Ambrosia Software Web Board: "The Buildup" - Ambrosia Software Web Board

The SS Barbarossa tears a tachyon wake through space, making a beeline for a deserted crossing point on the Salrilian frontier.

"Your codes better work, Slug, if the alert goes up and it blows our cover, we're screwed..."

"Don't worry, they'll work. They are old, but a backwater listening post like this will overlook that sort of thing."

"We'll see, we're almost in range," Captain Pharris took Slug's code disk and tossed it to the Comm Officer;
"Run that thing, Helm, Put us in a holding pattern till they clear us, be ready to bolt if something looks fishy."

Pharris looked back at Slug "Moment of truth,"

after several moments, the comm officer put his hand to his earpiece for a moment, then turned to the captain
"Sir! they say our code is old, and that they want to do a customs search. Border guard says it's part of some sort of new "anti drug campaign", a spot check or something."

"****. Suit up the troopers, we're going to have to take the station out. ECM! standby to go to full active jamming on my mark!"

Captain Pharris was about to board the turbolift to the aromory when Slug grabbed his shoulder.

"Yes, what is is?"

...


{can I come? good luck? I have a better plan?}

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

"I have a better idea, Pharris. Clear the bridge." Quizzical looks from the bridge pit crew.

"You heard the man. He pays our salaries." Pharris said as he headed for the door.

"But stand by on those EVATs, just in case." As the bridge was once again empty save for Slug, he turned and engaged the communications channel. "Stationmaster?"

A vicious-looking Salrilian appeared on the screen. "What?"

"I know border patrol gets... boring."

"Yeah."

"Do you know who I am?"

"You mean...?" That salrilian strained to look.

"Yes."

"No... you can't be. Admiral Slug of the Second Salrilian Defence Armada?!"

"I was."

"You died in the ring battle."

"After the defeat the Salrilian Government turned it's back on me. I was claimed dead and expelled from the navy."

"My leige...."

"Let me through to Salril Prime and I'll see to it that you won't regret it."

The stationmaster's face turned sour "I think not. All batteries: open fire." A small barrage of cannonfire hailed onto the Barberosa. "You will be boarded and put to death, traitor of the homeworld."

"What? I gave 128 years of my life to Salril just so you could stay free, wormtail (Salrilian insult)." Another, larger barrage of cannonfire fell onto the Barberosa. Slug frowned. "I've tried to reason with you. I cannot stand a Salrilian who won't reason. Five seconds...."

A quartet of Salrilian Destroyers decloaked 30 kilometers off the station's weapons array and proceeded to silence it. "This is gre'Szuzz. Good to see you again, Admiral."

-------

"So who was that?" Pharris asked a few minutes later as the Barberosa, cloaked and under escort of a small fleet that had joined them, sped through hyperspace towards Salril Prime.

Slug furrowed his brow. "gre'Szuzz was one of my rear admirals during the battle for the ring. He's also the only one left alive."

"Alive? Were they assassinated like the attempt on you?"

"Yes. But the Salrilian Government beleives that their attempt worked. Until they figure out we are both alive the ball is in our court. Didn't I tell you I had friends in high places?"

------------------
He who loves the law will either die poor or mad.
-Alduran Proverb
StarLance

Following in the wake of the small fleet is the Crimson Tear, cloaked. Cicion was puzzled about Nerec's messages to stand by and wait for orders, and stall the mission. He decided to hold near Salril Prime.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo

The Rogue dropped out of hyperspace in the Salril System. He checked his sensors. There was a convoy of cloaked ships headed for Salril Prime. He scanned the main one. It was a human-designed Frigate! He couldn't tell any more about it due to the stealth shield, so he hailed it.

"This is Captain Pharris of the SS Barbarossa. How the hell can you see us?!?"

"It might just have something to do with the Science Vessel sensor package I picked up..."

"Slug, get up to the bridge. Some guy in an Ishiman Heavy Cruiser can see us!"

Soon, Slug appeared on the viewscreen, as well.

"Slug?!? What are YOU doing here?!?"

"That's my business. I'll give you 2,000 schintak if you don't tell any Sal ships."

"4,000."

"3,000."

"Fine. 3,000. I guess I'll see you guys later."

He closed the channel, and checked the sensors again. There was another stealthed convoy headed for Salril Prime. He scanned the lead ship: a transport. He was just about to superlight to the convoy when six Salrillian heavy destroyers unstealthed behind him, and each fired a shot. Mag didn't have time to react, and the Rogue became disabled. The Barbarossa unstealthed and docked with the Rogue, and a boarding party came to take Mag to the bridge...

------------------
"I can ail what cures you."

(Why are a Salrilian and a Human dealing in Phylydion currency?)

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo

"Cloak the ship, resume course for Saril prime"

Captain Pharris sat down on the Captain's chair in the center of the bridge, and engaged the restrain harness. The seat molded itself around him, holding him firmly.

"Sit down and strap in, sometimes it gets a little bumpy jumping to Hyperspace- Release the docking clamps, XO, get us out of here."

Mag watched in horror as the Barbarrossa let the rougue float off into space, disabled. It drifted slowly past the bridge windows, then the Barbarossa'sengines fired, driving the ship past the Rougue and on towards Saril Prime...

"Wait!! My ship!! You can't just leave her here in the middle of Sal Space! You Bastard! That's My ship! I'll Kill you"

Mag began screaming Hysterically and jumped out of his chair, about to set upon Pharris in a rage, but as the ship began to diffuse out of normal space, the ship kicked over the warp rift, Mag was tossed into the air, where he hung, ominously for a brief moment before falling to the floor. As the ship stabilised into hyperspace, Pharris got up and pulled Mag to his feet.

"I told you to watch out. We're useing a lot of power for our cloaking device, and the drain on the reactor makes it harder to get into hyperspace. Don't worry about your ship. I sent a prize crew aboard. They'll patch her up and fly her home. You're only here for security, I wouldn't want to jeapordise our mission over such a trivial incident. I'm sure you would do the same in my place."

"But Slug payed me off! You bastards double crossed me and stiffed me out of my money!"

"I don't care what Slug payed you. We are going into one of the most heavily defended systems in the galaxy! we are trying to get past six levels of sensor nets, each one more powerful than that sensor package you bolted onto the Rougue. If we do not have total, complete surprise, we will be found and destroyed. I don't care how much Slug trusts you, I will not take that sort of risk. Now.. You are welcome to stay on the bridge, or I can have a cabin made available to you. Slug is a reasonable man, I'm sure he'll pay you when we get back to the bar. In the mean time, I suggest you try and make the best of your current situation, we're still three days away saril prime."



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

....the fleet traveled through hyperspace at a speed immeasurable. Days, instead of being apparent, seemed to blend into each other. Soon, time had no meaning. As time wore on, the small escort fleet slowly grew as alrilian commanders heard through the grapevine a legend was returning in secret. Mag sat at the window, staring into the blank blackness of hyperspace. No stars, no lines, nothing to indicate movement save for the sensors....

"What are they going to do to the Rogue?"

Slug slithered up behind Mag "We'll scan it, put a skeloten crew aboard it and send it back to Sol."

"Why did you....?" Mag trailed off as he noticed Slug's eyes. They were glowing.

"We are Salrilians. We know all. We see all. We are the gatekeepers to the galaxy."

"What does that have to do with my question?" Mag said, the slightest hint of irritation in his voice.

"Never try to blackmail a Salrilian." Slug turned and exited the room, leaving Mag alone with only a confused expression on his face as company.

------------------
He who loves the law will either die poor or mad.
-Alduran Pirate Motto
StarLance

Several days later, the Barbarossa and it's fleet of stealthed ships dropped out of hyperspace in the Salril system. They made their way to Salril, using the artificial elliptical asteroid belt for cover. They would be safe until the last short run. They were careful to avoid Salrillian science vessels and astrominers. They started to pass the Salrillians' main mining station, with its revolving radar checking the nearby asteroids to find out what kinds of ore they had.

"Will that radar be able to see us?" asked Mag.

"I don't think so. It's desinged to scan asteroids, not stealth shields," said Slug.

"Let's just hope it can't," said Captain Pharris.

The radar stopped, facing them.

"What do you think? Is it concidence, or do they see us?" asked Pharris.

"I doubt that it's coicidence," said Mag.

"I'm very sure that it is. They're probably done scanning the asteroids around here, and stopped it. It probably just ended up facing this direction," said Slug.

Three of the fleet's cloaked heavy destroyers unstealthed and attacked the station.

"Damnit! Said Slug. Order to all heavy destroyers: stealth and rejoin the fleet!" said Slug.

A grisly-looking Salrillian appeared on the screen. "But sir, the radar is facing us! Do you really think its a coinciden-"

Five previously cloaked Salrillian gunships uncloaked and destroyed the heavy destroyer. Half of the fleet unstealthed and attacked the gunships. The gunships were quickly destroyed, but the Salrillians send a fair-sized fleet in. Soon, there was battling all around.

Mag quickly but stealthily left the bridge as Pharris and Slug were busy engaging enemy ships. He took out his photokinetic beam rifle, and went down to the airlock. There were two guards standing there. He managed to get one before they could react, and got the second after a brief gunfight. He went to the space suit rack, and put one on. He forced the airlock open, and went outside. He used his propulsion jets to get to a Salrillian gunship. He used the magnetic boots to get to the airlock. He forced it open, and went inside. After taking care of the crew, he started to figure out the controls...

------------------
"I can ail what cures you."

The firefight continued as more and more ships from each side disengaged their stealth fields and rolled into combat.

"fug'takh!" Slug hissed the expletive loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to be understood. "The idiots have blown our cover."

Pharris stood up "Helm get us out of here, maximum fold."

Slug turned with a look of rage on his face. "What?! It has taken us four days of dodging sensor drones and weaving sensor nets to enter the system."

"We've been discovered. You cannot learn a lesson if you are dead."

"I'm willing to take that chance." Slug snarled

"I'm not, sir. May I remind you this is my ship and not just another expendable.... number. You Salrilians are all the same. You-"

"Leave me here. You can run you pathetic creature." Slug's fiery eyes glowed fiercly.

Pharris met the eyes with a stare that would turn steel into rock. The helmsman turned around, unsure of what to do "Sirs?" He ventured with a mousey voice.

"Get me onto that station. Once I'm out of the ship you can.... run." Slug put extra oomph into run to make it hurt.

Pharris turned to face the viewscreen and look at the nearly crippled station. "You have 60 seconds to suit-" Pharris turned to see that Slug had already donned his face mask.

"Done. Escort me to the airlock."

Pharris's look had turned from icey to strange. "Y-you don't need a suit?"

"We Salrilians are capable of surviving for several hours in open space. We only donn suits for EVAT missions."

"Fine. You and you," Pharris motioned towards a pair of guards (huge, they would dwarf an Elejeetian), "Take him to number one airlock and throw him out."

-----

The door snapped shut behind Slug as he entered the airlock. It began to depressurize. "Eighty percent atmosphere." Droned a computer voice.

Slug flipped the switch to his nitrogen tanks and it hissed into his lungs. "Sixty percent atmosphere."

He sighed in releif. This pure nitrogen was much richer and better than the thin 'heumin air'. "Fourty percent atmosphere."

He could feel the pressure building up inside him. He was old, a few minutes in space these days did more harm than a few minutes in space when he was young, say, 80. "Twennnnnnnnty percent atmospherrrrrrre."

The door in front of him shifted open, the suddenly flew open. He was thrown violently into space, twisting, turning, wriggling as the chronon blasts and photokinetic beams swirled past him like some exotic wardance. He was hurtling towards the station now.... only a few more minutes and he'd be there.

He turned to see a destroyer exploding. The Barbarosa had long since left the system after he ejected. WHAM! He landed on the station, his magno belt straining to keep him from bouncing off. He slowly headed for the maintainence airlock.....

------------------
Give a man a match and he'll be warm for an hour... Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-Polaris Confederate Recruitmant Theme
StarLance

Pharris watched on the viewscreen as Slug landed on the station with a bounce. As soon as Slug got up and began walking, Pharris turned to the helm and began shouting out orders.

"Bring the engines to 110% , Get us the hell out of this mess, Launch chaff and ECM pods! MOVE! "

Four ECM pods left the torpedo tubes, promptly cloaked and began emitting the same sort of EM noise made by a poorly tuned Cloaking device.

Suddenly, the Ops manager called out: "Sir! we just got a redlight on the #5 airlock! someone just left the ship!"

"Mag! the Bastard!" Pharris was enraged at himself for letting Mag get out, but he was busy.

A moment later, engineering had powered up the reactor past the redline, and the Barbarossa kicked it self out of the fray, and began to really move.The helmsman hands flew over his controls, taking the Barbarossa through a grueling set of twists and turns through the Asteroid belt, and eventually out into the core of the system.

free of the asteroids and the fighting, the helmsman finally relaxed his grip on the controls.
"Allright, what now, Skipper?"

Pharris looked at the holo-map of the system, they were on the opposite side as the Saril Prime, but there were other planets, which were all heavily colonised, as well as several space stations. because of the density of the population there was an extremely large ammount of commercial traffic, espescially between the inner planets. It would be relatively easy for a cloaked ship to dissapear into the haze of ships, trash and exhaust trails that marred the orbits of the inner planets.

Pharris explained his plan to the helmsman "Put us in a slingshot close around the star, so that we'll cut in through the edge of the major traffic lanes, and then whip around the star, putting us out right near the planet before we have to burn to slow us down, got it?"

"Yeah, I think so..."

"Run it by the numbers, kid; I don;t want to have to make an correction burn till we're about to hit Salril Prime."

The hemsman pulled the numbers out of the computer, moved the ship into position, and fired the engines for exactly 37.6 seconds, committing the ship to an arc around the sun, and eventually towards Saril Pime.

"ETA in Seventeen Hours." he reported

"Good, XO, you have the bridge"

Pharris walked to the turbolift, and hit the button for sick bay.

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

One of the men was unconcious. he had been anestetised by the doctors who were busy trying to graft skin over the third degree burn that had revealed part of his ribcage through the light body armour he had been wearing. The other man was awake, but sporting a nasty concussion from the blaster bolt that had caught his helmet. Captain Pharris picked up the piece of reflective crystal coated helmet, felt the scorchmark, and the deep indent where the bolt had hit.

"You're a lucky son of a bitch, you know that?"

"I'm sorry I let him get away, I should have-"

Pharris cut him off.
"don't worry about it, he won't get far, we've got the Rougue, and I just ordered the prize crew to get away from major systems and to watch their back till we get return."

They chatted for several more minutes before Pharris returned to the bridge to find the communications officer looking at a monitor at the comm station, listening intently to someone chattering in Salrian..

"What's up?"

The Officer pointed to the screen and grinned

"Salrian Pan-Galactic News Network, the biggest news network in the entire empire, and I just picked up the Saril Prime station: check out the headlines!"

On the screen(which was actually a 2d rendering of the normally 3D holographic monitor, there was footage of the battle, with a voice over in Salrian.
"what's he saying, he's talking so fast..."

The comm officer was fluent in Salrian, as well as many other languages(which made talking to alien border patrols much eassier) began to translate the news broadcast...

"he says that there was an invasion fleet that attempted to run the blockade of this system, but that the attempt was quelled by the supreme Salrian Navy. He says that the goal of the attack remains a mystery, as the attacking ships were Salrian themselves. Of the dozens of attacking spacecraft, only four are reported to have escaped, while the Salrian imperial navy only suffered minor casualties..."the video switched to a live feed from a reporter in a spacesuit standing at the scene of the battle.

"Things have just started to calm down now. as the last of the enemy ships was disabled not ten minutes ago." The camera panned out over the wrecked hulks floating, some intact, some torn to shreds, but what was incredible was the thousands of bodies floating around the scene. Some of them were wearing space suits or emergency survival pouches, but many more were not. The reporter began to explain. "there are many survivors, as you can see, The Salrian Navy rescue squad is just beginning to pick them up, and they will most likely be sent to one of the interrenment camps where they will be tortured and interrogated to determing the true cause of this intended invasion of the Salril Prime System." An advertisement came up for Salrian tentacle ointment, Captain Pharris smiled, and returned to his seat.

In a few hours, he would be ready to rip up some of the Salrian internal traffic routes. Not very profitable, but it would certainly add to his reputation, and to the embarassment of the Sals: The SS Barbarossa slipped by the heaviest defences in the universe, to singlehandedly terrorise shipping in the Salrian core system.

Pharris went back to his cabin to catch a few hour's sleep before they would begin the reign of terror.

[This message has been edited by Captain Pharris (edited 09-24-2000).]

(Love the "Mission to Mars" ref., Slug.)

The Crimson Tear hung in space five hundred thousand klicks away from Salril Prime. He had watched the entire battle, and was still wondering what to do. It had been two days since the "Stand By" order had been transmitted by Octicate Nerec. He had enough supplies to last another month.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo

( Whichever one we go with, my plot doesn't change, so: )

Mag turned on the gunship's stealth shield and activated the superlight boosters. After he was far enought away from Salril Prime to have no danger from the gravity, and went to hyperspace, on a course to Sol. That's where Slug said the skeleton crew would fly the Rogue. At least he could get some money from selling the Gunship...

------------------
"I can ail what cures you."

[This message has been edited by Mag Steelglass (edited 09-24-2000).]

A dark grey shadow sweeping past the Crimson Tear caused Cicion to scan his instruments- surely no Salrilian ship could detect him? What was out there?

Sure enough, a small grey orb was floating in space a hundred metres from his ship. A message pod. Cicion ordered the Crimson Tear to pick it up. As he did so, the features of Sundered Angel flickered to life on his screen.

"Cicion, this is Angel. The situation is urgent. Sargatanus and Drion Nerec just about came to blows in the bar, and *chuckle* neither of them were drinking. We need Verad, and we need him now. It's time you stopped hanging around and actually go in there and fetch that crystal. Don't worry, you should have enough of a distraction; I've made arrangements. Again, good luck."

Cicion looks up from the message, wondering how SA dropped it off... was that one of the now-infamous Angel fighters, modified for stealth? Perhaps. But however the message arrived, it calls for a decision.

------------------
Sundered Angel,
The One and Only

Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

The encoded burst transmission were never displayed on screen. Ever. The operator of the machine typed the messages by hand on a keyboard, and plug in the day's cipher key. The machine turned the message(which had to have exactly 500 characters) into billions of zeroes, ones and twos. The machine then used six quantum processors to make six encryped copies of the message. It would compare the six and find the most random version. It then use the quantum computers t generate three thousand messages in similar encryption keys to the one being used. The actual message was set in a cetain spot determined by the day's Cipher Pad. All three thousand and one messages were then compressed down to a three picosecond transmission window and sent out the ship in a single transmission burst. Any machine that had the same unique cipher pad used by the sender would print out a copy of the message into a locked compartment. Without the cipher pad, it would take sixty years to decipher each of the three thousand messages produced by the machine.

::Patch Cipherpad -17XD48372J14::

***RPC***

SENT::1457h GST 9/19/78
SS. Barbarossa:

recieved previous message. taking all necessary precautions.
departed sol 0750 today. will seek cover in degaussy
asteroid belt. ETA: 76h34m will standby futher orders
will update upon arrival.
-uns rougue

[SEAL::AR573-DI488F::SEAL]

***EOT***

::Patch Cipherpad -17XD48372J14::


Captain Pharris' key turned at the same time as the comm officer's, opening the safe containing the message printout. He read it, checked the seal code, passed it to the XO, who read it and put it in the document incinerator.

Captain Pharris returned to his chair. The Rougue was in good hands. He had Mag pinned down for now, though he did not know what to do about him quite yet. He wasn't even sure if the bastard had made it out of the battle alive, but he wasn't going to let him have his ship back just yet.

As the Barbarossa began to enter the inner orbits, He could just make out the tiny lights moving back and forth along the freight lanes just over ten thousand kilometers away. He smiled.

"Load tubes three and four"

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

The Tear's engines came to life and the little ship sped to where a cargo ship was entering the atmosphere. He held an inch below the keel as it passed through the planetary shield. He immediately scanned for an unnocupued spot to land. His sensors detected a grassy plain a thousand miles outside of the main city, and he brought the Tear, still cloaked, down onto it. Emerging from the ship, he started walking.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo

Of course, the Salriian Poice and Paramedic units were on scene in less than ten minutes, but it didn't matter, The long range torpedoes had been targeted at a large fuel transport. The massive explosion had stopped ships for several hundred kilometers down the Shipping Lane. As the Barbarrossa raced closer, it loosed six salvos of short ranged missiles into the now tightly packed and confused freighters, destroying or disabling many of them in seconds. The Transports that could tried to bank out and make their escape, but as the Barbarossa closed to within twenty kilometers, it decloaked and began to lay waste with its heavier Depleted Uranium Slug Guns and Plasma bolts. The gun crews worked with gruesome efficiency, firing as rapidly as possible, after fourty five seconds, the Barbarossa dissapeared into it's cloaking field.

Captain Pharris watched his stopwatch "3...2...1...Mark! Engage cloaking device, drop Jamming pods, Helm, get us out of here."

The Ship kicked hard and began to move. The Jamming pods would ensure that no distress calls would get out for at least five or six minutes, giving the Barbarossa plenty of time to line up an assault on one of the nearby Military Spacedocks.

The Barbarossa cleared from the Shipping lane, Engaged its hyperlight drive and covered the distance to the docks in seconds.

As it came out of lightspeed, the Barbarossa slid gracefully into position between three drydocks. The installation was busy constructing a gateship and several carriers. The Barbarossa slid into position and began to fire on the drydock's Antimatter Storage tanks. It unloaded several salvos of missiles at the fledgeling Carriers, but concentrated it's fire on the gateship, attemping to do as much damage as possible to the fragile and expensive sections of the Jumpgate Generator ring that were being fixed together around the massive ship by several space Tugs. As the Barbarossa's Cannons tore several sections to pieces, Klaxons began to sound, and ships were being scrambled to eliminate the invaders.

"That's enough! Get us the Hell out of here!"

Once Again, the Barbarossa accelerated past lightspeed and raced to escape the fleet that was hot on their trail.

The Barbarossa cloaked once more, and immediately turned to return to the inner Orbits of the Solar System.

"Enough wanton destruction for one day! Find a nice spot near the sun and put us in orbit. Let some of that good 'ol solar radiation cover our Cloak Field Signature"

"Sounds like a plan, boss"
The Helmsman brought the ship gently down from lightspeed, and coasted into the clouds of smog and trash that marred the inner orbitals of Salril prime. He guided the ship expertly into an orbit just inside of the innermost planet, putting the ship into a gentle roll so that all sides got "evenly roasted" by the sun's rays. He let go of the controls and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Go get some rest, all of you! You've earned it. Call up the third watch"

He patted his ECM Chief on the shoulder. "Make sure to keep a solid eye out. We don't want to be surprised"

The captain smiled and went down to engineering to review the gun camera tapes

The engineer pointed to the holographic representations, showing the action as it took place just an hour ago.

"Holy ****-look at that! We wrecked four sections of the gate ring! It'll take em six months to replace those parts alone! They're gonna want our ass!"

Captain Pharris smiled

"There's no way we're getting out of this system in the next week or so. Maybe if things calm down a little we'll make it out in 10 days, but I doubt it. For now, we're just sitting tight in orbit, hiding any imperfections in our cloak field with this smog cloud and the solar wind from the sun"

"You mean we're staying in the system!?" the engineer looked distraught.

"The last place that the Sals would expect would be for us to sit tight. They'll have jump inhibitors surrounding this whole system, and an armada or two ready to set upon us at the first warning they get. We wouldn't make it ten klicks ouside of the perimiter. Let them scour the system for us, they'll be right on top of us before their sensors will pick our cloak emissions out from all this EMF noise."

"I don't know if you realise it, but that cloaking device may not be up to this. The cloak field is taking a lot of hits from all the EM radiation from the sun. The same stuff that's hiding us is putting a heavy strain on the generator. It might not last more week in this mess, if that..."

"Well then, I think you have some work to do... If that thing dies before we find a way out, we're ****ed."

"all right... I'll try to throw something together... but this thing is a POS, I don't think I can string it out any more than ten days."

"well then we'll have to be on our way home by then, won't we? good luck, chief"

The Captain walked back to the bridge to check on the watch.

Though he did not show it, Pharris was worried. What he had done was unprecedented and absolutely insane. He had attacked and destroyed more than fifty Military cargo transports, do billions of credits of damage to the second largest Salril construction facility in the galaxy, set construction of the newest gateship back by almost a year, as well as destroy several carriers that were under consruction. It had only worked because of extreme luck, and the fact that something like it had never ever been accomplished before. Attacks within the defence perimiter of a core system were unheard of. The Barbarrossa had made history, He was still anxious. He knew about the Oracular net, how it could predict the future, but he didn't know how accurate it was, and whether it could possibly be effective at predicting things so chaotic as a single human mind. He hoped not. He didn't want to consider the alternative.

"HOW DID IT HAPPEN!?" Verad demanded. The entire room seemed to shake as his palms hit the table.

Simply being in front of the Auspexes was intimidating enough for the aging General Gath, but to have one of them yelling at him for his incompetence and the others staring scornfully was pushing his nerves to the breaking point. He fumbled to suqeek out his words: "W-we believe they were independants; renegades. They m-must have come in from behind the Ring, your excelencey."

"I don't buy that at all." Verad replied coldly. Sitting back down, he continued: "How could a fleet of renegades have snuck through our defences? We can pick up a cloaking device for lightyears beyond this system!"

Cal Sev cut in: "Unless it is the prototype that was stolen from our research lab in Dranai."

Silence at first, but the coment had caught the attention of Sargatanus. "The odds of a renegade being able to pull off that feat are virtually nonexistant. Is it possible that these privateers are being funded and supported by one of our rivals?"

Silence again. A smile grew on Verad's face, and he added: "That would be an act of war."

Some chuckles circulated through the Auspexes until Sargatanus replied: "Wouldn't that be an interesting bit of information to present at the next embassy dinner... But I digress; we have other matters at hand." His face became all seriousness. "Gath, something has been troubling me from the second I got the report on this: You relied solely on police patrols, and never once called on any of the standing military fleets. Why is that?"

Againg the trembling crept up Gath's spine. "For a mere renegade? I-"

Verad interrupted: "That 'mere renegade' managed to destroy one of our busiest shipyards, effectively destroying eight carriers.!"

"Not to mention the fact that he also incapacitated one of our new gatships." Cal Sev added with a icy tone.

Gath suddenly got defensive. "We have never encountered an enemy with this skill before! And that cloaking device-"

Sargatanus interrupted: "All the more reason for you to have called for military support." Sargatanus leaned forward with his sadistic grin. "Of course, you being the defense general, you would know that."

A new sensation fell over Gath at those words- As if fear had become something tangable and he had been engulfed by it like quicksand. He miserabley failed in trying to hide it as tried to play stupid. "What? W-what do you mean?" He began to slither backwards and didn't bother to hide his anxiety. "There isn't... I mean, you can't!"

Sargatanus gave a nod, and two previously inannimate orange pillars sprouted legs and moved off their platforms and toward Gath. Instinctively, Gath hit the ground and sprang forward, only to be snared by fast flying wires shooting from the Audemedon guards. He began to scream in an incomprensible manner.

Over the screaming Sargatanus gave his order: "General Gath, you are hereby relieved of duty on grounds of incompetence, and are placed under arrest on the charge of suspicious behavior and treason."

Gath was dragged by the Audemedons from the Auspex chamber screaming out Salrilians obscenities.

And the silence returned.

"Cal Sev," Sargatanus began.

"Yes, your eminance?" Replied the Cantharan.

"Since that cloaking device is ours, can we track it?"

"It has a very faint but distinct EMF pattern. If programmed right, some of our more advanced sensors could pick it up even next to a black hole. The modifications could be programmed into some of our more advanced ships in minutes."

"Good. Have that done to some of your top special ops squads, as well as Verad's."

"Immediately, your eminance." Cal Sev said with a slight bow.

"What do we do when we find them?" Verad asked.

"We destroy them, you-" Cal Sev began but was cut off by Sargatanus.

"Destroy them only if necessary. I'd rather find out who they're working for, so stay hidden and monitor them closely. If they flee, follow them. And be sure to use the Archangel fighters is they decide to fight."

"I'll begin searching the system periphery immediately."

"No, these renegades are too smart to run away just yet. They'll be hiding inside the system. Most likely in the asteroids, near the star, or behind the Ring. I'm sure we;ve all used this tactic before, so let's not fall for it. Verad, you will search near the sun, and be shure to check the inside and outside of the Shadow Squares. Cal Sev, you will search behind the Ring and through the asteroids."

As the Auspexes left, Sargatanus sat back and comtemplated the situation with General Gath. A traitor of such high rank hinted at something that did not bode well...

------------------
Throughout their history these "unenlightened" beings have continually opposed and fought abuses of power wrought by their own bretheren. We, as the prophets would do well to learn from these Humans.
-Final statement of the Salrilian reformist Sirthis shortly before his execution.

The two Audemedon guards stood silent. Steady as rocks. A mouse scurried accross the floor and
two electronic eyes tracked it's every move. As it left, a silver Audemedon entered the room.

"There are terran lifeforms on this planet." He buzzed authoratively. "See to it they are
exterminated."

One of the drones moved slightly. "Roger roger." It shifted off to the planetary hive with it's
orders as the Haruspex, escorted by another set of Audemedon guards, strolled through the stone
arch.

The Silver Command Drone stood erect momentarily like an angry spider, the Audemedon salute.
"Is the prisoner ready for execution?"

"Yes, your eminence. We also detected....mice on this planet."

The haruspex's eyes widened. "Open the door. Immediately." He was seriously scared. The silver
drone effortlessly moved the huge stone door. The prisoner was gone!

Unbelievably, the haruspex moved inside. There was no sign of General Gath! Only a set of
scratchings on the wall.

[url="http://"http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/slugsoft/Scratchings.jpeg"] (image)[/url]

A symbol and some Salrilian writing reading "We are watching.". The Haruspex's eyes widened.
The Audemedon coolly gave the markings a visual scan. "Matching visual scans with library
records...... accessing. Symbol corresponds with fleet battlesign of Ex-Admira-"

"Slug." He interrupted.

Mag took out his iPad and opened the file for the homing frequency on the Rogue. After putting in several passwords, he got it. He punched it into the Gunship's computer system, and did a scan. The Rogue was making its way towards Freedom Station. He used the Gunship's superlight boosters to get there quickly, and hailed it.

"This is Lieutenant Karsing. What is the reason for this hail?"

"You're flying my ship."

"Uh, y-ya mean, you're Mag Steelglass?!?"

"Pretty much. Fork 'er over!"

------------------
"I can ail what cures you."

"Angels walk amongst us." challenged the cloaked figure.

"And devils in their guise." replied the newcomer smoothly. The sentry gave a brief bow of his head, and a hiss of approval.

"You may enter, brother."

"Thank you, brother-sentry." Replied the other cloaked figure, and entered the building. Around the single room stood a dozen figures, talking in soft tones. On a seat at the far end sat a figure in dark red robes, discussing a topic with a tall, shrouded figure. The newcomer surveyed the room, and was noted by everyone.

The Grand Master stood. "Greetings, brother. You are new amongst us, and, as is our policy, you must reveal your features to us once, just once, to guard against treason."

"That is well." replied Sundered Angel, pulling back his hood. Around the room, Cantharans fell silent, bowing low.

"Sundered Angel, I, we... we meant no impertinence... we-"

"Never mind, Grand Master. Your vigilance is noted. It is good, though it has allowed one to slip through." He raised a finger, pointing to a figure indistinguishable from any other. "He is a traitor. Kill him."

A dozen weapons flashed in unison, and the accused dropped dead. Sundered Angel nodded. "Excellent. I come to hear your report for this planet. How are your numbers? How prepared are you?"

The Grand Master spoke in reply. "On Cantharis itself, we have perhaps 100 000 disciples of our cause, maybe more in the outlying regions. Scattered across the Order's planets lie several million more. All are ready and awaiting the signal to rise."

SA nods. "That is good. How are your ties beyond the order?"

"Tenuous. One of the leaders of the Salrilian Disciples has been captured recently, and the Gaitori Grand Master was killed in a brief exchange of fire with Axis Security Troops. We remain the most organized faction."

"I am not surprised. And beyond the Axis?"

"The Disciples exist beyond the Axis?"

"They do. The call has been heard across the galaxy."

"Indeed, your excellency. I should not have questioned your power."

"Put it out of your mind." Sundered Angel scanned the assembled figures, and swept his arms apart.

"My disciples, the tide is rising. The Axis, while primed for its role in the future of the galaxy, is bedevilled by corrupt and incompetent leadership, crushed under the brutal force of martial law. Indeed, the entire galaxy suffers under the shadows of the military titans. That will change, not far into the future. And for that day, be ready. Be ready."

With that, Sundered Angel walked away, leaving the cult members to nod to each other. The ranks were growing...

Cicion walked into the outskirts of the city. There were a few tall buildings, but mainly ship docking facilities and perimiter defenses. As he walked into the city's downtown area he was glad the Salrilians were such efficient traders. So much trade went on in Salril Prime that there were at any given time a million non-salrilians in each major city, or more. Much more in the case of this, main city. He even spotted other Phylydions. They were probably all PhylSec agents posing as traders, of course. He quickly proceeded to a terminal and brought up a map of the city. Finding the temple, he proceeded in its direction.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo

Captain Pharris awoke with a start. A buzzer was sounding insistantly in his ear. The ECM officer was on the comlink with something that required the captain's immidiate attention. Pharris rolled out of his bunk, and in ten minutes he was on the bridge.

The ECM chief had piles of printouts on large rolls of paper piled all over his station. He had a map of the sytem out, and was displaying recorded radar logs on the displays.

"Three hours ago, these special forces bases launched sixty ships each. They cloaked and spread out. Luckily I was watching the sensors when they went under, and got a sample of the cloaking frequencies" he pulled up a line on the screen representing EMF activity within a certain frequency

"When they were close together, I managed to get a nice listen to their cloaking signature. They are all useing a relatively new model emmitter, which is pretty good at masking it's emissions well below the normal noise level. I lost most of the ships, but every so often I keep on catching little bits and pieces of the signature all over the system. I didn't want to wake you, but I wanted to show y- Hold on..." The ECM chief grabbed the earpiece on his headset and looked at the cascade displays. His face lit up. He froze the cascade, pulling the frozen image onto a second monitor. He started to playback the recording he had just captured.

"Got another one! Here, check it out!"

He plugged another set of headphones in and handed them to the Captain. He listened intently, but he heard nothing but the background noise.

"I don't hear anything"

"what? here, lemme tune it a bit more" He adjusted several levels on the translation and played it back again

"Listen for it... right.... Now! there, hear it?"

The Captain strained to listen, but still could only hear the noise

"you must be deaf, Skip, here let me show you" He singled out three cascade lines, and foucused on five seconds of the recording. He extended the cascade display for the five seconds across the screen, enlarging it greatly, and excentuating the fluxuations in what looked like ordinary background noise.
"There, see it now?"

The Captain was getting frustrated
"No, it just looks like noise!"

"C'mon! look at it! look hard! There, see the pattern?" The ECM chief was running his finger across the cascade displays, gesturing wildly.

"I don't see ****! It looks like noise!"

The ECM chief groaned in frustration, took his grease pencil and started scribbling a wavy line across the screen. When he finished, he turned towards the captain "There! now do you see it?"

Captain Pharris stared hard, matching the pencil line with the fuzzy Frequency line. Then, just for a moment, he saw it. The pattern was there. it was incredibly faint, even with the ECM officer's scrawled guide, he could just make out the peaks over the noise. "wow... How the hell did you find that in all this mess? I can barely see it with your guideline!"

"Well, first of all, I'm the best, second, we've got top notch equipment, and third of all, I got lucky. I managed to get a solid listen to the signature when I saw the fleet cloak, then I went back and cut the recording down and started listening to each frequency individually, trying to find where the pattern was. The trouble is, the cloaking devices have randomisers. They jump frequency to keep from being tracked, but they can't change the EMF signature of their cloaking device very easily, each cloak field generator core gives off a unique pattern. The only way to change it is if you dissassemble the cloaking device and mess with the core itself. Luckily for us, these guys seem to be useing military spec parts, so the ships all sound about the same, but if I spent a couple of hours cleaning these records up, I could probably tell each of the ships apart, but there's really no need to do that."

"Could they track us the same way you're doing?"

"Yeah, I guess so, but they never got a really solid feel for our cloak signature. The only time you can really see it clearly is just as the ship is cloaking or decloaking, and we had those jamming pods going full blast when we went under. Those jamming pods make the mess we're hiding in now look crystal clear. Without a clear picture of our cloaking device's EMF signature, they could be less than ten kliks out before they would notice us. I can see them from much farther away, though it's been pretty sporadic, as you can see."

He pointed to the map that was spread out over the console. The second ECM officer was marking down another few marks on the map. He drew their location, then added a time and a tracking number.

"Basically, we have to do this all by ear. The computer's pretty good, but this sort of thing is almost more of my gut feeling than any sort of algorithm I could write for the computer. It's not something any old ECM guy can do, you gotta have a real solid grip on your equipment, and you gotta have the ears for it. Most people couldn't see the pattern I just showed you if you gave em a million years, Hell, Most computers wouldn't have picked that one out. Basically, right now all we have Ensign Malloy here listening to the live feeds and recording the time and locations of anything he hears. The trouble is, we can usually only get a solid glimpse of them during gaps or irregularities in the background noise, otherwise they're doing a good job of staying in levels of high interference. Maloy and I have been switching off for the last five hours. Malloy's got good ears, better than any of the others in ECM, but he still can't catch everything, I have to run back through the tapes again to make sure they're clean. Then I'm gonna bring the next watch up a bit early and see how they do at picking out patterns. They've been listenining to this pattern in their walkmen since I first got it, and most of them should have it down pretty solid by now, we just gotta see who's got the ears to catch a Sal cloaking device."

The ECM officer smiled. He looked incredably tired.

"You make sure to get some sleep when the watch comes up, You can't hear **** if you're passed out on the console"

The ECM chief chuckled "All right sir, if you insist... oh yeah, you probably want to check out that map, It's got a listing of all the contacts and the last solid reading we had on their position."

The ECM Officer slumped down in his chair and started to play back the latest tapes. He watched the cascades slowly go across the screen, his skilled eyes watching for patterns so subtle even the best ECM computers would have trouble seeing.

Captain Pharris looked at the map. There were points and circles. The points represented the actual contact, and the circle represented the distance the target could have moved since it was last acquired. There were a few large, heavily escorted science vessels cruising around the system, but they were obviously a decoy, or a secondary effort at best. The cloaked Special ops ships were undoubtably the most dangerous. While it was possible to occasionally get a glimpse of them, sustaining any sort of tracking on them was quite difficult. They were searching out all the EMF hot zones in the system, the asteroid belts, the Inner Smog clouds, the rings and most worrisome, many were already patrolling around the star. They hadn't made any abvious moves indicating that they had spotted him, but he didn't expect them to do anything arouse suspiscion. He didn't know whether to try to risk bugging out now, or to sit tight and wait. If the Sals kept up like this, they would eventually find him out of dumb luck. If he tried to sneak out, he would first have to run past the science vessels patrolling the open space of the system, and eventually he would have to get through the static sensor perimeter, which had been difficult to run when the Sals had their guard down, now the slightest hint of his ship would bring the entire Sal defence armada down upon him.

Captain Pharris got on the turbolift and went to engineering to check on the Chief's progress with the cloaking device.


He walked into engineering, and saw half the Engineering team wearing protective clothing, working on the Cloaking device in the "hot" side of the Engineering bay. Sparks were flying, and the power conduits were glowing white. The Chief engineer finished a spot weld he was working on, and walked out of the Shop through the double doors. Now on the safe side of the glass, he pulled off his mask, and watched his team at work. His face was red, and his hair was soaked with sweat.

"This is absolutely crazy. We're fixing the damn thing while it's still running. it's insane. At least I left all my diagnostic leads inside it when I put the thing back together. I still don't totally understand the thing. When I went with XO to buy the thing, it looked pretty normal, just sort of beat up, once I got it on board and opened the sucker up, I realised how ****ed up the thing was. It wasn't even finished yet! I had to build half of the relay switches from scratch, not to mention that generator core. I'd never seen anything like it, It was amazing, the only problem was it couldn't stand the sustained duration we needed, so I had to open the core up and rebuild it. It worked, but we still need to do more work on it, and just about the only thing we can't mess with while it's running is the core itself. I think I could give you an extra week, if we shut the thing down for about six hours of work. The only problem is that there's no safe place to hide for that long, so I think we have about six more days out of it before the core will just stop functioning. Then we'll need to overhaul. We're in deep ****."

"Tell me about it. Worst thing is, ECM is all over the place, The Sals sent some of their best hunters after us, and in this mess, ECM can hardly see them, let alone track them, so we can't really get a good idea of what we're dealing with. ECM thinks that they don't have a good record of the cloaking device's EMF signature, and that they won't be able to see us without running into us first, which is good, but If they have our sig, we're ****ed, but really, we're ****ed either way, there are enough of them that we can't stay hidden for long."

"We're between a rock and a hard place, Skip."

"I'll find us a way out, I'll think of something..."

I'd better...

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

The ECM officer stared at the display in front of him, drifting in and out of a daze-like sleep. He had been staring at it for almost six hours, and aside from the occasional subtle frazzle of a Salrilian EMF signiture (which had become commonplace now) he had been staring at and listening to nothing but background noise. Once again, he found himself drifting off again, as the dream image of Wermer Luxury Yacht began to sail in fron of him once more. Before he could climb into its welcoming hottub, the image disappeared when a distortion slid past the window and the EMF reading spiked. He woke up with a start and knocked a stack of disks on the floor as he scrambled for the console. The disks made a clatter so loud he thought the Salrilian vessel may very well have heard it. He let out a yelp and froze, then a smile began to grow on his face. The Sals had gone right past them, and didn't do anything. They couldn't see them! The Officer began to laugh uncintrolabley.

Captain Pharris marched in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "What's so funny?" He asked grogily.

The ECM Officer gathered himself for a response. "They flew right over us and didn't even see us!" He went back to laughing.

Pharris nodded agreeingly, acknowledging the fact that he wasn't awake enough to fully react, and headed back to his quarters.

The ECM officer continued to laugh.

***

"Is that a positive Identification?" The voice crackled over the radio.

"It has been for some time. I am transferring their position right now. Orders?"

"None. Send the message to Cal Sev where they are, and let us simply observe their movements for now."

"Yes, your excelencey. One more thing I should point out,"

"Yes?"

"They didn't react when a straffed them. They cannot track us."

This puzzled Verad. "If they stole that cloaking device, they should have searched for EMF signitures identicle to theirs..."

"They may not have figured that out."

"They would have to be incomprensibley stupid to overlook that, and they obviously are not. They must have been given the device by their employers. We must observe them for now. We will force them to move when Cal Sev arrives."

------------------
Verad
Ex-Taeskor and
Salrilian Auspex

An Audemedon sentry stood silently in the darkness. Its eye was tuned to infra-red signals. Unfortunately for it, knives do not give off heat, except for the minimal amount on the handle from the hand of its user. The user was not holding it, and the sentry dismissed the minimal trace as nothing. In a nanosecond, one was lodged in the sentry's head, through the eye. A shadow silently jumped down to the ground next to the sentry and retreived the knife. Cicion walked past it and into the main Temple entrance, then stopped and crouched. Two Salrilian guards were blocking the inner chamber, as he had expected. He took a vial of red powder from his pocket and spread it on his knifeblade. He then ran silently and gave them both a nick on the tail. Both instantly fell dead. Still bearing his blade, Cicion walked through into the chamber of the spheres, and found the one he had been sent to retrieve. He started to walk back, then frowned and extracted his sense tendrils. #Someone else is here,# he thought, and then, with surprise, #A Phylydion!# He turned and prepared to fight.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo

A Phylydion stepped out, silently, from behind a pillar, and stood, legs spread wide apart, twenty feet away from Cicion. He was wearing Salrilian-style garb, but there could be no mistaking the boots. They were identical to the ones Cicion was wearing, excepting the fact that all Pure Taeskors' boots were tailored to exactly fit their feet. The man smiled slowly. "What better way to kill you than with another of your kind?" He stepped a few feet into the room and drew his blade.
It was a proper KeuTae(KAY-oo-TAY-uh, "TaeBlade"), but it had been altered by the "Profits", as Cicion jokingly called them, and had a channel down the blade, undoubtedly a poison channel which drew from a supply in the handle. Cicion had the advantage that the renegade did not know that his blade was also poisoned.
The Renegade Taeskor put himself into fighting stance, and Cicion also prepared himself. The renegade lunged forward, and Cicion dodged and counterthrust. his blade was deflected by the renegade's, and they went into a fight that more closely resembled a sword fight than a knife fight. #This is taking too long,# thought Cicion. Suddenly he got an idea. It would only work if he first obtained the proper information.
"So," he taunted, "You must protect these orbs. You have failed pathetically."
"I've only begun to fight you," he said. "My assignment will be completed upon your death, and I will be rewarded."
#Ah!# Cicion thought. #He has revealed that it is indeed his job to protect the orbs!# With that thought, Cicion walked over to the orbs, picked one up, and said, "Catch!" He threw the orb at the renegade, who caught it with a look of horror. Cicion began throwing them two at a time, with the renegade dashing back and forth to catch them and set them down. Cicion tossed the last orb high in the air, and before the renegade could catch it, he was on the floor with Cicion's KeuTae in his chest. Cicion ran forward, caught it, and placed it in his sack. He also retrieved his blade and sheathed it. He ran out of the temple, only to be surrounded by a dozen Audemedon guards. He couldn't figure out what to do until he remembered somthing. As the Auds raised their weapons, they all short circuted. Cicion started running back to the Tear, thinking, #So that safety program Jralla and I installed worked after all.#

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor

"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo

"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."
-Han Solo