Conquest and Preservation

A bubble seemed to have popped when he was pushed. Kaiyoki tripped on his own words, unsure of what to say though the moment passed just as quickly as the surprise had. He didn't really have an answer to Rose's question."All you need to know at the moment is that I am interested." He replied, stalling for the time needed to pull scatted wit back to him.

Arix hurried down one of the hallways, down towards the armory. He didn't often go down there, the dragon relying primarily on his fists, feet, tail, and whatever else he already had on him rather than a gun. This time however he believed that the situation called for at the very least for him to be prepped for whatever he might encounter. The klaxons had stopped ringing but the sense of urgency had not vanished, several troopers and security guards were busy securing ammo and small arms, but that stopped when he entered into the room, the lot of them snapping to attention.

"As you were." He ordered, giving them a curt nod. Instantly they went back to whatever they were doing, but parted enough to let Arix over to the quartermaster. "I need a shotgun, standard issue." he said. The quartermaster nodded and hurried to the gun racks, briefly looking through before pulling out one of Arix's favored weapons. The design was a standard 12 gauge shotgun, but with auto loading features as well as a drum clip for shells. "This will do sir?"

"Yes...nicely." he said, taking the weapon and securing it under his coat. Now he hurried back up to his office, finding the draco wolf still there, however he didn't sense anything odd about him, or at least anything else odd. "Come, the ships are waiting." he said simply, tone now switching to a much more serious one, away from the Reverend and over to the Commander he was.

The vixen gazed about the room impassively over the rim of her glasses as she smirked to herself. "Seems the snake-charmer's lost hold of his serpent, if you get my meaning. Never dealt with a girl like me before, have ye hon?" she asked and turned to face him, a half-smile playing at the corner of her muzzle. "Well, I'll give you props for being the first man to talk to me after I've gotten here, but are you as quick to think as you are to act?" she asked as she got up again and started to pace, a habit of her's she found hard to break. "Well?" she asked after a moment, giving him time to gather his thoughts.

Arix did not appear as harried as the others rushing about, a platoon of first strike marines had been assembled as protocol dictated and had soon made their way down towards the Capital ship. Likewise, the hanger bay was alive with activity, fighters being prepped, armed, and fueled before being transported to the waiting escort carrier. In other areas more was being made ready, tanks and mechs were being ordered into standby, their reactor cores being powered up, but not fully activated just yet, and at the same time, scanning facilities trained their radar to the heavens, searching for anything amiss.

As he waited for Sergei to follow, Arix took a bit of time to say a prayer, "Father in heaven, you know what will be in these next few hours. I pray to thee, whatever has happened up at our base, please let the situation be only a small one." He took a short breath and let out a sigh, "But should it not, protect my men and give us all sharp reaction speed, and the courage to face whatever foe has appeared before us." He whispered, and then gripped the cross hanging around his neck, "Amen."

A messenger rushed in, commanding the occupants of the room to get their scrawny butts into the Capital ship. Of course, the bravado only lasted until he realised that almost everyone in the room probably outranked him. Kaiyoki stared with the many other pairs of eyes. Truthfully, he was glad. He couldn't think of any way to reply to Rose's question.

Now that the vixen no longer centered her vision on him. Kaiyoki planted a light kiss on her furred cheek before walking out the door to join Jamie. The results of that gamble would be evident eventually.

The biologist blushed deeply as he did that, watching him leave. That gave her a solid 'No' response to her question however and it made her smile inside to know that. He was irrational in thinking but was quick to act. She wasn't sure what to make of that information just yet, but it gave her information about him regardless.

After reaching her conclusion she hurried after the others, wondering what awaited them wherever they were going.

Sergei stepped into the hangar, towering easily a foot above the marines, medics, police, and other spaceport personnel. Strangely, nobody payed him any mind, which was a new sensation. These men and women were all far to disciplined to allow him to break their train of thought during an emergency like this.

He caught one line from Arixamirosila: "Amen."

Hmm. A praying man. Curious.

Prayer wasn't generally practiced among Chaos forces so much as ritualistic sacrifice and self-mutilation was. Even since arriving at the planet, he'd not seen much religion. He thought it was a nice change. Uniqueness always intrigued him.

He stopped behind the dragon, and lowered his hood, revealing his partially-scaly, lupine head.

Only one or two brief glances. Very well trained.

When he was done playing 'social psychologist,' he turned to Arix.

"How long before launch? I'm getting a bit anxious here."

**thanks for getting back with us Draco**

Arix made his way from the cargo and troop storage compartment at the back of the cruiser towards the bridge, motioning for Sergei to follow him. He saw the somewhat twisted fusion of lupine and dragon flesh, and had to admit that he was partially intrigued at it, however, he kept his face tightly controlled, not showing much more than a raised eyeridge at the view.

"Officer on deck!" was called out as the silver eventually entered onto the command deck, "As you were." He called out, leaving the many humans and a few anthros to go about their assigned tasks. "Captain, are we ready to launch?" he asked as he made his way over to the man, an older human with a grizzled face, synth skin covering the majority of his right cheek. "Yes sir, all we're waiting for is the signal from Guardian.

"Very good Captain," He replied, his tone professional, "I want all weapon systems primed and ready, nothing catches us by surprise."

((This post will act as if the encounter with Legls had never happened, we need to get moving.))

Robillard passed through the noise-filled metal corridors of the moon base. Crates of equipment were still being unloaded. Men were setting up fortifications inside, and adding onto the ones already set outside. Robillard had several cloaked ships constantly ferrying in weapons, medication, and everything in between to the moonbase. The operation was moving smoothly. Already a few warships had entered this part of the galaxy, they would be contacted shortly. Robillard's second in command had been sent off to keep his men in line. Robillard wanted no screw ups this early in the operation.

Ten minutes of walking led Robillard to his new office, already set up. It was simple, the walls were painted silver, and three shelves of books he had already finished countless times rested against one wall. A metal desk sat in the middle of the 20x24 room, painted to look like it was made of wood. Inside the drawers sat dozens of pens and notepads, mainly used by Robillard to personally keep track of transactions. On the very top of the desk sat a computer mainframe, linking him to every electronic function of the base. His men had set it up fast, he would throw a few extra bucks their way.

Sitting down in a comfortable black chair Robillard accessed the mainframe, untill he found what he was looking for, communications. He then opened up a channel to Ostima 1, and began relaying his carefully thought out message.

He wanted to make them puzzle, work, and worry. It would allow him time to finish setting up shot, time for the other armies to reach the system, but it would also make it easier to make a deal with them. He had discovered the code he was using many years ago. It was found on a bookshelf on a world with a ruined landscape, and dead environment. It was initially tricky, since much of the book had fallen to the effects of aging, but Robillard found a key to the code on the same page he found the name of it. Morse, an odd name, but Robillard wasn't too picky about names. From what he could tell the code was long forgotten.

Quickly, he typed up his message, and closed the channel immediately after.

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Robillard shut down the interface and waited, he hoped that this would prove to be as big of an opportunity as he had imagined.

The take off of both the Guardian and Sahara went smoothly enough, within minutes both ships were in orbit. Something was not right though, Arix sensed it. The dragon kept this to himself though, not wanting to worry the rest of his crew anymore than necessary.

"We're 30 minutes out, Captain." The nav officer reported, his screen showing multiple readouts.

"Give me a scan of the station." The grizzled man Ordered, "Aye....wait....transmission coming from the station sir!"

"Put it on audio." Instantly the comm was alive with pulses from the coded message, and at the same time, everyone onboard the ship turned a puzzled glance towards the person next to them. Arix had a similar expression on his face, but the dragon was thinking, knowing that somewhere he had heard this before.

"What the hell is that?" Someone asked. "You tell me." Answered someone else.

"Wait...run that through our translators, all known codes." Ordered Arix. A few keys were pressed and there was a moments pause before a translation came over the comm, however this was in the voice of an emotionless computerized voice.

"MEN OF OSTIMAI, IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU ARE IN A VERY TRICKY SITUATION. I HAVE TAKEN YOUR BASE ABOVE THE WORLD, BUT WORRY NOT, I AM NO BARBARIAN, THE MEN AND WOMEN ABOARD ARE SIMPLY BEING HELD AS PRISONERS. NOW, I COME NOT IN VIOLENCE, BUT OTHERS HAVE. I EXTEND AN OFFER OF HELP TO YOU. A SIMPLE, AND AGELESS AGREEMENT, I SUPPLY YOU WITH WEAPONS, SHIP PARTS, AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES, AS WELL AS FOOD. IN EXCHANGE, ALL I ASK FOR IS MATERIAL COMPENSATION. I AM A MAN OF BUSINESS, AND EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS FUNDS. SUPPLY THEM TO ME, AND YOU SHALL GET EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO FIGHT THE WAR THAT SHALL SOON BE UPON YOU. IF YOU'RE UNWILLING... THEN I CAN ALWAYS SUPPLY THE ENEMIES AT YOUR DOOR. IF YOU GET CAUGHT UP ON MORALS, JUST THINK OF ALL THE FAMILIES YOU MIGHT SAVE. YOU HAVE EIGHT HOURS TO RESPOND, HOPEFULLY YOU CAN CRACK THIS FAST ENOUGH."

"Maybe I'm unfamiliar with how you all conduct your business," Sergei spoke up, "but attacking and taking over sovereign soil and holding hundreds of hostages don't really seem like a good way to approach an opening business deal. I mean I might resort to that after a few turn-downs...but this soon?"

Sergei was confused by this. There were plenty of reckless people in the galaxy...hell, he had been one of the worst for a long time, but this just seemed over the top. Whoever this guy was, he was likely hurting his chances of putting through a likely good business deal with this opening move.

"So....pawn to a3. What's our move?"



Rather than wait for an answer, Sergei went back to polishing his weapons. Time had not been kind to them, locked in a box with nobody to care for them. He was getting eager for a war. Bloodshed had started to become a distant memory for him - maybe he'd break it in with a few close-quarters kill. Teeth and claws. The dragon/wolf was quite deadly unarmed, but he'd always figured if you can kill someone before they get to you - do it. He licked his muzzle in anticipation.

Focus, he thought, you can't afford to open that channel again.

"Heads up!" yelled Jamie as he hurled a HUD field communications device over the head of a silvery-grey wolf.

Kaiyoki jumped and snatched it out of the air. With an exaggerated flourish, he adjusted it to a more appropriate size and placed it on before melding to further understand it's capabilities.

"New model?"

"Yea, the new standard elite issue. It's now meant to be even more impossible for someone to crack without the master access codes."

Kaiyoki inserted his personal identification chip into a slot at the side of the HUD. The image immediately became sharper and infa-red visual uploaded.

"How long do you think it will take me to crack it?"

"Haven't you already?"

Rose didn't like the sound of that message at all. Attacking their soil and holding hostages while striking a deal ... wasn't really much of a deal, now was it? It was more of a ransom, or so it sounded to her. She was a scientist, not a politician or a lawyer or whatnot. She started to sharpen her blades idly for lack of something to do. The prospect of war was close...and she did not want to be caught unawares or unprepared. She chose this path willingly, and didn't want to pay for it with her own folly.