The 14th Battlegroup was reeling from a recent skirmish with a group of independents in the sector. An ambush by a mercenary pirate fleet joined the battle and the 14th suffered a loss of one of their prized Paragons. Strategic assessment of the situation by the faction's analysts show that a sufficiently large force could be assembled to overthrow Hegemony and 14th control.
Desperate for a way to contact the Dominion, the 14th's engineers came up with a plan...
One of the dormant ring gates was modified with a large array and thrusters and the perimeter was permeated with hyperspace transition engines. The project took several years and the expense was high, but in the end an entire ring gate was transitioned into hyperspace. Once there, the vast network of thrusters positioned the gate near one of the hyperspace storms. Experimental quantum resonators attached to the ring began to absorb the poorly understood energies.
With a great awe among the those that were on site to witness the event. The ring gate began to activate. But not in the same way as historical data stated it should. With a violent flash the gate ripped itself open. Unknown energies poured out of the gate, destroying several nearby scientific vessels. The 14th pulled their assets back beyond the destructive energies pouring from the gate. Probes with fired into it but those that avoiding the strange energy hit the plane of the gate and shattered upon impact. Debris from the wrecked probes was then thrown back into hyperspace. At this time it appeared the activation of the gate was a failure. Instead it had created some kind of unstable, unconnected wormhole. The powerdown sequence was activated...
...and the gate failed to respond. Instead of shutting down, the gate continued to draw in hyperspace storm energy. What was worse, the stabilization thrusters on the gate itself had begun to fail. Impossibly, the gate appeared to began drifting toward the nearest hyperspace storm.
And then... It happened. With a surge from the gate, the turbulent surface surged as a vessel ripped through and entered hyperspace. It was of a type and classification hereto unheard of in any historical database. Long, with a heavy armored prow and a large amount of weapons mounted on the side of the ship. Hails were broadcast and a transmission was received:
"This is Captain Thurben Wyl of the Emperor's Grace, state your intent unknown vessel".
A short comm exchange then occurred where the newcomer claimed to have come from somewhere called "The Gothic Sector" and that the transition thru the gate had killed both their navigator and caused irreparable damage to their Gellar field emitters, whatever that was supposed to mean.
At this time the gate's drift suddenly accelerated and drifted into the hyperspace storm. The storm flashed, causing every vessel's sensors within a few light years to overload and reboot. Upon coming back online, every scan of the gate found the gate to have vanished.
The newcomer was escorted to the nearest star, where their ship was retrofitted with the necessary equipment to travel in hyperspace. Representatives from the 14th and Hegemony were present to find out more of the newcomer.
"We were part of a screening force chasing a chaos fleet, we were following their wake. And then we wound up here."
"And who is this...Chaos? You where the first and only one to come through the gate."
"That simply means they haven't come through yet."
At this time a scout runner ship entered the system and broadcast on the emergency channel. The lost gate had been found again, over thirty light years away in the center of another hyperspace storm. And something else was coming out of it...
Imperium System:
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Topic: [0.97.XX] Battlefleets of the Gothic Sector (MAOR Greater Gooder-er) (Read 200302 times)