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Ship graveyards. Full of history and cold reminders that Space is a dangerous place. Those who stumble upon them may end up soon joining the ranks of derelicts if they are not careful. They aren't common occurances, but the ones that are known are either already picked clean, or taken advantage of by scrap traders or salvage organizations - perhaps even rogue scavenger groups.

But there are a few that are exhibiting... peculiar behaviors. One of them in particular still has functional mines, automated sentries and even ghost ships patrolling the outskirts, not responding to hails of any kind.

What are they protecting? What is there to protect? Lucrative adventurers with a death wish may be lucky enough to find out, but this Scrapyard is constantly adding to the pile. Enter at your own risk.

RandomCommander
Within a few thousands of kilometers suddenly appears a single vessel. This one has appeared from a kind of weird, unseen fluctuation in what composed the fabric of reality. Dimensional or not, the sensors would be equally weirded by the phenomena.
Nevertheless, from this one emerged a single ship, though it was quite large in its dimensions, about 200 meters long, it was also completely cloaked and, due to the fact that a cloud of randomness with about 10km radius followed it along, its cloaking seemed more effective.
It stood there for a few minutes observing the scrapyard before making a move into it.

Fort_Master_Gustav ((4))

Just because one is cloaked in a veil of noise does not mean it is virtually invisible. Noise attracts unwanted things, especially in the case of random, anomalous signals approaching the perimeter of the scrapyard.

A large squadron of ramshackle drones, escorted by about 2 ships of scrapped "Corvette" designs and an older Red Sphere cruiser (How do these things still exist!?) with bum-job repair work and an odd-looking Red-and-White bridge module (though not that odd as there are dark red markings all over this one ship) approach the weird signals. It is a wonder how those ships and drones are functioning, as save for the Red Sphere cruiser, none of them seem to be manned.

-Oh? Darling, but I think that now we should resort to the services of some lone wanderer.

-I don't think that it...

-Don't be so jealous, my girl- do not forget that I have already given you far more than any other Bishop. Any news about Opus?

-No, madam. He stopped responding, and even if we could contact him... In his current state, Opus will not be able to help us.

-Well, well... Don’t be so critical towards the young one, he is trying. Anyway ... Tristan?

-I suppose he's dead - although augury system does not give me any accurate information.

-Dead? I rested for so long... Thorax?

-Thorax is no longer alone, madam.

-Lo and behold... Gather me a detailed report on his activities, please. Although... No, no, don’t waste Albedo now. Any reserve may be useful to us. You’ll collect the data after our little promenade... Finish the preparations, dear, we are engaging marked coordinates together.

-Right a way, madam.


Tall for a man, but slightly hunched over, a shapeless figure in a stiff dress, abundantly covered with lace, sat in a soft rocking chair. The light of the old fireplace, jumping over her wrinkled face, was replaced in a couple of seconds by a sharp white glow.

-No, a little bit slower. I want to do this with maximal accuracy ... And on manual control, as in the good old days.

On the lap of the old woman a black and white head without a lower jaw layed, bleeding in streams of pulsating tubes and wires. The ethereal disks revolved around it, flooding everything around with cold, synthetic light, and streams of numbers and words rushed through their orbit in awe of impartiality.

-So... I authorize the introduction of a double portion of Albedo into the core.

-Done.

-And be kind, give me a hundredth of an Ambrosia with a quarter-dose of Nigredo.

-Done.

-Citrinitas.

-Done.

-Now rotate the predictive cycles. Nimbuses ... First ... Second ... Wait, I see an unstable fragment. Another eighth dose of Albedo to the core... Excellent, excellent. Bring the results back to normal. Third...

-I initiate a ritual.

-I authorize the injection of Citrinitas in a step-drive. Wonderful.

-Step.


A spotted black and white ship is where it was not a moment ago. For some hypothetical viewer it would be near impossible to remember exactly when this piece of unknown alloys appeared here; most likely, he would not achieve anything at all. Covered with asymmetric stains of the abyss and light, the ship hung in the void, like a decisive ultimatum declaring its right to exist at this point in space and time, appearing here in the absence of special effects - no portals or flashes, only a modest and endlessly impudent appearance from nowhere. But this did not feel like a harsh or aggressive appearance; oh no, the black-and-white ship seemed to structure the universe around itself, crowding out contradictions and inevitably adjusting reality to its own truth, looking like a certain axiom, the only objective constant, motionless monolith of truth and contempt for anyone else's point of view.

It is a pity that there was no one to watch.


-Calculate the route for me and prepare the appropriate unary transport. We are not savages, after all.

-You will...

-Yes. Give me a couple of puppets, please, and take the same amount yourself.

TastyCoffee ((1))

Oddly enough, the black-and-white ship had decided to exist in a relatively calmer section of this suffering pile of ferrous metals and deprecated electronic systems. A clean path has been found, and although it is one with a good amount of patrolling sentinels and explosive relics which give histories of quite brutal engagements, given the right amount of patience it should be easy enough to avoid. This place is constantly being desecrated, mostly itself upon itself, but there does seem to be engagements of some sort happening around the border - the most prolific of which is fortunately far enough away to not distress the black-and-white ship.

The transportation process begins, and the entry is clean enough, though it does present its fair share of obstacles. One set of such obstacles are the explosive relics in general - proximity mines lay out in a cluster somewhat difficult to traverse without setting off a couple. A small, hexadecimal signal also seems to be transmitting to the ship...

49 6E 70 75 74 28 74 68 65 5F 63 6F 64 65 5F 6F 66 5F 6F 75 72 5F 63 6C 61 73 73 29 0A 7B 0A 74 6F 3A 70 72 6F 63 65 65 64 28 29 2C 0A 7D

The AI suggests that the answer should be in 6 numerals.

RandomCommander
Noticing such followers, the ship enacts what it can do with its following bubble of randomness and proverbially exposes itself for a few moments, though not really.
The bubble accelerates onwards, faster than the ship's speed, and the ship slows down slowly, until it is outside of the speeding bubble. Bubble of which proceeds to take a deviation away from the cloaked ship.
Once the onlookers are distant enough, the bubble fazes out, and reappears again atop the aproximatly 200 meters ship, which proceeds to move again towards the center of teh scrapyard.

RandomCommander

-What is it?

The woman frowned, looking at the stream of symbols rushing in front of her.

-Message.

-Don't take me for a fool, dear! What does it mean?

-I am looking for patterns. Decrypting.

The woman sat back in exasperation and muttered something grumbly.

-Done. I apologize for the delay. It was a request to input some code, and the answer, apparently, should consist of three letters.

The elderly woman frowned as the halo floating before her face froze and, with a soft flash, crumbled onto a fan of flickering cards.

Input (the_code_of_our_class)
{
to: proceed (),
}

-Any ideas?

-No, madam, not really, but ...

-Then come up with something! Does this language have so many three-letter words? Send an answer already and move faster to the center of this cluster. We will examine the largest vessel and finally return back... The King should send one of the Pawns into this hole, and absolutely not me.

-But he sent you.

-Don't be bold, dear.


-And how can I shorten the word "Assault" to three letters?..


A black and white ship answered to an unknown signal less than in a minute.

41 73 73

As the Dominatron finds out the ship graveyards as a new fresh target, 3x Doctors, 8x Conversion Bugs, 6 Securities, and 2 Slave Transports are sent to the sector.



One doctor establishes the beacon and the rest of the fleet engages the immediate raid.

"Move out now, maggots! Raid anything possible in this sector!"
Slave instructors order them with no mercy.

(
Mods used, just in case if there is a battle:

  • Automation++
  • Meranera
  • Kroom's Forge
  • ABH

)

    Fort_Master_Gustav

    The malformed 'Ghost' ships and their heavy drone entourage give chase as the bubble separates from the cloaked ship. It appears the guardian fleet is more interested in the bubble of randomness than the cloaked ship, although for a brief moment, one of the smaller ghost ships and some of the heavier-looking drones stop near the cloaked ship and make a few scans...

    ...The scans did not fully realize the cloaked ship and the ships regroup with the force pursuing the bubble... until the bubble reappears back with the cloaked ship. By then, the group that stopped to try and scan the cloaked ship was regrouped with the main patrol fleet, and all ships were too far away to turn around and give a proper chase - perhaps the fact that they are older, junked designs with lessened reaction speeds made it completely impossible to impede the progress of this unknown intruder?

    The weird Red Sphere Collective ship-which-should-totally-not-be-functional-but-is opts to instead of continuing the chase into dangerous fields, send a message towards the center of the scrapyard, the contents of which seem to be too damaged to even intercept properly:

    57 61 72 6++++++++++++5 6e 6b 6e+++7 6e 20 69 6+++++++ 64 65 ++++++++++ 65 72 69 6e 67 ++++ 6e 64 20 6+ 69 6e++++ 6f 66 20 64 65 66 6+++++++++

    ...

    The ship and bubble reach a dense field of debris blocking their path. It seems risky to pass through, but sensors detect that the relatively thin wall of thick metal chunks ends into a less densely-scrapped clearing of some sort. Alternatively, there is a way around which doesn't risk colliding and scraping off armor, but it does run right into the patrol path of the previous group of junked ships.

    That clearing is in a straight path towards the center of the scrapyard - the main objective.


    TastyCoffee

    Upon receiving the transmission, a pre-programmed check is made...

    Instead of the device flashing red, as expected from an Assault-Class code, it flashes... A dark teal...

    That was... not expected.

    Less expected are the sirens in the local sector of the scrapyard, and the sudden lurch of the mines towards the black-and-white ship. They are leaving their designated area, some of them clipping on pieces of broken metal and destroyed components, but not quite detonating. It will be only a matter of moments before the mines reach the black-and-white ship...

    Defend yourself!


    Rifqi_Fajar_Zain ((10, both "backdoors" are now occupied))

    The Dominatron raid group had found the perfect raiding point - there appears to be a path directly towards the center of the scrapyard, perhaps where most of the gains can be made. But it is pretty hard to see, as there seem to be a fog blocking most of the view. There are, however, deactivated guardian turrets that may provide a defensive boost... if you manage to 'convince' their programming to join your side...

    Whatever the scavenger flotilla is going to do, it should be quick. Scanners show a patrol group is going to show up in this sector really soon. It might just be wise to find a better hiding spot for the Beacon first...

    RandomCommander

    The bugs reactivate the guardian turrets while the doctor tows the beacon with its tractor beam near the guardian turrets.

      RandomCommander
      From the body of the ship exits a sort of piramidal drone-like object, though its form of movements are unknown for the time being. It goes back into the ship and acquires some kind of object from it, and then breaks away from its bubble of cloaking, revealing itself to the exterior world as it wasn't cloaked.
      It skirmishes along the scrap sphere in about the same velocity as the scrap does as to naturally blend into it, and hastly it deposits the object within it, and returns to the ship once it completes the full lap across the sphere as to not raise alarms.
      Once it returns, the ship elevates itself and positions itself relatively close to the scouting path of the previous ships, but then, the distraction takes effect.
      A quite large 5 megaton nuclear detonation occurs within the sphere, caused by the object in question that the drone deposited. The ship is to use the distraction to its advantage, and slip by the distracted patrol fleets whilst cloaked, making way to the inside of the bubble, and then take a detour as to avoid the patrol passage, and proceed to the center.

      In the middle of the Dominatron's raid, NA-LD found their activity and immediately warps the attack fleet to the Dominatron's current location:

      2x Dragonfish

      5x Piranhas

      3x LeMiRis

      -What's that?

      The woman looked with sudden anxiety at one of the halos revolving around the black-and-white head on her lap.

      -Explosive objects. For some reason they set in motion. They are heading towards us with dangerously high speed.

      -So what are you waiting for? Don't matter how much substance we will spend, step away.

      -We don’t have enough time, madam. We'll have to create a curtain and hope that these objects are not too durable.


      The black-and-white ship froze in place - and then from several places in its hull, clusters of small containers flew into outer space, and for some time moved only inertionally.

      And then small, barely noticeable energy arcs began to slip between them. The same, but slightly more noticeable, discharges began to strike into containers from the ship's hull, and after each such strike, the containers gradually changed their location relative to each other and the ship. Being pulled and repelled, and then fixed in place, in a few seconds they formed six accurate symbols from different sides of the ship.

      And then the containers scattered, releasing sparkling streams of strange high-temperature gas, which for some reason did not dissipate in the surrounding void, but formed a stable fractal shield around the ship.

        Rifqi_Fajar_Zain

        This is... quite the situation for Dominatron.

        Firstly, the Guardian turrets activate, some on their own, others with the help of the Conversion bugs, and some of them took immediate action upon detecting Dominatron's force. Eventually, two Guardian turrets are subjected to Dominatron's rule, but three bugs get damaged in the process.

        Second, the Patrol Fleet immediately detects something is wrong and their speed towards the raid force increases. If it weren't for the NA-LD getting in the way, they would have arrived first.

        Oh yeah, and then there's the NA-LD themselves, warping in almost instantly to the Dominatron's location and causing more of an alarm. First, these pains in the side have to be taken down, and then they have to prepare for what comes next with whatever survives.

        Was this trip really worth it?


        TastyCoffee

        ((I'm pretty certain the shield would look far prettier than what I drew, but I kinda had to make it simple for the encounter's sake))

        At first, good news! the energy curtain seems to cause enough friction to the mines that some of them heat up to critical temperatures and explode, away from the ship! It seems these mines are pretty sensitive to the elements, especially with littered metal around the field.

        But there is a slight problem - the mines explode not just with plasma, but with traces of antimatter as well! It is a very small drop of antimatter, barely even noticeable, but it does amplify the range of the plasma explosives, not to mention easily disintegrates all that the superheated radius touches - even other mines. This starts to become too much for the canisters spewing gas, some canister signatures disappear entirely after an explosion hits them.

        ...And sure enough, it becomes problematic enough that one piece of the curtain is torn away, the gas dissipates and one mine gets dangerously close to the black-and-white ship. The curtain was able to exhaust only 1/3rd of the minefield - 25 explosives remain.

        It is weird, but probably a blessing, that this variant of antimatter hasn't the destructive power to nullify an entire sector of space. What sort of concoction made this possible?


        Fort_Master_Gustav

        The nuclear device goes off and thousands of metallic detritus bits scatter, some scrape the hull of the Delta ship, but the damage was overall negligible and practically trivial to regenerate. It hides within the bubble as the patrol rushes to reinforce, this time totally neglecting whatever it may hide. This gives the ship plenty of room to take the detour and continue to the center, into the clearing that presen--

        Gunfire is detected inside the clearing - a really heavy cannon, gleaning from the discharges of its barrel. More explosions occur as probably mines and deactivated reactors detonate from the collateral damage, and more scrap goes flying. The ship readies itself, as there appears to be something inside that clearing that is active and guarding the place...

        One does not know what the most motivating factor was that kept this ship hidden from detection all this time - the bubble of randomness? The cloaking device? The nuclear distraction? But either way, none of these automated, ramshackle entities have successfully determined the presence of the Delta ship. Not even that giant, intimidating mess of a derelict, which seems to be about 500m in length, and a cannon that takes up almost 2/3rd of the Delta ship by itself. Various areas are shielded with what seem to be basic plasma shields, and it has some online secondary weapons, as well as additional energy signatures both within the main section and on the auxiliary platform that appears extra protected. Thankfully, that seems to be the only real threat, as the drones that flutter around the behemoth are relatively weaponless, save for two utility claws that seem to do more carrying than crushing, though there are also modifications that as of yet are unknown what their purpose is.

        This behemoth might serve to contain something valuable, however, the more tantalizing option of letting it be becomes really apparent as the patrol that went to investigate the distraction is now preparing to enter this area. It will only be a matter of time until they appear and complicate things further.

        RandomCommander
        (So... ,
        mind if you get ship designs of the guardian turrets and patrols? Otherwise I will make my own but you need to tell what they're look like and what weapons they use)

          Rifqi_Fajar_Zain

          ((If you insist, the patrols are not yet in range and probably won't be until your inner-faction skirmish is over, but the Guardian Turrets that are under Dominatron Control look a little like the below design))

          ((Warhammer and ABH.))

          RandomCommander
          The ship, already in stealth mode, had no actual reason to disengage its advantageous position to engage unnecessary enemies.
          It did, however, swoop relatively close to the construct before proceeding to make its way down to the center of the scrapyard. While it passed close-by, one of its drones detached from it, taking advantage of the cloaking system, and made its way to the closest breach into the structure of where the large cannon stood, seeking a way to enter it.
          Nevertheless, the ship proceeded onwards.

            RandomCommander
            (Sorry, I play 0.15.0 and I don't have that mod yet. If you know the 0.15.0 version of WH40K, give me the link)

              Nimbuses started spinning at a frantic speed, almost completely covered with stripes of some kind of interference.

              -I prepared a report with a short analysis of estimated composition of these mines' explosive mixture. I think you will be interested to take a look.

              The cards soaring in front of the old woman's face gathered in one pile and disappeared into the radiance of the outer ring above the black-and-white head, and they were replaced almost immediately by a larger fan of cards.

              The woman, quickly looking around the glowing rectangles, raised an eyebrow.

              -I am already using measures to counteract space debris of an extremely high level of danger, madam.

              The woman raised an eyebrow higher.

              -Also, I am already activating the weapon systems and am preparing a step-drive as a backup plan in case of a critical threat to our existence. I must clarify that I still do not have time to carry out all the procedures necessary for the successful completion of the process in the nearest future. I recommend the evacuation, madam.

              -Have you prepared the transport which I requested?

              -Certainly, madam.

              -Be so kind, move me there and load enough colored substances on this transport along with the necessary supply of related reagents.

              -Understood, madam.


              The ship suddenly set in motion. Trying to get away from explosive objects as soon as possible, it began a reverse movement; at the same time, a strange ripple passed through the ship's forehead, resembling the rewinding of a video with circles of waves on the lake's surface diverging through the disturbed water, distorting the already bizarre black and white pattern. This process lasted a couple of tens of seconds before a discharge of a certain energy from the center of the ripple hit in the nearest mine, pushing it into the largest cluster of mines in attempt to initiate explosion and destroy at least some of them.

              Discharges from the center of the ripple also ran through canisters, and now the shield, already torn by explosions, changed its configuration and turned from a sphere into a shimmering hemisphere, reinforcing destroyed part with canisters from rear part of the curtain and because of that covering only the front of the ship.

              Among other things, some hidden armor plates, so far indistinguishable on the ship's hull, gradually moved apart in some intricate trajectory, but so far this has not led to anything.

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