From the Begining New Chapter Added (9/12/06)

[Starhawk]

2415.3
The 1st fleet began it’s invasion of Fornax like a thunderstrike, Fornax V was swept through like locusts through a cornfield and already a military base was being established on world for the continued advance of the Icaran war machine.
Meanwhile Ross’ famed 3rd fleet scored yet another victory over a Phong squadron sent to reinforce Fornax V, not a single Phong ship escaped alive and the 3rd fleet suffered minimal damage.
Both Icaran news networks played the victories up to the hilt, proclaiming Admirals Ross and Babcock “Heroes of the Empire” and people all over the Empire cheered their military victories and letters from grateful citizens poured into the naval mail delivery bureau to the famous captains and Admirals of the battle.
The “Long March To victory” had begun 15 years ago and from the very start Icara had proven herself a conqueror and an unrelenting foe, the war with the Phong had Lasted almost twelve years now and the people rejoiced that the stalemate had finally been broken by the Icaran Royal Navy and Army, yet throughout the empire all knew that the march was far from over and that in the end it may end up becoming more a crusade then a march.

[Starhawk]

2415.8 The march continues
Admiral Babcock sat stiffly in his command chair as his fleet closed on Fornax I, it was a heavily defended world the most heavily defended his fleet had yet been asked to seize, 8 weapon platforms, 20 squads of enemy light infantry and an unknown number of militia.
HMS Hornet and the other cruisers of her division formed the vanguard of the fleet, while Redoubtable and the heavy cruiser division formed the second line behind the transport, the other cruisers fell into the flanking slots to ensure a full 365 degree defense perimeter around the troop transport.

As the fleet approached the world it’s surface guns tore space with shells the size of a fighter craft, most of the shots were aimed at the heavy cruisers and thankfully due to extreme range missed, but the next volley fired at Hornet and the other cruisers of the lead division, most of those shells missed as well but Hornet was damaged seriously enough to begin withdrawing from battle, her hull bled atmosphere, and a trail of wreckage followed behind her as she limped away.
The troopship was almost within drop range, once she landed her forces they could claim all eight platforms intact and not have to worry about leaving ships to guard their new conquest.
Unfortunately instead of picking a new targets the surface cannons opened fire on Hornet again, shell after shell tore into the battered wreck that had once been a proud cruiser until the structural integrity of the ship failed outright and shells tore clean through one end and out the other as the screamed in at near light speeds, one lucky shot struck home in what was left of the reactor core of the crippled cruiser and as containment failed a brilliant blue star was born. 2,100 Icaran spacers died as that star was born.,
Babcock clenched his fists in rage and sorrow as he watched the star fade and saw the wreckage that remained of a ship that had boasted a glorious service record.
The troopship reached dropship range at the same time the Last shell killed the cruiser, thousands of infantry and hundreds of armored vehicles cut through the atmosphere at speeds that were too fast to intercept by the planetary defense platforms.

Landing forces seized control over the most heavily defended target that Icara had ever faced, and they had done it in less then two weeks. The Phong governor of that world had relied too much on weapons platforms and when the ground forces of Icara landed the Phong ground forces were totally overwhelmed in a far from exciting battle, not a single Icaran Army trooper died in the battle.


[i]notes after the battle.
Two days after the battle Admiral Babcock dispatched Lenin to intercept a Phong Light cruiser that was headed towards the warp point to the Mavin Parsis system,
Captain Yu Lin Pe and Lenin are to be reasigned to Third Fleet as soon as Fornax system is secured
Her crew performed excellently in their kill of the enemy warship, and proceeded to the warp point with renewed vigor, Lenin scored their first ship to ship kill and suffered absolutely no damage in the process and not a single casualty had been sustained much to Admiral Babcock and Captain Yu's mutual relief after the tragic loss of His Majesty's Warship Hornet and her valiant crew.

[Starhawk]

2416.4 The Galactic West and the Manti Barrier
Admiral Lord Timothy Fredricks, commander of the 4th fleet sat laxly in his chair in the flag briefing room as he read the newest dispatches from Naval Intelligence, he scowled spitefully as he read about the victories of the 1st and 3rd fleets against the Phong, Fornax had fallen and the Phong sector forces decimated so swiftly that at first the Admiralty didn’t even believe it, Ross and Babcock were on the fast track to promotion, and so was any captain who earned a reputation under their command. And here he was stuck out in the middle of nowhere with the “4th fleet” guarding the border against the NSE, who were supposedly allies to boot!
“Captain to the bridge, unknown GFG footprint!” Fredricks quickly tossed the reports aside and raced for the door from the briefing room to the bridge.
“What is it Tactical?” He asked briskly as he stepped onto the bridge at a pace that was a little faster then he would have preferred for appearances sake.
“Sir, I have two, zero GFG footprints of unknown origin, I can tell you they are likely human but nothing else at the moment.”
“Hm, Take us closer helm.” Fredricks looked over at his Executive officer, who was bristling with excitement, it was her first tour aboard ship as an exec after she replaced his previous exec, who was transferred to command a ship of his own.

The 4th fleet closed on the unknown fleet for two days before they finally entered ID range of the unknown starships, they were obviously warships, they were long spindly ships with two hammer headed ends , the hulls were pure white but shown blue in the glow of the warp point they had just emerged from.
“Sir, I am reading a dozen destroyers, several light cruisers and cruisers, 5 battleships and a carrier.” The tactical officer looked nervously back at Admiral Fredricks, that fleet could easily defeat his own, the only hope he could have was to attempt contact, but if the unknowns did not want peaceful relations this would be a very short contact indeed.
“Com get me a signal to those ships.” Fredricks had to force himself to stay cool and collected, those ships out there could destroy his pathetic little assortment of ships and open up the entire region to attack before any reinforcements could arrive from Icara.
“Sir they’re hailing us.” The com officer tabbed a few controls and a voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“I repeat this is Admiral Sanjumi of the Manti Star Kingdom 2nd fleet, please identify yourselves.” The man speaking had an accent that Fredricks didn’t recognize, but he was just glad they were willing to talk.

“This is Admiral Lord Fredricks of the Icaran Empire 4th fleet, you have entered restricted space Admiral Sanjumi, please state your purpose in this region.” Fredricks swallowed hard as the endless seconds ticked by without response.

“I’m sorry to violate your space Admiral, we are simply exploring, we are not here to start any trouble.” The other man sounded confident, he too knew how a battle between the two fleets would turn out and he didn’t even need to be as polite as he was choosing to be, hell an Icaran Admiral would have just entered engagement range and unleashed a broadside on the inferior fleet that stood before them.
“Well Admiral now that we have encountered each other, may I send an Ambassador over?” Fredricks tried again to sound as if nothing major was happening, but his eyes never left the tactical screen on his command chair, the Manti fleet was still moving, but not towards any planets in system, at least not yet.

“Certainly Admiral Fredricks we’d be honored to welcome one of your ambassadors over to my flagship.” Fredricks could almost feel the man’s smile as his voice came over the speakers.

“Well then I’ll have an ambassador sent to you within two days, please stay where you are until that time, thank you.” Fredricks said as politely as he could manage and then cut the com circuit to the Manti flagship and had his com officer open a new com to Mandow base to have an Ambassador dispatched.

After less then a month of negotiations it was found out that the Manti Star Kingdom was a powerful nation to the galactic West of Icara, it was at war with at least one other nation and seemingly winning, their military was powerful and had many battlecruiser and battleship style warships in their frontier fleets, coupled with their advanced phased poloron cannons which were at least two generations beyond the Icaran Version even a single Manti frontier fleet could decimate one of the four Icaran fleets.
These facts weren’t ignored when Praetor Leonidas personally signed the non-aggression pact with the Manti’s, who thankfully while interested in growth were not militaristically expansionistic.

However as long as the Manti Star Kingdom existed Icara would forever have a barrier to the Galactic west which would prevent their military conquest of that region.

[Renegade 13]

Well, here's an idea for what to do with all those obsolete LC's and CR's. It might be considered kind of cruel to your Icarans, but....

Send all your obsolete ships to the most pressing front, assemble them into one large fleet, and make a drive into enemy territory. Your fleet, even though obsolete, should be able to do quite significant damage to the enemy, and run the fleet until it's completely destroyed. Don't bother repairing damage, as this is a suicide fleet. Like I said, adding this to your story would make your emperor look very very cruel, but that's your choice! Personally, that's what I do with obsolete ships that are eating up resources through maintenance.

[Rasorow]

Depends... Scrap some (most of the LCs) keep the CRs but gradually upgrade them to different functions.. Fleet repair, fast transport, small armed carriers, various speciality ships that at least I always seem to need at this point. If you have encountered a missle using or fighter using empire (I cannot tell how dependent on missiles from the story) then some of the CRs might be converted to AA ships (or is that AF - Anti-Fighter) ships. I would probably scrap most of the LCs if not all through.

Rasorow

[kerensky]

thanks, and yes I have thought of writing a book which is actually why I'm writing these stories.
I'm hoping I can get enough practice so that when I do write a book it won't have as many gramatical errors as this story. And so I can learn character development and flow of writing.

You know that I would be happy to proof read your work (not like I've done that before)

As for Characters some of their personalities are based on folks I know with some slight changes to personality to fit a militaristic environment.

Would I be one of them??? granted I havn't actually read the story yet.. Am doing so now.

[Starhawk]

OOC: Well by the story Icara would never send their crews to a suicide mission on purpose, unless they were renegades, but the Icarans would never trust renegades with a warship either.
The funny thing is that I only ever built TWO light cruisers as my research into cruiser technology progressed far faster then I thought it would.
I'll probobly put the Light cruiser Retribution into mothballs over Icara to stand aside as a "museam" like the Saber and Enterprise the other will probobly be scrapped.
The Cruisers I'll probobly turn into escort carriers as I like that idea the best

Oh and Kerensky, not yet but a Character I have in mind will likely be based on some of your personality traits.

Well anyway I'll shut my big yap and give you guys what you really want, some story

2418.4 Sunburst and Glory:
The 3rd fleet’s three heavy cruisers had rejoined the fleet only two months ago after being totally overhauled, and their return was just in time as the sensors had picked up a ten ship fleet of Phong light cruisers heading for their position at full military thrust.
Ross sat tensely in his command chair aboard Hawkwing watching the tactical display intently, this would be the first combat test of the new I-Lasers and if anything went wrong, no nothing would go wrong Ross wouldn’t let anything go wrong. And besides that-he thought- if the heavy cruisers failed he still had a small group of cruisers with old PPB cannons to fall back on.
“Admiral, targets entering weapons range in two minutes.” The tactical officer chimed off every minute as the fleets closed, to Ross ears the countdown sounded like a dirge, but whether it was for his enemy or his heavy cruisers Ross did not know.

The ranges closed until finally the targeting lights shown a brilliant green, the chief weapons officer nodded in the Captain’s direction, Captain Barret looked at Ross anxiously awaiting the order to fire.
“Open fire all batteries.” Ross said grimly, he felt himself cross his fingers, he also prayed quietly as the seconds ticked off. Finally the weapons batteries of the three Midwinter class heavy cruisers lit space with green fire. A massive wall of beams sliced into the leading Phong warships, the first shots brought down the shields with ease, the rest of the broadsides lashed into armored hulls and broke them like toys, vaporizing entire sections of plating and hull. In less then five seconds five Phong light cruisers vanished in brilliant fireballs.
The Cruisers of the 3rd fleet joined their larger cousins in the attack, they opened up with their Phased Poloron cannons and destroyed another two Phong warships.

“Admiral, the Phong ships are attempting to retreat!” Barret smiled sharkishly as he watched the three remaining Phong ships turn about and head away from the fleet at high speed.
“Kill them all mister Barret, I want no survivors of this little fleet of theirs.” Ross felt the power of his ship anew, she had been formidable with her old weapons systems but with these new guns, against the Phong she would be invincible!

The Icaran heavy cruisers though larger then their Phong counterparts were far faster due to their superior engines, they had no trouble catching up with the inferior Phong ships, the three enemy ships fired their weapons desperately but to no effect, the superior ECM and shielding of the Icaran warships made the Phong DU fire totally ineffective.
Unfortunately that handicap was only on the Phong’s side, the Lenin was the first of the Icaran warships to enter weapons range, she opened fire with all the fury of hell, two of the surviving enemy ships vanished in brilliant explosions, and debris fields. The third ship was hit three times by the Lenin’s batteries, she lost 2/3 speed and all but one of her guns.
Defender finished the job when she entered weapons range, her beams sliced the enemy ship into slags of metal and wreckage in barely a second’s time.

Ross leaned back in his command chair proudly, he smiled at his bridge crew and signaled his congratulations to the rest of the fleet, on the first successful combat action of the Midwinter class heavy cruisers and their new I-Laser armament.

Meanwhile
The first fleet under Admiral Babcock continued their invasion of the Mestra system and claimed yet another planet to the cause of Icara, a second Phong colony was destroyed by one of the 1st fleet’s Midwinter class heavy cruisers when it was decided that the colony would not be worth the loss of Icaran lives.

2418.6
The shipyard of Icara city hummed with noise and activity, a massive three kilometer long hull began to take shape within the “dry dock” facility, as thousands of workers buzzed about like ants, nano-welding hull plating together, wiring power cells together, or doing one of any hundred jobs that were involved in the construction of a space fairing capital warship.
This scene was being repeated across nearly a dozen worlds of Icara and also in orbit of Icara it’s self as the orbital yards began construction. The first “block” of the newest and deadliest class starship ever constructed by Icara was well on it’s way t joining service. The Lord Nelson class Dreadnought was larger stronger and faster then any known warship besides those of the Manti’s, these ships would be the new ships of the line for Icara, each dreadnought cost nearly two billion credits and took large amounts of raw materials to build yet when they were completed, this first block alone would possess more firepower then the entire current Royal navy put together and that fact alone is what convinced the House of Lords, and Praetor Leonidas to authorize the navy to begin construction.

[Starhawk]

A brief history and genealogy of Icara
This is a little bit of a side to my story, to give you guys an idea of why the Icarans are who they are. [note] Icarans come from an alternate history of Earth.[/note]

What is an Icaran?:
An Icaran is a human being plane and simple, the current generations of Icarans have been geneticaly engineered for increased lifespans, this process is known as "sustain" or "prolong" depending on what world you are from.

Where did it all begin?:
The Icaran civilization began in the year 3000 BC in Lacedonia, near the ancient city of Sparta the founding of Icara (literally Homeland in ancient Icaran) by a tribe known as Icarani would begin what is now known as the "Dawn"-or Dawn of Civilization.
Originally the Icarans were a nation of philosophers and poets devoted to peace and the understanding of the universe and nature wherein they were created.

This all changed however when their neighbors the Spartans launched a brutal war on Icara leading to half the Icarani tribe's extermination before they finally repulsed the brutal Spartan invasion.

This invasion led to centuries of Icaran "defense" wherein Icara became the dominant global power on Earth, with no "dark ages" occuring the technological developments of the world continued to increase.

By the twentieth century Icara had colonized Mars, and dozens of moons and asteroids throughout Sol. This age of peace ended however when rival nations of earth unified against Icara and launched a nuclear sneak attack on Icara's earth heald territories.

The resulting war Lasted for decades and ended in the "final march" wherein the Praetor of Icara personally led the Last remnants of the Icaran military against the "Sol Coalition" forces in an effort to defend the Icaran colony ships that were evacuating Sol in search of a new world they could claim for themselves.

The final march was the Last valiant act of the Royal military of that era, the Royal army and marines charged in human waves in desperate attempts to beat back the Coalition forces that were attacking evacuation sites, the Icarans faced their end with bravery unmatched in all of history, soldiers wept and prayed and kissed their loved ones good bye and then without hesitation through themselves at their enemies.
The soldiers of Icara charged into the armored advance, thousands died, but many soldiers took out tanks with them, grenades strapped to their bodies exploding under the treads of enemy tanks.
In space the defense was equally valiant, when Icaran ships were too badly damaged to fight they charged their enemies and rammed them or died trying.

In the end though defeat was inevitable, nearly a billian Icarans made it out of Sol on evacuation ships, the Praetor was knocked unconcious by one of his own commanders and loaded into the Last evacuation ship before the captain who knocked him out led the Last Icaran cruiser in a suicide charge at Coalition warship destroying both ships and allowing the evac ship to make it out.

The age of rebuilding:
The Icaran evacuation fleet ended up far from where they had initially intended too and only five hundred million people survived the trip as many vessels were destroyed in the anomoly that transproted them to this system. The survivors found themselves half way across the galaxy in a star system with two inhabitable worlds.
Due to the small population of the evacuation fleet only a single world was colonized, and named Icara after their long lost homeland.
It was the year 2120 at this stage of history and for centuries Icarans rebuilt their shattered civilization, and attempted to find out what had transported them to this particular system.
Modern scientists found out that it was in fact a warp point that had transported the colony fleet so far from earth, and also realized that the warp point to earth had collapsed during the centuries of rebuilding. However they also harnessed grav sail technology which would allow them to traverse the remaining warp points safely.

What the Icarans Believe:
The Icarans beleive that they were chosen by God to rule over humanity, and view the fall of their Solar empire as proof of this since they fell to other nations that had once been considered allies of Icara.

Their Religion
The Icaran religion is an offshoot of Christianity and is known as "The Path", though Icarans who follow this religion still refer to themselves as Christians.

The main differences between the Path and "traditional" Christian denominations is that the Path believes that the Praetor line was chosen by God to lead his chosen people to victory over the nations of man and unify humanity in his name.
These "Praetors" (Divine Ruler in ancient Icaran) are considered saints in the Path and although not worshipped or prayed to they are revered as "the chosen" and followed almost religously by the general populace.

The Praetor Line:
The "Praetor Line" is a single family line that goes back millenia and has ruled the Icaran Empire since the begining of recorded history.
This family "though of course changed through marrage and the introduction of new blood" is considered divinely chosen and many Icarans throughout history have died to protect the members of "The Praetor Line". In fact during the battle known as "The Last March" an entire battle squadron died to get the Praetor on to one of the evacuation ships even though it took rendering him unconcious to do so.

The "Praetorship" is heald by men alone because of the traditions of millenia, The women of a Praetor family are treated with great respect however and the wife or "Praetani" is revered almost as much as her husband.

The Society of Icara:
The Icaran government is based on a system similar to Fuedalism yet also different in that the nobility is not chosen by the Praetor for simple political reasons. Instead the nobility of Icara is directly related by blood to the Praetor line and many are in fact directly related to the Praetor himself.

The general poplation of Icara is not treated like the common surfs of fuedalism but instead they are treated with a great deal of respect. In fact the Praetor and nobles are required by Icaran law and religion to ensure the safety and proper treatment of every commoner under their vigilance.

The Icaran population as a whole beleives strongly in their government and it's "divine right" to rule over all humanity and as such it is the dream of almost every healthy young Icaran to join the armed forces and add themselves to the cause.

The Icaran Race:
Icara was a multinational Empire during it's glory days in Sol and as such has several races within it a general breakdown follows:

Icaran 90%: (Icaran refers to the general "mixed race" population, after centuries of intermarrage of the races within the Icaran empire it has become difficult to tell the ancestry of an Icaran simply by their appearance)

White 4%: Though intermarrage has caused most of the Icaran bloodlines to mix there are still many who were isolated from the bulk of the Colonial population due to historal events, many of these retained their original "ancestral appearance".

Asiatic 5%: Though the vast bulk of Icaran population sees mixing of races as something only natural many of those from more "traditional" asian nations that had once been ruled by Icara retained their beleifs that mixing of races diminished the blood of their people and as such refused to do so.
Though this is not the only reason, one of the evac ships from asia crash landed on the southern continent of the world now named Brandenburg and their descendents were only discovered in the early 22nd century.
In the early 24th century the viewpoint of "pure blood" began to change however as the Asiatic genetic base was begining to become more and more restrictive to their population. Many people of pure Asian extract still remain however and in fact those of pure Asian decent outnumber those of any other "pure" bloodline in all of Icara.

African 1%: The sole evacuation ship from Africa to survive the anomoly crash landed on the world now known as Brandenburg and were only discovered during the early 22nd century. With only one colony ship from that continent the descendents of "pure extract" from that line are extremely few in number.

Xeno's Within the Empire:
Xeno refers to any non-human race within the Icaran Empire.
Xeno's do not have the same rights as their human counterparts and are seen as inferior and untrustworthy, at present they are not allowed to vote, own their own property, or serve in the Royal Armed forces.
Xeno's of the Phong varient are forced to serve the industrial complex of Icara until thier (debt of blood) is paid off, most likely this debt will Last for centuries and provide Icara with a free labor force until the time where the debt is paid off.

Though it is known that other Xenos exist currently only the Phong have been brought into the Empire.

(note) Okay that's a brief bit on why Icarans are the way they are, what they beleive and what they look like.

Also note the racial breakdown is in no way based on prejudice but is instead based on how the war with the Sol Coalition went, the initial nuclear strikes were in Africa and Europe and the wars began there.

[Starhawk]

2418.7
Admiral William Ross led the three heavy cruisers of the 3rd fleet confidently into battle with the 7 Phong Light cruisers, the battle report showed that all 7 enemy ships were destroyed before a single one of them entered weapons range. The result of this engagement was that the Royal Armed Forces assigned the 1st Germania Mobile army regiment to the 3rd fleet as soon as their training on Germania was completed.

Mestra System, Mestra II Orbit
The hammer Falls
“Alright you grunts we’re dropping in on the LZ in 5 mikes, lock and load!” Sgt Black shouted to his platoon who had formed up in the launch bay, along with every other unit in the regiment. The regimental prayer had just been finished and now it was the Sergeants turn to address their individual platoons.
Sgt Black smiled toothishly while he watched his platoon file into their dropships, “Now ladies and gentlemen I know most of us have seen action before, and we love it but I want you to remember, keep your heads down and your guns blazing, we are gonna rip the spines out of those yellow bastards and then we’re gonna piss down their necks, AND WE’RE GONNA DO IT SMILING! Do you get me you Grunts!”
“Yes SIR!” was the unanimous response over the com net, just before the dropship slid into a locked position at the Batton‘s drop rack.

An army infantry dropship was a relatively small craft capable of carrying ten fully armed troopers and two pilots, when readied for a drop operation such a craft is loaded into a “drop rack” mounted on the underside of a troopship, this turns the dropship “nose down” to the planet they are facing to increase initial drop speed.
The launch rack its self is basically just a super sized rail cannon which instead of launching shells acts as a “catapult” for the dropships loaded onto it, this initial “drop shot” accelerates the dropship to trans sonic speeds and dramatically increases the survival rate of deploying dropships due to the fact that most anti-aircraft gunners would have a hard time tracking a vessel headed straight down at trans sonic speeds.
An army “tank carrier” drop ship works much the same way except instead of 10 infantry it carries two tanks, or APCs, or 6 armed buggies.

The drop shot happened sooner then Black had expected and even he grunted as the dropship accelerated at twenty gees (only 5 of which were felt, thanks to inertial compensators), Black could feel the blood in his body pooling at his feet, even though the marines were all wearing environmental hard suits for this drop the gravities experienced for the initial ten seconds of drop acceleration was too much for the suit to filter out entirely, the veteran army Sergeant often wondered if anyone was even trying to make the suits more gee resistant or if some pencil pusher back home decided it would be too expensive.
His thoughts came to a rather abrupt end as the horrendous crashing noise of their dropship entering the atmosphere filled the troop compartment. Less then a minute later the pilot’s voice echoed over the com net.
“We’ve got a hot LZ troopers get ready for a rough landing.” the pilot sounded remarkably calm considering the fact that “flak” was already coming straight at the dropships.
Almost before realizing the time had passed Sgt. Black noticed the troop compartment door slide open and noticed he could see the ugly landscape of the enemy planet coming up fast.
The dropship came to a rest about a meter above the ground and the automatic crash harnesses of the army troopers unlocked and Sgt. Black bellowed for his troops to unload.
Enemy energy bolts filled the air, Icaran beams lashing out in return as the Icaran regiment surged towards the enemy defensive position.
Armed buggies raced on ahead of the infantry troops, their three man crews unleashing hellish amounts of fire for such a small vehicle cut down dozens of Phong defenders and opened a gap for the infantry to charge forward.

Black’s platoon was one of the “Alpha” units which meant they were in the leading elements of the advance and as such faced the heaviest enemy fire, the entire platoon fired as it advanced up the hill that acted as the enemy “fortress”, enemy fire came down upon the army troopers in relentless torrents, a trooper in front of Black was hit in the face by an energy bolt, his faceplate vanished and a spray of blood and gore was all that remained of the trooper’s once young face.
Another trooper fell just beside Black, a hole the size of a football burned in her chest, worse still a green glowing orb landed on another trooper’s body armor.
“God!, get it off get it…..” the voice was cut off and screams echoed from where the trooper had once been standing, the explosion erupting from the Phong grenade vaporized the trooper it had attached to and sent three others sprawling through the air, severed limbs, blood and internal gore spraying from their bodies.

“Continue the advance damn you! Follow the company flag bearer DO NOT stay STILL!” a voice bellowed from further up the hill and Black just barely recognized it as Lieutenant Steinburger, the company commander of the “Alpha” unit that Black’s platoon was a part of.
After what seemed like an eternity the lead elements of the company made it to the enemy positions on top of the hill, but the fighting was far from over as the enemy forces engaged the Icarans in a brutal series of hand to hand and close in firefights all along the hilltop.
The armed buggies that had led the charge along other portions of the advance finally came racing in along the hilltop and sprayed fire into the enemy resistance killing or driving off hundreds of Phong defenders.

Operation Hammer ended two weeks later when the Company that Black’s platoon was attached to seized the Phong government bunker and eliminated the entire planetary government staff. Remarkably only 12 Icarans had died in the battle, unfortunately dozens more were wounded many of whom seriously. The Capture of Hill 752 by the Alpha units played a critical role in breaking the defensive perimeter of the Phong colony and the loss of 10 Icaran lives on that hill saved hundreds of others during the two week invasion.

[douglas]

Starhawk said:
OOC: Well by the story Icara would never send their crews to a suicide mission on purpose, unless they were renegades, but the Icarans would never trust renegades with a warship either.

Would the Icarans trust renegades who had to do what they were told or have the self-destruct device on the ship triggered remotely? Of course, this assumes you have self-destruct devices on all your ships.