NationStates Jolt Archive

Noushin Station; border junction between Republic, Commonwealth, Imperial Territories
Monday July 4, 3003 / 23:10 local time

Noushin Station. A sandy lump of rock emplaced squarely at this worldforsaken border junction many years back, then insanely well-promoted. Once the Commonwealth of Kostemetsia had established strong diplomatic ties with the Republic and the Imperial Kewen Territories, it had seemed like the perfect international business venture; of course, nothing of the sort was ever likely to perform as well as expected, but the Kostemetsians retained their characteristic high hopes.

As such, they'd carved 'NOUSHIN STATION' into the rock's flank in gigantic serif letters, sent nanobots rampaging through its insides to carve out a habitat, pushed the thing to the Vanjan orbital fastlink with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and kicked it through one of the multitudinous wormholes closely clustered above Elin City.

Lady luck smiled upon them, and the venture was a roaring success. At any time, one might be able to count seven hundred, maybe eight hundred freighters hooked up to the docking bays deeply carved into the canyons that spell out the rock's name. A hive of lights turns the dark side into a bank of questing illumination.

The scents of different spices duel throughout the asteroid's majestic, high-roofed and exquisitely carved corridors as the traders in the main food hall hawk their wares. Above the hall lie the "dirtier" industries - armourers, implant stores, everything that does not immediately provide nourishment; above even them lie the corporate offices, the smoky boardrooms of legend.

Not to be forgotten, above them lies the asteroid's main command, a mix of international staff coordinating security and yanking the chain of command for the Allied naval flotilla which, in its bold, sharp blue-and-gold majesty, preserves the asteroid's integrity ... but even these steadfast defenders of the populace have no way to see what yet waits to pummel their gigantic charge and, by extension, them, with all the force of an angry god's fist brought to bear.

As traders, customers, the police and the military mingle and chatter throughout this flourishing trade station, something waits silently to make its entrance.

Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.
-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, chapter six, passage five

The trader's hand arrowed for his baggy jacket pocket; in one swift movement, Sergeant Milan Dhesi grabbed his own carbine, transitioning without a pause from impotent black-uniformed negotiator to potential inflictor of massive pain. Clandestinely twisting the pinbead to 'stun', he brought the gun up to his shoulder and jabbed the blocky barrel into the trader's chin, forcing the man's head up as Celia Walker, security sergeant, lightly placed the dark muzzle of an assault pistol at the base of the man's neck.

"Mate ... that is a very, very bloody bad move. The hand does not go anywhere near the pocket in future, alrighty? I'm a nervous man, and," Milan pushed the carbine forward only just slightly, "when I'm aggravated, already-serious situations tend to get more serious."

The big, rather stupid-looking men off to one side tensed, but none dared pull a gun of his own in response; for all they knew, Milan might put a bolt through their leader's head at the slightest movement. The corporal himself, meanwhile, took his hand away from the barrel (balancing the light rifle on the trader's solid, probably artificial neckbones) and executed a cursory search of the man's clothing; thirty seconds later, he'd handed three pistols to Sergeant Walker. The perp was packing more heat than usual ...

Hah, perp -- obviously the MPs got me nice and accustomed to the mindset. Meh ... maybe command will transfer me back to active service soon.

... all this and more ran through Milan's hyped mind as the man was systematically stripped of all his weapons and armour. A few seconds later, a complete subdermal scan was done, and the man had more than a few interesting implants - all running hot, too.

"Alright, mate, I think it's pretty fair you should power down your OC tattoos ... after all, we did you the courtesy of relieving you of those weapons. They must have been weighing you down, eh?" The Indian-ethnic officer's Elin accent became ever more pronounced as a shark's grin spread across his face. Truthfully, he would rather have been dealing with one of the corporate criminals ... like most Kostemetsians, he reserved the right to a certain degree of elitism over people like this trader, which put him slightly off-balance thanks to a lack of frame of reference. Still, nothing like a good old-fashioned bust.

Subsequent to an ostentatious sigh, the trader's power signature dropped to null, and Celia placed a hand heavily on his shoulder. "How about you come with me, mate? Let's be 'aving you, then."

The trader and Celia walked off, the latter with a shockrod firmly in contact with the former's back. Milan cheerily waved 'ta-ta' to the odd couple, then turned to the hired help. "Alright, you lot. Go on, piss off, get out of my sight." With a fair amount of loathing, they followed orders, uncomfortably aware of the carbine still firmly in the young man's grip.

Relaxing, Milan noticed something odd; as they walked off, the hired help seemed to actually not be frowning at him ... although they were definitely frowning at something. He followed their eyelines to one of the flat sensor screens that lined the subcavern's walls ...

In concert, several people, including Milan, let out a hearty "Oh, fuck me dead, really?" in true Commonwealther form.

The battle-cruiser burst from hyperspace, its hull glowing white hot. As it was propelled forward it left a white trail of the molten material. The vessel dominated the surrounding space. Though several vessels were larger then it anyone with a sensor system would be able to see it was a dedicated warship powering up all systems. All attention would be focused on it.

In the vessel’s control nexus a being sat on a stool like object reading harshly shaped letters and viewing images of the system was interrupted very suddenly by a message.

Unidentified vessel, this is the Noushin Port Authority. Please state identification code. Upon doing so, please respond, then, when asked, proceed to docking bay 37.

<No.>

Unidentified vessel, state port of origin and reason of arrival, or you will be taken into custody by the equatorial flotilla.

<Insufficient force for threat to be of value. Response Remains the Same.>

Unidentified vessel. This is the port authority. Stand down, or we -will- open fire.

<This is acceptable.>

There was a pause, as the Nomad vessel’s offensive systems had power flow into them and the engines cool down. And even at its current velocity it was still a predicable target, so momentarily it was a very fast moving sitting duck.

"Unidentified vessel, this is the port authority. Stand down, or we will open fire."

A pause, then: <This is acceptable.>

At the same time, reports begin to flow in from all over the ship. The young Asian woman on sensors is starting to look slightly panicky. "Commander Taylor, ma'am, we're reading a power divert. Looks like ..." she taps some keys "... engines ... to weapons. Oh Christ--"

Ryana Taylor doesn't bother to respond; neurolinks are bombarding her like a swarm of kinetic harpoons. Mostly status queries, requests for orders, and high-placed traders demanding they be allowed to know what the hell is going on, lest it impact their profits. She's used to this, and cancels the traders, temporarily blocking them to focus on the fast, efficient queries from her own people.

Request clearance to fire, the AI on the flotilla command frigate links in, cool, as ever, as a cucumber. Ryana responds in the affirmative. Open up with light skirmishers. If no response, intensify bombardment; if still no response, proceed to cap-killers. Noushin may be in trouble.

The first guard diamond of eight ships swoops in over the Nomad battlecruiser, their weapons swivelling to lock. With no further ado, they begin a storm of light flechette and laser bombardment, ensuring clarity of their capabilities. The skirmishers on their current settings aren't meant to do damage -- only to serve as extremely menacing warning shots. Panels clamped onto their bows unlock and retract, revealing what are quite obviously missile bays.

Quong twitched. He didn’t do that often ... and what he did next was unprecedented: shooing his customers from his shop, and urging them to run away (for some unknown reason); he locked up the doors and retreated upstairs.

What looked like an unassuming door turned out to be very different: instead of putting a key into the lock and unlocking it, he used his fingers. Stepping in, he quickly packed a few necessities - fellow Quongs across the universe wondered in amusement why this Quong was taking this completely unwarranted course of action. Standing in the middle of the room, Quong simply assumed an absolute stillness, stopped breathing and apparently, well, stopped living.

* * *

“Quong,” Quong said. Not out loud, but someplace ... else, a strangely familiar place to some people, but not to those who used it.

<Yes, Quong?> an identical voice replied, and immediately the storm, the babble of chatter died as these two conversed ... it seemed more like one person, but it was two.

“We need to know about this ... Ryana Taylor, and ... we seem to know how to contact her.”

<Indeed we do. This knowledge ... why do you look for it?>

“I look for it because the human gift of ... intuition ... seems to be … tingling.“ There was a gasp ... well, it seemed like a gasp, but it was many a million gasps ... all identical.

<This is indeed grave news. Do we agree to give this information to we?>

Another almost-choir of voices responded. <We agree ... we are now you and you are now we.>

The mantra was then taken up by many millions of voices, now very different from one another: <<We are one, but we are many. We are Quong.>>

* * *

Quong came back from the dead as he remembered to restart his bodily processes. Grabbing a very strange, smooth silver device, he simply inserted it into his chest. The “flesh” ripped apart and bled; a single drop of blood hit the floor, and immediately turned a shining silver, before it rolled across the floor and back into Quong’s boot.

Stepping out into an access corridor, behind his restaurant, and taking a bunch of small walkways, he would end up near, more-or-less, the hangar bay where his personal transport The Quong would be waiting for him: a small FTL capable freighter of a line now long discontinued, constructed by a long-defunct consortium.

Stepping inside, he set down his belongings on a table; picking out a device, he turned it on. The device tapped into the thing the Kostemetsians called a neural net, and Quong established a link to one mind in the command centre.

Ryana, it's me, Quong. Get out of here now ... I have a feeling something bad is going on; I don’t know what or why, but for your safety, get down to the hanger and flee.

He flinched slightly as the shots collided with the shields, causing ripples from the points of impact. But the moment passed as status reports began to flow to him. Shields hadn’t been penetrated, there was no hull damage beyond that from the jump. They were for all intents and purposes unaffected.

He snarled and made a deep screeching sound and gesturing with one arm. There was a higher pitched sound from another of the creatures on a level a few step below the first which caused another screech from the first.

Very suddenly along the length of the vessel small spheres began to glow, lances of energy punching through the frigates as well as some of the more heavily armed civilian vessels. But that was merely their opening salvo, the vessel, still moving along the same path it realigned and faced towards the station, letting loose a lance from a spinal mounted cannon at the station.

It pierced the station, bursting through one end and leaving a hole surrounded by small fractures in the rock. On the opposite side the beam burst out leaving cracks surrounding. It then realigned itself along its vector and dissapered into the fabric of hyperspace.

>> HULL INTEGRITY BREACHED. <<

The silently red message smashes across Ryana's vision like a firestorm, momentarily blotting out everything else. Behind it rotates a diagram of the station; the aliens' shot has taken out a large part of the corporate sector and punched out the asteroid's spine.

For fuck's sake, why did this have to happen while I was rotating here? crosses her mind, and she mentally whacks herself for the self-pitying thought, at the same time realising that there's really no point regulating one's thoughts in the middle of a crisis.

A large block of the corporate calls have been silenced, and another one is coming in from Quong, the strange old Chinese guy running the restaurant way back in the most unprofitable area of the station.

Ryana, it's me, Quong. Get out of here now ... I have a feeling something bad is going on; I don’t know what or why, but for your safety, get down to the hanger and flee.

She comes back, somewhat testy. The famous Quong perspicacity. Look, as much as I'd like to get out of what promises to be a rapidly worsening situation, right now my place is here on the command deck. You do deserve a sit rep, though: hull integrity compromised, flee order issued, frigates engaging breacher. Good enough for you?

Diverting her attention for a second, she starts directing security personnel to the remaining ships - at least a sixth of those docked were crushed by the tremor the Nomad shot incurred, and doubtless major profits were lost for the internationals that trade ... traded ... here. Right now, she has bigger things to think about. Milan and Celia are reporting they're already aboard the NSS Catherine Ashton, one of the troop frigates that is efficiently removing military personnel.

Ryana has a short but furious conversation over neurolink with the Admiralty, which she ends with a secret, shameful relief at being ordered to evacuate from the collapsing station. Most of the few civilians that survived the initial depressure wave are already away, and now only the civil servants, security, and military remain.

* * *

Ryana's cunning plan to follow orders is, however, somewhat thwarted when part of the groaning ceiling simply gives up the ghost and collapses in a pile in front of her. Shouts of dismay are heard from the other side, but she remembers Quong's invitation and maintains a reserve of confidence. Don't worry, she links, I have another exit strategy.

She retargets her link to Quong's code. You know, forget what I just said. Is your offer still open?

* * *

Outside, the frigates are valiantly defending their charges, with not much luck. Most are already debris, and most of the remainder accept Admiralty orders to flee; those who do not, however, join their ex-comrades as dust under the Nomad onslaught.

A few seconds after Ryana's link, the last transport is gone, and all that remains as far as major combatants go is one frigate, which explodes, dispersing the newly dead, under the stress of the titanic damage already inflicted upon it; its wreck collides with an empty, rapidly-collapsing asteroid station, simply increasing the rate of entropy.

Even though their human shield is gone, a few corvettes of both civil and military lineage remain, very cautiously skimming the edge of what they believe to be the cruiser's range; the civilians are mostly of that class which the Commonwealth purports to, as a whole, not be - the opportunists and the profiteers, currently putting their few remaining emotions to one side to record sensor footage, some of which will thrill and stun the Commonwealth for decades to come. Most of it, however, will not, dying with its progenitors as the asteroidal wreckage slams into them.

The military, being, in general, somewhat more astute, are hijacking the footage and archiving it (and their own) for intelligence purposes. The more paranoid among them have no doubt this unit will reappear, and they wish to be ready when it does.

Quong had been tracking her status; he genuinely felt for her safety. He knew he didn’t feel for her - every Quong did, and across the universe they stopped working, only for a moment, before they felt reassured at the plan they had come up with.

The Quong immediately present, meanwhile, replied to Ryana as he manoeuvred The Quong around bits of falling station and the odd civilian ship, going so far as to run over a very indignant and angry ex-CEO in a small shuttle (who, incidentally, became a mere splatter on The Quong's Military class shielding).

Do ... not ... move, Ryana. A second pair of arms moved to the weapons control panel next to him; a single small high intensity beam of plasma lanced out from a turret which had, until a few seconds ago, been hidden under the Quong’s hull; it burned a very-near-person-sized hole directly behind Ryana’s position through several meters of rock and bulkhead.

His eyes opened in panic as the air rushed out; he had momentarily forgotten about the area’s decompression. As he chided themselves, the boarding tube slid out rapidly. from the side of the 'freighter', unquote, and latched onto the hole.

The inner door opened, and Quong told Ryana over her neural link: You crazy ass white girl, in his near-perfect stereotypical (and usual) accent. Get in!

Ryana is, through sheer luck, saved from being blasted into space by the asteroid's now-failing internal shields. They don't last long, though, and they flicker out a fraction of a second before the Quong's docking tube makes contact. She sprints up and into the cool metallic docking corridor.

She keys her earset, opting for audio over the more thought-intensive neural. "Nice ship."

Without waiting for an answer, she runs up to the bridge, checking her carbine and sidearm while running. Something tells her they'll be needed in the near future; thankfully, the carbine clip is full and the sidearm is drawing power. With a twist of a pinbead, her rather ceremonial personal shielding is well up, protecting her from any hull breaches.

Ahead lies the portal to the bridge, and she flashes through it without pausing, quite literally running into one of the seats, swinging around it, and flipping onto it as her sense of urgency amps up. "Quong, I hate to nag, I really do, but we need to get out of here now. That bastard might have backup."

Quong squinted, and let out a groan of relief; she was safe. He didn’t wait - immediately, the tube retracted into the ship's hull, the shields flickering as bits of rubble fell against them. He manoeuvred the ship towards the exit from the fragmenting, airless docking bay, and slowly pushed the engines to twenty-five percent ... well with only one annie plant powering it that was technically its maximum speed, and was a good clip for a ... “freighter” ... of its size.

He responded into the neural as the scanners tracked Ryana's remarkably quick progress through the ship. “Aye, you won't see many like it, I guarantee,” he remarked, as he watched the collapsing surroundings. As Ryana burst onto the bridge and occupied the one seemingly empty chair, Quong added aloud, “Getting out of here, ma'am. Sorry, but this rust bucket ain't the fastest ship in the area.” He knew it was a lie: this vessel could probably outrun all but the most dedicated ships; the technology on this tub was old, but it was godly.

A sudden boom couldn’t be heard, and the exit to the bay collapsed; so too did Ryana’s and Quong’s chance of escaping. Kostemetsian FTL drives wouldn’t work in this situation - the ship would end up as FTL wreckage, and he couldn’t blast through the bay walls: too many witnesses. That left him one choice.
“Buckle in,” he directed Ryana, motioning to the seatbelts as his other hand flashed across the displays at an alarming rate. Deep within the supposed “cargo hold,” three deep, dark ominous hums pitched up; the whine of an engine which hadn’t been used in a while followed, and the hold was filled with a pulsating green light.

The solid walls and displays of the cockpit began to fade away, revealing a rather large and obviously military command bridge, all in gleaming-white mint condition but unmanned and unused. A shining rent was torn inside the hanger, and the ship slowly broke down into the many trillions of atoms that made it up, hurled into the Maze to a safer location. Quong stared at the seemingly infinite criss-crossing lines of blinding white, deserted: no ships to be seen. He whispered a low, soft word, in a dialect strangely like a snake's hiss: <Home.>

... No way, no fucking way is that Kostemetsian fel tech, Ryana's mind screams at her. Her own consciousness, however, is contemplating the Maze with a certain degree of reverence; whatever, however it is, it's quite a sight.

Her attention turns to her more immediate surroundings: Quong's previously cramped bridge. Again, the design isn't Kostemetsian, and neither is the word she hears Quong whisper. It is somehow human, yet somehow alien ... and she is starting to suspect that 'alien' is quite the right word to describe Quong. No doubt the ship is quite well-armed, too, and she would not put it past the strange old apparently-Chinese shopkeeper to have a gratuitous assortment of lethal armaments on his person.

"Quong, not to be overly rude, but ... is there something you haven't told me?"

Quong didn’t take his eyes off his controls. While in the Maze, you couldn’t afford to make a mistake ... step on one wrong line and you could go boom, because the lines crisscrossed everywhere: through planets and stars, through black holes -- and if you were on one when it intersected something like that, the results were less than pretty.

“What we haven’t told you could fill several hundred books. Exactly four hundred and thirty-five point seven if each book had an average of eight hundred thousand words.” A second pair of arms shot out from his back and adjusted a few controls on a nearby panel; a soothing, soft voice came over the ship's PA system: “Holding position above grid x-ray zero nine eight, yankee eight nine six sector foxtrot, time to exit ... pending.”

Quong continued after pulling his second pair of hands back into him, all previous intentions towards concealing his Kewenity gone. “We are not the Quong you know ... the Quong you know is still in that region of space you first met him. We are him and he is Us. We share experiences, all of us, and our goal is to seed the universe with Chinese takeaway shops.” All of the statement was true, even the bit about the shops: he just neglected to say what the shop was for, and its purpose in the grander scheme of things. “We are not solid ... we do not have a set life span ... we look however we please, as our bodies are not our own but a separate sentient being altogether: one which exists on a microscopic scale, and can emulate any- and everything.” Quong hoped he had answered enough of Ryana’s questions, and he turned to face her, watching for her reaction.

Ryana can do nothing but stare, borderline spellbound, her attention flicking between the practically infinite complexity outside and the alien agent piloting her, himself and the ship through it. Finally, she snaps out of it enough to speak. Stutter, really.

"Okay ... so where are we going, Quong? Or should I call you Quong-two? After all, you're not 'my' Quong, as it were ... although I suppose you are, in a way. 'Crazy-ass white boy! Get you out my restaurant or I shove chopsticks up your ass!'" She mimicks the old Quong's intonation and accent perfectly.

The same part of her with the propensity for screaming about feltech redirects its attentions to Quong and how he has Kostemetsian citizenship and should be executed for treason. She firmly suppresses that, pushing it away ... the fact that Quong is apparently an alien doesn't change the fact that he is nothing short of awesome.

Her PDA chooses that very moment to come back online, and pings with pre-downloaded mail. Apparently Milan, Ce, and Second Warrant Thompson got out alright, although that information might not be current; only time will tell, and their transitioning from this ... Maze. Suddenly sapped of energy, she stands her carbine and pistol against the wall and leans back in her chair, exhaling deeply.