Horizons Reach's Tour
|
In December 315, CEO Lebbuto Stone of Aeternus went on a cruise across key-stations and locations within the Alpha Sol System onboard his new space yacht 'Horizons Reach'. Their first stop was Yata, with the Horizons Reach positioning itself into Yata's orbit, allowing shuttle-crafts transporting major business leaders to come onboard in order to participate in business talks and the cruise. Two escort ships from Aeternus Security also arrived after restocking at a nearby space-station, allowing the yacht and its complement to warp past Luna before continuing on their voyage with Sub-FTL to Theia, after which they went to Mars, where the ship orbited the planet to observe the ruins on its surface. Above Mars, the Horizons Reach was intercepted by a small CSIS Paris-Class Cruiser and told to turn around due to entering a restricted region, forcing the Horizons to turn around despite complaints from the captain and many passengers, as even Lebbuto Stone was denied a personal visit to the planet. The Horizons did manage to see 6 Behemoth-Class Battlecruisers above Mars, the CSS Hyperion, CSS Jupiter, CSS Saturn, CSS Mars, CSS Uranus, and CSS Neptune as it journeyed to the other side of Mars, where it soon jumped away over to a region far-outside Jupiter's Killzone where it saw hundreds of CSIS ships. Next, the Horizons Reach arrived at Saturn and its moon Titan, finding it to be a quite busy place with numerous colonized moons and orbital habitats, with the most notable being an artificial ring surrounding Titan. The area appeared to be rapidly militarizing, which Lebbuto Stone used as a 'great view' to show his passengers, even if many of the ships were made by his main competitor 'Advanced Logistics and Manufacturing'.
After stopping at a station, the Horizons Reach headed to Uranus where it saw cloud-cities in its upper atmosphere and several CSIS crafts (1 frigate and a couple escorts) moving towards it, sending a message that the Horizons Reach's flotilla was disrupting its communications array. The primary escort craft 'Matagot' demanded the incoming crafts identify themselves, to which the approaching frigate identified itself as 'CSS Reliant', matching up with a registered science ship preforming classified duties in the area. The Matagot demanded that the Reliant and its escorts state their intentions, to which the Reliant responded by firing its Magnetic Accelerated Cannon onto the Horizons Reach's FTL-Drive, destroying the device completely. Matagot alongside escorts Catoblepas and Cerastas moved to intercept the attackers who revealed themselves to be pirates while the Horizons Reach attempted to flee and signal for help while the Tityos guarded it after releasing a swarm of combat and transponder drones (Emergency Transponder Decoys, which functioned as both normal decoy drones and broadcasters blasting for help in every frequency). The sole gunship in the pirate fleet rushed towards the Horizons Reach while the frigate and escorts engaged the three intercepting Aeternus Security ships, leading to the Horizons Reach sustaining some damage as lasers tore a hole in the hull which the gunship flew into, leading to a struggle onboard as pirates fought highly trained onboard security forces while the Tityos deployed fighters to counter the attackers. Police ships did respond to the ETDs, but weren't armed enough to do much to the pirates. The gunship pulled out of the Horizons Reach, sucking many into space as the pirates magnetized their boots to stay onboard. The guards set up barricades to hold off the advancing pirates, gradually retreating towards secure bunkers as the pirates advanced, though after turning a corner 5 individuals in black combat armour clearly unrelated to the security onboard engaged the pirates, taking out several thanks to their agility and defences which forced the survivors to pull out grenade launchers. Outside, Matagot was forced into emergency warp while Cerastes exploded. The Pirates onboard Horizons began to retreat and plant bombs where they could while the frigate sent over a docking tube, which they used to flee the craft as they set off all the bombs that the 5 armoured people couldn't disable. Authorities were notified of the incident at last, leading to 12 additional Aeternus Security Ships starting to make their way towards the battle. After Tityos blew up and the pirates were done bombarding the Horizons, they moved to flee only to get shredded by MAC projectiles from a series of unidentified crafts.
Once CSIS authorities in the form of the CSS Hyperion arrived, all that remained was a severely damaged Horizons Reach and an assortment of scrap, leading to the Hyperion taking the survivors until a passenger liner could take them back while the CSS Jupiter and CSS Saturn tried to track down where the unidentified crafts that attacked the pirates went (With the only lead being 'somewhere in the kuiper belt'. Aeternus attempted to recover the yacht, but this was not allowed as it was held as evidence while the security were questioned about the event, to which they didn't really have much to say as they didn't know where the pirates came from, nor how they suddenly were wiped out. The CSS Jupiter and Saturn didn't find much aside from faint engine signatures during their search, so whoever was responsible for the intervention was likely an unaffiliated third party. A unidentified shuttle then appeared and requested to dock with the Horizons Reach (which was attached to an external docking port on the Hyperion), which was initially refused despite it broadcasting a high-ranking identification code, though a signal from the CSS Jupiter soon clarified that it was to be let onboard, where it cleared out the hangar before leaving. The Jupiter asked if the third party was the OMM by directly contacting them, to which they responded affirmatively and explained it was due to an 'asset being in danger', though any clarification on what this meant beyond an undocumented sealed compartment being discovered onboard the horizons was found. The explanation for the event was largely regarded due to people being angry at Lebbuto for Aeternus gradually monopolising several industries.
- ↑ (in a sort of triangular 3d formation to cover the highest possible area)
