Sirius had undergone some "changes" since the Nomad wars - for one, there were about fifty new systems colonised, several renamed, factions, technology and everything else. For one, there were over fifty thousand freelancers prowling the Sirius sector, piloting ships such as the new Pelican, a civilian freighter, among hundreds of new ship designs and classes.
Of course, there was the long-overdue dark matter storms in Kepler, Galileo, Colorado and Shikoku wiping out the jump gates but creating jump holes to systems such as Omicrons Mu and Nu, twin systems which were previously almost inaccessible. Deposits of uranium, plutonium and many other precious minerals including over three hundred elements had been discovered - and H-Fuel has almost become obsolete with new S-fuel, based on a sulfur istope instead of hydrogen.
And there were the criminals. Almost every criminal faction in Sirius had by then developed one heavy fighter, a medium fighter and everything in between to aid their attacks on the colonies.
The Xenos were the standouts. Four fighters had been developed based on the original Starflier design now obsolete due to the new Raven Light Fighter, below the Hawk as a favourite among freelancers due to its insane manoeuvrability. Also, almost impossibly, the Corsairs have since developed an even stronger version of the Titan, adding armour and manouevrability to an already excellent package. The Epee, a new Outcast medium fighter, was now beginning to shadow the heavily overused Eagles and Sabres that most freelancers used to use because of its excellent firepower, despite not as powerful as Eagles or even Stilettos. Also, a new faction, the Erradicators, as known until the true name of Nomads is translated, has sprung up as a second Order, like the Bounty Hunters to house police forces. The Order provides the shelter, they provide the training and equipment.
Erradicator, or Errad as they are often referred to, were expert pilots and designed new weapons such as electron, positronic, slag, phaze and strike torpedoes, and specialty shields such as the Champion 3, which was specially designed to soak up what the Champion 1 only had a slight advantage against at the cost of a more glaring weakness to other weapons.
Humans in Sirius were in a golden age and it seemed like it would last forever.
Until the Unknown incident.
"How long till we reach Toledo?" Amelia opened the comm channel again. Only two hours ago, she'd outrun a solar flare. Soon after, she and Orillion had been attacked by ten lane hackers in heavy fighters, and had her first Nomad encounter as they passed through Sigma-21 to get to Toledo since the direct hole from Sigma 15 hadn't been stable enough. Nomads were a known pest around that area but what they'd encountered was worse than usual.
Three gunboats and ten fighters, all a purple-blue colour, decloaked in a veil of pink smoke just as seven Errad Demons (a new heavy fighter), Orillion's Ra VHF and Amelia's almost brand-new (she'd owned it for two hours) Patriot approached. The hole was in one of the darkest places known to man - the Silicon Cloud near Freeport Three in Sigma-15.
"Crap! Amelia, evade the fire. Your guns won't do anything," Orillion
yelloed over the comm channel.
"He's right madam, you'd best let us handle these guys. If something comes
off them, tractor it up - hopefully you'll get something good," the Errad
wing leader spoke. He was known only by his codename Bravo, and had been
recruited by the Errad when being a Hessian was too slow and boring.
"OK, shall do"
"Boys, keep your fingers off the "tractor" button. We got someone who wants
the loot," Bravo said with a smile.
The Errad wing swooped down, carving a deadly arc of red slag and strike torpedoes aimed at the gunboats. Seconds passed and none had been hit - the Nomad force was reduced to a smouldering mass of purple. Amelia smacked down the "Tractor" button, and managed to snag several weapons, some of which actually mountable by her humble Patriot. She looked through her cargo readout and noted two weapons tagged, 'Nomad Slag 10' in her hold, and after the computer assessed the value, her Freelancer rank climbed from three to sixty-eight in seconds. The Slag weapon was worth twenty million credits - and she had two of them tied up in her hold!
"Not long. It's only ten kay away," Bravo responded and Orillion said almost the exact same thing seconds later. Amelia laughed, and soon the planet was in view. She docked without further adieu, and raced to the ship dealer.
The ship dealer here was obviously Outcast, as he had the inhaler and held what looked like a bag of cardamine in his pocket.
"Aah, you're Amelia. Orillion said you'd be coming. We got just about everything here that you'd need in terms of ships," the dealer spoke. He was wearing the same black two-piece long-sleeved jacket and trousers that most Order operatives wore. His entire head was shaved including half an ear, and his right eye was almost completely missing, all bar the eyelid which was covered by a black leather patch. He was about two and a half metres tall, almost the exact opposite of the dealer on Manhattan.
When he saw what was in Amelia's cargo bay, he tripped over himself.
"Two Nomad Slag Tens and a Phaze Five? Wow, that's amazing! Slag Tens are possibly the rarest Nomad weapons around and you got two of them. The Phaze weapons sell for heaps as well. I'll take the Phaze and give you ten million for it, eh?"
"Sure... I don't care. I need the most manouevurable elite fighter that there is. Preferably a very heavy fighter."
"You want a Firefeeder. It's an Errad ship which is as fast and manoeuvrable as a Drake and has better armour than the Deity, the Corsair Ultra Heavy Fighter."
"OK, I'll take it. Could you do me a favour and mount those Slag weapons for me?"
"Sure. It's done."
Amelia had never seen such a lively Outcast in her life. Not that she'd seen many, but those that she'd seen were more likely to have grabbed her and eaten her alive than had pleasant conversation. Not that that mattered though.
Orillion was waiting for her on the docking pads.
"Toledo has no equipment dealer. You'll get what you need on the Battleship Osiris in Omicron Major. From there we go to Unknown."
"Fair enough. I just want to test these slag weapons though."
"Go ahead, I'm not stopping you."
After launching Amelia steered her ship towards the closest asteroid and sat five hundred metres from it and shot a couple slags. Blue plasma exploded from the barrels of the guns and split the asteroid into two. She noticed it didn't take any power at all.
"These are cool. I can't wait to kill the Nomads."
"After what happened in Sigma-15, don't be surprised if we enter the system and see a complete abyss. Nomads do that to systems. Just look at Omicron Alpha. They destroyed two planets in there when Castile was still known as Omicron Alpha, and the Omicron Alpha we know today was simply called Unknown Alpha. They had to go to the opposite side of the sun to find the planet."
"Oh..."
"We need to wait for the Errad fighters to undock as well as our Order escort. Seven more fighters will be joining us and Colonel Trent will rendezvous with us in Major."
"We're going to the Dyson Sphere?"
"No... It's been renamed to Omicron One. Omicron Major is a new system. Damn these Zoners for insisting that everything is renamed. Oh well, let's get over there. It's a quick flight to the jump hole, but if it's closed we'll need to go back through the Sigmas again and enter via Omega-43. Come on, let's be off. Our escorts are nearly here."
"Miss Oxedis, Orillion. This is Order Phi Six. We're here to escort you to Omicron Major," said the Order wing leader. The Errad leader said similar.
"OK, form on me, everyone. Keep radio activity low on the way through the field, we've been picking up strange readings within the Edge nebula."
Amelia punched in the Formation commands before opening a private line to the Errad leader.
"Hey, Bravo. What's with all the ships? Surely only twenty kay to a jump hole isn't that risky!"
"Orillion is paranoid about the Nomads. Our scouts came in with a report from Unknown Omicron that there were some serious energy surges in the system a couple days ago, when the Battleship Cairo stopped sending patrols around Kappa. I kinda have a hunch something went sour in there, so I'll be backing you up whether our leader likes it or not. I know you're a good pilot, because those Nomads in '15 would have owned most rookies-in-Patriots. Then again, you aren't a rookie, are you?"
"I do professional jetbike racing on Manhattan. That's about it."
"It could be that. Jetbikes and fighters have a lot in common."
As she closed the link, she noticed in her rear vision a patch that was noticably lighter than the rest of the sewage-green cloud, almost turquoise.
"Orillion, check your six. There's something following us, I think," Amelia spoke.
"Sure does look like it. Keep on your toes."
Words of approval came over the comm, as the jump hole came into view.
Or would have, if a certain something hadn't decloaked in front of the hole.
A great purple-and-blue behemoth barred the jump hole. It was definitely not a battleship, it was much too large.
Indeed, it was a Nomad ship.
But when the heck did Nomads have access to something that was only used by the Nomads in the Nomad Wars?
The turquoise patch behind them began to grow larger until the pilots could note its shape. Black weapons mounted on two incredibly large prongs which curved over from the back to the front, dwarfing the Firefeeders that the Errad and Amelia were flying. They were a remarkably similar design, except of course they were turquoise instead of the Errad's customary red colour.
"Aah, shit! That's a nomad behemoth! Take out its turrets and make sure you don't get hit by the antimatter mines!" Bravo blurted angrily.
The ship looked like a very much oversized Clydesdale, except covered in turrets and about one hundred times larger.
Said antimatter mines were a package of compressed dark matter which, on impact, decompressed, creating a vacuum. Kinda like a miniature black hole, only it wore out after a couple seconds. However, contact with one was instant death - anything passing though it would have all its atoms separated and then scattered everywhere. Not pretty or painless.
The battleship started firing madly, launching fifty rounds per second at least.
Amelia banked hard left as a swarm of sixteen nomad interceptors decloaked in front of her, firing equally as madly. Eight were on her tail, and soon enough her shields began to show signs of fading. No-one was speaking - either they were too tense or preoccupied with the "Shield Battery" button. One nomad got caught in between a dogfight between Orillion and one of the new arrivals and ended up spinning wildly into another of the pursuers.
Amelia cut her engines again, leaving two fingers on each of the strafe buttons. Confident she wasn't about to carve her signature on an asteroid, she spun her ship around, still in full drift and started blasting the nomads with her new slag weapons. Once their brains (if they had any) registered that their target was shooting them, they began to evade the shots - just as Amelia destroyed five all in a row. That was seven down and one to go - make that none, thanks to Bravo, who'd appeared out of nowhere.
"Sixteen nomads, all dead in seconds. Now for the behemoth! All fighters, engage!"
Somehow every single ship had survived the barrage from the behemoth with no trouble at all. Bravo's wing began unloading their signature Strike Torpedoes into its hull casing.
Orillion and his Order ships began taking out the turrets, with only three fighters losing more than half their shields. Amelia carved a deep crack in the middle of the ship while the other fighters danced around it, shooting, rocketing, torpedoing and mining, all the while using their Wasps to destroy whatever antimatter mines came near.
Soon the behemoth began to fault - it split in two.
What was amazing, however, was that when it split, there were decks and bays visible as well as something that looked like a Rheinland Battleship reactor core right in the middle, which broke free.
"Tractor that up, Amelia! Get it before it explodes!" Orillion yelled over the comm channel.
"OK, done. I got some more weapons as well," she responded once she was sure that it was secure in her cargo bay.
"Excellent work. Take point through the jump hole and hope the Nomads don't rape us as we exit the hole. Trent should be on the other side," the Order wing leader spoke.
"OK, everyone formed on me?"
A couple nods and "yes"es was all she needed.
"Commence docking..."
The hole was stable, which was a relief. Soon enough they shot out the other side into a purple cloud, similar to those in Shikoku that VIPs loved to just stare at all day long (which Amelia found rather boring, and she was sure that most other people did as well).
She was greeted with a new set of friendly signals as well as the Errad and Order wings. Orillion was behind her. All was well...
And there was that turquoise cloud again.
"Bring up your advanced scanners, people. Trent isn't here yet, I've sent him a message and he'll be here in about three minutes," Orillion ordered as he checked his contacts list.
"Why the advanced scanners though? Won't we see Trent on regular scanners?" Bravo's right-hand man asked.
"It's not that. Just bring them up."
Sure enough, they brought up their advanced cloak-detecting scanners and they found out the identity of the turquoise cloud.
It was not labelled but it was indeed a ship, although neither Nomad or Human.
Bravo opened a private channel to Orillion.
"Orillion... do you see what I see? I think I know what that is!"
"Daun Cavasche," were the only two words he said before being hailed by a different vessel, this time on three-kay channel.
"Hey, guys! Edison Trent, Freelancer Alpha One-dash-one, here to escort you to the Battleship Tutankhamun."
"Hello, Mr. Trent. Who is your company?" Amelia was quick to ask.
"My company? The leader of the Erradicators," Trent spoke sassily.
"Who's that?"
"Jun'ko Zane."