Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 17:03:41 GMT
Celesius felt her pulse go faster. Her personal apartment AI reminded her of it every now and then. So did her own heart rate. It all just made the AI worry that she was beginning to go into shock again, playing one of her favorite slow songs in an attempt to calm her down. It did not work for a while and she ordered the AI, the one she named Lumos. "Stop! I do not want to listen to any music! Do not try to calm me down!"
And Lumos obeyed, saying as she would always when she felt her master give the commands in both a serious tone and in a manner that Lumos grew to know not to oppose
"Of course, Celesius."
And then she went silent as the sister looked over her sister. She was trying her best to speak. She felt her head ache so much, Amastacia barely making cries of her own agony. It did not help too that she also showed extreme memory loss, numbness in her legs and hands and worsening speech. All early symptoms of one thing: Mind machine inducing paralysis.And all as she waited for Margheriti to come and see what the government had done. She never knew anything about what happened. She did know this is something they would do. But she never thought that it would be this bad. That this was all the result...of an accident. A fatal series of deadly errors that cost her sister everything, most especially her memory of Celesius.
As she lay on the spare mattress that Celesius had kept for Amastacia, the sister of the former admiral simply waited and waited.
It was unnaturally cold for Margheriti as he stepped up to the house, going over the events since the summit. Amastacia told him that it would be fine, to help her grab some things as she left to visit her home, then she disappeared, Decoroso Command had nothing until the trial was publicly displayed. He watched as his love was put on display, a kangaroo court by all apperances, even though the introduction of a new lawyer looked promising, the verdict seemed set from the start. Guilty.
Now he returned to his senses, his eyes lost from their usual orange glow, his heating units disabled to blend in somewhat, shuffling around the streets with nothing but the latest information that he had on hand from his ship's RAVD nodes that tried to track Amastacia. He walked to the door, looking at the handle, before turning it slowly in his augmented hand, and opening it to reveal the interior.
Inside, it was a simple apartment. A bot, a big table, a stove and oven, a refrigerator, a 3D printer, some glasses, utensils and what not. And in an open room, Amastacia lay before his eyes. Celesius quickly rose up from her place and said "Ah. Are you Margheriti?"
One could see that Celesius had been weeping a long while ago. She held her hands as her fingers trembled and she constantly looked at Amastacia...who lay weak.
"Yeah, what happened to Amastacia?" His voice was altered, not sounding as he usually did, as he closed the door behind him and secured it with nanites that filtered out from his fingers, jamming it tightly. He looked about, walking towards Amastaica and placing her hand in his.
The sister nodded and said "She was sent here by the government. They gave me her. She's....She's still under temporary paralysis. It happens to everyone who tries to leave and defect. It....They said the rest was an accident."
Meanwhile, Amastacia let a few tears fall from her eyes as she held his hand very weakly. She grunted and tried to smile but only brought herself pain from the effort, making her whimper.
"I figured as much, I'm taking her back to the Dectrose Empire, Daedalus Research Institute can likely restore her back to something of her former self. I hope." He moved towards her, picking her up in his hands, the augmented arms widening impossibly to hold Amastacia steady. "You're welcome to accompany me back to the Dectrose if you wish to, but getting her off-world is my highest priority." His finger softly pressed into the soft base on the back of her neck, injecting nanites to help stabilize her condition and begin constructing a cerebral lattice around her brain, to protect it as much as possible.
Her sister rose and said "I must stay. I do not wish to suffer the same fate as my sister nor do I wish to go against my country. While I love her, I must be loyal to my country too." She then reached out to touch her sisters right arm gingerly. She then sighed and told him
"If you have to, hurry up. The UWA has already started to arrest Amastacias loyalists. You may not have much time left. You must leave if you can. Or else you may have to seek refuge with some of my friends. But that will bring trouble. It's up to you to decide."
She let go of her sister and then told him too
"If I were not retired, I would have tried to stop you too."
She then narrowed her eyes at him and said sharply
"Go. The government will not waste time as we are doing so. They will find you and arrest you if they have to."
"Not on my watch." He turned, pinged his comm for his Cruiser to stealth drop a Shuttlecraft down to him, the SAVD activating and the shuttle going cold as it took it's best, stealthiest approach towards Margheriti's position. While the Admiral himself went back to the door, re-shifting the nanites to form a RAVD node on the outside of the door, looking through it to check for possible intruders. He turned back to her "Thank you, by the way, your sister is in good hands, or.. arms. Or.. I'll get back to you on that."
The sister just shook her head and just waited for him to leave. But as he returned to the door, she told him "Stop wasting time. You're already on the scanners and monitors right about now, I think."
She then sat down on one of her chairs and waited for him to leave just as they started to hear the siren of a patrol car who was passing by her apartment.
On the other hand, planetary security scanners were starting to detect the ship that was coming down.
"Sir, we're being picked up on scanners, stealth isn't gunna cut it." The pilot pinged to Margheriti, he replied "Well, then get your ass down here fast, we got company." He turned around, making for the back door, dropping a node to serve as a very compelling hologram of him and Amastacia inside the house. If there wasn't a back door, he made one and dropped credits down to pay for the damages. Once outside the house, he opened a line with Decoroso Command "Fleet Admiral Margheriti, I'm requesting Admiral Byrd's presence immediately, Will keep the comms open."
He started to run at an enhanced speed, seeking to put as much distance away from any activity as possible "Pilot, you're gunna have to use the Hana Protocol to get us out of this place." The reply came "WILCO, We have you on our sensors, visual range shortly." The Shuttlecraft sped along at a frighteningly fast pace, dropping the stealth for pure speed.
-----------------
When Black Rabbit wanted to do things, without it being obvious they were doing things, they sent bounty hunters. Plainclothes and unmarked vehicles didn't draw the same kind of attention black trucks with heavily armed mercenaries did. There had been a feeling among the Corporation, and especially among their 'Talent Acquisition Manager' on Ultrasina that Amastacia's 'accident' wasn't entirely an accident.
Celesia may not have noticed, but the corporation had had round the clock surveillance on her since the moment Amastacia had been returned, while they waited to conclude paperwork and move both of them off world and out of reach of those who might have wished the sister's harm.
Sean Devlin and Damien de la Rosa had been assigned to sit on the apartment for the last few hours. It wasn't Sean's first pick, he would have much rather been in a shady part of the galaxy making shady deals with shady people... but the money was good, and he was attached to a rookie for the time being so it was easy.
But it was mind numbingly boring, and it was with no small amount of relief that he saw their replacements pull up in a black and red muscle card that let out a loud rumble as the engine died down. A pale willowy woman got out of the driver's side while a hulking dark skinned man got out of the passengers.
"How's she going?" The man called in a light accent.
"Not so bad," Sean answered. "All quiet. You ready to take over?"
"Yep," He answered. "Loaded up with coffee, chips, and shitty pizza. All the makings of a tedious stakeout."
"Shouldn't be long. Just got word Scelene's on her way with a goon squad to move everyone. The arrests are starting to make her..."
Further comment was abruptly cut off as one of the building's wall rather abruptly formed a hole. The four bounty hunters watched in disbelief as a man, carrying what was clearly their charge jumped through the hole and began running.
"Motherfucker!" The four chimed in unison. A flurry of activity followed, engines roaring to life as first Sean's SUV and then the muscle car roared out into the street and made after the man.
"Someone's here!" Sean shouted into his radio. "In pursuit, suspect is male..."
He continued rattling off a description as the vehicle closed in on Margheriti, pausing to lean out the window.
"BOUNTY HUNTERS! STOP NOW OR WE WILL FORCE YOU TO!!!" He shouted.
Scelene shouted a curse as the news came in over the radio, grabbing hold of her communicator and alerting the other two vehicles in her convoy. The three black SUVs tightened their formation as they neared the apartment, ignoring traffic laws and moving through intersections as the mercenaries within began loading weapons.
"Never easy is it?" The recruiter muttered. At the port a final pair of bounty hunters began prepping their strike crafts for launch going through pre-flight checks as they were patched in to the ongoing situation.
UBI and UPD officers and agents were also involved. They have been watching Celesius for quite a while as much as the Corp was. And now their suspect and the traitor was running. Special Agent in Charge, Aracelia Peralta, rushed out of a nearby coffeeshop together with her partner, SAC Delmar Navarette. Both were holding their Florentino semi automatic pistols as they reached the streets. Delmar called for a nearby patrol car to come close while Aracelia contacted HQ
"HQ, this is SAC Aracelia, I've got multiple hostiles in the vicinity of the area. Possible bounty hunters and our suspects. Requesting Class C back up!"And at once, both of them got inside the patrol car and together with the UPD driver and partner, they went after the Decthrotian.
At the same time, a helicopter crew was rushing to get to their helo at the nearest UBI HQ as well as a convoy of UBI police IMVs getting prepped for a chase. Nearby UBI assets were also activated and the nearest UPD station was sending out SWAT teams on the hunt and interceptors into the air.
At the same time, the first patrol car that passed by stopped and the officers were about to get out but the suspects got away. So they got back into their car and went after them first.
"Sir, bogeys are in the air, update?" Margheriti ran hard, his disguising clothing shifting into a nanite swarm to fly off into the SUV's open window, slithering their way into weapons and driving controls, the nanites moving to disable both the weapons and the vehicle, still, others came, and time was now too short "Yeah yeah, I got a plan, you in visual range?" "Yes sir, you got a lot of heat up your ass.. Sir." Margheriti grunted hard and opened his legs fully, the augmentations now pushed to their limits as they jumped up into the air, the shuttle door opening and a Bi'jorn reaching out with his telekinesis to grab the two mid-air, coughing up slick blood onto the floor of the craft as he exerted himself.
The momentum from Margheriti and the Bi'jorn got them close to one another, with a final pull, they landed inside the shuttle, the Bi'jorn collapsing and panting heavily as the Mantis inside the shuttlecraft attended to Amastacia "What do you want me to do sir?" He gasped for a second as his legs returned to normal, "CC-01, now. Pilot, get us the hell off this planet." The shuttlecraft turned wide and aimed for orbit, the Mantis sliding a thin instrument from his hand and into Amastacia's head, implanting the CC-01 to the cerebral lattice.
"Margheriti this is Admiral Byrd, what exactly is happening there?" He tapped his ear "Well, we got a few people on our ass and my pilot states there are bogeys in the air, so I think this certainly qualifies as 'Admirals in danger'. How far are you?" She replied "Should be there shortly, you know this is stretching your use of powers right?" He half chuckled "Decoroso can court-martial me later, for now, just make sure they have a reason to not shoot us from the sky, yeah?"
While Damian was forced to bring the SUV to a halt as the control was lost the muscle car came around, taking it's place almost instantly. While Margheriti was focused on making it into the shuttle, Delambert lifted a launcher and with little in the way of ceremony, fired.
The small projectile launched through the air and attached to the shuttle, coming online and relaying it's location not only to the remaining bounty hunters on the ground but to the two bounty hunter's taking off from the space port.
The twin strike craft streaked across the sky, closing in on the locator in a few short minutes. Margheriti had already been given his warning, there would be no more.
The strike craft fell in behind the shuttle, one ahead of the other, and with no further warning they locked onto the shuttle's engines and the second craft launched a pair of missiles toward the shuttle.
These weren't missiles designed to destroy the shuttle outright, rather to cause enough damage to the engines that the shuttle would be unable to continue flying.
Meanwhile on the ground and back at Celesia's apartment Scelene's convoy of three black SUVs screeched to a halt outside the apartment and black clad mercenaries armed with assault rifles began piling out, taking up positions around the apartment building's entrance while Scelene went in with a trio of mercenaries. She went straight for Celesia's apartment, fearing the worst.
Celesia was all right. She was still standing in her apartment when they entered it. The woman nodded to the mercenaries and greeted Scelene "Hello. I am unharmed."
At the same time, police interceptors arrived, going against the shuttle that was going fast. To avoid colliding with it, one interceptor went up and another went down. Then they looped around and followed the shuttle, giving warnings against it while a few more interceptors were sent not against the shuttle but against any other possible Dectrothian ship in orbit or in the planet.
Police officers, agents and many other persons involved on the side of the government were starting to flow into the general area. A general order by the local government was given to close the city off while the local army units were also notified. Helicopters as well as other aircraft were being scrambled while local surface to air systems were activated.
In orbit, an admiral of the United Fleets also ordered some corvettes to go after any possible Dectrothian ships that were close enough. The rest of his fleet was ordered to make sure that Alondra, the planet, was not going to be intruded upon by any Dectrothian reinforcements.
'Reinforcements' was to be an understatement. For now, the shuttlecraft took evasive maneuvers, shields up, ADS armed and engaged the missiles, able to easily shoot the lone pair down, though taking minor damage to the rear of the craft, shaking all manner of tools and occupants inside. The Pilot checked his gauges, the instruments where fine and the ship was still space-worthy, as noded eyed out the damage. It had been mostly cosmetic damage, but he could take more hits. ECM and EW opened up on targeting sensors, still climbing at a rapid, frightening pace as the Pilot opened comms "Cease Fire! Cease Fire! Our altitude is too high, if you disable us we'll drop like a rock and crash!" The Cruiser dipped lower, soon having the group within CIWS range as it gave a broadcast "Cease engaging the craft, we will attempt to disable but we give no promises."
EW pods simply targeted the group of interceptors, just putting weight behind their words, but what would really hammer home the statement was the over 100km long Annointed Battleship that appeared through a wormhole at the edge of the system, along with it's ten ship escort. Admiral Byrd had arrived. "This is ISF Admiral Byrd, Commander of the 'Pride of Decoroso', if that shuttlecraft is disabled in any way, you will be opening hostilities with the Dectrose Empire, Cease your actions and allow the Dectrose ships to depart your system. Any further diplomatic ventures can be dealt with at a Dectrothian Embassy."
At this time, two other corvettes entered Alondra, heading towards the shuttle as it was attempting to leave the planet. The interceptors also started to get closer towards the shuttle, giving their last warnings. However this was stopped by the EW pods targeting the interceptors. Most of the interceptors backed off but the pilot operating one of the interceptors committed a mistake, causing his aircraft to pitch hard down into the ground. He only saved him and his craft by pulling up and returning to base as he found out that his aircraft was suffering from some problems.
On the ground, UWA SAM systems and batteries as well as ground based interdiction systems were locking onto the shuttle and the cruiser. At the same time, helicopters and other interceptors were in the air. Also joining in was a squadron of Sainz-Aurora Air Superiority Fighters and Estala-Espigara Multirole planes. They were still scrambling from the nearest UWA airbases while the people on the capital were struggling to understand what was really going on.
Meanwhile, in space, the fleet that was supposed to secure the capital system of the UWA was moving around really really hard and fast. Engines and afterburners were going wild as the UWA fleet split into two. One part remained as they were while another part broke off from the area to go towards the worlds of the system itself. Their aim was to put up interdiction over the planets, covering them one by one with interdiction going as far as 12 AU. 80 ships were involved in this.
At the same time, the rest of the fleet went after battleship and its escorts, heading on an intercept course while moving the corvettes that were a part of it towards Alondra to deal with the shuttle as well. The ships going after the intruding Dectrothian battleship and escorts numbered up to 220.
Lastly, the various patrol fleets that were actively patrolling the UWA home systems and a fleet that was watching the border of the Avarian Frontier with the Corridor were all ordered to send ships to jump from their location into the area that the battleship and escorts were last reported to have stopped. The fleets have detected and tracked the Dectrothian ships down but were unable to intercept until they intruded on the UWA capital system. It was the last straw of the UWA and they no longer took chances.
Soon enough, 120 ships were sent, jumping from their location into the area, aiming to raise interdiction as soon as they got there.
Once all the ships were able and reached their destinations, the UWA issued a warning to both the escaping shuttle and the battleship and her escorts. It was the voice of Secretary Karaza Blue:
I am the Secretary of the United Worlds of Alondra and I have been informed that the ships of the Dectrose Empire have intruded on the sovereign territory of the country and most of all, have intruded specifically on the very system that holds the capital of the country. This is not forgivable.
I am ordering you, the Dectrose, to stop what you are doing. Land the shuttle that is escaping and hand over Amastacia. Disable your weapons and power down your ships and systems and we will let you all go until we decide when we can get Amastacia out of the UWA or we will be forced to defend our sovereignty and call upon our allies and the UDS.
Do not test us. Do not force us to use deadly means to solve this matter.
---------------
The bounty hunters had no intention of letting up. Their quarry was in sight and their orders were clear: Amastacia was an employee of the Black Rabbit Security Corporation and every effort would be made to ensure her safety.The two strike craft pushed in, moving until they were practically on top of the shuttle. Alerts were coming in over the computers about multiple breach attempts. The firewalls were holding, but they wouldn't hold forever. They needed to end this fast.
Guns were switched to manual, gimbal mounts locking in place and provide the pilots with fixed guns to continue their attack, relatively unhindered by the target scrambling. Their targeting computers may have been fucked, but their eyes could see the target, and painted cross hairs would work well enough at such close ranges.
The closest of the two fighters acted first, firing a series of tow cables into the fleeing shuttle. They didn't need to hit, but it would certainly make what needed to be done next easier. While the first pilot focused on repeated attempts to hit catch the shuttle on a tow line the second began unloading with rotary canons. Deep thrums echoed across the sky as the weapon fired, angry red tracers marking the route as the second pilot aimed once more to disable the shuttles engines. The thrum sounded again, and again, and again as the pilot sent salvo after salvo across the shuttle's engines.
Both craft remained close to the shuttle, ensuring any attempt by the cruiser to engage them with its CIWS would run a high risk of striking the shuttle.The process repeated, tow cables and gun fire lancing out at the shuttle repeatedly as it continued in its attempts to flee. On the ground Scelene finished at the apartment. She and her men helped Celesia to collect her things and then moved her back to the convoy waiting outside."We're heading to the embassy," She told her. "I don't know who's trying to make off your sister but we're moving both of you off world to a facility in the Commonwealth. It's not safe for you to be here anymore.
Almost as if they were pursuing prey the UDS fifth fleet transitioned through their wormholes behind the Dectrose battleship and escorts. The five strike groups came through in attack formation with DSGs taking the front, the SCSG taking the middle and the CSGs taking the rear. They were spaced out from the stern to dorsal positions at the rear of the battleship roughly 0.5 AU away. Weapons were charged and locked, fighters were launched they only awaited the order to go and all hell would rain down on the eleven ships before them.
“Mother Fuckers are always trying to ice skate up hill.” Fleet Admiral Tanat Karu looked her tactical display
“let’s hope this one is done and dusted by dinner aye boss” Her XO commented
“Lets, anyways raise interdiction so they can’t run away from us just yet, sync tactical data and comms with the UWA so that when they fire we fire alongside them, and open a channel to the UWA and tell them that we’re here to help and that the First is en route now.”
With interdiction raised the Union fleet waited for what was to happen next, they were like a coiled spring ready to unleash themselves on the Dectrose in an instant. They weren’t alone however and the QRF forces for UDS space were also incoming soon with the rest of the fleets being mobilised in short order.
Fire erupted from the pursuing fighters, and shields couldn't hold up forever. Soon enough the fire drained the shields and ruptured the engines, the pilot struggling to keep it level before relenting and giving the order to brace, as the tow cables slammed into the craft, holding it steady. Amastacia was rushed into a medical pod, her new implants creating a copy of her brain, before the nanites made preparations for transfer. Margheriti prayed to the spirits that at the very least, she would survive this whole ordeal. She was delicate like a flower, as he stroked her cheek, the craft began to lose it's own momentum.
The cruiser attempted in vain to get a clean shot at the engaging fighters, but the proximity was too close, and they'd risk hitting their own. Instead, they began to accelerate, pushing towards the ISF Pride of Decoroso and slowly pulling away from the planet, FTL was warmed up, but they knew that FTL wasn't happening till interdiction dropped. The same happened with Byrd's fleet, sending in a report to Decoroso and priming FTL as they moved to prep for the transit, that is, unless the interdiction wasn't dropped. In defense on all ships, the shields where raised and prioritized, countermeasures readied as well as CIWS, just in case.
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The air aboard the bridge of the pride of Decoroso was tense, so many ships about, so many guns aimed upon the backs of the gathered Dectrose.
The bridge bustled with activity as the larger than normal crew flitted about the wide open space around the central command throne with urgency, eyes scanned over readouts as fast as their augments would allow and the constant low humming chatter of the many staff directing their sub departments imparted a gentle dull tone to the room.
“Admiral!”
Shouted a crewman, his tone indicating as clear as day the urgency of what he had to say.
“The shuttle has taken fire and is losing altitude quickly! Tow cables are confirmed attached.”
The time for action was now, it had become clear to the war ships hidden occupants that their intervention would be required if their goals were to be furthered and so they woke, subtly so as not to draw to much attention and only as many as were needed for what was to come.
It was a simple matter for the heavily infected bridge crew to release bursts of comms chatter into the system, the Grey class had already been communicating with its escorts and the orbit bound ship, it was easier then to slide in a single rogue pulse, a telepathic prodding focused entirely upon the two humans piloting the now entangled fighter craft, the minds of a single pair of ordinary men versus the released energy of a battle ship was not a fair competition at all, their conscious minds were targeted first taken by surprise, who they were the very essence of their existence was to be shredded into a million million pieces leaving vegetative puppets for the ship to control, laced within this hidden assault was a very simple directive, the shuttle was to be bought to the orbiting ship as quickly and cleanly as possible, their lives mattered less than the escape crafts safe arrival, finally a delayed synaptic response was layered over their shredded personas so that once the grey left system the two men would find themselves back to the land of the living, a cruel joke for two men who had by all appearances just committed a most vile treason.
Even then the ship made ready to cast its influence out again, it made sure to be ready to defend its new found objective using the insidious cloying tendrils of mental manipulation.
The change in course of the two bounty hunters was noted immediately. No sooner had the two craft managed to stop the shuttle from a violent fiery end than they began to ascend toward the Cruiser.
The entire situation was being monitored closely. Corporate combat managers paying careful attention to every movement undertaken, watching camera feeds and listening to communications.
There was little trust in the Corporation for the bounty hunters they employed. After all, all of them were former revolutionaries. The Reconciliation Committee may have pardoned them, but even so they'd be identified as 'problem children' and incentivized to seek employment outside of the Commonwealth.
No, the corporation did not trust them. Not one bit. Several system's away in an orbital facility in Vestahl Space, the operations manager watched with an eerie calm as his employees turned against him.
"Fucking bounty hunters," He muttered. "You know I told Sharpe this would happen? I told her we shouldn't have this shit?"
He shook his head.
"Eject them, set the auto-pilot to land at the port. Get Fowler in system ASAP and let the UWA know he's coming in heavy."
With the coldness granted by distance a few short lines of code were sent, and with little in the way of ceremony the pilots were thrown from their craft as their ascent was halted and the craft once more began descending toward the planet on a pre-programmed course to the landing pads they'd initially taken off from.
In light of the ongoing cyber-attack the operators severed all network connection to the craft. They would carry out their automated landing sequence, and then lock down until personnel could be sent to unlock them.
Some of the UWA advance ships started to try and see if they could break into Dectrothian communications and if there was any activity, they tried to jam them or disable them. It would take time and it was not sure if the UWA advance ships could do it but they tried anyway.
Because it was all that important. If the Dectrose tried to contact their home worlds, then this may lead to a disadvantage for the UWA.
-------------------
At this moment, the communications of the UWA was becoming very full of tense words. Words that would soon turn this from an incredibly tense race into a war.
A few extra long range SAM batteries locked on the shuttle while the air superiority fighters and their partners went after the shuttle and the cruiser. At the same time, the ships that were going after the battleship and the escorts started to lock on their targets.
No more warning was given. The SAM batteries launched their first volley of missiles, which was practically a spam of anti air missiles that were more than just "flying telephone poles"
At roughly the same time, the ships of the UWA that were hunting the battleship and its escorts as well as the other ships of the UWA that were hunting the cruiser launched their own missiles and torpedoes.
The interdiction was never dropped.
Also to add to this response by the UWA, anti orbital systems that had missiles and extra long range cannons on Alondra that could reach the Dectrose cruiser opened up while the other anti orbital systems on the other planets that were close to the edge of the system where the Dectrose battleship and escorts opened up.
Just as the UWA retaliated, the government was starting to draft the UWA declaration of war upon the Dectrose Empire for violating UWA territory and for threatening war. At the same time, videos of the flying missiles from the SAM batteries and the anti orbital systems as well as the firing of anti orbital guns were being broadcast to other parts of the UWA, showing also how the Dectrose ships were behaving.
Just like that, in a days time, all of the UWA was now against the Empire.
The Union fleet maintained its course and position behind the Dectrose fleet and then their waiting came to an end, when the UWA forces opened fire on the Dectrose with the Union following suit. Every loaded gun was fired, every locked on torpedo and missile was let loose and every charged laser was discharged. The vast majority of the fleet’s firepower was concentrated on the battle ship, while leaving enough to take out the escorts comfortably. Tanat watched intensively from her CIC and awaited the results.
“They don’t stand a chance boss, not with these numbers.” The XO piped in again
“Don’t let your guard down just yet they are still kicking for the moment. Is the first still incoming?”
“Yeah that’s them now.” The XO pointed out the wormhole signatures
The First fleet transitioned through their wormholes right outside the interdiction of the fifth, they came out behind them and made heady way to their position to back them up.
Massive amounts of countermeasures flooded the local space around the Dectrose fleet, the escorting Emerald Jewels took on the missiles and torpedoes, using their specialized EW suites to prematurely detonate or disable the systems in the incoming munitions, those that still traveled on hit the Scalar CIWS, then the Gatling Railguns, RAM II CIWS Missiles then the Cyclonic/Harmonic shields, deflecting some of the kinetic munitions, and diffusing some of the DEW fire. Massive ADS systems easily dealt with even more missiles and torpedoes, as some 'friends' joined the embattled Dectrose Fleet.
As if dropping from stealth, 24 massive Superdreadnoughts appeared visually and on sensors, now the loudest signatures on the UWA and UDS sensor suites. They turned onto the UDS fleets as if warming up guns, missile bays opening and targeting sensors likely going off as the new ships began to target the enemy fleet with lasers, as the first shots began to land on the fleet the UDS where engaging. Kinetic munitions slammed hard into the armor systems of the ships, damaging them and soon where compensated for until the lasers also hit their marks, the armoring systems overwhelmed as the multiple munitions pierced through several ships, the ships taking an impressive amount of fire before going down.
Each ship put up their best defense, opening fire on only two carriers as best they could before they expired. Full missile bays where dumped and sent to engage, hypervelocity railguns engaged as well at the relatively close range ships, continuing to prioritize the two carriers. Though as the initial barrage went on, the struggle of the fleet nearest the UDS soon dwindled until there where none left, the remaining whole parts of the ships detonating to prevent the UDS from salvaging anything, as the crews where transferred out with their chips.
Margheriti's ship picked up the SAM missiles on their sensors, the AO and Kinetic cannons where all flying for the Cruiser, but the situation couldn't have been stranger. The ship was still too close to the planet, the gravity would bring it crashing back down to the surface, but that was no longer a concern for the Dectrose at this time. The missiles where easily dealt with in the same manner Byrd's fleet took on the UDS and the UWA munitions. The tracking from the surface gave ample timing for the ship to simply bump the missiles off-course or vaporized with Scalar CIWS, some of the kinetic munitions pounded angrily on the armor before following shots pierced through, greatly damaging the ship, but not enough to take it down.
The ship continued to try to burn away from the planet, but with the constant fire, it was faltering. The shuttle was also painted and locked on by the SAMs, the firing of the SAMs seemingly decided the fate for the shuttle, with nothing to protect it anymore, the Mantis did it's best to recreate Amastacia's body for the Network, and was able to get it out despite the efforts of the UWA to disable or tap into the comms. The SAM then met it's mark as it slammed into the shuttle, vaporizing the shuttle and it's occupants. The last bastion of hope lay with the massive battleship.
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An Annointed battle ship even one so stripped of its normal myriad defensive measures was an incredibly advanced vessel, while in theory export versions such as this one were completely bereft of any form of psionic capability the Red letter created demi-gestalt aboard had seen these capabilities restored.
The first line of defence for a grey class was its wide reaching telekinetic shield, at 0.5 AU the muzzles of the enemy’s guns found themselves well within its reach of influence, even as shots left their mother ship their courses were altered slightly or harangued forced to burn delta V and lose momentum to compensate for their altered flight paths, of course with the sheer number of incoming munitions it was barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things.
One Destroyer found itself the target of a particularly spiteful interruption as the Grey class simply stopped attempting to telekineticly alter the flight path of so many shots and instead slapped violently a travelling slug half way up its own rails altering its flight path into the roof of its own ship, another frigate found itself the target of the vessels grav drives as four seperate gravimetric shears manifested at the four cardinal tips of the vessel.
A grey classes telekinetic shield was of course not its only defence, next the myriad hundreds of thousands of guns along its sides would add their fire to the fray, however positioned as it was it could only bring the rear most layers to bear, what would normally be a storm of fire now reduced to a mewling hail.
With its guns ineffective and its shields unable to deal with the mass of fire the battleship activated its ADS, encasing itself in a purple cyclone of telekinetic force, here the ship tore munitions to shreds and dissipated energy across the force mimicking curve of the ADS, like all defences however it obeyed the simple laws of energy conservation and quickly the Union fire overwhelmed the defensive measure shots now ripping through the ship proper as vital components, engine lines and super structure bars were torn twisted and gutted with extreme prejudice.
The grey class now lay torn and broken, the wreckage beginning to shimmer as its constituent nanites began eating away at the junked ship, breaking down anything in the wreck of value, even in death gestaltic spite would deny the enemy access to their secrets.
How ever before a single finger had been lifted in the ships defence it instead chose to spite its killers, with the enemy to its rear the sudden four minute long fullisade of fire that began spewing from the ships front did not have to worry about the ships behind it intercepting or interfering with the newly appeared wall of tungsten racing toward the UWA’s home planet like a long silver snake seeking to sink its fangs into their plump undefended sides.
With all the in system anti orbital fire directed towards the ship itself it was not hard to plot a course toward the blue planet that would be hard to intercept, the shells were not expected to make it to the world.
But then again they didn’t need too.
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Eleven versus five hundred was a match up the Dectrose weren’t going to win only one ship which was a frigate was evacuated and tagged for retrieval. The only other damaged ship was a destroyer that had a firing mechanism malfunction on its spinal gun that sent liquid tungsten at 0.4c through the top of the ship. However the Union fleets could only watch as the current wave of projectiles from the Battleship headed toward Alondra.
“It’s got yonks to go they’ll get it sure thing boss. Some Ship name too ‘Pride of Decroso’ they dropped it with minimal escort and blown to bits. Makes me laugh just thinking about it” Tanat’s XO laughed for a moment before regaining his composure.
“Switch, that’s a wrap here we’ll stand by here for a while before we return to base.” Tanat contacted the first fleet admiral Sara Switch.
“Copy we’ll turn it around and get back to Anderson, I think they’ll be warming up the Griswald soon too. So we’ll be coming back with more fire power if they rear their ugly heads again.” Sara replied back
The First Fleet disengaged and began charging close space drives for the trip home. the Fifth in the meantime would attempt to chase down the fired enemy munitions and prepare for the worst if they were to hit any cities.
-----------
At first the defenders panicked at the detection of new Dectrose ships entering the system. They thought they really were being invaded. But only the cool heads of the officers already engaging existing Dectrose ships prevailed. They reported that there was no FTL residue nor was there any physical proof of the ships yet. So with permission, they were allowed to send fast moving Corvettes out to see if the detected ships were for real.
At the same time, UWA forces still kept engaging the cruiser and the battleship while ground forces on Alondra watched the shuttle vanish thanks to overwhelming fire.
At the end of the day though, the mistake was made. Planetary guns synchronized at the orders of officers on the ground and in orbit until after a few dozen seconds, they began lobbing slugs and firing off beams that were directed towards the incoming tungsten from the battleship while UWA ships focused on bringing it off course. In case of emergencies such as this, the UWA gave general orders to evacuate the cities to the underground shelters and to deploy the Unionist Guards.
At another hand though, Secretary Blue now had the perfect reason to declare war. And at this moment, her signature was the last thing to be written on the United Worlds Declaration of War In Defense Against the Dectrose. And written on another set of papers were the terms that the UWA wanted when this war would come to their homes. And at the same time, she asked her aides to help her get ready to speak to the nation and to personally inform the rest of the galaxy just what happened.
-------------
The cruiser was lifeless, nothing left to hold onto. The ship was bound for the coldness of space, able to achieve their objective of saving those on the surface from the military's wraith and misunderstanding. At least the city would be safe. Engineering made the calls to self-destruct everything available, to awaken back home in new clones, as well as stop the enemy from gathering their ship for their use.
After a short while, the ship brilliantly exploded, most of it burning up in Alondra's atmosphere, the rest now unidentifiable pieces of metal surging through space. The battle had ended. The war had begun.
---------------
The tungsten storm projected from the ships nose pulls away from it at ridiculous speeds, tearing through the system at about .99c following orbital paths that favoured it’s own forward acceleration while forcing incoming enemy fire to either take the longest possible path or fight gravity itself in order to set upon the swarm of metal death.
While this tactic bought them time it was never going to be a perfect defence and eventually the UWA’s fire caught up, the first rounds to land home slamming against the outer waves of ball bearing sized tungsten, at the speeds travelled colliding munitions plasmafied instantly losing momentum as the main body of fire continued on past the super hot fields the impacts left behind.
Before long the enemy fire made its way past the initial screen slamming into the shield shells purple umbrellas in flashes of light that lit up the void like a fireworks display for any paying attention.
It became clear quickly that the mass of tungsten was never going to reach its target, unfortunately for the the people of Ultrasinar they were never meant to.
Rows upon rows upon rows of grav manipulators lit up among the most well protected elements of the demi fleet multi kilometre slugs pouring power into their grav racks as they lit up on sensors like never before.
The tallest building in Ultrasina was chosen as the triangulation point for the attack five hundred metres north, south east and south west suddenly found themselves playing home to the light bending intensity of three graviton sheers, the storm of forces atomised everything within the triangles cross point creating a storm of dust and detritus from the district, people within a kilometre of ground zero found their bodies subjected to forces no human should ever have to experience, bones twisted and shattered as blood vessels burst and hearts ruptured in horrifying displays of almost cartoonish gore, out to a kilometre and a half capillaries burst and buildings continued to collapse as frames were subjected to the predations of twisting force and stress, two kilometres past that eyes collapsed and ear drums burst as the lenses destructive reach terminated, supports being shaken apart by harmonic resonance as even more dust from the collapsed was dragged through the lenses focal point and launched into he atmosphere, the lenses rolled forward dragging more and more of the city into their reach, when all was said and done over twenty square kilometres of metropolitan sprawl was destroyed the enormous dust cloud hurled up blotting out the suns light for a much larger distance, the ecological effect was yet to be seen but would no doubt be catastrophic unless dealt with the rampage ended when shells were destroyed by fire.
---------
Many hours later, the city of Ultrasina was placed under a state of emergency. The entire planet was placed under a joint military and civilian government due to the need to respond quickly to the disaster. For much of the city was ruined and many people who were not evacuated or were being evacuated had died or fell to their wounds.
In the face of all of this, the United Worlds of Alondra was in complete outrage. Unable to stop a great storm of tungsten, they did not blame their defenses and those who tried. They did what they could with what the UWA had. Instead, they blamed the Dectrose Empire, placing upon them all the fault for the deaths of their loved ones, their fathers and mothers, their sons and daughters, everyone who had a place in their hearts.
But they could not always blame. They had to put their hearts and minds to the work ahead. Those arriving at the city were volunteers. They looked for the dead and the wounded. Others looked for survivors or took care of them. Then came the police and other emergency services to help them and to secure the area. Then the military, who wanted to investigate the effects and any remains of the tungsten storm. The rest were government officials who had to visit the city or those from the other UWA worlds.
At the same time, groups of people were busy placing a large flag of the United Worlds upon the rubble of the tallest building in order to inspire and to remind their fellow citizens of the devastation of the Dectrose attack. And to finally and ultimately wage war that was right.
At the end of the day too, Secretary Blue Karaza, the real leader of the United Worlds of Alondra, watched as men and women worked to rebuild this part of their city. At the same time, she realized how much she had lost. And how much this hurt. It pained her, stressed her as she stood with the help of her friends, The President and the Vice President. Even as they argued with one another, pleaded with one another, today was not the time for divisions. It was time for unity, liberty and bravery.
And for Blue, this time was it.
For Jalaja, this time was of redemption.
And for Shayrack, this time was of infamy.
And Lumos obeyed, saying as she would always when she felt her master give the commands in both a serious tone and in a manner that Lumos grew to know not to oppose
"Of course, Celesius."
And then she went silent as the sister looked over her sister. She was trying her best to speak. She felt her head ache so much, Amastacia barely making cries of her own agony. It did not help too that she also showed extreme memory loss, numbness in her legs and hands and worsening speech. All early symptoms of one thing: Mind machine inducing paralysis.And all as she waited for Margheriti to come and see what the government had done. She never knew anything about what happened. She did know this is something they would do. But she never thought that it would be this bad. That this was all the result...of an accident. A fatal series of deadly errors that cost her sister everything, most especially her memory of Celesius.
As she lay on the spare mattress that Celesius had kept for Amastacia, the sister of the former admiral simply waited and waited.
It was unnaturally cold for Margheriti as he stepped up to the house, going over the events since the summit. Amastacia told him that it would be fine, to help her grab some things as she left to visit her home, then she disappeared, Decoroso Command had nothing until the trial was publicly displayed. He watched as his love was put on display, a kangaroo court by all apperances, even though the introduction of a new lawyer looked promising, the verdict seemed set from the start. Guilty.
Now he returned to his senses, his eyes lost from their usual orange glow, his heating units disabled to blend in somewhat, shuffling around the streets with nothing but the latest information that he had on hand from his ship's RAVD nodes that tried to track Amastacia. He walked to the door, looking at the handle, before turning it slowly in his augmented hand, and opening it to reveal the interior.
Inside, it was a simple apartment. A bot, a big table, a stove and oven, a refrigerator, a 3D printer, some glasses, utensils and what not. And in an open room, Amastacia lay before his eyes. Celesius quickly rose up from her place and said "Ah. Are you Margheriti?"
One could see that Celesius had been weeping a long while ago. She held her hands as her fingers trembled and she constantly looked at Amastacia...who lay weak.
"Yeah, what happened to Amastacia?" His voice was altered, not sounding as he usually did, as he closed the door behind him and secured it with nanites that filtered out from his fingers, jamming it tightly. He looked about, walking towards Amastaica and placing her hand in his.
The sister nodded and said "She was sent here by the government. They gave me her. She's....She's still under temporary paralysis. It happens to everyone who tries to leave and defect. It....They said the rest was an accident."
Meanwhile, Amastacia let a few tears fall from her eyes as she held his hand very weakly. She grunted and tried to smile but only brought herself pain from the effort, making her whimper.
"I figured as much, I'm taking her back to the Dectrose Empire, Daedalus Research Institute can likely restore her back to something of her former self. I hope." He moved towards her, picking her up in his hands, the augmented arms widening impossibly to hold Amastacia steady. "You're welcome to accompany me back to the Dectrose if you wish to, but getting her off-world is my highest priority." His finger softly pressed into the soft base on the back of her neck, injecting nanites to help stabilize her condition and begin constructing a cerebral lattice around her brain, to protect it as much as possible.
Her sister rose and said "I must stay. I do not wish to suffer the same fate as my sister nor do I wish to go against my country. While I love her, I must be loyal to my country too." She then reached out to touch her sisters right arm gingerly. She then sighed and told him
"If you have to, hurry up. The UWA has already started to arrest Amastacias loyalists. You may not have much time left. You must leave if you can. Or else you may have to seek refuge with some of my friends. But that will bring trouble. It's up to you to decide."
She let go of her sister and then told him too
"If I were not retired, I would have tried to stop you too."
She then narrowed her eyes at him and said sharply
"Go. The government will not waste time as we are doing so. They will find you and arrest you if they have to."
"Not on my watch." He turned, pinged his comm for his Cruiser to stealth drop a Shuttlecraft down to him, the SAVD activating and the shuttle going cold as it took it's best, stealthiest approach towards Margheriti's position. While the Admiral himself went back to the door, re-shifting the nanites to form a RAVD node on the outside of the door, looking through it to check for possible intruders. He turned back to her "Thank you, by the way, your sister is in good hands, or.. arms. Or.. I'll get back to you on that."
The sister just shook her head and just waited for him to leave. But as he returned to the door, she told him "Stop wasting time. You're already on the scanners and monitors right about now, I think."
She then sat down on one of her chairs and waited for him to leave just as they started to hear the siren of a patrol car who was passing by her apartment.
On the other hand, planetary security scanners were starting to detect the ship that was coming down.
"Sir, we're being picked up on scanners, stealth isn't gunna cut it." The pilot pinged to Margheriti, he replied "Well, then get your ass down here fast, we got company." He turned around, making for the back door, dropping a node to serve as a very compelling hologram of him and Amastacia inside the house. If there wasn't a back door, he made one and dropped credits down to pay for the damages. Once outside the house, he opened a line with Decoroso Command "Fleet Admiral Margheriti, I'm requesting Admiral Byrd's presence immediately, Will keep the comms open."
He started to run at an enhanced speed, seeking to put as much distance away from any activity as possible "Pilot, you're gunna have to use the Hana Protocol to get us out of this place." The reply came "WILCO, We have you on our sensors, visual range shortly." The Shuttlecraft sped along at a frighteningly fast pace, dropping the stealth for pure speed.
-----------------
When Black Rabbit wanted to do things, without it being obvious they were doing things, they sent bounty hunters. Plainclothes and unmarked vehicles didn't draw the same kind of attention black trucks with heavily armed mercenaries did. There had been a feeling among the Corporation, and especially among their 'Talent Acquisition Manager' on Ultrasina that Amastacia's 'accident' wasn't entirely an accident.
Celesia may not have noticed, but the corporation had had round the clock surveillance on her since the moment Amastacia had been returned, while they waited to conclude paperwork and move both of them off world and out of reach of those who might have wished the sister's harm.
Sean Devlin and Damien de la Rosa had been assigned to sit on the apartment for the last few hours. It wasn't Sean's first pick, he would have much rather been in a shady part of the galaxy making shady deals with shady people... but the money was good, and he was attached to a rookie for the time being so it was easy.
But it was mind numbingly boring, and it was with no small amount of relief that he saw their replacements pull up in a black and red muscle card that let out a loud rumble as the engine died down. A pale willowy woman got out of the driver's side while a hulking dark skinned man got out of the passengers.
"How's she going?" The man called in a light accent.
"Not so bad," Sean answered. "All quiet. You ready to take over?"
"Yep," He answered. "Loaded up with coffee, chips, and shitty pizza. All the makings of a tedious stakeout."
"Shouldn't be long. Just got word Scelene's on her way with a goon squad to move everyone. The arrests are starting to make her..."
Further comment was abruptly cut off as one of the building's wall rather abruptly formed a hole. The four bounty hunters watched in disbelief as a man, carrying what was clearly their charge jumped through the hole and began running.
"Motherfucker!" The four chimed in unison. A flurry of activity followed, engines roaring to life as first Sean's SUV and then the muscle car roared out into the street and made after the man.
"Someone's here!" Sean shouted into his radio. "In pursuit, suspect is male..."
He continued rattling off a description as the vehicle closed in on Margheriti, pausing to lean out the window.
"BOUNTY HUNTERS! STOP NOW OR WE WILL FORCE YOU TO!!!" He shouted.
Scelene shouted a curse as the news came in over the radio, grabbing hold of her communicator and alerting the other two vehicles in her convoy. The three black SUVs tightened their formation as they neared the apartment, ignoring traffic laws and moving through intersections as the mercenaries within began loading weapons.
"Never easy is it?" The recruiter muttered. At the port a final pair of bounty hunters began prepping their strike crafts for launch going through pre-flight checks as they were patched in to the ongoing situation.
UBI and UPD officers and agents were also involved. They have been watching Celesius for quite a while as much as the Corp was. And now their suspect and the traitor was running. Special Agent in Charge, Aracelia Peralta, rushed out of a nearby coffeeshop together with her partner, SAC Delmar Navarette. Both were holding their Florentino semi automatic pistols as they reached the streets. Delmar called for a nearby patrol car to come close while Aracelia contacted HQ
"HQ, this is SAC Aracelia, I've got multiple hostiles in the vicinity of the area. Possible bounty hunters and our suspects. Requesting Class C back up!"And at once, both of them got inside the patrol car and together with the UPD driver and partner, they went after the Decthrotian.
At the same time, a helicopter crew was rushing to get to their helo at the nearest UBI HQ as well as a convoy of UBI police IMVs getting prepped for a chase. Nearby UBI assets were also activated and the nearest UPD station was sending out SWAT teams on the hunt and interceptors into the air.
At the same time, the first patrol car that passed by stopped and the officers were about to get out but the suspects got away. So they got back into their car and went after them first.
"Sir, bogeys are in the air, update?" Margheriti ran hard, his disguising clothing shifting into a nanite swarm to fly off into the SUV's open window, slithering their way into weapons and driving controls, the nanites moving to disable both the weapons and the vehicle, still, others came, and time was now too short "Yeah yeah, I got a plan, you in visual range?" "Yes sir, you got a lot of heat up your ass.. Sir." Margheriti grunted hard and opened his legs fully, the augmentations now pushed to their limits as they jumped up into the air, the shuttle door opening and a Bi'jorn reaching out with his telekinesis to grab the two mid-air, coughing up slick blood onto the floor of the craft as he exerted himself.
The momentum from Margheriti and the Bi'jorn got them close to one another, with a final pull, they landed inside the shuttle, the Bi'jorn collapsing and panting heavily as the Mantis inside the shuttlecraft attended to Amastacia "What do you want me to do sir?" He gasped for a second as his legs returned to normal, "CC-01, now. Pilot, get us the hell off this planet." The shuttlecraft turned wide and aimed for orbit, the Mantis sliding a thin instrument from his hand and into Amastacia's head, implanting the CC-01 to the cerebral lattice.
"Margheriti this is Admiral Byrd, what exactly is happening there?" He tapped his ear "Well, we got a few people on our ass and my pilot states there are bogeys in the air, so I think this certainly qualifies as 'Admirals in danger'. How far are you?" She replied "Should be there shortly, you know this is stretching your use of powers right?" He half chuckled "Decoroso can court-martial me later, for now, just make sure they have a reason to not shoot us from the sky, yeah?"
While Damian was forced to bring the SUV to a halt as the control was lost the muscle car came around, taking it's place almost instantly. While Margheriti was focused on making it into the shuttle, Delambert lifted a launcher and with little in the way of ceremony, fired.
The small projectile launched through the air and attached to the shuttle, coming online and relaying it's location not only to the remaining bounty hunters on the ground but to the two bounty hunter's taking off from the space port.
The twin strike craft streaked across the sky, closing in on the locator in a few short minutes. Margheriti had already been given his warning, there would be no more.
The strike craft fell in behind the shuttle, one ahead of the other, and with no further warning they locked onto the shuttle's engines and the second craft launched a pair of missiles toward the shuttle.
These weren't missiles designed to destroy the shuttle outright, rather to cause enough damage to the engines that the shuttle would be unable to continue flying.
Meanwhile on the ground and back at Celesia's apartment Scelene's convoy of three black SUVs screeched to a halt outside the apartment and black clad mercenaries armed with assault rifles began piling out, taking up positions around the apartment building's entrance while Scelene went in with a trio of mercenaries. She went straight for Celesia's apartment, fearing the worst.
Celesia was all right. She was still standing in her apartment when they entered it. The woman nodded to the mercenaries and greeted Scelene "Hello. I am unharmed."
At the same time, police interceptors arrived, going against the shuttle that was going fast. To avoid colliding with it, one interceptor went up and another went down. Then they looped around and followed the shuttle, giving warnings against it while a few more interceptors were sent not against the shuttle but against any other possible Dectrothian ship in orbit or in the planet.
Police officers, agents and many other persons involved on the side of the government were starting to flow into the general area. A general order by the local government was given to close the city off while the local army units were also notified. Helicopters as well as other aircraft were being scrambled while local surface to air systems were activated.
In orbit, an admiral of the United Fleets also ordered some corvettes to go after any possible Dectrothian ships that were close enough. The rest of his fleet was ordered to make sure that Alondra, the planet, was not going to be intruded upon by any Dectrothian reinforcements.
'Reinforcements' was to be an understatement. For now, the shuttlecraft took evasive maneuvers, shields up, ADS armed and engaged the missiles, able to easily shoot the lone pair down, though taking minor damage to the rear of the craft, shaking all manner of tools and occupants inside. The Pilot checked his gauges, the instruments where fine and the ship was still space-worthy, as noded eyed out the damage. It had been mostly cosmetic damage, but he could take more hits. ECM and EW opened up on targeting sensors, still climbing at a rapid, frightening pace as the Pilot opened comms "Cease Fire! Cease Fire! Our altitude is too high, if you disable us we'll drop like a rock and crash!" The Cruiser dipped lower, soon having the group within CIWS range as it gave a broadcast "Cease engaging the craft, we will attempt to disable but we give no promises."
EW pods simply targeted the group of interceptors, just putting weight behind their words, but what would really hammer home the statement was the over 100km long Annointed Battleship that appeared through a wormhole at the edge of the system, along with it's ten ship escort. Admiral Byrd had arrived. "This is ISF Admiral Byrd, Commander of the 'Pride of Decoroso', if that shuttlecraft is disabled in any way, you will be opening hostilities with the Dectrose Empire, Cease your actions and allow the Dectrose ships to depart your system. Any further diplomatic ventures can be dealt with at a Dectrothian Embassy."
At this time, two other corvettes entered Alondra, heading towards the shuttle as it was attempting to leave the planet. The interceptors also started to get closer towards the shuttle, giving their last warnings. However this was stopped by the EW pods targeting the interceptors. Most of the interceptors backed off but the pilot operating one of the interceptors committed a mistake, causing his aircraft to pitch hard down into the ground. He only saved him and his craft by pulling up and returning to base as he found out that his aircraft was suffering from some problems.
On the ground, UWA SAM systems and batteries as well as ground based interdiction systems were locking onto the shuttle and the cruiser. At the same time, helicopters and other interceptors were in the air. Also joining in was a squadron of Sainz-Aurora Air Superiority Fighters and Estala-Espigara Multirole planes. They were still scrambling from the nearest UWA airbases while the people on the capital were struggling to understand what was really going on.
Meanwhile, in space, the fleet that was supposed to secure the capital system of the UWA was moving around really really hard and fast. Engines and afterburners were going wild as the UWA fleet split into two. One part remained as they were while another part broke off from the area to go towards the worlds of the system itself. Their aim was to put up interdiction over the planets, covering them one by one with interdiction going as far as 12 AU. 80 ships were involved in this.
At the same time, the rest of the fleet went after battleship and its escorts, heading on an intercept course while moving the corvettes that were a part of it towards Alondra to deal with the shuttle as well. The ships going after the intruding Dectrothian battleship and escorts numbered up to 220.
Lastly, the various patrol fleets that were actively patrolling the UWA home systems and a fleet that was watching the border of the Avarian Frontier with the Corridor were all ordered to send ships to jump from their location into the area that the battleship and escorts were last reported to have stopped. The fleets have detected and tracked the Dectrothian ships down but were unable to intercept until they intruded on the UWA capital system. It was the last straw of the UWA and they no longer took chances.
Soon enough, 120 ships were sent, jumping from their location into the area, aiming to raise interdiction as soon as they got there.
Once all the ships were able and reached their destinations, the UWA issued a warning to both the escaping shuttle and the battleship and her escorts. It was the voice of Secretary Karaza Blue:
I am the Secretary of the United Worlds of Alondra and I have been informed that the ships of the Dectrose Empire have intruded on the sovereign territory of the country and most of all, have intruded specifically on the very system that holds the capital of the country. This is not forgivable.
I am ordering you, the Dectrose, to stop what you are doing. Land the shuttle that is escaping and hand over Amastacia. Disable your weapons and power down your ships and systems and we will let you all go until we decide when we can get Amastacia out of the UWA or we will be forced to defend our sovereignty and call upon our allies and the UDS.
Do not test us. Do not force us to use deadly means to solve this matter.
---------------
The bounty hunters had no intention of letting up. Their quarry was in sight and their orders were clear: Amastacia was an employee of the Black Rabbit Security Corporation and every effort would be made to ensure her safety.The two strike craft pushed in, moving until they were practically on top of the shuttle. Alerts were coming in over the computers about multiple breach attempts. The firewalls were holding, but they wouldn't hold forever. They needed to end this fast.
Guns were switched to manual, gimbal mounts locking in place and provide the pilots with fixed guns to continue their attack, relatively unhindered by the target scrambling. Their targeting computers may have been fucked, but their eyes could see the target, and painted cross hairs would work well enough at such close ranges.
The closest of the two fighters acted first, firing a series of tow cables into the fleeing shuttle. They didn't need to hit, but it would certainly make what needed to be done next easier. While the first pilot focused on repeated attempts to hit catch the shuttle on a tow line the second began unloading with rotary canons. Deep thrums echoed across the sky as the weapon fired, angry red tracers marking the route as the second pilot aimed once more to disable the shuttles engines. The thrum sounded again, and again, and again as the pilot sent salvo after salvo across the shuttle's engines.
Both craft remained close to the shuttle, ensuring any attempt by the cruiser to engage them with its CIWS would run a high risk of striking the shuttle.The process repeated, tow cables and gun fire lancing out at the shuttle repeatedly as it continued in its attempts to flee. On the ground Scelene finished at the apartment. She and her men helped Celesia to collect her things and then moved her back to the convoy waiting outside."We're heading to the embassy," She told her. "I don't know who's trying to make off your sister but we're moving both of you off world to a facility in the Commonwealth. It's not safe for you to be here anymore.
Almost as if they were pursuing prey the UDS fifth fleet transitioned through their wormholes behind the Dectrose battleship and escorts. The five strike groups came through in attack formation with DSGs taking the front, the SCSG taking the middle and the CSGs taking the rear. They were spaced out from the stern to dorsal positions at the rear of the battleship roughly 0.5 AU away. Weapons were charged and locked, fighters were launched they only awaited the order to go and all hell would rain down on the eleven ships before them.
“Mother Fuckers are always trying to ice skate up hill.” Fleet Admiral Tanat Karu looked her tactical display
“let’s hope this one is done and dusted by dinner aye boss” Her XO commented
“Lets, anyways raise interdiction so they can’t run away from us just yet, sync tactical data and comms with the UWA so that when they fire we fire alongside them, and open a channel to the UWA and tell them that we’re here to help and that the First is en route now.”
With interdiction raised the Union fleet waited for what was to happen next, they were like a coiled spring ready to unleash themselves on the Dectrose in an instant. They weren’t alone however and the QRF forces for UDS space were also incoming soon with the rest of the fleets being mobilised in short order.
Fire erupted from the pursuing fighters, and shields couldn't hold up forever. Soon enough the fire drained the shields and ruptured the engines, the pilot struggling to keep it level before relenting and giving the order to brace, as the tow cables slammed into the craft, holding it steady. Amastacia was rushed into a medical pod, her new implants creating a copy of her brain, before the nanites made preparations for transfer. Margheriti prayed to the spirits that at the very least, she would survive this whole ordeal. She was delicate like a flower, as he stroked her cheek, the craft began to lose it's own momentum.
The cruiser attempted in vain to get a clean shot at the engaging fighters, but the proximity was too close, and they'd risk hitting their own. Instead, they began to accelerate, pushing towards the ISF Pride of Decoroso and slowly pulling away from the planet, FTL was warmed up, but they knew that FTL wasn't happening till interdiction dropped. The same happened with Byrd's fleet, sending in a report to Decoroso and priming FTL as they moved to prep for the transit, that is, unless the interdiction wasn't dropped. In defense on all ships, the shields where raised and prioritized, countermeasures readied as well as CIWS, just in case.
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The air aboard the bridge of the pride of Decoroso was tense, so many ships about, so many guns aimed upon the backs of the gathered Dectrose.
The bridge bustled with activity as the larger than normal crew flitted about the wide open space around the central command throne with urgency, eyes scanned over readouts as fast as their augments would allow and the constant low humming chatter of the many staff directing their sub departments imparted a gentle dull tone to the room.
“Admiral!”
Shouted a crewman, his tone indicating as clear as day the urgency of what he had to say.
“The shuttle has taken fire and is losing altitude quickly! Tow cables are confirmed attached.”
The time for action was now, it had become clear to the war ships hidden occupants that their intervention would be required if their goals were to be furthered and so they woke, subtly so as not to draw to much attention and only as many as were needed for what was to come.
It was a simple matter for the heavily infected bridge crew to release bursts of comms chatter into the system, the Grey class had already been communicating with its escorts and the orbit bound ship, it was easier then to slide in a single rogue pulse, a telepathic prodding focused entirely upon the two humans piloting the now entangled fighter craft, the minds of a single pair of ordinary men versus the released energy of a battle ship was not a fair competition at all, their conscious minds were targeted first taken by surprise, who they were the very essence of their existence was to be shredded into a million million pieces leaving vegetative puppets for the ship to control, laced within this hidden assault was a very simple directive, the shuttle was to be bought to the orbiting ship as quickly and cleanly as possible, their lives mattered less than the escape crafts safe arrival, finally a delayed synaptic response was layered over their shredded personas so that once the grey left system the two men would find themselves back to the land of the living, a cruel joke for two men who had by all appearances just committed a most vile treason.
Even then the ship made ready to cast its influence out again, it made sure to be ready to defend its new found objective using the insidious cloying tendrils of mental manipulation.
The change in course of the two bounty hunters was noted immediately. No sooner had the two craft managed to stop the shuttle from a violent fiery end than they began to ascend toward the Cruiser.
The entire situation was being monitored closely. Corporate combat managers paying careful attention to every movement undertaken, watching camera feeds and listening to communications.
There was little trust in the Corporation for the bounty hunters they employed. After all, all of them were former revolutionaries. The Reconciliation Committee may have pardoned them, but even so they'd be identified as 'problem children' and incentivized to seek employment outside of the Commonwealth.
No, the corporation did not trust them. Not one bit. Several system's away in an orbital facility in Vestahl Space, the operations manager watched with an eerie calm as his employees turned against him.
"Fucking bounty hunters," He muttered. "You know I told Sharpe this would happen? I told her we shouldn't have this shit?"
He shook his head.
"Eject them, set the auto-pilot to land at the port. Get Fowler in system ASAP and let the UWA know he's coming in heavy."
With the coldness granted by distance a few short lines of code were sent, and with little in the way of ceremony the pilots were thrown from their craft as their ascent was halted and the craft once more began descending toward the planet on a pre-programmed course to the landing pads they'd initially taken off from.
In light of the ongoing cyber-attack the operators severed all network connection to the craft. They would carry out their automated landing sequence, and then lock down until personnel could be sent to unlock them.
Some of the UWA advance ships started to try and see if they could break into Dectrothian communications and if there was any activity, they tried to jam them or disable them. It would take time and it was not sure if the UWA advance ships could do it but they tried anyway.
Because it was all that important. If the Dectrose tried to contact their home worlds, then this may lead to a disadvantage for the UWA.
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At this moment, the communications of the UWA was becoming very full of tense words. Words that would soon turn this from an incredibly tense race into a war.
A few extra long range SAM batteries locked on the shuttle while the air superiority fighters and their partners went after the shuttle and the cruiser. At the same time, the ships that were going after the battleship and the escorts started to lock on their targets.
No more warning was given. The SAM batteries launched their first volley of missiles, which was practically a spam of anti air missiles that were more than just "flying telephone poles"
At roughly the same time, the ships of the UWA that were hunting the battleship and its escorts as well as the other ships of the UWA that were hunting the cruiser launched their own missiles and torpedoes.
The interdiction was never dropped.
Also to add to this response by the UWA, anti orbital systems that had missiles and extra long range cannons on Alondra that could reach the Dectrose cruiser opened up while the other anti orbital systems on the other planets that were close to the edge of the system where the Dectrose battleship and escorts opened up.
Just as the UWA retaliated, the government was starting to draft the UWA declaration of war upon the Dectrose Empire for violating UWA territory and for threatening war. At the same time, videos of the flying missiles from the SAM batteries and the anti orbital systems as well as the firing of anti orbital guns were being broadcast to other parts of the UWA, showing also how the Dectrose ships were behaving.
Just like that, in a days time, all of the UWA was now against the Empire.
The Union fleet maintained its course and position behind the Dectrose fleet and then their waiting came to an end, when the UWA forces opened fire on the Dectrose with the Union following suit. Every loaded gun was fired, every locked on torpedo and missile was let loose and every charged laser was discharged. The vast majority of the fleet’s firepower was concentrated on the battle ship, while leaving enough to take out the escorts comfortably. Tanat watched intensively from her CIC and awaited the results.
“They don’t stand a chance boss, not with these numbers.” The XO piped in again
“Don’t let your guard down just yet they are still kicking for the moment. Is the first still incoming?”
“Yeah that’s them now.” The XO pointed out the wormhole signatures
The First fleet transitioned through their wormholes right outside the interdiction of the fifth, they came out behind them and made heady way to their position to back them up.
Massive amounts of countermeasures flooded the local space around the Dectrose fleet, the escorting Emerald Jewels took on the missiles and torpedoes, using their specialized EW suites to prematurely detonate or disable the systems in the incoming munitions, those that still traveled on hit the Scalar CIWS, then the Gatling Railguns, RAM II CIWS Missiles then the Cyclonic/Harmonic shields, deflecting some of the kinetic munitions, and diffusing some of the DEW fire. Massive ADS systems easily dealt with even more missiles and torpedoes, as some 'friends' joined the embattled Dectrose Fleet.
As if dropping from stealth, 24 massive Superdreadnoughts appeared visually and on sensors, now the loudest signatures on the UWA and UDS sensor suites. They turned onto the UDS fleets as if warming up guns, missile bays opening and targeting sensors likely going off as the new ships began to target the enemy fleet with lasers, as the first shots began to land on the fleet the UDS where engaging. Kinetic munitions slammed hard into the armor systems of the ships, damaging them and soon where compensated for until the lasers also hit their marks, the armoring systems overwhelmed as the multiple munitions pierced through several ships, the ships taking an impressive amount of fire before going down.
Each ship put up their best defense, opening fire on only two carriers as best they could before they expired. Full missile bays where dumped and sent to engage, hypervelocity railguns engaged as well at the relatively close range ships, continuing to prioritize the two carriers. Though as the initial barrage went on, the struggle of the fleet nearest the UDS soon dwindled until there where none left, the remaining whole parts of the ships detonating to prevent the UDS from salvaging anything, as the crews where transferred out with their chips.
Margheriti's ship picked up the SAM missiles on their sensors, the AO and Kinetic cannons where all flying for the Cruiser, but the situation couldn't have been stranger. The ship was still too close to the planet, the gravity would bring it crashing back down to the surface, but that was no longer a concern for the Dectrose at this time. The missiles where easily dealt with in the same manner Byrd's fleet took on the UDS and the UWA munitions. The tracking from the surface gave ample timing for the ship to simply bump the missiles off-course or vaporized with Scalar CIWS, some of the kinetic munitions pounded angrily on the armor before following shots pierced through, greatly damaging the ship, but not enough to take it down.
The ship continued to try to burn away from the planet, but with the constant fire, it was faltering. The shuttle was also painted and locked on by the SAMs, the firing of the SAMs seemingly decided the fate for the shuttle, with nothing to protect it anymore, the Mantis did it's best to recreate Amastacia's body for the Network, and was able to get it out despite the efforts of the UWA to disable or tap into the comms. The SAM then met it's mark as it slammed into the shuttle, vaporizing the shuttle and it's occupants. The last bastion of hope lay with the massive battleship.
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An Annointed battle ship even one so stripped of its normal myriad defensive measures was an incredibly advanced vessel, while in theory export versions such as this one were completely bereft of any form of psionic capability the Red letter created demi-gestalt aboard had seen these capabilities restored.
The first line of defence for a grey class was its wide reaching telekinetic shield, at 0.5 AU the muzzles of the enemy’s guns found themselves well within its reach of influence, even as shots left their mother ship their courses were altered slightly or harangued forced to burn delta V and lose momentum to compensate for their altered flight paths, of course with the sheer number of incoming munitions it was barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things.
One Destroyer found itself the target of a particularly spiteful interruption as the Grey class simply stopped attempting to telekineticly alter the flight path of so many shots and instead slapped violently a travelling slug half way up its own rails altering its flight path into the roof of its own ship, another frigate found itself the target of the vessels grav drives as four seperate gravimetric shears manifested at the four cardinal tips of the vessel.
A grey classes telekinetic shield was of course not its only defence, next the myriad hundreds of thousands of guns along its sides would add their fire to the fray, however positioned as it was it could only bring the rear most layers to bear, what would normally be a storm of fire now reduced to a mewling hail.
With its guns ineffective and its shields unable to deal with the mass of fire the battleship activated its ADS, encasing itself in a purple cyclone of telekinetic force, here the ship tore munitions to shreds and dissipated energy across the force mimicking curve of the ADS, like all defences however it obeyed the simple laws of energy conservation and quickly the Union fire overwhelmed the defensive measure shots now ripping through the ship proper as vital components, engine lines and super structure bars were torn twisted and gutted with extreme prejudice.
The grey class now lay torn and broken, the wreckage beginning to shimmer as its constituent nanites began eating away at the junked ship, breaking down anything in the wreck of value, even in death gestaltic spite would deny the enemy access to their secrets.
How ever before a single finger had been lifted in the ships defence it instead chose to spite its killers, with the enemy to its rear the sudden four minute long fullisade of fire that began spewing from the ships front did not have to worry about the ships behind it intercepting or interfering with the newly appeared wall of tungsten racing toward the UWA’s home planet like a long silver snake seeking to sink its fangs into their plump undefended sides.
With all the in system anti orbital fire directed towards the ship itself it was not hard to plot a course toward the blue planet that would be hard to intercept, the shells were not expected to make it to the world.
But then again they didn’t need too.
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Eleven versus five hundred was a match up the Dectrose weren’t going to win only one ship which was a frigate was evacuated and tagged for retrieval. The only other damaged ship was a destroyer that had a firing mechanism malfunction on its spinal gun that sent liquid tungsten at 0.4c through the top of the ship. However the Union fleets could only watch as the current wave of projectiles from the Battleship headed toward Alondra.
“It’s got yonks to go they’ll get it sure thing boss. Some Ship name too ‘Pride of Decroso’ they dropped it with minimal escort and blown to bits. Makes me laugh just thinking about it” Tanat’s XO laughed for a moment before regaining his composure.
“Switch, that’s a wrap here we’ll stand by here for a while before we return to base.” Tanat contacted the first fleet admiral Sara Switch.
“Copy we’ll turn it around and get back to Anderson, I think they’ll be warming up the Griswald soon too. So we’ll be coming back with more fire power if they rear their ugly heads again.” Sara replied back
The First Fleet disengaged and began charging close space drives for the trip home. the Fifth in the meantime would attempt to chase down the fired enemy munitions and prepare for the worst if they were to hit any cities.
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At first the defenders panicked at the detection of new Dectrose ships entering the system. They thought they really were being invaded. But only the cool heads of the officers already engaging existing Dectrose ships prevailed. They reported that there was no FTL residue nor was there any physical proof of the ships yet. So with permission, they were allowed to send fast moving Corvettes out to see if the detected ships were for real.
At the same time, UWA forces still kept engaging the cruiser and the battleship while ground forces on Alondra watched the shuttle vanish thanks to overwhelming fire.
At the end of the day though, the mistake was made. Planetary guns synchronized at the orders of officers on the ground and in orbit until after a few dozen seconds, they began lobbing slugs and firing off beams that were directed towards the incoming tungsten from the battleship while UWA ships focused on bringing it off course. In case of emergencies such as this, the UWA gave general orders to evacuate the cities to the underground shelters and to deploy the Unionist Guards.
At another hand though, Secretary Blue now had the perfect reason to declare war. And at this moment, her signature was the last thing to be written on the United Worlds Declaration of War In Defense Against the Dectrose. And written on another set of papers were the terms that the UWA wanted when this war would come to their homes. And at the same time, she asked her aides to help her get ready to speak to the nation and to personally inform the rest of the galaxy just what happened.
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The cruiser was lifeless, nothing left to hold onto. The ship was bound for the coldness of space, able to achieve their objective of saving those on the surface from the military's wraith and misunderstanding. At least the city would be safe. Engineering made the calls to self-destruct everything available, to awaken back home in new clones, as well as stop the enemy from gathering their ship for their use.
After a short while, the ship brilliantly exploded, most of it burning up in Alondra's atmosphere, the rest now unidentifiable pieces of metal surging through space. The battle had ended. The war had begun.
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The tungsten storm projected from the ships nose pulls away from it at ridiculous speeds, tearing through the system at about .99c following orbital paths that favoured it’s own forward acceleration while forcing incoming enemy fire to either take the longest possible path or fight gravity itself in order to set upon the swarm of metal death.
While this tactic bought them time it was never going to be a perfect defence and eventually the UWA’s fire caught up, the first rounds to land home slamming against the outer waves of ball bearing sized tungsten, at the speeds travelled colliding munitions plasmafied instantly losing momentum as the main body of fire continued on past the super hot fields the impacts left behind.
Before long the enemy fire made its way past the initial screen slamming into the shield shells purple umbrellas in flashes of light that lit up the void like a fireworks display for any paying attention.
It became clear quickly that the mass of tungsten was never going to reach its target, unfortunately for the the people of Ultrasinar they were never meant to.
Rows upon rows upon rows of grav manipulators lit up among the most well protected elements of the demi fleet multi kilometre slugs pouring power into their grav racks as they lit up on sensors like never before.
The tallest building in Ultrasina was chosen as the triangulation point for the attack five hundred metres north, south east and south west suddenly found themselves playing home to the light bending intensity of three graviton sheers, the storm of forces atomised everything within the triangles cross point creating a storm of dust and detritus from the district, people within a kilometre of ground zero found their bodies subjected to forces no human should ever have to experience, bones twisted and shattered as blood vessels burst and hearts ruptured in horrifying displays of almost cartoonish gore, out to a kilometre and a half capillaries burst and buildings continued to collapse as frames were subjected to the predations of twisting force and stress, two kilometres past that eyes collapsed and ear drums burst as the lenses destructive reach terminated, supports being shaken apart by harmonic resonance as even more dust from the collapsed was dragged through the lenses focal point and launched into he atmosphere, the lenses rolled forward dragging more and more of the city into their reach, when all was said and done over twenty square kilometres of metropolitan sprawl was destroyed the enormous dust cloud hurled up blotting out the suns light for a much larger distance, the ecological effect was yet to be seen but would no doubt be catastrophic unless dealt with the rampage ended when shells were destroyed by fire.
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Many hours later, the city of Ultrasina was placed under a state of emergency. The entire planet was placed under a joint military and civilian government due to the need to respond quickly to the disaster. For much of the city was ruined and many people who were not evacuated or were being evacuated had died or fell to their wounds.
In the face of all of this, the United Worlds of Alondra was in complete outrage. Unable to stop a great storm of tungsten, they did not blame their defenses and those who tried. They did what they could with what the UWA had. Instead, they blamed the Dectrose Empire, placing upon them all the fault for the deaths of their loved ones, their fathers and mothers, their sons and daughters, everyone who had a place in their hearts.
But they could not always blame. They had to put their hearts and minds to the work ahead. Those arriving at the city were volunteers. They looked for the dead and the wounded. Others looked for survivors or took care of them. Then came the police and other emergency services to help them and to secure the area. Then the military, who wanted to investigate the effects and any remains of the tungsten storm. The rest were government officials who had to visit the city or those from the other UWA worlds.
At the same time, groups of people were busy placing a large flag of the United Worlds upon the rubble of the tallest building in order to inspire and to remind their fellow citizens of the devastation of the Dectrose attack. And to finally and ultimately wage war that was right.
At the end of the day too, Secretary Blue Karaza, the real leader of the United Worlds of Alondra, watched as men and women worked to rebuild this part of their city. At the same time, she realized how much she had lost. And how much this hurt. It pained her, stressed her as she stood with the help of her friends, The President and the Vice President. Even as they argued with one another, pleaded with one another, today was not the time for divisions. It was time for unity, liberty and bravery.
And for Blue, this time was it.
For Jalaja, this time was of redemption.
And for Shayrack, this time was of infamy.