Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Playground Insults

The delegation peace talks were set to take place on a neutral planet not owned or controlled by any governmental body alien or otherwise GA, UNSC or ASF (Arcadian space force). This was easier said than done of course, since the Tesraki had a habit of claiming unused planets for industrial purposes, like mineral mining, and natural resource collection.

It was actually the Arcadia Deep Space Exploration Array (ADESA) that had discovered this planet. Yes, it was a surprise to literally no one that Adam had allocated a couple million dollars of Arcadia funds to build a big ass telescope. No one had argued with him on that front, but if they had, he wasn't sure what he would have done. The use of telescopes in this day and age were arguably pretty minimal. IN fact, they could travel faster than the time it took light to make it from one system to another, so it was easier, more efficient and more possible to just pop over to another system take a quick look around and then pop back.

However, it was easier to discover new habitable planets this way. Sure, they could have gone trolling the universe in the Empyrean, using the ships own built in systems to find other habitable worlds, but the Empyrean was not a science vessel, not like the Harbinger had been. Over the years Adam's ships had seen an increase in military upgrades.

The Enterprise, the first interstellar ship, had been equipped with no weapons whatsoever, for obvious reasons. Humanity hadn't exactly planned to run into any hostile alien life on their first mission interstellar. When The Harbinger was built, it did have a standard array of railguns, but it was understood that their primary purpose was to destroy any potential space debris that might interfere with the ship. Of course, if someone were to attack them they could certainly be used, but that wasn't the original idea. The harbinger had been equipped with more science equipment than it had weapons.

Their job was basically to travel the galaxy, look at cool space rocks, and do some diplomacy if they had extra time.

Those were the days.

Simple.

Safe.

Then conflict had arisen, they had issue with the burg and the Kree, and the Harbinger had been destroyed. Afterwards the Omen had been rebuilt from her ashes, rising like a metal phoenix, and the harbinger had been a science vessel sure, but she had been equipped for war. She had vrul shields, and celex weapons, which were in no way designed for anything but destruction and mayhem. There had also been a substantial increase in military operations aboard the ship.

And then he got ahold of the Empyrean.

Adam considered the Empyrean his ship, though In the long term it was more like borrowing. Honestly he was surprised the architect hadn't show up to take his ship back so he could use it in the war against light and dark. The Empyrean had no limit to the kind of power output she could handle. She was only as strong or as weak as the anima of her pilot, so Adam could only imagine what would happen if the architect took the helm.

And since the ship was designed to fight in the war of light and dark,, it wasn't much for science. \

It was ADSEA that found the planet, and then it was Simon, Piloting the Omen, who had gone to check it out. Adam had been a bit miffed that he wasn't the first person to step on a new alien planet, but he urged himself to calm down.

It didn't matter who was first, only that he got to go down to a cool new planet.

This was, of course, a primarily diplomatic meeting , but he certainly wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to look at cool space stuff.

Eris had accompanied him for this mission, while King James stayed behind to head the triumvirate in their absence. It wouldn't do to put all three leaders simultaneously in a dangerous position off world. One of them had to stay behind in case soemthing went catastrophically wrong.