Part 4 of a slightly connected series:
(These are 99.9% accurate, following the real adventures of a virtual race)
quote:
Historian's note: ADU stands for Arbitrary Damage Unit, commonly used to describe weapon, armor and shield effectiveness. 1 ADU is roughly the strength of a large handheld weapon, while most ship based weapons are rated for hundreds of ADU
It has finally happened. The great defensive minefields of the empire have fallen under the relentless Jreanar assault. The ship yards of HomeWorld are currently working overtime to build the first
"Galaxy" class prototype Dreadnaughts from the Jreanar technology recovered during the Special Task Force's legendary adventures, but are far from completion. Only two half-trained Ubernaught II class ships are in the system, and must fight back the incursion long enough for the Special Task Force to return to HomeWorld...
2432.1:
The Last mines holding off the Jreanar detonated today, as a huge force of Dreadnaughts attempted to navigate the X19 wormhole to HomeWorld. The system's minelayers are blocked from resupplying mines to the wormhole by the six immobile dreds, but three additional ships escaped major damage and are currenly threatening the mine production moons of HomeSys IV. This would be a no-win situation, but with our new quantum drives, we can strike both targets before the wormhole recovers from the mass of the Jreanar ships and becomes navigable again. It is decided that we should stike the disabled ships Last, and remove the threat from the moons first.
As the Ubernaughts approach to attack the Jreanar force, a spacial distortion appears and when it clears, a fourth Jreanar DN has appeared, dropping the odds to 2:1 against the Empire's forces.
In a V formation, two of the Jreanar enter missile range, and five missiles streak towards the Ubernaughts. Maintaining distance for now, the Ubernaughts attept to fly around to the short leg of the V, trying to get a lock on the triple-missile Jreanar ship. Four more missiles are launched and the PDCs begin firing on the incoming seekers while the Ubernaughts try to find an opening.
Unable to get close enough to strike at the Jreanar without exposing themselves to heavy missile damage, the ubernaughts decide to attempt to drain the supplies of the enemy, forcing a retreat.
PDCs spew shards at the incoming missiles and beat back one more wave, but there are still more, and new missiles are already being launched.
The Jreanar fleet turns, exposing the weapon-heavy DN, but with only enough power for 75 full polaron bursts, and half of that already depleted during the patrol, the Ubernaughts are forced to ignore the tempting target.
PDCs fire madly taking down another pack of missiles, but five more missiles are within striking distance. Retreating full speed as the Jreanar wheel around behind them, the ubernaughts manage to cut down the nearest pair, but there aren't enough PDCs to strike down the triple missiles, which speed to within one distance of the ubernaughts as missiles continue to stream from the Jreanar ships.
Under full acceleration with PDCs firing madly, missiles continue to close on the ubernaughts to within one and two distance, but the equal engines and lesser mass of the Empire's ships soon allows them to pull away from the DNs, where the missiles fade out before impact.
Eventually, the heavy-weapon DN falls behind the fleet, engines failing, and its shields flicker out. The ubernaughts begin a wide turn around the enemy fleet, PDCs firing continuously, but as the DNs catch up with the turn, two missiles slam one of the ubernaughts, whose shields ripple and fade out, but hold just long enough to prevent serious hull damage. Purple fire streams from the leading ubernaught as it comes within range, searing the armor from the defenseless DN, and bLasting half of its now-useless shield generators into shrapnel.
Combining their fire, the two ubernaughts burn off the weapon bays on the DN and tear through the engineering section. The DN breaks apart into a glowing spray of hot metal, but three final missiles fly out of the cloud of plasma. The Ubernaughts go to maximum speed, with more missiles from the fleet right behind them, but the Jreanar missiles are too quick, and the PDCs are overwhelmed. The regenerating shields of the second ubernaught hold off the first bLast, but the second pierces the defenses, burning into the hull armor, and the third nuke wraps the ship in white fire. Surging forwards to escape the sweeps of antiprotons from the Jreanar fleet, the damaged ubernaught trails streams of gas and plasma from its shredded shield grid. PDCs burst fire, and the Last two unexploded missiles break up.
The lead DN slows, dangerously low on supplies, and the ubernaughts turn to ply a wide circle around the enemy fleet, missiles fighting a losing battle with the aft PDCs.
With a new round of missiles launched from the Jreanar, the ubernaught signals that shields are back to 60%, the maximum that the remaining generators can maintain.
With four missiles streaking towards the ubernaughts from relatively close range, the PDCs are overwhemed, and one gets through, rocking the damaged ubernaught again. Shields flash and collapse, but manage to just barely prevent further damage to the hull.
With a Last shot from its antiproton beam, the final Jreanar DN slows to a stop, power depleted, and the ubernaughts accelerate out of missile range.
With no time to continue the assault on the defenseless Jreanar ships at the mine facilities, the ubernaughts move to attack the six damaged DN at the minefield. Preliminary scans indicate two fully operational DNs protecting the four ships that were hit badly by the mines. One ship has its all of its weapons and most of its shields torn from a huge gash on its underside, another's missiles must have been detonated, with no shielding and a third of the crew decks missing. A third ship managed to maintain lifesupport on all decks, but is down to a single missile launcher and no shielding. The Last DN has only minor damage all over the hull, and its shields are operating at 60%. Four of the Dreadnoughts move to attack while the unarmed ship retreats.
Seven missiles fly from the Jreanar warships as the ubernaughts come into range, and PDCs begin firing The lead, full-strength ubernaught darts into the Jreanar formation to stab at the unshielded DN, nailing its missile launcher and reactor core with a pair of polaron beams, causing the ship to destroy itself in an intense explosion before the ubernaught turns to pull away from the missiles. Three missiles burst early from PDC shards, then three more, but a single missile sneaks through the defenses to slam the damaged ubernaught from behind. The bLast rocks the ubernaught, stripping the shields with raw energy, but the shields hold, with only 25 ADU to spare. Antiprotons flash around the ubernaught, but skilled use of ECM causes the Jreanar to bLast away at a ghost sensor image while the ubernaughts move around to attack the other unshielded DN before it catches up to the enemy fleet.
Taking a half-power burst of polarons squarely on the hull, the crippled DN goes dark as purple fire envelops the hull and sprays atomic residue into space.
The Jreanar DNs pursue too late to help, and the lead DN takes the full force of both ubernaughts' weapons into its shields, which flicker, but stabilize at 50%. Missiles are launched and hungrily seek out the regenerating ubernaught, but aft PDCs are on the job, and the retreating ubernaughts manage to stretch the distance enough for the PDCs to disable all of the incoming seekers. Purple fire courses around the shields of the Jreanar ship and they fall to 30%.
With a sudden course change, the Jreanar move out of range of one of the ubernaughts, and the two strain to turn back towards the Jreanar. A second quick turn by the Jreanar fleet brings them head-to-head with the ubernaughts, and a storm of vengeful polaron fire which drains the shields to 10%. Quickly deploying missiles as the ubernaughts fly between thier ships, the Jreanar leader smashes the freshly regenerated shielding of the ubernaught, but again they hold with nothing to spare, and the ubernaughts respond with a crushing blow. Half of the polarons are deflected, but the damaged ubernaught spears the Jreanar forward, starboard and aft, melting the antiproton beams and imploding two of the three heavy shield generators. Coming about again, purple polaron fire from the ubernaughts sweeps through the Jreanar ship and it explodes silently into a burning plasma.
The next Jreanar ship feels the wrath of polarons from close range, but drops a nuke directly on the pursuing ubernaughts. With shields only back to 30%, the nuke burns through the shield and a generator flares up on the surface of the ubernaught.
Raging polaron fires cling to the Jreanar DN, and its shields begin to fade rapidly. Swinging around the ubernaughts, the Jreanar drops another missile, but trained on this well known tactic, the ubernaughts accelerate quickly to follow the ship and continue to pour polarons into its shields, which have faltered and hold at only 30%. The unforgiving energy of the polaron fires burns bright as the ubernaughts swing around to strike both sides of the ubernaught's shields. With the ubernaughts keeping pace, the shields of the ubernaught finally give out, and polaron fire burns across the upper hull, vaporizing armor, detonating a heavy shield generator and shorting out an engine. Looping around once again, the Jreanar tries to limp away, but a burst of polarons directly on the hull burns through another shield generator before cutting a hole through most of the crew decks. A second burst of polarons from the other ubernaught rips through the engineering section, and the ubernaughts turn away, heading towards the Last active DN as a pulse of light from behind signals the destruction of the enemy.
The Last fighting Jreanar ship has only two of its shield generators operational, but is retreating while firing missiles. PDCs easily cut down the two missiles fired by the Jreanar, and purple fire erupts on the DN's shields as the first ubernaught comes into range. The DN makes a turn, and the ubernaughts pounce, moving to point blank range and ripping into its remaining shields, dropping them to 50%. PDCs fire bLasting two more missiles from the sky while the ubernaughts move in to bracket the ubernaught and tear its shields to 20%. More polaron fire rings the ship, its shield generators overloading and shattering under the strain. The Jreanar ship releases two missiles from point blank range just as the polaron fire sweeps through the rest of the ship, and the ruined DN breaks up. PDCs only manage to destroy one of the missiles before the ubernaught is slammed hard. Reeling from the impact, the ubernaught's shields collapse, fire scortching the hull but doing only superficial damage.
With no resistance remaining, the ubernaughts chase down and easily destroy the Last helpless DN.
The wormhole now clear, the minesweeper moves in and scatters twelve mines before moving off to collect more and continue its duty.
2432.2:
The wormholes are secure for now, and the remaining Jreanar DNs are leaving. Unfortunately for them, they'll all be dead within a month as they try to navigate our minefield from the wrong side. The now-legendary Defence Force Alpha has returned to the nearest shipyard for repairs and supplies while they await thier next call to action.
[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 29 April 2001).]