Concordat Corvus

##PUBLIC EXTRANET BROADCAST: Concordat News Network
"In a shocking move today, recently crowned Throneguard Alkoli Rockwell announced, what he called "the removal of the Black Veil and the reclamation of territories long thought lost. For the glory of the Empire, we will reclaim what is lost". This massive exploration initiative is coupled with a joint announcement by House Jove of increased military spending along with increased recruit intake rates. This move has been long awaited by the public, however, reactions are mixed, with some dreading the inevitable tragedies that await discovery beyond the veil."

"In other news, a local miners rebellion upon a House Hermea world was put down by a squadron of Monoardor Fighters. The fighters were mistakenly set to rage, and no survivors have been thus far pulled from the wreckage of both the refinery and processing plant."

"For the Empire, CNN, signing off."

221-Eos, Outer Ejecta Ring, Phidia System
Concordat Strategic Research Facility

The asteroid known as Eos was discovered over two-hundred years prior, when the first of many House Jove scouting parties arrived in the Phidia system, hoping to re-establish contact with the Empire. In their exploration of the system, these ancient vessels came across Eos, noting its large size and stable orbit; their diligent crews flagged it as a potential military resupply outpost. This, however, was not the case. Eos sat dormant for another one hundred and seventy years with the need for deep space installations quickly fading, along with the dream of uniting the tattered remnants of the Empire.

Mounting pressure from the ruling Throneguard and Jove for adequately equipped and safe research facilities prompted House Serid into action. In keeping with standard Serid protocols, the undertaking was entirely in secret, the construction delegated solely to military contractors. By the end of the decade, the Concordat had a smattering of orbital hot labs throughout the Phidia system. From these centers of knowledge, research could be carried out without being hampered by moral or ethical concerns. The scientists were the brightest that House Serid could produce, the tools were the most precise that House Hermea could manufacture, and the budgets were the biggest that House Jove could hide.

Arne Callewaert, also known as Doctor Arne Callewaert, or Director Arne Callewaert, was the man in charge of Eos. Peering through the thick window, he took in the expansive view from the team meeting room. The slow rotation of the rock meant this section of the complex was currently bathed in stellar light, the surface ice melting under the volume of light striking it, great iridescent clouds of steam drifting past the complex and off into the void.

"Gentlemen," Arne began, focusing his attention on the other two men in the room. "It has come that time again when I must report to our military overlords. They wish to know our progress."

He paused for a moment, caught in thought.

"Doctor Burr, please begin."

The older, grey haired man nodded, and pulled out a handheld assistant. "Project Hoplite is progressing as predicted, Director. Discounting that one...incident, it has been relatively smooth sailing. In fact, I have some good news." Burr said as he tapped out a series of commands on the assistant. A small screen in the room began playing a recording, showing one of the active-test sites aboard Eos filled with a medley of machinery and sensing equipment.

The scene quickly cut, now displaying said machinery emitting a vibrant, light purple beam striking a block of metal at least twenty meters thick, and proceeding the other side unimpeded.

"It's operational? Can I report the meson beam a success?" Callewaert queried, a slightly astonished expression on his face.

"No, no, not yet, Director," Burr replied. "That was simply an initial test. Although the research coming from Trebuchet-589 has helped the project along greatly, we're still encountering a great deal of difficulty collimating the neutral mesons. The results were quite unexpected, too. Although the beam appears to pierce the block entirely, it did not. It appears as though it 'phased' through the metal, so to speak. The metal was severely warped in the process, though."

"Excellent. Thank you, Doctor Burr. And how is your team progressing, Doctor Frits?" Arne asked, switching his gaze to the other man.

"Nowhere near as well, Sir. The artefact, as we suspected, is entirely inoperable. We've gone over the design many times, and whilst we have a solid grasp of the principles behind it, our understanding of physics is clearly not up to the task. Seeing it in operation would be a throne-send, but we've hit another stumbling block there; no one can make heads or tails of the operational programming, let alone the singularity regeneration procedures. You're going to have to send another team into Blackbook-550 to pull out whatever they can from engineering; otherwise this singularity reactor will be nothing but containment fields and complicated programming."

"I see. Continue as you can, Doctor Frits," Callewaert said, nodding to the pair. "You are both dismissed for now."

As the pair made their exit, Callewaert reclined in his chair, mentally composing the report to the admiralty.

Private Meeting Room 12,
Trade Complex Alpha
High Orbit of Seraph Charity
Capitol, Concordat Corvus

Barnes was grinning as he reclined in the chair, thinking backwards to yesterday's festivities. The Throneguard had told the crew to 'dwarf the hedonism of the Empire in Antiquity', and dwarf it they nearly did. The celebrations began shortly after; Captain Carthen inviting all the bridge crew to share a toast with her to all the hands lost in the fore assembly. The funeral was lavish, as the men and women of the ship payed their respect to the bodies being ejected into the cold vacuum, Carthen looking on with a burning hatred in her eyes. After being summoned by the visiting Admiralty, he was pleased to learn that his actions had garnered him two medals, a combat accreditation, and most importantly, an uplift to Knight-Errant. He'd no longer be confined to a meager piece of land on Augusti Prime, but now be able to rightfully own a large tract, rich for whatever developments he wished.

The Hedonism Train truly had no brakes, as Barnes could pinpoint the exact time at which his memories became a fuzzy, distorted wreck. The brief glimpses that came to him contained exuberant rounds of drinks, one for each of the foul Xenos killed in his 'legendary' boarding action, or what his acquaintances had come to call it. The Mess Hall erupted in cheers as Barnes played the footage of his helmet cam, showing the technological sword utterly rending the machine thing in two. Continuing to assemble his fragmented memories, he arrived at this morning, as he woke up in his quarters surrounded by women in various states of undress.

"Kill a few more of those metal bastards and I'll be set for life," he thought, immeasurable grin still plastered across his face.

"If there's something funny, Knight-Errant," Carthen spoke, drawing out his new title, "then perhaps you would do well to share it with me."

"N-no Sir," Barnes stuttered, broken from his decadent thoughts, "Simply reflecting upon our excursion, Sir."

For a moment, he wondered if Commander Carthen would look attractive in her lingerie.

"Good, then you'll tell me why you picked these two." Carthen said, referring to the two folders Barnes had handed her.

Both of them had been part ordered and part invited to the Concordat Annual Research, Technology, and Defense Conference. After a few years of calling it an 'arms-fair', the organizers figured out a name that implied offensive weaponry didn't sit well with a few nosy public journalists. The conference seemed to get bigger and better each year, as new armaments and technologies were developed, and this year was no exception, the halls of the station were packed with private investors and military representatives. Carthen and Barnes both knew the reason they were here. The higher echelons of command wanted recommendations from the captain that had successfully defeated a non-human hostile contact. In short, they wanted her, and Barnes' opinion.

"Well, Sir," Barnes began, "during our 'encounter', they threw a large volume of missiles at us, almost more than our point defense could handle. I thought that program would even the playing field, so to speak."

"And why pick the second most expensive missile program, Barnes?" Carthen questioned.

"Alpha strike, sir, plus we'd need less overall missiles with the Sidestep contract."

Barnes spoke of the Sidestep missile chassis, a program founded by Hudson Dynamics, a company famous for its skill at designing some of the most efficient Akita medium ice-slip generators. The program was entering maturity, and they'd finally put it up for sale. The concept was simple enough, stick an ice-slip generator on a missile and have it activate before entering enemy point defense range. The program proved to be riddled with issues, though, ones that almost bankrupt the company, but they'd pulled through, and were now offering a variable yield warhead which could literally skip through enemy defensive fire.

"And the second choice?" Carthen asked.

"Our lasers, Sir," Barnes started cautiously, "they just don't cut it anymore. The ABL seems like a relatively inexpensive stop-gap solution until the engineers can figure out better yields."

Barnes' second choice after looking through the various programs on offer was the Antimatter Ballistic Laser. With the recent decrease in price thanks to the dissolution of the Antimatter Cartels, a small start-up company had taken it upon themselves to copy the Phased Array Lasers in use, then perform nothing short of wizardry to get them to fire tiny amounts of antimatter. The company had unwisely banked on the military purchasing the design, and had already manufactured a great deal of conversion kits, more than enough to equip four titans.

"Thank you, Knight-Errant Barnes, that will be all." Carthen commanded, Barnes now standing and saluting.

As Barnes walked off, his thoughts were occupied with finding a bar exclusively for nobles.