Trial of the Alliance (Working title)
Posted: 2004-06-10 02:23pm
*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.
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.