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

[Starhawk]

2420.6
Tyson Babcock dropped wearily into the big comfortable chair he had brought aboard Conquest when she became his flagship, with tired hands he unbuckled his tunic and unhooked the button that held his collar. Sighing deeply, he started to think about the past few year.. His fleet had conquered 2 systems, no wait 3, yet they still had so long a way to go ahead of them before he could finally return to Icara and see his home by the western ocean: he thought to himself as the burden of the day finally started to lift from his shoulders, yeah they had a long way to go but his troops could handle it, no matter what he would return to Icara one day, he didn’t care whether it was as a war hero or just another soldier who did his duty, he just wanted to go home again after all even now his ship was in orbit of the most recent conquest MunjumbIX. The tired Admiral started to slip off to sleep when the com unit chimed, he ignored I at first but the chime became an irritating whistle. “Accept the call, audio only!” he groaned irritably and cussed to himself.

“Admiral Babcock Colonel Drago on the com for you from the surface.” The com officer paged Babcock in his quarters, much to his irritation, that com officer had a bloody bad habit of paging him at bad times in awkward places, Last week the young man paged him with a needless message while he was in his quarters with Countess Dorothy Rallins. The tired Admiral buckled his tunic again and dragged himself out of his chair and walked over to the com unit.
“Alright put him through Ensign.”
The old grizzled Colonel’s face appeared on screen, Tyson shrank back a moment when he saw the expression on the colonel’s face.
“My Lord Drago what’s wrong?”
“Admiral, there’s been an incident down here, there are a lot of our people dead here sir and a lot of Phong as well.” his voice was calm but Tyson could tell that the man was worried more then he had ever been before.
“What kind of incident?” Babcock demanded
“An explosion sir, an entire Phong Factory was blown to hell….and sir.. It was, it was with a compressed nuke sir.”
Tyson went white, with shock, a compressed nuke was only used by Icaran Royal soldiers, the Phong didn’t possess it.
“Sir, it wasn’t an Icaran nuke, the bLast pattern was totally different, but we know the Phong don’t have that kind of tech as you know, which only leaves one other option, someone else triggered the nuke, I need tech teams brought down though sir, I’ll keep a squad of my troops on site to prevent anyone from getting involved in this until they arrive.” Drago frowned deeply as someone of screen handed him a flexi.
“Admiral, I’ve got a confirmed list of casualties, 82 Icaran engineers and marines dead, 1,025 Phong dead on scene and 32 killed elsewhere by shrapnel, Admiral when can I expect those teams?”
“In one hour Colonel.” Tyson paused a moment to collect himself “I want you to get to the bottom of this, if there is someone out there that thinks they can get away with deploying a nuke on an Icaran facility they’re wrong, and I intend to show them that.” He cut the com circuit and left his quarters to get to the bridge, he had a good idea who might be behind the attack but until he could prove it he wasn’t about to say anything to anybody.

[Starhawk]

Okay an update on how things are going for me:

Planets: 178
Population: 56.3 billion
Units: 2757
Ships: 121
Bases: 0
Rank: 2nd

Resources:
Minerals: 19568
Organics: 86533 (dang phong practically every world is organics or rads)
Rads: 187053 (there's the rads )


Relations with Other Nations:
Phong (losing the war badly but still won't surrender)

Neo-Star Empire (it's looking like war is coming soon as they are starting to get more and more agressive with demanding I leave their space, even though the space they are claiming is mine )

Magellan Corp: Still ice cold relations but they are a year and a half's journey away even with my fastest ships so they're not to dangerous so I enjoy taking resources from trade with them

Manti Star Kingdom: Relations are good so far, they're staying out of my space I'm staying out of their's and we are both getting pretty good resources from trade with one another.

Sol Coalition: They are only my ally because I need their resources and because they are a year's journey away with my fastest ship and nearly two with theirs.

Citizen Federation: They're getting their asses kicked by someone though I don't know who so I don't really care about them and hope they die soon.

Anyway I hope you guys are enjoying my newest chapters

[Starhawk]

2420.8 The Cortina 9 Incident

The 3rd fleet was preparing to take yet another world for the Imperium, Ross and Yu watched intently as the battle line approached the enemy world, Cortina 9 had several weapon platforms on it, fortunately for the ships of the 3rd fleet their I-Laser cannons easily outranged the old style depleted uranium cannons, the task of eliminating the platforms fell to the HMS Behemoth, since it was her first combat action Ross wanted her crew to get some weapons practice in before they met a real enemy some day.

“Admiral the Behemoth reports her gunnery crews are locked on target and….’
“Hold on.” The Chief tactical officer cut off the com officer and suddenly leaned in closer to her screen.
“Admiral something’s wrong I’m getting a shadowing effect down there, I’ve lost sight of the enemy colony’s dome, as well as everything else within the target area.” that news made everyone nervous, nothing should cause an entire section of a planet to suddenly shadow out on sensors.

“Sir, it’s not just us I’m getting this message from the entire fleet, um sir Captain Smith reports Behemoth‘s gunnery crews had lock, she’s firing.” the communications officer turned to face the Admiral and Yu, a look of disbelief on his face, the com channel had just filled with static, no one could order the Behemoth to stand down, and within seconds it was too late anyway as the massive warship fired her cannons towards the planet’s surface.
The screen showed a massive cloud rising from the surface, where the warship’s beams had just impacted: a cloud that could only be caused by two atmospheres mixing which could only mean one thing.
Suddenly the com frequencies cleared, and the shadowing disappeared revealing the true horror of what had just happened. The view screen showed a massive crater where there had once been a colony dome with millions of Phong.
“Son of a *****! What just happened?” Yu shouted angrily, she looked away from the view screen and turned pale faced towards Admiral Ross “I’m sorry sir.” was all she managed to croak out.

“Don’t worry about it Lin, I understand perfectly.” Ross said sourly as he unhooked his shock frame.
“Captain Smith is hailing sir.” The communications officer said numbly.

“Put him on now.” Ross said bitterly, the view screen switched from an image of the devastated colony to that of a stunned Navy captain.

“My God sir I wasn’t targeting the dome I swear on my honor, I don’t know how it happened my crew wouldn‘t make that mistake.” Smith was obviously trying to cover his own *** but Ross at least gave him the credit for defending his crew as well.

“I know it wasn’t on purpose Smith, it would only take one hit from an I-laser on an unprotected dome to make it blow apart and the Behemoth had only fired three of her cannons before Smith ordered his gunners to cease fire and it was just an unlucky shot that happened to breach the dome after a the other two had brought down the shields of the two underpowered weapon platforms that killed millions of Phong.

“I want you to pull Behemoth off the firing line, I’m going to send down investigation teams as soon as possible but I don’t want you here, understood?”
“Aye Admiral, understood.”
“Good, Ross out.” Ross turned to Yu, she had stepped out of site while he talked to Captain Smith so that she wouldn’t let her own feelings on the matter spill into the conversation.

“Lin, I want you to ready a unit of marines and techs and send them planet side as soon as they can get down there, find out what was causing that shadowing effect, and see if it really was that shot from Behemoth that destroyed the colony.” He kept his voice low enough so that only Lin could hear.
She quirked her head and opened her mouth to speak until she noticed the expression on Ross' face grew sharper, her mouth closed audibly and she turned around to carry out her orders.
But why would her oldest friend and now senior officer not tell her what he thought was going on?

It took the investigation teams 12 hours to comb over every inch of the wrecked site of a once thriving enemy world, and what they found was truly disturbing, a massive machine the size of a fighter craft with a single human female hooked up to it by thousands of wires and sensors, when the teams tried to remove her the machine killed her, quickly severing her spinal cord.
The investigation on the machine it’s self proved equally as disturbing as it’s discovery, it was of completely unknown technology though the techs did believe that it was somehow using the woman as some sort of power source or focusing lens, Ross immediately had the thing labeled “Ukjent” shipped off towards the Sparta Institute of military science.

On the other front of the Icaran expansion three more Munumb worlds fell o the 1st fleet, and even more mysterious artifacts were discovered and shipped off to Sparta for immediate quarantine and investigation, as to who they might belong to and what they did, the odd thing was they all showed signs that they were Psi Tech but the on scene techs couldn’t prove it no matter what investigations they ran.

[Starhawk]

Getting bored you guys?

(New chapter coming tonight)

[Starhawk]

2421.0 Battle or Murder?
HMS Repulse a Lord Nelson class dreadnought had been sent ahead of the first fleet to scout out the newest Target system belonging to the Phong and was three days out from the main fleet which put them 5 hours from the warp point to the next so far unnamed star.
Captain Donald Riker had just finished his cup of coffee when the tactical alarms howled and the ship’s AI began calling battle stations over the ships speakers.
“What’s going on?” Riker asked calmly, trying to keep his new crew from overreacting in the face of what might be enemy assault.
“8 Starships sir, well kind of.” The tactical officer was young and nervous, so Riker chose not to raise his voice, even though he wanted to shout the young officer down.
“What do you mean “kind of” mister?” Riker tabbed the controls that brought a small tactical overlay onto his personal command panel.
8 tiny blips, 6 of them so small they didn’t even rate the term “ship” in the Royal Navy, barely 150,000 tons each, the other two were only frigate sized vessels, which only slightly larger then a dreadnought’s gun turrets.
“Sir I’ve got an energy spike.” The tactical officer jerked around with a panicked look but Riker simply gestured for him to relax.
“Confirmed sir, I’ve got two birds incoming, both mark 2 fusion catalyst warheads, they won’t even dent our shields.” Commander Broady withheld a chuckle as she watched the two tiny sparks of light against the massive dreadnought’s shields, which signaled the impacts of the two enemy “missiles”.
“Hail them, com, they don’t stand a chance and they must know that I mean my lord they’re still using Fusion catalyst missiles!” Riker’s voice was still calm but a subtle humor was hidden beneath it, whoever these aliens were they were children compared to Icaran war fighting technology.

“Sir no reply, it’s possible that they are not able to operate on our frequencies?” the com officer sounded more concerned about that fact that she wasn’t able to do her job then about the fact that two more missiles and a salvo of enemy cannon fire had just impacted the shields.
“Captain even with shields, those missiles and cannons will add up and then we will start taking fire.” Broady said grimly as the foolish enemy continued to close on them.

Riker frowned deeply as he considered his choices, he could easily out run these aliens but to what end? They were obviously aggressive though primitive, and even fusion catalyst missiles could destroy worlds, as had been proven far earlier in Icaran history.
“Guns, lock on to those frigates and one enemy escort and fire at will.” Riker folded his hands together, he hated killing anything but especially some fools that didn’t know when they were outclassed by generations of weapons technology.
In the blink of an eye three of Repulse’ massive beam cannons lashed out into the enemy squadron, for each beam that struck an enemy ship vanished in a ball of expanding fire and plasma, most of their solid wreckage being vaporized by the sheer power of the I-Lasers.

“Hail them coms, maybe now they’ll give up.” Riker hoped that seeing three of their ships vanish, each to just a single shot would make the enemy give up, yet he feared they would not, a fear quickly proven correct as the enemy formation continued to advance.
“No reply Captain.”
”What could they be hoping to do, they are outgunned and out manned yet still they try to com after us, even though they don’t even know who we are.” Riker thought to himself as the enemy continued their suicidal charge into his gunners range once more.
Every face on the bridge watched their captain intently, waiting for him to give the order to wipe these unknown xeno’s from the face of the universe, either that or to run away and defy Icaran naval tradition.
“Guns, open fire all batteries all targets.” Riker finally grunted.
“Aye sir, all batteries all targets.” the echo repeated across the bridge as the weapons crews plotted their targets.
Seconds later 5 of the massive dreadnought’s guns fired and 5 enemy ships with unknown numbers of xeno
crewmen ceased to exist, only dust clouds remained of their frail hulls and the lives within, while the Repulse hadn’t even suffered shield failure or a single injury during the “battle” with the Xeno race.

“Continue survey of this system for the first fleet helm, Com’ launch a messenger drone to Admiral Babcock informing him of our engagement please.” Riker unhooked his shock harness and turned to leave the bridge, smoothing his copper colored hair after removing the vac suit helmet.
“Commander Broady you have the bridge.”
“Aye sir I have the bridge.” she echoed, but he didn’t hear it as he left the bridge and walked down the corridor of his massive ship, wondering what insane motivation had driven a race still using system patrol cutters to attack a vessel that was over a kilometer long.

[Starhawk]

Sorry all I've been busy writing a Prelude to a fantasy book I'm writing

Well here's the next chapter,I hope you like it.

2421.3 One War Begins As another begins to close
“The 1st and 3rd fleets have continued to conquer even further into Phong space, yet they still will not surrender, Gentlemen to make matters worse the Praetor has bowed to the Manti Star Empire and the Neo Star Empire and declared all out war on the Maggellan Corporation, and we still don’t know the full capabilities of the Corporation.” Grand Admiral Hallice frowned deeply as he looked at the holomap, the planet hopping campaign was going well for the Empire, entire systems were falling in a matter of months but even at such a rate it would take up to three years to end the war and that was simply unacceptable considering the fact that this war had raged on and off for nearly 18 years now.

“I’m afraid we have to end this war in one fell swoop gentleman and ladies, we need to find the Phong home world and take it out of the equation, either by invasion or orbital bombardment, but it needs to be removed.” Hallice paused as the Admirals around the table murmured.
The Empires best intelligence operatives couldn’t find the enemy homeworld no matter how hard they tried, yet they expected the navy to find and neutralize it in a matter of months, assuming the Phong home world still existed, after all naval intel had shown that the yellow freaks were also at war with a race called the Crystallin Republic, whether these were humans or xenos was still unknown however.

“Well there you have it, we are to conquer the entire Phong empire in under three years as ordered by the Praetor himself, however ladies and gentlemen I will not let this get sloppy, if we fail our mission I will be forced to resign, but damned if I will allow even one life to be lost because I am in a hurry to save my own political ***, understood?” Hallice said bitterly, the other Admirals knew that “Getting sloppy” meant wasting lives on suicidal attacks simply to prove “progress was being made” and they all knew how the Grand Admiral punished such actions but to take over an entire race in under three years seemed impossible.

The entire Admiralty general staff left the room feeling rather grim and doomed by their orders, but Icaran naval officers never failed the Empire before, not even during the Final March all those long centuries ago when they were driven from their Earth and the entire Icaran military was destroyed, if there was a way to conquer the enemy in 3 years they would.

2421.3 Five Swords of Heaven

The five worlds chosen for project “Five Swords” were buzzing with activity, their entire population centers were cut off from the outside Empire, even the capital world Icara was cut off, all communications stopped, the home fleet had even been deployed in a blockade orbit of Icara, ensuring that no ships either entered or left.
All that was known of the Project was that it was a new “ultimate weapon” and that the entire project would take two years to complete.

Meanwhile the war weary troops of the 3rd fleet invaded three more enemy worlds, conquering them all in under a month’s time, Ross ordered the fleet to hold position over their most recent conquest, to allow his troops a rest as well as secure the supply transports captured from the Phong merchant guild.

Ross sat quietly on the bridge of his flagship and watched the video recording that had just arrived from the Admiralty, it was the usual monthly report but this one was special, it had video clips taken from the 1st fleet, showing entire worlds decimated by Imperial guns, Admiral Babcock had destroyed 4 enemy worlds killing a total of 600 million Phong, Ross knew how Babcock must be feeling, even though the Phong were simply xenos the Empire had killed billions of them and would likely kill billions more before the war was out yet the Admiralty put a positive spin on the whole thing, telling the public of the Navy’s heroic victories over dangerous Xeno scum and the Church spun it as a holy crusade purifying the universe of the enemies of God, but here, on the front lines it was butchery pure and simple, it was to preserve the human race and ensure Icara’s survival but it was butchery none the less.

“William, penny for your thoughts?” Ross heard a gentle voice behind him and turned away from the pad playing the video clip, seeing Lin he felt his mood improve almost instantly.
“What’s a Penny?” Ross, tried to sound cheerful but his old friend knew better and patted him on the arm, her smile warmed his mood but even she was getting weary of this ongoing war.
“It’s an old form of currency, haven’t you ever studied Pre-Antimatter economies?” she just smiled quietly after that and sat next to him, both of them just needed to see a friend even if they had nothing to say, they had seen so much death and knew that there was so much more coming.
After several minutes of silence Ross turned to Yu Lin “I hear the Blackbird scored 4 kills earlier this month.”
“How about that, she’s going to be getting some serious battle honor if she keeps this up.” Yu said cheerfully, after that they began some casual conversation, all the while avoiding the most recent reports that an entire SS brigade was destroyed when the Phong blew up one of their own worlds. The 35th SS brigade had recruited Ross youngest niece Meleena when she was 17, she had gone with them to that world and was among the 400 other dead Icarans of that brigade.
Ross felt angry at himself for feeling so hurt by her loss, he had only met the young lady twice and she was only one out of millions of Icarans who had died in this war, but for some reason he couldn’t shake the feeling of loss and sorrow.
Lin knew more then most how the sting of such a loss felt so she just stayed quiet, and waited for her “stoic leader” to bring it up on his own time and in private, she knew the two of them were getting closer as time went by and she found herself becoming more and more comfortable with that thought as well, even though it made her a little nervous. Ross too was enjoying their knew closeness, in his mind it was the only good thing coming out of the whole damned war.

[kerensky]

Okay, so now I have my computer back (got a copy of XP for christmas). Is anyone still interested in a word format of the story???

[Rasorow]

Yes

Rasorow

[Starhawk]

Bump, I've got more chapters coming I've just been taking a break and trying to write a real book

Well next chapter to follow soon please stay tuned in the meantime you can download the word format of the story and catch up.

[Starhawk]

2421.5
At the same time throughout the whole of Icara all vid screens all and all channels suddenly went black for a moment, seconds later the Imperial Anthem began to play softly in the background as the Imperial Eagle, with a world held in it’s right claw and a starship in it’s left appeared on screen. Throughout Icara billions gathered around screens to see what was happening.
Then the face of the Praetor himself appeared and throughout the Empire people fell silent in curiosity and fear as they waited for their beloved leader to speak.

“My fellow Icarans, my friends, brothers and sisters today I come before you with news both great and terrible, for this month two things have happened that may forever change the fate of the empire.
The Great news is that our brave men and women have found and conquered what they believe to be the Phong homeworld, though it’s population numbered less then one billion we believe this to be a great blow to the enemy, especially as the rest of the Berchest system fell to the 3rd fleet swiftly, those worlds that could not be conquered were sterilized for the safety of all humanity. Also the Briggia system suffered a similar fate, several hundred million Phong have been sterilized leaving their worlds open to human colonization.” all over Icara people cheered, the war was finally drawing to a close as more information scrolled across the bottom of the screen with information that the HMS Shadowclaw had just entered a third Phong system and was preparing to sterilize all worlds therein.

But the cheers came to a swift and sudden halt as the Praetor raised his right hand, palm facing the screen. “However my dear people, there is terrible bitter news that I must inform you of, for the HMS Tigerclaw and HMS Satuki have both been lost to a new star nation known as the Andoran, 4,400 sons and daughters of Icara perished in the brutal attack launched by an Andoran battleship. Now though we are angered by this situation I must remind you that 4,400 lives are nothing as compared to the billions of Icarans that would be put at risk should open war come between ourselves and the Andoarns, because of this I have ordered our Political bureau to send ambassadors to the Andorans in an attempt to bring peace, know this however though peace may come they will be made to pay for the lives they took on the 3rd of this month.

As always my friends I will guide and protect our people, Praetor Leonidas signing off.”

2421.6
Admiral Babcock sat numbly in his command chair, when his fleet had entered the Zerg system they had fully expected to find Phong worlds, instead they found more Xeno’s of the Xiati variant, the same ones that had lost an entire squadron to a single Icaran super dreadnought, and in a single broadside to boot.
Deciding that since the Xiati had proven hostile from the start Admiral Babcock directed his infantry regiment to launch a direct assault on the first Xiati world in system.

Landing the troops was easy enough as the world had no weapons platforms or orbital defense satellites what so ever, but once the infantry of the 1st Icara landed they soon discovered that the Xiati were totally unlike the Phong, they were tall brown skinned and over 30% of their body mass consisted of cybernetic enhancements, fortunately for the invading soldiers the Xiati world was defended by only a small force of lightly armed militia and fell swiftly.

On the Phong front the Shadowclaw had “sterilized” three entire worlds held by the Phong in the Fyras system, the 3rd fleet had just entered the Arich system and soon it too would fall before the might of the glorious Icaran Empire.