LOCATION:  JAGGANATHIKA BRIDGE
TIME:  0630
DATE:  2025 - 10 - JUL

COMMANDER PRESIDING:  RUSTY 'SMOKER' SHACKLEFORD
TACTICAL OFFICER:  BATTLES

COMBAT PERSONNEL IN ATTENDANCE: DANIEL MATTHEWS, CALLSIGN 'LUCIFER' ; LYLA RAINES, CALLSIGN 'BLUE FOX' ; ARKADY DRAGOMIROV, CALLSIGN 'RED STAR' ; PAK NARI, CALLSIGN 'KUMIHO'; GABRIEL HOCKENBERRY, CALLSIGN 'GRUNT' ; CAPTAIN MAGDELDRIGAL, CALLSIGN 'KAZOO'

SECRETARY:  JUNO

THIS TRANSCRIPT SEALED, LEVEL 23E:  COMBAT PERSONNEL AND UPPER COMMAND ONLY

---

"Welcome, all of you.  Take a seat.  Coffee's on the pot,"  Smoker growls at everyone as they filter into the infamous ship's bridge.  Fortunately for the non-demonic amongst them, the bridge is within easy distance of the airlock.  They don't have to step over the chrysogonae with their whispered promises of intrigue, or track through puddles of blood (and other bodily fluids) left by happy erymanthoi.  The bridge itself isn't pleasant, of course.  There are far too many sharp edges, suspicious stains, and unpleasant designs.

Just about the only pleasant thing is the gorgeous many-fingered angylkae sitting in a chair nearby, strumming an antique harp and murmuring a soothing tone that takes some of the edge off of the soul-straining wrongness of the bridge.

"Let's start out by saying hi to the new guy, Arkady Dragomirov.  Heard a lot about you champ.  But this isn't an introductory cruise."  Smoker pulls out a cigarette which lights itself almost immediately, "This is a Code Black, and we've got to move fast.  Journeys just got back from a black ops mission with Jess Maraud.  The Lothlorien was on its last legs, and he only barely made it back in one piece.  And it's been a full week of limping along back to us.  Jess has been captured.  There's photo evidence of a mass manufacturing facility on a dead moon, and what's worse, it's near a strategic ventpoint.  Captain?"

The angylkae strums a harp and the viewscreen of the bridge flickers, showing their path.  They're taking an optimal route away from the abyssal bubble, following several ventpoints that should in theory gain them some distance.  However, one of them flashes black- a solar system near another ventpoint that would allow faster access in the long run.

"We originally discarded this route because it strayed too close to some of their fleet elements.  We also were receiving strange signals from the moon, hence the Lothlorien's scouting mission. Turns out the Abyssals have new communication protocols.  Worse, the Lothlorien was equipped to hold off just about anything short of a full fleet before it made a quickjump.  Journeys tells us they're building a brand spanking new fleet there, fast as hell and meaner than a rabid dog.  From examining their manufacturing facilities on the Buchenwald, we know they can build them fast.  We've already gotten some inkling they were developing new stuff, but we had no idea it was this bad."

Arkady knows about this all too well.  Those ships that splashed Spiderweb's flotilla were no joke; they tore apart the Paddy Wagon in seconds.

Arkady lifts his head off the table and waves his hand in a careful manner,  "Privet..", and helps himself to a cup of coffee. He reeks mildly of alcohol.

"Holy shit Lucifer! I was a huge fan as a kid. I'd shake your hand but blyat, my hands are shaking as they are..."

After Smoker mentions the new model of abyssal ships Arkady empties his coffee cup and pours another cup as he begins:

"Yeah those new ships ain't nothing to fuck with. I mean, the new frigates are equipped with ablative armor by standard and the ones I came across were equipped with fuckin' railguns... Those things pack a real punch. I mean, I know Spiderweb's fleet isn't really known for being heavy armored war crafts but shit..."

He takes a short break and takes a very long swig off his coffee cup.

"Those rail shells pierced through Paddy wagon as if there were no armor at all... Nothing..."

Daniel's one of the last to arrive, having no doubt been busying himself somewhere almost out of reach turning the Dead into a fine paste. He's not exactly thrilled about the look of the place but it's nothing he hasn't seen before so he chooses not to make a scene.

He looks over the marinated Russian top to bottom as he's referred to, frowning slightly as he concentrates on getting a read on the fresh Exalt.

"Welcome aboard, Arkady. I read your file. Seems you've been through hell, about time you got the power to pay them back."

The Zenith's frown deepens considerably as he listens to the briefing and Arkady's remarks.

"They got Jess -and- almost managed to wipe out Journeys before he could escape? Damn."

He glances at Arkady, interrupting his train of thought before it goes too far into what was clearly a painful memory. "Not to underestimate the tech - clearly we cannot let the production finish - but this couldn't have happened without the direct involvement of an Abyssal of considerable power or several normal ones. Do we have  any idea who we're up against?"

Grunt took a cup of black coffee and sipped it as they listened to the briefing.

He wasn't a pilot, so if he was being briefed on this...

"Is the shuttle less of a death trap this time?"

Having arrived on time, perhaps a bit earlier than necessary, Lyla does not appear to be too much at home thanks to the "lovely" setting. The familiar faces and Smokers attitude make it a warmer welcome, despite the dire circumstances. Though despite all this, she seems even more perceptive than usually.

"Welcome along Arkady."

She gives a friendly pat and a squeeze to Daniels shoulder, accompanied with a nod to all present. She sits down her legs crossed. Upon hearing the news, she digs out her nowadays metallic cigarette case and rests a cigarette on her lips, swiftly lighting it. There is a ever so slight shake of her head when Jess' fate is brought into play.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:01, Sun 09 July 2017.

"Yes.  We've got some last confirmation from Jess before she was taken.  Apparently there's a group of traitors. Dragon-Blooded calling themselves the Immaculate Order were running the security of the station, piloting a new type of ship." Smoker takes a long drag of his cigarette, "We can assume they have abyssal handlers, yeah, but I doubt they're any of the big three.  Battles, your show."

Battles waves away smoke from in front of his face, finally speaking up. "We can safely assume that, yes.  I'm betting that these are newer Abyssals.  Probably one to manage their design team, and one or two to test their new equipment.  We can also assume they know we're coming so we have to move on this fast."

"Wait, so repeat that?  We're gonna fight Dragon-Blooded?  Traitor Dragon-Blooded?  The hell?" Kumiho waves her hand in the air. "What the fuck?"

"That's right," Battles nods at her, "So instead of force polarization like we've seen before, we'll instead see a weaker overall enemy force but with the power spread more evenly.  We'll have three objectives:  1) destroy the facility ONYX SPIRE, 2) eliminate the forces defending ONYX SPIRE, and 3) extract as much information we can from ONYX SPIRE while we work on objective 2.  They'll know we're coming but they're not the only ones who've made some technological advancements.  Grunt, you'll be pleased to know that you'll be well taken care of in that regard.  Captain Magdeldrigal, care to fill us in?"

The many-fingered demon smiles at all of them and strums her fingers across her harp, a chord that settles them and also somehow communicates to them just how... angry... the angylkae is under her veneer of pleasant serenity.  "Thank you, Battles.  First of all the Jagganathika has undergone a massive retrofit since the last time it saw combat."  She plucks the harp, "It has the strongest engines of any Nike-class cruiser, including the Flowing River and the Enterprise.  We've also put a lot of work into equipping the entire outside of the ship with a thin layer of demonic tissue, which acts as a host for a thin skin of perroneles.  The Jagganathika is therefore fast and extremely well armored.  We should be able to survive depositing a strike force outside of ONYX SPIRE, and we'll be able to jump out of the system quicker than any other ship our class.  We won't be able to provide much in terms of fire support, so after your insertion we'll pull away from ONYX SPIRE, so you won't have to babysit us.

In addition to this we've managed to do the same for a Mercury-class transport, the Konnidan.  The Konnidan is run by Captain Fistfoot, and like most blood apes he loves hand-to-hand combat, so it's been redesigned for ramming operations.  Grunt and Arkady will be aboard this ship, which should smash into the bowels of ONYX SPIRE and give them a shot at hitting their mainframe.  Along the way you'll be accompanied by a new Infernal, Cosmo Corentine.  His job will be to draw attention at the upper levels and to work his way down to extract you if need be."
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:15, Mon 10 July 2017.

Arkady sips his coffee and with a dissatisfied expression pours something out of a canteen to his coffee. Yes. Alcohol.

"Deja fucking vu. If we get spotted before we knock in the back door manouverability is key. Those railguns get their punch from extreme velocity, which makes them hard to avoid when they're not crewed by complete ass hats."

He crosses his hands and leans back.

"... Though disabling their power source renders them useless. Can't fire a gun without powder if ya know whadday mean? Does anyone have a cigarette to spare? I'm experiencing a minor sensory overload."

Smoker wordlessly slaps a cigarette out of a pack and holds it out for Arkady.  It's- blyat- actual real stuff, an actual honest-to-God cigarette from Earth.  The good stuff.  Most people never even see it.

"At least it isn't one of those damn onions," Gabriel muttered, finding the small silver lining, "I assume that even if we steal every secret they've got the place still needs to be blown. That a critical point or do we carry in something moon slagging?"

Daniel pats Lyla's hand as she puts it on his shoulder and nods in greeting.

"To cook up a fleet like that in such a short time there has to be quite the industrial complex on that moon. And since they managed to lay low as long as they did it seems there can't have been too many big materials transports going around either - which means they've likely excavated building materials from the moon."

He glances at Arkady who, based on the smell of grease and alcohol, was clearly the most mechanically inclined of those present.

"Where I'm going with this is there should be a huge complex with plenty of powerful tech to sabotage, spanning a large part of a moon whose structural integrity might be less than ideal due to the kind of strip mining the Dead are fond of."

He shifts his gaze to Battles.

"The rest of us will focus on destroying the fleet, I assume."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:54, Tue 11 July 2017.

First Endings, now Jess. Soon there wouldn't be any pre-Exodires even left. She pulls from her cigarette, and for now silently continues to observe the briefing.

"But remember you'll be dealing with ONYX SPIRE,"  He tells Arkady, "Which may be a whole different matter.  As it stands both you and Grunt have the most experience in dealing with Abyssal systems.  Grunt, to answer your question, Lucifer has the right of it- ONYX SPIRE is built right into the moon based on Journeys' observation, so an orbital bombardment won't be quite enough to put it out of action.  You'll have to find a way to neutralize it from within.  Unfortunately, we don't have anything quite strong enough to blow up a moon.  The last person who did that was Five Days Darkness and he says he can't do it with this one.  We do have a computer virus that might at least scramble their systems, but Abyssal systems do very well working alongside scrambling techniques since they're already so closely aligned with the entropic.  We're hoping that between the three of you you'll be able to figure out a way to destroy the lower levels of the facility and get out intact.

Meanwhile, yes, everyone else will destroy their fleet.  This is as large as it'll be,"  He says, glancing around the room; "The Jagganathika can't support any more ships, it's not a carrier."

"So, question,"  Kumiho glances around, "Biiig question.  Look, I was there for the Buchenwald, and how do we not know it's another one of their traps, with a bunch of ships jumping in-"

"Pilot Kumiho," A strident harp interrupts her, "That is because we will not care if it is or not.  For this mission the Jagganathika will be carrying an experimental VentDrive inhibitor, designed by Shun Xiao.  It'll burn through most of our Essence and probably kill quite a bit of our crew in the process, but while it's active nothing gets in or out."

Arkady takes the cigarette with both hands as if it was some sacred artefact, and carefully lights it.

"Suka blyat! An actual cigarette! Spasibo moj chuvak!!"

He exhales a cloud of smoke with a satisfied expression which gets more serious with a hint of clarity unbefitting his character as he hears the info

"An industrial complex of this size requires massive amounts of energy. There must be multiple power plants in the complex. If their systems are capable of dealing with Electronic sabotage we must rely on a mechanical failure.

Meltdown. Big boom. Really big.

Also, the manpower required to run such a complex would require drafting which will affect their crews training depth.

Also. I want their research data. I really want a railgun. Those things are actually quite badass.

Trust me. I'm an engineer."

"Since..there is no mention of Jess' rescue. Are we to assume that she is gone?" Lyla speaks hesitantly, her fingers drumming the edge of the table only once.

In reality she knew which answer to expect, but it was different to hear it out loud. She ignores her cigarette, the smoke wafting up as a small trail.

"It'll be easier to coordinate with this small of a team. Any specific tactics being put to use when destroying their fleet, or are we just going to unleash ourselves on them?"

"So steal the data, figure out how to make unknown technology blow itself up, and hope our own new technologies don't send us over to the other side," Grunt summarized as a tiny breeze spun the smoke away from him, "We get any cross confirmation on this place from the prisoner or his files?"

"A method to prevent warping? That's big. Hope we've got the resources to do it again if it works."

Daniel regards the people present as it's mentioned there wouldn't be much more, nodding in agreement at Lyla's words.

"Yeah, a small detachment is easier to coordinate and we won't have to worry about protecting any dead weight. That said, we need to work together and find a way to prevent the enemy fleet from focusing us down one by one now that there's no safety net of regular pilots."

"No problem, Arkady.  This tech's very big.  Too bad we can't do it willy nilly,"  A puff of smoke is blown away by the faint wisps of air around Grunt, "Took a lot of mojo to get that workin."

"The remains of Jacint, for example.  Empowered by a lot of chalcothetes and demjen, pouring essence into the receiver; kept active by the willing sacrifices of several marottes.  It's a lot of sacrifice to keep a road from opening, but we believe it's worth it in this regard."  The captain informs them.

"Arkady, I'll defer to your expertise.  Grunt, you're correct.  We do have limited confirmation of their tactics from our prisoner; he has told us that the Abyssals are considering leapfrog tactics, avoiding a simple chase in the off chance they can zip ahead of us.  He said nothing about a new fleet.  He said absolutely nothing about the Dragon-Blooded, which makes me think we need to lean on him a bit harder.  Lyla, Jess is..."

"Jess is off the table.  One way or another," Smoker drawls.  "Journeys told me he saw a shuttle going for a jump right after she was captured; that's how he broke his cover and ended up under fire.  We have to assume she won't be at ONYX SPIRE."

"So don't feel bad about going all out on anything except for ONYX SPIRE itself, at least until the Konnidan is clear.  No rigid tactics this time.  Follow your own judgment, watch each other's backs, come back alive."
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:44, Thu 13 July 2017.

Daniel nods and regards everyone gathered, particularly the Exodites.

"Sounds good to me. Anything else or shall we get to it? Every minute is one more for them to prepare."

Lyla nods as well in regards to the destiny of Jess.

"No questions, or additions here," she exhales a swirl of smoke.

Arkady blows smoke with a satisfied grin on his face and keeps on sipping his coffee.

"Ready to roll blyat. Oh.. I think I forgot to mention that it's an honor to roll with you guys!"

He looks in Grunt's direction and points towards him with the tip of his cigarette.

"I'll trust your expertise on getting us where we need to be, you seem to know your shit."

Daniel gives Arkady a particular look that's at once approving and reserved. He'd seen too many good people cut in the bud.

"Don't hesitate to call if things get dire. Exaltation gives you a huge boost but at the same time it thrusts you into an entirely different league. Don't get cocky." He throws a glance at Kumiho as well at the end.

He gains a smirk as he nudges the young Russian's shoulder with a fist.

"Survive and you've got a swig of Russki Standart to look forward to."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:46, Thu 13 July 2017.

"Just don't expect any spy-vid stuff from me. At some point I just got used to breaching my way into places smart people avoid," Grunt told Arkady with a shrug, "The mechanical detail assessments will be your wheelhouse."

There is a faint smile on Lyla's lips, that soon turns to astonishment when she turns to Daniel.

"Wait. What. Now that is a dire situation, that you are STILL in possession of a bottle of Vodka. And -I- haven't managed to empty it yet. Tsk. Dibs on half a bottle."

"Alright, break."  Smoker slaps Arkady's shoulder, "I'm going to talk things over with the good Captain.  Rest of you go get ready.  We'll jump as soon as the Konnidan comes on in."

Battles is quick to start ushering them out, and they leave the hauntingly peaceful sounds of the Captain's harp behind them.  "Lucifer, for examination later."  He mutters in the Exalt's ear as he hands him a little USB.

"Yeah, should I be envious?  I never got a special Earth drink, and here he got a cigarette from that Smoker guy too."  Kumiho says to Lyla, "Hey, someone pointed something out to me.  Is my call sign too close to yours?  They said I'm stealing your style.  You know, badass interceptor pilot, fox call sign?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:57, Sat 29 July 2017.

Lyla arches her brow at the bubbly Lunar that bumped into her company on the way out. She sure didn't expect that.

Eventually she muffles a chuckle to her huge scarf.

"Oh. You smoke? And envious? Because of that sort of things. Pfeh. That totally uncalled for. It's just them and Daniel being polite. Besides he drinks whiskey himself rather than any other spirit."

She muses to herself for a moment.

"Kumiho means a fox? I didn't know that, but no, it doesn't bother. Not all foxes are like, and the fact that we share our talents in interceptors does not make us the same thing, or mean that you are stealing my thing. Besides any public attention that turns away from me to you, is only a good."