Fiction:DCP-Vermulan War

Side Stories

 * Partisan - An account of the resistance movement on Simnadsiat.

Prologue
Right across the board of governmental officials and security in the Delpha Coalition of Planets, the happenings began. Reports of terrifying abominations of paranormality, not unlike manifestations of essence were first categorised by researchers as being first witnessed in dreams. But the haunting's began to invade consensus reality more and more. The first suspected culprit was of course the forces of darkness that the DCP was currently fighting. A large naval fleet had been dispatched to several decades previous, however, such an explanation was refuted by the fact that the fleet remained unaffected by the haunts. Perhaps it was yet another destructive AI or memetic illness, perhaps spawned by the many mind controlling programs of the DCP... However no links were found. The happenings were getting worse every standard day, many governors were in fact spending more time off work to research their illnesses. There were even suicides. Then Emperor Wormulus himself, in all his essence-infused grandeur succumbed to the new evil. The DCP put it's trust into AI's and automated mainframes to secure order to the populace who were strangely unaffected. But then the automata too, failed.

Armies of ghosts, visible only to those in command - marched through the spaceships, cities and grand halls of the Coalition. And they demanded retribution, claiming to be ghosts of the Dromanji, a species the DCP extincted six decades before their haunting's. They asked that the DCP send their finest and most beloved warrior, quite possibly to his death in order to complete several trials that would change the DCP's moral future. Should he fail, the DCP would surely fall to oblivion.

But this was decisively late, the Delpha Coalition of Planets had been mistaken into blaming the Vermulans, a mysterious race of near-humans who had come from the far future. All encounters had been violent, often with the DCP on the losing side. The ghosts appeared as soon as the unstoppable war began. With it's finest chasing the Congregation into the past and fighting the Drakodominatus Tyranny, and it's internal defenses crippled... The DCP turned to their smaller cousin, the Magellanic Sovereignty of Planets and dispatched the newly appointed Warlord Lunarai Khan to take the place of Kilnok while on his trials. From afar, Eclipsos, still leader of the MSP watched with interest.

Regards
The Vermulan High Command received word on the DCP's declaration of war on the Autonomy fairly quickly, through the use of servitor agents planted within the DCP and its allies. The Vermulans did not consider the DCP to be an equal power. Quite the contrary, they believed that all that would be needed to conclude this conflict was to slap the Coalition on the wrist. A group of three Vermulan vessels were dispatched to destroy Industrial Station y-247F-Docron Sector, a large shipyard important to the DCP. It produced, housed and preformed maintained for most DCP vessels in the Docron Sector, and its destruction would cripple DCP operations in the sector for a reasonable amount of time, especially if a large proportion of ships were docked at Industrial Station y-247F-Docron Sector at the time of its destruction.

There was a great risk of attacking the station while most the of the DCP's Docron Fleet was stationed there. There was indeed the possibility that they would be able to fight off the Vermulan ships and the offense would be a failure. The Vermulan High Command considered the risk, but decided out of arrogance that superior Vermulan technology would prevail over the DCP's vessels. Industrial Station y-247F-Docron Sector was very busy on this particular day. A new modification for DCP ships, an engine improvement, had been approved by the DCP military and all ships were mandated to be refitted with improved engines, especially since war with the Vermulans was inevitable. Most of Docron Fleet was at the station receiving the improvement, when three pink flashes heralded the arrival of three Vermulan ships.

Those DCP vessels not docked fired there weapons at the Vermulan craft, and one's shields fell, and then was engulfed by flame as the Coalition ships dug their weapons into it. The other two Vermulan ships returned fire, sinking several of the DCP's vessels. The lead Vermulan ship fired a thin, deep blue beam over the the shipyard. While seemingly harmless, this beam was in fact launching a single strangelet at the station. While the lead Vermulan ship was doing this, a second ship fell the DCP fire. The lead ship vanished in another flash of pink light.

Before the commanders and crews of the DCP could fully absorb what just happened, the strangelet began to react with the station. As the stangelet hit a single atom, that atom was converted into another strangelet, then all atoms in contact with the newly formed strangelet themselves were converted. As the DCP realised what was happening, the crews of every ship and the station fled onto their docked ships and tried to take off, and many others fled via escape pod. Within a matter of minutes, the station was totally assimilated into a black mass of strange matter. Many ships and crewmen were lost before they could take off.

A good third of Docron fleet had been lost, and the rest now had to use lower quality spaceports for repairs, and each of these lower quality station could not support the amount of ships Industrial Station y-247F-Docron Sector did. With the fleet more spread out, Vermulan ships would have greater range within the Docron Sector. Although the defeat at Docron had lowered the DCP's morale, the Vermulan's intention to discourage the DCP from waging war had not succeeded. The DCP was filled with rage over this attack, and this was now fueling a great thirst for revenge.

Information required
The ghosts laughed and jeered, as the commanders of the Docron Sector tried to plan their next move. Trying to stay in control despite being harassed by beings they could not touch, they discussed the primary concern, that the Vermulans were capable of penetrating the maelstrom, a defensive interstellar barrier of subspace anomalies designed to interfere with warp and hyperdrive technology. Only a few known civilisations could penetrate it: the Grox, Apalos, Junction and the Precursors, all on par or greater than the DCP technologically. Obviously, this was a great problem.

On the other hand, two of the Vermulan ships had been destroyed, though it was unknown whether these were merely scouts or meant to raise false hopes. So the DCP turned to the Magellanic Sovereignty of Planets, who had been attacked by the Vermulans already for any information they could gleam.

Lunarai Khan stepped out of his personalised warship onto MSP soil. It was obviously an agri-world, of which Lunarai Khan only knew from fairy tales. He leaned down to pick up the earth with his fingers, machines oozed through. The worlds of the Magellanic Cloud were highly infertile, and required constant treatment to enrich the artificial soils. The MSP wasn't nearly as advanced as the DCP, except for what was stolen and incorporated into their ships. A rich, well cultured but relaxed voice spoke from behind. "I believe by the obvious amount of argumentation, that you are Lunarai Khan, Warlord of the Delpha Coalition of Planets. You command the greatest military might in the Gigaquadrant.  You are physically enhanced with a personal hyperdrive that could permit you four dimensional maneuvers and FTL foresight, and your primary weapon uses hyperspace as well.  You are a living embodiment of the hyperspatial revolution, making you a strategic genius, and know enough combat practice to slay millions...  Of innocents." Lunarai clearly did not like who was speaking to him. It was his older brother Eclipsos, of whom he had never met. The man who had betrayed his father by almost killing him, and wounding Kilnok in the process. The man who also slept as a parasite in Kilnok's brain, in order to survive. "Our people are no longer enemies." "Maybe, but let us reserve our opinions for now, young man, and look at the situation at hand. We are in fact...Related".

Lunarai was lead to a military installation underground, he was surprised by the lack of security. There were indeed guards and scanners, but nothing else. Maybe the MSP's military might was it's fleet, but Lunarai sensed that perhaps the MSP was less paranoid of internal rebellion, after-all, they were anarchists in his eyes. Suddenly, Lunurai was somewhere-else, hovering above a planet with crater-filled oceans. He knew what this was almost immediately, an experience of a recorded battle from when the Vermulans attacked the MSP years before. Beneath him, a huge ship, like a shelled nut, Expirator-class suddenly appeared moving from behind his field of view, firing it's photonic-upgraded superlasers at a much smaller starship ahead, rimmed with pink. The opposing vessel fired back, a blob of luminescent matter that engulfed Expirator, making the huge vessel vanish in a flash of ionized electrons and gamma-ray radiation, which was sinking to the planet. A second Expirator appeared on the scene, landing shots onto another Vermulan craft, destroying it. The first Vermulan saucer in view however, used a tractor-like beam that sent the second MSP ship careening into the mass of strange matter. Lunarai looked down, to see the planet was being consumed too. Eclipsos spoke, "And not long after that, the MSP fell. We retreated to the graveyard of the Delpha Coalition of Planets while you were gone." "And the Vermulans didn't follow?" asked Lunarai Khan. "They were not capable of bypassing the DCP's Maelstrom, then." "What does this tell us?" But Lunarai didn't need to spell it out, Eclipsos was obviously impressed, "The Vermulans must have been plotting an invasion of the DCP for a long time. They have been studying your defenses. "Now it is time for us to study them! This recording shows one ship was destroyed by a seemingly spontaneous shield failure. Two small craft were destroyed in the last encounter, unfortunately, the recording in either case were too poor. I was hoping for better here." Eclipsos concluded, "The outcome of battle is hard to predict, even for the Vermulans. I suggest the DCP makes an emphasis on this during the next attack."

Operator
Since the routing of Docron Fleet, the Vermulans had largely free reign in the Docron Sector, however the DCP's remnant forces still put up resistance. The main body of the DCP was sending in reinforcements, but the Vermulans were able to anticipate and intercept much of the incoming Coalition forces. Fortunately for the Docron remnants, a fair amount of reinforcements survived and were able to link up with the Docron holdouts. The Vermulans knew a greater force was needed within Docron sector to crush the DCP, but they were unwilling to bring in many more of their own ships, as they were concerned about the prospect of the DCP capturing and studying one of them.

The Vermulans needed their servitors to aid in the invasion of the Delpha Coalition of Planets, but while the maelstrom field remaining functional only one Vermulan servitor race was able to enter, and the Vermulans did not like them operating without other, more loyal servitors to supervise them. If the Vermulans were to bring Docron sector fully under their control and continue their invasion of the DCP without partisan groups getting in the way, the Maelstrom field would have to be brought down.

The vastly complex Maelstrom system was generated within powerful battlestations which would pose a great challenge for the Vermulans to take down. In addition to the already formidable station defences, the Vermulan High Command wished to have the Maelstrom generator intact, and so the battlestation would have to be captured, not destroyed. Fortunately for the Vermulan field commanders, Servitor agents had given the Vermulans a fairly detailed schematic of the battlestation, and the High Command only wanted the generator itself intact, not the accessories.

The Vermulans gathered a fleet of ten ships for this mission. Their arrival at the battlestation was announced by ten bright pink flashes. Almost immediately the battlestation's defences fired ultra-relativistic neutronium arrows out at the Vermulan ships. Three saucers were speared by the arrows and were destroyed, while the rest managed to avoid to intercept the projectiles. The Vermulans let loose a great bombardment of solotonic warheads, which ravaged the surface of the spherical battlestation. The entire surface of the hemisphere facing the Vermulans was ravaged, with no defensive weaponry left, and most of the crew within the upper sections dead, but the battle was not over.

The battlestation began to turn, and the undamaged weapons began to fire at the Vermulans. Another ship was lost, and two more were assigned to deal with the battlestation's weapons as it rotated. The remaining four Vermulan ships began to unload their compliment of troops onto the station. Unfortunately the battlestation's crew had anticipated this and had deployed their full security force into patrols across the station. Many of the first Vermulans to beam in were killed as soon as they materialised, and most of the surviving squads were contained by the DCP security.

The Vermulans began beaming their troops within ventilations shafts and maintenance conduits. This gained them the advantage of surprise, and they were able to overwhelm many security squads. Two Vermulan ships went into ghost phase, and entered the battlestation until they found a sizable cavity deep within it, and phased back into normal space, where they began beaming even more troops into the station, where the security forces were less plentiful, and where the vital systems where located.

After a short while, the Vermulans captured the core of the AI management system, where they turned the automated security against the living security. Within another half hour, the station belonged to the Vermulans. The Maelstrom system in Docron Sector was shut down. The Vermulan commander reported this to the High Command immediately, and the High Command in turn sent word to their Servitors that they time had come for their invasion of the Delpha Coalition of Planets.

Deluge
Only a few hours after the Maelstrom field fell, the forces of the Imperial Ottoman Directorate and the Grox Sienna Movement moved in to aid their Vermulan masters to conquer the DCP. While the Vermulans themselves were planning for the attack on the next sector of DCP space, Lebasi Sector, the Ottomans and Void Grox were to invade all the DCP worlds within Docron Sector.

Lead by a Vermulan Command Ship (the Servitors were not trusted with such important operations entirely on their own) the fleet was prepared for an invasion of the largest political centre of the sector: Simnadsiat. The Vermulan strategists calculated that the defeat of Simnadsiat would lead to drastically reduced morale of the remaining DCP forces in Docron Sector, and capturing Simnadsiat would put the most efficient of the DCP's remaining drydocks and factories in the sector under Vermulan control.

Very few DCP ships were in orbit around Simnadsiat. Previously, the Vermulans made very few attacks on planetary bodies, so most of the remaining Docron Fleet and what few reinforcements that had manage to escape the Vermulans were concentrated on protecting deep space facilities and making surprise attacks on lone Saucers. The only DCP forces in orbit around Simnadsiat were a few Blade-class and Monitor-class cruisers. However, the Vermulans knew that the DCP would have much more defences than that.

Over a hundred Ottoman ships and about twenty Grox motherships dropped out of subspace within a safe distance from the planet. A bright pink flash in the centre of the fleet heralded the arrival of the Vermulan Command Ship: an extravagantly larger variant of the standard Vermulan saucer, with an ever so slightly more spheroid shape. The DCP ships moved into defensive positions, and a brief stand off ensured. The Vermulan commander quickly realised that the DCP was using this time to call for help, and so the battle began, the opening shots being fired by Command Ship itself. The Soloton beam completely removed a Monitor-class Star Destroyer from the realms of explicit existence. The DCP ships returned fire immediately. Had the opposing forces been numerically equal, the DCP would have easily won the battle, but the overwhelming number of Ottoman ships meant the chances of the DCP victory were decidedly low. The presence of the Vermulan Command Ship was also not improving the situation. The DCP ships fired as many of there weapons off as they could at once, hoping to take down as many of the enemy as they could before their own destruction.

Superlasers, subatomic disruptors, turbolasers, railguns, missiles, singularities, ion cannons and antimatter warheads all flew across the black backdrop of space toward the Vermulan/Servitor Fleet. A great many Ottoman ships were destroyed by the torrent, and the shields of the Grox Motherships and even the Vermulan Command Ship were put to the test. The Vermulan/Servitor fleet reliated immediately. A corresponding torrent of antiprotons, tricobalt warheads, ion cannons and a soloton beam were fired directly back at the DCP ships. While DCP deflector shields were renowned throughout the Gigaquadrant as being amazingly resilient, even they could not put up with such firepower. All the remaining ships were reduced to imperceptible mists of dubious existence.

The battle was far from over, however. As predicted, the DCP had managed to get a distress call, which was answered by a Star-class dreadnaught and a few more Monitor-class star destroyers entered the fray and immediately fired their weapons at the Vermulan/Servitor fleet, eliminated many more Ottoman frigates. A squadron of Ottoman battleships and a Grox Mothership broke off from the main group and engaged the newcomers. While this was happening, the main group was besieged by the sudden arrival of three uberturrets which were until moments ago patrolling the planet's thermosphere. The uberturrets were, while having fairly weak armour, extremely agile drones with weapons of devastating power. A single uberturrets was destroyed by the spray of antiproton pulses from the Ottoman ships, while the other two flew right into the midst of the Vermulan/Servitor fleet, where they disabled many ships with their high powers ion cannons. A second uberturret was destroyed by the Vermulan Command Ship with its high power soliton beam, however instead of hitting the uberturret it engulfed it, and continued going until it hit and destroyed a Grox mothership. By this time, the DCP reinforcements had been dealt with, and the forces fighting then returned to the main group, although many of them, including the Grox Mothership leading them, had been lost.

The uberturrets were followed by a hail of torpedoes fired from the planet's surface. Many were destroyed by the spray of antiproton pulses, and more were intercepted by Ottoman fighters, but a great deal manage to wreak havoc amongst the fleet. As the same time, the final uberturret was dealt with by a singularity charge from the Command Ship and an antiproton pulse from an Ottoman frigate. The Vermulan Commander was tired of all these losses, and ordered that the fleet go in for the assault on Simnadsiat. As the fleet drew towards Simnadsiat, a great forcefield was thrown over the planet. Those ships caught within the forcefield found their engines suddenly non-operational, and they sank down towards the planet. A few ships dissected by the forcefield barrier caught a strange white flame and slowly joined the DCP ships as wisps of supposed existence. An automatic audio transmission was sent to every fleet trying to invade the planet.

"We will not give in."

The Vermulan Comman ship preformed a scan of the planet's surface, and located the shield generator. It sent this information to the other ships, and they concentrated all their energy weapons on that point. After a minute of heavy fire, the shield buckled, only a moment, to the flood of antiprotons, ions and solotons. In this moment, enough energy managed to pass through to destroy the shield generator. The fleet descended lower, into the exosphere, and began beaming down vast quantaties of Ottomans troops, Dronox and Vermulan fighting machines to suppress the ground forces. Had Simnadsiat been a heavily populated planet with many more cities, this invasion could have taken years. Luckily, Simnadsiat and Docron Sector as a whole was a fairly backwater place as far was the DCP went, and Simnadsiat only had five major cities and many more rural towns of little to no consequence. The invasion would be a victory in, at best a few days, at worst a few months.

Despite the inevitable victory, the Vermulan commander was not pleased. Far too many ships had been lost in a relatively simple invasion attempt. She wondered whether this was a result of poor performance by the Servitors and superior DCP defences. Regardless, a full analysis of the encountered resistance was going to be needed for future invasion attempts.

Meanwhile
Lunarai Khan had been suffering another bout of confusion. It seemed to be a bane of his life that he could only come to terms with by seeking a place to feel comfortable after. And so, he woke up in the middle of a patch of spreading grassland. The soft undergrowth shone with the pearly light of the Plazith Rim, this planet was an airless desert only years before, and so it seemed wherever life spread it coloured the universe. Lunarai Khan reflected on the similarities and differences of the Coalition and the Sovereignty. One of the things he had to get used to is that buildings were fixed to the ground. Yes, old architecture, at least chosen for their message, were preserved on homeworlds. But all modern cities were fluid, you might wake up somewhere-else, you might expect cities to move miles per day. None of this mattered of course because in the Coalition, work was always to be found somewhere. But here it seemed that the social structure was more organised, people here made long-lasting friendships.

Lunarai had his duty though. He had responsibility to help the Coalition, and data was already streaming in from the strange war now getting more serious in the Docron Sector. Humans were invading, humans, it was almost unthinkable! Lunarai had been taught that Humanity were an unpredictable lot. Unlike most species, they were diverse in culture, technological advancement, goals and even body structure, a trait some regard as good. This was partly due to their ancient history of being transplanted around the galaxy, and also, to the DCP's utmost dismay, their lack of an ability to agree with one another, worse, they were good at getting what they wanted. Two great political forces in the Plazith Rim at least, though mostly separated by thousands of light years, it is a wonder the DCP hadn't declared to bring order already. Two hundred years ago in fact, they did. Simnadsiat's defenses had been taken out by the Vermulans, Grox and the human faction. Lunarai studied the insignia and clothing on the human soldiers, fully armoured but with face masks and even hats, this was a sign they were members of the Imperial Ottoman Directorate, who based their style on a more ancient Terran empire. So Terran then. Lunarai felt insulted, the DCP through Plazith Rim Cooperative was even helping the Terrans unite Humanity peacefully. This very two sided nature was a mockery of DCP patience.

Lunarai found Eclipsos behind him, his presence felt like poison to Lunarai, with his prying questions and condescending attitude. But there was nowhere to go on this world, that had only been partially paraformed. But something about Eclipsos brought on these bouts of disorientation, that were almost like flashbacks. "Ah, you have reached the periphery. There is nothing beyond, I'm afraid" said Eclipsos. "My own augmentations mean that-" "Just lifeless and unrelenting wastes, no fun or freedom to be had" he replied. Changing conversation, Lunarai let out a rant. "The DCP's performance in this war is unbelievable. I know they are distracted by the ghosts, time anomalies, Milky Way Cooperative and Dominatus but this war is in our own house." "That is because the war rests upon you. Don't you think it is strange that you haven't been haunted by the Dromanji?  Don't you think it obvious that the war and so many other recent events are engineered?" Eclipsos said with a tone of wisdom. The two returned to the main hub of the colony and military installation, and once more, Lunarai sensed the warm and friendly atmosphere of MSP society. And Lunarai Khan liked it.

Impurity
The High Command decreed that new and more devastating weaponry was needed to fight a successful long term war with the Delpha Coalition of Planets. They selected a large contingent of scientists from across the Autonomy for this exact purpose, and stationed in a vast complex with all the equipment and resources needed to complete their assignment, and given a massive degree of independence on what kind of weaponry they develop.

y=x2+34 was running late. A system faliure, likely due to some experimental weapon gone wrong, she was locked within her dormitory. This, coupled with the immense inefficiency of the magnetic disk transit system (with all the experimental weaponry, teleporters had been deemed unsafe and removed from the facility) meant that she was running at least three and a half sectons late. Her partner, y=x5+67, was surely getting impatient by now. After her magnetic disk had spun her through the vast maze that was the research facility, it stopped at Sector C Test Labs, where y=x2+34 entered the sector and navigated another maze of corridors to find Laboratory 86, where y=x5+67 was waiting.

y=x5+67 raised an eyebrow at y=x2+34.

"I apologise for the delay. It could not be avoided." y=x2+34 explained. "I am aware of the power failure in the Level 3 Dormitories. Your inevitable delay was acknowledged." y=x5+67 replied. "Then why did you find it necessary to pull a inquisitive and displeased expression?" ''"I enjoy pulling inquisitive and displeased expressions." ''y=x5+67 smiled, and moved onto their business of the day. "Did you get permission from the High Command to pursue this endeavor of development?"

y=x2+34 lit a hologram of the High Command's written permission. y=x5+67 was pleased.

"Excellent. I had the most vital of our needed materials delivered earlier, procured from a planet on the fringes of the Andromeda Galaxy by the Servitor Grox." She opened a small container of Groxic origin, and pulled out a vial of grey fluid. "The Mechanovirus, which the Grox used to great effect in their final war. It was only to discovery of the cure from which it was defeated. Which brings us to your part. Have you gained what we needed to continue this development?" "Our the Servitor Ottoman spies within the DCP were unable to obtain the cure, however they did obtain the DCP's analysis of the cure's effect." y=x2+34 lit another hologram, showing the DCP's research into the matter. y=x5+67 read the document with great interest. "Excellent. We will be able to omit this part of our tests. So the cure worked by jamming the frequencies the nanobots used to communicate? The solution to that is simple." "We adjust the nanobots to constantly rotate frequencies." "Exactly."

y=x5+67 tapped a button on the laboratory bench. A device that utilises nanobots for the purpose of creating and altering other nanobots nanobots spun from across the room to right in front of her. She put the vial of the mechanovirus in a special slot in the device. y=x2+34 questioned her partner.

"How will the mechanovirus be delivered? Our improved strain will not have any pre-existing hosts to spread the infection." "This has been taken care of." y=x5+67 opened another container, of Vermulan origin this time, and removed from it a bizarre robotic creature from it, which resembled a mix between a crab and a centipede. "The mechanovirus will be carried and injected into victims with these devices. The device will then deactive and dismantle itself, after which the infected infects more victims by its own initiative." "And how will these devices be delivered?" "Rockets, with internal dampening systems to prevent damage. After the rocket hits the ground, it opens up and the device crawls out. The Ottoman Servitors have been given the plans for such devices. Should be easy enough for them." "Isn't there risk of the infected attacking our own forces?" "Yes, but we'll know where we've deployed them, we'll be expecting them and be able to contain them accordingly. The infected are no much for antiproton, ion or soloton weaponry." "But wouldn't that mean the DCP military will be able to deal with them with ease?" "The idea is that they be launched into areas with high civilian population, with no weaponry. By the time the DCP's armed forces tries to deal with the problem, the infected will beat them by sheer numbers alone. Furthermore, they're meant to distract the DCP from our forces, not beat them singlehandedly." "If they gain overwhelming numbers, won't that give them an advantage over our own troops?" "As I said: we'll know where we've deployed them, we'll be expecting them and be able to contain them accordingly. Any more concerns?" "No, I am satisfied. Let us get to work on the project."

The pair then went to work on the vial within the alteration device, y=x5+67 doing the work while y=x2+34 read to her the specifications of the mechnovirus design. Within little time, the mechanovirus would be adapted into a weapon for use by the Vermulans against the Delpha Coalition, as the Grox had a few years before but so unfortunately failed.

Last on the list
When Morag Jones received the message that a member of DCP royalty as majestic as Lunarai Khan was paying a visit within two hours to her husband Arnbjørn, the prime minister of the Fjord League, she could not help but feel a twist in her stomach. Her husband had only just gone to bed a few hours earlier, she knocked on the walnut door...

Lunarai Khan knew he had to put his reservations on-hold. The Delpha Coalition of Planets usually only addressed Humanity through unified alliances like federations, the UN or Milky Way Cooperative, it was unusual for a DCP representative to meet a particular Terran nation. He knew what he was in for, Terran societies were often individualistic and culturally excessive in identity.

His ship disengaged tachyon shift, and was now dipping over a terraformed world of lakes and mountains, called Dun in human tongue. Descending the atmosphere, he was could tell by the steep-sided valleys that here, like on the MSP world he had just escaped was an example of the fact soil was new, and the lack of clay sediments had yet to smooth them. Despite this, the Fjords were master terraformers, meaning they were highly scientific. Their conflict with the Ottomans also made them a worthy source of information. His ship passed over a sprawling city of both wooden houses and almost organic-looking towers, themselves towered by geothermal stations. Flags and symbols, advertisements even, lit up the sky, while below people and devices milled. He saw people look up, baseline and cyborg, some with fear or wonder in their eyes, and some people even taking their children indoors. This was a common site on any world in the Plazith Rim, the DCP was rightfully feared even by it's allies. Lunarai didn't like this however, and darkened his window.

Landing his ship on the platform, Lunarai Khan stepped out where he was met by several humans, most being Terran less than half his height, but a taller woman probably heralding from another world was with them. Other than a greeting, there were no more words to be exchanged as he was led to a tall, expressionist cathedral, from within echoes the sound of hymns. And there was the prime minister of the Fjord League, without visible body augmentation or boastfulness and pride, with brown hair and grey eyes, middle aged. He looked slightly overwhelmed, but none-the-less made a move to shake Lunarai's hand. Hours later, Lunarai was sitting in a public house drinking Fjord alcohol and eating a meal. His bodily augmentation would filter chemicals that were toxic or indigestible. "So what is it about the Ottomans that you need our help. Isn't DCP intelligence everywhere?" asked Arnbjørn. "Surprisingly, we have little data on the Ottomans, the Vermulans might have something to do with that" said Lunarai. "Perhaps, not so surprisingly" replied Arnbjørn. "The Vermulans might be under less guard concerning Humanity" stated Lunarai. "''Our war with the Ottomans never truly ended. However, the consequences of a human war would be dire, especially in this age of unification" said Arnbjørn. "I promise, once the DCP knows where to strike, they will strike hard. But we are too distracted with other threats looming on the horizon to find the location of the Vermulans''" replied Lunarai. "If the Ottomans and Vermulans establish a foothold in the heart of DCP space. We will be in trouble anyway.  You have our support" concluded Arnbjørn.