Things Don't Just... (FT)

"The Hunted have made a grave error in contacting you directly," the Harlequin sends. "They compromised their position and yours. The Dark Brothers now know that you harbor one of the Hunted among you. Be forewarned, the Dark Brothers do not dis - "

The Harlequin disappears when a Dark Burninite ship appears right on top of it. It almost certainly did not survive.

The ship immediately fires on the Star Destroyers with all batteries, and more Dark Burninite vessels appear as well. Several Harlequins with lance devices appear and pick off two of them, but are then gunned down when more Dark Burninites continue to appear.

Shein's technicians report that the corrupt file has been restored. It looks like it contains several mostly-complete equations that, once the constants are defined, will allow modification of a Trans-Warp to re-enter the universe with physical matter.

The Raptor disappears the minute the other ship shows up. It's not going to stick around after that! The techs immediately get to work on figuring out how best to use those plans.

The two Star Destroyers immediately start firing back at the Dark Burninite ships to cover the Raptor's escape. They launch all fighters.

(OOC: I prefer to not have the ISDs destroyed. ISDs are expensive, as are their crews. There are almost 40000 crew members on board each one.)

The Dark Burninite vessels disappear only a moment or two after the Raptor does, before the fighters can have any effect.

It's unlikely that the skirmish had any serious effects on the Star Destroyers or the Dark Burninite ships.

Using Rutian supercomputers, the techs are quickly able to derive the constants Thorgood was missing. Even without equipment, Thorgood's genius is evident -- only one of the equations required a slight modification, and he included all the constants that needed finding.

And now, with the knowledge of how to travel to the space between universes, all that remains is getting that information to the Burninites...

So the Rutian scientists start trying to modify to allow a ship from this side to go over there and give the information. Not the Raptor, of course. No, they'll use one of the FTS ships for that little mission. Provided it works.

They recall all fighters and jump into hyperspace away from them.

The FTS ship is apparently successfully modified...

Dmitri ponders the need to send in a larger expeditionary force to recover the Burninites.

The Rutians do share their findings with the Rheans, considering there were Rhean scientists there as well. In fact, they pretty much give them the stuff too.

In any case, the FTS ship tests out the ability to go between in a one second blip. Just to see if it works. They don't try and make any kind of contact. They're just checking to see if this whole thing works.

The FTS ship records a successful mission without incident.

They set up a second mission where their only priority is to find Thorgood and get him the information necessary and figure out more about how to get Burninites out of there. At the first sign of trouble, they're out of there.

(OOC: Need a little more info; how many ships, and how did they try to make contact? And Panpan, if you want in, you do have all the info you'd need to pull it off.)

They amass a half dozen Star Destroyers for the mission, which they accept as being Rutian lead.

It's just the one ship and they're going to attempt making contact the normal way for Rutians. This is, in essence, another data collecting trip to see if this even works. Though if they're met with any danger, they are out of there.

Those will stick float around waiting for the eventual rescue mission.

The FTS ship enters the "Otherside" again without incident, and attempts to scan for the Burninites. However, for some reason, scans return nonsensical results. It's impossible to determine the presence of anything. And anyone looking out a window or at a video feed would confirm; there seems to be nothing here.

(OOC: Would you broadcast?)

Hey, the Rheans can join the Rutian ship. The Rutians only sent one ship. They didn't tell the Rhreans to stay away.
The Rutian ship would try and contact Thorgood, but they're going to visually confirm if anything unfriendly is heading toward them.

The Rutians send a transmission to the Burninite ships.

Which is when things start happening.

"Listen," a voice responds, "attentively and quickly." It's Jenova's voice. "You called for ProtoConsul Thorgood, but since he is MIA at the moment, you've got Consul Incinerator instead. In about 4 seconds, the entire Burninite civilization is going to appear at your location. You'll have about 7 seconds to transmit to us your method of traveling back to the actual universe. At that point, more hostiles than you can imagine are going to show up - "

The entire Burninite civilization appears.

"at which point, you can either leave or stay. We'll get out of here as soon as we can implement whatever mods you've discovered to escape this place."

At which point, a couple hundred Harlequins appear, lance weapons in hand. The Burninite ships weapons, all charged, momentarily point towards them, obviously not having expected their help.

Then, the Dark Burninites show up. En masse.

The Star Destroyers there, after a bit of an "oh, crap" moment at having so many ships show up, start firing away, launching fighters while they're at it, for all the good that will do. They consider calling in the Eclipse but there's not exactly a large target to fire its superlaser at.

They transmit their information. They also scramble from the area too. A quick apology is sent to Jenova as the information is sent and the Raptor disappears.

The FTS ship pops back to their space, but won't engage the enemy unless they're directly attacked. They seem to be the Rutian link to the situation for now.

The FTS ship is ignored.

The Star Destroyers are ignored, as apparently they're not having much of an effect on the versatile and agile Dark Burninite ships at home in a realm where tracking systems rarely work and targeting systems can best be described as bonkers.

The fighters, however, do have an impact, and are readily engaged by the Dark Burninites.

The Burninites, most of whom are civilians huddling on the Craftworlds, create a defensive bubble which the Dark Burninites strike viciously.

The Harlequins appear and disappear almost too fast to follow, occasionally picking off a ship, but mostly trying to avoid dying.

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

Jenova glances at her commlink and frowns. "How are the techs doing?"

"They have no updates yet," an aide responds.

"Dammit, this is not going to go well if we don't escape very soon," Jenova mutters.

She opens a channel to the Star Destroyers. "This is Jenova Incinerator aboard the BSF Nautilus. May I please speak to the captain of this vessel?"

Captain Needa responds, "Yes, you may, Lady Jenova. This is Captain Needa of the Vindicator. What can I do for you?"

The Star Destroyers continue firing regardless.

The FTS ship is still observing the situation. They're not getting involved right now.

Jenova: "Thank you Captian Needa, for appearing in force to aid us in our peril. In about a minute, some very large and powerful Dark Burninite ships are going to appear and attempt to breach our defensive bubble and attack the mass of civilians on the Craftworlds. We need more time to implement our escape plan, and we've exhausted our supply of MD Devices. Worse, our Trans-Warp drives are all down as we're trying to implement the modifications necessary. It is going to fall to you and your comrades to destroy those colossus spaceships, since we will be unable to defend ourselves. I wanted to grant you forewarning if you wanted to call for reinforcements. I will be contacting the Rutians forthwith if they haven't picked this conversation up, unless you want any more information?"

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

"I think we've waited long enough," Thorgood whispers, slowly removing the blanket from over his face and shivering at the temperature on The Spotlight.

"I fear that they may yet be watching this 'wreckage,' sir," the underling hiding beneath a blanket by the sensor consoles responds just as quietly.

"It will take me a minute at most to rejigger the Trans-Warp," Thorgood says, "and if we do not go soon, I fear that the Rutians will return with a solution but I will not be there to implement it. That could be catastrophic if the techs try to mess with the drivers without specific directions from me."

He finishes removing the blanket.

"We go. Now."

Several more Burninites reveal themselves, and The Spotlight springs to life once more...

"Thank you, Lady Jenova. Captain Needa out."

They immediately call for some reinforcements but they won't arrive for at least a half hour.