by Aer-ki Jyr
1
February 1, 3254
Unnamed System (unclaimed)
Inner Zone
“Whoa,” the sensor officer onboard the Ma’kri scout ship said after the ship finished its deceleration against the giant red star and its sensors straightened themselves out.
“What is it?” the Captain asked quickly, looking to the battlemap as it updated, seeing nothing around the star as of yet.
“Activity around one of the planets. We haven’t had time for sensor echo, but there are so many ships in orbit we can pick them up from stellar radiation alone.”
“Show me.”
A separate display manifested itself in front of Captain Brayden in holo showing a lot of fuzzy signatures, but once the external cameras got the precise location and began filtering in the light and magnifying it he saw a huge fleet of ships in orbit of the planet stretching around it as if they were a massive ring in the making.
But while there were a great deal of lizard ships present, a lot of them were of an entirely different design.
“Engage cloak and get us out of this orbit before they notice us. I want a closer look.”
“Captain, some of those ship profiles match as…”
“…as Sety, I know. What the hell is The Nexus doing all the way out here? This is far beyond their borders.”
“Are the rest of those ships Nexus races?” his comm officer asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. I don’t recognize any of them except the lizards…and last I heard, they were enemies. Something is very wrong here.”
“Captives?”
“Only in one circumstance have the lizards ever surrendered, and those ships are just part of the formation. It doesn’t look like they’ve taken any damage either. Are we getting anything from the planet?”
“Cloud cover over most regions. We’ll have to get close to pull a tight scan or wait for it to blow over.”
“I want a high orbit…very high. Sety sensors might be able to pick us up, and if they’re not in a friendly mood I want plenty of room to run.”
“How can they pick us up if we’re absorbing all signals?” the sensor officer asked.
“Most signals,” he corrected, “and we still make a black silhouette. If they have theirs programmed to pick out such things they could spot us.”
“Have we done that?” the helmsman asked.
“Of course,” the sensor officer replied, a bit offended. “Luckily it doesn’t seem like the lizards have figured that out yet.”
“Course plotted. Confirm?”
The Captain glanced at it, then nodded. “Confirmed. Get us moving.”
Their presence didn’t go unnoticed. Within a few minutes of their appearance at the star there was a detachment of ships that broke off from the group and headed for their last position, but they didn’t seem to be tracking their current trajectory. The Ma’kri made it to the planet and settled into a high orbit where it began observing what was occurring with passive sensors only, and for the moment they appeared to be either ignored or undetected.
“Captain, we’ve got a possible ID on another of those ship types.”
“Possible?”
“We don’t have a sensor profile from any Star Force source, but we do have some data passed onto us from others that suggest some of those vessels might be Trinx.”
“Trinx? I’m not familiar with that race.”
“Files say they’re one of several races within lizard territory that held out. This one apparently far more advanced technologically.”
“Held out or allied with,” the Captain floated, not asking for a response.
“Captain,” another bridge crewer said from an auxiliary station that had also been purposed for sensors. “There’s some sort of construction occurring on the surface.”
“Show me and highlight the location on the battlemap.”
A tiny dot sprung to life on the display, then another virtual window opened in front of his command chair showing the zoomed in visuals through the clouds. They were sketchy, but enough to make out the fine lines of infrastructure in progress…including a massive landing zone with what looked like cargo crates stacked up into small mountains.
“I’m not seeing any grounded ships.”
“None found as yet. Probably convoy drops if they’re coming from The Nexus. It’s a pretty long trip.”
“That it is.”
“Uh oh,” the comm officer said warily.
“I don’t like ‘uh ohs.’ Be specific of how we’re screwed, please.”
“We’ve got an incoming comm message, one what looks like a tight beam.”
The Captain frowned. That meant their location, or at least approximate location, had been discovered.
“What does it say?”
“They’re asking us to open communications and to drop our sensor stealth. They’ve identified us as Star Force.”
“Do we have incoming ships?”
The sensor officer shook his head. “No. But they have parked quite a few in near the star. They may not want us leaving.”
“Keep our cloak up, but send a return signal. Ask the Sety ships specifically what their business is with the lizards.”
Brayden sat back in his seat studying the planet far beneath them and the ships guarding it as he waited for a reply. This was not what he’d expected to find here. He’d been sent to scout this area looking for new lizard activity in the star systems that they’d failed to claim previously, especially with an eye to digging operations, but nothing in his orders had mentioned the possibility of outside interference. This was still technically lizard territory, within their shrinking borders anyway, even if they’d never previously had any interest in the dead system.
This planet’s atmosphere read as negligible, and the other six had none at all. Lizards typically didn’t take airless worlds without a very good reason, and they couldn’t survive on this one without breathing gear so it was no wonder why they’d passed it over, but something really important was happening here, especially given the tech levels of the ships along with them that he was being updated on as the crew got to work on a fine analysis of the passive scans and began making guesses to their equipment.
The Sety ships were easy to identify. They were The Nexus’s biggest and best warships, and a lot of them were here too, which was even more odd because he’d been led to believe that The Nexus was overstretched militarily…so what was so damn important for them to send a nice chunk of their badly needed fleet outside their territory and into the lizards’ back yard?
“Captain, they say they’ve claimed this system and that Star Force and its allies are to remain outside of it. The lizards here are under their protection.”
“Are they now? Ask them if this protection applies to other nearby systems, and ask them if they are still at war with the lizards on the H’kar border.”
Another long wait ensued, and it wasn’t due to comm lag.
“They say this system alone is their concern. The rest are not. They didn’t answer about the H’kar.”
“Drop the cloak and begin doing full sensors scans of everything. Helm, be ready to get us on the best available jumpline out of the system the moment I give the word. Comm, ask them what message they’d like us to give our leaders when we return, and make it clear that they’re not going to take any alliance with the lizards well.”
Suddenly the sensor feeds intensified in detail…and just as suddenly a grouping of 27 ships detached from the ring around the planet and began lazily heading towards them. They got about a tenth of the way to them when the reply finally came in.
; “They say a representative has already been dispatched to our capitol system and that any questions regarding this system be taken up with him. We are to leave now or be escorted out of the system. Our presence here will not be tolerated.”
“What do the files say about the speed of those Sety ships?”
“Um…pretty good. Maybe a touch faster than us. Hard to say.”
“Helm, feel like living dangerously?”
The blonde man smiled ironically. “Where would you like me to dive?”
“I want a close in scan on our way out, but it’ll have to be at really high speed to stay away from them. They’ll probably break like a swarm of wasps when we head in, so give me a good route.”
“Working on it.”
“Comm, when we begin moving inform them that we’re heading out of the system, but that we’re doing a flyby to give our leaders enough information to know what questions to ask their representative.”
“Right after?”
“Give us a head start, but transmit well before we get close to those approaching ships…and by ‘close’ I mean far, far away, right helm?”
“You want me to skim far, far away?”
“Exactly. What’s the problem?” the Captain said deadpan.
“None at all,” the helmsman replied in a matching tone. “Give me a couple minutes to finesse the course and we should be ready to go.”
“Good. Then when we’re past the planet we run like hell. Make sure we get some damn good scans of the surface and those unidentified ships.”
“I can’t get the entire planet on one pass without them intercepting us.”
“Then just get us over those coordinates where they’re building and the surrounding area. Poke in, poke out.”
A moment of silence followed, then the helmsman signaled he was ready. “How’s this?”
The Captain looked over his high speed course projections carefully, seeing that this could get dicey if those ships were a lot faster than them, but once they got past their scanning point they could reengage the cloak and that would make it damn hard for them to follow if they began evasive maneuvering…and the Ma’kri had plenty of fuel to work with.
“Looks good. Let’s go.”
2 days later…
The Sety envoy fleet came out of its jump in near to the yellow star at the heart of the Solar System with some 12 other vessels in its wake. None were Sety, but all were members of the The Nexus and heavily armed, for they’d learned long ago that undertaking diplomatic missions never meant one was safe, and with ships being in such short supply you were more likely to lose a few if you only sent a few, thus it was more practical to send groups in order to avoid losses.
When the Sety vessel emerged out of its deceleration haze the commander crackled as his tree-like body twisted with shock. He had expected a decent amount of traffic and defenses for a civilization the size of Star Force, and while the traffic was actually lower than he would have guessed, the defenses were anything but.
There were huge defense stations everywhere around the star, spread out so there would be at least one or two within weapons range of every incoming jumpline. Further in next to the star was a construct far larger and barely visible within the radiative haze, making its weapons capability indeterminate, but it was the sheer number of ships present around the star alone that shocked the Sety. They’d been getting war updates from the H’kar, so they knew what type of numbers that Star Force fielded in their invasions of the Li’vorkrachnika systems and what they’d mounted to take down their capitol, but there were far more than that here.
He’d expected most of their fleet to be deployed into enemy-held areas pushing their campaign, but it seemed they were not nearly as overextended as the Sety had suspected. Not at all it seemed, for additional fleets began popping up on sensors in groups staggered out from the star, in addition to even more defense stations…and their sensors hadn’t yet reached one of their visible planets.
And those ships didn’t sit still, for as soon as The Nexus envoy arrived they began redeploying closer, not on an intercept course but what looked like bracketing moves that would diminish the their navigating options.
Perhaps they should have announced they were coming prior to arrival.
“Transmit this message immediately on their diplomatic frequencies,” Hirtor said as he walked up behind the ship’s commander. “We are here on a diplomatic mission from The Nexus regarding the opening of formal relations and the establishment of a proper embassy. We await navigation coordinates.”
Davis walked into one of Atlantis’s larger conference rooms along with a Duke and an Archon mage, finding it already filled with some 32 individuals from the Nexus, only one of which was Sety. The others were representatives from their larger members with the H’kar not included. He didn’t know if that was a snub or simply an indication of how low they ranked within their civilization, but given Star Force’s long history and continued wartime cooperation with them it seemed highly irregular to leave them out of whatever business The Nexus had here.
They hadn’t announced they were coming, but Davis had suspected a move like this for some time and the warning systems within his empire had sent word ahead through the relay network tracking their small fleet so he’d had some notification that they were coming. Still, they were trying to throw their weight around, but he could feel a lot of anxiety amongst them right now despite his still infantile psionic skills.
They didn’t expect such a powerful system defense, the mage told him as they walked towards the large ovoid table. They’re worrying that their estimates of our strength were underreported and they might not have as much leverage as they were expecting.
Thank you, he said, glad to have a much keener reading of them to work off of, as well as the ability to talk telepathically. Sure as hell beat glances and facial twitches, and he was pretty sure that neither the Dsevmat nor the other two telepathic races present could sense when they were using their private mental communications channel.
“You’ve come a long way,” Davis said in The Nexus common language that he’d learned long ago, though he sensed that put them off balance right away, for they’d come here expecting to speak English, “and didn’t bother to tell us beforehand. You’re lucky we don’t shoot interloping ships on sight. This system is closed to public travel within our territory. All diplomatic contacts typically go to Epsilon Eridani. But as long as you’re here, tell me why you’ve come…specifically,” he added as he sat down last of the three Humans.
“We have had dealings before,” the Dsevmat answered. “Beneficial, even if some at the time believed otherwise. We believe we can have more beneficial outcomes if we integrate your civilization into our network.”
“Annexation?”
“Depends on how you define that word. We are not offering membership, but rather an interlinking across the rapidly shrinking mass of Li’vorkrachnika territory. We believe the establishment of formal relations and integrated travel and trade would be mutually beneficial.”
“We have no wish or need for a grid point within our territory,” Davis said firmly. “If you wish to establish one on our border you’re more than welcome to do so, but such would be your expense and responsibility for maintaining it.”
Half The Nexus envoys visible twitched, but it was the Telmar that spoke next.
“It is inappropriate for you to use your telepathy here.”
“On my own world? It is inappropriate for you to dictate to me what to do on my own world,” Davis replied icily. “You would use your telepathic abilities to read me if you could, but ours are more formidable so you complain that such use is inappropriate. You are a hypocrite, and I do not care for dealing with hypocrites. If you wish to negotiate something with me, do it bluntly and respectfully. I have no care for lies or trivialities. You wanted us to fund the creation of a grid point in our territory and give you free travel passes throughout our territory. That is not going to happen.”
“Formal relations could have been entered into long ago, but you didn’t deem us worthy of your time. We’ve been working with one of your members closely in a matter of mutual interest…yet the H’kar are not here. Why?”
“They are junior.”
“And yet Star Force already has more than formal relations with them. Why? Because they did not snub us. If you seek to come to mutually beneficial arrangements, you need to stop pretending to be dominant. I know a great deal more about you than the reverse, though it seems you got a lesson upon entering this system. I can establish separate relations with each of your nations if wished, or you can deal for the entire Nexus here and now. But whatever you choose, do not think that your thoughts are your own. If you wanted to shield your minds from us we would be having this discussion via hologram. You came here, before me, so do not insult me by giving me orders…let alone absurd ones.”
“Our apologies,” the Sety finally spoke. “As you’ve said, we know far less about you than we’d like, and that is perhaps our fault for not taking advantage of the openness you’ve developed with the H’kar. None the less, we are here now and wish to learn more. Given your growing engine power, commerce can be achieved via slower travel than the grid point system, but we still offer that possibility if you should wish to reconsider it later. It is the fastest way to link our economies.”
“And what do you hope to gain from such a linkage?”
“A great many things, and as you wish to be blunt I will tell you. You have become a stabilizing force in this galactic arm, and while your territory is small in comparison to ours I have no doubt it will continue to grow, as will your calming influence. We would greatly like to have a stable border.”
“There are still a great number of Li’vorkrachnika between us and you.”
“Which it appears you will deal with in time…and our apologies for not having done more from the other side. The H’kar are getting some additional support from us, but given the size of our domain our ships are needed in many places. We will continue to push back on our current border, but if and when the two meet we wish it to be as friends rather than strangers.”