Grave of the Stars (Original)
Posted: 2018-05-28 01:01am
So, I've been writing recently in a sci fi series of my design and I felt like posting what I'm writing for critique, thus, Let's begin.
2,367th year by Imperial Reckoning,
8,211th year by Time keeping of the Eternal Watchers,
4th year of the Blood handed Reign,
Terroday Quadrent, Azimuth Sector, Rintipek System
Admiral Gerald Remphilsin, standing upon the flag bridge of his command ship, the Grand Empire Superdreadnought Duke Ferdinar, watched the holographic symbols appearing in the Tac-tank before him. Behind him, the buzz of Duke Ferdinar's CIC—command Information center—washed over him, but he allowed nothing to distract him.
Three years and thousands of ships, millions of lives. That was the price of this war, which even now the Grand Empire's news networks was calling Vistok uprising. And this fleet action the end of the uprising.
Remphilsin had his doubts, though It was not appropriate for an Admiral of his rank to gossip to the News about any doubts he did have. And he did have doubts, the Vistok—an Insectoid species—were not the sort to take any humiliation in stride. There was no mistaking that their defeat would be a humiliating blow, the only reason their 'Uprising' had lasted as long s It had was because, for one, not all Vistok had rebelled and they were using their loyal kin as shields and the second reason was that they were still Imperial citizens and thus The Emperor couldn't simply order them blown into shreds and their worlds shattered.
The world before his fleet no was the rebels last stronghold and naval base. It, unlike Remphilsin's previous targets, was sparsely populated by civilian life.
The Vistok had seemed to realize this as well, as around a half dozen transports, bearing those civilians that had been living in the Rintipek system's sole inhabitable planet, were openly broadcasting their location to Remphilsin's fleet. Those the civilians, because of his warship's Void Frames—a phased dimensional stealth system on all warships—making It impossible for a civilian transport to see a warship.
You needed a sensor system, Hypervoid sensors, Void pulses and Void echo listeners, to even have a chance of finding a void framed starship. And even then, rarely was the HV sensors the first to find starship, scout vessels and probes—along with various types of smallcraft like fighters or gunships—along with the void echo listeners were the most likely to first find ship. Though they were the first to find a ship, they couldn't give targeting coordinates or information to greater warships. That was were the HV sensors and Void pulses came in, the VE listeners and smallcraft to find a ship's general area, the HV sensors and void pulses to find them.
Frowning at the tac-tank—what he would give for the tac-screens common in the CIC and bridge—Remphilsin stared at approximately the northern pole of the symbol representing Zermikil—Rintipek's only inhabitable planet.
The Vistok rebel's naval base was last seen above that pole, how far It had moved between that last sighting and the two and a half days It had taken his fleet to arrive was anyone's guess.
Frowning again, he activated his Neural implant and activated a comm channel with the captain of Duke Ferdinar.
“Captain,” he said, “send a spread of recon drones out to Zermikil's northern and southern poles, we'll see If the base remains.”
“Understood admiral, recon drones will be sent.” Captain Felicia Terrinar said.
A half dozen seconds later, six drones shot out of the drone tubes of Duke Ferdinar and raced along at sixty two thousand kilometers a second with their antirepulsor drives. With the distance between his fleet and Zermikil being four hundred and thirty three million kilometers, It would take his drones around two hours. In that time his fleet, travelling at the speed of their slowest member—the zero rate vessels like the Duke Ferdinar—would displace a hundred and eighty million kilometers.
Shortening the distance between the planet and his fleet to only two hundred and fifty three million kilometers.
And that, was may beyond his engagement range. Some Imperial strategic missiles and torpedoes had enough endurance to reach such distances, as did ftl weapons. The problem with such long range missiles and torpedoes was their lack of killing power, such weapons tended to sacrifice quite a lot of explosive capacity to fit enough nether-plasm to power their trip out to such distances and strictly kinetic impacts along were out because of a ships Void field. The problem with ftl weapons—strictly the beams, not weapons like phase missiles—was their incredible power costs and large bulk.
Standard extreme range combat—anything beyond one light-second—ranges was about nine million kilometers, or about thirty light-seconds. Of course, with how fast certain ships were, mainly lighter combatants, although even zero rates could go quite fast when boosting their antirepulsors—I.E unlocking safeties and pushing the drives harder.
Shaking his head to clear out worthless thoughts, Admiral Remphilsin turned to observe CIC behind him, fifteen officers—one of which was the Duke's XO—guiding the efforts of about three score crew manning various consoles.
His personal aides—fourteen of them—were also manning consoles that allowed them to observe the various streams of data and information that went into commanding a fleet, so that they could better relay it to him to command with as much Info as possible.
Though, with two hours before the first of his drones arrived, there wasn't much for him to do, other then wait.
2,367th year by Imperial Reckoning,
8,211th year by Time keeping of the Eternal Watchers,
4th year of the Blood handed Reign,
Terroday Quadrent, Azimuth Sector, Rintipek System
00:04:22.
That was the time that was appearing in Remphilsin's gaze to the upper right, projected by tiny imagers onto his retinas.
Four minutes until the first of his tac-data would be available.
The time seemed to crawl by for the admiral, he could have sworn hours passed in those few minutes. It was curious how time slowed in situations of high stress and someone had to either react or allow the enemy to react first.
Remphilsin would have laughed If a sudden ping on the tac-tank before him heralded a localized Void echo. Localized void echoes were caused when a ship's aura Void pulse landed near an enemy vessel under Void Frame and could allow one to track the echo back to a ship. These were fairly rare since so called 'aura' void pulses were generated by ships—and drones—with an effected distance of about a thousand kilometers.
Far more common were standard void echoes, which you received If a vessel under Void Frame was caught within the cone of a ship's longer range void pulse, though they didn't allow precision tracking to their position.
“Anter,” Remphilsin said, “Confirm enemy contact.”
Lieutenant Commander Anter Fisiren, his chief aide and manning the primary terminal in the flag bridge, replied with. “Sir, unknown enemy contact is massing around fifteen billion tonnes, standard size for Naval bases. Additional information yet to come In.”
He nodded, “Thank you commander.” So they hadn't moved the naval base, why. It was hard for him to imagine why they hadn't moved the base, they had to have known the information of Its location wasn't secure. Not when this system used to, no, Is an Imperial system.
Even at a measly five hundred kilometers a second, which a base should have been capable of for brief periods of time. Or even just two hundred kilometers a second, which was the more standard speed for such a mass intensive station, they would have displaced seventeen million kilometers in just a day, double that for the second day and half that for the next. Yet It sat there.
Why.
To set up a trap, he thought, It was the only logical explanation he'd accept. Some of the rebels had been ex-military, they wouldn't have been stupid enough to simply leave the base were It was.
But what to do about the Vistok's attempted trap.
Considering the distances involved, Remphilsin eyed the tac-tank. His fleet could close the last two hundred and fifty three million kilometers in a little over four and a half hours. But should I close that distance, he thought, at least right now.
There was still the matter of—at last counting—forty three rebel ships, of which three were zero rates, a pair of superbattleships and a supercarrier.
Standard naval procedure would be to hold back and locate the rebel fleet. But standard procedure doesn't take into account the presence of six three hundred and fifty meter civilian transports, he scowled, and around ninety-five thousand Imperial citizens on-board.
Even if they were Vistok. He killed that thought before It could grow.
His duty would be to secure those civilian ships and bring them out of the system before the firing started. To keep them out of any possible sphere of conflict within which they would inevitably be killed.
Considering however, that they were a mere ninety million kilometers from the sighted naval base, he couldn't help but wonder if they were part of the trap.
Most likely yes, his fingers drummed along the edges of the tac-tank, It's what I would have done.
But would the Vistok in charge do the same.
That was the million crown question. That and was Remphilsin willing to risk ninety five thousand imperial lives calling the rebel CO's bluff.
Keying his comms, Remphilsin opened a channel to his entire fleet, all fifty-three of them.
“Commodore Derrinsen, take your Task group toward bearing zero-dash-sixty-dash-zero for fifteen million kilometers. Commodore Talianna, take your task group toward bearing three hundred-dash-zero-dash-zero for fifteen million kilometers. My task group, proceed at bearing zero-dash-forty-dash-zero for fifteen million kilometers. All task groups proceed along target bearing and halt movement at your arrival point of fifteen million kilometers and await further orders.”
Fifteen million kilometers, a brisk sixteen—nearly seventeen—minute run, despite the immense distances involved. A missile could run It even faster, hells, a corvette could run It in five minutes. But, that corvette would be without support of the heavy elements of a fleet If it did and no ship would ever outrun a weapon system, whether that be munition, kinetic or energy, dodge perhaps with extreme luck, but never outrun.
On the tac-tank, his fleet began to break up into even task groups of seventeen ships. Splitting his firepower up was a risky move, but one he felt was justified in the circumstance.
He didn't know were the enemy ships were and with the civilian transports seemingly put right into the line of fire, he wanted accidental civvie casualties at a minimum. Thus, splitting his fleet and going around the transports.
He was about to draw out the route to go all the way around the transports on his datapad when the lights suddenly flashed red and a light klaxon screeched nearby.
“Situation change,” Anter said as a flurry of activity and noise from CIC nearly drowned him out. “Enemy warships contact, current count, one third rate and fourteen seventh rates, one point nine five million tonnes total mass.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Vedilia, his officer handling communications, “Commodores Derrinsen and Talianna requesting updated orders.”
“Inform them to continue moving on current bearing. But to prepare to launch all smallcraft,” Remphilsin said. He didn't outline how he wanted the craft deployed, senior flight commanders could handle that better then he could. He'd never been a smallcraft operations officer, nor was he qualified to command such operations.
A few moments of silence passed then Vedilia spoke again, “Sir, SC-Ops officers are requesting which target is to your preference, the base or task group.”
Checking the distance to the targets, Remphilsin nodded. Two hundred and fifty million kilometers, a distance a tac-fighter—more commonly just called a star fighter, or just fighter—could cross in a little over an hour, though the strikecraft and battlecraft would lag behind, leaving the fightercraft outside of their protective envelope.
Unlike fightercraft, whose defence was generally limited to their void matrix, void field and armour—and maybe some manner of short ranged last ditch ADS. Whereas strikecraft and battlecraft mounted more defensive measures, meaning It was within a SC-Op officers best interests—and in the pilots' best interests—to keep the craft together to better support one another.
That meant however having to travel at the battlecraft's speed, which would take them one-point-three hours instead of the one-point-one It would take the fighters on their own.
“I have no preferred target, Lieutenant, Though I'd say the ships are a bit more dangerous then the base at the moment. I would prefer however that they not accidentally blow up the civilian transports however, lieutenant.”
“Aye, aye sir; I'll let the SC-Ops officers know that the Vac-jocks are not to blow up the civilian transports, however enticing a target they may be.”
Remphilsin's mouth twitched upward one hundred of a milimeter before dropping, an admiral wasn't to laugh at a subordinates joke, at least not in the middle of combat anyway.
Laughing outside of combat is perfectly acceptable however, gods know we need all the humour and distractions we can get with recent events in mind, he thought.
On the Tac-tank, dozens of new symbols sprang into being as the smallcraft launched by the dozens and scores.
Chapter One
2,367th year by Imperial Reckoning,
8,211th year by Time keeping of the Eternal Watchers,
4th year of the Blood handed Reign,
Terroday Quadrent, Azimuth Sector, Rintipek System
Admiral Gerald Remphilsin, standing upon the flag bridge of his command ship, the Grand Empire Superdreadnought Duke Ferdinar, watched the holographic symbols appearing in the Tac-tank before him. Behind him, the buzz of Duke Ferdinar's CIC—command Information center—washed over him, but he allowed nothing to distract him.
Three years and thousands of ships, millions of lives. That was the price of this war, which even now the Grand Empire's news networks was calling Vistok uprising. And this fleet action the end of the uprising.
Remphilsin had his doubts, though It was not appropriate for an Admiral of his rank to gossip to the News about any doubts he did have. And he did have doubts, the Vistok—an Insectoid species—were not the sort to take any humiliation in stride. There was no mistaking that their defeat would be a humiliating blow, the only reason their 'Uprising' had lasted as long s It had was because, for one, not all Vistok had rebelled and they were using their loyal kin as shields and the second reason was that they were still Imperial citizens and thus The Emperor couldn't simply order them blown into shreds and their worlds shattered.
The world before his fleet no was the rebels last stronghold and naval base. It, unlike Remphilsin's previous targets, was sparsely populated by civilian life.
The Vistok had seemed to realize this as well, as around a half dozen transports, bearing those civilians that had been living in the Rintipek system's sole inhabitable planet, were openly broadcasting their location to Remphilsin's fleet. Those the civilians, because of his warship's Void Frames—a phased dimensional stealth system on all warships—making It impossible for a civilian transport to see a warship.
You needed a sensor system, Hypervoid sensors, Void pulses and Void echo listeners, to even have a chance of finding a void framed starship. And even then, rarely was the HV sensors the first to find starship, scout vessels and probes—along with various types of smallcraft like fighters or gunships—along with the void echo listeners were the most likely to first find ship. Though they were the first to find a ship, they couldn't give targeting coordinates or information to greater warships. That was were the HV sensors and Void pulses came in, the VE listeners and smallcraft to find a ship's general area, the HV sensors and void pulses to find them.
Frowning at the tac-tank—what he would give for the tac-screens common in the CIC and bridge—Remphilsin stared at approximately the northern pole of the symbol representing Zermikil—Rintipek's only inhabitable planet.
The Vistok rebel's naval base was last seen above that pole, how far It had moved between that last sighting and the two and a half days It had taken his fleet to arrive was anyone's guess.
Frowning again, he activated his Neural implant and activated a comm channel with the captain of Duke Ferdinar.
“Captain,” he said, “send a spread of recon drones out to Zermikil's northern and southern poles, we'll see If the base remains.”
“Understood admiral, recon drones will be sent.” Captain Felicia Terrinar said.
A half dozen seconds later, six drones shot out of the drone tubes of Duke Ferdinar and raced along at sixty two thousand kilometers a second with their antirepulsor drives. With the distance between his fleet and Zermikil being four hundred and thirty three million kilometers, It would take his drones around two hours. In that time his fleet, travelling at the speed of their slowest member—the zero rate vessels like the Duke Ferdinar—would displace a hundred and eighty million kilometers.
Shortening the distance between the planet and his fleet to only two hundred and fifty three million kilometers.
And that, was may beyond his engagement range. Some Imperial strategic missiles and torpedoes had enough endurance to reach such distances, as did ftl weapons. The problem with such long range missiles and torpedoes was their lack of killing power, such weapons tended to sacrifice quite a lot of explosive capacity to fit enough nether-plasm to power their trip out to such distances and strictly kinetic impacts along were out because of a ships Void field. The problem with ftl weapons—strictly the beams, not weapons like phase missiles—was their incredible power costs and large bulk.
Standard extreme range combat—anything beyond one light-second—ranges was about nine million kilometers, or about thirty light-seconds. Of course, with how fast certain ships were, mainly lighter combatants, although even zero rates could go quite fast when boosting their antirepulsors—I.E unlocking safeties and pushing the drives harder.
Shaking his head to clear out worthless thoughts, Admiral Remphilsin turned to observe CIC behind him, fifteen officers—one of which was the Duke's XO—guiding the efforts of about three score crew manning various consoles.
His personal aides—fourteen of them—were also manning consoles that allowed them to observe the various streams of data and information that went into commanding a fleet, so that they could better relay it to him to command with as much Info as possible.
Though, with two hours before the first of his drones arrived, there wasn't much for him to do, other then wait.
Chapter two
2,367th year by Imperial Reckoning,
8,211th year by Time keeping of the Eternal Watchers,
4th year of the Blood handed Reign,
Terroday Quadrent, Azimuth Sector, Rintipek System
00:04:22.
That was the time that was appearing in Remphilsin's gaze to the upper right, projected by tiny imagers onto his retinas.
Four minutes until the first of his tac-data would be available.
The time seemed to crawl by for the admiral, he could have sworn hours passed in those few minutes. It was curious how time slowed in situations of high stress and someone had to either react or allow the enemy to react first.
Remphilsin would have laughed If a sudden ping on the tac-tank before him heralded a localized Void echo. Localized void echoes were caused when a ship's aura Void pulse landed near an enemy vessel under Void Frame and could allow one to track the echo back to a ship. These were fairly rare since so called 'aura' void pulses were generated by ships—and drones—with an effected distance of about a thousand kilometers.
Far more common were standard void echoes, which you received If a vessel under Void Frame was caught within the cone of a ship's longer range void pulse, though they didn't allow precision tracking to their position.
“Anter,” Remphilsin said, “Confirm enemy contact.”
Lieutenant Commander Anter Fisiren, his chief aide and manning the primary terminal in the flag bridge, replied with. “Sir, unknown enemy contact is massing around fifteen billion tonnes, standard size for Naval bases. Additional information yet to come In.”
He nodded, “Thank you commander.” So they hadn't moved the naval base, why. It was hard for him to imagine why they hadn't moved the base, they had to have known the information of Its location wasn't secure. Not when this system used to, no, Is an Imperial system.
Even at a measly five hundred kilometers a second, which a base should have been capable of for brief periods of time. Or even just two hundred kilometers a second, which was the more standard speed for such a mass intensive station, they would have displaced seventeen million kilometers in just a day, double that for the second day and half that for the next. Yet It sat there.
Why.
To set up a trap, he thought, It was the only logical explanation he'd accept. Some of the rebels had been ex-military, they wouldn't have been stupid enough to simply leave the base were It was.
But what to do about the Vistok's attempted trap.
Considering the distances involved, Remphilsin eyed the tac-tank. His fleet could close the last two hundred and fifty three million kilometers in a little over four and a half hours. But should I close that distance, he thought, at least right now.
There was still the matter of—at last counting—forty three rebel ships, of which three were zero rates, a pair of superbattleships and a supercarrier.
Standard naval procedure would be to hold back and locate the rebel fleet. But standard procedure doesn't take into account the presence of six three hundred and fifty meter civilian transports, he scowled, and around ninety-five thousand Imperial citizens on-board.
Even if they were Vistok. He killed that thought before It could grow.
His duty would be to secure those civilian ships and bring them out of the system before the firing started. To keep them out of any possible sphere of conflict within which they would inevitably be killed.
Considering however, that they were a mere ninety million kilometers from the sighted naval base, he couldn't help but wonder if they were part of the trap.
Most likely yes, his fingers drummed along the edges of the tac-tank, It's what I would have done.
But would the Vistok in charge do the same.
That was the million crown question. That and was Remphilsin willing to risk ninety five thousand imperial lives calling the rebel CO's bluff.
Keying his comms, Remphilsin opened a channel to his entire fleet, all fifty-three of them.
“Commodore Derrinsen, take your Task group toward bearing zero-dash-sixty-dash-zero for fifteen million kilometers. Commodore Talianna, take your task group toward bearing three hundred-dash-zero-dash-zero for fifteen million kilometers. My task group, proceed at bearing zero-dash-forty-dash-zero for fifteen million kilometers. All task groups proceed along target bearing and halt movement at your arrival point of fifteen million kilometers and await further orders.”
Fifteen million kilometers, a brisk sixteen—nearly seventeen—minute run, despite the immense distances involved. A missile could run It even faster, hells, a corvette could run It in five minutes. But, that corvette would be without support of the heavy elements of a fleet If it did and no ship would ever outrun a weapon system, whether that be munition, kinetic or energy, dodge perhaps with extreme luck, but never outrun.
On the tac-tank, his fleet began to break up into even task groups of seventeen ships. Splitting his firepower up was a risky move, but one he felt was justified in the circumstance.
He didn't know were the enemy ships were and with the civilian transports seemingly put right into the line of fire, he wanted accidental civvie casualties at a minimum. Thus, splitting his fleet and going around the transports.
He was about to draw out the route to go all the way around the transports on his datapad when the lights suddenly flashed red and a light klaxon screeched nearby.
“Situation change,” Anter said as a flurry of activity and noise from CIC nearly drowned him out. “Enemy warships contact, current count, one third rate and fourteen seventh rates, one point nine five million tonnes total mass.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Vedilia, his officer handling communications, “Commodores Derrinsen and Talianna requesting updated orders.”
“Inform them to continue moving on current bearing. But to prepare to launch all smallcraft,” Remphilsin said. He didn't outline how he wanted the craft deployed, senior flight commanders could handle that better then he could. He'd never been a smallcraft operations officer, nor was he qualified to command such operations.
A few moments of silence passed then Vedilia spoke again, “Sir, SC-Ops officers are requesting which target is to your preference, the base or task group.”
Checking the distance to the targets, Remphilsin nodded. Two hundred and fifty million kilometers, a distance a tac-fighter—more commonly just called a star fighter, or just fighter—could cross in a little over an hour, though the strikecraft and battlecraft would lag behind, leaving the fightercraft outside of their protective envelope.
Unlike fightercraft, whose defence was generally limited to their void matrix, void field and armour—and maybe some manner of short ranged last ditch ADS. Whereas strikecraft and battlecraft mounted more defensive measures, meaning It was within a SC-Op officers best interests—and in the pilots' best interests—to keep the craft together to better support one another.
That meant however having to travel at the battlecraft's speed, which would take them one-point-three hours instead of the one-point-one It would take the fighters on their own.
“I have no preferred target, Lieutenant, Though I'd say the ships are a bit more dangerous then the base at the moment. I would prefer however that they not accidentally blow up the civilian transports however, lieutenant.”
“Aye, aye sir; I'll let the SC-Ops officers know that the Vac-jocks are not to blow up the civilian transports, however enticing a target they may be.”
Remphilsin's mouth twitched upward one hundred of a milimeter before dropping, an admiral wasn't to laugh at a subordinates joke, at least not in the middle of combat anyway.
Laughing outside of combat is perfectly acceptable however, gods know we need all the humour and distractions we can get with recent events in mind, he thought.
On the Tac-tank, dozens of new symbols sprang into being as the smallcraft launched by the dozens and scores.
