Re: [004 - G] Artemis Tau 7 System

[John_Roxton]

Three more ships would jump in, bearing the design of the Coalition. A large capital ship escorted by two battleships, obviously the Coalition had gone big in the event the Alarei attempted anything. The capital would have a decal of the Coalition on it's side, seeing as it was the only Capital in the fleet it was a large floating piece of propaganda and planetary defense. Once it had resumed operations since the jump it would hail the Carentan.

"Carentan, this is the Capital Ship Rechnung, we thank you for this diplomatic meeting.".

[Mother Superior]

FKS. Rhineland (CLC-002)
Shuttle dock

Hoefler with the escort of five special forces soldiers from the Rhineland piled into the shuttle and strapped themselves in for safety. Then the shuttle was off, soon making its way to the Carentan's docking bay and following the instructions as provided from the USC personnel.

[Blitz]

The aged Lord-Admiral curls a hand towards his breastplate, wheezing deeply. He nods deeply,"The socialist Republics of Zeleniy have lost many sailors to the Alarei threat.. We..--nnnngh--..Would seek to avenge our..--kssskkk--.. human ancestors."

[Hades]

USS Carentan, SBG-12
Starboard Landing Bay 2-A

A series of magnetic clamps secured the shuttle as the elevator lowered, and after the depressurization sequence, the lift stopped. A dozen deckhands and engineers swarmed all over the vehicle to check for anything dangerous, such as fuel leaks or exposed circuits, and then gave the all-clear to open the hatches. A small military contingent was present, just a few marines in combat armor and armed with battle rifles. Their leader seemed to be a Sergeant, judging by his rank insignia.

---

USS Carentan, SBG-12
Starboard Hangar Bay 1-A

"If you will follow me, we have prepared the conference chamber." The President and her guard started to walk towards one of the blast doors on the side of the gargantuan hangar, while the Admiral simply walked off towards a different door. He had to go greet the envoy from the Rhineland, after all; the President could take care of the rest of the politicians.

---

+"Acknowledged Rechnung, please dispatch a shuttle with your envoy. We are transmitting instructions on approach and landing on this channel."+ The details were indeed sent, on the same encrypted channel.

[Bospy]

A mass of mechanical and nuclear energy would appear at the edge of space, and abruptly a Hakoni mothership jumps into view. Summoned by the USC, the massive vessel approaches the mass of ships already in meeting. A mathematical integer is sent out to USC decryption offices, with a simple and blunt request to send an envoy of King Odck himself and nine Hakoni Royal Guards.

[Zombiedude101]

Obliging the President, both Councilors and their Marine guards quietly followed after her, towards the conference room.

[Hades]

USS Carentan, SBG-12
Combat Information Center

"Sir, call from engineering. Again."

"Let me guess, they want to SCRAM the reactor again? Or maybe vent the CIC? Or do they want to trigger the self-destruct?"

"Uh, no sir. They want permission to shut off the main propulsion drive and have an EVA team repair the damage it sustained."

"Tell them... For fuck's sake, get me the Chief."

The Executive Officer was angry, and for good reason: engineering had been bugging him for hours to disable vital ship functions for maintenance, citing the fact that it was the first time the Carentan had seen combat since the refits, and that a nuclear detonation was a serious threat to the ship. They had gone to impossible lengths to convince him so far, and he had let them perform the maintenance procedures on some of the less important systems: backup RCS, the auto-stabilizers, the engine gimbals, everything that the ship didn't need. But after the Admiral went to greet the dignitaries, Engineering had started getting bold with their requests: they even suggested shutting down the main reactor.

The TSO passed the phone to the Commander and stepped away cautiously, not particularly interested in participating in the shitstorm that he was sure would be unleashed.

"Engineering, CIC. Lieutenant Hakesley, let me just put something into perspective for you: WE ARE AT WAR! This ship is in condition two and on stand-by for strategic missile launch, and the very survival of this battlegroup and of our entire race could very well depend on us being ABLE TO MOVE! AND YOU WANT TO FUCKING SHUT OFF OUR ENGINES? Let me remind you that this is a ship of war, designed for battle. She was built to survive nuclear detonations, and survive she did. Please stop pestering me with your paranoid requests and get your crews doing something useful, such as restoring power to Deck Seventeen, they have been waiting for hours in the dark."

He didn't wait for an answer, slamming the phone down on its holder device; when the communications officer lifted his hand up to signal the receipt of a message, the XO was about to burst in yelling; he was thankfully stopped by the revelation that this was not, in fact, another message from engineering.

"Hakoni mothership just jumped in, we are receiving a request for King Odck and his Royal Guard to come aboard, sir."

At last, some good news.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Grant the request."

Confirmation was subsequently sent to the Mothership that the request had been granted, along with instructions on landing.

[Bospy]

King Odck used his cane to balance himself, his massive cape and robe trailing behind him. Slowly, hydraulics released the airlock module and allowed the block of wall to descend to the floor of the shuttle bay. The royal guards stood four by four at his side, and one standing in behind Odck with a flag-like product. Each having similar capes and garbs, armed with extremely large spears standing at five feet with barrel-like protrusions at the end of them and small canisters at the top filled with a blue liquid, even the flag. Each chosen specifically because of their seven foot height, while Odck remained unusually short in Hakoni standards at only 5'5". Strangely enough, Odck emitted a blue glow while he traveled. They approached whoever laid in wait.

[Blitz]

The Lord-Admiral walks at a slow, deliberate pace. He wheezes and hacks every now and then, but retains his posture.

[John_Roxton]

A Type 2 would depart from the capital ship, heading for the Carentan, once it had slotted in, the back cargo hatch would drop. Lord-Authority Finley and her guards would look around the inside of the ship. They understood the tensions between the U.S.C. and the Coalition, and knew not to over-step her boundaries considering how close the two nations had come to war during recent events. After hushed talks with a Lieutenant leading the team of three power armored shock troopers, she'd step forward and wait for some form of official.

[Mother Superior]

USS Carentan, SBG-12
Starboard Landing Bay 2-A


The shuttle doors soon depressurize and it comes open. Two Special Forces operatives make their way from the shuttle first; they are not dressed in their usual exo-suits given the current situation, and most are clad in regular clothes with a variant of IOTV covering their chests for protection. One of the Special Forces operatives turns towards the shuttle and offers a quick nod. Moments later a blonde woman clad in business attire of the 21st century comes stepping out with three soldiers in tow, all dressed the same way that the two who had entered the bay first are, clad in casual clothing with no protection but an IOTV variant secured around their torsos.

The woman is assumed to be Hoefler, if not by sticking out of the crowd of soldiers given her lack of weapon and upright posture, it would be the FKS. Rhineland nametag attached to her right breast pocket confirming the suspicion. Her attire is hardly out of the ordinary, as the BND is classified as a "civilian" agency, hence the lack of military-esque uniforms. She wore a black pinstripe suit jacket, a matching skirt; she had shined heels and carried a black leather-bound organizer under her left arm. In her lapel was a pin, one that was fashioned in the royal family’s crest of the Federation that she serves.

The short haired blonde woman turned to one of the soldiers, he was clean shaven and she offered him a terse nod and he made a gesture with his right hand, the rest of the soldiers put themselves into a line formation at his right. They seemed rather relax despite the news of the Alarei return, perhaps it’s because they’re on one of the largest human vessels they’ve ever seen, not to mention the large coalition of battle groups huddled together in one sector of space. In this bay is where the boarding party from the Rhineland waited for greeting.

[Hades]

All of the delegates were greeted by squads of power-armored Marines, lead by a single officer each. The introductions seemed non-existent, with each officer declaring that the rest of the diplomats were waiting in the conference room. The CCT was the only nation to be given a special welcome, with triple the soldiers assigned to them; the USC wasn't taking any risks, it seemed. After a long walk through the gargantuan hangar deck, the elevator was finally reached, and the computer chirped out an automated 'Deck 29 - Command Section' when the lift stopped. The conference room was a minute's trip away.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

USS Carentan, SBG-12
Conference Room, Deck 29

Contrary to the utilitarian design of the Carentan, displaying a clear disregard for aesthetics, the conference room was luxurious: in obvious contrast to the steel gray of carbon composite plating that walls around the ship was made, and lacking the distinct hexagon patterns of the nanoplating, the walls of the chamber were made out of expensive wood, and the furnishing and layout was that one would find in a five-star hotel's conference grounds. The room was clearly designed to house the government in the event of a disaster on Sanctuary, or other crisis, as the seal of the United Systems Congress was painted on the walls.

Each seat had a full workspace in front of it, including a holographic computer screen with ASUS branding, and the flags of the various nations had been placed in front of select areas to demonstrate the planned seating arrangement. The main podium had the United Systems flag on it, since the USC was the host of the summit. With haste, the President moved there, while a variety of diplomats and analysts sat down behind her.

[Bospy]

King Odck's figure becomes distorted as they exit the metal drab like structures of the exterior of the ship, several of his guards having to adjust valves on their spears. Odck casually stands, while the man holding the standard sits at the desk.

[John_Roxton]

Lord-Authority Finley would note the fact her group had been given the large amount of guards. She and her escort would go peacefully however, sitting in their place and waiting for the U.S.C. president to make the opening address. Observing the flag set for them.

[Zombiedude101]

USS Carentan, SBG-12
Conference Room, Deck 29

With a quiet nod, both Councillors took their seats at the designated area adorning the insignia of the Korrae Union, with High Councillor Zhan taking the seat closest to the President of the U.S.C, and remaining silent so as to allow the others to take their seats and wait for the summit to begin. Meanwhile, their Marine guards took up their places behind the two Councillors, remaining silent as they stood to attention.

[Blitz]

Lord-Admiral Burydi nods to the Officer,"I shall see myself there, then."The Lord-Admiral would cough and sputter quietly, pulling himself a seat. He slumps into the chair heavily, muttering to one of his guards. The red and black armored guards both act non-nonchalantly towards the U.S.C. Marines.

[Mother Superior]

Hoefler and her entourage of soldiers made their way to the work station with the flag of the Federation upon it. Hoefler took the seat, put her organizer on the table, opened it to a fresh page and took out her fine tipped pen, the woman is ready for the summit. The soldiers on the other hand found themselves in a circle at the station’s flank, speaking in their own language and occasionally looking over towards the troupe of Zeleniy guardsmen.

[Blitz]

ok alien ok

[Hades]

waiting for the others too

[Blitz]

what others

[Hades]

Chief, and apparently Waffle and SIC/VASF would be joining the meeting?

[Blitz]

well can we skip their turn they're taking longer than they need

[Hades]

After everyone had been seated, the President activated her microphone. Not everyone had showed up, such as the Orpheus Pact, but they could be briefed at a later point in time; the information was too crucial to wait, and every second they spent exposed in space was a second the Alarei could use to attack the fleet.

"Thank you all for responding to our call on such short notice. We have all suffered loss in the past few days, and I know that asking you, as leaders and representatives of your nations, to leave your people and come aboard this ship was a big request. Rest assured, I am certain that we will all leave this meeting with something valuable to bring back. Without wasting any time, I would like to present Major Reymond Sykes, Senior Analyst for the United Systems Military Intelligence Service. The Major is one of our top intelligence analysts, and he has spent considerable time crunching data from the Alarei War and the recent genocidal attacks against our peoples. Major."

The President remained silent after that, leaning back on her chair. A single man in service greens stepped onto the podium; he couldn't have been more than thirty, judging by his looks, and his dark blue beret identified him as a member of USMIS. He cleared his throat and then tapped on the keyboard, dimming the lights and activating the massive screen behind him.

"Greetings. I am Major Sykes, and for the next hour, I will be presenting you with the tactical and strategic information we have been able to acquire by analyzing both the enemy's current movements, and those used during the first War. First of all, I would like us to have a moment of silence for those lost in the nuclear holocaust. While time is of the essence, we have to remember the fallen."

The minute of silence ended as expected, and the Major proceeded with his presentation. The massive screen behind him switched to the schematic of what seemed to be a Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle, or MIRV, armed with twelve nuclear warheads; evidently, the weapon used by the Alarei to attack human and alien populations alike.

"We have determined that the Alarei used these weapons, designated as SRBM-37-18-A by our forces, to attack our planets. The weapon is a multi-warhead antimatter-enhanced fission weapon, with twelve warheads in the ten megaton range and six decoys. The weapons have the capacity to attack both planetary structures and orbital facilities, such as space stations, and can be switched to a single one hundred and twenty megaton warhead to attack vessels. Thankfully, the space-borne explosions are significantly weaker than their endo-atmospheric counterparts, and this fact saved this ship from complete destruction after a direct hit from one of the weapons. They use liquid hydrogen as their primary combustion fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer, similarly to chemical rockets of the twentieth century. The re-entry vehicles have half an inch of conventional steel armor, while their warheads are unshielded. This presents a significant tactical advantage to us, as it means that they are not that hard to shoot down by a fighter, or a flak defense system. Point defense lasers have not been tested by our forces against the nuclear weapons, as the Carentan's laser defense grid was offline to divert power to the engines at the time of the detonation."

The slide changed again. This time, the picture would be much more familiar: an Alarei dreadnought, identical to the ones that attacked the people of the sector. This one was displayed in blueprint form, apparently downloaded from the databank of the Alarei dreadnought that had attacked the colony of California.

"This blueprint is of the dreadnought we have designated as 'Beatle'. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that, even though their size is sixteen percent larger than our supercarriers, they are significantly less advanced. They seem to be made out of junk parts, and are possibly just modified freighters from the Alarei War era. In designing their dreadnoughts, the Alarei seemed to have made the mistake of trying to be the best at all. They have significant shielding, armor and point defense, but neither is good enough to resist a specialised energy, kinetic of missile ship. Theiur redundancy systems can be easily destroyed, since they lack advanced repair capabilities, and their nuclear weapons take time to arm, just like ours. By using nine main weapons systems divided into equal parts of energy, kinetic and missile weaponry, they have created a balanced but overly unspecialized war machine. While it may be good enough to stand toe-to-toe with a single capital, any fleet should be able to destroy these ships without much trouble. In addition, our electronic warfare protocols from the first War are still very much viable. If a dreadnought can be uploaded with a virus, it can be used as a relay to deactivate entire fleets of the enemy force."

The final slide was that of the sector map. The locations of the various nations were displayed on it, as expected, along with a red area surrounding the edge.

"Using decryption software from the first war, we were able to acquire the ship's flight log. It was incomplete, as apparently they tried to wipe the drive before we boarded, but it did have one location of interest. An uninhabited system outside the habitable zone of this sector of space. It is three jumps away from system fifteen gee. The ship seems to have spent entire weeks there, but for what purpose, we can't tell. Our engineers are working on decrypting more files as we speak."

There was a pause, and then the analyst deactivated the screen and activated the lights again.

"Questions?"

[Zombiedude101]

Both Councilors quietly observed as the Major spoke, briefing them on what the U.S.C had learned of the Alarei from their attacks. High Councillor Zhan was noted to have leaned forth when the schematic of the MIRV was displayed, and he offered something of an alien frown at his recollection of the attack on Xenu, having been planetside for the duration of the incident and having remembered the eery wailing of the sirens, which had been initiated in response to the detection of the Alarei's MIRVs. Whereas, Councilor General Harz didn't seem to display much of an emotional response to any of the schematics, instead maintaining a straightened, silent posture as he looked on, taking mental notes as the Major went on.

Then, once the Major had finished speaking and had raised the opportunity for questions to be made, the Councilor General looked back towards Zhan, who gave a silent nod of approval, before Harz began to speak.

"Major, it seems unlikely that after centuries in hiding and remassing their forces, the Alarei would have returned with such weak forces, even with the previous..... state, they had been left in since their decline. I believe that this may have not been a fully-fledged military strike so much as a probing of our forces, to test our strengths and weaknesses and observe our designs and tactics, our positions and defences. Perhaps it is their intent to be underestimated, and that the co-ordinates you've discovered may in fact lead to a trap."

[Hades]

"That is an excellent observation, Councilor-General. Our analysis suggests that it is a likely scenario, yes, and that is why great caution should be exercised with any of our future actions. Sending a fleet in blind would be tactical suicide. At the very least, USMIS recommends that a stealth fighter be sent to investigate the region."

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