Epsilon Terentus System

A frantic state of affairs started the moment the unknown vessel deployed a part of itself and an inbound dreadnoughts signal went dead. Of the six races whose fleets were gathering, the Sylestrans had lost a significant portion of their contribution from their local reserves and were close to going into a deep state trepidation. For any species, the loss of a dreadnought was a massive blow and they were rarely deployed this deep inside their galaxy. Another one was quickly deployed towards Epsilon Terentus, while a salvage fleet was sent to try and gather the remains of the last and find out what happened, along with an escort flotilla of heavy destroyers. The other races that were responding to the summons took pause. The fact that something easily eradicated one of the most heavily armed and armored classes of vessels that existed was cause for terror. An impromptu council of the Skrelson, the Nervanian , Zenarax, Satislas, the Sikat, and the Sylestrans was called, along with whichever minor members could attend. representatives from each race met at the Orbital Headquarters for the planetary government, commandeering a conference room and data feeds from the predicted course of the object that was affecting the sector.

The Zenerax representative stepped up, emitting a puff of spores in concertation. The spores grabbed the attention of the few members who hadn’t simply been drawn in by its appearance. The others found their attention drawn to the fungoid. (The rep being in a bipedal form almost human in look though the council doesnt know of them. Was for the most part to any race highly attractive).

“Esteemed comrades of the Galactic Council. We face today an unprecedented threat. An unknown object has escaped the lockdown zone in the Orion arm."

The representative picked up a device to display an image recovered from the last data burst from the doomed observation station that had originally picked up the signal of the unknown ship. A holographic image showing a purple gash in space appeared between the council members. After a moment, the still image came to life and could be seen streaking like an impossible comet.

“Whatever this thing is, it has traveled almost thirty-one parsecs since escaping the Quarantine zone.” There was a pause as the other representatives sat in silence, letting the statement sink in.

After several weighted minutes, the Skrelson representative says in a growling voice, “You're telling me that something has actually made it out of an Ostrovian test zone? Not only that, there is a high possibility a Dreadnaught was destroyed? And it is heading here? I do not blame the Sylvestrans for being agitated.” He shook his head, his black fur like hair gleaming in the light his tail standing almost rigid in his emotional state. “And this speed has to be, what, a hundred times faster than standard FTL?”

The Sylestran representative interjected, “That is correct. The monitoring station that picked it up before going offline estimated that it was going one hundred times superluminary speeds. As for our lost vessel, the recovery fleet shall arrive on-scene in three hours and hopefully we can glean some information from the wreckage. One should not be able to easily destroy a pleck-long starship like a training shuttle caught in a bad reentry! Let alone one armored well enough to weather close exposure to an exploding neutron star!”

After quiet had settled again, another voice popped up as the Sikat representative said in its soft tone, “Perhapsssss we should begin a mandatory evacuation, at least into the bunker complexesssss.” The other members started to object but it thumped its heavy tail and held up its hands. “We can cover it as a drill and point to the purple object as a new comet. We can also explain this as why we are gathering a fleet, no?”

The Nervanian flashed four lights across its viewplate as a simple affirmative. The others nodded as well and the Zenerax rep said, “Then that is what we shall cover it as. The orders will go out within the half hour. Let us hope to the creators that whatever this thing from Ostrovians test zone proves to be non-hostile.” They all nodded in agreement and the meeting split up so they could talk to planetary officials and get the machines going.

ASKILLION Enroute to Epsilon Terentus - one hour later

“Ma’am, we have an incoming hail from Relay Station Alpha,” chimed Skip’s voice over the intercom to her office and Linze looked up.

“Put it through please, Skip.” After a brief pause, Ensign Vorschl’s face popped up on her screen and he began reporting.

“Admiral, we have some information for you. It seems you're leaving one hell of a signature in space as you pass by. In fact, since you dropped us, you’ve already moved fifteen parsecs and been leaving this.`` His image retracted to a small corner of the screen as another expanded to show a purplish streak in space that was cross-sectored with what looked like lightning and bits of black

Linze couldn’t help but mutter, “My god, we’ve gone plaid!”

A confused Vorschl asked, “Ma’am? You’ve gone what?”

She shook her head and replied, “Please upload all the data you have and I’m sorry about that reference to an old, old vid.”

The younger man nodded then said, “Ma’am, we also have signatures of what appears to be a fleet inbound on long range scans. Our skiff has collected the more interesting bits of debris and the power core, the rest have been netted up and stowed below the array. As for the fleet, it appears to be...well, I can’t estimate the size of vessels but there are thirty-two vessels inbound, ETA five hours. Also, the stuff we gathered indicates a vessel at least a half-mile long from debris.”

She nodded at the information. “Good work, ensign. Keep me apprised. You’re still on defcon two for now, just try not to start an interstellar war, ok?”

He nodded seriously and saluted before the signal cut off. She waited for the data upload to finish and correlate. The loading bar displayed on the screen of her chair's arm crawled at a maddeningly slow pace, and she muttered, “The more things change…..”

Meanwhile, in the Askillion Troop Bay

In the massive troop bay, the mixed Marine and Army infantry detachment of the Askillion practiced. A colonel watched them using a combination of altered reality goggles and adjustable terrain to go through simulations. He shook his head as the simulations attempted to adjust to the physics they were now being subjected to. The training systems’ VIs were struggling to alter the environment accordingly, as troopers were doing amazing leaps and flips.

After several long minutes, the colonel turned his back on the nearly thirty-five hundred men and women and said, “Majors Pendragon, I need you two to prep me a special detachment.” As he looked at the pair of men standing in front of him, he saw a startling contrast: one tall and slender with black hair and blue eyes and a baby face, while the other was built like a short brick wall that wore dark brown hair, paired with blue eyes set in a face that looked old beyond his years. They were brothers, though the colonel couldn’t see it.

The shorter one asked, “Why us, sir?”

The taller one nodded his agreement. “Yeah, Colonel Haskel,l why us and not, say, Captain Hawkins and his boys?”

The colonel snorted then said, “Because of one reason. That being you two crazy Scotsmen have trained your units in hand to hand beyond the norms, and I know for a fact all your men carry broadswords or claymores. I don’t know how you got them or where, but I want more than stun sticks ready in case we need to board something.” He held up his hand to forestall questions before explaining. “With how things have gone sideways with the laws of physics it seems I don't want to risk even a pea shooter of a nine millimeter or even a low powered boarding shotgun accidentally blowing out a section of hull ours or anything else's.”

Silence fell for a moment then the taller one said to the shorter one, “‘ey Larry, ‘ow long would it take to forge some swords for the rest of the troops, not counting training time?”

Larry looked to his brother then said, “I don’t know, Evans, ya gob shite. I don’t have the proper materials here for that and over three thousand blades, even using automated processes would take more time than I’m sure Colonel Haskell here and Her highness the admiral would be willin’ ta wait!”

As the small tirade took place, something struck the Colonel about what was being said. “Wait, your men’s blades were hand made?” Both majors just looked at him as if he was a goose that was honking. Meanwhile, down in a far corner of the bay, the distant wail of bagpipes started to rise, along with the tapping of some drums.

Above the Galactic Plane

While the Askillion has been raising a ruckus in the boundaries of the galaxy over the last six hours, the pot has started to boil at one of the Extra Galactic fortress systems and the lid is about to fall off.

Sensors started causing alarms to blare everywhere as lights started to flash. A Skrelson sporting a command rank came groggily from his quarters to the command deck. “Report!” he growled.

His deep rumble triggered an immediate response from a yellow armored Nervanian. "FTL jump readings, Commander, massive amounts of them."

"Define massive," the Skrelson growled again, his temper very poor since he had only just gotten to sleep.

The Nervanian replied as a translator converted the light pulses to speech, "Initial estimates indicate close to fifteen thousand signatures, sir. All magenta level jump depth.”

The commander blinked and stayed silent, then blinked again. "This has got to be a bad dream,” he sighed, then walked to his terminal and triggered an emergency beacon to request aid from any forces in range. "With luck we will get some help. Otherwise, they will at least know what is coming."

The command crew understood they were almost even in fleet numbers but the enemy was more advanced technologically. What they didn't know was the message sent in the deepest levels of jump space triggered unknown and ancient code in a newcomer to the galactic scene.