Sunday, March 29, 2015

Capsuleer's Log, YC117.3.29 "Caue de Lumine"

6U-MFQ
F-W6B4 - Oasa

The loss reports gave a name to our fears.

Apollo Tyrannos.

Seventy-two hours ago, one of our forward patrols detected an unidentified wormhole in a system near our base of operations. We'd been seeing Circadian Seeker activity there for weeks now, and the location of the Jove tower had been tagged as soon as its cloak had failed-- the wormhole however, was a new development and I'd ordered eyes on it around the clock as soon as the report had come in.

The Seekers continued to behave as they had since their appearance, warping around the system and scanning objects for reasons still unknown. They paid no particular attention to the Tower itself other than the occasional scan, and the odd Sleeper installations surrounding the wormhole received much the same sort of scrutiny since we'd noticed their presence. The wormhole emission signatures matched nothing in our databases, and our observations of conditions at the event horizon suggested it would be unwise to attempt a jump. I wanted it watched nonetheless.

I was twenty-seven jumps out, preparing to light a cynosural beacon for a supply logistics op when the scout came across my priority comm channel.

The voice was heavily accented, his cadence deliberate. "Commander Stahl, a battleship has entered 6U-MFQ via the wormhole. Eyes on target at two-hundred eighty-seven clicks, standing by.

My Russish was a bit out of practice, but I'd been working it out since The Red Bridge had backed our claim to sovereignty and taken our alliance flag as their own. I keyed up. "Keep your distance and report movements. I'll have a CovOps squad on your position inside of ten minutes." I quickly gave the go-ahead to jump the freighter in on my beacon and put word in to the squadron back home to scramble bombers to the scout's location. 

I'd seen the Rhea off on the next leg of its journey and set my course back to Oasa when the squadron leader reported they had arrived on the scene, six strong. Red Bridge had sent a wing to support their man, making for eleven ships on the field, silently observing the Drifter vessel from behind their cloaks. 

The bizarre ship made lazy circles in the vicinity of the wormhole and Sleeper structures, occasionally warping to the Jovian tower to do the same. It did not appear to exhibit any of the inquisitive behavior of the Seekers, in fact, it didn't seem to take notice of much beyond the mysterious Jove construction. I ordered my squad to close distance on the wormhole to one hundred kilometers when the Drifter warped away to the tower again. My inability to be on location was beginning to eat at my patience.

The bombers were forming up on their new perch when Red Bridge reported the Drifter ship inbound on the wormhole. I was fourteen jumps out and burning hard to get a look at this thing with my own eyes. Tukoss' warning and the destruction of the Rex had done nothing to deter me, much to the contrary, my curiosity had reached a fevered pitch.

Suddenly, pilots were swearing in my ear in two languages. The battleship had dropped out of warp right on top of the bomber wing, breaking their cloaks and sending them scrambling into random evasive maneuvers. The squadron leader was struggling to give the order to break off and regroup over the cacophonous comm chatter when the ship erupted in golden light.

The Red Bridge report of the event states the Drifter vessel deployed several free-floating energy weapons upon exiting warp and destroyed the six bombers with six consecutive volleys without hesitation or provocation. Appended to their narrative of the event are the six loss reports naming the pilot of the battleship as one Apollo Tyrannos.

No records exist of such a pilot in CONCORD databases or Empire census logs. A deep query of historic and technical records revealed a rather interesting connection-- both search terms appear to originate from a dead language dating back scores of millenia. The words predate the empires, to a time before the Eve gate, when we were all of one star, one world. After several passes through a linguistics engine, the logarithms finally teased out an intelligible translation of the name:

Terrible God of Light.

It with an unsettled mind that I send my reports to the Arek'jalaan Project and Society of Conscious Thought. Of the few actions within my capacity, sharing data in hope of determining the motives and intentions of these mysterious beings seems to be the most prudent. Whatever the Drifters want, one thing is clear:

They are more than capable of taking it.

This is Gunner Stahl, Captain of the warship Quantum of Fury, signing off.

END TRANSMISSION





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