Dark Vacuum
Game Hosted by yours truly, YourLordandConqueror (aka, YLC)
Many thanks to various Orgahs for helping in different elements and concepts
Captains Log - 2253, 1313 hours:
This is Fleet Captain Ivan Ostranovii of the ship Jovian Combine Navy Corp "Ravager". We have just escaped from an ambush within Jovian Combine space. The nerve! The Earth Colony Directorate's attacks have been getting more frequent and more reckless - and their continued success is not helping matters either.
We took immediate severe damage to the forward weapons control and port decks. Their strikecraft moved fast, and I had to scramble the fighters to counter them. I then used the fighters to broadcast a massive pulse to scramble the ECD's targeting systems. The signal, amplified by the closeness of the fighters, bought me enough time to begin jump sequences. My son, Lieutenant Grigorii Ostranovii, was leading the fighters out there the best he could, even as they were outmatched and outnumbered. Halfway through the jump sequences, we took a lucky hit to the aft, crippling the maneuvering engines, and sending a power surge back to the reactor, which immediately began to malfunction.
But the crew and I preserved, and the Ravager jumped to the Lonely Haven, as suggested by my own son. A giant Mobile Construction and Dockyard, the Lonely Haven would be able to repair the Ravager easily enough for a safe trip home. But before we could celebrate, it appeared 3 boarding craft had hitched a ride in the Jump Stream, and yet again the klaxons sounded as ECD Marines poured forth into my ship. But they were not expecting a desperate JCNC crew to counter them, and after hard fighting on almost all decks, the ECD Marines surrendered.
Captains Log - 2253, 1315 hours:
This is Fleet Captain Ivan Ostranovii of the JCNC "Ravager". All attempts to hail the Haven have failed, and I fear the worst. Is it possible that the ECD has penetrated this far in? If they have, why leave the Lonely Haven whole, yet kill the crew? I am being morbid - the Lonely Haven could be having technical difficulties and be unable to contact anyone. The last known recording from the Haven was a request for new communications equipment, so this could be it. We will dock soon enough to investigate further.
Captains Log - 2253, 1316 hours:
This...This is Fleet Cap- Oh, god, to hell with it. No...no, no man should have seen what I have on this day, no man should be cursed with the memories I now carry. The Lonely Haven is lost, it's crew dead or missing. Oh, how could this happen! How could it happen [weeping]! 10,000 men and women, gone to their deaths, ripped, torn, violated, smashed, crushed, say it however you wish [cry of despair]! Damn the Nephilim!
We should have known better. The ECD are not our only enemies in the bleakness of space - there is the Nephilim. Vile, twisted beings who may have once called themselves kin of man, be they Martian, Terran, Jovian, or Kyperian. They are born from the Transcendi, humans capable of psychic power. In man's "wisdom", he created an organization to control the Transcendi - the Terran Psi Corp - and trained them to use their abilities for the "good" of mankind.
When you treat something like a weapon, it becomes one. That was what happened to those poor souls, mere children, had to endure when being forced into the TPC, and it is what they became. Monsters breed monsters - if a Transcendi is to far broken, if their mind loses all sanity, their powers consume them, and they become "thought manifest", infinitely more powerful, and infinitely more cruel. That is what has happened to the Lonely Haven - infestation by Nephilim, casuing the crew to kill themselves off in anyway imaginable to escape the Nephilim's madness.
Captains Log - 2253, 1316 hours, Log 2:
This cannot be! The Ravager is docked into the repair systems of the Lonely Haven. I cannot undock her, or risk destroying my ship, but I cannot remain docked and risk exposure to the Nephilim! If the Nephilim are not on board already...for only a madman would do this.
Captains Log - 2253, 1320 hours:
I have organized the crew, and our prisoners, for this involves all of us, together and explained the situation to them. It appears that everyone is willing to cooperate in the investigation as to who locked the Ravager to the Lonely Haven. I cannot eliminate any suspects - for a Nephilim may hide in one person's body but control another from a distance.
The agreement is that we all meet up in the Flight Deck every day to cast a democratic vote - by listening to each person in turn, we might be able to detect the hint of insanity that is the Nephilim. With our votes cast with one vote and once voice, for there is no other way, we will then eliminate the accused with extreme prejudice - for there is no other way, when dealing with the Nephilim.
Captains Log - 2253, 1320 hours, Log 2:
The ECD Sergeant Major, Seraphina Baasch. She speaks of "Operatives", those who serve the part of the TPC who root out, hunt down, and kill Nephilim. She says one or two might have been in her own boarding party, since there are faces among her own that she is not familiar with. This is dire - Operatives only appear when it suits them and it is to their advantage, and when a Nephilim of immense power is their target. They will stop at nothing to get to the Nephilim, and have little mercy for those caught in the way.
...All in one day...I feel the old joke of the great space goblin rearing it's head...if I survive this, I think I will finally retire...
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