Deep in the Opal Subterranean Bunker Network, the Kestral Commision was holding it's first council. The chairman, John Goras, took his seat at the head of the 50 foot long pure mahogany and cherrywood table. The 20 other High Council members where seated along the sides, each with a cup of premium blend coffe grown in the warm tropical belt of New Bavaria because it was nearly 25:00 (30 hours in a day on Opal). The Chairman, holding a personal speech scrambler/recorder to prevent evesdropping, began the meeting.
"Welcome, you all have been selected by Presider Planas and myself to be in this elite interstellar terror and crime busting network. First of all, we need to have some sort of flagship. I needs to be stealthy. It needs to be powerful. It needs to be kept a secret. I have here the best ship designer in the Union, Karl Atinoda. The council directed their eyes to a very young, yet very intelligent ship designer from New Bavaria.
"Well, yes I guess I'm quite gifted when it comes to the art of ship designing. I have never made any ships that needed to be stealthy, but I can give it a try. Mr.Goras here needed me here tonight because it would be best to take ideas fromt he Council before work begins." said the young, eccentric looking man.
"Well, I for one think it should have a full 360°+180° dome arc* laser turret mounted every 90 around the hull, to allow total laser coverage." Said one council member.
"I have done some work in Weaponry Designing, and I have designed, in my spare time, a revolutionary new reloading mechanism for heavy rockets that I think we should incorporate. I also think that a 'flash-freeze' barrel cooling system would allow a phenominal rate of fire,(note that this still is nothing compared to "modern" laser cannons) although we would need to engineer some sort of metal to withstand freezing several times a minute." said another.
After about 2 hours, and a very large pot of coffee, a basic blueprint was drawn on a napkin. Karl, obviously eccstatic to be in the company of such engineers and other intelligent individuals, was also obviously ready to start designing.
"Expect a first draft about next week, maybe Thursday or Belday.(that's the day between thurday and friday on Opal)"
"Great. Now, our security clearance credit for 2 hours and fifteen minutes has nearly expired, so we all need to quickly leave via our designated methods."
On Scorpio:
"Sir, We have word that the Presidorial Fleet has entered Upper Altoionosphere, begin preparations for pressure restraint procedure." Said the ever curious senior radio operator Thomas Galfstaff onboard the former freighter Yak.
/discourse
The Pressure Restraint, used to open the large layer of Scorpium(an element found only here), the Piezosphere, between the Middle Ionosphere and Photosphere(the layer that gives Scorpio it's beautiful olivine color) that circles the globe every 25 hours, coincidentally was directly overhead when the Presider's fleet was coming in for a landing. It was a simple matter of four shuttles hovering at a square about 50 feet apart. Tethered to them was a collapsed cylander of flexiron. When the fleet neared, the shuttles would engage their specially fitted Atlas II engines, the same engines in Supertankers, and pull the Flexiron apart, thus making a hole so the fleet wouldn't burn up in the dense cloud.
"Welcome to Scorpio, Sir!" said the soon to be official Presidential Minister Maar.
"Pleased to be here, on this newly claimed sphere of infulence." said the apperantly tired, but usually perky Presider of the Union of Pelagon.
About an hour later, in front of the newly raised Planetary Capital a small party of security, officials and citizens had gathered to see a ribbon cutting ceremony which officialy will make Scorpio a member of the Union, yet for reasons known only to Planas himself, the 5 small moons of Scorpio remain only in the Union Protectorate, although the only things on them are small mining complexes erected earlier by the Little Ones, 3 rival mining corporations willing to lie, cheat, and steal to beat the other two out.
The ribbon was cut, the Planet was officalized.
"I declare this planet, Scorpio, to be an Arm of our Union."said the presider as he cut the ribbon with scissors that where later traced back to have cut the Red Ribbon of the Earth Public Spaceport decades earlier.
- dome arc: the limit of a turret's rotation from equator to maximum rotation. 180 would mean this turret has a whole semicircle of range.
...to be continued.
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Onward to battle!
