Bane's Silence

Star System 17-KI ‘Bane’s Silence’
15th Day of Summers Prime, 74 ACW (GSY 1.5), time: 12.26 CST
Drone Carrier ‘Hunter’ - Flagship of Admiral Pi and Operation Nightfall's Black Fleet

A Drone Carrier, is by all means the newest designed vessel in the Commonwealth, up to date and designed not by the UCSN designers but by Inops Splicers for the purpose of mostly being able to deploy a rapid amount of drones, survive in solo engagements and indeed electronic warfare elements in the event of an actual attack. And thus, the IOBF hunter’s keel was laid down at Leinos-4 during 68 ACW and was finished a year later, a Dreadnought in it’s own right and the flagship for the Intelligence Operations Branch and currently it was within the system of Bane’s silence with the rest of Inop’s fleet (that were scattered across the area)

Standing in the centre, looking over the tactical readout of the central Command map was Admiral Pi, the leader of the Intelligance Operations Branch. She was to put it fairly simply a Lamansci in her middle ages, her own deep bronze skin and indeed signs of age only seemed to add an air of... ‘don’t mess with me’ to the other officers on the deck as her palms lay flat against the table, her eyes staring at the system, various markings showing the status of her own fleet and a number of triangles with a single line ending at a circle (and a timer saying ETA: 13.02 CST) showing the point where the Pirate base for the entire sector was located. A small shake of her head was all that broke the silence as a holographic AI projection of a Inop’s Telian officer (Model #13) stood there waiting for it’s orders. The officer’s own hands firmly behind it’s back as finally Pi asked “And you're sure that there are no signs of any activity in the system?” as the Admiral stared at the marked area as the AI responded “The readings from the Probes show that there are no pirate patrols in the entire star system, however the location of the base and indeed the Debris field it is located at make readings harder to detect. Admiral, my recommendation is to proceed with caution.”

Another long silence as Pi stared at the map again, as she finally said “Order to Black fleet: Ghost task groups, 5. Jamming fields to level 4.” admittedly, her orders weren’t long, she wasn’t one for the long speeches that some admirals did, but she knew what she was doing as all of a sudden where each Black Fleet marker was in the system it seemed (through a clever means of sensor readouts and indeed messing with the transmission’s so it seemed like there was an actual task group there, indeed giving off heat signatures and transmissions) before finally from the main drone carrier the sounds of electronic warfare drones leaving the drone carrier to move into position around it for the jamming field.

Jamming in space, was, as Inops found hard. They had to increase the transmission by a huge amount and indeed space to block out transmissions... so they had actually found the way around by the speed of Warpnet transmitters and indeed the idea of creating a number of small drones that were capable of extending the jamming signal. In a way creating a portable Jamming device that could be deployed whenever the UCSN were planning a major operation and as the map showed the increasing ‘bubble’ of the signal engulfing the pirate base there was a curious response from the AI “Admiral... If the readings I have collated over the last few standard minutes are correct, there are no transmissions being broadcast from that base... my scanner is also saying, there are increased amounts of unlogged debris around the base from the last time the Inops probes were here.” The Inops Admiral, for probably one of the first times let out a small laugh as if completely bemused that the AI had said that as a number of the inops officers nearby looked at each other she finally said “Transmission to White Fleet ‘Proceed with caution, no signs of Red Forces.”

13.05 CST
Location: ‘Bane’s flotilla’

Bane’s flotilla was a location which made even the most combat hardened Veteran of the Commonwealth Navy shiver, it was said that when the pirate war began this giant flotilla which served as a main base for the Warlord which Inops had marked ‘The black prince’ (along with a pretty large bounty, just in case anybody felt foolish enough to join him, which was withdrawn with the dawn of Operation Nightfall) indeed the sheer amount of debris and wielded together Capital ships made the whole site a headache for any military genius with the first, second and third Battle of Banes Flotilla ending in tactical disasters for Commonwealth tacticians. This time, however... the UCAF had worked out different tactics.

And indeed as White fleet arrived as all of the ships began to return to normal time at the lead in the attack being spearheaded by the Angel Class Flagship ‘Righteous Fury’ a Dreadnought of around 6 km Length and had been retrofitted for this entire operation as it’s own fleet started to surround it which were as followed:-

1 x Angel Class Flagship
4 x Retribution Assault Carriers
12 x Bishop Class Carriers
24 x Hydra Class Battleships
240 x Combination of Frigates, Cruisers and Battlecruisers

As various ships began to break off to sort out the support Sections and indeed the patrols, various scouts were already undocking from the Bishops and fanning out to explore the area, avoiding the massive junkyard and holding just by it’s edge Gravpoint edge (A naval term for space stations, derelicts and other Anomalies which appears to have a gravitational pull) as the fleet’s continued to sort themselves, get organised and into various formations there was an air amongst the crews of... high morale but quiet dread that this battle might not go as well as planned. Afterall, they'd failed the last three times why should this be any different?

CCS Horizon
Fleet Command Iron Duke-pattern Titan
Assignment: Operation Glass Spear
Follow-up to Operation Crystal Path, Shield of Light survey
Location: System HD-155906

The Horizon, led by Commander Dewitt Croyle, seemed to be the bottom of the barrel for Concordat authorities.

This was a busy time for the Concordat. Scarcely had the Shield of Light returned from her breaktaking adventure of a survey than she had set nearly ever other Fleet titan in motion.

The Excalibur quickly thereafter dispatched an enemy fleet in the Nereax system, thought to be seeking revenge for the bombardment of HD-15934.

The Dauntless and Arkata had been pulled off shore leave, still celebrating their victory over the Brigands in an out-system chase the Admiralty had been quick to make classified. The good ship Big D had made for the recent Old Empire colony discovered in Epsilon Circini. Nobles and serfs alike were rushing to the spaceports for a chance at wealth and land -precious land- on the new world. Bloody Ark had been moved on maneuvers immediately, taking up her mantle as Dwemer's Defender yet again.

The Centaur and Nova, logistics and missile titan respectively, clung close to Seraph Charity and the power of the capital. The Fleet was spreading itself thin, but not that thin.

The Phalanx stuck fast to her orders in defending Phidia Prime - and possibly defending against whatever failed experiments came off the world.

The Pegasus, military courier, was expected to leave any day now to attempt some kind of diplomacy with the aliens that had attacked them. She could handle herself.

The Shield of Light herself was undergoing repairs. Concordat engineers were finding it hard to gather enough metal of sufficient strength to patch her holes. They could hardly be accused of doing patchwork on the new hero of the fleet.

It was with this frantic Fleet situation that the CCS Horizon, the Fleet Command titan, set out on a follow-up mission to the Shield of Light's survey.

With no fleet to command, Croyle mused, better us than nobody.

The Horizon's goal was perhaps the largest find of the entire historic expedition, albeit one that never reached public eyes. On one of her farthest jumps, the Shield of Light had detected evidence of another titan drifting or jumping out-system - a hull fragment, so obviously titan-built that the Yeoman who discovered it had feared that the Shield of Light was losing hull fragments.

A small debris field which was drifting out-system from Victor Martius gave the Horizon a trajectory, and along that trajectory was a single star - HD-155906. It was farther than any Concordat titan had ever jumped - but if it meant uncovering another titan, it was far worth the distance.

The initial sensor reports were of low resolution - they would keep building as more light and information was taken in by the sensor packages. A debris field seemed to start resolving itself in their immediate vicinity. There was a sole rocky world around the star, but that scarcely concerned them at the moment. In the meantime, Croyle intended to take a more hands-on approach.

"Yeoman Aryle," he said to the operations officer, "unseal and launch a mono survey detachment. Set them to curiosity and let's see what we come up with."

Curiosity mode on a monoardor was really three parts curiosity and two parts playfulness. The twenty K67 monoardor corvettes moved near unto the debris field, poking around with their sensors as a dog might sniff every nook and cranny. Something much more interesting soon caught their eyes, however - the tight, orderly formations holding outside the debris field. They dropped their orders and headed lazily for the formations, hoping to learn as much as they possibly could.

"The monos are wandering, sir," Aryle warned.

"Let them be for a moment, Yeoman," Croyle said. "Let's see what they've found."

Black Fleet, IOBF hunter.

“Admiral... Sensor Array is picking up a spike in... no wait...” came one of the inops splicer officers as they tapped on their screen, the Admiral now looking at them with a piercing hawk like stare as she calmly waited for the officer to finally give her his news. The splicer seemed to be staring at the screen in disbelief as he finally reported in a composed tone “Sensor Array must be playing tricks... but it’s saying that a Twenty Kilometre vessel has just appeared in system and is on a trajectory towards Bane’s Flotilla.” “PANDORA, Confirm.” The AI telian officer seemed to, in a cheesily animated style, put a finger to an earpiece and merely respond with “Confirming results...pinpoint Directional scan commencing... scan concluded. There is indeed a Behemoth sized Vessel or indeed anomaly moving towards the Coordinates of ‘Bane’s Flotilla’ Judging from previous radar cycle, this object was not there previously. Updating Main map now.”

A silence fell onto the command deck of the hunter, The Admiral staring at the table as an icon appeared of the now confirmed Unknown Spacial Vessel, her eyes distinctly narrowed, she had just lost a bet with her predecessor on ending a campaign and her rear was not going to be flamed by the Marshals. Not today. Ss she finally looked up “White fleet, urgent level 1 communication.” came her order as a screen opened up on the opposite end of the table and the

***Establishing communication, please standby***

White Fleet,
Righteous Fury, Command Section.

“Admiral, incoming transmission from Hunter, Level 1 urgency.” Came the Comms officer, looking up at the Admiral’s sub-deck of the command section, the admiral calmly standing with his arms behind his back. As the leader of White Fleet stared out at the various screens and merely went “Direct it up here.”

Angel Class Flagships, due to size and indeed strategic design did not have a conventional bridge, instead due to the sheer size of the vessel, it had a dedicated Command section deep within the vessel and well protected. Although there were sub-commands and indeed a Helmsman section, alot of the day to day ship running was done by an Admiral and High Captain from this room, which was to put it simply two levels, the ground level was in short a hive where the Dreadnought’s operations took place, the top floor overlooked this hive, it had a number of fleet operation screens and a number of consoles where the Admiral had near instant updates of the situation as one of the screens changed to an uplink with the Face of Admiral Pi, the face of Admiral Perios, the man in charge of righteous Fury turned, he was an elderly Telian with a number of scars from various Pirate Boarding attacks as his hands remained clasped behind his back and nodded. “Admiral, to what do I owe the... pleasure.” he seemed to say that with some venom as the Lamansci in front of him merely responded in a cold tone of voice which seemed to make a number of operations officers “We’re picking up a rather large Behemoth sized Anomaly moving towards your location currently in system grid D15, Requesting that your sensors do a confirmation scan for me.” It got a small blink from Perios as he turned back to the overlook and asked

“High Captain, are we picking up any Behemoth Sized Anomalies near us, more importantly at D15?”

It got a small blink from the High Captain who had been staring at the Dreadnoughts current status as he quickly moved over to the Sensor’s specialist and started to rapidly talk to him in hushed tones as they seemed to be looking over at the console for a few moments and then finally the High Captain looked back up and said “Confirmed, Pretty large and in scout F-range... We’re picking up, yeah, shorter range radar is picking up movement in the Debris Field. Could be just debris... but with that thing nearby...” he reported up to the Admiral as Perios listened and looked back at Pi. His purple skinned hand moving up and stroking his gray beard as he finally replied back “Alright, so both fleets can see a Behemoth Vessel, do you think it was the unknowns that attacked 12-KJ?” there was a small blink as the Lamansci stared at him for a few moments “There is no G-ray anomalies that run along it’s trajectory... as of this moment,I understand it is your operation, but as the head of Inops I suggest we put UCSN First contact Protocols in effect.”

The Admiral let out a sigh and responded “Alright, Lift the J-sig we’ll handle this.” as he pressed a button and looked towards his Vice Admiral, a Cxami avatar of around 2 Avatar Cycles who was sitting at one of the consoles, Perios walking over along the overlook before leaning against the chair and looking over at the fleet readout before saying “We have a couple of those new Nomad’s right?” There were a few taps on the screen as they were singled out on the fleet loadout and the Admiral merely staring at them calmly before nodding “Alright, send the most capable... actually, send the Lone Wanderer as an element on an investigation trajectory. UCSN First Contact needs to be applied, so don’t fire what isn’t identified as pirate markings.”

Space,

In space and behind in one of the reserve sections of the fleet, a single Nomad Battlecruiser emblazoned on it’s front armour the words ‘UCSNV Lone Wanderer’ began to break off from formation, it’s own Fusion engines firing up as it started to navigate past various Carriers, battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and frigates that were formed up and began to orbit around the edge debris field, heading towards the Large Behemoth sized anomaly. Admittedly for a ship that’s length was about 1.5 km... going to do a first contact against a 20km anomaly was going to be... interesting.

CCS Horizon
Fleet Command Iron Duke-pattern Titan
Assignment: Operation Glass Spear
Follow-up to Operation Crystal Path, Shield of Light survey
Location: System HD-155906

"Mono data is coming back, sir," Yeoman Aryle reported. "Hell of a lot of radar contacts out there. They look to be closing on the debris. Weird...almost like there's something in there. And...wait. One of them is moving towards the Horizon. "

"RADAX, OPS, give me detail."

"1565 meters keel, hi-fusion drive flare, at least some EM data. She's very much alive and at least at our technological level."

"General quarters, Yeoman, and hold steady. Launch the rest of the monos and hold them tight in our battlespace. And for God's sake, disable sensor-to-server communication. We don't want another control attack like the Shield of Light had."

OOC:

UCSNV Lone Wanderer

“Anomaly is... ETA: 20 minutes out. Engineering are reporting that all engines are at full hydro-fusion capabilities.” came the Helmsman’s report from the front of the lone Wanderer’s small bridge. Indeed nomad’s bridges were exceptionally small for a ship it’s size, roughly taking up a small portion of the ships overall size and indeed built into the structure on the Upper section of the vessel (well protected and armoured mind) with the main bridge itself being a place with four consoles (Helmsman, Communications, Operations and Weapons control) and the captain’s seat. Across the front of this pod was a number of glass screens which projected the outside of the ship for the entire crew to see what was going on and currently these screens were showing the vector towards the Anomaly.

In some ironic sense, the first person to do First contact was not a Telian, Cxami or Lamansci... but a human hailing from the Free Traders Coalition Quarter on Abriel, a tight knit and very independant group of humans that were the first settlers of the Terran world there and indeed the creators of the bustling trade hub and Industrial world of the Commonwealth. And it was one of these humans, a Captain Richard De’roit that was now sitting in the UCSNV Lone Wanderer’s captain’s chair. A man in his 30’s with short, shaven hair and indeed at peak physical build, De’roit was definitely a captain who had risen up the ranks despite the odds (and indeed stigma that a free trader wished to protect the cluster, despite having a reputation for travel) and as he stared at the distance between him and this ship there was a small sigh “How long until we’re in Ship Visual Communications Range?” “About Five minutes...”

“I don’t like this... All stations to alert, but keep weapons on safeties.” as the bridge lights seemed to dim and various alerts were issued across the ship the captain still staring out before asking “Ops, what is the anomaly giving out?” A number of screens changed as the commander at the operations console seemed to be bringing it up “Heat signatures... heavily armoured, EM readings are there... she’s definitely alive and no doubt with a crew. AURA’s trying to find a radio signal from which we can open a linguistics exchange with their computers.” The captain leant forward staring at the marker on the main screens carefully and saying “Alright, send a data exchange request to the unknown ship on all frequencies with the language packet for Commonwealth Standard Language with a request for their language.” he ordered as the communications officer nodded as she tapped and sent out the request, the bridge waiting with bated breath for the response as the Lone Wanderer continued to close in on this huge ship.

CCS Horizon
Fleet Command Iron Duke-pattern Titan
Assignment: Operation Glass Spear
Follow-up to Operation Crystal Path, Shield of Light survey
Location: System HD-155906

"Data burst, sir," Yeoman Aryle cautioned. "Just like the Shield."

"Everyone hold position," Croyle said, voice steady. "Easy now, Aryle. Get intrusion analysis running on that data."

A low klaxon sounded, and the bridge was bathed in red from the emergency lights. The bridge was as tense as the Shield of Light's had been on that fateful day of first contact. Machine ran the data through an intrusion analysis algorithm to detect similarities to assembly-level commands that could be used to hijack titan systems. Aryle breathed in after a long moment to speak.

"Machine returned intrusion analysis. No assembly commands."

All at once the bridge broke out into a cheer. These xenos weren't trying to assault them, they were trying to talk to them. They were, at least nominally, friendly.

"Have the monos remain in tight formation, Yeoman," said Captain Aryle, "and get more in-depth analysis on that data burst. Send it down to Data Analytics and Counterintelligence on the computing deck. In the meantime, repeat the signal back to them, same frequencies, to let them know we've received. Aide Theron, fetch the sealed contact protocols from my quarters' safe."

"Aye aye, sir," said Yeoman Aryle.

"On my way, sir," said Aide Theron, already sprinting off the bridge.

The Horizon broadcast the same signal back on as many frequencies as its limited communications package could muster, effectively able to say nothing but We receive, we receive you. Now the titan and its Commonwealth attendant faced each other in the silence, no longer tense but comforted by mutual intelligence.