That’s good news. I’ll try to reroute additional convoys to Coronado. It serves a dual purpose: maintaining a steady flow of supplies for the Atum repairs, and bringing copper back on the return leg to support both our industries.
As for the joint scientific venture: given how critical this project is, I will dispatch the liaison as soon as possible to whichever station you designate. On our side, our primary sites will be Kadesh and Corinth, those will serve as our main research nodes. I would recommend you route your liaison to the former; Livadians tend to be… grumpy with foreigners at Corinth. Industrial support, meanwhile, will be handled through Athens and Sparta.
That said, I strongly advise against any live testing until two conditions are met:
We understand what we are about to unleash. I have no intention of repeating an accident on the scale of Texas or Dublin.
We secure a truly remote test location, far from prying eyes. Once identified, we can mount a prototype on a Bustard or an Aquillon and deploy it there under controlled conditions.
Apologies for the delay, it took some time to prepare the required logistics. We will be expecting your liaison at Damascus Research Station where they will be able to coordinate with our teams. Meanwhile we will send our liaison to Kadesh as you have suggested within the next few days. I assume you have taken the appropriate security measures to close off the systems with the data from the rest of Phoenix' network?
Regarding the conditions; agreed, though I would add a further stipulation; remote meaning far from the Alien filth that plagues the Omicrons as well. Only the gods can think of the horrors that will come to pass if even more of those things learn how to utilize these jump drives, let alone their infected lackeys.
The situation is much the same on our end, crossing Zeta now requires reinforced escort as a matter of course. At least the VEGA Project is complete, and we now have a sturdy Bismarck to help defend our installations.
By the time you receive this message, our liaison should already be en route to Damascus.
As for the research effort, it will remain separate from the parallel initiative we are conducting with the broader Zoner scientific community. Should the venture at Corinth produce results, we will forward them to our joint project. Likewise, if our shared investigation at Kadesh or Damascus bears fruit, then —with the consent of both High Commands— we will pass the relevant findings on to the wider community effort. We will have some of the brightest minds in the Zoner world working on this; it would be a waste not to make full use of them.
Once the theoretical groundwork is in place, the best course may be to merge both teams. It should be simple enough to pass your scientists off as Zoners by integrating them into the Kadesh group.
As for a remote testing site… that is proving more complicated. Nearly every system where Phoenix maintains installations is now plagued by infected forces. So far, our exploration department has proposed several options.
Omega-49, within the Blackdown Cloud, is one possibility. Since Poole collapsed, traffic there has dwindled to almost nothing. The drawback, of course, is the lingering Corsair presence.
Tau-37 was suggested as well, but I ruled it out. The system is too busy, too unstable, and too full of skirmishes. The Outcasts alone would make it far too noisy for discreet work.
At present, the most promising candidate appears to be Baffin. Now effectively a dead end, most of the traffic there is Zoner in nature. Chao Field in particular could serve well, far enough from what remains of the TAZ sect to avoid unwanted interference.
The final two possibilities are Kansas and Vespucci, but we still lack the intelligence required to make a proper assessment.
If you have suggestions of your own, we are listening. We still have time; I do not expect immediate results.
One last thing: our liaison will be bringing several interesting samples from the deep Omegas — pure osmium, several manufactured products derived from it, and enough Rydberg matter to sustain research for a few months. We are still trying to find a more practical way to stabilize it using systems that require less than a station-grade power core, but that is another matter entirely. These deep-Omega materials, along with the data we have gathered, may prove to be our edge in mastering this technology. Kishiro never had access to them, and therefore could never integrate them into their research.
Perhaps, with them, we may discover a new and safer way to open a rift.
A Rheinland BIsmark in the hands of Phoenix? Truely a remarkable feat, almost makes me feel nostalgic for my days before joining the Order. You'll be hard pressed to find a more reliable source of heavy firepower.
Our liason is getting ready to depart, some last minute modifications are being made to the vessel. The team at Damascus however is ready to host your liason upon their arrival. We'll have to see how much progress is made before we can feasibly consider testing, but I agree it is best to start thinking of potential locations.
Regarding Kansas and Vespucci; you would be wise to consider Vespucci and the systems around it compromised by infected forces. The Atum got as damaged as it is by chasing an infected capitalship vessel there after all.
Any other options are either too close to the Nomad threat, right under the noses of the Houses or bordering Corsair or Outcast territory, this leaves Baffin as the clear choice, we have some forces nearby as well that can help keep an eye on things when the time comes.
I'm not sure how useful the resources from the Deep Omega's are for the purposes of jump drive technology, fortunately I'm sure the scientists will be able to figure out if it can play some part like you suggest. Quite frankly just about anything that can give us an edge in unlocking this technology proper is something worth exploring, keeping risks in mind of course.
Word has reached me that the convoy has arrived safely at their final destination. The warning you gave them proved true; a Core ambush was waiting for them in Omicron Delta. Many lives were lost but had it not been for your advanced warning I'm sure the toll would have been even higher, for that you have my thanks.
Our liason has reported to have started on work immediately, apparently there is quite a bit to be learned by cross examining your findings with ours so far. Frankly I will take him at his word on such matters, science is not exactly my expertise.
That is good to know. The Core is an annoyance when it is not busy firing on Nomads or Corsairs.
On our side, our scientist has reached Damascus and begun his work. He arrived at the same conclusion, by merging our research we may well complete another piece of the puzzle. Even so, the road ahead will be long and treacherous. I do not expect meaningful results in mere months, more likely years.
We also attempted to contact the Lane Hackers, in the hope that they might possess additional data for sale, or perhaps some discarded Ageira or Kishiro devices. So far, there has been no reply from the main group known as the Lovelace Circle. Only an independent by the name of Mr. Ling responded, and as of now that lead has yielded nothing.
On another matter, High Command has decided to declassify certain reports concerning the Deep Omegas. I believe one of them may be of particular interest to you, so I have taken the liberty of forwarding it.
Should it interest you, we can allocate space at Sparta to support your work there, and we can also provide the route to the point of interest itself. We are becoming quite accustomed to reaching it by now.
We still keep our distance from the structure proper, ever since the incident. Yet the anomalies it generates remain a reliable source of Rydberg matter. I also cannot help but notice certain similarities with the being known as Entity, particularly in the way its manifestations appear seemingly from nowhere. It may, perhaps, guide us toward a weapon capable of eliminating that creature for good, since conventional weaponry seems only to disperse it temporarily.
During the incident, we also recovered some rather interesting material. It is currently being stored and studied in Sparta’s laboratories.
I know full well that we are toying with the devil. But these are desperate times, and we need every advantage we can secure.
Fischer — Report 1 Fleet and officers/members involved
Douglas Revender, Captain of the (\^/) Gignosko — Corvo-class
Martial Revender, Pilot of the Hawfinch (\^/)Rhaphios
Bob Donager, Pilot of the Hawfinch (\^/)Gagyla
Hasegawa Tōyō, Captain of the Dromedary (\^/)Ichthus
Base of origin
(\^/)Rhamnousia — Nephilim-class
Supplies available
24 days of basic provisions
280 units of H-Fuel
0 ZC-P-12 probes
0 ZP-P-1 armored prototype probes
Expense
670,000 credits (supplies + crew wages)
Logbook
17/07/335: Log 1
At last, we reached the crown jewel of the Deep Omega: Fischer.
What a sight. And what a nightmare for engines.
The constant pull was reported by every pilot as miserable. Course corrections had to be made continuously until the autopilot finally calibrated itself well enough not to kill us. Even the nearby gas giant Aesir failed to provide a safe Lagrange point for our snubs to refuel.
As for the system itself: once the scanners were properly tuned to the background noise and radiation Fischer throws off, we identified at least six stellar bodies. One of them lies on the far side of the black hole and had not been recorded before today. That alone should give a few astronomers a headache.
More worrying, the entire sector is riddled with smaller anomalies. Beautiful to look at. Very likely fatal to approach. They emit extreme heat and radiation and do not appear to behave like ordinary stellar bodies under Fischer’s gravity.
I’ll give Fischer this much: it knows how to make an entrance. The whole system feels like standing too close to a machine that was built by something smarter than you and then left running for a few million years. Even the quiet parts feel dangerous.
Crew fatigue is climbing faster here than anywhere before. Nobody gets to fully relax because the ship is always compensating. Every deck groans at a different interval, every strapped-down crate complains, every engine note sounds half a tone off. You can sleep in it, technically. Your bones won’t thank you.
18/07/335: Log 2
Due to the strain on fuel reserves, we decided to focus on the most prominent target first: the cracked planet Freyja.
Getting close to the planet is a mathematical nightmare. Fischer’s pull, combined with the motion of Freyja’s shattered crust, makes a direct approach impossible unless you’re trying to end up as debris.
Scanners indicate vast quantities of resources, but until a safe path is found that means nothing.
We searched for a way through the field and found Ilar Renn’s ship, or what was left of it.
Most of the databank had clearly been retrieved by previous expeditions, but by comparing the wreck position with the drift of nearby debris, we think we found the pattern they were following.
After several hours of aggressive mathematics, the science crew identified a gravitational weak point: essentially a void in the churning field, like a causeway through moving asteroid and core mass ejection.
We confirmed it. A winding path leads dangerously close to the planet’s exposed core.
And there lies one of Fischer’s treasures: raw formations of rare minerals. So far we estimate large concentrations of silver, gold, and platinum, with exploitable amounts of osmium on top of that.
The beauty of it is this: as chunks are slowly torn away by the surrounding gravimetric forces, there’s a short extraction window before they’re pulled back into the lethal flow.
We collected samples for deeper analysis. The channel appears stable enough for mining and logistics ships. I still have doubts about bringing an Hegemon in here, but an Archon could probably manage.
The mining potential is real enough that even the most exhausted members of the crew woke back up when the sample trays came back heavy. Nothing restores morale like the smell of future profit. A few of them were already arguing tonnage and escort needs before I told them to shut up and let us survive first.
One strange detail: near the weak point, the usual background roar of Fischer dipped for a few seconds at a time, like the whole system was taking a breath. The sensors logged it. The crew felt it. Nobody liked it.
We’re pulling away from Freyja now to rest before the most reckless part of the journey.
27/07/335: Log 3
We were close to giving up. Supplies were running low, morale wasn’t doing much better, and then the gravimetric arrays picked up a distortion that should not exist.
No visual. Nothing on extended-range optics. Just the instruments insisting something unnatural was there.
That matches fragments from Expedition 13. Something is out there.
It took us a week to calculate a survivable trajectory. Any mistake would have killed us. Then it took another two days to make sense of what the probes sent back before going silent.
Standard probes were shredded by the gravimetric forces or melted by the heat. Only the experimental probe, armored with the latest iridium composite, got far enough to tell us anything useful.
And it reached something.
That something appears almost immune to Fischer’s pull. We hadn’t expected that, so there’s a fair chance the probe slammed into the structure at full speed. The good news: if the math holds, the Gignosko’s integrity and engine profile should let us survive the same run and get back out.
The probe prototype armor held. Heat dispersion behaved exactly as intended.
The last images showed a spherical object looming over an inverted pyramid.
By day’s end, preparations for the abyss run were complete.
The (\^/)Ichthus received a full copy of all data and logs, then departed with all non-essential personnel. It will hold in Omega-2 until supplies run dry, then return to Omega-55 if we don’t.
Our two escort snubs are now clamped to the experimental wing pads of the Corvo. Everything has been triple-checked.
If this turns out to be my last log, my final words will be the same as Anaxagoras:
“Give the boys a holiday.”
Nobody laughed when I said it. That’s how I knew everyone onboard had understood the odds. Before departure, one of the engineers left a little amulets tied to the portside access ladder. Some ugly stitched pineal thing his daughter made. I let it stay. At that point I was taking blessings from wherever they came.
Ship status before the run: outer hull scorched, thermal sinks overworked, port maneuvering cluster showing delayed response under sustained gravitic shear. Still spaceworthy. Still ours. Barely polished enough to meet death with some dignity.
29/07/335 (28/07/335)
I don’t know where to start.
The bridge is full of noise —alarms, damage reports, breath, metal— but human voices had mostly run out.
We’re only a few dozen klicks from the station, and it still took us a full day to reach that position.
Hull integrity is down to 90%. Nanobots should keep us alive for now.
Both snub are destroyed. Pilot recovered.
The Gignosko lost four good men.
The “clouds” seem to have stopped pursuing us.
I need time to sort this out. Everything happened too fast.
31/07/335 (28/07/335)
On the 28th, we got visual contact with the structure.
Scanners couldn’t pierce the bubble around it, and even direct visual observation barely made sense. Light itself looked wrong around the field. The distortion was bad enough to make the whole thing feel unreal.
We reached the bubble and diverted all available power to reverse thrust to avoid ending like the probe.
For the first time since entering Fischer, we held still.
We appeared to be inside a massive Lagrange point, or something very close to one. Sound, light, background noise, the pressure of Fischer itself. Everything dropped away. It felt like the universe had been muted. Only our engines and a low humming from the structure remained.
The structure is definitely alien. Outer surface composition remains unknown.
It appears divided into two main components and three pyramidal satellites.
The upper main component is some sort of decahedron and a cube merged together, rotating rapidly and changing direction unpredictably. It emits unknown matter. Our current theory is that it maintains the bubble, so nobody is touching that.
The lower structure is a massive tetrahedron, with its smaller upper face supporting the floating decahedron, and its lower point descending toward a singularity-like rift.
The three smaller tetrahedrons are positioned around the base vertices. One still showed the impact mark from our probe.
We spent an entire day recording everything and touching nothing. With no need to fight Fischer’s pull, all spare energy went into scanners and passive listening systems.
At day’s end, we unclamped the two snubs and sent one down to the probe impact site.
The moment Bob recovered the probe databank and the first samples, hell broke loose.
Multiple contacts appeared from nowhere. No alarms at first, because they registered as drifting gas clouds. Then each cloud bonded with some kind of floating module, and everything went to hell properly.
Either the clouds generated the modules, or the structure launched them. Hard to tell.
Once linked, the modules turned the clouds into spheres of energy. We observed two main module configurations: either four three-dimensional cross-frames or six urchin-like nodes stabilizing the sphere.
We tried to establish contact while they were still forming. The instrument data suggested a DVK-like structure, not Nomad. We thought, stupidly, that they might be drones or maintenance units.
Then they opened fire.
Slow plasma bolts. Missiles. Mine-like electrical clouds. Seven contacts in total.
Martial reacted first and engaged the unit attacking the landed snub. It did nothing. Continuous Fury-gun fire barely scratched them.
The Hawfinch was destroyed the moment its shield failed. Their railgun fire tore it apart after one of the “missiles” disabled the ship outright. Thankfully, Bob was still close to the crash site.
I managed to improvise a plan to get Bob and the samples back.
We determined quickly that the constructs were not sentient. They followed predictable attack cycles. The urchin-pattern units made direct attack runs on the Corvo, while the cross-pattern units focused on the remaining snub.
As long as shields held, the incoming fire and mines were survivable.
We baited a synchronized firing pass, waited for them to overshoot, then pushed close enough to the structure for Bob to cross by jetpack directly into the open cargo bay.
It worked.
It did not work as well for the other snub. Approaching too close triggered a proximity defense effect that reset engines and damaged both shield and hull.
It took what felt like forever (really only minutes) for our main battery to destroy one of the clouds.
The modules are the weak point, but they rotate constantly around the moving energy sphere, making clean shots difficult.
Once a module cluster was destroyed, the cloud collapsed instantly into residual unknown gases and exotic matter.
Armed with that knowledge, we destroyed the rest and collected what we could.
At that point we decided to evacuate immediately. The rift beneath the structure appeared to be the safest route out. If you tried to leave the bubble normally and one of those guardians hit you, your engines would stall and Fischer would finish the job for them.
The Rhaphios had taken too much damage to be reclamped to the prototype mount, so we prepared a remote-use contingency.
And yes, we needed it.
As we moved toward the rift, the structure emitted an ominous resonance and began generating more of those energy spheres around the exit, almost as if it understood what we intended.
We used the crippled fighter as bait and sent it straight toward the structure. It worked, partly. They tried desperately to kill it before it reached the weird decahedron.
They succeeded. Just before we reached the rift ourselves. Remote piloting made the flight too predictable. One engine was destroyed and we lost contact with the craft entirely.
Still, it bought us time.
You served well, Rhaphios.
Even then, we were not safe.
Despite a defensive "riposte" mine screen, one charged plasma bolt hit the portside living quarters.
Three members of the Research and Exploration Department were vaporized. One member of Security and Defense is still missing.
May they rest in peace. Their names and service will be engraved at the memorial on Palmyra:
Edward Hawthorne, Lukas Reinhardt, Julien Moreau, and Hiroshi Takeda.
Nanobots began reinforcing the hull immediately, and automatic systems sealed the damaged bulkheads.
Even with a section of the ship missing, structural integrity remained barely sufficient to withstand Fischer.
So we entered the rift without a second thought.
We emerged from a previously undetected rift only a few klicks from the alien structure, but farther out, beyond the worst of Fischer’s pull. Cruise engines engaged immediately and began dragging us free.
As of now, we are nearly clear. If nothing else goes wrong, we should reach the system exit tomorrow.
I have rewritten this part three times already and it still feels too small for what happened in there. The bubble was quiet in a way space should never be. The guardians moved like tools, not animals—like functions. And when they started firing, nobody onboard had time to be brave. We just got busy surviving.
One detail I do not want lost: when Bob crossed back by jetpack, he came in spinning, half-blind, dragging that sample case like it was the last holy relic in Sirius. The whole cargo deck grabbed him at once. Nobody said a word until the inner hatch sealed. Then half the bay started swearing at him out of relief.
01/08/335 (29/07/335) - 1
At roughly 20k from the Omega-97 rift, we picked up a signal we now know all too well.
Those plasmic bastards can leave the bubble, and they’re faster than we are.
Three of them were waiting near the jump hole.
We powered down everything and hid in Aesir’s shadow. We’re working a plan with what little we have left. If the shield fails, we’re done. The ship won’t survive the gravimetric stress in that state.
We cannot fail. Not after what we lost. Not with this much data and this many samples aboard.
The crew barely slept. Some tried, strapped into whatever corner still existed. Others just sat with helmets off, staring at bulkheads and pretending not to listen for the next alarm. I checked on engineering twice. They had already started naming patched conduits after dead philosophers, which is how that department copes when things get ugly.
01/08/335 (29/07/335) - 2
We fired the last of the prototype probes at them.
The whole thing ended in anticlimax.
They took the bait and followed it. We recorded useful reaction data while they did. Still, some stupid part of me wanted a fight.
Which is idiotic.
But terribly human.
Bob laughed when the trick worked. Not a triumphant laugh, more the kind a man makes when the universe fails to kill him in the stupidest possible way. That helped more than morale protocols ever could.
Cartography and scans
Planet Aesir
Diameter: 20,000 km Mass: 1.9 × 10e25 kg Terrain: Gas and liquid exotic hydrocarbons; ionized gases Temperature: N/A Escape velocity: 19 km/sec
Planet Freyja
Diameter: N/A Mass: N/A Terrain: Crumbling; one-third of the planet has collapsed into a massive asteroid field Temperature: N/A Escape velocity: N/A
Note: The field is hazardous and subject to Fischer’s gravity. Two pathways have been recorded, but may shift under gravimetric waves generated by Fischer and the collapse of Freyja.
The exploitable zone lies close to the exposed core and is extremely rich in gold, silver, platinum, and osmium.
Supplementary note: Industrial exploitation appears possible but only under strict route discipline, heavy escort, and constant recalculation of safe passages. Any operation here will make money the hard way.
Alien Structure
Diameter: N/A Mass: N/A Terrain: Alien alloy and unknown crystalline elements Role: Unknown; possibly a research station or harvesting structure for something emitted by Fischer Temperature: N/A Escape velocity: N/A
Supplementary note: Defensive autonomous entities confirmed. Bubble region alters gravimetric and sensory behavior in ways not yet understood. Extreme caution advised. Preferably someone else’s caution first.
Urchin Drone
Size: Gunboat-sized Main Armament: Unknown railgun-like energy weapon, estimated range: 1k
(Moderate shield damage, good hull damage) Secondary Armament: Unknown static-energy mines
(Good shield damage, moderate hull damage) Speed: 90–100 m/s for the main body; much faster for the orbiting modules (estimated 200 m/s) Role: Defending the structure and recovering whatever bits get blown off Armor: The modules seem to be the weak point; a few good shots tear them apart
Supplementary note: Ugly little bastard hits harder than it looks. Main body is annoyingly sturdy, but once you start clipping the modules the whole thing comes apart fast enough.
Cross Drone
Size: Gunboat-sized Main Armament: Close-range energy shortwave emitter, estimated range: 100 m
(Moderate shield damage, good hull damage) Additional Effect: Can kick engines into restart or temporarily shut propulsion down Secondary Armament: Unknown energy missiles
(Good shield damage, moderate hull damage) Speed: 90–100 m/s for the main body; much faster for the orbiting modules (estimated 200 m/s) Role: Defending the structure and recovering whatever bits get blown off Armor: The modules seem to be the weak point; a few good shots tear them apart
Supplementary note: Meaner than the Urchin at knife range. The real danger is not just the damage, it’s the engine disruption. Near Fischer or the structure, losing thrust for even a moment can get you killed faster than the guns.
You did the right thing by reaching out with these findings, I agree that this material sounds eerily similar to this 'Entity'. Though I must confess I am far more concerned about the artifact and what I can only attempt to describe as a part of an alien structure? Some of our agents retrieved similar materials from the Deep Omega's and I, perhaps foolishly, had hoped this was an anomaly at best after following scouting parties came back empty handed.
We will take you up on your offer, the more we can study these materials and findings the better.
I trust you are maintaining increased security since the retrieval?
Sparta is critical to our industrial operations and is currently guarded by roughly a quarter of our forces: a Nephilim-class vessel with its full escort, supplemented by several independent squadrons assigned to protect our mining convoys in the deep Omegas.
To any outsider, it appears to be little more than an industrial outpost. The laboratories themselves are located in a far more secluded section of the station. We will arrange space for your ships and their crews accordingly.
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