NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC- The Exoterran Imperium of Belkaros is the FT version of the MT Imperium of Belkaros. It incompasses one solar system with three colonized, inhabited planets, several space colonies, four artificial space land masses and about a dozen mining colonies. The tech used is from the Mobile Suit Gundam universe, as is the model for the solar system. As this is my first ever FT post, friends would be appreciated. Please don't feel the need to send a planet sized doomship to liquify my forces just yet. Do feel free to be the light described at the end.

Emperor Julius Mundus XIV sat in the cockpit of his Imperial Gerbera Tera. In front of him was the Exoterran Navy in all of its glory. Thousands of Mobile Suits, ships and fighters drifted in front of him, millions of eyes turned to him. He spoke through his comm link:
"People of Belkaros, today I stand before the might of our Empire, and I am filled with pride. In just over a century, we have mastered space, forged colonies and built homes. Our coffers grow heavy with the wealth of a solar system at our disposal. We--"
At that moment, something caught his eye. A glimmer of light, past the fleet and unlike anything he had ever seen. The Fleet scattered towards their world of origin and the patrol fleets took battle positions. An armed Explorator team was sent towards the light.

OOC-Bump for the night.

Whoever specifically "Murphy" had been in history, the law that he had set into precedent throughout the sands of time had a nasty habit of biting interstellar starships in the rear: What could go wrong very frequently did go wrong, especially when attempting to breach transdimensional barriers.

ADV Encroaching Shadow was a revamped and specially-fitted warship, formerly a Spartan-class battlecruiser of the sixth combined defense armada, stationed at Talasea. While a barrier into Fluidic Space - the matter-filled dimension that had been the only alternative dimension the Dominion had been able to enter successfully -had been made via a conduit rift without too much difficulty a half-century ago as the first successful Amazonian dimensional crossing, this attempt to breach yet another rift had gone awry.

It had all started with the pursuit of power, as so many pursuits went. The Imperial Council, led by the five lords of the Sith that directed the politics and the military force of the Amazonian Dominion were never suited with simply residing in the Shroud - the gaseous, virtually impenetrable nebula formation that formed the home of the Dominion in an interstellar "pocket." Expansion through normal space was fairly boring - no major power bordered the Dominion, and the Council never wanted to commit enough resources to carving out niches outside of the Shroud.

The answer came in delving into interdimensional realms. The pursuit into Fluidic Space had been highly successful thanks to the Dominion's ability to form quick alliances with the indigenous "space-faring" (if one could call the semi-liquid matter that comprised the dimension "space") species that bordered the two rifts cut into the dimension from the Shroud. With all the advances that had come in genetic modification and biological manipulation - leading to the Dominion leaping light-years ahead in the medical world, as well as in creating breeds of soldiers and creating life itself - logical thinking had claimed that similar advances, possibly in other fields, could come from breaching a similar barrier...successfully.

Success was hard to measure, and it was clear that this had not been a successful test. Outfitted with a "dimensional cutter" - a device meant to rip a transdimensional hole in subspace - Encroaching Shadow had instead managed to tear open a slipspace vortex. Slipspace was a type of faster-than-light travel that had been explored but ultimately rejected in favor of the safer and more efficient hyperspace travel, despite slipspace's much quicker transit. In this case, however, it had proved to be a bit of a curse - by ripping a hole into the sub-dimension, the Amazonian battlecruiser had instead generated a transit conduit that had pushed it across parsecs rather than across interdimensional barriers.

So it was that with a flash of blinding light that Captain Ernall Ingus - a Human - and the Encroaching Shadow blasted into a totally foreign system, unaccompanied, unaided, and completely lost.


* * * * *


"Status report!"

Red Alert klaxons went off as the shipboard Artificial Intelligence directed its subordinate Virtual Intelligences to carry out duties. The AI, officially assigned KAR-69282Z by central command, but dubbed "Karrie" by the crew, flashed into its visual avatar - a blue digital 3-D representation of a young human female with flowing hair and a tall stature - on one of the bridge's holoports.

"Navigation is currently down - a cluster was thrown off in the transit," Karrie responded before a member of the bridge crew could. "Besides that, several physical blows to the superstructure."

"Injuries reported amongst engineering," the bridge's personnel officer, a member of the tall reptilian race known as the Sangheili, replied. "Rerouting locations to medical bays."

"Hurry with that, 'Vestimee," Ingus ordered to his PO. "Weapons and shields?"

"Both active and ready to go!" Kallus, the Encroaching Shadow's tactical officer and a member of the burly reptilian race known as the Skrawl, replied. "What shall we destroy?"

"Nuthin' 'till we figure out what happened," Ingus mused. "Sensors?"

"Full passive, actives are charging," Typhus Mal, the sensor officer and a member of the stocky reptilian race known as the Krogan, responded. "Gimme two minutes for full actives."

"Get them. I need to know charts," Ingus commanded. For the situation he was in, the Captain was staying cool under pressure. "Any Dominion signatures?"

"Nope," Mal responded flatly. "We're stick in an interstellar toilet bowl."

Kallus gave a wierd look to that reply. "Toilet?"

"You wouldn't understand, you shit standing up," Mal cracked, trying to ease tension in making species-related jokes.

Kallus would have responded physically with any sort of stranger giving that reply, but the older Skrawl had shed some of the aggressiveness that typically defined his race in serving a long time with other races of the Dominion...and he knew that Mal, a young Krogan getting his first officer commission and bridge duty, had a penchant for stupid jokes.

"Let's try to get a bead on where we are," Ingus said, trying to refocus, "then we can have pleasantries."

The Encroaching Shadow went active with sensors, gravimetric waves shooting out to scan for gravitational presences while reflective sensors went out to detect any sign of ships or civilization. The ship was lost in space...and the ordeal had only just begun.

The Explorator's Drake class ship, the EIBS Serpent launched two Rick Dias suits and headed for the anomoly. Their energy and mass sensors went out of control as a ship appeared in front of them. A visual scan indicated some damage to the craft, but knowing nothing of the design, they could not be certain. As peace flares were fired into the space between the alien craft and the mobile suits, and a live video feed was established with Central Command as the suits approached the unknown ship.

"I got blips everywhere, Captain."

Mal's tone was almost close to hilarity rather than apprehension to the feedout from visual on his bridge console.

"Active blips?"

"Yes sir."

So there were other spacefarers out this far, wherever they were. Time to tread carefully.

"Captain, energy discharges from inbound signatures! Charging forward batteries!"

"Hold it!" Karrie's voice and avatar showed up again, stopping Kallus's activation of the forward-firing weapon systems. "They're not homing and aren't directed at us."

"Maybe a sort of greeting," Ingus mused, "Charge shields as it is and go to Yellow Alert. We don't want to get caught with our pants down."

Once again, Kallus was confused with the terminology and cliche.

Active shields went up on the Encroaching Shadow, a surrounding multi-layered band of energy to defend against weapons, stellar debris, radiation, and the like. In case the blips were not friendly, it'd be discovered soon and defended against.

The scanners, or what was left of them, jumped at the raising of the shields. The Rick Dias suits raised their physical shields mounted to their arms. They hailed the strange craft on as many radio channels as their suits would allow.
"Greetings. We mean you no harm. We are representatives of the Exoterran Imperium of Belkaros. Please respond."

"Who?"

Mal's voice cut a moment of silence on the bridge as the comm came in. Typical that he was the first to speak on the bridge.

"Analyze the message, Karrie," Ingus said abruptly. Where the hell were they and who were these people?

"It came in via radio waves," Karrie replied, sticking a digital hand on her hip - as best as an AI holo-avatar could do. "Slow. Inefficient - but hey, whatever works I guess."

Ingus nodded, shrugging off emotion. He was a fairly cold person anyway, and meeting new civilizations did little to bring about catharsis for the vet. "Anything background?"

"Nothing besides they frequenced it on virtually every frequency that radio can transmit."

Ingus wasn't surprised. The Dominion would often do something similar with their laser-band communication transmissions for short-range comms, or with hyper-band communications for distance communication to ensure that a message was at least picked up.

"Comm back, tight freq," Ingus commanded, eyes straight ahead.

"You're open, sir," Karrie replied back, keying up the comms by linking the hub directly to Ingus's command speaker.

"This is Captain Ernall Ingus of the Amazonian warship Encroaching Shadow," Ingus spoke clearly and solidly.

That was all he wanted to give up for the moment - better to let the other side probe and prod to find information than cleanly give it out. At least, that was Ingus's mantra.

The word warship sent shivers down the spines of the pilots. Their suits seemed dwarfed by the craft, and such a small party would not survive an aggressive encounter for long. Mustering his courage, the team leader spoke "Greetings, Captain Ingus. May I ask what your intentions are in Belkan Space? I can guide you to the nearest port if your intentions are benevolent."
The entire system was bracing for the worst, though at the same time, preperations were being made at Side 12 to recieve visitors, everyone hoping the captain's reply would not be gunfire.

At that moment, a huge ship appeared out of nothing, well, it certainly looked like it had just appeared out of nothing, but the truth was, that the ship was so dark it was expertly camouflaged against space that it was almost impossible to see it. It was here because it was making it's way to it's home planet; Terra, to dispose of the evil crew it held in it's inside.

When the Rick Dias Suits sent out their transmission, they had no idea another ship was nearby, and when the ship recieved it's transmissions, it instantly stopped in space and swung itself towards the ship and the suits around it.
"Attention space vessels, move away now I repeat move away." The transmission was sent to the two vessels with the highest urgency "This vessel has imprisoned Psykers in his holds, move away."

The situation had gone from bad to worse, and the Explorators were at a loss as to what to do. The first ship seemed in need of some kind of aid, yet this second demanded they clear a path. The team had no idea what a psycher was, or how it could be dangerous through the void of space, but they did know that a ship that large with no malicious intent towards them should probably be listened to, so they moved a few kilometers out of the ships way.
"This is Explorator Unit Twelve, to the unknown craft. We will comply with your order."