Alimanc System

Vero’s Hope Naval Facility
System Alimanc, Outer Commonwealth space.

Probably one of the most distant Naval Facilities in the Commonwealth was called Vero’s Hope. The story goes that Nei Vero’s, an elderly Lamansci mining tycoon of considerable wealth spent his vast fortune on funding a mining expedition towards the system A-27 after it was found to be abundant of vast mining resources. Before however, the Expedition reached it’s destination Vero’s was administered to hospital after suffering from a stroke and died shortly afterwards. In his will, he wished for the sector to be handed over to the Commonwealth Merchant Fleet for administration purposes, while all profits would be retained for the miners there. Something which President Ixro honoured by declaring that the Naval Facility there be called ‘Vero’s Hope’

The colony itself, like all Commonwealth colonies was allowed full autonomy with their profits (post Commonwealth shipping tax) being spent on infrastructure. No, the orbit had a single military facility, mostly used as a trading facility for the various traders who arrived from the inner rim planets that venture out into the system for the colonies resources before shipping them in. All of which under the watchful eye of a Battlecruiser detachment from the Seventh Fleet of the Space Navy. It was, for the most part, peaceful, idyllic, peaceful and rather laid back in this system.

There's a glimmer moving across the skies of the worlds within A-27. Like a massive comet of incredible luminosity, it streaks at incredible speeds through the void between worlds. The gleam of the system's sun is incredible; and in the darkened night skies of many worlds it appeared like a small star in the heavens, barreling in towards the system. A swathe of energy follows, and the object suddenly begins to slow as it approaches a small dwarf-planet, orbiting wide and away from the other worlds. The energetic dot changes direction sharply, and pulls itself into alignment with the planet's orbit, where it begins to slow down as it circles to cold world.

Waves upon waves of thermal and electromagnetic radiation seem to come off in weak waves, spiraling out in smooth, flowing, and obvious patterns as the point of light continues to orbit the object, growing dimmer as it comes around its dark-side, to growing almost as bright in the skies of the system's other worlds as the dwarf itself as it came within the sun's rays. This unnatural satellite continues to spin around the world, all manners of wavelengths refracting loudly off of its shimmering shape, which any ample observation device from at least a light-hour away would be able to tell must have been a little over a kilometer in length, with the dimensions of bathtub and a speed still rapid enough to cause a revolution in near-orbit of the small, frozen world every hour or so.

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Aboard the Upon The Entrepreneur's Bespeckled Love
Currently in orbit around A-27-IV

The Entrepreneur was quite a lovely ship through the eyes of 'Privateer Captain of the ARI
Expeditionary Forces', ArnuulVuunKaan. Captain Arnvuk, to his comrades, at any rate. It was the ship of the privateer; a ways more luxurious in its smooth shape, rounded interiors, and brightly colored interfaces than the greatly more rigid, pragmatic edges and more manual features of the military ships that the former-Captain of the Krevian Navy had served aboard. The hallways and rooms must of been at least twice the width, and a quarter more the height of the ironically more cramped hallways of the Solar III, which was at least three times the volume and double the overall length of his carrier, whose smooth, glossy white curves would stand in stark contrast to the dark greys and greens of the blocky monstrosities that made up the Krevian fleets.

A pair of fingers run the sharpened edges through his dark brown, alloy-built scales, the arrays of his eyes dimmed with thought as he gently scrapes off a bit off accumlated rust. A single small scale, turned almost orange, falls from his flesh with all the pain of a plucked hair, and the Privateer's throat gives something of a wet growl as he leans back against his chair. His six-fingered claw lazily rolls over in its socket, and a mechanical chirp echoes throughout the rather massive, comfortable looking, almost sterile and warm deck of the Aerospace-Resources International's second flag ship. Dozens of fellow privateers; Dehhemek just like him, took little note as the whites wall's hexagonal cell's turned black, with the view of the small, icy dwarf coming to view within the center of the captain's view.

Arnvuk's tongues twisted around themselves in anticipation. ARI Corporation had staked its claim on this world a little over a hudnred years ago, its file lodged deep under the mountains of data within the archives of Krevian's Central Resource Bureau. Now that it was time to collect on the claim; and the vast resources detected by some ancienct probe, the aging Deh, going on his 70th year of life, seemed to have his final check all but written for him.


"Deploy..." He start. "A recon drop; 188 rovers, scattered. Ten-By-Eleven Kilometer patterns, no more than 60 minutes at a time, we need to map out where these dumps of Helium-3 and Deuterium are supposed to be..." The captain lazily rolls his hand around, his eyes slowly focusing on the freezing surface as the carrier's hangers began to buzz with activity. If that old probe was right, this world may yet be a gold mine.

Administrator Cai Din of the Commonwealth Spacial Affairs Department, could only really stare at the data coming in at the Naval Facility's Situation Room with a look like somebody had just ruined his day. All of a sudden, his desk had gone from matters regarding small pirate ships patrolling the area (That had been dealt with this morning, a usual ritual in this system) had now suddenly got colonial representatives saying that their scientists had detected strange anomalies in orbit of the fourth planet and they wanted to know what it was. The honest answer that he could only give was that the "Commonwealth were investigating this unknown energy signature at this time." but in all honesty? The Lamansci didn't know himself as he and the commander in charge of the Space Navy's 7th Armada Detachment stood next to him, their eyes on the scanner readouts from the Patrol which was handling the clean up of the pirates.

The Lamansci himself shook his head before saying "Three days into this job they said, it's a cakewalk and just up your street they told me in the interview. They never briefed that we would have an Unknown Anomaly on our sensors, and a patrol detecting what they call an USV close to their training area." as if exasperated by this sudden development, the Cxami Commander merely responding "Your orders, sir? I've got the CSN09 Frigate on standby." as he waited for the response from the Administrator let out a sigh of annoyance, the eyes staring at the screens again before finally saying "I hope their diplomatic." As he tapped a screen and started speaking

"Administrator Cai Din to Commonwealth Spacial Affairs Minister Veko, Message type: Level 1 urgent, Sir... We have a situation here that will require urgent Diplomats from the Foreign affairs Ministry. In short: We have an object on our long range sensor which indicates that a USV has entered orbit of A-24 IV. I am also requesting a larger Detachment from the Seventh Armada, in the event of hostility and security... I've got a small amount of unease over this arrival. Cai Din out."

As he said that, his golden skinned hand pressed the send button as the message and the attachments they had provided were sent towards the Warpnet Transmitter and towards it's destination as the Administrator watched as a second screen in this room showed the confirmation that the message (And no doubt the energy signature of the message being sent) had been sent. "Alright, send the training vessel in. I don't like it, but it's the best we have. Presume we're dealing with First contact." came his mere response towards the hovering officer.

Seventh Armada Patrol vessel,
CSNV 'lucky gei' , Escort CSN09 Frigate.


Close to A-27 IV, a single frigate vessel, which was rather tiny in comparison to this large carrier was approaching the orbit of the Dwarf planet. It's own engines pretty much going as fast as it could, which for a Frigate with limited maintenance out in this backwater section of space was pretty amazing, all things considered.

Most Commonwealth frigates worth their salt, did not have a bridge... more of a command deck in which the Lieutenant in charge would operate the vessel with various lower ranks at various command consoles. And most backwater colony ships were not crewed with experienced staff (Unless you count the Armament officer's spot) but the 'Lucky Gei' was one of the training frigates and on the most unlucky day of it's existance, half of it's crew were on leave with trainees in charge. And Lieutant Ver was concerned over this, the Cxami was fairly young for an Avatar, although a scar did run across her cheek there was a look like she'd been in alot of pirate operations a sort of 'been there, done that' kind of look, she seemed to be staring at the scanner readouts with a frown on her face.

"Helmsman, how long until we are in orbit?"

She asked the trainee as he responded "Four minutes, ma'am. " Most military ships like this were well kept and budgeted, that's for sure. No room for private sector comforts however, which meant that bunkbeds, uncomfortable seats, but at least the screens were up to date. As the Lieutenant stood near the Communications officer's screen and merely saying "Alright ensign, send a transmission in Mathematical Binary to this vessel... usual USV procedures." she ordered as the Communications officer started to type.

'This is the CSNV Lucky Gei of the Commonwealth of Sonra, We welcome you too our system and request that you identify yourself and state your reasons for being within the system at this current time.'

As the Lieutenant stared at it before saying "Looks too formal, but it'll do." as the officer hit the send button and she shouted at the bridge "Alright Ladies and Gentlemen! Stay sharp, and if I get a single slacker or wrong move today... the person responsible can answer to the Spacial Affairs Department."

There's a splattering of receding black dots roaring away from the Entrepreneur, and Arnvuk watches contemplatively as a fifth detachment of nearly two-hundred tank-sized rovers seemed to float through the planet's almost non-existent atmosphere. The readings of this mission, he knew, would be the ones that would seal the deal; that Helium-3 deposit had to be here. The bleached white panels of his view screen hummed gently, power flowing through their billions of miniature hexagonal cells as they projected their hologram across their surface.

There was a buzz of activity from the communications ditch to the left of the Captain's chair, and a few photosensitive cells of Arnvuk's left array turned black with interest. His heavy body shifted slightly in his chair, and his left antenna cocked to the side to sense the sounds rippling from that direction, observed as a gaggle of communications officers bickered amongst themselves.

"There's a signal, weak... Transmitter problem maybe?"

"It's working fine, we just ran diagnostics thirty-two minutes ago."

"It's got to be noise, there's no ships out this way."

"Noise typically isn't transmitted in old machine-code."

"What?'

A senior communication's officer shifts in his chair, his blue overcoat shuffling as he tilted his cap out of his vision. He holds up a grey claw at the screen. "This is old machine-code. I took a class on it in university."

"What's it mean?"

"Well, in this context, it would mean someone wants to talk to us, but they don't know how."

"..What?"

"It means, the message is transmitted as a code that translates raw information without use of language. It's a pretty strange concept, but, in effect, it uses simple 'yes' and 'no's to translate a large message. All we have to do is figure out which value is 'yes' and which is 'no' to form a complete message, here, let me get at it..."


The Captain had to take a brief interest here, and briefly raised his arm, disks of ambient blue, holographic light currently encircling it in panels for use, to address them, his jaw hung open slightly as he prepared to address them, but his attention was suddenly caught again. His head rotated now to his right, iron teeth flexed curiously in their sockets as his compound arrays focused on the small, circular compartment sunk to the side of the central walkway.

"Object in Quadrant 3-9-9-2 has changed vector; signal strength confirmed. Sensors indicate object to be a ship of some sort. Movement is sluggish and jagged-- no repulse field. Distance, Eighty-one-thousand kilometers..." A younger communications officer, her scales a vibrant shade of brown with a reddened collar shimmering with youth, raised her voice to Arnvuk.

The Captain of the ARI's flagship twitched in surprise. This was interesting. "Can we identify it? Perhaps a civilian cargo freighter, based on size?"

"No sir," She started. "It's going fast-- for its apparent size, at any rate, appears to be trying to rendevous with us. We have no record of such a vessel... Sir?"

There was a noticeable chill among those on the deck, Arnvuk included, as the realization was dawning on them. "...Communications." He stated dryly.

"Yes Captain?" Came the quiet response from the ship's senior officer.

"...What's the signal say?

"...From what I gather," The Dehhemek took in a large inhale of air. "It's a welcome message. This is apparently their system. They want a response." So much for an easy retirement, then. This planet wouldn't be an easy plunder for ARI corp after all.

"...Sir, we need to contact th--"

"No." The bridge all turned their eyes away from a holographic display of the alien vessel on their monitors, and focused their wide-eyed arrays on their captain. The communications officer opens his mouth in protest, but is silenced. "We'll be the ones to open up lines to them..." A daring move, to be certain. A corporation, making first contact with the first space-faring race to ever be discovered? Almost unthought of, almost. But there were protocals, both legal and... corporate, for Arnvuk to follow. Save, of course, the one that might ask him to report this to the government first. "We can still turn this into a... profitable venture. CynBrutSiiyun," Arnvuk turned his focused gaze on the shocked officer. "I want this transmission sent to them in machine code, same frequency," He gave no room for a response, and a series of mechanical chirps later, he begun to type away at a holographic pad. Cyrusun groans in protest, and then resignation.



Some moments later, the crew of that alien vessel would see the Entrepreneur make an extremely tight turn to face them, glinting brightly even in the dim starlight as it immediatly matches their speed as it moves onto a rendezvous for them. A message is beamed to them in the code they'd sent, albeit in broken terms.


We are the Entrepreneur. We are a Corporate system called Aerospace-Resources International. We are here to claim A-27-IV Helium-3 and Deuterium deposits. As per [Imperial] Treaty of [Empire of Forged Hope?] as of [472,832 Galactic Standard Hours] ago. Compliance is kindly requested, authorize further contact. Data packet containing language-software for easier communication requested.

"Ma'am!" came a hurried response from the ensign at the communications desk, his eyes staring at the screen of the nervous trainee as the Lieutenant looked up from her command console, the screens on her console showing that the ship was now on a rendezvous trajectory towards them, which was either good or bad... she couldn't tell as she barked "Well, what did they say..."

"err... Sending it over, they've got a data packet of a language so I'm... by-passing it through the translator now." came the officer's resposne as he tapped on the screen as the message was copied and sent over towards her screen. The Cxami staring at it with her green eyes before finally saying "472,832 Galactic Standard hours ago?! Okay... think straight... let's say that's... Commonwealth Standard time then it would be around..." her fingers tapping on the glass edge as her mind seemed to be working that out, after a few moments she finally said "Forty-ish years ago... Alright, while the Translator is doing it's magic, request that the Colonies OPHIA unit provides us the legal Documentation regarding our claim on the system."

"Aye Lieutenant!" came the shout as the officer started to work again, the Lieutenant shaking her head as she remarked "This colonies been around for the sametime... If I'm right." in a soft manner adding "This is gonna get complex alright." as she stared at the message again. Her frown worsening at the idea they were about to get into cross legalities regarding system ownership. Which only got slightly worse as the results of the Legal documentation came up with the highlighted areas before politely cross refencing the claims and finally saying "Oh by the spirit Elders..." in a frustrated way. Her eyes staring at the comms officer "Language pack uploaded?"

"Yes, ma'am." As the officer found himself having the lieutenant breathing down his neck. Her fingers tapping on the keyboard quickly as she then applied the new Translation and finally saying "This isn't any damn USV op now. We've got a first contact with a corporate alien faction and we need to do this by the book."

As the message translated and was sent which read, in a broken tone:

"To Entrepeneur, This is Lucky Gei. According to our Legal Claim Treaty (Commonwealth Colony Integration and Security Force Spacial range act of 012 After CommonWealth or ACW) which was signed in the year 110 ACW. Although we would need more data in regards to your face, faction and indeed law's... as you can tell, there is a problem in regards to claim on both sides and your activity on the planet. Which we can solve given enough time.

On behalf of the Commonwealth we would like to request you stop on your activities and await the arrival of our Foreign Office Officials too arrange a mutually beneficial deal that is in our best interests."

As she moved away, the trainee on the desk looked up before gulping asking "Will they?" "Privateers can... but we don't have the authority to do that. Contact the administrator regarding our transmissions and give him a sitrep."