[b][i]March 7th , Earth Date 6521 C.E. 9th February , Beacon Date 4 A.L.[/i][/b] [hr] [b]Bridge of the 'Guardian of Eden'[/b] Captain Darius ran his hands over the smooth alloy that made up the safety bar in front of his observation window. The ship was mere hours old and already Darius had fallen in love with it. Official reports had said that the Empire was not going to venture into space in the foreseeable future, yet here men were standing on a the small exploration ship, preparing for their first mission. It truly spoke wonders as to how far these interstellar pilgrims had come in four years. Turning around Darius looked over the bridge like a lion looking over his kingdom. Crewmen ran between stations as everyone was putting their systems through diagnostics. The haze of the blue screens gave the room a slightly eerie effect, despite their being ample light throughout the room. Perhaps it was merely the backdrop of the emptiness of space that gave Darius chills. A light flashed and a buzzer sounded as the captain station received the final green light from the various engineering departments. Knight Lord Clarel had commissioned the Guardian of Eden as a pioneering vessel. It was equipped with strong shields, larger propulsion engines and an over clocked scanning array; though the ship did lack offensive capabilities it was the only ship in the fleet to have FTL systems. The other three ships the Guardian of Eden were moored with were smaller gunboats, designed more to harass, but nobody could produce battleships in less than two months. Reaching forward Darius pressed down on the intercom button. Static crackled and then died down as every crew member listened to what their commanding officer had to say. "Men and women of the Most Holy Empire of Genteli, today we go where we have not gone for some years now. This time not to find a home, but rather to ensure the safety and growth of our people. Our mission is three fold. Firstly, we are to get samples of this new mineral that our long range sensors have picked up; secondly we will set about deploying some minor drones to send us back reports as to this pulsating energy signature that we have picked up. Finally we are to set our own long range scanners on the orb that so many of you are aware of. None of our scans or exploration is too invasive and we have orders to flee before there is any chance of aggression. I know this will be a roaring success and we will return before our husbands and wives even know we are gone. That is all." There was a quiet cheer coming from the ship. It wasn't awe inspiring, but then did you really want your crew hyped up on adrenaline on what could be a very dull operation. Better to keep them positive but calm. Reaching down Captain Darius hit confirmation to the helmsmen and felt as the ship started to angle itself away from the miniature flotilla, in preparation for hyperjump. There was a flash in the observation window and Darius fell back slightly as the ship sped up. They were off. [hr] [b]The Heletii Estate[/b] Helena Heletii was lounging on her balcony when the Imperial liaison arrived. Before he could speak she hushed him. "Did you know, until only a month ago the entire western portion of my estate was covered in a mangrove that fed itself on the men I sent to map it. Thanks to the Most Holy Knight Commander's continued investment into developing the wasteland it's now the largest hydroponic farm in the planet. As such I pay back the favour with reduced prices on my yield. Suffice to say it isn't too much of a sacrifice, I'm not exactly..." The business woman gestured all around her. "...suffering here. Am I?" The Imperial liaison was about to reply, thought better of himself, and then clamped his mouth shut for the moment. He had just visited their illustrious leader and news had to be shared, when the business woman was ready of course. It wasn't long before Helena sat up and pointed at a much less comfertable chair opposite her sofa. "What does Antonius say?" "Ma'am, his Most Holy has a wish to halt such expensive spending on planetary expansion. Currently the Hive is suffering no shortages and exterminating all life here may not be as prudent as first thought. As such he informs you that whilst the subsidies for your guards and endeavours into stopping the jungle from reclaiming land, the bursary built to provide the resources to expand your estates will no longer exist. Instead the money will be taken to invest into a new spaceport, to replace the current shambles of one we have. These are his Holiness's words verbatim, Ma'am." For a moment Helena was silent. Standing she walked to the edge of her balcony and looked over the heavily industrialised agricultural ventures. Her estate had been one of the first constructed and currently supplied half of the population with their nourishment. But there was only so much land she could take before other business men would see her as too greedy and look to pen her back. No. Her fortunes would have to expand into space. Turning she addressed the liaison, knowing he would bring this message to the Most Holy Knight Lord Commander Antonius. "Most Holy, your decision is a wise one that I understand. If I may have a new proposition, my fortune is more than enough to support me and I have a very hefty profit margin with my agricultural pursuits alone. I would be more than happy to begin the sponsorship of more interstellar ventures. For twenty five percent of the business generated on this new Spaceport I will donate twenty five percent of the cost of construction, once a final number has been confirmed of course." With that Helena waved her hand and the liaison signed off. After reading it back Helena confirmed it and the liaison left. Sighing she walked back into her office and signalled that her clerk could begin sending in the meetings of the day. The liaison's arrival signalled the latest she could possibly lounge for and now she needed to work. [hr] [b]The Hall of Records[/b] Researcher Gillis watched as the code sprawled across the screen. Each one and zero built his hope further as he unraveled the secrets that had been lost in the damaged servers from landfall. However just as his script was about to make sense of the data, something corrupted it's work and the memory dump would halt, reverse and he would have to start again. As the number got further this time he almost jumped up to celebrate, which would have disturbed the other researchers in the room. But then, like before, the script and data were corrupted and Gillis just sank into his own hands. Going over the script once more he couldn't see where his mistake lay. Suddenly one of the Overseers came and watched over his shoulder, hovering a fat digit over the screen her spoke quietly. "You're script is designed for our current gen servers. These are running at least two generations behind us. If you want it to work you are going to have to replace this section of code to include an emulator. Otherwise the server wont recognise it and will eventually send you back to step one." Gellis' eyes went wide and he begun typing like a man possessed. He had supposed to go home a number of hours ago, but this work was engrossing him and if he could unlock this server, his wife wouldn't miss one date night too much. By the time the other researchers had given up for the night Gellis was running his script a final time. The code trailed in slower this time as his script performed the extra action. After a few breathless moments the code stopped and the numbers froze. Then the screen buzzed into a large folder full of blueprints, history files and old space maps. It was all too much for Gellis and he simply sat there, mute. A whole hall of researchers and he had found a the script that may crack the unreadable servers. Of course engineers would need to use this on the servers that had been physically damaged, but the ones they simply hadn't unlocked had all become available. Running from station to station he hooked them into a local network and begun to introduce his script to each server, using the collective processing power of the hall to have them all going at once. The sun was rising when Gellis' wife arrived at the hall and found her husband asleep on the floor. [hr] [hider=Summary]-The Guardian of Eden has set off to take samples of this Gallium, do some minor scans of the 'pulsating energy signal' and some long range scans on the ever present orb. -Private businesses are investing heavily into the Empire's space ventures, in an attempt to speed up progress but also take a hefty share of the profits that are sure to be made. -Work on a new, fully operational Spaceport has begun to replace the makeshift one currently present. -Unreadable servers have just been accessed giving the MHEG a lot of history files, star maps and even a few domestic blueprints on how to design and construct devices to speed up resource processing and production.[/hider]