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York Class Destroyer CSR Corvidae
Zenith Jump Point, Attenbrooks
Deep Periphery
12th August 3052

We all watched as the SRS James McKenna, the last ship to appear at the rendezvous point, materialised. Of the Swift Wing Naval Assault Star, the James McKenna and Aegis Class White Terror were the only vessels to survive. Of the forty WarShips in the Snow Ravens touman, only twelve remained and the Ravens had fared the best in the Homeworlds War. The loss of the SRS Snow Raven, flagship of the fleet, had occurred soon after the second expedition to Huntress and had been a heavy blow for the Clan.

No one knew exactly when the war began but it was abundantly clear that Huntress had been the first battlefield. In March the Smoke Jaguar capital had gone dark. The Jaguars had sent in the Streaking Mist to investigate what had happened. Two days later, when no word had been received, a small task force of Jaguar ships and clusters had gone in to Huntress. They had been lost too.

Soon after this second event they came out of Huntress; tens of thousands of tiny shapes swarming across space. They had taken our knowledge of Jump Drive technology and done amazing things with it, creating themselves “gateways” through which they could jump hundreds of their own kind through at a time. They were unstoppable and within the first three weeks Ironhold, Atreus, Foster, Shadow and Lum had fallen. Then came the invasion of Strana Mechty, our sacred home among these far flung worlds. Founded by the Great Father himself, Strana Mechty had stood indomitable throughout all the years that the Clans had existed. The invaders took it in just six days.

The Battle for Strana Mechty had borne witness to cooperation among the Clans the like of which had not happened since Operation Klondike. Blood Spirit stood beside Burrock; Steel Viper stood beside Snow Raven. Strana Mechty saw some of the most brutal fighting ever to grace a Clan battlefield but, in the end, it was all for naught. The Clans lost their Land of Dreams and fell back in disarray. It was then that the bickering began with each Clan blaming another for the loss of their Capital. Many Trials of Grievance were fought and little realisation was forthcoming that we were simply weakening ourselves in the face of a greater enemy. It wasn’t until the next strike came that the stupidity stopped. What remained of the Cloud Cobra fleet was wiped out in that battle. The burning hulk of the Inquisitor, their last surviving vessel, falling into Brim’s atmosphere was at once a terrible and beautiful sight to behold.

With the loss of their entire fleet the Cloud Cobras had no escape from the Homeworlds. We do not know what has become of them but can only assume that they have all perished under the guns of the invaders. The Cobras were not the only Clan to fall before the final, fateful decision was made. The Blood Spirits and Fire Mandrills met similar fates and while the remaining Home Clans survived in some form we are all but mere shadows of what we once were. Combined, we make up perhaps just a little more than one Clan in its entirety would have, before the Fall.

Those Khans that had survived the onslaught, and there were not many, gathered in a Grand Kurultai to decide what action to take. Their decision was quick and unanimous; the Clans must abandon the Home Worlds. We could not stand against this enemy so instead, to preserve what little there was left, we would run. No Clan had ever run from a fight before and there were plenty of Clans-people that rallied against this decision. Those dissidents were left behind to their fate; to their death.

And so, among the combined Clan fleet, thirty seven ships in total, plans were made, paths were plotted and then the call went up.

Exodus.

York Class Destroyer CSR Corvidae
High orbit, Alexandra
Tanite Worlds
19th September 3052

It look as though the entire planet was on fire.
Whatever the Daleks had found on this world, they hadn’t liked it. The scorched earth tactics that had been used to lay waste to Alexandra were on a scale never seen in humanity’s history. Greta could only stare in morbid fascination as the Corvidae sailed silently above the devastated world.
“Star Captain”. It was her navigation officer, a woman by the name of Deirdre.
“Report.” Though her voice was low the order was heard by every person on the bridge.
“Sir, our sensors have picked up a large magnetic anomaly on the far side of Alexandra’s moon. Warbook estimates suggest it could be a Union dropship.”
That peaked Greta’s interest. “Helm, lay in a course. If there are survivors I want to pick them up.”
“Aye, Sir,” came the immediate response from her helmsman.
The Corvidae’s thrusters burned a fierce white as it broke orbit and pushed away towards the moon.

The twenty hour journey to Alexandra’s moon seemed like an interminable wait to Greta. Not only did the hours pass frustratingly slow but the tension of being constantly alert for Dalek activity had everyone’s nerves a bit frayed.
The Corvidae eventually made orbit, however, and a team was immediately assembled to drop down to the moon’s surface and investigate the Clan dropship. There were only minimal power signs coming from the Union, barely enough to provide life support, but if there was a chance that survivors were still on board then the effort had to be expended to rescue them. There was no IFF signal emanating from the ship so its identity remained a mystery.
A star of Elementals boarded a drop shuttle and, within minutes, they had left the Corvidae and were headed to the surface of the moon. Within forty minutes they had touched down just five hundred meters from the Union. The Elementals quickly disembarked into the low gravity and began their bouncing trek across the rocky landscape to the vessel.
“Point Commander Ashton reporting. We are approaching the ship. I verify it is a Union and I can make out Cloud Cobra markings. There is significant damage so I am unable to discern a name. We are moving in for closer examination.”
On the bridge of the Corvidae the Comms officer responded.
“Aff, Point Commander. Proceed with caution.”
A few minutes passed which seemed to last an eternity before the Comms connection crackled to life once more.
“Ashton to Corvidae. We are entering a breach in the outer hull. There is severe structural damage, the like of which suggests a crash landing. All power to lighting and control systems appears to be down. I am dividing my star into two groups. Two points will make their way to the bridge while the remaining two points and I will head to engineering. Group Alpha; move out and look for survivors.”
“Aff, Point Commander.” Came the Elementals gruff reply.
More minutes ticked by with only intermittent reports of power loss and damage. The majority of the damage appeared to be from the impact onto the moon’s surface. What battle damage there was seemed to be from powerful small arms fire. Holes had been blown or burned through bulkheads and doors and, in some cases, had gone straight through the thick outer shell of the ship’s hull.
Group Alpha was the first to report bodies. Not far from the bridge it appeared that a major fire fight had taken place. The bodies of several Cloud Cobra crewmen lay strewn around the burned and broken shell of a single Dalek. The walls were holed and charred and, in some places, slightly melted with the extreme heat that the energy fire must have generated.
“Are you seeing this, Point Commander?”
“Aff. Check for signs of life. If none proceed on to the bridge.”, came Ashton’s reply.
A quick check revealed no survivors and so the pair of Elementals moved on. After the laborious climb through the wrecked hulk of the ship, the short walk to the bridge was quite a relief. The sight that greeted them, however, shook them to the core.
The bridge was barely recognisable. Smashed and exploded consoles lay strewn in pieces across the floor. The small holo-tank was a twisted ruin and bodies, some clad in Elemental armour, were everywhere. Another Dalek, again broken and lifeless, squatted in the middle of the bridge. A thick greenish grey sludge oozed down its armoured sides.
The Raven Elementals searched but quickly realised that no one had survived.
“Point Commander, the bridge is clear. There are no survivors.”

Ashton’s group had just about made it to the doors of the engineering bay when the final bridge report came in.
“Understood. Make your way back down and check the Mech bays. There might be some salvageable equipment.”
The acknowledgement came back and Ashton proceeded to lead his team to the engine section. As they approached the last hurdle, a heavy blast proof door one of the Elementals with him, Brouge, stepped forward.
“Point Commander, permit me the honour of preceding you through the door?”
Ashton paused for a second. He knew that Brouge’s request was born of wanting to protect his commanding officer from whatever may be behind the door, not from wanting to take any glory for himself. He was that kind of warrior, loyal to the point of death. To deny him would be worse, in Brouge’s eyes, than death itself.
“Permission granted, Brouge. You may take point.” Ashton could imagine the smile of Brouge’s face as he spoke the words.
Ashton gripped the emergency door release handle set into the wall with one large battle claw and, with minimal effort, pulled it down. The door cracked open and a hiss of escaping air and smoke exited from the gap. Ashton hoped that any survivors within had suits on.
Melli, the third Elemental in Ashton’s group grabbed the door with her suits battle claw and pulled it back, sliding, into the wall. Brouge stepped into the large room, ready to open fire. As the smoke that had collected in the room began to clear Brouge stepped further into the room, closely followed by Melli and Ashton. A scene of devastation revealed itself before them.
Two engineering technicians lay crumpled against the wall near a large hole that had been blown into bulkhead. Harjel had quickly sealed over the hole but not before, presumably, sucking the remaining engineering team out into space. One of those unlucky Clansmen had been trapped in the harjel which had sealed over him. His silent scream trapped on his face as he had suffocated in the hardening fluid.
The cause of the hole quickly became apparent. A low gurgling sound drew their attention the shattered form of a Dalek that had embedded itself into the protective wall separating the engineering room from the reactors that powered the ships drive engines.
The gold casing of the Dalek had hit the wall with such force that its entire front had crumpled into and partially through the wall. It had obviously turned its vulnerable eyestalk away before the impact as it was now swivelling around to stare at the trio of battle armoured warriors.
“You. Are. An. Enemy. Of. The. Daleks”, its voice was slow and slurred and, from within its cracked casing a greenish grey sludge flowed slowly out.
“Hold your fire”, Ashton commanded as Brouge raised the powerful laser that made up the battle armour’s right arm. Then he turned to the Dalek. “Aff, we are your enemy and we will destroy all of you.”
The Daleks eyestalk turned with a laboured whine to look at Ashton. “You. Cannot. Defeat. Us” it intoned before coughing a little. As it did even more of the sludge bubbled out from under the creatures domed head. “This. Virus. Will. Not. Succeed! We. Will. Adapt!”
Ashton paused, confused. “Virus? What virus? We do not use viral warfare. It is dishonourable!”
The Dalek emitted what sounded like a gurgling chuckle. “Daleks. Do. Not. Care. About. Your. Clan. Honour”, it swung its eyestalk across all three of the Elementals. “Victory. Is. All. That. Matters.”
“You will never see victory. This ship will be your tomb.”
“Irrelevant” came the strained reply. “I. Have. Already. Initiated. Self. Destruct. Sequence.” It looked at Ashton for the last time. “We. Will. All. Die. Here.”
Ashton immediately sprang into action. “All points, emergency evacuation! Get out now!”
Brouge and Melli immediately opened fire on the harjelled section of wall, blasting holes through it large enough for them to escape and, in the process, vaporising the poor soul trapped within it. The three Elementals sprinted for the hole and leapt through, running and jetting through the ship the fastest way possible; through the entry hole that the Dalek made.
They neared the outer hull just as an explosion shook the entire vessel and a ball of super-heated flame blossomed upwards, devouring the Dropship as it came. Ashton and Melli fired their jump jets first, rocketing out of the stricken ship to the relative safety of the airless moon beyond. Brouge fired his jets just a moment too late. As his battle armored suit flew forth the blast caught him, propelling him outwards as a terrifying rate and consuming the lower half of his suit and body.
As the shock wave caught up with Ashton and Melli it tossed them through the thin lunar air like rag dolls. Chunks of broken dropship flew outward with barely any resistance from the micro-thin atmosphere and low gravity. Pieces of metal sailed for kilometers, some hitting the drop shuttle with devastating results.
Ashton and Melli slammed into the ground with bone jarring impacts. Melli’s right arm was ripped off as she bounced against a large jutted spur of rock. Her scream of pain pierced through the speakers in Ashton’s suit. Harjel quickly sealed the gaping hole in her armour where her right arm had been just moments before and, as she came to rest on the lunar soil Melli lay very still. Anesthetic was pumped into her body to dull the pain.
Ashton fared a little better though his trajectory brought him down awkwardly on his right leg. He heard a distinct snap and felt the searing pain as his tibia fractured in multiple places. As with Melli, his suit immediately injected anesthetic to counter-act the pain and immobilised the actuators in the suits right leg to prevent further damage.
After coming to rest and recovering from the shock of his injury Ashton crawled, foggy headed, to where Melli had landed. He lifted her slightly, which elicited a moan of pain from the half conscious woman, and rested the head of her suit on his good left leg. From his position he could just make out the smoking wreck of their drop shuttle. Of the Cloud Cobra dropship there was no sign.
“Do not worry, Melli. They will come for us.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure her or himself.
Looking upwards he could just make out the form of the Corvidae, far above them. He looked back down as Melli moaned in pain, or shock… or perhaps both, at her injury.
When he looked back up the Corvidae had gone.

York Class Destroyer CSR Corvidae
Low orbit, Alexandra’s Moon
Tanite Worlds

Darkness.
It was complete and it was silent.
Then there was the slightest sliver of light and muted sounds began to assault her ears.
Greta opened her eyes and her blurred vision slowly swam back into focus. The emergency lighting was on so the bridge was shrouded in a soft light that left shadows everywhere. She pushed off the floor with her hands and slowly rose to a sitting position. Her head pounded like no other headache she had experienced before.
The emergency klaxon was blaring and she quickly barked at someone, anyone, to turn it off. In the sudden silence that followed she was able to compose herself and slowly, gingerly, rise to her feet.
“All stations, report”, she commanded.
Slowly her bridge officers reasserted themselves.
“Ops reporting. Sensor systems are optimal. Life support and grav deck systems are operating within normal parameters.”
“Navigation reporting. KF drive is offline, Sir. I am running a stellar location routine to ascertain our position.”
“Thank you, Deirdre”, Greta responded. “Tactical?”
“Here, Sir”, came the groggy reply. “Fire control is down but there is no sign of the enemy. It is like they simply vanished.”
Greta sank slowly into her command chair. My ship is dead in space. It is a miracle we have life support but at least the threat is gone… for now.
“Star Captain, I have a fix on our location. I…. I do not understand. We are still in the Tanis system, Sir, but…”
“Spit it out, crewman!” Greta was not in the mood for indecision.
“Sir, the stars are different. I mean, their positions are the same but there are slight variations in their relative coordinates.”
“You are telling me that we have not moved but the stars have, quiaff?”
“Aff, Star Captain. I am.’
“This makes no sense.” Greta growled. She switched her head set comm to a security channel. “Point Commander Yula?”
“Here, Star Captain.”
“What is your status?”
Yula did not sound the least bit affected by the recent incident. “We are fine, Star Captain. The Dalek appears to have… shut down.”
At last, some good news. “Good. Get it to an airlock, eject it and then destroy it. See to it personally.”
“Aff, Star Captain.” Yula’s reply contained a tone that indicated she would relish this task.
Switching her comm unit off again, Greta addressed the bridge crew.
“I want a full report on the status of all ship systems in one hour. Under the circumstances we cannot remain here and must assume our away team were lost in the explosion on the lunar surface. Helm, engage the inter-system drive and get us back to Alexandra. From there find out if there are any La Grange points we can initiate a jump from. I want us out of here as soon as possible. I will be in my ready room. Star Commander Otto, you have the bridge.”
A chorus of acknowledgements came back and her crew got to work analysing system problems and organising work teams to get the Corvidae back to full operation.

Alone, in the silence of her ready room, Greta had fallen asleep. She was woken by the sound of her door chime. Checking her wristwatch she realised that she had been asleep for a little over thirty minutes. A wave of guilt swept over her at sleeping while her crew were hard at work.
“Door open”, she commanded.
Otto stepped into the room and the door slid silently shut behind him.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Star Captain, but I thought you might want to look at this.” He handed some papers to Greta which included images of a healthy world roughly three quarters covered in water.
Greta rubbed her eyes wearily. “What am I looking at here, Otto?”
“These are images of Alexandra taken just a few minutes ago.” Otto replied.
Greta looked up at her Executive Officer with a look of incredulity on her face.
“That is not possible. We passed Alexandra… it was a ruin. How….” She stumbled, lost for words.
Otto sat in the empty chair in front of Greta’s desk. “In an old Terran story there is a saying that goes; when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Greta studied the data Otto had handed her, intrigued. “Explain.” She asked.
“Simply put, Alexandra could not have recovered in the time we were stationed at the moon, therefore one of two possibilities remain. Either significant time has elapsed to allow Alexandra to recover, though it is doubtful that the planet could recover, or we are looking at Alexandra before it was destroyed.”
Greta leaned back in her chair, pondering Otto’s words. “The Dalek said something before the blackout… emergency temporal shift… temporal. Could it have used the energy from our jump core to move us in time? Even saying that sounds ridiculous.”
Otto stared intently at his commanding officer. “Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Greta dropped the paper and rubbed her face with her hands. “This is insane. I am a Star Captain, Otto, I should not even have command of a WarShip yet. Now you try to tell me that I am the Captain of a time travelling WarShip?”
Otto smiled, dropping a little of his formality. “Greta, Khan McKenna gave you this command because you were the most qualified out of all the survivors of the Fall. I happen to think you are also the most capable. I know this sounds like something out of a Spheroid holovid but it is the only possible explanation left to us. This is beyond anything in our experience but I believe that you can get us through this.”
“How?” Greta asked incredulously. “Let us suppose that you are right and we have, somehow, traveled in time. How do I “get us through this”? How do I get us back?”
“I do not know, Greta. That is why I am not in command.” Otto smirked a little.
Greta threw her head back then and laughed which caught Otto completely by surprise. “Oh, Otto, as much as I appreciate your faith in me I think you are a fool. It is lucky for you that you are good at your job." Then she sighed before continuing. "We will figure this out together but the first thing we need to learn is exactly when we are.”
Otto’s smile returned, larger than before. “Once I received this data I requested that an analysis be made of the star variations. We know, very roughly, how much their relative positions change over time so we can extrapolate that back and establish an approximate time frame. I gave the bridge crew fifteen minutes to figure it out.”
Greta laughed again, quieter this time. “They have had ample time then. Let us see how good our crew really is.”
Greta and Otto both stood and headed out the door to the bridge.

“Captain on the bridge!” The yeoman on deck called.
The bridge crew had been gathered around a small table near the holotank and when Greta and Otto entered they stood sharply to attention.
“As you were.” Greta offered and they all visibly relaxed. “Star Commander Otto has filled me in on your task. So, what do you have for me?”
Deirdre stepped forward. “Star Captain, I have run a star data extrapolation routine as far back as we have records for and re-ran them to be sure. All results indicate that we have jumped back approximately two hundred and thirty years, Sir.”
Greta stood with her mouth slightly agape. She had been expecting a number far smaller. Two hundred and thirty years?! Her mind just couldn’t wrap itself around the concept yet. There was an extremely uncomfortable silence on the bridge while everyone waited for someone to speak.
Greta composed herself and finally broke the silence. “Uh…well done… Deirdre. Thank you. Otto, what is our current status?”
“The KF drive has recently been restored and is charging. Our batteries are at eighty percent. We are approximately an hour from having fire control restored and all other ship-wide systems are nominal.” Otto spoke the words with pride.
“Outstanding, Star Commander. Has there been any word from Yula?”
“None.” Otto remarked.
Greta frowned. “Strange.” She donned her heat set comm and opened the security channel. “Bridge to Point Commander Yula.” The only reply was a faint hiss of static. “Yula, come in please.” Still nothing. “Damn it! Security, get to the nearest airlock to the omicron power relay!”
A response came from one of the many marines on-board Corvidae.
Greta turned to her bridge crew. “Make preparations for jump. I want us at Arcadia the minute we have the charge.”
“Aye, Sir.” Came the replies.
She turned back to Otto and lowered her voice. “If that thing is still aboard my ship God knows what damage it could do. If it is not then the consequences could be far, far worse.”

nice update

Korban City-State
Rechlan, Arcadia
Pentagon Worlds
30 June, 2821

“Let me get this straight, you expect me to believe that you are from the future, more than two hundred years in the future, and that the SLDF are going to return here in two days to reclaim these worlds?” Verna’s expression and tone spoke of her incredulity at the idea.
They were sitting around a table made of Arcadian Russet in Verna’s council office.
Otto rested his arms on the table top and sighed in frustration. “Aff… yes, though the SLDF call themselves the Clans now. Look, I know this is hard to believe. It is hard to say, believe me, but I have shown you my ID…”
“Faked.” Verna interjected.
“…you have seen our Mechs. You said yourself you have never see their like. My Kingfisher is an OmniMech, they have not even been invented yet. I understand how this sounds and I also know that I should not be telling you this but this information could save every man, woman and child in Korban so do not take my words lightly, however much you disbelieve them!”
Something in Otto’s tone, his insistence that this preposterous story was true, made Verna pause.
“Let's say it is true and your Clans are coming to retake Arcadia. What can we do about it?”
Otto looked at her intently. “Surrender without a fight. The people that will be coming to Korban, Clan Star Adder they call themselves, they are reasonable. If you allow them in, peacefully, you will be treated well.”
“And if we don’t?” Verna asked.
“Then they will wipe your little city-state off the map and these last twenty years of building and surviving will have been for nothing.”
Verna looked hopefully at Otto then. “You could fight with us. If you did that you could have all the supplies you need.”
Otto shook his head. “The Clans will have the best part of four Clusters on the planet, two of which will head here and to Garrak. Even with the Steel Vipers and Blood Spirits elsewhere they would outnumber us at least four to one. We would simply die with you.”
“If it’s true.” Verna added.
“If it is true.”
Verna took a deep breath then pushed herself away from the table and rose from her chair. “Then until it’s confirmed you and Mr Howe will remain here as a guest of the Korban City-State.’
Both Otto and Brett leapt from their chairs. “You cannot…”
Verna slammed a hand down on the table. “I can and I will, or would you prefer I call security?” The men visibly relaxed and Brett retook his seat after calming his anger. “Good. At this point in time you are not prisoners, Star Commander, please don’t give me cause to change that status. You will have a security detail attached to you for your safety but you are free to move around Korban as you wish. Please don’t try to leave.”
“My people will come looking for me.” Otto spoke softly though there was still an edge of anger in his voice.
Verna smiled sincerely. “I’ll despatch a messenger to inform them that you’re staying in Korban until after the attack. In the meantime we’ll arrange quarters and clothing for you.”
“Very well.” said Otto resignedly. “We will do this your way but if the Star Adders find us here it will cause you more trouble than you can handle.”
“Then we’d better make sure they don’t find you here, hadn’t we?”