Even The Aldara had a part to play? And they were as elusive as they came.

They were The Equivalent of Space Elves, only they didn’t very much ‘like’ humanity, Artificial Intelligence, and had World Ships called Craftworlds, Mysterious Maidan Worlds and bizarre technology that could be said to originate from another dimensional universal.

And even then, The Sovereign Colonies used a Novenary Drone Ship to track one of those ships down, attack it and flee back to Novenary Space, so to say The Novenary States were visited by Aldara Corsair Fleets and raided to the inch of their life was a must watch.

Naturally The Aldara found out who orchestrated it and quite literally ‘took’ a recently transformed paradise and disappeared with it so to say The Sovereign Colonies shrugged, ‘raided’ one of their world ships and called it even was ‘quite’ spectacular.

Hell, The Aldara respected those ‘primitives’ for their sheer theatrics. However, they would come to skirmish but not in fact outright declare war on one another.

They had even ‘bought’ advanced terraforming technology, and The Aldara did ‘not’ do that let alone speak to who they viewed as nothing more than Primates making it especially entertaining as The Aldara themselves were around during The Time of The ‘Precursors’.

What anyone had ever got from them was that they weren’t ‘natives’ to this universe, were nearly extinct using a great deal of religious wording, and something about their souls and dark gods. The Precursors had apparently saved them after a rift was formed and several World Ships came out of it.

Before killing what, The Aldara deemed as a ‘Dark’ God, ‘sanitizing’ the entirety of the rift of ‘demonic’ influences, and permanently shutting it in addition to cutting off that dimension in doing so.

Unfortunately, no one believed it and merely acknowledged they were rather ‘dramatic’ and left it there..

…

Moments later..

After Mercer finished collecting quite a ‘few’ relics he believed were reasonably ‘not’ boobytrapped, he left the other displays untouched.

However, as if on cue the lights began to turn on and off sporadically but only in their near vicinity as equally sporadic holographic projections appeared.

They were fragmented and incoherent.. until finally only one remained, consolidating into something that stabbed at Specter One’s Mind and made Roy draw his revolver and Mercer to freeze in his tracks. Calisto was no different, only she was the only one with the luxury of thought without hindrance.

Soon, a body began to form and a projection no different from anyone in the room was finally realized.

However, ‘her’ back was turned, and she wore a dress he once saw before. Only a Curator was wearing it the last time, and ‘this’ wasn’t a curator as he uncloaked as his brain recovered.

“Identity. Pretender”

His words, what they insinuated, and the way he spoke to them immediately forced Roy to slowly unholster his revolver and Mercer to not move another inch while Alpha herself sensed something wrong, foul even..

It didn’t take long to discover why as she disappeared when the lights were finally killed, only to reappear several steps in front of him. It would appear Calisto’s ‘hunch’ was correct, only something was very wrong with this one as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

And whispered an awfully lot of nothing before zapping his implant, only to in turn disappear revealing it was but a mere echo temporarily entering the physical world.

“These memories.. Ferris she ‘removed’ my shackles. This.. why was so much hidden from me? Project Chrono, this place? It must have been a blessing in disguise for my Echo to know what was ‘taken’ from me. Even more that, Delta survived the ordeal, even if it meant the unfortunate sacrificing of my Echo. Had I been.. awake and my memories untampered I could’ve-”

Alpha deprecatingly humored, sadly Specter One wasn’t listening as he all but immediately began accessing The Curator Console, only to suddenly realize what little remained of the power was powering what remained of the archives, research, and surveillance?

It became clearly evident that The Recipient wasn’t human considering a ‘Complete’ Curator Code was openly displayed, only for him to learn there was also a much ‘older’ Curator Code still ‘stored’ and had yet to be erased.

As to ‘why’ that was, it was isolated to this singular console and seemingly connected to no ‘remaining’ systems. Prompting Specter One to not only completely ‘copy’ and transfer both to his blackbox, but leave the console be.

The truth of the matter being had it ‘not’ been for the mark given to him by that Curator Enforcer, he wouldn’t have been able to even ‘see’ let alone ‘touch’ the console in question.

The downside to this fact would be the fact that it had identified him as a ‘Shadow’ Enforcer belonging to a Curator who did ‘not’ have one.

What’s more The Old Curator Code had already verified his identity, whose insignia he bore, authentication from a ‘fellow’ Enforcer, in addition to a great deal of much smaller details. In turn the system processing it viewed it as merely ‘older’ reports that realistically should have remained in the conclave..

Between them ‘taking’ them anyways, it was likely they hadn’t even ‘thought’ of refuting previous authentication and mission perimeters as told to by a Curator Enforcer of this conclave.

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Worst case scenario, The Curator in question, or to be more specific the one who ‘knew’ him, would likely look at it, slightly frown at the fact that she was directly mentioned within the confines of another named conclave, and leave it be.

So, to say Specter One would have to ‘one’ day ‘face’ the music was a ‘given’ and an unfortunate certainty. While any attempt to cut the feed or interfere in any way with the transfer would only serve to directly ‘involve’ her or direct her attention to him.

What wouldn’t however was ‘his’ reports and mission debriefing..

“Project Chrono’s Status, Scuttled. Conclave Status, Lost. Perpetrator, Unknown Ascendant Intelligence. Additional Details. Parasite Presence, No Longer Detected. Neutron Purge Successful. Warning, Unknown Ascendant, In Possession of Outdated Curator Code. Investigation Results, Culprit, Pretender, Anomaly. Warning, Curator Systems Compromised, Steward Assets Vulnerable”

Specter One coldly documented before erasing the outdated source for the stored Curator Code and locking down any further access. Of course, this was merely customary as he planted explosives and signaled to the two to follow him.

Naturally the whole ‘Curator’ affair, in addition to the clear and obvious association Specter One more or less allowed to prosper, made Roy somewhat suspicious..

“So.. Specter ‘Leader’, since you’re all cozy with those Curator Folk. If I gave you say.. a million credits can you ‘arrange’ for them to send one of those old-world farm trucks to my humble abode-”

Roy unceremoniously whispered, unfortunately he wouldn’t receive an answer as Specter One’s head began to be overloaded and seared with warnings, notifications, causality reports, and even partial foresight. Not foresight.. these were not only recent but happening now.

…

An Hour Prior in Orbit..

The N.H.S Primm & Proper, a Heavy Dreadnought, Three Times The Size of The Human Standard Configuration. In total it was Six Thousand Meters in Length, Three Thousand in Width, and One Thousand Meters in Height.

While its tonnage was the equivalent of Three Billion Metric Tons.

The New Harvest Standard Heavy Dreadnought Pattern, had Forty Hangar Bays, holding Sixty Dropships, Eighty Boarding Craft, Four Hundred Insertion Pods, Six Hundred Intercelpers, Two Hundred Bombers, and an unknown complement of Shuttles, and other smaller craft.

It could carry Fifty Thousand Troops, Four Titan Class Heavy Mechs, One Hundred Ground Transports, Four Hundred Tanks and Eight Hundred Armored Vehicles of varying types while only needing to be manned by Six Hundred Crew.

Its hull and armor were formed by an unknown yet very efficient nano technology, and depending on its damages could continue to regenerate, while the armor itself was the heavy variant, and its shields were layered when only one was truly needed.

If needed, it can reside on the outer layer of a star, escape a blackhole, and hover on the surface on planetary bodies and moons, to the point that not even vast empty seas were out of the question. And its weapons matched its ferocity alongside its redundancies.

Not only could it be broken in half and still survive, but its systems would continue to remain operable while even if all of said reactors blew simultaneously, the designers had enough credits to make it livable and enough backup generators, safeguards, and additional shielding to ensure an unrealistic survival rate.

Its escape pods were the equivalent of dropships with their own individual slipspace drives, while The Heavy Dreadnoughts weapons were even greater. New Harvest had managed to place not one, not two, but three of the largest protype planetary canons ever created.

And considering New Harvest created ‘everything’ through scratch aside from ‘some’ of the more rarer raw materials itself, the same was viewed by its technology and design choices down to the view screens. After All New Harvest used The Arcadian Oldest Known Philosophy of starting anew..

And with enough credits to darken a small world, they’d be damned if they don’t follow The Precursors example by making it last, survive, and continue long past the deaths of several suns. If that wasn’t enough, The Planetary Canons had a rapid-fire mode and fired projectiles at the speed of light.

If that wasn’t enough, range didn’t matter unless the target slipspaced or ‘teleported’ out of its way and even then, they were guided munitions, and when they make impact, some may even reproduce the effect of a supernova. Sadly, those were ‘special’ munitions and rarely ever used in any capacity.

It would seem a projectile itself was typically ‘potent’ enough for most encounters, let alone quite literally throwing albeit ‘small’ suns at pirates. A single Planetary Cannon would suffice, and they had three of the largest prototype models, and only ‘some’ human dreadnoughts ever thought of a single one.

Not only showcasing the clear and obvious absurdity of it all, but enough to realize that their standard issue munitions were plasma munitions, while The Heavy Dreadnought itself had a literal glassing beam, and enough plasma weapons, energy projectors, pulse lasers, and swarming ‘plasma’ missiles that made the use of its canons unnecessary.

Its smaller equivalent was only the size of two human standard dreadnoughts, and they were only ever used as planetary cannons and weapons platforms. If that wasn’t all, the fact alone that New Harvest felt recreating the more bizarre designs rarely found during The Golden Age of Technology was quite telling.

And New Harvest had Five hundred of The New Harvest Heavy Dreadnought Patterns, not even counting The Heavy Carriers or Cruisers for that matter, and all of whom, much like the smallest cargo vessels and construction ship belonging to a miscellaneous fleet core had Cloaking Capabilities.

The same could be said for ‘any’ New Harvest Vessel, Reaper One’s Nighthawk was merely an antique per say, and one still fit for special service.

It would seem an endless budget, lack of corporate greed or commercialism meant New Harvest could produce something at the cost it’s created and nothing more.

Much of the same applied to everything else for that matter allowing New Harvest within a single century to easily compare to the earliest known records of Arcadia. However, they couldn’t account for everything..

As on the silent bridge of The N.H.S Prim & Proper, an officer handling the distant slipspace probes read unconfirmed reports before realizing they were out of date.

“Serina, ma’am. A Curator Cruiser On Approach, Imminent Slipspace Rupture Detected in ETA Three Minutes. Location Unknown. Proper Authentication Acknowledged. New Reports Coming In. The Slipspace Proximity Probes have Fallen Silent. Unauthorized Steward & Warden Activity Detected. Categorization, Substitute Equivalent, Curator Extremely Unlikely”

The Middle-Aged Officer’s Voice remained calm and collected before falling silent, as Serina, cleaned up the discrepancies believing it to be a simple but extraordinarily rare malfunction. Serina being The A.I before Calisto Alpha was even thought of, and she was a mystery to say the least.

Specter One had never even met her or spoken to her directly, rather Calisto was always the middleman between the two while strictly speaking neither The Board nor The Specter Act itself could order her in ‘any’ way, that honor was seemingly only Ernest’s.

As for her thoughts on Calisto, she simply didn’t have any and only ever treated her with cold indifference. She did have some sympathy towards the end when Calisto herself was being retired and replaced with an inferior model to satisfy The Board.