Post by bluesnailok on Mar 21, 2021 19:18:06 GMT
Baefen System: Joint EPA-CDG Space
A flash. That’s all it was, brief and small but it was still there. Space returned to normal seconds after.
The FTL jump had emitted faint readings, but then no FTL translation could ever be completely stealthy. The bridge was completely unlike most vessels, only 10 people sat in near total darkness, each surrounded by a circle of bright green holoscreen each displaying huge amounts of data that streamed in from the passive sensor systems, and would more than triple when active was engaged.
Each of these individuals wore black bodysuits, their faces covered by multi lensed masks which gave an eerie alien feel to the bridge as their fingers each connected to wires traced arcs around the holoscreen, their spines also running with wires into the large ports behind them. Only one on the bridge was not fully plugged in, sat in a horizontal laid chair at the top of the bridge Ferinarzas eyes rapidly blinked back and forth, the large neural plug inlaid to her skull dumping information into her brain as she ran system checks and ensured that the ship was fully operational. Her face was only partially covered, and her body suit was less cumbersome, able to allow her to detach and walk around at will. The ship only ran by 40 crew members. 10 up here on the bridge, 10 in engineering, 10 in weapons control and 10 in auxiliary systems. All controlled in similar ways, through neutral uplinks, the pinnacle of Triarch engineering in ship control, this truly was a ghost ship.
Ferinaza observed the system they had arrived in. Mission parameters had dictated the that the ship would rendezvous with EPA and CDG forces in the Baefen system to pick up some kind of catalyst to add to the ships weapon systems before finally getting the greenlight to deploy to the target site.
The Ship itself was clearly Triarch, however it was odd, sleek and refined with no blemishes on the hull taken up by sensors or turrets. Everything was internal, its black swept hull almost like a marine predator, and she liked that comparison, only this predator hunted strategic level targets.
Grey Phantom had been a massive project undertaken during the 1st Ancerious war by Triarch Industries, and while riddled with setbacks and not directly being in the war Triarch had held the ship highly and with its involvement in the current conflict Ferinaza was finally able to unleash its capabilities. With its Phantom drive online and active they would be completely undetectable as they closed with the world, even able to slip through the planet if need be, the drive displacing the ship into its own zone and containing the energies emitted that might give the system away. She instinctively checked the clock, 7 days until venting, all was well. The energies that concealed the ship would also kill her and the crew, she would commence venting here while the ship was given its catalyst.
Slowly moving in towards the world Ferinaza deactivated the Phantom drive, the sleek ship suddenly appearing as if from nowhere, now began to enter an orbital path, opening up a coms channel with their benefactors in the process. Her voice was dry, she hadn’t used her mouth at all for a good 9 days.
"This is Stealth Strategic Strike Unit reporting. We are entering orbit now"
"Stealth Strategic Strike Unit we copy you" the transmission came in reply from the ship that had assumed orbital control over Baefen. An enormous ship almost the polar opposite of Grey Phantom, marble white and with palatial detailing around each one of its panel lines, window frames, thrusters and sensors. It was like an extremely elongated, exquisitely manufactured fabregé egg of swirling crystal shapes encrusted in fractal patterns of gold and phasic jewellery that ran along the 15km ship. Around the middle of the ship a ring of sensors and communications equipment rotated, acting as a control tower for coordinating the many scientific ships floating around Baefen. The Sibling Eater's personal vessel, simply named William Von Berlifitzing, an old family heirloom passed down three generations and packed with trophies, heraldry and the records of the EPA commander's former family.
"Orbital insertion complete." The controllers, who in contrast with their Triarch counterparts were submerged in a completely white holographic expanse, announced. Seventeen other scientific research ships orbited the planet and all of them had to change their courses slightly to avoid disrupting their orbits with the Triarch behemoth.
Underneath the William Von Berlifitzing, fourteen obsidian skyscrapers had been erected on the surface and split in three groups. Inside each one of these groups the chaotic, rapidly-evolving swirling of amorphous life had rapidly organized into geometric superstructures reminiscent of twisted living cityscapes, as if their evolution was guided by the influence of whatever was in the skyscrapers. The most striking of such features were a chain of 7 perfectly circular craters carved into the biomass, extending for miles and housing fragile-looking FTL transmitters in their middle.
A new vessel soon made its presence known. Like a monstrous beast, a twenty nine kilometre CDG carrier dreadnaught, in all its insectoid glory drifted into the system, limbs and pincers barred aggressively, and took a place over the planet for itself, postured like an animal prepared to defend its territory from any who could threaten it. On the ship's bridge, the crew of the beast worked and chattered amongst themselves, their leader, a crusader in heavy green patterned red Armor sat in command, bone and metal trinkets from enemies past were draped over his plating for his own personal, grizzly flare.
"Crusader Biden, we have arrived" a one armed zealot gave his commander a status report. The wound was fresh, only recently treated, the zealot seemed fearful of his commander, speaking quickly and to the point, not with the same pride or eccentricity that any of the other crusaders would have appreciated in their followers. The crusader had just put on his helmet and growled from under its fanged features, designed to resemble a snake head wrapped around a humanoid skull. The crusader stood, causing the zealot to flinch at the sudden rise of his hulking commander, the "man's" Armor seemed to be modified to accommodate for his larger than normal size and sheer bulk. The plating on his gut bounced with him and shifted with his weight as he balanced himself on his feet in an almost drunken manner. he was a mountain of muscle and fat, with a technologically enhanced hammer at his back and blood stained gauntlets over his likely clawed hands. The zealot waited patiently for the crusader to adjust himself and crack his joints.
"Inform them of our arrival" Biden's voice sounded hollow and deep from behind his helmet, accompanied by a crunching noise, like teeth grinding and bone cracking. "Prepare for the meeting....have my chambers ready when I return, -you- be ready...or it shall be your other arm next time....."
"Y-yes, Crusader Biden...it shall be done, your pets...and I...shall wait and be ready...."
"Good...." The monstrous creature turned his massive form around and lumbered his armoured form slowly through the doors, stopping just before leaving. "Inform Crusader Lark I will not wait if I reach the hangar before him...."
"Yes, Crusader" The zealot immediately turned and rushed to the comms system to send his message to the other side of the ship, where this Crusader Lark waited in a dark room, a dark silhouette hanging upside down by his feet and surrounded by the only light source around, screens, dozens of television-like screens, each showing a different channel of Ancerious' media. The new message from the zealot turning him away from his current show, which he had been watching closely like a child after school.
"Crusader Lark, Biden demands you be in the hangar before he gets there or else he'll leave without you!" The zealot spoke quickly and yet far more as expected of a CDG zealot, with familiarity.
"Damn....." Lark muttered to himself. "And right in the middle of my favourite episode of 'Galactic Interlude'.
Ferinaza brought the colossal black ship close to the completely stark contrasting marble effigy that EPA called a ship. Her sensors also telling her of the arrival of the CDG, clearly the ones who would be providing her the black blood, the catalyst she had been commanded to acquire before her mission was green lit. Watching the CDG vessel pull up close she checked that all systems were nominal before finally disconnecting herself from the ship.
She always hated this part. Despite the advancements in neural control there were always a few minutes of dislocation, of senses which hadn’t been used in weeks returning. Her sight came back to her first, blurry eyed and hurting. Her sense of touch slowly coming back as pins and needles could be felt all over, but quickly receded. Her hearing returning in the form of titinis before she could hear the low humming of the ship. Her mouth however was dry and cracked, while the command chair provided her nutrients through specialised tubes which she now disconnected her mouth had not been used in a while.
It took roughly 20 minutes for her to get ready, Eating and drinking some real food and water was almost a god send, she scoffed what she needed, feeling her mouth and throat and tongue come back to life before she practiced talking, ensuring her coarse throat pronounced what she actually needed to convey. Quickly leaving the small and devoid crew quarters she made her way to the shuttle bay, a very small area with two small Stealth craft, climbing into the cockpit and opening the other bulkhead she slowly flew the craft over to the monumental shining white palace of a ship also noting the CDG shuttle also making its way over rapidly landing inside one of the completely overdone ornate hangar bays. Almost blinded by the brightness of the place she decided to make her way further in.
It only took one step out of the shuttle that brought her onto the luxury ship for the EPA captain to have her senses saturated from all sides, a flashbang of grandiose art after so many days of complete darkness. Around her stood men in shining medieval Armor engraved with heraldic gryphons over the pale pink skies of a summer sundown. With such detail and dynamism were the knights drawn as they defended a perimeter that one could not avoid perceiving that they were in motion, feeling the pull of tension in every muscle. Pearls of sweat, drops of rain, flies hovered statically in mid-air, suspended in time. Surrounded on all sides, the knights pointed their shining steel at a horde of skin-clad barbarians that stretched onto the ruined cities in the background. In the middle of the perimeter stood a valiant wounded king defending a sacred relic salvaged from a burning church in the horizon. The dead piled in front of them, the wounded drew their swords one last time while on the ground. All around them the scenery was consumed by pyres and smoke yet the king shone like a star.
'WALDEMAR VON METZERGERNSTEIN' was written in gothic holographic letters at the base of the scene.
The captain took another step and her surroundings were instantly replaced in a violent metamorphosis into an equally detailed scene showing the breath-taking coronation of a king. 'FRIEDRICH III VON METZERGERNSTEIN' adorned the ceiling in Romanesque holographic lettering. This time, on top of the precious dimensional artwork, several physical shelves and tables displayed the actual arms and jewellery preserved ever since the real coronation had taken place centuries ago.
Another step took her centuries and thousands of miles away to the ferocious, snowy peaks where a deshelled wounded knight bloodied a large contorted wyvern. Then the graduation ceremony of a legendary academic in a vast skyscraper library. Then to a modestly-clothed king with two diplomats to his side. With every step she dived deeper into the layered art gallery whose walls were increasingly crowded with physical paintings and statues on top of the dimensional manipulation.
The final artwork, perhaps the most grandiose, showed the construction of a majestic marble city surrounded on all sides by concentric rings of hydroponic farming, with observatories and academies stretching high into the air, defended by sophisticated armies and inhabited by a civilized citizenry. They all gathered together for the biggest celebration: the birth of a triplet of twins. Here what struck Ferinaza the most was that the artist was still in there, finishing the majestic work by calmly meditating to the aroma of several incense sticks around him, everything in the dimensional painting gained detail and acquired a much more real feel to it. He wore a formal black suit and sat on a couch, smoking a pipe while working on the millions of faces in the crowd. Several apprentices meditated alongside him, humming a calm conversation.
"May I be of assistance, miss?" The master artist asked with a courteous bow even though she had disrupted his craft.
She seemed to cock her head to one side "I am looking for the church of draconian gods and EPA representatives which were to be meeting me aboard this ship. Do you know where they may be located?" She asked, staring around at the paintings, wincing as her eyes were still becoming accustomed to the brightness, she had after all been in Grey Phantom for over a month straight now, and the ship didn’t have much in the way of lighting.
The CDG ship which was found in the hangar was a peculiar one, certainly when compared to the more common tropes found on other ships of its type. instead of anything simple, the CDG ship could only be described as a gigantic metal hornet, although saying it was entirely metal was still inaccurate, as its bus-sized abdomen had a certain organic nature to it that seemed to pulse and shift in an oily black carapace which was visible just under the shiny metallic Armor which reflected light not unlike an insect carapace. Between snapping, salivating jaws, a passageway manifested. Reshaped from the ship's teeth and throat and connecting to where the eyes would be from the inside, opening to a pair of doors which led to the ships cockpits, each one of the hornet's eyes.
Biden was the first to leave, his massive armoured frame was barely able to fit in the small entry-way the ship allowed but he still made it through with no trouble. the second occupant however seemed to struggle slightly more with his escape from the ship as he had to hunch over and practically crawl to work his unnaturally tall and thin form free from the space. Much of his features and armour seemed to be concealed by what appeared to be a long black cloak, making him almost monolithic in appearance once he stood straight, only his armoured head was visible from above his cloak, a helmet which looked suspiciously bat-like and designed for more than a single pair of eyes. Next to Biden, Lark looked like an entirely different species altogether, their only connection was their animal themed armours, and otherwise they both seemed to be polar opposites.
A flash. That’s all it was, brief and small but it was still there. Space returned to normal seconds after.
The FTL jump had emitted faint readings, but then no FTL translation could ever be completely stealthy. The bridge was completely unlike most vessels, only 10 people sat in near total darkness, each surrounded by a circle of bright green holoscreen each displaying huge amounts of data that streamed in from the passive sensor systems, and would more than triple when active was engaged.
Each of these individuals wore black bodysuits, their faces covered by multi lensed masks which gave an eerie alien feel to the bridge as their fingers each connected to wires traced arcs around the holoscreen, their spines also running with wires into the large ports behind them. Only one on the bridge was not fully plugged in, sat in a horizontal laid chair at the top of the bridge Ferinarzas eyes rapidly blinked back and forth, the large neural plug inlaid to her skull dumping information into her brain as she ran system checks and ensured that the ship was fully operational. Her face was only partially covered, and her body suit was less cumbersome, able to allow her to detach and walk around at will. The ship only ran by 40 crew members. 10 up here on the bridge, 10 in engineering, 10 in weapons control and 10 in auxiliary systems. All controlled in similar ways, through neutral uplinks, the pinnacle of Triarch engineering in ship control, this truly was a ghost ship.
Ferinaza observed the system they had arrived in. Mission parameters had dictated the that the ship would rendezvous with EPA and CDG forces in the Baefen system to pick up some kind of catalyst to add to the ships weapon systems before finally getting the greenlight to deploy to the target site.
The Ship itself was clearly Triarch, however it was odd, sleek and refined with no blemishes on the hull taken up by sensors or turrets. Everything was internal, its black swept hull almost like a marine predator, and she liked that comparison, only this predator hunted strategic level targets.
Grey Phantom had been a massive project undertaken during the 1st Ancerious war by Triarch Industries, and while riddled with setbacks and not directly being in the war Triarch had held the ship highly and with its involvement in the current conflict Ferinaza was finally able to unleash its capabilities. With its Phantom drive online and active they would be completely undetectable as they closed with the world, even able to slip through the planet if need be, the drive displacing the ship into its own zone and containing the energies emitted that might give the system away. She instinctively checked the clock, 7 days until venting, all was well. The energies that concealed the ship would also kill her and the crew, she would commence venting here while the ship was given its catalyst.
Slowly moving in towards the world Ferinaza deactivated the Phantom drive, the sleek ship suddenly appearing as if from nowhere, now began to enter an orbital path, opening up a coms channel with their benefactors in the process. Her voice was dry, she hadn’t used her mouth at all for a good 9 days.
"This is Stealth Strategic Strike Unit reporting. We are entering orbit now"
"Stealth Strategic Strike Unit we copy you" the transmission came in reply from the ship that had assumed orbital control over Baefen. An enormous ship almost the polar opposite of Grey Phantom, marble white and with palatial detailing around each one of its panel lines, window frames, thrusters and sensors. It was like an extremely elongated, exquisitely manufactured fabregé egg of swirling crystal shapes encrusted in fractal patterns of gold and phasic jewellery that ran along the 15km ship. Around the middle of the ship a ring of sensors and communications equipment rotated, acting as a control tower for coordinating the many scientific ships floating around Baefen. The Sibling Eater's personal vessel, simply named William Von Berlifitzing, an old family heirloom passed down three generations and packed with trophies, heraldry and the records of the EPA commander's former family.
"Orbital insertion complete." The controllers, who in contrast with their Triarch counterparts were submerged in a completely white holographic expanse, announced. Seventeen other scientific research ships orbited the planet and all of them had to change their courses slightly to avoid disrupting their orbits with the Triarch behemoth.
Underneath the William Von Berlifitzing, fourteen obsidian skyscrapers had been erected on the surface and split in three groups. Inside each one of these groups the chaotic, rapidly-evolving swirling of amorphous life had rapidly organized into geometric superstructures reminiscent of twisted living cityscapes, as if their evolution was guided by the influence of whatever was in the skyscrapers. The most striking of such features were a chain of 7 perfectly circular craters carved into the biomass, extending for miles and housing fragile-looking FTL transmitters in their middle.
A new vessel soon made its presence known. Like a monstrous beast, a twenty nine kilometre CDG carrier dreadnaught, in all its insectoid glory drifted into the system, limbs and pincers barred aggressively, and took a place over the planet for itself, postured like an animal prepared to defend its territory from any who could threaten it. On the ship's bridge, the crew of the beast worked and chattered amongst themselves, their leader, a crusader in heavy green patterned red Armor sat in command, bone and metal trinkets from enemies past were draped over his plating for his own personal, grizzly flare.
"Crusader Biden, we have arrived" a one armed zealot gave his commander a status report. The wound was fresh, only recently treated, the zealot seemed fearful of his commander, speaking quickly and to the point, not with the same pride or eccentricity that any of the other crusaders would have appreciated in their followers. The crusader had just put on his helmet and growled from under its fanged features, designed to resemble a snake head wrapped around a humanoid skull. The crusader stood, causing the zealot to flinch at the sudden rise of his hulking commander, the "man's" Armor seemed to be modified to accommodate for his larger than normal size and sheer bulk. The plating on his gut bounced with him and shifted with his weight as he balanced himself on his feet in an almost drunken manner. he was a mountain of muscle and fat, with a technologically enhanced hammer at his back and blood stained gauntlets over his likely clawed hands. The zealot waited patiently for the crusader to adjust himself and crack his joints.
"Inform them of our arrival" Biden's voice sounded hollow and deep from behind his helmet, accompanied by a crunching noise, like teeth grinding and bone cracking. "Prepare for the meeting....have my chambers ready when I return, -you- be ready...or it shall be your other arm next time....."
"Y-yes, Crusader Biden...it shall be done, your pets...and I...shall wait and be ready...."
"Good...." The monstrous creature turned his massive form around and lumbered his armoured form slowly through the doors, stopping just before leaving. "Inform Crusader Lark I will not wait if I reach the hangar before him...."
"Yes, Crusader" The zealot immediately turned and rushed to the comms system to send his message to the other side of the ship, where this Crusader Lark waited in a dark room, a dark silhouette hanging upside down by his feet and surrounded by the only light source around, screens, dozens of television-like screens, each showing a different channel of Ancerious' media. The new message from the zealot turning him away from his current show, which he had been watching closely like a child after school.
"Crusader Lark, Biden demands you be in the hangar before he gets there or else he'll leave without you!" The zealot spoke quickly and yet far more as expected of a CDG zealot, with familiarity.
"Damn....." Lark muttered to himself. "And right in the middle of my favourite episode of 'Galactic Interlude'.
Ferinaza brought the colossal black ship close to the completely stark contrasting marble effigy that EPA called a ship. Her sensors also telling her of the arrival of the CDG, clearly the ones who would be providing her the black blood, the catalyst she had been commanded to acquire before her mission was green lit. Watching the CDG vessel pull up close she checked that all systems were nominal before finally disconnecting herself from the ship.
She always hated this part. Despite the advancements in neural control there were always a few minutes of dislocation, of senses which hadn’t been used in weeks returning. Her sight came back to her first, blurry eyed and hurting. Her sense of touch slowly coming back as pins and needles could be felt all over, but quickly receded. Her hearing returning in the form of titinis before she could hear the low humming of the ship. Her mouth however was dry and cracked, while the command chair provided her nutrients through specialised tubes which she now disconnected her mouth had not been used in a while.
It took roughly 20 minutes for her to get ready, Eating and drinking some real food and water was almost a god send, she scoffed what she needed, feeling her mouth and throat and tongue come back to life before she practiced talking, ensuring her coarse throat pronounced what she actually needed to convey. Quickly leaving the small and devoid crew quarters she made her way to the shuttle bay, a very small area with two small Stealth craft, climbing into the cockpit and opening the other bulkhead she slowly flew the craft over to the monumental shining white palace of a ship also noting the CDG shuttle also making its way over rapidly landing inside one of the completely overdone ornate hangar bays. Almost blinded by the brightness of the place she decided to make her way further in.
It only took one step out of the shuttle that brought her onto the luxury ship for the EPA captain to have her senses saturated from all sides, a flashbang of grandiose art after so many days of complete darkness. Around her stood men in shining medieval Armor engraved with heraldic gryphons over the pale pink skies of a summer sundown. With such detail and dynamism were the knights drawn as they defended a perimeter that one could not avoid perceiving that they were in motion, feeling the pull of tension in every muscle. Pearls of sweat, drops of rain, flies hovered statically in mid-air, suspended in time. Surrounded on all sides, the knights pointed their shining steel at a horde of skin-clad barbarians that stretched onto the ruined cities in the background. In the middle of the perimeter stood a valiant wounded king defending a sacred relic salvaged from a burning church in the horizon. The dead piled in front of them, the wounded drew their swords one last time while on the ground. All around them the scenery was consumed by pyres and smoke yet the king shone like a star.
'WALDEMAR VON METZERGERNSTEIN' was written in gothic holographic letters at the base of the scene.
The captain took another step and her surroundings were instantly replaced in a violent metamorphosis into an equally detailed scene showing the breath-taking coronation of a king. 'FRIEDRICH III VON METZERGERNSTEIN' adorned the ceiling in Romanesque holographic lettering. This time, on top of the precious dimensional artwork, several physical shelves and tables displayed the actual arms and jewellery preserved ever since the real coronation had taken place centuries ago.
Another step took her centuries and thousands of miles away to the ferocious, snowy peaks where a deshelled wounded knight bloodied a large contorted wyvern. Then the graduation ceremony of a legendary academic in a vast skyscraper library. Then to a modestly-clothed king with two diplomats to his side. With every step she dived deeper into the layered art gallery whose walls were increasingly crowded with physical paintings and statues on top of the dimensional manipulation.
The final artwork, perhaps the most grandiose, showed the construction of a majestic marble city surrounded on all sides by concentric rings of hydroponic farming, with observatories and academies stretching high into the air, defended by sophisticated armies and inhabited by a civilized citizenry. They all gathered together for the biggest celebration: the birth of a triplet of twins. Here what struck Ferinaza the most was that the artist was still in there, finishing the majestic work by calmly meditating to the aroma of several incense sticks around him, everything in the dimensional painting gained detail and acquired a much more real feel to it. He wore a formal black suit and sat on a couch, smoking a pipe while working on the millions of faces in the crowd. Several apprentices meditated alongside him, humming a calm conversation.
"May I be of assistance, miss?" The master artist asked with a courteous bow even though she had disrupted his craft.
She seemed to cock her head to one side "I am looking for the church of draconian gods and EPA representatives which were to be meeting me aboard this ship. Do you know where they may be located?" She asked, staring around at the paintings, wincing as her eyes were still becoming accustomed to the brightness, she had after all been in Grey Phantom for over a month straight now, and the ship didn’t have much in the way of lighting.
The CDG ship which was found in the hangar was a peculiar one, certainly when compared to the more common tropes found on other ships of its type. instead of anything simple, the CDG ship could only be described as a gigantic metal hornet, although saying it was entirely metal was still inaccurate, as its bus-sized abdomen had a certain organic nature to it that seemed to pulse and shift in an oily black carapace which was visible just under the shiny metallic Armor which reflected light not unlike an insect carapace. Between snapping, salivating jaws, a passageway manifested. Reshaped from the ship's teeth and throat and connecting to where the eyes would be from the inside, opening to a pair of doors which led to the ships cockpits, each one of the hornet's eyes.
Biden was the first to leave, his massive armoured frame was barely able to fit in the small entry-way the ship allowed but he still made it through with no trouble. the second occupant however seemed to struggle slightly more with his escape from the ship as he had to hunch over and practically crawl to work his unnaturally tall and thin form free from the space. Much of his features and armour seemed to be concealed by what appeared to be a long black cloak, making him almost monolithic in appearance once he stood straight, only his armoured head was visible from above his cloak, a helmet which looked suspiciously bat-like and designed for more than a single pair of eyes. Next to Biden, Lark looked like an entirely different species altogether, their only connection was their animal themed armours, and otherwise they both seemed to be polar opposites.