SignsAndPortentsSigns and PortentsWhile the musician droids accompany Kieran on his jam session, Paril, Harmony and Gate leave him firmly and completely alone for a couple of solid hours of playing. In point of fact, 2 and a half hours after Kieran staggered off the bridge, Paril comes into the lounge... Kieran had just run through 'Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)' by Motley Crue and was midway through 'Love Stinks' by J. Geils when Paril walked in. "Are you ready to talk about it?" Paril says loudly as Kieran's latest song reverberates in the lounge with enough power to rattle Paril's teeth. Kieran finished the song before looking up at Paril. Powering down and setting his guitar aside, Kieran nods at the droids to disappear. He stares at Paril for a long moment, judging just how much to say about his feelings for the woman who was responsible for the deaths of all his family members. "Music says it all for those with the ears to listen;" Kieran finally says. "I have... issues with that woman;" he adds with a mixture of annoyance, amusement and speculation. "I know you have good reason to hate her, so if you'd rather not listen to me talk about Narek, I understand." "Thus we both have issues." Paril says. He steps inside. He gets up and scrounges around in the lounge for a moment or two before finding a pad of sketch paper and an ink pen. Sitting down at one of the tables, he begins to frame and then sketch a view of the bridge of Narek's ship while waiting for Paril to speak. "I suppose I should ask the obvious thing first." Paril says, taking a seat at the table opposite Kieran. "Is the b!tch dead?" Kieran chuckles ruefully; "That is a most excellent question my friend." Kieran quickly runs over the highlights of his latest encounter with Narek. He continues to work on the sketch of the bridge. "I think my improvisation of a mass driver weapon system using the giant's rings and a spell really grapped up her ship. I bugged out just as something roughly the size of a comet impacted the drive section." He smiles thinly; "If Narek's alive, she grapping hates me now." "As if she didn't before" Paril observes. Kieran flashes a quick grin. "True enough." "Why she keeps coming after me;" Kieran says quietly; "is what I would like to know." Once the sketch of the bridge of Narek's ship is done, Kieran turns to a fresh page and begins working on a sketch of the Arkanian woman. Paril looks over to regard the bridge of the ship. "That looks sort of like an Republic bridge, but its... different. The layout is not right." he observes. Kieran nods but continues working on the sketch of the woman. "Kieran." Paril says after a moment. "We travel, with that ability that your Mother and Father provided to you, between Keltia and my home universe, with some universes in-between." Paril says. "Mostly, its been a milk run back and forth, of empty space that we don't see much trouble of any kind. Present trip excepted." "What if some of these universes had star-travelling worlds on or near our routes?" Kieran pauses a moment to consider this before going back to the sketch. "If there are such worlds... civilizations capable of space travel, they could also travel along the path we take;" he says thoughtfully. "At least that's what I've been given to understand anyroad." He looks up briefly at Paril; "However, if the laws of physics in these universes differs greatly enough, ships that function per design specs in one universe may not in another. Not without some modifications and enhancements anyroad. Why do you ask?" "It just disturbs me that she was able to follow us this far on our route, Kieran." Paril says. "It feels like she revealed herself to us for a reason. Even if it was cloaked in that storm, I almost think that she wanted you to know it was her." "I just wonder if the days of quiet journeys are over, and we'll start having to deal with locals." Paril muses. "Locals who might start appearing in Keltia AND the Republic." "The paths are not easy to find if you don't know they are there;" Kieran says after a moment. "But they do act as a sort of path of least resistance for moving from one universe to the next once you're on one." Kieran nods at Paril's concerns. "While I've not asked, I've a feeling my parents laid down this path with that concern in mind. Perhaps not so much on the Republic end, but most certainly on the Keltic end. Plus on the Keltic end, you still wind up outside the territory controlled by the Kelts and have to know how to get in. On the Republic side, well, new races and civilizations are discovered from time to time there anyroad. If somebody from outside wanders in and wants to try taking over, I imagine the Emperor and his lackey Vader along with the Imperial Navy will find a way to stop them." Paril chuckles and grins. "It would take a lot to stop a full Star Destroyer fleet on the warpath." Kieran grins back. "Getting back to Narek;" Kieran says after a moment. "She told me she had assistance or training from someone outside Republic space. Someone who knows more about me than he or she should. The modifications to her ship, should allow it to function well beyond the universe of its origin." He pauses then, thinking the time has come to ask Mom or Dad to take him to Amber to walk the Pattern. "There are ways of moving through the multiverses, shadows, without leaving a permanent Path;" Kieran says. "It might be time to convince my parents of that." Paril looks at Kieran curiously at this comment. "Something like a Jedi initiation and training?" he asks. "Something like that, only more extreme;" Kieran replies. Paril gives a nod. If the sketches are done, Kieran will focus first on the Arkanian's. If contact is achieved, he'll start linking with the Holo Trump Deck and start adding the woman to the deck while observing the woman. In a few minutes more, the sketches are all done. Linking with the trump deck, he can feel free to focus on the trump sketch of the Arkanian woman. It takes a full minute for Kieran to achieve a contact. At first this seems to be because she is unfamiliar with the contact enough to make the actual connection difficult for Kieran to achieve. And then when the connection occurs, Kieran can see that the Arkanian is lying in an infirmary or medical bay of some sort on the ship. The ambient sound around her suggests that the Baroness' ship has survived, but is not in any particular great shape.
Kieran decides to try the polite route first. *A form of telepathy;* he replies with his own mental voice. *Though not exactly.* There is a slight feeling of disquiet. *You...you are one of the Jedi* the Arkanian states matter of factly. Kieran lets this slide by without comment.
Kieran finds a slight resistance, or hesitation to her answering. Its something like the remnants of the psychic block on her that he shattered not long ago.
Although she has not raised an alarm, Tonharay's eyes flicker back and forth. It doesn't take mental magic to realize that she is pondering the idea of raising an alarm, although the idea is only in the earliest stages of consideration.
Kieran sends soothing thoughts to Tonharay, trying to calm her fears and put her more at ease. If, however, she does try anything funny, Kieran will lock her down psychically and physically with his abilities. The soothing thoughts seem to calm her down. Her level of fear and apprehension, as felt through the mental magic of the trump call, drop significantly. >> *The ship was struck by a strangely appearing swarm of cometary material* Tonharay begins. *I do not know the full damage to the ship, however damage to the bridge was extensive and sudden enough that I suffered a concussion during the strike. I assume that her Highness still survives and commands the ship I have not heard otherwise. I have been in the infirmary since the strike, and know little else.* >> >> >> >> *I see* Kieran replies, continuing to put the woman at ease. *What are your normal duties aboard ship and on the bridge? This information is crucial if I am to assist the Baroness.* Kieran nudges her mentally to give her the idea that he, whoever he is, is here to help the Baroness. > > > > In the background, Kieran can see Paril rise and get himself a drink. He remains thankfully quiet, allowing Kieran to concentrate fully on the task at hand. > > > > *To assist the Baroness...* There is clear doubt in her mind and her voice. Kieran's nudge, and her (relatively) weak mind do convince her otherwise after some moments work. Her suspicion lapses as she continues her thought. > > > > *My duties, Ser, are as a Technician Second Class.* Tonharay, some pride coming into her mental "voice". *I monitor and adjust ship systems on the command of the Baroness or higher ranking officers.* > > > > After a moment. *How further can I help?* Tonharay asks. > > > > *And what were your exact duties and/or tasks at the time of the attack?* Kieran asks neutrally. Kieran is able to, over the next several minutes, to go deep on Tonharay's knowledge. While she is only a second class technician, she does have a few tidbits on the psionic-tech that Narek has been using (prototypes, as far as she is concerned, but Kieran gets some view of the devices in question--definitely not Republic-make). Tonharay is much less cognizant of Narek's plans. However, its clear that Tonharay knows that she is not in the world of the Republic, although the method of getting there has been chalked up by her as some Jedi power of the Baronness. A few passwords and logins round out the knowledge Kieran is able to get before its time to befuddle her mind about the entire affair, and end the connection. Kieran drops the sketch back down onto the table with a soft sigh, and then sends a mental command to his Holo Trump Deck to display Tonharay's image. A small image of the Arkanian woman appears above the HTD and slowly rotates. Another mental request and a holographic keyboard and monitor appears in front of Kieran. He starts entering information into the HTD concerning what he's learned about Narek's ship thus far. If Tonharay mentioned where the psionic tech stuff came from, that certainly gets added to the database. Paril comes around to look at the image and information. "Not bad looking, if you like Arkanians." he says. Kieran nods. While doing this, Kieran says to Paril. "Well, I have a source of information aboard Narek's ship now. Her ship has, indeed, survived. Narek too apparently, though I haven't tried confirming it yet. Her ship is going to need quite a bit of work to get it spaceworthy again." He grins. "And I'm not just talking about buffing out the scratches and repainting the hull either. "Good. The Baroness needs a hobby, one other than following you and I. Fixing her ship will do nicely." Paril says. Kieran looks up at Paril and nods his head. "Yes, yes she does at that, and that will serve for now." Done with data entry for now, the monitor and keyboard vanish, as does the image of Tonharay while Kieran leans back in his seat. He ponders his next call (the bridge of Narek's ship or Dad) while waiting to see what Paril says. His bon mot said, Paril continues after a moment. "It's a pity that your trick didn't destroy her ship." he says. "I suppose that it would have been too much to ask." "I was both stretching my abilities to their limits and lucky to have done the amount of damage I did;" Kieran replies. "If it weren't for the gas giant's rings, I would not have been able to do it at all." "I see two possibilities, given that she can travel between worlds." Paril continues. "She'll either make repairs and chase us through all of these worlds, assuming we have a trail she can follow..." Paril looks at Kieran questioningly at this point. Kieran nods slowly. "Or, she'll go back to the Republic, or whatever Palpatine renames it, and lie in wait for our return." " 'The First Galactic Empire' I believe he proclaimed it in the Senate Chambers;" Kieran replies. "Saw a HoloNet broadcast of is speech, well after the fact." He shrugs his shoulders. Paril makes a moue of disgust. Kieran nods his head. "Arrogant bastard, but what else would you expect from a Sith lord? I don't think his empire will last long, on the galactic scale." "We'll have to see about hastening the forces of history the next time we go back." Paril says. "But back to the Baroness and her travels..." he says. "If she has become aware of the Path between universes, she should be able to travel along it like we do. Even if she is not aware of the Path, she may be able to follow the trail of our engine's exhaust as we travel along the path. Though that should dissipate fairly quickly in normal space and be very faint or thin to begin with while we are in hyperspace." Kieran frowns thoughtfully. "I got the impression she was done with the Emperor and the Empire, though her crew doesn't exactly know that. I doubt she resigned her commission officially, so she could go back, if she needed to." "Then she isn't going to stay in the Re...Empire for long." Paril comments. "She'll repair her ship and then go reaving. Mainly because she can. Joy." "Reaving?" Kieran ponders. "I think she'll either go back to whoever's been training and aiding her lately for more assistance and then come after us, or just come after us again. If she can find us, that is." Paril's questions have decided things for him. "There is a way to obscure our trail, but I can't do it. Not yet anyroad. That's not to say she won't be able to track us down in time, it will just take her a great deal longer than she expects, or wants. I can't do it, but both my parents can manage it. Time to call home and arrange things." With that, Kieran focuses on the HTD and says; "Call Dad." A holographic image much the same size as the Arkanian woman but of his father appears above the HTD. Kieran concentrates on the image. The image of Percival Webster, son of Deirdre, husband of Brandeigh Douglas appears in view. Paril cocks his head to glance at it as Kiernan concentrates on the image. A half minute, no more, and the contact is made. The image comes to full life, of Percy standing on a mountain in Scota not far away from one of the Douglas holdings. "Kieran!" he says with a smile. "It's not my birthday...yet." "Hi Dad!" Kieran says with a smile of his own. *Dad's birthday? Maulk! How could I forget that?* He does some quick mental calculations to figure out just how much time is left before his father's birthday. A mental check, confirmed by Harmony, suggests that its nearly 5 months until Dad's birthday. "I know it's not;" Kieran says after a moment. "You busy? Some things have happened and I could use your advice on, and your help." He raises a hand quickly to put his father at ease; "I've dealt with the immediate problem. For now, anyroad. But I've a feeling, she'll be back in time." "*That* sort of problem?" Percy looks at his son skeptically. He looks at Paril, in his view and then back at Kieran. He then shakes his head and smiles. "Your mother is back home. She's feeling under the weather. Although she denies it could be the same thing, I remember the last time she felt exactly this way." He stares at his son for a long moment. Kieran, at first, gives his Dad a look as if to say 'Is there ever any other sort of trouble?' but then his expression grows confused then surprised as he says; "Oh? Oh! You think so? Good, someone else to be the heir to the throne of Scota." "Possibly" Father allows. "Yea, or Nay, I decided to give your Mother some space and go for a climb." Dad adds. "What sort of advice and help *do* you need?" "Short term; I need your help obscuring our trail in space. Since I can't get through Shadows without leaving the paths you and Mom laid down...;" Kieran shrugs his shoulders. "I need you to take us someplace my, our enemy can't easily find us." He stares at his father for a moment, then; "Long term; I need to be able to do this own my own. I need to go to Amber, Dad. It's time I walked the Pattern." "Your enemy." Percy replies, regarding his son. "Is it this Sith Duchess you've told me about? Or that pair you told me is now really running the Empire?" Percy asks. "Are they such a threat that they can follow you on the paths?" And then lower, as if mostly to himself "That's somewhat unexpected...Not that I am trying to talk you out of going to Amber." Father adds quickly. "I just want to understand why, given how risky it really is." Kieran sighs; "Baroness Narek Meanth, Dad." He frowns; "Not sure if she's actually a Sith or just a dark Jedi. There's a difference between the two, though the distinction does get overlooked at times." "Granted." Percy accepts the corrections with a nod of the head. He shakes his head; "No, Palpatine and Vader can not do so, and have not, to my knowledge, learned of the existence of the Paths. Only Narek has managed that." A long pause, then; "And she had help, Dad. From outside Republic space. Help that knew enough about me for Narek to name me as a Douglas. Help that has apparently taught her how to control ion storms. So, yeah, I think it's time to take the walk." "If I did not think it would be a spectacularly bad idea, I would want to meet Baroness Meanth." Percy says. "It is rather unexpected that she would find help from outside of the Republic's shadow or discover the nature of the Paths." Kieran remains straight-faced as his father says he'd like to meet the woman who is his ex-lover. "She may be a reflection of family, or someone of that sort of power." Percy says thoughtfully. "I mislike the idea she knows your family name." "You're not the only one;" Kieran replies. Kieran's attention perks up at the possibility of Narek being a reflection of someone related. "I guess that could be possible, though she doesn't look like anyone in the family's favorite deck of cards. I can show you a holo-image of her when you come aboard though. Maybe you'll see something I haven't." "Agreed" Percy says. "All right, I need to tell your mother what I am going to do. I will call you in an hour, my time. You will bring me through so that I can muddy your trail for the remainder of the trip here. Once you are here, you, your mother, and I will discuss plans for sending you Amberward." "Agreed?" Kieran nods his head; "That's fine, Dad. Thanks. I'll be expecting your call." If Percy has nothing more, Kieran will close the contact. Kieran's father nods, and so the contact with home and Dad, for the moment, closes. A soft chime from Harmony at that moment informs Kieran, and of course, Paril, that another shadow transition is imminent. It occurs without a hitch, Paril looking visibly relieved as the shadow boundary is crossed successfully. "What's the plan?" he asks. "My father will call me back in a while and then come through to us in order to obscure the trail;" Kieran says while standing up. "Then, we're going to Keltia, probably in a roundabout fashion so as to further cover our back trail." "The long and winding road." Paril quotes with a nod. "Been delving into the classics again, I see;" Kieran says with a smile. "I blame your parents." Paril replies with a smile. "Especially your mother, since she's the musically talented one." "In the meantime;" Kieran says glancing around the lounge area. "We clean the place up a bit, make sure one of the spare cabins is decent and stuff like that." He glances up at the ceiling; "Harmony, how far or long till the next shadow transition?" "We will reach the next Shadow boundary in an estimated one hour and thirty one minutes." Harmony replies. Gate, in the corner, beeps and whistles his agreement with the assessment. Kieran nods his head and replies; "Thanks." Close enough to the boundary without being directly on top it he thinks. Should be fairly easy to lay down a false trail or two, if Dad wants to. "Right, will fix one of the cabins for starters." Paril ducks out of the room, presumably to start cleaning a cabin to Dad's standards. Kieran walks over to the entertainment unit and keys in a request to hear the some songs from the Shadow Earth bands called Rainbow, starting with 'Man on the Silver Mountain', followed up by some Molly Hatchet, the Outlaws, Disturbed and DragonForce. Kieran's tastes in music are far ranging, after all. The volume's not nearly as loud as when he was playing earlier. And so with some background music, preparations for a guest can begin in earnest. A few minutes before the Shadow boundary, and with a fair amount of breathing room in having gotten the ship in general, and quarters for him in specific, in cleanliness and order, Kieran gets a call again from his Dad. While the pair are by no means slobs when it comes to house, or rather, shipwork or chores, Kieran and Paril are bachelors. So there are clothes, empty bottles, beverage containers, food wrappers and other stuff to clean up. Not to mention musical instruments, sheet music, recordings and the like scattered about as well. Still, its all fairly easy to clean up, especially when one has droids to help do the work. When the call comes in, Kieran verifies who the caller is, even though only about two people have trumps of him. Part of a habit, taught to him by his mother, after all. He routes the call through the HTD and takes it. The call indeed is from his father. Percy is back at the Douglas castle, from all appearances. "Hi again, Dad;" he says while commanding the HTD to expand and project Percy's image to life size and in front of Kieran. "You ready?" He holds out his hand to his father. Percy takes the hand and steps through into the entertainment room. After an embrace of Kieran, he steps away and looks around. Gate recognizes Kieran's father, and gives a small series of beeps and whistles of greeting. Percy gives the droid a nod and a smile. "All right." Percy says. "The sooner we start this, the better. Forward to the bridge." he says. "I take it your partner in crime is already there?" Kieran heads for the bridge, Percy and Gate in tow. "Criminals? Us?" he says with a smile. "Only if you mean the term as it was once applied to mother. The Rebellion had to get started sometime you know." "Like mother, like son." Percy agrees. "Paril?" Kieran asks after a moment. "Should be on the bridge unless he's still cleaning your cabin." Entering the bridge, Kieran glances around at the various displays and the view of space outside the bridge canopy. Paril is not here. Harmony confirms he is busily straightening things out throughout the ship. "We're less than a half hour from the next Shadow transition, Dad." He gestures to the pilot's chair. "You want to drive, or shall I?" "Oh, its been far too long since I've had a chance at a ship like this." Percy says. "Even if your mother is a better pilot than I am." "Now, your uncle Martin, he'd *love* this." Dad says as he gets set in the pilot's seat. He takes a few moments to look over the controls, eyes flickering to look at the displays. Kieran only smiles at this. If Percy thinks Voyager is impressive, he'll positively drool over the Azure Flame. "All right." Percy says. "Let's get started. I'll let you handle the computer interfaces, son." he instructs. "Have your computer bring up a Heads-Up-Display on the main screen with the shadow path we're on shown on the screen." Percy instructs. "The transition too, if the computing power can handle it." Kieran shakes his head and chuckles softly; Dad is behind the times. "Harmony, this is my father, Percival. Dad, say hello to Harmony, she's the ship's computer. Harmony, do as my Dad instructed, will you please?" he says. "Of course." Harmony responds. Glancing at Percy, Kieran adds; "She's far more capable than you'd expect of a ship's computer." He grins. "I made sure of that myself." "You're going to have to meet your Uncle Martin." Percy confirms. Kieran smiles at this; "Love to meet him and the rest of the family." He glances over and back at Gate; "Plug into the comm and security systems. Run another sweep for transmissions in or outbound. Monitor all freqs and comm channels until I say otherwise." Kieran sits down in the copilot's seat and brings up displays of engines, shields and weapons status to monitor while his Dad is piloting. Kieran's displays come up easily, showing the Voyager's systems all within normal limits. On the main screen, as Percy asked and Harmony provided, the shadow path now appears as a green line in space that the ship is now following. Far ahead, in a velvet purple, is what must be the transition point. "All right." Percy rubs his hands together. "Harmony. Let's set in a sine wave alteration to both our z and x axis, with amplitudes ranging from half to a full unit." The engine displays show varying changes in power as the ship starts taking a corkscrew course around the green line of the shadow path. The motion back and forth, up and down is something like a slalom on a glaciated planet, or the colder regions of Scota. And Kieran feels something else, some sort of arcane manifestation of power coming from his father. Kieran extends his senses to try and take in what his father is doing, knowing he won't fully comprehend it all until he's walked the Pattern himself, if then. He monitors his boards and sensors, studies his father and enjoys the ride. Kieran doesn't quite have the powerset that his father does. However, his experience with arcane power in general, both in the more ordinary arcane mode, psychic arcane, and trump, all give him enough senses to get a feel for what his father is up to. A check of the boards, sensors and views shows that his father is using some arcane ability, presumably the Pattern, to propel the ship. While they are ostensibly following the path, the ship is no longer dependent on that path. In addition, the wake of the ship, checking a board display, seems to be disturbed, distorted and hard to follow Like in a quantum state type thing? Sometimes the wake is there, sometimes its not? Yes. There definitely seems to be a quantum flux sort of effect here. Probability seems skewed in the path of the ship. In the midst of this, Paril comes out on the bridge as the Voyager slews again in the midst of one of the transitions that Dad has ordered. "Almost feels like you're flying while drunk. Sir." he adds. Percy just smiles, and leaves Kieran to respond to his compatriot. Kieran grins; "Almost. Take a seat. And strap in. The life you save may be your own." Kieran cinches the restraints on his own chair. "Everything ship shape?" While listening to Paril, Kieran keys up some music to play in the background. First up is "Free Fallin' " from Tom Petty then "I Get Around" from the Beach Boys, "Fuel" from Metallica and "Highway to Hell" from AC/DC. "My son is right." Percy says to Paril. "Strap in." Paril looks skeptical for a moment, but takes his station and does so. Percy speaks a few more commands for Harmony. "As a matter of fact, there is an algorithm one of my cousins taught me called a drunkard's walk." Percy says as the ship approaches the shadow barrier in a now even more complex trigonometric pattern. "I am not using that here, but its a useful technique in some situations." Paril's skeptical look does not diminish. Kieran feels the wake of the arcane energy reach a cresendo as the ship reaches the shadow boundary. And then, suddenly, they are across, and into another shadow. Behind them, there is no evidence whatsoever on Kieran's scanners that the path and passage of the Voyager can be seen. Kieran keys in a command to let music play randomly and then leans back in his seat. "Nicely done, Dad, from what I could follow of it. Harmony, Gate, let's get some short and long range scans going. Let us know if there's anything out there we need to worry about." Percy nods. Kieran turns his head to Percy; "What's the next move, Dad?" "Let's see what the scans say, first." Percy replies evenly. "Having a sitrep would be useful before deciding on the next move, although I think we're going to go cross-country." A minute late, Gate makes a series of beeps and whistles. Harmony starts scrolling data onto Kieran's monitor. Although not exactly in the insert position that he is used to, they are in one of the mostly empty shadows on the path between Keltia and the Republic, fairly close to the former. "All right." Percy turns to look at Kieran. "Time for some father-son bonding." He rises from the chair. "We're trading seats, son. I want you to pilot the ship. I..." Percy grins. "I am going to show you what shadowshifting is *really* like." "Think you are up for it?" Percy adds. Kieran grins and unstraps himself from his seat. "Sure. What did you have in mind, exactly?" "Keep the ship from hitting anything. I want to shift us quickly to Keltia, there might be unexpected elements in our path as a result." Paril just blinks his eyes. "Don't fly intoxicated, is all I ask." he comments. "And don't..." he waves at Percy "do whatever you are planning to do intoxicated, either. Me, though, I think *I* need a drink." Kieran drops into the pilot's seat, adjusts it and the controls to his favorite setup and straps in. "Not on the flight deck;" he says to Paril looking over his shoulder. "Go relax in the lounge if you like on this leg of the trip;" he adds with a smile. "Yeah." Paril looks at Percy and then at Kieran. "I'll go do that. Give you two some father-son bonding time." "Suit yourself." Percy says, with a shrug. "All right." Paril looks at Kieran as he makes a motion to leave the bridge. "Maybe wait until I'm safely ensconced before you start fancy flying?" "Sure thing, Paril;" Kieran says with a smile and a nod. He routes weapons fire control to his console as well and powers them up. "Gate, Harmony; once we start moving go to constant active scans. We'll be noisy as hell doing so, but it should give a bit more of a warning if we encounter something too big to dodge." Gate responds with a short whistle and a few beeps of agreement. Paril exits the bridge. Once he's sure Paril's had enough time to settle in, Kieran centers himself and expands his senses readying himself to react at a moment's notice. (I.E. bringing up Faithful Mind and Psychokinesis for now.) "Ready when you are, Dad;" Kieran says calmly. When Kieran's enhanced perceptions and abilities are up and active, Percy gives Kieran a nod, and then closes his eyes briefly. "All right." he says. "Just keep us on course. No one is going to be able to follow this course. Let's see if *you* can fly the course." Percy commands Harmony to overlay a directional arrow on the HUD, a clear direction for the Voyager to fly. And then Kieran starts to feel the emanation of power and effort from his father. And Kieran is challenged. The temptation to use cannons is high and remains high since dodging and juking past the objects is like picking through a deadly maze. And just as Kieran skims past an asteroid that could be classified as a small moon, he can emit a sigh of relief. Kieran sends Voyager through a barrel roll maneuver as they skim over the last moonlet. It's been a helluva ride so far, but it ain't over yet, he thinks to himself. For it is then that the field clears rapidly, dropping away to smaller and smaller concentrations as, even intent on the piloting, Kieran can feel his father's use of the Pattern. "One more obstacle for good measure to get past." Percy mutters, perhaps to himself, perhaps to Kieran. And then Kieran sees them ahead. A pair of small but massive spinning objects, only a couple of thousand miles apart. Readouts from Harmony start flashing warnings. The gravity fields around each of the two massive objects are large, with only a razor thin area of safety between their gravity wells. The HUD still shows that the path runs squarely past these twin astronomical terrors. The blur of the nebula that Kieran saw earlier lies beyond them. "Call them Scylla and Charybdis." Percy says. "Rock and a hard place;" Kieran agrees throttling back slightly on Voyager's engines to give him a bit more time to study the situation. He considers readying a Dimension Door spell and just skipping the barrier, but that's not what his Dad needs him to do. He shuts down nonessential systems, powers down and closes the turrets and then reroutes all available power to the engines. They're probably going to need some work once they get home, but getting home intact is the plan. He studies the data and projections from Harmony until he figures out a flight plan that should get them through. Kieran readies a 'Mind Over Matter' spell in the event he needs an extra edge in his piloting and reflexes. Percy looks around as Kieran starts preparing the ship. He doesn't say anything but there is a look of approval at Kieran's careful preparations. "Hang on to your hats boys and girls;" he calls out to no one in particular. "This last bit's likely to be a little rough." Gate does respond, with beeps and whistles of what might be considered support and wishing luck. Kieran then accelerates to his previous speed, keeping the extra power in reserve to be applied to the engines and/or maneuvering thrusters as needed to get them through. 'Come Sail Away' from Styx and then 'Carry On Wayward Son' from Kansas play over the bridge's speakers. And so the descent toward the two objects begins. It begins easy enough, although even at a far distance, the two bodies produce eddies and puckers in the overall gravitational field and the integrity of space-time itself, making the plotted course something that Kieran needs to constantly update, constantly change. Even the "smooth" path between the two objects is anything but smooth, after all. As the Voyager comes closer and closer to the twin bodies, the course changes become harder and harder. They must needs be smaller, to avoid spinning off toward Scylla or Charybdis in the process. Kieran's piloting skills are taxed to the limit...and then Kieran realizes, as an eddy of gravitational force sits athwart the narrow safe path, that he needs an additional boost. With the spell activated, his reflexes and ability increase, enough that the Voyager manages to skirt the eddy perfectly, bisecting the extremely narrow safe zone of passage. And even that safe zone is not pleasant for the ship. Quietly but insistently, Harmony sends messages of alarm and mentions of shield and even a little hull damage from the stresses put on Kieran's beloved ship. This eddy in the center navigated, the next bit is somewhat easier, although still perilous, given that the singularities spinning to port and starboard are so dangerously, avariciously and hungrily close. Kieran winces slightly as the shield generator sparks, sending out a small cloud of smoke, but it doesn't fail. Then he hears a hull plate or two buckle. "Grap." He doesn't have time to glance at the damage readouts, however, and trusts that his ship will hold together. Percy is calm throughout all of this, almost in a jedi-training-exercise like manner. And then there is one final obstacle. A second eddy in the middle of the path, just at the end of this run between the two spinning bodies. It takes another super-human feat of piloting for Kieran to manage it, and once again hull damage occurs thanks to gravitational and radiation from the two bodies. More sparks from the shield generator, more buckled hull plates, and was that the sound of one or both of the engine outriggers reaching or possibly exceeding their stress limits. "Grap. Maulk. Grapping Maulk;" he says in a low tone. This however, briefly breaks Percy's zen. Kieran can see him pull up a display to check on ship integrity. However, with that eddy behind them, so are Scylla and Charybdis, and ahead is the relatively safe harbor of the gaseous nebula that has been a landmark and signpost since before the asteroid field. The danger is past, and the obstacles navigated successfully. And Kieran could sorely use a nap. Kieran releases the spell and settles back in his seat with soft sigh. As much as he'd like to go sleep for a bit, there's still work to be done. "Harmony, damage report. Serious stuff first and let me know what we can fix while in space;" he says tiredly. "Gate, short and long range scans. Anything out there we need to know about?" Kieran closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again. "And tell the chef droid I could use an extra large caf right about now." He glances over at his father. "Make that two." A moment's pause. "Tell chef to bring the pot. And some sandwiches. And some aspirin." He pats the control surface of his ship gently. "Knew you could handle that, girl.""I knew *you* could handle that, son." Percy says with a tone of obvious pride in his voice. "More importantly, tracking us through all of that is going to be nearly impossible. The scent has been lost." Kieran smiles at this and then chuckles ruefully. "Not to mention that Narek's ship is much larger than Voyager and, I think, not nearly as maneuverable." He shrugs his shoulders tiredly. "Oh, it could probably blast it's way through and take the odd asteroid strike, but not that last bit. No." "Good" Father says with satisfaction. Gate comes back first in response to Kieran's request with a short whistle and series of beeps that suggests there are no threats on either scanning system. Harmony takes a little longer to respond, and starts with a list of the damage done. The sublight engine is leaking coolant. It can be patched to get the Voyager to Keltia but requires an overhaul for any more long flights. There are a couple of hull stresses that will turn into breaches if the ship is subjected to much more gravitational stress. The dorsal laser cannon has fractured under stress and is no longer operative. The list goes on from there. The rest of the problems, ranging from broken crockery (apparently from Paril) to other minor interior things are mainly cosmetic in nature. "I may owe you the cost of getting your ship fixed." Percy says ruefully. "I think it was a revealing experience though." he says, as the chef droid's low series of beeps announces its presence on the bridge. Kieran winces at the damage report. Kieran grabs the tray of food and drink from the droid with a nod of thanks. He sets it down within easy reach of both him and Percy. And then digs in to a sandwich. Between bites, he asks; "The sublight's leaking where, Harmony? Can Gate get to it or am I going EVA for a while? And is the dorsal cannon fragged or just the mounting bracket and turret?" Kieran looks over at his father. "She'll need an overhaul once we get home, but I was planning on leaving her there while we went to Amber anyroad, so it's no big thing." He grins then; "And, I'll take you up on your offer to pay for the repairs. Or I can just slice in to the Royal Space Navy's computer system and cover the costs through one of the discretionary or black ops funds. I, uh, still have a few command codes Naval Security doesn't know about." Percy gives Kieran a raised eyebrow as he picks up a sandwich and bites it cleanly in two. "No, we'll pay for it and pay for it properly. It might be easy to do that sort of thing in a shadow you never visit again, but when you have an investment in the well being of a shadow, such shenangians "Your Mom, though, might think it was funny. And justified, after all she had to do during the Counterinsurgency." Percy adds. Kieran grins; "Hey, it's not like I haven't done a few things for Naval Intelligence as well before I went to Republic space. How do you think I got the codes in the first place?" He shrugs his shoulders. It was more of a test to see what his father would say than anything else. Percy raises a skeptical eyebrow. His mood and response, however, are relaxed and easy going. "If that is true, then your mother hasn't seen fit to tell me. And she *would* know." Kieran merely smiles at this. Harmony comes back with more details. The dorsal cannon needs a complete replacement, its a total loss. The leak could be reached by Gate, or by Kieran or Paril, if the ship stopped most of its delta vee. "Gate;" Kieran says after a moment. "Go fix the leak and then take a look at the areas of the hull that were damaged. We've got plenty of spray sealant and hull breach kits in the holds. We'll slow down to further reduce the stresses on the ship." Gate gives off a series of beeps of acquiescence and rolls off on the errands. Kieran then glances over at his father speculatively; "Since we've got to eplace the dorsal cannon anyway, any chance you'd spring to replace both the dorsal and ventral cannons with a twin cannon mount for both turrets?" He grins. "More firepower to keep me safe?" Percy laughs. "And here I thought you were going to ask for an upgrade in weapon *type* while you were at it. No, a dual cannon mount is doable. It will take longer to upgrade the Voyager, you know..." Percy pauses and then smile. "But for a while, son, you'll be on the way to and from Amber, anyway. I wouldn't recommend trying to fly the Voyager in the direction of Amber, unless you've managed the trick of changing its shape and form to a sailing ship." Percy looks at his son inquisitively. Kieran's expression turns speculative as he gazes about the bridge of his ship. "No, I haven't. Mom could, if I asked her to. But I won't. Not right now anyroad." He shrugs his shoulders; "Besides, if I did that for Voyager, I'd have to do something similar for my other ship." Kieran grins at his Father. "If you thought flying Voyager was fun, wait till you see the Azure Fire." "The Azure Fire." Percy repeats the name, a note of curiosity in his voice. He then takes a last bite of a sandwich, finishing it. He stands up and heads for the companionway, a cup of caf and a sandwich in his hands. "Let me show you one of the reasons why I had Voyager converted from a luxury yacht to a merchant vessel." With that, Kieran leads his father out of the bridge to the lift platform, then down one deck and then aft through the holds to the rear hold/hangar. By this time, he's wolfed down his food so he opens the hatch and steps through to show Percy to his starfighter. Percy stops at the entrance to the hangar bay containing Kieran's pride and joy. His eyes rake over the lines of the Actis Interceptor, and then takes a circuit around it with a thoughtful, appraising eye. He finally stops and stands by his son. "It looks like that over short distances, this would be far faster than the Voyager. This would have been able to thread that field and those singularities with ease." He furrows his eyebrows and looks at Kieran. "Hyperdrive capable?" "It is faster and far more maneuverable than Voyager;" Kieran says. "But as you can see, it's essentially a one-seater." He grins at his father's last question. "Originally? No. They had hyperdrive booster rings they mated with when you wanted to take a long trip on your own." Percy nods, clearly familiar with the concept.Kieran shrugs his shoulders; "Vastly inefficient and bulky as heck when your ship was hooked up to a ring. So, I modified my ship; redid all the electronics, newer, smaller and more powerful powerplant and engine freed up enough space to shoehorn a small, highly modified, hyperdrive system in her. And I added a shield generator." He shakes his head; "No matter how good a pilot you think you are, the other guy shooting at you could be better. Or lucky. Or have friends." Percy listens intently, the bright blue eyes showing his interest. "She's got some armor, not much though. Tough stuff but lightweight." He gestures at the innermost pair of weapons; "Twin Ion cannons inboard;" then at the outermost pair; "twin Disruptor cannons outboard, and a proton torpedo launcher as well. The ion cannons overload shields and fry electronics really well and the disruptors punch holes in the armor, equipment and frame." Percy walks up and raps a fist against the nose of the Azure Fire, gently but firmly. He turns toward his son with a smile. "The power of the Blood is evident in you, you know, Kieran. You may not have quite realized it, but you've accelerated and anticipated fighter development in that shadow with this beauty." "At least, according to some media properties." he adds with a smile. Kieran grins. "Some media properties?" He shrugs his shoulders; "Can't help that, I like tinkering with all things electronic and mechanical. You may be right though. I've heard rumors of a new type of starfighter line in development by one of the megacorps for the Empire. "I'll have to head back sometime and see how things have progressed. And secure a few Actis hulls for spare parts for mine." "It should be interesting." Percy agrees. Kieran then points over to the side of the small hanger where the speeder bike is stored. "That's my preferred mode of land transportation." He grins and glances at his father. "And, I did have Mom work a little magic on this one. It has something called a spellbox to provide arcane energies for power in shadows that are magic dominant. It's not armed anymore, the spellbox couldn't power everything, and truth be told, I don't need the blasters that were on it." Percy nods and walks over in the direction of the speeder bike. "A spellbox is basically a method of using sorcery as a battery and trickle release for the sorcery to replace the technological power source. Its not that far removed from something your Mom and I did once for an acquaintance." He stops at the bike and runs his hands along it. "Although your Mother would freak, you probably could take this to Amber." Percy suggests. "She could explain the arcane stuff better, but it wouldn't *last* too long in Amber, although it would work in the Golden Circle for a decent while before it would need recharging." Kieran nods his head. "You might give Morgenstern a run for the money with this in Arden." he muses. Kieran can see that Percy is contemplating hopping onto the bike right there. "Although you'd *never* outrace his daughter." "In Arden, or any other forest for that matter;" Kieran says matter of factly; "I don't doubt you. Mom's told me stories about her." Percy nods. "Someone to keep on your good side, when you pass through Arden, if you take the land route to Amber." He smiles then and starts heading for the hatchway; "Well, that's all the big toys I've collected that you might not have seen before. Let's head back up to the bridge, check in on Gate and the priority repairs, and then I'll show you a holo replay of Voyager's encounter with Narek's ship and a holo of Narek herself as well." Percy nods as Kieran ticks off the agenda and brightens some more at the last. "Yes" Percy says. "I'm especially curious about this antagonist of yours." He gestures for Kieran to lead him back, although he gives once last glance at the bike, and the fighter. Back on the bridge, Gate (via Harmony) reports that the repairs are going well. Harmony also reports that Paril has joined in with some of the less dangerous repairs throughout the ship. On the screen, the ship continues to approach the colorful nebula that has been a backdrop for much of this leg of the trip. Kieran instructs Harmony to replay the visual data from their last encounter with the ion storm clouds, the gas giant system, the bridge monitors, etc. and provides running commentary on the events in a matter of fact tone. He also fills his father in what he saw on Narek's ship and the gist of their conversation. And how he dealt with her, or rather, her ship. Percy watches the Kieran-narrated documentary which is the fusion of the visual data and the commentary he provides. He stops at several points, looking at the storm as if it held some secret clue to the encounter. "What?" Kieran asks after Percy stares at the storm. "At first I thought it was a really big storm, then I thought it might be a smaller one with Narek enhancing the visual effects using the Force like I did to make Voyager invisible. But both storms seemed real enough to me." "I don't deny their reality. I was hoping the imagery might evoke a memory or something recognizable. I find what I see...inconclusive." Kieran shrugs his shoulders. "Well, we can run all this by Mom too then. Maybe she'll notice something we haven't." Then he utilizes the HTD to run through some of the holo pictures he has of Narek before settling on the Trump image of her he has stored within the device. "Don't stare too hard at the image Dad;" he says after a moment. "You might just activate her Trump;" he finishes with a slight grin. Percy does look long at the image, but not so long as to activate the trump. When he looks away, he looks at Kieran. Percy looks thoughtful for a moment before speaking. "Why did you make a *trump* of her? And did you teach her how to accept and make trump calls?" Percy asks. Kieran's face turns slightly red. "To answer your last questions first; no and no. The time never seemed right to bring it up." He shrugs his shoulders and then stares out the bridge canopy. "Why did I make a Trump of her? Why did Mom make one of you?" Father looks a little skeptically at Kieran. Kieran sighs; "It's complicated. She and I were... involved, Dad. Then things between us in particular and the galaxy in general went to hell. I was going to tell her about a lot of things but didn't get the chance before things went sour." Percy puts a comforting hand on his son's shoulder. "It might be fortunate that you didn't tell her about a lot of things. Although..." Father looks back at the looped images from the documentary. "it appears that she knows or has access to abilities that allow a measure of shadow travel." "This may be your doing, though you haven't walked the Pattern yet." Percy explains. "Those in shadow we spend time with, interact with, and yes, make trumps of, become more solid, more important and more real." Kieran frowns in thought. "Maybe so. But she did tell me that she was not from Republic space and that she had assistance and/or training from someone; apparently a male, race unknown currently; outside it as well." Kieran relates the relevant portions of his conversation with Narek. "So my question is; was she there to learn whatever she could for her own benefit and encountering me just a coincidence, or was she planted there to encounter me, or one of us? The family, that is." "Possibly any of these." Percy agrees. "Our family history does have a tendency to run into our enemies and rivals in this manner. Uncle Corwin, for example. Uncle Benedict, for another." "She could have been planted by the Courts, or another power, or even another family member keeping an eye on *our* branch." Percy offers. "From our perspective, its been a long time since we've had contact with any of the family at all." "Hmm;" Kieran ponders. "She called me a Douglas, not a Webster or a Barimen so maybe her trainer doesn't know everything. Or is holding information from her. Possibly both." Percy looks thoughtful at this but says nothing. Kieran shrugs his shoulders and then instructs the HTD to cease displaying the image of Narek. "Nothing much I can do about it at the moment. You want to watch the bridge for a while? I could use a little break after everything thus far today." "Sure, if you release the controls a bit into my control." Percy counters, regarding his son as the screen returns to the display of the star-dotted nebula ahead. "Not that I intend to send us on anything like our previous bender." Father says. "But some practice with the controls would be no bad thing. And its so I won't doze off watching the screen." Percy adds. Kieran nods his head. "No solar or nova diving;" he says with a grin. "Nothing that won't strain the ship and its current state." Dad confirms. Kieran regards his father silently for a moment, considering his father's reply. "Harmony;" Kieran says glancing up at the ceiling; "My father is cleared to pilot Voyager without restriction. That said, wake me if we encounter anything dangerous, or it encounters us." "Confirmed." Harmony replies adroitly. "Prince Percival is cleared to pilot. Awaiting commands." He looks back at his father. "My boat. My responsibility." "Of course." Percy says, with a tone that suggests that Kieran is telling him the obvious. "I will take good care of the Voyager." He smiles slightly. "Go on son, get some rest and relaxation. Sounds like you need it." Kieran again pauses to consider his father's reply, decides that his father should understand that as Voyager is Kieran's, ultimate responsibility for the ship and all aboard her rests with Kieran. He shakes his head slightly, then offers a tired grin. "Rest is a definite possibility. The other..." he shrugs his shoulders and departs the bridge. "All right." Percy says, as Kieran departs out of earshot. 'Exhaustion and a small case of paranoia,' he thinks. 'Both well deserved,' he adds mentally. Gate and Harmony know to wake him if anything untoward happens. Just the same, Faithful Mind stays up while he naps. Kieran heads for his quarters and then stretches out on his bunk, not bothering to remove his weapon's belt or boots. He sets the HTD and Faithful Mind to wake him in an hour with a couple of quick mental commands. And then, he closes his eyes, and falls asleep. With such preparations, a full night's sleep is not necessary, and naturally does not occur. The sleep is intense in its restfulness and the compactness of its duration, even though Kieran has not bothered to change his attire. Dreams? In such situations, dreams are less frequently spooled out for Kieran. Oh, he must dream, as all humans do, but whatever Kieran dreams of, he does not remember or recall. Three thousand and six hundred seconds after he achieves a state of sleep, the Faithful mind gently prods at him, rousing him to wakefulness. Harmony has the good grace to wait until Kieran is fully awake before addressing him, giving him a capsule update on the status of the ship. The repairs from Gate and Paril continue apace and the ship's integrity has been maintained. "Prince Percival remains piloting the ship" Harmony adds. "How much longer;" Kieran asks Harmony; "with the repairs until we can get back up to speed?" He sits up, stretches a bit and then settles with his back leaning against the bulkhead. "How far out from Keltic space are we currently?" He produces the sketch he'd done of the bridge on Narek's ship and studies it for a few moments without activating it. It takes a few moments for Harmony to respond to Kieran, giving him an opportunity to look over the bridge to Narek's ship in the interim. Finally, Harmony responds. "With the current rate of repairs by Gate and Paril, full speed should be obtainable within six hours." Harmony responds. "However, if my extrapolations of the efforts of Prince Percival are accurate, we will arrive within orbit of Scota before that period has elapsed." "Our course has warbled on the path at an accelerated rate." Harmony continues. "It appears that Prince Percival has utilized the Pattern along with his piloting efforts to shorten transit time." Kieran nods thoughtfully after a moment or two. Harmony mentioning the Pattern had startled him but he and his father had mentioned it and some of it uses several times aboard ship. "Thanks, Harmony;" he says and then looks up. "The Pattern and any discussions about it and it's possible uses are to be considered restricted data of the highest level. You may only discuss this topic with myself, Prince Percival, Princess Brandeigh, and Paril unless directed otherwise by myself or, in the event of my absence, my parents Percival and Brandeigh. Send Gate this information as well once he's back aboard and let me know when he acknowledges receiving the message and updating his security files." "Confirmed." Harmony says. "Discussion of the Pattern and its uses, potential and actual, are to be classified at a restriction level of Violet. Security file updating will take place within 45 seconds. This restriction will be conveyed to and encompass Gate upon Gate's return to the ship." Kieran then turns his attentions back to the trump sketch of the bridge of Narek's ship. He'll attempt to activate it with the barest minimum of power necessary to do so, so that he can add it the HTD as a full-fledged trump, hopefully without alerting anyone aboard Narek's ship of what he's doing. And, also, to see what's going on, if anything. He's prepared to drop the contact in the event the bridge is open to space (and the vacuum somehow transfers through the contact and tries to pull him through) or if his presence is detected. What defines as barest actually takes some work for Kieran to manage. The distance, perhaps, or perhaps some other factor makes the trump sketch of the bridge difficult to utilize. Kieran's theory, if he thinks about it as he works on it, is likely environmental factors of some kind, rather than active blocking. As in Trump's weak here or there? Yes. Difficult for Kieran to say which one, without, say, trying a trump of his Dad. If Trump were weak in both locales, the trump probably would not work, period. When the sketch does activate, the scene comes to life. The bridge is a beehive of activity, with people working on various repairs and stations. There is no sign of the Baroness anywhere, however. Kieran can just manage to see the viewscreen. It displays a highly glaciated terrestrial planet that Narek's ship is in orbit around. It's not one that Kieran recognizes at all. Kieran relaxes slightly once the image goes active, and then a little more once he realizes Narek is not on the bridge. He settles in to watch and listen to the activity going on and glean whatever information he can. He instructs the HTD to record the 'call' for future use. 'Could this be the planet of her unknown mentor?' he ponders. Any signs of technology/life on the planet and/or in orbit? Or does it look like this is perhaps the first world they've managed to reach in order to begin repairs? Kieran's HTD begins patient recording of all of the visible information on the bridge. The activity is not hard to decipher, and nothing seems too out of the ordinary. The ship's crew is seeing to repairs and maintainence in what is to them a safe berth. The glances that Kieran gets of the planet shows no obvious space traffic or space installations of any kind. There are no planetary structures large enough to be seen from this orbit. However, as the planet turns slowly underneath the craft, the dark side of the planet does start to come into view. The lights are not as bright as Coruscant, or a highly developed planet, but the lights on the dark landmasses coming into view do suggest some sort of technical civilization down there, at least at the level of widespread electricity. The call is starting to weaken at this point. Kieran considers adding more power to the call to maintain it for a while longer, but decides to let it drop. Adding more power may increase the chances of the contact being detected and he's not sure he'd pick up much more in the ways of useful intel. Besides, he'd like to think of the Trump of Narek's bridge as something of an ace up his sleeve (or in Kieran's case, an ace in his armor bracer) should he need sudden access to her or her ship. He will replay the call though, zooming in on various data and display terminals to see if there is anything useful on them. Being able to replay the call, after it drops, gives Kieran some side information on the terminals that he would have been hard pressed to see in the small amount of time that he had for the call. Much of it is basic information on the status of her ship. Readouts suggests that her engines are damaged, there are references to leaks and damage. Many of these suggest moderate to severe damage; Kieran's sense of the overall picture is that the ship is barely spaceworthy. Kieran smiles slightly as he realizes the extent of the damage. Weeks, possibly months, before that ship is ready to sail again. Weeks for a normal trail to go cold, for a trail jumping through Shadow... ice cold. This should give him some breathing room. If she stays with her ship until it's repaired. The smile fades. One interesting bit, too, gives a name or a reference to the mysterious glaciated planet that her ship orbits: Wrangell. Kieran queries the HTD, then Harmony for any references to Wrangell while he gets started on making a trump of the planet from orbit. 'Might need it someday, might not.' he considers. 'Something to bring up to Dad and Mom when the time is right.' Its a testament to the search capabilities of Harmony, and the amount of data that she has been uploaded, from the Republic, from Keltia, from elsewhere, that Kieran is through the sketch mode of a trump of the planet before it returns a result. Where Kieran got the information might be any number of inputs, but Harmony reports two linked references to Wrangell. It is a town, in a place called Alaska, on a shadow called Earth. (Kieran has heard tales of this shadow, in bits and pieces). It is also part of the name of a park in this very same shadow Earth: Wrangell-St. Elias. Kieran glances at any images relayed by Harmony and has her read any text based data on Wrangell as he continues to work on the image. There are a few stock images of the area as Kieran continues to work on the image. Mountains, glaciated mountains. It looks as cold as the planet that Kieran is sketching. At this moment, Paril ducks his head in. "Just talked to your Dad, looking for you on the bridge. I think you got him hooked." he says with a grin. "What can I say;" Kieran replies still working on the sketch. "Like son, like father." A pause and Kieran glances up and over at Paril; "But if he likes Voyager that much, he can get one of his own." He grins. "If Mom lets him that is." Paril's eyes widen in enlightenment and he nods. Kieran returns back to his work; "I've almost got this finished. Everything patched up then? We ready for the last leg of the trip?" "As patched up as we can do with the stuff on board." Paril says, flexing his arm and fingers against an empty chair. "We need an overhaul badly, especially if we're going to go all the way back to Republic space anytime soon. But for the small leg to Scota? Not a problem." "Unless someone shoots at us." Paril adds with a grin. "Why are you drawing a picture of Iceworld there?" he asks amicably. "Isn't Scota mountainous enough?" Kieran nods his head at Paril's update. "The overhaul is in the works once we reach Scota." A pause and then he adds; "Also, the turrets are getting upgraded to twin cannon mounts." He grins. "Something your Father will no doubt include as standard equipment on his copy of the Voyager." Paril responds. Kieran nods. "Mostly likely so. I'm sure he have a list of things to include as non-standard equipment on his version, just as we have ours." "That's the fun stuff." Paril agrees. "Funny you should mention shooting and Iceworld though;" Kieran says after a moment. "Since this is the world where the last person to take a shot, figuratively speaking, at us ended up after her ship got all banged up." He glances over at Paril; "One day the Hunted will wish to become the Hunter and turn the tables on his pursuer. This, along with others like it, will provide me the means, or at least a start, on tracking her down" "So, the Baroness and her friends decided to head out to this cold planet to effect repairs." Paril says. "I had no idea that she liked things so cold. So, you think this is some sort of hidden base she has?" he says. "If it were flatter, and even colder, it would remind me of an old moon in the Hoth system." "That, I don't know. Not yet anyroad;" Kieran replies. "It could very well be just the closest habitable world they could limp to in their ship. I'll have to monitor it and the progress of the repairs on her ship from time to time and learn what I can." "Good" Paril says. "Your Dad probably would have suggested it, if you didn't think of it on your own. I don't think she could have followed us through all of those maneuvers. I didn't see what he and you were doing, Kieran, but I could certainly *feel* them." And then a chiming voice comes from Harmony. "Hello, Kieran. Your father wished me to inform you that we have entered the far frontiers of Keltic space." "Alright, Harmony;" Kieran replies. "Let him know we'll be on the bridge shortly." "Confirmed." Harmony says efficiently. To Paril, he says; "I don't think she can follow the path we took directly, but that doesn't mean she won't be able to catch up to us in time." He shrugs his shoulders and then goes back to finishing the trump of Wrangell. "Even once she gets most of the systems aboard her ship back online, Narek's going to need to take her ship to a fully functioning shipyard for all the major work. We'll have a bit of time to have our ship worked on and get to Amber and back." He concentrates more intently on his work. "You go on ahead, I'm almost done with this. I'll be there in a bit." "So we'll be in Keltia for a while before we leave." Paril gives a nod. "See you up on the bridge." And then Paril exits, leaving Kieran along to finish the trump, which he can do without difficulty, and start anything else he wants to do before heading up to the bridge. Once the trump is finished, Kieran tests to see if Mom has the barriers up or not. He'll try a trump of Narek's old headquarters on Sangria V just to see if it activates and then one of his rooms in the castle on Scota. After that, he'll head for the bridge. All three of the trumps fail. Its clear to Kieran that Mother indeed has the barriers up, and in full force. Kieran wonders what's up that his mother has all trump communications barred. But he figures he'll learn soon enough. And so Kieran can wander his way up to the bridge. Fixing a panel in one of the corridors, Gate gives a chirp of a greeting as he swivels his head briefly to regard Kieran in his progress. Kieran stops and pats Gate on his metal dome while briefly inspecting the droid's work before moving on. It's pretty standard repair, the sort of maintenance that Gate does on a regular basis-- even if the ship hadn't recently been through its recent straits. On the bridge, Paril is at one of the stations, and Dad is sitting in the captain's seat. He nods, smiles slightly and gets up as Kieran comes on the bridge. "We're still some distance from the heart of Keltic space." Percy says, nodding to his son. "And I can't take any more easy shortcuts now that we're in Keltic space. However, I've got Harmony on a course to Caledon all the same." Kieran nods his head and replies while taking in the displays on all the ship's stations. "Thought that's where we were. Trumps are down." He takes his seat in the pilot's chair. "Mom has the barriers up for some reason." He glances at his father. "Something going on?" "I didn't call her about your situation, if that is what you are thinking." Percy replies, shaking his head. "It is somewhat unusual for her to do it, especially since she knows that I came out to you." Percy pulls out his trump deck and looks at it thoughtfully. After a few moments contemplation, he pulls out the top card, a depiction of Kieran's mother. It's an old, used card, showing her in a white blouse,depicted younger than Kieran has ever seen her, in a place far away from Keltia, with a harp. Percy concentrates on the card for a half minute before growling and stopping. "I think she's put up the *inner* barriers, too." he says. Kieran studies the course laid in for Caledon. If it's a least time to get there course, he'll let it stand, if its not he'll begin altering it to become a least time course. It's not a least-time course, its a shortest course in terms of fuel consumption. Kieran can program a much more direct, albeit fuel-heavy, route. Then Kieran nods at his father. "Yeah, I tried that too, to my quarters in the castle. No luck. You sure there wasn't anything going when you left?" "Positive." Father says. Kieran turns the comm station and begins scanning the various comm channels to see if he can pick up any Keltic universe based signals. Communication signals at the borders of space are sketchy at best, there are still signals to be found, especially with Harmony there to boost signals to audibility. Those signals, over the next fifteen minutes, come to mind. The universe is quiet, but not silent. Widecast signals from a ship in distress, here, a radio program from a colony on a moon of a gas giant on the borders of Keltic space. As Kieran scans and listens, though, there are hints and intimations that there is trouble. References of an old enemy that is more active as late, although there are no indications that there is outright war or hostilities. It's the Coranians are stirring. Kieran sighs, nods his and then mutters; "Grap!" He makes the course correction to get them to Caledon as quickly as possible and yet leave them with enough fuel for combat maneuvers if needed. It's a compromise solution; he'd like to get there in as short a time as possible, but getting there and finding themselves in the midst of a combat, or potential combat, situation while extremely low on fuel is not good either. "It's the Coranians, Dad;" Kieran says. "They're up to something. Details are sketchy this far out, but that's got to be why Mom's doing what she's doing." "So it seems." Percy says grimly. "I've debated with your mother about the wisdom of letting them exist." "Better the enemy you know;" Kieran replies while working the controls. "Harmony;" Kieran says; "monitor the comms, especially the known Keltic military freqs for signs of activity regarding the Coranians. To a lesser degree scan for signs of Coranian comm traffic as well." He finishes laying in his course corrections and engages the drives, hyperdrive if it works in Keltic space, sublight engines if not. He'll push Voyager as much as he can without further damaging the ship. "Affirmative. Monitoring of Keltic military frequencies available will begin immediately. Monitoring of known frequencies of Coranian communication traffic will begin immediately." The Voyager strains a bit as the velocity increases, the course for the shortest-time route to Caledon now in progress. At the increased velocity and new course, estimated arrival time has been cut from 19 hours to less than 6. "Dad, when we get closer, try to comm Mom directly, or atleast the palace on Caledon;" he adds. "We need to let her know we're inbound and find out what we can do to help." "In a carefully sent signal." Percy warns. "I'd rather not have them know who and what we are and where we are going." Kieran looks up offers a slight grin; "Just send her this message; 'Veteran Cosmic Rocker inbound.' Assuming Mom recalls her knowledge of Earth music, much of which she passed on to me, she should remember what group sang that song and what album it came from. It is where I got the name for this ship after all." Father has an amused look on his face. "I almost thought you would suggest sending a carrier wave of 2112 music as the message." Kieran grins; "Blast the William Tell Overture, maybe?" Kieran hits the ship's intercom; "Gate, go get the Azure Fire ready for launch." Gate responds in a series of affirmative beeps and clicks. Kieran releases the intercom switch and looks back up at his father. "I figure if we jump into the middle of a combat zone, two ships are better than one. You and Paril can fly and fight Voyager, I'll take the fighter if needs be." "I might have to take my anti-nausea pills, if your father is doing fancy piloting." Paril says, with a slight leavening of mood. Percy gives a nod and looks to Paril. "I trust you to weapons control, then, and trust my son for the fighter." Harmony cuts in at this point. "I have detected no broad-band military signals. Hypothesis is that the Keltian military is using tightbeam signals in order to reduce the possibilities of interception." Harmony pauses. "However, it does not appear the Coranians are doing this, or not to the same degree. I have intercepted two broad-band Coranian signals at present. Both are encrypted." "Dad, take the copilot's seat;" Kieran says to his father, still focused on the comm system. "Harmony, run the signals through decryption programs we've got onboard and send a copy of the signals to the comm station so I can look at them myself." Percy nods. "Right." he says, and slides over to the co--pilot's seat. With ease, he starts pulling up positioning, course and other data, looking at it with a slightly glum or perhaps wary expression. "What?" asks Kieran after a few moments. Paril is already at weapons control. In a few moments, the unencrypted signals are at the comm station display, two sets of blocks of text in transliterated characters that currently spell out nonsense. Currently. "How strong are Harmony's algorithms?" Percy asks his son. "Keltic military grade?" Kieran begins to study the signals, looking for patterns, repeating characters or groupings that might match up with Coranian letters or words. Sometimes, the human mind can see patterns in encrypted data faster than computers can. "They were at one point in time;" Kieran replies. "But I've no idea how far encryption and decryption techniques have evolved since I've been away. She's also got a current set of Imperial and Republic programs as well." "The Imperial and Republic programs might be useful." Dad agrees. "This whole turn of that shadow does spur innovation in such arenas. Secrecy becomes paramount and breeds response." Its as Percy is speaking that Kieran thinks he sees something. Its widely spaced apart, suggesting a code that changes from line to line, but one that repeats. A further look down the blocks of text does suggest that. Its a repeated series of codes, ten in all. It doesn't quite tell Kieran what they are saying, but its a crack in the armor--he now knows how many variations in the code there are to work on. Kieran highlights the texts blocks on his screen, saying to Harmony as he does so; "I see a pattern in the message's layout. Check out these text blocks I've marked and run the message through your best software." Meanwhile, Kieran keeps working."Affirmative. Providing course data to co-pilot's position to allow for maximum gain of narrowcast message." Percy gives a nod and starts punching in course changes. Meanwhile, now that the encryption has been broken and the messages decrypted and translated, Kieran compresses those files and the encryption key into a small file suitable for a burst transmission when the opportunity presents itself. The file is encrypted of course, the best encryption onboard. When the file is received and access to it is attempted, a screen blank except for the following text will appear: "Who is Anakin Blacksuit?". There is also a five character space under the question for the answer. Brandeigh should recall that, as a child watching the movies, Kieran always called Darth Vader, 'Anakin Blacksuit'. Vader is the password needed to unlock the file. On the viewscreen, if Kieran looks up, he can see the course change to intercept the beam. The beam itself is invisible of course. "Harmony;" Kieran says looking at the screen; "show us where the Coranians are or should be, according to the messages we've intercepted and decoded, in relation to the signal. And then give us a passive scan of the area." "Affirmative. Scanning will begin." On another display, an extrapolation of the message beam shows that the Caledons should be scattered in the outer Oort cloud of the Caledon system. Fifteen more minutes go by, and then there is another message from Harmony. "Detection of sampling of message beam is estimated at 3.6%" Harmony says confidently. "It should appear that the beam was partially blocked by a rocky planetoid or other incidental debris." "Coding appears similar but more complex than previous messages." Harmony says. "Sending a copy to your screen while applying codebreaking techniques." "Passive scanning of Oort cloud for Coranian vessels is 93% complete." On Kieran's screen, and subscreens of Percy and Paril as well, the block of garbled, encrypted text appears. "Is Harmony setting up some sort of contest?" Paril asks wryly. Kieran merely grunts in acknowledgement and gets to work on the latest text. Then stops and looks back up at the screen showing the signal, it's intended destination and Voyager's location. If Voyager and the intended location are close for Third Eye and Ear to be of use, he'll manifest them and send them out to the destination point. Why try and decode the message when you can eavesdrop on and watch someone else decode and read/view it? The destination point is close, but at the outer edge of Kieran's abilities to manifest such a thing. It would be somewhat more difficult than his manifestations on the Baroness' ship from across the Jovian planet gravity well. But it's certainly within his abilities. The Third Eye, especially has a much better range than Third Ear. The manifestation of both psychic abilities takes more initial energy than Kieran expects, however, he finally gets an outside view of the Coranian ship. Or is it? What Kieran sees at first is something new and unexpected. It does not appear to be a ship at all. Instead, it looks like a rogue comet, a large mass of ice and rock. There should be no tail this far away from the Sun, but there IS a tail nevertheless. A look around with the eye reveals why there is a tail... There are engines set in the rear of the bolide, using the ice of the comet as reaction mass to propel the body toward Caledon, appearing for all the universe as an astronomical body. Kieran's expression grows suddenly pale upon 'seeing' the Coranian ship. "Oh Maulk;" he mutters while sending his Third Eye on into the ship. "Dad!" he exclaims loudly. "We've got a big problem here. The Coranians have strapped engines onto a comet and it appears to be aimed at Caledon. I'm checking it out as best I can to see what's inside, if anything." Percy growls under his breath. "That's new, and not at all a welcome development." A pause then; "As soon as we've finished intercepting the message, take us above or below the system's ecliptic plane, whichever's going to give us some cover from the Coranians. We're going to have to get some distance from them in order to send our own messages to Caledon." "Harmony." Percy asks. "Where are the Coranian vessels in relation to the ecliptic?" "All of the vessels detected in Kieran's scan are at or above the plane of the ecliptic." Harmony responds after a few moments. "Gathering of the message is complete. Maneuvers may now begin." "All right, son" Percy says, looking at the displays. "I'll set in a parabolic course to pull us down below the ecliptic and come up toward Caledon." "Can we destroy that comet?" Paril asks Kieran. "If its got engines, we can't throw it easily off course." "Depends on how it's being controlled;" Kieran replies. "I'll check out that possibility." In the meantime, Kieran's explorations with the Third Eye reveal that there is a cluster of sensor arrays on the head of the comet, along with a small, solid metal structure anchored into the ice at that point. Kieran directs his Third Eye toward the metal structure, taking care to 'dampen' his psychic signature as much as he can in the event there are Psi's inside the structure. The metal structure has heavy shielding of a number of types of fields. Its difficult to penetrate and look inside without causing all sorts of trouble. Its not insurmountable, though. Thus, study of the structure is a slow process. It soon becomes clear to Kieran, though, that with all of these dampening and defense shields around the structure, the ambient radiation within the structure would be deadly. There are no signs of life, whatsoever. It becomes clear that even though Kieran hasn't seen inside of the structure, its clear there is nothing inside to see. It must be some sort of computer or automatic control system within the structure, and little else. The comet is, in effect, a gigantic radio-controlled missile. Kieran will look around as best he can, trying to determine if the comet is controlled from onboard, or remotely. If it is remotely controlled, he'll try to figure out if there's a way to jam the controller's signal. The cluster and other clues definitely point to this processing outward signals for control. The interior is likely a solid processor for handing the information and controlling the engines. Or, if there is room inside,its an environment meant solely for a droid or two to do it. Now that Kieran has a longer look, he can see some small attitude engines buried into the mass, probably designed for fine corrections, too. Kieran brings up a simple wire frame schematic layout of the comet ship, highlighting where the antenna dish, control bunker, and attitude and main engines are. How many attitude engines are there? And if one desired to deprive the comet of course adjustment capability, just how many of the engines would have to be disabled? Oh, and any sign of weapons, like point defense lasers or missiles, or the like? There are eight engines in four pairs, one center dorsal, one center ventral, one center port, one center aft. They appear to be arranged to allow course directions on all three axes. Disabling any pair would limit course changes on that particular axis. There appears to be small point defense lasers of a type analogous to ones used by freighters in Keltia and the Empire alike for dealing with collisions with small bolides. They do not appear capable of providing a serious threat to a ship. "No life onboard;" Kieran says aloud. "Droid or remotely controlled from I've seen thus far. Harmony, do you detect anything like a homing signal or carrier wave this thing might be following to Caledon?" "Kieran." Harmony says after a few moment's consideration. "There are no carrier waves or homing signals. However, would not the encrypted message that we intercepted serve that very purpose?" Percy slaps his forehead. "They're instructions, son! That's what this tight signal that we intercepted must be. Why risk a continued signal when you can just feed the thing course corrections. We got lucky in finding that signal." Also, is the comet too big to shoot through a Dimension Door like he did when diverting the jovian's ring system and using it as a weapon? The comet is large, and it would probably be too large for Kieran to manage alone for a spell. The mass of the comet, both in raw size and mass would probably collapse the door in mid passage. This might have some...unpredictable results. Okay, so its a last ditch solution to the problem. "So to stop the signals, we trace it backwards and blow up the ship its coming from?" Paril offers. "Jamming a tightbeam signal doesn't sound too easy." "Still need to deflect this thing so that it doesn't strike Caledon on pure momentum though." Percy says. "No;" Kieran says after giving the problem some thought; "we don't. Atleast not yet. Harmony, have you decrypted and decoded the message yet? Now that we know the message was probably just course corrections, navigational data, it should be easier to decode." "Nearly done...confirming with Gate..." Harmony temporizes. In the meantime, Paril and Percy's attentions are clearly on the wire frame rendering of the comet ship that Kieran has made. After a half minute Harmony speaks. "Message decoded. Information appears to be navigational data and information on local space changes. Instructions appear to be to make small corrections based on recent changes in the Caledon system's gravity well." "I currently estimate a 88% probability of a successful strike even without these course corrections." Harmony adds. "There is a further 1.2% chance of a lunar strike." Kieran nods grimly. "Alright;" he says; "here's how I see it. We have Harmony and Gate create a new message for the comet ship, one with our set of navigational points to send it up or down, relative to the plane of the ecliptic, so long as it goes out of the system. Or we program it to fly into the sun. I like the sun option, personally, but the flight time gives the Coranians way too big of a window of opportunity to undo our handiwork." He pauses and looks up; "Unless there's a better stellar body nearby to crash the thing into, Harmony?" "Seskinore" Harmony responds immediately, referring to one of the two smallish gas giants in the Caledon system. "My data indicates that we are currently ahead of it in its orbit. The comet might fruitfully be diverted into its path. The Coranians would have a minimal window of opportunity to keep the comet from striking the gas giant." "Seskinore it is then;" Kieran says with a nod of thanks. "Add it to the display showing Caledon, the Coranians, the comet and us." The gas giant is slotted into the display, its slow, and stately orbit projected on the display. Like small flies buzzing around a horse, the display shows the small family of moons that orbits the planet. "Anyroad;" Kieran continues; "Once we have our message, we fly in on a ballistic trajectory, minimal power signatures, till we get in front of the thing. There, we beam our message to it. Once it's acknowledged our update and begun it's course corrections, we take out the antenna array and then we destroy it's maneuvering engines." Kieran points to the relevant items on the wire-frame model. "Comments, questions, suggestions?" "The comet doesn't look to be very well defended." Paril comments. "This might be relatively easy. Not like taking on a battle station." "A thought, Kieran." Percy says. "We want to maximize this deception as long as possible. Do your prodigious talents extend to perhaps masking the comet's presence when it goes off course, and letting the Coranians think that *we* are the comet as we cruise toward Caledon as it might have done?" "It's possible I can do that;" Kieran says studying the displays intently, gauging distances between the comet and Seskinore, relative velocities and all that. He keys in all the relevant data to get some course projections and studies the distances involved once again. How close are the Coranians to the comet, and how close will they be to it after the proposed intercept and message delivery. Just need ballpark response times. The Coranians are still backed off compared to the Voyager. Their distances will, even after message delivery, will still range around a couple of light-minutes or so. It would be an enormous struggle to maintain the illusion for very long, especially as the courses of the comet and the voyager-as-comet diverge on terms of distances ranging in light minutes If Kieran feels it can be done, he will say so. If he feels it can't be done, he'll say so and why. He's concerned about the distances involved, especially once he has to maintain two illusions (disguising Voyager as the comet, and hiding the comet from detection on it's flight to the gas giant). Multi-tasking with Third Eye 'riding' on the comet should be able to do it. With this news, Paril and Percy both look thoughtful. "All right. So we send the comet off on its way and make sure it stays on course to splash into the gas giant." Percy says. "No help for it, but without their alpha strike to soften up Caledon, we should have enough time, between us and the Keltic navy, to formulate a response after we get rid of this threat" He looks at Kieran. "We might want to put you in the fighter, son, as soon as the comet is guaranteed a hit. You'll be able to respond faster and beat the Coranians to the punch." Kieran nods; "I can put up a pair of illusions, for a short time before I have let one drop from the sheer physical distance if we divert the comet and take it's place. If we want to ride herd on the comet to Seskinore, it would still be possible to fake the comet for a while and, if we get close enough to the real comet, make it and us invisible. After a short time, I'd have to let the fake comet image go, but I'd still be able to keep the invisibility on us and the comet going." He shrugs his shoulders; "I'd be fairly well spent by then of course." "Or;" he says thinking about possibilities; "we just gut it out. After we divert the comet, I'll take my fighter and stay with it while you all keep coasting toward Caledon. Once you're clear of the Coranians, and they'll be coming after the comet once they realize something's gone wrong, light the engines and head for Caledon and the Keltic Navy." "So" Paril says "either we stick with the comet and make sure it impacts, draining you in the process. Or, your father and I stay on course to Caledon, and you make sure the comet sticks it to Seskinore, but leaving you to dodge the Coranians in the process. "Risky either which way we do this." Percy says. "Damn clever of our enemies to put us in a bit of a quandary. It's going to either put you in harm's way, or tax you in the process. Captain's choice, I'd say." Percy says. Paril gives a nod. "Captain's choice." Distantly, down a hallway, Gate beeps and whistles his agreement. Kieran considers this for a few moments. "Gate;" he says calmly. "Get some magnetic clamps and attach an extra pair of proton torpedoes under the nose of the fighter. I know it'll play hell with the balance while they're there, but we can compensate. And I know, I can't launch them if they're not in the launcher." He grins; "Not in the traditional sense anyway. Just make sure we can arm them once they've been detached from the hull. Secondly, and you can do this in flight if needs be; lay in a few hyperspace jumps; like to Caledon and the Oort cloud. That way, we have multiple ways out if we need them." "Gate gives off a series of beeps and whistles of assent, and wheels off at speed toward the bay where the fighter is held." Kieran looks at his father and then Percy. "The comet has to be diverted and destroyed before it can hit Caledon. The navy and Caledon need to be warned of what's going on. We can't do both in a single ship, and Voyager's not in prime condition for a running gunfight. "No" Paril says dryly. "We are definitely not. Percy gives a nod and turns to continue to listen to his son. [Kieran]"You take Voyager in and get the word out. I'll take the fighter and make sure the comet goes bye bye. And then annoy the Coranians for a while to give you time to raise the alarm and bring in the fleet." The grin reappears briefly; "I've been told that I can be really annoying when I want to be." "The Baroness would consider you so." Paril says. "As would any who've we tangled with, Kieran." "It's a bold, dangerous and audacious plan." Percy says. "I assume you'll have some method of detaching those torpedoes without wrecking your fighter Independence Day Style?" Kieran smiles and nods his head to Paril. "It's a bold, dangerous and audacious plan." Percy says. "I assume you'll have some method of detaching those torpedoes without wrecking your fighter Independence Day Style?" Kieran simply smiles. "The Force is my ally, Dad." He shrugs his shoulders; "Okay, call it psychokinesis. Still, I release the clamps with the power of my mind and then use that same power to move the missiles towards a target. With no exhaust trail from the motor or active sensors, those missiles will be hard to spot before it's too late. An effective first strike option." "Assuming they don't distract you too terribly from doing that." Percy replies. "the Force is indeed strong in you, my son." Percy smirks slightly as he intones his voice deeply. "Hence the first strike option;" Kieran replies. "What?" Paril says, looking at Percy regarding Kieran and vice versa. Percy shakes his head. Kieran merely smiles. "The Coranians can't have any of their biggest cruisers here, at least." Percy says. "If they were that large, Harmony would have spotted them from further away. The torpedoes should handle the Wraith and Wyvern class ships the Coranians likely have." "That's a relief. No Warlocks or Wyrms." Paril says. "Affirmative." Harmony replies. "I compute that the additional armament on the fighter provides an 81% probability of a successful engagement against up to three-mass-equivalents of Coranian vessels." "Not that you intend to stand up and slug it out anyway.' Percy says, looking at his son. "Never tell me the odds, Harmony;" Kieran replies imitating a certain movie character. To his father; No, I don't. I plan to bloody their noses and then lead them on a wild Bantha chase." Percy nods. "Good." He stands up; "If there's nothing else, I need to go get suited up and finish prepping the fighter with Gate." "We'll monitor things from here. If there is a change before you leave, we will let you know." Paril says, with a slightly false sounding sense of bravado. Percy for his part, says nothing, but he rises from his seat, walks over and embraces his son with the same intensity he showed the first time he fostered Kieran. Kieran gets out a slightly strained "Oompf!" as his father hugs him. "Good luck." he says. "It's 'May the Force be with you', Dad;" Kieran says with a grin. He turns and heads down the hallway. "And may it be with you as well;" he says over his shoulder. Off the bridge, he hurries to his quarters and quickly dons his general's armor from the Clone Wars, of which the HTD forms one of the vambraces or forearm armor. He throws his vest over the armor and straps on a belt with a pair of heavy blaster pistols, extra ammo packs, first aid kit, canteen and emergency rations. He then puts Wisdom, his hammer, on his back in its special brackets. (The head of the hammer is at his right shoulder and the hammer angles down so that the haft is at his left side, just above the belt.) Then he secures his lightsaber to the belt. He checks the canteen, fills it with water from the sink in the fresher unit and puts it back in its cover. Finally, he picks up his brain bucket (helmet) and heads for Gate and the fighter. So armed, equipped and armored, Kieran can make his way with no difficulty. During all this, he'll also bring up Multi-tasking and begin prepping a couple of Mental Illusion spells. The first spell is one of 'invisibility' with an area of effect large enough to cloak his fighter. The second, and more powerful one, is one designed to project the image/sensor readings of a squadron of fighters like his inbound from range to assist him. By the time Kieran finishes his trip to the fighter bay, Gate has just finished attaching the torpedoes to the fighter, and with the aid of his jets, maneuvers himself into the control droid position slot on the fighter. He gives Kieran a series of chirps and whistles of acknowledgment, greeting, and recognition that the tasks he had been set are complete. And, perhaps, eagerness to cast off. Kieran gives the fighter a quick once over, checking the extra torpedoes himself before acknowledging Gate. "Yes, yes Gate, it all looks good. Ready to go out and inflict chaos and mayhem upon our enemies?" Gate lets out a series of chirps and whistles of agreement. With the multitasking, the time of his spellwork is cut down enough so that it only takes another couple of minutes in the cockpit to tie off the spells, especially the more complicated second spell. Once he's set, Kieran comms the bridge. "We all set? The new message for the comet ready to be transmitted?" "We're waiting for you to be ready for launch before sending it out." Percy's voice comes over the comm. If everything's set, Kieran will remotely key the hangar bay doors to open and slowly back the fighter out of the bay. Once outside, the solar panels are deployed and Kieran guides the fighter into a course matching Voyagers. "All right;" he says on a tight beam laser comm. "Let's get this party started." "Message has been sent on a tight beam." Percy sends a packet reply by the same method. "Harmony has confirmed that the comet-ship has received the message. You should see it start to change course." "Right, Dad;" Kieran replies. "Get going." (Is Kieran putting on the invisibility spell yet?) Yes. Indeed, a check of the display shows that the comet has slowly started to turn, moving from a collision course toward Caledon, and instead is now slowly turning to aim toward the gas giant. It's a slow process, thanks to momentum. Even the engines on the comet cannot turn a comet on a dime, as it were. However, meter by meter, the course swings away from Kieran's Homeworld, and instead toward Seskinore. The Voyager does not follow, instead, making a run for Caledon. Kieran's sensors aren't quite as good as the Voyager, but he can see that the Coranian ships out in the Oort cloud have started to move in. Its difficult to tell because of the distances and times it takes for signals, but Kieran can surmise that they are moving in on schedule, rather than reacting to the comet's course change. Once they see that, though, he can expect them to react even faster. The handling of the now invisible fighter, as he expected, is a bit rough with the extra weight of the torpedoes. Gate has balanced them as best as he could, so that the extra mass is evenly distributed as much as possible, but the fighter is definitely noticeably less nimble. Kieran guides the fighter in towards the comet. Once telemetry, Gate, and his own senses tell him that the comet will clear Caledon, he brings the fighter down, dodges any fire (although as he's invisible, there hopefully won't be) from the defenses and then disable the circuitry within the antenna(s) with carefully aimed shots from the ion cannons. There is no fire from the comet's anti-meteor defenses. The comet's defenses are not advanced enough to detect the magically-cloaked ship. The carefully placed ion cannon blasts disable the antennas perfectly. Then he'll just as carefully put a few rounds of the disruptor cannons through the base of the main antenna. His plan is to leave the dish standing but permanently out of action. In the event the Coranian's get close enough to see/scan it, and wonder why it's not accepting commands from them, Kieran wants it look like a malfunction rather than deliberate damage. One side effect of disabling the antenna with the repeated burst is that some aspect of the circuitry and droid logic within the controls does send one of the anti-meteor defenses to react with some random shots that by accident just avoid grazing the Voyager. "Oops;" Kieran mumbles to himself. "Sorry about that, Dad." They are far too weak to be detected at long range, however. Then, he'll back off a bit, assume a parallel course with the comet and wait to see who comes calling. And so, invisibly, with the comet's commands disabled, he can fly along, waiting and watching. Its still carrying out the last command, from the Voyager, the comet steadily moving toward Seskinore. It's about a quarter hour before Gate beeps. Kieran is flying close enough that a tight beam from a Coranian ship will wash over his ship, too. Having broken the code already, Gate informs Kieran that its an attempt to change the course of the comet remotely. This signal continues for several minutes before being shut off. And now his sensors detect that a pair of Coranian ships are moving, with high-energy burns, toward the comet-ship. Gate relays as much passive information that he and the fighter can gather with. It appears the two Coranian ships are together roughly the same mass as the Voyager, which would mean that they are Wyverns,and armed primarily with lasers as well as a small-capacity missile rack. They will be in the vicinity of the fighter and the comet within a half hour, at their current speed and acceleration. With that information, Kieran pulls the fighter back and away from the comet in preparation for the arrival of the Wyverns. He wants to make sure he's not near the comet and leaving a 'shadow' or wake in the comet's outgassing and tail. Using the data from sensors, he and Gate will plot the course of the Coranian ships and determine the most advantageous spot(s) to ambush the Wyverns. This will be using the extra torpedoes and psychokinetically shoving/guiding them to strike the Wyverns from behind. As there is only two enemy ships, he will drop the second Mental Illusion spell if necessary to power the movement of the torpedoes. He should be able to rebuild it, if necessary, well before any other enemy ships can alter course to intercept the comet. At least one of the Wyvern ships must have an inkling that something is up, since as they come in, that second ship hangs back, letting his primary make first contact with the comet. Gate reports the second ship is definitely trying to act like a command and control ship for the pair, as a number of scans wash over the area around the comet. If Kieran hadn't pulled back, it is very possible the fighter might have been spotted through such dedicated searching. As it is with the data and the positioning, Kieran and Gate can together set up a plan to ambush the ships with the extra torpedoes and the advantage of surprise. The ship nearest the comet falls for it completely, and is destroyed without firing a shot in response. The Wyvern C&C ship, however, is a much warier opponent. A dance of weapons and tactics ensues between the fighter and the somewhat larger Wyvern. Just as the Keltians decorate their ships, so too, is the Wyvern, with abutments and accouterments that make the ship look like a terror from the skies. Eventually, dropping the second illusion to give him the extra push the dropped and psychokinetically moved torpedoes are enough to destroy the Wyvern. Kieran's damage in response to the wary and canny Wyvern ship is a fair amount of shield loss when the Wyvern uses its missiles like dumbfire mines. The trick only catches Kieran and Gate off guard once. Fortunately, Kieran is a good enough pilot not to make that single mistake fatal. And so with both ships destroyed, the comet continues on its course to Seskinore. The speed-of-light news of the destruction of the Wyverns is heading out toward the remaining Coranians. From what Kieran can see, there are more of them now in the Oort cloud than previously. Kieran falls back into a parallel course with the comet, still far enough out from it to avoid disturbing it's tail and limited atmosphere. Less work maintaining the mental illusion that way. He has gate divert power to hurry the process of regenerating the shields along. It's not like the comet can outrun the fighter after all. He and Gate will watch the sensors and see how the Coranians react to this latest setback in their plans. The comet continues to streak along. It does start to pick up some speed as the gravitational pull of the Gas Giant starts to ramp up on it, and by extension the fighter of course. However, this is a gradual process. It allows Kieran and Gate some time to regenerate shields. The Coranians are not quite as foolish and impetuous as they could be. They start advancing in system much more cautiously, rather than their somewhat reckless sending of a pair of ships as they did to fall to Kieran's tactics. The phalanx of Coranian ships slowly starts tightening a net around the system. Gate gives out a series of beeps and whistles, as he detects a series of sweeping beams designed to try and find what might be lurking in or near the off-course comet. The amount of energy in these beams is pretty high, as it must be to reach at this range. Kieran deduces that this "painting" is capable of eventually overwhelming his invisibility, especially as the ships get closer enough to sweep ever larger volumes of space around the comet. Kieran ponders the situation for a few minutes. How close is the comet to the point of no return? I.E. when it will no longer be able to avoid hitting the gas giant? He'll also starting working up another Mental Illusion spell. This is simpler than his initial idea. Just three versions of his fighter. When cast, these fake fighters will take up positions on his fighter as if the four of them were a fighter wing. Gate works on the calculations at Kieran's behest and sends the data through, quickly. The news is encouraging. The comet is less than a half hour from being inescapably caught in the Gas Giant's gravity. At that point, it will either strike Seskinore, or enter into a complex and likely decaying orbit around Seskinore. A few minutes more would be needed to ensure a strike and no other ancillary outcomes. The Coranian ships will arrive before a few minutes before that no return point, given their speed and course, although bursts of acceleration might shave them a few more minutes. In any event, its clear to Kieran that he doesn't have to hold off the Coranians long before the Comet is lost as a weapon. Kieran will dodge the sensor beams as best he can, more than willing to trade distance from the comet for remaining undetected for as long as possible. If he can slip through the net, so much the better, enabling him to strike at least one target from behind. How many Coranian ships are closing in? And are they the same type of ship as the previous ones? At this point, Kieran's not sure what the enemy can do to redirect the comet short of either landing on it and seizing manual control (and getting a very unhealthy dose of radiation in the process) or using tractor beams or attempting to gently ram the comet and use one or more of their ships to force the comet back around. So he waits and watches. There are a quartet of Coranian ships approaching, three of the Wyvern class ships that Kieran already has faced, and the last appears to be a Wraith. The Wraith is somewhat more dangerous of an opponent than the Wyverns, more of a command and control ship. It probably does have some tractor beams, but is unlikely to have anything else that can move the comet. It is also likely the major (but not the only) source of the sensor beams which Kieran and Gate are dodging. Kieran is ready to slip behind one of the Wyverns and attack it from its stern, when he receives tightcast encoded burst signal, from the vicinity of Caledon. Gate gives off a series of beeps and whistles as he decodes and sends it to the cockpit. "Fighter, this is Voyager. We're under heavy fire from Coranian ship of unknown class and type. Ensure the comet reaches Giant and then request assistance." "Gate;" Kieran says while judging intercept courses. "Reverify source and origin of that transmission and see if they sent any data on that ship. Do not acknowledge receipt of the message in any fashion." Gate sends off a couple of beeps and whistles and gets to work. Can Kieran get to a position to attack the Wraith from behind or below? He'd much rather destroy or disable the command ship in the opening round. The fighter can move to the Wraith, although since it is holding back, it would give the other ships a chance to get closer to the comet, and possibly affect it. But its rear dorsal quarter is most certainly not covered by the supporting Wyverns and offers a tempting target. Gate has not managed to finish with the re-verification or analysis of the message. Kieran angles for the rear of the Wraith as he thinks the current setup is almost perfect for what he wants to do. He plans to hold off on any attacks for a long as possible to give the comet time to get too close to the gas giant for it to be pulled away from an intercept. This also gives Gate more time to verify and analyze the message. The fighter, cloaking intact and unperturbed now that its behind the beams looking for it, is indeed in a perfect position to inflict maximum damage on the Wraith. The Wraith and the three Wyverns move closer and closer toward the comet, even as their time to stop it becomes less and less. The time to strike is nigh... And then the message comes from Gate. The message cannot be verified as being from Voyager. In a series of translated beeps and whistles, Gate is more than 90% confident that the message is a plant or a fake, and definitely not sent by Dad, Paril or Harmony. Kieran nods to himself. "Good work, Gate. I didn't think Dad would make a call like that. It's nice to know for sure though." He gives the tactical update one last glance and decides its time. "Now, the fun begins my friend. Get a jump to Caledon ready to go, Gate." Gate responds with a beep and whistle signal of acknowledgment. And then the party starts. Cue the heavy metal soundtracks. Kieran takes aim on the unsuspecting Wraith's rear and cuts loose with a barrage of ion and disruptor cannon fire. He casts the second Mental Illusion spell and has the three 'fighters' appear as if decloaking right about where he is. He then launches a staggered pair of proton torpedoes at the rear of the Wraith, while keeping up the barrage of fire from his main weapons. The goal is for the cannons to weaken the Wraith's shields, the first torpedo further weaken/overload those shields so that the second torpedo can hurl itself into the Wraith's engines with hopefully devastating effect. There is no sound in space. This is not to say, however, that there is no sound in the cockpit, or in the mind of the pilot. The roar of strong power chords and heavy beats begins to play out as the attack starts. The shields start to show ablative reaction to the gunfire. The Wraith starts a turn to bring weapons to bear on its rear attacker, trying to shake Kieran's fighter (and then, to its appearance, a pack of fighters), off of its six... The phantom fighters, once Kieran's missiles are away, will 'launch' a strafing attack on the Wraith to cover Kieran's attacks, then split up to 'attack' the Wyverns; one phantom per Wraith. Once the phantom fighters close with and then pass the Wraith, Kieran will cease firing and will remain cloaked by his first spell. The phantom fighters will appear to give it their best on their attacks but miss their targets by very narrow margins. Once past the Wyverns the three phantoms will regroup and swing back around for a second pass. It should all be very confusing to the enemy. Two of the Wyverns circle and fire in confused circles, trying to strike the intangible targets that seemingly are missing them by meters. As the only visible targets after Kieran, these Wyverns continue to try and attack the phantom fighters in vain. The third seems to try and persevere under fire, determined to reach the comet at all costs, willing to risk attack by the phantom fighters to try and complete the mission. Time to point of no return for the comet? The time can be measured as around less than 5 minutes at this point. Kieran keeps the phantoms harassing the Wyverns, launching strafing runs on a ship before moving on to another one. He hopes to keep the Wyverns as focused on the phantoms as possible. If its really close to the point of no return for the comet, then the three phantoms 'concentrate' on the two Wyverns holding back. The two Wyverns continue to tangle ineffectually with the phantoms. The third Wyvern has reached the comet. However, by itself, it can only buy a little time rather than reverse the course of the comet on its own. It does begin to do this, trying to push the comet out of its current path. "Let's see how good their gunners and computers are;" Kieran says to himself. He has the phantoms continue to buzz the pair of Wyverns. One of the phantoms will attack a single Wyvern and then evade in the same pattern or logical progression of patterns while gradually maneuvering around the Wyverns. The phantom will do this several times to allow the gunners and Wyvern's combat computer to detect and get used to the pattern. Then all the phantoms attack that Wyvern with all their 'might' and blazes of illusionary cannon fire. The 'predictable' phantom's attack run will start from a point that when it goes into its 'standard' evasive pattern; the Wyvern it just attacked, if they've picked on the pattern and try to shoot where the phantom will be at the end of its evasive pattern; will be shooting at it's sister ship, or at least in the path her sister will take. The flashes of light from the phantom's cannon fire may have a temporary, blinding or distracting affect on the gunners and help to keep them unaware of where they're shooting. A long shot, Kieran knows, but it might work. And if any of the phantoms take a direct strike from the Wyverns, it will explode spectacularly of course. With Kieran's programming, and the Wraith not able to participate, the Wyverns are at first completely bamboozled by Kieran's program for his illusions. It takes a fair amount of concentration on Kieran's part to pull this off, since he is trying to control multiple ships, at a distance, and trying to outgame the computers and crew of the ships all at the same time. The net result of the gaming is to keep the two Wyverns from escaping to the comet with the third. One of the phantoms does finally have to die, however, as the two Wyverns decide in an echelon type attack to concentrate their fire at a single fighter, rather than continuing to target separate illusions. There is no plausible way for Kieran to have the fighter escape the barrage, and so one of the illusions dies, leaving two. As far as the Wraith, two torpedo strikes and the strafing from Kieran have done a number on its rear shields. They did not quite collapse, but only just. Readings from the panels suggest that the larger ship is shifting power around its shields as it continues to swing around. The Coranian Wraith, though, unleashes a new weapon to try and find Kieran’s ship, a sweeping carrier wave of pulsing plasma energy. Kieran and Gate manage to mostly get out of its way, but at least one of the pulses does strike the fighter as it sweeps through space, doing significant damage to the front shields. Its also likely that the wave has made the invisible fighter at least detected if not visible, since the Wraith continues to try and out-turn and face the more nimble fighter. “Grap!” Kieran snarls glancing at the shield readouts. “That stung. Gate, shields double front till we overhaul or veer away from the Wraith. When we do, reset to normal load. And do what you can to regenerate the front ones.” That command will wrap the rear shield around the front one for extra protection at the expense of protecting the fighter’s six. Gate releases an acknowledgement of beeps and whistles as it fights to recover and reorder shields. Once the shields have been modified, Kieran closes on the Wraith’s six once again and opens fire with everything he has. He wants to get as close to Wraith’s rear as he can to get inside the fire arcs of any rearward facing defenses and yet stay far enough back to avoid most of the engine exhaust/wash from the Wraith. Once there, he stays there, following the Wraith’s evasive maneuvers and continuing to fire upon it. The Wraith is a pretty nimble ship for its size and class, more nimble than many a Republic ship of similar weight. Even so, it cannot match the fighter, especially with Gate and Kieran running at the controls. A few point defenses do start a continual strafing behind the Wraith, a laser pulse bank designed mainly for missiles, and certainly not the shields even of the fighter. It does slow Kieran’s attack runs, but it only slows the inevitable. Kieran’s shots continue to slowly wear down the Wraith’s shields and the occasional shot that gets through before shield rearrangement starts to cause increasing amounts of damage to the ship. If the point defensive weapons are truly annoying, Kieran will make a point of taking them out with ion and disruptor fire. Kieran does manage to disable half of them with an ion burst that slips through the shields before a reconfigurement closes the window of opportunity. The Wraith does manage one more effective pulse of its plasma weapon. This time, ready for it, and not in such a bad position, it only causes a brush of shield damage to the fighter. This dance continues for eight minutes more until Gate registers with Kieran that the comet, even with the Wyvern trying to divert it, can no longer be stopped. The Coranians seem to be aware of this too. Although the Wraith is damaged, it is still damaged, as well as the three Wyverns. They seem to be starting to make a tactical withdrawal from the area. Kieran nods to himself as the Coranians begin to break off. He pulls back as well, bringing the two remaining phantoms back to him and forming up around him. He'll continue to place himself between the comet and the Coranians until either the comet is well and truly done for, the Coranians exit the area, or both. He and the phantoms will make random position changes (i.e. Kieran in the lead, flanked by phantoms, then a phantom in the lead with Kieran on its flank, etc.) as long as the Coranians are around. Once the Coranians have left, Kieran takes a quick breather. Munching on a ration bar and a cup of caf from a thermos bottle, he scans the area for signs of other craft. As the shields regenerate, Kieran has Gate update the hyperspace jump toward Caledon and then see what they can pick up on their long range scanners. Kieran has time to take that deep breath, the cup of caf and the ration bar. Behind him, Gate broadcasts a picture of the comet, rapidly accelerating toward impact on a bluish green storm in the atmosphere of the Giant planet. With that, Gate informs Kieran that the coordinates for a jump to Caledon, just outside the roche limit, is ready. Long range sensors show the only vessels in the area are the Wraith and Wyverns that Kieran thwarted. Its more difficult to get better readings thanks to the weak magnetic field of Seskinore, however, its clear that there are a number of vessels, of unknown allegiance in and approaching Caledonian local space. The layout of the vessels on both sides does suggest that a space battle is about to commence. Kieran sighs. "It's been a hard day's night thus far, Gate;" Kieran says to his droid. Gate responds with a burble of agreement. "Charge up the weapons, bring up the shields the moment we revert to realspace, and get ready to squawk our Keltic Naval transponder code. I'd hate to have gone through all this only to be mistakenly shot by someone on our side." With that, Kieran tightens his belts once more and then loosely grips the controls. "Let's do this, Gate. Punch it!" The weapons are charged, the energies for the shields wait for transfer, and the stream of information shows that the hyperspace jump is ready. The stars streak from dots to lines as the fighter comes about in the direction of Caledon, and then the starfield becomes a display of long lines as the ship translates into hyperspace. The transit in hyperspace is mercifully short, and Gate reverts the fighter to realspace at a spot above the south pole of Caledon. This is a fortunate and skilled placing since the equatorial space of Caledon is littered with ships. Lots of ships. Keltic ships and Coranian ships have started to approach each other. The deadly dance of weapons fire and maneuvers is just getting started. The lines of ships are breaking up into complex orbits and patterns of maneuvers, weapons fire just getting started. Gate's obeying of Kieran's command to broadcast the transponder code, though, prevents the small polar-orbiting defense station from following through on its lock-on of Kieran with a weapons burst. None of the Coranian ships have taken note of the arrival of an additional fighter, yet. And there is no immediate sign of the Voyager. Kieran stares at the multitude of ships in orbit around him. "How they'd get this close to us?" he wonders aloud. "Gate, try and get me a tactical read on the situation, relative numbers that sort of stuff. And try and locate our command ship or ships." Kieran tries the HTD once more, trying to reach his Mother. Gate sets off a series of beeps and whistles as he gets to work analyzing the apparently chaotic tactical position, as well as find the command ships for the Keltic side. As he does this, Kieran has the chance to try his trump for Mother. It takes some concentration and effort, but Mom finally answers. The background is the command deck of the Griffin of Scota, Mom's command-level ship in the Keltic navy. The officers are a buzz of activity. Brandeigh Kerrigan Douglas regards Kieran. "Thank the Gods you are all right." Brandeigh says. "Where are you in this mess?" Before Mom can answer Kieran's immediate question, Gate displays the tactical information that Kieran requested. The Coranians have swarmed out from behind one of Caledon's moons and plunged into the defenses. How they managed to do this without the notice of the monitoring station on the moon is a very good question, but its clear from the tactical situation that the Coranian fleet came from the shadow of the Moon's far side. "Above the southern pole, near the defense station;" Kieran says while taking in the situation. The Keltic command ships are a bit out of formation and trying to maneuver and get into a well ordered battle. The Voyager as it happens seems to be on the periphery of the battle, the Griffin arrayed with some lighter escorts, trying to form a core with one or two of the other C&C ships. Kieran looks at his mother; "What do you want me to do? Where's the rest of the fleet?" "Your father told me what you were up to." Mother replies. "Good work. We'd be really in trouble if you hadn't taken care of the comet. To answer your questions in reverse, the fleet has been caught defending a couple of different systems. The Coranians have decided on a broad engagement. We *think* Scota is a secondary target, and so the fleet has been split between making sure they aren't trying a raid on Tara, and defending Erinna, which looks like their primary target thus far." "To answer your first question, mo mhúirnín bán, for the moment, I need your help in making sure we get through this engagement without too many casualties. How much of that extra armament do you have left? Or should I lend you a ship?" Kieran shrugs his shoulders. "I'm down to the guns;" Kieran says. "The extra 'special' stuff got used on the first trio of Wyverns to show up at try their collective hand at comet wrangling. And between them and the Wraith with another trio of Wyverns that showed up later, I've used all my missiles. The Wraith eventually limped away, I doubt she'll try and come here. The Wyverns;" Kieran grins; "are probably irked from tangling with ghost fighters. They all gave up and retreated after it became apparent there was no chance of redirecting the comet." "So you are out of ammunition." Mother replies concisely. "Even if you try and make more ghosts, you're tapped out." How much time do they have before the fighting starts? The first volleys of missiles on both sides are getting launched now. Beam weapons will wait until the ships are closer. It's going to get very crowded with weapons very quickly. "If you have any spare bombs or mines, I can swing by and collect them." He smiles. "With a cloaking spell up, I could even deliver them to, oh, say their flagship for you. If you like." "Mines we have in plenty." Mother replies. "Especially since we didn't have time to lay a proper field. Bombs we have a few. A special delivery of either, or both, to some of their main ships would be helpful. Your father is working the shadow as much as he can. If the Coranians get hot on him, keeping them off of his back would be useful, too." "I think you'd better." mother adds. "use that cloaking spell in getting *here*. Things are about to run hot. I have to go." Behind his mother, a klaxon and shouts suggest that their (first) weapons launch is imminent. "On my way;" Kieran says while prepping a Mental Illusion spell and maneuvering the fighter towards his mother's ship. "Drop however many mines you can, just make sure they're not active and that I can remotely activate them when I'm ready. And then keep going. I'll make as much trouble for the Coranians as I can." "Will do. Safe flying, son." Mother then cuts out the trump contact, even as another klaxon adds its wail to the first one on her ship. Meantime Kieran can prep the Mental Illusion spell and make the trip through dangerous space toward Mother's ship. It is true that space is big, really big. It's also true that fighting in the vicinity of a target means that there is less space that Kieran might like. Its a non trivial task to avoid weapons fire from both the Keltic and the Coranian forces to get into the vicinity of Mother's ship. Kieran triggers the Mental Illusion spell once its ready. He has doubts it will be as effective as it was during the first encounters especially if any of the previous Coranian ships got a message to its main fleet. But still, it should be of some use. Mother, at the moment, is exchanging missile fire with a pair of Coranian ships about half of her size. Gate gives off a series of beeps and whistles and sends data on the stream of mines that the Griffin of Scota has been releasing. There is a good dozen of them, radio controlled, and a quick packet from the Griffin has supplied the frequency needed to activate them as needed. Mom's ships veers off to continue the dog fight, leaving Kieran and Gate with the mines, and only a stray missile or three to bother them...for the moment. One of the missiles, just manages to avoid hitting one of the mines and ruining the entire enterprise by accident. Kieran studies the tactical situation. Is the Coranian flagship, or any of their command ships within range of one of Kieran's Dimension Door spells? The main Coranian flagship, a Tengu class Carrier, is standing off from much of the action, back in the direction of the moon, acting as a long range platform for its Wyvern wing and acting as a coordination ship rather than a first line combatant. Its not in easy range of a dimension door, unfortunately. On the other hand, there are several lesser command cruisers, Uller class, all of which are within range of the spell. One is fighting its way to try and engage with the Griffin, the other two are separately wading in and trying to stomp Keltic ships of smaller class. And if Kieran wanted slightly smaller game, there are even more Wraiths in the area commanding two and three Wyverns apiece in a manner similar to the detachment that he tangled with at the comet. Gate gives off a series of beeps and whistles and displays what is known about Coranian ship sizes in the fight. Much of it is familiar. Wyverns, about half the size of the Voyager. Wraiths, a close match for a ship like the Voyager in a stand up fight, especially with their apparently new PPD weaponry. Above them are the Onis, the ship class that mother's ship is tangling with at the moment. Above them are the Uller command cruisers, and above that the Tengu. The Coranians have dreadnought ships, Ettin class, larger than the Tengus, but there are none in this battle. Kieran throttles back in the area of the mines and coasts in towards one end of the string. He'll try to secure two or three of the mines, all lined up in a row under the centerline of the fighter's fuselage using his psychokinesis. He'll prep a Dimension Door spell and slowly speed up to determine how fast he can go and still hold on to the mines. Kieran manages to get two of the mines under the fuselage, held by the power of his mind. The mines are of a fairly good mass, so he can't go quite as fast as he was able when he was loaded with the extra torpedoes. Call it 5/8ths of maximum speed as his upper limit would give Kieran a safety factor. Similarly, his acceleration is limited, by a slightly greater margin, because of the danger of the cargo. Once he's gotten a good idea of what he can do here, Kieran turns the fighter towards the Tengu carrier and accelerates to the best speed he can manage. Kieran's fighter gradually ramps up to best speed. The battle is starting to get thicker, complicating matters somewhat. Once in range of his Dimension Door spell, Kieran will trigger it. The entrance portal will be far enough in front of him so that he can 'release' the mines and 'shove' them towards the portal with his psychokinesis while looping up and around away from the portal. Gate will trigger the mines activation sequences once the mines and fighter have enough separation. The exit portal for the spell will be under Tengu, oriented 'up', so that the mines will appear and be aimed right for that ship's belly. In effect, dumb missiles on ballistic courses. But dumb missiles with proximity fuses in the event the Tengu tries to dodge. The few moments that Kieran has the dimension door and the mines psychokinetically still held feel like minutes before he gives the shove with his psychic abilities to move the mines in the direction of, and through the small portal. The mines careen through it, and Gate explodes both of them expertly. The Tengu carrier is taken completely by surprise, its shields taking substantial damage, and there is almost certainly some internal damage from the physical fact of the explosions nearby. Kieran will then fly back to the mines, crafting another Dimension Door enroute and prepare to acquire more mines. As Kieran turns and returns toward the mine field, at a much faster pace than his inbound fight, he (and Gate) can continue to monitor the carrier's reaction to unexpected explosions. The carrier is not amused. By the time Kieran has returned to the group of mines and has prepared to pick up more, the carrier has, according to sensors, deployed some Wyverns and a Wraith tender in a defensive formation around the carrier. Passive sensors also suggest the carrier's weapons are turning hot. Kieran grins upon observing the Tengu's reaction to his efforts. Suddenly concerned for her own safety, the Tengu might not be as effective in the command and control area as the Coranians are accustomed to. Have the Coranians utilized any of those PPDs around the Tengu in an attempt to reveal the fighter? It's difficult for Kieran to tell at the far end of the DD spell. There is certainly a lot of electromagnetic activity in the vicinity of the cruiser. So its certainly very possible. How effective does the Wyvern/Wraith defensive perimeter appear to be? How far out from the Tengu is the perimeter? Does Kieran think he could launch another pair of mines like before, but with the exit portal appearing at a different location relative to the Tengu? Does Kieran think he could have the dimension door open up inside the perimeter? The Coranian's, unfortunately, are learning. Its a decently erected cordon, with few obvious holes in the defense to exploit. Oh, with a DD, the fighter can have the mines appear anywhere, but to get close enough to use the portal will almost certainly bring them down on his head. Kieran tries to figure the odds of inflicting severe, perhaps mortal, damage on the Tengu. With the mental illusion still going and moving at his best speed with a pair of mines in tow, he'd use the dimension door spell to arrive inside the defensive perimeter at the best available location or angle of attack. Then, he'd make an attack run on the Tengu, holding on to the mines (and thus concealing them) until the last possible moment before releasing them. Once the mines have been released (and activated by Gate), he'd accelerate to full speed and kick in the boosters to make his escape. What does he think his odds of successfully pulling this off are? And, after giving Gate the same premise, what does the droid think? Gate starts calculating the odds even as Kieran does, and the ship wheels around the minefield area. Damage to the Tengu under the best plausible scenario would be substantial (but not mortal) to it. That assumes both mines hitting a weak point in the shielding and breaking it at that local point. The odds of pulling that off, looking at the odds, for Kieran, is about 40%. Before Gate can finish his own analysis, a pair of Wyverns, probably orphans from a flight group, stumble across Kieran and the deployed mines. Giving up on whatever was their primary target, the Wyverns wheel around in the direction of Kieran's fighter. Kieran ponders things while finishing the prep work on another Dimension Door spell. Moving a pair of mines to DD range of the Tengu is taking too long to make it an effective active, he thinks. But as he's about to try it again anyway, a pair of Wyverns show up and start making a run for him. "Wyverns are bigger than mines;" he says aloud while maneuvering the fighter so the remaining mines are between him and the Wyverns. Gate sets off a series of beeps and whistles in agreement. Just before the Wyverns get within weapons range, Kieran accelerates away from the mines, while having Gate remotely activate them. The Wyverns will probably go around the mines, but maybe not if they've noticed Kieran was near the mines. Like small bright stars against a sea of more distant ones, the remaining mines explode and flare in points of brilliant white light. The Wyverns nearly fall for it and the blast, but they manage to escape with only incidental damage to their shielding at best. In any event, Kieran only goes as fast as the Wyverns, twisting and dodging to avoid their weapons fire, while slowly reeling them in closer behind him. Every so often, Kieran will use his advantage in speed and maneuverability to spin around and launch an attack on the Wyverns. He wants to get the Wyverns mad and focused solely on him while he slowly maneuvers in the direction of the Tengu and her escorts. What kind of formation are the Wyverns using in their attacks on Kieran? The Coranians are using a cautious and conservative "hanging Z" in three dimensions with high overlapping fields of fire as the second fighter sweeps on the x axis back and forth as if attached to the first fighter by a chain. Kieran's efforts to attack and lead them on a merry chase back toward the Tengu pay dividends. They are only moderately accurate with their weapons, but they are better pilots. And so as Kieran keeps retreating and firing as he heads toward the carrier, the trading of fire winds up to be a wash. However, Kieran and Gate will shortly be caught between the two Wyverns pursuing him, and the more numerous carrier escorts ranging out from the Carrier. When Kieran lures the Coranians close enough to the Tengu for a DD spell to work, he waits a little bit longer for the most opportune time to spring his trick. When the two Wyverns are about to get as close together as they're likely to get based on past maneuvers, Kieran kills the throttles on his fighter and flips it end for end. He'll be flying (coasting) bass ackwards and inverted relative to the Wyverns. Using the maneuvering thrusters he'll jink the fighter's nose around a bit as he opens fire, sending ion blasts and disruptor charges at the Wyverns. All a distraction, really. When the Wyverns are as close together as they're likely to get, Kieran casts the DD spell. Kieran manages to get into DD range, and a little closer, before the convergence of the fighters to each other (basically when they are aligned on two axes) gives him the opening. The Wyverns start to pull apart, to avoid the relatively unaimed blasts. They start their own firing solutions at Kieran's fighter as well. The entrance portal will be placed directly in front of the Wyverns and large enough to hopefully snare them before they can react, let alone attempt to maneuver out of the way. The portal opens and manages to catch one completely, sailing right through. The other just manages to avoid the portal by the sheer luck of the pilots making a hard maneuver to try and avoid Kieran's weapons fire. The exit portal will appear just above the Tengu's bridge area, and oriented so anything exiting the DD will be going right at the Tengu. Just far enough above the Tengu that all the ships know they're going to collide, but with too little time/space to do anything about it. And so behind Kieran, Gate provides the visual in the HUD of the Wyvern sailing straight for the Tengu Carrier's bridge. Both ships try to turn, but there is absolutely no chance to escape the collision. The latter is simply too big of a target, and the Wyvern dies as it punches through the shield and impacts the carrier's bridge soundly. This collision sends the escorts into a frenzy as they start circling back toward the Tengu, leaving the lone Wyvern that avoided the portal as the only ship that threatens Kieran at present. That ship has started computing firing solutions and a bracketing fire that seems designed to try and herd Kieran rather than actually striking and destroying him. Kieran gives the HUD a brief glance as the Tengu and Wyvern collide. "Wyverns are bigger than mines;" he says again. "And more persistant." Then, he flips the fighter back around and jams the throttles back to full, going completely evasive for a time. "Gate, get me a two second microjump set up to get us out of here. It's gotten a little hot all of a sudden." Gate responds with an affirmative whistle and beep. He'll also use Mind Fugue to speed up the crafting of a Mind Over Matter spell, which he plans on using 6/7ths of his Psyche to boost Warfare. In the meantime, the persistent Wyvern continues its attempts to keep Kieran on a desired course. Kieran's evasiveness makes this difficult, but the Wyvern slams on its own speed to keep the fighter within its sights. Its clear from a tactical point of view even before the MOM spell is done that the Wyvern is trying to move Kieran up on the z-axis, into a region of space seemingly removed from the battle entirely. A flurry of fire from the ship mandates Kieran changing course a bit onto that axis. Moments later, Gate reports the microjump calculations are complete, and the spell is ready as well. "Gate, scan the area where this Wyvern is trying to herd us. What's up there?" Then Kieran kicks in the MOM spell and uses his boosted Warfare to stay at this 'elevation' until Gate can scan the area. With the MOM spell increasing his Warfare and reactions, the fighter is much more capable of dealing with the bracketing fire laid down by the Wyvern and its crew. He manages to remain at the same elevation without too much difficulty, the Wyvern continually frustrated in its attempts to maneuver and push the fighter around. It takes some moments for Gate to get back to Kieran. What he reports is very odd. There is nothing, evidently, there. No sign of a ship or the like, although the vacuum fluctuations in that region of space are a little odd to Gate's sensors. The quality of that space seems just a little bit...off. Kieran considers this for a moment or three. How is the overall battle progressing? Has the Coranian fleet's tactics changed in anyway now that their flagship has been destroyed? The information of the strike against the Tengu is filtering down the chain of command, and the site of the strike in a cascading fashion. From his perspective, Kieran can see that the ships nearest to the Tengu are losing their focus and directive thanks to the strong hierarchical nature of the Coranian navy. Thanks to limits on communications, and the set up of the fleet, units further down the chain, and further away from the carrier, are still fighting strong. The more nimble and reactive Keltic fleet, however, is definitely reacting to the catastrophe that has struck their enemy's lead vessel, and the Scotan defenders are taking a more offensive, aggressive posture. Kieran estimates that the remaining command units of the will Coranians probably, if they are smart, will start moving their posture to a fighting withdrawal from Scotan local space. Kieran uses Multi-tasking to bring up a Third Eye and send it to cautiously explore the outer edges of the anomaly while piloting the fighter to make a series of attack runs on the Wyvern and conduct some tests. Kieran will maneuver around the Wyvern to see if it will fire into the anomaly or not. With his amped up Warfare, Kieran achieves tactical superiority on the Wyvern in this manner, skating around its attempts to herd him, while trying attack runs to poke at its reactivity to the anomaly. The Wyvern is not only willing to fire bolts of energy that head into the anomaly, Kieran gets an unexpected bonus: The energy is absorbed, and the laser shots disappear when they strike the anomaly space. These shots, as well as his orbiting of the region make it clear to Kieran that its a twist in spacetime, or an out and out Portal of some kind, made by means of some sort of exotic matter. Kieran notes that while the Wyvern still tries to herd Kieran's fighter into it, the Wvyern itself is giving the region of space around the Anomaly a wide berth. Kieran recalls his Third Eye once he's learned what the anomaly may well be. 'A portal,' he thinks. 'But to somewhere or nowhere?' Then he considers matters further. The Coranians somehow managed to penetrate Keltic space undetected, until it was almost too late. Their flagship was directing the battle from a spot not too far from here. Could the Coranians have gotten here via the portal? Is it a one or two way portal, he wonders. The Wyvern's firing into it so that either means the shots are going through to whatever's on the other side or the anomaly is either shunting the shots aside or absorbing them. Not good, no matter how you look at it. And then, after a few minutes of this dance, the Wyvern seems intent on a new tactic. It pulls back a bit on following Kieran, and launches a missile. But the missile is not at Kieran's fighter. Directly at the center of the anomaly. "What the grap?" Kieran exclaims as the missile flies towards the anomaly. "I've got a bad feeling about this. Gate, time to leave." And with that, Kieran engages the fighter's hyperdrive for a already programmed two lightsecond microjump back towards the Keltic forces. He's thinking that's either a signal of some sort to whatever's on the other side or its an attempt to overload the anomaly and cause it to go BOOM. Either way, here is no longer a good place to be. It is fortunate for Kieran that he has the two lightsecond microjump already programmed, courtesy of Gate. The Fighter jumps away just before the missile impacts the anomaly. 600,000 kilometers proves to be a nice and safe distance from whatever the anomaly and the Wyvern are up to. Its difficult to tell at this range just what is going on. If it is an explosion, its an awfully small one. Of course, this jump also puts Kieran much closer to the main bulk of what remains of the fighting. As Kieran surmised, as word of the strike on the Tengu has spread down the chain of command, the Coranians have lost their military cohesion. The Keltic forces are, generally, on the advance, and Kieran even has a few moments to collect himself without anyone specifically targeting his fighter. Kieran tries to contact his mother using the comm system as he has Gate try to locate both her ship and the Voyager. Gate gets a fix on mother's ship a moment before he gets through her in the comm system. Mom's ship is leading a strike against a pocket of Coranian forces centered around a Oni and some Wyverns and Wraiths. How big/what class of ship is an Oni? Onis are larger than Wraiths,, and smaller than the full Uller command cruisers (and of course much smaller than the Tengu). An Oni similar to this one was the ship that Mother's ship was tangling with when Kieran first trumped her, an equal match for her class of ship one-on-one. There is no sign of the Voyager. That's not a good sign by Kieran's way of thinking. "Easier to get a hold of me this way." Brandeigh says approvingly as her image appears on the comm system. "Whatever you did to their carrier, the Coranians have seemed to have lost their taste for the engagement." "When their flagship merely got annoyed at me for tossing mines at it;" Kieran says while studying tactical readouts looking for Voyager; "I resolved to hit with something bigger. A Wyvern did the trick." Brandeigh opens her mouth slightly in shock, and then turns it into a smile of obvious and unfettered maternal pride. Behind her, Kieran can hear snatches of the battle is going. "...the Oni is deploying that plasma weapon again, Milady. Changing vector to avoid the splash." Kieran glances over at Gate; "Send what data we have about those weapons to my mother's ship." Gate chirps his accomplishment of Kieran's command. "Have you heard from your father?" Brandeigh then asks. "He's no longer showing up on my sensors. I've also risked trying his trump, to no success." "No, I haven't. I was about to ask you the same question;" Kieran frowns in thought. "Gate, can you determine the last known location of the Voyager?" Gate replies after a moment with a negative response. "Grap;" Kieran says. He looks at his mother's image then; "Do you know it's last known location or vector?" Another moment and then he frowns; "What's up with the Trumps anyroad? They weren't working when we entered Keltic space and now they're more difficult than I recall them being." "Sending information on where the Voyager was..." Brandeigh says. The data comes quickly. Dad and Paril apparently had been keeping the Voyager on the fringes of the battle, just above the plane of the ecliptic... "As far as the Trumps, your father was trying to counter that. Something has been messing with the shadow." Her displeasure is obvious. He looks back at his mother; "There's another problem. There's some sort of portal at the following coordinates." He transmits the location of the anomaly. "A Wyvern I was engaged with fired into it and I thought the whatever it is was going to explode. I don't think it has." He pauses for a moment, thinking. "Can you meet me enroute to there, or spare a ship big enough to hold this fighter? Dad may not be answering, but I can try Paril in a moment. If I can't reach either of them, I have other Trumps that should get me onboard Voyager." "Do that." Mother says. "As for joining you, I need to kill this annoyance dead." Brandeigh says after a moment. "The commander of this Coranian battle group actually seems to know what she is doing. However, I will spare you a destroyer. I'm sending the Arthfael to rendezvous near those coordinates." She speaks a few word of command to one of her subordinates to contact the ship and then returns to the conversation with Kieran. "Good luck, Kieran. Keep in contact. I don't need you to disappear, either." Kieran's torn between going to aid his mother and finding his father, friend and ship. His mother is more than capable of fighting (and winning) her own battles, he knows. After a moment's hesitation, Kieran engages the fighter's engines and heads for the rendezvous at the fighter's best speed. "I hope they didn't get pulled into that, whatever that is. If they did, I'll get them back;" he says to his mother. *Somehow;* he thinks to himself. "Good luck to you as well, Mother. "Good hunting." Mother responds. Just before she cuts off, Kieran can hear her start to alter commands to the battle group, clearly based on Kieran's discoveries about the PPD weaponry. Once they're on course for the rendezvous, Kieran drops the MOM spell, let's Gate fly the fighter with instructions to avoid combat and make contact with the Arthfael and takes a few moments to catch a quick breather. With the situation as it is, the flight of Kieran's fighter to the rendezvous point is quiet and unperturbed by anything out of the ordinary. The battle is slowly winding down, as the Coranians continue either fighting withdrawals, delaying tactics, or small engagements. The offensive is clearly broken now, and the report of the destruction of two of the three remaining Ullers comes to Kieran during his flight. Captain Maddox of the Arthfael shortly thereafter signals Kieran in response to Gate's call. The fighter can be brought on board, and as per the Mistress of Scots he will serve as executive officer to Kieran for the duration. Kieran brings the fighter in to land inside the Arthfael when the two ships close on each other. Exiting the fighter, he grabs his helmet and clips it to the back of his belt. He rushes through the welcoming aboard protocols, this is still a battlezone after all. I'm going to assume they're met by the ship's XO, as the Captain will want to remain on the bridge during a combat situation. He brings Gate along with him. They are indeed met by the Executive Officer, a dark haired woman, Fingula Aiobhell. A good family with a long line of service to Keltia. "Perhaps later, sir, you might tell me of your companion." she says, gesturing to Gate. "His design is unknown to me." "He's a... one of a kind;" Kieran replies after a moment. "Excellent astrogator and mechanic." Commander Aiobhell nods. "Unique design indeed." "This is your ship, Captain;" Kieran says firmly once he's been brought to the Arthfael's commander. "You, your crew and your ship need you in charge in the event of more battle. I needed someplace secure to dock my ship while I deal with other issues. Think of me as a passenger, or if you prefer, a flag officer." He sighs, figuring the Captain will choose to take him up on the flag officer option. "If you've the fuel to spare, I would appreciate it of you'd have my ship refueled." "I would prefer that you be Flag Officer for the duration of this operation, sir. That would best fit the letter and spirit of the Mistress of Scots' command." Captain Maddox says. "Your fighter can and shall be refueled of course." Kieran nods; "As you say Captain. It does not do to disregard the orders of the Princess Admiral." Gate whistles and chirps inquiringly and Kieran replies; "I don't think they have any missiles in their inventory that we'd be able to make use of." "We have some spare missiles, sir." Captain Maddox replies. "However, I do not think they are small enough munitions to suit your fighter." "Probably not;" Kieran replies. "Still, have the schematics and technical specs shown to my droid when we reach the bridge. Maybe he can figure something out." "As you wish." Captain Maddox replies. Kieran says; "I need to get to the coordinates Princess Admiral Douglas sent you at your best speed, Captain. There's some sort of portal, hole, or anomaly there that I need to check out." "As you command sir." Maddox starts issuing commands, for the refueling of the fighter and for the Arthfael to make best speed for the coordinates. Maddox returns to his Captain's chair, leaving the usually empty chair for a flag officer vacant for Kieran to sit as he wishes. Kieran takes the seat after a few moments. He brings up the HTD and tries to trump his father. The image flickers into life. None of the rest of the staff seems to notice, as they are busied about the various tasks, including showing Gate some of the specs of the missiles that the Arthfael has in storage. As Kieran probably predicted, the contact cannot be completed. There is a definite block on his father. The ship's journey away from the main flow of battle and toward the coordinates is relatively uneventful. Monitors and scanners, and the crew of the ship give off a hum of activity as the coordinates are approached. Kieran relays the tale of his previous encounters in the area of the anomaly. He has Gate produce a holographic recording of the encounter. Commander Aiobhell and Captain Maddox watch as Gate reproduces the encounter. Both of them murmur comments to each other as they watch the tactics used by Kieran and his opponents. "Sir" Lieutenant Commander Aiobhell says to Kieran. "We are approaching the coordinates provided by the Princess Admiral. There appears to be a Coranian ship at medium range, Wyvern class." "Orders?" "Show me the sensor readings of that ship, Commander;" Kieran replies. "Gate, is that the same ship we encountered?" Gate sends off an affirmative response. "It does looks similar to the Wyvern that you showed us in the recording." Captain Maddox says. He looks to Aiobhell. "Commander?" "Sending sensor readings to the Flag Commodore's station." she replies. Kieran arches an eyebrow momentarily at the rank the Commander has given him, but says nothing. The sensor readings, as well as the imagery, definitely shows it to be the same ship that Kieran tangled with in the fighter. As one might expect, with the much larger ship, the Wyvern is far less inclined to try and tangle with. "Ship is maintaining distance from both us and the anomaly." Commander Aiobhell reports. "Only prudent;" Kieran replies; "given the differences in size and combat power. The question I have, is why is she still here at all? Is she protecting the anomaly, or..." Kieran's voice trails off as he silently finishes his question *waiting for the opportunity to go through or for something else to do so?* "Captain, please maintain current distance from the anomaly;" Kieran says to Captain Maddox. "Also, initiate a scan of the anomaly and surrounding space if you would." "Absolutely." Captain Maddox replies. "Make it so, Lieutenant." he says to one of the other officers. "Commander, I'd like to see the tactical logs of this battle. Show me where the Coranians were initially detected in relation to this anomaly and overall ship movements since. What course, or courses, are the Coranian's falling back on?" While the crew is working on that, Kieran brings up Paril's trump on the HTD and gives it a try. He suspects that it will also be blocked. As Kieran expects, the trump of Paril comes up on the HTD, and results the exact same blockage as witnessed with the attempt to trump his father. By the time Kieran finishes with his trump attempt, the Arthfael has done a bit of a dance with the Wyvern as it has maneuvered to get a scan from the anomaly while avoiding engagement with the enemy as much as possible. "Scan complete, Captain." the unnamed officer at one of the stations says. "Let's see it on the main screen, Lieutenant." Maddox says. The readings, graphically rendered, show that the anomaly appears as a beaded string of warped space that appears to be slowly elongating and widening. Right now, the anomaly's volume would just fit within the Arthfael's hold. The space around it is showing stress and a fair amount of Cherenkov radiation, suggesting that the immediate volume around it has some sort of dark or unseen matter, or stress on the region. Gate gives off a series of beeps as the other information Kieran requested, the flow of the battle, comes across to the station where Kieran is sitting, and by extension, Gate as well. The logs suggest that the Coranians erupted out of three positions in roughly equal proportions, and the site of this anomaly is one of them. The Coranian retreat appears to be toward the other two "starting positions", while this one is not apparently designated as a fallback point. "Gate;" Kieran says. "How does this scan of the anomaly compare with our earlier one? Has it gotten bigger?" Gate answers immediately in a series of whistles and beeps. The anomaly has grown about 20 percent larger from the size when Kieran was tangling with the Wyvern. "Captain, have the battle plot and the Coranian's probable fall back positions sent to the Admiral's flagship along with your scans of the anomaly. Maybe she can get units to flank the Coranians. Advise them to scan for the same in those fall back positions." "You think there are two more anomalies in those locations." Captain Maddox says, not quite a question. He turns to the Communications Lieutenant. "Transmit the data and the flag officer's advice to the Princess Admiral's ship." "Either that, or this one gets around, Captain;" Kieran says. "Neither theory is very appealing to me at the moment." "Indeed" Captain Maddox comments, with an clear distaste in his voice for Kieran's theory. If the Wyvern's in range, Kieran manifests Third Eye and Third Ear and sends them over to the Wvyern, heading for that ship's bridge. The Wyvern is just within range of Kieran's abilities, enough that Kieran can give it a go. He can dimly hear the Captain say something to his officers as he concentrates, sending his perceptions toward the Coranian ship. As his perceptions cross the space, his psyche feels a slight tugging from within the anomaly, as if the anomaly can react with it on some sort of level. It seems, at least at this stage, that it would and will slow Kieran's efforts, rather than completely impede them. What can Kieran sense of it as it reacts or tries to interact with him? It appears multi-dimensional, does it feel like its multi-shadowy or not from this shadow? To Kieran, it feels multi-dimensional; it does not seem to have anything that suggests that the anomaly, or its effects, extends outside of the shadow. At the most, it feels like it works on the dimensions of reality above and below the standard three that allow for the usual faster-than-light travel and communications in the shadow of Keltia. AS the tugging continues, Kieran realizes something on a tactile level that the sensors of the Arthfael probably cannot, and his sensors on the fighter could not either. It took Kieran to unsheathe his mind near the anomaly to sense it. Somewhere, beyond to whatever dimension the anomaly leads, there is a psyche, a mind of some sort, lurking beyond. It is that psyche that is certainly doing the "tugging" on Kieran's mind. His/Her/It's interactions are still too weak to really do anything to him, and Kieran can certainly ignore them and continue to the Wyvern at this point...if he wishes. Does the psyche feel at all familiar to Kieran? He'll keep the Third Eye/Ear going toward the Wyvern. Once there, he'll make his way towards the bridge and the ship's captain. The psyche does not feel familiar at all to Kieran. Inhuman, certainly. An alien of some stripe, but that's a broad brush, as Kieran's experiences in the Republic show. As a byproduct of continuing onto the Wyvern, the feel of the psyche coming from the anomaly fades into the background, now only the gentlest of tugging on Kieran's mind. The cramped, claustrophobic Wyvern is much like what intelligence Kieran has on the inner workings of the Coranian vessel. The plans are cramped, tight, and not very inviting. For the Coranians their sense of interior aesthetic for their spacecraft is extremely utilitarian. So it takes a little longer to make it through the maze of passageways and banks to get to the bridge. Kieran does so without difficulty, finding the three person bridge crew looking at screens. The Arthfael is the most prominent thing on the scanners and readouts. One scanner, though, by the gray haired, square-jawed Captain shows a different readout entirely. From what Kieran can make of it, its a map of the local region of space, with the anomaly in the center. The upper right of the display has a countdown measured to an accuracy of tenths of a second and is counting down. As Kieran watches, it cracks 400 and continues to count down. What does Kieran sense from the Captain and bridge crew? Nervousness, calm, anticipation? Nervous anticipation. Their emotions blaze out like little flares in Kieran's heightened perception with this mental form. They can't wait for the countdown to reach zero. Beyond the mere fact of those emotive registers, the gestures, looks and body language on the captain and the crew of the Wyvern all confirm this. Nervous fingers, sweaty palms, and the captain's eyes keep glancing at the countdown. Oh, and the eye color. Coranians, as Kierans are well aware, have somewhat expressive eyes, changing color from a hue of grey to a brighter blue under stress. The Captain's eyes are now definitively blue. 'So they know what's going to happen;' Kieran muses while examining the crew stations; 'and aren't afraid of whatever it is.' Anything like preset flight plans or the like? There are a few of the usual "standard evasion patterns" dialed up and ready, more for tactical fights than anything. Kieran tells Captain Maddox that something will happen regarding the anomaly in x number of seconds and that he should be prepared for fight or flight. Is the crew watching both the anomaly and the Arthfael, as if they can't wait for whatever's beyond the anomaly to appear and do something to the Keltic ship? That's the sense that Kieran gets. Their interest is mostly in the anomaly, and only in the Keltic ship in so far as making sure it doesn't make a run at them The Captain pauses, regarding Kieran oddly for a moment. The hesitation, while there, is only momentary. He begins issuing orders to the crew to prepare for action. The time ticks down and down toward zero. On board the Wyvern (which Kieran has learned is named Qamkuna ("The white knife"), the Coranians continue to pilot their craft and wait impatiently. The seconds count down and down, the Qamkuna keeping its distance from the Arthfael and the anomaly, anticipating growing in the minds of the Coranians. And then, finally, the counter hits zero. Nothing happens for five seconds beyond that. Confusion reigns on the faces and expressions of the Coranians. And then it starts. It begins as a small wave of energy, psychic. Like the ripples dropped from a pond, a wave of psychic energy flows out from the anomaly. In his position, Kieran feels it both here, on the Coranian Wyvern, and on his physical body. The effect is mild on him, but somewhat larger on the crews of both ships, disorienting, stunning. The Coranians seem better ready for it, though, and recover from it sooner. In the meantime, back on the Keltic ship, alarms start to sound. On displays there and on the Qamkuna, the sensors and displays show that the anomaly is growing... And the bow of a ship, cephalopodic in its tentacled appearance, is emerging from the anomaly. Its large, the cross section profile suggests its going to be as large as Mom's flagship if not larger. That psychic force and tugging is increasing on Kieran. Rapidly. "What the grap?" Kieran mutters to himself. *Hope your paying attention to your sensors, Mom;* he adds to himself. He puts a bit more power into his psychic projection, trying to get it to 'flash' and get the thing's attention focused on the Coranian ship, then cuts his psychic projection off. He'll then make sure Faithful Mind is still up and bring up Mind Masque to hide/deflect the thing's attention from him. Then he'll begin working on a Mind Blank spell. If needs be, he'll take control of the Arthfael while the crew is stunned and maneuver defensively. "Gate, comm Mom's ship;" Kieran says while juggling tasks. "Send them the sensor data on the squid ship. Tell them we've got a major not good situation here." It turns out to be an enormous juggle for Kieran. The crew of the Arthfael are recovering from the stun, so that Kieran doesn't need to take control of the ship just yet. They do seem a little dazed from the experience, but the Captain is giving orders and backing up from the ship emerging from the anomaly. On a screen, Kieran can see the Wyvern, almost triumphantly, is moving closer to the anomaly and the emerging ship. Gate gives off a series of beeps and whistles of disappointment--communications are being jammed and disrupted by the same psychic field that is pulling on Kieran. As far as Kieran's attempts to get the ship to concentrate on the Coranians by flashing his psyche and using the Mind Masque, the ship/creature's attentions are shifting more toward the Wyvern. and away from the Keltic ship. However, it seems to be splitting its attention, rather than dropping its interest in the Arthfael entirely. "Flag Officer." Captain Maddox says. "We're going to try to send a message drone to break through this static. What do you know that we need to tell the Princess Admiral?" The cephalopodic ship continues its slow process of emergence. Kieran, still puzzled by the actions of the Coranians, moves his psychic projection out of the Wyvern and towards the cephalopodic ship. "What. Do. You. Want? Who. Are. You?" Kieran sends to the alien ship. He'll try to cut the psychic projection as fast as possible if the alien tries to overwhelm his projection. "Flag Officer." Captain Maddox says. "We're going to try to send a message drone to break through this static. What do you know that we need to tell the Princess Admiral?" The cephalopodic ship continues its slow process of emergence. "Captain;" Kieran says. "Inform the flagship that the alien vessel has a strong psychic presence." He'll add a brief, succinct report of what he's learned from the Coranians and the alien vessel. "Send three drones, Captain;" he adds; "on divergent courses." "Confirmed." Captain Maddox replies. Distantly, Kieran can hear the Captain start to give orders, as his main attention is indeed with his psychic projection, and the alien ship and aliens that he is engaging.
are the spawn of one who opposed us. We will take her shadow in payment for that crime. We will take all shadows for that crime.* 'Mom?' Kieran thinks perplexed for a moment. 'What the grap?' He then sighs and rolls his shoulders to settle his armor more comfortably on him. He glances down to verify his boots are still on. "Die With Your Boots On" from Iron Maiden starts playing in his head. "Captain Maddox;" Kieran says firmly; "Record the following voice message then send the drones." He pauses for a moment, then says in a calm, firm tone; "Flagship, this is the Arthfael. We have encountered a Yithonghu, whatever they are, and they appear to have *issues* with Princess Admiral Brandeigh Douglas, her offspring, and her people. We will engage them as best we can, for as long as we can. Prince Commodore Kieran Douglas, clear." Another moment's pause, then; "Captain, please lock on to both ships and arm every available weapon; 30 percent to lock on the Coranian vessel, 70 percent on the Yithonghu. And then fire when ready." "Drones away." comes the voice of the Captain. The sounds of klaxons and alarms ring, and the ship starts its maneuvers. The plight of the ship starts to become distant, as the conflict with the enemy escalates. To the Yithonghu, Kieran simply sends; *Get. Bent.* He then withdraws his psychic projection and concentrates on his mental defenses. Yeah, Kieran's going to fight. It's what he does.
his defenses directly, besides a single probe that is quickly withdrawn as Kieran hardens his mental fortress. Instead, what they seem to be trying to do is to psychically pull Kieran's mind into a mental plane with it, presumably for the purposes of a more visualized and actualized mental conflict there. It would take additional energy and tax Kieran's defenses on this level to resist the pull. "Captain Maddox;" Kieran says calmly; "The Yithonghu are trying to draw me into psychic combat. I will engage them there while you continue the fight on the physical plane. Attack then, harass them for as long as you can to keep them here. The Princess Admiral will be on her way once one of the drones reaches the fleet." He waits for any questions or comments from the Captain before latching onto the Yithonghu's mental pull and launching himself into the psychic battle. There is a pregnant pause "We will do as you say. Good luck Kieran" Captain Maddox replies simply. Kieran feels the ship suddenly change vector, and another distant sound of orders and klaxons as the ship begins shifting position... And in the same moment, Kieran's senses are fully engaged...elsewhere. Backlinks |
