Fiction:The Mineral Conflict

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The Drodo Empire found a sort of power crystal, called "Drodoian Gold". This crystal is very valuable as it can power an entire world for thousands of years-or a superweapon...

Using this newly found mineral, the Drodo's ally, the United Federation of Species, created a wormhole that connected the Kraw Galaxy to the Milky Way, the Eranian Collective, curious, send ships through the wormhole. The Oppressive Mag'Heli Dominion does the same. Little do these four factions know is that this is the prelude to a great war for the Drodoian Gold. This is the story.

Mag'heli Prelude
The Mag'heli raiding vessel "Proxy" flew through space on the fifteenth patrol of the Eranian/Mag'heli border it had been forced to make this past week. It's crew were tired, it's brutes were bored. As the brutes passed by each citizen, each section of the ship, the crewmembers snapped from nearly napping to full attention, terrified the brute would notice the slightest flaw, create the slightest excuse to entertain itself by punishing them. While they knew it technically had no sentience, and that it would not be them deciding to gather entertainment through their pain, they remained terrified nontheless.

An old, scarred brute who had earned the nickname "Old Scarclaw" lumbered towards a sleeping crewmember who was supposed to be watching the sensors, and grabbed him roughly by the neck. The crewmember awoke with a jolt and almost yelled out from the shock of being woken from his peaceful dreams to such a ugly sight. He began to panic, and looked to his fellow crewmates for support, they denied him such support, shying away and tried to look like they were buisy working. Seeing no other choice, he croaked out in a weak voice "Yes, master?". The brute paused momentarily, as if struggling to comprehend the question just asked him, before finally yelling out "Why were you sleeping?!". The sound echoed throught the ship. Panicing, the crewmember could not think of a reasonable excuse and instead attempted to satisfy the brute by pinning the blame on somebody else. "I wasn't me who was sleeping, it was Kur'kloc!". Kur'kloc looked up at the crewmember, horrified at being singled out in such a manner. Fortunately for him the brute, rather than putting the crewmember down, crushed his skull in its hands and dropping his shattered carcass onto the floor. It muttered "Liar" before slowly plodding off, dragging the corpse behind him.

Eranian Prelude
A dozen computer screens were all that lit the room. A sole Eranian crouched there, her already pale face rendered ghastly by the white light that shone upon it. Her face was bored and contemplative, as she watched swathes of data fly over the screens of the computers surrounding her, too fast for most people to read. For hours on end, she would sit like this, haunched beside the computers, breaking the eerie silence only to issue orders to her subordinates or recieve them from her supiriors. In honesty, she would have it no other way. She pressed down a switch on a panel before her, keeping her finger upon it as she said "Find me a channel to Mikios. I need him to investigate something" in her clear yet monotonous voice. The response came swiftly and sharply, a male answering "As you wish, ma'am". She removed her finger from the switch and returned to watching the screens.

Mikios was confused but intregued. He knew Kerrata, and had worked under her several times before. She was not the kind of person to specifically ask for the aid of somebody who was not at the time a member of the millitary. Well, she was, but she would not specifically ask for the aid of somebody of his personality. He was led to a room by his escourt, a large man, for an Eranian (Which was still fairly thin and spindly), and he had discovered thorugh what little conversation he could strike up during the journey that he was relatively simple minded. It mattered little, he entered the room designated and discovered it empty, save a for simple, metallic table and a positively archaic laptop computer of the kind that had been out of use for over five centuries. Smart, he thought, nobody would bother to hack the databand frequencies those things used to communicate... He spoke aloud to an empty room "So, what do you want me for then?"

USF Prelude
And for several months working on this project and almost finished. At the checkpoint a young Uzcar, much higher than usual in their kind, carefully watching a screen, where hundreds of data in and out at an astounding rate. Front Uzcar a small object about ten cubic centimeters began to flicker, with increasing speed. The Uzcar left his intense concentration and pressed with a finger the object, it was opened, revealing a hologram of the Supreme Brinal Aranelia Senator. -Chief of Research Saudioch, good to talk to you- said the hologram -I hope that the project is in good condition. The Uzcar bowed. -You can count on it, Senator, I am eternally grateful to you for letting me do this- he said. -I suppose you are putting the finishing touches, right? -Of course, I think the wormhole will be ready for tomorrow -Excellent, General Vankalian going to inspect this evening, peace and prosperity- and Aranelia cut the transmittance.

Sadioch was very proud, Vankalian, generally of a thousand battles, would go there specifically for his project, sent by the only Great Senator, the dream of every scientist Uzcar. Send a message to all the engineers working at the station, ordering up the pace, soon be over. Soon a network of wormholes connect all Federation colonies and ships could move freely, the limits of time and space disappear soon, be overcome by the intelligence of a Uzcar, all allowed by the strange cristal which the Senate ordered him to study, the Drodonian Gold. But soon a dark thought Sadioch invaded the mind. If something went wrong? If the federation had another crisis like the Elipsion Complex? No, calculations were accurate, but just in case put on display all his calculations, would review them one by one.

Meanwhile, Vankalian on his ship approached the station, he had nothing bad happen asegurarce was something important. Just for routine, a squad of Steel Soldiers accompanied him, was boring twenty hours travel unaccompanied, but did not need Vankalian could care for himself. But his wife, Aranelia, required to follow the rules, so he was forced to travel in a very slow Conqueror, with all the elegance possible.

Drodo Prelude
Cesterity was bored, but did not let his crew see it,

For a few weeks now his ship, the Impaler 2, patrolled the space around the wormhole, along with a few other Drodo vessels. He heard of some news that the wormhole was almost finished - something that the Captain was very excited about.

"I can finally get back to..." he thought;

"to what? There's been nothing but petty pirate raids ever since the Two Unions' War five years ago, so I suppose this butt-numbingly boring job is better than none at the moment."

Almost as if on queue, one of his crewmembers pulled him out of his thoughts;

"Sir,"

"Yes?"

"Its ready."

Contact
The world shook. Brutes were pushed to the ground and took time to get up, while regular Mag'heli had the prescence of mind to grab onto something. Several still were thrown around the ship, and one even managed to impale herself upon a spike protruduing from a Brute's back, to the Brute's great amusement. Once things settled, Brutes began barking orders, demanding to know what was occuring. People scurried from place to place, desperate to find out what. Yelling of status reports filled the room, so much that few were distinguishable from the rest. The reports mainly went along the lines of "Damage is superficial at best!" and "Engines are disabled! Wait, no, they just stalled.". Eventually Kur'kloc thought to check the scanners his deceased friend was no longer watching, and sp he discovered what had occured. "Scanners show we've been surrounded by a giant ring structure. They must have attacked us, causing the shaking!" he stated, quietly so as to avoid drawing attention to himself. Somebody must have hurd him, as a booming voice, which all recognised as that of Old Scarclaw called out. "Fire on the ring!"

Another trouble with wormhole
Vankalian got off his ship in the hangar space station, should see Sadioch and ensure that the wormhole was ready for use. He walked the corridors of the station accompanied by his faithful companions Steel Soldiers, all was quiet, the only noise came from the cabin where it should be Sadioch. He climbed the magnetic elevator, noting the distance the huge gravitational monster: the wormhole, a chill down his spine as he recalled seeing a spaceship ripped through the wormhole, remembered seeing as a king was espagetizado Macraborg and recalled seeing his brother fall and die on the inside of that hole in space time. Not this time everything would be fine, Sadioc is competent.

In his cabin, Sadioch, was smiling proudly with itself. -Sadioch, sorry to bother you, but I come to supervise the construction of the wormhole- sayed Vankalian when he entered in the cabin. -General, is a pleasure talk with you, you arrived on time to see the activation of the wormhole. -It is ready?- wondered Vankalian -Yes, it is -Can I ask how you managed to do something that many thought impossible? -Of course, we owe it all to this object.- say Sadioch and show to the captain a lead container -It is lead? -Not exactly, is the material which it's into the lead container, a piece of Drodonian Gold. -What is so different from common gold? -This material is a crystal whose electrons revolve in orbits of very high energy so it is very easy to excite, from an excited state to a lower energy electrons released much radiation and the higher the orbit, the less energy is needed to excite the atoms, making it easier to release radiation. -So if we apply some light photons, increase it energy so that release gamma rays. -Exactly -How many energy? -Look this equation- and Sadioch show to the general this equation:
 * Ec = W.mc3

Where Ec is the energy released by the glass, mc is the mass of glass and W is the energy applied to it in watts. -Then, with a ton of this material and ten kilowatts of power a city could feed a thousand years ... -Exactly Suddenly, the whole station shook and a beam of light hit hard on the ring where the checkpoint was a monstrous ship emerged from the wormhole, between the sounds of chaos and destruction will hear the clear voice of General Vankalian: -Not again... another trouble with wormhole

Skirmish
Cesterity ran double shifts on the bridge for a week or so now, as his first officer was on leave. He was ready to fall asleep in his chair when a crewman said;

"Sir, we are picking up a message from the UFS wormhole station-its a distress signal."

Cesterity stood up in his seat, and said cautiously,

"Patch it through."

It was mostly static, but Cesterity could make out some details. They where under attack, which explained a lot more than one would expect, it was from an unspecified enemy, either completly unknown or that detail was drowned out by static, and they where getting hit hard. The signal ended as soon as it started, and Cesterity immediatly started giving orders,

"Helmsman,"

"Yes captain?"

"Set a course for the wormhole-now."

Combat
Plasma fire filled the air as the gun on the Mag'heli raider stutteringly fired wildly on the ring with which it had been confronted. It's firing patterns were wild, and fortunately failed to hit any critical systems. Drodo and USF ships converged on the newcomers location, at first startles by it's appearance, then in an attempt to prevent damage to the ring. Their projectiles rent the hull of their target, spilling many of the Proxy's internal systems into space. A terrified Mag'heli, desperate to survive the flurry of weapons fire upon his ship, activated the engines to full power, throwing the ship forward. As Mag'heli vessel entered the atmosphere of a planet it didn't know existed, around which the ring was orbiting, many of it's engineers who clung still alive to the shattered and torn outer hull of the ship were incinerated and the gun, crudely attached by those engineers, creaked and tore away from the ship, much to the dismay of those brutes who would maintain firing throught atmospheric entry in the hope of hitting something by pure chance.

Discovery
It seemed like overkill, in hindsight. To send such a fleet after one scoutship... No, on second thoughts, it was perfect. If it was the Eranians indeed who had attacked, it would be the perfect excuse to attack them with diplomatic impunity, and just what the government had wanted for years now. Controller M'kras was sat at the head of the bridge of the raider "Mourn". Each Mag'heli vessel had a captain to act as a mouthpeice. He was, in fact, controlled by the Brutes, who were in turn controlled by the aptly named "Controllers", who were assigned by the government and usually remained hidden amongst the masses of crewmen. Who would then suspect the captain, who was supposed to be himself controlled, to be the controler? It mattered little, regardless. He turned his focus back to the matter at hand, the search for the missing scoutship.

All readings appeared normal, save for a minor amount of radiation in what should be a vacuum. The last known location of the proxy lent no trace, the engine trace stopped abruptly. M'kras cringed as he felt a disturbance in the connection patterns between the fleets ships. Like something had been suddenly severed from the connection. He closed his eyes and focused, a dreadnought had dissapeared? His concentration was broken by the voice of a new slave who had yet to be shown proper respect. "There was just a major increase in radiation from coordinates 3,5,2 from here...". M'kras swiftly "Brutes, punish the recruit for not calling me sir, then pilot a raider to that area to see what happens". The nearest brute to the recruit simply picked her up by the head in it's massive groping hand and carried her off screaming, while another Mag'heli issued orders to another raider as he was instructed.

As a second Mag'heli vessel simply dissapeared in a bright flash of light, and a spatial distortion, the Mag'heli energy sensors went off the scale. Excited murmurings went through the crewmembers of each ship in the fleet, each one quietly hoping this odd phenomenon could be somehow weaponised, and the pseudo-officers hushed in anticipation of whether or not the raider would somehow return. When finally it did, in yet another flash, they were amazed indeed. "It's a gate... I think, maybe some kind of teleporter" was the message they recieved from the ship that returned. After a moments contemplation, M'kras realised the implications. A gate meant something on the other side. That meant land, which meant new opportunities to expand the Dominion, as the Government and high controllers had been unable to do for decades. If he could secure some territory there, he would doubtless be promoted to command of a major colony at least. Rather than thousands of people to torture, he would have millions. After a moments contemplation of the possibilities, he ordered all ships to enter the gate.

Several parsecs away, inside a Eranian Ravager class combat ship, Mikios Jertar watched as the sensors fed him the exact data he had been told he would. Minor gamma radiation increases, free electrons where there should be none, and dissapearing Mag'heli vessels. He had found the wormhole gate, exactly as predicted. His second in capacity asked for instructions to give his fleet. Mikios hastily replied "Wait ten seconds for the Mag'heli to start a fight, then ten minutes, given it'll take us twenty minutes to arrive at the gate, any hostile resistance on the other side should be weakened or eliminated by the time we arrive. We'll gather Kerrata's 'Scientific data' then, after making sure the other side is safe."