Chapter 1

Unforeseen Development

Delta Serpentis 2385

50 years after the Great War

The lost generation is returning home...

By using technology derived from Knossos portal GTVA engineers successfully finished the construction of the Sol Gate.

Sol Expeditionary Force GTVA 14th Battle group have been given the honor to initiate contact with earth and her colonies. Once they emerged to the other side after an unusal bumpy ride, something went clearly wrong indeed.

Bridge at GTD Orestes

"Fleet Status report" Said admiral Bei with a calm composed voice, despite almost everyone know something clearly went wrong, during hyperspace.

The ships almost shook it self apart, something that happens when ships are blown out of course, in worst case they end up outside the space time bubble and that would result to the ship literally rip the ships apart. However this one was clearly different and simply rubbed everyone the wrong way.

"Sir, all the ships are reporting in however our fleet is spread out thinn in the system, luckily they seems to have exited hyperspace intact" Said the yeoman.

"What is our position?" Said Bei, leaning forward to the command console while looking down... exhaling easement knowing the fleet seemed intact while pressing a holographic button to open the hull plates that was protecting the bridges observation dec.

"Unknown... the hyperspace jump scrambeled the navigation computers, im in the dark sir" said the nav officers with a worrying tone.

"Helms, what am I looking at?" Said Bei while starring with awe... a sulfur looking yellow planet and huge field of debrise of ship wrecks orbiting it.

"Seems that a huge battle took place here, suggest to lunch probes if we want to learn more" Said the yeoman after recovering from the jaw drop.

"Alright...Fleet form up and regroup, Captain Al´Faddir scramble some probes, I want as much data we can gather within 2 hours, report direcly to me."

"Roger"(said Al´Faddir with a cynical but determined voice)

Status report

To: Commander Bei

From: Captain AL´Faddir

Our probes shows interesting readings in this system, we have a red dwarf star and three planets two witch is within the habitable zone. The first is a yellow planet is tidily locked to the dwarf star and it seems one side is bombarded by the sun while the other side is freezing cold.

While the second planet seems to remind the eggheads of snow ball earth along with a moon that is clearly damaged, huge chunk of the moons seems missing.

Apparently the probe shows that 2/3 forkich construct at the edge of this small system has a mass that seems to vary without changing physical object form. It was thought to be a equipment glitch or bug, bur further analyst suggest otherwise. If we research this element further we might develop new FTL, our few eggheads we have in the fleet are going crazy.

When it comes to the wrecks around the first planet and some in the surrounding space, raises some concerns to the safety of our fleet.

It was first feared that Shivans where behind the attack but the ships doesn´t have the weapon damages corresponding to the Shivans energy beams. They are most likely caused by kinetic based weaponry. To further exclude Shivan involvement completely the hand full ship profiles that we successfully reconstructed in our simulations doesn´t match anything in the known ship database.

The eggs heads are proposing project HW (homeworld) An attempt to return to GTVA space, Along for the moment three sub project under the banner of the main project HW. They want to send research team to the planet, ship graveyard and to the construct at the edge of the star system, and plans are being formed to make an expedition to the frozen planet in this system. we should have a basic road map within the hour.

We doesn´t know how long we will be trapped in this system, I'm forwarding a request from our leading logistic officer Ms Hera Bogdova to place all non-essential personnel to cryo sleep so there will be minimal drain on our supply. Oh... by the way she took the liberty to lunch another probe that found some organic material in one of the wrecked ships. The data made us able to conclude that the wrecs are over 2000 years old. Based on carbon dating and asuming these aliens have the same metobalism like us and that their organic food has the same kind of radioactive decay, so we should be safe for now, but I suggest we should be prepared for unforseen development.

End of report

1 day after entering the system

Status report

GTL Solace Alpha team

To: commander Bei

From : logistic officer Hera Bogdova (Alpha team)

We reached to the ship graveyard while most of the ships are regrouping to GTD Orestes, It would feel reassuring if you can at least send in a GTC hyperion class cruisers to protect us, in case the worst comes to happen. Anyway within this hour, we found an intact bow engine among the wrecks, I have a feeling that we are going to need to understand their propulsion in order to leave the system. I have been told by my fellow engineers that the engine core seems to have similar design of mass manipulation like the construct that one of our probes discovered. Im making this a priority sub project to HW.

In the mean time I took the liberty to prepare Bravo team, the ones that are going to set up a base camp on the planet surface without your approval. However I also request permission to act as a leading officer to bravo team and alpha so they will report directly to me and in my good judgment relay the main event reports to you.

The reading of our four probes sent to the planet are raises a lot of concerns, they shows an very hostile and toxic environment, clearly not fit for human survival, unprotected subject wont survive fully exposed to the planet harsh environment.

Work have also been underway to build some scuttle transport to bring Bravo team to the ground.

Requesting permission to modify our standard EVA suit in order to ensure the survivability of our operatives. Among these modifications I some of our engineer from Nos Astra company have developed a rig monitoring system to the suit in order to determine the usurers state of health and status. Work is also under way to find more applications to the rig system.

The GTL solace is essentially alone out here, once again I request a GTC hyperion class cruisers to join alpha team inorder to keep us safe if worse come to pass.

Day 1

Status report

From: GTL Fortune Charlie team Construct

Commanding officer: Saito Hideaki

to: Admiral Bei

After some painfull re aproach of what we understand in physic, we have finally been able to understand the construct to a certain extent.

The mass is decreasing and increasing, this is going to be hard to explain. But in a nut shell we are dealing with a new undiscovered element. When it is exposed with a certain condition it manipulate mass around it self in order to remain stable while keeping the mass manipulated object in it´s original form. In theory we could make the GTD Orestes weight like a feather and still retaining it´s size. This is basically all data I can get from our probes readings, we will learn more once we reach the xenofact construct within 7 hours.

I would like to have an sample of this element. I suggest you send a squad of our next generation modified GTF aurora recognisance fighter that are housed in GTL Solace, tell Officer Bogdova to scan for this element elsewhere in the system apart from the construct. Im forwarding data needed to fine tune the new revolutionary scanning equipment used in the fighters in order to achieve this task.

Sadly it has recently come to my attention that this element X basically made the surrounding space in this system disrupt many if not all jump nodes o to a severe degree, sending a ship throe these jump nodes will most certainly result in the destruction of the ship since part of it will end up out side the space time bubble. I shouldn't need to explain what literally happens to the ship.

However some reading lean to the possibility that the smaller the space craft is, the more likely it is going to survive the jump, however this latter part is almost pure speculation. The element X is simply changing to many variables, unless we want transmit hyper space jump data and want to sacrifice alot ships in order to get data necessary to re calibrate our jump drives to each individual jump node, then we... I really hate to admit it but we are stuck.

We would like to send all the data we acquire here at the Xeno artifact to alpha team, tha data will be invaluable for them in order to reverse engineer the engine that they have tasked them self to do a couple of hours ago.

On top of that my sister and her partner wish to be transferred to Alpha team to speed up their project and commence construction of a quantum entanglement communication device. This will make us able to communicate with alpha team directly without relying on the GTD Orestes as a communication relay, this will greatly improve the effectiveness of our work.

Sofia Bodova is clearly going on a spending spree with our resources, She have asked me to find a way to replenish our dwindling supply. So besides just researching on the xeno artefact, I had also started to get my hands full down in the engineering to constructing two mining carriers. I decided to use old scamatics developed by Spaceon industries about two centuries ago.(they went bankrupt after the massacre at their HQ) These Mother load class mining ship aren´t the cutting edge in mining business but is clearly the best we can get considering our limited budget. The mining ship will house 20 gremlin class mining corvettes on top of it all the carriers can process resources in higher quantities and faster than our two GTL logistic ship can do combined.

Plans is also under way to modify the gremlin to work as an salvage corvette, this should enable Bogdova to start more effective salvage operations compared to the repurposed Elysium transports.

Day 3

Status report

To: Commander Bei

From: Hera Bogdova

The Bravo team preparations are going smoothly, we will be able to lunch our expedition within two days.

We have built some atmospheric re-entry shuttles/transports and they are huge. We took inspiration from the space shuttles that was used during 20 century, since these craft are the optimal we can get considering our budget, the only different they are twice as big and have redesigned wings to deal with atmosphere since the denity is different between earth and this xeno planet. Four are under construction, one is a scientific lab and medical facility, the second is the living space and Equipment storage and the third a cargo scuttle bringing construction materials and several finished skeleton scaffold in order to quickly expand the base. While the forth is a workshop and a garage for four small rovers. They can carry two people each and capable to cover a lot of ground on top of that they can even be attached together to form an bigger vehicle.

Once deployed the scuttles should be able to doc with each other and their sides can fold out and inflate unit and will result in more space for Bravo team. Each one of the units should be able to give additional 1000m3 space, each scuttle will be equipped with two units. I have also taken the liberty to design a new agricultural hub to the inflatable units and building something similar to grow crops in space using the seeds of the food we have available.

This idea about the inflatable units was added since we took inspiration from Mars one missions that was deployed back in 21 century.

Oh... by the way Kunieda Hideaki and her partner Erik Lundsson arrived some hours ago and went straight to fine tuning our aurora fighter craft sensor arrray along with some of our off duty engineers ( remind me to give them a good RNR once they are done), I request three pilots to transfer to GTL Solace Alpha team in order to pilot them. I have also scrambled together some satellite to map out the surface of the first planet dubbed the Per Volantis (inspired by the end permian or rather known as great death) quite fitting name considering the ammount of ships and orbital bombardment and the ammount of death that has taken place here.

I almost forgot, I want to thank you for atleast commissioning GTC Duke to us , alpha and bravo team, in other words GTL solace crew feels safer, it clearly boosted the working morale.

And please do not forget to greet Captain Al´Faddir from me, ask him why he never calls.

End report

Day 3

9.47pm

GTD Orestes mess/diner

The ship was dark and empty, most of the crew where in cryosleep, the air was moistly, this contributed to an creepy and errie atmosphere especially when sound of someone's footsteps could be heard throe out the ships corridors and tram systems.

A squad of 222 nightwolfes was however not sent to cryosleep, apparently they would be transferred to another ship. While waiting for the Elysium transport they decided to pass time in the mess hall, bringing a card dec of poker and some shot glasses along with a bottle of whiskey.

10 min in poker game

"So Samuel... is it true that admiral Bei is your father, I've heard some stuff going around an..."Said Taylor while she suddenly was interrupted.

"He is not my father, he died along with the others at Capella incident" Said Bei/Samuel while trowing his card down and smiling ."Full house" he said.

"Aw dam it" Said Corly as he trew down his card, he lost ¼th of his monthly salary.

"Are you sure, you look very alike" (Said Taylor while ignoring Corlys lost and started to drink her shot glass)

"Well yeah im sure, do I have to write on my aurora fighter saying admiral Bei is not my father to set things straight?"

"Comon Taylor, seriously what kind of question is that, and no you shouldn´t have to do that"

"I was just joking around, what else can we do about the creepy and depressing atmosphere here.

"Geez Corley, im just asking, by the way we shouldn´t drink before our mission, isn´t it against protocol right?"

"Well you got that right Taylor, I bought this to celebrate our return to earth" Said Samuel while sounding a little depressed.

"Well now that you mention earth, I can´t get away the feeling the higher ups are hiding something" said Taylor while leaning back with the chair and dangling it with the chair last two legs.

"What on your mind?" Said Corley, while Bei/samuel started to pay more attention... Taylor stopped dangling and leaned forward.

"As far as we know we haven´t reached earth, and there is a debris field and wrecked spaceships around the habitable planet"

"Yeah kind of funny" Said Corley while chuckling a bit.

" What so funny, do you even take this seriously Corley" Said Taylor while showing off an intimidating feminine look and clearly sounded pissed off.

"Yes I do, I mean seriously... a habitable planet my ass, I heard the atmosphere is toxic and "we" the beta team are going to need some sort of EVA suit to even be able to stay alive ground side" Said Corly, while ignoring Taylors reaction with an amused expression while pointing at the wall with his thumb.

When Taylor was about to respond but suddenly some static could be heard before the loud speaker bursted to life.

"This is Captain Al´Faddir Squad Alpha from 222 Night Wolf report to the briefing room at dec 32 C next to the hangar bay 15."

"Well you heard him" said Samuel while rising up from the chair and taking the bottle while walking towards the elevator.