[Other FULL] Return From Exile [IC] [M]

[Stingray]

Return From Exile: Journey of the Ark​

"Our past is a lie, our present is gone, we are being hunted, and our home is 47,000 light years away." - Unknown​

Kharak, the planet we have called home since recorded history had begun. Kharak is a hostile desert world with minimal resources and vicious wildlife. Life on this planet is only for the strong as the strong are the ones who control the few resources that are required to survive. Due to this the human Clans are stuck in an eternal war for survival, but that all changed with the discovery of the ruins of a vast space faring vessel deep within the harshest of deserts: Death's Wasteland. Inside we not only uncovered technology well beyond our own, but also a map with a word more ancient than the oldest of Clans: Terra... our true home. In the first time in history all of humanity united under a single goal to return to the birthplace of our race.

In the last 347 years humanity has put all its effort and focus into the creation of a massive mothership they named the Ark and restoring the ancient vessel's advanced Quantum Jump Core and integrating it into the Ark. Many risks and sacrifices were made to complete this ship and prepare it for the journey ahead. The most known sacrifice was that of Dr. Sondra Brenner, who merged her mind with the rebuild ancient AI to serve as the heart of the Ark and our guide in the stars. The human and AI hybrid became known as Fleet Command, and she would be the key to finding our way home among the countless stars of space.

The Ark is nearing completion as the first test of her Jump Drive is commenced. The Ark's test jump took it into the outer reaches of explored space, where the support vessel Endeavor was waiting. It took the Endeavor 34 years to travel to its current location from Kharak, and the Ark was able to get there in a matter of seconds. The jump was successful and the Ark ended up only 124 meters off course. With the help of the Endeavor's research team the Ark's jump navigation system was refined so she could return to Kharak with pinpoint accuracy.

However two new issues appeared. First the jump drive was interfering with the Ark's primary engines so that the engines were completely offline after the jump and the head engineers estimated it would be an hour after each jump before they could get the engines to function fully. Secondly was the more predicted issue of the jump drive needing time to recharge after every attempt to jump. These combined together mean the Ark would be completely immobile after every jump. However these would be repaired when they returned the Kharak. Loading up the crew of the Endeavor, and salvaging all the useful parts from the ship the Ark prepared to return to Kharak and to the scaffold for the final refits and completion of the mothership. However when the Ark returned to the Kharak they discovered nothing but ruins…

Fleet Command slightly mechanical female voice filled the Ark, "This is Fleet Command, coordinates for Kharak locked in… all personnel prepare for jump in 3… 2… 1…"

A Mass Vortex opens around the Ark and a second later it instantly relocates in the Kharak system.

Once again Fleet Command announced the arrival," Jump comple…" However she cuts off mid thought and all the lights in the Ark dim as Fleet Command stared at the horror outside the Ark.

A second later a horrified and sorrow filled Fleet Command voice almost whispered in disbelief, "by the gods... what happened!? The scaffold, the fleet, everything has been destroyed. Kharak is burning… initial readings of the planet show over 50% of the surface is consumed in a massive firestorm. Surface temperatures reaching over 900 degrees… there are no life form readings coming from the planet…"

There is a heavy silence throughout the ship as every crew member tried to wrap their heads around what Fleet Command has told them. Some begin to break down, others ran to a view port to see outside where they see the ruins of their race.

​

Kharak is burning...​

Fleet Command broke the silence with her alarmed voice, "Detecting energy spikes…. Unknown vessels have just jumped into the system and are closing on the Ark. All personnel to battle stations! Launch all corvettes and strike craft! Protect the Ark! Buy us time to recharge our jump drive!"

Mission 1: From the Ashes of Kharak​

The Ark's fleet has returned to Kharak to find its fleet destroyed and the planet burning. All scans for life or any human activity has revealed that we are alone, everyone else is dead. The scan wreckage of human ships shows they were destroyed by weapons fire. The ones responsible for this soon made their presence known. Three unknown vessels have jumped into the system and are making a course straight for the Ark. The Ark must be defended no matter what the cost!

Objectives:
1. Defend the Ark from the unknown attackers and buy her time to get her jump drive recharged
2. Capture one of the enemy vessels for research

Hostile Forces:

Scans of the wreckage positively identified that these ships belonged to the fleet that destroyed Kharak. Show them no mercy!

Spoiler:

NOTE your characters do not know this information this is to help you RP out the battle.

1 Alien Ion Beam Frigate

Ion Frigates sacrifice all other weaponry to mount a powerful anti-capital ship Ion Beam. They operate much like our Rail Gun Frigates: Effective against large targets, but the unwieldy nature of having to point the entire ship at a target means they are ineffective against Corvettes and Attack Craft.

This alien vessel is protected by a strong shield, however once the shield is down its armor is rather weak. The front armor and shielding is much stronger than any other angle.

2 Alien Assault Frigates

Assault Frigates mount seven energy cannon turrets that are short to medium range weapons. These energy cannons have a decent tracking system and can fire specialized "flak" bursts for destroying attack craft at short range. Assault Frigates are able to engage and fight against any type of vessel but they are best used to attack other Frigates, Destroyers, and Corvettes as they lack the focused punch to get through larger ship's armor/shields.

This alien vessel is protected by a strong shield, however once the shield is down its armor is rather weak. The front armor and shielding is much stronger than any other angle.

These Frigates are in a line formation A – B – A where the A are the Assault Frigates and B is the Ion Beam Frigate.

RP:​

Warning sirens filled the Ark as crew rushed to their battle stations. In the reactor engineers and scientists were in chaos as they tried to devise a way to charge the jump drive faster without damaging it. Their mission was vital as this enemy force was likely a scouting party, and the main force couldn't be too far behind it. If the jump drive wasn't ready before the main enemy force arrived the Ark would be doomed.

In the docking bay pilots were jumping into their attack craft and powering up their engines. Corvette's reactors were coming up to full power and a minute later all 30 corvettes and 60 attack craft that made up the Ark's security fleet were swarming out of the Ark's massive docking bay. The human vessels quickly gathered outside the Ark, then surged toward the three incoming alien vessels as a unified force.

"This is Fleet Command, all corvettes focus on the vessel on the left, and strike craft disable the weapons of the vessel on the right to ready it for capture by salvage teams. Then destroy or disable the last vessel," said the mechanical female voice of Fleet Command over the intercoms of all the human ships.

The 10 rail gun Corvettes were the first to fire as massive super magnets accelerated metal slugs at the incoming aliens. The slugs smashed into an energy field protecting the far left vessel causing a brilliant series of flashes then ripples of energy as the shields held up to the attack. A second later the hostile ships responded as the two Assault Frigate's energy turrets started splitting bursts of focused energy at the incoming human vessels. Several human vessels took hits, and one corvette was caught by several energy blasts at once and the powerful energy tore through the ship causing it to explode violently. The battle had begun…

 

[Garet]

Jeshal Kifius
The Ark, Interceptor Docking Bay -> Space Above Kharak
~~~~~

There was nothing good about this, even for him. Jeshal stayed put in his seat, eyes staring at nothing while others around him were rushing to see the ruins for themselves. Maybe a few of them wanted to believe that Fleet Command was wrong or joking. Certainly the whole thing was unexpected; they had left Kharak for only a short time. Jeshal finally stood up, about ready to see for himself.

"Detecting energy spikes…. Unknown vessels have just jumped into the system and are closing on the Ark. All personnel to battle stations! Launch all corvettes and strike craft! Protect the Ark! Buy us time to recharge our jump drive!"

Oh. He was going to see for himself anyway. Jeshal pushed aside thoughts of the burning planet as he ran for the docking bay. This, he could do something about. Before long, the Caedmon was in his Interceptor and flying out of the docking bay with the other ships. "Falcons, form up on me," Jeshal said into his helmet's intercom. As he understood it, he was in command of half of the 24 Interceptors in the security fleet.

"This is Fleet Command, all corvettes focus on the vessel on the left, and strike craft disable the weapons of the vessel on the right to ready it for capture by salvage teams. Then destroy or disable the last vessel."

Jeshal could see several attack craft moving forward to fire first. "Hold up, Falcons. Let's see how they respond." He got his answer a minute later; the enemy ship on the left showed that all three would have shields. A few of the attack craft had already been caught by energy blasts. "Evasive maneuvers! Test its defenses from other angles, look for a weak spot."

 

[<Challenger>]

Iscarot Solus
The Ark's Engine/Core Room

Iscarot typed rapidly on the holo-keyboard floating in front of him. The majority of his ever-present associates were running about, preparing to help with The Ark's maintenance needs. The professor, however, stood completely still as his fingers danced across the keyboard, and quietly muttered to himself, "Receiving reports from other ships...Not good. Alien weapons effective...Kinetic rounds not working...." He tapped the communicator and spoke into it rapidly, "Admiral, if possible switch to energy weapons...Not sure if technology available, but more effective. Shields uphold against kinetic rounds far too easily. Energy will overload shields and cause EMP blast...Hopefully. Sordus out." With that, he cut off communication and resumed his constant typing.

"Professor! Those enemy ships are tearing the attack craft to pieces!"

The communicator activated again. "This is Professor Solus. All squadron leaders report. Kinetic rounds ineffective against energy shields." He looked at the reports, many still streaming in. "Be careful. Evasive maneuvers. Protect Ark at all costs. Drive will be online soon. Solus out." With that he shut the com-link off and began to focus on the drive.

"Stevens! Manuel! Activate Protocol 626!" His two best engineers leaped to work and began to type, although not as fast as the Professor's mechanical appendages. "Faster! Chop-chop! Must evacuate system quickly! Main force in-bound!" He took a moment to tweak the mechanical screw on the knuckle of each of his fingers. He would have to sacrifice power for speed in this situation. He tapped his communicator again, "All corvettes, focus on ship in middle. Visuals show powerful gun, much like Rail Gun." He studied the picture for a moment more. "Rear armor appears weaker. More gaps. Punch hard. Solus out."

 

[Manska]

Geralt Zenar


Geralt's mouth hung open in shock as he stared through the view-port, still paused halfway through speaking to the engineer besides him. He listened dimly to the report from Fleet Command, a hollow ache rising in his chest. No life form readings. His Mother, his Father... everyone he knew and loved other than the Icarus' crew had been on that planet, or on the ships that had been reduced to rubble. But there was no time to think, no time to mourn. Almost as soon as Geralt had actually processed what was happening there was movement, and not the good kind. Geralt took off running almost as soon at Fleet Command resumed talking, pushing his way past panicking crew members as he made his way down to the docking bay where the Icarus waited. The bay was already vibrating to the hum of engines when he arrived and within a minute of him arriving he was settling down into the chair overlooking the small command deck of the Icarus as the backup crew made last minute checks and his second in command helped attatch the wires and tubes that would connect him to the ship to the back of his head.


"Neural connectivity confirmed, life support system activating... Conditions seem optimal. Activating the link in three, two, one..."


Even after spending five years doing it Geralt still found it hard to describe the sensation of syncing so completely with the Icarus. One moment he had eyes, the next he had a 360 degree field of view complete with thermal, radar and all sorts of other sensors attached to the Icarus all meshing into one. As he began to acclimatise his physical sense of his own body began to fade and suddenly moving the rear engines to slowly shift the Icarus out of it's docking bay was as natural as moving his arms had been ten minutes ago.


"This is Icarus, pilot-sync system initialised, all systems green. We are ready to launch." he reported, and after a quick radio burst back signalled he was clear to leave Geralt eased the Icarus out and accelerated out towards the approaching enemies with the rest of the corvettes. The amount of radio chatter was overwhelming as he moved out and he quickly restricted the incoming channels to fleet command and a few other ships, routing everything else to the communications officer.


"This is Fleet Command, all corvettes focus on the vessel on the left, and strike craft disable the weapons of the vessel on the right to ready it for capture by salvage teams. Then destroy or disable the last vessel."


The alien ship somehow survived the barrage of powerful projectiles fired into it unscathed, the Icarus' sensors picking up some sort of energy shield protecting it from the incoming projectiles. It's counter-attack was much more effective and Geralt's confidence stemming from the sheer numerical advantage they had was starting to fade.


"Keep up the fire, those shields can't last forever!" He called out on the battle-net, following up his own words by unleashing a barrage from the Icarus; the ship vibrating as each of the coil-cannons fired a shot, followed by a rapid series of lesser tremors as the missile launchers followed up. Many of the other ships behind him opened fire as well, though even with the overwhelming firepower the alien ship was distressingly undamaged once the smoke had cleared, though the shield looked perhaps a little weaker if that wasn't a trick of the light. The comms flickered to life and one of the scientists aboard the Icarus came through, reporting the ineffectiveness of fire that Geralt had seen with his own sensors. "Missiles aren't doing much either." he sent back, pushing power into th Icarus' engines to try and take the Professor's advice and get behind the enemy ship. The alien ship didn't take the attack lying down though and Geralt was forced to throw the Icarus into a tight corkscrew that would have torn the ship apart if it had been under the influence of gravity as several bright pulses of energy flashed towards him and the other ships, two of them striking hits on the Icarus.


It wasn't quite pain that Geralt felt when his ship was hit but there was definitely some sort of physical sense, enough that he had a rough idea of the damage even before the damage report popped into his peripheral vision. One of the bolts had done light damage before glancing off the Icarus' heavily armoured underside but the other had left a significant mark.


[ Port Engine damaged, operating at 80% efficiency. Port-aft missile launch system damaged, offline.]


Geralt gritted his teeth at the damage. Both of those hits had been near misses and would have barely scratched the Icarus if they had been human munitions yet these energy pulses had done some serious damage and had outright destroyed some of the other ships with direct hits. He quickly adjusted the power levels to accommodate the damaged engine and got the Icarus moving again, calling out over the comms "Spread the formation out and keep moving, keep the fire on it till we can get past that bloody shield!"

 

[Garet]

Jeshal Kifius
Space Battle Above Kharak
~~~~~

"Right, kinetic rounds don't work as well," Jeshal muttered to himself, performing a barrel roll to the right to avoid an energy pulse. He had a dim sense of his physical body, secured so his unused arms wouldn't be flopping everywhere. Syncing with his Interceptor really did make it easier to survive in a battle. Jeshal didn't like it much.

By now, he and several other attack craft had already shot past the front of the frigate. Flashes of light came from cannons on the frigate's side, and Jeshal abruptly pulled up the nose of his Interceptor, flying into a half-loop to avoid the cannons. Immediately, several of the other attack craft began reporting flak bursts at short range. Some of them were the first to be destroyed by the flak.

"Stay out of short range! Fire from as far away as possible!" Jeshal snapped into his helmet. There was a very faint pull of gravity, just enough to tell him that he was still 'upside-down'. In a space battle like this, that didn't matter to him. Jeshal turned back around to fly toward the frigate, passing its front again but at a greater distance. He began hearing reports from other attack craft that the shields on the sides and rear of the frigate were weaker. "Okay, keep up the pressure there, let's break through!"

A couple minutes passed as Jeshal and several other attack craft, including his Falcons, kept firing at the different angles of the frigate's shields. Even if kinetic rounds were ineffective, it was all some of them had. It was a bomber's torpedo that did it - the rear-end shield faded for a moment, long enough for a few rounds to get through and strike the frigate's hull. Several excited whoops sounded through the battle-net, followed by someone reporting, "Shields are starting to go down!"

 

[Stingray]

Thane Varik Kushan
Blade of Kharak​

"You know the drill… cut power to Life Support, artificial gravity drives, and everything else we don't need to fight," ordered Varik as his engineer reduced the power from basically anything that wasn't the Rail Gun that dominated the vessel, and her engines. This meant the Rail Gun would recharge 14% faster and they could move around 11% faster than any other ship not taking the cuts to comforts. However Varik's crew was used to this and understood that being comfortable doesn't matter in battle if you're dead.

As the third Rail Gun round spat from the Blade of Kharak's nose as the lead scientist's voice came over the communication link. After listening Varik said, "Ok engines to full, lets hit them where it hurts. Ignore the suggestion on the middle ship. Fleet command ordered the left one dead first and it's the one tearing our fleet apart so she has to die first." As almost to push Varik's point home the Rail Gun corvette that was just to the right of the Blade took two direct hits in a row causing it to violently rip apart as energy torn through the vessel.
"Hard left, bring us up to the side of the left vessel," ordered Varik as the Blade barely dodged several spikes of deadly energy. "Execute afterburner in three… two… one," said Varik. His crew followed his orders perfectly. "Full retro burn in five seconds, then transfer all power to the rail gun!" yelled Varik.

The Blade of Kharak's engines suddenly died and retro-burners spun the ship to face the alien vessel it was flying past with its momentum. With all power to its rail gun the Blade was able to unleash two rounds just it pasted the enemy ship. Once past the Blade's engine reignited and she tore off behind the enemy formation. The first round was stopped by shielding, but the second slug tore through the weakened energy and impacted the hull. Two standard Corvette's that were following the Blade saw the weak point and their auto cannons unleashed a line of explosive shells into the shield less area. Explosive rounds tore armor plating off the enemy ship.

Just then a brilliant beam of focused energy fired from the middle ship impacting the hull of the Ark, evaporating thick armor plating. The armor plating held for now as the Ion Beam tore into the massive ship's hull.

"Keep the focus on the one corvette… she is going down… then we can focus on the middle frigate," said Varik over the open communication channel to hopefully prevent anyone from attacking the middle frigate before the left one was destroyed.

 

[<Challenger>]

Iscarot Solus
The Ark's Engine/Core Room

An irritated Solus tapped at the keyboard in front of him almost endlessly. It was amazing how fast his fingers were moving, but it was all thanks to his irritation. He tapped his communicator. "Ark hit. Damage controllable. Need frigate out of action! Suggested ionic beam! Completely negates armor!" He grunted as he took his finger away from the communicator and noticed that the shields on the left frigate had gone down. "Now chance." He quickly began to override the Ark's few weapon systems and unleashed auto-cannon fire on the ship. All but a couple of the shells were met with shields, and the few that struck were ineffective. "Damn. Must find weakness in shields." With that, he scanned the reports of all frigates. "Ion cannon...dispels energy." A thought entered his mind.

Iscarot turned his eyes to the image that was recorded when the ion-frigate fired. "Shields dissipate when ion cannon fired...Would overload shields and cause entire ship to shut down!" He began to tap away, waiting for the ship to fire again. A tap of his communicator. "Attack craft, leave main frigates to larger ships. Have new plan." He stopped to clear his throat as he spoke rapidly, "Corvettes and cruisers can handle larger ships," He paused for a moment. "They see concentrated effort on one ship. Will most definitely cut off and isolate. Will effectively crush individual ships." He viewed the images of the on-going battle. He noticed one group of fighters in particular, as well as a corvette near them. "Attack squadron designation Falcon, Corvette 'Blade of Kharak,' in prime position to fire rounds into frigate's engines. One railgun slug should be enough to obliterate and incinerate." He stroked his chin for a moment with his metallic fingers. "Blade, would be recommended that you fire one more shot into engines and move immediately in front of Ion ship. Wait until gun is charged. Shields will dissipate as ship prepares to fire." Solus noticed another ship nearby as well. "Icarus, noted you are hit, but you are in fine position to fire as well. Need ship directly in front of cannon. Risky. Shot may go off early. Would immediately destroy and tear apart your ship, but if timed correctly you could fire railgun slug directly down ship's center. Ion charging would be rendered ineffective and tear ship open from inside out. All that is needed is one torpedo even....Regardless. Must have ion ship destroyed. If Ark takes one more shot, it will be done for."

 

[Manska]

Geralt Zenar, Approaching Left Frigate

It was times like this that Geralt was reminded why his ship still had a crew, even though it was technically possible to fly it without one. The almost overwhelming chitter of comm channels running through his mind was now augmented with messages from the crew as they sprung into action, isolating damaged systems and either performing emergency repairs or shutting them down to prevent further damage.

The human fleet was starting to finally do some damage now, shots slipping past the quickly weakening energy shields and finally doing some actual damage. Geralt didn't have access to the pure power of the rail gun wielding ship that had first torn the shield, but he did have the precision of turret mounted weapons and he intended to use it.

If Geralt had conscious control of his body he would have been grinning nastily as he spun the Icarus around to give her the best firing lines and aimed the recharging Coil Turrets at two of the frigate's own guns. Once again the Icarus vibrated as the two powerful guns fired but this time the small but powerful rounds punched through the shields and hit their targets with pinpoint accuracy, rewarding Geralt with two very satisfying explosions as the two turrets he had targeted detonated from the impact, sending gouts of energy flying from the ship to dissipate aimlessly in space.

"Hah! It felt that one!" he crowed victoriously over the comm network, happy to get a bit of revenge for the damage to his own ship. Evidently he had been noticed as several turrets started to aim his way, forcing him to divert power away from the weapons as he sent the Icarus into a series of evasive manoeuvres. They didn't take any hits but several of the energy shots actually came close enough to fry some of the Icarus' sensors from the sheer heat, giving Geralt an idea."Kael, scan the target full power and send possible sensor locations up to me." he said on the Icarus' local comm. In short order a couple dozen red diamonds appeared on his view of the ship, highlighting where his sensor officer thought the alien ship's own sensor arrays were.

Timing the launch to synchronise with several of the rail-gun frigates breaking the shields again with their powerful guns Geralt launched all the Icarus' available missiles at the sensor locations, aiming to try and blind the ship on this side. He couldn't tell how effective he actually was but the array of explosions along the frigate's flank were satisfying and the energy fire promptly became a little less accurate, giving him some space to breath.

The comms chimed again as the scientist onboard the Ark sent out another message, warning them about the middle frigate. Geralt winced when he "looked" back and saw the damage that the first Ion beam had done, practically carving a crater out of the thick armour on the Ark; they would be in trouble if it took many more of those.

"Roger, I'll throw try and hit it with some missiles when the shields go down." he returned over the comms, sending a powerful pulse to the working engines to quickly lift the Icarus up to it could fire over the outermost frigate. As he did so he spun the Icarus upside down in reference to the frigates, letting him continue firing on the dying frigate with the coil cannons while he waited for his chance to strike the centre ship.

 

[Dusty]

Talia Arventis
Location: The Ark, Orbiting Kharak

"God dammit Talon, get that engine back online or I swear I'll feed you ass first to the trash compressor!" Talia shouted at her engineer who was scrambling around the underside of the ship elbow deep in oil and grease. "If you haven't noticed, there is a battle outside, and we are contributing absolutely nothing at the moment!"

"I know, I know", Talon replied, his voice filled with stress. "I'm not sure what went wrong! The energy conduit to the left engine seems to be damaged some how! We could use the backup, but that'll operate at about seventy five percent efficiency, we'll be noticeably slower."

Talia thought for a moment, a very short moment. "Fine, do it. We'll just route the excess to other systems. Just make it quick, I want to launch in less than sixty seconds." She left the engineer to make the switch while she clambered back into her ship and made her way to the cockpit, engaging her neural interface as she went. She grimaced as the connection was made, and her mind was hit with the raw amount of data the ship was sending her. The wireless feature was nice, but the initial data flow was a bit intense. Or maybe that was just stress getting to her.

She pulled herself into her chair, buckling herself in, mentally and physically going through the preflight diagnostics, skipping through a few of the less essential steps to make up time. She really didn't care if the air scrubbers were working properly, they could breathe stale air for all she cared. Everything essential for battle checking out, she brought the reactor to full power, energy humming faintly through the ship. Sensors were brought online, giving Talia a full three dimensional view of the ship, as well as the interior of the hanger they occupied. "Engines green Talon?" she shouted mentally to his own implant.

"One second...alright, good to go!" he replied. There was the slam of steel as the access panel slid and locked back into place, then the engines began to glow as Talia slowly fed power into them. As she saw the power flowed without any major problems, the flooded more power to them letting them heat up. The access port on the underside of the ship slammed shut as Talon climbed in, moving back to his station towards the rear of the ship. "Fifty eight seconds Talon, cutting it pretty close", she greeted his entrance with a grin.

"Wow, a full second faster than last time! Do I get a gold star for that?" Talon replied. Talia just grinned more as she gunned the engines, launching the ship out into space towards the battle ensuing in front of them. The grin disappeared quickly as she saw the complete destruction of her planet beneath her, the flames clearly visible from space. "Holy ****", Johan, her weapons engineer whispered as they all took in the destruction. Talia tore her view away from the planet, forcing herself to focus on the battle ahead. There would be time for tears later. "Stay focused guys, pay attention to what we can save for now."

She had been taking note of all of the commands given up to that point, so she flared the engines to as far as she was willing to push the backup conduit bringing herself to engage with the left vessel. Noting the strategy a couple other ships were using, wearing down the shields with smaller fire then breaking through with heavier weaponry, she ordered the auto-cannons to switch to flak ammunition. It was less powerful, but hopefully the higher number of rounds would help wear down the shield faster. "Talon, scan for vital structures on left frigate." A moment later, a dozen or so icons lit up on the frigate of predictions for vital targets, and their apparent uses. Her eyes flicked through them, then shouted to her crew members, "Attacking underside of ship, possible sub-light communications. Fire flak on my mark, I'll control coil gun." As they sped towards the ship, she quickly dumped most of the excess energy into the flak autocannon, as much as it could handle, then routed the rest into her main coil gun.

As they came in to approach the frigate, Talia cut the engines allowing momentum to keep them moving, then fired the retro-burners spinning the ship so it was perpendicular to the frigate. Talia kept a mental count, then as they came in range said, "Mark!" and the flak cannon was unleashed onto the underside of the ship causing the shields to flash amber. Turrets on the underside of the ship swiveled to follow the ship's movements, firing their own ammunition, punching into her ship, the ammunition punching through the hull, denting other places. "Dammit", she muttered, then unleashed the coil gun on maximum rate, sending slug after slug towards the ship. The shields flashed with amber light for the first few hits, then died altogether as the last of her volley impacted the ship obliterating what looked like the sensor tower, as well as more than a few turrets as well.

Then they flashed past the frigate, clear from firing angles, and Talia brought the engines back online slowing their velocity bringing them slowly back into range. "Damage report?"

"Targetting computer is pretty much dead", Talon replied, "We'll have to fire manually, so long range is pretty much a no-go. Minimal damage to other systems though, should be good."

"Copy." She noticed a couple corvettes moving into position in front of the center frigate, then brought her attention back to her original target, mentally marking the best targets for her next approach.

 

[Stingray]

Like bloodthirsty piranhas the human's Corvettes tore into the Frigate whose shield had failed. Armor plating was being torn away from every side of the Frigate and vents of released air exploded out from countless spots on the Corvette. The Corvettes continued to tear into the ship, even after its weapons went silent and the ship's frame gave way. Slowly the Frigate just tore apart as escape pods began to jettison from its hull. However none of these pods would make it far as Autocannon rounds and missiles destroyed them without mercy. The human's vengeful bloodlust would not allow for any enemy survivors.

"This is Fleet Command, hull damage to the Ark is minimal for now. However that middle frigate is tearing through our outer armor quickly. Dispatching Salvage Corvettes now… Fighters and Interceptors continue attacking your target's weapon systems. Bombers change targets to the middle frigate. Corvettes stand by for individual targeting orders," ordered Fleet command in her barely female voice to all the human ships.

Both Talia and Geralt's screens showed their target to be the other turret using Frigate with orders to disable its weapon systems without destroying the ship. Meanwhile Varik's Rail Gun Frigate was ordered to destroy the middle frigate.

Meanwhile onboard the Ark, the engine room was halted to a standstill as two senior engineers argued over a solution to quickly recharging the jump drive. One insisted on directly linking the reactor to the Jump Core while the other argued that this would drain the reactor at best and likely damage it. They needed to get it charged quickly, but no one was doing anything as these two argued over this single idea.

Thane Varik Kushan
Blade of Kharak, Rail Gun Corvette​

Varik ordered his corvette to come around and stabilize in space behind the Ion Frigate. "All power to the rail gun, pound that ship to dust!" ordered Varik as the engines were drained of power. The rail gun let loose its first round, then second shortly after, followed by the third. The Ion Frigate's shields seemed weaker than the Assault Frigate's and they were quickly showing the signs of weakening. However its lethal anti-capital ship beam began to fire again, tearing into the Ark, barely missing one of the two salvage vessels that had just left the Ark's docking bay.
Varik watched the salvage corvettes on his radar. They were vital to the human's survival as capturing an enemy vessel would give them important intelligent on these enemies. Thankfully the enemy Frigate seemed too distracted by its current attackers to fire on the two "harmless" salvage vessels filled with well trained marines. He then turn his attention back to the Assault Frigate, which was trying to fight off the swarm of attack craft and Corvettes flying around it, while trying to only hit its remaining turrets.

This battle should be over quick, but by Varik's count the humans had lost 7 Corvettes already and likely many attack craft. For such a small remaining human fleet these losses were heavy and they would need to find a way to cut these losses in future battles. This would mean both better understanding of their enemy and better technology to fight them with.

Refocusing on the Ion Frigate, Varik watched its shield starting to give way under the focused firepower of all the remaining Rail Corvettes, several standard corvettes, and the remaining bombers. He hoped the damage to the Ark was just to the armor and not to any of its vital internal systems.

 

[Garet]

Jeshal Kifius
Space Battle Above Kharak, #2
~~~~~

Professor Solus had suggested that the attack craft switch targets to the middle Frigate, leaving the left and right Frigates to the Corvettes. It wasn't long after that when Fleet Command told the Fighters and Interceptors to stick with their current target and destroy its weapon systems. By now, Jeshal could tell that a few of his Interceptors had wandered over to firing on the middle Frigate's shields.

"Falcons, regroup and focus on the right Frigate!" Jeshal ordered, shooting past it once again. The middle Frigate was the most dangerous to the Ark, but from all the reports he heard, it had only the one beam weapon. His squadron would be better off destroying the right Frigate's weapons. Jeshal glanced at one of his screens; it showed that four of the Interceptors under his command were destroyed. "I told you all to stay out of their flak range!"

"We're still determining that, sir!" a voice replied over their channel.

Jeshal pulled his Interceptor back around, dodging another energy blast from the Frigate. "Remember, we're aiming to disable this ship, not destroy it." In an undertone to himself, Jeshal added, "Though I want t' blast 'em all away." He spun around to stay between two more energy blasts before aiming himself back at the Frigate's rear end. Jeshal had a clear shot into the engines, as did three other Interceptors and a couple Fighters. The Interceptors' autocannons spat out several kinetic rounds, which pounded into the rear shields and broke them open again. Right after that, two missiles from the Fighters shot through and into the Frigate's engine. Jeshal was pulling away again to avoid a flak burst, so he didn't get to see the satisfying explosions.

Someone was reporting over the battle-net that the right Frigate's engine power died out, leaving it to move only on momentum. "All right, good work!" Jeshal said, grinning despite himself. "Now let's take out the rest of their weapons!"

 

[Dusty]

Talia Arventis
Location: Battle Over Kharak

Talia swung her corvette Joyau back out of range after her third pass on the frigate, then watched it slowly tear into pieces, escape pods jettisoning from the wreckage into space, only to be chased down by the cloud of human ships, gunning them down mercilessly. Talia's own flak cannon spat rounds again and again, chewing the pods into nothing. She felt a sick sense of satisfaction for obliterating those who had destroyed her planet. She enjoyed the feeling a moment longer before calling for another damage report. "Nothing significant on the last pass at all", Talon replied. "Go a bit easy on the retro thrusters though, they seem to be straining a bit after that last pivot." Talia nodded acknowledgement, turning her attention, try to decide best which frigate to engage next. Her decision was made infinitely easier when fleet command ordered her ship to engage the right hand ship and disable the weapons.

"Alright guys, target right frigate. Johan, you have both flak and coil guns, Talon, just keep the engines running no matter what." Johan grinned at the command, more than happy to reap some real destruction. "We want to capture this one though", Talia warned him, "Just wear down the shields and then use the coil gun to target individual defense structures. And try not to hit wherever the shield generator is on that thing, I want one of those."

Talia gunned the engines, noting the audible strain as they accelerated, the patch job only barely working for now. Hopefully it would hold through the battle...hopefully. The frigate came closer and closer in her vision, now the dozens of attack craft swarming around the ship, flak flashing in space. As she watched, one of the craft came too close on an attack run and was chewed apart, bright fire leaking into space from the leaking oxygen, then crashing into the shields of the frigate disintegrating as the shields flared brightly. More explosions lit up the display as missiles exploded near the rear of the assault frigate, then the engines grew dim and died. The ship was definitely going down, but it was still putting up quite a fight.

Two additional blips corresponding to boarding salvage vessels appeared on her HUD, and an idea came into her mind. Quickly she contacted the leader of Falcon squadron, "Falcon One, this is Corvette Joyau. Gotta clear near side of the assault frigate for boarding craft. I'll go in for a close strafe run and try to draw fire, your men follow behind and target defenses once the shield dies." Then to her own crew, "Talon, get ready for some quick repairs."

She spent a few seconds getting into the optimal run position, then gunned her engines as far as they would go, quickly accelerating to pass parallel to the enemy ship. Hopefully they would draw most of the fire, but be moving too fast for any serious damage to hit. Only a few seconds before they were in range, Talia cut the engines moving with momentum again, spinning into the optimal firing position while showing as little of their ship as possible. Then the dull surface of the ship was in front of them, and Johan let loose hell with both guns, lighting up the shield as it tried to absorb the concentrated fire. Only a few seconds into the run, flak started to explode in front of them, rocking the ship punching holes in the hull as if were made of paper. Talia grit her teeth a few more seconds, then flipped her ship around and gunned away from the frigate announcing, "Aborting!" into the coms. Trying to spin around once again to bring the coil gun back in line as they were retreating, she found the retro burner controls sluggish, and her engines sputtered a few more seconds and then died. Slowly turning with the damaged burners, she then tried to kill as much velocity as possible, eventually slowing down a few kilometers from the frigate.

"****, Talon, get working on those engines, we're a sitting duck! Johan, do what you can with the coil gun from here." Her gunner nodded and turned his attention to picking out individual targets. Talia sighed as she contacted fleet command, "Command, this is Joyau, we're out of commission, going to need a tow back to hangar." She then turned her attention to trying to find a way to route power back to her engines so they could get moving again. Hopefully they had done enough damage to speed the end of the battle.

 

[Garet]

Jeshal Kifius
Space Battle Above Kharak, #3
~~~~~

"Falcon One, this is Corvette Joyau. Gotta clear near side of the assault frigate for boarding craft. I'll go in for a close strafe run and try to draw fire, your men follow behind and target defenses once the shield dies."

"Hold on a--" The channel cut out on Joyau's end before Jeshal could finish. He seriously considered calling her back to remind her that getting too close would earn her a faceful of energized flak. That was the point, though. Drawing fire and returning the favor so they could punch through the shields even more. "Falcons, form up on me." After that, Jeshal spoke both to his Falcons and to the other squadron leaders of the Fighters and Interceptors. "Corvette Joyau is going to draw fire from the Frigate so that the Falcons can clear a path for the boarding craft. You're welcome to join us."

Within a minute, all eight of the remaining Falcons had formed up at an optimal distance behind Joyau; Jeshal didn't bother to look if any of the other attack craft had joined them. There was no need to point out that this could potentially wipe out all of the Falcons. Jeshal had a gut feeling that this would work, however, at least to some extent. It would be worth the risk.

A second after the Joyau began its run, Jeshal led the Falcons in shooting at the side of the Frigate. The Corvette's guns were enough to bring down this section of shields, and the Interceptors' autocannons fired on the Frigate's defenses. There was noticeably less energy flak after the first couple seconds.

A moment before Jeshal could pull out of the fly-by, his sync with his Interceptor told him that his right wing had been struck by some flak. Muttering curses to himself, Jeshal turned and flew out of flak range, which took two seconds longer than normal due to a belated turn. He ignored the phantom-pain that came through his sync with his Interceptor and checked his screens again. Six Falcons left now, including himself. "Report, how did our run go?"

"Those shields are down now, sir, and there's a lot less weapons and plating. Those boarding craft will have a better time getting through now."

"Kifius, you're trailing debris!"

"My right wing was hit by flak," Jeshal replied, "and one of my engines is out. Speed and turning aren't so good now. Don't worry about me, make sure those salvage vessels get through!"

 

[Stingray]

Battle over the Ruins of Kharak
Thane Varik Kushan
Blade of Kharak, Rail Gun Corvette
​

The head scientist's suggestion went through Varik's head as he watched the Ion Frigate unleash another beam of concentrated energy on the Ark, tearing away more armor, but not hitting anything vital, yet. He shook his head and muttered, "Worth a shot… that thing isn't going down quick enough. At least his estimation on how quick it could kill the Ark was wrong. However he is right we can't let her keep taking a pounding." Looking up at his crew, Varik spoke up and said, "Ok let's move in front of that Frigate and send a shell straight through her when she is about to fire." The Blade came to life and lunged ahead. Flying over the Ion Frigate as its latest attack ended, the Blade flipped belly up and used its retro thrusters to make it flip in front of the Frigate.
"Fire on my mark," Ordered Varik as he watched his sensors for the signature energy spike that the Frigate had right before firing. "Ready…. Ready… Fire!" ordered Varik just as the brilliant beam began to form. Well if the scientist was wrong Varik made a mental note to haunt the **** out of him when he became a ghost.

The Ion Frigate shuttered violently as the rail round punched through its main gun. Everything went black in the Frigate and the charging beam dissipated. This was followed by a sudden flash of bluish energy as its reactor went critical. A second later a powerful storm of energy burst out from the ship tearing it apart. The blast enveloped a pair of human bombers that were not able to get far enough away quickly. The brilliance and violence of the exploding reactor dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, and where there was once a powerful warship was nothing but hundreds of small pieces of debris.

The remaining Frigate's lone unharmed gun turned toward one of the approaching salvage craft and unleashed its powerful darts of energy at it. The salvage corvette broke into evasive maneuvers as its pilot screamed over the radios, "**** it, destroy that **** gun before it kills us. Can't you warriors do what you're told." A burst of energy cut into the main hull of the ship blasting a nasty hole in its thin armor and venting out oxygen, some supplies, and at least one unlucky crew member. The pilot filled the radio with several choice words before four fighters and three corvettes could all focus fire on the weapon, silencing it for good. Now cleared of threats the attacked salvage corvette returned to an interception course and attached itself to the hull of the Frigate.

Once the second corvette had attached itself to the Frigate the boarding assault commenced. Human Special Operations soldiers breached into the hull with a combination of specialized cutting equipment on the "arms" of the salvage vessel and explosives. Tossing blinding grenades and charging in a split second after they exploded, the human soldiers were able to quickly kill the enemy marines without losing a single soldier. The human's high level of experience and training showed with their flawless execution of a ship sweep. Any of the shorter, yet still human like, aliens that crossed paths with one of the two boarding teams were killed before they could defend themselves. In less than a minute one team was preparing the breach the command bridge, while the other was entering the engine room.

Charges on the door to the ship's bridge were set and detonated, and before the door even finished hitting the ground, human soldiers were in the nerve center of the ship unleashing a hail of explosive bullets and bursts of burning spikes from their autocannon carbines and short ranged shredder rifles (basically advance shotguns). Most of the crew didn't even have time to turn and see their attackers before they were dead. However their commanding officer and select few others weren't so lucky and were taken down by specialized "Stunner" round that sent a powerful burst of electricity through their bodies, disabling them. Their fate would be long and painful interrogations in the hands of Clan Kass interrogators.

Meanwhile in the engine room the other human team was cutting down defenseless engineers and slaves that tended to the ship's reactor. Some of the aliens tried to flee from the human aggressors, while others dropped to their knees to beg for mercy. The destruction of Kharak was fresh on the minds of the boarders and there would be no mercy for this crime. The ones that fled died first, followed by swift executions of the ones who surrendered. In the mist of this chaos and bloodshed, one alien slipped into a small crawl space under the reactor that was used by slaves to repair sections of the reactor. For now this slave had escaped the fate that met her masters and fellow slaves.

Meanwhile outside the Frigate there was an uneasy silence as the remaining human ships mustered and started to slowly move back toward the Ark. Most of the attack craft reformed into squadrons while corvettes surrounded their wounded brethren and began the slow trek back to the Ark. Suddenly a large number of energy spikes appeared on everyone's scopes. The main enemy fleet had arrived…

Around 17 Frigates and 9 larger vessels belonging to the same aliens they had just defeated jumped it a good distance away, and began moving toward the Ark. "All ships dock with Ark at once! Prepare for emergency jump. Engine crew I don't care how but get that jump drive charged NOW," ordered Fleet Command as she quickly realized the small human fleet didn't stand a chance against this vastly superior force. All attack craft and corvettes hit full burn toward the Ark. Emergency jump meant all corvettes and attack craft needed to be docked as soon as possible, especially with the towed being brought in. Any corvettes or strike craft unable to board with the Ark by the time the enemy was in range and the jump drive was charged, would be left behind to die.

Varik ordered, "You heard the lady, full burn to the Ark." He then looked up at the portion of his HUD that showed the combination of his own ship's small radar and the Ark's radar information that was being transmitted to the fleet. He let out a sigh as he watched the radar get flooded with small red indicators from hostile strike craft launching from their carrier. However they did not try to pursue the humans any faster than the rest of the fleet and simply formed up in a strange formation that was in the shape of an X with the "arms" of the X reaching forward so the center was the furthest from the human ships.

"Looks like their attack craft will strike with the main fleet instead of moving ahead and hitting us first… gives us a little more time. I don't see any ships the size of a corvette," muttered Varik to himself out loud as he studied the approaching enemy.

"Sir what will happen to our ships with engine damage that can't get to the Ark?" suddenly asked his pilot, Kilri.

Varik looked down at her from his elevated position from the command consul, "They will be left behind to die… our only salvage craft close enough have a more important mission."
"Can we not help?" asked Kilri with a frown.

"We can't tow anything… well maybe we could push, but we wouldn't be able control them enough to bring them into the docking bay," replied Varik grimly as the Blade of Kharak then spun around as Kilri moved the ship toward the enemy, and some of their stranded allies. She trusted Varik to come up with some way to save a ship.

Varik's eyes burst open and half yelled, "Gurtir is there any way we could use the rail gun's magnetic accelerators to "grab" another ship?"

There was a long silence before his ship's main engineer responded, "I bet you I can do it but I also be you it will damage the rail gun pretty bad."

"Do it, we can repair the gun… we can't revive the dead," said Varik. He then opened up his outside communications link to the Joyau. "Need a push? I'm no salvage vessel but I've got a crazy idea to make this work," said Varik as his corvette charged past the frigate being hauled by the salvage corvettes, and straight for the damaged corvette.

 

[<Challenger>]

Iscarot Solus
The Ark's Engine/Core Room

Iscarot tapped away at his command console. The ion corvette was destroyed, as was the frigate on the right. The salvage team was in the process of returning the left frigate. "Good. Plan succeeding." He tapped the communicator and located his second-in-command. "Kesh, take team down to dock. Begin work on the frigate as soon as arrives." He didn't wait for his man to respond. There were more important things to attend to...

The professor turned to the two bickering engineers and pointed at them, "You two! Quick being children!" He approached them and began to talk rapidly. "You two are concerned with proving one is more right than other. Such selfish arrogance will not be tolerated among my crew." He turned to find Kesh's team of scientists jogging down towards the hangars. "Good. Will be needed there." He turned back to the other two, "Now we WILL reroute power to the core! It's the only way we can get away in time!" The mix of embarrassment and pride crossed their faces, each proud that the other got in trouble. The professor took the time to flick each in the head and strode away quickly.

...Then the reinforcements came.

Iscarot turned to his men in the room and cried out, "HURRY! CLOSING IN QUICKLY!" HE marched to his console and began typing commands in. Things were getting done quickly, and efficiently. Just the way he liked it.

 

[Garet]

Jeshal Kifius
Space Battle Above Kharak - Conclusion...Maybe...
~~~~~

Jeshal was strongly tempted to snap back at the pilot of the salvage Corvette. However, it wouldn't serve a purpose either way. Instead, he blew a sigh of relief as he turned back toward the Ark. "Falcons, form up on me. Time to head back to the Ark." Maybe now the pace would be able to slow down, after the test-run and after this battle. Jeshal checked his systems; nothing was critical beyond the loss of an engine and some maneuverability. He'd make it back okay.

Then the enemy fleet had to show up.

Listening to the various reactions of his Falcons over comms for only a second, Jeshal snapped out, "You heard Fleet Command, now move!" He hit full burn back toward the Ark, but it was immediately apparent that he wasn't moving as fast as the unharmed Interceptors. After a few seconds, Jeshal casually asked, "Would one of you guys mind giving me a push?"

"Already on it, sir," one Falcon responded; the Interceptor had already swung back around. Turning so it came up behind Jeshal's craft on his right side, where the dead engine sat, the Falcon hit full burn again, giving Jeshal more speed as they headed back for the Ark. Neither one were at their potential full speed, but it was better, as long as Jeshal kept his other wing and engines under control. As they spotted a Corvette heading back away from the Ark, the Falcon asked, "Do we worry about that one?"

Jeshal shook his head. "No. Given that there's a whole fleet back there, I'm sure he knows what he's doing." The other four Falcons made it back to the Ark, and Jeshal and the other Falcon were just ahead of the Frigate being towed. It looked like they'd dock in time.

 

[Stingray]

Varik Kushan
Blade of Kharak​

The Blade of Kharak slammed into the Joyau filling the bridge with the sounds of metal grinding against metal. Meanwhile the railgun's fore most magnets were being kicked into overdrive as they used that to help hold the Joyau close to the Blade, not that it was needed thanks to Kilri's less than graceful connection.

"Sorry sir," gasped the pilot as Varik glared at her. He kept his mouth shut as he didn't see a reason to yell at her for the mistake she had acknowledged. He was nervous too as the enemy was closing in quickly and they would likely be in range soon. The Blade lurched forward filling the ship with more sounds of overstressed metal as the two Corvettes started forward at maximum speed.

They were able to stay ahead of the enemy fleet, but suddenly fleet command's voice announced another challenge for them, "The Ark will be ready to jump in 1 minute… all ships must be on board or be left behind."

"Are we going to make it?" asked Kilri's frantic voice as she looked like she was about to have a panic attack.

"With 8 seconds to spare," lied Varik with confidence. No reason to worry Kilri any further. At this point she seemed ready to break, and Varik needed her to not go into a panic attack. Like all of humanity none of them were truly combat tested. Everyone had just gone through countless exercises and simulations of combat, but none of it was the real thing. Varik hoped his crew would be up for the challenges to come.

The Blade of Kharak and Joyau were the last ships to enter the Ark's docking bay with 10 seconds left till jump. Unable to stop the Corvettes normally due to their high speed, Kilri basically crashed them into the deck and used friction to help slow them down since many of the retro thrusters on the Blade were disabled. The impact with the deck was rather graceful for a crash, but plenty of damage was caused by the two Corvettes as they skid to a stop destroying several crates and objects in their path. Before the two Corvettes came to a full stop the Ark's jump drive kicked in and the massive vessel tore a hole in space, where she made her escape. A second later the Ark remerged to real space far from Kharak. They had survived…. Their first mission in the quest for survival was over, but not without heavy losses.

Mission One Complete​

Fleet Status:

Spoiler:

Ark: hull at 87% all major systems at 100%
6 Rail Corvettes
12 Standard Corvettes
1 Heavy Corvette
16 Interceptors
14 Fighters
9 Bombers
2 Salvage Corvettes
2 Mining Vessels

End of Mission Review:​

Kharak is lost and our fleet is outnumbered, out gunned, and outmatched. We have to survive, and if we don't humanity will be completely wiped out. Our losses in the battle were heavy with over 1/3 of our Corvettes destroyed and many others damaged. Only 39 of our initial 60 attack craft survived the battle. While the built in Factory in the Ark is fully operational, we lack the resources to create more vessels for the time being.

Good news is we gained valuable information on our enemies, and with the capturing of one of their Frigates we hope to learn much about their technology. We also were able to capture a few of the crew. They will be interrogated for further information.

Post Mission RP​

After each mission your characters can wander around the Ark. While you can go just about anywhere from your quarters, to the on board chow hall, R&R areas (including a small bar), or briefing/training areas, There will be "Areas of Interest" that will be a little more interesting to go to or can open you up for certain events.

For the Post Mission 1 RP the points of interest are:

Captured Alien Vessel: Scientist/Marine characters can board without trouble as they will have access to the ship. All others will have to sneak aboard, but it shouldn't be too hard with all the holes shot into it, and the few guards assigned to guard it being rather distracted with everything going on.

Hall of Mourning: Everyone aboard the Ark has lost someone, and the main hall that leads from the fore command bridge to the engine rooms in the aft of the ship has been authorized for people to put memorials on the wall to remember those lost. Your character can go here to grieve with others as the first memorials are attached to the wall. The officer in charge of the ship, who is the temporary Jarl, will be there to make a speech if any desire to listen to him.

Interrogation Surveying Room: A large room only opened to those above the rank of Thane unless invited by someone of higher rank, or you have a purpose for being there. Watch the interrogation of the alien prisoners and be a witness what they have to say. Expect the interrogators to be brutal.

Varik Kushan
Aboard the Ark​

Varik disembarked his corvette after the rest of his crew, but unlike his crew he didn't stand around and watch as the repair and emergency teams rushed over to the two wrecked Corvettes to start figuring out what to do. Varik moved with purpose across the vast hanger bay toward the alien Frigate that lay in the mist of engineers, and scientists that had already descended upon the ship.

Varik guessed a Clanless Corvette commander wouldn't be allowed inside so he didn't even try going through the front door. Instead he casually walked up to the hull and found one of the breach points that had been made by salvage corvettes. With a little skill, and the help of battle damage, Varik was able to climb up the side of the ship. However he was spotted by a scientist who started to yell at him to come down, but Varik wasn't going to listen. Climbing up and moving through the hole made by breaching explosives, Varik was able to enter the ship. As he pulled himself through the hole he cut his left hand rather badly.

Landing on the cold hard strange alloy of the ship Varik quickly moved further into the ship before stopping to tend to his hand. Varik's hand dipped fresh blood on the already blood stained floor as he ripped off a small section of his robes. Varik quickly wrapped his wound tightly before moving deeper into the alien ship. Unable to open any of the ship's doors, Varik was forced to follow paths made by human marines were they had forced their way through the ship. He ran his right hand across the cold metal of the corridor's wall as he tried to imagine how this ship looked during normal operations. He wanted to see the ship for himself; he wanted to understand how it functioned and how the crew ran it. This would likely be the closest he would get to that, so it would have to do.

His mind tried to recreate the operations of the ship as he walked through a door that had been blown open by explosives. Looking around Varik saw the floor was still covered in blood and spent shell casings, but all the bodies had been removed. Not being able to inspect the aliens was a little disappointing as it would have given Varik more insight in how they moved around the ship and commanded it. Varik knew that he would be able to see what they looked like after he left the ship so he wasn't too concerned about it at this time. He had to be close to somewhere important gauging by the amount of blood and bullet holes, suggesting more crew members had been killed here. So he pushed into the next room, which housed part of the lifeless reactor. Walking up to the strange device he put his hand on it, but suddenly the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Grabbing the hilt of one of his blades with his right hand his eyes darted around the room. He couldn't shake the feeling he wasn't alone.

Hearing something behind him, Varik spun around to see another human entering the room. Sighing Varik let go of the hilt, but something was still bothering him. Addressing the other human Varik said, "Something isn't right here…"

 

[Dusty]

Talia Arventis
Location: Orbiting over Kharak / The Ark

Talia leaned back in her pilot's seat wiping the sweat from her brow. She mentally checked her radar again, and allowed herself a small grin as she saw that the third friggate had been destroyed, and that the second was well into being boarded, the now dark hull looking like an empty shell, the salvage craft slowly making their way towards the ship to tow it back to the Ark. Which she should be trying to get back to instead of staring at the dead enemy ship. She made a few more changes to the power route to the engines, trying to avoid the damaged power conduit. "Alright, try it now Talon", she said, the fatigue clearly showing in her voice. She watched the power levels slowly rise, the engines starting to glow softly. An alert popped up in her vision, and she immediately yelled, "Cut power!" After the engines cooled down again, she monitored the results of the test, confirming her suspicions. "Okay, we can go to about twenty percent before the left engine starts to go critical. It'll be slow, but we should be able to get back to the Ark so long as the engines can hold up."

They were able to hold that hope for all of about ten seconds before the enemy reinforcements warped in, seventeen frigates and about ten even larger ships, the monstrous fleet with easily enough power to wipe them all out. "♥♥♥♥, just when I thought we would be okay", she muttered, "Talon, I don't care what you do, get those engines working now!" He questioned for a moment, then saw the radar for himself, and started cursing as he ran around the small engineering room, hands flashing making the most temporary repairs he could. She was about to run through the narrow hatchways to help him when she received a transmission from another corvette pilot. She vaguely recognized the corvette name, the Blade and Kharak. "Need a push? I'm no salvage vessel but I've got a crazy idea to make this work." She tried to respond, then cursed again as she realized outbound transmission was down as well.

The other corvette slammed into her own, shaking the entire ship and filling it with an awful grinding and screeching sound, then a dull "thump" as the other corvette engaged their electromagnets from their rail gun, essentially grabbing the other craft. The plan dawned on her, using the rail gun to push her own ship back, attached magnetically. Theoretically, it was a pretty good plan, but the amount of power needed to create a solid connection would definitely strain the power systems, and probably damage the gun to a certain degree as well. She contacted her two crew members as the other ship began to fire thrusters, slowly accelerating them towards the ark, following the rest of their pathetically small fleet. "Both of you work on getting those engines going as quickly as possible, we'll need them if we are going to make it before jump!"

Thankfully the other ship had attached itself so that the their own engines were pointed in roughly the right direction, so hopefully they would be able to help out at least a little. She started her own thrusters slowly, building up to about twenty percent power, and quickly started running calculations through the ship's computer, desperately trying to find out how much she would have to push it for the two ships to get back in time, instinctively knowing that it wouldn't quite be enough. About halfway there, she slowly amped the power up more, ignoring the warning signs flashing on her display, frantically re-routing power to try and make it work, noting the audible whine from the failing engines. Running the calculations again and again, she slowly started to smile as the numbers showed the time getting smaller and smaller, then became positive displaying the extra time they would have. The Ark continued to get bigger and bigger, and then they were in, crash landing in the hanger sliding and screeching across the floor leaving gouge marks on both the floor and craft. Crashing into a set of crates, the two ships slid to a stop, the silence strange after so much noise after the past few minutes.

Talia sighed, pulling off the straps holding her to her chair, slouching a bit in relief. Her ship was pretty much destroyed, her planet was gone, she had a terrible headache, but at least they were alive, something that was incredible as it was. Slowly pulling herself out of her chair, she met her two crew mates outside the ship, assessing the damage together as repair crew approached, groaning at the state of the ship.

After dismissing her crew, she looked around for the other corvette pilot, she owed him a thank you. She pulled out her data tablet searching the pilot up, his name and appearance displaying a moment later. Varik Kushan, male, twenty-nine, clanless. She looked around the hanger again, catching glimpse of who she thought was him leaving the hanger. She tailed him for a few minutes, not able to catch up, but almost always having him within vision. Unexpectedly, he took a turn into another hanger after only a few minutes, a hanger that she realized held the captured frigate when she walked through the doors, revealing the behemoth sitting dead, a couple dozen scientists poking around the exterior taking notes.

She avoided most of the guards, knowing she probably wasn't supposed to be there, and pulled herself up to a rather low hole, stepping inside, careful to not tear her flight suit on the sharp edges. Her boots echoed on the cold metal, sounds bouncing through the dead husk of a ship. She stood for a moment, imagining the ship fully active. Bright lights in the corridors, the humming of machinery, the bustling of the crew going from one system to another. Then the reality was back again, the dim emergency lighting casting a eerie glow, softly illuminating occasional puddles of blood and empty shell casings on the floor. Hearing sounds farther in, she slowly walked through the ship, guessing where the main reactor might be. If this ship had shields, they would have needed some substantial power. Maybe the reactor would give them a clue of how it worked.

She softly stepped through the ship, generally following the pools of blood. Hopefully there would have been more aliens in the generator room, so more blood meant more aliens. Turning a corner, she saw Kushan, a hand on one of his blades, the other on a strange machine. He turned around and spotted her. He let go of his blade, sighing, clearly on edge. "Something isn't right here" , he said, nervousness in his voice.

She laughed nervously, "Definitely. This entire place gives me the creeps." She looked up at what must have been the reactor. "On top of all this", gesturing at the ship, "Why did they attack now? And why us? There are too many questions, and not enough answers..." She glanced around the room, the emergency lighting darkening corners to almost completely black. Talia pushed the uneasy feeling away, although it still ate away at the back of her mind. "Anyway, Varik Kushan, right? Thanks a ton for the rescue, wouldn't be here without it." She gave a small, yet still uneasy smile at him.

 

[Garet]

Jeshal Kifius
Aboard the Ark
~~~~~

Even after docking his Interceptor and disconnecting from its sync, Jeshal sat in his cockpit for a couple minutes. Now that the battle was over and they were out of danger for now, the reality of what had happened to Kharak began to settle in for good. Their homeworld was gone. Yes, technically, humanity seemed to have originally come from a planet called Terra, but Kharak was where everyone aboard this ship had lived, and all their ancestors for ages past. Now it had burned...

Knocking on the cockpit glass brought Jeshal's head up. A technician on the outside raised his eyebrows, as if to say, Are you all right in there? Jeshal held up a finger, One moment. The technician backed away as Jeshal pressed a button, and the cockpit slid open with a hiss. He pulled himself out and slid to the floor of the docking bay. "Need to check the right wing and engine," Jeshal said briefly to the technician, who nodded in agreement. While a team began working on repairs, he headed for the locker rooms. The uniform was beginning to itch a bit.

~~~~~

A while later, Jeshal stood in the middle of the main hall as others around him set about putting up memorials in honor of those who had died. He held a block of wood in one hand and was carving it with the knife in his other hand, at a bit of a furious pace. "Who's left out of the Falcons?" he asked the Caedmon standing next to him.

Elric blew a small sigh, arms folded. "You, me, Findlay, Haluk, Eyal, and Quirino. We lost Avery, Erebos, Adegoke, Samuel, Michi, and Alemayehu." The six-foot man looked down at Jeshal, who was focused on his carving. "There are losses in every battle, Kifius. I'd thought you would've gotten over it by now."

Jeshal jabbed his block with the knife, sticking it there. "What, you think I go through simulations where Kharak burns to death on a regular basis?" he snapped, a bit too loudly. Some people nearby looked over at him and Elric, and Jeshal took a deep breath. In a quieter voice, he added, "I didn't need to do that."

"Yes, you did," Elric replied. "It would've come out sooner or later." They stood silent for another minute, then the Caedmon said, "I'm gonna go see about the other Interceptor squadron."

"Let me know what you find out." Jeshal pulled his knife out and resumed carving while his fellow Falcon left. After a moment, he sighed. Let's see if I can get a look at the kind of people who did this. He began walking down the hall, pocketing his wooden block and knife in his jacket. It took a couple moments to remember where the interrogation surveying room was. Maybe he'd get lucky and they'd allow someone of his rank in.

Then again, maybe not.

 

[Stingray]

Varik Kushan
Aboard the Captured Alien Frigate


Varik seemed to not notice Talia's uneasy smile as he responded, "It's my crew you need to thank not me. They made it happen." He let his hand run along the reactor as he walked around the device. "As to why they attacked us, I do not know… the prophecies of my people did speak of an enemy that drove us from our home and that the path back to it would be covered in blood. These have to be that enemy, and why now? My best guess is that it has to do with the Ark's making the jump. Perhaps they detected it…" said Varik as he continued to inspect the sphere like reactor core. He then became silent as he carefully scanned the surface of the device.

Suddenly Varik's blade flashed from its sheath, and he grabbed on to a panel on the alien device. A second later the panel crashed to the hard floor with a soft clunk sound, due to the materials the ship was made of. Varik reached into the reactor part and pulled out an alien. Tossing the small woman to the ground, He quickly put his blade to her throat. She was only a few inches above 4 feet in height and her body was rather slender in appearance. Her snow white hair was stained with various dark colored greases and liquids as was her skin tight dull grey clothing that almost looked like it was made of some strange plastic. Her bright red eyes darted from Varik to Talia as her frail looking body shivered in fear. Her dark grey/blue skin and her long pointed ears made her look much a Drow from ancient human lore.

Suddenly she spoke and her soft ghostly voice were translated by a small device in her right ear, "Please give me mercy."

Varik's anger could be heard in his voice as he pressed the tip of his sword into the now crying alien's throat, "Mercy? Like the mercy your kind gave to Kharak, my home, my tribe?" His angry words and blade caused the alien to try in crawl away but she quickly ran into the wall.

"I do not know what you're talking about," replied the alien as she cried, "I'm a slave… I keep the reactor and engines working. I do not know what is happening outside this room. I do what I'm told or I'm punished. I'm not told why or what is happening outside the room." She stared at the blade that threatened to end her life as countless tears rolled off her grey cheeks.

Varik glared at her for a second then looked over at Talia to see what her reaction was. Varik's anger and sorrow was overwhelming his mind, and he wanted to see what the other corvette commander thought he should do.


Outside the Brig

One of the guards outside the prisoner area motioned for Jeshal toward one of the observation rooms. Outside the room was a female warrior with a look of disgust on her face, seeing Jeshal she spoke her mind to him, "We are better than this. Clan Liscarl has no honor or shame to allow their people to do such things, they are worse than the clanless. Only go in if you want to see how low humanity can fall."

Inside the woman's disgust was quickly justified. The "interrogation" scene was horrific as one alien was being tortured and the other forced to watch as they tried to pry information from the watcher. The one being tormented was stripped naked and was hanging by chains from the ceiling by her feet. Her mangled body was covered in large cuts and areas where the torturers had removed parts of her body. Her light red skin hid some of the blood, but the look of terror and pain on her face is not something one could easily forget. Her was begging for them to stop, begging for death instead of having to endure more of this humiliation and pain.

The one being interrogated was still dressed and looked male. He was crying and pleading for the much taller humans to stop, but they would only stop until they had the information they wanted. However the questions on the alien's military could not be answered by the watcher as he did not know the answers. He kept telling the interrogators this but they would not listen.