From the Begining New Chapter Added (9/12/06)
 

Well this forum is sadly lacking a gamestory thread at the moment so you know what.....I'm gonna make one! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and from the begining, from the very first steps to the very worst wars and the end and everything in between.

Not (this game is not even started yet)

Well here is the "storyline" the game is going to take

It is the year 2400 and the Human colonies have all declared for independance and have formed their own "star nations", with recent discoveries in technology for the first time in history space based warfare has become possible and so an arms race has begun, each star nation has decided it's time to expand their frontiers and with those frontiers their military power.

And so the story of Icara begins....

(okay so not much of a starter story line but I'm hoping the story picks up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) So what i've gone and done is taken every Human shipset I have and made it into a faction for this game, and put it under computer control of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Including two races you'll all be familiar with (though I'm hoping that'll be a suprise for ya'll later.

I'll post the first story post in a bit.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Well, Xenology has been a bit quiet lately, but it's not dead. Still, more stories is always good.

Fantastic! You have an interesting background there. It sounds a bit Weber-inspired, which IMHO can only be a good thing.

Have you got these guys and these girls?

Looking forward to the firstr installment. I'll be reading!

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

LOL Okay every human shipset I can look at without laughing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

2400.0:
It had been two months since construction of the first Icaran colonyship began and finally work was finished and the kilometer long grey hull with the massive blue oval of the colony module was the most beautiful site Praetor Leonidas could recall since the birth of his first daughter 5 Icaran years (nearly 8 Earth years) ago.

"Majesty?" Countess Percilla Torry bowed nerviously behind her Praetor, she would be aboard the colonyship when it launched and in fact become the first governor of an offworld Icaran province and was more then a little nervious about her new posting.

"Relax Percie, it's just you and me here." Leonidas smirked as he turned around and saw the flush in the young woman's face as she nerviously squared her shoulders. She was the daughter of Leonidas best friend and as such he often afforded her a much less "formal" stance then he would have taken with any other Icaran Noble on the planet.

"Yes your highness." the young woman's voice still quivered but she feigned a smile and accepted the hand Leonidas offered her and followed him to the vid-window that was showing the final stages of the boarding of CS-R-1/1 (named Brandenburg by the crew after the colony's official name).
It was indeed a wonderful sight and the young Countess' eyes lit up as she saw "her ship" waiting to take her to a new life, away from the Courts and their pomp, away from all the formalities of "parties" with men like Baron Chesterfield who would drool over her as she was the youngest girl in the room.....at least away from all that for a little while.
A real frontier settler she thought to herself, just like she had always dreamed of!

"Well miss Percie, I'm afraid I have an appointment with Admiral Hallice about the formation of our first Royal Navy crews and then I have an appointment with the House of Lords comission on the subject of a naval budget and I'm sure you don't want to sit through those meetings." Leonidas smiled warmly at the young girl (only 16 Icaran years old) and led her to the door. He wished he had more time to talk to her but with all the new things Happening in the world today he would have to be satisfied with the few moments he had.

"I suppose I should be getting to the Brandenburg anyway Highness, afterall I have thirty-four million people that are going to have to be billeted." She smiled again and bowed respectfully to the man who had been like an Uncle to her, for her whole life and she felt a lump in her throat as she realized it would be a very long time before she saw her father or Leonidas again.

Leonidas patted the young woman's arm, then suddenly looked as if he'd forgotten something and rushed over to his desk drawer. After a few seconds of rifling through a mess of paper work he walked over again and handed her a small golden plaque baring the name of her colony and an old Icaran motto enscribed underneath the engraved starship.
"Reach Beyond"
And then he patted her arm again as she walked through the door and on to her new life on the "frontier".


2400.2 Landing Day
The first interplanetary colony established by the Icarans was settled on the only other planet in the Novor system that could sustain a large population without the need for domse or breather masks.
Countess Percilla Torry daughter of Duke Mark Torry was proclaimed governess of the new stellar province of Brandenburg.

And already Icara's shipyard was constructing CS-R1\2 for it's mission to establish a mining colony on the small methane world of Novor II and tap it's rich mineral resources for the good of Icara.

The Naval Bureau of Ships was already working on designs for the first Icaran Royal Navy ship that was expected to launch in 3 months time.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Ouch. That was harsh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

I meant no insult lol I just have a wierd sense of humor lol.

Anyhoo

2400.5: The Launch of HMS Saber
His Majesty’s Starship Saber was a small ship compared to either of the gargantuan colony ships which had launched from these very shipyards nor was she spacious on the interior as she was packed with cannon and missile, yet to her Captain none of that mattered, she was the queen of the stars to him.
The 150 officers and Ratings of her crew stood in parade formation wearing full dress uniform in the massive loading bay of the Icaran shipyards as Admiral Lord Alexander Hallice ascended the podium that had been erected for this very event. Press swarmed all around taking holo images of the ship, the crew and anyone who looked important.
Dozens of nobles were also present at the commissioning ceremony, and Captain William Ross remembered that the whole event had taken three long wearisome hours as he waited to board his new command and see to her final inspection tour before launch.

Finally Ross stepped onto the bridge of Saber and looked around with a grin, twelve stations sat fully manned and his Exec, Lieutenant Commander Sarah Pallins waited by his command chair.
Suddenly Ross heard the traditional marine sentry beside him callout as he noticed his Captain step on bridge and the piercing shout of “CAPTAIN ON DECK!” brought the entire bridge crew to attention and he took note of the click of their boots with satisfaction before he returned the salute.

“As you were.” Ross’ baritone voice hid his nerves and excitement as he took his command chair.

“All hands ready for deployment sir.” Commander Pallins said as she looked over the status board one Last time to make sure all systems were operational.
“Very well Commander.” Ross double confirmed her readings as was traditional, then he stood clasped his hands behind his back in as casual a manner as he could manage and walked over to the helm station.

“Helm take us out heading nine-zero-five by two….straight for the closest warp node.” Ross’ voice was as emotionless as ever but he felt exhilaration unlike any he had known before as he felt the ship’s drives activate, and the light pulsing feeling on the deck plating as she began to move towards the nearest warp point and into the great unknown...

I'll explain the look of Icaran ships later for those who havn't seen the pics I displayed on-line. but for now I'm off to read HH http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Oh and although I will likely play more then one turn at a time I'm going to take this story slowly enough to make sure it's good http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2400.6
Captain Ross sat in his command chair, eyes fixed on his displays as they focused on the Telcosus warp point, named after it’s discoverer Dr. Paula Telcosus of the Icara university for Astrogation. It was an amazing site as the scanners bombarded the normally invisible warp point with rays designed to make it visible to the crews of starships, it was a massive blue funnel that swirled and shimmered brilliantly in the displays.
“Helm take us in, Pallins dispatch a messenger drone to Icara, inform them we are about to enter the warp point.” although he was calm Ross’ was tense, his ship would be the first Icaran starship to enter a warp point in two centuries and no one of present generations even knew what the effects a warp point would have on the crew of a starship.

“Sir…..transition into hyper-space in five zero seconds.” Commander Pallins said as she looked up from the astrogation station she looked excited and yet she was as professional as ever.

“Helm deploy grav field” Ross’ didn’t take his eyes off of the nav display as he watched the small green dot of his ship approaching the massive yellow light that represented the warp point.

A small hemispherical module deployed from the prow of the frigate and another deployed from the aft portion of the ship just above the engine housing, as the ship got closer and closer to the warp point the two modules began to glow and the gravity field that allowed transition between real and hyperspace without turning the crew into a pile of so much sludge as had happened to the test animals first sent through warp points centuries ago. And which happened to more then one colony ship who’s grav field generators failed.
But technology had improved drastically in that department and it was believed that no field generator would fail for at least 50 years and that made Ross only moderately moer comfortable as the outer gravity field met with the warp point in a brilliant glowing wave.

“All hands prepare for jump in five…….four……three” the computer counted down as the ship’s after grav field entered the vortex of the warp point and then all time blurred and a wave of nausea swept over the crew of HMS Saber like a shockwave.

“Tactical…..status?” was all Sarah Pallins could mutter before a brilliant flash and then the transition into normal space thumped into reality and in an instant the nausea was gone and al stations began reporting in……they had made it with no damage, though clean up crews be at work in some of the areas of the ships were crewmembers had….not kept composure.

And before Saber lay the vast expanse of the Telcosus nebulae it’s glowing gas clouds and golden hew covered the entire expanse of what had once been a star system millenia ago it was beautiful but utterly useless to the expansion of Icara as it had no resources or planets to colonize.

“Alright, plot a course for the next warp point helm, Comns launch a messenger drone to inform command that we have found nothing of serious value.” Ross smiled at Pallins and she nodded, it was the beautiful but more then that it was the first interstellar distance any Icaran starship had traveled in centuries but Ross had to remain professional even though he did want to explore the nebulae.

“Sailing Master ETA next warp jump?” Chief Petty Officer Horowitz seemed startled by Pallins and nearly jumped out of his skin as he quickly looked over his station.

“Ma’am ETA next warp jump, is 2 weeks at full thrust ma’am.” Horowitz flushed as he realized just how squeaky his own voice sounded as he replied to his senior officer.

“Thank you Sailing Master, Helm set course maximum thrust.” Pallins voice was harsh but understanding, he was a young man at only 12 Icaran years but he still needed to be prepared and that little display was not professional at al……but they would have 2 weeks to work on that before their next jump. Pallins thought to herself as she looked over to her captain and noticed a slight grin on his face.

Meanwhile the HMS Warrior which had just been constructed and manned headed toward the Swift system and discovered not one but 2 fully life sustaining worlds that would be perfect for Icaran colonists. As well as several resource rich worlds that could be domed and mined to expand on the resource gathering abilities of Icara.

2400.7
HMS Warrior under Captain Thomas walker had warped into the Vaktor system and discovered a nebulae much like that in the Telcosus “system” and her crew marveled at the sight before setting a course for yet another system. She had already charted one close to home and had traversed the entire Norvar system again before warping through Vaktor and after such a long trip her crew was a little disappointed.

Messenger drones from all three ships brought back interesting astrological data but unfortunately most of it was of limited use to Icara, though two colony ships were already planned to colonize the new worlds.

Meanwhile Ross and his crew had explored another Nebulae named Belican and set course for yet another warp point.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

[qoute]Captain Ross sat in his command chair, eyes fixed on his displays as they focused on the Telcosus warp point, named after it’s discoverer Dr. Paula Telcosus of the Icara university for Astrogation. It was an amazing site as the scanners bombarded the normally invisible warp point with rays designed to make it visible to the crews of starships, it was a massive blue funnel that swirled and shimmered brilliantly in the displays.[/qoute]
People generally don't think like that, ie, in info-dumps.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

woops :p but then again I did write that at 4:30 AM http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
But what do you think about the rest of the story?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2400.8-9
HMS Saber proceeded from the Telcosus nebulae to the Licha In, warp point to make her second exploratory jump.
“Approaching Licha In warp point…..ETA three minutes.” Helmsman Johan Burke announced in a bored tone as he watched the chronometer on his panel count down the minutes to jump.
The sensors were showing that wondrous blue vortex growing in size fast as the Saber closed in at 6 gees.

“Thank you helmsman.” Commander Pallins was bored as well, it had been two weeks spent in this nebulae and although it was a beauty it was useless to the expansion of Icara and the crew was getting frustrated with the constant monotony of day after day of nothing but soup in the visual displays and nothing but battle drills and card games to keep them busy for two weeks.
The lift door slid open and Captain Ross stepped onto the bridge still buttoning his tunic and wiping the sleep out of his eyes desperately trying to look like three hours of sleep was enough as he took over the Last few minutes of the watch so he could oversee the warp jump personally.

Three minutes later the grav field began to glow against the warp point and the familiar nausea swept over the crew for the moment they were in warp space, seconds later the Licha In system lay ahead of them.
Licha was a massive system by Norvor standards with 15 planets of varying size and Ross felt a massive wave of relief come over him as he noticed the readout, finall something for his crew to do after weeks of boredom, now they could do their job and survey the planets of an actual star system.

Meanwhile in Icara’s shipyards the massive form of another colony ship set course for the Swift system to colonize one of her two inhabitable worlds, and shortly after their launch the keel for HMS Repulse was laid, and her crew completed their training..

A month later HMS Repulse launched from her berth and took up stationary orbit of Icara to protect her while the other two frigates of her class explored star systems in an effort to expand the Icaran’s borders.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2401.0
The massive colony ship entered Sparta's atmosphere and formed a massive fireball as her heat shielded mass met the higher then normal friction of Sparta's thick atmosphere.

Duke Leonard Panowsky had used his own personal wealth the massive colony ship and he didn't let colonists or his peers forget it.

As he strode onto the command deck of the massive vessel he sneered at the privately hired civilian command crew, they were little more then ants to him but for the moment he needed them and he hated needing commoners to do anything for him and they knew it.

But as he saw the surface of the planet as the ship broke through the cloud layer he couldn't help but smile, not at it's inherant beauty for Sparta was rather devoid of any attractive land features as it was mainly rock with a few "forests" that were little more then moss covered oxygen producing swamplands, no he was smiling because this ugly world would be all his it would give him prestige to back his "honorary" dukedom not to mention an actual realm to rule over as back on Icara he was little more then a merchant and was looked down upon by the land owning nobles but no more.

An hour later the massive colony ship landed and squads of heavily armed scouts left her bays on ground effect speeders to make sure there were no predatory creatures near their landing zone. Meanwhile armed engineering crews began loading up the prefab defense walls onto the large Anti grav trucks so that when their scouts reported back they could construct the perimiter of their new city.

Sparta city would be unlike most cities on Icara for three reasons, the 36 million inhabitants was larger then most Icaran cities housed, it's buildings were all prefabs, not a single one of them bore the distinctive stonework of Icaran architecture and the third reason was that her perimiter would be surrounded by a three meter thick bLasteel wall with automated defense laser cannons to protect the city's inhabitants from the many predatory animals that were spotted during the initial surveys of Sparta including the elephant sized beast known as the Kraken after a mythological beast of old Earth.

Meanwhile :

The charting of the Tempel and Akritri star systems brought new possibilities for Icara as several colonizable worlds were discovered, mostly they would need domes but they were all rich in minerals and other resources vital to Icara.

2401.3
Sparta's sister world New Caldonia was colonized by a government funded "pathfinder" expedition to establish military and resourcing facilities on world as soon as possible.

2401.4-7:
Exploration continued but nothing of major value occured within the Spartan heald territories. The colonies reported their first "homeworld" births and exciting reports of new resources began to pour in to Icaran Merchants and government agencies back home on Sparta.

2401.8 New Discovery and a New Threat
HMS Repulses' Captain and crew were were expecting a routine jump as they entered the Fornax Warp point so most of the crew was off duty or asleep.
Captain Bradley's crew had proved themselves many times to him and he thought proudly they had proved themselves to the Admiralty by charting not one but two star systems so he always allowed non essential personal to relax when not conducting drills or charting worlds especially during the late hours of the night like this.

As he looked over the Last shift's report Bradley felt a slight twinge in his stomache and noticed that they must have entered the warp point's field, Bradley was one of those few people that was not effected by the warp jump effect and by the way some of his crew had described the experience he was glad of it.

As HMS Repulse slipped out of the warp point all hell broke loose on the bridge as the lights turned red and alerts hooted throughout the ship, computer controlled tactical systems suddenly displayed not one but two sources of energy in system and without needing orders the tac officer swung into action running advanced scans.

"Tac what the hell is going on?!" Bradely snapped as his executive officer and the marine Seargent ran onto the bridge at the same time.

"Sir I am reading a vessel in system, as well as a planetary source of energy." Tactical officer Leona Simmons said coldly as she fed her scanning information to the Captain's display.

An energy signature that could only belong to a ship of moderate size was at a distance of 10 light minutes out from his own frigates' position but more worrying there was a world that was only 1 light minute out that was showing signs of habitation.

"Helm lay in a course for that world, I think we should try to make contact.....Commander Ripley launch a messenger drone to inform Naval command that we have a first contact situation." Bradley took note of the energy signature and swallowed hard as he realized that no human power plants could produce that signature, at least none that he knew of and that likely meant that this really was a first contact and not simply a contact with another Human group.

Twenty hours and twelve minutes after Repulse had set course for the unknown colony they were in communications range.

"Comns open all frequencies." Bradley's voice was steele and to his suprise he felt no anxiety or fear, afterall this was his job, he thought to himself.

The comn officer nodded to him and Bradley stood up to make the speech he had been tought back in the academy but just as he was about to speak an alarm at the tactical station buzzed, as he jerked to face Ensign Simmons, the look on his face made her wince as she punched a few buttons.

After a moment the young woman looked up at her Captain oviously fearing his wrath "Sir, they have accessed our communications database, I tried to put up firewalls but I've never seen anything like this before." she looked down again and kept punching in codes frantically.

Bradely didn't doubt that she was telling the truth about it being nothing she had ever seen before but he also found the "covering my ***" tone oddly amusing.

Just as the alarm stopped and Simmons sighed in relief beleiving she had finally blocked the access the comn officer just about jumped out of his seat as he set the comn net to bridgewide.

A very alien voice began to echo across the bridge and the entire command crew sat stunned as the eery voice made it's demands.

You have entered Phong Federation space and violeted the boundries of one of our outPosts you will stand down all engines and weapons and turn yourselves over to us at once, if you do not we willl destroy you.....you have five minutes to decide your fate.

"I'll be damned first." Bradley snapped to himself as he personally cut off the comn circut.

"Cocky sonofa***** isn't he?" Commander Ripley said in a grim tone as he sat his station next to the Captain's command chair.

"Indeed mister Ripley, I think we can safely assume that ship we detected is a warship." Bradley's voice was as cold as ever but his eyes burned with anger, how dare they demand his surrender, he'd be damned to the lowest depths of hell before being the first Icaran navy captain to surrender his ship to anybody much less an alien race.

"Tactical officer I want to know what that outpost has right now." Bradely said as he nodded to Commander Ripley to sound general quarters.

"I am reading thrirty-six million I repeat three-six million inhabitants, multiple mining operations and nearest I can guess a spaceport faciltiy sir." Simmons hands moved skillfully over her controls as throughout the ship klaxons and drumrolls brought the 130 navy officers and Ratings and 20 marines running to their stations.

"Gunnery crews report ready, missile tubes loaded, all hands reporting ready at battlestations Captain." Ripley announced with a satisfied tone.

"Very well, aquire targets on surface....and get me an ETA on that warship." Bradley continued issuing orders as his crew perpared for the first combat action of an Icaran starship in recorded history.

"Sir, they say our time is up!" Comns announced hoarsely as the alien message came in.

"Sir ETA on that warship's intercept is 200 hours." Simmons said as she aquired target locks on planet.

Captain Bradley restled with his emotions, killing 36 million people would ensure that his ship and crew was safe but it was 36 million sentient beings...he looked around at his bridge crew, from young face to young face and then considered the billions back home that could be threatened by this race, and his duty to the Praetor became clear.

"All guns fire, missile tubes one and two fire, level that planet!" At his order the crew silently snapped into action, all three cannons and both missile tubes fired.

As the three ultra high speed cannon rounds slammed into the surface outpost massive craters were cut into the domed facility inflicting heavy losses on the populace but even that was nothing compared to what happened when the two fusion missiles slammed into the planet's surface...massive spheres of energy plumed from the city laying waste to miles of buildings and killing millions n their immediate vicinity. Thousands more would have died of radiation poisoning had they had the chance, fortuneately for them they would not get the chance as the next volley of cannon rounds leveled more buildings and killed hundreds.
After five minutes and a third volley of cannon fire the second volley of missiles was on it's way and then a fourth cannon volley.

The Last few Phong that had survived the initial onslaughts were massacred as the second wave of missiles blew the Last parts of the outpost away....the only question now was what would the enemy frigate do?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2401.9 Interception and Battle
Captain Bradley and the crew of HMS Repulse were on edge as their the enemy frigate's light signal drew closer on the tactical display.

"Sir we're gaining on her, we should get her before she reaches the warp point." Commander Ripley's voice was anxious as she watched the chronometer and counted off the speeds of the two warships.

Meanwhile Haden supply base had been established on the Phong Frontier to establish a forward base for any ships in that region.
Another supply base had been established on the opposite edge of the frontier to keep ships on exploratory missions for a longer period of time.
The Phong Frigate was no faster or slower then it's Icaran counterpart under normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances as the Icarans had the advantage of slingshoting themselves around the planet using their forward GFG to repulse them off the atmosphere and then kicking in their after GFG to shove them along at nearly 100 gees, from that point on all they needed to do was coast along on their normal drives to overtake the Phong.
The chase had been going on for the Last two days with the Repulse slowley overtaking the Phong warship and now it was down to a matter of an hour before intercept, the entire crew was at battlestations her missile tubes had been loaded, and her cannons charged, even though with their enemy still 200,000 kilometers off a hit was impossible from either weapon.

The Phong were headed for the warp point and if they made it physics would take over, there would be no way Repulse could catch up to her, and for all Ross knew that enemy warship would head streight for Icaran space, afterall the Norvor system (home system of Icara it's self) was only three jumps away and with her fleet out exploring Icara would be utterly defenseless.

"Captain we are closing, in weapons range in five minutes." Tactical officer Simmons announced as her eyes remained fixed on the light dot that represented the Phong warship.
With a sudden gasp her voice chimed again "Captain! make that two minutes she's turning about to engage us!"

"Thank you Lieutenant my compliments..." Ross smiled to himself as he noticed how startled the young officer was that the enemy Captain would turn about to engage her hunter.

Two minutes passed as the warships closed on one another but finally Repulse was in range and she could do what she had been built for, fighting another warship of a hostile power.

"Guns, launch missiles from tubes one and two." Ross said coldly as the enemy frigate came in range.

Two massive fusion missiles launched from their tubes and began closing on the enemy ship at .4c. Both missiles were equipped with a "compressed control fusion warhead" which generally meant that it was a nuclear bLast focused into a "bottle" that could blow a nice hole in a starship or within an atmosphere it could level entire city blocks while keeping radiation to a minimum.
As the two missiles closed the enemy ship suddenly jerked to her right and fired two tiny cannons in rapid vollies until the first missile exploded, thousands of little slugs sprayed at the second missile but it was already in too close and moving to fast...

"Got a hit captain!" Simmons voice was jubilant as the main display showed a brilliant flash on the hull of the enemy frigate, debris and atmosphere spilled out of the whole but still the enemy came on.

"Sir they are in cannon range......they're firing!" Commander Simmons sounded tense as the monitors showed three fast moving cannon rounds closing in on them.

The Phong frigate was armed with four Depleted Uranium cannons, one of which had been blown apart by their first missile impact.

Three was enough however as the three slugs slammed into the hull of Repulse and the frigate rocked as fire sprayed from the breached hull and debris spilled out into space.

"Sir we've had a hit on decks A and B, we have a hull breach." Commander Ripley switched her personal disply monitor to the damage control camera's in the effected area and almost vomitted in her preasure helmet as she saw bodies smashed against the bulkhead or thrown into space as the atmosphere of the entire section was sucked into the void.
The ones that had been sucked into space still had hope as the crews of Icaran warships were equipped with vac suits just in case of hull breach but those who had been slammed into the bulkheads had been torn apart by the force or had been speared by flying debris.

"Sir cannon two is gone, I'm reading damage and casualty reports from the effected areas." Comns Officer Thompson sounded suprisingly calm for a man of his young years but his eyes flashed rage as he read the casualty reports coming in.

The Repulse maneuvered into position where she could fire her surviving two cannons, as she closed on the Phong, silver flares announced the firing of both her cannons and two resounding bLasts on the Phong's hull showed two direct hits. Hull plating and atmosphere sprayed into space, bodies and wreckage drifted free from the frigate as the enemy ship continued to close.

"She's down to one quarter speed, I am only reading one cannon intact." Simmons voice was almost cheerful as the Icaran frigate moved out of range of the enemy frigate.

"Finish this, fire missile tube one and both cannons." Bradley's voice was pure venom as he gave the order to destroy the ship that had killed an unknown number of his crew.

Seconds later the missile impacted followed swiftly by two Depleted Uranium shells and the Phong frigate began tearing it's self apart from the inside out as explosions rent her hull....flares of energy and wreckage burst forth as the Last intact remnants of the hull blew apart.

The victory was sweet clear but Repulse had paid the price for it, one of her cannons, her comn systems and even her forward grav field generator were destroyed by the enemy shots that impacted her hull. Twenty crewman had died and another ten were wounded in the attack meaning that almost a third of the crew, and that made Bradley feel sick.

HMS Repulse limped her way home, it would take months and she woudl likely run out of all supplies as she made it into the Norvor system but at least she had emmerged victorious.

2402.0-2402.5
The Icaran exploration expeditions continued in ernest as the Royal Navy began searching regions of space for suitable colony sites to expand.

Meanwhile the HMS Repulse had returned home a hero, and was towed into port for repairs and remanning.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2402.6 Welcome to the fleet.
Commander Sandra Fowler stood in front of the large viewport in the off duty rec area aboard HMSS Wycoff orbital shipyards and looked out upon the two famous Saber class frigates that were in port with awe.
HMS Repulse was still undergoing heavy repairs and the massive hole in her port side stood out like a sore thumb on such the grey hull and Fowler couldn't help but wince when she saw such a beautiful ship scarred so badly.

Her attention drifted a little to the stern of the damaged frigate and her mood brightened a little as she saw HMS Saber herself docked in port, her gleaming grey hull with that unscarred perfection, the shimering pure white prow with the Royal blue trim at the front of the ship made Saber look almost like a dagger to the newly promoted Commander, the sight filled her with confidence as she remembered that she would Command such a vessel some day soon.
She tried to remember what she could about the Frigate's when she had first been assigned to the orbital shipyards and one paragraph stood out in her mind.

(The prow of a warship was not simply decoration, it was where the forward gfg was located and perhaps almost as importantly it was where the ship's two missile tubes were located, hidden under armored plating as she waited in port. Her dagger shape is in fact why the frigate recieved her name.)

A slight click behind her snapped her attention back to the present as the young captain turned around and tensed to attention, reflexivley saluting the man behind her. "Sir!" her voice trembled slightly and she couldn't help but reproach herself.
The older man simply saluted back and smiled politely, he wore the gold tri-star of a Rear Admiral on the cuffs of his space black tunic and the dark blue troUsers wore the red stripe of a "non-combat" officer as apposed to the white of a fleet officer.

"At ease Captain......we need to talk." his voice sounded lighthearted but his eyes considered her seriously as he calmly walked next to her and looked out of the viewport.

"What about Admiral Ralley?" her voice was finally under control but her nerves were not, somehow even though Ralley always came across as fatherly he always made her very nervious, ever since her days at the Academy.

"Well Commander I have good news for you, but you'll need to meet me in my office at 0500 hours if you want to find out. "Ralley smiled at her again and without even giving her a chance to ask him another question he walked of down the corridor.
As Fowler realized what time he had mentioned she groaned to herself quietly, still four hours away by the station's clock....she figured she'd better get a little sleep first and walked casually to her quarters.

*****

Commander Fowler walked into the office of Admiral Ralley rather cautiously, as if she were walking into a room full of tree vipers and stopped up short when she noticed who sat at Ralley's desk with him.
"Captain Ross!...." Fowler said rather sheepishly as she snapped to attention and saluted as smartly as she could manage.
Ralley made her nervious enough because of his rank but now she a bonified hero sitting in front of her, Ross hadn't seen any combat action like Bradley had but he was a hero none the less and Fowler noted he wasn't much older then her.

"At ease Commander" Ralley said with a smile as Ross stood and offered his hand to the young woman, she took it out of reflex and shook it crisply before letting go just as quickly (mainly to hide the fact that when she got nervious her hands trembled a little).

Ross showed her to her seat and looked over to Ralley with what could only be called a grin on his holostar handsom face. "Well Ralley you are right, she is young." his voice was more human then Fowler had expected.
She almost blushed at the remark before remembering what Ralley had told her back in the Academy, something about no officer ever got anywhere blushing like a Feldoni Peakock.

Both her superiors laughed softly a moment before Ralley focused on her, those peircing grey eyes seemingly sizing her up.
"Sandra Captain Ross is going to be transfered from his command in two months to a new ship that the Shiptech boys beleive is the (wave of the future) or some such like that." His smile grew broader and Ross grinned back.
"Well anyway Commander, he was given a list of all available officers that had the seniority or grade to command a ship of their own and we were wondering if you had any sugjestions for his replacement?" Riley's smile disapeared instantly and he looked at her quite seriously.

The youung woman's mind raced as she began considering all the officers she knew of that were of the proper qualifications and grade when Ralley suddenly started smiling again.

"Relax Sandra, he chose you after I told him what a good officer you are, congratulations Commander, though it won't be official till Ross takes command of his new ship." Ralley had always backed the cadets from his class but Sandra was a special case to him, she was almost like a daughter to him because of all the hours he had to spend with her, helping kick her butt into shape so she could graduate the academy, and the swell of pride in his eyes could have made the room light up.

After a few seconds of letting it sink in Sandra too began to smile and thanked her superiors for almost twenty minutes streight before Ross offered to give her a tour of her future command.

Enterprise
The "new command" Ralley had been talking about was a new class of starship that had been designed at the Wycoff's own Shiptech bureau, they called it a destroyer.
The Enterprise class was 50,000 tons more massive and half again the size of a 300m frigate. More then that she packed an extra missile tube, a fourth cannon and a new weapon called a "sprint missile" launcher which was a close in high speed weapon designed to increase the close in killing power against Point Defense weapons.
The first ship of the new class HMS Enterprise would be finished in two months and when she was launched she would be the largest ship in the Icaran navy (for a time anyway) and she would be Captained by a living legend.
With the new threat on the frontier these new warships would be more necessary than ever now.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Icaran Ship Classes:

Saber Class
Size: Frigate
Crew: 150
Weapons:
2 Missile Tubes
3 Cannons

Enterprise Class
Size: Destroyer
Crew: 320
Weapons:
2 Missile Tubes
4 Cannons
1 Sprint Missile launcher

Next installment coming soon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

"2402.8 Setting Sail old and new
HMS Enterprise was the biggest nastiest mother in the Royal Navy and as far as Ross was concerned that could go for the whole galaxy. She was as fast as her smaller cousins but she packed a LOT more firepower for her size.
This was just a shakedown cruise Ross reminded himself, they were going to test out her engines by doing a loop around the system and then head out to Brandenburg where they would commence weapons tests on drones and an old freighter that had met an unfortunate end at the hands of an asteroid storm when she was abandoned by her crew.
The freighter was five times the mass of Enterprise so the Admiralty figured even her scorched up gutted old hull would serve as a great weapons test for this new toy of theirs and that was all fine with Ross he just wanted to take her out of port.

But the first ship out of port was his old command HMS Saber under the command of Brevet Captain Sandra Fowler and watching her leave port ahead of him brought a lump to the Captain's throat, she was smaller and less well armed but she had been his ship until this point and now he had to entrust her to Fowler and hope that kid didn't screw up.
******

"Helm, set course for the Beta Triaron warp point at maximum thrust once we've cleared spacedock." Fowler's voice was the professional cold tone they had taught back at the academy but inside her guts felt like a bunch of butterflies, yeah if they were vomitting she thought to herself as her helmsman acknowledged her order.

HMS Saber moved silently out of dock in orbit of Icara with pride, she was leaving on a simple guard mission to protect the newly established Haden Supply base on the Phong Border but it was something that was deemed necessary by the admiralty.
As Sandra rememberd Rear Admiral Lord Ralley even went so far as to calling the diplomats whom had established an unguaded supply base with a "large civilian population on the frontier with a hostile power a bunch of blustering idiots with no military sense beyond what they saw in the holotheatre!", he was probobly right but the young Commander couldn't help but grin to herself as she remembered a navy man calling a bunch of nobles blustering idiots with no sense.
Her ship would take a few months to arrive at Haden but it would give her time to get to know her crew, including her new Exec 1st Lieutenant Tiara Somal from Brandenburg....all in all it was looking like it was going to be a good cruise.

2403.1 Tragedy
It had been 3 months of cruising at full speed when HMS Saber finally reached her destination, and none too soon she neeted resupply and some of her crew needed to be sent groundside if only for a day or two.
As they warped throuh the node and entered the Escandor system morale was high and Sandra Fowler was looking forward to meeting the base' commander as he had been an old classmate of hers back at the academy.

The warp jump was met with the usual nausea by the crew and the usual grumbling as it wore off and Sandra frowned for a moment as her stomach settled back into it's proper place.

"Helm lay in a course for Handra supply ba....." Her sentince was never finished alarms and klaxon hooted and screamed throughout the ship as the tactical officer sounded the automatic general quarters alert that was required when an enemy starship was detected.

"What the hell is this about?!" Sandra snapped at her Tac officer over the howling klaxons and almost instantly Sandra was kicking herself over the loss of control in her voice.

The tactical officer looked sick as he looked up, his face was sheet white and tears seemed to swell in his eyes as his shaky voice announed "Ma'am Handra base is gone....there's no beacon, no energy traces nothing...they're just gone."

Fowler fealt a wave of gut wrenching fear wash through her as she considered the possibilities but she didn't let any of it show as she simply nodded to the tactical officer.
"Tactical, make sure there isn't a malfunction, it's possible their generators were just knocked out by an accident...run more scans as we close." her voice was controlled this time as the klaxons stopped howling now that her crew was at full battlstations and each secton had punched the "go" button which signalled their readiness.

Saber closed for two days before the cause of th loss of contact became clear, the surface of the planet was nothing but scorched earth for miles upon miles, none of it looked nuclear which told her it would match the attack pattern of a Phong warship....there were even craters miles outside of where the outpost had once been sugjesting that the bastards had shelled all signs of Icaran life on the surface.
That theory was quickly confirmed as battle sensors detected the presence of a Phong frigate at the far side of the planet (which explained why she hadn't been detected until now).

The need for revenge burned in Sandra's blood as she considered the 32 million Icarans that lay dead on the planets surface and now the Phong who killed them would die even if she had to get out of her ship and ram a knife down their yellow throats herself.
"Captain the Phong Frigate is closing at her maximum speed, tactical computers recognize her as a Annihilator class frigate, the same kind encountered by HMS Repulse." Commander Somal's heavy accent sounded venomus and cruel as she said the words.
Sandra swollowed hard as she memories of the split open hull of Repulse burned at the back of her mind....they would not do that to her ship damnit....not if she could help it.
"Guns, get me missile lock as soon as possible, cannon crews one through three stand by, we are going to run right down her throat." Fowler snapped the visor of her vac helm closed and her crew did likewise, they had all seen the pictures of those poor spacers from Repulse who hadn't managed to get their visors down in time or had their vac suits compromised.

Saber fired both missile tubes, 2 fusion missiles streaked across space, their ion trails like two snakes weaving across the stars as they sought their prey.
One of the missiles was quickly destroyed by the enemy ship's point defenses but the second missile easily peirced her defenses and a magnificent explosion erupted from her hull where it struck home, one of her cannons and an engine exploded flames as the initial impact spread but she still came on.

"Ma'am they are closing to cannon range!" The Weapons officer announced as the enemy ship flew past Saber firing their cannons as they went, two shots missed but the third impacted on Sabers' hull doing moderate damage and wounding several crewmen.

"Helm, turn us about I want to fire streight into her backside!" Fowler's lip curled as the damage report came in.
The Icaran frigate swept around behind the Phong frigate and opened up on it with all three of her cannons, two shots slammed streight into her engines blowing them to peices the third shot went higher then the enemy ships engine block and knocked one of her cannon turrets clean off. The gunnery crews fealt a surge of pride at their strikes but the enemy used the one engine she still had left to turn about and return fire.
The first enemy shot passed within inches of the main bridge but the second shot struck home on Saber's prow fortunately it did little damage.
Saber's missile tubes spat out another volley as she took advantage of her full engines and passed by the enemy frigate racking it with a broadside from her cannons.
As the Icaran frigate passed the enemy warship her missiles struck home on the battered hulk that remained and their explosions tore the ship's entire front end off, secondary explosions turned what was left of the frigate into burning wreckage.

"My compliments gunnery crews, you to guns." She smiled at her weapons officer as her voice echoed her pride over the comns. But still she fealt sick as she looked back to Harden and saw the wreckage and craters that had once been so many lives.
Fowler pressed a button on her control panel and a voice responded.
"Chief Engineer Mullins here." a tired sounding voice replied from the other end.

"Damage report chief?" Fowler dreaded the reply, she knew her ship had been hit twice in the battle and Repulse had only been it twice when her port side was torn open in a 20 meter hole.

"We've lost in-system communications and all but wo of our messenger drones were blown apart when the prow launcher was knocked out....other then that all we need is a resupply and a minor overhaul." Engineer Mullins sounded frustrated at the damage that had been sustained but mixed with that he also sounded very releived that the damage had been light.

They wouldn't need in-system comns anyway Sandra thought bitterly as she continued checking with section heads to get the full status of her ship after that action....1 crewman was killed and 8 wounded but it had been far less then she expected.

Two hours later, after personally inspecting her ship she ordered one of her two remaining messenger drones launched out of her port missile tube to inform Icara of what had happened, on it was a scathing reproach to the certain "nobles" who had endorsed Harden's construction before any military escort could be managed along with a report that she would stay on her post until such time as reinforcments could arrive or a courier was sent to inform her to withdraw.

Fowler also had the second drone prepared with a blank message recorder just in case her ship was attacked by a superior force and she was destroyed or forced to withdraw.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Wow, great stuff. Your Icarans certainly are uncompromising. It's nice to see someone portray a culture of vicious, expansionist bastards rather than another galaxy full of boringly enlightened Trek/ Manticoran style utopians.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

I have to agree, great stuff. Looking forward to more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

The next chapter will come tomorrow most likely as I want to flesh out my ideas of how to write it (It's gonna be a big one trust me).

Heh well if you don't mind me saying so, and if this doesn't make me sound a little freaky. Humans are Humans and Icara is in an era where a single battle squadron could destroy an entire planet and kill you entire nation if you let down your guard so they don't have room to be compromising or "enlightened" so although by my story's viewpoint they are the "good guys" it's more accurate to say they are survivors and if they have to eliminate others they will if it ensures that survival.

I never understood why so many writers assume that a futuristic Humanity would be so peaceful and willin to coexist with others, I mean when you stop and think about it sure we are more likely to become much more merciful and "enlightened" when it comes to "our own kind" that being nations but when humanity spreads to the stars (if ever) do they honestly think every colony will have the same heritage or beleifs as each other? I doubt it.
Most likely something like the HH Universe will happen where Humanity divides into seperate "star nations" and although I doubt the future would be nothing but war all the time I doubt it will only be "evil aliens" that want to wipe us out lol.

The Icaran galaxy in this story is somewhat restricted to game terms (I.E. My "cold war" with a certain faction is entirely roleplay and the AI probobly doesn't realize it is a cold war) but as far as the story its self goes, these are colonies that launched from earth Hundreds of years ago and are now stepping out to find a galaxy that is theirs for the taking and where other human factions and even an alien faction "phong" are intent on the same prize.
And to any nation that has the chance to rule not just it's own planet but an entire galaxy deciding to be oh so goody and peaceful with everyone around them will probobly result in their being annexed by a power that did not feel so "enlightened".

Icara is brutal where brutality is required (unlike the Federation which always managed to show compassion even where brutality would have ended the war much soon) and the Empire needs resources for it's economy to survive so colonies are needed for that.
And let's not forget that a world with Icara's very low infant mortality rate and advanced medicines and life prolonging treatments will have population growth that can't be handled by one planet forever, and so more worlds are also required for land or else you'd have overcrowding and poverty everywhere.

Anyway should I have saved that for the storyline or is it okay that I explained Icara's motives and "justifications" to you out of the story?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

[quote] I'll explain the look of Icaran ships later for those who havn't seen the pics I displayed on-line. but for now I'm off to read HH
Oh and although I will likely play more then one turn at a time I'm going to take this story slowly enough to make sure it's good [quote]


As I understand you actually play this games which you describes. If so, maybe it is possible for you to put some .gam file on the net every 10 turns or so (or if something important happens)

So we could read the story, and take a look on the empire if we like , and maybe have some questions about stuff you didn't wrote about (yet).

And offcourse we could see the shipsets off all those Humans you found...................

Intimidator

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

As Promised
Next Installment:

2403.2-2404.0
“Praetor Lysander we no longer have a choice, the Handra supply base must be re-colonized if we do not keep a permanent fleet base in that system we are just asking for those Phong to invade us!.” Admiral Lord Tyson Babcock had a habit-a rather annoying one as far as Lysander was concerned-of keeping his voice low and polite even when he was chewing someone’s *** off, and since day one of the first colony’s launch he had condemned those lords who overruled the Admiralty about sending millions of civilians to the original Haden base.
“Praetor I agree with Tyson on this matter, the original colonization was the biggest blunder our nation has made so far and I think not sending another expedition would be even more foolish.” Alexander Hallice, Lord High Admiral of the entire Icaran Royal Navy was far more stubborn and held a lot more credit then his lesser known colleague within the nobility of Icara and as such his word on any matter could shake even Lysander’s views around.
“Opening that doorway now would lead to a war we can not win, our resources at this time are to unstable and our navy too small to repel any invasion from that particular region of space Your Highness, however I do not believe we should send this colony into the fray unguarded like our lordships did it’s predecessor.” Hallice hid the traces of a grimace of disgust by taking a sip of the hot Icaran coffee that he had all too rarely these days.”
“Isn’t HMS Saber on location Sir?” Babcock raised his right eyebrow as his superior cocked his head in a manner he often did while he thought about important matters.
“Yes but she is low on supplies and munitions, and I doubt a single frigate could neutralize an entire Phong squadron, don’t you?” Just the tone in his voice as he looked over to his Praetor suggested that he knew Saber wouldn’t stand a chance on that post alone no matter what any arrogant lordship thought.
“You realize Admirals that to authorize something that would cost that much money and that many resources I would have to grant the house of lords permission to send a full fledged colony expedition don’t you?” Lysander frowned as he thought of the amount of pain his *** would be in over the next few days trying to convince the lords to at least minimize the number of colonists they sent.
“Well then our lordships would certainly want better defense wouldn’t they your highness?” Hallice said with a distinctive grin as he finished sipping his coffee and placed his cup gracefully on the table. Hallice was almost 80 Terran Years old but thanks to modern medicine he looked like a man a third his age, and his mind certainly held every ounce of wit and tactical knowledge it had over 50 years ago.
“What are you proposing Alexander?” Lysander asked in a deliberate manner as he thought about just how much money this whole operation would cost his Nation, not to mention the time and resources.
“Oh, well Admiral HMS Saber should certainly stay on station, our supply base on Handra-the new name given it by The Admiralty-can certainly fix her up and get her in shape once we’ve established even a basic infrastructure there.” Hallice paused a moment cocking his head in thought as numbers and names plied through his rapier like mind.
“HMS Enterprise Can certainly leave within the month, the asteroid damage she sustained pulling that freighter out of the Swift asteroid belt will be repaired by then, and I can guess Ross would like to get out in real space again instead of getting stuck at home with one of only three destroyers in the fleet.
And I beleive HMS Farrogot can be ready a month after that, considering the construction time of a colony ship and it’s slower speeds compared to our new destroyers, I think both destroyers will be on station only a month after initial colonization.” The High Admiral hummed quietly as he thought.
“And I think the next two destroyers built at Icara and Brandenburg could arrive there in about 6 months so we’ll have an entire effective battle group there within a years time.” Alexander grinned again as his Praetor began to nod. Braddock too was nodding. A decent battle group of four destroyers and a frigate would definitely be enough to guard that border, and maybe even go on the offensive, as long as they could keep the lords out of this.
“Good idea Alexander, I do believe I can overrule the Lords on the matter of numbers of ships easily, after all the defense of our Nation is the only concern we should have right now, and if any of those Lords or Ladies turn this down I’ll remind them of the mistakes the collegues made with the first colony.” Lysander nearly spat as he considered those five lords who now hung dead and cryopreserved outside of the Admiralty building (showing just how the navy felt about fools), those five who had gone behind the backs of the house of Lords and given “unofficial” permission for several companies to ready a colony for Haden, those same five lords who then refused to allow a naval presence to escort the colony ship under the excuse of it “making the colony ship a target for hostile forces”. Instead 1 million soldiers and 31 million civilians were blown apart by a single enemy frigate that could have been stopped by Saber!
“Admiral do you believe that Saber can protect that base by herself before those warships arrive?” Lysander’s tone was bitter as nightmare images rushed into his memory, the images taken from Haden by remote drones.
“Highness, I believe Saber can protect her from any one ship, and possibly any two ships we’ve seen those yellow bastards throw at us thus far.” Hallice said with an unusual gusto as he absently fixed one of the stars on his collar.
“Then Admirals, you have a go, just get those two destroyers ready for deployment before I have to talk to the lords, or at least make it look like they are ready.” Lysander said with a wink as he guided his guests to the door.

*************
“Sir, now that we have approval for the deployment of an entire squadron to Handra do you believe we can get the go ahead on an assault into Fornax?” Babcock asked quietly as he and the High Admiral walked along the great corridor of the Capital Building.
‘I think His Highness will give us permission to do anything it takes to defend Handra base, if that happens to include going into Fornax and removing any threatening presence in said system.” The glean in Hallice’ eyes was clear as he looked at his junior officer and smiled, he liked Babcock though he really couldn’t figure out just what about the energetic young man (only 42 E-Years) he liked."Then so be it." He finished with a smile.
“Excellent Sir!, with your permission I’ll get together with Captain’s Ross and Holly later and discuss possible maneuvers they can take to force the Phong into making themselves a “reasonable threat”. Babcock’s own face lit as he considered the possibilities. Though he would have preferred to be in the field himself, commanding a fleet in battle, but unfortunately for him and just about seventy-two percent of all IRN personnel there just weren’t enough ships to crew much less form a full “fleet” worthy of the name….though within a few years that would hopefully all be changed.
“Very good Admiral, I’ll have discuss the new naval budget with the House of Commons and the rest of the Admiralty tomorrow morning.” The smile turned to a sour grimace as the Admiral considered the meeting that lay before him, he hated talking about money and “resource allocation” but now a days that seemed to be more of a hot topic for him then strategy and command.
The two Admirals talked idly as they walked down the long corridors to head to their respective duties.

Five months later the new colony ship set down on Handra base and Captain Sandra Fowler’s ship turned her running lights to a blinking row pattern signaling her salute to the nobleman aboard her.
A month later the destroyer pair of Enterprise and Farrogot arrived to take up station around Handra, both ships signaling salute to their “little sister” as Saber was affectionately called by the two destroyer’s crews.

2404.1-4
“Sir incoming missile at point three, oh five niner!” Tactical officer Remeraz blurted as the main battle screen in Enterprise's bridge showed 3 yellow dots appear at a range of just under five thousand clicks.
“Helm, Evasive maneuver Jager Nine two.” Ross voice was icy as his helmsman began twisting and turning the Icaran destroyer in an attempt to evade the enemy missiles that were closing at two thousand clicks per second.
The third missile had Ross far more worried as it’s glowing light code closed at over one thousand clicks faster then the other two….the light code signaling the missile’s approach was moving far to fast and suddenly Enterprise rocked and shuddered as the impact alarms blared.
“Sir Cannon one is gone, we’ve also lost missile tube two! And starboard engine three.” Commander Pallins sounded shocked but as she read off the damage list she seemed angry that her ship had been caught with it’s pants down by that third missile.
“Thank you Commander, What is the status of Saber?” Ross watched the holotank intently as the frigates own missiles closed on one of the enemy ships.
“Her port cannon battery is down, she’s leaking atmosphere on two decks and a quarter of her crew is dead or wounded sir.” The comn officer of the watch seemed like he was about to wet his pants but then a brief cheer from the weapons commander made him jump clear out of his skin as he whirled around to look a the holotank.
“Got one sir, the second enemy ship is down sir!”
“Thank you mister Saunderson please try not to distract our other officers.” Ross snipped at the young officer and the man just about crapped his vac suit as he turned back to his station sheepishly.
“Sir Saber is gone.” Tactical said as the frigate’s light code winked out .
“Closing on enemy ship, baring three, two seven mark.” That same mechanical voice that had announced Saber’s destruction seemed to chant out the words as Tactical Officer Remeraz watched his displays like they were the only thing in the universe.
“Guns, take her out as we come to bare!”
“Aye skipper, cannon crews standing by, missiles locked…..firing in three…..two….one, birds away, cannons firing!” the missiles slid from their rack with a dull droning sound and the distinctive thumping of heavy cannons was almost musical in Ross’ ears as the enemy light code winked out in the holotank.
The lights on Enterprise’s bridge returned to normal and the damage codes winked off as the other ships of the squadron reactivated their transponders, winking their light codes back into existence on the holotank.
“All hands stand down battle stations, I repeat stand down battle stations. The drill is over.” Pallins said almost cheerfully as she started reading the computer’s assessment of their performance during the battle drill.

The Enterprise Battlegroup had been standing at Hadran station for three months so far and run twenty two battle drills with varying pairings on who played the opfor and who played the defender. The entire squadron had done rather well by her opinion though captain Fowler ended up with a grimace more often then not as her ship had been destroyed twelve of the past twenty drills and only destroyed one of the enemy ships every other time, But even Fowler had to realize that saber had done more then pull her weight in each drill.

“Alright ladies and gentleman let’s return to Hadran base, And good job to all.” Ross smiled at his exec and unzipped the vac suit that he had been wearing for the past six hours. They may save your life but they sure didn’t save your comfort, he thought as he felt “fresh” air blowing against his tunic again.
“Sarah you have the watch.”
“Aye sir have the watch.” Sarah was still cheerful as she unzipped her vac suit and sat in the comfortable captain's chair to take Enterprise into port.
Three months of peace on the Phong frontier had the odd effect of making the crews more nervous then having at least one stand up fight, because the anticipation of a Phong assault coming any day was just not what they were trained to deal with, so battle drills and various surprise inspections were a regular distraction and one of the few ways to keep them busy without burning them out. And quite frankly Sarah Pallins loved battle drills because they made sure her crew would not let Captain Ross down no matter what and if he wasn't let down then the Navy wouldn't be let down.

2404.5
It was 0200 when the first alerts began howling their warnings in the C3 center of Handra’s military base and within five minutes every civil and military alarm on the planet was triggered. Startled civilians went rushing for the local shelters why the local military personnel on the base rushed to their Posts.
Handra’s military governor, Lord Korey Aznoble entered the command center at a frantic pace the second he heard the first alarm, by time the civil alerts started up he was already standing over the holomap of the Handra system frowning.
‘This makes if fifteen minutes right roger?” Aznoble’s frown grew darker as the senior military officer, Commodore Roger McMan, nodded.
“M’Lord it is a single Phong frigate, and our battle group can easily destroy it, my fear is that it’s a trap of some kind, I’d rather not send the entire squadron to engage her because I don’t want to leave this planet unguarded.” The Commodore’s face grew pale as he remembered what had happened to Haden base.
“What do you suggest Commodore?” Aznoble frowned as he saw the light signature of the enemy frigate closing in on Handra. “Do we let that frigate come here and then have the squadron intercept it in orbit?” He asked as that ominous light signature continued to close in on his planet.
“Sir that would be a very bad idea, if our ships are not in exactly the right position when that ship arrives in orbit we could face massive casualties before they get into an intercept position. I recommend we send one of the destroyers to intercept it. I’d suggest Ross’ as he’s the most experienced combat officer we have on station at the moment.” McMan loathed the fact that he had to report to a man that was not military, especially one who did not understand the physics of space combat.
“Very Well Commodore dispatch Ross, if he fails, at leas we’ll have a fallback.” Aznoble grimaced again before leaving the Commodore’s side and walking over to a secondary command station to observe the deployment himself.

***************
Meanwhile in space the four warships had not been idle, their sensors had the advantage of not being hindered by atmosphere and Ross suspected that his crews had manned battle stations before the planetary commander even knew what was happening.
But when the message did come through Ross clenched his fists,the Commodore ordered his ship to engage an unknown enemy starship alone and worse then that he ordered him to intercept the enemy vessel at 20 light minutes, it would take any of the other warships at least a day to arrive and back him up should anything go wrong and by then they'd likely just find his wreckage.
Ross suspected that Lord Aznoble had something to do with the distance involved in the intercept because when it came down to it the man was a coward and wanted to keep battle as far away from him personally far more then he wanted to keep the battle away from Handra, a proper military officer would have ordered at most a 10 light minute intercept so that reinforcements could arrive in a shorter amount of time but even that would be pushing it for most admirals.
It had been one day at full thrust, with the enemy ship closing on their position the whole time and finally Enterprise was closing in on her target.
“Time to intercept two minutes fifteen seconds sir.” Tactical officer Ramerez chanted in his normal mechanical tone .
“All stations report full battle readiness sir.” Sarah said icily as she watched the status board.
“Thank you Commander….Tactical.” Ross said grimly as he waited anxiously for his ship’s first engagement.

The first volley of missiles streaked from the Destroyer’s prow launchers at just under 10,000 kilometers range, their drives glowed brilliantly like three tiny new stars as they carried their deadly payloads toward another tiny star that was not even visible from the bridge of HMS Enterprise.
The holotank showed a small red line appear from the enemy light dot signifying a long stream of point defense rounds pouring into space desperately clawing at the missiles that were closing in on it. The point defense go lucky once and nailed the sprint missile, unfortunately for the Phong warship the two more powerful missiles were already in too close and the Holotank on the Icaran destroyer showed two clear hits.

“Sir they are closing to cannon range, I don’t think we got their engines sir.” Remerez mechanical tone had a nervous edge to it as he watched the enemy ship close within visual range of the ship's cameras.
The bridge’s main monitor suddenly switched over from a star view to a magnified image of the enemy vessel. As they watched the magnified image the bridge crew saw three small bursts of light come from her port side and immediatly began to brace for the impact that was sure to follow.
The holotank clearly showed three incoming shells to match each of the bursts of light, causing Ross to squint sharply and grit his teeth as he realized that by time those objects appearedo on display the shells would already be far closer.
His ship rocked and loud explosions could be heard from other sections of the ship and the damage board came to life with color all across his ship.
“Sir, cannon crew two is gone, we’ve also lost the sprint missile launcher and two engines.” Remerez announced as the remaining cannon crews returned fire automatically, the ship’s remaining cannons roared in fury and sent a devastating broadside into the already damaged hull of the Phong Frigate, the first shot missed entirely but the second struck home in what must have been the enemy frigate’s control centers because she immediately started to list and spin out of control.
“Good shooting guns!” Ross’ professionally calm tone momentarily broken as he watched the enemy ship spin out of control sending debris and what looked like bodies hurling out into space.
As the bridge crew watched the third round impact the enemy ship’s hull a gasp of universal disbelief and morbid amusement ran through them, the third round impacted at an odd angle into the hole that had been caused by one of the heavy missiles that had impacted earlier and instead of punching another hole the shell bounced at least tree times inside the enemy ship causing multiple internal explosions at various points until the shot finally breached a weakened part of the hull and exploded 10 meters of the enemy ship’s hull.

“My Lord, can you believe that?” Sarah’s voice sounded oddly amused by the display and Ross himself felt a strange urge to laugh at the almost comical occurrence but his training did not let him forget that many of his crew had probably been killed in the broadside that dying bastard had spat into his vessel.
“Status of the enemy…..”Ross’ sentence was cut off as the enemy ship seemed to simply begin collapsing in on herself, the entire middle of the ship seemed to just crumple as if she had been grabbed by some giant hand and squeezed.
“Cancel that tactical.” Ross said as he tabbed a control on his personal command panel.
“Damage Control here.” Chief Engineer John Lee’s voice sounded harsh as he answered his Capatin.
“Status Lee?” was all Ross could croak out as he observed the damage board with a scowl
“Sir, aside from what you’ve already been informed about, we’ve lost our forward gfg and I lost an entire work party when that damned broadside blew a hole in our engine room.” His voice made him sound ten years older then he was as he mentioned the loss of an entire 18 man work crew, his work crew.
Four others had died and ten were wounded in the engagement but HMS Enterprise had survived the first live combat action any Icaran destroyer had taken part in, and she had won.
"All hands stand by, we are returning to port." Captain Ross said as "cheerfully' as he could manage as he took count of the price his ship had paid.

Please tell me what you think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2404.6-8
The citizens of Icaran worlds finally began to feel safe, their navy had thus far defeated all attempts of the Phong to encroach on Icaran territory. To ensure this peace remained however the Royal Navy set down a “tribute” that any company dispatching a colony ship would have to pay in order to purchase the rights to a world. 28 worlds already fell under the sway of the Icaran Empire and still more would soon follow as the massive “arc ships” launched from Icara, Brandenburg and Sparta.

2404.9
HMS Claw had been on patrol for nearly six months in the 6-11 system, blockading the warp point to unknown space when suddenly her detector grids began triggering multiple proximity and energy signature alerts.
“Sir unknown frigate baring three nine two point five, she’s jumped through the warp point and if her speed and course remain constant she’ll arrive in colony orbit in three days.” Tactical officer Malokov said hastily as Captain Wykok began tapping keys to bring up his own displays, the ship had an odd silhouette that was for sure but whether it was hostile or not was anybody’s guess.
“Comns, hail them, order them to stand down and identify themselves.”
“Aye sir transmitting now.” The young comn officer said stiffly as the unknown frigate continued heading out at full speed.
“Sir, I think it’s a human ship sir.” Chief weapons officer, Ensign Galler’ she began tabbing controls to send her data straight to the captain’s command repeater as she continued speaking. “Those are definitely human designed GFGs and her engine signature is similar to our own in too many ways for her to have been designed by xenos.” the young Ensign finished sounding rather sure of herself.
Wykok grudgingly agreed with the young Ensign, it was a human ship and that meant another Human Star Nation. Icara had not even seen another human nation in centuries and now suddenly one of their warships was on a vector that would take it straight to an Icaran colony, and worse then that she wasn’t responding to hails.

“Sir they are still not replying to hails, it’s possible that they are not on our frequency or that they don’t understand basic sir.” Com officer Griffon sounded almost wishful as he turned to his captain.
Wykok scowled as he thought, frantically trying to find any reasonable excuse for that ship to be ignoring him, but if it had been as simple as not being on his frequency any decent starship would at least have the proper detection nets to realize that a constant stream of information was being sent on another frequency, and any decent captain would have tried to send back SOME form of acknowledgement.
“We can’t risk that Ensign.” Wykok said bitterly as he shifted position uncomfortably in his chair and then looked over at his weapons officer.
“Guns, plot a missile intercept and fire.” He looked grim as he gave that order and made sure he ignored the look of shock on his crew’s faces.

“Missiles away sir.” The weapons officer said crisply as the familiar sound of a launch was heard throughout the ship.
Three objects sped away from the Icaran destroyer’s prow at huge velocities and seconds later the sprint missile impacted brilliantly on the engine housing of the unknown ship. A stream of point defense fire from the enemy frigate tore one of the larger ship killers right out of the stars unfortunately for her though the second one slammed into one of her cannons.

“Sir she’s returning fire with cannon!” The tactical officer said just as the holotank showed two shots pass the destroyer by meters.
“Let’s finish this before they get a second shot guns.” Wykok said gruffly as he watched the third enemy shell tear past his destroyer.

The cannon crews input their targeting data into the ship’s computers at amazing speed and within a second the gunnery officer’s panel showed all four cannons lit, signifying their target acquisition data. The gunnery officer pressed the data and four cannon shells burst forth from his ship at .2c.
“We have three hits sir!” The tactical officer announced as a massive hole was torn out of the enemy frigate.
A second broadside with the cannons soon broke the enemy ship to pieces sending wreckage and bodies into the void of space.
Little did the crew of HMS Claw know it but they had made the first contact with the Neo Star Empire the first of many Human Nations Icara would likely encounter on her way to supremacy of the galaxy.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Great stories, I look forward to more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Thanks you guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I hope I can keep you entertained with the next chapter (also likely to be a LOOOONG chapter) which should be coming sometime either tomorrow or Wensday http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.1 A New Dawn
Goin base had been established in the Goin star system over two years ago for the purpose of establishing a forward supply base for the Exploration missions launched by the Royal Navy, but little did anyone on goin suspect just how important they would be to the future of Icara.
It was the third day of Tellus when the military Command attaché to Goin colony walked into the planetary governor’s office, his face pale with exertion as he had just run the full length of the government house corridor.
The Governor turned around to face the young officer grimly and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something before closing it again with a click as his eyes wondered back to the holodisplay on his desk teakwood desk.
Governor Lord Michael Averato was an older man at nearly 100 E-years, and because of his age h was among the first generation to receive the life prolonging surgery and drug that was now common practice, the first generation of treatments stopped the aging process at an older age then the newer generations and gray streaked the governor’s hair, but the man looked no less impressive at his two meter height and broad muscular marine features.
“Governor, Sir!” the young officer braced to attention and saluted his superior (both militarily and civilian) the tension in his voice spoke volumes, the military defense network had discovered the unknown drive signatures nearly three hours ago and although it was estimated that the five unknown ships would not arrive in Goin orbit for another three days the only Icaran warships were still five days away at maximum speed which made the military staff terrified as the planetary defenses were still months away from completion.
“Relax Lieutenant….we’ve still got time to attempt contact.” Averato’s voice was what one would expect from a man of his features, it was gruff and confident and could inspire confidence in the middle of a battlefield….for that is what he had once had to do, for Averato had been a Marine Sergeant 80 years ago during the “great war” which occurred when another colony ship stumbled across Icara and attempted to seize the jewel of a world for themselves, instead thanks to brave men and women of the Icaran military all those invaders found was death and defeat until they were forced to incorporate themselves into Icaran society.
“Yes General.”
“Now what is it that you came running here for?” That same gruff voice asked kindly as General Governor Averato handed the young army officer a glass of water and showed him to one of the big artificial leather chairs in front of his big desk.
“Sir they have already contacted us, they request we send a ship out to meet their task force.” The young army officer was still sweating but Averato suspected it was more out of nerves and anxiety then physical exertion.
“Well then how long ago did their message arrive Lieutenant?” Averato’s voice was calm as ever as this army officer who’s name he couldn’t seem to remember took a sip of water and reached into his breast pocket where he retrieved a data chip.
“About fourteen minutes ago sir, they requested to speak to an authority from our colony.” as he handed Averato the chip the officer took another deep sip of water and waited for his superior to finish playing the message.
After the message finished playing Averato looked up at the army officer with a grin “I think I need a sloop and a platoon of soldiers ready in a half hour Lieutenant.” his voice sounded thoroughly excited as the young man stood braced to attention and headed for the door.

The sloop Angela was privately owned by the VenStar corporation, but she was also the fastest intra-system craft in Goin and that meant even though she was totally unarmed she was the only choice. Her captain was somewhat less then thrilled when a platoon of army troopers arrived at his berth and informed him that he was going to take the planetary Governor to meet with an unknown government’s task force in his unarmed transport and let everyone within a kilometer radius know it.
The “task force” was a small fleet in and of it’s self, the long range sensors of Angela showed four destroyers, a frigate and a much larger vessel that must be the flagship and as those sensors confirmed mass and size readings the civilian captain practically crapped his vac suit and had to be “reminded” by an army trooper just how important this mission was before he continued on his course.
But finally the task force was in communication’s range, and Governor General Averato smiled to himself as the civilian captain switched on the ship to ship com net. A female face wearing a camouflage uniform with what Averato guessed to be a rank insignia on her collar, appeared on the screen …..a human Averato noted, and by her skin tone and features he guessed her ancestors came from Northern Europe, or North America back on old Earth, well at least they had a common ancestry to about half of Icara‘s population. He thought humorlessly as he noticed she seemed to be analyzing him just as closely.
“I am General Governor Michael Averato of the Icaran Royal Colony and Base of Goin, whom am I addressing?” His voice was as pleasant as he could manage as the face on the screen blinked her eyes numbly for a moment.
“She certainly is a young thing.” one of the civilian crewmen whispered as he caught a glimpse of the attractive young face on the screen…..she was certainly young looking but Averato waved his hand harshly at the man who had spoken….the Last thing they needed to do was offend someone before they even began talking to them.
“Sir, I am Lieutenant Liza Adare of the RANS Sunburst.” Her voice was pleasant but numb sounding as she seemed to be looking at her control board for a moment.
“Sir I have you at baring nine-oh-five mark two seven, please continue your approach vector until you reach this point.” A small light dot appeared on the sloops astrogation screen, then the young woman continued on in that same pleasant voice. “Then change your vector to two seven five by three, you will dock with Sunburst directly, please do not violate that heading or our destroyer screen may open fire.” her voice sounded like she was giving a genuine warning as she looked back at the screen and smiled politely.
“Thank you Lieutenant Adare, we will not violate your given course, I assure you.” Averato said in as cheerful a tone he could manage after being told he’d be blown out of the stars if he so much as violated his course.

***************
Thirteen minutes later the tiny 500 ton sloop Angela slipped quietly alongside the massive 400,000 ton light cruiser Sunburst and cut her power. Averato couldn’t help but notice that just one of the cruisers massive cannons was all it would take to easily destroy his puny sloop in a single shot, he shivered at the thought and forced himself to relax.
A docking tube extended from one of the mane blisters on the warship’s hull and linked with the sloop’s own docking tube, slowly the sloop was pulled in toward the massive ship’s airlock. A light clinking noise alerted the Icarans that they had attached to the warship’s hull and a rushing of air signaled the pressurization of the two docking tubes.
“Sir, please allow four of my men to go first, just in case they are planning something sneaky.” Sergeant Yu’s voice rang out as he slapped the butt of a magazine, securing it to his auto-rifle, a series of responsive slaps announced that the entire platoon had slapped their magazines into place.
“Alright Yu , four men that’s all, I don’t want these people to think we’re trying to board them.” Michael smiled and the young looking Sergeant grinned back as he went about selecting the four troopers he wanted to take point. A sloop boarding a ship this massive was utterly impossible and all of the military personnel present knew the Governor was making a tension breaking joke but the civilian crew went pale as the four troopers stepped into the tube.

Four army troopers stepped out of the airlock, their green fatigues and gray flak armor and helmets looked oddly out of place in the massive boat deck that stood before them, four columns of soldiers stood in parade formation, each representing a different field, the first column that the Icaran soldiers took note of was the one with a large group of men and women carrying rifles of some short slung over their right shoulder.
The other three columns wore different uniforms that the Icaran troopers did not recognize and carried no weapons. As the Governor stepped out of the airlock he too paused a moment, attempting to count how many men and women were in each of the four columns.

Behind Governor Averato the rest of his platoon fell into parade formation, though they were obviously far from relaxed as they watched their armed counterparts very closely from across the boat deck.
Three officers stepped forward from between the two centermost columns and walked proudly towards the Icaran Governor, two of the officers were tall men, one wore a white and tan uniform with red blocks on his chest that Averato assumed was a rank insignia, the other two officers wore the camouflage uniform that the Governor recognized from the young woman on the com screen, in fact he noticed with a wry smile that the officer to the Flag officer’s left was the same young woman who he had first spoken to.

“Governor Averato I presume.” The tall officer’s baritone voice was strong and confident as the officer offered his hand to the Icaran Governor.
“You presume correct….” Averato’s voice was questioning as he waited for this foreign officer to formally introduce himself.
“Ah….forgive me, I’m sure you do not recognize my rank insignia, I am Admiral Magill of the Rebel Alliance fifth squadron.” The Admiral released his firm handshake with a polite nod and turned to introduce his officers.

“This is Captain Parrin, commander of Starburst..” he waved to his right and the other officer offered his hand to Averato. “And this is Lieutenant Liza Adare, my chief communications officer….we have much to discuss Governor.” the Admiral continued in his same neutral baritone as he gestured for Averato to follow him, he also made sure to make a point of ignoring the platoon of Icaran soldiers standing in the bay.

As they walked down the corridor from the boat bay Averato and eight Icaran troopers looked around at the large open rooms and long corridors that these “Rebel Alliance” folks seemed to prefer, it was very different then the confined corridors and segmented compartments Icaran ship designers preferred and also a lot less safe as if any of those big open rooms took a hit the whole section would be harder to seal off, at least as far as Icaran tech went.

“So Admiral” Averato cleared his throat uncomfortably trying to think about all the repercussions his question might have…but as the Admiral paused and looked him square in the eyes Averato realized he’d already gone to far to clam up now. “Why exactly do you call yourselves the Rebel Alliance?” his voice stayed solid and confident but as the Rebel officers paused the Icaran commander wondered if he had asked to bluntly but then the Admiral’s face broke into a smile and Michael felt himself relax noticeably.
“Well Governor, our colony was established by the Northern Economic Block just before the fall of civilization back on Earth, and even though we found ourselves on a new world, light centuries away from Earth and their power base the NEB government stayed just as cruel and non-democratic as it had before, police actions and sanctions were commonplace until a group of men and women finally began to fight back.” The Admiral’s smile faded somewhat as he remembered some horror of the past. “Well so you see these brave men and women were outnumbered and outgunned almost one hundred to one but they fought for over a century they fought until finally they formed a Rebel Alliance that included many NEB army units, and finally they achieved victory….in their memory we have become a Democratic nation, and we have kept the name Rebel Alliance.” Admiral Magill frowned for a moment before continuing on down the corridor in silence.
***********************
“So Governor, you speak for your uh what did you call him again?” Admiral Magill’s baritone sounded crisp as he looked over the treaty papers again reviewing the conditions laid down therein.
“Praetor, Admiral and yes I speak for the crown in this matter.” Governor Michael Averato smiled as he signed the piece of paper that was laid in front of him.
“So, our two star nations shall have a non-aggression pact with one another in so far as we will not colonize within your territory and you will do likewise and not colonize any of our worlds.” Magill said formally as he handed a copy of the treaty to his Icaran counterpart.
“Precisely….and perhaps someday a stronger alliance can come of this.” Averato’s left eyebrow raised when the Admiral frowned rather then replied.
“Governor, please understand that my nation is a democracy, so far as you’ve explained your system of government you are far from democratic, I’m afraid I doubt my people would want a closer relationship with a monarchy such as yours….please take no offense.” The RA Admiral sounded genuinely like he was trying not to offend his counterpart but it was also obvious that he hid some personal distrust of the Icaran form of government and so Averato chose not to push the subject further.
“Very well then Admiral, I must be taking my leave of you now to get these reports back to my own government.” With a nod Averato and Admiral Magill stood and shook each other’s hands.
Averato’s party was escorted back to the boat bay by Liza Adare, and as sweet as ever she bid them farewell. The old General couldn’t help but like the young woman, she had been his liaison to her Admiral for the past two days and had been a competent and sweet young woman considering she was dealing with complete strangers with an equally strange form of government in her eyes. With an inner nod Averato decided she reminded him a lot of his daughter back on Icara who had sent him a message only a month ago proudly announcing her enlistment into His Majesty’s Royal Navy, he bade her one Last farewell before boarding his sloop.
Two hours later the sloop Angela was heading to a rendezvous with the destroyer HMS Victory and her squadmate HMS Tiger who were patrolling the far end of the system hunting down a criminal syndicate that had been smuggling in various prohibited goods such as tobacco and stronger drugs.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.2 Twilight
“I don’t know your highness but they just sent a message informing us that their population vetoed their treaty with us and that we can consider ourselves in a state of truce but not formal peace.” Governor Averato’s voice was grim as he stood before his Praetor on Icara after being summoned by a Crown courier ship (faster then any warship in the fleet do to it’s small size and large engine mounts) earlier that month when word of the treaty being broken reached Icara.
“Damned democracies never work! A mob can dictate who their entire world can talk to!” Praetor Leonidas fumed as he read the reports, the Rebels unilaterally withdrew for no other reason then their mob of a populace had decided that they did not want to be associated with a non-democratic government.
“Sir, I don’t believe they are going to move against us at this time, they’ve even pulled Admiral Magill’s fifth squadron out of Goin.” High Admiral Hallice said, his voice sounding more hopeful then either of his companions.
“Very well, Hallice keep Victory and Tiger on alert though, just in case those Rebels come back and decide they don’t want to be as peaceable.” leonidas said grumpily as he tossed the flexy with the rebel’s exact message aside.
“Michael’m afraid you’ll have to stay on Icara for a few months I have a lot to discuss with you.” Hallice said finally as he stood to leave, shaking Averato’s hand and Saluting Leonidas before withdrawing through the big oak doors.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Another great read. Thank you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.3 A Victory Bittersweet
It was a routine day as far as the crews of HMS Claw and HMS Bounty were concerned, they had been guarding the 6-11 warp point from the unknown hostiles for over a year and both crews were ready for their stand down and rotation back to Icara while another pair of destroyers were assigned this dreary post for a year.
But suddenly that routine calm was shattered as an energy signature appeared from within the warp point leading to the unknown system beyond and a warship larger then either of the two Icaran vessels came tearing out of the warp at high velocity.

“General quarters all hands general quarters!” The tactical officer aboard Claw screamed over the com net as she tabbed button after button, triggering emergency drive activation, weapons activation and the battle display mode of the holotank.
“Enemy vessel accelerating at six-zero gees skipper, mass reading indicates she is 400,000 tons, scanners identify unknown weapons on her port and starboard.” Executive officer Tyler called off as Captain Manning sat down at his own command chair and activated it’s repeaters.
“Bounty this is Manning, what’s your status?”
“Bounty here, we are accelerating parallel to you Claw, estimated time to missile range is one-zero-zero seconds” Captain Jessica Smith’s voice sounded cold and professional as she read off her ship’s intercept times but Manning could hear the tense anxiety in her voice that he too felt as they engaged an unknown.

The two Icaran destroyers entered missile range at about the same time and both vessels spat two capital ship and one sprint missile each in the direction of the intruding enemy Light Cruiser and within seconds it’s point defense clusters were tearing at space with thousands of titanium slugs, desperately trying to kill the Icaran missiles before they killed it.
The light cruiser’s defenses actually succeeded in taking down one of the missiles and it turned away from the others and bore down directly on Bounty seemingly ignoring the other missiles which were yet to enter a threatening range.

Captain Manning and his bridge crew watched in horror as Bounty attempted to escape the massive enemy ship, she was losing ground fast thanks to the gravity waves caused by her closer proximity to the warp point then Claw had been, and the enemy ship already had the advantage of coming out of the warp at maximum thrust while the smaller Icaran destroyer had to trigger her drives after she launched her missile salvo.
“Captain Smith we are turning about to see if we can get that bastard off your tail just stand…..” Manning winced as a brilliant light ball erupted from one of the enemy ship’s mysterious cannons, then another and yet another glowing sphere tore across space…..Bounty zig zagged and twisted like a desert hopper trying to escape a tree raptor but all three of the massive spheres found there target.
Whole sections of the Icaran destroyer vanished in a wash of energy and flame, debris and atmosphere erupted from her like gore as she writhed under the fire.

“Captain Manning this is Bounty we are down to one cannon, engines are gone, so is life support, my whole aft section is engulfed in fire or exposed to vacuum…. “ Jessica’s voice sounded tortured as Manning listened in absolute shock, his heart sank as he heard a girggling cough from his friend and realized that her bridge must have been hit and she must have been hurt worse then she would tell him.
“Captain…..” Her voice was cut off as an explosion in the background signaled the destruction of her communications array.

“Helm, can we intercept?!” Manning’s voice was ice as he watched the burning wreck that had once been HMS Bounty level her lone cannon defiantly against her murder, the shell actually impacted on the enemy ship and Manning couldn’t help but feel all the worse for it, the sad defiance of a ship and crew who knew they were dying.
“Sir intercept in fifteen seconds!” The helmsman’s voice was agonized, everyone on the bridge knew that there was no chance of them getting there any faster but they also knew with absolute certainty and dread that their sister ship and 400 Icaran spacers would be gone by then.

Five seconds after her defiant Last shot HMS Bounty and her crew vanished in a brilliant flash of light and wreckage, as she was torn into thousands of pieces by the sheer force of the Light Cruiser’s unknown weapons. The enemy ship’s triumph was brief however as 5 missiles slammed into her, tearing great holes in her hull and thrashing her own cannons into non-existence.
“Sir!” Chief Gunnery officer Tanner shouted as she watched the ship who had murdered Bounty limping and spinning in space.
“Bring us into Cannon range helm.” Manning’s voice was pure venom and hatred as he watched that bastard floating lamely in space.
Vengeance belonged to Claw as she swooped down upon her crippled pray and leveled a devastating broadside into it’s shattered hull, all four cannons struck home and as the Last shot turned the enemy ship into a glowing ball of plasma and wreckage the crew of Claw felt nothing but sorrow.

400 Icaran spacers died aboard His Majesty’s Ship Bounty and the entire crew of her sister held memorial services the very day she returned to port at 6-11 base for re-supply and minor repairs.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Given that the Icarans fired first, I think most courts would knock it down to manslaughter at least.

</pedantic> http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Another series of great stories. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Are you using any mod for the actual game you're playing, or is it just stock?

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

It's a modified Devnull I added two new weapons that will make late game naval battles much more interesting IMHO and a new ship, but that one will be a suprise for you guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.5 Loss of a Hero
6-11 System
“Damn it Captain I don’t care about your opinion on this subject!” Governor Paldwin screamed at Manning so loud his assistant cringed and looked toward the door like she was about to run.
“Governor please, keep your voice down.” Manning said in as calm a voice as he could manage considering he despised the man in front of him, especially since the slime ball had just ordered him and his ship through a warp point leading into enemy space.
“Don’t tell me what to do CAPTAIN! You will take your ship through that warp point and find out who attacked you and destroyed Bounty or I will have you hung!” Paldwin’s voice was cold and hostile but not any quieter, and if he had been a military officer Manning would have challenged him to a duel and killed him outright for threatening him in such a manner.
“Governor you have no authority over whether I am hung or not, and if you threaten me in such a manner again it will not help your position any further.” Manning was about to leave when he heard the clear sound of a slap…Manning whirled around to see the young assistant holding the side of her face, a large red mark on her cheek.
Manning’s hand went immediately to his sidearm before he heard the Governor’s personal guard’s unlock the safeties on their weapons behind him, he slowly slid his hand off his sidearm and grimly acknowledged that all the nasty rumors passing around the Icaran royal court were true, Paldwin was running 6-11 colony like a dictatorship and that meant that the rumors of him using a private army were also likely to be true which meant those two “soldiers” behind him probably wouldn’t hesitate to put a few explosive darts in his back.
“Governor Paldwin……I will take Claw through the warp point if that is what you want….however I am going to need to take some of your staff to act as liaisons.” Manning thought quickly, he needed to get off world and he needed to bring someone with him who could testify to the fact that Paldwin was a dictator, in short he needed Paldwin’s assistant.
“Ah, so you’ve finally come around have you Captain?” The arrogant little man said self importantly as he reevaluated the officer in front of him
“Yes….governor, I suppose we do need to investigate that region, but may I ask that you assign me your assistant as she is more likely to know what you want done M’lord?” Manning attempted to sound cowed into submission ,
The governor rubbed his chin thoughtfully before looking at the young assistant who was still holding her bruised cheek, a wolfish grin crossed the man’s face as he looked back at the naval officer.
“Very well captain you may take her, as well as two of my personal guards to, ah ensure her protection.” Paldwin’s shark like grin grew broader, as if he dared Manning to defy his order that his assistant be accompanied by two of his “soldiers”.
But Manning simply bowed politely and turned to leave.

*****************

Three days later HMS Claw was headed towards the warp point where their sister ship had died with all hands. Manning sat frozen in his command chair as he contemplated the bigger picture which that fool Paldwin did not see, there would be two Navy destroyers coming in system in less then a year to reinforce the security blockade at 6-11 but that idiot wanted to send his only warship straight into enemy space instead of trying to keep them on station to protect his world.
“Sir, we are out of Paldwins’ jurisdiction now.” Commander Tyler whispered to his commander as they reached the 12 light minute range of a non noble Governor’s jurisdiction in a system.
“Commander, execute my orders now please.” Manning whispered back to his friend as he patted the younger man on his shoulder.

********************
Kira Lougheed frowned as she sipped at her coffee noting the two heavily armed guards that never let her leave their site since she had come aboard. She knew all to well that the guards were just mercenaries and that they were there to kill her if she tried to say anything to Captain Manning or any of his people what was going on in Paldwin’s district.
A knock on the door to her quarters made Lougheed jerk out of her thoughts, as she stood to answer it one of her “guards” waved her down and opened the door, the look on the guard’s face made Loguheed cringe and she made sure she accidentally dropped the spoon she had been stirring her coffee with and ducked under her table feigning a search.

A navy officer stood in the doorway and the guard mumbled something at him and attempted to close the door in his face, but the naval officer shoved his hand out and stopped the door saying something that Kira couldn’t quite make out.
A shouting match started shortly there after and Kira noticed the guard still hidden from view reaching for his sidearm, she cowered for a moment before standing up from behind her desk and throwing her mug coffee and all straight at the man’s face. His scream of agony as he started trying to get the fragments of the mug and the burning coffee out of his eyes alerted the navy officer who reached for his own sidearm just a second faster then the other guard.
The whine of a darter pistol and the dull thud of an explosive dart jerked the young woman back to the real world as she saw the guard at the door drop to the deck, a clean hole through his torso and his gun held limply in his dead hand. The navy officer charged into the small room and three marines quickly followed him, two of them rushed over to Kira and shoved her head down as they raced her to the door, Kira briefly caught a glimpse of the third marine slamming a knee into the groin of the other guard and hearing a gurgling scream coming from the room behind her as she was raced down the corridor.
The young woman did not even have enough time to feel fear as she was rushed into the destroyer’s small boat bay. The two marines let her go and the naval officer stepped in front of her, a grimace on his face.
“Ma’am I am Commander Tyler, I know your confused and probably more then a little scared but I need you to follow these two marines into that launch over there and go with the rest of our non essential personnel.” his voice was urgent but calm as he looked around the boat bay to ensure that his people were cramming into the destroyers three launches.
“What’s going on Commander?” Kira asked in a voice who’s calmness surprised even her but the officer just nodded at one of the marines and a firm hand locked around her arm and began almost dragging her towards the third launch in the line “COMMANDER WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?” she screamed again but the officer simply turned around and rushed for the bay door.
“Relax ma’am I’ve been instructed to explain it all to you once we are aboard the launch.” The marine who had her arm said as he continued to pull her towards the launch.

Less then three minutes later all three launches and 280 navy and marine personnel were on their way to the nearest Icaran naval base, all of them were witnesses essential to building a case against the local governor and Manning expected that they would be the only survivors from his destroyer.
“Is it done Richard?” Captain Manning asked as his commander quietly as the young officer stepped back to stand beside his captain.
“Yes sir, it’s done.” Was the simple reply as the young man took his seat beside the captain's chair.
**********************
Two weeks later the three launches arrived at the Grayson colony and were immediately brought to the naval base, a series of interviews was begun on behalf of the Icaran Royal Court to find out what was really going on in 6-11 system.
Three days after that a messenger drone from HMS Claw showed a video playback of the warship’s Last minutes of life as she attempted to get into scan range of a world at the other end of the warp point she had been blockading. Unfortunately for the destroyer and her crew the enemy world’s weapons systems were long ranged and Claw didn’t stand a chance as she was destroyed at two hundred thousand clicks by an energy weapon of unknown type.

A battle against the Phong
“Commodore Ross, this is Count Aznoble, our scanners show an enemy squadron in system can you confirm?” Aznoble said grimly as he finished tying his bathrobe, and wiped the sleep from his eyes.
“Sir I can confirm, I am preparing to deploy my squadron as we speak.” Ross ‘ voice was calm and professional but Aznoble could tell by the tone that the captain was anxious, he had been given the brevet rank of Commodore unexpectedly so he could take command of the Enterprise Squadron and much to Aznoble’s amusement the captain still flinched at being called Commodore.
“Captain Ross is there anything I can do to assist you?”
“Sir, the best thing you can do for me is get your people into shelters, I’ll try to engage the enemy squadron at three light minutes out and with your permission sir if I can destroy them with minimal damage to my own force I will retrace their vector and see if I can destroy their base.” Ross quiet deadly tone was one Aznoble was not used to hearing and he stood stunned for a moment before nodding to himself.
“Ross do what you think is best, God and Saints be with you.”
“Thank you sir, may God be with us all.” Ross said ominously before cutting the com channel. Ross and Aznoble almost hated each other when Ross first arrived on station, but once they had gotten to know one another and once Aznoble became more sure of himself as Count Handra the two men became friends to their mutual surprise.

Less then a day after the three destroyers and single frigate of his squadron had left orbit of Handra they got a visual of the six Phong frigates and Ross noted that the Phong had actually altered course and speed to engage him directly.
“Sir, enemy will be in missile range in one nine minutes, and cannon range five minutes after that.” The familiar voice of Sarah Pallins chimed in his ear as she passed on the message from tactical.
“Thank you Commander, my compliments to tactical.” The Captain gave his exec a wry grin as he noted that she was passing on a message that he was too busy thinking to himself to hear, and also caught her polite warning to that fact in her tone.

“Captain Fowler, this is flag I want Saber to stay on the tail of our formation, hold your missiles until all three destroyers have fired theirs.” Ross said as he fixed his eyes on the tactical display and saw the six red blips closing fast.
“Aye Commodore, am I to engage with cannons sir?” Fowler’s voice came crisp and calm over the com net and Ross felt a swell of assurance that he had given his old ship to the right officer and had to suppress the smile that was twitching on his lips.
“Negative Fowler, I want you to keep your missiles in this fight until we’ve scored a few hits, let the destroyers get into the cannon duel until the Last minute.”
“Aye sir.” Ross heard the disappointment in her tone as she realized her ship was pretty much the squadron’s reserve and the same pride swelled again, she was an aggressive young Captain and aggressive captains were exactly what he wanted under his command, unforunately she also commanded the smallest ship in the squadron and in a straight up cannon duel she would be hurt the worst.

Nineteen minutes later a mass of blue dots appeared on the holotanks of the Enterprise Squadron signaling a massed volley of missile launches from the Icaran warships.
Enemy point defenses tore through space and 6 of the Icaran missiles died before reaching their targets but Saber’s missiles had popped up from behind their destroyed brethren and all of them slammed into their target knocking one of the Phong Frigates to pieces, leaving it’s point defenses and two engines wrecked.
A second volley of Icaran missiles followed moments later and this time only five Icaran missiles were taken down, the remaining missiles knocked yet another Phong Frigate out of the point defense screen and also removed all but one of it’s engines, and one cannon.
A third volley destroyed it’s target outright as the 4 missiles tore it to pieces sending wreckage across space in a brilliant flash of light.
“This is flag to squadron give them one more volley and close to Cannon range, Saber as we engage with cannons I want you to take out those stragglers with your missiles.” Ross’ voice was the same icy deadly tone that he had the Last time he had gone into combat and Pallins smiled at the familiar tone
The ranges closed fast and the fourth squadron wide volley of missiles blew another frigate apart, the three destroyers reached cannon range of the Last two combat effective frigates, the destroyers [i]Enterprise and King Roger targeted the frigate closing from the left, their concentrated broadsides sent 7 cannon shells into the enemy frigate, turning it into little more then a burning wreck it’s own single cannon broadside missed both destroyers entirely.
Meanwhile Manticore engaged her own target and sent four shells ringing into the forward section of the frigate’s hull tearing out half of the enemy ship’s cannons, the Phong ship returned fire defiantly and scored a single direct hit on the larger Icaran destroyer doing only minute damage.
The single Icaran frigate rushed past the cannon duels going on between her squadron mates and the enemy frigates and fired off yet another volley of her own missiles straight into one of the “stragglers” blowing it into a massive cloud of plasma and wreckage.
Her own cannons finished off the second straggler before it even brought it’s cannon to bare, it’s wrecked hull drifted away.
Enterprise and King Roger fired another concentrated broadside at their target, all eight shells impacted on the frigate’s already shattered hull and the brilliant golden explosion that followed left only one enemy frigate.
The Manticore closed to point blank range on the Last remaining frigate and her four cannon broadside tore the frigate asunder without even an explosion to mark it’s death.

“Sir all enemy frigates have been destroyed!” Sarah Pallins announced cheerfully as the Last red blip on the holotank winked out of existence
The bridge crew relaxed noticeably and smiles were on almost every face, Ross couldn’t help but smile himself as the damage reports showed no damage that could not be repaired in space, casualty reports were equally as good, no dead and only 21 wounded throughout the entire squadron and Doctor Leung the squadron’s senior doctor assured the Captain that the injuries were minor enough to be treated by the squadron’s sick bays.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.6
“Stand by for warp point jump in five-zero seconds con.” Sarah Pallins voice sang out in her typical beautiful soprano as she sat cross legged in the captain’s chair, it was the middle of the third watch and Pallins couldn’t help but feel the real size of her ship at this time of night when only the bridge and engine room stood fully manned.
“Three-zero seconds con.” She said cheerfully as she took another sip of her coffee, or at least that’s what the navy called it, most of the civilian community wouldn’t touch navy coffee and even navy personnel joked about how it could seal a hull breach or patch a vac suit in an emergency. They were probably right too Sarah thought to herself as she read down the chronometer.
“One Zero seconds con.”

Ten seconds later and the Enterprise Squadron’s GFGs began melding with the brilliant blue swirl of the warp point; the familiar golden glow of GFG interaction was even more wondrous and magnificent then when a single ship made the jump.
The jump it’s self however was unusual for as her ship made that instantaneous transition from warp space to real space only one or two of her crew became nauseated and she herself felt an odd tingle that was actually quite pleasant.
Before she had any time to wonder about this new occurrence a brilliant flash on HMS King Roger brought her mind whirling back into the present, another flash on the destroyer leading the formation instantly brought the experienced commander’s hand slamming down onto the general quarters alarm.

The familiar battle klaxons howled and the GQ alarms joined in nano-seconds later, another flash on Kong Roger made Pallins wince, even more sickening was the stream of debris that floated away from the destroyer, debris that included bodies most of whom were not wearing vac suits.
“Sarah what the hell is going on?” The familiar voice of Captain Ross came behind Pallins and out of trained reflex she instantly stood saluted her superior and walked to her own command console.
“We are under attack sir, I can’t give you further details till our damned computers get over the jump shock.” Her voice was cold and professional but Ross recognized that sickened stress that she attempted to hide and he couldn’t blame her for he too grew sickened as he saw the bodies and wreckage drifting away from multiple hull breaches in King Roger.
“Sensors back on-line ma’am, I mean sir!” Tactical officer Rivera’s voice faltered as he realized his Captain had come onto the bridge….but he valiantly continued “Sir, three Phong Frigates have opened fire on our squadron King Roger and Manticore both ships are showing signs of heavy damage.”
“Thank you tactical, Guns do we have a shot yet!” Ross sat at his station and rubbed his hands together, trying to stop his sweating, his entire squadron had been ambushed and at least one of his ships was out of this fight.
“Gunnery crews have put in targeting coordinates sir, passing it to squadron wide and Firing!” Gunnery Officer Paul’s voice was the calmest on the bridge aside from his CO and the XO, and Ross allowed himself a brief second of appreciation that at least Lieutenant Paul was a combat veteran, the only one currently on the bridge aside from himself and Pallins.
The Frigate Saber and two destroyers still capable of firing Enterprise and Manticore lit space with their fire, each targeting an enemy frigate with a powerful missile volley.
The enemy point defenses nailed three missiles but all the others struck home burning holes in each of the enemy frigates, the highly trained cannon crews of the three Icaran warships soon chimed in with their own fire and within seconds one of the enemy frigates exploded in a brilliant golden eruption and another frigate was put completely out of action.
The third frigate died moments later as another missile volley struck her full on and tore her into multiple fragments and fireballs.

The after action report was not good for the Icaran squadron King Roger and Manticore had both been knocked out of action and were forced to retire to Handar base for repair and re-supply leaving only Enterprise and Saber to carry out their assault on the first Fornax base.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Nice - a real good read. Will the Comodore plunge fearlessly on now that over half of his squadron's effective fighting force has been eliminated?

Rasorow

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Bummer. Not bummer story - GREAT story - bummer Posts.

Let me explain. I look at the topic and see a new post. I think "Great! A new chapter!" and then I get disappointed that it's only a comment.

I'm not discounting comments at all (in fact, I'm doing one now), I'm just thinking it'd be nice to have comments posted elsewhere. But then I'd probably never read 'em. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Just thinkin' out loud.....

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.7 The cost of war
“Admiral Magill, Naval Command has sent priority one courier ship with a message reading “your eyes only.” Captain Parrin of the Rebel Alliance light cruiser Starburst sounded more then a little worried as he handed the data chip to his Admiral still sealed in it's armorpLast case.
“Thanks Rodge….” Magill inhaled sharply and placed the data chip in his compute, he tried to look relaxed as he read the orders but his lips began to twitch uncontrollably and soon a sneer crossed his face.
“Sir, what is it?” Parrin’s anxiety was clear as he watched his Admiral’s eyes wander over the screen again.
“It’s war Rodge, we are to set course for the Icaran’s Goin base in the Gaia system and “neutralize all resistance”, you and I both know that will mean destroying the entire colony when it comes to those Icarans.” Admiral Magill frowned again, he had met governor Averato and some of the people from Goin colony only a few months before and found most of them to be good people if a little backwards politically, and now to carry out his orders he would have to kill all of them and start a war with their nation.
“Sir, that makes no sense the Icarans have done nothing to us!” Parrin objected and began to say more but was silenced as Magill raised a strained hand.
“Rodge, the Icarans are expansionists pure and simple, their economy requires that they expand as does their population growth, our spies tell us they have a limited number of planets they can colonize within their own space, which means they will have to head elsewhere“ Magill paused and frowned deeply before looking back at his flag captain.. ”We can not risk them trying to expand into our territories and NavCom beleives Goin base would be their stepping off point into our territories.”
“But sir open war will push them against us for sure, and what if after we destroy Goin colony they decide to counter attack us?” Parrin’s voice was earnest as he pleaded with his Admiral but Magill simply stood up and waved his officer down.
“Relay the orders Captain, tell the entire task force we are headed to destroy Goin base and then the Icaran destroyer squadron.”
“Aye sir.” Parrin said in a resigned tone as he turned to follow his Admiral out.

Both rebel officers left the Admiral's quarters with a grim attitude, the Navy command believed they could destroy the Icaran presence in Gaia and thus force the Icarans to quell their expansionistic attitudes, at least in their part of the galaxy.

****************
The radiant purple skies outside of the massive colony dome of Goin base lit brilliantly as an EM storm passed overhead, the wondrous green and yellow lightning flashed in dancing patterns across the sky as “night” drew near and some of the populace sat in the local park to watch the rare and beautiful storm.
Millions of other civilians went about their work, mining raw ores, refining, construction and various other essential tasks little concerned with the storm overhead, when suddenly the noises of work were violently cut off as civil warnings howled throughout the colony and the four platoons of army troopers garrisoned in Goin began racing along the streets in skimmers trying to round up civilians.
The civil alarms meant only one thing, attack was imminent and in this region of space it could only be one group, the Rebels who had signed and broken a peace treaty in record times thanks to their “mob controlled” democracy.

Military personnel rushed civilians into shelters as fast as possible but their sensors had detected the rebels too late, thanks to the EM storm which had blanketed all sensor and com frequencies with static and haze and the first Rebel cannon shells began raining down on the dome while millions of civilians were still clogging the streets.
Explosive shells tore massive gouges out of the dome and the poisonous atmosphere began leaking into the colony, chocking and burning thousands of unprotected civilians, more disturbing was the lightning which now came streaking into the unprotected colony electrocuting hundreds and destroying buildings with amazing ferocity.
More shells rained down and with most of the dome gone they began striking the city and base directly, massive explosions erupted all around the colony and within minutes even more shells had slammed into the colony causing massive casualties and damage. Within an hour, the entire population of Goin colony had been killed.
********************
“Target destroyed sir.” The grim cheerless tone of the Starbursts’ tactical officer rang out from his station as the entire task force looked on at the devastation they had wrought.
“Helm take us out, and set course for those Icaran Destroyers, we have a job to finish.” Magill said grumpily as he turned off his visual display of the colony’s surface....or what was left of it.

*********************
“Sir I’m detecting the entire rebel task force over Goin base, cancel that they are headed out from Goin sir.”Victory Squadron’s chief tactical officer turned to face Captain Park. The Captain curtly as he watched his station‘s command repeaters.
“Are they headed for us Lieutenant Commander?” Park asked hoarsely as the realization sank in, the two destroyers of his squadron had detected multiple energy flares around and on Goin colony and the presence of a Rebel task force in orbit meant only one thing, Goin base was gone and war was coming straight down on Icara’s frontier.
“Aye sir, they are coming our way at maximum military power.” the answer was exactly what Park had feared, he had only one choice, he could not run or else he would open the entire system to rebel occupation but he knew all too well that his squadron would get pummeled by those damned democrats!, but he had no choice.
“Comns get in touch with Tiger tell her to follow us in, we are going to take on that squadron.”
“Um, Aye sir.” the startled comns officer replied as she tapped controls on her board, and a second later her quiet voice was passing his orders on to an equally startled com officer aboard the other destroyer.

Two hours later the Icaran destroyers were within missile range of the rebel task force and both Icarans spat out their missiles in a wall, 2 sprint and four capital killer missiles raced across the stars towards their intended victims like 6 tiny stars.

*********************
“Sir missiles incoming, I count two fast movers and four of their big ship killers!” The chief tac officer aboard Starburst announced.
“Already plotting intercept” The weapons officer announced as he began firing the light cruiser’s point defenses, monitoring their destroyer screen as it too opened fire on the incoming missiles.

*********************
“Captain we’ve scored a hit!” Gunnery officer Beasley smiled broadly as the enemy frigate fell away from their formation.
“Excellent job guns that only leaves 4 destroyers and a light cruiser” Park smiled thinly at his gunnery officer.
“Good sir, means more practice for me.” Beasley grinned back sharkishly before looking back at his targeting display.

*********************
“Sir Albunea has been hit, she’s lost two engines and is falling back.” Liza Adair’s voice chimed calmly from her station.
“Sir we’ve got more missiles incoming!” The chief tactical officer grimaced as the task force point defenses began clawing at the new missiles.
“Impact on Mothma she’s falling out of formation sir….she’s down to one engine and a cannon”.
“We need to get in close to those Icarans or we’re dead helm.” Migill’s anger was made all the worse for the fact that two of his ships had been knocked out of formation by TWO enemy destroyers and he had done no damage to them…but his task force was fast closing on those Icarans and he gritted his teeth as his three remaining destroyers and his own light cruiser closed in.

*************************
“Captain Park, they are closing fast sir!” The tac officer was watching nervously as the enemy squadron closed.
“Give them another volley guns.” Park’s cold tone was harsher then he had meant it to be, but if those Rebs closed the range then his two destroyers would suffer for it.
“Target that light cruiser this time guns, and tell Tiger to do the same.”
“Aye sir” Beasley replied almost absently as the two destroyers rippled off another volley.

*******************
“Admiral missiles closing fast!” The tac officer’s voice sounded panicked as his screens showed 6 incoming objects.
“What ship are they aimed at tac?” Admiral Magill feared he already knew as with their current trajectory there were only two ships they could be focused at the destroyer Roul and his own ship.
“Sir directly inbound on us!” was the simple reply as the tactical screen showed 3 objects still closing directly on his position even after their point defenses had intercepted the rest.
The Starburst rocked in agony as the missiles slammed into her hull, great gouges were torn out of her unarmored hull, damage and collision alerts howled as the light cruiser rocked again, her port magazine erupting in a swath of flames that completely encompassed six compartments on two decks.
“Admiral we’ve lost cannons two and three, engines one and four are gone, port magazine is gone, heavy casualties in cannon six.” Adair’s voice was cold with fear as the damage reports continued to spill across her screen.
“Sir we are in cannon range!” the gunnery officer reported almost triumphantly as his Admiral nodded and he depressed the firing tab that fed all the cannon crews plots into the computer, seconds later the light cruiser rumbled to her keel as her four remaining cannons fired.
The three remaining destroyers still in combat range also lit up their own cannons and within seconds the stars were filled with DU shells traveling at .3c.

*****************
HMS Tiger was the first Icaran destroyer hit by the Alliance ships, her hull shook violently as multiple shells tore into her, Park clenched his fists in rage as he saw yet another shell slam into his squadron mate and he imagined the scene of hell in those damaged areas.
“Guns fire our own cannons, tactical, com get me a report on the status of Tiger.”
“Aye sir target plotting underway”
“Sir Tiger reports she’s lost missile two, cannons one and two and engine five, Captain Anders says she’s going to stay in the fight though.”
“Thank you, Rourke, Beasley” Park nodded to both of the officers who had just spoken and tried to give a reassuring smile but couldn't quite manage it.

Victory maneuvered into near, point blank range with Starburst and locked her entire armament on the larger ship, 3 missile tubes and four cannons erupted into life as the Icaran destroyer made her pass on the rebel flagship….more holes were torn in the side of the massive craft as cannon rounds shattered hull plating and bulk heads, the missiles too were closing fast on their victim.
Tiger chimed in with her remaining missiles and cannons against an enemy destroyer but with her shot targeting systems both her shells missed and her ship buster missile fell easy prey to the enemy ship’s point defenses. The sprint missile met it’s mark however and two of the Rebel destroyer’s cannons vanished in an expanding sphere of wreckage taking it out of the fight. Another volley of cannon fire struck home and finished off the enemy ship.

********************
“Admiral I’ve got three birds closing in, our point defense is gone sir!” the tac officer’s voice sounded resigned as he watched the three deadly weapons closing in.
“Damn it, damn it! Can either of those destroyers intercept it?” Magill asked desperately, but it was already too late and he knew it…..the bridge erupted in flame and noise as the three missiles slammed into the already damaged rebel ship.
*********************
“Scored it sir!” Beasley’s triumphant tone was interrupted suddenly as Victory shuddered violently, one of the enemy destroyers had closed in behind her while she hit Starburst and three of it’s shells tore into the Icaran destroyer mercilessly.
“Sir missiles, one and two gone!” Tac officer Rourke nearly spat as three more shells from the other enemy destroyer slammed into Victory. “Gadamn, sir we’ve lost cannons one and four, engine 5 is gone and 2 is failing.”
“Well let’s pay them back for that, fire down that lead destroyer’s throat mister Beasley.” Park hardly noticed that Tiger’s remaining cannons had torn apart the second enemy destroyer’s point defense clusters and when when heavy missiles slammed into the enemy destroyer the magnificent flash caught him off guard.
“Sir Tiger reports she got a kill!” Rourke said unnecessarily as anyone on the bridge could see the erupting wreckage that had once been an enemy destroyer.
Victory fired her own broadside to a less brilliant effect, both her shells tore into the destroyer that remained but they only managed to take out two engines and a single cannon.
*********************
“Adair, are you still there?” Admiral Magill’s voice sounded numb as he dragged himself to a kneeling position and looked around the wreckage that had once been his flag bridge in horror, an arm stuck out from under a massive piece of debris but it was obvious whoever’s arm that was could not have survived as the wreckage lay flat across the deck, another body lay headless only inches from where Magill’s command station had been and he realized sadly that so far every one of his bridge crew was dead.
“Aye sir, I’m here.” the voice of Liza Adair sounded distant and pained in the Admiral’s ears, or rather his remaining intact ear, that Last missile had sent a piece of debris flying straight across the left side of his face and the old Admiral noted solemnly to himself that his left eye was probably gone and that was why he could not manage to open it.
The battle that had done this to his ship seemed distant now, almost like it had just been a bad dream but Magill looked around him again, at the wreckage and the bodies and knew in his heart that it had happened, even though his mind refused to believe the horror in front of him.
“Where are you Liza?” he tried to make his voice sound encouraging but it was mangled even to his own ear and he noted that his voice box had probably been damaged too.
“Sir, I’m here at my station…” her voice said painfully and Magill shook his head in horror. Adair’s station was buried in rubble and he thought there was no way he could move it all by himself with his injuries, but he told himself he had to at least try as he limped over to the rubble that contained what might be the only other survivor on Starburst and started digging away at it with his bare hands
*******************
Things were almost as bad aboard Victory and Tiger, both destroyers were bleeding atmosphere and trailing debris as they clawed back at the enemy destroyer that remained in combat range with whatever weapons remained functioning.
“Sir, Tiger reports her Last cannon is gone, she’s got a missile tube left but Anders reports that her damage control parties are still trying to clear it.” Rourke’s voice was hoarse as he reported the extent of the damage to his captain, and tried to ignore the corpsman that was tending to the hole in his shoulder that had been caused by the same piece of debris that had torn Beasley’s throat out.
“Tell Tiger to pull back while she clears her damage Rourke, our cannons should be able to finish this destroyer.” Park replied sharply as he looked around the damaged bridge, Beasley, Torez, Killroy, Mach all dead and his XO had been taken to sick bay nearly five minutes ago with a couple of ribs poking out of his uniform in a bloody mess of meat and bone.
Victory struck wrathfully at the enemy destroyer and this time her wounded foe paid for their inability to maneuver as the two cannon shells tore her shattered hull apart in a dim series of explosions along her hull.

Two enemy destroyers remained still but at their current speeds Tiger and Victory would take a substantial amount of time to reach them.

**********************
The shattered remains of Starbursts’ bridge was all to quiet as Admiral Magill finally tore the Last piece of rubble out of his way and got a glimpse of Lieutenant Adair. He tried to hide the shock as she reached what was left of her right hand up to him, he grabbed it as gently as he could but the horrible burns caused one of her remaining fingers to come off in his hand as he lifted her out of the rubble.
“Sir, you look like hell.” Adair said quietly as her shattered and bruised face attempted to form a smile.
“I know Liza.” Magill said with a tearful grin as he tried to lift the injured young woman up to get her to the escape pod but her cry of pain froze him in place.
“Liza I’m going to get you out of here.” His remaining eye filled with tears as he noticed her attempt to form another smile.
“I know you will sir.” she said in a shadow of her formerly energetic and youthful voice before passing out in his arms.

Magill managed to get her through the shattered bridge doors to the nearest life pod and started hooking her up to the life support systems and an emergency medical bed. He then stepped out of the life pod and picked up another two injured crewmen that lay near the pod and hooked them up to the life support and emergency medical beds that remained before activating the auto-launch sequence.
****************
“Captain Park, I’ve got a life pod from that light cruiser!” A startled Rourke said as he began locking his cannons onto the target.
“Rourke!” Park’s shout froze the tactical officer in his place as Park sprinted over to his side and spun his chair around. “Damn it Rourke we are Icaran Naval officers not butchers, you inform S&R that we have a mission for them right now, and stand down those weapons or I will have you shot.” Park’s bitter tone shocked the young officer but out of a mix of training and fear the young man managed to give pass on the message.
Fifteen minutes later S&R teams recovered the escape pod and brought it to the remains of the boat bay where a medical team and marine squad met it….

Meanwhile in the Fornax system:
HMS Enterprise and HMS Saber closed in on the first of two Phong bases in the fornax system, so far no targeting sensors had locked on to them and as far as the two warships could tell not a single Phong ship was in system, which made their job much easier.

“Ross this is Fowler, how about you let me take Saber in first, my ship’s smaller and if those Phong are hiding anything on that planet we would make a harder target for them then Enterprise.” Her voice sounded quite sincere and her advice was good but Ross smiled to himself as he wondered if the real reason the young officer wanted to take her ship in first was to get into the action faster, and ensure that she was not left “in reserve”.
“Alright Sandra, take your ship in first, but be careful the fact that your smaller also makes you a more vulnerable target if they do hit you.” Ross grinned at the pretty young face on his screen and her conspiratorial grin made him feel almost like laughing.
Her salute as she cut the com made Ross feel like laughing again if only because it was one of the few things that was stress relieving on such a grim day.

The two Icaran warships closed fast on the undefended Phong world and within seconds a volley of fusion missiles from Saber was screaming towards the surface targets that had been picked out by Fowler’s tactical officer and even as their volley of missiles was closing the frigate opened fire with her cannons.
Explosions erupted all around the Phong base as the devastating volley struck. The frigate’s second volley of cannon fire was joined by the missiles and cannons of Enterprise and even more devastation riddled the unprotected base.
Two more vollies later and the two warships had blown the Last pieces of the enemy base and millions of Phong into dust and glass as the nuclear rain stopped.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2405.8
HMS Victory and her squadron mate Tiger had finally managed to close the distance with the remaining Rebel starships, both sides vessels were pummeled to the point that they were barely combat capable and the four ships closed on one another like wounded animals.
“Sir Tiger reports she is in missile range, she is requesting permission to fire.” Rourke’s voice was quiet almost to the point of a whisper as he addressed his captain, he was still terrified of Park after he had snapped at the younger officer for what was probably just a precautionary action.
“Thank you Rourke, tell captain Anders she has permission to fire on the destroyer, we are going for the frigate since she’s closer.” Park said gently as he watched the distances close ever so slowly.

The crippled enemy destroyer did the unexpected as it turned about and began to withdraw from the field, the frigate however began closing, it’s two cannons searching for a target to kill. As she bore down on the larger Victory she fired both of her cannons and a single shell slammed headlong into the destroyer’s engineering section, reducing her to only one engine.
The frigate’s lucky shot did little good for it’s own life however, as Victory fired her own surviving cannons the shattered hull of the frigate stood no chance at sustaining such impacts and a brilliant flash signaled the end of the frigate and her crew.
As the missile volley from Tiger burned out and went ballistic far short of her mark and the destroyer continued to flee and was already too far out for the battered and maimed Icaran warships to follow and Park gave the order to let it go, knowing he would risk even more damage or even destruction if he pursued her further.
Icara’s Navy had scored an unbelievable victory, they had killed a light cruiser, 3 destroyers and a frigate with well over 3,000 Rebs perishing, but that victory had cost them dearly, out of 800 Icaran spacers involved in the battle 500 had died and another 100 were wounded, both destroyers too had been put out of action and it would take them months to reach the colony which had been set up during the very hours of their opening shots with the Alliance task force.
Captain Park did show Icara’s mercy however when he dispatched his search and rescue teams to pick up whatever alliance survivors they could without risking the survival of any Icaran navy personnel, however only three life pods had made it away from the wrecked alliance task force and with them only 12 Alliance survivors.

“Ms. Adair wake up……can you hear me? Liza can you hear me?” a voice unfamiliar to the young woman called out to her from the darkness and she shook her head gently, trying to arrange her senses as best she could. “Miss Adair wake up now!” the voice called out stronger and she tried to open her eyes but found that only her right would cooperate.
“I am Captain Dylan Park of the HMS Victory your in our sickbay I need you to wake up and talk to me.” His voice was kind and gentle but Adair was shocked and terrified as the realization hit, if she was on an Icaran warship that meant her squadron had been forced back or destroyed….a tear came out of her only working eye as she remembered the horrible look on Magill’s face when he first saw her injuries and she wondered just how horrible she did look.
“It’s alright Miss Adair, we are not going to harm you, however it is my duty to inform you that you are a prisoner of His Majesty Praetor Leonidas’ Royal Navy.” the voice was still kind and gentle but to Adair it may as well have been the devil speaking to her.
“Where is Admiral Magill?” she managed to squeak out through a badly bruised mouth as she slowly opened her eye, seeing a rather hansom young looking man standing over her, wearing the dark red tunic of the IRN officers.
“Miss Adair I’m afraid he didn’t make it, he died of his injuries shortly before our search and rescue people pulled you aboard, our medical team tried to save him but I’m afraid there was nothing they could do.” His apology sounded sincere but somehow Liza doubted he meant it, after all it was Magill who’s squadron destroyed the Goin colony and killed millions of Icaran citizens.
“I need to ask you a few questions miss Adair.” Park asked quietly and Adair settled herself in as best she could to not answer any questions that may reveal any of the few state secrets that she knew.

The questioning went on for hours before Adair was allowed to rest for the day, the next day the questions went on again, and the day after that and again after that for weeks, all the while her healing process went on and even she could not deny that the Icaran medical staff treated her with as much care as any of their own who had been injured during the battle, though she also noted that no one would let her see a mirror.

In the Fornax system a new messenger drone raced towards the warp point to brink back glorious news, that the second Phong base in the Fornax system had finally been eradicated by Brevet Commadore Ross and his Flag Captain Sandra Fowler. A new colony ship had already been launched from Handra base and was en-route to the ruined remains of the second base.

2406.3
Two Messenger drones arrived in the Icara system, one from either end of the Icaran Empire (such as it is) and both bore good news for all Icarans, the Neo-Star Empire who had been threatening the 6-11 and Awer systems had signed a peace treaty with Ambassador Franks informing him that they sought the better unity and peace of all human Star nations.
From the other end of the empire Handra sent a messenger drone to inform Praetor Leonidas that due to their massive losses in Fornax the Phong had requested an “equitable” trade and research alliance that would benefit Icara’s economy and allow the Phong government to save face in front of their people.

2406.4
In a horrible act of treachery the Neo-Star empire dispatched two squadrons of light cruisers, one into Awer and the other into 6-11 their orders were deadly and simple and they carried them out with a ferocity unmatched in the Icaran history books.
Awer colony, population 300 million was destroyed outright by 6 Neo-Star light cruisers, the colony’s plea of surrender was ignored even as the bombardment began and the colonists were still issuing their surrender.
6-11 met it’s death more defiantly but it met it’s death all the same, 5 light cruisers had destroyed the colony and all 120 million Icarans in residence died,
With no survivors from either world reports that came back were little more then rumors and speculation, the only confirmed information throughout the empire was that indeed both colonies had been destroyed by the ferocious Neo-Star fleet.

2406.5
A month after the destruction of 6-11 base HMS Warhawk and the new HMS Claw closed in on the single Neo-Star light cruiser that was patrolling the inner system.
“Captain Davidson, this is Captain Paris, we know that these bastards can chew us up if we get close, keep Claw at missile range only, I don’t want any more Icarans dying at the hands of that cruiser, understood?” Davidson’s grim face on the com panel nodded as he passed on the orders to his crew, both men knew all to well what had happened to Bounty and the first Claw at the hands of those devastating energy weapons and neither man wanted to give that cruiser the chance to do it again.
As the two destroyers closed in on the massive light cruiser they each fired off their missiles in rapid succession and within moments six missiles streaked across space towards the enemy warship, but as the Light cruiser’s point defense cannons came to life and thousands of shells sprayed the stars only a single missile died, the other five screaming on un-phased.
“Missiles closing Sir.” the tense voice of Gunnery officer Keon was hardly audible to Davidson as his eyes fixed on the holotank display as it showed 5 little yellow dots closing in on the red light code that represented the neo-star light cruiser.
Seconds later a brilliant flash lit the holotank as all five missiles reamed the hull of the enemy light cruiser, tearing out massive gouges of the hull, completely crippling her.
No mercy showed in the eyes of Davidson as he ordered his ship in for the kill, as his cannons tore the enemy ship apart Davidson felt nothing but joy at the deaths of those bastards who had destroyed two colonies and killed half a billion Icaran civilians for no reason and all that after signing the damned treaties!

2406.6-9
The Neo-Star Empire claimed it’s attacks on Awer and 6-11 colonies was justified as being a self preserving measure, and claimed that the governors of both worlds had been secretly planning an assault into Neo-Star space. After the loss of their light cruiser on patrol in 6-11 and the establishment of Mandow base on the former colony world in the same system the Neo-Star Empire realized they had been outmaneuvered by the Icarans and it this reason alone that most of the Icaran Lords believed the Neo-Star Empire resigned the peace treaty. However this time 6-11 would not be caught off guard and Warhawk squadron was formed with Warhawk and Claw as the first of four planned ships to be on station.

Liza Adair frowned openly as she watched the battered wreck of the sole surviving Alliance warship withdrawing back into alliance space, only a third of it’s crew still alive and throughout the system the colonials felt nothing but relief as both of the Icaran Warships present were still in port undergoing extensive repairs and re-manning.

2407.1-9
The battles against the Neo-Star Empire and Rebel Alliance had actually brought some good to the Icaran navy beyond battle experience.
University of Sparta had developed a new weapon that used phased polarons in concentrated beams to do devastating damage at medium range.
An odd result of the phased polaron research actually led to the development of the first shield generators which used the EMW power source that had been used on the original PPB prototypes to generate an energy barrier around a starship and protect the hull from direct damage.
Another breakthrough in the Icaran Bureau of ships R&D department led BuShips to believe they could design and build a larger warship based on the ones they had seen in both the Alliance and Neo-Star navies, the light cruiser and plans were underway immediately for the budgeting of projects to expound on that hull design and make an even larger warship with which Icara could ensure her naval dominance.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Another series of awesome stories http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Have you ever thought of writing a book? Based loosely perhaps on SEIV? I think you could do it, and I'd sure as hell read it. There seems to be a lack of good sci-fi writers out there, and I think you'd do quite well if this is an example of your writing capability. But then again, what do I know? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif thanks, and yes I have thought of writing a book which is actually why I'm writing these stories.
I'm hoping I can get enough practice so that when I do write a book it won't have as many gramatical errors as this story. And so I can learn character development and flow of writing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


2408.9
"Praetor saints preserve us from the NAVY!!!!" Lord Michael Branch, leader of the so called "Peace Movement" said as he stormed to his feet as if he was about to attack Grand Admiral Hallice.

The House of Lords had met to discuss the construction of the new Cruiser sized starships and the overall expansion of the navy which currently numbered only 18 warships. Two Retribution class light cruisers had already been authorized by the Admiralty but for something as expensive as these cruisers were going to be needed to be authorized by the House of Lords and no one knew how much of a heated topic it was going to be until Michael Branch and his Peace Party showed up.

"Excuse meM'lord?" Hallice kept his voice level but the Admiralty's contempt for the peace party was well known throughout Icaran space, the Peace Party were idealists who beleived that if they kept the Royal Navy small with only enough power to patrol Icaran space then they would not draw the hostilities of other star natons or aliens.

"You heard me Admiral, you navy people have been sapping at our economy too much as it is and now you want to build even more ships! and BIG ships to boot, tell me Admiral are you trying to destroy Icara?" Branch asked angrily as he looked down at the Navy man and his attache.

"Actually My Lords the Navy is here to defend Icara, but to do that we need more then 18 warships, I assure you other nations probobly have far more, so far we've run into minor powers such as the Phong, an the Rebel Alliance who's navies are probobly no larger then our own. But NavInt beleives that the NeoStar Empire's navy may outnumber ours two to one and,...." Hallice was cut off by Branch's snort of disgust.

"Oh PLEASE Hallice, we are at peace with the Neo Star Empire and have been for months now, who cares if their navy outnumbers ours, if you navy types would pull your minds out of warfare for just one minute maybe you would stop planning on attacking them and instead plan on stronger economic balance with them." Branch was an egotistic blowhard and everyone knew it, but he was also born to a high ranking noble family and so figured he had every right to act in such a fashion, however little his fellow nobles liked him for it.

"Well My lords as we've all seen just by burrying our heads in the sand and wishing the universe would be nice to us does not work." Hallice paused while the bulk of the Lords and Ladies chuckled and grinned himself as he noticed Branch and his collegues fuming.
"Now we are at peace with the Neo-Star Empire at the moment, we've all seen that they're peace treaties are hardly iron clad as they destroyed TWO colonies and killed 300 million Icarans." His voice was much more serious as he continued but he still made a point of not looking at any of the Peace Party members.

"Admiral are you saying...." This time Branch was cut off as Halice conveniently closed a folder just a little bit lowder then he needed to before continuing on.

"Anyway My Lords, My Ladies these new cruiser sized starships would greatly increase our nation's ability to both defend it's own borders and expand outward against nations like the Neo-Star, or Rebel Alliance. The Phong continue to press our ambassadorial service with requests for a tighter alliance, would it not be better to go into such an alliance as the Dominant rather then the subserviant?" Hallice said calmly and polietly and shot a sideways glare at Branch, who was still sputtering in anger.

"My Lords! My Ladies! we must put this to a vote now so that we can better advise our Praetor, I say we vote now." The Count of Icara it's self said as he too cut Branch off before he could go on another navy bashing spree. His demand for a vote was echoed from every other noble in the house, except for those of the peace party of course.

When the vote was made it was 75% in favor of the construction of cruisers and the expansion of the navy leaving Branch and his followers storming out of the House of Lords like overgrown children.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

You can do a book now. There are "Book on Demand" sites that will accept your manuscript and create a page where people can order your book. They set a printing/shipping price and you can charge whatever you want over that. Like if they say they can do this story at 9.99 then you can charge 19.99 or 14.99 or 9.99 even. It still provides people with a nice bound Version of your book. There are also sites that do the same for eBooks.

My favorite "on demand" site lets everyones website add tshirts, mugs, Calendars, and books/music that are specific to their web site.
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/books.aspx

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

I don't think I'm a good enough writer at the moment I mean people wouldn't even likely read a book that I wrote since I'm a no name author http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif But I will look at that site for the future, thanks Gandalf.

As for the next chapter (unfortunately not much has happened except for what I posted and that all happened so fast that there is not much story element to it)

2409.3
Captain Ross paced his deck anxiously after the Admiralty had sent word via messenger that he was going to lose command of his current starship and thus the entire squadron and report to HMS Saber as she returned to Icara once the two light cruisers arrived. Ross Began to wonder if getting half his squadron crippled had put him dirt side, but all he could do now was wait for the two light cruisers and return home as ordered, the fact they were recalling Saber too hit him like a weight.

Icaran Spaceyard
The massive length of HMS Reliance was elegant yet deadly, her sleek gray hull with it’s gleaning white and blue prow dwarfed every other ship in the Icaran navy, she carried 6 phased poloron cannons two shield generators and a crew of 2,000 officers and Ratings plus 100 marines.
Reliance and Defiant were the first two cruisers to launch from Icara and Brandenburg but they would not be the Last plans were already underway to begin full fledged production and with these powerful new cruisers coming on-line Icara’s fighting strength would more then double.
In the meantime however Reliance silently slipped out of her port under the command of Captain Allison Hanks for her shakedown cruise and firing range tests.

Gaia System
Captain Ali Mahamed Ben Salim sipped at his tea quietly reading the reports of his “cargo's” well being, when he first joined the Icaran colonial service Captain Salim was looking forward to seeing new worlds, conquering space through force of wits and instead of force of arms like those in the navy. What he hadn’t expected was so much paperwork on a one way trip, but the colonial governor had complaints about his quarters and thousands of civilians were claiming other unimportant things that he still had to look over.
Well at least they were at the warp point, he thought and then only another week before they reached their destination, Salim decided that getting a few hours sleep for a change would be a good idea and he tossed the Last signed flexy pad aside and went to bed.

Alarms howling and the sound of civilians screaming or arguing woke Salem up in the middle of the night, he lay in place frozen for a moment as his mind raced down all the possible causes for the noise and as he reached the most logical conclusion he darted out of bed and donned his gray colonial service uniform before racing out the door.

“What’s going on up here mister Jackel?” Salem asked anxiously as he reached the ark ship’s bridge.
“Sir there is a light cruiser out there, they are closing fast….wait…..they’re hailing sir.” Jackel said nerviously as he routed the message to the Captain’s command station as well as his own.

”This is the Sol Coalition warship Yellowstone you are to surrender yourselves immediately and lead us to your government, you are renegades as far as we are concerned and thus if you do not surrender we will open fire on you. the voice sounded quite sincere but Salim just couldn’t believe it, Sol after all these centuries now Earth came looking for them?

‘What does he mean renegades?!” Jackel’s voice was angry but more frightened then angry as he realized their ship did not stand a chance against a warship, and they were already to close to the gravity field of the warp point to escape.
“It doesn’t matter mister Jackel, we can not lead them home and we can’t escape.” Salim sat silently for a moment, trying to decide whether he should bother to warn the civilians, at the Last minute he decided against it, let them live their Last few minutes in peaceful ignorance of what fate had dished out to them.
After a moment Salim bowed his head and began to pray for himself, and his family who were still back on Icara, his right hand slipped to the control panel and the alarms stopped howling.
The Sol cruiser hailed again but the Icaran ark ship did not surrender and so they carried out their threat, they had a single powerful Depleted Uranium cannon and it’s first shot killed millions of civilians as it blew out entire unarmored sections of hull, the engines were next and still it continued to fire without mercy.
Seconds later the colony ship and 120 million Icarans were gone and all that was in their place was a cloud of debris.

2409.5
HMS Victory had been detached from her patrol in Gaia to destroy a Rebel base that NavInt had located and captain Park wasted no time, he located the base and immediately closed range with the colony, a single volley of cannon and missile was all it took to exterminate the base.
Park’s return trip was not a joyous one however for he remembered young Miss Adair who had been offloaded at Haron for physical therapy and further question, and remembered that though these Rebel Alliance people had started the war they were still Human and many of them were not unlike Icarans, and he had sent over 50 million of them to their deaths, the thought made him slightly ill in his stomach as he continued to read the after action reports.
A mystery awaited them at the warp point as well as they scanned a massive debris field that had not been there on their journey out-system, Park made a mental note to inform the Admiralty and find out just what had happened, little did they know they had scanned the wreckage of what had once been an Icaran ark ship.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2409.6
The Sol Coalition light cruiser had hovered around the Gaia system ever since it had destroyed the colony ship at the warp point and Governor Averato was unwilling to dispatch the single destroyer that remained in his system after HMS Hydra went missing.
Finally with the construction of HMS Trafalgar the Gaia system had a ship strong enough to face off against the Sol warship.
The Captain and crew of Trafalgar never even got the chance to do a shakedown cruise, they immediately proceeded directly from port on a course to intercept the enemy warship.

“Captain Peters, this is governor Averato, if you believe that taking on that ship gets too dangerous for you I want you to fall back to Goin and join up with the Victory is that understood?” Averato’s baritone voice sounded odd to Captain Peters’ he had never known Averato to sound worried but this time, there was fear in his voice.
“Yes sir, but if Trafalgar can’t take that ship on I doubt Victory will be able to help us much.” Peters frowned at the face in the com screen “Well sir that just means my crew will have to even better doesn’t it?” His frown quirked slightly until he was grinning.
“Captain if you take out that ship I’ll give you a thousand crowns to buy your whole crew a drink!” Averato smiled before cutting the com.

“Tactical, time to intercept?” Peters looked across the large bridge and felt a swell of confidence, this cruiser was a magnificent warship, 500,000 tons of raw power with a crew of 2,100 of the best spacers in the galaxy. But still they were facing a ship that was only slightly less powerful then they were and it had unknown weapons and shield capabilities.
“Five-zero minutes sir, possibly less if they turn about to intercept us.” The tactical officer replied, she was young and green but then again almost everyone was green, Peters himself had only been an ensign back on HMS Saber when she first launched almost ten years ago but most of the navy was fresh out of the academy when they were given ships. Captains were drawn from the original crews of the first three ships to have launched from Icara but even they were new to command.

“Sir, they are turning about to intercept us!” the tactical officer shouted just twenty-five minutes after her initial assessment. “Revised time to intercept is one zero minutes, we’ll meet them just outside of Gaia seven orbit.” her voice calmed but the excited tone was still there, and Peters could hardly blame her his own excitement was almost painful.

The Icaran cruiser closed on the Sol Coalition Light Cruiser with amazing swiftness and finally they closed to weapons range.
“Alright guns, open fire!” Peters had to force himself not to shout as he watched the gunnery crews lights signal their readiness.

The six phased poloron cannons tore across space, to the shock of all gunners all but one beam missed it’s target by a wide margin, and the single beam that struck it’s target was blocked easily by the Sol light cruiser’s shields.
“What happened guns?” Peters asked coldly as he watched the enemy ship continue to advance on his ship
“Sir I don’t know, we are getting all sorts of sensor ghosts from that Solaran and she’s got phased shields.” the gunnery officer simply shrugged at his captain and turned back to his station.
Just as Peters looked back at the main display screen two thin orange beams raced out from the enemy warship and the shields of his cruiser flashed and flared as if they had been struck by some divine wrath. Peters expected damage alarms to start howling or collision alerts but instead he just heard the confused voices of his tactical and executive officers.
“What is it?” his voice was harsh as his tactical display showed his cruiser’s shields simply disappear, it was impossible by what the Icarans knew about shields, when shields collapsed a portion of energy that had dropped the shields would carry through the hull and cause damage to the ship’s hull, yet there were no damage reports.
“Incoming, three zero five by niner two!” The tactical officer shrilled, but it was already too late, by time the sensors had detected the incoming shell it had already impacted on the unshielded hull.
An explosion rent a massive hole into the portside of the Icaran cruiser and flames spouted out into space for a nanosecond before the vacuum consumed the flames.
Damage and collision alerts began sounding throughout the ship as if the cruiser were a wounded beast howling in pain.
“Phase cannons five and six are gone, neither crew made it out, 14 dead, engine five gone, portside fire control gone switching to starboard, reactor room two is gone, 20 confirmed dead, we’ve got damage control parties trying to seal the breach sir.” Chief Daine’s voice was strained as he finished listing the damage sustained by a single high yield cannon shell.
The battered cruiser returned fire and almost miraculously all four shots hit the enemy ship and finally brought down the enemy vessels shields and causing a burn through that destroyed two engines.

The return fire was brutal however and another shot tore another gaping hole in Trafalgar destroying another engine and killing over a dozen crewmen. The Icaran cruiser limped forward defiantly, she brought her cannons to bare again but this time all four shots missed, and she rocked under the devastating shell that was spat back at her by the enemy cruiser.
“Sir if we take any more hits like that structural integrity is going to fail!” The executive officer breathed in sharply as he saw two of their own shots impact on the enemy ship’s hull and it’s shield generators exploded.
“Captain, the sensor ghosts are gone I’ve got lock!” The gunnery officer shouted triumphantly as his gunnery crews achieved positive locks.
Another enemy shell came screaming towards Trafalgar and Peters expected to die this time around but jus as it closed in on them the shell continued on into the void of space before exploding 100 clicks off the Icaran’s battered port side.
“Oh thank God and all the Saints!” Peters’ exec sighed in relief, that shell could have done vast amounts of damage if it had hit the battered port side of the cruiser.
The Trafalgar closed to point blank and loosed another volley with her four remaining cannons, without those ghosts every single shot hit right where it was aimed and this time the Solaran light cruiser suffered, whole sections of it’s hull melted away before the devastating energies unleashed upon it, internal explosions lit across the shattered hull and finally the enemy starship flared into a brilliant ball of light and wreckage before winking out of existence along with 1200 of it’s crew.
Trafalgar had suffered her own losses however, 500 personnel had died and another 250 wounded, she was limping home at 2/3 speed and her supplies were almost completely destroyed when her portside supply hold was blown out by the enemy ship, but she had emerged victorious and saved the Gaia system from even more deaths.

2409.8
Admiral Tyson Babcock Given Command of 1st Fleet (Stationed out of Icara Naval base)
Admiral Yu Hing Pe Given Command 3rd Fleet (Stationed at Handra Base)
Rear Admiral Patrick Raley Given command 2nd fleet (Stationed in Gaia system)

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Some things you guys may need to know as the story goes on (so you don't get confused):

Royal Navy Ranks
Enlisted
E1= Spacer's Assistant
E2= Spacer
E3= Senior Spacer
E4= Petty Officer 2nd Class
E5= Petty Officer First Class
E6= Senior Petty Officer
E7= Cheif Petty Officer
E8= Master Chief Petty Officer
E9= Master Spacer

Officers
O1= Ensign
02= Lieutenant Junior Grade
03= Lieutenant
04= Lieutenant Commander
05= Commander/Sailing Master (if two or more commanders are permanently stationed on a starship and if one is not in the medical field the junior commander receives title Sailing Master)
O6 (when not in command of ship or base)= Brevet Captain
O6(in command of a ship or base)= Post Captain
O7= Commadore
O8= Rear Admiral
O9= Vice Admiral
O10= Star Admiral
O11(Special)= Grand Admiral of the Navy

Note: The Term Brevet is also given when a rank is unofficial or temporary. (I.E a Squadron commander with the actual rank of Captain will be referred to as "Brevet Commadore".

Army Ranks
Enlisted

E1= Trooper Recruit
E2= Trooper
E3= Trooper First Class
E4= Corporal
E5= Seargent
E6= Signifier
E8= Signifier Seargent
E9= Master Signifier

Officers
O1= Second Lieutenant
O2= First Lieutenant
O3= Captain
O4= Major
O5= Lieutenant Centurion
O6= Centurion
O7= Company General
O8= Regimental General
O9= General of the Corps
O10= Grand General of the Army

Army Stormtroopers
Enlisted

E1= Commando
E2= Senior Commando
E3= Elite
E4= Seargent

Officers
O1= Aquilifer
O2= Tessarius
O3= Centurion

Royal Marines
Enlisted

E1= Private
E2= Marine
E3= Corporal
E4= Seargent
E5= Gunnery Seargent
E6= Command Gunnery Seargent

Officers
O1= Lieutenant Second Class
O2= Lieutenant First Class
O3= Brigadier General
O4= General
O5= Comendant of the Marines

Unit Composition
Royal Navy

Section= 2 Capital Ships
Squadron= 2 Sections
Division= 3 Sections
Fleet= 2 Divisions+

Royal Army
FireTeam= 4 Men
Squad= 3 Fireteams
Section= 4 Squads
Company= 4 Sections
Brigade= 8 Companies
Regiment= 3 Brigades
Army Corps= 2+ Regiments

Storm Troopers
Ops Team= 3 Stormtroopers
Squad= 4 Ops Teams
Pursuit Group= 4 Squads
Hunter Killer Group= 4 Pursuit Groups
Assault Formation= 8 HK Groups
Purifier Force= 3 Assault Formations

Royal Marine Corps
Fireteam= 4 Marines
Squad= 3 Fireteams
Section= 4 Squads
Company= 2 Sections
Batallion= 5 Companies
Brigade= 2 Batallions


Well there you go a little Military Info (BTW the 1st 2nd and 3rd fleets are all understrength for the "official" fleet designation at the moment, however the ships are currently under construction to bring them up to and beyond the minimum requirement for the term "fleet".

P.S. Next installment is tomorrow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif after I re-read the draft.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

No no no! Comment Posts (and the "is it a new chapter?" anticipation you describe) are what keep a story thread alive between chapter Posts and keep interest in the story up. Trust me, authors need comment Posts.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

OK - I trust you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Comment - great stuff. Keep it coming.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2409.9 A busy month in Gaia
It was a dull day for the crew of the cruiser HMS Brilliance, they had been blockading the same warp point ever since Trafalgar had gone into port for repairs, the crew was more then bored the were starting to become absolutely worn out, they had been responsible for the intercept of three Rebel Alliance colony ships and their cruiser had killed over one hundred million human beings mercilessly.
Captain Babcock started to wish he had his brother’s job back at the Admiralty, at least there he would not be responsible for intercepting unarmed colony ships and playing the role of butcher so that these Alliance types didn’t expand into Icaran space.

“Sir I’ve got a GFG footprint!” tactical officer Schmit sounded nervous as he studied the nav chart in front of him. Babcock had the information fed directly into his command repeaters and he swallowed hard when he saw the footprint and mass readings, it was a cruiser and the hull shape suggested it was a Solar cruiser.
Babcock snorted in disgust as he remembered the Solar ship that had destroyed an innocent ark ship without even attempting to make contact!
“Battle stations mister Schmit, all hands to battle stations!” Babcock said coldly as his tac office punched in the alert codes and the familiar sound of klaxons and alarms began their tirade.
Brilliance closed rapidly on the offending starship and within seconds her broadside came to bare, her phased poloron beams lashed out but met either empty space or the cruiser’s phased shields.
A counter volley from the Solar, brought down the Icaran’s shields and two DU cannon shells slammed into her exposed hull.
“Damage report con.”
“Engines one, two, and three gone, starboard reactor gone, aft GFG gone, sir heavy casualties reported in those sections.” Schmit nearly shouted as the sound of another explosion jerked brought his attention back to his control Boards.
Another volley from Brilliance lashed out into space and this time it got lucky, the enemy ship’s shields went down and the Last beam that actually hit the enemy cruiser managed to pierce her hull just enough to take out her ECM generator negating her prime advantage.
The counter volley struck home on Brilliance yet again, and this time it’s second shell exploded right in the heavily reinforced prow of the Icaran cruiser, taking out her forward GFG and most of her primary sensors.
“Helm take us baring one-five-three-zero-zero” Babcock’s chilly tone sounded mechanical as he almost chanted out the coordinates.
The Icaran cruiser closed point blank on the enemy cruiser, only a few hundred meters off it’s port side, then her cruiser’s powerful phased poloron cannons swung round and dealt a devastating broadside which crippled the Solar cruiser’s weapons, and most of it’s engines. Another volley turned it into an expanding sphere of flame.

“Helm take us to Goin base for repairs.” Babcock’s voice had returned to normal as he read the damage and casualty reports, out of a crew of 2,000 he lost 50 dead and had 120 wounded, and his ship had the living hell beaten out of it.

The Price of Victory
Rear Admiral Yu Hing Pe sat quietly aboard the bridge of the Icaran cruiser Torment which orbited Handra base with the other warships of the 3rd fleet. He grinned at the thought of his small squadron being called a fleet, six ships didn’t even meet the official minimum requirement for the name fleet. He had just received his orders from the Admiralty and his fleet was getting supplies and equipment loaded aboard from Handra’ supply facility before they set course for the Fornax system to join the two ships of the Enterprise section.
“Admiral Yu?” the soft voice of his flag captain Allison Hickock sounded concerned as she saw the face of her Admiral.
“They want us to attack the largest base in Fornax before linking up with Ross’ ships and continuing on.” Yu’s voice was quiet enough so that only his Flag Captain could hear the concern in his voice, intelligence reports from the Enterprise and Wardo base had suggested that the Phong had one of their bases there in preparation for an assault on Handra and that left the Admiralty with no choice but to take out that base and all the warships that may be there when he arrived but with only 6 starships Yu hardly felt confident about his chances. But his orders were clear and he intended to carry them out come hell or high water.

Two days later the ships of the 3rd fleet left Handra base and made the jump into the Fornax system, their target lay ahead of them and the fleet immediately formed a battle line, HMS Torment holding the center of the line.
“Admiral I’m detecting one-five enemy destroyers closing fast from their base, radar also detects satellites in orbit around our objective.” Tactical officer Browler’s face was pale as he saw the sheer number of enemy ships coming their way, they had two cruisers two light cruisers and two destroyers vs. that entire fleet.
“Alright tell HMS Victorious to hold her position on our left flank with Retribution, King Roger and Manticore will hold the left. Inform them that Torment and Pollux will hold at our center.” Yu analyzed the formation that was coming at him with some hope, they were approaching in an old style arrowhead formation which meant that his line of battle formation may be able to defeat the oncoming warships in segments, unfortunately the arrowhead favored the destroyers because of their sheer numbers 15 to 6 was hardly an even match and he knew it.

Instead of heading straight into the Icaran battle line the Phong fleet attempted to flank them, Yu’s force moved to intercept and prevent themselves from being flanked but with their approach only the left flank would be in firing position for several minutes, fortunately they were also two of the heavy ships in the formation Retribution being one of two light cruisers in the Icaran navy, the other being Victorious which was one of the newest cruisers in the navy.
The Phong fleet closed in on the Icarans but the two warships on the Icaran got into firing position first and the Cruiser Victorious laid a devastating broadside into the closest Phong destroyer, the energy cannons caused the destroyer’s hull to buckle, whole sections of the destroyer began melting or exploding under the force of the beams clawing at it in rapid succession, within seconds the Phong destroyer ceased to exist and Victorious was seeking her next victim. The Icaran light cruiser also scored a kill before the startled Phong formation brought their own cannons to bare on the two warships.
Shell after shell slammed into the shields of Victorious and Retribution yet they held against the fire and the two Icaran warships sought out two more victims and within the blink of an eye only 11 Phong destroyers remained, unfortunately the counter fire this time was too much for the shields of Victorious and her hull erupted in flame where the shells scored home. Three of her engines were gone and all but three of her cannons but Commodore Stein refused to pull his ship out of the fight and his broadside crippled another enemy destroyer.
“Get us into that fight Helm!” Yu said bitterly as he watched Retribution turn another destroyer into floating debris….the Admirals eyes squinted as he saw another volley impact on Victorious unprotected hull.
“Sir message fro Retribution Commodore Stein’s flag bridge was destroyed, he’s dead sir as his command staff Victorious is withdrawing from the battle.” Com officer Jessup’s voice was more then a little shocked as he saw the battered hull of Commodore Stein’s flagship withdraw from the battle, leaving the Light Cruiser alone.
The Phong were fortunately using a kind of mount for their weapons that allowed them much longer range then the standard DU cannons that the IRN had used on their older ships but the Phong cannons also had much reduced accuracy, which was probably the only reason Retribution was still alive and fighting.
HMS Torment and Pollux finally closed the range with the Phong warships, two destroyers rapidly died under the firepower that the two warships unleashed, 7 Phong warships still remained however and two were pursuing the shattered remains of the cruiser Victorious.
“Commodore Hanson, reports his warships are in position to intercept those two Phong Destroyers sir, he recommends we sustain fire on the main formation.” Jessup’s voice sounded relieved as he saw the two light codes for the Icaran destroyers closing in on the enemy warships that were pursuing Victorious.
“My compliments to Hanson and inform him we will sustain engagement with their main body.” Yu said calmly as he saw another enemy destroy vanish beneath the fire of his warship. Two more enemy warships died rapidly as the other two warships brought their fire to bare.
The missiles from the two Icaran destroyers quickly brought the two warships chasing the Victorious to a halt, rapidly ending their pursuit with a volley of cannon shells and seconds after that another volley of missiles finished them off in two brilliant flashes of light.
“Sir two enemy ships closing on our port, INCOMING!” Browler’s voice was cut short as three cannon shells tore into Torment’s shields, a fourth shell impacted on the cruiser’s hull taking out two of her engines in the process.
“Return fire!” Flag Captain Hancock shouted over the din of damage alerts, her cruiser shook again as a secondary explosion tore open her aft gravity field generator.
The Retribution and Pollux moved into position beside their flagship and their combined salvo destroyed the remaining destroyers, it was only then that Yu was able to notice of Commodore Hanson had moved his destroyers into position near the enemy base, sadly their missiles were torn apart by the numerous point defense stations on the planet and its satellites.
“Sir Manticore is taking fire from the planet!” Jessup hissed as the displays showed multiple hits impacign on the unshielded destroyer. “King Roger is moving in to cannon range sir, she’s firing….I’m reading impacts on the surface, I think she got one of those weapon platforms.”
“Tell Pollux to follow us in, order Retribution to stay with Victorious in case any more enemy ships come into range.”
“Aye sir transmitting orders.”

Moments later HMS King Roger exploded into a ball of flames as she tried to shield the battle damaged Manticore.
The cruiser and two light cruisers that were still in fighting trim approached the enemy base, unfortunately Torment was the first to discover the range that the remaining planetary weapons platform truly had, her unshielded hull was rent by eight cannon shells.
Admiral Yu regained consciousness enough to see that his bridge had been exposed to vacuum and that most of his bridge crew was gone, the injured Yu looked over to his right where Captain Hancock was strapped to her seat and noticed that her helmet’s faceplate was opaque with blood, he glanced downward and saw a massive piece of debris embedded in her chest.
A brilliant light grabbed his attention back to where his ship’s view screen had used to be and his Last thoughts were of his son, who was a Captained a cruiser in the 1st fleet, then the light drew nearer and nearer, then an all encompassing flash ended the life of Admiral Yu and the lives of his crew as the massive shell tore apart the remnants of Torment.
The dead were avenged quickly however as the two light cruisers destroyed the satellites and weapon platforms that were defending the base, the base was soon destroyed as the Icaran warships opened up on it’s surface.
15 Phong destroyers and one of their most important bases in Fornax had been destroyed but the Icaran 3rd fleet had paid dearly for their victory, Victorious and Manticore had to be towed by the two light cruisers, Torment and King Roger had died with all hands including Admiral Yu.
The Icaran dead numbered 2,800 and the 3rd fleet was neutralized as an effective fighting force.

Meanwhile on the other end of the Fornax system Enterprise Farrogot and Saber successfully engaged and destroyed 4 Phong destroyers, suffering only 81 dead and 150 wounded.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2410.0 A change of Flags
Commodore William Ross sat alone in his briefing room aboard HMS Enterprise, he had just come from the memorial service held for Rear Admiral Yu, the second he got back aboard his own ship he came straight to his briefing room and turned out the lights so he could be alone with his thoughts. The Admiral had been his tactical combat instructor back when Ross was still a snotty or “little gentleman” as they were supposed to be called-but never were-Ross frowned even deeper as he remembered the first time he had met Yu Lin Pe, the Admiral’s daughter was a first form midshipman like him and she had thrown him about three meters across the gym during unarmed combat training, he still remembered the smile on her face as she helped him up-and that it was a genuine smile of satisfaction and not an arrogant one of triumph-, and the look of pride on her father’s face-and the grin as he watched a 15 year old boy's face go fusion at getting thrown by a 1.5 meter tall girl who weighed less then 40 kilos-.
Chin Pe, the Admiral’s son had even been his roommate for two years and often Ross would have dinner with the Admiral’s family when the Academy was between forms….he decided rather quickly he liked the Admiral and his family even though they came from a low nobility and he was just a commoner.
On the day Saber launched from her port on Icara Ross remembered that the whole Yu family had all been there, Chin teased him about his habit of getting lost and Lin (then a commander waiting for her chance at command) gave him one of her typically strong handshakes and a hug as she told him not to get into any trouble, well he had gotten in trouble he got all Icara in trouble and they’d lost millions of lives already and in a way it was his fault. And now thanks to him stumbling across a hostile race Admiral Yu was dead, before even getting the chance to learn that his daughter had received her own command HMS Blackbird in the 1st fleet just like his son had recieved command of HMS Eclipse three months ago. Ross’ eyes began to tear up as he thought of how proud Hing would have been of his youngest child as she donned the red and black tri-point hat of a post captain for the first time (even though they wer never actually worn aboard ship they went back to the days of sail and the Royal Navy loved tradition)Ross thought about how her elegent features would have looked in a Captain's formal uniform, and he realized sadly how much he cared about the young woman....which made him feel even worse as if he were betraying her father somehow, even though he had chosen never to do anything about his feelings for her, or did he feel he betrayed her father by not doing anything about it? Either way she was 300 lightyears away now and he could do nothing about it....his depression rose as the feelings of loss drew closer to the surface.

The door chimed quietly and Ross snapped back to the present and made sure he covered his grief.
“Come.” His voice was still shaky but he was managing to get it under control
“Sir, a messenger drone has just arrived from the Admiralty, there is a packet of sealed orders for you, as well as Messages from Yu Chin Pe and Yu Lin Pe.” Captain Fowler’s voice was quiet as she handed her Commodore the envelope with his orders, she silently handed him the two Flexy’s from Admiral Yu’s children.
Ross quickly unsealed the envelope and saw a sheet of honest to god paper within it, in this day and age the Admiralty only used real paper for the most formal of occasions, his eyes quickly scanned the paper and his breath caught in his throat. As he saw Captain Fowler turn around to leave Ross held up his hand to stop her.
“Is everything alright Commodore?” She asked quietly.
“I’m not a Commodore anymore Sandra.” His voice still sounded shocked as he re-read the piece of paper in his hands.
“Sir?” Sandra’s face turned red as she saw the look on Ross’ face and thought he had been dismissed from his command.
“The Admiralty, has bestowed upon me the rank of Rear Admiral, they’ve given me command of the 3rd fleet such as it is, and have given me the authority to give field promotions to a captain, two commanders, and three Lieutenants.” His face lit up and for the first time since the messenger drone from the third fleet had arrived.
“Congratulations sir!” Fowler said as she gave him an enthusiastic handshake, her smile was almost as broad as his as she beamed at her new Admiral.
“Thanks Sandy, I’m going to need a new Captain for Retribution when Drake’s promoted to Commodore and you have my priority, that is if your up to it?” He asked almost cheerfully, it was her turn to be shocked this time and after a moment of obvious disbelief thought she started nodding.
“Well then Captain Fowler, when I make Captain Drake’s promotion to Commodore official you’ll take over as captain of Retribution,…and stop nodding before you break your neck.” Ross laughed again as the young woman realized she hadn’t stopped nodding and suddenly flushed when it was pointed out.

The list of Promotions and reassignments in the 3rd fleet are as follows:
Captain Sandra Fowler Transferred from HMS Saber to HMS Retribution
Commander Sarah Pallins former exec HMS Enterprise promoted to Flag Captain and given command of HMS Victorious.
Captain Thomas Drake former commander HMS Victorious promoted to Commodore and given command [i]HMS Pollux[/i.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2411.0
Ensign Liza Adair had been in the prison cells on the Icaran colony of Tathys IX for a long time now, such a long time that she knew most of the guards by their first names and even made a few friends among them. She still had no illusions though she was over a thousand light years from the nearest Alliance world and she was a prisoner, no matter how nicely the guards treated her and her fellow Alliance POWs.
The interrogators decided she didn’t know anything of value about the Alliance only three months into her incarceration, and she was glad of it because the drugs they used to make her talk also made her throw up rather violently after they settled into her system. Her compatriots were not the only Prisoners here either, she had seen a group of men that didn’t look like anyone back on New Haven, they were shorter then the average Rebel and their skin color was an olive complexion and their heir was dark compared to the fairer features of the Rebs, they also spoke a language she had never heard before but she did remember hearing them mention some place called Nuovo Roma and there used to be an empire who’s capital was called Rome back on old Earth thousands of years ago.
She also saw a handful of others that looked like some of the Solarans her own people picked up after a skirmish on their borders and she often wondered just how far these Icarans were expanding and how long they were going to keep her and the other Alliance personnel prisoner.

The heavy thump of armored boots was not all that unusual in the prison corridors but this time Adair noted that there was a much softer clap that sounded like a standard Icaran jackboot, one that their army officers wore when not in battle. A few moments later the door to her cell slid open and two armored troopers stepped in the door, they both carried stunners at the ready and she smirked, a trooper in full armor was around 1.8 to 2 meters tall and a single backhand could break a human’s jaw easily so the stunners were really just for show.
An officer stepped forward wearing the black trench coat, the jackboots and the black cap with the Icaran eagle emblazoned on it. His rank insignia suggested a Colonel or at least she thought they did, her casual analysis ended abruptly when she noticed the grim look on his face, she immediately straightened her shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Miss Adair, as senior surviving officer of the Alliance Personnel on this base you are to inform the rest of your compatriots that you are to be released in four hours.” He saw her shocked expression and a brief grin crossed his face. “The war is over, but before you rejoice I must inform you that the reason the war is over is because your nation has been absorbed into the Icaran Empire, they’ve surrendered.” the Colonel actually looked remorseful as he handed her the flexy with the information.
For a stunned moment she couldn’t believe it, her people were in an economic decline because of their lack of valuable planets in their space, her destroyed task force was a massive economic investment, and with it’s destruction would likely never have been replaced in all the time that she had been in prison. But even with that economic decline and the military defeats they had suffered she just couldn’t imagine her entire alliance surrendering, after the realization sank in she collapsed down onto her bunk and tears swelled in her eyes.
“I’ll leave you too it then miss Adair, but you have to meet your shuttle in four hours.” the Colonel turned about smartly and went through the doorway leaving Adair in stunned silence.

Public Speech by Praetor Leonidas XIV
“Today Citizens of Icara the greatest victory our people have ever achieved thus far was confirmed by our diplomatic corps, The so called Rebel Alliance leadership contacted our pickets just over a month ago and surrendered their worlds to our Empire.” Praetor Leonidas paused as the crowds cheered and called out their praise, he then raised his hands to bring silence to the thousands of citizens who had massed in Icara City’s “Public Square”.
“Ladies and gentlemen, though these planets will one day bring our nation’s strength to double what it was before the Alliance surrendered they are currently poor worlds with crumbling economies, we have a responsibility to bring these worlds into the fold wholeheartedly and fully, there are over 6 billion Rebels that are no doubt confused and quiet a few will likely be resistant to the change that is coming their way. The are used to that feeble governmental system of Democracy, where every citizen has a voice and where the rich are practically above the law…..for this very reason our Empire had long ago abandoned Democracy for the much stronger government we have today.” Leonidas smiled broadly as he heard the cheering crowds.
Democracy was long ago considered to be a foolish form of government by all Icaran people as a “rule by the mob” was considered to be too fragile for a nation that believed in it’s right to expand and believed God chose the line of Praetors personally, and so Praetors were seen as more then rulers, they were living saints to their people and more often then not lived up to the expectations their people held out for them. So it was that when the Rebel Alliance surrendered it was seen as a justified expansion of Icara for the good of it’s people, and as Leonidas promised them, some day Icara would rule over not just one human nation but instead over every human world and every Phong world in the galaxy! For it Was their divine right to rule and they would never yield as long as even one Icaran drew breath to carry on the fight to unify mankind under Icara’s Praetor saint!

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

Dictatorship prevails, democracy falls....

Another set of awesome stories! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

You call it dictatorship they call it logical http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

2411.2 Dawn of a New Era
HMS Hawkwing, the first of the General class heavy cruisers was launched from Handra base only a month after her keel was laid, there was of course a reason for her rapid launch, an entire Phong destroyer division had been located by sensor probes, hiding in the Escandor system’s asteroid belt and it was the considered opinion of the Handra base commander that they were intending on launching an assault to destroy the Icaran base.
Hawkwing was a massive vessel at 600,000 tons, she dwarfed a cruiser by a clear 50 meters and was manned by a crew of 3,000. Her firepower and shielding matched her size and it was believed by her designers that if handled right Hawkwing could take on an entire Phong Squadron by herself.
That theory was soon to be put into test as she set course for the asteroid belt at maximum military power not even pausing for a shakedown cruise.

“Captain Palmer, we are closing in on the belt I am detecting those destroyers but I don’t think they can see us.” Tac officer Gregor sounded very satisfied as the new sensors picked up the six enemy ships that thought they were hidden.
“Thank you Tactical, let’s just hope those new sensors that BuDesign came up with do as well in combat.” Captain Palmer’s grin was obvious from across the bridge as watched the command repeaters at his station. 6 destroyers on staggered formation within a belt of thousands of rocks of various sizes.
“Helm take us in as close to those asteroids as you can manage without crashing into them, let’s see if we can surprise those destroyers shall we.”
“Aye captain plotting a course now.”

The massive form of Hawkwing slid silently along the asteroid belt for nearly two hours all the while closing on her unsuspecting prey. As the heavy cruiser swung round the first destroyer came into her weapons range.
“Guns, open fire!” Palmer’s voice was excited as he watched the targeting sensors achieve locks on the first enemy ship.
“Firing aye.”
In an eye blink beam after beam of highly charged phased polorons cut across space and sliced again and again into the armored hull of the Phong warship, debris and atmosphere began pouring away from the destroyer in massive clouds…less then a minute later the destroyer exploded.
“Damn good shooting guns.” Captain Palmer’s voice was praiseful as he saw the expanding cloud of gas and wreckage.

The other five destroyers were aware of his ships presence however and they quickly closed the range and opened fire with broadside after broadside pouring across space, many of the explosive shells detonated on asteroids while others missed entirely the few that did manage to find Hawkwing did no damage as the splashed across the heavy cruiser’s hull.

The Icaran’s counter fire was far more devastating however as yet another broadside cut a Phong destroyer into pieces, a second broadside against another destroyer sent it spinning out of control as it’s engines exploded.
The three enemy destroyers still in combat range closed in on the heavy cruiser, firing as they came but this time their fire was totally ineffective and Palmer’s smile broadened as he realized it was his ship’s ECM generator that kept the Phong from getting a lock on him.
“Sir I’ve got two more of those destroyers locked on.”
“Thank you guns, take them out. Helm run us right down their throats.”
“Aye sir, putting maximum thrust, closing.”
The Icaran heavy cruiser accelerated into ranges so close Palmer felt like he could just spit out his gun ports and hit one of those yellow bastards, the broadside Hawkwing dealt to the first enemy destroyer turned it into a plasma ball and debris field, the second destroyer that met her fire also erupted into a ball of fire as it had been damaged previously by Hawkwing.
“Sir incoming!” Gregor frowned as he watched his display. Almost before his sentence was finished three shells slammed into the heavy cruiser’s shields but to the relief of everyone aboard their ship’s strong shields simply shrugged off the fire.
“Guns, let’s make sure that destroyer gets our compliments for his gunnery skills.” Palmer’s voice was relaxed and cool even as he saw the smirks on the faces of his bridge crew.
The aforementioned destroyer did receive Hawkwing’s “compliments” barely a minute later as she was torn to pieces by the powerful cannons that had already destroyed 4 of her comrades only minutes before.
The sixth and final destroyer died less then fifteen minutes later as the heavy cruiser achieved lock through an asteroid that the destroyer was attempting to hide behind, both the destroyer and it’s hiding place erupted in fire and rock as the heavy cruiser’s broadside came to bare.

“Damage report tactical?” Palmer’s voice was slightly anxious as he awaited the reply.
“Sir, no damage, medical reports we do have a minor injury from an energy feedback caused when that Last shell impacted the shields though.” Gregor turned around and smiled cheerfully at his captain, this was probably the first naval battle in history where six warships had been destroyed by one and no fatalities were sustained by the victor.
“Well then, Helm take us to the Fornax warp point and hold position until new orders come through.”

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2411.3 Wasp’s Sting
Captain Thomas Cadel ran down the corridors of the Tempel II military base, the nine other pilots of the 1st Wasp squadron ran beside and behind him as the battle alarms screamed.
“What the hell is going on?” Lieutenant Paris shouted as she buttoned her flight suit.
“A Phong battle group got through the warp point before those navy boys could intercept ‘em, so that leaves us!” Cadel’s was tense as he they made it to the small flight bay which held the 10 Wasp star fighters that made up his entire command (there were supposed to be 30 before he launched) he thought bitterly.

The Wasp fighter was a small one man fighter craft with two auto cannons which could fire 2,000 depleted Uranium rounds per minute and could out maneuver the cannons of a capital ship. It was an experiment commissioned by Admiral Babcock before he took command of the 1st fleet and Cadel was the first Pilot trained to fly these new star fighters into combat unfortunately for him his squadron was only 1/3 completed when the 8 Phong destroyers had been detected near their planet.
The Wasp fighters were designed specifically for fighting on the Phong front, their weapons would not have done much damage too a heavily shielded ship such as those on the Sol or NeoStar fronts and were also far cheaper then a capital ship-most of which had to be diverted to guard the Solar/Neo Star borders in case either of those powers launched any further sneak attacks.

Two hours later Cadel and his squadron were spaceborne and closing on their first target, the lead Phong warship, one of their “Fearless’ class destroyers that seemed to form the bulk of their navy.
“Alright Lads, get lock on that first lil’ bastard and let’s try and keep them away from Tempel.”
“Alright boss, we’ll keep em out of tempel.”
“Lad heh right sir”
“Sorry Janet sometimes I forget” Cadel enjoyed a brief laugh, he still had twenty minutes to close on the enemy and he wanted his people loose and relaxed when the time came to fight, he had trained with them for months now and they had all become very close, but more then that he knew he could rely on them no matter what, even though the odds were very much against them.

Twenty minutes later the 10 fighters of Wasp 1 squadron “Puking Dogs” had closed in on the first destroyer And space lit up as it brought it’s cannons to bare on the approaching fighters. Cadel’s own fighter rocked and shook as the shells screamed past him at nearly 3,000 gravities of acceleration.
Cadel worried for a second until he let his eyes drift to his in helmet HUD and saw all ten of his fighters still at his wing.
“Alright lads and lassies, let’s show this bastard to hell!” Cadel squeezed his triggers and the cannons mounted in the nose of his fighter opened up with a fury, as did those of his squad mates. Thousands of rounds poured out of the fighters as they strafed along the enemy ships hull and explosions erupted all across it’s hull tearing open section after section and destroying multiple subsystems and sending it spinning out of formation.
Every alarm in Cadel’s fighter began to blare as the enemy warships turned about to focus all of their attention on his squadron, but he and his fellows were already hunting down their second target a strafing run on that destroyer proved equally effective and it’s crew managed to lug her about and attempted to withdraw from the battle zone.
“Sir, I think they’re scared now, they’ve all turned about and are pursuing us.” the voice of Ensign Chaplain sounded excited as he turned about to join his squadron on their third victim.
A strafing run on the third ship was less effective and it still had a cannon left after their pass.
“Sir should we turn around and reengage?” Janet’s voice came over the com net but Cadel shook his head, forgetting he was alone in his fighter.
“Negative Jan, move on to the fourth target our goal is to cripple their ability to destroy Tempel not go goose hunting.”
“What’s a Goose sir?”
“Forget about it Jan. We’ve still got incoming!”
More shells poured into space as the Destroyers desperately tried to kill their assailants to no avail the smaller Wasps continued to sting again and again across the fourth and then fifth targets doing heavy damage, the fifth still had a cannon remaining and continued to fire defiantly.
“Sir that sixth destroyer’s got good gunners, they getting to close to me here I’m getti….” the voice of Ensign Janavits suddenly cut off
“Oh Jesus!” Janet shouted through the com as she just barely dodged the exploding wreckage of her wing mate.
“Stay calm, stay calm now get the lock on that bastard.” Cadel swore inside and out in his mind yet he could not let his anger cloud his orders or his whole squadron might join the young pilot who had just died.
The sixth destroyer paid in blood for it’s single successful hit as the nine remaining fighters blew apart it’s entire armament, spilling bodies and wreckage into space…..the destroyer limped away at less then a quarter speed.
The fighters of the Puking Dogs did not relent as the seventh destroyer was quickly put out of combat with another strafing run by the wasp attackers. The eight destroyer fought more valiantly, yet it did no damage to the Icaran fighter squadron and it too was quickly put out of action.
“Alright now let’s finish this!” Cadel’s voice was pure hatred as his fighters swung round against the two closely packed destroyers they had just crippled.
A second pass was all it took and both destroyers went up in brilliant fireballs as thousands of DU shells tore through hull and crew alike.
“Sir I’ve got six running, we can’t go after them all.” Janet’s voice was also full of hate as she realized their vengeance would not be complete.
A third destroyer was quickly overtaken and it’s hull erupted into fire as the nine fighters blew it apart with ease.
“Got a lock, Janet you want the honor?” Cadel’s voice was back to it’s calm command tone but he still felt the burning hatred in his heart, that destroyer had been the one who killed one of his pilots and it would pay.
“Thanks sir, Okay Beta team follow me.”
Moments later her and the other 4 fighters of the Puking Dogs Beta team dove in against the enemy vessel and tore it to shreds with their cannons.
“Sir we’ve got Phong escape pods here, orders?” Janet had already swung her fighters back around but Cadel knew she wouldn’t fire unless ordered, and he saw absolutely no reason not to give that order.
“Take ‘em out Jan”

In another sweep with their cannons eight Phong escape pods ceased to exist, and the Wasp 1st squadron Puking Dogs set course for home.

Less then two days later the Cruiser HMS Warspite assisted by the Puking Dogs pinned down and destroyed the remaining Phong warships, no enemies survived.
Only 1 Icaran pilot had died, the other 9 had achieved an astounding victory and were awarded the Icaran “Iron Cross” for valor above and beyond the call.

Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
 

2411.9
Five objects launched from Handra base silently, no fanfare followed the launch of the craft like normall followed the launch of a capital ship, in fact barely anyone on Handra knew about the units that had just launched.

Silently as they exited the warp point the five unmanned drones set course for their targets, four Phong bases in the Fornax system each drone carried 3 multi-megaton warheads that were each capable of leveling entire cities with a single strike, yet they had been designed not for a single strike but for atmospheric separation each warhead would detach from the drone’s main hull and deploy using micro thrusters to it’s designated target.
Only a week after their entry into Fornax the mysterious objects were picked up on Phong radar, but it was already too late for interception and three Phong Worlds with Millions of lives vanished in the course of a single day, the drones knew no mercy and took no prisoners their simple AI’s knew only to attack and they carried out their suicide missions with unfeeling efficiency, much to the satisfaction of the Admiralty who would not have to risk the lives of thousands of Icaran officers and Ratings to neutralize those worlds.

A minor chapter yes but those thre worlds that died saved me a lot of hassle in the long run as each of them had weapons platforms (fortunately not very accurate ones hehe).

Trust me the next chapter will be much more exciting and action packed as the largest battle and longest period of combat in the game took place only a month after those drones nuked those worlds.