The Black

Ambassador Gwen sat in her Port Royal office with unfinished paperwork. 3 weeks had passed since the defense of Delmar, and the planet was reeling. The confederation council had called an emergency session in a public clamor for action. Gwen shook her head at that, remembering all too familiar public sentiment pushes during the opening bouts of the GSW.

“ENTER” Gwen barked as the door chimed, smiling as the doors parted to reveal Admiral Karmarin as he stepped through the entrance.

“Ah, Admiral. What can I do for you.” Gwen stated, somewhat pointedly setting down the condolence letter she had been struggling to finish.

“I came to offer my farewell, ambassador. Our repairs are complete enough for us to return to more extensive facilities, and I must make my official report on this incident.” The Avian stated formally before pulling out a familiar privacy device. “From what I have seen, Signus is in good hands. May I ask what Aiericastum’s motives for meeting you were?”

“She explained your history, and that of the Vorath Lithral. At least somewhat, I suspect much of the past has been omitted or forgotten.” Gwen said carefully, as she had been given no instruction on what the admiral knew.

“That’s a name I’ve not heard in some time. Legend has it that they would use….” The UGN Admiral’s comment came to a screeching halt as understanding slammed into him like one of the human’s “strategics” he did not know existed until just recently. “By the void… this was a Vorath attack.” he said softly, unable to look away from Gwen’s eyes.

She simply nodded.

“How could they know… It was a secret on the highest order of the Tetrarchy visit…” Karmarin’s horror bled into his voice about the edges. He looked down to his data pad and began tapping a message before freezing at the tone that came from the other side of the desk.

“We will soon find out…” Gwen’s eyes were cold; her tone could have dropped the temperature in the room 5 degrees. “Humanity doesn’t take kindly to their Allie’s being attacked…” she finished just as her console beeped, “go ahead” she stated.

*We have coordinates and confirmation of target from Crybaby* It was Philips voice over the intercom, *awaiting authorization*

“Patriot Authorization Conventional granted: sending codes, at you discretion; Gwen out...” Gwen stated formally before tapping at her console and sending her codes. It wouldn’t due to speak them in front of unauthorized sources after all.

Karmarin’s eyes widened as he felt the entire station shudder noticeably.

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Legaris opened his eyes, taking a moment to gather his bearings. The Vorath had learned much in their fight with the Corth. The final lesson of that war had been the key to great distances with little supplies. Legaris was rising from the result of this very lesson. His people had been forced to flee for survival at the end of their conflict with the Corth, and they had chosen a separate spiral arm of the Galaxy to rebuild. Many had died in the travel time.

Those that had survived passed down a genetic mutation that allowed the Vorath to use a biobed to drop into an artificially regulated coma. This went deeper than a normal coma however, as it was more akin to stasis, or near death. A Vorath in “Travel sleep” could survive on little to no sustenance for a decade or more before suffering any permanent damage. It had been a little over 3 weeks since he had been forced to flee the attempted Exterminatus of Delmar and Aiericastum…

*unidentified craft you have entered mining Consortium space, transmit codes or be destroyed.* a voice stated. It was the cover that the Vorath had been using for 250 years now. Many such mining guilds had come and gone, they were an easy way to keep tabs on the rest of the galaxy, watching as they ripened for conquest. Legaris sent in the codes..

*Codes received, welcome Legaris. What brings you back so qu…..Ly….. di………en…..* the transmission collapsed on itself

“Repeat? Station, repeat please… station, Legaris changing to frequency nine one five seve…...” he stopped as his eyes caught a flicker… he instinctively snapped his shields up to full and laid the shuttle over hard in a right-handed reversal… just in time for his shields to get shattered by a burst of what Legaris now recognized as kinetic weapons fire.

—————————————————————-

-2weeks earlier-

The wake for Greg and Marge had been earlier that day... It was currently 2100 as Mac, Lyri, Clint, Frie, and Gwen sat in the living room of the Grarzia lodge.

“Thanks for coming, everyone… I have some news” Gwen started as everyone got settled into various seating. “I don’t want to do this, but you guys would want to know. We found where the Asteroid attack came from. It’s 4 days out by slip-drive. We matched the escape trajectory of the Shuttle that Launched from the Captured ship to an outer rim mining guild outpost. We sent a couple of captured Inquisititorum spy drones in. but they have been destroyed moments after they come online… ” Gwen sat back in her chair

“You need Concord for this…” Mac sagged in his chair in recognition.

“Concord is the only ship that can get in and provide the last of the information we need to strike. From what we can tell, this is the only post big enough to provide a threat to Delmar.” Gwen said quietly.

“And we hope to intercept that shuttle. Chances are it has a gold mine of Intel for the Vorath on our combat abilities” Clint followed up, pointedly taking a swig of Delmar whiskey.

“I can’t ask you to do this,” Gwen stated, “We can go in strength, but we will lose ships. We don’t know what their defensive capabilities are. A surprise strike before they can prepare.”

“It would take too long for an Eros to charge. And it’s not safe to charge a shot in slip space.” Clint stated. “Too many competing EM disturbances.”

“So, Concord goes in... or we do this the hard way” Lyrian said slowly. “And goes in quietly.” She was broiling in mixed emotions. Marg’s death had hit her the hardest of the group.

“I’m not ordering you to do this” Gwen said to Mac and Lyri softly.

“You don’t have to…” Mac turned to Lyrian and she looked into his face. She searched his eyes for a moment before realizing his intent.

“NO, No, no….” She begged. Tears breaking free.

“I’m sorry, but you aren’t trained in the stealth aspects of Concord. This mission… It’s what Clint and I were trained to do. Interdiction is a whole different world…” Mac said softly, “Besides The twins need their mother.”

“The twins need their father too” Lyri rallied, “If its that dangerous don’t. we can fortify here.”

Mac sighed, “Fortifications need time. We won’t have surprise to aid us next time…” He took a sip from his own glass before setting it down and taking both of her hands. “I wouldn’t even be considering it if Clint wasn’t here. We don’t survive unless we do this perfectly. I couldn’t even do it myself alone. Together, This becomes survivable. We need time, twins need time. Clint and I, we can create that time… and find out how much time we actually have.”

Lyri sagged into her husband, feeling both his resolve, and her own logic failing to find an argument, “I hate this… what the hell am I supposed to do while you are gone.”

“I can answer that.” Frie scooted over to take Lyri’s hands, “I’m going to need to become human strong. I’ll need some help to do it fairly quickly.”

“Huh? Why? It took me months to be able to fly in Concord” Lyri sat up to turn to her best friend.

“Not Fly, Lyri. Not Fly” Frie placed Lyrian’s hand on her stomach and took a sip of water.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

-One Week Earlier-

“This is… Strange…” Clint stated from the back seat of Concord, “The last time I was here….”

“Yea, at least I saved your back seat, Lyri’s might have been a bit of a squeeze” Mac chuckled as he finished his flow from the front seat. They were sitting in the Home Hanger of the Grarzia Lodge. Concord sat quietly powered down as everything was meticulously triple-checked. The ship had just come back from Tranquility where her stealth coatings were completely replaced, and her systems completely gone through by people trained to work on her. Her modifications had stayed yet been tested to ensure that she retained all her more clandestine capabilities as she would need them.

“you two ready in there?” Lyrian was on the ladder triple triple-checking everything else. She had shown just how much she had studied Concord over the last week. Now, she fussed with Mac’s harness and Void suit.

“Luv, we will be ok” Mac said softly, “Its time...” He gave her a kiss on the neck before she hugged him fiercely and jumped down from the ladder, Frie climbed up to do the same to Clint before the two women and Gwen stepped back as Concord Howled to life. 5 min later and the last whisps of Delmar Atmosphere were clawed free of Concord as she leaped for their jump trajectory.

“Cobra 224 with information X-ray. Requesting permission to jump.” Clint stated calmly, he still wasn’t used to having controls of his own in the back, but they were well placed and easy to work around.

*Permission granted, 224. Jump your discretion. Good Hunting* The ATC controller responded before closing the frequency.

“Clint, Let’s do this.” Mac said curtly. Both were in alpha sync. While not as… extensive… as the one Mac and Lyri enjoyed because of the claiming. It was one they were old friends with.

“Silent Running Protocol active” Clint's familiar half distracted hollow tone betrayed his only tacit acknowledgement of his response to Mac.

Across the entire Delmar system, hundreds of sensors registered the disappearance of a single contact. Concord made her run to slip space completely unnoticed. Her mission-specific payload was safely stowed in one of her internal bays usually reserved for Concords Nuclear Payload and safely behind Stealth Tech as Concord Leapt for Slipspace

___________________________________________________________________________________

4 days later Concord flashed into the outskirts of the system. Neither Pilot nor WSO spoke. Concord’s passive sensors immediately picked up the main Asteroid turned Outpost headquarters by power readings alone. Concord began her long engineless glide into the target. Mac was in full concentration for the next 24 hours, the flight in was filled with small asteroids that would murder Concord if they were to collide. Mac spent 8 of those hours giving Concord Miniscule puffs of individual maneuvering jets to tweak Their approach just enough to miss the asteroids, but not enough to register as a contact, even a piece of trash. Concord slipped through nature’s minefield in space, passing within 2.5 meters of one asteroid chunk during the insertion phase of the mission. Hour 12 had mac begin a tantalizingly gentle burn designed to have The Stealth fighter come to a stop in the shadow of the hidden base’s parent rock.

Mac and Clint had not said a single word to each other since their arrival in system, but by the 23rd hour concord had slipped up against the surface of the asteroid, deep in an unused crater section.

Mac let out a low groan as he set back in his seat, shutting all but the suit life support systems down on concord as she hovered in the semi-permanent shadow of the Vorath Base that was nested inside of an asteroid the size of Terra’s Moon.

“Status” he whispered, finally willing to speak for the first time.

“We’re in the right spot. Ship patterns and Communications infrastructure matches. In 48 hours, I should have everything we need for Crybaby.” Clint whispered back. “I have a few things to finish. I’ll take first watch.”

Mac didn’t argue and keyed up the HAB entry to float down into the resting area of Concord. Over the next two days the two men kept a methodical shift rotation. Coaxing every last byte of data out of their Foe’s position. Transmissions painted a very interesting, and excruciatingly complete picture of Vorath Operations in this sector, as well as Just how far away from home they really were. Concord Stored everything in her Black Box. On the second night, Mac and Clint took dog watches to ensure both of them were rested and awake at the same time in the morning.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Legaris was desperately flying on instinct alone. His shields been in basic space dust deflection levels when he had dropped into the outpost systems. He had been able to randomize his movements well enough to give them time to get to full strength before the next Kinetic impact had forced him to strap into the pilots’ seat. No laser, and no plasma was being fired at him. His sensors registered fighter launches headed his way, but he could no longer hail anything through the massive interference in his communications.

Legaris swore as his random maneuvers were found to be not so random and a massive series of several hundred impacts rocked his shuttle once more.

*shield failure imminent, 25 percent remaining* the Klakson wailed. Legaris swore as another flicker of light forced him to dodge further out into the system. He began a firing sequence in the general direction of his attacker designed for arial denial... His optical systems had picked up flashes of something out there. The Kinetics weapons fire had been identified as the same type, of somewhat smaller, that had laid waste to his Exterminatus fleet. This Violent Poltergeist never fired from one spot. It moved like nothing Lagaris had ever seen. Impossibly fast, and completely immune to being detected.

*Shields failed, larboard weapons bank destroyed, external pressure hull breached, secondary hull intact* the Klakson listed off as Legaris once again was forced further away from the Station.

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“30 seconds to Patriot” Clints monotone delivery betrayed nothing of the stress he was feeling, “GAU at 35 percent. We have reached minimum safe distance. Crybaby still active”

“Give me control of the Sparrow’s, I want to launch the moment we don’t have to stay quiet” Mac growled. The pilot of the very Corth looking shuttle was of excellent quality, and his one GAU had made it impossible to overwhelm him with firepower ‘im going to have to adjust some things when I get back, not being able to use the PAC while in stealth is a massive red flag’ Mac thought as he squeezed off another burst.

“Shuttle’s shields are gone; half its weapons banks went with it.” Clint reported. As the sparrows began to growl in Mac’s ears as they were being fed heat signature data directly from Concord herself.

The 5 second warnings blared in both men’s ears as Mac broke off from a laser barrage that was a little to close for comfort as the streaks of energy flashed past the cockpit. . The open space along the entry vector that Concord had originally used erupted in bright blue plasma as titanic beams of white light burst forth from slipspace and streaked out with an ever so slight bend to them.

The man who figured all of this out, Johansson, was right to fear his discovery… With his discovery of both the exponential nature of acceleration post entry into slipspace, and the ability to triangulate any jump location with enough data and the Patriot-ISR’s, or Interstellar God Rods, were created. Three of these missiles had been launched from Port Royal. Without the need for a flesh and blood pilot, they were designed to accelerate at full burn even after their one-use-only slipspace engines were activated. Simply put, the longer these missiles had to go. The faster the longer they would be accelerating in slipspace.

Johansson had figured out that if you didn’t need to decelerate, an automated missile could drop out of slipspace at the majority of the speed of light… As such. These Patriot missiles carried no payload, replacing the majority of the mass of the missile with fuel and solid-state seeker heads and guidance computers. The result was argueably worse than the antimatter Planet killing weapon stopped at 2nd Centerpoint. The Missile would shut down its slipdrives but continue its constant full power burn even as it dropped out of slipspace, causing the Missile to exit into normal space at between 70-90 percent the speed of light and hold that speed to the target, exempting any hard course corrections that would naturally slow it slightly.

These missiles had no such need for a course correction. Mac and Clint had opened one of their internal bay’s and released a timed “Crybaby” canister. Similar to the “Crybaby” function that The TALON3 classes could use as a forward observation, a Crybaby canister was a high-density beacon and target data sensor pack that could be dropped and left for more… extensive. strikes on emplaced enemy positions. This Crybaby was nestled directly in one of the asteroid’s own craters, and set up to pure beacon mode. It didn’t need to last long. It was destroyed within moments of its activation, but it had painted its target. The Vorath Asteroid post was still charging its shield banks when three IGR’s, each imparting twice the energy of the Martian Galveston strike that took Mac’s parents, impacted the asteroid in a blinding flash of kinetic energy release.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Legaris sagged in his seat in shock and horror as his home of 25 years evaporated in the Incandescent Rage of Humanities Retribution. His catatonic state was disrupted by more impacts from his invisible foe.

“Computer, Home jump, maximum subspace velocity, execute.” Legaris growled. He had no choice... He did not know if he could survive the trip. But the Data treasure he carried had to.

*Enemy detected 188 by 182* the computer responded and Legaris’s eyes widened at the composite picture of the visionary of Doom that shimmered into existence as his optical sensors lined up with the rest of his sensors. *Shields detected, enemy is firing* a bright beam of energy streaked out from its sharply raked prow and slammed into Legaris’ shuttle once more, removing his partially recovered shields

*shields down, secondary hull breach. Total on board Oxygen loss in 25 second*

“Pull all remaining oxygen into the tanks. Prepare for suit-based life support. Jump immediately!” Legaris growled as he continued to dodge more incoming beams mixed with solid projectiles.

*Jump calculations complete, estimated travel time in current condition. 12 years, 13 hours, 5 minutes*

Legaris’ looked on in shock as the ship pursuing him released all too familiar white trails of smoke that streaked toward him. He slammed his ship hard over, lining it up desperately with the course line to trigger the jump...

The proximity fuse of one of the missiles caused a detonation that took out the remaining sub-light engines of Legaris ship but escape velocity had been reached. The oddly almost Corth shuttle blinked out of real space and sped for parts unknown.

Legaris sagged into his chair. The impact of the final explosion had imparted a sickening spiraling spin, but otherwise, his shuttle was on course... “Close viewer. Initiate Suit based Travel sleep.” He felt the prick of the chemicals used to induce his hibernation.

He closed his eyes and gave up on consciousness at last.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Concord’s tires chirped as she touched down back at her home base’s runway. It had been a long 4 days of sleepless flight back to Delmar space. Mac popped the cockpit a little early and let the fresh jungle/sea mixed air unwind his deep tension as he taxied his ship into the hanger with a waiting pair of Gorgeous Delmar Females waiting for them.

No words were said, Clint was barely conscious. It had been a while since he had had to fight like that. It was a rude reminder of just how much conditioning was required to fight in a ship as unyielding as Concord.

Mac was not much better and had asked Lyri to fly Vito down to the Hanger so they didn’t have to walk back to their home.

“Easy, Easy.. I got you” Frie coo’d to Clint as he stepped down the ladder first.

“I forgot how much that sucked.” Clint pained moan was creased by a dark chuckle.

Mac stumbled down the ladder after him, and into the arms of a tear-streaming Lyrian, “Hi Luv, See. Didn’t die” he whispered, referencing their first combat-based separation. She just tightened her hold on him.

“Food’s warming in the house.” Gwen stepped out from around the corner, “Let's get you two recovered. I can have the Tech’s pull the box.”

“He got away, The bastard that ran from us the first time... He fuckin got away…” Mac growled.

“We can deal with that later. You boys did good, Let’s let tomorrow lay.” Gwen said gently.