[IC] Eclipse

[Shamitako]

The briefing room was lacking something. The long metal table was in place, it was bolted to the floor after all. Every cushioned metal chair remained, though they were not bolted to the floor. The screen that was used to display information was still embedded in the wall furthest from the door, it currently displayed a map of the galaxy, with the indicator for the Eclipse's location blinking near the top edge of Resanti space. The Drasian flag still hung opposite the screen, though the Assembly flag that had once hung beside it was long gone. The wooden flooring remained unchanged, it was still the same deep brown as always. None of the pilots had failed to attend, all sitting at varying degrees of comfort in the stiff chairs. Lieutenant Rhees stood in her usual spot next to the briefing monitor, holding the same tablet she always held, though her face showed a greater amount of annoyance than usual. No, none of those things were lacking.

 

What was lacking was the captain's presence. He was ten minutes late to a briefing that he had scheduled himself. Captain Matthews wasn't as uptight as others, but he wasn't usually one to be late.

 

Just when it looked like Lieutenant Rhees was about to go hunt him down, the door slid aside and the captain entered the room. Once upon a time, the more militant among them might have stood and saluted, but by now even Rhees had accepted that Matthews preferred these briefings to have a more candid tone. The door shut behind him and he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly as he moved to take his seat at the head of the table. "Sorry for the delay, I ran into Skylar in the hall..." He said sheepishly, "Let's just get this rolling, Lieutenant Rhees?" He gestured up towards the screen.

 

"Right away, Captain." Rhees still sounded rather annoyed, but tapped on her tablet anyways. The screen shifted to show a picture of a smooth ovoid ship, easily recognizable as a Resanti Corvette. "This is an Corvette stationed in the Kelbar system, located near the edge of Resanti space. The system seems to be primarily used for retrofitting or disassembling derelict and captured ships. Because of the high amount of low-threat activity, the Llima Empire regularly sends scouts there." She tapped the screen again and the image shifted to overlay the entire ship with a black and white deck layout and dots indicating life signs, in this case just one dot indicating just one life sign. "After performing repeated heat and motion scans over the course of the past six weeks, Llima has confirmed that the ship has a single occupant. The Resanti have made no attempt to disassemble it, and in fact seem to avoid it as much as possible. Whatever is on that ship, they don't want anything to do with it."

 

Another tap and the screen returned to the map. "Thanks to our success working with them two months ago, the Empire has asked the Eclipse to investigate Kelbar for them. Our mission is to board the Corvette, discover what exactly has the Resanti so timid around it, and bring it back with us, taking the entire Corvette if we have to. We have no way to know how many or how well equipped the fleets at Kelbar may be at any given time. We also don't know if the Corvette has active jamming for our transporters, in all likelihood we'll be forced to send a boarding party aboard a transport shuttle, which you will have to protect in that event. Effectively, we're going in blind. Any questions?" Rhees ended her explanation with a shift from her analysis tone to a more cheerful one, clashing very uncomfortably with the announcement that they had no idea what they were up against.

 

For the pilots that had been aboard the Eclipse awhile, this wouldn't be the first time they'd fought a largely unknown force, but it was never a welcome situation. If the enemy was unknown, then individual assignments would have to be given out on arrival. They'd have very little time to adapt to whatever situation they found themselves in. And on top of that, they had the extra variable of a boarding party to work around. Their best bet was that none of the ships at Kelbar would be in a functional state, leaving them with little fight to worry about.

[Chevaleresse]

Naomi wasn't exactly happy about the prospect of going in with no intel herself, not that it showed much on her face. "Is there any more information on the life sign itself? Motion patterns, fluctuations, that sort of thing." This was starting to sound like the setup to some horror movie; unknown creature aboard mysterious vessel, investigation team goes in, investigation team gets faceful of alien wing-wong. Fortunately, she would be nowhere near the thing. Of course, the odds were that it was something less threatening than that. . . but if the Resanti were worried enough to leave it alone entirely, than so was she.

[Sentient Bowtie]

After hearing Rhees' explanation on the situation, Willard is almost able to stop himself from asking his usual question - the one he inevitably mentions before nearly every mission.

...Almost.

 

"So when do we start?" The specifics of the mission don't concern him too much (and they never have); cover the Eclipse if things go well, cover the boarding party's shuttle if they don't, and if they were lucky, nothing would have to be done at all. If anything else to worry about came up during the mission, odds were Rhees would have them informed immediately as usual. Simple and easy. Willard doesn't even care about going in blind, since it was usually code for "please don't let Willard go first" anyway. And he usually didn't. Most of the time.

[Twinwolf]

Rose was one of the more relaxed pilots, although she still sat straight and stiff - as much as her personality favored the informal atmosphere the captain preferred, it was difficult to beat military habits out. She listened to the briefing, and when it was done nodded. It sounded like a trap. In fact it sounded very much like a trap. But if it wasn't, it may be rather worth it - and hurt the Resanti. Worth the risk in her books. She didn't ask anything - she couldn't think of any question just now that the others hadn't already voiced. 

[kj1225]

Varg was slouched in his chair, making it seem a little more like it fit his size, but not much more so. He leans back straightening to his full height as he considers whether or not he needed to ask anything. Sure, this was suspicious as all hell, and it seems like it was going to be a trap... but that's a about it. It's not like anyone could possibly hide all but one life sign on a ship or anything. He shrugs before speaking.

"No questions here sir."

[Shamitako]

Rhees ignored Willard, they both knew his question was pointless and that a departure time would be set by the captain at the end of the briefing, yet he always insisted in asking it. Instead, she gave an answer to Naomi, "It seems to stay within a single room, whether that means it's confined or not we can't say. It tends to stay in one place for a few hours around the same time every day, suggesting sleep, but it doesn't move around much in the first place, so we can't even confirm that."

"Do we know where it gets food from?" Captain Matthews asked. Resanti had much faster metabolisms than humans, requiring food more often to sustain themselves.
"It's likely that the food is transported to the room from elsewhere on the ship. But Lliman scouts aren't equipped to monitor for transporter signatures, so we can't confirm that." Rhees knew what the captain was thinking: If they timed their attack with a food delivery from another ship, they might be able to get on board while the jammers were off. But no deliveries had been witnessed, so that seemed unlikely.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Vixen almost let out a chuckle at Rhees tone during the brief. For the time she'd known her, it'd certainly had been amusing. She supposed normally a cheery demeanor woul get on her nerves to some degree, however it was a different kind of it least to Vixen. Perhaps only a justifaction she made up to be able to accept it but not like she cared. She took in the rest asking their questions. She wondered when Willard woul... ah there it was. 

"Good to know the information officer round these parts has a sense of humour." she said playfully jabbing at Rhees. She had her feet up on the table leaning back, her black combat boots resting on the table. Most of her wasn't visible however due to that strange dusty tan cape that covered her whole body she semed to always be wearing. She sat up abruptly, and leaned forward during the rest of the questions

"The hell could those Rust Buckets in human pajamas be so scared of? Guess we'll find out. Seems fishy avessel out here all by it's lonesome but no trap l'd ever seen in my days. Too random... too out of the way and only single lifesign. Nearly impossible to spoof those, or poof them l guess in this case. Likethey'd have to hope someone would randomly stumble into this it's just not feasible.... and at the least a logistics nightmare. lf the Resanti's hivemind is sanctioning this kinda shit... Well we'd not be their greatest enemy, that'd title belong to themselves." Vixen more or less thought to herself outloud.

[Sutoratosu]

"Well, this outta be interesting..." was all Cree had to say on the matter as he leaned back in his chair, arms folding. Of course, in his native lingo, 'Interesting' meant that was gonna be anything but a simple milkrun, and that things were probably gonna go wrong six ways to sunday. He was more than used to those type of engagements though- things tended to get messy in space. Especially when you were going in blind to begin with.

[Yours Truly]

Irene slowly scanned the contents of the room with her eyes from her vantage point in the far right corner of the room as she heard the lieutenant's debriefing, and she waited until everyone else had finished speaking before she said, "Since this already sounds like a disaster waiting to happen I just wanted to ask... what happens if we don't hear anything from the boarding party once they enter the corvette? How long are we supposed wait for them to make contact?". Despite her paranoia she honestly had to admit that Vixen had a point there, why would the Resanti place a trap so close to one of their known systems? And why would they try to hide it so much? None of this really made that much sense to her, and she found herself trying to quell her usual fears by attempting to focus on the one thought that really mattered. 'At least I'm not the one who has to get in there.' Not that it worked of course.

[Sentient Bowtie]

Willard smiles inwardly. His usual question never received a proper answer, but at this point it was almost obligatory. Wasn’t really meeting if he didn’t ask, anyway.

 

He listens to the others take their turns, but after Irene speaks up, the pilot chimes in again. “That’s a good question. If things go bad for them, what are we supposed to do? Go in guns blazing?”

[Chevaleresse]

Naomi simply nodded, and then nodded again at the question of how they were to proceed if things went wrong. She didn't like the idea of an extended operation in Resanti space, especially with how suspicious this particular one was. She didn't share Vixen's thoughts; this could easily be a ploy of some sort, the Resanti hivemind knowing that scouts went in and out of that system and relying on someone getting curious. People always got curious, that was just how they worked. The woman's face betrayed nothing, as always, but the faint anxiety showed in her ears; they were ever so slightly pulled backward, and the tip of her tail twitched occasionally. 

[Swampellow]

Alezar drew himself up after listening; both to the initial briefing and then the questions posed by the other pilots and the respective answers. "So basically, we are going into a situation where we know about nothing," he said looking around the room "and if something goes wrong we are gonna what? Stick around and take prisoners? Pull out and figure out another plan?" then he nodded over to Willard "or just finish everything off?" 

 

He brought himself back down a bit after asking. "All I know is that its not the most difficult to make it appear like a ship isn't working properly, and then very easily make it apparent that it is working just fine. It might be good to have at least some sort of idea of what to do?" he said, directing that last question statement towards the Eclipse crew proper.

 

[Shamitako]

Rhees flashed Vixen a short, almost imperceptible, smile. Normally such a response would annoy her, but the two had grown rather close in the short time that Vixen had been aboard the Eclipse.

 

"If things go south we'll most likely be forced to retreat." She answered the rest, "But as with our general strategy, we'll have to work out what exactly we need to do on the fly. If we lose contact with the boarding team, we'll definitely pull back, " It was far more than suboptimal, everything about this mission was. Rhees couldn't say she liked it, but it wasn't an insurmountable situation. "Oh, I almost forgot." Rhees added suddenly, "Vixen, you're going to enter the system as close to the target ship as possible. Focus on keeping enemy reinforcements from approaching. You might be mostly out of the action, since the Resanti have been avoiding it previously, but there's a pretty high chance they'll move in on it when we do."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Vixen didn't move much from her lounging position, she was used to such calls, couldn't say she wasn't happy to hear she'd get to be off ship for a time in a place no one could bother her. Well... at least they couldn't physically invade her space. She often had to keep contact of some sort over comms, but if it was Rhees she'd not mind. Anyone else bleeh, but the information offcier was usually the one to handle such things, so it'd probably always be Rhees. Not bleh. "Can do, don't mind being adrift for a bit. l'll be sure to let the rest know the skin wearin' toasters are on their tails if need be.Hopefully they remain scared enough of whatever this is to stay the hellaway, but at that point even if they are scared of it... they probably don't want us sticking our nose in it. So... l highly doubt they'll do nothing. Guess it means l'll get to shoot something. l'm down for that. See, brightside. Well, for me. Not so much you guys. You'd better hope l remain bored and lonely."

[Shamitako]

Once the questions died down, attention turned to Captain Matthews. Taking into account the time it would take for the pilots to prepare and the likely much more complex briefing and preparation that Elyn would be giving the boarding team, he set their departure time to three hours after the briefing. Afterwards, the pilots dispersed to go about their preparations.

 

~~Kelbar~~

 

The Eclipse exited hyperspace around Kelbar IX, at the edge of the Kelbar system. It was a relatively small bluish green gas planet. The corvette that served as their target was orbiting one of Kelbar IX's three moons. Most of the Resanti activity in the system was performed around Kelbar VIII and Kelbar V, both of which were currently on the opposite side of the system.

 

Vixen appeared shortly after the Eclipse, dropping out near the moon the Corvette was orbiting.

 

Unlike the Lliman scout, there was no way for the Eclipse to mask its presence, so the Resanti would be able to detect it almost instantly upon arrival. That meant there would be little time to figure out the situation and prepare a strategy. Since they weren't after the shipyards, the Resanti would have to come to them. If the Eclipse was lucky, the boarding crew could be done with their mission before that could happen. But since that was an unlikely event, the Eclipse's Strikers and Interceptors were deployed in a defensive net while the shuttle dispatched to head for the moon.

 

The tension on the bridge was palpable as the crew waited for sensor data to come in and tell them what they were up against. But instead of relieving that tension, the sensor data just added to it. The shipyard at Kelbar VIII was empty, with all of the Resanti's resources being dedicated to retrofitting a single, massive ship.

"Lieutenant Rhees, is that what I think it is?" Captain Matthews asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them.

"I'm afraid to say it, Captain. But it looks like the Southern Cross." Rhees replied, clearly a little shaken.

 

The Southern Cross was one of the biggest and most expensive ships in the Assembly fleet. A massive half-circular ship that looked a lot like the Eclipse save for shape and size, the Southern Cross served as the core of the Assembly's forward fleet. The idea that the Resanti could defeat it, let alone capture it intact, was unthinkable. The confirmation that this was exactly what had happened was bad news not just for the mission, but for the galaxy at large.

 

"Lieutenant, recall our pilots and get the boarding shuttle back here." Matthews said, "Even if it's running at half capacity, there's no way we can take on the Southern Cross."

Rhees nodded and broadcast herself to every pilot, disregarding any sense of professionalism in favor of communicating the urgency of the situation. "All pilots, we're fucked, return to the Eclipse immediately." Repeating it once (without the expletive, twice was a little too much for her) before elaborating, "The Resanti have a captured Assembly battlestar, we're pulling out."

 

But Vixen didn't get this broadcast. While she'd been talking to Rhees up until just before she exited hyperspace, the instant she'd entered the moon's gravity well, she'd lost all communication with the Eclipse. Her communications had been entirely absorbed by an extremely large transmission from the corvette. She had little time to react before her systems began to leave her control. After everything had been disabled, a single screen in her cockpit turned back on, displaying black with a single word in white, "Hello." There was no way for Vixen to type as response, but considering whatever this was had begun with her communications, it was reasonable to assume it could hear her.

[Twinwolf]

Rose blinked as the message to return came, and then did a double take as she looked at her Striker's map. "What the... do we know if it's operational?" It was possible, Rose thought, that it was recently taken and perhaps still too damaged to fight. If so, their odds of escaping went up significantly. 

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Vixen sighed loudly. Talking... wasn't her strong suit. This wasn't the action she was looking for at aaaaall. She should probably be concerned moreso about the fact she was cut off from the Eclipse but there wasn't really much she could do about that at the moment given the circumstance, her controls weren't responding and whatever was communicating with her... well it might not be the source but there was no way to tell. She was stuck here with little to no information, she'd have to hope the crew noticed and sent back-up if she couldn't figure some way to get her control back.

But while she waited, she might as well try and chase the one avenue she did have. "A little more than a hello is needed in this situation pal. lf you're gonna cut off my controls and the ability to communicate you better have a really good reason for doin' so. And it better not be to kill me, or abduct me or some shit cause l swear to you if you come near my ship... l'll blow this little tugboat to kingdomcome. l don't need contols for that shit. Just so we're clear. We clear?"

[Shamitako]

"Oh good, it worked." the screen answered Vixen, "I'm sorry about disabling your ship, I didn't want you to run away while I was only halfway on board." After resting on that message for a bit, the screen shifted to a computer generated model of a young woman's face in a simple cartoonish design. Then Vixen's communicator began to emit a female voice. It wasn't robotic or stilted, but it sounded uncanny, perhaps even synthesized. The face moved its lips alongside the voice, though there seemed to be an almost imperceptible delay from the image to the sound. "Thank you for coming to rescue me, I was starting to think I'd be trapped on that ship forever." The girl's computerized face smiled gratefully.

[kj1225]

The revelation of just WHAT he was looking at was met with silence from Varg. He started his way back to their home ship, but one question gnawed at his mind.

"How'd they capture it without news ever reaching us? You'd think that'd be something people would notice really quick right? It's not like it's a small ship..."

[Chevaleresse]

Concerning. Deeply concerning. "Confirm, please." Was that even possible? There had to have been a grave error made somewhere, or maybe the Resanti were getting clever, trying to spook people, dummying up a ship to trick sensors into picking it up as more threatening than it really was. It would definitely be a blow to morale - as seen very clearly in what was happening right now - if it were to appear at the edge of the system, even if it didn't fire a single shot. "Both aspects, withdrawal and Resanti possession of the Southern Cross." Her voice remained steady, for the moment. "Can it be verified that it is the vessel in question and not a falsified signature?"

[Yours Truly]

Rhees honestly didn't have to tell Irene to return to the ship twice, as she had already made the motions required to turn her entire Striker around and move back towards the hangar bay the moment she heard the lieutenant exclaim the word 'fuck'. "Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I am not looking forward to finding out what weaponry or tactics they used to capture the Southern Cross and bring it back here so damn quickly. Why didn't the scout take note of this anyway?."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"l'll be honest l'm not sure that goal was what was in mind for this mission. We came out here mostly blind and without much information. We don't even know who you are just that there was a single lifesign on this ship for whatever reason. lt being in Resanti space and them just leaving a derelict out here with a single lifesign on it seems... strange at the least so we were just investigating." Vixen was going to try and be reasonable with whatever it was messing with her ship... cause clearly whatever this presence was quite talented and they had pierced quite far into her systems. They didn't seem to be hostile persay but it was a rather strange method to get her to stop. They could've just hailed her frenquecy or something rather than commeendeering her control.

"Further you've more or less cut me off from my ship at the moment. l'm an advance unit, designation of long range combat specialist. Rescue Operations and Boarding Operations aren't much my strong suit... wait a second..." Then thought to herself back to what they had said at the beginning. "You said you disabled my ship cause you didn't want me to leave while you were only halfway onboard. So... you're on The Cleansing Rain right now then somehow?" Vixen started to look around her cockpit instinctively, as if she'd see something. She quickly caught herself though, and looked back at the moniter. This was strange. lf this was some kind of living being it was nothing she'd ever come across before. 

[Shamitako]

"Oh, you didn't come here for me?" the girl pouted, "Then did you come here to destroy that big ship father brought here? I can help with that if you save me."  Her voice didn't match her face, maintaining an uncomfortable Monotone.

 

When asked if she was on the ship she smiled smugly, "Yup, I'm pretty proud of that, it took a lot of work to figure out how to break out of that prison and transmit myself over to another ship."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"l mean l'm all fine with saving you but you'd have to be on my ship." which as far as Vixen knew no one entered but... she knew this wasn't a typical case at this point. She wasn't really entirely sure of the implications, but she was catching on well enough. "But... l have a feeling that you already have invited yourself over, what are you exactly? Pardon me if that's rude to ask, but more information would be useful here, and l'm sure that my crew is going to ask a lot of questions the second my communications come back online."

 

Given the fact she'd lost contact with Rhees while dropping from hyperspace and was meant to reconnect after... she was definitely missed the deadline for contact. She would like to retouch with the Eclipse before they sent people ater here... if they could even afford that right now but they probably couldn't. So, having answers was probably more important, so they understand her situation. 

[Shamitako]

"It would be difficult to explain what I am in terms you can understand, but the simplest explanation would be to call me an artificial intelligence." The voice was losing its monotone, becoming rather sing-song as the AI seemed to figure out how to synthesize vocal tones.

 

"Oh!" the AI jumped in surprise at the mention of communications, "I'm so sorry, I forgot to turn them back on." Vixen's systems reactivated one by one, beginning with her communications. 

 

Rhees's voice returned to Vixen's ears, she was currently addressing the other pilots. "Yes, it's definitely the Southern Cross, the Resanti have dedicated all of their resources to it. And if it's in a good enough condition for them to fly it here and salvage, it's in a good enough condition to blow us out of the water. So all of you get back here right now."

 

"My prison is already rigged to explode." the AI told Vixen, "There's a woman on board who can pilot it well enough to direct it into that battlestar, but it would need an escort to get it close enough." It was a pretty enticing offer, but taking it required trusting this strange AI with not only Vixen's life, but the lives of everyone on board the Eclipse.