Rise of the Remorhaz Society

[capnq]

Zekrat VII, lay only two parsecs from the fleet.

Nitpick: a parsec is 3.26 light-years, and therefore only useful for interstellar distances. Within a system, you need something on the scale of AUs (Astronomical Unit = radius of Earth's orbit around the Sun, 93 million miles).

[sachmo]

Thanks! My bad...I thought I read somewhere in the rules that the squares in the game=parsecs! Ah well, anyone else have cool ideas for names for distance measurements? AU's sound sort of...clinical, I think.

[geoschmo]

Just say two sectors. The squares on the system map are called sectors.

[Gryphin]

12ths
I'm sure someone can come up for a "Logical" explanation for the term.

[capnq]

I thought I read somewhere in the rules that the squares in the game=parsecs!

That was referring to the Galaxy map, where each system is in one square. The Gravitational Quantum Resonators (warp-point openers) mention hundreds of light years.

[sachmo]

Thanks!

[sachmo]

Alterations

2410.7

Grand Admiral Urian, along with his staff, poured over the intelligence gathered from Zekrat VIII. They had been at it all night, running simulation after simulation. The end result always came out the same…Xillantha Fleet did not have the firepower to take the Rage homeworld. While it would be an incredible achievement to take the planet, without sufficient firepower there was no way it could happen.
Urian sighed, and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. He hoped that Rear Admiral Shiro Sakazawa wouldn’t be too upset about this. Sakazawa was an aggressive commander, determined to take the war to the enemy, but Urian knew that he would follow orders above all else.
I might as well get this over with, Urian thought. He turned the com unit to face him, straightened his uniform, and opened the com channel to RSS Tarus, Sakazawa’s command ship. Quickly, Sakazawa’s face appeared on the screen.
“Good evening, Grand Admiral,” Sakazawa saluted.
“Good evening, Shiro. I’ll get right to the point. I know how you hate to beat around the bush.”
Sakazawa nodded, but a grim look spread across his face. “Thank you, sir.”
“We’ve looked at your situation a thousand different ways, Shiro, and we always come to the same conclusion. Your fleet doesn’t have enough firepower to take out Zekrat VIII.”
Sakazawa’s face reddened. “Sir, we might not have enough to take them out in one attack, but we can chip away at them. Eventually, they will break.”
Urian shook his head. “We’ve run it that way, too. Our calculations tell us that your fleet will not be able to penetrate their defenses. You can’t hurt them now, but we will get you more ships. Eventually, you should be able to break thru, but it’s going to take time.”
Sakazawa tried very hard to keep his emotions under control.
“Sir, I think this is a mistake. We could at least blockade the planet, cutting their homeworld off from the rest of their empire. The economic reproc…”
“Shiro, listen to me,” Urian interrupted. “You will get your chance, but I have to get some more ships to you. It won’t be long, I promise. We’ll get them as soon as we can.”
Sakazawa nodded into the screen, his face tight. “Aye, aye, sir. What are your orders in the meantime?”
Grand Admiral Urian filled him in on the alternate plan for Xillantha Fleet. He was to proceed to Zekrat IX and attack the colony there. RSS Badger was to return to Zekrat VII and pick up the 2nd Space Marine Brigade, and from their capture Zekrat IX. After this mission was accomplished, most of the remaining ships in the Lundra fleet should have been able to join up with the Xillantha fleet. They were then to proceed to Zekrat VIII and attack the Rage homeworld.

In the Regotha system, RSS Sierra, a Ganymede class light cruiser, and RSS Mongoose, loaded with the 1st Space Marine Brigade, met up with Captain Brennan and the rest of Providence Fleet. Once they joined up here, they were ordered to head back into the Lezzari system, to capture or destroy any Rage worlds encountered here.

Tony Harris watched out of the bLasteel window as the colony ship finalized its decent onto the surface of Cirius. A chill ran thru his body despite the heat of his environment suit. The front wasn’t very far from Cirius. If the Rage counterattacked, would he die here as his sister and nephew had? Would he cower in a shelter, waiting for the bombs and missiles to come and snuff out his life?
He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to chase the nightmares away. No, this time it would be different. This time, they knew what they were up against. Defense would be a top priority. If the Rage came again, they would find Cirius had teeth. Tony shook his head, and tried to think of happier times. He pulled a picture of his sister out of his belongings. It had been taken over thirty years ago, when they were children back on Remorhaz. In their wildest dreams, neither of those children would have dreamed that a place like Cirius even existed, let alone dream that they would live there. Nor would they have dreamed that a race of sentient machines would come along and bLast them and millions of other civilians into so many atoms…
Tony felt a shudder as the colony ship touched down. Soon it would be time for all of the colonists to begin rebuilding the Remorhaz settlement on Cirius. For Tony, the work would be twice as hard. Not only would he have to rebuild, but he would have to bury the ghosts of his family as well. That would be the hardest work of all.
Tony stood up and gathered up his belongings, eager to get started, or maybe he was eager to finish the grim task ahead.

[SG-3]

I like this story so much that I find myself checking the spaceempires.org one everyday.Great Job!

[Atrocities]

Oh, I am so very hooked on this story.

[sachmo]

Zekrat Campaign-Phase II begins

“Contact! Rage Gorgon II class light cruiser, bearing 080 at 6 sectors, Captain. Looks like she’s just sitting there, sir.”
“Thank you, Sensor,” Reid called back.
Captain Walter Reid flipped on his tactical display. Yep, there she was, at a dead stop right outside of the Lundra-Zekrat wormhole. At least Reid knew that if there were more Rage ships on the other side of the wormhole, Sakazawa would have warned them about it.
“Helm, set course for the bogie. Relay our situation to Commodore Lu. Weps, I want all missiles bays loaded and ready to fire.”
His crew acknowledged his orders.
Hyperion fired her engines, and she was quickly joined by the remains of Lundra fleet, RSS Faith and RSS Ganymede.
In less than a week, they intercepted the Rage light cruiser. No one had yet faced a Rage light cruiser in battle, so everyone in the fleet was a little nervous. While the Remorhaz fleet had a three-to-one advantage in the fight, they knew that the Rage had superior missile and beam weapons. The weapon advantage enjoyed by the Rage could even things up in a hurry.
As they moved closer to the wormhole, they were able to gather more data on the Gorgon II. She was armed with no weapons. She was actually configured as a long-range colony ship. Still, they could not allow it to escape.
The battle was short. The Rage ship, with 4 million colonists aboard, decided to try and ram the Remorhaz ships. She never got closer than two million miles before the combined cannon, torpedo, and missile fire of the Remorhaz ships vaporized the Gorgon.
Lu and his task force continued on to Zekrat, where they were to join with the Xillantha fleet for an assault on Zekrat VIII.

2410.8

Captain Reid was wrong about one thing, the Rage did have another ship with which to attack his ships. Unfortunately for the Rage, this craft was another light cruiser outfit as a long-range colony ships, and another 44 million Rage, plus the ships crew, were bLasted to atoms by the Remorhaz fleet.

RSS Orion pulled into orbit with the rest of the Iolo defense fleet. Commodore Thom Hitcher looked out of the bLasteel windows. He could see his new command laid out before him. The orange glow of Iolo’s sun played across the hulls of the four ships of the Iolo defense fleet, illuminating them for a few brief moments until their orbit took them back around to the dark side of the planet. In the light, where the ships rarely were, they looked powerful and deadly. Floating above Correlia, they looked like guardian angels, watching over the people far below as they went about their lives.
How much protection would these ships be able to provide for them? Currently, his scanner showed twenty-one Ukra-Tal ships heading for the Yukra system transiting Iolo, and he was powerless to stop them. They had just blown the satellite belt that had secured the wormhole while suffering only minor damage to one destroyer. If the Ukra-Tal attacked Correlia, his ships would be a minor distraction. However, it was his job to make sure that the people below him on the surface survived. The longer he had to build up his forces and the defenses on Correlia, the bigger the distraction to the Ukra-Tal his fleet would prove to be.
Commodore Hitcher stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. This would be the biggest test of his life. If he failed, he knew that everyone on Correlia would die.

Plans had changed for Xillantha Fleet in the Zekrat system. Before the fleet was able to leave Invexus and join up with Lundra Fleet for the assault on Zekrat IX, a fleet of seven Rage ships jumped into the system and took a course to attack Invexus. Rear Admiral Sakazawa was forced to detach Badger from his fleet and have it join up with Lu and Lundra Fleet. They would have to try and take Zekrat IX alone. Xillantha Fleet would move to intercept and destroy the Rage fleet at maximum distance from Invexus, as the colony had no defenses yet. The second phase of the Zekrat campaign was about to begin.