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So, the story is once more a figment of my imagination. Takes place about a year ago. Have fun, enjoy.
1. Some of the players
The room was buzzing with static electricity. It was literally crawling along the walls with small cracks and puffs of lightning, in some places creating small auroras. It was very pretty and perfectly safe; the equipment was shielded against the electricity and the staff had long ago learned the hard way to use their elbows to press the control for the access tunnel to the outside, thus saving them from nasty jolts in their sensitive fingertips. The only thing the constant barrage of static electricity messed up was hair, creating big puffy globes of hair and securing the name "The Einstein Gang" for the crew.
Regardless, Utia Taerow was happy that he was wearing his thickly soled non-conducting boots instead of the light sandals that was the usual footwear of the research team in department Omega. Contrary to the other members of the team, he was not a scientist but a captain of the Itani Defence Force. And contrary to the other members of the crew, he didn't exactly want to be here. The other members of the team were supposed to see how far they could drive the subject, and he was supposed to help and to find useful applications for it. It, the subject, they had yet come up with a fitting name for the... phenomenon he guessed was an appropriate word. Anomaly or even freak would be just as fitting he reckoned, and if not for the complete incapacity to find anything humorous, he would have smiled at that.
He looked over at the freak and grimaced as he usually did, turning his head away. Like most people he had a hard time looking directly at the thing, not that it hurt or anything. It was the sense of something large and ominous scraping on the inside of his skull that made him flinch and look away. As a matter of fact, only two persons seemed to be unaffected and you could easily put them in the freak category as well. A set of former Siamese twins, jokingly named Huey and Dewey, were as usual totally oblivious to the mental strain everyone else were subject to by being inside the isolated area. Still, they had been gene-engineered to be able to do something like that. As a matter of fact they had been produced to be like the phenomenon itself, but had failed like the rest of their crèche. Though, where the others had been complete failures, dying within weeks of conception, the single set that lived through infancy proved very useful in adjusting the next gene-engineered crèche with the subject as the result.
The freak was placed inside a Faraday cage, a device that took most of the spill-over static electricity, with the freak's body inside on a table and fixated by two xithricite chains; not to keep it inside, but to keep it from hurting itself while being experimented on. The door opened and professor Raewon walked in closely followed by his aide, Ms. Oselasis. Raewon nodded to the techs and scientists around the room and moved towards his chair. Taerow didn't really notice it; instead he admired the efficient feline movements of the young woman as she secured the professor to his seat near the centre console. She was bent over him while fastening his straps, but quickly looked up and directly at Taerow, catching his eyes and allowing the slightest of smiles to affect her Asian features. Taerow equally quickly looked away like a teenager caught looking at the older girls in the school yard and felt a warm sensation bubble up from his chest. Damn, she did it every time. The professor cleared his throat and Taerow looked back at him, noticing that Ms. Oselasis had moved to her own position and was now focusing fully on the professor. He missed her move across the floor, ah well there would be other times.
"Right team, this is going to be the first real test of the Omega project. We will focus the Omega", the professor's name for the freak's effect,” into the special energy focus mounted on a standard IDF Valkyrie loaded with triple neutron gun mark III remote piloted by Captain Taerow and activate the systems. Once the system is up and running, we will send a series of IDF crewed fast attack ships to attempt and destroy the Valkyrie. Captain Taerow, when you are ready you may launch, the Omega should be ready when you are."
Taerow nodded to the Omega controller on the other side to indicate his readiness. He nodded back, and Taerow donned his helmet and inserted his hands into the controllers. He launched his Valkyrie.
###
Ruteli Vielio knew he wasn't allowed to fly security as long as the Itani Secret Police employed him as security, but the offer had simply been too sweet to let up. He would fly his Vulture Mk III along a force of six heavy Behemoths, three Centaurs and three Warthog Defenders to the huge Metana barracks station Sorus Hold as security. And furthermore, he would be flying rearguard, so not even a realistic chance of getting involved in combat apart from the odd hive bot or so. The 38.000 Standard Itani Credits, or SIC's that he would pull from this assignment along with credits for possible bot kills, would hopefully be enough for him and Edia to buy an in-vitro fertilisation, and maybe even from a good source too.
He would be in and out in six hours at the max; he even had a dinner appointment later with Edia. The night shift would be a pain to get through, but it would be worth it.
###
.... Earlier that week
"I tell you, they are up to no good."
Commander Fletholm turned towards the pale, thin, pimpled and bespectacled looking civilian in the bad-fitting suit that had just come to a conclusion.
"What do you mean Eggert?"
He didn't have to ask who" they" were; after all Eggert was the UIT expert on the Itani military research and development and thus "they" would be the scientists at the most secret facility placed in the space station Tellus Research circling Cantus.
"Look at these readouts and these power consumptions Sir. If you correlate them with the daily shipments of supplies and the amount of persons onboard the station you will see no anomaly. But if you take the trend and extrapolate over a month you have a slightly higher consumption than is expected. So more matter and energy goes into the station than comes out. There is a net loss, Sir."
Fletholm looked at the young man and smiled. He understood what the eager data genius said, but just what should be concluded, he was not sure.
"So, the station is leaky or something?"
"Ah, that is what they want us to believe Sir."
Eggert looked triumphantly at his boss. He punched up another image beside the others, of two stations, one fuzzy.
"See, the picture on the left is how the computer analysis shows how it would look if the station was leaky by the amount indicated, but instead the long range image in full spectrum is as clear as any other station that is well kept."
Fletholm looked closer at the two pictures and frowned.
"So, what are they up to?"
Eggert grinned like a madman and pointed to a Valkyrie that was exiting from the station.
"See the small extra bulge on the top of that ship? If we assume that the ship has a standard weight and standard configuration, which is a safe bet, the ship is heavier by an amount that corresponds to about nineteen months of divergence. Besides, it has no IFF."
Fletholm looked closer at the image without seeing anything really.
"So, what is it?"
"I have no idea Sir, but I am going to try and find out. If it is a new modification to the Valkyrie it has to be something that is worthwhile. The ship is more than three thousand kilos heavier."
Fletholm scratched his ample belly and felt a small stab of fear in the reptilian parts of his brain. He would have to present this to his boss Admiral Stiern, the current head of the UIT military. But for now he would like some more information and some nice pictures from Tellus preferably showing the Valkyrie in question. He sent forth a message to the trade guild with a request for 100 crates of Eo Roses to be delivered to Dau Senate. It took less than a minute for the request to be received and answered. The free trader that took the assignment had for a long time been a paid agent of UIT intelligence, he would know what to do.
###
Hasdrubal Peppermint Peroncini the Third chuckled as he read his trade mission. A hundred crates of red roses from Eo, that could only mean one thing. He readied his battered Heavy Mining Moth with a mix of proximity and concussion mines before launching from the docking bay in Dau Senate. The advanced multi-spectrum scanner and camera fit perfectly into the small slot in front of his cockpit with a feed directly into the auxiliary computer that would normally be used for ore analysis. He loved the mining moth; it was the perfect spy vessel. Who in their right mind would spy in a moth after all? Besides, it had a larger than normal cargo hold allowing him to make a buck on the side. As most freelance spies he had several employers, but recently his UIT customers had been very active in getting information from Eo. Fortunately it was information he could sell to his other main customers as well, the Serco Geira Secret Territorial Border Office, better known as GESTEBO.
1. Some of the players
The room was buzzing with static electricity. It was literally crawling along the walls with small cracks and puffs of lightning, in some places creating small auroras. It was very pretty and perfectly safe; the equipment was shielded against the electricity and the staff had long ago learned the hard way to use their elbows to press the control for the access tunnel to the outside, thus saving them from nasty jolts in their sensitive fingertips. The only thing the constant barrage of static electricity messed up was hair, creating big puffy globes of hair and securing the name "The Einstein Gang" for the crew.
Regardless, Utia Taerow was happy that he was wearing his thickly soled non-conducting boots instead of the light sandals that was the usual footwear of the research team in department Omega. Contrary to the other members of the team, he was not a scientist but a captain of the Itani Defence Force. And contrary to the other members of the crew, he didn't exactly want to be here. The other members of the team were supposed to see how far they could drive the subject, and he was supposed to help and to find useful applications for it. It, the subject, they had yet come up with a fitting name for the... phenomenon he guessed was an appropriate word. Anomaly or even freak would be just as fitting he reckoned, and if not for the complete incapacity to find anything humorous, he would have smiled at that.
He looked over at the freak and grimaced as he usually did, turning his head away. Like most people he had a hard time looking directly at the thing, not that it hurt or anything. It was the sense of something large and ominous scraping on the inside of his skull that made him flinch and look away. As a matter of fact, only two persons seemed to be unaffected and you could easily put them in the freak category as well. A set of former Siamese twins, jokingly named Huey and Dewey, were as usual totally oblivious to the mental strain everyone else were subject to by being inside the isolated area. Still, they had been gene-engineered to be able to do something like that. As a matter of fact they had been produced to be like the phenomenon itself, but had failed like the rest of their crèche. Though, where the others had been complete failures, dying within weeks of conception, the single set that lived through infancy proved very useful in adjusting the next gene-engineered crèche with the subject as the result.
The freak was placed inside a Faraday cage, a device that took most of the spill-over static electricity, with the freak's body inside on a table and fixated by two xithricite chains; not to keep it inside, but to keep it from hurting itself while being experimented on. The door opened and professor Raewon walked in closely followed by his aide, Ms. Oselasis. Raewon nodded to the techs and scientists around the room and moved towards his chair. Taerow didn't really notice it; instead he admired the efficient feline movements of the young woman as she secured the professor to his seat near the centre console. She was bent over him while fastening his straps, but quickly looked up and directly at Taerow, catching his eyes and allowing the slightest of smiles to affect her Asian features. Taerow equally quickly looked away like a teenager caught looking at the older girls in the school yard and felt a warm sensation bubble up from his chest. Damn, she did it every time. The professor cleared his throat and Taerow looked back at him, noticing that Ms. Oselasis had moved to her own position and was now focusing fully on the professor. He missed her move across the floor, ah well there would be other times.
"Right team, this is going to be the first real test of the Omega project. We will focus the Omega", the professor's name for the freak's effect,” into the special energy focus mounted on a standard IDF Valkyrie loaded with triple neutron gun mark III remote piloted by Captain Taerow and activate the systems. Once the system is up and running, we will send a series of IDF crewed fast attack ships to attempt and destroy the Valkyrie. Captain Taerow, when you are ready you may launch, the Omega should be ready when you are."
Taerow nodded to the Omega controller on the other side to indicate his readiness. He nodded back, and Taerow donned his helmet and inserted his hands into the controllers. He launched his Valkyrie.
###
Ruteli Vielio knew he wasn't allowed to fly security as long as the Itani Secret Police employed him as security, but the offer had simply been too sweet to let up. He would fly his Vulture Mk III along a force of six heavy Behemoths, three Centaurs and three Warthog Defenders to the huge Metana barracks station Sorus Hold as security. And furthermore, he would be flying rearguard, so not even a realistic chance of getting involved in combat apart from the odd hive bot or so. The 38.000 Standard Itani Credits, or SIC's that he would pull from this assignment along with credits for possible bot kills, would hopefully be enough for him and Edia to buy an in-vitro fertilisation, and maybe even from a good source too.
He would be in and out in six hours at the max; he even had a dinner appointment later with Edia. The night shift would be a pain to get through, but it would be worth it.
###
.... Earlier that week
"I tell you, they are up to no good."
Commander Fletholm turned towards the pale, thin, pimpled and bespectacled looking civilian in the bad-fitting suit that had just come to a conclusion.
"What do you mean Eggert?"
He didn't have to ask who" they" were; after all Eggert was the UIT expert on the Itani military research and development and thus "they" would be the scientists at the most secret facility placed in the space station Tellus Research circling Cantus.
"Look at these readouts and these power consumptions Sir. If you correlate them with the daily shipments of supplies and the amount of persons onboard the station you will see no anomaly. But if you take the trend and extrapolate over a month you have a slightly higher consumption than is expected. So more matter and energy goes into the station than comes out. There is a net loss, Sir."
Fletholm looked at the young man and smiled. He understood what the eager data genius said, but just what should be concluded, he was not sure.
"So, the station is leaky or something?"
"Ah, that is what they want us to believe Sir."
Eggert looked triumphantly at his boss. He punched up another image beside the others, of two stations, one fuzzy.
"See, the picture on the left is how the computer analysis shows how it would look if the station was leaky by the amount indicated, but instead the long range image in full spectrum is as clear as any other station that is well kept."
Fletholm looked closer at the two pictures and frowned.
"So, what are they up to?"
Eggert grinned like a madman and pointed to a Valkyrie that was exiting from the station.
"See the small extra bulge on the top of that ship? If we assume that the ship has a standard weight and standard configuration, which is a safe bet, the ship is heavier by an amount that corresponds to about nineteen months of divergence. Besides, it has no IFF."
Fletholm looked closer at the image without seeing anything really.
"So, what is it?"
"I have no idea Sir, but I am going to try and find out. If it is a new modification to the Valkyrie it has to be something that is worthwhile. The ship is more than three thousand kilos heavier."
Fletholm scratched his ample belly and felt a small stab of fear in the reptilian parts of his brain. He would have to present this to his boss Admiral Stiern, the current head of the UIT military. But for now he would like some more information and some nice pictures from Tellus preferably showing the Valkyrie in question. He sent forth a message to the trade guild with a request for 100 crates of Eo Roses to be delivered to Dau Senate. It took less than a minute for the request to be received and answered. The free trader that took the assignment had for a long time been a paid agent of UIT intelligence, he would know what to do.
###
Hasdrubal Peppermint Peroncini the Third chuckled as he read his trade mission. A hundred crates of red roses from Eo, that could only mean one thing. He readied his battered Heavy Mining Moth with a mix of proximity and concussion mines before launching from the docking bay in Dau Senate. The advanced multi-spectrum scanner and camera fit perfectly into the small slot in front of his cockpit with a feed directly into the auxiliary computer that would normally be used for ore analysis. He loved the mining moth; it was the perfect spy vessel. Who in their right mind would spy in a moth after all? Besides, it had a larger than normal cargo hold allowing him to make a buck on the side. As most freelance spies he had several employers, but recently his UIT customers had been very active in getting information from Eo. Fortunately it was information he could sell to his other main customers as well, the Serco Geira Secret Territorial Border Office, better known as GESTEBO.
2. Rending of metal
The large xithricite roid was slowly tumbling in the hive bot infested sector, unremarkable and ignored by just about everyone. Which was precisely how the Serco Long Range Recon Patrol known as the Lurkers liked it. When someone in Skycommand had first suggested creating a forward operations base inside the enemy's territory, he had been deemed insane and sent to the Tuol Sleng re-education facility of Sol II. However, the idea refused to die and eventually someone with enough brass on their shoulders and a membership of the elite Special Operations Division SOD suggested the same. He received a medal, a promotion and responsibility to make it work. Through six months of top-secret work, the patrol base was finished, only slightly over budget, a mere three hundred and nine percent. It had been home to the Lurkers for about a month now, and they were supposed to stay in the base for another month before being replaced in place by their sister unit.
The mission had been to snatch stray traders and miners in bot infested areas and pump these for information as well as provide a collection point for any spy's inside Itani space. Thus far they had some success, but no big hit. That was hopefully about to change.
###
"Trade ship "Mental Splinter", you are cleared inbound on vector delta 390, speed 40 m/s to docking bay alpha three. Welcome back."
The Space Traffic Controller's voice crackled over the background radiation that was customary in Cantus. The main star, a type G-2 yellow star was orbited by a white dwarf that was wreaking havoc on the wormhole alignments from time to time. Still, Cantus was really not a true binary star system but a trinary system. The last star, a brown dwarf, was in the process of getting subsumed by the white star thus providing a lot of radiation throughout the system. This had two effects; one was that the background noise level was much higher than in any other system in known space, the second was the high level of sterile deep space workers. As a matter of fact, only about one in ten adult local inhabitants were not sterile making Cantus the In Vitro fertilisation capitol of known space.
Hasdrubal ignored the background noise and moved as the STC had told him into the docking bay. He was a known face around here; his usual stock of Verasi speciality products a nice break from the imported freeze-dried food from Eo. The Verasi koffee and the Helio Mists were especially sought after and fetched a very nice price. This time he had even chanced it and brought some Dau fashion items, only a couple of crates but it would show if there was a market for it.
He noticed a ring of exotic radiation and activated the combined scanner/camera in that direction to collect all the data he could on the ship. Probably nothing, but you could never tell what the spooks liked back home.
###
Taerow piloted the Valkyrie slowly towards the jump-point, trying to get a feel for it from the remote position. He had piloted remotely before, but never liked it. Something was missing, something non-tangible but nonetheless missing. Intuition maybe? Anyway, he didn't want to be inside this particular Valkyrie at any cost so he would have to get used to it. He activated his engine and jumped the pre-planned series of random jumps until he was in the sector where the test was about to take place. The six Itani Centurion Border Guardians as well as the six IDF Valkyrie Vengeance were waiting for him although they too were empty and remotely piloted. Taerow sent a message to the Omega Tech to activate. He was a good pilot, but these odds were insane; nonetheless, he boosted towards the ships and picked a Valkyrie as his first target.
The enemy pilots moved out into a half globe to allow all the ships to fire at him at once thus reduce him to cinders in mere seconds. He reached the focal point of the globe and the pilots fired their various energy weapons towards him. He flinched and expected a cut-off when his ship would be reduced to plasma and scraps, but nothing happened. Instead, he drew a targeting solution on the nearest ship. He fired his three guns across the ship, making neat fist sized holes in the front of it. The pilot of the targeted ship tried to avoid but due to the surprise of Taerow's Valkyrie surviving the fusillade of fire, he hesitated for a second. That was enough for the neutrons to drill a hole straight through the ship and short out the battery. Flying through the explosion, Taerow turned and faced the other eleven ships that at no point had ceased firing at him. He looked at his damage controls, all green at 100%. He stopped his forward movement and stayed still in one spot. Still no damage to the ship. He started picking the attackers off until only four were left. Then they started fleeing with Taerow in close pursuit, picking them off one by one. At last he was the only ship present in the sector. A message popped up on his HUD, "RTB", and Return To Base.
He turned and jumped for Tellus station, still marvelling at the complete unscathed Valkyrie. He docked and disconnected from the VR gear. He looked at the internal camera that displayed the VR rigs of his opponents and started shaking. He felt nauseous and sick, so very sick. He got up and walked to the door but never reached that far before he started vomiting. He had just fought against and killed 12 of the finest fighters from the elite Swift Wind squad without taking a single hit.
###
Captain Asteroth observed the new recruits as they exerted themselves beyond what would be humanely possible. As a matter of fact, they did feats of strength, dexterity and stamina that could potentially kill a regular unmodified human, what the recruits called with barely hidden contempt, human norms. Still, the Captain was not satisfied with the effort shown by the recruits. He nodded to the Gunnery Master Sergeant who turned the test machines off. Asteroth activated his direct coms implant and addressed the recruits.
"I have good news and bad news. First off, you have all graduated the same tests that the applicants to our glorious Sky Command Fighter Training programme has to achieve in order to get a chance to serve as fighter pilot."
The recruits looked at each other, most of them letting a small grin cross their features while gasping for air. Everyone knew how cruel the test for fighter pilot training was, or had at least read about it.
"The second thing is that you have all failed my test. If you want to be a pilot, join the pilot programme. You are here because you want to be the best, because you want to join the Serco Special Operations Division. And tiddly winking along on my training course is NOT the way to pass. You will all run it again. Begin."
The recruits looked at each other, and then began running the course once more, this time giving it every thing they had. The Master Sergeant dialled the setting to the hardest and fastest possible and watched the recruits run. One recruit didn't duck fast enough after vaulting over a wall and got hit by a tree log crushing his abdomen in the right side; another missed his jump and landed awkwardly breaking his legs several places. Eventually the two injured had crawled over the finish line and the Master Sergeant turned the course off. He pointed to one of the recruits that had cheated. It was not a big thing, he didn't touch with both feet where he was supposed. Undoubtedly there had been others that had cheated, but that was beside the point. It was the fact that he had been caught cheating that pissed Asteroth off. He exited to the recruits, unholstered his heavy needle gun and walked over to that particular young man he had spotted.
"You cheated."
He shot the recruit in the leg and calmly holstered his gun again. The shocked troopers stayed in a loose huddle around the now three injured recruits and looked at Asteroth.
"Kids, go and join something else, none of you have what it takes. Dismissed to the recruitment officer."
The recruits turned and walked away, helping the injured along.
Asteroth walked in to the Master Sergeant and grabbed the paper readout, correlating it with the mental readouts.
"Hmm, I see volunteer 16 and 21 were good enough. Make sure they get kicked out and abducted on the way. I need them in a week Gunny."
"Zur, I will make it happen."
Asteroth nodded and walked out to his waiting hovercraft. Enough of the fun, back to the slavery and boredom of paperwork.
###
Ruteli finished his pre-flight check of the dove blue Vulture and signed her out with the dock master. He took the holo of his wife that he always carried and placed it on the small front left side window. Even though it blocked the view in that particular direction, it still gave him strength to know why he was pulling these extra hours. The convoy formed up outside Oscree garden and he launched to join them. He smiled; soon he would be so much closer to giving Edia what she wanted most.
The large xithricite roid was slowly tumbling in the hive bot infested sector, unremarkable and ignored by just about everyone. Which was precisely how the Serco Long Range Recon Patrol known as the Lurkers liked it. When someone in Skycommand had first suggested creating a forward operations base inside the enemy's territory, he had been deemed insane and sent to the Tuol Sleng re-education facility of Sol II. However, the idea refused to die and eventually someone with enough brass on their shoulders and a membership of the elite Special Operations Division SOD suggested the same. He received a medal, a promotion and responsibility to make it work. Through six months of top-secret work, the patrol base was finished, only slightly over budget, a mere three hundred and nine percent. It had been home to the Lurkers for about a month now, and they were supposed to stay in the base for another month before being replaced in place by their sister unit.
The mission had been to snatch stray traders and miners in bot infested areas and pump these for information as well as provide a collection point for any spy's inside Itani space. Thus far they had some success, but no big hit. That was hopefully about to change.
###
"Trade ship "Mental Splinter", you are cleared inbound on vector delta 390, speed 40 m/s to docking bay alpha three. Welcome back."
The Space Traffic Controller's voice crackled over the background radiation that was customary in Cantus. The main star, a type G-2 yellow star was orbited by a white dwarf that was wreaking havoc on the wormhole alignments from time to time. Still, Cantus was really not a true binary star system but a trinary system. The last star, a brown dwarf, was in the process of getting subsumed by the white star thus providing a lot of radiation throughout the system. This had two effects; one was that the background noise level was much higher than in any other system in known space, the second was the high level of sterile deep space workers. As a matter of fact, only about one in ten adult local inhabitants were not sterile making Cantus the In Vitro fertilisation capitol of known space.
Hasdrubal ignored the background noise and moved as the STC had told him into the docking bay. He was a known face around here; his usual stock of Verasi speciality products a nice break from the imported freeze-dried food from Eo. The Verasi koffee and the Helio Mists were especially sought after and fetched a very nice price. This time he had even chanced it and brought some Dau fashion items, only a couple of crates but it would show if there was a market for it.
He noticed a ring of exotic radiation and activated the combined scanner/camera in that direction to collect all the data he could on the ship. Probably nothing, but you could never tell what the spooks liked back home.
###
Taerow piloted the Valkyrie slowly towards the jump-point, trying to get a feel for it from the remote position. He had piloted remotely before, but never liked it. Something was missing, something non-tangible but nonetheless missing. Intuition maybe? Anyway, he didn't want to be inside this particular Valkyrie at any cost so he would have to get used to it. He activated his engine and jumped the pre-planned series of random jumps until he was in the sector where the test was about to take place. The six Itani Centurion Border Guardians as well as the six IDF Valkyrie Vengeance were waiting for him although they too were empty and remotely piloted. Taerow sent a message to the Omega Tech to activate. He was a good pilot, but these odds were insane; nonetheless, he boosted towards the ships and picked a Valkyrie as his first target.
The enemy pilots moved out into a half globe to allow all the ships to fire at him at once thus reduce him to cinders in mere seconds. He reached the focal point of the globe and the pilots fired their various energy weapons towards him. He flinched and expected a cut-off when his ship would be reduced to plasma and scraps, but nothing happened. Instead, he drew a targeting solution on the nearest ship. He fired his three guns across the ship, making neat fist sized holes in the front of it. The pilot of the targeted ship tried to avoid but due to the surprise of Taerow's Valkyrie surviving the fusillade of fire, he hesitated for a second. That was enough for the neutrons to drill a hole straight through the ship and short out the battery. Flying through the explosion, Taerow turned and faced the other eleven ships that at no point had ceased firing at him. He looked at his damage controls, all green at 100%. He stopped his forward movement and stayed still in one spot. Still no damage to the ship. He started picking the attackers off until only four were left. Then they started fleeing with Taerow in close pursuit, picking them off one by one. At last he was the only ship present in the sector. A message popped up on his HUD, "RTB", and Return To Base.
He turned and jumped for Tellus station, still marvelling at the complete unscathed Valkyrie. He docked and disconnected from the VR gear. He looked at the internal camera that displayed the VR rigs of his opponents and started shaking. He felt nauseous and sick, so very sick. He got up and walked to the door but never reached that far before he started vomiting. He had just fought against and killed 12 of the finest fighters from the elite Swift Wind squad without taking a single hit.
###
Captain Asteroth observed the new recruits as they exerted themselves beyond what would be humanely possible. As a matter of fact, they did feats of strength, dexterity and stamina that could potentially kill a regular unmodified human, what the recruits called with barely hidden contempt, human norms. Still, the Captain was not satisfied with the effort shown by the recruits. He nodded to the Gunnery Master Sergeant who turned the test machines off. Asteroth activated his direct coms implant and addressed the recruits.
"I have good news and bad news. First off, you have all graduated the same tests that the applicants to our glorious Sky Command Fighter Training programme has to achieve in order to get a chance to serve as fighter pilot."
The recruits looked at each other, most of them letting a small grin cross their features while gasping for air. Everyone knew how cruel the test for fighter pilot training was, or had at least read about it.
"The second thing is that you have all failed my test. If you want to be a pilot, join the pilot programme. You are here because you want to be the best, because you want to join the Serco Special Operations Division. And tiddly winking along on my training course is NOT the way to pass. You will all run it again. Begin."
The recruits looked at each other, and then began running the course once more, this time giving it every thing they had. The Master Sergeant dialled the setting to the hardest and fastest possible and watched the recruits run. One recruit didn't duck fast enough after vaulting over a wall and got hit by a tree log crushing his abdomen in the right side; another missed his jump and landed awkwardly breaking his legs several places. Eventually the two injured had crawled over the finish line and the Master Sergeant turned the course off. He pointed to one of the recruits that had cheated. It was not a big thing, he didn't touch with both feet where he was supposed. Undoubtedly there had been others that had cheated, but that was beside the point. It was the fact that he had been caught cheating that pissed Asteroth off. He exited to the recruits, unholstered his heavy needle gun and walked over to that particular young man he had spotted.
"You cheated."
He shot the recruit in the leg and calmly holstered his gun again. The shocked troopers stayed in a loose huddle around the now three injured recruits and looked at Asteroth.
"Kids, go and join something else, none of you have what it takes. Dismissed to the recruitment officer."
The recruits turned and walked away, helping the injured along.
Asteroth walked in to the Master Sergeant and grabbed the paper readout, correlating it with the mental readouts.
"Hmm, I see volunteer 16 and 21 were good enough. Make sure they get kicked out and abducted on the way. I need them in a week Gunny."
"Zur, I will make it happen."
Asteroth nodded and walked out to his waiting hovercraft. Enough of the fun, back to the slavery and boredom of paperwork.
###
Ruteli finished his pre-flight check of the dove blue Vulture and signed her out with the dock master. He took the holo of his wife that he always carried and placed it on the small front left side window. Even though it blocked the view in that particular direction, it still gave him strength to know why he was pulling these extra hours. The convoy formed up outside Oscree garden and he launched to join them. He smiled; soon he would be so much closer to giving Edia what she wanted most.
3. Murphy's law
The convoy had arrived at the final destination without any problems. The one time they had been trapped in the soup of charged particles so aptly named ion storms, the hive had glimmered with its absence and so it had merely delayed the arrival time by fifteen minutes. Ruteli received his bonus and was just about to walk out to his Vulture for the journey home when a merchant put a hand on his shoulder.
"Son, I have an offer for you."
"Sorry, I am not interested. I just want to go home to my wife. Besides I have to go to work later."
Ruteli smiled at the merchant disarmingly, but started to walk out again. Not about to let him get away, the trader raised his voice.
"I'll pay you half the profits on the cargo, up front. 200 thousand SIC's"
Ruteli stopped. That amount could ensure that he could get the prime quality incubators and maybe even a couple of geneplanted features on his, no their kid as well and that way securing his or her future. He turned to the trader.
"Depends. I absolutely have to be in Cantus in four hours or I am a dead man."
"No problem, I have to shift some time sensitive items to Eo and my standard guard got cocky and ran into a hive fleet yesterday. He is still recovering and will not be able to fly again for some days. Tell you what, as soon as we are inside the capitol sector you can leave us, the security is good enough there. We'll leave in twenty minutes, that will ensure that you can be in Cantus in three hours or less."
Ruteli nodded, this sounded like a sweet deal for sure. Today sounded like his lucky day!
"Sure, I'll make sure the old gal is up and ready in ten."
They exchanged IFF information and Ruteli made sure that the trader paid the 200.000 SIC's into his account, deliverable upon end of mission. He smiled like a crazy during launch, and even more when he saw that the convoy consisted of three centaurs and four atlases, with only a single vulnerable heavy moth. Easiest money in the World.
###
Hasdrubal launched his mining moth and exited on the vector given by the STC. It had been a very good short stay in Tellus, very profitable indeed. He had really struck a veritable gold mine with those Dau fashion clothes; who could have known that the regular shipments of standard socks had been delayed for two months? He had sold every single pair at a three hundred percent profits. He kept the scanners running all the way to the jump point but not really paying any attention to it. He jumped out to the unguarded sector that he had been briefed on previously by his Serco employers. A single Serco Vulture Guardian, better known as a SVG awaited in the deep of space. Hasdrubal floated through the void and watched as the SVG matched velocity and heading with style and grace. Even though the Itani were generally better pilots than the Serco, he still had to give it to the pilot of this ship. He was very good. The ship's computer received a query from the SVG's systems and started sharing the data on his auxiliary system.
"Your payment will be in the account as usual."
Hasdrubal almost choked on the cup of Kappucino he was enjoying. A female voice, a female pilot on the SVG. Contaminated with a metallic background noise and completely without any trace of sensuality, the voice still gave him heart flickering.
"Thank you very much," he managed to croak, cursing his pulse that was now approaching 140 without any reason.
The data had almost transferred when his proximity sensors beeped, then again and again until it had nine contacts. He looked down at the IFF's and took a deep breath. This could be a problem. The SVG broke contact with his ship and accelerated towards the group.
A direct link opened with his communications unit.
"Stay put trader, help is inbound in seconds. Do not flee."
Screw this, what could a single SVG do against a whole convoy? He killed his IFF and started to set up a jump sequence for the wormhole to Eo. Hopefully he could talk his way out of this situation. Getting caught with a member of the Serco military three systems deep in Itani space was not a way to ensure continued good relations with the Itani government.
###
Taerow didn't realise that he had fainted until he awoke on the floor on his back, someone waving a probably "secret" stamped document in his face to give him some cool air. He opened his eyes and stared directly into the concerned features of Ms. Oselasis. Not able to summon the power to really do anything, he tried to talk but managed only a hoarse croaking. He tried to get his head up but couldn't find the power.
"You, get him some water, you, contact medtech and tell them we need an IV set now. Give me that."
Someone spoke with great authority, and if the movements of her lips corresponded it was probably Ms. Oselasis.
"Utia, this is going to hurt."
She called him by his first.... blackness
He woke up again, this time on a stretcher but still with Ms. Oselasis over him. She was wearing a pair of latex gloves and held a small bottle in her hand.
"That should wake you up. Hello Utia, are you with us?"
He responded, but no noise came out of his mouth. He nodded instead.
"You had a severe case of de-hydration and sensory overload. You have an IV tube in your arm now and the doctor is on his way. You'll be fine, I guarantee it."
She allowed a concerned smile to adorn her face, the effect like a sunrise on a perfect beach. Se moved out of his vision and he closed his eyes again. Just for a.... blackness.
###
"It seems that the sensory rig that allows us to remotely pilot the ship interacts with the neural pathways of the pilot. Thus the pilot not only feels a pain every time his ship is hit, he also feels a constant presence of the Omega. That is the most likely reason that Captain Taerow fainted today."
The sensory tech specialist nodded to professor Raewon to indicate that he was finished with his briefing. Raewon finished his notes and looked up.
"Very well, we shall have to find some way to work around that for the next trial. That is a priority Z, understood?"
The tech nodded and walked down to his chair already scribbling on his data pad.
"Biomics, how did the Omega handle the stress?"
"Well, we had no indications at any time that the stress level actually arose even slightly. There was some scrounging after the battle after sugary substances indicating that it had used a lot of energy during the encounter, but nothing on biometrics. There was a net weight loss of two hundred and nine grams."
The weapons tech looked up and frowned.
"Two hundred and nine precisely?"
"Yes. Well there were a net gain at one time of thirty grams in the form of a glucose stick, so the total loss was two hundred and thirty nine."
The weapons tech nodded.
"Sir I think I have a correlation. The Omega shielded a total of 3,9999 million kilojoules. That corresponds to roughly 239 grams sugar give or take 0,1 gram, per million joule shielded."
Raewon looked at the young woman over his glasses.
"So, as long as I feed the Omega with enough glucose it can shield an object from damage at the order of a million joule per gram of sugar? Make sure we test that thoroughly next time."
"Yes professor."
"Anything more for me biomecs?"
"No Sir."
"Very well, good work both of you."
The biomecs tech sat down and looked happily at the weapons tech. He was going to celebrate this with a bottle of the finest Verasi champagne tonight for sure. Maybe she wanted to join...
The convoy had arrived at the final destination without any problems. The one time they had been trapped in the soup of charged particles so aptly named ion storms, the hive had glimmered with its absence and so it had merely delayed the arrival time by fifteen minutes. Ruteli received his bonus and was just about to walk out to his Vulture for the journey home when a merchant put a hand on his shoulder.
"Son, I have an offer for you."
"Sorry, I am not interested. I just want to go home to my wife. Besides I have to go to work later."
Ruteli smiled at the merchant disarmingly, but started to walk out again. Not about to let him get away, the trader raised his voice.
"I'll pay you half the profits on the cargo, up front. 200 thousand SIC's"
Ruteli stopped. That amount could ensure that he could get the prime quality incubators and maybe even a couple of geneplanted features on his, no their kid as well and that way securing his or her future. He turned to the trader.
"Depends. I absolutely have to be in Cantus in four hours or I am a dead man."
"No problem, I have to shift some time sensitive items to Eo and my standard guard got cocky and ran into a hive fleet yesterday. He is still recovering and will not be able to fly again for some days. Tell you what, as soon as we are inside the capitol sector you can leave us, the security is good enough there. We'll leave in twenty minutes, that will ensure that you can be in Cantus in three hours or less."
Ruteli nodded, this sounded like a sweet deal for sure. Today sounded like his lucky day!
"Sure, I'll make sure the old gal is up and ready in ten."
They exchanged IFF information and Ruteli made sure that the trader paid the 200.000 SIC's into his account, deliverable upon end of mission. He smiled like a crazy during launch, and even more when he saw that the convoy consisted of three centaurs and four atlases, with only a single vulnerable heavy moth. Easiest money in the World.
###
Hasdrubal launched his mining moth and exited on the vector given by the STC. It had been a very good short stay in Tellus, very profitable indeed. He had really struck a veritable gold mine with those Dau fashion clothes; who could have known that the regular shipments of standard socks had been delayed for two months? He had sold every single pair at a three hundred percent profits. He kept the scanners running all the way to the jump point but not really paying any attention to it. He jumped out to the unguarded sector that he had been briefed on previously by his Serco employers. A single Serco Vulture Guardian, better known as a SVG awaited in the deep of space. Hasdrubal floated through the void and watched as the SVG matched velocity and heading with style and grace. Even though the Itani were generally better pilots than the Serco, he still had to give it to the pilot of this ship. He was very good. The ship's computer received a query from the SVG's systems and started sharing the data on his auxiliary system.
"Your payment will be in the account as usual."
Hasdrubal almost choked on the cup of Kappucino he was enjoying. A female voice, a female pilot on the SVG. Contaminated with a metallic background noise and completely without any trace of sensuality, the voice still gave him heart flickering.
"Thank you very much," he managed to croak, cursing his pulse that was now approaching 140 without any reason.
The data had almost transferred when his proximity sensors beeped, then again and again until it had nine contacts. He looked down at the IFF's and took a deep breath. This could be a problem. The SVG broke contact with his ship and accelerated towards the group.
A direct link opened with his communications unit.
"Stay put trader, help is inbound in seconds. Do not flee."
Screw this, what could a single SVG do against a whole convoy? He killed his IFF and started to set up a jump sequence for the wormhole to Eo. Hopefully he could talk his way out of this situation. Getting caught with a member of the Serco military three systems deep in Itani space was not a way to ensure continued good relations with the Itani government.
###
Taerow didn't realise that he had fainted until he awoke on the floor on his back, someone waving a probably "secret" stamped document in his face to give him some cool air. He opened his eyes and stared directly into the concerned features of Ms. Oselasis. Not able to summon the power to really do anything, he tried to talk but managed only a hoarse croaking. He tried to get his head up but couldn't find the power.
"You, get him some water, you, contact medtech and tell them we need an IV set now. Give me that."
Someone spoke with great authority, and if the movements of her lips corresponded it was probably Ms. Oselasis.
"Utia, this is going to hurt."
She called him by his first.... blackness
He woke up again, this time on a stretcher but still with Ms. Oselasis over him. She was wearing a pair of latex gloves and held a small bottle in her hand.
"That should wake you up. Hello Utia, are you with us?"
He responded, but no noise came out of his mouth. He nodded instead.
"You had a severe case of de-hydration and sensory overload. You have an IV tube in your arm now and the doctor is on his way. You'll be fine, I guarantee it."
She allowed a concerned smile to adorn her face, the effect like a sunrise on a perfect beach. Se moved out of his vision and he closed his eyes again. Just for a.... blackness.
###
"It seems that the sensory rig that allows us to remotely pilot the ship interacts with the neural pathways of the pilot. Thus the pilot not only feels a pain every time his ship is hit, he also feels a constant presence of the Omega. That is the most likely reason that Captain Taerow fainted today."
The sensory tech specialist nodded to professor Raewon to indicate that he was finished with his briefing. Raewon finished his notes and looked up.
"Very well, we shall have to find some way to work around that for the next trial. That is a priority Z, understood?"
The tech nodded and walked down to his chair already scribbling on his data pad.
"Biomics, how did the Omega handle the stress?"
"Well, we had no indications at any time that the stress level actually arose even slightly. There was some scrounging after the battle after sugary substances indicating that it had used a lot of energy during the encounter, but nothing on biometrics. There was a net weight loss of two hundred and nine grams."
The weapons tech looked up and frowned.
"Two hundred and nine precisely?"
"Yes. Well there were a net gain at one time of thirty grams in the form of a glucose stick, so the total loss was two hundred and thirty nine."
The weapons tech nodded.
"Sir I think I have a correlation. The Omega shielded a total of 3,9999 million kilojoules. That corresponds to roughly 239 grams sugar give or take 0,1 gram, per million joule shielded."
Raewon looked at the young woman over his glasses.
"So, as long as I feed the Omega with enough glucose it can shield an object from damage at the order of a million joule per gram of sugar? Make sure we test that thoroughly next time."
"Yes professor."
"Anything more for me biomecs?"
"No Sir."
"Very well, good work both of you."
The biomecs tech sat down and looked happily at the weapons tech. He was going to celebrate this with a bottle of the finest Verasi champagne tonight for sure. Maybe she wanted to join...
4. Rescuers and recruits
The SVG engaged the group of Atlases first, exploding two in short order before the escorting Vulture Mk III engaged. The SVG danced in and around the trade ships, avoiding hits with a deftness that was awe-inspiring. However, there was not a chance that the pilot could hinder at least some of the traders escaping. That is, until several showers of Tau neutrino's betrayed incoming ships, four in all. Three Sky Command Prometheus's and a single Warthog Mk II. The Prometheus class ship was feared among the Itani Defence Force, and rightly so. With twin small ports and a single large port, clad in armour so thick that only capitol class ships had more and everything designed around the largest engine that had ever been designed for a fighter, the Prometheus was designed to take on odds of three to one and win. The three ships attacked the trade vessels and tore them to shreds in no time at all, only the Vulture Mk III surviving due to it engaging the SVG. After realising that he was now alone, he pilot of the Mk III tried to turn and flee but found himself in a sandwich between the SVG and the Warthog. With a set of well-placed shots across the rear of the Mk III, the SVG pilot managed to kill the ship but not the pilot. The Warthog then started chasing after the mining moth that was accelerating outwards.
The commander of The Lurkers leaned back in his pilot seat of his Prometheus and opened a private channel to the SVG.
"Did you get the information he had for us?"
"Sir, I still lack around 10%. But I figured that I better kill this voy and call for help before getting the rest."
"You did good Cat. Now go get the rest, I have a set of moths inbound to clean up. Looks like we have a couple of survivors out there."
"Will do Sir. Cat out."
The SVG started turboing towards the mining moth. The Warthog had intercepted it and with a single shot across the nose had stopped it dead in space. The SVG moved up close to the moth and initiated a secure link. The computers immediately re-established the connection and moved data as if nothing had happened. Cat opened a personal link across to the trader inside the moth.
"I told you to stay put. You are lucky you didn't get away, or I would have free hands to kill you. Next time listen or die."
There was no response, but she didn't need one. She knew very well he had heard her. She stayed until the data had crossed over and disconnected with no waste of time, turning the SVG back towards the cleaning crew. Several new ships had entered the area, two Moths two Centaur Mk III's and a single heavily modified Atlas. The Prom's circled efficiently around checking for survivors and when finding any making sure that the Atlas picked them up. So far they had found six Itani alive of which four were expected to survive. The goods were distributed evenly among the ships and after the non-combat ships had left, the Prom's slagged the few remains and jumped to the relative safety of their secret hideout. By that time one of the captives had died, but it looked like the rest would make it at least as far as to the Interrogator from the Thought Police. Naturally, none of hem was expected to survive for long after that.
###
The pickup had been easy enough. The two youngsters had been subjected to what was affectionally named a System D by the Special Forces troopers. In the morning when the training sergeant had called them to attention, the recruits had been chewed on and spit out as usual, doing an extraordinary amount of physical training before standing to attention once more behind their footlocker. That was a normal morning for the recruits; they had been subjected to it every morning the last three weeks. This morning it was different, as the sergeant stayed in one end of the building and two immensely large military police sergeants entered the building with a grey beast with massive tusks in tow. The beast moved around the footlockers and slobbered on two of them. One of the MP's took the beast outside and the other walked over to the nearest footlocker. He looked up at the recruit behind it.
"Care to open that for me son?"
The recruit looked confused for a second and the drill sergeant took over.
"Recruit! I know for a fact that your hearing is enhanced to a level that a human norm cannot even begin to comprehend so I'll assume that you heard the sergeant and in reality is even dumber than the Grey Render that was just in here. Now let me translate it for you. Open the goddamned footlocker you worthless piece of Itani coughed slime."
The recruit hurried to do as ordered and moved back to stand to attention behind it. The MP bent over the locker and scrounged around. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a translucent plastic bag with seven bright purple pills. He grabbed them with two fingers and acquired a look of distaste on his face that had been practised for at least a year before dangling them in front of the recruit's nose.
"Care to explain?"
The recruit tried to keep looking straight ahead but failed.
"That is not mine, I have never seen it before."
"That is what they all say."
The MP softened his voice and smiled at the recruit.
"But that hardly matters now, does it? I found it in your locker, and that is all that counts. Report to the MP outside. Dismissed."
The MP walked over to the next footlocker with drool all over. He looked down at the locker and up at the recruit, then knelt down while shaking his head disapprovingly.
"Let's see, what do we have here, not in here, this is not is. Hmm, what is this?"
The MP had found a small bag with more violet pills. He stood and pointed to the exit watching the recruit walk all the way out before turning to the Gunny.
"Sir, I have what I came for. Do you want to perform the customary punishment for desertion?"
The Gunny was about to pop a fuse in rage and anger, but merely nodded.
"Attention, everyone outside NOW. Form up in two rows facing each other, three metres distance. Move out."
With that the recruits ran outside and did as instructed. The Gunny grabbed a row of long wooden sticks and handed them to the recruits.
"Maggots, those two pieces of slime have betrayed you, the Lady Serco, themselves and me. They have by their actions deserted the righteous path of a Serco warrior. And the punishment for desertion is Fustuarium twice with subsequent repatriation to a punishment unit. Any recruits that do not do their duty will be punished by Fustuarium as well. Begin."
That had been now five hours ago. The two young men were seated on the floor, a hood over their heads. A strong multiband jamming device was placed inside the room, making their implants useless. For the first time since they had been able to formulate words, they were truly alone and very afraid. Their backs hurt immensely from the punishment they had endured so far, but nothing a Serco couldn't ignore. Or at least tolerate. What felt so much worse was that they had been kicked out of the regular Serco military and dumped in a penal unit. Asteroth looked at them and frowned; he just hoped that they would be as good as their papers showed them to be. They were going to need it if they were going to succeed. He motioned for the hoods to be removed and waited for some seconds until they had regained their full senses. They showed some surprise through their pained expressions at seeing the dark clad Captain in front of them.
"I have an offer for you. Before you ask me anything I am required to inform you that you have been stripped of your citizenship and as of now you have no rights at all. You will be entering a penal legion where you will serve for a period of ten years or until dead. Have no doubts, very few actually survive past one years duty and I have only heard of one person that survived all ten and regained citizenship. Now, I may have an offer for you that is equally full of danger but is much shorter in duration. I need to know your answer before I tell you what it is. So, penal legion or my thing?"
The recruits turned and faced each other before looking back at Asteroth. The left recruit answered for both of them.
"I think we'll take your offer Sir."
Asteroth smiled at the recruits and nodded to the soldiers behind them to open their chains.
"Welcome to the Diplomatic Service boys, I can guarantee you that it will never be boring."
The SVG engaged the group of Atlases first, exploding two in short order before the escorting Vulture Mk III engaged. The SVG danced in and around the trade ships, avoiding hits with a deftness that was awe-inspiring. However, there was not a chance that the pilot could hinder at least some of the traders escaping. That is, until several showers of Tau neutrino's betrayed incoming ships, four in all. Three Sky Command Prometheus's and a single Warthog Mk II. The Prometheus class ship was feared among the Itani Defence Force, and rightly so. With twin small ports and a single large port, clad in armour so thick that only capitol class ships had more and everything designed around the largest engine that had ever been designed for a fighter, the Prometheus was designed to take on odds of three to one and win. The three ships attacked the trade vessels and tore them to shreds in no time at all, only the Vulture Mk III surviving due to it engaging the SVG. After realising that he was now alone, he pilot of the Mk III tried to turn and flee but found himself in a sandwich between the SVG and the Warthog. With a set of well-placed shots across the rear of the Mk III, the SVG pilot managed to kill the ship but not the pilot. The Warthog then started chasing after the mining moth that was accelerating outwards.
The commander of The Lurkers leaned back in his pilot seat of his Prometheus and opened a private channel to the SVG.
"Did you get the information he had for us?"
"Sir, I still lack around 10%. But I figured that I better kill this voy and call for help before getting the rest."
"You did good Cat. Now go get the rest, I have a set of moths inbound to clean up. Looks like we have a couple of survivors out there."
"Will do Sir. Cat out."
The SVG started turboing towards the mining moth. The Warthog had intercepted it and with a single shot across the nose had stopped it dead in space. The SVG moved up close to the moth and initiated a secure link. The computers immediately re-established the connection and moved data as if nothing had happened. Cat opened a personal link across to the trader inside the moth.
"I told you to stay put. You are lucky you didn't get away, or I would have free hands to kill you. Next time listen or die."
There was no response, but she didn't need one. She knew very well he had heard her. She stayed until the data had crossed over and disconnected with no waste of time, turning the SVG back towards the cleaning crew. Several new ships had entered the area, two Moths two Centaur Mk III's and a single heavily modified Atlas. The Prom's circled efficiently around checking for survivors and when finding any making sure that the Atlas picked them up. So far they had found six Itani alive of which four were expected to survive. The goods were distributed evenly among the ships and after the non-combat ships had left, the Prom's slagged the few remains and jumped to the relative safety of their secret hideout. By that time one of the captives had died, but it looked like the rest would make it at least as far as to the Interrogator from the Thought Police. Naturally, none of hem was expected to survive for long after that.
###
The pickup had been easy enough. The two youngsters had been subjected to what was affectionally named a System D by the Special Forces troopers. In the morning when the training sergeant had called them to attention, the recruits had been chewed on and spit out as usual, doing an extraordinary amount of physical training before standing to attention once more behind their footlocker. That was a normal morning for the recruits; they had been subjected to it every morning the last three weeks. This morning it was different, as the sergeant stayed in one end of the building and two immensely large military police sergeants entered the building with a grey beast with massive tusks in tow. The beast moved around the footlockers and slobbered on two of them. One of the MP's took the beast outside and the other walked over to the nearest footlocker. He looked up at the recruit behind it.
"Care to open that for me son?"
The recruit looked confused for a second and the drill sergeant took over.
"Recruit! I know for a fact that your hearing is enhanced to a level that a human norm cannot even begin to comprehend so I'll assume that you heard the sergeant and in reality is even dumber than the Grey Render that was just in here. Now let me translate it for you. Open the goddamned footlocker you worthless piece of Itani coughed slime."
The recruit hurried to do as ordered and moved back to stand to attention behind it. The MP bent over the locker and scrounged around. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a translucent plastic bag with seven bright purple pills. He grabbed them with two fingers and acquired a look of distaste on his face that had been practised for at least a year before dangling them in front of the recruit's nose.
"Care to explain?"
The recruit tried to keep looking straight ahead but failed.
"That is not mine, I have never seen it before."
"That is what they all say."
The MP softened his voice and smiled at the recruit.
"But that hardly matters now, does it? I found it in your locker, and that is all that counts. Report to the MP outside. Dismissed."
The MP walked over to the next footlocker with drool all over. He looked down at the locker and up at the recruit, then knelt down while shaking his head disapprovingly.
"Let's see, what do we have here, not in here, this is not is. Hmm, what is this?"
The MP had found a small bag with more violet pills. He stood and pointed to the exit watching the recruit walk all the way out before turning to the Gunny.
"Sir, I have what I came for. Do you want to perform the customary punishment for desertion?"
The Gunny was about to pop a fuse in rage and anger, but merely nodded.
"Attention, everyone outside NOW. Form up in two rows facing each other, three metres distance. Move out."
With that the recruits ran outside and did as instructed. The Gunny grabbed a row of long wooden sticks and handed them to the recruits.
"Maggots, those two pieces of slime have betrayed you, the Lady Serco, themselves and me. They have by their actions deserted the righteous path of a Serco warrior. And the punishment for desertion is Fustuarium twice with subsequent repatriation to a punishment unit. Any recruits that do not do their duty will be punished by Fustuarium as well. Begin."
That had been now five hours ago. The two young men were seated on the floor, a hood over their heads. A strong multiband jamming device was placed inside the room, making their implants useless. For the first time since they had been able to formulate words, they were truly alone and very afraid. Their backs hurt immensely from the punishment they had endured so far, but nothing a Serco couldn't ignore. Or at least tolerate. What felt so much worse was that they had been kicked out of the regular Serco military and dumped in a penal unit. Asteroth looked at them and frowned; he just hoped that they would be as good as their papers showed them to be. They were going to need it if they were going to succeed. He motioned for the hoods to be removed and waited for some seconds until they had regained their full senses. They showed some surprise through their pained expressions at seeing the dark clad Captain in front of them.
"I have an offer for you. Before you ask me anything I am required to inform you that you have been stripped of your citizenship and as of now you have no rights at all. You will be entering a penal legion where you will serve for a period of ten years or until dead. Have no doubts, very few actually survive past one years duty and I have only heard of one person that survived all ten and regained citizenship. Now, I may have an offer for you that is equally full of danger but is much shorter in duration. I need to know your answer before I tell you what it is. So, penal legion or my thing?"
The recruits turned and faced each other before looking back at Asteroth. The left recruit answered for both of them.
"I think we'll take your offer Sir."
Asteroth smiled at the recruits and nodded to the soldiers behind them to open their chains.
"Welcome to the Diplomatic Service boys, I can guarantee you that it will never be boring."
5. Spook's time
The uniform that the GESTEBO officer was wearing had been designed for two things, and comfort was not one of them. It mattered not to the intelligence officer who was wearing the uniform, because it did the other things so very well. All black except for the small silver lightning bolts on the collar, it had obviously been designed to intimidate. Right now it worked it seemed, with the Itani human norm cringing underneath the gaze of the interrogator. Most of the Itani that had been captured were of little or no interest being traders or gunners on trade vessels but this particular Itani had been flying security. And it looked like he had some military grade bionics in him that betrayed his former occupation.
"So, I will give you a last chance to tell me exactly where you got those implants and what you do with them."
The interrogator pointed to the young Itani male that was held by one of the massive Special Forces operatives, a picture of pure terror painted on his face.
"Or I can tell Günter here to start ripping your friends limbs off."
The brute showed absolutely no outward emotion, but the Itani both believed that he would do it. Still, the interrogated man refused with a shake of his head. The interrogator nodded to Günter who grabbed the left arm of the Itani and ripped it off. The screams of pain soon stopped as the young man fainted. Günter applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and scrimmaged around for a wake-me-upper. The interrogated man shook his head and started talking, his loathing and contempt for the interrogator almost a physical entity in itself, but nevertheless, he talked. When the interrogator was satisfied that he had given everything he got, he once more nodded to Günter who removed the other Itani from the room.
"Well Itani, it seems that you have just won yourself a tour to Geira Rutilus where you will be entertained by the Serco State."
He took the captive's chin in one hand and directed his face to enable him to look straight in his eyes.
"And with the slightest of lucks, you have just secured my promotion."
The Itani spat in the face of the interrogator who moved back. Chuckling he wiped the spittle off with one gloved hand, showing the other thing that the uniform was very good at. It was stainless, perfectly stainless.
"I see. Well for that little insolence I shall let you witness what happens to the other prisoners."
He activated a control and the far wall became a video screen showing four Itani prisoners getting pushed out of an airlock. The captive tried to look away, but could not. Instead tears started trickling down his cheeks as he witnessed their agonising deaths in silence.
"Do not concern yourself with them, they got the easy way out. You on the other hand, gets to meet the Grand Inquisitor."
The GESTEBO officer injected something into the captive's neck and he passed out. Sweet darkness, sweet sleep.
###
Professor Raewon frowned and then shook his head. He marvelled, how on Eo do they find such stupid people and place them in high command? He mentally agreed with himself that it had to be a question of loyalty way above capacity and intelligence. He cleared his throat and addressed the IDF high command.
"With all due respect Admiral Otestrom, I think you are grasping this whole idea wrongly. First, we do not know if we can duplicate the results with another Omega, we do not know if we can make another Omega, we do not know what the long-term effects are on the Omega, and lastly we do not know what the effects are on the pilot. So, I urge you to give us more time instead of throwing what may be our best shot at ending this continuous bloodletting away."
The officers around the tables looked towards the Admiral of The Fleet in expectation of one of the outbursts of rage that usually was part of the retort to anything that went counter to what he wanted accomplished. They were disappointed when he merely leaned forward and explained in a low voice.
"I hear your arguments, and they are very good. However I aim to deploy the weapon as soon as possible against a Serco foe to test it in real combat. Have the necessary equipment set up for a combat patrol in Deneb in two days from now along with the 62nd fighter squadron. This is not a request, it is an order."
The Admiral leaned back and kept staring at Raewon until Raewon looked away.
"Yes Sir, I'll see to it."
"Very well, dismissed."
The Admiral opened the next matter of urgency for the IDF high command.
"What the hell is this? Who in the name of Akan wanted me to address this matter?"
He looked around and the Admiral in charge of logistics raised his hand slowly.
"I should have known it was you. Tell me in one coherent sentence why I should care about what problems you have with procuring socks for the navy? No, even better tell me what you are doing to solve this and why the HELL it is on my desk?"
Raewon got up and left the high command to more urgent matters, happy that at least the sock problem had been solved at Tellus.
###
Fletholm cursed under his breath and closed the screen on his computer to hide the game of solitaire he had been playing, before yelling a "Come In" in response to the knocking. Didn't they know he was a busy man? Eggert walked in, a sheet of paper in one hand and a data disk in the other.
"Sir, I think I have something on the Tellus case."
Fletholm looked at him without showing any signs of having understood what the young man just said, waiting for further information.
"Sir? The case with the Valkyrie?"
"Yes, I know very well. You said you have something, what?"
Eggert closed the door and presented the paper.
"I have here a hospital slip showing that Captain Taerow was submitted two days ago."
Fletholm sighed loudly.
"Just tell me what you have figured out? My time is valuable, I do not have extra to spare for drawing conclusions that I pay you to draw."
"Yes Sir. As I said, Taerow is hospitalised. However he has been working on that project as far as we know. Our informants tell us that he is the attached pilot. The correlation is that he fell ill immediately after the Doom Valkyrie docked."
"The Doom Valkyrie?"
"Yeah, that's what I call it. Anyway, it has not flown since."
Impatiently Fletholm raised his eyebrows and looked at the young man.
"And?"
"Around the same time that the Doom Valk flew, a group of six regular Valkyries and six Centurion IBG left Botelli Hold. They never arrived anywhere, indicating that they were lost."
Fletholm felt the Interstellar Coalition of Ulcer inducing cells settle in his stomach with the force of a nuclear weapon. A stream of acid tried to force its way up in his oesophagus, always a sign that the end product of human food consumption was about to hit a particular rotating blade situated above his head.
"Do you have the proof on that disk?"
Eggert nodded and handed it over.
"Right, continue working on that Doom Valk, I want to find out what it does. I'll have to go brief the Admiral on this."
Eggert grinned fiercely, made a mock salute and walked out. Fletholm grabbed his coat and moved towards UIT HQ. Somehow he was not sure he was going to finish his game of solitaire anytime soon.
The uniform that the GESTEBO officer was wearing had been designed for two things, and comfort was not one of them. It mattered not to the intelligence officer who was wearing the uniform, because it did the other things so very well. All black except for the small silver lightning bolts on the collar, it had obviously been designed to intimidate. Right now it worked it seemed, with the Itani human norm cringing underneath the gaze of the interrogator. Most of the Itani that had been captured were of little or no interest being traders or gunners on trade vessels but this particular Itani had been flying security. And it looked like he had some military grade bionics in him that betrayed his former occupation.
"So, I will give you a last chance to tell me exactly where you got those implants and what you do with them."
The interrogator pointed to the young Itani male that was held by one of the massive Special Forces operatives, a picture of pure terror painted on his face.
"Or I can tell Günter here to start ripping your friends limbs off."
The brute showed absolutely no outward emotion, but the Itani both believed that he would do it. Still, the interrogated man refused with a shake of his head. The interrogator nodded to Günter who grabbed the left arm of the Itani and ripped it off. The screams of pain soon stopped as the young man fainted. Günter applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and scrimmaged around for a wake-me-upper. The interrogated man shook his head and started talking, his loathing and contempt for the interrogator almost a physical entity in itself, but nevertheless, he talked. When the interrogator was satisfied that he had given everything he got, he once more nodded to Günter who removed the other Itani from the room.
"Well Itani, it seems that you have just won yourself a tour to Geira Rutilus where you will be entertained by the Serco State."
He took the captive's chin in one hand and directed his face to enable him to look straight in his eyes.
"And with the slightest of lucks, you have just secured my promotion."
The Itani spat in the face of the interrogator who moved back. Chuckling he wiped the spittle off with one gloved hand, showing the other thing that the uniform was very good at. It was stainless, perfectly stainless.
"I see. Well for that little insolence I shall let you witness what happens to the other prisoners."
He activated a control and the far wall became a video screen showing four Itani prisoners getting pushed out of an airlock. The captive tried to look away, but could not. Instead tears started trickling down his cheeks as he witnessed their agonising deaths in silence.
"Do not concern yourself with them, they got the easy way out. You on the other hand, gets to meet the Grand Inquisitor."
The GESTEBO officer injected something into the captive's neck and he passed out. Sweet darkness, sweet sleep.
###
Professor Raewon frowned and then shook his head. He marvelled, how on Eo do they find such stupid people and place them in high command? He mentally agreed with himself that it had to be a question of loyalty way above capacity and intelligence. He cleared his throat and addressed the IDF high command.
"With all due respect Admiral Otestrom, I think you are grasping this whole idea wrongly. First, we do not know if we can duplicate the results with another Omega, we do not know if we can make another Omega, we do not know what the long-term effects are on the Omega, and lastly we do not know what the effects are on the pilot. So, I urge you to give us more time instead of throwing what may be our best shot at ending this continuous bloodletting away."
The officers around the tables looked towards the Admiral of The Fleet in expectation of one of the outbursts of rage that usually was part of the retort to anything that went counter to what he wanted accomplished. They were disappointed when he merely leaned forward and explained in a low voice.
"I hear your arguments, and they are very good. However I aim to deploy the weapon as soon as possible against a Serco foe to test it in real combat. Have the necessary equipment set up for a combat patrol in Deneb in two days from now along with the 62nd fighter squadron. This is not a request, it is an order."
The Admiral leaned back and kept staring at Raewon until Raewon looked away.
"Yes Sir, I'll see to it."
"Very well, dismissed."
The Admiral opened the next matter of urgency for the IDF high command.
"What the hell is this? Who in the name of Akan wanted me to address this matter?"
He looked around and the Admiral in charge of logistics raised his hand slowly.
"I should have known it was you. Tell me in one coherent sentence why I should care about what problems you have with procuring socks for the navy? No, even better tell me what you are doing to solve this and why the HELL it is on my desk?"
Raewon got up and left the high command to more urgent matters, happy that at least the sock problem had been solved at Tellus.
###
Fletholm cursed under his breath and closed the screen on his computer to hide the game of solitaire he had been playing, before yelling a "Come In" in response to the knocking. Didn't they know he was a busy man? Eggert walked in, a sheet of paper in one hand and a data disk in the other.
"Sir, I think I have something on the Tellus case."
Fletholm looked at him without showing any signs of having understood what the young man just said, waiting for further information.
"Sir? The case with the Valkyrie?"
"Yes, I know very well. You said you have something, what?"
Eggert closed the door and presented the paper.
"I have here a hospital slip showing that Captain Taerow was submitted two days ago."
Fletholm sighed loudly.
"Just tell me what you have figured out? My time is valuable, I do not have extra to spare for drawing conclusions that I pay you to draw."
"Yes Sir. As I said, Taerow is hospitalised. However he has been working on that project as far as we know. Our informants tell us that he is the attached pilot. The correlation is that he fell ill immediately after the Doom Valkyrie docked."
"The Doom Valkyrie?"
"Yeah, that's what I call it. Anyway, it has not flown since."
Impatiently Fletholm raised his eyebrows and looked at the young man.
"And?"
"Around the same time that the Doom Valk flew, a group of six regular Valkyries and six Centurion IBG left Botelli Hold. They never arrived anywhere, indicating that they were lost."
Fletholm felt the Interstellar Coalition of Ulcer inducing cells settle in his stomach with the force of a nuclear weapon. A stream of acid tried to force its way up in his oesophagus, always a sign that the end product of human food consumption was about to hit a particular rotating blade situated above his head.
"Do you have the proof on that disk?"
Eggert nodded and handed it over.
"Right, continue working on that Doom Valk, I want to find out what it does. I'll have to go brief the Admiral on this."
Eggert grinned fiercely, made a mock salute and walked out. Fletholm grabbed his coat and moved towards UIT HQ. Somehow he was not sure he was going to finish his game of solitaire anytime soon.
6. Prelude to slaughter
Ms. Oselasis, or Yarina as she was called by her friends, entered the sickbay where Captain Taerow was held. A less controlled person would probably have gasped at seeing him as he lay in the bed. The colour of his skin was an unhealthy grey and was sagging in his face leaving an impression of somebody deceased. The eyes were on the other hand very alive and the smile that arrived at about the same time as the realisation who had come to visit, brought definite proof of life to his features. She didn't move a muscle.
"Welcome to Ghastville, main attraction me."
Yarina smiled back and walked over to the chair next to the bed.
"I am not even going to ask you how you feel Utia."
She took his left hand in hers and felt the coldness of it.
"I know that the doctors are doing everything they can, and I know that they are going to succeed somehow."
He turned his head away.
"And I know you have a long way to go before you are fit for fight again."
She let his hand back on the blankets and waited for a second before continuing.
"But I have a request that I need to ask. A request from Raewon himself."
Utia turned his head back and looked her straight in the eyes.
"We need you to come and pilot the Omega ship in real combat against the Serco aggressors."
"Are you insane? I fought under controlled conditions and still came out looking like this? No!"
"We know Utia, and we would prefer to keep you here until you are well. We think we may have a solution for the feedback problem, but we have no clue as to how all this affects the Omega. Trust me, we would rather not fly the Omega ship anytime soon, but we have been ordered to do so by the Admiral of the Fleet himself."
She extended a hand and softly let her fingers caress the cold skin of his cheek.
"Please join the team voluntarily Utia. It means a lot to us, it means a lot to me."
He looked at her almond shaped water clear blue eyes for the longest while until he closed his own and shook his head.
"I can't believe what I am about to do. Sure, when is it going to be?"
"The day after tomorrow. I'll come pick you up."
Yarina got up and walked to the door, turning and waving to the spectre of a man in the bed. She had made him volunteer, good. Then she didn't have to use the written orders she had received in case he would refuse. This made everything so much easier, and ensuring that was after all her job. Now she only had one more thing to do before meeting with the professor.
###
The two new members of Serco counter intelligence better known as the Diplomatic Corps marvelled at he immense size of the docking bay in Dau Senate, capable of working a full dozen Behemoth XC's at the same time. Likewise they studied a group of obvious Itani crew members all dressed alike in light blue uniforms and with the neural shunt behind right ear that allowed them to control their ships like they controlled their own bodies. This was the two young Serco's first glimpse of the enemy and they felt a bit disappointed that the Itani looked just like everyone else. Well, everyone not Serco that is. Both of the diplomats towered at least half a metre above everyone else and outweighed them by hundreds of pounds, even after they had the military fight implants taken out. Like all the other newly arrived passengers they shuffled forward to the station control, one long line among six. Eventually they arrived to the pudgy sour faced middle aged woman with half glasses on her nose, who regarded them with as much kindness as would normally be reserved for a piece of used chewing gum on the sole of a shoe. Her high-pitched nasal voice betrayed an Ukari accent.
"Papers. Where doo yoo’s hail from and where are yoo’s gooing?"
They handed their bright new papers over, their proof that they were Aeolus Citizens. She looked down at the papers and swiped them in the computer and proceeded to write on the holo screen.
"We come from Helios III, Aeolus Trading Prefect and we have come here to seek work ma'am."
"I see yoo’s were discharged with dishonour and subsequently loost citizenship. Whut was the charge?"
"Refusal of orders ma'am."
The woman looked up from the papers at the two young men.
"Goo oun."
"Well, we refused to execute a group of Itani prisoners ma'am. We are not savages."
She kept looking at them over her glasses until she came to a conclusion, found her stamp and approved the papers.
"Good thing too hear there are some decent Sercoo people oot there booys. Welcome to UIT. Next."
The two men grabbed their bags and moved into the station. A woman of indeterminate age approached them.
"Vaso, Arhem?"
They nodded.
"Follow me, I have a place for you to stay. I am Silia"
They looked at each other and smiled. Phase one, insertion had so far worked perfectly. Now they had to go to stage two, target acquisition.
###
The afternoon shift mustered outside Geira Rutilus Command. The twelve Serco Skycommand officers along with the single SCAR liaison officer would run the Combat Space Patrol, COSP for the six hour night shift, ensuring that the fighter coverage of the Deneb/Geira Rutillus wormhole stayed functional and thus ensuring that it was open for Serco forces. At least twelve fighters were patrolling at all times, with a further twelve in reserve on two minutes stand-by. A cruiser and a set of frigates could be called upon as well if the Itani decided to try and interdict the wormhole in force, but fortunately that was rare. Along with the regular forces were pilots from the elite SCAR unit with between one and three fighters depending on the threat level. The border conflict was going pretty good for the Serco after the had started patrolling inside Deneb as well, and the threat level for tonight was alert level three with levels two meaning an attack on the wormhole and one meaning full scale invasion.
The operations centre was manned as well, with sixteen officers and enlisted personnel with a single SCAR member as liaison to SCAR command. The Command, Controls and Communications unit was known as the C3, and together with Intelligence they were the Serco nerve centre of the border defence. The closest command nexus to where the major military action happened, it was surrounded by more than six metres of xithricite armour and buried deep inside the massive station that guarded the wormhole nexus to Deneb. Nothing short of a multi-megaton nuclear warhead would be able to affect it and the odds were in favour that the personnel inside would survive even that, even if the surrounding station had melted away. Naturally, was that ever to happen they would have failed their duties as defenders of the wormhole and thus would be condemned to be shot anyway in the following court martial.
Ms. Oselasis, or Yarina as she was called by her friends, entered the sickbay where Captain Taerow was held. A less controlled person would probably have gasped at seeing him as he lay in the bed. The colour of his skin was an unhealthy grey and was sagging in his face leaving an impression of somebody deceased. The eyes were on the other hand very alive and the smile that arrived at about the same time as the realisation who had come to visit, brought definite proof of life to his features. She didn't move a muscle.
"Welcome to Ghastville, main attraction me."
Yarina smiled back and walked over to the chair next to the bed.
"I am not even going to ask you how you feel Utia."
She took his left hand in hers and felt the coldness of it.
"I know that the doctors are doing everything they can, and I know that they are going to succeed somehow."
He turned his head away.
"And I know you have a long way to go before you are fit for fight again."
She let his hand back on the blankets and waited for a second before continuing.
"But I have a request that I need to ask. A request from Raewon himself."
Utia turned his head back and looked her straight in the eyes.
"We need you to come and pilot the Omega ship in real combat against the Serco aggressors."
"Are you insane? I fought under controlled conditions and still came out looking like this? No!"
"We know Utia, and we would prefer to keep you here until you are well. We think we may have a solution for the feedback problem, but we have no clue as to how all this affects the Omega. Trust me, we would rather not fly the Omega ship anytime soon, but we have been ordered to do so by the Admiral of the Fleet himself."
She extended a hand and softly let her fingers caress the cold skin of his cheek.
"Please join the team voluntarily Utia. It means a lot to us, it means a lot to me."
He looked at her almond shaped water clear blue eyes for the longest while until he closed his own and shook his head.
"I can't believe what I am about to do. Sure, when is it going to be?"
"The day after tomorrow. I'll come pick you up."
Yarina got up and walked to the door, turning and waving to the spectre of a man in the bed. She had made him volunteer, good. Then she didn't have to use the written orders she had received in case he would refuse. This made everything so much easier, and ensuring that was after all her job. Now she only had one more thing to do before meeting with the professor.
###
The two new members of Serco counter intelligence better known as the Diplomatic Corps marvelled at he immense size of the docking bay in Dau Senate, capable of working a full dozen Behemoth XC's at the same time. Likewise they studied a group of obvious Itani crew members all dressed alike in light blue uniforms and with the neural shunt behind right ear that allowed them to control their ships like they controlled their own bodies. This was the two young Serco's first glimpse of the enemy and they felt a bit disappointed that the Itani looked just like everyone else. Well, everyone not Serco that is. Both of the diplomats towered at least half a metre above everyone else and outweighed them by hundreds of pounds, even after they had the military fight implants taken out. Like all the other newly arrived passengers they shuffled forward to the station control, one long line among six. Eventually they arrived to the pudgy sour faced middle aged woman with half glasses on her nose, who regarded them with as much kindness as would normally be reserved for a piece of used chewing gum on the sole of a shoe. Her high-pitched nasal voice betrayed an Ukari accent.
"Papers. Where doo yoo’s hail from and where are yoo’s gooing?"
They handed their bright new papers over, their proof that they were Aeolus Citizens. She looked down at the papers and swiped them in the computer and proceeded to write on the holo screen.
"We come from Helios III, Aeolus Trading Prefect and we have come here to seek work ma'am."
"I see yoo’s were discharged with dishonour and subsequently loost citizenship. Whut was the charge?"
"Refusal of orders ma'am."
The woman looked up from the papers at the two young men.
"Goo oun."
"Well, we refused to execute a group of Itani prisoners ma'am. We are not savages."
She kept looking at them over her glasses until she came to a conclusion, found her stamp and approved the papers.
"Good thing too hear there are some decent Sercoo people oot there booys. Welcome to UIT. Next."
The two men grabbed their bags and moved into the station. A woman of indeterminate age approached them.
"Vaso, Arhem?"
They nodded.
"Follow me, I have a place for you to stay. I am Silia"
They looked at each other and smiled. Phase one, insertion had so far worked perfectly. Now they had to go to stage two, target acquisition.
###
The afternoon shift mustered outside Geira Rutilus Command. The twelve Serco Skycommand officers along with the single SCAR liaison officer would run the Combat Space Patrol, COSP for the six hour night shift, ensuring that the fighter coverage of the Deneb/Geira Rutillus wormhole stayed functional and thus ensuring that it was open for Serco forces. At least twelve fighters were patrolling at all times, with a further twelve in reserve on two minutes stand-by. A cruiser and a set of frigates could be called upon as well if the Itani decided to try and interdict the wormhole in force, but fortunately that was rare. Along with the regular forces were pilots from the elite SCAR unit with between one and three fighters depending on the threat level. The border conflict was going pretty good for the Serco after the had started patrolling inside Deneb as well, and the threat level for tonight was alert level three with levels two meaning an attack on the wormhole and one meaning full scale invasion.
The operations centre was manned as well, with sixteen officers and enlisted personnel with a single SCAR member as liaison to SCAR command. The Command, Controls and Communications unit was known as the C3, and together with Intelligence they were the Serco nerve centre of the border defence. The closest command nexus to where the major military action happened, it was surrounded by more than six metres of xithricite armour and buried deep inside the massive station that guarded the wormhole nexus to Deneb. Nothing short of a multi-megaton nuclear warhead would be able to affect it and the odds were in favour that the personnel inside would survive even that, even if the surrounding station had melted away. Naturally, was that ever to happen they would have failed their duties as defenders of the wormhole and thus would be condemned to be shot anyway in the following court martial.
7. Decision time
The commander of The Lurkers frowned at his new orders. Why was he ordered to replace one of his finest pilots in the middle of a rotation and without an explanation? That bugged him, and he turned the paper over in the vain hope that the explanation was written on the backside. No such luck, it was as blank as it had been a minute ago. Orders were orders however, and he could hardly discuss it with GESTEBO anyway, nor request a why. He tossed the paper onto the table and leaned back, fingertips touching fingertips in front of his face. He was willing to bet a years pay to a single Lady's KC that it had something to do with that prisoner they had caught a fortnight ago. But why would they replace... ah, Cat was the only one that had opened communications with the UIT traitor. He must have found something enormous or betrayed the wrong people since they wanted to have Cat back. No doubt for "re-education" which was the GESTEBO synonym for a plasma bullet through the brain. Not on his watch, not one of his pilots. While he could not disobey a direct order, he could circumvent them if he really wanted to. He opened the secure sub-space communications unit, the SSCU and called a number he had kept for himself for years now. The voice in the other end responded with his name and nothing else.
"I need a favour."
"Okay. What did you do?"
"Not me, one of my pilots."
"No problem, is he any good?"
"It is a she, and she is very good."
"Consider it done. Rendezvous in Helios B-7, Aeolius Trading Prefect as fast as possible. Go to the "Arms of Kali" bar, ask for Beria. Send me her vitals and I'll transfer her effectively as of now."
"I need it done yesterday."
"You are pushing it. Yesterday it is. Consider yourself in my debt my friend."
"Yeah, whenever I see you, I'll grab you a Dark Lady myself. Out."
He smiled, always nice to work around the secret police. He summoned Cat to send her packing and started to draft an answer to the GESTEBO order. How unfortunate that she had been requested to do service in the Special Diplomacy branch a day prior and therefore could not be called back.
###
The Serco High Command met in the most secure wing of the military facility orbiting Sol II. Unlike the Itani high command, no voices were heard here with all communications running on the ultra secure implants that were required for ranks of Colonel and above. Along with those implants came a small fusion reactor usually installed instead of the spleen that had been rendered obsolete by the cybernetic and bio-mechanical implants that transformed any Serco military personnel from a normal human into a nightmare of raw power, speed, survivability and deadliness.
The Serco trooper had an extra heavily modified heart, a digestion system that was more than 90% efficient, muscle boosters, a modified nervous system to enable faster response times, thicker and almost bullet, cold and heat resistant skin, new types of eyes with thermal and infrared capability, implants that allowed the trooper to communicate with anyone on the battlefield in secure voice, sound sensors that would make an owl jealous and lungs that could extract all of the oxygen before exhaling. A trooper could survive hard vacuum for more than fifteen minutes before dying of cold, as well as shut down the blood flow to any part of his body. In other words, scarcely human anymore. Thus giving rise to the derogatory term, human norm for anyone not so modified.
The leadership of the Serco Armed Forces shared the data they had just received from GESTEBO and decided to activate plan URANUS to be initiated if the information proved to be correct. They all knew what the risks would be, but if the information they had received was correct, some crackpot in the Itani high command had just pushed the precarious balance of mutually assured destruction far over towards the side of the destruction of the Serco people.
###
Space around Tellus was very busy with a heavy assault cruiser, "Pride of Eo" flanked by a trio of frigates floating very close to the station with a screen of two squadrons of mixed IDF Valkyrie Vengeance and Centurion IBG's flying overwatch further out. Several Atlas class ships were moving equipment to the cruiser from the station. The faraday cage containing the Omega (which it was now officially named) was packed in a specially modified Atlas that would not unload inside the cruiser, but function as mobile laboratory. The last thing that was loaded was a set of thirty megaton nuclear warheads that were placed on either side of the docked Atlas inside the cruiser. No way was the Omega going to be captured by the Serco. The convoy moved out towards Deneb and the border-war.
Inside the cruiser, the Einstein crew was frantically running tests on the complicated equipment while Captain Taerow was getting strapped into his VR gear. He could barely lift his arms, but nobody else had trained for the Omega. He groaned as the mask was set over his head, not that it was activated but at that moment the implications of what he was about to do hit him.
###
The Serco patrol was making a sweep of sector B-12, a sector that the Itani used a lot for staging attacks. Nothing was in sensor range, not even for the scanner equipped Prometheus. The patrol leader called in all clear and the patrol jumped back to the wormhole sector to join the other nine craft that swirled in a defensive pattern around the rift in space. The sector was unusually quiet, and so it was decided to send a raid force to the Itani station to gain intelligence and disturb the defences.
Two Warthog Mk II and a TPG Atlas X piloted by the SCAR member set their course for Deneb O-3. They entered real space again with the sensors recording and fingers on the over-drive button ready for evasive manoeuvres. Immediately space was torn asunder by huge globs of plasma death that engulfed one of the Warthogs, dissolving the armour before killing the pilot inside. The other Warthog and the Atlas tried desperately to break away and avoid the instant killer weapons knowing that the effective range was no more that 1500 metres. A group of fighters attempted to intercept them, three ships flying towards each Serco. Keria pulled her Atlas X in a sixteen G turn and avoided the certain death of yet another plasma glob. At least they were sending fighters after them now, that meant that they were outside of the effective range of the Capitol Gauss canons. She accessed the data collected by her scanners and smiled. This looked like an invasion force, two heavy assault cruiser, four frigates and what looked to be around 50 fighters. She outran the scrambled interceptors easily and jumped back to the wormhole. The other Warthog made it as well and formed up on her wing. She checked the data with the data from the warthog and finding a 100% agreement she squirted it to the sensor buoy that provided a secure link directly to Geira Rutilus command. The effect was immediate. The Skycommand went to DEFCON 2 and scrambled everyone.
The commander of The Lurkers frowned at his new orders. Why was he ordered to replace one of his finest pilots in the middle of a rotation and without an explanation? That bugged him, and he turned the paper over in the vain hope that the explanation was written on the backside. No such luck, it was as blank as it had been a minute ago. Orders were orders however, and he could hardly discuss it with GESTEBO anyway, nor request a why. He tossed the paper onto the table and leaned back, fingertips touching fingertips in front of his face. He was willing to bet a years pay to a single Lady's KC that it had something to do with that prisoner they had caught a fortnight ago. But why would they replace... ah, Cat was the only one that had opened communications with the UIT traitor. He must have found something enormous or betrayed the wrong people since they wanted to have Cat back. No doubt for "re-education" which was the GESTEBO synonym for a plasma bullet through the brain. Not on his watch, not one of his pilots. While he could not disobey a direct order, he could circumvent them if he really wanted to. He opened the secure sub-space communications unit, the SSCU and called a number he had kept for himself for years now. The voice in the other end responded with his name and nothing else.
"I need a favour."
"Okay. What did you do?"
"Not me, one of my pilots."
"No problem, is he any good?"
"It is a she, and she is very good."
"Consider it done. Rendezvous in Helios B-7, Aeolius Trading Prefect as fast as possible. Go to the "Arms of Kali" bar, ask for Beria. Send me her vitals and I'll transfer her effectively as of now."
"I need it done yesterday."
"You are pushing it. Yesterday it is. Consider yourself in my debt my friend."
"Yeah, whenever I see you, I'll grab you a Dark Lady myself. Out."
He smiled, always nice to work around the secret police. He summoned Cat to send her packing and started to draft an answer to the GESTEBO order. How unfortunate that she had been requested to do service in the Special Diplomacy branch a day prior and therefore could not be called back.
###
The Serco High Command met in the most secure wing of the military facility orbiting Sol II. Unlike the Itani high command, no voices were heard here with all communications running on the ultra secure implants that were required for ranks of Colonel and above. Along with those implants came a small fusion reactor usually installed instead of the spleen that had been rendered obsolete by the cybernetic and bio-mechanical implants that transformed any Serco military personnel from a normal human into a nightmare of raw power, speed, survivability and deadliness.
The Serco trooper had an extra heavily modified heart, a digestion system that was more than 90% efficient, muscle boosters, a modified nervous system to enable faster response times, thicker and almost bullet, cold and heat resistant skin, new types of eyes with thermal and infrared capability, implants that allowed the trooper to communicate with anyone on the battlefield in secure voice, sound sensors that would make an owl jealous and lungs that could extract all of the oxygen before exhaling. A trooper could survive hard vacuum for more than fifteen minutes before dying of cold, as well as shut down the blood flow to any part of his body. In other words, scarcely human anymore. Thus giving rise to the derogatory term, human norm for anyone not so modified.
The leadership of the Serco Armed Forces shared the data they had just received from GESTEBO and decided to activate plan URANUS to be initiated if the information proved to be correct. They all knew what the risks would be, but if the information they had received was correct, some crackpot in the Itani high command had just pushed the precarious balance of mutually assured destruction far over towards the side of the destruction of the Serco people.
###
Space around Tellus was very busy with a heavy assault cruiser, "Pride of Eo" flanked by a trio of frigates floating very close to the station with a screen of two squadrons of mixed IDF Valkyrie Vengeance and Centurion IBG's flying overwatch further out. Several Atlas class ships were moving equipment to the cruiser from the station. The faraday cage containing the Omega (which it was now officially named) was packed in a specially modified Atlas that would not unload inside the cruiser, but function as mobile laboratory. The last thing that was loaded was a set of thirty megaton nuclear warheads that were placed on either side of the docked Atlas inside the cruiser. No way was the Omega going to be captured by the Serco. The convoy moved out towards Deneb and the border-war.
Inside the cruiser, the Einstein crew was frantically running tests on the complicated equipment while Captain Taerow was getting strapped into his VR gear. He could barely lift his arms, but nobody else had trained for the Omega. He groaned as the mask was set over his head, not that it was activated but at that moment the implications of what he was about to do hit him.
###
The Serco patrol was making a sweep of sector B-12, a sector that the Itani used a lot for staging attacks. Nothing was in sensor range, not even for the scanner equipped Prometheus. The patrol leader called in all clear and the patrol jumped back to the wormhole sector to join the other nine craft that swirled in a defensive pattern around the rift in space. The sector was unusually quiet, and so it was decided to send a raid force to the Itani station to gain intelligence and disturb the defences.
Two Warthog Mk II and a TPG Atlas X piloted by the SCAR member set their course for Deneb O-3. They entered real space again with the sensors recording and fingers on the over-drive button ready for evasive manoeuvres. Immediately space was torn asunder by huge globs of plasma death that engulfed one of the Warthogs, dissolving the armour before killing the pilot inside. The other Warthog and the Atlas tried desperately to break away and avoid the instant killer weapons knowing that the effective range was no more that 1500 metres. A group of fighters attempted to intercept them, three ships flying towards each Serco. Keria pulled her Atlas X in a sixteen G turn and avoided the certain death of yet another plasma glob. At least they were sending fighters after them now, that meant that they were outside of the effective range of the Capitol Gauss canons. She accessed the data collected by her scanners and smiled. This looked like an invasion force, two heavy assault cruiser, four frigates and what looked to be around 50 fighters. She outran the scrambled interceptors easily and jumped back to the wormhole. The other Warthog made it as well and formed up on her wing. She checked the data with the data from the warthog and finding a 100% agreement she squirted it to the sensor buoy that provided a secure link directly to Geira Rutilus command. The effect was immediate. The Skycommand went to DEFCON 2 and scrambled everyone.
Hah! Go Keria!
heheh, URANUS....
I've been following this for awhile, and, now that Aramarth and Waffles have set the precedent to break silence and comment, so will I.
This has been quite an enjoyable read so far; I look forward to where you take this after the success of your last endeavor. And UIT Intelligence? Heh--that made me smile. After all, I maintain that my character is a Peacekeeping Officer (and entrenched in black-ops and intelegence/counter-intelegence to boot!); its always a pleasant surprise when another roleplayer affirms that the Union does, in fact, have a military arm. -_o
This has been quite an enjoyable read so far; I look forward to where you take this after the success of your last endeavor. And UIT Intelligence? Heh--that made me smile. After all, I maintain that my character is a Peacekeeping Officer (and entrenched in black-ops and intelegence/counter-intelegence to boot!); its always a pleasant surprise when another roleplayer affirms that the Union does, in fact, have a military arm. -_o
You must know the good commander then:)
I look forward to where I am taking it too, it is already way and above what I started out with.
Points to Waffles, especially since the UK military has a tradition for making the abbreviation from Operation to Op...
New one tomorrow
I look forward to where I am taking it too, it is already way and above what I started out with.
Points to Waffles, especially since the UK military has a tradition for making the abbreviation from Operation to Op...
New one tomorrow
told ya my wife kicks arse lol
Well.. I hope you weren't in one of the ships that went boom.
Ah well, she can always come with me if you were..
EZR.
Ah well, she can always come with me if you were..
EZR.
8. A change of seasons
Hasdrubal moving his considerable bulk onto the chair that was provided inside the "Pearls for Sus", his favourite eating place in Dau Senate. The cuisine was a blend of Serco sizes, Itani sophistication and UIT prices. The perfect place when someone else was paying, as in this case the UIT state in the form of Commander Fletholm. Hasdrubal went through the menu with a trained eye and decided on the three most expensive dishes and a bottle of very expensive red wine before settling in to wait for the Commander. He didn't really know what the Commander wanted; he had after all delivered all his data except for the part about being intercepted by the Serco patrol. Maybe they had a hunch that he had been involved in that incident, maybe they suspected something. He had initially thought about declining this meeting, but in the end had realised that if they wanted him, they could have sent someone nasty instead. So he settled for getting the most out of it, maybe they just wanted to congratulate him on a job well done. He licked his full lips and carefully studied the other guests, trying to guess what they did for a living. At least three of the women were easy to guess, he had purchased the services of two of them on other occasions, and that one over there looked a bit like senator Rosebund. The waiter arrived with the wine and he smacked his lips in anticipation of tasting it. He let a few drops roll over his tongue and let the taste fill his mouth with its potency. Very good indeed, maybe even worth the 6000 UIT Credits that it was listed to. He nodded and let the waiter fill his glass before leaving him again. He quickly drank some more of it, the notes of cherry and sweet blackberries completed the experience. He nibbled on one of the delicious almond cookies that were a perfect companion to the red wine. Although it did make him thirstier, much thirstier. He started sweating and his pulse picked up quite a lot. He looked around for a waiter but had difficulty seeing details, everything was blurry and it was hard for him to focus on anything. He wondered what was happening as he started to get nauseous. Fortunately his awareness centre in his brain decided that this would be a good time to shut down, and Hasdrubal fainted into his wine and cookies headfirst. When Fletholm arrived five minutes after, Hasdrubal had been declared dead.
###
The wormhole to Geira Rutilus, the key to controlling he border between Serco and Itani space was the most contested piece of space in all of the known systems. The Serco military had tried to build a base on the Deneb side of the wormhole, but this had been thwarted by repeated Itani attacks. The wormhole was right now glowing with exotic particles that burst into space with each passing of a ship, the radiation more energised and plentiful in response to the mass the ship was forcing through the rift in space. The particular heavy shower of muons and tachyons that quickly self annihilated with their anti parts releasing a shower of hard radiation, predated the arrival of the Nemesis, the flag ship of the Serco fleet. The set of Tridents arriving shortly thereafter formed up on the dorsal and ventral sides of the ship with a squadron of Prometheus's protecting the rear. Two sets of six bombers were ready to attack in heavy Ragnaroks with a set of six SVG's and one Atlas X flying security for the attack team. It was just in time too; six kilometres away from the roid field that had gathered around the wormhole, a group of expanding rings indicated incoming ships. It was just the advance force, a set of tridents with fighters and with the Nemesis battle group around the wormhole they kept their distance. The Serco commander signalled for the attack squadrons to engage and the heavily laden Ragnaroks surged forward to attack speed with the escort flying around them like wasps. Halfway across the distance, space once more filled with rings of particles, with an Itani Heavy Assault Cruiser arriving along with several fighters. The Serco commander decided that the bombers should attack the frigates anyway and did not intervene. The blue strings of heavy swarm missiles drew lines of death across space from the Ragnaroks towards one Frigate and at the same time it crackled dryly over the radio from the bomber squad commander.
"Stores."
He had fired all his ordnance and turned the cumbersome ships to escape the heavy gauss canons on the frigates. The six bombers of the other unit likewise emptied their heavy missile tubes five seconds later and switched to evasive tactics. Their secondary load of flares was essential for taking the frigate down if the missiles didn't do the job. The swarm missiles impacted on the sheer nothingness of the capitol ship's shields, overloading them and burning the shield generator out in the process. The second set of missiles impacted all over the top of the frigate, converting long streaks of armour into strings of plasma that tore through the insides of the ship, effectively destroying it. Fires appeared where pockets of oxygen was found and giant fighter sized sparks flew at random from the incapacitated jump engine. Team leader two emptied his flare launchers into the wreck and applied full boosters to get away from the explosion, his now empty ship lighter by 50%. Which was a good thing, a set of Centurion IBG tore into the squadron like ill-tempered gnats, but gnats that were so very deadly. Their neutron guns managed to destroy one heavy bomber before their own escorts were entering the fray. Framed by the very large explosion from the flares impacting on the frigate and the following detonating of its onboard stores of munitions, the two IBG were destroyed by the SVG's. The bombers returned to the Nemesis for reloading, their number having been reduced by four. One had died to the IBG and three to the heavy gauss canons from the other frigate. The ejection system had worked on two of the Ragnaroks, and the pilots would be joining the force again within a day. The other two had to be restored from their last memory plant and inserted into a cloned body, thus effectively taking them out of the conflict for a month or more. At least the Itani had no survivors on the frigate, with at least the usual crew of fourteen dead.
The Serco commander, with an advantage in capitol ships moved in towards the Itani forces with the mass of his ships. He was going to take them on and teach them to stay away from the wormhole. As soon as the bombers had reloaded, they were launched and ready to strike a crippling blow as soon as the capitol ships were engaged. It was a matter of timing really, but the commander was sure that his bomber squadrons were up to the task. The escorts were sent forward to clear the route for opposing light fighters.
###
The Itani group of space superiority fighters in the form of six Valkyrie Vengeance ships received the order to go and disengaged from the main force, striking out on their own to engage the Serco bombers before they could launch their deadly cargo. Moving to a particularly empty part of space, the fighters initialised their jump engines and left the battle. Immediately after they had recharged their batteries to the required 25%, they jumped again, this time to an empty sector. They waited for thirty seconds and then jumped into the sector where the battle was taking place, but this time from another angle and only around a thousand metres away from the bombers that were hanging back behind the capitol ships. Deprived of the fighter escort, the bombers had no chance at all against the six heavy fighters and tried in vain to scramble in different directions. Within eight seconds, the first ship exploded followed by two more in quick succession. One of the bombers tried to launch its swarm missiles against a fighter, but the missiles were too slow to actually hit the ship. It was in turn rewarded by a string of neutrons and flights of flares, destroying it and producing a large fireball. The Serco commander, realising that his bomber force was about to be destroyed, and that the Itani now had six fighters on top of the wormhole, dispatched his seven light fighters and the three of his six Prometheus's to engage the Valkyries. This was anticipated by the Itani commander, and the real reason that he had sent them there. The Valkyries killed off the remaining bombers before the Serco fighters smashed into the formation like a battleship through a wave. Quickly the Serco overwhelmed the Itani, with four of the Valkyries exploding in fireballs to the loss of only three SVG's. The battle was not over yet. The Prometheus's moved in for the kill, with the three SVG's circling like barracuda surrounding a school of fish.
###
Keria kept back a bit, this looked to be a long fight and she saw no reason to destroy the armour of her Atlas X when the Prometheus's were going to close with the two Itani ships anyway. A set of twin flares and a string of gauss fire smashed one Valkyrie to bits, but not before it in return had critically damaged one Prometheus. A string of neutrons from a circling SVG finished the Itani fighter, leaving one to go. However, that pilot was immensely lucky and extremely good. He danced his ship around, not taking damage from neither the flare explosions that almost engulfed his ship, or from the neutrons that criss-crossed space around his ship. It was inconceivable that he would be able to keep it up but he still managed to send a string of death into the damaged Prometheus exploding it. Still not damaged the Valkyrie turned on its axis and unleashed everything into the belly of a SVG, destroying one more. Not believing what she saw, Keria moved her ship closer to assist in killing this über pilot. Oblivious to her presence, she managed to manoeuvre behind the Valkyrie and unleashed a long string of Gatling shots into the rear of the ship, followed up with a string of neutrons. She frowned as the Valkyrie continued to destroy the Prometheus it was engaging and move to the next target, the last of the heavy Serco fighters. She knew she had hit the ship dead-on; she could follow the ionisation paths to the ship all the way, but there were no indications of damage. She fired a long burst again, no effect. The Valkyrie had now stopped dodging altogether and merely focused on laying precise fire onto the Serco ships. The incoming fire had no effect at all as the Valkyrie finished killing the remaining Prometheus and the two SVG's before turning for Keria's Atlas. Keria realised that she was seriously outmatched by something she couldn’t quite understand and hit the overdrive function on her ship, effectively turning it into a six ton rocket. Avoiding the fire by mere milliseconds, she boosted directly towards the capitol ships.
"Delta 4 Alfa this is SCAR rep Willenium. Am inbound dorsal side Nemesis with bogey on six. Requesting full broadside heavy plasma and seekers on bogey, my posit long 324, targeting data inbound, respond."
She hit the send button and sent the data packets towards the frigate immediately in front of her knowing that the ships would share the data instantly as part of their integrated neural network.
"SCAR rep Willenium, Delta 4 Alfa, full broadside firing in six, five, four, three, two, one, firing, firing, firing, stand by, waiting for damage assessment."
Keria ducked in her seat even though the heavy plasma bolts was moving towards the Valkyrie several meters above her ship. A trio of seeker missiles streaked by her cockpit at 225 m/s inbound for collision with the enemy. The 1900 kilo missiles consisted of three 70 kilo solid slugs and a very large explosive charge that exploded when the proximity sensor was triggered, accelerating the three penetrators to 8.000 m/s before impacting on the target. Most fighters died from a single penetrator, a heavy fighter like the Prometheus might take two before exploding. The combined effect of the weapons that had been fired on the fighter was enough to turn anything but a capitol ship into instant vapour. Keria kept checking her radar and saw the bogey coming on hard, shrugging the plasma bolts off like water on a duck, ignoring the penetrators taking them head on without doing any evasive moves at all.
"Delta 4 Alfa this is SCAR rep Willenium, good hits, no effect, say again no effect."
"SCAR rep Willenium, Delta 4 Alfa, roger. Dispatching cover to engage, assist and report."
Keria's heart sank, they were going to send the last Prometheus's to engage the phantom Valkyrie and in that way strip the capitol ships of their cover. She continued on course for the frigates in anticipation of the wave of Itani heavy bombers that were bound to attack when the Serco fighter screen had left.
Hasdrubal moving his considerable bulk onto the chair that was provided inside the "Pearls for Sus", his favourite eating place in Dau Senate. The cuisine was a blend of Serco sizes, Itani sophistication and UIT prices. The perfect place when someone else was paying, as in this case the UIT state in the form of Commander Fletholm. Hasdrubal went through the menu with a trained eye and decided on the three most expensive dishes and a bottle of very expensive red wine before settling in to wait for the Commander. He didn't really know what the Commander wanted; he had after all delivered all his data except for the part about being intercepted by the Serco patrol. Maybe they had a hunch that he had been involved in that incident, maybe they suspected something. He had initially thought about declining this meeting, but in the end had realised that if they wanted him, they could have sent someone nasty instead. So he settled for getting the most out of it, maybe they just wanted to congratulate him on a job well done. He licked his full lips and carefully studied the other guests, trying to guess what they did for a living. At least three of the women were easy to guess, he had purchased the services of two of them on other occasions, and that one over there looked a bit like senator Rosebund. The waiter arrived with the wine and he smacked his lips in anticipation of tasting it. He let a few drops roll over his tongue and let the taste fill his mouth with its potency. Very good indeed, maybe even worth the 6000 UIT Credits that it was listed to. He nodded and let the waiter fill his glass before leaving him again. He quickly drank some more of it, the notes of cherry and sweet blackberries completed the experience. He nibbled on one of the delicious almond cookies that were a perfect companion to the red wine. Although it did make him thirstier, much thirstier. He started sweating and his pulse picked up quite a lot. He looked around for a waiter but had difficulty seeing details, everything was blurry and it was hard for him to focus on anything. He wondered what was happening as he started to get nauseous. Fortunately his awareness centre in his brain decided that this would be a good time to shut down, and Hasdrubal fainted into his wine and cookies headfirst. When Fletholm arrived five minutes after, Hasdrubal had been declared dead.
###
The wormhole to Geira Rutilus, the key to controlling he border between Serco and Itani space was the most contested piece of space in all of the known systems. The Serco military had tried to build a base on the Deneb side of the wormhole, but this had been thwarted by repeated Itani attacks. The wormhole was right now glowing with exotic particles that burst into space with each passing of a ship, the radiation more energised and plentiful in response to the mass the ship was forcing through the rift in space. The particular heavy shower of muons and tachyons that quickly self annihilated with their anti parts releasing a shower of hard radiation, predated the arrival of the Nemesis, the flag ship of the Serco fleet. The set of Tridents arriving shortly thereafter formed up on the dorsal and ventral sides of the ship with a squadron of Prometheus's protecting the rear. Two sets of six bombers were ready to attack in heavy Ragnaroks with a set of six SVG's and one Atlas X flying security for the attack team. It was just in time too; six kilometres away from the roid field that had gathered around the wormhole, a group of expanding rings indicated incoming ships. It was just the advance force, a set of tridents with fighters and with the Nemesis battle group around the wormhole they kept their distance. The Serco commander signalled for the attack squadrons to engage and the heavily laden Ragnaroks surged forward to attack speed with the escort flying around them like wasps. Halfway across the distance, space once more filled with rings of particles, with an Itani Heavy Assault Cruiser arriving along with several fighters. The Serco commander decided that the bombers should attack the frigates anyway and did not intervene. The blue strings of heavy swarm missiles drew lines of death across space from the Ragnaroks towards one Frigate and at the same time it crackled dryly over the radio from the bomber squad commander.
"Stores."
He had fired all his ordnance and turned the cumbersome ships to escape the heavy gauss canons on the frigates. The six bombers of the other unit likewise emptied their heavy missile tubes five seconds later and switched to evasive tactics. Their secondary load of flares was essential for taking the frigate down if the missiles didn't do the job. The swarm missiles impacted on the sheer nothingness of the capitol ship's shields, overloading them and burning the shield generator out in the process. The second set of missiles impacted all over the top of the frigate, converting long streaks of armour into strings of plasma that tore through the insides of the ship, effectively destroying it. Fires appeared where pockets of oxygen was found and giant fighter sized sparks flew at random from the incapacitated jump engine. Team leader two emptied his flare launchers into the wreck and applied full boosters to get away from the explosion, his now empty ship lighter by 50%. Which was a good thing, a set of Centurion IBG tore into the squadron like ill-tempered gnats, but gnats that were so very deadly. Their neutron guns managed to destroy one heavy bomber before their own escorts were entering the fray. Framed by the very large explosion from the flares impacting on the frigate and the following detonating of its onboard stores of munitions, the two IBG were destroyed by the SVG's. The bombers returned to the Nemesis for reloading, their number having been reduced by four. One had died to the IBG and three to the heavy gauss canons from the other frigate. The ejection system had worked on two of the Ragnaroks, and the pilots would be joining the force again within a day. The other two had to be restored from their last memory plant and inserted into a cloned body, thus effectively taking them out of the conflict for a month or more. At least the Itani had no survivors on the frigate, with at least the usual crew of fourteen dead.
The Serco commander, with an advantage in capitol ships moved in towards the Itani forces with the mass of his ships. He was going to take them on and teach them to stay away from the wormhole. As soon as the bombers had reloaded, they were launched and ready to strike a crippling blow as soon as the capitol ships were engaged. It was a matter of timing really, but the commander was sure that his bomber squadrons were up to the task. The escorts were sent forward to clear the route for opposing light fighters.
###
The Itani group of space superiority fighters in the form of six Valkyrie Vengeance ships received the order to go and disengaged from the main force, striking out on their own to engage the Serco bombers before they could launch their deadly cargo. Moving to a particularly empty part of space, the fighters initialised their jump engines and left the battle. Immediately after they had recharged their batteries to the required 25%, they jumped again, this time to an empty sector. They waited for thirty seconds and then jumped into the sector where the battle was taking place, but this time from another angle and only around a thousand metres away from the bombers that were hanging back behind the capitol ships. Deprived of the fighter escort, the bombers had no chance at all against the six heavy fighters and tried in vain to scramble in different directions. Within eight seconds, the first ship exploded followed by two more in quick succession. One of the bombers tried to launch its swarm missiles against a fighter, but the missiles were too slow to actually hit the ship. It was in turn rewarded by a string of neutrons and flights of flares, destroying it and producing a large fireball. The Serco commander, realising that his bomber force was about to be destroyed, and that the Itani now had six fighters on top of the wormhole, dispatched his seven light fighters and the three of his six Prometheus's to engage the Valkyries. This was anticipated by the Itani commander, and the real reason that he had sent them there. The Valkyries killed off the remaining bombers before the Serco fighters smashed into the formation like a battleship through a wave. Quickly the Serco overwhelmed the Itani, with four of the Valkyries exploding in fireballs to the loss of only three SVG's. The battle was not over yet. The Prometheus's moved in for the kill, with the three SVG's circling like barracuda surrounding a school of fish.
###
Keria kept back a bit, this looked to be a long fight and she saw no reason to destroy the armour of her Atlas X when the Prometheus's were going to close with the two Itani ships anyway. A set of twin flares and a string of gauss fire smashed one Valkyrie to bits, but not before it in return had critically damaged one Prometheus. A string of neutrons from a circling SVG finished the Itani fighter, leaving one to go. However, that pilot was immensely lucky and extremely good. He danced his ship around, not taking damage from neither the flare explosions that almost engulfed his ship, or from the neutrons that criss-crossed space around his ship. It was inconceivable that he would be able to keep it up but he still managed to send a string of death into the damaged Prometheus exploding it. Still not damaged the Valkyrie turned on its axis and unleashed everything into the belly of a SVG, destroying one more. Not believing what she saw, Keria moved her ship closer to assist in killing this über pilot. Oblivious to her presence, she managed to manoeuvre behind the Valkyrie and unleashed a long string of Gatling shots into the rear of the ship, followed up with a string of neutrons. She frowned as the Valkyrie continued to destroy the Prometheus it was engaging and move to the next target, the last of the heavy Serco fighters. She knew she had hit the ship dead-on; she could follow the ionisation paths to the ship all the way, but there were no indications of damage. She fired a long burst again, no effect. The Valkyrie had now stopped dodging altogether and merely focused on laying precise fire onto the Serco ships. The incoming fire had no effect at all as the Valkyrie finished killing the remaining Prometheus and the two SVG's before turning for Keria's Atlas. Keria realised that she was seriously outmatched by something she couldn’t quite understand and hit the overdrive function on her ship, effectively turning it into a six ton rocket. Avoiding the fire by mere milliseconds, she boosted directly towards the capitol ships.
"Delta 4 Alfa this is SCAR rep Willenium. Am inbound dorsal side Nemesis with bogey on six. Requesting full broadside heavy plasma and seekers on bogey, my posit long 324, targeting data inbound, respond."
She hit the send button and sent the data packets towards the frigate immediately in front of her knowing that the ships would share the data instantly as part of their integrated neural network.
"SCAR rep Willenium, Delta 4 Alfa, full broadside firing in six, five, four, three, two, one, firing, firing, firing, stand by, waiting for damage assessment."
Keria ducked in her seat even though the heavy plasma bolts was moving towards the Valkyrie several meters above her ship. A trio of seeker missiles streaked by her cockpit at 225 m/s inbound for collision with the enemy. The 1900 kilo missiles consisted of three 70 kilo solid slugs and a very large explosive charge that exploded when the proximity sensor was triggered, accelerating the three penetrators to 8.000 m/s before impacting on the target. Most fighters died from a single penetrator, a heavy fighter like the Prometheus might take two before exploding. The combined effect of the weapons that had been fired on the fighter was enough to turn anything but a capitol ship into instant vapour. Keria kept checking her radar and saw the bogey coming on hard, shrugging the plasma bolts off like water on a duck, ignoring the penetrators taking them head on without doing any evasive moves at all.
"Delta 4 Alfa this is SCAR rep Willenium, good hits, no effect, say again no effect."
"SCAR rep Willenium, Delta 4 Alfa, roger. Dispatching cover to engage, assist and report."
Keria's heart sank, they were going to send the last Prometheus's to engage the phantom Valkyrie and in that way strip the capitol ships of their cover. She continued on course for the frigates in anticipation of the wave of Itani heavy bombers that were bound to attack when the Serco fighter screen had left.
This is getting really good! Thanks Whytee! :)
Cool stuff, keep it comin!
9. Over my dead rotting corpse
Vaso disengaged the semi-sentient neural network from the ship's mainframe and packed it into his backpack. He nodded to Arhem to indicate that he was finished and grabbed his things. Arhem engaged the timer on the incendiary device and put it against the pilot's seat. The Serco special operatives walked calmly out of the mining Behemoth and continued towards their pick up point. It would not do to go directly to the safe house, but Silia would have taken care of that; so far she had been extremely efficient. They reached their pick-up point and waited for a moment. The fire alarms went off with instructions to go to the nearest secure area and wait for rescue personnel. Vaso nodded to Arhem, they had succeeded so far.
###
Cat finished packing her things and boarded the unmarked Warthog Mk II. Not one to question orders, she had merely shrugged when she received the summons to Helios. She raised an eyebrow when her commander told her that she would have to go through Itani space alone as well as traverse UIT space as well before entering Helios from grey space, but orders were orders. She closed the canopy and checked her systems methodically as always when the alarm klaxons went off. Opening a direct connection to command was a matter of flicking a switch.
"Boss, I am ready for launch now. Send bogey update and I'll engage."
She started going through the engine start up sequence at double speed.
"Cat, belay that. You will go on with your orders. Acknowledge."
She frowned at that. With a general alert on, meaning an imminent attack or a critical situation, why wasn't she allowed to participate?
"Sir, I urge you to reconsider."
"Cat, I didn't want to tell you this. I have received orders from the GESTEBO. They want you, and I won't give you up. Now go to Helios as I said and make me proud."
"I did nothing wrong Sir, shouldn't I just return?"
"No, they wanted you for questioning. Nobody comes back from questioning Cat. Now go and do as you were told. Hail Lady Serco."
Cat mumbled a reply and killed the connection. So that was why she wasn't allowed to go through Serco space. It made sense somehow, but that didn't mean that she liked it. She launched and set a course for Helios.
###
She had been right, the moment the three remaining Prometheus's had left their overwatch position, a squadron of Itani heavy bombers engaged at full speed towards the trio of capitol ships. Keria ignored her orders to engage the Valkyrie and kept boosting for the frigate in front of her, hopefully she would be in time to kill at least some of the bombers before they could release their deadly cargo. The three Prometheus's fired a full barrage of flares at their top speed, ramming them down onto the vector of the Valkyrie. She shuddered as it emerged unscathed from the fireball and mentally wrote the Prometheus's off as dead. She kept moving at full speed and was rewarded with seeing the Itani bombers accelerating towards the Serco capitol ships. Shouting a combat cry she unleashed everything she had at the bombers taking them unaware and head on. One practically disintegrated in flight as the onboard munitions detonated under the fusillade of Gatling fire, another dropped the armaments to evade the incoming flares, skirting the damage envelope and managing to escape, limping back to the main Itani battle line. The remaining four bombers ignored her Atlas X and continued for the frigates, unleashing full sets of swarm missiles before turning back to re-arm. The missiles impacted and collapsed the shield generator on the frigate with one or two missiles hitting the ship below.
Now lighter by 50%, the bombers’ manoeuvrability were enhanced significantly but that was not a factor for an accomplished pilot as Keria. Aligning her turret's auto targeting reticule on the closest bomber, she depressed the trigger and allowed the Gatling to spit death upon the ship. Knowing that the Gatling would destroy the ship she twisted the front slightly further to the right and fired her remaining flares indiscriminately into the other bombers. A satisfying explosion meant one less bomber, and she moved her reticule onto a new target. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Itani capitol ships fire a full broadside at the now defenceless frigate and cursed the Itani for the deaths they were about to inflict. She ground her teeth and fired into another bomber, probably the last one she was going to get.
A squadron of IBG's were moving to intercept her now and she decided to make a run for it. Leaving the three bombers to fly back, she took evasive manoeuvres and bolted for the Nemesis. The Heavy Assault Cruiser was momentarily lit by the destructive fire from the now exploding frigate, the damage from the explosions enough to weaken the shields on the Nemesis but not powerful enough to burn the generator out. Slowly, ever so slowly the shields were regaining potency. Keria's heart took an extra beat in pure joy they could still make it. Her joy was however short-lived, another set of bombers had moved around in the cover of the scattered roid field and could now disgorge their full complement of swarm missiles and flares towards the Nemesis. The shield generator, already under immense strain from the splash, disintegrated under the immense bombardment and the combined heavy gauss canons and plasma launchers on the Itani cruiser crushed the armour on the Serco Flagship. The burning hulk lost controls and started tumbling slowly towards the roid field. Keria cursed an oath that was illegal in most systems and moved to the last frigate to protect it. She scanned the sector and found only herself and the frigate in-system, outnumbered at least five to one. The phantom Valkyrie was sitting still in the middle of nothing, apparently undamaged but with no movement. The route to the Geira Rutilus station was open, only the frigate and her to stop them.
"Delta 4 anyone, this is SCAR rep WiIllenium, report."
"SCAR rep Willenium this is Delta 4 Charlie fully combat functional. 80% stores remaining."
"Roger Delta 4 Charlie. Suggest full frontal on the Itani cruiser. May force her to break off."
"SCAR rep Willenium for Delta 4 Charlie, if you can keep the bombers occupied for a couple of seconds we can take her."
"Wilco Delta 4 Charlie. It was good knowing you."
"Delta 4 Charlie inbound. Glory to Lady Serco."
The frigate turned and faced the Itani cruiser with about as much grace as a hippopotamus in a giant glue-ball. Meter long plasma streaks flamed out the engines as they were fired on 120% power, causing the frigate to accelerate slowly, ever so slowly. Keria went under the cumbersome ship and moved to engage the bombers as they returned to the melee. This time they were defended by the remaining IBG's, with a set of six Valkyries hanging back. Odds of twelve to one, this is what she lived for. Screaming her battle cry at the top of her lungs, she hit the turbo and engaged the bombers with her Gatling turret.
###
The command post at Geira Rutilus was silent as they watched the large red pentagon that signified the remaining Serco frigate meld together with the even larger blue hexagon that was the Itani cruiser. The hexagon remained after the impact, probably damaged but not destroyed. The secondary defences had been activated with twelve Monitor class defence drones launched and circling the wormhole. Still, the mood was pretty bad with the loss of the last frigate.
Riddik Willenium, Duty officer of SCAR never noticed the death of the remaining frigate, he was busy staring at the small triangle that signified the only person that he absolutely could not bear to lose, his wife Keria. The twelve blue triangles and ten blue squares denominating fighters and bombers respectively closed on the lonely red triangle that eventually after removing two blue squares, faded out. Riddik waited one second before punching his fist directly through the radiation prepared screen burying his arm in the console.
"She is still alive, I am going in."
He stood and looked around, daring anybody to say anything, almost hoping that it would happen so he could get a quick target to vent his aggression on. It was in vain, not even a Serco serviceman wanted to take on the 280-pound bundle of cyberneticaly enhanced raw power. Snorting his contempt, he turned and ran down to get his Marauder fitted with auxiliary life support and launch for Deneb. He was going to find her no matter what.
Vaso disengaged the semi-sentient neural network from the ship's mainframe and packed it into his backpack. He nodded to Arhem to indicate that he was finished and grabbed his things. Arhem engaged the timer on the incendiary device and put it against the pilot's seat. The Serco special operatives walked calmly out of the mining Behemoth and continued towards their pick up point. It would not do to go directly to the safe house, but Silia would have taken care of that; so far she had been extremely efficient. They reached their pick-up point and waited for a moment. The fire alarms went off with instructions to go to the nearest secure area and wait for rescue personnel. Vaso nodded to Arhem, they had succeeded so far.
###
Cat finished packing her things and boarded the unmarked Warthog Mk II. Not one to question orders, she had merely shrugged when she received the summons to Helios. She raised an eyebrow when her commander told her that she would have to go through Itani space alone as well as traverse UIT space as well before entering Helios from grey space, but orders were orders. She closed the canopy and checked her systems methodically as always when the alarm klaxons went off. Opening a direct connection to command was a matter of flicking a switch.
"Boss, I am ready for launch now. Send bogey update and I'll engage."
She started going through the engine start up sequence at double speed.
"Cat, belay that. You will go on with your orders. Acknowledge."
She frowned at that. With a general alert on, meaning an imminent attack or a critical situation, why wasn't she allowed to participate?
"Sir, I urge you to reconsider."
"Cat, I didn't want to tell you this. I have received orders from the GESTEBO. They want you, and I won't give you up. Now go to Helios as I said and make me proud."
"I did nothing wrong Sir, shouldn't I just return?"
"No, they wanted you for questioning. Nobody comes back from questioning Cat. Now go and do as you were told. Hail Lady Serco."
Cat mumbled a reply and killed the connection. So that was why she wasn't allowed to go through Serco space. It made sense somehow, but that didn't mean that she liked it. She launched and set a course for Helios.
###
She had been right, the moment the three remaining Prometheus's had left their overwatch position, a squadron of Itani heavy bombers engaged at full speed towards the trio of capitol ships. Keria ignored her orders to engage the Valkyrie and kept boosting for the frigate in front of her, hopefully she would be in time to kill at least some of the bombers before they could release their deadly cargo. The three Prometheus's fired a full barrage of flares at their top speed, ramming them down onto the vector of the Valkyrie. She shuddered as it emerged unscathed from the fireball and mentally wrote the Prometheus's off as dead. She kept moving at full speed and was rewarded with seeing the Itani bombers accelerating towards the Serco capitol ships. Shouting a combat cry she unleashed everything she had at the bombers taking them unaware and head on. One practically disintegrated in flight as the onboard munitions detonated under the fusillade of Gatling fire, another dropped the armaments to evade the incoming flares, skirting the damage envelope and managing to escape, limping back to the main Itani battle line. The remaining four bombers ignored her Atlas X and continued for the frigates, unleashing full sets of swarm missiles before turning back to re-arm. The missiles impacted and collapsed the shield generator on the frigate with one or two missiles hitting the ship below.
Now lighter by 50%, the bombers’ manoeuvrability were enhanced significantly but that was not a factor for an accomplished pilot as Keria. Aligning her turret's auto targeting reticule on the closest bomber, she depressed the trigger and allowed the Gatling to spit death upon the ship. Knowing that the Gatling would destroy the ship she twisted the front slightly further to the right and fired her remaining flares indiscriminately into the other bombers. A satisfying explosion meant one less bomber, and she moved her reticule onto a new target. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Itani capitol ships fire a full broadside at the now defenceless frigate and cursed the Itani for the deaths they were about to inflict. She ground her teeth and fired into another bomber, probably the last one she was going to get.
A squadron of IBG's were moving to intercept her now and she decided to make a run for it. Leaving the three bombers to fly back, she took evasive manoeuvres and bolted for the Nemesis. The Heavy Assault Cruiser was momentarily lit by the destructive fire from the now exploding frigate, the damage from the explosions enough to weaken the shields on the Nemesis but not powerful enough to burn the generator out. Slowly, ever so slowly the shields were regaining potency. Keria's heart took an extra beat in pure joy they could still make it. Her joy was however short-lived, another set of bombers had moved around in the cover of the scattered roid field and could now disgorge their full complement of swarm missiles and flares towards the Nemesis. The shield generator, already under immense strain from the splash, disintegrated under the immense bombardment and the combined heavy gauss canons and plasma launchers on the Itani cruiser crushed the armour on the Serco Flagship. The burning hulk lost controls and started tumbling slowly towards the roid field. Keria cursed an oath that was illegal in most systems and moved to the last frigate to protect it. She scanned the sector and found only herself and the frigate in-system, outnumbered at least five to one. The phantom Valkyrie was sitting still in the middle of nothing, apparently undamaged but with no movement. The route to the Geira Rutilus station was open, only the frigate and her to stop them.
"Delta 4 anyone, this is SCAR rep WiIllenium, report."
"SCAR rep Willenium this is Delta 4 Charlie fully combat functional. 80% stores remaining."
"Roger Delta 4 Charlie. Suggest full frontal on the Itani cruiser. May force her to break off."
"SCAR rep Willenium for Delta 4 Charlie, if you can keep the bombers occupied for a couple of seconds we can take her."
"Wilco Delta 4 Charlie. It was good knowing you."
"Delta 4 Charlie inbound. Glory to Lady Serco."
The frigate turned and faced the Itani cruiser with about as much grace as a hippopotamus in a giant glue-ball. Meter long plasma streaks flamed out the engines as they were fired on 120% power, causing the frigate to accelerate slowly, ever so slowly. Keria went under the cumbersome ship and moved to engage the bombers as they returned to the melee. This time they were defended by the remaining IBG's, with a set of six Valkyries hanging back. Odds of twelve to one, this is what she lived for. Screaming her battle cry at the top of her lungs, she hit the turbo and engaged the bombers with her Gatling turret.
###
The command post at Geira Rutilus was silent as they watched the large red pentagon that signified the remaining Serco frigate meld together with the even larger blue hexagon that was the Itani cruiser. The hexagon remained after the impact, probably damaged but not destroyed. The secondary defences had been activated with twelve Monitor class defence drones launched and circling the wormhole. Still, the mood was pretty bad with the loss of the last frigate.
Riddik Willenium, Duty officer of SCAR never noticed the death of the remaining frigate, he was busy staring at the small triangle that signified the only person that he absolutely could not bear to lose, his wife Keria. The twelve blue triangles and ten blue squares denominating fighters and bombers respectively closed on the lonely red triangle that eventually after removing two blue squares, faded out. Riddik waited one second before punching his fist directly through the radiation prepared screen burying his arm in the console.
"She is still alive, I am going in."
He stood and looked around, daring anybody to say anything, almost hoping that it would happen so he could get a quick target to vent his aggression on. It was in vain, not even a Serco serviceman wanted to take on the 280-pound bundle of cyberneticaly enhanced raw power. Snorting his contempt, he turned and ran down to get his Marauder fitted with auxiliary life support and launch for Deneb. He was going to find her no matter what.
I have to find her.I cant cook i'll starve!!!!!!!!!!!!
10. UIT CSI
Fletholm walked over to the burnt-out hulk of the mining moth and stopped at the yellow and black plastic strung across the bay entrance, patiently waiting for the investigator in charge to have time for him. Several minutes passed before a very dirty small man in an even dirtier boiler suit came over to him.
"You's de special guy?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"Boss said tae take good care a ye. So, whut can Ah do tae help ye?"
Fletholm was relieved; obviously his connections to the UIT Internal Police had worked their magic. He noted the heavy Verasi accent of the man for future reference, moved under the plastic and extended a hand in greeting.
"Fletholm, counter intelligence. I am looking for any data storage devices aboard that ship. Anything at all, even the burned remains of anything."
"I guess ye are in luck den, dem 'ere geezers took de main computer oot 'n smashed de auxiliary. However dey obviously didnt'na kenn aboot de extra storage 'n scanning capacity o yonder mining moth. Dat computer is unscathed. Dar's some unusual gear in de small port, mebbe ye wanna have a looksee?"
"That would be interesting. You say that the scanning computer is unscathed? I will have a set of technicians down to take it to my lab."
"Ye cannae do dat son, twould interfere wit de investigation. Ye can have it when we hae finished milking it."
"No. I am sorry that I interfere in this way with your investigation, but I must insist. As a matter of fact, I must insist that you let your investigation point to a natural cause even if it doesn't. This is a matter of national security."
He revealed his credentials and let the investigator study it. He had more than ample authority to remove anything from any scene of crime if the security of the nation was in danger.
"Ah guess ye can den. Ah'll write a report saying dat all was burned oot, yeah?"
"It would be preferably if you would. Thank you for your co-operation Sir."
"Ye doo no Sir me, Ah work fae a livin."
They both chuckled and separated, the investigator to pack his kit and Fletholm to investigate the scanner and wait for his own crew. This was the best news of the day. When he had arrived in "Pearls for Sus" ready to be ripped financially, but also with a new mission for his contact, it had been closed and several medical units were outside. Asking around, he found out that a person had suffered a bad case of poisoning with botulinum toxins, probably from an old bottle of wine. Even if they had tried to administer adrenaline to him, he just got much worse and died. A simple query to the data sphere had confirmed that it was Hasdrubal that had died. He sighed and dispatched one of his agents to figure out what had happened. That was now two hours ago, and he was not really in doubt as to what had happened, but now he needed to find the details of how.
###
Riddik launched his Marauder without getting flight approval from the STC, not because he was being obnoxious on purpose but because he was focused on the one mission that made sense in his World right now; finding and saving Keria. He entered the wormhole and tightened the chest strap further, readying himself for evasive action. He re-entered real space and immediately boosted down and right, twisting his ship to avoid the incoming fire. Nothing, no ships came up on the radar only a mass of debris where the frigates and Nemesis had been destroyed. Frowning but glad that he would no be hindered, he started scanning for live pilots in the form of ejection pods. Several responded to is call for IFF, with one of them showing critical status for the life support systems. He boosted towards that one and picked the Serco pilot up, continuing along the most efficient vector to pick up all the pods in the least amount of time. He spotted Keria's pod and noted that the pod was functioning with one unconscious but alive pilot inside. He moved directly to her pod and retrieved it, the others could wait. He left his pilot seat and let the Marauder boost into infinity as he moved down to the auxiliary life-support unit and extracted Keria. He checked her vitals, no permanent damage. As far as he could see it was a question of neural overload and maybe one or two burned out implants. He kissed her forehead gently and put her in the crash couch inside the auto-doc, making sure that the straps were securely fastened before moving back to his seat. He picked the remaining three Serco pods up and moved towards the wormhole. A set of eight circles of radiation signified incoming ships, and Riddik hit the overboost button to avoid any incoming Itani. The incoming ships turned out to be three battle scared Prometheus's, two battered SVG's and a trio of very damaged heavy bombers with Serco IFF codes, making Riddik wonder where they had come from. He hailed the front Prometheus, but did not get a reply. Probably some Spec Ops team, he didn't care at all. He had Keria, and that was all that mattered. It was the only thing that mattered.
###
"Well done boys, looks like you hit the nail right on the spot."
Silia threw a news stick onto the table where the two diplomats were playing a game of Go. They looked up at her smiling face and relaxed; ever since the hit they had been on the edge in case the UIT police came for them.
"What does it say?"
"Well Vaso, you can read the details yourself, but generally it says that a fire broke out in a mining moth due to faulty electricity, and another story talks of closing "Pearls for Sus" because a customer died of Botulinum poisoning. You did good."
Arhem nodded, it has been his idea to use the botulinum, but not as a stand-alone poison. The wine had contained enough botulinum to kill half the station if untreated, but it was fairly easy to treat. A shot of adrenaline would stop the worst, and give time for the emergency services to get him to the intensive care unit. The second ingredient had been a very small amount of cyanide in the almond cookies, not enough to overshadow the effects of the botulinum, but when the adrenaline to treat the botulinum poison hit the nervous system, it would trigger a super destructive cascade of destruction that the cyanide had already started. Thus the symptoms of the botulinum would hide and the treatment would greatly enhance the real cause of death, cyanide poisoning. The waiter had removed the cookies and delivered them back to Arhem in the kitchen before receiving his pay. In this case immunity for the crimes he had committed a long time ago in Initros, and thus a renewal of his Serco citizenship. He was right now on his way to Pyronis, back to fulfil his duties to Lady Serco.
"A time for new missions I guess? Or do we just continue to wait?"
Silia laughed out loud.
"You should know boys, nine tenths of all time spent in the diplomatic corps is like time in the army. It is waiting."
###
The medical crew rushed the burned and vacuum damaged body of an Itani bomber pilot from the docking bay to the large medical facilities in Ellias Stand, the largest in Itani space. The pilot was not breathing and hadn't done so for quite a while but that didn't really matter. The body had been so damaged that it would probably have to discarded anyway, and as far as the IDF standard bionic implant told the system onboard the stretcher, his brains and nervous system was still fully functional and ready for transplant. But they hurried; it was a question of minutes now. Unlike the Serco military that routinely cloned their soldiers and kept memplants of the soldiers updated every month, the Itani did not believe in that. Once you were dead, you stayed dead and the Itani people would mourn you appropriately. Thus a death loss of a pilot for the Serco was a setback of six months plus new conditioning, for the Itani it was irretrievable. That was one of the reasons that the medical facilities were the best in all of known space, and partly a reason that the war had never escalated beyond a border skirmish. The Itani people were not ready to accept the multi-thousands deaths such an escalation would take. That is also why the research into the Omega project was so important, and why it could not be allowed to fail.
Inside a secluded medical bay, a single person was worked on by several medtechs. His increasingly shallow breathing and deathlike pallor were indications of a body failing its host. The medtechs were however at a loss, the body was completely unharmed; it was the mind that had decided that it was dead. Captain Taerow had been in a coma like this for six hours now and apparently he would be dead in another six hours or so no matter what the medtechs did. They informed Professor Raewon that they could do no more for his pilot and left him to die in peace.
Fletholm walked over to the burnt-out hulk of the mining moth and stopped at the yellow and black plastic strung across the bay entrance, patiently waiting for the investigator in charge to have time for him. Several minutes passed before a very dirty small man in an even dirtier boiler suit came over to him.
"You's de special guy?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"Boss said tae take good care a ye. So, whut can Ah do tae help ye?"
Fletholm was relieved; obviously his connections to the UIT Internal Police had worked their magic. He noted the heavy Verasi accent of the man for future reference, moved under the plastic and extended a hand in greeting.
"Fletholm, counter intelligence. I am looking for any data storage devices aboard that ship. Anything at all, even the burned remains of anything."
"I guess ye are in luck den, dem 'ere geezers took de main computer oot 'n smashed de auxiliary. However dey obviously didnt'na kenn aboot de extra storage 'n scanning capacity o yonder mining moth. Dat computer is unscathed. Dar's some unusual gear in de small port, mebbe ye wanna have a looksee?"
"That would be interesting. You say that the scanning computer is unscathed? I will have a set of technicians down to take it to my lab."
"Ye cannae do dat son, twould interfere wit de investigation. Ye can have it when we hae finished milking it."
"No. I am sorry that I interfere in this way with your investigation, but I must insist. As a matter of fact, I must insist that you let your investigation point to a natural cause even if it doesn't. This is a matter of national security."
He revealed his credentials and let the investigator study it. He had more than ample authority to remove anything from any scene of crime if the security of the nation was in danger.
"Ah guess ye can den. Ah'll write a report saying dat all was burned oot, yeah?"
"It would be preferably if you would. Thank you for your co-operation Sir."
"Ye doo no Sir me, Ah work fae a livin."
They both chuckled and separated, the investigator to pack his kit and Fletholm to investigate the scanner and wait for his own crew. This was the best news of the day. When he had arrived in "Pearls for Sus" ready to be ripped financially, but also with a new mission for his contact, it had been closed and several medical units were outside. Asking around, he found out that a person had suffered a bad case of poisoning with botulinum toxins, probably from an old bottle of wine. Even if they had tried to administer adrenaline to him, he just got much worse and died. A simple query to the data sphere had confirmed that it was Hasdrubal that had died. He sighed and dispatched one of his agents to figure out what had happened. That was now two hours ago, and he was not really in doubt as to what had happened, but now he needed to find the details of how.
###
Riddik launched his Marauder without getting flight approval from the STC, not because he was being obnoxious on purpose but because he was focused on the one mission that made sense in his World right now; finding and saving Keria. He entered the wormhole and tightened the chest strap further, readying himself for evasive action. He re-entered real space and immediately boosted down and right, twisting his ship to avoid the incoming fire. Nothing, no ships came up on the radar only a mass of debris where the frigates and Nemesis had been destroyed. Frowning but glad that he would no be hindered, he started scanning for live pilots in the form of ejection pods. Several responded to is call for IFF, with one of them showing critical status for the life support systems. He boosted towards that one and picked the Serco pilot up, continuing along the most efficient vector to pick up all the pods in the least amount of time. He spotted Keria's pod and noted that the pod was functioning with one unconscious but alive pilot inside. He moved directly to her pod and retrieved it, the others could wait. He left his pilot seat and let the Marauder boost into infinity as he moved down to the auxiliary life-support unit and extracted Keria. He checked her vitals, no permanent damage. As far as he could see it was a question of neural overload and maybe one or two burned out implants. He kissed her forehead gently and put her in the crash couch inside the auto-doc, making sure that the straps were securely fastened before moving back to his seat. He picked the remaining three Serco pods up and moved towards the wormhole. A set of eight circles of radiation signified incoming ships, and Riddik hit the overboost button to avoid any incoming Itani. The incoming ships turned out to be three battle scared Prometheus's, two battered SVG's and a trio of very damaged heavy bombers with Serco IFF codes, making Riddik wonder where they had come from. He hailed the front Prometheus, but did not get a reply. Probably some Spec Ops team, he didn't care at all. He had Keria, and that was all that mattered. It was the only thing that mattered.
###
"Well done boys, looks like you hit the nail right on the spot."
Silia threw a news stick onto the table where the two diplomats were playing a game of Go. They looked up at her smiling face and relaxed; ever since the hit they had been on the edge in case the UIT police came for them.
"What does it say?"
"Well Vaso, you can read the details yourself, but generally it says that a fire broke out in a mining moth due to faulty electricity, and another story talks of closing "Pearls for Sus" because a customer died of Botulinum poisoning. You did good."
Arhem nodded, it has been his idea to use the botulinum, but not as a stand-alone poison. The wine had contained enough botulinum to kill half the station if untreated, but it was fairly easy to treat. A shot of adrenaline would stop the worst, and give time for the emergency services to get him to the intensive care unit. The second ingredient had been a very small amount of cyanide in the almond cookies, not enough to overshadow the effects of the botulinum, but when the adrenaline to treat the botulinum poison hit the nervous system, it would trigger a super destructive cascade of destruction that the cyanide had already started. Thus the symptoms of the botulinum would hide and the treatment would greatly enhance the real cause of death, cyanide poisoning. The waiter had removed the cookies and delivered them back to Arhem in the kitchen before receiving his pay. In this case immunity for the crimes he had committed a long time ago in Initros, and thus a renewal of his Serco citizenship. He was right now on his way to Pyronis, back to fulfil his duties to Lady Serco.
"A time for new missions I guess? Or do we just continue to wait?"
Silia laughed out loud.
"You should know boys, nine tenths of all time spent in the diplomatic corps is like time in the army. It is waiting."
###
The medical crew rushed the burned and vacuum damaged body of an Itani bomber pilot from the docking bay to the large medical facilities in Ellias Stand, the largest in Itani space. The pilot was not breathing and hadn't done so for quite a while but that didn't really matter. The body had been so damaged that it would probably have to discarded anyway, and as far as the IDF standard bionic implant told the system onboard the stretcher, his brains and nervous system was still fully functional and ready for transplant. But they hurried; it was a question of minutes now. Unlike the Serco military that routinely cloned their soldiers and kept memplants of the soldiers updated every month, the Itani did not believe in that. Once you were dead, you stayed dead and the Itani people would mourn you appropriately. Thus a death loss of a pilot for the Serco was a setback of six months plus new conditioning, for the Itani it was irretrievable. That was one of the reasons that the medical facilities were the best in all of known space, and partly a reason that the war had never escalated beyond a border skirmish. The Itani people were not ready to accept the multi-thousands deaths such an escalation would take. That is also why the research into the Omega project was so important, and why it could not be allowed to fail.
Inside a secluded medical bay, a single person was worked on by several medtechs. His increasingly shallow breathing and deathlike pallor were indications of a body failing its host. The medtechs were however at a loss, the body was completely unharmed; it was the mind that had decided that it was dead. Captain Taerow had been in a coma like this for six hours now and apparently he would be dead in another six hours or so no matter what the medtechs did. They informed Professor Raewon that they could do no more for his pilot and left him to die in peace.
This story just keeps getting better and better. Frankly, I can't wait to read more!
(By the way, Whytee, do you ever go on IRC? It would be fun to discuss your views on the unwritten nuances of the UIT beauracracy--particularly their military--in my opinion ^_^).
(By the way, Whytee, do you ever go on IRC? It would be fun to discuss your views on the unwritten nuances of the UIT beauracracy--particularly their military--in my opinion ^_^).