had certainly be interesting, but it'd also - frustratingly - proved to be quite elusive, refusing to reveal its secrets to the reasonably sophisticated attempts of the Romance to figure them out.

Something shooting through it did thus pique quite considerable interest in her.

"In any case. Personally, I think it-"

And then, a new message was coming in.

FTLCOM@1E15&EM1E-1; Beamspread x 1; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S0)
To: IEU Astral Romance
Subject: Automated Reponse; Unusual Activity @ [Coordinates] ('Pandora's Star')

Time=13392408 (Local; Bias)

Registered Contact: Ship [Specs]; [Velocity]; Heavily damaged; Damage consistent with damage caused by significant gravitational & accelerative forces as present in the anomaly; Additional damage (Radiative; Heat) along the surface & internally (Reactor malfunction possible); Survivers possible but unconfirmed; Communications & sensors probably heavily damaged

Registered Contact: Ship (AUSC Davenport; [Velocity]; Specs see registry); Cooperation Request: Analysis; Rescue; Combat

Registered Contact: Ship [Specs]; [Velocity]; Probably Hobbeebian

"-needs my attention." she finished her sentence, seamlessly, while simultaneously dumping a copy of her mindstate into a transmission back to GPRD #32 (S0). Her theories had just become superfluous - she'd still spend a while with that gorgeous human male specimen, discussing various options, but it'd recently become relatively uninteresting smalltalk, and mostly an attempt of hers to get into this surprisingly shy (People always were so reluctant to fuck ships!) guy's pants.

The researcher in her on the other hand, ended up traveling a few dozen lightyears within a remarkably short period of time, and embedded herself in the now-changed hardware of GPRD #32 (S0), which had thus been upgraded to GPRD #32 (Sreallyfreakin'high).

What next? Ah, yes. Replying to a few things.

CCOM@EM1E-1; Beamspread x 10; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S1+) (Astral Romance)
To: AUSC Davenport (Crystal; Sion)
Subject: Combined Efforts

I'll see what I can do - sadly, it'll take the main me a while to get here (About seven or so hours, it looks like), and this drone's not exactly the most useful of things, given the relatively limited scope of activities it's meant for, so any help I can provide is probably going to be considerably limited for the foreseeable future.

This said, looking at the object's present state, I strongly suspect that any arming up on your part is an overreaction - well, with regards to them, anyway. The local nomadic tribe probably justifies some upgunning, anyway.

For now, I think our basic problem is to slow them down without breaking anything. Unless somebody around here has displacers, that is. I don't - at least, not for the next seven hours.

In any case. With the damage the object has sustained, a brute-force approach is almost certainly going to lead to disaster - sadly, being too slow in our efforts is almost certainly going to lead to the same, too. So... Suggestions?

PS: I'm rather interested in talking to whoever lives in there - I hope this works out well. Would be a pain to lose the best lead we've ever had.

PPS: Oh, and if someone could give me a ride somehow? This drone doesn't have the accel necessary for cfrac, so I'm not exactly capable of following the object on its trip out of the system.

Yours sincerely,

~ IEU-by-Proxy Astral Romance

The message was, of course superceded rather quickly, largely by the fairly quick actions of the Davenport - and while the Astral Romance doubted the sanity of a docking maneuvre at relativistic velocities, well... As long as it worked...

At least there was no wind or uneven ground to worry about in space.

CCOM@EM1E-1; Beamspread x 10; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S1+) (Astral Romance)
To: AUSC Davenport (Crystal; Sion)
Subject: Combined Efforts

Oh... Forget what I just said. Just watching. Fairly impressive what you're doing there right now. Go on.

I feel so useless right now... You wont mind me being on board once you've saved those guys, would you?

Yours sincerely,

~ IEU-by-Proxy Astral Romance

, <A.U.S.C. [I]Davenport To Astral Romance>

Greetings, Astral, this is Captain Davenport, Allied Union Defense Force.

Anyways, cutting the bullshit, we've made some progress. Our away team is searching the ship, but they haven't found anything significant yet, besides wreckage and destroyed subsystems. Our external scanners are still picking up biologics, but there's too much sensor clutter to pick up exactly where. I don't want my guys stepping into a destroyed compartment or radiological leak, so they're taking it slow. We'll keep you posted.

As for the pick-up, I've called for assistance from the nearest AUDF station at Vespin Prime, they've activated and mobilized two salvage ships and the AUCS Reliant, another Davenport class. I'll direct one of them to initiate a retrieval operation for you. They're about about six hours away.

In the meantime, we'd like the establish a communications and intelligence data-link with you, would this be acceptable?

" Sir no response... I have our tractor and our Grav-holders on at full. This thing is cooking sir. " replied the Helms officer as he tried the route more power to the systems.

" Disengage all tractor and grav-holds. The ships conditions now would not give enough integrity to maintain holds... we may even tear it in half. I want to save anyone we can!" ordered the Commander as he Stood up from his chair letting it dissipate.

" Sir Another ship is attempting to Board and another is in pursuit. Orders?" announces and asks the Sensors Officer as he pulls up a high detail Holo-display of the ship.

" Ships engines to full! I want Dime-board parties ready 5 minutes ago! and Hail the other ships in the area! I want to make sure of their intentions!" exclaimed the Commander as he willed a bracing bar so he may maintain his stance and balance.

As he finished his orders. the ships Engines developed a bright white glow and propelled the ship in the direction of the Vescopain ship. The propelling however was so sudden that the people inside had o brace themselves to keep from falling over. The ship had inertia dampeners, and good ones at that, but even this was to much to compensate for so quickly. AS the ship accelerated the hail was sent....



From : Commander Lehigh- Hobbeebian Explorationary forces- HCS Silverline
To: Surrounding Vessels and beings

This is Commander Lehigh of the Hobbeebian Explorationary forces of the Superior Majestic Imperium of Hobbeebia. I am hailing you in the interests of the Imperium and in the interests of the Few expected survivors of the ship that recently exited the Barrier. We are asking for everyone to declare their intentions and nationalities. This message is not intended to be hostile in nature.




The message was sent out on a strong signal and was not encrypted in anyway so anyone should be able to receive it.

The Commander then called the dime-room where the boarding teams where ready. The teams consisted of 10 Eborians and 20 Droids. The Droids where cross-classed Units programed in self-defense and advanced medics.

" This is you Commander. Your orders are as follows- 1)Don't draw your weapons unless fired upon. 2) Search for wounded and living- If you come across any that are fatally wounded put them into a stasis field then dime them back to us. 3) Begin a diagnostics on the ship to see what remaining systems are functioning. Try to reestablish systems that are damaged.

Do you understand your orders?" said the Commander

The team and replied with a firm yes. The tech operator of the Dime gate systems began to preform actions on his solid light console. The gate on the wall Exploded into a whirlpool of light and then showed the bridge of the ship that was speeding into the void. The teams could see the Ships bridge crew and a woman impaled to the floor. The teams rushed in quickly. Establishing a protective shield around the bridge. The leader of the walked up to the People inside saying

" Hello, I am LT. Rankin of the Hobbeebian Explorationary Forces. I am here to save you. Now I need you to give me the ships layout. "

(OOC: How do find a bridge on a ship you don't have plans for, or speak to a people who have never been encountered before by outside races?)

OOC: Simple... The jump Computer locates an area of the ships that is still livable and creates a rift allowing instant travel for people and small objects.. This time it just happens to be the bridge. As for speaking.. If they can understand us then examples can be given. Like pictures of blue prints or what not.

OOC: If they can understand us then examples can be given. Like pictures of blue prints or what not.

(OOC: Because they'll just fork over plans to their ship after their ship has been totaled and a large portion of the crew is killed, followed by several heavily armed and armored alien soldiers magically showing up and beginning to shout at them in a incomprehensible language, right?

But, I digress, it's Vescopa's choice.)

OOC: Their weapons are at best a single blaster pistol which isn't even visible. Eborians are humanoids that are almost exactly like humans except for white shinning eyes and light reflecting and shimmering skin that only appears if placed in the right light. Their movements are not threatening nor where they wearing armor. So a violent action would be the last thing I would suspect.. But by the same token I understand your position.but I also think that with a ship that has the potential to implode around you I think seeing others who have means of travel would be a welcome sight. but enough OOC...

Frelli stumbled around shining his pistol on each of the bodies; so far, he had only found two more people alive and they were unconscious, with head injuries on one and severe burns on the other, and there was nothing he could do for them at the moment. Somehow, Vagrette had managed to remain conscious - it sounded like she was reciting some kind of childhood nursery rhyme over and over, presumably one of sentimental value to her. Frelli was beginning to feel light headed himself, though, and his vision was blurring. He had coughed up more and more blood as he double checked all of his crew members here, and he couldn't imagine that his innards looked good right now.

He was quite startled to suddenly see new figures on the bridge. He could not see their faces in the dark, and even when he aimed the flashlight on his pistol toward them he could not make out anything other than the colour of their clothes, which were not standard Vescopan uniforms. They said something to him, but, it was nonsensical. Perhaps he had just lost too much blood or perhaps he was going insane. Maybe there was something in the Eotu that had caused them to lose their minds? Though, his mental voice sounded fine to him. Maybe he was just imagining them. Or maybe, he was already dead... and none of this was real. Either way he had to secure the ship, so that they could take it into the Eotu and complete their mission. Or... had they already done that? His mind was fuzzy and he couldn't think straight.

Ah, the unknown crew members! He remembered what he was supposed to be dealing with. He'd have them thrown from the nearest airlock for failing to wear their uniforms!

"Who are you?" he blurted out. "Why are you... out of... uniform?"

With that he stumbled down onto his knee, dropping the pistol, and then lost consciousness, crashing down onto the deck. The impaled woman was the only one left conscious.

************

Jerion had stumbled his way through the ship, having to take a long bypass as many compartments were either blocked, sealed to contain blazing fires, or exposed to vacuum. He had found the infirmary, and it was under a self-powered maglock containment protocol. Judging by how cold the door was he could only assume it was also exposed to vacuum. So he continued on, hobbling along until finally reaching the main reactor room. His radiation metre grew more and more panicked as he approached.

There he found the first hint of power. The reactor room had numerous redundant systems, far more than the rest of the ship, in order to maintain power to the coolant pumping systems and suchlike. Those were systems one did not want to lose. Engineers, mostly injured and bloodied in some fashion or another, and many with torn jumpsuits, scurried around desperately until one saw him and quickly seized his attentions.

"Sir! Thank the Divinities!" the young crewman blurted out. Aside from a nasty gash down his cheek and a bruise on his forehead, he was uninjured, though pretty grubby. He grabbed the Chief's bad arm, immediately letting go as he yelled out in pain. "Oh... sorry sir."

"What's going on crewman?" Jerion asked, clutching his painful arm close to his chest to keep anybody else from grabbing it.

"We had a massive coolant leak below deck sir," the crewman said as they jogged across the room towards the enormous reactor assembly that dominated the rear. "It was sealed but we lost too much coolant - we're looking at a critical meltdown in less than a fraction. We can't shut it down! And there's a crack in the casing somewhere, as we're leaking heaps of radiation. I'd wager we're already overexposed!"

"What happened to our reserve supplies?" Jerion snapped. "Refuel the coolant tanks, man!"

"We can't, the reserves were all blown away!" the crewman panicked. "We have to evacuate, or this radiation leak'll look like a pocket glowstick in comparison!"

"I don't think we can evacuate, the outer hull has sustained major damage and I don't think any lifeboats survived," Jerion said. "How many EVA suits do we have aboard?"

"Maybe... thirty, forty, I dunno," the crewman shrugged.

"Not enough to jump the crew out... but we can at least get the engineering staff suited up to try and contain this for as long as possible. Get to it!"

"Y... yes sir!" the crewman stammered and quickly ran towards the equipment storage bays.

Looking around the reactor room, many of the engineering staff seemed to already have been exposed for too long. They were sweating profusely and many of them staggered around. Though, it was quite warm in here. The air around the reactor itself seemed to ripple ominously as it began to heat uncontrollably. Not a good sign.

************

The corridors of the ship where the aliens had gained entry were narrow, pitch-black and smoky. Some of them were breached to space and sealed by maglocked blast doors, others were just blocked by debris or raging, uncontrolled fires that had started after power had failed. At least one of the main weapons bays nearby, containing amongst other things their conventional and nuclear warheads, was dangerously close to a particularly large fire, and without main air conditioning systems the temperature was rising rapidly.

Bodies littered the floor, some of them lying in crooked conditions, others buried beneath debris. All in all, less than 30% of the 2,000-strong crew had survived, with over half of them injured quite seriously, and most of them were trapped in core areas of the stern. The radiation leak had spread across the entire ship by now, and although only the immediate areas around the reactor room were in serious exposure danger, levels were rising quickly all over the ship.

The Ventrius did carry a small company of marines, though a combination of personal inexperience and inexperienced tutors and training regimes led to them having little idea how to deal with the crisis. Two of them were nearby where the aliens had gained entry, though one of them was slumped against the floor unable to feel his legs, whist his comrade, with a trickle of blood pouring from a nasty cut on his head underneath his helmet, tried to console him. They remained oblivious to the intruders.

"Unknown contacts in-system of procurement, Captain."

"Can you get a VID on them?"

"Negative sir...they're not of our registrar. Attempting a high-freq band to get their attention."

The ADV Zealot, a Legacy-class battleship, led a small formation-three ships (as the Dominion never traveled alone) into the system, emerging from hyperspace-an Otari-class corvette, a Spartan battlecruiser and an Akira destroyer. A motly little fleet, though not really designed for engagement (though if pressed, it could). Rumors of some odd anomolies-somewhat similar to the type that plied the Shroud, the massive field that encircled the Dominion-had been detected near the local cluster that the Zealot's group had showed up at.

Now, however, stuff was getting strange. There were at least three contacts on system as active sensors went online-one was badly damaged. The other two seemed to be hovering around the ship-dangerously, almost. The Dominion wasn't here to make war on several civilizations abruptly, but to get to the damaged ship, it would require getting into the damaged ship.

"Deploy a gunship and load it with a crew," Captain Peros, the commander of the Zealot, ordered.

"How should we handle the others, sir?"

"Raise weapons and shields, but hold off for now. Get support ships to Alert-5-if they want to fight, they can. And scan the vessel for life signs."

"Can do, Cap'n."

One Typhoon-class Assault Shuttle exited the Zealot's hanger bay, carrying a full load of soldiers.

"There's lifesigns in the rear and the fore of the ship-but the fore will be harder to access. The gunship can probaly punch through the rear with plasma drills to insert our guys."

"Tell them to do it."

The assault shuttle manuevered towards the rear of the ship-where energy emissions were high, for some reason. It nestled against the vessel-preparing to utilize plasma drills to open up a sealable breach, allowing men to get in.

Back home,things were looking bleak. It had been several hours, and numerous silent snack breaks, since contact had been lost, and it had not been re-established since. Scientists were scrabbling around the various computer terminals, analysing data charts that Jessaá Cataldo could not even begin to comprehend as they tried to determine the fate of the Ventrius. Cataldo feared the worst; it seemed likely that as past experience had taught them, the Ventrius had been consumed by the Eotu. She whispered a silent prayer for the crew of the valiant ship, just as one of the lead scientists walked over to them.

Cataldo could tell by the bleak look on his face that the news he brought with him wasn't good, and she had expected as much. As the person who had authorised this latest attempt to find out what lay beyond the edge of the universe, she felt somewhat responsible for their deaths and despised the fact, and promised herself that she would not allow it to happen again.

"Well?" Miscarand demanded. He had been leaning against a desk, but stood upright and folded his arms impatiently as the scientist delayed.

The scientist shook his head solemnly.

"What did you find, Doctor?" Cataldo asked, a little more gently than her irate companion.

"Our deep space telescope could see no visual signs of wreckage," the scientist said. "Whether there is any within the Eotu itself, is indeterminable. It does record that the Ventrius' exhaust trail ends shortly after it penetrated the field. Again, that may not mean anything, as we have great difficulty seeing into the field but... it does not look hopeful. These are the same conditions reported in previous attempts."

Cataldo sighed, gently placing her hands over her lips as though shocked, though it was not the case. Her fears had merely been confirmed. The Ventrius was lost.

"Thank you Doctor," she said quietly, managing a meek smile.

"I am sorry that the attempt was unsuccessful," the Doctor said, with a nod. "The crew of the Ventrius shall be mourned."

"They will indeed, Doctor," Cataldo said. Perhaps in the old days, when there were numerous cities and more Vescopans, such a loss could have been tolerated to a point. But when the population was so small as it was now, to the point where they risked extinction, and resources such as ships were in such short supply, even if the moral implications of sending good men and women to their deaths were irrelevant, it was still practically unsound. She did not want further deaths on her conscience, and at that moment determined herself to put a stop to the project.

"I am afraid that the government will not be able to allow any more of these experiments to take place, Doctor," Cataldo said finally, after a long pause. "I shall of course make sure the issue is put to the Assembly, but, I think we both know what they will decide. We are too few, and the risks are insurmountable with our present understanding of the Eotu. I am sure that you can understand this."

"Yes, Prime Leader," the Doctor said sadly.

"Perhaps one day in the future, our descendants can try again, with greater knowledge and understanding of the task we face?" she suggested reassuringly. "And perhaps you may be able to try again with unmanned probes?"

"Perhaps, ma'am," the Doctor said, shaking his head negatively. "If you will excuse me, I must go and write up my report of today's incidents."

Cataldo nodded, and the Doctor slowly trudged away. The sense of defeat was palpable - so many had thought that the expedition would be a success, that they had a sure fire winner this time. But in the end, they had been just as successful as before - and that was to say, not very. She folded her arms and turned to look at Miscarand for a few moments.

"I want to hold a nationwide memorial ceremony," Cataldo said at last. "In honour of the Ventrius' crew."

"That is a good idea, Jessaá," Miscarand nodded. "This will be a great blow to everybody."

"Can you... make the appropriate arrangements?" Cataldo asked. "I feel that I need some time to myself. For a short while."

"Of course," he nodded gently. "Get some rest. I shall take care of it."

"Thank you," she smiled weakly.



The announcement of the expedition's failure and the planned memorial ceremony hit television sets across the land shortly thereafter. It was a dark day for this eternally bright city. A tangible sense of defeat fell upon the cityscape, and religious gatherings were hurriedly assembled to deal with the metaphysical questions the expedition's failure had raised. Those who didn't believe, spent the rest of the day in silent contemplation, their everlasting questions remaining unanswered.

Grr.

The Astral Romance spent a very short moment meditating about the universe at large, and security fanatics encrypting their messages to people - foreigners - in fact, non-military personnel and assets -, making it impossible to read them.

Then she spent a marginally longer period of time on cracking the encryption, read, and replied.

CCOM@EM1E-1; Beamspread x 10; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S1+) (Astral Romance)
To: AUSC Davenport (Crystal; Sion)
Subject: Combined Efforts

Well, it's a start. Should find something, sooner or later.

This said, I figure that by six hours, any evacuation procedures will already have succeeded, and the main 'Me' would be an hour or so (+/- 10%) off, so that's unnecessary - if it's not possible right now, it's pointless. The link should suffice. Specific wavelength just out of the usual spectra suffices? I'm establishing something... 10 µm @ 22026 c.

FTLCOM@qE10&EM1E-5; Beamspread x 4; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S1+) (Astral Romance)
To: AUSC Davenport (Crystal; Sion)
Subject: Combined Efforts

There, better. You don't happen to have video of the boarding? I've a lock on with c+ perception, but that's not helping much. Hum. Or alternatively, if you've something capable of running astral_romance.exe, that'd be neat. Required hardware specs attached.

Yours sincerely,

~ IEU-by-Proxy Astral Romance

And then there was the Hobbeebian message (That the Romance found te present situation to be decidedly frustrating, unable to actually be where the action was, comes without saying, but well, she could at least try something).

Oh my.

CCOM@EM1E-1; Beamspread x 10; SL 0
From: GPRD #32 (S1+) (Astral Romance)
To: Commander Lehigh- Hobbeebian Explorationary forces- HCS Silverline
Subject: Combined Efforts

I'm a - doubtless inferior - peasant going by the name of Astral Romance, and being unable to match speed with certain other objects presently flying about, it's my intention to hang around here and watch, as this matter is of considerable interest to me. I'm curious like that.

Any other questions?

(OOC: I'm surprised at how quickly everyone can intercept a hunk of burning wreckage going at a fraction of light speed. And DA, we've got a datalink, so accessing footage from my away team's optics suites shouldn't be hard.)

[Away Team Alpha, Entry Point A]

In full armor, the marine away team was probably a rather frightening sight to behold. They were armed with large pulse carbines for close quarters work, affixed to their right hands, while their left hand was a precisely actuated five-finger gripping mechanism. Or, a mechanical hand, if you wanted to get technical. The corridors would be normally hazy under regular optics, but the combined sensor suites of the marines' powered EVA armor saw right through the smoke darkened corridors. The point man and second in command, a Corporal, suddenly piped up over the squads neural net.

"We've got biologics down the corridor, looks like one's unconscious. They're humanoid, standby for further identification...Jesus, Sarge, they look like us."

The gruff voice of the second man in line echoed through the minds of his squad.

"Not surprising, Jenkins. Lenin, report back to the ship, we've found two survivors. The rest of you, let's make first contact."

The first three powered suits, Jenkins, the Sergeant, and a Private First Class began to move downward, their bulky but manageable armor barely fitting inside the twisted corridor. Soon, they approached within twenty meters of the two Vescopian marines, and the point man activated his suit's helmet-mounted moonbeam, casting it on the two soldiers. Their reactions would play out soon enough.

[Away Team Bravo, Near Reactor Room]

"We've got heavy radiological readings in this room, boys, make sure you're buttoned up."

The second marine reported abnormal temperature readings as well.

"Sir, there's major thermo-fluctuations there, the reactor may be going critical!"

Even though he was perfectly capable of simply talking into the neural-net, the Marine squad leader, a combat veteran and Master Sergeant, turned on his "heel" and faced the marine.

"Boy, you had your chance to bitch before you joined my beloved Corps! Get your ass up front, marine!"

Thankfully, the EVA suits did more than their fair share of work in containing the radiation leaks from the ruptured reactor. There were plenty of biologics still contained in the reactor's compartment, but if the readings were correct, they would require immediate medical care or else they would succumb to radiological poisoning. Two marines stationed themselves forward at the door, wielding the same fission cutters that had been used to breach the hull. Slowly but surely, they broke through the reactor room's door, shining their flashlights on the biological contacts, who would surely react in surprise.

“Captain, this is the area those merchants told us about. They said there was some pretty bizarre things out here that caused ships to disappear.”

The captain of The Wanderlust looked up from the reports he was studying.

“It’s probably just pirate activity. Keep an eye out for signs of ships. Do a deep scan of the area and report any anomalies.”

“Yes Sir.”

The crew went about their duties and soon the proximity map began to fill in as data placed local stars and other astronomical bodies. The holo-display illustrated several of the objects with drop boxes containing information on some prospective stellar objects that might have filled the description given by the trade ship captain they met a few days back.

“Captain, I believe we have a Class A anomaly here. Visually it appears to be nothing but an orange spherical nebula. Gravitationally, the readings are quite unique. It appears to contain several black holes. The long range dimensional sensors also show several hits.”

“I see, what’s the distance?”

“The anomaly is approximately 37 light years distant.”

“Uplift and take us there. Drop into Real Space about ten light years away from the nebula and get more readings.”

”Yes Sir. We will Emerge from T-Space in approximately eight minutes.”

" Damn" was all that Rankin could say as man with the pistol fell unconscious. Rankin rushed to him and looked him over. Nothing to serious so he could leave him be fore now and search for others. As Rankin walked away he heard a moan from the woman who was Impaled. A moan means she was alive and awake. Rankin rushed over as fast as he could Looking her over to examine her wound. Rankin put his hand under her head and put his other hand over her body and closed his eyes. A few seconds later he opened his eyes and his face became more worried.

" I need a cutter torch and a Stasis field projector now!" yelled Rankin as he began to infect bio-foam around the wound as to stop the bleeding.

A droid quick came to Rankin to deliver the objects he requested. Rankin cut the pipe that was impaling her. Rankin stepped back and smiled then activated the stasis field freezing her in time. Rankin then had her taken back through the rift to his ship for further treatment.

The Captain Was also sent into the rift, as well as a few others. Soon it was only Rankin on the Bridge with a few droids. Rankin looked around for an active CPU. Only one was left and it was Fuzzy at some points. But from what he could make out the ship Reactor was going critical their where people inside the Reactor room. The Ship had few systems still active one however was still operational that may have a use. The Direction controls where still active as well as about 30% of the reverse thrusters where active as well. Rankin tried to initiate the thrusters as well as try to put the ship into a circled course making it go around and around. This would make it easier for a rescue. Rankin then Sends the Droids to the Reactor room so they could bring them back to the bridge and taken off before the ship goes critical and explodes.

The droids left out of the Bridge and began to walk down a corridor Fires and shorting wires where very common in this one. The droid saw many bodies on the floor one that carried no chance of saving. They where nearing the Reactor room......They could sense the Radioactivity, and it was a dangerous levels.

OOC: Vetaka, when you consider that this is their first attempt at leaving their own solar system and we've been out of our entire region for four millennia...not too difficult to speed up (considering that's a gunship, which is considerably faster than a hunk of burning wreckage, even at a fraction of c).

IC:

The assault shuttle locked magnetic clamps and shuddered to a halt on the rear hull of the damaged ship. The ventral exit port opened on the assault shuttle-revealing the grey hull of the ship beneath it. Four plasma detonators were placed on the hull and primed-and hot blue plasma jetted against the hull through the shaped charge. Four more were enough to punch through. A Letukan Provoker was the first through the breach-the massive elite soldier being the one to test the atmosphere, as Letukans all had their own air supplies. It was positive for insertion.

The entire team dropped in-five human shock troopers, four human commandos, four Sangheili Elites, and three Acklay droids. The droids bleeped loudly as they unlocked their frontal laser cannons, setting into active mode.

"Lifesigns are negative in this sector," the team's commander-one of the human commandos, designation Epsilon 39, confirmed. "Radiation's high, but we should be fine from it."

The team moved towards what seemed to be the engineering department, weapons out.

Back on the HCS Silverline much more was happening. The ship had reached the Derelict that was now in a loop flight. Silverline placed itself above the derelict while it went around and around.

" Sir that ship needs to stop moving before we can do anything more to help them." called out the Port side senors operator

" Engage tractor beams minimal power. Slow it down... Slowly. I dont want anymore external damage." ordered the Commander as he looked over reports from the scanners and from the medical bay where a few people who had been rescued.

" Aye sir... Tractors Engaged" replied the Helms Officer.

------------------- Back on the Derelict ship--------------------

The droids where getting closer to the reactor room. As they got closer they could see that new life signs had begun to show up on their sensors. After computing the reason they figured that they where others that where not originally seen due to Interference.

As they got closer the Droids noticed that the new signatures where not in the reactor room but where heading towards it. The droids moved faster trying to get to the Reactor room as fast as they could.

A team of four marines, the only ones of the few dozen stationed here who had either survived or managed to stay in any sort of organised shape, were gradually working their way through the corridors cautiously. They based their movements entirely off their training, particularly their close quarters training, having nothing else to go on. They moved from cover to cover, mostly using doorways, systematically breaking open any doors that still had an atmosphere behind them and sending anybody they found back to the nearest muster point. So far, they had found only twenty mobile people, and a few others whom they had marked as needing medical attention.

They moved through the darkness, clutching their VMR-10s against their shoulders nervously - only for the integrated flashlights beneath the barrel, as they did not even remotely expect to find anybody aboard who shouldn't be. Not that the flashlights helped, as the beams of light served only to illuminate the smoke and make visibility even worse than it was in the dark.

At each corner they stopped, checking each direction with a flexible fibre optic camera, as they had been trained to do, and then moved along. They had started from the heavily damaged barracks towards the destroyed hangar bay at the central dorsal area of the ship and were moving aft, towards the stern. Slowly. Their uniforms had simplistic radiation monitors attached to them, and they were well aware of the increasingly high levels of neutron and alpha radiation throughout the ship. It wasn't until they approached another corner that they found their objective complicated somewhat.

"Stack up, let's optic this next corner," Major Diodomus said quietly as he pressed against the wall. Mostly, they were doing this because he wasn't sure how else to proceed in this situation. No power, no people, no radio contact, no experience... no idea. So he was doing what his instructors had taught him to do when navigating ship corridors in compromised situations. It also helped them to avoid walking into potentially dangerous situations, such as live wires and the like.

"Bringing the optics up front," whispered Sergeant Risso, switching places with another marine to place himself at the corner. He pulled out a long stick with a small scope on the end, and poked the end just around the corner. A fibre optic camera on the end swivelled around to look around the corner and he placed his eye against the scope to see the results. As he had done several times already today. He took an inordinate amount of time this time though.

"Sergeant, a problem?" Diodomus asked quietly.

"I... see figures, sir," Risso said. "Can't make them out... too much smoke. Don't look... right, somehow, though."

"Let me take a look," Diodomus said. "Switch."

Risso handed his commanding officer the optical camera and swapped places with him. Diodomus poked the tip of the stick past the corner in the same fashion as his subordinate and looked into the scope, and found the same sense of confusion fall upon him. He couldn't clearly make out what he was looking at, but they were certainly figures in the distance, moving around. Whatever they were, they weren't supposed to be there. Could this mean... they had passed through the Eotu? Diodomus found the idea quite nerve racking, as it meant he could be looking at something.

"Switch back," Diodomus said quietly, and he reversed position with Risso once again.

"Sir?"

"I don't know, but... it shouldn't be here," he shook his head. "Risso, Geraat, up front. Baénjo, with me. Bang and clear. Go!" The ominous clicking sounds of weapons being taken off their safety modes brought about an urgent sense of panic in the entire team.

"Yes sir," Risso said. "Flasher in the dark!"

He pulled a spherical object from a satchel on his belt and twisted it. He then tossed it around the corner as hard as he could and they all turned away...

************

The main reactor room had slowed down somewhat, as Jerion had ordered half of the team to leave. Nothing they could do could get it under control, and it was only a matter of time before the core melted through its protective casing, and although not certain the possibility of a runaway reaction was considered high. Which meant bang. There was no sense in exposing the entire engineering team to the high radiation levels now being recorded; when they fainted, the others could come in, like a tag team. They would try to keep it contained for as long as possible, hoping the rest of the crew could find a way of escaping. Several of the engineers who had been in here since the incident had already succumbed, and lay motionless on the ground.

Jerion was already beginning to feel sick, and he sweated profusely in the dangerously high temperatures that now dominated the large chamber. The old fashioned mercury thermometer that hung on the wall specifically for occasions like these was reading above sixty-five degrees celcius, and he already felt like he was being boiled alive from the inside. Some of the maintenance engineers were even going to far as to spray the reactor down with a hose, and occasionally each other, in a last ditch effort to cool the reactor, for all the good it would do. They were using up their remaining water supplies fast, but, it was all contaminated now anyway. All it accomplished was flooding the room with steam, and if any of the computers had been working they would have short-circuited by now. But they were not accustomed to doing nothing.

Jerion watched them occasionally as he tried to figure out more ways of reducing the reactor strain - it could not be shut down, but at least he could physically sever anything that was still demanding power from it, to slow it down a little.

Over the noise, the steam, and the disorientating heat and radiation poisoning, the arrival of three different alien lifeforms at the same time went unnoticed. The engineering teams' attentions were focussed on the throbbing reactor.

************

The Hobbeebian attempts to access a bridge computer would be in vain. Power to the bridge had been severed, and the reactor had been physically cut from the main power distribution network anyway in an attempt to ease the load on the dying machine as much as possible. Most of the bridge computers were damaged beyond the point of usefulness anyway, even if they had power.

And, as if this was not enough, the severe outer hull damage had seen most of the thrusters destroyed anyway, and the ion engine nacelles had literally been ripped clean off.The phrase 'crippled' had never been more aptly applied to a vessel before now.

As the tractor beams locked on, the innards of the ship came to life as the corridors resonated with bellowing creaks and clangs, as already-weakened metal twisted and groaned under the stress of being pulled in the opposite direction.

OOC:

Had I come upon this earlier, I might well have tried to get involved in it, but as it is, this is really good reading.

I just thought I'd say that.

Eight minutes later:



The Explorer vessel dropped out of T-Space and Emerged into Real Space. Their location was just within ten light years of the anomaly.


“Sir, we have achieved out position you ordered. Intensive scans of the anomaly are being conducted.”

“Excellent, rep[ort all anomalous readings.”

“The preliminary results show the anomaly is primarily composed of dimensional tears and sporadically created singularities. The complete randomness of their placements makes it impossible to peer into the center of the anomaly. I believe our shields might protect us from the dimensional rips but the region is too unstable for our drives to operate.”

“I see. Where is the orange nebula coming from? If there are singularities there, they would have drained off the particulates.”

“It also appears to contain a couple white holes as well as incursions of material from the dimensional rifts. That is my best guess.”

“Take us in closer, but keep our distance from the anomaly.”

“Sir, I am detecting several different vessels in the area closest to our position. It seems some sort of rescue operation is taking place. I am detecting at least four different nations including the victim. Make that five, it seem another ship just arrived.”

“Hmm… Bring us in but don’t put us anywhere we might be in the way. As soon as we Emerge, establish communications with all ships and offer our assistance and expertise. Also get more sensor readings of the anomaly.”

“Yes Sir.”

The Wanderlust again Uplifted to make the final jump to the anomaly and the curous activities going on there.

Rankin pounded on the console as the system began to lockup. He wasn’t getting anywhere with it now. The sounds of the hulls pain caused by the Tractor beams was an all to familiar sounds as the hull began to twist and bend as it resisted the beams. Then he got a message on his neuron-link system

“ Listen, We have examined the outer hull of the vessel your in…. results show positive for multi-nation boarding’s. Be careful Rankin you not alone in their. And I am not sure how they will react to your being there either.”

Rankin was not surprised by this as he saw the other ships start after the one he was in after it emerged. But it was a reason to work quickly. Rankin removed his fist from the console and looked around the bridge for gate opening. As he began to walk to it, a slight shift in the view of the ships changed and became blurred.


“ This is Rankin, The gate is starting to became unstable. I need a secondary exit… ASAP!” yelled Rankin into his radio as he looked around at the ship.

“ Rankin we are going to reestablish a new gate in the rear. You need to get their ASAP. Scans are showing the hulls integrity fading and fast. I give her about 1 hour at best.” Replied Commander Lehigh

Rankin stomped the ground and ran to a airlock and left the Bridge as he looked for the new gate. Leaving in the same direction of the Med droids he knew he would catch up fast. Most of the corridor was scarred and burned. Rankin was getting closer to the droids when a flash-bang went off around the next corner…

“ Hold you Fire! Friendly for Rescue!” yelled Rankin hoping they would hear.

Rankin then ran to where the grenade was set off finding the droid beginning to uncover their viewers. Most had weapons drawn and pointed down hall. Rankin quickly over rid the defense protocol and again yelled to cease hostile actions.



___ back on Silverline

“ Commander scans have given us a little glimpse of what that barrier is that the derelict came through on… It’s a Dimensional Shatter. Reports show multiple Dime Rifts and the random singularities would suggest a very unstable Dime barriers between the each one. This place is like an ocean of chaos.” Reports the Sensors Officer as she brings Lehigh the report.

Lehigh looked over the report via neuron interlace. He face was a puzzled one after he read over the report.

“ Send a probe.. I want a reading on what exactly is in side that …thing” ordered Lehigh as he left the room.

The Sensors Officer nodded and left to deploy the probe….

The Astral Romance - well, the version presently at the scene, at least - cringed as it watched the proceedings inside (Via the recently established uplink) and outside the unknown object.

Things were not going well at all, and just to add insult to injury, she could do fuckall to change this - at present, she was the most powerless individual involved in this particular congregation of chaos.

Apropos chaos...

FTLCOM@qE10&EM1E-5; Beamspread NA; SL 0 & multiling msg
From: GPRD #32 (S1+) (Astral Romance)
To: Every entity within a 1000 ls radius
Subject: Combined Efforts

Watching the, oh... Three or four attempts at boarding and rescue operations presently taking place, I am wondering why nobody bothers to take up the suggestion by the AUSC Davenport to combine our - your - efforts. This would ease things and probably avoid the problem of ripping the wreck into bits as we're all pulling from another direction.

If so desired, I can act as a central hub (Just about the only thing I'm good for right now, anyway), that should work out reasonably well. Most certainly better than the present anthill-esque organisation, which strikes me as not only inefficient, but dangerous.

Yours sincerely,

~ IEU-by-Proxy Astral Romance

A fair distance away, the Astral Romance proper, as well as its permanent escort - the Angels Holocaust - were smashing through the non-relativistic properties of What Isn't Space Anymore, heading towards the anomaly at an equivalent speed best described as 'Illegal', still too far - way too far - off to actually interfere in any way, but trying their best to at least arrive at a time when some basic post-evacuation work could be done. Translations and barrier-penetration, for example.

OOC:

Hey, now that I think on it, Vescopa, if I can find reasonable cause, would you object to me joining this?

I mean, not everybody needs to take part in boarding a ship which now just about has more foreigners on it than indigenous crew, right?

(OOC: Sure, you can join, and thanks for the compliments earlier.

Unfortunately I do not have time to make an IC post right now, but I'll have an abundance of time tomorrow so expect one then (working on GMT here, it is 1:32am right now).)

OOC:

I sent him a TG asking to join not long after his second post (the bump) and before I knew it there was a crowd. That is why I am taking the slow path in because too many cooks metaphore is in full action here. Just not enough room for another rescue attempt so I am taking this approach.

There are some real good players here and this will end up a good read.

The flashbang grenade wasn't the same hall as the Amazonian team aboard-and the platoon continued moving forward.

"Radiation levels increasing. Seal armor," ordered Epsilon 39.

The special ops troops quickly adjusted knobs across their armor systems-varying in type between the different species-and continued moving forward.

"Levels are emitting from beyond this sealed door," 39 spoke as they reached a closed metal door, seemingly covered in alpha radiation. "Knock it down."

The Provoker moved forward, letting out a curse in the low, gutteral language of the Letukans. With a slam of its right "shoulder", a massive dent appeared in the inwards-bent metal. A slam from its right upper appendage busted down the door's hinges, and one of the Elites kicked down the remnants of the broken door.

39 could clearly tell-it was the reactor room, or at the very least the central ops for engineering department. No matter what race, the engineering always seemed somewhat alike-and this was no different case. The three droids were in first, scuttling along their six legs to test radiation levels. The droids gave the all clear squawk from their vocabulators, and the living soldiers next entered the reactor room, weapons drawn and activated.

Bump for Vescopa

The first three powered suits, Jenkins, the Sergeant, and a Private First Class began to move downward, their bulky but manageable armor barely fitting inside the twisted corridor. Soon, they approached within twenty meters of the two Vescopian marines, and the point man activated his suit's helmet-mounted moonbeam, casting it on the two soldiers. Their reactions would play out soon enough.

The injured marine was panicked, as anybody would be if they were trapped on a dying ship beyond the range of any help, and couldn't feel one's legs. His companion's attempts to calm him were not really working, as there was little one could say to make light of such a situation. However, his companion recognised the look of fear on his face as he saw something coming up upon them. then a light descended upon them. Vergos, the uninjured marine (aside from a bloodied cash down one of his arms) turned around slowly to see some kind of armoured monsters coming towards them.

Demons, from the Eotu?

"Go!" his injured companion shouted. "I can't run! I'll just slow you down! You have to move, soldier!"

Vergos didn't need telling twice. He bolted down the corridor, yanking his sidearm out and firing wildly behind him before disappearing off around a corner. His injured companion, Geran, pulled out his own sidearm and pointed it toward the Eotu demons, awaiting his fate.

Rankin then ran to where the grenade was set off finding the droid beginning to uncover their viewers. Most had weapons drawn and pointed down hall. Rankin quickly over rid the defense protocol and again yelled to cease hostile actions.

The unknown contacts called down to them in some kind of bizarre language that certainly wasn't Vescopan, and Diodomus couldn't even find it familiar to any of the dead languages that he had heard about from before the War. Were they speaking a demonic language, or, even more scarily, an alien one? He was about to order his men to withdraw to consider their position, when his panicked soldiers made their own decisions.

"ALIENS!" Risso shouted in Vescopan. "ALIEN INVADERS!"

"They're armed!" another piped. "Some kind of weapons!"

"OPEN FIREEEE!" Risso bellowed. Their weapons erupted in a deafening series of rapid-fire 'bangs', sending hails of bullets down the corridor.

39 could clearly tell-it was the reactor room, or at the very least the central ops for engineering department. No matter what race, the engineering always seemed somewhat alike-and this was no different case. The three droids were in first, scuttling along their six legs to test radiation levels. The droids gave the all clear squawk from their vocabulators, and the living soldiers next entered the reactor room, weapons drawn and activated.

As yet another group of aliens entered through the doorway, all different but apparently working together, engineers began to notice them and panic. There was only one entrance to the reactor room, and the reactor itself was by now far too hot to hide near - they were trapped.

The last of the engineers, including Jerion, noticed the groups of aliens and called out in fear. The hose was dropped, and fell out of control, knocking several of the engineers down as its powerful jet of water impacted with them. One unfortunate engineer was knocked back against the reactor, who screamed and jumped forwards as his back was burned. Another received a smack ot the head as the nozzle flailed about wildly.

Jerion thought quickly, and yanked a crowbar-like object from a rack on the wall. He dug it into the ground and pulled up one of the deck plates with a grunt and a clang, directing engineers to jump down into it, to escape the hose and the demons stroke aliens. Other engineers dived behind computer terminals and storage crates.

"You want my engineers, you'll have to go through me!" Jerion shouted in Vescopan and waved his crowbar around. He had no idea where his sudden bout of suicidal bravery had come from, and he certainly wasn't pleased with it, but he found his body doing whatever it wanted and ignoring his brain completely.

(OOC: I count at least two groups of people in the reactor room now, Velkya and AB, I don't think Hobbeebia has reached it yet. It may be worth some sort of acknowledgement from either party, or something. I've taken to quoting posts now, so that I don't get confused! And sorry Velkya for missing your earlier post. And lastly, when speaking their own language, speech will be in italics. They don't know any other languages, and Vescopan isn't exactly in universal language databases yet, so I thought it necessary to make a distinction. And... thats all!)

OOC:

Hey, Vescopa, since everybody else including the Pope is boarding that ship you sent out, would you mind me making a different entrance?

For instance, having one of my ships sent through the 'Eotu' and coming out on the inside still relatively in one heavily damaged but still functional piece?

If you don't have any problems with this, I'll write up my first post.

BTW, if this is alright with you, I might need some information about the barrier's nature, just to be safe.

(Kindly disregard that request. I saw the factbook just now.)

(OOC: Sure, that would be OK. Give me a chance to rescue somebody as well! Plus give those lazybones on the other side of the field some work to do...)

(OOC: Sure, that would be OK. Give me a chance to rescue somebody as well! Plus give those lazybones on the other side of the field some work to do...)

OOC:

Excellent! I'll get working.

(OOC: Cool. I'm off to get some sleep, I'll check in first thing.)

OOC: Rankin is going to try and communicate with them using his native tongue. the native language of the Hobbeebian people. It an ancient language that rarely heard outside the Hobbeebian Homeworld


Rankin was caught off guard by the amount of munitions being deployed against him. And it became common knowledge that he had stumbled into a bees nest as a projectile shredded his left arm. Spraying his silverish blood across the wall and behind him. Rankin jerked to his arm as it struck. Rankin was not ready for an armed resistance. But what really baffled him was the fact that they where resisting him at all.

" Cease fire. I am here to help you!. " yelled Rankin as he took cover behind one of the droids.

" Vas'h Comono Krasicth Massrik!" yelled Rankin in an attempt to communicate with the assaulting units.

Rankin tried to look down range but could see nothing as sparking from the attacks.

OOC: Rankin is going to try and communicate with them using his native tongue. the native language of the Hobbeebian people. It an ancient language that rarely heard outside the Hobbeebian Homeworld


Rankin was caught off guard by the amount of munitions being deployed against him. And it became common knowledge that he had stumbled into a bees nest as a projectile shredded his left arm. Spraying his silverish blood across the wall and behind him. Rankin jerked to his arm as it struck. Rankin was not ready for an armed resistance. But what really baffled him was the fact that they where resisting him at all.

" Cease fire. I am here to help you!. " yelled Rankin as he took cover behind one of the droids.

" Vas'h Comono Krasicth Massrik!" yelled Rankin in an attempt to communicate with the assaulting units.

Rankin tried to look down range but could see nothing as sparking from the attacks.

They continued to fire, not really able to aim at anything through the smoke and the darkness, so it was more suppressive than anything. A couple of marines needed to reload briefly whilst the others covered them, maintaining a constant stream of bullets. Diodomus could hear the aliens shouting, but couldn't understand them. He quickly set about restoring the chain of command, grabbing Risso's assault rifle and pointing it upwards slightly before clicking the safety back on.

"Cease your fire!" he yelled over the echoes of weapons fire. The two other marines looked up at him and let go of the triggers, one of them needing to reload again. "Cease your fire! They aren't returning fire, fools!"

"They're aliens sir!" Risso protested. "I saw weapons on them! They're here to take over our bodies, like in those movies! Those robots will give us ana..."

"Get a grip marine!" Diodomus snapped. "They may have weapons, but they're not using them! YET! You fire when I tell you to! Now fall back - use cover! Deploy smoke! GO!"

The marines ran backwards as fast as they could, never pointing their weapons away from the direction of the aliens as they took it in turns to move to cover. One of the marines fumbled around and pulled out a smoke grenade, quickly tossing it ahead of them to fill the corridor with even more smoke than was already there, making it virtually impossible to see by normal means. As they disappeared behind the same corner they had emerged from they left behind spent cartridge cases, empty magazines and a whole lot of smoke.

They quickly set about running back in the direction they had come from, trying to avoid stumbling over debris and bodies as they went. They found a room they had previously breached and cleared, and filed inside.

"Sergeant, seal this door!" Diodomus instructed Risso, who looked flummoxed as to how he was going to seal a door they had previously blasted the lock off. Nevertheless he pulled the metal door shut and pulled a blowtorch nozzle from the back of one of the marines and set about welding the door closed.

(OOC: The factbook now has an important entry on religious beliefs which may be useful for participants in this thread.)

IC:

Captain Lyle Busch, Jr. walked swiftly but carefully down the horribly cramped corridors in the aged civilian transport ship SS Lady Charlotte. Being an Aerospace Corps man and long accustomed to modern ships, he found the civilian merchantman a trifle cramped but knew why it was so. Unlike the military, these cargo haulers relied entirely on what funds lugging people’s merchandise around the United Systems generated, and most of that was immediately taken up handling maintenance bills. This meant that, while the crew kept an incredibly clean ship, it was still incredibly Spartan.

“Good morning, Captain Busch,” greeted Keith Hill, captain of the Lady Charlotte, as his military guest walked onto the merchantman’s bridge.

“Captain Hill,” Busch replied shortly. “The man you sent said we are on final approach?”

“We are indeed, Captain Busch,” Hill said. “We’re approaching Fort Armstrong just now, in fact. Have a look at the Nav-Charts.”

Busch walked to the slightly outdated display table projecting a map of everything within his transportations immediate surroundings. A bright blue icon labeled as Fort Armstrong looked to be dead ahead, by what the chart displayed. The boundary outpost was among a large string of such fortifications in the United Systems.

“Excellent,” he said.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get you there quicker, captain,” Hill said. “We’ve had drive issues in these last few weeks. The Lady is getting a little old.”

“She did well enough, Captain Hill,” Busch replied with a smile.

“She didn’t blow up, anyway,” said First Mate David Goldsmith.

Hill turned to look at him.

“David?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Try to spend a little while not talking, alright?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Goldsmith answered, chuckling.

Busch sighed and pulled his glasses off, rubbing his nose.

“How long until we can dock, Captain Hill?” he inquired.

“Fifteen minutes, captain, or close enough,” Hill answered.

“Don’t worry,” said Goldsmith. “You don’t need to put up with us much more.”

“I thought I asked you to quit talking?” asked Hill.

Busch sighed once more and put his glasses back on. He sat down at the tactical station, a largely useless post at this stage, and waited.

*********

Captain Busch stepped through the airlock, blinking against the harsh light of the location he had just stepped into.

“Captain Busch, report to Briefing Room Six, Captain Busch to Briefing Room Six.”

Fort Armstrong was made to the same specifications as the other outposts, and Busch had little trouble finding his way around it.

“Let’s see,” he said, walking down a corridor. “One…Two…Three…Four…Five…Six!”

He saw the light by the hatchway was red, indicating the room was occupied. He adjusted his cap and his uniform jacket before knocking.

“Enter!” came a voice from within. Busch opened the hatch, stepping inside.

He found himself looking at Commodore Otto Kleinschmidt, Fleet Intelligence Office.

“Captain Busch,” Kleinschmidt greeted with a nod.

“Commodore,” Busch answered, and delivered a salute, which was returned.

“I suppose you are wondering why you were called here,” Kleinschmidt said.

“I am, Sir, and if you don’t mind my asking, I’m wondering why a Fleet Intelligence man is here to meet me, and one of such a high stripe.”

“Good question, Busch, and I don’t mind at all. You have been called here because we’ve recently come upon some interesting new data and we need you to go to where we got the information and take a close look at things.”

“New data, Sir?” asked Busch.

“Have a seat, Captain,” Kleinschmidt ordered, and Busch complied.

“What do you know about Bollinger’s Barrier?” asked Kleinschmidt.

Busch raised an eyebrow, clearly shocked at such a question.

“You are referring to the anomaly discovered by Captain Mycal Bollinger, Sir?” he asked in a confused, questioning tone of voice.

“You’ve heard about it, then?” Kleinschmidt asked.

“I have, Commodore, but what-”

“If you’ve heard about it,” Kleinschmidt interrupted. “You won’t need me to tell you that it has been listed as uninhabited since first catalogued.”

“I did know that, Sir,” Busch affirmed. Kleinschmidt leaned forward.

“Busch, what I am about to tell you does not leave this room.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Kleinschmidt nodded.

“Good. We now have reason to think there is life within Bollinger’s Barrier.”

“Sir?” Busch raised an eyebrow. “The thing is filled with-”

“Subspace anomalies, singularities, and who knows what else?” Kleinschmidt interrupted him once more. Busch nodded in response.

“Yes, Sir.”

*********

USLSS Lamoni.

Busch recalled everything beyond that point clearly. Kleinschmidt had told him that there had been probes sent into the Barrier and that all of them had been destroyed, but that one had managed to get a signal out, before being lost. Part of that signal showed what looked like a ship, just no ship the Fleet Intelligence Office knew. The issue had been discussed in a few high-level planning sessions, and now here he was.

“Coffee, Captain?” asked Commander Grover Handley, his new XO.

“I’m sorry?” asked Busch.

“I asked if you’d like some coffee, Sir,” Handley repeated.

“Oh…no, commander, I would not, but thank you.”

Handley nodded and walked away, leaving Busch to his thoughts. Following that briefing he had been given a new, Des Moines-class cruiser, the Lamoni, and informed that he was in command of a mission to pierce the Barrier. Nice. All the probes that had been sent out in the past were lost, and they were sending a ship filled with people.

“Captain,” the rating on communications interrupted his thoughts. “We have a green light now, Sir. We are to proceed as originally planned.”

“Very well, Comms,” said Busch. He pushed a button on his command chair’s armrest.

“Bridge to Engineering.”

“Go ahead, Bridge.” Commander Leona Ozaki’s voice was tough and purely no nonsense like always. Busch wondered how she managed that now.

“Do we have full capacity?”

“We have full capacity, Bridge. Are we heading out?”

“We are. Bridge out.” Busch released the switch and addressed his helmsman.

“Helm, take us in, all ahead Flank Speed, if you please.”

“All engines ahead Flank Speed into the Barrier. Aye, aye, Sir.” The helmsman worked at his controls, and the ship began moving forward.

USLSS Lamoni of the United Systems of Luslyvania Aerospace Corps plunged toward her fate with all engines blasting at full speed.

OOC:

I hope that works for you, Vescopa. If not, just let me know. Feel free to assume she makes it through in relatively one piece, but that she is damaged in the process. Once you have RPed Vescopa's initial reaction, I'll post again. Lamoni will be damaged, but not as badly as the ship you sent in. This is from luck more than anything else.

Bollinger's Barrier, in case you are wondering, is what Luslyvanians call the Eotu. I just came up with that one on the fly.

Reactor Room

The Provoker roared, enraged at the slightest hint of futile resistance as it raised a weapon-covered appendage towards the soldier with the crowbar, nothing but malice and hate in the creature's ten multi-spectral eyes.

"I'chana passa crowa no tofa!" one of the Elites said in the Sangheili language, igniting an Energy Sabre and pointing towards the Provoker with the weapon. Two of the human Shock Troopers had raised their rifles at the Provoker, trying to dissuade the considerably larger and stronger sentient from acting on its natural angry impulses. The Elite strode several paces before the creature, straddling with the sabre out and pointed 60 degrees down towards the creature: "Utsu ino fi wort topras!"

The Provoker snarled back, letting out some low wet curses, but dropped the limb-it would listen to the humans, the Dominion's superior race. 39 nodded to the Elite, who de-activated the sabre and placed it on his back carriage, exchanging some words with his own species. 39 raised his gun abruptly, and fired a bolt of energy-severing the connection with the hose, laying down the flailing device. He lowered his gun-but decided not to speak-at least, not to the crazy man in front of him with the metal crowbar.

"Did anyone happen to catch his words?" 39 inquired of the group as the Provoker loped off to stand by what had once been the door.

"Natural language," the Elite's officer replied in the serious tone of the species. "They seem to not even have an idea about our origins-doubtful they even have knowledge of us, so I presume the Dominion and these people have not yet met. Therefore, our translators are not going to have an effect."

"Try somethin' else, boss," one of the Shock Troopers put out. "It's not like they have any way of hurting us. A blunt hunk of metal's not gonna do nothin'."

39 stood for a few tenths of a second before shrugging. Even as the commanding officer of the motly spec ops group, he didn't have anything better on the fly at the moment. The Shock Trooper reached to his bandolier, pulling out a MCCD-a Mobile Command and Contact Dispatch. It was a small device with a small built-in repulsor field and an imaging projector on its top, supported by three four-centimeter collapsable legs. 39 dropped it to the floor midway between his team and the crew member with the crowbar, letting the small device unfold and deploy.

From the MCCD, a light flickered, than particles flew up from it as an image cleared into the open. It was set to its default setting-displaying a small image of a two-dimensional, revolving Dominion flag above a meter-diameter three-dimensional galactic map that slowly revolved, an eerie blue and yellow light coming off of the galaxy image. Small dots of light pointed out civilizations known to the Dominion-here that of DMG, there that of Spit Break. A red and black molting splotch, seemingly seething, showed up in one of the expanding arms of the galaxy-it was the Shroud, the nebulous vortex that held the Dominion's home cluster in it.

39 looked up from the map to guage the man's response as the droids retracted a few meters, clicking to each other in droidspeak.

~~~

The Maelrosica was stationed as close to the Eotu as was considered safe by the government, and had been there since before the expedition had begun. It had been the charge of Commander Viscross and crew to monitor the penetration attempt by the Ventrius, to render assistance if necessary and most recently, and morbidly, to seek out and recover any remains that may appear. It was a dull and somewhat depressing duty that had finally come to an end; new orders required them to begin the several week long journey home for reassignment. Which meant, of course, that the government had given up hope of ever finding the Ventrius.

A VDS-06 class warship, the Maelrosica was the same class of vessel as the Ventrius, making them sister ships. Unfortunately - or, given what they now knew, fortunately - the Maelrosica was the oldest sister in the class, whilst the Ventrius was the last to be commissioned. Due to all sorts of technical reasons involving their somewhat older hull, which had been subjected to many more miles and much more stress over its longer life than that of the Ventrius, the Maelrosica was considered to be too old to have made the attempt. Technically the two ships were identical, and the minor differences in structural stability would not have helped, but the decision had been made and the Ventrius had been lost.

Commander Viscross found himself wishing that he had gone in there with them. He so hated sitting here and doing nothing, whilst comrades he had known and served with for a long time lost their lives, alone and without aid, in that orange monstrosity that lay before them. The Eotu almost looked smug now, that it had successfully devoured yet another innocent vessel and all its occupants. Of course, by following the Ventrius into the cloud all they would have achieved would have been two destroyed ships instead of one, but that thought didn't shake away the nagging feeling that they had abandoned them.

But now, it was time to go. Time to depart, and try to forget that this disaster had ever happened. Back home, they would share a drink to commemorate the lost crew and then go their seperate ways as though everything was back to normal. The fleet would now be strained, with its ferrying duties now reduced to a capacity four ships instead of five, but they would just have to cope and try not to remember where all the extra work came from.

"Commander," an officer spoke up from the main tactical and awareness console, informally referred to by the bridge officers as a TAC. Lieutenant Darés was on duty there at this hour, a young woman not long out of training, with far more enthusiasm than was expected for a job so mundane as serving the Navy.

"Lieutenant," Viscross acknowledged her. "What is it?"

"Sir, I cannot be certain, but our LADAR just detected a mass emerging from the Eotu," she said, in that damnably perky voice. "I can't get a more precise reading until we are close enough to hit it with a RADAR. Infrared resolution is not optimal at this range for such a small object."

"Could it be large enough to be a ship?" Viscross asked. A sense of hope crept across him that he would ordinarily disallow, but in this particular instance he let it slide given what was at stake.

"I believe so sir," Darés nodded.

"Distance from target, Lieutenant?"

"Roughly one point one million kilometres, sir," she said after a brief pause, which she used to read the small numerical symbols that flashed up in the bottom right corner of the screen she looked at.

"That's a little over eight point three fractions (OOC: Roughly two hours, FYI) travel time at maximum speed, sir," the helmsman, Lieutenant Danig announced, without requiring a prompt.

"Indeed it is," Viscross nodded. He didn't need to be told the travel times his own ship was capable of, but he always welcomed officers who were proactive with information, even if it was redundant. One never knows when a subordinate will inform you of something you had failed to consider.

The Commander rose from his chair, stretching his back with a strained expression - he had been sitting down for far too long, and at his age it really was not commendable to do so - and sauntered over to the communicator hooked on the wall.

"Reactor room, bridge," he said, hailing the right department. "We are going to be engaging our engines in T-minus ten cents. Make sure sufficient power is made available."

"Aye, sir," an eager response came. Poor fellows thought they were going home, and Viscross hadn't the heart to tell them that they were in fact going even further away.

"Bridge out," he said bluntly and replaced the communicator. Seconds later he picked it up again and spoke once more. "Engine room, this is the bridge. We are going to be needing our main ion engines and boosters ready to fire in T-minus nine cents and ninety millis."

"Bridge, we are in the middle of performing maintenance on the main coolant systems and..." came the response, only to be interrupted by the Commander.

"Engine room, the ion engines will be brought online in T-minus nine cents and sixty millis whether your hands are in the coolant system or not," Viscross said rather bluntly, though the bridge officers hid amused smiles at his empty threats.

"But sir..."

"Bridge out." Viscross promptly replaced the communicator and returned to his seat, tugging his tunic straight. "I do so hate it when people perform unauthorised maintenance. Anyway. Lieutenant Danig - consult with the main navigational computer systems and Lieutenant Darés to triangulate a safe course to our target."

This time he clicked a button on the arm of his bulky chair, which activated the ship wide intercom with an echoing bleep. The sound had ominous implications for most crew members, who never knew whether it was going to be an R&R announcement or a battle alert - not that they had ever had a battle alert, of course.

"This is the bridge to all decks and sections," Viscross said. He never quite got used to his own voice echoing around him as he spoke, but he pressed on. "All hands brace for full acceleration, T-minus eight cents. I repeat, all hands brace for full acceleration, T-minus eight cents and ninety millis and counting. Secure all stations and proceed to safe seating areas. Bridge out."

He looked over towards 2nd Lieutenant Molus, who, this far out, had very few tasks to be busying himself with, given his main role as communications officer. The younger officer was shaken by the sudden interest the Commander had taken in him, as though he had been daydreaming.

"Lieutenant, relay our situation to NFC - detected mass emerging from Eotu one point one million kilometres from this location, moving to investigate," he told the officer, who promptly noted it all down. "Inform them that I shall be belaying their return to base order unless notified otherwise, and ask for VSEA telescopic visual confirmation of unidentified object. Sign and send."

"Aye sir," Molus nodded. He then looked up with a concerned look on his face. "Sir, message will take just under three point eight fractions to deliver to NFC, and a further three point eight fractions for a response, not including reaction time."

"Yes, I know," Viscross nodded. "We shall receive confirmation of my decision and any telescopic images they were able to achieve just as we approach our arrival, Lieutenant. I know it is redundant at best, but let's follow procedure anyway, hmm?"

"Yes sir," Molus sighed. He promptly sent the message he was asked to send and sat back, strapping himself in.



A few minutes later, the Maelrosica's engines glowed to life and the chemical boosters fired up, forcing the hulk of motionless metal forwards at an increasing pace. The long ship began to press forwards, accelerating towards its quarry at its highest rated speed. Which by galactic standards admittedly wasn't all that fast, but it was for the Vescopans, and as far as they knew, they were the most advanced people in the rather small universe.

~~~

Jerion, just an engineer really, dropped his crowbar to the floor with a resonating clang, and with a chilling shiver that belied the intense heat in the room his bravery left him as quickly as it had come. A colossal creature he couldn't begin to describe waved lighting at him, with other creatures pointing weapons at it. The others then fired lightning at the hose pipe, which shortened the hose considerably but understandably had no effect on the water supply itself. Still, it was no longer waving around quite so much at least.

His first thought was - demons! The foot soldiers of the damned! They are coming to claim Vescopa as their own! Then the engineer in him began to dismiss such notions. Directed energy weapons were not unknown to them, theoretically at least, although at present there were no working prototypes of such a technology. It seemed a much more plausible explanation for him to swallow than resurrected sinners firing the power of demons around. The strange energy sword he couldn't explain away, though.

This raised within him the more likely but no less terrifying idea that these were alien lifeforms rather than demons. Certainly they weren't Vescopans, especially not that big... thing. They spoke to one another in a tongue he couldn't begin to understand, which again supported his alien theory. Resurrected sinners would speak Vescopan, or at least some ancient variant of one of the dead languages. These aliens sounded nothing like anything he had heard before.

He began to back away carefully, hoping to fall backwards into the open floor panel and escape through the maintenance tunnels, but they tossed an object to the ground between them, which opened up to reveal numerous multicoloured images. Again the engineer in him began to question the technology on display, wondering what sort of sophistication was required to produce those - what he presumed to be - holograms with such clarity.

The content of the holograms was lost on him, however. Vescopans had no knowledge of other stars, let alone galaxies and the like, and so the imagery did not register with him. He instead presumed it was their writing, some kind of incredibly bizarre pictographic system that had no apparent meaning to him. They could have been asking him to surrender, saying hello, or asking him to stand on his head whilst balancing a vortas fruit on his feet for all he knew. He took the fact that he wasn't dead yet to be a positive sign though, and simply gazed at the technology in awe. Whilst occasionally stepping backwards.

All the while, now devoid of attendants, the main reactor core was approaching dangerous temperatures and leaking seriously unhealthy amounts of radiation. Jerion span around as the last resort klaxons began to sound, and the reactor room lights dimmed to be replaced by spinning alert lights. The deck rumbled beneath their feet as the reactor cried out in pain, its throes about to end in utter devastation. Suddenly he began to feel very faint, as the roasting temperatures and high radiation levels sapped the last of his energy. He wobbled unsteadily as he staggered towards one of the computer terminals, unable to see clearly anymore. He looked quite close to toppling.

USLSS Lamoni – Bridge.

“Captain?”

He heard the voice, but only just. It was faint, like whispering.

“Captain Busch, Sir?”

He became aware that a bright light was shining in to his eyes. The voice was louder, too.

“Captain, are you alright? We’ve made it through.”

Didn’t he know that voice?

“Captain, Sir, we’ve made it through, but we have damage. We need you.”

He opened his eyes slowly and blinked. His vision was fuzzy but he could make out what looked like a face above him, and…a flashlight, maybe?

“He’s awake!”

Instantly, the face above him was joined by a second one.

“Captain, are you alright?” asked the new face. “Can you understand my voice?”

“I…” he paused and swallowed. His throat ached. “I can.”

He kept blinking rapidly, and his vision was clearing now.

“Commander Handley?” he asked the first figure.

“Yes, Sir,” the younger man nodded slightly. His head was bandaged and some blood had leaked through to the cloth’s surface. He was holding a flashlight. A quick look about and it immediately became apparent why. Emergency lights shone blue around the whole area like they were supposed to when the ship lost main power, preventing pitch darkness, and in the dim blue gloom he could see more figures, some moving, some…not.

“Who’re you?’ he asked the second person.

“Corpsman Hines, Sir,” responded the man.

“I see,” said Busch. “Where are we exactly, Mr. Handley?”

“We’re inside the Barrier, and drifting.”

“Drifting?” asked Busch. He tried to sit up, but felt dizzy and lay back down.

“Don’t try to move right away, Captain,” Hines told him.

“We’re drifting, Sir,” Handley repeated. “From what we can tell, we entered the Barrier’s interior, and immediately encountered severe turbulence. Then we lost main power, and a lot with it. Thankfully, we know emergency life support is functional on all decks and the level of damage is not severe based upon what we know.”

“How are communications between departments?” asked Busch. Handley grimaced.

“Minimal to nonexistent, Sir. We’re mainly getting by using runners when the message is important. Ozaki is working on that though.”

Busch nodded. Ozaki was a good officer, and a tough woman. She would get it solved, he knew. The question was, how long would she need?

“Mr. Handley, Corpsman Hines, might I trouble you to help me stand?” he asked. He was immediately grasped by the shoulders and helped to his feet. They hovered close by when he straightened out until they were sure he wouldn’t fall.

“Right,” he said, as he fumbled on his belt and pulled out his own flashlight. “We are still in motion, you said, Mr. Handley?”

“Drifting, Sir,” the man clarified. “We’re drifting unguided.”

Busch nodded.

“Well, we are now inside Bollinger’s Barrier, and we don’t know what else might be here inside it with us. I want the Weapons Lockers opened up and basic armaments distributed immediately.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” Handley said, and the work began.

Engineering Department.

“Get the fans going and get that smoke cleared! Heinrich, what’s the word on life support if you don’t mind?”

Commander Leona Ozaki’s voice was distorted by the gas mask she was wearing, but she had no trouble being heard. She did have a problem being seen, with a thick, white smoke limiting visibility throughout engineering. Combined with the emergency lights she could hardly see a thing beyond a few short feet. Everybody wore belt-mounted glow sticks that let people see roughly where they were located.

“We’ve got it down here, Ma’am, but we’re still working on it elsewhere.”

“Well, stop working on it and get it done, by God! The crew can’t last long on emergency life support. Edwards, what about communications?”

“Nearly there, boss, just a few more minutes.”

“Outstanding!” the woman declared.

Right then, without warning, the blue emergency lighting died.

“What the devil?” somebody exclaimed. Ozaki was about to join him, when a bright flash left her, and several others temporarily stunned.

“Main power’s coming back up!” somebody shouted. “30% and rising.”

Low humming noises let Ozaki know the ventilation fans were starting.

“Who was that?” Ozaki demanded. “Who got the main reactors working?”

“I did, Commander,” said a female ensign she did not recognize just then.

“Ensign,” Ozaki looked at her. “When this is over, I’ll see you get a medal.”

“I’d settle with some good bourbon, Ma’am,” the young woman replied, causing Ozaki to laugh aloud in response.

“I second that, Ensign, but the booze is all in Medical.”

“I've got shipboard communications!” declared Heinrich, whom Ozaki had spoken with before.

“Excellent!” Ozaki touched a button on the communications device on her utility belt and heard static. She smiled. It seemed the system was indeed working.

“Engineering to Bridge, are you receiving?” she called.

Bridge.

“Bridge to Engineering, we are hearing you fine. Go ahead,” Captain Busch said.

“Bridge, we have main power, at least to a limited degree. Main life support should come back online throughout the ship before long. Ship-wide communications are working, and it looks like the ventilation fans and main lights are on.”

“That’s good to know, Engineering,” Busch said with a smile. He had seen the lights turn back on, and hearing the ventilation system was nice. “Keep up the good work.”

“We’ll do that, Bridge. Engineering out.”

“Captain?” A rating at the sensors console caught Busch’s attention. “I’m getting an echo here, Sir, at long range.”

“What is it, crewman?” Busch asked as he crossed the bridge to stand behind the man and look at the console. He was right. There was a contact.

“I don’t know, Sir. It’s a bit sketchy. It could be a ship.”

“Helmsman,” he turned to the man working the controls. It was not the usual person, who had been among the few dead on the bridge following the run through the Barrier’s rough interior, but there was really no helping that.

"Yes, Captain?"

“Present course?”

“We are drifting towards this system’s second planet, Captain. At the present speed, we’ll likely take weeks before we actually reach the planet.”

“Can you get us stopped?”

“I can, Sir.”

“Do so, now.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

Maneuvering thrusters fired in response to the helmsman’s commands. Lamoni lost speed immediately and slowly but surely, came to a complete halt. Satisfied that the ship wasn’t in motion anymore, Busch ordered Ozaki to get her people working on the weapons suite. He did not like the idea of facing an unidentified vessel while unarmed.

He also ordered the shipboard Emergency Position Indicating Radio Bacon (EPIRB) activated. Commander Handley objected, but was overruled by his captain, who reasoned that while they had indeed passed the Barrier, a signal might pass through it and alert nearby Luslyvanian forces they needed aid.

OOC:

I'm digging up some pictures to give you some idea what my ship looks like, Vescopa. I'll TG you some links soon.

For now, USLSS Lamoni is functioning on 30% main power, has main life support (sketchy right now), limited internal communications and limited maneuvering.

Reactor Room

39 swore beneath his red-emblazoned helmet. He wasn't looking to get himself killed far beyond the natural borders of Dominion space...and it was technically his job to make sure the others didn't kick the bucket prematurely, as well.

"I think it's the reactor going critical, sir," one of the humans observed. "It uses a bit of technology I don't think we've seen in a bit, but I may be able to get a handle on it..."

"How do you intend that, 81?"

"It's gotta have power conduits that run from it somewhere to provide feed to the ship. If we knock out the conduits, it will probaly not affect life support-though you can guarentee lights, engines, weapons, security, all that stuff will be knocked out."

"And you intend to find and knock these out?"

"I intend to take a look at their computer systems and see if I can figure them out. If not, then I say we knock out power. It will keep this reactor from blowing half the ship apart with no power feed keeping the reactor active. If it doesn't have to power anything, the reactor should return to stable levels."

"See if we can simply knock out specific systems. I don't want to risk something averse, 81."

"Can do, sir."

The shock trooper ran over to the line of computer consoles, trying to see past the alien writing as the engineer slumped towards the console.

"Damn, a little too hot in here."

When 39 heard 81 complain about the heat, then he knew it was time to get something done.

"Stand back, I'm going to throw a Cryoban."

39 took a Cryoban grenade-a freezing grenade, standard issue for Dominion troops-off his bandolier. He primed the grenade's top-a six-second detonator-than hurled it across the room, bouncing it off the obstruction the engineers had thrown up when the Dominion soldiers had first entered the room and to the far side of the overloading reactor.

"Stand back a bit."

The grenade exploded with violence, cryoban material exploding outward-and the substance doing its job. The heat-absorbing glop that fired out froze immediately upon contact with the air, dropping its temperature to below -100 degrees celsius. The stuff splattered on the bottom of the reactor and began slowly warming up as its heat absorbant outer layer began taking in massive quantities of heat energy from the reactor.

"Boss, looks like that took care of our backup option too..."

"How so, 81?"

"Well," the shock trooper said, "If these big dropping marks on these pictures are any indicator-because I have no idea what their language is-then I think we just froze out some of the localized computer systems."

"What danger will that put is in?"

"Well, I doubt the reactor is gonna blow from overloading now...I mean, you practically just froze the whole rear side of it."

Rankin rose from behind the droids and took off down the hallway that was once previously firing at him. Rankin didn't blame who ever was firring at him. He was a intruder and intruder, no matter their intentions, are normally taken as hostile.

" Hello! Can anyone hear me? I am LT. Rankin of the Hobbeebian Explorationary Fleet. Does anyone speak my language?" Yelled Rankin as he rounded the corner of the hallway.

The people who where their where now gone leaving nothing but spent shells on the ships floor. Rankin now had a rough idea about how many people where firing at him. As he started forward he got a warning from a droid. Stating that Radiation levels where increasing dramatically.

Rankin Continued forward coming across a door that had been left open, and a slight cool breeze was Escaping out. Rankin Sniffed the air, and could smell a host of things..

" Cryoban grenades.. and Reactor insulation... This must be the Reactor room. Last I checked this place should have gone critical by now... I bet the one who used the Cryobans could shed some light on this subject." Thought Rankin as he looked inside....

Rankin then walked inside the room holding his arm as his blood dripped down.

OOC:

Still here, just waiting for the current timeframe to catch up to where I would arrive.

So far it is a great story, keep up the great work everyone.

Reactor Room

Two of the Acklay droids began chirping wildly as Rankin entered through the entrance with the smashed door hanging off of it limply. The first levelled its laser cannon directly at the Hobbeebian lieutenant, making vocal guestures.

"Chono for'nat quero czo naht," One of the Elites uttered reprehensively to the droids as he turned the corner from the opening to the actual reactor department to face Rankin. The droids cooled off a bit, chirping and squawking to each other in droidspeak.

The Sangheili looked up, toting a Thrust Rifle.

"I am Urak 'Taulomee of the Amazonian Dominion Military," the Sangheili said in Galactic Basic, raising his black-armored reptilian head slightly. "You do not appear to be as the natives already encountered on this vessel-therefore, I am going to assume you, or at least, some sort of translator on you, can understand what I am saying."

" I understand you fine Sangheili. I have spent much time around your kind. Your blade? Do you still have yours?" said Rankin in the Sangheilis native tongue.

As Rankin finished his questions the two droids he had with him also entered the room. Much of their functions going to find organics who where in the room.



OOC: Sorry I couldn't write more... And I am glad the story is going good and has not turned into a battle of some kind. lol

OOC: Yeah, a lot of these FT things generally devolve into "I SHUTE JUU!!!!1111"

IC:

The Elite placed the Thrust Rifle on his back and replaced it for his Plasma Sabre, igniting the blue-white energy blade. A quiet affirmative to the Hobbeebian's inquiry from the spec ops soldier. 39 came around the corner now, loosely carrying his laser rifle with a full clip sticking from it, his red-emblazoned white helmet masking the human's face.

"Looks like we have some sort of company, at least," the human Shock Trooper commander said. "Unit Nu 39 of the Dominion Shock Troopers. I believe we have stabilized this reactor for the moment-it was verging on going critical. However, in the process, I think we may have knocked out some sub-system power conduits."

Rankin nodded as he admired the blade. It was just as he remembered the others. As the human trooper spoke he listened with open ears. He was relieved to hear that the reactor was stabilized for the moment, but was not as happy about hearing about the downed subsystems.

" Well I was able put the ship into a large spin.... Slow but spinning. We should be making our first revolution in about 10 minutes. What systems have we lost due to the stabilizations...Life support, Anti-Gravity?" asked Rankin as he cringed over to his arm, which was still bleeding.


_ back on SilverLine- Medbay

" I need Biorestorant Stat! This woman has lost substantial amounts of blood and the others have some internal wounds... Get me that Biorestorant.. NOW!" yelled Head medical Officer Maria Magnus

" Ma'am!" yelled a medical tech as he tossed the tubes of biorestorant to Maria

Maria grabbed it out of the air and begun to inject it into the womans body. The men where placed into stasis fields until they could be treated.

Reactor Room

"We have backup power in here, from what we can tell from the pictures on the consoles, to get these emergency lights on-but I'm willing to bet that much of the ship, particularly the quarters and bridge, are dark places now. In addition, from what seems to be 'offline' according to the bad-looking pictures on the console, it's a good bet to say that security and any sort of sensors are probaly offline as well. I think the critical systems have backup-as we can tell life support is still active, as there are numerous hull breaches across the ship and we have recieved a report from our command that atmospheric levels on board are remaining stable. As for anti-gravity-well, you and I are still on our feet, so unless this reactor room is an anomoly, than I believe its still on. But I would count on most of the lesser systems being offline."

" Good, as long as I can breathe then I am not going to compliant. How about the people on board this vessel.. have you been able to facilitate communications with them? Every time I try they believe I am hostile and fire at me." asked Rankin as he gave himself a shot of biorestorant to help heal his arm wound.

" By the way... I came across a small group of hostiles on the way here. Not sure if you cam across any or not?" said Rankin as he took his hand off his arm, letting the silver blood drip to the floor.

"Not sure about hostiles," 39 said. "However, communication attempts have been null so far. As we first came in, they threw up a hasty barricade. However, we didn't fire, and instead dropped a mobile map unit on the ground, displaying a galactic map. We hoped they'd be able to understand that...but the engineer here wasn't able to. He just kept babbling. What we really need is a language specialist to start picking up some patterns in their speech."

39 finally noticed the wound on Rankin's arm: "Not sure, but do you need assistance with that injury? We have basic field supplies on hand."

Rankin listened to this 39 speak about the people not being able to understand them or vise versa. It was indeed strange to encounter a people who have not been contacted by another in this time. Where could they have come from to have never been encountered. Eborians are able to learn languages by making a mental copy of the language from a host speaker. But for it to work a host must be willing for the operation.. or atleast unconscious.

" 39. If you could render one of them unconscious, I could try to telepathically learn their language, but it may take time. " said Rankin as he looked out onto the reactor itself.

"Well that should be easy to do," 39 said. "One of their engineers is fairly close to passing out-from radiation and shock-by one of the far consoles. All we'd need to do would probaly be to do something shocking and the guy would be out-or just knock him over the head, or pump in a temporary aerosol into the reactor or around his local area. He's striding the verge of consciousness as it is."

~~~

Two hours of silence befell the Maelrosica as it throbbed towards its quarry at its highest rated speed, as the crew pondered over what they might find when they arrived. Could it be the Ventrius, returning with news of its travels through the Eotu? A stray asteroid or comet, causing false alarm? Or something else entirely...? All aboard were familiar with the legends centred around the giant spacial mystery, and though fewer actually believed them scenarios like this one always saw the imagination racing through the possibilities without consideration for rationality.

The time was only broken when, a mere ten minutes earlier, NFC responded to their earlier transmissions. They passed authorisation for Commander Viscross to belay his return to base orders and investigate, as well as bundling in some digital telescopic photographs of the area they had specified, just as they had asked. Images with the orange background of the Eotu with blurred, low-resolution black splodges were all they got for their troubles, though, which only served to reaffirm their previous belief - an object of some kind or another had emerged from the Eotu. Viscross found both the authorisation and the blurred images most helpful, and sent most sincere thanks and a promise to keep regular updates back to them.

Their course had remained unchanged for the most part. LADAR picked up movement for a short while during the beginning of their trip, but the object appeared to have come to a halt in relation to the Eotu and had not moved since. With so little to do except wait, it was almost a surprise when the time was up and it was time to get brains into gear once more.

"Sir, we are approaching minimum deceleration distance," Danig blurted out all of a sudden, breaking the reigning silence at long last. He almost acted as though he had forgotten to speak up, and he had certainly broken Viscross' own musings.

"Begin deceleration procedure Lieutenant," Viscross nodded. "Bring us to a relativistic halt, roughly five thousand kilometres away from the object. Lieutenant Darés, confirm position of object and hit it with RADAR and imaging scanners the moment we are in range."

"Firing deceleration thrusters, aye," Danig nodded.

"Confirming... LADAR pass shows no change in object position sir," Darés announced.

Viscross nodded, clicking down the shipwide intercom on his chair once more, and began speaking the moment the telling dull ping signal was heard. "This is the bridge to all decks and sections," Viscross announced. "All hands brace for full deceleration protocols. I repeat, all hands brace for full deceleration. Bridge out."

Deceleration was always more less of a danger than acceleration, unless the thrusters broke or something like that. They allowed themselves a healthy breaking distance, and the ship began to slow in relation to the object it approached. Still, clutching on to something was a good idea, and many landlubbers found their dinner smiling up at them afterwards.

"Commander, we are now close enough to get a rough RADAR image of the object," Darés told him. Viscross struggled to stand to his feet and walked carefully towards her station, placing his hands on the terminal to steady himself once he arrived. Sure enough, a three-dimensional white object now appeared on their spacial awareness grid, which was simply a representation of the space immediately around the ship. The RADAR array drew a rough, slightly blurry shape on the screen after each ping, which although devoid of detail seemed a little too... regular, to be an asteroid or simple debris.

"A ship?" Viscross said quietly, thinking aloud rather than asking a question.

"Could be sir," Darés nodded.

"Train the cameras on it once we're close enough," Viscross told her. "I want a clearer look at it."

"Aye," she said.

Viscross struggled back to his chair again as the deceleration forces grew about twice as strong, and promptly strapped himself in again once he fell back into it.

"Approaching relativistic stop now sir," Danig announced as he also strapped himself in. A gut wrenching lurch forwards pulled against their straps tightly enough to make breathing difficult for a brief moment, and then they fell backwards roughly as the large hunk of metal came to a halt.

"Relativistic stop achieved, four thousand, nine hundred and fifty kilometres from target," Danig announced, rather pleased with himself. Managing to stop these larger ships so precisely was a difficult task even with computer assistance considering the speeds they achieved, and one hundred kilometres was considered an acceptable - and 'average' - margin of error, so he had reason to be so.

"Very well done lieutenant," Viscross nodded, unstrapping himself once again. "Change the light to green. And set thrusters to automated station-keeping."

"Aye," Danig nodded. Small displays all across the ship changed from red to green, indicating that it was safe to stand once again, and the Lieutenant set about programming the computer to maintain their position and counter any possible drift.

Viscross wandered over to the TAC, where Darés was struggling to focus an image on a monitor to her left. "What do we have, Lieutenant?"

"Give me a moment sir," she said. "Resolving image... there."

The image on the screen was definitely an object against the orange backdrop, but it was still quite small on normal magnification - they were several thousand kilometres away after all.

"Lieutenant, I wanted to see some detail," Viscross said with a sigh in his voice, as she tapped some more keys on her keyboard and fiddled with a flat touch-pad.

"Keep your tunic on sir, I'll set the zoom up a few levels..." Darés said, somewhat irritated. Viscross found the insolence more amusing than offensive, as he knew it was in jest. Working together in deep interplanetary space for as many years as they had done was always going to result in closer-than-textbook relationships. "Here we go."

The image zoomed in several times on the object, which doubled in size each time. It stopped zooming, and as the computer re-focused the digital image they were presented with something none of them had expected. It was a ship, alright, but Viscross couldn't identify it as anything he'd ever seen before. He thought his clearance level was high enough to be informed even of experimental ships, and this did not register as anything he'd been told about either. His memory could be playing tricks on him though, so he thought it best to play it safe. Because, he couldn't believe the alternative.

"I... I don't recognise that class of ship, sir," Darés said quietly as though reading his mind. "Civilian or military."

"Neither do I, Lieutenant, neither do I," Viscross shook his head, placing his hand on her shoulder. "Scan that image into the database search facility, see if the computer has any more luck."

"I'll try sir," she said, as several stripes passed along the screen scanning the image in, which was then shrunk to fit into an image searching window. Viscross turned around.

"Molus, raise weapons control for me please," he called over.

"Erm... aye, sir...?" the confused Lieutenant shrugged. Viscross looked back at the monitor, which now flashed up images of Vescopan ships past and present to try to find a matching ship configuration, but Molus almost immediately spoke up again. "Got Controller Fress on the line for you now sir."

Viscross paced quickly to the communications terminal and leaned over to take the headset from Molus' hand hurriedly. He fitted it over his head quickly and adjusted the microphone. "Weapons control?"

"Yes sir," came the response from Fress, whom sounded tired.

"Deploy, load and charge all railgun turrets," Viscross said quietly. "Load all torpedo tubes, but do not vent the tubes or arm the warheads. Stand by. Bridge out." He pulled the headset off and handed it back to a worried-looking Molus, who promptly replaced it on his own head.

"Are we going to shoot the Ventrius, sir...?" he asked quietly.

"Man your station, Lieutenant, we're not shooting anything," Viscross snapped and quickly paced back over to the TAC, patting Darés on the shoulder. "Any luck Lieutenant?"

"Sir, the search just completed," she shook her head. "No matches in our database."

"Damn," Viscross sighed. He rose upright and slowly walked back to the central chair, sitting down. "Sound general quarters."

The bridge officers, and any enlisted crewmen wandering around, looked toward the Commander with a look of shock on their faces as Lieutenant Molus sounded general quarters. Harsh white lighting briefly flashed off as dull red lighting clicked on, for the first time outside of a drill in the ship's long career. Klaxons sounded across the ship.

On the outside, dozens of compartments opened up as railgun turrets poked up into the vacuum, and the barrels straightened up into firing positions. The hull itself became charged with electricity, artificially and invisibly hardening the thick armour.

"Darés, I want a viable firing solution," Viscross said quickly. "Danig, stay ready on manoeuvring thrusters and keep our ion engines warm. Molus, begin standard broadband friendship hails on all radio frequencies. And Darés, put up the image of that ship on the network, let everybody get a look at it."

"This is the Naval Vessel Maelrosica," Molus spoke into his headset, obviously speaking in Vescopan. No precedent existed for this situation, so he had no real idea what to say to the ship. So, he went with what he knew. "Requesting the broadcast of valid identity codes and an approved navigational chart. We have no hostile intentions. Over."

Meanwhile, several stations on the bridge switched their monitors over to the video feed now being recorded, and various gasps emerged from all of them. As was to be expected, speculation began.

"Aliens! Like out of those movies!" one voice cried out, from one of the enlisted crewmen looking over the shoulders of the bridge crew.

"It's the demons, come in their ships to claim us!" another voice said. Viscross had to nip that one in the bud right now.

"Crewman! Does that look like a divinely-inspired vessel of ultimate power to you?" he snapped. "Get back to your duties! Everyone!"

As people jumped upright and began scurrying back to their designated duties, Darés looked over and spoke up. "Sir, I just gave them a once over with the IRUVSAS."

Viscross quickly moved over to see what she had found out. "What have got, Lieutenant?"

"Nothing specific, sir," she shook her head negatively. "Thermal imaging detects heat sources externally and internally, but I cannot determine a cause given that we know nothing about this vessel. A structural analysis reveals that there has been some hull stress and possibly a few outer breaches, but for all I know whatever 'they' are, they could have designed it that way. Either way I think we can rule out demons, sir." She managed to summon a feigned grin at that, though it didn't last. Demons or aliens, either prospect was not a good one. The former involved their entire society being eternally enslaved by creatures which Viscross personally did not believe existed, and the later involved the very real possibility of riots as entire belief systems were turned on their heads overnight.

"Given their lack of movement for the last six or seven fractions, and what we know of the Eotu, I believe it is possible that they could be in distress," she said, looking up at him with her pale, unblinking lilac eyes.

"I don't know about you, Lieutenant, but I find the arrival of this potentially alien vessel so soon after the loss of the Ventrius to be too big of a coincidence to swallow," Viscross muttered.

Darés shrugged unknowingly, returning her gaze to the multi-spectral imaging monitors. "I don't know, sir. I don't really know about anything anymore, 'cept that thing certainly didn't come from our side of the Eotu."

"Alright," Viscross nodded, standing upright. "Good work. Continue to focus all LADAR and RADAR sweeps on that ship; I would prefer to know if they fire anything at us before it hits us."

"Aye sir," she nodded.

"Lieutenant Molus!" Viscross called over. "Any responses to our hails yet?"

"Negative sir," he shook his head.

"OK then," Viscross nodded, taking his seat and looking intently through the forward nanophase windows at the blob in the distance. "Let's give them some more time. Get me Brigadier Heskindo on the line. It may become necessary to get people over there if we are unable to achieve contact. And send NFC an update on our situation."

He sat back thoughtfully. One way or the other, they had to find out what that ship was, who had built it, where it had come from, and what kind of threat it posed to Vescopa, if any. Aside from the obvious panic and riots it promised to inflict upon them...

~~~

Jerion seemed quite panicked by the idea of suddenly freezing the reactor in such a fashion, and continued to blurt out various alarmed sentences in his native language as he found it increasingly difficult to stay on his feet. He had a personal rule which he tried to live by though never found relevant until now, which went something like "never throw a grenade of any kind at a nuclear reactor". It seemed quite apt at this moment.

Suddenly plunging the seriously overheated reactor casing into a deep freeze caused the existing crack to widen significantly, almost tripling its radiation leakage. It also created a couple of newer, smaller cracks elsewhere, although for now the cryogenic material filled them in almost immediately. Worse still, the liquid coolant intakes got a jolt of the cold, cracking the red-hot seals and freezing the coolant, blocking the intakes entirely and causing what little coolant remained in the system to squirt out and form large toxic pools all around the reactor, precluding the access of unsuited repair teams. By now the reactor was undergoing a self-sustaining chain reaction, and the engineers had already cut whatever power lines they could to no avail. One way or another, this ship seemed determined to die.

Fortunately the freezing material did have the effect of preventing the reactor from exploding outright, but without a functioning coolant system this effect would be quite short-lived.

Jerion hobbled backwards, trying to get as far away from the massive core as he could to avoid the billowing cloud of radioactive steam and the pool of toxic, superheated coolant that began to flood the end of the reactor room, scaring himself as he bumped into the aliens behind him. Between that bump and the shaking deck, he lost his balance and his contaminated body fell to the ground in a heap. He made a brief attempt to crawl towards one of the dead computer terminals, but gave up rather quickly.

******

By now, Diodomus and his marines could feel the vibrations, and hear the distant klaxons and the clanging sounds of falling of structural supports. While they weren't sure of what was going on, they knew it wasn't good. It sounded distinctly like the sound of a dying capital ship.

"Belay trap order!" Diodomus shouted to Risso, who had begun setting up laser trip wires linked to small explosive packs on the wall next to the door. "Get that door open instead!"

"But sir, what about the aliens...?" Risso protested, pulling the explosive pack from the wall again.

"From the sound of it we have bigger issues here!" Diodomus snapped. "Don't bother with the blowtorch, just blow the door off again!"

A few minutes later, the corridor was filled with smoke as the welded door blasted away from the wall, smashing into the opposite wall with such force that it made a dent. By now the thick sheet of metal had been blasted and welded so many times that it was virtually unrecognisable as a door anymore. As the sheet of deformed metal clanged to the ground, Diodomus and Risso leaned out cautiously, checking each end of the corridor simultaneously to see if the aliens were still around.

"It's clear!" Diodomus shouted. The other two marines stepped out cautiously, all their weapons shouldered. "I don't think we've got time for optics and cover. Let's MOVE, quickly!"

"Where are we going sir?" Risso asked as they began to sprint down the corridor, banging their heavy boots against the deck plating loudly as they went.

"We're picking up the survivors we managed to locate and we're finding a way off this boat, Sergeant," Diodomus told him. "Maybe we can find an intact transport floating near the hangar or something, I don't know... jumping out in EVAs, anything..."

The marines didn't sound encouraged by his uncertainty, but this was an impossible situation. The last thing they needed to be doing as sitting down, awaiting their fate, however certain it may be.

"Sir, those aliens!" Risso exclaimed as he began to breathe more heavily from the sprinting. "They must have come on a ship! If we can secure that..."

"Good thinking Sergeant!" he said. Perhaps there was some hope after all. "You and Gresco break off, try and locate it. Keep to outer hull sections, they must have broken through the hull somewhere in this area. We'll keep going and pick up the survivors. Radio in if you find anything!"

"Yes sir!" Risso saluted, and he and Trooper Gresco took a sharp turn away from the group, sprinting off in search of any sign of an alien ship.

OOC:

Good response, Vescopa. This one could head anywhere...and will soon, as I'm already writing up my response. Expect it in just a few minutes right here.

USLSS Lamoni – Bridge.

“Captain, I’m showing that unknown contact closing in fast.”

Captain Busch, sitting quietly in his command chair, nodded.

“Very well Lieutenant Erickson (he had only recently caught the Lieutenant’s name), just keep an eye on it and let me know when it does anything new."

“Aye, aye, Sir,” replied Erickson.

“Tactical,” Busch said, turning to the appropriate station. “How’re weapons looking from here?” He was still worried about facing these unknowns.

“Broadside phased array guns are still offline, Sir, but the missiles batteries are functional now, as are the coil gun turrets, and we should have torpedo tubes soon. Ozaki is working like a dog with everybody she can spare to get it done.”

Busch nodded calmly while cursing hard mentally. The sixteen phased array guns located in batteries on the ship’s sides were his main weaponry.

“Sir,” Erickson piped up again. “The contact is slowing down.”

“What?” Busch looked toward Erickson, as did everybody else on the bridge. That sealed it in his mind. This was a ship and no doubts. He had previously entertained thoughts that it might be a large asteroid, but now, he was sure.

“Yes, Sir, it is decelerating steadily now, and still on an intercept course, too.”

“I see,” said the captain of the Lamoni, and then fell silent. For the next several minutes a heavy silence hung upon the bridge as the unknown contact slowed and stopped, and then it happened. They were all working quietly, when…

“Sir,” the man on tactical said. “Readings indicate we are being scanned.”

Busch just nodded in response, and then came something more shocking.

“Sir, incoming signal,” the ensign on communications all but shouted.

“Where is it coming from?” Busch asked, trying to stay calm. It might be from that vessel heading towards them, but it could also be a response to his distress beacon.

“It is originating from the unknown, Sir, directed at us.”

“Put it on speakers,” Busch commanded.

“Sir,” the ensign said. “It’s not in any recognizable-”

“I said put it on speakers.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” said the ensign, hitting a button. What crackled through the speakers was loud, garbled, and wholly unrecognizable, though obviously a spoken message. Listening intently for a moment, Busch eventually ordered it stopped.

“Ensign,” he said. “Open a channel and prepare to transmit.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” the ensign said, then a few moments. “Channel is open, Sir.”

“This is the United Systems of Luslyvania Star Ship Lamoni. We are in distress and request immediate assistance if possible. Do you copy? – Over.”

The bridge by now was alive with banter between officers and NCOs alike as more people filed in to hear gossip about what had transpired thus far. The images of the alien ship were now in the public domain as far as the ship's crew were concerned, being as they were on the ship's computer network servers, but that didn't stop curious crew members coming to the bridge to get a first-person perspective and to find out if there had been any recent developments. Viscross had been forced to order the bridge cleared twice in as many cents to try and keep things running smoothly, and he was about to get up and shout at the new arrivals once again when he noticed Molus acting strangely in his array of computer monitors.

A look of excitement crept across the Lieutenant's face as he clutched his headset tightly to hear whatever he was listening to. Then a look of confusion replaced it, and he began thrashing his keyboard and looking at various different frequency analysis monitors with a furrowed brow.

"Care to share, Lieutenant?" Viscross asked casually, no longer content to wait for him.

"Yes... sir, sorry Commander," Molus shook his head, shaken. "I... well, we've received a signal."

"And?"

"You had better come and listen for yourself sir, I... I don't know," Molus shrugged and offered the headset out to him.

Viscross sighed and rose from his chair. By now his shift would have ended and he'd be asleep, but alas, these aliens had to choose the latter half of his shift to appear on their LADAR screens. He sauntered over to Molus and took the headset, placing the speaker to his better ear. Though he hadn't expected anything in particular, he was surprised to hear a voice on the other end, though what that voice was saying did not make any sense whatsoever. It sounded as though someone was just making random, meaningless sounds into a microphone in some kind of jovial prank.

"Is this message corrupted in some way, Lieutenant?" Viscross asked as the message finished and he returned the headset.

"Not that I can tell, sir," Molus shrugged. "I... maybe they're using digital protocols that our computer systems don't recognise, but I wouldn't have thought we'd get any sound at all if that was a problem. Seems like a basic audio transmission to me."

"Well... send response, ask them to repeat last transmission," Viscross sighed. "We might strike it lucky, you never know. Could just be an unregistered civvie with a dodgy transmitter."

Molus nodded, and promptly hit some keys and spoke into his headset once more, "this is the Naval Vessel Maelrosica to unidentified vessel. Did not copy last transmission, please repeat, over."

The Commander walked over to the wall-mounted communicator after shooting an angry look at some of the idle crew members who had congregated at the back of the bridge, and they promptly disappeared.

"Barracks, this is the bridge," Viscross said into the communicator once he'd placed it to his ear. A brief pause, followed by some clattering, indicated that even the marines were caught up in the alien hysteria. Molus had prepared the line and put them on hold for him earlier, and yet they still managed to delay.

"Brigadier Heskindo here, go ahead bridge," a gruff voice responded, finally. Viscross decided to overlook their lack of efficiency this time around, though hoped it didn't interfere with anything more vital than simply picking up the phone.

"Brigadier, this is Commander Viscross," he continued. "As I am sure you are aware, an unidentified ship lies five thousand kilometres to stern."

"I had heard a rumour, sir," a sarcastic reply came back to him.

"We are attempting to achieve contact through radio frequencies, but we are so far having no success," Viscross explained. "Arrange a boarding force, just a standard six-man team - include medics and engineers this time. More forces can be made available upon completion of threat assessment. Report to main hangar and await further orders. Prep EVAs, as we have no idea what kind of atmosphere if any is over there. "

"A boarding party, sir?" a confused response asked.

"Yes, Brigadier, that is when a group of people lands on another vessel," Viscross snapped. "Board the vessel, establish contact with the occupants, perform threat assessment, and secure if necessary. Render assistance if possible. And by the divinities, maintain radio contact throughout. Be ready to go in thirty cents for if I give the order. Understood?"

"Yes, Commander," Heskindo acknowledged with a laboured voice.

"Good. Bridge out." Viscross hung up the communicator a lot more frustrated than he had been before. He wasn't sure whether marines were slow, or just deliberately tried to rile any Navy officer they spoke to as part of an ancient rivalry. Neither did he care, for that matter. They were probably just bored, their entire organisation having been relegated to menial tasks for the last two centuries. Viscross considered it a blessing that they hadn't been used in anger, but they probably disagreed.

"Any response yet, Lieutenant?" he asked Molus.

"Not yet sir, give them a chance," Molus exclaimed. "They could well be in distress over there for all we know!"

USLSS Lamoni – Bridge.

“Sir, the unknown is transmitting again, standard audio without visual.”

“Very well,” said the Captain. “Where is Dr. Langley?” he asked, referring to the linguist his superiors had attached to his crew for this mission.

“He’s in Medical right now, Sir,” answered Handley. “He has a concussion.”

“Great!” Busch exclaimed. “Fantastic! Aliens we haven’t met before are talking to us and my head linguistics man has a head wound! Great!”

“Sir,” Handley said. “We have others aboard skilled in linguistics.”

“Get somebody up here, then,” Busch replied, already calming down. “Also, I want every Marine aboard this ship fully decked out now, and sound General Quarters."

“Excuse me, Sir?” Handley asked. “Turn out the Marines and sound GQ?”

“I didn’t stutter, did I Mr. Handley?” asked Busch. “We do not know these people and we lack primary weapons right now, so I’d just like to be safe.”

Having said that, Busch listened to the newest transmission, and then sent his own back.

"I repeat, this is the United Systems of Luslyvania Star Ship Lamoni. We cannot understand you. Do you understand us? We are in distress and need immediate assistance if possible - Over."

~~~

Molus looked up after listening to yet another message. He hit some keys in frustration and checked some analyses to be certain, but in the end he looked up at the Commander.

"Sir," he spoke up. "Another communication. Another load of nonsense. Far as I can tell it's clean and unencrypted, it's just... gibberish."

Viscross sighed inwardly. "Keep repeating your previous message, hope we get something back. In the meantime alert the hangar deck; tell them that Heskindo's team has a go."

"Aye sir," Molus nodded.



In the hangar deck the first activity outside of drills that had occurred in several periods was now deafening the number of NCOs bustling around busily, as a large transport shuttle was towed from his storage park onto one of the space craft lifts carefully. The small, one-manned yellow truck must have had some serious horses behind it to manage to pull an object so much larger than itself. On either side of the long series of lifts were racks of largely disused fixed-wing fighter craft, and more missiles and warheads than the eye could see, none of them likely to ever be used. A few more transports like the one currently being prepared were also on the racks, along with some kind of giant claws with engines on the backs, which were actually cargo movers. Considering the scope of the high-roofed room, it was actually quite cramped.

Brigadier Heskindo and his team stood on the deck just ahead of the lift, with two naval medics and naval engineers standing decidedly further away from the gung-ho team, as they all waited to find out what their orders were. Each one of them wore an airtight white EVA suit, with magnetically locking boots and a bulky air and power pack weighing down their backs. Their rather angular and compact helmets were slung under their arms for the time being, as they were in no rush to indulge in the claustrophobic head cages. The team of marines was half male, half female, and they all seemed to have been at the protein supplements, whilst the decidedly less bulky engineers and medics were similarly divided by gender, but were not slapping each other on the backs so profusely.

"Marines! Fall in!" Heskindo yelled at his team suddenly after finishing a conversation with one of the deckhands. "We have a GO. That means we are walking into a potentially hostile situation! Remember your training, check your weapons, keep your wits about you and you'll do fine! This is just a threat assessment mission, so no heroics. Is that understood marines?"

A unified "yes sir!" bellowed across the hangar deck, only drowned out by the loud 'clang' as the small yellow truck disconnected itself from the large transport shuttle and sped off to park out of sight. The shuttle's main hatch whirred open and clunked down to the deck just as two green-uniformed pilots jogged across the hangar deck to join the team.

"Captain Feldoran at your service, Brigadier," one of the pilots said, saluting as they came to a brisk stop. "We'll be your escorts for this mission. We'll 'try' not to make you landlubbers sick on the way."

"I appreciate that, Captain," Brigadier Heskindo nodded and returned the salute. He watched the two pilots clamber up the ramp, and then began clapping his hands. "Alright people, all aboard! You navy folks included! Let's get this over with!"

The marines jogged up the ramp and disappeared into the belly of the beast, whilst the navy NCOs moved up the ramp with decidedly less vigour. Heskindo shook his head with a sigh, deciding that the navy folks probably preferred the safety of this glorified tug boat to getting their feet wet overboard.



The lift slowly and carefully passed the transport shuttle up through an airlock until it was deposited in the canopied 'runway' on the top side of the Maelrosica, which to outside observers was beneath the overhung section towards the middle. Now in zero-G the shuttle floated gently off its platform, until all of a sudden its main thrusters exploded to life, rocketing the small ship above the 'runway' until it burst out into space.

The craft arched slightly as it took an angled approach towards the alien vessel, giving them a slightly better chance of vectoring away should they decide not to welcome them with open arms. Either unable or unwilling to locate an open hangar or a compatible airlock, the craft came to a halt beside the significantly larger vessel, and its own airlock opened. A magnetic harpoon with a titanium fibre rope attached was fired from somewhere inside, which fixed itself firmly to the hull of the alien vessel and the rope was pulled taut. After a brief pause, one at a time ten figures propelled themselves along with tiny jet boosters on their EVA suits, hooked on to the rope for safety, until they queued up next to the hull.

The marine on point, Captain Jensica, looked for some controls to the small personnel airlock they had located (OOC: Correct me if your ship has none!) and found some, but shook her head when she had no idea what to do.

"Just press some damn buttons!" Brigadier Heskindo snapped over their personal radios. "What's the worst that could happen? We get sucked in?!"

Jensica shrugged exaggeratedly and slowly reached out with her thick-gloved hand and began to randomly press buttons. There weren't many, so eventually the airlock door opened up. Carefully, they swapped the rope for a long harness that kept them all tied together, and cautiously filed into the airlock one at a time. Once they were all inside, the shuttle cut the rope and retreated to a safer distance closer to its mothership, while the marines figured out how to close the outer door and shut themselves into the alien ship.

"Conn, this is entry team, reporting successful penetration, over," Heskindo announced over their radio. The inner door of the airlock opened up after a series of hissing sounds surrounded them.

"Entry team, conn," a tinny voice responded. "Acknowledged. Continue on in."

One marine poked a small particle reader out into the corridor they were presented with, which analysed the content of the air.

"Reading breathable air," the marine said quietly. "Cool but tolerable temperatures."

"Alright, de-suit," Heskindo instructed them. Relieved, they pulled their helmets off and stripped themselves of their bulky EVA suits, revealing their grey and white urban camouflaged fabric body armour. The things utilised a system of overlapping flexible ceramics beneath the fabric to absorb bullet impacts, with various pouches on the chest and upper thighs and Vescopan flags on their shoulders. They didn't look much different from modern-day soldier armour, but they were much more effective. Wouldn't help them much against directed energy weapons, not that they knew such things were a threat just yet, but they'd sure stop bullets.

Their main reason for taking off the EVA suits was to prevent the suits getting pierced by weapons fire, so that even injured marines could make the trip back to the shuttle without losing all their air. And plus, they hated the damned things. They dumped the white suits and their helmets next to the airlock, while one marine left a small transmitter in the pile to help them find their way back.

"Smells funny in here," one marine piped up.

"I thought that was you..." another countered.

"The air's too thin!" complained yet another marine. "And it's too cold..."

"Keep it quiet," Heskindo whispered harshly, and began pointing at people and giving them orders. "Let's move out. You, you, and you, on point with me. You, you, cover our backs. Flyboys, stay in the middle where we can protect you. Go!"

Once they were stripped of them, they began to file silently into the corridor with their VMR-10s shouldered, in a two-by-five line formation with the medics and engineers protected in the middle, four marines up front and two taking up the rear. It was time to have a look around what was already looking to be a completely alien ship. They would have to get an idea of what kind of damage it had sustained, if any, along the way.

OOC:

Right. I cannot seem to find a good picture right now, Vescopa. Have you ever seen a picture of the exploration ship Event Horizon? Imagine something like that, only with a much more substantial neck located between the two sections. It has to be, as it supports not only a walkway in between sections, but the sixteen phased array beam cannon, eight per side, Lamoni's primary armaments.

Her forward section is also larger, and more shaped like an arrowhead of sorts if you know what I mean. It has several decks. These include the command deck, which houses the bridge, a torpedo deck, which houses the eight large torpedo tubes, and a small (compared to carriers, say) flight deck which has a dozen fighters and six fighter/bombers, as well as 4 shuttles.

Her armaments, aside from the aforementioned phased array guns and tubes include six missile batteries intended to combat enemy strike craft and missiles, and two dozen coil gun turrets which are intended for the same purpose as the missiles, but are strong enough to inflict noticeable harm on large ships as well.

Ic post coming soon.

P.S. In response to that last post you made, yes, my ships have such airlocks.

~~~

(OOC: Yes I've seen that film (one of my favourite space horrors in fact!), I see hwat you mean. I presume the general level of technology is somewhat higher, then, given DEWs and the ability to... well, get here in the first place lol. I'm off to get three or four hours sleep now, but by all means keep up the good work!)

(OOC: Yes I've seen that film (one of my favourite space horrors in fact!), I see hwat you mean. I presume the general level of technology is somewhat higher, then, given DEWs and the ability to... well, get here in the first place lol. I'm off to get three or four hours sleep now, but by all means keep up the good work!)

OOC:

Indeed, you may presume my technology is more substantial. I chose phased beam weapons because to my understanding the beams can be aimed somewhat without requiring the standard turret mechanism. I'll keep up my quality level as best I can, and hopefully will leave on more post for you before turning in.

I also liked the movie, though I felt it degenerated some at the end.

USLSS Lamoni –Bridge.

Likely the Vescopans had not realized it as they crept through the darkened corridors, but in fact, every move they made was carefully observed.

From his post on the bridge, Tactical Officer Lieutenant David Erickson observed silently his ship’s insides being invaded by the aliens. He watched as they crept down the corridor, ocassional talking, he saw, though he heard nothing, and even if he could have heard, he knew he would not understand it. He watched as they looked around themselves at the gray bulkheads and deck platings in the area where they had boarded, at the bright colored lines painted on the walls which were there as helpful guides for Aerospace Corps personnel. He was interested to see that occasionally one would rub at his arms, or shiver. Were they cold, perhaps?

“Mr. Erickson,” said a voice behind him to his left. He looked up, and saw Captain Busch looking back at him. “You have deployed Security Teams?”

“I have, Sir,” Erickson said with a nod. “I’m keeping the Marines centralized for now and letting armed crewman handle basic security. The power’s back up to 45%, so the hatches in the area where the aliens are can be sealed.”

“Have you sealed them yet?” asked Busch.

“Not quite yet, Sir,” Erickson shook his head. “We still have people there, and we can not leave them sealed in with potentially enemy forces.”

“I can understand that, Mr. Erickson, but if it looks like they’re threatening this ship close it to them, regardless who’s still in there with them.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” Erickson said. “I have maintenance bots tracking them as well, Sir, just a little extra surveillance. I figured they might prove useful.”

“Excellent. Do you have a view on them now?”

“Yes, Sir, right here.” Erickson hit a button, and a screen on his panel showed a view that looked like it was about at the same level as a cat or a small dog. The drone was watching its prey from a darkened corner, behind the Vescopans.

“It seems there are ten in all. Those six are marines, no doubts. The others, I can't really say."

“Either way,” said Busch. “They’re intruders. Where are they headed?”

“It looks like…Engineering, Sir.”

“Who all is there right now?”

“Ozaki’s mob and thirteen fully equipped Marines right now, Sir.”

Busch raised an eyebrow.

“I thought you said you had kept the Marines centralized?”

“Engineering is important, Sir, so I figured it’s best to be safe there.”

“Good thinking. Let them proceed for now, but keep me informed. I’ll warn Ozaki.”

Meanwhile, back in the corridor, what the drone-and Lieutenant Erickson-had not noticed was the crewman who had crept up in the shadows behind the drone and was now watching the aliens from his hiding place.

Petty Officer Third Class Emmett Moore glanced quickly around the corner, watching the aliens a moment before hunkering back in the shadows. One of the two in the back had looked a bit suspiciously in his direction just then. He hoped they hadn't seen him.

He wore a normal Semi-Powered Armored Suit (SPAS) painted navy blue, sans the helmet. He also lacked a rifle, having only a plasma pistol and combat knife. His communications headset was little use to him now, as the aliens might detect him talking. His only hope was that they would just continue away from him, and he could slip away.

'I wish I knew what the bastards were saying' he thought as he heard them exchanging a few quiet words.

OOC:

Bump, so it doesn't get lost way down on the list.

Reactor Room

"Damn," muttered 39, as the reactor suddenly decided to be uncooperative. "It looks like this thing doesn't want to play nice."

"Commander," one of the Elites said, as he was moving around the expansive room, "there is some sort of an access hatch down here. I believe it leads to some sort of a corridor or hall."

The Dominion troops, shielded from the reactor's radiation, were calm for the moment-though the reactor blowing wasn't a good proposition. 39 walked over to the Elite's position, and stared into the hatch that the other engineers had formerly fled into when the Dominion soldiers had first walked in.

"Take 81, 13, and two of your Elites, and check it out," 39 said. "I'm going to go off with the others and see if we can get off this ship before it totally explodes. Stay in comm contact."

The Sangheili simply nodded, waving a four-fingered hand to the others indicated, as two Shock Troopers and two Elites walked over to join him. The five-soldier group quickly dropped down the hatch, flicked on lights on their guns, and moved out to go explore some. The lead Elite had a portable positioning device-indicating his distance relative to the parked gunship on the craft's hull.

"'Ura, take the downed one," 39 said to the bulky Letukan, indicating the Vescopan engineer who was breaking on the verge of consciousness. "We'll take him back to the ship and see if we can get a linguistic specialist on him."

The power soldier simply grutted and let out a gutteral affirmative before taking up the engineer's bodly lightly and laying him atop the large reptilian's broad shoulder.

"Let's get outta here-I have little hope for this ship," 39 said to the remainder of his crew.

The others simply nodded, and hoisted weapons once again. There was no one left in the room besides the Hobbeebian.

"Not sure if you have a ship," 39 told the Hobbeebian, "if not, our ride has plenty of room."

The three Acklay droids squawked out comments, than began moving out the crushed entrance and into the hall again. 39 plugged back into his communicator, linking up to the two assault shuttle pilots, the only crew still aboard the parked Dominion craft that waited on the other side of the hull breech.

"P8, this is Nu 39. We are moving towards the departure point, are you green?"

"Affirmative 39, we're ready when you are. We've got four fighters on CP."

Rankin smiled and nodded as a dime gate opened behind him.

" Dont worry about me. I can take care of my self." Said Rankin as he saw those in the main Reactor chamber where no savable. Rankin hated to leave them but his options where limited and he had to leave soon. As Rankin Walked through the gate it closed behind him.

OOC: Hey all. Haven't forgotten, don't worry, just haven't had the time to post anything for the last couple of days. I'll hopefully get around to doing something tomorrow.

Entry Corridor Alpha

The first Vescopan marine's weapons fire impacted the plasma-shielded alloy-composite armor of Jenkins' suit's upper arm, creating little more than a blue shower of sparks and impact alerts on Jenkins' control computer. Jenkins returned fire, impulsively firing his pulse carbine into the darkness without computer guidance, its electrical crackle and roar echoing through the shattered passageway as a burst of three hypersonic depleted uranium alloyed penetrators cut into the bulkhead at the end of the hall, missing the lucky Vescopan by mere inches.

The AUMC sergeant half pushed, half ordered his pointman to step aside. He strode calmy in front of Jenkins, berating his subordinate for his haste and studity. Soon, he faced the illuminated Vescopan soldier, who was no doubt shaken by the preceeding events. The sergeant slowly lowered his weapon to intersect with the floor, as he began to kneel, the suit's movement systems hissing lightly as the seven and a half foot tall monster of metal and composites levelled his head with the alien's, slowly extending his left hand in a sign of friendship.

OOC: bumpity

~~~

The wholly un-entertaining troupe plodded cautiously through the dim alien corridors, taking the time to glance around, optic the corners, and generally examine their surroundings. They had little idea of what to expect while they were on this alien ship. Engineers were taking in the structural details in their attempts to determine what sort of creatures lived here. Corridors, of sufficient size and shape to comfortably host even the tallest Vescopans, with doors of similarly comfortable proportions, and artificial gravity roughly equal to Vescopan standard, meant that certainly something similar in shape lived there.

Sub-Lieutenant Elles, as the second-highest ranking physician aboard the Maelrosica, took a more biological approach to the question. Truly, the fact that the ship had an atmosphere like their own, if thinner, had similar temperatures, if cooler, and seemed to utilise the visible light spectrum, if a little dull for her tastes, meant that something with similar biological requirements lived aboard. The smell was unusual, but the same could be said when wandering into a stranger's house, let alone an alien ship. Perhaps if she and her medical companion had collaborated with the engineers, their schools of thought could be combined to come to a realistic conclusion of what manner of beings constructed this craft.

Instead, though, the marines dominated the hushed conversation, with their own unique ideas, all of which saw the medics and engineers settling for muffled groans.

"Just think!" Jensica said. "We're the first people to ever enter an alien ship! That's like a record or something, isn't it?"

"Never saw that particular one in the record books, myself..." Corporal Bresin shrugged. He carried his assault rifle uneasily; he'd bruised his shoulder in training and it still wasn't quite right.

"I bet they're giant worms," Trooper Gringes whispered. "Big and slimy."

"Don't be ridiculous, Trooper," Jensica shushed. "It'll be space bugs. That take control of your body. Like in that 'Invaders from Beyond the Eotu' vid."

"I'm going with balls of electricity," Bresin chimed on.

"What?!" Gringes exclaimed, shooting the junior marine a bemused look. "Where do you get that stuff from..."

"I read about it," Bresin protested. "It was a science book about spirits. It said that people who die in really drastic circumstances might release this big surge of biochemical energy, and they just fly around the system as electricity."

"And they build space ships too?!"

"Well..."

"It's worms and that's final," Gringes said with determination.

"I bet you a hundred ressigs it's body-stealing space bugs," Jensica countered.

"You're on!"

"How do we know you're not already taken over?" another marine, Major Pintos, asked.

"Because I'm..."

"Be quiet or you'll have every body-stealing space bug and giant worm within a fifty kilometre radius coming to see what all the childish arguments are about!" the Brigadier snapped in a harsh whisper. "You people spend too much time in front of the vidder and not enough time training, I swear to the divinities... I'm having the Commander cut access the the sci-fi disc stores when we get back."

"Sorry sir," Jensica shrugged. On the rear guard, she was becoming spooked. The inane conversation kept her mind off it, but she was sure she could see shapes moving in the darkness behind them. She flicked the flashlight on her rifle on and aimed it down the hall, certain that she had seen something move at the end of the corridor.

"Sir..."

"I saw it too, Captain," Heskindo nodded quietly as she looked over. "Keep it together. Don't start shooting things just yet. This is their ship, let them take a look at us."

All the same, they maintained a brisker pace, much to the annoyance of the engineers who seemed to be analysing the floor itself in a desperate attempt to take in all the things they could.

~~~

After running along as much of the outer hull sections on as many decks as they could, Risso finally heard movement around the bend, and urged his comrade to stop behind him with a simple hand gesture. Quickly as he could his optics were out and active, and he gently poked the end past the corner. The camera swivelled around a little and the picture was a little fuzzy as the computer focussed and compensated for the light, but after a few moments it resolved. A hole in the outer hull, with movement sounds coming from inside. Looked like forced docking to him, not that he'd ever seen it before.

Worst of all, when that ship pulled away, this entire section would be de-pressurised, and without power the emergency bulkheads would not seal. Two very good reasons for securing it. Lives were depending on him taking action immediately - without that ship, there would be no escape and no air.

"Corporal," he hissed to his comrade. "Watch my back. Flashlight off. TI only. Keep it quiet."

"Sir!" Gresco whispered back. They flicked their flashlights off, and on each helmet a small, square, translucent green panel lowered down over their right eyes, granting them the ability to see infrared light. The devices were used sparingly, when flashlights were not practical, as they ran down their battery packs rather quickly during extensive use. But they served their purpose well.

Carefully the two marines rounded the corner and headed towards the hole in the ship, placing their boots against the vibrating and peculiarly warm deck plates as gently as they could under the circumstances, until Risso poked his rifle around the edge of the hole suddenly, shouting, "alien invaders; drop your weapons and put your hands... or... tentacles, above your head! Do it now! We mean you no harm, but we cannot allow this craft to leave!"

At that moment Diodomus, his marine companion arrived, tailed by a group of just under twenty-five Navy officers and NCOs, some of whom carried injured personnel on makeshift stretchers, manufactured out of tabletops and doors. Copious amounts of light-red blood doused the clothing of some, though it became difficult to tell who the blood belonged to - them, or some of the more badly-injured men and women on the stretchers. On sighting the situation Sergeant Risso had managed to get himself into, the two new marines threw their weapons up to their shoulders and urged the survivors to stay back.

************

Meanwhile, the group of nine engineers who had escaped from the alien invasion of the reactor room had managed to reach a semi-damaged access point, making it possible for them to pry it open and emerge into the corridors proper. Familiar with the ship like the backs of their hands they recognised their position immediately - three sections down from port weapons storage. Half of the entire weapons compliment of the ship was stored there, along with numerous fission and thermonuclear warheads. It was unlikely that the nuclear weapons would detonate spontaneously, of course, having been built to withstand blazing fires far in excess of the ones they were experiencing, and the arming and detonation systems precluded the possibility anyway. But the conventional warheads - capable of significant explosive force on their own - were more of a worry. It was rare, but they had been known to explode in extreme temperatures.

"Great!" cried one. "We're standing next to megatons of explosives on a burning ship! Someone got any other good ideas we could try?! Hey wait, I bet there's a hull breach nearby that we could all jump out of!"

"Hush!" Junior Officer Brell snapped. He was an NCO. He held the highest rank it was possible for an NCO to have, but he was still an NCO all the same, and had not had any experience in commanding terrified groups of engineers, many of whom were beginning to feel the effects of radiation sickness - some of the most unfortunate symptoms thus displayed being vomiting, which was not entirely pleasant in the narrow maintenance passages. It was theorised back home, though obviously untested, that female Vescopans could tolerate slightly higher radiation levels for slightly longer periods of time than males, and it was proving true here. Several sickened men steadied themselves on the shoulders of less affected women, though Brell himself also still managed to avoid nausea for the time being, along with a couple of others.

He had no idea what he was doing, of course, but he had to give the appearance of enlightenment for the sake of the lower ranking NCOs he now found himself the leader of. Their best chance would be to head straight for the hangar deck. They had been without communications since the disaster, so there was no way of knowing if any craft still remained - or even if the hangar deck remained. But there was no other choice. The lifeboats would not have survived the outer skin of the ship being torn away.

"We need to get to the hangar deck," he said, putting his thoughts into words.

"That's a dozen decks and a dozen sections away!" one of the healthier engineers blurted out. "I'm surprised the reactor hasn't gone critical already! I don't know what the Chief's doing down there, but, it won't last. We'll never make it!"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Brell asked. A few moments of silence - or at least, absence of talking - followed, and Brell nodded. "We can either wait here to see the divinities, or give it our best shot. To the hangar deck. Come on."

~~~

Quite why the creature that stood before him was not gushing blood was not a particularly big mystery. Even the oldest body armour could stop pistol calibre bullets; any marine worth his weight in gellberries knew that one should only fire pistols at un-armoured targets or, as in that particular instance, as a last resort. It was more the fact that the creature glowed upon being hit that bothered Geran. He didn't believe in demons, but, that was just wrong. Damn, he needed the use of his legs more now than ever before, and they chose this particular moment to go numb.

"Get away from me!" he shouted, losing his grip on his pistol slightly. Not that the thing would do any good, but, it was like a comfort blanket. "I'm a Naval Marine! I can use this thing!"

When the creature reached out to grab him, Geran instinctively fired a few rounds at it, missing mostly as the shakes took hold, before putting one into himself. He wasn't going to let them do to him what they did to people on those sci-fi vids. No way. And now they couldn't.

Unfortunately, his trembling hand missed the shot and he fainted instead. Either way, he didn't know the difference. Till they started probing him, at least.

Entry Corridor Alpha

"God damn it, Jenkins! Now we gotta haul his ass back to the med-bay. Lance Corporal, give him Level 1 (intensive) NIT (nanite injection therapy), he's probably gone into shock after our cowboy nearly nailed him here. Meanwhile, the rest of you stay on me, and Jenkins, you screw up again and you'll be shifting through dog shit in the Waste-Pro back home, you hear me?!"

The sergeant sounded more than a little peeved over the neuro-net, and Jenkins spat out a reluctant "Yes, sir." before taking the rear guard position behind his three compatriots, while Lance Corporal Yamota, the team's medical specialist, kneeled down beside the collapsed alien, an attachment extended from the wrist of his manipulator, a small syringe filled with a vicious neutral fluid and millions of inactive, microscopic biomechanical constructs. Soon, this micrometer thin alloy rod found its mark in the alien's main blood vessel of his arm, as identified by the medic's multi-spectral scanner. Soon, the millions of nanites were released into the being's still active bloodstream. Several larger ones, known as 'archivers', traveled to the alien's central nervous center, using miniscule probes to pierce the brain-blood barrier and decipher its bodily makeup and genetic codes.

After a few moments, the 'archivers' detached and broadcasted their 'findings' to the legions of nanites flowing through the Marine's veins, who immediately begin to repair the damage, generating tissue and grafting it and stimulating it to interact with the surrounding naturally generated material. Within mere seconds, the wounds and fractures of the alien marine had been repaired and myriad of tiny physicians had evaporated in the nanite-bay of the marine's power armor, turned to 'raw materials' for future medical emergencies.

His immediate work finished, the Lance Corporal rose to his 'feet' and called to his superior via the neural net.

"He's stable but still knocked out, sir. Orders?"

The Sergeant kept watch down a murky corridor as he responded.

"We need to avoid a situation like this again. Administer a phonetic nanite injection; we need the ability to communicate with him and his ilk before he regains consciousness."

"Aye, sir, I'll make sure he doesn't come back out of it before we're done, I'll keep you posted, Yamota out."

Soon, the syringe was extended by its nanite constructor base, and the biomechanics soon flooded the blood vessels of the alien creature. But, these were more advanced probes, along the same vein as the 'archiver' probes deployed earlier. They crossed the brain blood barrier, monitoring the alien's subconscious thought patterns and discerning his memories, relevant knowledge, and of course, phonetic abilities. This took a considerably longer amount of time than simple tissue regeneration, but after approximately twenty minutes of study, the nanites fused into a sensor array powerful enough to bring a data link to the medic, sending the gathered information to both the away teams and the Davenport herself.

It was right after the data transfer that the alien began to stir again, awakened by the nanites as they retreated back through to their master's arm.

"Sir, he's going live, better get over here, out."

OOC:

Body-stealing space slugs, Vescopa? Very nice. What exactly has that young lad been watching? Incoming post.

~~~

Geran awoke - albeit rather slowly. Reaching up to clutch his throbbing forehead and rub his eyes, his fuzzy vision slowly began to focus and he looked around clumsily in the dark as his brain slowly 'booted up' once more. The inevitable disorientation that came from fainting was no less prominent here than in any other case. It was a universal constant that, across the entire universe, irrespective of linguistic, biological or cultural barriers, the first words to emerge from the semi-conscious vocal orifice, whatever shape it may take, are always:

"Where am I?"

It was almost an instinctive reaction, perhaps the biological equivalent of a boot-up greeting message on a computer. The fact that he had been unconscious and, therefore, completely unable to go anywhere other than where he had been upon fainting did not seem to stop those words from being blurted out. Almost as soon as he remembered he regretted saying it, but the deed was done.

Ventrius. Eotu. Bang. Aliens. Shot. Probing. Agh. His brain summarised preceding events in a handy, easy to digest bullet-point list for him to quickly panic about as he suddenly realised that he was supposed to be dead. He had shot himself! He remembered! Or had he? He sure felt like he'd been shot in the head. Could the aliens have revived him? No. Neither divinities nor demons could repair a brain once it was splattered across a wall. Which meant that he was either dead, and this was some kind of sick cosmic joke, or he had missed. Which was really embarrassing, for a marine especially - one cannot ask for much more of a point blank shot than one's own head, after all.

So the new question became, in his mind at least, WHAT IN THE EOTU HAS HAPPENED?! In order to find out, he decided - in the way that all recently-unconscious and panicked people decide things - to ask politely.

Shocked to find himself able, he rose to his feet all of a sudden and blurted out, "What are you?! What have you done to me?! How did you get here?!"

Dismay crept across his face and his mind as he searched his person quickly, looking for the wholly-uncomfortable comfort blanket that was his weapon. Rifle or sidearm, he didn't much care which at that point, but he could find neither.

Body-stealing space slugs, Vescopa? Very nice. What exactly has that young lad been watching?

OOC: Hey, everybody needs some sci-fi! Even aliens!

Entry Corridor Alpha

The sergeant, obviously the commanding officer among the six 'demons', stepped forward to the revived aliens. He checked his linguistic data one last time before he spoke into his vocal synthesizers, which fixed his own tone of voice to the alien's language. Thankfully, this nanotech information absorption technology had advanced to the point of probing a subject's subconscious quite vigorously, not only learning basic linguistic skills but nuances such as known dialects and phrases. To the alien Vescopan, it would sound like perfect, well, whatever they spoke.

Whatever the technical lowdown, the power armored marine non-com spoke up, his gruff voice shining through two languages. The translation was two way, so the alien would appear to be speaking English to the marines and the shipboard crews. It would work until a more proper contact could be established. For now, the non-com's more diplomatic side kicked in.

"You have been injected with both medical and information gathering nanomachines, and not to worry, they have already been cleared from your body. These robots have allowed us to communicate with your kind on a verbal level. I am Geraldo J. Renges of the Allied Union Defense Force Marine Corps, from the space faring warship A.U.S.V. Davenport. The Davenport's commanding officer, Sion Davenport XVIII, has instructed me and my Marine away team to establish contact with whoever may have survived your passage through what we call the Pandora Anomaly, or what we've discerned your kind to call the Eotu. Since you apparently fit that description, we've come to rescue you and any other survivors of your passage."

He paused for a moment, before offer his manipulator hand to the alien.

"We'll have to get your on your feet first, though, ha-ha. May I ask your name, comrade?"

He already knew the answer to this question, but it would be comforting to ask it of the alien nonetheless. Most of the personal informaton not vital to the mission was discarded, partly to give a sentient being its deserved privacy and partly to spare the soldiers in the field of something they didn't want to know.

OOC: I'll get a post up tomorrow...

The Wanderlust Emerged from T-Space into Real Space as it shifted from the 7th dimension back into the STC. The ship faded into existence and made sure it was not in anyone’s way. The sensors of the other vessels would show the ship seemed to have the gravity signature of a small star and power reading that were only remarked as being incredible. The ship did not actually possess the gravity of a star, the power core contained the excess gravity of the singularity contained within it but the “shadow” was still there and easily detectable.

The Wanderlust began to scan the anomaly and the surrounding area but primarily the anomaly. The ship also broadcast a message to the other ships in the area.

Greetings.

The Wanderlust is here to investigate this anomaly but if there is any way the Balrogga Empire can assist in the rescue; please do not hesitate to ask. We also would like to request all entities share any information so we all can benefit from this equally.

Again, if there is any way we could assist, please don’t hesitate to ask.


Captain D’Kson
The Wanderlust

FTLCOM@1E10&EM1E-1; Beamspread x 10; SL 0
From: GPRD #19 (S0)
To: GPRD #32 (S1+; Astral Romance)
Subject: Automated Reponse; Unusual Activity @ [Coordinates] ('Pandora's Star')

Time=13392813 (Local; Bias)

Registered Contact: Ship [Specs]; [Velocity]

Time=13393001 (Local; Bias)

Previous Contact: Penetration of Anomaly @ [Coordinates]

Time=13393082 (Local; Bias)

Previous Contact: Contact lost (Active & Passive) due to interferences caused by the anomaly

Curious.

With several dozen recon drones spread liberally around the anomaly, it wasn't particularly hard to figure out when someone (Or something) tried to get in - and the Astral Romance looked curiously through the sensory logs of a ship trying to do just that, penetrating Pandora's Star's 'Protective' shell.

Until maybe an hour ago, she'd have considered the idea rather stupid - what for? Interesting as the anomaly was, it wasn't really worth sacrificing ships - or indeed, anything - for. What was there to find except a whole load of extremes preventing planets from forming?

But well, this theories had been superceded a little while ago, when something had come out of the anomaly. Which suggested that certain assumptions - a lack of planets for one - were presumably incorrect.

Which suddenly made the idea of attempting (Another) penetration surprisingly appealing. In fact, the Astral Romance could've kicked herself for not thinking about it earlier, when the initial contact had been made - with a few dozen drones available, some could be spared.

Well, she didn't have a foot (Or an ass) to kick herself in her present form, which made said kicking mildly difficult, but she could do other things. For starters, she could transfer her mindstate to a few other of the drones around.

Then she once more concentrated on the feed she was receiving from the AUSC Davenport.

Well, that's something, at least.

The Astral Romance halted her preparations for penetration of the anomaly short of actually launching the drones, deciding that it'd presumably be more effective to learn more about it via... Well, the nano-equivalent of effectorisation the Velkyans utilised, and probably avoiding a loss or two, sent of a quick (And rather informal) congratulatory message to Commander Davenport and Crystal (Happily ignorant of certain other occurances on board of the alien ship), and peered at yet another arrival on the scene - at a time when her own was still something like five hours off.

Hum.

CCOM@EM1E-1; Beamspread x 50; SL 0
From: GPED #32 (S1+; Astral Romance)
To: Captain D’Kson; The Wanderlust
Subject: Re: Your Broadcast

Well, if we had information, other than the blatantly obvious bits... But then, I figure that you might've problems noticing some - okay, a lot - of that, given the interference you get from your very own hawking radiation and heat load - kinda like trying to listen to your neighbor playing Bach when you're playing trash metal at high volume, I suspect? - so I've attached the basics - velocity spread of stellar plasma, radiation divergences and wavelength shifts, some grav-mapping, AM- and exotics density around and inside the outer layers of the anomaly (With its structure, it's like a factory for such things) versus 'Normal' matter, the likes.

I'm nothing if not a good neighbor.

~ IEU-by-Proxy Astral Romance

PS: You know, we've an IEU going by your ship's name... Well, sans the 'The'.

Back on Silverline.....

Commander Lehigh was becoming most dismayed at the site of the fast fading ships condition as fires began to erupt all around it. It was soon that what ever weapons they had on board was going to go up with the reactor in the ship.

" Sir I have received word that the people that we rescued form the ship are doing well and their wounds should heal soon. One is still awake and seems to be responsive. " Announced one of the medical officers in the med bay over the telepath link.

" Got it. I will see what I can do about trying to get one of them to speak to us. Has someone been able to understand what they are saying?" asked Lehigh

" No. We have traced their language through our databank. We need you or another Eborian to tap into their mind before we can understand them." replied the officer

" Ok. I will be down their soon. Try to keep anyone who wakes..up I want to talk to them." ordered Lehigh


OOC: Vescopa you need to RP the Captain.....

~~~

"Damn it to the divinities, I knew you were going to probe me!" Geran spluttered, waving his arms angrily. "Well I don't know what you are, where you came from, or how you got to this side of the Eotu, but I guess I got no choice here. Heard a while back some sirens, think the reactor's going critical - and with this ship's big design flaw, we sure don't want to be here when that happens, suits or no." He shook his head in vigorous negativity as though expecting them to know what he was talking about, regretting it immediately afterwards when he discovered that he had a nasty headache still.

"Anyway. I'm Corporal Geran, Naval Marine, 5th Company. This old wreck is the VDS-06-05 Ventrius. Plan was, Navy folks were to take her through the Eotu and see if there was anything on the other side. We didn't succeed though; things blew up, and me and Vergos - the guy who you chased off earlier - were left to pick up the pieces and survivors. Found lots of pieces, no survivors though. We were trying to make contact with any surviving members of our company when I got hit with a falling support beam, couldn't move my legs after."

He pointed at a bloodied girder on the deck not all that far from them.

"Then you showed up. Now, you've been in my brain, I've answered your question, so how bout now you tell me just what in the Eotu you are and where you came from? Last I heard, Vescopa II is the only one that supports life, and I'd have remembered something like... you. And most importantly, where your ship is... we need to get outta here!"

~~~

OOC: Sure thing, but I'd like to know a little about where he is, what's been done to him, etc, otherwise all I can think of is 'Commander Frelli woke up with a headache' :D

He was rescued and placed in a kolto tank and is under watch for his condition. He has been stabilized and is surrounded by people in glowing uniforms and have glowing white eyes and silverish skin that appears in certain light. The crew that was with him in the bridge are in the same room and are still unconscious except for the woman that was impaled.

OOC:

Hi, guys. I haven't forgot about this project. I'll try to make a post soon!

OOC: charge to 30 Volts.... CLEAR!....BUMP!

(OOC: I presumed he was still in the 'kolto tank'. If not, well, he is now lol :D )

Commander Frelli came back to life. His pain was gone, but he felt... strange. As though he was submerged in some kind of viscous liquid and yet still able to breathe. Had he served on an old style naval warship he might understand the possibility of being submerged into water when his ship was crippled, but he was quite certain that space ships were not similarly take on water when affected by damage. Moreover, that would not explain why he was still able to breathe.

Curious, he opened his eyes. He winced slightly as the liquid came into contact with his eyeballs - he had always been a bit of a wuss when it came to opening his eyes underwater - and found it difficult to focus on anything. Trapped inside some kind of transparent cylinder, he did not appear to be aboard the Ventrius any longer, as he did not recognise this room nor its architecture - it was distinctly un-Vescopan. He could see shapes moving around him, but he could not make them out. They seemed to be... glowing somehow, both their clothes and their eyes, and they had very strange, silvery skin. It was a very supernatural appearance, and he could thing of no biological nor practical reason why a person's eyes would glow, short of eating reactor material. Maybe he was dead? As a rational being, he was part of the slight majority of people that did not believe in such ridiculous concepts as gods and demons and angels, but when presented with a situation like this one's mind tended to race.

He saw other members of the Ventrius crew, some lying down on beds, others trapped in similar tubes to his. Vagrette was one of them, and though he was pleased to see her alive and well, it was somewhat worrying that they were now apparently the subject of alien experiments. Nevertheless he remained calm, as was his nature, and began to look around in the tube he was trapped in to identify any way of escaping.

Commander Lehigh walked into the room and saw that someone in the tanks where finally wake and alert. Lehigh calmed moved over to the woman on the table and placed his hands on her head. As he closed his eyes he looked into her mind. Seeing the events to preceded that took out there ship. But it was not long before he found the core of there language. It took only a second to learn.

Lehigh then looked to the tank and spoke in the native language of him.

" Finally you are awake... How was your rest. Peaceful I hope?"

OOC:

Right. I've been working a bit hard today, but my next post, which will come in just a short while if all goes as planned, will include a large IC section.

*BREAKING NEWS*
KCNA - Kratnen Central News Athority
"news worth knowing"

The screen cleared to reveal the Kratnen journalist Jenthis Korvada huridly making a couple last minute adjustments to her headset here data badblinking with incoming reports as she turned to the digital recorders wich where instantly transmitinging the feed live across Kratnen space and beond to those who botherd to tune in to the Kratnen networks
"We interupt regularly scheduled programing to bring you this breaking news. a ship has emerged from the much debated "Pandora's Anomaly", while reports are sketchy at the moment it apears that the veessal was heavely damaged by it voyage through the anomaly and several vessals have converged and have commenced joint rescue operations. while it is curently unknown how this new evidence to suport the theroy that there is life inside the anomaly or how it might affect the balance of power in the region, the inital impact is stagering" she raised a hand to her ear as a report came through direct to her head set she listend for a moment before turning back to the digital recorders "We now take you live to KCNA - Enigmis wich as just enterd the area"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Enigmis had bee in hyperspace since the origional reports had come in the hyperdrive working at maximum capacity to get the small vessel there as fast as possibal as the junior staff poured ofther the incoming reports and pulling up every known bit of information concerning the anomaly wich wasn't much since neither scan nor probe had been able to penitrate more than a couple hundred kilometers past the perimeter of the anomaly and maned missions had been deemed to risky by both the Imperial Navy and the research councel
"This is Tamik Grishka reporting live from the bridge of the Enigmis. A ship has indeed emerged from the Pandora Anomaly and our inital scans show it to be in a critical state, radiation has has flooded the entire vessal Large sections of the outer hull apear to have been torn off by gravometric shearing forces making identification by hull markings difficult at best"
"Gods Preserve us Look at that" a junior staff member suddenly pointed out the window as the ?port? side of the vessal came into view the camera man rushing over to try and gert a good angle on the wreakage zooming in as far as his small recorder would go, the massive hole in the side now clearly evident. some of the more religous members of the crew uttering small prayers
"Someone get those exterior recorders working" Tamik Barked his voice then calming as he continued his report the recorder still on what could only now be called the wrekage of the vessal that had come through the anomaly "it also apears that the vessal has suffored from more than extream gravometric sheer something also apears to have torn a large chunk out of the port side."

"Does there apear to be any survivors" Jenthis' voice came aross the comm system from the central news office on Kratna

"Our scans don't apear to be pucking any up but the amounts os radation are interfering with them so its hard to say at this point but should anyone be alive on the vessal the levals of radiation would incapacitate most humanoid species and woithout imediat medical treatment would soon die of of sevear radiation poisioning" Tamik reported "Altho there is hope as there are three ships providing assistance it is possable that they might have rescued some of the crew. we will keep you posted as the reports come in"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"thank you Tamik. that was Tamik Grishka Reporting live aboard the KCNA -Enigmis from the pandora anomaly. we will continue to kep you updated as more information is made avalable. for no we leave you with the immages of the unknown vessal. This is Jenthis Korvada for KCNA"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"alright people you know the drill i want four news teems assembled and ready to leave in 15 mins, one for each of the rescue vessals and one to cover the wreck. Daxik, Fenta, Kenvanta, your with me lets move people."
Tamik quickly made his way down the 2 decks to the launce bay where the launch crews where finishing the final prep on the news shuttles. he quickly straped into his seat as the other 3 members of hes team stowed there gear
"alright people seal it up and strap in for launch" the pilot yelled back as the hatch closed and the final checks where compleated "final checks compleat Enigmis shuttle Truth ready for launch"
"roger that truth bay doors clear. safe flying Truth"
The shuttles engins roared to life as the shuttle slowly lifted off the deck lineing itsself up with the bay doors and rocketed forwards as the pilot hit the throtle the humm of the engins cutting off as it exited into the vacume of space.
As soon as the shuttle cleared the pilot began broadcasting to the hobebian vessal "This is the KCNA shuttlecraft Truth of the KCNA vessal Enigmis requesting to dock/land as per the intergalactic press acourds section 34 subsection 12. i repeat this is the KCNA shuttlecraft Truth of the KCNA vessal Enigmis requesting to dock/land as per the intergalactic press acourds section 34 subsection 12. please respond over."

(ooc: i figured there where enough military vessles in the area so i figured i do something a little diffrent)

Commander Lehigh walked into the room and saw that someone in the tanks where finally wake and alert. Lehigh calmed moved over to the woman on the table and placed his hands on her head. As he closed his eyes he looked into her mind. Seeing the events to preceded that took out there ship. But it was not long before he found the core of there language. It took only a second to learn.

Lehigh then looked to the tank and spoke in the native language of him.

" Finally you are awake... How was your rest. Peaceful I hope?"

Commander Frelli was quite surprised to hear aliens speaking his own language but thought nothing of it. The same thing happened in those rather absurd science fiction vids, after all, so maybe it held true in real life too. Either way he wasn't in the mood to make pleasantries with a creature that had suspended him in a tank of goo - not that he could speak anyway with the breathing apparatus on.

The aliens seemed to notice this and had him removed from it (OOC: unless you object to such a forward move, but, I didn't think being taken out of the tank warranted an entire exchange), to his relief, giving him the ability to talk once more.

"I am Commander Frelli of the Naval Vessel Ventrius," he stated in a manner of fact kind of way. "[i]And I demand to know what you are, where you have taken us, and exactly what you have done to my crew! Where is my ship?"

************

Speaking of which, the engineers on the Ventrius had made their way to the hangar by now and found it to be... well, not there anymore, and were now searching the ship for lifeboats. They were quite close to bumping into the marines which had been attempting to secure transport in the form of an Amazonian Beasts boarding craft (and which had mysteriously stood still for quite some time), but still too far away. Speaking of many things, one topic of particular concern was that of the emergency power systems.

It seemed that the design flaw which had been mentioned only briefly by the marine Corporal Geran below deck had to do with the hydrogen fuel cell batteries. Thanks to these faithful devices, the numerous folks wandering the decks of the dying ship were permitted to do so without floating away or asphyxiating, and they had been diligently and admirably been performing their duties ever since the reactor was severed from the main power distribution network.

Now, reactor meltdowns do not cause nuclear explosions. This was a basic fact of the technology, although the radiation released would certainly kill anything daft enough to still be in the vicinity at the time, and if that didn't do the trick then the immense burst of extreme heat would do the job.

It was the latter which posed the problem. The aforementioned batteries were renowned for being allergic to the heat, and the design flaw, Brell explained, centred around the fact that these fuel cells had been placed only a few decks away from the reactor systems. The poor little batteries were already running hot thanks to their refrigeration systems no longer functioning (nothing on this ship functioned anymore!) and when the meltdown occurred, they would all go into thermal overload simultaneously. This, Brell told the increasingly concerned group of junior engineers, considering the number and size of the cells aboard, would cause a very large explosion, certainly sufficient to destroy the aft section of the ship, if not the entire ship and anything nearby.

They picked up the pace somewhat, hoping to find some lifeboats they could all cram into.

" Your ship is lost, It would be wise not to want to return. You crew , as many as we could retrieve, where taken here from treatment. Although there maybe more on board. We have been trying to rescue as many of your crew as we can. Although attempts have been ... difficult, due to us being able to communicate... like I am with you. We have the ability to send a message to the ship I got you off of, but it will require you to speak your native tongue. the sound will be sent as a echo and will reverberate on the walls. they will hear your message no matter where they are. Sending them to safety..." said Lehigh as he handed him a microphone like instrument

" Your ship is lost, It would be wise not to want to return. You crew , as many as we could retrieve, where taken here from treatment. Although there maybe more on board. We have been trying to rescue as many of your crew as we can. Although attempts have been ... difficult, due to us being able to communicate... like I am with you. We have the ability to send a message to the ship I got you off of, but it will require you to speak your native tongue. the sound will be sent as a echo and will reverberate on the walls. they will hear your message no matter where they are. Sending them to safety..." said Lehigh as he handed him a microphone like instrument

OOC: Apologies, bank holiday weekend kept me sidetracked, and then work left me with little time. Back to doing bugger all now, though!

IC:

"Thank you for attempting to rescue my crew, but, what do you mean lost? How can I communicate with it if it is lost?" Frelli aksed. The Ventrius was the first command he had received, and as one of only five ships in the fleet it was quite a privilege. He had served aboard her for almost two decades now, most of that time as her commander - to hear the word 'lost' was quite heartbreaking, as evidenced by the panic in is voice.

Nevertheless he accepted the microphone from the alien and held it up to his face. "This is Commander Frelli. All hands, now hear this: evacuation, I repeat, evacuation. Authorisation three seven nine mark two, alpha green. All hands abandon ship, all hands abandon ship. This is most certainly not a drill."

His voice echoed across what remained of the Ventrius. The few people who hadn't either been blown into space or suffered a gruesome death at the hands of radiation poisoning or being crushed by falling debris looked around weakly and attempted to summon the strength to get to their feet and try to find a way off the ship. Meanwhile the stand-off over the Amazonian Beasts' boarding craft continued, and the group of lost engineered got ever closer.

OOC:

Hi, all, I hope this thing's not dead yet. I originally had more than this, but lost most to hitting the wrong light switch, and decided it would be a good idea to just post what I still had left.

IC:

USLSS Lamoni –Corridor, Vescopan Boarding Unit Locale.

Moore shivered and forcibly held back a relieved sigh when the alien marine-he supposed it must be something of that sort-turned away from him. The light had come close when it had been shined in his direction. He started moving away from the corner, gliding silently in the shadows as he tried to avoid detection. The maintenance drone which sat there with him in the corridor, observing, quietly held position. It had not noticed him and he was an incredibly short distance away. The aliens were down the corridor, and unless they had an incredibly good sense of hearing, he should go un-noticed.

His utility flashlight slipped from his suit belt.

It was too late to stop it by the time he noticed, but he tried anyway, lunging out a hand to keep it from revealing his position, and failing.

CLANG!!! It crashed against the metal deck plating.

“SHIT!!!” he exclaimed automatically, before remembering that shouting was a bad idea.

‘No way in Hell they didn’t detect that’ he thought. Worse yet, when the light hit the deck it rolled around the corner, out in the open. Fumbling the situation again Moore stood and lunged out in to the corridor, seeking to grab the light.

He was almost instantly hit by Jensica’s gun light.

“Um…” he paused, unsure how to react to it. He waved timidly “Hi there. Klaatu barada nikto?"

He realized in a more logical part of his mind just how absurd it was to quote a movie at aliens who likely had no knowledge of the English language, but the logical part of Moore's brain just did not have control at the moment.

"Well," he said, following a moment's pause. He was trying to say something useful, but what courage he had left suddenly failed.

"Itwasniceseeingyougoodbyenow!"

He bolted back around the corner, running as qucikly as his legs could move him.

OOC:

In case you're having trouble with it, his last words are "It was nice seeing you. Goodbye now." He just spoke really fast.

OOC:

Hi, all, I hope this thing's not dead yet. I originally had more than this, but lost most to hitting the wrong light switch, and decided it would be a good idea to just post what I still had left.

IC:

USLSS Lamoni –Corridor, Vescopan Boarding Unit Locale.

Moore shivered and forcibly held back a relieved sigh when the alien marine-he supposed it must be something of that sort-turned away from him. The light had come close when it had been shined in his direction. He started moving away from the corner, gliding silently in the shadows as he tried to avoid detection. The maintenance drone which sat there with him in the corridor, observing, quietly held position. It had not noticed him and he was an incredibly short distance away. The aliens were down the corridor, and unless they had an incredibly good sense of hearing, he should go un-noticed.

His utility flashlight slipped from his suit belt.

It was too late to stop it by the time he noticed, but he tried anyway, lunging out a hand to keep it from revealing his position, and failing.

CLANG!!! It crashed against the metal deck plating.

“SHIT!!!” he exclaimed automatically, before remembering that shouting was a bad idea.

‘No way in Hell they didn’t detect that’ he thought. Worse yet, when the light hit the deck it rolled around the corner, out in the open. Fumbling the situation again Moore stood and lunged out in to the corridor, seeking to grab the light.

He was almost instantly hit by Jensica’s gun light.

“Um…” he paused, unsure how to react to it. He waved timidly “Hi there. Klaatu barada nikto?"

He realized in a more logical part of his mind just how absurd it was to quote a movie at aliens who likely had no knowledge of the English language, but the logical part of Moore's brain just did not have control at the moment.

"Well," he said, following a moment's pause. He was trying to say something useful, but what courage he had left suddenly failed.

"Itwasniceseeingyougoodbyenow!"

He bolted back around the corner, running as qucikly as his legs could move him.

OOC:

In case you're having trouble with it, his last words are "It was nice seeing you. Goodbye now." He just spoke really fast.

(OOC: Apologies, but I thought this had died!)

Jensica immediately focussed on the figure that seemingly dove into her flashlight beam, quite relieved in fact that she was not going insane. The alien looked quite... normal, compared to a body-snatching space bugs at any rate. Though only snatching a brief glance, she did not see any particularly unusual... extrusions, and it appeared to be quite Vescopanoid in design. It was comforting to know that whatever was on the other side of the Eotu, if this thing was even from the other side of the Eotu, was not all that dissimilar to themselves. Perhaps it would not even be necessary to begin killing each other, as so many had often postulated in the various sci-fi vidders. Despite being a marine, Jensica was quite opposed to the use of violence in any situation, and if these aliens proved to be similarly equal to Vescopans in terms of intelligence and civility, there was a chance that none would occur between them.

Numerous marines heard the commotion and immediately span around, aiming their rifles down the corridor at the alien, shouting such traditionally friendly military greetings as "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND, DO IT NOW!" and "PUT YOUR HANDS OR... TENTACLES ABOVE YOUR HEAD!" The shouting drowned out her own musings and the profanities of the alien, as they menacingly waved the barrels of their assault rifles towards the figure at the far end of the corridor. Jensica did not join in, and instead tried to calm the situation down a little by waving her hands in front of her comrades, blocking their view and diverting their attentions.

"It's saying something!" Jensica announced to them, once they stopped shouting. The barrels remained raised but the soldiers holding them became more focussed, gazing towards the creature as they they heard it speak. It was not in a tongue they recognised, either modern or ancient, and it did not seem to say much. The creature quickly grew nervous and fled.

"We've discovered a local boys and girls," Heskindo called out. "Captain, Major - chase after that thing immediately. Establish contact. Do not engage unless necessary. The rest of us will hold position here until you get back.

Jensica and Major Pintos issued their 'yes sirs' promptly, until Jensica asked with a concerned note, "what if we get lost sir?"

"We'll light up an EM flare, you'll be able to trace it back here," Heskindo reassured her. Slightly. To his word he pulled out a stick and clicked the red button on the end, and everybody's personal awareness systems began to bleep as they pinpointed the source of the radio signal. Jensica wasn't sure how they were supposed to locate a single point of radio in a labyrinth of alien corridors, but it was better than nothing and she didn't have anything with which to leave a trail. "Now get moving before you lose it!"

With a brisk salute, Jensica and Pintos jogged off in the direction of the bizarre alien.

"The rest of you, put 'em on safe and let 'em hang, we're setting up camp," Heskindo announced to the remaining marines. "Navy boys, see if you can't figure out some of this technology. Find a map or something, I don't know. Do something!"

OOC:

Not quite dead yet, Vescopa. I'll write up a fresh IC post soon.

OOC:

Not quite dead yet, Vescopa. I'll write up a fresh IC post soon.

(OOC: Sure thing, thanks!)

Space

Time passes, filled mostly with missunderstandings, unfortunate shootouts, assorted ill-coordinated rescue attempts, the likes. Chaos as usual, one might be tempted to say, and one would be right.

After all, it's not like discipline and common sense usually prevail in the event of catastrophic failures on a spaceship, particularly during a first contact situation, when the locals may as well suspect multi-tentacled beasts from Ceti IV being out to rob them of their passion of innocence, or worse.

The passing time is, of course, filled with more than just that - for example, it involves the Astral Romance edging ever closer to the Pandora anomaly, and eventually slipping out of the ill-conceived, low-dimensional realms of what makes up space, ceasing its blatant violation of special relativity and conservation of energy, spheres of negative entrophy slowly reaching equilibrium with the overwhelming chaos of the universe all around them, dissipating quietly in the void.

It's all very pretty and rather unsuited for the Astral Romance's purpose in this area.

The ship's perception is pretty good, despite the anomaly's not inconsiderable influence on local radiative parameters, and it slips out quite close to the Ventrius, about a tenth of a lightsecond to its side, matching velocity and staying there - a necessity, as its displacers have issues dissipating excessive momentum -, and a human-mass impacting on its reactor at a fair fraction of c would be somewhat unhealthy (Read, it'd turn it into a cloud of vapor).

For a moment, the Astral Romance just watches, appalled by the state the Ventrius is in, and at the same time linking herself with her mind-clone sitting in GPED #32, short timelag included.

So far, so good.

A quick analysis follows, and makes her groan.

Oh shit.

'Braking' the Ventrius is out of the question - it's pretty close to falling apart in a variety of fairly unique ways, anyway, and there just isn't the time to do it.

There does however, seem to be some minor activity going on along its hulls - probably some people planning to escape. This is a good thing, and lifeboats - well, escape pods, but the Astral Romance liked to use naval terminology - are pretty easy to collect.

Whether everyone has made it to the lifeboats is another question, though.

Quick sensorsweeps follow, analysing more the inside, rather than the outside of the ship, while the Astral Romance edges closer to its target, to a point a mere three megametres off its hull.

Figuring out where the reactor is isn't difficult - the huge blob of infrared and unhealthy radiatons showing up on the Astral Romance's imagining is a pretty good hint, all things considered.

And this raises the opportunity to get rid of some of its heat.

Field bridges are established, configured to act as thermal conductors and radiators. Thin - measured in nanometres at most - nets of invisible force penetrate the Ventrius' hull - it isn't exactly good for the long-term integrity of its hull, but nobody cares about that, now -, coalescing around the reactor, and start to absorb heat, transporting it along their thin membranes towards the Astral Romance, who saves it - no point in wasting energy by dissipating it into space when one can just as well keep it for later use.

Of course, owing to the desire not to rip a hole into the side of the Ventrius, the effect is hardly perfect - temperatures are doubtlessly still rising, and will continue to do so until the meltdown, well, happens. But it buys the crew some time, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, if they're lucky (Can't perfectly predict the behaviour of a reactor, all things considered. Particularly when it's already broken).

So much for that...

Now for number two.

Momentum's matched, that's good. It means that a displace will not end in a terrifying detonation of teraton proportions, turning the Vetrius into a thin cloud of superheated plasma, which, despite its prettiness (And the Astral Romance is already running some simulations of just such an event, marvelling at the destructive beauty of it), would not be helpful, as far as rescuing the crew of the alien ship is concerned.

Crewmembers not making it to the escape pods? Difficult to find - the heat their bodies emit is, sadly, overshadowed by the heat of the reactor. And the other parties already on board are, unfortunately, not very communicative.

The Astral Romance will have to look on her own.

More specifically, it'll have to send someone over.

Ventrius

It's just a little plop, and the amount of displaced air is small enough to not be overly noticeable.

A brief moment of reorientation - where is it? Where is what it is looking for? Why is there a hammer on top of the console four metres to its left? - passes, then Juran Walese, disarmed MilSpec infantry combatant, starts its search for 'Stuck' survivors, its less than a metre long, silvery ellipsoid form floating through steam-filled corridors and speeding around corners, remote-controlled scout missiles that'd been displaced with it looking ahead, and sending back information about its surroundings.

It isn't alone - a total of eight drones, and sixty-four scout missiles had been displaced over, tasked with (For lack of a better word) 'Collecting' survivors who had no chance of making it to safety, providing their coordinates to the Astral Romance, who was supposed to 'Snap' them over.

Couldn't be long until one of them would stumble over the first dying crewmen.

Commander Lehigh watched as hope fell from the Captains face. It was a terrible thing to lose ones ship. For a Capitan it was even more so.

" I understand how you feel. I have lost ships under my command before as well. Hundreds of lives have been lost because of my people quest for exploration of the void. WE have saved as many as we could. Others are trying even as we speak. So don't lose hope... We will get you back to your people soon." said Lehigh as he placed his hand on the others shoulder.

USLSS Lamoni –Corridors

“Why does this crap always happen to me?” Moore asked as he ran. His armored suit was keeping him from reaching full speed, although the weight was counteracted somewhat at least by the servo-engines in the joints.

“Crewman, what the hell are you doing?” The voice came from his headset. He correctly identified it as the captain’s voice.

Bridge

“Sir, I was looking for a friend of mine when I made contact with the aliens.”

Busch sighed in response to that, rubbing his temples.

“Crewman, I had ordered all personnel to General Quarters.”

“Yes, sir, you had.”

“Keep going the way you’re going,” he ordered. “We’ll try and get you some support and keep them from catching up to you alone. Follow the most direct route to engineering and link up with Ozaki’s crew there. She’ll be waiting.”

Corridors

“That would be appreciated, sir,” Moore gasped in to the headset as he ran. He heard loud hissing and slamming noises as nearby bulkheads slammed down. He knew his pursuers a little ways behind him would notice that too and he didn’t really care. As long as he could keep his distance from the aliens he was pleased.

“Petty Officer Moore, this is Commander Ozaki. Can I get an ETA? – Over.”

Moore smiled. Ozaki was just the kind of person to be with when facing an alien invasion in Moore’s opinion.

“Engineering, this is Moore,” he said. “I’m looking at six minutes, tops.”

He was calming down now, and part of him was shamed of how he had acted before with his little First Contact incident, but in all honesty he doubted many aboard would perform in strict accordance with First Contact Procedure in his place. Aliens were not secret to an interstellar people, but every new people discovered shocked the discoverers, especially a humanoid people so much alike themselves.

Engineering

“Good enough, Moore. We’ll be waiting.”

Releasing the button on the communicator, Command Ozaki looked around at the Marine rifle squad sent to Engineering by the Tactical Officer’s orders. As well as them she had a lightly armed party of officers and ratings from the Engineering Department.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s make sure we’re ready.”

OOC:

Basically now, Ozaki is going to fortify the Engineering area and wait until Moore arrives. She hopes, of course, that the aliens can be stopped, and communicated with without violence, but if they prove hostile, she isn't going to take any chances.

By the way, only a select few bulkheads are being closed, to keep the Vescopans rom anything too vital.

OOC: Let's see if we can't bring some necromancy down on this thread's ass!

~~~

Less than a hundred crew members had made it to the lifeboats, which was somewhat fortunate in a grim manner of speaking as fewer than a couple of dozen lifeboats or so had survived the devastation which crippled the mothership. A couple of engineers had even managed to don spacesuits and recover some battered fighters from the spaced hangar deck, and now struggled to manoeuvre the shaky craft away from their home. To see the stream of tiny, charred craft desperately trying to escape from their mothership conjured up only one image; rats leaving a sinking ship. With most of the craft having no windows, or windows which had been blackened by the fires, none of them could see the stars that surrounded them.

The Ventrius was dead, and her crew had given up any hope of rescuing her.

Of those who still remained aboard the hurtling hulk, most survivors by now had been caught up in flash fires, been crushed by debris, found themselves suddenly blasted out of newly-formed outer hull breaches, or succumbed to the ever-intensifying levels of radiation that now flooded the remaining habitable areas of the ship. Explosions were now beginning to ripple through the forward hull systematically as the weapons stores began to erupt violently, tearing away the remaining armour plates and carving gaping craters into the rapidly-failing shell of the ship. It was somewhat fortunate that none of the nuclear warheads in those stores had been armed at the time, lest the Ventrius be in even worse shape than it was now... if such a thing was possible.

A dozen or so of the crew were still miraculously alive in the rearmost sections of the ship; some more mobile than others, but most in various states of incapacity. Some of the drones that had appeared onboard were near to one of the muster points the marines had been dropping survivors off to, before they were trapped and forced to escape. Without appropriate life support, however, the lack of air and increased levels of smoke had rendered them all unconscious.

~~~

"Others are trying?" Frelli spluttered. "How many of you are there inside the Eotu?! I... thank you for your help. I would like to see a headcount as soon as possible, to see exactly how many survived."

~~~

Jensica and Pintos pelted after the alien creature at top speed, almost catching up with it once or twice when it gave them the slip and once more increased the distance between them. Their heavy boots pounded down against the decks loudly and their breathing became heavier, but they kept up the chase.

"We should take it down, now!" Pintos yelled. "Before it makes our position!"

"Shut it Major!" Jensica snapped. "We're here to evaluate and if necessary rescue, not shoot them on their own ship!"

"Yes ma'am!" Pintos snapped back, muttering something beneath his breath. He mumbled something about wondering what his rifle was for, but then went silent. The two marines kept on running...

***

Meanwhile, millions of miles away, the Vescopan government had received the message and made a decision: they ordered another ship, the Caspetona, to rendezvous with her sister ship the Maelrosica at best possible speed. The journey would take a week and a day to complete, but hopefully the Caspetona would arrive in time to be of some use. In the hopes of preventing the spread of panic, none of the contents of the Maelrosica's message had bee released to the public yet, and this would remain so until they knew for certain what they were dealing with.

IC:

USLSS Lamoni – Corridors

“Why did this happen to me!?!” Moore lamented as he ran. The aliens were still pursuing him. The boots thudding on the deck told him that much, at least. His armored suit wasn’t helping quite as much as he had hoped in escaping. The only reason he was even wearing it was he was part of the Ship Security Department.

“Moore, this is Ozaki. Can you maybe haul a little ass, please?”

He had a little trouble, panting as he was, but he managed a short reply.

“This is Moore…They got me…running, d-down a corridor, but…I think I can manage it. I’ll be there soon.”

“Bring them to us, Moore, and then we’ll handle them.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Moore replied, and went back to his running.

His desperate, high-speed trek eventually took him through a small galley used for people in Engineering and related jobs. The room was filled with a cold, white smoke, and it was immediately obvious to Moore there had been a small fire. He could see no bodies around in the room, and so he just kept going.

USLSS Lamoni – Bridge

“Captain,” said Lieutenant Erickson. “Shouldn’t we send somebody to secure the location identified as the place the aliens used to come aboard?”

"Not yet," answered Busch. "Just keep an eye on the spot for now."

USLSS Lamoni – Engineering

Commander Ozaki had set things up well. The armored, sliding doors leading to the room known as Engineering Central were unlocked and would be opened as Moore came close, letting him in and the aliens behind him. The strangers would find themselves targeted by not less than thirteen Marines, including 3 light plasma SAWs. In addition she had armed her workers with sidearms and the like, just in case.

“Commander, I can see him!” said a crewman looking through a window in the doorway.

“Open the doors! Everybody take cover, now!” Ozaki bellowed.

Moore came barreling in to EC as the doors slid open. Everybody else was lying low, just like they had been ordered, but Ozaki was standing right out in the open where she would be the first thing the aliens saw as they entered into her domain. She was un-armored, and had only a plasma pistol as a weapon, which she left seated in its holster, so as not to provoke anything.

The two marines continued their high-paced traversal through the alien corridors in hot pursuit of the alien creature that had been sneaking up on them. As they passed through damaged sections they realised that the Eotu had not been easy on this vessel or, probably, her crew, and Jensica had a terrible though for a split-second - if they were going to neutralise any possible threat that this alien incursion posed, now would be the best time. She quickly shook her head and discarded the thought, somewhat ashamed that it had even sprung up. Nevertheless...

She checked up on her tracer with a glance, noticing with some degree of concern that they had covered quite a lot of ground since their chase began, and she wasn't entirely certain as to whether they would be able to find their way back through this labyrinth to rejoin the rest of the party.

Her concerns were put to one side as they burst through a set of double-doors and skidded to a halt, right into a green blunder - surrounded by weapons, outnumbered and outgunned. Now she knew why Heskindo insisted on using optics at every corner and every door. Pintos raised his rifle instinctively, but Jensica simply placed a hand against the barrel of his weapon and pushed it down again.

"Others are trying?" Frelli spluttered. "How many of you are there inside the Eotu?! I... thank you for your help. I would like to see a headcount as soon as possible, to see exactly how many survived."

The Commander looked down and slowly spoke to the very erratic Capitan, as he tried to explain that only his bridge crew had been rescued so far. Hobbeebians hate the lose of life. And it was painful to even mention the proposed number of crew members who have died and are currently dying on board the derelict craft. The entire medical team within the ships all looked down as the Commander looked him in the eyes and explained to him what had happened thus far.

" This is not going to be easy to listen to.... or even accept. Your ship was severely damaged in the attempted to pass through an anomaly... I believe you call it the EOTU. Many of your crew have already died do to exposure to hazardous materials, and the open space. Other have died from injuries caused by the crossing. My crew has managed to rescue some... Others are fleeing us. And some view us as hostile and are running from us deeper into the wreckage and beyond help. I can open portals just about anywhere on the ship and can rescue your crew, but They will not listen to us and continue to run... I'm sorry. But I cant rescue people who don't want to be rescued..."

Ventrius (Inside)

"Dead... Dead... Dead... Dead in a fairly painful pose..."

By and large, the on-board rescue was a pretty frustrating endeavour, simply by virtue of there being very, very little to actually rescue. Explosions could be contained, radiation shielded off, and besides, the drones were perfectly space-capable - but being able to look through the remnants of the Ventrius and the corpses left therein without being under excessive threat just made the whole process look even more futile, pointless, and to no small part saddening.

"Dead.... Dead... Dea- No, wait... Ho-hum."

This particular drone was searching through the ship close to its rear, and, by sheer luck, had finally stumbled over something interesting. Some survivors, apparently.

Well. It really had to get in there somehow, and quickly.

It was inelegant, certainly, but the drone who'd stumbled over the survivors eventually did it in the simplest possible way, and brute-forced itself through disintegrating walls and hot debris, trying to get the exact locations of the survivors, trying to get into line-of-sight without breaking something important (Well, most things important had already been broken, so...),shoving debris out of the way and simply blasting through walls where its sensors suggested that no relevant infrastructure other than sheer metal was located.

"Ah, there you are..."

The eyes of those who've accepted death can be scary, at times. Especially when they, lets say, have a number of bones broken and sticking out of their bodies.

"Nevermind that, now - yes, I know you can't understand me. Just hold still and-"

Plop.

"Right. Now, next one, there must be one over there..."

Maybe dozen in total - some resisting, some unconscious, some simply surprised.

It was better than nothing.

Another drone stumbled over a group of near-death survivors, and eventually engaged in basic life-supporting measures - filtering the air the people in the room breathed even in their unconscious states, keeping the very process of breathing up when it seemed to fail, blocking off some - though not a lot - of the high-energy radiation permeating more or less the entire ship, while the Astral Romance tried to get a proper lock-on with its displacers, which proved to be mildly difficult in this case, courtesy of interferences it didn't have the time to properly analyse, but which were annoying, anyway.

But eventually it was managed, and a whole series of plops followed.

And then it was over, the Ventrius devoid of life, short of the sizeable number of microbes that follow higher lifeforms literally everywhere - but their fate was already decided, and their meager existence, consisting entirely of eating and replicating, would end soon.

Ventrius (Outside)

The Astral Romance and its inhabitants watched the escape capsules (And a handful of fighters) escape the battered wreck, the ship's various representations letting out a collective sigh.

Well. Time to collect them.

The wideband transmission was, of course, not in the Vescopan language - it was, however, soothing, quite intentionally designed to calm the survivors, a minute or so before the Astral Romance's extendable fields would begin to slow down the many tiny capsules that'd managed to escape the catastrophe.

Astral Romance

One moment inside a ship sentenced to death, the next one inside a... Well... It really does amount to a hospital, at least from the inside. Complete with nurses, of course. And lots of analytical instruments - similar-to-humans as the Vescopans look like - their biochemistry is unknown, and their physiology is only known from the outside. The help that can be rendered under such circumstances is, naturally, somewhat limited. And from this follows that knowledge has to be expanded if something useful is supposed to be done.

In the meantime, however, one of the nurses steps forward, and bows briefly in front of the most conscious of the Vescopans - before saying a few sentences in her oddly unfitting language, words doubtlessly amounting to 'Don't be afraid, we want to help you', 'Please lie down' and 'Everything will be better, soon'.

Well, maybe there's also a 'By the way, we're going to do somewhat unpleasant effector-scans of your brains so we can understand each other, please don't think we're sucking out your brains or so just because you'll be a little confused for a little while', but this particular meaning may not be deciphered from a mere string of soothing words none of the Vescopans could understand.

Pity, that.

~~~

"Portals?" Frelli exclaimed. He wouldn't claim to understand exactly what this bizarre alien meant by that, but he figured that he wasn't just talking about opening doors remotely. If they was anything like the science fiction vids though, they were probably swirly and sparkly, and completely inappropriate to open up in front of terrified and injured NCOs. "Many of the crew are of certain faiths which which will judge the arrival of aliens... well, somewhat harshly. Opening 'magical' portals on a whim whilst we are still trapped within the Eotu will doubtlessly do little to persuade them otherwise..."

He made an effort to stand to his feet, finding it surprisingly easy considering his past injuries.

"Now is not the time to mourn the lost, however. I will need to take stock of the situation... I need to find any senior officers who have survived and take a headcount. You mentioned that there were others, here in the Eotu, trying to rescue us? It would be prudent to regroup and liaise with these 'others' at the earliest opportunity..."

~~~

The thermonuclear reactor gave up. So perfectly timed was its surrender that anyone would think that all of these events were being orchestrated by some unseen and omnipotent force, but such notions were ridiculous. Regardless, its zealous fight to the bitter end was the stuff of legends, but with a runaway chain reaction well underway and an almost total absence of coolant in the heat dissipation systems, death was inevitable. Meltdown occurred. Surrounding objects were melted in the blast of heat that followed, or even vaporised in some cases, and much of the immediate area was rendered thoroughly uninhabitable. As if that was insufficient to kill off anything that was foolish enough to remain behind, lethal levels of radiation engulfed what was left of the Ventrius.

But this was just the prelude to her demise. The hydrogen fuel cells did not take well to the increased temperatures, and they finally went into thermal overload and erupted, one-by-one. Designed to compensate for reactor failure, the fuel cells were of the powerful persuasion, and the resulting explosion promptly tore through the entire aft section. Outside, the ship appeared to expand slightly for a brief moment until the weakened hull succumbed to the immense pressure bubbling inside it, and broke apart violently. Obviously without air there was no shock wave, but the cloud of debris and gas spread around the ship rapidly like deadly shrapnel, and dispersed radiation everywhere.

And then, as quickly as they had started, the flames touched space and died immediately. Deprived of oxygen, the fireball that had engulfed the doomed ship quickly retreated and disappeared from view, leaving behind contorted chunks of the Ventrius.

Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of the Astral Romance drones, nothing died in the explosion, and thanks to the Astral Romance itself, none of the escapees suffered the effects of the resulting debris.

Aboard the Astral Romance, confusion was the prevalent emotion. Well, confusion and some degree of fear. Those who were unconscious were in the majority, and for them the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' had never been more apt. It was the conscious Vescopans who had the hard time adjusting to their new environment. As the strangely familiar aliens milled around, trying to speak to them but failing to get through, conscious Vescopans began shouting across the room in search of friends and bunkmates, whilst those in positions of authority made futile attempts to demand information from their captors/rescuers.

"Ma'am, relativistic stop has been achieved," Lieutenant Crin announced. "Seven thousand, three hundred and twenty-two metres from target."

"Thank you Lieutenant," Commander Halasia nodded, rising up from her chair and pulling her tunic straight. "Thrusters to station-keeping." Though she spoke with the cold voice of logic, her shining yellow hair and somewhat unmarked complexion betrayed her youth; as one of the youngest Commanders in the fleet, she held a most illustrious position for someone of her age, and her inexperience was about to be tested to the limit.

It had been a long journey, wrought with feelings of uncertainty and apprehension, but the Caspetona, a fellow VDS-06 class warship, had arrived at its destination - some two days early, at that. More than half of the Vescopan fleet was now involved in this Eotu business now - including the ill-fated Ventrius. Given the current political climate on Vescopa her secondary mission had remained somewhat elusive to all but her crew, a secondary mission which did not help to allay the general feelings that prevailed aboard the fated ship. But the importance of the mission made it anything but secondary.

Stepping towards the TAC, Halasia leaned over the somewhat older male Lieutenant and took a quick glance at the various monitors he controlled.

"Two returns, ma'am," Greeson told her. "Resolving image now."

One she recognised. It was their sister ship, the Maelrosica - still commanded by Viscross, a man whom she had never really gotten along with. Though the grainy image was not exactly poster quality, by all accounts the ship looked undamaged and under her own power. The same could not be said for the second, which the Maelrosica straddled at quite a distance. It was of a design she had never seen before, and was no doubt the ship Viscross had reported in. Aliens or demons, the verdict was not yet in.

"Sound general quarters," Halasia ordered. As the lighting shifted from dull white to red and a piercing klaxon filled their ears she reassured the bridge, "just as a precaution."

"Commander, frequency coming in from the Maelrosica now ma'am," the comms officer announced. Halasia jogged promptly towards her and snatched the receiver.

"Caspetona, Maelrosica - we weren't expecting you to see you here. Welcome to the edge of nowhere, over." The voice of Viscross dulled whatever excitement had begun to build up in her.

"Commander Viscross, what is your status, over?" she asked, skipping the small talk for now.

"Return remains unidentified despite multiple hails," Viscross told her. "She appears damaged, and a boarding party has been inserted to ascertain identify and status. Over."

"Status of entry team, over?" Halasia asked.

"Entry team has maintained regular radio contact, but have yet to establish contact with the natives," Viscross said. "What are you doing here, over?"

"Caspetona has been sent to reinforce as necessary, resupply if necessary, and to effect the immediate investigation of the Ventrius' whereabouts, over."

Silence kicked in. As the radio went static, Halasia began to wonder if Viscross had indeed fainted. Word from the government since the tragedy had occurred was that the Ventrius was lost and no further ships were to be sent into the soup that constituted the Eotu. But there had been developments in the time that had passed. There was a good reason for the Caspetona being so readily available for this mission.

"What?" came the reply at last.

"Caspetona is hereby ordered to, upon establishing the safety of the Maelrosica, penetrate the Eotu border and locate the Ventrius, effecting rescue as necessary or salvage if required," Halasia told him. "Mission authorised by Prime Leader Cataldo herself, over."

"Is our government intent on destroying every vessel at the VN's disposal one by one?" Viscross snapped.

"Caspetona carries uprated magnetic shielding, fitted post-haste at Vescopa Drydock," Halasia told him. "Field testing was authorised just before journey commencement. Seems the boffins reckon we'll fare better, over."

"For the record, Maelrosica will not be rescuing you as well," Viscross said, in no uncertain terms. "Enough people have died this month over that pointless cause."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Commander," Halasia said with a sigh. "Caspetona over and out."

With her blunt ending, she replaced the communicator on its hook and nodded towards the helm. "Lieutenant Crin; ready a course to complete our secondary objective. Lieutenant Greeson; liaise with the lab and the main reactor room - bring the uprated fields immediately. I shall be in the main engine room."

An "aye, ma'am" came from each of the officers, each tainted by anxiety, as their unnervingly calm commanding officer strode out of the bridge.

***

The Caspetona began to accelerate, her port thrusters firing to turn her away from the two ships and towards the part of the Eotu where the Ventrius had entered. It took her some two hours to reach her destination - the billowing cloud of gas that marked the entrance to the Eotu. Unlike her doomed sister ship the Caspetona had been equipped with significantly more powerful navigational magnetic shielding, in the hopes that it would successfully reduce the friction damage (and the explosive nature of the gasses themselves) that the Ventrius may have suffered. Considered too dangerous for any kind of practical application due to the fact that it had a tendency to completely burn out, thus leaving a ship stranded, it had been hurriedly installed upon the Caspetona in response to increasing public demand to see some manner of rescue attempt mounted.

Public opinion won out, and the small government bowed to their demands despite apprehension regarding the chances for success. The Caspetona was despatched on a most dangerous mission.

As she approached the Eotu, her running lights dimmed a little as the magnetic field was bolstered significantly. A stray rock demonstrated part of the purpose behind the shell - the field successfully managed to repel the boulder away quite strongly. Whether it would give the Caspetona any better chance at survival than her younger sister would soon be decided, as her bow plunged into the orange mass.

My apologies. Been occupied quite a bit.

It was all watched, recorded, saved, appreciated, analysed, much to the satisfaction of everyone involved - and then began the lasering, firing into the surviving chuncks of the ventrius to bits, disassociating molecules and ripping electrons from atomic nuclei.

A very basic measure - at the speed the Ventrius was going, even small chunks of it posed a certain threat - infinitesimal, of course, given the vastness (And emptyness) of space, but it was still there. Expending some energy to ensure that no relativistic bombs would, unlikely as it seemed, eventually hit on a nascent civilisation, was only common sense.

Pretty matter flew apart, thermal blooming expanding the vast cloud of plasma that was rapidly dispersing into space, releasing assorted radiations to become the object of interest for assorted astronoms.

Astral Romance

"Yes, well... No, you... We can't understand each oth-"

It was chaotic, certainly. And this was disappointing - from an apparently-military ship's crew, the Astral Romance had expected a somewhat more disciplined reaction.

Well, it couldn't be helped, and so she gesticulated with one of the not-actually-strange aliens in front of her, trying to reach some very basic level of understanding (But failing to do so).

And eventually, she gave up, shrugging helplessly at one of the 'Nurses', sighing, and engaging her effectors to get some basic knowledge about these people. Like, lets say, being abe to talk to them.

Screw temporary uncomfortableness.

The brain of any creature is, of course, a fascinating construct. A vast conglomerate of neurons, a chemical computer of considerable complexity, it receives, analyses, and produces information. It tells the body how to breath, how to walk, how to ingest food, and countless other things. It is responsible for decyphering the information coming in through a person's various senses and it contains this person's memory, which is itself responsible for countless vital tasks - for example, language, writing, or reading are not possible without it. It associates colours, plants, animals, devices with the words for the same, with the way they are pronounced and written.

And all this information can, of course, be acquired. That's what an effector is for.

It's a very complex process - not knowing the language, and not knowing the way the alien's brain even works, where the tresholds for electric activity, for hormones and the likes are, which molecules are relevant for which tasks, instantaneous acquisition of the relevant information is basically impossible.

But over time, the brain acts, its neurons are active. Proper monitoring learns which hormones have which effect on the body, on processes in the brain, which molecules react in what way, and how strong and frequent the electric impulses are when a given brain processes some given information.

Instantaneous, it is not. But give it a little while... Of course, at such a scale - collection of all available information -, the effect is noticeable. Some neurons not doing quite what they should do, some molecules not reacting quite as fast (Or too fast) as they should... Mild nausea, some headache, some involuntary movements - nothing serious, merely something like a reflex - are to be expected.

But it's probably worth this inconvenience. Unless it itself causes a panic, which is always a possibility.

But sometimes, you simply have to hope to be lucky. And this, the Astral Romance certainly does.

"Portals?" Frelli exclaimed. He wouldn't claim to understand exactly what this bizarre alien meant by that, but he figured that he wasn't just talking about opening doors remotely. If they was anything like the science fiction vids though, they were probably swirly and sparkly, and completely inappropriate to open up in front of terrified and injured NCOs. "Many of the crew are of certain faiths which which will judge the arrival of aliens... well, somewhat harshly. Opening 'magical' portals on a whim whilst we are still trapped within the Eotu will doubtlessly do little to persuade them otherwise..."

He made an effort to stand to his feet, finding it surprisingly easy considering his past injuries.

"Now is not the time to mourn the lost, however. I will need to take stock of the situation... I need to find any senior officers who have survived and take a headcount. You mentioned that there were others, here in the Eotu, trying to rescue us? It would be prudent to regroup and liaise with these 'others' at the earliest opportunity..."



The Commander began to nodded his head when he received a mental message about the apparent full destruction of the Ventrius. The actual explosion video was sent to him as well via mental messaging. It was a spectacular event, although also very depressing as now it was now impossible to rescue anyone. The Commander looked at the Captain with saddened eyes and a heavy heart.

" I don't thank that will be necessary. It would appear that your ships reactors finally went off line and melted down. With a full chain reaction with your on board fuel cells. As of now who ever was on the ship is no longer alive... both your crew and mine. For now I recommend that we begin body recovery efforts and give this people a proper tribute." said the Commander as he looked up and gave a mental command to begin looking for any bodies that survived the explosion, and to contact all other rescuers that had anyone from the ship to meet so the Vescopans could be united.

OOC: Hah, I had given up completely, but I'm glad to see all is not lost!

The Commander began to nodded his head when he received a mental message about the apparent full destruction of the Ventrius. The actual explosion video was sent to him as well via mental messaging. It was a spectacular event, although also very depressing as now it was now impossible to rescue anyone. The Commander looked at the Captain with saddened eyes and a heavy heart.

" I don't thank that will be necessary. It would appear that your ships reactors finally went off line and melted down. With a full chain reaction with your on board fuel cells. As of now who ever was on the ship is no longer alive... both your crew and mine. For now I recommend that we begin body recovery efforts and give this people a proper tribute." said the Commander as he looked up and gave a mental command to begin looking for any bodies that survived the explosion, and to contact all other rescuers that had anyone from the ship to meet so the Vescopans could be united.

Frelli did not take the news well, but he made an effort to retain his authoritative posture nevertheless. The Ventrius was destroyed? Thousands of men and women served aboard her, and most of them had now perished along with her... and both the ship and her crew were his responsibility. Trapped here aboard an alien spacecraft, far from home, there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't report in, he couldn't write letters to the families of those who died, he couldn't even submit himself to court martial. All he could do was find those who survived and regroup, to try and make something of this disaster.

"I... don't concern yourself with that," Frelli said at long last. "Their bodies are just shells. If you can, however... there is something we call a data acquisition unit. It is designed to survive in the event of the ship being destroyed. If it is undamaged, it contains logs, course information... personal letters. I would appreciate it if you could locate the unit - it should be emitting a distress signal."

***

Aboard the Astral Romance things were getting worse. NCOs were growing restless, some upset that they were unable to find their bunkmates or friends, others simply longing to see their families again. The few officers who had survived, meanwhile, were frustrated at being unable to exert their authority. They wanted to take control of the situation and learn exactly what was going on, but the lack of comprehension made this task impossible to fulfil. Meanwhile, they remained ignorant of whatever process it was the aliens intended to perform on them - but it would hopefully allow for rapid comprehension, lest they take a sudden disliking to their saviours.

***

Caspetona coasted slowly through the orange soup of the Eotu. With no intention of joining her sister ship, she remained at below half-thrust. A small craft - a fixed-wing fighter - emerged from her dorsal hangar bay and sped ahead of its mothership, taking a place several thousand kilometres ahead of the warship. It had no pilot, however, and was flown entirely by remote control.

The conning tower of the Caspetona was deathly quiet, with the notable exception of numerous alarm-sounding instrument panels and the ominous sound of creaking metal. Commander Halasia had returned to her seat and was firmly strapped in, her eyes fixed on the small windows at the front of the large room. As the ship violently shook to one side, the alarm klaxons sounded automatically.

"Inner hull breach, deck fifteen!" shouted Greeson in a panic. "Emergency bulkheads are sealed..."

Promptly, a voice - that of Greeson - echoed across the shipwide intercom, "damage control teams report to deck fifteen, fore section twelve, repeat, damage control teams to deck fifteen, fore section twelve."

"Lieutenant Greeson, is the point fighter ready?" Halasia asked.

"Aye ma'am," Greeson nodded, steadying himself against the console as the ship lurched a little. "Laser-link is established."

"Can its navigational shields protect it for long?"

"Negative ma'am," Greeson shook his head. "If it survives the whole trip I doubt it will be usable again, though we'll probably have to launch multiple fighters. I don't know if there's any trip to survive, either!"

"Very well, tie in its navigational controls to the helm," she said. "Crin, ensure that it maintains minimum safe distance at all times. Alter heading to account for whatever it detects."

"Yes ma'am," Crin said. The officer was working very hard and beads of sweat ran down his forehead as he manoeuvred the behemoth through a cosmological briar patch. By sending a fighter out ahead, they could detect concentrated patches of explosive gas, rogue asteroids or - worse - singularities and other phenomenon before it was too late, and alter course appropriately. As to where they were going, they had no clue - they were simply following the course prescribed to the Ventrius, until it either became too dangerous or they found something of value. Nobody aboard expected to find anything BUT Eotu.

And so the Caspetona continued her slow, plodding march through the Eotu. Where her sister ship had tried ploughing through at best speed, she took the route carefully, allowing her more powerful navigational shielding to perform its duty to much greater effect whilst allowing them to avoid potential hazards. Certainly, the same had been tried many times before, but none had the same protection of the Caspetona - nor had anybody thought of using an advance scout on remote control before. Time would tell if they were successful - already, a small hole had been torn into the hull of the ship by a stray rock, and they were nowhere near the other side yet. The worst was yet to come...

OOC:

I could have sworn I made a post here responding to the last post you made concerning me, Vescopa. Odd. I'll just have to replace it.

OOC:

I could have sworn I made a post here responding to the last post you made concerning me, Vescopa. Odd. I'll just have to replace it.

OOC: That's Jolt for ya! If you think that's bad, I just finished writing half of my nation's entire history for my factbook, only to realise that it was in the wrong post. So I CTRL + Xed it, cancelled the edit, and was about to paste it into another post when I was distracted. I came back, and then was stupid enough to copy something else onto the clipboard before pasting its contents...

OOC: That tends to complicate things just slightly.

The Commander Was shocked that the Captain would brush off the deaths of his crew so lightly. It was Hobbeebian tradition to always collect the fallen that they could be given proper tribute. But for now the commander would honor the wishes of his guest and begin looking for the Data acquisition Unit. The Commander sent a swift mental alert to the Helms Officer to begin the search

" Helms, I need you to begin looking for a module that was part of Vescopan ship that was destroyed. It may hold information concerning where they are from and where they where headed to."

The Commander looked back to the Captain and gave the nodded letting him know they had begun searching. But the Commander still needed to find the body of his man on board... if it was still in existence.

Contrariwise, according to Vescopan tradition the body of the deceased became a vacant shell, to be disposed of as efficiently as possible. Once the spirit left the body to join the Divinities, the body was nothing more than an empty vase and was recognised for nothing more than what it was - a decaying corpse. Meanwhile the loved ones of the departed wished the spirit well on its journey, and instead of mourning the empty body made efforts to keep the memory of the deceased one alive, by assembling a collection of personal objects and documenting the last moments of their life. Which was why it was important that the 'black box' of the Ventrius be recovered - as was traditional, all crew members imparted a personal letter to their friends and families into its memory banks each time they embarked on a voyage, just in case the worst happened.

While Commander Frelli was certainly not a religious man, as was often the case in many cultures the religious traditions were passed along to the atheist community as part of their secular culture, not to mention the fact that he had an obligation to provide those last letters to the crews' respective families. If he ever got home, that is. He still wasn't even sure which crew members had survived, nor where they were.

"Thank you for your assistance, mister...?"

From within the Eotu, something stirred. Not like when the Ventrius exploded from deep within it at a fraction of lightspeed, but calmer, more measured and controlled. In a gentle wisp of orange cloud, a small, fixed-wing fighter craft emerged. One of its chemical rocket engines was leaking fuel badly, and its empty cockpit had been exposed to space, but it was otherwise intact. Small air jets fired from its sides as it turned around gracefully, as though moving out of the way for something else. Then, something larger emerged. Slowly, the bow of a ship similar in design to the Ventrius began to emerge from the murky orange depths, its powerful navigational magnetic field leaving a large wake that was soon filled again. Gradually its large, grey form became visible, and it was clear that the trip had not been a smooth one - a few hull breaches and scorched armour plating were commonplace - but unlike the Ventrius, it operated under its own power. It had survived. Small, alien markings in white on its very tip indicated its registry number - this was the Caspetona. Unsurprisingly, its trip had taken a lot longer, seeing as it wasn't thrown out of the field by a singularity.

Given the speed with which the Ventrius had been hurled out from the Eotu, and given the length of time it had travelled at said speed before finally succumbing to its own injuries, at its maximum rated speed the Caspetona was now several years travel time away from its sister ship's remains (which were still travelling too quickly to be caught, anyway). This only was a secondary problem though, as even their most advanced LADAR systems would not detect the remains in any sort of timely fashion.

Once the gasses were cleared and the view through the windows on the conning tower was no longer obstructed, gaping mouths were the predominant expression. Every single crew member, officer and enlisted alike, stared in humbled silence at the view that was now presented to them as though it was the most incredible thing they had ever seen. Even Commander Halasia had difficulty shaking herself out of the trance that had taken over her attentions.

Endless black, pinpricked with countless millions of sparkling white points, was the scene they were presented with. Such a view had never been imagined by anybody, and it was beautiful.

"Are we... dead?" one crew member asked.

"I... I... want a complete awareness report," Halasia stuttered, after a long pause. "All scanning arrays, maximum range and detail. As soon as possible! Kessari - raise the chief engineer and get an immediate damage report. And Liutenant Crinn - please begin procedures for a relativistic stop."

The crew set to work, and as she was greeted with a series of 'aye ma'am's the damaged fighter - the last of seven they had used to traverse the dangerous expanse - slowly entered the dorsal hangar bay and disappeared back into its mothership, presumably to receive much-needed and well-earned repairs. Meanwhile, the numerous chemical thrusters on the bow of the ship fired, and the ion drives went into standby mode, as the ship slowly came to a halt.

"By the Divinities, I think we've done it," she muttered beneath her breath.

"Commander, Chief Rissaa'la reports multiple outer hull breaches," Kessari announced, holding her earpiece firmly against her ear. Halasia had noticed in the past that the Lieutenant Commander occasionally rubbed the gold mottling on her cheek when she was nervous, and now she seemed to be doing it constantly. "Major internal hull breach has been reported, deck twelve, aft section - damage control teams are responding. Port ion engine has been taken offline due to a possible asteroid impact, and several of our railguns have been damaged or destroyed. Many of the forward sections are without computer access due to a damaged network cable, which engineers are working on. Brownouts are also being reported in the forward sections."

"Any good news?" Halasia asked.

"Well, she reports that the main fission reactor is undamaged and functioning normally," Kessari said. "Most major power lines have remained uninterrupted, and our external sensor and transponder arrays have not been damaged. Most of the external hull breaches can be repaired independently of a drydock. He does recommend, however, that we return the navigational magnetic shielding to nominal levels to prevent a burnout.

"Agreed," Halasia nodded, glancing over at Greeson.

"Doing it now, ma'am," Greeson nodded, as he pressed several buttons on his panels.

"Lieutenant Greeson, have you picked up anything yet?" Halasia asked him, stepping over to the TAC.

"That's a negative, ma'am," Greeson shook his head. He pointed at the screen and shrugged. "Nothing on RADAR. Nothing has shown up on LADAR yet either. PARDAA detects the occasional hydrogen particle, and very low background radiation readings. Temperature approaching absolute zero... it's just empty. As for what I'm getting on IRUVSAS and LAMI... you'll have to pass those readings on to an astrophysicist, because I have no idea what to make of them."

"Have you managed to determine what all of those glowing white... spots are?" Halasia asked him quietly.

"Ma'am, if they have any mass to speak of, they're outside of our effective scanning range," Greeson shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "And if they don't have mass, then I don't know what to look for. Either way, I can't tell you what they are."

"They could be the Divinities, watching our progress..." Crinn offered.

"Let's leave the idle speculation and superstition for our off-duty hours, shall we Lieutenant?" Halasia snapped, and then turned back towards the TAC. "Have you found any sign of Ventrius yet?"

"I do have traces of their ion trail, ma'am," Greeson nodded with a sigh. "But I can't tell you where they went as it's already been dispersed heavily. They definitely came out of the Eotu though ma'am. No sign of them on RADAR or LADAR though."

"Any sign of wreckage?" Halasia asked after a pause.

"None that I can detect," Greeson shook his head.

"Very well, keep on it Lieutenant," she said. "Kessari, please begin a standard radio broadcast on all military frequencies asking all Vescopan military vessels to confirm their identification, see if we can't hail the Ventrius that way. Frelli will answer, if he can."

"Yes Commander," she nodded.

Halasia sat down once more, gazing out of the windows at the eerie sight that lay before them. Just what were all of those lights? Where in the Eotu were they? And where in the Eotu was the Ventrius? And how the heck were they going to get back again?

(OOC: Final bump!)

OOC: sorry for the inablity to post lately... very busy with my business. I should post pretty soon.