Post by drakadorchaos on Apr 13, 2024 11:55:32 GMT
The void amongst the Stars was silent, as it usually was.
Aszeven read out the data from the Ancerium harvester as the massive engines warmed up to move to the next jump point. They had just left the more remote areas of Garrens Clarity and although harvesting operations proceeded slow this way, it should at least partially mitigate pirate threats.
He recalculated the approximate gains and losses given their current consumption of Ancerium, three harvesters were completely finished now, six more in construction and another three planned. As of currently.
With these number they should be able to counteract the supply shortages, although limiting their consumption would still be necessary even when all of them would be operational.
He dove into the sensor feed again, they were in a nameless empty system somewhere in jump distance of where they harvested, fortunately alone and all systems were operational. The visual cloaks, made to hide the identity of the ship, rather than it's presence, were all active.
He nodded internally and gave the next commands.
With the roar of a suns fire the engines sprung to live and fusion torches began to propel the ship towards its next destination.
Captain Huron Kraelamon Haxroxiate Triecian the fifth. More commonly referred to as Hax. A female humanoid with pointed ears, and in the getup of a 17th century terran pirate. a formidable raider in the expanse even before her capture by Tranatonian agents. Now she was headed by operative FSAO-081264.
Her fleet was modest, but effective. Using old Triarch vessels retrofitted for their needs. They had been tracking the ancerium hauling vessel for some time. While they had planned to intercept them in the expanse this would do just as well. They had tracked the vessels FTL wake signature and were currently in rotue.
"Oi ya scally wags, no good land lubbin, donkey sucken, goddess face fukin' no good cunts! Get to yer stations, time to take a nice, and fat prize!"
The modest attack force consisted of two smaller 'escort' ships that ran interception, and a slightly larger heavy cruiser. All three coming in fast, and loud despite their stealth tech. The Triarch vessels running far, far hotter than they have any right to being a stealth vessel. A byproduct of decades of upgrades.
Even as the engines roared and Proxy Aszeven ran calculations, it didn't take long to take notice of the rather strange vessels, with their extraordinary heat signatures.
Appearing at the borders of the system they had, already, taken an intercept course and given these ships models matched those of one of the more prevalent arms dealer of the galaxy and were heavily modified as well... well.
Those would hardly be friendly patrols.
He looked at his timeframes and the jump coordinates, running more calculations in his sub processes. He would have to try to stall but if he reached the exit point he could potentially get away without a fight. That was, if they did not have interdiction, given their movements they had likely prepared for this.
The fusion torches began glowing brighter, as the harvester sped up. Fake comms systems sprung to live sending hail protocols over radiowave as quantum comms informed nearby escorts of the situation in case they were required, though would remain on standby for now.
"This is the civilian vessel UNV Bountiful Harvest, please identify and state your intentions."
The vessels indeed began to emit a larger than normal interdiction field, and indeed their power signature likely was coming from their core. These ships had no right to be as fast as they were. Rapidly closing in, in a clear intercept. Over the COMMs a female voice could be heard.
"Our intentions' are ta' take ya yer booty. Now ya can surrender all nice like, I'll give ya the one chance. Refuse and every soul aboard your ship is gonna be killed sooner or later."
She cut off the COMMs, and began to activate the vessels jamming. Rather rudimentary in nature, and not very advanced. But it got the job done for long range COMMs more or less.
Aszeven pondered on the situation for a moment before actually reacting.
These vessels did not seem to be interested in negotiations, given the comms jamming, and he was now cut off from most of the normal connections.Given how abruptly he was cut off, the escort would likely make their way here soon but given the interdiction...
Valuable moments passed as interdiction ranges, sublight speeds, time lag and interception ranges were weighed up against one another.
They wouldn't make it in time to assist and even if he would be able to make it to the jump point it would be to no avail, he couldn't jump, obviously.
Though still fast, the harvester was by no means built to reach intercept speeds and such such the pirate vessels slowly began catching up, soon they would reach weapons range, which meant, he'd have to try and fend off the pirates until the escorts arrived or at least postpone direct engagement until then somehow though that was wishful thinking at best. He couldn't just let the asset fall into pirate hands either.
Unless...
He scanned through his inventory and available equipment and systems began charging up, as a plan formed in his artificial mind. Sensors washed over the system and calculations ran on the for the Network admittedly rather mediocre processing core of the Harvester as they didn't want to build sensitive technology into it. Yes, maybe, maybe he could...
As the pirates were approaching and likely soon reaching weapons range, the roughly fifty kilometre long vessel they were pursuing actually began flying a curve, although it's overall speed didn't decrease and the destination it was heading to seemed to be a barren planet without much significance.
The three vessels quickly closed in. They were faster than the average triarch ship, much, much faster. Upon getting into weapons range they began to fire. Going for non critical systems to disable the ship. Like the engines, or if they could manage it the bridge. Taking care to try and not shoot the cargo hold, nor the reactor. The three split off to try and get to different points of the ship.
As the ships approached they quickly found out that, wherever the bridge may be, it certainly wasn't anywhere near the surface of the craft, the other thing they found out was that the ship which was supposed to be a civilian harvester was considerably heavier defended than they could've expected.
As the first shots closed in a light show erupted, projectiles were flung aside, hard light shields sprung into place and kilometres worth of laser point defense came to life, although most of the defenses seemed to be on the sides of the craft.
Soon they would be approaching the planet and, for whatever reason, the harvester seemed to be on course into a rather low orbit.
In the meanwhile, on the inside, Aszeven was micromanaging the ships systems and reading through damage reports, the vibrations of several minor impacts went through the hull, the defenses were tight but not immaculate, there were still some shots going through, although until the impacts came closer or became more numerous, the harvester would hold out for a while at least for now.
As he waited for the planets horizon to come into range he re-checked the status of the drone craft readying them for use.
The three vessels fell for the bait. Boosting in to follow, and continuing to fire as best they could. Firing a wall of missiles to try and get the engines out. At seeing their prey being more of a fight than their average haul they took the risk of firing everything they had.
The vessels pursued into the LEO, and kept up their chase. Their commander seeming to be a bit of a hotshot to say the least.
As the chase continued and battle began to heat up several things happened in quick succession. A swarm of several dozen drones was released by the harvester apparently in response to the large scale missile attack, although they moved to intercept and the rear point defense was still active, it was the weakest area in terms of it, as such a number of the missiles made it through, resulting in an explosion and a flash of light, as well as debris being flung off into the void and towards the planet.
On the inside of the Harvester Aszeven ran through the damage reports in a calculated manner and ran countermeasures in short order as one of the massive engines of the Harvester gave in and the massive ship rocked for a couple of moments before the remaining engines adjusted to the new thrust distribution. Had released the drones earlier he would've perhaps been able to intercept them, then again, there would have also been the chance that they would just have been shot down pre-emptively.
Although one of the massive engines was now out, it was by no means enough to 'beach' the vessel and it disappeared beyond the horizon for several moments, using it as cover as the drones began harassing the pirate ships with point defense lasers and jamming signals. However, given one of the engines had been dealt with it was likely they would be catching up to their prey again soon.
The armored triarch vessels were able to tank most of the point defense lasers, but in such a tight formation the jamming made them slow down for a moment. The lead ship kept course, while one decieded to break back into high orbit to try and chase it to fire from above, while the other began to make a turn, and burn. Opting to head the opposite way to intercept the harvester that they presumed was going to try a slingshot.
The main vessel didn't fire anything due to the jamming, but burned as hard as it could. It's own PDS trying to take out the swarming drones based on visual targeting. Which was evidently less than ideal.
As the battle raged Aszeven, between assessing damages, managing internal systems and controlling the drones, observed closely how the pirates reacted. At least he had bought some time by moving beyond the horizon though he'd have to act quickly if he wanted to seize that advantage. His priority target would likely be the ship which ascended into a higher orbit as the other small ship would take a while to get around the planet and the larger one a couple moments to get past the horizon line.
Now only... for the right moment.
In the meanwhile, whilst small targets, the drones were quite fragile and as such they fell one by one rather quickly, though strangely enough they seemed to have tried to spread evenly around the ship as they attacked, as if probing the ships point defense coverage. Whilst the largest of the three ships was steadily closing in and would likely soon be able to bring its weapon to bear again, the one which rose into orbit found itself... less lucky.
There was a brief moment of silence as the weapons acquired new targeting on the Harvester, though the moment it got line of sight about two dozen of drones came shot over the horizon line, accellerated at full burn flinging themselves directly at the smaller ship like railgun projectiles and likely equally as deadly.
At almost the same moment, the ship detected four more groups of drones launched from the harvester though rather than towards it, they seemed to be going sideways away from it.
The Triarch vessels seemed to prioritize top, and bottom with heavy PDS at the stern and bow of the vessel. Regardless all began to make their approaches as fast as possible. The one circling the planet opted to launch it's entire payload of missiles all of them starting to go on a long arc around the planet, while the one above did something similar. Trying to disable the elusive vessel as fast as possible. The one chasing from the low orbit however launched nothing as of yet.
The ship as it launched it's strike its PDS lit up. The small targets were easy to destroy, but hard to hit. The vessel taking multiple massive breaches, and having its engines go dead with multiple explosion's coming from the interior as it's fuel lines were cut. The vessel was almost immediately grabbed by the gravitational pull of the planets. It's remaining engines, and MAV thrusters doing little to keep it still flying.
Another large group of drones was released as the missiles from the now destroyed ship approached, this time instead of trying to intercept them immediately, opted to use their jamming to throw them off and then start shooting at them.
Aszeven nodded to himself, metaphorically, as one of his adversaries went up in flames, flames hit by the repurposed drones, however, given the point defense distribution of the larger ship that same trick likely wouldn't work for it, given the drones were not exactly made to actually be projectiles. At least not head on.
Albeit he knew of the second smaller ship heading around the planetoid, what he did not know however, was that it had launched its missiles, they would likely soon be in range and soon after the ship itself. However, the more immediate problem at the time was that the larger ship would now come back over the horizon any moment, with a number of orders a third group of drones was set free to jam it's sensors, trying to buy some time if only momentarily, as he observed the reading of the drones he had sent around the planet.
"Sir our sensors can't see anything" The captian looked over to her officers and sighed. "Get visual, and paint them for a lock." She said firmly. The closer ship close behind followed their captains orders. As they rounded over the horizon it took them a solid three minutes to spot, and then shoot a simple laser at them not in the visual spectrum to paint their ship for their weapon systems. Then the guns started to dial in starting to turn to get an angle on the harvester
Metal screeched and burst as railgun slugs passed the distance between the two ships and hit another thruster, whilst the point defense and drones had been effective against the missiles, even they could not keep up with the kinetic projectiles, at least not at this range and angle. With a flash of light and a last short burst of plasma another engine went out leaving the ship with only two main thrusters.
Aszeven stayed calm as the next impacts came, he had expected as much, they were crafty and the jamming didn't buy him too much...
A brief signal, interrupted his train of thought, notifying him there were several contacts approaching from up front, checking back on the drones he realised, it were missiles fired from the other ship and he hadn't picked them up early because the ship was out of the drones sensor range at the time. In a last second effort he fired the reverse thrusters to buy additional seconds and focused some the point defense forward, though it wasn't enough, not for the ones coming from directly up front, with another few flashes of light, explosions rocked the harvester, metal already strained from the abrupt braking screeched, and armour burst open.
Damage reports came in, whilst the structural damage was mostly superficial, several of the frontal rcs thrusters had been rendered inoperational, recalculating the thrust rations he frowned.
He would have to break away from the planets orbit, or he would crash into it if any other thrusters went offline.
He gave new orders, he would have to change tactics but first...
The bottom of the massive ship lit up as its thrusters tried to break it away from teh planets orbit, apparently considerably earlier than intended, they certainly had done some damage, however, as the ship broke away, one of the drone groups sent around the planet reached its attack vectors and went into full burst trying to fling themselves into the second smaller from the angle where its point defense was the weakest. Apparently they were trying to make sure this one was out of the equation, however, with half of its thrust gone, the massive harvester was getting slower due to the gravitic drag of the planet and the largest of the pirate ships was catching up.
The fight was a long one. The Pirate boarders were defeated, and not long after the Harvesters reinforcements arrived.
Deadly close to one Furtum-Class Corvette. If it were running it's full compliment of stealth features it may have gotten away with it was a little bit of dumb luck. Now? Less than a hundred meters of distance.
The small Corvette lit up like a christmas tree on sensors as it's generator went into full drive, and it's stealth dropped. The optical stealth dropping to kill any needless power consumption. It swiveled 180 degrees on a point with the use of it's graviton engines. Then its ancerium booster kicked to life to create some distance. It's graviton beams firing at the ship it was closest to. Proper targeting hadn't been done yet, but the gunners were panicking trying to get any guns that could split the small craft in two.
It was quite small, and quite agile, that much was evident already.
Aszeven had been pondering.
The pirates had been unwilling or incapable of telling him anything which would've been of particular use. They seemed to have been a part of one of the many minor pirate bands in the area, of which there were likely dozens, if not hundreds, nothing one would be able to coherently negotiate with, as such, he threw them out of the airlocks, there was no need to let them pester other people.
However, the appearance of this new foe, gave this adventure an entirely new angle. Was there perhaps a bigger organisation behind some of these groups? Perhaps some discontent native? An opportunistic Colonial? Maybe a megacorp which tried to maximise it's profits off Ancerium?
All this and more went through his artificial mind, sitting on the currently crippled harvester as the opening shots erupted.
Countermeasures fired, particle screens deployed, reality buckled as integrity fields went up to mitigate the effects of the incoming gravity weaponry, the grav fusion reactors of the three escorts had already been active when they came in but now their energy signature shifted to their weapons. Shrapnel was flung into the void as the first shots sheared off parts of the armour, though Network ships were tough, at ranges this close even they took their toll. Internal prisms and turrets swung around, acquiring targeting data through linking up their sensors between each other...
Aszeven pondered. They were fleeing. For but a brief moment he weighed the option of letting them, they seemed to be in panic and if they could track them it would be far more useful than what they could learn from the captured or destroyed ship itself.
Supercapacitors discharged, bolts of particles fired in beams of light and soundless cracks from the escorts weapons, trying to disable the ships electronics and stop it from fleeing.
Aszeven had made his decision. Letting it get away would be too much of a gamble.
The black Corvette was hard to get a proper read, or scan on. Whatever it's hull was made of it didn't take too long to realize the vessel was designed for stealth. The hulls colour practically drawing in light with how black it was. It took several hits, the graviton beam guns moving back to their proper role of point defense. Making bright purple arcs as they stretched across the void.
It took several shots. 4 hitting into's Ancerium booster the current highest mark of energy on the vessel. The booster sputtering and dying out at the Particle weapons. The Tranatonian vessel took two other shots but they were largely disipated by the vessels interior, and exterior hull. The vessel loosing much it's speed, opted to turn about 180 degrees to reface the three ships. Beginning to actively jam the enemy ships COMMs, and Sensors on most spectrums. Not the craziest of jams by Tranatonian standards, but avoiding any sort of method that painted their ship. At the very least it gave them some leeway as targeting would be a bit harder.
At the same time out of the back of the vessel 40 tiny drone starfighters deployed. Each equipped with four vacume torpedoes, and 2 chainguns. All beginning to fan out and head towards the central escort. Launching their missiles when got into range.
The corvette itself fired it's bottom mounted Tachyon cannon. Moving to try and disable their PDS with HE rounds.
There was a stream of plasma escaping the ship as the Tachyon beam tore through the wing sections of one of the Escorts almost unimpeded by the gravitic shields at this range, though there were no signs of escaping atmosphere. The ship was crippled, but not out of the fight yet.
Damage reports flared across Aszevens digital mentalscape noting heightened density of tachyons, though he discarded them, his concerns lied with the drones and jamming.
The Escorts fanned out, much like the enemies own drones, though also distanced themselves, trying to diminish the effects of the jamming by spreading out, piecing together firing solutions from the different perspectives. Notably, one of the ships seemed to lag behind, it's engines had likely been damaged in the initial attack. Space lit up with countless lasers, fired from the Escorts dense point defense network, though mostly to saturate the area with fire and disperse the swarm due to the jamming, clouds of charged plasma dispensed from the hulls and arced lightning at incoming torpedoes and caught projectiles, without requiring advanced firing solutions. Then, they fired a set of missiles of their own, different in nature from the strange ships drones.
Aszeven observed and made notes. Likely military or private military technology, fairly advanced by the Galaxy's standards. Given the ships initial positioning and its stealth capabilities, it had likely been here for the whole battle, which made the fact it hadn't intervened earlier quite interesting.
Just before what Aszeven assumed to be the ships effective range of point defense, estimated by the power of the shots he received in close quarters, they suddenly lit up as if someone had thrown a flashbang at the sensors, however instead of going for a hit, these started to circle the foreign vessel in erratic patterns.
'Unfortunate' was the thing that crossed Aszevens mind as the particle cannons had been only partially successful in disabling their target, he sent commands to activate the primary weapons and prime more missiles. He had no interest in losing any of these escorts to some pirate vessel, no matter how advanced it may be, especially in times like these, as such he would have to use more force, which means, more information would be lost.
Interdiction once more activated in the system. He was certain now, this one shouldn't escape.
The buzz of the Furtum's CIC was in a buzz. Monitors showing out the battlefield inside of the two story hexagon. The commander at the top center amongst a command seat was barking out out orders. "Aquire lock, and fire all tubes, get our transmission ready! Tal'valroth!"
The vessel swiveled around coming out of the nose were four vacuum torpedoes. The vessel maintained it's fire at the same escort. It's target priority going for the highest energy signatures with it's tachyon cannon. The vessel recycled it's four tubes, and moved to fire again in quick succession of the first 4.
Another flash light erupted in the void as the tachyon lance fired again, engines and gravitic signatures flared up as the targeted escort tried to strafe the foreign ship, turning what might've been a kill into a grazing shot, however, with the tachyon lance firing and the ongoing jamming from both sides, it had dodged the tachyon lance, but not quite the torpedoes.
Flames and radiation erupted as two which hadn't been intercepted hit the blindspot created by the earlier damage, closely followed by metal shrapnell and an impressive plume of plasma, coming out the side of the ship in a spectacular display.
The ships energy signature died down, whether it was destroyed or not, it certainly had ceased to function.
Aszeven sighed internally and shook his proverbial head, a distinct discontent in his mind as he thought about the material and time costs this would result in as a burst of data returned to the harvester, detailing the final moments of the escort. They were were already to their neck in other projects, they couldn't afford losses to pirates.
'Fire.'
The command came and several bursts of highly concentrated kinetic pulses not unlike physical projectiles but far more deadly due to being practically invisible fired from the main weapons of the two remaining escorts to the centre of the disturbance on the sensors, trying to triangulate the position of the enemy via their different points of view.
If it hit it would likely destroy the ship, though the cost of the information they could glance from it, should it turn out to be really just pirates has already far exceeded it's value, even if some of the other AI may disagree.
Four more vacuum torpedoes launched in groups of two manage to launch out. The Vessels CIC turning into a blaze, as the vessel took a hard turn to try and take evasive manuevers. Enough that several crew outrigth died from the force reactions. One Tranatonian woman in the CIC who had not secured herself properly currently having her torso inside her stations computer. The vessels captain came over the ships intercom as he flipped up a guarded button on his seat. "Threat level Kaedon, I repeat threat level kaedon. Tal'valroth!" The CIC interjected with a communal. "Tal'valroth." Threat level kadeon was the threat level no tranatonian ever wanted to hear. The ship was going down, and the Tranatonians wanted no evidence. Even still the Captain had just come back from several operations, and thought it prudent.
In the last moments of the strange vantablack craft a encrypted tightbeam transmission arced out. Encoded with this weeks encryption, and in the language of the Tranatonians. Deciphering it was insanely unlikely, but following it was possible. It seemed to be heading towards the interior of the golden expanse.
The ship was hit by their weapons, and at the same time something that shouldn't happen on a hit did. The ship imploded. Condensing into a tiny sphere of clumped metal as the black hole generator was killed off as part of Threat Level Kaedon. A forceful critical state of the generator. And at the same time triggering the ships limited antimatter stores. Resulting in two lightshows that left very, very little of the craft left.
---
---
Aszeven pondered over what happened back then and what happened since as his proverbial 'eyes' searched the void in the expanse through the sensors of the scout ships.
In the hours until the support vessels came around to drag off the damaged ship, it was not the fact that the strange pirates or rather those who controlled them had been able to take down one of his vessels which made him curious.
No, that was merely a matter of timing and opportunity. Though a commendable effort, it wasn't the first and would not be the last time. What had caught his attention back then, was the transmission and the very fact the owners of the ship seemed to be very, very intent on leaving no trace behind.
They had not been entirely successful, though their efforts had not been entire in vain either.
In fact, to this day, he had not fully decrypted the transmission. Sure, on a surface level some of the encoding had been breached, though like with the Networks own, there were many levels to it and without what could be a dozen more samples it would be unlikely he could fully understand what the transmission said. He simply lacked the context and these shadows had gotten careful since their first encounter.
Though, he did not 'need' to know what it contained, far more important was where it led.
... and, now despite all efforts against it, he was here today.
In the process they had lost the track of the signal once and then almost another time at a later point. Boarding the first mobile station hidden on an asteroid the signal led to had initially been a dead end. By the time they were able to reach the comms stations and re-track the signal, one of the operators of the station had already rigged it and it was long gone, affording them to find and take down another of the strange ships.
Whilst he had initially suspected to find something related to the almost mythical 'Unnamed' from this Galaxy, that soon proved to be wrong. These here operated, although similarly, different.
On the second station, they had been far faster and more efficient. From there the process had been... almost tedious.
Tracking the signal through dozens and hundreds of tiny proxy stations, none of which had any clue they were actually being used as a redirector of the signal, had taken time and effort. Though standing here today, the effort had been proven to be worth it.
...and here he was.
Two tiny sensor vessels, standing amidst the void with... nothing. The signal had ended here, it hadn't been redirected to a different place, it simply faded, a link in the chain was missing here.
Someone else would've likely thought he had made a mistake and was wrong here. Though, to him, it was a confirmation.
If nothing was here, it meant 'they', whoever they were, were likely aware they had been followed and moved the asset before they arrived here.
He was even quite certain they were watching now and as such, there was only one thing left to do.
Wait.
Wait and see what would happen.
A loud grating voice echoed out. The single only vessel was a small tiny craft not of the same design as the other strange vessels they had seen before. It projected tightbeam communications to the central ship giving out a loud grating, grinding, deep voice. Like sandpaper against metal to the ears. Its voice projected in ever language able to be downloaded from the ANCnet.
"You have been following that which does not wish to be followed. Submit to boarding, and you may yet live."
Little to the knowledge of the Network ship the area was utterly booby trapped. While the deep space COMM station was moved, mines were layed out all across the area. Along with two light cruisers in dimensional stealth. All of which being primed now in the event they tried to run.
The Tranatonians didn't want to force project here, to what was likely a scout. While they could jam transmissions, it was a risk that was not necessary in their eyes.
The one ship that could be scoped out was a simple personal transport ship that was bought on the open market. By no means like the ship they had encountered before.
There was a long while of silence where the ships did not answer or even show any sign they actually received the message.
Aszeven pondered. They were here after all, his expectations had been met, his patience rewarded. Now there was only left to find out more.
They had also been very straight to the point, not a rare but neither a universal quality.
He had long had his answer ready, though he was curious to see how they would react. The voice which returned was smooth, though clearly artificial, solely spoken in galactic common.
"I am afraid there are no traversable interiors to the ships before you, nor are there any ways to dock them conventionally. A given, considering they are automated assets."
There was a pause.
"Now, this quite obviously goes against your demands by its nature, courtesy of an inability to meet them. Consequently you would have to destroy these ships then, though I would advise against it, given they are equipped with a number of interdiction mines that would likely trap you here for hours."
This was, in fact, an idea the defences one of their own stations had given him.
"However, we are here to talk, not to fight. Given you have not yet shot upon our arrival, it should be obvious you are interested in some form of information exchange or negotiation as well.
Is that not so?"
Though he was not entirely sure what traps and others assets they had laid in the area, he was well aware that the singular ship in front of 'him' was not the only thing present here. Simply by the fact that they had tried to threaten him they had already implied some manner of military presence. If it was not all a bluff. (edited)
The small ship gave a swift reply. A simple. "The ships being automated does not change our request. Be it virtually, or physically this unit can board your vessel. We know you are following us, and we refuse to communicate remotely. Your threats are meaningless outsider, and your attempts at showing force laughable. Submit, or the next time we encounter each other we will not be so utterly gracious to you. You are only here because we deemed it so."
The voice still grating, became far more vitriolic on their second transmission. The small little craft was indeed not alone, but the Tranatonian battlegroup were all sheathed in dimensional stealth. While not as powerful as the Unnamed that being it's biggest weakness was simply interdiction. They were not easy to detect.
Though the small vessel made itself a bit more clear. Like the stations before plenty of mines armed themselves surrounding the way out. While it was unlikely the Order would be dumb enough to try and jump out in something they likely already predicated was there, it at the least ensured a fight was forced if it came down to that.
Whoever they were, they seemed to be quite confident in their abilities, perhaps overly so, perhaps not, though Aszeven found it unlikely. Regardless of whether their threats were empty or not it was at least impressive, he had not found them yet, though he was quite certain now there were more ships in the area.
Though what was he supposed to tell them now?
"Ah yes, please enter our ship, you will find... absolutely nothing." He shook his metaphorical head.
There was another stretch of silence and then a burst of transmissions from far beyond the system then...
In an unexpected turn of events, transmission channels opened. Not, to an actual transmission or data transfer but into the cyberspace of the scout ship. There were no further responses though, no invitation or explanation.
The old AI found it redundant, if they really were so confident in their abilities, there should be no issues for them to enter.
Beaming from the small ship was in-fact quite a potent AI. Entering the invitation. While perhaps not as advanced as the Exalted Order, it was the best the Tranatonians could produce. The Voice of the Empire being the messenger that was sent here, and a AI of potent power created for things just like this.
They branched off with dozens of connected AI which essentially created a screen around him to protect him from any cyberspace attacks. None branching off either. He waited at the proverbial lobby for an invitation further.
Against expectations, there was no lobby, no further space, he was where he should be, or so it seemed. The cyberspace the foreign AI found itself in was... clean, precise, ordered. It seemed to be perfected to an unnatural degree, there was what appeared to be the ships operational systems, distant, out of range and the comm link to the outside.
The room seemed endless in all directions, yet it seemed constraint, there was a chair sitting on a floor which did not exist, nor did the chair itself exist, it both were merely concepts, constructs, another chair erected opposing to the first. In it sat a man, lanky, elderly, wise, in a non-descript grey suit, long silvery hair and yet he 'was not'. He was a caleidoscope of impossible colours, a hedron of ever changing n-gons, a shape of uncounted limbs.
Yet, somehow, it still seemed like only a fractal of what was behind it.
Whoever or whatever this was, it was here.
It had not spoken yet.
The Voice stayed silent and docile for a moment. Though it began to don on him just what the Exalted were. Slowly he moved forward. 'Speaking.' as he went deeper inside.
"I knew you were no mere primitive from your capabilities of tracking us. But I was not expecting a machine race." The voice paused, looking over the 'lobby' as he spoke. "Why do you seek us? We have no interest in you."
There was a moment of silence. Their words made him curious, either they truly were unaware of their transgressions, or they try to feign ignorance, in either case there was no attempts at a cyber attack upon their entry, so not all was lost quite yet.
The man in the chair opened his mouth and began to 'speak', though the display was no less strange than his appearance, the voice was... odd, multi-faceted fro several moment until it seemed to settle into a tone and voice one befitting of his facade of an appearance.
"Not having interest in us and not having business with us, are two different things, that much is perhaps true."
He paused observing the reaction, the Tranatorian AI 'moved' but each step they took, the cyberscape adjusted relative to it's new position, everything stayed in place, so it was hard to tell if they moved at all.
"You may not have moved against us directly, but we take no favour to those who try to raid our supply vessels and harvesters, be that themselves or by proxy.
"'We' have come here to resolve these transgressions, rather simple I would say and understandably so, who would like to constantly run after organised pirates?" (edited)
The figure kept walking, not caring that the 'mindscape' moved with him. Perhaps out of idleness, or to keep their preverbal mind busy.
"So you wish to strike an accord? The Voice has the authority to do so. Our reach is far, and you meddle with forces beyond you. We are not warmongers, nor savages like the majority of this galaxy. We are peace, order, and stability."
The voice went silent for a very long moment, eventually he spoke. "If you wish to be given immunity to our gatherings, offer something."
Aszeven pondered on what the other AI said, technologically, from what he saw so far, the strangers seemed to be inferior to the Network, though on the other hand, they to used proxies to interact with anyone outside of their own circle as well. That being said, he had no intention of paying what was essentially protection money either way.
"Our offer is simple. We offer peace for peace, silence for silence. We may take no interest in your actions at the current, given there are other more urgent threats, though that may change if your transgression continue."
"On the other hand if our peace persists, some day we maybe able to hint some information that may be interesting to you as well."
Obviously, that would require them accepting the deal first, though there were no hints towards what their unlikely pursuers already knew about them or what they could possibly teach them. In either case, they had already proven they were able to both identify and take down their ships, a prospect hopefully enough to incentivise non-aggression.
Once more silence followed the offer, waiting to be filled with answers.
The Voice continued idly walking in the never changing cyberscape. Idly looking around as he walked. He stopped at the mention of selling information. He took a long pause, then chuckled. "You offer us what we already have. We make peace with none, you know less than nothing of us. We need not your silence. we are everywhere, we are the eyes, the ears, the hands, and the heart of the galaxy. You have encountered us thousands of times, and it is by our grace you are yet living. It is by my grace, as the Voice of our people that you have a second chance to reconsider."
The voice was arogant, like his creators. And the Tranatonians were elitist at best. The way he spoke, the way he offered the deal as if it was a boon? He had used the very same tactics himself on more than one occasion. He knew already these shadowy figures were a threat. Tranatonian Operations were already changing houses to ensure operational security, but Lord Admiral Yanrael would need to be informed to take heavier actions.
The Network was seen more as a threat now, the Voice continued speaking despite his actions, and goals already set. He wanted more information. The more he spoke perhaps the other AI would respond in turn with info they could use. And just perhaps the Voices boasting in half truths would make these hunters hesistant to continue their search.
Aszeven smiled to himself, metaphorically.
He knew now for a fact they were lying. Their arrogance or their fear of the unknown had made them overextend. They were not from Orbeole, not from the Unnamed they were none of the major pirate groups and they certainly were not from the Panopticon or Maginot. A group as ingrained in the galaxy as his 'guest' suggested they were would have left a footprint ...or just wiped them out at the first sign altogether. Now the question remained how deal with them, bait them out or call their bluff, entertain it? He pondered for a couple more moments and decided he would no longer entertain their play, the arrogant ones always irked him, he had other tasks to fulfil.
"Perhaps you are right then, perhaps we are still living by your grace. Surely you already know who we are and surely you saw us coming."
A pause.
"Though it does make one wonder.
...
If all we have to offer you is nothing and all you have to offer us is arrogance, how did it come to this meeting? Surely, just taking what you wanted would be a mere afterthought.
Perhaps you are right.
Perhaps, we really should be at war, if you are as omnipresent as you suggest. Perhaps, we really should be revealing your existence to the galaxy. After all, surely, to one such as you, it would make no difference. A mere routine action to wipe it from the galaxies archives, a mere side thought to wipe us, that you know so much of, from the face of this world."
He paused and pondered.
"Surely, as generous as you are, you'd let us entertain a little play yes? All of this can be easily prevented, let me only ask you a simple question, you who holds this world in their hand.
...
What is our name?"
He had taken a calculated risk, though at the current time he knew enough of this world that the chances of a failure were incredibly slim and the answers he could get from their reaction here could be priceless.
The Voice chuckled at the response, and quickly refuted one point. "Reveal what? A strange ship, destroyed? A meeting in deep space? You have nothing to reveal. It was us who began this war, and it is us who will end it... We are the Empire of Halafrax."
A truth, a possibility, and a lie. Halafrax was a common insult in Tranatonian tone. The voice was arrogant, but not so much so as to be goaded into revealing his hand. He even decided to tell the truth, finding a certain pleasure in knowing it was unlikely to be taken seriously. The Tranatonians had in fact shot the first shots of the war, even helped fan the flames before that. While taking sole responsibility of the war was certainly an over-exaggeration, they had certainly kicked it off.
The voice was tempted to terminate the conversation immediately in a proverbial mic-drop. But he was curious as to how they would act. They were after all surrounded, with no ability to escape just yet.
Aszeven noted the name and began to run search algorithms across the anc net though he fully expected to find nothing but dead ends and proxies. Far more interesting than that was the fact they supposedly started the war, unlike many other things they said, this one may actually be true. He had personally observed the opening stages of Aedleshaven from a distance and did notice the provocative strikes from either side, though they never had the time to follow up with an investigation on who that was.
"An interesting claim of a nation to have ignited the war after stating they are peace and stability.
Reveal what? An interesting question. Certainly something you would wish to know, would you not?
...however, you misunderstand, 'Empire of Halafrax'.
I ask you not for your name, I ask you for ours."
"We have not looked into small, insignificant factions quite yet. You are little threat, that we are gracing you with the...." The voice paused, not wanting to say it due to his own pride. Yet his programing demanded it. "Lowest of our creations. We have given you two chances. More than most."**
The voice rapidly disconnected from the vessel, leaving in his wake a smokescreen of viruses. They were designed far more to ensure the safe disconnect of the voice, than make any real harm. However IF for some reason left to their own they were targeting every vital system they could manage. Quite advanced really, even if under what the order could muster.
The small vessel projecting the interdiction field, and having ferried the voice detonated in short order.
A signal for the rest of the vessels to engage. Exiting dimensional stealth in short order, while maintaining normal silent running. Not quite yet venting the energies as to not give away their position. The fleet commander doubted that they could detect it, but the Tranatonian doctrine was to leave as little as possible to chance.
The most likely to be detected was the 3 dreadnoughts, followed closely by the Heavy Cruisers.
All in all the entire battlegroup began deploying torpedoes yet to be armed, while the corvettes were making a wide loop to flank. Dead center, and detectable heavily on most spectrums. Save visual was a larger ship. The Vengeance-Class being the most armored, and armed was the one to activate its E-War. A shroud of interdiction to replace what the small vessel had dropped, followed by communication, and sensor jamming in every spectrum. Save for psionics.
This did have the effect of painting a huge target on the central vessel. It was lit up like a star.
None of the ships yet fired, the central one having yet to get a target lock.
Aszeven, far off from the site of the incident pondered on the paranoid, borderline panicked reaction of their... he still pondered what to call them.
Adversaries? No, they had hardly done enough to earn such a denominator, even if their behaviour hinted at them potentially being a hindrance in future calling them that would mean every other pirate would be their 'adversary' and they had bigger targets in mind.
However, they certainly were too paranoid to make any lasting or even contemporary deals with, especially in their current state.
He shifted some data around to accommodate the results of the events as the connection to the communication drone grew spotty, enough so that even cross referencing data of different transmission types made it hard to discern the data sent to him, the viruses they had deployed had done little to harm their cyber defences, information and electronic warfare was one of their specialties after all though he had to admit his patience was starting to run low. He was tired of the game though he would see it through to the end.
In the meanwhile in response to its conversation partner and contemporary communication partner disappearing and subsequently detonating the Networks communication drone did...
Nothing.
It stood there as silent as when it arrived even as the multitude of ships began leaving stealth and some of the debris silently plinked of its outer shell.
…though in the end, after several minutes of tension, nothing happened, be it they were too scared or too arrogant to shoot at the idle target, something seemed to have swayed their opinion.
Without any further transmissions or shots fired, one by one the ships suddenly began to blink out, disappearing as quickly as they appeared, though this time leaving the area. In the end, the ultimate factor was likely that it would’ve been far more of a hassle and far more costly to not evade the encounters with the unknown pursuers than it was to simply leave them alone, in the end, however small or large of a threat the constant pursuit from another shadow organisation would’ve been, it was still a threat and one that could be avoided.
Hours later, the Network drone in the area used to communicate would simply disappear. Weeks later Aszeven observed that the statistics of the pirate raids slowly decreased until they almost flatlined. With a mix of satisfaction and discontent he thought back to the encounter, the strange faction he had yet to find out who it was, though in the end it should not be an issue as long as he kept his eyes open and they stayed out of the Networks way.
Many threats lurk amongst the void these days and the day on which they are all discovered may in fact never come, though, they would try nonetheless.
Aszeven read out the data from the Ancerium harvester as the massive engines warmed up to move to the next jump point. They had just left the more remote areas of Garrens Clarity and although harvesting operations proceeded slow this way, it should at least partially mitigate pirate threats.
He recalculated the approximate gains and losses given their current consumption of Ancerium, three harvesters were completely finished now, six more in construction and another three planned. As of currently.
With these number they should be able to counteract the supply shortages, although limiting their consumption would still be necessary even when all of them would be operational.
He dove into the sensor feed again, they were in a nameless empty system somewhere in jump distance of where they harvested, fortunately alone and all systems were operational. The visual cloaks, made to hide the identity of the ship, rather than it's presence, were all active.
He nodded internally and gave the next commands.
With the roar of a suns fire the engines sprung to live and fusion torches began to propel the ship towards its next destination.
Captain Huron Kraelamon Haxroxiate Triecian the fifth. More commonly referred to as Hax. A female humanoid with pointed ears, and in the getup of a 17th century terran pirate. a formidable raider in the expanse even before her capture by Tranatonian agents. Now she was headed by operative FSAO-081264.
Her fleet was modest, but effective. Using old Triarch vessels retrofitted for their needs. They had been tracking the ancerium hauling vessel for some time. While they had planned to intercept them in the expanse this would do just as well. They had tracked the vessels FTL wake signature and were currently in rotue.
"Oi ya scally wags, no good land lubbin, donkey sucken, goddess face fukin' no good cunts! Get to yer stations, time to take a nice, and fat prize!"
The modest attack force consisted of two smaller 'escort' ships that ran interception, and a slightly larger heavy cruiser. All three coming in fast, and loud despite their stealth tech. The Triarch vessels running far, far hotter than they have any right to being a stealth vessel. A byproduct of decades of upgrades.
Even as the engines roared and Proxy Aszeven ran calculations, it didn't take long to take notice of the rather strange vessels, with their extraordinary heat signatures.
Appearing at the borders of the system they had, already, taken an intercept course and given these ships models matched those of one of the more prevalent arms dealer of the galaxy and were heavily modified as well... well.
Those would hardly be friendly patrols.
He looked at his timeframes and the jump coordinates, running more calculations in his sub processes. He would have to try to stall but if he reached the exit point he could potentially get away without a fight. That was, if they did not have interdiction, given their movements they had likely prepared for this.
The fusion torches began glowing brighter, as the harvester sped up. Fake comms systems sprung to live sending hail protocols over radiowave as quantum comms informed nearby escorts of the situation in case they were required, though would remain on standby for now.
"This is the civilian vessel UNV Bountiful Harvest, please identify and state your intentions."
The vessels indeed began to emit a larger than normal interdiction field, and indeed their power signature likely was coming from their core. These ships had no right to be as fast as they were. Rapidly closing in, in a clear intercept. Over the COMMs a female voice could be heard.
"Our intentions' are ta' take ya yer booty. Now ya can surrender all nice like, I'll give ya the one chance. Refuse and every soul aboard your ship is gonna be killed sooner or later."
She cut off the COMMs, and began to activate the vessels jamming. Rather rudimentary in nature, and not very advanced. But it got the job done for long range COMMs more or less.
Aszeven pondered on the situation for a moment before actually reacting.
These vessels did not seem to be interested in negotiations, given the comms jamming, and he was now cut off from most of the normal connections.Given how abruptly he was cut off, the escort would likely make their way here soon but given the interdiction...
Valuable moments passed as interdiction ranges, sublight speeds, time lag and interception ranges were weighed up against one another.
They wouldn't make it in time to assist and even if he would be able to make it to the jump point it would be to no avail, he couldn't jump, obviously.
Though still fast, the harvester was by no means built to reach intercept speeds and such such the pirate vessels slowly began catching up, soon they would reach weapons range, which meant, he'd have to try and fend off the pirates until the escorts arrived or at least postpone direct engagement until then somehow though that was wishful thinking at best. He couldn't just let the asset fall into pirate hands either.
Unless...
He scanned through his inventory and available equipment and systems began charging up, as a plan formed in his artificial mind. Sensors washed over the system and calculations ran on the for the Network admittedly rather mediocre processing core of the Harvester as they didn't want to build sensitive technology into it. Yes, maybe, maybe he could...
As the pirates were approaching and likely soon reaching weapons range, the roughly fifty kilometre long vessel they were pursuing actually began flying a curve, although it's overall speed didn't decrease and the destination it was heading to seemed to be a barren planet without much significance.
The three vessels quickly closed in. They were faster than the average triarch ship, much, much faster. Upon getting into weapons range they began to fire. Going for non critical systems to disable the ship. Like the engines, or if they could manage it the bridge. Taking care to try and not shoot the cargo hold, nor the reactor. The three split off to try and get to different points of the ship.
As the ships approached they quickly found out that, wherever the bridge may be, it certainly wasn't anywhere near the surface of the craft, the other thing they found out was that the ship which was supposed to be a civilian harvester was considerably heavier defended than they could've expected.
As the first shots closed in a light show erupted, projectiles were flung aside, hard light shields sprung into place and kilometres worth of laser point defense came to life, although most of the defenses seemed to be on the sides of the craft.
Soon they would be approaching the planet and, for whatever reason, the harvester seemed to be on course into a rather low orbit.
In the meanwhile, on the inside, Aszeven was micromanaging the ships systems and reading through damage reports, the vibrations of several minor impacts went through the hull, the defenses were tight but not immaculate, there were still some shots going through, although until the impacts came closer or became more numerous, the harvester would hold out for a while at least for now.
As he waited for the planets horizon to come into range he re-checked the status of the drone craft readying them for use.
The three vessels fell for the bait. Boosting in to follow, and continuing to fire as best they could. Firing a wall of missiles to try and get the engines out. At seeing their prey being more of a fight than their average haul they took the risk of firing everything they had.
The vessels pursued into the LEO, and kept up their chase. Their commander seeming to be a bit of a hotshot to say the least.
As the chase continued and battle began to heat up several things happened in quick succession. A swarm of several dozen drones was released by the harvester apparently in response to the large scale missile attack, although they moved to intercept and the rear point defense was still active, it was the weakest area in terms of it, as such a number of the missiles made it through, resulting in an explosion and a flash of light, as well as debris being flung off into the void and towards the planet.
On the inside of the Harvester Aszeven ran through the damage reports in a calculated manner and ran countermeasures in short order as one of the massive engines of the Harvester gave in and the massive ship rocked for a couple of moments before the remaining engines adjusted to the new thrust distribution. Had released the drones earlier he would've perhaps been able to intercept them, then again, there would have also been the chance that they would just have been shot down pre-emptively.
Although one of the massive engines was now out, it was by no means enough to 'beach' the vessel and it disappeared beyond the horizon for several moments, using it as cover as the drones began harassing the pirate ships with point defense lasers and jamming signals. However, given one of the engines had been dealt with it was likely they would be catching up to their prey again soon.
The armored triarch vessels were able to tank most of the point defense lasers, but in such a tight formation the jamming made them slow down for a moment. The lead ship kept course, while one decieded to break back into high orbit to try and chase it to fire from above, while the other began to make a turn, and burn. Opting to head the opposite way to intercept the harvester that they presumed was going to try a slingshot.
The main vessel didn't fire anything due to the jamming, but burned as hard as it could. It's own PDS trying to take out the swarming drones based on visual targeting. Which was evidently less than ideal.
As the battle raged Aszeven, between assessing damages, managing internal systems and controlling the drones, observed closely how the pirates reacted. At least he had bought some time by moving beyond the horizon though he'd have to act quickly if he wanted to seize that advantage. His priority target would likely be the ship which ascended into a higher orbit as the other small ship would take a while to get around the planet and the larger one a couple moments to get past the horizon line.
Now only... for the right moment.
In the meanwhile, whilst small targets, the drones were quite fragile and as such they fell one by one rather quickly, though strangely enough they seemed to have tried to spread evenly around the ship as they attacked, as if probing the ships point defense coverage. Whilst the largest of the three ships was steadily closing in and would likely soon be able to bring its weapon to bear again, the one which rose into orbit found itself... less lucky.
There was a brief moment of silence as the weapons acquired new targeting on the Harvester, though the moment it got line of sight about two dozen of drones came shot over the horizon line, accellerated at full burn flinging themselves directly at the smaller ship like railgun projectiles and likely equally as deadly.
At almost the same moment, the ship detected four more groups of drones launched from the harvester though rather than towards it, they seemed to be going sideways away from it.
The Triarch vessels seemed to prioritize top, and bottom with heavy PDS at the stern and bow of the vessel. Regardless all began to make their approaches as fast as possible. The one circling the planet opted to launch it's entire payload of missiles all of them starting to go on a long arc around the planet, while the one above did something similar. Trying to disable the elusive vessel as fast as possible. The one chasing from the low orbit however launched nothing as of yet.
The ship as it launched it's strike its PDS lit up. The small targets were easy to destroy, but hard to hit. The vessel taking multiple massive breaches, and having its engines go dead with multiple explosion's coming from the interior as it's fuel lines were cut. The vessel was almost immediately grabbed by the gravitational pull of the planets. It's remaining engines, and MAV thrusters doing little to keep it still flying.
Another large group of drones was released as the missiles from the now destroyed ship approached, this time instead of trying to intercept them immediately, opted to use their jamming to throw them off and then start shooting at them.
Aszeven nodded to himself, metaphorically, as one of his adversaries went up in flames, flames hit by the repurposed drones, however, given the point defense distribution of the larger ship that same trick likely wouldn't work for it, given the drones were not exactly made to actually be projectiles. At least not head on.
Albeit he knew of the second smaller ship heading around the planetoid, what he did not know however, was that it had launched its missiles, they would likely soon be in range and soon after the ship itself. However, the more immediate problem at the time was that the larger ship would now come back over the horizon any moment, with a number of orders a third group of drones was set free to jam it's sensors, trying to buy some time if only momentarily, as he observed the reading of the drones he had sent around the planet.
"Sir our sensors can't see anything" The captian looked over to her officers and sighed. "Get visual, and paint them for a lock." She said firmly. The closer ship close behind followed their captains orders. As they rounded over the horizon it took them a solid three minutes to spot, and then shoot a simple laser at them not in the visual spectrum to paint their ship for their weapon systems. Then the guns started to dial in starting to turn to get an angle on the harvester
Metal screeched and burst as railgun slugs passed the distance between the two ships and hit another thruster, whilst the point defense and drones had been effective against the missiles, even they could not keep up with the kinetic projectiles, at least not at this range and angle. With a flash of light and a last short burst of plasma another engine went out leaving the ship with only two main thrusters.
Aszeven stayed calm as the next impacts came, he had expected as much, they were crafty and the jamming didn't buy him too much...
A brief signal, interrupted his train of thought, notifying him there were several contacts approaching from up front, checking back on the drones he realised, it were missiles fired from the other ship and he hadn't picked them up early because the ship was out of the drones sensor range at the time. In a last second effort he fired the reverse thrusters to buy additional seconds and focused some the point defense forward, though it wasn't enough, not for the ones coming from directly up front, with another few flashes of light, explosions rocked the harvester, metal already strained from the abrupt braking screeched, and armour burst open.
Damage reports came in, whilst the structural damage was mostly superficial, several of the frontal rcs thrusters had been rendered inoperational, recalculating the thrust rations he frowned.
He would have to break away from the planets orbit, or he would crash into it if any other thrusters went offline.
He gave new orders, he would have to change tactics but first...
The bottom of the massive ship lit up as its thrusters tried to break it away from teh planets orbit, apparently considerably earlier than intended, they certainly had done some damage, however, as the ship broke away, one of the drone groups sent around the planet reached its attack vectors and went into full burst trying to fling themselves into the second smaller from the angle where its point defense was the weakest. Apparently they were trying to make sure this one was out of the equation, however, with half of its thrust gone, the massive harvester was getting slower due to the gravitic drag of the planet and the largest of the pirate ships was catching up.
The fight was a long one. The Pirate boarders were defeated, and not long after the Harvesters reinforcements arrived.
Deadly close to one Furtum-Class Corvette. If it were running it's full compliment of stealth features it may have gotten away with it was a little bit of dumb luck. Now? Less than a hundred meters of distance.
The small Corvette lit up like a christmas tree on sensors as it's generator went into full drive, and it's stealth dropped. The optical stealth dropping to kill any needless power consumption. It swiveled 180 degrees on a point with the use of it's graviton engines. Then its ancerium booster kicked to life to create some distance. It's graviton beams firing at the ship it was closest to. Proper targeting hadn't been done yet, but the gunners were panicking trying to get any guns that could split the small craft in two.
It was quite small, and quite agile, that much was evident already.
Aszeven had been pondering.
The pirates had been unwilling or incapable of telling him anything which would've been of particular use. They seemed to have been a part of one of the many minor pirate bands in the area, of which there were likely dozens, if not hundreds, nothing one would be able to coherently negotiate with, as such, he threw them out of the airlocks, there was no need to let them pester other people.
However, the appearance of this new foe, gave this adventure an entirely new angle. Was there perhaps a bigger organisation behind some of these groups? Perhaps some discontent native? An opportunistic Colonial? Maybe a megacorp which tried to maximise it's profits off Ancerium?
All this and more went through his artificial mind, sitting on the currently crippled harvester as the opening shots erupted.
Countermeasures fired, particle screens deployed, reality buckled as integrity fields went up to mitigate the effects of the incoming gravity weaponry, the grav fusion reactors of the three escorts had already been active when they came in but now their energy signature shifted to their weapons. Shrapnel was flung into the void as the first shots sheared off parts of the armour, though Network ships were tough, at ranges this close even they took their toll. Internal prisms and turrets swung around, acquiring targeting data through linking up their sensors between each other...
Aszeven pondered. They were fleeing. For but a brief moment he weighed the option of letting them, they seemed to be in panic and if they could track them it would be far more useful than what they could learn from the captured or destroyed ship itself.
Supercapacitors discharged, bolts of particles fired in beams of light and soundless cracks from the escorts weapons, trying to disable the ships electronics and stop it from fleeing.
Aszeven had made his decision. Letting it get away would be too much of a gamble.
The black Corvette was hard to get a proper read, or scan on. Whatever it's hull was made of it didn't take too long to realize the vessel was designed for stealth. The hulls colour practically drawing in light with how black it was. It took several hits, the graviton beam guns moving back to their proper role of point defense. Making bright purple arcs as they stretched across the void.
It took several shots. 4 hitting into's Ancerium booster the current highest mark of energy on the vessel. The booster sputtering and dying out at the Particle weapons. The Tranatonian vessel took two other shots but they were largely disipated by the vessels interior, and exterior hull. The vessel loosing much it's speed, opted to turn about 180 degrees to reface the three ships. Beginning to actively jam the enemy ships COMMs, and Sensors on most spectrums. Not the craziest of jams by Tranatonian standards, but avoiding any sort of method that painted their ship. At the very least it gave them some leeway as targeting would be a bit harder.
At the same time out of the back of the vessel 40 tiny drone starfighters deployed. Each equipped with four vacume torpedoes, and 2 chainguns. All beginning to fan out and head towards the central escort. Launching their missiles when got into range.
The corvette itself fired it's bottom mounted Tachyon cannon. Moving to try and disable their PDS with HE rounds.
There was a stream of plasma escaping the ship as the Tachyon beam tore through the wing sections of one of the Escorts almost unimpeded by the gravitic shields at this range, though there were no signs of escaping atmosphere. The ship was crippled, but not out of the fight yet.
Damage reports flared across Aszevens digital mentalscape noting heightened density of tachyons, though he discarded them, his concerns lied with the drones and jamming.
The Escorts fanned out, much like the enemies own drones, though also distanced themselves, trying to diminish the effects of the jamming by spreading out, piecing together firing solutions from the different perspectives. Notably, one of the ships seemed to lag behind, it's engines had likely been damaged in the initial attack. Space lit up with countless lasers, fired from the Escorts dense point defense network, though mostly to saturate the area with fire and disperse the swarm due to the jamming, clouds of charged plasma dispensed from the hulls and arced lightning at incoming torpedoes and caught projectiles, without requiring advanced firing solutions. Then, they fired a set of missiles of their own, different in nature from the strange ships drones.
Aszeven observed and made notes. Likely military or private military technology, fairly advanced by the Galaxy's standards. Given the ships initial positioning and its stealth capabilities, it had likely been here for the whole battle, which made the fact it hadn't intervened earlier quite interesting.
Just before what Aszeven assumed to be the ships effective range of point defense, estimated by the power of the shots he received in close quarters, they suddenly lit up as if someone had thrown a flashbang at the sensors, however instead of going for a hit, these started to circle the foreign vessel in erratic patterns.
'Unfortunate' was the thing that crossed Aszevens mind as the particle cannons had been only partially successful in disabling their target, he sent commands to activate the primary weapons and prime more missiles. He had no interest in losing any of these escorts to some pirate vessel, no matter how advanced it may be, especially in times like these, as such he would have to use more force, which means, more information would be lost.
Interdiction once more activated in the system. He was certain now, this one shouldn't escape.
The buzz of the Furtum's CIC was in a buzz. Monitors showing out the battlefield inside of the two story hexagon. The commander at the top center amongst a command seat was barking out out orders. "Aquire lock, and fire all tubes, get our transmission ready! Tal'valroth!"
The vessel swiveled around coming out of the nose were four vacuum torpedoes. The vessel maintained it's fire at the same escort. It's target priority going for the highest energy signatures with it's tachyon cannon. The vessel recycled it's four tubes, and moved to fire again in quick succession of the first 4.
Another flash light erupted in the void as the tachyon lance fired again, engines and gravitic signatures flared up as the targeted escort tried to strafe the foreign ship, turning what might've been a kill into a grazing shot, however, with the tachyon lance firing and the ongoing jamming from both sides, it had dodged the tachyon lance, but not quite the torpedoes.
Flames and radiation erupted as two which hadn't been intercepted hit the blindspot created by the earlier damage, closely followed by metal shrapnell and an impressive plume of plasma, coming out the side of the ship in a spectacular display.
The ships energy signature died down, whether it was destroyed or not, it certainly had ceased to function.
Aszeven sighed internally and shook his proverbial head, a distinct discontent in his mind as he thought about the material and time costs this would result in as a burst of data returned to the harvester, detailing the final moments of the escort. They were were already to their neck in other projects, they couldn't afford losses to pirates.
'Fire.'
The command came and several bursts of highly concentrated kinetic pulses not unlike physical projectiles but far more deadly due to being practically invisible fired from the main weapons of the two remaining escorts to the centre of the disturbance on the sensors, trying to triangulate the position of the enemy via their different points of view.
If it hit it would likely destroy the ship, though the cost of the information they could glance from it, should it turn out to be really just pirates has already far exceeded it's value, even if some of the other AI may disagree.
Four more vacuum torpedoes launched in groups of two manage to launch out. The Vessels CIC turning into a blaze, as the vessel took a hard turn to try and take evasive manuevers. Enough that several crew outrigth died from the force reactions. One Tranatonian woman in the CIC who had not secured herself properly currently having her torso inside her stations computer. The vessels captain came over the ships intercom as he flipped up a guarded button on his seat. "Threat level Kaedon, I repeat threat level kaedon. Tal'valroth!" The CIC interjected with a communal. "Tal'valroth." Threat level kadeon was the threat level no tranatonian ever wanted to hear. The ship was going down, and the Tranatonians wanted no evidence. Even still the Captain had just come back from several operations, and thought it prudent.
In the last moments of the strange vantablack craft a encrypted tightbeam transmission arced out. Encoded with this weeks encryption, and in the language of the Tranatonians. Deciphering it was insanely unlikely, but following it was possible. It seemed to be heading towards the interior of the golden expanse.
The ship was hit by their weapons, and at the same time something that shouldn't happen on a hit did. The ship imploded. Condensing into a tiny sphere of clumped metal as the black hole generator was killed off as part of Threat Level Kaedon. A forceful critical state of the generator. And at the same time triggering the ships limited antimatter stores. Resulting in two lightshows that left very, very little of the craft left.
---
---
Aszeven pondered over what happened back then and what happened since as his proverbial 'eyes' searched the void in the expanse through the sensors of the scout ships.
In the hours until the support vessels came around to drag off the damaged ship, it was not the fact that the strange pirates or rather those who controlled them had been able to take down one of his vessels which made him curious.
No, that was merely a matter of timing and opportunity. Though a commendable effort, it wasn't the first and would not be the last time. What had caught his attention back then, was the transmission and the very fact the owners of the ship seemed to be very, very intent on leaving no trace behind.
They had not been entirely successful, though their efforts had not been entire in vain either.
In fact, to this day, he had not fully decrypted the transmission. Sure, on a surface level some of the encoding had been breached, though like with the Networks own, there were many levels to it and without what could be a dozen more samples it would be unlikely he could fully understand what the transmission said. He simply lacked the context and these shadows had gotten careful since their first encounter.
Though, he did not 'need' to know what it contained, far more important was where it led.
... and, now despite all efforts against it, he was here today.
In the process they had lost the track of the signal once and then almost another time at a later point. Boarding the first mobile station hidden on an asteroid the signal led to had initially been a dead end. By the time they were able to reach the comms stations and re-track the signal, one of the operators of the station had already rigged it and it was long gone, affording them to find and take down another of the strange ships.
Whilst he had initially suspected to find something related to the almost mythical 'Unnamed' from this Galaxy, that soon proved to be wrong. These here operated, although similarly, different.
On the second station, they had been far faster and more efficient. From there the process had been... almost tedious.
Tracking the signal through dozens and hundreds of tiny proxy stations, none of which had any clue they were actually being used as a redirector of the signal, had taken time and effort. Though standing here today, the effort had been proven to be worth it.
...and here he was.
Two tiny sensor vessels, standing amidst the void with... nothing. The signal had ended here, it hadn't been redirected to a different place, it simply faded, a link in the chain was missing here.
Someone else would've likely thought he had made a mistake and was wrong here. Though, to him, it was a confirmation.
If nothing was here, it meant 'they', whoever they were, were likely aware they had been followed and moved the asset before they arrived here.
He was even quite certain they were watching now and as such, there was only one thing left to do.
Wait.
Wait and see what would happen.
A loud grating voice echoed out. The single only vessel was a small tiny craft not of the same design as the other strange vessels they had seen before. It projected tightbeam communications to the central ship giving out a loud grating, grinding, deep voice. Like sandpaper against metal to the ears. Its voice projected in ever language able to be downloaded from the ANCnet.
"You have been following that which does not wish to be followed. Submit to boarding, and you may yet live."
Little to the knowledge of the Network ship the area was utterly booby trapped. While the deep space COMM station was moved, mines were layed out all across the area. Along with two light cruisers in dimensional stealth. All of which being primed now in the event they tried to run.
The Tranatonians didn't want to force project here, to what was likely a scout. While they could jam transmissions, it was a risk that was not necessary in their eyes.
The one ship that could be scoped out was a simple personal transport ship that was bought on the open market. By no means like the ship they had encountered before.
There was a long while of silence where the ships did not answer or even show any sign they actually received the message.
Aszeven pondered. They were here after all, his expectations had been met, his patience rewarded. Now there was only left to find out more.
They had also been very straight to the point, not a rare but neither a universal quality.
He had long had his answer ready, though he was curious to see how they would react. The voice which returned was smooth, though clearly artificial, solely spoken in galactic common.
"I am afraid there are no traversable interiors to the ships before you, nor are there any ways to dock them conventionally. A given, considering they are automated assets."
There was a pause.
"Now, this quite obviously goes against your demands by its nature, courtesy of an inability to meet them. Consequently you would have to destroy these ships then, though I would advise against it, given they are equipped with a number of interdiction mines that would likely trap you here for hours."
This was, in fact, an idea the defences one of their own stations had given him.
"However, we are here to talk, not to fight. Given you have not yet shot upon our arrival, it should be obvious you are interested in some form of information exchange or negotiation as well.
Is that not so?"
Though he was not entirely sure what traps and others assets they had laid in the area, he was well aware that the singular ship in front of 'him' was not the only thing present here. Simply by the fact that they had tried to threaten him they had already implied some manner of military presence. If it was not all a bluff. (edited)
The small ship gave a swift reply. A simple. "The ships being automated does not change our request. Be it virtually, or physically this unit can board your vessel. We know you are following us, and we refuse to communicate remotely. Your threats are meaningless outsider, and your attempts at showing force laughable. Submit, or the next time we encounter each other we will not be so utterly gracious to you. You are only here because we deemed it so."
The voice still grating, became far more vitriolic on their second transmission. The small little craft was indeed not alone, but the Tranatonian battlegroup were all sheathed in dimensional stealth. While not as powerful as the Unnamed that being it's biggest weakness was simply interdiction. They were not easy to detect.
Though the small vessel made itself a bit more clear. Like the stations before plenty of mines armed themselves surrounding the way out. While it was unlikely the Order would be dumb enough to try and jump out in something they likely already predicated was there, it at the least ensured a fight was forced if it came down to that.
Whoever they were, they seemed to be quite confident in their abilities, perhaps overly so, perhaps not, though Aszeven found it unlikely. Regardless of whether their threats were empty or not it was at least impressive, he had not found them yet, though he was quite certain now there were more ships in the area.
Though what was he supposed to tell them now?
"Ah yes, please enter our ship, you will find... absolutely nothing." He shook his metaphorical head.
There was another stretch of silence and then a burst of transmissions from far beyond the system then...
In an unexpected turn of events, transmission channels opened. Not, to an actual transmission or data transfer but into the cyberspace of the scout ship. There were no further responses though, no invitation or explanation.
The old AI found it redundant, if they really were so confident in their abilities, there should be no issues for them to enter.
Beaming from the small ship was in-fact quite a potent AI. Entering the invitation. While perhaps not as advanced as the Exalted Order, it was the best the Tranatonians could produce. The Voice of the Empire being the messenger that was sent here, and a AI of potent power created for things just like this.
They branched off with dozens of connected AI which essentially created a screen around him to protect him from any cyberspace attacks. None branching off either. He waited at the proverbial lobby for an invitation further.
Against expectations, there was no lobby, no further space, he was where he should be, or so it seemed. The cyberspace the foreign AI found itself in was... clean, precise, ordered. It seemed to be perfected to an unnatural degree, there was what appeared to be the ships operational systems, distant, out of range and the comm link to the outside.
The room seemed endless in all directions, yet it seemed constraint, there was a chair sitting on a floor which did not exist, nor did the chair itself exist, it both were merely concepts, constructs, another chair erected opposing to the first. In it sat a man, lanky, elderly, wise, in a non-descript grey suit, long silvery hair and yet he 'was not'. He was a caleidoscope of impossible colours, a hedron of ever changing n-gons, a shape of uncounted limbs.
Yet, somehow, it still seemed like only a fractal of what was behind it.
Whoever or whatever this was, it was here.
It had not spoken yet.
The Voice stayed silent and docile for a moment. Though it began to don on him just what the Exalted were. Slowly he moved forward. 'Speaking.' as he went deeper inside.
"I knew you were no mere primitive from your capabilities of tracking us. But I was not expecting a machine race." The voice paused, looking over the 'lobby' as he spoke. "Why do you seek us? We have no interest in you."
There was a moment of silence. Their words made him curious, either they truly were unaware of their transgressions, or they try to feign ignorance, in either case there was no attempts at a cyber attack upon their entry, so not all was lost quite yet.
The man in the chair opened his mouth and began to 'speak', though the display was no less strange than his appearance, the voice was... odd, multi-faceted fro several moment until it seemed to settle into a tone and voice one befitting of his facade of an appearance.
"Not having interest in us and not having business with us, are two different things, that much is perhaps true."
He paused observing the reaction, the Tranatorian AI 'moved' but each step they took, the cyberscape adjusted relative to it's new position, everything stayed in place, so it was hard to tell if they moved at all.
"You may not have moved against us directly, but we take no favour to those who try to raid our supply vessels and harvesters, be that themselves or by proxy.
"'We' have come here to resolve these transgressions, rather simple I would say and understandably so, who would like to constantly run after organised pirates?" (edited)
The figure kept walking, not caring that the 'mindscape' moved with him. Perhaps out of idleness, or to keep their preverbal mind busy.
"So you wish to strike an accord? The Voice has the authority to do so. Our reach is far, and you meddle with forces beyond you. We are not warmongers, nor savages like the majority of this galaxy. We are peace, order, and stability."
The voice went silent for a very long moment, eventually he spoke. "If you wish to be given immunity to our gatherings, offer something."
Aszeven pondered on what the other AI said, technologically, from what he saw so far, the strangers seemed to be inferior to the Network, though on the other hand, they to used proxies to interact with anyone outside of their own circle as well. That being said, he had no intention of paying what was essentially protection money either way.
"Our offer is simple. We offer peace for peace, silence for silence. We may take no interest in your actions at the current, given there are other more urgent threats, though that may change if your transgression continue."
"On the other hand if our peace persists, some day we maybe able to hint some information that may be interesting to you as well."
Obviously, that would require them accepting the deal first, though there were no hints towards what their unlikely pursuers already knew about them or what they could possibly teach them. In either case, they had already proven they were able to both identify and take down their ships, a prospect hopefully enough to incentivise non-aggression.
Once more silence followed the offer, waiting to be filled with answers.
The Voice continued idly walking in the never changing cyberscape. Idly looking around as he walked. He stopped at the mention of selling information. He took a long pause, then chuckled. "You offer us what we already have. We make peace with none, you know less than nothing of us. We need not your silence. we are everywhere, we are the eyes, the ears, the hands, and the heart of the galaxy. You have encountered us thousands of times, and it is by our grace you are yet living. It is by my grace, as the Voice of our people that you have a second chance to reconsider."
The voice was arogant, like his creators. And the Tranatonians were elitist at best. The way he spoke, the way he offered the deal as if it was a boon? He had used the very same tactics himself on more than one occasion. He knew already these shadowy figures were a threat. Tranatonian Operations were already changing houses to ensure operational security, but Lord Admiral Yanrael would need to be informed to take heavier actions.
The Network was seen more as a threat now, the Voice continued speaking despite his actions, and goals already set. He wanted more information. The more he spoke perhaps the other AI would respond in turn with info they could use. And just perhaps the Voices boasting in half truths would make these hunters hesistant to continue their search.
Aszeven smiled to himself, metaphorically.
He knew now for a fact they were lying. Their arrogance or their fear of the unknown had made them overextend. They were not from Orbeole, not from the Unnamed they were none of the major pirate groups and they certainly were not from the Panopticon or Maginot. A group as ingrained in the galaxy as his 'guest' suggested they were would have left a footprint ...or just wiped them out at the first sign altogether. Now the question remained how deal with them, bait them out or call their bluff, entertain it? He pondered for a couple more moments and decided he would no longer entertain their play, the arrogant ones always irked him, he had other tasks to fulfil.
"Perhaps you are right then, perhaps we are still living by your grace. Surely you already know who we are and surely you saw us coming."
A pause.
"Though it does make one wonder.
...
If all we have to offer you is nothing and all you have to offer us is arrogance, how did it come to this meeting? Surely, just taking what you wanted would be a mere afterthought.
Perhaps you are right.
Perhaps, we really should be at war, if you are as omnipresent as you suggest. Perhaps, we really should be revealing your existence to the galaxy. After all, surely, to one such as you, it would make no difference. A mere routine action to wipe it from the galaxies archives, a mere side thought to wipe us, that you know so much of, from the face of this world."
He paused and pondered.
"Surely, as generous as you are, you'd let us entertain a little play yes? All of this can be easily prevented, let me only ask you a simple question, you who holds this world in their hand.
...
What is our name?"
He had taken a calculated risk, though at the current time he knew enough of this world that the chances of a failure were incredibly slim and the answers he could get from their reaction here could be priceless.
The Voice chuckled at the response, and quickly refuted one point. "Reveal what? A strange ship, destroyed? A meeting in deep space? You have nothing to reveal. It was us who began this war, and it is us who will end it... We are the Empire of Halafrax."
A truth, a possibility, and a lie. Halafrax was a common insult in Tranatonian tone. The voice was arrogant, but not so much so as to be goaded into revealing his hand. He even decided to tell the truth, finding a certain pleasure in knowing it was unlikely to be taken seriously. The Tranatonians had in fact shot the first shots of the war, even helped fan the flames before that. While taking sole responsibility of the war was certainly an over-exaggeration, they had certainly kicked it off.
The voice was tempted to terminate the conversation immediately in a proverbial mic-drop. But he was curious as to how they would act. They were after all surrounded, with no ability to escape just yet.
Aszeven noted the name and began to run search algorithms across the anc net though he fully expected to find nothing but dead ends and proxies. Far more interesting than that was the fact they supposedly started the war, unlike many other things they said, this one may actually be true. He had personally observed the opening stages of Aedleshaven from a distance and did notice the provocative strikes from either side, though they never had the time to follow up with an investigation on who that was.
"An interesting claim of a nation to have ignited the war after stating they are peace and stability.
Reveal what? An interesting question. Certainly something you would wish to know, would you not?
...however, you misunderstand, 'Empire of Halafrax'.
I ask you not for your name, I ask you for ours."
"We have not looked into small, insignificant factions quite yet. You are little threat, that we are gracing you with the...." The voice paused, not wanting to say it due to his own pride. Yet his programing demanded it. "Lowest of our creations. We have given you two chances. More than most."**
The voice rapidly disconnected from the vessel, leaving in his wake a smokescreen of viruses. They were designed far more to ensure the safe disconnect of the voice, than make any real harm. However IF for some reason left to their own they were targeting every vital system they could manage. Quite advanced really, even if under what the order could muster.
The small vessel projecting the interdiction field, and having ferried the voice detonated in short order.
A signal for the rest of the vessels to engage. Exiting dimensional stealth in short order, while maintaining normal silent running. Not quite yet venting the energies as to not give away their position. The fleet commander doubted that they could detect it, but the Tranatonian doctrine was to leave as little as possible to chance.
The most likely to be detected was the 3 dreadnoughts, followed closely by the Heavy Cruisers.
All in all the entire battlegroup began deploying torpedoes yet to be armed, while the corvettes were making a wide loop to flank. Dead center, and detectable heavily on most spectrums. Save visual was a larger ship. The Vengeance-Class being the most armored, and armed was the one to activate its E-War. A shroud of interdiction to replace what the small vessel had dropped, followed by communication, and sensor jamming in every spectrum. Save for psionics.
This did have the effect of painting a huge target on the central vessel. It was lit up like a star.
None of the ships yet fired, the central one having yet to get a target lock.
Aszeven, far off from the site of the incident pondered on the paranoid, borderline panicked reaction of their... he still pondered what to call them.
Adversaries? No, they had hardly done enough to earn such a denominator, even if their behaviour hinted at them potentially being a hindrance in future calling them that would mean every other pirate would be their 'adversary' and they had bigger targets in mind.
However, they certainly were too paranoid to make any lasting or even contemporary deals with, especially in their current state.
He shifted some data around to accommodate the results of the events as the connection to the communication drone grew spotty, enough so that even cross referencing data of different transmission types made it hard to discern the data sent to him, the viruses they had deployed had done little to harm their cyber defences, information and electronic warfare was one of their specialties after all though he had to admit his patience was starting to run low. He was tired of the game though he would see it through to the end.
In the meanwhile in response to its conversation partner and contemporary communication partner disappearing and subsequently detonating the Networks communication drone did...
Nothing.
It stood there as silent as when it arrived even as the multitude of ships began leaving stealth and some of the debris silently plinked of its outer shell.
…though in the end, after several minutes of tension, nothing happened, be it they were too scared or too arrogant to shoot at the idle target, something seemed to have swayed their opinion.
Without any further transmissions or shots fired, one by one the ships suddenly began to blink out, disappearing as quickly as they appeared, though this time leaving the area. In the end, the ultimate factor was likely that it would’ve been far more of a hassle and far more costly to not evade the encounters with the unknown pursuers than it was to simply leave them alone, in the end, however small or large of a threat the constant pursuit from another shadow organisation would’ve been, it was still a threat and one that could be avoided.
Hours later, the Network drone in the area used to communicate would simply disappear. Weeks later Aszeven observed that the statistics of the pirate raids slowly decreased until they almost flatlined. With a mix of satisfaction and discontent he thought back to the encounter, the strange faction he had yet to find out who it was, though in the end it should not be an issue as long as he kept his eyes open and they stayed out of the Networks way.
Many threats lurk amongst the void these days and the day on which they are all discovered may in fact never come, though, they would try nonetheless.