The Black

A rusting Hulk slowly rumbled through an uninhabited system. This one was majority C’Claram Crewed, and Its captain preferred to destroy her prey and cut the bounty out of the drifting hulk. The amalgamation of hap hazardly fitted sections of the ship groaned as the mismatched stresses in her hull worked against each other. One more clank went unnoticed as The Hulk clattered to the press of her engines, finally reaching the beacon before jumping out.

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Captain Yasushi stepped into the conference room to be met with Atticus as well as the Head of Humanities Interstellar Research and Development Director Bjorn Johansen. The Tall Blond Man stood smiling as they shook hands.

“A Pleasure captain, please sit. How has your refit been progressing” He asked as they both sat.

“Quicker than I had expected, slower than I had hoped. I fear by the time I’ll need a whole new ship by the time I return with from the weight of progress” Yasushi sat accepting a mug of coffee from the steward, passing on the milk or sugar.

“You may be right; however, I think you will enjoy this next mission. You will be making a long loop. We have decided to adopt a twin-layered approach considering the death-world revelation. We want to prioritize the possibility of survivors, even now. Your mission, captain, is to catalog the planets for further exploration. We will be sending you with a supply of beacons. And a specialist for this task. In short, you are to triage the planets and systems you find. Humanity will be taking world without evidence of Genocide or habitation for colonization and development. We will be monitoring any pre-orbital civilizations for future contact if deemed appropriate. Lastly, you will be marking planets with evidence of Genocide for our response fleets to hot jump to. Not only are we interested in saving any lives, or civilizations. We are interested in Technology, and possible intel on the Vorath and their culture, tactics, engagements, and possible weaknesses. Our head of extra-terrestrial Zoology, Atticus, wants everything we can find. He seems to think there is something there to salvage.” Director Johansen paused inviting questions.

“That is a tall order. What do you expect our mission timeframe to be.” Asked The captain speculatively.

“You will have provisions for three to five years or so. You are free to return for repair and replenishment at your discretion, but that may or may not be feasible depending on where you end up.” Johansen responded.

“I have crewmen with families and children. A multiyear mission would be disastrous to more than a few of my crew” Yasushi stated, deliberately keeping a neutral tone.

“Ah, you mean bright young Lieutenant Patterson as well.” Bjorn Johansen smiled warmly, “He was always on loan for you, courtesy of his assistance in the development of the weapons your Excelsior has been fitted with.”

“He is but one, but he is the most… politically sensitive... example. His relationship with the Eleri has been instrumental to that relationship.” Yasushi offered.

“Oh, I am fully briefed on his relationship with the Eleri, captain; but in this case, Mister Patterson is needed a bit closer to home, a position has opened at Phobos that I desperately need his mind for. I fear I will be robbing you of your exemplary weapons officer. I trust you can find a suitable replacement.” Johansen’s Grin elicited a smirk from Excelsior’s Captain as they both sipped the truly excellent coffee for a moment.

“I believe I can manage.” Yasushi stated confidently, “How much time to I have before projected departure.”

“Your retrofit should be done by the end of the month, yes? I have a file in your email of young, unencumbered service members who would make great replacements for any of your current crew that wish to stay with their families. Our home fleet is growing quickly enough to find places for them with ease.” Johansen nodded before standing.

Yasushi followed suit and the two shook hands once more, “I’ll begin notifying the crew by end of day. If I am to take on fresh members, I will need to get them spun up in short order.”

“Reach out if you need anything. A member of the R&D department will be by before launch day to give you the data packet and host a training day for the new equipment. Good day captain” Johansen turned and walked down the hallway they had entered upon exiting the conference room, leaving Yasushi to his thoughts.

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“Gods, how many?” First-season captain Luca B’Rhall was panicking as 4 Pirate Capital ships bore down on him. His beleaguered Freighter, Reliable Son, was straining badly from her heavy cargo of Durasteel ingots. He knew how many were there, His mind just refused to believe it. The three barges were led by a ragged-looking Frontier brig that was transmitting Pirate IFF.

“Still 4, we will be in their range in thirty fi… Oh Gods… Atomics Alert!! Atomi… WHA?!?” was all his sensor officer before his rear facing optical array overloaded and shut down from a massive flash of intensely bright stars that were where the Pirates ships once were… alarms rang out as radiation shielding slammed down over the observation windows as 4 Nuclear explosions washed Reliable Son in waves of radiation… Terrifying moments went by, everyone in the freighter praying there were no breaches in their protocols. The all-clear was just sounding when two new transponders appeared out of the void as the orbs faded, leaving nothing but quickly expanding and dissipating clusters of irradiated space dust. They were alarmingly close, just outside twenty thousand Kilometers and closing with terrifying speed.

“Two new contacts! They are…. Transmitting Delmar Defense codes… uh… Captain, we are being hailed...” The crewman’s voice was still wavering as his mind grinded to a halt.

“Open a frequency” Luca responded sagging down into his chair as the audio channel opened.

*Ranger 1-1 to Reliable Son, come in Reliable. * The voice opened in Delmar.

“Reliable here, Thanks, but... watch out, someone just fired atomics that exceeded our measuring instruments limits” Luca answered.

*We know, we fired them* a new voice, a female, with an odd accent responded,

*A lot has changed reliable. Expect a capital ship escort in the next 28 hours, you will be briefed then. Until then, you have us. Permission to come aboard? *

“Come aboard?” Luca asked, confused.

*Look off you Larboard. Point zero two aft of the beams* the Female voice stated.

Luca nodded to his sensor station as optical sensors swung to match the rest looking at the new arrivals, “Uh… captain… You are going to want to see this” the crewman didn’t wait and put the image up on the main viewer. Luca leaned in close as he stared in disbelief at the two starfighters in front of him. One was clearly a modified Ranger class vessel, with strange long spiked tubes attached to its wingtips and two empty hard points near its wing roots, one on each side. A much larger spiked tube clung to its centerline. The second vessel was nothing he had ever seen and didn’t appear to carry anything on its exterior.

“You came in starfighters? How? Where is your capital ship?” Luca asked incredulously.

*Houston is currently dealing with another problem; she will be here within the day. We will be with you until then. Like we said, a lot has changed* the male voice said.

“Well… permission granted, But I have questions.” Luca stated. “Hanger 2 is opening.”

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The two very different but sleek predators eased into Reliable’s Hanger two with smooth grace before turning to face the doors and touching down. The Hanger Crew’s stood beside their captain. The small group observed the new occupants with trepidation. One was clearly of a Delmar Descendant design. It was clearly a Ranger of some sort, accept it was half again larger than a standard ranger. The strange, spiked tubes turned out to be two tubes per wingtip like spears mixed with an arrow ready to be run through any who dare contest their ownership of the black. The second was of a completely different design. The Vanta black vessel seemed to be made of one single lone fluid piece. Thin wings flared out of the central hull, punctuated by two massive main drives and a sharply pointed prow. It was slightly smaller than its Delmar counterpart and bore no exterior signs of the spiked tubes at all.

The group departed the observation and control room as the hanger was reconquered by the hissing rush of returning oxygen. The two glass bubble canopies opened together as two void suit clad figures dropped easily to the ground, barely slowing themselves with the ladders that deployed automatically from the sides of the vessels. The taller of the two touched the side of his void suit’s neck seal and Luca’s eyes bulged as the Helmet seemed to shimmer before disintegrating front to back as it absorbed itself into the neck of the suit.

“Captain Ivar’eke Aquilar Tras 303 Wing, Nice to meet you” The intense, but cordial Delmar spoke with calm confidence only won through blood and victory. “Thank you for the Berth, but please have your crews avoid servicing R’Cari (Wraith) or Sombra (Ghost). If we need anything we will await our ships arrival. There’s a significant number of things on them that go boom.” He chuckled darkly.

“We will see to it your vessels are left alone” Captain Luca stole a nervous glance at the two terrifying birds of prey who just dispatched 4 pirate capital ships in a matter of seconds. “May I ask if your ships are safe to have in my ship?” he asked slowly.

“Quite safe” Captian Luca spun then his face smoothed in shock as the second pilot walked up. Sleek black hair flowed as the helmet retracted in the same manor as Captain Tras’ had. The fierce eyes and shorter stature, a barely restrained aggressive smile flared across her features as Luca recognized the being before him, despite never seeing one in person. “All the safeties are active. If your crew doesn’t touch, your ship is safe. Captain Martina Aquilar Tras 303 wing, attached. A pleasure to meet you” she extended her hand in a very strange gesture.

“Human?!?” Luca stuttered, “I… um… I didn’t realise your kind had reached this far outside of the Delmar Home Sector.” He stated, slowly reaching for the offered hand with shaking fingers as the female human snatched it up with a powerful vice of a grip just this side of crushing, then shook it gently once before releasing it.

“Recent events have created certain necessities. There aren’t many of us out this far, but we are trying to extend our umbrella to as many freighters as possible, considering” The female captain Tras explained, grinding Luca’s brain to a halt.

“I... uh, See.” Luca looked between the two fighter pilots before him as the realization hit him, “I’ll uh, arrange a... uh... double berth for you, shortly…” He turned to leave then paused, “Thank you… I’ve heard the rumors of freighters getting attacked in mass… I owe you my ship” he said, bowing slightly before turning and leading them into Corridor.

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“That Poor boy. This must be his first season” Ivar chuckled after he and Martina had just closed the door to their quarters aboard Reliable Son as they tossed their seabags on the floor and began to unpack.

“Madre, what a hell of a season to be a rookie” Martina pealed out of the outer layer of her Mark3 VHG. Setting the combination armor and inertial dampening/compression layer on a provided hook before activating the seam on her inner suit. The New Mark3 was designed to be modular, replacing the prototype suits that had ended up being the Mark1 and Mark2 suits. Armor and G mitigation systems were designed into the outer suit allowing for ease of replacement, and maintenance without sacrificing the safety of the wearer on long deep space journeys. The inner suit was largely a new generation of standardized void suit and retained all its emergency sealing and aid functions in case of emergency breech.

With both layers on, telling male from female apart from height was impossible. Outside of the outer suit, Martina cut an almost irresistibly female figure. She winked over her shoulder as she heard a low hungry growl behind her as she set her inner suit to self-clean and hopped into the shower. Ivar could not follow, as the standard shower on freighters such as this were very firmly single a cramped occupant in design.

The suits were not the only new models being field trialed. R’Cari and Sombra were the product of Admiral Gwen’s and Darclemus’s Research and Development collaboration. The Brothers Gremm and their team had proven to be every bit the equal to their counterparts in Sol under Director Johansen. The Offspring of Their machinations were two new slip capable models of deep space heavy fighters, to go along with the standard carrier-based Raptor 2’s and Ranger 1’s. R’Cari was the Delmar variant, she was a purpose designed to both accommodate Delmar’s added needs and mission profiles as well as work seamlessly in tandem with Humanities next generation fighter. Dubbed the Ranger 2H, R’Cari was compatible with all current Sol guided ordinance, Strategic and conventional, as well as fully Shielded and integrated into DataLink3.0 to which all new Delmar and Sol designs were being built to interface with. Where the Ranger 2’s differed from their Human counterparts, was in main armament. While R’Cari did carry a MAC cannon, it was single barreled, slower firing, but fired a larger 50 mm Dura-steel Dart in a 10 mm sabot at around 10 percent the speed of light. Her primary Merge-fighting armament, should it come to that, were her twin rotary Micro PACs. Each weapon had 6 “Barrels” that were each basically a long capacitor with an emitter at the end. When firing, each was sequentially force fed enough energy to send a hybrid particle/laser beam out with an effective range of 5,000 kilometers. While the venerable GAU34’s had the undisputed range advantage. The lack of cycling ammunition and speed of the further charging advancements wrought by the combined technologies of Delmar and Sol; each R-PAC in the wing roots of R’Cari could be ramped up to over 10,000rpm for short durations. This hail of energy fire was devastating to any target close enough to receive it.

Sombra was in every way both the opposite and the equal of R’Cari. Assuming equal pilot’s the differences in pure maneuvering, acceleration, and integration were academic. Sombra was designated a Rapor 3H. Like the Ranger sitting next to her, she was categorized the big sister her Escort fighter counterparts. In reality, she was much more akin to the smaller sister ship to a TALON class vessel. She was full stealth when her shields were not active, she shared the same internal bay designs that all Sol fighters had, but she lacked the living compartment of a true TALON. Her primary difference was in her armament. Sombra’s current configuration boasted not two but four GAU34’s, sacrificing some of her missile capacity for ammunition bays to feed their insatiable appetite when operating at full song. The 3H’s, however, were designed to have modules swapped out for different missions and armaments.

Martina shut off the shower, wrapping herself in a towel before stepping out to a fierce kiss from her Husband. He nipped her hard on the neck before stepping into the shower himself to wash off the previous mission. The two had legally “Paired” just before Mac and Lyrian had set off for Terra but were waiting for the intricacies of Slipspace travel to pan out before they made the trip to Sol, or Martina’s family made the trip to Delmar. Ivar had long started the “Terran Challenge” as Lyrian had dubbed it one drinking night out with the Wing. He was quickly closing on the goal of being “Huumon Strong”. It had an unexpected result in his selection for the testing of the prototype Fighters they had arrived in. Quite frankly, The Delmar Military had jumped at the Idea of “super pilots” the moment Lyrian had shown her abilities and had built their next generation fighters and heavy fighters to be able to dish out human levels of punishment on its occupant. Ivar was quite literally the only Delmar in the sector that wouldn’t get immediately turned to paste inside of R’Cari. Even so, He was currently still flying with limiters on. They needed to be tested, and Ivar liked living. He finally shut the shower down and dried off, slipping back into his void suit fresh from a self-cleaning cycle. Martina slipped a pulled box from her luggage and slipped her rings back on.

“I’m fuckin’ starving. Let’s see if Martin is really as good as he claims” Ivar chuckled, pulling Martina’s arm into the crook of his elbow as they headed for the mess.

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A Pirate Barge exited subspace and heaved its hulk towards a large planetoid in a desolate system with a dying star. Radio chatter was the only thing giving a hint to life as the camouflaged doors to the cavity bored into the side of the hunk or rock opened, receiving the barge’s girth with ease as the ship shuddered and groaned its way into the shipyard carved into the center of the orbiting body. Its Captain readied the ship for mooring, a belly full of cargo it had to offload to be laundered for resale in other parts of the galaxy or traded to other pirates for supplies and equipment. Rusted and patchwork-repaired tugs latched on to the looking Barge, guiding it into its berth as the Crew began heaving the cargo towar….

A blue flash of light winked into existence and a streak of burning blue and yellow plasma lanced from its center as a missile, spat from slip space at relativistic speeds, slammed into the Pirate base at eighty percent the speed of light. The missile held no payload other than its solid Durasteel tipped Concrete Core above its expended main drives and a slagged slip drive, striking the Planetoid with over 750 GN of energy...

2 and a half sectors away. Lieutenant Philip Kenyi nodded as his pad updated, “Probe 82 Alpha has ceased transmitting, Commander.”

Silu looked up from his own pad and took sip from the steaming if semi decaffeinated cup of coffee in his mug, “Very good. Status on the rest?”

“83 bravo is still in transit, but 91 delta and 34 Charlie have fresh feeds.” Philip flipped his pad around as Commander Silu observed the transmission feeds from the two probes in question. One showed the inside of a titanic metal structure of some kind, and the other appeared to have stopped at a decrepit-looking orbital shipyard of some sort.

“Do these coordinates match any known legitimate organizations or installations?” Silu asked cordially... nodding as Philip pulled the report and shook his head, “Good, launches authorized.”

Silu sat back down in his chair inside of the CIC casually sipping from his mug, resuming his reading as Port Royal shuddered twice.