Lost Among The Stars - The RP thread

In a relatively empty section of space a fair distance away from the ships, there was nothing.

One second later, that changed.

The blocky body of the Spredronian Interstellar Star Ship Independence, an Imperator-class strikecraft carrier/shipyard, suddenly jumped into system, missing a husk by a few hundred kilometres. Such was the hazard of the unique Spredronian EFTL (emergency faster than light) system: though the FTL system was more reliable in opening the quantum wavefront (i.e. it was much safer, and actually took the ship to a safe place), it was slow, no part in thanks due to the fact the wavefront manifested in the form of a gate of energy that swallowed it.

EFTL worked differently: the ship opened a portable wavefront and jumped in headed only in the direction specified, if one was specified at all. Though both drives had a range of 2500 light-years as was the norm, only FTL vanilla could drop out: if you went EFTL, you were waiting until you had passed all 2500 ly of distance before dropping out. And when you dropped out, you could drop out anywhere.

Many a Spredronian ship had fled a battlefield with EFTL only to find themselves telefragged: sometimes a fighter would end up welded to the hangar bay. Sometimes an asteroid would find its way into the deuterium fusion reactor core of a ship. Sometimes a ship would find itself buried underneath hundreds of kilometers of ground on a planet. But the risk was worth it: it was probable death versus certain death.

And here, probability paid off for the poor Independence: though it was leaking atmosphere, the decks it was leaking from were already well-sealed off, and eventually the rest of the air would leave. But the ship itself was heavily damaged, and looked barely spaceworthy. Of course, a plan was made to fix that.

At least six boxy fighters, shaped in a sleek, yet sharp-edged package, slipped out from the carrier, before, once ensuring the relative coast was clear, the six Blade Mk. V interceptors were the herald for a large, hexagonal prism with a bridge and engines - the Providence-class Resource Collector.

Two more ships, still boxy, but looking more rounded - veritable Multi-Gun Corvettes - came out as escort, before the entire convoy began to head for the nearest hulk - the one the Independence almost telefragged itself into.

Of course, there's only so much that can be done before communiques are sent, or presence is announced - though this much happend quickly, by now the activity was sure to place the crippled Independence on the sensors of any ships in the immediate area. And the crew damn well knew it: already they were gearing up the rest of the strikecraft for immediate takeoff, and any of the mass driver turrets that still worked were being loaded. The ones that weren't got repair priority: self-defence over a full fix.

For now, the bridge crew prayed to whatever gods may exist that fate would stay its hand and the Independence would live to fight another day.

"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

Praji took a moment to respond. If the "Lieutenant-Colonel" thought she could make such bald faced lies to a senior officer of the Imperial Navy, then she was sadly mistaken. A six year old as the commanding officer of a ship? What fool did this woman take him for? On a different note, he had trouble understanding what the Rimmers were saying - probably some backward dialect spoken in the outer fringes of the galaxy - but the intent was clear enough. Unfortunately, the self-righteous freighter captain had already cut the line of communication. Drawing himself to his full height (the effect of which was lost due to the terminal's recording system), Praji fixed Hayate with a glare that held barely disguised contempt. It appeared that the only thing that was keeping him from being less polite was manners and the fact that he was in command of a most illustrious vessel. The fact that his immediate superior was well within lightsaber range did wonders to reign in the eltist Commander, too.

"Madam, I would strongly suggest that you stop trying to obstruct the course of Imperial justice. Bring your vessel alongside immediately or there will be consequences. We have you under our -" Praji's ultimatum was cut short as a chime signalled the emergence of another vessel - two more, in fact. "...We will deal with you later, whether you have made the right choice or not."

Cutting short the communication, he briefly conferred with one of the sensors crew. It appeared that three warships of unknown design and emitting energy signatures that were non-compatible with all known sublight drives had jumped into the system. Striding over to Darth Vader, he snapped into a salute*

. "Lord Vader, three ships have entered the system. Both appear to be of military design, although they are unlikely to pose a threat to the Devastator. Your orders?"

"Ignore them for now. We must get that Jedi," said Vader, a gloved fist clenched tightly. For the briefest of moments Nahdonnis feared that he had somehow incurred the Sith Lord's wrath, but it quickly passed.

Rather unexpectedly a ship that closely resembled an Imperial Dreadnought entered the system, decelerating and coming to a stop only a stone's throw away from the Devastator. Several alarmed voices clamoured for attention at the same time, but they all were saying the same thing: it was an unknown capital ship - not of Imperial design as first suspected - and roughly comparable to the Devastator. A series of insistent tones rang out as the sensors detected the launch of star fighters. By this point Vader had turned to face the newest interloper, but he remained strangely detached from events (though it was hard to tell under the carapace like armour).

By this point an officer had managed to get to the comms terminal and hailed all the newcomers. "Attention vessels, this is the Star Destroyer Devastator of the Imperial Navy. You are to identify yourselves at once or you risk being fired upon." Rather nonchalantly Praji nodded at the rest of the crew and said, "Alert all commands."

The CIC became a hive of activity as systems powered up, sensors went active, and various other bits and pieces of technology were switched on or activated. Throughout the vessel, alarms blared and the intercom boomed into life. "Attention all hands, proceed to battle stations. I repeat, proceed to battle stations. Red and Green squadrons, report to the hangar bays and take off immediately. Standby for further orders."

With that, a gaggle of TIE pilots jogged to their craft and took off, their engines' characteristic roar becoming eerily silent as they left the hangar bay. To an outside observer, all they would have seen were the occasional flash of starlight as it reflected off a radiator panel or the greyish blob of a TIE's fuselage. They quickly established a fighter screen around the Devastator as the capital ship ponderously maneouvered to avoid colliding with the Mercury.

Darth Vader, for his part, was still consumed with the Jedi. Reaching out with his mind, he started searching for another presence in the Force. They could not be far if his aide had conversed with a sympathiser. Commander Praji, for his part, was now pacing up and down the bridge, issuing short, clipped orders as necessary. The Imperial Navy's officers were nothing if not a well oiled machine, and they were more than ready to make a co-ordinated attack or defence if necessary.

edited 12th Dec '11 12:57:46 PM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09

"This is a wonderful opportunity, so wonderful... to be stranded in a foreign universe, bereft of a support system but with the greatest ship ever built!" a certain mad scientist said, cackling madly to himself and climbing to his feet. The guns trained on him—along with the two wolves growling as they faced his direction—made it abundantly clear that Jail wasn't to try anything. Fortunately, that gauntlet appeared to be broken. "The engine shall have to be rebuild, or a functional core at least created from its remains, to have even the barest of essentials online... of course, we need resources for full operating capacity and we have no means to get them..."

Jail was being stared at, now.

Apparently, he didn't care that his enemies were right there.

Avatar Source

The Imperial transmission had passed through to the Independence just fine.

Attention vessels, this is the Star Destroyer Devastator of the Imperial Navy. You are to identify yourselves at once or you risk being fired upon.

The response was simple.

Star Destroyer Devastator, this is the Spredronian Interstellar Star Ship Independence. We do not intend for any harm to come to your ship unless you are the ones to fire upon us first.

The convoy of craft had reached the husk, and the Providence moved into position, before firing what appeared to be a beam of light. Said light-beam was actually a molecular disassembler ray, and when it made contact with the husk it literally scrapped it into its component atoms and then sucked them into the hexagonal prism-shaped bay of the Resource Collector.

"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

"Send response: This is the Earth ship USS Iliad. We are in this system through no choice of our own, however we will defend ourselves if attacked."

"Yup. That tasted purple."

Vrake was looking at his readouts on the central 'table' as the crew bustled around.

Aries glanced over,

“Sir, We're at condition one, all crew reports at battlestations.” Vrake nodded, quickly tapping on several areas of the table, enhancing the sensor readouts from the DRADIS.

“I think we kicked over a insect nest XO. What does the CAP report?” Aries conferred for a second and then,

“The White Warship is still sitting there, not sure-”

“Unknown, the white one! It's launching fighters!” The weapons officer called out.

“I read at least twenty fighters, unknown make and model.” Vrake rolled his eyes in annoyance,

“Yeah, like everything else here. I want Raptors 1, 2, and 5 ready to launch on recon. I need more details than what the Vipers and DRADIS can give me.” The Viper Squadron settled around the Battlestar in pairs, keeping an eye on things but not accelerating towards the white warship.

And then the communication from both the smaller vessel and the large white warship came in. But only the white warship it seemed had sent a message, the other just opened a line.

“Odd, what's this.” Vrake murmured as he played the message from the Devastator.

When it finished, Vrake raised an eyebrow,

“Devastator...now that's a friendly sounding name. Imperial?” He looked at Aries,

“Alright, let's play this by ear.” Vrake picked up his phone and signaled his communications officer to patch him in, sending an audio message to the 'fleet' as it were.

“This is the Battlestar Typhon, we seem to have had a slight miscalculation with our FTL systems.” The three Raptors left the port flight pod of the Typhon, angling out as their DRADIS arrays and camera systems started up. The lead pilot of 1 angled his ship through a series of twists and turns around the debris.

“Damn this stuff is nasty.” He was coming up on the smallest vessel they had scanned that was seemingly active. It looked almost like a creature, with its 'head' and neck swung up from the body and...

“Hey!” The pilot said, in suprise, as he realized he could see the piloting compartment of the little ship...and the group of people inside it. Turning on his cockpit lights, so they could see him, he waved a friendly greeting.

If you're not talking about the Providence, then ignore this post. I'll kill it later.

The Blades didn't react well to the intrusion. All weapons were locked on, the Blades were intercepting-

And then one of the pilots waves to the crew of the Resource Collector. The crew collectively waved back, and the leader popped into the radio, "It's okay. They're friendly."

The Blades disengaged their intercept, before the six Interceptors returned to their guard patrol around the Collector as it sucked up more of the hulk.

edited 12th Dec '11 1:00:25 PM by SpartyMcFly

"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

"Lieutenant, just transmit the following to each ship. This is Captain Montgomery, of the USS Ripley, part of the United States Colonial Marine Corps fleet. Do you know what is going on here? End message."

"Yes sir. Multiple ships have deployed fighters now."

"Wake the Marines, prepare them for boarding actions, and get those defenses online."

"Yes sir.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

This is Captain Montgomery, of the USS Ripley, part of the United States Colonial Marine Corps fleet. Do you know what is going on here?

More comms activity. It seemed that since the Independence's arrival, com frequencies were lighting up like Christmas tress. A response was sent.

USS Ripley, United States Colonial Marine Corps ship, this is the Spredronian Interstellar Star Ship Independence. We are just as much in the dark as you are about this current situation. We just got out of a bad spat with some Turanic Raiders, and we are currently working to repair our ship.

"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

"Pull back Gryphon Squadron, move to defensive posture. Raise shields and bring main railguns online."

"Wait, what did that message mean by "United States Colonial Marine Corps"?"

edited 12th Dec '11 1:31:25 PM by Deadbeatloser22

"Yup. That tasted purple."

Nanoha was, for the moment, keeping a careful eye on Vivio, and tending to her. At the moment, Vivio's well-being was the chief concern in her mind.

Vita, on the other hand, was recovering from being impaled, and from exhaustion. Considering that being impaled posed a minor inconvenience, and she'd fully recovered from exhaustion, this wasn't much of an issue. She was still rather bloody, though.

And irritated.

"What the hell is a jedi?" she asked, folding her arms. Whoever these 'Empire' people were, they were annoying and they were there, and that was enough of a reason for Vita to be angry. "Where are we?"

"Oh, dear. The toad, the monkey, and the dog have all screwed up."

The officer silently listened to the replies that poured in. So many unfamiliar names and organisations... were there civilisations beyond the Outer Rim they had yet to encounter? Still, he needed to formulate a response. "Devastator to all vessels. We are also currently unsure of our position, though we are endeavouring to remedy that. Our current intent is to investigate our surroundings and ensure that Imperial law and sovereignty are upheld, and we are authorised to use force if any ship jeopardises our mission. Mercury, draw away immediately. We will not tolerate your current proximity any longer."

Praji was tempted to take control of the terminal away from the officer - he was being far too willing to share information with the interlopers. However, it would be unbecoming of him to handle such communications at every available opportunity. If the officer made a major gaffe, the Commander could easily assert his authority and have the officer taken to the brig - or worse - for improper conduct.

Darth Vader intensified his search, but still there was nothing. Perhaps the Jedi had learnt the arts of cloaking oneself in the Force. Certainly, she was a cunning one... but she would be found. One or two crew members looked up at him furtively from their consoles, curious as to what had attracted the Dark Lord's attention.

The TIE fighters made one or two buzzes of nearby Vipers or any other fighter that came too close - probably in an attempt to get them to back off - but otherwise remained in an alert but passive posture. Their incredible agility and speed was plain for all to see as they wheeled and dived through the void.

Locking you up on radar since '09

In a blinding, collosal flash of light, there suddenly appeared a ship that easily dwarfed all the others currently present. Like some gigantic clam swimming through the sea of space, it ponderously floated towards the other ships, before coming to a dead stop a relatively short distance from them.

---

"Status report!"

"Unauthorised fold is complete," intoned the massive form of Exedol Folmo. "Our current location is... Unknown."

"Not this again..." muttered Captain Maximilian Jenius, slumping back in his seat. "I'm getting too old for this."

"Captain! Reading multiple energy signatures!" yelled one of the bridge crew, a woman with short, light purple hair. "I think we folded right into the middle of a battle!"

The captain immediately jumped to attention. "Go to full alert! Place all squadrons on stand-by, and hail the nearest ship! Let them know we have civilians on board!"

It was... it was really fucking big, that's for sure. And it was almost right next to them.

The Independence's four working mass driver turrets swivelled around to face the gargantuan ship, and when it stopped, one was kept trained on it at all times as the rest returned to idleness.

There was an unspoken message from the Independence to the Resource Collector outside, and that was hurry the fuck up. However, it did its job, and with a full cargo bay (and half of the hulk gone) it and its escort of fighters began to head back to the crippled carrier to give it the supply of resources it would need to effect repairs.

"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

With little to no warning, as is normal with a sub spacebore, a blue tunnel appears along the horizon and seems to stretch on to infinity in one direction, however near the amassing of ships it has an end the whole tunnel swirls in an unstable patten, and courses with lightning, and a foggy appearance, it seems as if space itself wants the tunnel gone.

From the exit, A large brown ship, 800 meters long◊ and extraordinarily dense, ejects from the tunnel, at 1/5th light speed, huge metal plates slam, in front of the engines and reverse the thrust, the ship halting at an alarming rate.... even a visual inspection would show something unusual, the ship lacked any form of view ports to the outside, and the amount of turrets seemed extraordinarily low for a ship its size.

After halting, the ship just sits there... obviously active, but not doing any thing... just sitting there, as the tunnel collapses behind it.

edited 12th Dec '11 3:24:28 PM by Imca

The Independence's bridge was awed by the newest arrival here, having seemingly torn a hole through space itself to get here. For now, though, it decided for communications silence. Its primary goal was fixing itself up, and dropping a beacon.

Then re-arriving with a proper ambassador, and two Avatar-class Heavy Cruisers in case something went wrong.

For now, as the resources pumped into the carrier's holding bays they went straight towards repairing the crippled starship. As repairs were effected, the fifth of its six mass driver turrets re-activated. It was low on ammo, most of it having been destroyed, or ejected, but hopefully none of the turrets had to fire.

"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

As residual distortions clear, and space begins to fix itself, the name of the ship becomes clear. "TDN Fenrir"

The massive Cerberus Class, continues to sit there, looming in space... and doing nothing, until without warning, it releases a sensor pulse, trying to get a bearing on its soundings, upon detecting so many ships of unknown make, the lights along its hull quit shining green, instead the all turn yellow...

The giant lets loose another pulse, and as if on its own determination decides to hail the serenity, it determined out of all the ships here, it posed the least threat, and would be the optimal first contact.

edited 12th Dec '11 4:06:25 PM by Imca

Mal cut off the communication, and turns to Wash, "...Well, this place is turnin into a Jiqun Ta Ma De, we should git."

"No need to tell me twice," Wash says as he turns Serenity around, and heads out to the black... when a hole in space gets torn in front of them. "Qing Wa Cao De Liu Mang."

Mal sighs, "Let's see if they know anymore than we do..." Mal attempts to open communication with the newest ship.

When communications is opened, provided it is video conversation, no human is onscreen... just a giant yellow eye like light, the voice answering is also far from human... it is cold and mechanical, although some tinge of femininity remains, a vestige of ships being refereed to as female for thousands of years.

"We are the TDN Fenrir" it answered "Do you know where we are?"

Mal is taken aback by the yellow eye, but still took it calmly, "I'm Captain Reynolds, and I was about to ask you the same dang question."

Meanwhile, Wash turns to the rest of the people on the bridge and says, "Is anyone else creeped out by the robot eye?"

edited 12th Dec '11 4:16:56 PM by deathpigeon

No emotion is reflected in the conversation, at this point it is not even obvious if it has emotion.

We are sorry, but that information is outside of what we know, that is why we hailed you. it said, befor a blue ring began around the yellow eye for a second, like old working signals on a computer mouse, it then asked another question, with the same cold voice. Do you know about the other ships in the area

edited 12th Dec '11 4:24:32 PM by Imca

"Well, we ain't know much about them ships, but that there grey one that looks kind of like a wedge is called Devastator, and that there grey blocky ship is called Iliad... Well, the crew of the Devastator are a part of the 'Imperial Navy', and act like they have the gorram right to boss whoever they wish around," As Mal speaks of the crew of the Devastator, his voice seems to be dripping with loathing, "The crew of Iliad appear to be from Earth That Was, and seem reasonable enough, if a bit curt and bossy."

Are any of them hostile? the ship inquired, before saying something else. What about your ship? Deep scans seem to indicate your a freighter

Mal thinks a moment, "Well, Devastator may be hostile, but that's mostly because it's crew is very bossy, so they should be fine unless you don't piss them off too much, but that big grey ship with those two... things on it's side launched what appear to be fighters soon after it came here, so it might be, but, other then that, I don't know nothin about how hostile they are..."

For a breif second, it seemed as plates along the outside of the ship were unlocked, but then they locked agian, the eye on the display and the lights on the ship revert back to green.

May we inquire about your ship it asks.