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

[Starhawk]

2428 was a busy year for the Icaran Empire, as the first carrier ever built by the Royal Space Navy boosted into orbit over Icara her name was HMS Hallice after the Grand Admiral of the RIN as a last parting tribute to the honored hero before he stepped down as Grand Admiral and left the position to Admiral Lady Tanya Bright.
The months went by and the carrier completed her shakedown cruise with flying colors, once she reentered Icara orbit the massive carrier met up with her fighter wing, which consisted of a full wing of the newest Bullshark attack bombers, each one capable of carrying multiple “baby nuke” missiles that could destroy either a ship or planet with equal speed and brutality.
In the meanwhile Yu Lin Ross was promoted to full Rear Admiral status and given supreme command of the Five Swords of Heaven in the name of God and Country, Sandra Fowler found herself on the end of a promotion as well as she was promoted to squadron commander (Commodore) within the home fleet.

Five Swords Strike:
Rear Admiral Lady Yu Lin Ross sat comfortably in her command chair, located in the massive Flag Bridge of the Sword of Icara flagship of the vaunted Five Swords of Heaven fleet, and one of the five most powerful starships ever created by any known empire human or Xeno alike, and those five gods of war were even now closing on their first target of conquest, the Neo-Star colony of Torque IV, the single Neo-Star ship in the system had proven to be a lowly colony ship and unfortunately for their 36 million refugees their crew was to stupid to yield and Sword of Wrath burned through its unarmored hull with ease and destroyed the colony ship with a single I-laser. Lin like most Icaran officers didn’t enjoy killing millions of civilians with such casual violence but they knew their duty and those civilians could have just fled to another world within Icaran territory and built up yet another colony, and that simply could not be allowed.
“Admiral, we are closing on target, 3 LS and falling.” the tactical officer’s voice announced crisply as he watched the master plot in front of him.
“Thank you tactical, inform Sword of Wrath that she will lead the strike on the planet to unload her storm troopers while we cover. Lin yearned to be back aboard Wrath instead of aboard the fleet flagship, even though her current station was far more prestigious and glorious the Wrath had been hers and now she’d watch that same ship go into battle without her.
“Aye Ma’am.” The tac officer’s crisp calm voice jarred Lin away from her train of thoughts, she un-strapped her shock harness and casually walked over to the massive holotank that displayed the entire system, it was something so marvelous and so large a dreadnought’s captain could only dream of it, yet in battle it was rather useless as it was a system wide display and not “local” to within the ranges a battle normally took place. Her expression became more tense as she filed away a mental note that ever other colony in this system belonged to the Sol Coalition, and worse still they had 2 battleships in system, and no doubt they were all watching the Icarans launch their strike against Torque IV with more then a little passive interest. She was certain that her ships could easily overcome any Solaran defenses in system but the truth was that they could possibly get a message out to their coalition as a whole and inform them of Icara’s actions, and no matter how confident the Admiralty was Lin was just not sure that the RIN could handle a war with the Solars, Neos and Anderman, and that was all excluding the fact that Royal Navy ship shad also intercepted and destroyed Remorhazian super monitors in Icaran space since the sealing and God only knew what would happen if the Remorhaz People’s Republic got word of that little tidbit.
“Admiral Wrath reports that she is being engaged by planetary defenses, all are those weird *** energy cannons their ships mount, only a lot bigger.” the tactical officer spoke calmly yet the tension in his voice spoke volumes, and as Lin watched her secondary plot she knew why he was so tense, the amount of fire those Neo weapon platforms were throwing into space would have been enough crush a dreadnought, or even a superdreadnought but the massive Flag monitor’s shields held without even burn through, and Lin felt her breath return for a moment, that was at least until two main cannons aboard Wrath came to life suddenly, their beams lashing out toward the planet like some mystical beast, the impact on the planet was visible even from this far out as the massive dust ring and brilliant flash indicated the destruction of the enemy weapon platforms, the atmospheric eruption that loosely an old Terran tornado signaled the destruction of the surrounding domed city along with millions o lives, Lin felt that familiar lump in her throat even as she watched the display signal the deployment of dozens of dropships carrying the 3,000 storm troopers of the “Death Wings” formation to their targets on the surface, one of which was a single weapon platform that had managed to survive the orbital strike.
As the hours passed Lin listened to the com chatter of the storm trooper forces and found herself shocked at just how quickly they were overpowering the planetary defense forces, even though the neostar PDF wouldn’t have stood a chance against a regular army Regiment it was still humbling to hear just how fast they were swept aside by the storm troopers.
There had still been a lot of armed resistance even after the Planetary Defense force had been wiped out, but with their disorganized “concerned citizens” these pockets of resistance were either forced to surrender or were crushed outright by the brutal efficiency of the advancing Icaran soldiers and in under two hours the world had been totally pacified and claimed in the name of God and country, but Lin knew in her heart that this was just the beginning and that once the “Final Crusade” began her fleet and the normal navy and army units would be deployed against proper military forces in numbers and then it was going to get very very ugly.

[Bongosan]

Great read!
Uhh sorry about being nitpickey but what was the time frame of the SAR pickup of Captain Rukia Fujita. The brain can only go 4-6 minutes with no oxygen before permanent brain damage occurs. Of course the tech must be better but if no synth brains...
I am assuming of course that she would go into full arrest with both lungs essentially destroyed, her heart nicked, and her stomache ruptured. Oh and those persnickety limbs that were removed. Not too mention all the nasty things a vacuum would do to open wounds like that. But I suppose you could have a good "techy" work around.
Also just to chime in on the agony thing. Pain is relative. I've seen people with one or more limbs ripped off that could still talk and walk(assuming the the aformentioned limbs were not the legs but I digress)and I've seen people faint due to a minor almost paper cut.
Please keep up the good work on the story.

[Starhawk]

Bongosan_the_somewhat_niffty said:
Great read!
Uhh sorry about being nitpickey but what was the time frame of the SAR pickup of Captain Rukia Fujita. The brain can only go 4-6 minutes with no oxygen before permanent brain damage occurs. Of course the tech must be better but if no synth brains...
I am assuming of course that she would go into full arrest with both lungs essentially destroyed, her heart nicked, and her stomache ruptured. Oh and those persnickety limbs that were removed. Not too mention all the nasty things a vacuum would do to open wounds like that. But I suppose you could have a good "techy" work around.
Also just to chime in on the agony thing. Pain is relative. I've seen people with one or more limbs ripped off that could still talk and walk(assuming the the aformentioned limbs were not the legs but I digress)and I've seen people faint due to a minor almost paper cut.
Please keep up the good work on the story.

Cool someone wants to know about background Icaran tech instead of just weapons!!! (big smiles)

1. Yeah they are about 1,000 years more medically advanced then us (remember they never went through the dark ages)

2. Vac suits have medical systems built in, basically the second her arm and leg were severed they were "sealed" vac suits and marine combat suits also have life support equipment (I think I did state that somewhere far back there).

3. Her one lung was out of action the other was just acid scorched, not to sound blaze but people can live for a while with a burned lung, as far as I know because I've heard tragic stories of people dying after they've been rescued from a fire, hours later because their lungs were burned to badly for our science to save them.

4. Well your heart being nicked is serious depending upon how badly it was damaged, I.E if the wound only destroys a small part of your heart you can live for quite a long while, people have been stabbed through the heart by knives and lived to tell the tale (though at reduced functionality).

5. Yes she probobly would go into full arrest with the damage done to her body, but that's the beauty of cryo freeze surgery, basically they recover your bashed and broken body "freeze" it and do the surgery while your still cryo. It's not as fancy as Star Trek surgery where there's not even any blood, and Rukai basically needed a full overhaul on her internals so it was a messy and long procedure. And as long as there was still brain activity "I've heard theories that your brain activity can be "suspended" so assuming the Icarans have drugs that can save the brain for a few hours then they can "reboot" her body and brain at the same time after the surgery is completed.
Unfortunately SAR recoveries of seriously injured crew persons are rare on the whole because of the fact that most people would go into full arrest and die rather quickly, but because of her "sequencial" wounds her life support and suspension systems were able to keep her alive. That's why the doctor pointed out what a miracle it is that she lived at all.


If you guys would like me to explain a lot more into the "background tech" of Icara I'd be more then happy to do so I just thought you guys would be bored by medical science of the future.

Yeah pain is relative, and as said also depends on just how the injury occurs and whether you go into shock right away or not.

Oh Kerensky was referring to me he knows me lol, I just think he misread that post.

[Bongosan]

Very good answers and I like the tech your using.
All very rationale answers and rest of the injuries certainly do emphazise the "ouch" factor.
I for one am more than willing to do that whole willing suspension of disbleif thang!!!
I like the "Wall of the Fallen".
Another solid story.

[El_Phil]

So do the "Wall of the Fallen" become the names for the next big flagships or get saved and not used as memorial?

Anyway another great chapter with copious amounts of BLAM! What more could you ask?

[Starhawk]

Phil said:
So do the "Wall of the Fallen" become the names for the next big flagships or get saved and not used as memorial?

Anyway another great chapter with copious amounts of BLAM! What more could you ask?

Well ships listed on the Wall of the Fallen are "reborn" I guess you could say, when another ship is created which takes their name, however no ship is EVER named the exact same again out of honor for the dead, for example:
Blackbird's successor is the Blackbird II and is officially designated as such though she carries the same registry on her hull and has a plaque that lists the battle honors of the first ship of her name and it's last commander.

If a ship is scrapped then it's name is recycled at will and a peice of the hull plating is cut away and added to the next ship to take the name. They do not carry the memorial plaque listing their predecessors battle honours as it is considered bad luck to steal another ship's honors if it did not die in battle, as most likely the crew is still alive and should keep their honors.

Though there are Shipyards right now that I've named after the four flag officers that were killed in the Andermanian crusades .

[Starhawk]

Oh and BTW Sandra Fowler's 31st birthday was a mis-type I meant 51st which would have made her 20 when she took over the Saber frigate 30 years ago.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Ah. One more question tho, do you have more shipsets from this universe? Besides the Icarans?

[El_Phil]

Check the first post, first page.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

SH, just asking but, what are I-Lasers? Mounted APBs? Modded weapons? Just asking, as they seem to be your SDs main weapon.