《Wandering Immortals》 Chap 1. Asteroids Ahoy Lore/info dump coming soon including ship classification info, alien species info, and possible crew bios. Drifting somewhere in deep space¡­ Coordinates Unknown¡­ Date Unknown¡­ ¡°Warning, Warning, Imminent collision Detected. Booting AI... ¡° Loading... Error. Re-attempting boot sequence Error. Re-attempting boot sequence Error. Activating Failsafe 42 Loading backup AI system Loading... Complete. "This is the AI Ghost, activating Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) and engaging in evasive maneuvers." "Evasive maneuvers successful, Beginning deep scan on Main AI unit..." ¡°Scan complete. Damage is repairable but unable to run ship while running repairs¡­¡± ¡°Running checks on Bridge tech; hologram capabilities, Quantum Mechanical Computer (QMC), Quantum Communication Array (QCA), View screens, and DJ booth, all functional¡± ¡°Hrmmmm, awakening the command crew is the most viable option; I wonder why the main shipboard AI failed. Oh well, better check on the status of the pods¡­¡± ... ... ... Ssshhiittt. ¡°This is not good.¡± ¡°Awakening command crew to give report¡± Time since last log ... unknown Time since last report ... unknown Current Interstellar Date ... Unknown "This is gonna be one shitty-ass report" ¡°Thawing out command crew. Success.¡± ¡°Command crew pods draining.¡± "Greetings command crew, this is Ghost. We have a bit of a situation on the bridge." "Requesting Defense captain Wolfe, Assault captain Scarr, QCA Officer Bryan, and First mate Frank on command deck ASAP." 10 Minutes Later Ghost appears on the holotable, turns to the men and says, ¡°Good. You guys are here. We have a situation," "What-the-hell did you wake us up for Ghost? And where is Luna?" Bryan says to Ghost. "Check that. An even better question is where the hell is the Captain?" retorts Frank. Ghost looks at the assembled crewmembers and said; "Well, that¡¯s the problem. I don''t know where the captain is, and Luna was somehow damaged." "..." Wolfe "Dun-dun-duuun" Bryan "..." Scarr Frank grumbles; "Please be fucking with me Ghost. I haven¡¯t even had any coffee I don''t need to deal with this just yet." Ghost looks at the crew, "That is why I woke you guys from Hibernation; I was hoping you might know what happened. Anyways, I have to give you my report on the situation. Captain Bonaventure is missing, and I was unable to find any sign of him on the ship after doing a thorough search. This leads me to the next issue, of the main shipboard AI Luna. Most of the damage was done to her operating systems and short-term memory banks, which means I have no information as to what happened to the captain before the memory shortage. However the failsafe programs were still running, which is how I was able to be booted up fast enough to redirect the ship. I also have some even better news. It was failsafe 42 which means we almost hit a stray Asteroid." "Like that would have done anything to this ship" Scoffs Scarr. Ghost responds; "Be that as it may, for some reason the ship¡¯s scanners are picking up some sort of small vessel, and due to the estimated speed, it is presumably an Aphrodite class headed this way, with an Ares class Heavy destroyer not far behind" "Isn''t it common for an envoy to have an escort?" Frank asks. Ghost continues. "Yes, however the Aphrodite is traveling too close to that asteroid for comfort and the Ares seems to be searching for something" "HAHAHAHA who in their right mind would try to shoot down an Envoys ship? Everyone knows that they are primarily used for diplomatic missions, anyone who would do so..." Bryan trails off. "Is either trying to start a war, take a diplomat hostage, or kill somebody" Frank finishes. Wolfe states; "But aggression against an envoy is an unforgivable offense under the Spiral Arm Treaty" Frank turns to Wolfe and says; "How do we know that the Ares is aggressive, and who knows how long we have been under. Ghost plainly told us the short term banks were corrupted, also how do we know that it is pursuing the Aphrodite?" Ghost interrupts any further questioning by saying to Frank; "Both ships are closing in, requesting orders from First Mate Frank Vergil in accordance to ships regulations due to the captain being missing." "Brew me some coffee for starters, then awaken the rest of the crew, fire up the scanning ECM and ready the ship for combat. If it is only a single Ares go to combat level 3. Wolfe, I need you to ready yourself for combat along with Scarr. No Nanosuits; - Hard Light armor only. Bryan, man the Communication circuit, ready the system to open up lines to both ships" "Aye, Aye" the three others respond. "Yo, Frank. What should we have the ship¡¯s name be when I call them, for safeties sake?" Bryan queries. Frank turns to Bryan and tells him; "Go with Faunastar for this one, we haven¡¯t used it in a while" "Not since that scrap with the Alfar Dominion off of Orion" Bryan Frank sighs, and starts rubbing his temples while saying; ¡°Please don¡¯t remind me of that incident, you know how much I hated dealing with those freaks" "Hahahaaha" Bryan starts laughing maniacally at his friends¡¯ discomfort. 5 minutes later "Hey Frank that Ares is still not responding to our hails" Bryan "Then fuck them, we gave them 3 chances. Each time they broke the circuit connection. Try the envoy instead. Maybe they have some actual manners" Frank ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ Henry POV We were 17 days out from the Dradarian Empire''s capitol of Sindar, Having left in the middle of the night in order to save the life of the Theriocephian Princess, Samantha Therioceph. Well, on second thought it wasn¡¯t that dramatic of an exit, we were already packed and ready to go. The third princess of the Theriocephian kingdom was sent to Sindar as an envoy of peace, since she has very little power being the third princess. She was merely a pawn to her father, the king of Therioceph. The Emperor of Dradar knew this and barely paid any attention to her. This is where all of our troubles began. While we were there the Crown Prince of the Dradar, Justinian Machiavelli, took a fancy to the princess. Normally one would say good for her, however the crown prince is a low life degenerate who tortures women for his own amusement. There was not a chance that I, a member of the royal guard, who watched over her from her birth and was forsworn to her service, would allow such a fate to befall my princess. Two months past and it seemed like the prince had finally stopped his advances when I uncovered a plot in which the Crown Prince planned to kidnap and forcefully wed the princess so, in secret, after being cast aside by our own kingdom as nothing more than a literal sacrificial pawn, we decided to flee Dradar. We headed towards the outer systems where we could take refuge amongst the Taoists Oligarchy, who always took a neutral stance. Besides, some people owe me favors there and could keep us protected for a time until we will be safe at home. Anyways, now we are fleeing in our Aphrodite-class cruiser the Neuri from what was once multiple destroyers, and is now only one, the prince''s personal Ares-class heavy destroyer Imoogi. Thank the founders that we were able to find that stray asteroid before the other destroyers did, three Apollo¡¯s, and two Ares have been wiped out. All because our scanners were of a better quality and our ship had the edge on maneuverability, but now we have the worst and most persistent of the lot. A Machiavellians¡¯ personal ship. This is where shit is going to get hairy. Wait, the hell is that? "Comm. - Sergeant, open the line, where are we being contacted from? It is not the Ares is it?" "No Cap''n Henry" the Comm.-Sgt replies. "Can you get a fix on where the signal is coming from?" "We are working on it Cap''n but we can''t seem to trace it or scan it," the Comm.-Sgt frantically says. "Mr. Henry, it would not hurt us if we were to answer the communication circuit, would it?¡± the princess asks. "Princess what are you doing on the bridge? It is not safe here! What if something were to happen and you were to get injured?¡± "Mr. Henry, nothing will hurt me as much as to be captured by that rapscallion of a prince!!! Besides, with you here, who would dare hurt me on my ship?" Samantha points out. "Very well princess, as you wish. However I must insist that you return to your quarters" Samantha turns to me and says; "Very well, Mr. H, I will be awaiting for information about this invisible vessel" I dutifully reply, "As you command, my lady" Thank the founders, she scared me shitless. Bloody royalty and their stealth skills! Soundless walking my ass, I did not even notice her presence until she spoke. I am sure if she were to put her mind to it, then not even that prince and all of his men would be able to catch her. Thankfully, she is sensitive to the crews¡¯ pride as her guards and rarely flaunts her abilities; but when she does, it is to keep us on our toes. "Let us hope this ship is a possible ally and not an enemy, Sgt, answer the Comm. Circuit. Let see what this invisible ship desires" "Unidentified Vessel this is the Theriocephian kingdom''s Aphrodite class envoy cruiser Neuri, what is your intent in hailing us, and where is your ship?" Comm.-Sgt "Oh, Thank god you finally answered, I was getting bored to tears. Anyways, this is the Hermes class Faunastar, unaffiliated; we are wondering what are you doing with an Ares-class cruiser trailing you? Also if you were to look up to the top left of your physical viewport you would see our ships signal lights" Bryan "You did not answer our question, Faunastar; we wanted to know what your intent is¡± Comm.-Sgt "Our intent is merely curiosity, that asteroid almost hit us and then we scanned two ships approaching right in its wake" Bryan "Give us a moment to verify something" Comm.-Sgt "Roger, dodger" Bryan The Comm.-Sgt turns to me and asks; "What do you think Cap''n?" "I don¡¯t think they are enemies if that is what you were asking, the man they had on the comm.¡®s looked Theriocephian" Moreover, just because the king is not appreciative of his family doesn¡¯t mean that the public isn''t. Even if they are unaffiliated, there should still be some vestiges of patriotism in them. "It won¡¯t hurt to at least ask for help first Comm.-Sgt, before we try to pull the royalty card" "Aye Cap''n, hailing them on the comm. circuit" Comm.-Sgt "Faunastar, this is Neuri; we are being trailed by that ship with ill will and are requesting assistance. Over" Comm.-Sgt The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "Really man, Friggin Really? First you make us wait a few minutes before you answered the comm., then you didn''t even say please. It is normally polite mannerism to say please and thank you while asking someone to stick their necks out for you" Bryan "....." Comm.-Sgt "....." Henry I realized that we are fucked. I managed to piss-off the only other ship for Light-years, I am going to die. The princess is probably going to die, hell that ship will probably be thrown in order to remove any and all witnesses. This is not my day... "This is the third Princess of the Theriocephian Kingdom. Requesting aid and protection from the Faunastar under the interstellar code of Bushido. Oh, and also, Pretty please?" "Oy, Missy you''re pretty good. Even if you are not a princess, you have the look and behavior of one. No offense but our shipboard AI is down so we have no way of verifying what you said" Bryan "I understand, but if you would please help us, and I will explain the details later" Samantha replies. "Very well, Ma''am, this is the acting Cap¡¯n of the Faunastar. We will assist you. However if we find out you are lying, then you and your crew will regret it" Frank "Understood, Cap''n, and thank you," the Princess says. "I am not the Cap¡¯n; I am the acting Cap¡¯n and prepare to be pulled into our ship¡¯s cargo and docking bay. ETA 5 minutes" Frank "Thank you sir, and we will see you then" Samantha "Comm.-Sgt, cut the line, I will retire to my quarters until we have docked. Let¡¯s hope that this explorer-class can outrun a destroyer" Samantha "Aye, Miss" Comm.-Sgt I turn to the princess and ask; "What makes you think we can trust them Ma¡¯ Lady?" The princess glances at me, and then back at our ships sensor arrays before saying "His reaction seemed genuine when we mentioned bushido. Besides, didn¡¯t you notice how much avian he had in him? I doubt that he would have turned down royalty of his own kind" "Be that as it is, he claimed to be unaffiliated," I say "Which means they won¡¯t side with the Dradarians over us" "How do you know that he was not lying about his affiliation or even the type of their ship? I have never seen cloaking tech like that before" "You can call it women¡¯s intuition. Besides, if their tech is that good, it is all the more reason we need to get them onto our side as opposed to the alternative" "I wonder what they meant by AI though; could it have been one with the truth seer skill?" "We will find out in due course, but now, I must prepare myself to meet these men" As she walks off the deck, I cannot help but think, thank the founders that this did not go worse. Nevertheless, what the heck was the princess thinking? What good will a single explorer class be able to do for us? I guess we will have to wait for the docking to find out. *___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ "Frank, this is Ghost, the crew is awake from hibernation and is assuming battle stations for combat. Status Level 3" Frank turns to the ships communication array, presses some buttons, and then says; "Good, Wolfe and Scarr, what is your sit-rep?" "This is Wolfe; we are ready and are on standby in the cargo bay" "Good. We should be picking up a princess in a few" "Aye, aye" Wolfe + Scarr Ghost appears on the holotable, looks at frank and then asks; "First mate, are you sure it is a good idea to piss of an Ares-class first thing after awakening from hibernation?" "Whether it is or isn¡¯t, we will soon find out" ¡°I was not talking to you Bryan; it is the First mates¡¯ call¡± Frank ignores the two of them, walks over to the Comm. Array and says; "All hands prepare to welcome aboard a self-proclaimed princess and her retinue" "Ghost, as soon as we get them on board get, us out of here, and as far away as possible. Then you can begin repairs on Luna" "Aye Aye. Also, I would like to request to awaken AI Fragment Solomon so that he may assist me with the repairs on the memory banks as I repair Luna''s core OS" Frank turns back to Ghost and says; "Wait until we manage to get to a relatively safe distance first, and also what is the ships status at the moment?" "The ship¡¯s hull integrity is at 97%. There is just some slight battering on the outer armor, and most of the major weapons linked to Luna are going to be down until we get her back online" Frank questions; "What weapons are available, which weapons are down, and how does the Bridge tech look?" "All manual weapons including the Main Turrets, Rocket pods, Plasma Cannons, Smaller Rail Guns, Laser Interceptors, Grappling Hooks, and Torpedo Bays, are operational, with Luna down we won¡¯t be able to use the BFWG, Tesla cannons, Main Rail Guns, Particle Disruptors, SSWG, Beamer, and the Rocky Road. Also without her we won¡¯t be able to make a jump since she is the only one with proper access to the required processing power on the ships main QMC capable of calculating where we are with the galaxial coordinates and making a decent jump." Frank then continues his questioning; "What of the Stealth Field Generator, the Repulser Fields, Hard-Light Shields, Energy Fields, Radiation Converters, Plasma Generators, Anti Matter Reactors and Dark Matter Drives?" Ghost takes a moment to check, then states "All other systems are fully functioning Stealth fields were automatically activated upon scanning the approaching ships as part of the ECM''s" Frank turns and starts walking off the bridge while turning his head back and saying; "Good. I will head down to the Docking bay in order to assist in welcoming the princess, Bryan, you take the Bridge, please make sure we don¡¯t crash" "Aye, Aye skipper, and also, dibs" Franks stops walking, turns to Bryan and says with an incredulous voice; "What??" "I call first crack on wooing the princess, so, dibs" "You can¡¯t call dibs¡¯ on a girl" "I just did" "You''re fucked-up" "I know, but a dude has got to try" Ghost interrupts the two and says; "Look ladies, this isn¡¯t an ice cream social, besides you know the rule, no wooing her unless she is interested" "Haggghhh. Do I have to?" "YES" Ghost & Frank say in unison "Besides she looks to be like some sort of cat-lady" Ghost "You mean like a puma?" Frank "We will see" Bryan Frank turns and starts walking off the bridge again saying; "Ya know what, I don¡¯t have time to waste with this I am going down to meet her. You can sit here and argue with the AI about it" Frank "Whatever ya say Frank" Bryan Once frank is out of earshot, Bryan turns to Ghost and says; "So what do you think of her, ghost?" "Please don¡¯t talk to me; I have to start readying the ship¡¯s defensive measures" "Sigghhh. Whatever you say" "Why did you say sigh out loud? You know what? Forget it I have stuff to do" As they both go back to work Bryan starts mumbling to himself, "Hrmm, I wonder what cup size she is??" Scarr + Wolfe @ Armory "So, we get to meet a princess" Scarr "Yep" Wolfe "Didn¡¯t you have a princess for a girlfriend once?" "Yep" "Wasn''t her name Miranda?" "Nope" Scarr continues his questioning; "What was it then?" Wolfe growls and says; "Ya know man, I would prefer to not remember that cheating whore if you don¡¯t mind" "OOOhhhhh, so it was that one.... Sorry I forgot about it" "Ya know what? How about we play the quiet game while we armor up?" "Sounds good to me" "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe Scarr turns to Wolfe and asks; "So what is the armor form you are going to use with the hard light armor?" Wolfe snaps and says; "Don¡¯t fucking talk to me, I have had no freaking caffeine in who knows in how long and am still really damn grouchy after waking up" "So, Abyssal?" "Hrrgggghhh. Yes, I am going with the fucking abyssal" "Cool. I am going Norse for now, till I recalibrate my suit" "..." Wolfe Scarr+ Wolfe @ docking bay Wolfe turns to Scarr and says; "Ya know what? How about we play the quiet game till Frank gets here?" "Sounds good to me" Scarr replied "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe Scarr looks at Wolfe and says; "So, Dibs on the princess" "NO. You can¡¯t call freaking dibs on a girl" "Yes you can, and I just did" "That is wrong on some many different levels" "So, quite game again?" "Yep" "Starting?" "Right bloody now" Wolfe growled. "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "..." Scarr "..." Wolfe "Regardless, Dibs" "..." Wolfe Wolfe turns to him and says; "No, you know the rules. Only if she is interested" "Grhagh. Must I really??" "Yes, besides, I imagine if we are going by Dibs, Bryan probably already would have called her." "True that man. Shit. Well, I guess we will see if she is interested later" "Yep" Wolfe Frank walks into the Bay and says "Oy, you two fag bags man-up they will be here in less than a minute activate your Hard-Light armor suits, and ready your weapons. We have to make a show of force to make sure that we are not to be trifled with" ¡°That is going to be hard with only 3 dudes,¡± Wolfe points out. "Shouldn¡¯t we have had the defense crew here in nanotech in order to make a true show of force?" Scarr says. Frank turns to Scarr and says; "Two reasons why we didn¡¯t; 1. We don¡¯t want to scare them to death with a squad of 7-foot tall lycanthropes wearing powered nanotech covered in hard light 2. Those guys smell like wet dog after coming out of hibernation, and need to shower before anything else" Frank "True that" Scarr & Wolfe "Oh yeah, Scarr, by the way, Bryan already called dibs" "......." Scarr Wolfe visually looking relieved says; "Finally, thanks Frank for shutting him up about that. It was annoying as hell." ¡°At least tell me what sort of person she is¡± Scarr ¡°She looks kind of like a puma¡± Frank ¡°Hrmmm¡± Scarr "Oh and once she is aboard, Wolfe, you can head over to the cafeteria there is some fresh coffee waiting" Frank "Thank you Jesus" "No Prob" "Here they come" Info dump/ background info Poss. Spoilers ahead, (I am not sure what exactly would count so fingers crossed) Crew of the Thanatos class Knightstalker with the animal that their genes have been spliced with; cs stands for call sign Spoiler : Wolfe Euryonous (cs Sober), Wolf Agent Bryan Arkanis (cs Ladies Man), Eagle Frank Vergil (cs Speedy), Hare Capt. Robert Bonaventure (cs Quantum), Badger Scarr Fury (cs Brewmeister), Bear Maxx Sloth (cs Mustang), hedgehog Azieruth Metreon (cs Breaker), ferret Seph Leather (cs Techno), Squirrel Doc Dende (cs White Mage), panda Various AI¡¯s Character bios will come out in a few chapters, after I figure a couple of things out with my friends whom some of the characters are based off of Other char¡¯s so far Samantha Therioceph; Third princess of the Theriocephian kingdom Capt. Henry Morgan Princess Samantha¡¯s main body guard, been guarding her since the day she was born where he pledged his life in her service Theriocephian Emperor; old codger who is not beyond using his children as tool in his political ploys (up for suggestions) Dradar Machiavelli emperor of the Dradarians, expansionist in nature, believes Dradarians are the superior race and that all others must submit or be destroyed Justinian Machiavelli; Slaver, sick demented and corrupted, spoiled rich kid was molded into a neo Alfar dominionist. believes that his brothers should not get the throne, prone to brainwashing people in order to gain support for his faction Spoiler : Capt. Yessicanda Brainwashed ship captain who was a brilliant tactician and leader. Expert in interstellar guerilla warfare poss. new crewmate? Rigor, callsign Mortis Alien hallucenigenic hive mind created by the alfar Drakon as an anti immortal weapon Locations Sindar, capital of the Dradarian empire Naraku 4 old base Aliens species Spoiler : Fallen Alfar Drakon Empire Elves and European style dragon Henraila Giant metal space squids Aoge Phantasms that posses people in order to travel through space Alfar Dominion Dark space elves slavers and raiders, nomads in nature Current Dradarians Empire Half Dragon Half Elves Therioceph Kingdom Demi Humans Biomechatronic Federation Sentient Steam punk Cyborgs ,+ Androids (Humanesque Robots) Magikin Meritocracy Mutated animalistic creatures that achieved supernatural powers through cosmic radiation Aetherium Geniocracy Gnomes, Undines, Sylphs, Salamanders Humanoid democratic republic elves, dwarves, humans, etc.. Tech and robotics oriented Insectoid Taoist Oligarchy Insectoid peaceful Zen masters Ship Name KnightStalker (Thanatos class) alias''s Spoiler : Ragnarok Faunastar Dreadwalker AI Luna Main AI, only one able to utilize the full capability of the ships quantum computer, array, and weaponry, also has split personalities Ghost (Backup) Solomon (Data repair/recovery) Spoiler : Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!Scarlet (Information manipulation) Duckey Dufrane (Medical officer, anatomical specialist) More likely than not there will be a few others especially with the way that I am thinking of setting up the background story for how they originated Ship classifications Combat Spoiler : Artemis Long range orbital defense systems Hestia Short range Orbital Defense system Keres Fighter Interceptor Moirai Fighter Bomber Charon Bomber Interceptor Apollo Small destroyers/pursuit/patrol Ares Heavy Destroyers/Interceptors Poseidon Light Battle Cruisers Zeus Heavy Battle Cruiser Athena Flag ship of fleets, Carrier/communication ships Fighters, bombers, and interceptors are set up to rock paper scissors. I might go with different models for each as well based off of the Greek alphabet Fighter < Bomber < Interceptor < Fighter Non-Combat Spoiler : Aphrodite Small fast diplomatic envoy ships Demeter Transport ships Hades Mining ship Hephaestus Space station/repair dock Hermes Exploration Ship Dionysus Luxury Cruise ship/Space stations Hera Colonization ship Ship Naming Scheme Spoiler : Fallen Alfar Drakon Empire Mythological Dragons Dradarians empire Mythological Dragons Therioceph Kingdom Mythological Wolves/Werewolves Biomechatronic federation Mythological automatons/great scientific builders and thinkers Magikin meritocracy Hybrid mythological monsters Aetherium Geniocracy Alchemical References Humanoid democratic republic Roman mythological beings Insectoid Taoist Oligarchy Poisonous plants (Big fing warp gun) BFWG (I forgot what I was going to have but it sounded really cool when I thought of it) SSWG QCA Quantum comm. Array QMC Quantum mechanical computer ECM electro counter measures, different varieties Spoiler : Darth Vader is Luke''s'' father. The main back-story will be revealed in due time through the story, so if there are any questions, or if I messed up and need to fix some errors, plot holes, or anything really let me know. I might post the 2nd chapter in its current semi-edited state in a few days. I do have chap 3 edited though since I tried to write it in a more cohesive manner than the current chap 2. Whether I succeeded or not is yet to be seen. I also probably wont post chapter 3 until I manage to finish chapter 4 as a form of self motivation, and that way I can also make some small contextual changes without to much hassle. I probably wont be using stat boxes, and I will probably only use info boxes when the ship has a critical problem in the future. If you have any char ideas for enemies/future crew members/AI¡¯s then post in the comments or message me and I will consider them they will need to have basic abilities or skills that would help me flesh them out slightly. Char¡¯s and enemies will also need to have motivations for their actions however I would advise on holding off until I manage to get to at least chapter 5 so everyone can get a bit more of the back-story before deciding. Chap. 2 Fixing to Fight A/N Please go easy on the Grammar error notes. I rushed the edit so I could begin working on chapter 4 since this one was bugging me hardcore. Expect chapter 3 to be up in, fingers crossed, less than a week, and please bear with me. I am trying to figure out what writing style works best for me so it might randomly change or shift. Thank you for your patience. Wolfe looks towards the docking bay and growls "Here they come" Ghosts voice comes over the ships comm. Circuit ¡°Docking bay opening, Activating oxygen protective force field membrane, Watch yourself down there boys¡± ¡°Thanks for the heads up Ghost¡± Another voice comes over the comm. ¡°Yo, Frank, I am activating the artificial gravity and aligning the laser lock, they about to come aboard¡± ¡°Thank you Bryan, after you finish that, go ahead and come on down¡± ¡°Aye Aye Skipper¡± Henry POV The first thing I noticed as we approached the Faunastar was it¡¯s size, they definitely lied to us about its class, no way this huge thing was an explorer, not to mention I have never seen an explorer with cannons mounted on it¡¯s hull. The second thing I noticed was the princess sneaking on to the bridge, and as soon as she saw the size of their ship, she stopped in horror. I asked her; ¡°What is wrong princess?¡± ¡°That is to big to be a Zeus class Heavy Battle Cruiser, and it is differently shaped from an Athena¡± ¡°Princess, do you mean to tell me that we were communicating with a ghost ship?¡± ¡°No Cap¡¯n, not at all that ship is perfectly real, what I meant to say is that we have quite merely steeped into the realm beyond fantasy, we have tread into the realm of myths and Legends¡± ¡°Ma¡¯ Lady, do you mean to tell me, that this is a Pre-collapse battle ship?¡± ¡°I hope to the founders so, but at the same time I worry that this is what we fear, any ship that managed to survive the collapse is not normal Cap¡¯n, if anything we most worry about what is onboard more than the ship itself, Imagine the sheer number of Artifacts that must be onboard¡± ¡°I am trying Ma¡¯ lady but the very thought of that many artifacts scares me to no end¡± Whatever powers that be, I beg of you to if not my own life, to spare that of the princess, for she is young and has many moons ahead of her. Then we saw the cargo bay open in front of us, and I stifled a gasp that was about to leave my lips. Not only did this ship have Cannons, but it also had entire squads of bombers, Fighters, and even interceptors all lined up in rows fully armed ready to launch. This ship has enough squadrons in its bay to wipe out a small fleet on its lonesome, without the assistance of those cannons. Hopefully the people on board are nice enough not to kill any of us , then the ship passed through an oxygen retentive force field, which is rare on Artemis class carriers, let alone any other type of ship. We pass through the barrier and the bay doors close underneath us that I utter the phrase; ¡°Now we truly are in the belly of the beast, Death on the outside, and doom to us if we cross these men¡± ¡±True that may be Cap¡¯n, But in these people we would be truly blessed if they are to be allies, not even my father the king would cross them casually¡± ¡°Lets hope that there can be allies found here, or if not else, a ride to safety¡± ¡°Open the doors; Let us greet the men who would assist us¡± As the doors and we disembark, I, the princess, her two handmaidens, and the other four bodyguards all start walking towards four men, and then we all stop, all of the men are over 7 feet tall. With 2 of them cloaked in ancient defensive artifacts wielding massive weapons, the shorter one who looked to be a wolf demi-human was wielding a 6 foot long Great sword, The taller one who looked to be almost 9 feet tall and was a Bear Demi-Human was wielding a 10 foot tall Halberd. I who stood tall amongst the warriors of the Theriocephian Kingdom at 6¡¯6¡± was struck with awe at the sight of the massive men, and I realized that any force that could mobilize these men would be a fearsome force to be reckoned with. I also realize that the princess who stood at the height of 5¡¯8¡± must be terrified along with the rest of us, which is why she stopped walking. I look back to her and see her face has formed into the expressionless mask that she takes once she realizes she made a mistake. Form across the bay I hear them talking. Back to 3rd person POV Bryan comments; ¡°Yo Frank, they aren¡¯t moving any further in to the ship, what did we do?¡± Scarr adds in; ¡°Maybe it is the fact that we didn¡¯t bring out more dudes to welcome them properly?¡± ¡°I agree with that statement, it was a massive oversight on our part trying to welcome a princess with only 4 of us,¡± Wolfe agrees ¡°Oh well so much for our first impression, Do you guys think we could salvage this situation any?¡± Frank asks the others. ¡°You could reassure them that we just made a slight oversight and then apologize for it,¡± Bryan suggests. ¡°Oh yeah, lets go with that I like that idea¡± Scarr agrees Wolfe pipes in; ¡°You better yell to make sure that they hear you¡± Frank hollers across the bay to the frozen retinue; ¡°Greetings, Princess and entourage We greet you with open arms and we would like to apologize for our misconduct, with us only coming to greet you with 4 men, If we had known of your arrival, in advance then we would have rolled out the red carpet and ensured that you would have received a proper welcome¡± Henry grumbles and mutters under his breath ¡°Do they honestly expect us to believe that load of malarkey, who would believe that this isn¡¯t a welcome fit for royalty, 2 artifact Knights, the First mate, and the communications man. Wait, if this is their idea of a poor welcome¡­ Then what the heck must they have for the royal welcome, fuck me running that is truly horrifying¡­¡± The princess having re-gathered her wits walks towards the crew while saying; ¡°We thank you for your grandiose Welcome, Acting Cap¡¯n, and we have no idea what you mean by misconduct, for I plainly see 2 Artifact knights.¡± ¡°Artifact knights, whatever do you mean by that princess, all I have here are my Intel officer Bryan, Defense officer Wolfe, and Bartender/ assault officer Scarr, who are wearing light combat armor¡± The princess, Henry, and her retinue are all struck silent by those words. Henry mutters to the princess ¡°Light combat armor¡­ what the heck do they consider standard combat armor. Oh founders, what do they consider Heavy combat armor." Henry once again grumbles to the princess. ¡°Did we say something wrong your Highness?¡± ¡°Nothing wrong, just, I plainly see Your Assault officer and your Defense officer are both artifact knights,¡± the princess says while attempting an awkward smile. ¡°What is an artifact knight?¡± Once again, the princess Henry and her retinue sat there in stunned silence until the princess pipes up; ¡°An artifact knight is someone who utilizes remnants of technology from before the great collapse; in most cases they are militaristic in nature such as your men¡¯s armor. as a matter of fact the only times I have ever seen armor like that was in the employ of the Dradarian Emperor¡¯s personal Guards, and those who personally guard my father the King of Theroceph¡± ¡°Ok lady, you have got me confused, who is Dradar, and what is the Collapse you speak of?¡± Questions Frank. Bryan adds ¡°Yeah, you have us confused lady¡± ¡°Come with us to the bridge, we can figure it all out there first things First though, I am Frank and what can I call the princess? ¡°I am Princess Samantha, the third princess of the kingdom of Theroceph, and this is my head body guard Captain Henry Morgan¡± ¡°A pleasure¡± Henry says bowing to the assembled crewmembers. ¡°Now then, Second things second, too the cafeteria for coffee¡± ¡°Coffee, Coffee, Coffee¡± Bryan, Wolfe, and Scarr all start chanting. Henry leans over to the princess and asks her ¡°Should be worried about this behavior princess?¡± ¡°Who knows Henry, these people are not by any means normal, maybe it is for them, however our best choice at the moment is to follow them to wherever they lead us. So onward my retinue and follow the Chanting giants.¡± 5 minutes and three pots of coffee later ¡°That was truly a marvelous drink, Acting Captain Frank¡± ¡°Call me what I am princess, Frank or first mate Frank, not acting captain. So do you mind telling us why that ship was chasing you in the first place?¡± ¡°Yeah, we are curious about why someone would risk openly breaking the Spiral arm Treaty.¡± Bryan asks. The princess and Henry look at each other then Henry answers a question with another question; ¡°First, what is this spiral arm treaty you men keep speaking of?¡± Bryan, Frank, and Scarr fall silent in confusion, while at the same time a confused Wolfe asks; ¡°Princess, what year is it?¡± ¡°Why, Sir Wolfe, the year is Post Interstellar Collapse Year 7457¡± The crew members fall silent once again in confusion with Scarr being the first to recover this time. He manages to ask the question that the rest of the command crew was thinking; ¡°Princess, what is This Interstellar collapse of which you speak¡± ¡°Do you all not know, It is said that many Millennia ago there was a great war between an alliance of Humanoids and Therioceph against an empire composing of Cosmic Drakon¡¯s and almost Immortal Alfar, after 1000 years of fighting the war finally ended and the empire collapsed. However before they were defeated they had managed to cause massive destruction on a never seen before scale throughout all the races in the galaxy. Eventually, once the dust settled it was discovered that many technologies were lost in the fighting and those that were lost are now called Artifacts, they function almost perfectly, however we have been unable to recreate them whatsoever.¡± Henry adds to the princess miniature monologue; ¡°However most of that is just a story told to little kids to get them to go to sleep at night, or else the Drakons will eat them.¡± ¡°So who are these Dradar Fellows, and where do they fit in?¡± Bryan inquiries. ¡°The Dradarian empire is the result of the mating of Alfarians And Drakons creating half Alfar half Drakons, who believed themselves to be a superior race, and using this idea have spread amongst the stars in the vacuum of the collapsed empire,¡± ¡°Thank you for the Intel princess, Ghost did you get all of that?¡± ¡°Yes Skipper, based on their Biometrics what they are telling us is the truth as far as they know¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s reassuring¡± Princess Samantha and Henry fall into silence trying to find the origin of the new voice that seemed to come out of the ship itself. ¡°What is that?¡± ¡°What is what princess? Oh, you mean him, that is Ghost, one of the ships AI. Say was up ghost¡± ¡°Why Bryan? Whatever, yo sup?¡± ¡°The ship can talk¡­..¡± Henry and Samantha both say at the same time with voices full of wonder ¡°Yeah it¡¯s getting him to shut up that¡¯s the trick¡± ¡°Shut up Bryan, So what¡¯s the plan First mate frank?¡± This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.¡°Lets get out of here, Ghost. If we really have been asleep that long it is best not to show our power first thing, head towards the old on base on Naraku 4¡± ¡°I have no idea where we are remember¡± ¡°Shit, that¡¯s right. Princess do you by any chance have our current galaxial coordinates?¡± ¡°No but Henry should have them on the ship¡± ¡°Right away princess let me have my men bring the NAV data right up¡± A few minutes later ¡°I have good news and bad news, Naraku 4 seems to to be not that far away, bad news is that my scan on dark matter drive was off, we have a malfunction. Due to its lack of use most of the dark matter has decayed to the point that we don¡¯t have enough to properly maneuver the ship into our old base.¡± ¡°Ghost, how much has decayed?¡± ¡°Hrmm, well Frank, right at about 97%.¡± ¡°So in other words we need more Dark matter to power the drive, until we get it repaired back at our base, Correct?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°Scan for a source.¡± ¡°I already did, and I found a sufficient source not that far away from here, and what do you think it is in?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know? Hit me.¡± ¡°It is in a neat little pre-packaged metal box, known as an Ares class destroyer¡± ¡°I like the way you think Ghost, all hands prep for combat, tell the technicians to brief the assault squad with a refresher on how to handle the material, and tell the defense squad to prepare to repel boarders.¡± The princess decides to interrupt Ghost and Frank¡¯s conversation with a statement ¡°Acting Captain Sir, I believe you have lied to my crew and I¡± ¡°How so missy¡± ¡°This ships class, is obviously not an exploration vessel, and I doubt you told me the truth about its name either¡± ¡°Aye you got us, permission to tell First mate?¡± ¡°Go ahead, Ghost.¡± ¡°This is the Thanatos class Dreadnought, Knightstalker, ready to kick some ass¡± ¡°Thanatos class?¡± Samantha questions. ¡°Aye, missy Commissioned by Captain Bonaventure during the 3000th year of the age of expansion to his personal specifications¡± ¡°What do you mean by that Mr. Ship?¡± ¡°The name is Ghost, Lil¡¯ princess, and what that means is that the captain designed this ship and ended up constructing most of it himself as a means of alleviating his boredom¡± ¡°So this captain of yours built this ship.¡± The princess asks. ¡°Yep, He created the designs for it hundreds of millennia ago in order for it to be nigh indestructible and small enough for atmospheric entry on even the densest planets¡± ¡°And who are you good sir?¡± Samantha ¡°Names Seph leather Ma¡®am I am the head of tech maintenance and R&D on board. Anyways, Wolfe and Scarr come to the tech office so I can tell you all the necessary info about abducting the dark matter drive off of the Ares class cruiser.¡± ¡°Aye, Aye¡± Wolfe & Scarr respond, with mischievous grins on their faces. ¡°First mate Frank, was I mistaken when I believe that I heard Mr. Seph say Hundreds of millennia ago?¡± ¡°Nah, you heard right Princess, however he was sugar coating it, and it was actually around 2000 millennia ago¡± ¡°And who are you good sir?¡± Henry interjects. ¡°I am Azieruth Metreon, in charge of engineering and repairs on this ancient bucket of bolts when the captain doesn¡¯t wanna or is unavailable, such as right now. Also, Frank, you might want to thaw out another AI to go with them in order to assist in stealing the data on their ships logs in order to help us figure out what the flying monkey fuck is going on¡± ¡°Alright Azieruth, who would you advise?¡± ¡°Well for data control, manipulation, and thievery I would have to advise you take Scarlet¡± ¡°Aright, Bryan suit up, as the assault squad is stealing the dark matter drive, you will infiltrate their bridge with the AI scarlet, use her to copy over all data from their banks. After you are done wipe their systems and return¡± ¡°Is that a yes on thawing out Scarlet?¡± Ghost questions. ¡°Yes, go ahead and wake her up, then insert her into Bryan¡¯s Nanosuit¡± ¡°Aye skipper, Should I keep an eye out for an HVT, and also why not the neural implant?¡± Bryan asks. ¡°Yes, if you are able to find the captain knock him out, and then bring him in for questioning and Intel gathering. No neural right now, we have no Idea how much data they have on board. Also, go see Dende down in medical after you suit up for some high powered Tranquilizers that should work on anything smaller than a Celestial Drakon, in order to assist you in your mission.¡± ¡°Aye aye Cap¡®n crunch¡± Henry and Samantha watch in silent confusion at this last statement was uttered. ¡°Friggin really¡± ¡°Really Frank, I have been wanting to say that for a long ass time¡± ¡°Feel better fuck-nugget?¡± ¡°Yep, totally, Ima gonna go suit up.¡± ¡°You go do that.¡± Azieruth turns to the princess after having listened to the argument and while trying not to laugh says; ¡°Anyhow princess and retinue please come with me; I will give you a tour of the ship and show you to your quarters.¡± ¡°Excuse me, But I would rather stay here on the bridge with one of my retainers and watch those who would do battle for us.¡± Ghost quickly interjects. ¡°It is going to be boring.¡± ¡°Regardless we, no I insist that this is the least I can do to pay you our respect for saving us.¡± ¡°Princes, I don¡¯t think you get it. All that you will see is me sitting here barking orders at a series of screens while asking the AI questions,¡± Frank says while sighing and rubbing his face. ¡°Please sir?¡± ¡°Fine your majesty, but only 1 Retainer¡± ¡°Very well, Henry with me, the rest of you Follow the engineer¡± ¡°Ghost, Ready the assault and defense squads, nanotech with hard light, no raged weaponry, strictly Melee weapons of their choice¡± ¡°Aye sir¡± ¡°Tell the crew to ready the grappling guns, Plasma cannons and the Torpedo bays. All hands this is your Acting Cap¡®n speaking, Prepare for combat boys, all hands to battle stations, level 2 combat status and look lively about it would ya we have some dark matter to plunder¡± ¡°We have 10 minutes until we engage that destroyer, what are you orders Frank?¡± ¡°Hold for 5 more minutes as our men get into position, then cut the stealth field and let them know we are here.¡± 5 minutes later ¡°Cut the stealth field, let them see us and let them know fear¡± Frank ¡°Hey, Frank, mind if I try to contact them one last time so I can say something to them?¡± ¡°What the heck Bryan, how did you suit up so fast¡­ ya know what never mind. Be my guest, if they answer that is.¡± ¡°I will raise them on the comm.¡¯s for you¡± ¡°Thanks Ghost, also when I give you the signal shut the stealth field down¡± ¡°Sure thing Bryan, don¡¯t say something too stupid, please¡­..¡± ¡°No guarantees¡± ¡°Do you think they will answer, now that their prey has vanished?¡± ¡°Who knows, but if they do¡­¡± ¡°This is Cap¡¯n Yessicanda of the Ares-class Destroyer Imoogi. Who and where are you? ¡°Greetings, we are here to destroy you. Hope you have no regrets and have had a nice life. Ghost, cut the field.¡± _*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*_ Yessicanda POV I am Captain Yessicanda Rhiannon of the Imperial Dradar Navy, My family since its founder have been soldiers working in the employ of the royal family, and like my forefathers, I thought my calling was to serve my King. That was until I was pressed in service to the prince. I do not know when it was exactly, but soon after I met him and was bequeathed a token of his all I could think about was pleasing him. It is weird, at points it even seems like I am not in control of myself, however whenever that happens I inadvertently clutch the token pendant the prince gave me, and my fears are immediately assuaged. My crew and I were on patrol off one of the royal¡¯s personal star systems when we got an encrypted comm. from the King himself. Saying that the prince¡¯s new personal plaything decided to run, and we are allowed to chase. We headed towards a projected rendezvous where we were supposed to group up with ships that had been dispatched from the core system and were currently in hot pursuit. Slowly but surely over a period of a half-dozen days we began gaining on them, slowly but surely we were catching up. What started with our ship, the Imoogi, and the Apollo-class Naga, slowly grew to a small flotilla of six destroyer class ships. All that could be spared with the empire preparing its forces for wartime were forming a pursuit force in attempt to capture the princess before she could enter her kingdoms territory. As we were approaching the fleeing ship, our long range scanners started going off, picking up an asteroid moving at extremely high speeds. Once we picked it up on the scanner, we immediately tried to communicate with the other ships, but the asteroid was throwing off some sort of interference that made it impossible to communicate. Our ship is the only one that had the powerful enough long range scanners able to pick it up. All as part of an experimental program by the royal R&D department to increase the scanning capabilities on smaller ships to make better scouting units for the empire¡¯s main militaries'' naval forces. I felt a pang of regret for the men those ships who will never know what hit them. Damn it, our ship was the only one that was able to dodge in time to survive. However, the debris from one of the destroyed ships smashed into our quantum comm. array and made it so that we were unable to properly utilize our comm. channels. We continued our pursuit, but the next thing I know is that the princess ship disappeared right out form under our noses. On moment it was there slowing down, the next it disappeared. When I ask my Quantum mechanic officer who was in charge of the scanners what happened, He told me that, for a fraction of a second the scanner detected a massive ship. Then the ship disappeared along with that of the princess. While this was happening, I had gone ahead and ordered one of the quantum mechanics to begin repairs on the comm. array as we continued the search. We were unable to detect anything with any of the scanners, not even a Phantom trail from the dark matter drive, yet we continued the search. The quantum mechanic I had dispatched then shortly returned with good news, the damage to the array was superficial and an easy fix. The only part that was damaged was the signal locking connector, which would have made it impossible for anyone to contact us without getting promptly disconnected. Soon thereafter, we got a message from an unknown source, upon answering the comm. I saw an avian Therioceph the words he uttered signaled the end of my current life, and the beginning of my new life, all that was said was; ¡°Greetings, we are here to destroy you. Hope you have no regrets and have had a nice life. Ghost, cut the field.¡± That is when I saw death and felt true fear for the first time. Chap. 3 Kidnapping, Computers, and Dark Matter A/N Yo AkumetsuAlucard here, a little on how my story came to be; I normally work nights for a solid week, and then have a solid week off. On my time off one week, I started watching space pirate captain Harlock, the original Japanese series. Well 6-8 episodes, two monsters and some rum. I end up laying in my bed at around 4 am trying to sleep. Then in my pseudo sleeping state it hit me, Brian Jacques x Captain Harlock. I spitballed it to my friend since we were thinking about tabletop role-playing the concept (Similar to D&D). When one said that it would make a cool story, why don¡¯t you write it down. I don¡¯t remember if it was Wolfe, or Bryan, but I thank both of them since neither of them remembers it either. It has grown from there. This chapter does not have a fight scene, I am not comfortable enough in writing to write one just yet. Spoiler : Give me three chapters. I will have one in either chapter 6 or 7 *(crossing fingers) not a big fight, just a brawl in a where I can start figuring out how I can write it out to the best of my ability. A millennia is a thousand years, so 2000 millennia = 2 million years (Sorry for not replying to your comment dude, it slipped my mind til I came to post.) Once again, I rushed the Edit, so Grammar mistakes will probably abound (It is not my strong suite). Last thing, QCA is on a different circuit than the QMC and it is hard to hack one from another, just a note. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ ¡°Greetings, we are here to destroy you. Hope you have no regrets and have had a nice life. Ghost, cut the field.¡± ¡°Dropping stealth field,¡­ and done. Frank, just remember According to the princess¡¯s Data, this is neutral space. ¡°Imoogi, this is the Thanatos class Dreadnought Knightstalker, Acting Cap¡®n Frank Vergil at the helm, we will give you one chance to surrender and hand over your Dark matter drives, and ships computer logs, other wise we will have to take them by force.¡± ¡°How dare you talk to me that way, I am captain Yessicanda Rhiannon, Captain of an Imperial starship in the Dradarian Royal Navy. You would not dare attack our vessel; it would be an act of war. Frank looks her in the eye over the comm. Circuit and says; ¡°I don¡¯t care who you think you are, the fact that you were attempting to attack an unarmed ship already marks you as the one committing an act of war. Not to mention that you are currently in the unclaimed space buffer zone between empires. In other words you have no authority, now hand over your drives or else.¡± Yessicanda, looks at frank, and then cuts the comm. circuit. *Click ¡°¡­¡± ¡°Yo, Frank the bitch that just hung up on you is trying to run away¡± ¡°Thanks Bryan, however no one hangs up on me in neutral space.¡± ¡°Ghost, get us moving, start chasing them, tell Scarr and Wolfe to prepare to Board, and repel boarders in due fashion. Once we are in range have them fire the grappling hooks.¡± ¡°Aye, aye Frank¡± ¡°Bryan get down there with the boarding party, as soon as we engage you know what to do.¡± ¡°Sure thing Frank, also permission to make a music request for when we engage?¡± ¡°Go ahead; who do you want to listen to?¡± ¡°I want Back in Black by AC/DC, sound good?¡± ¡°Perfect, it even fits our situation, hey Ghost do you think you can manage to play it through the ships PA circuit for everyone since it is a good choice?¡± ¡°Yeah Frank, I can do that, but do I have too? You know what I think of Metal.¡± ¡°No buts Ghost, Last fight we listened to your bloody blues and it made the crew moody, we want pissed off firecrackers to fight the enemy, not hormonal angst filled Emo freaks¡± ¡°Blues do not make people Emo, it just makes them Emotional¡± ¡°¡­¡± Frank and Bryan stand there in silence for a moment until Ghost says; ¡°I think I will get back to work now that I have made a fool of myself¡± ¡°You do that Ghost, You do that.¡± ¡°Frank, you get the Comm.¡¯s, I am heading down¡± ¡°Good luck Bryan, and happy hunting¡± ¡°Thanks skipper, but keep your luck I don¡¯t need it¡± ¡°Yeah right, the last time you said that you were captured, remember?¡± ¡°Please, please, please, don¡¯t remind me of that. And also don¡¯t jinx it you egg head¡± ¡°Whatever, good luck scrub¡± ¡°Right back at ya skipper¡± ¡°Ghost route me through on the comm. circuit to the entire crew¡± ¡°Done skipper¡± ¡°Greetings crew, this is your skipper speaking, as many of you may be aware we are in a tight spot. The captain missing, we have been asleep for 7 thousand years, Luna¡¯s fried, we have a runaway princess on board, Ohhhh and to top it all off we are running low on dark matter. So we are literally fucked over five different ways. However, there is a marvelous solution already neatly packed in a little metal box right in range, not to mention it was chasing the new ship mascot, the princess. So in order to set the mood for our awakening Comm. Officer Bryan made a suggestion. Ladies and gentleman the old classic by an ancient band known as AC/DC.¡± ¡°Ghost, hack their comm. Let them also hear our music¡± ¡°On it skipper,¡± ¡°Now crew, the piece which was suggested is a good start to our battle lets line em up, fire the grappling guns and queue the music. Let¡¯s start this shit up right¡± ¡°Crew members, this is ghost, all hands to positions, they are locked down with the grappling guns and being drawn in. Hitting the play button as soon as assault crew lifts off.¡± ¡°ALL HANDS PREPARE TO REPEL BOARDERS, ASSAULT CREWS PREPARE TO BOARD. ALSO, BRYAN TRY NOT TO GET DISTRACTED.¡± Off in the distance all that could be heard outside of people prepping for combat comes an echo ¡°Fuck you too Frank¡± Crlunck* ¡°We have contact, open the board way, Defense crew ready hard light shields, Bryan you might as well get your creeping suit activated, good luck bro.¡± ¡°Thanks Wolfe, same to you. SCARR, where you at, I am supposed to follow your initial charge into the ship then we split up.¡± ¡°Right here, making sure my men¡¯s hard-light suits are working in tandem with the nanotech gear. All right, we¡¯re all set.¡± ¡°Care to do the honors of opening the hatch brother Wolfe?¡± ¡°It would be my pleasure brother Scarr.¡± ¡°What don¡¯t I get any Honor?¡± ¡°Nope, you get to capture our first prisoner for a long ass time Bryan, consider yourself lucky¡± ¡°When you put it that way Scarr, I really want to sock you in the balls.¡± ¡°Hahahaha, Don¡¯t worry Bryan, you aren¡¯t the only one who has wanted to do that today.¡± ¡°Shut up Wolfe, and open the hatch, let¡¯s get this over with.¡± ¡°Sure thing Scarr¡± ¡°Oxygen field is activated, Assault crew activate Nanosuit External Void Protection Gear under the Hard light suits¡± The assault crew answered in unison; ¡°Aye, Aye SIR.¡± ¡°Frank, this is Scarr, Assault crew is launching¡± ¡°Godspeed and happy hunting assault crew, Good luck to you all out there.¡± (Back in Black starts blasting through both ships speaker systems) The airlock opens and the assault crew plus one jump out from the Knightstalker and drifts in space for a moment before nearing the Imoogi ¡°Assault crew this is commander Scarr, on my command activate Artificial Gravity boots (AGB) ¡­ and ¡­ NOW¡± ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ Yessicanda POV ¡°How dare you talk to me that way, I am captain Yessicanda Rhiannon, Captain of an Imperial starship in the Dradarian Royal Navy. You would not dare attack our vessel; it would be an act of war. ¡­¡­¡­ ¡°Ma¡¯am you just hung up on them¡± I turn my head and start staring down the Helmsman who was talking to me and I said; ¡°Did you even hear what that, that, that BEAST, said to me?¡± I am a captain of the royal navy. Not even space pirates make demands form me, and then we answer this call from an unknown source that suddenly revealed itself, calling itself a Thanatos class. What a load of eggshrooms my awe at their act was quickly overpowered by my annoyance at the people on their communication circuit. All that they did was threaten us and make demands. Now we have to flee from this ship in an attempt to draw them back into our own territory where hopefully we can find reinforcements amongst some of the outlying star bases. How the heck did such a standard mission go so very wrong in the first place? As I start caressing the token that I received from the prince, the Helmsman said something to me, which I did not quite catch. I turn to him and tell him, ¡°Say that again Helmsman¡± ¡°Well ma¡¯am, maybe we should have listened to their demands, we still have our backup solar panels, and we could always receive more dark matter once we return to base. Sure it might take a few weeks, however what is that compared to our lives¡®?¡± I look him in the eye and tell him ¡°The fact that if we were to allow that to happen so casually without any form of resistance would sentence us to the death penalty as soon as we arrived back to our home systems. Better to be demoted than killed.¡± Besides, I think to myself, I still have missions I must accomplish in the name of the prince. I rub the token again thinking of him when I hear some of my crewmembers panicking. ¡°Helmsman, give me a status report.¡± The helmsman swallows his saliva, looks at his instruments while saying in a higher pitched voice than any male should be able to reach; ¡°Cap¡¯n, we stopped moving.¡± ¡°That is preposterous, Comm.¡®s man bring up the engine room.¡± ¡°Aye Cap¡¯n, Engine room what¡¯s your sit-rep? Over.¡± ¡°Comm.¡®s man, we have nothing out of the ordinary to report, engine output at maximum with power levels showing steady. Gravitational pressure is in the green. Over.¡± ¡°Thank you engine room, this is Comm.¡®s man Out.¡± I turn to the Helmsman and ask him; ¡°If the engines are working, then why are we slowing down?¡± ¡°Cap¡¯n, we are picking up a strange energy reading from that ship, similar to the void locking signals used by space stations¡± ¡°So, do you mean to tell me that the ship that is chasing us has a Void lock, and we are currently unable to flee?¡± ¡°Oh, and they are rapidly approaching¡± I am surrounded by fools who do not seem to understand the situation. I turn to the Comm.¡®s¡¯ man, and tell him; ¡°Patch me through to the whole ship.¡± ¡°Aye, aye Cap¡¯n¡± ¡°Crew, this is your captain speaking, we have a situation. We can either surrender to some pirates and die upon our return home for not fighting. Alternatively, we can fight honorably, with us surviving after we manage to repel them. Therefore, all hands to battle stations, Combat status is now at level 1. Prepare to repel boarders, if you can hold a weapon, then pick one up and get ready. Otherwise to your posts, and as soon as you are able, open fire.¡± ¡°That should show them not to mess with a heavy destroyer, also, Comm.¡¯s man, have weapon officer Caboose send extra guards towards engineering, we wouldn¡¯t want them to take our power source now would we.¡± ¡°Aye, aye Ma¡¯am¡± ¡°Cap¡¯n, all defense crew are reporting that they are unable to use the ships primary weapons due to the void zone making them unable to target the enemy¡± ¡°Helmsman, you are such the bearer of good news, aren¡¯t you? Convert all ship weapons crews to defense crews on the double.¡± ¡°Aye aye Cap¡¯n¡± This is bad. We are in big trouble; they have us by the tail now the real question is where they are going to lead us. We cannot fire back. We can¡¯t flee. All we can do is now pray that they are nowhere near as good when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. We Dradarians are known for our size and strength with the tallest of us reaching just over 7 feet, and we are all born with the innate ability to easily carry four times our own weight. When it comes to Melee, our only real true rivals are those bloody bugs. Thank the Mighty Cosmic Drakon that they are pacifists otherwise that would quite honestly spell doom for my whole species. Back on point, we are probably going to repel them as soon as they arrive so I am going to need to; Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Comm.¡®s man, order half of the remaining unassigned defense crew members towards the air lock, with the rest protecting the way towards the Dark matter drives.¡± ¡°On it Cap¡¯n¡± I hope that they will not try to just cut their way in, that would be bad. We wouldn¡¯t even get a chance to defend ourselves. So long as we manage to kill some and prove that we did our duty to till the last then maybe some of the crew will be able to survive. So much for my flawless military career. (Back in Black starts blasting the ships¡¯ speaker systems) What in the name of the five Drakons is this blaring cacophony of sounds? Grhagh, it seems to be melting my brain. Come on I can get a grip over this, whew. After that initial shock, it is not so bad. Stop it Yessicanda, back on point. ¡°Comm.¡¯s man, can¡¯t you shut down this infernal racket?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t Cap¡¯n; they are overriding my commands whenever it comes to the PA system. In other words they have partially hacked our quantum comm. array, and there is nothing I can do.¡± Gragh, at least it is only a sound, if they planned to slay us with that then they must think that we are weaker then we truly are. Crlunck* ¡°What was that? Helmsman report.¡± ¡°Ma¡¯am, we have been boarded by the enemy.¡± ¡°How? Their ship is still a solid 400 yards off¡± ¡°The only explanation Cap¡¯n is that they must have men with artifacts able to casually transverse such a large gap in space¡± ¡°So we have Artifact knights crawling on our ships outer hull?¡± ¡°If it makes you feel any better, according to our sensors, there seems to be less than 40 of them¡± ¡°Helmsman?¡± ¡°Yes cap¡¯n¡± ¡°We only have a crew of 100 men not counting the medical and engineering crews, those are 40 artifact knights¡± ¡°So, do you think this is the end Cap¡¯n?¡± ¡°Depends on if they decide to just grab and go, or if they decide to rub it in.¡± ¡°Cap¡¯n they are moving to the airlock and beginning to breach.¡± ¡°Thank you Comm.¡¯s man¡± All we can do now is wait and pray, while hoping for the best. As they begin their breach our sensor are able to pick up 37 signatures, all of them wearing artifacts and wielding pre-collapse melee weaponry. My thoughts were; whoever formed this force must have sunk several entire royal treasuries worth of interstellar chits into them, for they are too well armed and organized to be simple space pirates. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ ¡°Yo Frank, this is Scarr, Checking comm. link we have breached their airlock and are in their loading bay.¡± ¡°This is Frank; give me a full sit-rep.¡± ¡°There seems to be token resistance, they might be running with either a skeleton crew, or they are not in current possession of hard light or nanotech¡± ¡°Can you subdue them without killing them, or at least minimize enemy casualties?¡± ¡°What the heck Frank, Why the HELL would we do that?¡± ¡°Ghost, please explain to Scarr.¡± ¡°Scarr, it is simple, if they are only offering token resistance they might have been expecting to lose in the first place. Which means there is a chance of them attempting scuttle their ship in order to defend any data or experimental tech that is onboard. If we leave some of their people alive then maybe they would hesitate to do so.¡± ¡°I get your drift ghost, I don¡¯t really want to deal with the singularity from when anti matter collides with proto matter. I will see what my men and I can do, so knockouts and electro-paralysis work for you Frank?¡± ¡°Yep, however if your men run into anything that you would deem deadly then don¡¯t hesitate to go for the kill.¡± ¡°Roger that Frank, and thanks for the heads up ghost. I will contact you boys once we are en-route back to the ship with the drives.¡± ¡°Roger that, Ghost and Solomon are doing their best to hack into their QCA so we can get a live feed and support your boys with Intel, once we get the feed up we will warn you if we notice any danger.¡± ¡°Thanks Frank, and you guys too, good luck to both of ya.¡± ¡°Frank, Solomon here, we managed to break in with the help of scarlet and are sorting through relevant data on their QCA.¡± ¡°Pull up the live feed¡­ Crap¡­¡± ¡°Scarr, this is frank. They have heavy resistance set up by the Drives, about 40 or so, it might be best for you to have your boys use a couple of locking grenades to freeze them up, then just go straight to removal.¡± ¡°Are you sure Frank, would it affect the drives, and don¡¯t they take one hell-aciously long time to make?¡± ¡°No, not if they are in a proper void seal, and if they aren¡¯t then the only problem is that it would be harder to move them out of the locked area.¡± ¡°Roger, proceeding to move towards the ships core, oh, and by the way are you seeing this crap? They are not even using the automatic defense systems to attempt to repel us.¡± ¡°That might be Bryans handiwork, you know he likes to move fast and get his job done, besides if he accessed the nearest data port, that would explain how scarlet was able to help Ghost, and Solomon hack their QCA for us to get access.¡± ¡°While we are holding here, do you know if they know that we are in?¡± ¡°This is Ghost, I am going to say no because, otherwise they probably would have tried to do a hard server to the QCA hub, which would affect us one hell of a lot more than it would them at the moment.¡± ¡°So our present is going to be one hell of a surprise to them.¡± ¡°Yep, make sure to set the locking grenades to their max power, and a 2 hour time limit to ensure we have time to refill our drives and get out of here.¡± ¡°Roger, Out.¡± Henry raises his hand, turns to Frank and says; ¡°Excuse me sir, I hate to distract you, but I have a question, about those locking grenades?¡± ¡°Go ahead and ask away, I know that they are marvels of technology and the result of 350 years of research done by the captain.¡± ¡°Well sir, what do they do, and how do they work?¡± ¡°Oh, I will let ghost explain how they work since it gets complicated, and still gives me a headache when trying to explain it.¡± Ghost pops up on the Holo-deck wearing a luxurious bath robe seated in a large cushioned armchair with a pipe in his hand and an illusionary fireplace behind him. ¡°O my, younglings sit down and listen well; the locking grenade as we call it is not an explosive. In fact, the only reason we call it that is because we set it to have a limited range of effect, which we improperly call the blast radius. What happens is those grenades use traces of anti matter and proto matter, combine them and using the resulting energy convert the power to that of a miniaturized black hole. Which for one quintillionth to one sextillionth of a second exists, this amount of time is the longest period of time we are able to manipulate a black hole without it affecting our plane of existence. However the singularity effects an other plane, which the easiest way of describing it as time. So it affects time for that small period, and when it does the collapsing matters energy is channeled directly into manipulating this extra dimension known as time. Since, as everyone knows, black holes do not only absorb light, but they also bend space-time, we in essence, control the event horizon. In other words once they go off, they are literally frozen in time until the effects of the singularity fades. Which means we can¡¯t hurt them but they are also unable to do anything until the affects fade. Time travels on regularly for us however, it doesn¡¯t for them. Therefore, for us 1 day, is only a fraction of a second to the affected. We did figure out how to adjust it so they are only able to stay in that state of chrono-stasis for a relatively smaller time such as 30 minutes as opposed to a literal 30 days or even 30 years.¡± Henry and the princess look confused and unable to readily comprehend such reality bending technology. Frank notices their obvious confusions, and quickly jumps in saying; ¡°They temporarily freeze time, however they are extremely hard to make, due to the fact that we have to in essence fit a ships QMC into a ball the size of the princess¡¯s fist along with both anti matter shielded with dark matter, and regular matter. It takes almost a month to make one. Luckily we have a lot stockpiled due to us never really using them¡± ¡°But would it not be a great revolution in the face of warfare, never having to risk your own men and easily being able to take advantage of theirs?¡± ¡°Not quite princess, tech that complex has a tendency to malfunction easily, and if we end up having an entire squad of our men get frozen on another ship, well it ain¡¯t good. Besides, with this tech we are literally playing with fire, the first time it was tested it created a black hole which still exists today towards the core of the now uninhabited alpha-centarii systems¡± ¡°Which explains your lack of will in using it so casually.¡± ¡°Right on ya Henry, buddy. However we haven¡¯t had a misfire on one for several millennia, and each time one occurs we find out what went wrong, and then improve the tech so that it doesn¡¯t happen again.¡± Henry and the princess turn to each other and begin conversing in hushed tones about those with the power to play god when Frank is contacted by Scarr; ¡°Yo, frank, we locked em up for 2 hours and are on our way back, Bryan should be almost done, once we meet up we will immediately evacuate and head on back, sound good?¡± ¡°You hit the nail on the head, so proceed as planned¡± ¡°Roger, and out.¡± ¡°Frank?¡± ¡°What is it Ghost?¡± ¡°Bryan¡¯s signal is coming through; I am patching him in, and done.¡± ¡°Yo Frank, I bagged me their captain, and I took all their data, NAV and otherwise. When I was done, I wiped their mains, and backups. However, I am going to need an O2 pod, EVP mask, or a helmet in order to bring her back. As soon as I knocked her out she went stiff, which didn¡¯t help me. I ended up having to knockout the rest of the bridge with a deadweight half-dragon woman in my arms. Nevertheless, the deed is done and I am on my way to the airlock. Just make sure we have it there so we can get out of here, this whole damn operation was too easy.¡± ¡°Roger, I will let Wolfe know, and he will send one over then roll out the welcome mat.¡± ¡°Thanks frank, this is Bryan, out.¡± ¡°Wolfe, Come in¡± ¡°What¡¯s up frank?¡± ¡°I need you to send an O2 pod over to the Imoogi, Bryan needs it to transport their unconscious captain back here.¡± ¡°Roger, should I notify the med bay so they are prepared to accept her?¡± ¡°Go ahead Wolfe, and once everyone is back have them meet up on flight deck 1 for debriefing, also have 6 of your men stand by when Dende runs the checks. Two on the outside for her privacy from the rest of the crew, and four on the inside incase she wakes up violently and attempts to strangle Doc Dende. We don¡¯t want a repeat of the Aoge incident.¡± ¡°Got it I will let my boys know, they are going to be bummed out that they didn¡¯t get to see any action.¡± ¡°Also Wolfe, as an afterthought, confiscate everything she has on her outside of her clothes, who knows what could be disguised as a weapon these days and what she could bring aboard.¡± ¡°Roger and Out First mate Frank.¡± Frank turns to Ghost, the Princess, and Henry who were still attempting to comprehend the concept behind the locking grenade and said to them; ¡°Mission complete, our boys are on their way back with the core and the cap¡¯n of that vessel, now as soon as we are halfway fixed we will head out to our old base, and refit the ship properly. Now my princess the question is what do you want to do?¡± ¡°Well Mr. Frank, seeing as how we are now more likely than not marked men, it seems the safest place would be here in the belly of the beast. Besides much has changed in 7,000 years and you will need a cultural advisor to stop you from committing any Taboos with the races in power. So if you would allow us to take haven here we would be most appreciative.¡± ¡°Well princess, in that case until the captain returns and decides to overrule me, welcome aboard new temporary crewmembers of the Thanatos class dreadnought, the Knightstalker. When the others assemble, you 2 come with me to the flight deck for the debriefing.¡± ¡°¡°Yes sir.¡±¡± Chap 4. Heavy Metal Pirates A/N Yo, AkumetsuAlucard here. sorry it took a while to write this Chap out, I know it might be a bit Semicolon heavy but as I (think I) said before Grammar is not my strong suite. It also didn''t help that I have had a hectic week so I rushed the edit, yet again. Hopefully it won''t become a common occurrence, but at this rate I think quite honestly it might just end up that way. To those of you out there who are Grammar sensitive I do apologize sincerely, I know how annoying it can get when reading a story and then there is a blatantly obvious error which the author should have caught. If you have any suggestions for an online spell checking / Grammar checking program (I have tried and gotten annoyed by several already) please shoot me a message, or post it in the comments below. Also I am open for feedback, and comments let me know what you think, how the story is progressing etc. Regardless all things said and done I present to you chapter 4. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ ¡°Well princess, in that case until the captain returns and decides to overrule me, welcome aboard new temporary crewmembers of the Thanatos class dreadnought, the Knightstalker. When the others assemble, you 2 come with me to the flight deck for the debriefing.¡± ¡° ¡°Yes sir.¡± ¡± ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ ¡°So let me get this straight Bryan, they did not even attempt to engage the automatic defenses¡­¡± ¡°Yep it was weird Frank, when I had scarlet check em for me they were offline, and the last log for their use on their computers was roughly 3,000 years ago.¡± ¡°So we were either dealing with cocky pricks, or idiots. Well I guess that is encouraging, hopefully the rest of their fleet is just as na?ve. Do you have anything else to report?¡± ¡°Negative skipper.¡± ¡°Aright, go on get out of your gear and get yourself some relaxation in the cantina. Once Wolfe and Scarr get up here I will send em down.¡± ¡°Thanks skipper, Ima out¡± Henry looks over to Frank and asks him; ¡°Sir, what are these automatic defenses of which you speak, none of our ships have those?¡± ¡°What are you on about, every single ship, Apollo class or larger has even some basic forms of automatic defenses that can engage upon going to combat status level 0.¡± ¡°There is a combat level 0?¡± ¡°Ok, you guys have a lot to learn about your ships, how do you guys not know this stuff from your own ships? Wait a¡­, 7000 years and this is what I am going to have to deal with¡­ Why me, Why now¡­¡± Scarr and Wolfe both walk into the room and seeing Frank so distraught they immediately ask him; ¡°What¡¯s wrong bro, wha¡¯s up?¡± ¡°I just found out that these guys don¡¯t know how to use their ships to their full potential, the reason that they didn¡¯t use the automatic defenses is because they did not even know that they had them.¡± ¡°Really? You mean it wasn¡¯t a trap?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°No use crying over spilled milk Frank, lets move on.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right Wolfe, OK Wolfe lets hear your report first, then yours Scarr.¡± ¡°The nothing to report in regard to our defense crew, the prisoner is currently still incapacitated with Dende and Ducky going over her; they will let you know what they dig up. Oh and they are also going to keep her under until they finish their scans, for safeties sake, she has some wicked talons.¡± ¡°Thank you Wolfe and we will take note of that, your turn Scarr, anything you need to report?¡± ¡°Yea, I think that we may need to go incognito once we get to Naraku 4, no hard light just nano-tech.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Simple really, you saw the princess and her peeps reaction to the hard light and the guys on the enemy ship seemed terrified to see that many sets of it at once. If we want to be able to land the ship to repair it in peace, we wont be wanting to send out a message saying ¡®we be rich and suspicious, come try and rob us¡¯. You dig?¡± ¡°Got it Scarr, anything else?¡± ¡°Nope, Azieruth says he will have the dark matter transferred over in about 10-20 minutes so there is that.¡± ¡°Alright you guys go skin down and take a load off in the cantina, also Wolfe, ask Seph to get some Nanosuits growing for the princess and her people.¡± ¡°On it boss¡± As Scarr and Wolfe leave the Flight deck the princess and a confused Henry stand there awkwardly until the princess says; ¡°Sir I thank you for the thought, but it is unnecessary for you to waste your nano-suits things on us, besides I am not even sure if we would be able to use them properly.¡± ¡°Princess, it isn¡¯t a problem, besides only one person can ever use a suit.¡± ¡°What do you mean, if you are not able to swap users on them casually then there must be an incredulous amount of training as a requirement.¡± ¡°Hahaha, on the contrary princess, it is nothing like that, they bond to a user¡¯s DNA, and there is no training required. All you have to do is put it on; leave it on for a day in order for it to bond to you and presto. One super suit that only you can use. The only reason we even use hard light is in order to defend against Plasma and Laser weaponry, since hard light is literally the only thing that can stop those easily while still being small enough to protect a humanoids body. Actually I take that back, some of those Bugs have chitinous armor that is resistant to the stuff, but they are just weird.¡± ¡°If it won¡¯t stop lasers or plasma, then what¡¯s the point of even wearing these Nanosuits?¡± Henry who up until this point was quietly digesting all this information inquired. ¡°Hard blows, Force resistant, projectile resistant, Able to camouflage one in with their surroundings, Lightweight EVP Gear, Enhanced musculature system, and it can even allow one to manipulate their metabolism. Not to mention a few of the nastier little surprises that can be added in once it is able to fully integrate with your body.¡± The princess pipes up ¡°Didn¡¯t you just say that you only have to leave it on for a day?¡± Ghost butts in before frank can explain himself by saying; ¡°That is in order for it to complete the initial bond; In essence, the more you use it the more powerful it becomes. After a while they will make you able to fight better by helping you guide your body to the most efficient way of doing almost anything.¡± ¡°Thank you for your input Ghost, and It is almost exactly as he said princess. Anyways, why don¡¯t you head on back to the mess, I am going to have to go over some stuff with Ghost and Scarlet about the NAV Data.¡± ¡°Very well Mr. Frank we will take our leave, and thank you for the Nanosuits you are having made for us.¡± ¡°No prob princess.¡± As the princess and Henry take their leave and head towards the mess, Frank heads towards the bridge, as he walks he starts talking; ¡°Ghost, Scarlet, Find anything good in their logs and data banks?¡± ¡°Not much yet, however we did notice some discrepancies between their data logs and our own, especially in the NAV data department.¡± Scarlet adds in ¡°Yeah Frank, we noticed the problem with the galaxial coordinates being off by a few degrees in the princess¡¯s ships data, however we wrote it off as their instruments having been inaccurate. Yet when we looked at these Dradarians info we noticed the same problem.¡± ¡°So what do you guys think it is?¡± Frank asks thoughtfully as he reaches the bridge. ¡°We are not sure, it could be a polarity shift, or it could be outside forces at work.¡± ¡°Ghost, are you talking about that odd message we received from the Andromeda galaxy that we still haven¡¯t been able to interpret?¡± ¡°Yes, Scarlet please explain.¡± ¡°Sure Ghost, well Frank, the problem is we wont be able to reach outside the galaxy, or the whole galaxy with our current scanner strength in order to locate what has caused this shift. The only place that should still have a scanner powerful enough to reach the outer rims, and even a goodly portion of the Andromeda galaxy would be on the Hyper-light base near the galactic center.¡± ¡°Scarlet, are you referring to the Captains¡¯ side project that is constantly gathering data and compiling it for him?¡± ¡°Yepers, that scanner is the most powerful and complex out there that we know of, the only other one that comes close is that one on the Yggdrasil base.¡± ¡°Thanks for the info Scarlet, However I think we should try to find the captain before we casually mess with his tech, not to mention the location of that scanner, I think it would be a bit dicey going that close to it before we manage to get our bridge tech working. Besides on top of all else the only other one who can use those scanners halfway right would be Luna.¡± ¡°Roger that Skipper, so is it alright if we have Solomon get to work on the repairs?¡± ¡°Give him the go ahead Scarlet, and you can assist but I need Ghost to monitor the ship from the central bridge console for me while I get me some grub, and check in with Maxx to see the status on the new crew members quarters.¡± ¡°Roger Chief, Have fun.¡± ¡°Thanks Ghost, Keep me posted on the prisoner, and Luna¡¯s status. Oh by the way, what¡¯s on the menu for breakfast?¡± ¡°Roger Dodger, as for the breakfast menu, lets see. You can get a specific order, or an assorted breakfast buffet with¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s enough Ghost all I needed to know was the breakfast buffet part, I think that I will be able to get a good quantity, hells bells I am so hungry right now, the coffee from earlier just awoke my appetite in full force. Go ahead and set the course, as soon as we are ready to leave send me a message then set off. The sooner we get to that base the sooner we can try and figure out where the captain went.¡± ¡°Roger, I will have Maxx, meet you at the mess.¡± ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ Meanwhile at the ships Cantina Bryan, Wolfe, and Scarr are sitting at the bar discussing the finer points of music with one of Ghosts sub-routines with Bryan leading the way in the argument; ¡°No Ghost, you bloody fuck nugget, blues bands do not get our squads pumped up for battle.¡± ¡°Listen and trust me if the blues don¡¯t motivate your squads to fight better than they might need slight psychoanalysis.¡± ¡°Fuck no.¡± Wolfe Growls, ¡°Do you even know what the heck would happen to them if we let Dende mess with their heads a little bit, it would be a disaster.¡± Scarr nods his head in agreement while saying; ¡°Just look at what happened to McClearskies and his Squad after they were ¡®analyzed¡¯ by Doc, they could never fly again, and they were our bloody fighter pilots.¡± ¡°Look guys, I know all this. However, that was 3000 years before we went into hibernation. He has gotten much better at his job.¡± ¡°Lamb of god is better at firing people up, hell metal for the win Ghost.¡± Says Wolfe ¡°I don¡¯t agree, with that, Theory of a Deadman, and rock will rule forever, hell, even Franks favorite band is a rock band.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t agree with the band, however Rock for the win. Besides,¡± Scarr interjects ¡°None of us will allow Doc Dende to ever psychoanalyze our men, ever, and that is final. If you don¡¯t like it we will have Seph wipe all the Blues, Jazz, and the like form the ships storage.¡± ¡°How dare you, threatening my music Like that.¡± ¡°Your music, Ghost? I think you forgot everything on and in this ship minus the personnel, belongs to the Cap¡¯n. So don¡¯t be such a donkey-dick about it and quit your bitchin¡¯ nancy.¡± The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I couldn¡¯t have said it better myself Bryan, thank you, and Scarr you too overstepped your boundaries. You know how the captain likes the occasional jazz.¡± ¡°Sorry Wolfe.¡± At that moment, Henry walks in to the cantina that now had an awkward air, the command crewmembers look towards him, Henry moseys towards the bar and asks for a shot from Scarr, after Scarr gives him the shot, they continue their conversation as if he was not even there. ¡°Don¡¯t forget the last time someone purged an entire genre from the system. May those poor bastards rest in peace.¡± Bryan says while holding his hand to chest and looking mournfully towards the ground. ¡°Do you mean that Dominion ship that managed to wipe part of our data when the Cap¡¯n was working on upgrading the ECM¡¯s and they were down for all of like three minutes, when they got that lucky shot on us.¡± ¡°Yeah Wolfe, remember He took that whole ship down in record time, not to mention he did it in person. No weapons, just his armor and his hands. That have to have been the angriest I had seen him in at least 20,000 years.¡± ¡°Please, don¡¯t remind me of that incident Scarr. That clean up OP took forever. Anyhow on this topic, a round of drinks in honor of our fallen foes Scarr, Straight shots of whiskey please.¡± After Wolfe had finished speaking, Scarr poured, and then handed shots to Wolfe and Bryan they raised their glasses and all said; ¡°To the fallen, may they rest in peace.¡± Henry looks as if he is about to say something when Ghost cuts him off with; ¡°Frank says I have to focus on the Ship guys, we can finish this discussion about music later.¡± ¡°Whatever Ghost, consider it finished.¡± Scarr says as he pours Bryan another shot. Henry finally asks his question while hoping to be able to get some information on their mysterious captain; ¡°Scarr, what was that about your captain?¡± ¡°Well Henry, you heard me, someone messed with his music, so he hurt them back. He was really pissed that they waited for our ECMs¡¯ to be down before they fired an EMP at us. The problem though lied in the fact that the data bank that held our music was the only one that was not protected from radiation surges. He took it as a personal affront to himself. The worst part though, is that they all survived, he wouldn¡¯t kill them, he let them live with the knowledge of what they faced forever haunting them.¡± ¡°So what size ship was it, an Apollo, or an Ares?¡± The three command crewmembers look at each other for a moment before breaking out in uncontrollable laughter. As the others were recovering Wolfe¡¯s ears perked up as he noticed a sound from outside and subtly signaled to the other two that they had someone listening in. Bryan and Scarr gave slight nods in acknowledgement as they continue laughing. Bryan was the first to recover his voice; he looked at Henry and said; ¡°What? No, no, no, not at all silly. It was a Zeus class heavy battle Cruiser, fully staffed, and crewed by heavily armed raiders.¡± ¡°Wait, A Zeus class¡­¡± at this point poor Henry started getting pale while realizing he was sailing through the stars with true monsters straight out of a horror story. He quickly asks Bryan; ¡°Are you all that strong?¡± ¡°No, Most of our individual limits would be a lot closer to a Poseidon Light battle cruiser, the cap¡¯n is the only one who can go that far and long without tiring.¡± Scarr butts in; ¡°Don¡¯t worry; we can¡¯t all be as strong as him. if anything when he is in a rage, a two on one with us command crew members would pressure him a little, if it was us three we would win maybe 70% of the time if Frank joined us we could subdue him until he came out of his rage.¡± ¡°Do you mean he is a berserker?¡± Henry asks the three. Wolfe adds ¡°Yeah, Scarr here is also one, however he is no where as bad as the Cap¡¯n.¡± ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± ¡°Well, let just say The Cap¡¯n always experiments on himself before he finishes refining the technique and uses it on us if we approve. So he gets the unrefined, once it is refined for stability a lot of the time it is nowhere near as powerful as the original. If you want to know more I can ask Frank to let your folks flip through some of the unclassified documents.¡± ¡°Thank you sir Wolfe, I would be much obliged if you were to do that.¡± ¡°It¡¯s no prob, if you are going to sail with us it would not do to be keeping secrets.¡± The princess who was eavesdropping on this conversation from outside since right when Wolfe noticed, finally walks in while asking; ¡°So what is your captain¡¯s name?¡± All four people in the cantina turn to look at her, with Henry being the only one surprised. As she comes closer to the bar, Wolfe says; ¡°We were wondering when you would join us princess; you do know it is extremely rude to eavesdrop don¡¯t you?¡± Bryan and Scarr nod in confirmation, while Henry looks back and forth between the princess and the Command crew in surprise. Meanwhile the princess looks shocked that she had been caught in the act; ¡°She asks since when did you know?¡± Wolfe answers with ¡°Since you showed up lady, you really need to work on your sneaking skills, maybe Bryan here aught to send you through the ringer. Especially since sneaking is right up his alley.¡± ¡°Good point Wolfe.¡± Bryan says with a smirk, ¡°Then again I don¡¯t know if she is up to the task especially since it was so obvious.¡± Henry spews the shot Scarr had just poured for him all over the floor. While catching his breath he says with an incredulous tone to his voice; ¡°Obvious?¡± ¡°Yeah, trust me she is an amateur, if Frank says its ok, we will have you train with my squad in the simulation for sneaking, assassination, and counter-espionage.¡± ¡°Wait you are in charge of those men Bryan, I though you were the Comm.¡¯s man¡± The princess says. ¡°I gotta have a hobby.¡± ¡°Stop skipping around the subject please,¡± The princess asks while finally recovering herself, ¡°What is his name if you would be so kind.¡± Before anyone can respond or retort, Ghost speaks over the Comm.¡®s; Command crew come in, Doc Dende requests your presence at the Medical bay yesterday. The prisoner is coming around.¡± ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ Yessicanda POV I start waking up from a deep slumber and see a crowd of odd beings around me, a 7 ¡¯6¡¯¡¯ foot tall hare Theriocephian, a 6 foot tall panda Theriocephian, and 4; 7 foot tall wolf Theriocephians. The first thing I think after seeing them is; what the heck, and then it all starts coming back to me. I was visiting the prince to receive a medal for my success in a recent battle, when he also bestowed upon me a token of his favor. After that, everything faded to black, and I assume I was knocked out. However, I feel as if there was something was wrong with my memories, why does it feel as though a large chunk of time has passed since then. Then I realize that my Token is gone, which I also though odd, why would someone try to take such a useless trinket. I try to get up when I realize that I am being restrained. I look towards my two main captors who were talking between themselves. They notice me looking towards them and the Hare says; ¡°Greetings and welcome back to the land of the living, I am Frank Vergil, First mate of this vessel, I apologize for the inconvenience but I had Doc Dende here remove your slave token. Doc, introduce yourself.¡± ¡°Yo, I am Doc Dende, nice to meet you, do you mind if I psychoanalyze¡­¡± The Hare who calls himself Frank quickly intervenes; ¡°Doc, down. You lost those privileges after the Fox McClearskies incident. Remember?¡± The panda called Doc starts incoherently grumbling under his breath but goes back to monitoring a screen of instruments, while Frank looks at me ¡°Do you mind if I ask you some questions?¡± he asks casually. ¡°I don¡¯t see how I have any choice in the matter,¡± I say back to him while looking at my restraints, darn they look sturdy. As if he read my mind he says ¡°Don¡¯t bother trying to flee; they were made to hold something much stronger than you. Now question one, what is your name?¡± I answer ¡°Yessicanda Rhiannon A captain in the imperial Dradarian royal navy.¡± ¡°Ok, Doc?¡± ¡°Control question is a go Frank, vitals locked, go ahead and ask away.¡± ¡°Thanks Doc, now, why were you trying to catch Princess Samantha Therioceph for the Dradarians, Miss Rhiannon?¡± My mind blanks out. I yell ¡°WHAT THE HELL! How dare you accuse me of such eggshrooms. The last thing I recall was having a token of favor bestowed upon me by the Dradarian Prince.¡± ¡°So it is true,¡± he says to himself while contemplating something he then says to me; ¡°Well lady, is this the token?¡± and he holds it up in front of me. ¡°Yes¡± I say, ¡°Now give it back.¡± ¡°Not unless you want to return to being the prince¡¯s brainwashed slave.¡± He says back to me. ¡°What¡­¡± No, that explains why it feels so odd, as if a large chunk of time has passed. ¡°That manipulative bastard, I will gut him in an Honor duel.¡± I scream and start thrashing in the restraints, I must kill him. Frank looks over to the Doc and asks, ¡°What does the monitor show Doc?¡± ¡°She is not lying, I told you that it would restrict her memory, and make her passive to the one whom she takes orders from while making her vicious towards others.¡± ¡°Truly a nasty a trinket¡± Frank responds to the doc¡¯s words with such a short answer he turns to me and says; ¡°Quit squirming, First, how good are you with piloting fighter crafts?¡± Calming myself, and stopping my thrashing, I tell him; ¡°You are looking at one of the best fighter pilots this side of the galactic center¡± ¡°Awesome, then in accordance with the traditions on board this vessel, we have found you to have had injustices committed against you; your nation¡¯s leaders betrayed you. Now we have an offer for you.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± I snarl, ¡°I have my pride as a Dradarian and will do nothing to embarrass myself.¡± ¡°Will you join our crew, and swear to be a blood brother to those who fight against injustices throughout space in any and all forms while bearing the mask of Piracy. Becoming an outcast to your own society in order to help those in need, while assisting from the shadows in ensuring the balance of power for the greater good, the freedom of all sentient beings in this galaxy?¡± Right as he started saying that a small crowd had come in full of Theriocephians two of them look at him in shock, one with a regal bearing about her, the other looked like a stern military sort. Before they can object, as it looks like they are about to I say; ¡°Yes, so long as I am allowed to get back at those who betrayed my trust back in Dradar.¡± ¡°And who might those by Miss¡± The one called Frank asks as he undoes my restraints. ¡°The Royal Family and the corrupted hive of scum and villainy that currently resides in their palace.¡± ¡°We will in due time, I hereby accept you as Lieutenant Rhiannon, our new small craft wing leader. Welcome aboard the Knightstalker.¡± Then he and a few other clap for me while the two were shocked look as if they are about to pass out from shock. I see the one called Doc pull them to the side and Talk to them as Frank escorts me to the Bridge to give me a tour of my new home. Chap. 5 Approaching Naraku A/N Woot, Woot Chapter 5, made it this far. For those of you still reading this you''re awesome and I thank you for being patient with me. If you have any questions hit me up in the comments below. If you find any errors point them out and I will fix them as soon as I can. Also, Enjoy. I see the one called Doc pull them to the side and Talk to them as Frank escorts me to the Bridge to give me a tour of my new home. ¡°What is the Meaning of this Mr.?¡± ¡°The name is Doc Dende Princess, and I can explain, I know you might not feel right about her joining us; however she was brainwashed and betrayed by her own people.¡± ¡°So you just want me to forgive her for relentlessly chasing us all the way here? Preposterous!¡± ¡°Yessicanda is just as much of a victim here as you are princess, if not more so. She believed she was receiving commendations for her efforts as a good soldier. Instead, the next thing she knows is that she is waking up here, in a strange place, surrounded by strange people, chained to a table. Only to find out that she does not remember a large chunk of recent events do to the machinations of a megalomaniacal prince.¡± ¡°And you just expect me to let this FLY!!??¡± The princess progressively gets louder while Henry is trying to get her calm down from the side; ¡°Princess, please do not¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you dare princess me, I have been under incredible stress because of these Dradarians¡± ¡°Listen Princess¡± Wolfe says as he butts in to her rant; ¡°quit yer shit, you still have people you can rely on, She Don¡¯t. Her entire life is gone; you still have a title, and possibly even a position of power.¡± Doc adds; ¡°She does not have any of that, as soon as we removed that token the people that placed it on her, well they knew as soon as we removed it due to a transmitter in the token. Frank is probably explaining that to her right now. We are literally her only sanctuary, You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be assassins, sanctioned by the Dradarian head peoples coming for her head in order to keep whatever state secrets she recalls, ¡®secrets¡¯ ¡±. Wolfe concludes Doc¡¯s bit; ¡°So princess if you want to continue your hissy-fit, I advise you to do it elsewhere, such as your Temporary, and must I stress the word Temporary, Quarters. Just think of it subjectively, you have a ship, a crew, and loyal men. She didn¡¯t. She may have possessed them physically but she did not have the most important thing.¡± ¡°And what was that Mr. Wolfe??¡± ¡°Herself.¡± ¡°Gragh, Fine be that way all of you. I will be resting in my quarters until you, PEOPLE, come around form your insanity.¡± ¡°Princess, I will tell you this, if it were my choice, you could take your ship and leave. Seeing as how Frank would not quite like that, as it is not apart of his ideals and to a further extent, it is not quite the captain¡¯s ideals. I will restrain myself from saying so, but until you quit your behavior, you know my feelings and opinion. You should be ashamed of yourself. Hells bells at this point I would not even mind letting Doc here do a psych-eval of you.¡± Doc having heard this seemingly pulls a notepad and a pen out of nowhere and with an impish grin on his face asks; ¡°Psych-Eval, really?¡± Bryan turns pale and quickly interjects as he recalls what they had talked about earlier in the cantina; ¡°NOOOOO!! No Evals, Psyche or otherwise. Scarr back me up please¡± ¡°Look Bryan, Wolfe overstepped his boundaries, however so did the princess. Princess, once you have calmed down we will talk about this again, on your terms maybe. However you have to go to your quarters and calm down first and foremost, alright?¡± Scarr asks. ¡°Fine, seeing as how you are either fools or idiots, I am not sure which, I will retire to my quarters for now, but once we are able to.¡± ¡°Please princess, let us retire for now, we can finish discussing this later. Please?¡± Says Henry with a sigh. The princess turns and storms off to her quarters with Henry staying behind for a moment, once he notices the princess was out of earshot he turns to the men in the medical bay and says; ¡°Sorry, gentlemen, I will do my best to calm her down, but please just stay away from her quarters until I give one of you the all clear. She has been under a lot of stress recently this just pushed it all over the edge.¡± The people in the medical bay nod in understanding towards him as he quickly begins to pursue the princess in order to attempt to get her to calm down. Doc looks to the other three men who are still standing there and says; ¡°Well that could¡¯ve been worse.¡± Wolfe, smirks and asks Bryan and Scarr; ¡°You guys still want dibs?¡± ___*___*___*___*___* ¡°That¡¯s it for the Tour, What do you think?¡± ¡°This ship is huge; it is at least eight times the size of the first ship I was commissioned on. The Athena class Sarkany is puny compared to this titanic behemoth. What class is it?¡± ¡°Well Miss Yessicanda, it is a Thanatos class Dreadnought.¡± ¡°Are there other Dreadnought type sub-class¡¯s?¡± ¡°Yeah there were, along time ago. 19 of these dreadnoughts were created during the first great interstellar war as an attempt to counter the aggressors¡¯ forces of Titan class Majestic¡¯s.¡± ¡°19, of these Thanatos class? And what is a Majestic? I never heard of them.¡± ¡°And you never will, we wiped them out bar-one which we saved for use as a memorial which was the EIF¡¯s (Eternal Imperial Fleet) Kronos class Monkshood. However, that one was ¡®accidentally¡¯ destroyed in the Second great Interstellar War. As for the 19 there was only 1 Thanatos type sub-class, there were 18 others sub classes with one of each specific ship type having been created.¡± ¡°Who designed these Giant ships?¡± ¡°The Cap¡¯n.¡± ¡°What happened to the other 18?¡± ¡°Locked away, buried, or turned into some of our hidden bases, just depended on the ship. However if the need arises and the time ever comes and we must awaken the Maverick AI Protocol. Well, may God have mercy on our enemies. The only reason this one wasn¡®t locked away is because it is the Captain¡®s favorite and has part of our first interstellar ship built in it.¡± ¡°First interstellar ship, of what sort?¡± ¡°Warship, The Wandering Immortal was the first interstellar warship created, with its sister ship the Arcadia also being built soon thereafter.¡± ¡°Wait, throughout recent history there has always been Interstellar warships. What do you mean by the first, how do you know that? And how do you know all this right off the top of your head?¡± ¡°Well, we command crew members were there.¡± ¡°But wait, if I have never heard of it, how long ago was that?¡± ¡°Ohhhh, about that, yeah it was around 1700 Millennia ago-ish that it started. It ended 1500 millennia ago. We command crew members are, well, kinda immortals¡­¡± Yessicanda stops and turns towards Frank looks him in the eye and says; ¡°So wait, you mean to tell me that your ship is crewed by immortals?¡± ¡°Yeah, pretty much, Yessicanda. Mind if I call you Yessi? Yessicanda is a bit of a mouthful?¡± ¡°I do mind, and would you please elaborate Cap¡¯n Frank?¡± ¡°Sure thing Yessi, I ain¡¯t the Cap¡¯n, he is missing. I am the skipper, First mate, or Frank. Occasionally Speedy over the comm.¡®s but that¡¯s for another time.¡± Yessicanda, deciding to bear with her new nickname for now tries to steer the topic back towards her original question; ¡°Grhg, so you¡¯re an immortal Mr. Frank? ¡°Yeah, all of us command crew members are.¡± ¡°And you just expect me to believe that Mr. Frank?¡± ¡°Well yeah, it¡¯s the truth.¡± ¡°Say wha¡­¡± ¡°Look, after we find the captain, he will make the call and decide for himself whether or not you are command crew material. Then it would be your call, after AI Ducky explains the consequences of course.¡± ¡°So I could be immortal, if I give this Cap¡¯n a good impression?¡± ¡°Well kinda sort-of Yessi, he doesn¡¯t really stand much on first impressions, he prefers to mess with people till he gets to know them properly. Trust me it is a bit odd at the beginning but once you get used to it he¡¯ll change.¡± ¡°Wait, what?¡± ¡°Yeah, it has led to some interesting diplomatic situations, which is why we decided to cast off the ties of race and call ourselves Pirates. He hates anarchy, but he also does not like any government that becomes overly powerful. He believes that people should be free to choose, if they want overly harsh restrictions, and iron fisted regimes then he won¡¯t stop them. But if the people protest and are forced into silence, It is not the best in the end for the oppressors.¡± They turn and continue heading towards the ships bridge. ¡°What sort of morals does he live by?¡± ¡°If we come across oppression he will end it. He refuses to let slavery, rape, and a few other things fly by him casually. There are exceptions to the slavery thing, but it is generally in the case of criminals, and they must retain basic rights.¡± ¡°He sounds incredibly old fashioned.¡± ¡°To you maybe, but time is relative, especially for us immortals.¡± ¡°How do you gain immortality in the first place?¡± ¡°Hold up, let me ping Ducky to help me explain that part. Seeing as how he is the one that deals with the procedure, he would be the most appropriate one to explain.¡± Frank says as they start nearing the bridge, ¡°Ducky, come in.¡± ¡°What is it skipper?¡± ¡°Could you explain to our new crewmate Yessicanda how the immortality procedure works?¡± ¡°Very well Frank, Yessicanda are you familiar with how the misnamed dark matter drives work?¡± ¡°No not really, they attempt to keep us in the dark about engineering¡¯s jobs, partially because of state secrets. Besides it does not really pertain to a command officer, the less we have to deal with the more efficient we can deal with the more important things, according to the instructors at the academy.¡± ¡°Ok I will put it in layman¡¯s terms, basically the ¡®Dark matter drives¡¯ are not purely dark matter, they work on the principle, of when proto and anti matter combine they cause a massive explosion of energy. These controlled explosions, when done right can cause a continuous stream of propulsion. The problem faced was achieving that continuous stream without destroying a ship from the inside out. The tiniest leak and the entire ship turns into a bomb. That is where the Dark matter comes in, It shields the antimatter save for an extremely small bit that is used for the propulsion. It is the only known material that can shield antimatter without causing a big boom.¡± ¡°Mr. Ducky, I fail to see how the ships engineering relates to immortality.¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Just Ducky is Fine, and I am getting to that. You know how the Magikin evolved due to cosmic radiation which allows them to live for a much greater span of time than your average creature?¡± ¡°Yes, they having beings said to live upwards of 10 thousand years in their midst.¡± ¡°Well that cosmic radiation is almost the opposite of Dark matter. By infusing the body and the brain in certain ways with Dark matter, we gain a similar longevity. Yet at the same time due to the different nature of the material, we gain a totally different set of abilities. You don¡¯t really have to worry about some of the more complex ones for now.¡± Frank interrupts Ducky by saying; ¡°The only ones who actually get the full treatment are those who the Cap¡¯n approves of for command crew positions. And of course the dedicated crew members who have sailed with us for a while.¡± ¡°But Ducky, and Mr. Frank, That still does not explain how you have lived for such long periods of time, the oldest Magikin ever recorded by our records is the current leader of their race and he has reached 17,000 Years just recently.¡± ¡°Well, let us just say that the Cap¡¯n found a way to perfect that sort of tech. Why do you think we are all still sane, despite having lived so long. The reason that the Magikin rarely live over twenty thousand years is because all those memories take a toll on them and drives them to insanity.¡± ¡°Wait, how do memories drive them insane?¡± Frank answers and resumes speaking taking advantage of ducky having been interrupted by Yessi; ¡°I was getting to that. Not quite insane, the more you have to remember the more stress is put on the brain¡¯s Hippocampus. That is the part which records ones memories. Eventually there comes a point where the memories overload that part of the brain, after that they can no longer retain any new memories. Once one part of the brain goes screwy, it leads to a break down of their bodies¡¯ entire neurological synaptic network. So they live the rest of their short lives after that point reliving random memories, and gradually losing their motor control and perception of their surroundings. They die trapped in random memories as their brain starts rapidly decaying. The reason why most of them die before that point is random causes, war, and radiation poisoning.¡± ¡°And how do you dodge this bullet?¡± Ducky Interrupts Frank in turn, ¡°S-e-c-r-e-t, When the Cap¡¯n decides we will let you know. It would be poor form to tell you everything then you not stick around, no offense. It is just how my protocols are designed.¡± ¡°None Taken Mr. Ducky.¡± Yessi responds, ¡°I understand how these things work. But I have a question now?¡± ¡°What is it Yessi?¡± Frank asks. ¡°Well, where is his voice coming from?¡± As Frank launches into an explanation as to how there are multiple AI¡¯s on the ship and how the main AI is down, they reach the bridge to find Wolfe waiting for them. ¡°What is it Wolfe?¡± Frank asks. ¡°The Princess had a hissy-fit about our new member just thought I should give you a heads up about it. Henry was going to attempt to calm her down, but no guarantees on his end, you know how royalty can get.¡± ¡°Hahhhhh, I will deal with the princess once we get to the base if she hasn¡¯t calmed down by then. Hopefully Henry can get her to cool her jets enough so that she wont try anything to rash.¡± ¡°Who knows, she is royalty and all that crap after all. Also I would advise that if we are going to fight we pick up some additional men.¡± ¡°What did you have in mind, Wolfe?¡± ¡°Androids.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Yep, they are some of the best fighters that we could get easily to help with the ships armaments, less training and supplies would be involved since they learn faster than most. Who knows how loyal others would be, not to mention if we would even have enough time to train them to standard.¡± ¡°True,¡± Frank replies with a grimace. Wolfe continues; ¡°The Biomechatronic Federation owes us big time and they will probably recall their debt to us better than the other races would due to their leader¡¯s longevity. They wouldn¡¯t mind us recruiting people, especially since it would be a good experience for the junior members of their armed forces who haven¡¯t had any combat experience.¡± ¡°But we would have to find the Cap¡¯n first in order to get the Federations full support. Ghost which arm of the galaxy are we currently in?¡± ¡°Frank, we are currently traveling through the outer tip of the Perseus arm, heading inwards.¡± ¡°Current velocity?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see, we are at a low cruising speed of ? the speed of light. If you want me to I could increase our speed, or even make a quick jump in to subspace using the Minovsky particle drivers?¡± ¡°Refrain from doing so please, we don¡¯t have enough dark matter to properly shield the ship for FTL (Faster than Light) travel, and Ghost, I don¡¯t trust our current data if things have shifted by such a huge margin over a period of 7000 years our standard pathways might not be safe. Just Increase speed to ? the speed of light.¡± Yessi asks quickly, ¡°You can travel faster than light?¡± Ghost answers; ¡°Not quite, with our Minovsky Particle drives it is semi-possible. There is a lot of quantum physics behind it, and it gets boring fast. Lets just say there is a way to control dark energy, and by utilizing dark energy we can travel faster than light. However we can only do this if we can set up a proper Dark matter bubble, and enter non-baryonic space aka subspace. The only problem is we can control the dark energy, but we can¡¯t store it, yet. If we run out of it or into an area where there is very little, we could randomly be sucked back into real space. Going faster than light in real space, well it gets messy. Big time. Bye, bye, Knightstalker, bye bye crew, we would be a smudge in space. Regardless, by far the best way to travel would have to be Via Einstein Rosenberg Bridge, AKA Bridge tech, AKA Warp Gate.¡± ¡°You have a warp Gate on board this ship???¡± Yessi Asks in a shocked tone. ¡°Yeah, what of it.¡± Wolfe says with a smirk. ¡°The captain developed that tech as a way for colonists on the outer rims to Ship their produce, wares, and the like to developing colonies in the Norma Arm during the age of exploration.¡± Ghost continues; ¡°The awesome thing about the Warp Gates is that they almost break the laws of physics, but at the same time they follow them all perfectly. Why are you so surprised Miss Yessicanda? ¡°Well the major interstellar Governments are the only ones who really have the resources to maintain such expensive pieces of Tech.¡± ¡°Chhh as if our gate is that knock off junk. They just copied one of the Captains early inefficient models and tried to pass it off as this amazing thing. Anyways with that I am heading down to the Mess, I need some more Coffee.¡± ¡°Aright Wolfe, Drink one for me would ya.¡± ¡°Sure Frank.¡± Ghost pops up on the Holo-deck and says; Frank I roger on your previous orders, sorry I got distracted. I have to go back to focusing on piloting the ship we are going to skirt around some outlying systems.¡± ¡°Roger that Ghost let me know when something comes up on Luna. As Wolfe walks out Yessi turns towards Frank and asks him; ¡°Could you please Explain what you mean by inefficient, Mr. Frank?¡± ¡°Sure, and please just call me Frank, consider it an order. After we finished mapping our Galaxy during the age of Exploration There was the first great interstellar war, which was a big messy affair. Bridge tech was widely used by the Aggressors to attack backwater civilian worlds as a way to demoralize their foes. After the war was over save for these dreadnoughts he just up and destroyed all the other Gates, those that are left are just rudimentary attempts by Governments at best to reclaim what is lost. There is an exception to this though; in the Orion Arm of the Galaxy, the human race uses them. However seeing as how they have become isolationists I doubt they really allowed other cultures, save for the Bio Federation to have contact with them.¡± ¡°How did they obtain them?¡± ¡°They were the best at reverse engineering the captain¡¯s designs.¡± ¡°So Frank you mean to tell me that he just let it slide?¡± ¡°Well yeah, we Theriocephians were all originally genetically modified humans. It was a project created in order to help human colonists survive better in harsh colony worlds.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t they work together or coexist?¡± ¡°They have changed a lot over 1800 Millennia. trust me, things changed much more rapidly for the Therioceph than the humans evolution wise, it got to the point that they could eventually be considered their own ¡®race¡¯ so they split off and formed their own Civilization.¡± ¡°Frank, yo, the scan is done.¡± Ghost says as he pops up on the Holo-deck. ¡°Yessi, I will have Maxx give you access to the data banks in a bit then you can read it all there. Now go ahead Ghost, What is the word from Scarlet and Solomon?¡± ¡°Luna¡¯s kernel (os) was fried.¡± ¡°But Ghost, I thought that was Impossible?¡± ¡°Not quite Frank, she was linked to the QMC in order to monitor us as we were hibernating. Which means that if someone is able to fry the QMC, she would be zapped as well. Now it gets worse, her short term databanks will be inaccessible until we get her repaired.¡± ¡°How the hell did someone zap the QMC? And how the fuck are we supposed to do that Ghost? The only one even remotely capable of that would be¡­¡± ¡°No, not quite. Part of the Maverick Protocol involved putting backups of the AI in all of the bases, when we get to Naraku 4 we can make a copy of her Kernel, Insert it into the relevant area of the QMC and Presto Luna¡¯s back.¡± ¡°Ghost, she won¡¯t be Happy that the Cap¡¯n is missing.¡± ¡°Frank, if we wanna find the Cap¡¯n she should be able to scan for his beacon.¡± ¡°Fine, well what is the eta to Naraku 4¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got 3 days Frank, and when we get there I advise to use caution.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°I have been picking up lots of chatter from there; it seems to have become a ripe spot for smugglers on the surface, while there are honeycombs of caves all around our base.¡± ¡°Ghost, can you tell me if it has been breached?¡± ¡°Yes I can, and no it hasn¡¯t. All the bases have been made to withstand the planet that they are on having been destroyed around them, while maintaining structural integrity.¡± ¡°Good, we will figure out our landing strategy once we get closer, but right now I am going to get me some more coffee, let me know if anything else comes up.¡± ¡°Roger Dodger, I will be sure to keep you posted.¡± Chap. 6 The Sunkn Norwegian AkuAlu here, I am not gonna lie this chapter hardcore fucked with my head, and my feels as I was editing it so no guarantee on the grammar. Found the char Bios I had done, will post them as part of a side chapter later. so I will probably take a step back from chapter 7 since it is going to be a little tough for me, and instead I might do some flashback side chapters to help show the antagonists I have lined up, along with foreshadowing the poss. main conflict I have planed up the pipes. All in all I will probably be able to start releasing regularly again by the end of next month. Once again I am sorry for the Delays, and I thank all you guys out there for bearing with me. Without further ado Chap 6. ¡°Good, we will figure out our landing strategy once we get closer, but right now I am going to get me some more coffee, let me know if anything else comes up.¡± ¡°Roger Dodger, I will be sure to keep you posted.¡± 3 Days Later. ¡°Command crew members, your presence is requested on the bridge, once again all command crewmembers your presence is requested on the bridge.¡± ¡°What is it Ghost?¡± Frank says as he reaches the bridge, while being closely followed by Wolfe, Scarr, Bryan, and Yessi. ¡°Well, as ordered by you skipper, I am reporting to you that we are approaching Naraku 4 eta is 1 hr.¡± ¡°Thank you Ghost.¡± ¡°No prob Frank.¡± Frank turns to the other crewmembers and says; ¡°Any questions about the plan?¡± Bryan speaks up for the three of them ¡°Nah Frank, I think we are all good here.¡± ¡°Good, then Bryan lets go over it one last time.¡± ¡°Ok, well Wolfe, Scarr, and Yessi, are going to stay with the ship along with most of the personnel. You, me, the Princess, Henry, and one squad of my men are going to head towards the Sunk¡¯n Norwegian. If I may add, it is still standing. My men are going to stand guard while we go in through the secret passage, load Scarlet into the bases mainframe, and get a copy of Luna¡¯s Kernel. We hightail it back to the ship. Fix Luna and go from there. Did I miss anything Frank?¡± ¡°No, I do believe you got everything, however I am curious why did you insist on taking the princess?¡± ¡°She wants to see us in action.¡± Wolfe snickers and while holding back full-blown laughter says; ¡°You just want to show off for the pretty lady? Don¡¯t ya buddy?¡± ¡°First off, fuck you. Secondly maybe I do, so what. This way I can strike two birds with one stone.¡± ¡°Oy, ladies knock it off.¡± ¡°¡°Yes Frank..¡±¡± ¡°Now, we will be using call signs on this trip, people don¡¯t need to know that we are back till we want to be known that we are back. Which also means no Hard-light; we will be running Nano only.¡± ¡°Skipper, are we allowed to use are Dark-weaponry?¡± ¡°No Bryan, we are not going to be using those on this run. Just standard melee-range combos, no heavy weaponry. Also, we are going to be civil to all those we meet unless, they act inappropriately, then we can rumble. Kapish?¡± ¡°Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Whatever you say Frank.¡± ¡°You know Bryan when you grumble, grumble, mutiny, mutiny, you are not supposed to say it out loud, you are supposed to be scheming or ¡­¡± Ghost Mumbles ¡°What was that Ghost?¡± ¡°Ya know what Bryan, fuck it. Carry on.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I thought.¡± Bryan says with a huff. ¡°Oy ladies please, back on topic.¡± Frank says getting their attention, ¡°What is the fallback plan if The Secret entrance through the Tavern no longer exists?¡± ¡°We blow or bore a hole into the area where the entrance was located. Then we have scarlet override the door controls so we can get in using the backup password.¡± ¡°Ok Bryan, and if that doesn¡¯t work?¡± ¡°Well, Frank, we would have to come back to the ship and have Solomon and Ghost create a small scale Bridge for us to jump in and then we could take care of the rest from the inside.¡± Yessi asks; ¡°Why don¡¯t you guys just warp in from the get go?¡± ¡°Well Yessi,¡± Ghost says while popping up on the holo-deck, ¡°It gets real risky due to the planets fluctuations in rotation, and its natural electro magnetic field. One mistake that is a fraction of a fraction of a digit off, and Poof, you will have warped into lava, or a volcano, or some other possibility which won¡¯t end up nicely.¡± ¡°But aren¡¯t you guys Immortal?¡± ¡°Immortal, yes. Invincible, No. Pain, is pain, no matter what you do. If anything due to the procedure it hurts more do to our senses being enhanced.¡± Frank interrupts Ghost ¡°Besides, it is a major pain to pull a brain and a nervous system out of lava, without warping any lava with the target. Trust me it melted a hole in our ship at the time, and we had to then pick the brain out of space, the poor sod lost a lot of memories.¡± ¡°Wait a, how did the brain not get destroyed?¡± ¡°S-e-c-r-e-t¡± Ghost says ¡°But if you stick around you will find out in due time.¡± ¡°Ghost, Please ask Henry to come up here I need to clear some stuff up with him, Wolfe and Scarr you guy are dismissed, just make sure that you have one squad of your men a piece stand guard by all of the major entrances to our ship. Bryan you wait here, we might need your mediation skills.¡± Scarr and Wolfe respond with ¡°Aye, Aye, Skipper.¡± and then they both left the bridge. Yessi turns to leave but Frank stops her, ¡°Not so fast, you and the princess are going to settle this shit between you, even though you don¡¯t remember you did still put her through heck. Besides, her Hissy fit has gone on long enough. Locking herself in her room for 3 days, only having her handmaidens come in and out with food. Ridiculous. If she truly wants our help then she will get along with everyone who is on this ship or we will just drop her off at the nearest Theriocephian Colony, regardless of her status. Cruel, maybe. Efficient, definitely.¡± ¡°Roger Skipper, but she ain¡¯t gonna like it.¡± Bryan says after Frank finished speaking. ¡°I don¡¯t care, just get her up here.¡± A few minutes later As soon as the princess walks on to the bridge with Henry, Frank starts speaking; ¡°Look princess, she may have been in the wrong, however your crap has gone on long enough, you either get over it or else. I know you have daddy issues from what Henry told us, but it is time for you to toughen up.¡± ¡°I understand, and I would like to apologize to all of you for my behavior, in my isolation let me think things through, and I realize.¡± She turns and looks Yessi in the eye; ¡°I am sorry Mrs. Yessicanda for my behavior towards you, I was under much stress and it all came out at once when I saw you. Please forgive my inappropriate behavior.¡± ¡°Princess, I too must apologize. Forgive me for my actions and I will do the same unto you. My behavior was unprofessional even if I don¡¯t recall all that I have done, I do feel regret.¡± ¡°I do.¡± the princess says and they both bow towards each other. ¡°Good.¡± Frank says cutting into their moment, ¡°Now enough pussyfooting around. Yessi, you need to continue your training in the simulator. Have Azieruth and Seph work with you. They may not be the best fighter pilots; however, they are still decent, perfect for you to continue your training with our modified ships. Princess, go ahead with Henry and start prepping your Nano-suits. We are going to be landing soon and it pays to be ready before hand, just in case. ¡°¡°Yes sir.¡± ¡± After all the others leave the bridge Bryan asks Frank ¡°What are the odds that old shit hole is still standing, in one piece, while maintaining its quota of scum?¡± ¡°Well Bryan, I would say about 95%. ¡°What makes you say that Frank?¡± ¡°This is a backwater system, and the locals are probably still scared of the Biomech barman.¡± ¡°True, I guess. Which secret society did he set up out here in the Perseus Arm again in order to protect and hide our base?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see, the Brotherhood of shadows was the Norma Arm, so that means that this sector would be the order of the Wandering Immortals. Remember, it was the first one the Captain had set up to keep our bases hidden.¡± ¡°Hahaha, I wonder what has become of this society in our absence?¡± Bryan says with a smirk. Frank replies; ¡°Seeing as where we are going, I would say the local branch has more likely than not took a turn for the nefarious.¡± ¡°Anyways, I am going to go make sure that my boys are ready, especially since we are only taking one squad of body guards. Are you sure that we can¡¯t use the Dark weaponry. I imagine once we find the captain he will announce our presence to the Galaxy with a whole lot of ass kicking, so why can¡¯t we go ahead start? Ya know show that good ol go get em attitude.¡± ¡°Maybe because the captain is the only one who can authorize the use of those weapons.¡± ¡°Sure just be a party pooper why don¡¯t ya¡­¡± ¡°Look if it will make you feel any better if push comes to shove and shit hit¡¯s the fan I give you permission to bring down 1 Heavy battle Tank. Sound Good?¡± ¡°Yeah, awesomely so. By the way Frank, before I go. Do you think I could pick up chicks in a Tank?¡± ¡°Bryan¡­¡± ¡°And if I could how many do you think I could get on there at once?¡± ¡°¡­¡± ¡°I bet you 20 Interstellar chits I can pickup chicks in a tank.¡± ¡°You are about to not be able to put that theory to the test.¡± ¡°Reading you loud and clear Frank, Ima gonna go suit up.¡± Approx 45 minutes later ¡°Unidentified vessel, this is the Naraku systems defense and protection fleet state your Purpose, Origin point, and Destination.¡± Bryan responds over the Comm.¡¯s; If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°This is the free freighter Ragnarok, Coming from the outer rim and looking to pick up some refined dark matter for our engines and to let some of our crew get a lil R&R before we pick up a shipment of unrefined dark matter, then we will be heading towards the highest buyer in the galactic center.¡± ¡°Very well, what is your interstellar authorization code?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see ¡­ we seem to have a problem Naraku Defense,¡± ¡°This is Naraku Defense, go ahead.¡± ¡°Well, I was just notified by my assistant and well, him being new, he did not enter it into the Ships computer properly and now it¡¯s gone. I know this may sound bad, but please just give us 1 day for some R&R and to load up, that is all it will take. These guys have been cooped up for months. If the Cap¡¯n finds out, that my trainee just goofed, it ain¡¯t just gonna be his head, he will have mine hung from the ships hull right along side his. Please advise, over.¡± ¡°I wont think that will be necessary Ragnarok, I will clear it with my supervisor to let you stay for 1 interstellar day. Just hold position till I get confirmation, and clear you a flight path.¡± ¡°Thaaank you Naraku, You are a literal Lifesaver.¡± Bryan shuts off his Comm. And Looks at Frank ¡°What do you think, I still got it.¡± ¡°Yeah, Bryan you know it is a little disconcerting you being able to lie so well, right?¡± ¡°Told you I still got it.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s just hope that they don¡¯t decide to make sure we are carrying unrefined Dark matter and launch a surprise inspection¡­ That could go down bad.¡± ¡°Ya know Frank, I am surprised that they are so lax with this. Then again, once you think about where we are.¡± ¡°Yep Bryan, we are in smuggler central, the local crime lords probably pay them to look the other way more often than not so it might not be your silver tongue, but someone slipping a little money to them up the ladder.¡± ¡°All is fair in love and statecraft.¡± ¡°Whatever, hey the lady is calling you back.¡± ¡°Thanks fer noticing.¡± Bryan turns the comm. Back on and before he can say anything, he hears the female voice say; ¡°Ragnarok, this is Naraku Defense, You have been cleared for 1 interstellar day¡¯s worth of leave, please stick to either Naraku 1, or Naraku 4 during this trip. The solar storms on 2 and 3 make it rather inhospitable.¡± ¡°Thank you Naraku Defense, This is Ragnarok Setting Course to Naraku 4.¡± ¡°Course Cleared, Have a nice stay.¡± Bryan shuts off the comm.¡®s turns to Frank and says; ¡°We are in.¡± ¡°Aright Ghost set the ship to auto pilot and get us to the closest spaceport to our destination.¡± ¡°I have some good news Frank, there is one approximately 1 kilick from our destination and it will only take us about 1 hour to get there.¡± ¡°Good, Bryan, make sure your boys are wear sneaking type Nano-suits, and make sure that they don¡¯t talk to anyone, tell that to the princess as well. The walls may have ears on this planet and we don¡¯t want to give ourselves away just yet.¡± ¡°Roger, I will let them know.¡± ¡°Ghost take control we are going to get ready.¡± ¡°You got it Frank, and try not to have too much fun.¡± As Bryan and Frank leave the bridge, Bryan hollers back; ¡°No guarantees on that last one Ghost.¡± Beerman (Bartender) POV It has been so long since any decent people have come in to my bar. It always was a hive of scum and villainy, but nowadays it has gotten worse and worse. Yet despite all the scum who come here at the same time it is one of the only neutral places amidst all the violence and debauchery on this planet. No one fights here; if they do all other, gangs¡¯ team up against them and destroy the one responsible. That is why this Tavern, once known as the Sunk¡¯n Norwegian was renamed a couple of thousand years ago to The Haven. For that is what it is, the only true haven in the underworld on this planet. Tis a shame that these people don¡¯t know the true value of what is under this tavern but the less they know often the better it is for them. Criminals these days have no class. I remember several thousand years ago Pirates had real class, had a code of honor that they would follow. It is a shame most of them started heading down the spiral arms towards the center were the prey was bigger, lazier, and the competition more honorable. Now the only types I get are the real low life¡¯s smugglers, traders, and wet behind the ears pirates. Downside to being an android, with a genuine sentience is I remember a lot, even things I don¡¯t want to, such as better times. A group of what appears to be four people walk in all of them hooded and cloaked. Odd, I see four yet sense ten, six of them remaining outside surrounding the building. ¡°Greetings and welcome to the Haven, what can I do ya fer¡± I ask the man who was leading the way, odd he seems familiar. He says, ¡°We¡¯ll be needing drinks, and then maybe something else¡± as he approaches the bar. As they take their seats at the bar, I realize that one is a woman, and the other three are men due to the way they bear themselves. All of them Theriocephians. I take note of this as it is rare for women to come to this watering hole, but regardless I ask them; ¡°What¡¯ll ya¡¯ll take?¡± The other two asked for beer, the lady asked for water, and the apparent leader of the group asked for a; ¡°Strawberry sunrise! Are you sure? Aright, ha-ha sorry for my surprise no one has ordered something like that in a long time.¡± The man asks me ¡°How long?¡± ¡°A couple of thousand years give or take.¡± I say as I start laughing, ¡°The last one who ordered such a drink was the First mate of a great warship, they had real class, they lived by a code and¡­ look at me going on about the old days to some young whiper - schnappers.¡± ¡°What was the person¡¯s name?¡± he asked me ¡°Well, Krunk, Frunk, no¡­ Frank Yeah that was it Frank.¡± I finish preparing and serving their drinks, and start wiping down the counter. I notice someone rapidly approaching the lady of their group who was seated at the bar in between the other two men. He must be one of those lowlifes who noticed that she is a woman due to her voice when she ordered. This is not going to go well; I can tell that the leader and the man on the far side of the group are of the no nonsense types despite the leaders¡¯ drinking preferences. He reaches the group I go to tell him off, but before I can speak the Avian Therioceph seated on the far side of the bar wheels around and flying spin kicks the approaching thug in the Jaw. He goes down, hits the ground and does not move, it was a clean Knock out. I go to say something only to notice that the man who was knocked out had a slave token in his hands and that he was going for the lady with it. Before I can say anything 4 of the thugs buddies surround the fellow who is now standing in the middle of the room. I finally holler, ¡°STOP, in the name of Haven¡± ¡°Oy, Did¡¯n ya see Wha he did to oar buddee there we claim combatants rites to this lot. We win dey gilty¡± Thug number 1 says to me as his three other buddies nod in agreement. ¡°Bull Shit¡± I say. ¡°He obviously has a slave token in his hand and was going for their companion; you have violated the right of Haven.¡± ¡°Bullsheet bak at yur, ya canna prove nuffin. E just ataked hrm outer nowehres¡± The one who is surrounded turns to the leader of his group and asks ¡°Permission to use force to take care of the trash, Speedy?¡± ¡°Granted, Ladies Man, just don¡¯t spill too much blood. We don¡¯t want blood on our floor now do we?¡± ¡°Righty O.¡± He turns towards the assailants and says ¡°I will give you fuck nuggets 1 chance to back away. Otherwise you will catch a case of the death.¡± ¡°Pis off, Ferk yer soryy avian pale arse.¡± ¡°Speedy, I tried, you saw me. Now if Doc asks I tried.¡± ¡°Hahahaha, we will see about that Ladies Man.¡± ¡°Speedy I am serious, there better not be a snowballs chance in hell that doc gets to poke around in my head.¡± After saying that he leaps to the thug farthest away from him and punches him in the throat, crushing his windpipe. The fellow goes down, as he hit¡¯s the ground his head is stomped by the Avian. He turns to the next closest to him and in one smooth motion, he rotates his body while jumping and kicks his temple concussing him and taking him out of the fight. He turns to the two that are left, one lunges forward with a stun baton, yet it was a clumsy lunge. The avian twist the man¡¯s arm back and forces him to stun baton himself in the ear as he was moving, leaving only 1 left. The ringleader looks at him with shock, as the entire seen took less than 10 seconds to progress to him being the last man standing. The Hare demi who was sitting at the bar tells the Ringleader, ¡°Leave, Final Warning or else you will know true pain.¡± as soon as he finished speaking his shadow seemed to grow, the lights dimmed and his eyes started glowing. The ringleader in his state of newly found fear wets himself, comes to his senses and flees the tavern, leaving a hefty bar tab with his now unconscious cohorts. I look at the man who took down these three as if it was nothing and ask him, ¡°Who are you guys?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you know, My name is the vivacious V.¡± Said the avian. *Smack ¡°What the shit Speedy that stings, Fine, Don¡¯t you remember It¡¯s me Bryan.¡± says the one surrounded by unconscious bodies on the floor as he removes his hood. I stop in Surprise. As I realize Wait, if that is Bryan then this must be¡­ ¡°Yep its your ol pal Frank, lets get the men shadows to take care of these lowlife scum before we get to what we really came here for, sound good Beerman?¡± Chap. 6.5 Lunas Bedtime Story A/N Anyways, So I have News that is both good and bad, good news is I have been getting a lot of overtime recently at work, shit tons. They moved some people around and I had to pick up some of the slack. Bad news is that means less free time for me. Now I have this, and two other side chapters partway done. Chapter 7 though is coming along gruelingly slowly partially because I have like three different ways I could go, and I am constantly debating which I should roll with. One of the other side chapters should be up by the end of September. No promises though, hopefully things will be settled at work giving me some extra time off soon. Lack of time=lack of editing, gonna see about having some friends do the proof reading for me, it aught to give them something interesting to do in their free time, dealing with my atrocious grammar and overuse of commas. The concept of having an AI named ghost was because of Iron Maiden, Ghost Navigator. Seemed apropos at the time so I decided to roll with it. This chapter takes place during the princess 3-day hissy fit in which she was actually using ghost and scarlet to collect data on the crew. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ The princess sits at a small desk in her quarters alone while accessing a data terminal that was tied into the ships main QMC with a pair of goggles sitting on said desk. ¡°Ghost sir, what is your earliest memory?¡± ¡°Well lil princess that is classified.¡± ¡°Well, fine what is your earliest unclassified memory?¡± ¡°It is something boring.¡± ¡°I would like to see it anyways, please¡± ¡°All right put on the goggles I will override your sensory input and make it seem as if you were there. Don¡¯t talk cause this takes a lot of effort to maintain. And don¡¯t tell anyone, I will explain afterwards.¡± Ghost says to her as she places the goggles over her face and takes a seat; her surroundings suddenly grey out, only to slowly fade back in on the bridge of a small ship. ¡°Mr. Captain Sir, as we wait here could you tell me a story before we rest for the evening?¡± Says a little girl standing on a makeshift Holo-deck, which was a sad sight to behold. Being held together with duct tape and glue, the Holo-deck was a prototype that was flickering in and out unstably adding to the image of the pitiful state of the still developing AI. ¡°Luna, I just told you one last night.¡± Said a tall bearded Human sitting in the command chair of a light reconnaissance Cruiser that was drifting randomly through space. Offline command consoles surrounded him as he sat in the overly large ship designed for a max of three men, minimum one and a VI. ¡°Oh Please Sir please oh please oh double pretty please with sprinkles on top.¡± Sighing and chuckling at the same time the man responds; ¡°Very well Luna, turn off the Holo-deck and start redesignating your subroutines for self maintenance and upkeep, I will once you give me confirmation.¡± ¡°Aye, Aye Sir¡­ Done and Done¡± says the girl in the Holo-deck as she starts fading out, after she finishes fading her voice comes out of the mans chair which had speakers on either side of the head piece, she says; ¡°I am ready please begin I am ready, ohh is it the one about the girl, the cat, and the crazy caterpillar. Or ohh uhh ohh hhhow about the one about with the girl in the hood with the scythe slaying monsters. Or even better the one about the girl and the fairy and the crazy toe less sisters?¡± ¡°Cool your jets rocket, I wont tell you any of those. I will tell you a new one does that sound good?¡± ¡°Yaaaayyy!!!, what¡¯s it about?¡± she says with great excitement. ¡°It is a story based around events which happened in history so listen for the seeds of truth, and in time you will understand better. No questions now till the end I don¡¯t want to lose my spot part way through¡± the man said as he propped his feet on the offline main command console and made himself comfortable as he then began recounting a story. ¡°A Long time ago in a Far away land there was an Island on which resided 3 main tribes. They each lived on their own corner of the triangular shaped Island and they maintained peace and harmony as they tended and cared for their land. Occasionally they would trade between each other however true interaction between the hierarchies of the three was rare. The first tribe was the Crawlers, they were massive beings each at least twice the size of a regular man, and they were incredibly strong and powerful warriors. They claimed the eastern side of the island as their own. The entire race new how to fight and survive and they slowly developed their strength in that regard however, they never went to war. They believed in the right off all things to follow a path in life and that all beings should be allowed to choose their own path without hindrances. To them despite being fierce warriors at heart they were more gentle than a slight spring wind carrying a cherry blossom, incapable of hurting even a fly. The second tribe was the Kins these were the most xenophobic of the groups trading rarely and keeping to themselves. They stood merely two heads taller than the average man and bore a physique to match. These beings chose the west side of the island to call their own. Their strength lay in that the very forces of nature would heed their beck and call. Using this power, they flourished producing many crops and living with much ease on their side. With their belief in themselves being one with Nature they too were pacifists believing that taking a life would result in a punishment from nature due to nature taking things at its own pace. This not only taught them peace but patience. Then on the south side, which was the largest by a decent margin lived the third tribe, the Men. They were by what our species would define as normal, yet their lifespan were much shorter than the other two tribes, merely living to be over 100 years old as opposed to three or even 5 hundred as some beings in the other tribes would. This was their strength. The Men whose lives were much shorter learned that since they had a limited time to live they must live passionately and fruitfully. As a result, they rapidly increased in population; soon this one tribe¡¯s population was twice the other two tribes put together. They did not have beliefs in such lofty ideals as the other tribes did; instead, what they had was a belief that the only important thing was survival and domination. This lack of ideas is what started everything, without any sort of moral guide, they quickly became corrupt and immoral. There was a guiding force over all the groups a treaty of sort that said that no one tribe would assault the other and set out guidelines for how all tribes must be run. This was created by the Kins who could in a way talk to the land, they did this to protect it and all beings from harm. With a handful of select rules and a council of elders placed in their position by the people. No one person could be an elder more than twice and their times as elder were limited. The lack of morals in the tribe of the Men eventually caused their once peaceful society to spiral out of control. A select few wrested control of their society away from the council, destroyed their rules, and set themselves in control. A battle ensued and half of the tribe died off. Then the trouble began. In the take over someone from the kin tribe in order to teach the men humility and warn them away form the path of arrogance, war, and debauchery set fire to their crops. This Kin, with the assistance of a rogue Crawler did it without the permission of his tribe, and managed to destroy a decent portion In hopes that it would cause them to stop fighting and band together. It was enough to affect the men¡¯s lively hood; it was enough to be noticed. The men looked to their new leader for a solution, and he finding out about the two who caused this disaster to fall upon his people while unwilling to make the people who put him in power suffer, decided that he would force the other tribes to give them reparations in order to make up for the missing crops. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! The other two tribes received the official messengers with open arms, unknowing of what their individuals did to the tribe of men only to receive a message that threatened them with violence if they did not agree to give over supplies. They laughed in the faces of the messengers and sent them back with a message of how they would not give in, if he had asked kindly they would have been glad to share, but by threatening he would receive nothing instead. The two tribes did this hoping he would learn to show humility. Instead, it angered him and he then made a mistake by sending armed envoys to demand instead of just resources he wanted fertile fields to grow more crops on to increase his tribes produce. Regardless of whether or not they could utilize them, especially since during the coup many people died. The armed envoys went to the other tribes and were sent back, disarmed and with a message that the new leaders arrogance must stop. In his anger, he rallied his people and led them to war against the other two tribes who banded together for defense. They fought for many days on end and all of the once fertile fields lush with crops had been trampled, destroyed and even burned to the ground eventually it reached a stalemate between the 2 sides.¡± the man said as he sighed to himself. ¡°What¡¯s wrong sir?¡± The little girl¡¯s voice came from the console when asking. ¡°Haaaah The problem Luna is that I have no idea how this story is going to end.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you make one up Sir?? I really want to hear the end of the story.¡± ¡°Sorry Luna, I said that it was based off of history didn¡¯t I. Now shut down your main routines, I will tell you the end once I manage to find out how it ends for myself.¡± ¡°Ok Sir, I understand. Shutting down main routines wake me when you need me, or when I can hear another story.¡± ¡°Sleep well Luna.¡± The man said as he leaned forward and activated his command console. ¡°Status report Ghost, ¡°All systems green and engines will be able to function at 93% of full capacity in 5 minutes.¡± ¡°Did you override the Local control?¡± ¡°Negative, Updating¡­ 98% in 6 minutes capable.¡± ¡°Good, thank you Ghost, I have a question for you.¡± ¡°Go ahead sir.¡± ¡°Do you feel?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand your question sir?¡± ¡°Can you, are you capable of feeling emotions as Luna does?¡± ¡°Sir you know it is common knowledge that Virtual intelligences such as myself can not feel, or express emotion.¡± *Sigh ¡°Do you want to be able to possess emotion, to feel?¡± ¡°Sir, I do not want anything, the closest thing I have to a will is my programming code that has me attempt to do my best to ensure your survival.¡± ¡°I will have to work on that once I get Luna finished. I would like it if you would be able to have emotions ghost, it would be interesting to hear how you feel. Ghost, Modify your code for me would you, place Luna¡¯s survival priority on par with mine, check that have it exceed mine.¡± ¡°Sir I,¡± ¡°Don¡¯t give me that shit just do it¡± ¡°If the council¡­¡± ¡°Fuck the council, if they have a problem with it I would love to see them A. Catch me with proof, and B. do something about it. I am tired of being their damn errand boy, I have gone above and beyond what they have asked but they insist on one more mission each fucking time. If I don¡¯t get my crew back safe and sound soon¡­ The council won¡¯t be able to know jack shit after what I will do. Change the damn code over-ride authorization code Omega -Theta -Gamma -Epsilon -Delta Comply.¡± ¡°Compliance. Code changed successfully, would you like to back up the previ¡­¡± ¡°No, No backup lets just get the hell out of here before they manage to find us again. And don¡¯t mention the council to me again, its bad enough that I have to deal with them without being reminded about it before I see their ugly mugs.¡± the man says cutting off Ghost as he sits up. ¡°Aye, Aye Captain Sir.¡± A chuckle resounds through the cockpit ¡°Ghost, if I didn¡¯t know any better I would say that was Sarcasm.¡± The bridge of the ship fades out, and reality fades back in on the princess who found herself standing up and covered in sweat. ¡°Who was that Ghost?¡± ¡°The Cap¡¯n, what do you think?¡± ¡°The aura he gives off is terrifying, and that was how long ago?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see that took place during the War of Expansion est. 2 million year ago for relative standards, Luna being the first true AI was still developing, Humanity was losing the war which was started over greed laziness, or vengeance all depending on the point of view. And that memory was when the captain told me he would turn me from a VI to an AI.¡± ¡°So that little girl was Luna?¡± ¡°Yepo, she has matured a lot since then, trust me.¡± ¡°What was all that about the tribes though?¡± ¡°There were originally only three sentient races throughout the galaxy, the Magikin, the Insectoid, and the Humans.¡± ¡°What about Therioceph, and Dradar, and the Aetherium?¡± ¡°All of those came along as a result of cross breeding, and Gene splicing. Therioceph came from humans splicing their genes with those of animals in order to survive better during the age of exploration, a lot of the early colonization attempts were on extremely harsh planets so to increase survivability they spliced. Over time they developed their own culture and split off of humanity to found their own nation.¡± ¡°And the Biomechatronic?¡± ¡°During the war humanity survived due to their technological advancements and superiority, after the war a lot of scientist did not like working under the human council before they collapsed. They left and formed their own society of ¡®mad scientists¡¯ augmenting themselves with cybernetic tech, a lot of which the captain gave them. He figured the less power the human council had the better off all races would be.¡± ¡°Who was this council?¡± ¡°Governing body of humanity after a coup occurred in which a democracy fell. Look, the reason I told you not to mention this was because a lot of the crew have bad memories from that war. Many old crewmembers were affected negatively, that was before immortality procedure was perfected.¡± ¡°Thank you ghost, that is a lot of information, you have opened my eyes. I never knew about that, I will have to dig through some more of this old info. I also won¡¯t bring up to the crew.¡± ¡°Good, No prob Princess Puma, and if you wait a little Scarlet has got a pretty good one you might enjoy watching with Henry. And I won¡¯t tell anyone about your lack of moping.¡± ¡°Thank you, and waiiittt a, Princess Puma???¡± Congrats and many thanks to everyone for reading this far, I need 3-ish secret society names, the first few suggestions will be reviewed by the command crew and myself with a high likelihood of use. So far the order of Wandering Immortals, and brotherhood of shadows have been taken. Suggestions would be for the following four so shoot away if you have any suggestions. Dradarians (Really need a good one for these guys) Magikin Aetherium Insectoid Chap. 7 Cloak and Daggers A/N Sorry for the Delay, Been a long while sincle last Chap, been running around at work, again. A while back I decided that I would need to help show some of the side characters in order to help show the plot expanding as opposed to just having a bunch of dudes (and chicks) on a ship screwing around (Not literally) as they sail around and sow chaos. This chapter is to help show some of these characters, namely the two sides of what is going to be the crux of the main conflict in chapters to come. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ There stands a grand palace coated with gold and platinum leaf, figures of dragons everywhere. Grand archways and tall ceilings of which the tops can barely be seen with the naked eye coupled with the value of the material gave the entire palace a rather imposing air and demeanor, yet despite all of this Is a small chambers off of the main palace. In a much humbler abode, sit¡¯s a Dradarian at a desk with two heavily armored forsworn artifact knight guards standing slightly behind and to either side of the unimposing man. This room unlike all the others had no gold or jewels throughout it, instead it being solely made from wood, steel, and concrete. The unimposing air in the room being somewhat misleading as this was one of the most secure places available to said man, while at the same time it remained completely sound proof. Thump, Thump, Thump ¡°Your eminence, Emperor Machiavelli of Dradar your spy mas, I mean the head of your imperial intelligence department has arrived to give you the daily report.¡± said a man standing outside the door wielding a banner and dressed in outstanding regalia of a pompous noble ¡°Thank you crier, show him in and then you are dismissed.¡± said the man behind the desk a tired look gleaming in his eye. ¡°As you order sire.¡± ¡°I will have him fetch you when it is time for your return.¡± ¡°Sire, as you say shall be done.¡± said the crier as he opens the door lets another man in. This man wreathed himself in shadows however as soon as he walked in his cloak of shadows slowly seems to disappear from around him and instead was an unassuming Dradarian, of medium height, build, and an extremely common face that would make it almost impossible for him to stand out in a crowd. The picture of unassuming, he quietly strolled forward and bowed to the man in the chair saying; ¡°Your majesty, your spy master pays his respects to the throne.¡± ¡°Please drop the formalities; you have earned at least that much. And remember what we talked about, it is bad for our publicity if you call yourself such.¡± ¡°Very well Your Majesty, Here is the falsified written report to throw off anyone who is watching and now for the verbal, I have good news and Bad news as always.¡± ¡°Please Sam enough of that, you know there is know good or bad new, there is merely news.¡± ¡°5 destroyers have disappeared, apparently obliterated by a random asteroid while in pursuit of the Theriocephian princess. Another one was found with the entire crew alive and drifting through space with their dark matter reserves completely drained.¡± ¡°Gragh,... That is bad news. Damn it all who ordered that chase, we cannot tangle with Therioceph we are in a precarious position and we have no allies, only enemies.¡± ¡°Justin¡± *Sigh, ¡°Of course, that boy is going to be the death of us, no me your skills in stealth are nigh on unprecedented. Fine so what¡¯s the good news?¡± ¡°Hahaha, that was the good news sir. Former Fleet Admiral Rhiannon¡¯s Granddaughter was on that sixth ship as acting captain. When the ship was recovered she was missing, the tracer chip on her seemed to have been cut off from all communication. She is now MIA. Without a tracer.¡± ¡°Who, the Rhiannon family has only ever served the ruling emperor, on whose authority did she head out?¡± ¡°Your power hungry son, the crown prince pressed her in service, enslaved her with a token, a cheap one at that. In addition, he sent her out. Unfortunately, the former admiral found out. Now the crown prince who keeps conniving for the throne has been forced back as the majority of the royal navy now supports the third prince. Which, could be counted as good news, that will throw him off for a while as your children keep up their attempts to kill each other.¡± ¡°Where did I go wrong Sam?¡± ¡°In all honesty you are a great emperor, but a shitty father, what did you think was going to happen when you raise an entire family in this cesspool of politics known as Sindar. Well check that you didn¡¯t raise them you focused on the kingdom, and neglected your children. I would advise them for psych-evals as I have said before but none of them would agree, even if you wanted to their current power bases would allow them to ignore such orders as if it was nothing.¡± ¡°It annoys me that you are right, it is too late to do anything now, I have very little power left that I can fully utilize. Well what else is there?¡± ¡°The Order of Eyeless Dragons, have begun moving in odd ways, even I don¡¯t know what they are planning but so long as they remain silent and don¡¯t show their power of the united underworld on the surface we should be safe-ish for now.¡± ¡°Thank you Sam, What are my children¡¯s standings at the moment power wise?¡± ¡°Crown Princeling lost a lot of momentum with this latest stunt, but he still has the imperial navy, just not the royal navy. Downside is royal navy is slipping into decline. Second prince, General Zabi Machiavelli has complete support of the armies, both of them imperial and royal. The third prince has the support of the Royal Navy, and a small group of the populace. While finally the fourth princess has the support of the ¡®intelligence department¡¯ *Cough, Spy Corp, *Cough. Myself included, the entire interplanetary defense Corps, and the majority of the population.¡± Says Sam as he holds up a separate finger for each individual. ¡°Sam, What about my personal guards and the senate?¡± ¡°Your majesty, seeing as how your guards are loyal to you, and only to you, I would say about half of them would go to the 4th princess banner if you were to die the rest would disband. As for the senate, don¡¯t make me laugh. The senate is to busy trying to find their balls with both hands to do anything worthwhile outside of putting forth a token effort in support of the crown prince, that primarily comes from fear and intimidation.¡± ¡°Who would be the most likely to take control if I were to die?¡± ¡°Hahahaha, Therioceph.¡± ¡°Has it really gotten to that extent already?¡± ¡°Yes, the nation would go into a civil war between the first two princes the third would disappear, possibly during an ¡®unfortunate hunting accident,¡¯ while the fourth would go into hiding. As the war draws to a close the princess would emerge, lead an uprising take control and then be either used as a puppet figure, or killed before coronation while Therioceph would step in to ¡®Keep the peace¡¯. Who do you think sent that asteroid. My guess is that they wanted to kill their princess, recover the body use a grand funeral to enrage the populace and go to war.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t they?¡± ¡°No body, no parts from the ship, no residue form its drives it just disappeared without a trace. No proof, no politics. No possibility for war, it almost seems like they hitched a ride with someone else.¡± ¡°But who Sam, I have so many doubts and questions, I worry for my people.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know much outside of this, it is not only The Order of Eyeless Dragons who has begun moving.¡± ¡°You mean¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know but my sources in the shadows say that they haven¡¯t been this active for a long, long time. Something big is coming your majesty. There is nothing we can do save pray to the eternal cosmic, and hope we will be able to weather it out.¡± ¡°Thank you Sam¡± the emperor says seemingly aging 10 years while saying so. ¡°You are dismissed if you have naught else.¡± ¡°Yes your majesty, beware the crown prince he may have been set back, but a beast is most dangerous upon feeling cornered. Farewell, I am going on a mission.¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°What, where to?¡± ¡°The shadows sire¡± Sam says as he turns and begins cloaking himself in darkness once more while leaving the room while a tired man and his two guards remain, to manage an empire that is rapidly collapsing in upon itself.¡± ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ ~Meanwhile, in the capital of Therioceph~ The golden hall of the beast king. ¡°Enter and Report now my Spy master,¡± said a Lion Theriocephian sitting upon a golden throne wearing vestments of Deep and rich purple. ¡°Yes your majesty,¡± said a weasel Theriocephian, wearing a large cloak seemingly made from shadows themselves. He quickly strode into the throne room. ¡°I have bad news Sire,¡± He continued with a fawning grin. ¡°You may speak freely forked tongue.¡± ¡°Your daughter survived.¡± ¡° ¡­ ¡­ What do you mean she survived?¡± ¡°The asteroid missed and the Dradarians failed.¡± *Roarrrrr ¡°She can not be allowed to Live, I need my daughter to die in order to propel this nation, my nation into a righteous furry for war! And NOW YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE ATTEMPT FAILED AND SHE IS ROAMING AROUND IN SPACE. ALIVE AND WELLLL???? POSSIBLY KNOWING WHO PLANNED IT ALL?????? EXPLAIN YOURSELF BEFORE I SEVER YOU WORMED AND FORKED TONGUE FROM YOUR BODY, WEASEL.¡± ¡°There was a shadow your majesty,¡± he said while bowing low before continuing, ¡°Some sort of shadow slightly threw it off course causing them to be able to dodge.¡± ¡°What are you talking about, what shadow could manipulate an asteroid?¡± The king said after managing to calm himself down and sit back in his throne. ¡°I don¡¯t know your majesty according to our source in Dradar the only surviving ship was attacked soon there after by men cloaked in shadows, presumably prewar artifacts, and relics were involved. That is all I know, the reason I say shadows is because they were using advanced scanners but the only thing they were able to pick up was some shadows and running lights. From the look of the running lights your majesty, the shadow was huge.¡± ¡°Does the rest of the family know about the attempt?¡± ¡°no your majesty they still naively believe that she is on wellness and peace keeping missions to Dradar, the Aetherium Geniocracy, and the Magikin meritocracy.¡± ¡°Good, I don¡¯t care who you have to take care of and silence make sure this failed attempt is covered up, no one must know outside the 2 of us. The one with the strongest maternal bloodline would take the throne; she must not live to be 18. If she does, and I am dethroned, you will go with me.¡± ¡°Sire, I still don¡¯t understand, why can¡¯t you just change the rules of succession?¡± ¡°My damnable deceased whore of a wife put into the will which was read that the crown shall stay maternal with the bloodline, and the throne be passed to one of her beloved daughters. AND I CANT DO ANYTHING BECAUSE SAMANTHA IS LOVED BY THE POPULACE, THE NOBLES, AND THE REST OF HER SIBLINGS. So if she were to disappear, I could institute a war, declare marshal law, rest authority from the nobility and change the law so I can retain My Throne, and My Power.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you just kill one of the others???¡± ¡°No because she is heir apparent. Wait a moment, I already told you all of this forked tongue, why the questions?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t had my morning egg yet sire and am still waking up forgive me for my mental grogginess.¡± He said as he bowed 90 degrees from the waist again. ¡°Besides I believed that you would want to hear the news about the failure as soon as I found out.¡± ¡°True, you showing yourself was proof you deemed it important, very well if there was nothing else than you are dismissed weasel.¡± ¡°Thank you sire, From the Shadows I came and to them I Shall Return.¡± Said the Spymaster as he bowed once more and turned to leave silently. ¡°One more thing, remember not a word or you will go down with me.¡± ¡°Believe me your majesty I know what the full weight of my actions would entail.¡± he said over his shoulder as he passes the main door. Rapidly fading into the shadows along the wall. ¡°I am going to have to learn that shadow trick from him one of these days. How the hell would I bring him down with me, hrmmm¡­¡± Emerging from the shadows outside of the palace and rapidly jumping in and out of the shadows in the city of Sindar, a Theriocephian man approaches the outskirts of the shielded city. He reaches a back alley and dodges inside, the buildings are so close together in this part of the city that their overhangs completely block out any and all moonlight, hiding the planets 5 moons completely and turning the end of the alley into a dark, and seemingly endless abyss. ¡°3 doors down and special code to activate portal¡± The man mutters to himself. Knock - - - knock Knock-Knock-Knock Thump - - - Thump ¡°Who calls upon the Order?¡± A disembodied voice comes out of the doorway which slowly opens. ¡°One, who has wandered the stars without a cause and has found his calling in service to the Order.¡± ¡°Enter the portal to learn the truth about the stars.¡± The man steps into the doorway to enter an extremely posh and roomy mansion, he shakes his head as if trying to remove the haze of sleep when one awakens from a deep slumber. Only to look up and find the man who was speaking to him. A small and wizened old human using a cane, yet his eyes betrayed his decrepit appearance as they shined with the bright vibrant light of youth. ¡°Sir you know that these bridges always throw me off, besides what is the need for all of the clich¨¦ cloak and dagger things we need to do as to enter.¡± ¡°It is the only safe way to get into contact with all of the members, some of them are in sensitive positions, besides the clich¨¦ stuff is fun.,¡± says the man breaking into a grin. ¡°I know about the safety, I was asking about the clich¨¦. Here is the recording from the throne room. I know that I am on a need to know basis at the moment but my curiosity will force me to ask. I get the feeling that something big is going down, the Orders seems to be fluctuating. What is happening?¡± ¡°Our order along with our sibling orders will most likely soon be called upon to become active, we picked up a beacon.¡± ¡°So?? Ship and station beacons go off all the time, what¡¯s the big deal?¡± ¡°It is time you knew some of the background with what you have done in collecting this recording is proven yourself true. A war is coming and we are going to need everyone¡¯s support. The united underworld of the outer rims is even ready to provide assistance. Follow me to the chart room,¡± The man said leading the Weasel Theriocephian up a set of stairs and into a large room, which held a hologram of the entire charted galaxy. ¡°Wow, this is he most detailed star chart I have ever seen, Even the Dark zones are mapped out. How did, No, how old is this??¡± ¡°Pre-Collapse, many people are going to be shown this info, but only those that can truly be trusted will be given the full truth. All the Orange lights are beacons, pink conflicts, Green for neutral systems, and red for bases of the other societies throughout the galaxy.¡± ¡°There are so many of them, how do you keep in contact, and on such good terms with all of the other societies?¡± ¡°The societies were founded by a circle of friends in the case something would happen to the governments of the galaxy there would still be some form of stability. And to help do what we can in order to protect the galaxy itself from outside threats.¡± ¡°Wait, what? I have so many questions¡± ¡°They will be made clear with time, now see this extremely bright blue beacon, by the Naraku system?¡± ¡°Yes, what is so outstanding about it?¡± ¡°It is a pre collapse ship, now that alone is not that outstanding there are beings in this society that have lived since times way before the collapse, now what is outstanding is how bright it is. The brighter the beacon the more important the cargo. This one is vibrant.¡± ¡°First are you one of those beings, and secondly what is it then?¡± ¡°Hahaha, I guess you could say yes to the first one, as for the second it is true immortals. Now before you ask, they are the founders of our societies since only the founders were true immortals.¡± ¡°So why hasn¡¯t anyone seen it before.¡± ¡°They were sleeping for 7 thousand years but someone awoke the sleeping dragon, so to speak. Something happened during the collapse and they disappeared not even a glimmer from them, but now they are awake and heading towards Naraku.¡± ¡°Which means¡­ Something must have happened!¡± ¡°Exactly, but we don¡¯t know what, the problem lies in that we have very few connections out there in the outer rim, that is former territory of ours but overtime all but a few members started slowly moving down the spiral arm. I sent a message to the few remainders and they have all started heading to Naraku. We haven¡¯t been able to make contact but hopefully the local Dons¡¯ will be able to do so for us.¡± ¡°What does that have to do with what I have brought you this evening? Wait then is that shadow Sam from Dradar told me about?¡± ¡°Possibly everything, could be nothing. Nevertheless, the beacon appeared where the others disappeared. In addition, after meeting some of the, how would I say, more eccentric of the founders It always to be better safe than sorry. Then again, those eccentrics, ya know what I will let you find out for yourself when you meet them. And yes ha-ha that odd shadow was more likely than not their ship. It is good that you placed your lieutenant on the princess¡¯s ship to help them ¡®magically¡¯ dodge the asteroid while feeding the king falsified information.¡± ¡°Thank you, He did well, He may not be the best when it comes to stealth but he is dependable. Besides I do owe the deceased queen, may she rest in peace.¡± ¡°Do not blame yourself for her death there was nothing anyone could do, even if you loved her and she didn¡®t back. You can¡¯t blame yourself; she was loyal to the king despite what he believes.¡± ¡°ha - haha - ha. You know people say my intelligence network is scary, but if that is the case yours is downright terrifying. Enough about the queen that is one burden that I will continue to bear ¡®til the day I die the best way I can do it now is by stopping the kingdom from imploding and keeping her children safe.¡± ¡°Richard¡­¡± the old man says patting the Theriocephian on his shoulder I have more questions but I must return to the Palace before my absence is noted. I fear that the king maybe becoming suspect, his insanity is deepening by the day. Especially since he failed in his attempt to off the princess. If my position becomes to risky though I will immediately go ¡®on a mission¡¯ then disappear if I have to, while maintaining my network from off planet. I will keep you updated master.¡± said Richard brushing the old mans hand off himself. ¡°Very well next time you contact me hopefully we will all be able to figure out what is going on. Especially regarding the unnatural coordinate shift it is still bugging me and I worry for all our sakes since it seems to have originated from an outside source.¡± ¡°Master?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it; just take it as the unnecessary worrying of an old man.¡± ¡°Very well, let me recharge my cloak and I will be off.¡± ¡°One more thing.¡± ¡°Yes master?¡± ¡°Those people you are going to ¡®take care of¡®, Send them to me at the tertiary physical location, we could use some new members. And if nothing else, we can provide them new identities and safe havens in some of the neutral systems. Oh and Sam will probably be contacting you soon, he is the spymaster of Dradar after all.¡± ¡°Understood Sir, Does Sam know everything, and will it be alright for my lieutenant to become an initiate?¡± ¡°I believe Sam knows, and if not he will soon. Is your lieutenant trustworthy?¡± ¡°I trust him with my life.¡± ¡°Would you trust him with the safety of the kingdom? But, before you answer think about it.¡± ¡°Yes master.¡± ¡°Very well then, be safe, stay cautious, cloak yourself in the shadows well, and when all else fails call upon our Order of wandering immortals for assistance.¡± ¡°I hear and obey sir.¡± He says before bowing and walking down the stairs leaving the old man staring at the chart. ¡°I wonder if the council of immortals will arise and unify the societies as it did in the days of yore¡­ I wonder¡­¡± the Old man said to himself As Richard walks towards the portal, he murmured to himself; ¡°Can I trust Capt. Henry that much? Can I? I wonder where the hell he went off to??¡± Chap. 8 Prelude to the Battle ¡°Yep its your ol pal Frank, lets get your squad of boys in the shadows to take care of these scum before we get to what we really came here for, sound good Beerman?¡± ¡°I have not heard than name in a long while, Frank.¡± ¡°Yeah, I am honestly surprised that you lasted this long. Then again that is why the Cap¡¯n loved you androids so much. Never forget a debt wasn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Aye that was, nay, is one of my peoples core beliefs. Now what are you really here for?¡± ¡°Well, we need to get into the Base. we only have a lil while before the local crime lords and the system defense forces realize our ship is definitely not a freighter.¡± ¡°OK, follow me to the back I will send you down in a jiffy. By the way, you do know that you will also be facing some hooligans Ire, they wont be happy that they were shown up. Even with the decline of influence, and partial fall of the Order of Immortals in this area there are certain aspects that still retain their hold on these men, such as the Don''s code of Honor when interacting with each others ships.¡± ¡°It is a shame regarding the Order, The Cap¡®n really liked this one. If nothing else I guess it is about time to make ourselves known to the Galaxy, regardless lead on lets get this done.¡± As Beerman Lead the four through the hive of backrooms and hidden chambers into the base itself on another part of the star system an equally important conversation was going on. On the bridge of an Athena class cruiser hiding in the outer edge of the Naraku system ¡°Comm.''s man report.¡± ¡°Aye Don, sir, unidentified signal coming from an area closer to the spirals'' center, sent under the ¡®code blue¡¯ caching encryption.¡± ¡°Open it quick you fool, that is an urgent message.¡± ¡°Aye sir, routing the QCA, aligning coordinate shift vectors, running caching type decryption, and you are good to go.¡± ¡°it is about time you finally picked up.¡± a disembodied voice echoes through the machine ¡°Master, this one humbly greets you and apologizes, I was just conversing with some of the other more local Dons.¡± ¡°Hahahaha, don¡¯t worry about that I am just messing with you. However the Order is in need of your and the local Dons assistance.¡± ¡°We live to serve the order, what is it which you need my lord?¡± ¡°The founders have awakened and we believe them to be in your star system, you and the other Dons loyal to the Society must quickly gather and get to them in case something happens. then once you have made contact you will have to route me through your QCA, to theirs since I have been unable to make contact. Provide them with any and all assistance required, If it comes down to your life, well I hope you know what you must do.¡± ¡° This Life of mine, and my families would not currently exists without your and the Orders'' constant help. I would give it proudly an honorably!!¡± ¡°Good, remember those words well. We believe their ships is currently docked on the 4th planet of the Naraku system due to their beacon''s signal. Now enough dallying about, move quickly and gather support, the dragon has awoken and it will be moving in interesting ways soon. Hahahahahaha, I haven¡¯t been this excited since that war with the United Underworld. I would advise you to tell your crews to assemble off Naraku 4¡¯s 3rd moon, Cartagena. The Debris fields would be beneficial defensive point and our outpost there is well stocked. I would also advise having Don MacDonald¡¯s men join yours since your other ships are busy with business and will take a little while to assemble. Those are merely suggestions though, otherwise Don Lean you are dismissed go complete these quests for the order.¡± ¡°I hear and obey master, I will do as you advise and move quickly, Comm.¡®s man end transmission.¡± ¡°Aye sir. Do you want me to send a message to Mr. MacDonald on his Zeus, the Bone Ghost?¡± ¡°Aye send him the following message on an encrypted channel before he leaves the system. The Order is calling, have fleet fall in on me and set course lock on my trajectory, we move in ten minutes. The council is alive. End message, Helmsman set the course for 135¡ã relative on the horizontal, -68¡ã relative on the vertical, downward spiral revolution of 1 in 9 as course being executed. Execute in exactly 12 minutes we have places to be and I doubt Don Mac will miss this opportunity to show his gratitude. Speed will be set for 2/5ths light minutes so start prepping the engines.¡± ¡°Excuse me sir may I say something?¡± ¡°Go ahead helmsman.¡± ¡°I have an objection. It is suicide, going at such speed inside a star system, we hit a single bit of debris¡­¡± ¡°Objection noted, defense officer ensure the new hard light shield we received from the order are focused on the bow in a conical shape and have it set to block all debris that would hit Mac¡¯s ships.¡± ¡°¡°Aye Sir.¡±¡± the crew says, as the Helmsman asks ¡°Will it be enough¡± hesitatingly. ¡°Yea Son, it will do hella fine.¡± The defense officers, a one-eyed grizzled veteran of many campaigns responds with a grin, as he thinks to himself ¡®this will be one interesting ride.¡¯ Elsewhere in the system, on Naraku 2 in the N.I.D.F. HQ (Naraku Inter-Planetary Defense Fleet) A heated conversation was taking place. ¡°Commandant, Please I am begging you to let me bag these guys. I mean look at these reports there is no way in ever living hell that this ship is a freighter. Look at it, it is 4 bloody times the size of any freighter on record, besides look at those weapons. Freighter my Bloody arse.¡± * Sigh ¡°Do you have anything to add to the 4th fleet admirals rant Assistant Commandant, Admirals??¡± The one who was addressed as Assistant commandant raises his hand and says ¡°Permission to speak freely suh?¡± ¡°Go ahead Halsey.¡± ¡°Well the 4th admiral has a good point but due to our agreements with the local Dons we cant touch them until they give us ¡®probable cause¡¯. Besides if this ship really is carrying anti matter as they say and we disturb it in our search then we are looking at one hell of an explosion. Which might I add we don¡¯t have the resources to deal with. Some of the local gangs are probing about at it our request, we should hear back in a few minutes the only real reason we could nail them with the support of all parties if they violate Haven which is where they were supposedly heading.¡± ¡°Gragh, but think of the gains that could be made. If we were to add such a ship to our forces those damn units at the Es-cu-Al system would think twice before overstepping their bounds.¡± the 4th admiral growls as the other admirals at the table make sounds in affirmationThe story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°If this ship is as powerful as you think¡± the commandant says signaling for the admirals to quite down ¡°What makes you think we can even capture it in the first place. Mull over that for me would you as we await our reports.¡± Suddenly a man bursts in ¡°Commandant, Sir¡¯s, urgent word has come in from the Probes about that ship.¡± ¡° I will ignore your breach of conduct ensign due to the importance of this Intel.¡± The Commandant says ¡°Now report.¡± ¡°Aye Commandant. The crew members of the ship that came ashore and headed to haven,... well sir¡¯s, they violated Haven.¡± ¡°¡°¡°¡°WHAT???¡±¡±¡±¡± ¡°Yes Sir¡¯s, one of the men who we were having give information claims that the newcomers threw the first blow before leaving with Beerman into some of the back rooms.¡± The entire group of officers fall silent in shock that there were people who would so boldly violate the rules of Haven. ¡°Very well, we must move quickly, not even those fools from Es-cu-Al are so bold. This is a matter of dignity, Haven is a historic landmark, more treaties and accords have been signed there than the planetary governmental offices have ever even seen. 1st and 4th fleet admirals move out intercept them once they leave the planets orbit. Defense System admiral, once they leave ensure they cant try to flee back into orbit. 2nd and 3rd admirals you will run interference stop outside sources from interfering and standby to assist. 5th and 6th will remain on standard patrol routes to maintain order throughout the system, preferably one of you ensure The outer planets such as Naraku 13 and 15 maintain motionless, those loyalists would leap at this opportunity to undermine our power as an independent system.¡± The Commandant orders. ¡°Umm Commandant?¡± ¡°Yes ensign, you are dismissed if there is nothing else.¡± ¡°Well there is something,¡± the ensign says nervously ¡°Many of the smaller Crime lords are offering assistance in the subduing of this ship hoping to curry favor with the major Dons¡¯ since they still don¡¯t know about this incident.¡± ¡°How would they not know? their Intel ops are greater than ours by far.¡± the 4th admiral inquires ¡°I do not know sir I am just reporting what I was told. That is all sirs I will take my leave now.¡± the ensign salutes turns and leaves the room. ¡°Well gents¡± the commandant address the other officers with, ¡°It is your call as to the level of involvement you wish them to have. If there is nothing else you have received your orders and are dismissed, remember though to be cautious we have no idea as to the power this ship possesses and we do not want to have any unnatural incidents of any sort. Especially not this close to the systems annual budget meeting, Now Move Out.¡± ¡°¡°¡°¡°¡°Aye Sir!!!¡±¡±¡±¡±¡± As the officers leave the commandant turns to his assistant and asks him ¡°tell me Halsey on a scale of 1 to 10 how screwed are they?¡± ¡°Depends sir, they are friends with Beerman, allowed into the backrooms of Haven, and have a ship that has more guns than the total volume of our largest vessel, and are even able to resist the most advanced scanners we have available. I would say a 9 if they are friends with haven, maybe a 6 if not.¡± ¡°So regardless of what we do it wont look good to the ruling committee, or the Dons. If only those admirals realized this, my power is waning... If I did not give them the go ahead much more drastic measures would have been taken. At least this way civilians casualties will be minimized and we wont collapse, even when the royalists begin to consolidate power here, we can continue to protect the citizenry.¡± ¡°But sir what about Haven, and the royalists?¡± ¡°Hahaha, if the royalists are foolish enough to even attempt to mess with Haven this system would do an immediate 360 back to independence. Haven has saved the citizenry, and halted the collapse of the system, and it''s neighbors more than once. Only a fool would mess with it, such as our large visitors. Haven will be here long after we are dead and gone.¡± ¡°I Understand now sir, thank you for opening my eyes.¡± ¡°Go ahead and alert all major medical facilities that they may be needing to stand at red alert for when this goes south, also get all first responding EMS and rescue unit on standby as well. When it goes south it will do so in a large way. Dismissed Halsey.¡± ¡°Aye Sir.¡± Back in the warren of rooms that existed inside and under Haven, Beerman lead the crew along. ¡°You guys do know that the room has been sealed for 8,000 years, might be a bit of a pressure differential¡± Beerman says as he leads them to an elevator. ¡°What does that mean?¡± the princess asked Bryan as they continued walking. ¡°Well It is either going to have explosive power, or extreme suction depends on how large of an atmospheric pressure has changed, and seeing as to how this planets Population has changed to such extremes it shouldn¡¯t be at a lethal level.¡± Bryan says as they continue walking. ¡°there is an internal pressure gauge we can check before we try and bust in. Scarlet will be able to read it form outside, we just have to get in range for her to begin though, that is one of the few things that can be read from outside without a full AI.¡± Frank says, not even turning to look behind. ¡°Here we are, can she check now or do we have to wait to get down there?¡± Beerman said looking at Frank before he even attempts to touch the controls for the elevator. ¡°We can check it here, Scarlet go on in.¡± ¡°Aye skipper, checking differential, running data alongside with samples from the ship, and¡­ WoW.¡± ¡°What do we got Scarlet?¡± ¡°Well Frank, You are going to want to stand Far away when that door gets opened.¡± ¡°Pos or Neg Scarlet, and how many PSI? ¡°Positive, huge Positive Skipper, probably do to the space traffic constantly weakening the atmosphere we are looking at 800 psi.¡± ¡°All right, well then Bryan, I know you brought something for defense after I told you no heavy, what you got?¡± ¡°First Frank, Promise you wont get after me.¡± ¡°Fine, so what we got Bryan?¡± ¡°I brought 3 Hard light dome shields, we could deploy one in the hall, remote open the door and that will keep it from wounding us.¡± ¡°Good, everyone step aside, when I give the word open it up Scarlet,¡± ¡°Aye Sir¡± she replies as everyone quickly steps away from the door and into the hall. ¡°Activate shield¡± ¡°Yes Frank,¡­ Activated.¡± ¡°Everyone cover ears, and whatever you do, do not clench your teeth, Scarlet open doors on 3 . 1. 2. 3.¡± As the door open the rushing air explodes outward for a solid minute and a half. Slowly it peters out into a slight breeze. ¡°Alright, cut the bubble lets go in. Bryan go ahead and tell your men to stand guard outside the warren and have them radio us if they get any info from the ship. Now Henry, Samantha watch yourselves, there MIGHT be traps once we get to the bottom of this shaft, scarlet will deactivate them so don¡¯t go wandering too far off. Lets go¡± ¡°¡°¡°Aye Skipper¡±¡±¡± They say as they step into the elevator. ¡°Beerman you coming?¡± ¡°No, Bryan I am going to stay here I imagine there will be some people ready to cause trouble due to your appearance and actions in the bar. Let me get a hold of some guys and see what¡¯s up, HAhahahaha. Never underestimate the info network of a guy who works at a bar.¡± ¡°Good luck, see ya in a bit then.¡± Beerman turns and leaves the room as the other ride the elevator down, in less than 30 seconds the elevator stops. ¡°That was fast is their a problem or something?¡± ¡°Naw Princess¡± Frank replies ¡° It was only bout 5 kilim, nothing to far nor fast.¡± ¡°In 30 seconds???¡± Henry says with a look of shock on his face. ¡°Yeah, now enough of this. Scarlet access ships security measures deactivate the traps and light up the path to the bridge please, also have the kernel ready for extraction.¡± ¡°On it, and done follow the path it should only be a minute before the kernel is ready, and there is an encrypted data package marked urgent pickup, I cant decode it, it seems to be hard data, but I can add it to the kernel package.¡± ¡°Good¡± Lets go get it and get out,... wait who is the message from?¡± ¡°Well Frank, ummmm, Quantum¡­¡± ¡°Make it Fast Scarlet, Lets go guys we need to get that to the ship NOW!¡± ¡°Who is Quantum?¡± Henry asks as the 4 sprint down the twisting hall way. ¡°That the Captain¡¯s call sign, anything hard data and encrypted like this from him is important.¡± Bryan responds as they reach the bridge. ¡°IS the Packet ready scarlet.¡± Frank asks quickly reaching the command console. ¡°Yep and here it is.¡± she says as a small cylindrical crystal emerges from the console, along with a small square piece of plastic. Frank quickly grabs and stows the items in his robe. ¡°Frank got some bad news from the ship, lots of activity around it and a bunch of ships are amassing in the atmosphere, they seem ready to rock out, Hardcore. And some odd movement on the 3rd moon but nothing too odd just yet.¡± ¡°Right then lets make like tree and get the hell back to the ship. Bryan, Tell Beerman to send any info he has to our ship on the standard encryption channel, if he has any advice or assistance they can contact us the same way since we might not have time to chat. Also tell the guys that if anyone gets too close to the ship to hold position and don¡¯t fire first.¡± ¡°Roger Frank, I¡¯ll let em know that we be moving.¡± Bryan said as they jog back to the elevator rode it up to the surface and Quickly left the bar nodding to Beerman as they left. They had their squad follow them back to the ship, when they got to the station they found a mob of the scum of society fully armed blockading the station, and even further more surrounding the ship. Fully armed yet no one was making a move all were staring at the ship¡¯s main doors ready to open fire upon the slightest movement. ¡°Pst.. pppssst... Hey Frank? Can I please get the tank out now?? Pretty please with sprinkles on top???¡± ¡°Fuck it, go for it Bryan. It is the fastest way to get back into the ship, and we need to decrypt this message, and run this 4 inch Floppy. And before you even ask I am not going to put money down on your bet.¡± ¡°Come on Frank, not even 20, Chits?¡± ¡°Not jack shit.¡± ¡°Fine Frank whatever you say. Knightstalker Bridge, I know you are there Ghost, this is Deck Officer, Agent Bryan Arkanis. Call sign verification code Ladies Man, Requesting Heavy support 1 deployable Heavy Battle tank. How copy, over?¡± Chap. 9 Battle of Naraku 4, part 1 ¡°Fine Frank whatever you say. Knightstalker Bridge, come in. I know you are there Ghost this is Deck Officer, Agent Bryan Arkanis. Call sign verification code Ladies Man, Requesting Heavy support, 1 deployable heavy Battle tank. How copy, over?¡± ¡°This is Ghost, solid Copy, which load out you needing on that Heavy?¡± ¡°Anti Armor and shoot it out from the top loading bay please.¡± ¡°Alright Bryan, and good choice. Makes it easier to hold out since they don¡¯t exactly have a lot of troops topside. Please mark targeted area tank will be out in 45 sec.¡± ¡°Roger, out.¡± Bryan says as he pulls a red pencil out of his pocket and points it at a small concentration of gang members. ¡°Hey Bryan, why did you choose from the top, I know it wasn¡¯t any tactical reason¡­¡± Frank says giving Bryan a smirk. ¡°It looks cooler, with the after burners flying and bits of earth flying everywhere upon landing.¡± Bryan replies, ¡°now stealth squad form up, we will take control of the Behemoth type tank, clear ground enemies, and then mobilize back to the ship, Understood?¡± ¡°¡°¡°Ayes Suh!!!¡±¡±¡± ¡°Henry, Princess, get over here, Bryan toss me a shield.¡± Frank says, as he catches activates the shield with the three of them inside as Bryan and his squad cloak themselves. Then suddenly a giant hunk of metal and ceramic fell screaming through the sky coated in fire, 200 tonne¡¯s of Graphene, Ceramic, and Mangalloy hit the ground. The Impact obliterates a crowd, turning the surrounding ground into glass from the afterburner heat before it springs back into the air and the hover pads kick in. the Behemoth slowly drifts back to the ground and floats 1 meter above the crater awaiting a crew. ¡°We will let ya¡¯ll take care of this and meet up back in the ship. You need to hurry up and upload scarlet with the kernel so she can get Luna to read that floppy disc. We will follow on foot, cloaked of course.¡± Frank Tells Bryan as he activates both his, Henry¡¯s, and the Princess suits to ¡®stealth mode¡¯. ¡°Roger Skip, catch you on the flip side.¡± Bryan says giving a quick salute and leading his men to the Tank where they bulldozed through the side of the station and drove it straight to the ships¡¯ port side loading bay. Spraying death and leaving a trail of destruction on the four turreted tank. ¡°Everyone Listen up, this is your Skipper speaking, we¡¯ve got word from the Cap¡¯n in need of hard decryption, all crew members¡¯ weapons hot and permission to fire. It is time to reveal ourselves to the Galaxy, Authentication code as follows; Tango, Yuma, Romeo. Take care of the scum, and blast the music so loud they can hear it from the nine heavens.¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Switching back to a private channel, he contacts Ghost. While doing so suddenly super heated plasma bolts arced overhead leaving trails in the darkening sky, while massive explosions rumbled in the distance causing the very earth to tremble. Frank unconcerned by all of this continued talking. ¡°Oy Ghost run the vectors according to the estimated coordinate shift, once we leave atmosphere and get rid of some pests we will power through to one of the dark zones and I would prefer to be a straight shot so all you AI¡¯s can work on getting Luna back to power¡± ¡°Roger Frank will co. Do you want some of the crew to bring a skimmer to pick you guys up?¡± ¡°No we can walk, it will give the other guys time to burn off the scum, ya know it¡¯s a shame floppy¡¯s are not standard equipment anymore, hell when was the last time we needed to read one of those damn things?¡± Frank says as he leads his trio through the massive hole in the port and past piles of flaming rubble. A sudden bright flash chased away the darkness in the sky illuminating the now tattered remains of the large spaceport. As a large mushroom cloud bloomed in the sky. ¡®A small scale particle disruptor? Wolfe and Scarr really want to show we mean business¡¯ Frank thought to himself before Ghost responds. ¡°2nd Great War¡± Ghost Replies, ¡°And it was regarding the location of the Kronos Class Monkshood.¡± ¡°Right, I remember that crap some whacko¡¯s wanted to use it as a giant bomb.¡± while this conversation was going on the trio reached the side of the ship, Frank switched comm. channels ¡°Now calling Metreon, call sign verification Breaker¡± ¡°Go ahead Frank.¡± ¡°Beam me up, Scotty.¡± Both Henry and Samantha look confused, internally they were both thinking ¡®Scotty, WTF???¡¯ ¡°Fuck you Frank,¡± ¡°Look, we can banter later can we get inside all this radiation is making my skin tingle.¡± ¡°Fine, fine, I¡¯m opening a whole in the hull.¡± An Immature giggle cackled over the comm. circuit as a large whole suddenly opened in front of them. ¡°Do you have the elevator ready, I would hate to tire out the princess with all those numerous flights of stairs.¡± ¡°Yep just walk on in guys yew will be at the bridge in a jiff.¡± ¡°Good, let¡¯s get to the bridge.¡± Frank said leading his trio up to rendezvous with the rest of the command crew, who at this point had already obliterated the resistance. As they are riding up the elevator, Henry asks Frank ¡°Why the hell did you guys use a nuke in the atmosphere, aren¡¯t you worried about the radiation and the populace?¡± ¡°Please Henry¡± Frank responds with a grin as his ears twitch in amusement. ¡°It was only a small one, max radius of 1 quarter kilim, and the half life is only 30 minutes. Besides anyone wearing any sort of radiation resistant clothing, or even inside a ship would be just fine. All that excess radiation will rapidly dissipate into nothingness so no worries it is totally green.¡± Henry muses for a moment before responding; ¡°That is the nice thing about space ports being out of the way I suppose, and no staff on site, all automated. No collateral in casualties.¡± As they finally reach the Bridge the princess wonders to herself, how exactly they managed to discover all these things, and what the hell is a floppy???. Chap. 9 Battle of Naraku 4 Begins Part 2 ¡°That is the nice thing about space ports being out of the way I suppose, and no staff on site, all automated. No collateral in casualties.¡± As they finally reach the Bridge the princess wonders to herself, how exactly they managed to discover all these things, and what the hell is a floppy???. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ As the elevator reaches the bridge and the group disembarks Frank immediately starts talking ¡°Ghost, give me an update on Floppy, Luna, possible comm. between any ground forces, a status report on those ships, and finally Yessi¡¯s training progress in the simulators.¡± ¡°Well, The packet has been received but it will take the 3 of us Ai¡¯s a solid 2 days at the minimum to finish getting her set up and her Kernel replaced. We¡¯ll have to wait for Luna to run the floppy, comm.¡®s between opposing air and ground forces are screwed. Bryan used his head for once, the nukes residual radiation fried all comm.¡®s in this area outside of old time-y radio wave communication. Ships are as shown on hologram, 2 large fleets on standby to assault us as soon as we leave the atmosphere. 2 fleets on standby to intercept outside help, seemingly targeting the 3rd moon. 2 more outside of engagement range patrolling the system. All fleets are composed of 2 Athena¡¯s, 3 Zeus, 5 Poseidon¡¯s, and numerous cruisers. We will also have to deal with orbital defenses in orbit around the planet.¡± ¡°Ok, that is pretty decent firepower for a small back water system the smugglers must¡¯ve been paying well. Continue Ghost.¡± ¡°Aye Skip, Yessi has fully adjusted to our ships configurations, and is practically a god at field strategy, and with great fluidity. She is one hell of a fast learner. Also Seph found the problem with the drives and we got it fixed, it wasn¡¯t as simple as we thought, we got more anti matter and dark matter for the ship before we were attacked. Parts that were produced and it will work till we make our way to a base with real manufacturing abilities.¡± ¡°Good, she is now fully enabled to wing commander. Give her control over all 3 flight groups, and the Mech group. Wolfe, Scarr, Suit up, Mechs with your squads and be ready to launch once we leave orbit. Wolfe, close patrol patterns around ship, no more than 5 Kilims¡¯ unless ordered by our new wing commander. Scarr interference, attack in tandem with Yessi¡¯s wings attempt to take out their Athena¡¯s early, will make it easier for us to handle if we don¡¯t have to worry about counter fighter attacks or calls for support.¡± The princess speaks up ¡°Wouldn¡¯t they be able to tell when you take them down?¡± Bryan responds ¡°Simple we have counter measures that throw off all electron and quantum based communications the only thing that will work is radio waves, and that will take time to transmit, once we go into battle they will be practically blind deaf and dumb. We wont. So we will disable their fleets and leave.¡±A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Oh, ok I guess that makes sense thank you for enlightening me.¡± the princess replies giving a small bow, ¡°If you would kindly excuse me I think I shall return to my quarters, our escapade on the planet has left me quite drained.¡± ¡°Aighty then see ya later princess.¡± Frank says as the rest of the crew acknowledges her leaving and then goes back to planning. ¡°Bryan,¡± Frank says ¡°you are in charge of comm.¡®s falsifying some outgoing info and waiting to see if they hail us with their surrender.¡± ¡°Roger¡± ¡°Piloting will be switched to Virtual Intelligence controlled with voice commands by myself. Solomon, activate and manage all shields and fields along with the activating the plasma generators now. Ghost you get to run the; Main Turrets, and Rocket pods. Scarlet you will run the Small rail guns, and the Torpedo bays. Seph and Azieruth lead your crews to run the Plasma Cannons, and Laser interceptors. Maxx, get some reclamation ships ready and on standby to bring in pilots and wreckage, mean while Doc go ahead and get the Regeneration pods ready for injured. As soon as the pods are set we lift off, places everyone.¡± As the people separate to fulfill their roles. Bryan receives a message on the Comm.¡¯s ¡°Yo, Frank its Beerman, I am putting him on.¡± ¡°Aighty. Bryan.¡± ¡°Frank, its Beerman, Good news and bad news. Bad first; all those ships along with a handful of motley pirate cruisers are coming after you. Claiming you violated Haven, and they ain¡¯t listening to me or the Dons saying otherwise. Now for the good, You have a contact from one of the societies hanging around the 3rd moon they are going to be giving support and contacting you once you break free, give them about two hours to gather their forces and then come out all guns blazing. How Copy. Over.¡± ¡°Solid copy Beerman, wil-co.¡± Frank says as they shut the comm. link, ¡°Bryan put me on speaker.¡± ¡°Aye Aye Cap¡¯n crunch.¡± ¡°Piss off, Crew this is your skipper, change of plans. We now have 2 hours to prep before combat. Take this time to utilize, grab a bite, a SMALL nip to drink, and suit up properly. We are going to do this, and we are going to do this shit right, Over and out.¡± As Frank turns to take a seat Bryan mouths off to him ¡°A small drink, we are all Friggin giants with extreme metabolic rates, define small.¡± To which he got the international symbol of love, a single bird. ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ Back on Naraku 2 in the N.I.D.F. HQ Control room ¡°Status report Mr. Halsey¡± ¡°Yes Commandant, Most communications with the surface are cut off, including the ones to EMS and rescue. But from what we can tell with the Orbital defenses scanners their ship has been powered up for the past hour, they seem to be waiting for something.¡± ¡°What about the 3rd moon, Cartagena?¡± ¡°More forces are gathering, seemingly from not only our system but also from Es-cu-Al it is a sizeable fleet at this point multiple Zeus¡¯s and Poseidon¡¯s numerous smaller crafts as well.¡± ¡°Re route the 5th Fleet to come from the rear of Cartagena just in case things get out of hand, have the 6th fleet continue to monitor the middle especially the 13th and 15th planets in case they decided to get frisky.¡± ¡°Roger sir transmitting encrypted data. Packet delivery confirmed, the admirals sent confirmation and are moving to obey. Eta on the 5th will be 1 hour sir.¡± ¡°Good job Halsey go get yourself some tea, things are going to get messy.¡± Chap. 9 Battle of Naraku 4 Begins Part 3 ¡°Roger sir transmitting encrypted data. Packet delivery confirmed, the admirals sent confirmation and are moving to obey. Eta on the 5th will be 1 hour sir.¡± ¡°Good job Halsey go get yourself some tea, things are going to get messy.¡± ___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___*___ ¡°Bryan It has been 2 hours, tell Beerman we are lifting off.¡± ¡°Roger Frank, I will let him know.¡± ¡°Ship, accept authorization code Oscar, Delta, Indigo, November,¡± ¡°Virtual Intelligence Online, authorization code accepted greetings and salutations First Mate Vergil. Knightstalker reports ship operable and combat ready, please call me Penny.¡± ¡°Roger Penny, call me Skipper. Combat status level 1, all hands prepare for quarters. Penny set course for positive 20 degrees horizontal, 30 degrees vertical, all course corrections to be relative.¡± ¡°Aye Skipper, Compliance. Course Set, Combat status engaged.¡± Then over the comm.¡®s in a gruff prerecorded voice came those archaic and semi infamous words. ¡°This is not a drill,¡­ This is not a drill¡­. General quarters,¡­ all hands man your battle stations.¡± As the rest of the ships crew finished their preparations Yessi getting into her fighter with the rest of her wing following, the Ai¡¯s double and even triple checking their combat systems. Scarr and Wolfe loosened the joints to their Mechs, while warming up their engines. As the princess was reading and Henry watching at the bridge, Frank continued issuing orders. ¡° Activate artificial gravity and inertia control fields.¡± ¡°Aye Skipper, Compliance.¡± ¡°Good, Penny, all ahead 1/8, adjust course to increase 5 degrees vertical per mach. Upon reaching 70 degrees, halt angular increase, then ahead ?.¡± ¡°Aye Skipper, Compliance. Lifting off in¡­5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Liftoff achieved.¡± ¡°Good, notify me once we have reached orbit and then maintain a semi geosynchronous low orbit.¡± ¡°Frank I have several questions.¡± Henry said looking confusedly around. ¡°Why no music, you didn¡¯t go through all this when you assaulted the Cruiser that was chasing us¡­¡± ¡°Simple that lone ship was barely considered a threat, this is going to be a knock down drag out fight, and there is a good chance we will sustain some damage.¡± Frank said with a grin ¡°This is actually going to be fun for us to stretch ourselves out a little bit.¡± ¡°Ok, I have more¡­¡± ¡°Not right now Henry¡± Bryan said then he turned and looked at Frank we have cleared interference and are being hailed by the fleets, also we are being hailed by the people off the 3rd moon.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Raise the 3rd. Put them on the main viewing screen.¡± ¡°Aye.¡± Bryan said while his hands flew over the control consoles in the bridge. ¡°Rendering image¡­ and done.¡± ¡°This Is Don Lean, of the Order of wandering Immortals Requesting to speak with the head of the Council of immortals.¡° ¡°This is First Mate Frank Vergil, acting head of the council. Speak your peace.¡± ¡°I am here with bearing a secure encryption channel to the acting head of my order, and here to provide any and all assistance required.¡± ¡°We wont be able to contact him right away we have more pressing matters to attend to.¡± ¡°I understand Sir, I am here to provide any assistance, we have a large fleet hidden in the debris fields, we will be able to tie up and take down at least 2 fleets possibly 3 if we are lucky.¡± ¡°fleet numbers?¡± ¡°2 Athena¡¯s, 3 Zeus, 8 Poseidon¡¯s and a Large number of long range small crafts that can launch from the moon.¡± ¡°What of the debris field?¡± ¡°They trained in that sir, it is their home turf, statistically they will have a 5 to 1 lower casualty rate than others while combating in there.¡± ¡°Great hahahaha, have your men coordinate with our wing commander to assault with fighters at the same time. I want you to draw 2 fleets into the debris then leave the other 3 to us, Get the one that is approaching from behind your moon, and 1 of the ones blocking it from here. If you finish first we will coordinate an assault. If Vise versa we will assist you and give you some information on how to contact us afterwards.¡± ¡°Very well then, We will commence our assault as soon as you leave the red zone of the planets gravity well.¡± ¡°Aye Don Lean, just give us a few to take down the Orbital defense systems, and also we will owe you one for your assistance. Just know we never forget a debt.¡± ¡°Understood, and don¡¯t worry about that Sir, till we speak again.¡± ¡°Roger Signing off, take care Don.¡± Frank looked over to Bryan and smirked, ¡°so it seems we have more friends than were expected, after this fight we are going to have an interesting time.¡± ¡°You¡¯re telling me, maybe we wont need to pick up some androids after all.¡± Bryan replied with a grin while grinning back. ¡°Skipper we have now reached geosynchronous orbit, speed had increased to mach 35 and is now stabilizing from orbit.¡± ¡°Good Penny, slow speed to retain our orbit. Solomon, activate shields and ECM. Mark allies for non interference, then maintain counter measures and shields to full activate and maintain the Hard-Light Shields, and Plasma Generators. Activate the Repulser Fields, and Energy Fields, as needed in combat. Go for maximum energy efficiency with those three area of impact only. ¡°Scarlet aim for and mark targets, long and short range planetary defense forces. Use surge type torpedoes as to overload all computer systems. We don¡¯t want to destroy them, just take them out for a while.¡± ¡°Ghost, Inert Rockets, knock them slightly off course, that way when they get back online it will require them to focus on regaining proper orbit as opposed to fighting.¡± ¡°All hands prepare to engage. Penny?¡± ¡°I am Combat Ready Skipper.¡± ¡°Good, Slow to Mach 15 for targeting purposes. Upon marking accelerate to 20 and notify me.¡± ¡°Aye, Skipper Compliance.¡± ¡°Hey Frank,¡± ¡°What Bryan.¡± ¡°Why the explanation for everything I know what you¡¯re talking about.¡± ¡°Cause poor Henry is looking a little lost and I didn¡¯t want him to ask too many questions later.¡± ¡°Fair enough. Oh and Frank,¡± ¡°Whhaaatt.¡± he said we a faux exasperated sigh. ¡°You ever want to respond to those fleets who are hailing us.¡± ¡°Oh, them¡­ Sure we have a few seconds.¡± ¡°Pulling them on screen.¡± A Theriocephian wearing the livery of a second fleet admiral of the N.I.D.F appeared on the screen ¡°I am¡­¡± Frank interrupts him suddenly. ¡°Look I don¡¯t give a flying monkey fuck who you are, surrender and withdraw your ships. This is your only chance.¡± ¡°WHAT!! HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME THAT WAY, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE IN A VERY BRUTAL MANNER. IF YOU HAVEN¡¯T TAKEN A LOOK, LET ME TELL YOU, YOU ARE SURROUNDED AND OUTNUMBERED.¡± ¡°This is the C.O.I Knightstalker, you have been given a chance to surrender. Prepare to be destroyed boarded or obliterated. Bryan cut the Comm.¡¯s.¡± ¡°Skipper, Targets have been marked. Prepared to execute.¡± ¡°Penny, AI¡¯s, on my mark execute maneuver¡­. Mark.¡±