Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

shamless bump.
(Chapter to follow later tonight)

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Darn! and I thought there was a new chapter ;-)

Rasorow

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yeah sorry about that I ended up busy with other things.

Well here yah go http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

2412.1 The Battle of Wardo
It had been four Months since the planet buster drones had destroyed four bases in the Fornax system. And two months since HMS Hawkwing arrived and became Admiral Ross’ new flagship and he was still settling in to the sheer size and power of his new heavy cruiser, the only one on the entire Phong line at the time.
It was two in the morning when the detection nets first picked up the energy signatures of an entire Phong task force of some 22 frigates and destroyers headed to destroy the only Icaran world in Phong territory. It was still four hours to intercept range and Ross sat silent in his briefing room with his subordinates, including Captain Bradshaw of the 2nd space fighter wing which had come on-line only two months ago.
“Sir we can’t intercept them at any great range or else we’d risk letting them slip through our defenses and scoring hits on Wardo before we could intercept.” Captain Sarah Pallins steepled her fingers under her chin as she gave the holotank another look over.
‘Yes but at the same time, if we intercept them too close to Wardo colony it would risk them firing straight past our ships.” Commadore Stanley shook his head even as he made his statement, either way intercepting a fleet the size they were facing with as few ships as they had was going to be a hit or miss proposal.

“Alright what we are not taking into account here is that we have the 2nd Space Wing with us.” Ross chimed in, and everyone turned to face their Admiral, as it had been the first time since the briefing began that he had spoken. “Captain Bradshaw do you think your fighters could fill the gaps in our line of battle?”
“Sir, with all respect I think my fighters should be more active in the defense of the planet then taking up gap filling ops in your line of battle.” Bradshaw was always slightly arrogant, Ross had gotten used to that but he was also good at what he did and Ross was somehow still irked by that.
“So what do you recommend Captain?” Fowler’s sneer was obvious as she addressed the man that was for all intents and purposes her junior but the confident Pilot didn’t even flinch as he looked straight back at Ross.
“Well Sir, I’d recommend you let my fighters stay just behind your battle line, no doubt the enemy will envelope your battle line and punch holes in it, my fighters could sweep into them as they tried to reach the planet and take them by surprise. I know you’d feel safer with my fighters intermingled with your own line sir but if those destroyers got even one lucky shot on one of your capital ships they could totally disrupt my fighter formations….uh pardon sir but if my fighters have to evade one of our own exploding starships it would still open up a gap in your lines but worse then that it would totally disrupt my fighters abilities to intercept.” Bradshaw’s voice was totally emotionless as he stated what he considered perfectly acceptable facts but to the navy commanders sitting in the room with him his “facts” were appalling as he described the destruction of a Capital ship as a problem for him.

Ross raised his hand to wave down the other naval commanders before they had a chance to speak. “Alright Bradshaw your fighters will stay just behind my line of battle but I do expect you to get involved in preventing gaps in our lines…understood captain?”
“Understood sir.”
“Alright then, our Naval commanders know where their place in the line is and now we know where our fighters are going to be, so I think that covers it all. Good even Captains, Commodore Stanley.” Ross said politely, he escorted the other officers to his boat bay and saw them off. He then went back to his quarters to grab and hour of sleep.

“Line of battle is formed Admiral, all squadrons assembled, Bradshaw’s fighters are in position behind us.” Captain Palmer spoke on the screen, he was in his command station on the Hawkwing‘s main bridge and Ross was in the Flag bridge just below and 20 meters behind the main bridge, Ross was still not used to not being on “the bridge” as a battle was going on, he had to forcefully hide his frown at the thought as he nodded to Palmer.
“Thank you Captain, my plots down here say we have twelve minutes to intercept range is that correct?”
“Aye Admiral twelve minutes.” Palmer’s voice was remarkably calm-even for a navy man-but Ross thought the Captain had every reason to be, not all that long ago Hawkwing alone had destroyed six of the enemy’s ships while suffering no damage and that would make any captain cocky.

Twelve minuets later the entire line of battle erupted in a chain of broadsides, the light cruisers, cruisers, and heavy cruiser’s beams sliced across space but it was at extreme ranges and only two enemy frigates died under the fire. The destroyers fired their own cannons, but their depleted uranium shells only scored a handful of hits on the enemy fleet and no serious damage was done. A stream of missiles rippled away from the smaller Icaran ships.
The Phong point defenses chewed through the missiles however turning them into a massive cloud of erupting micro-stars but their overall effect on the battle was non existent. The Phong counter fire was hellish as the 14 Phong ships in range opened up on Ross’ battle line.
The heavy cruiser was the main target of the enemy fire and nearly a dozen shells slammed into her shields as the enemy continued pouring on the fire, fire which was broken again as the Icaran line fired it’s broadsides yet again, Hawkwing alone claimed two kills, the light cruisers each scored a kill and the cruisers crippled two ships and killed two more with their own powerful armaments.
The destroyers actually scored some good shots in their second broadside and three Phong ships fell out of formation as their engines burned out.

The heavy cruiser’s shields flared again and again as shells continued to slam into her relentlessly, the shields strained and succeeded in destroying most of the incoming shells but even it’s energy barrier had it’s breaking point.
A loud serious of explosions within the heavy cruiser shook her to her core as four direct hits punched massive holes in her engine core and another hit blew apart three of her cannons tearing them asunder as if they were toys.
“Sir, engine one down, cannons four, five and seven are gone, heavy casualties in those sections…” Ross could hear other damage reports over the com as Palmer’s face appeared on his screen again.
“Admiral, they are enveloping our lines, Hawkwing seems to be their main objective at the moment sir but Trafalgar has also taken some fire, Sir should I order the fighters in now?” Palmer’s voice was still remarkably calm and icy even as the holo display showed more fire from his battle line destroy six more Phong warships and then the dozens of tiny red blips that signaled the Phong counter salvos.
“No Captain we can’t yet, give them four more minutes, then order the intercept.”
“Admiral I….” Palmer’s voice was suddenly cut off as a massive explosion tore the bridge apart, a shell had impacted just behind the bridge its self but the angle of impact sent massive splinters slicing into the bridge, the two marine sentries exploded in clouds of gore and blood as the whole after section of the bridge erupted in splinters and shrapnel, a piece of wreckage decapitated Palmer’s exec and continued on into the helmsman, tearing his back open, a woman’s scream and then a gurgling blood filled cry jerked Palmer around, just in time to see another piece of bulkhead coming straight at him, it was too late to duck of course and the shard slammed into his face destroying it in a spray of blood and rent flesh.
Hawkwing took more hits, somehow her com net stayed on line however and Ross continued issuing orders to his ships, the line of battle had been broken much as he had expected but his fleet’s damage aside from his own flagship was surprisingly light, however the destroyer Trafalgar was in almost as bad shape as his own ship as it moved to cover his port side from fire.
“Bradshaw NOW, get your fighters into it!” Ross shouted over the com as another shell tore yet another piece out of the wounded and atmosphere bleeding heavy cruiser.

100 Wasp fighters screamed at full thrust from three different angles on the Phong ships that had enveloped the 3rd fleet, 10 squadrons of 10 fighters each unleashed hellish amounts of cannon fire as they darted around the much larger enemy ships, dodging what few cannons tried to fire at them. Rapidly eight enemy ships died as eight of the ten squadrons strafed them.
“Alright squadrons 1 and 8 follow me in, we’ve got to take out the bastards that are firing into Hawkwing before they destroy her.” Bradshaw led his squadron straight down the throat of one of the Phong destroyers that had been picking at the badly damaged flagship, as he squeezed the triggers on his controls Bradshaw saw hundreds of cannon shells tearing into the enemy ships hull, as his squad mates opened up those hundreds of shells quickly turned into thousands and then tens of thousands as the continued to strafe along the destroyer’s exposed hull, less then a minute later the destroyer wheeled away out of control and burning, until her reactor overloaded and she disappeared in a brilliant flash of gold.
The other squadron that Bradshaw led in the defense of the flagship also scored a kill and the fighter Captain couldn’t help but smile as he looked at his helm mounted HUD and saw the 3rd fleet firing another concentrated broadside into the enemy, and still more Phong target indicators winking out.
“Alright you scrappers, Squad 1 stay with me, I’m reading another ship going after Hawkwing squadron eight you have free fire, pick your targets and kill them at your discretion”

Ross exhaled deeply as he saw the Phong that were chasing his badly damaged ship destroyed by the 2nd space wing, more then that all along the line he saw his fleet gaining ground as more and more enemy ships died.

“This is Victorious to flagship, sir do you need assistance?” Sarah Pallins sounded more concerned then Ross had ever heard her before but he was too relieved to hear her voice to even see the las few red light codes wink out as the light cruisers Retribution and Pollux opened fire.
“Status is critical Sarah, but I can get her to port, what is the status of the fleet, I’ve lost most of my sensors over here.” Ross was still in the unfeeling professional mode that he donned in battle, but in his gut he felt a terrified knot twisting around his stomach, his fleet had taken a lot more fire then it ever should have and he knew that his own ship-which was the biggest most powerful ship in the fleet- had been beaten to hell so he could only imagine what could have happened to the smaller ships.
“Sir, you and Trafalgar took most of the fire, I’m afraid the destroyer was crippled, her Captain is dead along with about two thirds of her crew, but other then that the rest of the fleet has suffered only minor damage, in fact Admiral, Captain Fowler and I request permission to take our ships out and hunt down those two enemy squadrons that ran their recon for that fleet.” Pallins’ voice was full of heartache and the yearning to make the rest of the Phong fleet pay for the damage the 3rd fleet had suffered and for the lives that had been lost.
“If you are sure you can take them out with minimal damage to your own ships then go for it.” Ross smiled thinly at the grin on Pallins face as she relayed those orders to her helmsman.

Retribution and [/i]Victorious[/i] both intercepted two separate Groups of Phong warships that had run recon for the main fleet which had raided Wardo, both squadrons were completely destroyed by the two Icaran warships.
Fowler had scored two enemy destroyers while Pallins scored another six destroyers killed, on their return to Wardo Fowler and Pallins were congraluated by Ross for their victories.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2412.2 Convoy Raid
Admiral Ross was tense as he looked at the holotank in Defender’s bridge, she was a General class Heavy cruiser, identical to the Hawkwing but unlike the other heavy cruiser she did not have a flag bridge and Ross was grateful for it as he was able to participate more directly with the action, even though him being in the flag bridge had saved his life when the Hawkwing’s bridge was decimated by a stray enemy shell, he still could not get used to being away from the bridge during battle.
“Captain, I’ve got 3 colony ships on scanners, their escort appears to be one of those new light cruisers of theirs as well as four old destroyers.” The tactical officer sounded absolutely predatory as he continued to scan his prey.
“Thank you tactical.” Commodore Stanley grinned as well as he looked back at his Admiral “Sir, do we form a line of battle or go for a melee?”
“Form line of battle Stanley, order Retribution to go around our line of battle and hunt down those colony ships.” Ross knew the light cruiser had a speed advantage over his heavier units and with that advantage she could overtake the three unarmored colony ships and decimate them easily.

“Enemy squadron approaching our line sir.” The tac officer’s voice was nearly a chant.
Ross nodded and with a single signal pulse from the Tac station the entire battle line opened up their broadsides and missile volleys.
Immediately two of the enemy destroyers vanished in brilliant flashes of wreckage and superheated plasma, another Phong destroyer was struck by four missiles but she continued on and was raked by two ranged beam shots that opened up more of her wounded hull.
The light cruiser had shields that shrugged off the cannon fire from the destroyers and I moved into range of Mnticore blowing massive chunks out of her hull and crippling her engines.

Captain Sandra Fowler clenched her fists in frustration as she knew she could not take part in the battle raging behind her.
“Captain Fowler, We’re closing range on the first target.” Gunnery officer Kinzie held his hand over the fire button as the gunnery crew’s data signals lit green, signaling their readiness.
“Fire.” Fowler took a deep breath as she watched her ships cannons tore into the unarmed colony ship like a knife tearing through paper, moments later it and millions of Phong ceased to exist. The light cruiser moved on to find her second target.

“Sir that Phong Light cruiser is turning about, I think she’s going after Retribution.”
“Thank you tactical, order Victorious to intercept and kill it. Ross relaxed noticeably as he saw the tactical display, two of the enemy colony ships were destroyed and the only Phong warship left was that badly damaged light cruiser which was about to be… destroyed, it’s signal winked out two minutes after it’s light signal converged with that of the Icaran cruiser.

The third fleet retuned to base for repairs, they had successfully neutralized an entire colonization convoy and ended millions of Phong lives.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2412.5 A decisive plan
The Holotank in the Admiralty building’s war room was towering, the second largest such holotank throughout the entire Icaran Empire on it was a display of every system within the Icaran Empire plus those systems that had been scouted and deemed as a potential threat to the Icaran state.
The war room was dimly lit as Grand Admiral Hallice walked over to the gathered lords of the Admiralty, noting that in their midst was Admiral Babcock who seemed to be listening very intently to the SIC Admiral Bright.

Hallice cleared his throat to gather the other admiral’s attention “Ladies and Gentleman it’s three in the morning and though I know Admiral Lady Bright is from Brandenburg where it’s currently zero seven hundred I am rather tired so if we could get down to business.” Hallice had a smile on his face as he took the flexi pad Bright handed him.
“Quite right My Lord…..alright ladies Gentleman the Strategic Insights Committee has been observing the stalemate on the Phong front for the past seven months and after recent engagements we believe it is time to push our advantage before the Phong can recover.” Admiral Bright handed out the various flexi pads and turned her pointer towards the holotank, after pressing the selector stub on her pointer the massive holotank zoomed in on four star systems, two owned by the Phong and two by Icara, multiple red dots speckled each of the star systems with information regarding battles or skirmishes fought.

“Admirals the most recent message from our borders states that the 3rd fleet has suffered nearly 6,000 dead officers and Ratings and has even had to pull some of Wardo’s populace into their ships to keep fully crewed, however the sheer amount of damage they have inflicted upon Phong forces is astonishing, to this date the 3rd fleet has been responsible for nearly one hundred and twenty seven ship to ship kills and that includes the recent destruction of a Phong colonization convoy which they obliterated with minimal casualties sustained. “ Bright paused and allowed the other Admirals to let the information sink in.
“Now we believe if the Admiralty will dispatch the 1st fleet in combination with the 1st Icaran regiment we can bring that stalemate to a decisive and crushing end for the Phong. Lords I believe the third fleet should continue it’s attack Fornax, while the first fleet and escorts the first Icaran regiments ground forces in the capture of Maven Parsis.”
“Lady Bright if I may ask do you honestly think that the 1st Icaran can capture that system alone?” Admiral Fredricks voice was skeptical, the Admiralty had never considered off world invasions before and many doubted it could even succeed but Bright simply shrugged.
“Well Admiral I do believe we could do this, it will take the first fleet around a year to get on scene but once they do I believe this costly stalemate can end once and for all.” Bright smiled confidently as she saw Hallice nodding.
“Well we have a lot to discuss, Opinions?” Hallice sounded like he had already made up his mind yet for an hour the other members of the Admiralty grilled Bright about all that could go wrong and all that it could cost Icara if this mission failed yet to all of them but all of the information she provided was surprisingly convincing and within two hours Admiral Babcock was aboard his flagship readying the 1st fleet to move out.

2412.7 New Daggers in the Night
A new star nation called the Citizen Federation was encountered and currently almost no information is known about them accept the Political Bureau has filed a trade alliance pact with them.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Would you give permission for your story to be archived in the SpaceEmpires.net Fan Fiction Archive, once it is more or less complete?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Absolutely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'm honored your considering my story that fun a read....but it's gonna be good long while for this story to be more o less complete unless something catastrophic happens like what happened with my first story involving Icara lol. (one supernova and a series of small invasions ended the game so abruptly it wasn't even worth a story)

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Heh dang I made it all the way to the second page of this forum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

2413.1 Operation FireFrost
A messenger drone arrived onboard Redoubtable fifteen minutes after Admiral Babcock had begun his flag briefing. A breathless rating came bursting into the briefing room a flexi in his hand. The Captains gathered around the table frowned and more then one were glowering at the young Spacer.
“Admiral sir, messenger drone from 3rd fleet, Rear Admiral Ross sends his compliments and says he engaged a 15 ship Phong fleet. He reports that HMS Manticore has been destroyed.”
“Is there anything else spacer?” Babcock said harshly as he took the flexi out of the spacer’s hand.
“Yes sir message ends with Operation Firefrost is a go.” Babcock tensed momentarily then waved the man out of the room.

“Ladies and gentleman the invasion of Mavin Parsis is a go how long will it take us to reach our first target? Babcock was excited almost to the point of glee, finally it was time to carry out his mission and rid the universe of those damned yellow freak’s grip.

“Admiral, my astrogator informed me this morning that it will take us approximately 5 months to reach our target as we must re-supply in the Tempel system before we proceed.” Captain Yu Lin looked at Babcock with a slight smile, she too had been looking forward to carrying out Firefrost and avenging her father and it was almost time only a few more months now and they would strike the beginning of a death blow for the Phong Federation.

“Alright, so we have Five Months, lets get Colonel Drago involved in our next series of briefings so he can give us the best opinion on how to use his troops during the invasions.” Babcock and began to stand up “Well Ladies and gentlemen until tomorrow.” he finished with a slight nod of the head and his officers began filing out of the room, all except Yu Lin Pe.

As the Last officer filed out Babcock tuned to the young woman still seated and smiled gently “Something I can do for you Captain?” his tone was almost fatherly as he returned to his seat.

“Sir, I am not sure about Firefrost, don’t get me wrong Admiral I think we need to strike a deathblow against the Phong, but why risk the lives of Icaran troops to do it?” Her expression was almost pleading as she looked at the older man, her piercing almond eyes alight with fire and a spark almost of hatred. “Why not just nuke the bastards and end it?” she folded her hands together, pressed her elbows into her chair arms and rested her forhead against her folded hands.

“You haven’t slept in a while have you Yu?” Babcock asked softly and grimaced as she shook her head. “Lin, listen to me I know what the Phong did to your father and the other members of the 3rd fleet at the third battle of Fornax was terrible, and if I were you I’d probably want to nuke the bastards too but look at it from the Admiralty’s perspective.” He paused as she looked up at him with tired eyes and cocked her head in interest. “The Phong under our control would expand our borders far more then our current populace would allow, more then that they would already have an established economy, one that appears to be fairly strong by the industrial output we’ve seen thus far. The Rebel Alliance actually cost us money and resources for the first two years that we controlled their territory, the Phong territories would increase our resource base and allow us to expand still further into other star nations like those Neo Star scum.” He ended his statement in the same neutral tone he had started it.
Yu Lin nodded slowly as she thought about what he had said, the Phong had killed her father and millions of other Icarans but in their subjugation they would pay far more then if the Navy simply went in and glassed their worlds, they would pay in ore and resources, and any of the fools that thought about resistance would pay in blood, if not at the hands of her or the army then at the hands of the Blackshirts of the State Security brigades. A slight smile crossed her face but it soon faded, no matter how much the Phong paid in the end it would never bring the dead Icarans back and more Icarans would die before this ended, she just hoped to God and the saints that it would be worth it.

Babcock patted the young woman’s shoulder and startled her out her thoughts “Lin go get some sleep I’ll need you at full speed when FireFrost goes off and I don’t want you to have to be on stims or neural restoratives.” Babcock’s smile was sincere as he helped the young woman to her feet.

“I think I will go back to Lenin and get some sleep sir, I could probably use it.” She smiled back at him as he escorted her to the hatch.
“Oh yes I’ve been meaning to ask you, how you are liking your new command?”
“I Love it sir, I’m just grateful Grand Admiral Hallice chose me over Patterson.” Her smile changed to a grin as she considered that pompous *** that almost became captain of one of only three Heavy cruisers in the first fleet.
“Good day Lin.”
“Good Day Admiral.”

Once Yu Lin was gone Tyson Babcock returned to his desk, pulled out a sheet of flexi’s and began writing various Messages back to the Admiralty, but he paused and wondered just how heavy the price of this conquest would be to his own people, afterall the third fleet had suffered massive casualties during their first engagement….

The Planning continues

"Colonel Drago it is your conisdered opinion that the 1st Icara could take over both targets within the alloted amount of time correct?" Admiral Babcock's grin showed from across the room, he was begining to like Colonel Wilheilm Drago but the man did have a habit of being overly conifdent in his regiment at times.

"Sir it is my opinion that my Regiment-if supported by the fleet- can neutralize the planetary defenders of those Phong worlds, I would like the ability to call upon your marines if necessary however, just in case my men need a perimiter." Drago smiled wickidly at the Marine Captain who was glowering at him from across the table,(the thougth of Royal Marines being used as nothing more then perimiter guards was enough to make any marine spit plasma) "Of course I don't mean any offense to your Capable Marines Captain, it's just my men have tanks and Last I checked yours didn't." the smile was still there as Drago turned back to the Admiral.

"Captain Yu, Lenin would be assigned to protect the Batton do you think you could provide a sufficent drop zone with your ship's cannons or would you prefer I assign another vessel to reinforce you?" Babcock fixed the young woman in his eyes and waited while she thought.
"Admiral I think I would also like Hornet and Eclipse to reinforce my efforts, I am confident in my gunners of course but Lenin is likely to draw a lot of fire from any planetary defense platforms and I would not wish to risk the destruction of the transport if my own cannons should be knocked out of action." Her tone was matter of fact and the fact that she had just recommended her brother's ship as one of her escorts seemed to just be a matter of buisness to her. Babcock was always proud of her even when she was just his atachee and he knew that her and Chin had been very good in sims when paired together but this was a real invasion, he shook his head for a moment and the flag captains and senior ground force commanders looked on in curiousity.
"Sorry Yu, I'd rather assign Republic to you and keep Eclipse at my side with the main force, if you have no objections?" When an Admiral asked if a Captain had any objections it was only a matter of tradition and respect as no Captain would ever dare object to an Admirals orders during wartime.
Yu Lin's mouth opened for a moment before closing with a click as she shook her head.

"Well I am confident Admiral, Captain that you will choose the ships you see best to escort me, but if I may point out, your ships may have to act as little more then slug catchers for Batton, as the Admiralty and Chief of the Army General Staff have both expressed a desire to take these Phong worlds as intact as possible, and orbital bombardment would no doubt have serious implications." That was yet another reason Tyson Babcock began to like Colonel Drago, he had a knack for breaking up ackward moments without being obvious about it.

"Colonel you are of course correct, however I must also say for the record that if any of my ships begin taking too much damage while guarding you they will open fire until your troops reach planet. Is that understood?" Tyson asked politely and Drago nodded, Lin too nodded before returning her gaze to the holomap o the Mavin Parsis system.

"Now Gentleman and Ladies, our first objective is Mavin Parsis Three, it is lightly defended but is home to an extensive farming facility as well as a large shipyard upon it's capture we will leave the heavy cruiser Rossovelt to stand guard as well as an SS brigade." Babcock paused long enough for the other officers to absorb the information. "Alright, our second objective will be Mavin Parsis two, it has an extensive Rad mining base and would be a great boon to our economy, if and when that is secure Parsis One will be our objective, it's mineral harvesting operations would also greatly improve the Icaran production abilities, after that the Admiralty has been kind enough to grant us independent targeting." Babcock smiled, there were only two inhabited planets left in Mavin Parsis that could be targets so the granting of independant targeting was more a matter of politeness then anything actually useful.

"Alright then, we know Parsis three will be the most heavily defended when it comes to ground forces, Parsis One is likely to be the most fortified with weapons platforms so I think we should begin planning on orbital bombardment patterns as soon as possible." Drago's smile vanished as he considered the possibilities of planetary defense stations and wondered just how many people may die at the barrel of a ground mounted DU cannon.

"I'll take Lenin and Rosevelt in with me, the three heavy cruisers would be the best option for that kind of operation as we have the heaviest shields and weapons, the cruisers can form up behind the Batton and provide any additional bombardment we may require." Babcock looked grim as he looked at the intelligence reports that had been brought in by Warspite when she had run her scouting mission with her squadron mate Hecate, Parsis One would be the hardest orbital target no doubt, it had six weapons platforms with depleted uranium cannons and those damned planetary defense platforms had proved once before how accurate they could be.

"Alright let's take this one step at a time, if you pardon me Admiral, I know I am no naval officer but I am an Army Colonel and I prefer knowing for sure what resources I'll have available to me before I commence planning an invasion, let's assume we'll have all three heavy cruisers when we go in but let us also plan for if one or more of them is somehow removed from the equation." Wilheilm grimaced as the Naval officers present nodded, they all knew that only destruction would remove any of the heavy cruisers "from the equation" and the simple mentioning of the possible loss of a heavy cruiser reinforced the notion of just how heavily fortified these worlds were.

The Admiral of the first fleet nodded solemnly with his officers "Alright ladies and gentlemen the Colonel has a point, let's start making backup plans right now just in case..."

The planning continued for hours as the first fleet entered the Tempel system and began approaching the supply base that would be their final stop before the assault on Mavin Parsis, and the first "space to shore" invasion in history was begun.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Note more material has been added to the above post if you have read it before this post was made you may want to reread it for the added material. Thank you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2413.6 The beginning of the End
The 1st fleet and it’s ground force the 1st Icara Mobile Army Regiment had entered Mavin Parvis unopposed as the two cruisers of the Warspite squadron had destroyed the Phong warships that had garrisoned the star system.
Two weeks later they had entered orbit of Mavin Parsis III and the ground forces swept through the enemy milita inflicting hundreds of casualties while sustaining none of their own, not a single ship of the fleet was damaged and the heavy cruiser Rosevelt took up station to protect it from any potential raiders that remained. A state security brigade was also in the process of forming it’s headquarters on world to ensure the public stayed in line.

It had been only three days since MP three had fallen and the 1st fleet was now entering attack range of the much more heavily fortified MP two, the heavy cruiser Lenin and two cruisers followed closely by the troopship Batton.
“Captain Yu this is Flag, watch yourselves in there I don’t want you taking too much damage to guard that troopship, if you determine that the situation is to risky to you and the ships under your charge I want you to scorch those planetary defense platforms understood?” The voice of Admiral Babcock came over the com piece in Lin’s ear from his flagship yet she felt as if she could almost see the worry in his face.
“Don’t worry sir, we’ll get this job done and come home to celebrate afterwards.” She tried to sound more confident then she felt but her voice sounded strained even to her own ears. She cut the com to the flagship as her small four ship flotilla came closer to MP two.
“Captain energy spikes on the surface, planetary cannons coming Online, best estimate is one eight cannons I repeat one eight.” Tactical officer Hernandez was just out of basic but his sense of professionalism even in the face of overwhelming firepower made Lin proud he was on her bridge.
“Thank you tactical, Com relay to Republic to stay one-zero-eight kilometers to our starboard, have Hornet pull fifty two klicks off our port side and keep them between Batton and those cannons.”
“Aye ma’am message relayed.”
“Helm, take us straight for that planet, let’s offer them a big enough target that they can’t refuse us.” Captain Yu clenched her hands into fists around the arms of her shock frame chair in anxiety as she watched her ships close ever closer to the red sphere that represented the enemy planet’s maximum effective fire envelope.
“Approaching EFE in two point three niner minutes skipper, our EFE is coming up in four minutes.” Hernandez hid a shudder as he realized that would put their ships under fire from eighteen planetary cannons for no less then a minute before they could return fire.
Yu just grimaced and nodded to herself as she calculated the number of shells that could be lobbed at her in that amount of time, the Phong’s latest cannons showed they could fire three shells a minute and there were nine of the newer cannons on that planet which meant she would have to deal with…40.5 shells from the newer cannons before she even got inter her own firing range, and by then she’d also have to deal with thirty or forty shells from the older cannons . She shuddered in her command chair, if every single shot fired hit her then this would be her ship’s Last mission.

“Enemy EFE in five, four, three, two, one, we have incoming shells.” Hernandez’ calm professional voice showed only the slightest hint of fear as 9 of the most advanced cannons in the Phong arsenal opened up on them.
Lenin‘s shields caught every shell and Yu noted with some bit of dry humor that it wasn’t at all like it was portrayed in the old Holo’s or the old 2d movies of ancient Earth, when a shield grid caught the incoming fire there was no shaking or sparking or explosions out of random positions on the starship, the energy field simply absorbed the fire and the crew onboard didn’t feel a thing-it was when you did feel something that you were in trouble.
“Helm time to drop?”
“Five minutes ma’am”
“Incoming!” Hernandez sounded startled this time and when Yu jerked around to look at her tactical repeaters she saw why, eighty cannon shells headed straight at her.
The shields flashed and flared and took more hits but then….an enormous ear splitting cracking sound rocked the heavy cruiser down to her keel as shell after shell slammed into her.
“Engines one, three, five, gone, cannons one through four gone, crew quarters section two gone, life support backup systems are on-line main Life support destroyed, heavy casualties reported on all decks.” Hernandez chanted out the “essential” damage reports but the systems he wasn’t mentioning were almost ominous in Yu’s ears.
“Damn it incoming!”
“Saints protect us.” a voice in the background said as the next salvo slammed into the heavy cruiser’s battered hull tearing sections of her apart like a darter round hitting a wounded cow in the stomach.
More sections of hull plating tore away under the strain and Lenin limped and twisted as more shells just barely missed her.
The Last shell tore into the bridge section, opening it to space and tearing the com officer apart as she was pulled through a breach in the hull that was too small for her body, the marine sentry on the bridge had his leg sheered off by a splinter of battle-composite hull plating, his skin-suit’s automed unit instantly began treating the screaming man. Hernandez’ left shoulder was torn clear of it’s socket and his shattered arm hung limply at his side as he tried to use his right alone. His vac-suit’s med unit was already administering non-interference painkillers into his bloodstream to keep him functioning.
The sound of other wounded bridge officers screaming made Yu feel sick as she knew there was nothing she could do about it, her bridge was still mostly operational and she had to continue the operation.
“Damage report Hernandez?” Yu heard the voice of Commander Sharp and thanked God her exec hadn’t been killed or wounded.
“Uh, sir.”
“Damage report now mister!”
“Astrogation is down, we have one engine left, two cannons are still operational but the first cannon’s crew is dead, sensors are gone, tracking sensors gone, supply bays are gone, back up life support is damaged but operational, heavy casualties reported sir, power room one is open to space, non of the work crew made it out.” Hernandez suddenly sat straighter in his chair and Lin braced herself for death as she assumed the next words out of his mouth would be incoming.
“Skipper! Redoubtable is moving between us and the planetary defenses!, Hornet is acquiring target lock on planet, firing!” Hernandez’ professionalism was suddenly shattered as he turned around with a brilliant smile on his face.
The flagship took several serious hits but she shrugged them off and continued to protect the badly damaged Lenin while the cruiser Hornet turned five out of six of the weapons platforms into so much shards of wreckage and the glass that was created by her beams.
“Ma’am [i]Batton is moving into drop station.” Captain Yu Lin Pe smiled and relaxed, with the army on the ground her job was pretty much over, now it was up to Colonel Drago.

Troop Bay of HMS Batton
A large column of gray armored figures stood silent as statues in the cavernous troop bay of the Batton, a single figure stood out as it stepped to the front of the column, a red pauldron with the golden eagle of an Imperial Colonel.
Colonel Wilheilm Drago triggered his command net frequency so that all his troops could hear him, he then cleared his throat, removed his helmet and bent on one knee. The entire column of troopers followed his example and rested on bent knee, bowing their heads.
“Today we faithful Icarans kneel before you Oh Lord, we ask that you give us the strength to carry out the task at hand and to grant us victory over our enemies. We ask for you protection and grace as well in the tribulations that are about to befall these brave men and women, may they all return home or die with honor for the glory of Icara.” the Colonel’s strong baritone voice boomed in the flight bay in a grave manner.
“Lord we also ask that you grant us accuracy in our fire, and swiftness in kills so that we can rid this world of those godless heathens.” a slight chuckle went up from the gathered troopers. “Amen”

Within seconds the thousands of troopers were loaded into their dropships, their tanks and APCs already locked into place in the dropship’ holds. The bay doors slid silently open, the planetscape of their target loomed before them, it was an ugly world, green and brown was the color of the atmosphere and the soil was gray and slimy looking, many of the troopers wondered why they had not just glassed the ugly world and moved on.
Drago stood locked in his shock frame, his command squad locked into place around him, he thought humorlessly that the only benefit to this ugly ****ball on the *** end of the galaxy was that it had abundant radioactive materials that could provide the empire with a valuable rad base for centuries to come, but it sure was an ugly *** planet.
Then it came, the thump and hissing noise of the dropship detaching from it’s docking arm and racing towards the planet at speeds that would have killed anyone in a ship that had no inertial compensators, and even with them the personnel of a dropship felt five gees going down.

As the 400 dropships breached the atmosphere the planetary defense forces of the Phong world opened fire with AA guns and SAMs unfortunately for the defenders the Icaran ECM generators were too good and their shields were too strong, the few shots that hid a dropship were absorbed and did no damage.
The first wave of dropships landed less then two minutes after their initial deployment and quickly began unleashing the armored troopers and tanks within their holds.

Colonel Drago and his command unit were among the first wave of troops and as the bay doors slammed open in the troop compartment of his dropship, the shock frames immediately unhooked.
“Alright MOVE!” His voice boomed over the com net as the command squad filed out of the dropship at a run, as he exited the dropship Drago already heard the familiar thumping of the Icaran tanks main cannons, he also heard the whine of AP beams and the screech of the meson bLasters.
The Icaran Army’s assault rifle was an interesting weapon, it was actually two weapons in one, an AP beam and Meson bLaster combination in an under, upper configuration, the AP barrel being beneath the Meson bLaster. The AP beam was more power consuming yet it was also more powerful when taking out a single target, as well as being more accurate then the BLaster. The bLaster on the other hand was a devastating anti-personnel weapon and carried with it “splash damage” which could burn or even kill unarmored targets that were standing near the impact site, the Meson bLaster was also far less power hungry then the AP rifle and so it was the primary fire mode of the Icaran army.

“Sir, Able company reports they’ve got the bastards on the run in their quadrant, no fatalities to their own forces thus far, Charlie company is reporting that they are encountering heavy resistance and require immediate aid.” Major Davis’ frowned as the com trooper, SGT Taggar continued to relay the information she was receiving from the other companies. This world was much more heavily defended then they had expected and all along the front they were encountering heavy fire.
“Alright tell Delta Company to support Charlie, Baker company is coming with us Major we need to take that dome ASAP, so that their perimeter forces have nowhere to fall back to.”
“Yes sir, alright pass it on Taggar.” Davis said crisply as he rallied the other squads of Baker and Gamma companies as well as their 20 tanks and APCs, the LZ had been cleared with surprising swiftness and Phong militia lay dead all around.

Baker and Gamma both closed in on the domed city that made the capital of this particular world, so far neither company had been assailed by the defending Phong and the tension was so thick Drago felt like he could cut it with a force blade. They had been passing through a “forest” path, the “trees” were little more then huge piles of what looked like seaweed, yet slimier and instead of oxygen producing they produced lethal amounts of Carbon Dioxide.
“Incoming baker two watch your flanks!” the voice of some unseen CO snapped as the bang of Phong gauss rifles sent the entire Icaran force ducking for cover trying to find the shooters, a scream was cut off as a second shot tore through a dying trooper, then the firing started in the area where the command squad was. A rocket bore down on one of the tanks and exploded, doing no serious harm to the tank but sending two troopers flying a meter into the ar, their bodies were torn apart in mid air as the unseen gunners lit them up.
“Damn it watch those slime piles, use AP rifles now!” Major Davis said coldly into the command com as he aimed his own rifle and squeezed the firing stud, a purple beam shot from the bottom barrel of his assault rifle with a whine as it cut clean through the middle of a “slime pile” with a single sweep. A phong body dropped from the pile of slime, it’s torso and lower body separated by several centimeters.
AP beams swept through the slime with precision lethality yet the counter fire dropped a trooper right in front of colonel Drago, the man’s torso erupted in a geyser of blood as an armor piercing round tore into him.
Drago leveled his own rifle on the shooter and let fly a burst of mesons turning the slime pile and it’s occupant into burnt sludge, he leveled his rifle a second time and killed another Phong outright burning a hole clean through it.

“They’re CHARGING ON THE FLANKS!” someone shouted as a screaming mass of Phogn militia charged out of the “forest” down upon the ranks of Icaran troopers. Slug throwers wounded or killed a dozen Icarans before they were able to react but by then the Phong were already in their midst using force bayonets to stab at Icaran soldiers..
Drago depressed a stud on his rifle and his own force bayonet snapped into place under the barrels of his rifle and just in time as a Phong warrior wearing their blueish green armor charged him, the Colonel just barely dodged the alien’s thrust and brought his right foot up with an amazing kick to the Phong’s kneecap, a cracking sound let him know he had broken the Phong’s leg, with a quick thrust of his bayonet into the alien’ neck he severed it’s head then whirled around with driving his armored elbow into the faceplate of another Phong trooper with such force that it shattered, exposing the Phong too the toxic atmosphere, Drago moved on leaving the creature to suffocate.
All along the line Icarans and Phong fought hand to hand, force blade to force blade and the screams of the wounded and dying on both sides filled the air.
Major Davis led fifth platoon baker company on a charge that sent the few surviving Phong running, unfortunately for the Phong they ran straight into Gamma company’s armored column and were turned into paste by the treads of the massive armored vehicles, or were cut down by Gamma’s continuous volleys of meson fire.

The battle for Parsis II Lasted another month and Icaran Army dead numbered only 10 surprisingly, with over eight hundred wounded. Unfortunately in space the losses were far heavier, Lenin lost nine hundred of her three thousand crewman and had another seven hundred wounded. The flagship had lost nearly two hundred of her crew and had another three hundred and fifty wounded.

Two of three Icaran heavy cruisers in the 1st fleet were put out of action until repairs could be undertaken by the captured shipyard facilities of Mavin Parsis II, there was already a State Security brigade establishing it’s self on planet and the Phong forced labor camps were efficient enough to repair the two ships in a matter of months, but until then their invasion of Mavin Parsis had hit a roadblock.

Some day the Phong of these worlds would join Icara as full citizens but until then the forced labor camps (which provided adequate food and medical attention) would have to suffice to keep the populace as functioning members of the Icaran Empire.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Uh oh sudden lack of commentary BUM BUM!

Well in all seriousness for those of you who have been reading this, Does it look like my wrighting style is better as the story developes?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Lol, well I'm sure we've all still been reading the stories http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I continue to think they're great, and one hell of a lot better than what I could do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. Personally, I enjoy your writing style (aside from the occaisional spelling/grammar error, and a few run-on sentences http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2414.1
“Today on Icara Imperial News, the 3rd fleet has engaged a task force from the Phong Federation in the Fornax star system, it is this Network’s greatest pleasure to report that the 3rd fleet had an astounding victory over our enemies yet again.” The beautiful young reporter Janet Cranston was one of the most popular state reporters, and the IIN only one of two state permitted news networks so at about this time a night just over half the Icaran twenty billion people were watching.
“Admiral William Ross’ fame continues to grow as he leads the third fleet in multiple victorious engagements against several Phong battle fleets, leading the Fornax system.
Meanwhile in the Mavin Parsis system Admiral Babcock has led the first fleet in a victorious invasion of three of the planets within the system, he reports that our conquest of the Phong is only a matter of time and with the State security brigades taking up position our people will soon be enjoying the resources these conquests can bring in.” Janet stopped talking and looked over to her co-anchor “And now to you Ed”

“Thank you Janet, Riots have broken out in the Pollux system, the former Rebel Alliance citizens of an organization known as the “Citizen Rights Coalition” is leading the rioters against local police forces claiming that their kind is being mistreated by the Imperial government. Admiral Lady Selene Poule of the 2nd fleet is said to be mobilizing her fleet and the 1st Brandenburg regiment for their departure to quell these riots as soon as possible……if the rebels happen to be watching this report it is my recommendation that you surrender peacefully, or you will surely die.” Ed Hanston grimaced.

“In other news, the Icaran Tigers beat the Brandenburg Hornets 20 to 15 in the system wide crossfire tournament…..

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

If you want comments, mine would be identical. Good stuff - keep it coming. I really enjoy it.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Don't think I'm going overboard on the Icaran's being a non-democratic society do you?

2414.2 Reflection on Victory and Death
The second to Last of the worlds of Mavin Parsis lay before the 1st fleet like a glowing jewel, frail and open for the taking, Mavin Parsis I had fallen the month before and had inflicted 30 kills upon the Icaran army, it had been the most heavily defended and heavily fought for world in Parsis but before the might of the army it was nothing. In that same month Parsis
This world would be even easier to conquer as it was a tiny world compared to the others, at least that is what captain Yu Lin hoped. She had seen her ship pounded into ashes twice, lost over a third of her crew in the battles and still more lay ahead of her and her withered crew, she couldn’t even have her ship re-crewed until they reached Wardo base and could press some of the civilian population there into service.
Hours passed and finally the Batton reached her dropship range and began launching her deadly payload towards the planet’s surface. Lin watched as 396 new energy signatures rippled from the massive troop transport , on their way to yet another glorious victory for the Empire, or at least that’s what the news would say. Any soldier who had actually seen these wars, had seen their friends and subordinates torn to shreds in battle knew that this was far from “glorious” it was grim and gruesome and disgusting, yet it was also necessary because Icara had to rule over humanity and over any other race that stood to threaten them Yu hid her frown beneath her steepled fingers, she was letting herself think grim thoughts again and silently scolded herself for allowing it. Thankfully her ship would not take part in this invasion as this target had no weapon platforms.
“Captain, landings are underway, the regiment reports only light resistance thus far, though a dropship was shot down at the LZ.” Com officer Griffin’s voice snapped Yu’s thoughts right back into the grim dark realm they had been at only a few moments before.
“Thank you Griffin.” Yu barely raised her voice loud enough to be heard as she wished she had just been allowed to fly in and glass the entire world, every Phong world, the yellow bastards had killed her father and millions of Icarans beside and news had reached her that the 3rd fleet had taken a pounding in Fornax and had lost nearly two thousand spacers. Her hands clenched into fists as she set her command repeaters to display the footage being sent up to the flagship by the ground forces.

The invasion only took three hours, Colonel Drago led his regiment against the single dome city of the Phong in a rapid blitzkrieg assault and smashed through the handful of city’s militia like a bowl of eggs crushing every ounce of resistance from the civilian population almost as quickly. Drago sent assault squads down city streets, escorted by tanks and at any sign of resistance they leveled the area with fire destroying entire buildings to kill one sniper, many of the scum actually tried to use the females and children as shields but it did them no good as the Icaran troopers shot through their “shields” without hesitation covering the streets in dead.
Because of the swift brutality of the assault it ended that much sooner, the surviving city elder surrendered his colony to the Icaran Empire and begged mercy be granted to his city, ten Icarans had died in the battle but nearly one thousand times that number died on the Phong side leaving Colonel Drago very satisfied with his men and women.

Yu burned inside, she felt it wasn’t enough, the whole damn race should be exterminated down to the Last yellow bloated headed child.
“Commander Lee, you have the bridge I’ll be in my Day Cabin.”
“Aye ma’am I have the bridge.” Lee’s smart crisp reply barely covered over his surprise at his captain’s sudden withdrawal from the bridge right as the vidstream from the surface showed the victory.

As the doors to her small Day Cabin slid shut Yu pressed the lock button,walked over to her desk and picked up a picture that she still had of Mister Midshipman William Ross, wearing the cadet gray uniform with it’s black epaulettes, and that ugly pisspot hat that cadets wore. She began to wish she was with the 3rd fleet instead of the 1st, Ross had gained such a reputation slaughtering entire fleets of Phong and destroying three Phong worlds outright, all she had done was play target to planetary defense stations and allowed her ship to get the hell beaten out of it so that a bunch of mud crunchers could take a bunch of ugly planets filled with Phong, she respected the army but they just didn’t see the death that had been wrought on her ship by protecting their landings and their "glorious victories" would not bring any of her dead back.
She put the picture aside and sat stiffly on the small couch trying to force herself to relax, once Mavin Parsis was conquered her fleet would be sent to Fornax to join the 3rd fleet in operations against the Phong and then she could finally take part in ship to ship battle like she was born to do and not just play decoy.
Slowly her muscles began to relax as she breathed deeply in a manner taught to her a the academy, Lin felt her eyelids growing heavier and rested her neck against the back of the couch taking a moment to enjoy it's soft warmth, she hadn’t slept in forty hours, not since she had learned that her battered crew was going to be sent into the grinder yet again against the world that had just been conquered and now her body was revolting against her and it felt like so much jellow as she tried to stand, she tried to fight the feeling of exhaustion and was even tempted to take a stim or neural rejuv but finally her eyes slid shut and with a Last contented breath she slipped off to sleep.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

ooooohhh someone is getting a little obessive.

<wonders how good the Icranian Pyschological Services Minstry is>

Rasorow

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Great Story. How close is it to the actual game you are playing??

Your thread is the first one I look for..

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Actually it's remarkably close to the game I'm playing, some of the months I'm not involved in battle are being filled with story elements unrelated to battle but so far just about every month of this past game year I've been engaged in one battle or another agains the Phong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As for Characters some of their personalities are based on folks I know with some slight changes to personality to fit a militaristic environment.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

A dagger falls
Captain Yu Lin and her ship had been ordered to separate from the fleet and return for routine repairs at Parsis II’s shipyards, the most immediate concern was the GFGs which had been acting up on them during simulated jumps.
The massive heavy cruiser slid silently into the shipyard slip that had been left open for her at Parsis II, some of her damage scars still stood out on her hull plating, the yard master informed captain Yu that a complete repair would take over two weeks and that the rest of the fleet would have to continue on without her.

Captain Yu sat in her day cabin, quietly reading the reports from the yard hands and sipped a cup of coffee absently as she noted the large numbers of Phong listed on detail to her ship, she would have to order her marines and engineers to inspect any repairs those yellow creeps did on her ship. The com began to buzz and jerked her away from her train of thoughts.
“This is Yu what is it?”
“Captain, Bridge, Governor Fallon wishes to talk to you, ma’am.” The com officer’s report made Yu sit straighter, what would a governor want with her?
“Put it through, thank you.”
“Aye ma’am.”

Governor Fallon’s square jawed face appeared on screen, his grim look and squinted eyes made the hair on the back of Yu’s neck rise.
“How can I help you governor?” She used the same tone she would have used in battle, and her face was almost as expressionless.
“Captain Yu, I would like you and some of your marines to come to the surface this afternoon, I have to discuss something with the Navy, and you are the closest person here that represents any ranking naval officer.” Governor Micha’s voice was tense but the expression on his face was more concerning then anything else.
“Governor what’s wrong?”
“Just come here as soon as possible Captain.” The governor frowned again and cut the channel.

Yu sat stunned for a moment before she tabbed a control on her personal com screen.
“Marine Barracks, Sgt Kemper here.” A young voice replied crisply.
“Sgt Kemper, Captain Yu here, my compliments to Major Hernandez and tell him I need to see him in a quarter of an hour in my briefing room.”
“Aye Ma’am.” Yu could almost feel the marine brace to attention as she cut the channel.

Tabbing another key Yu began to scroll over the readiness loadout of her boat bay, one of her three marine dropships had been destroyed in the Last battle when the boatbay took a direct hit another had been damaged, that left her with a single dropship and four cutters at her disposal. The marine compliment of a heavy cruiser was normally two hundred but with the recent engagements she was down to ninety two combat effective marines with another thirty seven in medical.
She continued to read on the resources she had available to her, but the nagging concern of why the governor would want her and Royal Marines on planet when he had a full brigade of State Security troops haunted her, 500 state security troopers should have most definitely been enough to deal with any local issues.

Fifteen minutes later on the dot Major Hernandez stepped into the briefing room, Sgt Kemper at his side, both marines braced to attention and saluted, Yu returned the salute politely and waved the two men to their chairs.
“Major Hernandez as you may be aware Governor Micha has requested that I go to the surface with a compliment of marines and has been vague on what his reasons for this request are, I have attempted to contact him twice since I sent for you and his office only replies that he is “in conference”.” The marine officer nodded and his Sgt shrugged, “The specific request that I bring marines with me is what has me concerned Major, now perhaps there is nothing to worry about but I’ve never met a Frontier Nobleman that wants his personal space crowded by a Naval officer and a compliment of Marines unless he thinks that his own SS forces are inadequate.” Yu’s matter of fact tone spoke volumes as did her specific use of the term Frontier Noble.
The Icaran Empire was ever expanding these days and it was cleanly divided into “The Frontier” and the “Core Worlds” the Core Worlds held the bulk of he Icaran populace as well as the major military bases and academies within Icaran space, the peace was kept by Local Militia’s, and the Royal Military and most of the nobles enjoyed the military security provided them by their location in the galaxy.
The frontier however was a far less secure place the bulk of the military presence there was mobile with a handful of military shipyards and supply bases scattered throughout, only worlds with such bases had Royal Army presence, the other worlds relied on the State Security Brigades or SSB to the population at large, better known as SS by the military. These units were non mobile, heavy security forces equipped with small artillery weapons, darter rifles and hand guns and class 2 body armor, many of the units that occupied recently conquered worlds also had a number of armored, assault cars in their service, though some nobles paid out of their own pockets to better equip their SS brigades.
Frontier Nobles were very low ranking in the overall standings in the House of Lords and they were also far more independent minded, most of them hated having any military presence in their territory unless it was there to save their noble asses.

Twenty minutes passed as Major Hernandez and Captain Yu discussed the best deployment plans for the marines that were combat ready, she would take 12 marines with her on a cutter, the rest would remain aboard the dropship and the other cutters where they would await her specific order to deploy should the need arise.
After the briefing Yu proceeded to the boatbay with 12 marines that Hernandez had hand picked for her bodyguard the entire unit wore heavy body armor and fully automatic darter rifles, one of them even carried a grenade launcher.

The cutter darted from the bay of Lenin and burned through the atmosphere at 4 gees before breaking just 50 clicks off the surface before coming to a complete hover over the central landing pad in the city.
“Ma’am the launch facility looks empty.” the pilot sounded nervous as he continued to run scans of the landing pad.

“Try contacting air control Pilot” Yu turned to the marines “Alright marines, assume a hot LZ lock and load.” Yu pulled her sidearm holster’s lock open and slid the holster where she could more easily grab the darter pistol she carried.
“Ma’am no contact from Air control, but my scans are showing burn and bLast marks on the pLastacrete around the control tower, wait ma’am receiving a signal, patching it through now.”

“I repeat this is Governor Micha to navy cutter do NOT land in the main pad or you’ll be…” the governor’s voice was suddenly cut off as a missile impacted on the left wing tearing a hole clean through it and sending the cutter spinning out of control. A second missile impact tore off the right wing sending the cutter careening out of control.
“BRACE!” Yu heard the pilot shout and as she saw a building coming up in front of her she barely managed to unhook her straps and throw herself through the hatch leading to the crew compartment, the impact was bone shattering the sound of crunching metal and screaming sound of the sole remaining engine pushing the wrecked cutter further into the building was ear splitting…

After things had finally stopped moving, Lin managed to force herself to her feet “Is anyone there.” the cabin was pitch black and at first she couldn’t hear any noise, then she heard movement and several voices chimed in
“Aye ma’am, we’re here….I’ve got two marines dead though, have you checked on the pilots?” Sgt Kemper turned on his suit light and the shattered remnants of the troop hold revealed a grizzly sight, two armored suits were sprayed with blood and gore, the faceplate of one was torn open by the splintered remnants of a battlesteel beam the other body was just mangled beyond recognition.
“The pilots are dead.” Yu heard a voice behind her and turned to see private McNiel.
“Damn, let’s get the hell out of here before whoever shot us down takes a pot shot at us.” Another marine cut in and was waved back by Kemper.
“He’s right, let’s go.” Yu shook her head at the bodies and stepped over to the shattered remains of the door.
Two marines stepped up and helped her tear the wrecked doors open
A bullet ricocheted off of Yu’s armor and sent her wheeling back through sheer force of impact one of the two marines also took a bullet square in the chest plate and fell to the deck grabbing the rippled piece of armor.
“Sniper! Get back.” Kemper shouted as more bullets tore into through the opened door, Yu rolled out of the way of a stream of bullets and forced herself to her feet the marine that had been hit got to his feet as well.
“Morette, get up here.” Kemper snapped as a large marine stepped forward, he was carrying an M-52 grenade auto-cannon and a bandolier of grenades strung around his chest.

The heavy weapons marine walked forward and leveled his auto-cannon calmly as bullets bounced around him and three rounds even hit him dead on. Seconds later the cannon burped out six shots directly into the building where the snipers had been firing from tearing it apart in a series of explosions.
“Everybody out!” Kemper bellowed as the marines poured past Captain Yu and out into the landing pad, only then did it become apparent just what had happened, at least two dozen SS troopers lay dead on the pad, several civilian workers also lay dead, some butchered terribly.
Yu winced as she saw some of the butchered bodies, a crack bang drew her attention to another building, the sound of several darter auto-rifles split the silent sky in a torrent of darts some of which began bouncing off the marine armor. A marine went down with a scream as blood sprayed from a hole in her armored throat, the scream quickly turned into a gurgling cry before the marine stopped twitching.
“Return fire!” Yu shouted as she lined up her auto-pistol on a figure wearing gray and yellow armor and squeezed the trigger, a small explosion erupted from the figure and it fell back dead, the marine lines erupted in a return fire dropping three more of the attackers before the rest ducked back into cover behind a building.

The sound of darter fire erupted from behind the marines suddenly and another marine went down in a spray of gore and blood as a dart pierced his helmet, the poor marine didn’t even have time to scream as his headless corpse fell limply to the ground. Yu whirled her pistol around and saw a massed formation of armored figures running at her and her marines, she squeezed the trigger twice dropping two more targets before ducking behind the wrecked dropship.

“Follow me marines, Keep Yu between us damn it if she gets hurt your asses are mine!” Kemper shouted as he and three other marines came up in front of Yu and began herding her towards a wrecked building at the closest part of the landing pad.
More darts sang through the air but miraculously none of the marines were killed, though one took an explosive dart in the leg that pierced his armor and tore a gaping hole in his calf.

The marines barely made it into the door before dozens more darts began tearing away at the pLastacrete building. A dart just barely missed Kemper’s face and exploded in a wall painting behind him.
“What’s going on here?” Yu asked no one in particular as she leveled her darter at an armored figure outside, sending a dart screeching into the enemy’s head.
“Ma’am, getting a com signal from Micha.” Corporal Bradley said calmly as the sounds of pLastacrete blowing apart filled the room.
“Captain Yu, he says that there was a Phong resistance cell hiding in the outskirts of the city, by time he mobilized his SS troopers to respond the resistance had already launched their assault on the landing pad and government building. SS brigades are still trying to secure government building and the brigade guarding the landing pad took heavy losses before pulling out.” The Corporal said something into his com and looked over to Yu.
“Corporal ask him if he can get us any reinforcements before we end up like those SS outside.” The Captain said bitterly as she watched another marine take a hit in the shoulder and writhe on the ground before his suit’s medical pack administered painkillers.
“He says he’s already got a brigade inbound but they won’t arrive for another hour because of the street fighting Captain”

“Alright then, I want three marines upstairs and firing out of those windows NOW, Captain please stay back.” Kemper’s voice echoed in the building as another series of rounds tore into the wall.
“Stand easy Kemper I’m not going anywhere.” Yu ducked under the window to reload her darter as another round exploded overhead.
The marines continued firing out the windows while the marines that ran up stairs joined in the fight and poured rounds into the rushing hordes of gray armored figures dropping several of them.

The marines fought of wave after wave of attackers, and two more marines fell to snipers as an hour passed, then two hours and still no reinforcements had come. The Icaran troops were beginning to run low on ammunition and the newest wave of enemies was getting closer to the building where the marines were taking cover in.
Phong resistance troops hammered down the door and rushed into the building with bayonets and force knives, marines and Phong fought hand to hand and blade to blade, Yu slammed her bayonet into the throat of a Phong warrior and threw a kick into the ribs of another Phong warrior and the resounding crack of bones shattering filled the room as the injured warrior dropped.
The whine of darters came from outside the building but the embattled Icarans were too busy fighting for their lives to notice, the marines that had been upstairs raced down and opened fire into the mass of Phong cutting down several of the enemy warriors. The three troopers on the staircase continue to shoot down Phong as their fellow marines continued to beat the enemy back with bayonet and rifle butt.
A marine dropped at Yu’s feet, his faceplate punctured by a Phong bayonet, blood pooled rapidly on the floor making it slick, the Phong that had killed the unfortunate marine leaped over his victim towards Yu but Kemper’s bayonet slammed into it’s side draining the noxious yellow blood from the alien as it hit the floor twitching.

Almost as fast as it had began the attack was over, a wave of black shirted figures charged into the melee and sprayed the Phong warriors with non-explosive darts knocking them down long enough for Marines to bayonet them.
When it was all over an SS trooper wearing the standard black flak armor of his branch walked forward to Captain Yu and braced to attention.
“Ma’am I’m Lieutenant Sharpes 5th State Security brigade Governor Micha has ordered my men to escort you to the government building, as soon as possible.”
“What about my wounded lieutenant?” Yu asked dangerously as the young officer looked around, 3 marines were found dead outside, another four lay dead inside the building and two were badly wounded.
“Captain We can bring them with us but we have to move now! There are more of these “resistance“ troops on the way” The Lieutenant’s tone was pleading and Yu could barely contain the contempt she felt for the man, he was an officer in one of His Majesty’s services yet he was acting like a frightened child, not even waiting for the wounded to be loaded onto stretchers before he started for the door.

“Lieutenant do you mind telling me what the hell happened on this planet, and why you SSBs couldn’t keep the peace by yourselves?” She almost spat the sentence at the young officer who stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her, stunned.
“Captain, there was nothing State Security could do about it, we did not know their numbers or targets, we assigned security where it was most necessary.” The young man turned his back on the captain and began walking down the street again, watching the buildings carefully.
“So Lieutenant instead of dispatching mobile patrols Governor Micha ordered the SS to stay in two! Locations, and dispatched only a single brigade to guard your main landing platform?” Yu felt the rage building in her, the tactical folly was born out of cowardice, government house had four of the five brigades guarding it, while the landing port had one brigade protecting it, and that brigade was ordered to withdraw after barely a half an hour of combat against the resistance cells, and of course they pulled back to government house.

Hours passed before the Icarans reached Government house on foot and Yu had been forced to call down the entire marine compliment of Lenin to pull the marines and SS platoon out of a serious ambush, in the end the marines and SS were able to reestablish control over the city but of the twelve marines that had landed with Yu only four survived, and of the SS platoon that had been sent to escort them, half had died including their Lieutenant.

Yu immediately sent a dispatch to Admiralty requesting a board of inquiry be formed against Governor Micha for his failure to adequately deal with the uprising that had inflicted heavy losses on the civilian workforce and Icaran State Security forces….losses which would not have been so high if Micha had just ordered his men into mobile patrols instead of having them guard his house so tightly while the rest of the city was embattled.


2414.5
The Last world of Mavin Parsis fell before the vast column of Icaran ground troops, not a single Icaran had died in the invasion, yet the Phong had suffered many thousands of dead, their survivors were forced into the labor camps, the youth were placed in Icaran re-education facilities under the watchful eyes of Imperial teachers and state security troopers.
The heavy cruiser Lenin floated silently in formation with the rest of the parade that was being held for media benefit, her battle scars covered with fresh paint and plating, her half strength crew hidden from the camera drones orbiting the fleet. The public would get their triumph over the conquest of an entire star system by the Icaran Empire, but the military would move on to the next target, their “celebration“ party had been a glass of old champaign for the flag officers in the Admiral’s briefing room aboard Redoubtable.
Yu still had bad dreams about what had happened back on MP two but she was comforted by the fact that the admiralty had dispatched a JAG officer to investigate governor Micha's shortcomings.
The 1st fleet was already headed for Fornax at speed and would arrive at their first target in about eight months, all there was now, was the long wait before the fleet entered the maelstrom once more.

Fornax System
Admiral Ross won yet another victory over a Phong fleet headed to reinforce the Mavin Parsis defenses, the Icaran 3rd fleet killed 10 enemy light cruisers while losing only HMS Farrogot and three hundred of her four hundred man crew.
Ross sent a dispatch to the Admiralty with his after action report requesting that the officers and crew who had died aboard the unlucky destroyer be posthumously awarded the Icaran steel cross for valor and bravery in the face of the enemy.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

BTW the "Dagger falls" story was not actually based on anything that happened in game I just ran with a few months of nothing happening http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Just for those of you who were wondering why a Heavy Cruiser would be carrying troop units http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif they don't.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2415.3
The 1st fleet began it’s invasion of Fornax like a thunderstrike, Fornax V was swept through like locusts through a cornfield and already a military base was being established on world for the continued advance of the Icaran war machine.
Meanwhile Ross’ famed 3rd fleet scored yet another victory over a Phong squadron sent to reinforce Fornax V, not a single Phong ship escaped alive and the 3rd fleet suffered minimal damage.
Both Icaran news networks played the victories up to the hilt, proclaiming Admirals Ross and Babcock “Heroes of the Empire” and people all over the Empire cheered their military victories and letters from grateful citizens poured into the naval mail delivery bureau to the famous captains and Admirals of the battle.
The “Long March To victory” had begun 15 years ago and from the very start Icara had proven herself a conqueror and an unrelenting foe, the war with the Phong had Lasted almost twelve years now and the people rejoiced that the stalemate had finally been broken by the Icaran Royal Navy and Army, yet throughout the empire all knew that the march was far from over and that in the end it may end up becoming more a crusade then a march.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2415.8 The march continues
Admiral Babcock sat stiffly in his command chair as his fleet closed on Fornax I, it was a heavily defended world the most heavily defended his fleet had yet been asked to seize, 8 weapon platforms, 20 squads of enemy light infantry and an unknown number of militia.
HMS Hornet and the other cruisers of her division formed the vanguard of the fleet, while Redoubtable and the heavy cruiser division formed the second line behind the transport, the other cruisers fell into the flanking slots to ensure a full 365 degree defense perimeter around the troop transport.

As the fleet approached the world it’s surface guns tore space with shells the size of a fighter craft, most of the shots were aimed at the heavy cruisers and thankfully due to extreme range missed, but the next volley fired at Hornet and the other cruisers of the lead division, most of those shells missed as well but Hornet was damaged seriously enough to begin withdrawing from battle, her hull bled atmosphere, and a trail of wreckage followed behind her as she limped away.
The troopship was almost within drop range, once she landed her forces they could claim all eight platforms intact and not have to worry about leaving ships to guard their new conquest.
Unfortunately instead of picking a new targets the surface cannons opened fire on Hornet again, shell after shell tore into the battered wreck that had once been a proud cruiser until the structural integrity of the ship failed outright and shells tore clean through one end and out the other as the screamed in at near light speeds, one lucky shot struck home in what was left of the reactor core of the crippled cruiser and as containment failed a brilliant blue star was born. 2,100 Icaran spacers died as that star was born.,
Babcock clenched his fists in rage and sorrow as he watched the star fade and saw the wreckage that remained of a ship that had boasted a glorious service record.
The troopship reached dropship range at the same time the Last shell killed the cruiser, thousands of infantry and hundreds of armored vehicles cut through the atmosphere at speeds that were too fast to intercept by the planetary defense platforms.

Landing forces seized control over the most heavily defended target that Icara had ever faced, and they had done it in less then two weeks. The Phong governor of that world had relied too much on weapons platforms and when the ground forces of Icara landed the Phong ground forces were totally overwhelmed in a far from exciting battle, not a single Icaran Army trooper died in the battle.


[i]notes after the battle.
Two days after the battle Admiral Babcock dispatched Lenin to intercept a Phong Light cruiser that was headed towards the warp point to the Mavin Parsis system,
Captain Yu Lin Pe and Lenin are to be reasigned to Third Fleet as soon as Fornax system is secured
Her crew performed excellently in their kill of the enemy warship, and proceeded to the warp point with renewed vigor, Lenin scored their first ship to ship kill and suffered absolutely no damage in the process and not a single casualty had been sustained much to Admiral Babcock and Captain Yu's mutual relief after the tragic loss of His Majesty's Warship Hornet and her valiant crew.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2416.4 The Galactic West and the Manti Barrier
Admiral Lord Timothy Fredricks, commander of the 4th fleet sat laxly in his chair in the flag briefing room as he read the newest dispatches from Naval Intelligence, he scowled spitefully as he read about the victories of the 1st and 3rd fleets against the Phong, Fornax had fallen and the Phong sector forces decimated so swiftly that at first the Admiralty didn’t even believe it, Ross and Babcock were on the fast track to promotion, and so was any captain who earned a reputation under their command. And here he was stuck out in the middle of nowhere with the “4th fleet” guarding the border against the NSE, who were supposedly allies to boot!
“Captain to the bridge, unknown GFG footprint!” Fredricks quickly tossed the reports aside and raced for the door from the briefing room to the bridge.
“What is it Tactical?” He asked briskly as he stepped onto the bridge at a pace that was a little faster then he would have preferred for appearances sake.
“Sir, I have two, zero GFG footprints of unknown origin, I can tell you they are likely human but nothing else at the moment.”
“Hm, Take us closer helm.” Fredricks looked over at his Executive officer, who was bristling with excitement, it was her first tour aboard ship as an exec after she replaced his previous exec, who was transferred to command a ship of his own.

The 4th fleet closed on the unknown fleet for two days before they finally entered ID range of the unknown starships, they were obviously warships, they were long spindly ships with two hammer headed ends , the hulls were pure white but shown blue in the glow of the warp point they had just emerged from.
“Sir, I am reading a dozen destroyers, several light cruisers and cruisers, 5 battleships and a carrier.” The tactical officer looked nervously back at Admiral Fredricks, that fleet could easily defeat his own, the only hope he could have was to attempt contact, but if the unknowns did not want peaceful relations this would be a very short contact indeed.
“Com get me a signal to those ships.” Fredricks had to force himself to stay cool and collected, those ships out there could destroy his pathetic little assortment of ships and open up the entire region to attack before any reinforcements could arrive from Icara.
“Sir they’re hailing us.” The com officer tabbed a few controls and a voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“I repeat this is Admiral Sanjumi of the Manti Star Kingdom 2nd fleet, please identify yourselves.” The man speaking had an accent that Fredricks didn’t recognize, but he was just glad they were willing to talk.

“This is Admiral Lord Fredricks of the Icaran Empire 4th fleet, you have entered restricted space Admiral Sanjumi, please state your purpose in this region.” Fredricks swallowed hard as the endless seconds ticked by without response.

“I’m sorry to violate your space Admiral, we are simply exploring, we are not here to start any trouble.” The other man sounded confident, he too knew how a battle between the two fleets would turn out and he didn’t even need to be as polite as he was choosing to be, hell an Icaran Admiral would have just entered engagement range and unleashed a broadside on the inferior fleet that stood before them.
“Well Admiral now that we have encountered each other, may I send an Ambassador over?” Fredricks tried again to sound as if nothing major was happening, but his eyes never left the tactical screen on his command chair, the Manti fleet was still moving, but not towards any planets in system, at least not yet.

“Certainly Admiral Fredricks we’d be honored to welcome one of your ambassadors over to my flagship.” Fredricks could almost feel the man’s smile as his voice came over the speakers.

“Well then I’ll have an ambassador sent to you within two days, please stay where you are until that time, thank you.” Fredricks said as politely as he could manage and then cut the com circuit to the Manti flagship and had his com officer open a new com to Mandow base to have an Ambassador dispatched.

After less then a month of negotiations it was found out that the Manti Star Kingdom was a powerful nation to the galactic West of Icara, it was at war with at least one other nation and seemingly winning, their military was powerful and had many battlecruiser and battleship style warships in their frontier fleets, coupled with their advanced phased poloron cannons which were at least two generations beyond the Icaran Version even a single Manti frontier fleet could decimate one of the four Icaran fleets.
These facts weren’t ignored when Praetor Leonidas personally signed the non-aggression pact with the Manti’s, who thankfully while interested in growth were not militaristically expansionistic.

However as long as the Manti Star Kingdom existed Icara would forever have a barrier to the Galactic west which would prevent their military conquest of that region.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Looks like you've finally found someone more powerful than you are! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif As always, great stories http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yeah they are a lot more powerful then any of the ships I have built.

I have the ability to build dreadnought and battlecruiser sized vessels butI am waiting till I get solar sails because as it stands even if I got those ship sizes into my fleet I couldn't hope to catch a manti battlegroup.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

If I were you I would design and start building the ships NOW. You can always retrofit them after you get the solar sails.
I keep getting caught with no ships because I also tend to wait till I get the next neet upgrade. But I find that sometimes I need something, ANY Thing, Right NOW to fend off some enemy intrusions.
Since it takes so long to build the ships and then send them to the front line I will sometimes build Version one class ships that by the time they get to the front line can be retrofitted with a new design that has the latest and greatist.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Ironically I have the dominant power stance in the areas I need too, and even if I designed my newer ships at that poitn and time I would still not have stood a chance against enemies like the Manti's because they took several leaps in weapons tech. Fortunately for me the Manti's are rather peaceful at the moment and are at war with some other Groups that I havn't met yet, so they'll be busy for a few years http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Oh and the way my empire is set up I always have shipyards at the frontier worlds so I can get newly constructed warships to the front swiftly.
Thanks for the advice though, depending on how my game shapes up I may take it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Anywhoo here is the next chapter.

2416.5 The Dark at the end of the Tunnel
“Captain Yu Lin is here to see you Admiral.” The marine sentry at the Admiral’s door said crisply.
Babcock looked up from his report and smiled to himself, he had been looking forward to passing on this little bit of information to Yu for two weeks but because Lenin had been out intercepting Phong raiders he had had to keep it under his hat.
The door opened with the usual metal squeak revealing Captain (senior grade) Yu Lin Pe, she was wearing her dress uniform and carried her hat under her left arm, Babcock had always been amazed how graceful the young woman could look, even on the rare occasions he had seen her wearing the “mess dress” uniform that she had, with it’s three point hat, coat tails and gawdy orders and epilates, today however she in the traditional red tunic and white troUsers of the Naval officer corps duty uniform/dress uniform her jet black hair wrapped tight into a pony tail that came down just past her neckline.
“Admiral.” She said with a smile as she saluted her superior, they had become rather good friends while on station out in the frontiers, assigned to the conquest of the xeno Phong, and on several occasions he had even invited her to play whist with himself, the flag captain and Commodore Sterns, and though it was “untraditional” to smile while saluting a superior Babcock simply returned the salute and smiled back.
“Captain Yu Lin Pe, it is my duty to inform you of a new assignment.” Babcock’s voice had become formal and serious but his ever present grin made Yu more curious then worried, Tyson Babcock had a terrible “poker face” which is partly why she had always found it so easy to beat him at whist, only when he was very angry or in the midst of battle did his face truly become expressionless.
“Really Sir? May I ask what it is?” Her tone was equally as formal as she placed her black cap on the Admiral’s desk and saw in the seat he indicated with a wave.
“Well Captain, I have been informed that Rear Admiral William J. Ross of the 3rd fleet, uh I believe you know him?” Babcock’s grin grew slightly as he folded his hands, Yu nodded curiously and he leaned back to continue “Well anyway he has requested reinforcements for the 3rd fleet after their recent casualties, I have decided to grant his request that at least one heavy capital ship be deployed to him, and I have chosen HMS Lenin for that mission, that is if you think her captain will agree.” Babcock’s grin turned into a full smile as the young woman simply nodded wordlessly, her mouth hanging open slightly as she sat in shock. She had been hoping to see Ross again when she first learned that the 1st fleet was headed to the Phong front, but due to the developments on the front the 1st and 3rd fleets did not join up as planned and instead the 3rd fleet was dispatched to blockade the warp point leading to another Phong system while the 1st assaulted Mestra.
“Well Ms Yu it has been a pleasure and an Honor serving with you, you are truly your father’s daughter. I know he’d be proud of you.” Babcock stood up and shook the young woman’s hand gently, his face beamed with joy and Lin felt herself start to smile as well. Then Babcock lowered his tone “I’m proud of you too Lin, and I hate to see you go, but I’m sure you’ll be happy with your new assignment, I know you’ve wanted to serve with Ross again, that’s why I sent you instead of Rosevelt.” the Admiral released Yu’s hand with care as he saw the shock on her face wearing off.
“Thank you sir, it’s been more then an honor serving with you and the first fleet.” Yu thought her voice sounded hollow but Admiral Babcock nodded politely at her.
“Well Lin, your assignment awaits, from here it will take you about a month to reach Ross’ command, after Lenin is refueled and re-supplied so I suppose you’d best be going.” Babcock lost all the formality in his tone and replaced it with a more fatherly tone. Yu smiled reassuringly Tyson smiled at her and led her to the door. “Good luck Lin, I hope we can serve together again some day.”
“I do too sir.” Lin said as she slipped through the door saluted the marine sentry who had braced to attention, and then she was gone…

:Three Days Later:
Location: Mestra Warp Point/ Fornax Side
“Admiral, closing to warp point in 3 minutes, gravity field generators aligning now, internal gravity shutting down.” Flag Captain Houston looked over at Babcock with a tense expression. This jump point had not been scouted due to the constant Phong raids into Fornax and going into the unknown made the entire crew tense.
Admiral Tyson frowned as the gravity inside the ship shut down, his stomach lurched every time he was in zero g and that hated bit plus the jump shock experienced by a human upon exiting a warp point made FTL travel pure hell on him as he watched the younger men and women around him on the bridge go about their jobs as if nothing had changed he felt more then a little envious of them. Tyson grabbed his stomach for a second before forcing himself to listen to the bridge crew’s voices to keep his mind of the situation.
“Time to jump ten seconds, helm reduce speed ¼.”
“One quarter speed aye.”
“GFG fields aligned, grav sails have hooked warp point outer edge.”
“Confirmed helm, grav sails hooked, GFG engaging prepare for transition to warp in three..
Two…..one……jump.”
The ship flopped around Tyson and his stomach jumped into his throat, the golden “wheels” spinning around the ships of the 1st fleet were considered beautiful by most of the crews in the fleet but to him they were always just worse reminders of the warp’s effect on his gut. Half an hour after the entry into warp the 1st fleet jumped back into normal space in the Mestra system.

The first flashes went unnoticed as the crews recovered from jump shock, but as the sensors came back on-line and the crew regained their senses horror and shock was on every face.
“Sir Rossevelt has been badly damaged, incoming fire on the fleet, we’ve taken several hits, I’m reading eight ships and 32 satellites on scan sir!” The tactical officer was nearly panicked as the hundreds of shells from the enemy blockade slashed into the midst of the fleet impacting on the shields of every ship in the fleet except the troop ship which was fortunately sheltered in the midst of the heavily defended warships.
“Sir the Rossevelt she’s……oh Lord!” The tactical officer’s sentence was cut off as the brilliant blue fireball expanded on screen where once an Icaran heavy cruiser had been, debris from the destroyed warship slammed into several other ships causing massive damage.

The Icaran discipline won out over their panic and shock and their retribution was devastating, all eight Phong warships were destroyed in the Icarans’ first counter volley, many satellites exploded as well as the Phase Poloron beams burned through them.
Unfortunately enough satellites remained to wreak havoc among the already damaged warships of the fleet, a cruiser was completely crippled as shells tore into her exposed hull, worse however came when a massed volley locked onto the Redoubtable herself and opened fire.
“Sir incoming, contact in…..” Explosions tore across the hull of the flagship tearing massive gashes and holes into her, more shells exploded inside the hull sending mangled bodies and wreckage into the void as vacuum sucked them out.
The bridge was torn open as an enemy round missed it by a fraction of a meter, several of the bridge crew died instant bloody deaths, others were blown into space and still more writhed on the deck bleeding and screaming….or worse gagging for air if their skin suits were torn open by shrapnel.
Admiral Babcock tabbed his com panel and in a shadowy whisper of a voice ordered all hands to abandon ship, just as the next volley of shells tore the once proud warship apart.

“Admiral Babcock, sir, please wake up sir.” a gentle female voice brought Tyson to the beginnings of consciousness, “Good sir, now open your eyes.” that voice didn’t sound familiar to the battered Admiral and fear of what must have happened wrenched his guts.
“Where am I?” he croaked as a strong pair of hands helped him to sit up slightly, he began to open his eyes but found them swollen and he quickly brought his undamaged right hand to his eyes to inspect the damage.
“Your on board Divinity sir, I’m sorry to say that Redoubtable was destroyed with most of her crew, a bridge officer carried you to the escape pod before the ship exploded.”
“Who are you, and how bad off are we?” He heard the choke of emotions in his own voice but he didn’t really care at the moment, he just wanted to know how many other good men and women had died.
“Sir I’m Doctor Hutto, as to how bad off the fleet is, well sir three cruisers have been crippled with heavy casualties on one of them, I don’t know the names yet sorry sir, but I know that my own sickbay has been inundated with wounded from all over the fleet, the Eclipse lost her entire medical bay and it’s staff along with 45 patients so we’re very crowded. Um Commodore Sterns said the fleet isn’t going anywhere for some time sir and has ordered all the badly damaged ships into the center of our formation.” she paused and Tyson heard her sigh deeply.
“As you know Rossevelt and Redoubtable were both destroyed, the former was lost with all hands I’m afraid. Total fleet casualties are estimated to be over 5,000 dead and 8,000 wounded. I’ll get you more information later, but for now sir I order you to get some rest.” Doctor Hutto left without another word, Tyson felt oddly grateful that she left as the tears began to flow in his swollen eyes. So man of his people had died, his flagship had been destroyed and his fleet totally neutralized, and it was his fault.
The main question that lingered in his mind was where to go from here.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yay! I was starting to get worried, no story for a few days! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yeah wanted to give myself a day or two then re-read it like you folks suggested because I want my story to be a fun read http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So how am I doing on improving my wrighting style any progress you think?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

No complaints, but I am not the best critic and barely surviving my own writing class right now....

Rasorow

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

I'm hoping to take some writing classes in the future http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

2416.6-2417.7
Two repair ships arrived to assist the 1st fleet back into a mobile state after the severe damage suffered during the Phong ambush at the warp point. Admiral Tyson Babcock established his flag aboard HMS Divinity after his first flagship was destroyed, he was still undergoing therapy for his injuries when he gave the order for the 1st fleet to launch an assault against the closest world in the Mestra system with the intent of capturing a forward base for his fleet.
Fortunately for the battered first fleet the invasion went off without a hitch and the self defense forces of Mestra VI didn’t inflict even a single loss to the Icaran Invasion forces. The forward base was set up rapidly after that and a State Security brigade was sent to keep the peace.

Cortina System:
“Admiral Ross, a Captain Yu to see you?” The marine sentry at Ross door chimed over the com panel and Ross jerked his head up in surprise as he tabbed the com panel.
“Captain Yu? Uh let the Captain in please.” Ross tried to keep his voice relaxed but he felt a tension rush up his spine, if it was Yu Chin then he would likely have an argument pending as the man was still resentful that Ross was given command of the third fleet after his father had been killed at the 3rd battle of Fornax. If it was his sister Yu Lin then God only knew what Ross could expect.

The door opened with it’s typical metal squeak and Ross heard two female voices coming from outside as the door paused before opening fully, his marine sentry of this watch was a woman, so the second voice must be the Captain. Ross tensed even further as the door opened all the way and a slim, relatively short woman wearing a captain’s uniform walked in. She removed her cap and Ross nearly tripped over himself as he went to stand, Yu Lin Pe was stunning, her jet black hair fell into a tight pony tail just between her shoulder blades, her almond eyes were alight with intelligence and she carried herself with a self assurance and grace that made her exotic beauty even more pronounced. She was one of the few Icarans that had Asiatic decent in modern times after the Asian portion of the Empire was abandoned to ancient China millennia before during the first great wars, she was even more rare because of the fact that her family line could be traced back all the way to the founding of Icara colony 200 years ago and had a heritage that even many nobles were jealous of.
“Captain Yu Lin Pe reporting for duty sir.” Her voice snapped Ross back into the real world, he noticed that she had been standing in salute for several seconds and that he had kept her waiting longer then was polite to return the salute.
“Welcome to the fleet Captain Yu.” Ross said stiffly as he returned her salute, somewhat embarrassed that he had been taken so aback.
“Thank you Admiral, Lenin was transferred to your fleet by order of Admiral Lord Tyson Babcock, commander first fleet stationed aboard His Majesty’s Heavy Cruiser Redoubtable.” Her tone was still formal but something in her eyes made Ross feel slightly more comfortable, but he still felt sick because he knew her ship had not received the messenger drone informing her of the Mestra incident.

“Lin, I’m sorry to inform you but Admiral Babcock was severely injured, the first fleet was ambushed at Mestra warp point and they lost Redoubtable and Rossevelt during the opening engagement. Several other cruisers were also badly damaged, heavy casualties are reported.” Ross’ felt his heart sink as Yu’s expression changed to one of tortured anguish.
“Oh God, William do you know how Tyson is doing?” her voice was heartbreaking to Ross and he barely noticed that she used his first name for the first time in years.

“He’s alright Lin, he’s undergoing therapy but the Last reports said that he’s recovering quickly.” Ross indicated a seat for Yu across from his desk and almost smiled when he saw the relief on her face.
“Thank God for that, he’s a good officer, and a friend.” She managed to smile uncomfortably as she seated herself and placed her cap on Ross’ desk.
“He’s also a tough old bird who wouldn’t go down without a fight.” Ross said with a smile, when Yu laughed gently he allowed himself to relax further.
“How have you been William?” Her smile faded slightly as memories flickered behind her eyes.
“I’ve been good, it’s been odd though, I still can’t get used to the fact I’m commanding a fleet.” Ross smiled sheepishly at Yu.
“Well you always did like being out on your own, exploring the unknown, that’s why they gave you Saber after all.” She smiled back, the same smile Ross remembered from the academy, that smile he thought, could light up a room and always managed to make him feel better somehow.
“Yeah well we all know how well that turned out, I was the first one to run into a Phong exploratory ship, and the first one to destroy it and we all know how that ended.” Ross said glumly and leaned back in his chair.
“It’s not your fault William, those damned Phong’s are the ones who started this war.” Lin smiled reassuringly. “We have a lot to catch up on William, let’s not make this whole meeting a depressing one okay?” her smile disappeared and a mock stern look replaced it.
“Alright I surrender, we do have a lot to catch up on, how are you Lin?” Ross waved his hands in a gesture of submission and Yu laughed again. They both relaxed at Last and spoke for hours before Captain Yu was called back aboard her ship for the training exercises she had scheduled the day before.

Top Secret Research Facility, Deep within Icaran space:
“High Admiral Hallice may I present Chief Scientist Doctor Donald Procter.” The younger scientist waved his hand in the direction of an elderly looking man who was bent over a computer screen, apparently looking at something important.
“Doctor Donald Procter.” Hallice held out his hand and was a little surprised when the older chap just put his hand up gesturing for silence.
“There it is.” The man spoke to no one in particular before standing up and looking at the Admiral as if he noticed him for the first time. “Aaah, Admiral Hallice, welcome to my facility, how are you?” Doctor Procter took Hallice hand and shook firmly.
“I’m fine doctor but I am pressed for time so please show me what your folks considered so important you needed me to come today?” Hallice was impatient, he didn’t like scientists much but especially when they made him wait, after calling him with “urgent” news.

“Aah of course, well Admiral, as I’m sure your aware Praetor Leonidas authorized the beginning of project “Star Warrior” three years ago, well I am pleased to say we’ve made some progress in that field about a month ago, we wanted to be sure of our findings before we notified the military but now that we have confirmed our findings, well here you are.” Procter rambled excitedly as he guided Hallice to a door.

“Well sir I am pleased to report that we’ve completed the I-Laser program as well as Talisman.” The old scientist smiled broadly, Hallice pretended patience as he waited for the weird old man to get to the point.

“Aaah anyway Admiral the I-Laser or “Imperial Laser” is actually a Fusion beam, we called it a laser because it uses a laser focusing beam, but I’m sure your not interested in that, it is a thirteenth generation weapon done in the energy stream research field, even more powerful then the Anti-proton beams you military types wanted to put into production years ago.”
“Doctor please get to the point.”
“Well sir we are ready to make refits to the existing General class cruisers in project “Midwinter’, heavy cruisers with Midwinter weaponry will have one hundred percent accuracy and more firepower then some of the other star nation’s battleship sized craft.” The scientist rambled for hours about the joys of his project’s completion until finally Hallice got the gist of it.
The “Star Warrior” project was a complete overhaul of military technologies to increase the fighting abilities of the Icaran Royal Navy, it consisted of multiple programs to reach that goal and finally after years of research most of these projects were completed.

The new Lord Nelson class dreadnoughts would take another six months to put into production because that is about how long it would take the scientists to get a working model of the “Solar Sail” which was really just a modified grav sail used to implement solar energies instead of warp space energy to propel a ship much faster.

The development of the Quantum reactors was complete, the Q-Reactor would enable not only infinite fuel for a ship using it but it’s development also had the odd side effect of enabling matter sequencing technologies to be implementable, this exotic new technology enabled a ship to turn waste products into consumables, though Hallice knew it would take some time for crews to be comfortable with eating and drinking products that used to be their waste no matter how many times scientists told them that the matters was completely broken down into it’s atomic basics before being turned into food or drink.

Project Talisman had also finally been completed, this device was a hyper advanced targeting sensor which would enable one hundred percent accuracy for the warship it was plugged into.

AI was also perfected and with these new computers aboard starships crews could be reduced to the point that more systems could be added to the warships of the Royal Navy, though no true navy man was willing to give total control of their ship over to an AI no matter how many scientists claimed that the Ais could handle every function of a starship without the need for a crew.



2417.8
Midwinter class heavy cruiser refits begin throughout the Royal Navy.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2417.8 End of an Era
Ross stood next to Yu in the Spaceyard’s gallery staring at the gutted hulls of their ships, both officers were frowning, the captain of Defender couldn’t even bring himself to watch his ship gutted like a fish Ross, and captain Farrin-Hawkwing’s new captain- had only stayed for five minutes before giving the yard master his compliments and beating a hasty retreat from the scene.
The General class heavy cruiser was obsolete and throughout the entire navy they were becoming extinct, gutted at the hands of yard dogs and completely overhauled with totally new systems and internal configurations, they were becoming the Midwinters and although they would be far more powerful then in their former incarnations it was still hard for captains who had lived and fought on the old Generals for nearly ten years now to watch them be opened up from stem to stern and have their innards torn out and discarded like old garbage.
Ross felt as if his firstborn had been sacrificed on an altar before the gods of “progress” when he first heard that the Hawkwing was going to be overhauled, the officers and crew of that old cruiser had fought, lived and died in her hull, their was blood fused into the metal of the bulkheads because of extreme heat caused when shields burned through, blood Icaran spacers who had died in the great metal beast had shed protecting the empire, and now it was all being torn out. Ross’ chest felt empty as he turned to Yu.
His depressed mood suddenly turned to curiosity when he saw the young woman smiling at her opened ship. “Why are you smiling? I thought you were just as sick over this as I was?”.
“I was Sir, but my ship has seen so much death, useless and needless death that seeing her get a new heart, a new -soul- if you will makes me feel better somehow, like she’s got a new life ahead of her now.” Yu’s smile faded, memories of the several disastrous engagements Lenin flashed in her eyes.

“Yeah, I forgot about what happened to your ship in Fornax, I suppose your right, that poor old lady deserves a new life after all she’s been through.” Ross felt something brighten in his own mood as Yu smiled at him again, to him it was like his ship was being gutted but to Yu, her ship was undergoing surgery to give it a new chance at a good life, it had been said that Lenin was cursed, for the first four battles she engaged in she was crippled or in the very least hulled, her crew had been reduced to 1/3 of it’s original compliment by the time she had been re-assigned to the 3rd fleet. That was when the curse it said was broken, for that transfer saved Lenin and her crew from the devastating ambush in Mestra where 5,000 Icarans had died in less then ten minutes.

Ross and Yu watched their ships for a short while before returning to their temporary duties on Wardo base, five months of planet bound duty while the heavy cruisers of 3rd fleet were retrofit to Midwinter specs. It was the end of an Era for the IRN as the largest of her Phased poloron equipped warships were given I-Laser cannons. The old cruisers and light cruisers of the navy could not handle the power requirements of I-Laser technology and thus were facing extinction as soon as enough ships of the ‘new generation’ were built and many captains and Admirals prepared their ’wakes’-the traditional farewell party to a valiant ship facing it’s retirement- as their ships names appeared on the ‘obsolete’ list that would soon lead to their scrapping

I'm proud to announce that my story covers 71 pages in font 10 in MSN Word!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif :cheers: (passes around beers)

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Woohoo! Keep 'em coming! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Yeah I actually was sad to see my old General class be retrofit to a new unbattle tested class even though they are the same (ships).

I do need advice though, I am having economic troubles as of late and with recent developments such as my new ship building programs it's going to get tight for me for a year or two.

Well anyway the advice I need is this, should I scrap those old underarmed underspeed LC and CR or should I just keep them in service till they are destroyed?
Like I said my economics are tight and i have a lot of my newer ships under construction.

Anyway before I move too far forward advice would be nice.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

I would mothball a few and if you have to later on scarp them or trade them off.

Prioritize your costs in the construction que and see what is costing the most to build. Put that on hold, or put low priority projects on hold.

Good luck. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Well, I haven't had time to read the entire story, but I've enjoyed what I have read.

Just to let you know, I can see your skills improving as you write more (I've skipped around a bit!) and the characters are very interesting. Keep going, and don't burn out!

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Well, here's an idea for what to do with all those obsolete LC's and CR's. It might be considered kind of cruel to your Icarans, but.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Send all your obsolete ships to the most pressing front, assemble them into one large fleet, and make a drive into enemy territory. Your fleet, even though obsolete, should be able to do quite significant damage to the enemy, and run the fleet until it's completely destroyed. Don't bother repairing damage, as this is a suicide fleet. Like I said, adding this to your story would make your emperor look very very cruel, but that's your choice! Personally, that's what I do with obsolete ships that are eating up resources through maintenance.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Depends... Scrap some (most of the LCs) keep the CRs but gradually upgrade them to different functions.. Fleet repair, fast transport, small armed carriers, various speciality ships that at least I always seem to need at this point. If you have encountered a missle using or fighter using empire (I cannot tell how dependent on missiles from the story) then some of the CRs might be converted to AA ships (or is that AF - Anti-Fighter) ships. I would probably scrap most of the LCs if not all through.

Rasorow

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

You know that I would be happy to proof read your work (not like I've done that before)

Would I be one of them??? granted I havn't actually read the story yet.. Am doing so now.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Renegade 13 writes:

A variant on the suicide fleet theme is to send a single obsolete/expendable ship through a warp point ahead of the main fleet to detect a minefield or ambush (as befell the Icarans in the Mestra[?] system). Presumably the crew of such an [ahem] "elite scout" would be either very brave or very naughty boys and girls; either option might be the basis for a good chapter.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

OOC: Well by the story Icara would never send their crews to a suicide mission on purpose, unless they were renegades, but the Icarans would never trust renegades with a warship either.
The funny thing is that I only ever built TWO light cruisers as my research into cruiser technology progressed far faster then I thought it would.
I'll probobly put the Light cruiser Retribution into mothballs over Icara to stand aside as a "museam" like the Saber and Enterprise the other will probobly be scrapped.
The Cruisers I'll probobly turn into escort carriers as I like that idea the best http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh and Kerensky, not yet but a Character I have in mind will likely be based on some of your personality traits.

Well anyway I'll shut my big yap and give you guys what you really want, some story http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

2418.4 Sunburst and Glory:
The 3rd fleet’s three heavy cruisers had rejoined the fleet only two months ago after being totally overhauled, and their return was just in time as the sensors had picked up a ten ship fleet of Phong light cruisers heading for their position at full military thrust.
Ross sat tensely in his command chair aboard Hawkwing watching the tactical display intently, this would be the first combat test of the new I-Lasers and if anything went wrong, no nothing would go wrong Ross wouldn’t let anything go wrong. And besides that-he thought- if the heavy cruisers failed he still had a small group of cruisers with old PPB cannons to fall back on.
“Admiral, targets entering weapons range in two minutes.” The tactical officer chimed off every minute as the fleets closed, to Ross ears the countdown sounded like a dirge, but whether it was for his enemy or his heavy cruisers Ross did not know.

The ranges closed until finally the targeting lights shown a brilliant green, the chief weapons officer nodded in the Captain’s direction, Captain Barret looked at Ross anxiously awaiting the order to fire.
“Open fire all batteries.” Ross said grimly, he felt himself cross his fingers, he also prayed quietly as the seconds ticked off. Finally the weapons batteries of the three Midwinter class heavy cruisers lit space with green fire. A massive wall of beams sliced into the leading Phong warships, the first shots brought down the shields with ease, the rest of the broadsides lashed into armored hulls and broke them like toys, vaporizing entire sections of plating and hull. In less then five seconds five Phong light cruisers vanished in brilliant fireballs.
The Cruisers of the 3rd fleet joined their larger cousins in the attack, they opened up with their Phased Poloron cannons and destroyed another two Phong warships.

“Admiral, the Phong ships are attempting to retreat!” Barret smiled sharkishly as he watched the three remaining Phong ships turn about and head away from the fleet at high speed.
“Kill them all mister Barret, I want no survivors of this little fleet of theirs.” Ross felt the power of his ship anew, she had been formidable with her old weapons systems but with these new guns, against the Phong she would be invincible!

The Icaran heavy cruisers though larger then their Phong counterparts were far faster due to their superior engines, they had no trouble catching up with the inferior Phong ships, the three enemy ships fired their weapons desperately but to no effect, the superior ECM and shielding of the Icaran warships made the Phong DU fire totally ineffective.
Unfortunately that handicap was only on the Phong’s side, the Lenin was the first of the Icaran warships to enter weapons range, she opened fire with all the fury of hell, two of the surviving enemy ships vanished in brilliant explosions, and debris fields. The third ship was hit three times by the Lenin’s batteries, she lost 2/3 speed and all but one of her guns.
Defender finished the job when she entered weapons range, her beams sliced the enemy ship into slags of metal and wreckage in barely a second’s time.

Ross leaned back in his command chair proudly, he smiled at his bridge crew and signaled his congratulations to the rest of the fleet, on the first successful combat action of the Midwinter class heavy cruisers and their new I-Laser armament.

Meanwhile
The first fleet under Admiral Babcock continued their invasion of the Mestra system and claimed yet another planet to the cause of Icara, a second Phong colony was destroyed by one of the 1st fleet’s Midwinter class heavy cruisers when it was decided that the colony would not be worth the loss of Icaran lives.

2418.6
The shipyard of Icara city hummed with noise and activity, a massive three kilometer long hull began to take shape within the “dry dock” facility, as thousands of workers buzzed about like ants, nano-welding hull plating together, wiring power cells together, or doing one of any hundred jobs that were involved in the construction of a space fairing capital warship.
This scene was being repeated across nearly a dozen worlds of Icara and also in orbit of Icara it’s self as the orbital yards began construction. The first “block” of the newest and deadliest class starship ever constructed by Icara was well on it’s way t joining service. The Lord Nelson class Dreadnought was larger stronger and faster then any known warship besides those of the Manti’s, these ships would be the new ships of the line for Icara, each dreadnought cost nearly two billion credits and took large amounts of raw materials to build yet when they were completed, this first block alone would possess more firepower then the entire current Royal navy put together and that fact alone is what convinced the House of Lords, and Praetor Leonidas to authorize the navy to begin construction.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

A brief history and genealogy of Icara
This is a little bit of a side to my story, to give you guys an idea of why the Icarans are who they are. [note] Icarans come from an alternate history of Earth.[/note]

What is an Icaran?:
An Icaran is a human being plane and simple, the current generations of Icarans have been geneticaly engineered for increased lifespans, this process is known as "sustain" or "prolong" depending on what world you are from.

Where did it all begin?:
The Icaran civilization began in the year 3000 BC in Lacedonia, near the ancient city of Sparta the founding of Icara (literally Homeland in ancient Icaran) by a tribe known as Icarani would begin what is now known as the "Dawn"-or Dawn of Civilization.
Originally the Icarans were a nation of philosophers and poets devoted to peace and the understanding of the universe and nature wherein they were created.

This all changed however when their neighbors the Spartans launched a brutal war on Icara leading to half the Icarani tribe's extermination before they finally repulsed the brutal Spartan invasion.

This invasion led to centuries of Icaran "defense" wherein Icara became the dominant global power on Earth, with no "dark ages" occuring the technological developments of the world continued to increase.

By the twentieth century Icara had colonized Mars, and dozens of moons and asteroids throughout Sol. This age of peace ended however when rival nations of earth unified against Icara and launched a nuclear sneak attack on Icara's earth heald territories.

The resulting war Lasted for decades and ended in the "final march" wherein the Praetor of Icara personally led the Last remnants of the Icaran military against the "Sol Coalition" forces in an effort to defend the Icaran colony ships that were evacuating Sol in search of a new world they could claim for themselves.

The final march was the Last valiant act of the Royal military of that era, the Royal army and marines charged in human waves in desperate attempts to beat back the Coalition forces that were attacking evacuation sites, the Icarans faced their end with bravery unmatched in all of history, soldiers wept and prayed and kissed their loved ones good bye and then without hesitation through themselves at their enemies.
The soldiers of Icara charged into the armored advance, thousands died, but many soldiers took out tanks with them, grenades strapped to their bodies exploding under the treads of enemy tanks.
In space the defense was equally valiant, when Icaran ships were too badly damaged to fight they charged their enemies and rammed them or died trying.

In the end though defeat was inevitable, nearly a billian Icarans made it out of Sol on evacuation ships, the Praetor was knocked unconcious by one of his own commanders and loaded into the Last evacuation ship before the captain who knocked him out led the Last Icaran cruiser in a suicide charge at Coalition warship destroying both ships and allowing the evac ship to make it out.

The age of rebuilding:
The Icaran evacuation fleet ended up far from where they had initially intended too and only five hundred million people survived the trip as many vessels were destroyed in the anomoly that transproted them to this system. The survivors found themselves half way across the galaxy in a star system with two inhabitable worlds.
Due to the small population of the evacuation fleet only a single world was colonized, and named Icara after their long lost homeland.
It was the year 2120 at this stage of history and for centuries Icarans rebuilt their shattered civilization, and attempted to find out what had transported them to this particular system.
Modern scientists found out that it was in fact a warp point that had transported the colony fleet so far from earth, and also realized that the warp point to earth had collapsed during the centuries of rebuilding. However they also harnessed grav sail technology which would allow them to traverse the remaining warp points safely.

What the Icarans Believe:
The Icarans beleive that they were chosen by God to rule over humanity, and view the fall of their Solar empire as proof of this since they fell to other nations that had once been considered allies of Icara.

Their Religion
The Icaran religion is an offshoot of Christianity and is known as "The Path", though Icarans who follow this religion still refer to themselves as Christians.

The main differences between the Path and "traditional" Christian denominations is that the Path believes that the Praetor line was chosen by God to lead his chosen people to victory over the nations of man and unify humanity in his name.
These "Praetors" (Divine Ruler in ancient Icaran) are considered saints in the Path and although not worshipped or prayed to they are revered as "the chosen" and followed almost religously by the general populace.

The Praetor Line:
The "Praetor Line" is a single family line that goes back millenia and has ruled the Icaran Empire since the begining of recorded history.
This family "though of course changed through marrage and the introduction of new blood" is considered divinely chosen and many Icarans throughout history have died to protect the members of "The Praetor Line". In fact during the battle known as "The Last March" an entire battle squadron died to get the Praetor on to one of the evacuation ships even though it took rendering him unconcious to do so.

The "Praetorship" is heald by men alone because of the traditions of millenia, The women of a Praetor family are treated with great respect however and the wife or "Praetani" is revered almost as much as her husband.

The Society of Icara:
The Icaran government is based on a system similar to Fuedalism yet also different in that the nobility is not chosen by the Praetor for simple political reasons. Instead the nobility of Icara is directly related by blood to the Praetor line and many are in fact directly related to the Praetor himself.

The general poplation of Icara is not treated like the common surfs of fuedalism but instead they are treated with a great deal of respect. In fact the Praetor and nobles are required by Icaran law and religion to ensure the safety and proper treatment of every commoner under their vigilance.

The Icaran population as a whole beleives strongly in their government and it's "divine right" to rule over all humanity and as such it is the dream of almost every healthy young Icaran to join the armed forces and add themselves to the cause.

The Icaran Race:
Icara was a multinational Empire during it's glory days in Sol and as such has several races within it a general breakdown follows:

Icaran 90%: (Icaran refers to the general "mixed race" population, after centuries of intermarrage of the races within the Icaran empire it has become difficult to tell the ancestry of an Icaran simply by their appearance)

White 4%: Though intermarrage has caused most of the Icaran bloodlines to mix there are still many who were isolated from the bulk of the Colonial population due to historal events, many of these retained their original "ancestral appearance".

Asiatic 5%: Though the vast bulk of Icaran population sees mixing of races as something only natural many of those from more "traditional" asian nations that had once been ruled by Icara retained their beleifs that mixing of races diminished the blood of their people and as such refused to do so.
Though this is not the only reason, one of the evac ships from asia crash landed on the southern continent of the world now named Brandenburg and their descendents were only discovered in the early 22nd century.
In the early 24th century the viewpoint of "pure blood" began to change however as the Asiatic genetic base was begining to become more and more restrictive to their population. Many people of pure Asian extract still remain however and in fact those of pure Asian decent outnumber those of any other "pure" bloodline in all of Icara.

African 1%: The sole evacuation ship from Africa to survive the anomoly crash landed on the world now known as Brandenburg and were only discovered during the early 22nd century. With only one colony ship from that continent the descendents of "pure extract" from that line are extremely few in number.

Xeno's Within the Empire:
Xeno refers to any non-human race within the Icaran Empire.
Xeno's do not have the same rights as their human counterparts and are seen as inferior and untrustworthy, at present they are not allowed to vote, own their own property, or serve in the Royal Armed forces.
Xeno's of the Phong varient are forced to serve the industrial complex of Icara until thier (debt of blood) is paid off, most likely this debt will Last for centuries and provide Icara with a free labor force until the time where the debt is paid off.

Though it is known that other Xenos exist currently only the Phong have been brought into the Empire.

(note) Okay that's a brief bit on why Icarans are the way they are, what they beleive and what they look like.

Also note the racial breakdown is in no way based on prejudice but is instead based on how the war with the Sol Coalition went, the initial nuclear strikes were in Africa and Europe and the wars began there.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2418.7
Admiral William Ross led the three heavy cruisers of the 3rd fleet confidently into battle with the 7 Phong Light cruisers, the battle report showed that all 7 enemy ships were destroyed before a single one of them entered weapons range. The result of this engagement was that the Royal Armed Forces assigned the 1st Germania Mobile army regiment to the 3rd fleet as soon as their training on Germania was completed.

Mestra System, Mestra II Orbit
The hammer Falls
“Alright you grunts we’re dropping in on the LZ in 5 mikes, lock and load!” Sgt Black shouted to his platoon who had formed up in the launch bay, along with every other unit in the regiment. The regimental prayer had just been finished and now it was the Sergeants turn to address their individual platoons.
Sgt Black smiled toothishly while he watched his platoon file into their dropships, “Now ladies and gentlemen I know most of us have seen action before, and we love it but I want you to remember, keep your heads down and your guns blazing, we are gonna rip the spines out of those yellow bastards and then we’re gonna piss down their necks, AND WE’RE GONNA DO IT SMILING! Do you get me you Grunts!”
“Yes SIR!” was the unanimous response over the com net, just before the dropship slid into a locked position at the Batton‘s drop rack.

An army infantry dropship was a relatively small craft capable of carrying ten fully armed troopers and two pilots, when readied for a drop operation such a craft is loaded into a “drop rack” mounted on the underside of a troopship, this turns the dropship “nose down” to the planet they are facing to increase initial drop speed.
The launch rack its self is basically just a super sized rail cannon which instead of launching shells acts as a “catapult” for the dropships loaded onto it, this initial “drop shot” accelerates the dropship to trans sonic speeds and dramatically increases the survival rate of deploying dropships due to the fact that most anti-aircraft gunners would have a hard time tracking a vessel headed straight down at trans sonic speeds.
An army “tank carrier” drop ship works much the same way except instead of 10 infantry it carries two tanks, or APCs, or 6 armed buggies.

The drop shot happened sooner then Black had expected and even he grunted as the dropship accelerated at twenty gees (only 5 of which were felt, thanks to inertial compensators), Black could feel the blood in his body pooling at his feet, even though the marines were all wearing environmental hard suits for this drop the gravities experienced for the initial ten seconds of drop acceleration was too much for the suit to filter out entirely, the veteran army Sergeant often wondered if anyone was even trying to make the suits more gee resistant or if some pencil pusher back home decided it would be too expensive.
His thoughts came to a rather abrupt end as the horrendous crashing noise of their dropship entering the atmosphere filled the troop compartment. Less then a minute later the pilot’s voice echoed over the com net.
“We’ve got a hot LZ troopers get ready for a rough landing.” the pilot sounded remarkably calm considering the fact that “flak” was already coming straight at the dropships.
Almost before realizing the time had passed Sgt. Black noticed the troop compartment door slide open and noticed he could see the ugly landscape of the enemy planet coming up fast.
The dropship came to a rest about a meter above the ground and the automatic crash harnesses of the army troopers unlocked and Sgt. Black bellowed for his troops to unload.
Enemy energy bolts filled the air, Icaran beams lashing out in return as the Icaran regiment surged towards the enemy defensive position.
Armed buggies raced on ahead of the infantry troops, their three man crews unleashing hellish amounts of fire for such a small vehicle cut down dozens of Phong defenders and opened a gap for the infantry to charge forward.

Black’s platoon was one of the “Alpha” units which meant they were in the leading elements of the advance and as such faced the heaviest enemy fire, the entire platoon fired as it advanced up the hill that acted as the enemy “fortress”, enemy fire came down upon the army troopers in relentless torrents, a trooper in front of Black was hit in the face by an energy bolt, his faceplate vanished and a spray of blood and gore was all that remained of the trooper’s once young face.
Another trooper fell just beside Black, a hole the size of a football burned in her chest, worse still a green glowing orb landed on another trooper’s body armor.
“God!, get it off get it…..” the voice was cut off and screams echoed from where the trooper had once been standing, the explosion erupting from the Phong grenade vaporized the trooper it had attached to and sent three others sprawling through the air, severed limbs, blood and internal gore spraying from their bodies.

“Continue the advance damn you! Follow the company flag bearer DO NOT stay STILL!” a voice bellowed from further up the hill and Black just barely recognized it as Lieutenant Steinburger, the company commander of the “Alpha” unit that Black’s platoon was a part of.
After what seemed like an eternity the lead elements of the company made it to the enemy positions on top of the hill, but the fighting was far from over as the enemy forces engaged the Icarans in a brutal series of hand to hand and close in firefights all along the hilltop.
The armed buggies that had led the charge along other portions of the advance finally came racing in along the hilltop and sprayed fire into the enemy resistance killing or driving off hundreds of Phong defenders.

Operation Hammer ended two weeks later when the Company that Black’s platoon was attached to seized the Phong government bunker and eliminated the entire planetary government staff. Remarkably only 12 Icarans had died in the battle, unfortunately dozens more were wounded many of whom seriously. The Capture of Hill 752 by the Alpha units played a critical role in breaking the defensive perimeter of the Phong colony and the loss of 10 Icaran lives on that hill saved hundreds of others during the two week invasion.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Would the Icarans trust renegades who had to do what they were told or have the self-destruct device on the ship triggered remotely? Of course, this assumes you have self-destruct devices on all your ships.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

I consider self destruct devices a waste of space and tonnage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I prefer not being borded to begin with.

Hmmm I'll just go for the armed carrier Idea I suppose, as it's more economical at present.

Oh and do you guys consider my guys "bad guys" "good guys" or "neutral"?
I was wondering because I have a specific idea in the way I'm trying to develope the Icaran personality but I won't say what it was until you guys tell me what you think, this way I can see if I was able to get their character across properly or not.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Given their actions so far and based on your background I would have to consider them "bad guys". But more in the way of "Bad to have near me". As a race I would label them "neutral"
I like to spread out and tend to think that even though someone else currently has the planets, eventually, all the systems are mine. I will try to make treaties, and will honor them untill the other guy breaks them.
Your guys shoot first and even if I got a treaty with them I would keep an eye on and move some guard fleets into our borders.

A question. Can you tell us if we will be seeing any more of the "SOL colalition "?? Or is that going to be a suprise?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Hmmm, well I'd describe the Icarans as an "expansionist" empire. As such, they are neither "good" nor "bad", since they do not believe that other races have the right to govern themselves. They are not evil, since they simply believe in their own people, which is a healthy form of nationalism. However, they aren't exactly good either, since they don't seem to be interested in forming treaties with empires whom they believe they can defeat in battle, thereby seizing their territories. I too would call them "neutral" (sort of http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Hmm thanks for your opinions anyone else that wants to can also chime in on how you see my race. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Same with if I'm writing anything you consider offensive so that I'll know to be more careful about that.

As far as the Sol Coalition goes, they are still lurking about in my space but for the past few years they havn't bothered contacting me and I havn't contacted them.

2419.0 The Nature of High Technology
Lin unbuckled her tunic and collapsed onto her bed, she had been running battle drills for eight hours, ever since the I-Lasers in battery three suddenly overheated during a test firing. The maintenance staff had run so many tests on the subsystems that they practically had to take the weapons apart, and after ten hours of that they asked her to run a combat drill, that went horribly as the same damned battery overheated and nearly took out the heat syncs. Master Chief Tankousky and his work crews worked on the weapons for another hour then had the battle drill run again. And that time the bloody heat syncs collapsed entirely and the firing mechanism burned it’s self to a crisp along with the focusing lens.
Finally after hours of tests and drills and testing the drills battery three functioned without burning it‘s self out, the entire weapon internals had to be replaced the next morning but at least at the moment the engineers said the weapon would fire properly if it needed too. Lin got up and tossed her dirt caked tunic into a wash unit before stepping into her modest bathroom, she sneered at the reflection in the mirror for a moment before disrobing and stepping into the shower to clean the greasy sludge from the battery three off of her exhausted and aching body.

As the warm water kicked in Lin leaned back against her stall and forced herself to relax and enjoy the warmth of the “simulated” water spray. After a few minutes she wearily dried herself off and dressed in her robe before collapsing into bed again. It seemed like only seconds after she had closed her eyes when the com panel on her wall began to beep, then shrill until finally she slammed her fist into the audio only key.
“What is it?” her tone was less then pleasant but at the moment she was fully expecting one of her engineers to inform her that battery three had gone ape**** again.
“Well Captain Yu that’s no way to address your superior now is it?” the voice on the other end of the com link made Yu snap upright with embarrassment.
“Admiral Ross! I’m sorry sir I was expecting.”
“That’s alright Lin I was just messing with you, unfortunately I do have serious business to inform you of, the long range sensors have detected three Phong light cruisers, now I’ve ordered the fleet to alert but not full battle stations because we know that with their capabilities just one of our heavy cruisers could kill all three of them.
And Yu I’ve chosen Lenin for the job, you guys have taken to much crap from those bastards without being able to give much back, so here’s your chance, intercept and destroy those ships then report back to fleet. Understood?” Yu could almost hear the smile on Ross’ face and unconsciously nodded, before remembering that she had set the unit to audio only.
“Understood sir, I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will Yu, give em hell, then send them there Ross out.”

Yu wiped the sleep from her eyes and tabbed another key on the com panel:
“Bridge, Lieutenant Manning here.”
“Lieutenant this is the Captain, you are about to receive coordinates from fleet command, lay in a course to intercept three hostile warships, based on those locations and maximum speed of hostile craft understood?”
“Aye ma’am.”
“Good I’ll be on the bridge next watch, only com me if it’s an emergency.”
“Aye.”
Yu turned off the com unit and finally laid back down and allowed herself to relax again and began meditating like she had been taught by her grandmother when she was ten, in no time she had slipped off to sleep.

Two Days Later:
The Lenin had finally begun closing with the enemy warships after two days of approaching one another.
“Captain Yu, talisman is acquiring lock on the lead two ships, the third one is staying too far out of range at the moment.”
“Confirmed weps.” Yu swiveled her command chair towards the tactical station and waited for the officer to signal combat range.
The officer looked up and nodded sharply at Yu, she spun her chair back to face the main screen, her mind raced, this was her first solo op against an enemy squadron where she wasn’t using the traditional Phased Poloron beam cannons and the thought of failure made her nauseated.
“Weps, open fire.”
The chief weapons officer nodded, the board of targeting info from the gunnery crews lit up and after what seemed like an eternity he pressed the firing studs on his control panel.
Green beams silently connected the Icaran heavy cruiser to the leading two enemy ships and in the blink of an eye both ships vanished in a ball of fire.
“ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! MALFUNCTION!” the computerized voice rang out and Yu clenched her fists in rage and frustration.
“Ma’am battery three is overheating, malfunctions across the board, Master Chief Rameraz says he’s going to have to shut down all but our secondary batteries or else risk total system collapse.”
“Well Damn it all Lieutenant why don’t you just tell Rameraz to have us spit at the enemy.” Yu snapped violently, these new weapons were all [censored], useless [censored], at least as far as her ship was concerned and it frustrated her beyond belief.
“Target secondary batteries and fire.” She continued irritably.

The secondary batteries easily destroyed the enemy warship and Lenin turned around to rejoin the rest of the fleet, for the two day trip the engineers put up with hell from Yu until they finally discovered the source of the problem, some nimrod back at the dock that retrofit them had totally screwed up the heat syncing and installed heat syncs that were designed to deal with the much weaker phased poloron weapons right next to I-laser grade syncs. Yu was going to have someone’s head when she got back to the fleet and most of the engineers spent their time dodging her for the trip back.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2419.1 The new breed
The first Lord Nelson class dreadnoughts slipped out of their massive docks and began deploying to their fleets with all possible speed.

[3rd Fleet]:
“My Lord she’s a beast of a ship!” Ross uttered as the massive three kilometer form of the HMS Shadowclaw jumped through the warp point, she dwarfed every other ship in the fleet and made the older cruisers look like toys.
“Aye sir, but she’s also faster then every other ship in our fleet.” Sandra Fowler said with a smile as she looked over what was going to be her new command.
“Yeah that’s right, she uses the new Quantum reaction engines and Solar grav sails doesn’t she?” Ross looked back at Sandra and remembered seeing that same look on her face when he first gave her command of Saber all those years ago, before she was turned into an orbiting museum over Icara.
“That’s right sir, she also uses the new inertial compensation that the quantum reactor has produced, that means that she can go nearly twice as fast as a Heavy cruiser and her crew won’t feel a thing, it’s marvelous isn’t it sir?” She beamed at her Admiral quickly and returned her eyes to the massive warship in front of her.

The cavernous boat bay of the dreadnought overwhelmed Admiral Ross as he walked down the cutter’s ramp, two columns awaited him in parade formation, one of marines the other of ops crew, all of them came to attention sharply and saluted equally as formally. Ross returned the massed salute and walked forward between the two columns, Fowler a step behind him.

“Admiral on DECK!” the marine sentry inside the massive command center announced, the entire command crew snapped to attention and turned to face the entrance.
“As you were.” Ross smiled openly at the magnificent command center that lay before his eyes, it was huge compared to that of his heavy cruiser, two tiered layout with the command chair on a raised “arm” in the center of the bridge. A holotank sat just behind the command chair and it too impressed Ross, the level of detail and it’s sheer size was breathtaking. He turned to see Fowler glowing with pride and excitement he nodded at her as she walked off to inspect her new bridge.
The Shadowclaw was the first and so far only dreadnought assigned to 3rd fleet so Ross made sure he had pulled the best officers and crew he could for her new command staff, unfortunately captain Yu Lin did not have the seniority of Fowler and so she had to remain aboard [/i]Lenin[/i] until the next dreadnought arrived to reinforce their fleet.
Ross had nothing against Fowler, she was a superb officer and an excellent Captain but he had rather hoped to serve directly with the officer who had served as his flag captain while Hawkwing had undergone repairs and who had been his friend since his days in the academy back in the class of 86.
The joyful moment would not let its self fade so easily however and the Admiral felt his apprehension flow away as he strolled the bridge investigating all the latest gadgets the fleet had installed onto their new behemoths, his curiosity wanted to see what this new AI was like as well but she was offline at the moment and remain so for another month until calibration was completed.

Meanwhile;
The first fleet had received priority for receipt of block one production of the Lord Nelson class dreadnought including the class ship herself. Admiral Tyson Babcock was as impressed with the Lord Nelson as Ross had been with the Shadowclaw however Tyson allowed himself a little quirk of pride in the fact that his flagship was not just any dreadnought but she was the FIRST dreadnought, and the one that bore the class name as well as the best crew.
Along with Lord Nelson the dreadnoughts Falcon, Repulse, and Reinhardt joined the 1st fleet, making it the most powerful formation of warships in Icaran space.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2 chapters in one day! I find myself looking forward to the next installment more and more. Good stuff!!!