- Meeting with Mr. Zaine
- Lyndri Ambassador to Terrans is POV char
- Zaine shows keen, almost uncanny insight into internal Lyndri politics, then offers to help Lyndri retake 'their rightful place'
- Mr. Zaine asks about the Lyndri with birthrate problem, and the ambassador is angry/worried that he even knows it's a thing
- Ambassador is skeptical, not wanting to believe what he could be saying is true
- Zaine says that the people he represents have a long memory, and remember when the Lyndri weren't nearly a mono-gendered race
- Zaine provides a recording of an ancient battle as 'proof' that the Sooni and the Lyndri were once allies
- He also provides a hint that the Sooni may be able to solve their birthrate problem
- All he asks is that the Lyndri verify what he's told them, and then wait patiently for the people he represents to tell them the next steps
- Ambassador, hot with anger, vows (to herself) that if this is true, the Lyndri won't wait, they'll go to war with whomever is responsible.
- Archigos responds to colony emergency
- Captain is the POV
- Conversation with XO on way to briefing: Establish that things have been going south, politically, all over the galaxy. The Lyndri are demanding reparations from the NorAellians, who are too embarrassed to respond, the Terrans are making moves into Freelance space, and back home some idiot political group has started a referendum to reduce military spending and make military buildup along the Terran Front illegal.
- Staff Briefing:
- The Tel'Erani colony early warning system has detected several large masses headed towards them in subspace, on a vector from the nearest Terran outpost.
- This colony is considered strategic, because it's large, cool sun creates almost a natural wormhole in subspace, making travel to and from it incredibly cheap and fast, especially from the Terran side
- The Archigos is the only ship near enough to respond, but it's entirely likely that what's coming is much larger than they can handle. The Admiralty has scrambled a full Battlegroup, but it is fifteen hours behind the Archigos.
- There is no indication that this is an invasion force, but given how much everything else is going to hell in a handbasket, the assumption is that the ceasefire has come to an end.
- The primary goal will be to hold the system and keep it accessible for the battle group arriving behind them
- Secondary goal is to evacuate civilians as much as possible.
- Liz gets a job
- Liz is woken out of bed, in a hotel room that isn't hers, with a woman whose name she doesn't remember.
- Day informs her that they've got a government job from her 'old friend'. She gets up immediately and rushes out the door.
- Woman in bed stirs, says, "Liz? Where are-" and Liz cuts her off with, "Work. I'll call you tonight." and the woman responds with, "But you don't have my number...?" Liz doesn't even respond, and just leaves.
- McKenzie and Praetorian
- Admiral is going over reports from the theft of an experimental warship (Rekonin) with Hayes
- Establish that there's a larger game at work here, someone seems to be manipulating things, and they're pretty sure it's the Sooni.
- Establish that both men know who the Sooni are, but expected them to show up with an invasion fleet, not cloak and dagger tactics.
- Explain Admiral's history with them, briefly.
- Hayes asks if he needs to go help retrieve the ship, Admiral says, "No. I put her on it." Hayes, "I know you're fond of her, but she's about as loyal as a rabid dog." "You're too hard on her. She might be a mercenary, but she's got a noble heart." "How you ever lived long enough to become spymaster with that kind of naivety is beyond me."
- Simon is freed
- Simon is POV
- "Clack, Clack, Click, Clack, Clack, Click" Someone who doesn't need a cane is walking with it. He can hear them down the hall, passing the guard. A pause, then the sound of the door at the far end of the large room opening. "Clack, Clack, Click". The cane sounds too deliberate. Someone wants him to know they're here with a cane. His cane. The poor, dumb bastard is taunting him.
- Mr. Zaine offers to free Simon. Simon questions what the cost for this freedom is, if he's powerful enough to grant it.
- Mr. Zaine responds with, "There is not enough chaos in the galaxy, Mr. Simon. I only ask you fix that." "Indeed. And it's just 'Simon'. People like me only have one name." "People like you?" "Abby, Jack, Zodiac, Dahmer. Those that came before." "The last is a bit of a stretch, Mr. Simon." "Most people don't live long enough to correct me. It's a strange sensation."
- Simon asks if Mr. Zaine's associates are trying to form some sort of new world order. Mr. Zaine responds with, "No. We simply want to watch worlds burn."
- Archigos Assassination
- Mir's POV.
- A Warrant Officer brings in an engineering report. The Captain reaches for it, but as soon as he picks it up, he goes rigid, and slumps.
- The XO looks up as the Warrant Officer pulls a concealed firearm and fires.
- At this point, people start ducking, including Mir.
- There is another shot and then silence for a moment, before a voice she knows starts giving orders, calling for medical.
- Mir looks up and finds that Glyse has killed the assassin, and the XO is bleeding out. People start looking to her for orders.
- She repeats the medical order, and then orders general quarters. Next she calls up security and has them perform a sweep of the ship, looking for sabotage.
- Sean and the Terrans
- Sean's POV.
- A junior officer has come to report that Intelligence has reported that a League ship will be on station once they arrive.
- It's an old Archigos class; it happened to be in the area and respond to the distress call.
- Sean questions how the colony even detected them this far out, and the officer says that Intelligence suggests that the League had installed early warning systems looking along this vector.
- Sean accepts that, and asks what other things Intelligence will do to make this mission more interesting. The officer stumbles for an answer.
- Sean laughs and dismisses him. The officer questions if they should start preparing plans of action, and doing drills.
- Sean berates the officer. There's no point in wasting the effort on such an outclassed, outdated piece of junk.
- The officers leaves, and the sex slave Sean had sitting in the corner comes over to him and straddles him.
- She asks him why he didn't order the drills, and he says that he wants the mission to fail.
- She reminds him that her people didn't ask for that, simply that it not succeed without complications.
- He counters that in his estimation, her people want chaos, and if the mission fails, that will cause the greatest chaos.
- She laughs and agrees. She then asks him if he's ok with chaos.
- He puts his hands on her hips and thrusts against her. "People like me do best in chaotic situations."
- Assasination Followup Briefing
- Mir's POV.
- The XO is stable, but unconscious.
- Mir has officially taken over command, as per regulations, temporarily gaining the rank of Commander simply to keep the chain of command straight. This has been confirmed with Command.
- Doctor has issues with this, but Mir finds support among the rest of the staff.
- She has a briefing with her staff, attempting to put the pieces together:
- As far as security can tell, this was a deep cover agent, and he's acting alone.
- Mir has been in contact with Intelligence, and they agree that his was likely acting alone. They, however, are unsure what his goal was, so now they're left putting the pieces together.
- The most telling piece of evidence is that whatever he was doing seems rushed.
- Chief Danielles suggests that maybe the Terrans weren't suspecting the Archigos would be involved in this operation. He may have taken it upon himself to attempt to disable the ship in the best way he could. His targets were clearly the captain and XO, what better way to disable a ship than to remove it's leadership?
- Mir agrees with Danielles's assessment.
- Big, 'So no what?' moment.
- Mir asks how this could be used to their advantage, and that spawns the idea of acting like the Terrans succeeded. Meanwhile, they'll be laying an ambush.
- Sean gets setup
- Sean's POV.
- Another report from Intel; details what the spy was planning on doing.
- Sean is convinced, and is primed for the Archigos to not be a threat.
- David waits for the signal
- David's POV
- Establish David and Glyse, along with the rest of the squadron.
- They're waiting inside of freighters, and the Terrans are about to arrive.
- Tension mounts, but the signal is given. They power up, and launch.
- Chiefs of Staff Deliberate
- Chairman of Chiefs of Staff POV
- Goal is to establish the political intrigue, and how there's a lot of political bullshit going on.
- They decide that making sure a war is declared is the only way forward.
- Rekonin Interlude
- Liz POV
- Liz gets a secure message telling her about Tel'Erani, and that she needs to take the ship there.
- Liz has a brief interaction with Rekonin
- Liz wonders how they expect her to do that when she hasn't retaken the ship yet.
- Terrans Arrive
- Sean POV
- They arrive and he gives the order for the Interdictor to start spinning up
- ETA thirty minutes before the gravity generators are ready to close the system off to subspace.
- Archigos makes big threats, and Miranda looks like a scared little girl.
- Sean taunts her, and she opens fire.
- Sean orders his ship to rake the Archigos, spending far more firepower on her than needed.
- The Archigos rolls, and takes a hard hit.
- Sensors show they've lost fifty percent of their missile tubes, and one of their two reactors scrammed.
- Estimate is that they're crippled, and a slow, uncontrolled spin seems to confirm.
- Reactor Roulette
- Daniels' POV
- Archigos did take a mortal blow, but not a fatal one.
- He's trying to get the first reactor back online, but it's going to take take hours.
- He tells them to take the safeties offline and prepare to shunt plasma from reactor 2
- This could cause reactor 2 to scram, meaning they're out of the fight, no matter what
- If this works, reactor one and two will be back to full power in minutes.
- He calls up to the bridge, to tell them the "good" news
- Sean and the freighters
- Sean sends a message to the colony, informing them that anyone who doesn't want to be a member of the People's Republic has twenty minutes to leave.
- His Exec points out that this will cause a needless panic on the colony, and Sean says he knows.
- Exec asks why, and Sean says, "Because, at the end of the day, they're going to resent and hate us, no mater what we do. It's better to give them a reason we control than to let them invent their own."
- A group of freighters makes a beeline out of the system, crossing right in front of the Terrans.
- Sean lets them go, because survivors help spread fear.
- As they are leaving, two of the freighters explode. In the confusion, the Terrans almost don't notice the full squadron of fighters that came roaring out. Immeditately Sean's ship takes a few hits, as the fighters make run for the Interdictor.
- Sean starts shouting orders to launch fighters to intercept, as he realizes he just got played.
- He does have the thought that at least he had the sense to smack the bitch down hard enough she wouldn't be able to get him in a pincher maneuver, like she'd planned. He grins.
- Archigos returns to the fight
- Mir's POV
- She makes the call to transfer the plasma, meanwhile, she waits for the ship's rotation to come around to a decent firing solution, and she fires a full barrage of missiles, while immediately stopping her rotation and chagrin forward
- Doing this puts a massive stress on the already stressed reactor, sending it way past the redline, and triggering a scram
- Daniels overrides at the last possible second, and the plasma drills a pinhole in the rear section of ship, exposing the reactor to space and nearly shutting it down.
- With some brilliant crosswiring, Daniels shunts a majority of the plasma to the second reactor, saving both. The sudden surge of power fuses parts of the main power grid and blows several systems, but both reactors are now online again.
- Daniels brings them both up to 80%, telling Mir that he'll work on getting her then next twenty percent as he can.
- Mir has the ship pivot and charges up the spinal grazer. It's a ridiculously overpowered weapon, that has a short range and required far too much power to make it worthwhile... normally.
- In this case it's devastating.
- Unfortunately, the Terrans start returning fire. Neither of the ships were designed to fight at these 'knife fighting' distances, giving the Archigos and edge, but it can't absorb nearly as much damage as the Battlecruisers.
- They're not going to last long, they need to take out the Interdictor, but the Battlecruisers won't let her near enough to get a shot.
- She charges up the front Grazer again, but instead reconfigures the front subspace engines, turning it into a wedge.
- She pulls the ship back as far as she dared, and then pours on as much acceleration as she can.
- One of the Battlecruisers see what she's doing, and moves in the way.
- Mir calls 'brace for impact', and tell the helms officer to keep pouring the acceleration on.
- Sean gives up the fight.
- Sean's POV
- He realizes what is going on, and abandons ship.
- Selene has his shuttle already prepared, he leaves as the Archigos slams into his former ship.
- An offer she can't refuse
- McKenzie's POV
- McKenzie meets with Miranda in sickbay; she's been there for the last month, and is about to go stir crazy.
- There has been a lid put on information; she knows she's at a League facility, but doesn't know what happened, or anything.
- McKenzie apologizes, part of what's been going on has been an extended vetting process for the surviving crew.
- The other part is that some political maneuvering had to happen, so everyone's had a lid put on them.
- McKenzie tells Mir what's happened
- First, the Archigos and her crew survived... at least, somewhat. The ship's in dry dock and will be for a long time
- Eighty percent of the crew survived, which was impressive.
- All three Terran ships were salvageable, though very few people on the Interdictor survived.
- The Rekonin arrived on site just after Mir rammed the Archigos into the Terrans, that was part of what helped the survival rages on all sides.
- Mir is upset because it means that she didn't need to sacrifice anyone, since the Rekonin could have taken them all out.
- McKenzie informs her that while impressive, the Rekonin is an experimental ship and had about five crew members. It would have struggled with a fight.
- And it the fact that she achieved her nearly impossible objective without knowing backup would be there so quickly was even more impressive.
- Congress has declared the ceasefire violated, while the Terrans have tried to deny wrong doing.
- A series of Terran attacks on League registered merchant ships a few days after Tel'Erani, however, have convinced public opinion (as well as the Neutral NorAellians) that the Terrans were looking for a fight.
- War has officially been declared, and the first battle (after Tel'Erani, of course) happened three days ago.
- Mir is uncertain how she feels about this war, and McKenzie basically says he feels like they've been forced into it.
- Mir asks what happens to her now, and McKenzie makes his offer
- He likes the cut of her jib, and wants her as one of his commanders, but she's young. Way young.
- Normally he's watch her career for a few years, then pounce, but there isn't time now.
- He's offering her command of the Rekonin.
- Before she accepts, what she needs to understand is that the Rekonin is rather... special needs.
- The AI is experimental, and she's a little bit... of an odd duckling. There's still bets by some of the research team on how long before she goes psycho and kills everyone onboard.
- The ship is full fo experimental tech that could stop working at any point.
- The types of missions she will be sent on will not be standard fair, and as the ship is officially assigned to Intelligence, they're more likely to be the kinds of things no one ever hears about, not the battles that get you fame and recognition.
- She will be giving orders to people who will resent her, because of the huge bump in rank.
- If she fails, there's no review board, no second chances, no transfers. People will likely die, and she will be dishonorably discharged, and her record sealed.
- This is a one-way ticket, most likely. Very few captains leave the realm of Intelligence once they get into it.
- Mir accepts, she feels that not only is it what needs to be done, but none of those caveats scare her.
- Time to meet the crew
- Mir's POV
- Mir is heading to the Rekonin, and meets up with her new Exec, Daniels and chief engineer Lopez.
- Fun dialog, and such. Explore them a little more.
- Mir goes on board the Rekonin, and meets both Liz and Rekonin.
- Liz has been hanging around because Rekonin asked her to, until she meets her captain.
- Liz has some words for Mir about Rekonin... both warning, and guidance.
- Rekonin also has her own things to say.
- Sean becomes a monster
- Sean's POV
- Sean is in a cell, has been only slightly mistreated.
- They have been trying different tactics on him, but he's resisted them all.
- Successfully got two guards to assist him, but then they took away the guards.
- Finally, he has a meeting with Mr. Zaine
- Zaine explains that there's a problem; they don't trust Sean
- Sean claims that the problem is with them, not him, anyone can see that he'll server them if it's in his best insterests, and considering what he's seen, how could it not?
- Zaine points out that's not the problem. The problem is they want the monster, without loosing the useful bits of the man.
- Zaine explains that they want him to cut lose, and be a horrible rapist murderer.
- Sean agrees, but only if he can lead their invasion force. And have Selene as his right hand woman.
- Zaine says fine, but only if he goes all monster on Selene.
- Also, Sean is now as strong as a Sooni. Because Zaine is a madman.
- NorAellian and Lyndri problems
- Kashk POV
- Introduce him, and his life
- He's old, and has had many 'broods', but his heart belongs to a non NorAellian
- She is a Lyndri, and while they're not compatible for mating, they're compatible in other ways.
- Things have been tense since the Lyndri declared war on the NorAellians
- Lyndri Ambassador wants to know the truth
- The NorAellians are responsible for the Lyndri birth problems. They consider it their second greatest sin.
- Greatest is the extermination of the GikDaa
- There was a war. The NorAellians were spurned on by the threat of the Sooni.
- The Lyndri had sided with them, and the NorAellians were very uncomfortable with this alliance.
- Sean gathers information
- Terran Intelligence Officer POV
- There is an attack on a Terran monitoring outpost
- Terran officer doesn't know who's attacking them, but hears screams and horrible noises.
- Sean gives him a choice: give him access to the outpost's files and die, or don't tell him and live.
- Officer doesn't understand why death is the incentive, and Sean smiles. "Do you want to see the other survivors?"
- Guy still hesitates, and Sean pins him against the wall, takes the guy's hand, and jabs his own finger through his own eye.
- Guy screams meanwhile Sean explains that this is why Death is preferable.
- Guy agrees to give him access to the files
- Sean has the guy unlock the files, and then tells Selene to take him to the shuttle.
- Guy objects, saying, "You said you'd kill me!"
- Sean retorts with, "And I will. But not today, you're too useful."
- Emelyn intro
- Emelyn's POV
- Spring Endeavour is about to perform a raid on a Terran military convoy.
- They have the timing perfect, and they drop out of subspace, but immediately their plan is thrown off.
- The convoy is broken in space, having been tossed about like toys.
- The colony below is burning, and they're bombarded with distress signals.
- There is a ship in orbit that does not match anything they've ever seen.
- It fires an impressive array of missiles, and Spring's Endeavour takes several hits.
- Emelyn sends one of their Ares escorts to get help, and Emelyn settles in for a battle.
- First battle with the Grey
- Mir's POV
- Liz is here, too
- The Rekonin arrives on station, finds a damaged Spring's Endeavour near the colony.
- Emelyn is fine, as are most of her crew, but her ship's taking quite a few hits, now.
- She's mostly open to vacuum, though they're working to seal breaches.
- One reactor's completely down, the other is damaged, but functional.
- Most of her short range weaponry's offline, but her missile tubes are nearly all functioning.
- Her subspace engines are heavily damaged, but they've been configured for pure maneuvering, and crosswired like a christmas tree.
- The mysterious ship is still in system, Ganymede has been shadowing it for nearly thirty hours now.
- It tried to leave the system, but Ganymede followed it, so it reversed course
- It is trying very hard to destroy Ganymede, but the smaller Ares class is just maneuverable enough to keep from taking too many hits.
- Ganymede has been taking more and more damage from glancing blows, and her crew's exhausted.
- Skylark relieves Ganymede along with an escort squadron of Rekonin's.
- Mir offers a shuttle of spare parts and engineers, which they accept, as does Spring's Endeavour.
- Liz offers his ship to deliver the teams and supplies; she was going over anyway.
- Rekonin suggests Liz keep her ship on station and use it to help cover Spring Endeavour's failing point defense.
- The mysterious ship queries for Rekonin's identity, and they respond with League. It immediately moves to intercept.
- Thanks to Skylark, they're able to see the missile launches immediately; there's over 250 incoming.
- Rekonin is able to figure out the missile profile, and improve their ability to track, but even with Skylark and her own fighters on station, it's difficult to track this ship.
- Miranda orders a return barrage, but _Rekonin points out that at this distance, she won't be able to control the missiles in real time, so they will be less effective.
- Mir understands, and is alright with that.
- The battle begins in earnest, as both ships accelerate away, the mystery ship chasing the Rekonin.
- It pours on the acceleration, reaching 2000 gravities.
- Rekonin matches, smoothly sliding to 2100, and opening the gap.
- Mir asks what the upper limit on her acceleration is, and Rekonin replies with, "We've pushed 2500 gravities before, but anything over 1500 and heat builds up inside the hull. Life support can't dissipate it fast enough, and eventually the crew will cook alive." "How long do we have?" "About five hours before it gets incapacitating." "Good to know."
- Rekonin takes a few hits, but her armor's much more resilient than the Endeavour's.
- Rekonin is able to score a few hits, but the range is still too great.
- Mir orders that on the next hit, to drop acceleration to 1800 gravities.
- It takes thirty minutes, but the two ships finally get into 'real time' range.
- Almost immediately, both ships fire full barrages, and the missiles are much more accurate on both sides.
- The other ship takes a huge hit, as does Rekonin.
- Both ships drop acceleration, and Mir orders Rekonin to reverse course, closing on the other ship.
- Mir's plan is to use the primary weapon on them.
- Turns out both ships were thinking the same thing, and have the same weapon.
- Rekonin takes a bad hit, but so does the other ship. It is dead in space.
- The Invasion has begun
- Simon and Abby are paying a visit to the head of the Terran noble family that took his family's assets when he was imprisoned.
- Abby is pretty bored with this, but she's going along because she likes "playing" with people.
- Liz is waiting for them, but won't say why.
- Abby is super excited to see Liz, and clearly likes her.
- Simon wants to know why she's here.
- Liz basically says she came here for "no reason" and taunts him a little about why he's here before leaving.
- Simon goes to kill the guy, only to find he's dead, and there's a video from Liz.
- It shows security footage of nobles being killed all over Terran space, and it ends with a message from Liz basically saying this happened to the League too, and is a prelude for invasion.
- Assassination attempt on McKenzie
- Jirael is meeting with McKenzie, asking for information on the Sooni.
- We get to see McKenzie from a new perspective, and Jirael knows more about his past than any previous perspective character, as well as just her views on both the universe as a whole, and him.
- There's a lot of flirting between the two, mainly because both are terrible flirts, but also because she has always been attracted to his type of person in general, and to him in particular.
- It is made clear, however, that she is content with her choice of partners, and loves Kashk. But that doesn't stop her from enjoying entertaining some of these other ideas, briefly.
- McKenzie tries to explain how he will not be giving her the information she wants, and why.
- Just knowing this information in dangerous, and since she's stated she plans to go after the Sooni, it's double-so.
- She does not understand the kind of opponent they're facing.
- As they are talking, an officer interrupts them to deliver a pad to McKenzie
- This is intended to mirror the scene from earlier where Rees is killed by a booby-trapped pad.
- As McKenzie is reading it, the officer attacks Jirael, intending to remove the distraction in a single blow, before focusing on McKenzie.
- The only reason Jirael survives is because she can sense/smell the Focus the man is using right before attacking.
- Battle ensues, with Hayes coming in and helping to save McKenzie and Jirael.
- Jirael is injured, but survives.
- Dave and Glyse learn of the attacks
- David learns that the Prometheus has gone dark. That usually means she's changing location.
- There was no official location change scheduled. Meaning that this is probably prompted by an emergency.
- Glyse admits that she's been in contact with the Heretics, and they've said some shit is about to go down.
- There's a small fight between the two; David and their Dad do not support her being involved with them, meanwhile Glyse wants to follow in her mother's footsteps.
- Glyse is clearly trying to take all of this burden on her.
- David thinks they should tell the captain, Glyse expresses concerns.
- Glyse has a very low opinion of the Captain, thinking she's still too green for the position she's in.
- David is giving her the benefit of the doubt, and it's not like it matters; she's is their captain, after all.
- Sean gains control over the Grey.
- A Grey is reporting the loss of the Battle Cruiser, and being very disrespectful
- It becomes clear that one of the reasons for the loss was an unwillingness to follow his orders.
- Sean uses this as a moment to not only earn the respect of the Grey, but to take control over them by promising to return them to their former religion and pain/death spreading ways.
- Sean kills the disrespectful Grey, while the others seem ready to follow him.
- In the hallway, he reveals to Selene that Mir survived, and that he plans to utterly break her.
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff are killed
- Harper was a Sooni, and killed most of them.
- He was undercover for forty years.
- Sarkozy managed to escape, but was grievously injured.
- Before leaving, there's signs that Freeland also survived, but Harper has to rush away before Kashk arrives.
- Liz and Emelyn watch the world burn
- Give a good idea of the chaos from the murders.
- Show the two of them being couple-y.
- Rekonin arrives on station at Prometheus' last known position.
- There is an interdiction field up, which the Rekonin punches through rather easily.
- Inside, it's clear that all hell has broken loose.
- There are several disabled ships, but a few others are fighting each other.
- One half-finished dreadnaught is making a run for the edge of the interdiction, planning on punching through.
- McKenzie is onboard the Archigos, chasing the dreadnaught
- The Archigos is still heaving damages, and clearly in the middle of being rebuilt.
- No one knew McKenzie was rebuilding her, or even how much of her had survived. The reports were that she was a total loss.
- McKenzie explains that it was a way to let him get his ship back under his command without politically uncomfortable questions, or appearing too sentimental.
- "Hell, this is the ship my son was born on. It's the whole damned reason I ever learned about the Sooni in the first place. Without it, I'd be dead a dozen times over. This old girl and I have give too much of ourselves to each other for me to let her rust in space. Even if all that was left of her was a scap of bulkhead, I'd rebuild her, exactly as she was."
- Rees was a close friend of McKenzie, as have been all the captains of Archigos; he made it a point to pull political strings as best he could to make sure she had the best of the best.
- McKenzie asks Mir for two favors. First, he's got some wounded he needs shuttled over, and second, he needs help taking down the dreadnaught. Disabling preferred.
- A highspeed shuttle transfer occurs under light fire, as Aesir squadron runs cover.
- Daniels is very impressed by how McKenzie handled Archigos noting just how much difference there was between his handling of her, and Mir's.
- Rekonin dishes out some very good hits, but is unable to prevent the dreadnaught from escaping.
- McKenzie requests Rekonin's help in pacifying the rest of the situation, and says he's coming on board.
- More stuff happens. TODO: Update with what was written
- Miranda defends a Terran colony world from attack.
- As they're about to disable two super dreadnaughts, another group of 'less bad' Terrans show up, and interfere, but are willing to talk.
- Mir arranges for a meeting.
- Liz fights some Sooni she finds, gets her ass kicked, but escapes.
- McKenzie comes up with a plan to win.
- P.S. the Sooni are destroying whole worlds.
- Mir bargains with the Terran, and gains the first converts.
- The Marines help rescue Liz
- The Marines start providing suppressing fire and some nice fireworks to help Liz in her escape.
- She doesn't question, and they make their way to her ship, and get off the base.
- As they leave, they blow their shuttle and several other explosives they'd rigged up around the base
- It's not enough to take the base out, but it's enough to seal the Sooni in for the time being.
- Liz then asks what the hell they're doing so far from the Dreadnaught?
- They'd tried to put in the call to the League, but the nearby base wasn't responding on subspace.
- They saw her land, and decided to wait and watch. When the fireworks started, they came to help.
- Shen informs them about the Fall, and that McKenzie's is now president.
- They inform her that they've got something that might help; in the action on the Dreadnaught they managed to get ahold of some Sooni tech. They think it's some kind of data device, but maybe communication, too.
- Having some experience with Sooni tech, she confirms, and they burn hard for Prometheus.
- Simon is sitting alone, in the dark, with a very terrified passenger.
- Simon’s goal here is to two fold; first, it’s to get the Grey attack covered, in a way that he can be sure will actually work… but second, Simon wants to remind the universe he exists. He wants them to fear him, again.
- Simon has them waiting in a ship, the power turned down.. for something. The Journalist is interviewing Simon, who has taken him hostage.
- After explaining a bit about who and what he is, and how he came to be, Simon has to begin concentrating. That leaves the Interviewer alone with two of Simon’s creations; Jack and Julia. Julia provides most of the information, while Jack mainly interjects random points.
- The scene ends as a Grey attack begins. Jack says they’ve been detected, and Julia explains that was part of the plan. The journalist needs to see these creatures for himself.
- Emelyn now has a Terran Base. Ho Ho Ho.
- They just captured it a few hours ago.
- Daniels and Hitori are there as 'consultants', to help her get everything setup and figure out how to organize.
- They've been give 'leave' from their captains, and this is how they chose to spend it.
- She has formed a 'Freelance Militia' that is gaining ships by the day, almost by the hour.
- Several colonies have expressed a desire to form an alliance, and turn their defense force command over to the Militia.
- There's so much to coordinate, and yet, they seem to have the right people to get everything done.
- They aren't going to be the best pure fighting force, but they can do more important things; they can provide critical supplies, handle refugees, run blockades, and bring the pain against opertunistic assholes. That's far more flexibility that the strained League fleet is able to provide right now.
- Em and Daniels and Hitori make some more plans, and start picking where they're next going to strike.