Aurania Stardock, Planet Gyldaine, Suramil System, Seleania Galaxy, Popular Republican Union of Esdemir, Galactic Federation: 5th of April, 1,986,014.
Aurania hung high in orbit above Gyldaine, kept in a geosyncronous orbit near the prodigal program campus, connected via space elevator.
Defensive stations hung near it, a sign of harsher times as fortification works had to be undertaken even deep in Federation space.
With the recent Space Pirate attack, more Federation military personnel were arriving in system, sweeping through its planets while the police were busily overturning every rock they could find to see if more pirates were hiding within.
A seemingly unassuming brown-haired woman with a simple gunmetal-coloured suit and cold ice-blue eyes walked with figures in uniform power armour of black, grey, and olive. Their unit insignias proclaimed themselves to be part of the "Graveyard Wind" mercenary outfit, while the woman's ID card would read that "Larissa Caulder" was a contract lawyer.
With them was a falcon with pink eyes, ostensibly meant to be a gift to the people in the Dreadnought that they were going to visit due to Malegon's fondness of the sport of falconry. One that would be personally delivered as part of negotiations for the contract that " " was going to negotiate with the Devil's Fire.
As they passed through the checkpoints to a ship docked at Aurania's berths, a police officer in light blue power armour looked up at her. The four-armed Sklerek's extended out their top-left arm, a spindly thing with ten long five jointed fingers arranged radially.
Larissa stopped cold, briefly glancing to the left before a brief gust of air shifted in that direction.
"Ma'am, I'm going to need you and your escorts to produce a permit to board a ship with that much firepower." They said, looking up and down at the heavy plated armour of her escorts, each bearing holstered side-arms, magpack locked service arms, and an arm cannon for good measure. Impassive eye-pieces simply stared back at the handful of police and the white armoured security guards, then looked to the woman.
"Half the population planetside are kids, and we've just had a space pirate attack, so orders from the brass are to tighten all the locks." The chief of the security checkpoint said, the Aelvan woman currently having her helmet off.
"I've got a schedule to keep…" the woman supposedly named Larissa murmured beneath her breath.
"+We've got it sorted, don't worry Agent.+" A female voice said through "Larissa's" implanted communicator, directly into her mind as clear memories of the words going through.
"+Understood.+" She mentally replied through the link.
"Larissa" clicked her fingers with a sigh, and a data packet was soon transferred.
"This should cover it." She said calmly. Another instant was all it took for the security clearances to be greenlit.
"Everything seems to be in order." The Police officer said, offering a respectful salute. Larissa started walking, holding her briefcase a bit tighter while a falcon on the shoulder of one of her escorts almost seemed to nod in approval.
But that wasn't quite enough for the guard. "I gotta ask what a bunch of creeps like you or the Hell Lancers are doing here. Permit or no. You know that you shady grey ops types aren't permitted to have recruitment operations here, right?" She said.
"Larissa's" stare could have cut through a blast door as she scowled.
"If you'll check the file you'll see our time and presence here is completely accounted for." She said, regaining her composure in an instant.
She checked the projector on her gauntlet, looking through the file and frowning.
"...Security? With guys like you or the blokes in the ship back there here of all places?" She said. Clearly sceptical
"And why are you manually carrying a Falcon around?" She said, looking at the Pink Eyed bird which seemed to pretend to not notice.
"The manifest says they're a non-uplift since you're passing them on as a gift, but you're putting the animal at risk by not securely transporting it with a capture sphere or a cage or just…anything really?" She said, about to read off the regulations for animal handling.
"Aellith, that's enough, their datawork[1] checks out. You aren't a real cop anyway, leave the investigating to the Force. How about you and your rent-a-guards go fetch me and the guys some coffee and take five while the real deal takes over your shift for a bit?" One of the Police Officers said, clapping his hand onto her pauldron and getting a frown out of her.
"Look, officer, you don't get to tell the stardock security to just butt out so you can geek out over paramilitary guns for hire. Under the regulations of the stardock authority the security staff are authorised to…" Aelith started.
"Conduct investigations of situations beyond their usual remit if there is reasonable evidence that events that may cause grievous harm to those on the Stardock or beyond it may be transpiring aboard it." One of the Graveyard Wind mercenaries said in a cold, vocoded voice.
"Their authority is subordinate to the Police Force of the Galactic Federation and the overall System Police Superdepartment, as well as to the planetary Overdepartment of Gyldaine and any other such legal enforcement organisations." The woman with the briefcase finished for the first mercenary.
"And there is no reasonable evidence. So I'd go and get that coffee if I were you, ma'am." She said with a smirk as Aelith's face scrunched up before she exhaled and shook her head, walking off promptly.
The male, presumably human police officer then looked to "Larissa" and tilted his helmeted head to the side.
"So…you available for coffee yourse-"
"That'd be nice, thank you. One half-rotation[2] down at the Raedilia's next to the nearest hab-block?" She said with a sweet smile.
"Hey, that sounds like a plan." He said as she passed on her contact details, not noticing the displacement of air by another, unseen figure
With that done they were cleared to have a look at the twenty five kilometre long Dreadnought currently docked. The "Judicious Retribution"'s primary thrusters were arranged in three triple nacelles built into a craft shaped like a tank turret with a shortened barrel. Understated observation decks built into the centre of the top and bottom almost gave the impression of cupolas, while heavy superfiring dorsal turrets loomed like mountains with necks.
Fortunately, they were already at the gangplank they needed to be, greeted by some of the Hell Lancers promptly.
" , Malegon has been expecting you." One of them said, a tall, tailed six fingered, winged, and digitigrade humanoid with a horned helmet, their obsidian and brimstone coloured fluted armour having spiked tips to the pauldrons and the armour that went over the joints, while the angled eyepieces gave the impression of constantly glaring and the mouthplate almost gave the impression of a vulture's beak facing downwards.
"You may refer to me as Vokt-Lan Vyrak. Not just Varak, not Mister Varak, Vokt-Lan Varak." He said, stressing the point.
"Colonel Major[3] won't do?" She said, knowing the equivalent rank.
"No."
"Very well. We've been here many times before, so just do what you're paid to." She said.
"Affirmative." Varak responded.
Combat drones hovered nearby, observing the boarding passengers as they stepped within the transit train that would seamlessly go from the gangplank terminal and into the ship's own internal transport rails. Once everyone was securely seated, the train shot off and plunged into the vessel, navigating its internal passages until it arrived at the station closest to where it needed to go.
The vessel was rather typical for the Hell Lancer mercenaries. Austere, harsh, spartiate, whatever decorations used were used to mark triumphs, conformed to their elaborate philosophical rituals, or were there for internal landmarking. The halls were tall, easily able to be driven through in order to accommodate larger species, though secondary passages were considerably narrower.
It was not uncommon to call the Hell Lancers a syncretic cult with beliefs born of a blended soup of various different systems that borrowed as much from Christianity and Buddhism as it did from Edari and Melara and other faiths. But it was also not truly committed to any notion of divinity in particular.
"Hell" was a metaphor, the fire that purges the sinful. The ultimate justice for what was done in life. It also was a boast, that they could suffer through anything and come out on top.
"Caulder" mostly found it to be silly ritualisation of the unpleasant job of being hired skull crackers. She had to try to not roll her eyes at the sight of a sound off that came off more like a sermon as one figure with a somewhat skull shaped and horned helm in baroque and darkly coloured power armour babbled about how they were the fist that purged the rebellious or something on those lines.
Her escorts remained silent, simply walking towards the entrance of a reception chamber with her where some of the harsh, angular eye-pieced helms of the Lancers were staring at them. Standing guard along with some rather vicious looking robots.
"Larissa Caulder?" One asked, this one clearly human or near-human..
"The Same" Vyrak responded.
"Scans confirm veracity. Proceed." Another said, a horizontal biped much like a theropod.
The doors pulled back and away once their energy screens were deactivated, opening to reveal the master of the Devil's Fire. A helm head looked contemplatively at a three dimensional representation of a supercluster of galaxies while adjutants and officers kept busy nearby.
Malegon was an exceptional brute even among his own kind, his wings larger than busses and his horned head hidden by a helmet that seemed deliberately designed to evoke a skull. The black, rust, and midnight coloured armour he wore had plenty of anti-grapple spikes ready to be ignited with energy to make a mess of any who tried to grab onto him.
It takes a special sort of person to be unafraid when facing something like Malegon, but "Larissa Caulder" hadn't felt fear in her heart in a very long time. If anything, she found the fact that Malegon was into astrology to be…absurd. Nevertheless, it wasn't her place to make a fuss of it.
She walked towards Malegon neither confidently nor with fear, a purely perfunctory gesture to get closer to the person she was talking to.. Once she was through, the Falcon she had brought with herr transformed into a gleaming pink being of vaguely humanoid energy that then coalesced into a humanoid woman in a slick, darkly coloured military officer's uniform with black hair kept in a short, messy ponytail, a peaked cap, and glowing pink eyes.
"Ta-da!" She said, though no applause was coming.
"Frivolous as ever…" Malegon said scornfully.
"Come on, I had you fooled for a bit didn't I?" She grinned.
"Caulder" would have frowned, but the shapeshifter outranked her, and so she just maintained her best poker face.
"Oh you guys are a bunch of spoilsports sometimes...let a girl live a bit!" She harrumphed, pouting dramatically in a way that would have gotten Caulder an unpleasant meeting with Sophontic Resources if she did in her official duties.
"If I may, "Clementine"."
"So what business does our "mutual friend" have for me, specifically, what about it is so important that I have to be on this world full of children to hear it?" Malegon ensured that "Larissa" and her adjutant would not be able to get his massive head out of their sight.
"You've done enough work with our mutual friends to know that you're not getting an answer." She said, decidedly unimpressed by Malegon's attempts to invoke his sheer size.
"Of course of course...what else could I have expected from the men who hide in the shadows." Malegon snorted, their helmet's eyepieces forming displays like laser red circles that tracked his gaze to let her know that she had his attention.
"But the operation is taking you back to the Stymandian Galaxy, where we have some potential assets at risk of falling into the wrong hands…namely not ours." She said as she took out a cigarette and took a drag, offering one to some of the hell lancers and being met only with stone-cold silence.
"Right…forgot you guys don't really care for life's pleasures." The woman allegedly named "Larissa" was now smirking.
"Asceticism is a virtue, pleasure is a distraction." One of the spike armoured mercenaries said, reciting a catechism as if on autopilot, one repeated by the rest gathered in the meeting hall of the ship.
"So how is it that you so easily glide through every single crevice of the legal system as to get aboard our ship through the security measures the police have risen?" Malegon asked with a hissing voice.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" She said dismissively.
"'Larissa Caulder', Quintus Snake has a timetable for you. And you know how upset Quintus gets when the schedule slips." The shapeshifter whispered to Larissa who sighed and exhaled a ring of her, in this day and age, harmless vice.
"Fine, fine…this one's going to be high risk, high reward. We've already sent you some of the pay in advance." She said, adjusting her sunglasses while Malegon brought his head down to stare as close to eye-level as he could get with the woman.
"You have our attention." He hissed.
"You are going to be working with one of our operatives." She said, gesturing behind herself and the giants, then calmly stepping out of the way.
In lockstep they made an open pathway for something fading into perceptibility. Human enough in shape, with primarily indigo coloured armour as well as blue highlights and midnight trimming.
A traditional railgun-shaped over-arm cannon retracted into the suit as they walked. The helmet was largely smooth in how it was moulded over the head, save for the left eyepiece, which seemed to be permanently glaring, the enlarged right eyepiece, and the secondary lenses nestled near it, like multi-spectral scopes.
"Operative Indigo will ensure that your end of the bargain is kept up, as will some of our own assets." "Larissa" said as she offered the cigarette to one of the "Graveyard Wind" troopers to snuff out.
"I expect that they are more than just a human in a power suit?" Malegon asked.
"Plenty more." A cold woman's voice said as a glance between the shapeshifter and the newcomer was shared, hostile and antagonistic.
"Bitch…" The shapeshifter muttered under her breath.
"You'll find that you'll have all the data you need already transferred to your storage banks. But you'll also find Malegon, that your mission has a time limit. We need clean extraction of the goods before the Rantik break the entire area down for spare parts or the Krikens and Pirates make a mess of it." She said as Malegon continued to size Indigo up, feeling rather distinctly as though he were being studied as potential prey.
"And if I refuse?"
"You won't." Indigo said nonchalantly.
"...Very well. I will signal more of my fleet to partake in this endeavour. I certainly hope your hazard pay will come in more than just glory if we are to find your curios on a planet so heavily contested." Malegon replied.
"Have you known us to ever shortchange you?" Indigo said.
"Admittedly not, your "Rylor-Alekson Intergalactic Defence" company has been quite prompt and generous with payment on these joint operations." Malegon snorted.
"Then I'll let you and the lawyer sort it out, ta-ta~." The woman allegedly called "Clementine" said with a wink as she prepared to walk out before being briefly stopped by Indigo.
"I heard that, just to let you know.." She said quietly.
"One day, we'll settle things. And either you'll be dead, or I will. Either way, I won't have to see you ever again." The shapechanger replied, not cattily, not with any sense of desire, just a coldly platonic hate.
"Count on it." Indigo hissed back.
"These people…" The agent murmured.
Consolidated Logbook Entries
Paramilitary: Formations: Rylor-Alekson Intergalactic Defence: Graveyard Wind
A "grey ops" mercenary outfit that primarily operates from the Federation and its aligned territories or within space lacking major powers, the Graveyard Wind offers elite and discrete military muscle with a specialty in stealth, special operations, penetrating raids, infiltration, subversion, decapitation strikes, and reconnaissance. Their employee register is meticulously updated and by all accounts they are reported to be responsible corporate citizens, but rumours regarding their activities linger, particularly outside of the Federation's sphere of influence and at its periphery.
Samus' Notes: I'm not sure if people just being able to hire entire armies and fleets on a whim is the best for the stability of the universe. Small groups of freelancers is one thing, they're basically adventurers, but mercenary armies make me uncomfortable. There's already enough war in the universe as is, and I don't think you should be able to buy power like that.
Arne's Notes: In the Omdyn's sphere of influence they're well known as counterrevolutionary specialists. Looking at my parents' texts, they'd even fought them before coming to the Ensryn Galaxy to help the EVA. They're supposed to be cold professionals, but it seems to often become near emotionlessness. What do they do to their soldiers?
Mercenaries: Active:Narzurai: Extranormal: Hell-Lancers: Devil's Fire: Vokt-Lan Vyrak gar Urlok yot Juar
Urlok, of the Vyrak Family and the Juar clan, is a Vokt-Lan of the Hell-Lancers, equivalent to a Colonel Major in the Federal ranking system. A lifelong Hell-Lancer, Urlok identifies openly with the Doctrine of "Crime and Punishment", fully committed to the stamping out of rebellion and revolution across the cosmos. While strictly speaking, far below Malegon in rank, the Vokt-Lan has Malegon's personal attentions for the progress of his career. The beneficiary of a pact with powers he declines to name, Urlok possesses highly anomalous capabilities that serve his mercenary outfit well. Able to transform into "the scuttling thing" to squeeze into spaces he normally would not be able to as well as having his own subweapon in the Infernalizer, Urlok is regarded as highly capable and dangerous even without additional equipment to supplement his thaumaturgically enchanted power armour.
Samus' Notes: From what I can find, he's got a lengthy list of complaints for conduct in every regard except professionalism where he's at least, highly respected.
Arne's Notes: Where does he find the time to hunt anything when he commands a million soldiers? But more seriously, he's listed as an anti-revolutionary with a serious pedigree in reactionary activity. Everything from strikebreaking to full scale invasions of rebellious sectors.
Rumours: Purportedly Existing Individuals: Believed to be female: Reportedly Humanoid: "Indigo"
Accessing public networks…Indigo is regarded as a "bogeyman" type rumour popular in some military, criminal, and freelancer circles as well as in sections of the wider Urban Legend community. According to these descriptions, Indigo is a feminine figure that is reportedly responsible for numerous assassinations, acts of sabotage, kidnappings and security breaches. However no corroborating evidence of her existence has ever been confirmed, with witnesses typically giving contradictory testimonies unbacked by video footage, frequently recanting afterwards and claiming to have fabricated any such sightings.
Samus' Notes: There's usually some truth in rumours. I'll file this in the "maybe dig a little into if I have the time" category. But I don't think I'll find all that much, most likely it's rumours, hearsay, and tall tales getting conflated with each other until a cryptid gets born of it.
Arne's Notes: There's nothing in my parents' records about an "Indigo", and I'm not sure if I'll ever get a chance to investigate this one. The universe is too big and there's too many things to do. I think it's true, or at least, there is a source behind the rumours…but I doubt I'll run into it.
Consolidated Headlines and Log Entries
System: Political: Suramil System: Suramil Guardian: Sector Authority declares "Severe" Risk State in Suramil system following Space Pirate attack
Following a Space Pirate probing strike that somehow managed to avoid every form of scanner, selective interdictor, and defence before reaching the surface and attacking the Prodigal Program's headquarters directly, the Illead Sector Government has declared that the Suramil system is under the "Severe Risk" state immediately. All non-essential traffic to and from the system is to be intercepted for surveillance and inspection, and all interplanetary traffic is to be directly monitored by the relevant authorities. Sector Commissioner Jaerak Yllg-glly Vilgromi has formed a system patrol task force to sweep the area and uncover the means with which the pirates were able to attack this deep into Federation Space undetected. Citizens are asked to remain indoors when possible, and to report anything unusual to the relevant authorities listed at the bottom of this article.
Samus' Notes: That's…going to be a major complication.
Arne's Notes: Damn it.
[1]: Paperwork
[2] "Rotation" being a way to refer to a particular planet's day, Gyldaine finishes a rotation in about 61 hours so she's asking to have it at "about the same time tomorrow".
[3] Due to the much greater size of the typical armed forces, the usual rank system is changed with officer ranks in full control of a formation starting with Lieutenant for Platoons, Captain for Companies, Intendant for Battalions/Regiments, and Commandant for Brigades,. Colonel is the first army rank to start getting the big subdivisions starting with "Colonel Minor" commanding a Division, a Colonel Lieutenant commanding a Corps, a Colonel a Field Army, and a Colonel Major an Army Group followed by Colonel Superior, with Commander being introduced between Colonel and General with its own ladder to climb.