A little help goes a long way

Lieutenant (now major) Bannon could personally have had a better day, like not getting his butt almost nuked by pirates. Apparently the HTU had a score to settle and had gotten their hands on a few small nukes. Now after that close encounter with death, he captained his Honor class carrier/destroyer and his tiny flotilla of frigates to a randomized planet in attempt to escape his attackers. At current, they were floating about 20 light seconds from the planet they had chosen, the planet was apparently extremely advanced and it would be bad if the aliens on it were hostile, because his flotilla was in extremely bad shape.

The viewscreen showed the status of the other ships in and his, right now, there was almost no green on the display and there was plenty of yellow and orange, thankfully no red. He got a message from the captain of one of the Janrak Scout ships, piloted by one of the allied PMCs that had come along. The message said that the Zeus class, delivering several kilotonnes of Uranium-238 was damaged and the external carrying package was leaking radiation, badly. Several responding messages also confirmed it, including one from the Zeus itself.

"alright, thats it, we're sending an SOS" said bannon as he threw his hands up while walking back to his command chair and sat down. His communication officer sent a ping with the old UWUC SOS tag to the planet.

The signal buzzed one one of the close range screens and a Cure watching it turned looking at a runner and nodded. The Virus took off running to the Master Commanders office to report, since the beacon all matters of communication from the outside had to be sent directly to Viral no matter what. Viral was sitting at his desk working on some reports from one of the shipping manifests that had detonated by malfunction and caused hospitalization of four workers and the complete destruction of a AI droid. He sighed sliding his claws down the long grooves in his desk that had been made over years of frustration on paperwork.

The Virus saluted placing a hand on his lower stomach and his other on the upper left corner by the shoulder and stood straight announcing his presence. Viral looked up and tilted his head. "What now?" The Legion Commander obviously wasn't in a good mood at the moment and his golden eyes showed it by holding the private like a Viper Wolf. Private Luca had never been thought he would end up carrying a message to the most powerful man on the planet and swallowed many times before speaking. "Sir we have received a S.O.S. signal and the close range scopes show a very small fleet heading this way." Viral once again slid his claws into the grooves than stood up donning his military uniform.

Viral walked around his desk and leaned against it as he activated the screen showing the beat up fleet and pressed one of the many buttons on his desk, less than four seconds a group of Sky ships or Veloca as they were code named from there shape. They were slick with a curved wing span and a pointy nose with fangs drawn on what the Pilots referred to as the mouth. The end was a long tube that ended in a point much like a tail. Each one was equipped with enough artillery to threaten a War ship on it's own.

Viral activated his coms and sent a request to the ship and stepped forward so he was visible, A humanoid raptor about six feet tall would appear wearing armor and some high tech fabric with many medals on the front, His hair was braided and set back the main color being green but was filled with a rainbow of assorted colors and piercing golden eyes. He smiled revealing Insanely thick sharp teeth. "Your S.O.S signal has been received, I am Master Commander Viral Head of the Legion Military and the Emperor here. You are in unauthorized air space without a permit and by the looks of it armed. You will surrender and deactivate your weapons or we will open fire, as for the S.O.S you will allow the boarding of some of my soldiers to make sure there is nothing hazardous on your ships before we allow you to dock on our space station. Refusals of these demands will result in termination." Though peaceful the Legion took no chances especially with hazardous chemicals that were never allowed on there planet and anyone trying was destroyed. Viral was not about to trust a fleet he knew nothing about from going unchecked. His hand moved to the stations firing cannons where he only pressed a button and the cannons that could drop a fleet would open fire.

Bannon regarded the image with mild amazement as he had not expected a high ranking figure to greet him. The medals weren't actually very impressive when you yourself had racked up an individual kill count of well over several hundred but the surprising amount of mass visible was impressive. "This is Major Bannon of the O'Neil Fleet Command Jenova task force, 3rd fleet, second flotilla. I will acknowledge your request to power down my primary and secondary weapons but unfortunately our anti-missile/anti-drone point defenses and shields require a master override which I do not possess. I am only capable of flagging manned vessels as friendly, as such I will gladly allow boarding of and inspection of my vessels though regrettably, one of my transport frigates is carrying a shipment of Uranium-238 and is leaking radiation. If you would be so kind, we have valuable scientists on board the vessel and it would be most appreciated if you would help us evacuate them." Explained Bannon as best he could.

He brought up schematics of the non-ONA ships in the flotilla and sent them via an image file to the Master Commander as a sign of good faith. "Commander, I have sent you some schematics of several of the ships in the fleet as a sign of good faith but I am incapable of sending you specifications for corporation ships as I do not have the authority for that." He said while beckoning for the weapons officer to power down both primary and secondary weapons, as well as switch the AM/AD point defenses to flak only. As power was diverted to life support and damage control, drones activated on the ship and began some internal repairs to the bulkheads. Some of the Orange areas on the damage monitor began to slowly turn yellow.

Viral nodded waving his hand to the others. "Your request is acceptable and we will be sending a carrier to help your scientists off the ship...however once they are off we must destroy the cargo of that ship for we can not risk those contents hereon the station and definitely not on the planet." Viral turned looking at a Cure. "Take a carrier with Radiation suits to help those men off that ship, Also take a veroca and once the scientists are safe detonate the ship. I want no radiation to fall on the planet. The Commander turned his head back to the screen and activated the holo ramp. "I give you permission to dock all ships and personal here under emergency law 32245 of the Legion Military. Powering down of weapons has been granted and you have been flagged as friendly as well, You now have permission to dock."

Viral turned his head as a large public cruiser floated out of the docking bay and moved over to the Frigate. "This ship will be used to get your scientists safely off the Transport frigate, it has a lock ramp so they don't have to risk space and we will have air masks here for you since breathing our air could destroy your lungs." Master Commander turned his eyes to the Fleet for a long moment. "Major it may be rude to ask but for the safety of my people I must ask, did those who attacked you follow you here?" He stared at the major and turned a little as a Virus ran up and under the cloak on his blood red skin was hundreds of symbols that were used as medals for the Viruses while the medals on his chest were from the cures. "Ah yes, Major I must ask you to leave all weapons on your ships accept yours Major. I won't allow you to walk around and feel defenseless however everyone else must remain unarmed. You understand we have had very little contact with outsiders until now."

Bannon watched the number drop slowly to zero as all of the scientists from the Zeus transfer to the aiding ship and then the ship begin the docking sequence with the station. "Thank you commander, your help is most appreciated, we have begun docking now. Don't worry, our attackers were crippled before we made the jump to FTL, besides, the jump destination was randomized anyway."

The ship finally docked and Bannon strolled out in his Grimm Reaper Suit, at an impressive 9 feet tall, the head of the suit had been modified to look like a medieval knight, really added to the chivalry look. The suit also came with wings, they looked like angel wings instead of a replica of his bat wings that were his natural ones, over the wings was his G250 (A7 version) which was more for formality then anything else. His escorts were also in Grimm Reapers though they were unarmed, they could pretty much punch stuff to death anyway, if they could handle a mecha then they could probably handle any organic lifeform. The rest of the personnel were in powered armor suits, they had respectfully declined the use of masks because of some liability issues that might arise. They remained unarmed as per the conditions of their invitation.

Bannon stood in the landing bay for a second before reverting to a slouching posture that was his natural one. Travis had been attempting to fix it for quite a while but the problem seemed to be a force of habit. His escort, much more formal then their leader, stayed in the parade rest stance, the rest of the personnel just tried to spread out and make small talk with their new (hopefully) friends.

Viral walked out surrounded by Viruses and Cures, This time the cures were at max height of nine feet with massive muscle and glowing eyes. Viral stepped out standing at a sinewy muscle six feet tall, On his head was a helmet with a single blade going up and a blade on his tail. He wore armor made of a special mineral that was designed to handle massive force and weigh next to nothing. His armor had two massive shoulder armor and a band around his arms. The Commander had Green braided hair but was so colored it looked like a rainbow.

Viral nodded to the Cures who moved to the back to be less hostile, Now he was seen better his features were more defined with blood red scaled flesh and cold golden eyes. His snout was pushed further out and filled with two rows of thick sharp teeth that could bite through steel and he had two large hooked claws on his bare feet. To complete his accessory he wore a silky red cape that matched his skin. "Welcome, welcome. I am Master Commander Viral of the Legion Military and Emperor here. I welcome you to our Loading Station." Viruses moved forward handing out masks. "These are for your protection the air in here is pure Nitrous, Want to keep your lungs working. I would offer you food but it is poisonous to outsiders." He nodded smiling warmly.

Bannon looked at the commander, taking notice of the crazy hair, sword, cape and the armor, the mention that this guy was an emperor was also not overlooked. "I'm sorry, I must decline that offer, the suits are already fitted with rebreathers and there are prepossessing machines on the ship." His men also declined the offer, they couldn't smile through the suit but they adjusted their tone of voice so as to be as endearing and polite as possible. "Please, call me Bannon, the corporation prefers that allies call ONMC officers by their first name, it helps to build trust. These suits aren't just for protection, we want to make a good impression as possible, we have a first contact procedure but we haven't used yet until now." He said all the while sizing up the apparent emperor. He looked like a nice guy, first contact said that aliens might seem foreign but they might seem just as foreign.

"We have some things we might have to trade in exchange for materials to repair our ships with. And there might be some first relations negotiations to begin but those can wait if you want, but first with the formalities. What do you prefer I call you? Emperor? Commander?"

Viral nodded and waved a hand from the Viruses offering the masks and they stepped back all of them still holding that warm smile with those cold hungry eyes.. The Cures simply stood at the ready to protect there Emperor and some felt he didn't take enough precautions. "Well Bannon, You can call me Emperor, my lord, my liege or whichever of the three you like. I apologize I would like to allow you to call me by my name but my people might see it as a submission, Now about your ship do not worry about trades we will repair them free of charge except...I would like to speak with you and get to know you and your kind better. We do not get many visitors and Relations negotiations sound fun." Viral nodded and turned walking away. "If you would follow me Bannon, If your men like we have showers and rest areas for travelers..however we can't feed you, as far as we know we haven't met anyone who could eat food from our planet and not get sick."

Viral lead the way down a long hallway to a pair of double doors were there was a group of Viruses heavily armed and the cures followed. "This is my personal chambers while at the station, I have one at every station and I don't get home much." The doors opened revealing a large room with a bed, chairs, desks, books, and paintings." Viral stopped at a painting a very crude one and smiled. "My sisters daughter sent me this as her first drawing in school." Viral sat down in a comfy chair behind his desk and leaned back offering a equally comfy but large chair designed for the full nine foot cures. "Please sit, If you have a drink you prefer on your ship I can have a AI retrieve it for you." The Emperor smiled warmly but the warmth though genuine never met the same cold eyes shared by his species.

Bannon followed the Commander through the station and sat down in the chair. The shape was weird as it was probably designed for the massive gorilla things that matched his height (in armor), the wings retracted into his body to allow a comfortable seat and he took off the rifle, leaning it against the chair. He also removed the magazine and one of the bullets, tossing the bullet into the air, flipping it end over end, the shiny metallic casing causing light to flicker. "Well Emperor, thats very nice of you, but protocol doesn't let me accept any edible substance from a new first contact species. It also states that our own drones and engineers are to repair or vessels, I would love to accept the help but I didn't write the protocol; plus there are some corporation secrets that the boss doesn't think would be a good Idea to discuss."

He leaned back against the seat, and let his arm hang over the side of the backrest. Yet another problem that Travis had been trying to fix, yet it still hung on. He was by no means ever a good negotiator; yeah he had the Masters engineering degree, even going as far as to take it further and get a PHD but he was never a politician.

Viral nodded understandingly and simply smiled. "No worries we will give you the tools and any materials you need to repair the ships, I feel bad for having to destroy one of your ships so this way is a sort of payment for the loss." Viral looked at the bullet and chuckled, His hand reached under his desk and drew out a odd looking weapon. It was about the size of a normal pistol with a wider barrel and a glowing blue on the interior barrel The handle was designed for a Virus and moved full around so it could enclose the hand, no trigger device was found on the weapon. "This is a pulse gun, designed for taking down Viper Wolves and Guranga's but we have found them to be very effective in war. You can stop large groups without killing...however we do have weapons for death but we try and avoid that...death is just so permanent."

The Emperors cold golden eyes never moved from the other alien but they weren't hostile at least not until threatened. "Well we have gone past formalities and into negotiations but I can tell you would rather be blunt instead of playing political games and that works for me. Politics spoken by politicians normally involve betrayal or lying I rather just be straight." Viral moved the weapon back under his desk seeing no reason to keep it out. "If you are interested in weapons we have a large selection from our older stock you can try out and maybe get some ideas on upgrades."

Viral was enjoying the conversation and the chance to open diplomatic relations with other races and hopefully trade and commerce in the universe would open wider doors, however he had to also be careful since he wasn't sure precisely what this other race would want not that they had much to fear. A young soldier knocked on the door and then entered staring straight ahead. "My lord there is a large group heading this way...they seem to be hostile." Viral sighed and shook his head. "I apologize but we do get slavers and cowards out here now and again, It's a reason I was hoping for relations that way we could be added to the more advanced maps and these space scum would leave us be." Viral looked over at the young officer and shrugged. "Power up Solar cannon three, I rather not risk lives of my soldiers when the enemy is so nice to put there own heads on a silver platter."

Viral stood and then smiled that grim smile. "Bannon, would you like to see the pride of the Legion race? It is very...enlightening I assure you." Viral opened his window showing another station but this one three times the size, The station seemed to hum and the front of the station opened revealing a massive cannon that was a long barrel but split so they seemed to float around in a circle. The center was glowing as the tip seemed to form a glowing white energy that sparked with black. "This is the solar cannon, the pride of the Legion Military, We also have one ten times the size of that one over there on the planet just in case." The slaver fleet moved closer to the first station and veered heading for the center. "That station there after is our science station. Everything we develop comes from that station and it is the home of our best and brightest scientist." The cannon filled with energy then unleashed the beam that would have taken out five fleets, the white and black energy expanded before hitting the first ship and going through to the others leaving nothing behind. " The Cannon is powered by our three suns and the longer it is charged the more destructive it becomes, That station has charged it's cannon to it's prime point. We have yet to meet a shield or ship strong enough that can handle the full power of a Solar cannon." Viral looked at Bannon, the show had been for two things. One was a show of power and what the Legion could do on there own turf, The second was to show that though they were peaceful they wouldn't be taken advantage of. "Now if you would like we can get on with Negotiations." Viral sat down at his desk once more and waited.

Bannon frowned, that was pretty much all he could do really as he didn't really want to jump to conclusions right away. The spectacle had seemed almost like a warning to him to tread lightly, something he did not very much appreciate. Of course he knew that the so called "Solar Cannon" could be matched or even outmatched in strength by the SAPL, they had more of them and the SAPL was a mining laser in the first place so deploying it was wartime only by international law. "Umm" he said frowning "We don't really have much to offer, I'm sure one of the higher ups would have something but right now, all I have right now are the provisions aboard the ship and some of the minor technology aboard the ship. The suits like the one i'm wearing now are top secret technology, capable of withstanding a small nuclear warhead and come out smiling."

He caught the bullet and placed it a little drop pouch on the right hip of his suit. He picked up the pistol and began examining it carefully, using the suit system to make a thermal rundown of the weapon. "Nice piece you have, seems like it would be nice to use as training equipment, the ONMC just prefers to not fire at all if possible, we find that it does wonders for civilian relations." He grabbed the rifle and placed the magazine in the drop pouch, working the charging handle to eject the bullet which also went into the pouch. "Since you showed me some of your technology, it is only fair if i show you some of ours." He said, and in just under 20 seconds, he had the weapon in 9 pieces arrayed out on the desk, displaying them and what they did. "You see, we prefer to make our weapons extremely usable and extremely easy to customize. The weapon also tends to have lots of idiot proofing so that said idiots actually know how to operate the weapon."

Viral stared at the weapon on the table and reached out placing a hand on them, the bio mechanics scanner in his iris flicked over the weapon scanning them secretly and creating a digital blue print that was sent instantly to his weapon manufacturers. The suit was harder to gain with a scan and though he copied it he wasn't sure how long until a working prototype could be established. "This is a good weapon, we do not use these bullets we prefer actual energy or blades. Some think our methods are a little outdated because we do have some primitive weapons, of course those hit with the weapons don't think so." Viral laughed as he dropped a weapon on the table and by the sound it made was heavy. The weapon was a crescent blade Bolo, two feet of strong wire alone capable of bringing down a large charging animal with four half moon shaped blades jagged on the insides with dagger sharp tips. "This is one of my favorite weapons, when thrown it opens up and then snares whatever it hits. The wire wraps around and the momentum sends the blades into the body burying it deep inside, it makes it harder to pull out and the screams alert us faster" Viral chuckled and turned leaving the weapon on the table.

The Virus flicked his tail back and forth feeling the powerful muscles there. "We are not a war race Bannon, we like things as they are, peaceful, quiet, normal. War brings problems, damage, and death. All things we try to avoid, we cherish life and it returns the favor. What I am saying is that we do not fight unless forced too and if we are...well we may not like it but we are very good at it. We are new to the Universal politics for we have only had to deal with the Council. I am Emperor not by birth but by command. Master Commander is the most powerful person on the planet and after him is the Council. I can overrule what they want and they can give me advice on my ideas but they can not in return overrule them. I wanted you to have a brief look into our politics for the Council will surely want something from you as..."Payment" for our assistance. Do not worry, we did blow up one of your ships so the repairs are free." Viral stayed standing staring out into the Universe full of planets and stars. "So, where do we begin Bannon?"

"Well, I think there is something that you can do for me and something I can do for you." Bannon said to the emperor. "Currently, our sector of the galaxy needs help, my corporation needs fresh minds: good ones and young ones at that, we can pay for it and we pay well." He patted the suit of armor fondly and began to reassemble the weapon he had laid out on the table. "In return, we will give you one of the secrets to making these suits, they cannot be made of any normal alloy, in fact, synthesizing it is an excruciating process. Unfortunately, we cannot even assemble a new working prototype of these suits.". This new species might possibly be able to help his company find out the secrets that these suits contained, the original maker had gone insane and was now kept in confinement to keep that person alive. Bannon returned the gun to the side of the chair and began to spill one of the secrets.

"I can tell you now, these suits were not actually made by my company, they were made by a single person. I was on an escort mission once near the beginning of my company, and we stumbled upon a debris field filled with the wreckage of a small fleet. We scoured the wreck and the only life form was a single tiny girl, a simple child, but she was brilliant. We took her to the checkpoint and healed her, watched over her until she woke up again and to our surprise, she was wandering around in minutes. As thanks, she told us she would use our technology to make us more powerful, suits so that none of her saviors would ever be killed in battle.

I don't know how she did it, but she took our technology and gave us these." He rapped on his suit leg and twirled the bullet through the air. "These things are almost indestructible. I don't know how she did it, probably never will, but to make them she actually broke the laws of thermodynamics. They never overheat, actually, the hotter they get, the more powerful they are; she even found a way to make the special material that they are made of. Unfortunately, the suits took their toll on her. The programming, the assembly, the modification, all took their toll on her mind; I watched and she aged, her mind aged at least 5 years in the first day. As she got used to it, it was less excruciating, but by the time she had made 20, the number of men left of my original unit, she suddenly snapped and fell into a perpetual coma."

He stopped with the bullet and reached up to the grenade launcher on his shoulder, taking it off to show that it was mounted on the shoulder by a magnetic clamp and the suit was actually unarmed. He also disassembled the launcher to show that it was unloaded. Nodding, he proceeded with the tale. "She never liked killing, thats why the suits don't actually have weapons built into them, but they are fast, they are flexible, and they are strong but with her mind went our ability to make more."

He let the emperor decide if he would accept. Accepting meant that the minds he donated might not come back to him the same way. But the idea of the suits was a very appealing thought. In the meanwhile, he stood up and outstretched the wings built into his model, the silvery high tech wings spread to their glorious length of 12 meters, the light bounced off and reflected around the room with a strobe light effect. "Excuse me, my wings always get stiff if I sit down for a while, its kinda bothersome actually, I can never enjoy friendly company unless I sit on a stool."