The bigger you are...

[Ron_Lugge]

Feel free to critique me. Just remember the (first) two rules of fanfiction:

Be true to the game.
Be truer to the story.

Let me know if anyone is actually interested in reading this.

Oh, and this story is considered "under construction" -- I can and will change anything I like at any point.

Even if its in the first part of 20 (I've done that before, even if its a nightmare...)

Part 1

"Order the Potemkin to fall back. Ravager and Osired are to escort her." Admiral Roeding ordered, clutching at the railing before him. Sharp eyes flickered across the status boards of his own ship, and he sighed. "Flag will withdraw, November and Pegasus will fill the gap. Have Osired divert and escort us." His subordinates were a buzz of activity, swiftly shouting incomprehensible strings of number, commands, and other datum. Unable to follow some of the more esoteric jargon, Roeding still knew he heard the bitter taste of defeat.

The ship lurched under his feet as another suicide slipped through the defensive fire. The main battle-plot before him flickered momentarily before the red status light in the corner came on, indicating it was operating under emergency power reserves. A pair of technicians scrambled across the bridge to check that Battle-Comp was still online with full power.

"Admiral, the odds of defeat rise rapidly. A full 10% of the fleet has been either destroyed or terminally incapacitated. Fighter strength is down 40% and missile stores approach mandatory retreat levels." Battle-comp paused for a bare moment. "Correction, the last salvo has placed us at mandatory retreat levels. Resupply efforts underway, odds of success are 32% +- 5."

"Battle-Comp, if we fall back now we lose the Nexus. If we can't hold here..."

"Probability of defeat if we remain here is approaching unity, Admiral. Chances of success should we fall back and meet our reinforcements increase 27% +-4." Battle-Comp paused for a moment. "New data stream detected. Analyzing. Thee squared to the root of- ERROR! ERROR! Five to the fourth of negative- ERROR! ERROR! FATAL LOGIC ERROR! RESTARTING SYSTEMS FROM HARD-COPY BACKUP!" Battle-Comps string of nonsensical mathematical equations and the overlaid system announcements were suddenly silenced. The tank before Admiral Roeding displayed the battle as its relatively stupid computers ignored the gibberish being transmitted to them. The occasional visual glitch obscured his view, but for the most part the display functioned perfectly.

"Have all ships go to full manual backups." the Admiral ordered calmly. "Order the Valencian and her battle group to close with the enemy with Predator and Fisksin and their battle groups in support. Have Carrier Ops flush all reserve fighters. Prep and download a full data flush to three courier vessels, and detach them from fleet support."

Again his underlings scurried around like a kicked-over ant-hive. Manual backups were powering up -- far too slowly in some cases -- but-

A sudden shift in the almost subliminal sound of the engines accompanied a sudden heave, along with several separate alarms. "Shields have collapsed admiral, and there are at least three separate suicide craft homing in already." the ship's captain reported over the intercom. "Our defense grid is in shambles, and that last hit overloaded the engines." A sudden hissing interrupted the captain for a moment. "-ongly recommend that you evacuate the ship. I'll save her if I can, but the damage is bad, eve-" static again interfered with the intercom. "-attle-Comp online we couldn't do much. As things stand we're a sit-" a massive blast of hissing completely obliterated the communications channel.

Roeding debated with himself for a bare moment, the turned and nodded. "Ladies and gentlemen, the captain would like us of his ship." he enunciated carefully. "Let us accommodate him graciously." He very carefully didn't say "rather than at the point of a security baton."

He quickly followed actions to words slamming his hand against the hatch controls to open them. He took off at a quick jog, dodging aside from the various damage control parties he met. Most of his staff followed him, though those that worked on other ships simply disengaged their holograms and waited for him to choose a new command ship.

Another roll from the ship accompanied a new set of strident alarms as smoke began to fill the corridors, overwhelming the highly efficient environmental systems. A secondary set of tones informed the admiral that yet more problems were occurring in engineering, as the antimatter that powered the massive vessel threatened to break loose of its containment fields. A slight shiver announced the launch of the first wave of escape vessels, even as the admiral peered into a retinal scanner to unlock a hatch. After confirming that yes, this was Admiral Roeding, and yes he had authority to access the launch bay, the door's computers sent electrical surges through the metal of the hatch, causing it to fold in a predetermined geometrical pattern.

After the hatch had obediently twitched open, Roeding leapt through and clamored up the ladder to the cockpit. As his hands flickered over the control panels, bringing the engines up, two pilots leapt in and started to run the preflight diagnostics.

"Partial failures on all computers." one reported, and the other moved to the back to check.

"Disregard that." Roeding ordered. "The enemy is jamming the computers somehow, it isn't a mechanical fault." Pausing for a second, the pilot scurried back to his station as Roeding glared.

"Ship is green." Roeding declared. For an instant the pilots glanced at each other, then shrugged. It was well known that the admiral was insane; declaring the ship green when all the lights were flickering from green to red to orange and back again would simply prove it.

Though some of those reds were flatly contradictory at times, so maybe he was right about the jamming. Maybe.

"Alpha-Echo-One to command. Green for launch." one pilot intoned into the communication system. Electromagnetic clamps locked onto the boat and lifted it into a launch tube, with blast doors sealing behind the craft. "Alpha-Echo-One to command. Launching in three, two, one, go, go, go!"

Massive electromagnets stirred to life, generating energy sufficient to propel the small shuttle, with its thirty odd occupants, to nearly a tenth the speed of light in less than half a second. Then, the main engines engages and boosted it to 20 PSL, a third again the "normal" maximum acceleration of a small craft. The advanced engines twisted and gyrated as the craft maneuvered violently around outgoing fire, attempting to clear the fire arc of several engaged point defense batteries.

A sudden lurch from the craft nearly directed directly into the stream from one of the PD batteries. "[censored]!" the pilot swore as he yanked the boat away from impending demise. "What was that?"

"Partial failure on computer control for gyroscopic system 9-C." Roeding replied. "Switch to manual on all possible systems. Cease use of unnecessary unautomatable systems. Including gyros."

"But we'll lose half of our mobility that way!" a pilot complained, even as a sudden shift in course bounced them off a missile barrage. "OK, maybe our mobility won't be that badly hurt." he conceded as the ship started fighting him even worse.

"Sir! Fleet reports a decrease in incidence of computer failures," an officer reported from the back.

"Seeing as how our computers are reaching terminal unreliability, I'd say that somebody knows who we are." Roeding frowned. "Keep an eye out for suicides targeting us, and cut all computers out. Bring the engines to full manual override."

"But that'll-" someone in the back chimed in.

Roeding sighed. "We'll have to cut back to no more than 85% of maximum speed, otherwise we will overheat. And no human has the reflexes to redirect coolant flow to compensate for that. Keller! Cut the computer overrides to the engines, and splice them in to a manual station. Lock it at 85% power."

"That won't work sir -- the engines use to many computers to run, even in full manual mode." the rating poked his head in. "But if I take half the computers off their normal tasks, and go to a tell-me-thrice operating system, that'll improve our situation. Better still, I could take all unnecessary systems and use them; I may get to a 5-check or even 6-check level. That'd cut out most of what we're seeing."

"Do it." Roeding didn't even hesitate.

"Aye-aye sir!" the rating disappeared as suddenly as he'd appeared.

The flight slowly smoothed out, though it remained highly unpleasant as gravity began fluctuating violently, causing several people to vomit helplessly, and the air seemed to take on a slightly acrid smell as processors started to function less efficiently. "Keller! Did you cut out the enviro computers?" Roeding bellowed.

"Yes sir!" the rating replied. "Took them down to a tell-me-twice system, didn't think they needed to work at that high a level. I'll get the inertial dampeners back up in a jiff!"

"Get them back up right now!" Roeding replied, exasperated. Dwelling on the over-enthusiastic nature of overly competent technicians was a good way for him to occupy his mind while waiting out the last round of nausea, he decided.



An overloaded computer terminal blew out in a spectacular shower of sparks, burning Ensign Merryweather's face. "[censored]!" he exclaimed, cutting power to the terminal. A beeping sound from another terminal penetrated the haze of combat. "Bloody hell!" he swore, yanking around and dashing the offending terminal. "Battle-comp! Initialize containment field backups and reboot primaries!" he ordered. "Battle-comp?" he asked. Glancing at Battle-comp's screen, he frowned. "Those equations do not add up." he muttered, even as a shrill buzzing indicated a hard-reset. Turning back to the antimatter containment controls, he manually started the secondary containment fields, musing as he did so at the rather inaccurate term "manual".

In these days of high technology, computers could not only be found everywhere, from the lining of your shoes to the spoon you ate with, they were needed everywhere. The shoes were designed to shift shape to better compensate for terrain and needed their processors functional to be anything other than a shapeless blob. And spoons were generally single-use tools, constructed of nannite chains as occasion demanded. And in the case of advanced engines and weapons, they simply could not be run without computers.

And if the computers weren't working, well, Bad Things could happen with antimatter containment. If the magnetic bottles collapsed, the only thing between the ship and several hundred pounds of pure destruction were the backup fields. Merryweather carefully ignored the fact that the hatch that connected him to the rest of the ship was in fact an airlock, and the room he was in was only bolted to the outside of the ship. In event of a catastrophic failure such as he was facing, the entire storage compartment could be ejected, if the computers felt it needed.

And the computers weren't working anymore. "Ensign, we need you to restore anti-matter flow!" someone ordered over the intercom. "I can't!" the ensign replied. "I had to engage the secondary backups, and they're supposed to cut the antimatter stream!"

"Damn it all, Ensign! All the other pods ejected themselves on automatic. We need that power!" the voice on the other end demanded desperately.

"No can do sir. I've got at least three separate rips in the magnetic bottles, and countless flaws. If I release the secondary containment field, you won't have any antimatter at all -- or any need for it!" the ensign paused for a moment. "In fact, if the computers weren't malfunctioning so badly I'd probably have been spaced by now."

"Override the computers and resume flow! Your display has to be malfunctioning, or you would have been spaced!" the voice on the other end seemed even more desperate, and glancing at Battle-comp's darkened screen, Merryweather knew why. They weren't used to having to fight without a computer to do it all for them. They were the backups, not the other way around.

Even if on paper, battle computers were merely ship wide backup system, to catch their mistakes and run things if they couldn't. Worse yet...

"Sir, do you know what controls the ejection system?" the ensign asked, chilled to the bone.

"Automatics, of course! Now, restore power!"

"Good lord in heaven preserve your children, for we are fools and madmen." the ensign prayed in a whisper. "Sir, what do you think automatics are?"

"Devices that do things automatically, or course. Now, ensign, are you going to obey orders or not?" the voice was angry now, oh so angry.

"Sir, automatics do things automatically because they are run by computer." the ensign kissed his career -- and likely his life -- goodbye. "The secondary containment fields are perhaps the only system on the ship which don't need computers, as they consist of two things: a power input device, and the field generators. There are no half settings, no variables, so they just put power in." With a deep breath he took the plunge. "And I'm getting a lot of waste heat down here."

"So? Ensign, the captain needs you to take us off battery-backup right now. What is the point of this?" the voice snarled.

"Sir, the only reason for there to be waste heat from the secondary generators is if the antimatter is in direct contact with the secondary containment fields. Which means the bottle is breached, and I should have been ejected." a quite buzz interrupted the voice's reply.

"Sir, the containment bottle seems to be stabilizing. And the tell-me-thrice error checking is reporting a significant drop in errors. Only one in a hundred answers comes out wrong. I'm relaxing to tell-me-twice and will restore power momentarily."

"Stand by." the voice ordered.

"Computers all over the ship are restoring functionality, though Battle-comp seems to have been damaged. Report your status ensign." the captain ordered.

"Sir, the magnetic bottle's been breached in four spots; automatic repairs have finally engaged, and flushing systems are cycling the leaked antimatter back into the bottle. Computer is estimating thirty seconds to antimatter-flow restoration."

"Good. Batteries were drained accidentally by another failure. Now, I understand you gave my tactical officer some grief?" the captain's voice was extremely harsh.

"Sir, he ordered me to destroy the ship." the ensign explained calmly, without even a hint of a smile.

"He did what?" the captain asked equally calmly.

"He ordered me to restore antimatter-flow when primary containment had been breached. The result would have been the destruction of the ship."

"There is a double thickness of armor between you and the ship. That armor is meant to withstand multiple missile blasts without failure. Surely a double thickness could handle a simple containment failure! And killing you, while regrettable, doesn't kill the ship."

"Sir, you're overlooking three things. One, the containment pod is the size of a missile in and of itself, and doesn't have to set aside room for engines, sensors, defenses, and the like. Two is that the pod is set directly against the hull, rather than detonating at a slight distance. And third is that I've got an armored shell that is clamped to the hull to direct the blast into the ship. And that hull is quadruple thickness, with special clamps designed to survive anything except separation charges. Which wouldn't go off in time to save the ship."

"Ah. That makes sense. Good work, Lieutenant."

"Thank you sir!" the brand-new lieutenant replied. A harsh buzzer caused him to look back at the control panel. For an instant, he hesitated. A loud tone caused him to dash strait for the air lock, barely leaping inside before it slammed shut behind him.

CRUMP! the separation charges detonated.

"This is not a good day." the lieutenant whispered to himself.

Part 2 (Still undergoing basic construction):

"Admiral on deck!"

"As you were." Roeding commanded as he strode into the flag deck. Behind him, his staff filtered in and took up their posts. "Status on the computer systems?"

"We've identified a general locus that appears to be putting out the jamming." a hologram flickered to life. "We're going through it with a fine toothed comb right now. We expect to find a ship any moment."

"Initiate saturation bombardment. Not a heavy one, just make them know we know they're there."

"Aye-aye sir."

[Fyron]

You are off to a good start.

Do you want grammatical critiquing?

Also, would you like this added to the SpaceEmpires.net Fan Fiction Archives?

[Atrocities]

I agree, your off to a good start. It was a nice read. I cannot critique you as my grammer and spelling are atrocious.

[Will]

Read it earlier in the day. I like it.

One suggestion: try not starting so many lines/paragraphs with quotes. It gets a bit repetitive as far as style goes. And -- as far as my reading style goes -- it's a bit jarring to read a bit of quoted dialog, then realize it's from a different character than was initally expected. Perhaps showing a bit more of the internal thoughts of the characters would help, to preface more of the spoken words. For example, the line:

"Do it." Roeding didn't even hesitate.

... could flow much better by simply swapping the sentences:

Roeding did not even hesitate. "Do it."

At least that's what I think. I just read things, I'm not much of a writer. There are people here much more qualified to give advice on the subject.

As for the story itself... more background, please! All I get is that it's a fleet battle. Nothing of what the sides are, nothing about why there's a conflict/war going on, little of what's going on with the characters. Great on action, and has it's own variety of BLAM!, but overall, needs more substance if it's gonna keep me.

[Ron_Lugge]

Will said:
One suggestion: try not starting so many lines/paragraphs with quotes. It gets a bit repetitive as far as style goes.

Thanks for the tip -- real helpful stuff

I often fall into a rut, and need to be kicked out of it.

As for the story itself... more background, please! All I get is that it's a fleet battle. Nothing of what the sides are, nothing about why there's a conflict/war going on, little of what's going on with the characters. Great on action, and has it's own variety of BLAM!, but overall, needs more substance if it's gonna keep me.

Don't worry, thats going to come up soon. I just needed to set the stage in the first part; the second part should (*should*) start gettting into more details about the military (at the strategic level, not tactical) and socio-political situation.


And if my grammar starts falling apart, feel free to critique me on it. Unless its an obvious "stylistic" error (I. E. I'm doing it deliberatly to form an effect) or in the dialog where its part of characterization. (I don't do that often, but it happens... "I'm fine, commander" to a lieutenant, right after the rating has been struck in the head for example...).

[El_Phil]

The ensign seemed way too relaxed about the entire situation. And the tactical officer a bit too dopey, but then non-engineers never seem to grasp the details of engineering. On the other hand Roeding seemed to go into too much detail. Individual systems and specs on escape pods... That's a Scotty 'I know this ship like the back of my hand' type moment

Also check the italics in the UBB code I'm seeing a few
supposed
you want to uses non capitals there instead to get
supposed

One entirely personal thing, pilots on escape pods just seem wrong to me. Makes perfect sense, but I try to fit together a 'pod' with two pilots, engineering ratings and it doesn't fit for me.

However a nice load of BLAM! and a good situation to add some details too. Very interesting to see how it develops.

[Ron_Lugge]

"Escape pod" isn't accurate.

Its an escape *shuttle*. I. E. a shuttle craft (great big thing to ferry people around) retrofitted to work in combat enviroments and reserved for the admiral's exclusive use.

And the only points where Roeding is a technical know-it-all are the places where "everybody knows!" things go. Like everybody knows that those engines are very dangerous because of overheating, except the computers have it under control.

And as far as figuring out that you need to cut computers when they act unreliably, well, thats just common sense and brains -- and even then, he doesn't really understand, either, that you can't cut computers.

And as far as the ensign being to calm, I think I need to go back through there. I think I forgot to mention the sweat causing condensation on the suit -- and he's not sweating 'cause he's hot, the suit is AC'd.



Hm... specifics are always nice. OK, going back through this thing on the bus home... (PDAs are nice!)

[dogscoff]

Yeah, I enjoyed it. One (very) small thing that caught my eye:

Roeding still knew he heard the bitter taste of defeat.

Maybe this was a deliberate gag, or an example of the "esoteric jargon" mentioned in the previous line, but surely you can't hear a taste. Not without some kind of wierd surgery, anyway.

If (understandably) you were avoiding repetition of the word taste with the phrase "Roeding still knew he tasted the bitter taste of defeat" then use a synonym: The bitter tang of defeat, bitter spice of defeat, experience the bitter taste of defeat... Hmmm, there aren't actually that many synonyms for "taste" are there? Anyone know any decent online thesauruseseses?

[Ron_Lugge]

Um... "bitter taste of defeat" is a common phrase; as such hearing it isn't too unreasonable. I mean, you can't really taste defeat so much as it is a bitter thing to deal with, and bitter is a taste... am I making any sense?

[dogscoff]

Ron_Lugge said:
Um... "bitter taste of defeat" is a common phrase; as such hearing it isn't too unreasonable. I mean, you can't really taste defeat so much as it is a bitter thing to deal with, and bitter is a taste... am I making any sense?

Yeah I know. My point is that your characters hears the bitter taste of defeat. You're mixing metaphors.

You either hear the sound of defeat, or you taste the flavour of defeat. You don't hear the taste, or taste the sound, or see the smell and so on.