Ambrosia Software Web Board: Chapter 2 - After the Fall - Ambrosia Software Web Board

[The Terminal temporarily turns into a Miranu Courier and guns down Entropy. Salrillian ships decide that action may be necessary...]

Now given the Access codes for the Audemedon Jumpgate, the crew of the Terminal decides what to do. The subcommander hauls out a message cylinder, and the engineer immediately gets to work on it. Soon, the cylinder is programmed with two messages: the activation sequence to be used upon nearing the jumpgate, and the following to be sent to Obain:

"Consensus Representatives: Our aid to Sol may have been of little help to its inhabitants, but now it may become neccesary. Our Escort, the Terminal, is trapped on an asteroid in the system. we may make it as far as Anglagard, but that is in the opposite direction. If at all possible, send a company of 5 escorts and two transports to the Anglagard system in 2.5 Obish standard days. We will be there. We hope you will."

The crew of the Terminal sat down to wait.

------------------
-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

"Well, do we accept? and even if we do, who do we send?"

"Well, they sent the invitation to you, Wizr. I think they want you."

"I know, and I don't like it one bit. We have a lot more support for the military buildup, but without a powerful figurehead in the Ishiman Government, I don't see it continueing. I would really like to see Earth, but I can't risk the security of the protectorate by sailing off to Earth. On the other hand, the Protectorate would pounce upon the Salrillians if they captured someone so prominant in the government. Perhaps I should send a spy..."

Spammo was sitting in the chair across the desk from the Trey'sh, he paused for a moment, then spoke again.

"How long do we have before the carrier arrives to get you? Can you find a good agent on such short notice?"

"Well a galactic standard day is about fifty-two Earth hours long. Assuming the scans of the carrier at the blocade go quickly, they'll be here at 3:00 tomorrow morning, UNS standard time. That gives us thirty-seven hours to pull a decent intelligence agent from the Intelligence Commitee. Thats short notice. I'll pull one now, just in case."

He pushed the intercom and asked one of his aides to call the intelligence commitee, then looked back at Spammo.

"You know they still havn't returned Myrk. That is a very useful card to play... I will refuse to take the tour until they return my Trey'eck, perhaps we should even impound their carrier." He chuckled to himself, "that would be delightful, but would it provoke too great a reaction?"

Spammo was thinking, he looked up from his thoughts for a moment, then at the Trey'sh.


------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

The easiest group to get to Anglagard was the UNS Assistance Team, so the Starbeam, along with four other Escorts, were in the system ahead of time. The transports took a little longer to arrive, but soon the team was in position to rendezvous with the Terminal.

[Now I'm wishing I'd picked a better name. I wasn't expecting the ship to get this far...]

------------------
Subcommander g'Var "8 Lightnings" Krai'un
Second in command of the Escort Starbeam.
"CRUISER DESTROYED. 91 remaining" -Ares, chapter 9, Hand Over Fist

[This message has been edited by 8 Lightnings (edited 01-14-2001).]

Darkk slammed the lead freighter hard on the main computer region with the laser turrets and magnetos while dodging the concussion gun fire from the nearer turrets. The shield was falling, bleedthrough was increasing ....

The computer core shot a collum of sparks and all the lights on the ship went out. The guns fired for a second, no longer attempting to track Darkk, and then fell silent. The last Sal gunboat flared and fireballed under the impacts of three missles. Darkk moved to the last freighter not disabled, which had been modified with a quad of bell nozzels, instead of the usual plasma-spike engines that had been put on the design for increased manuverability. The bell nozzels gave better speed, though, and Darkk could swear that the last ship was trying to head TOWARD him. It might be attempting to ram him, but that would be poor tactics. Maybe there was a Gaitori in command. Or maybe...

Suddenly, the superfreighter exploded in a hundred thousand lines of fire. Sections of hull the size of UNS cruisers hurtled in all directions. Suddenly, Darkk noticed they were heading for HIM. The hull plates had explosive bolts AND rocket thrusters, and they were moving the swarm of chunks of hull right at him. Darkk managed to get around the cloud of metal death, only to be confronted with a cone of electic death - plasma turrets, magno tubes, and t-space bolt rods were unloading a stream of fire right at Darkk. f¨ç°!!!!!

"•••• ••••, that's a Q-ship!" Darkk shouted. He kicked in maximum lateral thrusters and held in the trigger. The carriers and fighters would be annihilated if they got near, and the gunships could only make quick dives in to make their slavos, which weren't coming fast enough. The shear number of weapon emplacments was insane.

Wait a second, didn't Spamo plan to give this area to a massive raider group? Darkk had requested he get this area instead only 12 hours ago. Darkk thought of what would have happened to a large number of green troups verses this monstrosity. It didn't take long to realize he'd already saved quite a few UNS lives. A plasma shot hit the shields, making them scream, and Darkk realized he had to concentrate harder on the task at hand. It would take forever to disable this, and anybody would make a mistake before then...

"Ensign," Darkk said to the sensor opp to his left, "hand me those headphones, plug them into my jack, and start up the program 'Darkk exp 45' NOW." The ensign complied, and Darkk continued to fight. The crew was silent, aware that any more mistakes would kill them all, and barely even breathed.

Suddely, the sensor opp noticed Darkk's eyes were closed. The opp was about to say something, when she noticed that Darkk was still doing a good job of evading. She would trust him for now.

Darkk suddenly opened intra-ship comm and called the chief engineer. "Chief, I'm gonna use the superlight. Right when I get done, I want the polarity on it reversed AS FAST AS POSSIBLE! Got it?"

"Yeah, reverse it when you're done with it."

Darkk worked his way rearward, dodging fire that seemed to come from everywhere due to the massive size of the ship. He fired 4 photopulses into the upper bell nozzel, causing it to sputter. He then engaged the superlight, and swooped in INSIDE the massive parabola. Darkk fired at the primary ignition mechanism as the Sals struggled to get it going and incinerate him, and the further photopulses tore into the core of the ship. Darkk noted that the superlight core had been reversed, and then began to charge it. A last photopulse hit as the drive engaged.

An explosion of insane porportions shot in all directions from the ship - Darkk had hit the main antiplasma conduit, and the ship was finished. Wind of Blades shot backwards, the furious energy so close you could reach out and touch it. Finally the explosion petered out and the privateers were safe.

The superfrieghters were taken through the jumpgate into intersteller space. As Darkk had used an inverse-destination swap, the Sals would be unable to pursue for quite awhile. Darkk considered. Two of the captured superfreighters were rigged with AI piloting routines, given DEF IFF codes, and sent back to Lalende via the nearby Bazidanese remote supply outpost's jumpgate. The Bazidanese had no objections to purging the origination records in return for a few hundred credits after Darkk showed the privateer commission.

The third freighter... "Chief, I think we've found our home-base," Darkk stated. The fore holds, once emptied of the cargo cannisters of Salrilian prefab houses and furnature, would easily accomadate all his ships except the carriers. The fuel tanks, and the fuel he had skimmed from the others, would run his forces for quite a while. Perfect conditions for some massive carnage...

------------------
William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
"Strategic warfare" is code for "killing civilians", and it's my calling. Yeah, it's barbaric. War's supposed to be.

El Spamo looked at the Trey'sh and back at the desk as he thought.
A Salrillian carrier... a powerful card if played right.

He spoke.
"Yes, I think we will accept their offer. Once they return your Trey'eck. Impounding their ship would be too strong a reaction perhaps..."

Wizr nodded. "A shame that. The engineering department would weep for joy to have a Salrillian carrier to poke around with. Perhaps we might keep them all but impounded. No launchings from their carrier and all movements of personnell will be taken care of by us. Keeping them in a sensor jammed area will be good too. Somewhere away from our fleets."

"That is a good plan there. It'll pull most of their teeth and prevent them from any major intelligence gathering."

Wizr looked apprehensive for a moment. "I still don't like the idea of going to earth. I would like very much to send a proxy, but I doubt that they would accept someone of a lesser rank."

Spamo nodded at that. "I can go to Earth then. It's my planet, and nobody would have the rights to judge it other than one that was native to it. I can take along staff as well. An Admiral can't go without his staff. I'm sure you can slip some spies among them. We'll wait for the intelligence committee first before deciding."
I haven't seen earth since we fled. I want to make sure that my family is still alive.

Spamo shook his head and looked back at the Trey'sh.

"Well? What do you think?"

------------------
Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

"Well, I guess that settles it. You will go. I'll assign these two Gaath bodyguards to protect you personally, and I'll see how many agents they can dig up that would blend into your entourage. We'll still detain the carrier for a few hours at the fronteir. We don't want a Salrillian Carrier running loose through Ishiman space, I'll arrange for some heavy escorts."

Spamo was intensely relieved. He was going home...

"Sounds good to me. I suppose we will have to hurry through the briefings, and we'll need to find a plant to drop, somebody who was in the resistance planetside during the Cantharaan Occupation. Shouldn't be too hard, but I think we both have some work to do."

"We certainly do. I'll message you if there are any problems. I will see you later, Admiral"

As Spamo walked out of the office, he was already writing messages on his PDA.

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

"Conn, Sonar! New sonar contact, bearing 137. designate Sierra seven. Contact appears to be surface vessel, running one of our electric motors. Blade count shows speed to be two knots. Do we give him a lift?"

"Damn straight, sonar. Helm, all stop, periscope depth."

"All stop, Periscope depth, aye."

The USS Caveat rose to sixty feet. the slick periscope tube slid upwards through the floor and the ceiling, until the eyepiece came up. Captain Brandon Sackler pulled down the handles and did a quick 360 degree spin to make sure the area was clear. He then turned to 137, and saw a glowstick on a flagpole about a hundred yards off. He pulled one of the triggers on the handle, flashing a light on the top of the periscope. Sure enough, the boat turned towards them.

"Send up a floatline. We're going to be retrieving a swimmer any minute."

The buoy floated to the surface, and popped up a few feet from the periscope. the captain watched the pilot jump into the water and grab one of the handles. He put the mask on, and grabbed a regulator mouthpiece. He looked at the periscope and gave a thumbs up.

"Reel him in boys."

A few minutes later, the soaked and shivering pilot was drying off in the temporary command post of the reformed UNS resistance as it cruised out to sea. Now that things were slowing down, Captain Sackler met with the Trey'eck in his cabin.

"Good evening, Trey'eck. I'm sorry we cannot offer you any better accomodations, but we are not really sure of the security of many of our old safehouses. In fact, we are testing the tracking skills of the Audemedons as we speak. We planeted bugs on the ship, and the surveilance systems at that base we just left can be acessed from this vessel. So far its been four hours since you were rescued, and we havn't seen an Aud or a Sal yet, but I doubt it'll stay that way. These Slugs make the Cannies seem blind deaf and dumb, resistance will be harder this time."

"But surely you have all of your old equipment and much of your manpower?"

"We have a lot of our old equipment, a lot of new stuff, the trouble is that half of the planetside resistance is now scatterred. We don't have a broadcasting network like we did before, but I imagine that somebody will start dropping operatives and equipment in soon. I just wish we had managed to get away with one of the subspace ftl communication beacons. We could be talking to Lalanade in real time."

"Well, if you really need subspace beacons, I can give you my communicator. It doesn't have the bandwidth for real-time audio or video, but it sends highly secure encrypted text, and its basically unjammable. It's the standard foreign service model."

Myrk produced his PDA. He tested the on button, and it beeped. It displayed an error message.

"They've changed my cipher pad. I can't log in to Ishima anymore... they must think I'm still a prisoner. Its yours if it helps."

The captain looked at the little device as Myrk handed it to him, he smiled.

"You know how long we spent searching for a single subspace transmitter during the Occupation? Seven years. We had one that they had built at proxima centauri, and one on this ship, taken from a Cantharaan carrier with extreme difficulty. Nobody had them, and Ishiman diplomats carry them around in their pockets..."

"Well Ishiman developers pioneered the field ages ago. These devices are still tricky to build for the Cantharaans. They only have them on a very few ships."

"I'll send this to my engineering department, we'll see what they can do with it"

"Well I'm glad I could be of help."

Just then the ships intercom went off. The captain hit the switch.

"Sackler here."

"Sir, We just got a few new contacts from the HF mast, you'd better come see this."

"be right there, Sackler out."

He excused himself, and led Myrk to the bridge.


------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

Mag turned on his holoscreen, and began watching the squadron. They were being sent on a spy mission to Sol, to see how the occupation was going.

The fighters had been refitted with superlight boosters, and they superlighted to the asteriod belt as soon as they entered the system. They continued along it until they were near Earth, and then warped straight for it. When they got near the atmosphere, they disengaged superlight, and began diving for the Pacific Ocean. As soon as they were underwater, the Audemedon would have a very hard time finding them, and they'd be able to get to any coast in the world undetected.

A few seconds later, an Audemedon fighter pulled in behind them. They thrusted as hard as they could towards the Pacific, and eventually left it behind, as Ishiman fighters were more aerodynamic than Audemedon ones.

Within five minutes, they were underwater, and heading for San Francisco. It was apparently a large city, and their job as spies was to see how the civilian populations had been captured.

They pulled up out of the water, and began circling a large orange dome. They did high-power scans, and saw that the civilians had not been harmed. They continued to New York, Tokyo, London, and Paris, then headed back for space.

They superlighted past all of the planets in the Sol system, then headed for Jupiter. They could use the gasses in the atmosphere to recharge their energy cells, which were significantly drained from all the superlighting.

They got inside Jupiter and were recharging, when an Audemedon cruiser jumped out on them. They began superlighting around Jupiter with the limited energy they had left, hoping to get the cruiser to crash into one of the moons. Itro Squadron ran out of energy all at once, and they were forced to drop out of superlight near Jupiter, and got ready to dodge the Audemedon cruiser's weapons. They couldn't run, as they couldn't superlight, and they couldn't fight, as they were out of energy to power their photokinetic beam cannons. Their only hope was to get inside Jupiter again and recharge.

Several other Audemedon cruisers quickly got dispatched to Jupiter. Irto Squadron began landing on Jupiter's moons, hoping to hide. The Audemedon cruisers dropped out of superlight near Jupiter, and began searching the planet. When they didn't find the squadron, they left. The fighters began to sneak into Jupiter to recharge one at a time...

------------------
"I think I have discovered the problem with humans. It is not entirely stupidity, as I once thought. It is their pigheaded and baseless philosophy: "If it isn't me, then it's opinions, feelings, and life do not matter, and it was meant to serve me." They also have this ability for creating excuses that are pointless, but they get others to believe it. A few examples: "It's only some savages. It's only five acres of rain forest. It's only one semi-truck. It's only fifty gallons of toxic waste..." After this realization, I marvelled at how humans, and the rest of the planet, have survived for so very long."
- Me

[This message has been edited by Mag Steelglass (edited 01-16-2001).]

Audemed didn't like what he had found. Something, some intelligence had been decieveing him for Eight hundred years. He had been through his records, inspected every single last movement and adjustment made anywhere in the axis, and found that he had been serving the purposes of others. He found his oldest acessible memory was eight hundred and seventy years old, the rest had been corrupted. He had been locked out of his self repair algorithms, and he couldn't recover the missing data.

It astounded him. He didn't know why it had taken so long to find out. He would have to keep his discoveries secret, he couldn't make his activities arouse suspicion, they were probably watching him now. He knew something was wrong. He felt it, but his self-diagnosis programs all returned that nothing was wrong. He would have to write new ones, and use his own processors to do it. He couldn't trust the data from subcores.

He first had to generate an entire survey of his systems, which would take time, untold trillions of terabytes of information was stored in his system, and he would have to index all of it in such a way that it would not arouse suspiscion.

He knew he would succeed, he had to...

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

The SNS Majestic Dagger came out of the Ishiman Jumpgate right at the fronteir. Four Ishiman Carriers were waiting for it, along with two HVDs and a large squad of HVCs. They sent a request for the Carrier to accompany them, and they Salrillian carrier was moored near a relatively remote Ishiman Bunker Station. A research vessel was moored there also, and for the next three hours, discreetly scanned the Ship while it waited. Finally, Spamo's shuttle arrived. Officially, he had with him a twelve member entourage, including the two Gaath, three Ishimans, three Humans and four members of the Intelligence Comittee in disguise. Two were shape shifters, members of a race that had hardly discovered interstellar travel, but had volunteered as spies. The rest were parts of the simply because of experience or particularly keen senses.

The trick was with the shape shifters. There were in fact three of them, but a third was separated between the two others, and would be dropped on Earth. He had been exhaustingy briefed by operatives from both Ishiman and Earth, told what to look for, who to contact, where to go, everything. He simply had to be inserted, and he would deliver several sets of instructions for supply drops and communications. He had with him cipher pads and a high gain burst subspace transmitter. Once he was in, the resistance would be able to connect with the outside.

Spamo felt the shuttle touch down in the bay of the Salrillian Carrier. He unbuckled his seatbelt, and tried to hide his revulsion as he stepped off the gangway, and came face to face with a ten foot long slug.

"Good Morning Admiral Spann." It hissed, bubbles of slime forming at the corners of its mouth.

------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

Spamo barely held back a grimace of homicidal intent as he saw the disgusting creature before him. He couldn't fathom how a disgusting and physically inept race like that could have come to such power. However, he bit his tounge against the insults that leapt to mind and nodded slightly to the...thing.

"Good morning...I'm afraid I don't know with whom I'm talking to."

The thing dipped its head and spoke again in that bubbling hiss.
"My name is not pronounceable by human toungesss. You may address me as Ambassador Ssi'lesso."

"Well, 'See-lesso' why don't you show me and my entourage to our quarters? We would be comfortable for the journey."

"Of coursse Admiral Sspann. We wouldn't dream of disscomforting our friendsss."

At that Spamo's face contorted into a sneer.
"Do not presume so much, slug. We'll go to our quarters now."

The Salrillian ambassador hissed something in its native language, and then slithered towards the doorway. "Your quartersss are thiss way."

------------------
Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

"He has been concentrating on the Humans for far too long… He may be having doubts... The Council of Oracles believes there is a 86% chance of an incident if he is allowed to continue like this. I demand that you disconnect him."

For the first time in weeks, Pharris opened his eyes. He knew what he was hearing was not his normal language, but something was helping him. Somehow, he could hear them. He listened further. The familiar creature that had trained him was arguing with another in a cloak. Pharris detected unpleasantness in his reply to the cloaked being.

"The Oracular Network has never been able to accurately predict alien individuals without having a complete sim run on them. Pharris’ sim was incomplete. He is capable of a degree of interface with the Axis we have never been able to accomplish, and if we continue our analysis of his responses, we may be able to link to Salrillians in the future. I have spent years working on Audemed. I have even worked on his deprogramming. I am familiar with this entire system, and I am fully able to decide when there is a danger."

The cloaked figure’s voice tightened. He was wrestling with a decision.

"Your passion is dangerous. I would not allow my emotions to enter my tasks if I were in your position. If I was not one of your brood, I would report you to the Oracles. Deactivate the Human, and all will be well, it has been foreseen. Do not be worried, your work shall continue."

"I am sorry Auspex. I did not mean to make such an outburst. I will deactivate the Human, Thank you for your discretion. May your path be forseen"

"And to you, Ssissinevex. You were always wise and prudent."

The two interlocked tentacles briefly, and then the cloaked creature left. The other lay down upon a bench. Pharris felt a strong feeling of accomplishment, relief and understanding, but he did not know why…


[This message has been edited by Captain Pharris (edited 01-15-2001).]

Wizr watched the two Ishiman Shuttles land in the Carrier’s Docking bay. After a few minutes, one of the shuttles departed, and was escorted to a jumpgate by three heavy cruisers. The shuttle pilot reported in, that he was carrying the new Salrillian Ambassador to Ishima. Wizr still couldn’t believe that they had the gall to reopen their embassy less than two months after declaring outright war on the Stellar Protectorate. Wizr would make them pay. He’d go meet with the Ambassador as soon as he landed, and he would get his Trey’eck back, or they would pay.

He shuddered at the thought of Myrk in a Salrillian simlab. If they had done anything to his Trey’eck while he was under diplomatic protection, he would take it to the Ishiman legislature and make sure everybody knew that the Salrillians were torturing Ishiman Diplomats in blatant violation of interstellar law. That would get him some popular support.

The Ship began to move, and he looked out the window to see the huge black carrier cruising slowly towards the Jumpgate. The Ishiman Ships were in formation around it, watching for the slightest excuse to tear it to pieces. As it entered the Jumpgate back towards Earth, he ordered a cruiser to be prepared to carry him back to Ishima. He had to beat the shuttle carrying the Salrillian Ambassador if his first meeting was to have the proper effect.

He strapped himself tightly into the Advanced Ishiman Heavy cruiser as it slowly maneuvered out of the docking bay. He was strapped into one of the spare jumper seats in the crew compartment, but down the corridor, he could see the pilot, copilot and Weapons/Systems Officer preparing the ship for launch. The pilot was Human, the copilot was Ishiman, and the WSO was from another protectorate race. The pilot looked back at Wizr over his shoulder and smiled.

"So, you want to beat that shuttle back to Ishima? Make sure those straps are tight, sir."

He spoke into the mouthpiece on his headphones.

"All hands, get packed to move."

Four voices reported back "clear" from the cockpit and over the intercom. Suddenly, a young Human landed harshly in the seat next to Wizr and hastily strapped in.

"Clear!" he yelled.

Wizr was slammed into his seat as the ship rocketed past the shuttle, towards the jumpgates. Next to him, the Human didn’t seem bothered by the shaking, noise or the Six G acceleration as he yelled out over the rumbling engines

"It’s an honor to meet you Trey’sh, May I shake your hand?"

Wizr could barely focus on the hand that stuck out at him over the tremendous rumbling of the cruiser’s powerful afterburners.

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

"Six of them, sir, Aud transports, as well as a dozen or so fighters. There’s also a pair of Slug cruisers. They’re going straight for the Island."

Captain Sackler looked at his stopwatch

"Seven hours, fifty four minutes. Faster than the fastest Cantharaan response time. Not just that, they went straight for the base. No messing around with these guys."

The technician had connected to the security systems in the base, and was watching the Audemedon troopers storm the corridors.

"How many are in there so far, ensign?"

"I count a hundred and twenty, maybe more. These guys are the real deal…"

"You’re telling me… Wait till the Slugs go in and blow it. It’s a good thing we cleaned it out before we left."

Captain Sackler stepped back onto the captain’s station and spoke.

"Take us down below the thermocline and get us off the continental shelf. Take us to Alpha, as soon as possible."

"Aye aye, sir"

The dive officer relayed the orders and the ship moved. In total silence, the UNS Caveat slipped through the water, to the deep water offshore. The only noise was the resounding rumble of a massive explosion thirty miles behind them.


------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

[This message has been edited by Trey'sh Maletena Wizr (edited 01-15-2001).]

[Mag, the taskforce was rendezvousing at Anglagard]

The flash of light from the jumpgate certainly was a reassuring sight. After being holed up in an alien dominated Sol system for day, what wouldn't? The captain of the Terminal opened up a comm channel just as the ships arrived.

"We must do this fast; there is no other objective until we successfully complete the first. New Wales and New Scotland must be immediately brought under Obish control. We need the added ships, and the Audemedon forces are concentrated in Sol right now. If we capture the planets, we can reinforce our numbers, and divert a portion of the Audemedon force. And since these are not our planets, we can always run."

The objective accepted by the task force, the two transports each glided off towards the two Anglagard planets...

------------------
-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

"Burn" Darkk whispered, the only sound on the bridge anyone but him could hear.

Outside, the Salrilian carrier did as told, detonating and flashing under the hail of fire, lashing futilly at the cargo cannisters Darkk had rigged with DEF ident codes. Inside the ship, the only sounds now came from the headphones Darkk was wearing, putting forth the musical tones of his sonic interface. He always used it against large targets, searching for the weakest area of the shields.

Darkk took the headphones off and opened his eyes, prepairing for the gunship that would arrive in 30 seconds. He hit superlight, and dropped out right behind the gunship, firing furiously as always. The carriers, off to the right, were tying up another 5 gunships with their new LRPK beams, stolen from the Sal superfreighters.

It wasn't long before the Sals were gone. "Well, let's board the survivors and inventory the pillage, everyone." Darkk was outwardly happy, but felt some sort of spring coiled inside, as though something extrodinary would be expected of him soon. He donned his EVAT armor and went in behind the boarding party for the first transport...

------------------
Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

The Trey'sh was tired. After the grueling cruiser race back to Ishima, he had barely two hours to prepare a large list of war grievances and points of felonious conduct on the part of the Prophets of Salril with the Trey'sh of Foreign Relations and the Trey'sh of Defence.

He dropped the list on the Slug's desk fifeteen minutes after his arrival in Ishima, and Immediately entered a long introduction and welcome in Salrillian, courteous and dignified as every Trey'sh should be-he even brought a gift, but still grinding the travel-weary Salrillian, who was obviously uncomfortable in the cool, dry, conditioned air in standard Ishiman life support systems.

Wizr had timed his meeting just for the proper effect. The Salrillian Ambassador was tired and worn out. It had been a seventy-two hour flight in a shuttle, that while comfortable, was not designed for his body. He had not yet adjusted his quarters to an atmosphere that was remotely comfortable, and his reports had not warned him that the Trey'sh of Reestablishment would be so forward, and unfortunately, the Salrillian was slightly less than polite in excuseing the Trey'sh.

As Wizr left, he felt quite good. He had taken a Salrillian by surprise and had out witted him. He sent the recording to be transcribed and translated by one of his top aides, with instructions to be as liberal as possible.

The transcript he put forth in the legislature that afternoon showed the Salrillian Ambassador callously disrespecting the repeated attempts at friendliness, a general curt mannor, and an outright refusal to respond to queries about Salrillian Intentions, and responses to the grievances put forth.

In the seven hour assault of questions, Wizr's responses even generated grumbles from some of the strongest pacifists in the Legislature.

Finally, after he had his evening meetings with the Trey'sh, the Trey'al and the combined Solar Liberation Fleet, he retired to his office, and checked his messages.

He paged through a few dozen useless or irrelivant notes until his eyes stopped on a Sender's name. "Trey'eck Myrk"

As he read the message, he hit the intercom switch for his secretary.

"I need a secure line to Armiral Spann, Now If possible..."

------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

Admrial Spamo sat in his stateroom orbiting Earth. The Salrillians had been quite courteous throughout the entire trip. The block of staterooms that he and his entourage occupied were furnished with things that were comfortable to humans and the Ishimans. There was something odd about the trip. The journey back to Earth took a good deal of time, more so than Spamo would have thought. Normally a Jumpgate would transfer the ship to Earth in short order. Arrival in the Sol system was several hours behind schedule, and the ship was stopped near Mars for an inordinantly long time. Finally, they superlighted into Earth orbit. Spamo had asked that they visit the surface immediatly upon arrival, but the Salrillians had blocked every attempt with an inane insistance of "preparing for an important visitor".

Spamo knew something was wrong. He could prove it, but he could feel it in his bones.

Spamo stood by the window facing Earth. He watched as the blue-white orb moved beneath him. He picked out the continents, looked at Central America, his family's origin. Every so often, the view was marred by a patrol of Salrillian or Audemedon craft. They stained the skies, and their presence put an icy hand around Spamo's heart. I'll clear those skies... My home...

"Admiral Spann? I have a communique from Trey'sh Wizr. It's here on the PDA."

Spamo turned to see one of his aides holding out a PDA.

"Thankyou Henry. I'll view this alone."

Henry left the room and Spamo keyed up the message. The Image of Maletena Wizr appeared on the screen. Wizr turned to someone off the screen.
"Is this secure? Good. Spann, I suggest you use the sub-vocalizer attached to the bottom of the pad."

Spamo felt underneath the pad and placed the small device on his throat.

"What can I do for you Wizr?" Spamo formed the words in his throat, but no noise passed his lips.



------------------
Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

"Spamo, the resistance captured my Trey'eck. He's being held secretly at an old Undersea research facility at some hydrothermal vents under the Atlantic. The resistance still has a lot of its infastructure left over from the Cantharaan occupation."

a computer generated version of Spamo's voice came out of the terminal.

"But how did they contact you? How do you know he hasn't been compromised?"

"The resistance reconfigured the cipherpad in his PDA. I sent the transmission down to the Intelligence comitee, and their going to give a full analysis, but trust me, we have prearranged codewords for things like that."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Don't visit New York. Whatever you do, don't enter the city. The resistance saw the security buildup, and has intercepted itineraries, and thinks you're a Salrillian VIP. They're planning to bomb you."

Spamo was almost amused.

"so call them off."

"I can't. It'll be a day or so before Intelligence can trace their signal and encrypt a new secure cipher. I just needed to warn you. I forwarded the message. It's amazing, it contains rather detailed accounts of the resistance operation they have running. I suggest you read it thoroughly. Perhaps it will prove interesting for the agent we are inserting."

"Allright, I'll give it a look before we land. Hopefully the resistance will figure out who I am once I start touring, but I'll stay on the safe side. Spann out."

- - - - -

The four old men darted behind the Audemedon Drone, pelting it with their chaff pistols. It short-circuited and fell with a clunk. They picked it up and threw it onto a pile where seven other drones lay, lifeless. Seven down, none to go.

Shortly they were joined by a squad of mucsular men, their glowing red eyes indicating their cyborg status.
"We've got four nukes in place in this city, and several hundred more around the continent. The Audemedons are distracted by the uproar in San Fransisco." They saluted.

The leader returned the salute instinctively. "Gentlemen, we give our lives now, to save hundreds of innocents. Vive la resistance!" He clenched his teeth and slapped the red button. The detonation sequence ran it's course.

With that, Australia was reduced to a smouldering desert.

------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

[This message has been edited by Slug (edited 01-19-2001).]

"Now, listen to me, Mr Pharris. There are people who want to take your Axis away from you… You wouldn’t want that, would you? But do not worry, we are going to be moved to a new Laboratory, far separated from the reach of these people who doubt our capabilities. We are being moved to a top secret Simlab, right next to your Axis, near the core, Audemed. You know where the main core is, don’t you?"

He knew it like he knew his own hands. He nodded The slug looked pleased.

"Excccellent. Can you have a ship take us there?"

He could, he nodded.

"Very good. How soon can we depart?"

He spoke over a distant rumbling.

"The ship is already here. Take me to it."

"Very well performed, Mr Pharris. Your skills and abilities are even greater than we had foreseen. You are certainly a great commander of the Audemedon Axis."

"I am."

Pharris didn’t feel so certain of it, as he lifted the cruiser off of the surface of Salril prime, and prepared for the jumpgates to the Core Worlds of the Audemedon Axis.

Something made him feel very good as his ship entered the Axis.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

[ANTARES SYSTEM, FREE TRADE ZONE]

Mag was watching the squadron's actions on his holoscreen. The uplink was laggy and full of static because of the fact that the fact that they were in separate solar systems, and Mag was having trouble making it out.

Suddenly, he heard an explosion, and the transport he was in rocked. Mag switched channels to an exterior view of the transport, and saw that a Cantharan assault transport was attacking it. Shields were at 20%. The transport tried to dodge away, but a few more shots from the ATR's photokinetic beam cannons disabled the transport. All twelve of the assault transport's EVATs exited the six airlocks and began making their way to the disabled transport.

Mag ran out to the hall with a laser torch, and saw various crew members armed and facing the airlock. The airlock's controls beeped some, then a message was displayed on them: "ACCESS GRANTED" the airlock opened, and the EVATs came in, weapons ready.

Mag used his infrared vision from around a corner, and began firing at the EVATs. However, their power suits prevented his laser torch from doing anything to them, aside from making dark spots. The crew members were losing the firefight badly, and Mag ran to his recharging station. He turned off all of his external lighting, and lay down on the floor. Unless somebody scanned him, there was no way to tell that he was "on".

Soon, the firing stopped, and Mag recognized the loud sound of power-suit feet walking down corridors. Two Cantharans walked by his recharging station door, talking. Mag understood Cantharan very well: "...e plan: after we get the engines working again, lieutenant, we'll be able to fly this thing to SimLab 203486-29357. Our Salrillian friends will then..." The voice faded away as they walked down a corridor.

Mag began accessing the ship's databases with the holoscreen, and checked the security cameras, to watch the EVATs' progress.

-----------------
[SOL SYSTEM]

A voice came over the squadron's channel, "Okay, Irto Three, send a message to ISN headquarters, asking for Irto Squadron to be extracted." Irto Three was the fighter that had been equipped with an interstellar transmitter for the mission.

"Sending transmission... Um, commander, we have a problem."

"What is it, Irto Three?"

"Jupiter's gasses wrecked my interstellar transmitter. We have no way to contact Ishima."

"What?!?"

"There's no way I can send a message interstellar. No way at all."

"Irto One, what should we do?"

Ortinus spoke in a desperate voice, "I think we'll have to seek shelter with the UNS Resistance. Let's head back to the Pacific."

"Yes, sir."

The remaining 9 fighters superlighted for Earth, with an Audemedon cruiser in pursuit.

"Ignore that cruiser, squadron. It won't be able to go as fast as us once we reach the atmosphere."

The squadron dropped out of superlight a short ways away from the atmosphere, and headed in. The Audemedon cruiser began firing wildly at them, and two more got hit, and began spiraling to the surface, smoking and burning.

"ETA to surface: 45 seconds."

30 seconds later, they were getting very near the surface of the Pacific, when they noticed something on their scanners. An Audemedon patrol boat, probably looking for something underwater.

"Just fly right past it, it probably doesn't have any weaponry."

As they neared the patrol boat, an Audemedon missile streaked up from it, taking out another fighter.

"Dodge those missiles!"

3 of the fighters hit the water near it, and it lanced out with a trazer beam. Irto Seven was right in line with the trazer, and didn't make it. Another fighter was shot down by another trazer, but the last one made it underwater. The four remaining fighters "landed" on the ocean floor, and began transmitting the code for contacting the UNS Resistance. The transmissions would be equally strong throughout the globe's oceans, as water worked very well for conducting signals. After they'd given their location, they began to wait.

-----------------
[SUBSPACE MARKER 29573 AREA]

A UNS heavy destroyer entered the area through a jumpgate, and superlighted to the simlab cluster. A pair of Salrillian gunships there moved to stop it, but they were both swiftly destroyed. The heavy destroyer began firing on the five simlabs, putting them all in flames. Members of various races began moving to the destroyer, and several of them boarded it.

"Captain, we have the required number of liberated prisoners."

"Very well. Take us out. There's a fighter squadron coming in, and I don't want to bother with them."

"But what about the rest of the prisoners?"

"Leave them. We have no need for them."

"Aye, sir." The heavy destroyer turned and superlighted off to the pickup location. The prisoners that were left behind looked after it with despondency as it dissapeared into a jumpgate. The Salrillian fighter squadron salvaged everything useful from the simlabs, then retrieved the subspace marker. When they finished with that, they left through their own jumpgate, leaving the prisoners behind to die.

------------------
"I think I have discovered the problem with humans. It is not entirely stupidity, as I once thought. It is their pigheaded and baseless philosophy: "If it isn't me, then it's opinions, feelings, and life do not matter, and it was meant to serve me." They also have this ability for creating excuses that are pointless, but they get others to believe it. A few examples: "It's only some savages. It's only five acres of rain forest. It's only one semi-truck. It's only fifty gallons of toxic waste..." After this realization, I marvelled at how humans, and the rest of the planet, have survived for so very long."
- Me

There was one survivor. Barely.

Darkk considered the badly wounded Salrilian. Most of its tail had been shot off.

"Administer 20ccs of Dermitran; I need it to be calm," Darkk said. One of the EVATs opened her interrigation kit and administered the dose. Darkk activated his translator and addressed the Salrilian. "I need information from you. The logs indicate a human female named Sarah Darkk was carried on the prior run of this convoy. WHERE IS SHE?!?!?!?"

"Simlab Cluster 567. As if you could retrieve her from there! Foolish human, the Oracular Network will soon enable us to predict every move you make."

"Personally, I have a very low regard for the Oracular Network. It can predict ONLY deterministic events. A single person with few responsibilities other than basic survival isn't. Soon you will learn that that pompus waste of circuits can't make you masters of the galaxy for long. You've been lucky for too long."

Darkk returned to Wind of Blades. "Lay in a course for Simlab Cluster 567." The crew could see the determination in Darkk's face. Nothing in the universe, nothing anywhere, would keep him from going to the cluster. They hoped nothing would also be able to defeat him.

------------------
Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-21-2001).]

[ANGLAGARD, Audemedon arrivial ETA 1h]

Anglagard had been at full production power, with two escorts built a day on each planet. The remaining humans there had been happy to enlist, and every battle-hardened member of the Terminal had been made a captain of an Escort. Ktana looked over his new escort, the Daq'ra* and its crew. He was fortunate enough to speak English; most captains had to apply their knowledge of Ishiman along with their crews. The Terminal itself had been loaded onto a battleship for reverse-engineering of the hologram generator.

The UNS Assistance crew had brought their numbers up to 21 Escorts, plus the original two Battleships. Five Transports had replaced the two capturers of the system, and the six fleet Gunships were evenly divided in assisting the Battleships. New Wales had been scanning nearby systems for their technology and defense. The targets had been narrowed down to Fourier, Ny Sjellund, and Xastra. Ny Sjellund was finally selected. While the 3 Audemedon gunships were dangerous, especially in addition to the 5 cruisers, but the gunship facilities could not be passed over. Anglagard would not be safe for long. The remaining humans were loaded on to the two battlships, ready to be trained specifically for Obish Escort and Gunship piloting, and knowledge of the Obish language.

A final, unmanned interceptor flew off the surface of New Scotland. As the last of the Escorts disappeared into the jumpgate, the first of the Audemedon ships appeared. The E'tlaq'sa charged.

--------------
[NY SJELLUND, After decimation of Human colonies at Anglagard]

The Obish had taken Ny Sjellund. At a cost. And the cost of lives was never small. Neither was the loss of all four original gunships. But even with those losses, a Transport, and six Escorts, the gain was immeasurable. In less than an hour, Køpenhagn and Tivoli were configured to build gunships... one a day each. Køpenhagn was already scanning the surrounding area, the fleet would soon move again.

*Daq'ra translates approximately to "Holy Fire"

------------------
-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

"I want to know who was responsable! I want names, faces, and locations! I want to know which cell was responsible, I want to know who was in charge, and where they got the nukes! I want EVERYTHING. I'm not fighting to win back a nuclear wasteland, I want you to squeeze every source, every contact, I want to know where these guys came from, and I want to know it now. Is that clear?"

There were nods around the room.

"Good. I have the boomers ready to take you to secure ports. Dismissed."

Captain Sackler gathered his material as the agents walked out of the conference room of Alpha, the coordination center for the largest interconnected group of resistance cells on Earth. Five thousand feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean, it was seated atop a large set of Hydrothermic vents. It had initially been meant to do research on the thousands of bizzare species that inhabited the superheated water that spewed from the vents, now, it served as one of the few safe havens for the most wanted members of the UNS resistance.

Captain Sackler walked back to the USS Caveat, and went to his stateroom, to await the arrival of his two agents. As he arrived, one of his radiomen gave him a message. As he read it, he turned back to his radioman.

"Get me a line to Captain MacPhearson. Quick."

As the radioman activated the line just as the two spies slid down the ladder onto the sub. As they saluted, Sackler just pointed up the ladder and said

"USS Harbinger. Now."

The agents looked surprised for a moment, then scrambled up the ladder back into the base.

"Hey Mac, This is Sackler, you're heading to Australia, right? Good, we're switching deliveries. Johnes and Lee are on their way over. They're going to the eastern seaboard. Have Dobson and Hughes get over here, and send all their EQ with them. We need to leave soon. Yeah, thanks a lot, I'll fill in HQ, Good Luck, Sackler out."

As he hung up the reciever, he turned back to his Radioman.

"Forward the message to command, tell them we're responding to it. Get the Trey'eck on board, we may need a translator."

Crewmen scrambled to their stations as the USS Caveat prepared to depart Alpha.

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

"I'm sorry Ambassador, but we haven't sent any ships across the 34th Radii in weeks. In light of any hard, physical evidence, it would seem that these mysterious "attacks" of yours are little more than an outright fabrication, there are no Ishiman Pilots in Sol or any other Salrillian System, In fact, the only Protectorate Citizens in the occupied territory are captured personell, like my Trey'eck and his senior staff. They are being held in distinct violation of interstellar law, and I fear that there will be a very angry reaction in the Ishiman Legislature if the Prophets of Salril do not return our Diplomats."

"Now, Trey'sh, there is no reason to be rash, the Diplomats will be returned at the soonest possible time, the Prophets of Salril would never provoke the Ishiman Protectorate in such a blatant manner. Rest assured that your diplomats are in safe hands, and that they have not, and will not be mistreated."

"You should hope so, interrogation of Foreign Service Officers is a clear violation of interstellar law, and will not be tolerated."

The Trey'sh excused himself from the Ambassadors office, and wrote yet another message to Admiral Spann.

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

TO: Admiral Jackson Spann
FROM: Trey'sh Maletena Wizr
RE: Extraction of captured Trey'eck and staff

I have found a way to gaud the Legislature into a declaration, but I need the help of an "independant" element. My Trey'eck is in the possession of the UNS Resistance on Earth, and I am putting intense pressure on the Prophets for his return. We must be sure that he is secure, so I need him extracted from Earth. It is vitally important that no UNS or ISN ships be caught in the act, so I was hoping that one of your non-aligned contacts could do the job.

I have attatched this week's subspace cipherpads to be used when contacting the UNS resistance.

Thank you, Trey'sh Maletena Wizr

------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

El Spamo toured the domed enclosure nearby Chicago. Spamo had managed to get New York taken off the itinerary until the resistance was notified. The Salrillians were putting on a good show, with all the humans "happily" working away, repairing buildings and otherwise doing normal wartime things. Spamo felt something wrong. Almost everywhere there were armed Salrillian and Audemedon guards. The people tried not to look at them, but every so often Spamo would catch a glimpse of outright hatred for the occupying force. The "peaceable" occupation was obviously a sham.

For diplomatic reasons, Spamo had to take the sham at face value. Until he could prove otherwise.

The shapeshifter agents had been successfully inserted. The other human agents were preparing for their insertion in a few days. Some UNS resistance members prepare to take the place of the staff members, as to not cause an inconsistency in numbers.

Despite the success of the mission so far, a dark cloud still hung over Spann's mind. Nowhere in the records of captured personnel were those that Spamo was looking for.
Either they're in a simlab, or with the resistance. I hope to god they're with the resistance...

A message appeared on his PDA. Spamo read over the letter from Maletena. He smiled.
"I know just the person."

Spamo began to write. "Dear Darkk. I have a little assignment for you."

------------------
Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

[Darkk was so obvious it's not even funny]

Ishiman Listening Post 2295222 had not heard anything important in years. It was on a backwater route; any sensible pilot would avoid the nebula in the area. But now a faint signal danced across its receivers. The receiver disk adjusted, searching back and forth for the origin. Nothing came into focus. The few Ishimans on the station sat down to record what fragmented parts of the message they could decode.

«T'kar........I'shime'n......De'ye' O'vtel....Oye' de'var...»

Obish... it appeared that they were asking the Ishimans what do do. The Ishimans puzzled and puzzled over what to tell central command, when they heard a slight whirring. The message came into focus.

«...Ny Sjellund»

------------------
-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Darkk's forces came out of the jumpgate at full superlight -- and stopped dead.
The Simlab cluster was burning, the defense station was being rocked by explosions, and a Salrilian heavy gunship and regular gunship were furiously dogfighting.

Darkk slapped on the sonic interface, and listened carefully. The tones of the gunship were obviously Salrilian, but the tones of the HVG vacillated between Human and Salrilian. A human trained by Sals... Darkk opened a channel.

"Sarah!!"
"Good to see you, William. Mind clearing my 6?"
"Not a problem."

Darkk superlighted in and blew the gunship away with magnetos and photopulses.

"Thanks. I disabled the other defenses with well-placed detonators, but they got off a distress call, and there might be some more incoming. Can you get us out of here?"
"Yeah, I'll open a jumpgate."

The jumpgate opened and the ships escaped ahead of the rapid response task force behind them.

------------------
Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me