NationStates Jolt Archive

Forest:

The sound of boots could be heard as soldiers walked through the misty forest and looked through the wreckage. Broken structures, vehicles, and corpses, the stench of death was heavy in the air. The white armor of the Greywatch soldiers gave them the perfect camouflage. Amongst the mist, two soldiers conversed. “Anything?”
“We’ve found some dead Greywatch soldiers… everyone else is gone. No signs of the aliens the explorers came into contact with.”
“What can you assume?”
“My guess, they’ve been captured. Probably still alive, prime suspects would be the aliens the explorers came in contact with.”
“I agree. This isn’t good. We need to report back to Phoenix. Can you locate him?”
“Negative, sir. He’s not within tracker range and something on the planet is interfering with our comms. I cannot contact the ship without using the amplifier that was brought to the surface by the explorers.”
“This could be a trap, these aliens may have done this so we’d be exposed… we’re lucky the amplifier is still active. Contact the ship and ask for further orders.” The soldier waited for a moment. “Are we still able to use short-range comms?”
“Affirmative.”
The first soldier nodded before putting a message out to the rest of the party, “Everyone, regroup at the LZ, now. Keep your guard up; hostiles could still be in the area.”

Elsewhere in the Forest:

Among the ancient stone ruins, two figures stood. The place looked like it had been a battleground, scorch marks were all over the walls, and there were clear indications of weapons fire. One figure was leaning against a wall, panting heavily. Its light brown skin was covered in animal hide; an empty assault rifle in its hands. Its blue eyes simply looked forward at the armored monstrosity in front of it. “What are you?” It muttered in its own language as it slid down to a sitting position, dropping its weapon clutching it right shoulder, which was severely burned. The other figure, clad in a crimson armor, did not answer right away, but instead walked forward. It reached down, grabbing the other figure by the neck and holding it against the wall. In English came a response, “Where are my people?” The first figure looked forward at the crimson monster, struggling to get loose. Suddenly, it noticed something, the crimson monster’s visor was broken, and from behind it, one green eye and Caucasian skin were visible. The figure reached forward, trying to get its hands around the monster’s neck; the monster, however, didn’t care and only repeated, “Where are my people?” The figure then pressed down on a few points on the neck of the armor; there was the clicking sound of the helmet release. “Are you… one of them?” The figure said in its own language. The monster let go of the alien and took a step back before pulling off its helmet, revealing the face of a human in his early thirties.

The man’s reddish hair was messily pulled back; his face had blood running down the side of it. “What? Does seeing my face make you want to talk? Is this going to help you tell me what happened to my people? Dammit, alien, answer me!” He said, his race red with anger. The other figure simply smiled before falling over, unconscious. The man put his helmet back on and picked up the alien, slinging it over his shoulder. “Phoenix to Greywatch Investigation Squad, do you copy?” There was no response, “Dammit, anyone. Do you copy?” Still no response. “Shit,” he muttered to himself, “A crazy alien, limited ammo, and cut off from my team…”

Greywatch Military Vessel, Bridge:

In orbit sat a single Greywatch warship, The Broadsword. Aboard the bridge of the vessel, the captain listened to the report from the investigation squad on the surface. She sighed, “So, as far as we know, the very aliens who welcomed our exploration team also kidnapped them?”
“Yes ma’am, at least that’s what we believe.”
“But then, why was the exploration vessel destroyed? We found the wreckage just floating up here. And reports from the explorers said the aliens were primitive compared to us. They hadn’t mastered making firearms, much less space travel and warfare.”
“I’m not sure ma’am. But something on this planet is scrambling our comms systems. I’m sure scanners on the ship have been affected.”
“You’re right about that, I’m afraid. You think this might have all been a ruse?”
“It’s a possibility, I suppose. Though, it seems a bit extravagant, we don’t have much to go on here. And we know Phoenix went after something. It might have been one of the aliens, but we’re not sure.”
“Have you been able to re-establish contact with him?”
“No ma’am, there’s something wrong on his end. We think his comms system is either turned off or damaged. There’s also the possibility that he’s out of range. But we find it unlikely he’d turn it off himself, nor do I think he’d run to far off, though he has that tendency.”
“So we can safely assume it was damaged?”
“Affirmative.”
“Fine then, I’ll be deploying a Crisis Assault team to the surface.”
“Negative, ma’am. I don’ think we need the heavy weapons yet. I think it would be best if we look around a bit more first.”
“Fine then. I’m counting on you, soldier.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The channel was closed and the captain sat for a moment, thinking to herself, Dammit Phoenix, where the hell have you gone to? Ugh… looks like I have quite the report to send. She looked to her first mate who was behind her, working at a console. “First mate, take the helm.” She stood and left, her first mate taking her seat.

Greywatch Military Vessel, Docking Bay:

The bay was alive with activity as engineers and technicians looked over pieces of Explorer wreckage that had been towed in for analysis. As the captain entered she was approached by a Xarniosi, the technology masters of Greywatch, “Ma’am. After looking over the ship we’ve been able to determine that the weapons used were quite powerful. With the analysis given to us by the team that is currently aboard the large chunk of the Explorer still floating in orbit, we’ve determined the shields were practically useless. Whatever was used tore through the ship in only a few hits, and was able to destroy it with quite some ease.” It said with a deep voice, the captain gave a grim look, “Have we found anything else?” The Xarniosi nodded, “Droids aboard the Explorer are currently analyzing the records. Also, the engines and reactors of the Explorer seem to have been avoided.” The captain raised a brow, “Avoided?” The Xarniosi looked to the wreckage behind it, “Someone didn’t want the ship to explode. They wanted to kill everyone onboard but keep the vessel relatively intact. I would assume wither because they wanted to study it later, or because they wished it to serve as a warning to others.”

The captain frowned, “Goddamn them, whoever they were…” The Xarniosi left the captain to go back to his work. The captain shrugged before leaving the docking bay. She was infuriated that this had happened and wished to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. But first, she had to send a report of events and discoveries thus far to Prime. She thought back to the briefing she’d been giving: an Exploration ship had found an alien race and made contact. Reports came back twice a day until two days ago, when the ship suddenly stopped sending anything at all. Then, a day later, an emergency beacon was picked up. That was when the council decided to send military assistance. Now that assistance was here, but other than the obvious signs of an attack, the investigation wasn’t turning up too much. The captain knew that a top priority was to locate Phoenix, he was spearheading operations on the ground, and his abilities would be needed for this assignment. She also knew she was going against time here; she needed to get to the bottom of this and fast. Not only was there a good chance of the already cold trail going colder, but knowing the way the galaxy worked, there was a strong possibility that someone else picked up the distress beacon.

The Klikiss were getting a taste of the freedom they had been deprived of for so many generations, events both inside and outside the Ciscilian Ascendency were releasing them from their shackles; only it was the Ciscilians who were frantically doing the releasing. Spurred on by ethical and moral realisations they were attempting to right several centuries of wrong doings. The first was to become truly isolationist, the second, to free the Klikiss; they were not quite there yet but the new dawn could be seen on the horizon.

As such, a Klikiss Breedex, like so many other's of her kind simply sat in her Hive ship, seeing through thousands of sets of eyes, controlling thousands of bodies, but thinking with one mind. The Breedex was listening into the developments in other places, looking for her and her kind to finally take to the starts once more.

But for now she occupied her self as normal, using her titanic processing brain power to peer into the events of the universe by deciphering what was before her. She was rather surprised however when an emergency signal radiated across a particular area of space she was deciphering.

A disaster? No... to distressed... an attack? Possibly, what verbal vibrations were encoded in this... variating tones... vibrations... pitches... creatures with a simian voice box

The Breedex felt a pang of annoyance, that didn't help at all, after all, most of intelligent life evolved from a simian base. She let the alien words play through her Drones audio sensors.

Enough of this.

The Breedex went for the easy option, for her in any case, she used the quantum movements and energetics of the area of space she had been analysing and watched them continue for a few moments. She then reversed it, suddenly she could see that area of space running backwards; she followed the transmission back to it's point of origination. Once the transmissions reached the planets atmosphere however the Breedex watched an interpretation of the events that had transpired in reverse, she then played it forwards when the world looked "normal". She faintly recalled the ships designs, she pondered untill it came to her.

Greywatch.

With the right species she ran the appropriate translator over the emergency message. In all honestey it didn't help, she wasn't sure if it was words or just steams of numbers, perhaps the transmission did nothing more than cause an emergency button to light up on Greywatch ships.

Nonetheless this was interesting, something that could take on Greywatch had to at least have a level of technology approaching the Ciscilians, thinking of the Ciscilians made her wonder if she should inform them of her discovery; she couldn't think of a reason why.

She set about the required calculations and functions, and when it was all in order she gave the order.

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

The Klikiss Hive ship simply appeared in system, the only thing that would have given it away was the vast amout of kernikov radiation that occupied the area a split second before the Hive ship appeared. She noted the Greywatch ship's presence, adding that to her simulator to see if her predictions were correct, yes, her previous simulation was accurate. Aware that Greywatch wouldn't ignore a thirteen kilometer long termite hive shaped vessel appearing in their system she broadcasted a message in the artificial, clam and pleasent voice they used:

"Greetings Greywatch vessels. I am a Breedex of the Klikiss race, we were remotely deciphering an area of space when we calculated the presence of a transmission. We ran a simulation to determine it's point of determination and it led us here, from that we also computed a simulation of what happened here, although the beacons contents are a mystery to us. This event has aroused our interest, and perhaps we could help in a variety of ways."

The Breedex sent the transmission, reflecting on if she should have mentioned the Ascendency, she consulted with other Breedexs, no they decided, it was time they forged their own path.

Warp-Space. Inquisitor Cyrus Tarsus groaned at the thought as sat in his quarters situated within the Imperial Destroyer. Warp-Space was such an unpredictable thing, yet people seem callous to the dangers. Entire fleets can enter warp-space, and never be heard from again. He concluded that it was his job to worry about the dangers of such things. Dismissing the train of thought from his head, he began to think of what the future held for him. He reached into his coat, and removed something from one of the pockets. It was small, black, attached to a chain, and made even the bravest men in the Holy Imperium tremble in terror. It was his Inquisitorial Seal.

He was on his way to the planet Preturbia, in order to make his report to Inquisitor Lord Rumah in the Inquisitorial Offices there. He had successfully quelled the heretical Confessor of an Imperial planet, who sought to carve an empire for himself, and using his charisma to win over the local population. His preliminary report had already been sent over, but he still had to make a full report. His own ship, a small cruiser, had been destroyed by the planet's Planetary Defense Force as it tried to sneak in unseen. Therefore, he and his remaining agents, had commandeered the use of the Justified Cause, a destroyer headed by a Captain Sophia Rhesa. It didn't have the feel of the Black Ships of the Inquisition, but it would suit his needs for the time being.
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Imperial Destoyer
Justified Cause (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/d/d8/AvengerClassGrandCruiser.JPG)
Bridge

Captain Sophia Rhesa ran a slender hand through her short, brown hair, pushing it away from her eyes. They were making good timing. They would be arriving at Preturbia tomorrow, at the earliest. Things were going just fin-

The ship jerked to a stop as warp-space suddenly descended into real-space, throwing Captain Rhesa and several bridge officers to the floor.

"What just happened!?" Rhesa ordered, rising to her feet.

"Captain!" An officer shouted, regaining his post at the ship. He scanned the red text that appeared at his console. "Warp-engines have come to a complete stop. We can't seem to determine the cause."

"Get repair teams to the engine room."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Captain Rhesa sat back down in her command throne. They might be stuck there for awhile.

"Well, then, where exactly in the Galaxy are we?"

"Ma'am, it seems we have stopped near an uncharted solar system." An officer answered, staring into his console. "There are a few planets, one of them habitable."

Suddenly, the bridge doors slid open, and the captain was filled with a sense of dread as Inquisitor Tarsus stormed onto the bridge, flanked by two of his agents, clad in the black and burgundy armor of the Inquisition.

"What happened, Captain?" Tarsus said, irritated.

"We're not sure, Inquisitor. The warp-engines seemed to have just... stopped."

"Stopped? All by themselves?" Tarsus raised an eyebrow. He clearly wasn't buying her story.

"Well, I didn't order it." Rhesa replied, irritated. "And none of my officers did either." What was this, an interrogation?

"Captain!" A deck officer interrupted their conversation. "We're receiving a distress call from one of the nearby planets, and are picking two alien signatures."

"Aliens? Do we still have impulse engines?" The Captain asked

"Yes, captain." The officer answered. "Impulse engines are fully functional. Only the warp-engines seem to have stopped"

"Take us there." The Inquisitor ordered. They seemed to be stuck in that system for awhile, and it's not like they couldn't have been detected, given the size of the destroyer. His investigative nature got the better of him. Quietly, he noticed the captain's eyes flash with surprise, before quickly returning to their normal look.

"Yes, sir." The officer responded.

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A few hours later...

"Captain, we've reached the planet in question." A bridge officer responded, staring into his console. "We're running the alien ships through our database now."

Inquisitor Tarsus and Captain Rhesa stared at the viewscreen. Planets always looked beautiful from space. The combination of greens and blues and whites from the surface of a habitable planet always made it look all the better.

"I.D confirmed." Another bridge officer shouted. "One of them is identified as a ship belonging to the Greywatch, and the other belonging to the Ciscilian Empire." (OOC: We don't know about the Ascendancy yet.)

"Greywatch AND Ciscilians?" Captain Rhesa asked, sitting down in her command chair. The Holy Imperium first came into contact with these two species years ago, and they aided the Imperial Navy in defeating an alien race that tried to conquer an Angenterian world. Since then, they've seemed to be popping up more and more lately, for whatever reason. Knowing that they'd be wondering what's going on, the Captain promptly sent them a message, with the Inquisitor's approval.

Greywatch and Ciscilian ships,
This is Captain Sophia Rhesa, of the Angenterian Imperial Destroyer Justified Cause.We have detected a distress signal from this area of space, and we offer our assistance.

By the order of the Inquisitor, they left out the fact that the only reason they were there was because their warp-engines were busted.

Halls of The Broadsword:

As the captain stood in the halls outside the docking bay in thought, her communicator went off, “Captain! A ship just dropped out of… gods know where. We need you on the bridge, now. This thing is huge!” The captain’s heart stopped for a moment, could the aliens who destroyed the Explorer be back? “Officer!” She yelled into her communicator, “Make sure shields are raised and bring weapons online, NOW! I’m on my way.” With that, she was in full sprint back to the bridge. She got herself to a nearby blink portal and within a few seconds was outside the bridge door.

Bridge:

As she entered, the message from the Hive ship was played on the bridge.

"Greetings Greywatch vessels. I am a Breedex of the Klikiss race, we were remotely deciphering an area of space when we calculated the presence of a transmission. We ran a simulation to determine its point of determination and it led us here, from that we also computed a simulation of what happened here, although the beacons contents are a mystery to us. This event has aroused our interest, and perhaps we could help in a variety of ways."

The captain was a little stunned; this race already knew where they were from. She looked to one of her officers, “Connect to the Archives, now.” The officer nodded and went to work, the captain proceeded to take her seat, her first mate standing up and moving to the side. The officer who was looking through the archives turned around, “Captain, I found something.” Without waiting for a response the officer went on, “The Klikiss are a race that have connections with another race known as the Ciscilians. About two years ago we came into contact with them-“ The captain cut the officer off, “Yes, I’ve read the report. Greywatch was helping another alien race defend itself from being conquered, or something along those lines. So these people would be listed under ‘friendlies.’” The officer nodded, “Yes ma’am.” The captain looked to her tactical officer, “Make it so. Register that ship under ‘Ally’ and stand down weapons.” The captain sighed, Damn, these people must really like giving people heart attacks. Popping up out of nowhere like that. And what the hell are they going on about? Simulations, of what? It was a fucking cry for help, garbled, but still a cry for help. I suppose if they are friendly I might as well see if they’re willing to help us find out what the hell is going on. She looked up, “Comms, patch a message through, please.”

<Attention Klikiss vessel, I am Captain Amanda Darlin of the Greywatch warship, The Broadsword. What you have wandered into is a very serious situation. We are currently trying to locate an Exploration team that went missing a few days ago and that, for all we know, could be dead. We currently have an investigation team on the surface, I will give you more information when we have it.>

With the message sent the captain relaxed. She didn’t wish to go into any more detail at the moment, it wasn’t needed. If they were lucky, the Greywatch group wouldn’t need any help. Though the chances of that were slim. “Hopefully this will go over well…” she muttered to herself.

A few minutes later…

The tactical officer looked up from her console, “Captain, we’re picking up another ship on sensors. I’m doing some surface scans right now to try and ID the design and signature…” Amanda tensed for a moment and sighed, “My word, seems like this is quite the event to attend…” The officer nodded, “Captain, the sensors are already registering the ship as friendly. Hold on, a name should be appearing shortly. Angenteria.” The officer said with a little surprise. Amanda looked back, trying to see if her officer was joking, she obviously wasn’t. “My word, you’re serious. It’s like an old band getting back together or something. Seriously, what are the chances?” The officer shrugged, “They’re still a little ways out. Apparently running only on impulse.” The comms officer looked up, “Captain, shall I put a message through?” Amanda shook her head, “Not yet, wait until they’re a little closer.” A few moments passed before the communications officer looked up, “They’re sending a message.” With a simple nod from the captain, the message was played:

Greywatch and Ciscilian ships,
This is Captain Sophia Rhesa, of the Angenterian Imperial Destroyer Justified Cause.We have detected a distress signal from this area of space, and we offer our assistance.

The captain took a moment to think about this. It was odd that a race of people that possessed FTL capability wandered in using impulse engines but that wasn’t too much of a concern at the moment. At the moment she had two allies, and they were offering help. These two facts served as the proverbial music to one’s ears. She looked to the comms officer who promptly opened a channel.

<Angenterian Vessel, it’s good to see another familiar face. You are speaking to Captain Amanda Darlin of the warship, The Broadsword. The situation you have come in on is quite the serious one. A couple of days ago, Greywatch lost contact with one of its Exploration teams. For all we know, they might be dead. There is currently an investigation team on the surface; so far they’ve not turned up much. When we obtain more information, we’ll be sure to forward it to you.>

The captain didn’t want to hide anything from these people, but at the moment she saw no reason in going into all the details of the situation. She just prayed the investigation team would turn up something good, and soon.

Imperial Destoyer
Justified Cause
Bridge

<Angenterian Vessel, it’s good to see another familiar face. You are speaking to Captain Amanda Darlin of the warship, The Broadsword. The situation you have come in on is quite the serious one. A couple of days ago, Greywatch lost contact with one of its Exploration teams. For all we know, they might be dead. There is currently an investigation team on the surface; so far they’ve not turned up much. When we obtain more information, we’ll be sure to forward it to you.>

Captain Rhesa grinned a little at the greeting. At least the aliens were being friendly. Old galactic buddies were getting back together, maybe having a drink, and telling each other what they've been up to over the summer vacation.

"Don't you find that odd?" Inquisitor Tarsus wasn't as jovial as Captain Rhesa was. A frown was streched across his face, and his arms were neatly folded. "Why would they be exploring this planet? There are thousands of planets in the galaxy just like this one, and yet they go here. I mean, what's down there thats so important?"

"Maybe they're exploring the planet for later colonization?" Rhesa put in.

"Perhaps..." The Inquisitor didn't buy that. It was too coincidental. And in his career, he'd learned that there was no such thing as a coincidence. "We need to find out why they're here. But right now, let's play along."

Rhesa raised an eyebrow in surprise. The inquisitor was quite the diplomat. Well, he IS an Inquisitor She concluded to herself.

They sent another message in reply to the Greywatch:

Captain Darlin,
We are happy to be of assistance to you and your crew. With your permission, we could send a search party of our own to aid your investigation teams.

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Imperial Destoyer
Justified Cause
Engine Bay

Chief Enginseer Dracus stood on the catwalk overlooking the engines. As the Chief Enginseer of the ship, he was in charge of the maintenance of all the machines on the ship, and making sure they were working properly. He was infuriated when he suddenly found that the warp-engines had stopped working, and rubbed the bruise on his bald head. He turned to his aide "Anything yet?"

"Nothing, sir." His aide responded. "We can't seem to be able to isolate the problem."

Dracus nodded, and turned to the room below, placing his hand on the railing. Everywhere, enginseers scurried about two and fro, their mechanical enhancements gleaning in the light. He turned his eyes to the side, seeing two irritated enginseers in a heated conversation. One of the Enginseers broke off from the conversation, and crawled into a duct that led into an engine well. A short time passed before a small flash of blue light came from the vent, and the enginseer crawled out, looking dazed, and slightly singed.

Dracus sighed. It was going to be a long day.

It was a distress beacon. He was certain of it. The pattern of numbers and letters was synonymous with a rescue beacon. 'SOS', 'EVAC', 'HELP', all these universal signals for aid shared similarities, patterns. This message held a similar pattern of urgency.

Virgil paced along the command precipice of the bridge. His ship, the Second Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might, was holding geostationary orbit over the border world of Horizon with the rest of his assigned fleet strength, comprised of a Dominus-class carrier, the Helm of Honor, two Orion-class frigates, the Stalwart and the Observant, and four Atlas-class destroyers, the Intrepid, the Valiant, the Determination and the Resolute. His bridge crew watched him patiently, waiting for his order. The heir ascendant turned towards his comm officer, eyebrows half cocked. "Ensign Diana, does the signal pattern match any others on the Alliance database?"

The brunette bridge officer ran her hands quickly over her holographic command console. The screen flashed through hundreds of frequency patterns, finally beeping triumphantly and calling up the results.

"Virgil, this signal is identical to a Greywatch transmission."

Virgil's heart skipped a beat. He had encountered Greywatch numerous times, mostly during diplomatic missions and talks. They were good people, brave and tenacious. He had grown to respect and revere them as he came into further contact with them. Now they were in trouble... The heir quickly strode to his command chair and sat down abruptly. They had to act.

"Ensign Merrus! Cycle the fold drives and prepare to jump! Set the target arrival zone at 1.3 AUs distant from the signal source. Deploy the repulsor sails and warm up the main drives. Ensign Lars, begin charging the capacitors for all weapons on the Virtue. Have all crew to action stations and prepare for combat maneuvers! Ensign Diana, link the Virtue's processors with the rest of the fleet strength and slave their drive units to ours for a simultaneous space fold. Also, prepare a message and time it's transmission with our arrival. Broadcast on multiple unencrypted public channels, both visual and audio." The brunette engineer nodded and fiddled with the holographic panel in front of her. A small, half-foot-wide robotic camera floated down from the ceiling, supported by the Frisbee-like maglev projector sitting on the top of it's tiny body.

"Sir, you'll go live in five, four, three-" she continued counting down on her fingers.

This is the captain of Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might. I am Virgil Castro, twenty-third heir ascendant of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, representative on their behalf and acting commander of this fleet strength. We detected a distress beacon emanating from this area and have come to lend aid to our Greywatch allies. We mean no harm and seek only to assist you in any possible way. Our peoples have met on numerous occasions and have always interacted with respect and dignity, assisting one another as we could. We come to reinforce that bond.

To any other craft in the vicinity of the Greywatch ship: if you be friend to either the peoples of Greywatch or the Second Alliance, you have nothing to fear from us. If you would do either of us ill, expect a suitable response.

We will move to any coordinates you choose to designate, Greywatch forces. We look forward to working alongside your people once more. End.

23 MINUTES LATER----------------------------------------
Time passed as the crews of the fleet strength of Virgil Castro made their preparations. The fleet enacted Virgil's orders, and the Virtue of Might, flanked by it's escorting fleet activated their drives. With a shockwave that shook the fabric of reality, space bent and warped, hurling the starships through time and space, where upon they reappeared with another space-shaking concussive wave roughly midsystem. The Virtue of Might and it's flank guards popped into existence, the silver and blue hull of the Virtue silhouetted against the stars like a brilliant predatory bird.

At the moment the starships reentered the universe, the signal transmitted across the system. Ensign Merrus updated the heir's command pads and then turned towards Virgil.

"Sir, the repulsor membrane is deployed. All systems are green. Helm control has improved by a factor of 2.3516 and rising. We are now capable of combat maneuvering. The crew is all secured for inertial turbulence and accounted for."

Ensign Diana's command panel pinged several times and blinked with numerous identical frequency messages.

"Sir, the fleet captains have confirmed they are also standing by for combat maneuvers and are standing by." Virgil nodded, letting loose a sigh of relief. His crew was on the ball today, one less thing to worry about.

"Take us in, Merrus. Head towards the ships. Weapons hot, but shields down, Ensign Lars. Let's not spook anyone accidentally." The Virtue moved forward at a steady pace towards the arranged ships, it's fleet in close proximity.

Imperial Destoyer
Justified Cause
Bridge

"Captain, another alien vessel is entering the system." A bridge officer announced.

"More aliens?" Captain Rhesa replied, somewhat suprised. "This place is attracting more aliens like people to mass on Emperor's Day."

"They're broadcasting a transmission."

"Play it."


This is the captain of Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might. I am Virgil Castro, twenty-third heir ascendant of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, representative on their behalf and acting commander of this fleet strength. We detected a distress beacon emanating from this area and have come to lend aid to our Greywatch allies. We mean no harm and seek only to assist you in any possible way. Our peoples have met on numerous ocassions and have always interacted with respect and dignity, assisting one another as we could. We come to reinforce that bond.

To any other craft in the vicinity of the Greywatch ship: if you be friend to either the peoples of Greywatch of the Second Alliance, you have nothing to fear from us. If you would do either of us ill, expect a suitable response.

We will move to any coordinates you choose to designate, Greywatch forces. We look forward to working alongside your people once more. End.

"These aliens seem to be quite aloof." Inquisitor Tarsus remarked. "If we came here with hostile intentions, wouldn't we be shooting at them already, instead of just sitting around, waiting for something to happen?"

The Captain nodded, seeing the Inquisitor's logic. She felt like she had to respond, however, and composed herself for a response.

Alliance Vessel,
This is Captain Sophia Rhesa of the Holy Imperium of Angenteria. Greywatch and Angenterian have stood together against enemies in the past, and we have arrived with nothing but good intentions. You have nothing to fear from us.

The Breedex felt her attention being torn between different places at once, as a "large" dagger shaped vessel seemed to drop out of the extra-diemension which many sentients tapped into for FTL travel, this one seemed to utilise warp mechanism's, hyperspace as it was also known. The Breedex watched a variety of viewscreens through the eyes of her Drones as the new vessel began crawling it's way towards the system's center on impulse drive. Odd, why didn't they use FTL to get them here? Perhpas they had not yet mastered more accurate uses of it. Suddenly the Breedex received a message from the newcomers:

"Greywatch and Ciscilian ships,
This is Captain Sophia Rhesa, of the Angenterian Imperial Destroyer Justified Cause.We have detected a distress signal from this area of space, and we offer our assistance."

Angenteria? Now that was a name she recognised, so that ship was an Imperial Destroyer, interesting. She amused herslef for a few seconds with calculating the odds of the variety of species appearing here to meet once more; the odds were low. The Breedex relayed a message to them using the standard artificial voice:

"Greetings to the Angenterian Holy Imperium, I too discovered the emergency beacon, only by far more sophisticated and remote means. As such I have come to investigate and react where and when appropriate."

The Breedex's attention was once again diverted to another Drone manning a communications console, a response from Greywatch played from it, the Breedex listened through the senory apparatus of the nearby Drones:

"Attention Klikiss vessel, I am Captain Amanda Darlin of the Greywatch warship, The Broadsword. What you have wandered into is a very serious situation. We are currently trying to locate an Exploration team that went missing a few days ago and that, for all we know, could be dead. We currently have an investigation team on the surface, I will give you more information when we have it."

The Breedex pondered, as she often did, once again she was in a situation where she possibly knew more than the other aliens did; she and her kind were eternally exhasperated by that fact. She decided to help where she could:

"Clearly you are preoccupied with a rather unfortunate situation. Perhaps I will be able to assist you in someway. If you would desire it I would send down my Drones in significant quantities to examine large amounts of territory. Seeing as I see what they see I would be able to pick out any unusual features. Alternatly perhaps this quantum simulation of ours would provide some insight to the situation, we do not know what to make of it. It's a back-calculated particle positioning video, I've reversed it so it's play forward instead of backwards"

The Breedex enclosed the video, in as many different formats as she knew, with the transmission. If the Greywatch officials decided to play it they would see a simulation of the entire system as it was a few minutes before the event that transpired here happened, it would then play through the entire event, before the picture began to follow the beacon, a straight line of energy waves, as they radiated out of the system. It was black and white, allowed the viewer to zoom in on what they wished, but showed every particle in the system, filling it with waves and vibrations. It would be like looking at a television through a snow storm; but it would be easy to pick out the shapes of artificial vessels and indeed allow them to zoom onto the surface of the planet as events unfolded.

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

The Breedex was moving her Hive ship closer towards the planet when another group of vessels entered the system, once again she was distracted by audio players that played the message:

"This is the captain of Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might. I am Virgil Castro, twenty-third heir ascendant of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, representative on their behalf and acting commander of this fleet strength. We detected a distress beacon emanating from this area and have come to lend aid to our Greywatch allies. We mean no harm and seek only to assist you in any possible way. Our peoples have met on numerous ocassions and have always interacted with respect and dignity, assisting one another as we could. We come to reinforce that bond.

To any other craft in the vicinity of the Greywatch ship: if you be friend to either the peoples of Greywatch of the Second Alliance, you have nothing to fear from us. If you would do either of us ill, expect a suitable responce.

We will move to any coordinates you choose to designate, Greywatch forces. We look forward to working alongside your people once more. End."

The Breedex wondered what a "suitable response" would be, aliens had such different cultures and habits that such a message could be interpreted in a number of ways; nonetheless she guessed at what the meaning was. She sent them a message using the artificial voice:

"Attention Virgil Castro, of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, verbal representative of the Keyship Virtue of Might, I am a Breedex of the Klikiss race, we are affiliated with a race that has had past contact with Greywatch, but we are her to investigate the same beacon which led you here. We are offering our assitance in an appropriate manner and have no desire to persue an aggressive approach in relation to this meeting."

The Breedex decided to alret the other Breedexs to what was transpiring here, they too thought it an odd event, but interesting nonetheless.

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

The Breedex moved closer to the world, going slowly so as to not alarm anyone, her ship showed no weapon signatures or defense patterns. Only thousands of gravitational turrents scattered across the ship and dozens of slip-space drives scttered across the ship. The weapons of a Klikiss Hive ship were located on the inside, safe from the eenmies, they fired by opening up wormhole in the rooms they located them and opening the exit hole "at" the target. Of course, the Breedex was not interested in pursuing an agrressive path.

The bridge of The Broadsword:

The Captain cringed just a little when she heard the Angenterian message:
Captain Darlin,
We are happy to be of assistance to you and your crew. With your permission, we could send a search party of our own to aid your investigation teams.

“Well this could get difficult…” the captain muttered. She didn’t like to hide things from her allies but, at the moment, this mission was to remain a Greywatch only situation. It still seemed wrong, though. Leaving them completely out of the loop, but if did give her some flexibility. If she told them to stay out of it, they’d probably be hesitant if she really needed help. If she kept them in the dark but gave them at least a candle, then when she finally opened the door they’d be so much more willing to follow. It was a terrible way to think, but to some extent it was true, and it was what she was doing. She was trained to use whatever tactics work, but keeping that in mind didn’t make her feel any better. Her second in command looked to her, “Ma’am, why not just come clean? We can tell them about the situation, and what’s happened so far.” The captain sighed, “That would probably make things easier than-” her comms officer cut her off, “Incoming message.”

This is the captain of Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might. I am Virgil Castro, twenty-third heir ascendant of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, representative on their behalf and acting commander of this fleet strength. We detected a distress beacon emanating from this area and have come to lend aid to our Greywatch allies. We mean no harm and seek only to assist you in any possible way. Our peoples have met on numerous ocassions and have always interacted with respect and dignity, assisting one another as we could. We come to reinforce that bond.

To any other craft in the vicinity of the Greywatch ship: if you be friend to either the peoples of Greywatch of the Second Alliance, you have nothing to fear from us. If you would do either of us ill, expect a suitable responce.

We will move to any coordinates you choose to designate, Greywatch forces. We look forward to working alongside your people once more. End.

The captain looked up at her first mate, “Prepare a conference room.” Her first mate nodded before leaving. The waved her hand indicating she wanted a holoscreen to be brought up. A screen appeared, showing the world below, “C’mon you guys. Say something already…” she muttered, obviously concerned about the investigation team. “Run a background check. Give me info on these newcomers.” An officer responded after about three minutes, “Ma’am, we have some info on them. Greywatch has come into contact with them in the past on diplomatic missions. Good people, the friendly sort. Very trustworthy.” The tactical officer added, “And they like to come prepared. I’m read a cluster on long-range sensors. Definitely more than one ship in this group, looks like at least a few.” The captain nodded, “Well I don’t want to let this party go stale. Open a channel when they get closer. Also, open a channel to Prime; I want to make sure the council isn’t going to chew me out for this later.” The captain waited a moment, “Send a message to the Angenterians…”

<Negative, Angenterian vessel. The Council gave me orders to keep this matter a Greywatch incident only. I have to contact them before I can accept assistance.>

With that, a new message came in. This time from the Breedex vessel:

"Clearly you are preoccupied with a rather unfortunate situation. Perhaps I will be able to assist you in someway. If you would desire it I would send down my Drones in significant quantities to examine large amounts of territory. Seeing as I see what they see I would be able to pick out any unusual features. Alternatly perhaps this quantum simulation of ours would provide some insight to the situation, we do not know what to make of it. It's a back-calculated particle positioning video, I've reversed it so it's play forward instead of backwards."

She nodded to her communications officer and a message was sent back:

<That will not be necessary as of yet. I ask that you be patient while I contact my government for further orders. We were not expecting so many allies to appear in the area in such a short amount of time.>

With the messages done, the captain could concentrate on contacting the Council. It would fifteen minutes before the discussions were done and she received her orders. By this time the Second Alliance group had come close enough for The Broadsword to identify as a proper fleet. After the discussion was over she nodded, “Right then… time to bring them into it. Comms, put out another message. This time, leave it open; this will be for everyone.”

<Attention all vessels, I apologize for my silence but I had to contact my government for further orders, we were not expecting so many other nations to respond to the distress beacon. Seeing as you’re all here, there is no longer any reason for me to keep the specific nature of the situation from you. My council wishes for representatives to meet aboard The Broadsword so that they may talk to you using a live feed. When you all arrive, they will explain exactly what kind of assistance Greywatch requires.>

Imperial Destoyer
Justified Cause
Bridge


<Negative, Angenterian vessel. The Council gave me orders to keep this matter a Greywatch incident only. I have to contact them before I can accept assistance.>

Captain Rhesa nodded. It seems the aliens didn't want anyone interfering with their affairs. For the time being, at least.

"They're hiding something." Inquisitor Tarsus said, arms folded. He was convinced now, there was no doubt about it left in his mind. Rhesa bit back a response. He was just doing his job, she told herself. It was his job to be suspicious of things, especially alien races. Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the comms officer.

"Captain, the Greywatch vessel is sending a message on all frequencies."

<Attention all vessels, I apologize for my silence but I had to contact my government for further orders, we were not expecting so many other nations to respond to the distress beacon. Seeing as you’re all here, there is no longer any reason for me to keep the specific nature of the situation from you. My council wishes for representatives to meet aboard The Broadsword so that they may talk to you using a live feed. When you all arrive, they will explain exactly what kind of assistance Greywatch requires.>

"I'll go." Inquisitor Tarsus reported suddenly, startling Rhesa before she could say anything.

"Inquisitor, I don't-" She began.

"No, Captain. It's too suspicious." He paced around the floor. "Only a few minutes ago, these aliens were trying to see us off, and now, all of a sudden, they want to talk? That just doesn't happen. I'm going to see for myself what's really going on."

"And what if they're being truthful?" Rhesa asked.

"Then we'll decide what to do from there." He replied. He motioned to his bodyguards (http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p98/l33t-h4x0r/bodyguard.jpg) (OOC: But with burgundy armor, instead of red), who instantly went to his flanks. "Captain." Tarsus nodded, and saw himself out of the bridge, leaving Rhesa with her crew to hold the fort.

"Prepare a message for the Greywatch. Tell them we're coming." Rhesa ordered. All things considered, the Inquisitor wasn't all bad. He was too damn suspicious, and wouldn't just let things go. But she conceded that if he did, the Holy Imperium would have probably collapsed years ago.

"Yes, ma'am."

Greywatch vessel,
We acknowledge your request for a conference, and we are dispatching an envoy as we speak. Prepare to receive them shortly.

A few minutes later, a shuttle departed from the hangar of the Justified Cause, heading for the Greywatch vessel.

Ensign Diana cursed violently enough to make the entire bridge stare at her. She was usually the prissy, know-it-all ensign on the bridge, and the majority of swearing in the room usually came from the foul-mouthed Ensign Johnson at the tactical controls. The suddeness of the outburst was enough to send the room into silence. Diana brushed the hair out of her face and called up the reason for her frustrations.

Three messages on three different frequencies, all having arrived within the span of a minute. The first two were direct comm signals; 'private' messages on lightly encrypted channels intended for simple ship to ship conversations. The last one was a public broadcast from the Greywatch vessel. Normally, transmissions like these were a cake walk for Diana, but all at once... her flustered reaction would have been shared by any other comm officer in the fleet. He scrolled through each message, calling up a small holographic keyboard to record his responses.

Alliance Vessel,
This is Captain Sophia Rhesa of the Holy Imperium of Angenteria. Greywatch and Angenterian have stood together against enemies in the past, and we have arrived with nothing but good intentions. You have nothing to fear from us.

Virgil's fingers flew across the pad with all their augmented speed and Diana relayed the message to the Imperial craft.

Thanks you for your timely response, Captain. I look forward to working alongside you. End.

The next message took a moment more for him to comprehend. While the voice's langauge was perfect, it was almost too perfect. It lacked tibre and pitch and held a strange metalic ring to it. Virgil was sure it was synthesized. Maybe due to a species inability to speak common?

"Attention Virgil Castro, of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, verbal representative of the Keyship Virtue of Might, I am a Breedex of the Klikiss race, we are affiliated with a race that has had past contact with Greywatch, but we are her to investigate the same beacon which led you here. We are offering our assitance in an appropriate manner and have no desire to persue an aggressive approach in relation to this meeting."

Virgil paused and, after looking over his shoulder like a boy stealing pastries from the cookie jar, copied and pasted the majority of the previous message and adjusted it. He shrugged, satisfied with the result, and relayed it into space.

Thanks you for your timely response, Breedex. I look forward to working alongside you. End.

The final message scrolled in front of him. He read it and smiled.

<Attention all vessels, I apologize for my silence but I had to contact my government for further orders, we were not expecting so many other nations to respond to the distress beacon. Seeing as you’re all here, there is no longer any reason for me to keep the specific nature of the situation from you. My council wishes for representatives to meet aboard The Broadsword so that they may talk to you using a live feed. When you all arrive, they will explain exactly what kind of assistance Greywatch requires.>

His fingers flew over the keys again, and Virgil paused to read his message. He nodded, and after attaching schematics of his (http://avianskyknight.deviantart.com/art/HC-Heir-to-the-Throne-96218779) and his bodygaurd's personal AVATARs (http://avianskyknight.deviantart.com/art/HC-Avatars-quot-Bipeds-quot-65768052), with a tap, he sent the message to the Greywatch ship.

Greywatch ship, this is the Virtue of Might. My personal bodyguard and I shall be over swiftly to partake in your meeting. My ships will stay at our current positions unless you would have otherwise. We shall arrive by AVATAR and will be wearing hardsuits for protection in case of an emergency. See you soon.

Virgil stretched in his chair and got to his feet. He nodded to his bridge crew and smiled at Ensgin Merrus. The heir stepped down from the command platform and when he was on the bridge floor, swiveled on the spot and addressed them, "Ensign Merrus, you have the bridge. Keep the fleet at it's current position. Ensign Diana, if any other alien craft arrive, hail them and initiate communications. Give them an update on what has transpired." Virgil sighed and straightened himself up to his full height, turning towards the power-armored Azure Gaurd on the bridge. They straightened themselves visibly. "Alright, I'm satisfied. Azure Gaurd, let's gear up!! I want you in that bay in five minutes in full Hardsuit loadout! MDS-06 sidearms and 113a-MERCURY molecular halberds only, no other weapons! Let's move!" The armored troops in the room snapped off quick salutes and jogged off towards the armory at the aft of the ship, and Virgil followed them, letting the bridge crew get to back their stations.

4.5 Minutes Later--------------------------------------
Virgil and his six bodygaurd escorts stood in the starboard hangar of the Virtue of Might. They stood awaiting their AVATARs to scroll over on the lift in the bay, checking their hardsuits one last time.

The heir ascendant tossed his head forward, and the hardsuit responded to his neural impulses, deploying the armor's crowned helm with a series of clicks and snaps as the armor plates reconfigured to Virgil's skin. With a quiet whistling of air, the Hardsuit sealed itself from the outside world, and the hardsuit's internal HUD lit up. Virgil glanced around to see his bodygaurd's armor performing similar transformations.

Finally, his AVATAR arrived. He stood on the assembly platform and closed his eyes, letting the hundreds of mechanical arms seal him within the tight black sheath of the pilot compartment. Wires and harness straps snapped him into a vertical reclining posture, and his vision went black as the compartment was covered by the inorganic musculature of the machine. Clacks and whirs sounded as the AVATAR's limbs and armor were racheted into place, and with the loud click of his neural uplink snapping into place, his consciousness expanded to fill his new, metal body. He willed the war machine's eyes to activate and the blue diode cameras snapped open with a whir. He moved, stretched, tested his new robotic joints. Everything checked out. Finally, his hardsuit's HUD suddenly changed, accomadating the new hardware of the AVATAR. The neural feed streamed benath him. 102.174 terrabytes per second. More than enough.

With that, he released the last of the robotic clamps holding him in place, and he strode forward, his new, twenty foot body towering over everything else in the hangar, even his Azure Gaurd's seventeen foot tall models. He strode to the edge of the hangar and stared into space. Waving over his shoulders, he turned to face his bodygaurd. "Alright gentlemen. Let's go say hello." With that, Virgil and the Azure Gaurd hefted their halberds and stepped into space and activated their mech's CERVA thrusters, streaking through space towards the Greywatch ship, trailing a wake of bright blue charged particles.

Greywatch ship, this is Virgil. We are inbound to your craft now, requesting a landing bay for arrival. End.

"That will not be necessary as of yet. I ask that you be patient while I contact my government for further orders. We were not expecting so many allies to appear in the area in such a short amount of time."

The Breedex passed the mental equivilant of a shrug, if they didn't want to know, then she wouldn't press. She was more than capable of being patient, so she simply ran some diagnostics on her vessel in the meantime:

"Attention all vessels, I apologize for my silence but I had to contact my government for further orders, we were not expecting so many other nations to respond to the distress beacon. Seeing as you’re all here, there is no longer any reason for me to keep the specific nature of the situation from you. My council wishes for representatives to meet aboard The Broadsword so that they may talk to you using a live feed. When you all arrive, they will explain exactly what kind of assistance Greywatch requires."

The Breedex's thought sent hums and clicks throughout the hive as she pondered, so they wish to discuss things? A fight, and now a meeting? This has startling similarities to past events... Other Breedexs conversed with her, telling her to be careful, yet make the nessacery leaps when nessacery, this could after all be an excellent oppertunity for their kind if the situation went in the right direction. The Breedex composed herself, or rather, a message:

"Thank you for your timely response, i will dispatch one of my domates, please provide directions to the nessacery docking bay."

A few minutes later a huge smooth trapezoidal panel on the side of the Klikiss Hive ship thrummed to life, an image of the inside of a hanger appeared in it, or rather you could suddenly look through it. This was a Klikiss transportal , connecting the hanger deep withen the ship to the outside hull. A small, crude, boxy, pentagon shaped vessel emerged from the transportal, which shimmered and reverted back once more to the Hive ship's resin hull. The craft, using bruteforce to push iself along set a course for the Greywatch vessel.

"You know, this is just getting to be way too weird for my tastes."

A one Jaina Serin sighed in her command chair as she lorded over the destroyer at her command. She was a Commander in the Colonial Navy, tasked with protecting the Colonies from any foe that sought to harm them, although like many Colonials, she had no illusions as to how much their defenses would hold against many of the alien empires out there. Their technology was woefully inefficient, and although the military was working desperately to counter this deficiency, it was slow coming. It was the fear of every Colonial that they somehow piss off or get caught in the sights of some ancient, powerful alien race and be wiped out/conquered/enslaved/etc. However, she had her duty and she still did it. However, that was not what was bothering her.

She had been going over the reports recently over the encounters of the Colonial Navy and the first contact scenarios. They were off the charts, considering past patterns of activity, which had been dead aside from ESUS contacts due to trade and diplomacy. There was the encounter with the Mekantans after the high energy signal, the meeting with the race of dark-skinned....elves- She focused her eyes on that report and that is what it said. She shook her head. They were encountering them and a host of other nations and races at those two, and now she had received a distress call via drone from some exploring ship whom had quickly fallen under attack. Even now, the drones zipping over there were reporting back a flurry of radio signals and other weird stuff they didn't recognize. But Jaina did.

The data she was reading now was definitely encoded data transmissions, the kind used in quick talks between ships, and energy signatures of reactors, weapons and other things. She sighed and sent the message for them to go to Combat Alert Alpha. The shields powered up, the missiles were armed, and the railguns prepped. Fighter crews ran to their ships as the ship began to align with the system it was preparing to jump to. She quickly typed up a message and sent it to the drones, whom jumped ahead of her. She knew the fastest way to get on someone's bad side, and to become very dead, very quickly, was to jump in without a moment's notice. She watched as multiple wormholes opened up and swallowed up the small craft, even as the space in front of her destroyer, the UCS Argent Dawn, began to twist and tear. Soon enough, the gaping hole of oblivion that was the raping of conventional laws of physics awaited her and she ordered them through. She had a mystery to solve, a report to make, and nations to meet.

Just peachy.

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

As the ships opened communications and re-established old ties, a new signal would be seen coming in a safe distance away from the ships. As all forces in the area turned towards the incoming objects, they would see five wormholes, spewing all tons of radiation and garbage that effectively made them unscannable, disgorging five small probes, which shot forth and then paused. After several seconds, where scans washed over all of the ships and the wreckage, one shot forward towards the ships as the others began to make hazy half-circles, as if waiting. Soon enough, a wide-band channel was opened and the same message sent to all ships:

"Greetings to any and all ships in this system. This is UCS destroyer Argent Dawn answering distress beacon received at 1254 today. If any forces in the area are the cause of the distress beacon being sent, I heartily advise you move your ass out of there before I show you the meaning of mean. If any ships in the area are friendlies or belonging to the distress beacon, please do not blast my ship, I need the salary."

A couple minutes passed as this message was processed and then almost on cue, another wormhole opened and the large mass of the Telrosian destroyer (http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k308/Nirokasa/titan.jpg) shot into the system. Jaina waited for the wormhole to dissipate and let her sensors read what was going on in the system. She sent out the automatic commands to the drones, whom immediately split off into the system, each one in a different direction, with one heading towards the planet. She paused being a safe distance away from any and all ships in the area as their relative locations began to pour in. She had not yet received any replies to her challenge to the aggressors here, or her plea for non-destruction to the friendlies. And until she did, her shields remained up and weapons primed, but she did not target lock anything. Not yet, she had to wait.

Ensign Johnson at tactical practically fell to the ground after glancing at his command console. "Sir! I have a new contact!" He glanced again, "Make that contacts. Smaller probes and an unidentified craft moving on a linear vector toward the assembled ships. The larger craft's weapons are hot!"

Ensign Merrus stood at his station and calmed himself. He was in charge for now, he'd have to make this call. "It's alright, Johnson, we came in weapons hot too... they're probably just being prepared."

Ensign Diana chimed in, "They've just relayed a message, Merrus. Let me patch it through..." The speakers of the ship crackled with static, which soon subsided and began to play the prerecorded message. A holographic screen popped up in the bridge, a streaming transcription of the words being spoken.

"Greetings to any and all ships in this system. This is UCS destroyer Argent Dawn answering distress beacon received at 1254 today. If any forces in the area are the cause of the distress beacon being sent, I heartily advise you move your ass out of there before I show you the meaning of mean. If any ships in the area are friendlies or belonging to the distress beacon, please do not blast my ship, I need the salary."

Merrus sat in his chair and played with the pencil in his hand, twiddling it between his fingers as he considered the UCS captain's ultimatum. "Straightforward and to the point. A woman after my own heart." He allowed himself a chuckle. "Ensign Diana, open a comm channel with the newcomers..." The little robotic camera floated over to Merrus, somewhat slower than before, as if uncertain of it's temporary master. Merrus rolled his eyes; he'd heard of the ghosts in the machine... the theory that when the Alliance computer core went sentient centuries ago, a little glimmer of that intelligence had transfered across the fleet's robotic constructs. If anything, he liked it, it gave the machines character. He snapped back to reality and straightened his jumpsuit as Ensign Diana counted down on her fingers...

"This is the temporary captain of Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might. I am Ensign Merrus Dorian, soldier of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, acting commander of this fleet strength. Our current captain, Virgil Castro, twenty third heir ascendant to the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, is currently on route to the Greywatch ship "Broadsword" for a diplomatic meeting for which all attending ships have been invited. All ships currently on station here are either friendlies with the Greywatch or direct diplomatic allies. All are here to assist the Greywatch in any way possible, so don't worry, your in good company, Captain. UCS destroyer Argent Dawn is it? Nice ship... I'm almost jealous-OW! Alright, alright, holy powers above, I was kidding..." A rogue pencil had hurtled through space from Ensign Diana's direction and pinged off of the Merrus's ear, all of which was caught on camera,

"Anyway, thus far, all ships have sent a diplomatic envoy or representative to the Broadsword for this conference, accounting for our real ship commander's absence. You should probably head over too, this is probably something important you won't want to miss. I digress, we look forward to working alongside your peoples. End."

The camera floated back toward it's cradle in the ceiling as Merrus shot a look of pure venom toward the comm officer. Ensign Diana whistled innocently until another projectile pencil, this time from Merrus's station, ricocheted off of her head. "OW! Hey, you deserved it! I wasn't the one hitting on a starship captain!"

No messages had to be sent back, the Captain knew they were coming and really didn’t have the time or the patience anymore. It was more important to make sure everything was set up by the time the guests arrived. As the parties began to converge on the Greywatch ship, the doors to a single docking bay would open. Lights on the exterior of the ship as well as a special guidance signal would lead everyone to that particular point. Soldiers in the docking bay made sure to stay clear of the landing areas as the prepared the gear. Soldiers walked around the bay in partial or full armor, checking their weapons and other equipment. Fighters were all docked and stored inside the walls for safe keeping. Transports and Dropships were pulled up to be as close to the ceiling as possible. Engineers made sure everything was ready for their guests; the docking bay was big enough to fit everything that was coming in, thank goodness. As the other parties got close they would hear the guiding message:

<All approaching vessels, upon coming within 50 meters, turn off engines and allow our AG generators to bring your ships in. Do not worry, we have enough space for everyone.>

The message would repeat every ten seconds so everyone got the idea. The captain was already in the conference room, a connection to the Council was being established, and her welcoming committee was already on their way to the docking bay. Some might find it interesting that the hanger doors could be open and yet there was no pressure loss. An atmospheric shield kept all the vacuum of space from being a worry to anyone. As the visitors got closer, the shielding would stretch out and surround them the way an amoeba does its prey. By the time the others were docked, the welcoming committee, in all their emotionless glory, would be waiting. Four Drones stood and waited for everyone to leave their craft. Most soldiers paid no attention to the guests; they stayed more focused on the problems at hand.

Meanwhile, back in the Forest:

The alien that Phoenix had been carrying finally came to. It leaned against a large tree, no one else around. Its eyes suddenly came into focus and it sat up, head bolting from side to side as it tried to find the one who carried it there. “Hu-hu.” It said at first, “Ma. Hu-ma. Man.” It tried to recall what the explorers had told it, “Huma. Huma. Hu-man. Hu-man!” It called out as it tried to stand up, leaning against the tree. It looked around the misty forest, unable to distinguish anything… “I’ve been abandoned?” It said in its own language. “Human!” It called out once more. It wandered forward about to call out once more before a hand came over its mouth. A voice whispering in its ear, “Hush now.” The hand slowly removed itself and the alien turned around to see the crimson-clad human behind it. The alien gave a bit of an awkward smile as the human straightened up. For a moment he listened to the sounds of the forest before moving forward, beckoning the alien to follow…

The Broadsword, Bridge:

“Sir, a new contact just dropped in!” The first mate nodded, “On screen.” A holoscreen appeared showing the group of ships that were approaching. The comms officer played the message that had been sent:

"Greetings to any and all ships in this system. This is UCS destroyer Argent Dawn answering distress beacon received at 1254 today. If any forces in the area are the cause of the distress beacon being sent, I heartily advise you move your ass out of there before I show you the meaning of mean. If any ships in the area are friendlies or belonging to the distress beacon, please do not blast my ship, I need the salary."

The first mate nodded, a signal to open a channel:

<Welcome to the party. The distress beacon you picked up was from one of our own ships, which is now in several pieces. As long as you are not hostile, we will not shoot you. Now then, on to the business at hand, if you wish to assist us then prepare someone to come over to our vessel, The Broadsword, as we were just about to hold a meeting to discuss what has happened and how any outsiders can help Greywatch on this day.>

The first mate nodded, pleased with his response. He sent a message to the captain just to make sure she was aware they had a new guest.

Virgil noted the Greywatch request and continued towards the hanagr bay, cutting his AVATAR's drives at fifty meters as requested. He felt the beams guide his mechanical body into tha hangar, and using the miniscule momentum, he gently touched down, mechanical feet first. The Azure Gaurd did likewise, and the group casually walked over towards a relatively clear area and checked their sensors for breathable atmosphere. Satified, he triggered his AVATAR's release mechanism.

The towering construct began to shudder, a loud series of whirrs and clicks sounded through the hangar as the warmachines began to unscrew and rachet themselves open with a series of internal hydrolics and powered drills. First, the forward armor plates retracted, then the head slid backwards to rest on it's spine, the arms and side panels of the machine split open and stretched to the floor like the legs of a table, and finally, the black pilot sheath retracted.

The AVATARs stood peeled open like mechanical bananas, while Virgil and his Azure Gaurd stepped down from their confines, dusting off their black and blue hardsuits. The Azure Gaurd fell in quickly behind their heir. Virgil retracted his Hardsuit's silver crowned helmet with a stretch of his neck and walked towards the four drones. He smiled as pleasantly as he could.

"Looks like we're the first ones here! I am Virgil Castro, twenty-third heir ascendant to the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, and I am here to participate in the diplomatic meeting as a representative on my people's behalf. Thanks for inviting us unto you ship." He bowed slightly at the hip, and his bodygaurd followed suit.

(OOC: This is what a Klikiss drone looks like, for a general picture. Except they don't shoot lasers and fly in space lol Klikiss Drone (http://www.sfsite.com/gra/0507/sslg.jpg) Basically just follow the body layout, i've described the differences between the sub-castes in this)

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As the Breedex's representative body as it were travelled to the Greywatch vessel the Breedex picked up a number of sub-space anomalies which quickly took on the form associated with with worm holes. As such, the Breedex wasn't unduly surprised when a vessel appeared in the system with weapons at the ready. The Breedex didn't react, her defense sytems were already on automatic. She listened to the message as it played out on a communications terminal:

"Greetings to any and all ships in this system. This is UCS destroyer Argent Dawn answering distress beacon received at 1254 today. If any forces in the area are the cause of the distress beacon being sent, I heartily advise you move your ass out of there before I show you the meaning of mean. If any ships in the area are friendlies or belonging to the distress beacon, please do not blast my ship, I need the salary."

The Breedex hummed to itself, it didn't entirely understand why races, including the Ciscilians, ESPECIALLY the Ciscilians had and would insist on meddling with other races affairs. Cultural differences she thought to herself. She formulated a response with the artificial computer and sent a message to the Argent Dawn:
"I am a Breedex of the Klikiss race, we to are answering the same distress beacon as you. We have no hostile intentions."
The Breedex left it at that, diveting her attention as her transport began to draw close to the Greywatch vessel.
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Vicinity Of Greywatch Vessel

The Klikiss's small craft picked up the instructional message as it neared the hanger, playing out through it's internal speakers the Breedex listened through her sub-castes present. Acting accordingly she switched off the ships main engine and the gravity pods; allowing the Greywatch officials to draw the vessel into the hanger. The transport was made of a blackened metal, in the shape of a flat pentagon, with the point at the front and the base at the back, it rumbled into the hanger, several metal struts serving as a form of landing gear extended from it's underside, allowing it to fall the last centimeter or two to the floor with a bang which resonated throughout the room.

A ramp dropped down from one side of the craft, hitting the floor with a clang and enough force to allow it to bounce back up an inch or two, from that the Klikiss sub-castes emerged.

Five warrior drones came lumbering down the ramp, they were around seven foot in height and about nine foot in length; armed with mettallic spears with glowing tips and pulsing light travelling down it's length. They were reminiscent to beetles, but more advanced to allow greater manipulation of objects; although they held their spears horizontally due to the akward shape of their bodies. They had eight short stubby articulated legs which connected to domed base, embedded towards the rear of their main body segment it seemed as if they were in danger of falling forward due to the great overhang. Their various appendages, ranging from crab like claws, sharp obsidian blades, three pronged hands and simple feelers were positioned beneath their body. At the front of the main body was positioned the head, flat and rectangular with a single great red eye which dominated it's face surrouned by six smaller red ones. The warriors were covered in spikes and ridges, their faceplates even having crests to add to their ferocity.
The warriors, although lumbering in appearence were swift, quickly scanning the surrounding area with their eyes and allowing the controlling Breedex to decide if it was safe for her Domate; she sensed no danger, apart from a large mechanical device which the commonwealth seemed to have left.

A drone scuttled out of the hatchway, same body configuration as the warriors, only lacking in ridges and spikes, less varied arms and only 5 foot in height and seven foot in length; it clutched a small black box beneath it's body. The Domate followed.

The Domate was ten foot in height, and thirteen foot in length. It's exoskeleton was a shiny chrome colour and perfectly smooth. Although it lacked the ridges and spikes of the warriors it's head was a adorned with a great crest. It's arms were the same as the warriors, only it possed two great forelimbs, like a preying mantis, which it kept drawn close to itself. The controlling Breedex turned the Domates head, giving herself a second hand view of the situation, she took in everything with vivid interest, spotting the Greywatch officials with the Commonwealth she directed the group towards them, they lumbered and skittered along with their strange locomotion; the warriors forming a circle around the Domate and drone, continually darting their heads this way and that. When they approached the representatives they began simultaneously making buzzing, clicking, scratching, rasping, chirping and a variety of other sounds associated with insects; the small black box the drone clung to emitted the artificial voice the representatives would have become familiar with as the voice of the Klikiss:

"As you can see I have arrived, I understand we have work to be done, if you could direct me we can proceed."

She surveyed the Greywatch officials who seemed rather stoic through the eyes of the Domate, she then turned it's head and examined the Commonwealth people with a stare.

Virgil nodded towards the Domate as pleasantly as possible. One of his Azure Gaurd nodded slightly towards the drones. Virgil knew though. His bodygaurd's heartrates and endorphin levels had just spiked somewhat, indicating at very least surprise, at worst, fear. He did notice one of the other Azure Gaurd gripping his halberd somewhat more tightly, it's onyx-black blade humming with vibrations.

In all truth, this was the first time he had seen a Breedex... anything... in person and the almost monstrous appearance of the creature threw him off for about a fraction of a second. He steadied himself however. This was not his first contact with an arthropod-base species... in fact, these creatures were not that different in body structure then the Klikk ambassadors he had met once during a recent resources dispute in Hearthstone, but the Klikk were at eight feet long at most, and much more like a trilobyte or centipede that had reared up on it's tail then these new creatures, who were, it must be admitted much... bigger... and much, much more... imposing with their multitude of sharp talons and blades then the borderline laughable Klikk, with their rounded, smooth carapace, stumpy limbs and dependance on helium rebreathers which gave their voices a high-pitched, childlike squeal... these Breedex were certainly nothing like the Klikk, but this wasn't necesarily bad. These creatures seemed quite friendly, and despite their... unusual appearance, the creature he was looking at was his ally, at least for the time being, and deserved as much respect as he could give. He had to set an example for his men.

He bowed slightly at the waist towards the Domate, "Glad you could make it. I am Virgil. And, yes, there is much to be done from what we've all been told. However," he nodded towards the Greywatch gaurds, "I suppose we will have to wait for the others to arrive before we can get down to bussiness. Might I be so bold as to ask, what would you have me call you?"

(OOC: I just realized I never gave you guys a picture of a hardsuit, let alone an Azure Gaurd Hardsuit. Sorry! Here ya go (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o316/Founderdude/StormtrooperHardsuit.png), and Virgil's hardsuit is being drawn this week, so I should have it up soon too. As far as their Halberds, they are all carrying halberds of this design (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o316/Founderdude/Halberd.png). They have the penants bearing the five-point ring of Alliance on the hilt, just as drawn, and as always, the art is my own.)

The Breedex watched through the eyes of her Domate as the sapien called Virgil seemed to sum up the courage to talk to her Domate; noting the guards tension she had three of the Klikiss warriors turn their attention permanently towards them. She pondered Virgils question, the small group began clicking and humming once more, the black box emitting the translation.

"What to call me? That is a somewhat difficult question for me to answer... my kind do not assign names to ourselves, I am simply a Breedex, and these are my sub-castes. Perhaps a brief explanation on the biology of our species is nessacery? I am the Breedex of my Hive, i am the mind of every Klikiss in my hive, each Klikiss sub-caste you see has no more intelligence than the instinctive behaviour of a normal insect. These Klikiss you see standing before you are no more than bodily extensions of my own body. I move them as i owuld move one of my own limbs, as natural to me as it is for you to move your fingers. My actual body is residing on the Hive ship, my size and nature prevents me from moving, not that it matters, when i have several million other bodies for me to inhabit. This Domate is not me if you are uncertain, merely a more important part of my collective body which i can focus through more clearly than through the other sub-castes."

The Klikiss party remained more or less motionless apart from the warriors darting movements, it was clear that the Klikiss were more or less mindless without the Breedex behind them, pulling the strings as it were.

Hanger:

The Drones nodded respectfully to both parties, “Greetings to all of you.” They all said with the same voice at the same time. One Drone looked to the Domate and her kin and gave a slight shrug. It looked to the Drone on the far right who nodded back before looking to Virgil. The Drone on the far right tapped a button on its wrist and the entire Second Alliance party, along with the Drone itself, was blinked to the conference room the captain had set up. The room they were blinked to was quite a large one, a large table was in the center with plenty of chairs surrounding it. The room was a gray color while the table was a soldi black, the only feature being the glowing blue holoprojector in the center. At the head of the table sat the captain, her black hair pulled back and her eyes focused on those who’d just arrived. “Welcome to The Broadsword, I am Captain Amanda Darlin. I’m glad you could make it. Please take a seat while we wait for the others…” The Drone that had brought Virgil and party to the conference room left using the door without so much as a word.

Back in the hanger, the Drone that had looked to the Domate before began to speak, “I’m afraid our ship is not meant to handle creatures of your dimensions. I can only allow you and one of your bodyguards to the conference room.” The other two Drones waited for more parties to arrive.

(Major Edit: Realised that i'd mis-understood Greywatches post)

The Breedex thought about this for a moment, it was reasonable enough, albeit annoying, but understandalble. The Klikiss drone passed the black box to the domate who took it delicatly with two of it's smaller arms. The drone followed by four of the warriors scuttled back to the transport to wait. The Domate and the remaining warrior turned to the Greywatch drones, they began clicking once more:

"We are ready".

Virgil looked around the room. Just a moment ago he was going to thank the Breedex for her generous explanation, and the next, he was here. Space folding of some sort... or temporal displacement... extradimensional transit? It was hard to guess, but whatever it was, compared to Alliance's space folding technology, it was quite elegant. He still thought the crude, concussive bang of a real space fold had it's merits though.

"Curious technology, captain. I assume some form of teleportation?" He gazed around the room, and setting his eyes on one of the closer chairs, he settled himself down. Two of the gaurd sat down, one in a chair on each side of him, while the remaining four stood around him, completing the semi-circle of protection. "I apologize about the gaurds. One of the problems about being an heir; you never get a moment's privacy."

Hanger/Conference Room:

The Captain nodded, “Our own special little play thing.” She looked to the guards as the made a defensive perimeter around Virgil, “But that is a topic I can discuss later, and do not worry, I’m sure they are just doing their job. I expect the others will be here soon.” She didn’t move at all as she spoke, but instead attended to a holographic control panel that popped up to her side. She fiddled with it a bit; making sure everything was ready to begin when the others arrived.

The Drone nodded, “Very well then.” With that, it repeated the process done by its brother and the three were blinked to the conference room. The Drone promptly left through the door after finishing its task. The room was large and spacious, but it was clear that if the entire Klikiss party had arrived, things would not be as comfortable. “Ah, and another party arrives, good to have you here… Now then, only two more I believe. I suppose I may as well say that I’m happy to have you all aboard and willing to help Greywatch in its time of need.”

Now there were two Drones left in the hanger, one for each expected party. As soon as everyone arrived the meeting could get under way. Soldier chatted amoungst themselves about the two parties that had arrived. One of them using impressive mechs and the other looking like the Kiixori on steroids.

Shuttle

Inquisitor Tarsus sat in the passenger compartment of the shuttle. He had changed out of his shipboard clothing into a more dignified clothes (http://graphite-dream.deviantart.com/art/Grey-Inquisitor-96775182). (OOC: Dude in the middle.)

"Anchor Point selected." His pilot called out over his comm-bead. "Auspex Scans...confirmed. Bearing on course mark 4-7-0-9-3."

"Copy that." The officer aboard the destroyer responded curtly.

"Deploying landing gear. You'll be out in a minute, sir." The pilot reported.

"Very good." He responded. He stood up, feeling the touchdown of the landing gear hitting the hangar bay. He motioned to his two bodyguards, still clad in the black and burgundy armor of the Inquisition, their hoods drawn up to mask their faces, who stood up to follow him. Overall, they cut an imposing figure, or so he thought.

Hangar bay, Greywatch Warship
Tarsus stepped out of the shuttle, bodyguards at his flanks. He took a quick look around the general structure of the hangar bay. It was much more pristine then it's Imperial counterparts. This hangar bay was decorated in brighter hues of white, and quite empty. Imperial Ships were cluttered with Navy Personnel running two and fro, and the hangar bay itself was made of a dark metal. Overall, this was more aesthetically pleasing.

Looking around, he spotted two figures standing there, presumably waiting for him. He paced toward them.

"Cyrus Tarsus, of the Holy Imperium of Angenteria." He began with a curt greeting. "I'm expected?"

Hanger/Conference Room:

One of the Drones stepped forward, "Indeed you are." It repeated the actions of its companions and the Angenterian party, along with the Drone, appeared in the conference room. The Drone then promptly left, the captain only nodded her head, "Good to see one more has made it. That leaves one more." The captain was quite ready now, the hologram at her side deactivated and the lights dimmed slightly. "As soon as the last party arrives, we shall begin with the meeting."

Virgil looked up as the Klikiss drone appeared. "I didn't get to thank you before, Breedex. I appreciate your patience with me. In truth, the Second Alliance is new to the politics of the greater galaxy, and you are the first creature of your kind we have met. The only species we've encountered that is even remotely similar to you are our allies, the Klikk, and the only real similarity you share is a similar arthropod heritage. However, they developed from subterranean crustaceans and so have a different species psychology then yours, namely, an individualistic social structure not unlike our own. It's simply difficult to comprehend such a unique hivemind psychology as yours. I hope I didn't offend you." He briefly bowed his head, and then turned to face the Inquisitor who blinked into the conference room.

"Well there, here's a more familiar biological template. Welcome to the party." Clearly, Virgil was much more relaxed in the conference room then before in the hangar.

The Domate and the warrior looked around the conference room, the two Klikiss began their strange language once more and the little black box continued to translate.

"Thank you for inviting us. Soon we will be able to dsicuss matters further."

The Breedex noted the size of the room and realised that there was no way her entire group would have fitted, she was surprised the ceilings were high enough to accomodate the Domate. She took in the tables and chairs, commenting to herself on how aliens always expected other species to be vaugely simian is shape. The warrior placed it's spear on the floor and scuttled forwards to push three chairs as far under the table as they would go, it then picked up it's spear and took up a position behind the Domate which lumbered forwards, as close to the table as it could get; placing the little black box on the table delicatly so that it could translate the Klikiss. She listened to Virgil through the Domate, glad that he was taking time to understand her kind, that kind of initiative was rare.

"Offending a Breedex is near impossible, we are more often aware of the short comings of other species with regard to culture and so called views on morality. We are simple, we have not pursued activities which led many races towards what they consider culture and civilisation. We have simply followed our natural instincts, utilising our sentience to do so; of course, in recent times we have been unable to do so, but that may soon change.

Myself and the other Breedexs are always intrigued as to why most arthropod species end up with a name starting with the letter K. It is a trend seen across most of the galaxy.

So your race's civilisation is new? That is indeed interesting, the Klikiss Hive memory stretches back for many millenia, of course, many millions of years were spent attacking other Hives on our homeworld with primitive tools. But it has been centuries since we under took what we call the Great Swarming."

The warrior turned it's head to watch as the Angenterian appeared in the room, the Breedex momentarily turned the Domates head to study the newcomers.

Virgil relaxed in his chair and pondered the Breedex's statements carefully. "Well I certainly hope you are able to follow your instincts once more. As far as the 'K' nomenclature... I can only speak for the Klikk, but in actuallity the term "Klikk' was coined by a Klikk embassador upon first contact with the Artisan, another of our allies, when the Artisan commented that the name of the species in the native langauge of the arthropods being composed mostly clicks and rattles was nearly impossible to speak using their vocal structure. So the ambassador provided a name the Artisan, and later, us Seconds, could pronounce with our vocal cords, based off a stylised spelling of the word 'click'. As far as why other arthropods use 'k's in their nomenclature... I suppose it could be that most arthropods speak with clicks and whistles, in which, consanants are used as the core of the language instead of vauls, the 'K' and 'C' being the most frequent, with the 'k' sound being sharper and more prevalent in your langauges... but I digress, that was all conjecture and it's probably wrong."

He reclined somewhat further in the chair. "The Second Alliance is approaching it's fifteenth centenial soon, but our species had existed long before the establishment of this most recent government. We used to be the Empire of the Immorian Alliance, until we overthrew that oppressive regime. We are new to the greater galaxy's politics, though not as new as other races first stretching out into the stars. We've been most fortunate to have been taken under the wing of the Artisan and their respective allies, so we know what to expect... which is pretty much 'expect the unexpected'. So far, we've not been dissapointed." He shrugged and smiled candidly. Things have certainly been entertaining since the Second Alliance began to expand outward in earnest, that's for sure...

"Yes, hopefully we will be able to embark on another Great Swarm the likes of which we have never seen. Previously we were isolated to merely 27 worlds, engaged in a cycle of war, growth, and Hive splitting, but with the greater galaxy laid before us the Great Swarm could go on indefinatly. As for the naming, you are possibly right i believe."

The two Klikiss produced a series of noises, the most of which were clicking sounds, the little black box remained silent for a while whilst they produced a variety of sounds.

"Yes i believe you are correct in that sense. As for your people, what is a "centenial"? We have learnt about politics from a number of other races but such things were never adopted by us before we initiated contact with aliens. Our races is history is essentially one long war, following our instincts as it were, it is only recently through another race that we learnt co-operation. But still, our instincts still yearn for the Swarm."

Virgil smiled, "A 'centenial' is a celebration relating to something reaching a hundred years of age, also known as a century. Century, centenial. They both come from the same root word. The Second Alliance has existed for roughly fifteen hundred years, a little less, so that would make this our fifteenth centenial. As far as the celebration, it's a demonstration of pride by our people for our people and it's established government having survived and thrived as long as we and it have. It's a large party of sorts, with people celebrating in the streets, parades, food and drink, peace and unity. It's quite a spectacle, especially when all the heirs and the Chancellor return to the homeworld over the capital city and use their Keyships to perform aerial shows and deliver pyrotechnic displays. This happens twice in the centenial planetary year, once at the beginning and end, with each celebration going on for about a week or so."

Virgil's eyes stared into the wall aimlessly as he heard his father's voice in his ears describing the last centenial. He'd always looked forward to his first one since he was a kid, and soon enough, he'd get his turn to fly the Virtue of Might in those parade formations across the skies of Sanctuary. He snapped back to reality, "Anyway, that's what a centenial is. More or less."

Jaina sat in her chair, blood pumping at high speeds through her veins. Amplified by the adrenaline also coursing throughout her meaty shell, she was pumped and ready for action. Of course, the key thought was that she didn't HAVE to go into action, as the current odds dictated she would lose. Badly. She waited as the comm officer began to work through the translations of the incoming transmissions. Thank God for the ESUS translators which held most, if not all, the known languages of the galaxy.

The officer tapped in several commands and then straightened. The crew readied themselves as she turned. "No worries, they seem friendly. From what I can tell, they came for the same reason we did. One being the owner of said beacon, sent to investigate, the others drawn by the signal like us."

Jaina, sighing in relief, called off the Code Alpa protocols, allowing the crew to go back to normal routines. She waved for the comm office to send her the communications and she quickly heard the beeping of her personal datapad eagerly waiting to display the new messages. Popping them open, she glanced at them. She decided that she would have to reply to them one at a time. She began to type and reply to the entries:

<Welcome to the party. The distress beacon you picked up was from one of our own ships, which is now in several pieces. As long as you are not hostile, we will not shoot you. Now then, on to the business at hand, if you wish to assist us then prepare someone to come over to our vessel, The Broadsword, as we were just about to hold a meeting to discuss what has happened and how any outsiders can help Greywatch on this day.>


"Understood. Yeah, I saw the damage the ship took; whatever happened here was hard and fast. Good to see I didn't need to break out my boomsticks and fight for my life here. I, Captain Serin, will be coming over personally to oversee the situation, get caught up and inform you of what I can do for you. I am currently preparing a message to send back to my people, in case we need the help."

"This is the temporary captain of Alliance Keyship Virtue of Might. I am Ensign Merrus Dorian, soldier of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, acting commander of this fleet strength. Our current captain, Virgil Castro, twenty third heir ascendant to the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance, is currently on route to the Greywatch ship "Broadsword" for a diplomatic meeting for which all attending ships have been invited. All ships currently on station here are either friendlies with the Greywatch or direct diplomatic allies. All are here to assist the Greywatch in any way possible, so don't worry, your in good company, Captain. UCS destroyer Argent Dawn is it? Nice ship... I'm almost jealous-OW! Alright, alright, holy powers above, I was kidding..."

She raised an eyebrow before sending her reply to this one.

"Greetings Ensign Dorian, I am Captain Serin of the aforementioned destroyer. Good to know your friendlies."


"I am a Breedex of the Klikiss race, we to are answering the same distress beacon as you. We have no hostile intentions."

"Good to know. Sorry for the rough message, but I didn't have a lot of time to make an eloquent poem, if you catch my meaning."

She sent off the messages, and then quickly sent calls for an escort to be sent to the hangar and a dropship prepared. While she waited for those to be readied, she whipped up a short report of what was going on, her intention to go into a meeting, which also served as first contact, and discover what she could. She sent what info she had and requested they have some assets put on standby, in case things go hairy. Then, with another silent scream of the universe, the messenger probe was gone, on its way to inform High Command of the situation.

"Private Dotmeister, you have control of the ship in my absence. Anything comes on sensors bigger than a pebble, I want to know about it."

"Yes ma'am." The Captain turned and headed for the hangar After a quick debriefing for the two Marines escorting her, they entered the dropship, and blasted towards the Broadsword. Within moments, the dropship came within range of the ship, moved efficiently through the docking procedures and latched onto the hull. After some equalizing of pressure and atmosphere, with sensors telling them the ship had the right mix of oxygen and other elements to safely breathe, they all stepped into the meeting area. Upon seeing the Greywatch welcoming group, she saluted along with her marines and replied.

"I am Captain Serin of the Argent Dawn. Now, shall we get to that meeting you mentioned?"

Tarsus blinked for a moment, finding himself instantly transported into a conference room. Teleporter technolgy. He made a mental note to learn a bit more about such a technology. For the moment, however, there were aliens to deal with.

He noted the different races present. One of them, the bug-like race, stared at him intensly for a moment, before returning to it's heated conversation with the other alien through a little black voice box, which was more humanoid, a fact which conforted Tarsus greatly. The clicks and screeches of the bugs had quite unerved him. He wondered which race the bugs belonged too, before remembering the Ciscilians incorporated many different races, and assumed that this was simply another one of many. Leaving the aliens to their conversation, he took a seat, nodding quietly, yet politley at the greetings of the others.

Ship Bridge:

The first mate nodded to the message before composing one of his own, nothing fancy; just something short and sweet that would convey the basics.

<My captain looks forward to seeing and working with you.>

And with that his work was, more or less, done. Unless something else came up, he could relax for awhile.

Hanger:

The single Drone watched as the last of the parties came in. He nodded to Captain Serin’s question, straight to the point, exactly what a Drone favored. “We will move now.” The Drone said, repeating the action done by the others.

Conference Room:

The captain sat quietly, listening to the others converse. She was interested in the conversation about bug races always having a name beginning with ‘K,’ she’d always figured it was because insects typically make clicking sounds and in some galactic fad everyone decide to essentially name the races based on that but replaced the C with a K. Of course, she didn’t want to get too distracted from the matters at hand and was not surprised when the Telrosian group appeared in the room with the Drone. The Drone nodded to the captain and prepared to leave but she called out to it, “Drone, stay here please. I need you to relay everything that is discussed here to your kin.” The Drone nodded before moving to a corner of the room to watch and listen to the presentation. The captain looked around, giving the new party a few moments to seat themselves before going on.

After a few moments the lights in the room would dim and a hologram displaying the destroyed Greywatch Explorer would come up. It displayed the three rather large main chunks with some debris scatter around them. The captain pointed to the hologram, “Getting right into things, if I’ve not said so by now, I thank you all for being here. Now then, I’m sure you’ve all seen this either on your scans or while you were on your way over; this is the late Greywatch Explorer that met its demise about two days ago.” A holoscreen appeared in front of the captain so that everyone could see it. On it was a male Elden with short black hair and tan skin, “Greetings to all in the room, I will be serving as the speaker for the Kiixori Councilman and Greywatch Alliance Minister of War.” The man’s brown eyes looked to all in the room before focusing on the hologram, which then deactivated.

“Approximately two days ago, a Greywatch exploration team went missing after making contact with an alien race on the planet we’re, or rather, you’re all in orbit around. So far we have only found destruction; the team is missing, the ship they came in has been destroyed, and the bodyguards have been slain. From what we can assume, the weapon used on the ship was on the level of an ion cannon, or so we think. It was obviously a high-powered, and very precise weapon that fired a pulse rather than a single shot, and it went straight through the shields. I can safely assume the message you received was garbled and almost impossible to actually decipher, other than it obviously being a call for help. From what the investigation teams currently on the Explorer tell us, about a second after the distress order was initiated, the ship was destroyed. Here’s the interesting thing, the ship was cut into three pieces intentionally, or at least so we think. We know that the engines were avoided; we believe the ship was supposed to serve as a warning to anyone who happened to pass this area. Needless to say, there were no survivors aboard the ship; something else that interests us, the atmospheric shields and lockdown doors did not activate. At this point it is probably safe to assume that whatever sensors and scanners these aliens were using, they were able to see everything within the ship and prioritize important targets all at once, either that or they hacked the systems. Needless to say, this would place many of us at a great disadvantage if they happen to come back.” At this point the Elden stopped and his face was replaced by pictures of the forest on the world below, his voice continued, “This is where the land forces were,” the hologram then showed an alien with brown skin and white hair, wearing animal hide clothing. It was standing next to a Greywatch explorer and soldier. “The one in the middle is a member of the alien race we came into caontact with those two days ago. The two on the sides are members of the Greywatch Exploration Team. All these people are either dead or missing at this point; we’ve found plenty of dead soldiers but not any of the explorers. As of now, we have no real information about what could have happened on the surface, we can only assume they were all slaughtered at the same speed as those in orbit. To add to our troubles, the man who was supposed to spearheading the investigation operations on the ground has gone missing. This is where you come in, we need teams to be deployed to the surface to locate this man, his name is Phoenix.” The hologram promptly changed to show a picture of a man with messy brownish-red hair dressed in crimson armor. “If you choose to help, we ask that you do not send anything large. If, by chance, the hostiles are in still in the area, or on the surface, large groups will serve to do nothing more than excite them. That should be just abou-” He was cut off my the sound of the first mate’s voice as it filled the room, “Captain! We just got a message from the investigation team, forwarding!” The first mate’s voice was filled with a sense of dread and horror, something that made the captain’s heart skip a beat.

The message from the investigation team played in the room, the sound of gunfire in the background. <Exploration Team leader to bridge! Come in *static* -under heavy fire. I repeat, we are under *static* These things dropped out of fucking *static* idea what kind of technology they’re- *explosion* FUCK! *loud gunfire* Suck it, motherfuckers! *static* We need support, NOW! These things are *static* We’re being overrun. *Sound of weapon charging up* Shit… *Ear-shattering boom, static, message end.*> The Elden came back on screen, “Captain, you will be receiving reinforcements now that the situation has gone to a new level. I will prepare to have some special support sent in. Hold on until then.” With that the hologram disappeared and the room went back to normal lighting, the captain was breathing heavily, hand on her forehead. The Drone raised an eyebrow; the first mate’s voice came back, “Captain, orders?” The Drone smiled, “Come now captain, we can’t do anything unless you tell us to. How shall we respond? Just sitting here?” The captain slammed her fist on the table, “Do not question me, Drone! We will respond with all the force necessary to show these god-damned scum who they’re dealing with.” The Drone tilted its head slightly, “My brethren are pleased to hear-” The captain cut the Drone off, “You are to operate on Genocide Protocol, Rank Two. Anything and everything that so much as thinks about pointing a gun at us is to be considered hostile and destroyed without question! Dismissed! First mate, I want two CCTs surface-bound, now! Heavies and Drones will accompany. I want my team back here, ASAP.” The Drone smiled widely, anyone looking at its face would notice that its once solid black eyes now had had one red circle in the center of each of them. “Genocide Protocol active…” The Drone muttered before walking out of the room. The captain looked to everyone, “I doubt you need me to explain how grave the situation is… the time to act is now, do what you will.”

Hanger:

The hanger which had been so neat, calm, and pristine when the others arrived was now a flurry of activity. Soldiers and various officers ran from place to place, getting things together. On the other side of the hanger, the floors opened up to reveal transports, these ships quickly rose from their storage areas using AG technology. Soldiers began climbing onto the transports, weapons ready. The CCTs the captain had said something about earlier were among the elite of the soldiers in Greywatch, they were responsible for the situations in which the shit hit the hyperdrive. Other soldiers watched as four ten-foot armored monsters, equipped with all sorts of nasty weapons and followed by other Greywatch soldiers, walked onto the transports. Everything was being prepared for those desperate souls below.

Tarsus listened to the briefing intently, taking in and committing every little detail to memory, as an Inquisitor should. He was about to ask something, but was instantly cut off by the distress call of the alien explorer team.


“I doubt you need me to explain how grave the situation is… the time to act is now, do what you will.”

Tarsus nodded intently, and put a hand to his comm-bead. "Tarsus to Justified Cause. Send my personal retinue and a team of Stormtroopers to the surface immediately."

His comm-bead crackled for a second, until a response came, in the voice of the Captain. "Inquisitor, what are you-"

"Don't ask questions. Just do it." He replied, and cut the link. He turned to the aliens.

"I'm going down there. Would anyone else like to accompany me?"

Virgil watched the spectacle unfold in front of him. He stood, stone faced as the sound of brave men and women being gunned down met his ears. The Azure Gaurd stood straight, but Virgil saw their adrenaline levels rise slowly, indicating great anger. An anger he shared with them. By the time the presentation was done, he was ready to go to war.

"Count me in," he turned back to the Greywatch captain, "I'll make sure not to go overkill on this, but I'm going to take two, ten man squads of general combat avatars plus my personal bodygaurd of six avatars to escort myself to the surface. We'll make sure not to make too much noise. We'll get as many of your men back as we can,"

Virgil's eyes glowed bright blue and his voice echoed within his body unnaturally as he used his augmented body's internal comms to contact the Virtue of Might. "Did you catch all that Diana, or should I repeat myself?"

"I got it, Virgil. I'll have Johnson space fold them into the upper atmosphere for a relatively quiet insertion once you touch down and relay your coordinates. I assume you want the rest of the fleet to move in closer to the planet in a defensive parameter?

"Negative, Ensign. That could provoke our unknown foes to simply shred our fleet like they did that Explorer. The shield grids on the Virtue are good, but not that good, and I'd like to keep this op relatively discreet. End."

Virgil nodded towards the Inquisitor and then turned towards the Domate casually, addressing it's controlling Breedex, "So, my newfound friend, would you be so kind as to join us for a battlefield stroll?"

Virgil's eyes glowed briefly once more as he sent the accelerated frequency activation command to his avatar in the hangar bay.

Greywatch Hangar Bay--------------------------------------
The Victor-class command avatar shuddered and rattled, blasting stale air from in between it's glistening metal armor plates. Azure diodes lit up across it's body and the Chernokov generator inside the warmachine spun to life as it recycled wasted energy from it's dormancy mode to jump start the avatar. The imposing machine's optics flashed blue and dialated, ready to accept it's pilot once more.

Greywatch Vessel:

The Breedex listened and watched as the situation unfolded, a brief planetary scan confirmed the issue. The moment the Captain gave everyone the go ahead to do as they wsh the Breedex instantly got her forces moving. Perhaps her Great Swarm would come sooner than anticipated?

Through the Domate the Breedex heard Virgil's interesting request, she turned the Domates head as it picked up the little black box once more:

"It would be a pleasure to battle alongside you."

The Domate's head turned towards Captain Darlin,

"Would you care to teleport us back to the Hanger?"


Klikiss Hive Ship

The Breedex instantly set her forces in motion, the immense trapezoid shaped transportal on her outer hull which served as a doorway to the hanger located deeply, and safely inside her ship, shimmered before the picture of the hanger resolved on it's surface.

A hundred crude rectangular shaped vessels, 50 meters in both length, width and height, emerged from the hanger, as they headed towards the planets atmosphere they began to form up, interlocking as it were to form a larger shape, the resulting shape was a rough sphere with a wide tunnel through the center, running from front to back; even in this shape the ship seemed to shift, the outer vessel swaping place with other ones. Fifty of the pentagon shaped Klikiss transports followed, they gathered in a group, keeping behind the spherical swarm of rectangular vessels.

The Swarm Ship and the group of transports hurtled through the planets atmosphere they scanned the area, noting several clusters of unidentified creatures which they assumed were the aliens, for now they veered away from the battle, instead they picked out a a large grassy plain which was lacking in any hostilities. The Swarm Ship broke up into it's smaller vessels as they spread out across the surrounding forest to bombard any approaching enemys.

The transports landed rapidly, packing together as best they could, ramps banged on the ground in a successive whilrwind of noise and activity. From each transport emerged thirty warriors armed with either spears or trombone or trumpet shaped devices, they all marched to the edge of the plain to set up a perimeter, even though no enemies were currently nearby. From each transport however an additional force of twenty drones came swarming out, some pulling a grub like Klikiss with them on a trailer, they all spread out over the area, some of them began to abruptly dig up the ground, others got into a group protected by warriors and came to the forests border, chopping down trees and pulling out foilage. The grubs were towed to positions several meters behind the perimeter established by the warriors where they began producing large quantities of a thick resin like substance; the drones scooped it up and used it to begin building a wall.

The transports, having now deleivered there Klikiss parties took to the sky to return to their ships, clearing the plain, now it could be seen that worker chains were formed of drones ferrying biomatter from the forest to an area in their camp, and then ferrying it out to feed to the grubs; the drones worked rapidly to build the wall which quickly began to take shape.

From her Hive Ship the Breedex transmitted a message to the others:

"I am establishing a base of operations, feel free to land, base and co-ordinate your forces from there."

She then turned her attention back to the task ahead of her.

Justified Cause
Hangar 3

"Hurry up! The Boss wants us out of here ASAP!" Shouted Acolyte Veronius. As the rank of Acolyte, he was the Inquisitor's personal apprentice, a member of the Inquisition who would, hopefully, rise to the rank of Inquisitor himself. He was assigned to Tarsus by the Inquisition, and had learned much under his tutelage. If, for any reason, the Inquisitor was away from his retinue, or was unable to carry out his duties, the Acolyte would take command. Veronius turned to look at his team. Inquisitor Tarsus had spent years of his life gathering some of the best men and women he could over the course of his long career. As of right now, his team numbered around 23 people, scattered around the sector, carrying out investigations and orders all over. Right now, only 4 people from Tarsus personal retinue was with him, aside from Veronius.

(OOC: Greywatch, could you not kill off ALL of Tarsus' retinue? You can injure them greatly if you want, just don't kill.)

-Regina: A former abritrator (Angenterian Police,) Regina is a hardened veteran of the mean streets of Angenterian City-Worlds, hunting down criminals with extreme prejudice. She has experience with many weapons.

-Gerard: Orphaned at a young age, Gerard grew up alone. Hunger was his teacher, and the need to survive was his uncle. He was hardened by the mean streets, and is sometimes a little too keen to bend the rules.

-Julia: Julia was one of the more unlikley people in Tarsus' team. She used to work as a snack vendor in the planetary capital of the planet Tarsus was returning from. This innocent bystander was caught in a gunfight between Tarsus and a pack of would-be assassins, she was assisted Tarsus by dumping hot oil from her deep-fryers onto the head of one of the assassins. She had stuck with Tarsus since then, and had quickly learned how to shoot a gun and wield a sword.

-Pontius: A former member of the Ministorum Templar, the Angenterian Church's militant arm, Pontius was cast out for "comitting impure deeds," which generally consists of drinking, gambling, and generally having a good time. It didn't matter to him, he was never much of an Emperor-botherer anyway. In combat, however, nobody doubted his skill, and can wield a variety of weapons efficiently.


Vernious motioned toward the waiting shuttle. "Pile in, everyone."

"Where are we going?" Gerard asked.

Verinous motioned toward the surface. "Down there."

Across the hangar bay, Vernious could see another shuttle preparing for takeoff, but this one was being loaded with Inquisitorial Stormtroopers (http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p98/l33t-h4x0r/stormtroopers.jpg), the highly-trained and indoctrinated foot soldiers of the Inquistion, clad in their black and burgundy armor, much like Tarsus' team, but with a face-concealing mask and heavier body armor, instead of the traditional cloak and hood. Two shuttles of Stormtroopers, 15 troopers each, were being deployed along with them.

After a few minutes of preperation and briefing, the shuttles took off, heading for the surface, following the vectors of the Breedex's transports.

Conference Room/Hanger:

The captain gave a thankful smile to the others. I appreciate your help; I’ll take you back to the hanger. She tapped a button on a bracelet she was wearing an in a second the bracelet became an entire armguard. Blue markings went down the side of the otherwise silvery piece of armor. The captain placed her palms together and the entire group was blinked back to the hanger. As they arrived, two transports took off and headed out towards the surface. The captain looked to the vehicles the parties had come in, “I’m sorry, but I won’t be accompanying you. I have duties up here. I wish you all luck on the surface. And please, bring back Phoenix, at least.” She turned and left the hanger without saying any more. She’d hoped the Klikiss would heed the words given to them and NOT establish something huge and noticeable, but apparently that was too much to ask for.

Plains/Forest:

The Greywatch team was fighting a losing battle, several enemies were upon them and only four people were still alive. The enemy used weapons they’d never seen, and what was worst was the monstrosity that accompanied the foot soldiers. The Klikiss were soon about to learn what the team meant when they said, ‘the enemy came from nowhere.’ A few seconds after the Klikiss landed, a rain of blue energy would come down upon them, mortars. Several lances on red light followed by bolts of blue energy erupted from apparently nowhere; the Klikiss had awakened a monster. Enemies came rushing forward, almost out of the air itself, firing weapons and swinging swords, a suicide rush into the very area being bombarded. Each charging enemy stood about five feet in height and wielded small, yet deadly weapons. They were dressed in a bluish armor and their open maws roaring for blood. Each shot of red was able to tear through any exposed flesh it touched while the bright blue bolts disintegrated everything in their way. As if that wasn’t enough, enemies began to climb forth from the ground, wasting no time in charging forward with their brothers. It was a swarm, coming in from every side. They were fast, and they were angry. Soon after the foot soldiers were exposed, so too became several mortar tanks, each one unleashing three bolts with every shot. Not accurate, but deadly.

This little turn of events actually saved the remaining Greywatch investigation squad members. Their enemy soon became distracted with trying to get the much larger menace off the planet and left the Greywatch squad alone. Even the walker weapon the enemy had been using left without so much as a glance back. This was just in time for the two Greywatch transports to get over the area where the team was and touch down. The moment the transports touched down, screeching was heard as several aircraft, or spacecraft, flew over the area at high speed. The investigation team, or at least one of the members still among the living, slowly approached the transports, hand reaching out. Soldiers jumped out of the transport towards him, catching him as he fell. “Soldier, where are the others? Soldier!” The man pointed in the direction of the rest of the team, his armor was shattered and his body broken. A Leanorian quickly rushed to him only for the man to pass away in her arms before she could do anything. “Bastards…” She muttered as the rest of the soldiers moved forward. Three survivors… that was all. No one else had survived, those who had were in bad condition. The fallen were loaded back onto the one of the transports as the seriously wounded members of the investigation team were worked on by Leanorians. While all this was being taken care of, a message was put out to anyone else who was landing,

<We’ve got the team. Everyone, be careful, we saw a bunch of enemies leaving this area. They might still be around. We also saw some aircraft, I think we’ve been found out.>

Clearly, the transports weren’t aware of the hell that was going on elsewhere. The Greywatch CCTs were among the first to begin moving out, the object was to find Phoenix ASAP. They couldn’t trifle with based of operation; they needed to find this man. A slight detail the captain left out was the reason why Phoenix was so important.

The attack took the Klikiss completely by surprise.

But the Klikiss felt no fear, no the shock lasted for a full seven seconds before the Breedex regained control of herself; and subsequently her entire group.

The enemy mortars blew the drones transport lines into a confused mess, they stumbled about disoriented as the Breedex concentrated herself fully upon the warriors. The beams of red light hammered into the partially constructed walls and the warriors guarding them. Thw warriors however were tough, their chitin exoskeletons vaprorising upon contact, vital fluids leaking, their shells steaming and producing noises that humans wouldn't have dreamt of. But the Breedex drove them on like the puppets they were. The warriors fired their trumpet and trombone like weapons, more like portable cannons, and large crackling green glowing orbs of energy exploded with loud of concussive bangs from them, they exploded with the force of a grenade upon inpact; vaporising anything it came into contact with. They concentrated their fire upon the mortar tanks.

Of course, the enemys stepping from thin air and emerging from the ground was something to take notice of. The creatures may have thought they were monstrous but then again perhaps they had expected to fight fleshy human meat sacks; not the Klikikss. Klikiss warriors flung their weapons aside as soon as an enemy came near to them. They drove their pincers and claws into bodies and heads emerging from the ground with inhuman screams that could have been mistaken for cries of delight, they tore and slashed at the creatures, pulling of arms and limbs, ripping gouges into the enemys flesh. The creatures that stepped out from the air were in for a worse shock as the warriors simply flung themselves at what they thought were relativly diminutive creatures, the Klikiss may have developed advanced weapons and technology but nothing pleased them more than claw to claw combat. Flying Klikiss forms armed with the smaller trumpet like weapons fired their orbs of energy at the mortars, surrounding them in swift darting swarms; every now and then they would buzz down to the ground and make a grab for the nearest creature, intent on pulling them limb from limb.

The individual swarm ships dove towards the mortars and clusters of the enemys, panels on the front of their craft retracted to reveal a tubular weapon which fired larger, and evidently more unstable, orbs of energy which hit the ground with a vaporising explosion which looked like miniture atomic bombs going off.

The Hive Ship began descending through the atmosphere to lend a hand, but the majority of the drones had organsied themselves once more to continue frantically building the wall and the trapezoid slab of stone.

Plains:

The enemy was suffering losses, but they appeared to have no intention of stopping anytime soon. The blue bolts continued to burn their way through whatever was in their way and enemies continued to burst forth from the ground in the hundreds at a time. The aliens climbing out of the ground may have seemed weak, but thinking that was a mistake. They were fighting close combat for a reason, their claws lit up a bright red and they began climbing on and clawing at anything that wasn't one of them. Mortar tanks exploded in such a way that whatever was aorund them was vaporized immediately. Needless to say, this enemy had no care for itself, in some odd way, they were similar to the Drones. They fought in such a way that one would think they thought themselves expendable.

It was then that aircraft, shaped like cresents, flew over head. They fired white streams of energy at anything and everything, even their own units. They dropped bombs which exploded into firestorms upon hitting the ground. The aircraft occassionally flew lower get some precise shots, a few other took it even further and crashed into Klikiss ranks intentionally. Then came the Tripods...

The massive machines walked slowing forward, lumbering across the plains. They didn't need speed, what they were armed with was much better. The actually had anti aircraft weapons to protect themselves, but that wasn't the only problem, they began to gather blue spheres of energy in front of them. Upon firing, everything in the way was disintegrated, when the spheres hit the ground, a dome of white would be seen, everything caught in it would be destroyed. Very quickly it would become clear this enemy didn't care much about itself. As long as it did damage, that was all that mattered.

The enemies that crawled out of the ground took no time in finding out that an easier method would be to emerge from underneath the growing base itself and flank the Klikiss. Suddenly, hundreds would spring forth from the ground, all of them armed with their glawing energy claws. They weren't fast like the other gun-wielders, but then again, they didn't have to be.

Orbit:

The Captain saw the Klikiss ship heading towards the surface and quickly opened a channel:

<What are you doing? I thought we agreed not to do anything to excite the enemy. If they see you come through the atmosphere this entire operation could be finished here and now. Pull back!>

Virgil burst into a sprint as soon as he was blinked into the hangar bay. He sent a non-verbal activation command to his avatar, which leapt upward from it's sitting position and, gaping pilot sheath first, ran towards Virgil, who leapt into the compartment in one smooth motion. The avatar reassembled itself around him, and the warmachine turned and sprinted towards the hangar doors, pushed on by Virgil's will. With a herculean leap and a haze of bluish light, the avatar threw itself into space, his bodygaurd hot on his heels, accelerating desperately to keep up with their charge.

10 Minutes Later------------------------------------------
White fire licked the edges of the bluish-white hexagonal energy grid that protected virgil from reentry. His Azure gaurd were diving next to him, their own, orange Chernokov Shields shrugging off the fiery descent. About a half a mile to Virgil's right, a series of sonic booms issued, and twenty avatars space folded into the atmosphere. His avatar's comm system hissed to life.

"Sir! Where do you want us?" Virgil paused for about a half a second.

"Begin searching the forest for this man!" A picture of Pheonix in his crimson armor flashed across the team's vision. "He is a friendly, and if he is located, tranmit your immediate coordinates to me. I'll spacefold him away and rejoin the fight. Until then, try not to draw too much attention. But if you encounter the enemy, hit and run tactics only. No prolonged engagements!"

"Sir, yes sir!" The twenty avatars plunged towards the forest, while Virgil and the Azure gaurds stopped their descent and hovered at their high altitude above the battlefield, running their thrusters as low as they could, hoping to not draw attention from the occupied flyers.

Meanwhile, the twenty avatar pilots were spreading out their formation until they were half a mile from each other. They triggered their thrusters to slow their descent and landed softly in the canopy below.

One of the avatars furthest out in the formation was spotted by a lone advancing tripod. The pilot said a quick prayer to make peace with his death, and plunged towards the tripod.

He unloaded his mini missile launcher around the contruct, kicking up clouds of dirt and debris to clog the machine's vision and mask his descent. The avatar then landed on top of the tripod, white hot chainblade first. The screaming weapon tore through the tripod, and he cut his way to the ground, intentionally avoiding fuel cells and generators. Before the machine could detonate, the soldier made a desperate thruster assisted dash for the forest beforwe being knocked down by the concussive force of the barely escaped fireball. The mech stood up quickly and ran erraticly for about a mile into the jungle to throw off any pursuers who might have seen him. Confident he hadn't been followed, he sent in his all clear signal. After quickly scanning for damage, he received his command from his squad sergeant.

He and the rest of his team activated their sensors and quietly began to search the forest for the man named Pheonix, their six ton footfalls muffled by the rubber footpads of their machines. Hopefully, they could find the man soon.

(OOC: Oh dear god lol. We're both expendable and manic AND i was also intending to use tripod like devices :p Also, i might have missed it, But where did you say we are not to "excite" the creatures. I know one of your people mentally think it but i've never read anyone say it)

Plains:

The battleground was quickly losing any definitive formation. The Klikiss and the invaders mixed as they fought violently. The aliens were strong, but the Klikis were larger, drastically more heavy and the warriors had eight powerful arms which they used to try and simultaneously hold their opponent, pull them apart, bash them and slice them; occasionally headbutting them with their hard thorny heads and tossing them aside. The warriors began to fall, but reluctantly, although leaking fluids they still were formidable.

As the invaders began to emerge in the base the drones were near to completing the trapezoid, the warriors however dropped whatever they were doing and surrounded the stone slab as drones began putting the last blocks in place; more impotantly they wanted to get away from the forest which looked in danger of turning into a rampant fire. The flying warriors also began swarming round the stone structure in a defensive mass, they fired their orbs of energy at anything and everything that wasn't Klikiss. The swarm ships however ascended up and out of the atmosphere away from the battle.

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

Orbit:

The Breedex came as close as was possible to having a mental fit:

"What are you doing? I thought we agreed not to do anything to excite the enemy. If they see you come through the atmosphere this entire operation could be finished here and now. Pull back!"

The Hive ship groaned as the Breedex brought it's immense bulk to a stop. She fired up three of the ships MAC cannons instead, there was no visible outward sign. The MAC cannons, as with all her weapons, were nestled safely withen the ship, the weapons were in immensely long rooms, they were stationary, the MAC cannons ran the whole length of an immense hall, at the end of each cannon was a worm hole generator, once the weapon fired, the worm holes were opend up and the exit hole generated by the Klikiss also opened up, essentially it was an easy way to build large weapons without worrying about their positioning; the exit hole after all could point in any direction.

As such, a moment or two after the Hive ship stopped, three wormholes opened up above the planets surface, each above a tripod which was advancing towards the camp. Three metal slugs boomed out of the wormholes directly above the tripods at speeds exceeding the speed of sound.

The Breedex sent a message to the Greywatch vessel, incensed that they were telling her how to fight when it was obvious that the aliens were all other her and THEIR forces were nowhere to be seen; at first the message the Greywatch recevied was Klikiss language in full throttle. Uninteligable and noisey, but finally the Breedex switched on the automated translater:

"Excite them? How can you say they are not already excited when they are swarming over my drones and sending large mechanical machines of war to assault them, and you say they are not excited?"

OOC: Well this took long enough...
IC:

Forests:

The Greywatch team heard the commotion and a Drone, the most unforgiving unit in the entire Greywatch army, was quick to put out a message, “Nice show, avoid doing that again, ever. We are not here to fight, the last thing we need is a clusterfuck this early…” The Drone’s voice was cold and emotionless, the message was followed up quickly by a Commando, “Don’t mind the Drones, they’re always like that. Just don’t kill anything unless necessary, in the off chance that the enemy controls this planet now, we want to remain quiet.” The two CCTs moved off and began looking for Phoenix, scouts often traveling through the trees and keeping their eyes open for anything that stood out. The most important thing to do was scout the area without another scout, or sniper, seeing you first.

Bridge:

The captain sighed, “My god, they possess no sense of tactics at all. Open a message preparation program, I need to think about what I really want to say.”
<I see, so they’ve already started. Excuse me, but by units are currently looking over the forest, and rescuing my nearly fallen team.> Unlike other people I know, who seem to be much better at making things worse, She thought to herself. Obviously the whole, ‘send something small’ aspect wasn’t something the Klikiss were capable of understanding. At least they can make a good distraction; maybe they won’t be completely useless… She continued constructing the message, <Your forces have confirmed what I feared; the planet is in enemy hands. Explain the nature of the attack, and they’re weapons. There’s a very good chance they have a base in the area, if not several bases all over the planet. If they were this quick to respond then I would give up on a forward base until we can find and neutralize the main enemy defenses in the area.> The captain prayed the Breedex could understand that much, running blind into enemy territory wasn’t exactly the tactic the captain felt like using. The only one who could pull that off was Redemption, and he wasn’t here. She was a little torn, strategy told her the base should be abandoned, but she knew the Breedex wouldn’t listen, so instead she decided they were to be bait, which was immoral. With her thoughts in order she finished the message and sent it:

<I see, so they’ve already started. Excuse me, but by units are currently looking over the forest, and rescuing my nearly fallen team. Your forces have only confirmed what I feared; the planet is in enemy hands. Explain the nature of the attack, and they’re weapons. There’s a very good chance they have a base in the area, if not several. If they were this quick to respond then I would suggest trying to locate and neutralize the source of the problem before we come in and try building something right in front of the enemy… also, I think I need to make something very clear right now. This is a GREYWATCH operation that has been entrusted to ME. That being said, I want to know what you’re planning before you do it. Furthermore, if you endanger my operation, or my men, anymore than you probably already have, I will have you leave the system. Are we clear about this?>

The captain had the message sent, even though she wanted to add, ‘and can we try keeping the planet intact while we’re at it?’ but she decided not to push it too much. Hopefully, learning the exact nature of this attack would help her plan a counter offensive that didn’t rely on, ‘run in and shoot stuff.’ That was the worst thing they could do at this point. Of course, the captain didn’t want to give the Breedex too much grief either, no matter how much they deserved it at this point.

Forest:

A Drone commando listened to an incoming message from one of its brothers. “Well that’s just brilliant…” It muttered. One of the other commandos, a Dragon-kin, looked up. “What?” The Drone looked over and stopped walking, the rest of the group stopped too to hear what the Drone had to say. “It seems our other bug friends decided to play, ‘go team retard,’ and are now under heavy attack. The forward base they were setting up is being hit hard. No doubt being ten feet tall wasn’t enough; they had to go off headlong without so much as a fucking strategy. I don’t even think I can consider them allies at this point; they obviously are just trying to fuck this entire operation up. Insects are only good for bait, they come in huge numbers and possess no intelligence, they’re cannon fodder and not much more.” The others gave uncomfortable looks to one another. One of the scouts, who’d actually listened to the Drone and was sitting in the trees above called out, “What about the Kiixori? More importantly, the Kiioxri councilman?” The Drone nodded, “They’re warmongers, if they sucked as much as these other insects, that’d be sad and nothing more. They actually have experience, what with fighting their own kind in a never ending civil war, which in itself is still retarded. But they’ve actually proven their worth, so they’re okay. Not good, not bad, just okay.” The group didn’t really want to press this topic, Drones rarely changed their minds about things like this and finding Phoenix was much more important.

Plains:

The area was soon becoming harder and harder to recognize as enemies fell to brute force. Of course, they were also inflicting plenty of casualties upon the enemy, that much was clear. It didn’t matter how big these insects were, the sheer masses of enemies made the Klikiss force seem pathetic. The tripod began disappearing as MAC shells tore through them and the surrounding landscape, sending shattered earth into the air and crushing the walkers, not to mention knocking over the rest of them. On any other day Greywatch would have simply booted the Klikiss fleet from the system for its lack of strategy and control, and reliance on brute force, but past relations told them the Klikiss could be valuable allies… to an extent. The enemy was quite a fierce one; they were now inside the Klikiss base and were systematically jumping out of their holes and flanking the giant insects. But they didn’t stop there, anything and everything that could be shot at was shot at, structures, walls, and Klikiss. These aliens might have been small, but once they had a solid strategy, they stuck with it to no end. And despite the pileup of corpses, there was no visible end to their numbers. Very soon, the sheer number of these vicious fiends would allow them to begin scaling the bodies of the Klikiss, stabbing and shooting the insects with fierceness that would remind any Leanorian of The Twilight. It was odd, these enemies took no fear in knowing the enemy had super weapons pointed at them. To the enemy, it didn’t matter, but soon, the enemy would turn its gaze upward, to the source of the problem. But as some would soon find out, this battle was about to change dramatically.

(OOC: Excellent. Thank you. By the way, it doesn't change how my Breedex acts lol )

Tarsus blinked again, finding himself once again back in the hangar of the Greywatch ship. After watching a vigorous display Mr. Virgil put in by making a fast sprint back to his ship, Tarsus left for his, walking briskly and with renewed purpose. Embarking from the hangar bay, he soon found himself re-united with his retinue, along with 30 Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. After exchanging a few words about their mission objectives and the situation in general, their shuttles departed for the surface.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Surface Approach
The four shuttles descended into the lower atmosphere, the intense heat of the atmosphere temporarily turning their ships into bright orange fireballs, before returning to the sleek, black shape of Inquisitorial craft. By this time, Tarsus had changed out of the clothing he had worn on the Greywatch Vessel. Now, he wore a suit of ornate powerd armor, which covered his entire body, save for his head. His power sword was resting in a sheath across his back, and a miniature machine gun was strapped to his wrist, fed from bullets in his armor. He turned his head to look out the window. The blackness of space had gone, and was now replaced by a deep blue sky, overlooking a rolling terrain of forests and plateaus.

"Auspex Scans confirmed, boss." Tarsus' pilot began, interrupting the Inquisitor's train of thought "it seems the Klikiss' landing sight has come under heavy enemy attack."

"Avoid the fighting for now." Tarsus ordered. "There aren't enough of us to commit to a full-scale battle, and Captain Rhesa wouldn't be too happy if I blew up and of her shuttles." He remarked, smiling a little. "We should la-

"Incoming transmission from the Greywatch." His pilot said, patching it through.


<We’ve got the team. Everyone, be careful, we saw a bunch of enemies leaving this area. They might still be around. We also saw some aircraft, I think we’ve been found out.>

Tarsus stopped mid-sentence, deep in thought. After a short silence, he spoke again.

"Set us down here." He pointed to an area on the topographical map. It was far enough from the battle to not attract any attention from either side, and on the eastern edge of the forest where the Greywatch Team had been found. If the team was there, it was likely that Phoenix wasn't too far away. After a few minutes, he felt the shuttle's landing gear touch down on the planet.

He swung himself out of the shuttle, noticing his retinue unload from another, and the Stormtrooper teams behind them. He shouted to them.

"Stormtrooper teams Alpha and Beta, fan out and begin your search. Veronius, you're with Alpha, Regina, with Beta!"

"You got it, Boss." His acolyte responded, taking command of Alpha.

"Yes, my lord. Relinquishing command." Came the response from the Sergeant of team Beta.

"The rest, with me!" Tarsus had taken 5 Stormtroopers with him to the Greywatch vessel as a personal escort, who had remained in the shuttle for the briefing.

The shuttles would remain behind to serve as a command center, forwarding communications to the search teams.

With that, the rest fanned out and began their search.

Klikiss Base:

Bursts of energy screamed overhead and concussive thumps echoed across the battlefield as the Klikiss fired their weapons, the weapons from the enemy smashed into the more or less useless wall, resin shards exploded from the impact, showering the battle ground in razor sharp confetti. Dust and smoke floated up from the ground along with the inhuman screams on both sides. Klikiss flyers, safe for now against most of the attack buzzed overhead raining bursts of energy down upon their opponent. The Drones scrambled over the trapezoid structure they built, trying to connect up various components as it seemed near completion.

There was a sudden deafening explosion as three immense plumes of dirt and dust erupted into the air, dirt showered across the Klikiss base followed a second later by a loud bang accompanied by a burst of wind, knocking over both sides as they scrambled up once more to begin fighting, the ground seemed to rock slightly for a moment and the drones grabbed the trapezoid to stop it from falling, sections of the wall toppled over. The air, now thick with dust, dirt, flying debris and illuminated by the light emmitted from guns booming across the battle ground quickly turned into a semi solid muck as the last of the top soil flung into the air came crashing down on both forces. For a brief second nothing could be heard apart from a few muffled thumps of guns benig discharged underground. Then insects and aliens alike burst from the dirt and resumed fighting frantically. The Drones began clearing away three feet of muck which had accumulated around the trapezoid.

Miracuously, through the screams, raining dirt and energy bursts, a communicator manned by a now filthy Drone flared to life:

“Nice show, avoid doing that again, ever. We are not here to fight, the last thing we need is a clusterfuck this early... Don’t mind the Drones, they’re always like that. Just don’t kill anything unless necessary, in the off chance that the enemy controls this planet now, we want to remain quiet.”

Due to the lack of a Domate in the area the Breedex couldn't quite get a handle on the situation down here let alond fully understand what the aliens meant. Hence her response was more a frustrated question more than anything else:

"I am fighting, how can we fight if we don't kill anything?"

Klikiss Hive Ship:

I see, so they’ve already started. Excuse me, but my units are currently looking over the forest, and rescuing my nearly fallen team. Your forces have only confirmed what I feared; the planet is in enemy hands. Explain the nature of the attack, and they’re weapons. There’s a very good chance they have a base in the area, if not several. If they were this quick to respond then I would suggest trying to locate and neutralize the source of the problem before we come in and try building something right in front of the enemy… also, I think I need to make something very clear right now. This is a GREYWATCH operation that has been entrusted to ME. That being said, I want to know what you’re planning before you do it. Furthermore, if you endanger my operation, or my men, anymore than you probably already have, I will have you leave the system. Are we clear about this?

The Breedex was already sending her ship back towards the others when the message came in. She was more or less completely flummoxed, millenia of accumulated memories simply wasn't explaining to her what Greywatch had in mind. This was a Greywatch world and there were unwanted life forms on it. Simple, and yet they wanted to waste resources on finding a few members of their own kind and "figuring things out". It was insane, she attempted to put it into perspective for herself. How was it the Ciscilians had desribed such beings? Each human is a Breedex, that was it. Each one unique enough to be valuable to eveyone, in the same way a Breedex considered different pieces of music to be unique enough to be taken care of; the music wasn't important to the Breedexs aim's but they kept it all the same. Yes, that was how the Ciscilians had explained it, each human was as unique as a piece of music.

Now in a more receptive frame of mind the Breedex composed her reply:

"Your world, your rules. Understood. If you wish to understand what we have in mind then this is it. I am following a standard battle plan which has been used to my kind for millenia, we are building a transportal which will enable me to transport my forces directly from my hanger to the surface. They currently have the advantage of numbers but soon i hope that will change. Why? Is that unacceptable? Do you have some overall plan to follow?"

Tag for future post

(OOC: lol)

Forest--------------------------------------------

The AVATAR squads continued their quiet searching formation. Periodically, a member of the team would come across a lone enemy soldier or unit and a brief burst of distant gunfire would disturb the noises of the jungle, followed by an echoing boom from the mech stomping the unfortunate offender underfoot with all it's six-ton might, then relative silence once more. One of the pilots towards the center of the search formation put out a private comm to a nearby comrade. His Cestal accent betrayed his heritage over the radio of the pilot of AVATAR C-41, Dan Valgoth.

"Man, dis is takin' foevah, kat. If only owah biosensahs wud work in dis ell'ole, kat, we'd ah bin done searchin owahs ago."

Dan sighed aloud, his AVATAR's speaker grill issuing the depressing sound for no one to hear. Under less dense vegitation, they could have used their biosensors to locate concentrations of IR heat, neural pulses and movement, triangulating a lifeform or target. But the forest was full of plants, animals, and foes, and the biosensors did little then superimpose a hypnotic display of red blotches to distract the pilots. They had to search the forest the old fashioned way: a search grid, desperately trying to locate a Greywatch transponder signal in the haystack that was the jungle's radio interferrence.

Then, something popped up on Dan's HUD. At first he couldn't be sure, but then his onboard CPU confirmed the reading.

"Target contact! I've got a transponder lock on a Greywatch soldier. Signal matches our target! I'll move in!"

Dan followed the nav marker on his vision, quickly and quietly moving through the brush towards the beacon on his sensors. He trailed the icon as it moved, always a step behind until it stopped moving briefly. He stopped at fifty feet from the marker.

He spun the chainblade up to speed on his AVATAR's left forearm, it's teeth glowing orange from the heat. He hoped it was Pheonix, but just in case...
The AVATAR stepped out of the bushes into the clearing...

(OOC: I'll leave up to you whether it's Pheonix, Greywatch.)

(OOC: I'm gonna have one of my teams run into one of your AVATAR squads, TSA, that cool?)

Forest

Team Beta stalked through the forest like a shadow, being sure to ensure sure their tracks were covered. So far, their search hadn't turned up anything. The bio-scanners from the shuttles were more or less useless, thanks to the forest, so they had to search the old-fashioned way, through. They hadn't even seen an enemy as of yet, but would hear sporadic gunfire every now and them, re-affirming that the battle was still being fought.

From her position in the middle of the formation, Regina sighed. They had been looking for hours, and for all they knew, their target could be on the other side of the planet. So far, the Greywatch hadn't reported anything about what the recovered team had said. Damn aliens.

Then, a loud stomping sound echoed through the forest, nearby. then another, then another. Soon, a whole mess of stomping sounds could be heard, heading right in their direction.

Regina brought her autopistol up, scanning the area for possible contacts. The Stormtroopers in her squad were doing the same, checking possible fire zones and cover points. If anything, they were professionals. However, the place seemed deserted. But still, the stomping came forward, until they were almost upon us.

Regina brought her hand to her comm-link, connecting her with the rest of the squad, and whispered "down!"

The stormtroopers obeyed, moving for cover behind trees, fallen logs, in tall grass and weeds, anything that could conceal them from detection.

(OOC to Angentaria: Sounds cool to me)

AVATAR E-03, pilot Mendelson Beiks, stalked through the forest quietly, cushioned footpads softly stepping across the grassy forest floor. He was towards the further forwards part of the formation, an advance gaurd. A vine hung low across the ground tripped the metal walker, and he landed on his mechanical face with a loud clang.

He tripped again and stumbled forward, entangling himself further until he pitched forward again. He flailed and swung about his mechanical arms wildly, tearing thick sinious ropes of vegation from his optics. He finally tore the remaining vines from his machine, just in time to stop himself from nearly stepping on one of the entrenched stormtroopers.

"Holy-!!!" He pinwheeled his arms backward, landing akwardly on his metalic buttocks. He raised his rifle, which automatically reconfigured itself into the compact high-speed supression-fire mode, and sighted the stormtroopers. Then, almost as quickly, he lowered the weapon.

"Sweet lights, you folks need to watch were you lay down out here. I nearly stepped on you!" He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow in the cockpit, an action the AVATAR mimiced almost comicly.

"So, have you all found anything yet?"

Forest:

The Drone gave an annoyed sigh before responding:
<That wasn't aimed at you.>

Bridge:

<The reason I'm having a fit right now is because if this enemy controls the planet, they have AO weapons. This would mean they have a base, so that would have me assume they can call in backup at any point. And if we're going to go in guns blazing, telling the enemy that there are ships in orbit trying to launch a massive assault on the surface, what do you think is going to be the result? My guess is that it won’t be good. And if you succeed in constructing this gate of yours, what makes you think the enemy will not simply become more willing to throw whatever they have at it? The way I see it, they’ll either use some sort of super weapon on the entire base, or they’ll call in a fleet to destroy every ship near the planet. In the latter case, your actions are very easily putting several lives in jeopardy right now. That being said, I ask you treat this as a stealth operation, not a global conquest.>

Plains:

Across the plains came a sound like no other, like a horn sounding off the beginning of a battle. Something was happening. When the remaining enemies heard this, they immediately stopped their attack and dissapered. There was no slow retreat, they simply vanished as quickly as they'd come. They were gone, bodies and all, leaving behind only the destruction they'd caused.

Forest:

The transponder that Dan would pick up wouldn’t be that of Phoenix, but instead another Greywatch soldier, a dead soldier. The body lay in the middle of the clearing, a hole going straight through the armor and body. Whatever weapon had been used, it was capable of completely ignoring the armor. Similar holes could be seen going through trees in the area. Unknown to anyone, including the Greywatchers, Phoenix’s transponder was destroyed, along with his communications systems, shielding, and radar.

OOC: Be aware that there are no scouts in this forest, no wandering parties of enemies, no guards or the like. The enemy appears only to attack and then vanishes again.

Forest

Apparently aware that their positions had been compromised, the stormtroopers jumped up out of cover, weapons raised up toward the AVATAR.

"Put em' down, boys." Regina said, her voice calm. "These aren't the soldiers we're looking for." Regina walked over to the armored mech, holstering her autopistol.

She sighed. "Nothing. He could be on the other side of the planet, for all we know."

Jaina, nodded at the Drone and proceeded to enter the chamber where all the other representatives were. She glanced at each of them in turn, noting the alien natures of some of the beings at the table. It would seem, despite their desperate rush to keep alien forces at bay until the Colonies were at bay, that they were meeting alien beings left and right. Shaking her head to hide a small smile, she sat down and watched as the captain brought up the holo-image of the destroyed ship they had all encountered on their way into the system. Describing the mission it had been on and what they had found so far. This was turning out to sound like some kind of horror movie. Jaina kept her comments to herself as the briefing continued.

By the descriptions of the captain, it would appear that the ship had been attacked by some unknown force, a force with unbelievably powerful weapons. The ships condition had revealed that it had died relatively quickly and the attackers had taken great pains to slice it into three pieces, almost as if they were searching for something. The explorer team the ship had deployed had gone missing and their bodyguards were slain. And their leader, some man named Crimson, had gone missing as well. Due to the evidence gathered, it was obvious the alien force could still be here or return anytime. She agreed with the captain's view of no large forces to excite the aliens and to only send down teams. Before he could continue, however, a transmission came in. Extremely slashed up and hard to hear, but it was obvious the explorer team was still alive....but they had run into the alien force. And they were being cut down, if what she heard was right.

She watched as the livid Greywatch captain began to order rescue measures and basically told the delegates that they could do what they wanted in the situation, for it was obvious how grave it was. Nodding, Jaina stood up and began to head for the hangar bay, her communication disk in her hand.”Argent Dawn, this is the Captain. Do you read?”

“Yes, Captain, we read. What's the situation?”

She continued to walk as she began to speak. “It would appear the plot of so many old sci-fi movies back home is playing out. Some explorer team here vanished and their ship got ripped apart, by some unknown alien force. And during the briefing, they reported in under heavy attack. That same alien force...”

“...is still here. Any rules on engagement?”

“Keep it low, we don't want to excite the locals.”

“Understood. Prepping Marine Squads One through Eight, as well as Mech Assault Squad Two. Will that do?”

“Task Interceptor Squadron Three to serve as air support as well. And be ready to receive my dropship, I'm coming back over.”

“Aye aye, ma'am.”

Within moments, she was at the dock where her dropship was located. Two minutes later, it blasted off and returned to the Argent Dawn, where she took command and began to redeploy the probes to zoom over the planet, giving her better angles of data. She still kept one, however, bouncing around the system, to give her a heads up if anything was coming in.


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

As she was preparing the ship to serve as a command and control center for the operation, the named squads of soldiers were getting prepared. Marines, being the middle of the road units of the Colonial military, had a unique organizational structure. The normal soldiers were formed into regiments, battalions, etc, while the Special Forces were exclusively put together into “Fists” of five soldiers at one time, which often split up. The Marines, however, had platoons of units, and those were only for roll call and transportation. In battles, they moved as six man squads, while the Mech Assault Squad was essentially two Light Mechs, with a group of five soldiers to back them up. This made the Colonial commitment to the current situation around fifty-three soldiers and two Light Mechs, along with a single squadron of eight interceptors. For a light operation, this would be ideal.

Soon enough, the dropships were loaded, six dropships were loaded, with two carrying a single Mech each, and, with the assigned interceptor squadron as initial escort, proceeded to blast towards the planet.

Before they could get there, the situation went to hell in a hand basket.

“The Klikiss are doing what?!”

The sensor officer gulped. “They are deploying a somewhat large force, and are seemingly making a base of operations.”

Jaina looked at the screen, shocked. They were dealing with powerful aliens here, with better technology AND the Greywatch captain had said not to do large operations. Making a base, no matter how useful it was, was the same as displaying a large neon sign “Attack me”. She hoped that she could move in time to prevent them from arousing the alien foes. She began to prepare a message when warnings began to appear on the screen. The image focused and it revealed the Klikiss base had now become a warzone, and one full of slaughter. The enemy was smart, if somewhat reckless. They were bombarding them with mortars of energy, while swarms of ground troops with blades and guns attacked. Many of the shots obliterated their own forces, but they kept coming. The Klikiss were going to be overrun at this point. She turned to the comm officer.

“Tell the dropships what is going on. Their main priority is to find this Phoenix guy so we can pull out, but the Klikiss base, as much of a charnel house as it has become, is the perfect diversion. If the commander sees any need to reinforce them, it is up to his discretion. Also, redirect the squadron to help the Klikiss. They are going to need it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The sensor officer spoke again, voice panicked. “Ma'am, you need to see this.”

Jaina growled. “Oh now wh-” She froze as she saw the Hive ship descending to aid their brethren. If they provoked the enemies enough, they may be facing their ships next. She gritted her teeth in frustration. “Move us away from the planet; coordinates nine-zero-three. I want all weapons and shields ready and operational. I don't know what those bug bastards are doing, but I'll be damned if their actions cost me my ship and crew.”

The ship began to move away, as energy readings from the Argent Dawn increased as it prepared itself for the worst case scenario. Jaina could only watch in horror as the aliens threw aircraft and tripod walkers at the Klikiss. They definitely needed reinforcements, and without breaking the rule the Greywatch captain had set, she couldn't aid them. Hell, she didn't have enough to even give the aliens anymore than a slight pause, Colonial technology being out-dated as it was. She watched as the Hive ship, obviously being reprimanded by the Greywatch ship, if the transmissions meant anything, fired off three MAC shots and turned away. She gasped and they all gripped their chairs as they saw them hit the ground....but only moderately large explosions appeared. No nuclear devastation due to kinetics seen. She sighed and held her head; this was going to be a long day.


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

Commander Zachary Amerin stood up in the hold of the dropship and looked around at his men. His suit communications was linked to all the Marines in the five dropships and the Mech pilots. “Marines, I just got a call from the Boss Lady. It would appear that the Klikiss decided that making a base would be a good idea for a stealth operation. As feared, the alien enemy controls the planet and is currently making mincemeat out of their forces. As of right now, as the pilots are telling me, they are getting hit really bad down there. Enemy air support, tripod walkers, mortar tanks, the works. I have been told that , while the rescue of Phoenix is imperative, I may send reinforcements to help the Klikiss. That is up to my own discretion.” He paused, to turn and look at the men in the dropship he was in.

“I have decided to give them some help. Our interceptor escort will be with us as long as halfway to the clearing selected by Jaina, and then will proceed to go engage the enemy fighters harassing the Klikiss. What's more is I am sending two of the dropships as reinforcements, the ones with the Mechs on them. The Klikiss need the Mechs more than we do. They were supposed to be our trump card, if things went bad. Well, I don't think the operation calls for them anyways. The rest of us will proceed to the clearing and then spread out in squads. You have tac-maps of the area, sent to us by probes in orbit, that should help you maneuver away from any enemy encounters and find this man. Good luck and god speed. Let's get this done and done quick. HOOAH!”

They yelled as well and he cut the channel. They breached the atmosphere and blasted through the air. The explosions and light show at the Klikiss base made itself apparent as they rocketed through the air. Soon enough, they were at the promised halfway point. The two dropships and the squadron peeled away to head for the battle. The three remaining shot forth and after passing endless greenery, settled into a relatively large clearing. The remaining thirty-two Marines filed out and quickly got into their squads. Then, as quietly as they could, they spread out and vanished into the jungle. Commander Amerin had taught them well and they knew what to do. Tac-data from the orbiting probes would reveal life forms, structures, and other things. Their sensors were set for specific objects like armor, weapons, and other things, to screen out the static of the jungle as best as possible. They began their intense search, doing their best to remain hidden while doing so. The three dropships, after the Marines had left, lifted off and proceeded to head back into space, not risking their loss by remaining there.


The two dropships plunged directly into hell as the battle at the base continued. The squadron mostly peeled off to go engage the enemy aircraft, firing their EMP missiles and blasting away with their autocannons. Two remained to guard the dropships. The dropships began to land when, suddenly, the enemy paused and then retreated. Within moments, they had vanished from view. The Marines were shocked; what was going on. The squadron flew around, uneasy about this new development. Following orders, the Marines disembarked and moved into the devastated base, the two Mechs stomping their way into the best defensible positions. One Marine walked up to a nearby Klikiss. "You certainly fought one hell of a battle down here. We are here to serve as reinforcements for this place, though it seems wasted now. We'll stay and help you guys out however we can. We may need to hold them off again if they come for round two."

The Klikiss reeled as every hostile in the area simply vanished. Warriors stumbled about or fell to the floor, their physical duels brought to an unexpected halt, a few warriors continued firing their weapons at nothing in confusion untill the Breedex regained focus. She noticed that some Colonials had landed in her base, unable to communicate verbally and more focused on other matters the drone which a marine approached, carrying some weapons dropped by fallen Klikiss, left is load on the ground and led the marine through the base.

It was a chaotic mess. Dust and smoke floated thickly through the air, the ground was a churned mess with warriors and drones wading through the gloopy mess. Miniture corridors began to form as the drones formed worker lines, cleaning up the base, rebuilding the wall, scavenging any nearby material, retreiving dead Klikiss and once again forming a living conveyor belt to the now ruined forest as they began ferrying organic matter once more into the base. The Breedex was not dissapointed, indeed she felt exhilirated by the battle, she was however angry at how every body, including the fallen enemies, had simply dissapeared; taking with them the most valuable resource she could hope to gather. Nonetheless she had to plan for a future attack.

The drone led the marine to the trapezoid which the Klikiss had built, it was about ten meters in height and sixteen meters at it's widest point. It leaned at an unhealthty angle, disturbed from the minor earth tremours they had caused and knocked around by the fall of debris. The drones had however cleared the area around it, revealing it to be made of interlocking stone blocks. A small metal box wich connected to the trapezoid by a series of cables sat next to it , a Klikiss scientist/engineer form, more delicate and spindly looking with a more diverse form of arms and possessing many antenna, opened it's exterior casing, adjusting a few items before it suddenly hummed to life, the trapezoid's surface seemed to shimmer, as if caught between this universe and another. Another scientist/engineer turned it's attention to a flat upright pentagon structure which stood on the other side of the trapezoid, it to was made of interlocking stone bloocks, but composed of dozens of smaller square tiles with varying symbols. The drone pressed the center tile and then began to press various tiles, seemingly at random, for a few minutes. Once it had finished it pressed the center one once more and then pushed the tile above it.

The trapezoid shimmered vibrantly for a moment before seeming to clear, suddenly it held a view into an immense hanger filled with Klikiss scurrying about, tending to and carrying equiptment back and forth; it was a gateway to their hanger. Although a large amount of warriors and drones tending to large pieces of equiptment seemed to be waiting the Breedex did not want to violate any territorial instincts as it were that the Greywatch captain had. Happening open an idea she instead sent the Greywatch vessel a message:

"The hostile forces have dissapeared, every trace of them seems to have gone, i suspect teleportation. I have constructed a portal which links my Hive Ship to the surface, i have warriors and appropriate forms of war equiptment which i would wish to send out to defend the base. However, i am concerned of violating your instincts, is it acceptable or me to send out my army and make preperations or would you rather me set out on another task? Also, to speed things along, perhaps it would be apt if you dispatched a representative of yours who can monitor what i do in the base and judge what is and what is not acceptabel, someone for me to consult with."

Whilst waiting for the message a drone scurried out of the transportal carrying a small black translation box, finally addressing the marine:

"It was a great battle, i am however dissapointed by the impossibility of retreiving the enemies fallen boides. Then again, perhaps the forest will soon yield what we need."

Forest:

For at least another 30 minutes, there would be nothing. Then everyone in the forest, with the exception of the Drones, would suddenly have the same strange feeling. The feeling that a powerful presence was nearby, as if something was reaching out and squeezing one’s heart in a death grip. For a moment, it would be nearly impossible to breathe as this phantom presence spread through the forest. Then came the sound of gunfire, followed by an explosion, and the feeling would immediately subside. The Greywatch team, particularly the Leanorians among them, was the first to regain their footing. Though it was more than likely that everyone else had no idea what that was, they knew the feeling very well. It was a Cryptic Shockwave, caused when a Cryptic user releases a large buildup of Cryptic energy in one moment. If you’re not expecting it, it can hit pretty hard and cause the body to temporarily freeze up. The Drones, being Cryptic being already, felt nothing but everyone else knew a Cryptic user was nearby. No other squads had reported coming under attack so there was only one person it could be. The team closest to the explosion began moving forward without hesitation, putting out a message to all other teams in the forest:

<I’m sure you all just felt something unnatural, that means our boy Phoenix is nearby. All units begin converging on the area of that last explosion.>

A few miles away, a great forest fire raged. Bright bolts of blue and green streaked across the forest at a bulky, yet surprisingly fast, crimson figure. Aliens like the ones from before roared in their own native tongue as they tried to kill the monster to no avail. The crimson being, on the other hand, spewed fire like a human flamethrower, which to some extent it was. The captain might not have explained why Phoenix had his name, but that was going to become apparent very shortly.

Bridge:

The captain muttered something to herself before responding to the Breedex. She was uncomfortable working alongside such a race, more so because the tactic of this enemy seemed strangely familiar. An enemy that could literally come out of nowhere at anytime and then leave with the same speed. Such technology would probably be sought after by the Forbidden Ministry, and she knew that with the next report to Greywatch Prime, they were probably going to get involved. The thought of having the FM participating in this operation, not just through the Drones but actual FM soldiers, was not something many Greywatch captains found appealing. But that was something for later; right now she had to response to make.

<If the enemy is able to come and go as they please, I suggest you not bring in anything that will provoke them again. I will not stop you from defending your base, but remain in your base for now. Do not expand any further than you already have, for this is to remain a stealth operation. Once again, I don’t want the enemy getting so worked up that they call for backup and end up sending a fleet into the system. I will be sending a rep down to your base right now.>

With that she began looking through her roster for anyone who might serve well as a representative, get along with the Klikiss, and still follow the protocols and tactics needed for this situation. She had a few people on her mind and it wasn’t long before she picked one of them and informed that lucky person of the situation as well as what was expected of them.

Plains/Klikiss Base:

The Breedex followed the instructions of the Greywatch captain, keep to the base and try not to attract the aliens attention.

The Domate that had met with the other alien representatives onboard The Broadsword had landed in the base to help the Breedex betterr co-ordinate her forces. The Klikiss drones worked as swift as ever to prepare for a possible future attack, they reconstrcuted the wall, adding platforms for energy cannons and ramparts for warriors to assume positions; the wall, which was made of a resin certain Klikiss sub-types produced, would be diamond hard once it had set, the only way in and out would be via a narrow archway which allowed only two Klikiss drones to pass through at a time.

Knowing full well that walls would not keep out the majority of an attacking force the Klikiss took the initiative in securing themselves. They set about flattening the base's terrain and pouring their resin over the surface, intent on ensuring the creatures would not be able to attack them from beneath; the resin floor would be a foot deep when completed. Their efforts were greatly speeded up with the transportal. Endless lines of Klikiss drones marched in and out of the transportal carrying containers of resin and other resources.

Although not sure by which methods their foes had arrived at the Klikiss were happy to make guesses. They assumed that it was either teleportation or translocation, they were more than equipped to deal with each. They set up large Van De Graaff generators through the base, if their foes attempted to teleport in then some of their reassembling atoms would carry positive charges; those teleporting in close proximity to the Van De Graaff generators would receive quite a shock, a similar effect to being struck by lightening. Evidently the Van De Graaff generators wouldn't have enough charge to strike all nearby targets though they could strike an acceptable amount.

They also took extra measures in the event of teleportation, Klikiss warriors armed themselves with chemical throwers, able to shoot jets of negativly charged thiosulfate. Although once the aliens had teleported in they would have lost most of their charges, but some atoms would retain positive charges for a while afterwards. The Klikiss would shoot thiosulfate onto their enemies in the expectation that it would subsequently "rip" those molecules into useless pieces. The Breedex thought of filling the base up with chlorine gas, since it did not affect Klikiss, but realised on reflection that her allies now present would most likely not be immune to it.

In the event that those didn't work they always had their energy weapons.

As the Klikiss approached the end of building the wall, completing the new floor for their base and setting up an interdictor to stop any translocations being performed withen the bases vicinity, they were struck by a faint, yet noticable wave of disorientation. They felt their bodies slow as their insides came under a squeeze, it quickly subsided, evidently it had happened a significant distance away. Intrigued, the Breedex sent out five Klikiss flyers armed with their trumpet like energy weapons to locate the source.

For now however they awaited the arrival of the Greywatch representative.

Forest

Acolyte Vernious sighed deeply as he and the rest of team alpha trudged through the endless forest. It was hopeless. The forest was almost completely deserted, save from the occasional small animal or the bugs (he especially hated the bugs.) Nevertheless, the kept pressing onwards, hoping to find some vestige of their target.

Suddenly, he felt something. Not a feeling, like someone touched him, but something else altogether. It was something he'd never felt before, but, by the Emperor, it was uncomfortable. But just as it was there, it was gone. Boom, just like that. He startled as a message came through his comm-bead.

<I’m sure you all just felt something unnatural, that means our boy Phoenix is nearby. All units begin converging on the area of that last explosion.>

Vernious looked to his team, who seemed as they had just gone through the same experience as him. Well, that was re-assuring. At least he wasn't crazy.

"Well, what are we waiting for, let's go!"

With that, the team double-timed it toward the explosion, the bright orange marking their way. As they came closer, they slowed, and raised their weapons, ready for anything. They approached the clearing...

Forest--------------------------

The sudden, unknown energy event registered on every AVATAR pilot's sensors and the sensation on every pilot's heart. The Sergeant Major leading the group ran a series of short algorithms to triangulate the source, and centered a nav marker on the location for all Alliance personnel to see.

<I’m sure you all just felt something unnatural, that means our boy Phoenix is nearby. All units begin converging on the area of that last explosion.>

With wordless understanding, all twenty AVATARs sprinted through the forest toward the nav marker's location, knocking over trees and crushing vegetation as they leaped and bound through the forest with thruster powered leaps and dashes toward the clearing until they finally burst through the forest wall. The AVATAR squad quickly identified the alien foes and sprung into action, bolts of light from the alien weapons ricocheting off of their polished metal of their armored hides as they charged into the alien soldiers, white-hot chainblades roaring and sputtering as alien blood ran on the forest floor.

One of the squad specialists stayed back and brought his heavy linear-induction rifle to bear, scanning the combat area through the weapon's advanced optics. He focused his attention to the crimson figure belching fire at the group of aliens. He relayed the image to the squad captain, who had just finished hacking his way through one of the alien combatants. The AVATAR captain turned towads the crimson figure on the other side of the clearing, bellowing over his external speakers.

"HEY, ARE YOU PHOENIX? WE'RE ALLIED WITH GREYWATCH, WE'RE SUPPOSED TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE!"

Forest:

When the teams came upon the scene, what they'd find was something beyond the limits of natural. The person they were looking for was beyond looking anything human, instead literally on fire. He was spewing flames like a dragon and beating back the enemies no one else seemed to have noticed at that point. But the enemies in the area noticed everyone else very quickly. With a single shot the head of nearby Greywatch and Angenterian soldiers simply exploded. More bolts followed as the enemies in the area, who were hiding at the time for good reason, began to emerge in order to fight back these apparent reinforcement. Disentegrator and missiles were fired every which way with disentegrators destined for the lighter units and missiles aimed at the mechs. Phoenix himself was taken off-guard by the sudden blast of sound from the AVATAR. The sound it made was loud enough to knock over trees which had already been cuaght in the crossfire between alien disentagrators and Phonix's flames. "If your here to help, I suggest you get on that sometime soon!" The man yelled over the sound of burding wood, roaring flames, and falling trees. This scene truly resembled hell.

OOC: Now then, not going further 'til Telros get's here.

The Marine gazed quizzically at the creature before shrugging. Maybe it was a culture thing. "I really have no idea, uh, sirs. I am here as I stated; to help reinforce this area and/or help you with whatever you plan on doing. Besides, with the mechs we brought, we'd only endanger the teams." The other soldiers quickly took places in the weakened places of the base and began to fortify what they could. They didn't know when the aliens would be back and they wanted to be as ready as possible. The sounds of battle and fire, oddly enough, could be heard coming up on their helmets. They charged forth, excitement and adrenaline filling their bloodstreams while they pushed to the objective. The whine of energy weaponry and the sounds of battle filled the air; their HUD's showed their allies in the clearing under, and under heavy fire. A large energy source was detected and they were shocked to see someone covered in flame and not looking anything human. The shock wore off when an energy bolt blew apart a Marine's head.

"MARINES! DISPERSE, DISPERSE! GET TO COVER, I WANT SOME COVERING FIRE ON THOSE ALIEN BASTARDS. HEAVY WEAPONS, I WANT THEIR BLOOD SPILLED YESTERDAY!'"

The Marines scattered, hiding behind rocks, trees, natural trenches, anything they could use. The jungle seemed to shake as their high speed gauss weaponry flared out to impact amongst the alien enemies. Rifle shots, sniper bullets, bursts from assault rifles, they all slammed into the enemy as the Telrosians struggled to push them back. Grenades sailed over and exploded, sending waves of sonic energy outward. They would vibrate matter at such a frequency that it fell apart, disintegrated. Not sure if it would work but distraction was key here, not killing. The heavy weapons Marines were starting to come forth, setting up machine tripods and wielding chainguns and rocket launchers.

The constant thudding of several machine guns joined the fray, along with the high speed grating of chainguns and the beautiful sounds of rockets exploding as everything the Telrosians had proceeded to be aimed at devastating the clearing.

Meanwhile, as the teams moved through the forest, a sudden shockwave overwhelmed them. They fell to the ground or leaned against trees and rocks as a hidden fist grasped their heart tightly for several seconds before letting go. Amerin let out several curses as he struggled to get his breath back. Quickly recovering, he tapped the comm unit. "Can someone tell me what in Sam Hell just happened?"

"The sensor probes report some kind of massive explosive about sixty meters ahead of us. We are also reading constant energy fluctuations, ala exchanged energy fire."

Amerin smiled and took the safety off his rifle. "Alright boys and girls, looks like we find the boy those Greywatch folks were so anxious to find. Form a stretched inverted-V of all squads and get moving, double time. We'll need to back up our allies if they run into the aliens while heading for the objective."

Forest---------------------------------------
“All AVATAR pilots, switch weapons to Suppressive Fire modes!” The assembled AVATARs raised their rifles against the alien horde, the guns reconfiguring themselves into the more compact high-speed fire modes. With puffs of escaping air and softly muffled pops, the guns opened fire, filling the air with thousands metal shards. Trillium-tipped darts tore apart vegetation, cut down trees and ventilated alien bodies. Mini-missile launchers opened up across the squad, explosive rounds shattering the earth where they struck, throwing the hostiles back and forth like children’s toys.

The Sergeant Major looked across the field, noticing the Telrosian marines and Angenterian Stormtroopers approaching the clearing. Opening TEAMTAC inside his AVATAR’s cockpit and issued new orders.

Ten of the remaining nineteen AVATARs in active combat moved to reinforce the allied positions, dragging their metal footpads in wide arcs to create simple foxholes and trenches for the incoming marines and stormtroopers. The warmachines then let the soldiers move forward, covering their ally’s advance with the AVATAR’s weapons fire.

The other nine mechs, including the Sergeant Major, ran in to support Phoenix. Roaring chainblades spun, cutting bloody swathes through alien warriors, while metal fists and legs struck out, swatting and punting the aggressors like children’s toys.

Meanwhile, the specialist had hunkered his mech down in the nearby forest, anchoring the weapon his AVATAR had been carrying on a strap on its back, a miniature linear cannon, into the grassy forest floor for stability. About once every minute, a gust of wind followed by sonic boom would echo through the battlefield as the magnetic gun would fire, its armor penetrating round into the swirling battlefield. The shots always seemed to find their marks, detonating their targets into a fine bloody mist and lodging the shell into the earth, leaving a smoking, three-meter-wide hole in the ground where the projectiles had dug themselves into the terrain.

But the mechanized soldiers had been taking heavy fire, and the damage was starting to show. One AVATAR helping the man known as Phoenix threw himself in front of two bright blue bolts of light from the alien weapons. The first struck the AVATAR in it’s right knee, melting through the armor and joint where it struck, severing the mech’s leg at the point of impact. The next bolt struck his AVATAR’s chest plate. With a burst of light, it boiled through the armor plating on the front of the mech, seared a gaping hole through the pilot sheath and pilot contained within and struck the Chernokov generator in the back of the machine, overloading the device and causing it to detonate in a flash of blue fire, splitting the mech’s torso open. The seventeen foot construct kneeled over and landed face first in the dirt, dead.

Another AVATAR standing in defense of the allied advance took a blue bolt to the neck, shearing off the machine’s head from the impact. For a second, the mech reeled back from the explosion, groping blindly at the missing part, until it’s pilot accessed his emergency sensors in the machines torso. The machine immediately straightened up and continued to fire, seemingly unphased by the loss of it’s head.

The Sergeant Major looked out across the field, running the strategic data through a series of algorithmic simulations. No matter what he did, this wasn’t going to end well. He had to put out the call.


Upper Atmosphere-----------------------------------
Virgil hovered in the air, his bodygaurd floating close by, as he surveyed the situation on the ground. Periodically, he'd see a rippling explosion through his telescopic optic sensors or hear the sonic boom of heavy weapons fire.

Things up there had been far more tranquil. They had been engaged by only three of the alien flyers before they dissappeared, and easily destroyed them all. The Azure Gaurd next to him had adorned his right shoulder with bent plates of alien armor that he had torn from one of the aforementioned fighters he had destroyed. Normally, Virgil frowned upon such trophy taking, but perhaps the psychological effect would give them an edge. A number of his other bodygaurds had adorned their AVATARs with similar trophies, and Virgil had in fact applied a pair of fire-blackened metal plates on his mech's shoulders, knees and chest.

A small beep in his cockpit indicated an incoming transmission. He patched it through. It was audio only, but the sounds of explosions and heavy weapons fire indicated a battle. There was another sound, like a the whooshing noise made by a plasma torch when it was burning too hot, in the background.

"Ascendant! Allied forces have located Phoenix! He is currently being engaged by the alien forces and we have moved to assist him. However, this is a losing battle! We are sustaining heavy damage and the alien aggressors just keep coming-ARRRGH!!" There was a loud metallic bang and an alien wail of pain that faded into the distance, indicating the Sergeant Major had just kicked one of the aliens hard enough to send him sailing into the forest a couple hundred feet away.

"I request immediate EVAC for all allied forces, starting with the man named Phoenix!" A video attachment appeared superimposed over Virgil's vision, showing the crismon-clad man breathing fire like a volcanic eruption, searing aliens with his fiery heat. That must be what was making the whooshing noise he heard in the background. "I also ask you petition the other fleet captains to EVAC their own personnel as soon as Phoenix is safely away! We can't do this all day!"

The audio clicked off and static hissed for a second before Virgil closed the comm channel. He quickly opened a new comm frequency, and networked the comm systems of his own and his bodyguard's AVATARs to boost the signal, and began transmitting to every capital ship in the allied fleet above.

On the Virtue of Might, Ensign Diana set about recording the message for posterity. Her fingers flew over her holographic command panel as she began archiving the transmission. As soon as she had finished saving a copy to each CPU memory core within the Virtue, she retransmitted the live feed back to Sanctuary via accelerated signal for the council and the Chancellor to review.

The signal was video and audio, using the internal cockpit camera of Virgil's AVATAR to record the image. Suspended in a tangled web of blinking wires, fabric harnesses and neural interfaces, eyes glowing a boiling plasma blue and his remaining features cast in shadow by the dimly pulsing blue light emanating from the Chernokov generator spinning behind him, his appearance was startling.

"All allied craft, this is Heir Ascendant Virgil Castro, commander of the Second Alliance forces. Our allied forces have made contact with the pyrokinetic we believe is the target individual, Phoenix." An attached video file popped up parallel to Virgil's face of the Sergeant Major's recording of the firebreather torching aliens with his burning breath. "He is currently engaged by superior enemy forces. We have moved in to support him, but things aren’t going so well from what I hear…” Yet another attachment appeared next to Virgil’s glowing blue eyes, this one the audio only transmission of his Sergeant Major.

“My officers think this is a battle we cannot win as it stands. The Sergeant Major whose audio transmission you have all received has requested an immediate EVAC of Phoenix, followed by all allied personnel. They say this fight isn’t winnable as it is. They say we should just grab Phoenix and run…” Virgil paused in mid-sentence, looking away from the camera as if considering something. Then he ran his fingers over a series of instruments and turned back to his camera.

On the bridge of the Broadsword, everyone watching got the unnerving sensation he was looking back at them through the camera feed, “Greywatch Captain, I am certain I can offer some assistance. Our objective is to secure Phoenix for transport safely back to your ship, correct? If you would allow me and provide me with the coordinates of a docking bay, I can get Phoenix out of here. My Azure Guard and I have stayed at an elevation of a few thousand feet above ground level to avoid attracting further unwanted attention from the alien aggressors, observing and coordinating the search team. We can drop into the battlezone at a moments notice. My bodyguards are excellent warriors, and until your troops can be extracted they can fortify your positions from attack. I can land next to Phoenix, grab him and spacefold the both of us back to the Broadsword. He should be completely safe during the process, and it’ll free up the rest of our forces to get back to the pressing job of getting the hell out of there. So long as you give me the coordinates of a hangar that's filled with air, there will be no danger of suffocation or other hazards of space travel on Phoenix’s part. There might be minimal concussive damage to the hangar’s interior, but nothing more serious than scratched paint and tossed boxes.”

Virgil’s glowing eyes settled directly on the female captain. “Are you game for this, captain?” He waited for her response.

Plains/Klikiss Base:

Under the supervision of a Domate the Klikiss drones had effectivly turned the base into an expanse of smooth rock hard resin, the ground had been flattened into a level plain and covered in a diamond hard resin, two storey high walls seven meters thick had been erected around the base, tesla coils hummed in readiness for any possible alien attacks and all variety of Klikiss sub-types poured in and out of the transportal, their numbers in the base rarely exceeded two hundred at a time, but thousands of drones passed in and out of the Hive Ship; it was this which allowed them to accomplish tasks quickly.

They begain moving large pieces of crude mechanical equiptment into the base, for now they seemed to simply stack it into varying groups, several marching lines of drones also began to construct several squat like buildings in the base.

Forest:

The Klikiss flyers came across the clearing in the forest, they felt something that could only be described as a faint vibration emminating from a creature spouting flames battling the alien horde. As the flyers themselves flew over the battleground they saw the Second Alliances mechanoid fighting drones stomp out across the field, slaughtering many of the aliens but taking damages, they used their specially adapted antenae to pick up on radio signals which were sent by the various forces out here.

The Breedex knew all to well that her flyers were not going to change the tide of the battle, and she was also pertubed by how so many resources were be squandered on this particular... creature. Perhap's it's value, apart from it's ability to tap into the multiverse, made the sacrifice of other forces worthwhile; although she could not see what other's had to gain from this.

Nonetheless, her forces were expendable, but she couldn't help here, not now they were evacuating. Still, perhaps she could accomplish something else that was useful...

The Flyers buzzed low through the battlefield, they were quick and nimble despite their large size. They knoced aliens aside, picked them up by their heads and slung them away across the field, they fired a flurry of energy blasts at a group of the creatures harrying the Second Alliance. Finally however the Breedex saw her target, one of the aliens slightly seperated from the group; the flyers dove in.

One of the flyers flew striaght into the chest of the creature, it's momentum and size working to it's advantage. They tumbled for a moment before the flyer skidded away from the alien, before it could recover however a flyer landed, or rather impacted, on top of the creature, nearly knocking it into unconsciousness. The flyer used it's multitude of limbs to pin the alien down, another flyer scurried to help secure it whilst the other three took to shooting anything which dared to look in their direction. Thankfully they were at the edge of the battle and the Second Alliance and the "Phoenix" were attracting most of the attention.

Using a sticky glue like substance which the flyers shot out of specialised areas in their mouth they tangled the creature in a bundle of gloopy mess. With that done, the two flyers grabbed the nearly unconcious alien and took off surrounded by the other three. Their part of the battle done they headed back to the base.

Forest

"What in the hell..."

Veronius and the other stormtroopers stared in awe as the man in flames moved around in lightning speed, decapitating any and all enemy soldiers in the immediate area. It was like something out of a holofilm, or one of those things that an Angenterian Psychic can do. As it faded, and energy bolt came out of nowhere, turning the head of one of the Stormtroopers into nothing more then discolored mush.


"GET TO COVER!" Veronius shouted, as follow-up energy bolts whizzed around him. He dived for cover behind a fallen tree, as the recovering stormtroopers began to take cover behind rocks, trees, in shrubs, anything that would shield them from enemy fire. As he'd come to expect, the stormtroopers return fire was quick and decisive. The bang of a grenade could be heard in the direction of the Telros Marines, as enemy fire began to focus on them. This was their chance. Veronius unsheathed his power sword from his hilt, and flipped the activation rune, as it hummed to life. Blue energy crackled around the curved, saber-like blade as he held it in his hand.

He went for his comm-bead, and shouted.

"Advance!"

Slowly but surely, the stormtroopers began to move from cover, one half of the squad providing covering fire, and the other half advancing.

OOC: Placeholder

Forest:

The aliens began to notice the battle going south for them, for all their numbers, the enemy was very determined. They immediately began focusing more on gathering information than actual fighting. The mechs were very interesting; they were obviously not living creatures for they could function without heads, though shots in the chest worked very well. The other enemy forces looked much like the Greywatchers that had been slaughtered before, but with different armors. The Klikiss apparently were some sort of insect, and not very strategic, if the two fliers thought they were unnoticed, they were underestimating their enemy a great deal and were fired upon as soon as they were seen by every other enemy nearby. There was no getting away from combat, the enemy had plenty of hidden turrets placed in the forest and these turrets were more than happy to melt the armor and flesh of anything and everything stupid enough to ignore them. As soon as a mech went down the enemy began to move forward a little more, they wanted the fire breather. The Greywatch team, knowing the dangers of what Phoenix was doing, were more than anxious at the moment. No one knew how long Phoenix had been using that ability. A few moments after the aliens took down the single mech, Phoenix too hit the ground. It was what the Greywatchers had feared; he’d overused his Cryptic abilities. “FUCK!” Screamed one of the soldiers, “All Greywatch teams, move in! MOVE IN, NOW! Drones, take the enemy; Leanorians, work on our boy; heavies, shred THEM!” The Greywatch teams took no time in doing their respective jobs. Scouts and snipers began taking enemies at long range from hard-to-reach locations. Leanorians jumped from cover and began their death-sprint to their fallen comrade, the occasional soldier being torn in two by a passing bolt. Drones fought to cover their teammates but the sheer number of enemies made this beyond difficult. Many of the Leanorians went from running to crawling as it was much safer. While no one was looking, and it was easy to get distracted on this battlefield, the alien that Phoenix had been with earlier dragged him to safety. When things looked grim for both sides, there was a sudden noise, very similar to the one that had sounded across the plains. Just like before, all the aliens, including those captured by the Klikiss, vanished into nothingness, even the turrets were gone. There was a moment of silence before the sudden scream of a soldier was heard, “SHIT!” There was the sound of a helmet hitting the ground, “What the FUCK was all this for?! They come and go as they fucking well please! How the hell do we fight that?!” Another soldier grabbed the man and shook him violently, “Get your shit together, soldier. We have Phoenix, and that’s what matters.” The other soldier said nothing and pulled away. A Leanorian found Phoenix only a short distance away, she lifted her rifle, “Contact! Looks like one of the natives!” Other soldiers were on her position in a heartbeat. One of the human soldiers pulled off his helmet, “Who are you?” He demanded, taking a step forward, the alien backed away quickly, earning a deep sigh from the soldier, “I have no time for this, Leanorians.” One of the remaining Leanorian soldiers removed her own helmet, revealing her lion-like features. She got on her knees, removed Phoenix’s helmet, and began performing what looked like mouth-to-mouth on him…

Bridge:

The captain listened to Virgil’s message and watched the clips he provided before opening up a live session in video. “I hear your concerns Captain and I understand your desire to retreat for now. While I would agree that this is a battle that may not be winnable at the moment… Greywatch will not be leaving the system until we have more answers as to the nature of these aliens and their purpose here. We still wish to find out what happened to the natives and our own people. If you can get Phoenix here safely then I would appreciate it.” She looked back to one of her officers who nodded and began transmitting coordinates. She looked back to the screen, “The coordinates should be on their way right now.” Her comms officer looked up, “Ma’am message from the surface. Looks like we have comms back.” The captain nodded, “It must’ve been blocking our signal only, put it through.” The comms officer nodded and played the message came through from the surface so Virgil could listen in.

“Captain, we’ve got Phoenix, the hostile forces have left the area. We think they may be blinkers, some kind of teleportation tech. They come out of nowhere and then leave. There’s nothing, no bodies, weapons, armor… anything we could use is gone. Interesting thing, when they left, there was some loud echoing sound, like a horn or something. A siren or retreating call, not too sure what it really was though. Phoenix has gone into shock; he used way too much Cryptic energy in this battle. Also, we’ve made a contact with one of the natives, I have no idea where it came from but it was pretty strong, being able to drag Phoenix to safety when he went into shock. But that’s beside the point, we can only guess this area is way too heavily fortified to just be some forest. There has to be a base here, and I think Prime needs to know so we can get some proper backup.”

The captain nodded, “I see, what do you recommend?”

“Nothing large ma’am, but nothing small. We need to scout out the area, then we need some light artillery and some vehicles to provide a distraction. If we can get a proper strike force inside the base, we can neutralize it and not draw the attention of something bigger. Or that’s my hope.”

She thought for a moment, staring off into space, before fixing her eyes on Virgil, “I will contact Greywatch Prime and see if I can get the proper reinforcements. I’ll be sending more people down to the surface as of now; I suggest you do the same. We might want a little fortification there if these bastards come back. I’m sorry this is so sudden; captain, but I must contact Prime. I’ll be sure to contact you when I’m done, please forward the reinforcement message to everyone else; we don’t want anything large, perhaps light vehicles and heavy infantry for now.” The captain looked to her comms officer and the channel was closed before a new one was opened to Greywatch Prime...

Fifteen minutes later, orbit:

After a short talk with the commanders back in Prime, three more Greywatch ships PSR-ed into the system. One of them was a fully loaded Worldslayer, sitting at a comfortable 40Km in length and moving at a very slow speed. It was certainly threatening to look at but its purpose was simple: if the Greywatch teams needed quick, temporary bases, the Worldslayer would blink the materials to the surface. The Worldslayer could also provide an army and plenty of light and heavy vehicles, fallen gods forbid the situation coming to that, this was still to remain a primarily stealth operation. The other two ships were two Clouds; they looked innocent enough while just following the Worldslayer. They were puny compared to its size, but a lot of ships in Greywatch were considered small in comparison to the Worldslayers. As soon as the Worldslayer arrived it put out a message to everyone in the system:

<This is Greywatch Worldslayer, The Warhorse. We are here delivering a message to all in the area: After careful consideration by a few of Greywatch’s commanders, it has been determined that we had to be called in. We will not interfere with your operations, so please do not interfere with ours. We are all on the same team, but the purpose of this Worldslayer being in the region is simply to provide greater security and greater efficiency. That is all the information I can offer as of the moment. Warhorse, out.>

The captain listened to the message and watched as the behemoth slowing exited PSR some several hundreds of kilometers away. As it moved forward, she began working on a message to send out. She knew the situation had to be serious for Clouds to be sent in, those things were beyond dangerous to anything and everything on the surface, hopefully they wouldn’t be used.

Plains:

The Greywatch representative emerged from the transport and looked around. He immediately sighed, he already knew this was going to be difficult. He was dressed in a brown and silver uniform and wore no armor; it didn’t look like he carried any weapons either. His black was short and combed back out of his face, his green eyes looked at the massive insects and their structures. This place was about as safe as sitting in ground zero before an ion strike. But that was an issue for later; right now, he and two guards proceeded to the entrance of the base. He was relaxed and smoked a cigarette on his way there.

OOC: (Post Placeholder.)

Upper Atmosphere----------------------------------------
Virgil listened to the Captain's words calmly. When he heard the Greywatch soldier speak of the strange horn that signaled the alien recall, he realized he had heard it. Faintly, on the extreme edge of his augmented hearing. Perhaps if he could get a few of his engineers on isolating the source of the signal and developing some method of countering it, they could prevent the aliens from retreating... it was a long shot but worth keeping in mind. When the captain had finished speaking Virgil nodded, the glow of his eyes becoming a markedly softer shade of blue.

"Sounds good to me. I'm sorry, I choose my words poorly before: when I said grab Phoenix and run, I meant to temporarily retreat back to our ships, not leave the system entirely. These creatures have not yet shown any form of space travel, so until they do, our starships would be as far as I think we'd need to retreat at any time."

Virgil smiled, his teeth highlighted in the dark by the glowing ambient light of his cockpit.

"Also, Captain, you can simply call me Virgil. There's no need to stick to titles, and even if there was, my military rank is technically Heir Ascendant. Seeing as that's a mouthful, Virgil is quite fine. Much more pleasant than the big, scary titles we go by.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Reinforcements on our part won't be necessary for now, seeing as the Dominus-class Carrier at the back of our fleet holds more than enough troops in stasis wracks for any military ops we may wish to engage. I'll be in the hangar shortly, Phoenix in tow. If you have any men or women in the room, get them out! I don't want to injure anyone with the concussion of our reentry!"

Virgil terminated the communication and nodded ever so slightly to his orbiting bodyguards. They nodded back, and together cut their engines, diving for the battlefield in a large circular formation.

Plains--------------------------------------------
Down on the ground, things were progressing as well as could be expected. The surviving AVATARs were helping out any way they could. Some provided muscle to help clear out debris or extend and improve the simple trenches they had dug earlier. Other's assisted the wounded, carrying three to four men at a time to the shade at the edge of the forest where they could be stabilized for medivac.

Dan Valgoth was cleaning his AVATAR's rifle when he heard a soft, distant whistling, like the dropping of a heavy object from a great height... when from across the clearing, a soldier gasped and pointed to the sky. Looking up, Dan saw something that made him drop his rifle: plummeting well beyond terminal velocity was the AVATAR of Heir Ascendant Virgil, surrounded by his Azure Guard's AVATARs, a burning blue corona of energy propelling them towards the ground.

The machines continued their controlled fall until they were about fifty feet from the ground, and in a burst of charged blue particles, they righted themselves and landed safely with a thud, leaving the imprint of their footpads in the dust. Virgil turned towards Dan and saluted. Dan's AVATAR fumbled his rifle, trying and failing to pick it up, until he just gave up on it and snapped to attention akwardly.

"Pilot C-41, where is Pheonix. I hear he is in need of immediate medical transport."

The Dan's AVATAR pointed towards the Leonarian bent over the prone man. Virgil jogged over quickly, he footfalls thudding softly in the dirt. Noticing the Leonarian was resusitating the soldier, he gently picked them both up in his hands.

"Hang on to him, the rentry is going to be harsh..."

Stepping away from the rest of the group, Virgil focused. His AVATAR's generator glowed brilliant blue, and with a loud, ear-popping bang adn a brief flash of light, the heir and his passengers vanished, leaving a large crater beneath where he and Phoenix were a moment before-

Broadsword Hangar------------------------------------
-And reappearing with another flash and horrific bang in the hangar bay, hurling dust and debris across the room, sending boxes and unsecured cargo flying from the concussive blast. Virgil hung unto the two soldiers firmly, making sure not to crush them or let them be flung away. After the gale of wind subsided, Virgil set the two down gently.

After a quick exit from his AVATAR, Virgil stepped to Phoenix's side and checked his vitals opposite the Leonarian. Looking up, he tapped into his internal comms to boost the sound of his voice like a megaphone.

"SOMEBODY GET THIS MAN SOME MEDICAL TREATMENT, HE IS GOING INTO SYSTEMIC SHOCK!!"

He waited for the medical personnel to show up, and made a point to stay by the wounded man's side with the Leonarian. He wanted to speak to Pheonix when he woke up: there were many questions he might be able to answer that could help them all...

OOC: Did the Leanorian go with him?

“I have no time for this, Leanorians.” One of the remaining Leanorian soldiers removed her own helmet, revealing her lion-like features. She got on her knees, removed Phoenix’s helmet, and began performing what looked like mouth-to-mouth on him…

(OOC: If she didn't let go of Pheonix, Virgil would have picked up the both of them, so if it makes it easier, Yes, she's with him too. I'll edit my earlier post to say that. Just to give you the idea on how space-folding works in the future so there's no confusion:

When Virgil, or his AVATAR, or a starship that can spacefold activates it's fold generator, the device effectively takes the jumper and everything within a spherical safety zone of about twenty feet around them, including dirt, people, debris, and literally bends the universe until the point of destination (point 'B') is the same as the point of launch (point 'A').

Then, with a huge extradmensional push, it condenses all that traveling matter from the co-existing Point 'A' into the exact center of Point 'B', compressing all that matter into the space of a sphere well under a micron in diameter. The universe then unfolds and physics kick in again, causing the object to explosively expand to it's original size, also explosively displacing any matter at it's arrival point, creating a sort of sonic boom or concussive explosion. At the launch point, the absence of matter is replaced with a brief but powerful vacuum, sucking in matter and debris until the displacement of mass is balanced again. The phenomenon is called a Doppler-sonic displacement, or 'double bang' by Alliance personnel.

In summary, if you need a ride... then get into the bubble of transported mass, and you can bum a ride along with the actual folding object, just make sure you hold on to something solid, or you could be thrown quite hard by the explosive reexpansion. Pheonix and the Leonorian would be fine, because they are being held by the steady hands of an AVATAR.

Anyway, there, science lesson over. :D)

Forest
Veronius looked around in shock as the enemy soldier he was sure he was about to decapitate with his power simply vanished into thin-air, and didn't seem to notice that he was still swinging his sword, which had chopped unnecessarily at a fallen branch. As if in response, the background noise of the battle around him simply seemed to stop, as if someone had been watching a holo-film, and had decided to hit the stop button. He flipped the de-activation rune, and the sword, once cackling with blue energy, became a simple blade again. He sheathed it, and lowered his autopistol. He couldn't comprehend what had just happened. The enemy had just...went away. A teleportation device on each soldier couldn't have been so accurate as to have every single enemy teleport out only a split-second away from each other. It simply wasn't possible.

He looked toward his soldiers, noticing with gratitude that most of them had survived the battle. They seemed just has confused as he was, and that comforted him. At least he wasn't crazy. A distant ruffling in the brushes interupped his train of thought, and he whirled around, autopistol raised. He hadn't expected to see the form of Inquisitor Tarsus emerging from the brush, retinue in tow. Without flinching at the raised gun, he approached his acolyte.

"What happened here, Veronius?"

Veronius blinked, as of taking a moment to recognize his own name. "We spotted our man, that Phoenix character you told us about, but we were ambushed by the enemy."

"The enemy?"

"That's what I said. We were able to fight them off, but right as we had them, they just sort of...disappeared."

"They teleported?"

"No. They just...went away. I-I don't know, boss, they just left. Maybe they have a better idea of what happened." Veronius gestured towards the remaining Greywatch soldiers, who were all standing around in what seemed like systematic shock."

Tarsus looked at his man for a moment. Confusion was stapled all over his face, and it didn't take an Inquisitor to figure out that something big had happened. He nodded curtly, and approached the Greywatch soldiers.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Imperial Destoyer
Justified Cause
Engine Bay

"Okay! We're ready to try it out."

"Get that cable hooked up!"

"Clear the engine well!"

Noise from scurrying enginseers and shouting voices filled the engine bay of the ship, as repair crews scurried out of the way of the engine well. They were going to try to jump-start the warp-engines (think of something similar to jumper cables, but much, much, much larger.) Hours of running full systems diagnostics and manual inspections had turned up nothing. Everything was working as it should be. So what, then, was the problem. The ship wasn't nearly old enough to have it's engines start sputtering out on it.

"Everyone's ready sir. Shall we proceed?"

Chief Enginseer Dracus looked toward his aide. Hours of frustration was starting to get to him. He had spent so long making sure everything in this ship was in perfect working order. Up until now, he thought he had been doing a splendid job.

"Yes, go ahead."

His aide nodded, and passed along the message, from his position on the catwalk, he was able to see an enginseer flipping a switch near a massive power cable hooked up to the warp-engine structure. They were gonna force it to start.

As soon as the switch was touched, a large burst of power flowed up the cables, flowing into the massive engine structure.

Suddenly, the engines began to flutter to life. The sound of the roaring engines filled the room, and something of a smile began to form on Dracus' heavily augmented face.

The rest happened so suddenly. A sudden grinding noise from the portside engine could be heard, and suddenly, it combusted. Fire and smoke filled the air, and the massive power cable erupted into a zap of electric energy, coating the room in high-voltage shards. Enginseers flew back from the explosion, and others were electrocuted by the high-voltage cable. Others were sucked out into the void of space, before cranking pressure doors sealed off the hull breach that had formed where the bottom tip of the portside engine had been.

Dracus looked on, horrified at the spectacle below him. It was total chaos, in every sense of the word. Emergency Klaxons blared, and a voice repeating "FIRE CONTROL TEAMS TO PORTSIDE ENGINES" repeated over and over. He buried his head in his hands, wondering how many had just died.

From the outside, it seemed that a small part of Angenterian ship had just spontaneously combusted for no reason.

(OOC: Perhaps I need to explain a bit here. The engine room, as you can well imagine, is a massive area at the aft of the ship. Because if it's sheer immensity, only those near the port side would have been harmed by the actual explosion, and subsequently electrocuted. It may seem a little far-fetched right now, but it's the best I can come up with at 2:30 in the morning. I'm going to bed.)

Forest:

The Klikiss flyers holding the alien suddenly shot up into the air as their burdens simply dissapeared. Bussing around in an immensly confused manner they simply accepeted that the creature had somehow dissapeared; along with the others. It seemed that they were using something far more advanced than mere teleportation, after all, their prisoner had most definatly not had the chance to utilise some hidden piece of equiptment upon itself.

Quickly reassessing the situation the Breedex simply watched the other forces below her to see how they reacted.

Klikiss Base/Plains:

Noticing the Greywatch representatives entering the base the Breedex dispatched one of her drones carrying a translation box to met with them. Threading it's way through the marching convoy of workers it approached the delegation party:

"Welcome to my hive of operations, now you are here perhaps you can commence enlightening me on the way your species approaches such a situation; seeing as this is your situation to manage. But if you could follow me to a more appropriate place to speak"

The worker than proceeded to walk a winding path around the drones which scurried about, dragging items of equiptment to and fro through the base.

Orbit:

The Hive Ships detection equiptment instantly picked up the massive gravitational disturbance, along with the immese vessel itself, the moment it entered the system. Unseen to the other races the Breedex instantly brought her ship up to combat readiness, but was quickly assured, or rather unnerved, by the vessels message:

<This is Greywatch Worldslayer, The Warhorse. We are here delivering a message to all in the area: After careful consideration by a few of Greywatch’s commanders, it has been determined that we had to be called in. We will not interfere with your operations, so please do not interfere with ours. We are all on the same team, but the purpose of this Worldslayer being in the region is simply to provide greater security and greater efficiency. That is all the information I can offer as of the moment. Warhorse, out.>

A friend but evidently not a helpful one for now. Keeping her weapon and defensive systems primed, she chose to carefully, if rudely, ignore it. In anycase, her attention was suddenly diverted by the Angenterian Star Destroyer seeming to spontaneously explode. Exerting control over every member of her Hive she was able to respond quickly, the two accompanying Swarm Ships broke into their smaller box like craft and pell melled towards the Star Destroyer. The Hive Ships outer transportal shimmered to reveal it's hanger as a variety of vessels and equiptment began filtering out to approach the Star Destroyer; since the Breedex did not know what to expect, and fearing that the aliens may have managed to "teleport" onto the Angenterian vessel she also dispathced some warriors. To ensure that the Angenterians did not get the wrong idea however she quickly composed a message of assurance:

"Attention Angenterian vessel. It would appear that your vessel has undergone some form of failure. Please state the nature of this failure. The imbound craft have the intention of aiding you in any manner possible, please respond."

Hell reigned in that forest. Energy fire criss-crossed the clearing with supreme intensity and the Telrosian Marines realized they were in a bad situation. Their technology was behind compared to these other powers and they were facing aliens that were giving them horrendous amounts of trouble. The squad leader ducked behind a rock as blasts of energy ripped apart an unfortunate Marine whom didn't have time to duck back down. Blood splattered everywhere as burnt flesh and melted metal slumped to the ground. "DIRECT YOUR FIRE MARINES. ON MY MARK.....MARK!" He aimed at one of the enemies, and proceeded to let loose with a hail of armor-piercing bullets. The following reports from the remaining Marines around him filled the air with staccato-bursts of death, as they poured fire in. They hardly noticed Phoenix's fall as they saw the mechs fall and their troops struggling. It would not be long before they were overrun. Even as they managed to kill a few, they were still too strong.

Then their HUD beeped and Amerin, with the rest of the teams, came charging into the clearing, their weapons filling the air with hot lead. Just then, however, the strange sound from before was heard and they vanished again. The Marine squad leader sighed with relief and proceeded to check the dead. Amerin, meanwhile, directed the other teams to secure the area and began to walk up to the downed Greywatch operative, for whom several of his well-trained men and women had died for. He wanted to see the being they had saved with the blood and sweat of Telrosians, not to mention other beings. Only to have him vanish along with the Alliance team. Gritting his teeth, he took a breath and let it out. Turning to the squad leader, he nodded to him and spoke. "Status report?"

The squad leader tensed. "Five dead, three wounded, one critically. That firefight, as short as it was, took a beating on us, sir." Amerin bit back a curse; the Boss Lady was not going to like this.

"Understood, Squad Leader. Take the marines, collect our dead and make for the evac point. Have the dropships take you to the Klikiss base, we'll use that as a temporary command post. I will join you soon, I just need to give a report to the Captain."

He saluted. "Aye sir." As he roared out orders and Marines began to move, Amerin keyed his comm and sent a channel to Jaina. He tried to ignore the bodies being carried by Marines as Jaina's face came up.

"I read weapons fire on the sensors, Sergeant. What's going on down there?"

"Nothing good, ma'am. The Greywatch operative was secured and taken away by some wormhole device. We...lost five marines, and three wounded. One will need medical attention ASAP."

He watched as her face rippled with tense motions as she struggled to control herself. "Understood. Just get to the base and we'll see what happens next." The channel died and Amerin hefted his gun before heading after his soldiers...

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

Jaina read the sudden discharge of FTL disturbances and saw the Worldslayer come in. Her eyes widened as the immense ship appeared and sent out a message. She took a breath and let it out. They called this support; she called it desperation. By God, that thing was massive. She decided to send a nominal "understood" message to the Warhouse and then returned to focusing on the mission down at the planet.

Broadsword Bridge/Hanger:

The captain nodded,

<Understood on both accounts… Virgil. I will have a medical team on standby.>
She then turned attention to the Angenterian vessel,

<We’ve detected an explosion on your vessel. Do you require assistance?>

The captain sighed; this was going to be even more difficult than she originally thought. But at least they had Phoenix, that was something. At least the Ministry of War wouldn’t have her head. Though the Worldslayer’s presence didn’t make her comfortable with the situation, something bad was about to happen.

Immediately after everything had calmed down two medical teams entered the empty hanger. The Leanorian with Phoenix looked up, “Please give me a little warning next time…” she said calmly, looking back to Phoenix and continued what she was doing, the medical teams standing around her. “Report.” Said one of the medics, a human dressed in all white and wearing a mask. The Leanorian didn’t say anything at first and continued with what she was doing; within a few seconds Phoenix began to cough violently resulting in an accidental kiss, something very common with this particular skill. The Leanorian brought her head back, letting Phoenix get some air. “Well, how do you feel, you human you.” The Leanorian said with a smile. Phoenix looked around, taking in everything, “Where the hell am I? SHIT!” He was suddenly looking all around him, “The alien contact-“ The Leanorian interrupted him, “Still on the surface, now calm down. We’ll blink it up here in a moment.”

Forest:

Soldier looked to one another, chatting amongst themselves about what to do next. Finally, one of the CCTs got together and began to head out once more, to see if there was anything left in the area. The rest of the Greywatchers stood and waited for more orders. A few of them were curious as to where the alien that had been with Phoenix came from. It had decided to hide when they approached, an understandable reaction to a bunch of armored creatures holding guns… but they needed answers, and it wasn’t long until they found the alien. It was a bit of a scuffle at first, until one of the Leanorians knocked it out with the ‘stun’ setting on her gun. A bit much, maybe, but chances were as soon as this creature was brought to Phoenix, it would become much more cooperative. “How many casualties we got?” Asked one of the soldiers, looking around to the others. A Leanorian straightened up, “All right, bring the wounded to us. We’re the resident medics for everyone until further notice.” The soldiers looked around… at least eight of their own were dead, but only a few had been wounded. They had all been prepared for situations like this, Leanorians were incredibly capable healers and the armor Greywatchers wore could typically self repair itself a little, closing up the areas where flesh was exposed.

Orbit:

The Worldslayer opened one set of hanger doors and released several, at least ten, transports into space. The transports didn’t move at first, they seemed to be waiting for something or someone, then they moved to The Broadsword. If anyone were to catch a glance of the inside of the hanger, one would see dozens upon dozens of ships inside, transports and fighters. Obviously, Greywatch was expecting a possible war situation.

Plains:

The rep smiled a bit and took the cigarette from his mouth, “How to handle this? Make sure you don’t keep too many units in this place because the enemy will strike here first, most likely. On that note, do not spread out, if you tell the enemy you’re making a permanent stronghold, they’ll throw everything at you. I suggest sending a few scouts, groups of two, into the area. Chances are, that’ll turn up a little something… Also, keep your plan fluid, if you try defending this place to the death when you’re presented the opportunity to retreat, you risk losing more units that necessary.” He put the cigarette back and looked around, the soldiers behind him saying nothing. He began to talk again, cigarette still in his mouth, “I believe the enemy is using technology similar to Greywatch’s.”

Orbit/Forest:

As if following some invisible cue, one of the transports move forward and headed towards the planet. There was no message to explain what it was doing, it simply moved on its own. Within a few moments, everyone in the forest would here the low hum of the transport above them. It hovered for a few moments without doing anything and then dropped several pods to the forest floor below, taking care not to crush anyone. The pod were about the size of a person, the Greywatchers immediately took this as a time to rejoice and headed off to the containers almost with a sense of glee. The pods slowly opened revealing several items inside; rifles, grenades, pistols, armor rechargers, medical kits, and ammo made up most of the contents. The soldiers began to restock and take whatever they needed. A moment later, three droid materialized on the surface, near the pods, the Greywatchers didn’t even seem to notice. The droids looked to all the different races that were helping in this conflict, “We suggest that anyone who needs a better weapon take one from the containers provided.”

Orbit:

The Hive Ship watched everything which happened in the system, it's defenses were on automatic, the Greywatch forces seemed to be making preperations for something, that made the Breedex slightly more paranoid than usual. In response to this the two accompanying Swarmships broke apart into a flurry of their smaller constituent cuboid vessels, the two great swarming clouds moved towards each other, gradually resolving into s single immense spheroid shaped vessel roughly eight hundred meters in diameter; a far more defensive shape formation.

Plains/Klikiss Base:

The Breedex took in what the representative was saying, weighing the worth of his words initially she was taken aback by the possibility of this race using technology similar to Greywatch's. She was not unduly concerned, she was confident that her races understanding of mathmatics and it's applications far outstripped the mentally restrained Greywatchers; after all a hive mind had it's benefits, one mind but thosands if not millions of brains to think and process information. Nonetheless, their technology was powerful ad not to be taken lightly.

"When you say similar technology do you mean technology that is as efficient as yours, or could possibly be derived from yours? Do you know what could allow them to accomplish a feat similar to teleportation? We have set up equiptment to deal with such possibilities but we are unfamiliar with their method. They are a force to be reckoned with, but if this turns into a war as opposed to a skirmish i will be able to unleash myself upon them, a Great Swarming across this world would trample all who stood in our path."

The Breedex thought for a moment, assessing her situation. Although a great variety of buildings were being constructed she reasoned that if the representative was correct they would merely attract attention. She decided to stop for now, if it turned to war then she would finish the base, for now however it was not worth it. Through the eyes of her hive she took in all that her drones and warriors could see, her forces were gathered in the Hiveship and only a task force of workers were present in the base with an adequate amount of warriors, considering that if the aliens did strike it would not be good for the representative to die under her watch.

"Perhaps you would wish to accompany my domate through the transportal to a more safer location? Perhaps inside my Hiveship's hanger?" Suddenly she was hit with an interesting thought, "or perhaps you would wish to ask permission of your command to travel to the Klikiss Commune to help with communications regarding the current situation, other Hives are interested in these developments and the possibilities they could hold if the situation goes accordingly."

Meanwhile a number of Klikiss flyers, a few dozen or so, head out in different directios to scout out the surrounding area, they buzzed over the base and out and away over the forest...

Forest:

The Klikiss flyers wathed as the pods landed revealing what appeared to be primitive explosive weaponry, not that the Klikiss were unimpressed, Klikiss would happily wield blunderbuss's if it were not for their need to be reloaded. Unable to communicate due to a lack of translation devices, and no other race apart from the Ciscilians havind a record of their language, they simply headed out into different directions to see if there was anything interesting or dangerous the other races should be aware off...

Hangar-------------------------------------------
Virgil smiled and patted the crimson shoulder of the sputtering Pheonix. He relaxed his expression and chuckled for a minute.

"You gave us quite a scare there, pal. Good thing you-" Virgil paused, "did whatever you did back there, or we'd still be looking for you."

"Just relax and calm down, the battle is over... for the moment. The alien aggressors have pulled back and as of now our forces are no longer engaged. I doubt that will last, but for now, even temporary respite is better then none."

Virgil held out his hand to Pheonix, "My name is Virgil Castro, twenty-third Heir Ascendant of the Commonwealth of the Second Alliance of Human Nations, but you can just call us the Second Alliance and call me Virgil. We're allies of Greywatch, as are the other forces assembled in this little ad hoc fleet of ours."

He also nodded towards the Leonarian and grinned, "And I'm sorry about the rough ride. I'll try to give you a better warning next time I hurl us bodily across space and time."

Hanger:

The Leanorian nodded to Virgil as Phoenix took a minute to take in everything, espescially the fact that the person talkig to him was in a mech. The medical team did their job, performing basic scans on Phoenix's body and his armor, one of the members nodded, "You're body seems to have recovered quite well, despite your overuse of Cryption." The Leanorian cleared her throat causing the man to smile, "And of course, we owe you one as well." The Leanorian closed her eyes and smiled, having gotten her message across. Finally, Phoenix spoke, "So... Greywatch has got a few allies... and you're gonna help us figure out what the hell is going on? Sounds good to me." Phoenix rose to his feet, "Well, you'll all be happy to know I was not being useless while wandering around on the surface..."

OOC: Post placeholder. I gotta go to my night class.

Orbit

Captain Rhesa was up on her feet, snapping out orders in a crisp, commanding voice that befitted an officer of her position. It was a trait she kept mostly to herself, as she liked to keep a facade of delicateness around her, and surprise an unsuspecting person at the time, or when a dire emergency.

This situation, she feared, was of the latter.

Warning klaxons continued to blare throughout the ship, and crewmen were scurrying about two and fro, receiving damage reports and the like. Emergency crews had begun to extract burnt enginseers from the engine room, and the infirmary was seeing action as if they were participating in a major fleet engagement.

"Update on that damage report!" She shouted.

"Ma'am! Hull breach in port engine room has been successfully sealed by pressure doors! Fire control teams are attempting to contain the resulting fire!"

"Evacuate and seal decks 3-6!" Those decks were those that has access to the engine room in some manner. If something went wrong, they'd be the first affected. "What about the engines?"

"Portside engine has suffered extensive damage. We won't be able to get it working again without going into dry-dock. Until then, we're moving on a single engine."

That was a scary thought. They couldn't plot an accurate warp-jump with just one engine, or even use impulse drive accurately. They were stuck there.

Rhesa cursed under her breath. There was nothing internal that could have possibly caused this. The ship was running perfectly before this.

"Ma'am!" An officer shouted amongst the chaos of the bridge "Incoming transmission!"


"Attention Angenterian vessel. It would appear that your vessel has undergone some form of failure. Please state the nature of this failure. The imbound craft have the intention of aiding you in any manner possible, please respond."


<We’ve detected an explosion on your vessel. Do you require assistance?>

Rhesa had been expecting this. It was only natural that the aliens would ask what was wrong, after seeing an explosion like that. They needed to reply anyway, or else they would just get more nervous.

Klikiss vessel,
There has been an explosion in our port-side. An unaccounted number of crewmen have been incapacitated, and there are reports of fire in the engine room.

Greywatch Vessel,
Our port side engine has detonated, and there are reports of fire in the engine room. The situation is under control.

As if the First Emperor had a terrible sense of humor, another officer chimed in, bearing more bad news.

"Ma'am! Incoming vessel! By the gods, this thing is huge!" His eyes had visibly widened at the prospect of such a massive vessel.

"What?" Rhesa turned her eyes to the view-port, and gazed in amazement. She had heard of Greywatch Worldslayers from her Xenotechnology class in the academy, but seeing one in actuality compated to seeing a small holo-pict was quite a different experience. The thing was massive, and positively bristling with all sorts of equipment and weaponry. It like the Greywatch were going to try something big.

Rhesa wondered why her hair wasn't visibly turning gray from the stress.

Orbit/Surface:

Two more transports headed to the surface, but they landed in a different area and held a much different cargo. The area they were in was another part of the forest, an area that was much less dense. Out of the two transports came men dressed in black, all black. And behind them came seven foot tall, black, armored machines. One of the men was different, he wielded a large silver and black spear. He pointed in one direction and the three droids who had accompanied the group headed off in that direction while also activating stealth mode. The other men began to spread out in three-man groups. The lead man waited until everyone else was gone before moving out on his own. The two transports, their job done, took off and headed back to the Worldslayer.

Broadsword, Bridge:

The captain listened to the message from the Angenterians and nodded. She waited for a moment before sending a message back.

If you need help, don't be shy about asking. Chances are you can dock in the Worldslayer if need be. And we've got engineers aplenty.

(OOC: tag for future post)

Orbit:

The Breedex hummed to herself whilst she listened to the Angenterian message:

There has been an explosion in our port-side. An unaccounted number of crewmen have been incapacitated, and there are reports of fire in the engine room.

She knew that many species liked to not appear weak, indeed it was often a covert weapon to appear more powerful than one was. But nonetheless in certain situations it was a redundant tactic; with this in mind she sent back a reassurance:

"If you require repairs my drones and egineers can do so quickly and efficiently. If you are concerned about letting another party onto your ship then we are happy to do repairs externally."

(OOC: just so you know Grey, I had posted that Virgil had jumped out of his AVATAR in my last post. It was easy to miss in that honking big post, so no worries. Oh, and sorry for not posting here in a millenium, I just had this horrible writers block...)

Virgil cocked his eyebrow. This Pheonix fellow was turning out to be quite resourceful...

"I take it you managed to get some intel on our obnoxiously persistant foes then, or are we talking about something else?"

"The fact that their tech is similar to Greywatch's. Our forces are standing in what is essentially a blink scape of sorts. Meaning the enemy is everywhere and nowhere at once. They can come and go as they please without any troubles whatsoever, there is no real defense against this. The next thing you know, they might start blinking bombs into the area. The reason they haven't is probably because they wish to capture our technology... or it could be that the blink network is only able to handle specific things. It also isn't a complete blink network, this is following a 'what goes up must come down' sort of idea. They can teleport into an area, but must come back. That sound you heard was the siren to tell the enemy to stop firing their weapon lest they shot their kin when they arrived back at base. I know this because it happened twice before I actually got into a firefight, and I also manage to locate some of the devices their using to maintain the blink scape." Phoenix sighed, "My master taught be analyze my foes carefully." The Leanorian got to her feet, "This is the reaosn Phoenix is so important. He's more than just your everyday soldier, he has Cryption. A human with Cryption is nearly a one in a million occurance. His kind are very rare, and very gifted. Even the Leanorian have to admit that humans blessed with Cryption are in a whole different league." Phoenix blushed a little, "Well, I do what I can."

The marines managed to reach the evac point at a fair clip, being joined after a few minutes by Sergeant Amerin whom continued to lead them on. A stoic silence was heard by all as they walked; they had lost several good men and women on the very first skirmish. It was hard to imagine how they could fight an enemy which tore through their every defense and tactic with such ease. How could they fight an enemy which could fire energy that ripped through their armor like paper? Thoughts like this were fought against but still worried the soldiers of the Colonies.

They reached the evac point, and within minutes, the dropships came down and the soldiers, dead, wounded, or living, filed into the hovering craft. Their engines flared when all were aboard and lifted them into the air before shifting to head towards the Klikiss base. Escorted by more interceptors, they made good time and landed, the active soldiers getting out to join up with the group assigned to defend the alien base and the dropships lifted off once more, to take their dead cargo to the ship, where they would be prepared for full military honors for when all the soldiers could be present.

Amerin noticed a Greywatch person talking to a Klikiss. Stepping forward, he saluted and then began to speak. "Excuse me, I am Sergeant Amerin of the Colonial Marines. Forgive me for intruding, but I wanted to know what your goals were now that we've retrieved the lost team and your operative. I need to know so the Boss Lady can be informed and we can make our moves."

Virgil considered the Cryptic user's words. While the specifics of "blinking" were not known to him, the basic idea was simple enough for him to grasp with only three of his aspects pouring over the concept. Within two seconds, he felt confident enough to begin discussing the subject.

"I see. The similarities between their teleportation and your 'blinking' system did occur to me more than once..." Virgil stroked his chin in contemplation.

"So if I'm following correctly, the idea is much like jumping into the air under the influence of gravity: you move temporarily and eventually return to your original position. You mentioned a blink-scape, so I assume it is some sort of field or designated area where these creatures can actually blink..." He stroked his chin again and cycled his aspects over the concept.

"It seems we thusly have only two options then: The first and most obvious is to disrupt this 'blinkscape' and remove their ability to spontaneously withdraw and summon reinforcements, thusly forcing them to engage our forces on our terms. Under that scenario we should be able to gain enough advantage to win this little war."

"The other option I can think of is to use this forced return to our advantage somehow, such as sticking our foes with a bomb and having them teleport it back to there base of operations, or having our own troops hitch rides from these aliens to their base, pinpoint it's location and engage them where they live. All the teleportation in the world won't do them any good if they have nowhere to run to."

Virgil turned towards Pheonix and the Leanorian female, eyes glowing blue from the digital taxing of his augemented mind, a pleasant smile on his face none the less. "Any other ideas you can think of? How about you..." he turned towards the Leanorian female only to grasp at the air for a name.

"I'm sorry, what is your name? I don't believe I caught it..."

Plains:

The rep looked to the Sergeant and gave a small smile, taking his cigarette from his mouth, "Well I was just speaking to the Klikiss about some scouting... until Phoenix gets info to the rest of us, we stay put. Our main objective is probably going to be taking back the planet and finding the base that is no doubt close by. That's all I can give you."

Hanger:

"The first is more believeabe, look over the battlefield." The Leanorian looked to Phoenix, "There's nothing left of their presence. No blood or weapons, armor or corpses... you think?" Phoenix nodded, "First thing is me getting some new armor, then we need to disrupt this network they have going for them." The Leanorian nodded before looking to Virgil, "Shazara. That's my name." She stood up and walked from the hanger, "I'll update the captain of the situation. Chances are, now that we have the Worldslayer, we can actually start fighting for real." Phoenix nodded, "Good, good. Now then, we just have to wait a few moments..."

Ten minutes later...

Phoenix had changed into another set of armor, it looked similar to his first set but with some clear differences. It was sleaker, obviously more advanced than his last set, and apparently had a shoulder mounted turret. "Orders are in, we can go in harder but keep it simple and be tactical. Avoid combat if possible and in combat situations, focus more on supression than killing. When an enemy blinks out, being looking for anything out of the ordinary. Focus search forces on the forest area." Phoenix's orders were broadcasted to all Greywatch forces who were quick to let everyone else know. He looked back to Virgil, "I'll be heading back to the surface now." He tapped his left breastplate and dematerialized, reappearing on the surface.

Forest:

The other Greywatch forces in the area were quick to raise their weapons when Phoenix appeared, not sure if was friend or foe. "Calm down people," he started, "it's just me." He pointed one of the groups, "You guys are covering me now. Now where's the alien?" One of the soldiers began to explain that the alien had passed out from what appeared to be exhaustion and had been taken off the surface just as he blinked down. Phoenix muttered something to himself before moving out, "Very well, we'll worry about that later."

Plains:

The man listened to his communicator, "Okay, rules of engagement are basically the same but we apparently have a little breathing time for now. Phoenix thinks there may be something similar to a Greywatch blink network established across large areas of this continent. That's what may have been giving the enemy their ability. Apparently this only lasts for a set amount of time before everything blinked in is forced to blink out." He looked to the Telrosians, "Transports often drop weapon pods, I suggest you stock up on those if you ever find your own weapons to be ineffective."

Plains:

One of the Klikiss bobbed it's head as a form of greeting to the Sergeant and his troops but otherwise left it at that.

Surrounding Terrain:

In a variety of areas surrounding the base and much further beyond the Klikiss flyers scanned the area for anything unusual...

Greywatch Hangar Bay-----------------------
The heir ascendant smiled as Pheonix disappeared and turned his attentions back to the AVATAR which sat in front of him and getting himself and his armor ready to get back inside it.

He tossed his head forward, and the hardsuit responded to his neural impulses, deploying the armor's crowned helm with a series of clicks and snaps as the armor plates reconfigured to Virgil's skin. With a quiet whistling of air, the Hardsuit sealed itself from the outside world, and the hardsuit's internal HUD lit up.

He stepped forward into the open pilot sheath of the AVATAR and let the automatic assembly systems kick in. Wires and harness straps snapped him into a vertical reclining posture, and his vision went black as the compartment was covered by the inorganic musculature of the machine. Clacks and whirs sounded as the AVATAR's limbs and armor were racheted into place, and with the loud click of his neural uplink snapping into place, his consciousness expanded to fill his new, metal body. He willed the war machine's eyes to activate and the blue diode cameras snapped open with a whir. He moved, stretched, tested his new robotic joints. Everything checked out. Finally, his hardsuit's HUD suddenly changed, accomadating the new hardware of the AVATAR. The neural feed streamed before his eyes once more. 111.039 terrabytes per second: exceptionally high for a streaming interface.

He strode forward, his new, twenty foot body towering over everything else in the hangar. Hefting his Halberd, he leapt out into space and folded planetside with a consussive bang.

Forest------------------------
The Alliance AVATARs didn't even flinch as Virgil spacefolded back into the clearing, having been alerted to his impending arrival by their cockpit instruments. The Azure Gaurd immediately formed up around Virgil as the gale force winds subsided, as if releived to have him back in their custody.

One AVATAR, a blue C-41 emblazoned in Immorian script on it's armor stepped forward.

"Welcome back, sir. We're on stand by for further military action."

Virgil nodded to the soldier and craned his mech's helmed head towards Pheonix.

"Alright, Pheonix, this is your op: we're waiting for your orders."

Amerin nodded. "Understood. I'll go wait with my men." He turned back and headed back to the group. They saluted as they relaxed about, several groups patrolling the perimeter of the damaged base. He set down his rifle, pulled off his helmet and put his head against a wall. Closing his eyes, he began to relax. He needed some time to reorient himself and get away from the hectic feelings still left over from the combat. Since the beginning of this operation, they had been running on adrenaline, determination, and plain human resilience.

Time passed as the soldiers relaxed, patrolled, made video logs to send back home and slept in short naps. They were disrupted when Phoenix appeared. Within seconds, they had woken up, taken positions and aimed weapons at him. When he held up his hands and they had recognized him as a friendly, they stepped down and Amerin walked forward to hear the objective of searching for a "blink" network, and they were to avoid combat. If they couldn't, they were to suppress, not kill, to make them teleport away. When he turned to Amerin and his men, telling them they could take the weapons if they wanted, he shook his head.

"I thank you for the offer, sir, but there's no time to train my men in the usage of these weapons and their tactical use. They will need to know every tactic to survive and with new weapons, they will not be as effective." He turned to face his soldier. "You heard the man. Suit up, we're going on a search for these bastards."

Forest:

Phoenix nodded to the other present parties, “We move now.” Phoenix moved out, his new entourage following suit. He began opening comms with other Greywatch forces in the area over private channels, “Heavies, keep it low. I don’t need you guys going down before a major battle so make yourselves discreet. If need be, I will have you pulled out. Snipers and scouts keep silent, take the path less traveled.” Phoenix and his team began pushing forward, keeping an eye out for anything odd. It took about ten minutes for him to find what he was looking for, a cave in the distance. Phoenix and his team stopped immediately, there was obvious alien activity. Phoenix only had to give the word and snipers began getting into place. “Sniper team 3 to all friendlies in the area (forest), we have possible contact with enemy forces. Hostiles are not aware of our presence yet. Commander Phoenix, what are your orders?” Phoenix looked ahead of him, three hostiles and no other way into the cave. “Synchronize and take them out.” The snipers all got into position and a moment later all three hostiles hit the ground, Phoenix smiled. He put out a message, “We may have found a base of operations. Looks like a small cave, I would suggest a few people accompany me in.”

Plains:

The fliers would soon begin to pick up odd energy signatures coming from about 12 kilometers south of the base. Upon getting closer, fliers would be able to pick up massive amounts of energy with no apparent source...

Plains:

The Klikiss flyers approached the area which was releasing strange amounts of energy, visibly they could not currently see any reason for why this was. The flyers appraoched it in a staggered line to investigate.

Klikiss Base:

The Klikiss drone with the translator turned to the Greywatch delegate who had been sent down to watch what was going on.

"I have discovered an unusual energy sugnature, an immense energy signature, to the south, twelve kilometers away. There is no visible source so i suspect it be eminting from a space-time rift. Quite possibly a part of the teleporting network these aliens seem to use. Your thoughts? Would your kind wish to investigate it or shall i dispatch a smal group of scientists?"

The rep didn't respond at first, seemingly spacing out. He then suddenly turned, "Yes, the Worldslayer's sensors are picking it up but our forces are busy checking something in the forest and can't be diverted right now. My captain says you can feel free to proceed with your investigation, just be careful. If this is apart of the alien's teleportation netword, there's no telling what could be attempting to come through."

(OOC: Tag for future post. Good to have this one open again!)

OOC: I posted without being told. YAY FOR ME!
IC:

Angenterian Landing Sight

"Here, Davik." The Navy Pilot reached out, holding a small cup of steaming black caffeine. Well, not REAL caffeine. Military-ration caffeine which, no matter what you add to it, spectacularly succeeds in tasting like nothing in particular. Since the Inquisitor and his party went off for a walk in the woods, the two pilots at the shuttles had little to do. They had already received word about the accident on-board the ship, and were both glad they weren't there to see it.

"Thanks." Davik reached over, taking the caffeine, and taking a small sip. It, unsurprisingly, tasted like something he couldn't identify, but at least it was hot. Glancing over to the auspex console, the other pilot paused for a moment.

"What's wrong?"

"Take a look at this."

Davik leaned over to see the screen, raising a eyebrow. There was quite a disturbance just south of the plains.

"Relay it back to the ship, they'll know what to do."

"What about the Inquisitor?"

"He's too far. He'll never get there in time."

"Alright..."

-----------------------------------------------
Orbit

"Acknowledged, shuttle TX-03." Captain Rhesa replied into her comm-bead. She flipped channels. "Security, dispatch a team to the designated coordinates to investigate."

The voice crackled back in acknowledgment.

Things were finally beginning to calm down once again on the Justified Cause. All of the wounded were dispatched to the medicae for treatment, and the dead enginseers removed from the site of the explosion. They looked more like machines then men, their metal augments fused together into solid pieces. Some didn't even have any flesh left, and their organs were preserved in a body of metal.

A few minutes later, another shuttle left the hangar, en route to the coordinates of the mysterious anomaly.

------------------------------------------------------------
Forest

Inquisitor Tarsus and team followed closely behind Phoenix and the Greywatch troops, as they moved deeper into enemy territory. Tarsus began to admire them. They were good soldiers, whose precision could rival that of any Imperial Guard Stormtrooper team. Reaching what seemed like an enemy base, Phoenix began asking for others to join him.

"I'll come." He said, stepping forward.

Southern PLains Anomaly:

The Klikiss, learning from their previous experience, dispatched a small group of scientists and engineers. These sub-types were similar to the drones only had a greater assortment of arms and antenna, most of which contained a huge variety of biological functions to perform various tasks. The engineers were more similar to the warriors due to their strength. The benefit of the Klikiss scientists and engineers was that they could carry out their investiagtions without the use of any equiptment. Soon they had arrived at the edge of the area, their antenna twitched and quivered in response to the types of energy being released. A few of them stuck needle like fingers deep into the gruond to extract smaples of the ground which would in turn be analysed in a biological chamber withen their bodies. The information was passed along to the engineers who began sketching diagrams in the dirt to assertain what was going on.

Southern Plains:
No soil sample would give an explanation of what was happening. Everything in the area appeared to be normal with the exception of the large energy anomaly. Then, something began to form, the energy output began to increase. A white ball of light began to form in the center of the area where the anomaly could be detected. It floated about thirty feet off the ground but yet the earth around it began to shatter and compress under some invisible, intense weight. Something was definately coming, something massive.

The Warhorse:

"Captains, what are we going to do about that energy signature? It's growing, and fast. Something very bad could be coming through." The tactical officer was obviously worried about the situation. Worldslayers, unlike most ships, had 2-3 captains that each fufilled specific tasks. A ship of such massive size required a lot of authority to keep in under control. This particular Worldslayer had two captains, one being a Kiixori and the other being a Xarniosi. The Xarniosi responded after giving some careful consideration, "Prepare a team, but hold them back for now. The Klikiss, they seem to have the situation under control at the moment. I trust that if something goes wrong, they can handle it. Also, keep OA weapons on standby. If the enemy does try to bring something large through, we'll take it down." The tactical officer nodded, "Aye sir."

Forest------------------------------------
Virgil and has troopers followed the arranged forces to the cave. Virgil had to admit, the Greywatch troopers were good. Marksmanship like that was hard to come by in the Alliance forces. Virgil craned his AVATAR's mechanical head down to look at Pheonix and his troopers. He watched the Imperial Inquisitor step forward and decided to speak up himself. Plates of Armor on the AVATAR's face retracted, revealing a mechanical mouth filled with tooth-like shearing blades. As Virgil spoke, the AVATAR's mouth mimiced the words in a slightly disturbing fashion.

"Count me in. Let me just slip into something a little more comfortable..."

With a series of click and whirs, the AVATAR opened up, and Virgil stepped from inside, his hardsuit's polished finish now mottled, his feet now caked in dirt and grime. He retracted his hardsuit's helmet, and he smiled pleasantly as he hefted his halberd from within a holding compartment of his AVATAR. He also affixed a sidearm from inside the AVATAR unto the magnetic holster on his armor's hip as he stepped forward.

"Alright, I'm ready."

Southern Plains:

The Klikiss scientists and engineers scuttled backwards, keeping out of the repercussios of this anomaly, they were now fairly certain it was linked to a trans-diemensional rift. The scientists clicked to themselves, waving probe like arms in the air excitedly as they took in readings and watched this disturbance develop, some of them rattled indignantly as their schematics in the ground were flattened beneath this event. As the ground shattered and fissures headed out towards them they backed of even further. Their attention still focused on whatever was trying to break through.

Klikiss Base:

The Breedex had her whole attention focused through the group of scientists and engineers watching the situation, she knew that soemthing unpleasent was going to happen. The base, although still low in it's population, began to pick up in it's tempo. The large pieces of machinery began to interlock together as the Klikiss assembled their war machines. The large tube like cannons they had positioned around the base like immense barrels hummed with energy. The portal in the center of th ebase gave a view into the Hive Ships internal hanger which was primed with Klikiss warriors and pre-assmebled sections of war machins which would be ferried through in a moments notice.

She managed to divet her attention somewhat to more interactive matters and relayed a message to the Warhorse which seemed to be directing the operations.

"Energetic anomaly increasing in output, believed to be an interdiemensional rift of some sort. Possibly an energy based weapon, currently unsure of it's nature. Discreet preperations are being made in case of it being hostile in nature."

Near the Anomaly Sight, Plains

The Imperial landing shuttle flew through the atmosphere, coming ever closer to the designated coordinates. What they saw was nothing like they had ever seen before.

"Sweet Emperor..." One of the pilots said softly, as they approached. A white ball of light floated over the ground where the designated coordinates pointed to. Everything around it seemed to be compressing or churning in some strange way. The pilots gazed at it in wonder, as they flew in for a better look.

Plains:

The white ball began to pulsate in an irregular manner before distorting itself. It began to stretch outwards in some places, creating four branches of white light while the center began to grow slightly bigger. After about five minutes of developing, it had a definate humanoid shape and began to lower itself to the ground. As soon as its 'feet' touched the surface the ground exploded, apparently this thing was beyond heavy. A powerful force kept anything else from approaching it.

Orbit:

The Warhorse sent back a simple message:

Understood. Update us if anything else happens and be careful.

Meanwhile, those on the bridge were doing their own research into what the anamoly might be.

Forest:

"Okay then." Phoenix pointed to a Leanorian and then to a Dragonkin, "You two, you're with us." He looked to Virgil and Tarsus, "I suggest you bring two soldiers each. If we get separated or have to lay down some serious fire, it'll be best to have at least a little backup." He looked to the Leanorian, a female like most of the others. She was a standard rifleman but, as with most Leanorians, she was faster and stronger than any human. Chances were she also had at least some basic healing abilities just in case. The Dragonkin, on the other hand, was dressed for more serious combat. His armor was much heavier and the black rocker emblem printed on its shoulder, not to mention the weapons it was carrying, indicated he was a heavy weapons specialist. Both soldiers moved forward as Phoenix called to them. The other soldiers didn't need any orders and began setting up a perimeter.

(OOC: Just how big is this "humanoid" supposed to be?)

Forest

Tarsus nodded, returning to the gaggle of Angenterian troops standing around.

"Thaddeus, Marcus, with me." He motioned to the two soldiers, who stepped forward instantly. Satisfied, he returned to the to Greywatch.

OOC: Ten feet tall, give or take.

OOC: M'kay.

IC: Plains

"Something's happening." One of the pilots said, staring into his auspex screens. "It's...changing."

"It's what?" The other pilots replied, incredulously

"You heard me, it's changing."

"Well it won't be for long." The other pilot said. He went for the intercom "Ten seconds!"

The ship touched down on the ground, just as the humanoid touched the ground. Small explosions could be seen emanating from it's feet as it touched the ground, stirring up dust and debris. The landing craft doors cranked open, and the Naval troopers stormed out, unaware of what might befall them.

(OOC: Sorry for not posting sooner, the economy's hit us pretty hard and we lost power for about two/three days. Anyway, I'll finish this post and get back to the story tommorrow morning...)

Forest------------------------------------

Virgil watched as Phoenix and Inquisitor Tarsus choose their personal bodygaurd. As they did so, Virgil opened his personel files and searched for a suitable pair of men.

The search came back quickly, super-imposing the digital Immorian text unto his retinas inside his helm, and as he rapidly scanned the files, two soldiers stood out particularly...

"Alright, let's get moving. Second Alliance personel, form up!" At his behest, the nearby AVATARs, including his Azure Gaurd, quickly fell into a single file line and snapped off quick salutes. Virgil waited patiently as they did so, chuckling in a rather amused fashion at one of the AVATARs attempting to salute without a head, and eventually settling on saluting from his torso's secondary sensor package. He walked down the line, scanning over the Immorian script ID numbers on their armor until he seemed satisfied.

"Trooper C-41, Dan Valgoth and Trooper E-03, Mendelson Beiks, disengage your AVATARs and step forward. You're with me,"

The two AVATARs stepped forward, and went into a kneeling postion. Dan Valgoth's AVATAR was scuffed and scratched with numerous burn marks from alien energy weapons, and after a brief series of hisses and clicks, the man stepped forward from his mech clutching a scaled down version of his AVATAR's reconfigurable rifle and wearing the standard, S-class hardsuit of a frontline soldier which he had adorned with his handprint in blue paint. As it turned out, Mendelson had been the AVATAR pilot who had been sniping with the heavy linear cannon from before, his role in the fight betrayed by the legs of his AVATAR having been coated in grim and mud, and the heavy linear cannon his AVATAR had slung over it's shoulder unto a magnetic holster. After his mech opened up, Beiks emerged carrying a man-portable variant of the linear cannon which his AVATAR used, and wearing an all-enviroment EVA hardsuit painted in a mottled camoflauge pattern with a bright blue checkerboard pattern on the armor of his right arm. Both men snapped to attention quickly and stepped forward, speaking simultaneously, their voices slightly warped into an electronic timbre by their suits of powered armor.

"We stand ready, sir."

"At ease." Virgil saw one of his Azure Gaurd had been looking at him from the end of the line in a quizzical manner, as if perplexed why the Heir hadn't chosen his dedicated bodygaurds to accompany him. This was hardly surprising to Virgil: the Azure Gaurd were borderline fanatical about protecting their charges, and the idea of letting their heir go into combat without their protection was something they wouldn't consider.

Virgil turned to address his saphire-armored bodygaurds. "This op will require stealth and agility, and while I have no doubt my Azure Gaurd are skilled enough to protect me under nearly all circumstances, your heavy hardsuits are detrimental towards covert operations, and if I chose you to accompany me, your presense would in fact endager not only me, but the other representatives present by possibly giving away our positions. I cannot allow that. Do you understand?" The Azure Gaurd slowly nodded, disappointed clearly, but understanding.

"Good, then we are agreed. Azure Gaurd and Sergeant Major, you are to assist the other forces in any way possible. Make yourselves useful and help our allies set up a defensive perimeter. If you could dig out a simple series of trenches and simple earthworks for our allies on foot, I'm sure that would be appreciated. If attacked, protect our brothers in arms."

With that, Virgil dismissed the assembled mechs, who ran off to busy themselves with helping the Greywatch and Angenterian forces establish a perimeter, and the Heir Ascendant walked over towards Pheonix and Tarsus, with troopers C-41 and E-03 walking beside him. "Alright, gentlemen, we're ready whenever you are."

(OOC: bump)

OOC: AUSU is posting sometime tomorrow, I'll make a response then.

Southern Plains:

The Klikiss were insightful enough to realise fairly quickly that this thing was quite possibly sentient to some degree. And either the mechanisms of it's entry were so powerful and complex that the results were shocking, or, this thing itself was composed of some strange energy. The engineers and scientists scuttled rapidly away from this, their sensory apparatus over loaded with unkown elements which sent bursts of confusion through their minds.

Hiveship/Klikiss Base:

As events on the plains developed further the Klikiss Hiveship's hanger was filled not with warriors, who would be presumed to be useless against whatever was being raised, but with engineers. Large pieces of equiptment were shunted round the hanger, the small portal although not big enough to fit many of their contraptions whole through, would enable them to deliver their components for rapid assembly.

Transmission To Warhorse:

"Anomaly reaching critical danger levels, posessing energy levels of the current scale, possibly sentient, neithe ridentified as organic or synthetic. Emergency preperations are being made, we consider this to be of immense significance to your plans."

Forest/Cave:

Phoenix listened to a breif communication before setting out with the others into the cave. "Alright, looks like we've gotta pick up the pace. We might have an univited guest arriving soon." With that Phoenix and his team moved into the cave. Immediately, the Leanorian moved ahead, making almost no sound as it with an unnatural amount of speed. Phoenix smiled as she soon vanished from view; the Dragonkin, meanwhile, simply made sure to scan the ever darkening cavern for anything hostile. Phoenix didn't notice anything so far, just a very dark cave... with odd containers sitting around. Well at least he knew they were on the right track. Pushing on, he heard the sound of running water ahead, along with some alien chit chat. The caverns seemed to split, one tunnel went downwards, to where the alien voices could be heard, another one continued more or less forward, possibly providing a vantage point. He looked to the others, indicating through a simple handsign that he would be taking the lower passageway.

Plains:

Now with definate humanoid shape, the creature had expanded itself and reached a height of twenty feet. Its solid white body was now covered in a black armor, decorated in red symbols of an unknown language; the only white that could be seen was from the creatures uncovered head. The being looked at those around it, seeing them as being nothing more than pests it began walking forward, as if it knew where it wanted to go.

Warhorse:

We can see the energy output, looks like a supernova... We will be preparing a team to help you deal with this since it seems things are about to get complicated.

Cave-------------------------

Virgil and his two troopers stayed with the mutli-force killteam as they went into the caves. Dan continuously spun about, checking his flanks every few seconds to ensure they wouldn't be snuck up on, while Mendelson walked backward, his hand on Dan's back so he could know where he was going. Virgil stayed near Phoenix and Tarsus, his hand on the sidearm magnetically attached to his hardsuit's hip plates.

Reaching the junction, Virgil turned towards his soldiers.

*Unit C-41, Specialist Valgoth Status:●
*Unit E-03, Specialist Beiks Status:●

Two green "all clear" lights winked next to their names in Virgil's HUD before Virgil opened his comm channel. He nodded and signalled that his team would split, with Virgil and Dan taking the lower passage, while Mendelson would follow the passageway going upwards in hopes of securing a sniping position.

(OOC: Is this big white monstrosity heading in the direction of the Klikiss Base?)

OOC: Specifics, specifics... you can RP it going towards your base, I'm leaving it open intentionally as the creature doesn't really have a sense of direction yet.

(OOC: I'm not to keen on letting this thing get near my base.. oh what the hell it may make things interesting...)

Plains:

AS the creature set off and the watching Klikiss finally turned tail and surried back towards the base it was clear that it was heading in a vague, yet not direct, way towards the Klikiss Base.

The Klikiss were busy making preperations. In the base itself blocks of machinery began taking composed, trailing shapes as tripods were assembled, and artillary guns slotted together. The weapons howeve would be unrecognizable as no more than a mass of machinery untill they got going however.

Plains
The Imperial Navy troopers looked at the advancing figure in shock and awe, unknowing what to do.

"What in the warp..." One asked.

"Fire!" The jumpy squad leader ordered, raising his weapon. "Don't let it get any closer!"

The naval troopers jumped into action, firing off round after round of lasbolts into the advancing figure.

Forest/Cave
Tarsus and his escorts kept their pace with the other soldiers, keeping their eyes open for anything that may come their way. The two soldiers kept their weapons up, ready to open fire at a moments notice.

Plains:

The nearby Klikiss heard the Angenterians, things were going to get bad very quickly. On the plus side it would mean the Breedex would have more time to prepare herself.

Message To The Warhorse:

The situation on the plains seems apparent to get out of hand quickly, Angenterain forces have just open fired on the creature composed of a strange energy. Permission to dispatch tripods?

Plains:

The creature continued forward, even with the Angenterians attacking it. It didn't seem to care as everything that hit it bounced off of its black armor. So far, the creature seemed to be the gentle giant though there was no telling how long that would last. A transport flew overhead, being careful to keep out of the creature's range. It touched down not 200ft away, an assumed safe distance. A team of specialist made their way from the transport and began their job of finding out how to react to the situation.

Cave:

The cavern that Phoenix and company chose led them down for a ways before it opened up to a large chamber. Large crates gave some good hiding areas, the team would need them as there were more than enough baddies to hinder them. Phoenix looked to his Dragonkin HWS and the soldier silently, and remarkably swiftly for someone carrying such a large weapon, moved to some cover, keeping out of sight. Phoenix took this time to contact the Leanorian to find out where she was. Mendelson would be the one to see the Leanorian, crouched behind a rock on an overlook; below her was the chamber Phoenix and the others were located in. Also on the overlook, though pushed away from the edge, were two dead guards, unlucky enough to be in range of the Leanorians melee skills. Both didn't have a single gun wound on them, one apparently had a broken neck and the other had been sliced in two. She tapped into her comms to let Phoenix know he and the others had about fifteen enemies to deal with, she then began listing possible plans of attack.

Message to Klikiss:

*sigh* I was hoping we could learn a little more before attacking this thing but very well, engage if you feel it will be a threat. Be careful though, we still don't know what kind of power its packing, espcially with all the energy its radiating.

Plains

The Angenterians continued to fire at the advancing creature as it moved closer to them, but it was to no avail. Grenades flew towards it, exploding right next to it, with shrapnel just bouncing off it's armor. Did the thing even register their presence? Could it even be harmed by mortal means?

The Angenterians, becoming frightened, continued their barrage of lasfire.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Cave

Tarsus and his people came to a stop as the group came into something of a large chamber. Looking around, Tarsus, his mind always working, noticed the large crates strategically placed to provide maximum cover in a firefight, and wondered how this always seems to be. Looking over, he noticed Phoenix listening to the comms, and moved next to him.

"How many?" He whispered.

Message To The Warhorse:

"Evidently we were not the only ones you should have watched out for... We will not attack it unless it is outright hostile"

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

Klikiss Base:

Out of the large blocky items of equiptment which had been assembled in the base, most of which from orbit would be recognised as Tri-Pods sprawled onto the ground., the Klikiss chose to push several large sections together at once, modules were pushed into place, large sheets of steel and iron were hoisted ove it's form, the entire structure produced a number of loud pops as it joined togather. Finally a great whine was heard from it as it kicked into gear and pulled itself upright on four large legs.

The walker stood there swaying slightly as Scientist and Engineer sub-types boarded a ramp which descended from it's base. It was shaped like a large dome, it's surface a mixture of shiny mettalic sheets and older ones which had grown dim, four articulated legs emerged from the dome, each was made up of four sections, one which projected from inside the base, another which curved up, causing the legs to reach halfway up it's height, and then at the "knee" a large section went down to the ground before meeting at a tipped foot. Two smaller articulated legs unfolded from withen at the front to serve as a form of guidance; a portal which resembled the end of a telescope was built into it's front glowing a dim red; at it's heighest point it was equivilant to three stories. The walker took off, suprisingly nimble and fast for it's size, towards the monster.

Cave, upper passage---------------------

Mendelson looked over the carnage, his polarized faceplate hiding the look of pleasant surprise on his face. He turned towards the Leonorian and gave her two thumbs up in approval of her work. He then crept over to where she stood, his hardsuit's footpads silencing his footsteps as he moved, and peered at the fifteen or so aliens below them.

Nodding, he kneeled down and got to work. Unslinging a small, rolled up pouch from his shoulder, he set it down on the cave floor and unrolled it. Inside the pouch, seperated neatly beneath a series of pockets and straps, was a small gun mod kit. Putting his linear rifle on the unrolled cloth, he started to strip the weapon down. He used a small brush to clean out the barrel of the gun, then the magnetic firing coils, then the magazine. He then tok out a small, wrenchlike tool and realigned the magnetic coil until it's softly glowing form brightened by a hair, and realigned the digital scope on the weapon until they were within tolerance levels. He then began to reassemble it, all with the lightning speed and precision gained from years of practice. After a total of a minute, he hefted the linear rifle again.

Pulling out a folding stock from the kit, he set it up on the rocky cave floor and linked the weapon to his hardsuit's helmet with a small length of cord. Now in a completely prone firing position, he held up his hand to the Leonarian and gave a thumbs up to indicate his readiness.

Cave, Lower Passage-------------------------

Virgil turned towards Tarsus and spoke softly.

"Fifteen men according to our crew above. They don't stand a chance." Virgil unsheathed his molecular halberd and turned towards Phoenix.

"I'm ready when you are, buddy." Dan stood behind Virgil and with a swift motion, deactivated the safety on his rifle, which reconfigured to three-round-burst mode automatically and quietly began to hum as the magnetic coils in the firearm charged. He nodded towards the others.

(OOC: sorry I haven't posted in a while, our computer over here crashed and I couldn't get a post in. I'll try to be more reliable with my posting in the future!)

(microbump)

(OOC: We can't do this without you, Graywatch!!)

OOC: Gah! Patience, children. I'm getting to this. ;)

Cave:

The Leanorian watched as Mendelson readied his weapon and was quite impressed to say the very least. She already had her position chosen and her weapon ready. All she need was a command, she looked to Mendelson and gave him a nod to indicate she too was ready.

Phoenix looked to the others and put a communication through to his other men, "Hey, I didn't ask before, what're your names?" The Dragonkin came back quickly, "Blackscale, sir. Jur Balckscale." The Leanorian came afterwards, "D'Alles Oruna, sir." Phoenix smiled, "You two ready." Both came back, "Yessir." Now Phoenix put the message out to everyone, "2... 1... 0... GO!" With that the Dragonkin stood up, bringing its weapon to face the enemy and opening fire, sending a barrage of fire towards the enemy. The Leanorian had her rifle set on single-shot mode and began taking precise shots at the enemy below her. Phoenix bolted from behind his cover to another crate in order to draw some fire; no doubt there were going to be reinforcements and it would be best to prepare now.

Plains:

The creature continued forward without paying any heed to those around it. The specialist continued forward towards it, studying it and its reactions. They were quick to put out a message to the Angenterians, "I would suggest you cease firing and move out of that thing's way. It doesn't appear to wish any harm."

Message to Klikiss:

Good to know. Warhorse out.

Cave, Lower Passage---------------

As Pheonix gave the all clear, Virgil stood up from his cover and bolted forward. Releasing the safety lock subroutines on his cybernetic body's voice box, Virgil let loose a bellowing, Immorian battlecry that shook the rocks around them. The deafening sound was felt more than heard, sending aliens to their knees, their hands clenched over their bleeding ears in excrutiating pain.

"S'ERACH GUILLIO, ESCA'ROALNE CAAHR!!!"*

He hurled himself towards three of the spasming aliens, halberd drawn, and covered the distance with shocking speed. With a quick, vertical strike, he bisected one of the aliens from head to foot, releasing a geyser of blood from the creature that rained unto his armor.

Using his momentum, he spun around and brough his right hand, palm first, up to the other two aliens who had now recovered enough to seek shelter behind one of the crates. Transfering energy from his bionic form's internal Chernokov turbine generator into his hands, he projected a high intensity cone of Chernokov radiation like a blast of steam from his hardsuit's palm. The sudden discharge of charged particles hurled the aliens bodily across the room, smashing them into the stone wall, where they were then crushed by the now airborn crate they had sought shelter behind moments before.

Meanwhile, Dan had sprinted in behind Virgil, his automatic weapon burping white hot metal rounds into alien flesh as he advanced behind the Heir Ascendant. One of the aliens tried to sneak behind Dan, attempting to flank him. However, he was noticed and Dan twisted to face his new foe, using his centifugal force to deliver a hardsuit-enhanced roundhouse to the alien's jaw, which subsequently shattered and gave, hurling the broken body to the floor, unconscious.

Periodically, a loud thunderclap would echo through the room as Mendelson, above the fight, would fire an electrically charged round from his linear rifle. The shells accelerated to about six times the speed of sound before they would strike their targets, leaving a smouldering hole in the target big enough to fit your fist into.


*Old Immorian battlecry: "For Home and Heraldry, Charge Onward Brothers!"

Plains:

The Klikiss walker, resembling an old-domed observatory complete with a telescope like projection, neared the strange creature, the original Klikiss search team that had discovered it scuttled back to the base.

Upon seeing the Angenterians the Klikiss played out an immensly loud message over a speaker system built into the walker:

"We suggest you stop firing, no need to provoke it"

Cave

As soon as the Greywatch guy gave the world, the sounds of battle filled the cave. Weapons fire, screams, and the like filled the area, no doubt enhanced by the enclosed area they were in.

Meanwhile, Tarsus yelled back to the two stormtroopers. "Let's go, men! Are we gonna let these aliens show us up?!"

"No, sir!" They replied, and immediately adjusted their lasguns, setting them to maximum charge.

"Alright, then! FOR THE EMPEROR!" With a loud battle-cry, Tarsus rushed forward, his men at his heels. They moved like a well-trained, well-oiled squad, always firing, then moving. Firing, then moving. Working their way around the flank of a small group of enemies, hand-to-hand combat commenced.

This is where the Angenterians would shine.

Tarsus danced in and out of the enemy's ranks, his power sword slicing through the armor of the enemy soldiers as if it was hot butter. His stormtroopers, no newcomers to close combat themselves, used their combat knives in conjunction with their lasrifles to their full advantage. Slicing out the legs of an enemy, one of the soldiers quickly rolled to his feet, unloading lasbolts into those behind the hapless enemy. Across the way, a shower of sparks could be seen as two combat knives slid off each other. The second stormtrooper recovered from the deadlock, bringing his knife up and around the enemy in a masterful feint. By going for the blade that wasn't there, the enemy exposed his entire guard for a split second.

That was his chance.

Bringing the knife around, he stuck it into the enemy as hard as he could, and quickly pulling it out. Blood covered the knife, and a bash with a butt of a lasrifle sent the poor enemy soldier to the ground.

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Plains

The naval security troopers fired rapidly at the creature, but it was obvious that nothing was happening. However, the sergeant of the squad, regaining his cool, head was quick to realize that it wasn't working, and that firing it would only provoke. As if to emphasize this, his vox unit had been filled with messages with disturbed aliens, telling his squad to cease fire.

"Stop!" He bellowed. "Cease fire!" Slowly, the guns of the Angenterians had died down, but they did not retreat. Instead, they simply sat there, watching as the thing moved.

(OOC: Bump again...)

(OOC: Grey... what you doin?)