Tingel Arm

==Socii SL==
<<72 PP; S4 Sector>>

The private yacht looked like any of the other hundred or so at this particular private starport. It was not, itself, anything special. Expensive, yes, but not special. Its owner, a member of the Espos, on the other hand was special. He was in may ways a good & honest person. He was also completely against the bribing & blackmail at the higher levels of the CSA power structure. Such bribes were, of course, illegal. Not that stopped the people that made use of such routes. He had manage to expose at least three of the Clan's targets, removing them from their position. Due mainly to good planning & a little fortune, he had not managed to discover the source of the bribes.

On a regularly scheduled maintenance run for the yacht, one of the technicians quietly jacked a datalink into the ship's main computer. With no internal memory, the device was effectively a short range comlink for data bursts only. The process took all of fifteen seconds while the technician finished his regular assignment. Once done, the device was slipped back into a pocket & the worker continued with his list. None of the cameras had a view of the jack while the technician was working. It was amazing the things that got done with a bribe in the right place.

The program loaded into the computer wasn't exceptionally complex, but it was enough for the job. Quickly breaking through the ship's protective software, it took over the computer system. It began running facial recognition checks against everyone in the ship before the technician even finished his rounds.

Three days later, the owner of the ship boarded. On seeing his face over the ship's internal cameras, a digital switch flipped. Now it was only waiting for one more condition to activate. It didn't happen, the ship flew around a little, but the second condition wasn't met before the target left the ship. Losing the lock, the program went back to passive. Eventually, the target boarded the ship again. Clearing the atmosphere, the yacht headed for deep space.

Finally the second switch was tripped by the navicomputer activating. A half second before the ship jumped to hyperspace, the program shifted the coordinates a few degrees in a random direction. Two seconds after the ship jumped into hyperspace, all the controls locked out. Half a second after that, every compartment door & airlock cycled fully open, venting the atmosphere into the chaos of hyperspace. Half a second later, the shields cut off, bathing the entire ship in the deadly radiation surrounding the ship. The radiation managed to effectively destroy any electronics on the ship. Two seconds after the shields failed, the sublight engines overloaded & tore the back half of the ship apart. When the drifting hulk that had been a yacht collided with a mass shadow nearly three hours later, there was no one to notice.

The Espo member & the three others traveling with him were reported missing after failing to arrive to a scheduled meeting with locals on a nearby planet. All four would be later presumed dead in a hyperspace accident. After all, Hyperspace was still a dangerous place.

==Making War SL==
<<106 PP; S4 Sector>>

Chief Petty Officer (P8) Felidenz Clagam was on board the Jehavey'ir-type assault ship, JEH-37829 "Eidothea", which was assigned to a customs & interdiction role for its current deployment. In some ways watching for contraband for the Infinite Imperium was fairly easy. In other ways it was extremely vexing.

The main reason being that very, very few things were banned outright in the Imperium. Sure, there were a couple of the more dangerous substances & biological material, mostly though anyone could carry anything they had a permit to have. Generally, everything in the Imperium fell into one of three categories.

General Materials was the largest category. It covered all the day to day basic things that kept both the Imperium at large & the personal lives of the populace running smoothly. Everything from building materials, food stock, consumer goods, low end weaponry, medical supplies, recreational gear & substances could be owned by pretty much anyone & carried in bulk by anyone with a transport certification.

Restricted Materials were the things that your average person generally would not need to ever have in the course of their lives. Most of the things in that category were things like heavy weaponry, infectious agents, & any number of harmful chemicals & other substances. Of course, people could still own these things as long as they had the proper certification to show they knew how to handle it safely. A few of the things however also required that the person in question could show a reasonable need for the thing in question before they could get the certification. The requirements to be allow to transport it were somewhat more demanding, but that was because these weren't things that should fall into the wrong hands.

Illegal Materials was the final & very small category. It took a great amount of danger implied for anything to be outright banned in the Imperium. Even something like Alpha Red, while very heavily restricted, wasn't banned outright.

This is what made his job so difficult at times. For most ships it was a fairly straightforward task of making sure the captain & a minimum amount of the secondary crew were certified to handle what was in the cargo hold & that everything that was aboard was properly logged. In a few cases though, it was a nightmare & a half to figure out what belonged to who & making sure everyone had the right certifications. Of course, the certification part was simple, a list of the crew was punched into the computers of the Eidothea & the Clan Holonet pulled up full certification lists for everyone listed. That was officially required, but for the most part it was a formality as the certification pips were nearly impossible to fake. More than a few captains, especially those that weren't citizens of the Imperium, managed to lose some of their pips over the years. Citizens on the other hand usually got them installed on their armor, so a lot fewer of those pips got lost. She did however remember one particularly klutzy captain that had managed to dent their armor so often that they carried their pips around in a small pouch, just because of how many times that they had been knocked loose.

The other big part of the job was hunting down pirates. For most raiders, the Jehavey'ir would bring plenty firepower to bear. However, the Imperium was a very strong believer in using drones for force multiplication. Nearly every crewed ship had at least one of the automated Crusader-class corvettes shadowing along with it. While the design for the Imperial Crusaders had been striped of the life support & other secondary systems needed to support a crew, it had been provided a fairly respectable cryogenics bays. That little feature had saved a number of lives when the drone ships had been forced to function as lifeboats for the crews of the ships they had been following.

Nearer to the heart of the Imperium, they got a lot fewer raiders & pirates, but out on the edge of both the Imperium & the galaxy itself, was a thriving pirate region. Many systems out this far were too far apart or too limited to be worth the effort to colonize in force. However, there were colonies out here that traded back & forth with each other & the Imperium itself. The combination of steady if low volume trade & the multitude of little rocks to hide under made it rather attractive to outlaws. In fact it was a rare week that the Eidothea didn't vaporize at least one fighter. They didn't bother with live capture after all, the Imperium had issued a standing 'Wanted Dead' warrant on for pirates.

==Honor SL==
<<71 PP; S4 Sector>>

Charles Donahall, third High General was waiting patiently for the rest of his fellow officers. Due to tradition, the second to arrive to the meeting was the one that had to keep everything moving smoothly. Usually, Charles had better timing, but this time he had missed being third by a total of barely half a minute. He was somewhat more heavy-set that most of the Clan, but stress & a strong sweet tooth had combined to work against him there.

The nine beings that would be meeting were technically the nine most powerful figures in the Clan. On the record, each of them reported to one of three higher positions. The High Lords reported to the Head of the Clan, the High Admirals reported to the Head of Starfire Security, & the High Generals reported to the Head of MandalMine Collective. In practice, the nine were more or less left to run things as they saw fit. Of course the command positions were regularly rotated through the various eligible O8s to ensure a well trained pool of replacements & to prevent the heavy burden of command from grinding down any one figure, making the O9 rank the only 'temporary' command rank, Being assigned to the group even once meant access to a large list of secrets that the lower ranks were not even aware of the existence of. It also came with the permanent assignment of one of the red armored Praetorians to hover right over the shoulder of the officer. Officially, it was for the officer's protection. Unofficially, The SS Operatives' position outside the normal chain of command lent them a certain foreign air to remind the officer in question that any secrets learned as an O9 were to stay a secret.

Of course only one other person was physically present in the same room with him. The meetings were held quarterly & the nine people required to attend each one where rarely all in the same place at the same time. The rest where physically well removed from the room, but participating via holographic communications over the Clan's secure private HoloNet. As the last figure flickered into being, Charles quietly cleared his throat. The other eight figures quickly quieted, giving him the floor.

-Charles, 3rd HG
Right, I might as well get the ball rolling. We will cover the highlights first & then move on to details. As normal. The seventh generation from the training camps looks to be progressing through the initial stages well. Local recruitment is also up at least twenty percent in fourteen sectors, mostly along the Perlemain. There have been smaller rises in at least another seventy sectors. The rising numbers have slowed the integration process slightly though.

His points are punctuated by occasional glances at the data-feed in his HUD. The news was mostly good as far as Charles was concerned. It was an improvement in nearly half of the hundred & sixty operational sectors the Clan had divided the galaxy up into. Of course, as the 3rd High General he was a little biased as his job was to recruit or grow & then train the manpower that the Clan needed to keep right on growing.

The next figure to take up the report was a whip thin & taller-than-average female with tightly braided purple hair & a grey, nearly scaly skin. Abigail Copperwall, the Second High General. The current head of Research & Development for the Clan. Her voice was clipped & dry as she didn't even bother to glance at her data-feed.

-Abigail, 2nd HG
No major breakthroughs to report. Project Ballast & Project Firebrand have both been dropped due to ongoing costs & lack of positive reports.

It seemed as if the Generals wanted to get things out of the way first, as the next to report was the First High General, Alexander Quell. He was rather on the smaller side &, except for a neatly pair of trimmed horns, he looked completely like a human. A boring human as that, with his dull brown eyes & sandy blonde hair. He was also the one in charge of Logistics, supplying every fleet, base & colony in the Clan, as well as several other operations.

-Alexander, 1st HG
Things have mostly been quiet. However, I've noticed a steady increase in raids on our shipping in the southern sectors. There has been a nearly thirty five percent rise in ship damages from the region. Fourteen ships have been lost completely & at least two entire crews are still missing & unaccounted for. El probably has a better grasp of the reasons than I do.

A woman who looked like she might be someone's beloved granny nodded from down the table. Elizabeth Talus, Second High Admiral was the spymaster of the group & in charge of the various Intelligence & Counter-Intelligence operations of the Clan.

-Elizabeth, 2nd HA
Indeed, it looks like the current main faction claiming to be the Empire is showing heavy signs of political instability. It would seem that they made the standard Imperial mistake of grabbing more than they could control. Some systems have been breaking off, as well as various military defections & a general increase in piracy to boot. That is most likely the cause of your missing ships, Alex. Most everything else is ticking along steadily.

The next man to speak looked like he sat on a sharp spike at roughly the same time as biting a lemon. Unfortunately that was nearly always the expression on the face of Gavin Doil, Second High Lord & current head of the Diplomatic parts of the Clan. He was also the only other person physically in the room with Charles. Other than their ever present guards.

-Gavin, 2nd HL
No change to report in the ongoing attempts to create official channels to the Republic & the Empire.

Lana Grell, Third High Admiral was the person in charge of making sure that the constantly expanding Clan had the people it needed where it needed them. Her steel grey hair was cut short enough that only a generous person would consider it barely more than bald. The twinkle in her eyes, however, betrayed a rapier wit that even the constant personnel shortage couldn't dull.

-Lana, 3rd HA
We are still nearly twelve percent below the numbers I'd like to see. As it is I have had to continue to fill out the lower levels of the hierarchy with foreign workers & free lance operatives. I'm expecting that number to grow to between fifteen & twenty percent if the present expansion push continues before Charles can produce his next batch.

The bulky man beside her was Neville Highland, First High Admiral & in charge of the strategic command of the military forces of the Clan. He waved in a wordless dismissal of his report, but a pointed look from Charles, made him sigh & give the verbal report required for the record.

Neville, 1st HA
People have been shot, fighting continues, & so forth.

It wasn't technically the proper way to do it, but Charles knew there wasn't anything pressing in Neville's field. That & the man was good enough as a strategist to excuse his failure to meet even the group's informal standard.

James Hallis, Third High Lord was the chief medical member of the Clan, & the one that handled the running of the various medical companies & capabilities the Clan had.

-James, 3rd HL
We've had several minor disease outbreaks again. I've manage to contain all of them to date with minimal causalities. Thanks in large part to the rapid response time granted by our security systems. I will once again raise the point that in my professional opinion the Clan seems far less resistant to disease vectors than most galactic population samples. One major help is the fact that most of the Clan seems content to remain inside their suits for the most part, but I'd like to request another funding increase for possible cure research.

Fernir Otin, First High Lord was the man in charge of both the general budget & the Clan functions centering around general income. He also happened to take a particular, if odd, pride in the small pair of antique eye glasses that he wore continuously. Even going so far as to forgo wearing his helmet most of the time.

-Fernir, 1st HL
That is the third funding increase you have asked for in the last three quarters. Anyway, we are showing a net balance or net gain in nearly all of our sectors again this quarter. Only sectors ... thirty six & one twenty nine showed significant losses.

After giving everyone a moment to process the various reports, Charles got the group started on dealing with the more detailed reports. It wouldn't take more than a few hours as most of the figures at the table made regular contact with the others beyond the requirements of the quarterly 'official' meetings. Which meant that much of the time was actually spend with several minor conversations going on simultaneously.

==Making War SL==
<<106PP; S3 Sector>>

Anoushiravan Nargolwala was a flame keeper. It wasn't a very common religion in the clan, but then again, religion in general wasn't that common in the Imperium. Of course it did give him a measure of satisfaction with certain jobs. This particular one was a real joy. The GR-75 ship hull was extremely common in the Imperium & was used for most general purpose tasks needing a smaller frame than the massive Lucrehulks that were used for bigger jobs. They could also be switched from task to task much easier.

In the distance from his own sphere of labor the Keldabe-class battleship, 'KEL-5443 Unexpected Present', waited like a mother hen over a clutch of smaller ships. The Keldabes were fairly rare & had the second highest crew requirements of any ship maintained in the Imperium. Floating along with it were four of the completely drone controlled Crusader-class corvette. None of the corvettes had names, just numbers, As they lacked an implanted ancestor that some ships were starting to boast. The remainder of the ad-hoc fleet was a cluster of the already switched out GR-75s.

The drone cargo hulls were drifting in from all directions, gathered here at the need of the Imperium. A single deepdock was waiting for them as they arrived. The vast majority were fitted with the cargo modules that they most often made use of. The next largest portion were those fitted with passenger modules. The rest were a smattering of the various other modules commonly used. Senor rigs from exploration duties, Diplomatic pods from negotiation teams, even a tractor beam rig for gathering asteroids for mining. The process was extremely streamlined, the hull would park, the current module would be unhooked & pulled free, The replacement module would be slotted into place on the guiding beams & hooked into place. It was a process that under normal situations took about three hours. A rush job could be done in half that, but would risk damage to the modules & the hulls. It wasn't like the pirate base was going to be going anywhere in the mean time.

It would be a tough nut to crack, so the GR-75s were being fitted with a mix of three modules. Seventy-five percent of the hulls were being fitted with energy shield modules. Each of these would be as powerful as could be found on emplaced over individual cities or military compounds. Far in excess of what one would expect on a ship. But then again, they could only point directly ahead of the hull. A layered onion of these shields would get the task force through the heavy defenses of the pirates. The next 15 percent were being fitted with Ion cannons. Again these were the equal of something you would normally only find mounted on a planet, like the V-150 used in older days by the rebels. Not the most powerful thing on the market, but powerful enough to disable pirate emplacements long enough for the final set to destroy. The rest were being hooked up to megamasers. Equal in size to the ion cannons, the megamaser tech was a nice chiss addition to the Imperium arsenal. With the ion cannons battering down shields & disabling weapon platforms, the megamasers would gut the pirate base with little resistance.

It was always a good day when his work would see something, somewhere burn. Always a good day indeed.

Garrick didn’t like this. Not at all. This strike was a bad idea. As he sat on his command chair, on the bridge of the Crusader, waiting for the moment that they could come out of hyperspace and get this over with. This was apparently all part of some grand plan the Emperor had for the endgame to bring down the Galactic Alliance. Some sort of strike to cripple the Alliance war machine further. It was a bad move in his opinion, their reasources could be better directed to attacking a frontline target, or perhaps some sort of manufacturing center. Not some backwater world to subjugate some aliens. Orders were orders, though, and he would carry them out to the T even if he didn’t like them. He had tried voicing his complaints, but his direct superior simply waved his hand, and told him to go. Idiot. This was a job for a single Light Cruiser, or maybe a Star Destroyer, not a fleet that could be devoted for an important strike. These were the thoughts that crossed his mind as a single crewman, a lieutenant, informed him that they would be arriving soon. Good. They could finally get this done with. Straightening his collar a bit, he stood from the chair and walked to the forward viewports. Staring out into the blue tunnel before him.

Though the Admiral considered this a low-level strike, that posed little to no risk, he knew better than to take stupid chances by not being prepared. So, when the ships jumped into the system, they had assumed the Admiral’s Kappai Attack Strategy, and the crews of the various vessels were at battle stations, ready to fire. And the moment he jumped into the system, he thanked his stars that he had the foresight to plan ahead. Unlike some commanders. For laid out before him was a collection of warships, evidently belonging to the New Republic. Immediately, fighter pilots, who had been sitting in their cockpits, recieved the go ahead to launch. A massive swarm of TIE Defenders and TIE Avengers exited the hangar of the ships, taking up their positions. Reinforcing the forward line, where the frigates and corvettes were located in a V shape, with the tip facing the enemy being the Procursator-Class Star Destroyer, which was leading the charge, were a fourth of the launched fighters. Then, in the middle, where the heavy cruisers were arranged in a V formation, half of the launched fighters. And finally, around the Crusader itself, the remaining fourth of the launched fighters. However, only half of the fleet’s total fighters had been launched. The rest were being held back in reserve for when they were needed. Garrick quickly instructed his communications officer to put him on all frequencies.

This is Admiral Garrick Needa of the First Order. I have orders to annihilate all resistance to my objective. Surrender now, and I will allow you to live. Failure to do so within the next minute will result in your destruction.

As he did this, however, he was analyzing the battle. There were three Nebula-Class Star Destroyers, and they would need to be the primary targets, followed by the support ships. He spoke quietly to the gunnery crew.

“Prepare to fire on my mark... focus on the nearest Nebula Class. Interdictors, activate your gravity wells...”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that, “Scipio Africanus”. And I’m afraid your little insurgency ends today. You have committed an act of aggression against my fleet.”
With that, Garrick closed comms with the Nebula, and waited until all of the Nebulas was within range of the entire fleet. The massive, Star Destroyer grey hulls of the ships had the sun behind them, making the fleet appear as though it was pitch black. Garrick stood on the bridge, looking over the battlefield as they drew closer and closer to the enemy fleet. Wait... wait... wait... now!
“Open fire!”
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a single shot came off one of the turbolasers mounted on the frigates, followed by another, and another. The entire fleet suddenly erupted in light green laser fire as they focused down one of the Nebulas. Holding the fleet back, simply using the powerful turbolasers mounted on the Imperial ships, they very clearly outgunned the Saurian fleet laid out before them, although they were still putting up a fight. The concentrated fire began tearing at the Nebula’s shields as bombers were prepared for offensive action in the hangars. Today was the day that this insurgent world was finally brought under the thumb of the First Order. The ships did not relent even as they stretched the enemy’s shields to it’s limit. They would try to keep their fleet back, and in these exact positions, in order to repel any attacking craft.