RP: 188604 Welcome home, or the return of the prodigal meme

[Alex Hart]

188604, The Queen's Slave, shortly after Alex's return.

Alex waited impatiently outside the Queen's slave, Uso's personal starship, to meet with his adoptive mother. He had returned to the planet a matter of hours earlier, the recent economic collapse having derailed his plans to search for a long lost friend.

Giving in to his impatience, he used his mindware to send Uso a voice message, telling her to hurry up.

It would take a while, an uncharacteristic lack of movement in Uso's actions as she eventually opened up the outer ramp to let Alex in. The adoptive mother waiting just inside the ship, leaning against the wall.

"Hey,"

... it wasn't exactly the warmest of greetings.

Alex was also acting uncharacteristically. He seemed to be in a rather bad mood. "Uso, what the hell is going on?"

Uso straghtened up a bit, no time to waste being a downer, "I mean, HEY ALEX! How's it going! Haven't seen you around in a while after you up and left." Uso said, making her way down the ramp to put an arm around him and lead him back into the ship, "Pretty much everything is going off all at the same time, I take it you're in some new trouble too?"

Alex responded. "Well, I was in the middle of searching for a old friend from my days in the Psychopomp super solder program. One who seems to be still controlled by them, but then this came up and I had to drop everything."

"Hmm." Uso said, considering what to do next. "I wish I had an easy answer for you this time... lets get up to the main display...."

The pair would make their way to the main room of the Queen's slave, the large display table in the center showing all kinds of information, ships, planets, stock prices... a little bit of everything.

"The Elysians kicked over a hornet's nest, so we've got a group of NMX ships out west... Between the colonies they are smashing out there and the ships from the Elysian's allies attack fleet that are stranded or damaged.... well, there is a lot of work there to do. Locally we're having some economic troubles. Not sure if its really S6's latest IIS purchase or if its SAINT doing SAINT stuff... but either way we're looking some local unrest and Howard Station hasn't really been responding...."

"What Elysians?" Alex asked. "As far as I know, Elysia is a part of Yamatai."

"Well, they got another group of them out here trying to start up their own Elysia," Uso explained, "Same ones who had been interfearing with that corp that put a mind-control chip in your head... sorta... more of a pain in our ass than outright enemies but still... then we've got what... Yamatai is poking around now. PsychoPomp is also... well its a thing."

Alex sighed, partially joking, but also to alleviate some stress."I leave for a month or three.."

"Oh come on, you love showing up and playing hero," Uso teased, "I'm pretty happy you're showing up here to help."

"In this situation I don't really have a choice but to play hero." Alex said while shrugging. "It's not exactly easy to do or very enjoyable."

"Come ooooon...." Uso laughed, "... you enjoy it. There is plenty of stuff to do around here, people that need saving... there will be time for PsychoPomp too... just not right now."

Alex looked earnestly at Uso. "Do you really think I enjoy putting everyone else's needs before myself? This isn't some sort of game, I don't do it for fun. I do it because someone has to."

"No one has to. Justice isn't a thing for everyone you know... you can't save everyone... etc...etc... You know that cowboy work you do doesn't pay the bills... which is what all this is for." Uso said.

Alex let Uso's insult to his way of thinking slide, and continued. "So everything's gone to shit. What do we do now?"

Between Ragnarok, Skyguard, S-6, and SAINT I think we have the ground situation under control but we're at our limit. Vier's drones are busy trying to slow the NMX advance... but ultimately we can't do anything about that yet...

... unless you're holding a space fleet on you somewhere?"

Uso gave Alex a look for a moment, before moving on,

"We need time for our people to resolve things here before we can make any further moves. That means basically just hoping PP or the NMX, or Elysians, or Yamatai don't make a move against us.

But there are things that need to be done. There are colonies out west that are being wiped out by the NMX. We can visit the ones that have already been wiped out and try to see if anyone is left. There are the ships that were damaged in the earlier battle. Some may still be usable. There's also PP. We've... " Uso sighed,

"Ok, look, anytime someone gives away a big secret they say, 'Hey, don't tell anyone else,' and then they say the secret and then the secret inevitably gets out. You're supposed to just not say secrets.... so don't tell anyone ok? Not your own people, not people you can trust, no one.

Now.

We've got an attack ready against PP. We're going to need to throw a lot of money at it, and hit a lot of their facilities at the same time. If we go early though it might fail entirely... not getting them all in one swoop means some will skitter away and come back."

"Well, the Skyguard fleet has 27 cruisers. What happened to Section 6 by the way, they were only supposed to be a research branch of the skyguard."

"Ha, it is a start... S6 has kinda, outgrown just being a research group. Jack has ambitions." Uso replied.

"That sounds like a bit of a risk to keep funding."

"Which means we need to use those ships to make some bank. We're going to blow up a small planet out here, scoop out the good bits, and start selling it on the market... Course if you've got ideas for bringing in money I'm willing to hear it.... making ST technology avalible to everyone for example."

"By the way, what on earth did Jack buy that caused a whole planetary economy to collapse?"

"Two carriers through the IIS," Uso replied, "though its not so much what be bought but how he bought it if you want to follow the FSC's line on things."

"It doesn't really matter who fucked up, only that we unfuck it as soon as possible." Alex said, his voice dripping with exasperation.

"If we help out the colony at B7R, I think we could use it to give us a buffer between the Mishuu and our space." He proposed.

"Yeah, I haven't really been paying attention to them... they probably aren't in a good way right now. If you want to get the shored up it will help out a lot. Vier is already over there and as far as getting ahold of some new firepower...." Uso said, racking her brain, "Well, we aren't exactly overflowing with options. I have some people in mind that could help but they aren't cheap and we're cutting it close on budgets as it is. Your ship by itself isn't going to be enough."

"What about the whole Skyguard fleet? I'm told that we got some ships returned to us when Section 6 split off."

"28 ships vs hundreds of NMX megamishhu?" Uso asked, "You'll be a speedbump to the Mishhu with just that... there is the salvage left over from the last major battle, you could maybe scrape something together with that. There are also mecinary units and arms runners... but we'd need money for that."

"How many ships do they have in or near the B7R system?" Alex asked, hand on his chin.

"I.... uh, don't have that information," Uso admited, a hand going to the back of her head, "The FSC might know, they have some ships there I think? Vier should have some ground assets as well to handle the Rixxikor that are on the planet... you may need to send scouts on your own."

"The Light Year Array should be able to show us this information, do you have it hooked up to the ship?"

"It's more of a scientific tool... but I suppose we can give it a shot.... " Uso would head to the controls on the table, keying in a few commands to bring up her connection to Vier, the whole process didn't take that long.

"Looks like, maybe about a dozen large ships? Unknown number of smaller craft... They seem to be hanging out around the outskirts of the system though."

Alex traced a few lines that headed down to the planet. "I think if a small group of transport ships carrying skyguard ground troops and variable tanks came in on the oposite side of the system, the Mishuu wouldn't have time to react. The problem then lies in keeping them from noticing the ground troops and attackign them from orbit."

He traced a few trajectories coming from outside the system, each representing a small group of skyguard cruisers. "If I break the skyguard into several groups of ships and have each group fight a long range skirmish, just long enough to draw the attention of the Mishuu and then jump out of the system, that these groups could hold the Mishuu's attention long enough to allow the troops to unload and the transports to leave."

"Seems like a sound plan, but be careful when you're outside of the star system's FTL exclusion zone. There isn't anything stopping them from jumping right into the middle of your ships, or their reinforcements jumping into the fight if they have any....

OH! We have a bunch of anti-ship missiles just sitting in storage containers out in the starport... you could take some of those with you."

"Good thinking." Alex responded, "And as for staying outside the FTL exclusion zone, should that happen, the ships can jump to FTL as long as they keep their drives charged."

"Then keep those drives charged. You're welcome to help yourself to any gear we have out on the starport... and raid all you can from your skyguard stocks for this.... and Alex...

... its good to have you back,"

Alex gave Uso a quick but sincere hug, before sitting down and beginning to take stock of the assets at his disposal.

 

[Zack]

>En route to B7R604, Skyguard transport fleet,

Alex had gathered up 10 U2 sand demon class dropships loaded with skyguard troops as well as gumdrop APCs, Minotaur variable tanks, and scores upon scores of cupcake tankettes. There were 100 escorting phantasm drone gunships.

This transport fleet was poised enter the FTL exclusion zone as soon as the main skyguard groups engaged the Mishuu.

The main skyguard force was composed of 3 groups of 11 broadsword class cruisers each, lurking just outside of detection range of the Mishuu forces with their FTL drives charged.

Each group was each about 10 minutes behind the last, coasting in ballistically after having used their FTL drives to get within a half hour of their enemy.

The NMX force was only about a dozen Megamishhu. Each of the large ships were more than a match for a broadsword one on one, but they were clearly outnumbered. With them were a few small swarms of battlepods.

Some of the ships wanted to head towards the planet, others wanting to head into deep space, but despite the group moving in two directions, they didn't move too far from one another.

As the broadswords approach, they sent two dozen battlepods towards the first wave of broadswords, the small fighters spreading out and heading towards their targets, looking to gauge their effectiveness.

The first force of 11 broadswords deployed its fighters in close, 110 in total, to act as point defense and to screen against the incoming fighters. They opened fire when the battlepods came in range, allowing the anti ship lasers of the broadswords to prepare for larger threats.

The battlepods would release a swarm of small missiles towards the fighters, each pod breaking off and heading in a different direction aftward, scattering and trying to go around the fighters as the main NMX ships finally decided on a course of action, heading just outside the FTL exclusion zone of the star system.

As the point defenses of the fighters and the main ships picked the missles out of the sky, each ship released its volley of GIP cannon shells, each traveling at .99c and carrying tens of kilograms of antimatter. And 1.25 seconds later, each ship released another. The rounds continued to fly out, each ship cycling through its cannons to fire as many shells as quickly as possible. There were too many shells for the battlepods to intercept

Additional battlepods started deploying from the mega-mishhu, staying within only a few meters of their motherships, holding their course as the incoming volley of shells made their way towards their targets, and right beofre they would hit..

*ZWIP*

The NMX ships made a short range jump to appear within half a light-second of the last group of broadswords, taking their battlepods along with them. The blisters along the top of the ships opening up to launch blobs of super-heated plasma at near-light speeds towards the NMX ships.

Each ship punched their FTL drives and accelerated away, buying more time for the transport fleet to land.

Meanwhile, the Transport fleet had just entered the atmosphere and Alex was dialling up a call to the Vier on the planet.

"Vier, come in. This is Sky Warden Alex Tasuki, I'm bringing in troops to reinforce the locals agaisnt the Rixxicor and the Mishuu."

The NMX ship's projectiles ended up missing their targets entirely, the broadswords moving far out of range before they could be hit. The NMX fleet remaining in close formation as they waited for the Broadswords to drop ou tof FTL so they could re-engage.

Meanwhile Vier could feel the approach of the additional drones. "I could use your help at the wall."

Of course, she wouldn't have to explain which wall... there was really only one 'the wall' here. A large earthwork made from dirt carved out of the ground. It surrounded part of the main contenent, isolating the area where the Rixxikor were kept from the rest of the island.

As the transports approached, they would get to see the main city of the island, the large glossy dome covering the main area, the forest and much of the resort area was still recovering, large swaths still burnt out.

The wall itself was similarly scarred from flame. The large earth works enclosing what looked like a scrap yard. Thousands upon thousands of Rixxikor were inside, clawing at the walls, trying to climb up as cupcake drones hovered over head, some occationally swooping down to keep them from climbing up and over.

As the NMX ships were chasing the broadswords, a new broadsword group came out of ballistic acceleration and began to burn towards the Mishuu group, deploying fighters and firing their main cannons at the ships which now had no means of escape. At the same time, the first group of broadswords left FTL, turned about with their CDDs and opened fire too, shells approaching the Mishuu ships from both sides. Should the Mishuu try anything, the third group of broadswords was still available with their FTL drives charged.

The NMX ships would keep going towards their original target at full speed, the group waiting until the first of the rounds were about to hit... before firing their phase-cannons. The wide-ranging disruption weapons would hit everything in a wide arc infront of the ships, all of the projectiles within 1 light second of their forward arcs ending up dissapearing entirely!

The Mishhu had all fired their main cannons at about the same time, leaving the entire group all recharging at once.

As they continued forward, they began exchanging fire with the Broadswords in front, closing to close range and starting to swap weapon fire. Large slugs from their secondary cannons heading towards their targets while swarms of small missiles and globs of superheated plasma fanned out to endanger the ship's shields and small fighters, all the while the Broadsword's own rapid-fire cannons rained down, projectiles exploding against shields, the projectiles that did made it through the defenses were more than enough to start causing damage, their explosions starting to weaken the enemy shields, and super-heat the outermost layer of armor on the ships.

The battlepods mostly lagged behind the Megamishhu themselves, either shooting down the projectiles coming towards them from behind, or intercepting them with their own bodies. The rapid-fire cannons of the broadswords quickly starting to chew through the battlepod-shields.

While the Mishuu's phase cannons did stop a large portion of the shells coming fom the group to the front, more followed in a steady stream. As the hulls of the first group began to heat, the ships started to rotate, bringing undamaged hull plating to bear as well as new turrets. The starjammer laser turrets began to open fire on the Mishuu ships, using a visible wavelength to start with, and the point defense cannons rained tungsten rods down upon their targets

The Mishuu battlepods were mostly effective in stopping the shells from the rear, but the group of cruisers had been waiting for them to try that, and began to fire their laser turrets as they closed in to medium range. Traveling at lightspeed and extremely accurate, the lasers began to eat away at the battlepod formation rapidly.

The NMX didn't seem to be slowing down, their engines continuing at maximum thrust towards the broadswords infront of them, looking to make a high speed pass while their own FTL systems continued to recharge. The starjammer lasers passed right through the NMX shields at first, gouging out point defense weapons and blinding some of the massive sensor-eyes on either side. It would only take a moment for the NMX to configure their shields to be opaque, but by then the damage had been done. by this point 4 of the NMX ships had stopped manuvering entirely, deep gouges in their glowing hulls indicating that they would no longer be a threat, as the rest of the formation continued forward. The two groups were now at close range, there was nearly no lag time between shots, making it impossible to dodge. The NMX having to rely entirely on their subspace radar to pick targets now, pouring their fire into the closest few broardswords and ignoring the smaller fighters in their entirty.

Meanwhile the group of battlepods trailing behind the main formation was starting to wither, their numbers quickly being cut down until there were only a handful left.

As the numbers of the battlepods dwindled, the third group of Broadswords FTLed in, forcing the Mishuu to either split their fire further or allow themselves to be barraged mercilessly.

In the first group of Broadswords, shields were shorting out and first one then two broadswords were split along their long noses, cutting off their main cannons and venting atmosphere. Bulkheads and vacuum doors dropped down to seal the breaches off, and each ship lost at least half of its crew. They drifted away from the action, their crews scrambling to douse fires and restore some functionality to the ships. Fortunately, each ship had a very small crew for its size.

The remaining broadswords from all three groups poured death into the remaining Mishuu ships, lasers burning away at shields as GIP shells and tungsten rods smashed against them.

At this close of range, with the massively increased numbers of broadswords, the NMX ships wouldn't last very much longer, their battlepods evaporating under the hail of fire, their shields withering and their hulls cracking open. The few remaining ships wouldn't have time to adjust their fire, instead choosing to finish off as many of the broadswords as they could during their pass. The last Megamishhu firing its main cannon at the fleet before finally exploding like a flash-bulb.

The last wide-ranging attack would would easily overwhelm the remaining shields, the energy wave overflowing onto the ship's hulls and stripping off the outermost layers. The Broadswords of the last group finding their armor plating, weapons, sensors, and in some cases their outer hulls entirely gone!

Fortunately for the crews of the braodsword class ships, each hull was multilayered, and so while helpless, the occupants of each ship were safe. The battle had been concluded with minor losses.

The disabled ships called for FTL tugs back to 188604, and the remaining ships took up a geosyncronous orbit over B7R604.

---

Meanwhile, on the ground, the ground troops were dropped from a short height in 3 groups. Each group consisted had 10 minotaur variable tanks, 20 earth dancer exosuits piloted by the Gartagen members of the Skyguard and 40 cupcake tankettes. The infantry portion of each group consisted of 50 guardsmen wearing Impulse powered armor and carrying various origin armor weapons, as well as 100 guardsmen wearing FMS powered suits and Pack Power Armor. These unarmored troops were armed with showstopper heavy assault rifles.

Each group maintained seperation, the three groups each preparing for combat as Alex landed his U-1 Unicorn and sought out the local commander to find out how his troops could help best.


Alex would have a few options on where to go. Vier had requested additional drones show up along the wall, the area where the Rixxikor were being held like pets in a giant walled habbitat... and though there had been no communication with the city yet, it was clear that the dome'd facility had seen better days.

Alex held back two groups of his forces and ordered one forward to hold the wall, cupcake drones turning themselves over to Vier's control as guardsmen took their positions and helped to hold the Rixxicor back. Meanwhile, Alex hopped into his U-1 and led another group over to the dome'd city, looking for whomever was in charge of the locals.

There were numerous hidden entrances to the city, disguised in small structures and the like... along with a single large hanger bay at the base of the dome.

It was there that Alex would catch sight of the Indigo. The large scale mecha still had all of its internal components fried, and would be of no use.

The pilot would also notice Alex flying overhead, and open up a direct link. The man standing in the hanger to observe the repair work being conducted.

"You again." Indigo said, "What are you doing back here?"

As Alex ordered his forces to a stop outside the hangar, he transformed the Unicorn into mecha mode and hopped onto its hand. As he lowered himself down to the hangar bay, Alex spoke back to the pilot.

"I'm here to help. My comrade signalled that she needed help and reinforcements, and so I brought them."

"I take it you didn't bring any transports? Between the citizens here and the Rixxikor, everyone is looking to leave before the NMX show up in force.

Even Keller hasn't returned from the last battle." Indigo replied

"I did bring transports, ten large dropships, enough to carry all of my forces. Any civilians should be evacuated first." Alex told Indigo. "And speaking of the NMX, the forces scouting this system have been dealt with, so evacuations need to happen as soon as possible while we hold off the Rixxikor."

The pilot paused for a bit, he didn't think Alex had actually brought transports... and even he couldn't quite tell what was worse. Staying and being overrun by the NMX, or abandoning everything that they had managed to build here.

"The fleet you brought. I don't suppose they are up for another task?"

Alex was now on the level of the pilot. He walked over and asked, "And what would that task be?"

"Keller has not returned from the last operation. It may just be that she was trying not to draw the NMX here... but their scout ships have found our planet regardless. It would be better if her and the Itano were here instead of in deep space..." He explained.

"I'm guessing you want me to find her?" Alex guessed. "Where was she seen last?"

"The Elysian operation, at the NMX home system. We do have a set of deep-space rally points setup to fall back to afterwards. If I had to guess she would take her ship to one of those locations."

"What kind of ship was she in? Is there any other information you can give me?"

Pictures and some basic data for the Itano were provided. "Keller is as tough as they come, no one is expecting her to return at this point... but if anyone could survive it would be her."

Alex nodded. "All right, my crew and I will look for her. I'll leave the fleet in orbit and the troops and transports on station." He looked around.

"Could you give me a brief rundown of your current assets?"

He laughed, "You're looking at it. We've put everything we have into rebuilding the city. There isn't anything left to build warships."

"What about on the ground?" Alex asked.

He scowled, "You took out most of our ground forces last you were here. All that is left are police-forces and they aren't well equiped for operations outside of this area."

Alex looked down slightly as he spoke. "I'm sorry about that, but the EMP that took out most of your forces wasn't initiated by me. I was trying to turn myself over to you when a different member of the USO, one who I didn't have any authority over, used it."

"Doesn't do us a whole lot of good now anyways," He replied, "Though consider bringing Keller back alive a step towards soothing some old wounds."

Alex nodded in understanding. He held out his hand for the pilot to shake. "I'll bring her back. In the meantime, the Skyguard will protect this area under your direction. You seem to know the lay of the land, so I'll let them know that you're in charge of the forces in this system while I'm gone. What's your name by the way?"

"For now, just use my callsign." He said sternly.

---

 

[Zack]

> Deep Space

"There is nothing here Sir,"

The sensor officer was reporting the results of the latest sweep of the area. Another one of the deep space points where the Itano could be, another vast stretch of empty space. Power was being diverted to engines for the next FTL jump, but before that could be completed the sensor officer would speak up again,

"INCOMING!"

The rest of the ship spring to action... but due to the speed of FTL drives, the incoming had already arrived long before anyone was able to react.

The Itano itself exited FTL with a large flash of light. The ship's right side seemed to have been flayed off, the external hull entirely missing, large sections simply exposed to space. There were scorch marks all along the pointed forward hull and upper wings, and its shields seem to only be working on the left side.

But it was clearly still powered,

and the engines worked...

Alex turned to the communications officer. "Hail that ship guardsman." He instructed, and soon a hailing signal was sent to the Itano.

Keller's stern face was soon on the screen.

"It looks like you are here to save the day again."

"The pilot of the Indigo told me that you might need some help."

Keller didn't waste any more time, this was perhaps as warm a welcome as anyone got,

"The NMX are trailing us, we have about 7 minutes before they are able to FTL to our location and it takes about that long for us to charge our FTL for another jump." She explained, "I am not sure if they are tracking us, or if they are just guessing at our exit point and sending enough ships to make sure they reach us as we exit FTL. So far we have been unable to make the nessisary two jumps in short sucsession to throw off persuers, so we are unable to return to B7R."

"Do you have any idea what kind of force is persuing you? Any numbers?" Alex asked, a plan forming in his mind.

"At least a dozen ships are part of the group trailing us. We have not spent enough time in one spot to get a full read of their numbers. We are also out of missiles and lack any real offensive options." She explained.

"I've got an idea." Alex began. "There are plenty of drones here, and each of them has FTL capability. When the mishuu arrive, I'll have the combat drones project their shields to protect the unarmed drones, which we'll accelerate into the mishuu ships at a quarter of the speed of light."

Alex sent over a holographic projection of his plan, the prism shield-sails on the phantasm drone gunships unfolding to provide protection for the C5s as they sped towards their targets.

"After that, the drones will bunch up into 5 groups, and use their FTL drives at the same time to generate a signature roughly equivalent to what it will look like when our two ships jump to FTL.
Then these groups will all go in different directions."

The holographic drones consolidated into groups and then jumped to FTL at the same time as the Itano and the broadsword cruiser were shown doing so.

"You have five minutes to prepare this plan," Keller stated.

Back on the CIC of the Itano, Keller and her command crew were already hard at work, the command crew sitting in a half circle infront of her, with an augmented reality display over Keller's work area. They were the best crew, maybe anywhere, and they were already feeding her the projections she needed to make a decision.

It would be several jumps worth of time to try and evacuate the ship's crew along with the stragglers they had picked up during the fight, and it was an uncertanty to how long the ship would last.

Her pilot was patching through data on the NMX tracking each jump and responding in kind. He estimated only two or three ships would come after them under Alex's plan. Certainly an easier fight....

Her weapons officer was still convenced they had something onboard the ship that was feeding data to the outside. With their shields only half working, there was no real way to block any outgoing broadcast.

The smart move seemed to be hedging her bets by repairing the shields,

"We will need to repair our ship's shields for best effect. Can you assist?" Keller asked over her channel to Alex.

Alex thought for a moment before a partisan automata spoke up. It was the ship's chief engineer. "Sir." It's modulated male voice spoke out, "I belive I can help them. I will not need to be transferred with any lengthy docking procedures. I can be vented out the airlock and use my inertialess drive to navigate to their ship, where I can help pinpoint the problem."

Alex turned to the screen as his officers were already beginning to arrange the drones for the plan, and looked at Keller. "We don't have time to waste, I'll send my chief engineer over."

The automata got out of it's seat and made it's way to the airlock, which it vented itself as it flew over to the Itano, searching for egress.

The exterior of the ship had plenty of ways to get in... mostly because a large portion of the exterior had been stripped away along the right hand side. There were sealed airlock doors that would lead into the interior of the ship as well as the exposed power conduits and emitters that were part of the shield generators on the exterior.

It would certainly take quite some time to fix, though fixing it up so that the remaining shield systems had full coverage could be done quickly.

"Less than a minute left," Keller reminded. The NMX would soon be there.

The chief engineer found a computer interface and with the speed of a machine searched through all the active systems to find what parts of the shield were broken, and if there was anything else amiss.

There were a laundry list of problems with the ship, a plenty of things that seemed amiss. There were plenty of people and machines not from B7R, stragglers who might have been picked up from the battle. The ship itself seemed to have been built by the M.I.C. but aside from some contact info there was little additional information there. Large areas of the ship had been decompressed. Some people had been trapped in areas, unable to reach other sections of the ship.

As for the shields, all of the emitters on the right had side were just gone. To get full shield coverage back the emitters on the left hand side would need to be adjusted so that they could project the tradditional bubble.

*FLASH*

An NMX ship arrived, nearly a light-minute away. It would pick them up nearly instantly and turn towards them... long range sensors would pick up more ships as well... and now that they had their exact location they would be able to jump directly within combat range soon.

As soon as the NMX ship turned and began its movement a C5 drone engaged its FTL drive for but a moment, dropping out just before hitting the Mishuu ships. All around it, the other C5 drones made similar maneuvers, dropping out of FTL a moment before colission with the mishuu vessels, and then each drone slammed into its target at a quarter of the speed of light.

Meanwhile, the chief engineer quickly adjusted the shield emitters and monitored for irregularities. While doing so, they noticed an outgoing wireless transmission which was unable to be traced to a ship system, and was being broadcast with suspicously high power. The automata quickly found and blocked the source, and all outgoing wireless transmissions from the Itano, save for that which communicated with Alex's broadsword. Communications inside the ship were unaffected, but anything being broadcast out of the ship on unsecured channels was quickly blocked and the devices transmitting them catalouged, traced to a location and then cross refferenced with the internal life sensors of the ship to determine exactly who, if anyone, was operating the signal. All of these tasks were performed with machine efficiency.

The C5 drones were quickly obliterated, along with the NMX starships that they hit. As more and more NMX starship started to arrive, the Itano began its jump out.

The remaining drones grouped up in enough number so that each group would produce a signature identical to the jump signatures of the Itano and the broadsword would when they jumped out. As the Itano and the broadsword made their jumps, so to did the groups of drones, scattering in every direction so as to mislead the mishuu with a multitude of identical jump signatures.

As the Itano was jumping out a ghost type Mishhu would appear behind Keller, opening firing on the bridge crew. The weapon's officer getting splattered against the console, Keller going for a weapon under her own controls, the jump officer calmly still carrying out the jump, managing the ship's propulsion even while they were under fire.

By the time the jump was completed, Alex wouldn't be able to see what was going on onboard the Itano...

Alex cursed loudly, running down to the armory, which was stocked mostly with Origin weaponry. He grabbed a pack power armor, a Standard Energy Pistol model II and finally, a piece that caught his eye, what appeared to be a sort of retro raygun. Having picked up a single holster, he slipped the smaller raygun into it and held onto the bulkier energy pistol.

After this, he made his way down to the hangar and hopped into the Unicorn, the automated systems prepping the bay for his launch. He then waited impatiently for the jump to finish.

It wouldn't be long for their short jump to complete. The Itano was still moving, still under power. Someone was still at the helm at least.

He'd spot the ghost-type floating outside of the ship, and then rapidly flying along the main part of the hull towards the engine section.

Alex tailed the Mishuu, transforming to make it easier for him to aim his weapons. He recognized the mishuu as using the same sort of 'ghosting' as the same as a ship he had fought in the past. Knowing that only energy weaponry would effect it, Alex activated the point defense lasers on the head of the Unicorn and lanced them through the ghostly body of the Mishuu, slicing off one of the tendrils dangling from the weighty head, causing the creature to zoom downward and phase through the hull of the ship, only to find that someone had turned on the internal shields, preventing it from continuing its trip while it was inside of the hull...

... the creature would wait for a few moments to let Alex pass by, and then stick its head up through the hull once more only to find him waiting for it. He had seen where it had entered and waited for it to come back out.

He played the lasers across it once more, aiming to disable its ability to phase.

The lasers scortched the hull of the Itano, and much of the creature's head, causing it to tumble out of the ship.

Alex was unwiling to take any chances and, using his superior reflexes, played the lasers across the mishuu in horizontal slices before it had time to act again. Thist resulted in the mishuu being chopped up by the lasers.

"We have injured..."

Keller's voice was on Alex's network again, the crew apparently having regained full control.

"But we will have to deal with that after our next set of jumps. We will conduct three more to throw off persuit, and then conduct repairs..."

 

[Zack]

... Some Time Later ...

Bodies of the security staff killed in the attack were still being hauled off the CIC. For the time being the woman in charge of the FTL system was handling control of the Itano while medics saw to the rest of the crew. Keller herself already had her right arm placed in a splint, and taped back together as best could be managed with what was avalible.

The blonde woman having her hair pulled back into a high and tight bun, a reverse pistol holster on her right hand side making the handle of her weapon jut forward. Combined with her grey and silver uniform, she certainly looked like she might have been a knight of old.

Alex was sitting opposite to Keller, his helmet off but his flight suit still on. Eventually the awkwardness of sitting silently grew greater than his apprehention to talk to such stern looking person. He got up and walked over, offering his hand to her good arm for a handshake. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person." He said.

Keller didn't respond right away. Her eyes focused on him, unwavering. Last time they had met, their encounter had resulted in the near distruction of her city, along with her mecha the Silber.

Alex retracted his hand and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Listen... I'm sorry about what happened the last time we met. I wasn't really in charge of what was going on, I'm sorry to say. If I'd had my way I'd have turned myself over to you, but a different member of the USO, one whom I don't have any authority over, decided that it'd be a good idea to drop EMPs on a populated city."

"These are things that have already happened. You have shown you are eager to help. I suppose someone from B7R sent you to assist. I also assume you have some new reason for coming to B7R?" Keller asked. "Something more than just the NMX. I did not see you during that engagement."

"I wasn't around then. I was dealing with... personal matters. I got called back to 188604 because of a collapse of the planet's economy. We needed to establish a buffer around the planet to protect us from the NMX, and helping B7R604 fight off the Mishuu seemed like a good way to go about doing that while also helping other people out."

"Economic collapse? Will you no longer be able to support operations of this size?" Keller asked bluntly.

"The only monetary expenses that the Skyguard has are paying its personell. We produce all of our equipment in-house, so it won't be a problem. The frontier service corperation is working on rectifiying the collapse now."

"They certainly appear busy. They have been helping rebuild our city as well, however it is slow work. We have had to look elsewhere for weapons." She replied, "We will need more equipment than just what your forces brought last time if the NMX launch an attack on B7R."

"I brought plenty of ground troops, as well as a sizeable portion of the Skyguard fleet. If need be, there are plenty of broadswords that can be brought over, and we can train your personnel in their use."

"How many of these ships do you have? I expect it could be no more than 50 or so, meaning we would still be outnumbered several times over. We would need to bring in additional ships. This means, finding more allies, more production sources, or funding to hire mercinaries." She explained, waiting to see what Alex would come up with.

"We've got about 20 more broadswords on station at 188604, as well as 25 don quixote class freespacer ships. Each of those is about 20 times as gun heavy as a broadsword, with as many as 240 sets of 3 laser turrets mounted externally, as well as 360 containers of 12 nuclear torpedoes. These are our heaviest hitting ships, and their ECM systems should make the torpedoes almost impossible to intercept with contemporary systems. They're more or less our battlecruisers."

"The Elysians brought more than 100 ships, all of which were more than 10 times the size of your broadswords. My assessment is that this by itself will not be enough to repulse an NMX attack. From what I have seen so fair the bulk of their fleet is remaining together and sweeping planets one at a time.

This means that they will eventually reach B7R regardless of what we do." Keller explained, "And when they are finished there, they will certainly move for your 188604. What else can you call upon?"

"I'll have to bring in our reserves then. We've got about a thousand drone gunships, each mounted with nuclear artillery turrets. As well as those, I'll commandeer the FSC's fleet of 1000 c5 laser droneships. That's it though. We're unable to maintain any more drone gunships in the 188604 system alone, so we'll have no more support."

Alex pulled up figures on the support they'd have, and displayed them on the display table of the CIC.

"Do we have any figures on the Mishuu forces?"

"The main group has 264 Megamishhu at last count. There are additional setup in scout groups, and we suspect they have additional ships. So far we have not seen any craft in the capital weight-class outside of outddated craft from the last war which they had been sending towards the Elysians mostly as scouts.

I suspect they have additional large ships supporting their attacks. They also must have additional large supporting ships which we have been unable to locate." Keller explained, "1000 of your c5 drones should be sufficent. However, the Elysians thought the same thing with their fleet and the NMX were able to surprise them. I would prefer to repair my ship, and continue to monitor the NMX advance until we have a better understanding of their numbers and deployment." Keller explained

"Understood. How long has it been since you last were able to get a figure on that force? Do you have any information on the scout groups?"

"It has been 76 hours since last contact. We have lost the last of our support craft and probes so we have been unable to gather additional data since then. I do remember that your drones were still harassing the main force. They would have more up to date information than the Itano would." Keller replied.

Alex used his mindware to send a request to the Broadsword for up to date information to share with the Itano. He expected there would be at least twice that number if the mishuu had forces in reserve for defense.

Vier would send Alex a quick update. There were 290 Megamishhu currently in their main fleet. The C5 drones that Vier still had contributed another 40 Megamishhu kills, however they were replacing their numbers.

Vier seemed certain that these were not new ships, and that they were being pulled from a reserver somewhere.

Alex sent a message to Vier, asking her to estimate where the NMX reserve was, and to train the telescopes of the light year array and any active C5c drones that he had brought to find the Itano onto that location.

Vier would respond with a short text message, she did not know where the remaining NMX ships were, but she did know the location of a few scout groups that she had been harassing with her own drones. Her theory was that the NMX were pulling scout units away to keep up the size of their main force.

Alex frowned for a moment. "It seems the NMX are drawing units from somewhere to replace those we destroy. Defending B7R is well and good for now, but eventually we'll have to locate the reserves of this splinter group and take them out. If we can't manage that, everyone in both of our star systems is as good as dead or enslaved."

"Unless your ships are avalible now, we are unable to make any moves against those other ships or the main force." Keller said, "At best we could use your ships here to harass them."

"All the ships should be able to arrive within the day." Alex responded. "Do you want to mount a defense before we go on the offensive?"

"We should attack first," She said, "They are keeping their main force together. It should be easy for us to locate and we will have the advantage if we ambush them as they are leaving their current targets."

"Do you happen to know what their current target is?" Alex asked?

Before Alex was finished, Vier would ping him, showing him the location of the main NMX fleet that her remaining drones were harassing.

Alex displayed the information, and then requested that Vier show the projected course of the fleet. Meanwhile, he pulled up specifications on the Don Quixote class' ECM suite, the Entropy's Shroud , and began to develop a plan around its use.

 

[Alex Hart]

ON> The Itano

Vier didn't look happy.

She had nearly 400 new drones to use, each with the bare minimum amount of reaction mass to get them out of orbit and take them to a combat area.

Vier also tended to be straight to the point. And she wouldn't let Alex wait long in regards to why she was upset.

"Uso has asked, that rather than handle this operation myself, I allow you to set the parameters for this engagement." She explained.

Keller was standing on the other side of the projection table. The Itano itself was still in poor shape. Anything non-essental was simply left as-is. Last-second welding and repurposed armor plates had been used to path holes in the hull and a new shipment of missiles had just been loaded. The ship was functional, if only just.

"Did she also request that you delay repairs to the Itano?" Keller asked, a bit of edge in her voice.

"You can work with him, or you can work with me. I assure you that you have no chance of survival without my ships here."

The two women seemed locked in a staring contest at this point.

"Vier" Alex interjected, "I'd like to point out that unless YOU cooperate with Keller, we don't have a chance of stopping them before they get to 188604. Keller has expertise that we need to make this work, just like we need your cooperation to help coordinate the drone fleet."

Alex pulled up a diagram of a network of sensor drones that the Don Quixote class ships would lay out. "First thing's first, we'll put up a field of ECM and spatial distortions with the Don Quixotes which should make it hard for any type of enemy fire to get through. This network of drones will allow us to target through the distortion and ECM while the enemy can't target us. This will also jam enemy communications."

Alex then pulled up a formation of phantasm gunships, 40 to each Don-Quixote. "The drone gunships will provide defense for the larger Don-Quixote class ships. These ships will be split into five groups, five Don-Quixotes and 200 Phantasm gunships per group. I'll designate this as command group one."

Alex then pulled the rest of the availible forces, 50 broadswords, the 400 C5 drones, and the Itano into a spherical formation. "This will be our second group, and will consist of our long range laser drones as well as our ships with higher crew requirements. this will allow us to keep as many people as possible at the rear of the fight."

"When the Mishuu are close enough to where we want them, we'll have the Don-Quixotes activate their gravity manipulators and keep FTL from being used. They'll launch their salvoes of missiles, about 4320 nuclear missles each, before pulling the enemy in. The missiles will remain ready to burn towards their targets as soon as they can aquire them. Once the enemy is intredicted, we'll activate the ECM and spatial distortion fields, and the missiles will burn in. The combination of the number of missiles and the ECM should make it incredibly hard to intercept effectively."

"If there's anything left after that, the Don-Quixote classes will move to the front lines with their drone escorts, and use their batteries of laser turrets to eliminate what's left with long range support from the Itano, the broadsword fleet and the C5 drones."

"That's my plan so far. Anyone have any revisions to make?"

"A large formation will be vulnerable to Megamishhu main-weapon fire. The NMX have also shown themselves to be apt at the use of thermal imagers for cutting through ECM at weapons range so I would not rely on the distortion or ECM technology to provide much of a benifit.

I would prefer to use the main force to harass the NMX, and get them to commit a large portion of their fleet to appearing in an FTL capable zone. We could then use sensor data from our ships in the area to launch a large scale leap-frog attack with the drones. FTL them in close to their NMX targets and destroy them.

A high attrition rate is expected here, both for the drones and the NMX. However this preserves the crewed ships."

"Distortions in space will both bend megamishuu main weapon fire around the protected ships, as well as distort any thermal signatures they give off."

"Which man not be effective against area of effect weapons. The ECM will also have deminished effects against faster-moving weapons such as anything using directed energy. The NMX also have a tendency to use missiles and small attack craft which can close distance." Vier stated. Not putting much confidence in the ECM capabilities of the fleet.

"The Itano has enough weapons to screen for the fleet. At least for the initial section of combat. We should consider using Alex's nuclear-missiles for fleet defense as well." Keller suggested. "I am not a fan of a direct fight, but in this instance it may be unavoidable. How many times can you use your leap-frog attack before they adapt their own tactics?"

"The NMX have a historically poor rate of adaption to my combat methodologies. I do not see much benifit in including the organic crews of the ships in the tactical and strategic portions of combat.

I will follow Alex's direction here, however my plan will result in a more favorable outcome."

"Why don't we use a combination of all of our strategies." Alex suggested. "We'll start with some leapfrog tactics, luring the NMX into committing their forces, whereupon we take advantage of their used up FTL drives by using drones ramming into them at FTL speeds."

"Once we whittle them down, we can draw them into a straight fight with the main fleet using the Itano's missiles and the Nuclear missiles to provide screening and hem the movements of the enemy in."

"We do not need to ram them at FTL speeds. The C5's main weapon at close range is enough to ensure a kill. Usually reprisal fire is enough to destroy the drone, however the attrition rate is slightly more favorable." Vier explained.

Keller, meanwhile, watched intently as Vier and Alex discussed strategy... adding, "We will still need to draw their attention."

"How do you propose we do that?" Alex asked.

"We could use Vier's drones, a small group of them, to draw in the NMX force." Keller suggested

"Alright, let's get ready." Alex told Vier and Keller, "Vier, prepare a small group of drones to draw in the NMX forces and then jump in the rest of the C5s to burn through the shields of as many ships as you can manage before they get destroyed. I want to make this fight as quick as possible once we start fighting with manned vessels. Keller, get the fleet ready for a fight while I set up the sensor drone network."


----



A few hours later>

"The first drone group has 60% losses at this point. They are withdrawing towards our kill-box." Vier said, the display in the CIC was showing the Allied formation, along with the 200 C5 drones that were being held back. "The Megamishhu should be arriving shortly."

Alex instructed the 1000 phantasm gunships, each armed with 2 nuclear artillery turrets, to take the front lines, followed by the 25 Don Quixote class ships, each bristling with 720 laser turrets. The Don Quixotes had laid out their sensor drones and started the spatial distortion and ECM.

108000 nuclear missiles waited in the wings for the unsuspecting Mishuu ships, and C5 drones as well as broadswords prepared their long range weapons. The combination of ECM, spatial distortion and the overwhelming number of missiles was prepared to make quick work of any enemies that FTLed into the killbox.

The C5 drones would arrive first, fanning out in expectation of the NMX's arrival.

Only a minute later, the Megamishhu arrived, though there were only about 2 dozen, a far cry from the full force they had available to them. It would not take very long for them to realize the situation they were in, the Megamishhu poiting themselves towards the main group, then taking turns firing their main cannons. The short range of the weapon wouldn't reach the combined fleet, but the overlapping area would destroy the incoming projectiles and missiles that tried to come at them head on. Swarms of battlepods would start deploying around the sides, focusing their point defensive fire on anything coming at them.

The missiles juked and doged, flown by the tactical savant constructs that inhabited them, as the distorted space sent point defense fire spinning wildy away from its intended target. Missile after missile impacted, EMPs wracking the megamishuu before the peeling away to allow damage to be assesed for a split second. 800 anti starship grade nuclear missiles had been expended.

The area that the smaller NMX force was in was blankted with radiation, a series of nukes going off like firecrackers, sharp, white, flashes of light marking the location where the NMX fleet had been. The hulls of the ship flash-heated to a temperature that boiled the creature inside.

The NMX had been losing ships to the Leap-frog strikes for a while, and they had started to learn not to commit their full force until after they knew where they were going... The location of the combined fleet had already been relayed to their main force.

By the time the first group had been destroyed, the second began to arrive. The remaining hundreds of NMX appeared, forming two groups on either side of the main force, quickly closing the distance at full speed, battlepods deploying in the thousands, as the C5 ships around the edges of the force began firing, both sides quickly starting to influct losses, with overlapping main-weapon fire from the NMX quickly eating into the C5's numbers.

The phantasm gunships began blanketing the battlepods with nuclear artillery rounds, opening holes in the battle lines that missiles poured through, dodging past the less intelligent battlepods, and wave upon wave of missiles began to strike the NMX fleet.

Then the 25 Don Quixote class ships began to open fire. Each of the 25 ships mounted 720 quad laser cannons, which spat deadly light at the Mishuu ships, blanketing the surrounding area in red death, sweeping across hordes of battlepods and the mishuu fleet, whose shields were disabled by the EMPs of the nuclear missiles. 10000 nuclear missiles had now been expended.

The NMX battle groups would begin overlapping main-weapon fire, the invisible beam quietly removing objects in a 45 degree arc infront of the craft. Each megamishhu timing their blast so that it would cover the front and sides of their formations while not allowing enough time for physical projectiles to pass through. Missiles, artillery shells, and gunships that strayed to close would all end up just vanishing. The C5 drones stationed around the Don Quixotes would also open fire. The NMX had jumped in neaer the drones, with many of them being destroyed in the first few instances by the NMX's smaller weapons. Many more would only get a few seconds of weapons fire off before being destroyed by the combined NMX fire.

The Larger Don Quixotes would fair about as well, though with far more lasers they would be able to eat away at larger numbers of NMX battlepods. The entire engagement between the large grouping of ships would last no more than 20 seconds, the massive amount of firepower being thrown around would light up the void, the glowing-hot wreckage making the space too bright for the naked eye.

"Report,"

Keller's command crew were already running the numbers, and it didn't take them long to respond. One of the officers shouting out,

"It looks like around 56% of the gunships remain. 35 C5 type drones. The Itano is undamaged."

The Don Quixote class ships were glowing hot from the plasma fire that had hit them. The damaged sustained would leave them out of the fight, with both fleets having nearly been wiped out.

"And our opponents?"

"Mostly Battlepods ma'am. The Megamisshu seem to be inoperable."

"That accounts for the number of NMX craft we encountered previously." Vier stated. "That should be all of them."

Alex turned to Keller and Vier. "Keller, see if you can raise the people on the Don Quixote class ships. There ought to be one or two people on each ship. Vier, Take the remaining phantasm gunships and mop up the battlepods."

Keller nodded, "Deploy point defense drones, get them in close and check for survivors if possible. Reposition the Itano, and take us away from the combat area in case a third wave approaches."

Vier, meanwhile, would start the mop up operation, bringing the Gunships to stay at maximum range, showering the battlepods with nukes from a safe distance. "I removed the crew from the Don Quixotes. The only manned ship is the Itano and your Skyguard's broadswords. There was no need for crew onboard our main combat ships."

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness... No one on our side was hurt."

"As I said, there is little point in having humans in..."

Vier was cut off by one of the Itano's officers,

"INCOMING. 3 SECONDS!"

They didn't need to give instructions. They were already manuvering the Itano out of the way. For a brief moment the display was showing a much larger NMX... easily several times the size of the Megamishhu, it would phase in for just a moment, before firing a volley directly at the Itano... its weapons not aiming to cause maximum damage to the fleet... but instead just to take down the lead ship.

Alex turned to Keller. "FTL us away from that volley!" He then turned to Vier. "I want every drone we have to jump into that ship. The FTL exclusion zone should be gone since the Don Quixote class ships are destroyed."

The display screen would flash a bright white for just a moment, as four white hot beams grazed right by the Itano, one deflecting off the ship's shields and briefly overloading the sensor systems on that side of the ship.

Moments later the NMX ship would dissapear, followed by the Itano making its FTL jump, then the remaining C5 drones making theirs.

It would be another few moments before the data from the last few jumps trickled in. The display showing the C5 craft arranged in a cubical grid, trying to impact their target... though it seemed they had been unable to strike the Giggamishhu. There had been no indication it had jumped away... it appeared to have just vanished.

Vier was quick to fill everyone in,

"It likely has become completely insubstantial. Much like the ghost-type craft we have seen before." She explained. Keller was quick to add.

"You should leave your drones in the area and continue to search." She said, eager to keep Vier's equipment away from B7R.

Alex quickly pointed out the weakness of a phasing craft. "It'll be vulnerable to energy weapons and EMPs while it's phasing. Form the fleet up with CDDs charged. If it comes back for us, I want to meet it with a barrage of nuclear artillery and missiles. EMPs from those should play havoc with it."

"We can..." Keller was cut off before she could finish, Vier speaking over her.

"We have a transmission from Uso. She is wondering...." Vier had an unassailable poker face... though it was hard not to show a twinge of regret at having to parrot Uso's words, "where you at?"

Alex did a double take. "Come again?"

Vier would press a few buttons, bringing up Uso's voice over the comms.

"ALEEEEEX!" Uso shouted, "You done out there? I need you back again. We got a.... you're around a bunch of people right? We got a thing. Needs your attention."

"Yes. I am." Alex said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What's going on?"

"Secret stuff. Come on, don't air our dirty laundry infront of your girlfriends. This needs to be done face to face and it needs to be done now. I'm sure Vier can mop-up whatever you're working on right this instance. This is going to be more important."

Alex connected his mindware into the call, and walked away from everyone else for a moment.

"Alright, what's up?"

"IN PERSON!" Uso shouted, "I used to make a living spying on people like you who just turn on whatever gizmo of the day does this kind of stuff. You'll need your crew and gear anyways. Lets go!"