Part 1: The Never-ending Night

(where, which ship, which other ship, who are you fighting? Because i think you're missing something.)

[quote]The ship of the line locked it's weapons on the remaining pod. The other humans already had been detained on the ship in the small rooms with low ceilings. Symphona was already sitting in the bridge.

"Not cooperating?"
"So it seems"
"Warning shot at mark."

...

"Mark."

The Oneiroi fired a warning shot right past the pod. Symphona tilted her head, waiting for a response.[/quotes]

They still don't know you have imprisioned the crew...

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The ship exited from FTL... there was a pod being tracted by a weak tractor beam...

"Fire the forward grapler..." Said I

The grapler flew to the pod and started taking it to inside the ship... The tractor beam itself overloaded and shut down...

"This is Captain Cannon of the Earth Ship Discovery... I know you've our crew as prisioners... May you do us the favour of giving them back to us?"

"For a human your human speech is quite mixed up, mister. I think you meant "We surrender.'? " Symphona sat there in a soft padded seat like a queen. She smiled and gestured to the crew member. "Lock target."

"In case you haven't noticed yet, human, you're just a baby civilization in interstellar space. Not only is the illegally stolen technology you have acquired hopelessly outdated, you also managed to get yourselves into a situation where you're hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. We were trying to prevent this incident by preventing you from even meeting any other race, but it seems you had already blown the chance you got and you immediately committed an act of war against both the Aerelians and the Delkoni within the very first week you've reached FTL. You should be glad they did not decide to immediately erase you humans from the face of the galaxy and only fired a warning shot. Now you have the choice to get a ride from us back to your home planet and you will promise to stay in your solar system for about another hundred years still until your technology and your aggressive nature has improved, and you will also promise to refrain from stealing alien technology, or we can finish what the Aerelians started. And I promise you, there are far more trigger happy races than the ones you have just encountered."

Symphona gestured to the weapons department again. "Load charges."

"No... I was making an educated request..." Said I... "And who are you to keep an race to explore the Universe? God?"

"You are not trying to explore the galaxy, you're trying to wage war with it. Within the first week you could actually set foot anywhere past the trajectory of Mars to be exact. We aren't just stopping you from doing that, we're trying to prevent a genocide on your race. Just look at the surface of that planet below us. That's what happens to races who get too overconfident."

"Still... You can't just stop an exploring race from exploring and just be still in their homeworld..." Said I "You can't just say those lousy excuses out of your mouth... Please, I beg you, give my crew back and let us continue our way..."

"You're heavily damaged. You probably won't even make another lightyear with it. Besides that, you are still using illegally acquired technology and your ship is in almost irreparable state."

(EDITED)

Emmy... I'm on my ship!

( o-0 what? oh. when did you get back on your own destroyed ship then? )

(EDIT: oh blarp. must have missed that somewhere between the mayhem)

The ship wasn't destroyed... It was heavresily damaged, and hijacked by Reaper... I turned back to return it, and doing that, he disabled his own ship, but I was rescued by my own ship remote control that I had...

As Jacob and Reliz walked among the fighters suitable enough to dock with Jacob's ship, Jacob noticed a sleek fighter that looked well equipped and small enough to dock within the cargo bay of the Serinity.

"What about that one Commander Reliz?" asked Jacob

"Oh the Selbrigo class fighter? That is one of the first batch for our defense force. I'm not sure I'm cleared to sell that type of ship."

"Could you ask your Queen, or probably the Prince since I may have better luck with him."

*sigh* "I'll ask but I doubt you'll get the answer you want."

As Jacob was escorted to a temporary apartment, Jacob was hoping he had enough money to bribe the Prince plus buy the ship. It was so long since he bought the Serinity. Jacob still thought that the Serinity was top of the notch but he had mostly upgraded it from artifacts he found on Delfak and the colonies.

"It's been so long since my exile...I wonder if anybody still remembers me....actually I hope they don't."

"So, I'm asking you to return my crew back to my ship and allow us to return to Earth, were we shall repair it in our shipyards..." Said I... "BTW, you're under rating humans determination... Usually if we want a thing, we fight till we get it... and freedom is the thing why we use to fight more..."

"It seems you fail to understand the simple reasoning. I shall explain it again: Your ship is heavily damaged. It will not reach earth. You can simply agree to our terms, which means you and your crew will be treated very well, and earth will know a further, relatively peaceful future, or you will die in the emptiness of interstellar space, your space programme will make another attempt at FTL, cause another incident and possibly a new war, and humanity will become extinct. Trust me when i say it has happened before. There used to be a lot more than just seven space faring civilizations."

Devon looked in awe at the landscape before him. The life, art, philosophy that must be behind these alien cultures, could they all be the same?

"Focus on the present" Devon thought, "I have abilities, ones that weren't there yesterday. Something is wrong and I need to know what"

Sadow bowed slightly as the group entered the High Queen's chambers.

"High Queen. this is the human you wanted to see, Devon." He said, and he turned on his heels, bowing to Devon. "You may speek to her."

Him and Zera left the room, and walked to the local store, hoping to pass the time by quickly.

As Jacob waited in his apartment for the answer from the Prince, he decided to roam around the city. As he was walking around a park he caught a glimpse of the kid.

It's the kid they knocked out. Hmm...I have better things to do then fufill my curiosity.

Jacob decided to go back to his apartment and wait for the Prince's answer. As he laid on the bed he decided to see what the planets network had to offer.

No entertainment but lots of history of what they know about the universe. I might aswell catch up.

Sadow looked up as a messenger tapped him on the shoulder. "The alien we picked up wants to buy one of our fighters. He's currently staying at this location, and would like to talk to you about it, since your the leader of our forces." The messenger stated before leaving, having other business to take care of. Sadow nodded towards Zera and they both left, walking to Jacob's apartment. Various peoples of other cultures bussled arouned the capital, trading in various goods and services.

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The High Queen looked up at Devon. "I see that my son has taken great care in getting you here. Usually the people I end up talking too got on his bad side. Please, have a seat, and let us discuss your rather unusual situation for getting here."

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Sadow and Zera arrived at Jacob's apartment, and knocked on his door. He was hoping this would all go well, and no one would get hurt, as well as the transaction goes smoothly.

Jaymz Midnight wrote:Sadow and Zera arrived at Jacob's apartment, and knocked on his door. He was hoping this would all go well, and no one would get hurt, as well as the transaction goes smoothly.

( 0.0 OMGz it's ripoff deal!? )

"Ok... But I must warn you... although I'm agreeing with this now, that shall stand very few time duo to our nature... We shall always need new regions to explore... And there's very few places on our planet to do so..."

Jacob was caught off guard by the knocking while reading up on the second age of the Aerelians. He opened the door and allowed The Prince and another Aerelian to enter.

"Your Highness." acknowledged Jacob, "I would like to buy one of the Selbrigo class fighters but as Commander Rilez has stated it seems that you only have one batch ready and that batch is heading for deployment. I would kindly ask of you to allow me to test the new Selbrigo class in meneuvers to my own ship that is in the Del-system with a full down-payment just in case it gets damaged. If you feel I am untrustworthy enough to test it I would happily oblige to just get transport to my ship. Still it would be nice to try out the fighter and if I may and am happy with it, buy it."

As Jacob was talking he noticed a sort of stiffness in the Prince's character.

He seems to be scared. That doesn't bode well for this transaction.

While the Prince was thinking Jacob asked, "You seem to be tense, are you afraid that I might do something wrong, or is something else on your mind?"

"You are the first of your race that I have ever seen, so my tense posture is to be expected. Normally the diplomats deal with first contact issues. I can only sell one of the Selbrigo class assault fighters. Name your price, and we can negotiate from there. I also notice that you were reading up on our past history.. Not many people interested in that these days, but I have high hopes.. Scholars are hard to come by.." Sadow relaxed a bit, smiling. "I never go the chance to get your name. Mine is Prince Sadow Fireclaw, heir to the throne of Aerelis, and last son of the royal family."

"My adopted name is Jacob. My last name is my actual one. You probably haven't knowledge of my race because we had to migrate to another sector of the Orion Arm a while ago. The only planet that we have colonized in this sector is in the system of Predo. Anyway, now that I have had time to a access my acount and now have converted it, I believe I have about ten million of your currency. If you must know where I got it, it's mostly from selling artifacts and objects I find, or scrap. If not for the human encounter we had, I might not have actually met your race."

Symphona nodded in approval.
"Well, you could call that an improvement. Captain, you can dock the ships."
"What will we do with the ship, Symphona?"
"This ship should be capable of towing it, right? Good. We will take it with us and see what we'll do there. I wasn't planning on dropping them off at their front doors anyway. You can expect they'd be able to coast up the drive lane themselves."

The ships docked against each other. Symphona walked to the docking bay together with the captain.

"Well, welcome to this ship, gentlemen and gentlewomen. I must apologize in advance for the low ceilings, our physique allows for much smaller rooms to accommodate more ship in less space."

Sadow sighed with relief. This was going better than he had anticipated.
"You do have more than enough my friend. We will only require a third of that amount, which will helps us even more than missing one ship. With that, we could start building quite bigger ships than what we have up in space. We could also fun our technology and science departments, which they seriously need funding at this moment in time. Let us make the transaction, and I hope to see you again."

Sadow walked over to a panel, and opened up a computer. He began to tap away at the computer, bringing up a transaction menu.

"I need you to input your account number and the amount to transfer, and then you will be a proud owner of the ship."

Jacob entered in his account number and allowed for the passing of 3.333 million Aerils.

"So I gather now since the money has been given, my fighter shall be waiting in the shipyard?" asked Jacob.