[b][i]Two hours of cards later[/i][/b] “Lights are coming on!” Astra got up from the FleetNet News and looked over the control consoles. “The engineers examining the Beetle were right. Bitch of a warmup. I’m glad we kept cables alongside the goo.” she snickered, looking at the screen in front of her as it started loading the control software. “What in the universe?” She asked as she looked at the letters that popped up on it. “What do you have?” “Contact rear admiral Libra immediately, have her and her linguistic team get here ASAP. This… this is an old dialect of our language.” “Get out.” one of the Narix yelped in disbelief, “Sir!” “Don’t tell me this is some lost Faira tribe.” “Enough!” Astra shouted at them. “Who are you, scientists or mystery writers? For what we know the ship could be learning our language form us just as I did with yours. Until we know for certain, keep your speculations to yourself!” And then the world vanished from her senses. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFDTpuPozo[/youtube] “Admiral! Sir!” somebody was shaking her up. “I… I’m here. Did anyone see that?” “Yes, you froze on the spot, looking like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you alright? Maybe some rest?” “No, I- I’m fine. Something took over me, the ship I think. I saw a… what? History log? Captain’s diary? I don’t know, but I want to see more. Continue with the powerup. And get another inventor in here, in case they can see too.” “Not to second-guess your judgement, but letting unknown technology mess with your head doesn’t sound too safe.” the Narix looked worried, “What exactly did you see? Images, or text...?” “It’s… more like a memory? Like I recalled an event or a thought that wasn’t mine. I didn’t see what they were talking about, just what they were thinking about, or possibly looking at at the time? The visual memory didn’t seem related. It was a Relic, describing the first steps their people took to space… They were monsters. Conquerors who either subdued or destroyed races that were technologically inferior to them. I’m starting to think the Ancients did them justice.” The admiral related the memory to the others. “Right, that rules out peaceful contact. Warn the teams mapping the ship, just in case the old tenants are still around. If they think to ‘subdue or destroy’ us, we’ll give the bastards a good hammering. Who knows what kind of hibernation technology they could possess.” Already, finding the ship was proving to be a sulfur mine. Ancient history and warning? What more was there? “I think… AW!” [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuQOaVU416I[/youtube] “Damn it! That hurt. I think I should get the hell away from here.” Astra growled, holding her head. “For what it’s worth, apparently they stumbled upon the Ancients and attacked them, only the Ancients have been more than they could chew.” she related the memory quickly. “Jumper! Get me to the Warden!” A while later Astra was jumped off, not trusting herself to do it at the moment. [b][i]Several hours later[/i][/b] “You look like you’ve been through a food processor. Are you certain your head is fine?” Libra said, rushing to the room Astra was being looked after in. “Yeah. Whatever mindspace interface they have is rudimentary, that’s all. It has trouble even connecting. I suppose me being what I am is why it works in the first place. I just need some time to recover, according to all the scans ours and theirs medics ran on me, it just sucked my power really quickly, and my head started heating up more than healthy. One at time, I will be able to view the rest of the archive. How is the progress on the ship?” Astra shared. “Some additional instruments in the CNC came to life a little while ago, but several doors have gone out in a firework of sparks and electrical fires. Engineers advise against further raising the output until we can look them over in detail. For now, we are going over the CNC to make sure we won’t break anything here. Marines have found what may very well be crew quarters and some sort of device one of the engineers thinks could be a mass data storage device. The linguistic team is making slow progress, but the more they know, the faster it will be.” “Have you noticed? It’s our language. Ancient dialect, but it’s ours.” Astra said, not yet to her usual speed of thinking. “Yeah,” Libra nodded, “But it’s so pre-exodus it might as well be called alien language. Even half the letters are not in use anymore. Still, we have gotten the power grid under control. No more fires, but the conduits are mostly damaged. It will take months to repair just those. Fortunately, the key systems can be accessed and powered individually, regardless of the main distribution system. We’ll get a node map, you just don’t take risks with that ship. Do try to remember the Ancients might still be out there, and now the Relics per your own findings are genocidal maniacs. We’ll need the Singularity and you yet. Then perhaps we can look if the ship has any historical data that might explain the connection between us and them. But that’s not important now.” [b][i]The next day...[/i][/b] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSYwXhp-bVk[/youtube] “Great. One more vision I got and then the ship’s pathetic warning device burns out. Well, we know the Ancients wiped out the homeworld of these guys, and that’s it. At least I don’t have to worry about my head cooking.” Astra growled in frustration, looking at the charred console in the command center. “Where are we on the navigation system?” “Almost there. These guys have taken the concept of a context menu and put it through a cubic power. There’s lists within lists!” Libra groaned, her eyes sore. “Aha! Maybe… Oh stars DAMN IT!” she shoved off of the console, disgruntled. “It shows us the collapsed Terminus node, and one node in Naris that we know is not there! In fact, there’s a chunk of rock now in its place!” “What? Where? Which one?” there was a lot of rocks in Naris, but maybe there was hope. “Not that it matters that much, since the Durable hasn’t detected any jump corridor anyway. Unless… Let me guess: It’s near the shipyards in orbit of Artorias, where we didn’t want the oracles to look?” “It doesn’t matter. The node would be felt like a tunnel in mindspace. We wouldn’t need to find it’s exact origin point to find it. There is no sign of anything like that in the system, other than the node to Opportunity.” Astra said gloomily. Libra brought up the node position on her own suit’s display. “There. It’s a pathetic little rock, but… could it’s small gravity has destabilized the node over time? It is stuck in a lagrangian point after all.” “Well, there’s that, then. Generation ships?” one of the technicians growled. “No!” Astra slammed her hand onto the console, “There must be more!” “Uh… sir! The ship is coming alive!” All around them, the consoles started booting up, and the engineers reported the main power unit starting to cycle into life. “We’ve got to get off the bus!” Astra panicked a little. “Too late! The jump drive is spooling! It’!s heading to Opportunity!” Outside, a massive blue vortex swallowed the Hammerhead, with the Ira and Warden following behind it as soon as their crews and commanders shook off the surprise. [b][i]Opportunity[/i][/b] The Warden was the first to arrive, followed shortly by the Hammerhead. “Hammerhead, Warden! What is your status!” Lira boomed over the comms. “We’re here, the ship held! It jumps so smoothly!” Astra reported over, just as the Ira followed into the system. “Lord commander! Clear a path! The Hammerhead has set course for Naris! Let it through, please!” Astra called over. “Kill it’s armaments as soon as you can, I’m not taking chances with my homeworld.” Zorea relayed before he started marshalling the fleet guarding the Opportunity-naris node on one channel and Eudorian’s First Fleet through subspace comms, trying to explain the situation. “Can you give us a firing solution for it’s sublight drives in case it tries to start start another genocidal crusade?” “Weapons are not active, they can’t. The conduits that far outside to the hull are severed. It’s using a gravimetric engine contained inside the ship, that’s the only reason it’s even able to move. You might want to tell the First not to shoot us down though. It seems we are going to outrun both of you though!” Astra called over just before the Hammerhead executed another jump, faster than the Warden could recharge, and at far greater speed than the Ira was capable of. [b][i]Opportunity - Naris jump node[/i][/b] As the Hammerhead appeared at the Node, it was met by two Narix battlegroups. “All ships, rear admiral Astra. Hold your fire and clear the way!” The ascendant called over frantically when she saw the mass of ships. She didn’t care for the Relic armor, if they opened fire, the Hammerhead would be shredded. “Libra! Where is it taking us!” “The rock! Oh stars, if it doesn’t know the node is dead, it’s going to fly straight into it! We need to get off!” “Alright, gather everyone! Lord Commander, do you copy? We will need a pickup on the Naris side of the node!” Astra called over the system-wide. “Eudorian himself is waiting there, I’ve got him on the wire. R Verrikan is scrambling all of its shuttles, setting up targeting beacons in its hangars for mindjumpers and Eudorian’s sending another Warlord to the rock in case we have to evacuate someone on that side. I just hope it won’t jump straight to the rock.” “Thanks. We’ll get off as soon as we can, those mind jump beacons will be a starsend. Libra, everyone needs to get to the hangar, stat!” [b][i]Naris[/i][/b] “Damn it, how is this thing jumping so fast!” Libra grunted as she stumbled into the hangar. “This is everyone, can you jump them all?” “I’ll try my damndest! Every jumper that can, get your own group, as many as you can! This monorail only stops two more times tops before Eternity! We’re coming out of the node, now!” As soon as the Hammerhead emerged into normal space, the Faira started evacuating the staff, not waiting on the orders. The hangars of the Partisans and Warlord present were fortunately large enough places to target the landings. “Rear admiral, this is Amare Actual, report once you can.” a voice neither of the Faira have heard so far sounded over the comms. “Did everyone make it off in time?” “Yeah… All but the jumpers themselves. We have no more power to jump out, and the ship will go any second again, sooner than the shuttles will get here. We’ll be riding this one out. Libra said, having Shoved Astra into the last jump against her will, knowing she would have stayed behind as well otherwise. “We’ll try to jump the ship, our suits are EVA grade, it would be nice to have some pickup, assuming we don’t emerge in that asteroid. Hammerhead, signing off.” [b][i]Naris, L1[/i][/b] The Hammerhead emerged close to the rock, but not in it, mercifully. What was strange then was that the ship came close to the asteroid and stopped. The Faira didn’t wait to see what was going on though, bolting out the docking port on RCS as far as they possibly could, emergency beacons broadcasting. “We’re out, the Hammerhead is just sitting in front of the rock. Maybe it detected the node missing and stopped it’s voyage?” the rear admiral noted. “O-oh…” The rescue destroyer lay some distance off the asteroid, Plunderers already in space. “We’ve got your crisis beacons, shuttles inbound.” a young voice sounded on the comms, “What? What is it, admiral, what’s going on out there?” “See for yourselves! And get us out of here before some of that debris hit us!” Libra shouted as she noticed the rock breaking up, sending chunks of rock the size of a cruiser into space. “And track those rock, it would be a disaster if one of them hit a celestial body, even if it’s not Naris, any of the inner planets could create an asteroid ring that would eclipse it’s sunlight!” The whole ordeal was an unexpected test of the First fleet. As the cursing pilots raced to the stranded Faira, putting their ships between any debris and them to pick them up, the First awoke throughout the system. Three kilometers away, the Fiduciam’s torpedo tubes flung open, gunners tracking the rocks, waiting for them to get away from anything they could damage. Once they would be far away enough, the volley of torpedoes would break them up into smaller pieces that would be intercepted by the rest of the fleet, hopefully breaking them into small enough pieces to minimize the damage. On the other hand, it would create a buckshot of rocks, speeding through the system along only partially-predictable trajectories. “Is everyone safe aboard the transports?” the young chieftain-commander inquired. “We’re here, but what on the world is going on here?” Libra said incredulously as the mere presence of the Hammerhead seemed to be destroying the asteroid. “Is it using it’s engine to do that?” “No.” Came Astra’s response, wherever she landed, she has made her way to a sensors station. “It’s sending a signal to it! There must be something insid-” Then with a massive crack and spray of rocks, the asteroid broke apart into three large chunks. [center][img]http://wiki.hard-light.net/images/9/90/Knossos-old.jpg[/img][/center] “What… is that?” “I don’t know, but it’s flooding subspace sensors with all manner of junk. It’s oddly similar to what the Fifth picked up in Terminus. Less intense and… not irregular. It’s not noise.” The Ramses Verrikan, carrying the recovered research crews, arrived. “No idea what that is, but I believe we have a few dozen unexpected passengers that stand the best chance of figuring out. And the Third doesn’t have to send anyone too far out like this.” The Plunderers changed course for the carrier. “I think you dropped something.” one of the pilots referred to the jumpers. [b][i]Faira FleetNet News[/i][/b] [i]A way out?[/i] Last night, the RD Hammerhead unexpectedly came to life. The ship has left with all hands aboard, heading to a location where it’s navigation systems shown a node out of the local cluster - an asteroid trapped in an L1 point of the system. After a hasty action for evacuating the personnel aboard, the relic destroyer activated what appears to be a Mindspace portal generating an artificial jump node. The node is not stable enough yet for travel, but scientists predict it will stabilize enough in ten years to allow Destroyer sized vessels through. [i]Largest cleanup in history[/i] The Narix mining fleets and Faira’Capra have collaborated to clear up the asteroid debris in the Naris system caused by the above event in an unprecedented operation. Hundreds of ships had to be coordinated to catch up to and capture debris of various size to be processed before an important world could be hit. The operation is still in progress, but our colleagues from NNN report it looks like it will be successful. [i]Mysteries of the Relics[/i] There are reports that the Relic ship used an ancient variant of our language in its operating systems. It has been confirmed that the ship possessed no means of learning it from the Faira on board, suggesting our species is somehow connected to the Relics. How is still a subject of study and speculation. Admiral Astra received visions while residing on the ship, dealing with the history of the Relics. Apparently a genocidal, imperial species, they thought to leave us a message as a warning about the Ancients and their might. If the message is to be believed, the Ancients managed to wipe out the Relic empire which at the time spanned most of the galaxy. The Admiralty is now looking to create a contingency plan to stop an Ancient invasion should we encounter them on the other side of the Node. [b][i]Narix National Newscast[/i][/b] [i]Runaway![/i] Yesterday, the RD Hammerhead was inadvertently activated by the joint research teams. Equipped with an apparently sophisticated AI, the rogue ship took the puzzled scientists and engineers onto a wild ride all the way to Naris before coming to a halt at its L1 point. Thanks to the quick reactions of several admirals, commanders and the First fleet, all of the research personnel were evacuated safely. The rogue hammer proceeded to shatter an asteroid first documented in 1806 and stripped clean of resources in 2143. How did the prospectors and miners miss a Relic device thought by the Faira to be a subspace portal is yet unknown. The spokesperson for Metallum Ausira, the company that mined the asteroid, refused to comment. [i]Unsung heroes of the Fourth and ‘Capra[/i] The Narix people owe their endless thanks to the personnel of the two mining fleets as they scrambled to intercept the asteroid debris. Despite missing some, most of the system is safe. While the New Frontier station suffered minor damage and several injuries ranging from bruises to brief vacuum exposure are reported, there were no fatalities. [i]Hope reignited[/i] The appearance of the subspace portal, unofficially known as “the Ring” has been the much needed blow that fueled the dying embers of hope. In ten years, there may be a way out. Third and Second fleets have moved in on the Ring, keen on studying it and resuming the studies of the Hammerhead. [i]Opportunity Station[/i] Councilor Acastus Nyx has revealed plans for constructing a small outpost at the Opportuunity-Naris jump node to act as a transit station and communications relay. Once complete, this station will make non-official transit between Opportunity and Naris much easier, finally allowing civilians and private companies to move to Opportunity. Several transport companies have already expressed the desire to set up regular flights to and from Opportunity upon the station’s completion. Construction is expected to start next month.