Out of the Second Age [Metal Lords] (PM for Invite)

[Ultimatum]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8CUdK3HY0​

The Artificial being known as Ultimatum stood aboard the Sovereignty with many a dark thought in his mechanical mind. The galaxy had once more dealt a grievous hand to the droid and there was little to be done. A betrayer within his midst planned to turn all of his works to naught. All of his labors were covered in the shadow of doubt. He had no way to locate the traitor, no way to end the threat, and no way to protect against it. It drove the droid to madness, it had driven him to run from the world that was his own. He stood alone on the bridge and outside of those in the ship he was alone in the far part of the galaxy. There were no habitable planets near, there were no identified ships to interrupt his meditations. Even Legion knew that his master was too treacherous to speak with at the moment.

What did the inorganic wait for? His own demise, there was nothing that would have held the droid back but his beliefs. Those black moments in his mind continued to chip away at what made him unique. His madness would break him, but not yet. His destiny was far greater than the turmoils of the present, but the tribulations were many.

It was in this darkest of moments that a signal was discovered. A strange beacon was beckoning thousands of kilometers away. Ultimatum called out for the crew to return to their posts. The signal multiplied, everything from rescue requests to signalling for surrender. There were many different ships based on the beacons, which struck the droid as most peculiar. Yet, a call for help was not something the droid would pass by.

"Head towards those signals."

As the ship drew closer to the plethora of beacons, the oddity was furthered with the discovery of a gravitic anomaly. A massive gravity field was detected, equal to that of a large moon, near the beacon locations. When Ultimatum ordered a scan to locate the heavenly body and the ships, he was astounded when, One of the crew reported that there was no astronomical body in the area according to his charts. The readings from other scanners pointed towards the gravitic anomaly containing a metallic center, a ship more than likely.

As the crew moved into the bridge and began taking up their positions, Ultimatum ordered them to move towards the beacons and try to identify the ship. As they grew closer, the sensors betrayed a massive vessel with a gravity well far beyond natural limits. This did not help Ultimatum's mood, for he had a feeling that it was a super weapon of some form.

"Sir, we are within gravity field."

"Sensors detect power surges heading towards our side of the craft. Potentially weapons arming."

"Get a message sent to the Metal Lords, if this is a weapon I want this destroyed and we do not have the firepower."

"Roger sir. Recording now."

The recording began right as another crew member spoke, "Identified power surge, we are being targeted by tractor beams."

Without taking his attention from the active recorder, Ultimatum began his message, "Allies, this is Ultimatum. We are in need of immediate assistance, the following coordinates are my location. There is a massive gravitic anomaly with some sort of ship at the center. We are being pulled in by tractors beams, I suggest you take as many precautions as necessary not to be caught in the same trap."

"Sir, we're being jammed, the message didn't make it to the nearest HoloNet transmitter."

"Then send the message with as little extraneous data as possible to the nearest LOOM transmitter with a tightbeam frequency."

"Roger, cutting off coordinates package, anything you would like to replace to give our position."

Without a second thought Ultimatum loaded a collection of data packs that contained nothing more than emergency transmission dates and locations throughout the galaxy. These strange transmissions had all come from the same ship, but each reading was nearly a thousand or more years apart from the previous, certainly any person organic or otherwise would find the package most interesting. If the locations were put through a basic computer recognition it would become obvious that the ship was making stops at specific travel times. From that it would be possible for a computer to create a potential location for the ship to have visited at the moment, if the computer took into account both the movement of the ship and the movement of the galaxy inbetween the times it would be possible for the listeners of the data to have a near exact location of where Ultimatum was.

Now it was merely a matter of waiting until he was drawn into the strange craft and hoping that someone would arrive to aid him should this turn out to be a less than friendly welcome.

 

[HK-36]

[member="Ultimatum"],

Meanwhile at the Metal Lords Home Station Mechanus,
Somewhere in Deep Space,
After Receiving Ultimatum's Transmission,



There was much argument and squabbling that usually accompanied the conference of droids whenever Metal Lords received news of possible danger and a gathering of them was called in by the Council of Sparklords to deem best possible course of action. The machines were speaking over each other in the cacophony of their words, each keeping a hundred conversations at the same time and each sifting through and replying to a thousand arguments.

HK was among them, trying to move the Lords to send all of the available forces to Ultimatum's position to help him at once, of course some of the other machines were against it, citing it could be a trap set up by one of the terrors of the void or simply a false alarm.

"So it is decided."

The Second Sparklord spoke up suddenly as all of the machines and cyborgs ceased to speak, looking towards the Council presiding over the Moot Hall where the discussion took place.

"Lord Protector you will choose a team of others Lords to accompany you and answer this transmission."

The Sparklord motioned to the large holographic image of Ultimatum, playing his message on a constant loop,

"Allies, this is Ultimatum. We are in need of immediate assistance, the following coordinates are my location. There is a massive gravitic anomaly with some sort of ship at the center. We are being pulled in by tractors beams, I suggest you take as many precautions as necessary not to be caught in the same trap."

"We trust your abilities to deal with this emergency and preserve both your kingdom and your allies should it turn out to be some threat too great even for you and hold out enough for further reinforcements to come in."

"Such is the best course for our kind."

The other Sparklords chimed in together after the Second Councillor explained their decision.


HK nodded to them in slight bow, clad in his usual organic looking armor and a black cloak,

"It will be done."


[member="AD-8"], [member="AD-Iqatar.13"], [member="Seishin"], [member="Vladimir Tedesky"], [member="WD-334"],

If the droids and cyborgs HK picked to join him were not present there for the Moot called by the ruling council, then he would send out a transmission for them to join him, in WD's case he was probably already with HK waiting for the rest since he chose to travel with him. They would be the team older droid brought along to help out Ultimatum, with directions to meet him on Mechanus Station ready to leave as soon as they could.


To Ultimatum HK would send out a quick transmission,

"We are on our way, I am bringing a team of Lords to help you."

 

[WD-334]

WD had followed with [member="HK-36"] to the Moot that had been called. However, the droid did not participate, only off to the side. Meetings such as this were something unfamiliar to the war droid. One thing it did know was what they were discussing. A transmission from [member="Ultimatum"] had been received by them. The war droid had been given a new set of armor plating, a new weapon and a shield to go with that. It would surely aid them in this mission of theirs. If fighting were to occur, WD would be the first to jump into the fight, if it were given the chance.

A group was organized by HK, and WD-334 followed along. It was eager for a fight, the one thing it was made for. "Will there be fighting?" the droid asked, glancing over, it's black eye receptor's gleaming in the lights of the station around them. "This unit waits for a fight" it added, looking back to in front of them, "What tasks are needed to be completed by this unit?"

 

[HK-36]

[member="WD-334"],

HK was just inspecting one of the ships they were going to take, the Siege Tower, his personal frigate from his day with the Omega Protectorate when WD asked about the details of the mission,

"We expect so but we are not certain."

He answered to question about fighting, turning about to look over WD,

"But do not worry, you will probably get to fight, if not whatever trapped Ultimatum, then whoever else could also picked up on his emergency broadcast, I doubt we were the only ones to receive it. Although few pirates would be able to take our might on in combat."

HK explained before looking away from the image of his ship by the docking port to the station's lights WD was watching as well,

"You will be at the front of our rescue team, we expect narrow corridors so if there will be any fighting, you will be our main combat unit. You are tasked with taking the brunt of enemy fire, pin them down with suppression fire, and distract them, if they will manage to survive an encounter with you, the rest of us can flank them and finish them off in melee."

The droid would look to WD, having to look up at the bigger war droid,

"Do you calculate you can handle that?"

 

[WD-334]

WD-334 gave a rather humbled hum at the news, as it would be able to do what it was designed to do, and what it eventually learned to enjoy doing. Fighting the good fight, and defending those it fought with, and fought for. As was it's duty. "This unit will hold the front line against any foes" it replied in a series of dull bleeps. The war droid stopped and stood at attention as an answer to HK's question. "They will regret facing this unit head-on. I am your shield. You have my word." The war droid then continued to walk, headed for the ship and ready to move out on [member="HK-36"]'s word.

 

[Ultimatum]

As the ship drew deeper into the great ship's grasp, Ultimatum ordered the few combat capable units he had to the hangars and loading ramps. He was not planning on surrendering the ship easily if his captors intended on forcibly taking the ship. The sensors noted that the pull of the tractor beams were considerably less powerful than most available emitters. Perhaps the ship was a scavenger ship? Maybe they had taken damaged tractor beam emitters from the wreckage of some old battlefield.

"Get a scan on the ship's composition. See if we can open communications with the Lords." Ultimatum ordered while waiting for the defense forces to take position.

"Sir, Hangar is asking if they should deploy fighters."

"No, the gravity outside may be more than the Awe fighters are capable of handling for the moment."

"It seems the jamming has stopped, or otherwise is unaware of our communications, clear line to Lords."

Ultimatum was glad to here that he could contact his allies, yet at the same time he was concerned that the captors had not jammed it. They had jammed previous communications how was this different? He asked the communications officer, "How did they jam us before and not now?"

"I had the frequency changed to one of our more recent discoveries, it would have usually been one of the covert ones to be used in our operations. I figured that the circumstances would allow their use."

The droid nodded before clicking to activate the line, HK would find that he had an ongoing message sent from Ultimatum. "Thirty-six, this is Ultimatum. I know you have already probably heard my previous communications but just in case: I need your immediate intervention. There is a massive ship that has caught the Sovereignty in a duo of tractor beams. I have my sensors trying to identify the elements of the weapons and to find any Gravity-Well Generator. If possible, I will disable the Well so that your craft can arrive without incident." A beeping began in the background and as Ultimatum turned to see whose area it was he watched as a red beam flew from the ever growing ship to the Sovereignty. The ship shook heavily as Ultimatum momentarily forgot about the transmission and looked to the bridge crew.

"Damage report!"

"None sir, that blast didn't even break the shields. We got hit by a bunch of shots and it looks like a boarding pod. No lifesigns on the pod."

"Droids?"

"Negative, Engine security team moving in to investigate."

Recalling that he had an open line, Ultimatum returned to the command and questioned, "Do you copy?" The last sentence would be slightly gargled, as if some strange encryption had been activated to try and hide the meaning, it was still understandable but just a little more so. He hoped [member="HK-36"] could hear, however he also wondered if anyone else had managed to get hold of the communication or otherwise tap into it. It did not truly matter at the moment, his immediate concern was escaping the potential danger of his current situation and that meant he needed to keep in contact with HK, whether or not anyone was listening in."

 

[HK-36]

[member="WD-334"],

HK nodded to WD in confirmation,

"Good to hear, get aboard."

He motioned to the frigate they would be taking to meet with Ultimatum's position before looking back over Mechanus Station,

"We cannot wait much longer, if others want to join us they can do so at the rendezvous point."

Consider HK had access to resources like ARGH's droid armies and corporate fleets, it was probably enough to deal with whatever they were going to face, still it's nice to have company!


[member="Ultimatum"],

As the machines stepped aboard the docked frigate HK received a transmission from his bridge,

"Sir, response from the Sovereignty."

"Patch me through"

"Thirty-six, this is Ultimatum."

Ultimatum's message begun playing through, including the sounds of his ship rocking as result of supposed attack by the strange ships.

"I copy, Ulti, we just got expeditionary group together, were are jumping towards your location from the Hidden Citadel right now, hold out a bit more. What kind of weaponry is the alien ship firing towards you?"

HK asked, hoping to learn more about the possible enemy vessel as he send out his own orders to his crew.

The Siege Tower rocked as it broke away from the Mechanus Station, engines activating to sail its hammer-shaped hull through the void of space, aiming out towards nothingness before the hyperjump booster activated and its body suddenly jumped forward, elongating before it phased out from reality and into hyperspace.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum did not even have to turn to the scan crew in order to identify the shots fired at him. The Sovereignty had been armed with similar weapons when he had first brought her into the Foresight dockyards. These were old weapons, several millennia old if not more. To sum up the ship left Ultimatum exasperated: it had a gravity well generator far larger and more powerful than anything he had believed possible, tractor beams that showed strength dating them to the old Imperial era, and armaments that were outdated millennia ago. As if that was not enough, the scan crew had to report, "Sir, enemy craft has no shields. Scans don't show any Gravity well generator either."

With a confused smile he sarcastically added to his mental list: Plus, the ship has no shields. He asked, "Is the generator inside the craft?"

"No way to tell, the craft is somehow blocking out sensors from it."

Ultimatum then responded to [member="HK-36"], "So long as you have your shields up the weapons should not be a concern. They are using ancient technology in that area. It seems that we are unable to identify any generator along the outside of the ship and it has some form of scanner protection. Unless some miraculous damage occurs you are going to hit the gravity well."

"May we fire sir?"

"Why not, one volley."

"Got it, one volley. Fire!"

The Sovereignty was not by any means a well armed craft. It was definitely enough to put a dent in most ship armors found in the galaxy. Thus, when the hail of fire struck the great ship, Ultimatum was surprised when nothing showed on its hull.

"No damage on enemy ship sir."

Ultimatum physically slouched as he heard the news. "HK, enemy ship is resis... to .... weapons. It's ... massive." The message began to deteriorate and HK on the other end would find the connection becoming unstable, a side effect of the Sovereignty entering deeper into the massive gravity field.

[member="WD-334"]

 

[WD-334]

WD-334 boarded the craft after being directed by [member="HK-36"]. To lead the charge, if the occasion ever occurred, felt like an honor. The ship was rather large, but WD had been on large ships before. Carrying it's large metallic shield in the clamp, the war droid moved to an area in the ship near where it had entered, waiting for the moment of when it would be able to board an enemy ship. The droid was prepared, it made sure of that. HK went off to the bridge, but WD did not follow. The droid decided to await orders and the sound of their arrival.

[member="Ultimatum"], [member="HK-36"]

 

[HK-36]

[member="Ultimatum"],

HK arrived on the bridge of the Tower just in time for Ultimatum's transmission to come through, garbled and choppy as it was,

"HK, enemy ship is resis... to .... weapons. It's ... massive."

"Chit."

The machine muttered,

"Whatever this ship they encountered is, it must be interfering with their transmission. Did you put the Tower on full speed ahead?"

"Yessir, I did."

The droid ensign responded to HK, older machine nodded,
"Alright."

Before opening up a channel to [member="WD-334"],

"WD, we are losing contact with the Artificial Sovereign, I want us to be on a transport to rendezvous with him as soon as we arrive, find the Knight of the Eclipse and make sure the Greycloaks prepared it for deployment, pick a few additional soldiers to go with us on this mission, we will be the spear head, do you copy?"

From what WD should know the Greycloaks were the copies of HK in grey chameleon cloaks, the machines that brought him from his derelict vessel to undergo repairs, and the Knight of the Eclipse was a stealth transport they would often use, sleek and as black in color as the void between stars. They shouldn't be too hard to find aboard the Tower.


Meanwhile, the frigate sailed through the hyperspace, although they would be arriving soon, Ultimatum was still left on his own to survive, at least for now.

 

[WD-334]

WD-334 gave a low toned bleep over the channel back to [member="HK-36"] in confirmation. Carrying it's shield, it made way for the Greycloaks to give a personal inspection of their readiness. They were already waiting by the transport, or at least some were. WD examined it's own weaponry before looking over their gear. Some of the weapons were rather unfamiliar to WD, of this age rather than the age it had come from. But surely they were just as effective, perhaps more so than it's own weapon. After close inspection, it was sure of itself that they were ready.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum could tell that the transmission was failing, he knew now that what he had managed to tell [member="HK-36"] was all that the droid would be able to work with. He had his own problems. Turning to look through the open bridge viewport, he gazed out onto the steadily growing ship. Once more he was struck by its sheer size. Certainly not as large as the gravity well suggested, but far larger than anything that could have missed news lines somewhere in the galaxy. If this ship had entered any star system and been noticed by local population it would have certainly made an impression. At least the droid assumed so.

"Sir, engine defense has found the pod. They say-" A moment of silence passed as the staff listened to the comms before continuing, "there's nothing in the pod. What, they found what looks like a datapad."

"Read it now."

"Okay. Read the datapad for the commander," she said before listening and beginning to reiterate what the datapad transcribed, "The message has been burned onto the datapad. It reads, 'Communication will cut out at a distance from the ship due to interference. Please prepare the ship for boarding. Opposition is ill-advised. Recommend shutting down engines."

Ultimatum listened and then tried to come up with a plan, formulate some sort of battle preparation. He looked to the weapon operators asking, "How well stocked is our armory? Could we defend against an incursion?"

"We might be able to hold for awhile, but our ammunition is limited. We have several Entropy rifles and maybe one or two of the Destroyer launchers, one of the squads I think took the Conflagration turret. If we have the time, we could begin manufacturing ammunition and weaponry as needed. I do not believe we can take a prolonged siege if it comes to that."

"Could we break out of the tractor beams?" Even as he asked, the droid began calculating the possibility of a forced hyperspace jump. The scan personnel concluded along the same lines as Ultimatum.

"We could try, but the ship might shred itself to pieces from the stress and if it didn't we would definitely lose engine functionality."

"Alright, not a good idea. See if we can't get the comms secured again."

"Already tried several times sir, nothing the interference is incredibly powerful. My guess is that the gravity well is affecting the ability of our communications to reach far enough. Maybe if we could shut off that generator."

Ultimatum was noticing an annoying reassurance on the gravity well generator. If that could be disabled the Sovereignty was free to escape, but until then it seemed he was trapped. What was worse was that his captors seemed to have an impenetrable ship and no way to damage the generator. It seemed that he would need to capitulate for the time being. "Power down engines. Prepare the crew for boarding, have the non-militant crew members take position in bunk rooms. All militant units prepare for ambush tactics starting in defensive positions. I shall go see to the invaders and see what can be done to convince our release. If that fails we need only wait for [member="HK-36"] to arrive with reinforcements." The droid did not wait for a response, instead excusing himself from the bridge and moving towards the main loading ramp. He hoped that the boarders would not shoot him on sight.

[member="WD-334"]

 

[HK-36]

[member="Ultimatum"], [member="WD-334"],


WD wouldn't have to wait around too much, or at least not too much by droid standards, before things would stir up into excitement once more as soon enough HK would emerge from the turbolift leading down to the hangar. The droid would be clad in his organic looking biot armor, shaped very much like the organic suits of the Vong, encumbered by his standard go to weaponry of two magnetic revolvers, lightsaber, a Spear of Rae, and collection of Anti-Force User grenades. Along with his standard loadout HK also grabbed one of the bowcasters his company made, a fusion of traditional bowcaster and a shattergun.

"Alright, everyone aboard, we are moving out immediately."

HK commanded as he stepped aboard the Knight of the Eclipse,

"But we are still in hyperspace."

One of the Greycloaks commanded,

"I am not going to waste any time, get the engines up and running."

"But-"

"Just do as I say, keep the mag anchors locked until my signal."

HK would then turn to look to WD,

"Stabilize yourself and better hang on to something."


There was a rising whir of engines then as the ship's thrusters powered up, sparking to life and heating up quickly, ready to thrust them forward.

"Hold it."

HK reminded as he was looking out of the viewport towards the force field doorway out of the hangar, blue tunnel of hyperspace swirling around them.

"Hold it."

He repeated, the whole transport begun to shake as the magnetic anchors were struggling at keeping them attached to the metal floor. Suddenly the blue swirl stopped and the void of space would form before them, solidifying into the star speckled view they would be used to.

"Now!"

HK gave a signal and they were all yanked back as the Knight of the Eclipse was catapulted forward, shooting out of the hangar.


From Ultimatum and the unknown ship's perspective, HK's vessel just materialized as it exited the hyperspace in a brilliant flash of light, elongating back into reality, and immediately some sort of transport ship was seen leaving their hangar before disappearing against the depressing inky blackness of space.

 

[WD-334]

WD saw [member="HK-36"] approaching, and knew it was time. Heading on board the Knight Of The Eclipse, WD-334 listened as HK barked commands to the Greycloaks. Hk's attention then turned to the War Droid, and the large droid did as told, placing the shield down momentarily to lock down on anything it could grab hold of with it's clamp-like hand. WD had no idea of knowing what exactly HK had planned, not until the plan itself was put into action. It felt the sudden pull as they exited hyperspace, then the droid almost fell back as the Knight Of The Eclipse lurched forward. It did not look to see [member="Ultimatum"]'s or the other ship, as it was trying to regain it's balance.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum was simply sitting back in his command chair and watching the ever growing ship slowly move closer and closer. When [member="HK-36"] arrived with his impressive show of piloting ingenuity, the droid smiled. Backup was here and should they fail they would be allies in the whatever came next. He turned to the comms officer asking, "Can we get communication with them?"

"Sorry sir, our comms still are not cutting through the interference. If what the captors say is true then that will be the case until one of us gets closer to each other. Until then perhaps physical signals?"

"Turn off all running lights." It was going to have to be old fashioned. Ultimatum hoped that 36 would know the ancient Morse code and he assumed that the crew aboard the massive vessel would be aware of his signals. "Comms officer dictate code to the lights: HK. Comms fail. Morse until close. Repeat." The droid watched as the lights of the bridge blinked in various intervals, hoping that it would make logical sense to his ally.


What HK and [member="WD-334"], once he regained his balance, would see through any viewport a massive vessel even from so far away thanks to the large gravity well. It would dwarf any ship in the galaxy at this time. Yet its curves and appealing smoothness. only broken by a few nodes, gave the the starship a gentle appearance, if not for the circumstances it might have been a wonder to behold. Scans of the ship would reveal only its outer shell, the sensors would show that the entire ship was solid inside or otherwise hollow. If they were looking at the Sovereignty it would be quite noticeable that entire ship's lights turned off and back on at intervals.


While the message was being sent, Ultimatum noticed that the Sovereignty was almost alongside the greater ship. That was the moment when he realized that Hangar doors had opened on the other vessel and that it had expansive hangars. It was large enough to engulf the Sovereignty entirely and still had room to spare for the menagerie of transports and fighters that lay within its doors. Something that he almost missed from the surprise of the size of the hangar was that there was not a single visible person inside the bay. No movement or surface betrayed anyone inside. Without even being asked the sensors officer reported, "Scans indicate no lifeforms inside the hangar and we still cannot see into the ship. Whatever sort of sensor jamming they have is beyond anything I have ever seen sir."

"Just one more oddity to add to this enigma."

 

[HK-36]

[member="WD-334"], [member="Ultimatum"],

The jolt of their transport being yanked forward caused the droids to suddenly grab onto something as they stabilized themselves quickly, the pilot unit in the cockpit being forced back against the chair he was occupying and the various weaponry clanked and jingled about as they were shaken in their compartments.

"Everyone alive?"

"We are not technically alive to begin with."

"You know what I mean."

HK looked back to WD to check if the larger droid was still standing and nodded to him seeing as he was still upright although trying to regain his balance.

"We are getting a message from the Sovereignty."

"Let me hear it."

"It is not in audio."

HK would move closer towards the cockpit to see what his pilot-copy meant, looking out through the transparisteel the old droid would see the lights of the Sovereignty turning on and off repeatedly.

"Ultimatum you clever queen."

He muttered as he recorded the blinking lights, translating them with his databanks.

"Looks like their comms are failing, send out a message to our ship if you can, let them know to stay back and keep in touch with the other Lords, and that our communications may fail as well."

"Yessir."

"And bring us closer in towards the Sovereignty."


And so, out in the darkness of space the Knight of Eclipse would push through towards Ultimatum's ship, and towards this unknown vessel, hopefully still hidden they would have been able to get close enough to board Ultimatum before he entered the mysterious hangar, otherwise the two vessels would just enter it together.

 

[Ultimatum]

As the Sovereignty was being dragged into the system, the tractor beams were slowing the ship in order to better manipulate it into the Hangar. This allowed the Knight to easily slip into the Sovereignty's hangar, which was remarkably empty. The few Awe fighters that saw quietly in their bays were lifeless and unmanned. The pilots had been ordered to evacuate to safer positions. Ultimatum had contemplated releasing the fighters into the enemy hangar in order to wreak havoc, but when no life signs showed the droid decided that it would be a wasted effort. When shuttle entered the small hangar bay there would at first be no signs of life, until two V-1s and a droid protector stepped into the open. The droid lifted a Destroyer launcher and aimed it at the landing shuttle while the two V-1s took positions behind small crates with minor blaster rifles trained on the entry way to the hangar.

[member="HK-36"] would probably recognize that the group was ensuring that no trickery was about. They had been without communication since the comm blackout that Ultimatum had put into effect in case the enemy ship could intercept the internal transmissions. Few aboard the Sovereignty knew to expect company, thus when the strange shuttle entered the ship, those three defenders that had taken up position were concerned that it was a boarding party. They were now glad that they had managed to enter the armory and obtain one of the Destroyers. None of them had used one of the launchers before, but according to the briefings that everyone had participated in it was a sight to behold. Personally, the droid wanted to see what a tightly packed ten pound baradium charge would do to what he assumed was a lightly armored transport. However, it knew that should he kill potential allies in the current crisis, Ultimatum would have it shipped off to one of the furthest stations from Mustafar. So the droid came to the conclusion that it should wait until positive identification of enemy intent, thus is waited with the dangerous end of the Destroyed pointed at the shuttle waiting for any sign of offensive action.

Ultimatum meanwhile had watched as the small shuttle rapidly advanced, probably aided by the gravity of the ship pulling everything towards it. He contemplated sending a message through the intercomm, but at the moment he did not want to be surprised with another piece of technology that he had not anticipated. He spoke to comms officer as he lifted himself from the command seat and began walking towards the doorway leading into the rest of the vessel. "I shall go deliver news of what we have thus far to HK, do not break comm silence unless every single star in the galaxy suddenly turns dark or an even bigger ship appears." With that he picked up his pace and began jogging through the ship towards the hangar bay. He wondered if HK knew anything about this strange vessel, or if there was some piece of information on it back on Mechanus in one of the many stores of data. If they made it out he hoped to look into that.

[member="WD-334"]

 

[WD-334]

WD bleeped a confirmation to @HK-36. The large droid had indeed fallen over halfway, having used it's shield to hold itself up. The shield had scratched a bit against the flooring. "This unit is still standing" was the war droids response. The 'message' that was coming through from [member="Ultimatum"], WD did not understand what HK had meant about it. The colossal droid, instead of asking, shifted itself to try and get a look at the two other ships. Ultimatum's, and the massive hulking ship by it. No doubt many enemies aboard it. It's gun spun up in some kind of excitement and anticipation for a moment, then stopped.

 

[HK-36]

[member="Ultimatum"], [member="WD-334"],


The Knight of the Eclipse jerked slightly again as it entered the Sovereign's hangar sneaking in with a smooth movement, circling slightly as it parked in the corner of the rather empty hangar quickly.

"Another smooth landing."

HK quipped as the transport's systems hissed, releasing excess heat probably build up from the burst of all the quick maneuvering, pushing its systems to the limit. The older droid moved back towards the armory then, picking up few boxes of ammunition,

"Take only what you can carry, try to go with different loadouts, if we will need more equipment or ammunition, Ultimatum should be able to provide us or we will just backtrack here."

The droid explained to them, taking out few magazines from the boxes he would toss them to WD, inside there would be metallic spike-shaped projectiles,

"We call these Droid-Killer bolts, they are meant to pierce most standard outer armor plates and droid hulls, embed themselves within inner systems and release ionic charges to disable them, bypass most standardized defenses out there like insulation or Farraday cages by breaking through them. If this ship is as old as I calculate, aboard we will find organics who slept in cryo caskets for so long their weapons will be useless against us, or they are all droids."

HK discussed quickly the special ammunition he wanted WD to take with him, of course grabbing some for himself as well, before picking up a couple of his usual heavy magnetic revolvers, a spear of rae along with his usual lightsaber, and a shattering bowcaster manufactured by ARGH, slinging the large crossbow onto his back, forcing his cloak to pin down against his back before he headed out for the airlock of the transport.

"And keep our stealth field up! If we will get company from this vessel aboard the Sovereign then I do not want to make our cache too obvious."

"Yessir."

The pilot Greycloak responded as he prepared to cool off and shut down most systems, outside of the ones that would keep them hidden, or as hidden as they could, before joining his brethren in preparing to face whatever misadventure awaited them this time. Meanwhile, HK stepped off from the ship, raising his hands up as he saw the three stalwart defenders sent to meet them.

"Relax, we are the reinforcements from other Metal Lords your Artificial Sovereign request. I am the Iron Lord Protector of Abregado Kingdom-Fleet, I brought my Greycloaks with me."

HK greeted the defenders just as the transport's stealth systems engaged once more and the sleek black vessel disappeared behind him,

"I believe Ultimatum expected me?"

Little did he know Ulti was already on his way, jogging through the corridors of the vessel.

 

[Ultimatum]

The defense droid hesitated for a moment, before nodding to the superior artificial. One of the organic soldiers spoke up, "Haven't had any message from Ultimatum as of yet. We didn't know help was coming. Pardon AU, this is first time we got hold of one of these..." The defender lowered his rifle just before Ultimatum entered the hangar. With a salute to [member="HK-36"] and another to Ultimatum the trio moved further into the hangar and left the two leaders to discuss the inevitable events.

As the Sovereignty was now within the expansive hangar of the strange vessel, Ultimatum could see all the more clearly the plethora of vessels that were of different construction eras. With the current situation as it was, Ultimatum skipped the cordial greetings, instead beginning, "Good to have you with us. So far no systems have been jammed or tapped as far as we can guess. Aside from a single pod that delivered a message, there has been zero contact from this ship. No signs of life or anything really. The ship has some form of scanner jammer the likes of which I have never seen before. So far this vessel has been quite the enigma. Do you have any history on it or anything in the Metal Lords databanks?"

There was a great racket as if the horns of a million worlds were suddenly blasting. The hangar of the mysterious ship suddenly began to close as the gargantuan doors slid home, sealing the bay. The sound of air filling the void of the hangar would have deafened all but the most hardy of listeners, but the Sovereignty's hangar shields absorbed most of the cacophony. Ultimatum was once more surprised, though this time he stayed silent with it. A ship with all these impressive technologies and yet it used the ancient airlock hangar systems. What could the purpose be of such a craft? Such inefficiency would either mean that the lack of shields were intended to save energy for the advanced equipment, or the decision was to create a more complete armor scheme. Either way, another piece of the puzzle had been dropped into the pile and the droid was still attempting to organize them.

[member="WD-334"]