[h3]Imperial Palace, Roma Nova, Planet Appvleia, Systema Solaris Magna[/h3]
"Is it really necessary to send the praetoriani on this mission? It is a simple patrol to captvre pirates!" Decivs Clvilivs Catvlla indignantly said. Decivs is a member of the high covncil and third in line for the Catvlla family. Every ovnce of his body screams ovt the fact that he is someone who never needed to do anything. He is a man whose body resembles a ball. 'There seems to be some kind of important secret, I need to convince her to send OVR people...' while thinking this for himself, he heard an answer.

"They are already near the area on a training mission, and what is better training than the actval thing. Except yov don't want to see this throvgh qvickly? Or..." And with this the voice get's colder. "... do yov want to say that we are not qvalified to protect OVR property?" The voice belongs to Empress Victricia Clavdia Volvsia Laetoria Alateia. Even thovgh she is a gorgeovs beavty, her cvrrent icy expression and visible anger transform her into a demon, that everyone in the Imperivm Romanvm Phoenix fears. It is the same expression she vses to order the extermination of families that go against the IRP and her family. "Why are yov not answering? Am I right with my qvestions?" The praetoriani present move their hands to their weapons, and ready themselfs to arrest Decivs Clvilivs Catvlla.

"I-I-I wovld not qvestion yov. I did not know that praetoriani were already in the area." Decivs trembled as he delivered his answer. 'How covld I qvestion that bitch?! Her family is simply to powerfvl!'.

[h3]Alateia Victrix, Roma-Class Battleship, L light years from Systema Avrelianvm[/h3]
"Battlestations!" An avtomated alarm screamed throvghovt the large ship. Large pvlse cannons coming roaring to live, spitting hvndreds of energy projectiles towards the targets. Drones are lavnched to destroy strategic targets, ranging from small interceptors to generators and weapon systems of larger ships. The effects of the firing weapons and the glow of attacks hitting the shields make it seem as if the ship was a large disco ball. 

On the bridge of the Alateia Victrix, every station was manned and the sensor holo shows dozens of enemy ships. "Target VIII destroyed, Target XXV and XXVII are withovt power, Target III lost their engines!" "Target V fires large cannons!" "Target I on collision covrse, changing flight vector to avoid." "Shields holding at XC %!" Messages like that were streaming like a river throvgh the tactical display. "Ready boarding pods, secvre target primaris." Arovnd one hvndred allied blips are moving from the ship towards an enemy blip with the designation 'Target P.'. Before arriving nearly half of the pods were destroyed, however the rest arrives at the target and open vp to spit ovt IRP soldiers. 

Svddenly all the enemy and the boarding pod blips vanished from the holo and were replaced by arovnd two dozens allied ship blips. "Priority message from the High Covncil, simvlation terminated!" The princeps Pvblivs Septimivs Aratvs looked at his display. "Forward it to the ready room. Legatvs if yov wovld?" Legatvs Tertivs Cornelivs Vrsvs commander of the praetoriani legios in the formation, followed the princeps into the ready room. The men were qvite different, while the princeps was qvite old and had qvite the big belly, the legatvs was a short middle aged man, who looked like a sharp weapon. As soon as the doors shvt behind them, the large display came alive showing the empress and a few members of the Covncil. Every member shown in the transmission is part of the Alateia family. 

"Matriarca, how can we be of service?" As she heard this from the display, in the imperial palace, a feint smile appeared on the face of empress Victricia. "We have fovnd them. They shovld be in one of the following systems. Yovr order: Secvre their informations and captvre or destroy all pirate forces." Both the princeps and the legatvs were svrprised. "Is it confirmed? They know of it?" "Ovr sovrces have heard it several times in their transmissions. It seems that it is their base of operations. How covld it fall into the hands of pirates!" Anger was visible on every face. As the connection was terminated, the two officiers went back to the bridge with grim faces. "Message to the fleet, set covrse for sector XXXIV! Let's go dark." "Covrse set, lowering energy signitvres, opening wormhole." 

A large rift opened vp before the Alateia Victrix and the whole fleet proceeded into the rift, with their destination set to the sector, in which the pirates shovld be.

[h3]Sector XXXIV[/h3]
Povring ovt of the rift was the small fleet of princeps Pvblivs, dispersing in different direction to fvrther lower the chance of detection by the pirates. "Scanning the sector." Covntless blips were filling the holo, most of them simple transport convois. However some of the signals were moving different from the others. "Have three corvettes inspect those signals in kvbe II/III/II!" "Corvettes C-XIII, C-XXIX and C-LV are to intercept signal grovp XXIII." Shortly after that three signals from the holo begann moving towards the designated targets, with short bvt extremly powerfvl bvrsts from their engines, reaching close to XXX G in acceleration forces, before shvtting down almost all active systems and relying on passive hard to detect systems. This so called going 'dark' meant, that the already small corvettes vessels with weak energy signitvres, became nearly invisible for other parties. However this also meant that they wovld be restricted in their sensor capacity and they wovld not be able to make big changes to covrse or speed withovt retvrning to normal mode.

"Hm? This seems qvite... Order the Tripontivm and two destroyers to investigate the anomaly in kvbe XXI/-XII/X!" "Tripontivm, D-I and D-III are to investigate signal XC." Large thrvsters were firing to change the covrse of the light crviser Tripontivm and the two destroyers. Like the corvettes before, they were qvickly moving away from the main fleet, while maintaining 'dark'-mode. The remaining fleet was monitoring the sector and were prepared to send vpdates to the detachments via targeted transmission beam, if it shovld be necessary.