Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

I'm sick so this might not be that good, I hope you all enjoy these two chapters. I know this should provide Rutha sith some storie material.

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Chapter 11

Commander Dravel looked around the round table, most of the seats were empty though. The King Dravel was built to be a command ship, and because of that she had been designed with large briefing rooms in order to accommodate the staff of the various Squadron commanders that would fall under a fleet infrastructure, but now there was only one other ship with them in Agamar, that meant a lot of extra room. One of the results of that extra room was the inclusion of several people who normally didn't attend briefings, one of them being both ships Psychic Weapon Representatives. The PWR was basically in charge of the of the ships Psychic branch. That branch had become more and more important as the Draven fleets reliance on Psychic weaponry increased. But Psychics or Psi's as they were called tended to be an isolated group, there were relatively few in a crews company. Many tended to be receptors for what was termed stray thought, not mind reading per say, but the Psi would experience the same emotion as the person giving out the stray thought. Those emotions could be anything from joy, and happiness to paranoid delusion, and in some cases Suicidal tendencies. Many Psi's couldn't take handle this constant bombardment of stray thought, for that reason suicide among Psi's was extremely high.

For this reason children who demonstrated Psi characteristics were immediately taken into Government custody, before their use for military applications was discovered, they were simply isolated from the general public, it was found that the Psi's couldn't receive stray thought from each other only from Normal people. For many years Psi's lived an isolated existence, shunned away society. A special floating city had been built for them, though not as grand as the other floating Cities on Kornephoros X, it was adequate for the relatively few Psi's that existed. Their isolated life changed though once contact with the Weyrlings had been established. The Weyrlings were a psychic race by nature, and had even been joined together as a collective whole at one time, it was unclear how this collection had been broken, but it was clear that the Weyrlings retained much of their Psychic technology, and once the Central Powers Alliance had been formed that technology was shared with the Dravens.

The results had been staggering. Using amplifiers a Psi's could create bLast wave large enough to destroy a ship. The wave was more powerful than the Depleted Uranium Cannons that had been standard issue on ships in the past, even if it was larger. Almost overnight Psi's were drafted into the military, in order to power these Telekinetic Projectors. Dravel many times detested the way that the Psi's had been forced into military service, but he recognized the realities of the situation. The Republic needed those weapons, and despite basically conscripting the Psi's the Republic tended to treat them as best as they could. Dravel use to joke that the Psi's cabin were twice as big as the Admiral's, and they got twice the pay too.

Dravel knew however how important the Psi's were to the survival of the Republic, and the Psi's by and large accepted their role in Society preferring it to the total isolation of the past.

The door in slid open and the final guest arrived, the Captain of the Furies Edge, Captain Lanare of Acamar. The captain was a short man, probably the shortest man at the briefing, but he carried himself with an air of confidence that had served him well in the Academy were he aced every single command simulation on record. As a result he had become the youngest captain in the history of the Draven Republic.

Once the Captain was seated the briefing started. Dravel cleared his throat, "Welcome," he paused gauging his audience, "We have been given orders."

Anyone who might not have been paying full attention was now riveted on Dravel's words. They had been sitting on the Agamar-Ansuroer warp point for 3 months now, since the Terrens declared war. Since then they had not tried to attack. But there had been reports of several small engagements in the Lesat system, some rumors even of a Weyrling ship being lost.

The lights in the room dimmed and a hologram appeared in the middle of the table showing the warp points in the Draven Republic and the Terren Galactic Imperuim. Currently the northernmost warp point was blinking. "Ok people we are here, in 4 hours we will enter the Ansuroer system and begin unrestricted warfare against any Terren Ships that we find there. We will make our war though the Ansuroer where we will meet up with third fleet. Our goal is to clear Ansuroer so that Agamar won't be in direct danger while third fleet engages the enemies main force."

The PWR from Furies edge interrupted, "Commander, I've never hear of third fleet."

Dravel smiled, "that's because third fleet had never existed until now. Just before war broke out the Weyrlings and us began assembling our forces in the Acamar system. Once the Terrens declared war the Central Powers Representatives Enacted the Sledgehammer Plan. The plan is simple, a joint Weyrling- Draven fleet will go right into the heart of Terren space and destroy all its industrial capabilities. Once the Terrens have been neutralized we will begin annexing worlds for forward bases, with our combined fleets we will have virtual immunity to strike where ever we want."

"Lieutenant Sosha will read the rest of the orders." Dravel watched as Sosha stood, and began o recite the orders that had come a few hours earlier. Dravel never heard a word though, her voice was like a song, and the way she moved was intoxicating. Dravel was sure he had never seen such a beauty in all his life. He wanted so badly to tell her how he felt, to touch her, not as one officer to another, but as a man to a woman. He leaned back in his chair, not really caring how wrong his thoughts were, but just enjoying her voice while it Lasted. Maybe some day, when this war is over, and he was President he would tell her. If that wasn't a reason to survive this war nothing was.

Chapter 12

Golmen sat silently in his chair as the Prime Minister paced in front of him. Yalre was mad, no mad was probably an understatement. Golmen wasn't even sure furious would be strong enough a word to describe the prime ministers mood.

"That ignorant... idiotic, ball of fur. If she was in the same damn sector I would rip her head off with my bear hands!!"

"Yes sir," was all Golmen could say, the Prime Minister always had this reaction after he had talked to the Weyrling Matriarch. She seemed to have a gift for upsetting Yalare that few living beings could achieve.

"I can't believe, she wants to go ahead this Sledgehammer!! Doesn't she realize the cost, and then she wants us to Pay the majority of the cost. Why I ought to..." The rest was a series of curses that Golmen would have sworn were form 5 different Languages. He took a breath, Yalare would have sworn the Matriarch was out to give him a heart attack. Every plan he sent out to Alliance HQ she would have here Representative change just enough to put it against his favor. This time had been particularly bad. Yalare had proposed a joint operation against the Terrens that would have spread the cost evenly over all three Central Powers Members, the Matriarch had changed the proposal to a joint fleet that was mostly supported and consisted of Draven units, after all the Dravens had the most to gain from this operation. The Thermolians still entangled with their war with the Infernal Relms had agreed.

Yalare had been furious with the Matriarch, and he had told her exactly what he thought of her. In response, the Matriarch had the Central Powers Speaker which was also a Weyrling throw him out of the Headquarters building. Yalare had eventually been let back in to the building, but only with the promise that he would act civil. Imagine, a fur ball telling him, the leader of one of the greatest empires in the known Galaxy, what to do. It was embarrassing.

Finally Yalare was starting to feel a little calm, "its ok Golmen you can leave." Golmen left in a hurry happy to be relieved from his role of punching bag. Yalare sat back in his desk.

"Why do you listen the that foolish matriarch?" it was the voice again.

Yalare nodded his head, he really didn't want to deal with this now, not only was the Matriarch preventing him from fulfilling his goals but now he had to deal with that voice in his head, "I have no choice," he said "She has control of the Central Power, I can't do anything military related without her approval."

"You should be running the Alliance, not her."

Yalare smiled, the voice was right, but what did it matter what should be happening the fact is, she was in charge.

"You could be running the Allaince."

Yalare froze, he hated the voice, despite gifts it had given him. Still he wanted control of the Alliance badly, "How?"

"The Matriarch is leading the Weyrling fleet into battle, should something happen to her it would change the balance of power in the Alliance."

"Are you saying that we should kill the Matriarch!" Yalare couldn't believe what the voice was saying. Starting a war was one thing, but killing an Empires leader, especially a friendly one was unspeakable.

"I didn't say anything about killing, I simply said that Combat is dangerous, sometimes there are friendly fire incidents, and escape pods have been known to fail."

Yalare was breathing hard now. How could he even be considering what the voice was suggesting, it was an act of war. No he wouldn't do it, he would not kill an ally no matter how much he loathed her.

The voice seemed to sense his thoughts, "Don't get high and mighty on me now," the voice was different now, no longer cold and calculating, now it was rage, Yalare had never heard the voice so enraged, he was more scared now than he ever was in is life. "I know exactly what you are, I know exactly what you did it!" Suddenly Yalare was assaulted by hundreds of images at once, terrible images. He couldn't believe what he was seeing in them.

"No, that's impossible!" Yalare was not in a panic, what he was seeing couldn't be him, but somehow he knew the images he was seeing were him. Yalare looked down at his hands they were shaking madly, "Great Creator what have I done?"

Yalare was almost comatose for several hours as he struggled with the images now captured forever in his mind. In the end he typed a letter in his terminal, it was short and to the point. It was addressed to a friend of his who was the Captain of one of the Sledgehammer Fleet ships. As Yalare pressed the send key, he knew that he had gone too far.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

CaptRR, I love the interaction between, the Matriarch and Yalare. Both chapters are very good. Being sick, does not seem to have affected you!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Weyrling Empire 2406.3
----------------------

The Weyrling fleet was preparing for the Worm-hole jump between the Lasat and Kuat systems. They would soon be in enemy territory for the first time and the fleet was set to full alert.
The Draven fleet was following a couple of days behind.

Aboard the Destroyer "Responder":

Thurya pressed the alarm button and spoke into the internal communication channel.
"-All hands prepare for wormhole jump.
Our intel says that we will meet light opposition on the other side of the wormhole. Our fleet will win but as to the individual ships no predictions can be made, so stay alert. Be sure that it's the enemy you are targeting. No one fires before my command to do so.
I have orders from fleet command to fire at all enemy targets, so today we might become warriors, make me proud.
Here we go!"
While Thurya saw the other ships in the fleet start to disappear into the wormhole she couldn't help herself from thinking of her dead sister, maybe I'll see you tonight Ari, she thought and gave the command to jump. The ship moved into the wormhole and was finally in enemy territory. The war had truly begun.

When they came out in the Kuat system the battle indicators started blinking. On the tactic screen they could see the fleet gathered after the jump and a single Terran Strike carrier class destroyer heading away from the fleet while at the same time launching fighters.
One has to admire the courage of those fighter pilots, Thurya thought as she saw the fighters go straight against the fleet and immediatly turn into debris as they came into range of the Weyrling main guns. After awhile a few fighters managed to come in closer but was then swiftly disposed of by the point defence cannons. From the tactic screen Thurya could make out that it wasn't inferior piloting skills that made the Terrans die. They managed to avoid most of the beams and guns directed against them but the sheer number of projectiles and energy beams heading towards them created an impenetrable net killing the fighters in the deadly web.
The fight was cleary going in one way only. It was only a matter of time before the fleet caught up to the destroyer and finished it off.
Another thing that was clear was that Thurya wouldn't get her sword blooded today, the Responder would never be able to reach the enemies before the battle was over. They could only watch and learn.

It took less than 30 minutes and then the battle indicators went limp and the tactic screen only showed friendly objects.
Thurya gave the order to the crew to stand down and leave the battle stations, those who where on the routine shift went back to their ordinary tasks, the rest of the crew gathered in the dormatory talking about what they had just witnessed.
The atmosphere in the ship was tense. In the same time as they felt joy of the victory they also felt disappointment that they hadn't been able to participate and prove themselfs as warriors, and also some shame over the overwhelming odds that the Terrans had faced, it didn't feel as any great heroic task that the fleet had delivered, more like being the school yard bully kicking the little kid around. There wasn't much glory in that.

The comm screen in the command bridge flared to life,
"-Destroyer Responder. Keep position in the fleet. Combat status Beta. New course is downloaded to your navigational array now."
The screen turned black again. There hadn't been much joy in that voice either Thurya thought to herself.
"-Anselm Jugg, you have the bridge". She got up from her seat and started walking to her cabin feeling somewhat tired after the battle tension.

Aboard the Battlecruiser Indestructible,
Flagship of fleet Sledge;

Elyssandra had sat up long past her sleeping period with the rest of her staff analyzing the short battle.
It didn't look good.
Inside the Kuat system was a large Terran fleet. Numerical it was outnumbered by the Weyrling fleet alone, not to talk about the Draven fleet.
The Terrans had about 30 ships, the Weyrling fleet was over 50 ships and the Draven fleet well over 70 ships strong.
With the current positions the Weyrling fleet would face that Terran fleet alone, the Dravens was too far behind to catch up to the faster Weyrling fleet that was heading on a straight course towards the Sladden wormhole, where the Terran fleet had took position.
Numbers aren't everything they had agreed upon during their analysis. In the Terran fleet they where facing they had spotted a deployed fighter group consisting of over 150 fighters. The rest of the fleet was made up of battleships, large carriers and some destroyers. The Weyrling fleet might be greater in numbers but in tonnage they where about equal.
They had faced 34 fighters in this first battle, and most of the fleet didn't understand how hard it had been to hit those fighters! They had been forced to use an overwhelming amount of weapons to defeat a single destroyer with it's fighter escort.
Those Terrans know how to fight, and we don't! Elyssandra thought to herself.

They now had several options.
They could continue as was originally planned and go for the Sladden wormhole. Elyssandra thought that they might succed against that Terran fleet but the cost would be great. After that battle, win or loose, the Weyrling fleet would be a beaten force. They couldn't continue as an effective fleet after such a battle.
Another option was to use the newly constructed worm-hole opener the empire had. Now they could open worm-holes between any systems in the known universe.

They could use that to send in a replacement fleet, better equipped and better trained. The Sledgehammer fleet had been assembled over years and many of the ships where really obsolete and had crews that hadn't trained at any of the new war academys.
But to open a worm-hole and send in a new fleet and bring out the current fleet would still take months to coordinate.
Months that the Terrans would use to strenghten their fleet.
Elyssandra looked out over the tired staff and spoke;
"-There is no use in making any decision now. Let's all sleep on this and continue our planning tomorrow.
You are dismissed."
She got up and walked to her cabin.
During the day she had also been given the news that the Empire had established contact with a new race. The Zax society.
They had received a very strange message from them, being what the analysts called "psychotic in it's nature".
It had been directed to the late emperor Ruatha. How the Zax society had heard that name she didn't know, but rumours would travel far she thought.

She remembered some lines in the message:
"May anyone who has said the slightest ill-word against you (Ruatha) or your descendants in the next ten thousand years suffer the worst possible torments.
May you be able to exact your revenge in full measure against anyone who expresses any criticism of you or your reign.
May you and your descendants rule the Weyrling Empire for the next 10,000 years and beyond.
If anybody should rule instead of or in place of your descendants, may they suffer the worst possible torments in this life and in hell, forevermore. May their bones ache to their core. May the fleas of 10,000 camels infest their armpits."

Well. They had been wrong hadn't they Elyssandra thought, ruathas reign hadn't Lasted any 10,000 years. And my armpits don't itch yet!
She had turned the issue over to the diplomatic corps to ponder, How do one respond to such a strange message?
She didn't really care about that now, it wasn't important in these circumstances.
We need bigger ships and more of them. I'd better contact Alliance headquarter and see if the Dravens have any funds ready for transfer, so far they hadn't payed all they had promised. Granted their contribution to the fleet cost was greater than the Weyrlings but the Weyrlings didn't expect to make any profit from this war. Secretly Elyssandra thought that maybe that was the Dravens main reason for participating in the war, to take over Terran territory and increase their already large production of resources. It didn't feel good to depend upon aliens to finance the fleet but what to do? The Weyrlings must keep forces in the empire territory ready to defend against unexpected threats, we can't send all our ships to this war. The dravens must understand this, or I must make them understand, again.
I hope I can talk to prince Dravel. He is a much more civilized alien than that Yalare character. Still it couldn't be easy for Yalare. To rule after the popular King Dravel. I had it easy, anything I did was far better than what Ruatha ever did. She smiled a little as she opened the door to her cabin.

She undressed and slid into her bed and when the head hit the pillow she was already asleep.

[ March 06, 2003, 14:06: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

The game is at 2406.6. The Last story from my part was 2406.3. So I have two months ready to be written, the synopsis is written.

It's only time to put down all the words that I'm missing. Perhaps this weekend I'll catch up to the game again. (Much has happened, the war rages on!)

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Exciting Ruatha. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

And the relationship between you and the Dravens is intriguing. Makes one wonder if all relationships, no matter how beneficial, have their disadvantages.

I await the next installment.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ruatha, thrilling stuff! I await, MORE! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

tbontob, I believe all bad relationships have good and bad points. Conversely, all good relationships have bad and good points!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

[ March 06, 2003, 17:36: Message edited by: mlmbd ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Weyrling Empire 2406.2
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On Destroyer "Responder":

Thurya walked into the crew dormatory.
There where some people sleeping with their ears pointed downwards, effectively closing out all external sounds.
The only one awake in the dormatory was Try.
Thurya was starting to feel the craving for his company at nights and wasn't far from giving up what she sometimes thought of as a silly notion about not sleeping with her crew.

Try was deeply occupied with a device that was making weird noises, "beep, beep, beep..."
"-Try, what are you doing?"

Try didn't look up from the device, Thurya saw that it had some sort of communication screen fitted to it.
"-Hi Capt'n.
It's a new thing I've got from some of my friends back home with the Last mail delivary.
It's called a video game. See this little round figure is called Eat-man, he goes around in this maze and eats all these cokies while staying away from the ghosts."

Thurya was puzzled.
"-Ok, what's the purpose of it?"

"-You see, It's me controlling the little round figure that eats the cokies, I'm supposed to eat as many as possible before I die!"

"-Die, what do you mean?"

"-Well. It's entertainment. It get's harder all the time and eventually I die."

"-I still don't understand the purpose of it. Does it train your reflexes, can you win some prize?"

"-No. It's the challenge to get more cokies than I did the Last time.
My friends have implemented a new technology, computers, into this game. Now they need money to invest in it and they want me as a partner."

"-It seems like a bad idea. Pointless. It will never make any profit.
Now put that away, you need extra training at the point defence gun. You really stink at it you know, and if you don't improve soon I'll have you transfered to internal maintnance at one of the stationary weapon platforms, so hop to it.
I want you in that turret in five minutes, I'll be at the bridge.

"-Yes captain. I'll just play one more time then I'll be there!"

Thurya left while shaking her head slowly thinking that he might be cute but sometimes he seemed darned stupid aswell.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Next "month" comes later tonight.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Hmmm.... you can just tell that something bad is abut to happen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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Chapter 13

Admiral Panar gripped the sides of his chair as the familiar disorientation of a warp transit subsided. Dravens didn't handle warp transits as well as most other species, a side effect of their Genetic Engineering, but it was a small price to pay. The disorientation Lasted only seconds, it took that long for the Targeting system to cycle so the hindrance to combat was minimum. The system tactical display began to fill first with planets, then a few minutes later by known contacts in the system. Panar wasn't surprise by what he saw, it confirmed what the Weyrlings had reported, a lot of well defended planets, with almost every Terren ship sitting on the Sladden Warp point. The Weyrling fleet was in-route towards the Sladden warp point, but he knew that was only an illusion. Matriarch Elyssandra had already informed him that her fleet would only head towards them, but would avoid combat. It was an attempt to draw the terren forces off the warp point so that the Draven forces could run through into the Sladden system and crush the terrens home worlds.

However, even the matriarch didn't expect the Terrens to budge. They had the defensive advantage, and moving would expose their home systems to attack. If the terrens maintained their position the matriarch wanted to combine the Draven and Weyrling Sledgehammer fleets and then make a combined attack on the Terren's position.

Panar snorted, cowards he thought. The Weyrlings had no business in combat as far as he was concerned. Their first combat with the Terrens had been an embarrassment to the alliance. A single destroyer taking out a light Cruiser, Panar would have laughed at the thought had the consequences not been so severe, and now this. Elyssandras Ronda view point would add at least a month to their journey. A month that the Sledgehammer plans had not accounted for, sure the Terren Fleet was about the same tonnage as the Draven fleet but the Dravens had already proven that all things being equal a Draven ship could beat an equal Terren ship. No, Panar would refuse to join with her, he wouldn't put the plan in danger in order make the Matriarch feel secure, he was sure his fleet would prive victorious over the Terren's, and then he would lead the way into the Sladden system and prove that the Dravens should have been running this war from the beginning.

"Sir" it was the communications officer, "we have a message coming in from Kornephoros, it's addressed your eyes only." Panar took the pad from the young Lieutenant with a snap. He didn't like being interrupted when he was thinking, especially when the one doing the interrupting was a lowly Lieutenant.

Panar dialed his code in and submitted his thumbprint to the pad as the Communications officer disappeared into the background of the Command Deck. Panar noticed that it was from the Prime Ministers office. Panar had known Yalare for years, long before he entered politics. In fact his current position was probably because of the friendship he had with the Prime Minister. Yalare had pulled him from commander of Training operations, where the Dravel Presidency had basically marooned him, and put him in charge of the Draven Sledgehammer fleet. It was an honorable position, Panar had never commanded so many ships, and he knew it was the Ticket to his future. After he crushed the Terrens he would be ready to take on Politics, maybe even become Prime Minister some day.

He slowly read the message, and then reread it. He couldn't believe what the Prime Minister wanted to do, it was crazy, but there was something about it. A certain justice. Panar had never liked the Matriarch, she wanted too much from the Draven people and then wanted to run the show, with her out of the way it would give command over both the Draven and Weyrling Sledgehammer fleets, thus when he finnaly crushed the Terrens it would be a Draven Victory, it would be his Victory. But how to do it, he had to make sure it couldn't be traced back to him, or for that matter to the Draven Government.

An Idea came to him, it would be perfect he thought, the man had showed a tendency to be a loose cannon, and his hate for the Weyrlings was well known. "Lieutenant," He called out.

The communications officer appeared seemingly out of nowhere, "Send out a message to the Troikens Pride, tell them I would like to meet Captain Jalan as his earliest convenence."

The Lieutenant responded with a "yes, sir" and then disappeared again. Panar smiled. Yes it was a perfect plan, command might even give him a medal after all this was over, even if the most gratifying part could never be known to them.

Chapter 14

Captain Jalan of Acamar 3 felt the gentlest of thumps as the shuttle docked in the landing bay of the Fleet command ship. It took several minutes for the bay to compress, and still longer while the load officer on the shuttle scanned for any airborne contaminates and took care of the general post docking checklist. All in all Jalan guessed he had been waiting at least 15 minutes before he was cleared to leave the shuttle. He straitened his uniform made sure that his cap was on strait and then proceeded towards the hatch.

Jalan was annoyed, it was bad enouph that he was being forced into joint operations with the Weyrlings, but now he was being called away from his ship to this meeting with the Admiral. The old man was probably going to bust his chops for that little high-speed pass on the Weyrling Cruiser, but damn if that furry idiotic captiain didn't deserve. Jalan relished the thought, he had passed his ship so close and as such high speed that the backwash from his Engines had destroyed several sensor systems on the Weyrling Cruiser, the stupid cat would be spending many nights trying to repair those systems.

Jalan didn't like the Weyrlings, in fact his dislike bordered on paranoid hate. Jalan recognized that himself, and he didn't mind it, in his opinion he had a good reason for it. It was before the formation of the Central Powers Alliance, and one of the first times a Weyrling vessel had come across a Draven ship. There was mutual distrust, neither side knew very much about the other, and each others technology appeared to be radically different. The Draven ship attempted to scan the Weyrling vessel, unknown to the Dravens though, the Weyrling's fire control systems operated on the same frequencies as the Dravens scanners. This interstellar coincidence was a disaster, the Weyrlings thought that the Draven ship was attempting to fire its weapons, even though it no such intention. The lightly armored Draven ship was completely destroyed by the Weyrlings, along with it went 95 Draven's including Jalans Father.

Jalan had been just 7 when the military officer came to deliver the news to his mother. He remembered that night for the rest of his life, his mother's sobs seem to Last forever, and outcry of pain that Jalan had never heard come from her. Jalan thought that soon the military would strike back at the Weyrlings, but it was not to be, instead of a counter attack, the President had issued an apology of all things, and promised to work with the Weyrlings in the future to prevent any more accidents. It was at that moment that Jalan swore he would strike back at the Weyrlings. It was part of the reason he had joined the military, he thought for sure that this alliance would fall apart eventuntually, and when it did he would finally get his revenge on the Weyrling Empire.

Jalan's thoughts were brought back to the present as an Enlisted man, Admiral Panar's Secretary he assumed, met him at the bottom of the ramp.

"Captain Jalan?" the man said. Even though it sounded like a question Jalan knew it wasn't. The man damn well knew who he was, who else would be on the shuttle, but he had to at least act polite, it was part of the game that had to be played in the service.

Jalan managed his most sincerest smile, even if it did still look fake, "That's me."

"Sir," the man then gestured towards the hatch at the end of the landing bay, "I'm suppose to escort to Admiral Panar's day cabin, it right this way."

Jalan walked in the indicated direction, with the Secretary taking up position just in front of him. They didn't walk that far, though it did seem like it. Draven ships unlike the Weyrlings vessels tended to be over crewed. The Admiralty had long ago figured the best way to handle damage was to have plenty of trained people to fix that damage. With all the extra crew compartments, and the bulky weapon systems it made for a cramped ship, most of the hallways where just big enough for 2 people to squeeze by. The effect was to make a short walk an exercise in athletics.

They did get to their destination and the enlisted man stepped aside as he motion Jalan into the opened hatch. Jalan proceeded into Admiral Panars day cabin, if you could call it that. Being that warships were cramped already they didn't have much room for perks such as offices, the day cabin served both as a bedroom and office for the ships commander, or in this case the fleets commander. Still as small as the office was by dirt side standards it was downright large by ship standards, even a Cruiser. The Admiral stayed seated in his desk as Jalan entered the room, he closed the door behind him as was standard for meeting such as this, and introduced himself.

"Sir, Captain Jalan of Acamar 3 reping as directed." He held himself at attention for a few moments before the Admiral looked up from his console and motioned for Jalan to take a seat.

"Captian Jalan," said the Admiral, "I was just going over your record, it appears you have a rather colorful past."

Damn it Jalan thought, the Admiral was calling him her to bust his chops, maybe even relieve him command, although that was doubtful with the war going on. Before Jalan could say anything the Admiral continued, "in particular your relations with the Weyrlings leave much to be desired, I see no less than 9 incidents you have had with our alliance partners, if we weren't currently at war I'm sure the Admiralty would have you stripped of command and put on the first freighter headed for a court martial."

The Admiral sounded head serious, and Jalan could feel the fear welling up inside of him, but then the Admiral's frown turned into a smile and his voice seemed to lighten. "Fortunately we are in a war and I believe we have a good use for someone of your, uh, unique history." Panar saw the expression on Jalan's face; "lets just say that you aren't the only person who feels that the Weyrlings should get back to their own planet where they belong."

Jalan was confused, he had only met the Admiral a few times, and even though it was well known that the Admiral didn't share much love for the Weyrlings, he had never made any actual derogatory marks towards the Alliance Partners. "I'm not sure I know what you mean Admiral."

"Oh come now, Captain. You and I both know how our Alliance with the Cats have weakened us. We no longer even have total control over our own military, we have to bow down to this Central Powers HQ, and you know who controls that HQ? That Weyrlings that who."

Panar was now standing and walked around his desk to where Jalan was sitting, "I knew your father Jalan, he was a good man." Jalan was surprised by the mention of his father. "We should have drove our fleets right into Weyrling space and killed every one of them for that atrocity. Instead we form this ridicules alliance, and look what that brought us, under the command of the Matriarch of an alien empire. Imagine what the founders would have thought. A Draven having take orders from a cat."

Jalan was speechless; Panar was speaking exactly what he had thought since his father's death. "But sir," said Jalan, now relieved at having an ally in the Admiralty, "what can we do, we are under orders to obey the Central Powers HQ?"

Panar smiled so broadly that he was sure the Captain would see right though him. "I'm not sure captain, but what I do know is that the Republic would be a lot better off if that matriarch of the Weyrlings were out of the picture, with her gone, control of the Central Powers would fall back to the Draven's where it belongs, and then we could execute this war the way it should be run."

"I agree sir, but I don't think the Matriarch has any intention of stepping down soon, certainly not as long as it would give us back control of the Alliance."

Panar nodded, "your right, but the future of our people is at stake, we can't wait around for the matriarch to give us back what rightfully belongs to us, something must be done." The Admiral stopped and looked at Captain, "Tell me Jalan, how much do you trust your crew."

Jalan stiffened in his chair with pride, "I trust them completely, I hand picked them all."

Panar waved his hand, "no, no, what I should have asked is where your crews allegiance lies. Is it with the Alliance or the Republic?"

The response was instantaneous, "Definitely with the Republic, sir."

The joy Panar now felt was threatening to boil over, this had been too easy, now all he had to do was cap it off. "In that case captain, I have a special assignment for you. Matriarch Elyssandra has asked for us to dispatch one of our ships to escort her back to Headquarters. It appears she has some business there and all her ships are unavailable. I have decided to send the Troikens Pride. The journey will take you through Lasat where our sensor coverage is still weak."

Jalan was following along, and couldn't believe what the Admiral was proposing, but if it worked, Jalan would finally have his revenge. He decided to play along, "I'm sure there are some enemy vessles that are hiding out there, between our sensor nets."

The Admiral nodded, "that is of course my assessment as well, we are all aware of how faulty the Weyrling escape systems have been lately, and we wouldn't want them to have to use them with the Matriarch on board. It would be a shame if she never made it to HQ."

Jalan leaned back and listened as the Admiral explained what he wanted Jalan to do. It was so easy, he thought, the entire thing would be reported as a sneak attack by the terrens, there would of course be no Survivors among the Weyrlings. The plan was perfect, he would have his vengeance finally. Unknown to him, the Admiral had no intention of letting Jalan make it back to HQ either, he had already had the Troikens Pride's IFF transponder code changed. As soon as he entered the Acamar system the ship would be destroyed by the Automated defenses, the entire thing would be attributed to a damaged system from the "terren sneak attack" that had already killed the Matriarch, there would be no Witnesses.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

2406.4 Weyrling Empire.
--------------------------

Aboard the Destroyer "Responder":

Thurya was astonished over Try's expertise at the point defence guns, he hit almost anything they could throw at him. The change in his results had been sudden and understandable she thought.
"-Try, training is over, excellent result. Meet me in my cabin for evaluation."

"-Yes, capt'n", Try responded and left the turret.
When he arrived at Thuryas cabin after having finished his post maintnance of the point defence cannons Thurya was waiting for him. He entered and sat down. Their relationship had developed and was now on the surface the same as what she had with the rest of the crew, a comradiere.
"-So Try", Thurya started. "I think we both know what has initiated this drastic improvement in your handling of the PDC's. Do you want to talk about it?
I know it must have been bad seeing that Terran fighter pilot hit the turret, and to clean up that mess he left on the turrets wievports must have been gross!"

"-No, it's not that.
When we moved away from the first battle and passed that debris field we where getting up speed so I didn't catch any close look at him. I just saw a flashing light and then the view ports where all red. I didn't understand what had happened until you up in the bridge informed me what it had been.
And to go out and clean it up wasn't all that bad either. The remains where mostly unidentifiable, blood and some small flesh and clothing strips jammed into the angles of the turret. What really got to me was this;"
He pulled out a strange looking wallet from his pocket and gave it to Thurya.
"There's not much in it. Some money and some id cards. But if you open that Last flap by pressing that button you'll see some pictures Of the pilot, Garret Jahson was his name. See there, that must be his family, his kids. Look, he was a person, just like you and me. It could have been me that smashed into a Terran ship if circumstances where reversed. We don't know if he was still alive and had time to understand what was about to happen.
This is no game Captain. I realize that now. If I don't do my best we might all die becouse of me."

"-Yes, I've feelt that way all along. Like living on overtime!
Still, don't let this get to you. We have a job to perform and so do the Terrans. They might be people like us but it's either them or us, so don't hesitate if you get them into your sights."

"-Never. I don't want to die. So if it means I'll have to kill them, I'll do that."

"-Good. I've diversified your training schedule to include more training with the beams. I still think you'll do better at them. And I've decreased your training time, the other gunners need more practise too.
That will be all. And if this thing about the terran smashing into your turret starts to bother you even more, I wan't to know about it. Is that clear?"

"-Yes."

"-Good, now you may leave."
Try got up and went to the mess to help out with the next meal.

Aboard the Battlecruiser Indestructible,
Flagship of fleet Sledge;

Elyssandra had thought about what to do for a whole day before reaching her decision. Now her new strategy was being put into action.
The Weyrling fleet and the Draven fleet would merge to form an unbeatable force. It was the only way to be assured of victory.
The Dravens hadn't exactly jumped of joy when she introduced them to her plans but eventually they had complied.
Now the faster Weyrling fleet would try to draw away the Terran fleet guarding the worm hole to Sladden while they at the same time waited for the slower Draven fleet to catch up.
If they succeded they would merge up with the Dravens at a designated sector and then head back to the worm hole and pass through it to utterly destroy the Terrans industrial capabilities.
If they didn't succed they would have to do it the hard way. But with both fleets merged Elyssandra was sure that they would win against the Terran fleet if needed and still have enough force left to destroy the Terran homeworlds.

The Draven military had complied she tought. But that Yalare was bugging her again. When Elyssandra had talked to the alliance headquarters the Draven attache had insisted that the Dravens had paid all they should. And that there wouldn't be anymore resources coming from the them.
It felt bad to abandon the fleet at this time, but with the fleets merging there wouldn't be much to worry about. So Elyssandra planned to take the Indestructible and leave the fleet, then make best speed towards the Alliance headquarters and straigthen this out.
If all went as planned she would make it back to the fleet in time to witness the end of the war. Still she didn't have to rush away, she would stay another couple of weeks and lead the coming joint operation. After they had a clear path into the Sladden system the Indestructible would leave. It would travel alone, the Lasat system was cleared of all enemy presence so there was no real danger for the virtually unarmed ship. The Indestructible was a one of a kind sjip, a battlecruiser built for leading. It was heavily armoured and shielded but with a limited offensive capacity, it was meant to assure the survival of the leader, not to win combats.
As it wasn't equipped with that much weaponry the Dravens had insisted that she should take a Draven ship with her as escort, to show that they were an alliance. A show of unity.
She actually thought it was a good idea.
She had ordered admiral Panar to send a ship to meet up with them at the wormhole leading to Lasat in a months time. She just hoped that it wouldn't be one of the slow ships the dravens had so many of. That would be a real annoyance.
During the time she was away her second in command, admiral Gryt would be commanding the fleet. The Draven admiral Panar had complained and meant that he should lead the fleet in Elyssandras absence. But Elyssandra was reluctant to let him. The Dravens might be good at the actual fighting but as to their strategic capacity she hadn't witnessed much and wasn't really capable of judging it. It was too big a risk to hand over command to them merely to show unity. They would have to accept that this was a Weyrling led operation.
Elyssandra and the Indestructible would stay one more month and lead the joint battle if the Terrans didn't leave the wormhole. After that she would have to leave for alliance HQ.

On Kalzeron Prime;

The research aiming to awaken the one had come to a complete stop as a second casualty had happened.
A cleaner in the next room had become comatose, just as Marit, when they had turned on the device one day.
Ilian didn't understand why.
The condition of the cleaner Jon and Marit was weighing heavily on him, he thought it was he's responsibility. He might have killed those people if they didn't wake up from their coma. The device was just too dangerous.
He was spending most of his time going between the two hospitals where the comatoses where placed.
He had fought this separation idea, they should have been placed in the same hospital he thought. Then the doctors would have two cases to work with and would have a better chance to cure them. But the Free council had fought him, and they where in charge. They said that it was too risky. Two comatose cases made up an epedemic and the authorities would surely investigate it. But one isolated case wasn't enough to draw their attention. So the patients where treated at different hospitals by different doctors who didn't know of the other case.
Ilian had a hard time not telling them when he went to the hospitals to visit.
And he felt inadequate, he was actually a theoretical practician engineer, not a medical proofessional. He couldn't understand what had happened, there was nothing in his theories explaining it.
He could understand the Free councils fear of detection. Under Ruathas reign they would have been executed. Now that Ely ruled that was unthinkable. But still, it was an attempt to undermine the authorities and they would surely receive some sort of penalty. Ilian thougt they would be fined but the others on the project feared life time imprisoment. Ridiculous Ilian thought. Yes, Ely had changed a bit since taking reign of the Weyrlings, their divorce proved that. But she was still the Ely he had known most of his life.
He didn't understand why she wanted the divorce. But he wouldn't stand in her way, even though it casued him alot of pain. Even more now that he couldn't bury himself in his project.
Oh Ely, I miss you so, he thought.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

I pasted this whole story, all three Versions into word using 10pts fonts. 83 pages so far!

Here is the first hmtl Version (will try to get them inphase later and put headlines etc):
Newbie Galactic Combat 030307 Collected works.

[ March 08, 2003, 09:21: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

CaptRR, I like it. All of you are cooking! Very nice!

Ruatha, Really good stuff. Do you name all your ship's? You all will have enough work by the end for a great book!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I really like the idea of different colors. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

I put it up on the Emergency site and that means tha it won't be on-line all the time, it's predominantly up when there's trouble at the PBW site.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Weyrling Empire 2406.5
------------------------

The plan had worked as expected initially.
The Weyrling fleet had passed the Sladden wormhole at high speed, initiating the thrust needed to diverge from the wormhole at the Last possible point.
Also as expected the Terrans did nothing, they where still sitting with their fleet guarding the wormhole, this was a disappointment.
After a couple of days it was also obvious that something was horribly wrong.
The Draven fleet wasn't heading for the designated rendezvous sector, they where heading for the wormhole.
There was nothing Elyssandra could do.
The Weyrling fleet was fast, but it couldn't defy the laws of nature. They would have to cancel their momentum before they could head back towards the wormhole and then they would arrive about a week after the Draven fleet. By then the battle would be over.
Elyssandra had serious doubts of the outcome of that battle.
Space combat was difficult. You had to match speed and course with the target, otherwise the battle would be over after the first few rounds of the weapons and the ships would loose contact with eachother. This had been tested but had never been any success.
If you however matched speed and course correctly you couldn't back off. To increase speed or alter the course to take you away from the enemy would take days. If you hadn't won by then you had propably lost. Ties weren't common. What the Dravens where doing now was an attack approach, and Ely could see that they where doing it well.
They where constantly deaccelerating as they headed towards the wormhole, when they arrived they would virtually have no speed left and the combat would commence.
In combat ships moved around each other and fighters went about in a furious speed. To the combatants it usually appeared as the fighting ships where moving freely in every direction, but actually they where just deaccelerating and accelerating in one general direction, and when heading away from the general direction they altered their true course by a minimal degree. Still, it was merely theory when you where in battle, you fought and manouvred relative to the other ships. You didn't think of terms of accelerating and deaccelerating, you though of survival and death, the other ones death!
What it all came down to was that the Draven fleet was on its own.

The tension aboard the Weyrling ships increased for every day that the Draven fleet closed in towards the Terrans. Matters weren't improved by the strict communication silence that the Draven fleet where keeping.
Elyssandra had tried to contact the Dravens at the Alliance HQ and succeded with that, but she shouldn't have bothered.
They had absolutely no idea what was happening in the Kuat system. They insisted that Elyssandra had command in the Kuat system, so if the Draven fleet was heading towards the wormhole it must be Elyssandra that had ordered it, and then why was she bothering them?!

Finally it came about.
The Weyrling fleet was to far away to see any details, but from the long range strategic sensors they could tell it wasn't going well. They couldn't see the individual Terran ships, only the gravitational anomaly from the combined Terran and Draven fleet. But they could see the friendly object beacon signals from the Draven ships wink out one after another. After a day there was no Draven ship left that could transmit it's beacon signal.
Still the wormhole continued to emitt a gravitaional disturbance, telling the Weyrlings that a fleet was still present.
It was stunning. The Terrans had took out a fleet twice it's size, and with propably very few losses to themselfs!

Elyssandra was furious.
She finally managed to get through to the Draven homeworld but wasn't allowed to speak with Yalare himself.
But one of his staff told her that the Dravens weren't planning on sending any more ships to the war atleast for another year.
Elyssandra couldn't belive it. She knew the Dravens had a large reserve of immensely big powerful ships, bigger than the biggest Weyrling ship ever constructed.
This war was fought on the behalf of the Dravens, and now they wanted to sit it out. And propably send in some colony ships afterwards to claim the planets the Weyrlings would fight for.

Elyssandra was very tempted to cancel it all. Take the fleet and head home towards Weyrling space. Let the Dravens fight this war when the Terrans brought it back to Draven territory, she thought.
But from what she had seen today, she also belived that Dravens would loose. And after conquering the Dravens the Terrans would surely remember the Weyrlings, and then the Weyrlings wouldn't have the Dravens by their side, only the Thermolians. And how much have the Thermoilans contributed to the Alliance?, she though with a bitter mind.
No, the Terrans must be defeated in Terran space, that was obvious.

Elyssandra called for a staff meeting in the strategy room.

"-Admiral Gryt. I will leave the fleet with the Indestructible and meet with the Draven ship Troikens Pride at the wormhole leading to Lasat. From there I will go to the Alliance headquarter and bash some Draven heads. I will bring the Draven fleet back with me to finish this war.
In the meantime your order is to survive.
Avoid all direct confrontation with the Terran fleet. Destroy as much of the Terran production capacity as you can. Glass all planets that aren't too heavily fortified. This will lead to massive losses of Terran civilians, but we have no options I'm afraid.
have you understood your orders admiral?"

"-Matriarch. Yes. It won't be pleasant but we will do it."

"-Good. Now patch me through to Admiral Tbon. He is currently at Kalzeron prime with the Hammer fleet."

"-Matriarch", the communication officer responded immediatly and pressed the appropriate buttons and knobs.
The commuication screen flared up and Admiral Tbon's white fur was projected upon it.

"-Matriarch, what is your orders? The Hammer fleet is ready!"

"-Tbon. I want you to open a wormhole from Kalzeron into the Sladden system. Lead the Hammer fleet in. Occupy the main Terran planets and glass all minor planets. You must destroy their industrial capabilities. We can't allow them to build up their fleet while I fetch the Dravens.
Are the orders understood?"

"-Matriarch. Yes.
About this wormhole though. It will present a major risk for our own homeworlds. The Terrans will try to send a fleet through and do unto us what we are doing to them. May I suggest we close this wormhole as soon as we have passed. I don't belive we will be needing any escape route."

Elyssandra wasn't sure about what Tbon meant by that Last remark. Was he so sure of victory? She was afraid he might be too cocky. Or perhaps he didn't belive in success? Which was worse she didn't know, so she didn't question him.
"-Yes, close that hole as soon as you are through. And while you're at it. Send through all Planetary killer drones we have ready at Kalzeron prime.
Elyssandra out."
She didn't want to talk to Tbon anymore, that very short discussion had been disturbing enough as it was. She gave the communication officer order to close the commnication and he did so.
"I'll be leaving immediatly. So Admiral Gryt. Transfer fleet flag to the battle cruiser Carl Gustaf. The staff will be spread out on 5 ships, conferences will have to be arranged through com links. We have done it before and we can do it again.
I wouldn't take the Indestructible if it wasn't our fastest ship, speed is of essence here."

The staff went to their quarters to pack their gear. The Indestructible would be an empty ship during the travel to Acamar and the alliance HQ.
The Indestructible was a battle cruiser arranged for a large crew, mostly strategic personal and tacticians. Fully crewed there were almost 200 people on the ship. Of those about a hundred would be leaving the ship to remain with the fleet.

The next day the Indestructible left the fleet and started it's journey.

At Kalzeron prime;

Ilian couldn't do this anymore. The burden of two lifes ruined was too much.
During one of his visits to Marit he told one of the staff at the hospital that he had heard of a similar case at the Eastern hospital, could there be any connection? He had asked.
After that things happened quickly. The doctors on the both hospitals talked and the cleaner jon was transfered to the same hospital as Marit within a few days.
When they rolled his bed into the same ward as Marit, Weyrling society shook in it's foundations.
All of a sudden all Weyrlings in the hospital froze in their movement, all tension in their faces disappeared. The effect was spreading rapidly, within a few seconds the surroundings of the hospital, another second the entire Kalzeron prime and half a second later all Weyrlings in the galaxy froze in their movements.
"I....am...who....am....I....?"
Billions of brains started working coherently, acting as one intelligence.
The One had awakened.
To the One it seemed like eons passed as it was getting a grip of the situation. It tested the sensorical input from billions of bodies. Strange sights, sounds and smells. It felt pain receptors signalling as people in bad positions frooze up and got hurt. As an example it felt the bodies of the freeclimbers as they fell to a certain destruction on the cliffs beneath the cliffwalls.
Thankfully most of the transportations where fully automatic. Otherwise the toll would have been much higher.
It started probing the countless of memories and understood what it was, it was The One. It had once decided that individualty was better than itself.
When seeing what had taken place during the three generations it had been dormant it saw that it had made a correct assumption.
The One had an enourmous capacity. It could keep billions of thought patterns going simultaneosly, testing different solutions to problems. But it didn't have much feelings. It took logical decisions. Decided the best course of action and followed that. It didn't test and try different solutions, that would be a waste of effort and it couldn't force itself to do that.
The individuality of the Weyrlings had brought astounding progress. Individuals where geniouses, the One was a large supercomputer.
Realizing this didn't in any way bother the One, individuality had been the best solution so it had been forced to take that path.
But now it saw something that it couldn't have foreseen before it went dormant!
The Weyrlings were meant to be a collective. As individuals they felt immense loneliness and eventually they would all succumb to it and the Weyrling race would die out.
The one thought about all the possible solutions and decided which was the best.
It eased it's grip on the minds of the Weyrlings, letting the individual personalities up from their dormant state.
"I am the One, We are the One. You are not alone anymore!"
It had found that the Weyrlings needed both, individuality and collectivness.
"I will always be here for you!", it directed it's voice to each individual, and each individual felt the truth in the voice and knew they weren't alone anymore.

From the time the first Weyrling froze up in the hospital it had taken five seconds before they all snapped out of their condition. Marit and Jon also sat up in their beds.
The one had seen the inplanted alien devices in their central nervous systems and deactivated them. It had found 1,115.231 functioning devices inplanted into the Weyrlings, all had been deactivated. The devices had been the key in awakening the One. When Marit and Jon was brought close to the device Ilian had made the device had functioned as it was meant, and activated the Celia Vortex in them . Unfortunately one Weyrling wasn't powerful enough to make other brains harmonize with it, but thow of them in close contact was enough to start a cascading effect.

The Weyrling society had taken another step in their evolution.

Aboard the Destroyer Responder;

Thurya was about to order another training drone to be launched when everyone aboard froze where they where.
After a few seconds they came to again and stared with a smile on their faces at eachother.
"-WE AREN'T ALONE! WE ARE ONE!", They all said in unison before they started speaking their own thoughts. It was chaos. But it was a happy chaos. Thurya had never felt such a joy in her entire life, she wasn't alone! It was ecstasy multiplied and raised by infinity! SHE WASN'T ALONE!!
She joined in the hugging and kissing that went on around her.
During all this they could all hear the One talk softly to them, cautioning them not to show the aliens that they where One. The aliens wouldn't understand, they would propably be afraid and turn against the Weyrlings.
The one didn't understand the aliens at all. But it knew it didn't understand them , so it had decided that caution was the best strategy.
Thurya ran down towards the turret where Try was unstrapping his buckles. She ran into his embrace and soon they where on the floor rolling around and tossing their clothes. They could hear eachothers thoughts, both knew what they felt for eachother, they also knew that it was alright. The rest of the crew knew all this and approved. All this they now knew. Things where so simple, why complicate it.
All over the ships strange encounters where happening. Anselm Jugg and crewman Jon where embracing. There had been bitter feelings between them for months now, steming from a misunderstanding. Now they both knew it was a misunderstanding. They where One!

Aboard the Battle cruiser Indestructible Elyssandra could feel Ilian's thoughts and feelings, even though he was an enourmous distance away. The contact was simultaneous. They now knew that it had all been pretend, they where One , and they where in love.
The One was trying to have conversations with alot of these individuals, millions of them at the same time. It was somewhat puzzled. It didn't understand their reaction and had a hard time getting them to react to the contents of it's words.
Elyssandra paid some attention to the inner voice and understood what it said;
"You are still Matriarch, Elyssandra. I am One but I do not know how to rule an empire. If I take over we will be lost. You will always have my guidance, I will tell you the best logical solutions to your problems. I can tell you what the rest of the Weyrlings think in different matters. But you must make the decisions. You have things that I don't; Feelings, intuition, guts and alot more which I see that I lack, therefore I am inferior to all of you, all of me. We are One, but we are also many. Things will never be the same again, yet they will still be the same!"

Elyssandra knew the meaning of these words and accepted ithem, but she was mostly focused on the love that went between her and Ilian who was so far away, yet still so close.

And the ship was slowly approaching the Lasat worm hole where captain Jalan awaited in the Draven light cruiser "Troikens Pride".

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Yep, I now got more than 100 ships with individual names. Altough some of them might nor be very imgainative.

BTW.
Thank's for your continuing support http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ruatha, lots of really great story, there. Evolution, amazing!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Hey, i used to read this story a lot but i kind of lost track of it, but i managed to sit down and read about 2 hours of this story (i than ruatha for this because of his long stories http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Well just thought i'd say i really am enjoying this, the humour and seriousness compliments each other superbly, keep up the good writing!

*Appluads!*

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Thanks for the feedback.
It is really appreciated as these are the first stories we are writing aa we're taking our weak steps towards fame as authors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ruatha, <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You are more than, Welcome!
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If these are 'WEAK' steps, then the Sci-Fi world had best look out!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Well here's some more fodder for the story people. I would have had this out of Saturday, but my computer had some problems and I had to reinstalled winxp, unfortunately I forgot to backup my story. Oh well it let me start the chapters again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
_____________________________________________

Chapter 15

The battle was not going well, Admiral Panar thought as a fresh round of fighters swarmed in on his line. A cruiser vanished in a cloud of plasma, there was no time for the crew to make it to escape pods, even if their was time they would have been incinerated by their dead mother ship's exploding fusion reactor. Panar closed his eyes for a moment, wishing that he could ignore what was happening, he had messed up, and badly, trapped by the despicable Terrens, his fleet was going too slow to escape, and unable to avoid the swarms of fighters coming in at his ships in all directions.

The battle should have been his, he had the terren fleet outnumbered, and in an even fight his capital ships could beat any terren vessel, but then the Terrens had flushed their carriers, and it had become obvious that they had made quantum leaps in fighter technology. First there were the numbers, he had expected to fight a few dozen, maybee a hundred, not the hundreds that were ripping his fleet to shreds. All things being equal his Fleet Defender Point Defense gun ships should have been able to stop them, but as the first formation of fighters got into range of his Fleet Defenders it had become clear that the terrens had beefed their defensive characteristics. Only about a dozen fighters died in that first salvo, not the tens of dozens that had been expected, and the survivors ripped into the fleet defenders with a vengeance. One Defender after another died, and with it the fleets primary fighter defense, and all the while the Terren carriers kept on on sending more waves of fighters.

Panar looked into his plot, as a Light Cruiser vanished from it, only to be replaced by the faint readings of escape pods, there were too many of those faint readings littering his plot.

"Admiral," it Commander Lakan, the Fleet Deputy Commander, "I'm afraid that was the Last Fleet Defender."

Panar knew he was right, the fighters sensing the sudden lack of Point Defense Fire split up and began hitting separate targets, within 30 minutes Panar had lost half his fleet and he hadn't even gotten into range of the enemies capital ships yet. He knew it was over. There was nothing he could do, he couldn't run, couldn't fight. The battle was basically decided, the only thing he could hope to do was inflict some casualties.

"Communications to all ships." He said.

"Yes sir," The communications officer responded. He flipped a few switches and then nodded to the admiral that he was on.

"All ships" Panar tried to sound like a leader, trying to sound like their was some fight left in him. "I want all ships to charge the enemy line into point blank range, we need to eliminate some of those Battleships." Panar knew that what he was doing was suicide, he no longer had the advantage in tonnage, and he was about even in numbers. His ships would be ripped to shreds, but he could at least take a few of them with him.

He took a deep breath as another ship vanished from the plot, "Good luck to all of you. Command Out." On the command deck their was no sound, only the necessary conversations for a ship at war.

Panars ship was one of the first destroyed in what would become known as the final charge. Over 35 Draven ships died in the charge, joining their 40 brothers in the. In the end over 28,000 Dravens sacrificed themselves for a single enemy Battleship. 28,000 Hero's lost in the silence of space.

Chapter 16

News of the Draven fleet traveled fast, and although details where hard find the repercussions where almost instant. Josha had been in numerous meetings with Central Powers Representatives over the Last couple of days, most had not been good.

This meeting was beginning in the same way, "Chairman" said the Central powers Speaker, "the actions of your fleet have left us in a predicament." The Weyrling slurred his speech slightly.

"I assure you Mr. Speaker that Sledgehammer fleet was not acting on my orders." He had said the same thing numerous times, it was true, but that didn't make any difference, the fact was the Draven fleet was gone, Operation Sledgehammer was now in serious doubt.

"And these numbers" continued the Speaker, "are you sure you can't get us the extra ships any sooner?"

"I'm afraid not sir, those are the best case estimates for the latest ship designs, we have increased production at most of our major shipyards but even at this hurried pace the newest Dreadnaughts are still a year away."

"This is not acceptable, your Admiral Panar may have cost us this war."

"I don't think its quite that bad," Josha knew even though he wasn't lying hw was stretching the truth "the Weyrling Sledgehammer fleet is still largely intact, and we are pulling some of our Reserves to the front in order to stop any incursions into alliance space. For now..."

"For now our fleet is on its own" The speaker interrupted, he wasn't mad, didn't show any emotion, just stating a fact.

Josha took a breath before continuing, he had to choose his next words carefully "Unfortunately that's true, but the new Draven ships coming out of the shipyards will be much more powerful than the entire Sledgehammer was before this mistake. Our reserves will be sufficient to hold major alliance systems, while rebuild. Besides if I know your matriarch she'll be keeping the terrens too occupied to worry about an invasion."

The mention of the matriarch seemed to calm the room. In fact Josha had expected more of a tong lashing than what he got. The Dravens had dropped the ball after all, but this conversation with the Central Powers Speaker had been very civilized, like a father having a conversation with one of his children who had made a mistake. That was a far cry from the Speaker that had been ready to bite his head off just a few days before. Something was different about the Speaker, something that Josha couldn't put his finger one.

In fact now that he thought about it, many of the Weyrlings he had met the Last couple of day had acted the same way, a kind of cool detachment that wasn't there before.

"O.K. Mr Chairman" said the speaker, "Our fleet will do what we can to convince the terrens to stay away from alliance space, but I expect you to have a working fleet in one year, at that time we will recommence Sledgehammer."

'Thank you Mr Speaker" Josha turned to leave, but stopped when the Speaker called out to him.

"Mr Chairman, the Matriarch will be coming to Alliance HQ in a few months, I will expect you to give her an update of the Draven fleet once she gets here."

"The matriarch is coming here?" Josha could hardly believe it, he had expected the Matriarch to stay with the Weyrling fleet.

"Yes, I believe she is being escorted by one of your ships," The Speaker thought for a moment, "a Captain Jalan, I think that's the name of the ships commander."

"Captain Jalan of the Troikens Pride?"

"Yes, you know him?"

Josha inhaled then let it out slowly, "lets just say I've had a few dealing with him in the past, he isn't very fond of the Alliance." Josha wanted to say more, but he couldn't come right out and tell the Speaker that he didn't trust one of the Captains from one of his ships. Even if that Captain had been basically appointed by Yalare along with most of the commanders of the Sledgehammer fleet.

No he couldn't say anything, all he could do was hope the Matriarch had a safe journey.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Good update as usual.

I was shocked to see the Draven fleet gone. Thankfully the Terran player has dropped out and the AI plays for them now. Otherwise the entire Weyrling fleet would be dead as well I assume!
I think the Terran player thought the odds overwhelming, he was a replacement and had propably not checked his aggressive/defensive bonus!
If had stayed until the battle against the Dravens he would have had a good chance to kill us both off!

What will happen in Lasat? I'm not sure!!
Who will get the call to decide it? Let's see who Posts the results of that journey first!
I've got some ideas but if you write first I'm adaptable!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif (Haven't written anything yet, only ideas.)

In the game the Indestructible has just entered the Lasat system. I've done some simulations of a battle between those two ships, the Indestructible and Troikens Pride.
Interesting results....

Tbon> I'm thinking of exporting the video-game "Eat-man" to the Zax Society. Let's just hope they're not as addicted to that as too bubblebaths.
Hmm, perhaps the Weyrlings can get some side income from smuggling bubblebaths to the Zax!

[ March 11, 2003, 12:47: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Great Chapter, makes me wonder what terrible things await the mantiarch? i really look forward to find out whats going to happen in the next few chapters

Great Work CaptRR http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

CaptRR, losing the fleet was totally unexpected! Wow, I do hope those Dreadnaught's are the answer! Oh, excellent addition!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Thats right folks, NGC story lives!!! I'm reviving this story becouse I'm simply too stubborn to let it die, and besides I havn't finished my story yet. So here is the next chapter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
______________________________________________

Chapter 17

It was raining inside of the floating city that made up the capital of the Draven Republic. It was a scheduled rain, artificial like everything else in Capital City. Many hours before the residents had taken in much of their outdoor materials in anticipation for the downpour, and so the streets looked almost abandoned. Even the cities police force took the weather in stride by reducing the number of patrols. After all no proper Draven wanted to be out in a rainstorm, so there was really no need for the heightened patrols that had become common in the wartime republic.

That was exactly what a lone man in a raincoat had been hoping for, as he traveled down the streets of the Republics largest floating city. Very few people wondered out of their houses, or for that matter even bothered to look outside during a rain, so the man was able to slip through the city with no one noticing. He didn't take any chances though, like a fish swimming through an ancient ocean he twisted his way, though ally's and streets alike, a few times he even retraced his steps, one could never be too careful in what had become a dangerous republic. That wasn't known to the general public of course, most people were simply too busy with their own lives to pay much attention to what was going on around them, the few that did seemed to change their mind quickly. The ones that didn't simply vanished.

It hadn't always been that way, only over the Last month had people began to turn up missing. Something was happening inside the Draven government. Ever since the loss of the Sledgehammer fleet the Yalare Administration had gotten very paranoid, many of the Committees that had been the staple of the Draven Republic had been either reorganized or disbanded all together. It was probably no coincidence that most of the disbanded committee's had been appointed by President Dravel himself, and tended to be political rivals of Yalare. Some of the chairmen of those committee's had disappeared from the public view, many had retired to the colony worlds, or so the Government said.

Representative Somar didn't think so, and as he made his way through the rain, he was sure that everyone in the Peoples Committee didn't think so either. Not that it mattered much what they thought, Yalare had managed to secure his position over the Last year with such skill and grace that he had rendered the Peoples Committee all but impotent. When they had authorized martial law, it had been thought that it would Last only a few months, until the tension caused by the Landing City disaster had passed, and so no one had thought to enact a time limit on the Martial Law vote, in their hurry to save the Republic, they had made it into a dictatorship.

Finally Somar came to his destination, a small indiscriminate house close to the edge of the floating city. The house seemed to scream of a modest background, but the very fact of the houses existence in a crowded city where tall buildings where the norm, gave away its true origins. As Somar walked toward the door, he noticed the rain tapering off, he had made it just in time. Soon the police would be back on the streets, he quickened his pace, and reached the door just before it opened. The man at the door seemed just as modest as the house he inhabited.

"Welcome, Representative Somar, rainy day isn't it?"

"Not as much as back home," Somar recited the code phrase, if he had said anything else, he would not be allowed in the house. The Man smiled and moved aside inviting Somar in.

"I'm glad you could make it Somar."

Somar took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack, like the rest of the home; it seemed to come from a simpler time. He couldn't even see a terminal, even though there must me one, it was a testament to the craft men who designed the architecture, hiding modern necessity in an ocean of antiques, and doing so without sacrificing the simple beauty of the time that it was modeled after.

"I wish the circumstances were different Hamal, I really do."

Hamal only smiled, but it was forced, he had been on the peoples committee for over 30 years, and only retired just before the Landing City disaster. Even though he was officially out of politics, he still had a lot of contacts, not only in the Peoples Committee, but also in the Prime Ministers inner circle. Hamal, was part of the Crown Conservatives, a political party that tended to favor loyalty to the Presidency. They tended to avoid too many programs that would "rock the boat", even if it meant making many of the same mistakes over and over.

Somar on the other hand was leader Industrial Reformists party and tended to favor a totally elected form of government, most of his party regarded the office of the Presidency in its current form to be a slap in the face of Democratic Society, so they almost always tended to side against the President. Prime Minister Yalare was a member of the Industrial Reformists.

Hamal was already heading towards the couch, an elegant, if not terribly expensive piece of furniture that was made out of what was once called wood. Hamal waited until Somar sat before continuing, "I understand," he made a small regretful sigh, "It appears our republic had been corrupted."

"Yes, it does." Somar made a small if mischievous smile, "Hamal, I know we haven't always agreed, in fact I think I called out an overbearing Idiot one time..."

"I believe the exact phrase was 'Overbearing Idiotic Weyrling Sympathizer'"

Somar snickered, and then turned serious, "However, I never doubted your commitment to the Republic. That being said, I need your help."

Hamal, considered for just a moment, no matter the two's political differences they had always understood each other's commitment to the Draven Republic; they just had different views of how to run it. "I'll do what I can, of course."

Somar considered how he was going to proceed, then decided the best route was probably the most direct. "I've been hearing rumors, none of them can be confirmed of course, but the people who are telling me have always been very reliable."

"What kind of Rumors?"

"Most have been discouraging, but inconclusive, over the Last month police forces have been beefed up in the floating city's, even thought the crime rate has actually reduced. Also over 24 junior officers have been promoted to ship captains, the Defense Committee claims that they are being promoted do to the man power shortages caused by Sledgehammer, but there are better more qualified officers that have been waiting for Captains slots much longer. The only connection that I can see between the officers is that they all have close ties to the Yalare family."

Hamal nodded, but wasn't surprised; undoubtedly he had already heard everything he was saying.

Somar continued, "Then there are the disappearances, many committee members, especially on the Defense committee have conveniently retired, but I know many of them, and when I tried to contact them, they all had taken their retirement off world, and were unable to be reached, and that's just what my sources have seen, I've only scratched the surfice."

"I see," said Hamal, "That confirms what my sources have told me, it seems that Yalare is securing the Republics armed forces, as well as the Committes that control them. Almost all of the new dreadnaughts built in Kornephoros seem to be crewed by officers loyal to Yalare, the ones in Acamar seem to be unaffected, but then again they are under the watchful eye of Josha, and dispite him, in effect, being put into exile at the CP headquarters he still has a lot of pull, and he's actually in Acamar, not 3 months away like our prime minister."

Somar spoke up, "But Acamar only has about one third the production capacity of Kornephoros, even if Yalare is unable to get any of his loyalists into Acamar, he still has over two-thirds of the new ships under his orders."

"But what will Yalare with those ships?" Hamal asked the question almost rhetorically, like a teacher asking a student something he should already know.

Somar hesitated; this was the moment he had feared when he made the journey here, taking such careful steps to avoid detection. Now was the defining moment. He could get up and leave and no one would be able to prove that anything he had said was treasonous, but if he continued and was caught he would most certainly have a quake and painful disappearance of his own. Somar did not like that thought, but if he left his republic was doomed, and he could not allow that.

Somar spoke slowly, and carefully, if he was going to go down for treason, he was going to make sure he did it with at least some dignity. "Hamal, I think the Prime Minister intends to take over the Republic when the time comes for President Dravel to be sworn in."

Hamal did not say a thing for a few moments, and Somar thought his fears were confirmed, that this had been some kind of elaborate rouse to get him to commit treason so Yalare could get rid of him. His fears ended almost as fast as they had begun, "I think your right Somar, the question is what are we going to do about it?"

Somar felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders and the two talked for hours about a what they could do to make sure Yalare didn't destroy what the founders had worked so hard to create, and as they talked they never noticed 2 men in a building next door, as they aimed a listening dish towards Hamal's small house. The two men were no strangers to this type of work; after all they had been in the Last skimmer to leave Landing City.

[ March 21, 2003, 02:40: Message edited by: CaptRR ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Nice.
I'll write up some stuff I've already plotted. It'll come up in about a week, and then the future of Elyssandra will be decided........

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

CaptRR, <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, US! Like the story addition! Oh, I am very glad to hear, ; "you are not finished with your story, yet". Because, I am not finished reading, yet! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Ruatha, I will eagerly be waiting!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Weyrling Empire 2406.7
-----------------------
At Kalzeron prime.

Illian sat in his lab discussing with the One, this is something he had been occupied with alot since the awakening.

The Weyrlings were in a completely new and henceforth unknown situation. What capabilities have they gained and what limits does the One have, this needs to be ascertained Illian belives.

"-How comes that you still exist while we retain our individuality? There shouldn't be enough neurons for you to use should there?", Illian asked in his mind and directed the question towards the one.
The use of their newfound capabilities where becoming easier and easier for each day, and more and more of the uses of it was discovered.
To speak with someone, you no longer had to be in the presence of that person, you could just voice a sentence in your head while picturing who you wanted to receive it, one or several individuals. If you wished you could send the sentence or tought or emotion blindly for anyone to hear but that was generally not appreciated, others could shield away your thoughts but it was thought that it was the senders obligation to make sure where the thought was sent.
When the awakening happened everyone had sent blindly and it had been hard to make out one's own individual thoughts even though the One had let the individual minds up to surface again. It had taken weeks before people began feeling themselfs again, clarifying the boundaries of their own individualites.
Most Weyrlings had come through this phase without problems. Those who where in contact with aliens though where an altogether different matter.
It had quickly become clear that they couldn't contain their joy over not being alone anymore, so the One had retained control of all Weyrlings who had contact with aliens, only letting their individuality take control when they where alone. This didn't leave them enough time to train their new abilities and clear out the borders of their own individuality. All these people where slowly being replaced and sent home so that they would get enough time on their own to deal with the new situation. Meanwhile the One was seeing that the aliens where noticing the difference in the Weyrlings they met, still it didn't want to try to mimic emtions as it thought it propable that it would insert the wrong emotional response, no response was better.

"-I use the neurons in the Weyrlings that are asleep, and a proportion of every Weyrling brain is used by me. If you where to make extensive tests you would find that the cognitive functions of the Weyrlings has degraded some since I awoke, but at present we do not have tests precise enough to show this. The wast amount of Weyrlings means that I don't have to use very much of each brain to function, but I'm nowhere near my original thought capacity though.", the One responded.

"- So now we have telepathic and teleempathic capabilities, but sadly enough we haven't found any aliens who have the Celia vortex so we can't scan any aliens. That would have been great though!"

"- Yes, it would have made my understanding of the aliens much easier, I still cannot understand their motivations and thoughts. It will make it hard for me to deal with them, therefore most of the dealings with aliens are best left in the hands of the individuals, not the collective."

---------------

Weyrling Empire 2406.8
----------------------
The Starship Indestructible located in the Lasat starsystem:

Matriarch Elyssandra was sitting in the command bridge of the Indestructible, admiral Gryt was leading the battle.
After they had entered the Lasat system the Troikens Pride had slowly placed itself in a position behind the Indestructible.
Captain Jalan had stated that his intent was to protect the vulnerable rear of the Indestructible which where out of the Indestructibles weapons aiming arch.

During an uneventful passage between some asteroids the second in command Larissa had sat at the helm when the Troikens Pride had opened fire with all four of it's telekinetic cannons. The Indestructibles shields had flared up but held most of the incoming fire away and the ship had escaped the first volleys unharmed except some minor dents in the armour. Admiral Gryt and Elyssandra had run to the helm when the ship was shaken by the incoming fire and the ship's crew had instantly taken their battle positions. When Gryt and Elyssandra reached the bridge they where fully informed, their new telepathic capabilities had it's advantages.

Admiral Gryt barked out his orders;
"-All weapons fire at will, use your opportunities!
Heading 250 by 180 and full reverse!"

The Indestructible seemed to do a loop and came out beside the Troikens Pride some time later and then their powerful phased polaron beams started to fire. The Indestructible was a battlecruiser but had only two main weapons, large mounted phased polaron beams of the fifth level. The beams penetrated the Troikens Pride's shields as if they hadn't existed, but the Troikens Pride had advanced ECM capacity and mots of the beams missed, the only damage inflicted upon the target was some severed antennas sticking out from the hull.
Despite being a light cruiser the Troikens Pride carried more weapons then the Indestructible who was a command ship and was geared towards defence with shields and heavy armour.
The Troikens Pride opened up again with it's telekinetic cannons, this time Captain Jalan didn't fire them all at once but in a sequence and aimed at the same point on the Indestructible. The first three rounds where caught by the shields who sent out bright lights as the energy ate away at the incoming projectiles, the Last round hovewer pierced through the hole left in the energy barrier by the presedent shots, it struck the Indestructible in the front of the ship, creating a man deep crater in the thick armour, this didn't cause any fear in the crew as the armour was three times as thick as that. Some melted metal struck the portholes in one of the polaron beam turrets but it didn't block very much of the view.

The Troikens Pride altered course, now it was on a straight collision course which unaltered would ram the larger Indestructible just below the command bridge.

"-Roll 180 and present another side to the target!
Then come around zero by 180 and full ahead. Take us away, this isn't a battle we wish to fight"

The Indestructibles engines spewed out massive amounts of ions as the throttle was pressed to the bottom.
The more modern engines were slowly accelerating it away from the Troikens Pride, even though they would soon be out of eyesight of each others they would still be within fire range for a long time.
The polaron beams fired again and again, there was a massive exchange of projectiles and beams between the both ships but the advanved ECM on the both ships made it almost impossible to gain a lock on the target.
Elyssandra could imagine Jalan laughing at their combat capacity, but she couldn't fathom why he had started this fight.
Another round of telekinetic cannon fire was caught by the shields, this time the aim wasn't as precise and the rounds hit different parts of the shields and caused no damage to the ship.

The Troikens Pride was no longer within sight so the gunners where relying on the target scanners to aim their shots. The gunners fired their beams at their own will and there was no coordination between the shots, that wasn't really necessary as they didn't need to concentrate their fire to penetrate any shields or armour, if the beams hit they would deliver all their destructing energy to the vulnerable innards of the Troikens Pride.
As the Indestructible fired her two beams over and over again while the generators spewed out the massive amounts of needed energy they made an impressive light show, but no real damage until one beam hit straight on. On the scanners they could see the beam hit in the middle of the light cruiser leaving no visible entry mark on the hull but instantly one of the telekinetic cannon turrets exploded outwards, sending debris in all directions. A moment later the Troikens Prides engins went dead. Now the distance between the two ships increased quickly.
On the bridge they could through the scanners see an EVA team leave the Troikens Pride heading for the engines, propably some debris from the exploding cannon that damaged some vital component in the fuel distribution cutting of all fuel to the engines, was the analysis by the bridge crew.
The Troikens pride was still firing its two remaing cannons but at the quickly increasing distance their aim was very bad and the rounds almost didn't make it all the way.

Elyssandra was somewhat upset. Her tail was wagging wildly from side to side and her fangs where visible through her tight lips.
"-Gryt, take us to alliance headquarter as quickly as possible.", Elyssandra ordered. Continuing but not speaking out, only voicing her thoughts and sending them to the One she continued:
"We need an explanation to this attack at once! Are the Dravens going to war against us or was this a madmans attack? Also we need to send in some ships to try to capture the Troikens pride, that might be our only chance to get true answers. Detatch the Psi corps ships from the Sledge fleet and send them here to try to capture the Troikens Pride. If they can get captain Jalan to convert his alligience to us we will have the answer.
And get the Speaker in the allaince headquarter to question the Dravens, if they need to know how we got the information so fast to headquarter womba**** them!"

The voice of the One responded at once in her head,
"-Womba****? We have no wombacats at the headquarter and so no defecations from them either."

"-Sorry, it means that you should come up with a lie, and in this case as they are the aggressors it can literally stink, just as womba****. They will be so occupied with providing answers that they will propably not dare to question any explanation we might give."

At the Central Powers Alliance Headquarter:

Speaker Farth was sitting on the podium staring down upon the Draven reprasentative Josha.
"-So, what explanation do the Dravens have as to why they have tried to assasinate our leader, an unprovoced attack upon the very symbol of the Weyrling Empire?
Does this mean war? Our fleets are gathered at Terran space and with the wormhole openers they can be in Draven space within weeks, is that what you wish? If so speak up and we will grant your request!
You may be sad to know this but the Matriarch survived this surprise murder attack and is heading here at this moment, she isn't pleased with our Draven allies right now!
We are right now discussing this with the Thermolians and they are as shocked by the Draven actions as we are.

Now, Draven Josha. You may leave, but return quickly with a good explanation if the alliance shall have any chance of surviving your deeds!"

In the Kuat system aboard the Destroyer Responder:

The new tactic was working.
The Hammer fleet had entered the Terran home system Sladden by a wormhole which closed behind them.
They had already landed troops at two of the Terrans homeworlds and captured them intact, destroying masses of construction star bases orbiting the planets. The resistance had been sparse. A few weapon platforms had put up a token resistance before surrendering.
The Terrans had some starships in the system but they seemed reluctant to attack the large Hammer fleet. Many of the Terran ships where leaving the system towards Nyran space. The reason for this was uncomprehensible to the Weyrlings.
A single Terran Battleship had been converted to the Weyrling side by the Weyrling intelligence service. That ship had the Last month alone glassed three Terran worlds, depriving the Terrans of resources. Still the Terrans seemed unwilling to commit their ships to battle even against this single ship.
The same pattern was seen in the neighbouring Kuat system where the Sledge fleet was glassing planet after planet with little resistance. The main Terran fleet was still located at the wormhole connecting Kuat to the Terran homesystem Sladden, unwilling to leave that strategic point even though the Sladden system already was compromised.
Thurya though that perhaps they had already destroyed so much of the Terran infrastructure that the ships were stuck due to inadequate resupplies. The Weyrling fleet was equipped to fight far from home in enemy territory, but the Terrans had planned on fighting at their known territory with ample resupply bases present. Those bases where now being destroyed in a faster and faster pace. In the Kuat system only two planets remained, more than ten worlds where now uninhabited.

The Responder had been given new and appreciated orders. Up to now they had been doing flank protection for the fleet while they went from world to world and burned millions of people to ashes, largely unapposed.
Not a very actionfilled assignment but Thurya hadn't complained, rather nothing to do than participate in the killing of millions of unarmed civilians. She could se the necesseity of it as the superior Draven fleet hadn't been able to put a dent in the Terran fleet. Attacking them would be suicide, and if she had to choose she'd rather fry some Terrans than die herself.
These new orders where appreciated though as they might indicate some coming action.
Intelligence weren't reporting any major enemy fleet movements in the neighbouring systems apart from the Sladden system. Now the Responder was assigned to recon duty, they should pass through the closest wormhole and check out the next system, if it seemed safe the Sledge fleet would follow as soon as the Last Kuat planets had been turned into artistic glass sculptures.
Thurya edged her ship closer to the Wormhole and seeing no danger she gave the order to pass through.
On the other side everything seemed calm when suddenly something started to shimmer on the left side of the ship.
Try who was manning the main gun on that side voiced to Thurya;
"-Thu, it's a ship coming out of cloak, it shouldn't be a terran ship as we've never gotten any indication that they have that kind of technology."

"-It could be a Draven ship, if it is fire as soon as you get a clear shot. We know what they tried doing to the Indestructible and we don't have that kind or armour!", Thurya sent.

"-No, it's not a Draven ship, it looks like a CCCP ship but not quite.... Hey, it got Terran markings!! Targeting, Firing!"

The Responders four Phased Polaron beams opened up almost at the same time. The Terran ship hovewer wasn't where they had thought it would be and all shots missed widely. The Terrans constantly changed their tactics and pressed their ships to unbelivable prestations, making them almost impossible to hit.
The Terran destroyer opened fire with some kind of beam and hit with the first shot, the beam wasn't fired as the Weyrling polaron beams in short bursts but rather as a continious beam.
First they could feel the ship vibrate but it didn't seem to take any damage but then the warning lights on the bridge started flaring. The ion engines magnetic inducer coils where being overloaded and started melting. The cooling system couldn't cope with the incoming energy and the cooling gases started boiling and vented out into space, sending geysers of white fumes out through the emergency vents. The engines shut down and the Responder was dead in space.

The Terran ship was closing in, the Responders weapons franticly tried to get a lock but the Terrans had engaged advanced ECM's making it hard to aim correctly. The Terran ship opened up with a polaron beam of their own, blowing one of the Responders four main guns into debris and sending the gunner out into space in small pieces, the emergency vacuum doors on the ship closed immediatly. Another beam from the Terrans evaporated all reamins of another Weyrling Gunner along with her gun turret.
"-Abandon ship!!", The One's voice echoed in the heads of the Responders crew. All the crew headed for the escape hatces, grabbed the emergency packs and said godbye to the Responder. Before leaving Thurya armed the automatic self-destruct mechanism and then joined the others abandoning the ship.
The small objects the individual Weyrlings posed were too small for the Terrans to track and the emergency packs containing oxygen and fluid refreshers and nutrishments would enable them to survive for a month. Previously it was belived that anyone out there wouldn't make it that long, propably not more than a week before they would open their suits to the vacum to end the intense loneliness they would experiance. Now when they were in constant contact with each other and the One they would propably survive.

The Terran ship docked with the Weyrling ship and troops swarmed aboard, finding an empty ship.
Try had been caught in his tower that had been damaged by debris from the exploding gun turrets so he hadn't been able to get loose and abandon ship at the same speed as the others. There hadn't been any fear that he shouldn't make it, he just had to wind the turret into the correct position by hand and should have had ample of time before the self destruct destroyed the ship.
Rounding a corner towards the closest escape hatch Try ran straight into a Terran marine, there was no meaning of putting up any struggle, it would have been a one-sided match. On one side a Terran marine in combat armour with a phaser gun and on the other Try in a exposure suit and no weapon.
The Weyrlings might look fearsome but against an alien they where not very god in close combat, originating on a low gravity world they where quite weak. They looked strong and fearsome with fangs, claws and big muscles, but the muscles weren't very effective, they had developed for use against other low gravity animals.
Try was quickly ushered over to the Terran ship that severed it's bonds with the Weyrlings ship. Finding it virtually deserted the Terrans quickly suspected something was wrong, and they didn't intend to stay and see what surprise the Weyrlings had planned for them.

Floating in space seperated from the other in the crew Thurya voiced to Try,
"-Hang in there my love, we'll come after you."
"-I know you will Thu!"

Thurya saw her ship explode in a consuming fire ball, the escape hatches had air pressure catapults that threw the crew safely away from the ship so there was no big risk of being hit by debris. Thu could see glowing pieces pass by her as the tears flowed down her cheeks. She was a warrior now, finally she had fought her first battle. But she didn't feel as a warrior, she felt alone."

[ March 31, 2003, 06:48: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ruatha, the addition is just 'excellent'. It was well worth waiting for. Your decription of a de-cloaking ship was amazing! Good stuff!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Hi Mlmbd and thanks for the reply!!!!!

What posed the biggest difficulty was how to decribe the tie between the Indestructible and the Troikens Pride.
Earlier in the story I've said that battles continue until one side wins, that withdrawing from battle is very hard, as it is in SE4.
But in the simulation between these two ships they kept on missing, scoring one hit each during all the combat until the time ran out!
The Troikens pride took damage as described but those gunners on these two ships where absolutely stinking.
They couldn't hit a barn from the inside with a cannon! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

And why that Terran fleet won't move from the wormhole I can't understand, some AI problem?
I'll have to run some more turns and see what happens.

Do you want the turns mailed to you, CaptRR and Tbontob? They aren't necessary for the story but they help me with the plot.

[ March 30, 2003, 19:10: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

I had to slick my hard drive and I didn't back up NGC so I'll need one of the turns emailed to me so I can get my galaxy map back. As far as emailing all the turns, it probably won't matter, I'm about to take a big left turn in the story, one that the game has no way to simulate, I've been hinting at it in my Last submission, and it will be interesting to see what the Weyrlings do once this errr... event takes place.

About the gunners, you have to remember that both ships have some of the best Alliance Tech in them, even if the Troikens Pride is a little older. I think I will amoung other things write an addition tonight that explains what went on onboard the Troikens Pride.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Chapter 18

Captain Jalan sat silently in his chair; he always did that just before a battle. It was a time to contemplate what he would do, to weigh his options so to speak. Sometimes this time would give him the opportunity to change his strategy, but he knew he could do no such thing here. His plans has been laid out weeks in advance.

Jalan was amazed that his plan had been this easy, well most of his plan had been easy anyway. Jalan knew that his crew would never attack an allied ship unless that ship had attacked them first. So the trick was to make the crew, or at the very least the Command Deck crew think that the Indestructible had initiated an attack on the Troikens Pride, it would have to be convincing too, but not debilitating, after all the Indestructible was almost twice the size of Trookens Pride, and she had better shielding too, but Jalan had the element of surprise, and he knew that would help balance the scales dramatically.

Slowly Jalan had sought allies to his plan, it hadn't been that hard either, Troikens Pride hadn't exactly been the symbol of Draven Pride. In fact his ship had become sort of the dumping ground to much to the Republic's problem cases. The result was an almost endless list of people who were just begging for a little bit of revenge on the Republic. Jalan had chosen just 2 other people to help him in his plan, the Simulations Officer, and an environmental tech that had been sent to his ship after he had beaded most of the air out of a compartment that was being worked on. The tech and the work crew had been having some problems, and while it was never proven that the tech did anything, there were some suspicions.

Together the 3 co-conspiracier's worked on Jalan's plan, and with his command codes it had been easy to insert the program into the Tactical, and enviromental networks. In fact the hardest part had been waiting until the time was right, that part had taken 2 weeks.

Now here he was, the time was almost perfect, but their was a problem, and his name was Commander Lancer. Unlike most of the ships crew, Lancer was an exhalent officer. As far as Jalan could ascertain the only reason he was on Troikens Pride was to keep an eye on Jalan. Lancer was smart, too smart, he had even questioned the logic of moving behind the Indestructible when Jalan gave the order.

"It's not a good defensive position, and will weaken our combined point defense" Lancer had said in respond to Jalan's order several hours before. Still despite his objections, he followed the order, but Jalan was sure that if Lancer ever suspected what he was doing, that the man would take his sidearm and shoot Jalan dead on the spot. He would watch Lancer, if he gave the slightest indication of figuring it out, Jalan would kill him.

Right now though, Jalan had other things to worry about, it was almost time for his plan to kick off, the program had been set into motion even before the order to move behind the Indestructible had been given. Jalan looked around the command deck, it was the night shift, and it was at minimum staffing, only about 5 people in all. Commander Lancer was studying something at his desk in front of the main plot, beside him sat the night shift tactical officer who was going over something with the pilot. The other two officers were at their stations on the side walls engaged In their duties.

Suddenly a loud explosion echoed through the ship, almost instantly the battle stations siren sounded. Jalan knew it was the shuttle bay that had suddenly depressurized as per his program, the resulting sudden decompression would cause a lot of noise, and a few rattled shuttle bay tech, but otherwise no other damage. The damage computers on the other hand would report an explosion.

Jalan put on his best game face, and tried to look surpised, "Commander what going on!"

Lancer had jumped out of his seat and run to the damage control station and was quickly punching in commands. "Sir, theirs' been an explosion in the shuttle bay, no idea of the cause yet, we are reading loss of air pressure on that deck."

By now the Tactical officer had pulled up the main plot and run through a scan, Jalan knew that what she was actually seeing was a program super-imposed over the current scans, they showed her exactly what Jalan wanted. "Captain, if these reading are correct..." she trailed off quickly tapping buttons on her console, obviously double-checking her readings.

"Lieutenant, what is it!" Jalan's annoyance wasn't an act

"Y-yes sir, if these readings are correct, the Weyrling's fired at our shuttle bay.

"What?" it was Lancer "why would they do that, they are totally out of position."

"It doesn't matter, commander, Tactical, get me a firing solution on the Indestructible."

Lancer was at his side almost instantly, his voice lowered so the rest of the bridge couldn't hear it. "Captain, this doesn't make sense, they are totally out of position for a fight, we need to contact the Indestructible."

Jalan didn't bother to lower his voice, "Commander, we have been fired on by our so called allies, its obvious that they intended to hit our shuttle bay to prevent us from launching escape pods. Now I will defend this ship and if you try to stop me, you will be shot!"

Lancer didn't budge for a moment, and Jalans hand slowly gripped his phaser weapon. He was stopped by the sound of his tactical officer, "Captain, the Telekinetic Projectors are on line, and we have a firing solution plotted, shield will be up any moment."

"Good," Jalan looked back at Lancer, the first officer was moving to his station, obviously not wishing to press the argument now. "Pilot go full thrust, Tactical you can fire as soon as you are in point blank."

Jalan felt the ship suddenly accelerate, and the image of the Indestructible grew in his screen.

"Firing in 4, 3, 2, 1." The ship seemed to thump as the Trokens Pride's 4 telekinetic Projectors ripped through space, and into the Indestructible's armor. The damage though was minimum, and ever so slowly the Projectors recycled.

The Indestructible didn't wait though, the damage to her armor had been superficial only, she was a command ship and was heavy on the defensive systems, she also had good engines, and those engines went to 100 percent as her Captain accelerated in wide maneuvers designed bring Indestructible's weapons to bare, at the same time her RADAR image was lost in a hail of ECM.

"We've lost her on sensors," it was Lancer, he was running both the damage control station as well as the Sensor station, a double duty for sure.

"Tactical, estimate their course from the Last reading and forward them to the pilot." Troikens Pride shuddered at the sudden violent course change. Jalan wanted to curse, he had hoped to do more damage on the first volley. He still had the advantage, but only slightly. If he knew the Weyrling Captain, he would be trying to assess his damage, he wouldn't to contact Triokens Pride yet; it would give away his position if he did.

Space was big, and rarely did combat resolve itself quickly, that was certainly the case here. For 3 hours Indestructible and Triokens Pride volleyed for position, their ECM's keeping the other from getting an accurate lock on the other. Occasionally the two ships would come out of their ECM interference and exchange fire, but these shots rarely hit once the Indestructible had managed to come close and sheer off some comm. antennas. Jalan was getting impatient, this should have been over quickly, the first volley should have taken out Indestructible's engines, If the ship was unable to move her ECM's would be worthless.

"Sir," it was the tactile officer, the head one. By now the main command crew had come to their stations, also everyone was in EV suites, just in case their was a breach. "We are getting a several sensor ghosts off our port."

"Can you get a solution."

"Working on it, they have some good ECM on that ship."

"Work Faster" Jalan snapped.

Several minutes passed, suddenly the tac officer yelled, "Clear reading on our port."

The bridge erupted in activity. Quickly the coordinates where sent to fireing control, and a solution was plotted, and the Telekinetic Projectors opened up at the Indestructible. Most missed, but some got through the ECM. The shields on the Indestructible absorbed most of the volley, but their was few systems that could stop that fury for long, and inevitably a hole developed in the Indestructible's protective layer.

The tactical officer noticed this, and the remaining Projectors opened fire on the weakened part of the shields. Armor was torn from the Indestructible's hull like paper being blown off by a bazooka, but the armor did its job, and protected the vulnerable hull beneath it.

"Direct hit, I think we got some though, ecm is still playing hell with fire control"

"Noted" Jalan thought for a moment, the Indestructible's damn ECM had to be eliminated, and the only way to do that was to get in closer, use his Radar to burn though the ECM's, all he needed was one clear shot. "Pilot, bring us in closer, I want to get below its ECM curtain."

Lancer spoke up, "Sir? That will also make our ECM less effective."

"I realize that Commander, but we have more weapons than they do, so follow my orders or I will have you removed."

The command deck was silent, Commander Lancer wanted to remove the Captain, but in the middle of a battle? Lancer would be court marshaled for sure, no he had to play along, and just hope Jalan didn't get them all killed. "Pilot, you heard the Captain, take us in closer."

"Yes Sir."

The Troikens pride accelerated towards Indestructible, but Indestructible suddenly changed direction and began accelerating away, firing polaran beams as she retreated. Jalan was furious, he had been tricked, now he would have to slow his acceleration and then redouble back onto Indestructible in order to get a clear shot.

Jalan began to pace around the command deck. He was losing the advantage. If the Indestructible got away it would most certainly warn HQ, and his ship would be hunted down. That was when, a polaron beam finally made it though the Troikens Prides's ECM. It was a lucky shot, and hit right on the ships Telekinetic Projector, the shrapnel from the exploding projector hit several of the engine pods and ripped through them. Almost instantly 80% if Troikens Prides thrust vanished and Indestructible began pulling away quicly. Jalan knew the battle was lost.

Chapter 19

Josha went back into his office like a hurricane. He had just got the dressing down of his life by the Central Powers Speaker, the Weyrlings were furious, and who could blame them. A Draven ship had attacked the Matriarchs vessel, it was all Josha could do to keep the Weyrlings from sending their fleet into Lasat to take out Troikens Pride personally. Creator, what had that madman Jalan done!

Josha rubbed his head, it made no sense, why had Jalan been put into a position of escorting the matriarch in the first place, and why hadn't the approval for those orders come to him. Something was up, someone was trying to kill the Matriarch. Quickly Josha opened his computer, and began searching all the deployment orders concerning Troikens Pride. It didn't take long to find the order for deployment with the Indestructible. Then Josha looked in shock at what he saw. The approval had come through the Prime Minister himself.

Josha sat frozen for a second, not believing what he was thinking. The prime minister knew Jalans history as well as anyone, the only reason he would have approved the orders, were if he was hoping Jalan was going to do something. But that would meant the Yalare had plotted to kill the Matriarch.

Josha sat in his office for a long time, not knowing what to do. He couldn't tell the Weyrlings, they would tear into home systems, and while the new ships would probably stop them, it would be bloody, the Weyrligns were good generals, but the Dravens had probably the most Industrial Empire in known space. No this was a Draven problem, the Central Powers need to stay out of it, but what can he do. Slowly Josha took out a the keypad and began typing a letting to Central Powers speaker, he knew some of explanations seemed flimsy at best, but they should be enough to keep a war from breaking out. Although it would mean sacrificing Trokioens Pride, unfortunately he would have to offer up that ship as a sacrificial lamb to satisfy the Weyrlings while Josha took care of bigger problems. His second letter was to Commander Draval.

[ March 31, 2003, 02:38: Message edited by: CaptRR ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Quick response CaptRR.
I'll send you a turn file later.
Just write on and I'll follow your plot! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I dont have any general empire spanning storyline anymore so I can follow you. My future plans mostly involve Try and Thurya. But the war against the Terrans will go on unless I'm diverted http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Will write my next episode in a couple of days.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Weyrling Empire 2406.9
----------------------

Aboard the Light cruiser Desperation:

The ship was running in cloaked mode, it was one of the newest light cruisers the Weyrling empire had built, encompassing the newest and most advanced technology that could be found in the empire.
The ship didn't actually need any crew as it was run by an AI computer core that was capable of making intelligent decisions based upon it's orders and the current circumstances around it.
Despite this the Weyrlings didn't feel comfortable letting a machine capable of destroying worlds run on it's own without supervision, so there was a skeleton crew of three officers aboard.
One would have thought that there would be ample of space aboard this ship but that was not the case.
Aboard the Desperation was 323 Marines and an extra fleet officer, Thurya.
Their goal was to free Try, he was the first and only prisoner that the Terrans had taken and the Weyrlings weren't going to let them get away with it, it was time to send a signal to the Terrans and all other races out there, you don't mess with the Weyrlings!

The Weyrlings had become worried, the war against the Terrans was going to good, the Terrans should have defeated the Weyrlings by now but they seemed unwilling to go into battle.
The Weyrlings had lost two carriers, a light cruiser, a space yard ship and a destroyer since the sledgehammer operation was launched. Meanwhile they had glassed 18 worlds, invaded and occupied the three Terran homeworlds and destroyed 22 orbital space yards and three battleships. Something was wrong!
It would be easy to sit back and relax but that might be a fatal mistake, the Terrans had an impressive fleet, some of which was in the Kuat system but many ships had also left for the Terran-Nyran borders, and there was no war between those two races, this was uncomprehensible.
And now the Dravens, attacking the very symbol of the Weyrling empire!
The Argon confederacy, previously good allies, had declared war upon the Weyrlings as had the CCCP empire aswell. Still there hadn't been any hostilities from them but that might just be coming. There hadn't been any explanation for the war declarations, and with the Central Powers alliance on the verge of collapse and most of the Weyrling forces concetrated in Terran space the situation could turn critical very fast.

Aboard the Desperation was also a new device that had never been used before, it was time to send a signal, and it would be heard all over the galaxy!

The crew aboard the Desperation was in constant contact with Try and knew his location at all times, well almost all times.
There had been a lapse of a few days when Try had been comatose after to hard torture resulting in a brain bleeding. The Terrans had operated and treated him so that he had recorpurated before they started the torture again.
Try had told them all he knew, about the force concentrations of the Weyrlings, the awakening of the One, everything. But still the torture continued, coupled with psychoactive drugs. The Terrans had no psychic technology and if it weren't for this, Try would have been lost.
Along all this Thurya had been in constant contact with him, shared his pain. She had needed some medication of her own to cope with it but she wouldn't abandon him. Her burden was eased some by Elyssandra and many more who also shared Try's pains in some degree, but the close connection between Try and Thurya would have made it impossible for Thurya to shut out the pain even if she wanted.

Try was being kept on a facility on a barren moon deep inside Terran space close to the Nyran border, guarded by a battle ship in orbit, in the system was also a large concentration of Terran warships, posted there for an unknown reason.

Going along with the Desperation was the destroyer Runaway, also under cloak.
There would still be some weeks before they could get Try out, if they where successful. But with the pleasure the Terrans was getting out of torturing Try they wouldn't let hime die, he was the symbol which they could take out all their anger and revenge upon for the millions of Terrans killed by the Weyrlings and the billions living under Weyrling occupation.

Inside the Lasat system:

The two Psi corps light cruisers Gurkan and Tomaten was scanning the system with their long range scanners.
So far there was no sign of the Troikens Pride, but it was only a matter of time. They knew it hadn't left the Lasat system, and if it was here they would find it, and if they found it they would get some answers.
Captain Jalan would be happy to give them all the answers he could, he would love the Weyrlings when the Psic corps was through with him. He would be useless afterwards as his undying loyalty would be all that he could focus upon, the greatness of the Weyrlings.
The only reason he would be able to provide answers was becourse he would do his utmost to please his new masters.
The Psi corps personnel couldn't wait to get him under their care, they had never been allowed to test their arts on any Dravens before and now they had a whole ship to their disposal, this would be fun!
The only problem right now was the two Draven dreadnoughts that had entered the Lasat system, claiming that they would assist the Weyrlings in hunting down the Troikens Pride.

At Central Powers Headquarter:

Elyssandra was sitting with down with the Draven Josha, prince Dravel hadn't been at alliance headquarter when she arrived so she would have to do with this represantative.
The Draven assured Elyssandra that the Dravens had no intention of cancelling the alliance, that captain Jalan was somekind of renegade rouge and please, go ahead and destroy the Troikens Pride, he said.
How could it be that the Troikens Pride had been dispatched to escort duty, Elyssandra wondered.
It had all been Admiral Panars decision and unfortunatly he was no longer alive to be questioned, was the answer she got.
Hovewer she tried that was the brick wall she came up against, Panar was dead and if the Dravens had their way Jalan would soon be aswell, they seemed to think that the Weyrlings would destroy the ship in retaliation. Something Elyssandra thought was strange, the Dravens had access to psychic technology aswell and knew that the Weyrlings had Psi Corps ships equipped with alligiance converters in the vicinity of the Lasat system. But Elyssandra wouldn't point this out to them, if they wanted Jalan dead, let them think that the Weyrlings would do it for them.
Now she just had to find a way to get those Draven dreadnoughts out of the Lasat system, and she thought she knew how.
"-Now see here Josha, we have two state of the art Light cruisers in the area, well equipped to destroy the Troikens Pride.
But in the Lasat system neither you nor we have any forces right now.
Our Sledge fleet left that system to hunt down the Terran cloaker that we discovered in the neighbouring system, unsuccesfull by the way. Thereby leaving a heavily populated oxygen world with it's colonized moon in the Lasat system.
Your two dreadnoughts are well placed to go in and take out those planets, our two light cruisers can't stand up to the forces in that area. We lost two fighter carriers and a light cruiser that was dispatched to destroy those worlds.
To recall the Sledge fleet would cancel the momentum that our forces are having, the next month we will glass 15 more worlds if we can continue as planned."
"-I can't make a desicion alone on this Matriarch", Josha answered.
Ellysandra was growing impatient,
"-You are the Draven represantative to the Cental Powers alliance, if you can't decide that what are you doing here??".
"-Come now dear Matriarch, things aren't that easy! Could your represantive here decide the movements of your forces?"
"-Farth? Ofcourse he can if he thinks it's necessary.
Now you see to it that the Terrans are deprived of that world in the Lasat system, or that Terran fleet in the Lasat system might resupply and head into Draven space! SOmetimes I'm not sure why we fight this war for you, it's time you start doing some damage to the Terrans aswell. If your forces had followed orders this war should've been over by now.
If you can't decide what your forces will do, get me prince Dravel instead, he atleast does what he says. I'm sure the king would have been proud of him, but perhaps not with the rest of you Dravens."

With this she stood up and walked out of the room and went back to her quarters.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

I got to put up a map over the area here.
I'm writing at work and uses the names of ships and systems out of my memory.
That's why I'm talking about "Neighbouring systems" "The border between Terrans and Nyrans" etc.
Not satisfactory.

Awaiting the future events...
(Have Tbontob given up the story? Now when we're free to write by our imagination he could get involved more in our stories... complicating it all even more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[ April 01, 2003, 19:51: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

<font color=purple>WOW</font><font color=white>!!!!!</font> You guys are really kicking! Ruatha and CaptRR, the additions to your stories are very very good!! Keep it coming!!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hurray for our complete fanbase. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
You make it all worthwhile Mlmbd! (and yes, she does love you best, dude!)

[ April 03, 2003, 17:58: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ruatha, <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> I don't think I am your entire fanbase. Lots of <font color=white>"</font><font color=#9933CC>LURKER'S</font><font color=white>"</font> out there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Yep, unfortuantly my computer freezes up a lot on these forums so i don't get much of a chance to post in other threads beside the cantina and troopers race directory. But i am definatly enjoying the story, it seems to have gotten better since you abandoned the game and turned it complete fiction. Keep up the good writing, also ruatha, check out my fanfiction site thread as i have some suggestions that i need authors to reply on

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Chapter 20

Commander, Prince Dravel looked out the window as his skimmer headed towards the surface of Acamar VII. The blue white world, grew as the small craft went through its decent. It was so different than a Draven world, Dravel thought. So much water, and actual land. Of course that was part of the reason Acamar VII had been chosen as home for the Central Powers Headquarters, it was jewel nestled in the Draven Republic, yet controlled by the Thermolians, and finally its location close to the Weyrling Empire made it the ideal choice for greatness.

It had been a month since Dravel received a cryptic message from Josha. The message basicly said that Dravel was need at Alliance HQ now, and to take any ship he needed was need at Alliance HQ now, and to take any ship he needed to there. Fortunately Dravel had been Agamar, where he was forced to retreat to once the news that the Sledgehammer fleet had been destroyed. He hadn't retreated back alone though, he had captured a Terren Battleship, once the scientists had finished looking it over, Dravel had conscripted a crew for it, and it was now the primary defense for Agamar, his ship the King Dravel was their as well, though it was in the yards for repairs. Fortunately a replacement ship was available, it was old, and it weaponry was outdated, but it was fast, and that is the only reason Dravel had made it to Acamar so fast.

But why had he hurried? The note that Josha wrote didn't go into too many details, but it did have a passing reference to the Troikens Pride. Something was definitely up, and Dravel knew if he had been hurried off the war front so fast, that something involved the Draven Government. He shuttered slightly, not for the first time he realized that he was soon to be the President of the Draven Republic, a post that he had not expected to inherit for a long time. He would go from being a mere commander in the Draven Space Navy to the leader of all the Draven people, it was a tough subject for him to get his mind around, but he had been groomed for this since he was a child, he knew he would succeed at it.

The skimmer began to shutter violently as its gear extended, and it made its final decent to the Central Powers HQ. He had a great view of the main building, it was known as one of the most beautiful structures in the known Universe, incorporating the best architects from 3 races into its structure, it's sweeping 1 kilometer tall towers, the administrative centers for each race, seemed to keep watch over the central structure that housed the actual heart of the Central Powers. It' simple beauty never showing the trouble that lied beneath, the fact is the Central Powers were in trouble.

The Weyrlings were in trouble, what should have been a great occasion for their race after they took over the leadership of the Alliance, had turned into a nightmare, first with the opening steps of the War, then with the CCCP declaring war on the Weyrlings, and now the incident with the Troikens Pride. The Allinace was on the verge of collapsing, and if that happens, the glacier that is the CCCP would swallow up the Draven Republic, and then the rest of the Alliance soon after.

It wasn't all bad though, the Weyrlings had made great strives against the Terrens, even if the Dravens had been less than successful in that regard. The CCCP while declaring war hadn't made any overt action towards the Weyrlings, but it was strange, why had the CCCP declare war against the Weyrlings, and not the Allinace as a whole?

The skimmer thumped as it came into contact with the ground, and a few minutes later the door opened. For the next couple of minutes Dravel was escorted by Josha's aid through the sprawling Central Powers Complex. The towers were even more stunning on the ground than in the air, they seemed to stretch to the edge of the sky, yet each tower seemed to hold just a touch of its maker. The ones designed by the Dravens, which were also the shortest, seemed to take inspiration from the floating cities, their bases were narrow, and then they got wider us they raised from ground. In an age before Anti-gravity those structures would have been impossible, but now they rose to astounding hights.

The Thermolians Towers were simple yet their paint scheme that changed color depending the angle that you were looking at it from. The sudden change in color could be daunting at first, but all the colors seemed mix well with each other. Little was known why the Thermolians decided on this paint scheme, but rumor was that each color represented each one of their First colonies.

Finally their was the Weyrlings buildings, they were the tallest as well, yet they were a far cry from the nomally strait buildings that littered the Thermilian and Draven sections. These buildings seemed to all curve towards a central point. Dravel had once been told that it had something to do with their Religion, their worship of "the one", but no one had ever confirmed this since little was known of the Weyrlings Religious beliefs.

After a short ride though the Draven compound, Commander Dravel was finally brought to Josha's Office. It technically wasn't the office of a Central Powers Representative, since Draven was just filling that role while the real Representative was back on Konoephoras X, supposedly in meetings with the Prime Minister.

In the mean time, the Chairman of the Defense Committee Josha was also pulling duty as the main Draven Representative to the Central Powers. As Dravel walked into Josha's office the Chairman smiled and rose.

"Its great to see you Prince, its been too long," Said Josha as he extended his hand.

Dravel took it, and returned his smile, "Yes sir it has, I wish you could come to the King Dravel more often, my crew really enjoys showing off their ship to the Defense Chairman."

Josha, continued to smile, but directed Dravel to some couches at the far end of the room, at the same time his secretary came in and laid drinks on a small table.

"I'm sure they do," their was a slight air of laughter in Josha's voice. No crew liked to have their ship inspected by the top brass, but it would have been impolite for Dravel to at least not offer. Amazing, Josha though, Dravel was the prince of the Republic, yet he never forgot that he is an officer in the Space Navy.

Josha's mood turned more serious though. "I' sure you are wondering why I called you here in so much of a hurry."

Dravel took a sip of his drink, and swallowed it. He then leaned back in his chair, trying to anticipate what was coming next, "I think it has something to do with the Troikens Pride, but the look on your face tell me it goes much higher than just one ship."

Josha nodded, "yes much higher. To put it lightly Prince, the Central Powers is on the verge of collapse, and our enemies are ready to capitalize on that collapse. I think Captain Jalan may have been working under orders from the Prime Minister himself"

Now he had Dravels full attention, and he sat upright, he was about to say something when Josha raised a hand, letting him know their was more.

"It gets worse, I think the Weyrlings are suspicious of this, and are going to take steps to capture Captain Jalan, and then use whatever methods to extract that information from him."

Now Jalan understood the nature of Josha's worry. If the weyrlings found out the Prime Minister tried to murder their matriarch they would rip into Draven space demanding they hand over Yalare. Of course the armed forces would never turn over their Prime Minister to any foreign government, no matter how righteous the cause. There would most certainly be a war, the Dravens had the Industrial strength and the Weyrlings had the Scientific and Military tacticians, the war would be bloody, and would probably end up leaving one race extinct.

Dravel spoke softly, "You want me to hunt down and destroy the Troikens Pride?"

It was not so much a question but a statement, something he had to do in order to save his people, but Josha surprised him.

"Creator no", Josha said with a slight yelp, "your father would role over in his grave if I sent you on a suicide mission." The mention of Dravels father caused a slight uncomfortable moment of silence, even after 2 years Dravel still felt he would never be quite the man his father was.

Josha continued, "No Prince, I have already dispatched 3 ships to take care of the situation. 2 dreadnaughts on search, and an unmarked stealth ship tailing the Weyrling search party have been dispatched. If the Weyrlings find the ship before we do, the Stealth ship will destroy the Troikens Pride, and then try to escape, if it can't escape then the stealth ship will destroy itself."

Dravel took a deep breath, "What about the crew's?"

"The stealth ship is mostly computerized to prevent the Weyrlings Psi corps from using their subverters, the rest know how important their mission is, and that they not be taken. As far as the Troikens pride, we built the ship, we know its weak points, it will be destroyed, quickly, or at least their will be no life left on the ship. To be honest, we will probably lose 100% of both crews."

Dravel understood why Josha had giving those orders, and how difficult they must have been. Even if the ship destroyed the Troikens Pride their was almost no way it would be able to get away from the Weyrlings, and if Dravel knew Josha, he had ordered the crew to not fire on the Weyrlings, he could not risk making things worse. That stealth ship was being sent into the fire, with virtually no protection, it would die, without it or the crew every even having a chance to survive.

Their was still one thing though, "Sir, why did you call me all the way out here it the situation was already under control?"

The deadpan seriousness in Joshas eye's frightened Dravel for a moment, "My Prince we cannot sit idly by and watch our Prime Minister destroy our Republic. I'm afraid we must remove him from power."

"What?" Dravel's mind was realing, what Josha was suggesting was an act of treason.

"I know Prince, I felt the same way, but I assure you there is no other option. I have been looking over fleet movements, if we don't act now, we will soon be unable to act. Yalare hadn't secured his power with all the Military, once he has all the Military loyal to him, he will be unstoppable, we act now, or we lose everything."

Dravel thought, and now it made sense that Josha had called Dravel here, he was the Prince, next in line to the Presidency, if he demanded that Yalare step down it would carry much more weight than an exiled Defense Chairman.

"Prince, I have to be honest, Yalare has placed a lot of commanders in strategic places, but he hasn't been able to get much headway in Acamar. Don't get me wrong, most of the military commanders are honest, but Yalare has control of most of the Admiralty, and its going to take a major effort to make the Captains turn against what they perceive is the rightful government. I'm afraid, Yalare won't go down without a fight."

Dravel, dreaded what he might have to do, never had a Draven ship fire on another, but if Yalare had that much control over the fleet he might have to. He took a breath, it was time to get down to business, "What kind of forces are up against."

Josha took a small pad out of his pocket, and read it over, "So far, I think I can get you 15 dreadnaughts, 7 battleships, and about 17 other smaller vessles. Oh yes, and I think I can get you a warp point opener and closer."

Dravel shook his head, "That's not enough, home fleet alone has twice that many ships, and that's not including the new ships that are coming out of the yards as we speak."

"I know, but it's all we have, my Prince. Yalare has been keeping most of the new ships close to home, and I'm afraid all we have been able to gather are whats being put out by the Acamar shipyards. On the plus side, the ships I'm giving you are among the newest in the fleet. They were originally scheduled to deploy as part of the second Sledgehammer fleet, but since the Weyrlings have the situation with the Terrens in hand I don't think we will need them for Sledgehammer."

Now Dravel looked Josha square in the eye, and spoke slowly, emphasizing his point, "We are going to have to tell the Weyrlings eventually, and when we do they are going to want Yalare's head on a platter, plus I imagine they will be quite upset over us not telling them earlier."

"I know," Josha said, "I know, but they Weyrlings aren't stupid. A little arrogant, and annoying sometimes, but not stupid. They will understand why we are doing what we are doing, even if they won't be very happy about it. Hell, I might even give them Yalare after all this is done, the Weyrlings would probably be a lot nicer than me."

Dravel smiled slightly and stood up, "well I better be going, it looks like I have a lot of work in order to get my Fleet together, is their anything else, Josha?"

Now it was Josha turn to smile, "a matter of fact there is, Commander. You do know that commander of a fleet is an Admiral's position, and we can't have people you are commanding outranking you now can we?"

"Uhh, I guess not." Said Dravel a little flusterd.

"In that case Commander Dravel, I know promote you to full Admiral, with all the rank and Privileges." Josha shook Dravel's hand and gave a picture perfect salute to the new Admiral. Dravel returned it just as perfectly, "My aid has you new rank insignia waiting for you, good luck Admiral."

"Thank you Josha, I'll need it."

Chapter 21

That fool! That stupid idiotic fool! That was all Commander Lancer could think right now. Here he was on a crippled ship, being hunted by two weyrling Cruisers, and now he had been forced to throw his Captain in the brig.

Lancer looked at the Tactical display, it wasn't good. The Troikens Pride was out gunned and was losing ground fast to the two Weyrlings Cruisers, that weren't even trying to use their stealth systems. And why should they? The Trokens pride was not in good shape, she had lost several Engines, and was down a Telekinetic Projector. To make matters worse, his only salvation, 2 Draven dreadnaughts were clear across the system. He had no chance of making it to them before he was overtaken by the Weyrling vessles. And it was all the fault of that traitorous fool Jalan.

Once the battle was over, and Indestructible had gotten away, it had taken only a few hours to find the sabotage, and when Lancer checked that sabotage it had Jalan's codes all over it. Lancer had wanted to shoot the fool right their, but instead had settled for throwing him into the brig. That didn't help his current situation though.

Lancer had thought about calling out to the Weyrlings, explain to them what had happen, but he knew that would do little good. If the Troikens Pride's sensor's were working correctly, those were Psi corps ships, the elite of the Weyrling fleet, and the most feared. They were sent in for search and destroy, or Lancer feared even more capture. It was doubtful the Psi corps would be in a negotiating mood, it was more likely they would feign talking in order to get a lock on the Troikens Pride, and when that happens, it would over.

If only the Indestructible hadn't hit their long range communications antennas, then he might have been able to call fleet HQ, and explain the situation. Instead the Troikens Pride was out here, all alone, with their own allied hunting them down.

Lancer took a breath, "Pilot, change course I want randomize our course as much as possible, maybe we can evade those Light Cruisers." Lancer knew their was no chance of that.

The young pilot though didn't give any indication that he knew, instead he nodded and began to plot a randomized course, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the Weyrling vessels. It was a losing proposition, the Troikens Pride was just too slow in its wounded state.

Lancer looked once again at the Tactical readout, it was only a matter of time.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ahh, goodie...
Much to work with!

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

CaptRR, another GREAT chapter! You get thumbs up from me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

The intersting hot-spots right now:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newup...1049732746.jpg

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

2407.0
In the Secunda Giedi System.
---------------------------
Aboard the Destroyer Runaway.
Only one of the three shifts of the crew was in service, of the 19 aboard two where at the command bridge, one in the engine room, one was preparing a meal in the mess and two where doing maintnance on the cloaking device.
The Runaway was a special ship in that it had no offensive capability, she was a fast personnel carrier and now she was running with only her crew aboard, making her innards a wast empty space. Something unusual for the Weyrling crew who was usually serving on ordinary ships.
The Weyrling ships where luxurious in the space allocated to every person aboard when compared to many other species, but to a Weyrling the ships often seemed crowded.
Serving in this huge empty innards was a different experiance for the crew.

"-Should we alert the captain?", Sergeant Krut asked anselm Roy who was heading the ship while he pointed at the scanner screen.
"-Negative, He's asleep, no use wakening him. Alert the Desperation that we might need some assistance and start to close the distance to them."
Krut got information from the One about who was in command of the Desperation right now and voiced to the captain of the Desperation:
"-We're seing an asteroid field in our way, are you picking up on it too?"
"-Yes, we are manning the point defense cannon turrets right now, it shouldn't be any problem, just stick close to us!"
"-Affermative"

As they closed in on the dense asteroid field the smaller Runaway destroyer closed the gap too the larger and better armed light cruiser Desperation.
Asteroid fields weren't really a threat as they were more vacuum than asteroids and usually the ships passed right through. Actually ships tended to avoid running through asteroid fields if they weren't pressed for time.
The Recovery task force hovewer was pressed for time and pushed straight through. Smaller grovel and minor rocks could be handled by the armour but larger rocks needed to be bLasted first.

"-Time to give a warning, no way around it but to waken the ship"
Sergeant Krut opened the ship wide intercom:
"Alert. We are entering a minor asteroid field and we might experiance a bit of bumps for a while, no need for alarm. Carry on as usual!"
A couple of minutes after the warning they felt the first bump as the ship hit a minor rock which was repelled by the armour. After that it started to become uncomfortable as the ship rocked almost constantly in a disharmonic beat.
The crew was experianced but still lay awake as this wasn't all that common, it happened from time to time but you didn't experiance it every year.
On the bridge the anselm and the sergeant watched as the Desperations point defence turrets opened fire now and then, most of the times the blocks they where firing upon didn't pose any threat but it was a welcome target practice and a break from routine.
An asteroid larger than a battleship showed up on the scanners ahead of the ships, the calculation unit quickly stated that it would be a near miss by half a kilometer, not dangerous but impressive as the huge block closed in at enourmous speed (actually the block was nearly still but the ships was travelling near maximum speed).
When they where almost there one of the Desperations turrets opened fire at the block, gunner Lise thought she might have time to etch a grand "L" on the block as they passed by.
The cannon rounds hit the edge of the block, chiselling out a mansized corner that shot out infront of the Runaway. No one had reflexes fast enough to act on the threat!
The block hit the Runaway on starboard below, tearing through the armour and punching a hole into the Runaway, coming to a halt three meters inside the hull, killing the captain instantly as it hit the captains quarters. The engines shut down immediatly and the Desperation accelerated for another second before they shut down their engines aswell.

"-What have I done, What have I done??", they could all hear gunner Lise's question that was voiced without direction. The loss of the captain was immediatly felt as a disturbance in the collective by the crews on both ships.

As the Runaway was dead in space due to ripped circuits that would take another week to repeair the decision was made to split the task force.
The Desperation would proceed to the Giik system and rescue Try. Thurya as senior officer without a ship position would be transferred to the Runaway and take command of that vessel.
She wasn't needed in the rescue as that would be handled by the marines.
The Runaway would do repairs and would meet up with the Desperation at the warp point between Secunda Giedi and Giik when Try had been rescued, then all personnel would be transfered to the Runaway and the Desperation would be left with the ship AI in command, programmed to perform it's final task.

As the Desperation entered the Giik system the crew was amazed at what they saw.
The scanners went wild.
The fleet of ships massed in the Giik system outnumbered even the once mighty Sledgehammer fleet, approximately 200 ships where in the system. Mostly Battleships but some smaller and some larger ships aswell, fighter Groups running all over the system. More than half of the fleet was Nyran but a sizable part was Terran.
"-Now we will see what is most advanced, our cloak or their scanners", the captain thought aloud.
But as they slowly approached the planet where Try was being held there was no indication that they had been spotted. It took two weeks to finally arrive at the planet. When the assault shuttles landed guards fired upon the marines.
But the Weyrling marines weren't unprotected spaceships crew, they had the best defensive and offensive technology availible to the Central Powers alliance and the ground battle was only going one way. As good as the Terrans might be in space battles the prision guards where no match for the Weyrling marines, bodies littered the yard as they swept into the complex.
Finding Try was no problem as they had constant contact with him and the One showed the direction.
After a quick retreat into the shuttles all marines and Try was soon aboard the Desperation which started to power up the engines.
There was only one enemy ship in orbit and that was on the other side of the planet.
The ships in the system seemed to be gathered at one point mainly with a lot of ships heading in that direction.
The advanced scanners could already detect several ships starting to alter course towards the planet, and several hundreds of fast fighters starting to head in the general direction of the prison planet.
The number of ships in the system wasn't anticipated but they had planned on being pursued.
The Desperation would under cloak head for the warp-point, then after having transferred the personell it would head to the star and blow up the entire system!
Seeing this incredible mass of ships in the Giik system the Weyrlings had thought of it as a divine gift. The Nyrans would suffer a terrible loss aswell, but they couldn't prove it was the Weyrlings, and even so, after this the Nyrans wouldn't have any force left to be afraid of.
Only a couple of hours after the sucessful escape a stellar event showed up on the scanners. At the point of the main mass of ships a new warp point was slowly being opened. The one instantly connected this with a similar event starting at the same time in the Kalzeron system some distance from Kalzeron prime.
In a week the Terran/Nyran ships would be in Kalzeron, which now was defended by only 6 destroyers!
That fleet would do more damage to the Weyrling empire than the Weyrling had managed to inflict upon the Terrans during the entire war. So this was the reasson the Terran ships weren't attacking. They had been diverted for this purpose.
Even though the One couldn't feel fear, it could sense that feeling amongst the Weyrling population.
The decision aboard the Desperation was easy, even without the guidance of the One, everyone aboard the sip agreed and the Desperation altered course for the Giik star.
The Runaway would continue to be an empty ship.

Both Try and Thurya wept alot the following three days as they where in constant connection up to the moment the Giik star exploded!
The Runaway waited outside the Giik system for the wave front to pass by the warp point before they could enter it, but the trip home would go much faster due to the new warp point between Giik and Kalzeron.

Inside the Lasat system:

The Psi corps ship Tomaten was slowly gaining on Troikens Pride, Gurkan had diverted in a semicircle intended to take it arround Troikens Pride, so that there would be no chance escape.
The Troikens Pride hadn't tried to contact them, that didn't alter things but the crew had thought that the Dravens would plea for their lifes. More peculiar was that they hadn't started to fire upon the Weyrlings, they must know by now that there was no escape! Yet still they continued their turtlelike escape attempt.
When Gurkan was well ahead of Troikens Pride and the psi Corps was sure of success they started to power up the alligience converters. Soon the One would get more insigth into the Draven mind!
Then space itself started to shimmer beside Tomaten, the crew on Tomaten understood that it was a ship coming out of cloak. Most propably a Draven ship.
Very well, they might be able to destroy Tomaten who had it's weapons trailing Troikens Pride but they sure wouldn't be able to take out Gurkan. One Psi corps ship was an afforable price for two Draven ships full with Draven crew, and the Draven ships tended to be packed with crew. Oh, how many minds to probe, the feelings in the Psi Corp crew was stil high when the Draven ship that materialized fired it's first salvo.
Aimed at Troikens Pride.
"-Noo", the captain of Tomaten cried out.
"Full ahead, put us between those two ships. Gurkan, capture Troikens Pride now!"
But it was too late, one round from those telekinetic cannons shouldn't be enough to destroy a ship such as Troikens Pride, but the Dravens obviously knew where to aim. The troikens Pride exploded in a ball of fire.
"-Gurkan, take that new Draven ship instead while they're firing upon us!"
Then the other Draven ship joined Troikens Pride in a ball of flame.
It was uncomprehensible. The Weyrlings hadn't fired a single shot, and now two draven ships was ashes.
What had happened here??

At Central Powers headquarter in the Acamar system:

Elyssandra was sitting in her quarters discussing with Prince dravel.
"-I'm glad you could make it here, but also dissappointed that you are leaving so soon!", she said.
"-Even though it's always a pleasure to meet you matriarch, I'm saddened that I must leave. But I must follow some leads that might explain this attack upon the Indestructible. Right now it's as hard to understand for me as it is for you. But I have been looking into captain Jalan's movements before the attack and I'll be questioning everyone he had contact with previous to the attack. And that goes for the late admiral Panar aswell.
I guarantee you that I will find answers, just give me time!"
"-I wouldn't have belived anyone else. But your father the King acted with great integrity when he kept us out of war when our races met.
So long ago it seems now.
I see that you are truly his son. Follow your leads prince Draven, I trust you in this, but keep us informed, our patience isn't endless!"

Days and weeks passed.
Elyssandra had given up any hope of getting ships from the Dravens. And had begun packing to return to Kalzeron and Ilian. The plan that was meant to send a warning to the Argon and the CCCP was promising to wipe out the Terran fleet aswell. Try was to be rescued anyday now, he could be home in a couple of months. To have the family gathered again, it had been so long since that had Last happened.

The Indestructible had been repaired and the trip to Kalzeron was a short one now that the weyrlings had opened a wormhole directly between kalzeron and Acamar.
After boarding the Indestructible they left for the wormhole to Kalzeron. Try had been rescued and Elyssandra was feeling great. She was on top of the world.
Then it hit her, the Terrans and Nyrans where opening a warp point into Kalzeron.
They wouldn't have time to open a warp point to the Sledge and Hammer fleets and bring them home in time. And against what was coming they wouldn't have a chance anyway. The only solution was painstakingly obvious, she would never se Try again. Her son!

Elyssandra was in the Kalzeron system when the star destroyer went off. When she arrived at Kalzeron prime she received a message from what remained of the terran goverment. They surrendered unconditionally. The Nyrans had declared war and allied themselfs with the Argon confederacy and the CCCP.
From the new Terran subjects the Weyrlings learnt the reason for the war declarations from the Argon and CCCP.
After torturing Try the Terrans had gone to the empires surrounding the Weyrlings and the Central Powers alliance and showed recordings of Try explaining about the One and the collective. The Argons and the CCCP having seen changes in the Weyrlings suspected that it was something infecteous and wanted to either isolate or annihilate the Weyrlings before the "disease" spread to their empires.
The Nyrans had been planning a war a long time, primarily against the Dravens but when the Terrans asked them to join forces against the Weyrlings they had gladly accepted. Thinking of the hundreds of rich planets in the Weyrling empire.

The Weyrlings now controlled all Terran territory. The Weyrlings asked themselfs: for what? They joined the war for the alliance and won a vicory and a prize they never sought. What to do with it?

The One and the Weyrlings had thought on the matter and a decision was made.
The Weyrlings would abandon their new possesions, the Terran territory would be handed over to the Central powers alliance to handle. All outgoing warp points from the Weyrling Empire would be shut off, the one to Acamar would be saved to Last.
Inside the Weyrling empire a intricate net of warp points would be opened, the resulting gravitational disturbances would make it impossible for someone to open a warp point into the empire.
With new ringworlds and sphereworlds soon being finished and 34 worlds already with breathable atmosphere and 121 more worlds soon to have breathable atmosphere, as the atmospheric converters where staring to operate, the Weyrlings would have ample of space to expand within their own borders.
This was to be kept a secret until it was to late for anyone to intervene. For all systems to be shut out with the new warp point network operative would take less than three years.
Three years to arrange for a future in isolation.
Three years to keep this secret from becoming common knowledge, no one not a Weyrling would be allowed to know.
The expulsion of aliens from Weyrling territory would have to be handled with some finesse, but out they would go. Soon, there wouldn't be any aliens left inside the empire.
The Central powers alliance wouldn't be allowed to know that it was about to loose one of its members, not until it was too late to do anything about.

If the universe didn't want to have anything to do with the Weyrlings, the Weyrlings could do without the universe. They had already learnt all they needed to know from the aliens.

[ April 09, 2003, 21:18: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Very good Ruatha, i'm curious what will happen between the dravens and the wreylings now the wreylings are shutting themselves out. A very good chapter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Ruatha, another great addition, Sir! I am enjoing this story!

I was wondering as RD about "what will happen between the dravens and the wreylings now the wreylings are shutting themselves out."

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Grumble, grubble.... damn Isolatinists Weyrlings ...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Damn it took me most of the day to get caught up on this thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I eagerly away another installment.

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

CaptRR> Anything coming up soon? (Don't wanna press you, just eagerly anticipating the next chapter.)

Tbontob> Given up on this story?

[ April 13, 2003, 13:02: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread
 

Yep, got one coming really soon. Your isolationism, through me for a loop http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I had to delete what I wrote, and re-write it, no biggie. I'll have anouther chapter by the end of the day.