Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread

[CaptRR]

I'm sick so this might not be that good, I hope you all enjoy these two chapters. I know this should provide Rutha sith some storie material.

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Chapter 11

Commander Dravel looked around the round table, most of the seats were empty though. The King Dravel was built to be a command ship, and because of that she had been designed with large briefing rooms in order to accommodate the staff of the various Squadron commanders that would fall under a fleet infrastructure, but now there was only one other ship with them in Agamar, that meant a lot of extra room. One of the results of that extra room was the inclusion of several people who normally didn't attend briefings, one of them being both ships Psychic Weapon Representatives. The PWR was basically in charge of the of the ships Psychic branch. That branch had become more and more important as the Draven fleets reliance on Psychic weaponry increased. But Psychics or Psi's as they were called tended to be an isolated group, there were relatively few in a crews company. Many tended to be receptors for what was termed stray thought, not mind reading per say, but the Psi would experience the same emotion as the person giving out the stray thought. Those emotions could be anything from joy, and happiness to paranoid delusion, and in some cases Suicidal tendencies. Many Psi's couldn't take handle this constant bombardment of stray thought, for that reason suicide among Psi's was extremely high.

For this reason children who demonstrated Psi characteristics were immediately taken into Government custody, before their use for military applications was discovered, they were simply isolated from the general public, it was found that the Psi's couldn't receive stray thought from each other only from Normal people. For many years Psi's lived an isolated existence, shunned away society. A special floating city had been built for them, though not as grand as the other floating Cities on Kornephoros X, it was adequate for the relatively few Psi's that existed. Their isolated life changed though once contact with the Weyrlings had been established. The Weyrlings were a psychic race by nature, and had even been joined together as a collective whole at one time, it was unclear how this collection had been broken, but it was clear that the Weyrlings retained much of their Psychic technology, and once the Central Powers Alliance had been formed that technology was shared with the Dravens.

The results had been staggering. Using amplifiers a Psi's could create bLast wave large enough to destroy a ship. The wave was more powerful than the Depleted Uranium Cannons that had been standard issue on ships in the past, even if it was larger. Almost overnight Psi's were drafted into the military, in order to power these Telekinetic Projectors. Dravel many times detested the way that the Psi's had been forced into military service, but he recognized the realities of the situation. The Republic needed those weapons, and despite basically conscripting the Psi's the Republic tended to treat them as best as they could. Dravel use to joke that the Psi's cabin were twice as big as the Admiral's, and they got twice the pay too.

Dravel knew however how important the Psi's were to the survival of the Republic, and the Psi's by and large accepted their role in Society preferring it to the total isolation of the past.

The door in slid open and the final guest arrived, the Captain of the Furies Edge, Captain Lanare of Acamar. The captain was a short man, probably the shortest man at the briefing, but he carried himself with an air of confidence that had served him well in the Academy were he aced every single command simulation on record. As a result he had become the youngest captain in the history of the Draven Republic.

Once the Captain was seated the briefing started. Dravel cleared his throat, "Welcome," he paused gauging his audience, "We have been given orders."

Anyone who might not have been paying full attention was now riveted on Dravel's words. They had been sitting on the Agamar-Ansuroer warp point for 3 months now, since the Terrens declared war. Since then they had not tried to attack. But there had been reports of several small engagements in the Lesat system, some rumors even of a Weyrling ship being lost.

The lights in the room dimmed and a hologram appeared in the middle of the table showing the warp points in the Draven Republic and the Terren Galactic Imperuim. Currently the northernmost warp point was blinking. "Ok people we are here, in 4 hours we will enter the Ansuroer system and begin unrestricted warfare against any Terren Ships that we find there. We will make our war though the Ansuroer where we will meet up with third fleet. Our goal is to clear Ansuroer so that Agamar won't be in direct danger while third fleet engages the enemies main force."

The PWR from Furies edge interrupted, "Commander, I've never hear of third fleet."

Dravel smiled, "that's because third fleet had never existed until now. Just before war broke out the Weyrlings and us began assembling our forces in the Acamar system. Once the Terrens declared war the Central Powers Representatives Enacted the Sledgehammer Plan. The plan is simple, a joint Weyrling- Draven fleet will go right into the heart of Terren space and destroy all its industrial capabilities. Once the Terrens have been neutralized we will begin annexing worlds for forward bases, with our combined fleets we will have virtual immunity to strike where ever we want."

"Lieutenant Sosha will read the rest of the orders." Dravel watched as Sosha stood, and began o recite the orders that had come a few hours earlier. Dravel never heard a word though, her voice was like a song, and the way she moved was intoxicating. Dravel was sure he had never seen such a beauty in all his life. He wanted so badly to tell her how he felt, to touch her, not as one officer to another, but as a man to a woman. He leaned back in his chair, not really caring how wrong his thoughts were, but just enjoying her voice while it Lasted. Maybe some day, when this war is over, and he was President he would tell her. If that wasn't a reason to survive this war nothing was.

Chapter 12

Golmen sat silently in his chair as the Prime Minister paced in front of him. Yalre was mad, no mad was probably an understatement. Golmen wasn't even sure furious would be strong enough a word to describe the prime ministers mood.

"That ignorant... idiotic, ball of fur. If she was in the same damn sector I would rip her head off with my bear hands!!"

"Yes sir," was all Golmen could say, the Prime Minister always had this reaction after he had talked to the Weyrling Matriarch. She seemed to have a gift for upsetting Yalare that few living beings could achieve.

"I can't believe, she wants to go ahead this Sledgehammer!! Doesn't she realize the cost, and then she wants us to Pay the majority of the cost. Why I ought to..." The rest was a series of curses that Golmen would have sworn were form 5 different Languages. He took a breath, Yalare would have sworn the Matriarch was out to give him a heart attack. Every plan he sent out to Alliance HQ she would have here Representative change just enough to put it against his favor. This time had been particularly bad. Yalare had proposed a joint operation against the Terrens that would have spread the cost evenly over all three Central Powers Members, the Matriarch had changed the proposal to a joint fleet that was mostly supported and consisted of Draven units, after all the Dravens had the most to gain from this operation. The Thermolians still entangled with their war with the Infernal Relms had agreed.

Yalare had been furious with the Matriarch, and he had told her exactly what he thought of her. In response, the Matriarch had the Central Powers Speaker which was also a Weyrling throw him out of the Headquarters building. Yalare had eventually been let back in to the building, but only with the promise that he would act civil. Imagine, a fur ball telling him, the leader of one of the greatest empires in the known Galaxy, what to do. It was embarrassing.

Finally Yalare was starting to feel a little calm, "its ok Golmen you can leave." Golmen left in a hurry happy to be relieved from his role of punching bag. Yalare sat back in his desk.

"Why do you listen the that foolish matriarch?" it was the voice again.

Yalare nodded his head, he really didn't want to deal with this now, not only was the Matriarch preventing him from fulfilling his goals but now he had to deal with that voice in his head, "I have no choice," he said "She has control of the Central Power, I can't do anything military related without her approval."

"You should be running the Alliance, not her."

Yalare smiled, the voice was right, but what did it matter what should be happening the fact is, she was in charge.

"You could be running the Allaince."

Yalare froze, he hated the voice, despite gifts it had given him. Still he wanted control of the Alliance badly, "How?"

"The Matriarch is leading the Weyrling fleet into battle, should something happen to her it would change the balance of power in the Alliance."

"Are you saying that we should kill the Matriarch!" Yalare couldn't believe what the voice was saying. Starting a war was one thing, but killing an Empires leader, especially a friendly one was unspeakable.

"I didn't say anything about killing, I simply said that Combat is dangerous, sometimes there are friendly fire incidents, and escape pods have been known to fail."

Yalare was breathing hard now. How could he even be considering what the voice was suggesting, it was an act of war. No he wouldn't do it, he would not kill an ally no matter how much he loathed her.

The voice seemed to sense his thoughts, "Don't get high and mighty on me now," the voice was different now, no longer cold and calculating, now it was rage, Yalare had never heard the voice so enraged, he was more scared now than he ever was in is life. "I know exactly what you are, I know exactly what you did it!" Suddenly Yalare was assaulted by hundreds of images at once, terrible images. He couldn't believe what he was seeing in them.

"No, that's impossible!" Yalare was not in a panic, what he was seeing couldn't be him, but somehow he knew the images he was seeing were him. Yalare looked down at his hands they were shaking madly, "Great Creator what have I done?"

Yalare was almost comatose for several hours as he struggled with the images now captured forever in his mind. In the end he typed a letter in his terminal, it was short and to the point. It was addressed to a friend of his who was the Captain of one of the Sledgehammer Fleet ships. As Yalare pressed the send key, he knew that he had gone too far.

[mlmbd]

CaptRR, I love the interaction between, the Matriarch and Yalare. Both chapters are very good. Being sick, does not seem to have affected you!

mlmbd

[Ruatha]

Weyrling Empire 2406.2
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On Destroyer "Responder":

Thurya walked into the crew dormatory.
There where some people sleeping with their ears pointed downwards, effectively closing out all external sounds.
The only one awake in the dormatory was Try.
Thurya was starting to feel the craving for his company at nights and wasn't far from giving up what she sometimes thought of as a silly notion about not sleeping with her crew.

Try was deeply occupied with a device that was making weird noises, "beep, beep, beep..."
"-Try, what are you doing?"

Try didn't look up from the device, Thurya saw that it had some sort of communication screen fitted to it.
"-Hi Capt'n.
It's a new thing I've got from some of my friends back home with the Last mail delivary.
It's called a video game. See this little round figure is called Eat-man, he goes around in this maze and eats all these cokies while staying away from the ghosts."

Thurya was puzzled.
"-Ok, what's the purpose of it?"

"-You see, It's me controlling the little round figure that eats the cokies, I'm supposed to eat as many as possible before I die!"

"-Die, what do you mean?"

"-Well. It's entertainment. It get's harder all the time and eventually I die."

"-I still don't understand the purpose of it. Does it train your reflexes, can you win some prize?"

"-No. It's the challenge to get more cokies than I did the Last time.
My friends have implemented a new technology, computers, into this game. Now they need money to invest in it and they want me as a partner."

"-It seems like a bad idea. Pointless. It will never make any profit.
Now put that away, you need extra training at the point defence gun. You really stink at it you know, and if you don't improve soon I'll have you transfered to internal maintnance at one of the stationary weapon platforms, so hop to it.
I want you in that turret in five minutes, I'll be at the bridge.

"-Yes captain. I'll just play one more time then I'll be there!"

Thurya left while shaking her head slowly thinking that he might be cute but sometimes he seemed darned stupid aswell.

[Ruatha]

Next "month" comes later tonight.

[Ruatha]

Weyrling Empire 2406.3
----------------------

The Weyrling fleet was preparing for the Worm-hole jump between the Lasat and Kuat systems. They would soon be in enemy territory for the first time and the fleet was set to full alert.
The Draven fleet was following a couple of days behind.

Aboard the Destroyer "Responder":

Thurya pressed the alarm button and spoke into the internal communication channel.
"-All hands prepare for wormhole jump.
Our intel says that we will meet light opposition on the other side of the wormhole. Our fleet will win but as to the individual ships no predictions can be made, so stay alert. Be sure that it's the enemy you are targeting. No one fires before my command to do so.
I have orders from fleet command to fire at all enemy targets, so today we might become warriors, make me proud.
Here we go!"
While Thurya saw the other ships in the fleet start to disappear into the wormhole she couldn't help herself from thinking of her dead sister, maybe I'll see you tonight Ari, she thought and gave the command to jump. The ship moved into the wormhole and was finally in enemy territory. The war had truly begun.

When they came out in the Kuat system the battle indicators started blinking. On the tactic screen they could see the fleet gathered after the jump and a single Terran Strike carrier class destroyer heading away from the fleet while at the same time launching fighters.
One has to admire the courage of those fighter pilots, Thurya thought as she saw the fighters go straight against the fleet and immediatly turn into debris as they came into range of the Weyrling main guns. After awhile a few fighters managed to come in closer but was then swiftly disposed of by the point defence cannons. From the tactic screen Thurya could make out that it wasn't inferior piloting skills that made the Terrans die. They managed to avoid most of the beams and guns directed against them but the sheer number of projectiles and energy beams heading towards them created an impenetrable net killing the fighters in the deadly web.
The fight was cleary going in one way only. It was only a matter of time before the fleet caught up to the destroyer and finished it off.
Another thing that was clear was that Thurya wouldn't get her sword blooded today, the Responder would never be able to reach the enemies before the battle was over. They could only watch and learn.

It took less than 30 minutes and then the battle indicators went limp and the tactic screen only showed friendly objects.
Thurya gave the order to the crew to stand down and leave the battle stations, those who where on the routine shift went back to their ordinary tasks, the rest of the crew gathered in the dormatory talking about what they had just witnessed.
The atmosphere in the ship was tense. In the same time as they felt joy of the victory they also felt disappointment that they hadn't been able to participate and prove themselfs as warriors, and also some shame over the overwhelming odds that the Terrans had faced, it didn't feel as any great heroic task that the fleet had delivered, more like being the school yard bully kicking the little kid around. There wasn't much glory in that.

The comm screen in the command bridge flared to life,
"-Destroyer Responder. Keep position in the fleet. Combat status Beta. New course is downloaded to your navigational array now."
The screen turned black again. There hadn't been much joy in that voice either Thurya thought to herself.
"-Anselm Jugg, you have the bridge". She got up from her seat and started walking to her cabin feeling somewhat tired after the battle tension.

Aboard the Battlecruiser Indestructible,
Flagship of fleet Sledge;

Elyssandra had sat up long past her sleeping period with the rest of her staff analyzing the short battle.
It didn't look good.
Inside the Kuat system was a large Terran fleet. Numerical it was outnumbered by the Weyrling fleet alone, not to talk about the Draven fleet.
The Terrans had about 30 ships, the Weyrling fleet was over 50 ships and the Draven fleet well over 70 ships strong.
With the current positions the Weyrling fleet would face that Terran fleet alone, the Dravens was too far behind to catch up to the faster Weyrling fleet that was heading on a straight course towards the Sladden wormhole, where the Terran fleet had took position.
Numbers aren't everything they had agreed upon during their analysis. In the Terran fleet they where facing they had spotted a deployed fighter group consisting of over 150 fighters. The rest of the fleet was made up of battleships, large carriers and some destroyers. The Weyrling fleet might be greater in numbers but in tonnage they where about equal.
They had faced 34 fighters in this first battle, and most of the fleet didn't understand how hard it had been to hit those fighters! They had been forced to use an overwhelming amount of weapons to defeat a single destroyer with it's fighter escort.
Those Terrans know how to fight, and we don't! Elyssandra thought to herself.

They now had several options.
They could continue as was originally planned and go for the Sladden wormhole. Elyssandra thought that they might succed against that Terran fleet but the cost would be great. After that battle, win or loose, the Weyrling fleet would be a beaten force. They couldn't continue as an effective fleet after such a battle.
Another option was to use the newly constructed worm-hole opener the empire had. Now they could open worm-holes between any systems in the known universe.

They could use that to send in a replacement fleet, better equipped and better trained. The Sledgehammer fleet had been assembled over years and many of the ships where really obsolete and had crews that hadn't trained at any of the new war academys.
But to open a worm-hole and send in a new fleet and bring out the current fleet would still take months to coordinate.
Months that the Terrans would use to strenghten their fleet.
Elyssandra looked out over the tired staff and spoke;
"-There is no use in making any decision now. Let's all sleep on this and continue our planning tomorrow.
You are dismissed."
She got up and walked to her cabin.
During the day she had also been given the news that the Empire had established contact with a new race. The Zax society.
They had received a very strange message from them, being what the analysts called "psychotic in it's nature".
It had been directed to the late emperor Ruatha. How the Zax society had heard that name she didn't know, but rumours would travel far she thought.

She remembered some lines in the message:
"May anyone who has said the slightest ill-word against you (Ruatha) or your descendants in the next ten thousand years suffer the worst possible torments.
May you be able to exact your revenge in full measure against anyone who expresses any criticism of you or your reign.
May you and your descendants rule the Weyrling Empire for the next 10,000 years and beyond.
If anybody should rule instead of or in place of your descendants, may they suffer the worst possible torments in this life and in hell, forevermore. May their bones ache to their core. May the fleas of 10,000 camels infest their armpits."

Well. They had been wrong hadn't they Elyssandra thought, ruathas reign hadn't Lasted any 10,000 years. And my armpits don't itch yet!
She had turned the issue over to the diplomatic corps to ponder, How do one respond to such a strange message?
She didn't really care about that now, it wasn't important in these circumstances.
We need bigger ships and more of them. I'd better contact Alliance headquarter and see if the Dravens have any funds ready for transfer, so far they hadn't payed all they had promised. Granted their contribution to the fleet cost was greater than the Weyrlings but the Weyrlings didn't expect to make any profit from this war. Secretly Elyssandra thought that maybe that was the Dravens main reason for participating in the war, to take over Terran territory and increase their already large production of resources. It didn't feel good to depend upon aliens to finance the fleet but what to do? The Weyrlings must keep forces in the empire territory ready to defend against unexpected threats, we can't send all our ships to this war. The dravens must understand this, or I must make them understand, again.
I hope I can talk to prince Dravel. He is a much more civilized alien than that Yalare character. Still it couldn't be easy for Yalare. To rule after the popular King Dravel. I had it easy, anything I did was far better than what Ruatha ever did. She smiled a little as she opened the door to her cabin.

She undressed and slid into her bed and when the head hit the pillow she was already asleep.

[ March 06, 2003, 14:06: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ruatha]

The game is at 2406.6. The Last story from my part was 2406.3. So I have two months ready to be written, the synopsis is written.

It's only time to put down all the words that I'm missing. Perhaps this weekend I'll catch up to the game again. (Much has happened, the war rages on!)

[tbontob]

Exciting Ruatha.

And the relationship between you and the Dravens is intriguing. Makes one wonder if all relationships, no matter how beneficial, have their disadvantages.

I await the next installment.