The Galaxy is Ours

Sweet Caroline - Bridge
Ignoring the shooting, Bobby continued to make his way to the medbay.

Titania, Inner City — Erruan

Erruan was about to return her attention to where they were going once she shot one of the aggressors when the grey object came arcing up through the air and landed amongst them. She had been about to bark a warning when Hrof handled the issue himself - and with aplomb, too. She muttered something under her breath about human powered armour (and the suicidal tendencies of their operators). Her semi-powered armour was starting to look like a raw deal compared to the human's suit, but the Sirian consoled herself with the thought that it was the quality of the soldier that counted.

She then tried to keep close to Solaris as the group moved along.

Caroline

"Oh, fuck!" Johnathan yelled as his arm was sent up, back and down, the gun falling on the floor, almost taking his arm off with him. He stood up, and watching Bobby walk away, knew he had to think fast. Think fast. Think fast.

He didn't even bother getting the gun off the floor. He just spun it around until it was facing the last boarder's feet and attempted to pull the trigger again. He was ready for the knockback this time, and although he wouldn't be able to nullify it, it certainly wouldn't tear his arm off.

Titania - Inner City

The plasma grenade began its flight back towards the original thrower before exploding in midair, harming nobody. There was yelling below but by now neither side really see the other.

"Go inside, we'll keep an eye from out here!" Someone below shouted.

Solaris wasted no time in reaching the other end of the building. The next one was not far off. She could make the jump. And not wanting to be treated like a doll any longer, she got a running start and leaped.

Feet made contact with roof, stumbling only a bit as Solaris steadied herself. She really needed to get out more. Years ago she could have made that jump with no trouble at all.

With her bodyguards keeping the enemy as bay, they made their roof-hopping way back towards the docks, avoiding beams and bullets, sometimes just by a hair. It took some time but they managed to make it to the end of the block. The buildings stopped abruptly, divided from the wall and entrance that had the docks on the side by a wide street. There was no one there yet. Just a few vehicles parked just underneath the building the Caroline crew was on.

"Stairs or jump?" Solaris put the question to her security team. She was not confident that she actually could make the jump alone.

Johnathan was pulled back with the gun after it send its deadly projectile at the boarders foot. He hit the side of one of the ship control panels but was unhurt aside from a few bruises. The same could not be said of the man he had fired at. He was very hurt, hurt in the foot being blown off kind of way. The man fell to the ground after his foot had, literaly, been cut out from under him, howling and gasping in pain. Still very much alive, but for the moment unable to harm anyone. If he was left there he could very well bleed to death.

For now though, the Caroline was safe.

Hrof sent a few parting shots through the dissipating explosion; even if he couldn't hit his targets, he could at least make them maybe think he could and keep their heads down a little longer. After that he followed after Solaris, keeping pace easily by switching his suit between speed and strength as needed. Switching to armor as they stopped, Hrof glanced across at their destination, down at the street below, then at Solaris as she asked her question.

"Stairs or jump?"

There was no way Solaris could jump across the width of a street unassisted. It might be possible for Hrof with his suit, and he or the Sirian could maybe toss her that far. But glancing at Erruan and her suit, Hrof got the distinct impression she wouldn't be making that jump. No, this called for a different strategy in Hrof's book. Down then across the street, but going inside and taking the stairs would add unnecessary time. "Jump" Hrof started, turning to Solaris, "down." As he finished his neutral statement, he pointed down at the street below.

Without waiting for confirmation, Hrof swung himself over the side of the building and fell towards the ground, controlling his decent with his left arm and leg gripping and sliding the side of the building. He toggled strength mode as he hopped the rim, to help with the control better. Once he reached the ground, he switched back to armor mode, slung his rifle, and hopped onto the nearest car. There he looked back up to the rooftop and and held his arms up, apparently waiting to catch Solaris.

Caroline

Johnathan took a good, hard look at the boarder, before turning to the others with the proudest smile. "No need to thank me. I knew I had some fight in my muscles." He said, patting them, before trying to lift the gun again, but giving up halfway through.

Titania - Inner City

Saying a quick prayer, Solaris toss herself off the building. She might have enjoyed a free fall experience had the situation not been so perilous. As it was she could only hope that the Grexian's armor was as strong as it was cracked up to be.

It only took a few seconds. She landed in Hrofs arms.

Sweet Caroline
Bobby continued along to the medbay, where he set Yeslah down on the nearest empty table. He also looked around to see if anyone was actually there.

Titania - Caroline

No one was.

Sweet Caroline - Medbay
"It appears that no medical personnel are nearby on this vessel," Bobby said to Yeslah, though whether he was conscious enough to hear him was another thing. "This unit has the contents of your species' Wikipedia in its memory banks, and is equipped with opposable thumbs compatible with most humanoid technology. I will proceed to preform Protocol: Emergency First Responder. Level: Basic."

He went over to the sink and started to wash his gorilla hands.

Titania Inner City — Erruan

Erruan had also taken in the lay of the land. Jumping struck her as a dicey proposition - it wasn't guaranteed that they would be able to make the jump - but taking the stairs risked letting their pursuers catch up. The last thing she wanted (or needed) right now was a firefight at close range in a confined environment where she might accidentally hit Hrof, Solaris, or civilians^note Even if they had wisely hidden inside, it seemed.

Again, Hrof made the decision for her. The Sirian initially found herself wanting to object, but then she realised that it was likely their best bet. It was both quick and relatively safe, at least if done correctly. Lumbering over to the edge, she positioned herself over one of the vehicles below. Grabbing on to the roof with one hand, she tried to lower herself off the roof as much as she could. Taking a more direct route than Hrof had done, the former Powered Infantrywoman simply let go, allowing the vehicle to absorb some of the impact. It wasn't perfect by any means - if the thugs didn't know they weren't on the roof any longer, they sure knew it now - but it was expedient.

Thankfully, the suit had ensured that despite the drop and the relatively hard landing that she didn't hurt herself (though the impact was jarring). Erruan mused for a brief second over the unpleasant surprise that at least one person would be coming back to. Hopefully, their insurance would cover "crushed by a Sirian contractor falling from the roof above".

Uhuo MEZ — Unneioi

The Alosseil had been listening to the situation reports coming from her own forces with a stony expression. What was Itab - and her Verandi partner, for that matter - playing at? She had a few ideas already, but it would have been unwise to act on them until she had more information available. She was less than impressed with their reticence, though. The Aggressors were meant to attack, not lurk in the asteroid belt like scared pups. when Zalez opened a line of communication to her. Letting her counterpart finish, she said, "I already have a solution. If we neutralise the picket, their other forces will have to reveal themselves to get a clearer picture of what we are doing. The same effect can be achieved if we scare off the picket. Regardless, they would need to act, otherwise we could dismantle them in a piecemeal fashion. Do you have any suggestions?"

So far there had been seemingly little activity aside from the asteroid picket, though both Verandi and Sirian vessels were getting apparently spurious tracks further along both sides of the field they were scanning. At this distance and with the prevailing conditions it was difficult to tell whether they were just asteroids, space junk, or something more.

As Solaris was about halfway down, Hrof triggered his suit to switch to strength mode. As she hit his arms he would bend them downwards, to reduce the impact effect on Solaris, strength mode simply allowing him to do so more steadily, with less chance of toppling down with her instead.

Since Erruan was lowering herself down first, she came landing down on a nearby vehicle after Solaris came down, giving Hrof time to switch to armor mode and turn away, still clutching Solaris. Thus any shattered glass or other debris sent their way would hopefully be nullified by his armor instead of, say, wounding Solaris.

No sooner had the crash ended then Hrof let go of Solaris, and got his rifle ready. "I'll take rear" Hrof said simply, trusting that by default Erruan would take front.

Titania - Inner City

With the trio free from fire for the moment, Solaris took the time to take a deep breath and hopefully steady her own heartbeat. She activated her comm unit once more after she was no longer panting. "Shuttle, we're just outside the docks. As soon as we get in we're taking off. Contact the ship if you can and tell them to get ready for us!"

There was still no one around. Solaris had a sinking feeling that she now knew why the city's populous was missing but there was no time to think about that now. Instead she took in the fact that the coast was clear. "Lets go!" she said and sprinted towards the dock entrance. As soon as they reached the other side, Solaris punched the door key.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The docks had erupted into another separate fight, with Black Phalanx members taking on the outnumbered and uncoordinated shuttle crews. And right in front of them was Rrivel about to be taken out by a gang of humans.

There was a burst of chatter on Johnathan's radio. A small spatter of a message was getting through.

"Captain... way! Come... you can... there!"

On another part of the ship, Yeslah was coming around. The Knotarian groaned and moved around a bit, which only made him groan more. He took a long breath through his nose, the exhale coming out like an angry snort.

"Were am I? What happened?" He said through grimacing teeth.

Uhuo MEZ

" Do you have any suggestions?""

"I do, Alosseil." Zalez said. "The picket crafts are maintaining a stationary position about the asteroids. I imagine they want to stay within close proximity to their hidden mother ships. Once we are in effective firing range I propose the bulk of our capital ships open the engagement by firing on the pickets with enough weaponry to force them to retreat or be taken out. Meanwhile the rest of the combined fleet proceeds to the asteroid belt to where our best estimates places a large portion of the Aggressor forces."

As he was saying all this, Zalez was manipulating the holo-projector controls at his seat, designing a step-by-step process that brought the basics of his plan to life.

"The capitals will hold the remainder of the Aggressor pinned in their safe spots, or they will have to fall back before coming back around at a safe distance to support their comrades. Either way they will not make in time to join the engagement between out attack force and the portion of their fleet being attacked."

When the plan was fitted with enough detail for his liking, Admiral Zalez sent it in a message to Unneioi. "What say you?"

Johnathan fell in front of the radio, hitting the button with his foot. "This is the Caroline! All boarders have been neutralized! I repeat, all boarders: neutralized! Identify yourself, and..." He stood up, frowning. "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

Titania - Caroline

The voice on the other end still was not coming through totally clearly. But Johnathan did not need to be a Master of Tongues to piece together the chopped up words coming back to him.

"-UCK YOU! YOU'RE... ONE WITH... SPACESHIP! YOU COME... AND... OF HERE!"'

Titania Inner City — Erruan

Erruan had loped ahead of their small group, acting as point. Whilst the captain dealt with the door, she wondered if they might have finally eluded the grasp of their adversaries. Unfortunately, it looked like the answer was "no" - though it appeared that they hadn't been expecting their arrival.

More pressing, however, was the position Rrivel was in. The Sirian didn't even have to think about it as she raised her railgun to the ready position and fired a pair of shots at the humans who were closest to Rrivel. She was not going to let a member of the crew die.

"Contact to our front," said Erruan evenly, trying to put herself between the humans and Solaris. "You might want to stay back until we make things safer, captain." Ideally these low-lives would think better of trying to fight them, but she wasn't holding her breath. After all, the thugs they ran into earlier were plenty motivated.

Caroline

Johnathan winced, and pressed the button, taking a deep breath before yelling out as loud as he could. "OUR LEADER GUY IS KNOCKED OUT I DON'T KNOW IF HE'S GONE BUT IT'S A POSSIBILITY AND I JUST SHOT A BOARDER IN THE FOOT AND IT WAS VERY BLOODY SO DON'T TELL ME TO DRIVE THE SHIP BECAUSE I MIGHT END UP DRIVING IT INTO THE DOCKS AND KILLING EVERYONE!"

He slammed his fist on the button, before pressing it again. "On our way." He muttered before turning to the crew. "So, who pilots this thing again?"

"I do!" John called out. Already having sat himself down in the pilots seat, adjusting the course for the planet.

Titania - Docks

The man about to lung at Rrivel dropped dead with a pair of Sirian shots to his back. Rrivel turned around in surprise and stepped back just in time to avoid being crushed under the dead weight. He looked in the direction of the city entrance, debating whether give thanks or make quip. When he saw who it was that saved, him he went with the latter on habit.

"Took ya long enough!" The pint sized powerhouse said before turning his attention back to his attackers. He leaped up onto the nearest one, scampering up the man's torso and onto his shoulder before grabbing his neck. Rightning emitted from his hand, sending electricity into the human's body in lethal degrees. No sooner was Rrivel satisfied that the enemy was happily roasting that he leaped off and rushed towards his crew mates.

"I mean, hey, it's not like I hadn't got this. 5 to 1, against giants, there are worse odds right?"

Solaris stifled a snort of laughter. Despite the matter at hand, despite the life-or-death situation, she could not help but be amused by the ridiculousness. She still heeded Erruan's words however, and kept the Sirian between herself and the Black Phalanx.

As it was, the enemy immediately turned to face the newly arrived trio. One man, power rifle in hand, began charging the weapon and aimed at the Caroline crew.

Under John's hands the Caroline cruised closer to Titania. Meanwhile the other ships that had been parked in orbit about the moon were breaking away. Engines flared, courses were adjusted, and soon they were all sailing in the same direction; back towards the inner worlds.

"Caroline, where are you now? Can anyone hear me?"

And the radio was working again.

Sweet Caroline - Medbay
"You are in the medical bay," Bobby told Yeslah as he washed his hands in the sink. "You were incapacitated due to an injury, and thus I was required to escort you to the nearest medical facility. Due to the lack of available medical personnel in the medical bay, the responsibility of performing first aid fell upon the the nearest individual: me. My lack of training and conditioning for such a task was supplemented by my access to opposable thumbs and the Knotarian Wiki, which allowed me to perform on a sufficient level. If this were a civilized planet, there is a chance I would currently be facing felony assault charges, but as we are in a ship, and I have evaluated my skill as being able to technically meet the minimum graduation requirements of a Knotarian institute of medicine that is technically legal due to being far enough in orbit to be outside of traditional jurisdictions, you will be pleased to know that I have not violated any laws to assist you."

He turned around. "As a legal requirement, I must now inform you that I am unable to accurately predict your chances of survival until you can be tended to by a certified professional. I would advise you to update your last will and testament to reflect any planned changes. As a certified notary public, I could verify its integrity should any heirs raise doubts as to its authenticity. I am also able to emulate last rites in nearly six thousand religions, should you desire such functionality. Should you not require my presence, I have primary duties I must perform. The Captain's seat warmers will not clean and repair themselves, and are such a low priority that it is unlikely Captain Solaris will be able to enjoy a warm posterior region for quite a while."

The man with the power rifle was about to face a distinct problem; his head was about to have to contest the space it was in with three rifle caliber bullets, arriving one after the other.

With their rear clear of hostiles, at least for now, Hrof had turned back to front as he head the sound of Erruan shooting, and with a quick switch of his rifle to single shot, fired the three previously mentioned rounds. Once Rrivel was clear of the line of fire, Hrof switched back to full auto and swept his rifle from the left-most enemy in front of them to the right-most one, trigger held the whole way.

He didn't expect it to kill all of them, but if that didn't make them scramble for cover, he wasn't sure what would.

edited 7th Apr '14 4:54:57 AM by FirockFinion

Tranquility

"Aye." Came the final vote from the Knotarian ambassador.

The display floating in the center of the room was completely green. Tebigon did not bother asking for the Nay votes since the conclusion was obvious enough.

"By unanimous consent of the Galactic Nations Council, the resolution is adopted. A committee will be formed to finalize the plans for the task force and and approval documents for participating member states."

There goes the most interesting part of the day. He thought.

The rest of the meeting resumed a more normal pace for these sort of affairs. Preparing new trade routes were discussed, the security of old ones was questioned, border lines were argued over, the fate of lesser civilization was debated.

That brought Tebigon out of his dull drum. One of the star systems occupied by one of those primitive species was currently being monitored by Verandi. The decision of the Galactic Nation would determine if the primitive system would be protected until they were ready for First Contact, and if so, who would be responsible for their oversight, as well as just how much freedom the overseer had in regards to the resources of the system.

"Regarding Star SC 10776 and S24, the survey team has completed their fieldwork and submits their reports for review to the Galactic Nations. This body will now determine the appropriate international action regarding the welfare of the system and its people."

More files popped up before the ambassadors, opening with a three dimensional display of the species that had been categorized and labeled as S24. The creature was shorter than most of the sentient species gathered in the Galactic Nations chamber, but by and large taller than the average Rakashan. It appeared reptilian, slightly hunched over with a large shell on its back. The two legs were short but looked strong, a sharp contrast to the thin arms that ended in long spindly fingers. The head had a strong brow and jaw, resembling an ancient Earth Neanderthal if a Neanderthal smiled with a row of sharp, pointed teeth.

The written portion of the report started with general statistics concerning lifespan and physical attributes. The rest dealt with culture and technological advancement. Tebigon focused on the latter. Transportation technology levels were low; they were still relying on beasts to move around long distances and only a few places on the planet were utilizing steam power. Oh, they were flight capable! But flight was too strong a word for the primitive balloons they were only just beginning to utilize. Weaponry was of a much higher level with machine guns and chemical weapons plentiful. Tebigon frowned when he saw that their communication technology was also more advanced than what he had expected. Radios were plentiful and some places had perfectly functioning television networks.

The report ended with the note that while still a divided species (Tebigon snorted at the idea that any people had to be united to be considered civilized), S24 had begun sending radio signals aimed at the stars.

Hrof's first bullet scratched the target's face, the next hit him square in the nose, and the third zoomed right past its target, which by this point had fallen to the ground in a puddle of blood and brains. The steady stream of fire he sent towards the Black Phalanx members sent them running in opposite directions, one taking a moment to fire back, but missing everyone.

"Yes, we are right outside!" Solaris was shouting into her comm unit. "We are coming!" To the others she said, "The Caroline is skimming the moon to meet us. We have to get to the shuttle right now!"

Said shuttle was now only 30 feet away, free of assailants for the first time since the ordeal began. That is, except for one luckless soul from Bolaemia still hiding behind the cargo crates..

Titania Docks — Erruan

"That was simple enough." Erruan made a quick sweep of the area with both her eyes and her weapon. Even if the enemy had seemingly retreated, that didn't preclude them regrouping and hitting the group as they made their way to the shuttle - or perhaps worse, just as they lifted off. "Let's go. Stay close, captain - it'll be the safest course of action."

Making sure that Solaris remained with her, Erruan sprinted toward the shuttle. Hopefully Hrof was already aware that he should cover her and the captain as they moved. The Sirian was so focused on getting everyone out there in one piece that she ended up missing the unfortunate Bolaemian entirely.

Space Colony Tranquility, Sol System - Galactic Nations Council Chamber
"The Norb Network will not support any plan of action that involves interfering with the natural development cycle of a sentient species," Rufus said. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, and this extends to the freedom to advance their technology at their natural rate of progress. I implore fellow members of the Council to realize that interfering with a developing civilization and their solar system will go against common morality."