Orbital 0 (Patreon)

Orbital
Prologue

-VB-

“They completely disappeared.”

“... What?”

“They disappeared.”

“Who disappeared, Commander Arnold?”

“The Hive Mind.”

Amme Lynch, Executive Security Division Mission Agent of the Gallente Federation Navy and twenty-year veteran of said navy, paused in her work. She looked up from her thin smartpad and resisted the urge to tilt her head.

“The Hive Mind disappeared?”

From her office in the Federation Navy Assembly Plant (one of many hundreds across Federation space) in the Uphallant system in the Placid region, Amme Lynch oversaw the Federation’s offensive - and occasional defense - against the encroaching Caldari State in the region, and the Hive Mind, an alliance of immortal capsuleers, have been her greatest ally in that endeavor for the last three years.

Unlike most capsuleer corporations and alliances across the New Eden galaxy, the Hive Mind proved itself to be an absurdly active group of capsuleers. Where most alliances would struggle to get a third of their members involved in whatever meaningless capsuleer alliance wars in the outer regions, the Hive Mind and its linearly growing member count would always be active and fighting together for whatever mission they had to accomplish.

It was how Gallente Federation managed to secure a huge chunk of the Placid Region against Caldari incursion in the previous two years; no other capsuleer alliance hired by either state could boast hundreds of actively fighting and communicating members. Even if a short-lived non-binding alliance of Caldari hired capsuleers managed to take a system from the Hive Mind, the unless and unrelenting attack by the Hive Mind would ensure that the said would return to the Gallente fold within twenty-four hours.

“Well, where did they go?” she asked him irritably.

Without the Hive Mind here to take control of the Placid Region (which they had been paid handsomely for), the contested region would become a chaotic battlefield for the foreseeable future. She needed to get in contact with Hive Mind’s CEO.

She tapped her smartpad and rang up Alan Marris.

No response.

“Huh?”

She tried again.

No response.

“That’s … impossible.”

There were many ways for an individual to find themselves in minimal communicative status. Those who lived in the wormhole spaces and other such places might find themselves completely disconnected from the local FTL communication network managed by CONCORD.

However, no capsuleer could be completely disconnected from the network because the network’s contact system operated on Quantum Entanglement, and all capsuleer clones had that installed as part of CONCORD’s international regulation.

She tried it with the Hive Mind’s second.

No response.

The third.

Anyone else?

No response.

She stared at her smartpad with a rapidly paling face.

She thought that the Hive Mind just left Placid because they were tired of being the king of the hill, but apparently, that wasn’t the case.

They had completely disappeared like Commander Arnold had just reported to her.

The Federation just lost track of two thousand capsuleers, a veritable armada, with more than a hundred members capable of operating one of the highest classes of interstellar spaceships.

Amme Lynch felt her stomach drop.

She and the Federation just lost track of two hundred pilots capable of piloting dreadnought class and carrier - and supercarrier! - class capital ships.

“Fuck.”

Ti-ri-ring~!

She jolted in her seat and looked down at her smartpad. It was a message. She had half a mind to not listen to it, but she did anyway. It could be from a client capsuleer or something.

When she opened the message, her jaw tightened.

“Talbe, what are you calling me for?”

Talbe, another high-ranking agent of the Federation Navy, sneered at her. “As much as it would make me laugh to withhold this information from you, I hold the safety of the Federation in a higher regard than our rivalry," the callous man with no regard for human rights replied to her demand and then sent her a file through the secured naval network. “But I want this channel open when you look at that video.”

Now a little wary, Amme nonetheless did; she opened it and her jaw slowly began to drop.

The video, supposedly taken yesterday if the time stamp at the bottom right had anything to say about it, showed the entirety of the Hive Mind fleet, sometimes called the Placid Swarm because of how and where they operated. Decked out in black and green, it was a sight to see, especially with their crown-like headquarter Astrahaus space station aptly named “Beehive."

But what made her react as she did with shock was not the fleet but what was in front of them.

Floating without any infrastructure nor natural phenomenon, a portal showing clearly what was on the other side of it sat quietly.

That portal … was not a wormhole. That wasn’t even an Abyssal Deadspace access point.

She watched with wide eyes delighted to see something new and innate curiosity that led her to become a federation agent in the first place.

Her eyes widened as more of the Hive Mind flew out of the space station, including multiple freighter class haulers. The fleet in the video did not look like an exploration or expedition fleet. She's seen plenty of those.

Her eyes widened as she recognized what was going on as the stream of ships leaving the space station didn't stop until the entirety of the alliance stood in front of the portal.

"Migration."

They were leaving.

She lost strength in her arms as the entire fleet of over one hundred frigates, five hundred cruisers, two hundred fifty battleships, forty-eight dreadnought, two supercarriers, and one hundred freighters poured through the portal.

And then the portal snapped shut close behind them.

A few seconds later, the space station darkened as the upkeep of fuel ran out.

They … weren't coming back, were they?

"You may need my help to reassert control over your region," Talbe grinned creepily.

She glared at him before taking a deep breath and nodding. "What do you want?" she snarled.

"Oh, I don't know.. that date I've been asking for the last two years?"

She blinked. "I thought you were mocking me."

".... ha?!"

Talbe and Amme would go on to have more than one date and two golden rings got involved in there somewhere, but alas, this story is not about them. Perhaps another time...

-VB-

"Lord Viceroy! A shuttle has arrived in the system!" a simple droid reported from its position in the Hyperwave signal interceptor.

Viceroy Nute Gunray hummed for a bit. "Does it match any specifications for Jedi spacecraft?"

"Roger roger."

"Incoming call."

Nute sighed. He was going to be taking a lot of heat for this.

"Accept the call."

Senator Palpatine's promise better be worth it.

While he and the Jedis talked on screen, another droid noted an anomaly on the crystalline gravitics sensor. Turning around, it waited to give the report.

However, the moment the call ended, the Viceroy gave out orders to all droids and it never got around to reporting it, merely logging the event in the ship's internal logs.

No other droid was assigned to take over the gravitics sensor because this was often the case with the outdated and normally unnecessary system for the Lucrehulk freighters, and so, no one caught a bigger and far more alarming update that did not even get recorded.

As the Jedis made their escape from the viceroy's grasp, the gravitics sensor recorded within its own software how the majority of the mass seemed to leave the system, but still, a significant portion remained.

No one noticed a mass shadow grow at the edge of a moon at the farthest gas giant.

The Jedis and the Naboo royalty fled the system, and still, no one noticed.

No one noticed them… until Padme Amidala and the Jedis returned.

Then they made sure to let her know that they were here.

-VB-

Tags: Interactive Worm CYOA v.6, self insert, Star Wars, EVE Online, multi cross

-VB-

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Who?, Scenario, Character, Shard, Point Conversion, Perks and Drawbacks, Powers, Oops / Setting, You, CYOA, Open All, Open All, May 8th, 2005, Reincarnation, 14 to 18 years old, Male, Male, Average, High School, Shard of the Warrior Entity, Queen, Wrathful, Blood Thirsty, Not-so-Gentle Push, +25 SP -50 CP, +2 SP -4 CP, +1 SP -2 CP, Cloak Mark II, Cloak Mark III, Trumped the Trump, Negentropy, Extended Range, Homecoming, Conscious Geas, Unconscious Geas, Poor, Slaughterhouse 8, Endbringer Target, Corona Pollentia, Orphaned, (Master) Hive Mind, (Mover) Door Me, Other World, Intruder Alert

Unconscious Geas: dominate
Conscious Geas: honest dealing