Post by EmperorMyric on Apr 19, 2021 11:47:41 GMT
The Junkyard
“This is fucking worthless shit”
The comment wasn’t exactly wrong. The half end of an Accordite battleship hung motionlessly as the inspectors took their look, the huge reinforced space hard suits designed to withstand the constant pattering of micro debris which was universally found throughout the Junkyard.
“We really need a good find or we are out of the job”
“Yea easier sai-“ The man’s comment was cut off by a huge flash of light. This in itself wasn’t that surprising, new wrecks appeared here in flashes of light all the time, it was some sort of weird dimensional fuckery at least that’s what the scientific community had said in a blog post somewhere that Ytresi could remember reading. But the following of what he saw surprised him.
It was a Capitol Mk.3 Trident class, but it wasn’t a wreck.
It was in mint condition, and this time it had turrets
It had guns, engines and the lighting was on from what he could see
“Impossible…”
“Boys. Get your kit. This is it”
-----
Three months had passed since the Trident incident. Since then, another 3 wrecks had appeared miraculously intact, an Autayan frigate, a SDF cruiser and a System AI escort. All three had been pounced on by scavengers and pirate groups becoming small clusters of violent activity as some fought to strip the ship even as it was being contested. The news had spread throughout the galaxy, if ones ships could appear now properly within the Junkyard, then their foes could get there first and exploit it. Stealing technology and secrets, as such the Junkyard had gone from a place of lowlifes to suddenly populated with taskforces from nearly every colonial and unaligned nation in the galaxy, the place was packed and crowded and scientific teams poured over data and scans trying to once again make heads or tails of the now old mystery.
Companies and nations were hiring out any scavengers, mercenaries and other nations they could get to help them broaden their coverage over the Junkyard, claim whatever appeared and help discover what was happening. Huge bidding wars took place as the galactic economy kept up with the exchanges, the House of Asterion being worked to overdrive to keep the Grindstone up to date.
It was this that attracted many others, the promises of not just wealth, but technology and information. Contracts went out, and plenty came to answer them.
Priority 308 - Destroyer to be sent to the Junkyard
The order was acted on immediately, the selected ship joining the others already headed out for their destination. The pilot, hooked into the ship system, shuddered as little as they went through the first portal - their forked tongue moistening newly dry lips.
After the final jump was done, the ships clustered; one of the cruisers started sending out preliminary scans. Care and caution was the name of the game here: hostilities were expected, predicted. They began to shift their formation, and moved into the Junkyard itself - Six cruisers at the center, along with select towing ships, the rest in a swirling cylinder.
Back at the main fleet, ships moved and repositioned to be ready to deploy - replacing the active duty ships that had just been sent out.
The lithorians were not about to pass up this opportunity. Having just been introduced to the wonders of the galactic economy and trade, this proved to be a perfect chance to better establish themselves in business and gain insight into other factions as a bonus.
At the edge of the junkyard, a lithorian battleship exited ftl. The vessel sat at around 15km in lenght. The thing was more beast than ship, it possesed an array of tendrils coming from its back side. Its body was thick and well armoured, with 2 fins portruding out from each side while its head had a huge circular maw full of razor sharp teeth and two armored tusks coming out of it which seemed to house teeth of their own on their upper side. The vessel's last noticeable features were 4 large weapons located between its head and the back armour above them alongside another large weapon mounted on the creature's underside.
The battleship got to business,effecting local scans before it sent out probes to perform longer range searches, if one of these mysterious new derelicts was in their area, they had to find it fast before the many other contracted parties did
"Everything checks out, readings from the Rubicon and the rest of the task force are reporting back nominal." An airmen stated over the crews radio intercom. It was dark inside the CIC, lit only by the green dull haze of computer monitors and red emergency lighting.. There was no sound of course, the air had been vented to not produce any troubles during the FTL jump.
"Are we cleared to jump? I haven't had my coffee yet"
Commander Rirym said, he was in charge of this operation leading it from his flagship 'Celeste', an older Centauri heavy cruiser. It was a true to form long range and endurance warship that was sturdily built to take a beating. However this Kepler task force has yet to depart from their meager automated filling station with the fleet in tow to make the jump to the Junkyard. The twenty two destroyers were docked inside the large hanger bays of the Rubicon like one would have fighters in a carrier, once again to limit the possibility of the fleet getting scattered from this longer jump.
"Tower has given us the all clear." It took a few seconds for the final calculations to be made for this jump, but nonetheless they were ready now.
"Jumping in three... Two... One..." Rirym flipped open a secured control panel on his flight seat in this old Centauri heavy cruiser and pressed it. His stomach, much like everyone elses onboard twisted and turned for the split second it took for the FTL jump to take place. It took very, very long to get used to for most people.
--------------
A few hundred thousand KM outside of the Junkyard three objects seemed to blink into existence. All of them were under 1.5 kilometers and began to change their course. The vessels began to conduct sensor scans of the area as five destroyers exited from the Rubicon's hanger bay to serve as escort craft. Just from the basic and initial scans it was clear that this place was already a hot bed of activity.
As Hazolf stood inside of the empty bridge of the Tusk Class Battleship, the Stronghold, a deep uncomfortable feeling told hold in his gut. A similar feeling came up a week earlier when Dagon and her Hands had assigned this mission to him. When he brought it up with Dagon in private she had both embraced him and assured him it was simply nervousness due to his new found responsibility. Taking a second to focus on her words and comforting arms Hazolf pushed the gut feeling down. As it finally began to fade away the sphincter like doors to the bridge opened and his bridge crew began to filter in.
One of them, his second in command named Sislin, made her way over to Hazolf to give him a status report. "All beasts and their crew have been prepped and are ready to proceed."
"Alright then give the order for everyone to make way to the Junkyard," said Hazolf.
As Sislin began to send out psychic pings to the rest of the fleet Hazolf began to run over the mission's details in his head. At the behest of an unknown party Hazolf was being sent by Dagon to the Junkyard in order to secure some of the intact ships that had been cropping up there. To complete this task Hazolf had seventeen ships at his disposal. One Tusk Class Battleship beast, two Gnasher Class Cruiser beasts, one Frag Class Cruiser beast, one Maw Class Carrier beast, four Fang Class Destroyer beasts, two Shard Class Destroyer beasts, three Enamth Class Escort beasts, and three Rib Class Escort beasts.
The sound of Sislin giving the countdown until the jump brought Hazolf back to reality. He quickly braced himself as his flagship, as well as the other ships, began to move towards the multiple tunnels of compressed space that had opened up in front of them. Within a few minutes the entire fleet were hurderling towards the Junkyard and all the while that feeling of nervousness came back into Hazolf's gut, this time with a pinch of fear.
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Multiple compressed space tunnels opened on the outskirts of the Junkyard with Hazolf's fleet making its way out of them. As soon as they were clear of the tunnels Hazolf's began giving out orders.
"Sislin get a status report from all ships, make sure that no one had any complications. Secmend start sending out our probes to scan as much of the Junkyard as possible. Nexia start moving us towards the Junkyard, slowly."
In a few seconds the bridge was a buzz of activity as everyone began to work on getting the fleet ready to move into the Junkyard proper. As the fleet began to lurch forwards Hazolf uttered a small prayer under his breath towards Dagon, hoping that this all would play out as smooth as something of this caliber could.
"Status report!" The CO of the leading Lateille cruiser, the Okravam, called.
"All systems green! Reactors stable, propulsion nominal, FTL charging! Exotic fuel containment stable and injectors are armed!"
"Good. Exit vector plotted?"
"Affirmative. Jump course steady and clear. All ships reporting ready for mass shear, Shear Engine charge at 83%!"
"Alright. Let me know when we hit 100%." the CO, Ir Kalay, nodded, turning to their XO.
"Tell me again, what is this we're investigating? Some sort of...junkyard?"
"That's what the intel we've been able to gather indicates. Ships from all across the galaxy wind up here. Or, husks of them do. People have been flocking there in droves, apparently, something about intact vessels being found." the XO explained.
"Well. If we're lucky so will we. Might get to learn something about whoever else we share this galaxy with." Ir put a hand to her chin.
"Ma'am! Shear Engine at 100%! All systems ready for jump!"
"Alright. Alert all ships, we are performing jump, ETA 10 seconds. Count it down, helm." She called, her thoughts alight as the helmsman counted down.
"Two, One...Injector firing, engaging Shear!"
The ship had rumbled, sharply, as space was torn and bent, in seconds tearing the fleet from the idly quiet system they had been in to the edges of the Junkyard. Sensors lit up furiously, picking up countless masses and debris signals, emissions from deeper within signalling the presence of countless other ships, both of foreign nations and the myriad vessels small and large of the unaligned.
"All ships reporting green! Formation maintained, mass Shear successful! We're here, ma'am."
"So I see..." Ir muttered, her eyes narrowing as they scanned the readouts.
"Alright. Let's not waste time here. Most of these don't seem to be more than hollow space debris. Dispersed formation, deploy PD boats, let's maximise the area we can search. Stay in range to assist one another. Let's make use of all this cover in case someone doesn't feel like sharing. Don't be afraid to use sensor decoys. Alright, all ships, move out. Charge weapons and shields." she ordered, the lights of the myriad Lumnaed fleet's engines sparking, like dim lights on the external cameras.
Twelve destroyers, accompanied by three cruisers and a mounting number of tiny, unmanned point defence craft, moved inwards at a steady pace. Like Ir had ordered their formation dispersed among the hulks of the Junkyard wrecks, sensors vigilant both for anything of value and anything wanting them dead.
The Junkyard was on a usual day a complete hazard zone, filled with endless asteroids, wrecks, microdebris moving at speeds enough to threaten star ships and all manner of pirate and scavenger forces using the place as hide outs.
And that was on a good day. This however, was like open market day.
The Junkyard was packed, despite being truly huge in size and scale the area was as normal packed by the wrecks and general debris but now there was the odd taskforce from virtually every nation around either staking claim to a specific area, hanging on the edges of the Junkyard, or hiding deep within not wanting to be ‘officially’ see. This wasn’t to include all the thousands of companies, contractors and mercenaries who sifted through wrecks and more, constantly searching for clues or the next fully intact appearance. And then there was the pirates, preying on forces where they could, forcing the hand of many nations who banded together in peacekeeping temporary alliances in order to drive the pirates off.
As the various new factions arrived they were pretty much ignored for the most part, FTLing into the Junkyard was a suicidal affair so all new arrivals translated in on its outskirts avoiding near instantaneous death by relativistic ramming in debris. As such many nations just ignored the other, with large sensor stations having been brought in by some to scan the area for any of their own vessels. The Junkyard outskirts were fairly clear compared to the inner areas, with got progressively thicker as they approached the ‘core’ regions where gravity compacted the wrecks together in such a way that it became a solid maze of tunnels and caverns eventually becoming so compact that ship travel was impossible and it had to be done on foot. Explorers had even said that there were points where the gravity was so strong that the wrecks were crushed into almost pure compact metals and as such what was at the ‘center’ of the Junkyard was merely a mystery. Just getting to that point was hard for the deeper you went the greater the danger was from not only the environment but also the lawless dregs who hid out in the perfect areas to escape detection.
Already a small skirmish was occurring far off on the outskirts that could be observed, as BEDLAM Crew ships harassed some Merchant scanner ships but were in turn chased off by Astropolitan Concordat and Hasorn Hegemony vessels.
It seemed like things were in chaos, and with no solid stable leads the only real step forwards was simply to go deeper and start searching.
The Kepler vessels remained on the outer edges of the Junkyard, they did not quite want to procedure inward just quite yet mainly because of the risk of micro-meteors and debris from this growing planetoid of the galaxies trash. For the case of the 'Rubivon' this was the most severe, it was not designed to be impacted with debris such as the likes of the Celeste or one of the destroyers, it was more akin to a kilometer long FTL equipped space station in its use as a fleet tender, and now a salvage ship.
A wider formation was kept for the eight ships from the Kepler task force, the destroyers were outside of the sensor cruiser, tender ship, and the Celeste by a few dozen kilometers. They were on a higher level of alertness in this Junkyard, mainly from the fact of several skirmishes and hundreds, possibly thousands, of different fleets from scavengers to navies trying to tear this place apart. They were the latter.
---
"Sensor readings are coming back up... This place is remarkable, its like a small planet almost." Airman Barbosa stated across the CIC
"One made of wrecked ships... How did all of these get here?" Rirym replied, he had poured himself a cup of coffee and had his helmet off, but still had it attached to his belt loop.
"No idea sir, it seems to be random, this is not a normal or structured salvage yard like back at Hilidian Station."
Barbosa replied back, he was sitting down in one of the flight chairs aboard the Celeste. The large collection of screens and green colored displays dotted the small twenty man CIC, it was mainly sensor data and status from other ships that were being displayed, not so much for actual footage. They did not need it to navigate here.
"We are here for a salvage mission Barbosa... Staff Sergeant, deploy drone recon.. Lets see what is out there."
-----
Around twenty five small drone craft deployed from one of the massive hanger bays aboard the Rubicon, alongside the still docked destroyers and multitude of other small craft. These drone craft were around ten meters long and fully independent, under methodical and well planned thrust management the automated craft headed into the junkyard to conduct up close scans of the Junkyard, they were supplemented by other scans conducted by the Vichin class cruiser. All of the information gathered was encrypted under a variety of ever changing top secret codes before being transmitted back tot he Kepler vessels.. The Vichin class cruiser however was doing some other work as well in passively scanning other ships in system.
The Lumnaed fleet continued at a steady pace, the nimble destroyers weaving about the gradually thickening field of empty hulks, the larger Lateille cruisers having to find a less dexterously demanding path, the Okravam having to burn around the drifting, snapped off front half of a cruiser, 'Arkmet' emblazoned on the prow in faded, bold lettering, Ir Kalay raising a brow at the battered husk of a ship as it drifted past on optical views.
"Only gonna get a tighter squeeze from here, CO. Sure you wanna proceed?" the helmsman called.
"Yes. We're fine for now, and I imagine we will for some time. Just keep us from bumping into anything." Ir called back, the helmsman nodding.
"Are we here to look for anything?" the XO asked.
"Nothing explicit, but anything of particular value that we can fit, LCCN command wants us to tug home, for our use and anyone looking to buy. Otherwise, we're mainly here for scientific curiosity. We still don't know a lot about the wider galaxy, and a place full of drifting alien ships is a veritable goldmine for the curious mind." Ir explained.
The Lumnaed maintained their dispersed formation as they advanced, sensors sweeping everywhere. A small pirate raider gang, attempting to catch one of the outlying destroyers, found itself run down by a second, flashes of light and EM blinking on the Okravam's sensors as two destroyers and the Lateille on the Okravam's starboard flank ripped into them with battery fire.
A disruption, if minor, but nothing for Ir Kalay's concern. If nothing else, it was one less gang of marauders for someone to worry about.
As the Melon-Long fleet made its way through the wreck filled edges of the Junkyard probes were constantly being sent out. These probes, including those first launched, were constantly launching psychic scans of both the immediate area around the fleet as well as random spots in the hope that luck would be on their side in the hunt for the wrecks. Though from the time of the first probes to now the fleet had yet to catch the trail of any fully intact wrecks. The only things that they have seen where to occasional ship or mini fleet that had unknowingly strayed too close to the fleet. Most, when realising what was in front of them immediately turned tail and fled with the exception of one pirate group.
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"Hazolf," shouted Sislin "We have positive contacts from the forward probes."
Hazolf taking a moment to adjust himself responded, "How many are there and are they headed towards us?"
As Sislin took a second to double check the probes the rest of the bridge crew began to ready themselves. As they begin to stretch their arms and pop their necks Sislin turned back towards Hazolf. "There are nine ships sir and they are heading for us at full speed."
"Have they attempted to hail us?"
"No sir and they haven't responded to my attempts either."
Quickly flashing a small grin at the prospect of a battle Hazolf began to hand out orders. "Sislin tell the fleet to ready weapons and to form up in a defensive formation. Secmend try and see if those forward probes can be recalled before they get to them. And the rest of you, battlestations."
As everyone in the bridge began to spring into action Hazolf let his grin grow into a full blown smile as he began to speak out loud. "These fine fine gentlemen seem very keen on becoming a permanent part of the Junkyard so why don't we oblige them."
A large fleet suddenly appears outside the junkyard. A huge capital ship lead them through, accompanied by bulky battlecruisers lined with orange paint, destroyers of various sizes and one large carrier. What appeared to be a radar blast shot out of the capital ship, bouncing off of any surrounding lifeforms. On board, an elite, Astoshan Servix, head of all research in Dreklion, shouted orders at the other ships in his fleet. "Scout the area, if anyone engages you in battle, retreat to the capital ship immediately, this is a research mission!" He shouted. Astoshan looked at the radar, viewing each of the signals. They appeared to be quite plentiful. "Vanguard Division #5, move ahead, scout the area!" With that command, 2 of the orange battlecruisers raised above, flying by at a moderate speed, leaving an orange trail behind. A few fighters tailed it.
A request was sent out for another force to be on standby, and with these precautions in place they shifted closer toward the center - occasional scans being sent out toward nearby "junk" ships, searching for lifeforms - or active ship systems.
Scale rubbed against scale as the final troops of the bording party entered the smaller craft - best be ready. Just as they crossed the threshhgold, the door began to slide shut, and there they stood, stock still, waiting for orders. This situation was repeated across other ships, all the doors finally slamming together as one. They were ready/
Deep in the lithorian battleship,among its pitch dark airless corridors of flesh something awoke from dormancy. Two pairs of glowing blue eyes opened in the dark,one right under the other. Currents of psychic energy flowed freely between inky black spines on its elongated head to further iluminate the dark as it linked to the vessels,feeling through their sensory organs and taking in their previous actions before speaking out telepathically
Awaken overseer. We have arrived at the anomaly. It is as you have anticipated,the location is teeming with sapient lifeforms. Some of them even seem to use biological craft like us
at the opposite end of the chamber,3 pairs of eyes on the sides of something's head opened,each one giving off a red,yellow and violet light respectively. Cyan sacs of liquid flared around its body as about 16 gelationous tendrils accompanied these with their own glow
Execellent work commander. Capture as many as you can,will you? My dissection chamber has been running out of subjects lately and I ache to study the intricate workings of their forms and genetic strands.
The other beast squinted its eyes before speaking again
Patience. We are here to recover prestine starship wrecks. Your secondary objective can wait. For now we must redouble our efforts
With that their conversation ended and the task force became more active. The battleship released the 5 frigates and destroyers that it was carrying before they began spreading out somewhat in the hopes of increasing their sensor range. The probes already advancing into the junkyard began launching out thousands of micro ships no more than a few centimeters long in most cases which utilised ion engines to maneuver around and scan,no doubt the micro debris would be their end sooner or later but they were more than disposable
After some fruitless searching the vessels came across a decently large asteroid,the chunk of rock dwarfed most mountains as it was slightly longer than the battleship at its widest dimension. While this thing was more than useless to their objective for coming here in the first place it was a perfect location for a forward nesting ground to lock down this area and act as a home base should they come here again in the near future
While the smaller ships kept skimming over the Junkyard's outskirts the battleship managed to make its way to this asteroid. It released huge tendrils which grasped onto the target with 4 grasping claws before starting to bore a spine through it to release creatures and fashion out a veritable home inside it
With the chaos being mostly relegated to the outer areas the probes of the various forces and even their fleets themselves descended deeper into the Junkyard.
Nobody knew what caused this place, it had been charted as being here by the first explorers and several nearby native unaligned had confirmed its presence for at least several centuries before the modern era. It was clearly old as hell and had steadily grown over the years exponentially it seemed as new nations and more entered the galaxy. In just 60 years it had almost doubled in size, to encompass at least 3AU in diameter like some gigantic metal ball.
As the probes and forces went deeper the space became more and more packed, micro meteors were a constant hazard as dust and grain sized pieces impacted hulls at ludicrous speeds. While only a few pirate forces dared to actually make plays most were content to wait, hide and raid whatever came their way simply waiting for whatever happened next. Active and passive sensor scans were full of dead wrecks, asteroids and countless other ships which displayed as bright centres of energy deep within the dead zones of the wrecks like fireflies but nothing out of the ordinary.
That was until there was a brief, extremely brief, burst of Tachyons was located deep within the Junkyard. And judging by some of the ships reactions, this could be big.
The pirate ships that were now approaching the Melon Long fleet belonged to none other than Red Wing. Their vessels were all extremely lithe, arrow like and painted bright red with wing motifs all uniquely drawn onto their hull. The vessels were fast, very fast and on an intercept course. The strange part was, that they had no active weapon systems. No target locks, weapon charging or anything of the sort could be detected and Red Wing was known for pulling crazy stunts to show off to their sub-ordinates. The ships were not push overs either, Red Wing while a disjointed anarcho communist group were well equipped, legendary pilots and had decent gear. Whatever they were doing it did not seem to be directly aggressive… But a decision would have to be made whether to engage them or leave them to their antics.
The work on the nesting ground was progressing smoothly, already creatures and seperate tendrils had been deployed inside the large rock from breaching points and were digging and eating their way through it,partially processing it and sending it off as biofilms and builder organisms followed shortly behind to start altering these airless tunnels to their liking.
This all changed when the powerful tachyon emission was picked out by the microships,then the probes and finally the main warships. Inside the battleship the two creatures within one of its chambers were more or less oblivious until the information reached them from higher up
The six eyed one recieving it first
How curious. It appears a strong tachyon emission is coming from deeper within the anomaly. It is with most certainty not a current commander
The other alien turned its 4 glowing eyes immedeatly
And what do you suggest? Such an event right here and at this time is too unlikely to be natural. Surely it was a weapon or starship of these upright bipeds
the other organism weighed the possibilities,running calculations through its foreign mind and filling the blanks with some well supported theories
Ah,but we know not the nature of this anomaly my fellow chitinous being. This may very well signal a new addition of matter to this scrapheap,perhaps even,dare I say,one of the pristine wrecks we came here for.
Yes,we cannot know for certain,but so far we have yet to find any and racing towards this phenomena will grant us no ill,we must advance deeper either way. Wouldn't you agree?
The other creature stared for a second,taking in this statement before rolling its eyes
Your logic is flawless. Let us descend deeper into this graveyard of decay.
However we are not to let our guard down. Such an action would invite disaster. I hope our superiors know it
The fleet altered course,the smaller ships began descending in the junkyard proper while the probes launched many more microships in the direction of the tachyon surge,the ones already deployed slowly shifting their course to it. The battleship remained unmoving,still preparing the nesting ground
The smaller vessels moved swiftly,their anti gravity propulsion making them look as if they were swimming through space,avoiding large debris and vaporising micro hazards with networks of energy projectors tasked with point defense.They launched out more probes in various directions,which in turn spat out yet more microcraft for excrutiatingly thorough recon,an ambush not being in their interest at all at this point in time
"Airman... What was this you said that this was the size of a planetoid..."
Mihal said over to his crewmembers aboard the bridge of the Celeste. Sensor readings began to flood back from the deployed probes and displayed the true size of this junkyard, 3 AU in diameter, it is a miracle this place has not fallen into itself as a blackhole yet. Barbrosa replied back over to his commanding officer while the drones continued their task.
"I apologize sir. This place is 3 AU in diameter... Made entirely of scrapped ships. It is its own dyson sphere." Barbosa seemed to be in a slight state of awe at this sight. Mihal scoffed back while looking at one of the drones displays.
"More than enough metal and raw materials to build an empire." Mihal took a sip of coffee made a stressed face as he drank it down. "Not enough creamer."
The information coming back from the drones quickly spiked and went back to normal, near fractions of a second later the same spike was caught by the Celeste and the other vessels in the Kepler fleet. A Tachyon pulse with an epicenter in the middle of the Junkyard was registered. Mihal ordered a few drones to head deeper into the Junkyard, their whipple shields held onto integrity fine enough against these micrometeorites, to investigate this pulse. Sending in ships would be a nightmare, while they did have strong whipple shields, it would be suicide.
Ten of the remaining drones that were not heading deeper found a suitable piece of salvage that was a husk of an old vessel under 700 meters long, they latched onto the wreck and planted tracking markers for tugs to figure out where to mount themselves. Three twenty meter long tug drones witted with sturdy grappling devices, strong engines, and sturdy frames departed from the Rubicon and headed to the wrecked vessel unescorted. Meanwhile the scouting drones continued to fly across and scour the junkyard through scans.
"Prepare the turrets, pirates are approaching." Astoshan shouted, the ships entering into battle formation, "Sir, the pirates don't appear to be armed."
"Stand by then, don't engage unless provoked, relay this order." Astoshan wondered why they would approach large capital ships unarmed, from what appeared to be at least 3 separate unaligned nations. The ships slowly started to move in, fighters clearing the path for the capital ship to safely pass through. They appeared to be a safe distance away from the pirates, and several large drones were released from the capital ship, moving asteroids and parts around in front of the fleet, to cover them.
"All battle preparations are ready, we will be charging the railguns and lasers." A voice called out to Astoshan.
"Perfect, await their next move. Relay the events to Emperor Dystherial."
As the unknown fleet moved closer to the Melon-Long fleet Hazolf began running over possible strategies the other fleet could employ. Though before he could become too entrapped in thought the voice of Sislin brought him back to reality.
"Uhhh sir we may have a problem."
Quickly moving over to her dread began to fill Hazolf as he began to think of the myriad of possible problems that Sislin could be worried about. As he got besider her she began to give a report of the situation.
"Well Hazolf it seems on closer inspection that fleet approaching us belongs to none other than the Red Wing," said Sislin, "And so far they haven't deviated from their interception course."
Sighing Hazolf began to run over his options. On the one hand he was sure that his fleet could take the Red Wing's though at losses that would render them unable to finish the mission. But, on the other hand there was no way his fleet could outrun them due to their souped up ships. Mulling over what could be done Hazolf decided to try a third option.
"Sislin get every single one of our psychics up here we're going to contact their captain, directly."
"Ok sir, but if you don't mind me asking why all of them? Two are more than enough to send a message."
Turning towards Sislin Hazolf responded. "Well it's simple. If their captain decides to continue hostilities we'll simply pop their skull and the skulls of everyone of their sub-captains."
As Hazolf began to move back towards his command chair he gave out one final order. "Secmend, send out more probes to our port, starboard, and aft. Since we're taking this slow I'd like it if we didn't have to worry about being blindsided by any other fleet."(edited)
Upon one of the cruisers, a small series of blinks indicated the changes deep in the junkyard. Eyes flashed over to it, fingers flickering over a controller as the sensors were re-calibrated to detect such occurences with more accuracy.
The ships turned, their shifting formation twisting in on itself to move further toward the disturbance without presenting a blind spot. A small astroid in the way was deflected, and the small fleet continued on its way, only avoiding large groups of enemies or hige debris - the rest either moved or were shifted more... aggresively.
The large quantity of raw materials among the debris was recorded, and a future taskforce was assigned. This could be more profitable than simply standard mining - but was the risk worth it? More surveying was required.
Tensions aboard the Lumnaed fleet only continued to mount as they advanced, Ir watching the markers of the fleet's destroyers as they weaved gracefully around the assorted drifting wreckage.
"All quiet, for now. There's blips and emission bursts all over the place, but...nothing this way." someone reported.
"Indeed not. Let's hope it stays that way. But still, let's not count on our luck lasting. Nobody's guard is to be let down. Remind the destroyers not to stray too far."
"Aye aye. Keeping weapons and defences charged and ready."
"Anything valuable on sensors?"
"Negative. Just hulks, for now."
"Understood. Keep your eyes on those readouts. We don't want to miss anything."
The Lumnaed fleet maintained its pace as it advanced deeper into the sea of metal and material, the destroyers sphere around the cruisers shrinking just a little. They would not concern themselves with the trials of the other fleets, not for now. The less they drew attention to themselves, the better.
Floating within the Junkyard a dozen ships were scattered about. The Gaferius Collectum had heard of these Strange Appearances and sent a smaller recon fleet. The Spheroid ships were scattered about the entirety of the Junkyard. All of them having every system turned off except for COMMs and their stealth fields. The Dreadnought near the center of the Junkyard was where everything was happening. A circular domed room with 4 doors on each side. A platform at the center was raised with many a robot sitting at stations. In the center on a large chair was the fleet commander. Two True AI were sent for this. Two sleek white feminine AI. One in the chair, one standing on the ground.
"Wayfinder Electus if I may?"
"Yes of course, what is it?"
"Our passive scans are not showing much as long as we've been here... Or rather they're showing too much.. Perhaps a more direct approach?"
Electus went silent for a moment. She glanced up at the screens showing their surroundings. Nothing but junk obviously. "I do think you're right Wayfinder Sophos. launch our compliment of fighters for recon. Have them scatter, and only report if they find anything of note. We should keep radio communications to a minimum." The other AI nodded. Kicking off the floor in the 0g bridge to one of the consoles. Tapping a few buttons. 3 different armor panels opened around the ship. As it was made of triangle panels it's fighters shaped to those panels and were stacked on top of each other in a large column. Between the 3 bays around 100 fighters launched. Distorting the stealth field momentarily as the armor panels opened. They scattered in every direction to scout out for any hostile forces, one of their own ships that maybe appeared here, or anything else of note. After a brief moment the stealth field fully materialized again. The fighters were not exactly stealthy. Without the low power, and several meters of lead plating of the Gaferius ships they could be picked up with IR as soon as they departed by anything nearby. As well as pinging each other via radio tech in some sort of coded, or encrypted language.
The burst was quickly blinded by the sudden detonation of a starship belonging to the Brotherhood of the Scratch, a large vessel of cruiser class it had been within the outskirts of the Junkyard when it had exploded. The burst of energy throwing off the extremely faint readings which had indicated the initial signal still some had latched onto it, leaving many to either not bother with pursuit or pursuit those who were trying to find it.
The cause of the destruction was obvious, 5 Illid vessels rapidly dropped stealth and began accelerating away, no doubt having boarded and raided the ship before it self-destructed. The bio organic ships seemed to have got what they came here for at least for now as they moved off, still the Illid being present was not surprising but it would certainly be annoying.
The Lithorian nest was not found even as their forces moved out allowing the small base to be kept secret for now like many who had made their home within the Junkyard, but it was their own small probes and those of the others who went deeper and into the more clogged and almost claustrophobic zones in search of the Tachyon burst, at first it appeared to be no more than a standard FTL jump wake from Tachyon Phase shift drives but the closer they got the more the signal looked somewhat different. The first to stumble across the vessel was the Kepler probes, swiftly followed by the Lithorians, others began appearing shortly after, probes of all shapes and sizes some even manned. There within a medium sized pocket of almost totally condensed scrap was the form of a pristine Zentheran Type-14 cruiser which had not been there moments prior, energy readings were coming from its hull as well.
This was another of the fully intact vessels, many had their prize, whether to capture, recover, reverse engineer or study what happened. The location was set, but it would only be a matter of time before the entire Junkyard descended on this place.
As the Red Wing forces bypassed the Melon Long fleet without firing the reply from the ship’s captain was clear. He did not seem off put by the psionic communication and merely had sent a basic signal in return saying
‘You should have seen your face’
"Its a warzone out there..."
Rirym Mihal said as he continued to look over the sensor reports of warships being destroyed by stealth warships, Red Wing designated vessels buzzed the craft of other nations, it was hectic out here. His own vessels were at a safe distance from the fighting, just another small blip in the abyss of space, granted it was not clear how much longer that would last. The Commander looked down from the slightly raised floor in the back of the CIC hoping that atleast one of the probes found something useful.
It was a more heightened sense of tension onboard, the early warning systems on the Celeste, the Rubicon, and their escorting destroyers kept a perimeter around their fleet as point defense guns and arrays scanned the nearby space for potentially dangerous vessels.. Getting attacked during a salvage mission was.... Not advisable...
The Tug craft reached the initial seven hundred meter long craft and used their magnetic latches and anchors drilled into the hull to secure themselves on the raw material husk in key positions for their combined thrust to send it on a course for the Rubicon to intercept. However, a response was sent back from the drones exploring deep within the junkyard. They found something, something big.
----
"Give it to me straight airman." The Commander said, Barbrosa pulled up the imaging from the probes and their reports.
"We cross referenced this with what we have on our database, it seems to be Zentheran cruiser, roughly sixteen hundred meters in length in very good condition. It just showed up there."
On the central screen of the CIC the probe footage of the vessel popping into the junkyard was replayed again, following in as the probes placed small Frisbee sized homing beacons in a similar manner to what was done with the first piece of salvage. However, there was another strange appearance inside this cavity, unknown alien vessels, probes likely of unknown origin showed up on the probes scans.
"Now that seems like some prime salvage... It a bit larger than the Rubicon... Deploy some heavy tugs with fighter escort. I do not like the look of those unknowns, only act if acted upon."
The order was dispatched over for a flight of the space borne Mako fighters (3) and twenty heavy tugs dispatched from the tender ship and headed into the junkyard, heading on the same path that the probes went on before to secure their salvage. Hundreds of others would be swarming over this ship like maggots on a carcass soon enough.
About an half hour had passed since the "embarrassing" situation with the Red Wings and Hazolf was aching for a fight to soothe his agitation. A similar sentiment flowed throughout the bridge crew as each of them went about their tasked with tension in their bodies. However soon they find something that would at least partially set them at ease.
-----------------------------
"Sir, I think we got something," said Sislin, "I believe its a Free Worlds cruiser sir."
"Is it salvageable?"
"As far as it seems it's only suffering from two maybe four hull breaches but that's it."
Taking a second to process the situation Hazolf got up from his chair and began to pace.
"And are we the only ones here?"
"So far though the probes are getting some pings from outlying ships, but they all seem to be going somewhere else at maximum speed. More than likely something like a dreadnought or experimental ship popped up."
"Welp no use in going after bait other fish are fighting over," said Hazolf sighing as he sat back down. "Get a perimeter of probes up and have some of our smaller ships "hibernate" along the perimeter. Just in case we need to ambushed anyone coming to steal our prize."
Within a few minutes the entire Melon-Long fleet was moving into position ready to claim the Free Worlds cruiser and fight of any that would try to steal it.
“This is fucking worthless shit”
The comment wasn’t exactly wrong. The half end of an Accordite battleship hung motionlessly as the inspectors took their look, the huge reinforced space hard suits designed to withstand the constant pattering of micro debris which was universally found throughout the Junkyard.
“We really need a good find or we are out of the job”
“Yea easier sai-“ The man’s comment was cut off by a huge flash of light. This in itself wasn’t that surprising, new wrecks appeared here in flashes of light all the time, it was some sort of weird dimensional fuckery at least that’s what the scientific community had said in a blog post somewhere that Ytresi could remember reading. But the following of what he saw surprised him.
It was a Capitol Mk.3 Trident class, but it wasn’t a wreck.
It was in mint condition, and this time it had turrets
It had guns, engines and the lighting was on from what he could see
“Impossible…”
“Boys. Get your kit. This is it”
-----
Three months had passed since the Trident incident. Since then, another 3 wrecks had appeared miraculously intact, an Autayan frigate, a SDF cruiser and a System AI escort. All three had been pounced on by scavengers and pirate groups becoming small clusters of violent activity as some fought to strip the ship even as it was being contested. The news had spread throughout the galaxy, if ones ships could appear now properly within the Junkyard, then their foes could get there first and exploit it. Stealing technology and secrets, as such the Junkyard had gone from a place of lowlifes to suddenly populated with taskforces from nearly every colonial and unaligned nation in the galaxy, the place was packed and crowded and scientific teams poured over data and scans trying to once again make heads or tails of the now old mystery.
Companies and nations were hiring out any scavengers, mercenaries and other nations they could get to help them broaden their coverage over the Junkyard, claim whatever appeared and help discover what was happening. Huge bidding wars took place as the galactic economy kept up with the exchanges, the House of Asterion being worked to overdrive to keep the Grindstone up to date.
It was this that attracted many others, the promises of not just wealth, but technology and information. Contracts went out, and plenty came to answer them.
Priority 308 - Destroyer to be sent to the Junkyard
The order was acted on immediately, the selected ship joining the others already headed out for their destination. The pilot, hooked into the ship system, shuddered as little as they went through the first portal - their forked tongue moistening newly dry lips.
After the final jump was done, the ships clustered; one of the cruisers started sending out preliminary scans. Care and caution was the name of the game here: hostilities were expected, predicted. They began to shift their formation, and moved into the Junkyard itself - Six cruisers at the center, along with select towing ships, the rest in a swirling cylinder.
Back at the main fleet, ships moved and repositioned to be ready to deploy - replacing the active duty ships that had just been sent out.
The lithorians were not about to pass up this opportunity. Having just been introduced to the wonders of the galactic economy and trade, this proved to be a perfect chance to better establish themselves in business and gain insight into other factions as a bonus.
At the edge of the junkyard, a lithorian battleship exited ftl. The vessel sat at around 15km in lenght. The thing was more beast than ship, it possesed an array of tendrils coming from its back side. Its body was thick and well armoured, with 2 fins portruding out from each side while its head had a huge circular maw full of razor sharp teeth and two armored tusks coming out of it which seemed to house teeth of their own on their upper side. The vessel's last noticeable features were 4 large weapons located between its head and the back armour above them alongside another large weapon mounted on the creature's underside.
The battleship got to business,effecting local scans before it sent out probes to perform longer range searches, if one of these mysterious new derelicts was in their area, they had to find it fast before the many other contracted parties did
"Everything checks out, readings from the Rubicon and the rest of the task force are reporting back nominal." An airmen stated over the crews radio intercom. It was dark inside the CIC, lit only by the green dull haze of computer monitors and red emergency lighting.. There was no sound of course, the air had been vented to not produce any troubles during the FTL jump.
"Are we cleared to jump? I haven't had my coffee yet"
Commander Rirym said, he was in charge of this operation leading it from his flagship 'Celeste', an older Centauri heavy cruiser. It was a true to form long range and endurance warship that was sturdily built to take a beating. However this Kepler task force has yet to depart from their meager automated filling station with the fleet in tow to make the jump to the Junkyard. The twenty two destroyers were docked inside the large hanger bays of the Rubicon like one would have fighters in a carrier, once again to limit the possibility of the fleet getting scattered from this longer jump.
"Tower has given us the all clear." It took a few seconds for the final calculations to be made for this jump, but nonetheless they were ready now.
"Jumping in three... Two... One..." Rirym flipped open a secured control panel on his flight seat in this old Centauri heavy cruiser and pressed it. His stomach, much like everyone elses onboard twisted and turned for the split second it took for the FTL jump to take place. It took very, very long to get used to for most people.
--------------
A few hundred thousand KM outside of the Junkyard three objects seemed to blink into existence. All of them were under 1.5 kilometers and began to change their course. The vessels began to conduct sensor scans of the area as five destroyers exited from the Rubicon's hanger bay to serve as escort craft. Just from the basic and initial scans it was clear that this place was already a hot bed of activity.
As Hazolf stood inside of the empty bridge of the Tusk Class Battleship, the Stronghold, a deep uncomfortable feeling told hold in his gut. A similar feeling came up a week earlier when Dagon and her Hands had assigned this mission to him. When he brought it up with Dagon in private she had both embraced him and assured him it was simply nervousness due to his new found responsibility. Taking a second to focus on her words and comforting arms Hazolf pushed the gut feeling down. As it finally began to fade away the sphincter like doors to the bridge opened and his bridge crew began to filter in.
One of them, his second in command named Sislin, made her way over to Hazolf to give him a status report. "All beasts and their crew have been prepped and are ready to proceed."
"Alright then give the order for everyone to make way to the Junkyard," said Hazolf.
As Sislin began to send out psychic pings to the rest of the fleet Hazolf began to run over the mission's details in his head. At the behest of an unknown party Hazolf was being sent by Dagon to the Junkyard in order to secure some of the intact ships that had been cropping up there. To complete this task Hazolf had seventeen ships at his disposal. One Tusk Class Battleship beast, two Gnasher Class Cruiser beasts, one Frag Class Cruiser beast, one Maw Class Carrier beast, four Fang Class Destroyer beasts, two Shard Class Destroyer beasts, three Enamth Class Escort beasts, and three Rib Class Escort beasts.
The sound of Sislin giving the countdown until the jump brought Hazolf back to reality. He quickly braced himself as his flagship, as well as the other ships, began to move towards the multiple tunnels of compressed space that had opened up in front of them. Within a few minutes the entire fleet were hurderling towards the Junkyard and all the while that feeling of nervousness came back into Hazolf's gut, this time with a pinch of fear.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Multiple compressed space tunnels opened on the outskirts of the Junkyard with Hazolf's fleet making its way out of them. As soon as they were clear of the tunnels Hazolf's began giving out orders.
"Sislin get a status report from all ships, make sure that no one had any complications. Secmend start sending out our probes to scan as much of the Junkyard as possible. Nexia start moving us towards the Junkyard, slowly."
In a few seconds the bridge was a buzz of activity as everyone began to work on getting the fleet ready to move into the Junkyard proper. As the fleet began to lurch forwards Hazolf uttered a small prayer under his breath towards Dagon, hoping that this all would play out as smooth as something of this caliber could.
"Status report!" The CO of the leading Lateille cruiser, the Okravam, called.
"All systems green! Reactors stable, propulsion nominal, FTL charging! Exotic fuel containment stable and injectors are armed!"
"Good. Exit vector plotted?"
"Affirmative. Jump course steady and clear. All ships reporting ready for mass shear, Shear Engine charge at 83%!"
"Alright. Let me know when we hit 100%." the CO, Ir Kalay, nodded, turning to their XO.
"Tell me again, what is this we're investigating? Some sort of...junkyard?"
"That's what the intel we've been able to gather indicates. Ships from all across the galaxy wind up here. Or, husks of them do. People have been flocking there in droves, apparently, something about intact vessels being found." the XO explained.
"Well. If we're lucky so will we. Might get to learn something about whoever else we share this galaxy with." Ir put a hand to her chin.
"Ma'am! Shear Engine at 100%! All systems ready for jump!"
"Alright. Alert all ships, we are performing jump, ETA 10 seconds. Count it down, helm." She called, her thoughts alight as the helmsman counted down.
"Two, One...Injector firing, engaging Shear!"
The ship had rumbled, sharply, as space was torn and bent, in seconds tearing the fleet from the idly quiet system they had been in to the edges of the Junkyard. Sensors lit up furiously, picking up countless masses and debris signals, emissions from deeper within signalling the presence of countless other ships, both of foreign nations and the myriad vessels small and large of the unaligned.
"All ships reporting green! Formation maintained, mass Shear successful! We're here, ma'am."
"So I see..." Ir muttered, her eyes narrowing as they scanned the readouts.
"Alright. Let's not waste time here. Most of these don't seem to be more than hollow space debris. Dispersed formation, deploy PD boats, let's maximise the area we can search. Stay in range to assist one another. Let's make use of all this cover in case someone doesn't feel like sharing. Don't be afraid to use sensor decoys. Alright, all ships, move out. Charge weapons and shields." she ordered, the lights of the myriad Lumnaed fleet's engines sparking, like dim lights on the external cameras.
Twelve destroyers, accompanied by three cruisers and a mounting number of tiny, unmanned point defence craft, moved inwards at a steady pace. Like Ir had ordered their formation dispersed among the hulks of the Junkyard wrecks, sensors vigilant both for anything of value and anything wanting them dead.
The Junkyard was on a usual day a complete hazard zone, filled with endless asteroids, wrecks, microdebris moving at speeds enough to threaten star ships and all manner of pirate and scavenger forces using the place as hide outs.
And that was on a good day. This however, was like open market day.
The Junkyard was packed, despite being truly huge in size and scale the area was as normal packed by the wrecks and general debris but now there was the odd taskforce from virtually every nation around either staking claim to a specific area, hanging on the edges of the Junkyard, or hiding deep within not wanting to be ‘officially’ see. This wasn’t to include all the thousands of companies, contractors and mercenaries who sifted through wrecks and more, constantly searching for clues or the next fully intact appearance. And then there was the pirates, preying on forces where they could, forcing the hand of many nations who banded together in peacekeeping temporary alliances in order to drive the pirates off.
As the various new factions arrived they were pretty much ignored for the most part, FTLing into the Junkyard was a suicidal affair so all new arrivals translated in on its outskirts avoiding near instantaneous death by relativistic ramming in debris. As such many nations just ignored the other, with large sensor stations having been brought in by some to scan the area for any of their own vessels. The Junkyard outskirts were fairly clear compared to the inner areas, with got progressively thicker as they approached the ‘core’ regions where gravity compacted the wrecks together in such a way that it became a solid maze of tunnels and caverns eventually becoming so compact that ship travel was impossible and it had to be done on foot. Explorers had even said that there were points where the gravity was so strong that the wrecks were crushed into almost pure compact metals and as such what was at the ‘center’ of the Junkyard was merely a mystery. Just getting to that point was hard for the deeper you went the greater the danger was from not only the environment but also the lawless dregs who hid out in the perfect areas to escape detection.
Already a small skirmish was occurring far off on the outskirts that could be observed, as BEDLAM Crew ships harassed some Merchant scanner ships but were in turn chased off by Astropolitan Concordat and Hasorn Hegemony vessels.
It seemed like things were in chaos, and with no solid stable leads the only real step forwards was simply to go deeper and start searching.
The Kepler vessels remained on the outer edges of the Junkyard, they did not quite want to procedure inward just quite yet mainly because of the risk of micro-meteors and debris from this growing planetoid of the galaxies trash. For the case of the 'Rubivon' this was the most severe, it was not designed to be impacted with debris such as the likes of the Celeste or one of the destroyers, it was more akin to a kilometer long FTL equipped space station in its use as a fleet tender, and now a salvage ship.
A wider formation was kept for the eight ships from the Kepler task force, the destroyers were outside of the sensor cruiser, tender ship, and the Celeste by a few dozen kilometers. They were on a higher level of alertness in this Junkyard, mainly from the fact of several skirmishes and hundreds, possibly thousands, of different fleets from scavengers to navies trying to tear this place apart. They were the latter.
---
"Sensor readings are coming back up... This place is remarkable, its like a small planet almost." Airman Barbosa stated across the CIC
"One made of wrecked ships... How did all of these get here?" Rirym replied, he had poured himself a cup of coffee and had his helmet off, but still had it attached to his belt loop.
"No idea sir, it seems to be random, this is not a normal or structured salvage yard like back at Hilidian Station."
Barbosa replied back, he was sitting down in one of the flight chairs aboard the Celeste. The large collection of screens and green colored displays dotted the small twenty man CIC, it was mainly sensor data and status from other ships that were being displayed, not so much for actual footage. They did not need it to navigate here.
"We are here for a salvage mission Barbosa... Staff Sergeant, deploy drone recon.. Lets see what is out there."
-----
Around twenty five small drone craft deployed from one of the massive hanger bays aboard the Rubicon, alongside the still docked destroyers and multitude of other small craft. These drone craft were around ten meters long and fully independent, under methodical and well planned thrust management the automated craft headed into the junkyard to conduct up close scans of the Junkyard, they were supplemented by other scans conducted by the Vichin class cruiser. All of the information gathered was encrypted under a variety of ever changing top secret codes before being transmitted back tot he Kepler vessels.. The Vichin class cruiser however was doing some other work as well in passively scanning other ships in system.
The Lumnaed fleet continued at a steady pace, the nimble destroyers weaving about the gradually thickening field of empty hulks, the larger Lateille cruisers having to find a less dexterously demanding path, the Okravam having to burn around the drifting, snapped off front half of a cruiser, 'Arkmet' emblazoned on the prow in faded, bold lettering, Ir Kalay raising a brow at the battered husk of a ship as it drifted past on optical views.
"Only gonna get a tighter squeeze from here, CO. Sure you wanna proceed?" the helmsman called.
"Yes. We're fine for now, and I imagine we will for some time. Just keep us from bumping into anything." Ir called back, the helmsman nodding.
"Are we here to look for anything?" the XO asked.
"Nothing explicit, but anything of particular value that we can fit, LCCN command wants us to tug home, for our use and anyone looking to buy. Otherwise, we're mainly here for scientific curiosity. We still don't know a lot about the wider galaxy, and a place full of drifting alien ships is a veritable goldmine for the curious mind." Ir explained.
The Lumnaed maintained their dispersed formation as they advanced, sensors sweeping everywhere. A small pirate raider gang, attempting to catch one of the outlying destroyers, found itself run down by a second, flashes of light and EM blinking on the Okravam's sensors as two destroyers and the Lateille on the Okravam's starboard flank ripped into them with battery fire.
A disruption, if minor, but nothing for Ir Kalay's concern. If nothing else, it was one less gang of marauders for someone to worry about.
As the Melon-Long fleet made its way through the wreck filled edges of the Junkyard probes were constantly being sent out. These probes, including those first launched, were constantly launching psychic scans of both the immediate area around the fleet as well as random spots in the hope that luck would be on their side in the hunt for the wrecks. Though from the time of the first probes to now the fleet had yet to catch the trail of any fully intact wrecks. The only things that they have seen where to occasional ship or mini fleet that had unknowingly strayed too close to the fleet. Most, when realising what was in front of them immediately turned tail and fled with the exception of one pirate group.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"Hazolf," shouted Sislin "We have positive contacts from the forward probes."
Hazolf taking a moment to adjust himself responded, "How many are there and are they headed towards us?"
As Sislin took a second to double check the probes the rest of the bridge crew began to ready themselves. As they begin to stretch their arms and pop their necks Sislin turned back towards Hazolf. "There are nine ships sir and they are heading for us at full speed."
"Have they attempted to hail us?"
"No sir and they haven't responded to my attempts either."
Quickly flashing a small grin at the prospect of a battle Hazolf began to hand out orders. "Sislin tell the fleet to ready weapons and to form up in a defensive formation. Secmend try and see if those forward probes can be recalled before they get to them. And the rest of you, battlestations."
As everyone in the bridge began to spring into action Hazolf let his grin grow into a full blown smile as he began to speak out loud. "These fine fine gentlemen seem very keen on becoming a permanent part of the Junkyard so why don't we oblige them."
A large fleet suddenly appears outside the junkyard. A huge capital ship lead them through, accompanied by bulky battlecruisers lined with orange paint, destroyers of various sizes and one large carrier. What appeared to be a radar blast shot out of the capital ship, bouncing off of any surrounding lifeforms. On board, an elite, Astoshan Servix, head of all research in Dreklion, shouted orders at the other ships in his fleet. "Scout the area, if anyone engages you in battle, retreat to the capital ship immediately, this is a research mission!" He shouted. Astoshan looked at the radar, viewing each of the signals. They appeared to be quite plentiful. "Vanguard Division #5, move ahead, scout the area!" With that command, 2 of the orange battlecruisers raised above, flying by at a moderate speed, leaving an orange trail behind. A few fighters tailed it.
A request was sent out for another force to be on standby, and with these precautions in place they shifted closer toward the center - occasional scans being sent out toward nearby "junk" ships, searching for lifeforms - or active ship systems.
Scale rubbed against scale as the final troops of the bording party entered the smaller craft - best be ready. Just as they crossed the threshhgold, the door began to slide shut, and there they stood, stock still, waiting for orders. This situation was repeated across other ships, all the doors finally slamming together as one. They were ready/
Deep in the lithorian battleship,among its pitch dark airless corridors of flesh something awoke from dormancy. Two pairs of glowing blue eyes opened in the dark,one right under the other. Currents of psychic energy flowed freely between inky black spines on its elongated head to further iluminate the dark as it linked to the vessels,feeling through their sensory organs and taking in their previous actions before speaking out telepathically
Awaken overseer. We have arrived at the anomaly. It is as you have anticipated,the location is teeming with sapient lifeforms. Some of them even seem to use biological craft like us
at the opposite end of the chamber,3 pairs of eyes on the sides of something's head opened,each one giving off a red,yellow and violet light respectively. Cyan sacs of liquid flared around its body as about 16 gelationous tendrils accompanied these with their own glow
Execellent work commander. Capture as many as you can,will you? My dissection chamber has been running out of subjects lately and I ache to study the intricate workings of their forms and genetic strands.
The other beast squinted its eyes before speaking again
Patience. We are here to recover prestine starship wrecks. Your secondary objective can wait. For now we must redouble our efforts
With that their conversation ended and the task force became more active. The battleship released the 5 frigates and destroyers that it was carrying before they began spreading out somewhat in the hopes of increasing their sensor range. The probes already advancing into the junkyard began launching out thousands of micro ships no more than a few centimeters long in most cases which utilised ion engines to maneuver around and scan,no doubt the micro debris would be their end sooner or later but they were more than disposable
After some fruitless searching the vessels came across a decently large asteroid,the chunk of rock dwarfed most mountains as it was slightly longer than the battleship at its widest dimension. While this thing was more than useless to their objective for coming here in the first place it was a perfect location for a forward nesting ground to lock down this area and act as a home base should they come here again in the near future
While the smaller ships kept skimming over the Junkyard's outskirts the battleship managed to make its way to this asteroid. It released huge tendrils which grasped onto the target with 4 grasping claws before starting to bore a spine through it to release creatures and fashion out a veritable home inside it
With the chaos being mostly relegated to the outer areas the probes of the various forces and even their fleets themselves descended deeper into the Junkyard.
Nobody knew what caused this place, it had been charted as being here by the first explorers and several nearby native unaligned had confirmed its presence for at least several centuries before the modern era. It was clearly old as hell and had steadily grown over the years exponentially it seemed as new nations and more entered the galaxy. In just 60 years it had almost doubled in size, to encompass at least 3AU in diameter like some gigantic metal ball.
As the probes and forces went deeper the space became more and more packed, micro meteors were a constant hazard as dust and grain sized pieces impacted hulls at ludicrous speeds. While only a few pirate forces dared to actually make plays most were content to wait, hide and raid whatever came their way simply waiting for whatever happened next. Active and passive sensor scans were full of dead wrecks, asteroids and countless other ships which displayed as bright centres of energy deep within the dead zones of the wrecks like fireflies but nothing out of the ordinary.
That was until there was a brief, extremely brief, burst of Tachyons was located deep within the Junkyard. And judging by some of the ships reactions, this could be big.
The pirate ships that were now approaching the Melon Long fleet belonged to none other than Red Wing. Their vessels were all extremely lithe, arrow like and painted bright red with wing motifs all uniquely drawn onto their hull. The vessels were fast, very fast and on an intercept course. The strange part was, that they had no active weapon systems. No target locks, weapon charging or anything of the sort could be detected and Red Wing was known for pulling crazy stunts to show off to their sub-ordinates. The ships were not push overs either, Red Wing while a disjointed anarcho communist group were well equipped, legendary pilots and had decent gear. Whatever they were doing it did not seem to be directly aggressive… But a decision would have to be made whether to engage them or leave them to their antics.
The work on the nesting ground was progressing smoothly, already creatures and seperate tendrils had been deployed inside the large rock from breaching points and were digging and eating their way through it,partially processing it and sending it off as biofilms and builder organisms followed shortly behind to start altering these airless tunnels to their liking.
This all changed when the powerful tachyon emission was picked out by the microships,then the probes and finally the main warships. Inside the battleship the two creatures within one of its chambers were more or less oblivious until the information reached them from higher up
The six eyed one recieving it first
How curious. It appears a strong tachyon emission is coming from deeper within the anomaly. It is with most certainty not a current commander
The other alien turned its 4 glowing eyes immedeatly
And what do you suggest? Such an event right here and at this time is too unlikely to be natural. Surely it was a weapon or starship of these upright bipeds
the other organism weighed the possibilities,running calculations through its foreign mind and filling the blanks with some well supported theories
Ah,but we know not the nature of this anomaly my fellow chitinous being. This may very well signal a new addition of matter to this scrapheap,perhaps even,dare I say,one of the pristine wrecks we came here for.
Yes,we cannot know for certain,but so far we have yet to find any and racing towards this phenomena will grant us no ill,we must advance deeper either way. Wouldn't you agree?
The other creature stared for a second,taking in this statement before rolling its eyes
Your logic is flawless. Let us descend deeper into this graveyard of decay.
However we are not to let our guard down. Such an action would invite disaster. I hope our superiors know it
The fleet altered course,the smaller ships began descending in the junkyard proper while the probes launched many more microships in the direction of the tachyon surge,the ones already deployed slowly shifting their course to it. The battleship remained unmoving,still preparing the nesting ground
The smaller vessels moved swiftly,their anti gravity propulsion making them look as if they were swimming through space,avoiding large debris and vaporising micro hazards with networks of energy projectors tasked with point defense.They launched out more probes in various directions,which in turn spat out yet more microcraft for excrutiatingly thorough recon,an ambush not being in their interest at all at this point in time
"Airman... What was this you said that this was the size of a planetoid..."
Mihal said over to his crewmembers aboard the bridge of the Celeste. Sensor readings began to flood back from the deployed probes and displayed the true size of this junkyard, 3 AU in diameter, it is a miracle this place has not fallen into itself as a blackhole yet. Barbrosa replied back over to his commanding officer while the drones continued their task.
"I apologize sir. This place is 3 AU in diameter... Made entirely of scrapped ships. It is its own dyson sphere." Barbosa seemed to be in a slight state of awe at this sight. Mihal scoffed back while looking at one of the drones displays.
"More than enough metal and raw materials to build an empire." Mihal took a sip of coffee made a stressed face as he drank it down. "Not enough creamer."
The information coming back from the drones quickly spiked and went back to normal, near fractions of a second later the same spike was caught by the Celeste and the other vessels in the Kepler fleet. A Tachyon pulse with an epicenter in the middle of the Junkyard was registered. Mihal ordered a few drones to head deeper into the Junkyard, their whipple shields held onto integrity fine enough against these micrometeorites, to investigate this pulse. Sending in ships would be a nightmare, while they did have strong whipple shields, it would be suicide.
Ten of the remaining drones that were not heading deeper found a suitable piece of salvage that was a husk of an old vessel under 700 meters long, they latched onto the wreck and planted tracking markers for tugs to figure out where to mount themselves. Three twenty meter long tug drones witted with sturdy grappling devices, strong engines, and sturdy frames departed from the Rubicon and headed to the wrecked vessel unescorted. Meanwhile the scouting drones continued to fly across and scour the junkyard through scans.
"Prepare the turrets, pirates are approaching." Astoshan shouted, the ships entering into battle formation, "Sir, the pirates don't appear to be armed."
"Stand by then, don't engage unless provoked, relay this order." Astoshan wondered why they would approach large capital ships unarmed, from what appeared to be at least 3 separate unaligned nations. The ships slowly started to move in, fighters clearing the path for the capital ship to safely pass through. They appeared to be a safe distance away from the pirates, and several large drones were released from the capital ship, moving asteroids and parts around in front of the fleet, to cover them.
"All battle preparations are ready, we will be charging the railguns and lasers." A voice called out to Astoshan.
"Perfect, await their next move. Relay the events to Emperor Dystherial."
As the unknown fleet moved closer to the Melon-Long fleet Hazolf began running over possible strategies the other fleet could employ. Though before he could become too entrapped in thought the voice of Sislin brought him back to reality.
"Uhhh sir we may have a problem."
Quickly moving over to her dread began to fill Hazolf as he began to think of the myriad of possible problems that Sislin could be worried about. As he got besider her she began to give a report of the situation.
"Well Hazolf it seems on closer inspection that fleet approaching us belongs to none other than the Red Wing," said Sislin, "And so far they haven't deviated from their interception course."
Sighing Hazolf began to run over his options. On the one hand he was sure that his fleet could take the Red Wing's though at losses that would render them unable to finish the mission. But, on the other hand there was no way his fleet could outrun them due to their souped up ships. Mulling over what could be done Hazolf decided to try a third option.
"Sislin get every single one of our psychics up here we're going to contact their captain, directly."
"Ok sir, but if you don't mind me asking why all of them? Two are more than enough to send a message."
Turning towards Sislin Hazolf responded. "Well it's simple. If their captain decides to continue hostilities we'll simply pop their skull and the skulls of everyone of their sub-captains."
As Hazolf began to move back towards his command chair he gave out one final order. "Secmend, send out more probes to our port, starboard, and aft. Since we're taking this slow I'd like it if we didn't have to worry about being blindsided by any other fleet."(edited)
Upon one of the cruisers, a small series of blinks indicated the changes deep in the junkyard. Eyes flashed over to it, fingers flickering over a controller as the sensors were re-calibrated to detect such occurences with more accuracy.
The ships turned, their shifting formation twisting in on itself to move further toward the disturbance without presenting a blind spot. A small astroid in the way was deflected, and the small fleet continued on its way, only avoiding large groups of enemies or hige debris - the rest either moved or were shifted more... aggresively.
The large quantity of raw materials among the debris was recorded, and a future taskforce was assigned. This could be more profitable than simply standard mining - but was the risk worth it? More surveying was required.
Tensions aboard the Lumnaed fleet only continued to mount as they advanced, Ir watching the markers of the fleet's destroyers as they weaved gracefully around the assorted drifting wreckage.
"All quiet, for now. There's blips and emission bursts all over the place, but...nothing this way." someone reported.
"Indeed not. Let's hope it stays that way. But still, let's not count on our luck lasting. Nobody's guard is to be let down. Remind the destroyers not to stray too far."
"Aye aye. Keeping weapons and defences charged and ready."
"Anything valuable on sensors?"
"Negative. Just hulks, for now."
"Understood. Keep your eyes on those readouts. We don't want to miss anything."
The Lumnaed fleet maintained its pace as it advanced deeper into the sea of metal and material, the destroyers sphere around the cruisers shrinking just a little. They would not concern themselves with the trials of the other fleets, not for now. The less they drew attention to themselves, the better.
Floating within the Junkyard a dozen ships were scattered about. The Gaferius Collectum had heard of these Strange Appearances and sent a smaller recon fleet. The Spheroid ships were scattered about the entirety of the Junkyard. All of them having every system turned off except for COMMs and their stealth fields. The Dreadnought near the center of the Junkyard was where everything was happening. A circular domed room with 4 doors on each side. A platform at the center was raised with many a robot sitting at stations. In the center on a large chair was the fleet commander. Two True AI were sent for this. Two sleek white feminine AI. One in the chair, one standing on the ground.
"Wayfinder Electus if I may?"
"Yes of course, what is it?"
"Our passive scans are not showing much as long as we've been here... Or rather they're showing too much.. Perhaps a more direct approach?"
Electus went silent for a moment. She glanced up at the screens showing their surroundings. Nothing but junk obviously. "I do think you're right Wayfinder Sophos. launch our compliment of fighters for recon. Have them scatter, and only report if they find anything of note. We should keep radio communications to a minimum." The other AI nodded. Kicking off the floor in the 0g bridge to one of the consoles. Tapping a few buttons. 3 different armor panels opened around the ship. As it was made of triangle panels it's fighters shaped to those panels and were stacked on top of each other in a large column. Between the 3 bays around 100 fighters launched. Distorting the stealth field momentarily as the armor panels opened. They scattered in every direction to scout out for any hostile forces, one of their own ships that maybe appeared here, or anything else of note. After a brief moment the stealth field fully materialized again. The fighters were not exactly stealthy. Without the low power, and several meters of lead plating of the Gaferius ships they could be picked up with IR as soon as they departed by anything nearby. As well as pinging each other via radio tech in some sort of coded, or encrypted language.
The burst was quickly blinded by the sudden detonation of a starship belonging to the Brotherhood of the Scratch, a large vessel of cruiser class it had been within the outskirts of the Junkyard when it had exploded. The burst of energy throwing off the extremely faint readings which had indicated the initial signal still some had latched onto it, leaving many to either not bother with pursuit or pursuit those who were trying to find it.
The cause of the destruction was obvious, 5 Illid vessels rapidly dropped stealth and began accelerating away, no doubt having boarded and raided the ship before it self-destructed. The bio organic ships seemed to have got what they came here for at least for now as they moved off, still the Illid being present was not surprising but it would certainly be annoying.
The Lithorian nest was not found even as their forces moved out allowing the small base to be kept secret for now like many who had made their home within the Junkyard, but it was their own small probes and those of the others who went deeper and into the more clogged and almost claustrophobic zones in search of the Tachyon burst, at first it appeared to be no more than a standard FTL jump wake from Tachyon Phase shift drives but the closer they got the more the signal looked somewhat different. The first to stumble across the vessel was the Kepler probes, swiftly followed by the Lithorians, others began appearing shortly after, probes of all shapes and sizes some even manned. There within a medium sized pocket of almost totally condensed scrap was the form of a pristine Zentheran Type-14 cruiser which had not been there moments prior, energy readings were coming from its hull as well.
This was another of the fully intact vessels, many had their prize, whether to capture, recover, reverse engineer or study what happened. The location was set, but it would only be a matter of time before the entire Junkyard descended on this place.
As the Red Wing forces bypassed the Melon Long fleet without firing the reply from the ship’s captain was clear. He did not seem off put by the psionic communication and merely had sent a basic signal in return saying
‘You should have seen your face’
"Its a warzone out there..."
Rirym Mihal said as he continued to look over the sensor reports of warships being destroyed by stealth warships, Red Wing designated vessels buzzed the craft of other nations, it was hectic out here. His own vessels were at a safe distance from the fighting, just another small blip in the abyss of space, granted it was not clear how much longer that would last. The Commander looked down from the slightly raised floor in the back of the CIC hoping that atleast one of the probes found something useful.
It was a more heightened sense of tension onboard, the early warning systems on the Celeste, the Rubicon, and their escorting destroyers kept a perimeter around their fleet as point defense guns and arrays scanned the nearby space for potentially dangerous vessels.. Getting attacked during a salvage mission was.... Not advisable...
The Tug craft reached the initial seven hundred meter long craft and used their magnetic latches and anchors drilled into the hull to secure themselves on the raw material husk in key positions for their combined thrust to send it on a course for the Rubicon to intercept. However, a response was sent back from the drones exploring deep within the junkyard. They found something, something big.
----
"Give it to me straight airman." The Commander said, Barbrosa pulled up the imaging from the probes and their reports.
"We cross referenced this with what we have on our database, it seems to be Zentheran cruiser, roughly sixteen hundred meters in length in very good condition. It just showed up there."
On the central screen of the CIC the probe footage of the vessel popping into the junkyard was replayed again, following in as the probes placed small Frisbee sized homing beacons in a similar manner to what was done with the first piece of salvage. However, there was another strange appearance inside this cavity, unknown alien vessels, probes likely of unknown origin showed up on the probes scans.
"Now that seems like some prime salvage... It a bit larger than the Rubicon... Deploy some heavy tugs with fighter escort. I do not like the look of those unknowns, only act if acted upon."
The order was dispatched over for a flight of the space borne Mako fighters (3) and twenty heavy tugs dispatched from the tender ship and headed into the junkyard, heading on the same path that the probes went on before to secure their salvage. Hundreds of others would be swarming over this ship like maggots on a carcass soon enough.
About an half hour had passed since the "embarrassing" situation with the Red Wings and Hazolf was aching for a fight to soothe his agitation. A similar sentiment flowed throughout the bridge crew as each of them went about their tasked with tension in their bodies. However soon they find something that would at least partially set them at ease.
-----------------------------
"Sir, I think we got something," said Sislin, "I believe its a Free Worlds cruiser sir."
"Is it salvageable?"
"As far as it seems it's only suffering from two maybe four hull breaches but that's it."
Taking a second to process the situation Hazolf got up from his chair and began to pace.
"And are we the only ones here?"
"So far though the probes are getting some pings from outlying ships, but they all seem to be going somewhere else at maximum speed. More than likely something like a dreadnought or experimental ship popped up."
"Welp no use in going after bait other fish are fighting over," said Hazolf sighing as he sat back down. "Get a perimeter of probes up and have some of our smaller ships "hibernate" along the perimeter. Just in case we need to ambushed anyone coming to steal our prize."
Within a few minutes the entire Melon-Long fleet was moving into position ready to claim the Free Worlds cruiser and fight of any that would try to steal it.