NationStates Jolt Archive

”Gold Leader, I have two eyeballs on my tail, and I can’t shake ‘em.”

“I gotcha, Gold Three. Hold tight.

The chaos of battle surrounded the X-wing, painted with golden stripes on the side, as it shot through the space. Green laser bursts followed it and impacted on its shields and a pair of TIE fighters shot after it, their twin blaster cannons shooting an endless stream of laser energy at the fighter. The X-wing dodged and rolled, struggling vainly to escape the notice of the TIE’s, but they were too skilled. They hung on stubbornly, and continued their pursuit. It was short-lived, as another X-wing shot in from the side, and in a flurry of red laser bolts, turned both the TIE’s in balls of flaming debris. The other X-wing rolled in space and came about to fly alongside its rescuer. Other X-wings eased into formation and it became obvious this was the entire squadron.

”Thanks, Gold Leader. I was almost a goner.”

“No problem; just don’t complain when you have to buy me a round of drinks, Gold Three.”

A round of laughter joined the groans of unlucky Gold Three, as it turned to reenter the battle. As they turned, they would come around to see the titanic struggle going on between the Republic and Empire fleet. Red and green turbolaser and laser bolts flew through space in great volleys, impacting the deflector shields of the opposing fleets. The energy hammered the shields mercilessly, and drove in the massive bubbles of energy which protected the hull from these vicious bolts of energy. And for some of the ships, this was too much for their shields to bear. Explosions flickered amongst the fleets as the ships gave in to the mighty assault being wielded their way. It was to be noted that the Imperials had lost far less than the Rebellion.

Aboard Home One, Admiral Ackbar gritted his teeth as he saw an Assault Frigate get ripped apart and the debris get sent into his shields as the explosion blew it apart. He checked the situation map and it didn’t look good. Ever since the Empire had drawn them out of hyperspace early into their trap, the Rebels had been on the defensive and taking horrendous losses. They had surrounded them, and while the Interdictors still remained, they couldn’t retreat. It was a battle to the death, and both sides knew it. That made the combat that much more vicious. His comm beeped, showing he had a message.

”Admiral, this is Antilles. We’ve managed to break through the shipyard’s defensive line and have begun attacking the shipyard itself. The Imperials are breaking off some of their ships to counter our attack. The time to strike is now.”

Ackbar smiled grimly. “Indeed. Thank you for your help. Keep up the assault.”

”Will do, Admiral. Antilles out.”

Ackbar swiveled his chair around to face the main screen, showing the battle. “Press the attack! We have an opening, and we mustn’t give Thrawn time to counter. Forward!” The Republic Fleet pressed forward, driving a wedge towards the gap opened by Antilles, and the smugglers. The Imperial fleet tightened in to counter, but it wouldn’t be enough, as the loss of the Golan III platforms and their firepower was needed to push back the Rebels.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, whose glowing red eyes gazed at the screen with total calm, watched all of this. Pellaeon, who stirred in worry, glanced at the Grand Admiral and then turned to the battle. “What is wrong, Captain?” Pellaeon turned to see Thrawn gazing at him. The Captain took a breath.

“The Rebels have penetrated the perimeter; we have lost our Golan platforms. Not only will they be tough to replace, but they also have given them a vital opening.” They watched as a Carrack-class Cruiser lit up and broke apart, squadrons of X-wings driving back TIE fighters and interceptors.

“That is true, Captain. However, did you forget the Constrainer and it’s fellows?” Pellaeon’s eyes widened as he gazed at Thrawn’s small but confident smile. “Send the order, Captain. We close the trap and win the greatest victory in the war against the Republic. This is the turning point, Captain; ensure we do not lose the advantage.”

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

The Republic fleet drove forward and Wedge Antilles, in his X-wing, flew with greater confidence as his squadron blew through several TIE’s. “Rogue Leader, Rogue Two, we seem to have this in the bag.”

“Rogue Two, Rogue Three, this is Thrawn here. Don’t curse us with thoughts like that”

“Two, Three, cut the chatter. We’ve got orders to hit that cluster of fighters protecting that Star Destroyer, alongside Green, Blue, and Yellow Squadrons.”

A chorus of affirmatives sounded and they began to slice towards them….when proximity alarms blared. Gate, Antilles astromech droid, beeped frantically. Antilles soon learned why. Another fleet of Star Destroyers, Katana Dreadnoughts, and other ships shot from hyperspace behind the Republic fleet. TIE”s poured out from their hangars and slammed into the pitiful rear-guard squadrons defending the fleet, and the fleet proceeded to open up on the vulnerable smaller ships and wounded ships that had retreated from the fighting. Ackbar roared and slammed a fist on his chair. Thrawn’s trap had been perfect; he had thought of everything!

“Direct this message to the fleet. Abandon all actions and focus fire on sector three-zero-five. I want a hole punched in this Interdictor net.”

One of the command crew paused, expressing the shock they all were feeling. “But, Admiral-“

“No buts! We cannot win this fight, we can only save what we can. Do it!”

The order was sent by a reluctant crew, and the fleet, shocked and stressed as the Imperials hammered both sides of the fleet, began to turn and directed their fire at the Interdictor ship and its smaller escorts, trying to pierce a hole in the net. Countless Republic ships flamed, exploded, and/or began to drift in space, totally lifeless.

Thrawn clasped his hands together as he watched the Chimera, his flagship, directing the fire of the ships around him at Home One. The shields had failed shortly after the large ship had turned to run. The volleys were now impacting all over the ship, and plenty of fires and debris could be seen. Turbolasers were slagged, proton torpedo launchers destroyed, and concussion missile tubes annihilated. Finally, however, after the Republic fleet had lost half of their numbers, they managed to completely obliterate the Interdictor and its escort, and they managed to do a quick jump just before the Imperials moved in other Interdictors to compensate.

However, what they didn’t know was that Thrawn LET them leave, so as to spread word of Imperial power and might, and his strategical process. Despite setbacks in two other systems, he had won a major victory and left many sectors of the Republic defenseless. Thrawn’s smile was genuine as he looked at Pellaeon.

“Tell the fleet to stand down, and start collecting damage and casualty reports. Send word of the cleanup groups and instate patrols of the system. Also inform them….that they have helped the Empire to win a key victory over the Rebellion today…..and their hard work has set the foundations of their defeat.” Pellaeon nodded, smiling, and walked away to send the messages.

Thrawn turned to gaze at a shadowy part of the bridge. “He’s smiling; something I have not seen him do in the time he has been in my service. I’d say we have done well, have we not, S’karris?” There was S’karris and then a figure wearing a large concealing white robe and hood walked out, showing nothing but his lower jaw.

”Indeed, Grand Admiral. And I can assure you, with my help, this Rebellion will count its last months very, VERY soon.”




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

OOC: New incarnation; it is linked, however, but that will be explained down the line. I ask that no massive auto fleets be sent. I can see large battlegroups to investigate the fighting, but no spamming me with fleets. Also, I do hold the right of asking you to leave, as I’d rather not get overwhelmed by this. Thank you.

*bump*

*bump*

OCC: Im interested, could i be a ressurection of the CIS, cause that's what i play in star wars type RP's

The probe vented plasma, veering through the system on an akward course. The small sensor vessel was clearly damaged, spinning through space on its axis, a 5m chunk of metal and electronics in a massive void without end, an infinite sea of blackness dotted by the occassional speck of star or planet. Compared to those tiny specks of light and color, the probe was nothing - an atom amongst a cell of galaxy in a body of universe.

However, it was starting to wake up. A small spark shot across the internal electronics, the probe Virtual Intelligence coming online. It had been dormant since the probe had been damaged, but activated now from some external stimulus. The sensors had picked up something...the VI quickly activated visual feed. Pickup would be vital. The probe had been dispatched outwards to attempt to unearth a dilithium source on this far - potentially a spot for a mining outpost to serve also as a Dominion frontier station - but instead had been hit by something. Now, however, something else was going on out this far.

Sensor feed on actives was going nuts. Something was up in-system, and electric telescoping visual feeds were now coming into the VI's systems. VIs were not AIs - they were not at all sentient or creative, not capable of thinking or imagining. However, VIs were unparralleled - even better than AIs - at mundane tasks such as sifting data, finding files, extrapolating likely results, and developing simulation results from algorithms and heuristics. They were brilliant in their own way - and clever inventions that thoroughly eased the tasks of officers and enlisted in the military, municipal professions, business, and even domestic deals.

In the probe, however, the VI was dealing with the bizarre data coming in. The asteroid field - the Bilbringi field, according to the starcharts in the probe's programming data - was having a massive energy flux in the positive. Visual feed was showing exactly why - someone's fleet was getting annihilated by a more powerful fleet, clearly. It was convincing - and getting captured by the nanosecond through the powerful feeds of the probe. The VI didn't have feelings - it simply took in the data and stored it. Simultaneously, the VI was restoring power throughout the probe - it was almost fit to go.

As the battle was packing up - the losing fleet retreating to FTL depths - the VI made the decision to leave. Protocol dictated that evidence such as this had to be reported immediately to a Dominion station - it was something command needed to know about. Quickly, the probe fired up remaining power not used in data storage to hyperengines, sensors flicking off completely. The probe powered up to its .5 hyperdrive, shooting off into the realms of the alternate dimension of mass shadows to report back to the military of the Dominion.

OOC: Yes, you may NC. Also, this isn't a star wars rp, like people did with the Shivans. This IS going to be my nation, just to make sure you understand.

OOC: Yes, you may NC. Also, this isn't a star wars rp, like people did with the Shivans. This IS going to be my nation, just to make sure you understand.

oh then i would use imitators.

((OOC - Post forthcoming. Two questions though.

1) Is the interdictor field still in effect?

2) Is this battle linked with any other conflicts currently being played out across II FT?))

Maxwell slammed several paper thin computers on to his desk in frustration, he mumbled to himself several curses, and looked up to the joint chiefs and others around him, he was in the situation room, it was decorated with blue carpet, digital and holographic maps and panels. Maxwell looked at General Richard daystrom and sat back in his chair saying in his British accented manner.

“Just what we need another imperial nation on our border! At least from our sensor out posts in the area it seems imperial.”

Daystrom sighed and responded folding his rough hands on the metal table, he looked up to the president after taking another paper thin compute device from his pocket placing it on the table.

“Sir, our sensor readings, SWAC’s and other sources on the border, have figured out its very likely these new entities could be imperial, to be sure we should send a probe, Now TCN Can position a fast than light monitoring probe within the hour.”

Maxwell looked up he sighed as he placed his hands on his lap, his blue eyes panning the older gentlemen before him in this chrome lit technologically decorated room, Maxwell Knew before any kind of buildup of forces along a border could begin a good reason needed to be hashed out, and evidence of the presence of imperials had to be verified.
Knowing this he raised his hand, his mind wandering on ideas of what if’s., he spoke with a candid voice reverberating throughout the conference room.
“Your authorized to proceed, have TCN send their probe, keep it under molecular cloak to keep it from being detected right away”
With a nod Daystrom sent a signal via wireless AI interface to TCN just in the next complex, TCN was the Federations command center for everything military, it was the nerve center of everything, the Tactical Command Nexus was a massive Military complex charged with everything from strategic space command, to intelligence services.

The commander in charge while Daystrom was away was a somewhat older and hardier looking, Maijor General Jeremiah Sawyer, his brown eyes panned out as he started taping on a console in front of him, he was a vet ran of the long past GE war, he was distrustful, of anything remotely imperial, as he authorized the launch of the moderately sized probe from trinity station. He would watch the situation closely, as it could have far reaching implications for the federation and whatever allies it had left.

The probe left the long winding tube of the station, and lunged in to inter phased drive, its spherical body was medium sized for a probe, and hardly looked like a ship on sensors, it moved through the void between universes folding space and jumping over its designated coordinates behind the gas giant in the system were this battle had taken place, It literally moved out of inter phased space and back in to this universe slowly recording and transmitting data via quantum entanglement…

Sawyer sat back on his chair, he hated being assigned to desk duty, Alexi at least had an assignment in the VF civil war, he was here, while he didn’t wish another war to happen in the sector he also wished we could have some action even for a short while.It would be the waiting game for now to see what would happen.

OOC: Feaz, no and no. The battle is over, and this is simply something I am having for people to join on either side, to an extent. (I don't want the mess that became the Jurai thread, with too many on both sides.)

5 ships materialized. Not much. A carrier, a battleship, three cruisers. Enough firepower to reduce a large fraction of the currently mangled defense fleet to wreckage. A sizeable task force of the revitalized Andermani navy, it recognised things that others would not.

I would speak with your leader. It has been a long time, and we have many things to discuss. I would know him anywhere, or those like him. Tell him blood has come to see him.

The ships sat motionless, awaiting a reply to the single message they had sent out. Weapons stayed cold, barely, and shields stayed up, ready for any possibility at this point.

The Imperial fleet instantly began to respond when the Andermani fleet entered the system. The fleet had dispersed somewhat, moving around to patrol the area, and help the civilian ships pick up the bodies and debris that came with a battle. When the Andermani ships suddenly appeared in the system, the response was immediate. Several of the patrol groups turned and began to come about, TIE squadrons being deployed and taking up position around the fleet. As the sensors began to bring in the information on the ships, worry and anxiety began to seep into the fleet. Who were these newcomers, and how did they manage to find them? Their ship types did not match the databases of all known alien nations, and they had documented all the ones in the galaxy.

As all the calls came in, Thrawn turned from S'karris to look at the tactical map. Pellaeon walked up to stand beside his chair, his face a little less sure than before. Thrawn crossed his arms and turned to Pellaeon."Inform all the captains to calm down and wait for my command. I do not want anyone firing unless I give the order."

"Sir?" The Grand Admiral turned to look at the communications officer."Yes, what is it, Private?"

"We are receiving a message from their fleet. Do you want me to put it through?"

Thrawn raised an eyebrow and nodded.

I would speak with your leader. It has been a long time, and we have many things to discuss. I would know him anywhere, or those like him. Tell him blood has come to see him.

Thrawn sat back in his command chair, his eyes faraway and lost in thought. Pellaeon was shocked."Sir, do you really know them?" Before the Grand Admiral could reply, S'karris stepped forward to the communication station. The officer looked at Thrawn and Pellaeon stepped forward, as if to stop him.

"Stop." They looked at Thrawn, who was gazing after S'karris. The cloaked being opened their part of the channel and began to speak.

"I welcome the blood to my humble abode. I, however, am no longer the leader here. I serve another; much has changed in your absence. What do you wish to speak about?"

Tagged for interest

tag for one of my FT nations...

OOC: A bump for people and story advancement.

IC: The Provisional Council waited anxiously on Coruscant, as they waited to hear what had occurred at Bilbringi. The fleet had been gone some time, even though one had to take into account the long times which came with hyperspace routes. Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker, and their strike force had returned, reporting their victory at Wayland, the death of the Dark Jedi C'baoth, and the destruction of the Spaarti cylinders. This victory was met with celebration, as it meant that Thrawn had lost his supply of endless troops, and would have to use more conventional means to man his ships and build his armies.

However, they still needed the Bilbringi attack to succeed. Morale all over the New Republic had been plummeting ever since the campaign Thrawn had launched began. Everyone was starting to talk about how fruitless this was, and how Thrawn was unbeatable. Granted, they had managed to drive back the Imperial drives at Garos IV, and the Kathol Sector, but only at great loss, and the Imperials had lost few ships. All depended on Bilbringi now, to bring a swift end to this war and ensure the New Republic would survive.

So, when the battered and mauled New Republic fleet emerged from hyperspace near Coruscant, the Council was shocked and disheartened. Mon Mothma sighed and looked at the hologram of a tired and very subdued Admiral Ackbar. "Admiral, what happened at Bilbringi?" She flashed a look at Fey'lya, but he did not say a word. His disgrace at the Katana fleet had made him silent as a ghost. She turned back to the Admiral, as he began to speak.

"Thrawn outsmarted us again. He didn't feel for the Tangrene feint. He knew we were coming at Bilbringi. We came out of hyperspace early, and when I saw Interdictors, I knew we had fallen into a trap. The Imperials closed in and began to hammer us. We gave them the best we could, but the battle was not going well, with shock and dismay at the total failure of the Tangrene operation. Thanks to Commander Antilles and his....other allies, a hole was put through the Imperial lines as they managed to destroy the four Golan III stations that protected the shipyards. The Imperials diverted ships to stop us from hurting the shipyard and I began to send our fleet at the gap, hammering the Imperials. However, Thrawn had not yet fully unfolded his plan. He had been planning on more reinforcements, which came from the rear by the way of Interdictors. We barely stood a chance; I did what I could and punched a hole in the gravity wells that enabled what few of our ships remained to escape."

Mon Mothma nodded and closed her eyes. This was going to be a nightmare; morale would go down even further, and now countless sectors were now open to Imperial aggression. "I thank you, Admiral. You did the best you could. If you can, redirect your fleet to Kuat for repairs. I have sent ahead orders for hospitals and repair yards to be prepared for you."

"Understood, Councilor. Admiral Ackbar out." The hologram shut down and she sat back in her chair. A cough came and she looked at Leia Organa Solo, who was gazing at her in sympathy.

"Well, what do we do now?"

Mon Mothma directed her gaze to Admiral Garm Bel Iblis. "Garm...."

He sighed. "The best we can do, Councilor, is pull our forces into as tight a defensive cordon as possible at our borders, and accept the loss of those sectors. Trying to defend them is nearly impossible in normal circumstances, and with Thrawn, these are not normal circumstances." The Council nodded grimly and then began to disperse after Mon Mothma announced the meeting over. The New Republic was in for a long war.....



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

As the Chimera waited for the Andermani to reply, Pellaeon was approached by an officer. Whispering in his ear, Pellaeon's eyes widened then narrowed in anger. Nodding to the officer, he approached Thrawn, who was gazing at S'karris. His eyes were lost in thought, as he considered the implications of this new development. "Yes, Captain?"

Pellaeon nodded tightly. "I've just received some bad news. Our fleets at Garos IV and the Kathol Sector were repelled, and the cloning facility on Wayland has been extensively damaged. I also report that the planet is in revolt and C'baoth has been killed. The evidence points to Skywalker and a small strike force."

Thrawn was quiet for several moments, and then he began to speak. "What kind of damage have the cylinders suffered?"

"Extensive; with the blueprints we have from the warehouse, we can rebuild them but....the engineers warn that they won't be as good of quality."

"Do it. We need those clones. Once we have the Rebellion on its knees, we can pursue a new source. Also, detach the Inexorable, and the Agonizer to Wayland and have them stop this insurrection. I want those natives to remember the cost of disobeying the Empire."

Pellaeon nodded. "Understood, sir." Pellaeon went to his console, and began issuing the orders, using the highest encryption they had. As he did this, Thrawn leaned over and began to speak into his own comm channel. Pellaeon knew he was doing this to mask his own transmission, but what could it be for? Only time would tell......

~Tag~

The Imperial fleet instantly began to respond when the Andermani fleet entered the system. The fleet had dispersed somewhat, moving around to patrol the area, and help the civilian ships pick up the bodies and debris that came with a battle. When the Andermani ships suddenly appeared in the system, the response was immediate. Several of the patrol groups turned and began to come about, TIE squadrons being deployed and taking up position around the fleet. As the sensors began to bring in the information on the ships, worry and anxiety began to seep into the fleet. Who were these newcomers, and how did they manage to find them? Their ship types did not match the databases of all known alien nations, and they had documented all the ones in the galaxy.

As all the calls came in, Thrawn turned from S'karris to look at the tactical map. Pellaeon walked up to stand beside his chair, his face a little less sure than before. Thrawn crossed his arms and turned to Pellaeon."Inform all the captains to calm down and wait for my command. I do not want anyone firing unless I give the order."

"Sir?" The Grand Admiral turned to look at the communications officer."Yes, what is it, Private?"

"We are receiving a message from their fleet. Do you want me to put it through?"

Thrawn raised an eyebrow and nodded.



Thrawn sat back in his command chair, his eyes faraway and lost in thought. Pellaeon was shocked."Sir, do you really know them?" Before the Grand Admiral could reply, S'karris stepped forward to the communication station. The officer looked at Thrawn and Pellaeon stepped forward, as if to stop him.

"Stop." They looked at Thrawn, who was gazing after S'karris. The cloaked being opened their part of the channel and began to speak.

What has become of the Empire? The mighty warships of the Ascendancy? Why serve humanity and their pawns in their ventures of conquest and destruction? Our allies have changed, I can see that. Why should the Anderman Empire yet support you?

Small sensor drones emerged from the Carrier, giving the task force a better picture of the area. What they saw was heartening, most of the defense infrastructure was shattered, and a large part of the fleet was battered to scrap. They could easily escape the useless gravity wells of the Imperial fleet if the talks with their old allies went poorly, and they could crush a fraction of the imperial presence if itcame to open combat. They were few, but a single battleship of the Anderman Empire was equal to hundreds of the ships present, and even one of their heavy cruisers could engage and destroy a vaunted Star Destroyer with ease. It was a fleet in everything but name, more than capable of protecting itself and its cargo.

IFN Purifying Flame, Explorer-class Command Vessel
Under Escort by 1st BBBG and 3rd CVBG, Fourth Fleet
The Slipstream, between systems F-92 (Dominion Designation) and Bilbringi (Imperial Designation)

Klaxxons blared in the Phia's ears. After six hours, he could still not drown them out.

It had been too close. The Purifying Flame, flagship of the Fourth Fleet, had been dispatched to F-92 along with the first bombardment and third carrier battle groups on what was supposed to be a milk run; a simple flexing of Dominion might over some foreign smugglers that had been putting a thorn in FleetCom's side. They were to jump in right on top of the smuggler outpost - who were using primitive gravity-based translight inhibitor fields - with overwhelming numbers and firepower. After the Flame had opened up with her main cannon, the rest of the task force would obliterate everything that remained, allowing only a handful of ships to escape to spread the word about the decisive victory. ONI had doubted any ships would even lose their SENTINEL fields in the firefight.

What FleetCom hadn't expected was F-92's star going nova just as the task force arrived.

It was stupid. They had spent precious moments staring at the void where the smuggler base was supposed to have been, only to realized in horror that a radioactive shock wave was nearly right on top of them.

The Flame had been the last ship to make it out, her massive engines taking the longest to spin up for an emergency jump. She had been one of the lucky ones. Casualty reports wouldn't be completed until after they emerged from Slipspace, but preliminary analysis pointed at the complete destruction of three frigates and a cruiser - the Mok'ran.

Hundreds of souls obliterated because of an intelligence folly. Phia Elson Manaan knew, deep in his heart, that he would receive a medal for his "quick thinking" and "incredible heroics" at F-92. No medal would bring those people back.

"Alert. Realspace reversion in ten seconds. All modules stand by."

The heart and mind of the Purifying Flame, the artificial intelligence Skeelan, spoke calmly over the command ship's public announcement system. Elson Manaan closed his eyes and awaited the momentary disorientation that came with realspace reversion...

---

System Bilbringi (Imperial Designation), Outskirts

Phia Manaan clutched his temple. Five hundred years of Slipstream travel, and they hadn't yet found a cure for jump sickness? The information that came pouring in from his neural lace didn't help the situation - it never did. Slowly, his mind pushed back the pain and began to sift through the raw data being fed from Skeelan's subsystems. Two support modules were on fire and leaking atmosphere, the upper three decks of the primary engineering module were offline, the engine module heatsinks were strained well above the red line, and the primary cannon was hovering at the fifty per-cent energy level. The rest of the surviving fleet had fared better, but not by much. He felt himself begin to integrate into the Flame's systems, felt the icy steel of Skeelan's consciousness next to his own. He felt his presence begin to expand as the mighty command ship's sensors came online. First short-range...nothing of note within a few thousand kilometers. Then the long-range...

The old phia felt his eyes and mouth snap open, but didn't recall ordering the action with his conscious mind. There, floating ominously near the large asteroid belt closer to the system's core, were two fleets. They hung opposite each other amid a rapidly expanding cloud of debris and cooling wreckage. A battle had recently been fought here, and at least one of these fleets was the victor. Potentially, the other was a group of reinforcements sent by the losing side to retake the system.

Regardless, all evidence suggested that what the phia now saw were two fleets of warships.

"Action stations! Action stations!" rang the Manaani phia's voice out over the general tight beam channels of his fleet. "Set condition one throughout the fleet! This is not a drill!"

Despite the damage his fleet had suffered, despite the trauma the task force of Kiith Federation soldiers had underwent, they stuck to their training. SENTINEL fields snapped on. Turrets were unlocked and loaded with ordinance. Majiirian battleships took up point positions for the fleet, flanked by the Purifying Flame herself.

They were in no shape for another emergency jump. It would be several hours for the Flame's engines alone to cool for another spin-up. If it came to shooting, they would be forced to shoot.

The hyperbubble erupted with a flash of blue and white light, the damaged probe blasting out of the transit from Bilbringi to the Shroud Conduit. Styx's electricified rocky outline hung static in the background of the system, shooting off bolts of energy into space. Immediately as the probe exited into local space, several dozen tracking computers were instantly on it, defensive platforms armed each with a thousand positron torpedos. The nearest station quickly VIDed the probe as Amazonian in origin, instructing pickup. Not a huge priority.

It was a fairly simple and routine operation of collecting damaged probes by local ships. An Otari-class corvette fired off to go pick up the probe, a Defiant attack corvette hanging around in cover - not that it was really neccessary. Any ship suicidal enough to try and breach the defensive system that led to the protected alcove of Dominion space wouldn't last more than a few seconds under the torrent of fire capable of being put on a single position in space.

The probe was taken back to the Lemort command station, a post in space over 12km in radius. Sensor operators quickly got to work analyzing the information the VI aboard had taken from the local area - most of it seemingly dull scans of two gas giants. One had potentially sufficient quantities of helium-3 for a possible mining venture, but not likely anything significant enough to warrant sending the probe data back to high command for intricate analysis. Operators fast-forwarded through much of the data, mostly meaningless to their duties. After all, the system was meant for defensive purposes and preventing undesirables from entering the Shroud and Dominion systems.

However, what the operators discovered next was somewhat more convincing. The probe had apparently passed through a system with a large battle - large indeed - going on, and it looked interesting. Something command would want to see, indeed. Not as if it was anything for the operators aboard the station to care about, besides giving a bit of a spark to their day. They still had a job.

Nonetheless, within a half-hour a corvette took off out of the system, relaying the information on, past the Shroud Conduit and towards the heart of Dominion space.

Tag for major interest.

OOC: Andermani, just to let you know, my ships are not the same quality as normal SW quality. They are quite powerful.

Also, Feaz, it's an honor to rp with you again. ^^ I look forward to this.

IC:

What has become of the Empire? The mighty warships of the Ascendancy? Why serve humanity and their pawns in their ventures of conquest and destruction? Our allies have changed, I can see that. Why should the Anderman Empire yet support you?

Joram would be able to sense a large influx of emotions from S'karris, the psionic imprint of something that had happened to him being unmistakable even at this distance.

"I....The Ascendancy is no more, at least as a nation. If any have survived, they are lost, cut-off from each other and trapped.

The Ascendancy....no longer exists. Something horrific, something....far more terrible than Chaos came to our dimension. We tried to force them out, we used every piece of technology, every tactic, but we could not stop them. And the things they did to my people...I'd rather not speak of. In short, we were forced to commit suicide and most of my people stayed behind to buy time for those who could leave, myself being one of them, and then they activated a device that destabilized the dimension and destroyed it. All of my people there are dead, and I was lost. Until the Grand Admiral found me. He is not human, Joram. He is an alien himself, and he is a good man. He fights hard, does not prejudice against anyone, and seeks what we all seek: peace and order. This galaxy is rife of disorder, death, and war. I seek to do what I can to save the legacy of my people in helping this galaxy.

And you can be sure that any attempt by this nation to harm you would be struck down by me instantly. I did not even mention you, so they would not have the chance to do so. However, things have changed with your arrival. Now, if you so wish, you may speak with Thrawn himself and direct your questions at him."


The fleet did not move, as ordered by Thrawn, when the sensors came out. The dampening fields of the fleet and planet kept their secrets away from the sensors, but they saw what they wanted to see. The fleet was damaged, yes, but it was still capable of fighting back. Of course, against this fleet, they'd still have a hard time of it, even with Thrawn's tactical genius. Hence, why S'karris was handling the show; Thrawn was no fool. Besides, gaining a potential ally was what he needed right now.


Then came the Feazanthian task force, battered and hurting, roaring into Bilbringi space. The fleet tensed and grew more anxious, but all were more afraid of Thrawn's anger if they disobeyed. Thrawn noted the alarms and calmly pressed a button to end them. "Report."

"Sir, we are detecting a medium-sized fleet on the outskirts of the system. They are hurting bad, if I can detect these energy signals right. All sorts of fluctuations throughout the EM spectrum, sir. Wherever they came from, they came from a war zone. They seem spooked, as they are powering up weapons. Orders?"

Thrawn steepled his fingers together. "Open a private channel with them, Ensign. Standard encryption protocol; I want this kept private from S'karris and his allies, in case things go bad."

"Yes sir. Channel opening......now."

Thrawn took a breath and began to speak.

"Attention unknown fleet, this is Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Galactic Empire. I see your fleet is quite damaged and you look lost and frightened. Do not worry; we don't seek battle. We already fought one, and as both of us know as warriors, one battle is one too many. If you wish, I can direct some of my cleanup effort to help your injured and get some repairs going?"

( OOC: I think I'm a bit new into FT for this one, or maybe not, plus I take an entirely different approach on Space Warfare: there are the Solar Communes' 180 meters long vectored thrust "space fighters", fusion powered aerospike engines, fusion engines, relativistic coil guns with 30-300km maximum ranges/muzzle velocities and space-based fire-and-forget missiles and rolling airframe space missiles with ranges of engagement varying from 20 to 800 kilometers. and 10 km range FT THELs(Tactical High Energy Lasers) turrets which maybe would break the "Space Opera" style of this RP because they will rarely get into "dogfighting in space" and even my smallest 65 meters orbital spaceplane interceptors (http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/index.php?showtopic=2084) have a gauss cannon capable of engaging larger starships 30 km away and smaller ships at a 5 km of distance and a handful of 80km and 300+km range micro-fusion missiles and their own THEL and RASM(Rolling Airframe Space Missile) CIWS/Point-defense system. And there are Fusion Stellar Ballistic Missiles which have a very large delta-V capacity and thus can be fired from Astronomical Units away from a fixed or relatively slow target and work as c-frac guns given an enoughly large distance from the target.

But if there is no problem on me joining it with this fleet lost in the Warp(AKA "FTL Suicide") because of its different nature focused on long-range engagements and on an attempt to bring a bit of a "hard sci-fi" style, I'm interested. I don't have destroyers and carriers designed yet, but I'm not going to employ them here anyway should it be acceptable for me to join with a lost fleet)

OOC: I do not discriminate with rp style. I do not mind Hard sci-fiers and I try to work with them if I fight them, you'll just need to explain some things to me. But sure, if you want to, feel free to join.

Also note, you dont have to appear at Bilbringi, people. If you want to aid the Alliance, feel free to appear in their space.

(OOC: Yes, it is a temporary Hivemind, but not of the "EVIL BORG" type and my approach isn't either "100% hard sci-fi" as I take as exceptions highly unreliable FTL travel mediums and psychics. And as a curiousity, is the Bilbringi system star a Orange Star like the Sun or Tau Ceti? Also, how many non-humans are around? And this is going to be a bit lengthy because I would like to present a bit of the crew and Solar Communes tech)

Immaterium, Unknown Time

It was not known what led them to move their fleet to explore what they knew as the Shadow Universe, also known in other civilizations as the Immaterium, or simply as the Warp. It was theorized the possibility that their motivation to move through it was simply a temptation from demons to lure them to that place, but so far, although meeting fierce threats, the Commune, a singular hive mind which began to exist after the thousands of men from the First Shadow Fast Assault Fleet sacrificed temporarily their individualities to form it through the connection of their minds through the brain computer interfaces and neural implants they had, as a way to have a better chance of resisting against the psychic attacks from the Warp, has stood firm against the abominations that roamed that placed although there were visible signs of battle on its starships which had scorch marks on their almost mirror-like ice shields which were not worth the effort or resources of being repaired with nanites. Inheriting the psychic capabilities of half of the entire crew, a half which members were psychics from the OSA psi-corps, and with the help of the artificial intelligences connected it was seeking to find alien ships through their way and board them to "acquire" their technology through boarding ships, and the skilled capabilities of the Space Pirates special forces, combatants equipped in full power armor with vectorial thrust capabilities that could be literally deployed into nearby space and fly towards their destinations, should such risky operation become necessary and armed with 6x35mm gauss guns, plus a couple of two shoulder mounted mini-rocket launchers with quadruple tandem charges that could pierce through most starship doors.

It was a massive torchship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchship), the Redoubtable Class Cruiser-Carrier, with a very thin nose in its front, to the point it could be considered that its tip was built in a molecular scale, thinner than the blade of a rapier or than a single carbon nanotube, and in fact it was. On its large aft, the carrier was as long as seven blocks from a street, as wide as four blocks and twenty meters more tall as the early 21st century British 30 St Mary Axe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_St_Mary_Axe), having a total of 30 decks. It stood as the flagship and in one of its sides the word "Freedom Fighter" stood as its name. Its weapons were simply not visible outside as they were, for now, retracted inside their hulls. Following its wing formation, two cruisers and also torchships, which were more than half as large as the carriers, with the length of four blocks and half, and almost as tall as the carriers with their aft height of a hundred and seventeen meters, equivalent of a smaller skyscraper, flew in a line formation, with their weapons equally hidden from the outside view, they were named "Haymarket Martyr", and "Francesc Ferrer". Further behind a group of four 350 meters long Exterminator Class Frigates (http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screenshots/x3_screen_266.jpg), which names were "Bakunin", "Spooner", "Rand" and "Kropotkin". All ships had the red and black flag of Solar Communes, which was a somewhat isolationist civilization to actually draw much attention across the galaxy asides from... fleets who got lost in the Warp.

After blowing their way through the Warp for an unknown amount of time the collective mind, powered by hundreds of psychics as their bodies stood robotically awaiting the orders from the collective and a psychic shield blocked Chaos from mutating them, they finally were about to reach their destination as the psychic signatures "hinted" that they were about to reach the Beta Cassiopeia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Cassiopeiae) system that the Commune has chosen on-the-fly to explore. The event horizon became visible in that segment of the chaotic realm, which would bring them back to the physical universe. The fleet finally warped back to what the single consciousness hoped to be its actual destination.

Bilbringi System, 25 Astronomical Units(~3.74 billions of kilometers) away from its sun

There is no way to predict whether the Warp also served as some type of time machine during their travel or not during all that time as time itself is twisted and unpredictable inside that realm they known as the Shadow. Not even a second or hundreds and even thousands of years could have passed in the physical universe while they were inside the Warp. There was no way to know besides managing to return to their home system.

The large fleet, for Solar Communes standards, jumped back to the physical universe as the scanners started to analyze the star of the solar system they currently were at. For the surprise of the singular consciousness which still did not end itself to return to the crew their individual selves, the scanners pointed the star they were at was not that they were destined to arrive. It was not the F-type giant star of Beta Cassiopeia, but instead a G-type star like the Sun or Tau Ceti. Not only that, but also the detection of possibly several inhabited planets and several space stations, however rather than seeing what was currently happening in those distant planets and inhabited sectors of that space, the sensors saw what happened in them 3 hours ago because of the delay of 3 hours for the light from them to arrive at the point the lost fleet currently was. All they could see were faint visual signatures from what was possibly a battle.

The collective consciousness then dissolved, considering that for now their individual minds would be safe. Raul Riggs, 1.75 meters tall, liss black hair, unsung hero of the historical "Battle of Bakunin" and responsible for saving 20 thousands of the most intelligent, honest and capable people of his civilization, was now reaching 57 years old. However aging, like disease, were only past memories of times when certain limitations of humanity had to be surpassed. Nobody still died of age in Solar Communes, and it was expected that with their current technology most would safely reach 150 years of life, should an accidental death not occur during such time. Nanomedicine and bio-engineering have allowed an increasing and indeterminate longevity for all but those, who in the name of bioconservatism, refused such modifications, however transhumanism was a popular ideology in Solar Communes, and the ratio of people with nanite or cybernetic augmentations compared to those without was very high.

Riggs, although remaining an Homo Sapiens Sapiens rather than adapting his body structure to gravities different from those of Earth through gene therapy, was no exception to this rule, as indicated by his solid blue eyes which had a much larger concentration of rhodopsin, were covered internally by an artificial layer of tapetum lucidum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum), were capable of performing a 2x optical zoom and also with artificial light-emitting nanites which could make his eyes produce a blue-colored beam of light like if they were two tiny flashlights, and he could also "switch" between the daylight colored vision and black and white night vision and perform further "digital zoom" with a thought by filtering the optical nerve input through a multi-purpose neural implant he had on his brain which also was connected to a tiny occipital jack and was his own brain-computer interface. The less visible modifications were much more than his visibly augmented eyes. Nanite "white cells" and their produced artificial antibodies granted him virtual immunity to any biological and chemical weapon as his entire immunological system was augmented. Neural boosters increased his reflexes beyond what even the most trained and capable human could have and fatigue removers granted a much superior endurance. Bones, muscles, organs... almost everything was modified on his body. His skin color seemed to be normal and caucasian white except for a few shades of grey, part of a nanite based sub-dermal ballistic armor he has chosen to implant due to his tense and risky military career.

As he replaced the input of the ship sensors coming through the occipital jack with the input of his own eyes, he looked at the co-pilot just at his left. She was a spacewoman, as augmented as him, with light brown hair, bright solid hazel eyes, at 1.45 meters tall and with half of the body mass and dimensions or less compared to a "normal" human being. Raul knew well those types, and considering her age she probably was born in space and never stepped in a planet or atmosphere during her entire life. Piloting spaceships and living, working and have leisure in environments with very little to no gravity were the conditions that shaped their flexible and slightly nomad culture of talented explorers and a highly curious artificially engineered human subspecies regarding the stars. She could not see him looking at her as what she saw was not the input of her eyes, but the input of the sensors recreating the outer space into her mind, while they sat on large, comfortable and lined seats in that large, window-less bridge of the ship which was peculiarly interesting due to the fact it lacked any visible interface.

No keyboards, no flying sticks or holographic displays existed there, just a handful of quantum mainframes of countless Terahertz and Teraqubits or more of processing and storage capacity and several rows of aligned seats where each occupant had a very tiny, almost invisible wire coming from inside those seats to their brains. Solar Communes starships were piloted directly through the brain of the pilots through brain-computer interface technology, rather than through the, considered less efficient and precise, control sticks or general intermediary interfaces. This saved much space that would otherwise be employed with displays, control sticks, keyboards and buttons inside their starships, space commonly filled by more quantum computers.

Raul asked to the spacewoman at his side, as the audition of her ears was not replaced by an artificial sensor system:

"Natalia, good to see that we are individuals again! Now I am worried: what type of system were we accidentally brought to?"

Natalia made no movement as she was concentrated on piloting the ship and reading, her voice seemed to be that of an young teenager regardless of she having 25 years old, their spoken language was some synthetic construct over several Earth languages, while primarily having influences from Spanish, Portuguese and English, all those which they still were taught at school among 4 more of the Earth's languages as standard education. Such was the price of being part of an eugenically selected group of colonists with an estimated average IQ between 140 and 160....

"Ah.. Riggs, is that you? Here is it, with the help of all our comrades and navigators: according to these charts I am seeing it is a sort of G-class star rather than a F-class giant star, its readings do not match any the known starts of our astronomical database, and coupled with the spiking readings that seem to describe some kind of space battle happening three hours ago from now due to the 3 light-hours distance those visual signatures lie from us, and considering thist 3 hours and 30 minutes readings of what seem to be inhabited planets, I, and surely everyone here who has not replaced their entire brains with a 'dumb' and Weak AI", she paused as she laughed a bit "Think we are definitively in the system of some civilization, or at least that is what their are telling me directly through their minds. And Raul, why do you use your voice so much?"

"Well Natalia, no offense but you only know Earth through history E-books and virtual reality simulations, I doubt you would understand why I talk more than I use direct brain-to-brain communication. Now... please, send one brain message to my mind per time people! The queue of my implant is getting already big.", he said as he received direct uploads of collected data which were also broadcasted to the entire fleet around them. As he checked the data about readings, available supplies, remaining Helium-3 reserves and overall predictions he seemed to show signs of immediate worry as he broadcasted a message to the fleet directly from his mind:

"So we only have 5 months of endurance and range because a weird anomaly sucked our Helium-3 reserves an deuterium emergency reserves? That is very... very bad news people. We must find a nearby source of fuel for our fleet in one of those planets or we are going to drift dead in space... and that is something that would not be good. So now we either wait like sitting ducks, or, if you vote for it, I suggest getting the data from the Freedom Fighter Probabilistic Mechanics calculations to set up an optimal coordinate for us to fly at in relativistic flight mode, about 0.5 astronomical units away from the closest planet. Now if you vote against it, I advise whoever prefers to remain to move into the same starship so those who want to leave can go mostly intact, what is your thoughts on this matter?"

He awaited as the surge of thousands of thoughts of the Brain Net finally took shape, and luckily they agreed unanimously into going through the point.

"All right, so let's head to our stasis decks, because I doubt any of you would like the sensation of accelerating and then decelerating continually at 10 meters per second for weeks.", he said as, followed by Natalia, who seemed dwarfed compared to his size, both wearing black uniforms, while Natalia also wore a small power suit that would allow her to, if necessary, walk in Earth-like gravities and she took a helmet she strapped to the tiled metal decorated floor of the bridge and lifted it with little effort. They walked, or more exactly, almost floated, due to the low gravity of the ship, through the bridge in a line towards the deck with stasis chambers. Their ship had little of food and water supplies, but they were not intended to remain at a normal state of metabolism for most of their travel.

The stasis chambers of all the ships of the fleet closed and putted the entire crew into advanced hybernation as their artificial intelligences assumed flight control. They started to accelerate continually at 10 meters per second... the estimated time for them to reach their destination, from where they would look for supplies, would be of about fourteen days and four hours. It would be a long time for the battle that was happening there to advance further.

Using the Warp again for faster-than-light travel was suggested, but quickly dismissed because of the sheer unreliability of it compared to the much more safe sub-light travel of Solar Communes. After all, if the Immaterium brought them to an entirely different solar system to that they intended to arrive at, who could know whether in the next time it would brought them to the core of a sun to be instantly annihilated or not?

(OOC: Oops, consider this as Solar Communes. Anyway, Solar Communes is basically Third Spanish States FT version)

OOC: interest shown

On the bridge of Iserlohn, refurbished Gwazine class vessel, 42nd Evaluation Unit, somewhere in the Bilbringi system

It was supposed to be a routine test of a new and improved faster-than-light drive. It was a second-gen drive, supposed to be more reliable on extreme range jumps than the original one which, while it was based on technology gotten from the people who called themselves "the Twelve Colonies of Kobal" or something to that effect a year or so ago, was not quite of the same quality. Indeed, one does not teach everything there is to know about this kind of highly unconventional technology to someone who has never even heard of it, and expect them to make perfect duplicates of the drives made with said technology.

That was why this small group of ships was traveling through the location, although in faster-than-light speeds. Now, normally, that would be a non-issue, as ships travel through a lot of locations in real space as they travel in their versions of hyperspace or whatever it is that they use for faster-than-light travel.

But...

With the FTL drives used in these vessels being highly experimental, they had certain unseen drawbacks. Such as being interfered with by some kind of residual effect caused by the interdiction field which had been in use in the Bilbringi system for such a short period of time.

Conrad Debiel, a man of Germanic descent and in his thirties whom was the captain of the ship and subsequently the one in charge of the small evaluation unit of four ships, was also a Captain by rank in the Zeonic military. He was sitting on the captain's seat on the bridge of the Iserlohn, watching the situation unfold with a level of incredulity in his eyes as the ship suddenly returned to real space. He had heard of drive malfunctions before, but he had never had one happen to him.

Until now, that is.

He stood up.

"Status report!"

"The ship is undamaged, Sir," shouted one of the crew members on the panels on his left-hand side, "The faster-than-light drive is recharging, albeit slowly!", shouted another from the right.

"And the other ships?!"

"They are reporting similar situation, Sir!"

He sighed in relief. At least they weren't dead. Yet. With that thought, he sat down.

"Any idea where we are?"

"Negative, Sir. This star system is uncharted."

The captain sighed again, but this time in frustration. Of course it was uncharted, he mused, the Principality hadn't been exactly active explorers. Too much trouble back home. What with the war with the Federation remnant and all. Good thing that had been resolved.

"Do we know if anyone else's here?"

"Nothing on visual, Sir... But we have multiple contacts on long range scanners. Can't pick up anything concrete on them, though. One thing's sure, these aren't asteroids."

"... So we got in to a system full of possibly hostile targets?"

"Yes,", said the officer, nodding, "That's entirely possible."

"How long till our FTL's back online?"

"Long enough for them to pick us up and kill us, if they're hostile, Sir."

The captain looked downwards, briefly, muttering, "Now isn't that great."

As he raised his eyes, he said, "Let's just stay here. Let them make the first move."

"Aye, Sir!"

And so... The ships just stood there, dead in space, waiting for something to happen. Whether the locals would notice them and contact (or kill them) or the drives would come back up online, it didn't matter all that much at this point. As things were, it couldn't matter, either. Of course, leaving alive would be preferable to dying, but... That, quite possibly, wasn't their choice to make, and the captain was well aware of that.

(OOC: Dunno, wanted to post to this thread because it was all open and all. Hope this works for you guys. And no need to worry me floodin' anything with, well... Anything, because the Principality doesn't have the ability to do anything of that sort, and even if it did... Well, it's ill-equipped to fight people outside its home turf.)

OOC: Andermani, just to let you know, my ships are not the same quality as normal SW quality. They are quite powerful.

Also, Feaz, it's an honor to rp with you again. ^^ I look forward to this.

IC:



Joram would be able to sense a large influx of emotions from S'karris, the psionic imprint of something that had happened to him being unmistakable even at this distance.

"I....The Ascendancy is no more, at least as a nation. If any have survived, they are lost, cut-off from each other and trapped.

The Ascendancy....no longer exists. Something horrific, something....far more terrible than Chaos came to our dimension. We tried to force them out, we used every piece of technology, every tactic, but we could not stop them. And the things they did to my people...I'd rather not speak of. In short, we were forced to commit suicide and most of my people stayed behind to buy time for those who could leave, myself being one of them, and then they activated a device that destabilized the dimension and destroyed it. All of my people there are dead, and I was lost. Until the Grand Admiral found me. He is not human, Joram. He is an alien himself, and he is a good man. He fights hard, does not prejudice against anyone, and seeks what we all seek: peace and order. This galaxy is rife of disorder, death, and war. I seek to do what I can to save the legacy of my people in helping this galaxy.

And you can be sure that any attempt by this nation to harm you would be struck down by me instantly. I did not even mention you, so they would not have the chance to do so. However, things have changed with your arrival. Now, if you so wish, you may speak with Thrawn himself and direct your questions at him."


The fleet did not move, as ordered by Thrawn, when the sensors came out. The dampening fields of the fleet and planet kept their secrets away from the sensors, but they saw what they wanted to see. The fleet was damaged, yes, but it was still capable of fighting back. Of course, against this fleet, they'd still have a hard time of it, even with Thrawn's tactical genius. Hence, why S'karris was handling the show; Thrawn was no fool. Besides, gaining a potential ally was what he needed right now.


Then came the Feazanthian task force, battered and hurting, roaring into Bilbringi space. The fleet tensed and grew more anxious, but all were more afraid of Thrawn's anger if they disobeyed. Thrawn noted the alarms and calmly pressed a button to end them. "Report."

"Sir, we are detecting a medium-sized fleet on the outskirts of the system. They are hurting bad, if I can detect these energy signals right. All sorts of fluctuations throughout the EM spectrum, sir. Wherever they came from, they came from a war zone. They seem spooked, as they are powering up weapons. Orders?"

Thrawn steepled his fingers together. "Open a private channel with them, Ensign. Standard encryption protocol; I want this kept private from S'karris and his allies, in case things go bad."

"Yes sir. Channel opening......now."

Thrawn took a breath and began to speak.

Your word is enough. I will speak with this Thrawn. How many are he and those like him, his allies and servants? We have been long wary of humanity, and I know the presence of humans beyond number in this fleet. The loss of the Ascendancy should not be mourned, but striven towards as a goal. I am proud of the actions of those who will replicate the lost glory to the best of their ability. As always, the Setians stand beside you.

The new fleets were noted and logged. The first was damaged, a non threat. Not warranting any further investigation, barring a possible investigation into their origins and nationality. The second was not damaged, but their power levels were so low it was suspected it was a merchant caravan, especially after no weapons signatures were reported. A number of possibilities presented themselves, but it still wasn't worth getting worked up over. The third "fleet" was just 4 ships. Doubtful as a threat, but there was, for some reason(possibly their FTL translation) no data on size or class available. All they couldtell was that there were 4 ships there. THAT was worth a look. Another pair of probes left the carrier, streaking towards the 4 new arrivals for a closer look, these ships had piqued the Setians curiousity, whichwas not necessarily a good thing at all.

As S'karris and Joram discussed what had happened to the Ascendancy, Thrawn glanced at the tactical holo which was displaying the arrival of TWO more fleets. Thrawn glanced at Pellaeon, whose face was tightening with anxiety. Were they Rebel reinforcements or just lost travelers? Even if they were the latter, why did they have to come to Bilbringi, with the defense platforms destroyed and several ships requiring repairs? "Do not worry Captain; we can handle them. After all, if they attack, they anger the Andermani, and few can handle their might. Though I must say, I am surprised at how popular a tourist spot Bilbringi is becoming."

The Captain glanced at Thrawn, a little surprised by the humor. "Shall I open a channel?"

"Of course, Captain. However, I suggest you handle both of them. As we both can tell, I am going to be needed to speak with this 'Joram' soon."

Pellaeon nodded. "Understood, Admiral." And right on cue, S'karris received Joram's message and read it.

"I thank you for standing by me, and welcome the help. As for Thrawn, as much as I can tell, he has of a race known as the 'Chiss.' Very isolationistic, but very strong and skilled. They retain a small empire on the borders of this galaxy. He, however, is only one of many alien species that inhabit this galaxy, and all races are working together on both sides for their respective causes. It's an ideological split, and I favor the Empire's view over the Rebel view. And, here is the Grand Admiral himself."

He nodded to Thrawn, who stood up, and walked into view of the holoprojector, his upper torso and face showing on the Andermani screens. They would see his blue skin, glowing red eyes, along with the pristine white uniform of his rank. "Greetings to the Andermani Empire; I am Grand Admiral Thrawn. Now, I heard you have some questions for me?"

As Thrawn talked with the Andermani, a message was sent out by Pellaeon to the Zeon and Solar Commune fleets:

"Attention unknown fleets, please send your nation and intentions for coming here. You are in Galactic Empire space, and we are curious as to why you are here. Do not worry, we do not mean any harm."

"Attention unknown fleet, this is Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Galactic Empire. I see your fleet is quite damaged and you look lost and frightened. Do not worry; we don't seek battle. We already fought one, and as both of us know as warriors, one battle is one too many. If you wish, I can direct some of my cleanup effort to help your injured and get some repairs going?"

Manaan ran the message again, simultaneously listening to the original and translated versions. They spoke what had become known as galstandard to the Dominion, suggesting they were at least some form of interstellar power.

Galactic Empire...

Something in the historical data banks had intrigued Skeelan. However, Elson was not immediately privvy to the information, nor did he have the desire to order Skeelan to reveal it.

Too many data streams at once!

The Manaani CO pushed aside incoming damage reports, letting Skeelan's subroutines catalogue them. The Imperial transmission came to the forefront. In his mind's eye, Elson "viewed" the message, while the decryption data played out to the "side" (human-A.I. interface systems are nearly impossible to describe to those that have not experienced them). Elson then pushed those to the side, viewing instead the tactical readouts the Flame's sensors were beginning to pull in. Their hull was an unknown metallic substance, and there was some form of energy shielding preventing a full scan without being too obvious. Still...it appeared they were armed with some sort of particle-energy weapon, as well as various guided solid munitions launchers. The larger, vaguely triangular vessels were obviously the biggest threat. They were just under twice the size of a Majiirian battleship alone and, while the Flame herself was far larger, she had no real anti-capital defenses other than the main cannon...which was offline. Without a more in-depth scan of their passive defenses, he could not ascertain what sort of threat this "Empire" posed.

Temporarily irrelevant.

The Grand Admiral's transmission once again came to the forefront. He was offering assistance. However, imperfections along the alien hulls suggested that they had not yet mastered nanomolecular construction. Without a more in-depth analysis, this placed the aliens at a lower tech-level than the Dominion. Thusly, allowing them anywhere near Federation or Hegemony technology was strictly forbidden under the Concordia Agreements. As much as he could use the help, Elson Manaan had to refuse.

"Skeelan," said Manaan to the oddly silent construct. "Begin a series-three scan of all warships being identified as Galactic Imperial. We need to know more. Halt autolaunch, but load all drone catapults. Kite-twos, please."

As soon as he said it, data streams assaulted his conciousness of the Kite-II series defensive swarm drones being loaded onto launch catapults throughout the fleet's carriers. Little more than a maneuver drive, a targetting system, and a basic chemical laser with a pair of SRMs attached, Kite-IIs were nothing alone. However, in the swarms that they were produced, they supplemented the fleet's own point-defense systems substantially. And, Elson mused, if this Empire proved hostile and was foolish enough to use strike craft offensively, they would prove to be a massive pain in those pilots' arses.

Scan commencing. Recommend return transmission, phia.

"Thank you, Skeelan. Wide-band channel, please. All known languages."

This is the Dominion command vessel Purifying Flame to Galactic Imperial commanding officer Thrawn. Your assistance is not required. Do not approach. Repeat. Do not approach. Your gesture is appreciated by Kiith Manaan and will be noted. Stand by...

12 days to arrive at destination

By the time the message arrived and properly interpreted, the only thing actually controlling the fleet were their artificial intelligences as the entire crews were hibernating in stasis chambers. And the fact the entire fleet was flying and continually accelerating, without the use of faster-than-light systems, at currently 1,728 kilometers per second, more than five hundredths of the speed light, a speed faster than the muzzle velocity of a C301 gauss cannon, and that each second such speed was increased by 10 meters per second, meant that trying to intercept it would lead a disastrous collision of kinetic energy coupled with a huge fusion explosion... it was like a kinetic energy weapon waiting to happen in such state, however it would eventually begin to decelerate at the 7th day and the fleet had a limited supply of hydrogen to propel the fusion engines which would not last enough for c-frac interstellar travel.

The artificial intelligence started to use its multi-language parser and word association system as it came with. The system was actually registering on its quantum mass storage drive, rather than speaking:

"Galactic: In Comuns it is translated as Galatic and means an entity that spans for an entire galaxy or most of a galaxy. Empire: In Comuns translated as Imper, associating historical names... British Empire - Imperialism, German Empire - Imperialism, Second Reich - Nazism and Holocaust, Mussolini's Roman Empire - Fascism, Japanese Empire - Fascism, Nanking Massacre, Ottoman Empire - Oppression, Armenian Genocide... Astropolitical analysis of the implications of a centralized political system spanning over several solar systems coupled with name indicate high probabilities of being a fascist or authoritarian society... parsing reply... standard protocol for potentially hostile and ideological opposing forces used for elaborating message. Scanning heat, light and visual signatures... all active protection systems online and ready for being drawn from hull if necessary"

Soon a message would arrive to the Empire, translated to their language, obviously not done by an human writer and cautiously hid further information, and obviously the voice from it seemed to come from a text-to-speech parser rather than from an human being as well, maybe they would not ask much if they informed what they were seeking there at the moment:

This is automated controlling system of fleet informing: it became lost in a chaotic parallel universe where faster-than-light travel is possible and accidentally ended in your system. Currently seeking to purchase hydrogen and Helium-3 through trade. Unaware of location or current time, requesting following information: Date, name of this solar system, cluster, galaxy and economic indicators for sale prices of hydrogen and Helium-3.

OOC: Consider my entry in a sort of 'Back to the Future' style, as I'll rp myself through past characters in an alternate future. Catch my drift? lol

IC:


Rally Point Alpha-Delgrassi, Borders of Known Galactic Imperial Space

Reports from probe droids, holo-net taps, and other less vainglorious methods garnered a rather interesting picture for the Thrashian Imperial High Command. News that an Imperial power commanded by members of the nation that Thrashia had had extensive trade and exchange of technology in the past was a bright hope for creating advantages for the small but growing star empire known as Thrashia.

On orders from Emperor Shadaum IV himself a small task force had been assembled to reach out and make contact with this Grand Admiral who was garnering more and more fame with each passing day. Analysts were impressed with the man's obvious ability to affect his opponents state of minds, creating the idea of a bogeyman who was omnipresent. Truly impressive.


Wearing his newly pressed uniform the officer standing on the bridge of the Gargant Imperial II-class Star Destroyer felt at home, damn near content. The crew of the vessel worked with very efficient manner and acted as they were, veterans. He'd have to remember to log a memorandum praising them on their conduct after they arrived at their destination. A pair of footsteps collided with the floor in a smart crump as another person approached the officer from behind.

"Vice Admiral?"

The admiral turned to see a slightly younger man wearing the uniform and insignia of a captain. He had slightly longer than normal blond hair under his cap and his ice blue eyes were set with authority that intimidated ensigns on a daily basis. He snapped to a quick attention.

"Captain Bayerlein," answered Vice Admiral Kerst. "I trust we're prepared?"

"Yes sir, we've just been informed of the Pale Rider's arrival. The task force will be able to move into hyperspace within the hour," replied the captain.

"Good. Prepare the fleet and inform me when we're fully ready. I'll be in my quarters."


Gathered around the Gargant was a collection of other Thrashian naval vessels. Besides the Gargant there were two other Imperial Star Destroyers, five Venator-class Star Destroyers, two Nebula-B frigates, six Lancer frigates, and a dozen or more heavy transports carrying several hundred thousand stormtroopers and their necessary equipment. It was enough power to conquer a few systems...at least thats what Vice Admiral Kerst thought.



The fleet made the jump to hyperspace two hours later and headed toward their destination: the Bilbringi System, where rumors had it Grand Admiral Thrawn was placed. Upon arrival transpoder codes blared out signals identifying the Thrashian ships as Imperial, but with a second code signaling them very different. Admiral Kerst also had a prepared holo transmission prepared and had it broadcast.


Greetings to the Galactic Empire. This is Vice Admiral Kerst of the Empire of Thrashia. We have arrived to aid the Empire in its time of need to defeat any enemies it does posses. I am ordered by my Emperor to put myself and my forces at the commanded of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

This is the Dominion command vessel Purifying Flame to Galactic Imperial commanding officer Thrawn. Your assistance is not required. Do not approach. Repeat. Do not approach. Your gesture is appreciated by Kiith Manaan and will be noted. Stand by...


This is automated controlling system of fleet informing: it became lost in a chaotic parallel universe where faster-than-light travel is possible and accidentally ended in your system. Currently seeking to purchase hydrogen and Helium-3 through trade. Unaware of location or current time, requesting following information: Date, name of this solar system, cluster, galaxy and economic indicators for sale prices of hydrogen and Helium-3.

Pellaeon's mouth twitched. The first one, despite being very damaged, refused aid. How....interesting. He couldn't force them; he knew Thrawn would not like unneeded conflict in their current state. He sent a confirmation signal to the Purifying Flame, and turned to the next message, which was an interesting one. "An automated message? How odd..." He read the message quickly, and saw what they needed. Helium-3 and hydrogen? He thought about it for a few moments, and searched the databanks till he found what he needed. So, they wanted to buy that, as well as the time, name and place?

"We have stockpiles of the items you are looking for, and I am transmitting the indicators to you along with this message. This is the Bilbringi System, and we have not traveled outside of our galaxy, so this is simply the Galaxy. And it is in no specific cluster.

Pellaeon sent off that message, only to hear the alarm for more arrivals. He gazed up at the roof of the ship. When were the arrivals going to stop? At this rate, they might as well make Bilbringi a tourist attraction. However, this wasn't anything new. "Sir, I am reading Imperial transpoders and ship classes!"

Pellaeon whirled around. "What?!" He ran up to the console and looked, and sure enough, there were Imperial ships on the screen. Star Destroyers, Lancer frigates, even Nebulon-B frigates. He had to shake his head in order to ensure he wasn't dreaming.

"Incoming message, sir."

"Put it through."

Greetings to the Galactic Empire. This is Vice Admiral Kerst of the Empire of Thrashia. We have arrived to aid the Empire in its time of need to defeat any enemies it does possesses. I am ordered by my Emperor to put myself and my forces at the commanded of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Pellaeon was stunned. Not only had they known of their Empire and the conflict they were fighting, they knew of Thrawn. And they were placing their forces under his command. Realizing he needed to reply, he sent off a message.

"Greetings to Vice Admiral Kerst. This is Captain Pellaeon of the Chimera. The Grand Admiral is busy talking to one of our allies, so I will go inform him of your arrival and your generous offer. It is good to have allies against the anarchy that is the Rebellion."

Pellaeon turned and began to walk towards Thrawn. He needed to inform him of this latest development.

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

Back on Corsucant, the Council met again to discuss the issues plaguing them, as well as inform the others of the situation of Thrawn and the loss of several sectors. Mon Mothma, not looking any more rested than she had before, rapped a hammer on the gavel, signaling the meeting was in session. A man dressed in the uniform of an Admiral, and with thinning air stood up. "Admiral Drayson, if you don't mind informing the Council on the situation with the sectors."

He nodded wearily. "To put it plainly, the sectors are lost. We have already lost three strike forces to Thrawn and his well-coordinated forces. The sectors we had to give up in order for the failed strike at Bilbringi are firmly under his control, with more soldiers, equipment, and ships moving in everyday. Thrawn, once he consolidates, will have a strong economic base, a good size area to tax, and several mineral planets and shipyards in order to rebuild the Imperial Navy. In short, what was a threat before, has become the possible end of the New Republic. Admiral Ackbar and I have pulled back our defensive lines to the point where we can put up a fight, instead of being blitzkrieged, but this has caused significant political problems."

They all nodded. The Senate was a war zone nowadays, with members fighting with each other and making accusations. None of them have left yet, but it was getting to that point. "Do you have anything else to report?

He nodded. "I'm afraid so. We have reports of communication loss with Rutan, and we have no idea as to why. No communications were sent out since the ships there informed us that the planet had mysteriously gone silent. And we also have the distress call from Ansion about an Imperial attack. In short, we're close to being besieged on all sides, and I don't know if we can hold out unless something happens. Not to mention that the attack on Wayland did next to nothing-"

One of the Councilors stood up, their body trembling in anger. "How dare you! Skywalker and his friends took a risk in going there." The hammer rang out and the Councilor took a seat.

"Be calm; I am sure he has a reason to say this."

Drayson nodded. "Military Intelligence has finally managed to get concrete evidence that the Imperials have begun rebuilding the facility on Wayland. The cylinders will not make as good of quality of soldiers, but they can still keep up the output, which is all Thrawn needs. All the attack did was draw some resources, kill some soldiers, and kill that Dark Jedi. In the overall scheme of things, it failed."

The mood of the room turned grim. "Is there anything else, Admiral?"

"I'm afraid not. Our efforts to find a CGT are still underway, but so far, no luck."

"I see. Thank you Admiral." He bowed and walked out. Leia turned to look at Mon Mothma.

"Well....what do we do? If we attack, we open up more sectors for the Imperials to take; but if we don't, he has time to build up his war machine."

No one answered.

In response to the incoming probes, two MS-20 Zaku IIIs (http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/zz/amx-011.htm) were launched from the Iserlohn, just in case, as they couldn't really spread out any meaningful amounts of M particles as it could have interfered with any transmissions sent to them - and not being able to respond (or receive) transmissions could prove fatal in a situation like this.

The three other vessels which were with the Iserlohn were Late Production Type Musai class Light Cruisers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musai-Class_Light_Cruiser#Musai-Class_Light_Cruiser_-_Late_Production_Type) with certain... Modifications, such as the FTL drive and a bit updated weaponry.

On the bridge of Iserlohn, refurbished Gwazine (http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/gwazine.htm) class vessel, 42nd Evaluation Unit, Bilbringi system

"Sir, incoming transmission!", yelled out the comm officer.

"Good. Patch it through," replied the captain, lowering his elbows onto the armrests of his seat and clasping his hands in front of his chest.

The message seemed rather... Bland. The sender didn't do much to identify himself, but at least it gave other rudimentary information - such as that they were in a system controlled by some "Galactic Empire". No idea what system they were in, but at least they knew who was in charge.

Sort of.

"Galactic Empire?", muttered the captain, "Never heard of it."

"Sounds like a cheesy science fiction evil empire, Sir," blurted the comms officer, blushing slightly after realizing what she had said.

The captain smirked.

"Well, I guess if they were that bad they would've shot us out of the sky already. Never judge a book by its cover, like the old saying goes."

The comms officer nodded.

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON - EVALUATION UNIT #42 - ISERLOHN

This is the Iserlohn's captain, Conrad Debiel, commander of the 42nd
Evaluation Unit of the Principality of Zeon. As for your other question, we did
not intend to come to this system. Rather, our faster-than-light drives
had some kind of feedback error which forced us out of hyperspace. If I may
inquire... Who am I speaking to? What exactly is this Galactic Empire?

"And now we get to wait for their reply," said the captain most matter-of-factly while collapsing into his seat. Well, at least they weren't getting shot at.

Yet.

(OOC: As for the Gwazine, the "refurbished" part means that it is closer to a Gwanban class in fire power, meaning it has been equipped with a couple of hyper mega particle cannons. And an FTL drive. And, well, some internal changes as a result, I'd wager, but those don't really matter all that much. As for the change from AMX-11 to MS-20 in the designation of the Zaku III, it's because AMX designations were used by Axis, while the Principality uses MS ones... And since this is a Principality of Zeon which won the One Year War, the designations remain Zeonic, rather than Axis-esque.)

As S'karris and Joram discussed what had happened to the Ascendancy, Thrawn glanced at the tactical holo which was displaying the arrival of TWO more fleets. Thrawn glanced at Pellaeon, whose face was tightening with anxiety. Were they Rebel reinforcements or just lost travelers? Even if they were the latter, why did they have to come to Bilbringi, with the defense platforms destroyed and several ships requiring repairs? "Do not worry Captain; we can handle them. After all, if they attack, they anger the Andermani, and few can handle their might. Though I must say, I am surprised at how popular a tourist spot Bilbringi is becoming."

The Captain glanced at Thrawn, a little surprised by the humor. "Shall I open a channel?"

"Of course, Captain. However, I suggest you handle both of them. As we both can tell, I am going to be needed to speak with this 'Joram' soon."

Pellaeon nodded. "Understood, Admiral." And right on cue, S'karris received Joram's message and read it.

"I thank you for standing by me, and welcome the help. As for Thrawn, as much as I can tell, he has of a race known as the 'Chiss.' Very isolationistic, but very strong and skilled. They retain a small empire on the borders of this galaxy. He, however, is only one of many alien species that inhabit this galaxy, and all races are working together on both sides for their respective causes. It's an ideological split, and I favor the Empire's view over the Rebel view. And, here is the Grand Admiral himself."

He nodded to Thrawn, who stood up, and walked into view of the holoprojector, his upper torso and face showing on the Andermani screens. They would see his blue skin, glowing red eyes, along with the pristine white uniform of his rank. "Greetings to the Andermani Empire; I am Grand Admiral Thrawn. Now, I heard you have some questions for me?"

As Thrawn talked with the Andermani, a message was sent out by Pellaeon to the Zeon and Solar Commune fleets:

<I am Joram. Among my race I am known as the Dragon of Blood. I am going to tell you a story, and you will tell me its ending. Long ago, there was a primitive race, with an affinity for the metals of the world, working them with more ability and skill than any others. A human empire finds them, and covets their power, and attacks. Millions die, none let themselves be enslaved, despite the humans desire. Eventually they forge armors that survive the humans weapons, and their enemies are slaughtered. Time passes, and many who had been sent away returned, they now number in the billions after ten thousand years, and they have returned to those that survived. The survivors have made allies, and in the course of time some of those allies have dwindled in power. Now, here they find an ally among old foes. So now you will tell me the end of the story Grand Admiral. Does the human Emperor once again covet the power of the Anderman Empire, or do we join forces, allies from old foes? Tell me the goals of your master, and his ways, tell me of your Empire, as I have spoken of mine.>

Thrawn listened carefully, as this Joram told him a story. He listened to their early beginnings, to their sudden attack by humans, and their eventual, costly victory. When he was asked for the 'end', he shook his head. "I do not know the end, for it was not the Empire which attacked you. I imagine there are other human empires out there, seeing as we have several visitors who appear to be human. I would gladly aid you in fighting off or finding this aggressors and destroying them...once I have rebuilt my nation. I currently only have enough resources to fight one war. As for my 'master', I have none. We did have an Emperor....but he was killed when the Rebellion managed to destroy the ship he was on. I do not mourn him, save for the order he imposed on the Galaxy. His policies caused the undoing of the Empire, and I must do my part in restoring it.

A key part of what I am doing requires S'karris here. The Rebellion which I am fighting is rebuilding itself and is trying to make an order of warriors that use a power known as 'the Force.' S'karris here, I imagine, has potential in the Force, and he has agreed to help me form an order of Imperial Knights to counter the Jedi, as these warriors are known. As for my story, its a long one to tell. To cut it short, there used to be a democracy, known as the Old Republic, which was weak and had no military. When a good amount of the galaxy rebelled and formed a military, they responded. One side had droids, the other clones. With nearly endless armies, you can imagine the devastation. This was known as the Clone Wars. Eventually, the Old Republic won. Now, the Emperor had masterminded this in order to come to power, and he formed the Galactic Empire. Order was restored, peace was kept, and the galaxy was safe.

However, his....policies caused people to get angry, rebel, and join those who had opposed the formation of the Empire. After many battles, they killed the Emperor, Darth Vader, and much of the fleet. Since then, no one has been strong enough to keep the Empire together and the Rebellion has managed to push the Empire to where we are today. I...am trying to fix that, and am enjoying a great amount of success. Although the Ruling Council does not know it yet, those bureaucratic fools, I will be the leader of this Empire when I am done defeating the Rebellion. As shown before, they cannot rule this Empire effectively.

I do not ask for your help; I will not compel you to aid me. If you wish to do so, I will gladly have you. If not, I will be happy to have met a friend of a friend, and be glad that we did not come to conflict."

He waited for Joram to reply, but Pellaeon came up and whispered in his ear. His eyes widened slightly as shock ran through him. Another Empire, with the same exact ships? How was this possible? But, the thought of a force under his command gave him several ideas. He agreed with Pellaeon's acceptance of the offer and told him that he would speak with them when he had finished here.


Pellaeon walked back, to find a message from one of the arrivals. He opened it up and read it.

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON - EVALUATION UNIT #42 - ISERLOHN

This is the Iserlohn's captain, Conrad Debiel, commander of the 42nd
Evaluation Unit of the Principality of Zeon. As for your other question, we did
not intend to come to this system. Rather, our faster-than-light drives
had some kind of feedback error which forced us out of hyperspace. If I may
inquire... Who am I speaking to? What exactly is this Galactic Empire?[

"This is Captain Pellaeon of the Star Destroyer Chimera. I apologize for the quick message before, but we have several arrivals and are trying to process all of them. The Galactic Empire is the Empire which rules this galaxy and is currently experiencing a civil war. Do you require repairs? I can have your ships fixed and on their way, if you so like?"

<Then we are allies Grand Admiral. My ships here can ensure your safety for a time. Any attempt by the rebels to capitalize on your weakened state and their knowledge of your true numbers will meet with a swift end.>

Elson Manaan reviewed the Imperial confirmation and pushed it to the side. Another fire had just broken out in Support Module #3, and the suppression units were having a tough time putting it down.

Elson became the Flame. He saw through her sensors, saw the fleet around him. A pair of corvette-sized Workbees floated past the command ship's row of support modules, latching on to a damaged deck section. He watched as the Workbees used their fusion torches to break down damaged components into their atoms. A second pair of utility corvettes brought in a replacement component from the carrier Morokweng's nanite foundries. Throughout the fleet, similar processes were being carried out.

Incoming transmission. I.D. confirms as Morokweng Actual.

"Put him through."

The image of a elder man with clearly Manaani features, along with the distinctive signs of a command neural interface implanted in the back of his skull, shimmered into existence on the "edges" of Elson's vision.

"Jak'phi, report."

"My phia," said the floating head. "We've managed to seal the hull breaches, but replacement parts are coming up short, sir."

"Have you re-established contact with Nachschub station?"

"Negative, my phia. We have not yet confirmed our exact location. Star charts of this sector are incomplete. Regardless, we have no contact with the Nachschub, and our quantum plate has not come online since the jump. Sir...we're going to need those parts before we can survive another jump."

Gods curse inadequate planning. They were supposed to have been on their way back to Coruc-Tel already. Of course they had no replacement parts.

"Skeelan, launch the recon squadron. See if we can find some raw minerals in this scrap heap. And get me a direct line to that Thrawn."

This is Purifying Flame Actual to Imperial Cee Oh. We are attempting to re-establish communications with our forces and require astronavigational data on this sector. Please respond.

Detailed investigation of the probe deep within the naturally fortified space of the Dominion had cleared up some of the mystery of the probe's course through a battlefield. Apparently, the asteroid base that had been recorded by the probe's VI was a base of some sort of insurgency fighting against a larger, legit government. The Dominion always had a problem with insurgencies - they were a nuiscance, a bother, and a crime against strong authority, which formed the base of the Dominion government.

In the light of things, the Amazonian military had little to do at the moment since pulling out of the Vuhifellian Civil War. There was virtually no chance of successful invasion by any external forces - no known race had ever been able to penetrate the Dominion's defenses on the sole system barrier that allowed safe travel into the Shroud, where nearly all Amazonian systems were located. Thank the Ancients for whatever race - or natural force, if that was what had done it - had constructed the phenomenon. It had kept the Amazonian lineage alive for four millenia, from various attacks that could never puncture the faster-than-light-inhibiting barrier system of Lemort, and the newest defensive grids established by the Dominion ensured that whatever ships snared in the web of distorted space in the system were annihilated with extreme prejudice.

What that did allow for was for the Dominion to dispatch a good deal of ships out from the Shroud. While 30% of fleet numbers were generally requested for duty inside the Shroud - in case of domestic rebellion or policing action - the new Imperial Council was quickly reducing that number down to 10%. Critical defense against incursion was a non-factor, and rebellions were being put down easier and easier with every passing technological advancement. Sooner or later, the Dominion would simply need to send one ship and be able to put down an entire insurgency.

Dominion intelligence had nailed down the source of the "government" vessels, though the entire picture was still fairly unclear. The Shroud was in an isolated patch of the Sagittarius Arm, and the violent nebula that was the Shroud tended to make the entire region a bit of an avoidance. No clue on who the supposedly rebellious forces, the victorious ones, were. Or the government forces, for that matter, except that intel had pinned down several galactic systems closer to the galactic Core that they owned, based on probe and scout readings matching the readings from the Dominion probe. Planets figured to be their territory were marked Corellia, Brentaal, Chandrila, and Corulag.

Chandrila was eventually settled on as a place to attempt contact, due to probe readings that had indicated the world as less populated and less likely to provoke the twitchy finger of a Dominion ship commander. For even further success, the Council selected to send only a single ship - yet not something weak. Rather, the vessel selected had an experienced commander, a Turian Admiral named Pallin. He was level-headed - as most of his species was - with a cool and collected first officer, a Sangheili Captain named 'Sadamee.

The ship was the only problem in points of the shock factor, but Ragnos - chief amongst the Council - had suggested that it would prevent any Dominion casulties. Pallin's vessel wasn't a standard ship, nor did he have a standard crew - rather, his greatly reduced crew was so light because he commanded the biotic vessel W6, a worldship. Each vessel was massive in proportions - not to the title of its name, but still large enough to tower over most vessels encountered. Being technically alive, the ship wasn't by any means conventional - compared to standard warships of the Dominion fleet, it was downright alien.

But the Imperial Council's five members - Sion, Sadow, Ragnos, Nihilis, and Kressh - always had the final word. They were the late Emperor Droma's successors, after all, and therefore the five most powerful people in the Dominion. So it was that W6 had dispatched a day earlier to transit through hyperspace - a fast method, but a long trip to near the galactic Core - to reach the Chandrila system. Pallin had a relatively easy job - his crew required a minimal staff due to the vessel's ability to handle its own biotic functions, as well as onboard AIs and VIs controlling much of the mundane activity. Soldiers and Marines outnumbered his ship staff by far.

W6, on its own, really wasn't "on its own." The worldship still carried fourteen other capital ships with it - all biotic warships, living creatures staffed only by AIs, rather than the worldships and biotic dreadnoughts, which carried actual organic crews as well as computers. Besides that, the vessel had literally thousands of biotic fighters and boarding pods - enough to counter an entire fleet of enemy capital ships, easily.

Pulling out into the Chandrila system was as easy as disconnecting from hyperspace and shutting down hyperengines linked directly into the propulsion systems of the Worldship. However, transit had been the easy part - now trying to convince any of these people that they weren't here to annihilate the entire system with the Worldship's formidable arsenal would be significantly harder.

For starters, Pallin launched a system-spanning, wide-frequency communication burst to attempt all contact. He assumed he was in the right system - ships matching the specs given by the probe of the government vessels seemed to match and were in-system, albeit of smaller number. Chandrila was where Chandrila should be, according to sensors, and how it should be.

Attention domestic vessels, the Worldship's command AI responsible for interaction and direct assistance to the highest officers, Sabrina, opened up. The AI utilized a female avatar and human profile - often found best for the male-dominated crews, and all AIs officially from the Dominion were designed as humans. This is the Amazonian Dominion worldship W6, opening contact with government vessels in the vicinity.

Pallin had had little to go by with names - the Dominion didn't even know who the seemingly-governmental ships (if intelligence had nailed everything down) were directly ruled by, from which government - there were dozens and hundreds. Rather, from preliminary data, the Dominion had concluded that to reach a place such as Bilbringi from systems as Chandrila and Corulag, the government was likely far-reaching (just not into the area of space around the Shroud, apparently). "Government" would have to do the trick - and seeing as this government had never seen the Dominion before likely, it seemed an appropriate name to not instill hostile tensions.

Now it was their turn to respond. There were plenty of ships registering on sensors in the Chandrila system, and no doubt they would pick up the transmission. At the very least, they would pick up the massive hyperspace juncture giving way to the gargantuan worldship.

Thrawn smiled gently. "I doubt they will return to this system, good Joram. You see, in getting the ships for such an assault, they had to leave vast sectors of their space unguarded, space which is now under my control. They tried to dispute that and try to make the acquisition difficult, but they simply didn't have the resources to do so. They will not be attacking this place for some time. But, I thank you for your aid. If you wish to fight them and possible acquire some territory, I am sure we can work something out."

Thrawn was no fool; he'd rather have control over all the worlds, but he refused to give the Rebellion any time to regroup and fight back. He was glad to give up some portion of the Galaxy to ensure that. When the message from the Feazanthians came in, he nodded to Pellaeon, who went to respond.

This is Purifying Flame Actual to Imperial Cee Oh. We are attempting to re-establish communications with our forces and require astronavigational data on this sector. Please respond.

"This is Captain Pellaeon. I am sending you data on this sector now. Are you sure you don't want our aid?"


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

Pallin was right in finding that Chandrila had a lot of ships. Despite the heavy loss at Bilbringi, and the loss of many sectors, the Republic Coreworlds were heavy fortified and had plenty of ships to defend them. Chandrila, with it being the homeworld of Mon Mothma, was no exception. A vast force of ships was in system, with several Golan III platforms defending the planet. As the communication burst hit the system, they instantly responded. They were not as many as the fleet attacking Bilbringi, but it was still significant. They began to gather at Chandrila, while their commander began to do long range scans in order to ascertain what was going on.

That was when they found the ship....and terror washed through the fleet. The massive ship drove fear into the crews and only through their discipline did they not fire at the ship. Fortunately, the message from the ship hit and they relaxed at the words of the ship, although not completely.

Attention domestic vessels, this is the Amazonian Dominion worldship W6, opening contact with government vessels in the vicinity.

A reply was soon sent, although the ships did not disperse. "Dominion Worldship W6, this is Fleet Commander Kaeris of the New Republic Fleet. I read you, and I agree to your opening contact with the New Republic. What do you want?"

OOC: Hate to do it but I have to withdraw due to time constraints.

Imperials…. Captain Bannon of the UTS Yorktown said ”Bloody fucking imperils…” he said this with a rather distasteful tone of voice, it reverberated throughout his ready room , his XO was sitting on a chair that was beside a large expensive looking couch, that was patterned with gold and platinum over a silky black cover.


Bannon looked over to his XO, he sighed as he sat down on his leather like chair swiveling it to look out to jump space, the golden hued rainbow of colors passing by through the holo window, his rage was almost uncontrollable when he heard the sensor reports uncovered imperial activity in the area, he folded his hands on his lap, his uniform pressed and crisp, the lights in his ornately decorated office dimmed , his eyes looked out watching the myriad of transparent colors pass him by, his mind was half melancholy and half enraged with the fire of his ancestors, he hated the imperials with all of his heart and would like nothing less for them to burn with their own demons of hate.

He spoke again his voice tough and rather depressive he said to his Xo.. “Parker… it’s been a long time since you and I have seen action. With the sudden reemergence of these damned Imps , I doubt it will be long before we see it again, but we have been ordered to make contact with them, I don’t like it, every damned one of them should burn in hell for what they did.” He said this with a passion almost as if he was preaching, his voice rang out tough, angry his hands fisted as he moved over putting them on the desk as he looked at Commander Parkers form. His blue eyes focused, as he closed them slightly sighing out and opening them again, parker looking back with the same angry expression.


Bannon, nor parker were in any rush to make contact with this new faction, in fact they wished they could have been assigned duty in the Olympian civil war, alas though they were assigned here, and the only thing keeping Bannon from attempting to HD spike driver the Imp’s ships was his officers on the bridge. Bannon looked down at a paper thin computer that was glowing blue with new information he started to tap on it as parker got up, his hands pushing in to his uniform pocket, Parker was dashing, he five foot ten, black hair blue eyes a slight tan, he was well groomed, young. He looked down awaiting Bannon’s orders, the older captain looked up at parker with a sigh saying in a melancholy voice.


“The Destroyer’s San Antonio and Excelsior will join us shortly in void space; we have been ordered to keep our guns cool until they push us to far or if they push us to far... “


The cruisers hull was immersed in this transparent angelic golden hue, a stream of colors flowing behind as it moved in between the void of universes, its body pushing forth like a flaming sword, its ominous form almost godlike as the colors reached like a phoenix’s flames across and behind it. They were on half speed, starting to speed up a bit more, the cruiser rushing forth lunging faster now. Bannon stepped on to his bridge, parker behind they both wandered over and sat down looking out in to the lifeless pitch black void only illuminated by the angelic glow of the two destroyers phase bubbles, that were used with freeman stabilizers in order to keep the ships together in this matterless void. .


Bannon again clenched his fists placing them on the armrests of his black sleek chair. The Crew knew they were going to meet Imperials, moral was not an issue, but anger was, after what happened to the federations previous home world under the UCA, they wanted what Bannon did, death of the imp scum, retribution and revenge the hate of them has been festering for so many years, and to think on their border the threat loomed once again.



They would not have this, and they knew the UTF Would not either, they would meet these imperials, and see what they are like, and then warn them that if they should ever cross federation borders, billions of their citizens would die by any means necessary. The crew worked around, carrying paper thin computers in their hands tapping on them as they moved forth carrying out the ships duties, it was quiet around the York town, and the two escorts were no different, an ominous silence nearly unbroken save for the few blips of sensors, and the AI’s announcement of ETA every few moments.

The ships slowed down as they opened a crackling blue vortex in to normal space just above all the activity the flame like hue dissipated slowly as the ships rumbled ominously over most vessels in the area , the cruisers look was imposing, deadly looking, its rough hull glimmered gently form the sun light in the system.

Bannon had a flash back, he saw the holo news the explosion of terran prime rang through his tormented soul over and over again he clutched his fists, playing the same image Over and over again, he could recall his father crying as his sister and mother died In the attack, his own emotions welling up. He came back to reality, shaking his flash back off, as his ships engines rumbled the noise reverberating around the bridge he stood up the noise pulling him back in to reality. The ship was moving several AU in to the system towards the ships before stopping. After the event the entire country vowed never again, never again will a filthy imperial bastard set foot on their countries soil without paying in blood for the things they have done. It would be a cold day in hell before he would let his emotions run him, making mistakes could lead the nation in to a costly war he told himself, the logical side of his brain and AI speaking to him.

Parker meanwhile stood as the ship neared the coordinates, and navpoint the AI had set, he had lost his brother and mother in the attack as well, he was not as angered as bannon, he kept a cool and calm head before him, as he crossed his arms around his body, his form shimmering gently In the utilitarian light of the decorated bridge.

Bannon stood up, he held back his temper just as the crew did, and he threw a hand up and said “Open a frequency!” his voice rang out harshly through the bridge, his ship could now be heard by everyone as Bannon started to speak.

“This is Captain Bannon of the United Terran Ship Yorktown we have come here to make contact with you, and establish a mode of communications”

Bannon the crew and Parker himself knew all of this was a rouse just to get a feel for what these things, that they considered really are, standard, enlightened or demonic. Feelings ran high amongst the crew they tapped continuously on their console awaiting a reply, they knew other ships were in the area as well, ships that were unknown to them, different species maybe. The Yorktown’s shields were up, her escorts raised their shields as well, but weapons remained unpowered.

They would be ready for anything if need be they would be ready to fight their way out of anything possible….

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d110/USFU/Closeup.jpg) (Warrington class cruiser)
(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d110/USFU/UTSExcelsior.jpg) (Excelsior class cruiser)

As the Terran ships appeared in Imperial space, they set off another entry alarm, and Pellaeon sighed in annoyance. Even Thrawn closed his eyes for a moment, banishing the annoyance at the arrival from his mind. "Take care of that, Captain. If it requires my presence, feel free to call me over." Pellaeon nodded, though he didn't intend to do so. This was something below the Grand Admiral's rank and attention. As he walked to the console, however, he paused when he felt S'karris's hand on his arm.

"Be careful, Captain. I sense much anger in those ships. It is burning fiercely, and borne of some great tragedy. And all of it is directed at us."

Pellaeon looked at him, shocked. "Why would that happen? We haven't even met these people."

S'karris shook his head. "I know not. I ask that you be careful, Captain. I do not wish a battle here, and neither does the Grand Admiral."

Pellaeon nodded and went to the console, looking at the message coming in.

“This is Captain Bannon of the United Terran Ship Yorktown we have come here to make contact with you, and establish a mode of communications”

"Captain Bannon, this is Captain Pellaeon of the Star Destroyer Chimera. We hear you, and have established contact. What brings you to our space?"

Chandrila System

Blue biotic fluid flooded a neural pathway, running along the rear dorsal of the bridge of W6. Rather than having actual names like synthetic ships, biotic vessels simply were given a letter designation corresponding to their class - P for picket ship, F for frigate, C for battleship, B for behemoth, D for dreadnought, and W for worldship - followed by the numerical designation of when they were produced in order. For pickets, this could get very big. W6, on the other hand, was simply that - the sixth worldship designed by the Dominion, still in the younger thrawls of its life and growing.

The bridge was a motly place, lacking much of the glamour and command feeling of synthetic ships. W6's bridge, rather, was a brown hub of ganglia clusters and implanted synthetic nodes in an amalgamation of man and animal. Humans didn't really do the best on these ships, and the Dominion Navy tended to see more alien commanders on biotic vessels than on any of the synthetic ship classes. Turians like Pallin were virtually Humans - once former falconid avians, Turians were bipedal and generally resembled Humans in every facet externally except for their face and skin - but seemed much cooler and less likely to give in to emotion. Pallin was a classic example - a "by-the-book" commander, the former Executor of Turian Security on the avian race's homeworld, Pavalon, was a stringent leader and decisive commander. He commanded respect, but simultaneously felt little emotion - logic drove the Turian Admiral to the best conclusions for the best results.

Even Pallin's bridge crew was mostly alien - a far cry from the standard high officer cadre. Only two Humans - his nav officer and his hemlsman - were Humans. His first officer was the calm Sangheili; his tactical officer, a belligerent and testy Skrawl; his engineering officer a burly Krogan. It was a sort of diplomatic crew - one that represented Dominion interests fairly well on a fair basis. Strange, but these things happened.

Pallin was glad enough to having figured out the name of the government he had presumed to be around - the New Republic. Pallin had no idea what that meant, but it didn't seem all that bad. Turians had a bit of a different look at government than the autocratic and power-mad Sith did - Pavalon's planetary government was more of an aristocracy of sorts, but it worked out far more democratic than the ruling Imperial body from Necropolis Station did. A sort of "Republic" didn't offend him...though it might be something nice to hide from Lord Kressh's probing eyes.

"This is Executor Pallin of the Dominion Navy," the Turian Admiral replied into the audio comms, deciding for good times's sake to use his Turian designation rather than his Dominion rank. "We've come to investigate a military clash reported by our sensor probes at the asteroid fields of Bilbringi. Based on probes that have scouted out this system and several others before, we have reason to believe your forces are engaged in quelling a rebellion of sorts. Can we be correct to presume that?"

Pallin was cool, if somewhat flat, in his delivery: he didn't want to spark anything unneccessary, and if these people for some reason were hostile, he didn't want to give them anything too big to chew on. His ship seemed to hold a bit of a power advantage at the moment, but Pallin wasn't exactly looking to fight - if he wanted a battle, he'd have brought the entire Turian defense contingent. Or, a Dominion battlegroup. Whatever fit best.

* * * * *

Styx
Lemort System, Dominion Space

The rocky planetoid that marked the boundary of "safe" Dominion space was an aggressive place, the only spatial body stable enough in a system of dimensionally-blasted space to support life. The Lemort system, as it was, had some serious problems - space itself was twisted and wracked with damage extending into numerous dimensions, including hyperspace. Transit across the system was always neccessary by subspace means, which could take time. Though it had provided a boon for Dominion defense, it was a pain in every other area - one always had to be looking out for spatial disruptions or anomolies.

It was fitting that Styx, named like the ancient river of Hades, was just as dangerous and unstable as its system. Electricity blasted across its surface, a low pressure and gravity barely enough to hold down a light atmosphere to the planet. Even that was turbulent - massive "supercells" of plasma storms wracked the world, blasting death and destruction and uprooting native and non-native life. The life had evolved just as dangerous - massive stormbeasts, lumbering native predators, stalked the ground in isolation, barely ever making contact with one another for any purpose besides mating. Their prey, crystal mites, were less "mites" than meter-long, fat insects that fed off lichens that somehow survived in the horrendous climate.

It was for the facts of death and darkness that drew the Sith here in boons. The Styx Academy lay upon the world's dark surface, a massive facility that bore deep underground from an ominous surface entrance. Pools of electrified liquids of various sorts hung around the Academy, providing quick death to any stupid enough to wander around. The planet was a boon for archaeologists, looking for things to pick up from ancient Sith clans banished out this far by the light-sided orders of the Commonwealth and later Federation. Styx was an old world - speculated to be artificial, at that.

It was on this day that a certain archaeologist, Tarye Renault, was attempting to dig up a certain patch of buried tablets from the past - buried deep by an ancient order of the Sith here from back in the Polusian Commonwealth days. These things came up a lot; they didn't need more than one person armed with a blaster pistol for defense to repel roving stormbeasts. It was fairly boring work; digging up hard rock and hoping electricity bolts didn't blast from the sky. Shelter was for the weak.

Tarye was a fairly young scientist, new from the University at Rydoni. She was a more peaceful person from a world renown (or notorious, depending on who you talked to) throughout the Dominion for its liberalism and progressivism, a world untouched by pollution and covered in natural beauty. Its citizens were fair in physical and mental traits, products of a time gone past. Tarye didn't really belong in the Dominion, but she did love the past. Unfortunately, most places these days in archaeology were more interested in the Sith or the Progenitors who had supposedly sculpted the Shroud, not any sort of relic from enterprising alien cultures that would interest a person of free will.

Tarye considered her job somewhat menial. Much of the rest of her party was off unearthing something else, but as the youngest member - Tarye was only 23 - she had gotten stuck with this. Stupendous. She didn't even see any stupid inscripted plates, just a blip on her tricorder saying something was here. Oddly enough, something else was here, something that seemed burrowed deeper - something that seemed more interesting. She didn't know what it was, but it seemed much more interestng - it had an organic signature.

Perking up, Tarye activated her plasma drill, burrowing past a rock formation in the blackened dirt of Styx. Rocks were boring. Life wasn't. The drill flickered out suddenly on Tarye, the young woman somewhat confused. Generally, that didn't happen - plasma drills were tough devices, and hers had a fresh charge. Stooping over to reposition herself, she took a look at the device - frowning as a spark flitted from it. Electrical charge from the ground maybe? Something. A gutteral sound eminated from the ground, oddly - but Tarye ignored it. Probaly seismic activity - Styx had plenty of that.

A rock dipped up from the crater lip she had made and fell into the gap created by the drill. Tarye looked down, trying to figure it out, and went a bit deeper into the hole she had made. Something wasn't right. Was she on the verge of a new discovery? Potentially.

As she peered down, a hole appeared in the dirt at the crater base - its shaft leading down into darkness. It couldn't have been more than a few centimeters in diameter, but what did that? Tarye bent over for a closer look - and the ground seemed to give way.

Something shot out of the ground, grabbing her ankle. Tarye screamed, lurching back from fright and fear - a Human hand. Panic took over the young archaeologists as the hand didn't just sit there - it flexed on her ankle, gripping tighter. There was something alive. She screamed for help once more, grabbing her blaster pistol. She had maybe one shot, maybe. Taking aim, she directed the laser sight directly on the wrist of the disembodied hand - and fired a blue shot.

The hand lurched back into the hole, Tarye falling over as it pulled her over. She fell down onto her back, crying in slight pain as she landed on a rock. Whatever it was, it seemed to be gone - and she tried to get back up. Tarye never got the chance. From the ground, a slight glimmer of metal caught her eye - and a red shaft of light and energy shot up, slicing into her abdomen. The young archaeologist looked down in horror - the red blade of a lightsaber was gutting her before her very eyes, from the ground.

Tarye collapsed as an entire Human arm came from the ground, speckled black with ancient dirt. Its fingers probed the air - the fresh air of the present, not the past.

Thrawn smiled gently. "I doubt they will return to this system, good Joram. You see, in getting the ships for such an assault, they had to leave vast sectors of their space unguarded, space which is now under my control. They tried to dispute that and try to make the acquisition difficult, but they simply didn't have the resources to do so. They will not be attacking this place for some time. But, I thank you for your aid. If you wish to fight them and possible acquire some territory, I am sure we can work something out."

Thrawn was no fool; he'd rather have control over all the worlds, but he refused to give the Rebellion any time to regroup and fight back. He was glad to give up some portion of the Galaxy to ensure that. When the message from the Feazanthians came in, he nodded to Pellaeon, who went to respond.



"This is Captain Pellaeon. I am sending you data on this sector now. Are you sure you don't want our aid?"


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

Pallin was right in finding that Chandrila had a lot of ships. Despite the heavy loss at Bilbringi, and the loss of many sectors, the Republic Coreworlds were heavy fortified and had plenty of ships to defend them. Chandrila, with it being the homeworld of Mon Mothma, was no exception. A vast force of ships was in system, with several Golan III platforms defending the planet. As the communication burst hit the system, they instantly responded. They were not as many as the fleet attacking Bilbringi, but it was still significant. They began to gather at Chandrila, while their commander began to do long range scans in order to ascertain what was going on.

That was when they found the ship....and terror washed through the fleet. The massive ship drove fear into the crews and only through their discipline did they not fire at the ship. Fortunately, the message from the ship hit and they relaxed at the words of the ship, although not completely.



A reply was soon sent, although the ships did not disperse. "Dominion Worldship W6, this is Fleet Commander Kaeris of the New Republic Fleet. I read you, and I agree to your opening contact with the New Republic. What do you want?"

<I will trust the Ascendants that your cause is just Admiral, however, we have but a thousand and slightly more in starships, and no more than 60 are a battleship or larger. Our main strength is in cruisers. The fleet you see here is a 3-2 ratio, and one of these ships is technically a planetary assault platform. Our offensive capability is predicated almost entirely on the speed and high firepower of our escorts, rather than the toughness of our capitol ships. They are what you might consider to be siege weapons, nearly unstoppable when unleashed, but not numerous enough to make a real difference I am afraid. We can aid you in taking some heavily defended planets if needed. As long as you are not put off by a "fleet" of no more than 30 ships being your supporting element.>

Yet another pair of probes shot from the carrier, heading for the newest emergence, getting as much data as possible about every ship they encountered. The terrans were just another on a list of ships to be watched while they spoke with their new friends.

"Play the transmission again," said the voice.

"This is Captain Pellaeon. I am sending you data on this sector now. Are you sure you don't want our aid?"

"You see?" chimed the voice again. "They offer their aid freely! We cannot pass up this opportunity."

"Be silent, Anamehej," cautioned Elson. "It is not the policy of Kiith Manaan, nor this fleet, to disobey direct orders from the Daiamid."

The holographic face of a young woman, her hair closely cropped but with bangs hanging just above her eyeline, scowled at Elson Manaan.

"With all due respect, my phia. The Daiamid, nor the Praetor, are out here. The simple fact is this - without the materials we need, we cannot complete repairs to our eff-tee-ell drives. Without every Shaw-Fujikaw drive in the fleet operational, we cannot complete the journey to Dominion-controlled space in a single jump."

"I must agree with the anamehej," said the elder jak'phi of the Morokweng's head. "Initial scans of the surrounding area suggest that this system lacks the naturally occurring resources we need to complete repairs. These 'Imperials' surely have a resupply base nearby, and long range scans show signs of orbital infrastructure further towards the system's core." A pair of jefet'ne nodded in agreement.

"And what would we offer them in exchange, hmm?" queried the holographic jak'phi of the Shah Jehan, one of the three Majiirian battleships currently floating between the Purifying Flame and the other fleets in the system. "Surely you do not expect these Imperials to simply give us what we need? They will want something in exchange. They will want our technology. And then what? Before you know it, we will have another Collective on our hands!"

"Surely you are not comparing obviously civilized beings to the Collective?" sneered the anamehej, her disdain showing clearly on her face.

"But that is the entire point of the Cole Protocol, is it not? To prevent less developed species from gaining access to technology they cannot control."

"We do not know enough about the Imperials," sighed Elson, rubbing his temples. "Information is always an ally in battle, and we have precious little of it in this situation. I will contact the Imperial liaison and pose a request for their aid. They will not, I repeat, will not come anywhere near our vessels unless I deem it necessary for the continued existence of this fleet and the well-being of the Dominion. Is this clear?"

There was a momentary pause, and the gathered heads nodded and said in unison: "Yes, my phia." Then, one by one, they winked out - their owners returning to the duties of their own vessels. Elson sighed once more and returned his consciousness to the Flame's holotank. Slowly, reluctantly, he opened another channel to the Imperial command ship and, from what he understood, their commanding officer.

This is Purifying Flame Actual to Imperial liaison Pellaeon. Upon further analysis of our situation, our initial assessment was in error. We are unable to re-establish contact with our superiors, and we are in dire need of raw materials with which to complete repairs to our vessels. We humbly request your aid.

Chandrila

"This is Executor Pallin of the Dominion Navy. We've come to investigate a military clash reported by our sensor probes at the asteroid fields of Bilbringi. Based on probes that have scouted out this system and several others before, we have reason to believe your forces are engaged in quelling a rebellion of sorts. Can we be correct to presume that?"


The commander of the fleet at Chandrila was surprised to hear another nation from out of their galaxy had been watching their war, but then proceeded to begin replying. After all, they could get a new ally in the fight against the Empire. "Greetings Executor Pallin, I am Vice Admiral Kalri of the New Republic Navy. You detected a battle between ourselves and the remnants of the Galactic Empire. I am sending you the full history on what brought us to this point, but to summarize, a Republic was suborned by an evil dictator, who created the Galactic Empire. We rose up in rebellion, and managed to push them back. We have been battling their remnant ever since. The recent return of one of their Grand Admirals has seen the front intensify, and we have suffered our first major loss of some time. So, in a way, we are fighting a rebellion of sorts."


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

Thrawn nodded at Joram. "I am never put off by more ships, Joram, especially considering the rebuilding state of the Empire. I will be glad to have your ships on my side, if you wish to aid me in reestablishing order against these anarchistic rebels. Besides, the Rebels are stretched thin; they could not withstand a fleet of your size and strength unless you chose to attack Coruscant or one of the Core Worlds. And that endeavor will only begin once I have rebuilt the Imperial Navy."

He clasped his hands behind his back and nodded to the Setian. "Now, is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"

As Thrawn continued to speak with Joram, Pellaeon intercepted the message coming from the Feazanthians.

This is Purifying Flame Actual to Imperial liaison Pellaeon. Upon further analysis of our situation, our initial assessment was in error. We are unable to re-establish contact with our superiors, and we are in dire need of raw materials with which to complete repairs to our vessels. We humbly request your aid.

"This is Captain Pellaeon. I can fulfill that wish. Send me a list of what you need, and I am sure we can get most of what we need from the shipyards. I will await your reply. Pellaeon out."

Pallin and 'Sadamee shared looks of amusement as Kalri talked about an "evil Emperor." Guess it wouldn't be the best thing to discuss the history of the Dominion, a civilization just deposed of an inefficient democratic system in favor of a strong, centralized, secular Imperial government. The Federation, for instance, would have never built the worldship - a vessel that really couldn't do anything besides killing and conquering, both of which it did extremely well. The Dominion, on the other hand, wanted just that. To the two commanding officers, both of two species that preferred efficiency and getting the job done, the Dominion epitomized a significantly more successful system, political freedoms be damned.

Pallin had a way with words, however, so that he could hide the secrets of the Amazonians from first contact - and not provoke a shooting war accidently from some trigger-happy officer cadet. He didn't feel like destroying everything on the first date.

"The Dominion is a centralized conglomerate of sentient species in a dwarf spiral galaxy orbiting this one," Pallin replied to the Republic's statements, making the first part truthful...but not telling the entire story. "We're a technologically advanced regional power inhabiting one of the galactic spiral arms, inhabiting a 282-sector region of space for the past four thousand standard years. We've made numerous incursions into this and surrounding star fields, though we haven't found possible ways of breaking through dark space between distant galaxies."

Not wanting to get into any of the happy details and looking to push attention back to the current state of affairs, Pallin went back on the diplomatic offensive. As he glanced over a few points that W6's command AI, Ashela, had stuck out, he quickly made sure to punch a command for the intelligence system to transfer a copy of the history back to Imperial Command - no doubt Lord Ragnos would want to see that.

"Your history reports of your new government being somewhat established," Pallin commented, letting his eyes fall to his implanted computer console, mounted on a portruding mound of brown flesh sculpted somewhat like standard synthetic console boards. "I'm assuming general control of your galactic order is in your civilization's hands?"

The Turian admiral had let his tongue slip slightly there with the use of "order." The historical report had one thing definately noted by Ashela - the "Jedi Order" of the past Republic government. The Force was obviously something well known in the Dominion, what with the Sith having ultimate control of the civilization. Indeed, a sect of Jedi themselves - maybe shot off from these original bunch? - had been of high standing with the old Federation government. They were seen now in the Dominion as bringers of destruction and atrophy, general wrongdoers who reeked of ill-fated choices.

That was something worth looking in to.

* * * * *

Styx

The Styx Academy was fairly quiet at 4900 hours local time - just about at the end of the 52-hour day of the rocky, violent planetoid. The night sky revealed the light, electric atmosphere of grey and black but a veil to a backdrop of faint stars and orbiting debris and self-replicating mines - part of the Lemort defense grid. The night sky of the planet was a depressing sight, a perfect analogy to the Academy.

The Styx Academy wasn't so much an institute of higher learning, but a training locale and proving ground for aspiring Sith of strong Force potential. Easily within range of one of the largest stormbeast nesting colonies on Styx and, like the rest of the planet, bombarded by electric spears from the sky, the Academy was a place for only the strongest of resolves. Apart from the clear feeling of despair and doom draped around the planet's surface seeping through the Academy's corridors, sunk deep into the rocky ground, a certain feeling of...death...permeated the very air. Unnatural; an artificial darkness that criss-crossed the system seemingly at its focal point on the dangerous world.

Kesval Isca was a simple engineer at the Academy, not a Sith student - the Academy had to have workers, after all, to keep it running. That wasn't part of the teaching regimen. He had tried to shut out the voices of a tortured soul coming from one of the holographic decks earlier in the day - likely a member of the small but persevering groupof separatists currently unknown in location who had survived from the Federation days and fled rather than being executed. Occasionaly one or a few were found...and generally used for fun. The sound of the electricity flowing from an Adept's fingers into flesh and muscle had violated his thoughts throughout the day.

The corridors where Isca was were quiet this time of night, most of the Sith recruits off either sleeping, meditating, or sitting in their quarters doing something. When the sound of a footstep - sounding akwardly placed - resoundde from somewhere behing him, Isca jerked on reaction. There shouldn't have been someone down here at this time...potentially one of the trainers or Sith teachers.

"Is that you, Fe'in?" Isca called out. Fe'in was one of the teachers who, besides being a strong Force user, had made fairly good aquaintances with some of the normal workers.

No voice called back out, however - stillness met his call. Isca turned back to his work - repairing a burnt-out row of paralithium cells that powered one of the holomatrices. A plink of metal sounded behind him, drawing a bead of sweat off of Isca's neck. He turned, looking around - there had to be someone there. The engineer removed a laser pistol from his utility belt - every employee was armed in case of a rogue. Looking around, Isca turned down a nearby corridor, his eyes glancing off of every wall and object. Everything was in its place, seemingly at first. Isca's eagle eyes, however, finally spotted something - someone had knocked over a canister of spare fusion coils.

Isca looked around, hunching down to examine the container. It seemed like an accident - was someone snooping around or something? Isca had doubts running through his racing heart.

As if a falcon coming down on its prey, a vice-like grip of ice clenched on his neck. The grip was immense, coming all the way around the man's thick connection between his head and torso - and it didn't feel like skin. Rather, it seemed of a sort of metallic substance, but running freezing cold with something unnatural. Isca writhed in its grip, making gasping noises. Whatever or whoever it was, he had virtually no chance now - helpless.

"Face me, coward," echoed a voice that didn't sound like an organic being. At first, the hand moved Isca's point of view towards an object on the ground that at first the engineer couldn't recognize. "See my anger."

Isca would have reeled in horror if he was free after recognizing it - it was Fe'in, the instructer he had called out for. The strong Sith teacher was dead on the ground - a cauterized hole gutting straight through the Human's abdomen. His double lightsaber handle lay in two pieces off to the side, sheered right through by something of energy - now no longer a powerful weapon activator capable of bringing up a shaft of destructive energy, but simply two chunks of metal.

The hand turned again, forcing Isca to view his captor. No face met Isca's eyes, and at first he thought it could be Lord Nihilis of the Council - until he looked at the patterns of the death mask of the attacker. No white-and-black tribal pattern like of Lord Nihilis's face adorned this one - rather, Isca was met simply with a black artificial face of a rocky-looking synthfiber. It looked as if death was staring the engineer straight in the face.

"Tell me...," the mask hissed at Isca, "who rules now?"

"Th-The Imperial Council, your Honor," Isca said, stammering with every word.

"Indeed? And who might that be?"

"Lord Ragnos-"

"I see...it is as I thought."

The masked man seemed to turn for something, than lunged forward at Isca, an energy sound emitting. Isca felt little, wondering what had happened - until he turned his eyes downward. A red lightsaber portruded through his stomach, its red blade ending in his abdomen and likely portruding out the back. It had cauterized his nerves - Isca felt nothing as his nerves were frayed, dead, burned. The engineer seemingly gave in, feeling exhaused more than anything as he looked back up at the masked individual, who removed the saber and dropped the engineer. Isca saw a dark tunnel of sorts emerging before him, his vision skewing as he took one last look up at the individual before passing to darkness.

The Zaku III's mono eye moved on its rails at a leisurely, lighting up the otherwise quite dark surroundings of the Mobile Suit (not to mention the machine itself) up. Although, due to the darkness which is the void of space, one only saw the light on the machine. While doing so, the Zaku III remained almost stationary while in space.

While doing so, the entire 360 degree screen of the Mobile Suit was suddenly filled with target data. Although the machine had only one eye, the targets were shown with with depth as well, as the mono-eye system was not quite as limiting as one might think. As for what was going on the screen, an untrained eye wouldn't really know what he'd be looking at, as there was just too much data to process. Of which most was useless, no less.

Until, that is, the machine had filtered most of the interference (asteroids, debirs and the sorts) out with the aid of the pilot. Normally the Suit would have done that in an instant on its own, but it had its limits - the unidentified vessels and their ilk in the system required constant updates, or the targeting computers wouldn't recognize the vessels as, well, vessels, but rather interference. And that's not a good thing - if any of them ended up being hostile, the Mobile Suit's sensors (not to mention the aiming sensors of the weapons) would have a lot of trouble.

At least they wouldn't have to do it again later. The data can be added to other Mobile Suits later, that is, if these survive this unscheduled visit, so it wasn't that bad.

"We have visual," stated one of the two Zaku III pilots. They could now see the probes coming in for the small group of ships.

"Orders, Sir?"

They were from the Iserlohn, so they naturally received their orders from the captain of the said vessel.

"We don't know who sent them and what they're up to. We don't wanna start a war, but intrusive scans are unacceptable as well. If they try to scan us, blind 'em. If they just sit there and monitor us, leave 'em be."

"Will do, Sir," replied the other Zaku III pilot as the two took positions to best observe the said probes.

--

On the bridge of Iserlohn, refurbished Gwazine class vessel, 42nd Evaluation Unit

The captain scratched his chin in thought as he listened to the newest transmission and contemplated the probes. Were the probes theirs, or... Some third party's? He would probably have to ask that at some point. After a few minutes, he lowered his hand back onto the armrest and sighed. Too many things to think about right now.

"So either we've managed to really go off course, or these guys just call their part of the galaxy THE galaxy," he said, quite outloud, looking in the general direction of the comms officer.

"Yes, Sir," replied the comms officer whom had also heard the same transmission, so she knew what he was talking about better than the others to begin with.

"They rule this place and they're experiencing a civil war... Doesn't explain who they are, though. But I guess that's better than the nothing we knew before."

She nodded.

"But they're quick to offer aid. That's sort of nice, although I don't know what good they could do in such short notice. We've never seen 'em so it's likely that they have no experience with our kinds of ships either. It'd take them a good while to repair the damage..."

She nodded. Again.

"But we could use a place to do the repairs ourselves... I wonder if they'd let us dock somewhere so we'd get a better look."

"Sir, are you seriously going to...?"

"Yep. I'm gonna ask them. Can't hurt anyway. We've been on these ships for quite a while now, and I'm not going to pass a chance to see something none of us has ever seen before. This is a first contact situation!"

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON - EVALUATION UNIT #42 - ISERLOHN

While I do appreciate your offer, I think it would take longer to repair our
vessels for you than it does for us. Our technology could be incompatible to
yours in unseen ways, and at the very least it is likely that it would take you
a good while to figure out everything you'd need to administer the repairs.
And while we would be happy to wait, our superiors wouldn't.

However, we could use a place where we could dock for a while as our
technicians continue their work, if there is anything you would feel
comfortable letting us dock at in this system.

Debiel out.

Eyebrows raised across the fleet.

This is Captain Pellaeon. I can fulfill that wish. Send me a list of what you need, and I am sure we can get most of what we need from the shipyards. I will await your reply. Pellaeon out.

Elson Manaan stroked his chin - a vestigal habit from his academy days when he had adorned a beard - as he ran the message through the translator a few more times, just to be sure.

They were offering their aid freely? This was unheard of! It had to be a trap, there was no other explanation.

And yet...

"Skeelan, I want a detailed list of all the components we need to make the jump to Coruc-Tel, along with their precise chemical makeup."

"Yes, my phia."

Carbon was at a premium, of course. Nearly everything on the ship was made from carbon in some form or another. Deuterium was also paramount - without fuel, the ships could not move. Silicone for heat insulation and the construction of SICA armor, helium for coolant...yes, surely they would have these in abundance. The problem was the amount in which these materials were required. Hell, it was almost enough to build a destroyer! Then again, this was for the repair of two battlegroups and the Purifying Flame herself.

The list was compiled, and sent to Pellaeon. He could do nothing but wait now.

((Harro?))

(OOC: You took the words right outta my mouth with that one. I think my attempted presence kills threads dead.)

OOC: Sorry, I was gone a lot this week.

IC:

@AB:

Kalri listened carefully to the words of Pallin as he explained what the Dominon was and how it worked. This was rather interesting; it would appear several races, all he imagined that were not part of this galaxy, had combined to form a Dominion under one banner. How interesting. When the Executor asked about his government, he nodded as his face went a little tight. "Yes, that is about right, Executor. The Empire is but a shadow of what it once was, and it can only delay the inevitable. We have been trying to speed up that process, but always some new commander, weapon, or outside threat appears that sets us off-track majorly. It has been a pain in the butt, and I'm frankly tired of war. But, I'd rather fight a war for an eternity under the New Republic, than go back to how the Empire was."



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

Pellaeon decided to stay by the console instead of walking back to Thrawn's side. He had a feeling that he was going to be needed soon. And as the console beeped, he felt a little prophetic as he pressed the button to display the message.

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON - EVALUATION UNIT #42 - ISERLOHN

While I do appreciate your offer, I think it would take longer to repair our
vessels for you than it does for us. Our technology could be incompatible to
yours in unseen ways, and at the very least it is likely that it would take you
a good while to figure out everything you'd need to administer the repairs.
And while we would be happy to wait, our superiors wouldn't.

However, we could use a place where we could dock for a while as our
technicians continue their work, if there is anything you would feel
comfortable letting us dock at in this system.

Debiel out.

He pressed a button that reopened the channel between them, and began to speak. "I understand. I have been given the authority by the Grand Admiral to give you some docking space for you and your ships. I am sending coordinates of the docks now. You'll need to go through the entrance where our ships are; do not worry about that, we are clearing a route for you to enter as we speak." He turned from that to received the Feazanthian list of supplies. After calling it up and giving it a quick glance over, he sent out a furious barrage of orders and requests, some to nearby systems. He would have to wait as well, for the necessary amounts would take about two days at the most to come in. It was a long time, but they didn't have much choice.

Purifying Flame, this is Captain Pellaeon. I have the supplies you need, but it will be about two days before they are all here in the amounts that you require. I wish it was sooner, but with a war on, things are rather hectic at the moment."

On the bridge of Iserlohn, refurbished Gwazine class vessel, 42nd Evaluation Unit

As he listened to the transmission, the captain grinned at the comms officer. When it ended, he leaned towards her.

"See? It's not a problem."

The said officer rolled her eyes.

"We still don't know if it's really safe, Sir..."

The captain nodded slightly before responding to that.

"You're right. But I'm sure it's safer there than here."

"Whatever you say, Sir..."

The captain sneered with a bit of amusement at her response. As he did that, he changed his position, resting his back against the back of his seat again.

PRINCIPALITY OF ZEON - EVALUATION UNIT #42 - ISERLOHN

Thank you for your understanding. We have received the coordinates and will
go to the designated docking area. If there is anything else we would need to
know to make this run as smoothly as possible, feel free to tell us. And of
course, if there is anything you might need to know for the same reason, feel
free to ask.

And so, the small group of ships began to travel towards the coordinates they had been given at full speed, heeding the instructions on the suggested flight path as to avoid any needless damage to both their hosts and their own vessels.

Pallin took Kalri's statement sincerely. He didn't have any of the prejudice the Dominion usually kept around in the back of its mind - he was a Turian first, a member of the Dominion second. A species proud of its heritage, and a democratic one, at that.

"It would seem, commander, that you need a small push to get your forces over the summit," Pallin responded evenly. "Not to sound prideful, but I am perfectly willing to help a stable and well-intentioned government in its darker days, and I am perfectly sure my government intends the same. For brevity's sake, the Dominion would be willing to help in your endeavor. Obviously, our price isn't free - we are a secular organization, after all, that knows little of the area. What we'd need back would be information on the area - through breaching the galactic barrier into our parent galaxy, we've found untold opportunities for exploration. Seeing how badly some of our previous attempts have gone, knowledge is lives in the cource of exploring."

Understood, Imperial Liason Pellaeon. We will be conducting surveys in this system in an effort to further integrate the data provided to us with our own astronavigation charts. Kiith Manaan and the Feazanthian Dominion thank you for your hospitality, and hope that this will lead to favorable negotiations between our two peoples. Purifying Flame, out.

The Flame had finally managed to put out the fires that had nearly gutted several modules, and now began to open her vertical hangar bays. Four wings of HSF-25B Avenger superiority fighters screamed out on jets of white-blue flame, taking up a combat air patrol around the fleet. LSF-18D Acolytes, rigged for reconnaisance rather than their original combat role, followed their larger and better-armed brethren and began accelerating through the asteroid fields in pairs with their high-powered sensor suites going at full blast. This was odd for the Acolyte-Ds; at full power, their Sponson SkyEye Mk.II arrays were capable of boiling the paint off of unshielded vessels at four thousand klicks. As they did this, the fleet stepped down to Condition Two and began to break combat formation. Workbees, their yellow paint clashing with the cold metalic grey of warship-grade aggregated diamond nanorod armor, began latching on to nearby asteroids and breaking them down with their fusion torches. The resulting raw material was then transferred back to the Flame or one of the three Praetor-class supercarriers deployed with the fleet.

As more and more tactical data came in about the Imperial fleet - now being supplemented by the Acolyte wings - Elson Manaan began to make connections. FleetCom had been finding the wreckage of strange, triangular vessels throughout the portion of the Milky Way in which they had been exploring. From this wreckage, several exciting and fascinating new technologies had been gleaned. Stripped weapon systems, for instance, had allowed Dominion scientists to refine the plasma manipulation tech of their own weapons and turned what was once a fighter-mounted oddity into a full-grade capital-class ship-to-ship armament.

These warships the Imperials used had an uncanny resemblance to the alien wreckage. Had they, in fact, been salvaging former Imperial vessels that had fallen victim to the war Pellaeon spoke of? Could, perhaps, the initial technological assessment of the Imperials have been in error?

Skeelan began sending a flurry of messages between the A.I.s of the task force, as if reading Elson's mind. Data from the A.I. trickled into Elson's neural lace; apparently the construct had come to the same conclusion he had.

If the wreckage was indeed Imperial, then Kiith Manaan had just stumbled upon the technological equivalent of a gold mine.

((For great justice))

The Zeon vessels would be escorted through the debris field that was now floating in front of the shipyards. Shattered hulks of both Imperial and Rebel ships littered the pathway to the shipyard, with bits of carbon-scored debris spinning out this way and that. As they made their way along the path that had been cleared, several Imperial ships aided them into getting to the shipyards, drawing into an escort formation. Lancer-class frigates, Acclamator-cruisers, and even some dreadnaughts gathered around the Zeon ships. They occasionally fired at a large piece of debris, ensuring that it did not hit their own ships or the convoy that they were protecting. After a harrowing series of minutes, the ships were given entry to the shipyard, and their escort peeled off to return to their former posts.

The shipyard control acknowledged their presence, and sent them coordinates to the docking bays. When they approached them, and began to enter the bays, TIE squadrons would be deployed to guard them, ensuring that if any Rebel forces remained, they would be protected against them.

When the Feazanthian message arrived, Pellaeon was quick to answer. He was basically married to this console, for the moment. "Understood, Purifying Flame. Contact us if you need anything. Pellaeon out." Pellaeon then turned and noticed another message had arrived, but this was from High Command back at Bastion. What would they be sending a message for? It had to be a good reasons, else Thrawn would not be pleased with their wasting comm space and possibly revealing Bastion to the enemy......

"Hotdog, Halberd. You seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Copy that, Halberd. By Sajuuk these fuckers are big."

"Flame, Halberd. You guys seeing this?"

"Confirmed, Halberd," said Skeelan's voice over the comm. "Can you get closer?"

"Not feelin' particuarly suicidal today, Flame. Mind givin' us some cover?"

"Copy that, Halberd," said the A.I. again. "Redirecting Maelstrom and Joker to cover your approach. Sigma-328 is en-route as well. Just remember, the Imperials have not yet been hostile to us. Do not give them reason to."

"Understood, Flame. Halberd, out."

A pair of HSF-25Bs broke away from the CAP and accelerated towards the two recons now identified as Hotdog and Halberd. The "big fuckers" alluded to in Hotdog's transmission were, in fact, the triangular battleships scattered throughout the Imperial fleet. As the pair of Avengers pulled up behind the Acolyte-Ds, the two recon fighters redirected their considerable scanning power towards the nearest of these warships.

"Geez...hull composition's not like anythin' I ever seen. The hell is that stuff?"

"Cut the chatter, Hotdog. We're close enough their grandma could hear us."

"Hey, speaking of which...I'm gettin' something here. Definately not one 'a ours. Sigma-328, you gettin this?"

The D77-EW Cormorant had just appeared from behind an asteroid. A variant of the D77 "Pelican" chasis, the Cormorant was equipped for electronic warfare and surveilance and, while it lacked the pure scanning power of the LSF-19D, it made up for it with the ability to support an entire squadron with targetting data while simultaneously blinding the enemy sensors...theoretically.

"This is Cormorant Sigma-328, callsign Beowulf. Receiving transmission of some sort on non-Dominion frequency. Just gibberish though. Can't make heads or tails of it."

"Beowulf, Maelstrom. Chances are they're spoofin ya. Did the same thing back at the academy with the Cormorant pilots. We aint out here to pick up Imperial practical jokes. Just pass it along to the Flame, maybe they'll get a laugh."

"Copy that, Maelstrom. Glad to know how you feel about Cormorant pilots. Oops, I seem to have lost your TacNet feed."

"Quit screwin' around, Three-Two-Eight."

"Eat me, Hotdog."

On the bridge of Iserlohn, refurbished Gwazine class vessel, 42nd Evaluation Unit

"Record everything!"

"You said that already ten minutes ago, Sir, I'm still doing my job," responded one of the officers on the bridge, whom happened to be the one in charge of this recording operation.

"Ah, sorry," said the captain and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, "We've never seen anything like this. I don't want to us to miss this opportunity."

The officer nodded.

It was quite true. The Principality had never run into this kind of... Empires, before. Not intentionally nor accidentally. The recordings would be great in helping them understand the military structure of this currently unknown people. It was noted that they used flimsy-looking fighters. Their warships were of a dfferent stock, but still.

A few minutes after the outburst of the captain they had been given the coordinates for the docking bays, and now... The ships had docked. The captain was waiting to exit the ship to watch it from the outside. A couple of guards were beside him. Several technicians were behind the three. As for the captain, he wanted to see if there was any obvious external damage, even if it was somewhat unlikely.

Not to mention that he wanted to check whether or not there would be some kind of delegation from the locals out there, just in case. Who knew what was customary with these people. They sure hadn't said anything about anyone being out there, but... He wasn't going to take any chances.

(OOC: Oh yeah, is the docking bay pressurized or not? What am I supposed to expect when the captain goes out of the ship? Is there gonna be people waiting? Or just randomly zipping around the bay?)

The fighters sent by the Flame were not disturbed in the least as the Grand Admiral, through Pellaeon, had ordered that they be left alone. In fact, that they should have their needs met in every way possible. So, the fighters were left to investigate the Imperial Star Destroyers in whatever fashion they chose. Of course, they wouldn't see anything many races were not used to; the triangular shape, the large guns, the powerful shields, and the large tower rising from the ship, and the immense engines. Of course, they wouldn't be able to get the vital schematics and technology of the ship due to the static-dampening devices which prevented such things, but they would get the basic info.

A couple of TIE fighter squadrons did shadow them, however, keeping an eye on them just in case. The Imperials were not so trusting so as to let them have free reign, and they did want to keep a tight lid on any hostile actions any side might be thinking. But, as they made their run and joked with each other, they were left unmolested.

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

OOC: It's pressurized, and a small welcome committee. A couple soldiers, the leader, and his aides.

IC: The ships were docked without hassle, and they were immediately set in place to prevent any sudden movements from damaging the dock and a umbilical was secured to their hulls. The captain exited his ship and made his way through the airlock to the station. The doors would hiss with some gas to ensure the air was stabilized and they could breathe, and then the doors opened.

Inside were two soldiers wearing imperious looking white armor and helmets, holding rifles, and they were flanking a balding man in a grey uniform. Beside him was a man in a black suit, holding a rectangular device. He held out a hand. "Greetings, I am Commander Dawkins, and I am the commander of this fine facility. What can I do for you?"

"Jump successful, sir. We will revert at coordinates in "

"Very good. Are the Deliverance and the Indomitable still in formation?"

"Yessir, both ships have maintained formation."

The Arazi class Warcruiser Arazi soared gracefully through the galactic swirls and eddies, acting as the point starship for two other, far larger starships, the Deliverance and Indomitable. At least, they were soaring gracefully, until...

"SIR! Unknown gravitational anomaly detected!" screamed the navigation officer, his four hands dancing over the control systems in front of him.

"Can we avoid?" replied the ship's Kal'Mar, Andreus Dentar, as he mentally scanned through the datastreams that were being fed into his station.

"Negative, evasion impossible! The Phase Field Harmonics are beginning to destabilize! By Kra'os, the Deliverance and Indomitable are caught in the destabilization!"

"Attempt an emergency re-harmonization!" screamed the Kal'Mar, before linking into the shipwide datafeed. "All Hands, brace for emergency re-harmonization! Prepare for possible emergency realspace reversion!"

----------------

Despite the hard work and efforts of the crewmen of the Arazi, the damage had been done. The presence of the gravitic anomaly had caused a cascade deharmonization, and, despite an hour of hard work, reversion was the only possible course of action.

"Navigation, cease your efforts. Harmonization is impossible."

"But Kal'Mar, we lack the resources to re-initiate the Phase Field! If we revert in deep space, what will we do?"

"There is naught we can do... but trust in Kar'os. Initiate the reversion," ordered Andreus.

"BUT SIR! The gravitic anomaly has already dissipated! I can-"

"I gave you an order, Kal'Shi! Revert the flotilla!"

Still muttering, the Navigator turned back to his station, and keyed in the commands to revert to realspace. "Reversion underway, Kal'Mar. May Kar'os guide us to safe skies..."

Seconds later, the Arazi shuddered slightly, and emerged from a patch of distorted space, with the Deliverance and Indomitable close behind. Standing up, Kal'Mar Andreus began giving orders instantly. "Sensors, scan for potential hostiles. We must ensure the safety of the flotilla."

"Sir, gravitic sensors indicate the presence of unknown starships in this system. We're reading several large battlegroups. No hostile movements thus far, but caution is advisable," called out the Tactical Officer.

"Raise defensive screens, polarise the hull plating and energise all weapons systems. Communications, prepare to send my message."

Kal'Mar Andreus Dentar je ya'kuv Arazi zi jukav'zi lukaz'vikar.
Yu Arazi ulvar ovik alvish.

Translation: Ship Commander Andreus Dentar of Warcruiser
Arazi to unidentified battlegroups. The Arazi Remnant sends greetings.

Seconds later, the transmission was sent. Meanwhile, the Indomitable released two hundred Seeker material harvesters, which immediately began to selectively collect and/or consume debris and mineral-rich meteorites.

The captain extended his hand as well and shook the man's hand, and whilst doing so, said, "Captain Debiel of the Zeon Space Forces."

They seemed human. Weird, considering how far they were from home. And they were speaking English. But the captain chose not to dwell on it. As they would have by now noticed, he was wearing a quite dark moth green uniform with a golden emblem on the chest, signifying his status as a captain of the Zeonic military. Two men stood on his sides in brownish uniforms with rifles in hand.

"There's nothing major wrong with the ships as far as I've been told, nothing we can't handle on our own. I'm guessing there'd be some... Incompatibility with your systems and ours, anyway. Your ships seem to be based on a rather different concept than ours," he said, glancing at the troopers in white armor. "I've told our mechanics to check the outer hulls and armor plating of our ships just in case now that we're indoors since now they won't need to worry about using normal suits. I hope that's alright."

For a moment, it seemed like he was going to quit talking for now, but then he continued as he remembered something.

"Oh yes, there was something I was requested to ask of you, if it's alright. Based on the amount of debris out there... Did something unusual happen here? As in, something else than just a battle? We had a massive FTL drive failure which forced us out of faster than light speed."

(OOC: Basically, the uniform of the captain would look something like this (visual aid! (http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~souji-m/UNIFORM/img/zeon/zeon2.jpg)), probably without the shoulder... Things.

Also, a visual aid (http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~souji-m/UNIFORM/img/zeon/zeon9.jpg) for the uniforms of the two soldiers.)