Soldiers of the Sovereignty: Assailant's Hunt (short story)

[Shroom Man 777]

Soldiers of the Sovereignty: Assailant’s Hunt

April 23, 2567
System TX-T80019

Several brilliant flares bisected an asteroid; breaking it into two smaller chunks that crumbled into a sea of debris. A brick shaped, nine hundred meter long Assailant class destroyer, named Impervious, plowed through the cloud of rock, occasionally blasting the larger chunks with its point defense plasma cannons.

Far ahead from the grey giant was a small flotilla composed of commandeered starships and extensively modified freighters belonging to the Bragulan terrorist militia known as the Gamma-Sigma. The flotilla fired at the Impervious, sending five green K-bolts, all of which were intercepted by the Impervious’ plasma cannons. The destroyer returned fire with its particle cannons, the white bolts of energy shearing through the asteroid field that encompassed both the Impervious and the flotilla and nearly making contact with the Gamma-Sigma starships. The destroyer fired another salvo, this time a combination of particle bolts and giant railgun slugs.

One of the super dense slugs made fatal contact with a GS starship, rendering it instantly disabled, the slug crashed through the shields and penetrated the hull with pure unadulterated kinetic force. The starship, which looked like a bunch of green, malformed bricks glued together, began fragmenting and spiraled out of control as its navigational and propulsion systems went haywire. A second later, it crashed onto an asteroid and exploded.

The flotilla returned fire, this time sending a withering stream of glowing K-bolts. The Impervious intercepted some, but the vast majority made contact with the destroyer’s hull-hugging shields. The destroyer did not even slow down. It was impervious to the puny spitballs and returned fire with even more lethal force. Another railgun round clipped a starship by the conning tower, penetrating the meager shielding and violently shearing off the tower right after drilling through an asteroid obstructing the target.


“Captain Nomek, the asteroid field is not providing a good enough cover. These Sovereignty dogs will not call off their chase!” screamed the Bragulan helmsman of the besieged starship. “At this rate, we will not be able to rendezvous with the Federation ships.

“I know. But it might be just as well as we cannot allow the Sovereignty to uncover our alliance with the Federation. Vadrick, maneuver our ship, put some more rocks between us and the destroyer’s guns, I do not want to die this day,” replied the Nomek, the captain of the Bloodstone Freedom. Nomek was a short and pulp Bragulan, around 40 years old but looking much older due to the wear and tear of fighting an endless war with almost every other nation in the galaxy. “Damage Control, how hard have we been hit?”

“Hard, very hard. The conning tower is gone along with our active sensors and our primary K-bolter is disabled. Our shields are offline. Another hit and we could be in vacuum,” came the reply of a nervous crewmember.

“Ozzel, what was that?” the ship was shaking but Nomek’s control panel did not indicate any damage, nonetheless he still had to ask, out of reflex if not misplaced concern.

“The Hope is gone.”

“What? No…” that was all Nomek could say as ice-cold despair crept in. The Hope was a freighter that was carrying medical supplies as well as displaced refugees, entire families who fled from various planets, wanting to flee from the oppression of the Bragulan Star Empire. They were all hoping to get a new chance at life in better, safer worlds and the Gamma-Sigma, one of the many Bragulan freedom-fighting organizations, was willing to lend a hand. But more than all of that, Nomek’s family was inside the freighter. “No…”

“Incoming particle bolt! Brace for impact!” the helmsman screamed, but Nomek did not pay attention. There was a brilliant explosion right ahead of the Bloodstone Freedom as the incoming bolt just narrowly missed the ship and impacted an asteroid in front of the ship. There was another explosion, this time instead of obliterating a space rock, the particle bolt annihilated a Gamma-Sigma transport. “Captain, what are we to do? Captain? Captain!”

Nomek snapped out of his brief trance and did the only sensible thing left for him to do, which was to do his job and keep his men alive. “Now bring us near those two corvettes, we will have less chances of being hit when we are near them. Communications, tell Captain Tarsi that I am suggesting that we split up into groups and head to different vectors. Once we exit this asteroid field, we shall hyperjump to the nearest Gamma-Sigma outpost.”

The Bloodstone Freedom, which resembled an angular, boxy and deformed cone, quickly moved towards the two nearby corvettes. One corvette fired an angry red laser beam towards the Impervious; the other fired a salvo of missiles. All of the shots found their mark but did practically nothing except annoy the captain of the destroyer.


“These Gamma-Sigma bastards are feisty. Launch the Peregrines, they’ll get these bastards,” the captain of the Impervious, Capt. Darren Janis, ordered as the holoscreen in front of him displayed more K-bolts, lasers and missiles explode on and around his ship. “God, why did I end up with such a shitty job? Helmsman increase speed. Gunnery, increase weapon’s output. Let’s turn these Bragulan scum into cosmic dust as soon as we can and go back home.”

“Aye captain,” a crewman acknowledged.

”And tell Captains Pratt, Sutherland and Herman to get ready, the Gamma-Sigma flotilla could see the openings at any time and decide to split up.”

The Impervious plowed through more puny asteroids, guns blazing while trading the impotent Gamma-Sigma fire with massive particle bolts and railgun slugs. A K-bolt exploded on the Impervious’ short and boxy conning tower while a laser beam seared its front shields. More K-bolts and lasers followed, as well as missiles and the occasional stray asteroid. Moments later, the Impervious’ fighter bays opened up and deployed five squads of SF/A-44 Strike Fighters.


“Captain Nomek, Tarsi has agreed on your plan and has also informed us that the destroyer has launched fighters!” a monitor near Nomek’s command chair displayed split screen images of more than a dozen fighters nimbly dodging the asteroids and heading their way as well as Gamma-Sigma corvettes and a frigate explode amidst particle bolt fire. The images undoubtedly came from Captain Tarsi’s ship, as the Bloodstone Freedom was practically blind.

“Launch all of our SNTs, we cannot allow the fighters to reach us. Tell the pilots to stop the enemy fighters at all costs. Gods willing, they will delay the enemy fighters long enough to allow our escape,” Nomek replied with professional calm, all grief replaced by a sense of duty.

“At once, captain,” an ensign pressed a purple button on a panel and picked up a phone. “Fighters of the Bloodstone Freedom, you are to deploy and engage the enemy fighters, delaying them so we can make our escape.”

“Ensign, give me the phone please. I wish to talk to my men,” the ensign nodded his head and handed the device to Nomek, extending the cord to its limits as he did so. “This is your captain speaking. I will not lie to you. Once you are deployed, you will not be coming home, you will most likely die at the hands of the humans. All I am asking for you is to delay the enemy, so that our ships can have a chance at escape. No matter the cost, you must stop them from destroying our ships, taking our precious cargo and capturing the families that we are transporting. Make no mistake, if I could, I would turn this ship around and give those filthy humans hell, but we are carrying the cargo and we are carrying the families and that is why you must stop the Sovereignty, no matter the cost. May the Gods be with you. You all have the deepest respect of me and all of your comrades who will be watching you.”

“Captain, our fighters have launched. So have Captain Tarsi’s fighters.”

“How about Captain Serv’s?”

“His frigate is gone. I’m sorry.”

“He was a good ma-“ Nomek’s eulogy was cut short as a missile, which came from the pursuing Peregrine fighters, violently rocked their ship. “Ensign, what has happened?!”

“A missile struck our engines.”

“Status?” their shields were very low, almost anything could’ve given their ship fatal damage.

“My read out shows the damage was critical. The remaining engines are all in the red-zone, but we have not even slowed down, I do not know why. I’m running a diagnosis,” hollered a crewmember, who was furiously tapping away on his console’s keyboard, in the engineering station. “The diagnosis makes no sense, we should be dead in the water by now!”

“It does not matter. Valmik, what is the status of our fighters?” Nomek was very anxious in his command chair. They had just sustained a hit that should have been, under ordinary circumstances, crippling or fatal and now the rear of the ship (where the engines are located) was emitting a deafening screech which pierced through even the blast doors.

“They’re dropping like flies, not just ours but also Tarsi’s.”

“We need to give them some cover fire. Our guns, are they-“

“Disabled.”

“Order the two corvettes beside us to lay down flak. K-bolts, torpedoes, lasers, anything!”

“They have acknowledged us and have begun shooting at the enemy fighters.”

“One of our remaining engines has broken down!” blurted the crewmember at the engineering section. “No wait, it’s back online. This doesn’t make any-“

“Captain! The pursuing destroyer is firing torpedoes at our vicinity!”


A trio of torpedoes streaked through space, their velocity was boosted by both the mass-driver of their torpedo tubes and their own thrusters, whose ion emissions were trailing behind them. Their mothership marked two corvettes and a freighter as their targets, which of the targets each picked was up to their own discretion. The torpedoes’ AI selected the targets that had the highest threat rating, the two corvettes who were currently attempting to shoot down Peregrine fighters tangoing with enemy SNTs. The corvettes, too distracted with the Peregrines, never noticed the torpedoes lock onto them. The corvettes never knew what hit them as the torpedoes accelerated to relativistic speeds and streaked pass the dueling fighters, slamming onto the shielded hulls of the corvettes and detonating a shaped anti-matter warhead. The brilliant white explosions sheared through the flickering shields and punctured their hulls, deforming the corvettes into superheated fragments.


“Helmsman, bring us to the vicinity of other ships, now! We do not want to be singled out!” Nomek knew that if they stayed in their present location, they would soon end up as cosmic dust.

“Yes captain, but the ship is becoming very sluggish and unresponsive.”

“We’ve lost two more thrusters!”

“Gods be damned!” Nomek screamed in exasperation. His crew were doing their best to keep the Bloodstone Freedom from being annihilated by the pursuing destroyer’s fire, and while they were very lucky to be still alive, they were still not very far from certain death. “What is the status of our fighters? What is the status of the other ships?”

“The fighters are not going to make it, they are being cut down en masse. The other ships are not faring much better than us,” reported an ensign. “Captain-“ the ensign was cut off as the ship shook violently. Nomek’s monitor indicated that some of the shield generators have overloaded. “-Tarsi’s ship is hailing us.”

“Damage control, what’s our status?”

“We’re out of shields,” replied one crewmember.

“Fix it,” Nomek snapped back.

“Captain Tarsi is hailing us.”

“Patch him through,” seconds later, Captain Tarsi’s image appeared in Nomek’s control panel.

“Nomek, we cannot last any longer and we are near the clearings. We will have to split ourselves now,” Captain Tarsi’s image was constantly breaking up due to interference, nonetheless, the audio still made it through.

“Agreed. Now, we have enough clearance to effectively split and run and the destroyer will not be able to chase us, even with its fighters.”

“Good, now withdraw your fighters. My fighters are much more numerous and can stand without assistance. There is no sense adding to the body count. This matter is settled, Tarsi out.” The captain’s image disappeared, replaced with nothingness.

“You heard the man. Order our fighters to withdraw and split up. Patch me through the Vigil and the Bragulan Dawn.”

“Sir! Incoming torpedo, locked onto us,” one crewmember reported. The coordinates and bearing of the torpedo was displayed in Nomek’s control panel, it showed that the torpedo was coming in at frightening speeds and was already very close to the ship.

“Countermeasures and evasive maneuvers now!”

“We cannot do anything. It is coming in too fast and is too near. Our damage sensors did not detect it when we had ample time,” cried the crewmember.

“Pump all of our energy to engines,” Nomek shot back, unshaken.

“We’ve lost another pair of thrusters!” reported another crewmember, this one from the engineering section.

“Shields!” Nomek didn’t want to die and was getting frustrated.

“The generators are weak, any additional energy we pump into them might blow them to pieces.”

“Just do it! We don’t have time,” the computers were now emitting intensifying beeps, indicating that the torpedo’s proximity was dangerously close. Nomek decided to utter a curse, to the tardiness of the proximity alarms, his faulty ship, to the nonexistent Gods, to the United Sovereignty of Earth, to the Bragulan Star Empire and to everything else in his extensive hate-list. “Gods be damned.”

“Brace for impact!”

Nomek saw the readings on his control panel and thanked the Gods that he had strapped his seat belts. The torpedo was coming in at obscene speeds and there was no time to react, no time to move, no time to holler any commands but just enough time to think about the impending doom. Nomek experienced bittersweet thoughts, as he did not want to die, but he had nothing much to loose already. His family was dead and he did not expect to end up in any superstitious afterlife. He would miss his men, they too were part of his family. But death would be just as well, because he knew that if ever the conflict would end and he somehow survived it in his present state, he would have nowhere to go. Now, all that was left for Nomek was the wait, and he didn’t have to wait long. The torpedo impacted the ship just after a second and the ship shook violently, sending crewmembers who weren’t wearing their seatbelts across the room as sparks erupted all over (under normal circumstances, this would have been impossible), electrocuting many of the men that Nomek had worked with in almost a decade. Nomek felt a jolt course through his arm, the shock probably coming from the control panel conveniently located on his chair’s arm rest. For a brief moment, Nomek thought about how this, the sparks, the rapid thinking among many things, was unlike any of his near-death encounters. Then the bridge’s lights failed and all Nomek could see was darkness.

The starships of the Gamma-Sigma, save the Bloodstone Freedom, divided their formation into three groups and streaked towards three different directions, all through three separate clearings in the asteroid fields. The Gamma-Sigma captains had just recently detected the clearings, but Captain Janis and the crew of the Impervious had detected the potential escape routes quite some time ago and the good captain had coordinated with his comrades to ensure the prevention of Gamma-Sigma escape. The Impervious was tasked with chasing the Gamma-Sigma flotilla and whittling down their numbers, the rest of the wolf pack would lie and wait, ready to spring the trap at the proper moment. All went exactly as foreseen. The three Gamma-Sigma formations entered the kill-zones and what proceeded was a violent slaughter. The few asteroids littering the clearings detonated in bright white flashes, Hyperspace Distortion Bombs filling the entire area with potent hyperspace echoes and preventing the Gamma-Sigma ships from initiating their hyperdrives. Then, the asteroids surrounding the clearings activated remote controlled missile launchers and torpedo tubes, specialized mines placed by the other Sovereignty destroyers. The clearings turned into deathtraps as the three separate Gamma-Sigma formations were reduced to a mess of scrap metal and crippled starships. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the other Assailant class destroyers, three of them, emerged and entered the clearings (one ship per clearing). Still-functional Gamma-Sigma starships were interdicted; each one briefly scanned and then immediately turned to cosmic dust.

Far away from all of this was the Impervious as it had stopped at the point when the Gamma-Sigma flotilla had divided into three smaller formations. The ship surveyed the area with its predatory sensors, scanning the various wreckage, debris and battered starship. All over its vicinity were Peregrine fighters, all relatively intact after their engagement with the meager Gamma-Sigma SNTs. The fighters and the destroyer scanned everything, leaving nothing unturned.

“Captain, we have detected the Bloodstone Freedom,” reported one ensign monitoring the sensor arrays.

“Intact?” Captain Janis replied with interest.

“Relatively. Earlier in the engagement, it did sustain damage, but our Ion torpedoes crippled it, just as you ordered.”

“Excellent,” Janis replied, clasping his hands together. “Very excellent. Now this little tiresome errand of ours is over. Communications, inform CEID MI that we have acquired the Gamma-Sigma and UFPP’s prototype GS-1 fighter. Ensign, hold the ship with a tractor beam and send the marines to board it. I think it’s time for us to get our hard earned shore leaves.”

[Ace Pace]

Nice, didn't see this one coming does that mean your back to SOTS?

[Peregrin Toker]

Though it ended rather abruptly, I like it. It is very different in mood from SOTS: The Hammer Falls... and dare I say, perhaps even a little better?

I'll say that it certainly has a gloomier, grittier vibe to it - as well as a sense of moral ambiguity by including the Gamma-Sigma's view on the situation.

Assailant's Hunt is, despite being set in the same universe, miles apart from the entertaining pulp military fiction of The Hammer Falls. It's almost as if they were written by different authors.

The only thing I could desire more of this might be a short epilogue.

[Crazedwraith]

Great. Now what's a GS-1?

[Ace Pace]

Great. Now what's a GS-1?

IIRC, Shroom made it an experimental Gamma-sigma only fighter.

[Crazedwraith]

Great. Now what's a GS-1?

IIRC, Shroom made it an experimental Gamma-sigma only fighter.

I knew that from reading the story. Whta i wanna knows is capabillitites what it looks like why it's so important, etc....

[Peregrin Toker]

Actually, the GS-1 is a product of my imagination. It's a UFPP-built fighter specificially designed for the Gamma-Sigma, very loosely based upon the SNTs used by the Bragulan Empire.

[Ace Pace]

I knew that from reading the story. Whta i wanna knows is capabillitites what it looks like why it's so important, etc....

http://www.forum.omniversezero.com/showthread.php?t=649

First real post, you have it all there.

[Gandalf]

Just finished reading it, I like it.

*Official thumbs up.*

I like how technical it is.

[Shroom Man 777]

Thanks guys!

Better than the original? Hm...maybe because I was doing a Mary Sue on SOTS' John Baylor. I'm starting to think of rewriting SOTS...too bad Ace won't allow it (though I'd do major restructuring of SOTS, heck, I could make this the real prologue).

[Ace Pace]

Thanks guys!

Better than the original? Hm...maybe because I was doing a Mary Sue on SOTS' John Baylor. I'm starting to think of rewriting SOTS...too bad Ace won't allow it (though I'd do major restructuring of SOTS, heck, I could make this the real prologue).

I just don't want you to start over the entire thing and make it even longer, when your 2 chapters away from the end.

[Crazedwraith]

Thanks guys!

Better than the original? Hm...maybe because I was doing a Mary Sue on SOTS' John Baylor. I'm starting to think of rewriting SOTS...too bad Ace won't allow it (though I'd do major restructuring of SOTS, heck, I could make this the real prologue).

I just don't want you to start over the entire thing and make it even longer, when your 2 chapters away from the end.

Your 2 chapters from the end Shroom? Heres an idea finish SOTS as planed then doing your major new version with this as prologue.

[Shroom Man 777]

Since when did I say SOTS was two chapters away? The city fighting could take some long time.

EDIT: Hell, I am gonna do a revision. And if I do it properly, it could just be quite fast. Yeah!

[Ace Pace]

Since when did I say SOTS was two chapters away? The city fighting could take some long time.

EDIT: Hell, I am gonna do a revision. And if I do it properly, it could just be quite fast. Yeah!

Since you divided it up into

Chapter 5: city fighting
Chapter 6: you know..the end.

Revision or re-write? you want to change the plot or just make it better?

[Shroom Man 777]

A little of both.

[Peregrin Toker]

Speaking of the rewrite of SOTS:THF, can't you make it so that Selphie is naked first time we see her?

[Ace Pace]

Speaking of the rewrite of SOTS:THF, can't you make it so that Selphie is naked first time we see her?

Screw your hormones, you want erotica..

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