Mysterium

[SothaSil]

| 20th, Last Seed, 819 A.S. | 81-S|Aeternalis~Iniuria | Humboldt |

"It feels strange", she said. "Surreal... it's hard to realize that we're now really here. I was in quite a lot of battles, but never in anything like this before. I feel courage and fear at the same time."
Fossilized they were staring out of a window on the observation deck on the huge flying machine. They didn't spean any word for a while now, just looking at the grey cloud ahead of them. They had no idea what would be awaiting them. No one had.

| Few hours earlier | Torino Base, Lorraine |

"...let's sum this up. Three pilots alive today, that makes all in all nine "test subjects". I assume that should keep those doctors busy for a while.", Sil was in Torino's briefing room, discussing the curent situation with several people who are eventually important for the daily business in Lorraine in some way.
"Not a bad result for day three of our operation. Everybody, dismissed."
When he finished his sentence, the room slowly emptied. "Lieutenant, please stay for a moment."
Xev Rodriguez turned around and sat down again. "You look thoughtful, anything important?"
"We have a new mission." He paused for a moment and leaned against he wall.
"The Liberty Rogues declared war on the Hellfire Legion; I'm sure you read about them in our database. The nation maltese will fully support the Rogues in this war.", he stopped and let her a few moments to realize what he said. "We will go to Liberty. We will fight with the Rogues."
She was aphasic, just staring at him for a while. "Well, the Novus~Spes is not really a warship, I don't know if this is a good idea. I can imagine that this is a unique opportunity to show teeth. But still..."
"Don't worry about this. We're not going to take this ship. I told the dock crew to prepare the Sacajawea. The shuttle will bring us to Valetta shipyard, where we will find something special. A refit of my old ship, while I was still serving in the maltese navy. It was heavily damaged by corsairs, over a year ago, but not finally the repairs and the refit are done.", he went over to a display which was built in the wall and pressed some keys until a schematic appeared, showing a Ranseur class ship.
"The Aeternalis Iniuria."

| In the middle of the night | 81-S|Aeternalis~Iniuria | Vespucci |

"Keep firing, we need to deal ceaseless damage to the base.", Sil stared at the screen, watching how a lot green and orange projectile hit the small Hellfire outpost.
The joint fleet of Liberty Rogues and Outcasts was swarming around the base for around ten minutes now and there was still no sight of the guards. But everyone knew it was just a matter of time before the capital fleet of the Hellfire Legion would appear.
"Hellfire battleships in sight!", reported a fighter pilot.
The allied fleet moved into postion, waiting for the Legion's ships to charge.
"Nine klicks to go, we're in weapon range in around 30 seconds.", Rodriguez told the bridge crew while she made some final adjustments to the weapons.
Suddenly a hostile battleship appeared next to the Aeternalis Iniuria. "More boogies... , target it and fire at will!", Sil said hasty. I didn't take long until the Arbiter exploded, since it directly jumped in front of the entire Outcast and Rogue fleet.
The other Legion ships however used that distraction.
Several heavy projectiles hit Sil's ship.
"Evasive maneuver, get us away from their fire!", Sil shouted and everything became confusing. The enemy ships were now only two or three klicks away from the fleet and everyone was exchanging fire.
"Shields down to 50%, they've focused their fire on us!", Rodriguez ran around the bridge to another terminal, rashly typing something. "Going to transfer power fromt he engines to the shields."
"We need to destroy them before they destroy us, running won't safe us. Target the Manticore, give them everything we have!", Sil made a gesture which indicated the helmsman to start charging towads the Manticore. Already weakened from the other ships, the Manticore couldn't stand the Ranseur's fire for long.
While everyone was astonied looking at the huge explosion in front of them for just a moment, even more plasma and whatever hit them.
Some relays exploded, light started to flicker and the ship was shaking. "Shields down! We're not going to survive much longer!", Rodriguez screamed while trying to assign repair times to different sections of the ship were hull breaches have been reported.
Sil stood and and moved to a console at the end of the bridge while telling the helmsman to turn around and move out: "Activating the cloak device, 60 seconds to go!"
The big warships slowly turned around while more and more stuff hit it, cutting off several parts of the armor.
"Damage report!"
"Shields not functional, weapon energy is low. Several hull breaches all over the ship, hull armor down to 60 percent."
Suddenly a devastating plasma projectile hit them from behind, destroying a huge part of the armor around the main engine, hitting the main machine room.
"Our core has been hit! It's status is getting critical. It will explode!"
"Prepare to eject the core...", Sil said to Rodriguez and then spoke to himself: "Come on... cloak in 20 seconds..."
"Okay, got it! Core ejection in five seconds!"
The ship was about to cloak, only a few moments before the cloak actuallly went on, when the core as ejected. Still very close to the ship when the cloak turned on, the core got reached it's critical point. Shields were down and the core exploded only a few meters away from the ship, ripping half the ship apart.

| 26th, Last Seed, 819 A.S. | Fortaleza base | Humboldt |

Xev Rodriguez was drinking a coffee, sitting at a table in Fortaleza's mess hall.
"That's it, the war is over.", Sil threw a pile of files in front of her.
She looked at him with a puzzled face, raising an eyebrow. Sil stared at her for a moment looking quite serious. Then he shrugged and sat down. "At least for us. Here are the final damage reports. The ship is scrap and will never fight a battle again. It will be decomissioned as soon as possible." He sighed.
"That ship served me well for two years, and it's hard to except the loss. At least it had a glorious death." He paused a moment and ordered something to drink.
"Well, we will take a shuttle back to Alpha tomorrow morning. From there we're going to Sergio Refugio, where we will pick up supplies."
"That's unexpected... I thought we would be here for a longer time.", she ran over some pages of the reports. "Most of the crew is dead... that was a massacre... somehow I'm glad we're leaving.
So, are we going back to Gallia?"
"Yes. But this time, we're going deeper."
"Deeper? Doing even more dangerours stuff then we did before? Exploring strange new worlds?"
"Indeed, we will fly as far into Gallia as we can,... when necessary. Our mission is to establish contact to locals who are interested in cardamine trade. Gallia is a new market, and besides that, we can influence it once cardamine has spread."
"Any ideas where to look for those business partners?"
"Well, we once had a short conversation with the Gallic Brigands, wasn't really heartwarming but at least we talked instead of instantly shooting each other. I personally brought supplies as a gift once to one of their stations. A small freeport in the middle of nowhere, I think they called that empty spot Franche-Comte or so.
There is also that Junker base in Lorraine, and I'm sure they have some other places under their control as well. Though, I don't trust any of one. Neither the Junkers nor the Brigands. And they don't trust us either. Maybe we can change that."
"Sounds promising. Who will be involved in that operation?"
"Mainly...we. For now. And with we I mean you, and me, and the rest of the Novus~Spes' crew."
"A single ship? In deep gallic space? We don't have any place there where we can restock supplies, or dock for repairs. But I assume you know about the problem."
"I do. And I already have a plan for that issue.", someone finally brought him his drink and he picked it up while rising from the bench he sat on, slowly moving towards the exit. "8.00 a.m. tomorrow, don't oversleep, Lieutenant."