License Level 3 ticks over. I swap my Metalmark licensing into the Amber Phantom variant and pick up the first level of Swallowtail.
Downtimes:
Task Group Brigand benefits from ongoing training with me. 18 on the downtime roll, gaining +2 Efficiency. They’re now at Efficiency +4, Influence +1.
For downtime, I invest further into TG Brigand and recruit a flight crew, going to Efficiency +4, Influence +3, and access to the transport craft as an additional reserve.
Ilias has been awarded the liturgical paracode to interface with the Sisyphus NHP. It and Janus are getting along disturbingly well.
Ilias continues working on disentangling Umbra. He’s instantiated Umbra Prime as distinct from Umbra Source.
A few days after we get back from the far side of Tu’rosa, we get a request from Ambassador Storch to investigate an inbound derelict battleship that has entered the system and is on a ballistic course to Tu’rosa. (Our version of events does not indicate it’s not maneuvering.) Union forces are out of position to intercept; they’re focused on Stockton Station and the belt. Erratic energy, no comms, heavily irradiated.
Vessel matches historical records of the ship, which is named Fires of the Emperor – last recorded during the local collapse/war, responsible for the Ashfall nanotech bombardment of the site we hit last mission. No record of what happened to it after that attack.
Our transport outsystem is the Bower, a fast scout with minimal combat power.
Once the reports come in, both of us can feel it – like the sun on our skin.
TG Brigand is deploying to Stockton Station to support the ongoing investigation there – running interference on the interference that’s occurring, and possibly doing some E-4 Mafia shit to get into places the official investigators can’t access. I task them with an unofficial mission: if shit goes sideways, extract the Union investigators by whatever means necessary. I’ve recruited well – they’re on board with this plan.
Ilias pulls in intel on the ship. It’s likely one of the largest combat vessels constructed at the height of the old empire’s power. It is a megastructure. Union intel believes it had to have been constructed with some form of artificial grav.
Reserves: enhanced comms and a core battery.
Our trip out is uneventful. Crew views this as a photo run with lancers along because we can.
As the Bower sets its transfer orbit, we feel the sense of presence on the derelict intensifying. Something has noticed us.
We start noting sensor discrepancies. The ship is staying on course for a Tu’rosa impact. It’s making minor course corrections. Its emissions are more in line with an active vessel than an inactive one. The radiation is very similar to the dimensional annihilation engines – but amplified. A lot. And it’s hot enough that the radiation is long-term hazardous for a crew serving on board.
We have our transport match course and speed; we intend to EVA over for a soft landing on the hull. But we have incoming – three interceptor frames and a heavy space superiority frame.
As we deploy, a transmission is directed at us. It’s the same protocol as used by the command and control unit that we encountered at the spaceport. It’s hailing us – but not in a Union standard format.
“Greetings. You have come to the Foundation. We are building great things here. You will join us.”
Then, “You are ready. Come. We will escort you. You can belong. I feel your gaze as you can feel mine.”
The frames are not in a peaceful posture, but they are holding position.
We are disinclined to be escorted.
We move in. “Then you have decided to connect with us.”
A new comms standard comes in – out-of-date 501st IFF codes and secure comms protocols, ~5yrs out of date. Scraped from Boomer and Umbra? Maybe. Our timeline is inconclusive as to exactly when Boomer and Umbra were here.
We try to coast in closer. I don’t provoke them; Ilias does as a paracausal code stream comes in at him trying to force a connection open.
I alpha strike with mixed results. The space superiority frame volleys missiles on all of us.
Echo unshackles his omnigun and memetic spark.
I’m running multiple light nexuses, serving my new Gunslinger build. I cash in my gunslinger die and my core passive for 3d6 bonus damage with AP. The space superiority frame goes away.
The entire ship is a gate and it’s trying to force itself fully into our reality. Nothing the Union fleet in-system has will be able to stand against it.