The Erviadus GalaxyBoard

Sakoor wrote:

"Affirmative! Moving into position!" The Twilight moved ahead of the Oculus towards the gap, where a Kraken was trying to move in and seal the gap with swarms of Harpy fighters. "Warlock Squadron, get the Oculus to that ship! Tempest and Phantom Squadrons, cover our flanks!"

With that, three squadrons of Tythos Strikefighters and Hydra Bombers formed up and began to make for the breach. The mighty guns of the Twilight tore through the Kraken as the fighters swarmed the Harpies. "Okay, we're not gonna last long out there! Get to the Scourge!"

As the fighting progressed, Warlock squadron guided Alken's ship through the breach and towards the spiked superweapon. The lead fighter pulled up alongside the interceptor as a female Vaanti was heard over the comms. "Oculus this is Warlock-1. We'll draw as much fire as we can from that tin can's Point Defense System. The bombardment from Ithus caused a small breach near the port side of the ship. Get to it before they seal it up!"

"We got it from here," said Alken to the Vaanti, "Take our engines up to full throttle, we need to burn like hell if we want to make it," he commanded to his pilot.

The Oculus picked up speed, its point defense guns taking out the missiles heading its way. Plasma blasts from the Kal-Xoris ships barely missed the Oculus, passing so close that they burnt away a few sections of the Oculus' paint. The ship continued to gain speed, zipping by the defenses around the Black Scourge heading right for the breach.

"Sir!" yelled his pilot, "We need to slow down! If we hit that breach at this speech well be turned to shrapnel!"

"Not yet," Alken commanded, "we still have a kilometer till contact."

The screen showed that only 956 meters of void were between the Oculus and the Scourge. That number quickly dropped to 900 meters, and then to 800.

"Sir, we have to slow the sh-"

"Not yet!" Alken interrupted to say.

700 meters, 600 meters, 500 meters. Cultist missiles continued to come at them, some still trailing in the slag of the ship's engines.

"Sir, tell us what to do!"

"Not! Yet!" Yelled Alken, the cultist missiles in the wake of the Oculus' engines were closing in, like predators on prey.

400 meters, 300 meters, 200 meters. The Scourge now took up most of the ship's field of vision.

"Sir! We have to stop!"

"Now! Flip and burn!" The Oculus quickly flipped with its directional thrusters and began ti burn hard, killing as much of its speed as possible. The cultist missiles, now endangering the Scourge, peeled off from the pursuit of Alken's ship, detonating safely in the void. The Oculus, however, was still moving at over 28 meters a second, well over 2 Gs of acceleration. The Oculus extended its emergency landing legs in an attempt to absorb as much of the impact as possible something that would prove to be futile and best. The ship slammed into the side of the Black Scourge directly into the breach created by Ithus.

Sakoor wrote:

Inside, they found themselves within a large corridor of the massive, twisted Black and Red bio-organic halls of the Scourge, like something right out of a cosmic horror novel. The emergency shields went up, sealing and pressurizing the breach but leaving the Oculus trapped within the massive behemoth of a ship. It wouldn't be long before the Kal-Xoris figured out they came aboard...

Meanwhile, on the surface below...

Alarms rang through the Founder's Palace as bioforms ran rampant through the lower levels, turning on their cultist masters. Inside of a hangar bay, The Chancellor had gathered Benu and the other prisoners to hold out against the cultists. As a few of the technicians attempted to hack into an Autumn Class Transport captured by the fleet, Brayden himself was at the barricade, holding off the cultists but more kept coming.

Moraz'kul was also there, wounded and taking cover. "Chancellor! We're running out of time, we need to flee the station and rendezvous with the fleet!"

The Chancellor, however, held his ground, firing his rifle. "By the Void, I am not leaving until everyone is aboard! We are going to hold out for as long as we can until Elana and the others get here!"

"I hope you know what you're doing..."

"As a matter of fact, I do! Benu, what's the status on that transport! We're going to have to haul arse once she gets here!"

"This ship is meant for space," said Benu, "why they brought it here to the surface I'll never know, but the engineers should be powerful enough to get us into orbit. We have no weapons on this thing, so as soon as we get up there," he signaled to the battle raging in orbit above them, sparks of light from torpedos illuminating the evening sky,
"We are going to need an escort."

A massive explosion came from in front of the crowd of cultists firing at Brayden and the rest of the escapes. Elana ran through them, throwing a few of them to the side.

"E-Elana!" said Benu with a surprised and relieved look on his face.

"Good to see you Benu" Elana gave him a small hug, before firing a round of plasmablasts into the regrouping crowd of cultists, taking down 3 of them, "So, when can we get off this rock?" she asked

"We're trying to get the ship working, but right now it se-"

"Elana!" came a scream from the crowd of cultists, not soon after their guns fell silent.

"Who is that?" asked Benu.

A Vermelly female, slightly shorter than Elana, walked out to the platform. It was Hella.

Mastropa wrote:

Senate Chamber, Tsoulio, Mastropa

Senator Murat Adz jumped slightly and frowned as he felt a datapad vibrate in an interior pocket of his formal jacket, something that was quite out of the ordinary for this time in his usual schedule. It was a typical summer midmorning in Tsoulio, somewhat early in an equally-typical session of the Senate of Mastropa, and Adz had been nearly dozing in his seat—a result of sleepless nights suffered in his anxious wait for news from Zehl Marquise—when the vibration startled him to wakefulness again. His immediate adrenaline rush faded as he reached into his pocket to retrieve and deactivate his pad for the remainder of the session, absently criticizing himself for forgetting to do so that morning. It was only after he realized that the vibration was coming from a different pocket from the one that held his personal device that Adz realized, with yet another burst of adrenaline, that he was being hailed by either Marquise or the Union representatives that had been assigned to deal with the Mastropan situation.

Leaning back in his seat behind the railing of the mezzanine, briefly ignoring the current monologue from the speaking delegate from a portion of the formerly-affluent ‘foreign quarter’ of historic Mastropolis (yet again praising Liopolt’s decision to purge the place of its Cerean residents years before while simultaneously demanding money from the Senate to entice Mimbourn residents to take their place in the now-crumbling mansions left behind), Senator Adz prayed to whatever gods were listening that no one would notice his unprofessional behavior as he retrieved the vibrating datapad from his pocket and immediately muted it. Glancing down at the screen, Adz was confronted by unfamiliar faces, in some cases alien, and dared to assume that he was looking at official Union representatives from across the stars. He immediately called up a keyboard program and sent a text message to appear on the other representatives’ screen: “Currently in Senate session and cannot speak. Observe our Senate in action.”

Adz then increased the audio input to ensure that every word of Senate business spoken in the Chamber would reach his audience in the Union, before putting the datapad down on the side table beside his seat.

“…In addition, there has lately come to my constituency an influx of refugees from western Mactaben,” Senator Darrit Elms of Mastropolis West continued in defense of his previous request for money, “which has completely overwhelmed the local social services. I have been in contact with other senators from Mastropolis to mitigate this issue in the short term, of course”—Elms nodded briefly to the other four senators from his city, but whether or not they bothered to respond to his acknowledgment could not be seen from Adz’s place in his seat—“but true relief will only come with an overhaul of my constituency’s services from the ground up. Local taxes, taken from the people who need this help the most, simply cannot handle that task. As this Senate has already established a refugee fund for this very purpose, I believe it is self-evident that my constituency’s needs should be met through this fund. As such, I bring this matter to the delegates of Mastropa for approval.”

Several senators in the Chamber rose to their feet to present the next question or objection that Senator Elms would have to answer. Though it was somewhat unusual for him to take part in this kind of bickering—Elms’s monetary requests had long since been relegated to the status of a running joke among his fellow senators—Senator Adz chose to join the scrum trying to attract Speaker Liopolt’s attention. Since it was so unusual for him to take part in any debate outside of defense considerations, Adz’s arrival at the railing of his mezzanine caught Liopolt’s eye immediately. “The senator for Tsoulio Northeast!” he called, to the surprise of many who hadn’t seen Adz enter the debate.

“Thank you, Speaker Liopolt,” Adz responded as the rest of the senators eased back into their seats. “I think I do not exaggerate when I say that the complaints listed by my friend from Mastropolis West are common to every constituency on this planet. My colleagues in this Chamber can certainly confirm that their ridings are seeing the arrival of refugees in great numbers, and that their social services are straining to fill the needs of these newcomers. Why should funding gaps in one constituency require intervention in the Senate to solve when the rest of the planet simply goes on with its business as best as it can?”

“Senator Elms!”

“Thank you, Speaker Liopolt.” Elms frowned as he turned to face Adz’s mezzanine; Adz himself had returned to his seat, and was sitting in shadow from Elms’s point of view. “My friend from Tsoulio Northeast should already be aware that my constituency has suffered a great deal more from the relocations of the past few years than other areas of Mastropa. Western Mastropolis counted many more Cereans and other wealthy aliens among its residents than anywhere else on this planet, and it was consequently more depopulated than other locations when non-Mimbourn populations were forced to—ah, encouraged to move.” The senator spared a quick, apologetic glance at Liopolt, who simply motioned for him to continue. “We have recovered those numbers only through incentivizing farmers and refugees to make their homes in western Mastropolis. They are uprooted and unable to achieve the same productivity, and provide the same tax revenue, that established households in other areas of Mastropa achieve.”

Adz shook his head when Speaker Liopolt turned back to him to determine if he wanted to follow his question up. While another senator soon asked the obvious rebuttal (“Why does Mastropolis West ‘incentivize’ unprofitable people to take up Mastropolis residency if the social services of the area are incapable of providing for them?”), the senator for Tsoulio Northeast turned subtly to his datapad and wrote, “Speaker is agent of AAH, who helped him to power. Those non-Mimbourn mentioned by Elms are scraping together a hard living on colony worlds if they’re lucky. Since Union advances, Mastropa just ordered Hardeen to speed up its own relocation efforts before potential conquest. Hardeen is majority Cerean and is therefore falling apart. Elms’s people are lucky in comparison.

“Do you wish to keep listening to the session, or be contacted in eight standard hours when I’m free?”

Primus cannot help but roll his eyes when he realizes what's occurring. However after listening to the contents of the debate, his interest is piqued. He quickly responds with a simple 'Keep the feed on.'

Achaian Peloponnese wrote:

Glafkos Anatolias nodded to the approaching Vermelly as he stepped off of the ramp descending from the shuttle’s airlock. “Thank you for meeting with me,” he began. “In the name of my Anassa, I bear the greetings of the Achaian League to the Technocracy and to all the people of the Verma Cluster. I am Representative Glafkos Anatolias. I’m certain that you are already aware of much of the conversation I shared with Governors Aliciac and Merkel on the moon known to you as Sally’s World. I look forward to discussing our future diplomatic and economic relationship together.”

"I look forward to the same aswell. Come then," said Princeps Luzica as she motioned to the large purple door "let us get inside, we have a small monsoon moving in from the east." Here white dress fluttered slightly in the growing wind, the red sash she wore around her neck nearly flying off. The passed a small contingent of guards, each wearing a black and orange ceremonial uniform.

The inside of the building was covered in a great deal of plant life, deep purple to light pink leaved vines hung from the walls, Princeps Luzica even had a small red moss growing in a lines pattern on the cap of her dress. She entered a large room with a conference table, it two was adorned in a myriad of plant life. "Now," she said, "let us get down to business."

Sakoor wrote:

Just then, an eerie screech filled the air as a damaged Tythos fighter lost control and began to barrel down towards the landing pad. Moraz'kul gasps as he eyes it approaching. "Get down!" The flaming vehicle barely misses the Autumn transport and begins to plow for the barricades, prisoners and cultists alike either sent flying or rolling out of the way, with Hella also getting knocked off, though it would take more than that to kill her. The fighter slides off of the platform and plummets into the Vir'tha infested jungles below.

As the smoke faded, Brayden emerged from the wreckage, coughing and attempting to cover a massive gash of his blue blood on his now exposed shoulder. Most of the prisoners thankfully survived and began to make their way to the Autumn transport. Brayden looks around. "Moraz'kul! How many did we loose?!" The Enkithrian gets back up, groaning. "Four dead so far, but the rest seem to be okay. If that fighter got through, then the rest must've broken through the defense line. We need to leave!"

Brayden nods. "I'll be right there!" He then limps over towards a piece of debris and turns it over, revealing Elana. He helps her up. "Up and at 'em, Admiral! We didn't come all this way to die on a roof!"

(Wait, isn't Brayden the chancellor? When did the Ethrikian get up there?)

Sakoor wrote:

Just then, an eerie screech filled the air as a damaged Tythos fighter lost control and began to barrel down towards the landing pad. Moraz'kul gasps as he eyes it approaching. "Get down!" The flaming vehicle barely misses the Autumn transport and begins to plow for the barricades, prisoners and cultists alike either sent flying or rolling out of the way, with Hella also getting knocked off, though it would take more than that to kill her. The fighter slides off of the platform and plummets into the Vir'tha infested jungles below.

As the smoke faded, Brayden emerged from the wreckage, coughing and attempting to cover a massive gash of his blue blood on his now exposed shoulder. Most of the prisoners thankfully survived and began to make their way to the Autumn transport. Brayden looks around. "Moraz'kul! How many did we loose?!" The Enkithrian gets back up, groaning. "Four dead so far, but the rest seem to be okay. If that fighter got through, then the rest must've broken through the defense line. We need to leave!"

Brayden nods. "I'll be right there!" He then limps over towards a piece of debris and turns it over, revealing Elana. He helps her up. "Up and at 'em, Admiral! We didn't come all this way to die on a roof!"

Moments after the Tythos fighter crashed, the reason for its crash is revealed. 8 large Vermelly drop-shuttles are seen descending fast through the atmosphere. One is spiraling out of control it right front truster having been destroyed, but the other 7 are still coming in formation firing away at any Kal-Xoris drop ships that get in their way. The Vermelly ships come down fast and hard, landing fast as they try and dodge the still active orbital defensive cannons. One of the shuttles lands near the launchpad of the Autumn class transport, while the others land either on the facility itself or in the jungle.

200 Vermelly soldiers run out of the first shuttle near the launchpad, "Everyone, get in!" one of them yells.

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

Back in orbit,

"Get back!" yelled Alken as another plasma ball blasted through the metal beam he was hiding behind.

He and the rest of the Oculus' crew had made it into the heart of the Black Scourge, placing fission charges on their way. The charges they had placed would cripple the Scourge but if they could not reach the heart, where the weapon's main mass collider and exotic matter containers were, then the weapon would still be able to be repaired. Now the Scourge's internal defenses, an amalgamation of cultist troops and automatic turrets, had stopped his progression towards the center of the ship dead in its tracks.

From his vantage point, he could see the pulsing mass collider at the center of the ship. Its pulsing was speeding up slowly as if it was getting ready to fire.

"No," he said below his breath "I can't be operational, right?"

Sakoor wrote:

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Scourge, The Lich sat on his throne, looking out as the battle progressed. He snarled as the combined forces of the Sakoorans, Vermelly, and Enkithrians utterly held strong against the Scourge and his bioships. He was already fuming at the fact that the Admiral, Chancellor, and Moraz'kul escaped the surface, and now with the palace assimilator damaged, his forces were beginning to diminish from the invasion forces. And it wouldn't be long before the rest of the Republic and Technocracy forces would descend upon Azul.

"Prepare the singularity drive!"

One of the cultists looks up. "But, Messiah! That could kill all of our forces and damaged the Sco-"

"This instant!"

And with that one order, the Mass Collider began to pulse at a faster rate, about ready to fire on Ithus and the doomed fleet.

The weapons pulsed faster and faster, the Mass Collider accelerating not but a few thousand atoms of mass up to near the speed of light. This shot from the Scourge would not be at full power, but it would be enough to break the gravitational binding force of Ithus and shatter the entire asteroid. "By the Burning fields, we can't guard against a shot from that thing. Everyone on Ithus, get on a pod, a shuttle or something! Just get of that asteroid!" Sonis yelled through the inter-ship coms. Every Sakoorian and Vermelly ship began to scatter away from Ithus, as several pods and shuttles left the massive ship.

Deep in Ithus, the Forgemaster saw the Scourge was powering up for a weak but devastating shot on the asteroid itself. "No, I will not let them destroy this station without a fight!" He said, stepping on a button that disabled the speed inhibitors on the ship's engines "Engines give me ramming speed!"

Sakoor wrote:

The navigator drone replied through a series of beeps and began to fire up the engines. Meanwhile, on the Amber Twilight, Terros directed the Sakooran advance when he heard the news from a young ensign. "Lord Admiral, we've received word from the Hibernia and Aster! They've recovered Admiral Elana and Chancellor Jörmungandr and are returning to orbit!" Terros sighed of relief, glad to hear that Elana was safe. "Alright, helm, come about 40 degrees. Have the Widow-Maker and Argent Dawn cover our flanks-"

Suddenly, the scanners were lit up with the readings from the Scourge, which had begun to power its main weapon. Terros looked in shock and awe as beams of black and green energy rippled off of the needles of the Enkithrian Superweapon. He groans, "Ancestors, what's their target?!"

"They're going to hit Ithus, Lord! Sonis and the other crewmen have already escaped through escape pods and shuttles, but it doesn't look like the Forgemaster's left...sir, he's locked Ithus with a collision course on the Black Scourge!"

"What?!" Terros stood up as he saw Ithus's main drive power up and begin to barrel straight towards the behemoth of a vessel.

"Send out a recovery to retrieve the pods!" he shouts as he sits back down and opens a QEC line with Ithus. "Forgemaster, what in the Void are you doing!? You need to get out of there!"

"No! This ship's artificial intelligence isn't working, and the drones can only do so much without direction." the brain interface he had on beeped as another instruction was sent to the ship's guns, targeting the cultist crafts in front of Ithus. "It was my race that built this weapon, I will be the one that destroys it."

Ithus' massive fusion drive burned even hotter, quickly approaching the heat of a small star, as the asteroid picked up speed. It would be less than a minute from impact if not for what happened next.

Flashes of light came from the far side of the planet, a fleet of nearly 100 ships appeared, painted in the red and white paint of a very specific nation. The answer was given, The Var Navy had arrived. "To all Sakoor and Verman ships," a voice said "This is high-exec of the Var Navy, Dantos Noribus. We are here to give aid."

As the fleet came around the planet each ship launched its torpedos, hitting the bulk of the Kal-Xoris fleet. "This is the VRS Vara's soul to large Sakoorian . . . ship? Whatever you're flying in, break off from your collision course! We'll take it from here!"

"So the other Vermelly finally arrived, huh?" A smile spread across the face of the Forgemaster, but it was short-lived as he realized his want to live had returned and Ithus was still heading for the Scourge. "Crap, crap, crap! All power to turning thrusters!" Yelled the Forgemaster to his drones. The robotic servants complied, redirecting main core power to hullside engines. Ithus missed the Scourge by only 100 meters, its gravity pulling away some of the outer shell of the spiky weapon.

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

Back on the Scourge, Alken and his team had retreated to their ship, their charges placed across the ship. Inside their ship, their PDC guns were fending off the advance of the cultist defenders for now, but their bullets would not last forever. "Sir our engines are done for, the artificial gravity on this thing is too strong for our directional thrusters to take off from! Plus that shield is still in the way." said his first officer

"Could we use the fusion torpedos to shoot through it, make a temporary hole? Then we overload the drive and blast us off this thing!" said Alken with a little hope left in his voice.

"Both those things would blow our ship to bits or at least shred its hull."

"Aurrrgh! We have to get out of here before those charges go - whoah!" Alken was picked off the floor by an unseen force. This force was, in fact, Ithus Alken deduced as he saw the ship pass through the shield above them. Passing so close to the Scourge that it's gravity had disabled the generators on the Scourge.

"Well, that takes care of the gravity problem," Alken looked up, seeing, the shield still in place. "How bad would the shrapnel damage be it we blasted through that thig with a torpedo or two?" He asked his first officer

"Damage would be, eh, manageable, but we would need our void-suits to be pressurized in case of a hull breach."

"Alright then, everyone put on their helmet!"

Soon afterward, a torpedo blasted away at the shield. The shrapnel did in fact penetrate the ship, but only causing minimal damage. Using the ship's directional thrusters, the ship slipped through the hole.

"Were in the clear! Woooooo!" yelled Alken. The rest of his crew soon joined in.

Not a moment later, hundreds of torpedos flew past the Oculus slamming into the Scourge with a blinding light. Alken noticed that his ship's scanners had picked up outliers in some of the drive signatures of the torpedos, those signatures came from ships associated with the Var Republic. Looking at his long-range scanner, he saw Technocracy, Sakoorian, and Varen ships fighting off the cultist fleet together. "Huh," he said, "that's nice for a change."

Sakoor wrote:

Back on the Scourge's Bridge, The Lich looked in shock as the massive Varen fleet began to make its way through the Kal-Xoris lines. With the combined forces from Sakooran, Varen, and Vermelly fighting as one, the bioships were torn to shreds, reduced to orbital debris. Now, the Scourge was being hammered with Sakooran and Vermelly torpedoes, tearing through its blackened hull. A plea from a desperate cultist was heard over the comm unit, "We can't hold out against these types of forces! We must retreat, Messiah!" The Lich grabbed the console. "No! We still have the Mass Collider! Target the largest cluster of ships, and-!"

Just before he could give the order, explosions from the fusion charges lightened the void along the main firing line. The explosion caused a chain reaction which began to cripple the main systems along the ship. "Shields are down!" Major hull breaches on all decks!" "We lost the Singularity Drive!" The Lich groaned as the ship around him began to collapse. However, his struggles were short lived as a Varen torpedo flew directly towards the main bridge, hitting the hull nearby. Cultists were lit aflame, pinned beneath debris, and electrocuted as the bridge structure. The Lich himself was the only survivor, laying in a pool of his copper green blood. He had failed his hive, his forces, and his gods. A glint in his eyes drew his attention to a cluster of Blue and Red torpedoes cutting their way towards the command structure. With the last of his strength, The Lich activated his communicator implant. "Hella...it's over. The Unagumented have one this day...and the gods have come to claim my soul. You must carry out their will as I did. You...are Kal-Xoris's new Messiah. Go now...finish what I have started. Our salvation...will come another day..." And with that final message, the Lich only looked out as the torpedoes struck their target, consuming him and the Scourge's command deck in a massive fireball.

"And so ends The Lich's reign of terror. All ships, he Scourge has been disabled! Fire at will!" Terros shouted over the communications. With that order, the mass drivers, torpedoes railguns of the combined forces lit the battleground ablaze, striking at the hull of the Black Scourge, with Ithus, back in formation with the rest of the fleet, fired its plasma beam, which sawed through one of the primary needles of the behemoth. Cultists ran through the halls of the doomed vessel, attempting to escape to no avail. After several minutes of sustained fire, the Black Scourge erupted in a massive red Vir'tha explosion, lighting up the void of space like a firework.

"Yeeeeeeeehhhahahahahahah!!" screamed Alken as he saw the infernal machine of twisted science, once the Black Scourge, begin to fall into the atmosphere of Kal,oor.

His screams of joy radiated through the entire fleet. The Varen navy fired off their PDC guns at random in a clear act of celebration, Commander Sonis had a rare smile spread across his hard face, Elana and the Sakoorian Chancellor both let out sighs of relief as Benu watched the Scourge let out it dying breaths of light. Even the Forgemaster, the battle-hardened soldier of a long-dead empire, stomped his left foot with glee.

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

Surface of Kal,oor, Kal-Xoris evacuation sight.

To say Hella was simply mad would be a galactic scale understatement. Her veins boiled with rage and Vir'tha alike, her hands clenched so hard she broke the com device she was holding. Hella let out a guttural scream before slamming her fist into a nearby pillar, her Vir'tha infused muscles breaking it into 3 different pieces.

"Priestess He-, I mean Messiah," They now called her, given she was the next in line for the 'word bearer of the gods', "We have to go! The weapon is falling to the planet now!"

She turned to the lowly soldier, a small patch on the side of his head where he had been struck by something. "Fine then," she said "Let us go."

As she walked to one of the evac-shuttles, she saw some of her devoted carrying small red vir'tha plants, one was even carrying a small tree. Smart of them, she thought. If the scourge did detonate after hitting the planet, then their would be nothing to come back too. Hella picked up a small red moss growing in the groves of the ancient landing pad, scooping it inside her empty water bottle strapped to her side. This would not be the end of the teachings of the prophet or the lifeblood, she would make sure of it.
Hella entered a large evac shuttle. The soldier that had escorted her waved her into an exclusive zone in the shuttle, much more spacious and comfortable than the already jammed packed cargo hold, which was now filled with followers of the faith and red flora alike.
Inside she was meet with the bows of several high priests and priestess, some with tears in their eyes from the death of both their messiah and the holy-world alike. She was not far behind, strange tears of rage filled her eyes before she wiped them away. They had been so close, to disrupting the order of the cluster, giving the colonies freedom and power they would never reach.

As the shuttle took off, she looked out a small side window as the Scourge burned up in the atmosphere, its 'holy' secrets now forever lost, but not lost was her resolve.

"Tell me your name soldier," she asked the young man who had brought her in. "Oh, uh, its Xan your holiness," he said while making the sign of the lifeblood with his hand.

"Xan, huh?" she said with a monotone voice, "take a seat Xan, thing are now changing."

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

Palamecia, Kal'oor facing side of the moon

A young white alien cloaked in grey clothes walked the surface of Palamecia, it breathed the moon's thin Co2 air, filtered by the strange moss he had hung to his face. This trick, of walking the surface of the world, had been taught to him by his father, and his ancestors, and the ancestors before those. Stories still remain of an age where the world once covered in air that all could breathe without the moss, but that age was lost. With it had gone a power his rage once knew as the shaped of no-voice, the ability to see the world without the sounds and vibrations their long skulls produced. All he felt right now, however, was the cold of the surface as he walked, making his way back to the entrance of his home cave.
The young boy made a click with his mouth, sending out a wave that showed the ground around him, detailing the all too familiar impression of his home cave directly in front of him He was glad, as the burning would be coming soon, when the star reached over the horizon and burned all on the surface. Before he could enter, he felt something on his skin, a sensation he only felt when sitting next to the heat-mushrooms back home. He felt a slight warmth on his skin, pleasant like the kiss of his mother.

-----------------------------
Beyong Palamecia Orbit, Unified Fleet

As the Technocracy and Var fleets peeled away from the planets orbit, burning beyond the orbit of the Kal,oor's moon, Alken had his ship's cameras locked back on the planet to see the crash of the Scourge.. As the vessels hit the planet, a large burst of light was sent out from the impact zone. "Looks like my theory was right," Alken's first officer said, "The mass collider did give out one last hurrah. Not to good for the planet though." he admitted.

Back on The VSN Amnity Sonis was now contacting the leader of the Var navy fleet, Dantos Noribus. "As much as I would not like to say it, It would have been our end without your help, Exec Noribus." Sonis said to him. "We may come from different planet's Sonis, but we are all children of the red soils of Vermell." Noribus said with a smile."
Sonis touched his index finger to his thumb, making a circle and placing it to his heart, the symbol of the Technocracy, while Noribus made a downward-facing C shape with his fingers putting them on his chest.

Not too long afterward, the Var fleet warped out of the system, it's FTL drives filling the void with white light. The Sakoorian and Technocracy fleets would not bee far behind.

The United Republic of Luke wrote:

Primus cannot help but roll his eyes when he realizes what’s occurring. However after listening to the contents of the debate, his interest is piqued. He quickly responds with a simple ‘Keep the feed on.’

Senator Adz nodded to himself as he saw the Union Speaker’s response, and leaned back to watch the end of the current debate period. As expected, Mastropa’s senators were unwilling to provide more money to one area of one city due to economic issues faced, to a greater or lesser extent, by the planet as a whole, and Senator Elms returned to his seat in disappointment—as he had done dozens of times before.

The session continued. As the hours ticked on, the Mastropan Senate heard from various supplicants and member delegates. Rural senators requested the Senate’s intervention in refugee migration into their villages and farmlands, to which the Senate eventually voted to further emphasize the opportunities on Cabun, Teloor, and Adaani for (Mimbourn) newcomers while making it more difficult for them to legally settle on Mastropa. A representative from Adaani reported on her governor’s requirements to sustain government operations on the newly-settled world, in response to earlier complaints by Senator Ulara Hosst that her constituents were unable to gain employment in the colonial government despite an advertised need. A senator from Poutalia requested and received the Senate’s authorization for his constituents to establish a local militia, to be trained by Speaker Liopolt’s military officers, intended to combat any future landing on Mastropa by foreign threats, including (as explicitly named in the senator’s statement) both the Chiss and the Union. The same Poutalian senator thereafter requested the Senate’s authorization to expand the soon-to-be-formed militia’s duties to include rounding up and deporting non-Mimbourn discovered to be living in hiding among his constituents; the Senate narrowly rejected this amendment on the grounds that the local police forces should have already been capable of such work.

Speaker Liopolt himself also spoke to the Senate on occasion, fulfilling his role as ambassador to both Hardeen and Daurne. Regarding the latter in particular, the Speaker reported to the Senate that the Daurnese government was struggling to comply with the Mastropan Senate’s instructions to accelerate the deportation of non-Mimbourn residents to the colony worlds, largely because of the arrival of new refugee vessels to Daurne every other week with large alien populations aboard. The Senate responded to this news with disinterest; only Liopolt himself viewed Daurne as anything more than an unnecessary addendum to the Senate’s proceedings, and no one really cared what happened there regarding an expulsion that had been passed on Mastropa largely due to the Speaker’s insistence. While the local governments on Mastropa continued to deal with the new deportation requirements, their representatives in the Senate had little time to consider when or how another planet entirely was attempting to accomplish the same task. As a result, the Senate yet again voted to give Speaker Liopolt the freedom to instruct the Daurnese Senate as he saw fit on the matter of non-Mimbourn relocations, to which Liopolt promised an update to the Mastropan Senate in a week’s time.

Senator Adz, too, presented a scheduled petition to the Senate on behalf of his constituents in Tsoulio to construct a new spaceport at the Senate’s expense, so that the people of the planetary capital would no longer be required to travel all the way to Poutalia to leave Mastropa. This was a petition that would benefit every senator in the Chamber, if not their constituents exactly, but there remained too many traditional, honor-bound senators even after the post-Liopolt reorganization of that body to trust that the senators’ self-interest alone would see the proposal through. Given the massive expense required for the new infrastructure, the Senate’s debate was quite robust: Adz’s proposal would almost certainly be taking funds that would otherwise be granted to rural communities (that is to say, most of Mastropa) for their own development, or else would slightly curtail military investments at a time when every senator in the Chamber knew that Mastropa’s independent future was at serious and immediate risk. With so many senators unsure of the cost-to-benefit balance, the Senate eventually voted to establish a commission to develop an estimate of the proposed spaceport’s impact on Mastropa’s overall budget and to report back to the Senate in a month’s time. Secondary concerns—disruption caused by the construction process, disruption at the General Urmakar Spaceport in Poutalia caused by a new competitor, and other unforeseen effects—were not considered in the commission’s mandate, largely because the seldom-utilized General Urmakar Spaceport already depended on the Senate’s continued intervention for its financial survival, and because it was assumed that anyone in Tsoulio that might be inconvenienced by the construction of a local spaceport would be the most likely to make use of it once it was complete.

Compared with some other Senate sessions of the recent past, this one had been almost tame. Importantly, the session also contained several references to Speaker Liopolt’s removal policy for non-Mimbourn residents of Mastropa and its subject planets. Senator Adz believed that such references would encourage the representatives of the Union listening into the session to give Mastropa more of their attention in the near future, even if they were not enough to prompt an immediate Union intervention due to their somewhat circumstantial nature.

Technocracy of vermell wrote:

The Forgemaster looked down at his son. Compared to the age of the Forgemaster, Moraz'kul was just entering his middle-aged life, still so much smaller than his father

"Father, I-" before Moraz'kul let out another word, the Forgemaster struck him in the head with his tail in a lightning-fast motion, so fast that it should be nigh impossible for a creature so big. Moraz,kul fell to the floor with a large thump, before his father turned to look at him again. "Oh crap," both Elana and Benu, who were standing nearby, said under their breaths.

"You turned against us, created a weapon so terrible that its presence alone could have caused entire systems to kneel, but," The Forgemaster took a step forward and knelled down to his son, "It is still good to see you after so long."

The Forgemaster put his head on his son's shoulder, giving him the Enkithrian version of a hug.

"Awwwww"

"oh- my gods, Alken you scared me," Elana turned to face Alken, who had silently moved right next to her face. His aw of affection had startled her.

"Likewise Ela, I thought you were never getting off that damned planet."

"My name" she gave Alken a playful punch "is Elana. Don't shorten it."

"Yes, ma'am,"

Ithus, along with the Sakoorian and Vermelly fleet inside of it, blasted through reality into the Outer, giving the Azul system one last burst of energy before leaving back to normal space.

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

A few weeks passed, the victory over the Kal-Xoris was celebrated across the cluster.

The battle over Kal'oor had been changed, from a half-baked plan that barely went right, to strategic joint military operation that had been months in the making. The story of Elana's or Brayden's capture was never told, the records of the destruction of the VSN Morvati King were scrubbed from the navy records. Vermelly media portrayed it as a secret operation, one that needed the utmost security as Kal-Xoris agents existed in the Vermelly military. Those scientists-Turncoats loyal to the Kal-Xoris were, for the most part, found, arrested, and tried for their crimes against the Technocracy. Almost all of them were sent to live out the rest of their lives in the great underground prisons of Vartel, never to see the orange light of the Mother Star ever again.

Hella, the new messiah of the Kal-Xoris remnants, was declared an Igavene Vaenlane or 'eternal enemy of the state', an ancient title given to those who had betrayed the Technocracy in its entirety. She too, would never see the light of Varel without a million guns turned towards her.

Elana, Alken, and Benu were awarded the blue Sash of the Brave Sun, the highest awards of the Vermelly Navy. They, together with the Sakoor and Varens, began to process of creating a joint anti-Kal-Xoris task force, whose purpose would be to deal with their threat exclusively.

All seemed to end well, but no peace lasts forever. In the space between the stars, Hella started out of a clear window from her new ship, her eyes fixed on the dim light of Varel, its rays almost outshined by the bright blue stars near the center of the Verma Cluster, but she could still see it. She sat quiet, plotting for the next war.

She held a small pot, a red moss grew from it, feeding off of the Carbon Dioxide she let out. The Scourge had failed because it used science that took to long to understand, if she wanted to beat her enemies, she would have to use their own science against them.

Imperial Broadcast Network

"Good morning, citizens of the Imperium! My name is Alyssa Allers, and here's today's top stories."

"It seems peace has finally settled across the cluster! Following the Invasion of Alvin, an operation conducted by the Imperial Armada and the Technocracy Star Armada. Though details of the operation were not released, it has been conformed that the Lich is dead and that the Kal-Xoris are done for. The battle took place in the Azul System, which is now under a joint Imperium-Technocracy Quarantine. With the Vir'tha War over, however, the Var Republic is seemingly open for peace talks. Although an armistice was signed prior to the war, there was never an official peace treaty between the two nations.

"Meanwhile, details on the yacht bombing have been released. Padishah Imperator Brayden Jörmungandr did survive the assault, but was badly injured and had to be sent to a hospital. He made a rather handsome recovery shortly after the battle, and will be addressing the public later today."

"Next up on our top stories: After almost a month isolated from her fans, Actress Joana Mithrix will finally be responding to remarks concerning her xenophobic posts about Vermelly. We'll come to that and more after these commercials."

Sakoor wrote:

Ithus, Mahayid System

Though the Battle of Kal'oor did result in the death of the Lich and the glassing of the homeworld's surface, the Kal-Xoris, now known as the Church of the Lifeblood, were still out somewhere in the cluster. With the majority of their forces dead, the newest Prophet, Hella, has most likely retreated form civilized space with the rest of her cultists. As they speak, the Kal-Xoris are slowly regaining their strength.

To wipe out the remnants, a joint Technocracy-Imperium-Republic task force known as Twilight Hammer was assembled. Based on the mobile Ithus Fortress, the Hammer was responsible for rooting out infiltrators and annihilating the rest of the cult. Ithus was currently holding orbit at a neutral system known as Mahayid, a bright blue cyan star in between all 3 nations' territories. Though the main contingency of vessels from each side had arrived, the leaders of each faction had yet to arrived.

That changed as an Outer Rupture ripped open, revealing a massive Homeworld Dreadnought. This Dreadnought was the Vengeful Retribution, Admiral Terros's flagship, originally heavily damaged during the Battle of Calumn, now repaired and good as new. On the bridge, Terros was sipping a brand of Sakooran Coffee. He sets the mug down. "Alright, ladies and gents. We're here. Lieutenant, hail the Ithus."

A few seconds later, the screen turned on to reveal Moraz'kul, who was at Ithus's communications terminal. "Ah, Admiral Terros. Good to see you again! I see you got your old ship back."

Terros smirks. "You like her? The Vengeful Retribution's an Altoni Drive Yards Homeworld Dreadnought, backbone of the Imperial Armada. The perfect tool if you wanna give someone the galactic middle finger...or hoof or...whatever. Either way, are we all set?"

Moraz'kul shakes his head. "Not quite yet, Admiral. We're still waiting for the Technocracy and Republic Commanders. You're free to board Ithus if you wish."

"We'll do just that. I'm sending a shuttle. I'll be there ASAP. Admiral Terros out."

Technocracy of vermell