ic Incursion: Meaning in Destruction

[ca_lazerdwarf]

Dragonid was running for the hatch to intercept the rockets before Traveller even finished her order. "Permission to rip Lalek's arrogant lying head off the next time we see him." he asked over his comlink as he spread his mechanical wings and activated the jetpack.

 

He raced after the rockets as fast as he could, jetpack at maximum burn, ready to spit scorching flame to melt the rocket in to oblivion. "Leave the galaxy alone for a few thousand years and there are insane conquering armies every where you look."

[Exaccus]

"forgives my momentary frustrations." he says now somewhat more collected and calm for his little vent "Moon-moth is not usualies like thats, i fear my own powerlessness in this situations is agitating me no no ends, most of my power is investeds in keepings the puppies inside there dimensional window...i fear putting superbabies in there with them will only lead to captain hunger turnings them into an army at some points or anothers." he says as he watches the rockets "There are far too many to play cleans up with..we will have to hopes warning the terrans will be enoughs."

 

he states locking his fingers solemnly "I's sorry i screamed at yous."

[Avenger Assembled]

It only took a few seconds for a response to crackle into the Kavaca's speakers. "Kavaca, this is the Lighthouse. We are detecting multiple inbound craft and a time-space distortion in high Earth orbit. Our orbital defenses are mobilizing to respond. What's your situation? Is this a Communion attack?" The voice spoke with a heavy accent that Sitara didn't recognize, but whoever was on the other end spoke what sounded like pretty good Lor. 

 

Meanwhile, on another channel, one of the Hunger ships was sending an image of the other side of the planet - the antipode, where Lelak himself was. A portal to a planet nobody recognized was visible, and a wave of rockets was passing through it. 

 

Dragonid got there too late to stop the rockets from making their way through the portal - he just had time to see clearly through the translucent cover of one of the rockets that what was inside was clearly a grey-skinned humanoid baby before the rockets themselves passed through the portal and onto the other side. Meanwhile, Lelak was still on the line. 

 

"<What are you doing?!>" he demanded, anger crackling in his voice like lightning. "<Why are you trying to stop them?!>"

[Tiffany Korta]

Whilst she had had many modifications made to her one thing that had been left mostly alone was her brain and as such she had to carefully balance half a dozen things that was happening over a incredibly short period of time. As she spoke to the terran she sent a message to Slivar.

 

“We’re give him a chance to explain himself later, first we need to remove all this from the Communion.â€

 

As she did this she spoke to the Terran in serviceable, if not slightly archaic, Lor.

 

<“Lighthouse the capsules contain survivors from a long dead race, we could do with you help to safely contain them. We’re help relocate them when we can, we’re a little busy on matter to do with the Communion. I’m about to send you a data transmission that explains everything we’ve found so far.â€>

 

Thumbing up the data they’d gathered so far since the destruction of Lor-Van, she got ready to transmit the data at a rate that this “Lighthouse†could cope with.

 

Finally she turned her attention back to Lelak.

 

“If you had told us about your children we would have helped, but not on an civilized world teeming with life. When this is over we will happily find them a new home.â€

Edited December 7, 2014 by TiffanyKorta

[ca_lazerdwarf]

"You ask for help to move this world out of the Communion's path. Then, without warning us you launch ROCKETS at an innocent world. I would have destroyed them without a thought if I could have reached them, because we did not know there were your youth inside. Truly reckless behavior from you, Lelak, if this is the last of your race." Dragonid snapped back at Lelak.

 

To the other Praetorains he added, "What more do you think he has failed to tell us, or outright lied about?" He remained in the air, watching the passage of the rockets.

[Exaccus]

Moon-moth did not like being angry, it was not a pleasant feeling for him, others like Kharag might enjoy the rush of endorphine and adrenalin, he did not, he refrains from so much as acknowledging Lelak and choose instead not to feed these negative emotions anymore than he already has, to do so would lead him to dark places and more than likely further folly, he had to regain his balance and cool his head if he was to be any help to his friends without his magic.

 

it does not however stop him from reaching out and pushing the button to cut the line with Lelak with a face like someone had just spat the juice of a sour fruit into his eyes.

 

"Movings on."

[Tiffany Korta]

With a sigh Sitara paused and pointed at India as it drifted past.

 

“You see there thats my home and right now I would love to walk upon its surface again. Though I know that after five thousand years every person I knew is long gone. Imagine how tetchy you’d be if it wasn’t two of five thousand years or a million.â€

 

She checked her feeds for the required information from Terra, it was taking to long and they had things that needed acting upon.

 

“Still i don’t trust Lelak a single iota. Dragonid go to the second pole and make sure that there are no more surprised at the other pole, I’ll send the Kavaca when it’s finished here. Moon-moth do you think you got something in you bag of tricks that could get use to the control center in a hurry?â€

[ca_lazerdwarf]

Dragonid agreed, "I will go there as fast as I can. I assume I will find another set of rockets waiting for a trip to another innocent world. We need to get straight answers from Lelak before we proceed any further." He grumbled and swore privately about treachery the ancient alien's treachery, but as he got moving he let the freedom of the air lighten his mood somewhat. Lelak had not actually attacked any innocents, just acted to send his youth to new homes. Would he have done differently in Lelak's place?

 

He shook his head, Lelak was still arrogant and untrustworthy and appeared to have no interest in helping them, but they had little choice but to help him. Letting any of this tech fall in to the Communion's hands was unthinkable.

[Exaccus]

It was a good question he'd give her that, one he'd been getting wrong quite a bit due to his focus on the puppies dimensional binding, he was not just his magic, he had a keen intellect and a wealth of experiences and little tricks he'd picked up from watching his fellow praetorians doing there various rituals and tricks they'd used around him; In particular he remembered now the former pilot of the Kavaca; an interesting hominid with a thick brow and flesh like vulcanized rubber.

 

Without warning he simply slams his knuckles on the board in-front of him where once, thousands of years ago a palm as thick as paving slabs had tapped to cause a minor surge in power that would result in the safety throttlers on the engines been temporarily over ridden to grant a burst of speed at inefficient fuel costs when times were dire.

 

In memoriam of his fallen friend moon-moth does not neglect the most vital part of this ritual.

 

"C'mon you Krantz, Move!" he squeaks, unable to match the baritone pitch of Gordutz voice, but capturing the vinegar of his native expletive none the less.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Exaccus

[Avenger Assembled]

There was an exclamation in an alien language as the Kavaca entered Terra's solar system, and then that same accented voice came back on, now angry and a little afraid. "Kavaca! Your wormhole is leaking dangerous amounts of radiation! You're flooding the system with cosmic rays!" That same wormhole was already shrinking, forcing those onboard the starship to make some hard choices. Though they managed to grab a few of the rockets in the ship's graviton beam, ultimately they were forced to make a hasty retreat rather than be cut off tens of thousands of lightyears from the magnetar - leaving some dozen or so infants speeding towards the shiny blue ball that had once been Sitara's home! 

 

By the time the Kavaca crew rejoined Dragonid, the latter had already found his destination at the other pole. The relay at this pole was a sphere, one whose mirror-bright finish had somehow stayed intact across a million years, resting on a flat plane of glass that might once have been any number of things. The glow here was strong, the aurora overhead reflecting off the relay and the glassed-over world - and the air was silent save for the noises they themselves made. They might have been entirely alone in the galaxy. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Sitara was trying very hard to give Lelak the benefit of the doubt but with every action it was getting harder to do that. before they had to leave she dumped all the information they had, not sure it was get through all that radiation.

 

“If you can get this signal it’s all we’ve found out so far. Good luck to you.â€

 

As much as she wanted to go back right now the mission had to take precedent over her refound homeland.

 

“Okay put us down over there.†she pointed to a spot near this poles technological wonder “I want to take a look at what his one does personally before we fire it up. If you two care to join me.â€

 

She deployed her armour and started to move toward the hatch ready to check out what surprises Lelak and his people had in store for them this time.

[Exaccus]

Moonmoth's old curiosities stirred within him again as he remembered that not everyone was of such resilient form as himself..even though many of them were vastly tougher and stronger and one of his early faux pas, when he'd asked for permission to dissect someone in his eagerness to learn more about the physiological differences between his own race and others; he was certain he could still feel the welt where that the tentacle had struck him on the cheek with enough force to send him sailing away across the room.

 

He gets out of his seat and follows after Sitara to the airlock. "I do not think I will be able to preform magic for a while; not till hunger has resettled her people." he adds as he steps out of the airlock and into the glassy planes and the warm healthy x-rays of the magnetar.

[ca_lazerdwarf]

Dragonid shook his head at Traveller as she stepped off the ship, "I do not know what to make of this. No rockets this time, that I can see. What do you think he has hidden here?" He eyed the sphere and the plate of glass with suspicion, keeping his distance.

 

Even Delaztri technology often puzzled the dragon warrior. The miraculous technology of Lelak's people was so beyond his comprehension it might as well be magic. And magic was never to be trusted. As if Lelak hadn't provided ample reason to distrust already.

[Avenger Assembled]

The final relay proved to be something of a mystery, as far as they could determine. The relay itself was standard enough - despite the differences in its gross physical structure, what little they could see of the completely solid sphere's interior on their scanners looked much like the unit they'd seen before. This would most likely open up another pocket wormhole, one tuned to a frequency where it would link up with the earlier opening and eventually transport the entire planet to Lelak's destination. What else this place might have been was impossible to tell - at least until they stopped looking at the relay but instead looked straight down. There were tunnels visible beneath the glassed-over lake, dark wormlines with half-visible residue inside them. There had been rockets here too, once, but their occupants were long gone. 

 

"Oh, Jesus Mary and Joseph," came a voice suddenly over their radio, relayed from the Kavaca. "Praetorians, this is Solar Sentinel. The Hunger Squadron has picked up Communion ship entering the nebula! We're running out of time!" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Sitara gave a stream of work in her native tongue that would surprise several Sanskrit scholars. She’d really hoped that they’d have more time to untangle the mess that Lelak has caused all of them.

 

“How much time do we have before they arrive? Do we have time to evacuate the HUnger before the Communion arrive?â€

 

It might make things more complicated but she wouldn’t risk their lives even if there were pirates, no one deserved to be caught by the Communion.

 

She looked at her fellow Praetorians she had trusted them with her lives countless times in the past, and would hopefully do it many times again.

 

“Unless you have a better idea we’re going to have to fire this thing up before the Communion arrive. Lelak seems like are only good option at the moment.â€

[ca_lazerdwarf]

"We can force answers out of him later." Dragonid reluctantly agreed. "I do not like Lelak's deceptions, but I like the idea of the Communion getting ahold of this even less. I do not want to see another world face the same fate as the Lor homeworld."

 

He looked up to the sky, looking for some trace of the approaching Communion among the stars, though he knew they were still too far out. "And what do we do after we activate all of his devices? How long do we have to hold the Communion off before the world is safely out of system?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"They read six ships in a modified V formation, probably to avoid EM drag from the magentar," said Solar Sentinel in a precise, almost military voice. "No sign of the Planet-Killer," he commented, a little suspiciously. "But that's still more than enough to take out these old-" It sounded like he was having an argument on the other end before he went on. "Three of the Hunger ships are retreating to the magentar's corona. Captain Hunger says she won't leave till her pups are brought back from the suidae surface, and that is a direct quote," he added. "I estimate we've got twenty, twenty-five minutes before they're in standard orbit." 

 

They fired the EM beam down below and opened up another wormhole - and once again were confronted with the sight of a planet, though this was not one any of them immediately recognized. The ships in orbits weren't familiar either, and they were just about to move on to their last rendezvous point with Lelak (back at the original meeting site) when their radios crackled to life from a signal coming through the newly opened wormhole.

 

"In the name of the Grue Unity, surrender now or be destroyed by Dyson laser fire!" 

[ca_lazerdwarf]

"Probably a good response, since we just exposed them to a Communion invasion." Dragonid said, stopping to look at the Grue fleet. He could not tell much about their technology, but they had to be a superior force to a handful of pirate junkers and an unarmed Aquilla.

 

"Do you think they will help us defend the system while the evacuation completes and we finish activating wormholes?" he asked his companions "If we let them chase us back to the settlement, they will have little other choice once the Communion reach the planet."

[Tiffany Korta]

The one disadvantage of being away from the universe for so long was that they knew little about the various new, to them, interstellar powers. She vaguely remembered the Grue as various petty kingdoms battling among themselves over which one of them was the leader. With working on getting the Kavaca back up to spec she'd have little time to read up on how they were now, for all she knew they could be peaceful seekers of knowledge living in cities of crystal spires. Best to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

 

 

"Let's give them a warning about the wormhole and leave them be, though park us just above the event horizon just in case." she switched to her rusty Lor <"I apologize for the intrusion we're having some unforeseen side effects from an experiment. Be keep your distance if give off a massive burst of cosmic rays and other exotic radiation as it closes.">

Edited December 31, 2014 by TiffanyKorta

[Exaccus]

"Let us hopings for the best and preparings for the inevitable." moon-moth chirps softly as he looks into the wormhole and the battlefleets beyond "baitings and swtichings, then returnings to aid in the battles on the side of grues to win allies against our common foe." he says astutely as he turns to return to the ship "should they follow through and find themselves engaged with the communions that is." he squeaks, desperate to make his suggestions seem less like underhanded manipulation and simple conjecture "i imagines it will help hunger escape rather more unscathed."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Communion lies, your cybernetic hands will never touch the glory of the Meta-Mind! Do you think we are fools, that you can come a planet's rotation later and be unsuspected by the mental might of the Meta-Mind?!?" The Grue went on like that, heedless of the Praetorian attempts at communication. EM radiation was spiking on the other side of the wormhole and something, though they couldn't quite make out what, was happening to the system's sun. But soon the wormhole shrunk down to its microscopic size, forming the nexus that would help move the entire planet out of the system - assuming they could get their work done before the Communion arrived! 

 

There was only one place to go now - the relay where Lelak had awakened, and the last key in the lock that would open up this region of space and completely displace the planet. Up top, Solar Sentinel continued his countdown - the small Communion fleet was still on its way, pitiless and elegant as sharks. 

[ca_lazerdwarf]

Dragonid shook his head, "We are not doing well at finding allies. We have found one madman and let him convince these Grue we are their enemies. At least the people of your homeworld, Sitara, seemed willing to listen to us, wherever they are."

He puffed smoke in frustration, leaning back in his seat aboard the Kavaca. "Let us continue back to the settlement and finish this before the Communion reach us. Then maybe we can rip apart some Communion drones before we have to retreat. With luck we can last long enough."

[Avenger Assembled]

Back at Lelak's stronghold, the sky crackled with energy as wormholes began to wrap their way around the planet. They found Lelak himself floating in the sky above the shelter that had become a tomb, his black hair whipped madly by winds as the atmosphere of the nearly-dead world was buffeting by the growing spatial instabilities all around it. "At last! After a million years!" he exulted, his voice crackling to life on their radio by no technological means. "Our destiny will be reclaimed and the galaxy will be ours again!" He looked at their ship, still in the air, and said, "You have saved yourselves, my Lowly friends, even if you do not know it yet! Your grandchildren will thank you for what you have done here today!" He looked up in the sky and said, "Your enemies approach. You should..." His eyes widened, and he made a strangled noise, right through the growing wash of static. 

 

"Isopterans! They..._they_ are your Communion?" His face grew frantic as he shouted, "Lor-Van, the planet they destroyed! Did they open a spatial gateway like the ones around this planet?!" At the news they had, he screamed in utter despair. "No! Not...not by my own hand!" And with that, suddenly he was gone - rocketing into the atmosphere, and out and away, until Solar Sentinel reported he'd reached the upper atmosphere - even as the planet itself was shifting into another place entirely. It was time to move! 

[Tiffany Korta]

Everything was happening so rapidly and it was difficult to keep track of it all, and Sitara couldn’t help but feel that they were tentatively close to vital information about the Communion. Only for the Lelak to leave right as he was about to reveal something vital. She turned to her fellow Praetorians she hoped that they’d trust her judgment on things.

 

“Go help the Hunters get off the planet try to avoid contact with the Communion for as long as we can. I’m going to see if I can catch up with Lelak, he still has information that we need.â€

[Avenger Assembled]

The Traveler had to slam on the acceleration to catch up with the speeding Lelak, whose velocity in atmosphere was enough that he was already in the exosphere by the time she managed to put the ship between the ship between him and his escape. "No, damn you, let me go! I have to reach enough velocity so I can destroy the planet! I will not let those vermin have what we worked so hard to build - I will not let a million years of our history fall into their hands!" Out in space, they'd been joined by Solar Sentinel and the last remaining Hunger ship - even as the Communion vessels they were tracking took up orbit on the other side of the planet. As spatial anomalies rippled through the planet's atmosphere below, it was clear their time could be measured in seconds.