Space.
It is big, expansive, and it was one of those places which always made you feel small and insignificant. Even in spite of all of the exploration, charts and mapping, there was always that niggling fear of the unknown clawing at the back of your mind, and that was before the feelings of insignificance in the grander scheme of things dashed or amplified your ambitions.
About sixty or seventy interstellar light years 'South East' of Yamatai, the Lorath were trying to make the best of a bad situation. After all, a moon fell on their homeworld in the past, and one of their biggest supporters had fallen to the NMX more recently.
They existed between jobs, between paragraphs and between breaths. They seemed to exist on threads as people tried to live their life and protect their interests. However, in spite of all this, they kept on going. Even with all the known threats, and the unknown threats to them, they still fought for what little they had to call their own.
The LSDF Akahar was a Raptor Class Expeditionary Ship that worked for the Matriarchy as some sort of spacefaring mortician and gravedigger. Finding those ships lost in combat, and ensuring that its crew were finally given a proper rest, and whatever parts could be reused went where they had to go. Like most days between named jobs, the ship just wandered about, looking for whatever they could use, bringing it back.
Things had more or less been quiet now that the NMX had been on the short end of the stick from the combined efforts of Nepleslia and Yamatai. Occasionally the Akahar would be given smaller patrol runs within Matriarchy space to ensure that trade was going smoothly, as pirates and NMX stragglers looking for a quick kill were still a problem. However, compared to the usual work that the Akahar was engaged with, it all seemed trivial.
That is, until something caught their management by surprise.
The phone in the XO's office rung. The Executive Officer was in the midst of assembling a model of an old-style Vampire Class Cruiser inside a bottle, and leapt out of his chair, causing the miniature model to fall to pieces inside the bottle. When the dust settled, he looked at his ruined handiwork, and then over at the phone.
"Hello?" He asked with a grunt, pushing a button to bring up a holographic screen. The call was quick and somewhat frenzied. The captain of the recognisably Lorath ship was giving out some sort of distress signal. Blinking and subsiding his rage, he assured the person on the other end of the line: "Slow down," A couple of moments later, he realised that it was a recording. Remembering that static recordings can't answer back, he leaned in to watch the recording play.
"...I'm in the Tange System, orbiting Tange VII one hundred and sixty degrees from the main Star, requesting immediate help. We-" The message then cut out, almost as abruptly as it came to the executive officer's desk. The Executive Officer watched the static and the white noise in contemplation before he continued.
"Tch." He grumbled as he tapped a pen against his desk, pausing the video and looking over to his Artificial Intelligence. "Starmap of Tange." He requested bluntly before looking at the inter-dimensionally imported Newton's Cradle on his desk. It was still.
He rectified that by pulling back the first bead on it, and let go of it, letting it hit the other four beads, and sending the backmost bead out, then back in. It would repeat this cycle indefinitely. A holographic representation of the Tange system appeared, flecked with blotches of yellow and red to indicate former NMX activity, having razed the habitable planets - but the occupants having been evacuated by the Nepleslian Fourth Fleet.
"One hundred and sixty degrees, assuming zero starts at 'North'." He requested. The hologram drew a line that shot out from the representation of the system's star, and reached the edge of the solar system. "Stop it at Tange VII." The line stopped in the asteroid belt. He sighed and held up a hand to bring up the video, then perused it for any metadata.
"Quite a long time ago, and from so far away. It's probably travelled a lot of beacons by now and all that travelling has corrupted some of the vital data - AND it's closer to Yamataian hands, but..." He reiterated to himself in thought before bringing up another window, this time for an intercom. "Get me Braincase." He told the intercom service. While he waited, he put some candy into his mouth from a nearby bowl on his desk. He was practically ripe with anticipation - the Mok'Ro had all but disappeared from the radars several months back.
"Braincase, do you copy? It's Keib. Something big has fallen on our laps, possibly from the Higher Ups." He then smiled into the video screen: "It's the Mok'Ro. We have a modern-day ghost sighting!" While he was talking into the screen, he was trying to bring up previous transmissions and logs from the Mok'Ro in another window. There were only a scant few, and so many questions he had to answer.
It is big, expansive, and it was one of those places which always made you feel small and insignificant. Even in spite of all of the exploration, charts and mapping, there was always that niggling fear of the unknown clawing at the back of your mind, and that was before the feelings of insignificance in the grander scheme of things dashed or amplified your ambitions.
About sixty or seventy interstellar light years 'South East' of Yamatai, the Lorath were trying to make the best of a bad situation. After all, a moon fell on their homeworld in the past, and one of their biggest supporters had fallen to the NMX more recently.
They existed between jobs, between paragraphs and between breaths. They seemed to exist on threads as people tried to live their life and protect their interests. However, in spite of all this, they kept on going. Even with all the known threats, and the unknown threats to them, they still fought for what little they had to call their own.
The LSDF Akahar was a Raptor Class Expeditionary Ship that worked for the Matriarchy as some sort of spacefaring mortician and gravedigger. Finding those ships lost in combat, and ensuring that its crew were finally given a proper rest, and whatever parts could be reused went where they had to go. Like most days between named jobs, the ship just wandered about, looking for whatever they could use, bringing it back.
Things had more or less been quiet now that the NMX had been on the short end of the stick from the combined efforts of Nepleslia and Yamatai. Occasionally the Akahar would be given smaller patrol runs within Matriarchy space to ensure that trade was going smoothly, as pirates and NMX stragglers looking for a quick kill were still a problem. However, compared to the usual work that the Akahar was engaged with, it all seemed trivial.
That is, until something caught their management by surprise.
The phone in the XO's office rung. The Executive Officer was in the midst of assembling a model of an old-style Vampire Class Cruiser inside a bottle, and leapt out of his chair, causing the miniature model to fall to pieces inside the bottle. When the dust settled, he looked at his ruined handiwork, and then over at the phone.
"Hello?" He asked with a grunt, pushing a button to bring up a holographic screen. The call was quick and somewhat frenzied. The captain of the recognisably Lorath ship was giving out some sort of distress signal. Blinking and subsiding his rage, he assured the person on the other end of the line: "Slow down," A couple of moments later, he realised that it was a recording. Remembering that static recordings can't answer back, he leaned in to watch the recording play.
"...I'm in the Tange System, orbiting Tange VII one hundred and sixty degrees from the main Star, requesting immediate help. We-" The message then cut out, almost as abruptly as it came to the executive officer's desk. The Executive Officer watched the static and the white noise in contemplation before he continued.
"Tch." He grumbled as he tapped a pen against his desk, pausing the video and looking over to his Artificial Intelligence. "Starmap of Tange." He requested bluntly before looking at the inter-dimensionally imported Newton's Cradle on his desk. It was still.
He rectified that by pulling back the first bead on it, and let go of it, letting it hit the other four beads, and sending the backmost bead out, then back in. It would repeat this cycle indefinitely. A holographic representation of the Tange system appeared, flecked with blotches of yellow and red to indicate former NMX activity, having razed the habitable planets - but the occupants having been evacuated by the Nepleslian Fourth Fleet.
"One hundred and sixty degrees, assuming zero starts at 'North'." He requested. The hologram drew a line that shot out from the representation of the system's star, and reached the edge of the solar system. "Stop it at Tange VII." The line stopped in the asteroid belt. He sighed and held up a hand to bring up the video, then perused it for any metadata.
Code:
xxcFormzat: LzzMV
Aauthoqcczr: LCdS Mok'Ro
Co-Ordinates: -w56.2n;, +9ii.855, +3ccccccq3.5v0
Dsshsateh: 16/4/34
Travfel Data:d Tange #23g4 > Mhisato #683g > fMisa,to #445 >x Misatvo #1bb46 >n Kotokmu #,672 > Kotokv,u #x442 > Krottoku #883 > Lotr #56 > Lbor #445 a> Lor #1
Coxxnmmennts: SOdS"Braincase, do you copy? It's Keib. Something big has fallen on our laps, possibly from the Higher Ups." He then smiled into the video screen: "It's the Mok'Ro. We have a modern-day ghost sighting!" While he was talking into the screen, he was trying to bring up previous transmissions and logs from the Mok'Ro in another window. There were only a scant few, and so many questions he had to answer.
