FFTU- Act 1 Options

[Luck]

-=-=Kotganthor=-=-

The night was dark except for a few bright white lights moving at a fairly quick pace between the numerous trees in one of the few non-republic controlled Jungle sectors of Kotganthor. The small team of 30 of the Paar Republic’s best soldiers had nearly made it to the entrance of the Glenn’s underground tunnel system.

“Move in quietly, shards up front. I want this operation to go down with as little contact as possible with the hostiles!” said the Teams leader. He was about 5 foot 5, the largest one in the group. His name was Master Sergeant Kraah a veteran of the Paar’s galactic expansion campaign, and one of the few Paar in the division to have participated in every expansion into the Glenn territory on Kotganthor. He peered down and spotted a large clearing in the trees, flood lights filled the area marking one of the many roads through the trees that lead to other above ground enterances into the Glenn’s enormous hive system honeycombing this entire quadrant of the planet.

Peering through the trees, trying to stay as concealed as possible to any guards that might be waiting outside, Kraah counted six of the large humanoid creatures. A much higher number of guards than they had expected at what recon had marked as a Grub Farm.

Kraah motioned to his troops, splitting their numbers in two to surround the clearing, the Glenn didn’t know they were there, with that element of surprise they might just be able to clear the entrance without alerting the possible up to fifty other soldiers that had been spotted entering and exiting this hive. The sergeant looked at his tactical map, all but three of his troops had made it into their positions and had switched their status beacons to green. Kraah shifted to get a good vantage point on one of the Glenn with his Shard rifle and checked his Map again, All good to go. He lifted his hand to signal the rest of his troops to open fire, but was interrupted by the loud rumbling of a Transport vehicle headed into the clearing. “Damn” thought Kraah, as he watched an additional squad of 5 Glenn unload from the vehicle and begin carrying large boxes of supplies into the entrance of the Hive.

Kraah’s radio chirped, it was his second in command on the other side of the clearing. “Sir, those unloading the boxes are not warrior caste Glenn, they will not interfere with the mission, should we proceed?” he asked. Kraah paused for a second, unsure what to do. He had been in engagements before and had seen civilians cause just as much, if not more damage than warriors on several occations. At the same time, however, this group was unarmed and encumbered by large crates, they wouldn’t be able to get away before being gunned down, carrying those.

“We proceed as planned. Wait for my signal” ordered Kraah, who once again lined up his sights to hit his target square in the chest… Kraah raised his hand, and gave his order, “open fire”.

[Augor]

-=Onboard the Obsidian=-
[Captain's Quarters]

Titus yawned and stretched his legs after waking up from a restless night's sleep. The Keldar fleet had finally tracked a group of raiders back to the Obsidian and was informed regularly that the entire combined fleet from the Triumvirate of Alliances was on it's way. He looked at the clock next to him "ugh... 2 hours and counting" He rubbed his eyes, ready to call for a jump to the backup coordinates, hopefully they wouldn't jump into a comet again... that's how they had lost the Garnet, the third Homeship. A few survivors here and there, but mostly wreckage from the gigantic explosion that had resulted. The overhead chimed in just then:

"Sir, the scouts have come back and say they've found a promising new hunting ground, as well as coordinates near a nebula we can hide out in." The commsman called out.

Titus walked over to the radio, pushed the talk button and grunted a sleepy confirmation, "I'll be there in a few seconds." He put his uniform on and quickly made his way to the bridge, tapping his card onto the reader and the door sliding open, the computer softly calling out "captain on deck." Titus made his way to the commsman, "What've you got for me" he asked groggily. "Yeah, over here." He walked over to the galaxy map, pushed a few buttons, and a portion of a new galaxy popped up. He touched the hologram and zoomed it into a nebula and the general surrounding area. "Right here," he tapped it and a small yellow box appeared next to the nebula, "is the area we're looking at jumping into, and then sub-lighting into the nebula, over here" he took both hands and outlined an area, "here, here, and here," he continued outlining, "are potential planets with life, and trade routes." He smiled and looked back at Titus was lost in thought. "Are they confirmed routes or just potential?" He asked. The commsman replied "Well, the scouts said there were a few unidentified crafts moving around the area." "Hmm, okay, we have confirmed coordinates, no possibility of collision this time?" "No sir, the recon that was in that area scanned it VERY carefully to make sure we don't have another... incident."

"Okay, call in the fleet and have them be ready to jump in an hour." Titus was relieved, backup sites were often set in previously plundered space, close to stars to mask the jump signature, which occasionally would put them rather close random flying debris. One time they had to make an emergency jump accidentally into a solar flare, which knocked out their electronics for the longest time, forcing them to try and link up the Homeships to the nearest planet so they wouldn't drift apart while repairs were being made.

[Synfyre]

Standing on the edge of a field, a 'Fyre with darkened eyes looks over a colony's farm plots, he reached into his shirt and scratched at the plagu'e that was clinging there, a tendril stabbing into the base of the neck to control the 'Fyre. It began it's way down to the village and small spaceport that had been placed there at the colony's founding. skittering through the grass around it were many other plagu'e parasites, following the 'Fyre into the town proper, they skittered into buildings, catching people while working or sleeping unawares and subverting them. Soon, the lone 'Fyre was joined by a mob of people, all walking through the streets toward the spaceport, where a shuttle craft and some military units were beginning to lock down the settlement. This town was all that was left of the 'Fyre, but being so far flung it had just recently heard of what happened on the home planet, and all that was left was a shuttle craft with one squad of 'Fyre marines, who'd been drilling on this planet when the news reached them.

That lone 'Fyre had been out taking a piss on the edge of a field when he got caught but a plagu'e, and then lead the rest of the parasites into the town, they tapped into his knowledge, they knew every 'Fyre in that town, where they lived, who they had relationships with and everything about the land surrounding the town. The 'Fyre walked in the spaceport, past a security checkpoint where he flashed his badge, his wife worked in the control tower and he visited her when he was finished in the fields. He was wearing a jacket with the collar upturned, the climate was cold so it was expected, and it hid the parasite clinging to his back and controlling him, in one of the pockets was another parasite, itching for a host. He opened the door to the control tower, a small one of the size of the space port, and walked up behind his wife.

"Hello"

"George! you're a bit early coming in from the fields, if everything alright out there?"

"It is fine."

"You ok? you should kind of tired, like you're a zombie or something! " she pushed his shoulder playfully, but he was rooted in place, his hand in a pocket of the jacket.

"I am fine."

"hrmph, alright. I've got an hour left on this shift, but you can sit up here with me."

"that sounds fun." As she turned back to her console, george pulled the parasite out of the pocket with one hand, and used the other to wrap around her neck.

"George! what're you doing!? " but her question was choked off by his left hand, as the right hand placed the parasite at the base of her neck, where it clung on, ignoring her muffled screams and stabbed it's tendril into the base of her neck. Her noises cut off and her face went blank and slack, then was fixed with an empty expression. George backed away, she looked back and nodded, turned back to the console and locked down all communications and traffic, the docking clamps on the shuttle locked into place, it was going nowhere.

[Luke]

Killion never really liked the Drynet. Somehow, the Arcadence entities circulating through their interstellar computer networks never seemed fully real to him, even less when they downlinked into shells. Emotionless, methodical, and ironically disconnected.

He hated jacking in.

Sunlit familiar surroundings vanished from his several eyes, and darkness surrounded him. From orthogonal directions, an infinite red grid raced towards him over the horizon. Various geometric shapes stretched into impossible existence around him. Killion wretched.

Avatars blazed trails of gold by him. One stopped. Pure thought hit Killion's neural stem: 'You are Detective Killion. Follow.'

It took effort to respond: "slowly, please. It's been awhile"

"You waste cycles. 001:005:099:842"
The avatar disappeared.

Killion forgot his anger over the coordinates. The secured Government Network coordinates.
Murder in a secured network?

Translations through the drynet always made Killion queasy. He never acquired the mental disconnect from sensation of motion. Making it through the gate was easy enough. They must have set up a secure wetbridge. Two specially created and trained Arcadence shells bridged the gap between disconnected drynets.

Killion's locator screen glowed with 001:005:099:000. He entered the datablock numbered 842. Pure thought struck again: "Detective, glad to see you." a faceless government Arcadence avatar pulsed. Others glowed with affirmation. "Subject is Minister of State Virtak. His body wasn't responding to reflex stimuli this morning when he was found in his office jacked in. Avatar is logged as being here the entire time. Our lab techs have agreed that he isn't, and they can't find him in the secure drynet. His body is now dead. We need to know what happened here, and where your Minister of State's mind is."

[Augor]

-=Obsidian=-

"Only an hour left... shit," Titus quietly swore to himself, "Where the hell is that last raid party!?" He yelled to the fleet response officer, "and how much longer do we have to charge until we can make a jump?" He asked the engineering officer. "Sir, we will be ready to jump in 5 minutes-" engineering was cut off short by the FRO "Sir, the last party just checked in, they say they were in mid-hyperspace when they hit an inhibitor field and all communications were scrambled, but manged to take out the small patrol squad, and should be arriving shortly." Just then, there was a bright flash of blue light, followed by red. "Sir, two raid cruisers just dropped out of hyperspace... and are requesting to dock with... the Obsidian?" Everyone looked puzzled, homeships weren't meant for docking with anything bigger than a destroyer, the bays simply weren't big enough. Titus chuckled, everyone knew this fact, especially the captains he put in charge of his raid groups. "Well, looks like we can't win every fight, but we can certainly give them false information to save everyone else, let it be recorded that every tak on those ships went down a hero, defending Obsidian to their deaths, and then after."

The two cruisers sat where they had arrived, waiting for clearance to dock with the Obsidian, waiting patiently to dock, and then send aboard a crew of marines to attempt to take the flagship, or at least disable it so the rest of the Triumvirate's fleet could arrive to take care of it. Little did they know that the ships they had hijacked had deactivated all shields and passed on false information (standard protocol when in danger of losing a vessel to the enemy is to deactivate all defenses and tell them to dock with the Obsidian with a false clearance code.)

"You are clear to dock, sending docking waypoints now, Fleet Response Group out." Fleet response group, tasked with keeping the general fleet in order, handling all affairs with coordination, had sent them waypoints to go directly infront of the homeship's starboard railcannons, and they followed them, like sheep to the slaughter. As soon as they were both infront of one, all batteries opened fire on the cruisers, decimating them to dust and debris to be collected by salvage bots.

"Enemy targets destroyed, dispatching salvage drones." Weapons officer relayed to Titus. Titus looked at the time, "We have 45 minutes, we are jumping in 15, have ALL ships docked and ready to jump, NOW!" Titus we getting impatient, he was no fool, he knew better than to try and fight a losing battle.

Fifteen minutes later, the salvage drones were nearly 1/3 of the way through the wreckage of both ships, but recalled. The coordinates were punched in for their next destination, and the jump commenced, just as a forward recon unit came into sight. Space-time warped in on itself, making a perfect fold between their current location and the next, enabling them to slip through and pop up near the nebula.

[Luke]

Draz slammed the mental button labeled 'Disconnect' in his head, again. Third times the charm, right? His cyber-cortex was having none of it. In the Drynet, he was fleeing a backhack trace and software countermeasures that would shut down his motor cortex.

In the real world, he was fleeing aerial pursuit and Seeker-shells, each armed and ready to blow off all of his limbs and leave his brain intact, for interrogation.

Draz ran past confused Arcadence in the streets below Sunflower Tower, desperately seeking any fast vehicle. He couldn't hide as long as he was still connected to Drynet. He could hack a networked vehicle, but then they'd trace that. Well, you can always ditch a vehicle.

20 seconds later, Draz mentally commanded an unfortunate jetcraft down to ground level. Burning fuel and flames illuminated the street through an eerie curtain of dust kicked up by the descending craft. The passenger is obviously confused beyond belief. Draz commands the hatch to open, and noticing the passenger has a cyber-cortex, quickly signs "I just hacked your ride, I can hack your brain. Get the hell out if you don't want to get hurt." The passenger signs his compliance.

Just then, three of Draz's limbs he was using as legs are hit by lasers. The water in them flash-boils, and Draz's limbs explode.

Draz falls to the ground as four Seekers close in, slowly, methodically, unafraid of bodily harm. A shell looks down at Draz, who is now frozen in place, remaining limbs refusing to move. It burns off the rest of his limbs, one by one, just to be sure.

Detective Killion looks on from the command jetcraft.

[Cyril]

-Lost Colony-

Out of the galactic wind a neutrino flew through the vast emptiness of space, for the neutrino very little time had passed since the big bang, unchanging relativity made eons seconds. It crossed the sky at near light speed. This neutrino flew through the atmosphere of a world, missing trillions of bosonic particles, finally colliding with one very special carbon atom. That impact shattered the delicate crystalline structure of the rock layer it was in, causing a cascading reaction that breathed life into inanimate rock. It fell into a pool of water, dividing and dividing again. Thus arose the native lifeforms of what a latter day race would call Lost Colony.

They had come, settled the world, they had died. Veni, vidi, mori, but some spark of the latter day settlers remained on the planet, giving it sapient life where before it had none, through a quirk of genetics the DNA matter of the settlers was compatible with the native forms. But only after tens of thousands of years of savagery and descent had the lifeforms truly merged. The seemingly sentient gods of evolution had taken the sapience of the latter day settlers, which had been buried for millenia and awoken it in the native life. Driven by a near genetic memory of better times arose a race not entirely unlike us. Two arms, two legs, one neck, but some near buried event had fused the crystalline matrix of stone and given them an invaluable gift, binary thinking with organic processing, logic supplemented by unpredictability, the future was open.

[Synfyre]

The 'Fyre sitting around the shuttle were relaxing, listening to some music, when the docking clamps slammed shut, pinning the shuttle to the tarmac.

'The fuck!' The lieutenant, Meyers, recoiled from the clamp, 'Damn thing almost took my hand off! Hammond, call up to the tower, see what's up, the rest of you, establish a perimeter, this doesn't seem right.'

'Yeah meyers, we told them to keep us loose, something definitively ain't right.' He rocked the slide on his carbine to punctuate the sentence. He reached up to his shoulder and activated his walkie-talkie, 'Hey, control tower, what's going on up there? We told ya to keep us loose down here.'

The rest of the marines stared at Hammond, waiting for a response through the walkie-talkie.

-------

George stared at the walkie-talkie sitting on the table, he just stared at it, started reaching for it, then stopped, hand hovering above the walkie-talkie sitting in it's charger. He paused and just stared. Then reached forward and picked it off the cradle, bringing it to his face.

'Gentlemen, sorry for the inconvenience, we had a server crash on us up here. Gonna be a bit before we get it back up and the lock down is over. Uhhh, hold on, something is happening....' At the geothermal plant on the edge of town, a subverted 'Fyre overloaded the geothermal pump capacity, burning out the pump and blowing the transformers outside the plant. The town's electricity died.

-----------

The lights on the tarmac winked out, then the KRAK-BANG of the blown transformers echoed through the empty town, the 'Fyre marines at the shuttle stiffened up, Meyers keyed his walkie-talkie, 'control, what the fuck was that'

'*zrckt* seems we've lost power... everywhere. Those clamps are totally electronic, they aren't going anywhere, we're going to send a crew down to try to get you loose.'

'Good deal, control.' Meyers keyed off his walkie-talkie, 'guys, keep alert, this shit does not seem kosher to me, Hammond and Wesley, head into the spaceport, see what's going on. The rest of you, keep your eyes peeled, Perdue, make sure the shuttle is still good to go.'

'aye'

[Luke]

Voidship Carth has a crew of one. Some considered it arrogant to name her own ship after herself. She considered it logical. Once loaded onto the ship's banks, in effect the ship was her.

Carth was an explorer, one of the first and one of the best.

Her ship was a sleek thing, at home in atmosphere or deep space. An obsidian dart with fusion engines on one end and a needle point on the other. It siphoned reaction mass out of interstellar hydrogen with a gigantic magnetic field. A solar sail was her backup. Carth was already several thousand years old, and she had spent some 500 of them waiting to get back to Arcadence civilization after a particularly poor planet-searching run. So she didn't mind waiting in low power mode for extended periods of time while her ship slowly crawled back out of a system, but being stuck sucked.

Exploring wasn't paying the bills anymore, though. Carth needed a job, and took up one as a courier, ferrying secure data and materials between worlds in Arcadence space. Someday she'd have enough stockpiled money and metals to build a new ship, one of those fancy reactionless drive kind that the Space Forces had. No more getting stuck in the doldrums once she had that. With this in mind she accepted a job from a guy. Get a sensitive data archive to Sezth Station in the Mercatio System. And no peeking.

At the spaceport with the archive properly stored, Carth's mind jumped out of her rented shell and into her ship. She boosted to orbit, coasted through a fuel cloud a couple times, then was on her way.

[Cyril]

-Lost Colony-

Observers Report 07

...Classification-HYDRO, LACONIC STOP

Solar Body: Aleph Lamed

Planetary Body: Aleph Null

Mass: 1.1 average planetaries

Planetary Composition: Silicon, Cobalt-Manganese core

Planetary Geology: Diverse, larger proportion of water to land than planetary average, higher elevation, increased probability of planetary volcanic activity has forced evolutionary changes.

Sapient Life: 1 Species, Development Index 1.2

Sapient Chosen Name: Altos (Those who are)

Species Classification: Archaea Mare Reperio

Biological Specification: Normal sophont physiology, toughened skin-inclusion of trace minerals, missing fifth small digit on foot, no visible tail, lack of appendix, lack of plica semilunaris, inclusion of mineral rich area in some sub dermal tissue and hind-brain. Dormant binary processing. Water dependent, inclusion of carbon and silicon as base materials.

Planetary Impact: Third generation forests, dependent on recycling, strip mining waste reused and refilled, developed lunar and intra-planetary colonies, establishing Oort cloud and extra-solar system colonies.

Government: Fractional, planetary coalition, pseudo-meritocracy, direct census via dormant binary processes

Leader(s): N/A, best analogy is Foreign Affairs Council

Military: Primary, force induced fusion of target, tiny lithium/deuterium electrically propelled projectile initiates fusion on impact with target. Low-level induced gravity fields for star ship propulsion. Experimental use of gravitometric weapons ship-board.