July 23rd, 2555
HIMS Denvaria SD-08
Grand Admiral Erik Danvirson, Imperial Navy
At his age, there weren’t many things that surprised Grand Admiral Danvirson anymore, but this was certainly a new one for the books.
“There are how many ships currently cloaked in system?!” Danvirson wasn’t one to yell, but this was a special exception. After all, when was the last time you have 175,000 Cloaked Ships suddenly appear on Anti-Cloak Sensors this close to this many ships.
“Sir, We checked over and over again, each time confirmed about 175,000 Vessels currently cloaked.”
“And just how in the name of the Maker did it take this long for us to notice them approaching, they should’ve shown on long range AC Sensors!” The Denvaria, being the Imperial Flagship, had some of the best Radar and Sensor Systems in the entire Imperial Navy only second to dedicated EW Ships. Furthermore, this wasn’t exactly the first time Denvaria had seen Cloaking Tech, both Vulkan and Chr’Kahr had the tech, and by extension, so did Denvaria, even if limited to testing vessels and the Prowlers of Imperial Intelligence. But the Imperial Navy, in theory (it would be hard to tell if any other navy present had access to Anti-Cloak Sensors), should’ve been able to spot them way earlier, so why didn’t they?
“Sir, if I may, but there is a high probability that these ships have Cloaking Technology so advanced that they may have been able to hide themselves from our long and medium range sensors, only appearing when they approached our short range sensors, where it is far easier to detect.” The Science Officer, a Vulkan, theorized.
Whatever retort the Grand Admiral had was cut short by the simple, automated alert over the CIC’s Speaker’s.
“WARNING, SHIPS DECLOAKING, RANGE: CLOSE”
“Move us to Tactical Alert Yellow immeadiately and notify the Emperor.” Was the Grand Admiral’s sole response.
“Sir Yes Sir!” Was the general response that came.
Emperor Edward V of Denvaria
Things had been going rather well until now, when mere moments before everyone else began reporting massive amounts of ships, the Emperor had been warned of the enemy Armada that had all but shown up both out of nowhere, but clearly uninvited. Opinions of these ‘Dokavians’ further soured for the Denvarian’s after their demands and show of intimidation.
Because this had been seen before, when the Empire first made contact with the Chr’Kahr, when the Chr’Kahr murdered 32 diplomats and destroyed 2 Imperial Ships. It was that incident that not only started the war against the Chr’Kahr, but drove the Empire into isolation afterwards due to fears of other Starnations being just as barbaric as the Chr’Kahr. Clearly, this summit had largely done away with the fear that the rest of the sector was like the Chr’Kahr, but clearly there were still the exceptions to the rule, and the Dokavian’s were one of them. However, while Imperial Policy was clear regarding nations like these, the Dokavian’s had 140,000 more warships than the Imperial Fleet, and at maximum speed, Reinforcements from the Empire would be hours, if not days away. True an argument could be made that the Imperial Fleet may outgun the Dokavians, but ROE would be clear that firing first would make the Denvarian’s out to be as warmongerer’s, something the Emperor nor the Empire as a whole didn’t want, no, the Empire would have to wait for Dokavia to fire first.
Still, this was a bad sign of possible things to come, and the possibility still existed that the Dokavian’s would still just open fire regardless. Thus…
“Send Priority Zero Message to WarCom, Condition Alpha Echo is in effect.” The Emperor said to one of the Communication Specialists of the Imperial Guard contingent they had brought with them. Said Specialist’s Eye’s widened upon hearing the Emperor. Priority Zero had only been called a handful of times in Imperial History, and Condition Alpha Echo had last been in effect during the Chr’Kahr Conquest. The Specialist merely nodded and began contacting Warfare Command.
“The delegate of the Empire of Denvaria agrees with all current statements made by the other delegates. However, the Empire will make it known that we do not tolerate Intimidation of any kind, and will respond in kind should this go FUBAR.”