It's good stuff, so I figured I'd share it with other afficiandos of science fiction:
Background: (or at least as much of it as I remember)
The conflict between the Western powers and the Eastern Bloc never ended as it did on our world, but extended out into space as both coalitions spread throughout Sol. It became increasingly apparent that the Allies' more or less owned Earth, the moon and the inner planets, but the Soviet forces managed to establish a colony on Mars, terraforming the Red Planet to be habitable to human life.
For the Soviets, the situation on Earth grew progressively worse; facing an untenable military situation on their home planet, they elected to emigrate en masse, falling back to Mars and rebuilding a new Union upon the Red Planet (rimshot), their goal to re-take Earth and return to their lost homeworld as liberators, or as conquerors - there is no difference now.
There's an open state of war between the two powers ; the Soviets basically control the entire outer star system (and have at least one vessel capable of FTL travel - it's implied that other ships can move FTL, but this is the only one where the ability is explicity stated), while the Allies have everything sunward of Earth, which is protected by a powerful planetary defence shield. Allied vessels are smaller and fewer in number, but are more technologically advanced and individually capable than their counterparts in Soviet fleet.
However, the Soviets aren't without advances of their own - i.e they don't have shielding technology, but they developed energy weapons capable of cutting through Allied shields. With more resources at their disposal, the Soviets have been grinding away at the Allies for decades - eventually only Earth is left behind its shield, with but a pair of carrier groups for protection.
And that's where the story ends.
Firstly, a quick look at some of the ships involved. Capital ships:
The Vostok Destroyer is the explicity-FTL vessel and the Soviets' most advanced ship; its drive is a gravitic system and its weapons modified versions of the same. That's all I remember about it.
Fighters:
Allied recruiting poster:
Allied Columbia carrier, thrashing somebody's ass:
Allied Grumman SF-119:
Allied Mitsubishi SF-14 "Firestar":
The Soviet name for it is an abbreviated scream and a burst of static followed by dead air.
Soviet Fleet beauty shot: "Beware, Cowards!"
Center: Krasnoi heavy cruiser; right-middle: October destroyer, right-top (and sprinkled all over): Flechette fighters; left-middle, all over: Foxhound bomber. left-left-middle, all over: Firestorm fighter; left-bottom: Lenin carrier
The Krasnoi and its specs:
Krasnoi profile:
An October Destroyer hunts amidst a cloud of nebular dust:
The latest addition to the Soviet fleet, the Akula hunter-killer:
Detail shot:
"Falling" - Coolhand says he envisions this as an Akula's main engines cutting out as it comes into land on Mars, the destroyer hurtling towards the Martian surface, its crew fighting to restore power, and doing so only moments before impact, a miles-long charred trail left on the red soil as it claws its way back into orbit:
Out near the edges of the solar system, an Akula pack searches for their next target:
Skirting through Saturn's magnetosphere, EM shields protecting the craft from the gas giant's lethal radiation belt:
"Predators". Self-explanatory:
The Foxhound bomber, backbone of Soviet commerce raiders and antiship operations:
"Contact" An Allied Raptor bomber's attempt at penetrating Soviet airspace is not entirely successful:
A Columbia carrier stands between a pair of Lenins; will its defiance carry it through the day, or will the Allies' final bastion fall before the might of the Soviet Navy?
I think bits and pieces of it have been linked and posted over the last couple years.
