It was not long after Admiral Matir had confirmation back from the rest of the officers that the exercise was scheduled to begin. With nothing meaningful to delay them, Matir gave the word to commence. As per the simulated scenario, each species’ fleet would be arriving in a separate part of the system. Part of the challenge would involve making contact with one another, identifying a rendezvous point, and gathering into formation. A meeting point was specifically not planned ahead of time to force them to make such decisions quickly, in the moment. A Rothian AI had given each ship a program to run for the duration of the exercise and would be directing the actions of their simulated foe. Artificial ships would appear on sensors, weapons fire would be simulated from both sides, and they would even appear on view screens. An FTL connection between all participating vessels would ensure that the simulated vessels were synchronized accurately between different ships, no matter where they might be in the system. Additionally, all battle groups would also have designated observer ships present. They would appear on sensors, but were clearly marked as non-participants. Their sensors would be unaffected by the simulation, so they would essentially be “lookouts” to watch for any actual threats that could disrupt the exercise. 

[hr]

Arrival in the Psi-Helios system for the Rothian fleet brought them dead into the middle of empty space, which, granted, was far and away the most likely outcome for a random jump. The vast emptiness of space, even within a star system, made arrival near any sort of celestial body exceptionally rare. Regardless, the exercise had begun, and the Admiral stuck to established protocol. Immediately, he ordered a wide-range FTL scan of the system to identify the current location of all known celestial bodies, as well as to start locating allied and hostile ships. Based on the locations of their known objectives, the ship computer began marking off potential sites for strategic rally points. Within a few minutes, Matir had made his decision: a location roughly equidistant from each marked objective within an asteroid belt. 

For the purposes of this exercise, the fleets had established an encrypted FTL comm channel to allow them to communicate across the system. “Marking rally point now. Move immediately to asteroid designated PH-238-02. Coordinates following.” The Admiral ordered. 

[hr]

Whilst the Sacred Band and Void Company both were preparing for the possibility of battle, the science team was getting ready to begin their scans as quickly and efficiently as possible. While much of the process was automated, the process was likely going to require adjustments on the go, based on what they detected. The Object, if it was there, would be difficult to detect, and they would need to be able to identify the smallest anomalies to be able to refine their parameters to eventually locate it. 

Ideally, there would be no need at all for anyone to visit the surface in person, though they needed to be prepared for any possibility. Vreta would have much preferred there to be no need to bring anything resembling a soldier to the planet, but he understood that, in the current circumstances, why they might be necessary. Still, bringing them would be a last resort. For the science team, at least, they would not be gearing up like soldiers, regardless. For many species, personal shielding devices were something of a rarity, but to the Rothians, they were more available. Vreta, at the moment, was already wearing his shield belt, and they had secured enough personal shield devices to outfit an entire field team. In the event that it was necessary, they would have their own personal protection that would at least make them [i]seem[/i] not quite so threatening. 

Void Company was arming up across from the Sacred Band. Among them, Mar’Ghel, the sniper, had already mostly prepared herself before they had even arrived, so she stood, leaned back against the wall, watching the others. The particle rifle resting at her side had a length over half of her rather imposing height. Her helmet was not deployed, so one could see her slightly inquisitive expression as she looked over the Humans. Out of everything about her, it was her eyes in particular that could draw attention. In casual circumstances, there was a filter applied over her cornea that made them appear perfectly normal. Now that they were potentially about to be deployed, though, one could see that her eyes were wholly artificial. Both appeared to have [i]multiple[/i] pupils of varying sizes, each of which could move and focus independently. At the moment, many of those pupils were focused on her counterpart in the Sacred Band.