*Prologue*
The old Iowa II battleship Independence drifted silently through the system. Almost 50 years old and one of the first battleships made by humanity. It was made by the now existing only in name as most human nations these days even before the UN was refurbished.
Mission: Border patrol on a border which edged onto a lot of dead systems not suited for terraforming or even as a research posts or defense bases, the subspace corridors had been reading static since this listening post system had been set up roughly 40 years ago in preparation for the war they knew would come one day.
That was the reason that a battleship, even a near antiquated one by today's standards was set to such a usually trivial mission. The nine hundred meter long and blocky long ship had two huge turrets, one front one aft, and addition it seemed to be packed with missile tubes and dotted with multiple small turrets, most of them in ball turret mounts. It would look to anyone who'd ever seen star trek or star wars as very crude, but in all fairness most modern ships also held the same style. Ships were only sleek if they were meant to enter atmosphere. Around it were three destroyers. Lacking the ability to carry the big hellbores they didn't really have the firepower needed for damaging larger ships, They were death on fighters and missiles though, and they could smash other escorts as well easily enough.
It had taken humanity a few tries to make reverse engineered ships of their own, but the Iowa-IIs still possessed enough firepower to vaporize any ship smaller than cruisers in one salvo and to disable most ships cruiser and larger instantly as well.
However when the subspace corridors suddenly lighted up with signals much closer than they had expected anyone to be able to sneak up on them. Least of all those they had been expecting as they knew their technology inside out for the first thing, for the second since they should barely have started on the trip back with a reprisal fleet to go after the slaves which had risen up. Too bad they didn't know their former slaves had picked up a powerful ally along the way and the two species were now working in near unity to prepare for the war which would come.
The ship went to yellow alert. The signals didn?t match anything they knew off.
Keys were turned and their huge secondary missile bays were opened and heavy warheads prepared for missiles which would at best just tie up the enemy ships light guns a few minutes. The main batteries were the one weapon they had which could fight back. The massive reactors were even now heating up to full power Hellbore battery A and B.
Then the ships exited transits all around the ship. The signatures were like nothing like the alliance had ever seen before. They didn?t match any record in their admittedly limited database. The crew scrambled to get a hail out to the new aliens
The unknowns however had found what they were looking for and were sending their own response.
*Unknowns bridge*
"<Captain! I just confirmed it! All signatures, weapons, drive and reactor signature all are a perfect fit. The ship may not look like on of theirs, but it still is one of theirs.>"
"<Destroy it before it announces our presence!>"
*Space*
The Independence detected the energy spike and took the hit. The crew had never seriously expected to survive the first hit?.
They did. The shields were taken out, their engines were dead, half the defense guns were down and the reactors could go critical if they didn?t power down and all of their escorts were gone.
They used the brief reprieve well. Coms were jammed so they launched a message probe, the main guns fired on one target each, the missile bays were all emptied against another target. Then the second salvo hit home.
The BB HASS Independence Registry WS-6223 ceased to exist in a nuclear fury which made the 20th and first half of 21st century seem like children playing.
However it took three attackers with it.
The first two were taken out by the guns, the third ship seemed to react sluggishly to missiles. The enemy they thought they were fighting had never used missiles and their ships suffered from over optimization. It quite simply didn?t have any countermeasures. They opened fire wildly with their other guns at the last minute, but couldn?t score a hit on more than one, a few more missiles were stopped by jamming which while never intended to be used against missiles at short range had excellent capabilities in general, but the rest came through, it was vast overkill. The missiles were an old type as the newer missiles couldn"t fit, but the warheads were up to date.
The slightly weakened scout fleet rallied up and continued further in system. While not the enemy they were preparing to meet the alliance was facing its first true interstellar war.
Chapter 1: Opening moves.
Luna. The greatest shipyard in the alliance. It is also the greatest fleet base much out of need to protect this.
It has a population around 6 million. All concentrated around the fleet base and shipyard and supporting the people who work there. The yards are both on planet and stretch across the sky above half finished hulls visible even from this distance. The smaller groundside yards are putting out dozens of lighter destroyers and frigates.
The fleet base is surrounded by heavy shielding, long range missile tubes and massive hellbore turrets as well as enough lasers to knock most ships out of action from extreme range.
The base docks are filled with dozens of ships re-supplying and on leave or getting ready to leave.
And deep within a command briefing was about to start.
Several navy officers were filing into a large conference room. There was a general good mood and discussion about current events and the Olympic Games which would start in less than a month, and overall they weren't expecting that much to happen.
"Please be seated officers." Ladies and gentlemen might have been a better wording, but the intelligence officer had no idea how you referred to Arlas polite form male and female.
Those aliens larger than humans when they stood up fully they were about two and a half meter tall, but usually walked crouched and sometimes went down on fours to move fast. They were big, furry, and looked kind of like human bears, their snouts were nigger and their ears somewhat farther down to the side. And their red eyes and opposable thumbs destroyed any illusion that they were bears.
As they sat down on their specially made couches commodore Ryan made his way to the screen.
It was a fleet show after all.
"Good evening people glad you could all make it." He paused as the techs just out back finally got the screen working. Sure civilian grade computers are cheaper in jobs like this but they also crash way more often than should be legal.
"Approximately 20:00 hours yesterday one of our border patrol ships went overdue with its confirmation. At first it was believed to be a communications system. It is a refit system after all, but then less than an hour later one of our forward defense bases bases sent out an SOS which was abruptly cut off. The techs suspect jamming."
The shock that hung in the room was strong enough that you could almost touch it.
"The slavers couldn?t be back already! Could they?" An Arlas captain was asking.
"The best estimate is that it isn?t the Grias?" Grias; Also known as the slavers. A species utterly brutal and for whom other sentient species were either a threat in need of extermination or cheap labor force. Humans had been marked for extermination, but the Arlas rebellion had saved humanity before they even knew intelligent life in space actually existed. He continued.
"First as you mention they can't have gotten back so soon in force and they are smart enough to realize that hitting us fast will only help to get us ready for when their main force arrives in fifty years or so. Secondly it?s too far off from their expected angle of attack for them to have made it there in time even if they did?.." The screen switched to show the expected attack route with several friendly fleet bases along the way.
"This second thing however means that our fleets are out of position and unable to counter it fast." The green symbols lightened up a bit. Then it was zoomed out to show the distance involved for the fleets.
"On the flip side our wish for strategic dept has paid off. They are three systems away from any of our inhabited systems and with so many different uninhabited systems to pick from we should have time to shift our fleets around to keep them at bay?."
What he was saying was well known, but after the shock of being attacked in the first place by unknowns he meant they needed time to recover. Now was the time to come back on track.
"However, to counter these unknowns we need info. That is where your new battle group comes in. Your ships have all been picked among the fastest ships currently in the solar system. Your job is to get the fleet the information it desperately needs, and if possible resolve this peacefully."
He paused for a second before continuing.
"While the media will have a field day resolving this peacefully is NOT the primary objective. Make no mistake. Everything implies they came out of nowhere and blasted our ships offhand. If we can communicate and negotiate that?s well and fine, but if they aren?t willing to it?s more important to get in the first shots. Your primary objective is to get hard data on these people back to us without letting them trace you right back into our space. The secondary objectives are to recover any survivors from our base and ship and to hurt the enemy."
Everyone was careful not to note what the media would have whip up a panic with when they got the story. How these people may just be too powerful to fight, media and civilians had never been good at grasping the fact that surprise was the most powerful weapon in existence.
"Okay. That is all. I want all your ships in space within 5 hours and enroute to the front."
The commanders stood up and got ready to leave. The cheer was gone and a rock hard determination had taken it?s place. The Human-Arlas alliance had been preparing for war since the papers were signed, and while not from the opponent they expected it looked like it had arrived at last.
Whoever they were they were about to find that the alliance was tougher than they could possibly predict.
Comments? Suggestions?
Got two more chapters written down I'll post as soon as I have some feedback.
Trial of the Alliance (Working title)
Moderator: LadyTevar
-
CaptainChewbacca
- Browncoat Wookiee
- Posts: 15746
- Joined: 2003-05-06 02:36am
- Location: Deep beneath Boatmurdered.
It reads very... young. Writers tend to stay away from "a lot" and similar phrases. I would recommend getting a proofreader and/or editor to make things more clear. I'd volunteer to help, but I'm about to leave on an expedition.
Here's an example:
And welcome to SD.Net.
If a mod thinks I'm an asshole, delete this post.
Here's an example:
You Wrote
That was the reason that a battleship, even a near antiquated one by today's standards was set to such a usually
trivial mission. The nine hundred meter long and blocky long ship had two huge turrets, one front one aft, and
addition it seemed to be packed with missile tubes and dotted with multiple small turrets, most of them in ball turret
mounts. It would look to anyone who'd ever seen star trek or star wars as very crude, but in all fairness most modern
ships also held the same style. Ships were only sleek if they were meant to enter atmosphere. Around it were three
destroyers. Lacking the ability to carry the big hellbores they didn't really have the firepower needed for damaging
larger ships, They were death on fighters and missiles though, and they could smash other escorts as well easily
enough.
I'm not doing this to be mean, but see the difference? Try to use fewer words, the wordiness of it slows down the flow of the story.
I would write
That was the reason that a battleship, even one as old as this, was set to such trivial mission. The nine hundred meter long, blocky had two huge turrets, one fore and one aft. In addition, it was virtually packed with missile tubes and studded with dozens of small turrets all along its length. It looked very blocky compared to the old science-fiction holos of old Earth, but ships were only sleek and streamlined if they were pleasure ships or if they were meant to enter atmosphere. The Iowa II was designed by the lowest bidder. Around the behemoth were three destroyers, which while lacking the ability to carry the big hellbores and the firepower needed for damaging larger ships, were death on fighters and missiles, and could smash most escorts vessels without much effort.
And welcome to SD.Net.
If a mod thinks I'm an asshole, delete this post.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
Meh. I posted it here as well as on SB because I felt I didn't get any actual feedback on SB. I know it's not that well written. The entire story is more of a learning experience.
Thanks for the tip. I'm taking into account farther down and if I bother to rewrite the chapters I already have finished.
Edit: Adding chapter 2 as well. No need to spam when I can do both in one.
Chapter 2:
Smoke hung heavy in the air, guns could still be heard, but it was becoming more sporadic.
The base had been much tougher than expected. As with most alliance listening posts it had been well armed and shielded, but against a determined fleet it had stood no chance. It only had 40 people serving on it. 3 of which were Arlas the rest was human. Only 10 people were still alive and fighting back desperately. Only about a dozen had been actual soldiers and they were all dead.
They had managed to destroy all the databanks and were now only concerned with surviving and escaping.
The base had locked down and compartmentalized so the attackers had to burn through innumerable bulkheads to get into the base, most of which was empty.
"How's the status on their progress? Any chance we can break out?" Mitch O'Donnell was one of the few survivors who had proper training in using weapons, just too bad this base only had light weapons such as the light gauss rifle he was holding. A hetblaster would really turn the tables in such a fight, but as it was so far from the predicted front it was considered more important to make sure any accidental misfires didn't smash up important equipment.
"Not a chance Mitch. They control all accesses to the landing bays and teams are as we speak heading in this direction." Trok was an Arlas technician. And probably the only Arlas still alive in the base.
The third and last person in the compartment was Linda Mayers, communications specialist.
The sudden increase in temperature however was a telltale sign that they were about to catch a glimpse of the unknown attacker.
Mitch got down in a crouch ready to repel the attackers as best he could. That was when the door exploded open with a force to knock him down and send the rifle clattering along the floor.
The two meter tall creatures stood there for a second surveying the compartment with their eerie green eyes.
They were covered in black scales and had tails much like a lizard's tail, but their body build looked somewhat like an insect, mantis to be precise. It didn't look exactly like one less spindly, but the resemblance was striking. It's hands had only three fingers, but opposable thumbs The green eyes without pupils made their gaze very disturbing, but on their otherwise smooth heads the jaws were what got attention, There was two main parts, the inner was about human size if it looked less flexible in movement, they had two small mandibles to help take the food in apparantly, but the really scary thing was the huge claw like jaws in front of that. They were huge. More than large enough to hold a grown man, and they looked both sharp and strong.
Mitch however was from one of the higher G worlds and hence had better than average reflexes. Grabbing some debris which was hot enough to seriously burn his hands, but right now in the heat of the moment he didn't notice as he hit the first alien hard enough to knock him back seemingly injured. His heavy weapon clattered along the floor into the corridor the aliens had come from.
Mitch moved to take on a second alien when it grabbed him with his jaw.
There was a terrible scream...
There was a sick cleaving noise...
And a meaty thud as his lower body fell on the floor.
The Alien with rifle in hand advanced on Linda holding it threateningly with blood dripping from the Jaws not having seen or ignoring the Arlas to his right. That was his last mistake.
An Arlas are adapted to a 2G enviroment. In addition they are about the strongest creature on their world top of the food chain even without the intelligence which is almost on par with humans. Even with the Grav difference taken into account they are still incredibly strong compared to any terrestrial animal. And fast. Not as fast as a Terran Cheetah, but fast enough to keep up with most cars on the road. And right now Trok was pissed.
He hit the alien going about 50kph and slammed him up against the wall full force. The cracking of just about every bone within area of impact was sickening even after what the alien had just done. While releasing a roar which made everyone within earshot take a step back in pure fear he turned and smashed one of his huge hands HARD down on the Alien on the ground! The thud and crack made it obvious he wasn't alive anymore.
The last of the trio of aliens opened fire as Trok turned on him. Several rounds from the pulserifle ripped into him and exploded, but the rifle had been designed for injury, not for kill. Trok ignored the pain charging forward and managing to keep balance even with all the bleeding wounds on him, but losing speed. Stumbling forward he reached him, grabbed each of his jaws. And pushed hard! There was a ripping noise! And then they came free! An alien shriek filled the air going in competition for the merely human screams from Linda and the roars from Trok. Alien blood with it's usual red color, but very unnaturally thick consistency spurted forward from the gaping would as Trok punched and put down the Alien permantly.
As he stood there looking like he was about to fall another team rounded the corner and one of them carrying their heavy weapons hit him with a laser pulse powerful enough to cook his blood and brain instantly and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
The new alien team turned their attention on the last human survivor. In her now cationic state due to the trauma she offered no resistance. They had another prisoner to interrogate back on their ship as soon as they cracked the language. Then they would find the locations of their nearest inhabited world and move their fleet against it.
They now knew that these people were not the enemy they were seeking, but merely another obstacle which with a little effort could be turned into a lever. They were obviosly connected with their enemy the Grias somehow, but how didn't matter. The enemy of their enemy is their enemy's enemy nothing more nothing less. And the resources and labor force would be a boost for their war efforts. There was no species the equal of theirs after all.
Everyone else was merely obstacles to be removed or turned into aiding them. These two species would be no different.
Thanks for the tip. I'm taking into account farther down and if I bother to rewrite the chapters I already have finished.
Edit: Adding chapter 2 as well. No need to spam when I can do both in one.
Chapter 2:
Smoke hung heavy in the air, guns could still be heard, but it was becoming more sporadic.
The base had been much tougher than expected. As with most alliance listening posts it had been well armed and shielded, but against a determined fleet it had stood no chance. It only had 40 people serving on it. 3 of which were Arlas the rest was human. Only 10 people were still alive and fighting back desperately. Only about a dozen had been actual soldiers and they were all dead.
They had managed to destroy all the databanks and were now only concerned with surviving and escaping.
The base had locked down and compartmentalized so the attackers had to burn through innumerable bulkheads to get into the base, most of which was empty.
"How's the status on their progress? Any chance we can break out?" Mitch O'Donnell was one of the few survivors who had proper training in using weapons, just too bad this base only had light weapons such as the light gauss rifle he was holding. A hetblaster would really turn the tables in such a fight, but as it was so far from the predicted front it was considered more important to make sure any accidental misfires didn't smash up important equipment.
"Not a chance Mitch. They control all accesses to the landing bays and teams are as we speak heading in this direction." Trok was an Arlas technician. And probably the only Arlas still alive in the base.
The third and last person in the compartment was Linda Mayers, communications specialist.
The sudden increase in temperature however was a telltale sign that they were about to catch a glimpse of the unknown attacker.
Mitch got down in a crouch ready to repel the attackers as best he could. That was when the door exploded open with a force to knock him down and send the rifle clattering along the floor.
The two meter tall creatures stood there for a second surveying the compartment with their eerie green eyes.
They were covered in black scales and had tails much like a lizard's tail, but their body build looked somewhat like an insect, mantis to be precise. It didn't look exactly like one less spindly, but the resemblance was striking. It's hands had only three fingers, but opposable thumbs The green eyes without pupils made their gaze very disturbing, but on their otherwise smooth heads the jaws were what got attention, There was two main parts, the inner was about human size if it looked less flexible in movement, they had two small mandibles to help take the food in apparantly, but the really scary thing was the huge claw like jaws in front of that. They were huge. More than large enough to hold a grown man, and they looked both sharp and strong.
Mitch however was from one of the higher G worlds and hence had better than average reflexes. Grabbing some debris which was hot enough to seriously burn his hands, but right now in the heat of the moment he didn't notice as he hit the first alien hard enough to knock him back seemingly injured. His heavy weapon clattered along the floor into the corridor the aliens had come from.
Mitch moved to take on a second alien when it grabbed him with his jaw.
There was a terrible scream...
There was a sick cleaving noise...
And a meaty thud as his lower body fell on the floor.
The Alien with rifle in hand advanced on Linda holding it threateningly with blood dripping from the Jaws not having seen or ignoring the Arlas to his right. That was his last mistake.
An Arlas are adapted to a 2G enviroment. In addition they are about the strongest creature on their world top of the food chain even without the intelligence which is almost on par with humans. Even with the Grav difference taken into account they are still incredibly strong compared to any terrestrial animal. And fast. Not as fast as a Terran Cheetah, but fast enough to keep up with most cars on the road. And right now Trok was pissed.
He hit the alien going about 50kph and slammed him up against the wall full force. The cracking of just about every bone within area of impact was sickening even after what the alien had just done. While releasing a roar which made everyone within earshot take a step back in pure fear he turned and smashed one of his huge hands HARD down on the Alien on the ground! The thud and crack made it obvious he wasn't alive anymore.
The last of the trio of aliens opened fire as Trok turned on him. Several rounds from the pulserifle ripped into him and exploded, but the rifle had been designed for injury, not for kill. Trok ignored the pain charging forward and managing to keep balance even with all the bleeding wounds on him, but losing speed. Stumbling forward he reached him, grabbed each of his jaws. And pushed hard! There was a ripping noise! And then they came free! An alien shriek filled the air going in competition for the merely human screams from Linda and the roars from Trok. Alien blood with it's usual red color, but very unnaturally thick consistency spurted forward from the gaping would as Trok punched and put down the Alien permantly.
As he stood there looking like he was about to fall another team rounded the corner and one of them carrying their heavy weapons hit him with a laser pulse powerful enough to cook his blood and brain instantly and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
The new alien team turned their attention on the last human survivor. In her now cationic state due to the trauma she offered no resistance. They had another prisoner to interrogate back on their ship as soon as they cracked the language. Then they would find the locations of their nearest inhabited world and move their fleet against it.
They now knew that these people were not the enemy they were seeking, but merely another obstacle which with a little effort could be turned into a lever. They were obviosly connected with their enemy the Grias somehow, but how didn't matter. The enemy of their enemy is their enemy's enemy nothing more nothing less. And the resources and labor force would be a boost for their war efforts. There was no species the equal of theirs after all.
Everyone else was merely obstacles to be removed or turned into aiding them. These two species would be no different.
-
Prozac the Robert
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1327
- Joined: 2004-05-05 09:01am
- Location: UK
As you ask it will be delivered:Prozac the Robert wrote:I'm interested. More please.
Chapter 3: Contact.
*Luna*
Naval Intelligence Lieutenant Christopher Berg went over the data again. Sparse as it was it was the only data they had on the unknown attackers.
Naval intelligence was a very new branch following the recent intelligence restructuring a few years ago when the current services had been found less than optimal given that they retained national loyalties. Nationalism died hard he reflected. The colonies had all but abandoned their old terra nationalities, but the same wasn't entirely true for Earth itself. A lot of groups refused to abandon the policies, but the result was that Navy intel had relied near exclusively on more newly trained people out of the acadamy. As an organization this weakened it quite a bit, but they had expected to have a few decades to iron out to the problems. No such luck.
Christopher was one of the better ones in the current batch and had been recruited for personal staff of Admiral McCormick, the officer in charge of the entire Sol system navy and effectively commander in chief of the Alliance navy. It had seemed like a sweet assignment at first, but now it was a lot worse. McCormick had used the confusion on the assignments of Na-Int to cut down on some posts. He was also acting as Liason to the media and the politicians.
He shuddered at that thought, most of them were okay, but there were a few who he really didn't think could be classified as either human or arlas. He had developed a liking for both species after having grown up around them.
Hopefully he should have some additional data to analyze as soon as the recon force they had sent out finished their mission. In the meantime he had the responsibility to keep this under wraps until they had any idea what to say to civilian authorities. Hopefully he would have to do it short enough that his current excuse to the civies, that he just didn't get it out that fast, was still valid. But he was willing to bet his entire year's wage that it wouldn't be that easy.
*Frontier system*
Space warped! Out of nowhere about two dozen smaller vessels faded in. The alliance scout group had arrived.
Sensors went to maximum passive, shields were ready to go up on moments notice, and armaments were ready.
The Area was clear, the attacking aliens had not predicted their arrival.
Subspace corridors were not that correct a description and was apparently based on the very early days of understanding of subspace.
Subspace was also more of a catch term. In effect it was a field that was predominant everywhere there was little gravity, and which if done correctly could be jumped into and move faster than light at extreme speeds crossing light-years in minutes. The name had been from the fact that it seemed the underlying fabric of the universe. The corridor thinking came from the fact that once you had dived in you couldn't turn. Nor could you drop out until you hit another gravity well. Gravity didn't erase subspace, but It twisted it in a way that meant you were immediately reverted to realspace when you hit the border between them. You could jump within a system at less speed, but only to the edge were you automatically were reverted. And reverting manually was inaccurate due to the mind-boggling speeds. Interstellar subspace jumps had to be plotted carefully so you hit another well. Or else you might in theory keep going between galaxies until you hit the edge of the universe.
As of now the task force had hit perfectly and immediately began plotting a mini-jump to get closer to the base, as such a jump was too inaccurate to allow jumping into point blank range they rather made sure to keep safe distance to ascertain the situation.
Commodore Ryan was in charge from the Firestrike class battlecruiser Starfire and the current order was to approach with caution.
"Sir. We have started remote download of the log of our outpost. It doesn't look good."
"How bad is it lieutenant?"
"The base appears to have been infiltrated by their troops and there isn't a single human or Arlas lifesign detectable within the base anymore. And the logs report a lot of weapons fire."
"Damn. Give them the communications package we have prepared." He turned to his flag captain. "If there is no response at all start the attack." A pair of affirmatives followed that order.
The package was a special first contact transmission put together for the time they would encounter another space-faring species. They had known it was coming sooner or later, but the response wasn't very encouraging: The obviously computer generated voice was able to be understood, but it wasn't pleasant to listen to.
"This is the envoy of the Estauri Empire. You are ordered to power down and surrender immediately. This is a general order to all alliance military and civilian personnel. Failure to comply will result in immediate execution. You have two minutes to comply."
There was silence in the command bridge...
"Your order commodore?"
"Nail them."
The ships hadn't bothered to slow down and already had considerable speed, but now they kicked their engines up to full power and they accelerated like bats out of hell. The Estauri were caught by suprise as the alliance vessels unleashed the missiles placed externally specifically for this mission to test them. They opened fire at long range using data from the last fight to hit what they expected to be slow and near useless weapons if the target had any warning only to find that these missiles were both more maneuverable and mounted better ECM. They nailed a few of course, but most came through and with their gigaton range warheads blew apart several of their ships, even better was the fact that their missiles had homed in on emissions independently of the firing ships computers, and hence the command ship doing the talking was the obvious target and the ship with the "envoy" blew apart in a spectacular nuclear fire.
The bad news was that the loss of chain of command seemed not to faze them at all and the response was quick and efficient. Their long range beam weapons spoke out against the Alliance and a Spacewolf class destroyer was blown into large fragments by over a dozen beam hits. Their weapons were obviously some sort of particle beams, but not one the alliance had seen before.
Well they were able to fire back. The alliance ships lasers spoke at extreme range. At this range it took a couple of seconds between weapon firing and weapon impact, but as it was considered a secondary weapon it didn't pack the punch to take out enemy ships on a one for one and several ships had to target a single enemy vessel to take it down. This would usually not be so bad, but this time the alliance was outnumbered almost 6 to 1 by this force.
They were getting closer, the enemy beams were coming closer to striking accurately in the high ECM squadron of ships, but so far they only managed the occasional glancing hit and the squadron was due to it's exceptional speed almost in range for their main guns.
Range! The railguns and hellbores spoke at extreme range, to begin with the fusion bolts from the hellbores did little damage as they dispersed too fast, but they did damage, the few sparse plasma guns the older arlas ships mounted were still out of range.
Hence it was a real shock when the Estauri ships started landing plasma exploding like flak somehow within their formation at this range. It wasn't very able to do damage, plasma tended to do good against shields, but their armor piercing abilities sucked hard. The damage they caused was minimal, but it wasn't possible to fire plasma over this distance without dispersal! Not that they really cared. Both Arlas and human designers used a lot of armor precisely because the Grias had a like of plasma weapons.
Burning retros at full power the human fleet decelerated straight into the enemy fleet. Most of their Hellbores were fixed on such small ships and they needed to be able to fire them long enough. The enemy weapons were really hitting home now too, a fourth of their force was already gone.
At this range however despite their inferior numbers the advantage in weapons was obviously belonging to the alliance as for every ship that went down around three went down for the Estauri. The Alliance was now in the midst of the enemy fleet and released their last package: Self-homing mines which left the fleet desperately trying to dodge out of the way of the attacking mines.
The alliance fleet immidiatly engaged their subspace drives and left range while one of the mines automatically homed in on the facility on planet to prevent the enemy from getting more from it than they already had.
The battle was over with no clear winner, both sides had gained a lot of information and now it came down to who could put it to use the fastest. The price had been high. Over half the alliance ships detailed in the strike were gone, Including the Starfire with all hands. The Estauri fleets had lost a similar tonnage, but they didn't consider it a significant loss. The main force was holding in the system they had come from waiting for the data of which system to approach. The losses here were just a drop in the bucket.
And while the attack had been going on they had finally got one of the prisoners to give them what they wanted. The fleet dropped out of the subspace corridors into the system. It wasn't a probe anymore. It was now an all out invasion.
-
Prozac the Robert
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1327
- Joined: 2004-05-05 09:01am
- Location: UK
If only it was this easy to get more fanfic from everyone.As you ask it will be delivered
I'm hoping you have a story planned out, because it would be a shame of this sort of trails off. (The main reason I haven't tried anything yet is that I'm not sure I could finish it.) Still, some people are good at making it up as they go along. If you are good at that instead I'm hardly going to hold it against you.
Be careful with the infodumping. The bit on subspace is breaking the flow of that section section up a bit much I think. Feel free to ignore me of course.
And write more sometime? I'd like to read it.
Hi! I'm Prozac the Robert!
EBC: "We can categorically state that we will be releasing giant man-eating badgers into the area."
EBC: "We can categorically state that we will be releasing giant man-eating badgers into the area."
Finally an update here on this fic.
Chapter 4
How did I get dragged into this? Berg was currently sitting on the bridge of one of the capital ships that had departed Lunar to rally near colony 3 affectionately called Elysium by its settlers.
Other fleets were sending forces as well, but before they knew the extent of the enemy they dared not weaken the defenses in other directions too much as they didn't want to get caught off guard if they were able to go around and hit them from another direction.
And the Admiral had wanted some eyes he trusted completely on the scene that was also smart enough to be useful and would keep himself back. Unfortunately the only one who fit that bill was him. Intelligence analysts could always do the job better up close, but this time it was different. He had seen the recordings recovered by remote from the base and in addition to the analysis he had given the admiral he had also come with a private conclusion. It just had to be bugs!
He hated.bugs, currently the unofficial slang for the Estauri was Buglizards. Personally he didn't mind the lizard part, but the bug part made him want not to be nearer than he had to when they had guns and starships.
A Firestrike was not a bad ship. At least not the Mark III he was currently aboard. The Starwasp itself was just out of the yards just as its officers were out of the academy. He glanced over at Captain Jennifer Mattson. She was in her mid/late twenties and pretty average looking. She probably had never really served as an officer on any ship at all. They were churning out ships far faster than they could train officers to man them. They had a large plan to have the military ready about a decade before they expected to see fighting and it had been considered more important to have the hardware done if they could make it than to make sure it was manned at the same rate as long as it was finished and balanced when the Grias arrived.
It was only a few days after the first few incidents. And apparently the Estauri were moving straight towards Elysium. Not that fast, but the first scout ships had been spotted on the fringe of the system, so far they had all been chased off before they could get any reasonable distance in system by the fleet elements in system. Even so the readings an heavily industrialized planet made were unmistakable and they had to assume the attackers knew it was there. The problem was that while they now had a better idea of their tactical capabilities their strategic capabilities were still unknown.
"Clearance to enter the defense zone is granted captain."
"Good Ensign. Helm plot us a course to our designated squadron."
The quick exchange pulled him out of his thoughts on the aliens and onto their own situations. The fleet surrounding the planet wasn?t massive by alliance standards, most of the ships assigned to this front were divided into task forces with search and destroy actions in mind. Search or conquer if they found any inhabited enemy worlds and not just outposts.
"So lieutenant... What do you know about these aliens?"
"What? Oh. Not as much as I?d like given that I'm supposed to brief the commanding officers here."
The captain mentally shook her head. Typical intelligence, dancing around the issue even when they were going to tell them just a few minutes later.
The sudden blaring of alarms came completely unexpected.
"Report!"
"Enemy ships detected and closing fast. Roughly 200 ships all lighter and faster vessels." A baffled sensor operator
"That means we actually outnumber and out mass them?" The implications was that if this was their attack force it was pathetic as they needed multiple ships just to bring down the shields of a cruiser. Much less a battle cruiser or battleship.
"The orders from the flag will be to hold our position at the far side of the planet and let the defenses do the fighting."
"So the passenger knows the battle plan, but the captain doesn't. Am I the only one seeing something wrong with this image?"
Chris ignored the not so subtle hint to tell her just what the plan was. He had orders not to risk any leaks and he wasn't taking any chance by telling anyone with lower rank than a flag officer until the time was ready. Of course she couldn't know he had gotten it delivered already just by entering the system as the com system had been rigged for one tight beam burst transmission to the flagship and then erasure of the data.
"They are approaching laser range for our forward screen. They should open fire about... Now!"
The screen didn't fire. It fell back!
"What the hell are they doing!?"
"Following orders I think." Berg injected. She looked at him clueless for a second until realization hit.
"You got the orders away already! Just how did you do it?!"
"If I told you I wouldn't be able to pull it off later."
"I'll get you for this I swear."
Her eyes were angry. He suspected that was as much anger due to him going over her head like that as well as frustration for being denied her usually very aggressive style of fighting in space. She was one who favored speed, firepower and hitting where it hurt. Not sitting still and waiting, but going out and hit, hard and crippling.
He could get himself to respect someone like that alright.
"Skipper we are being ordered to fall back to the far side of the planet in silent running mode."
"These plans are completely retarded. What do they expect to accomplish?"
"I suggest you watch and learn captain."
Mattson switched the omni-console in front of her to sensors and took a look at energy readings only. The defense stations were almost completely powered down, but ready to go up fast. They wouldn't stay hidden long enough for a complete surprise attack even so.
"The enemy is approaching range of the planetary defense lasers."
That was when things started to happen.
Lasers are powering up skipper!" her tactical officer exclaimed
She blinked. That was unexpected given their actions so far. And right then 26 of the 58 lasers around the planets spoke as one and the rest of the lasers started maneuvering to get around the planet to shoot as well. A full 13% of their force died.
Defense lasers are huge things. In theory getting a laser on par with their hellbore batteries was just to put enough power into the emitter, but no emitter for laser made by man could handle it in a small enough frame to be practical. These lasers each matched a single turret of the newer Jupiter battleships at 1.4 Teraton, but each of them was far more massive than the entire ship which had 6 turrets at that firepower, and that was without taking power source into account! They expected to get it smaller, but not within several decades at least. However it had far greater efficiency. Hellbore bolts lost power over distance. Lasers didn't. Hence these hit full force no matter the distance as long as no atmosphere started dissipating it. And that meant every Estauri ship it hit died.
And 5 seconds later they fired again and even more died.
"This too easy."
"You are correct captain. And it means analysis guessed correct." He didn't mention that he was the one who had analyzed it.
The lasers were really knocking them down now. They were almost eradicated.
"Second wave incoming."
Mattson was beginning to understand the bare bones of the plan now. And she didn't really like it, but she conceded in her mind that it could work.
The next wave jumped in much closer. Well within effective missile range and the Automated Launch Vehicles (ALV) launched from the planet unloading their lethal cargo in orbit of the planet towards this much greater wave of ships.
They started dying as well, but this time their particle beams were firing back and the massive lasers couldn't dodge and weave like ships. A couple went down under the power being directed at them, but they had very powerful shields and could absorb quite a bit of punishment.
"All ships. Move towards and engage the enemy." Came over the com. Mattson nodded at her helmsman and the StarWasp accelerated towards the enemy outpacing some of the slower ships, but deliberately holding back as to not hit the enemy fleet unsupported. The planet as well as the massive energy discharges from the planetary defenses obscured them long enough to round the planet and be a significant part of the way even before they were picked up. And by then it was too later.
Their missile racks flushed to give them some covering fire to divert enemy guns and it worked flawlessly. They had never faced actual units of the wall. And while they didn't have any of the new Jupiters they had plenty of older, but nowhere near obsolete battleships who were a match for any dozen of the enemy vessels. They dominated the fields of battle. They were the ships no enemy here could hope to match.
The classical ground warfare had always been dominated by the infantry who could take and hold ground, but space was the battleships dominance. Ships able to absorb anything but a short range barrage of hellbores took nearly twenty of the enemies larger cruiser analogs to have any effect on them and closer to sixty of the destroyer and frigates that were the majority of the force.
But there were so many of them. And they were fast and had better range on their heavy if quite weak by alliance standards weaponry.
Even so they were winning and there was nothing they could do about it. Seemingly...
"The third wave should jump in any moment now."
"Third wave?"
Much farther out at the edge of the system several ships materialized. The enemy reserve. Point blank into the last force they had placed there after the main attack force went in.
This battle was as good as won. At least it would been if not for the last surprise nobody could have predicted.
A large battleship sized object jumped in point blank. And detonated. A massive explosion shredded several dozen ships on both sides. Another jumped in. And another. Each one detonating and decimating both fleets at the systems edge.
Then another completely unexpected force jumped in flanked by several of these big missiles.
They had been surprised yes, and were going to commit the force they had dedicated to take several worlds to take one sure, but they could still win here.
The missiles jumped again... These missiles were giving a damn about safe distance from the planet. They were going to be destroyed anyway.
In system the ships were racing back to get more support from the planet. But it was just as good they were far away. Two of the missiles jumped in point blank.
Planetary shields were the strongest shields ever created. They buckled like paper under this bombardment. All space defenses in that sector ceased existing. The shields stopped the radiation and shockwave from reaching the surface. But as the shockwave cleared the defenders saw the next attack. Dozens, hundreds possibly even thousands of ships with too few weapons for their size and launch bays that showed they could only be one thing: Troop transports. Heading straight for the planet. A scant few ships reached range and shot dozens down, but they had cut the jump so close that while well over a hundred had been ripped apart by failed reentry into normal space all the survivors were too close to defend. And the massive EMP that had gotten through the shield was enough to blind the groundside scanners just long enough for them to get down. And head straight towards major population centers. Meaning starships couldn't just annihilate their attack force from orbit
"Oh my God..." Berg had never predicted this. There had been no way. It was a miracle he had gotten so many guesses right as he had with so little info.
But now they were down on the planet. And the fleet had no way to get them out of there.
Not to mention even more ships were heading in intent on getting space superiority. And they still had several of those awful missiles left. It was looking grim alright
*To be continued*
Chapter 4
How did I get dragged into this? Berg was currently sitting on the bridge of one of the capital ships that had departed Lunar to rally near colony 3 affectionately called Elysium by its settlers.
Other fleets were sending forces as well, but before they knew the extent of the enemy they dared not weaken the defenses in other directions too much as they didn't want to get caught off guard if they were able to go around and hit them from another direction.
And the Admiral had wanted some eyes he trusted completely on the scene that was also smart enough to be useful and would keep himself back. Unfortunately the only one who fit that bill was him. Intelligence analysts could always do the job better up close, but this time it was different. He had seen the recordings recovered by remote from the base and in addition to the analysis he had given the admiral he had also come with a private conclusion. It just had to be bugs!
He hated.bugs, currently the unofficial slang for the Estauri was Buglizards. Personally he didn't mind the lizard part, but the bug part made him want not to be nearer than he had to when they had guns and starships.
A Firestrike was not a bad ship. At least not the Mark III he was currently aboard. The Starwasp itself was just out of the yards just as its officers were out of the academy. He glanced over at Captain Jennifer Mattson. She was in her mid/late twenties and pretty average looking. She probably had never really served as an officer on any ship at all. They were churning out ships far faster than they could train officers to man them. They had a large plan to have the military ready about a decade before they expected to see fighting and it had been considered more important to have the hardware done if they could make it than to make sure it was manned at the same rate as long as it was finished and balanced when the Grias arrived.
It was only a few days after the first few incidents. And apparently the Estauri were moving straight towards Elysium. Not that fast, but the first scout ships had been spotted on the fringe of the system, so far they had all been chased off before they could get any reasonable distance in system by the fleet elements in system. Even so the readings an heavily industrialized planet made were unmistakable and they had to assume the attackers knew it was there. The problem was that while they now had a better idea of their tactical capabilities their strategic capabilities were still unknown.
"Clearance to enter the defense zone is granted captain."
"Good Ensign. Helm plot us a course to our designated squadron."
The quick exchange pulled him out of his thoughts on the aliens and onto their own situations. The fleet surrounding the planet wasn?t massive by alliance standards, most of the ships assigned to this front were divided into task forces with search and destroy actions in mind. Search or conquer if they found any inhabited enemy worlds and not just outposts.
"So lieutenant... What do you know about these aliens?"
"What? Oh. Not as much as I?d like given that I'm supposed to brief the commanding officers here."
The captain mentally shook her head. Typical intelligence, dancing around the issue even when they were going to tell them just a few minutes later.
The sudden blaring of alarms came completely unexpected.
"Report!"
"Enemy ships detected and closing fast. Roughly 200 ships all lighter and faster vessels." A baffled sensor operator
"That means we actually outnumber and out mass them?" The implications was that if this was their attack force it was pathetic as they needed multiple ships just to bring down the shields of a cruiser. Much less a battle cruiser or battleship.
"The orders from the flag will be to hold our position at the far side of the planet and let the defenses do the fighting."
"So the passenger knows the battle plan, but the captain doesn't. Am I the only one seeing something wrong with this image?"
Chris ignored the not so subtle hint to tell her just what the plan was. He had orders not to risk any leaks and he wasn't taking any chance by telling anyone with lower rank than a flag officer until the time was ready. Of course she couldn't know he had gotten it delivered already just by entering the system as the com system had been rigged for one tight beam burst transmission to the flagship and then erasure of the data.
"They are approaching laser range for our forward screen. They should open fire about... Now!"
The screen didn't fire. It fell back!
"What the hell are they doing!?"
"Following orders I think." Berg injected. She looked at him clueless for a second until realization hit.
"You got the orders away already! Just how did you do it?!"
"If I told you I wouldn't be able to pull it off later."
"I'll get you for this I swear."
Her eyes were angry. He suspected that was as much anger due to him going over her head like that as well as frustration for being denied her usually very aggressive style of fighting in space. She was one who favored speed, firepower and hitting where it hurt. Not sitting still and waiting, but going out and hit, hard and crippling.
He could get himself to respect someone like that alright.
"Skipper we are being ordered to fall back to the far side of the planet in silent running mode."
"These plans are completely retarded. What do they expect to accomplish?"
"I suggest you watch and learn captain."
Mattson switched the omni-console in front of her to sensors and took a look at energy readings only. The defense stations were almost completely powered down, but ready to go up fast. They wouldn't stay hidden long enough for a complete surprise attack even so.
"The enemy is approaching range of the planetary defense lasers."
That was when things started to happen.
Lasers are powering up skipper!" her tactical officer exclaimed
She blinked. That was unexpected given their actions so far. And right then 26 of the 58 lasers around the planets spoke as one and the rest of the lasers started maneuvering to get around the planet to shoot as well. A full 13% of their force died.
Defense lasers are huge things. In theory getting a laser on par with their hellbore batteries was just to put enough power into the emitter, but no emitter for laser made by man could handle it in a small enough frame to be practical. These lasers each matched a single turret of the newer Jupiter battleships at 1.4 Teraton, but each of them was far more massive than the entire ship which had 6 turrets at that firepower, and that was without taking power source into account! They expected to get it smaller, but not within several decades at least. However it had far greater efficiency. Hellbore bolts lost power over distance. Lasers didn't. Hence these hit full force no matter the distance as long as no atmosphere started dissipating it. And that meant every Estauri ship it hit died.
And 5 seconds later they fired again and even more died.
"This too easy."
"You are correct captain. And it means analysis guessed correct." He didn't mention that he was the one who had analyzed it.
The lasers were really knocking them down now. They were almost eradicated.
"Second wave incoming."
Mattson was beginning to understand the bare bones of the plan now. And she didn't really like it, but she conceded in her mind that it could work.
The next wave jumped in much closer. Well within effective missile range and the Automated Launch Vehicles (ALV) launched from the planet unloading their lethal cargo in orbit of the planet towards this much greater wave of ships.
They started dying as well, but this time their particle beams were firing back and the massive lasers couldn't dodge and weave like ships. A couple went down under the power being directed at them, but they had very powerful shields and could absorb quite a bit of punishment.
"All ships. Move towards and engage the enemy." Came over the com. Mattson nodded at her helmsman and the StarWasp accelerated towards the enemy outpacing some of the slower ships, but deliberately holding back as to not hit the enemy fleet unsupported. The planet as well as the massive energy discharges from the planetary defenses obscured them long enough to round the planet and be a significant part of the way even before they were picked up. And by then it was too later.
Their missile racks flushed to give them some covering fire to divert enemy guns and it worked flawlessly. They had never faced actual units of the wall. And while they didn't have any of the new Jupiters they had plenty of older, but nowhere near obsolete battleships who were a match for any dozen of the enemy vessels. They dominated the fields of battle. They were the ships no enemy here could hope to match.
The classical ground warfare had always been dominated by the infantry who could take and hold ground, but space was the battleships dominance. Ships able to absorb anything but a short range barrage of hellbores took nearly twenty of the enemies larger cruiser analogs to have any effect on them and closer to sixty of the destroyer and frigates that were the majority of the force.
But there were so many of them. And they were fast and had better range on their heavy if quite weak by alliance standards weaponry.
Even so they were winning and there was nothing they could do about it. Seemingly...
"The third wave should jump in any moment now."
"Third wave?"
Much farther out at the edge of the system several ships materialized. The enemy reserve. Point blank into the last force they had placed there after the main attack force went in.
This battle was as good as won. At least it would been if not for the last surprise nobody could have predicted.
A large battleship sized object jumped in point blank. And detonated. A massive explosion shredded several dozen ships on both sides. Another jumped in. And another. Each one detonating and decimating both fleets at the systems edge.
Then another completely unexpected force jumped in flanked by several of these big missiles.
They had been surprised yes, and were going to commit the force they had dedicated to take several worlds to take one sure, but they could still win here.
The missiles jumped again... These missiles were giving a damn about safe distance from the planet. They were going to be destroyed anyway.
In system the ships were racing back to get more support from the planet. But it was just as good they were far away. Two of the missiles jumped in point blank.
Planetary shields were the strongest shields ever created. They buckled like paper under this bombardment. All space defenses in that sector ceased existing. The shields stopped the radiation and shockwave from reaching the surface. But as the shockwave cleared the defenders saw the next attack. Dozens, hundreds possibly even thousands of ships with too few weapons for their size and launch bays that showed they could only be one thing: Troop transports. Heading straight for the planet. A scant few ships reached range and shot dozens down, but they had cut the jump so close that while well over a hundred had been ripped apart by failed reentry into normal space all the survivors were too close to defend. And the massive EMP that had gotten through the shield was enough to blind the groundside scanners just long enough for them to get down. And head straight towards major population centers. Meaning starships couldn't just annihilate their attack force from orbit
"Oh my God..." Berg had never predicted this. There had been no way. It was a miracle he had gotten so many guesses right as he had with so little info.
But now they were down on the planet. And the fleet had no way to get them out of there.
Not to mention even more ships were heading in intent on getting space superiority. And they still had several of those awful missiles left. It was looking grim alright
*To be continued*
-
Prozac the Robert
- Jedi Master
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- Joined: 2004-05-05 09:01am
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