Aschen Fleet of Tranquil Composure's Story

AHSC Fleet of Tranquil Composure
Admiral Nolan McIntyre
Reverence II Triumphant Declaration
3,455 Combat capable Aschen ships.


Shortly after Adams had sent out his request for assistance, and his report. The Aschen had responded with his call through the fully capable and combat ready Fleet of Tranquil Composure.

One by one they jumped into the field, three massive Reverence IIs formed up before them.

"All CNVs prepare for artillery salvo, MAC cannons authorized." Admiral McIntyre hailed to his fleet as they spread and formed up.

"Admiral, two contacts, one unidentified, one Cybran." A lieutenant reported.


McIntyre nodded. "Excellent, all hands prepare for combat."

It was then all three Reverences moved into a delta pattern, with the flagship leading the charge, and the two Reverence IIs just behind and below it.

"Fleet remain on standby, Pitiless and Valorous Salvation, I'm assigning targets, you are weapons free."

Their respective commanders signaled their acknowledgement, and both the Cybran ship, and the unidentified ship would find themselves under their respective Reverence II's firing solution.

Crews scrambled to prepare, while AI's prepared the ships for combat, the Triumphant Declaration moving quickly towards the Blackbird.

"AHSC Blackbird, this is Triumphant Declaration Actual, prepare for docking and debriefing on a job well done." Admiral McIntyre hailed, as the flagship maintained it's course on approach towards the smaller Aschen vessel.

---

The Valorous Salvation was the first to complete cycling it's weapons. Bearing aim on the Cybran Dread, they garnered a firing solution, and their Commander, Commander Blackwell would manipulate his tactical display.

"All batteries weapons free."

This Reverence II was the first to open fire, sending a salvo of weapons fire towards the Cybran ship, the first were turbo-disruptor salvos, which came like a wall of weapons fire. This was followed up by a streak of blinding white light, a super-dense slug was discharged from the bow guns, at 12,000km/s it would impact the smaller ship with an immense amount of kinetic energy, and likely punch clean through it.

The Pitiless also homed in on the Cybran dreadnought, Commander Nielson eyed the massive Cybran ship with narrowed eyes, then turned to his AI.

"All batteries salvo fire. Power to the Singularity cannon, we're going to bag this in one hit."

"Acknowledged, preparing for singularity cannon discharge."

A massive power fluctuation would follow in the bowels of the third Reverence, as it faced off with the Cybran Dreadnought, menacing it, challenging it.

Aereth relayed his call for help across all channels. Each captain he knew personally and spoke to directly on the comm channel. As he sent out small pieces of data on the ship to show all captains this starship was a masterpiece in starship design and ingenuity. Whoever helped him could have it.

The crew of the Cybran Dreadnought jumped to battlestations within seconds, the shields going to full power, making sure nothing would be able to hit the main parts of the ship. The Fighters and bombers launched after the first minute, a massed array of interceptors moving towards the Aschen fleet. A small fleets of vessels appeared from the star ship hangar bays from the bottom decks of the Dreadnought. As the ship moved forwards, all 100 trillion, billion tons of it, the fighters started to weave in and out of the Aschen fleet. The speed of which the fighters, and bombers danced, meant any weapons system would never be able to target them.

The Cybran Commander started to press buttons on his command throne, millions of proton weapons and Plasma weapons starting to fire at the Aschen fleet. The great dreadnought firing its salvo, thousands of heavy lasers and Nuclear weapon systems firing off round of salvo after round of salvo. As the Cybran Commander watched the display screens, contacts started to appear on the control screens. The Commander started to glance around, "Get the Cybran 101st Battlegroup over here. Should only take a few minutes."

The pair of Aschen ships squared off, Commander Blackwell monitoring the situation from the CIC.

"Commander, incoming fire." The AI warned, and the Commander nodded, the Reverence rocking hard as Cybran weapons impacted it's shields, which rippled and washed a brilliant white with each weapon impact, but nothing seemed capable of piercing the shielding of the Aschen ship. The Second Reverence maintained it's position encased in a shimmering polygonal blue barrier. Like the amorphous white barrier, Cybran weapons seemed useless as they detonated across the rigid blue hard-light shielding of the Aschen ship.

As nuclear missiles entered the fray, Radiological alarms would spin across each Reverence II, and point defenses and Electronic Countermeasures would cause some nuclear missiles to detonate in mid-space, and others to veer completely around the Aschen ships, what few passed this electronic screen impacted the shields, sending brilliant ripples across the two ships.

"Commander Blackwell, Shields are holding, however we cannot take this sort of sustained fire indefinitely, we may be required to involve the fleet."

Cybran shields however would likely not fare as well as their Aschen counterparts. As the Reverence II scored a direct hit with it's initial MAC shot, the Cybran shields would find themselves likely lacking in power to absorb this single 3,000 ton ferric-tungsten slug traveling at roughly 12,000 km/s. (4% the speed of light) Should the shields manage to stop this singular projectile. The release of thermodynamic energies and dissipated kinetic energies would more than likely be enough to obliterate the ship from bow to stern. Splitting it asunder in a fiery release of thermodynamic energies.

In the unlikely event the MAC was somehow ineffectual, the second Reverence was preparing a far more deadly shot.

As Fighters careened across the Aschen ships, the Reverences would react deploying Apollo interceptors, their nimble frame making them pests in a dogfight, with wing mounted Disruptor cannons and various missile load-outs, Cybran pilots would have a hard time with their Aschen counterparts.

On top of Aschen fighters zooming in and out, the Cybrans would be up against Precision AI guided point defenses, which used pulses of laser light to ignite fuel sources and compromise sealed reactors. To evade this type of precision scanning, superluminal travel or advanced ECW would be required.

Blackwell got on the comms, transmitting a message to Commander Nielson.

"Get that Singularity online so we can bag this ship and go home."

Nielson signaled a short response.

"Working on it, AI is too busy screwing around with these Cybran fighters." He commented, watching as the Reverence's AI threw up walls of hard light directly in front of Cybran fighters, resulting in them smashing into these walls.

The old Iron Hand of Death, just grunted, smiling softly as he turned on his command throne, watching his deck crew finish what they were doing as a larger battlegroup entered the system after the Cybran calls. The old man stood up, rubbing his chin before barking out a single order to his Comms officer, "Patch me through to the Aschen Commander, this is about to get interesting."

-----------

Control Deck,
FWSS HDS Donachie,
Cybran 101st Battlegroup (FWSS)
About 40,000 miles away from the Dreadnought

The great dreadnought, FWSS HDS Donachie pressed forwards with the entire Command staff of the Battlegroup onboard, many high ranking FWSS officers and commanders, along with two Admirals and three Fleet Admirals of the Cybran Navy. The Command Staff stood on the Command deck, looking out at the Aschen Fleet and the battle of which was going on. The entire Battlegroup was mainly Destroyers, battleships and a few transports, but there was four Dreadnoughts and five light Dreadnoughts.

The Admiral of the Battlegroup, Al'Rahem II sat in his command throne and gave the single order to fire at the Aschen. The locking systems engaged within mere seconds and the entire Battlegroup opened fire, with salvos far greater the what the old Iron Hand of Death had just launched.

"Shields online, operating at Battle Strength."
"Weaponry firing."
"Sir, do you with Command Farsight to drop down onto the planet and start a conquest?"
"No. Not yet."

The Admiral then opened up a link the Aschen, waiting on them to open it. He stood at the recorder, watching the screen, his crew watching carefully as the weapons opened another salvo, "Bring them hell."

"Acknowledged," Derek replied. "Preparing for docking."

He hung up his comm device as the ship prepared to dock aboard the approaching vessel. By the time it had set down in the hangar bay of the much larger Reverence, Derek was already awaiting departure.

Outside of the ship the fight between the Aschen and the Cybrans was getting well underway as Derek was escorted to the CIC of the Triumphant Declaration. As he entered, he paused briefly only to drop a salute to Admiral McIntyre.

"Sir," he said as he awaited permission to speak.

Once granted Derek dropped his salute and folded his hands behind his back.

"Whisper and Echo are en route to Arastel to retrieve the McGregors, and we received a distress call from the unidentified vessel. No verification on its identity yet. It could be a trap."

As if on cue a second distress call went out from the foreign vessel once more.

Aereth watched the battle, waiting for someone to respond to his distress call. The SRA bots lay scattered about the bridge. He was completely alone on this vessel and would have to find some way of signaling to the other ships. His message wasn't getting through, if it did someone would have responded by now. Then it came to him, he rushed to bridge main controls and powered down all shielding and automated defenses. Anyone scanning the ship would immediately detect the vulnerability of the ship. Aereth wasn't worried about them destroying the ship, he couldn't die so he'd just be tossed into space for as long as it took until he landed somewhere. Of course he would like to avoid potentially billions of years of drifting if he could. He wasn't about to board any of the other ships, he didn't need any enemies.

"Attention all ships, I have powered down my defenses, there is no trap or ambush awaiting you. Derek, Blackwell, Adams, and any other commanders, I can be of great value to all of you. Whoever helps me out I will not only give them this ship, but all of the information that I have. I can explain further once on board. Arrest me, detain me, whatever you have to do."

Both Aschen commanders ignored the hails from the Cybrans and the alien ship that were operating in the system.

The AI flickered on as the Pitiless bore it's bow towards the massive dreadnought.

"Commander Nielson, I have reports that the Singularity cannon is primed and ready to fire. Shall I initiate primary particle collisions?"

The Commander nodded. "You may fire when ready."

---

After a moment, the Aschen commander got on the communications link with the entire Aschen fleet, sending out a wide-range hail. "Attention all units, Singularity cannon is in the field, scramble and clear. Prepare for wildcat gravitic destabilization."


The Pitiless began to open up, her hull splitting along the dorsal section of the ship and deploying massive capacitors, and four large loop like objects emerged from the top, and a large cannon extended outwards from the bow.

"Singularity cannon is deployed." The AI Informed, and the Commander nodded. "Commence primary discharge."

"Cybran megaship is locked and we have a firing solution."

Nielson nodded, and grabbed the railing as the superstructure of the Aschen ship groaned and protested to the deployment of it's main weapon.

As the Aschen fleet broke from engagement with the Cybran Dreadnought and her accompanying fleet, one could assume the Aschen had finally chosen to cut and run.

The Aschen only gave the Cybrans a single message.

"By decree of His Shadow you are ordered to leave this system and the surrounding space or be destroyed. You only have one chance to heed this request."

Aereth sighs, "Fools." He thinks aloud.

Having lived through near countless universes and seeing their demise had taught him one thing. There was nothing worth fighting for beyond survival. He couldn't help feeling sorry for the mortals involved in the battle. Everything comes to an end and it was inevitable that there would be a final descendent of these people and their empire and ideologies would die with them. Their technology couldn't keep the universe from pulling their atoms apart. Still, in every universe he lived through, Aereth found that mortals loved to kill each other.

Aereth powers on the ship's shielding and puts his distress call on a loop, whenever the battle ended, someone had to come and get him. He watched the battle on the main screen and wondered if he was out there in the battle, another of himself having lived through the same universe. He was on the Aschen side, but only because they had helped him before. His ship lit up the sky, evaporating fighters one at a time.

"Come on! Hurry it up already!" He shouts at the screen.

In the far distant dark sky some lights made themselves present. The lights were that of some kind of starship looming over a distant settlement.

It was as if there was a sense of unease should someone look out to the city ahead, and the Starship that loomed above, twinkling city lights that seemed rather serene until everything was engulfed in a brilliant red-violet flash of light, and the starship above was putting down a stream of red light that caused flames, debris, and the rumbling of explosions to rise up over the distant city. The beam swept across the horizon, leaving a billowing trail of flames in the distance, a population of civilians rioting in the streets. All of them snuffed out in one single fell swoop, and leaving a burning scar in the heart of the city, which save for the immediate area, was largely unharmed. But to the outside onlooker, it seemed to be total wanton destruction.

"No!" He snapped. "I refuse! I was going to, but then you started swearing. So no. Absolutely not!" He crossed his arms, with a certain glare in his eyes that said 'touch me and I will cough on you, bitch.' "I was raised believing that swear words were the words of idiots who couldn't think of anything else to say so they just start screaming fuck at everyone because their minds are so fucking minuscule that they cannot fucking think of anything fucking better to fucking say in response to a fucking argument that they were probably fucking losing!"

He suddenly went quiet; so caught in his little rant that he hadn't noticed any difference in the van they were in. Whether it had stopped, whether it was still moving, whether it was being attacked by ferocious monkeys, he wouldn't have noticed until it actually came to slap him in the face. And even then, it probably wouldn't hurt as bad as the reaction he expected from the fire-y woman in front of him.

An audible rumbling tore the wind whipped silence in the distance as the Reverence I 'Twilight' descended through the icy frigid atmosphere of the planet Cryo, the sound of the ship's engines causing the ground to shake and could be described as deafening to the unprepared.

Above the ground, and above Lochrest the massive three-mile long ship passed over, and began to move away towards the horizon where it could recover the downed stealth ship.

Two shrill shrieks followed as a pair of Delta shaped fighters darted over the icy surface and off into the horizon, their engines echoing against the snow covered landscape. The small task group would be heading to a remote part of the planet, and quickly recover the ship.

Chek felt shots wiz pass him and hit the ground, moments after that the ground had begun to shake and what little light there was seemed to be blotted out for miles. Chek looked up and through the snowy clouds he could barely hear but he recognized the painful sound of an Aschen Reverence l.

He wasn't sure if the shooter was shooting at him or now but at this point he was convinced that the Aschen were attacking them. Of course this was all assumption on behalf of Chek but he hated the Aschen and to him this seemed like the most feasible response. The snow was blowing thicker now Chek began to crawl forward until something happened and he began to tumble right into the hole Maya had dug.

Next blinks and steps out, glancing back at the guards. "Can I have my rifle?" Chuckles happily and decides to take in all the landscape... It was beautiful out here. Nice, cold, numb, white and plain. This world was beautifully simple. "Whoa..." He loved it here!

The time was now, the rifleman decided, noting that several new targets had wandered into range. Refugees, castaways, those first stepping foot onto the planet - his planet.

With expedient movements, he unfolded his thermal shielding sheet, and pulled it over his body, the reflective elements trapping heat inside the little shelter, allowing him to hide from thermal censors with greater ease. All that one could see from the distance the refugees, castaways, and other varying new arrivals to Cryo were standing was snowy white mountains and jagged peaks.

Not the danger that lurked there.

With a whisper of a noise, the rifle was cocked again, and a twitch of a finger set it to automatic fire. He targeted six shapes in the distance, and squeezed the trigger, holding it down as the rifle kicked repeatedly against his shoulder, rapid explosions sounding over the snowy landscape.

---

An older man grunted at Next's spoken love of the planet they found themselves on, his leathery face spreading into a grin as he took it all in.

"Me too, lad," he said. "It's kind of hauntingly beautifu-"

The man suddenly jerked forwards as blood lanced from his torso to the crisp white snow, staining it crimson as he staggered. His head suddenly snapped downwards, a hole appearing in a split second, exposing brain tissue and bone as he flopped to the snowy floor, lifeless.

Explosions echoed out as more men and women fresh from the transport fell to the ground, screaming out in agony and shock as the unknown gunman continued to fire, determined to thin their numbers.

It seemed the ongoing battle in the middle of deep space managed to attract some uninvited guests...

---

A lone scout ship, the Reverence S 'Nighthawk' was sitting with it's matte black hull blending in with the blackness of space. There was no telling how long the craft had been sitting there, silently watching like a lone wolf in the blackness of space. But it had been.

Her commander was a young former LDA Agent, William Johnston, whom was hard at work watching the long range scanners, which displayed the activity in the form of energy spikes and faint scintillating movements in deep space.

"We should probably signal the fleet, I've got two unknown alien vessels duking it out in the Chamalla Wildspace sector." He said, turning to his XO, who shook his head in protest.

"Sir, We're hundreds of lightyears from the Fleet, and thousands from known Imperial space. Should let well enough alone, it's just a couple aliens."

The Commander growled. "Our mission is to locate and identify alien civilizations that could be a threat to the Empire, this includes alien species out in the wildspace regions."

The XO Nodded. "Then we should wait and observe, and see what they do.

A moment went by, and a Lieutenant signalled the Commander. "I've picked up another reading; it's some kind of space station." He said, and then the Commander nodded. "We can't take a closer look without alerting those other alien ships, Signal the fleet, tell them we found something that they'll want to secure the sector over."

"Aye, sir."

The commander of the Sunrise Conquest found himself far away from his objective, a good many lightyears away. "Sir, I'm reading critical structural damage to the the Conquest. We should prep for evac." The commander unfastened himself from his harness, drowsy from the collision they made with the enemy craft. "Agreed, lieutenant. Prep the crew for...." he trailed off, surveying the room. Including himself and the lieutenant, only four of the bridge crew remained; the rest had suffered severe trauma or broken necks. But, accidents happened, and there was no contingency for suicide runs, so these deaths were not unexpected.

"Prep the crew for evac. We're aborting the ship. Activate the self-destruct." The lieutenant only nodded, initiating the self-destruct sequence. In five minutes, the ship would be obliterated in a high-yield particle evisceration explosion; a rather extreme contingency to ensure that not one piece of the Juggernaut could be salvaged. It also worked to destroy vast amounts of enemy territory in the event that it needed to be used off-world.

Before boarding his escape pod, the commander was able to send out an order to the remaining crew still near the objective: "Search the station, find anything of value, and then destroy it."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Commandos boarded the derelict space station, shining incandescent lighting throughout the darkened passages of the ruined craft. They scoured the station, their eyes scanning over the seemingly junk tech. Diagnostic scans proved futile, as there was no sign of salvageable equipment anywhere in the station. "Blow it," the sergeant in charge of the squad ordered.

Two of the troops saluted, backtracking to retrieve a bulky red case, cubed in shape. Opening the case up, they revealed a black, spherical bomb with a holographic countdown display. This bomb was designed to initiate an implosive phase, then release a hyper-destructive explosive force around it, eviscerating everything caught in the blast radius. The Commandos had three minutes to pack it in and get gone, which they could do easily.

A fleet of ships sped away from an abandoned space station. No one looked back as the station was torn asunder, caught in the violent explosion that rendered it forsaken even further. The station was useless, and thus the Order didn't need it. They had bigger things to focus on now, such as rebuilding the Sunrise Conquest.

...except that not quite everything was obliterated. In several of the fragments of the VARIAtech prism that had been spinning aimlessly in the debris field, there came small, colored lights. The jagged, sharp edges of the shattered unimatter began to crackle and reform into more coherent shapes after about ten minutes. Pyramids, prisms, perfect spheres...each one was unique and had its own little light.

Report.

Six lost. Nine accounted for.

Dismal. Good news?

Well yes, there is one thing...

Show me. Ah...

The individual polyhedrons all slowly drifted towards a slowly spinning hulk of a Nai'nari Reaver. Its flight systems were demolished, but a pinpoint wound from one of the main prism's angled tendrils has managed to disable the ship while keeping the computer intact. In addition, there was a rather well preserved Nai'nari corpse to go with it...granted, with 3rd degree burns down most of his back.

Bring it home. Consider it a bonus objective.

What should we report about the station?

It's not a total loss; metallurgy and other tangential data will prove useful to sourcing the derelict.

So bet it. Opening gate.

A minute later, the polyhedrons were gone as well, along with their spoils, through a new tear in the fabric of space. There was science to do...

The lone ship watched the two alien groups, scanning and analyzing them as they carried out their mission.

It wouldn't be long until the rest of the Aschen fleet arrived, but that was not important. What was important was making contact with the aliens and ascertaining their location and their intentions. The Aschen Scout ship wasn't tasked with making such a call to the alien ships, but the Admiral of the Fleet of tranquil Composure would be more than capable of making those first contacts.

It had been ten minutes in all since the Aschen ship signaled the fleet, ten minutes prior to the cessation of their exchange, and it'd be almost synchronous, simultaneously as the space station was town asunder by a powerful explosion.

The Nighthawk was far enough out that the weapon's shockwave would have lost most of it's destructive potential before it reached the lone Aschen vessel, along with advanced metals, shields and armor to further prevent any destruction.

The clock ticked, and half an AU away, and well within sensor range to any ships still in the vicinity, the Aschen Empire's second generation Reverence, the Pitiless jumped into space with a brilliant flicker of temporal energies, 32 kilometers of sheer firepower, and troop capacity moved to face down the ships that were speeding away from the Station.

A moment later, the Valorous Salvation, another thirty two kilometer long Reverence II joined in, flying a few hundred miles behind the Pitiless.

The Pitiless was the Command ship of this particular Aschen fleet, and was spearheading towards the now eviscerated station along with the second Reverence shortly behind it.

A few more moments passed and one by one, First generation Reverences, Support ships, battlecruisers, carriers, and a wide assortment of various ships jumped into the fray.

"Sitrep." Admiral Steele called out, while the AI rattled off various protocols.

"Several unidentified ships in the vicinity, one of them appears to be exuding large amounts of energy in preparation for what is likely a self destruct sequence of some kind. I have taken the initiative to divert shields to double-front in preparation for explosive encounters, In addition to energizing the noise dampening systems on the bow of this ship. Shall I initiate first contact communications?"

Admiral Steele promptly nodded. "Go ahead."

The AI nodded, and then turned to a large screen in the front of the CIC.

As the Vermillion fleet moved away from the Station wreckage, it would be hailed by the approaching Aschen fleet.

"Attention Unidentified Vessels, this is the Pitiless, of the United Aschen Empire's Fleet of Tranquil Composure, Commander Joshua Steele, we bid you hello and wish you well in this first contact. If you can understand us, please reply."

They were being hailed; all of them, by a commander of the "Aschen Empire". It was an unexpected action, as they hadn't picked up on this third party's presence. However, they had no one appropriate enough to send aboard and speak with these so-called imperials, and even if they did, they weren't interested in doing so, thus the hailing went on ignored. They had to get home, and had no time to deal with such insignificance.

The pilots engaged their hyper-drives, preparing to descend into slipspace and make their way home.

More Aschen arrived, blocking their path. The sergeant, bearing the highest rank among the Commandos at present, decided to answer. "This is sergeant Koralkas of the Vermillion Order. State your business here, and be quick about it." He waited for an answer, fully aware that these Aschen prove to be a problem; a problem they were ill-equipped to handle at the moment. They'd only come along with the Sunrise Conquest, which had since hurled itself into who-knows-where space. All that remained were the surviving Reavers, the destroyed ones having been taken by the geometric vessel through a rift in space.

Not a good sign.

In any event, if there was only one thing the Reavers were good at, it would be escaping. Of course, they were good for more than that, but in this moment, utilizing their fighting prowess would be tantamount to suicide. They were a scouting party, and hadn't planned for conflict, which put them at a critical disadvantage in that regard. With the Conquest gone, they had no other alternative than to leave if the getting got worse.

Admiral Steele quietly listened to their reply as he considered his own reply. The AI had already cycled through potential combat scenarios should things quickly turn south, but the Admiral was confident that things were unlikely to head in that direction.

Rather than the AI's female voice, a clear and authorative male voice rang over the comms.

"This is Admiral Steele, of the Pitiless, Commanding officer of this expedition. We're searching for intelligent life in this sector, and we're looking for contact with alien civilizations for the purposes of trade, and friendship..." His face darkened, replying to their response, sensing some sort of hostility.

"Or ascertain intentions of potentially hostile civilizations and neutralize the threats they could potentially pose to the Aschen Empire." He said calmly, while the Aschen fleet fanned out.

"Admiral, I have prepared Planck Packs in the event we need to prevent their escape." The AI reported.

The Aschen Fleet remained stationary in it's position. It did not come to combat ready or make any overtly hostile moves. It simply sat there, waiting.

They were in a deadlock. Needing to return home, but caught in a seemingly inescapable situation. Well, that is, in a situation that would make escape extremely difficult. Koralkas had no choice, it seemed, than to humor the admiral.

"Well, I can assure you, Admiral Steele, that we have no hostile intent. We're currently evacuating a mission gone awry, so if you would excuse us...." He trailed off, not entirely certain that his little speech would be enough to divert their little display; showing up with an entire fleet at your back isn't exactly the sort of thing someone without ill intentions does in a regular situation. Then again, they had just engaged in conflict in a sector of space that wasn't theirs.

Still, the sergeant was a rather good judge of character, and usually judged that people were scum out to slit your throat for no less than a sneeze in the wrong elbow. The admiral wasn't going to be any different in his mind, but he'd be genuinely surprised for the first time in his life if the man turned out to be the civil sort.

There was silence for a minute. This was especially irritating, as they needed to get back home and report their findings -or lack thereof- to the baroness. Suddenly, the sergeant saw an opening in and above the blockade; there were no ships in this little sliver, and turning to engage the Reavers would cause some issue, most notably friendly fire and collision with their own vessels. He closed the comm channel with the Aschen, turning toward his men. "Over there, three o'clock," he stated, "We can initiate slipspace travel and gun it through there, and escape.

Without warning, the remaining pilots situated their Reavers towards the gap in the blockade. It was a narrow entrance, and their movement would surely be noticed, so they had to act fast. No room for hesitation. Immediately, the sergeant pulled up and over, straightening his Reaver above the Aschen fleet, kicking his craft into hyperdrive. His craft took a few moments to initiate slipspace travel, and was gone. The rest of the crew did the same, leaving the Aschen behind.



Back in their familiar sector, they all shared a laugh as they averted a tense situation. "Alright men. Let's head home."

Dot watched Admiral Steele closely. "We're searching for intelligent life..." The Admiral had intrigued Dot and it would reasoned this was a moment where it could learn something new.

A great explosion erupted across the section of space at a precisely perfect distance from the Admiral's fleet so none would be in danger. The explosion pulled back on itself and millions of years of development took place in seconds, a young star was born. Around the star, at varying distances, orbiting clouds of rock, dust, and ice began to collide. Within minutes a young star had six orbiting bodies. Dot watched closely, waiting to see what the explorers would do.

Though the silence could be construed as the Aschen suddenly ignoring the Vermillion Commandos, the Admiral was really contemplating their attitude, and their hasty intent.

"XO, what do you suggest?" The Admiral asked, and the young Colonel turned to face the Admiral. "Class Two hostile civilization, definitely worth investigating closely." He said, while Steele nodded in agreement.

"Alright then, spool up the jump drives and take us out of here, I'll inform the Ministry of Defense of our findings." Steele said, nodding to the AI.

"Setting course for the Tal'Dor System, Jump in T-minus one millicenton."

As events took place just beyond the range of the Aschen fleet, one by one the ships flickered out of existence, vanishing without a trace.