Aftermath - HIP 22460
13 Aug 2022Cayce Luther
The day the Proteus wave fired...Ember knew Cayce was not going to take this news lightly.
She was right. Cayce stood there in complete silence as Ember and Ruben recounted their experience within the system. He then slowly leaned over his desk, resting his hands on the surface as he stared at the status display built into it. "All guardian tech? Cannons, boosters? The lot?"
"Every piece. If it's Guardian-based, it's frying on the spot."
"That's...that's unbelievable."
"That's what we've got. What are we going to do?"
Cayce didn't respond. He stood there, stunned. His mind raced. They knew this was a potential outcome, he and Phoenix had discussed it at length regularly. But he never thought things would go to this extent. His eyes darted back and forth across the panel on his desk as he tried to think of anything possible they can do.
Luther stood on from the side, watching. Even Hudson found the situation beyond anything he expected. And he was already a retired soldier. He can only imagine how his commander was feeling.
Cayce stayed that way, silently for the next few moments. Finally, he lifts his hand and clicks on the comm on his desk. "Communications; give me a squadron-wide priority broadcast, top priority. Open it up to our allies."
"Yes sir; comms are live."
Cayce sat for a moment, then took in a deep breath and exhaled. "This is Commander Luther. As of this moment, the entire squadron is on a red alert. The Proteus wave has backfired, HIP 22460 is lost. I want all ships within range to report to the Renegade, outfit with whatever you have for Search/Rescue operations."
Ember, Luther and Ruben looked at him as he looked up. They could see the pain in his eyes as he seemed to want to do anything else but make this decision as he looked back at the console, and the number of ships listening in. "Go in groups. I want A/X ships accompanying the rescue vehicles. Keep the Thargoids busy while we pick up survivors. Strip any and all Guardian tech from your vessels. Standard anti-xeno loadouts only. Explorers ditch your Boosters, trade them for a shutdown neutralizer, replace all unnecessary modules with armor and make sure your ships can run cold. Clean drives, low emissions plants and heat sinks. Make yourself as hard to see as possible. Start scouting sites and remapping the system. Don't sit in one place too long. Get whatever scans you need and get out. Rescue ships your job is to grab any and all escape pods we can find. All survivors, I don't care who they were affiliated with. Be it Federation, Alliance, Imperial...or Azimuth." Cayce clenched his fist. "Bring them all home. This is no time to be playing sides. We get everyone out; then we'll worry about the next step."
Cayce stood upright, put his hands in his jacket pockets and looked at Ember. "This is a direct order. Nobody's exempt. If you can fly, you're participating. We leave nobody behind. Nobody." He looked back down at the console. " This is who we are; this is what this squadron was created for. You have your orders; get to it." He closed the comms and started walking around his desk, going right past Ember.
Ember just turned, looking at him. "I imagine that means you too?"
Cayce stopped before reaching the door to his office. "...Of course it does. You think I'm going to just send you all off and stay here with the mothership? Fuck that. I'm flying."
"What portion of the mission will you take?"
"Exploration role." Cayce turned back to look at Ember and Ruben. "I don't have a dedicated AX ship, so i'd be useless in a fight, and we have plenty of pilots for S/R. I'll outfit Arty for stealth operation and go to the Bright Sentinel."
"The Sentinel? The 'goids will be crawling all over it!"
"Exactly. I'm not going to order someone else in there if I'm not willing to."
"But the DBX? That ship's made of paper."
"It's just for the megaship. I'll come back and get working on a proper ship to help but The Traveler can be running now. She flies."
"At least take someone with you for backup."
"Not happening. Escorts are needed for rescue ops."
"Commander-"
"Look." Cayce paused for a second, exhaling slowly. "I know. Trust me I know. Nothing would make me feel better than having backup on this...we just can't afford it for one exploration ship. Once I'm done mapping the area I'll book it back to the carrier. I promise." Without waiting for a response, Cayce turned and hurried to prep.
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"I see you didn't learn anything."
From the controls Cayce was operating, he turned around to see Shyanne standing behind him. He shook his head and turned back, still working. "I know. I know. Going alone. We talked about this."
"So you know what I'm about to say?"
"You're not wrong; this is stupid. But Arty is the coldest ship I own. She's the only one I got for this right now." Cayce looked at the loadout on the crane controls he was operating, saw the clean drive 4D thrusters and the charge enhanced 4D distributor, grimacing. "All that weight savings is gonna bite me today..."
Shyanne shook her head, sighing. "You are hopeless sometimes. Just be careful, alright? No heroics."
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"Believe me, showboating and flying solo is the last thing on my mind right now."
The Traveler crept its way around the wreckage of the Bright Sentinel. The ship's displays were glitching and going haywire. Cayce's eyes were split between the hud and the nav panel, searching for any hints of the ship's fate.
The ship was covered in the corrosive byproducts of Thargoid attacks. It lay derelict around planet 10b, almost within visual range of the Proteus Wave site. Cayce scanned the area, finding multiple materials, but almost no escape pods in the vicinity. Even so...Cayce couldn't pick up what was there. He's going to have to come back with the Black Pearl with backup.
Cruising at a steady pace around the destroyed megaship, Cayce finally found uplink nodes scattered throughout the site Four uplinks...he made for the first, scanning it. Inside was a voice transmission from Halloran, motivating Azimuth personnel as the countdown to fire the wave began. Cayce shivered at the thought.
FRAME SHIFT ANOMALY DETECTED
Cayce's eyes snapped open, and he clicked the ship immediately into silent running. The Shield died and the ship's vents closed. Cayce heard the Thargoid rumble as he turned the ship's lights off and tucked into the hulk of the Sentinel. He scanned ahead, seeing an interceptor squeak by. His eyes dart from the biomechanical ship before him to the temp readout of the ship's flickering HUD. It was rising, slowly. Maybe he had enough time to get the last three logs? He would have to be slow-
ENERGY SURGE DETECTED
Cayce's eyes went wide and he clicked on the shutdown neutralizer he had to run to another carrier to pick up. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he waited to see what would happen. The pulse washed past the Diamondback, leaving it unaffected, and the Interceptor continued on its way. He let out a sigh and slowly applied throttle, picking up the next uplink, marking the nearest as 'collected.' The Traveler crept about, slowly making its way to the second, then the third, all the while Cayce kept his eyes split between his targets and the Thargoid watching the area. 'There's no way they don't know I'm here...why aren't they attacking?. Cayce didn't want to press his luck, but he also didn't want to waste the opportunity. He started to move Artagan towards the last uplink, keeping his speed slow and popping a heat sink, draining the ship's thermal storage as he passed under the Sentinel. Just as he reached number four, he heard another Frame shift Anomaly alert. Cayce froze as he heard a Hydra enter normal space. Immediately his hands went to the trigger for his Data Link Scanner and he gripped his stick as he waited for...
ENERGY SURGE DETECTED
He ripped back on the trigger for the neutralizer field, the shutdown pulse washing over the ship once more. Cayce kept his eyes locked on the thargoid vessel as it started to scan him...
PING! Data Received! Cayce didn't wait, he nosed the ship opposite direction and popped another heatsink, throwing the ship to full boost and taking off away from the Sentinel. The Hydra, caught off guard, took to engage, firing off shots without a full lock, and Cayce flipped and spun the ship to make himself as difficult a target as possible, trying to get out of mass lock. His teeth clenched as he flew on. Somehow the Thargoids avoided firing swarms...yet. And Mass Lock dropped. Cayce immediately popped his FSD for a low wake and kept his foot in the boosters. The Traveler hummed and groaned as it was put through maneuvers it obviously wasn't designed for. He looked down and his heart sank. The swarm had appeared on the radar and was closing fast. Cayce did the only thing he could. Put the ship in a straight line and go for it. At this rate it was either do or die. There was no fancy trick this exploration ship had that could fend them off.
Without shields, the first couple Thargon easily impacted the little bit of armor the ship carried, sending alerts through the Diamondback's cockpit. Thankfully the ship's module reinforcements did their job and Arty was not crippled. Cayce grimaced as he watched the spool gauge fill. Until the welcome sound of 'Four, three, two, one...Engage. And the green Diamondback disappeared into Supercruise.
Cayce sat back in his chair, breathing heavily. That was close. Too close. He hadn't even realized he'd started holding his breath. "Christ...these things...can hardly blame them being pissed off but damn..."
He sighed and wiped his forehead, then checked his comms. The ship cruised at idle SC, about 30km/s. He found the link, and played it.
"The time of our victory is almost here. My journey has been long. Too long, I think."
"I am likely to be the oldest ever living human. The fortune I have spent on cell regeneration and bionic replacements to keep my physical form intact... well, it would make even a Sirius accountant weep."
"Every single credit was worthwhile, though. The investments have allowed me to witness this moment. To be our salvation."
"The Thargoids are an ancient race, too blind to realise their time has passed. Over the centuries I have, admittedly, found a grudging respect for them. The creatures are equally intelligent and ruthless."
"But they lack the ambition and endless potential of humans. I have given my life to ensuring the crown is finally snatched away from them. We are now the dominant civilization in the galaxy."
Salvation. Cayce's eyes went wide, the exasperation and fear quickly replaced with anger as his wits came back to him. His vision narrowed and he looked at the ship's comms for just a moment before looking over at a screen. He brought up the news broadcast from the Proteus wave firing. He looked where the figure he could only assume was Salvation at the moment sat, and narrowed his vision. "...Not a megaship bridge...that's a carrier..." He looked in closer, forcing a zoom on the console attached to the command chair. The ship's name displayed, blurry but just legible enough for him to make out "Nemesis" on the screen. His clenched his fist around the control stick of the Diamondback. "That fucking coward...he wasn't even aboard the Sentinel..."
He went to his nav panel and scanned the nav beacons in the area. None of the sources returned a signal for a 'Nemesis,' He growled a bit in frustration before looking over to his right, as the Proteus Wave site came into view...with that eerie green plume coming from it. "...You better be dead, Wycherly. Because I swear on all I hold dear. If I find out you're not...I'll be fixing that."
Cayce turned the ship around, plotting a course for the Renegade in HIP 23022. He had a promise to keep, and news to deliver.
