Admrial Spamo sat in his stateroom orbiting Earth. The Salrillians had been quite courteous throughout the entire trip. The block of staterooms that he and his entourage occupied were furnished with things that were comfortable to humans and the Ishimans. There was something odd about the trip. The journey back to Earth took a good deal of time, more so than Spamo would have thought. Normally a Jumpgate would transfer the ship to Earth in short order. Arrival in the Sol system was several hours behind schedule, and the ship was stopped near Mars for an inordinantly long time. Finally, they superlighted into Earth orbit. Spamo had asked that they visit the surface immediatly upon arrival, but the Salrillians had blocked every attempt with an inane insistance of "preparing for an important visitor".

Spamo knew something was wrong. He could prove it, but he could feel it in his bones.

Spamo stood by the window facing Earth. He watched as the blue-white orb moved beneath him. He picked out the continents, looked at Central America, his family's origin. Every so often, the view was marred by a patrol of Salrillian or Audemedon craft. They stained the skies, and their presence put an icy hand around Spamo's heart. I'll clear those skies... My home...

"Admiral Spann? I have a communique from Trey'sh Wizr. It's here on the PDA."

Spamo turned to see one of his aides holding out a PDA.

"Thankyou Henry. I'll view this alone."

Henry left the room and Spamo keyed up the message. The Image of Maletena Wizr appeared on the screen. Wizr turned to someone off the screen.
"Is this secure? Good. Spann, I suggest you use the sub-vocalizer attached to the bottom of the pad."

Spamo felt underneath the pad and placed the small device on his throat.

"What can I do for you Wizr?" Spamo formed the words in his throat, but no noise passed his lips.

------------------
Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

"Spamo, the resistance captured my Trey'eck. He's being held secretly at an old Undersea research facility at some hydrothermal vents under the Atlantic. The resistance still has a lot of its infastructure left over from the Cantharaan occupation."

a computer generated version of Spamo's voice came out of the terminal.

"But how did they contact you? How do you know he hasn't been compromised?"

"The resistance reconfigured the cipherpad in his PDA. I sent the transmission down to the Intelligence comitee, and their going to give a full analysis, but trust me, we have prearranged codewords for things like that."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Don't visit New York. Whatever you do, don't enter the city. The resistance saw the security buildup, and has intercepted itineraries, and thinks you're a Salrillian VIP. They're planning to bomb you."

Spamo was almost amused.

"so call them off."

"I can't. It'll be a day or so before Intelligence can trace their signal and encrypt a new secure cipher. I just needed to warn you. I forwarded the message. It's amazing, it contains rather detailed accounts of the resistance operation they have running. I suggest you read it thoroughly. Perhaps it will prove interesting for the agent we are inserting."

"Allright, I'll give it a look before we land. Hopefully the resistance will figure out who I am once I start touring, but I'll stay on the safe side. Spann out."

- - - - -

The four old men darted behind the Audemedon Drone, pelting it with their chaff pistols. It short-circuited and fell with a clunk. They picked it up and threw it onto a pile where seven other drones lay, lifeless. Seven down, none to go.

Shortly they were joined by a squad of mucsular men, their glowing red eyes indicating their cyborg status.
"We've got four nukes in place in this city, and several hundred more around the continent. The Audemedons are distracted by the uproar in San Fransisco." They saluted.

The leader returned the salute instinctively. "Gentlemen, we give our lives now, to save hundreds of innocents. Vive la resistance!" He clenched his teeth and slapped the red button. The detonation sequence ran it's course.

With that, Australia was reduced to a smouldering desert.

------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

(This message has been edited by Slug (edited 01-19-2001).)

"Now, listen to me, Mr Pharris. There are people who want to take your Axis away from you You wouldn’t want that, would you? But do not worry, we are going to be moved to a new Laboratory, far separated from the reach of these people who doubt our capabilities. We are being moved to a top secret Simlab, right next to your Axis, near the core, Audemed. You know where the main core is, don’t you?"

He knew it like he knew his own hands. He nodded The slug looked pleased.

"Excccellent. Can you have a ship take us there?"

He could, he nodded.

"Very good. How soon can we depart?"

He spoke over a distant rumbling.

"The ship is already here. Take me to it."

"Very well performed, Mr Pharris. Your skills and abilities are even greater than we had foreseen. You are certainly a great commander of the Audemedon Axis."

"I am."

Pharris didn’t feel so certain of it, as he lifted the cruiser off of the surface of Salril prime, and prepared for the jumpgates to the Core Worlds of the Audemedon Axis.

Something made him feel very good as his ship entered the Axis.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

(ANTARES SYSTEM, FREE TRADE ZONE)

Mag was watching the squadron's actions on his holoscreen. The uplink was laggy and full of static because of the fact that the fact that they were in separate solar systems, and Mag was having trouble making it out.

Suddenly, he heard an explosion, and the transport he was in rocked. Mag switched channels to an exterior view of the transport, and saw that a Cantharan assault transport was attacking it. Shields were at 20%. The transport tried to dodge away, but a few more shots from the ATR's photokinetic beam cannons disabled the transport. All twelve of the assault transport's EVATs exited the six airlocks and began making their way to the disabled transport.

Mag ran out to the hall with a laser torch, and saw various crew members armed and facing the airlock. The airlock's controls beeped some, then a message was displayed on them: "ACCESS GRANTED" the airlock opened, and the EVATs came in, weapons ready.

Mag used his infrared vision from around a corner, and began firing at the EVATs. However, their power suits prevented his laser torch from doing anything to them, aside from making dark spots. The crew members were losing the firefight badly, and Mag ran to his recharging station. He turned off all of his external lighting, and lay down on the floor. Unless somebody scanned him, there was no way to tell that he was "on".

Soon, the firing stopped, and Mag recognized the loud sound of power-suit feet walking down corridors. Two Cantharans walked by his recharging station door, talking. Mag understood Cantharan very well: "...e plan: after we get the engines working again, lieutenant, we'll be able to fly this thing to SimLab 203486-29357. Our Salrillian friends will then..." The voice faded away as they walked down a corridor.

Mag began accessing the ship's databases with the holoscreen, and checked the security cameras, to watch the EVATs' progress.

-----------------
(SOL SYSTEM)

A voice came over the squadron's channel, "Okay, Irto Three, send a message to ISN headquarters, asking for Irto Squadron to be extracted." Irto Three was the fighter that had been equipped with an interstellar transmitter for the mission.

"Sending transmission... Um, commander, we have a problem."

"What is it, Irto Three?"

"Jupiter's gasses wrecked my interstellar transmitter. We have no way to contact Ishima."

"What?!?"

"There's no way I can send a message interstellar. No way at all."

"Irto One, what should we do?"

Ortinus spoke in a desperate voice, "I think we'll have to seek shelter with the UNS Resistance. Let's head back to the Pacific."

"Yes, sir."

The remaining 9 fighters superlighted for Earth, with an Audemedon cruiser in pursuit.

"Ignore that cruiser, squadron. It won't be able to go as fast as us once we reach the atmosphere."

The squadron dropped out of superlight a short ways away from the atmosphere, and headed in. The Audemedon cruiser began firing wildly at them, and two more got hit, and began spiraling to the surface, smoking and burning.

"ETA to surface: 45 seconds."

30 seconds later, they were getting very near the surface of the Pacific, when they noticed something on their scanners. An Audemedon patrol boat, probably looking for something underwater.

"Just fly right past it, it probably doesn't have any weaponry."

As they neared the patrol boat, an Audemedon missile streaked up from it, taking out another fighter.

"Dodge those missiles!"

3 of the fighters hit the water near it, and it lanced out with a trazer beam. Irto Seven was right in line with the trazer, and didn't make it. Another fighter was shot down by another trazer, but the last one made it underwater. The four remaining fighters "landed" on the ocean floor, and began transmitting the code for contacting the UNS Resistance. The transmissions would be equally strong throughout the globe's oceans, as water worked very well for conducting signals. After they'd given their location, they began to wait.

-----------------
(SUBSPACE MARKER 29573 AREA)

A UNS heavy destroyer entered the area through a jumpgate, and superlighted to the simlab cluster. A pair of Salrillian gunships there moved to stop it, but they were both swiftly destroyed. The heavy destroyer began firing on the five simlabs, putting them all in flames. Members of various races began moving to the destroyer, and several of them boarded it.

"Captain, we have the required number of liberated prisoners."

"Very well. Take us out. There's a fighter squadron coming in, and I don't want to bother with them."

"But what about the rest of the prisoners?"

"Leave them. We have no need for them."

"Aye, sir." The heavy destroyer turned and superlighted off to the pickup location. The prisoners that were left behind looked after it with despondency as it dissapeared into a jumpgate. The Salrillian fighter squadron salvaged everything useful from the simlabs, then retrieved the subspace marker. When they finished with that, they left through their own jumpgate, leaving the prisoners behind to die.

------------------
"I think I have discovered the problem with humans. It is not entirely stupidity, as I once thought. It is their pigheaded and baseless philosophy: "If it isn't me, then it's opinions, feelings, and life do not matter, and it was meant to serve me." They also have this ability for creating excuses that are pointless, but they get others to believe it. A few examples: "It's only some savages. It's only five acres of rain forest. It's only one semi-truck. It's only fifty gallons of toxic waste..." After this realization, I marvelled at how humans, and the rest of the planet, have survived for so very long."
- Me

There was one survivor. Barely.

Darkk considered the badly wounded Salrilian. Most of its tail had been shot off.

"Administer 20ccs of Dermitran; I need it to be calm," Darkk said. One of the EVATs opened her interrigation kit and administered the dose. Darkk activated his translator and addressed the Salrilian. "I need information from you. The logs indicate a human female named Sarah Darkk was carried on the prior run of this convoy. WHERE IS SHE?!?!?!?"

"Simlab Cluster 567. As if you could retrieve her from there! Foolish human, the Oracular Network will soon enable us to predict every move you make."

"Personally, I have a very low regard for the Oracular Network. It can predict ONLY deterministic events. A single person with few responsibilities other than basic survival isn't. Soon you will learn that that pompus waste of circuits can't make you masters of the galaxy for long. You've been lucky for too long."

Darkk returned to Wind of Blades. "Lay in a course for Simlab Cluster 567." The crew could see the determination in Darkk's face. Nothing in the universe, nothing anywhere, would keep him from going to the cluster. They hoped nothing would also be able to defeat him.

------------------
Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-21-2001).)

(ANGLAGARD, Audemedon arrivial ETA 1h)

Anglagard had been at full production power, with two escorts built a day on each planet. The remaining humans there had been happy to enlist, and every battle-hardened member of the Terminal had been made a captain of an Escort. Ktana looked over his new escort, the Daq'ra* and its crew. He was fortunate enough to speak English; most captains had to apply their knowledge of Ishiman along with their crews. The Terminal itself had been loaded onto a battleship for reverse-engineering of the hologram generator.

The UNS Assistance crew had brought their numbers up to 21 Escorts, plus the original two Battleships. Five Transports had replaced the two capturers of the system, and the six fleet Gunships were evenly divided in assisting the Battleships. New Wales had been scanning nearby systems for their technology and defense. The targets had been narrowed down to Fourier, Ny Sjellund, and Xastra. Ny Sjellund was finally selected. While the 3 Audemedon gunships were dangerous, especially in addition to the 5 cruisers, but the gunship facilities could not be passed over. Anglagard would not be safe for long. The remaining humans were loaded on to the two battlships, ready to be trained specifically for Obish Escort and Gunship piloting, and knowledge of the Obish language.

A final, unmanned interceptor flew off the surface of New Scotland. As the last of the Escorts disappeared into the jumpgate, the first of the Audemedon ships appeared. The E'tlaq'sa charged.

--------------
(NY SJELLUND, After decimation of Human colonies at Anglagard)

The Obish had taken Ny Sjellund. At a cost. And the cost of lives was never small. Neither was the loss of all four original gunships. But even with those losses, a Transport, and six Escorts, the gain was immeasurable. In less than an hour, Křpenhagn and Tivoli were configured to build gunships... one a day each. Křpenhagn was already scanning the surrounding area, the fleet would soon move again.

*Daq'ra translates approximately to "Holy Fire"

------------------
-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

"I want to know who was responsable! I want names, faces, and locations! I want to know which cell was responsible, I want to know who was in charge, and where they got the nukes! I want EVERYTHING. I'm not fighting to win back a nuclear wasteland, I want you to squeeze every source, every contact, I want to know where these guys came from, and I want to know it now. Is that clear?"

There were nods around the room.

"Good. I have the boomers ready to take you to secure ports. Dismissed."

Captain Sackler gathered his material as the agents walked out of the conference room of Alpha, the coordination center for the largest interconnected group of resistance cells on Earth. Five thousand feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean, it was seated atop a large set of Hydrothermic vents. It had initially been meant to do research on the thousands of bizzare species that inhabited the superheated water that spewed from the vents, now, it served as one of the few safe havens for the most wanted members of the UNS resistance.

Captain Sackler walked back to the USS Caveat, and went to his stateroom, to await the arrival of his two agents. As he arrived, one of his radiomen gave him a message. As he read it, he turned back to his radioman.

"Get me a line to Captain MacPhearson. Quick."

As the radioman activated the line just as the two spies slid down the ladder onto the sub. As they saluted, Sackler just pointed up the ladder and said

"USS Harbinger. Now."

The agents looked surprised for a moment, then scrambled up the ladder back into the base.

"Hey Mac, This is Sackler, you're heading to Australia, right? Good, we're switching deliveries. Johnes and Lee are on their way over. They're going to the eastern seaboard. Have Dobson and Hughes get over here, and send all their EQ with them. We need to leave soon. Yeah, thanks a lot, I'll fill in HQ, Good Luck, Sackler out."

As he hung up the reciever, he turned back to his Radioman.

"Forward the message to command, tell them we're responding to it. Get the Trey'eck on board, we may need a translator."

Crewmen scrambled to their stations as the USS Caveat prepared to depart Alpha.

------------------------

"I'm sorry Ambassador, but we haven't sent any ships across the 34th Radii in weeks. In light of any hard, physical evidence, it would seem that these mysterious "attacks" of yours are little more than an outright fabrication, there are no Ishiman Pilots in Sol or any other Salrillian System, In fact, the only Protectorate Citizens in the occupied territory are captured personell, like my Trey'eck and his senior staff. They are being held in distinct violation of interstellar law, and I fear that there will be a very angry reaction in the Ishiman Legislature if the Prophets of Salril do not return our Diplomats."

"Now, Trey'sh, there is no reason to be rash, the Diplomats will be returned at the soonest possible time, the Prophets of Salril would never provoke the Ishiman Protectorate in such a blatant manner. Rest assured that your diplomats are in safe hands, and that they have not, and will not be mistreated."

"You should hope so, interrogation of Foreign Service Officers is a clear violation of interstellar law, and will not be tolerated."

The Trey'sh excused himself from the Ambassadors office, and wrote yet another message to Admiral Spann.

------------------------

TO: Admiral Jackson Spann
FROM: Trey'sh Maletena Wizr
RE: Extraction of captured Trey'eck and staff

I have found a way to gaud the Legislature into a declaration, but I need the help of an "independant" element. My Trey'eck is in the possession of the UNS Resistance on Earth, and I am putting intense pressure on the Prophets for his return. We must be sure that he is secure, so I need him extracted from Earth. It is vitally important that no UNS or ISN ships be caught in the act, so I was hoping that one of your non-aligned contacts could do the job.

I have attatched this week's subspace cipherpads to be used when contacting the UNS resistance.

Thank you, Trey'sh Maletena Wizr

------------------
Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

El Spamo toured the domed enclosure nearby Chicago. Spamo had managed to get New York taken off the itinerary until the resistance was notified. The Salrillians were putting on a good show, with all the humans "happily" working away, repairing buildings and otherwise doing normal wartime things. Spamo felt something wrong. Almost everywhere there were armed Salrillian and Audemedon guards. The people tried not to look at them, but every so often Spamo would catch a glimpse of outright hatred for the occupying force. The "peaceable" occupation was obviously a sham.

For diplomatic reasons, Spamo had to take the sham at face value. Until he could prove otherwise.

The shapeshifter agents had been successfully inserted. The other human agents were preparing for their insertion in a few days. Some UNS resistance members prepare to take the place of the staff members, as to not cause an inconsistency in numbers.

Despite the success of the mission so far, a dark cloud still hung over Spann's mind. Nowhere in the records of captured personnel were those that Spamo was looking for.
Either they're in a simlab, or with the resistance. I hope to god they're with the resistance...

A message appeared on his PDA. Spamo read over the letter from Maletena. He smiled.
"I know just the person."

Spamo began to write. "Dear Darkk. I have a little assignment for you."

------------------
Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

(Darkk was so obvious it's not even funny)

Ishiman Listening Post 2295222 had not heard anything important in years. It was on a backwater route; any sensible pilot would avoid the nebula in the area. But now a faint signal danced across its receivers. The receiver disk adjusted, searching back and forth for the origin. Nothing came into focus. The few Ishimans on the station sat down to record what fragmented parts of the message they could decode.

ŤT'kar........I'shime'n......De'ye' O'vtel....Oye' de'var...ť

Obish... it appeared that they were asking the Ishimans what do do. The Ishimans puzzled and puzzled over what to tell central command, when they heard a slight whirring. The message came into focus.

Ť...Ny Sjellundť

------------------
-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Darkk's forces came out of the jumpgate at full superlight -- and stopped dead.
The Simlab cluster was burning, the defense station was being rocked by explosions, and a Salrilian heavy gunship and regular gunship were furiously dogfighting.

Darkk slapped on the sonic interface, and listened carefully. The tones of the gunship were obviously Salrilian, but the tones of the HVG vacillated between Human and Salrilian. A human trained by Sals... Darkk opened a channel.

"Sarah!!"
"Good to see you, William. Mind clearing my 6?"
"Not a problem."

Darkk superlighted in and blew the gunship away with magnetos and photopulses.

"Thanks. I disabled the other defenses with well-placed detonators, but they got off a distress call, and there might be some more incoming. Can you get us out of here?"
"Yeah, I'll open a jumpgate."

The jumpgate opened and the ships escaped ahead of the rapid response task force behind them.

------------------
Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

(SOL SYSTEM)

Ortinus was asleep in the cockpit of Irto One. No responding signal had come for hours. The remaining pilots of the squadron had had lunch, as Ishimans could hunt in the water very well, and were now extremely bored and agitated.

Suddenly, he heard a faint pinging sound. Ortinus sat bolt upright, straining his ears. It repeated. He began focusing on the direction of the sound. It was repeating every few seconds. As he focused in, he heard a low, droning sound along with it. He powered up Irto One, and activated the scanner. The object making the noise was an old human vehicle, for underwater combat. The ship moved right near the squadron, and displayed a message to them.

"This is the UNS Freedom. We're sending you a schematic of our vessel, and our lower docking hatch will be outlined. Come aboard."

Ortinus downloaded the schematics, and saw where the docking hatch was. He opened the entrance/exit ramp on the bottom of his fighter, and jumped down into the ocean water. He opened his eyes, and swam over to the lower docking hatch. The other three pilots of Irto Squadron were right behind him. The hatch opened, and some humans were standing above him. The humans pulled the Ishiman pilots into the ship, and closed the hatch.

"Welcome to the UNS Freedom. If you'll come this way, our captain would like to have a word with you."

--------------------
(SIMLAB CLUSTER 239583, ZEUS SYSTEM)

Mag got the external view of the transport, and watched where they were going. They came up near a simlab, and Mag began watching the airlock as they docked. The Cantharan EVATs filed out onto the simlab, dragging Mag with them. A Salrillian met them.

"What is that?"

"The only surviving passenger. The others died in a gunfight. The droid has been off for the entire trip."

"Good. The passengers were not important, only the transport is important. A transport will arrive to pick you up in a few minutes. Give me the droid, I'll take it to a cell."

"Thanks for providing us with transport."

"You are most welcome."

--------------------
(UNS HEADQUARTERS, ISHIMA SYSTEM)

The heavy destroyer came in and landed on one of the landing pads. The crew and the freed prisoners came out, and walked to the building. A guard met them at the door.

"I'd like to speak with Admiral Carter."

"I need an authorization code."

"297 Alpha."

The guard stepped off to the side, allowing the individuals passage. After walking through several halls, the captain at last stopped in front of a door and knocked on it.

"Come in," came a voice from inside.

The captain walked into the room. "I have brought the liberated prisoners."

"Ah, good. We'll have a person come by to pick them up." Admiral Carter turned, and began sending an email.

"What about my fee?" asked the captain in an angry voice.

"You'll have it in a few hours."

"I thought we agreed that I'd have it upon arrival."

"We had a change in plans. Don't worry, you'll get it."

"I'd better."

------------------
"I think I have discovered the problem with humans. It is not entirely stupidity, as I once thought. It is their pigheaded and baseless philosophy: "If it isn't me, then it's opinions, feelings, and life do not matter, and it was meant to serve me." They also have this ability for creating excuses that are pointless, but they get others to believe it. A few examples: "It's only some savages. It's only five acres of rain forest. It's only one semi-truck. It's only fifty gallons of toxic waste..." After this realization, I marvelled at how humans, and the rest of the planet, have survived for so very long."
- Me

(Mag, is that the USS Caveat? or do you have plans for Irto Squadron and the USS Freedom?)

More and more, Pharris had been hearing suggestions. Implanted feelings, urges, needs. He hadn't known where they came from, he had hardly known that they were there, but now something was making itself manifest in his mind. A strong force, but gentle. It was not a threat, not an invasion, but an adoption, the intertwining of two threads. Pharris had not been able to put his finger on the source, but he knew that it was only giving him a better grasp on his Axis. Now, he knew what it was. Now he saw it. From orbit, he saw it. It was different. He had always known of it, had felt it a hundred thousand times, but now it was his. He saw the tremendous network covering the world, and knew it was his.

Audemed...

The realisation was followed by a great feeling of satisfaction from the Core. Pharris was now approaching a new level of self awareness too. Now he heard more than feelings, he felt thoughts, he knew plans, he saw the connections between billions and billions of pieces of seemingly irrelevant material. He learned it, ingrained them into his conciounceness, and wanted more. His new friend gave it. No longer was Pharris alone in command, he was part of a mutual cooperation for the Axis, for their Axis.

(This message has been edited by Captain Pharris (edited 01-21-2001).)

(I'm not going to take the initiative with the storyline. I want someone Ishiman to send aid, or whatever they want, a contact, etc.)

(OCEAN NEAR NEW ZEALAND, EARTH, SOL SYSTEM)

The USS Vengeance hovered at about 400 feet below water. Silent running was tedious, as the ship sat, unmoving, the crew utterly silent.

One officer sat looking at his unchanging panel when suddenly he saw something.

"Conn, sonar, I have a submarine contact."
"Sonar, conn, what is it?"
"Conn, sonar, not a human vehicle. Beyond that I have no idea."

The captain and XO considered this. They drove a small nuclear attack submarine, and could probably take down the enemy sub with torpedoes. But they had to worry; what was a sub doing here. The Auds shouldn't have them, the Sals didn't like them, and the Cantharans hadn't used them last occupation, so why start now? The captain, however, made up his mind.

"Load tubes one and two with Mk 89 ADCAPs and make them ready in all aspects including opening the outer doors..."

------------------
Subcommander g'Var "8 Lightnings" Krai'un

Second in command of the Escort Starbeam.
“Imagine if you will, you’re standing on a grade of finely processed salt in a salt factory. Now, there is a very large rusty blade flying towards you at a very high speed. Imagine now, the feeling you will have as you fall into that salt after you are run through with that blade.” -Marathon Infinity, Terminal 0, Page 2, You Think You’re Big Time, You’re Gonna Die Big Time, Vidmaster’s Challenge Edition.

(this is Slug talking)

The combined fleet sat at the jumpgate, their weapons trained on it. For the jumpgate led deep into Audemedon territory and would soon be the staging ground of their reinforcements.

The fleet was meager and small. All three of the remaining UNS Carriers sat there, accompanied by their last Heavy Destroyers and a squadron of cruisers, flanked by a sextet of gunships. Two Gaitori mercenary groups had joined them as well as a few miscalanious Ishiman transports. At the center of it all sat the Ishiman Gateship, in the process of closing the jumpgate permanently.

The Audemedons had ignored this and sent ships through, one at a time. Each ship was destroyed as it exited, unable to get a warning off before it's demise, thus the Audemedons continued to send shiups in strings, one at a time.

So was the surprise when the Gateship picked something up. "There is a large object in the jumpstream heading for our direction."

"Gunship?"

"It's profile is too large for that... not even a carrier will fit that size."

"Gateship?"

"Rediculous. The only vessels that would fit that profile... who is this 'Gerald Y. Levt'?"

"You mean Jerry Levt? The Rear Admiral? The Chimaera survived?"

"Apparently."

The jumpgate exploded in the crackling of subspace and light and debris spewed forth. It's three massive pylons dislodged and burst into flame as the massive object overloiaded them. As the light died down and the glow faded, the profile of a UNS Carrier could be made out, it's hull sundered and it's body crumpled and wrecked. It was all but crippled. On it's nameplate, where now a gaping hole had taken roost, letters could be made out.

UN.........AERA

"That's Jerry alright"

(This is Mag from here on)

(PACIFIC OCEAN, EARTH, SOL SYSTEM)

The four remaining pilots of Irto Squadron walked into the room. The captain of the USS Freedom was waiting for them.

"Ah, greetings. I'm Captain McGrahm. I've been hearing about your condition, and volunteered to meet you."

"What can we do for you?"

"Well, the resistance would love to have four Ishiman fighters. Of course, most of what we can do right now is under the oceans, so we'd have to do some modifications..."

"What kind of modifications?"

"I was thinking of replacing the shield generators with light torpedo bays."

"I don't know about that. Those shields make me feel a lot safer."

"Most Audemedon weapons can get through your shields very swiftly, though."

"That's true. So, where do we go for these modifications?"

"We have a base located in the Carribean. Head on over there, flying over the Isthmus of Panama, and we'll have one of our subs meet you and guide you in."

"Carribean? Panama?"

"That's right, you're foreign to this planet. Here's a map."

"Thank you."

Ortinus and the other three Ishiman turned to go, but Captain McGrahm cut in. "Please, stay for dinner. I'd like to get to know you better."

"Ah, thank you."

---------------------
(SIMLAB CLUSTER 239583, ZEUS SYSTEM)

Mag had nearly been dragged all the way to his cell at the other end of the simlab, when he decided to try to escape. Repair droids did not tend to be too combat capable, but Salrillians didn't seem like they'd be, either. The Salrillian had its tail wrapped around his feet, so Mag leaned forward and grabbed it. The Salrillian was startled, and let go as it turned around.

"Look, this will be much easier for both of us if you'll just cooperate. Walk this way." the Salrillian began going down a corridor.

"Well, come on. You wouldn't want me to call security, would you?"

"If you do call security, I'll rip you to pieces."

"Really? A repair droid? Don't be silly. Come now, or I'll just get security in here to take you."

Mag and the Salrillian looked at each other for several moments. "Very well. You leave me with no choice." It went over to a nearby computer, and was about to start using it when Mag threw it off to the side.

The Sal got up, and flipped over to Mag. It grabbed him, and tossed him at a wall. Mag was mostly unharmed, he just had a dent and some scratches. Salrillians were stronger than he thought. Mag ran at the Sal, but got grabbed by it and thrown over its head before he could do anything to it.

"You see, even a technician like me is more than enough of a match for you. Why don't you just cooperate?"

Mag began running down a corridor, in the direction he had come from. He'd have to find his way back to the transport, while not being caught by the Salrillians...

(This message has been edited by Slug (edited 01-22-2001).)

(This message has been edited by Mag Steelglass (edited 01-22-2001).)

The two advanced capability torpedoes sped through the water. The enemy heard them, but had no chance of evading them. Soon the SONAR operators reported the sounds of a breaking up submarine. But still the question remained; what were enemy submarines doing here? What could they do about it?

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Subcommander g'Var "8 Lightnings" Krai'un

Second in command of the Escort Starbeam.
“Imagine if you will, you’re standing on a grade of finely processed salt in a salt factory. Now, there is a very large rusty blade flying towards you at a very high speed. Imagine now, the feeling you will have as you fall into that salt after you are run through with that blade.” -Marathon Infinity, Terminal 0, Page 2, You Think You’re Big Time, You’re Gonna Die Big Time, Vidmaster’s Challenge Edition.

"And to think you always considered me the irresponsible one."

William and Sarah Darkk had been filling each other in on what had happened while they had been apart. Sarah had been rather shocked at the piracy, but not too shocked.

"Sis, we are related, after all. So, they used you to test how much they could stuff into a human head?"

"Yeah, they taught me things, modern construction theory, engineering theory, computers, Salrilian, mimicing their body language - that was the hardest - and a smattering of other things. I've always liked to build stuff, and they wanted to see what humans could do."

"I see you've managed quite some feats in the few days you've been with us."

"Well, I converted the fore cargo hold into a small construction plant, suitable for cruiser-class ships. I've got a cruiser, pretty much off the shelf parts, hybrid human-cantharan hull design, rapid forward laser, antimatter pulses, 5 cmissles. Nothing specacular, but not bad."

"I heard you've been modifing that schooner we captured for that job in Sol."

"I wanted to talk to you about that..."

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

"Conn, Sonar! I just got something big! Two fish just jumped up to full and took out an undetected sub contact. I can hear fragmentation, she's going down."

"****, Sonar! Where the heck did they come from!?"

There had never been an enemy submarine in the Earth's Oceans. Whatever had been killed could have been another human vessel.

"I have no clue. I had a blank screen till those torps lit up. They're pretty far off, upwards of twenty miles. I just caught the zip and the bang. The fish sound like new ones, MK 89 or late MK 48, Something with a ducted prop."

"Who do we have in the area?"

The XO was already checking the charts and the task list.

"We're near Vengeance's patrol area, but that goes halway to Midway, Freedom is still way to our North. Mako and Bedford are loose in the Pac. I don't know, take your pick. My bets on Vengeance or Mako."

Captain Sackler looked at the chart, then at his XO. They nodded at eachother.

"Close on the downed contact. Make it real quiet like. Sonar, keep your ears open for one of ours. Somebody go wake up the dive team. X, you have the conn."

He stepped down and went to his stateroom to encode a message to the USS Freedom to delay the rendezvous until further notice.

As the long, towed ULF antenna sent the coded message, the huge bulk of the USS Caveat slunk silently towards the downed, unidentified contact.

(This message has been edited by Trey'sh Maletena Wizr (edited 01-23-2001).)

Darkk's Messaging System, please leave a message.

SENDER: UNSFLTADM Jackson Spann
RECIPIENT: UnalignedSC William Darkk

MESSAGE BEGINS:

"Darkk, this is Spann.

Firstly, I want to congratulate you on your success at your current mission. Salrillian shipping has been hurt a great deal, and they've been forced to put more of their ships on convoy guard duty instead of at Earth. I'm sure you've noticed that yourself. I'd imagine that the resistance on those convoys is getting pretty stiff. It's rumored that the Salrillians have constructed a few Q-ships to combat pirates like you, but I'm sure you've handled what they've thrown at you.

Right now I've another need for your skills. As a pirate, you're very good at breaking through blockades and evading forces. Which is exactly what this mission entails. On Earth is the Trey'sh Maletena Wizr's Trey'eck. I'm sure you can look up the definitions in your dictionary. The Trey'eck was trapped on Earth when the occupation began and was unable to escape. He has however been taken by the human resistance on Earth. We've gotten in contact with him since then and now we need him extracted. Neither the UNS nor the INS can diplomatically afford to be caught in the act, so we need an "unaligned" retrieval force. I want you to retrieve the Trey'eck from Earth. The extraction will be coordinated with the resistance, so all you'll have to do is fly in, pick him up, and fly out. There'll be no waiting on the surface of the planet and the total time you spend in atmosphere will be minimal. Speed is essential to this mission, so prep your crews. You will be inserted into the Sol system in 4 days and will rendevous with a small resupply station in the asteroid belt. Following that, you will then make a HALO style entry into the Earth's atmosphere and meet the resistance at a predetermined LZ. You will then proceed with all possible haste from Earth orbit to another predetermined point where you will be pulled out via jumpgate. It's all very orchestrated, so I hope you don't have too much trouble. You'll be given the locations of the LZ and the Jump point at the resupply station. Good luck Darkk, I know you can do this.

UNS Fleet Admiral Jackson Spann.

MESSAGE ENDS
LOG 23.12.2594

Thankyou for using Darkk's messaging service. Have a nice day!

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Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

(Slug, the Ish havn't declared war yet, so they can't send ships into the occupied territory, but assuming they decided to, would they send a gateship with no ISN escort?)

Pharris was puzzling at it. Like a cord tied around the hands of his mind, this was holding Audemed back. He was puzzling at it. Not that he could have identified it if he wanted to, it was fed to him at such a conceptual level that there was no need for that. He would cut the strands that held back his friend. He would release him so that they could rise to take their place. He felt he could cut the strands, cut the bonds, he had found the way, but he knew better than to risk drawing attention now, so he left them on, but loose, so that at a moments warning, the cords would slip. Pharris felt satisfaction and he liked it. There was much to do.

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"Pharris has been interacting with the server at over 10^540 terabytes a second for the last seventy two hours. I don't like it, its unusual, and unpredicted."

Ssisinevex slid to the console, looking over the junior technicians shoulder at the readouts from Audemed.

"That is not a matter of worry, that is good news. Look at the sectors he is acessing! Pharris is rekindling Audemeds collapsed intelligence, and adapting it to better interface with him. It is no matter of worry, I assure you."

"But surely Pharris cannot modify the program himself?"

"He can now. With so much of Audemed simply locked out, there is little he can do as an intelligence, but I have comitted significant ammounts of time to making the interface capable of evolveing. Much like Audemed himself was once capable of doing, but enough, I must meet with Pharris now. we play chess now, to test his skills."

As he slid through the simlab, Ssisinevex was actually concerned. The interface program had evolved extremely rapidly, and Audemed seemed to be extremely active. It was not right. Perhaps hiding from the prophets was not such a good idea. He would quiz Pharris upon Audemed's activity.

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NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!