The Empire of Man (series of short stories)

[Starhawk]

Okay this is going to be written rather differently than other stories that I've seen so far, since my "Rise of Icara" has pretty much come to a halt for the time being I am going to make a series of short stories all taking place within another game of mine that is rather young yet, The lead race as you may have guessed by the title is the Empire of Man (tribue to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle stories) but for the most part "main characters" will be on a story to story basis although somewhere along the lines they may connect.

Anyway I will write the first of these stories tonight and I would like you guys to tell me if you even this kind of short story writing will be a good idea or not in a game such as SE?

[JLS]

Absolutely it is a good idea - I look forward to reading it.

[Intimidator]

Shoot !!!!!

[Starhawk]

A serpent strikes

A distress call had arrived from the newly established colony on Golkus I telling naval intelligence that a Norak assault carrier had recently docked with several Goa'Ould transports for reasons unknown and that for a month now the warship had not responded to any signals being sent by the colonial governor.

Governer Micha was worried that the single General class battlecruiser patroling his system would stand no chance against such a ship and so he requested that Admiral Renner of the 6th fleet send immediate aid. And so Renner sent in a nearbye Heavy Cruiser and sent word that the Super Monitor INSS Unrelenting would head to the location at maximum speed to reinforce the local forces.

That was sixth months ago and now all Captain Park was concerned about was the fact that his crew had been undergoing six gravities of exceleration of days on end and up to 3 gravities when it was deemed necessary for his crew's health for them to decelerate and now he had just entered the system and could look forward to another 5 gee's of acceleration as soon as his breifing with captain Anders of the battlecruiser INSS Liberator was ended.

"Sir Captain Anders and His Excellency Governor Micha have just arrived in docking bay two on an atmosphere reentry shuttle. I have sent a platoon of marines as honor guard sir." Commander Rawlins said in her typical crisp tone as she looked over the readouts on her station.

"I'm sorry Rawlins did you say Governor Micha is aboard?" Park just barely hid the contempt in his voice as his XO nodded confirmation. " I guess his Excellency decided he was too valuable to risk should the Assault Carrier turn hostile" he thought as he stood up and headed for the hatch that led to the breifing room where he would meet with all the relevent staff, and the governor, it was just then that Park almost smiled realizing he was finally experiencing the low grav environment normally kept on naval ships, it kept the crew's bodies adjusted to a normal grav situation of course because between the HI gee thrust and low gee standard that a warship went through the crews would have enough time to exercise and keep up their mustles as they should.

Five minutes later Captain Park sat in the small breifing room just aft of the bridge and looked at the 3d map of the system, 12 inhabited worlds 3 of which were major worlds with a total population of nearly 2 billion throughout the system, and only 3 warships to protect it. Heh the fleet was spread even thinner on the frontiers then even Park suspected. The map zoomed in and showed the assault carrier orbiting Golkus I and it's moon and Captain Anders grimmaced as he realized the situation. Park just barely heald a frown in check as he noted that Governor Micha hadn't said a word.

"Sir the assault carrier has moved into blockade position around Golkus I and her moon, if we accelerate at 6 gee's we may be able to arrive in time to intercept them should they turn hostile but sir we can't be sure." Commander Gorvochev of the Rightious Fist had managed to get a lock on the position of the assault carrier with his radar just before it went and hid behind the shadow of Golkus Ia.

Gorvochev cleared his throat and stood as he punched a few buttons and the holoprojector filled with the image of the assault carrier, top down and side on.

"Ladies and Gentlemen this is a Sete Lagoas II class assault carrier, she is equipped with the latest in Norak tech, she carries ten missile tubes and a level X phased shield generator, she carries an unknown compliment of fighters and our objective as ordered by Admiral Renner is to board her and take her to Golkus shipyards for dismantling and examination. Whispers went through the room as those gathered considered the meaning of those orders.

Two hours and 6 gees of thrust later and the three Imperial warships were in position to intercept the assault carrier.

"This is Captain Park of his majesty's warship Unrelenting to Norak assault carrier you have violated Imperial space without even making contact......Identify yourselves and your purpose in this system or I will open fire on..." Park paused as he heard his tactical officer's voice rise to a shout.

"SIR THEY'RE GOA'OULD I REPEAT THEY ARE GOA'OULD!" the young man was obviously nervious but his training instantly paid off as he signalled general quarters for all 3 imperial ships.

"Ga'damned snakes must have killed the Norak crew and taken her." Rawlins said as she alerted the Imperial Marines and Spacers of the boarding force to man their stations.

"Enemy assault bombers launching Captain and she's rippling missiles from all tubes." Midshipman Stanley reported as he watched his screen's intently and continued "Sir they are firing on Golkus Ia mining colony!"

"Is there anyway we can intercept mister Stanley?" Park said as he watched 100 blips headed torwards the planet (those would be the missiles he knew but he also noted that the 30 larger slower blips would be the fighters).
"No sir as it is we are 15 minutes out at maximum speed....sir incoming message from Liberty "
"Put it up mister!" Rawlins snapped as Captain Park lifted his head from the 3d projector he was standing next to.
" Liberty hailing Unrelenting, sir my ship is faster then yours it may be that we can intercept them before you are in range we won't stand much of a chance sir but we can hold them up for you." Anders looked grim as the screens showed the first volley of missiles impact on the surface of Golkus Ia destroying multiple facilities and killing thousands.

"Negative Anders I will not let you waste your crew's lives on a futile assault, now follow us in and prepare to target the enemy bombers, take Commander Gorvachev with you, I'm taking my ship right down that carrier's throat."

After 15 minutes the three ships had finally gotten within range to fire, but by them 350 million citizens of the Empire had died and both worlds were completely destroyed. And all that was left for the squadron to do was gain revenge.

"Sir all ships have fired long range fighter killer missiles, most of those bastards are down but the survivors are headed streight for Rightious Fist at maximum speed." Stanley looked scared but angry as he made his report, Park simply nodded.

"Order our gunners to fire at maximum range, let's give those snakes a suprise shall we?" A few seconds after park gave the order he watched as the screen showed multiple beams silently connect his ship to the enemy fighter squadrons, within a half a second the sweeping beams had vaporized all enemy fighters leaving the three Imperials unchallenged accept by the carrier's heavy missiles.

"Mister Hanson bring us into boarding range."
"Lieutenant order the shield depleter crews to hold fire until we are within range and all gunners to hold fire, we want that ship intact is that understood?!" Park barked as he watched a salvo of 100 missiles explode as his own anti-missile missiles and point defense lasers swept them from the sky.

After six hours of pursuit Unrelenting had finally caught up to the Gou'ld ship and crippled her shields, after a few seconds of maneuvering she came along side and the Boarding crew knew it was time for them to do their jobs.

"Allright all platoons you know your jobs, watch that friendly fire but don't be too worried about shooting in their, it's just full of Jaffa and Goul'ds and you can kill as many of'em as yah want." Captain Hodgkins said as felt the gently thump of the boarding airlock connect to the hull of the enemy ship. He shifted uneasily in his armored space suit and waited as he heard the hissing sound of the airlock acheiving preasure, he looked at the other armored marines in his platoon and felt a swell of pride as his men and women moved into position....then it came the explosion that signalled the breaching of the enemy hull, within a split second the door slammed open and marines fired laser rifles and cluster guns into the corridor ahead of them slicing what must have been a squad sized group of jaffa to peices.

"Alright move it you junkyard dogs!" Hodgkins shouted as his squad advanced into the ship, the sound of a cluster gun firing drew Hodgkins attention to his left as he saw one of his marines turn a Jaffa into goo with the rather fierce projectile weapon, unlike laser rifles that fired a coherent beam of energy into a target a cluster gun fired a series of explosive pellets into it's target and was never used on board ones own ship as it tended to call what the brass called "colateral damage".

"Check left!" A marine shouted just before he was decapitated by staff bLast, the jaffa who fired the shot didn't even get the chance to pick another target as a green beam lanced his chest and he fell with a crash. Twelve other Jaffa followed up behind him and opened fire on the scrambling marines.

"Get to cover damnit get to cover!" Hodgskins shouted as he dropped a jaffa with a bLast from his cluster gun, he saw two more of his marines go down as staff bLasts cut into them, but the jaffa didn't have any cover and quickly fell to the disciplined fire from the marines.
"REPORT!" Hodgkins looked over the situation and even though it appeared that all the jaffa had been neutralized he wasn't about to take any chances.

"Sir three marines down, all dead, all boarding parties report that they are advancing on their objectives." The thick new Irish accent of Seargent O'rourke came over the comnet as Hodgkins waved his party forward.
Six more firefights later Hodgkins marines had finally managed to secure the ships engineering and shut down the ships engines and targeting equipment.

"Captain Hodgkins this is Fleet Captain Park, all boarding teams report objectives completed we have secured the ship, wait for the prize crew to board before you leave your station....and Captain tell your men, we proud of them." Park's voice sounded cheerless as he informed the boarding parties of their success.

In the end the tally came in, 600 million Imperial Civilians had died 2 planets had been destroyed, 26 Imperial Marines were killed and 32 wounded in the boarding action, 22 Imperial Spacers also died in the boarding action with another 18 wounded, and a Goa'ould ship had been taken, over 300 Jaffa were killed as well as 2 Gou'lds.

A mission that was both a success and a failure, 2 worlds destroyed millions dead, but a priceless peice of material was even now being escorted back to the shipyards by an Imperial battlecruiser to be disected and examined.

[Paul1980au]

So the snakes have left the stargate and got into a SE4 empire lol - are they like the borg out of star trek - a single race who takes over all in their way like a parasite and host situation.

Good work on the story though

[Intimidator]

Very good, will there be a next story ???? (please)

[Raging Deadstar]

Very good Starhawk, it sums up the Goa'uld perfectly. I enjoyed this and i look forward to more.

Permission to add these to Spaceempires.net fanfiction section?

[Starhawk]

Wow absolutely you can add them.....as long as you give me credit lol (j/k I know yah will).

Interlude

Admiral Renner commander of the undermanned underequipped and over stretched 6th fleet had just finished reading the after action report of the Unrelenting and wretched when he read the number of casualties. Renner stood up sharply and threw the report pLasti onto his teak desk as he thought about the colony's only survivor, His Excellency M'Lord Micha and couldn't help but resent the whole of the nobility at that very momeny because of the damn coward had been a navy Man Renner would have had him flogged for leaving his station and then shot for desertion.

Casually Renner walked over to a small desk and picked up a bottle of New Chicago brandy and poured himself a small glass taking slowe indulgent sip, imported nearly 70 lightyears and costing a small fortune, but entirely worth the cost he thought to himself. It was then that the door chime sounded, "Oh Lord's teeth who is it this time?" he whispered to noone in particular as he pushed the button to open the door.
A pleasent suprise awaited him for when the door slid open Renner saw a beautiful Human woman wearing a female Version of the dress blue's of the Imperial Navy. the young woman snapped to attention and saluted the Admiral nerviously, Renner casually saluted with a grin on his face as he watched the young Lieutenant squirm, naturally it took him a second to speak in order to keep from sounding overly amused and humiliating the poor woman.
"What can I do for you Lieutenant..?" He paused indicating that he'd like her to give her name.
"Carla Zurita sir!" the woman had a thick Torjan accent and Renner couldn't help but notice that if he paid closer attention to the young woman she looked every bit the Trojan, short by Sparta standards at only about 5'4 long black hair and an olive complexion that was typical of worlds colonized by Latin nations prior to the unification of the Empire and the abandoning of Earth all those centuries ago.
"Well Carla Zurita what can I do for you?" Renner had already asked that question and it was unusual for a staff officer to ask the same question twice especially to such a junior officer but the Admiral remembered what it was like to be young and nervious and decided to give the kid a break.

"Sir naval intelligence has sent me to discuss a series of reports from the frontier sir, if your not buisy at the moment may we begin now sir?" The young woman entered the room as Renner waved her towards one of the comfortable looking chairs placed in front of the old desk.
"Now Lieutenant Zurita, why does naval intel want to tell me about, aside from the Golkus incident the 6th fleet hasn't had any combat action since the incorporation of the Crystlonites about 15 years ago." His voice held sarcasm in abundance as Renner sat down and tabbed a button on a comp pad at the edge of his desk.
"Sir moral in this sector is at an all time low since the Golkus, Intelligence wants to find a hero type figure in the Imperial Navy or Marines to boost the moral of the population sir and they want your help." Her voice was tough and calm but Renner still saw raw nerves in her eyes as she handed him a pLasti with what appeared to be a report of some kind on it.
"So is this one of your candidates for hero Lieutenant?" Renner said curtly as he took the pLasti.
"Possibly sir." she said as absently as the admiral began to read.

[Raging Deadstar]

This is getting interesting Starhawk, Its a different approach of writing and it's looking good.

Also this story is now up on Spaceempires.net for viewing, I'll update it when new additions are added for you

Looking forward to more

[Starhawk]

A Battle Of Necessity

From: Captain Thomas Rothman (commander INSS Denmark [LC].
To: Fleet Admiral Lord Frank Renner
Subject: Battle of Winep System

The Goul'd had finally declared open war on the Empire and it was just at that time that our sensors discovered a force of six Norak battleships that had apparently been taken over by the Goul'd Empire and that they were inbound on heavily populated regions of our space. Unfortunately my ship INSS Denmark is only a Gerard 2 class light cruiser and I knew I could not stop the enemy fleet by myself.

Knowing that my light cruiser didn't stand a chance I sent a distress signal for any Imperial Ships of the Line to come to my aid, after an hour I had managed to get hold of Captain Park aboard the super monitor INSS Unrelenting, Captain Anders of the INSS Liberty a General class battlecruiser and Commander Gorvochev of his majesty's heavy cruiser INSS Rightious Fist.
It is my beleif that the swift intervention of these ships saved millions of Imperial Citizens from death, enclosed is the combat recording report of the action as recorded aboard INSS Liberty.

(begin playback)
"Sir signal from Unrelenting we are to cover the left flank..accelerate at full thrust with the rest of squadron and engage on Captain Park's command." The Young Ensign Raleigh reported from his station as the screen displayed 6 distant orange blips showed the engine flare of the enemy ships as the engaged max thrust towards the Imperial squadron.

"Alright Ensign follow on Park's left, and start scanning for targets." Anders was calm but also nervious, three Imperial warships against six advanced enemy battleships didn't look good but he had to trust in his crew and comrades on the other two ships to pull off the victory no matter the cost.
Three of the enemy approached from the left and the other three from the right, a classic flanking maneuver Anders noted and a rather dangerious one considering how few ships the Imperials had.

"Sir Unrelenting has signalled, all ships are to target the three ships coming up from the right first, then we are to neutralize the left flank." Raleigh said crisply as he listened to the comns officer from the flagship inform the other imperial cruiser of their plans.

In a matter of moments the three Imperial warships had managed to close the gap before the enemy could fire, and several green beams jutted from Unrelenting, within a split second the targeted battleship's shields had failed and the reactor had gone critical, within another split second a small nova appeared where the battleship had formerly been. It was still too far away for the other two Imperial's weapons to get involved or even for a direct visual of what had just happened over a light second out.

"Sir the other two battleships in that squadron are closing, they're firing!" Ralleigh said methodically as the screen lit up with bluish pulses from the nearest battleship, the mighty battlecruiser rocked as it's shields absorbed the enemy fire, fortunately the second battleship had focused it's fire on the massive Super Monitor who's shields didn't even flinch under the fire they had taken.
"Sir the other three ships are closing, firing!" The shields flared again and the ship rocked and then the sound of an explosion roared through the ship.
"Sir! Impact on hull I repeat they've struck home, shields down." Ralleigh was trying to stay calm but the shock in his voice was clear, no one expected to be hit so quickly in the fight.
"Damage reports coming in Captain, we lost C battery and the gunnery crew manning it, armor took the rest of the fire sir." Brevet Commander Saunder reported as he braced himself against the next volley from the enemy.
"Sir we are within range." Ralleigh reported brightly as the Liberty moved within 100 miles of one of the enemy battleships.
"Well then, Miss Dale give them a volley would you." the Captain tried to sound smug and unworried so that his valiant crew would know that they could emerge victorious.

The gunners aboard the mighty battlecruiser picked their target well and fired, the orange beams of the phased poloron cannons sliced into the shields of the enemy ship reducing them to less then half strength, but the gun crews had no choice but to cease fire or risk overheating their cannons.
Thankfully Commander Gorvochev of the Rightious Fist fired on the same battleship, knocking out her shields and gouging several holes in the hull, a breach on the port side sent Jaffa spilling out into space flailing and unprotected against the vaccum.
"They don't even wear pressure suits in battle?" The voice of a bridge officer behind Anders sounded shocked and amused by the folley of the Goul'd. The entire crew of an Imperial warship donned hard pressure suits, and marines donned battle armor whenever entering battle so that if the hull breached they would still have a chance of life but then again the navy actually cared about it's spacers while the snakeheads saw their jaffa as little more then slaves.
As the fire from the Heavy cruiser rent the Battle ship the Unrelenting managed to aquire a target from the squadron approaching the Imperials from the right and within seconds another ship went up in a brilliant fireball unfortunately for the Imperials 3 battleships remained and two of them fired directly into the Rightious Fist bringing down her shields and knocking out most of her guns, all along the Heavy cruiser the hull began tearing open spilling crew and debris into space.
The Imperial counter attack proved nearly useless as most of their fire missed and the shots that did strike home did little damage to the battleship's shields.
"Sir the Rightious Fist is being pounded, what are your orders?" the ensign knew that there was little his ship could do but it was just human nature to try and save one's comrades.
Anders didn't reply because he knew the answer would only demoralize his crew, it was likely that most of the other cruiser's crew was already dead and there was nothing that could be done for them now.
It was then that the ship rocked again and the bridge lit up with a brilliant flash and the sound of crashing wreckage, Anders felt himself flying for an instant then a solid impact on what must have been the forward helm station, Anders managed to pull himself up and realized that his arm was badly broken, as he looked across his bridge he saw a pair of legs in his XO's seat and a massive peice of hull where the rest of the body should have been. Trying to survey the damage Anders saw that most of the bridge was a wreck and most of the crew there were dead.
"Any survivors?" Anders asked in a horse voice as he reached for a handheld fire extinguisher to put out the flames nearbye.
"Aye aye Captain." It was Ralleigh still at station and Private Weiss of the marines who was walking over to the helm."
"Weapons, shields, are all gone sir, I am reading multiple hull breaches and casualty reports are coming in from all over the ship sir." Weiss looked rough, his marine armor had clearly saved his life though as a sharp peice of metal stuck clean out of the side of his armor, just barely stopped by the pLasteel layers.
"Sir the Rightious Fist" Ralleigh uttered as he pointed at the screen displaying video feed from the ship's backup camera.
It was even worse off then his ship, barely anything was left except superstructure and a few sections of hull, but even that was not enough for those bloodthirsty snakeheads as one of their battleships fired another volley of Mesons into the wreckage tearing it apart, ther was so little left of the cruiser that there wasn't even explosion as the hull just fell apart and bodies floated away.
The enemy battleship didn't have time to celebrate their victory however as the Unrelenting fired her main cannons into their rear blowing the reactor the seconds the shields failed, a new star was briefly born and then died out as the enemy ship exploded.

Anders watched with grim satisfaction as the flagship took hit after hit on her armor but didn't even flinch as she kept advancing on the Last remaining ship firing her powerful guns into it's shields, it was clear that Park was putting his own ship between that snake bastard and the crippled wreck that was Liberty and within minutes the massive warship had closed within boarding range and latched onto the hull of the enemy ship. Fifteen minutes later and another Gou'ld ship had been taken by the Unrelenting adding two to her tally.

Shuttles from the Super Monitor scoured the area for survivors as their mothership docked with Liberty to take the survivors off and tend the wounded.

After two hours the search shuttles came in from the void of space carrying only 28 survivors and all of those were from Liberty, a prize crew had taken over the enemy ship and repair teams were already working on the damaged sections of Unrelenting but Anders felt miserable, more then two thirds of his crew had been killed or wounded by the enemy and his ship was left floating until a salvage vessel could be sent to recover her. He was likely to be facing a court martial reviewboard within a week and he was very unsure of what his future would be.
(recording ends)

From: Captain Charles Anders former captain INSS Liberty
To: Fleet Command Gamma Sector
Subject: The Captain and Crew of his majesty's ship of the line INSS Unrelenting.

Sir I recomend you put Captain Park in for the star cluster for saving the lives of me and my crew, their bravery in putting themselves between the enemy and ourselves saved the lives of 400 Imperial spacers and marines and it is my strongest desire that even if my career is ended that Park's crew and my crew as well receive comendations for accomplishing their duties under the worst conditions possible. They did nothing less then save several million colonists from certain death and many of those brave spacers died to do it.

Captain Anders
6th fleet Gamma Sector

From: Captain William Park CO INSS Unrelenting
To: 6th Fleet Command
Subject: Casualties suffered at Winep

My Lords the following is a list of Imperial assets involved and casualties taken.

INSS Rightious Fist
Captain: Commander Alexi Gorvochev
Crew: 1,500 officers and ranks
Classification: Heavy Cruiser
Status: destroyed
Casualties: 1,500 dead

INSS Liberty
Captain: Captain Charles Anders
Crew: 2,150 officers and ranks
Classification: Battle Cruiser
Status: Abandoned until salvage ship arrives.
Casualties: 1,700 dead, 50 wounded.

INSS Unrelenting
Captain: William Park
Crew: 10,000 Officers and ranks
Classification: Super Monitor
Status: Escorting prize back to shipyards
Casualties: 85 dead, 189 wounded

Total Imperial casualties: 3,285 dead, 239 wounded, 2 imperial warships lost or abandoned.

Enemy losses: 5 battleships destroyed 1 captured, 6,000 dead.

[ July 04, 2004, 22:09: Message edited by: Starhawk ]