NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: As the title suggests, this is both my own attempt at an FT nation for NS, and does not share any direct correlation to my MT nation that will continue on as they are; also as the title states, this is a semi-closed RP, if you wish entry please TG myself or see my FT OOC Thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=554761). I would also request that any comments or questions go there as well, please do not put any purely OOC messages here.

Captain Alexei Vyshinsky’s black boots clicked slightly on the grey deck as he walked casually down the long corridor towards the primary command center of his ship, the KIN Redeemer; a Kilrany Athena class exploration vessel. Like most Kilrany Imperial Navy officers, he wore a black uniform that was a throw back to the days of Kilrany ocean-going warships. A simple design, the only thing missing from the ensemble was the hat, as these typically were only seen when wearing one’s dress uniform.

As per standard procedure with all on-duty personnel, he wore a sleek looking darkly coloured Disruptor pistol in a black holster on his right side, which was; contrary to the rather common Russkyan joke that regarded them lightheartedly as ‘toy guns’, built to be rather sturdy, being comparable in durability to the older projectile sidearms they were designed to replace. On his left side was a black sheath containing the standard issue Kilrany combat knife, which was a rather simple blade in appearance.

Despite the fact that the Athena was an exploration class vessel and lightly armed for its size by KIN standards, he was proud to have command of the Redeemer; even if deep down he might continue to dream of commanding a Havoc or Ares class battleship, the KIN Redeemer was still his ship.

He passed several crewmen walking in the other direction, one was dressed in their standard black uniform, similar to his own officer’s uniform, but it had several subtle differences that distinguished it from his. The second crewmen wore navy blue coveralls, indicating that he was most likely an on duty engineer, or quite possibly one who had just come off duty, in either case both crewman were armed identically to the Captain.

Following just behind the crewmen was a shorter Indrii male; he wore a brightly coloured red and blue shirt with green pants, severely contrasting to the more drab colours of the Kilrany military personnel. It almost hurt Alexei’s eyes to look at the horribly contrasting patterns and general poor taste; at least in his mind, of these articles of clothing worn by the Indrii scientist. Despite this when the Indrii gave Alexei a friendly smile, he returned it as he passed by.

Although technically the Indrii and the Kilrany were both human, each tended to consider the other a subspecies. The Indrii were shorter, at an average height of one point seven meters and the Kilrany taller, at an average height of two meters, however that was only one many minor physical differences, it was the extreme cultural differences that truly separated the two people on their home planet of Mir.

The Indrii aboard the Redeemer, and other Athena class ships were all civilians, serving as scientists of various specialties deemed useful for exploration, it was extremely rare to see one even consider joining the KIN, Why couldn’t the Russkyans have decided to come along, at least I could relate to them, the Russkyans were the third people of Mir, averaging a height of one point eight-five meters, the Kilrany tended to enjoy their company far more then the Indrii, as they were closer to the Kilrany culturally. They had however chosen not to participate in this endeavor and remained on the home world; it was safe to call them a rather xenophobic people.

Officially the Athena class exploration ships were created to appease the desires of the Indrii who wanted to finally start exploring space further around their home system, beyond the handful of dead systems; what the Kilrany typically called a system devoid of life, and find other intelligent life that they were sure was out there. Unofficially the Kilrany government knew that Project Midgard was approaching completion of its first stage of construction, and while they had thus far kept a low profile, and remained out of sight of any other space faring species, which they assumed had to exist, they knew that Project Midgard would ultimately draw unwanted attention to their corner of space. Thus the Kilrany Royal Family was able to appear to appease the Indrii politically while going ahead with a pre-planned exploration to discover who else might be out there, and how dangerous they were before the completion of stage three.

Shortly after passing one of the blast doors in the long corridor he was walking down, he glanced over to his right to see one of the Minotaur class security droids sitting in its alcove on standby. It was two meters tall, three meters long and stood on four sturdy looking legs that connected to a lower body, while the upper body, which could rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees, contained the droid’s armament, including the two relatively large, medium repeating class Disruptor cannons, one on the top of either side of the droid, giving it its slight resemblance to its name sake.

A few moments later as he approached and passed through the entrance to the primary command center and its currently open blast doors, he nodded his head slightly in towards the two Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantrymen who stood guard on either side of the opening. Both wore the standard black well-fitting attire underneath a dark grey tactical vest that contained their lightweight armour plates, several more were attached on the front of their legs. As both were on guard duty they weren’t as fully outfitted as they could have been otherwise, instead they carried only a light amount of their standard equipment on their webbing.

Both KINI nodded back at the naval officer, having watched his approach through the black, slightly T-shaped strip on their dark grey helmets. Because it was smaller and considered more effective in the confined spaces of a ship, they were both armed with a Disruptor Carbine, rather then the full rifle variant that was typically given to section designated marksmen, which they held comfortably in front of them; half holding it up, half letting it rest on their tactical slings with their trigger fingers resting on the weapon’s trigger guard. The Carbine was considered a beautiful and functional little piece of hardware, with a comfortable main and vertical for grip.

When it came to the KIAM produced Disruptor family of weapons, older terms were used rather loosely with them, usually to describe their similar roles, rather then how they worked. The addition of the name Disruptor at the beginning was used to differentiate it from the more traditional meaning of the term used, as projectile weapons were still in use by the civilian population. Energy-based weapons such as the Disruptor had been made illegal outside of military use since their creation.

Stepping inside the command center, Alexei always got the feeling that he was stepping into a bunker, though the feeling wasn’t terribly out of place given the design practices of the Kilrany Imperial Navy. Typically the main command centers of their warships were located deep in the hull, much like their reactors, offering them far more protection then typical civilian model vessels with bridges on the outer hull, though at the cost of direct, line of sight visibility.

The command center’s layout was fairly simple with operational stations spread out in their respective sections around an octagon shaped room, currently there were twelve crewman seated at various stations and four command officers monitoring each section. In the center was a command console that came up just about to waist height, where Alexei’s executive officer, Commander Anna Akhmatova stood, typical of Kilrany women; she was a physical match, strength wise, to any Kilrany male.

Slight annoyance flashed through Alexei’s mind as he saw the representative of the civilian scientists, an Indrii, standing next to Akhmatova. When they had initially started their mission, he had held out the slight hope that a Russkyan would have got the job, unfortunately for him, he wasn’t that lucky.

“Commander Akhmatova, how are we progressing?”

Akhmatova turned to face her Captain, aside from the usual command uniform, a small headset sat on top of her long, fire red hair. The headset ran from the top of one ear to the other over her head with a small thin shaft that extended from just above her right ear, at the end of the shaft was a small rectangular glowing eyepiece that came out over her right eye. Each of the other four officers in the command center had one as well.

Upon seeing Alexei, she reached up with her right hand and rotated the eyepiece up and out of the way of her eye, which turned the device off, as evidenced by the ceasing of the slight glow on the glass like eyepiece.

“We’ve just finished preliminary checks and our final sweeps of this system, we are ready to make our jump to the next one.”

Alexei stepped forward toward the center station where he picked up an identical headset and put it on, however he left the eyepiece up and off for the moment. The Indrii simply continued to stand nearby, quietly watching; a pleasant change, he thought. They had just finished a week of in depth scans and analysis of the latest system they were currently in, one they found to be barren of life, but useful for mining operations, not unlike the other systems they’d been to so far that they typically referred to as dead systems.

“Good, we’ll follow standard procedure on this,” Alexei didn’t really need to say it to his men, it was more for the sake of the Indrii scientist present, since he had a habit of consistently asserting his own opinion on just how they should be doing things.

Akhmatova nodded her head, snapping the eyepiece back down over her eye and looking forward once more, following suit, Alexei did the same with his, snapping it down over his right eye. It had taken him some time during officer training to get used to the little device, it was like a view screen directly in to one’s brain, and was tied in with the ships sensors, both active and passive. A small computer then created a three dimensional image of space and objects outside the ship for where ever the user was looking, including information on the direction, and distance of objects, all adjustable by the console before them.

“Status report, all stations,” Akhmatova’s voice boomed clearly and her order was quickly replied to in turn by each of the on duty officers in regards to their sections of responsibility.

“Condition two set at all stations, weapon stations manned and ready, shields fully operational,” KIN ships had three fairly basic security levels, one, two and three, three being the lowest, generally indicating all clear, two for heightened alert, potential threat, and one being full battle stations, and although they weren’t looking for a fight, they were prepared to defend themselves if they ran into one.

“Engineering and communications report all boards green, standing ready for jump.”

“All sensor systems in the green, switching over to passive receivers, cloaking and stealth systems reading fully operational,” the Kilrany didn’t consider themselves xenophobic, but rather as having what they liked to call, ‘a healthy dose of paranoia’, they hoped to learn as much about any potential contacts before taking that step towards first contact. It was however not a terrible stretch to call them isolationists.

“Navigation stands at the ready, we have clear path to next system, coordinates are locked in and we are prepared to make our jump.”

Akhmatova turned to address Alexei but before she could speak, the Indrii scientist interrupted, “Is this really necessary Captain, we’ve jumped into five uninhabited systems already, and even if we meet someone in this next one, it would be better for them to see us coming so we can initiate contact.”

You Indrii are to damned curious for you own good, Alexei had almost gotten used to the same old argument the Indrii made, every time they prepared to go to a new system it was the same thing, if it weren’t for both his standing orders to treat them well and the fact that he had to live with this man for however long this mission lasted, “I will follow our standing orders, regardless as to whether you approve or not mister Scarpa, we have no idea if we will find life friendly or hostile to us, so I intend to follow the very reasonable guidelines set out for us by the Empress.”

Apparently appeased yet again for the moment, the Indrii went back to randomly looking at crew monitors he could see from his standing position and Akhmatova started as if she hadn’t been interrupted, showing far more patience with the Indrii then Alexei had.

“We are prepared for jump sir.”

“Very good then, communications, send off a burst transmission, inform command that we are making our jump into the next system.”

After was seemed like a brief pause the officer in charge of that section responded, “Transmission sent, we estimate it will take thirty minutes for them to receive.”

“Navigation, you have control, make your jump when ready.”

“Yes sir,” the officer quickly gave orders to the crewman at navigation, who was one of the few non officers to have one of the headsets, the crewman next to him had already imputed the proper commands, so all he had to do was steer the ship towards a computer generated image of his jump point using a pair of joysticks for control of the various ‘flight’ axis’ of the craft.

As they moved closer, the crewman next to him activated the ships intercom, addressing the whole ship, “All hands, prepare for hyper space jump, in three, two, one …”

The ship’s navigational computer detected the preset and activated the ship’s hyper drive, shooting the ship forward at extreme speed, with their destination simply a nearby system, the jump only lasted a few seconds, dropping out of hyper space on the extreme edge of the unexplored, but roughly charted system.

After a few quick checks the navigational officer half turned towards his Captain, “Hyper space jump complete, we are at our proper coordinates.”

“Excellent, sensors, what do you have?”

“Passive sensors detect no active scanning devices, let alone any capable of detecting us.”

“Good, give the system one good active sweep, navigation, move us five thousand kilometers to Starboard when sweep complete.”

“Aye sir.”

“Sensors show one sun, ten major planetary bodies and a large number of moons, still nothing capable of picking us up that we can see … we have indications of what look to be life on the fourth planet along with a fair amount of pollutants within its atmosphere, no satellites detected. Sweep complete,” Although all the officers could ‘see’ the planetary system, their eyepieces didn’t give them the same extensive details the crewmen’s consoles did. None of them considered just then the apparent convenience of detecting supposedly alien life forms with sensors primarily familiar with their own biology.

Following his orders the crewman began moving the ship to the new location while the knowledge of having detected alien life seemed to almost make the Indrii scientist giddy in excitement. Alexei was somewhat more reserved in his feelings, although he was interested in the thought of meeting alien life, he considered himself a bit more pragmatic.

“Communications, send off a burst transmission, inform command of our arrival in system, and of our potential detection of alien life, include the data from the sensor sweep.”

“Yes sir.”

“Commander, I want a standard sweep, start outward and work our way in,” Alexei turned towards the Indrii, finally addressing the man by name, “Mr. Scarpa, you may inform your teams to begin detailed sweeps of the planets and moons.”

“Captain, we should head to the fourth planet immediately, we-,” Alexei however had expected that response from the man and interrupted him with a raised hand, “We will follow standard procedure, that planet will still be there in a few days,” one would expect so anyway.

The Indrii looked like he was about to argue some more before he stopped himself, as much as he would like to skip ahead to the apparently inhabited planet, the Kilrany had command of the situation, after a moment he replied, clearly displeased, “Very well then Captain.”

With that the Indrii man left the command center to make his way to the primary lab space to get things started with his people.

For Captain Vyshinsky, it had been a long few days since they had entered the system, he always found the task of planetary survey a tedious one, though he was grateful he didn’t actually have to do the work, No, I only have to stand around and wait, even better, the sarcastic tone within his mind was impossible to miss. At this moment, he stood in the command center, once more looking off to the Starboard side, the eyepiece over his right eye showing him the fifth planet in the system, a large gas giant with a dozen moons, one of which had a rudimentary atmosphere and basic plant life. It had served as a slight distraction from the inhabited planet for the Indrii, much to a grateful Alexei, however it hadn’t lasted as long as he would have liked.

For five days straight the Indrii had been making requests to go straight to the inhabited planet, one could have almost set your watch to them. For this reason, Alexei was gently rubbing his forehead, his headache not caused by the device he wore. It had taken five days to get this far, having run detailed sensor scans with the wide array of systems added on to the ship, mostly because the system’s planets hadn’t been so kind to them as to have been aligned upon their arrival.

The Indrii representative, Scarpa, had just left the command center minutes before after yet another request, despite the fact that they would be moving on to the inhabited planet in roughly an hour anyway. As much as he wanted to give the Indrii a few choice words and permanently discourage the near constant menial requests, he understood that they were really only a minor annoyance, and besides that, he had orders to keep the Indrii protected and happy within the guidelines he was given, The Russkyans could have tempered their attitude, that particular train of thought lightened his mood for a moment.

Snapping the eyepiece up rather suddenly and thus deactivating it, Alexei looked away from the planet and turned in the direction of the command center’s sensor stations, “I presume just more of the same?”

The current officer in charge of the sensor stations turned to face Alexei, “Essentially, yes sir, neither our primary sensors or the additional sensors are picking up anything truly of interest beside a handful of rare minerals in insignificant numbers. From the looks of things, the only item of potential interest in this system is that inhabited planet.

“Very well then, I suppose we shall see soon enough just how interesting this supposedly inhabited planet is.”

------

The design for the Athena hadn’t originally been for that of exploration, so when it was decided not to waste the work that had gone into its initial development, the ship was ordered redesigned slightly to conform to the new role. In place of much its original weapons and armament storage, it was fitted with labs and broader sensor arrays that were more useful in planetary studies and surveys then normal KIAM produced tactical sensors.

Despite the redesign and redistribution of much of the ship’s structure, it still left several areas inside the ship barren; most of those areas were easily changed into additional storage compartments, carrying more supplies that increased the ship’s endurance. However one area was set-aside for the KINI as a special training room so as to allow them to maintain the higher physical requirements of their role, roughly measuring eighty meters by fifty meters.

Normally such a training room would not be required by the KINI stationed aboard KIN vessels as their patrols normally didn’t take them far from home, only to the few nearby systems used for mining operations, or to the site of Project Midgard, however it was deemed necessary for the exploration class ships since the KINI wouldn’t be in a position to be routinely cycled out. This wasn’t to say that KIN designs didn’t have exercise facilities, but they did lack the facilities to best maintain the high standards of the KINI for long periods of time without being over crowded.

Currently half a platoon’s worth of the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry were inside the large room sparring with each other, their heavier equipment and helmets sat neatly in storage lockers lined along one side of the room. Half of the naval infantrymen were carrying out unarmed combat drills while the other half were carrying out drills or light sparring with bokken.

Despite the fact that long bladed weapons were no longer issued as active weapons in the Kilrany military, for obvious reasons, they remained prevalent in Kilrany culture with the knowledge and skill in using one common among the general population. It was also alive in a small percentage of the Russkyan population, but virtually non-existent in Indrii culture, believing such things were not needed and had never played a major role for them in the first place. It was often preferred as an excellent, and more entertaining means of maintaining physical fitness by Kilrany.

As much as the infantry would have enjoyed a target range on board the ship, it had been determined to be impractical since it would have been of to short a range to be useful, and even the heaviest armour plating they could have set up inside the ship would have shown damage from even the light KINI weapons over short period of time, and thus would have proven detrimental to the internal structure of the ship. The Infantrymen had accepted this without complaint, they were well aware of the ease in which their weapons could be used anyway, with their little to no recoil and almost point and click accuracy.

While the Kilrany infantry’s loved their energy weapons, they maintained a high level of respect for the conventional projectile weapons the Russkyans preferred to retain, whether the Indrii considered them antiquated or not, the Kilrany could attest to their effective lethality, in particular their ancestors, as the two people hadn’t always been friends.

The Kilrany Empire liked to ensure cross training was routinely carried out between Kilrany and Russkyan personnel, in comparison to the relatively quiet energy weapons, the Russkyan weapons could have an enormous shock effect on those no longer used to the loud noise and sheer traumatic effect on the body the projectiles could have. This was especially useful given the fact that those firearms still used by Kilrany civilians were primarily for sport.

This cross training would have been maintained even on the Redeemer, the only Athena class to have had Russkyan personnel, but the Russkyan government, which was an autonomous ruling body, had simply not been interested, and their people happy to remain on Mir.

------

“You have got to be kidding me Sasha … at least I don’t have to worry about breaking a Russkyan!” Corporal Svetlana Kubasov looked at her section mate incredulously through the visor of her helmet as they walked out of the Redeemer’s training room, her voice sounding slightly odd as it was retransmitted outside of her helmet as she spoke the words. As one of her section’s support soldiers she carried the LRD, or Light Repeating Disruptor, which rested on its sling in front of her. Roughly the same length as the Disruptor Rifle, it was somewhat heavier and bulkier, with a noticeably larger cylindrical drum shaped power cell located near the back of the weapon in the style of the older bullpup projectile firearms.

Corporal Sasha Davydova let out a short laugh towards the ceiling as she walked alongside her section mate, her short black hair swayed slightly, she held her helmet under her right arm and her Disruptor Carbine rested on its sling behind her back right next to her RG-12, which also hung from a sling behind her. The RG-12 was an update from a much older but simple design for a multi barrel grenade launcher that had been updated with lighter materials, kept to maintain a weapon that filled the distance gap between that of a hand thrown grenade, and a lightweight mortar. “Don’t get me wrong Svetlana, they aren’t the preference, but they do have their charm.”

Svetlana was still staring at her friend as they walked down corridor of the ship, grateful that the helmet hid her gaping mouth, she almost walked into a pair of crewmen who were going the other way, “Please tell me you’re joking.”

An Indrii heading towards them from farther down the corridor caught Sasha’s attention, she looked at Svetlana with a wicked grin, “Hold my helmet,” Sasha dropped the helmet from under her arm, caught it with her hand by the rim and then handed it to Svetlana, who deftly took it with her left hand without question and watched with some curiosity.

Sasha quickened her pace as she strode straight towards the approaching Indrii, who wasn’t paying attention to where he was going; instead he was looking at a small display device slightly larger then an ancient device called a Blackberry. A few seconds before she got to him he happened to look up and notice her coming, seeing the grin on her face he froze, his own face taking on an ‘oh shit’ expression as he looked up at the Kilrany soldier looming a full thirty centimeters over him.

Before he could say anything she reached forward and lifted him clear off the deck from under his shoulders with ease, he made an odd squawk of a noise out of surprise as she brought him to eye level with her. With a large grin on her face she spoke, “You’re cute,” and with that she set him back down and moved back over to join Svetlana as she came walking by, leaving the Indrii standing there wondering what the hell just happened as both women continued on, and no longer able to hold it in, both burst out into laughter.

Their amusement had just died down when Commander Akhmatova’s voice came over the ships intercom, “Major Alekseev and Mr. Scarpa, please report to the primary observation deck in ten minutes with staff for operations meeting in regards to planetary survey.”

Sasha and Svetlana glanced at each other, both knew that it meant they were going to decide how best to explore the inhabited world below them, Sasha broke the silence, “Like to be a fly on the wall for that meeting,” Svetlana merely nodded and handed Sasha’s helmet back to her.

-----

Like the other Athena class ships, the Redeemer’s primary observation deck was located several decks above the main control center on the outer hull of the ship, to be more precise, halfway out of the outer hull. The room was twice the size of the relatively small command center and featured three long sectioned windows that, beginning at one point two meters off the deck and at the same point it met the end of the armoured outer hull, angled inward at a forty five degree angle up to the ceiling with only the aft end of the deck without windows, instead featuring the only entrance. Since the observation deck was also designed to be a briefing and meeting room as wel, it featured a large rectangular table with enough room to comfortably seat twenty people, at the center of the table there was a slight rise where a holographic imager came two centimeters out of the center, inset in the table in front of each seat was a display panel and keypad that allowed one to use the imager in the center of the table, or merely access the ship’s network.

Two KINI armed with Carbines stood guard at the back wall of the observation deck on either side of the entrance, which was a staircase that came up into the observation deck two meters from the back wall and disappeared out of sight down into the ship. Captain Vyshinsky stood near the front of the room in a casual stance with his hands held behind his back, Commander Akhmatova stood next to him with her arms folded across her chest, both of them were looking out the Starboard set of windows at the inhabited world, Mr. Scarpa and two of his Indrii compatriots stood several meters away looking out at the planet as well, Alexei had to force the grin off his face as he noted that the Indrii scientists could just barely easily see out of the observation deck’s windows, the KIAM designers clearly not having taken them into account when they designed the ship.

A little early, they were all waiting for the last member to participate in their meeting, Major Alekseev, the overall commander of the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry aboard the Redeemer. He wouldn’t be long in coming.

Alexei and Anna half turned to look at the stairway when they heard the sound of boots clicking on the deck, due to the design of the entrance, from the front of the observation room those entering had the tendency to look as if they were rising up out of the hull of the ship.
It was no different as Major Alekseev and the two naval infantry officers with him as they entered the room, Alexei could see that he, like the other two officers with him were wearing the standard armour minus the helmet and merely carried their issued sidearms and combat knives.

Major Viktor Alekseev was considered just about as average as one could be as a Kilrany in both build and appearance and he had this tendency to walk around with, what seemed to most to be a perpetually unhappy look on his face, although he would deny it when asked. As the three infantry officers fully entered the room Alekseev nodded his head in Alexei’s direction and Alexei returned one in kind.

Few words were spoken in that moment as all recognized that the meeting could now begin and the various representatives took their seats around the table. Aleksei and Akhmatova took a seat on the right side of the table near the center, their backs to the view of the planet, Major Alekseev and the two officers with him sat down on the left side of the table, closer to the entrance while Scarpa and his two associates chose to sit down on the right side opposite the entrance.

Content that all were ready, Captain Vyshinsky addressed them simply, “Let’s begin shall we gentlemen, this shouldn’t take too long, Mr. Scarpa, would you and your associates please give us an overview of this world.”

Fully seated in his chair Scarpa leaned backwards and let his chin rest on his left hand, like the other Indrii on the ship, he wore loosely fitting bright clothing, an old cultural tradition which originally came about as a means to make the few predators of their native continent think they were larger then they really were, in Scarpa’s case it hid an unusually fit frame for an Indrii, especially for an Indrii of forty one.

Although it wasn’t a secret, it wasn’t common knowledge even among his Indrii associates or the Captain himself, that in his early years Scarpa had been curious about Kilrany culture, and as one of the few who do so, applied and was accepted into the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry; not an easy task an Indrii, and served four years in a mechanized infantry section. It had allowed him insights into both Kilrany and Russkyan culture thanks to regular cross training between Kilrany and Russkyan military personnel. Although he still preferred his own people, there were several aspects of Kilrany culture he found had their uses, and since his service had been almost twenty years prior, and was not related to his scientific work, was not on his immediate file within the Kilrany network on the Redeemer, to find them one would have had to search separately for his military record, and given that he was an Indrii, even the Captain had merely assumed he was no different from the rest of his people and had made no such search.

He only allowed the silence to drag on for a moment longer before he took his left hand away from his chin and gestured to his associate on his left, taking the cue, the other Indrii tapped a few keys on the inset keypad in front of him and a holographic image of the planet they currently orbited formed over the projector in the table.

With that done, Scarpa looked towards Alexei “From what we’ve seen so far, the planet has four major continents, two are directly connected while the other two are split from the two connected ones by large oceans, while the other two, while close, are separated by a gap of water about five hundred kilometers wide between them. Initial deep range scans show us no vitally important mineral deposits so far, but they are still ongoing, and we estimate them to be done in the next three hours. Now that we’re in orbit we’ve had communications monitoring radio signals, we’ve tied that into linguistics under the watch of some of our staff and Redeemer, and so far have identified twelve different languages, eventually it should be able to began translating some of them for us.”

He paused for a minute take a breath before he continued, “There’s no telling at this time how many nations there may be on this planet, but from the looks of things none of them appear to be in any kind of war at this time, at least not a major one. Technologically speaking they appear to be at about the same level we were at the beginning of the twentieth century, although we’ve seen a drastically larger number of lighter then air transports then we had at the time, it would seem to be in direct competition with ocean going transports for them. I’m fairly confident that we don’t need to worry about detection from these people unless we allow it.”

Once again he paused before continuing, “I would like to recommend that we land somewhere out of the way, in a low density population area,” he then chose to make an attempt at humour, “and not simply bring the ship down over the largest city and announce ourselves as their gods.”

Glancing between the Captain, then the Major, he continued, choosing to pull some of the tactical knowledge he had acquired during his service time to surprise his Kilrany compatriots, “ I don’t know what you’re already considering, but using a Beta Type Assault Shuttle we should land a few kilometers from a small settlement, a small team of my scientists in full NBC gear would take plant, soil and air samples, that way we can ensure what our sensors are telling us, that there are no contagions that could be harmful to us, Major Alekseev here could have one of the KINI platoons provide local security while a recon section investigates the settlement,” again Scarpa made an attempt at humour “I would of course advise against any … ‘intimate’ contact with the locals,” Scarpa’s last words managed to incite a chuckle from a couple of the Kilrany present, including Commander Akhmatova, Scarpa then looked back towards Captain Vyshinsky, “Of course these are merely my recommendations, use them as you see fit.”

Captain Vyshinsky looked slightly surprised, he hadn’t expected such practical recommendations from Scarpa considering his experience with the Indrii thus far, “That sounds reasonable right now, but I’d rather discuss some of this further before we make any final decisions,” Vyshinsky thought for a moment, then decided to make a joke he’d been waiting to make for quite some time, just to see if any would ‘get it’, “Just remember everyone, we do have that prime directive to follow.”

Vyshinsky couldn’t help the grin as confused looks came across everyone in the room, he let the silence last a moment longer before he decided to explain and complete the joke, “Of course, I suppose not everyone here knows about it, it was told only to us Captains and our Executive Officers,” Akhmatova looked over at him like he was crazy, not sure what he was referring too, he continued, “During the commissioning celebration at the Imperial Palace, Empress Sviatova pulled us Captains and our XOs off to the side for our private orders,” while confusion remained on the other’s faces, recognition hit upon Akhmatova’s, followed by a grin rivaling Vyshinsky’s, “She pulled us all aside and she said …”

Before he could continue from his slight pause, Akhmatova broke in with a rather convincing impression of the Empress, “For the love of God, try not to start a war.”

Chuckles broke out from the gathered Kilrany, even Scarpa had to admit it was amusing and cracked a smile, the other two Indrii just shrugged their shoulders and after a moment Vyshinsky spoke again, “Joking aside and back to business, I’d like to hear your opinions on this so far Major Alekseev.”

Major Viktor Alekseev had been leaned back in his chair, rather passively watching the entire proceedings in the room since having sat down, his face had remained expressionless for the whole time as seemed to be his nature by those who paid any attention to him, apparently unfazed by the jokes bandied about the room.

He was perhaps the most prominent example of what could be called the greatest cultural flaw in Kilrany, being overly serious, or rigid when it came to being around non-Kilrany or those who weren’t their friends, something that had led to many ‘misunderstandings’ in the past. He was also a man who disliked the Indrii, in his mind they had a smug superiority, for the Indrii held the belief that because they had removed the need for violent behavior from their society, that they were superior to the Kilrany. Despite these feelings however he never showed it to them, for as long as they did their jobs well, his personal opinion of them mattered little in the long run.

While he had also been mildly surprised by Scarpa, one couldn’t have guessed it by looking at him, “I have nothing to add, mister Scarpa appears to have covered the basis for an early reconnaissance operation. Though I am curious how we should treat any locals we come across.”

Leaning back in his chair slightly, Vyshinsky and considered the Major’s thoughts on possible interaction, “Tough call, for all we know the buggers may have some major religious text saying that the great destroyers will come from the skies to kill them all and react negatively to our arrival,” a few chuckles passed through the room before he continued, “but if we do find them to be friendly enough, and open enough to actually contact without starting some massive genocidal war, it will have to be decided upon the results of your scouting mission, for now I’d say keep out of sight, but if you have to, your men’s lives have priority,” Vyshinsky then glanced towards Scarpa, before going back to the Major, “Mister Scarpa, do we know what kind of ‘life’ we’re dealing with down there and Major, do we know what kind of military hardware they possess?”

Following the order in which they were addressed, Scarpa replied first, “From what we can tell so far they appear to be remarkably similar, biologically speaking that is, to us, which is odd to say the least, but I would prefer more in depth analysis before I could give you any truly detailed information on their internal make up.”

Alekseev waited for Scarpa to finish speaking before he replied to Vyshinsky, when they had arrived in orbit a short time ago he had ordered some of his men to man one of the labs and conduct both sensor and visual scans, much like the old ‘spy’ satellites but with a much higher level of detail, of anything that might be a military facility, “My men are still sweeping the planet, but from what we’ve seen so far I would say mister Scarpa’s assessment would be correct, Cavalry is still a major part of their military forces, and it would seem they’ve recently started building warships comparable to those old coal fired ‘Dreadnoughts’. They should have a more detailed analysis for me before to long.”

-----

Corporal Svetlana Kubasov moved quickly down the left side of a corridor of what looked to belong to the KIN Redeemer, she was wearing full KINI combat gear, webbing and armour, but instead of carrying her relatively heavy LRD, she was carrying the Carbine variant of the KIAM Disruptor family of weapons, having decided that the smaller, and lighter weapon would be more effective for her in the close quarters combat of a ship.

Following standard Kilrany design practices, warships had no decorative arches in their corridors, leaving no cover aside from open doorways and intersecting corners, for this reason her destination was the open doorway just ahead of her on the left side of the corridor that lead into an open area common room, just a few meters beyond the door the particular corridor she was in ended in a T-junction.

The Carbine’s stock sat snugly in her right shoulder, she moved with her knees bent slightly and through her visor could see the small red crosshairs of the weapon’s smart sight system, typically not often used by Kilrany soldiers as they worried that the low powered and very short range system could be easily jammed, in this situation she knew it wasn’t going to be a problem.

As she reached the doorway she saw a glimpse of movement just up ahead at the T-junction, snapping her weapon over and lining up the weapon’s physical crosshairs with the red crosshair of the smart sight system in less then a half a second, she squeezed the trigger on the Carbine for almost a full second. Set to automatic, four rounds, or ‘bolts’ of green energy flashed out from the muzzle of the Carbine, each traveled at nearly the speed of light, due to a human’s perception each bolt seemed to strike instantly upon firing, leaving only the barest visual hint of its travel.

As was normal with Kilrany disruptor weapons, Kubasov felt no kick back from the weapon, as there was no recoil, and thus no physical impact from the disruptor. She had only a moment to recognize that her first, second and third rounds found their target, while her fourth round struck the wall; leaving a clearly evident scorch mark, just next to the grey helmet of the soldier peering his head around the corner, who promptly toppled backwards when the front of his helmet failed to stop the second round.

She didn’t have time to savor the kill as she knew there was a second, so she quickly sprinted forward through the doorway into the empty common room she had originally been moving to, knowing the tactics of her opponents she only made a short glance about the room to ensure it was clear and continued to sprint towards the room’s other doorway that would take her out into a corridor to the left of the T-junction, avoiding tables and chairs as she did so. Only a scant two seconds after entering the room and by now halfway through, she heard something metallic strike the deck behind her and promptly explode a split second later, showering the corridor she’d just been in with white hot shrapnel.

She reached the doorway to the corridor a moment later and turned to face the direction of the T-junction and then side stepped out into the corridor on her left, dropping down onto her left knee as she did so. As the junction came into sight she could see her second opponent standing at the corner over his fallen comrade, aiming down the corridor he’d just thrown a grenade a moment before, he wore identical armour to her, the standard KINI combat gear, and held a Carbine like she did, unlike her however there was a blue armband on his right upper arm.

Apparently having glimpsed the sight of movement in his peripheral vision he snapped his weapon over to face her, but she had already pulled the trigger, another full second burst unleashed five rounds center mass, just below his arms that held his weapon, roughly at the bottom of the ribcage. The armour took the first two rounds but could not take the following in the same location and she bore witness to the full effects of a Kilrany Disruptor on human tissue.

The third round that penetrated through the armour to impact the body created a roughly tubular shaped hole roughly fifteen centimeters deep and eight centimeters in diameter, leaving the tissue on the edge partially cauterized and full of ash and steam from the apparently incinerated flesh. The damage was not all readily apparent however, as the tissue around the wound was killed by the energy an addition four centimeters around the visible wound, which would lead to internal bleeding around it. The final effects of the round was like an electrical shock on the body’s nervous system, causing pain to shoot throughout the body so that even a non life threatening hit on the arms or legs could potentially, temporarily disable a target, at the least cause a distraction, the damage done however was only multiplied as the following fourth and fifth rounds impacted at nearly the same position.

The left side of Kubasov’s face curled up into a grin underneath the cover of her own helmet as she watched her final opponent collapse, his armour clattering as it impacted the deck, a moment later she heard the deep disembodied voice reverberate through the corridors and her helmet, “Red team wins,” with that her vision went black.

A moment later she opened her eyes to the softly lit room before her, and as she felt the mildly warm pieces of metal lift off the sides of her temples she sat forward in the fixed chair she half sat, half lay in and looked across to the other side of the room where her two ‘opponents’ were leaning forward out of their own chairs a little over a meter away, one cursed slightly as he rubbed his forehead, the other just sighed as he placed a his hand on his upper body, the residual affect on the mind of being killed would last a few seconds longer, “Close one, better luck next time boys.”

Contrary to what they had perceived just moments earlier, none of them were actually wearing their combat armour; instead they all were wearing off duty clothing in the usually well-fitting muted colours of Kilrany culture.

The one she had shot in the head looked up at her and cursed, “Bloody hell, we’ll beat you yet.”

She only laughed slightly, “That’s four times in a row Dimitry, it’s not gonna happen.”

Dimitry could only let out a frustrated grunt as he and his friend got up and went to leave the room, it was a rectangular shaped room, roughly eighteen meters long and four meters wide, on either side were twelve such chairs that linked to a primary system controlled and monitored by a medical technician down on one end behind a large fixed computer console system, on the front of the console system facing towards them was an odd geometric shape that didn’t exist within the programs of the system, a minor safeguard added for the peace of mind of some early users that had remained, despite the systems perfect track record since its inception over seven hundred years prior. This excellent track record had as much to do with its design as it did with its large number of safeguards, ranging from the most basic of surge protectors and an independent auxiliary power unit to the more technically complex mental safeguards, so that even if the system, for whatever reason, had to be immediately shutdown without first bringing a user out, it would cause no damage, although they would feel dizzy for roughly a minute afterwards.

As the two men left the room Kubasov looked over at her friend Corporal Sasha Davydova, she had been an unfortunate recipient of a Disruptor round to her neck early on in the simulation as the result of an ambush, as such she had long gotten over the stimulated ‘in-game’ pain response to being shot, “Well, at least we still beat them,” despite her ‘death’ she still managed a grin.

Kubasov grinned back, “Next time remember to properly sweep a room before you do something like that,” Davydova shrugged her shoulders.

Unlike the preset military simulations that made up the bulk of the programs used by this particular military grade system, which ranged from infantry combat, mechanized warfare, space and atmospheric combat and even a few special simulations against generic ‘alien’ enemies taken out of old Science Fiction, they had, like many others, had whatever technician on duty install custom programs as something to use on their down time, in this case a simple team death match in what was considered the ‘ultimate video game’ system. Additional programs even let people reenact historical and fictional battles from any position they wished, as front line soldier or overall commander.

Besides Kilrany disruptor weapons the system was fully capable of simulated any conceivable weapon so long as it was within the program, including Russkyan weapons with exact precision, which led to the true beauty of the system, it allowed people to take part in what seemed to be an absolutely real situation and be as violent with someone else as they deemed necessary without actually hurting them. This made the system extremely popular, especially among instructors, in particular, hand to hand combat instructors as they could now have their students conduct lethal exercises with each other and simulated opponents who were just as competent, depending on the difficulty level set as a human opponent.

It also made it quite popular among those soldiers who wished to conduct a true fight with one another, as within the program everything was exactly as it would be in the real world, without any of the real risks. Something that added to this usefulness was that the system scanned the person who entered it, and created their avatar inside based on their physical attributes, as such, in the system you were fully capable of doing anything you could do in the real world, and no more.

Although the system on the Redeemer only allowed for a maximum of twenty-four people, or two Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry sections, there were dedicated Kilrany training facilities that could have entire Divisions carry out full-scale exercises in any combat situation imaginable, making for the best training the Kilrany imagined possible.

As Kubasov and Davydova moved past the technician and the console to exit through a side door that passed through the Redeemer’s medical bay, one of the additional safeguards, they gave a friendly nod to the man and Kubasov glanced over at Davydova, “Those two are lucky though that they’re not trying to fight Fifth Division Operatives, those buggers scare the hell out of me, bloody well come out of the walls behind you,” they both grunted in amusement, knowing full well it was an exaggeration, although 5th Division Operatives did have a nasty habit of appearing where they shouldn’t be.

As they left the medical bay and entered into the ship’s corridors, Davydova glanced over at Kubasov, “You know what would have been enjoyable? If the Russkyans had come along we could have gotten our section, one of their recon sections, and set up the program on a woodland scenario and have some fun.”

Kubasov laughed, “That would be glorious. But you know what, I can’t really blame them for not coming along,” she paused a moment, amused by the curious look Davydova gave her, “I mean seriously, who would willingly choose to be stuck on this barge with Indrii all around you for months?” They both chuckled lightly at the joke.

Taking this opportunity, one of Major Alekseev’s subordinates, a KINI Captain seated on his right side spoke up, “Just playing Devil’s Advocate here for a moment, we all know that we have no real standing orders as to how we are to proceed upon a discovery such as this. While gathering some intelligence is a must, should we attempt something more direct? By that I mean, once we have some languages translated, should we just pick a city, land a small force and say hello, get the whole thing over with and go from there?”

A moment of silence passed as his words were considered, finally Alexei responded with a shrug, “That’s certainly a possibility, but I’m not the one who will be setting foot on that planet, it will be you and the mister Scarpa’s scientists who will be doing the dangerous work of operating on this planet. So far I would lean more towards mister Scarpa’s plan, but I am by no means ending this discussion. Major, do you believe we should make a more direct first contact? Just ‘get it over with’ as the Captain here suggests?”

Major Alekseev seemed to consider it a moment before he replied, “It’s an option. Though to be honest I believe we will simply have to leave this aspect open until my men have had the chance to do their reconnaissance, and mister Scarpa’s men had the opportunity to listen in on their wireless broadcasts, ideally this will give us all a better understanding of what we are up against.”

Alexei nodded his head slightly, as did several others before he continued, “Very well, I believe that’s reasonable,” then he appeared to address no one in particular, “Redeemer, do you have any opinion, or insights on this matter?”

The holographic image over the table that had been displaying the planet they were orbiting snapped over to that of a Kilrany male in his mid twenties, dressed in the same black uniform as worn by the command staff on Kilrany naval vessels, minus weapons and insignia. The image clearly appeared to address the Captain directly, “I have none that haven’t already been said sir, our options in this case are fairly straightforward. Personally I would choose to air on the side of caution and follow mister Scarpa’s initial suggestions. The next step can only be decided after we have determined their cultural idiosyncrasies, as it would not benefit us in any way to cause a war between nations on this world.”

AI systems were rather common within Kilrany society, deemed useful for many applications, however like aboard the Redeemer, they only supplemented the human crew and did not control the entire ship. Instead it’s primary objectives were to monitor systems in association with the crew, maintain security in the computer network, and monitor security cameras, as unlike a human crew member, an AI could monitor hundreds to thousands of cameras at once while still ensuring the security of the main computer, needless to say a very valuable commodity.

Technically however one could make the argument that Kilrany AI systems weren’t ‘true’ AI, as they were based off templates created from scanning the minds’ of hand picked volunteers; alterations were then made to accommodate the required functions, this manner of creating self aware systems had proven in Kilrany experience to be much more efficient and effective then creating a ‘true’ AI from scratch.

As an added cultural phenomenon, possibly because Kilrany AI systems were built the way they were, or simply because of a common cultural drive to be respectful of those deserving it, Kilrany showed a great deal of respect for their AI systems, treating them no differently then one might a real person.

Additionally Kilrany AI systems had; at least to the Kilrany, an amusing habit of teasing the Russkyans when they were present, since they knew full well that the Russkyans were uncomfortable with them. They did however know when to draw the line, fully aware of the Russkyan saying, ‘Never trust a computer you can’t throw out the window,’ sadly for the Redeemer, without the presence of any Russkyans, he had a limited outlet for his humour. He was comforted however in the knowledge that the Kilrany crew shared his sense of humour, unlike the Indrii, who he found more often then not treated him as they would and ordinary machine.

To refer to Redeemer as appearing to be omnipresent would in no way be an exaggeration due to he processing power available to him. He knew this to be true himself; case it point, while he was using the observation deck’s holographic imager to project himself into the room, something he noted to himself he really didn’t have to do to communicate with those inside, he was also watching every security camera on the ship while simultaneously monitoring the Redeemer’s computer network.

If it was possible for him to do so from within the cyber realm of the network he might have grinned, the thought of being able to ‘see’ so much more amusing him as he monitored that sixty-seven low security terminals were in use in private quarters, one of which was starting up a rather entertaining little strategy game, most likely an off duty KINI and offered to join in as a ally or adversary, if they so wished. Two more low security terminals were in use from a pair of common area rooms, both drawing from the entertainment section of the computer database, displaying a movie of some kind for the off duty personnel as they shared a meal and mingled together. Twenty-eight secure terminals were in use from various security stations as personnel there checked various items of interest, one in particular was running a rather interesting battle simulation based off the most recent drill results, in real time of course, the person watching it could not run the simulation as fast as Redeemer could and still keep up with it.

This simulation gave Redeemer an interesting idea, and he decided to use the same drill results to run several simulations where the KIN Redeemer, his physical counter-part that is, being the ship itself, went up against various fictional enemies pulled from the database’s entertainment section, something he knew the crew enjoyed doing themselves from time to time in the ‘sim’ units. Fortunately for the Kilrany running the other simulation, Redeemer’s simulations would not interfere. Such simple simulations, or joining in on little games run by crew members, whether from their terminals, or from the more realistic ‘sim’ units down in the medical bay was an easy way for Redeemer to keep himself entertained as he monitored security systems and ship operations alongside the crew, which he would readily admit was a somewhat monotonous task.

Back in the physical world of the KIN Redeemer’s observation deck, Captain Vyshinsky looked up at Redeemer’s projection, “Very well then, I suppose for the time being we will go with mister Scarpa’s plan, thank you Redeemer,” the image of Redeemer merely bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement, then shifted back to the original projection of the planet below.

After a slight pause Vyshinsky addressed those within the room, “Let’s schedule a reconnaissance operation for,” Vyshinsky paused again to check the current time on his watch, then continued, “fourteen hundred hours, we’ll pick a continent where dusk is settling in and send down a couple shuttles to let Mr. Scarpa’s scientists get a more up close look at the planet’s atmosphere and plant life. Since it will likely be another day before we’ve a suitable translation program set up we’ll stay out of sight for now,” Vyshinsky then looked over at Major Alekseev and then Scarpa, “Choose the men you deem appropriate for this mission and have them ready to go down at that time.”


With that said Vyshinsky went and addressed the gathered men and women, “Unless there are any other thoughts I believe we can end this little meeting.”

Captain Vyshinsky was no ground commander, and had he had more then a basic understanding of ground warfare, he likely would have anticipated the Major’s addition, “How long shall we make this mission? I’m sure mister Scarpa’s men will want more then twenty-four hours down there, so I would suggest a full seventy-two hours. I’ll also assign a single platoon supplemented with a reconnaissance section to provide security for the landing sight and conduct a scouting mission on the nearby community.”

Scarpa merely nodded his head in agreement for his part, Alexei spoke a moment later, “Very well then Major, I’m sure that will do just fine. We’ll need to use the Beta Type Assault Shuttle to transport the mobile lab,” here he referred to the shuttle’s transport module, which had been converted for use by the Indrii on planet surfaces to serve as a secure lab, and living space.

“I believe that will do just fine sir, this should give all concerned enough time to carry out their respective assignments. Should they happen to want to stay down longer, this will not be a problem, there will be enough supplies to last several extra days should be deemed necessary. I will hold a briefing for those being sent down an hour beforehand, by that time we should have a landing zone selected.”

Vyshinsky allowed for a moment of thought before he spoke, “Excellent, alright, I think we’ve covered everything for the time being. Just for the record, once you’ve determined a landing zone, I’ll have the ship take up orbit over that area, for the ‘just in case’ scenario. Dismissed.”

-----

The AI known as Redeemer watched as the officers and scientists left the observation deck, his ‘eyes’ in the ship’s internal security network showing him everything going on within the public spaces of the KIN Redeemer. A few moments after they departed, the two KINI stepped forward off the wall, walking forward slightly only to turn around and walk down the steps leading out. As they reached the bottom and re-entered the corridors of the ship, they passed by another pair of KINI who had been standing guard at the lower entrance. Before the other two joined with them to leave, one turned around and tapped a few keys on a small keypad, this done, all four walked off down the corridor. Back in the observation room the lights turned off, the windows that allowed an exterior view were relatively quickly covered over by blast shields that were pushed up from along the exterior, and finally, a heavy looking blast door closed at the main entrance.

Not all was as well as it should have been though, for Redeemer was becoming suspicious of a single low security terminal located within some private quarters. According to his logs it was active and connected to the network, but not doing anything, granted, he knew that occasionally some forgot to shut down their terminals, but this one was activated, then nothing. This was not all however, his security cameras had recorded a pair of crewmen enter the room earlier, one which did not belong to them and through correlation with the crew and passenger manifest, he had identified them as belonging to one of the KINI security sections.

A quick query of the connection information from the terminal confirmed his suspicions, despite the apparent lack of any activity; a great deal of information was being transmitted between the terminal in question and the network. For a fraction of a second he considered the information he was presented with and his options. He quickly came to the conclusion that these crewmen must have been running an unscheduled drill. There was no other explanation for their actions that he could come up with, they had full access to the network, so they obviously weren’t attempting to gather secret information, and quite simply, there was nothing they could do to any systems remotely. While one could view just about any system displays, one had to actually physically be in one of the corresponding control rooms to do anything to said system.

On a previously inactive screen within a nearby security room staffed by a half platoon of fully armed and armoured KINI, Redeemer’s ‘avatar’ appeared. The security room was in essence merely a waiting room for the KINI on duty, there was little for them to do but wait until they were called on. Half of them were seated with their helmets off chatting and playing a game of cards, a few more sat at a few terminals playing a game, another two stood guard just outside the open blast door that lead from the room into the corridors of the KIN Redeemer.

“Sergeant Petrov, I have a situation I would like your assistance on.”

The Sergeant in question, a younger Kilrany at about twenty-five looked over from his position leaning back in a chair, his helmet sitting on the table in front of him, he already suspected why Redeemer had appeared, “What can I do for you Redeemer?”

“It would seem that a ‘surprise’ test of my security systems is being conducted, attempting to gain access to the computer network without my knowledge from private quarters three-four-four.”

Petrov grinned slightly, “And you’d like us to re-assert the fact that nothing goes on within the ship’s network that you don’t know about?”

Redeemer’s avatar smiled back, “You’re damn straight.”

Petrov chuckled lightly, “Not a problem Redeemer. I told them it was a futile attempt.”

“Thank you Sergeant,” and with that the screen went dark.

Sergeant Petrov glanced about the room, “Alright then, Nosov, Sarnov and Mukhina, go take care of this for Redeemer.”

A Chorus of ‘yes sir’ came back from the three already getting up. There was a slight sound of a seal activating as Corporal Sarnov put his helmet on over his head and it fastened into place. All three took off at a light jog out the open blast door and past the two guarding the door. While Sarnov was armed with an LRD, Nosov and Mukhina both had Disruptor Carbines, and all took hold of their weapons, lifting them from their rest position hanging from their tactical slings, going through the motions and treating this as if it were a real security breach, minus actually switching off the safeties on their weapons.

-----

Later in that day approaching the agreed upon time for the mission, the assigned Kilrany sections began to gather outside the entrance to hangar A. Already the Indrii scientists had arrived and gone in to prep the specially designed module, while the flight crew merely stood waiting for when everyone else was ready to go.

Spread out along the wall on either side of the corridor, four sections of infantry stood at the ready, having swapped their grey plated body armour out for a flora pattern that, according to their visual surveillance, would decently blend with the local environment. They all wore their full set of equipment and webbing, fully outfitted to spend several days on the ground. Although the full platoon was gathered in the corridor, they had left more then enough space for crewman to move through on their daily grind.

It was this sight that Corporal Kubasov saw as her reconnaissance section rounded a corner on to the corridor leading to the hangar entrance. Her section’s Sergeant at the front of their small column quickly addressed the Lieutenant of the platoon before them.

“Something of the large gathering here Lieutenant, there any particular reason to linger around out here sir?”

“Just doing a final check over of each others’ equipment Sergeant, the Indrii have already gone in, we’re going to follow in a minute, feel free to go in if you’re already prepared.”

“Yes sir.”

The twelve-man reconnaissance section continued forward and turned in towards the hangar, Kubasov glanced to her left as she passed through the open blast door that took them into what was a large airlock that led into the hangar itself. Roughly large enough to accommodate a full Kilrany infantry section had both blast doors been closed, however both were open and the section walked right on through. On the left side of the airlock was a medium sized heavy window that allowed a three man security team to monitor the airlock from a security room.

Passing through the second open blast door, Kubasov got a good full look at the large hangar space, an identical hangar was located on the opposite side of the ship providing the only means of boarding and leaving the Redeemer, meanwhile a scattering of crewman moved about as they did some routine maintenance within. The massive hangar doors always drew her attention when she entered a ship’s hangar; it closed off the entire deck from space.

For the most part the hangar was filled by numerous Alpha and Beta class Assault Shuttles, the staples of the Kilrany Imperial Navy’s transport fleet. While both had an identical design scheme, with frontal and back ‘wings’, mostly for aesthetics, the Alpha was smaller, using only a crew of two with a carrying capacity of twelve men, while the Beta class was much larger, with a crew of five, and a carrying capacity of forty eight men, not taking into account the rectangular transport module that could be attached from below. Aside from the shuttles there was a single wing of Scythe class fighter drones held in place on the ceiling in hibernation mode.

She could see the flight crew standing over by the particular Beta class shuttle they were to use as her section leader led the unit towards it, Indrii were darting in and out of the modified transport module sitting next to the shuttle. Their module had been completely stripped of all it’s normal defensive weapons, and the interior, which was normally designed to carry a maximum number of troops had been filled with a small lab and extra storage space, removing much of its personnel capacity. Normally capable of carrying ninety-six men, it could now only comfortably fit forty-eight.

As they walked up to the shuttle, Kubasov glanced back at the entrance to see the other sections coming in behind them. From the briefing they had received an hour earlier, she knew what the basic plan would be. The regular KINI platoon would split in half, with two sections going in the module with the Indri scientists, and two coming in the shuttle with her reconnaissance section.

Within the hangar, things were moving along smoothly, the Indrii had made their final checks and their modified module was ready to go. Unlike the standard module this one did not have a large door at the front for rapid egress of troops, instead it had a single, smaller airlock, currently open, to allow safe entry and exit from the module when deployed in potentially hazardous environments. The remainder of the Indrii scientific team quickly made their way inside the module with the rest of their equipment, and the two KINI sections traveling with them helped them secure it before directing them to seating before taking a seat themselves after giving an ‘all ready’ signal and closing up the airlock.

Before Kilrany boarded the shuttle itself, they waited for the signal to do so from the shuttle’s flight engineer. He wasn’t long in giving that signal; popping his head out from the port hatch located between the shuttles forward and stern ‘wings’, he gestured for them all to come aboard. Eager to get on with it, the Kilrany quickly and easily climbed aboard and took to an available seat slotted for their section. Making a last double check to ensure the hatches were secured on the both sides, the flight engineer, who was dressed similarly to the Kilrany infantry with the exception of a more open looking visor to his helmet, gave the ready signal to the pilots and took his own seat located next to the hatch that led into the cockpit.

With the signal from their flight engineer and an authorization to launch from the hangar’s control room, the pilot glanced over to his copilot seated next to him and gave a quick nod of his head. In response the copilot quickly started the start up checklist. Behind both of them were the port and starboard gunners, seated at their own station, acknowledging their own responsibilities on the list as they came up.

Checklist complete, the pilot began to manipulate the two joysticks in front of him and the shuttle’s anti gravity system pushed it off the deck against the artificial gravity of the Redeemer, clear of the deck the copilot raised the stubby, ski-like landing gear. When his instruments told him he was five meters off the deck, he moved the shuttle above the modified module, to the outside observer the shuttle seemed to slide laterally without pitching.

Flipping a switch on his panel, his HUD projected within his helmet an image of the shuttle above the module, as specific points lined up he decreased his height until he felt a slight tremble and the display showed the shuttle merge with the module. Quickly the copilot imputed a few commands on his own panel to physically lock the shuttle and module together at four locations along with creating a magnetic seal between the two.

Inside the hangar’s control room, ship crewmen and the on duty officer monitored the shuttle’s progress with slight envy, as it lifted off deck with its module, it held its position, awaiting the final clearance to leave the hangar.

“Command, this in hangar control, shuttle is ready for departure, opening hangar doors now.”

The response was quick in coming, “Acknowledged hangar control, we are lowering the ship’s shields in that area now, they are clear for departure.”

The on duty officer gave the order and a few seconds later the large heavy doors of the hangar quickly began to open, within a few seconds they reached a specified point that allowed safe clearance for the shuttle to exit without being fully opened and stopped. An environmental force field prevented decompression within the hangar.

“Shuttle two-five you are cleared for final departure, good hunting.”

Back in the shuttle’s cockpit, the pilot smiled slightly and gave the order to his copilot to activate the shuttle’s stealth and cloaking systems. From inside the hangar’s control room the shuttle appeared to disappear before their eyes.

With his smile turning into a grin the pilot pushed throttle forward and the shuttle shot out through the open hangar doors as its primary engines were activated. When he was clear of the ship he angled it downwards towards the planet below them, at least as much as he perceived it to be down in relation to the Redeemer and the planet.

“Shuttle two-five is clear of the hangar, see you all in three days or so.”

The on duty officer chuckled slightly, “Copy that, two-five,” he paused a moment to quickly switch the channel over, “Hangar control to command, shuttle is clear and en route, closing hangar doors, you may reengage primary shields over this section.”

“Acknowledged hangar control.”

The shuttle followed a preset flight plan as it rapidly descended into the atmosphere towards its landing zone, the pilot’s HUD compensating for decreasing visibility as night fell upon the region they were approaching. Despite the fact that there seemed to be no ability for the people of this planet to detect them, whether actively or passively, the shuttle maintained full emissions control.

It was not long before the shuttle was hovering over a clearing deep within a forest, the site chosen for its location near a small native community. The shuttle began to descend towards the ground as the pilot cut back power slowly, as he did this he addressed those within the transport module, “We’re approaching the landing site, prepare for a slight bump as we drop the module.”

A quick pause followed as he switched the channel over to the flight engineer inside cabin of the shuttle, “Were about to land, get them ready.”

While the pilot was making the final approach to the landing zone, the flight engineer stood up from his seat next to the cabin hatch and made his way past the other seated soldiers towards the back of the shuttle where another hatch led into the craft’s stern compartment. He checked the pressure inside from a small panel next to the hatch then opened it and stepped through before promptly closing it behind him.

Significantly smaller then the primary cabin where the soldiers sat, the stern compartment held a single narrow walkway roughly two meters long that lead from the hatch to the stern. On either side of the walkway a hatch was present in the floor of the shuttle to allow individuals quick exit of the craft for high or low level ‘para’ insertions, or by drop rope should landing directly on the surface not be an option. In this case two large mechanical objects were held in place over the hatches, a sight that was not uncommon for the flight engineers of the Beta.

For a brief moment the flight engineer took a look over the pair of KIAM produced Assault Droids; large, roughly humanoid automatons, they had an outward appearance much like some old form of powered armour. They were of a venerable design that had so far stood the test of time, due in large part to their rather basic layout.

Standing at two meters tall, the droids had enlarged proportions for its torso, legs and arms in comparison to the Kilrany it was designed after, which was mostly due to armour. For weaponry, they sported modules mounted along the lower arm that were capable of being swapped out for different armament packages. While they were somewhat limited in their tactical uses; being akin to light tanks, they were often used as highly mobile heavy weapon platforms, in this case both droids carried two modules on either arm. On the left arm was carried a module containing a pair of light repeating disruptors, while the right arm module contained a single medium class infantry disruptor cannon intended for light to medium anti-vehicle use.

The flight engineer continued forward another few steps until he reached the stern of the compartment where another control panel was located, as he did so the head of each machine tracked his movement and awaited their new orders. As he spoke to them, he turned partially back to face the front and looked back and forth between the two war machines, “Simple assignment gentlemen, close up perimeter security, engagement condition yellow.”

Both droids responded in unison in an identical voice that sounded much like that of a Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantrymen’s voice as it was retransmitted through their helmets, though they were decidedly male and somewhat deeper, “Acknowledged.”

With that done the flight engineer waited for the signal from the cockpit to release the two droids to the ground, which would not be long in coming.

By this time the module attached underneath the shuttle was a mere half-meter over the ground and the copilot used his console to release the locks that kept it in place; first the physical connection, then the magnetic seal, which allowed the module to impact the ground below. Leaving the field created by the shuttle, the module became visible once more, and as it struck the ground not far below it, barely a tremble was felt inside.

Manipulating his controls, the pilot caused the shuttle to ‘slide’ to the right over the ground. Now clear of the module and slightly to its side, he addressed the flight engineer through his helmet’s communications system, “We’re in the clear, let them drop.”

“Copy that, letting them down now.”

A few taps on the panel caused both hatches below the droids to snap open, a moment later their restraints released them and they dropped out of the shuttle five meters to the ground below. A low powered antigravity system attached on the droids backs slowed their decent but their ‘feet’ still struck the fairly solid ground with an audible thump. Without hesitation they both moved quickly out from under the shuttle, their scanner and targeting systems searching the area around the landing zone for potential hostiles. Had the flight engineer been able to through his gear, he would have felt the air within the rear cabin drawn slowly out through the open hatches as they maintained a slightly higher pressure inside the shuttle to prevent any airborne contaminates from coming in.

Another few taps on the panel caused the hatches close shut once again and the flight engineer gave the all clear to land. A few moments later the copilot extended the shuttle’s landing gear and the pilot brought the craft down and finally unto the ground. Once again grounded the copilot shut down the cloaking field, causing the shuttle to be visible once more. Had it not been for the Indrii scientists, and the somewhat more delicate equipment inside the specialized module, the entire landing would have been significantly more rapid.

Stepping back through the stern hatch, the flight engineer gave the all clear for the Kilrany infantry to open either of the two hatches and leave the craft.

Both Kilrany light infantry sections assaulted out of the shuttle as if the area was a hot landing zone while the reconnaissance section took a slightly more leisurely approach, knowing they would have a long patrol ahead of them. They waited a few moments near the shuttle before heading out in the hope that the scientists would quickly confirm that the air would not pose a problem for their built in filters.

The two light infantry sections held their position for a few moments, intently scanning their areas of responsibility with their weapons to ensure no threats were within the immediately vicinity. Nearby the slight thumping of the Assault Droids could still be heard, their anti gravity devices running at lower power settings, allowed them to reduce the total amount of their weight on the ground, and although they were by no means audibly stealthy, one could only hear them if they were in relative close proximity.

A quick nod of a head and a few hand signals from the Kilrany confirmed their own belief that the area was clear. Despite the apparent lack of any ability on the part of this planet’s inhabitants to listen in, or even detect their encrypted communications, they continued to follow emissions control and did not yet use them, at least not yet.

With the immediate area confirmed to be safe by both visual and thermal scanning, the Kilrany relaxed slightly, as the two regular infantry sections began to break up and find suitable positions around the landing zone to form a proper perimeter, the reconnaissance section began to exit the shuttle and gather next to it.

With the situation relaxed slightly, Sasha looked over to her friend, Svetlana, and addressed her quietly; as quietly as one could through the retransmission of their voices at least, though it did pick up on the volume of one’s voice and transmit it at identically, “Looks like this Flora pattern works halfway decent here.”

Svetlana nodded her head slightly, agreeing with Sasha in regards to the camouflage pattern on their armour and equipment, having swapped out the shipboard dark grey for something a little less conspicuous, “Quite, grey probably wouldn’t have been all that bad if it came to it, still infinitely better then wearing bright white in the woods.”

Her quip prompted a chuckle from the other members of her reconnaissance section in recognition of the reference. As their amusement died down, Sasha watched the movement around them until their section Sergeant decided it was time to move off.

Inside the modified transport module the Kilrany soldiers watched in amazement as the Indrii scientists wasted no time getting to their work, the second the module had hit the ground they were up and enthusiastically checking on their equipment, powering up systems and already beginning an analysis the atmosphere now that they were in direct contact with it. A few of them just shook their heads slightly, most of the scientific jargon being well above their heads.

Wasting no time themselves, four of infantrymen in the module were quickly ordered to pull free a pair of containers from their fastenings and take them outside through the airlock. Within each container was some thick camouflaged netting made of special materials they would put in place over the module and shuttle to help make the black coloured craft stand out a little less when day came around.

A lone ship just came out of hyperspace and floated along through space. On the side of the ship, can be read GAS Belldandy, which was a destroyer-class ship. Although a military vessel, due to the crew's history, the vessel is sometimes assigned exploration missions. Inside the bridge Captain James Lingun sits at the tactical display area, eyeing the holoscreens full of data and sighed.

"We aren't where we suppose to be!" he picked up his commlink, "Commander Frenck what the hell is going on, I thought they fixed this problem."

"Yeah well they didn't let me get at it til we left. I'm fixing it now."

"You could have at least told us before we launched!"

"Yea I could have if I weren't getting over that hangover from my shoreleave."

Lingun sighed, then Commander Silva Jilneas appeared behind him with a sitrep. "Ah yes, thank you lieut... ahem I mean commander. Old habits." he said taking the PDA she gestured.

"Quite alright sir, I haven't gotten used to it either,"

"I see, the ship seems to be in working order, despite the fact our navigations is still screwy.Palladium reactors stores ok." he signed the PDA with the stylus. Remembering that two year journey he and his crew had experienced through to reach home. Truly lost in space.

"Captain!"

"Oh! Yes Commander?"

"When you were having that chat with Frenck our scans have detected a contact within an AU of our position. Do we have a course of action?"

"Well our primary mission is to explore after all. Set course for the contact and initiate contact once we are in short range. In the meantime Frenck can work on those navigations!"

"Alright already, get off my goddam back!" he yelled then muttered.

The Belldandy then sped up to full speed, the engines becoming brighter.

The Kilrany crew of the KIN Redeemer, with all their technologically advancements, were ultimately still human, and no human being was above making a mistake in a distracting environment, this was to be the case with the arrival of the alien starship. With so many of their active sensor arrays aimed towards the planet below them, they were slightly over confident that their stealthing and cloaking systems would prevent alien species from getting a good look at them. Had they been aware that they had been detected, and that this GAS Belldandy was coming towards them, they might have assumed it was due to the active emissions they were slamming out and gone over to their passive systems entirely. As it was, their passive arrays had not yet picked up the Belldandy’s signals, not initially recognizing these alien signals as a threat, at least for the moment.

Still a significant distance out, and aware of the potential threat, Captain Alexei Vyshinsky gave a friendly nod of his head to the two infantrymen standing outside the command center’s entrance, to which they returned in kind as he passed through the open blast doors. Inside the ship’s command center the atmosphere was somewhat subdued as the ship maintained its orbit on autopilot and most of the real work on monitoring the planet was being done by the scientists through the supplementary sensors, leaving the crew currently on duty with little to do but monitor their readouts and talk quietly among themselves.

The current command officer on duty, a Lieutenant Commander Elem Lungin, half turned towards Vyshinsky as he came in, the telltale glow of the device over his eye indicating the viewer device he wore was active.

“Good afternoon sir.”

“Afternoon Lieutenant Commander, have they touched down yet?”

“They have sir. We picked them up visually as they de-cloaked in the clearing.”

“Good, who’s got the visual?”

Lungin took a moment to glance at the command console next to him in the center of the room, “Gun camera forty-three is currently providing close visual surveillance on their landing zone.”

Somewhere on the starboard ‘wing’ of the KIN Redeemer, a weapons turret armed with a pair of what was classified by KIAM as medium class naval Disruptors, were aimed at the planet’s surface, fortunately for all concerned, the weapons were in standby mode, and were not about to open fire. It was the view from this turret’s gun camera; controlled from its section’s gunnery control room, that Vyshinsky would see as he picked up the eyepiece from the console and typed in a command to receive that feed in particular.

“Very good then, as you were.”

“Yes sir.”

As Lungin went back to his duties, Vyshinsky took a few moments to watch the movement around the landing zone out of curiosity, with the little light was still available. In this view he could easily see the movement of Indrii in their basic NBC suits, which didn’t hide them from the ship’s sensors like the Kilrany military equipment. Given the magnification on the camera he could still visually see a handful of KINI who were moving about on the ground on a patrol around what he assumed to be the shuttle and its transport module, both of which were obscured by camouflaged netting over top of them.

He stood there and watched their movement for several minutes, imagining what it must be like to step foot on an alien world before quickly coming to the conclusion it wouldn’t have been all the different then their own. Removing the headset, he reset the feed with a few taps on the command console and replaced it to its proper position before leaving the command center once more.

-----

Sasha turned to face her section Sergeant as he finally addressed them, “Time to move out, we’ll spiral out from the shuttle and make sure no one walks in on our ride home here unexpectedly, then head out for the little village. Power them up, Lev, you’re on point, lead off.”

A chorus of acknowledgements followed the order, though it was not audible to those outside the reconnaissance section as they all now switched their communications system to both internal and section level only. Almost in unison the men and women of the section first reached up to the left side of their helmets and depressed a pair of slight bulges on the inner rim of their helmets that functioned as buttons.

These in turn controlled their visor’s low light and infrared HUD system, pressing one or the other once would activate them, while a second touch would deactivate them and return them to their basic vision. Pressing both at the same time however had the simple effect of turning both on the same time, splitting the effect over the left and right eye respectively, a second press would swap the setting for personal preference, in her case, Sasha had little attachment to either and simply chose the first setting.

That done they all reached down to a stealth field generator attached to their belts and activated the small devices, within moments the twelve reconnaissance soldiers were surrounded in an effect similar to active camouflage. Though these devices were not difficult to produce, they were equipped only to very select groups within the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry, namely reconnaissance sections and snipers, due to the difficult nature in using them, as not even the user was able to see themselves when the device was active.

This unfortunately would not help them with the noise they made in their movement, unlike their Russkyans allies back on Mir, the Kilrany were rather large in average size, coupled with the somewhat more comprehensive armour they wore, they were no where near as silent as their Russkyan comrades in a woodland environment. It was only due to slow and deliberate movements of the reconnaissance element that they were able to come anywhere close to the level of field craft that was a seemingly inherent skill to a Russkyan.

While stationary, Sasha couldn’t even see the weapon she was carrying in her hands, while this made it near impossible to shoot effectively with the field active, it was not something they left on during a combat situation for that very reason, coupled with the simple desire not to accidentally shoot another section member. Another factor that added to the difficulty in using these devices was the uniforms and armour worn by the KINI themselves, as it significantly reduced their infrared signature and masked their life signs to sensors, leading them to place a small pair of ‘cat’s eyes’ on the back of the reconnaissance soldiers helmets that lit up with a slight thermal signature when the field was activated to allow them to use these devices in a simple patrol.

Nearby, a pair of the infantrymen on perimeter guard watched as the recon section vanished before their eyes, always amused when they saw it happen. It was only when they started to move off that they were able to ‘see’ them again, or at least infer their locations, as while moving the field created a slightly visible distortion, much like heat radiating off an object that the observant person, or someone who simply knew where they had been, could spot.

Trailing near the back of the section, third from the rear, Sasha heard Lev speak up casually as they walked at a comfortable pace into the woods, “Now … I was never the best science student, I’ll admit that right now.”

Sasha grunted in amusement and rolled her eyes while Lev, oblivious to her reaction continued, “But correct me if I’m wrong here. The science guys said that these … people … are essentially identical to us … isn’t that supposed to be … or I should say aren’t the odds of that supposed to be astronomically impossible or something?”

Sasha chose to speak up before anyone else took the opportunity; she was smiling as she spoke, well aware of Lev’s tendency to seek to amuse his section mates, “Yes Lev, but don’t you worry about that right now, let the scientists do that, you just keep you eyes to the front and make sure we don’t trip over any giant spiders.”

She heard several different chuckles come over through her communications system, including Lev, who needed no such prodding as he was carefully keeping an eye out, “Alright Sasha, I’ll make sure we don’t run into any spiders that might freak you out.”

She laughed lightly before replying, amusement clearly evident in her voice, “Don’t try that with me, you hate spiders more then I do you arachnophobic bastard.”

Another round of chuckles passed through the communications system before it settled down and the reconnaissance section focused on their task at hand a bit more.

It was about an hour and a half later; by which time their reconnaissance section had walked roughly four kilometers on their spiraling patrol, and a mere two kilometers from the shuttle, when the scientists determined that the air posed no threat to either their filters or them personally. Thus a few moments later a KINI back at the landing zone transmitted a message the Kilrany reconnaissance section that they didn’t need to use the added air tanks, much to the relief of Sasha, who disliked relying on a fixed air supply.

She wasn’t the only one in the group however, as their section Sergeant ordered a hold position, which they carried out immediately, coming to a stop where they were and scanning the forest around them in their designated zones. They then took a moment to ensure no one was around before deactivated their stealth field generators for a moment and disconnecting the small, extra air tanks they had been carrying, falling back on the built in filters that were a part of their helmets.

They still had to carry the tanks with them, but they didn’t mind this fact, they were merely pleased that they didn’t have to worry about any problems with the planet’s atmosphere; such as choking to death while puking up their own lungs, a particularly nasty mental image that had come to Lev. Content that all was still well, they reactivated their stealth fields and continued on their patrol route once more in relative silence.

-----

The KIN Redeemer was not quite as alone in this system as they thought they were, nor had they in fact been alone since they left Kilrany patrolled space. While none of their operatives had been stationed aboard any of the exploration craft, it had been deemed a wise course of action to send one of their own ships along to shadow each craft and monitor their activities. To this end, a small Spectre class Frigate; designed for patrol and scout work, under the control of the 5th Division of the Kilrany Imperial Guard, held a much higher orbit of the planet below, keeping a position relative to that of the Redeemer based off the larger craft’s active sensor output, while remaining entirely on passive sensors.

Similar to its much larger KIAM designed cousin, the Spectre was hidden in its passage through space by means of Kilrany stealth and cloaking systems. Unlike the Redeemer, and all other KIN vessels and Kilrany systems, 5th Division vessels were entirely under the control of the installed AI, with maintenance and security systems slaved under its control. In spite off all this automation however, the vessel was not unmanned.

In the small warship’s dimly lit command center, one not unlike that within the Redeemer, a lone male 5th Division operative with short black hair, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes were closed for the moment. While times had changed since 5th Division had first come into being; under a different name initially, and technology had along with it, they had remained at heart the same, as their role in Kilrany society remained timeless. Despite the fact that they had adopted these new technologies to better carry out that role, they retained most of their traditions and ceremonies; even their uniforms had changed little.

Dressed in the usual all black uniform used when not on active operations, with body armour that covered certain sections of the body and held much of their light equipment; not unlike the current Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry, they retained even the sword and Kilrany long knife on this semi-ceremonial attire. Visually the most striking change now was in their helmets, of which when worn, completely encased their head in a somewhat form fitting style. Because of this the head ware of 5th Division created a wide screened HUD that filled their vision, allowing them options in their sight that not even the KINI had.

This particular agent was not wearing his helmet just now however, as it sat on the central console, the lights dimmed to help relax him, a soft piece of instrumental music played through the command center’s intercom. With a decent view of his facial features, the most noticeable was a long scar that ran down near vertically over his left eye, starting from his forehead down to his cheek near the mouth. It was a clear reminder of just how dangerous a job it was to be in 5th Division, the biomechanical eye that replaced his old one destroyed by the injury helped reinforce that.

Like all 5th Division combat operatives, he was genetically enhanced above the baseline Kilrany norm, he was however no superman and had very real limitations with at best having twice the strength, agility and mental processing ability the best could achieve naturally. The Kilrany had long discovered that one could only enhance the human body so far without creating a hideous, bulging monstrosity incapable living within a society; for some however, this wasn’t seen as a problem. To that end, those modifications made to 5th Division operatives were relatively slight and only served to augment their abilities from training and experience, not compensate for a lack of it.

While there was no where near the normal complement of crew aboard the vessel, he was not alone on it, being one combat operative out of eighteen, with four more from the intelligence branch to supplement them. It was still nothing close to what the vessel would normally require for operations under the KIN, but it was made up for with abundance of maintenance droids in two variants.

Without opening his eyes, he seemed to softly address no one in particular, “Dionisy.”

A split second later a holographic image of the ship’s AI snapped into being near the command console just opposite him, the faint glow of the projection casting an eerie light on the unmanned stations around the room. As it was based of the mind of a 5th Division soldier, it had been given all the rights and privileges associated with the organization, as such its ‘avatar’ wore the same black uniform as he did, including the helmet, but the voice was decidedly male, “Yes Nikolai?”

Unlike KIN warships, those ships under 5th Division control were not named, as such the AI that controlled these ships for 5th Division were named as a person might, rather then after the ship they inhabited, “Are you still certain that Vyshinksy will opt for a low profile?”

“I do given the psychological profiles I have available on the Kilrany personnel, the Indrii are predictable enough; I doubt they will stray far from any request Vyshinsky asks of them.”

With his eyes still closed, Nikolai nodded his head slightly, and even though he wasn’t really in the room, Dionisy picked up on the gesture through the security cameras. If Nikolai had intended to say something else, he didn’t get the chance as the AI spoke up once more, “The scientists on the surface just reported in, they indicate that the atmosphere contains nothing harmful to the unprotected.”

Being 5th Division, they had full access to all KIN encryption protocols and were easily able to monitor any wireless communications sent to, or from the larger exploration vessel. Still Nikolai kept his eyes closed, “Good to hear, please inform Larisa, she’ll want to know.”

This time it was the AI avatar’s turn to nod his head slightly in acknowledgement, “I’m informing her as I speak.”

“Thank you.”

Once more the AI gave a slight nod of its avatar’s head, but said no more and disappeared, the light of its projection gone, the command center returned to its peaceful appearance as the music continued to play, all still unaware of the approaching GAS warship, for the moment.

As the Belldandy finally came with short communications range of the contacts Captain Lingun looked over to the communications tech to foward a prerecorded message.

"This is Captain James Lingun of the Ganoxian Alliance destroyer Belldandy. We had detected your ships from outsystem and, as per our mission, would like to conduct diplomacy with your people. If agreed would you permit our ship to approach closer."

Lingun learned from his previous encounters the past two years. Most of the contacts initially tried to destroy his 300 meter long vessel (http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a287/GeneralZhukov3333/?action=view&current=TopKotorClassDestroyerMkII.jpg). Its amazing we survived... he thought.

___________________

Seli Grostin was sleeping in his bed, dreaming about his shore leave with Nisa. After getting acquainted with New Ganoxa, he took her to all the "good spots" as the brochure said. A cliff face with a beautiful species of flower that was known only to bloom once every ten years, then crystallize. He made it into a harpin and put it in Nisa's long beautiful hair. Suddenly he heard a beep, then another one. He got out of bed and made a curse at the beep that interrupted his wonderful dream. He walked over to the door, only his briefs were on. He turned on the light and pushed a button so the door would slide up. His face immediately reacted in surprise, "What the?"

"Oh Sel! I couldn't be alone on that world, I just had to come with you!"

"Nisa! What are you doing here?"

"Well I petitioned to the Captain that I could come on this ship."

"How did you do that?!" baffled that the Captain would do such a thing.

"Well it took alot of work," she smiled.

The Captain couldn't say no to that face. he thought and sighed.

"Can I come in?"

"Uh yeah," I can't say no either, he smiled.

The door shut behind them.

“Make a hole! Coming through, make a hole!”

A cacophony of noise filled Captain Alexei Vyshinsky’s ears as he yelled out in a commanding tone for some crewmen to clear the stairwell a few meters in front of him that led down to the next deck, which subsequently was where the Redeemer’s command center could be found. The clacking of boots on the deck from crewmen and infantrymen alike intermingled with the loud and deep klaxon that sounded every second through the ship’s intercom, broken only occasionally by Lieutenant Commander Elem Lungin’s voice.

“All hands, set condition one on all decks, this is not a drill, I repeat, set condition one on all decks, prepare for engagement.”

What the hell? I’m gone to my quarters for a damned hour and all hell breaks loose, the Captain barely had time to think as he slid down the stairs past a pair of crewmen who scurried out of his way before quickly going up in the opposite direction. While it was often considered, there were no elevators on any model of KIN warships, the tradeoff in potential structural deficiencies were deemed unreasonable for the limited luxury, simply walking, or in this case, running proved far more efficient anyway.

It took him a total of forty-seven seconds to sprint the distance from his quarters to the command center, which necessitated a quick sidestep around one of the Minotaurs as it came thumping out of its alcove. Coming to an abrupt stop just inside the blast door, he immediately picked up one of the command headsets as he addressed the Lieutenant Commander who was still on duty.

“Status report mister Lungin, why have you called a condition one?”

He slid on the headset and activated it as Elem Lungin turned to face him, “It came out of nowhere, damned alien vessel just popped up close range to us.”

“How the hell did it do that? Never mind, not important now, is there just one?”

Lungin gave a quick nod of his head, “As far as we could tell before we went over to passive, yes sir. We picked it up just before it transmitted a message of some kind, communications is looking it over, I had sensors run a quick active scan before I ordered full EMCON and ordered the con to get us out of the gravity well and keep a respectable distance.”

A glance towards the planet confirmed this for Alexei as he could see it getting smaller, if painfully slowly. The Athena’s weren’t the fastest ships when this close to a planet’s gravity well and it left him wishing the Redeemer had been given all the armament it had been initially drawn up to have as a battleship before its redesign. Operating on passive sensors, they could only infer the general location of the GAS Belldandy off its own active sweeps and keep ‘a respectable distance’, based of that data.

“Are they still tracking us?”

“I don’t know. Engineering reports that the cloaking system is fully operational and we’re on passive now, if they can see through it then I’m going to have to have a few words with the KIAM engineers when we get back, assuming we do.”

“You and me both. Alright, communications, I want to hear that message.”

While the crewman at the communications station was bringing up the right file, Lungin spoke up, “What about the shuttle sir?”

Alexei shook his head slightly, “They’re safer down there then they would be attempting to return to the ship at this point.”

As he finished, the crewman at comms hit a button and the message sent by the Belldandy played inside the command center through the intercom. It proved a fruitless exercise as none within could make sense of what was spoken, though they at least recognized it as a language.

At a loss for anything else, Alexei addressed the ship’s AI, “Redeemer, you have any thoughts on this?”

His presence requested, the Redeemer AI appeared by projection within the command center just opposite the command console from his Captain and shook his head slightly, “There’s not much we can do with that, we were only making progress with the languages from the planet below because we had a constant source to try translate with, this is just too little information to realistically translate given what we have on languages. Hell, for all we know it could be saying anything from, ‘we come in peace,’ to, ‘you’ve trespassed on sacred ground, you have five minutes to make peace with your deaths’.”

There was no attempt by the AI to hide the exasperated tone of his voice as he finished speaking, and the silence that followed gave one of the on duty officers the chance to speak up, “Sir, all stations report condition one set, all gunnery control rooms report fully manned and ready.”

Alexei remained silent but acknowledged the report with a nod of his head; there was no powering up of the ships weapons, they were simply in a stand by mode, all one had to do was turn the safeties off and allow them to fire, whether through manual control, or through targeting computer.

A few moments later as the Captain of the Redeemer was still unsure how to proceed, Commander Akhmatova came jogging up through the still open blast doors. A quick round of catch-up was played that brought her into the loop.

“Just to add the option then, perhaps we should just send a message back, they obviously know we’re here, maybe they have more experience with alien languages.”

“Maybe Commander, but I dislike making a meeting that’s not on our terms … damnit, why did we have to miss them coming, we could have taken action sooner and made ourselves less noticeable,” he paused a moment to release a slight sigh, “Alright, nothing to it now, keep us as we are now, but we’ll try sending a message back, con, when that’s done, put a little more distance between us and where we transmit from, on the off chance we can at least keep a low profile here.”

Striding over to the communications station, one of the crewmen there pressed a button as he pulled what looked like a small earpiece from his pocket, the device sat in his ear, with a length that ran first slightly down, then up around his ear back and then back down once more, ending in a small boom microphone that extended halfway to his mouth.

He opened his mouth to speak but suddenly faltered, unsure how to initially word his own message out of natural paranoia. Quickly he gestured with his hand back and forth over his throat to tell the crewman to cut the recording.

“Damnit, I don’t want to give them to much information on us, tie in with the old Russian that’s not used anymore, filter my message through that and then transmit a data package with the dictionary.”

Just under half a minute passed before the crewman finished setting it up and pressed the button once more, signaling Alexei with a gesture that it was ready.

Taking a neutral tone he tried once more, “This is the Captain of the Redeemer, we are unable to understand your message at this time, we are transmitting a data package containing all the information necessary to create a translation. We are explorers seeking friendly encounters, we await your reply.”

He gestured again, this time that the message would do, picking up on this, the crewman pressed another button to save the message created before hitting another to transmit it along with the data package, to be safe he did this three more timed at thirty second intervals.

Letting out a breath, he leaned forward against one of the consoles before pushing back up to a standing position. Already the crewman at con was moving the ship an extra five hundred meters from their last position, intent on keeping a minimum of one thousand kilometers between them and the alien vessel, well within their weapons range, but far enough away to allow some movement in the open space.

Turning back to the command station, he addressed no one in particular, “Well, that’s it then, now we wait and hope they don’t start shooting.”

-----

With nothing else to do but continue to wait until the next shift, ‘Nikolai’ continued to remain within the small Frigate’s command center, quietly relaxing. He knew talk had begun elsewhere to consider their own landing somewhere on the planet for an up close and personal look at the inhabitants below.

Despite having his eyes closed, he still noticed the light from Dionisy’s projection brighten the room slightly, “We have a problem.”

Snapping his eyes open, he immediately reached forward and taped a few keys on the console, cutting the music and bringing the light level back up to normal. A momentary glance around the room let his notice the various readouts as the AI was giving new orders to the various stations.

Seeing that Nikolai was now looking back at his projection, Dionisy continued, “An alien vessel has appeared dangerously close to the Redeemer. They have initiated the standard procedures and enacted full EMCON; as such I have lost their position. I am moving to keep us clear of both vessels’ possible reactions.”

Nikolai frowned ever so slightly, clearly displeased, “How did it get so close? Do you suppose they have their own cloaking technology?”

“While it’s possible they do, I believe our passive arrays did not initially recognize their sweeps as artificial in nature, I’ve edited the programming for the system in response. Obviously however it would not have been difficult to spot Redeemer while they were actively scanning the world, but if they can see through our cloak, then they are a significant threat … I’ve picked up a message apparently directed at Redeemer by the alien craft … message is unreadable, I lack the necessary data to translate.”

“Understood, we’ll keep a low profile for now and see what happens … obviously though stand by to engage the vessel in support of the Redeemer if it becomes hostile.”

The AI acknowledged with a nod of his avatar’s head, Nikolai didn’t need to ask Dionisy to inform the others, as he knew he would be doing so as they spoke.

Silence continued for another two minutes before the AI spoke again, “Redeemer has transmitted a reply, it appears the Captain is using an old form of Russian rather then Kilrany to try and speak with them … they’ve added a data package with information they could use to translate.”

Nikolai grunted slightly, clearly intrigued by the move, “Clever.”

With nothing more to say but to wait, Dionisy moved the much smaller, and faster Spectre to a position some five thousand meters to the right and at a slightly downward angle of the sensor signal they were picking up from the GAS Belldandy.

-----

Completely unaware of the events transpiring in the space above them, the twelve-man Kilrany reconnaissance section continued through the woods on their assigned patrol. Now several kilometers further from the shuttle, Sasha slowly continued to scan the woods within her arc of responsibility within her section. As far as patrols went, she felt this once, despite being on an alien world, was about average for the course, having seen little more then the odd animal that looked suspiciously similar to some seen on Mir. This was about to change however.

With their HUDs partially displaying in the infrared, Lev was able to catch sight of numerous heat sources coming their way rather rapidly from their front, as point man he called it out, “Hold, something coming in from the front.”

Without question the entire column halted where they were and went down on once knee and taking up their respective firing arcs coving all angles of approach.

A few moments later, from her position farther back, Sasha could see the same heat signatures Lev had, and while they were clearly animals, they were spooked by something. On the chance they might have to engage something, she heard her section Sergeant speak up, “Turn ’em off,” promptly they each took a second to reach down with their free hand and deactivate their stealth field generators, making themselves clearly visible once more.

They didn’t have to wait long for the source of the heat to become visible as almost a dozen animals, which looked far to similar to deer for the comfort of these infantrymen on and alien world, came sprinting through the trees in front of them. Moving with an unnerving quiet, they passed right by the section that remained nearly motionless as they passed.

This serene scene was rather abruptly shattered when a pair of thunderous cracks filled the air in rapid succession; they all recognized the sound of a firearm and its distinct sound. One round found a home dangerous close to Sasha as it impacted a tree less then three meters from her.

Farther to the front of the column, and in a position monitoring their front right, Sasha heard the voice of her friend and section mate, Svetlana call out over their internal communications gear, “Ping right!”

Without taking her own weapon off the left, Sasha swung her head around to look to the right of the column in time to see what looked like a human being come smashing through a bush twenty fifteen meters away. He was dressed in a brown pair of pants, a dark coloured jacket and wore and odd-looking hat that seemed similar to one of their beret. He was clearly grumbling to himself as he walked towards them, an open, breech loading, over under shotgun rested on his forearm as he loaded a fresh shell into one of the barrels, a second round visible in his right hand.

A number of quiet curses rang out from within the helmets of the KINI, which were only made more audible within their helmets when this hunter looked up at them and froze in place. Unsure what to do themselves for the moment, they just stay where they were, looking at each other, the hunter blinked several time; though those infantrymen covering the right now had their weapons trained up him.

Several seconds seemed to pass before he spoke in a language that was as much gibberish to them, as the message from the Belldandy had been for the crew of the Redeemer. However in this case, the tone of his voice and the look on his face seemed to convey the general meaning, which Sasha took as, “What the hell?”

Perhaps if the people of Mir had psychics among them they could better met knew species, but such individuals only exited in their myth and fiction, oddly this had a somewhat scientific reason that the Kilrany were unaware of. A quirk in their genetic make up, prevented the formation of these mental abilities within their race, while this was something of a potentially significant disadvantage, it was a double edged sword in that it also protected their minds from such things.

Her section Sergeant stood up then and without lowing his carbine in his right hand, took a step forward and spoke in a loud voice, having clearly set it to broadcast externally before standing up, “Lower your weapon,” to add emphasis to his words and get across the language barrier, he gestured with his left hand in a sort of downward wave. This proved to be a mistake however as it startled the hunter out of his surprise, and reacting on fear, quickly slammed the second shell into the tube and attempted to close the breech.

He didn’t get the chance to as three of the Kilrany soldiers, including the section Sergeant, immediately squeezed the trigger on their weapons, fully aware of their rules of engagement. While their body armour was likely able to stop the projectile, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t strike a weak point, thus these soldiers had little choice in the matter, as their lives took priority.

The hunter’s mouth opened wide as it to scream as several of the ‘rounds’ impacted his chest at once, but the extreme effects of his nervous system cause nothing but silence to come out before he simply dropped to the ground where he had stood.

Sasha saw her Sergeant’s helmet snap downward slightly and just as abruptly back up, but heard him say nothing, despite this she recognized the contained curse he wanted to say. Slowly he moved up towards the body while gesturing for another to come with him, it was unnecessary, but they checked to see if he was dead, and he was.

Switching to their theatre level setting, she heard he Sergeant break EMCON and address the Lieutenant back at the shuttle, “Lieutenant Surikov, we’ve run into a problem here.”

Standing only a few meters from the shuttle, Surikov was quick to respond, knowing that the Sergeant wouldn’t have broken EMCON without a good reason, “What is it Sergeant?”

“We just had an unexpected run in with an indig and we were forces to kill him. I think it was a hunter.”

“God damnit,” Sasha grunted slightly at the Lieutenant’s curse and subsequent sigh, “Alright, nothing to be done about it, conceal the body for now, mark its position and continue with your assignment.”

“Yes sir,” switching back to their shorter ranged, section level, her Sergeant spoke again, “Sasha, Valentin, Konstantin, take care of that body, everyone else take up a perimeter for the moment.”

A quick chorus of acknowledgements followed as Sasha made her way over to the corpse, as she got closer she made a private thank you to the KIAM engineers who had designed the filter on the helmets they wore, as she wouldn’t have to smell the burnt flesh on the man’s body.

After recieving the message from the foreign vessel, Lingun sat back in his chair, wondering where he heard that language before. He looked through the database and found a match. Russian. It was located in the earth files given to them by the Dornalians. He looked over to the communications tech, "What happened with my message?"

"Oh shit! Ahem excuse me sir but I left a Forellian filter on, switching back to Basic-English now." the tech said fumbling at the controls

"And why was it on Forellian?"

"I was talking with this Forellian hot erm... I mean I was discussing intelligence with,"

Lingun waved his hand, "Forget I asked," he said annoyed by the tech's response.

"Open all channels on short range comms and turn that damn filter off!"

"Um yes sir."

"This is Captain James Lingun of the Ganoxian Alliance destroyer Belldandy. I apologize if you couldn't understand our previous message. To begin with, we are human explorers trying to find suitable planets for colonization so our people can survive. As per our orders, we would wish to conduct diplomactic talks with your people as we could exchange information about each other. If said talks are acceptable please allow my ship to dock with yours or we could land on the planet below in a remote area if you don't trust us that much."

Lingun released the key when Jilneas came beside him, "Sir gravitic scanners are picking up another vessel in the area, but the other scanners weren't picking up anything. Seems they have a cloaking technology. We haven't noticed the craft until recently," she reported.

"This is getting interesting," he said as another green dot appeared on his display.

“You’re kidding.”

The look of surprise on Captain Vyshinsky’s face was matched by just about every Kilrany inside the command center and was audibly noticeable in Redeemer’s voice as he confirmed the man’s statement, rather then question, “I can’t explain it anymore then you can sir. It is English; I recognize it from the database, simple, plain English.”

Several moments of silence followed as each of them found themselves baffled at this revelation, English had long become something of a dead language on Mir almost a millennia before. Breaking this silence, Commander Akhmatova spoke up, “Filter through then and let us hear it.”

Since communications was not connected to the ship’s network; thus making it a closed one, one of the crewmen at that station carried out the order. With little effort the station translated the English into Kilrany for the crew and allowed them to understand it.

Looking back to Redeemer after the message finished playing; Alexei addressed the AI, “Is there any chance this is a trick? That they somehow accessed our database and simply picked a language?”

There wasn’t a trace of doubt in the AI’s voice, “Absolutely not. They could not have accessed this database wirelessly, let alone without my knowledge. This is genuine, as impossible as this should be, they know a language that was also spoken on our world.”

Without anymore to be said on that subject for the moment, Alexei turned to face one of the officers at sensors, “Is there any further indications they can see through our cloak?”

The officer could simply shrug, “I can’t tell for sure sir, its quite possible they’re picking up on something, perhaps some signature from our engines, they might have sensors more sensitive then ours. I wouldn’t think they’d have gravitational sensors on a destroyer, but I could be mistaken.”

Gravitational sensors were not unknown to the Kilrany; in fact they were part of the defense networks that protected their home system and systems of interest. They did however suffer from the simple fact that they had not yet mastered the art of miniaturization with them, and they took up massive amounts of space in the Chimera class defense stations, and thus deemed impractical for mounting on ships, as even the mighty Ares class would lose half its internal volume and weapons had one been included in it.

Alexei scowled slightly at the thought of the possibility that he couldn’t hide if he needed to, but he couldn’t afford to assume that the ship near his own could see him, or at least his general location, to do otherwise would be foolhardy. With nothing else he could do about it for the moment, he focused his attention back to the message and turned to his XO.

“I don’t like this, it feels a little too convenient that these aliens are calling themselves human, and that they happen to be able to speak a language of ours. Any suggestions?”

She considered the options for a moment before she responded, “Well obviously we can’t dock with them, we don’t have that ability, and I certainly wouldn’t want to let them simply come aboard the ship, we can’t risk it being a deception. I believe a meeting on the planet is our best option.”

It could perhaps be considered an unusual design practice, but the simple fact was that Kilrany Imperial Navy warships were not built with the means to dock with other vessels, nor did they even have escape pods. The only means of boarding or leaving a KIN vessel was through the ship’s protected hangar, or hangars should that be the case. It was simply deemed impractical to place any kind of escape pod system, as the sheer numbers required to evacuate the entire crew would be detrimental to the structural integrity of the warship.

Alexei nodded his head slightly, “I agree, I don’t see another option that doesn’t outweigh the risks, though we should use another position then where our team down there is right now, lets just leave that our little secret for the moment. If I recall properly there are a few isolated, uninhabited islands scattered about, lets pick one of the more remote ones and suggest it as a meeting point.”

It took about a minute and a half for them to find an adequate island, located out in the middle of one of the oceans barren of intelligent life and barely ten square kilometers in size. Two hundred kilometers North of the planet’s equatorial line, it would prove to be a reasonably comfortable area to spend some time in, and the coordinates were to be added in the next message.

After a moment of thought, the crewman pressed the record button at Alexei’s signal. His message was fairly straightforward; while it was hard to get them to talk, once the Kilrany started, they were quite direct, “No apology required Captain Lingun, one can’t expect perfect communications to occur in a situation like this. I have to say I’m surprised to know this language, but that’s something we can discuss face to face perhaps. My ship lacks a docking hatch and to be quite frank, I’m hesitant to allow anyone aboard this vessel, I’m sure you can understand our concerns, we’re knew to first contact and we’re a little suspicious. I have included the coordinates of a small island we can have a quite word on, may I suggest a meeting there in one hour?”

Content with that, he gestured again and the crewman logged it before sending it along in a burst towards the GAS Belldandy. Turning around, Alexei addressed the Commander, “Anna, I do believe you should go down.”

She smirked, “Of course, you know I wouldn’t let you anyway sir.”

He chuckled at that before she spoke again, “I’ll get Major Alekseev to get your outfitted and have a detachment assigned to you in case this turns out to be an ambush.”

She gave a quick nod of her head before she turned and left the command center.

-----

A similar conversation in regards to the language and supposition as to the sensor capabilities of the Belldandy was had aboard the small Spectre between Dionisy, Nikolai and a third 5th Division operative. Also much like the other conversation, it ended mostly the same, with only a slight difference as Dionisy wrapped it up, “And it would seem they haven’t taken notice of use so far, as far as I can tell, which is a positive sign. I will keep and eye on their output, if they focus in on this area, then we can assume they have a method of detecting our ships cloaked and we’ll know for sure.”

Nikolai merely nodded his head while the new arrival, a rather bleak looking woman with short brown hair and green eyes, remained silent for the moment. Those few who knew her would have said she didn’t always have this constant, drab look upon her face, but most understood it after the startling training accident that had cost this woman her right leg below the knee, her entire right arm, and had required major reconstructive surgery to repair the major burns over her upper torso and the surviving portion of her right leg. Mechanical constructions had replaced these limbs, and she still had a beauty to her, but the incident had still left a mark on her personality.

Her name was Larisa, she served as one of the intelligence officers for this particular ship, and after a few moments of continued silence, she spoke, “Regardless, they are a space faring species and are a threat, ideally Captain Vyshinsky will recall his orders not to disclose the location of Mir.”

The AI projection merely shrugged, “My profile on Vyshinsky indicates he is a patriot, he will do no such a thing intentionally,” there was a slight pause as the avatar’s head tilted to the side for a moment, “It would appear he’s arranging for a meeting down on the planet below to speak with these aliens in one hour.”

Nikolai seemed interested in this, “Perhaps we should send our own representatives down to discreetly observe.”

His words were clearly directed at Larisa and she picked up on them quickly, “Perhaps we shall.”

Captain Lingun was waiting on the island by his shuttle. Smelling that fresh sea breeze reminded him of the beaches of East Linguna on the Severail peninsula when he was on R&R. Now this was the closest he could get to emulating that experience, now that he could never return to Ganoxa again.

Thirty minutes before Lingun recieved the Kilrany message. "Prepare a shuttle," he ordered while getting out of his seat.

Jilneas walked up behind him, expressing some concern for her captain, "I'm coming too."

"No, you stay here. You have the bridge commander. I'll be fine." Lingun reassured her.

"Sir, I insist that you take some escorts with you."

Lingun looked at her eyes, there was no chance of disagreeing with her. Her mind was set and he was helpless. He sighed and finally agreed, "Alright. Have two escorts come, and thats all."

"Yes sir."

Now standing on the beach he received confirmations of the escorts that they're in position. Looking back on his statement he should have been more specific about what his escorts should have been. "Damn her!" he muttered.

With Commander Akhmatova on her way to one of the KIN Redeemer’s armouries, and then to one of the hangars, Captain Vyshinsky found himself in yet another ‘wait and watch’ situation. To make something useful of this however, he chose to lean more towards the ‘watch’ aspect and clicked a few buttons on the command console, which in turn cycled his eyepiece view from the default computer generated image, to one of the forward gun cameras.

Most were already trained on the GAS Belldandy as the gunnery stations stood by to open fire if the alien craft suddenly became hostile, which as far as they knew was still a distinct possibility. Thus it only took a few attempts before he found one that he felt had a decent look at the ‘destroyer’ sitting in space to their relative front.

With the earpiece still in place, he tapped another key and addressed the crewman in charge of that particular weapons mount, “Petty Officer Velten, I’d like you to zoom gun camera twenty-two in closer on the alien craft.”

Weapon turrets on Kilrany warships were typically controlled in blocks of five, though sometimes more and always of the same type, by one crewman in designated gunnery control rooms, which in turn looked much like the ship’s primary command center in layout. Here upwards of sixteen crewmen would control these ‘blocks’ of weapons emplacements with the help of a dedicated fire control system, which allowed them to either issue orders to and allow to fire automatically, or take direct control of and fire manually. While condition one was set in all spaces, all stations were fully manned, but in lower security settings, such as two or even three, fewer men would be constantly on duty, and with this in mind, those crewman present could take control of any guns from an unmanned station from their own if necessary.

In the forward most gunnery control room, not far from the command center itself; Petty Officer Vasily Velten heard the Captain’s order through his own headset, acknowledged the order simply and then quickly carried it out.

Back in the command center, Alexei saw as the camera zoomed in towards what looked to be the forward section of the GAS Belldandy. He knew there was little he could discern from a simply visual ‘scan’ of the warship, but he was curious as to whether its design would give him any insight into the people he would be dealing with. Different then KIAM designs, that’s for sure, but it’s not really unusual per say … if those are weapons turrets, looks to be a solid layout.

Addressing the crewman again, he spoke into the headset, “Pan slowly to its starboard side … hmmm, alright, to port … fairly symmetrical,” Velten didn’t respond to the Captain’s last few words, recognizing he was speaking aloud to himself, a moment later he continued, “Scan it over the rest of the ship, see if you can spot anything that might look like a bridge, or observation deck that we might see someone in.”

“Yes sir.”

-----

While the Petty Officer was doing as his Captain ordered, Commander Akhmatova was just arriving at an armoury place roughly in between the ship’s two hangars. Here she met with Lieutenant Peter Levitan and his platoon of infantrymen assigned to her by the Major. In the five minutes it had taken her to walk the distance, she had been in contact with Major Alekseev with her own earpiece, while there had been some concern over just how large a contingent to go down with; neither wanted to scare off their potential friends, nor did they however wish to walk into a potential ambush, so a single platoon was decided on.

Without any rush, they all took twenty minutes to change; the platoon out of their ship board grey, and the Commander out of her black officer’s uniform, into the same flora pattern in use by the first ground team. While the platoon outfitted themselves fully as they normally would, Akhmatova went a little lighter after finally finding a uniform and a set of body armour that fit her well enough. Unlike the infantrymen, she left off the tactical vest and webbing and took only her sidearm, though she was still wearing full body armour and helmet, which disguised their features.

Before leaving the armoury, they took an extra three minutes to have the redeemer make a modification to the communications system in their helmets, adding in the proper programming and data to translate English into Kilrany, and back again. It wasn’t common for them to need to deal with those of a language they did not speak, but unwilling to use their own language, it was arranged so that they would hear the English translated into Kilrany in their helmets, but in turn Kilrany would be translated to English if they spoke with the external setting. As all this had to be processed by the helmet’s communications system normally anyway, their would be no noticeable ‘lag’ in their speech, and they wouldn’t be thrown off by having their words coming back into the helmet in another language as they spoke them.

With that done they all made their way to the port side hangar bay, which took another three minutes, where they boarded another of the ship’s Beta Type Assault Shuttles. Finding a seat opposite the cockpit hatch and the flight engineer, they all made themselves as comfortable as they could for the ride down to the planet below.

Before they lifted off however, a decision was made to not have the shuttle use its cloaking system and be fully visible to the GAS Belldandy when it left the Redeemer’s field, and transited to the planet below. With the possibility of a double-cross still in their minds, they felt it best not to give away the fact that they could put these devices on smaller craft, and hide some of their capabilities.

Following a similar procedure as with the earlier shuttle departure, it was not long after boarding that this Beta went shooting out of the hangar bay, quickly vectoring itself down towards their inevitable destination. Unlike the first one however, this thirty meter long craft carried no module underneath its main body.

Some ten minutes before the scheduled meeting time, the second Beta came in towards a clearing, roughly six hundred square meters in size, on this ten square kilometer island. Despite the midday hour, they were unconcerned with being spotted, as their earlier sensor scans showed nothing but small animal life.

It was about then that they realized that the one they were to meet had gotten down first and chosen a position on one of the island’s beaches, which prompted a quick change in flight plan.

Another decision had to be made as they rapidly approached their new landing zone, this time in regards to the two Assault Droids located in the rear compartment. Ultimately their paranoia won out once more and the flight engineer quickly made his way inside to drop both to the ground below. Much like the other engineer, he addressed them in a familiar tone, “Afternoon gents, close in perimeter security, engagement condition green.”

Their deep voices boomed, “Acknowledged.”

Much like the condition levels on a KIN warship, the engagement conditions for Kilrany droids such as the Assault Droid were fairly straightforward and had three levels. Green was hold fire and engage only if ordered to, while yellow was also hold fire, though it included the freedom to fire on any target that presented itself as a threat. Condition red was equally simple, and stood for fire at will, also often described as, ‘kill everything that isn’t us’.

Just before setting down these two war machines were released from their restraints and they fell freely to the ground below, thumping to the sand below, they quickly moved out of the way to allow the shuttle to land near the edge of the beach nearer to a tree line some eighty meters from Lingun. Assaulting out of the two hatches, the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantrymen went to work quickly to ensure the area was secure, and set up a perimeter. Still not wanting to scare off whoever it was who came down form the Belldandy, they chose not to set up inside the woods, and kept their men, and the two droids close to the shuttle and well within sight, with the exception of one of the infantry sections who set off East along the tree line, but still inside the clearing and visible on the chance they could be picked up on the alien’s sensors, which they quietly hoped they wouldn’t be.

Exiting last, Commander Akhmatova took several long strides out from the hatch before coming to a halt, a quick glance at her watch told her they were four minutes early, which brought a smile to her face underneath the helmet. Another quick glance around her, she suddenly found herself amused at the sight of the other Kilrany and finally understanding a Russkyan joke she had once heard in regards to the KINI and their habit to look a lot like machines when fully outfitted as they all were.

It had been their intent to be the first ones to set down, but failing that she began to walk towards Lingun with Lieutenant Levitan followed just behind her and to her right. Unsure what they’d find, or if anyone was hiding in the trees, they all kept their eyes open and visually scanned the area.

Cautiously at first, Anna walked up to Captain Lungin and then held out her right hand in gesture of a handshake, should he accept it would be a firm and friendly one. As she spoke, the helmet’s communication system took her nature Kilrany and retransmitted out of the helmet for Lingun to hear as English, “Pleasant location to have a small chat wouldn’t you say? My name is Commander Akhmatova, executive officer for Captain Vyshinsky. I do apologize for the rather militant appearance of our landing, but I’m sure you can understand, it’s our first actual encounter with life outside our home system, so we’re a little unsure as to what kind of reception to expect.”

-----

Aboard the Spectre, at about the same time that Akhmatova was arriving at the Redeemer’s armoury, Nikolai and Larisa were having a little discussion in regards to the meeting, while Dionisy listened in quietly.

“Shall we wake the two and send them down?”

Larisa shook her head slightly at Nikolai’s question, “No, they wont be needed for this, besides, its not an ideal assignment for them, they’d just as soon kill these aliens as discreetly listen in. Eavesdropping is a waste of their talents in any case. I think it best if you and Sergei go down, take an Alpha and keep out of sight. Reconnaissance only. If things go wrong, the infantrymen know how to handle themselves.”

“Understood.”

It was about ten minutes later that Nikolai, and his partner Sergei; for 5th Division operatives always worked in pairs, were fully equipped and ready to leave the small Frigate. While they had changed out of the somewhat ceremonial uniforms, those they had changed into were not greatly different; they mostly lacked the sword and included a tactical vest to carry more equipment with while once more black in colour. They did however retain the Kilrany Long Knife, a weapon associated with the Imperial Guard in a sheath sitting horizontally along their lower back, just above the waist.

Unsure what might be required below should the meeting turn deadly, Nikolai outfitted himself with a conventional firearm as his primary weapon, a modern take on an older design, it featured an integrated suppressor, a thirty round magazine, and subsonic ammunition. He did take a Disruptor pistol however as his secondary weapon. Sergei was only slightly different; he chose to take a Disruptor Carbine as his primary, though his sidearm was the same as Nikolai’s.

Opting for a modified Alpha Type Assault Shuttle, Nikolai set the automatic pilot to take them down to the field below, engaging the shuttle’s cloaking device before they left the single, small hangar on the Spectre.

Arriving on the ground nearly twenty minutes before Commander Akhmatova, they chose a small clearing not far from the one the the meeting was to take place. Leaving the cloaking system on, they both engaged their own stealth field generators; both of significant improvement over those in use by the KINI, and left the craft, carefully feeling along the hull to close the hatch behind them.

Quickly, and with far less noise then the average Kilrany could manage, the pair made their way to the larger clearing, passing through the woods and near small animals without difficulty, they arrived on the North side a full ten minutes before Akhmatova. Here they waited five meters inside the tree line near the beach, highly confident that their superior body armour to that of the average Kilrany soldier; and thus far more difficult to produce, would hide their life and heat signatures, while their stealth field generators kept them hidden from prying eyes. All this confidence however was yet to be proven in light of this alien species.

Silently they watched the arrival of the Beta, and the release of the two droids, both of which they knew they would need to keep some distance from, otherwise it may have been possible for them to pick up on the sound of their footsteps. Slowly, after all had disembarked the shuttle, they crept out to the edge of the tree line to listen and watch as the Commander walked towards the alien.

"Yes this island brings back memories of my old home. Before the whole planet got swallowed up by the storm I had some fun times. Ahem, excuse my ramblings, I am Captain James Lingun of the Belldandy. I see you also brought a security detachment with you. As a sign of trust I'll order my guards to come out."

Two of the escorts suddenly appeared behind Lingun. Two 14 meter tall Arm Slave (http://www.full-metal-panic.com/image.php?file=images/recon/mecha/gernsback/gernsback01.jpg) mechs stood behind Lingun, one holding the 57mm shotcannon and the other with a 40mm Gauss Assault Rifle. They had been cloaked by their Electronic Conceal systems, which was a rapidly oscilating laser screen that blocked out the visible spectrum and had a stealth effect.

"The one on the left is Sargent Jim Loska, and the right is Corporal Lewis Treydor."

They both made a greeting on their outboard PAs.

"Anyways let us begin by understanding each other's nation."

If it had not been for the fact that their well-being rested on this pivotal moment, at least one of the Kilrany would likely have started laughing at the sight of nearly thirty-seven helmeted heads slowly panning upwards to look at the rather large machines of war standing behind Lingun. Though those farther away near the shuttle had less need to raise their heads all that high.

The first to break the silence was Lieutenant Levitan, who was later thankful his communications unit was set to internal and platoon level only, “Oh shit … we are way the hell to under-armed for this … would the MPATDs even work against these things?”

Akhmatova took it more in stride then the Lieutenant, having rather quickly come to the conclusion that if they were going to be attacked, it wasn’t going to be on this beach or they wouldn’t have bothered becoming visible. An unobtrusive twist of her wrist to a belt while she was still looking up allowed her to set her comm unit to the same as the Lieutenant, “Now’s not the time to find that out ... don’t worry, they wouldn’t have bothered letting us see them if they were going to try and kill us here ... I think.”

While the large, human like mechanized ‘tanks’ were certainly impressive, and certainly intimidating given the Kilrany’s tactical situation, it was not so much the fact that the GAS had them in general, so much as it was that they had them here, on this world, in front of them, coming from what they called a ‘destroyer’ class. Mechs, as well as powered armour, fell into a similar state as bull-pup weapons had once found themselves in millennia before, for the Kilrany at least. While they could work, they were often seen as less cost effective then somewhat more conventional weapon systems, at least when piloted by an actual human, but with such limited tactical experience against alien weapons of war, they could only rely on their simulations test their own creations, and there was no telling what others were capable of in the grand scheme of things.

A single mech type existed in active military use in Kilrany, but it was rather different in design to the human like Arm Slave, often simply referred to as the bipedal tank, and controlled by an AI to increase armouring and controllability. Powered armour had suffered the same fate; as the Assault Droid could attest to as it became cheaper for the Kilrany to build these with an AI, rather then take the time to train a person in their use for the amount of armour they could in turn carry. Early Kilrany mechs and powered armour had fallen victim to the faults of what the Kilrany called, exponential expansion, to give the person piloting the machine in question enough protection, it would require more armour to be survivable, thus increasing weight and power requirements, all creating an ever growing circle of problems that had initially thrown them off the concept for some time, and with a long period of peace, tackling the concept again was not deemed important in comparison to other projects.

Back near the shuttle, one of the infantrymen instinctively reached behind his back with his right hand to feel to feel the reassuring presence of his MPATD; pronounced as empat, a relatively simple looking tubular weapon that fulfilled the role RPGs once did, though they were far less versatile. Designed to let the infantrymen take on light and medium vehicles, they were all rather confident that the Arm Slaves would have been classified as heavy, and agreeing with Akhmatova, none of them felt like testing their effectiveness just then.

Having the distinct feeling she’d wasted enough time simply visually examining the Arm Slaves and that she was making Lingun wait long enough, another twist of her wrist and comm set was back to external and she addressed him once more, “My apologies Captain, you’ve taken us a little off guard with your escorts, rather impressive I must say.”

They’ve got a form a cloaking technology as well … useful to know, must be how they snuck up on us in orbit, while she had numerous questions, far to many to ask just then, and extremely intrigued by the mention of a planet swallowing storm, she chose not to pry, or mention that the Kilrany didn’t typically employ their cloaking technology on ground vehicles, as they found it raised fratricide levels to unacceptable levels, mostly as vehicle crewmen would forget they still had it on.

Continuing again, she first chose to acknowledge the presence of both soldiers with a friendly hello before going back to Lingun, “Yes, that’s why we’re here, to get to know each other a little in a neutral setting. Well, I’m going to assume at this point that’s you’ve pretty much guessed we’re not the most trusting lot,” her tone indicated she was light humoured, and it translated through the helmet’s comm system, “I’m bound by certain restrictions as to all I can tell you, but can say that my government has had something of an isolationist approach to the rest of the … universe, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure where to begin to be honest with you. This is after all my first encounter with an, ‘alien’. Ah yes, this seems a good enough spot, you call yourselves human, and you know a language that was spoken on our world, is … is this common?”

While she waited from him to reply, she suddenly realized that she didn’t notice any form of transport within sight that the man, or the mechs had used, which led her to ponder if the mechs also served as transports of some kind themselves.

-----

Not far off, Nikolai had a similar reaction upon seeing the large Arm Slaves as they became visible, though his was slightly more reserved, well that’s new. Activating his own comm system, he addressed Sergei, figuring if the Arm Slaves had any SIGINT capabilities they would likely shrug it off as being from the other Kilrany soldiers, “We are woefully lacking in fire power here.”

“Indeed we are. Thankfully this is just a reconnaissance mission.”

Nikolai didn’t move any closer to the meeting, with the locations choice being a beach, rather then a clearing as the Akhmatova had intended, they couldn’t get close without risking their foot prints being noticed. Wonder why she didn’t notice the mechs in the sand, he noted that thought in the back of his mind and went back to simply watching and listening.

"To be honest myself, our people were shocked that offworlders knew our language some twenty years ago, but that was before we even constructed jet engines. You see our old world was invaded by an alien force called the Cyverons, during which our world's nations was engaged in a brutal ten year world war. We had some help from other offworlders which turned the tide. Our technology level would have been the equivalent of 1940s earth as they say until we reverse-engineered Cyveron technology and obtained the ability to travel through the stars."

_________________

"One platoon of infantry, two mechanized defense structures..." the AI in Jim's Arm Slave was finishing up the report.

"I see. According to the map there is a forest in the area, anyone hiding in their." Jim asked

"Affirmative. Tactile sonar shows a signal in the forest."

"I see. Keep an eye out on them Rom." Jim ordered the AI.

"Roger." Rom acknowledged.

Akhmatova simply stared at Lingun for a moment from behind the anonymity of her protective helmet, That is not what I needed to bloody well hear. God damnit, we were worried about hostile aliens and now we have confirmation that some exist.

As the Commander was formulating a response, the two Assault Droids surveyed the new arrivals themselves, but several times smaller in size, they didn’t quite hold the same equipment the Arm Slaves obviously could. This also wasn’t helped by the fact that the Kilrany had a distinct animosity towards anything that sent out an active signal; always fearing it was could be traced back to them, so the sensor packages on both relatively small machines were passive in nature; the obvious and quite necessary exception being their communication systems.

While both came to the conclusion that the joints would likely be the best targets should they have to engage, hitting a moving target was hard enough, hitting a moving target in the knees was even harder, even if said target was several times larger in scale to a person. Ultimately their only consolation was that fact that each had a medium class disruptor, much like the MPATD in their right arm module. Splitting off, they each continued moving before momentarily coming to a stop several meters to the front and back of the shuttle, respectively.

Back in the shuttle, the flight engineer was peering out through one of the open hatches towards the scene a short distance away when the pilot chose to come up next to him to see the ‘new arrivals’ for himself. Unlike the KINI, the helmets on these two were far more open with their dark visor, as they did not need the extra armouring as the ground forces did.

Letting the other shuttle crew do their own subtle visual scans of the two Arm Slaves from the cockpit, the pilot peered past the flight engineer and out the hatch, letting out a long whistle, he turned to look at the flight engineer, addressing him directly though his helmet’s external comms in a low voice, “Maybe we should call Redeemer and ask for a bigger gun.”

The flight engineer choked back a laugh, and recovering a moment later he added, “Maybe we could take them at the ankles.”

While these two were making light of the situation to raise their spirits, Akhmatova tried to choose her words carefully, “I have to say that is extremely disturbing information Captain. While I don’t wish to belittle your experience in any way or pry to deeply, what became of these Cyverons? Is there a great deal of such conflict out there for use to blunder in to?”

Quickly though she decided he likely wouldn’t want to be the sole one answering questions and giving out information, so she chose to be cautiously forthcoming in a quick follow up, “This is our very first meeting with … alien’s Captain, we’ve had the ability to travel through space for some time, but we’ve never gone farther then a handful of barren systems near our own out of fear of just such an occurrence. Until recently we’ve always felt it best to keep a low profile, but things change, people become curious, some wish to explore and that desire overwhelms common sense at times, please tell me that our little jaunt through the stars wasn’t a mistake?”

She wasn’t really trying to sound naïve, but how could one not when obviously speaking to someone who had more experience on a subject, it didn’t help matters that she wasn’t a diplomat, she was a naval officer, should have brought a damned Indrii with me, hell, I should have brought a damned mechanized battalion with me. Despite that thought she knew that wouldn’t have been a possibility, the Redeemer carried no large assortment of heavy weapons beyond what an infantrymen or Assault Droid could carry. They simply weren’t prepared to deal with a serious ground fight given their essentially sincere intent to peacefully explore the universe around them, having no desire to invade any world, merely defend themselves; though out of paranoia, such measures existed.

-----

“Uh, Captain, you need to look at gun camera seventy-six, right now.”

Vyshinsky glanced at his subordinate curiously before he broke off his search for a window of some kind on the GAS Belldandy and tapped a key on the command console. The look that came across his face was first one of confusion, then one of disbelief, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Where the hell did those come from?”

Several seconds followed before he spoke again, “Well clearly they’re not shooting, so it wasn’t an ambush, but still … gah.”

Lieutenant Commander Lungin merely shrugged, there was nothing they could do from where they were that wouldn’t kill their own people rather violently in the process.

"Excuse me for saying this, but in my experience you would have to be stupid not to expect hostile parties in the vast expanse of space. During my ship's two year journey wandering around the galaxy trying to find our people, we had ran into several hostile parties that nearly killed us just because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time."

He looked up at the sky, "However, I believe exploration is key for survival. Of course you have your risks of encountering a hostile alien force, but you would also take the risk of that same alien force discovering your world. Exploration also has its benefits, forming alliances with other worlds, trading technology and resources you never heard of or can concieve." he looked at the Arm Slave to his right.

Lingun looked back at Akhmatova, "As for you inquiry on the Cyveron status, we haven't heard from them since twenty years ago, but right now we are more concerned of a greater threat to our people."

Anna frowned slightly as Lingun’s words, she was not accustomed to being berated like a child; at least as she felt was the case, but she was a Kilrany, and they were perhaps just a little to used to the level of respect they received for being the dominant civilization on their home world. Choosing not to inflame the situation, she pushed aside any of her personal feelings for the moment and focused on the task at hand, which readily brought her back to his last words, ‘A greater threat’ to you people? I guess we have some more ambitious aliens out there then just the average ‘enslave and pillage’ kind it would seem, though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, of all that old science fiction, someone was bound to guess near enough to the real thing.

“I appreciate your candor Captain,” despite her initial feelings she did mean it as she addressed him again in a calm voice, which still sounded a little odd being retransmitted through the helmet, “You’re experience has been mixed yet you obviously keep a positive view on it, commendable, I’m not sure if we could do the same, but then when you have to keep pressing on, sometimes there’s no choice in the matter.”

Suddenly she remembered his earlier words, which had been overshadowed by his mention of a greater threat, “You said, ‘Trying to find your people’, what more has happened to make you lose track of them?” she paused only for a moment before quickly adding, “I’m sorry, I’m prying, but to me this sounds like you could have knowledge that could be critical to the survival of my own people, especially with your mention of a greater threat.”

-----

Nikolai smiled, good girl, get everything you can, we’ll dissect it all later, he knew that what he was seeing and hearing was being recorded by both his own, and Sergei’s helmet communication system as part of their reconnaissance mission. Oblivious to his mental encouragement, Akhmatova did what she could to gain as much information as she could, all the while contemplating just what all she could tell him in turn without violating her orders.

-----

Aboard the Redeemer, Captain Vyshinsky came to a decision, “Well, I suppose there’s not much more good that can come from remaining unseen, wouldn’t you agree mister Lungin.”

While Captain Alexei Vyshinsky didn’t phrase it as a question, Lieutenant Commander Elem Lungin responded to it anyway with a nod of his head, “I don’t suppose there is sir.”

With that being said, Vyshinsky turned towards the appropriate officer and addressed him, “Power down the cloaking system, let em have a good look at us.”

If Alexei could have watched the KIN Redeemer become visible from the perspective of the GAS Belldandy, an instant flare of pride would have come to him. It didn’t matter to him that it wasn’t the pride of the Kilrany Imperial Navy, it didn’t matter to him that it wasn’t one of the premiere capital ships of the fleet, what did matter, was that it was his ship, his command, and he would always be proud to command her.

Perhaps the first thing that would be clear about the Athena class was that she had a very sleek design to her, the team having leaned a great way towards form in her creation. It was however for taking this approach that many partially blamed it for its failure to be selected, as the Kilrany, more often then not, would take function first, and with the Athena, there were concerns that its form hampered its function.

Regardless of this, she still shared many of the common design practices externally as she did internally. No where on the outer hull of this vessel was there to be found a single porthole of any kind; the only exception to this was the observation deck, but it was covered with blast shields when not in use, as was currently the case. Continuing with this, there were no escape pods and thick, heavy armour plates covered the entire outer hull, not only with the intent to protect it from weapons fire, but also penetration by broader sensor systems; such as the kind this class had been added with to conduct planetary surveys, the same kind of sensors the Kilrany felt would be a liability in combat from the mass ECM most likely to be encountered.

Also like most Kilrany warships, she was pitch black in colouring, now this wasn’t an attempt to look intimidating, nor was it an attempt to reduce visibility; instead it was a simple preference, aesthetically, for the Kilrany, who preferred darker colours. A stark difference to the Indrii, the Kilrany often joked that if they had their way, Kilrany warships would be bright lavender, or even indigo, though come did humourously comment on how it might throw someone for a loop seeing a warship in hot pink suddenly appear before them.

As it had this sleek design, the Athena was something of a radical shift from normal Kilrany vessels, starting with the front.

The closest description to this section would be something of a flattened egg, though it was far less rounded, curving outward to the stern roughly ninety meters from the front, it reached its widest point at roughly one hundred and eighty five meters before angling inwards again towards a narrow beam another ninety meters back from the midway point of the forward section, which was in turn roughly sixty meters in total height.

Behind this forward section, which housed the command center, was a sort of long and relatively narrow beam that connected to the rear section of the ship. This was also partially blamed for the failure of the design to be selected over the Havoc, as it was believed should the shields fail, it could prove to be a critical weak point between the command center and the engineering plant.

It retained a fairly consistent height of roughly fifty meters for almost the entire two hundred and sixty meters towards the stern section of the ship. It did however, after the angling in from the forward section to roughly ninety meters in width, and evenly going back another ninety meters, begin to curve with an inward angle out to the port and starboard sides at a slight decline, beginning the formation of the stern section and its wing-like addition.

Words were difficult to use to describe the design of the Athena, and this was no less a monumental task with the tail section. As the beam of the ship continued its outwards and slightly downward ‘arc’ from the ship, it reached a point that was roughly a total of four hundred and ninety-five meters, a third the total width of the ship, where it stopped angling inwards to the stern and started angling inwards and back forward to a total width of seven hundred and forty meters.

At this point, having created this curved forward, swept wing effect, the hull went straight back a meter before curving back in towards the ship with an outward angle. This went roughly the same distance back in, as it started to angle back forwards, roughly two hundred and forty-five meters before it intersected with the rear section, which in turn continued with an inward curve out towards the stern, completing the total length of the ship at eight hundred meters, and an overall total height of one hundred and eighty meters, as the rear section came upwards towards the stern much higher then the forward section or the connecting beam.

The rear section however didn’t completely connect with the ship at the tail end of the curve, as much like the wings, here they abruptly stopped roughly ninety meters short of connecting and came forward another ninety before angling evenly together.

The over all impression of the ship; at least to the Kilrany who designed it, was that of a predator, to ideally intimidate in combat. While this was of questionable use in a first contact situation, it was also felt that making a good first impression was key, and if they could make themselves appear as though they could handle themselves in a fight just through how they look, this was deemed a bonus.

The entire ‘de-cloaking’ only took a few moments, and when the officer reported it complete, Vyshinsky looked back to the smaller craft they were holding station near with his eyepiece, I wonder what they think of us, more importantly, I wonder what they’ve seen out there.

Turning then to the officer near sensors, "Slowly go active - not quite full power for the time being, see what else might be in the system and have the Indrii unobtrusively take a look at that ship. Maybe their labs and the extended sensor arrays and tell us more about them. Oh yes, and clear them to resume scans of the planet, as well as imply to them to check out that island."

The officer replied with a knowing look on his face, "Yes sir."



OOC: Given that my written description is likely horrendous, and doesn’t really give you an ideal mental image, I’ve decided to provide a link to the artwork that I base the Athena off of. Now I feel the need to stress that I view this merely as a concept image, the closest visual example of the design I could find sort of thing. While it would have likely been easier to just link it, I felt it best to at least attempt to describe it, as will be my intent on other such situations.

Concept image for the Athena (http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/klingon/battleship_khinvagh.jpg)

The image is that of a Star Trek ship, so obviously things are different, in this case, the only one of note would be the complete lack of the large nacelles on the Athena, it’s the only ST ship I use actually, I thought it looked really good and felt like making use of it. Most my ships come from Homeworld2 and subsequent mods for it (with a couple I custom made), in general appearance really, much like this, however they are a great deal easier to describe, as they tend much more utilitarian in their design.

"Oh no! No we found them finally, thanks to an ally that we had no clue about prior. You see we barely escaped a system swallowing forcestorm, which caused our people to flee our world. They were relocated at another planet, but I can't disclose anymore information on that. Meanwhile my ship was the last to leave and we barely escaped with our lives and wandered the unknown galaxy for about two years. God! That forcestorm was a terrible sight to behold, an entire transport fleet was lost, a quarter million died on that terrible day. I damn the Empire every day for that atrocity, that took our home from us." he looked down making a fist.

____________________

Commander Jilneas was sitting in the command chair within the tactical display area. The area contained a ringed bar surrounding the command chair, with holoprojectors emitting critical strategic and tactical data, providing the commander to easily control the vessel.

Jilneas sat back in her chair as the vessel suddenly appeared on her immediate left screen. It certainly looks imtimidating, but not as imtimidating as most ships I've seen.

"Comm-"

"Yes I see it. Hold position, continue as normal." she ordered.

I guess they're showing off, or know that we have capable scanners. Or both, but what about that other ship. Why haven't they revealed that one yet. I guess its best not to show off the escort.

"Finally shes finished, those goddam engineers don't know my own ship!" Frenck's voice suddenly rang through Jilneas' commlink.

"I take it you fixed our little problem."

"Yea, those engineers at home really fucked up the system. I was able to reroute a few wires and Yolah! navi-"

"That all I needed to know, thank you!"

"Why you litlle bi--" she turned off her commlink.

OOC: I use DoGA to make my ships, I like to make ships that sort of look like modern warships.

It hadn’t been Captain Vyshinsky’s intent to use his ship to intimidate, at least not consciously; perhaps part of him felt it wouldn’t hurt to make sure those of the GAS Belldandy thought they could be a threat, but consciously, his intent was to show a little trust. Simply revealing the ship was neither good, nor bad for him, at least as far as he could figure given the situation; he could always quickly cloak the ship once more, but given how things appeared to be going down below on the planet, he came to the conclusion that these aliens did in fact, simply wish to talk.

He wasn’t the only one to come to that conclusion, though he was the only one to take action on it, for in the smaller Spectre, Larisa was now alone in the ship’s command center. Even in private no smile cracked upon her face as she looked at the visual feed from a gun camera of the GAS Belldandy and the KIN Redeemer.

At length she addressed Dionisy, “I think the Redeemer has things well in hand, wouldn’t you agree?”

The holographic projection of Dionisy snapped to life in an instant, he always preferred appearing to have a face-to-face talk, “They don’t appear to be choosing to make themselves hostile and; at least tonnage-wise, Redeemer has more volume to absorb damage if that changes quickly, they should at least be able to withdraw if they need to.”

“I agree, take us back into orbit of this world and put it between us and them so we can recover our team when they’re done.”

Dionisy responded with a nod of his head as the small Frigate’s thrusters and main drive fired up to carry out Larisa’s orders.

-----

And the hits just keep on coming, these fellows just can’t catch a break, Akhmatova listened quietly to Lingun, the Kilrany had not suffered any deaths from war in quite some time, and certainly not in her lifetime, but it didn’t stop her from showing him respect. Kilrany history had not always been pleasant, but never to the extent of what she guessed from the man’s words, as she had no idea what a Force Storm was, for there were no Force-sensitives on Mir.

After continuing to allow for a further moment of silence, she spoke again, “I’m sorry for your loss, I don’t know what a Force Storm is, we’ve never heard of such a thing, but clearly from your description it’s not something we want to ever see. I would ask if it was some sort of natural phenomenon, but you say this was the result of an Empire, so I must assume it was a weapon of some kind.”

Not far off, Nikolai was intrigued once more, Larisa will be pleased, it’s been a while since we’ve come by such significant intelligence. With so many years of peace, 5th Division had almost lost its usefulness, though no one dared suggest the retirement of this age-old organization, and soon enough they would be needed more then ever as the Kilrany learned more about the universe around them.

"Yes it was a weapon, no natural phenomena could have produced such a monstrosity," he paused and looked around the beachhead. The pristine glitter of the sand, the crisp clarity of the water, the gentle warm sea breeze on his face. God! Its great here!

"Now that we have shared about my nation's history, let us share your nation's history and culture." he asked.

__________________________

Meanwhile on the Belldandy, Nisa and Seli were looking out the viewports of the ship, looking at the beautiful world below them.

"It reminds me of Iolia," Nisa spoke up.

"Huh?"

"This planet, reminds me of Iolia. So peaceful yet surrounded by warring nations."

"I see, it does remind me of Ganoxa. You know when I first went into orbit, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was until then. Made me proud to be on such a beautiful world." And a beautiful girl. he thought

"Seli?"

"Yes Nisa?"

"Do you think we'll be able to go back to our homes?" she asked

"Who knows, I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I am confident we will see our worlds again."

"I'm glad to here it!" she smiled.

Seli blushed at looking at her face, it was so beautiful. Her smile bringing absolute cheer to his heart. "Hey Nisa! Want to go to the mess hall and get something to eat."

"I am a bit hungry."

"And we can still see the planet out of that viewport too."

"Okay,"

They walked out of the room and headed for the mess hall.

_________________________

"Commander should we alert the Captain of the changing situation." a tech asked.

"No, don't send a verbal communication, send a written message to his PDA."

"Yes ma'am. Sending it now."

"Commander signal two is moving, coming in between us and the Redeemer. Settling over orbit."

"Take no action." she ordered.

Anna smiled under the over of her helmet once more, recognizing and even understanding both Lingun’s apparent desire to shift the subject away from death, and towards satiating some of his likely curiosity about them selves, seeing as how the were the aliens to this Captain. It dawned on her as well a moment later that neither herself, nor Captain Vyshinsky had identified them selves; granted they had given their names, but they hadn’t identified their people, or even government when they had initially identified themselves.

She didn’t quite share Lingun’s appreciation of the beach, but she couldn’t feel the breeze upon her skin, which was quite simply due to her uniform and body armour covering every centimeter of her two meter tall frame. This however was coupled with the simple fact that it had only been slightly more then a month or two since she’d been on Mir, as such this world perhaps did not mean as much to her as it could to the Captain of the GAS Belldandy.

Nodding her head slightly, she acknowledged Lingun’s request, “That’s only fair, we’re all here to share a little information. I’m not really sure where to begin, there’s so much to cover, but I’ll start with the basics. We call ourselves the Kilrany, on our home world of Mir, which we share with the Indrii and the Russkyans, all humans, we are the … dominant nation shall we say. Indrii is a protectorate and the Russkyans are our allies, however the Russkyans are even more paranoid then us about the outside universe and are more then happy to let us take the risks for now.”

A slight pause followed as she considered her words carefully, “We’ve not always been on the best of terms in days long past with the Russkyans, but they have grown to be our closest, and longests faithful allies in our recorded history going back uncounted generations. I believe I’ve mentioned earlier that we’ve had the ability to travel into space for quite some time, and we’ve done so to a limited extent. Simply put, after taking the risk to explore less then a dozen systems around us, we found them barren of life, which seemed to suit our government at the time just fine. However not long ago, about a hundred years back I suppose, our people started to realize that as we continued to advance, signs of our presence would get more noticeable, perhaps comparable to a star getting brighter and brighter, eventually someone was going to take notice and come investigate, whether friendly or hostile, was the big unknown.”

She shrugged slightly and then continued, “Given the choice between simply waiting for someone to come, we chose to start looking outwards, thus we built a few exploration craft, the Redeemer up there,” she gestured to the sky, “is one of five of this class. I have no problem saying that I’m rather pleased our first encounter was not hostile, as I’m sure you’re likely glad we weren’t.”

She hesitated for a moment, considering going deeper before finally coming to the conclusion that they would likely find out eventually, so there was no point dilly-dallying around the simply truth, “Our nation is called the Kilrany Empire and the title to my ship up there is the KIN Redeemer and our government, is ruled over by a royal family. However I would like to note that while we call ourselves this, we have no such delusions of grandeur as some Empires in history.”

They already appeared to have similar themes in their history given their shared knowledge of English, so she counted on him having a similar knowledge of more traditional Empires, intent on distinguishing her own from the one that had caused them so much pain. For the Kilrany truly was not an expansionist Empire, despite its militaristic culture.

In keeping with Kilrany directness, she continued again, “I’m not sure if you’ve guessed or not, but we do not actually speak English as our native language. Truthfully in fact, English isn’t even used on our world anymore, if it weren’t for historical records, we would not have been able to recognize it, nor implement it in our communication systems to translate it for us.”

With a basic summary there, she thought to ‘open the floor’ so to speak, “As I said, there’s much I could go on with, is there anything specific you are curious of, that I could perhaps answer?

She chose to leave any further questions regarding alien militaries for later, feeling that it would be wise to a let a little more trust grow between them before prying deeper for more such intelligence. While it was essentially the primary reason for their being out in space, patience was still a virtue.

"Ah I see, very interesting. Prior to our evacuation our government started out as a council of world leaders to which they elect the executive officer, the chairman. Each nation had its right to rule in their own affairs, but would only submit their rule when it comes to planetary affairs. Now, afterwards, we still have the council, but its more of a unified governement, each leader is now elected and represents each ethnicity, while they still elect the chairman out of the representatives,"

He listened to her about her native tongue, "Our de-facto languages are Basic-English and Forellian, the language we mistakenly sent to you in the first place."

"As for any specific questions, I have none."

Mildly surprised that Captain Lingun had no questions for her, she shrugged it off, knowing several thousand years of a people’s history was not typically easy to narrow down, though it occurred to her he might not care about that far back. Continuing with the topic of governments, she spoke again, “Ah yes, democracy … that was tried once in Kilrany, the royal family, some … oh what was it now, at least nine hundred years back tested the grounds for it and it only caused massive problems as it became a game of who was more popular, rather then who was better for the job. It lasted about twenty years before the royal family acted and abolished it, returning us to our current system. ‘Political’ appointments are made, those who show the most skill are given the job of doing those various necessary government positions.”

She shrugged again, “The Indrii however manage this far more effectively, though I doubt you could call it a true democracy, as not just anyone may run for office, they have an exceedingly complex political system. They maintain a level of autonomy from us, but they choose to rely entirely on us for defense, they’re not an … aggressive people, shall we say, and a bit too curious for their own good, if it wasn’t tempered by own paranoia they’d likely be out here without weapons and flagging down every passing ship to have a chat,” the amused tone in her voice as she described the Indrii’s personality was clearly evident through the retransmission of her voice.

A slight paused followed before she continued, “We each of us; the Russkyans, Indrii and ourselves that is, retain our own languages, though with only three on an entire world, its not hard to ensure everyone knows it, sadly this means I don’t personally know English, not something I ever thought I’d need to know,” she grinned instinctive, before realizing he couldn’t have seen her do so, “as such I cannot remove this headgear,” tilting her head to the right slightly, she tapped on her helmet with her right hand to add emphasis to her words, “Or we would not be able to understand each other, I don’t normally have to put up with this little ‘tin can’, I sometimes wonder how our infantry deal with them,” she shot a glance towards the Lieutenant who was still silently standing next to her.

Catching the verbal jab, he chuckled slightly, though no sound came from his helmet for a moment before he switched to external, “Oh we manage just fine, you navy lot are just spoiled is all, what with all your time standing around giving orders.”

Akhmatova chuckled, “Oh is that how it is Lieutenant? You’ll have to excuse the manners of our infantry friend here Captain, he’s not as sophisticated as we are,” the tone of her voice clearly told she was joking and the Lieutenant joined in her amusement. The early thoughts of betrayal were nearly gone and the Kilrany were beginning to warm up to this Ganoxa, which in turn lead them to relax and become more comfortable being them selves. The Kilrany had their faults, and chiefly among them was their tendency to be rather rigid and distant around strangers; the most dangerous however, for both themselves and others, was their propensity for seeking retribution when they felt slighted.

"Ah, don't feel so bad. I do have my comedians and whatnot," he looked up at Lewis' Arm Slave,"Isn't that right Lewis."

"Aww Cap'n, why you have to pick on me?" the external PA sounded with his voice.

Sounds of Jim laughing can be heard from his PA, "Crap the mic was on."

"Shut up Sarge."

"Thats enough!" he ordered.

"Y-yes sir." Jim apologized

"Sorry Cap'n." Lewis as well.

Lingun sighed and shrugged, "You see comedians, its amazing I survived with these guys for two years," he laughed.

He looked at his watch and saw that at least a couple of hours went by. It only seemed like mere seconds, "Hmm. I was wondering if you and your command staff would like meet with my staff over dinner? There we can discuss more of our two nations' history and culture."

It was somewhat comforting for these Kilrany military personnel to hear Captain Lingun and his own personnel joke and laugh with each other; it brought the semblance of normalcy to this meeting between alien species. For this was still how the Kilrany saw them, it was impossible not to, no matter how similar they looked, they came from different worlds and this was unlikely to be completely forgotten, though fortunately this had no impact on how the Kilrany treated them, when shown basic common courtesy and respect, the Kilrany readily returned it in kind.

When Captain Lingun suggested gathering over a meal with their combined command staff, she and Lieutenant Levitan visibly stiffened as their natural sense of paranoia kicked in for several moments. While it was hard to completely push aside their mistrust, the Commander relaxed slightly again rather quickly as the instinctive reflex passed, “That’s a possibility Captain, however I would need to confirm that with my own Captain, though I don’t see a problem arising from this, I presume this invitation is for aboard your vessel?”

A subtle flick of her wrist and she once more switched settings to speak to the shuttle crew, “Contact the Redeemer, inform Captain Vyshinsky that our friends here have invited us to share an evening meal, add that I feel that we have nothing to lose by accepting.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Going back to external, she continued, “The message is going through to Captain Vyshinsky right now, it will only be a minute, in the meantime, I’d like to ask a question in regards to trade you mentioned earlier. While I can imagine a lot, what sort of trade goes on out there, by that I mean it must be mostly technological innovations or foodstuffs that only come from specific worlds, or are we just lucky?”

Recognizing she might have been a little vague, she quickly added, “I’ll clarify, we’ve found more base resources in so many dead systems that I have to wonder if it’s all that much different for others; unless of course elsewhere things are a bit more crowded. As it stands, our supply far outweighs our demand, especially given recycling methods for metals and control over weather effects to allow for constantly ideal growing conditions for food. It goes without saying that this all required a massive shift in how our economy works.”

She didn’t bother adding that the Kilrany had no qualms about ripping entire dead worlds apart, taking every last ounce of material for use in their off world construction projects, she simply took it for granted others would do the same.

True to her word, a reply from Vyshinsky was quick in coming, and although he had shared the same initial reaction to the proposal, he eventually, and quite simply agreed with the Commander’s assessment.

Informed by the shuttle crew, Akhmatova spoke again, “Well, my Captain accepts your offer, though this doesn’t quite get us past the language barrier, do you have any suggestions on that? As I’m sure you can imagine we can’t quite eat with these things on,” once again she tapped the helmet covering her head.

"I'm glad to hear your acceptance. We will handout earpieces that will translate your language for us," he took out the said device which fit in the palm of his hand,"if you don't mind wearing it. Its a simple piece of electronics and quite comfortable to wear really. As for the trade agreements lets just leave that for the table. If you don't mind?"

He waved his hand in the air, to signal Halenska to uncloak the transport vessel, which was about a 100 meters away. Jim and Lewis made their Arm Slaves move to the position in one giant leap, gusting up winds. Halenska, lifted the transport off the ground and lowered two elevators to retrieve the Arm Slaves. After retrieval she landed near Lingun and opened the rear hatch. "I'll await your arrival," he saluted and walked into the shuttle (http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a287/GeneralZhukov3333/?action=view&current=SPTop.jpg).

After getting into orbit, Halenska noticed an alert on one of the monitors, she touched the screen and alerted Lingun, "Sir we are getting a message from the commander."

"Yes Jilneas?"

"I trust your meeting went well?"

"Yes, more than expected from you! You would have assumed they would kill me!"

"Well you can never be too safe in this universe."

"You really need to loosen up Jilneas, well in the meantime we need to prepare."

"Prepare for what sir?"

"We're going to have company for dinner, we have one hour."

"Y-yes sir, I'll get right on it."

As the shuttle neared the hangar bay door, the transmission cut off. Jilneas sat back in the command chair and put a finger on her chin, "Where to begin, where...to...begin?"

The response from Lingun left both Kilrany somewhat wanting in more information, but neither said anything else as he boarded his own shuttle. Nearby Nikolai briefly considered hitching a ride with Ligun up to his ship, but readily dismissed the thought from his mind, believing it to be ill conceived at this point and time.

For a moment Akhmatova watched the alien shuttle rise up away from them before turning to walk back towards their own shuttle. Already some of the infantrymen were re-boarding, and using their internal communications settings, she had a few private words with Lieutenant Levitan as walked.

“Some kind of ‘universal translator’ do you think?”

“Must be … sounds a little questionable to me.”

“What, and that directed energy weapon in your hands makes perfect sense? Clearly they’ve had to put more research into learning other alien languages, experience likely helps that too.”

“Point taken. Still, I don’t envy you and Captain Vyshinsky, this still could be an ambush of some kind.”

“Be a pretty damned overly elaborate one Lieutenant, but you still have a point I’m not exactly thrilled with the concept of putting on this device he spoke of, but we might be able to work around that.”

She climbed in through the shuttle’s port hatch first before Levitan, who was in turn followed by the last infantry section in as she continued to speak with him, “Obviously we’re not going to be able to take a large detachment with use, but I’d like some sort of failsafe backup plan.”

Though she couldn’t see it, Levitan grinned, “Oh I’m sure the Major will have an idea for that.”

The return flight to the Redeemer was uneventful and as they approached the same hangar they left, a reverse of their departure was played out, letting the pilot bring the larger shuttle in for a landing.

-----

Roughly forty-five minutes later, after time for Akhmatova to brief Vyshinsky and subsequently have a meeting with Major Alekseev, she and the Captain were walking in through the airlock of the Redeemer’s port hangar. Already inside was a single section of infantrymen who would be their security over to the ship as they would make use of the smaller, Alpha Type, the same the 5th Division operatives had used to covertly land on the planet with them.

“So Captain, ready to meet your first alien?”

“What, the Indrii don’t count?”

The Commander chuckled, they were both wearing their standard black officer’s uniform having quickly opted out of taking their dress uniforms for comfort reasons, figuring those on the Belldandy wouldn’t know the difference anyway. Preparing for the inevitable language barrier, and uncomfortable with the thought of wearing an alien device, they took the simple course of having their own headset’s transmit their voice to their own little electronics device, which would in turn translate it to English. This little revelation was one she found herself wishing she had thought of before going down to the planet the first time, which would have let her avoid the helmet.

The clacking of shoes behind them drew their gaze behind them to see Alex Scarpa come jogging in through the airlock, wearing what could be best described as his ‘Indrii best’, even so the bright colours made Vyshinsky shake his head. Quickly catching up to them he addressed the Captain, “Appologies for the delay, I wasn’t sure how to dress for such an occasion.”

Akhmatova chuckled, but Vyshinsky shook his head again, not sure whether to be amused to irritated, “No matter, we weren’t going to leave without you mister Scarpa, pleased, find a seat.”

With a nod of his head he quickly walked forwards and in through one of the hatches on the Alpha, quickly followed by all but one of the infantrymen who would be their escort. Her, a few meters from the hatch, the Captain, the Commander, and this Sergeant had a brief word, “All went well did it Sergeant?”

“Yes sir, the Major saw to it at once, if this is an ambush, we’ll be prepared.”

“Good man, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

It was a sentiment they all shared, quickly they boarded the shuttle and within minutes they were shooting out the hangar. From the Redeemer’s command center, Lieutenant Commander Lungin watched their progress through the eyepiece, silently wishing them good luck as the crew waited for the worse, all weapons with a clear line of fire on the GAS Belldandy waiting for the order to fire.

As the shuttle approached the Destroyer, the copilot activated the communications system and a message in English went out towards the much larger craft, requesting permission to land. Assuming it was granted, and the pilot had to land himself rather then some sort of tractor beam, it would be done quickly, and once down and it was clear for them to exit, four of the infantrymen would do so first.

They would leave the starboard hatch with their weapons comfortably held in front of them, but not in a threatening manner. Following them then would be Captain Vyshinsky, who stood a full three centimeters shorter then Akhmatova’s two meters, and ultimately followed by the smallest of the group at a meter point seven, Alex Scarpa. Two more of the infantrymen would exit as well, but stick next to the hatch as the remaining six stayed inside for the moment.

Previously the hangar area was cleared of fighters and Arm Slaves to make room for the foreign shuttle. Conveyor belts and cranes moved them into secure storage areas which would still be visible behind the shuttle as it landed. One hundred crewman marched in and faced the would be path between the foreign delegation and the Belldandy's command staff.

As the foreign shuttle landed and the delegation and their guards came out the crewman stood at attention and saluted them as they walked out. The command staff walked up the pathway, followed closely by an honor guard, wielding ceremonial Gosin bolt action rifles, a relic of the Second Forellian War.The staff halted a few paces away from the delegation, the honor guard filing in and holding their rifles in salute in front of the staff.

Lingun and Jilneas stepped forward the last few paces, passing the honor guard, and met with the delegation, they wore their tannish brown dress uniforms with full honors. Lingun came to a few paces and saluted Captain Vyshinsky, "Welcome to the Belldandy!"

As the three exited the shuttle and the six infantrymen took up positions near to the small craft, Alexei found himself suitably impressed by the rather large greeting party arranged to meet them; it was certainly not something he was used to. Scarpa; besides his smaller stature, was also differentiated from both Akhmatova and Vyshinsky, who were clearly of Slavic decent, by himself apparently being descended of Euro-Mediterranean.

For a moment the three of them waited just out from the shuttle as Lingun and Jilneas approached before realizing none of them had readied their makeshift translators with the exception of Scarpa. Quickly both the Captain and Commander pulled their little headsets out and placed them over their right ear before attached their little PDA like devices to their belts.

It was not the custom for the Kilrany to salute on naval vessels, but Vyshinsky felt it best to return the same level of respect their guests were showing them and crisply shot back his own salute in kind. The recognizable English in use was translated into his native Kilrany fairly quickly by the little PDA and he heard it played back within his ear.

Acknowledging the greeting, she spoke quietly, his voice picked up by the headset, translated into English by the little PDA and played out louder then he spoke it, at a comfortable volume from the little device, “I thank you for your gracious welcome, you honour use with such an formal greeting. I am Alexei Vyshinsky, Captain of the Kilrany Imperial Naval vessel Redeemer,” he then gestured to Akhmatova, “This is my executive officer, Commander Anna Akhmatova, I believe you two already had the pleasure of meeting,” he then gestured to Scarpa, “This is Alex Scarpa, he is head of the scientific team aboard my vessel and is here to represent the Indrii.”

It was perhaps not the most efficient method, but native Kilrany was a complex language, and they felt more comfortable with their own technology for the moment in any regard. With little else to add to their initial greeting, they awaited a response from their hosts, ready to follow them out of the hangar while their security detachment remained with the shuttle itself.

"Thank you for coming," he said gesturing the delegates to walk with him, giving no mind to them bringing their own translation equipment, its not like he wanted to force them to wear them. The staff gave their greetings, split up to let the delegation through, and soon followed behind the delegation while Lingun began talking. "In our two hangar areas we can store up to about ten arm slave units and around 15 fightercraft. The Arms Slaves can be easily stored when put into a kneeling position, while our fighters are put into 'shelves' as we call them, which are just small hangar areas just enough to fit the fightercraft itself. We had to do such storage to fit your transport."

Without a word at first, the small Kilrany delegation plus their one Indrii followed Lingun, seeing little reason to hang around their shuttle for long. Listening to what their host had to say, Vyshinsky was intrigued, “Then we appreciate the accommodations you had to make to allow us to land. I have to say, I’m rather surprised to see such a heavy ground force on a Destroyer,” here he referred to the Arm Slaves, assuming them to be purely a ground unit.

Alex Scarpa broke in a moment later, eagerness clearly evident in his voice as he took everything in around him, “Most impressive technology Captain, those Arm Slaves showed so much agility in the video, how do they manage the stress on the joints? Do you man your fighters, or do you use a rudimentary AI, or even perhaps a high level AI? Do you use directed energy weapons or a form of projectile?”

The torrent of rapid questions from the Indrii made Vyshinsky want to slap his palm in to his face, but he resisted the urge and kept a straight face while Akhmatova smiled in amusement at the Indrii’s curiosity. It was she who spoke next, “You’ll have to excuse mister Scarpa here, as I told you before the Indrii are a rather curious people.”

If Scarpa took any offence to the Commander speaking for him he didn’t show it as he watched Captain Lingun for a moment before looking about him once more.

Lingun laughed, "Its certainly alright, Captain. Our Arm Slaves use a muscle package system over the traditional hydraulics units found on most mechs. The muscle packages use electro active polymers which expand and contract when a electric current passes through them, much like our very own muscles in our bodies. This doesn't mean that we didn't put in different biologies into the design, which would make the Arm Slave perform impossible maneuvers for the human body. Also the package acts as a moderate armor unit able to withstand small arms fire to rocket attacks, due to its tensile strength. For assistance each Arm Slave has an AI installed, to which some of the pilots give nicknames, mine is Alex,"

Its quite common for our destroyers to have such weaponry onboard incase for scouting missions, rescue operations, and/or special operations. Although you can find a full battalion of 150 onboard a battleship.

Our fighters are manned and we use railguns to launch projectiles from half the speed of light on our smaller batteries to about point-six on our heavy railguns, but thats the range on this detroyer, on our bigger craft speed range to about point-eight. The smaller turrets could also switch to flak rounds for anti starfighter and missile screens for the larger ships."

Both Vyshinsky and Akhmatova were suitably impressed by the technical data the Captain was telling them, just because they used directed energy weapons didn’t mean they discounted the lethality of more conventional weapon systems; something the Russkyans helped insure. Scarpa however was barely satiated, ever curious, he went on, half talking to him self, half addressing Captain Lingun, “Ah yes, must be some sort of bio-mechanical package, sounds much like our own replacements for damaged or destroyed limbs, so much more efficient then the original, good use of the AI, always useful for increasing all-” he mumbled a few words then, his several years of service had made it sure he had no self-confidence issues.

As they continued on, Scarpa mumbling to himself too quietly for the setting on the headset to perceive and translate, Vyshinsky leaned slightly to whisper to Akhmatova, forgetting that anything lour enough for her to hear would be translated a second later, “He does prattle on doesn’t he.”

He cursed in surprise when he realized that what he said came out loud and clear, though fortunately for him there was no English translation for that particular Kilrany curse and the PDA remained silent as Akhmatova let out a single, “Hah,” in extreme amusement.

Rather then take offense, Scarpa was merely knocked out of his rambling and he went on further, “Is it a national preference for conventional ballistic weapons Captain? I know on Mir the Russkyans retain their fondness for them despite the increased efficiency; ammunition-wise at least, in using energy weapons weaponry, as there’s little doubt both are lethal.

While Vyshinsky took a moment to recover from his own embarrassment, Akhmatova spoke a few moments late, a trace of amusement still evident, “While mister Scarpa here is focused on the technical aspect, I’m curious, is there a reason for such a small battalion size Captain Lingun?”

"Well in fact due to our most recent technology trades a year ago, before I even knew of them, the weapons are fed ammunition from a replication device, providing near infinite reserves. Also we believe that kinetics provide more of a punch then energy weapons.

The reason for such a small number of AS on our battleships would lie in the wing of fightercraft and shuttlecraft also sharing hangar space. Although it is possible to unload the wing for another battalion during a ground campaign, we like to have a combined arms force most of the time."

Seeing that Captain Lingun apparently took no notice of his little slip, or more likely didn’t really care, Vyshinsky began to relax again as the sense of embarrassment passed. Next to him Akhmatova seemed to be genuinely interested in the conversation as she continued, “I see, I suppose this is merely a difference in terminology. Aboard the Redeemer we were given two companies worth of naval infantrymen, which is half a battalion for us, three hundred and eighty-four men. I imagine that would have been more had the ship’s mission intent not been changed and she specs were altered away from a battleship to an exploration vessel. Had to make room for our Indrii friends and their equipment. We don’t quite carry as heavy equipment as you do with these Arm Slaves, but we have enough heavier weapons for our detachment of light infantry.”

She paused a moment to take a breath before continuing, “We don’t have manned fighters ourselves, only the shuttles that serve the dual purpose of transport and gunship. For strike craft we have a couple drone types that fill their rolls quite well.”

Not content to be relegated to the sidelines, Scarpa spoke up again, “With all due respect for the Commander, your matter replication technology is more interesting, are we talking energy to matter, or matter to mater conversion? Our molecular furnaces allow us to transmute one type of matter to another, but we’ve yet to make an efficient energy to matter replication unit, it simply requires a colossal amount power for a minute amount, horribly inefficient.”

Unlike Scarpa, Vyshinsky had no such problem in remaining silent and passively taking in the conversation around him for the moment, perhaps when they were seated for the proposed meal he would be more talkative, until then he was happy to listen. He did however wonder as to how wise it was to allow Scarpa and Akhmatova to go on in as much detail as they were, but he pushed it aside for the moment, taking the leap of faith that putting trust into someone else required.

"We use primarily mass-to-mass replication units, but can also use a energy-to-mass system during an emergency situation. This would however be a strain on the Palladium Cold Fusion Reactors, but its tolerable."

As for our compliment on the battleships I should rephrase it to mechanized infantry battalion, manpower can range up to a division during major operations or around five thousand for normal conditions. Perfectly normal for the 1200 meter long ships."

The guards opened the doors and Lingun led the delegation down a wide corridor to the main conference room-turned-dining area. Around the room were old relics from the past five hundred years of straight warfare that was experienced on Old Ganoxa. A sword from the First Forellian War, a musket used in the defense of a fortress in the kingdom of Roan, and many more interesting artifacts.

Finally satiated for the moment, Alex Scarpa merely considered all this new information in his mind quietly for the next few minutes as all three of the small delegation presumably moved deeper into the GAS Belldandy. Scarpa wasn’t alone, Akhmatova seemed happy with what she’d heard so far as well, and remained relatively quiet in turn.

As they entered the conference room turned dinning room, Akhmatova immediately moved over for a closer inspection of the displayed pieces of weaponry, as she was something of a collector of such things. Vyshinsky on the other hand took this moment of silence to ask a question that was tugging on the back of his mind, “Captain Lingun, you’ve had a great deal of time to explore the universe we all find ourselves in, and while undoubtedly there are many things you’ve not had the opportunity to see yet, I’m curious, in your travels have you ever found a species that was capable of faster then light travel through alternative means to hyperspace? The Indrii have had their theories, but nothing concrete has ever come of it.”

While Lingun formulated a response of any kind, Vyshinsky glanced over the area they would be seated at and wondered what sort of etiquette the Ganoxa had for such an occasion.

"Well I have seen nations use warp and spacefolding, and to an extent extradimensional FTL," Lingun saw Vyshinsky looking around, "Chef Olag said it would take some time for his staff to prepare the meal, so I thought your delegation would like take in our military history," he gestured to the displays. He walked over to Akhmatova who showed interest in one of the displays.

"That weapon was used by a Forellian Imperial Commander almost four hundred years ago, defeated by prophetic hero using the legendary sword Harbringer." The weapon was a rather large battleaxe.

There wasn’t much Vyshinsky felt he could ask just then, or at least on that continued subject, so after he acknowledged Lingun’s mention of military history with a simple, “Sounds good to me,” he mentally dwelt on the alternative FTL means his counterpart mentioned, trying to dredge up what little knowledge he had on that particular subject as he tagged along. Scarpa on the other hand had no such interest in their military history, feeling he managed to grow out of that ‘phase’ of his life after his time in the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry. Happily he was now using his electronic device to take notes for himself.

Akhmatova on the other hand was intently curious on this subject and listened closely, “Intriguing, battle axes never caught on in Kilrany medieval periods, at least not two handed ones, though other nations of the past used them rather prolifically, to lethal effect. Our ancestors always preferred the sword and the odd war hammer, bows were rather popular when it came to actual war, and not one on one challenges.”

She paused a moment before continuing, “Prophetic hero? No offence, but that sounds like something of a romanticized way of putting it, but I don’t know your history, please go on, what made this person stand out so much as to earn the title prophetic?”

"The Sword Harbringer. Said to have been forged from the God of War Balthazar. A sword capable of cutting through the most durable of armors. A sword that could end wars or start entirely new ones. Legend had it that one day, one man will rise up and take heed of the sword. That man will lead the people of all Ganoxa to an era of peace," Lingun read from the plaque.

"It was during the First Forellian War. The Forellian Empire had expanded its borders until it met with the Kingdoms of Linguna. There were many border skirmishes but the peace was kept. After a few years, however the tensions were high, and finally the Forellians instituted a full invasion starting with the frontline kingdom of Roan.

The hero was named Orelas Bannon. When he was a young boy a Forellian company raided his village and killed his mother in front of him. Later he was found in the woods by a Roan scouting party led by the High Knight Lyam Reed. After a rather large siege by a Forellian army, which in turn was held off to the point that the Forellians ran for their lives,Reed took the boy and decided to take him under his wing as his apprentice,

Later on, after many years of deadlock, Orelas was about to enter knighthood and Master Knight Reed led an allied force against the remaining Forellian forces in Roan. It was a fierce battle lasting days and at one point Reed aparrently died. The Forellians retreated to Forellia's original territory. While the men were cheering loudly, Orelas, grief stricken travelled the countryside."

He allowed a pause for any questions before he continued.

Akhmatova remained silent, hanging off Lingun’s every word and saying nothing to interrupt, never one to pass up something like this. Even Vyshinsky was drawn out of his own thoughts to listen to the story Captain Lingun was telling, Scarpa on the other hand remained Scarpa, and paid it little heed, continuing to make notes and muse quietly under his breath about theories that would have led both Kilrany military officers to shake their head.

There were few ‘epic’ tales of specific Kilrany over the years, mostly due to a great lose of knowledge through a period called the Chaos Years, a time just after the abandoning of Kilrany by its former oppressors, the Roman Empire. Subsequently, former rebels turned warlords turned on each other for their own ends, leading to a civil war that lasted several centuries. So it was that these Kilrany were transfixed by this man’s tale, not particularly caring if all the facts were potentially not entirely true given the passage of time and the chance of embellishment.

"During his travels he came upon a sword atop a mountain. At this time, the Lingunans invaded Forellia to exact justice on the Emperor. Curious as to why such a fine blade was left there, he decided to inch closer and pick it up. Then a voice was heard, a strange ominous voice, which surprised Orelas. Asking who was speaking to him, the voice said that it was he, the bringer of peace and the start of war, the sword Harbringer. Harbringer looked into Orela's heart and found a pureness in him, but was about to be tainted by hatred and anger at the result of his master's death. The sword would choose Orelas to be its wielder but on one condition, that he would abandon all ideas of revenge.

Orelas thought of his master's death for a moment, thinking of the hatred he was feeling for the commander that killed his father, his mother's death at the hands of the damned Forellians, his village being burned to the ground.

Harbringer told him to not think of hatred, to think of happiness and love. This would help hiim in supressing his revenge but not conquer it.

Orelas soon agreed and the sword allowed him to wield it. A week later, the Lingunans had finally reached the capital of Kpor, only with an army of a million standing in their way. The two armies clashed in one the largest battles ever to be held in Ganoxa's history. Orelas set his eyes upon the battlefield atop a hill. Using a eye glass, he saw the commander that killed his master. Harbringer reminded him of the consequences and so he rode into battle. Getting through the thick of fighting Orelas finally clashed with the commander.

The ensuing battle was long and arduous, but Orelas stood the victor, while the commander laid on the ground. He raised Harbringer, and looked at the commander. The hatred flowing through him like the Lodon River, then the thought of his mother came to him. Her calm soothing voice rang through his mind.

Orelas screamed and thrusted Harbringer down, missing the commander's head. Orelas told the commander to order his troops to lay down their arms. The commander did as he was told, but we are unsure that if it was out of fear or out of gratuity.

Later on the Forellian Emperor Piony Halenska signed the treaty that would end the war."

Intriguing, was the first thought to come into Akhmatova’s mind as Lingun continued to recount the story, an old parable from Verama came to her mind, but she said nothing about it for the moment; most Kilrany accepted them only as entertaining stories that stressed a moral point of view. The story that came to her mind though, while similar, was inherently different in that it did not cast vengeance in quite the same negative light as the one involving Orelas.

She looked back to the displayed weapon, visually taking in all its shape, then looked back at Lingun, “A most interesting tale Captain. You are most fortunate to have such a valuable piece, however did you come by it? And what became of the sword Harbringer if it’s known,” she paused a moment before quickly adding, “Or was there more to the story and I merely interrupted?” she smiled as she said it, clearly not feeling embarrassed over her curiosity should that have been the case.

"After the commander stood up he lost his axe. An ancestor of mine, Raxis Lingun, found the axe and kept it as trophy. Since then it had been passed down in my family.

No one knows what came of Harbringer, after the war, Orelas continued his travels across the two lands of Linguna and Forellia. Some say that Harbringer is lost for good, others say its atop of the mountain Orelas found it originally, which was named aptly Mt. Orelas."

Akhmatova smiled slightly and gestured to the Axe, somewhat repeating herself from a moment earlier, “You are indeed very lucky to have such a piece Captain. My own somewhat small collection back home on Mir boasts no pedigree as this, but they have their history,” she kept quiet the fact that she didn’t actually believe the entire story, but the Kilrany liked to think of themselves as pragmatic, and the addition of a booming voice did help matters.

Regardless of the validity of Lingun’s recount, she held it in respect, the same she would have shown for one of the parables associated with Verama. Kilrany history did not have any such grand individuals, the closest was Savva Sviatov, the first Emperor of Kilrany, but he was by no means any kind of saint.

One of many warlords to come and go during the Chaos Years, he arose to power in their waning years and lead a successful war against his rivals, now called the Unification War. Aside from an aptitude for strategy and tactics, he was also known for being brutally merciless to those who stood before him; he was however not known for being a particularly good governor. While a very good military leader, he had no sense on how to properly run a nation, and the newly created Kilrany Empire floundered for years until his death and the rise of his daughter, Empress Helena Sviatova, for while Savva was credited for laying the foundation, Helena was known for building upon it, and it was during her reign that the Kilrany Empire began to truly establish itself near the end of their eighth century and into the ninth.

It was a story she would be willing to recount, but she felt just then wasn’t the best time, and didn’t want to interrupt in Lingun’s dialogue in regards to his own history. She spoke again a moment later to continue with the original subject, “How long did this peace last Captain? Our own history is filled with more wars then I could ever hope to recall, then again I don’t merely refer to Kilrany history.”

OOC: Glorified bump.

With several hours having passed since their unfortunate encounter with the indigenous hunter nearly some odd twenty kilometers behind them now, the twelve-man Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantrymen reconnaissance section approached their target area. From her position near the tail of their formation, Corporal Sasha Davydova could make out a break in the trees to their front, and as they approached it, Lev; still on point, spoke up, instinctively going quiet, “Form right.”

As Lev was still on point, he was responsible for column as they approached the tree line and the order was carried out immediately. Basing off his position, which was now stopped a few meters from the edge of the tree line, the second soldier in the formation went roughly four meters to his right, the third the same distance to the second’s right. This played itself out quickly as the column angled out to the right before forming a rough line just inside the tree line, when their tail got into position, he called out quietly, “Complete,” letting Lev and their section Sergeant know everyone was in position.

From her new position now third from the right, she got a good look at the reasonably sized village that was now in front of them, across a small meadow that appeared to contain what looked suspiciously similar to sheep. Still operating on close to full emissions control, they remained unaware of the significant encounter that had transpired in space above them, as such they continued to grow more and more suspicious of just how much this world was similar to their own, especially in regards to its wildlife, and now they looked upon a community that could have come out of a image in a history book on Great Britain circa the end of the nineteenth century.

Her friend, Corporal Svetlana Kubasov, was the first to put their thoughts into words, “Am I the only one who thinks this is just a little bit creepy? Bad enough they seem to look exactly like us, as do the animals, but now the architecture, something just feels wrong here.”

Apparently their section Sergeant agreed with them, for he said as much, “Agreed, this seems to convenient … let’s see if our little observation mission can elaborate as to why. Sasha, Lev, Svetlana, Pavil, take a walk in their and have a closer look, the rest of us will set up on that rise over their to the West, it looks to have a good view of this place. Lev, lead them off.”

A quick chorus of acknowledgements followed before the four formed up slowly at the edge of the tree line, the process taking a few moments longer then it could have due to their stealth field generators. As ordered Lev took point while Svetlana, armed with one of their section’s LRDs, took up slack in the second position with Pavil third and Sasha playing tail end Charlie.

Slowly as the rest of their section set out once more in a column while keeping inside the tree line, they set out in their own mini-column across the pasture towards the dimly lit town after climbing over a low fence. Even from where they still were, Sasha recognized the light sources as being some sort of oil based lamps on tall poles, providing limited light around the village as night was now fully set in.

Continuing to keep their movement slow and deliberate, Sasha glanced to her right at one of the smaller sheep like animals as it went walking slowly near them, not even noticing them. She readily dismissed a passing, almost childlike notion that popped into her head to see how badly she could startle the sheep if she took a step closer to it and tapped it on its head; however the thought did bring a slight chuckle to her.

After a few minutes passing through, they climbed over the fence’s Northern line, closest to the village, one after the other and continued forward. Lev chose to take a look at the nearest dwelling, a single story stone structure that appeared to have a single light on in through one of the windows. As they edged up to the building along the wall with the lit up window, Lev gave out a simple order, “Hold,” in response Sasha went down on one knee and took up a watch of their rear.

Despite the fact that they were all effective shrouded from view, Lev moved very slowly up towards the windows upon bent knees until he was directly below it. Cautiously he straightened up until he peered over the windowsill and in through the glass; what he saw could have just as easily jumped from the pages of an old novel.

Within the room he saw about all one could have expected to see in the common room of this period, and it had a very pleasant atmosphere as a decent sized oil lamp provided the rooms only light. Seated in a comfortable looking chair was a young woman; perhaps in her late twenties, and dressed simply, she was reading a small novel of some kind.

A movement in her head caused Lev to duck back down slightly, instinctively concerned that she had seen him somehow. Forcing him self to stand back up as he deemed it unlikely, he peered in again to see that she hadn’t turned her heard towards the window, but a door; which looked to be the main entrance to the home.

“She looks human enough,” Sasha simply shrugged at Lev’s partial musing as it transmitted to her. She’d already seen the hunter up close and come to the same conclusion, despite the partially incinerated upper body.

He continued a moment later, “Right then, moving on.”

For the next hour this four-man formation snaked its way through the alien village, using a slightly modified FIBUA tactics, the modifications being not to actually shoot anyone or break in any doors. After this basic ‘mapping’ mission, they proceeded slowly towards the slight rise that was to be their short-term observation point.

Ding-dong-ding was heard through out the meeting room, with Chef Olag's voice carried throughout the room. "The first course is ready, please take your seats."

Lingun gestured the delegation to take their seats at the table. It was a long rectangular table able to seat about 20 people. Lingun sat at the head of the table with Jilneas to his left and Commander Frenck to his right. As they sat crewman brought out the first course. It was the usual salad, dispensers came from above and asked each member what they would like to drink, or something close to it.

"What would you like to drink sir?"

"Some iced tea would be nice DANA."

"Iced tea it is."

"Thank you DANA."

"Your welcome sir."

Seli Grostin was also attending the dinner. Although not part of the command staff, he and Nisa were invited by Lingun to attend. But where was Nisa? I hope she gets here soon.

Given the sudden announcement that the meal was ready, Commander Akhmatova mentally shrugged off the fact that Captain Lingun had not answered her questions, taking no offense to it. She merely assumed he had either been distracted or intended to answer later and she pushed the thoughts of their conversation to the back of her mind for the moment.

Taking their cue from their hosts, the small Kilrany delegation took their own respective seats at the table, though since they did not noticing any specific intent on the seating arrangements, Akhmatova and Vyshinsky took up seats roughly at the mid point of the table on the left, while Scarpa seated himself opposite the Kilrany Captain on the right and took a moment to say hello to the other seeking personnel. The average Kilrany was admittedly not fond of overly elaborate meals; mostly in their preparation, and often had a very simple preference when it came to the subject, thought this wasn’t to say they didn’t enjoy them. It was often joked that if it weren’t for the Russkyans and their almost fanatical care in the preparation of elegant meals, the Kilrany pallet would not be nearly as enriched as it was.

As they were each unsure what could be available for them to drink from this dispenser, the scientist and both military officers chose to start their meals by asking simply for some cold water. This in turn led Captain Vyshinsky to mentally kick himself for not thinking to bring a bottle of perestroika with him to share with his hosts as that top quality Russkyan brand vodka was highly regarded in Kilrany.

Looking down as her salad, Akhmatova feigned interest in it, damned rabbit food; at least it’s just a first course.

While not even the non-violent Indrii were much on vegetarianism, Scarpa had no such feelings of aversion to his salad and prepared to take a bite as Captain Vyshinsky addressed Captain Lingun, “Tell me Captain, do you ever get over the sense of tedium that comes with being a military officer in charge of a survey mission? Mind you my experience thus far is perhaps different from your own, out of six or seven systems, this was the first we found anything alive.”

Scarpa grunted slightly in amusement, knowing the Kilrany disliked sitting around doing nothing, which is how he also knew they viewed these exploration missions. He on the other hand was still thrilled to see the universe around their small corner of it and after Lingun had a chance to respond, he decided to ask a question of his own, “Captain Lingun, if you don’t mind me asking, I’m curious, have you encountered any life in a non-humanoid form out here? Thus far we’ve managed to stumble upon two alien races in one system who, for all intents and purposes, appear to be as human as we are, which we were always taught was supposed to be nearly impossible.”

Lingun looked over to Vyshinsky to answer his question. "Hmm. Thats difficult to answer. During our journey, we encountered races of all diplomatic stances. From friendly, peace-loving civs to destroy-everything-living civs. I just hold some tedium until I am absolutely sure we would not get destroyed. Although Commander Jilneas here is quite weary insisting I take those Arm Slave units with me."

"I am just concerned for your safety sir!" she said.

He listened to Scarpa's question and then answered. "Well we, as a nation, had contacted with some non-humanoid civilizations. So yes there are non-humanoids in this universe of ours."

Vyshinsky nodded his head slightly in understanding of his counterparts words, he had been lucky so far, none of the feared, ‘kill everything’ species has so far been discovered and he started take slight comfort in that, feeling less unfortunate to have had a slow go of things thus far. Jilneas’s response quickly brought a knowing smile to Akhmatova’s face and a chuckle from Vyshinsky, while Scarpa seemed more interested in Lingun’s response to his question.

As they sat there and continued to enjoy the first course of their meal, Alex Scarpa chose this moment to pose a question to Captain Lingun in a lighthearted tone, attempting humour and leaving his earlier subject aside for the moment, “Tell me Captain Lingun, how have you found our Kilrany friends thus far? Do you find their paranoia as insufferable as we do?”

Despite his words his tone clearly indicated he was joking and it brought a smirk to the face of Commander Akhmatova who proceeded to suppress a slight chuckle. Captain Vyshinsky on the other hand found it a little annoying, though this was more because of his dislike of Scarpa then his sense of humour.

After waiting a moment for the Captain to respond, Scarpa went on again regardless of Lingun’s reply; positive or negative, and still in his lighthearted tone, “Well, personally we Indrii blame this on their evolution, I mean really, who can blame them for developing such a quirk when you evolve on a continent with a-”

He stopped abruptly, catching himself, but not quite fast enough, for out of the corner of his eye as he looked at Lingun, he could see that both Captain Vyshinsky and Commander Akhmatova had frozen in mid action, and were now glaring intently at him. He cleared his throat nervously then looked down at his plate, “I, uh … excuse me.”

Several moments of uncomfortable silence passed for Scarpa as he mentally kicked him self, for it was not some great secret he was about to divulge, instead something of a cultural taboo among the Kilrany that the Indrii often forgot; and like most cultural taboos, it didn’t necessarily make sense to outsiders, like the Indrii. Ever a point for contention among the Indrii themselves, they were often puzzled that the Kilrany; who would speak so openly, and lightheartedly, in regards to just about any subject imaginable, would find this one unpleasant to speak of.

At length Captain Vyshinsky sighed slightly and straightened up while Akhmatova quietly went back to picking at her salad. The Kilrany Captain turned and addressed Lingun in a slow and deliberate tone, “Our apologies Captain,” he glanced at Scarpa for a moment before looking back at Lingun, “mister Scrapa forgets the company he is in, that particular subject matter is not one to be brought up lightly, let alone over a pleasant meal such as this one.”

Seeking to change the subject, Vyshinsky added quickly, “You mention encountering non-humanoid alien species, any noteworthy examples Captain?”

Lingun listened to Scarpa once more. "If anything we can relate. We had our slight paranoia phase after the invasion and at one point shot anyone who came in system. Now after cooling off we are actively exploring and being open to new civilizations."

Lingun looked over to his colleagues and noticed their uneasiness with Scarpa's comment. "Its quite alright we do not have to delve into that any further."

"Ah yes our first contact with a non-humanoid species was with the Kraetons. They showed up during the Imperial invasion of our system. While they were attacking another planet called Asfaltum, we evacuated our people too another planet. During one of the trips Admiral Brivun, then captain, encountered the Kraetons. After striking a deal with them they attacked the Imperial vessels intercepting the convoy," he looked over to Vyshinsky," although I advise not to contact them, as they have a tendacy of devouring planets for nourishment."

Ding-dong-ding. "The second course is ready. Iolian clam chowder."

Seli looked up. Iolian huh? Wait isn't Nisa from Iolia?

Both Kilrany and even Scarpa let out a mental sigh of relief as Captain Lingun effortlessly shifted the sensitive subject away from the one the Indrii almost stepped in to. None of them wanted to broach the matter any further over the meal, Scarpa only because of the presence of the Kilrany military officers, while they would have been willing to discuss it more seriously later.

This faux pas was easily pushed to the back of their minds however as Captain Lingun continued on about the Kraetons, which drew the undivided attention of all three back to him. None were bothered so much by the fact that they were aggressive and prone to destroy worlds, as they themselves had little concern with their mining operations ripping apart worlds, it was the mention of ‘devouring’ specifically that sent off alarm bells in their heads.

Whatever Vyshinsky was about to say was cut off by the bell indicating the next course was ready, and his train of thought broken for several moments. Taking up this slack, Akhmatova decided to bring up a subject only slightly touched upon surface of the world below them, “If you don’t mind me asking Captain Lingun, when we were first talking below, you mentioned an Empire of sorts, I’m curious as to a few specifics. We may call ourselves and empire mostly out of nostalgia for our pre-space faring days, as now I’m sure we hardly count as one in the grand scheme of the universe, nor do we have any great desire to be one.”

OOC: Incidentally, your thread is verging on forty thousand words. In real terms, that's half a decent-sized novel. Sorry I took so long to hop in - real life and whatnot. It's a little short, but I'm a little pressed for time - I'm sure I'll lengthen up once we get into it.

IC: "Home, this is Bravo-Niner. Requesting pickup. Alpha: six-zero-zero-four-two. Beta: No hostiles. Charlie: Stationary. Over."

A tiny shuttlecraft sat in-system, far beyond the Kilrany and CG ships, having jumped in to investigate the brief dimensional disturbances that they'd detected a mile away. The shuttlecraft, affectionally named Finger Nine, was nothing more than a few engines, a pilot pod, and a large sensor array. It wasn't the agent of a government, as so many ships were. Rather, the shuttlecraft had been launched from a city-ship, one of the many roaming the stars these days.

One should take a moment to investigate the concept of "city-ship". No two city-ships were the same, but all were relatively similiar in design. Ovoidal in shape, matt-black in colour, and with an almost ridiculous power output - for a civilian ship. For, you see, Termaindale contained almost eighty thousand souls. All of those were accustomed to every amenity being provided to them. Furthermore, the great jumpgate that connected the city to its home-system of Cypria must be kept running, and that was no simple matter. For the maintenance of this, sixteen matter-annihilation plants were spaced evenly throughout the city-ship, all of them burning matter slowly, as to keep everything running hot.

It was not a military craft, though it was a large one, almost four and a half kilometres in length, almost the same in width and breadth. At a pinch, it could be used in battle, but only against craft hundreds of times smaller.

This didn't matter so much right now. What was important was that Termaindale had decided to investigate. Having seen the craft in-system via use of a sensor shuttle, the city had its interest piqued. As a collective, then, they made a decision. They would meet these new people, talk to them if they desired diplomatic intercourse, and maintain a significant distance in case they did not.

"Bravo-Niner, this is Home. We read you. We'll be jumping in-system momentarily."

Generators powered up, and a brief flash of utter darkness overtook the city-ship, leaving nothing in its wake.

Six-point-two AU from the world the ships that had been seen were orbiting, the massive city-ship eased itself in-system. It would be quite a shock on the mass spectrometres, it knew. Of course, its power output was insignificant for a ship of its mass; it would be obvious immediately that it was no warship.

As soon as it entered the system, a message snaked out towards the two ships.

This is the city-ship Termaindale, of Cypria. We come with no ill intent. We have watched you from afar, and concluded that you pose no immediate danger to us. Greetings. Do you desire conversation?

"The Empire is an extragalactic force thats invading this galaxy starting with our system as their beachhead. They're very aggressive and cunning. For the most part, from what I observed they use numbers and brute force, although some member-nations choose alternative tactics and strategy--"

"Captain!" Lieutenant Algostus commed in, "We have detected a ship in system, we are receiving a message from them."

Lingun looked at Vyshinsky and nodded, "Play the message, Lieutenant"

This is the city-ship Termaindale, of Cypria. We come with no ill intent. We have watched you from afar, and concluded that you pose no immediate danger to us. Greetings. Do you desire conversation?

"It seems we have more guests," Lingun chuckled, "Lieutenant reply to the message that we accept, but do inform them we are in the middle of a gathering," he looked at Vyshinsky once more,"If thats alright with you Captain?"

OOC: Just to let you know, I am rping as Ganoxa not CG. Thank you.

Lieutenant Commander Lungin cursed under his breath as the new contact was picked up by the active sensors of the KIN Redeemer, “God damnit, here we go again,” speaking up then, he addressed the command center officers and the ship’s crew as he donned his small communications headset and tapped a key, “All hands, set condition one in all spaces, this is not a drill. I repeat, set condition one in all spaces.”

Letting go of the button he shifted his stance to face the sensor’s officer, “Where’s the new contact coming from?” after the response he shifted his stance again so he could look in its direction using the small eyepiece headset he also wore, hoping the active and passive sensor arrays might tell him something about the ‘city-ship’.

-----

While the crew aboard the Redeemer was once again scrambling towards their battlestations in a mirror of the scene when they first picked up the GAS Belldandy, Captain Vyshinsky and Commander Akhmatova found themselves less then pleased to be sitting down at a meal on an alien spacecraft with the latest development. Subtly the Kilrany Captain gestured to his executive officer and she took the hint and reached down to the little PDA, temporarily deactivating it and shifting over to the encrypted channels used by the naval infantry.

Neither were sure if it would work however, as they knew within their own vessel that if it weren’t for a network of built in hard line receivers and repeaters their own communication systems would not transmit through the material that it was constructed out of. While she was quietly attempting to raise the shuttle to get in contact with the Redeemer, Vyshinsky replied to Lingun, initially a little off guard, “This is your ship Captain, but I have no objection to additional friendly visitors … are you familiar with these newcomers?”

"I'm afraid we have never met with them," he shrugged, "although I do not know their intentions they seem to be peaceful for the fact they haven't tried to annhilate us when they first came in." he smiled.

"Captain Lingun I have sent the message. Setting the ship to Condition Grey."

"Thank you Lieutenant."

"Yes sir. Bridge out."

Meanwhile Seli heard a noise in the mess area. He got out of his seat and stood near the doors, to listen in. "Oh I hope these visitors don't ruin the dinner I planned." a depressed voice said.

"Don't worry just do your best and keep making these wonderful dishes! If it weren't for you I'd probably be serving them leather!" Olag cheered.

"Thank you I'll try my best!"

Soo Nisa is cooking! Seli thought

We know you, ship of Ganoxa. Along with the Asfaltum, and the Alliance of Free Worlds, you fought long and bravely against the Galactic Empire in times past. We have not seen you for many years, but it is well that you are among the stars once more.

We do not know the second among you, for we have never met you, nor heard word of you. This is most curious. Are you new to the stars, or do you possess such cunning that you may avert even the most prying eyes?


Slowing to a halt, for it would not to do to threaten these new discoveries, Termaindale talked amongst itself as how they would meet these people. The smooth surface betrayed no thought, and antimatter generators hummed ever-quieter, as the ship sought to betray as little as possible of its capabilities.

The tiny shuttlecraft was swept up into a brief opening in the side of the city-ship, metal rippling away to admit the shuttle, and then closing again just as briefly. If one had sensors pinpointed on the ship, and closely enough to detect the miniscule opening, it would've been possible to see a number of similiar ships, though nothing more.

Having halted, there seemed to be little to do for the ship but to wait for a reply, or perhaps an action from the other two ships.

A holodisplay lowered down from the back of the room. Lingun rotated his chair to face it allowing him to talk directly with new guests. "Ah I see you know of us. I am sorry for not recognizing your ship, as I haven't caught up with some of the events that happened with my nation in the past few years. Can you identify yourselves? I'll let my colleagues here introduce themselves."

OOC: For the sake of flow I went on the assumption that was sent in ‘basic-English’, if that's a problem I can change it.

Lungin remained silent as the latest message played through the communications station; initially he said nothing as he contemplated his actions, unsure if he should reply to the message or await one from Vyshinsky first. After a few more moments he addressed no one specifically just loud enough for the entire command center to hear his jest as he attempted to lighten the tension he could feel building in the room, “Prying eyes? What are they, the universe’s Peeping Tom?”

A slight smile cracked upon his face as he heard the desired affect as a couple slight chuckles came from some of the crewmen and officers before he took on a slightly more serious tone and addressed the on duty communications officer, “So which do you prefer Lieutenant, are we new or are we cunning?”

“I like cunning better sir.”

“So do I. Right then, any word from the Captain or the Commander yet?”

“No sir.”

For another moment, Lungin stood quietly in thought; briefly he considered the likelihood that this was all a trap by the Belldandy, in that they had lured the Kilrany command staff over to their ship while they awaited reinforcements to attack the Redeemer. While he pushed it to the back of his mind for the moment, he didn’t discount it as a possibility as he formulated a formal response to the message.

As the Kilrany were attempting to remain unobtrusive in their actions, their active tactical sensor array remained at low power and unable to distinguish the relatively miniscule shuttle in close proximity to the larger vessel. Nor did their enhanced arrays pick up a great deal as the majority of these bulky systems remained oriented towards the planet below for similar reasons.

Giving a signal to the communications officer, his communications headset was set to broadcast his voice; after translation to English, towards the latest arrival, “This is Lieutenant Commander Lungin of the KIN Redeemer, I greet you on behalf of my commanding officer, as he is aboard the GAS Belldandy in conference as this time, another friendly people are a welcome sight to our eyes.”

He paused only for a moment as he had tried to chose his words carefully, so as not to technically lie, but not quite the full truth either, “We are indeed not a people new to space travel, and have simply chosen to maintain a low profile up until now, we finally felt it a reasonable time to let ourselves be known,” he then added to himself, If at least partially known, damn that all sounded better in my head.

-----

Aboard the Belldandy and prior to the activation of the holodisplay, Vyshinsky remained silent for several moments after Lingun spoke, initially uncertain how to best respond and taking no notice of Seli’s movement as he continued to focus on his counterpart. Akhmatova on the other hand gave him a momentary glance of curiousity as he walked away before going back to her attempts to raise the shuttle.

Leaning towards his executive officer slightly, he deactivated his own PDA and quietly addressed her, “Any luck Commander?”

She merely shook her head slightly and he sat back upright as they both reactivated the translation function on their PDAs. Whether through design or chance, Akhmatova was unable to reach the shuttle from their position, though the small PDA did lack the same high-powered transmitter that was incorporated into the Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantrymen’s equipment.

At length the Kilrany Captain addressed Lingun once more, keeping his tone lighthearted, “Your lack of confidence is not exactly inspiring Captain,” he gave a slightly apologetic look to ensure that his statement was not taken as an insult. Quickly he continued, “I suppose this brings us to another subject I had intended to ask, what exactly is your policy on first contact, or do you just wing it as we have thus far?” He chuckled slightly as he finished.

Moments later when the holodisplay was lowered and Lingun turned around to face it, Vyshinsky fell quiet, unaware that Lieutenant Commander Lungin had sent a message from the Redeemer in his place. Regardless of this fact, the three were taking a little off guard and as such identified themselves simply as Captain Alexei Vyshinsky, Commander Anna Akhmatova and Alex Scarpa, each in turn.

We are Cypria, children of the once-Realm, progenitors of the Maker-Mind, descendents of the ancients who set ship and soldier against the Shivans in times long past. We are Cypria, children of the once-Solarii, lords of a grand empire, risking life and limb against the Fleetmind. Together, we are something new. It is yet to be seen what we will become.

The message to the Ganoxan ship was shortly followed by a reply to the Kilrany - the ship formulated its messages in total unison, and while this might sound attractive to those unused to such a method, the number of minds who argued and had to agree on a single course of action could take some time to make the simplest decision, even with time slowed down by mind-to-mind communications.

Then you have escaped our glance, and the look of less benign entities. We are Cypria. Who are you?

Who to speak? It would be easier, of course, for individuals to speak, but for the group to speak in unison would be far more accurate. For now, however, Shipmaster Keer would speak. Leader of the city-ship, he was one of the most powerful men aboard, and, while he did not rule, per se, he knew the will of the city better than most.

Long hands stroked a dark beard, and his face appeared on the holodisplay.

"I am Shipmaster Keer. I have been appointed to speak for all of us. If you desire more voices from the ship, they may be obtained. Nevertheless. We are the city-ship Termaindale of Cypria, and we are glad that we meet with you."

A brief pause, and a slight look of strain on Keer's thin face.

As he spoke next, his first word was emphasised heavily, as though he had not used it as often as most.

"I am glad to see that your people have survived the ravages of the Galactic Empire. It is also good to see that you both speak Standard, for it means there are no issues of translation to solve between us. It must seem a little strange for you, our sudden appearance. Allow me to explain. In any unmapped area where significant.. distortions, let us call them, caused by faster-than-light travel appear, the powers of the galaxy tend to congregate. In this way any nation realising its first faster-than-light flight is almost inevitably inundated with contacts, more coming as more arrive. I am surprised more have not arrived."

A breath.

"Captain Alexei Vyshinsky. Commander Anna Akhmatova. Alex Scarpa. I am glad to meet you, though I do not know of your people yet. Would you care to enlighten me as to where you hail from, and the disposition of your rulers?"

OOC: Would have liked to put this up sooner, but was stuck at work for the better part of today, so no internet connection, but at least I could write this.

“You think there might have been something lost in the translation Lieutenant?”

Lungin’s question was quickly responded to by the Lieutenant at communications with an added shake of the head for emphasis, “I don’t think so, we know enough about English to translate it with reliability, I’m pretty sure what we heard was what they said to the other ship.”

“That’s quite some introduction then,” both officers referred to the initial broadcast from the Termaindale to the Belldandy on an apparently open channel. Unfamiliar with the ways of the Cypria, most of those within the command center who had been able to hear the message were somewhat perplexed in their choice of wording, unaware of their mind link.

The concept of linking minds was not exactly unknown to the Kilrany, and while the Indrii had done some rudimentary research into the subject, the idea had never really appealed to the Kilrany as a whole. As such even the Indrii focused on it little, leaving their artificial reality ‘sim’ units the closest thing to linking minds in such a manner, which was simply not quite the same.

The second message aimed at them once more was more understandable to these Kilrany military personnel, and as such Lieutenant Commander Lungin chalked the first up to some sort of familiarity between the two alien races, he would feel this conclusion supported later when the ‘Galactic Empire’ was mentioned. For the moment however he focused on that second message, taking a few moments to formulate another response that was abruptly cut short, as while they continued to listen in to the open channel they heard the familiar voice of their colleagues.

“Well Lieutenant, I suppose that lets us know how the Captain and Commander are.”

“Assuming of course those really are them and this isn’t some kind of elaborate setup for our benefit.”

“While that’s true, we have little choice for the moment but to sit and watch.”

“What of the second transmission sir?”

“If that’s really the Captain then they’re in direct communication and I don’t need to say anything else, and if it’s not, then we have bigger concerns, such as finding a new Captain on such short notice,” a grin cracked upon his face at the end to ensure it was taken for the joke that it was.

His attempt at humour only got the partial reaction he wanted as the Lieutenant grunted slightly in amusement, figuring it was perhaps not the best time to use that particular witticism.

Before the Lieutenant could say anything, Redeemer snapped into existence across the primary console, “Lieutenant Commander Lungin, I took a moment to compare the voice samples and they match, there appears to be nothing wrong in their tone as well. So either those really were our crew or those were some exceptional copies.”

“I don’t suppose you could have left that second part out for my peace of mind could you?”

“Would you really have wanted me too?”

Lungin sighed slightly, the traces of amusement gone, “Only if that really is our colleagues speaking.”

The AI’s holographic avatar gave the officer a knowing look before he simply gave a nod of his head, prompting the image to wink out of existence again. Turning back to the communications officer, Lungin gave him one last order for the moment, “Lieutenant, I want you to prepare a burst transmission, include our logs of the system and our encounter, as well as recordings of the messages we’ve received thus far.”

“Maximum encryption?”

“Yes.”

“Will do sir.”

Roughly two and a half minutes later the communications officer and the crewmen stationed there had prepared the ordered information and activated part of the ship’s communications array. Set to the narrowest setting possible, an array on the port side of the ship away from the two alien vessels burst a signal back to a relay buoy left near one of the systems they had previously surveyed on the off chance their transmission was detected and traced, they did not wish to directly give up the location of Mir.

-----

It was at about the same time Lungin was addressed by the Redeemer AI that the significantly smaller Spectre class came arcing out from the other side of the planet, still maintaining a high orbit position. At first nothing seemed out of the ordinary to them as they were still running ‘silent’ as it was, and had not yet distinguished the third contact on passive sensors.

Larisa’s lone ‘vigil’ in the vessel’s command center was broken as Nikolai came striding back in from his reconnaissance mission on the planet below, having left Sergei to take care of the shuttle. Going straight to the point, he addressed her, “Not a great deal to report, the video log will be more interesting to you I figure.”

Without turning around she replied with a mildly amused tone, “Really? It was that uninteresting?”

She’s in a good mood, taking this rare opportunity he followed through with his own toying tone, “Well nothing blew up and we didn’t get to kill anyone, so yes, it was ultimately uneventful. For the best though, those ‘Arm Slaves’ as their Captain called them we not exactly something the infantry were prepared for.”

She took on a slightly more serious tone then, “Indeed, Dionisy pointed those out to me, what I wouldn’t have given for a nice thorough scan of them.”

“You might be in luck, the Redeemer had its active arrays already aimed planet-side, they may have gotten something useful.”

“I considered that, it’s a possibility, but there’s no guarantee they got anything useful, so I’m not going to hold my breath in that regard.

Nikolai merely nodded his head slightly in agreement as he came up to stand next to her before pondering to himself what he would do in the meantime now while the Redeemer’s command staff attended a meal aboard the Belldandy. Though it didn’t do much for his plans, Dionisy popped in a moment later with news, “We have a development, I’m picking up a third vessel with the passive arrays.”

Outside immediate visual range of the gun cameras; at least until light caught up to them to see the Termaindale, the best descriptor that Dionisy could use to explain what he saw would be akin to being out to sea during a pitch black night, and seeing a lighthouse in the distance. Though there were obvious differences, such as the echo of other active arrays that were difficult to describe, he found it the most apt when asked in that regard.

Quickly getting their undivided attention, the AI went on, “I’m not detecting weapons fire, only the usual active sweeps and I believe an open transmission,” without further words he tied in the signal and it played through into the command center.

-----

Aboard the Belldandy, Vyshinsky listened intently to the words of Shipmaster Keer and much like his crew on the KIN Redeemer; he found their wording slightly odd to his ears. Again the Galactic Empire, who the hell are these people that they would pose a threat to so many? And Fleetmind, Shivans? That’s ominously discouraging, quietly the Kilrany’s mind raced as it filled with more and more questions then he had answers to for the moment, but being a guest he did not wish to be rude and speak out of turn.

Thus it was that he remained silent until Keer addressed him directly, or at least his party, and as the de-facto head of their small group, he would speak for them. Though out of the corner of his eye he could see the look upon Scarpa’s face, knowing he intensely desired to ask Keer as many, if not more questions then he himself had.

Clearing his throat and taking on a respectful tone, he spoke, “I greet you Shipmaster Keer on behalf of,” he paused for the barest hint of a moment before he made the split second decision to be as direct as the Cypria had thus far seemed to be; something the Kilrany preferred, “the Kilrany Empire and our current Empress, Tanya Semyonovna Sviatova. We come from a world we call Mir, which we share with the Indrii,” he gestured to Scarpa for a moment, “and the Russkyans, who choose to remain there for the time being.”

It would no doubt look a little odd, as much as it likely did to the Ganoxa, to see him speak his native Kilrany language quietly and have the PDA re-transmit it in a louder and more audible English. At that same moment Commander Akhmatova was wondering if their quiet voices in their native tongue were audible enough for any internal receivers to pick up, as the translations by their PDA would allow for someone to form a basis to translate their complex language themselves.

Taking a breath himself, Vyshinsky then continued, “I can be no more specific as to exactly where we come from, especially in light of what we’ve heard thus far in regards to less ‘benign’ beings. Though I suppose not even we can keep our home world hidden indefinitely given our recent actions, we endeavor to do so for a little longer, I’m sure you can understand our reluctance for the moment.”

Hands spread, Keer listened carefully. In his mind, a hundred voices sounded, each one telling him what to do. Being the focus of a groupmind could be unpleasant, and while it gave him far more resources to use than he usually had, it also gave him a lot more opinions than he'd like.

Ask them about their wars! Their history!

Nonono! Their faster-than-light drives! Any new technology could be incorporated into our own!

Quieten down. Let's not scare off our new contacts.

They'll be fine. Just ask them something! Anything! We're borrreed!

He shook his head ruefully - children! - , and remembered he was transmitting, and so stopped.

"I am glad to meet you, though I cannot speak to you on behalf of more than the eighty thousand or so souls upon this ship, if that. It is a pity you will not tell us more of your people, yet I can understand your reluctance. Despite the fact that I am sure the present Shivan incursion into the galaxy is being restrained even without our aid, and that the Galactic Empire has fallen into disrepair, there are still many powers in the galaxy that one would not desire to encounter without a fleet at your back."

Keer looked towards the Ganoxans, and, for a moment, looked as if he were about to speak to them.

He turned back to Vyshinsky, however, and continued speaking.

"Since you do not desire to tell us of yourself, I shall tell you something of us. This is the city-ship Termaindale, and we wander the stars in search of new things. We are part of the great unity of Cypria, created half a century ago by the unification of the Realm of Hyperspatial Travel, and the Solarii Empire of Naggeroth. Our home.. place, such as it is, is the ringworld of Cypria. It presides over an alliance, named the Cyprian Circle, though this should not be of great import. We are free to do as we will, whether it be to our own harm or not."

A brief pause.

"It seems almost foolish to talk using such a device when we are in the same star system. You are aboard the same ship, no? Do you desire to come aboard Termaindale, or, perhaps, invite a citizen of our ship aboard your craft?"

"It would be rude to our cooking staff if we left for the Termaindale, but its up to my colleagues here if they wish to leave for your city-ship. In my opinion I would like to invite a citizen here to our banquet, so that we don't offend the chef, then we can visit your ship. Once again its up to my colleagues here, I don't want to force them." he said trying to be polite as possible.

As Vyshinsky remained ignorant of the mind link the Cypria used in conjunction with each other, he noted the shake of Keer’s head, and lacking any other possibility for the moment, he initially assumed his choice of words had not been to the man’s liking. There wasn’t a great deal he could do in that regard however, his orders were quite clear on the matter, while he had a great deal of discretionary power in his actions away from home, he was not to reveal the location of Mir without the authorization of his command.

As Keer went on to speak in a manner Vyshinsky could hear, he was at first content for the moment that he hadn’t actually insulted them, at least as he could infer from Keer’s choice of words. The Kilrany Captain however had not been prepared for what the Shipmaster said after looking at his hosts for a moment, at least his first few words, wait, what? That’s not what I meant.

Left a little flustered for the moment as Keer went on to tell them all a little about his people and their home, Vyshinsky went back over the words he himself had used, trying to figure how they may have been misinterpreted. The Kilrany could sometimes be rather reserved around strangers, and they had a tendency to be overly concerned with their choice of words, stressing over them as they tried to appear more intellectual and clever in a social situation, something that could often backfire on them as Vyshinsky figured was the case this time.

After Keer finished speaking, Alexei chose to let Captain Lingun field the last question, as their hosts in this situation it was clearly their choice as to whether they wished to allow one of the Cypria aboard their vessel. Scarpa on the other hand was barely able to hold back his desire to simply speak up and invite them over, seeing no harm in the thought, he did however continue to remain silent for the moment and distracted himself by dwelling on the mention of a ringworld.

Vyshinsky did however feel the need to speak in another regard before anything else happened, “I should clarify Shipmaster Keer, I do not mean to say I cannot discuss my world and people, I simply have very clear orders that I am not to divulge its location,” like many Kilrany he took it for granted just how things were on Kilrany, he was unfamiliar with the need to explain it to others and thus had no idea where to begin on his own, it didn’t help either that the Kilrany were not the universe’s most adept conversationalists. Questions on the other hand they could answer without end, as they would happily speak of their own people if they felt the inclination to and that the desire to know was genuine.

Endeavoring to try and give some more information he continued, “What can I say about Mir, it’s the third planet in our system and lies within the livable area of orbit around our star, and it’s orbited itself by two moons that we call Svyet and Tyemniy. While we’ve had faster then light travel for some time, our people never chose to travel beyond a handful of nearby systems until just recently; we were growing a little concerned I have to admit given how many dead systems we’d passed through before we found any with life. However I am, and my people will be, greatly pleased to know that our first encounter has been with friendly races, we can be a little slow to trust as I’m sure you’ve all no doubt noticed by now.”

He continued after a momentary pause, “The vessel I command, the KIN Redeemer, is one of five Athena class explorations vessels, we were all tasked with exploring out from our home system and those systems we maintain watch over. Something I’m sure you’re as well aware of as we have become, is a task easier said then done. The Russkyans we originally set join on my vessel, but they chose to withdraw at the last minute, they’re somewhat more isolationist then we are; heh, Redeemer likes to joke they just didn’t want to put up with him, my ship’s AI that is, they tend to share the name of the commissioned vessel they inhabit.”

Noting Ligun’s eventual reply to Keer, the Kilrany Captain somewhat mirrored his sentiment, “It would be a shame to insult the cooking staff by leaving prematurely, perhaps it would be best then if for the moment a representative from your ship came here as the Captain suggests,” he glanced then a Lingun for a moment, no longer concerned about speaking out of place, “I don’t imagine your cooks would mind one more for the meal would they?”

Keer laughed.

"Any discussion of your world's features would inevitably lead to its discovery. This is obvious. Even the slightest detail betrayed would narrow down the parameters of a search drastically, and so if you intend to retain your homeworld's temporary secrecy, it is wise not to discuss it in the least. For instance, two moons, a single planet within the liveable band of what is presumably a yellow dwarf star - or one of the few other stars which can retain an Earthlike planet with ease means that.."

He paused.

"Any search would have been reduced from of months to hours, should this ship decide to manufacture probes. I do not mean to chide, Captain, but if you are entrusted with the secrecy of a location, do not reveal even circumstantial information."

"In any case, I would be glad to send a representative. Excuse me a moment - we must reach a consensus."

Eyes a little distant now, Keer spun around, so that he was not facing the others through the holoconference.

A myriad of voices sprung up, and, one by one, they fell away as each of them acknowledged their own unsuitability to go. Finally, only a few were left, and Keer addressed them in turn, talking to only one or two people, but as he talked to them, the entire ship caught his thoughts in their own minds.

Miran: Me! Me! Me!

Keer: You have wings! They're cute for flight, but they're also shocking. Let's send someone over who's not overtly alien, hm?

AGREEMENT.

Keer: Good, good. Someone who can not trip up with their speech, who has been engineered so that they can eat anything, and with a low enough power signature that they won't set off any alarms. No more than fission generator in your person. And that has to be turned off, except in the case of an emergency.

Jele: *grumble*. You want to reach a consensus on THIS? It could take YEARS for us to decide to send someone across. Well, seconds, in any case.

Keer: I don't want to go, as they think I'm required here. We don't want them thinking we're irresponsible. Who's a trained diplomat, in any case. We only have fifty or so. Ten with no personal fusion generation, three or four of those with almost entirely normal external appearance. Jele, why don't you go? I know you want to.

Jele: Fine. What's the shipmind's opinion?

CONSENSUS: JELE PREFERRED.

Keer: Fine. It's no problem. Jele, you go. The rest of you can meet them when they come aboard later.

Almost a second had passed, and Keer spun himself back around, facing the holoconference once more.

"It is decided. One Citizen Jele Marathne will be heading towards the Ganoxan ship. You do not mind if we jump him within, say, a kilometre or so of your vessel? He can enter from there, quite naturally."

Lingun waited for the reply from the Cyprians twiddling his thumbs. Then they replied and he listened.

"That will be fine, just alert the bridge when you approach the hangar bay doors."

Meanwhile Seli was still waiting by the doors, listening in on Nisa's conversation with Olag. "Yay! They're not leaving! Alright Mr. Olag here is the recipe for Loanas Ribeye," she went on with the details of producing the meal.

"Oh! Thats excellent Nisa."

"You think so! I cooked this for Seli and he said it was delicious!"

Seli blushed at the comment.

Captain Vyshinsky kept a neutral face despite the annoyance he now felt, for though he recognized that perhaps he should not have mentioned the moons, he did believe he knew something that Keer did not, however that would remain to be seen. It would also describe half the systems we’ve surveyed in the past few weeks, no matter, he likely meant nothing by it, he remained confident in the safety of his home system for the moment regardless of what Keer said, but his perception aided a great deal in that.

While it only lasted a moment, when Keer did turn around, the Kilrany Captain took this opportunity to lean in towards his executive officer, shutting off the little PDA for a moment, catching the hint, Akhmatova did the same, changing things up he addressed her quietly in Russkyan “They seem a little, odd, don’t you think?”

She shrugged and responded in kind, “They’re aliens, you expected them to be exactly like us?”

“Valid point, but they also strike me as a little arrogant.”

“I don’t think so, they do strike me as having been around for quiet some time to see the newcomers coming out of the woodwork, they’re certainly not foolish, that’s for certain.”

“I suppose that’s true, and we do have a little inside information,” as he finished speaking for the moment, an old proverb came to his mind, roughly translated into English, it had something to do wish letting people think you were unintelligent, making them all the more surprised when you killed them. Though ‘killed’ was not quite the context he would use in this situation; regardless he would say no more on the subject for the time being, letting his annoyance fade, and letting them think as they would in his regard for the moment, as the Cypria also had to assume he was actually telling the truth when he spoke of his world for his information to be useful, though he realized that could go either way.

Sitting back upright both Kilrany officers reactivated their PDA translators and feel silent once more as they had little else to say for the moment until the arrival of the new guest, or their hosts asked more questions, as for the moment, Vyshinsky was not feeling very talkative. Scarpa on the other hand felt no such inhibitions as addressed Captain Lingun, “They must be some distance out from us Captain if they feel it best to jump the shuttle closer, how do you manage real-time long range communications? We’ve not had the time, nor the necessity to set up any kind of communications network.”

"Well--"

"We use sub space tranmitters to convey a signal for large distances say like a light year or so. For messages made towards, say like our homesystem or any other system thats not within range of our SSTs, we would use the Hyperspace transmitters." Commander Frenck interrupted.

Lingun leered at Frenck, and then turned his head towards Scarpa. "Oh I forgot to introduce our loudmouth, ahem, I mean chief engineer. Commander Jules Frenck."

Loud mouth eh? I'll show you loudmouth! Frenck thought, a vein popping out of his neck.

"Working with all the ship's technical equipment has given him a short temper." he shrugged.

"Captain Lingun?" Algostas commed up from the bridge.

"Yes lieutenant?"

"We are detecting our later visitor as agreed, we are opening hangar bay doors."

"Very well."

He looked over to his executive officer and whispered, "Can you please welcome our new guest, and escort him here?"

"Y-yes sir." she whispered back.

She excused herself, got up out of her seat, and left the meeting room heading for the hangar area.

Captain Vyshinsky mostly ignored the conversation started by Scarpa as he continued to brood slightly from the earlier comment by the Cyprian despite his own intent to relax, focusing instead on the contents of the current course of the meal. He was perhaps a little touchy after so much time dealing with the Indrii; something he had never expected to have to do in the navy, and his patience was run somewhat thin from being in their presence for so long in the relatively confining conditions of the KIN Redeemer.

Commander Akhmatova was however highly amused by the conversation before her, barely did she hide a smirk that came to her face as she herself continued with her own meal. As was rather clear, she had a great deal more patience for the Indrii then her superior officer, though it was not out of any greater love of them, it was merely in her nature. Also unlike her superior officer, she had not found Keer’s statement to be rude or arrogant, having said as much to Alexei only moments before hand.

Breaking into the conversation before Scarpa could continue, the Kilrany commander spoke up, “Sounds a great deal like our own communication setup, though we’ve rarely had the need to use truly long range communications until the Athenas were commissioned, being so far from our home system, its been essential,” though she hadn’t been insulted by Keer’s words, they had made her a little uneasy, and she felt it best for the moment to attempt to insinuate that they were a great deal farther away from Mir then they really were.

Once again before Scarpa could say anything she quickly continued, “Captain Lingun, if now is a good time, I wouldn’t mind continuing our earlier conversation on economies we briefly touched upon. Is it mostly just trade between most out here, or has there been some commonly accepted form of ‘currency’?”

Jele stepped into the 'port, and closed his eyes. He didn't need to, of course, the ship would move him over to within a kilometre of the Ganoxan ship, but he really preferred it that way. Something about shifting from a ship to space instantly bothered him when he looked at it - and he preferred to arrive in his perfect mind.

He appeared in the middle of space a moment later, his airshield already prepared. To those watching him, it would look as though he were swimming through hard vacuum, aboard no craft.

He slowed rapidly - for hitting the end of the ship's hangar bay at a few hundred metres a second would hurt. As he hurtled aboard, still traveling quite quickly, he adjusted his hat. A felt piece, it gave him, he thought, a distinguished look. Of course, along with his curiously shimmering suit, that, at this moment, was a verdant violet, and the florid buttons that went down it, he merely looked curious.

He stepped into the airlock, and with a single nod, acknowledged those who had come to greet him.

"Oh, awfully good to see you all. I'm Jele. Pleased to meet you."

Jilneas wondered how the man was floating through space without an EV suit or at least some sort of protective gear. Maybe it was some kind of shielding, she thought. She walked over to the man and extended her hand as a gesture.

"Welcome to the Ganoxian Alliance destroyer Belldandy, we are glad you can visit us. Please if you don't mind, follow me to the dining area, where you can meet with the rest of the delegation," Jilneas said, not really good with formalities and always to the point.

"Jolly good, then."

He shook Jilneas's hand vigorously, and, after a moment, followed her off to the dining area.

Jilneas guided the new guest into the dining room and stood near the door. Captain Lingun got out of his seat and walked to the two, extended his hand as a gesture. "Its good to meet you! Um, mister..." he trailed off.

OOC: Since I don’t have much to add to the current scene on the Belldandy, I’ll merely add in this little exposition for other scenes as a glorified bump and continuation therein.

While things continued to progress in space around the still unnamed world, the same could be said for things on the world below, however they were far less interesting, at least for the Kilrany. Established in their observation point, there was little more for this reconnaissance section to do by sit, wait and watch the small village chosen as their target objective. At the same time the Indrii scientists were having a field day taking flora samples as the regular Kilrany infantry units felt the same dull monotony as the recce section as time continued.

As she wasn’t currently on watch for the observation point, Sasha Davydova lay back in a slight depression in the ground around the rest of her hunkered down unit, partially propping herself up with her left arm. Next to her lay her large rucksack with her helmet sitting atop, while her Carbine rested across her stomach, still attached to her tactical sling. In her right hand she held her canteen, of which she took a sip of before she turned to look at her comrade, Svetlana Kubasova, who lay in a similar position eating a ration bar.

Only half their section could be found in the camouflaged position they currently used to watch the town, as the other fire team, which included their section Sergeant had broken in half and were conducting a limited patrol of their immediate perimeter to get a better idea for the land around them. From here, two of them kept a constant watch with a small recording camera set up to view the town to supplement them as a more permanent watch, while the other four of the fire team relaxed or rested until it was their turn to watch.

Sasha addressed Svetlana quietly, “What do you figure, another hour before sunrise here?”

Svetlana merely nodded her head as she continued to tear into the small ration bar with more enthusiasm then Sasha though it deserved, though she didn’t think they were bad, she certainly didn’t think they were that good. Raising an eyebrow, Sasha continued, “Miss lunch did we? You’d think that was Russkyan Herbed Chicken Sauté.”

Svetlana grunted in amusement and shook her head slightly, which she also did with the ration bar a moment later as she gestured with it to Sasha, “Granted these things aren’t exactly ‘bliss on a plate,’ heh, but they’re better then you think … besides, I did indeed miss lunch, so I’m starving.”

Two meters way from them, Lev Klimuk, passively listened in as he rolled partially to his left and parted a bush slightly to peer through the darkness at the village down the rise from them, he still wore his helmet, so the low light imager gave him a clear view. There wasn’t much for him to see though and the only thing of note to him was that the light to the home with the woman in it had finally gone out.

Rolling back, he stretched out and lay in his previous position as comfortably as he could, intent on getting a few hours sleep before it was his turn to sit on watch or go out on a short patrol. He didn’t bother taking off his helmet, feeling it was comfortable enough as it was.

-----

Aboard the 5th Division controlled Spectre, Larisa and Nikolai found they had little to say after listening in to the bulk of the conversation transmitted between the city-ship and the destroyer. Unlike the Admiralty of the Kilrany Imperial Navy, 5th Division so no such extreme need to hide the location of Mir, and in fact felt it would be more beneficial to get the pleasantries aside and initiate trade, and more importantly, with such avenues open, they could more easily attain intelligence on who was out there.

Turning to face Nikolai for a moment, Larisa spoke, “I see little more I can do here, I leave watch back to you.”

Nikolai merely nodded his head, as no more words were needed, she knew he would contact her if anything new presented itself, or more specifically Dionisy would. Thus Nikolai removed his helmet once more and returned to his earlier state, requesting Dionisy to play the same piece as before and lower the light level. Closing his eyes he waited until something new presented itself as well.

OOC: Strange, once again the post shows up at a later date, either I’m going blind or I’ve having some continued difficulties with Jolt, a little frustrating though; oh well, better late then never

The arrival of the Cyprian within the dining room prompted the same response from both Kilrany military officers, which was a raised eyebrow and a mildly amused look; Scarpa on the other hand, had a decidedly intrigued look upon his face. Following Captain Lingun’s lead a moment later, Akhmatova and Vyshinsky both stood up and introduced themselves, followed another moment later by Scarpa, who felt it best to keep up appearances as well.

While the look upon Akhmatova’s face took on a more neutral appearance as she surreptitiously sized up the new arrival. Vyshinsky on the other hand couldn’t help but retain his highly curious appearance as he somewhat more obviously looked over Jilneas.

-----

As the sun rose over the small village carefully watched by the detachment of Kilrany Imperial Naval Infantry, both Sasha and Svetlana found themselves on watch, staring down the rise towards the slowly waking community. The rest of their fire team, including Lev still lying in his previous position, appeared to be either asleep or resting, all wearing their helmets, making it difficult to tell one way or the another.

They hardly spoke to each other at this point, having little to say but to comment on the quality of the stonework on the homes and the odd proper street, most of which were simple gravel paths. While most of the homes looked about average; simple one or two story homes, there were a handful of buildings that clearly stood out, namely one that looked like a church of some kind, and another that seemed a bit more formal then the rest, they all figured it was a police station of some kind, possibly a community hall.

As slowly as the sun rose into the sky, the population of the village began to wake and leave their homes to partake in their daily rounds, including one fellow who looked suspiciously like a milkman. Thus far in their observation, everything about the community reminded them of an old movie that involved a little English village, the similarities where both intriguing and disconcerting at the same time.

Most of the movement they saw seemed to be routine enough to their eyes, several of the locals gathered near a particular building before a woman greeted them and let them in, and a young boy went jogging out towards the same fenced field holding the sheep they had passed before during the night. The first person to truly draw their attention for long was an older man who came walking out of the building the more formal building, from the blue coloured uniform he wore, they felt confident it was a police station.

Following his movement for a few minutes, he did little to deserve their undivided attention in that time but start to take a stroll around the village. Sasha was about to look elsewhere when they both noticed a younger woman come almost running up to the suspected officer, which quickly refocused their attention. Had Lev been conscious and watching with them, he would have recognized her as the women he saw in the window. Even from their distance they could tell something was wrong in her body language, and while the officer at first seemed dismissive, he quickly nodded his head a few moments later and momentarily put his hand on her shoulder before he took off at a jog.

This immediately set off warning bells in their heads, and they continued to watch as the officer went jogging up to the suspected cafe and inside. Only moments later he was coming out again, quickly followed by three more locals, most of which parted in different direction as the uniformed man went back to the station. As the scene continued to escalate, several more people gathered outside the station, two of which they had seen leaving the small shop, now carrying firearms of some type.

Finally the officer appeared to come back out carrying what looked like a rifle, which prompted a curse from Sasha, an even louder and more colourful one came from Svetlana a moment later as she heard a faint, but familiar noise take visible form as a third man came into view from around a building being led by a pair of animals that looked like hounds.

Sasha didn’t take her eyes off the group as she addressed Svetlana, “Wake em up,” an action her comrade immediately carried out while she activated the communications set to address her Sergeant, “Sergeant, we have a problem, the indigs appear to be amassing a search party, my guess is that the indig we killed in the woods has been noticed missing.”

His immediate reply was short and to the point, “Damnit,” promptly followed by a few seconds of silence before he spoke again, “Anything we need to worry about?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure they’ve got some dogs with them,” she didn’t recognize the breed, but she knew the look of a canine when se saw one.

“Son of a-… we’re coming back to you, get everyone ready to move out, we may have to abandon the observation point.”

“Copy that.”

-----

With her features once more concealed behind the well fitting helmet worn by 5th Division, Larisa casually made her way back down a darkened corridor towards her quarters, not far from the ship’s command center. Her footsteps were inaudible in the darkness that these operatives tended to prefer, especially after the numerous augmentations done to their physiology, in this case their eyes; it wasn’t that they couldn’t take bright lights, but it was more calming for them, and less of a strain when not wearing their headgear.

As she rounded a turn to approach the appropriate hatch, she caught sight of one of her comrades waiting for her near it. She addressed her a moment later, “What brings you hear Milla?”

Dressed somewhat casually in the standard 5th Division uniform minus helmet and equipment, her unusually slender form for a Kilrany, clearly visible along with her shoulder length mahogany coloured hair. Milla replied with a friendly smile, “I was hoping to discuss an operation on the planet below.”

Opening the hatch, Larisa gestured for her to enter and Milla did, quickly following, Larisa closed the hatch behind them and they both took a seat in a simple looking, but reasonably comfortable chair opposite each other. Removing her helmet, she set it next to her on a small table and readdressed Milla in the dimly lit room, “What did you have in mind?”

Despite her appearance, Milla was not human, she was a rare example of an AI in human form, given an outward appearance that would fool all but the most detailed medical scan; as it was difficult to hide her metallic endoskeleton and power supply passively. She was designed to emulate a Russkyan woman more then a Kilrany, as they had on average a less intimidating physical appearance in comparison, in both build and height, while both were Slavic in descent. In addition to this, she was also designed to be average in her appearance, so as to have the option to blend in with a crowd if desired, rather then constantly stand out otherwise.

“Dionisy has managed to isolate one of their languages, it appears to almost be identical to our own Russian.”

Larisa raised an eyebrow, “The coincidences keep building it seems.”

“Indeed. It’s not quite Russian as we know it however, but it’s close enough that he’s been able to create a rough translation, he believes in another few hours he’ll have enough for a expert level translation.”

Larisa didn’t need to ask if Dionisy had only just recently made this discovery, as she knew he would have mentioned it to her if he had known for a while. Instead she merely assumed that Dionisy and Milla had spoken to each other in their usual high speed and Milla asked to bring it up herself, “Who do you want to take down with you?”

“Including Ivan, I’d like Nikolai and Sergei as backup.”

Larisa considered it for a moment before nodding her head slightly, “Very well, as soon as Dionisy has the translation finished, pick a shuttle at your leisure.”

Milla gave a quick nod of her head meant as both an acknowledgement and a thank you and left Larisa’s quarters, carefully shutting the hatch behind her and leaving Larisa to her free time.