"Thank you, Colonel McGowan, sir," Sabine says. She adjusts the beret under her arm, pushes herself to her feet with her cane and then, with expertise born from long seasons of experience, deftly tosses it to her left hand to free up the right one to shake the colonel's. "I hope to do you, and my planet, proud."

She then turns to the Emissary and raises her right hand in a Hrafnhelmr two-finger salute, punctuated by a sharp click from her dress shoes and the tip of her cane. "Lieutenant Tolmach, reporting for duty, Emissary. Requesting any pertinent information on the topic of tomorrow's departure."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:49, Thu 04 Feb 2021.

You barely manage any sleep at all, excited as you are for the following morning and by the time the suns are in the sky, you find yourself at the D-19 Black Site, AKA "First Contact Landing Site"

A veritable fortress built around the field where the first Hegemony ship touched down and Emissaries came forth to treat with the Order. The local population was relocated for kilometers in all directions to keep this secret at first. It didn't take long before news began to spread. Within a few years, everyone in the system knew about it. Still, D-19 stays operational for "security reasons." There are elements that do not accept the Outsiders with open arms and want them dead and gone.

You'd seen the figures. The idea that anyone could openly resist was absurd. The Hegemony could have dropped billions of tons of rocks on Hrafnhelmr without so much as a 'how-do-you do' and there's nothing the entire fleet could have done about it except watch as millions died in an extinction level event, and if they were feeling less subtle, they could have simply deployed some of their impossible warships and nuked every continent into radioactive ash.

Past the security checkpoints, the towering obscurity walls with turrets along the rim, AAA and SAM batteries arranged with radar posts to provide maximum coverage. Past all these things was the landing platform, and on it, a bizarre vessel. It looked like a massive foil fish, Hrafnhelmr's version of something akin to ancient earth's manta ray. Wide and flat and thin, very little features on it that looked like a space ship to you. It had some features that were similar to cutting-edge hypersonic re-entry gliders, but it also had no obvious propulsion systems or control surfaces. You couldn't imagine how it could possibly take off, much less land in any controlled manner. Near the vessel, there was a Hrafnhelmran technician speaking with a towering figure in what you recognize as an "Indari Contact Suit." Basically, a massive faceless shell of powered armor, environmental support equipment and weaponry that the Hegemony representatives often appeared in during contact with other cultures and civilizations. The idea, as far as your scientists could determine, was that they be heavily protected but also present a terrifyingly transhuman figure to anyone they met.

Sabine shows up to the launch pad wearing her black and forest green dress uniform - the same one she had worn the day before, having washed it in the wee hours of the morning in lieu of the sleep she knew wouldn't come. Now that she's outside, her black velvet beret is on her head, set at a slight jaunty angle that skirts the very edge of regulation. Her cane's taps on the tarmac are consistent and confident, and, at first glance, an onlooker unfamiliar with her condition might mistake her limp for a barely-contained skip.

She comes to a stop in front of the odd shuttlecraft, eyes scanning over it in an appraising manner before they come to rest on the pair of mismatched figures. She strides towards them - tap, tap, tap - and comes to a halt just far enough away that they can lower their voices if they don't want her overhearing. Unsure of what else to do, she braces to attention and raises two fingers in salute.

"Lieutenant Tolmach reporting for orbital transportation as ordered. Nice ship," she says, casting another appraising glance at the the smooth, polished metal just a few meters away.

The hulking figure turns its head towards you as you approach, the local technician is silent and then backs away, turning and walking quickly towards more familiar humans. There had been a rumor for sometime that the Indari representatives were not human, simply that they looked like you or that they in fact were in service of some horrifying alien species that needed them to deceive you into joining the servitude of a vast star empire.

Of course, officially that was all nonsense, but a faceless two and half meter tall machine which may or may not have had any human life inside it certainly made such reservations understandable.

A mechanical voice issued from the suit. "Lieutenant. Please, if you have any belongings or cargo, we can send someone to retrieve them. Now. Please follow me." The hulking figure swung about, surprisingly agile for what must have been easily half a ton if not more. It began to walk towards the ship and you could see now that there was an opening in the belly of it with a ramp that fed into the ship. The craft itself was not entirely smooth or featureless, there were obviously seams in the panels where the components parts came together and numbers of small blisters you could only surmise were sensor modules of some sort. The hull of it seemed to thrum slightly, and you suspected that the whole thing was powered on and idling as if they were planning to leave quickly. Did they even need lengthy pre-flight checks like you'd see on Hrafnhelmr vessels? No visible cockpit or glass anywhere on the ship, either. The whole thing seemed almost like a magic chariot or fantastical ocean beast than a space ship.

The officer gestured you up the ramp with a powered gauntlet.

In spite of herself, Sabine feels her mouth go a little bit dry as she approaches the ramp. She falters as she enters the ship’s shadow, then visibly braces herself and strides forward with confidence. One foot lifts and comes down on the metal of the ramp... and then she pauses. Still with one foot firmly planted on her homeworld, she addresses the officer in the encounter suit.

“Ah... there’s a local tradition to observe before we depart. My apologies. It won’t take but a moment, I promise.”

She locks eyes with the Hrafnhelmr technician, who hurries forward again. Sabine twists a small pewter ring off her finger and palms it. Then she reaches under the collar of her uniform tunic and pulls out a pendant on a chain, looking like an extremely ornate dog tag with the name “Tolmach” emblazoned on it, brass on black iron. She lifts this off over her head, folds its chain in on itself with a few practiced motions, and then passes the handful of metal - both the ring and the pendant - to the technician. Both bow their heads at the moment where their hands touch, and then the technician takes a step back, holding the ring and pendant in his cupped hands.

“Alright. Now that’s done with,” Sabine says, then lifts her other foot off of the tarmac and walks the rest of the way up the ramp.

The interior isn’t exactly what might be considered spacious, but after two seasons spent aboard Hussar-class vessels – spacecraft with such cramped cockpits that the tactical officer couldn’t wiggle his feet for fear of kicking the pilot in the head – the Indari ship seemed thoroughly palatial.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:47, Thu 04 Feb 2021.

The Officer watches you silently in their encounter suit and you get the unshakable feeling that you are being appraised. There are no visible sensors on the suit or the helmet, however, you know they must be able to see you somehow. Perhaps not even in the visible spectrum of light.

You step onto the ship and walk up the ramp into the ship. Right inside there is a cargo space in the belly, with several strange larger canisters strapped into the walls and floor. The boarding ramp continues up past the cargo bay into the habitation module of the ship, precisely what looks like two rows of seats with harnesses and stowage compartments below them. The inside of the ship is covered in what appears to be some sort of fabric material and there are very few right angles or sharp edges. Everything seems to be precisely engineered for the exact dimensions specified. Beyond the passenger cabin, you can see what looks like the crew compartment with room for two. There appears to be another Encounter Suit in what must be the pilots station, hooked directly into the ship via several cables.

There are no view-ports of any kind, but as you approach, images appear above the surface of the bulkhead and the ceiling, revealing an ultra-high resolution real-time images of the outside of the ship, as if the hull was transparent and you could simply look out at the tarmac, the black site and the sky above. Hegemony Holographic technology before your very eyes. The pilot presses something on the holographic console and the outside view disappears, replaced with a soothing bluish-white pattern.

With a soft hiss, the ramp closes up behind you and the other Encounter Suited Officer who silently looms past you to sit down in one of the passenger seats. A harness folds out and locks into place around the Officer's armor, holding them safely in place. The ship is almost entirely silent on the inside, only the softness humming all around you, mostly from the control consoles and a more bass reverberation coming from the aft.

Sabine cautiously reaches out one hand and brushes her fingers along the holographic "screen." She has to suppress giggles of delight watching the subtle way that the patterns shift as she applies careful pressure to the wall. Only after a few moments of marveling, both at this and at every other aspect of the ship's internal design, does she notice that the officer has locked themself down and that the hatch has closed.

"Uh..." she says, hurriedly hobbling over to a chair and following the officer's example by strapping herself in, "Sir? Are we not waiting for anybody else? Or a truck of crates, or... something?" Hrafnhelmr rocketry is leagues better than it was a few decades ago, but atmospheric lift vehicles still use old fashioned chemical aerospike engines for the first stage of ascent. As a result, sending a vehicle to orbit is still so expensive that, to Sabine, it feels wasteful to the point of madness to send a ship into space with this many empty seats, not to mention so much empty space in the hold.

Of course, she has yet to understand the full implications of gravitic technologies or modern power sources.

"Unnecessary. We are eager to proceed with your induction. The next shuttle rotation will carry up whatever supplies or sundries are necessary for your assignment and comfort." The mechanical voice is almost dismissive as if the occupant is distracted by something else. Of the handful of Hegemony representatives you'd personally met in your life, all but one had been wearing this sort of encounter suit, with no indication of who or what lay beneath. There were rumors that they were simply machines, but that couldn't be possible, could it?

There is a moments silence and the soft humming and whirring continues. The faceless head turns and seems to focus on you. "My apologies. You probably want to see your world before we leave it behind." Without so much as a gesture, the wall holographics morph and reveal the sky around and above you and the myriad lights of your world spread out below you like a massive glowflower field in summer. You know these patterns, they are the major cities of Hrafnhelmr. You couldn't even feel yourself moving. If not for the displays, you'd think you were still parked at D-19 idling on the landing platform.

_"Whoa."

The word slips out before she can stop it. Her pulse quickens. She can feel herself grinning like an idiot, and her eyes going wide as saucers as she looks about. A giggle - girlish and exhuberant as always dammit! - bubbles up in her throat and escapes. She reaches out again, placing her hand on the wall, planting her feet firmly on the cabin floor, reminding herself that it truly is just a display. It does take some reminding. As far as her instincts can tell, there's nothing between her and the stars, or the planet below. For one moment, it's just her - sitting in a tiny chair, a speck floating against the majesty of the infinite cosmos. The landscape below is dark, with a crescent of illumination still visible behind the ship. The sun is just cresting above the horizon, and it's sinking. It was morning when she left.

We must be going West, then, notes a disciplined part of her mind - the part trained for seasons as a navigator and pilot. And that means that my homestead is right... about...

"That's... that's Cynedyr city!" she says, swallowing the lump which has formed in her throat. She points down at the planet below, at a splotch of dull orange light glowing softly against the rapidly-darkening landscape. Cynedyr was one of the rare, lucky cities outside of the Iron Coast which had electric street lamps and a developed power grid - although many of the locals still did use oil lamps for indoor lighting. "I was born on the outskirts - a little rural homestead about ten klicks outside of town. But... Cynedyr is well over five hundred kilometres from the first contact site. Gods, even if we took off the moment the ramp raised, we can't have been in the air for more than a few minutes! How fast is this thing going!? What's the acceleration? I didn't even feel a nudge!"

She turns back towards the emissary, her eyes bright with curiosity. For just a moment, her usual stoic facade - built up over the course of many seasons trying to be taken seriously in a masculine-dominated military - has shattered, blown away like scraps of morning mist before the gale of her shock and wonder.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:48, Thu 04 Feb 2021.

The shuttle continues up effortlessly defying gravity and known physics in fact with a silent grace and ease. It doesn't really even feel like you're in a ship at all, more like sitting at home in your chair in front of a triprojector, watching some sort of science fiction ROM or educational program about space exploration. You keep reminding yourself you aren't wearing vidlenses or looking at your wall. As you call out your city, your host taps on something on the wall with his fingers and looks back up to you. A small glowing halo appears over the exact location of what must be Cynendyr City, outlining the natural orange glow. Data and text appears in lines around the halo and it quickly becomes clear that your world is well mapped out by the Outsiders.

You can almost sense a smirk under the helmet of your host, assuming there's a human face there at all.

"We're pulling a little over 100Gs at the moment, but we're already about to decelerate and make the initial approach to the Turpal's Star" He gestured towards the display in the ceiling of the craft and another halo appeared, circling a small, but glimmering glint of something, brighter than any of the stars. As the atmosphere faded to black and you could look out, the stars were bright and you could catch glimpses of what you thought might be local ships or satillites, maybe even one of the small stations that orbited your world.

"A hundred-!" Another giggle, tinged with hysteria, forces itself past her lips. "That's, uh, going to take some getting used to. I'm used to flying in Hussar war skiffs, and... um, never mind." She had been about to comment that Hussars could pull only about 6Gs, and doing so was only done during combat maneuvers. A sudden surge of embarrassment stopped her. It was simply a technical fact, but admitting how far behind her homeworld truly was felt like a betrayal, somehow.

Instead, she turned her attention toward the forward wall. At their current speed and acceleration, she knew intellectually that there was no way she would see their docking target until a second or two before they arrived. Even so, she found herself scanning the black sky ahead for a telltale glitter of reflected sunlight.

"Sssoooo... The masks. The encounter suits. Now that we're off Hrafnhelm, are you planning on continuing to, uh, present?" She indicates the host's armor and gives a wry smile. "I see the appeal of remaining aloof. Our Hrafnhelmr monks maintain an air of mystery. I only mean that it will be difficult to work in the diplomatic corps if I can't read expressions and don't know the names of my comrades."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:31, Wed 20 Jan 2021.

"Much faster than that and our navigational field will start to heat up too much, spoil the view." The figure looked at you curiously from behind the metal mask. "I've studied your ships capabilities extensively. It's part of the Contact Preparation Protocols we all go through so there won't be any surprises during acclimation." There was the slightest shift in the ship and you could see that glimmering speck, outlined by the holographic display, growing larger, but slower. Your transport was decelerating and only a tingle in your inner ear even registered it.

The vessel began to take shape to your eyes, the size was impossible to gauge without reference, but it was long and narrow, it looked something again to a sea predator, sleek with lines that flowed into themselves and split almost organically. The bow, at least you assumed was the bow, was almost a needle point it seemed and the aft was a tight cluster of what looked like flutes bundled together and tapering down from the widest point of the vessel perhaps two-thirds back from the bow ending up creating a silhouette that was half razorfish and half wind instrument. The skin of it was glimmering in the light of the Muninn Sun. You begin to see the crimson bands indicative of the Indari Starships on the surface.

"It would be foolish to remove my helmet until I returned to my own ship. Even with our technology, some basic principles..." The officer raps the top of his helmet with armored knuckles. "such as safety, remain the same." You sense the officer is enjoying it a little bit.

"Besides, you may not be assigned to work with me. I just happened to be scheduled on this haul when you came by. There's several ships like this all over your planet, running missions daily, ferrying personnel, material and the like to ships in orbit or sites on the surface." The officer stops. "Well, actually. It didn't just happen. I requested this flight. I wanted to see what kind of person you really were, Lieutenant Sabine Tolmach NicDhirhom."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 06:41, Sat 23 Jan 2021.

Sabine self-consciously brushes a short lock of dark hair behind her ear. "I, uh... I'm flattered?" Her eyes twinkle with amusement. "I hope my wide-eyed tech-oggling was to your liking, and that I lived up to at least some of your other expectations. If this is the only time we meet, I'm pleased to have made your acquaintance and I thank you for your hospitality."

She bows as best she can while strapped into an acceleration couch, then turns her head to observe the approaching vessel more closely. She makes note of as many features as she can manage, looking especially for docking umbilicals, arms, or... bays? Was this ship - this... Turpal's Star... a large enough vessel to have a docking bay? Even now, it was difficult for her to judge the silvery leviathan's scale. The odd zero-inertia acceleration of the shuttle was throwing off her sense of distance.

"...But it's just 'Sabine NicDhirhom,'" she adds absently, not taking her eyes off the approaching ship. "Clans must stay with their land. My clan-name will remain on Hrafnhelm until my journey ends and I return to reclaim it." She glances beyond the growing bulk of the ship at the endless abyss of stars and the ominous red smudge of the Brigitte Nebula. "...However long that might take."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:38, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

The mechanical voice laughed. "I've been doing this for a while. You aren't the first alien I've talked to, but the Hegemony sees value in your culture and your civilization, otherwise we wouldn't here asking you join us." The metal head swiveled away as if they had heard something. Probably a radio transmission coming in, based on your understanding. Although in the back of your mind the word sits like a splinter "telepath."


A moment of silence and the officer does something on their wrist controls and points towards the holographic display inside the ship. A glowing circle appears around a distant star. Then, it enlarges to a picture-in-picture display, zooming in to show... a huge starship. It takes you only a moment to place it, even without the text telling you what you were seeing. The HAV Champion with a few escort ships, greatest among them, the twin Dragoon class ships known as Prince and Thunder. Ships you would know anywhere at sight, almost sacred in their representation by the priesthood as nearly folk-hero status. Brave and intrepid star warriors who beat back the eternal night and protected the commonfolk, doing battle with horrific villains and monsters in the Night Above.

With a moment of shock down your spine and a twitch in your fingers you register what appears to be an intercept course with only one possible objective... the alien vessel, the Turpal's Star.

The officer made a noncommittal sound and you finally heard something from the pilot of the ship. What sounded a bit like a grunt and a flurry of activity at the controls. Your minder spoke again and now strangely, their voice was even more flat and toneless. "It seems your navy is here to make a show of force." The tiny drive-plums of Hussar-class ships dotted the darkness, no doubt members of the 3rd Space Wing protecting the homeworld in concert with the rest of the homefleet that could be mustered.

The alien ship grew on it's own display in the shuttle, becoming larger and more detailed. You began to realize it's massive, perhaps close to the size of the Champion, give or take a few hundred meters. What seems to be a hanger bay has materialized near the midships on the hull facing you. It's not hard to surmise that is the destination of your flight.

"What?! Why!?" Sabine tenses, grabbing her cane with one hand and holding the other against her chest, ready to remove her restraining straps at a moment's notice. "What in the frozen pits of Hel are they playing at!? You're our allies!" She watches with some consternation as the enormous Hegemony ship approaches and fills her vision. If she goes aboard this ship full of aliens, and her people are making aggressive moves... how safe will she be, really? Where she was so excited a minute ago, now her stomach feels like it's collapsing in on itself like a dying star. The starship she had been admiring now looks very much like a crimson-striped doomwhale, jaws spread wide to swallow her whole.

You couldn't have asked for a better view of what was happening. The interior of the shuttle is a full 360 theater, with telescopic images of each vessel being tracked, showing the action in almost a cinematic way. It was clearly intended to impress, although the information is a bit superfluous for a tactical display. This was definitely for VIPs and not a combat bridge. Still, it looked incredible if the danger wasn't so very present and imminent. The officer rose from their seat, a frightening bulk of metal and plastics sliding beneath a fabric "skin" in places, exposed in others. Silently, he or she (or it) crossed the distance to the command console and conferred quietly with the pilot before looking back at you.

"We're being waved off. Turpal's Star is turning to confront your homefleet." The voice was matter of fact, even through the modulator. A moment passed and you realized they were relaying what they were being told through the wireless. "There's been a coup attempt. Admiral MacCarren has taken up arms against the priesthood and the 'invaders.' They're calling themselves the Faction of Dùn Èideann." Ahead, you could already see the shuttle changing direction, breaking off away from the incoming system ships and past the Hegemony cruiser. Points of light blaze in low orbit across the surface of the planet. Ballistic missile launches from defense satellites. The orbital guard fighting against the homefleet? Or joining them in attacking the Hegemony? It would take nearly half an hour for them to reach their targets even at the absolute closest ranges. To the starboard side, the panels showed the massive ship moving about, changing her heading towards the incoming fleet. Her aft glowed eerily, a pale blue like stories of the Will'o'the'whisp, but nearly as bright as the suns. She simply twisted in place, moving like your feared doomwhale as if she was in the ocean not space. No attitude thrusters or the like burst from her hull in their bizarre impossible method of space flight.

The Champion and her escorts hadn't fired yet, a little quick math and you determined they were just minutes out from their weapons envelop. If they meant harm, they would open up with nukes, assassin drones and "the Big Gun" on the Champion, the Pumped Xaser that put out invisible death, cooking its targets and disabling any ship that happened to fall under it's deadly gaze, yet the alien ship was closing the distance eagerly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:10, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

Sabine's pulse pounds in her throat. "S... sir, if that's true, we need to leave. Give the monks time to sort this out. The Order knows what they're doing, they - everyone in the fleet, everyone in the Astralle, we're all pledged to serve the Order. There will be dissidence among the crews of those ships, and fighting them is... would be..." She shrugs helplessly. "That's the entirety of Home Fleet out there! Three designated combat vessels, built for the crushing violence of line battles, and they're powerful ships, sir. The big ship is HAV Champion. Its Gáe Derg system redirects a significant portion of the energy of a shaped nuclear detonation into a beam of x-rays! I don't care what kind of mystical super-tech you people may have, that thing will f... will ffffuck up anything in its path, sir, pardon my language. Which is to say nothing of the dozens of nuclear missiles they can collectively send our way!"

She shakes her head convulsively. "And sir... I can't believe - I won't believe - that most of the people over there have truly betrayed the Papar Order. This isn't the first time a coup has been attempted, but the Order has maintained stability ever since the Scream. They just need time to figure this out, and they won't have that if half the fleet is in shambles due to a confrontation with... I don't actually know what your ship can do, but... Please. I... We can't do this. Not now. Not as the start of... Sir, it's my first fucking day on the job!"
This message was last edited by the player at 08:41, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

The officer looks at you, faceplate emotionless as you spill out your thoughts. "It's not up to me." Is all they have to say and of course it's true. They're just an officer, not in charge of the military strategy or policy or commanding a warship. Spots light up on the incoming fleet, missile launches. Nuclear torpedoes, assassin drones, a bright and obvious indication of the homefleet unleashing their fury on their prey. Any other ship would be obliterated in the explosion of small stars and vicious hunter-killer drones intended to evade countermeasures and blown in the hull from an unexpected angle. As the streaks of fire begin to be tracked across the darkness streaming towards the Turpal's Star, you can see the defense missiles trying to reach the homefleet. The Prince slipping into place and shooting them aside with a laser screening maneuver and protecting the fleet, a fundamental space warfare tactic. It was almost impossible to believe... the orbital defense, loyal to the monks and the homeworld, firing nukes at the homefleet, supposedly the protectors of the entire Order.

There's a moment of static on the screen. Instinctively, without reason, but at your very core, you know the Champion has fired her deadliest weapon and... the Turpal's Star flickers strangely on the screen and keeps on coming. Maybe it missed? There's no way to see X-rays out in space like this. The missiles arc closer, but the Turpal's Star plunges on, straight at the homefleet without so much as evasive action and then you see why... assassin drones, wiggle off course, like wanderworms, losing focus and drifting away. Nuclear torpedoes drift right on by without an explosion, just lazy debris missing their target as if they couldn't find it anymore, as if their proximity fuzes simply failed... or worse, their fundamental mechanisms were somehow blocked. You know right now that hundreds of men and women of the Astralle... the rebellious Astralle at least, are saying prayers and clutching holy objects as they see an entire fleets attacks wither and blow away in the solar winds not so much as deterring that alien doomwhale diving up to them in complete disregard to orbital mechanics. The fleet begins to fan out, obviously realizing they will need to try and maximize their chances and swarm their target.

Why hasn't the alien ship fired? It's heading right for them, but... maybe their weapons can't be seen as visible light? So many questions...

"I'm sorry... there's nothing I can do except make sure we aren't caught up in this."
This message was last edited by the player at 09:13, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

Sabine watches the display in numb, dumbstruck horror. If that really is 3rd space wing, her old command is probably out there among them. And she has friends on some of those other ships, as well! Friends like...

Suddenly, she shakes herself, then undoes the clasp of her restraining belt with a sharp "click."

"Fine. Take us out of the combat zone. But let me talk to them. The Hrafnhelmr astralle is a small force. All the officers know each other, at least in passing," she says primly, hefting herself to her feet and walking towards the cockpit. Her cane's tapping is muffled by the carpeted floor. She stops, raises the cane, and points it at an inset image on the display - Thunder, one of the massive gunships whose torpedo arsenal had just wasted itself on Turpal's Star's wake. "That one. The first officer on that ship was my first commanding officer. He knows me. And... the security chief is a friend of mine from the academy. They wouldn't have turned traitor. If they're still in command over there - if they weren't relieved of duty - I might be able to talk them into a mutiny against their illegal orders. Convince them it's their duty to withdraw from the battle. Can you open a link? Use Sierra Three channel - I'm sure you know enough about our comms protocols to be able to fake the code. That feeds directly to the first officer's display."

Her eyes flick to the ungodly-fast monster of a ship bearing down on the fleet. With every moment she expects to see some sign of it firing: a flare of light, a bolt of accelerated metal, or, failing that, simply the flash of flame and destruction indicating a hit on one of the rogue Astralle ships. The tension builds within her chest with every passing moment that none of those things happen. What in Hel are they waiting for?
This message was last edited by the player at 10:11, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

"We're already leaving." It was true. You were making a break for it, the absolute distance was increasing although the telescope pictures-in-picture kept each ship and station in view. The shuttle must have dozens of telescopes or some sort of system that defied your understanding of optics.

Your minder looked back at you, and even through the faceplate you could sense tension, indecision... They were talking about it through their own private channels.

"Alright. Come up here, lets see what we can do." They held out a headset with a microphone to you. Your home fleet was still on screen, forming an attack claw often used against faster ships, but this one was so much faster. Another volley at long range, although now you had seen what happened. They'd have to get close if they had a chance. Still, the Turpal's Star rushed in faster and faster, not a single indication of fire from hull and the homefleet remained intact. Your companions, such as they were, were very tense.

But now, you had a chance to talk to your comrades and try to talk them down.

OOC: Make a persuasion check.

Sabine makes her way up to the cockpit and drops into a seat next to the pilot. The spaciousness and comfort of the shuttle continues to amaze her, but she pushes it down for now. There's no time. She takes a deep breath, then nods to the pilot. "Connect me."

She waits a moment until a small toll sounds, informing her (she assumes) that she's on the air.

"Donnelly," She speaks quickly, using the Gaelic-English creole commonly spoken in the countryside where both she and Major Donnelly O'Hara were raised. "Dia duit. It's me, Sabine. There's no time for pleasantries, you need to listen and listen well. I've heard what happened - at least I think I have. Information seems a bit thin on the ground right now. But some things are obvious. You are on the losing side of this engagement - that much should be clear to you by now - and the orders that put you there come not from the planet and the Order you swore to defend, but from an admiral acting on his own authority."

She shakes her head slightly, unsure whether he can see her or not. She's watching the displays still, fighting to keep the panic out of her voice as the ships race ever closer together. "I know you're not a traitor, Donnelly. You and the rest of men and women on those ships, you've just been put in a bad situation, caught between two authority figures. But one of those authorities is backed by the gods and a proven history of caring for our world, and the other is just a reactionary old man so scared of change that he'll betray his oaths and his entire culture just for a chance to beat his chest at what should be our allies."

"Those are not orders you are honor-bound to follow. Actually, honor demands something else of you. Something difficult, I'm afraid, and it will require a great deal of bravery. But something for which the gods and the monks will reward you: you need to contact NicKeefe, tell her to get together as many troopers as she can trust, and then the two of you together need to relieve captain McKeon of duty."

6:04, Today: Sabine NicDhirhom rolled 10 using 2d6+2.  Persuade.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:49, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

For what feels like a long, long time. You hear nothing. You wonder if you have even been heard. A thousand thoughts run through your mind. Static and then...

"Thunder bridge. This is a secure Astralle channel. What are-" Another voice. "Sabine... is that really you? Are you on that ship? Nevermind. I saw the missiles from the orbital guard... is he really going against the Order? We've had everything locked down, they're saying the ionsaí are taking control of the Monks, they're controlling their minds. I... I don't know what to think. We're fighting our own and that wasn't ever supposed to happen again." He sounds afraid, defeated.

Sabine lapses into silence for a moment, the wheels in her mind spinning so fast it felt like her hair would catch fire. It wasn't an entirely unjustifiable fear, come to think of it. The Indari clearly had some incredibly powerful telepaths available to them. Sabine didn't know the limits of their power, but mind control didn't seem wholly out of the question...

She shrugs. "I don't know anything about mind control, Donnelly. If you've seen compelling evidence that holds up under scrutiny, trust your own analysis and your own conscience. But if not, you need to disengage right now and take as many of the other ships with you as you can. I'm aboard the smaller Indari vessel - the one a few thousand klicks away, escaping the combat zone - and from what I've seen here, there is no way we - Hrafnhelm - could stand up to the Hegemony for long.  The admiral is picking an unwinnable fight, and I can't bear the idea of you dying for the sake of some idiot's ego." A fond smile touches her lips. "All due respect, sir, but if you ever die for an idiot's ego, I want that idiot to be you."

"You've heard my opinion, sir. Now you have a choice to make - a hard one - and for all my advice, I can't make it for you. Whatever you're going to do, do it fast. I don't think the Hegemony ship is going to give you much longer to decide."

There was a long period of silence and as you looked up, something caught your eye. The accelerating warships, having since flipped and were burning hard right towards Turpal's Star, one of the frigates, identified as the Thunder has spun back around and resumed decelerating, falling behind the rest of the fleet.

"Sabine, you're right. We've taken control of the ship and we're breaking off the attack, but the Admiral and Captain MacNamman have shut us out of their comms. They aren't answering." You can hear the faint sound of shouting in the background over the channel, someone is having a furious argument or just screaming at the top of their lungs.

The screen went static again as if something was disrupting it. A series of lights popped up distressingly rapidly across the console and faded out one by one. The Turpal's Star bow was glowing red-hot... the Gáe Derg found it's mark! Amazingly, the ship seemed to be still intact although logically, there must have been internal damage and casualties. An explosion erupted along the alien vessel amidships and you could see the telltale gas venting of a hull breach.

Finally, the glittering sign of a powerful laser beam reflecting on the hull of the Indari vessel held, but it seemed to do little if anything to the doomwhale. Another nuclear torpedo from the remaining Dragoon sailed right towards the ship, seemingly on target until the strangest thing happened. It crashed into the hull and skipped off undetonated... a dud? the 3rd Space Wing dove into attack next, armed only with their Javelin system they were doomed, what were they thinking?

Donnelly's voice came over the wireless again. "My gods, they're doing it..." he sounded shocked and uncertain, perhaps wondering if pulling back from the attack was the best course of action now.

The alien vessel responded at last, two tandem brilliant beams only barely visible in the expanding clouds of gas from the damage and the incoming exhaust clouds pierced the hull of the Champion and gouts of burning gasses spilled out as two burning gashes were cut through the proud flagship. Suddenly, the whole shuttle shook a little for the first time since you'd boarded and the two Indari looked at each other silently and then towards the screen. The Champion seemed to wobble impossibly in space and to your disbelief, a massive chunk of the ventral hull and structure... simply came off the ship all on their own, slowly spreading out in pieces with a massive plume of atmosphere following it out into the void.

You had only a moment to consider what you were seeing as the Hussars dove in on their attack run and the night sky lit up with thousands of tiny sparks. In a moment, four of the ships had simply exploded, leaving nothing but gas and debris. The other surviving eight of the squadron made their pass, firing the javelins to no effect and as you now realized, were trying to ram the alien ship, yet strangely they missed or... passed through it as it shimmered like a ghost in space.

"Gods," Sabine breathes, watching the flagship come apart. It looks like there's still at least some helm control: she can still see thrusters firing on parts of it, and the magnification is high enough that she can make out the red emergency lighting flickering on exposed decks as redundant power systems chug to life. It looks like a clean cross-section, an illustration she might have seen in the textbook at the academy. Only now the edges are jagged and warped, and in some places where the beam met slightly more resistance, the remaining ruins of bulkheads are glowing white-hot.

"They just... sliced it," she says, incredulous. "Champion... she just lost five decks! It didn't look any more difficult than my mom cutting vegetables in the kitchen!"

She gets up from the chair and staggers out of the cockpit, landing hard on her right knee and jarring it painfully in her haste to get closer to the wall display. Leaning in, she can make out a single lonely speck - one the orange color of a Astralle vacuum suit - drifting away from the crippled hulk that had once been the most powerful warship she had ever seen.

"Is... this what warfare is like? Out there?" she asks, looking back towards her handler, her voice full of horror, shock, and wonder, mixed together in a complicated, churning mess.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:48, Wed 03 Feb 2021.