Onslaught – Chapter 1: The Flight of Angels - THE REMAKE

[Heiro]

Originally Posted by Richpur

As to the other point, I thought slapping flapjack and saying "No!" was in my job description...

Well yes. But then I wouldn't have a post that could also have had a [/stating the obvious] tag.

[Richpur]

Ahh... I see...

I think bakan will have to create a new thread to actually run this story in, this one seems to have hit page 2 using only signing up and aimless chatter.

[flapjack]

I remember imperial stardestroyers from the amount of ISDs I brought down in X-wing vs tie-fighter and X-wing alliance, especially the Millenium Falcon is absurdly powerfull in X-wing alliance, it could go toe to toe with a VSD and win, if I didn't mess up my flying and ended up running into the star destroyer.

And Richpur, it's all happening again, the first time around he had to create a new thread to run it in because of us as well

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by Bakan

DETAILS NEEDED ON STUFF

Well duh.

I need to fudge the details on this one... I'll come back once I've thought of how exactly I'm going to do that.

[Shadow275]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the Teknokons One

Name: Teknokon One
Length: 4000 meters.
Width: 2000 meters.
Height: 2000 meters.

FLT Drive system: ‘Timeless’ Hypertemporal FLT drive
-A recent study into temporal-hyper dynamics as shown there is a separate ‘veil’ in space time, one side of the veil is our space, where time is limitless, but on the other side of the veil, a place where time is restricted and highly limited. A vessel in timeless space is under intense risk, it brings time from the original space with it, if that time elapses (As in, the vessel stays too long in timeless space) the ship ‘freezes’ in time. Frozen vessels can only be reactivated by another vessel bringing time to it, at the cost of deducting time from the rescuing vessel. The risk is worth it, however, as timeless space also offers a method of ‘skipping’, (jumping into timeless space then returning into normal space) This method allow the ship to travel vast distances in the blink of an eye or allow it time to repair itself (Provided it does not run out of time in ‘timeless’ space). The drive is also capable of creating a large Hyper temporal ‘gate’, allowing ships not normally equipped with a Hypertemp drive to enter ‘Timeless’ space (The gates are one way only)

Normal space drive: Four dual turret mounted Fusion drives.

Shield systems:

Plasma field shield:
-A delightful shield design, the system pumps a large amount of engine plasma into a tightly constricted magnetic fields, creating a blanket of highly excited plasma which vaporise all incoming projectiles and plasma based weapons, which in turn create more plasma on destruction and feed the field. This also means that the Teknokon cannot fire any projectile based weapons.

Dual dynamic shields:
-A relatively simple shield design, two shields tightly held together, the can adapt to incoming projectiles, reducing all hits damage by many factors.

Armour:

Nano-Energetic plating:
-A recent addition to the hull of the Teknokon One, a dense layer of nano-machines cover the outer hull of the ship, when something strikes the hull, they convert the impact energy into electrical energy which the ship can then use, the material left over then goes to reinforce the ships plating.

Tri-poly-carbonite:
-The steadfast of the Teknokon One, this material is incredibly strong but also flexible and resistant to nearly all forms of radiation. The material makes up most of the internal structure of the Teknokon one, along with 2 meters of external and internal armour plating.

Weapon systems:

26 individually target able anti-fighter/frigate Ion turrets
12 Heavy density mass drivers.
4 Super-heavy torpedo tubes (Forward mounted)
-Armed with:
40 ‘50 megaton’ tactical nuclear torps
30 ‘200 megaton’ proximity nuclear torps
15 ‘400 megaton’ Artillery/wide-rang nuclear torp
8 ‘1000 megaton’ Planet-busting Thermonuclear torps.
4 ‘Energy destabilizer’ ‘Sunslayer’ Sun-to-supernova torps.


The Teknokon One ‘Main Cannon’
-Since the ship is alien in design and only just refitted for human use, we have been unable to fully ascertain the function of the ‘Teknokon One’s main cannon. We are unwilling to test fire the cannon after our scientists found a truly massive reactor at is core, they are currently working on its function, but advise against igniting the reactor for fear if done incorrectly it would explode, with an effect similar to the universe creating ‘Big bang’

Ships crew:

Captain: Farle Shadow
First mate: Rachel Smith
Navigational officer: Michael Wale
Security officer: David Custer
Weapons officer: Sarah Davies
Unassigned crewmen: Daniel ‘Ship drunk’ Peterson, Steven ‘We’re gunna crash’ screamer, Fred ‘Fodder’ Smith.
Scientists: Headed by Natalie Xeno, all other scientists classified. (Currently studying the Teknokon One’s Main Cannon)

Artificial Intelligence: Mark four ‘omniscience’ (Crew calls her ‘A.I’)

[Bakan]

Well, the thread will probably start up tommarrow give or take.

[Spritely Zombie]

Hmm... Damned Timing. I'm at home using parent's computer. While my computer, with the mostly finished ship design, is on my computer back at uni, and I'm not going back till monday

[Bakan]

Originally Posted by Spritely Zombie

Hmm... Damned Timing. I'm at home using parent's computer. While my computer, with the mostly finished ship design, is on my computer back at uni, and I'm not going back till monday

Hmmm, post Monday, you are in, don't worry, considering how slow most people in this thread, are, you should be fine :-p

[flapjack]

you know, with that comment you could get unlucky and have everybody post within 24 hours of your DM.

Unlikely, but there's a chance... A very slim chance... An extremely slim chance even

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by Shadow275

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the Teknokons One

snip

You forgot to end the post by saying "Is it not nifty?"

[Bakan]

Onslaught – DM #1


Mission Parameters – “Hope Cluster” Evacuation – Admiral Incom Morgan Cmdr.

CLASSIFIED – Clearance Level Omega – Please input information and verify


Attention Captain: The Federation has 6 months left of life before falling to the Swarm. Since their conquest of the Kuart Drive Yards, they have increased their fleet numbers to unprecedented levels. In order to ensure the survival of our way of life, we are taking the “Mothership” (*See Section – Extra-Galatic Travel Program) and redeploying the finished Motherships to evacuate to the Hope Cluster (*See Section – Nuine Radiation effects on Swarm)

Due to the secrecy of this project and our depleted military forces, we are limited in our official defenses to the Atlanisa and Galeca (*See Section – Battlestars), and the Prometheus (*See Section – Prometheus). This why we have requested your ships to join in the defense fleet, partially due to your ships not being part of the official Federation Fleet or you are awaiting new assignment to a different Battle-cluster.

This mission is of high risk, for there will be no backup, and much of the flight-plan will take this Hope fleet through enemy territory. If you agree to this transmission, make your ships ready at Bilibrige shipyards. The Hope Fleet will launch in 2 weeks.

Admiral Incom Morgan


As of this time, all of your ships have reached Bilibrige shipyards and have been fully repaired. You are spending what little time you have arranging badly needed R&R for yourself and your crew, for the mission starts in 3 days. According to your latest intelligence, the motherships are almost fully loaded, and the escort ships have been prepared.

[ooc]The thread will start either Sunday or Monday. Reason not today, I need to work on some things here and there for this thread.[/ooc]

[Spritely Zombie]

[ooc]This doesn't let you off the hook as far as DMing Doom sometime in the near future is concerned [/ooc]

[Richpur]

[/OOC] I'd kinda expected him to have done that dm by now, as it is if he manages to hang it out another couple of days I'll have hit all my deadlines and can write my own posts [/OOC]

[Shadow275]

Originally Posted by Hewitt

You forgot to end the post by saying "Is it not nifty?"

Silence foolish mortal, you know nothing.

[flapjack]

*Flapjack stepped out of the small airlock, both sides open as the life-support system on the Delta Flyer still wasn't behaving as it should, 3 techies where presently plucking out apparently random parts and replacing them, apparently he had been told it was a matter of hours before they had checked every component and that it was certain life-support would work again then. Looking behind Flapjack could see the Delta Flyer, the side panel of the port pulse phaser cannon was open, his own chief engineer was trying to squeeze a bit more power out of the array and had probably linked the settings on both arrays together again*

*Flapjack walked past a row of shuttles, the Delta Flyer was small but these shuttles where a lot smaller, and headed into the elevator up to 1 of the recreation decks, he intended to head into the bar and see if he could find some interesting information, if he was very lucky he might even run across a slipstream core*

[mrmao]

Dylan was in the mess hall of the shipyards. He was reading reports from all his bridge crew. As soon as they arrived he let them loose to scavenge supplies from through out the shipyard. With the nature of the mission it had precedence over other ships; his crew had used that like a knife. Joseph his best friend and first officer had gotten a full load out of long range antimatter capital missiles. Sam and P. T. had managed to get a hold of Twenty Vipers, and all the fighter supplies they would need. Jazz had been the most successful of all of them; she got 76 tons of medical supplies. That much medicine and material could take care of a colony for two months. The ship itself was once again it tip top condition, however the techies had to open the library to find the Eros schematics. They had done a good job now.

He was feeling better, his ship now had fifteen more fighters then the comfortable capacity, Sam would be grumbling about how crowded the flight deck would be. He knew however that she would be happy. She was only really happy when miserable, so for the next few months she would be thriving on the chaotic hanger deck.

As he reached the end of the report both Zeth and Jake came over. Zeth was one of the military men picked in the Tao Cedi retreat. Both he a Jake had become good friends since then. Jake was telling one his jokes he was so good at. Dylan didn’t really listen to them and there banter, until after he finished the report. For the first time in a while he was confident and happy. Janine was on her way here to be loaded on one of the mother ships. After they got to hope cluster he was going to do something he should have done a long time ago. Tell her how he felt about her.

* * *

Joseph was on the bridge of the Essex. He didn’t know why but he was looking through the unencrypted messages that were coming in to the shipyards. As he hit the refresh button a new one came up. It was on a task force transporting civilians to be loaded on the mother ships. He opened this message because he knew someone on the task force, Dylan knew her too, loved her as a mater of fact. As he opened the message though it wasn’t as pleasant as he thought. The task force had been attacked. In side was a list of ships that had been lost he typed in a search for Janine Flair, the list showed that her ship was left behind, Its cores were going critical when they jumped out. They were presumed dead. Dylan had to know. He stayed long enough to download the casualty list to his PDA, and left to go find Dylan…

[Bakan]

Prometheus Class Battleship – Commissioned at the same time as the Battlestar class escort carriers, the Prometheus Battleship was Earth’s first space Battleship. The Prometheus herself was the proof-of-concept ship, the prototype for the rest of her class. Well armored and armed, she was designed to take on larger ships and serve as the command ship for a fleet. After several hundred years of service, the Prometheus was retired, her weapon systems stripped, and converted into a museum. When the Swarm invasion began, many retired ships were refitted, with the Prometheus being one of the last ones to undergo refits. Due to the nature of such ships to serve a command ship, the Prometheus is Admiral Incom Morgan’s personal command ship, where he commands fleet operations. Due to lack of available fighter squadrons, the Prometheus has no fighters, with only one operational hanger bay with variety of personal shuttles, hence dependent on other ships for fighters.

• Ship Dimensions
  • Length – 7 kilometers
  • Width – 3 kilometers
  • Height – 2 kilometers
• Power Systems
  • 8 Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactors: Primarily a Fusion reactor, at the core of which is a series of precisely timed and controlled anti-matter detonations, which give off enough energy to maintain the Fusion reaction. Using this method, ship equipped with this power system do not have to refuel often, and even then a majority of the required fuel is simple hydrogen, rather than anti-matter. These 4 Reactors act as the primary sources of power.
  • 24 Large Scale Fusion Reactors: You standard Fusion Reactor, these Reactors are scatted throughout the ship, designed to provide limited power in the event that the Primary Reactors are unable to provide power to those sections.
    
  • Engine Systems
    • FTL - Ditochi Quantum Drive: Manufactured by Ditochi Industries, this is the FTL installed aboard most Federation Vessels. When activated, the drive opens up a portal to Quantum Space, an area in between all the matter of the universe. From there, a ship can then egress to a point in the normal galaxy several light-years away. However, the drive is prone to over-heating, and thus only short, several lightyear at a time jumps are possible, before the drive has to cool down. As such, it often takes several jumps to make it anywhere, although the nature of Quantum Space, and getting there, makes pursuit difficult, at least until it drops back out of Quantum Space. The model built into the Battlestar class cruisers takes 5 minutes to fully cycle up, and require 30 minutes post-jump to cool down and recharge.
    • Sub-light – 8 Heavy Ion Drive: A standard set Ion drives, functioning as the energy and stripped electrons released from the Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactor are dumped out into space, propelling the ship forward. Due to the mass of the Battlestar cruisers, it takes significant amount of time to throttle up to flank speed.
    • Maneuvering – A series of Light Ion Drives set in key location across the hull, these provide limited maneuverability.
  • Ship Armor – Due to her size and mass, the Prometheus line of Battleships have no shield generators, due to the inability to provide adequate power. Hence her armor is designed to take as much of a pounding as possible. The armor profile of the Prometheus served as the template for future ships, such as the Deathdealer class Leviathan armor profile.
    • Tri-Alloy Inner Armor Plating:
      • Layer 1: Impact resistant Induriam alloy for physical impacts.
      • Layer 2: Reflective coating designed to dissipate energy weapons.
      • Layer 3: Third layer is simple Battlesteel approximately 5 meters thick.
      • Layer 4: Honeycomb Inner Bulkhead with Autoseal Breach Repair: Beyond the Battlestar armor plating is a empty space before the Inner Bulkhead is reached. This "empty" space is filled with a honeycomb structure, dividing the surface of the Battlestars into thousands of smaller sectors. Each honeycomb sector is filled with a small amount of air, and the Autoseal liquid, which remains liquid only while exposed to air. When a section of the outer hull is breached, the air is sucked out, and the Autoseal liquid hardens, providing a temporary hull patch and additional "armor" layer before the crew sections are actually exposed to vacuum.
    • Ship Weapons
      • 1,000 Pulse Plasma Cannons – Feeding off the ships power systems, each Cannon fires off a low-yield plasma burst every second. Designed for close-range covering fire, these cannons after some time of continuous fire create a significant power drain on ship systems.
      • 500 Duel-Assault Gauss Cannons – Using magnetic rails to fire off slugs of a ferrous type that are ½ meter in diameter at near light-speed. In addition upon exiting the chamber, the rounds are temporarily surrounded by a plasma sheath, which while lasted into a few seconds, it is enough for the projectile to reach its target. Can fire off a volley every 2 seconds. Used against capital ships primarily.
      • 250 Plasma Beam Cannon - Fed by their own micro-fusion generators, Plasma Beam Cannons generate a tightly compact beam of highly-excited hydrogen plasma, which is then discharged using magnetic accelerators towards an enemy ship. Due to the power consumptions required to maintain the beam, they are used in close-range against all types of ships.
      • 256 Missile Turrets – When the retrofit process began, the original fighter launch system had been stripped out. Due to lack of fighters in the general fleet, the hard points in the hull were each replaced with a deployable missile turret. Deploying out of the hull in times of battle, these turrets have a 3-by-5 rack of light multi-purpose missiles. These missiles can be used to take out fighters, and in clusters, cause significant damage to capital ships. It takes 30 seconds to fully reload each turret. Mounted with 50% of them on each side of the Prometheus, they are used as a surprise weapon.
      • 10 Medium MAC Cannons – The primary anti-capital ship weapons, these cannons fire off a solid ferrous metal slug with a diameter of 1 meter. Using magnetic rails to accelerate the projectile to near light-speed velocities, the primary cause of damage is the exchange of kinetic energy due to the mass and velocity of the projectile. These cannons take 2 minutes to reload each, but the fact that they can punch through most smaller ships makes them earn their keep.
      • 5 Long-Tom Cannons – Similar to the MAC cannon in many respects, the Long Tom’s utilize a smaller projectile, and are capable of reloading faster and are much more accurate. The 5 Long Tom’s are mounted such that they cover the fore arc of the Prometheus, providing pinpoint precision.
      • 2 Assault MAC Cannons – Designated a ship busters, the Assault MAC Cannons launch a projectile 5 meters in diameter, composed of a outer-layer that is designed to fragment shields upon contact. Once the outer-layer is stripped, the secondary layer generates a plasma screen that in theory completely forms upon contact. The kinetic energy, along with the plasma field, results in a projectile that has been known to literally crack ships in half. In addition, these weapons have been used in planetary bombardments with great effectiveness. Due to the size of the firing chamber and the cannon itself, the Assault Mac’s are mounted covering the fore arc.

[Bakan]

Once I get the enemy ships fleshed out, expect shit to hit the fan.

[Heiro]

[ooc]It always does... Now for my first ok post Written to accompany Rhapsody - Queen of the Dark Horizons...[/ooc]

As the overture reaches it finality, Alex sips the final dregs of the glass of red wine in front of him. Savouring it’s taste he motions to pour himself another glass, when to his surprise the monitor on his desk flashes on.
That’s the emergency channel. What in the hell…
Standing up shakily, Alex moves slowly across his cabin to the desk with the embellished monitor. Touching his hand and dragging the message into the player, he waits a moment for the connection to the main computer bank to activate. Leaning over, he presses the small panel of buttons and speaks outloud:
“Second-in-command, head to my quarters immediately. Crew prepare to depart”
Pouring himself another glass of wine, he swills it patiently and recounts his current situation. Sitting in the V’loran cluster, some lightyears from the Bilibrige shipyards, making spot repairs to the outer hull, and the inner sections of the ship 18 through 22. The two hundred and ninety souls left aboard the ship seem content to work and avoid discussion of the times before, living only for the moment. This seems best, all in all.
Feeling himself digress, Alex swigs from the glass in front of him.
Ah…Merlot. One of the finer delights in life.
He sighs. The battle at the Kuart shipyard was fierce, and his ship had led a counter offensive in the dying minutes attempting to break at least 3 ships free. All the old captains had followed his lead, the newer ones opting to stay behind and defend the basis of the yards. Resolute, he didn’t argue with them.
Perhaps I’m losing my heart He thinks to himself, taking another sip of wine.
4 ships made it through the run. 4 from 26. The swarm are merciless bastards, all in all. The carrion cruisers had swung the day though. It had taken the particle-antiparticle cannon a shot to even penetrate the hull. Coupled with the Rail guns, he had managed to down one in a single battery of fire. The return volley removed 3 ships from their fleet. Now, the 4, including The Legana, are sitting in a nebula, repairing and refitting with the hyperspace junk floating from the previous battles here. The door to his cabin opens then, almost theatrically timed, and the second-in-command Sophia steps through the threshold.
“You still keep this place in a mess of sentimentality then?”
“Yes Sophia. I believe you can tell.”
“So. You called. You’ve been in here 3 days, the crew are becoming worried.”
“Let them. We’ve gotten an interesting message. On the emergency channel, and only one man has the access to the channel.”
“Morgan?”
“The very same.”
“What does he want?”
“Lets find out, shall we?”
Pouring a second glass of wine, this time from a specially prepared bottle of white and handing it Sophia, he clinks glasses
“Here’s to better days.”
The screen flickers on, and the voice of Pandora echoes into the room:
Parsing complete Alex. May I watch this message also?
“As always Pandora, you are welcome”
Aye sir
The slim figure of a woman dressed in a deep black ball dress shimmers into existence next to the captains chair. Her hair sways cinematically and she settles down to watch
Transmission beginning
Ah, Alex. Glad to see you’re still alive. If you receive this, my final wish has been granted by the federation council. My motherships have been secretly under construction for some weeks and I urge you to come and help me with my… tasks. I know I can’t order you, even with my newly crowned admiral status…

…Though I know what happened at Kuart. I don’t blame you, I really don’t. The swarm are expected within the week, having discovered our fusion reactors through hyperspace. Bring what ships you’ve got, I implore you.

In the name of Faith, I hope to see you soon, look for me on our captains ship, the Prometheus…

The message crackles to a hault, and Alex shrugs over the ending. Settling back, he presses the comm. Button again, and looking deep into Sophia’s eyes, he says:
“Helm, ready a course toward Bilibrige shipyards, maximum thrust. Contact the other captains and inform them of our new task force’s mission…”
Releasing the button, he turns to Sophia.
“Enjoy that glass, it might be the last we get to enjoy. Morgan always did have a flare for the suicidal.”
“Then why help him, Alex?”
“Because he’s my friend. He was like a brother to me all those years ago…”

[ooc]Sorry Bakan, I fancied doing some recapping of the Kuart situation. And some other such stuff. Also… Sorry to have stolen morgan for the moment. And introducing 3 other ships… [/ooc]

[Spritely Zombie]

Rips his ship almost wholesale from Lost Universe and deposits it unceremoniously at Bakan's feel

---------------------------------------------

Ship Name: Swordbreaker

Ship Details:
Xeno-Tech Strike-Battlecruiser
Height: 150m
Length: 650m
Width: 300m
FTL: Xeno-Tech Advanced Hyper-Slipstream Drive
Sub-light: High Coherance Plasma thrusters, well above average speed and maneuverability.
Reactor: Xeno-Tech Regulated Naked Singularity

The majority of ships systems appear automated, regulated by the Volfield system ('autonomically'). Including an incredible efficient automated repair system

Ship History: The Swordbreaker is of unknown design and is privately owned by the Blueriver foundation, a Scientific Archaeological group who remain mostly autonomous from the galactic community. As is required by law the discovery of the Swordbreaker in a rogue planet's ring system was logged four years prior to the first swarm encounter. Attempts at dating indicated the ship as long predating human beings as a species.

When first discovered, the majority of ships systems were completely degraded however when the research scientists stepped onboard, it seems that auto-repair systems activated and slowly began to repair key systems. Life support, seemingly perfectly tailored to human phsyiology came online within 2 days. The computers basic functions activated within a week. 10 days after initial discovery, Alice Blueriver came onboard, bringing her teenage son Kane with her. Almost immediately system regeneration rate almost doubled. Four days later a holographic representation of a young human girl appeared on the bridge and greeted the research team in english.

The hologram identified herself as Canal Volfield the ship's AI. Seemingly a complete sentient entity, Canal seemed to bond strongly with Alice in a manner similar to parent and child. Although clearly an interface for the computer systems, it seemed that beyond her name (which may or may not be a phonetic transposition into the human language) and a sense of the ship's innate abilities and controls, she possessed no knowledge about the ship.

Several weeks later, the ships engine and reactor systems came online. Initial tests showed that the ship was apparently powered by a naked quantum singularity, held in check by a system that was completely beyond the comprehension of the assorted genius scientists. The ships high-energy plasma-based sub-light engine output was astonishing, ships designed and built exclusively for speed couldn't match it and it maneuvered like a fighter. The scientists were also astounded to discover that the ships FTL system was apparently similar in function to the Hyper-Slipstream drives just reaching development and prototyping stages, however, these were well above projected estimates for efficiency, easily equivalent to current drives in terms of charge-times.

Alice Blueriver commanded the Swordbreaker on several missions against the Swarm fleet during the early invasion, single-handedly holding them back long enough for several Blueriver planets to be completely evacuated. During one such 'mission' the Swordbreaker apparently took extreme damage whilst in combat against an entire swarm fleet. Noones entirely sure what happened afterwards, but all witnesses agree that the Swordbreaker's weapon systems appeared to go into overdrive, all simultaneously charging for a single imensely powerful attack that destroyed the entire core of the Swarm battlegroup in one giant blast of enormous proportions. The Swordbreaker then limped into Slipstream. Reappearing recently with Alice's only son, Kane captaining her. Both Kane and Canal seem extremely retiscent as to exactly what happened to Alice.

Crew:
Kane Blueriver -
Serves as captain, commander and pilot of the Swordbreaker. No records exist as to any prior military training, though given the Blueriver foundations resources, it is unlikely that he recieved anything but the highest class of tutoring.

Canal Volfield -
Ship's Super-Extremely Talented and Wonderful Artificial Intelligence. Further Records Deleted by Unknown.

Armament:
16 Energised Particle Pulse Arrays
The basic physics of this weapon is known to children across the galaxy 'Opposites Attract'. A series of micro-turrets across the swordbreakers hull 'paint' a target with a high-intensity ion stream, which causes almost no damage by itself. The target does however gain a substantial, localised, charge. The main "cannons" of this system then fire a substantial stream of energised particles, precisely charged so as to be attracted to the 'painted' target. This results in relatively powerful energy weapon of high accuracy with a near 360 degree firing arc. Such weapon systems had been theorised about prior to the discovery of the Swordbreaker, but had long been abandoned as being too innefficient. The weapons appear to be able to automatically balance themselves according to their assigned target, favouring low-yield high rate against fighters and smaller ships, and high-yield low rate against heavily armoured targets.

4 Multi-Role Cruiser-class Missile Launch Arrays (with onboard missile assembly system)
Although the exact missile configuration doesn't adhere to any known standard, these weapons don't appear to be much more advanced than human counterparts. The ship does however have the capacity to construct missiles itself, harvesting explosive elements from space debris and constructing new missiles. This process is not exceptionally fast given the relative scarcity of the required elements and so a sizeable stockpile of reserve missiles are retained near the launch systems. The ship is apparently able to launch a variety of missile types, from high penetration antimatter missiles (obviously designed with an anti-capital role in mind), to fractal cluster rockets (designed for blanket-screen attacks, and most efficient at dispatching enemy fighters and small craft)

LEAP Railgun
Weaponry of apparently identical mechanism already exists in the human fleet, though the weapons effects seem inverted to the commonly expected occurence, possible as a result of the ships unique drive system. Essentially a payload of the ultra-massive particle 483 is fired and accelerated to beyond the speed of light by the vessels hyper-slipstream drives, the resultant payload is partially in slipstream and partially in normal-space. When the packet collides with normal matter an inversion occurs. The loss of realspace energy causes the particles hyper-space field to drastically increase in size, ideally enveloping part of the target ship, dragging some or even all of the target into slipstream. The hyper-slipstream field almost invariably collapses as a result of the additional mass, scattering it across the universe.
It is possible that a ship with a suitable drive and skilled pilot could survive the abrupt transferrance into FTL, and navigate back to real-space with only minimal damage.

Plasma Breaker
This weapon mostly remains an enigma to modern science. The weapons power source has not been identified, which is unusual considering the power that the weapon is able to unleash. Some tests have shown a direct correlation between the mood of the pilot and the destructive capacity of the weapon, leading Alice Blueriver to the somewhat outlandish conclusion that the weapon is in fact powered using psychic energy drawn from the pilot (a theory somewhat substantiated by the high rate of exhaustion amongst test-pilots, only Alice appeared to be able to fire the weapon without lapsing into unconsciousness and even she generally needed to rest after firing).

In operation the ship launches a series of small focusing "bits" each bit appears to generate (or more likely recieve) a very large quantity of energy. The bits "link up" with their neighbours using a complex photonic waveform that continues to defy analysis. Finally the bits start to rotate around the ship's central axis, generating (seemingly from nothing!!) an immensely focused and coherant globe of plasma (core temperature estimated at roughly 15,000,000K - roughly equivalent to the core of an average star - though amazingly at a distance of 0.8m, temperatures measures at a mere 2000 k) which is then launched at high velocity

Point Defence Drones
These semi-autonomous drones appear to be almost identical to the crystalline focusing bits utilised by the Plasma Breaker and shielding systems and it is unknown as to whether the design is multi-functional or if the similarities are purely superficial (the internal workings of both focusing bits and PDD's remain indeterminable). The PDDs appear to use a gravitational tether to anchor themselves near the swordbreakers hull (up to a distance of approximately 50 meters) and then determine and engage high-threat targets (such as missiles, other projectiles and, at close range, fighters) utilising variable-coherance graviton and anti-graviton beams. The drones can also be commanded to latch onto other ships (both for offensive and defensive purposes) although their point-defence value is somewhat weakened as they still seem to primarily utilise the Swordbreakers sensors systems to identify targets.

The Swordbreaker has the capacity to store and deploy up to 32 such drones (in addition to the six focusing bits) and can apparently construct replacements given the required elements, energy and time.

Armor:
Ultra-dense Crystalline Self-regenerating Alloy.

The ship appears to be uniformly armoured by an ultra-dence crystalline substance that seems at least as hard as the latest battleship hull plating and is exceptionally resilient against both energy and kinetic weaponry. It also appears to be able to absorb energy and regenerate over time, new crystals growing to close breaches. The energy can be either ambient (such as sunlight) or direct, such as laser or plasma fire. This same energy absorbing property means that the ships detectable energy output is minimal and even active sensors are unlikely to detect the ship should all it systems be powered down.

These crystals seem to contain some kind of regulating system, forcing the crystals to regrow into the ships original configuration. It is theorised that the ship could even regenerate (given enough time and energy) from truely catastrophic damage, in fact there was strong evidence at the recovery site, that this process had taken place exceedingly slowly over the millenia of being cast adrift amongst the stars.

Shields
Parabolic Single-Direction Gravitic Repulsion Field

As additional protection the ship also sports a unidirectional shield system. Utilising the same focusing bits (and unidentified power-source) as the Plasma Breaker system, the ship is apparently able to generate an immensely strong gravitic-repulsion shield bubble up to 500 meters across, directly in front of it, though this shield prevents the firing of both Plasma Breaker and Leap Railgun weapons systems. This shield does however provide a near-impenetrable defence against almost all known weapon systems, though it's operation is draining and cannot be sustained under heavy fire for long.

Such a system (coupled with the ships extreme maneuverability) indicates that the Swordbreaker was designed for a shock-tactic role, charging straight at the enemy and engaging at near point-blank ranges.

[mrmao]

Dylan was in one of the Spartan fighters from the Essex. He was in orbit around one of the gas Giants in the system. He had used the maneuvering array to face himself toward the planet but continue in orbit around it. The core temperature was about 4500C more then enough to melt the fighter. Joe had told him about what happened. How Janine’s ship was leaking atmosphere, and the reactors about to go critical. He knew she was dead. From there he left the mess hall and got on a Spartan, he flew to this planet and aimed himself at it. It would be so easy, just accelerate the ship forward. He would soon have gravity helping him go down. It would be over in less then three minutes. All he needed was to push the button.

“I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love” It was Joe’s voice, a Sphinx had moved into position beside him. He had done Hamlet in school, he had been hamlet and Joe had been the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Remembering a happy time Dylan the next line, after all it was his. It took them a while but they ran the entire scene. When they were done, Joe asked,” What dose it mean?”
Dylan responded, “You know it, Hamlet’s father is telling him to take vengeance.”
Joe then stated, “The question is will you be like Hamlet, and take vengeance.”
“Hamlet won’t insane because he was trying to take vengeance, besides do you honestly think we have a chance of even getting to hope cluster? No, the real question is To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?” He meant to finish the monologue and plunge his fighter into the gas Giant, but when he reached that point he realized he couldn’t do it. “Let’s get back.” As he flew the fighter back with the sphinx following behind him, he cried. He had told her to get to a nunnery, a place of protection. She tried to but because he wasn’t there she didn’t make it. He would now take the counsel of Hamlet’s father and make those Swarm bastards pay.

[Inspectre]

"You realize he's going to say no, don't you?"
"He was a Federation officer for twenty-one years: surely he won't turn his back on it now."
"The Federation destroyed his home, destroyed his career, and destroyed his family. I served with Joseph McKinley for fifteen of those twenty-one years: I know him. And I know that whatever sense of duty he had, whatever loyalty he had to the Navy, died the same day that his family did, and the Navy blamed [i]him. Slapping him on the back and inviting him back with a promotion just isn't going to work."
"We'll see. One way or another, Joseph McKinley will rejoin the Navy's ranks."
"Ummm hmmm . . . "

Earth
Lake Michigan, North America
14 Days until Operation Hope
6:41 PM

With a casual flick of his wrist, Joseph McKinley sent the baited hook on the end of his line sailing a good forty feet out away from his small rowboat. With a soft plop, the weighted end struck the golden surface of the lake and sank, dropping much like the Sun now was behind the horizon. It would be dark in another hour or so, and Joseph would be forced to retire: another day that made up the rest of his life blissfully thrown away. Well, perhaps not blissfully, but at least out here on the waters of Lake Michigan, on the planet that was the birthplace of humanity, Joseph could find some measure of peace from the demons that hounded him.

Matching wits with trout day after day was certainly a step down from managing a ship of the line in the Federation Navy, but that option had been closed to him for quite some time now, hadn't it? Painfully, Joseph recalled exactly how many days since it had been since his court martial, and how many days ago Tetra Genus, his birthplace and home for most of his life, had been destroyed. Like so many other things, Joseph had stopped keeping track of time using a calendar; he just instinctively knew how long it had been since everything he had fought and lived for was systematically stripped away from him.

First, his family and home, taken away from him by the destructive power of the Thanatos's own Stellar Converter, 446.8 days ago. On the losing side of yet another brutal battle against the Swarm, orders had come down from then-acting commander of the fleet's remnants: Rear-Admiral James Talloway, to carryout the Deathdealer protocol.

The Deathdealer protocol, for which an entire class of Leviathans had been named after, was the brain-child of the exceedingly mad Admiral Nathan Purlin. The protocol was quite simple: the Federation could not afford to allow the Swarm easy access to resources from the planets it conquered on its march through the galaxy, thus any planet in danger of falling into the claws of the Swarm had to be destroyed. With Stellar Converters, this task was a horrifying easy one, but one that the Federation had never condoned. At least, not until it started losing the war, and ways for the Federation to narrow the enormous disparity in available resources between the Federation and the Swarm had begun to be grow slim. Eventually, even the panic-stricken Federation Council realized the madness of its actions, and the "great" then-Fleet Admiral Nathan Purlin was humiliated: stripped of his rank and sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison for crimes against humanity. Naturally, the former Fleet Admiral hadn't gotten the chance to enjoy his punishment: a grief-stricken citizen whose family had been one of Purlin's billions of victims, had somehow managed to obtain a Federation uniform, slipped onto the base where the court martial was taking place, and shot Nathan Purlin dead as he boarded the shuttle that was to take him away for imprisonment.

In any case, the seed for Joseph's court martial was planted the same day Tetra Genus was destroyed: he got the order to carry out the Deathdealer Protocol, and refused. The Rear-Admiral had screamed, he had threatened, and eventually he simply had Joseph removed from command. In his place, Joseph's Executive Officer Thomas Harling, carried out the orders, scourging Tetra Genus of all life as Joseph helplessly watched.

After the destruction and sub-sequent retreat of the 12th Federation Fleet, Joseph was escorted to the brig, and remained there until his court martial two weeks later. Three weeks after that, or 410.75 days before the current day, Joseph was found guilty of disobeying orders, and stripped of his rank. Although removed from command and the Federation Navy, he was still put out into the civilian world with his pension. Joseph knew more than one of his "fellow" officers had urged the Judge Advocate General to push for a harsher punishment. Those officers were all fools, too blinded by duty to see that Joseph had already been punished more than enough. The JAG would have been hard-pressed to find a way to worsen the H*ll Joseph found himself in, the H*ll that would almost certainly be with him every day for the rest of his life.

The wind momentarily kicked up, gently caressing the lake's water into waves which lapped against the rowboat's sides. Joseph paid them no heed, listening to the wind, and the accusations that seemed to be carried on it. Tightening his grip on the fishing rod until his knuckles turned white, Joseph looked down to the floor of the rowboat. Sitting there next to his tackle box was the only thing that he had been able to keep from his service in the Navy: his standard-issue P-9K sidearm. There certainly was one way for him to escape his misery, without having to fight so hard every day to forget what had happened. Hands shaking, Joseph set the fishing rod down into its stand, and reached down to pick the pistol up. Before he could consider the deed, the loud whine of a shuttle coming in for a landing cut through the air above the lake.

Curious as to what kind of idiot would bring a shuttle down for a landing right next to the lake, Joseph looked over to see two men in what could only be Navy uniforms emerging from it. Grunting in disgust and shaking his head, Joseph left his pistol on the floor of the rowboat and started to reel his line in. He had an idea who they were looking for, and what they wanted.

Several minutes later, Joseph carefully climbed out of the boat, and quickly tied it to one of the smaller docks dotting the shore of Lake Michigan. Turning away from the boat, he could see that both men were standing at the spot where the pier met solid ground, clearly waiting for him. Furthermore, Joseph could now recognize the two figures: his old "friend" Thomas, and his wonderful former commander, Rear-Admiral James Talloway. Snorting in disgust, Joseph turned his back on them again, gathering up his handgun, his tackle box, and fishing pole, before walking down the pier to meet them. Coming closer, Joseph could see that both of them had been promoted: Thomas to the rank of Captain, and Talloway to the rank of Vice-Admiral.

"I had never hoped to see either of you again for the rest of my life." Joseph said in greeting as he came to a stop in front of them a minute later.

"Nice to see you too." The Vice-Admiral sneered, reaching inside of his jacket and removing a carefully folded piece of paper. "Here." He snarled, thrusting the paper at Joseph. His hands full, Joseph was forced to first drop the fishing pole and tackle box first, before accepting the folded paper from Talloway. Snatching it out of his hands, Joseph flipped the paper open, and quickly scanned it. Upon seeing the contents of the letter, Joseph could feel his rage begin to boil over. The paper was an official re-activation for Joseph, as well as a promotion to the rank of Commodore, effective immediately.

"This is bullsh*t!!" Joseph snarled, throwing the document at Talloway's feet in disgust. "I have no interest in serving the Federation any longer."

"Regardless of your feelings, or mine, Commodore, these documents come from Admiral Morgan himself. As you well know, in a state of emergency the Federation Navy can re-activate anyone that has previously served . . . even someone who previously proved themselves unworthy of the uniform." Talloway practically spat out the last words, and Joseph took a single step toward him, his hands balled into fists, before he was able to stop himself. Talloway would no doubt love to be assaulted by Joseph, as it would no doubt prove his ascertains right. After a moment's thought, however, Joseph realized that he no longer cared what happened. And so, with a light-hearted shrug, Joseph smiled, and then drove his right fist into Vice-Admiral James Talloway's face, sending him sprawling back onto the ground.

Although this was undoubtedly what he wanted, Talloway still appeared to be surprised that Joseph had actually gone all the way and had struck a superior officer. Numbly wiping the small tickle of blood out of the corner of his mouth, Talloway crowed, "I-I'll have you put in irons for this, McKinley!! You can rot in a cell until the Swarm come and find you!"

"I served the Federation for twenty-one years without a complaint, sir!!" Joseph retorted, spitting out the last word as if it were something unpleasant. "And what do I have to show it!!? A dead family!! A destroyed home!! And a ruined career because I refused to destroy those for you!! I'm done with the Navy! You'll have plop my dead body in a captain's chair before I set foot on another ship's Bridge!"

"That can be arranged!" Talloway growled as he regained his composure and his footing, gingerly getting up while glaring at Joseph as if he was going to knock him down again. Joseph probably would have, if the two Marines that had been accompanying the two officers had stepped forward at that time, no doubt from some signal that Talloway had given them. Before the two Marines could react, however, Joseph had drawn his pistol, pointing it first at Talloway, and then at his own right temple. That brought the Marines up short, as they glanced at their Vice-Admiral in hesitation.

"Don't think I won't do it." Joseph snarled, flicking the handgun's safety off. "This way, I'll just join my family quicker, and the Navy will have one more open Commodore slot that they can promote some ignorant f*** to."

"Join your family in H*ll, perhaps." The Vice-Admiral mumbled, although he didn't do anything else to end the stand-off.

"Vice-Admiral, please." Thomas said, speaking up at last. "We need him. The Federation needs him."

"Where was the Federation when I needed it?" Joseph shrieked in reply, turning his withering gaze on his former friend. Thomas, surprisingly enough held his ground, and continued.

"Joseph, although the orders you received don't say it, you are going to be captaining the Thanatos again. We don't have a fleet put together for you yet, but you are welcome to keep the Thanatos as your flagship if we do manage to scrape up enough ships."

"Et tu, Thomas?" Joseph snarled, the hand holding the handgun to his head beginning to shake from the fury coursing through Joseph's body. "You think that you can just come in here and patch everything up again, after what you did, hmm? You think I'm just going to take command of that d*mned ship again after all this time, no worries, and it will be like the good old times again? Well then, where's my wife, hmm? Or better yet, give me back my son, who you murdered!!" Joseph shrieked the last three words, and Thomas stepped back as if Joseph had decked him too.

Lowering his eyes to the pier, Thomas said, "I can't repair the damage that I've done . . . I don't even know if I can call you my friend anymore." Looking back up now, Thomas locked eyes with Joseph as he finished. "But it doesn't matter anymore, because the Swarm is coming here, Joseph. Another three months, half a year, it doesn't matter how long we hold out, the Swarm is still going to sweep through this solar system and exterminate or do who-knows-what to every person here. And when they're done, they're going to mop up whatever is left of the Federation by that time and it will be over. Humanity as we know it will be extinct."

"Good. May you all rot in H*ll!" Joseph retorted, trying and failing to bring his emotions back under control. "Humanity doesn’t deserve to live!!"

Adopting a more pleading tone, Thomas pushed on, while the Vice-Admiral and his Marine lackeys continued to watch. "I'll understand if you don't want me to serve as your XO onboard the Thanatos after what happened. If you want me to, I’ll leave the day after you arrive to take command. But we need you to captain the Thanatos for one last, desperate gamble. I can't give you the details, not here, but I assure you it's the last chance we have to save the Federation. You know the Thanatos better than anyone, and if Fleet Intelligence is right, everyone's going to have to be at peak efficiency to pull this off."

Thomas paused for a moment, and then finished, tears beginning to form in his eyes, "Joseph, Karen and Silvia are going to be with this fleet. I know I have no right to ask this of you after what I have done, but I don't know what else to do . . . please . . . help me save my family. In honor of the years of friendship we once had, please, I beg you . . . help me." His attempt at convincing Joseph apparently complete, Thomas dropped to his knees, holding his hands out to Joseph like a beggar asking for a few spare credits. Unbidden, images of his own family appeared in Joseph's mind: his wife smiling at him beneath her veil as he approached the altar, his son getting his first homerun at a Little League baseball game.

Sighing, Joseph lowered the pistol away from his head, and on an impulse, turned and threw it out into the lake. Turning back to the two officers and their Marine escorted, Joseph sighed again and then grunted, "Alright, fine . . . let's do this."

In silence, the two Navy officers and marines walked back to the shuttle, Joseph following. All of them remained silent on the hour flight back up to Lunar Base One, where they were transferred over to their own ships. For Joseph and Thomas, this meant catching an FTL shuttle headed for the Bilibridge Shipyards, where the Thanatos was getting its most recent battle damage repaired.

[Heiro]

[ooc]"That character gets better each time Onslaught comes back. Well done[/ooc]

[Bakan]

And here is a little teaser of things to come:

Enemy Ships

Hiveship – Apparently the command ship, and small craft carrier of the Swarm fleet, these ships alone have been known to take on entire escort fleets on their own. Only 3 have been confirmed destroyed throughout the entire war, and those victories were in situations where the Federation was able to deploy vast amounts of firepower suddenly, otherwise the Hiveships flee. Much of their technology we still do not have a complete handle on. They are composed of two saucer sections, top and bottom respectively, connected together by a circular section in the middle. They also appear to serve as mobile repair stations.

• Ship Dimensions
  • Length – 10 kilometers
  • Width – 10 kilometers
  • Height – 3 kilometer top and bottom – 1 kilometer middle
• Power Systems - Unknown – Theorized to use a series of miniature black holes.
  
• Engine Systems
  • FTL – The Hiveships use an artificial wormhole generation for their FTL functions. The wormhole generated is large enough for any smaller ships to jump through. Best speed estimates place the wormhole able to accelerate ships to speeds that are barely matched by the recent hyper-slipstream generators.
  • Sublight – Using 100 Ion Engines Mounted around the hull, Hiveships movement speeds are exceptionally slow.
• Ship Armor – While many samples of hull armor have been gathered from battlesites, we have not been able to identify many of the elements that compose it. What we do know is that the armor seems to absorb energy, which then strengths it. Excessive amounts of energy weapons fire can overload the matrix, and actually cause a massive explosion, but energy requirements for this are in the range of superweapons. In terms of physical impacts, the armor is resistant to most blunt force weapons, but analysis indicates that MAC rounds are able to pierce the hull after a few volleys, which our fleets are rarely able to get off before being crippled or destroyed.
  
• Ship Weapons
  • 50 Anti-Capital Ship Plasma Beam Cutter – These cannons have been known to punch right through hull plating many Federation ships. Firing a large (5 meter in diameter) plasma beam, the range is unusually long and accurate. There appears to be about a 5 minute cool down until these beams can be fired again. Apparently only effective against Capital ships, for they have not been seen in use against smaller ships. Thankfully the blast can be dispersed by defensive fire.
  • 2,500 Anti-Fighter Pulse Plasma Cannons – These cannons are very inaccurate, but more than make up for it in terms of sheer number of shots they can fire. Each burst is powerful enough to completely destroy fighters and damage larger ships. However the range of these weapons is very short, for otherwise the plasma blast looses power until it does nothing.
• Small Craft Compliment
  • 1,000+ “Leechers”
  • 1,000+ “Deathgliders”
  • 5 “Maulers”
  • 50+ “Hellraisers”

Ravager – The Ravager class is used to punch it’s way through enemy fighter formations, using it’s Anti-Fighter cannons to cripple/destroy fighters and smaller ships, and using it’s heavier weapons to hold off capital ships. Once within enemy lines, it then launches it’s fighter compliment

• Ship Dimensions
  • Length – 3 kilometers
  • Width – 1 kilometers
  • Height – 750 meters
• Power Systems - Unknown – Theorized to use a series of miniature black holes.
  
• Engine Systems
  • FTL – The Ravager use an artificial wormhole generation for their FTL functions. The wormhole generated is large enough for any smaller ships to jump through. Best speed estimates place the wormhole able to accelerate ships to speeds that are barely matched by the recent hyper-slipstream generators.
  • Sublight – Using 24 Ion Engines Mounted around the hull, Hiveships movement speeds are moderate for it’s size.
    • Ship Armor – While many samples of hull armor have been gathered from battlesites, we have not been able to identify many of the elements that compose it. What we do know is that the armor seems to absorb energy, which then strengths it. Excessive amounts of energy weapons fire can overload the matrix, and actually cause a massive explosion, but energy requirements for this are in the range of superweapons. In terms of physical impacts, the armor is resistant to most blunt force weapons, but analysis indicates that MAC rounds are able to pierce the hull after a few volleys, which our fleets are rarely able to get off before being crippled or destroyed.
      
    • Ship Weapons
      • 10 Anti-Capital Ship Plasma Beam Cutter – These cannons have been known to punch right through hull plating many Federation ships. Firing a large (5 meter in diameter) plasma beam, the range is unusually long and accurate. There appears to be about a 5 minute cool down until these beams can be fired again. Apparently only effective against Capital ships, for they have not been seen in use against smaller ships. Thankfully the blast can be dispersed by defensive fire.
      • 500 Anti-Fighter Pulse Plasma Cannons – These cannons are very inaccurate, but more than make up for it in terms of sheer number of shots they can fire. Each burst is powerful enough to completely destroy fighters and damage larger ships. However the range of these weapons is very short, for otherwise the plasma blast looses power until it does nothing.
      • 250 Plasma Blob Launchers– Slow moving, inaccurate plasma blasts that are used against the largest ships and installations. These weapons fire slowly, taking about a 1 minute to recharge after discharge, but the blast, if it connects, has been known to blow apart ships with 1 hit. Thankfully the blast can be dispersed by defensive fire.
    • Small Craft Compliment
      • 250+ “Leechers”
      • 250+ “Deathgliders”
  
  Mauler – The multi-purpose ship of the Swarm fleet, these craft are seen in every engagement, easily the most common swarm ship.
  • Ship Dimensions
    • Length – 1 kilometers
    • Width – 750 meters
    • Height – 500 meters
  • Power Systems - Unknown – Theorized to use a miniature black hole.
    
  • Engine Systems
    • FTL – The Mauler use an artificial wormhole generation for their FTL functions. The wormhole generated is large enough for any smaller ships to jump through. Best speed estimates place the wormhole able to accelerate ships to speeds that are barely matched by the recent hyper-slipstream generators.
    • Sublight – Using 12 Ion Engines Mounted around the hull, Maulers movement speeds are unusually fast for a ship of it’s size, but maneuverability is lacking..
  • Ship Armor – While many samples of hull armor have been gathered from battlesites, we have not been able to identify many of the elements that compose it. What we do know is that the armor seems to absorb energy, which then strengths it. Excessive amounts of energy weapons fire can overload the matrix, and actually cause a massive explosion, but energy requirements for this are in the range of superweapons. In terms of physical impacts, the armor is resistant to most blunt force weapons, but analysis indicates that MAC rounds are able to pierce the hull after a few volleys, which our fleets are rarely able to get off before being crippled or destroyed.
    
  • Ship Weapons
    • 10 Anti-Capital Ship Plasma Beam Cutter – These cannons have been known to punch right through hull plating many Federation ships. Firing a large (5 meter in diameter) plasma beam, the range is unusually long and accurate. There appears to be about a 5 minute cool down until these beams can be fired again. Apparently only effective against Capital ships, for they have not been seen in use against smaller ships. Thankfully the blast can be dispersed by defensive fire.
    • 25 Plasma Blob Launchers– Slow moving, inaccurate plasma blasts that are used against the largest ships and installations. These weapons fire slowly, taking about a 1 minute to recharge after discharge, but the blast, if it connects, has been known to blow apart ships with 1 hit. Thankfully the blast can be dispersed by defensive fire.
    • 100 Anti-Fighter Pulse Plasma Cannons – These cannons are very inaccurate, but more than make up for it in terms of sheer number of shots they can fire. Each burst is powerful enough to completely destroy fighters and damage larger ships. However the range of these weapons is very short, for otherwise the plasma blast looses power until it does nothing.
  • Small Craft Compliment
    • 128+ “Leechers”
    • 72+ “Deathgliders”
  
  Hellraiser – Apparently the fast-attack corvette analong of the Swarm fleet, the Hellraisers seem to be designed to strike hard and fast, with little concern if they make it back.
  • Ship Dimensions
    • Length – 400 meters
    • Width – 250 meters
    • Height – 100 meters
  • Power Systems - Unknown – Theorized to use some type of matter-antimatter reactor
    
  • Engine Systems
    • FTL – Dependent on other ships for travel
    • Sublight – Using 6 Ion Engines Analogs mounted aft, these engines give the Hellraiser great speed and manuverability.
  • Ship Armor – The armor on these ships are designed to “reflect” damage away from the ship, in short having the ship shrug off as much fire as possible. Glancing hits do little to no damage, direct hits have been know to completely destroy one of these ships.
    
  • Ship Weapons
    • 1 Anti-Capital Ship Plasma Beam Cutter – These cannons have been known to punch right through hull plating many Federation ships. Firing a large (5 meter in diameter) plasma beam, the range is unusually long and accurate. There appears to be about a 5 minute cool down until these beams can be fired again. Apparently only effective against Capital ships, for they have not been seen in use against smaller ships. Thankfully the blast can be dispersed by defensive fire.
    • 25 Anti-Fighter Pulse Plasma Cannons – These cannons are very inaccurate, but more than make up for it in terms of sheer number of shots they can fire. Each burst is powerful enough to completely destroy fighters and damage larger ships. However the range of these weapons is very short, for otherwise the plasma blast looses power until it does nothing.

Enemy Fighters
Deathglider (Fighter) – A simple 2-man fighter (1-pilot, 1-gunner), at 10 meters from bow to stern and 15 meters wingtip to wingtip, these are armed with 2 forward firing plasma cannons. Incredibly maneuverable in both space and atmosphere, these are the most common swarm ship.

Leechers (Fighter/Boarding Craft) - Carrying 6 Wraiths in addition to the pilot, Leechers are about twice as large as a Deathglider, used to punch through ship defenses and dock. The docking mechanism is actually a organic creature that eats right through most metals, then retracts to allow the Leecher to dock. Also, the leecher can absorb energy, both weapons, and when it's docked, drains power in the section that it is docked to.

[Bakan]

Onslaught – The Morning Of……
September 23rd, 19,124 GSY (Galactic Standard Year)
05:34 Earth Military Time
Prometheus Command Ship – Docked at Bilibrige Shipyards

Asleep in his bunk onboard the Prometheus, Admiral Incom Morgan woke up. Looking around, he leans over to check the chronometer, and sighs at the time. Sleep had been coming less easily, and what sleep he was able to get was restless. Feeling himself awaken more and more, Incom knew that sleep would not be returning this evening, and thus with a groan he picks himself out of the bunk and walks to the shower.

Bilibrige Long-Range Sensor Outpost #27
05:45 Earth Military Time

Johnson looked out the viewport at the asteroid belt. Standing at the observation level of the Sensor Outpost #27 for Bilibrige. A very dull and boring station, for it was only 3 levels, 1 observation/control, 1 engineering, and 1 living quarters. With only a crew of 6 it got to be boring very quickly, but it was vital for the early defense network.

Pulling out a picture from his vest pocket, Johnson stared at the picture of his wife, Belle who was right now undergoing deep freeze. While the Mothership project was technically top secret, practically everyone in the fleet knew something about it, such as personally being prepared for some kind of deep freeze. Most of those were selected due to skills, other through random lottery. Sadly for Johnson, he was not selected Belle was.

Johnson stared some more, remembering the final night they spent together. It was not a lot, but it was enough. Even though it was against regulations, even though it posed a serious risk to a women entering deep freeze, they had managed to conceive their first child. They hoped that since it was so soon, that there would be no effects, but they still worried. Johnson had left that night to a shuttle, knowing full well that if the war continued, he would never see her again. Yet some small part of him hoped and prayed that he would be able to.

Hearing a buzzer going off, Johnson stands, stretches and walks over to a nearby sensor station. The station, using the stations sensors linked to remote probes, covered an entire sector of the Bilibrige system. Looking at the panel, fully expecting to see that it was simply a rogue comet, or at worst a smuggler vessel, Johnson blinked and hit another button, rescanning. A solid red blob blinked, and grew larger and closer to the center of the screen, a screen labeled with telemetry from the advance hyperspace probes.

Putting the picture of Belle back into his vest pocket, Johnson reached over, feeling eerily calm and hit the emergency button. The stations lights flickered into a deep red, with alarms starting to blare, waking up the rest of the crew. As they ran into the main deck, many of them still dressed in sleeping clothes, Johnson looked at them. Bastila, a small woman, who happened to be a mother of 3, only 2 living now, looked at Johnson's face.

"They are coming." she asked, obviously not a question. A single nod from Johnson was more than enough for her.

Johnson: "Alright people, we got a job to do. Bastila, start a broadcast to Bilibrige shipyards, keep them updated with our telemetry. Hudson and Locke, you two get the station battened down. The rest of us will man the gun turrets. The swarm will be over us in 3 minutes. We need to slow them down, to give Bilibrige some time to prepare themselves."

As the crew made their way to their stations, Johnson sprinted over to the upper gun turret. Climbing up the ladder and settling himself in, he hesitates, and pulls out Belle's picture and places it next to the targeting readout. Looking at the deep approaching space, Johnson sees the bright flashes of light, ships emerging from FTL speeds.

For several minutes Johnson watched the readouts, amazed by how many red dots kept appearing, more and more until his readout was one large red blob, that slowely started advancing. Tapping his mic, he took a deep breath.

"Okay everyone, let's do this. We are the first line, but we can buy the shipyards some time. This is much larger than us..... prepare to fulfill the Cole protocol. Let's kick their a*ses."

With those words, several sections of the red blob detached and moved very rapidly. Staring, gripping the trigger so tightly his fingers went white, Johnson stared and stared, until his tracking flashed reticle red, and he fired.

Bright red beams, firing the four gating heavy assault cannons fired, the first several shots being reflected by the hull armor of the Hellraiser, before they punched through tearing the hull apart, sending vital parts, pieces of hull, and what looked to be part of the pilot flying into void. By this point Johnson has already aimed at another Hellraiser.

The three turrets, each advance prototypes were outputting enough fire to challenge a battleship. Slowly the turrets started to glow red, while inside the turrets temperatures rise. Normally in combat the turrets would be allowed to alternate, to cool them off, but as Johnson sweated, he thought about the Alamo, and the last stand.

Seeing a wave of Deathgliders break off, he saw a wave of Hellraisers advance rapidly. Firing furiously, he saw them bank and run into the fire of the station near the other turret, being fired by Gavin.

"Gavin, watch it, they are concentrating on you."

"I'm being overwhelmed here, oh blood and bloody ashed, I have leechers!! They are eating the HULL."

"Watch it 3 Deathgliders above."

"I can't see! AHHHH!!!"

Johnson felt more than saw the explosion from the turret where Gavin used to sit, and swore. He had seen many a comrade killed. Looking at Belle smiling at him, he looked at the swarm, tears streaming from his eyes, and something finally snapped. Screaming, he fired all 4 turrets, punching through hulls and what laid underneath them. Still screaming, he saw the other turret flash as a wave of lechers killed themselves, taking poor Wedge with them.

Feeling his turret shake violently, he saw that the shields around him were failing. Seeing the Hellraisers advance again, he screamed again, firing at them, the turrets by now glowing red hot, the inside feeling like a sauna. Firing at the wave, he saw many of them shatter and vaporize, other dodged, then they passed. Even more were killed against the shields, but their deaths allowed the following ones to rush through, passing through and under the shields. Firing still, Johnson saw them flash past, then felt an incredible coldness with a red haze obscuring his vision. Blinking, he tired to breath, but the coldness crept into his lungs. Time seemed to slow to him, as he realized the bubble canopy had been shattered. Pain receptors fired signals and a look down showed his chest and arms, slashed with deep wounds that leaked a red haze that bubbled out. Holding the triggers even as his hands froze to the metal grips, Johnson fired still, not even aiming anymore. As one final Deathglider flew at him, he saw the picture of Belle, floating away into void, sprinkled with his blood. With a sharp pain around his neck and chest, Johnson held the triggers and smiled as he died.

Inside the station, alarms were blaring. Bastila pulled herself up with her left arm, the right several meters away, lying in a puddle of blood and damaged parts, the victim of a blown out control panel. Seeing that the 3 turrets were offline, Bastila looked at the bright red button, the metal safety flap already open. Thinking about her 2 sons, already long gone, she smiled and hit the button.

Prometheus Command Ship – Main Bridge
05:59 Earth Military Time

Standing at attention, his air still damp, Admiral Incom Morgan silently said a ancient prayer for the souls on the Sensor Outpost. For some reason, Swarm ships were limited in their ability to jump directly in-system, which gave a alert system time to prepare, though most times now that preparation was in vain. But now, it might be the difference between life and death of the Federation.

“Communications, get the motherships on the line. I want them to prepare for an emergency launch. Get the rest of the defense fleet on the line as well, I want them undocked and in space 30 seconds ago. Do we have everyone?”

Science Officer: “Sir, all but two confirmed defense ships are here. We are missing Captains Heiro and Inspectre, both of which are due shortly.”

“Damnit, order all available defense ships to escort the motherships as soon as they undock, which may take some time….”

Science Officer: “ENEMY CONTACT!! Unable to get exact numbers, but we got a full fleet out there.”

Swearing, Incom looked at the tactical display. While the shipyards took up a significant section of the display, to the far side arriving in-system are the Swarm ships. Thankfully, there appear to be no Hiveships, which Incom had the mispleasure of facing once. Looking at the numbers counter, Incom swore that they continued to rise.

• Ravanger – 20+-
• Mauler – 60+-
• Hellraiser – 100+-
• Deathgliders – 1000+-
• Leechers – 1000+-

Science Officer: “Enemy ships approximately 5 minutes out from firing range from motherships. Motherships have confirmed undocking and are underway, 15 minutes till they are able to jump.”

“Damnit, order all ships to engage in holding back to the Swarm. Wish them luck.”

Orders
Hold off the Swarm fleet.

OOC: Okay, time for weapons fire. Heiro and Inspectre, you both can jump into the middle of the battle. Rest of you, do what you want, but if I think you are being to crazy/godlike, I WILL smack you back down.

[flapjack]

Flapjack swore as he jumped out his small bunk, they where small, uncomfortable and there where 2 to a bunk, the small 8 man ment that they had 3 shifts, 2 of those where 3 man shifts and the last was a 2 man shift. Luckily they never really used the shift system, their ship wasn't built for long duration flights and they would probably just dock with 1 of the motherships outside of combat. Rushing out of the crew quarters in the center of the ship, just in front of the small warp core which could be heard all over the ship when it was at full power.

Right now it was the buzzing of an alarm that woke Flapjack, they'd gone up to red alert and where probably about to undock, which ment that he'd be needed at the helm. Even though everyone on the ship could fly it there was no dispute over who should in combat. Jumping up the 3 steps that led up onto the small compartment that was officially called the bridge, but didn't hold more then 5 seats, 2 of which where purely passenger seats.

As Flapjack came up what he'd come to call his chair the ship shuddered momentarily, they where now floating freely inside the massive shipyard, outside Flapjack could see the remaining fighters and shuttles taking off as well. At that point his XO and co-pilot turned around in the co-pilot chair and gestured towards the pilot chair, not saying a word and immediatly turning back to look at his sensor displays.

Flapjack quickly turned the pilot seat around and dropped into it, the restrainers fitting perfectly as usual for the chair had been tuned to him. As he turned the seat back around Flapjack noticed they where 1 of the last still in the hangar bay, open space and the massive hulk of the Prometheus and the front tip of 1 of the motherships in view, in the background the awe-inspiring sight of the Swarm fleet, dotted with small ion and fusion drive trails from the shuttles and fighters already out to engage them.

Flapjack didn't waste any more time pushed the throttles to their max, even though the hangar bay was designated thrusters only because of the often heavy traffic and traffic controllers, Flapjack didn't see anything that could get into their way and he did see a damned good reason to get to those Swarm ships ASAP. The impulse drives however weren't warmed up yet and as such responded with a laziness normally found only in government bureaucrats, the ship started moving as the drives came up to full power, while the impulse drive itself hadn't established the warp field that made it fast and maneuverable.

As such it was inevitable that the vessel's acceleration suddenly changed from lurking forward at a snails pace to screaming off faster then a formula 1 car, somewhere in the back near the warp core a smuthered shout could be heard as the youngest crewmember, still used to the old freighter's rate of movement, was caught by surprise and tossed onto the ground. To the outside it must have seemed somewhat strange, the ship taking off, its fusion engines sending a stream of super-heated plasma and the ship hardly budging, then suddenly taking off like a rocket.

ooc/ More will be posted later, not edited in but posted. Mainly because I might be brave, but I'm not nuts /ooc

[mrmao]

Dylan was on the bridge in time to receive Admiral Morgan’s message. As it came in he gave the order for all fighters to launch. By the time his ship was undocked the Spartans were out, being followed by the 20 Vipers. The Spartans were heading toward the Mother ships; they were going to fly cover for them. The Vipers were to try and keep with the rest of the fleet helping as much as they could there. The Sphinx were going to fly cover for the Essex itself, this served two purposes. From there they could defend the ship, and if need they could make strikes at the enemy capital ships. However Dylan was not ready to risk fifteen fighters against the many hundred anti-fighter guns the enemy had.

Joseph was at the weapon consol as soon as he got a clear firing solution, he told Dylan. Dylan gave him the order to fire, he pushed the button. Two Anti- Matter Warheads were sent on there way towards an enemy Ravager. Joe remembered what he knew about fighter ops. The maulers were mounting the most anti-fighter weapons that could be dangerous to the fleet, not just fighters.

[Shadow275]

Three tiny red LED’s, that’s all she could see in pitch black of the quarters, three tiny pinpricks of light that pierced the darkness and showed her the way. She shivered slightly, the room was cold, very cold, like the engine room, it smelled of electronics and solder. Her steps were tentative, not wanting to disturb the infectious silence that pervaded the room, then, out of the darkness, another red light appeared, then the sound of a camera focusing…..

“I gave orders not to be disturbed”

She breathed in quickly, slightly frightened, she tried to locate where the voice had come from but couldn’t quite locate it…

“Sir, we have orders to move out…” she stammered.

“I am well aware of the orders”

She frowned, why had she been ordered to wake Farle if he already knew about the order? Damn Michael and his practical jokes….

“Michael told me to wake you, I am sorry sir…”

The pinpricks of red light disappeared.

“Sir?…..Sir?” She could feel the room closing in on her, she felt like an intruder in some twisted world, she edged backward, hit something on the floor and put her hands out to stop her fall…

The lights suddenly came on, she found herself in Farle’s arms, her eyes focused onto his bare chest, on an evil looking scar near his shoulder, she quickly recomposed herself and stood.

“Take care, Lieutenant, I might not be there to catch you next time”

“Ssssorry Sir” She turned her head away, but kept looking back at his scar, curious.

Farle turned around, heading toward his closet, the neural interface clicked slightly as he walked, the light shimmering off it.

“If you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’d quite like to get changed”

“….Of course sir!”

“I shall see you on the Bridge, tell Michael he’s on sensor tuning duty for the next week”

-

Sarah shut the door behind her, her heart still pounding in her chest, damn Michael, but she couldn’t help but think in the back of her mind, about his scar…No, she couldn’t be thinking that now…

She walked off toward the bridge.

-

Farle stepped out onto the bridge, not that he needed to be there, the neural link quite capable of supplying all the battle info and his responses, no, he did it for the bridge crew. He cast his psychic armour about himself, putting on a show, being brave while he felt afraid and put on his mask of strength.

“Well ladies and Gentlemen, lets get this show on the road, shall we?” He said, taking his command chair, “Now, I want torpedoes tubes 1-4 loaded with 400’s, all ion’s charged and all mass drives loaded, clear?”

“Yes sir” Sarah Davies said, still feeling a little embarrassed about her incident earlier on “Torpedoes are loaded, target, sir?

“Tube one and two should target the leechers, the other two the death gliders, lets see them dodge a nuclear explosion, as for the ions, target ships as we come into range, leave 8 of the rails’ to me and take the rest of them for yourselves.” He sat back into his seat, awaiting the neural surge that would accompany the turret controls.

“Aye sir, bridge crew, remote turret stations, as we practiced”

Screens rose from the bridge control decks, containing visuals of the turrets view and swarm targeting data. With the screens a control stick also rose, a single trigger market on it, simple controls for a simple job. Farle smiled in his closed eye control state, he knew the bridge crew were crack shots, they’d practiced for hours a day on simulations verses imaginary frigates and cruisers. He wondered for a moment if the rails would hold off the swarm, but cast it aside, for a warrior must only think of vanquishing his enemy and not petty minded things as worry.

The Teknokon one’s engines fired, the alien ship sped quickly from the ships at a quite remarkable speed, barrelling into weapons range as fast as was safely possible. Within a minute, four 400 megaton nuclear torpedoes flew from their tubes, the angels of death flew faster than even the Tek’ could fly, within 30 seconds of launch, the four nukes detonated just 6 cm off their targeted locations, taking with them hundreds of leechers and death gliders. The bridge crew cheered.

“Gentlemen!” He said, alittle angry, “Celebrations later, killing now!” Punctating his speech with rounds from the rail guns, ripping into a Hellraiser with tremendous force, the crew shortly following his example by firing their own turrets, blowing more holes into incoming vessels.

“Keep it tight people, don’t let ‘em through.”

[Spritely Zombie]

Alarms screeched into life across the docking station.

"Alert, Swarm ships detected. All hands to battle-stations." came the announcement.

Kane crammed the last mouthful of sandwich in his mouth as he grabbed his coat and drained the last half-inch of whatever the strange green drink the barman had given him. He activated his wrist-communicator, a superficially anachronistic device that while appearing much less sophisticated than modern comms systems, boasted a much wider array of features.

"How's it looking Canal?" he asked, dodging an ensign as he ran towards the docking bay, his coat billowing out behind him.

"Not good. Initial scans show we're outnumbered at least 20:1. Ravagers, Maulers, Hellraisers and of course Deathgliders and Leechers."

"No hive ships?"

"No. Not yet anyhow. Opening airlock door."

A seemless section of the Swordbreakers slightly pearlescent stark white hull slid inwards and upwards almost directly in front of Kane, who leapt lightly (courtesy of the docking bays reduced gravity) into the opening, hammering the airlock controls almost before crossing over the threshold. There was a barely noticable hiss as the air was equalised and the gravity generators kicked in.

"Hope it stays that way." continues Kane as he runs down the white, well-lit, spartan and spacious main corridor.

The bridge door was already open before Kane even reached it, and he vaulted into the pilots chair.

"Pre-flight?"

"Already cleared. We're just waiting for launch clearance." said Canal, choosing to display herself on the main vid-screen, rather than use the high-res holographic interface. She hadn't even finished speaking beforeKane had fired up the maneuvering thrusters.

"We've not got launch clearance yet!" she protested, now choosing to manifest in her holographic form, seemingly only so she could yell directly into Kane's ear.

"And we've not got time to wait around." There was no arguing with him once he got like this.

Kane paused a moment, watching the bustle of people climbing into ships. He eased the maneuvering thrusters up a fraction, accelerating to over 100kph in less than a second. The sleek dual-pronged hull of the swordbreaker pierced through the magcon field, designed to keep the bay pressurized while effectively open to space, the field reformed almost instantly. Kane banked hard to port, narrowly avoiding a shuttle ferrying the last civilians from the station. A huge grin was plastered over his face.

"Port control is on the comms. They want to know what you were thinking. And are wishing you luck."

"Send them the same." A much more sombre, almost sullen expression appeared on his face, quickly replaced by a look of determination.

"Enemy fleet is estimated to arrive in extreme weapons range in approximately ten minutes. Several defence force ships have already moved to engage."

"Impatient aren't they. We don't even know what vector we're supposed to be escorting these blasted behemoths out on, let alone what our final destination is going to be." he sighed, "Deploy drones and run through final weapons checks."

He oriented the swordbreaker towards the Swarm fleet, and hung there in space, using the maneuvering thrusters to hold his position, hand gripping the main thruster controls so tightly his knuckles were white...

[Heiro]

The ship and crew sit silent throughout the final broadcasts of the sensor outpost. The eerie noise of faster than light speed travel echoes around the silent ship, and on the bridge, the crackling of the transmission breaks away into nothing… Alex stands slowly, rubbing his face and eyes before coming to attention and saluting.
“Those were the bravest amongst us. I honour them and their families”
The rest of the bridge crew follow suit, slowly and in formation.
Settling down, the output from the sensor station runs through the battle computer and into the main sensor station.
“We estimate that Bilibrige will last 8 minutes against that fleet. With its current defenses”
“Pandora has been wrong before.”
Not often, sir
Ignoring her, Alex looks at the helm console operator.
“ETA?”
“We will drop below light speed in 20 seconds. The deceleration process will begin and we will encounter enemy ships within half a minute. Tops.”
“Do not decelerate. We will plough right through.”
“Sir?”
“And pray that someone follows us backing us up.”
The radio operator cuts in.
“The Optimus, Starfire and Galliant are requesting orders.”
“Ah. Tell them to follow. Keeping loose formation mu-alpha-two, similar to the lacus three encounter.”
“Responses received. One of note:
Only if you bring the bottle, this time.”
Alex chuckles.
“Of course”

*

All chaos seemed to break loose at the point in space designated FTL safe distance from the station. Federation regulations state clearly that all ships within the flight path of a station and resupply centre must decelerate to .35C before considering asking docking permission. The fluctuations in spatial flux ripple out from the eye of the FTL corridor. A burst of photonic light floods out preemptively before half a second later what looks like an eruption of sorts tears its way back into normal space and time. In that one hour, they had traveled many many hours, and the ships were repaired and refueled to the best of their mobile ability. Leading the pack, the legana breaks the threshold first, still traveling at 0.97C. The light from the station glistens off its hull; the gaseous cloud around the point of origin shimmers and ignites as the ship passes. Like a blur, three further shapes follow it. Deceleration starts, of course, ripping the ships back toward a more sensible speed for all space users. By default, FTL is far above the safe speed. Slightly slower than light, SSTL, isn’t much better…
…Nor, given 10 seconds full ion drives is ‘Much slower than light’. The ships angle themselves through space toward the swarm fleet.

“All ahead full!” barks Alex, from his seat of control.
“Multiple targets sir! Engulfing the screen sir!”
“I suggest we get a weapon lock on something and show those bastards that they can’t have those ships.”
“Aye!”

*
In the cargo bay, or sorts, The baron moves his ammo container onto the loader and beside the rough shake of ‘re-entry’ manages to load it into the vessel swiftly. Given his practice encounter and the status of the Legana’s single fighter vessel, Baron feels he would rather be hiding rather than fighting. But his luck never did hold out long. Deactivating the bays gravity, he vaults off the floor and covers the 40ft to the top of his ship in one leap. His eyes gaze over its surface, shining with darkened metal plates, and curved into the body of a gleaming warrior…
…His mech stands ready. XLEV-0871, codename: Protostar Alpha, stands in stoic glory. Entering the cockpit, Baron enters his pilot confirmation code, and grasps the handles. Swinging the arms around deftly, he grasps the rifle and pistol sidearms and the energy powerpack to their left. Kneeling down, he attaches them before moving again.
“Captain, I’m ready to depart from the top launcher. Whenever you’re ready.”

*
“Aye Baron, good timing. You’ve got 30 seconds, max.”
“Weapons lock scored sir. We’ve picked out a trio of Ravagers breaking away from the fleet.”
“Then fire a warning shot across the rank behinds bow.”
“With pleasure sir”

The habdak bowcasters on the deck swivel into position. 3 bolts of blazing solar energy begin to change briefly, and before long three shots echo into the dark void ahead of them.
“3 away!”
The bolts stream through space, nearly instantaneously to the human eye coming into contact with three separate ravagers. The shots flare brightly apon impact, turning one of the ships into a pair of smaller ships. The other two however, break through the weapons fire nearly intact, beside the hole. 10 seconds later, they both explode, the weapon discharge reaching the primary engines and power supply.
“Fire again”
The principle rail gun turrets swivel, and firing a bolt each they attempt to tear into the swarm of ships, firing almost indiscriminately. Behind and beside them, the Optimus, Starfire and Galliant…

[Shadow275]

I bump this thread like I was cheap whore looking to score.

[Bakan]

DM'ing come most likely Saturday (Friday most likely out due to Fiancee arriving).

Those who do not post..... tsk tsk, hope you all like dead ships.

[flapjack]

Just kill off the crew so we can salvage (most) of them

[mrmao]

yeha because most of our big ships haven't posted

[Bakan]

Yup, DM tomorrow, unless the rest of this evening I'm productive.

And oh yeah, say hello to Mr. Hiveship.

[Bakan]

Onslaught – Alcohol Fueled Dreams…….
September 23rd, 19,124 GSY (Galactic Standard Year)

The vastness of space always takes a breath away from one who leaves the comfort of their home planet for the first time. The sheer distances that is encompasses are still undefined, still unknown. Looking at the Milky Way galaxy (as coined by the race known as Human’s), the galaxy looks peaceful, calm, welcoming. Zooming in rapidly, past stars, nebula’s, asteroids, comets, one then sees the broken ships, the masses of organic components that were once sentient beings. Planets swarmed with beings that did not evolve on that planet, but instead raped them of their resources.

Flying through the systems, the one designated Bilibrige, where a massive shipyard of the Federation was located. The shipyards floating around the orbit of the 3rd planet in the system, seemingly unconcerned by the activities of the ships launching from it, some turning to flee, others turning to face the new arrivals to the system. The two groups face each other, launching a variety of weapons at each other, with the intent to control the system.

Prometheus Command Ship – Main Bridge
06:07 Earth Military Time

Standing tall, staring down at the tactical display in the center of the command and control center on the Prometheus. The Prometheus, designed for heavy combat had her main bridge so to speak deep within her, to prevent a lucky hit from taking out the command staff. Thus he was not able to see out any viewports, but the data feeds to the sensor displays painted a disturbing picture of events. The Swarm ships out numbed his small fleet by a significant number, almost 20:1, with his fleet mostly in the middle of undocking procedures. Taking off his antique glasses, Incom pulls out a cloth and slowly cleans them as Commander Tyson ordered the rest of the ship to combat readiness.

Admiral Incom: “Give me tactical hologram.”

Over the tactical console, a 3-D hologram appeared, showing the Bilibrige system. Automatically zooming in towards the 3rd planet, Bilibrige Prime, over which in a high polar orbit were the shipyards, Incom watched his fleet slowly move into formation. The Swarm fleet, coming from out-system, were rapidly advancing from the 4th planet. Putting his glasses back on, Incom watched the holographic representations of the motherships slowly undock and pull away, with the Battlestar Adama staying with them, with the Battlestar Apollo flying several kilometers alongside the Prometheus, with all of them aiming towards the 2nd planet in the Bilibrige system, to which the Swarm fleet wait aiming towards as well.

Lt. Gatta: “Admiral, all motherships report successful undocking and engine power-up. They are moving away from the Swarm fleet at 2/3rds speed, best they report they can do for the next few minutes as their engines warm up.”

Admiral Incom: “How many did we leave behind.”

At that question, Lt. Gatta, the primary situation officer, responsible for keeping track of all ships in the fleet and their status, paled slightly under his young face. Briefly Incom remember meeting him, fresh from the academy 10 years ago, yet he had saw the potential in the young graduates eyes, along with the report about his ability to multitask. Seeing him pale slightly, Incom braced himself.

Lt. Gatta: “We got approximately 59% onboard them, the rest…. Didn’t have time for the rest. Motherships report they need 10 minutes to get FTL capacity.”

Sighing to himself, for barely over 50% of the personal was far less that he had hoped for. Turning to the holograms, Bakan watched as some of the ships started to move into attack formations against the Swarm, while others formed up defensively around the motherships. The Swarm ships on the other hand rushed forward, their Deathgliders taking point, with the rest of their ships trailing behind. Some of the ships even started opening fire without waiting for orders. While he could not see which weapons were behind fired, Incom was able to know which ship fired and its results. As such, watching the Essex (mrmao) open fire after deployed her own fighters, with the sole result being the destruction or crippling of a Ravager, and attracting the attention of many more Swarm ships. The Teknokon One (Shadow 275) also opened fire, though her results were much better, for use of nuclear torpedoes, with their large blast radius against fighters broke apart several deathglider formations, temporarily throwing them into disarray. All to quickly the formations closed back up, with what appeared to be five Maulers chaing their vectors slightly to bear down on the Teknokon One.

Admiral Incom: “Mr. Gatta, inform Teknokon one that they have five Maulers and one Ravager changing vectors to bear on her. Order her to change course, come towards the Prometheus and Battlestar Apollo. Order the Battlestar Apollo to beging suppression fire to break up the Deathglider and Leecher formations bearing down on the Teknokon One. Order the Essex to pull back, and recall her fighters, we can’t afford to loose them if we have to make a emergency jump. Order the Swordbreaker (Gokan) to decelerate from the motherships and form up with us, granting covering fire to the Essex.

Lt. Gatta: “Sending orders sir, wait incoming friendly profiles, position, relative aft of Swarm fleet.”

Listening to Lt. Gatta relay the orders, Incom watched at four new signal appeared towards the aft ranks of the Swarm fleet. IFF quickly tagged them as friendly, and Incom smiled slightly as they register being under the command of Captain Alex Ro (Heiro). Where he got the extra ships, Incom could only guess at the moment, but their high speed run through the Swarm formations in the aft end were causing what appeared rampant confusion.

Admiral Incom: “Mr. Gatta, welcome the new arrivals, and order them to pull a high speed recovery run towards the rest of the fleet ASAP.”

“INCOMING WORMHOLE!”

Turning to a ensign, in charge of the long range wormhole sensors, used to detected Swarm ships emering from their version of FTL, Admiral Incom saw the ensign shaking and pale.

Admiral Incom: “Profile signature, NOW!”

Ensign: “H-Hiveship sir.”

Biting back several colorful curses, Incom turned back to the holographical display, where the Swarm ships rapidly made a hole in their formations towards their aft forces. In that hole, a new hologram blinked into existence, dwarfing the nearby Ravagers. A Swarm hiveship, and out of the dozens of engagements where they were present, only three were confirmed destroyed, in battles that ended up being losses for the Federation. A Hiveship dangerously close to Alex Ro’s tiny formation.

Admiral Incom: “Mr. Gatta, order Alex Ro’s ships OUT OF THAT AREA NOW!!”

Turning back to the display, Incom watched as several pinpricks of lights appeared from the Hiveship as she launched her craft, and others that represented Plasma Beam Cutters. The cutters streaked towards Alex Ro’s small formation, striking all the ships. Two of them blinked out, representing either kills of disabling, in either case, out of the fight. The other two changed color slightly, indicating some damage suffered. The hiveship meanwhile started to move towards Bilibrige.

Cmdr. Tyson: “We can’t go toe to toe with that ship.”

Admiral Incom: “Agreed. Order our long range weapons to commence firing at the incoming fighters, punch us a hole in their formations. Order Apollo to scramble her fighters and fly through that hole, along with the Essex’s fighters as well. They are to fight towards Alex Ro’s surviving ships and escort them out.”

Cmdr. Tyson: “Gunnery stations, Prep the Gauss Cannons. Open fire on targets of opportunity in the designated coordinates.”

Outside the Prometheus, the long range Gauss cannons smoothly turned towards the Swarm ships, then fired. The recoil shoved the barrels back, which then moved back to their original position before firing another salvo. The red bolts, barely visible, made their presence felt when they ran into Swarm ships, tearing through their hull armor. The Cannons slowly adjusted their aim, creating a fire free and ship free cone in the Swarm formations.

The Apollo’s Viper fighters, launching out of the launch tubes at full speed, moved in formation under the Prometheus. The gunnery operators ceased fire long enough for them to enter the cone. The pilots, many of them scared still, for a wrong jerk on the flight yoke would mean entering the Prometheus’s firing solution. Firing at another that managed to survive, they streaked towards Alex Ro’s surviving ships.

Orders & Status:

• Admiral Incom Morgan Forces
  • Prometheus - Intact
  • Battlestar Apollo - Intact
  • Battlestar Adama - Intact
  • Mothership #1 – Intact – Shields Raised
  • Mothership #2 – Intact – Shields Raised
  • Mothership #3 – Intact – Shields Raised
  • Mothership #4 – Intact – Shields Raised
  • Mothership #5 – Intact – Shields Raised
• Hewitt: No Orders - POST
  • Yamato - Intact
• Flapjack: Provide Fighter Protection to Motherships
  • Scouter - Intact
• Disrupter: No Orders - POST
  • Agitator - Intact
• Mrmao: No Orders - POST
  • Essex – Intact – Incoming 60 Deathgliders – 60 Leechers
• Inspectre: No Orders - POST
  • Thanatos - Intact
• Kal’rek: No Orders - POST
  • Sh1t - Intact
• Richpur: No Orders - POST
  • Agamemnon - Intact
• Flaag: No Orders - POST
  • Oyhrna - Intact
• Heiro: Orders – Break through enemy formations and regroup with main fleet.
  • Legana – Minor external damage
  • Optimus – Major Damage, Multiple Hull Breaches, Small Internal Fires
  • Starfire – Crippled, Internal Fires, No Primary Power
  • Galliant – Crippled, Internal Fires, Partial Primary Power
• Shadow275: Survive Incoming Forces, Form up with Prometheus and Apollo
  • Teknokon One – Intact – Incoming 5 Maulers, 1 Ravager
• Gokan: Form up with Prometheus and Apollo
  • Swordbreaker - Intact

[Bakan]

[ooc]Yeah Yeah, I felt like writing this evening, so I DM'ed. Those of you that didn't post, okay, you got a breather this time. Next time..... your ships start taking damage in the range off "redshirts die, main crewmembers get hurt." DM post after that, we go into the realm of "Hmmm, maybe I should make a new ship now."

If you have orders, I suggest you follow, but be creative. Also take damage suffered into account when you post. If you act like nothing happens when I say you take damage, I get annoyed, and ships explode.

That's it. My alcohol fueled brain desires sleep now.

P.S. Oh yeah, PLEASE don't engage the Hiveship, m'kay [/ooc]

[Fluffie]

Tee hee. Kind of stole equipment from you all




The Dakota

A reasonably standard ship. Manned by men (and women). Captained by Mr. Fluffie. No fancy AI and stuff as we speak. Bit of a silly ship really, but oh well.

Class: Leviathan
Lenght: Some 1.2 kilometers
Reactors: 6 Heavy Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactors
Sublight: Heavy and normal Ion Drives
FTL: Ditochi Quantum Drive
Armour: Altered Ultra-dense Crystalline Self-regenerating Alloy
Shields: None
Flight Deck: Empty
Armaments: 24 Torpedo Tubes, 18 Graviton Beam Generators, 8 Ion Beam Cannons, 36 PDTs

Shiptype: Dakota-class Leviathan

One of the largest classes of ships in the Federation fleet, Leviathans often serve as flagships, or at the very least, are used to spearhead assaults against enemy formations. This special and one of a kind Leviathan was constructed for some obscure reason only few people know about. Rumour has it that it was based on a crazy idea someone high up once had, along with enough influence to actually realise it.
About the same size as Inspectre, so some 1.2 kilometers.


Armour: Altered Ultra-dense Crystalline Self-regenerating Alloy

The ship appears to be uniformly armoured by an ultra-dence crystalline substance (coloured metal plating black alike) that seems at least as hard as the latest battleship hull plating and is exceptionally resilient against both energy and kinetic weaponry. It also appears to be able to absorb energy and regenerate over time, new crystals growing to close breaches. The energy can be either ambient (such as sunlight) or direct, such as laser or plasma fire. The Dakota is fitted with a system that is able to provide the energy from within, allowing for faster regeneration, allowing the ship to recover from heavy battles faster.

These crystals seem to contain some kind of regulating system, forcing the crystals to regrow into the ships original configuration. When the alloy was being fitted onto the vessel, a system was installed, allowing the internal system used to (re)grow crystals after a battle to actually grow extra crystals, allowing the ship to prepare better for an upcoming heavy duty engagement. These extra crystals are the same strenght, but don’t seem able to remain for a longer period. Over time, they’ll just break off into little shards, which in turn will eventually entirely fade away, as if melting.


Shields: Currently not installed.


Power system: Heavy Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactors

Heavy Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactors: Primarily a Fusion reactor, at the core of which is a series of precisely timed and controlled anti-matter detonations, which give off enough energy to maintain the Fusion reaction. Using this method, ship equipped with this power system do not have to refuel often, and even then a majority of the required fuel is simple hydrogen, rather than anti-matter.

There are 6 of these Reactors aboard The Dakota, all buried deep in the centre of the ship, placed along a line on a large deck. This allows for faster and easier maintenance, but if one malfunctions and things go bad, the vessel has a serious problem.
The rather large amount of these immense Reactors aboard a reasonably small vessel give it an immense amount of power, which is used by various systems.


Engine system - Sublight: Ion Drives

Heavy and normal Ion drives, functioning as the energy and stripped electrons released from the Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactor are dumped out into space, propelling the ship in the direction the exhaust is pointed at.
With 8 heavy Ion drives, the Dakota is able of reaching large speeds reasonably fast.
Positioned all around the ship are normal Ion drives, designed and implemented for maneuvering the ship. Due to its size though, the Dakota ain’t a fighter.


Engine systems – FTL: Ditochi Quantum Drive

Manufactured by Ditochi Industries, this is the FTL installed aboard the Dakota. When activated, the drive opens up a portal to Quantum Space, an area in between all the matter of the universe. From there, the Dakota can then egress to a point in the normal galaxy several light-years away. However, the drive is prone to over-heating, and thus only short, several lightyear at a time jumps are possible, before the drive has to cool down. As such, it often takes the Dakota several jumps to make it anywhere, although the nature of Quantum Space, and getting there, makes pursuit of the vessel difficult, at least until it drops back out of Quantum Space.


Weapon system: Assault Torpedo Tubes

Large cylindrical launching bays for advanced, large, armoured, self-guiding and self-propelled projectiles. Warheads of various types can be stored in mechanised cargo bays and loaded onto torpedo bodies when required.
Currently there is only one type of warhead stored aboard the Dakota, a most destructive one, with a damage-rating of two torpedo hits equalling the strenght of an Assault MAC hit. They need to be loaded with care, so reloading is a bitch. Once out in the open, they are a relatively easy target, but at close range the large number of torps (24 down facing tubes) the Dakota is able to spit out, they can be a real pain in the ass. Can be programmed to detonate in space, taking down any possible fighters with them.


Weapon system: Graviton Beam Generators

Each Graviton Beam Generator fires out a targeting laser, which allows each generator's targeting computer to lock-onto and track a target. A few mini-seconds after the targetting laser confirms a "hit" on an enemy vessel, the Beam Generator sends a gravity pulse down along the laser's path, hitting the enemy ship with a sudden, pin-point gravity spike, which is often equal to the gravity generated by a gas-giant. Such sudden pressures can tear a small ship apart in a single hit, and larger ships often have at least hull breaches to attend to.
There are 18 of these puppies aboard the Dakota, 6 covering the port-down-side, 6 covering the down-starboard-side and 6 covering the starboard-up-port arc of the Leviathan.


Weapon system: Ion Beam Cannons

Firing beams of ionized particles, sustained fire of these weapons can be draining on the reactors of the ship. Comparable to the Hiveship’s Plasmabeam Cutters, they are only 2 meter in diameter but just as likely to knock ships around. They have an equally long range and accuracy. The beams are shiny blue and can be adjusted during fire, tracking a ship if so desired. In contrast to their Swarm counterparts, these beams can’t be interrupted by shooting at it. Due to their size and likelyness to overheat if there are too many around, these babies aren´t mounted as plentyfully on the Dakota as once desired.
There are 4 Ion Beam Cannons covering the fore arc and 4 covering the aft arc.


Weapon system: Point-Defense-Turrets; Heavy Flak Cannons & Rail Guns

PDT’s, or Point-Defense-Turrets, are deployable stations set up in a pattern to provide maximum field of fire. While considered old, they have proven unusually effective against Swarm ships. These turrets are equipped with 2 different systems:
- 2 Heavy Flak Cannons – Designed for long-range interception, each turret launches a explosive shell that detonates at a pre-set distance, sending out waves of debris, or flak. The flak is primarily designed to intercept missiles, but can cause significant damage to fighters, both hostile and friendly, hence while these guns are firing, fighters are ordered clear of the firing solution.
- 2 Rail Guns – Using magnetic rails to accelerate small pellets of ferrous metals to near lightspeed velocities, these cannons are used against fighters that managed to get to close. With most of the force coming from the pellet's velocity, only enemy fighters and missiles are often greatly effected.
There are 36 PDTs spread around the hull of the Dakota, providing an area of cover as large as possible.


Flight Deck: A bit empty

Only shuttles, small non-combat craft and lifepods are aboard the Dakota at this time.








now i should prolly undock or something, right?

[Spritely Zombie]

"The Prometheus is signalling for us to form up on her, and cover the Essex."

"Roger." says Kane, deflty manipulating the maneuvering controls, orienting the ship towards the Prometheus. "I love this part..."
Kane sets the main thruster controls to full power.

The swordbreakers four primary plasma turbines start to spin. Faster and faster, after a few seconds they're rotating so fast that the human eye can't detect any motion at all. There's a momentary flash of blue as the test-load passes through the engines. Then, an almighty wave of blueish incandescance floods the turbines and is spun into coherance before being funneled by a high-strength magnetic containment field and ejected at stupendously high pressures.

The Swordbreaker hurtles forwards, leaving quad trails of rapidly dispersing plasma in her wake.

On board the bridge, Kane is pressed back into the cushioned flight chair by G-forces that would be impressive on a planet, let alone out here so far out that planetary and solar gravity is normally unnoticable. He throttles back and the Swordbreaker ceases to accelerate, he applys a few minor course adjustments to bring her course parrallel to the Prometheus.

"Why you don't just use the inertial dampeners I don't know..."

Kane flashes a grin, "More interesting this way. Though you can turn them on now. And I need tactical."

A barely noticable tremor runs through Kanes body as the inertial dampeners kick in. At the same time a view of the system appears on-screen, data being amalgamated from the numerous sensor buoys.

Kane lets out an appreciative whistle. "The Essex sure pissed off someone." Tapping a few controls the scene zooms in on the Essex and her new fighter 'escort'. "Ok, lets see firing solutions on those fighers, starboard batteries only. And be careful, the Essex uses polarised hull-plating, one calibration error and we'll end up opening her up to vacuum."

A series of lines, updated in real-time appear on the display indicating the theoretical trajectory of the shots. Kane notices there's a fair amount of deflection around the Essex's hull.

As if reading his mind, Canal speaks. "I adjusted the cannon polarity to match the Essex's hull, even if the Essex manages to get in the way, the shot should be almost totaly deflected."

"Great job. Open fire."

Hatches open in the swordbreakers starboard side, revealing red crystalline focusing elements. There is a crackle of energy and then a white-glow as the weapons charge. A moment later the glow spreads out across the space between the weapon and the target, moving rapidly--curving almost mejestically-- to unload it's deadly packet of energy onto deathgliders and leechers alike. Several volleys tear through the flimsy fighters, the beams curving towards new targets and unleashing the remains of their energy onto them, adding to the carnage...

[flapjack]

As the Scouter cleared the shuttle bay and Bilibridge, the other ships had all started moving as well, behind him Flapjack could hear the usual activity of combat readiness checks.

TO: "Master arm active, all weapons charging."

EO: "Reactors at full power, impulse boosters ready

CO: "We have our orders, we are to cover the motherships from Leecher and Deathglider attacks, and I've already been as nice as to calculate incoming vectors."

Flapjack didn't even respond to the various calls around him, he knew what to do and so did everybody else, a small red light blinked to indicate he had direct control over the 2 forward pulse phasers, the other weapons remained with his tactical officer. A short while later they had taken up position around the motherships, using their far greater speed and manueverability to run circles around the motherships and get a good view of the situation.

3 minutes past before the Deathgliders came close enough, the Scouter breaking away from the motherships rather abrubtly and making a head-on pass on a wing of Deathgliders approaching them, pulse phasers tearing 2 apart as they crossed the Scouter's path, globs of phaser energy being spit out in the side of the first, causing its wing to crumple into the rest of the fighter and leaving it an unrecognisable piece of debris, the second Deathglider turned to face the Scouter, before catching a blast in the c*ckpit.

Unseen to him, the TO took out another 3 Deathgliders with carefully aimed phaser blasts from the phaser VIIs, saving the photons for later, when there would be bigger targets

[Heiro]

…The Optimus, Starfire and Galliant thrust left, forming a tight defensive wedge for the rough ride ahead. On the bridge of the Optimus, captain hawk prepares his final briefing to the crew, whilst ordering his men to open fire. From the other ships also, thunder rains from the sky, slashing into hundreds of hive ships. The orange-yellow beams of plasma from their standard armaments rip into ships as the leeches and deathgliders swarm fully around all 4 ships. The optimus, as with the plan, begins to recharge its FTL drive, ready to break out of the system again and conduct repairs.

*
Baron nudges the controls and leaps from the outer deck of the Legana, brandishing his rifle and energy shield. His ion drive activates, burning a lovely trail of white hot gas and throwing it into his wake, burning a large patch on the hull of the Legana also. Like a nimble fairy he dashes off into the masses off ships around the Legana, watching it disappear into the distance. Activating his radio, Baron speaks:
“Don’t wait. I’ll be back when I’ve exausted my ammunition. Or if I die…”
Alex Ro speaks back:
“We’ll give you a full military burial. Kill those bastards, will you?”
“Aye, sir”
Thrusting left, Baron avoids the plasma cannons from a battery of deathgliders. Ginking to the left, he enters the group, slamming into one with his shield and shooting apart the next with his gun. Holstering his rifle after those shots, he releases his clasp on the energy sword at his belt. Powering it up, he slashes through three Deathgliders in one swing. Slashing a parry toward a unit of incoming Leeches, he thrusts forward toward the nearest Mauler, and readies his emergency boosters…
*

“Holy **** sir!”
“What?” replies Alex. Any good captain knows when his officers swear they should be high tailing it away from the reason.
“A new unit just dropped into the battle, for obvious reasons it was slower than their main fleet…”
“And their goes our plan. Activate the secondary Ion engines and get us the hell out of here!”
The hive ship glides as gracefully as a fat hippopotamus on ice skates through space toward the growing battle. Powering it’s weapons, it opens fire into the renegade fleet led by the Legana.
“Evasive action now! Transmit the order to the other ships.”
The shots from its main plasma weapons fire into space…
“Raise the Zavour shield”
To impact on the Legana’s burst shield. The shots slowly wear through the energy barrier, flaring white light across the viewports all around the ship.
“10 seconds remaining”
The beams continue pounding across the shield, continuously firing.
“5 seconds”
The beams focus on a single point, wearing it away like an ablative plate.
“3 seconds”
The shield collapses, and the stream of white hot yellow plasma burns into the hull, taking a layer of ablative with it. On the bridge, a console explodes, knocking the bottle of wine from the side over and spilling it in the second-in-commands lap.
“Damn! This was my new dress”
Alex ignores her.
“Pandora, reports on the other ships, fast.”
Aye captain. Reports coming in suggest that the Optimus survived, however the Starfire and Galliant are in worse shape…
…however, she was interrupted by a transmission from the Optimus:
“This is hawk” it crackles “We took heavy damage… We’re activating our charged FTL once the remaining escape pods from the Galliant are aboard. The Starfire… she’s sinking captain, nothing we can do…”
Alex looks at the radio operator
“Send the reply: Thank you. Now get us out of here!”

*
[ooc] Ok! That’s… Not good. Sending the Optimus out on FTL, to rejoin the fleet later after repairs. Otherwise, I’m running
Otherwise, sorry: I'm not feeling that creative today. It just didn't flow [/ooc]

[mrmao]

There were a hundred and twenty ships heading his way he was already sending orders to reroute his fighters. “Okay people get P.T. with his Spartans back here to cover our rears. The Vipers are to cover our Sphinxes, The Sphinxes are to use there nukes as liberally as they want we need a way out and they are going to make it for us. I want those plasma turrets hitting the enemy lechers first.”
* * *

P.T. was already on his way back, they had orders to hit anything remotely fighter class that took a shot at the Essex. His thirty fighters came into range with the Swarm ships enroute to the Essex. His Reticule turned red indicating a missile lock. “Gentlemen fire at will.” With that P.T. let one of his missiles fly before targeting another fighter and letting lose another. There were sixty small explosions among the enemy fighter forces, some missed some hit, but it broke up there formation for dog fighting. His smaller force of fighters hit the enemy just as the Essex itself was opening up on the leechers.

P.T. Picked out a death glider and started firing. The Death Glider went into a spiral. P.T. quickly followed. The alien fighter pulled out hoping to get behind P.T., but P.T. was too good for that. He pulled out two and depressed the trigger on his flight stick. Pieces of the Death Glider Began to become molten and fall of under P.T.’s fire. Then he hit a primary system and the Death Glider exploded. That was one down.

[Crazyboy]

Delta Cluster
Delta 4
Firehammer Shipyards
3 Weeks Prior to Operation Hope
05:32 Hours

Davis Granger sat in the control tower of the giant ‘Firehammer’ shipyards, idly watching as literally thousands of EVA workers swarmed around the equally giant superstructure of the newest class of ship, the Super-Battlestar. He enjoyed these nightshifts. He was currently the only one in the control tower, and all the systems were on autopilot. He was only there for when the supply ships periodically arrived, they went to the right hangers. It wouldn’t do to have a ship full of power-cells to arrive at the wrong end of the ship. It would be a long hike for the poor crew to take them to the right place.

Davis sat back in his chair and smiled. It wasn’t half bad here. This was a relatively small system, but was well defended. That meant that it wouldn’t be a prime target of the Swarm. And that made Davis feel safe. His gave wandered towards the huge nebula’s that surrounded the system. He tried making out shapes in their brightly coloured shifting gasses. It was like watching the clouds drift by back on Earth on a nice spring day.

Davis frowned. Something was different today. He leant forward to try and get a better look. Something definitely seemed odd. He lit up his console and aimed one of the powerful external cameras towards the nebula and zoomed in.

“Holy shit…”

Firehammer Battle station
05:40 Hours

“I have nothing on my scopes Mister Davis.”
“Damn your sensors! I know what I’ve seen. Turn your friggin’ cameras around. Sector 95.”
“Look, if there was anything out there, our sensors would have picked it up. Stop being paranoid.”
“Damn it man! There’s an entire fleet heading our way.”
“Fine, fine, fine. If it’ll shut you up.”

Lieutenant Joseph Turner pulled himself on his chair across to another work station. He tapped in a few commands into the computer, turning one of the outboard cameras and aiming it towards the nebula. He sat there for a few minutes, scanning and searching around where the shipyard controller had been pestering. He couldn’t see anything…

“Bloody hell.”

He scooted back to his station.

”Thank you Mister Davis. That’ll be all.”

Lieutenant Turner switched off the comm channel, before punching the ‘panic’ button. Throughout the station klaxon’s blared.
Major Tom Garner, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown, burst into the control room.

“What the hell’s going on son?!” Angry at being woken so early by the most serious of alarms, hoping that it was an accident.
“Swarm vessel’s detected in system. They’ve sneaked past our outer sensor posts.”
“What! How?!” The anger suddenly subsided from the Major, only to be replaced by shock and fear. But he couldn’t let it show to his subordinates. “Never mind that. Alert all ships. Lock down this station and prepare for a fight. How long until contact?”
“ETA is 20 minutes sir. They’ll be on our scopes any second…”

And with that a mass of red lights started flashing on and off, along with a rather annoying beep, to alert of hostile contacts.

“Right. I’ll just go get dressed then. Go job son.”

The Major turned and hurried out of the command centre, as other men and women hurried about, running to their stations. The alarms could only mean one thing. Attack and that by the swarm. Many hopped it was just another drill, but that hope died as soon as they arrived at their stations.

SBS Armageddon
Firehammer Shipyards
06:28 Hours

“Status?!”
“Engine shakedown at 87%. Fusion reactors will be online in 3 minutes. Secondary power is online, but we can’t do anything until we’re clear of the shipyards.”
“And we can’t move clear of the shipyards until they release the docking clamps. Damnit! What’s taking them so long?”
“Uh… sir. I think I found out why.”

The control tower of the shipyard was aflame. Bodies lay scattered over the floor, with pools of blood everywhere. It had taken a hit from a Plasma Beam Cutter. The body of Davis Granger moved slightly. He groaned. Blood covered his face from a gash across his head. His hands were burnt from the fires at his console. He opened his eyes and wished he hadn’t as pain tore through his body. Gritting his teeth, he slowly pulled himself up. He looked up, trying to gauge how the battle was going outside, but all the screens showed static, bar one. For a moment a picture blinked on, followed by a voice, but it disappeared. It appeared again momentarily, for a bit longer this time, but still distorted. He recognised the face. It was the commander of the newly built ship. But why was he shouting at the control tower? Surely they’d be in the fight by now…

“Bugger.”

Using what remained of his strength, Davis stumbled forward and threw two large switches.

The Armageddon shock.

One by one, charges that had been fitted into the docking clamps of the Firehammer shipyards blew, wrenching the clamps from the super-structure of the shipyard. Bits of metal pinged of the hull of the Armageddon, as it dropped suddenly from the supports holding it. Now free of anything to stop it, the massive engines of the huge ship slowly burst to life. One by one, the huge engines turned bright blue as ion particles were thrust out of them. The ship slowly gained speed as it move away from the shipyard…

[To be continued]

- - - - - - - - - - -

3 Weeks Later

The bridge of the Armageddon was solemnly quiet. The crew watched on the multiple view screens as the Swarm fleet broke through the outer sensor screen and made for the defending fleet. The comm’s officer had managed to get an uplink from one of the station’s in the system and was feeding that link into the bridge’s screens.

“Well. It looks like we’ll be late for the party. No matter. I’m sure they won’t have missed us that much. Lets ready this ship for combat. I want all weapons locked and loaded for when we arrive.” Captain Richard Sharpe ordered quietly. They had all just watched two ships get gutted. Not a good start to any fight. He looked down at his hands. Both were clenched in tight fists. He was barely controlling his anger. But now was not a good time to loose his temper. He had to remain calm and in control. They had to time their insertion right, or everything would go tits up.

Gunnery Sergeant Mike Walsh watched through the large perspex windows as the large auto-mated loading system picked up a large metal slug off a trolley and slid it into the large chamber that lead to the barrel of the number 3 Assault MAC. As the crane unloaded its second round, Mike flicked the next two switches on his console. The crane went into the ‘idle’ position and the huge magnetic coils that propelled the round started charging up. Slowly, the reading on his console rose, showing a steady charge to the MAC capacitors.

Meanwhile, a similar thing was happening in the missile and torpedo silo’s, but in a smaller scale. Small cranes picked up a torpedo or missile, from their storage bays, located on the walls, and slid them into their designated tubes. The gunnery crews looked on quietly as the missile and torpedo silos were loaded.

“ETA?”
“We’re approaching the final jump point now sir.”

The tension on the bridge could be cut with a knife. The crew still remembered their last encounter with the Swarm, and it had not been a happy affair.

“All gun batteries report they are armed and dangerous sir.” Lieutenant Matthias reported from his console. He was the tactical officer of the ship, but, like nearly every other officer on the bridge, it wasn’t where he had been 3 weeks before, and thus he was feeling rather nervous.
“Alright. Have we got a sensor feed from the battle?” Captain Sharpe wanted to make sure they arrived where they were needed the most.
“Aye sir. We have indeed. Massive amounts of enemy ships as usually. I’m also picking up a Hiveship sir. Looks like the Swarm want to make sure they win this fight.”
“Damn and blast. Right. Bring us in right on to of that mother. We’re the only ones with enough firepower to deal with it and deal with it we will. We’ll give the federation a victory they desperately need. As soon as we arrive, I want all our forward batteries concentrating their fire on that Hiveship.”

Minutes later, in the vast darkness of space, not far behind the huge looming vessel of the Hiveship, strange lights appeared. What seemed like bolts of lightning struck out from nothingness in a circle, slowly at first but getting faster. Moments later, a bright flash of blue followed. A shockwave shot out from the flash, followed by the huge ship that was the Armageddon.

“Hiveship dead ahead!” Lieutenant Matthias called out.
“All batteries, open fire.” Sharpe’s voice was filled with venom and hatred as he issued the order. All around the ship, the gun crews burst into action. Having fed their computers with data picked up early from the sensors, they quickly locked onto the Hiveship. Moments later the Armageddon shuddered as the 6 Assault MACs nearly simultaneous fired.

The 6 huge rounds of plasma coated metal streaked through space at their tremendous speed. The first one smashed into part of the upper section of the Hiveship, while its partner round smashed virtually next to it. Huge chunks of the Hiveship’s armour crumbled and cracked as the plasma coating dissipated and solid metal slug crumpled, the kinetic forces from the speed of the round forcing the slug through the armour of the Hiveship. Milliseconds after the rounds hit, the armour gave way. The forces placed upon it being too much for it to bear. The two rounds smashed a hole in the side of the ship and ploughed on, crashing into the layers of armour underneath. The next two rounds smashed into the Hiveship lower down, crumpling the armour beneath where they hit. The fourth round, slightly miss aimed, glanced off the underside of the top section. The glancing blow sent it spinning into the centre section of the Hiveship, a mass of broken metal following it as it bounced off the ship’s armour. Debris from the armoured hull of the Hiveship was sent spinning off as the hull was smashed into. The last two rounds impacted right on the centre of the ship, the small 1km section separating the two large disc sections. A gapping hole in the top layer of the armour was rent as the forces from the impact crumpled the metal sheets under where they hit.

As the last of the metal slug’s disintegrated while smashing gapping holes in the hull of the Hiveship, a volley of large pulse of Ionized particles thudded into the side of the juggernaut. The energy from the red bolts spread out along the hull as it was absorbed, but the armour started to weaken. A second volley quickly followed and three explosions rented more gaps into the armour of the Hiveship.

“Status?”
“Minor damage to Hiveship. Their armour’s taken a pounding, but we haven’t quite breached it. Forward Ion batteries are running hot and the reactors are starting to redline.”
“Damnit. Ms Pizzey, bring us in close. Mr Matthias, prepare a full broadside for our friend.”
“Aye sir. Command to all starboard batteries, target Hiveship. Fire on my command.”

As the gigantic vessel slowly turned to show its starboard side to the Hiveship, gunports all along the ship opened up. Missile and torpedo silos slid from their resting places and locked into firing position. A mass of Ion turrets along with all the Point-Defence Turrets and Plasma batteries followed suit.

“Target’s in our sight sir.”
”Give ‘em hell laddy”
“All batteries, open fire.”

The space between the two giant vessels was lit up as hundreads of missiles and torpedo’s streaked from their firing tubes. Masses of red bolts of ionized particles sped through space, slamming into the hull of the Hiveship. The dual-plasma beam cannons opened up, sending tightly packed beams of highly-excited hydrogen plasma the way of the Hiveship. The Armageddon shock ferociously as her starboard batteries pummelled at the Hiveship. Explosions covered the Hiveship as missiles and torpedoes impacted all along the hull. Chunks of metal were thrown into space as the armour was torn away by the explosions. A massive volley of Ion bolts slammed into the weakened central section of the Hiveship, passing into the large rent caused by the MAC rounds. A huge explosion erupted from the middle point of the Hiveship as the rounds pierced through the hull as the atmosphere in side the ship ignited.

“Contacts. We’ve got three Ravager’s heading our way. They seem a bit angry.”
“All plasma batteries are to concentrate on the Raveragers. Ms Pizzey, bring our port side round for another broadside at that monstrosity.”

Beams of plasma exchanged between the Swarm ships and the Armageddon as the Ravagers closed in. The shots impacted on the top of the Battlestar. Sections of armour turned molten where the beams hit, slicing gashes in the ship. The dual-plasma batteries turned, locking onto their new target. 200 beams lanced from the Armageddon. Explosions filled space as they punched through unlucky gliders that got in the way. The beams danced their way across the hulls of the Ravagers as fire was exchanged. Chunks of armour were cut away on all ships as the super-heated plasma melted the armour. The volley though was cut short as the ship finished its roll to bring the rest of the guns to bear. Another massive volley of missile, torpedo, ion and plasma fire was sent towards the Hiveship.

The three Ravagers limped into the line of fire between the two juggernauts. Missiles and torpedoes impacted on the already battered hulls. Explosions ripped through the ships, tearing them apart. Parts of the ships started to drift away as the volley pounded at the weakened Hiveship, the remaining missiles and torpedoes skimming through the wrecks of the Ravagers and slamming into the weakening hull of the Swarm’s command vessel.

“Forward batteries have stabilised. They’re ready for another few volleys sir.”
“Align our forward guns with the Hiveship. We need to finish them off quickly. Have our shots created any weak points?”
“Seems their central section has been half gutted. A concentrated volley might brake the ship in half.”
“Lock our Heavy’s onto the central section. Lets send them to hell.”

Inside the middle of the Armageddon, the impacts from the plasma batteries of the Hiveship could be felt little. An explosion rented a patch of the ships armour black, along with adding a gash to it. The Battlestar slowly turned, its smaller ion and plasma batteries continually pummelling at the Hiveship. Explosions covered the gigantic vessel as the shots slowly wore away its armour and blew out its guns. As the Armageddon lined up with the Hiveship, its forward Heavy Ion batteries started glowing red, as the guns charged up. The ship completed its manoeuvre and the guns fired off a volley. Twelve streaks of red were added to the carnage and smashed into the small, weakened central part of the Hiveship. The already weakened armour crumpled and gave way. The hull collapsed inwards as the super-structure of the ship was heated to many times what it could cope with. The ionized particles reacted with the ships atmosphere, igniting it in a massive fireball that tore through the ships decks. A second volley quickly followed up the first and the fate of the Hiveship was sealed. The ship was rent in half as the kilometre long central section of the ship disintegrated.

As the two sections of the Hiveship slowly separated, the Armageddon once again started a roll, brining a much of its weaponry to bare down on the disabled ship as it could. Shots slammed into large rent in the ships hull caused by the explosion, cutting deep into the weak, unprotected heart of the ship. Explosions soon started erupting across the remains of the ship as it started to get torn apart from the continuous pounding from every battery the Armageddon could bring to bear.

[Bakan]

Nice post Crazy!

Confirm 1 Hiveship critically crippled.

Also Crazy, mind posting your ship specs please, thanks

[Crazyboy]

Ship Name: Armageddon
Ship Class: Armageddon Class Super Battlestar

Length: 12km
Width: 5km
Height: 3km
Mass: Roughly 30million Tons

Decks: 450
Crew: 500 Officers, 15,000 Enlisted Crew, 20,000 Engineering Crew, 20,000 Marines

Engines:
- 10 Mk X Regen Heavy Ion Drives – Very large versions of the standard Ion Drives. Functioning as the energy and stripped electrons released from the Anti-Matter Core Fusion Reactor are dumped out into space, propelling the ship forward. Due to the mass of the Super-Battlestar cruisers, it takes a significant amount of thrust to move the ship.
- 20 Mk VII Taurus Ion Drives – Theses are larger than the standard Ion drives and rightly so, but other than that, they are the same. These give the Armageddon that extra push that means it can actually move quick enough in a battle do actually be of some use.
FTL Drives: 5 Mk III Regen Quantum Wave Flux Generators – The new generation of FTL travel. These are enhanced Quantum Drives. They create a ‘Wave’ effect, allowing the ship to ‘surf’ through Quantum Space, meaning that it can travel further and quicker than with a normal Quantum Drive. The ship needs 5 generators to generate a big enough ‘wave’ for the ship to ‘surf’.

Reactors:
- 10 Mk I Gi-Tech Matter/Anti Matter Prototype Reactors – These reactors work by combining matter and anti-matter. The components then cancel each other out. The result is a very large amount of power. Powerful magnetic fields are needed to keep the matter and anti-matter separate to avoid a premature interaction, and thus catastrophe.
- 50 Mk V Gi-Tech Heavy Fusion Reactors – Beefed up Fusion reactors. These reactors are positioned throughout the ship, and are mainly used to provide power for the weapon systems.

Weapons:
- 500 PDT’s – Yee basic Point-Defence Turret. Each turret is composed of two 3” gatling cannons. While considered old, these cannons are deadly at close range. They are setup with over-lapping fields of fire to give the best protection against fighters and missiles.
- 200 Mk III Phalanx Defence Pods – Each pod contains a group of 5 quad-pulse cannons. These are a medium ranged, plasma based weapon, that fires super-heated bolts (or pulses) of plasma. They are the primary anti-fighter defence of the Armageddon .
- 150 Turreted Dual Plasma Beam Cannons – These cannons are fed by their own advanced micro-fusion reactor. Plasma Beam Cannons generate a tightly compact beam of highly-excited hydrogen plasma, which is then, discharged using magnetic accelerators towards an enemy ship. Due to the power consumptions required to maintain the beam, they are used in close-range.
- 70 Ion Bolt Cannons – One of the latest additions to the Federation arsenal. These cannons fire a dense bolt of ionized particles and is a step up from plasma cannons.
- 30 Missile Silo’s – These retractable silo’s each house 30 missile tubes, each of which can be loaded with a variety of missiles ranging from anti-fighter cluster missiles to low yield nukes. Each silo has its own auto-load function, reducing reload times.
- 30 Torpedo Silo’s – These are similar to the missile silo’s, but contain only 20 tubes. The torpedo’s fired from these are designed to take down the bigger ships. Each silo has its own auto-load function, reducing reload times.
- 12 Forward Facing Super-Heavy Ion Pulse Cannons – Large and beefed up versions of the Ion Bolt Cannons. Lots more powerful than the standard Ion Bolt Cannons. They fire a large pulse of ionized particles. A sustained volley can be draining on the main reactors of the ship.
- 6 Forward Facing Assault MAC’s - Designated a ship busters, the Assault MAC Cannons launch a projectile 5 meters in diameter, composed of a outer-layer that is designed to fragment shields upon contact. Once the outer-layer is stripped, the secondary layer generates a plasma screen that in theory completely forms upon contact. The kinetic energy, along with the plasma field, results in a projectile that has been known to literally crack ships in half. In addition, these weapons have been used in planetary bombardments with great effectiveness. Due to the size of the firing chamber and the cannon itself, the Assault Mac’s are mounted covering the fore arc.


Ship Armour: Class 4 Dual-Quad Layer Armour.
- Layer 1: Disallium Alloy. Resistant to physical and heat based attacks.
- Layer 2: This part of the armour is specially treated to deal with any energy based weapons that manage to punch through the first layer.
- Layer 3: Experimental Type 2 Plasma Shielding. Gives a thin layer of specially manipulated and treated plasma, designed to take the most oomph out of any physical impacts and to dissipate any energy based attacks. Controlled by various magnet placements within the fourth layer.
- Layer 4: This is made from the new hardened Battlesteel Armour, which is 8m thick.
- Layer 5: Honeycomb Inner Bulkhead with Autoseal Breach Repair: Beyond the Mothership armor plating is a empty space before the Inner Bulkhead is reached. This "empty" space is filled with a honeycomb structure, dividing the surface of the Mothership into thousands of smaller sectors. Each honeycomb sector is filled with a small amount of air, and the Autoseal liquid, which remains liquid only while exposed to air. When a section of the outer hull is breached, the air is sucked out, and the Autoseal liquid hardens, providing a temporary hull patch and additional "armor" layer before the crew sections are actually exposed to vacuum.

The Armageddon is the latest and last production of the top-secret military shipyards in the Delta cluster. Combining the latest technology of the Federation, the Armageddon was designed to be able to take on and defeat a fleet of ships. The biggest warship ever commissioned by the Federation, it took the resources of nearly an entire system to manufacture. But, before the ship could be completely finished (many secondary systems and the hanger bays were unfinished), the Swarm hit the system. The Armageddon was thought to be lost

[flapjack]

Originally Posted by Crazyboy

- Layer 5: Honeycomb Inner Bulkhead with Autoseal Breach Repair: Beyond the Mothership armor plating is a empty space before the Inner Bulkhead is reached. This "empty" space is filled with a honeycomb structure, dividing the surface of the Mothership into thousands of smaller sectors. Each honeycomb sector is filled with a small amount of air, and the Autoseal liquid, which remains liquid only while exposed to air. When a section of the outer hull is breached, the air is sucked out, and the Autoseal liquid hardens, providing a temporary hull patch and additional "armor" layer before the crew sections are actually exposed to vacuum.

Crazy, copying and pasting is good, but you should remove unfitting parts from it

(there's a mothership reference in there, your ship isn't a mothership now is it?)

[Shadow275]

Originally Posted by Crazyboy

Ship Name: Armageddon
Ship Class: Armageddon Class Super Battlestar

Ok, I'm off to the planet of raging horny women, since Crazy can finish off the whole fleet by himself.

Anyone want to join?

[Bakan]

*Watches as that ship explodes.*

[Spritely Zombie]

It must be said. Whilst destroying a hiveship is all impressive and such. The "victorious" ship would immediately draw the fire from just about every single other swarm ship in the system. Not to mention result in the swarm calling for reinforcements.

[Shadow275]

Originally Posted by Spritely Zombie

It must be said. Whilst destroying a hiveship is all impressive and such. The "victorious" ship would immediately draw the fire from just about every single other swarm ship in the system. Not to mention result in the swarm calling for reinforcements.

Whilst the rest of the motherships escape.....now where did I leave that map to planet of the horny ones?