Story Thread: The Hunter's Call

[cshank2]

A/N: Well, this is based on an idea I had, basically I'm trying to branch away from the Empire History logs, and trying to make a character driven story... or something. Heh... second attempt, just crashed Firefox after I tried posting... sooooooo, here we go. More will follow if anyone likes it...

Chapter One: Pieces of a Sanlo Game.

Nu’moil wrapped his bony fingers around the mug of ale, wiping his nails on slick condensation while doing so. He was too old for these sorts of games, being a ‘retired’ Phong Military Officer of One Hundred, Seventy Four (Selian Years). The Selian across from him smiled, showing off pearly white teeth, placing him at about one hundred and fifty years younger then his Phong compatriot.

Nu’moil looked at the game board in front of him and quirked his mouth in a smile, “You come up with…” He moved his own game-piece on top of the other man’s, thus claiming victory, “…the oddest strategies.” The Selian blinked once or twice in disbelief, sighed and started laughing. “You’re right, friend, I should have seen that coming a light-year away!” They both laughed and stood up, “You know, I sometimes wonder how we ever took you guys over…” The Selian pondered while sweeping a tired gaze over Nu’moil, “I mean, you managed to best us at every battle, your ships were tougher, your planets more abundant…” The Phong smiled and placed a few credits on the table for the waitress before turning towards the entrance of the tavern. “You didn’t conquer us, Leo, our races merged and we just sort of intermixed, as did the Eee two years afterwards.” Nu’moil and Leo were standing outside on one of Selia City Capitol’s suspended walkways, either side of them dropped off into a permeable darkness, softly illuminated by the hissing, neon, signs that covered the large Space-Scraper’s sides. Leo’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dim-lighting as he looked skyward. The planet-wide shield sparked and hissed as rain from the upper atmosphere impacted against it, the effect was quite mesmerizing, seeing the stars and planets of the Selian Empire stretched out and distorted by the tiny ripples and eddies of energy being displaced.

“I thought they taught you that stuff in your academies…” Nu’moil quirked an eyebrow, following the gaze of his friend, ‘My, the rain sure is coming down heavy…’ He thought to himself. Leo shook his head, sending his blonde hair scattering through the air, “No, they just told us of the military campaigns and what not. Hell, I don’t even think the Eee are mentioned at all… In anything important anyways…” He started walking, his thin shoulders hunched up in the leather vest he wore over a, normally, white shirt.

“That’s not rain…” The Phong’s voice was distant, rasping almost, and his hand was stretched out towards the heavens, palm splayed outwards.
“What’re you talking about, old ma-“ Leo was cut off as Sirens began to wail, ancient speakers that hadn’t been used in almost a thousand years, shook the marrow loose in his bones. People poked their heads out of doorways and windows, all looking skyward. Leo followed their gazes. The shield was turning red, the color of blood, and looked like it was ready to explode outwards as the ‘rain’ intensified on certain parts of it. Cursing, Leo grabbed the nearest uniformed man he could find, luckily it happened to be a Guardsman. “What the hell’s going on!?” Leo had to shout to be heard over the ever-increasing wail of alarms. If the Guardsman answered, Leo would never know, an explosion rumbled off in the city, quickly following five other ones, each growing closer to the bridge he was on.

Rough hands spun Leo around into Nu’moil’s face, “We have to find shelter… The Hunters have come…” His voice was choked with emotion as he gazed up and down the sky-bridge, pitying for the souls that were about to lose their souls. They ran, Leo had no idea to where, but trusted his old friend, only to have that trust compounded upon as a massive shell slammed into the middle of the bridge they had just gotten off of, sending bodies of various beings into the air and down into the depths of the city, never to be seen again.

-----------

“Are you quite sure, Commander?” Tensions ran high in the dusty command room of the Royal Selian Military Academy. A bulky man, his right arm in a sling and his left one, a mechanical one, whining pitifully, stood to attention, the blood-soaked bandage falling, almost comically, over his left eye. “Yes, General… NavTac Command reports sixty ships of unknown origin hanging in Geosynch Orbit. Heavy ships are pouring into the system as we speak.” His voice was weak as he stared at the increasing mass of red dots converging on the Malaya System from every warp-point imaginable. The General sighed as he typed something out on the keyboard, switching the display to Planet level, Red covered that too. An Eee next to the General bobbed in the air, his bio-luminescent core pulsing morosely as it too watched in horror. “We need to stop the ground troops… We need to get an evacuation set up, somehow. We need to get as many people to our outlying systems as fast as possible.” The Eee swept up into the ramparts of the command room and came down supporting a small box within an energy field. The General picked it out of the air and opened it.

A thick, yellow, button sat in the center of the box, a piece of parchment was taped to the top-cover, emblazoned with the Winged Skull of the Imperium. His finger stabbed the button thrice, and a small light began to blink. “Forgive us… for we are about to slaughter our own…” His last statement was unheard as a shell tore into the room, smashing all of the occupants in a shower of gore, bone, and cytoplasm.

[cshank2]

Guess no one likes it, meh, understandable. Okay, locking topic.

[Atrocities]

Don't take lack of posts as a lack of interest. Sunday's are always slow my friend. Never judge your work by the post count or views, they are often depressing and misleading and have turned off many of good writers. I know.

You have a nice smooth style and the story reads very well, captivating infact. I truly liked what I read and look forward to more. Please keep going if not for us, for your self. Hell there is no rule that says you can't write a great story then sell it or post it on your own web site. Look at me, I made several ship sets to support my story and still only a handful of people from here ever read it. But the folks that did enjoyed it, and those who read it from other sites liked it too. I am just to lazy to fix what is wrong with it even though I think about it daily.

Keep writing please.

[Fyron]

Not to mention that it was Father's Day in the US yesterday. 6 hours is not much time to begin despairing.

Would you like your story added to the SEnet Fan Fiction Archives? We are always looking for new stories.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I like it, so far.

[cshank2]

Holy crap, I completely forgot yesterday was father's day... and that it was a sunday...


Yeah...

Sorry about the emo-tasity.

Well, more will come later today... maybe. The computer I was writing this on (my windows machine) caught a trojan (randex.moo or something like that) and nothing is detecting it, so I am reformating it tonight. (I can't even find it, and if I try looking for it, explorer restarts. You see my perdicament.)


Anyways... About the fanfiction archive thingy on SE.net, Thanks a TON for the offer, but I'm going to have to refuse for two reasons. One: I don't think my style is good enough to be really mentionable. and Two: Well, the virus thing has pissed me off to no end,now that has nothing to really do with my story except I think it's too short right now, and three chapters (Take up about five pages in MSword each.) are gone. So maybe later... thanks again.

[Fyron]

Have you tried Hijack This?

Try posting a HJT log on the Security forums of DSL Reports. There is a way to remove these buggers 99.9% of the time. The people over there can usually give you instructions for removing anything.

[cshank2]

Aye, no update today and probably not one tommorow, sorry folks. I reformated my computer, no hassle, got all me drivers installed all properly, until, you know, I tried to play a game of SEIV, everytime the CD span up to read the music, the sound was skipping and popping all over the place, so I thinks to myself "URGH, NOT AGAIN!" (Seeing as how my computer shipped with this problem, and it turned out to be a loose IDE connection.) Well, I opened it back up and everything was snug and what not. So I'm going to try and fix this, if not, I gotta buy a new CD-ROM and install it.

[cshank2]

Chapter 2: Surprises? I think not.

"Sir...?" The Ensign turned to face the captain, sweat stained his officer's cap and tunic and his eyes showed the sign of caffeine pill usage. Captain Menja ran a hand across his face, "What is it, Ensign?" He was tired, his battle-group had been on high alert for the past seventy-two hours, and they had been system-hopping back to Selia Prime. According to NavInt, Selia was under attack, Menja knew that no fool would ever attack the shining jewel of the Galaxy, but deep down he quaked.

The ensign stifled a yawn, "Sir, communications has just received a signal from Selia Prime... Uh... the signal "Freewind" was the only thing received... nothing else." Menja scuttled to his feet, which didn't hold his weight all too well. "Ensign, put me on a wide-beam to the group." He strode down the small causeway that bridged the two crew-pits to look out the massive viewports of the SNS Adona Class Dreadnought that was under his command. "Helms, slave the other ships to our network, take us into the Malaya warp-point, once there, I want all power diverted to engines."
The Helmsman's affirmation came crisply and Menja smiled as the hum of the massive Ruby Class Quantum Tachyon engines propelled his ship along at a steady seven-hundred gravities.

The Selian Battle-Group, a force that struck fear or pride into the hearts of billions, usually composed of a single Dreadnought class star-ship. The battle-group, or fleet as the untrained would call it, is formed in a series of rings, the flagship in the center, two carriers on either side, point-defense ships around them, and the striking arm of the battle-group, usually composed of Cruisers and Heavy Destroyers at the very last ring.

Menja's group was different though, his was part of a military experiment. His group traded off the usual compliment of six destroyers for three more Linda-Class Heavy Carriers, each one storing one-hundred and fifty starfighters of various sizes.

He was broken out of his reverie by the alarm signaling a warp. Promptly he sat himself back down in his Command chair, wincing as the neural interface made connection with his spinal column. The Warp-Point hung outside the viewports like a bright green lotus flower, the center was almost blinding to look at, that is, it was until giant blast-shields covered the viewports. "Helms, take us in." The battle-group stretched into nothing for a few brief seconds before arriving in the Malaya system and setting course towards the Selian Warp-point.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Leo spun around, at the same time drawing the bulky Laser-Pistol from it's holster on his hip. Another of the 'Hunter's' shots pinged off the ferrocrete behind him, and the assailant in question let loose a bestial roar before charging at Leo. "Oh, shut up ALREADY." The pistol's report temporarily deafened him as a jade-green beam, no thicker then Leo's thumb, pierced the being's throat. The Hunter gurgled, stumbled forward a few feet, his hands clawing the air for it's weapon, before dropping dead in a pile of black and blue ichor. "You've got to be kidding me..." Leo grimaced as his pistol hissed and let off steam. He looked over the 'Hunter' in question. The thing had blue armor... or carapace, it's face was angled in a way that made Leo think of the birds he had seen on one of the colony worlds on the Fringe. The thing stood on four legs and held nasty bio-weapons with it's three fingered hands.

"And now, young Leo, you see the mutual enemy of our species." Leo spun into a crouch, pistol leveled again. "Relax, Leo." Nu'moil seemed to appear from the shadows, his clothes were covered in ichor, although Leo wasn't all that sure that some of it wasn't drying Selian blood. "Been busy, Old Man?" Leo replaced the power cell of his pistol and thumbed the setting over to a pulse fire, he was down to his last cell. "I was scouting, for your information..." Nu'moil's voice trailed off as both their eyes tracked the tail of an artillery shell vanishing into the depths of the city. ".Anyhow, the city's a war-zone, the Spaceports are crowded with people and ships alike, Tr'liao ships are bombarding every avenue with troop pods. You know, the usual things that take place during a planetary siege."
Leo stopped for a second, Nu'moil was much too nonchalant for the situation, "Okay, two things. First: Who are the Tr'liao? And second: Why are you so easy going about all of this?"
Nu'moil smiled sadly, his green-yellow eyes tracing the pattern on the wall next to him. "The Tr'liao are the Hunters... And the hunters are the Tr'liao. As for the reason I seem so uncaring, I have lived a long time, Leo, I have faced this same enemy and lost. I for one welcome death, if not the most pleasant experience, although I know you will object, so come, to the Spaceport."

Leo shook his head and followed along, only glancing back over his shoulder as another roar, followed by a scream, took flight on the dying wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Admiral, we're preparing to jump into Selian Space."
"Good, order weapons to their posts, I want the Hellbores charged and ready. Shields up, point defense online. I want all non-combatant personnel to their quarters. Troops are to be at their drop-ships and pilots to their fighters." Menja's training overrode fears, his confidence grew, however, as the lights on the holo-table quickly turned green, signifying the group's readiness.
"Take us in, and pray for safety."

Menja felt his stomach quake as the ship accelerated beyond the speed of light and then quickly settle, although that settling did not last long as the ship rocked and alarms blared.
"Admiral, we have three, I repeat, zero three, ships of unknown identity closing fast, they're Dreadnought sized, sir!" The ship rocked again as the large, ovoid ship's sides lit up, their shots splashed harmlessly off the shields of Menja's ship though.
"Weapon's crew... target the one at the back, I don't care about range, keep their heads down. Comm, tell the carriers to deploy fighters in a screen."
A chorus of ayes resounded across the bridge, and the Admiral couldn't help but smile as the gravitational hellbores let loose the hellfire of the Selian Emperor. The enemy 'ship' was torn apart by thirty micro-black-holes and the other two took vengeance by launching another salvo.
"Admiral, I have five more ships, same type closing fast. Shields are at eighty, eight-oh, percent."
"Target the second ship back and fire again." Menja's reply was cold and emotionless. He could feel every shot as his ship took them, he could smell the ozone burning from the massive cannons along his ships dorsal batteries. Yes, this fight was personal now.

[cshank2]

Shameless bump, another chapter (/continuation of this chapter) tonight, I'm also going to redo number two, since I wrote that at Four thirty in the morning.