Not With A Bang, Nor A Whimper

Of course he's going to ignore that. But then again, what Shein doesn't know.... well, he can't complain about later. Well, yes he can, but will he?

Six months pass with skirmish after skirmish. The Raptor is back in battle, though Shein is not always there. Sometimes he's on Rutia and sometimes he's on the Raptor. Both sides are holding their own territory now, though no word has come from the isolationists. Shein's been keeping Jenova up to date on what's been going on.

However, now, there's silence from him. The latest battle in the Ordura system has left the Raptor without any way to call for help. They've had to withdraw. The communications systems, cloak, and shielding are all down. They managed to get out of the system before their drive malfunctioned.

Shein and Arren are on board this time, though neither of them are hurt. Shein narrowly missed getting scraped up again. They're hoping they're found by friends before enemies wander by.

"Jenova, The Raptor didn't reappear with the rest of the Loyalist fleet," a voice comes in on Jenova's emergency feed.

"Sensor Command?" Jenova asks, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She stopped watching each battle as it unfolded two months ago.

"Yes, did you copy that?"

"No."

Sensor Command repeats, Jenova curses, and Sensor Command is ordered to reposition sensors. Within six minutes of The Raptor being missing, they've found it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Spotlight appears within 50 KM of The Raptor, and Jenova hails The Raptor over short-range communicators, hoping those are still up. If there's no response, she and Khaine will beam over. Khaine stopped being on the deck of The Raptor four months ago, instead trying to help Loyalist strategists back on Rutia from behind the lines.

On the Raptor, Shein's actually tending to the wounded. Arren is trying to fix the damned ship. There's no communications at all. Well, when Jenova and Khaine beam over, they'd be met with weapons until recognition sets in. One of those sidearms belongs to Shein. He rolls his eyes, shakes his head, holsters his gun, then goes back to what he was doing. He's tying off a bandage around a Danite's leg.

The Danite, a large weasel-looking humanoid, seems to sit still, though is sniffing the air in the direction of Jenova and Khaine. "Don't recognise them."

"They're friends." Shein smirks. "Probably got worried about me." He turns his head to where he can see Jenova. "Right?"

The Danite's whiskers twitch. "Probably should go check on Minhara. Haven't heard from her." He waits until Shein is finished, then limps over to a bit of debris from what looks like a console explosion, trying to move it.

Shein moves to help the Danite. "Don't. I'll take care of this. I'm sure they've brought something that will help even better." He motions toward Jenova and Khaine. He starts moving some of the debris, though carefully. There's definitely someone under there. Comideran, if the tail is any indication.

Arren isn't up here, oddly enough. He's left Shein's side. Though Shein probably isn't unprotected. There's a Pandati nearby that starts to help with the debris.

An ISD shows up, a bit late. It hails them to see if they still need help.

The Spotlight relays to the ISD that they have the situation under control. They don't elaborate though. Whoever is on board The Spotlight must not have much authority. However, after the relay, two Motherships, and another Starship appear. They don't seem to have a problem with the star destroyer's presence, but they don't attempt further communication.

The Star Destroyer, if it has extra power pumping in to its sensors, might notice the cloaked Jumper that attaches itself to a nice little niche on the hull of The Raptor. It shuts all power off. Wonder why that's being left there.

Jenova just raises her eyebrows at weapons being pointed at them. They're probably simmershielded.

"Very worried in fact," Khaine responds when it doesn't look like Jenova was going to.

Jenova was doing something on her commlink. What she was doing becomes clear when anyone who was stuck under debris is teleported to the middle of the floor. Khaine pulls out a battlekit and moves over to help, but if there are any severe injuries, they'll need more than a battlekit to fix them up. Severe injuries will be beamed onto one of the Motherships for treatment.

Jenova looks at Shein and his rodent-like friend coolly. "Friends who needn't be informed or involved in much, or mentioned often apparently." Her unhappiness at the current situation is diluted, though, by the Jumper that they've just hidden on The Raptor. "Can I move this ship and all of us to a more friendly location?"

Because it's a good way to fry the sensor, they don't have more power pumping into the sensors. However, they neither have an expensive cloak detector either. The Jumper is undetected. They offer to tractor beam the Raptor in and carry it to where it needs to go.

Shein nods to Jenova's request to move the ship. "Yeah. As for Wylean, well, we liberated him in the battle yesterday. Didn't have much time to tell him anything." He shrugs, then goes to check on Minhara.

The being under there is definitely Comideran. Tabby markings actually. Yes, she's an overgrown kitty cat. She stirs slightly and Shein seems fine to let Khaine treat her. There's a broken leg and her tail is also broken. Otherwise, she's gotten scraped up quite a bit. She'll probably need to go off.

Shein looks toward Jenova. "We've been trying to repair communications first, then worry about anything else. Obviously, we got banged up. We do have intel that shows the entire Republic council is on Sandoval. We've been focused there to try and force this to an end now. Wylean was in some kind of lab. They're not only wanting isolationism, but they're purists too. They've been treating anyone not Rutian as though they're not sentient." He's clearly pissed about what's going on. He looks at Jenova. "And I need to talk to you in private."

Preferring to keep their own technology undisclosed to the Rheans, the Burninite ships accept the ISD's offer to bring the Raptor to Rutia, and will tag along themselves. This is after Shein has given consent.

Jenova glances at Khaine, who's doing fine, and who is calling for evacuations of anyone who needs to. This includes the large cat, as the physiology is a little out of the battlekit's usual operation.

"We're on our way to Rutia," Jenova informs Shein. "About what?"

They start tractor beaming the ship in. They also request that they be allowed to treat the wounded in a medical bay.

The Spotlight informs them that the wounded are already being taken care of, and belatedly that the Raptor's communications are down.

Shein pulls Jenova aside and speaks quietly to her. "I need that Council. If I can get them all in custody, I can stop this before it goes any further. Too many have died already. I'm not one to ask for help if I can possibly avoid it, however, you're probably the only people I know that can do this quickly and quietly. In order for us to take Sandoval, it's going to take everything we have, and I mean everything. The other planets will be left defenseless. I'm not willing to do that."

Oh, and Shein doesn't care how they get back to Rutia, as long as they get back. Nor will he have a problem with extra help with the wounded. Though once they get back to Rutia, there's plenty more to be treated.

They make the hyperspace jump to Rutia and then release the Raptor. They start sending shuttles down to aid the wounded. Among them are several Bastian medical interns.

Jenova's expression softens, and she smiles at Shein. She almost hugs him. "I'm glad you're finally asking for help," she says. "You may have Rangers to supplement your attacks, troops to secure anything you already hold, and we can try beaming the Council up to one of our ships kidnapping fashion, though they might have precautions against that."

Shein shrugs. "I don't know if they can stop you. We've tried, but they're underground. Something interferes with our teleporters. What I want is the Council with minimal losses from here on in. Kidnap them if you can."

Upon arriving at Rutia, it would be discovered the wounded are numerous. There's all kinds there. Rutian, Danite, Pandati, and Comideran. There are injuries of all kinds. Some severe, some minor.

The very severely wounded are placed inside bacta tanks. They should be fully healed in days. They go about doing other medical treatments.

Jenova nods, recognizing the war weariness Shein is experiencing. The sympathy overwhelms the surprise at him having actually accepted the kidnapping idea.

She takes out her commlink and does something on it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A cloaked Jumper appears near Sandoval. Not too near, and not near enough that it is in patrolled or routinely scanned space, but near enough that it can locate the Council. Shortly, it does, and disappears.

A Craftworld appears above Sandoval without warning or announcement, and immediately attempts to beam the members of the Council on board. Whether successful or failed, it will then jump away again, whole mission lasting a maximum of fifteen seconds.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rangers mobilize on Burnination, and two hours after the initial conversation with Jenova, the second Craftworld appears above Rutia carrying 10,000 Dire Avengers and 15,000 Rangers to commit, and is accompanied by 25 Motherships, 40 Starships, and 500 Jumpers.

After that attempt to take the council, whether failed or succeeded, Burnination would not be on the Isolationists' good list.

And it succeeded, considering the tech is very different from the Rutians tech. Of course, Shein's gonna bug Thorgood about how they managed to get through the mineral deposits that were making the Rutians attempt fail.

Shein is pretty quick to make determinations about where to send the extra troops. They're going to be split up between the four core systems that are loyal to Shein, so Shein can pad security around Rutia. There's bound to be retribution for the kidnapping.

The Star Destroyer Chimera hangs around Rutia. The hunts for the Sith have finished and they can spare some people to reinforce the Rutians. There's about 9700 troops on board the Chimera.

He's not saying it out loud or putting it in writing, but Shein didn't send Thorgood schematics of his shield generator. Thorgood's not revealing the tech secrets of his transporters.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Council members are brought to Rutia and handed over to Shein's people.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That small spacefleet remains around Rutia. Now that Jenova's got Shein's permission to keep him safe, she's not going to give back an inch.

That small Burninite force sets up teleport pads at their strongpoints, and Thorgood mobilizes another 8,000 Dire Avengers, 2,500 Rangers, and 7,000 Swooping Hawks in Burnination to be deployed through the teleporters should the Burninites in Rutianas actually be attacked.

Burninite troops make sure that they respect the locals, and volunteer to be helpful whenever possible. They're aware of the advantages of having the acceptance of the local population, as well as the disadvantages of having the local population resent your presence.

Arren takes custody of the council members, putting them in different cells underneath the palace. There's nineteen in total. All of them wear hoods to keep their identity hidden, but Arren takes scans of each one to identify them.

After they're all processed and in holding, Arren heads back to Shein. He doesn't speak loudly, but rather whispers something to Shein. He shows Shein the readout on the datapad.

Shein actually jerks away from Arren after the whisper, looking at Arren like he's some poisonous snake. In fact, it might even seem that if Shein were the deadly psion, Arren wouldn't be among the living. Shein looks at the datapad, then shakes his head. "Not possible."

The Rutian troops are fine with the Rheans showing up as well to assist, or they seem to be. Actually, they don't quite know what to think of the Rheans and Burninites both. No one is questioning it though. Hell, they're glad to have the help!

They hang around helping out with whatever's needed.

Jenova raises an eyebrow, more at being excluded at this point than in curiosity. She doesn't ask, preferring to wait until Shein or Arren volunteer whatever information seems to have so ruffled them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The general attitude from the Burninites is, if they were going to be happy at the help like this, they would've come sooner!

Shein just looks like he's in shock. He looks at Jenova, but it's almost as if he doesn't see her. He finally nods to Arren, then waits until Arren leaves before finding somewhere to sit. Okay, so, it's straight down on the floor and the datapad hits and slides off to one side. Whatever this is, it's stunned him badly enough that he's lost sense.

Jenova glances at the datapad, considering getting the information that way, but discards the idea. She clicks her fingernails against the metal surface of the wall, hoping the sound will snap Shein out of it. If not, she says, "crushing responsibilities of being an Emperor to Shein Darson, please wake up." Humor. It's always a good plan B.

The Nightwing shows up over Rutia and requests permission to land. Apparently, Dmitri has heard something was up.