Onslaught: The Flight

[Wo2]

[ooc] Do we assign our own damage in some cases? Coming soon: Names for my officers. Note: Rakia= First officer. [ooc/]

Wo2: Status?

SO: Shields are still holding but we may need, no new damage to the weapon systems. All Checks out at the moment. We are behind the enemy task force sir and none of them seem to notice us.

Wo2: Well thats a perk. Now then we've made it close enough to to make a jump out of here, but that would be a cowards move. Now lets see... Weapons, How many Plasma web's do we have operational?

WO: Two are up and the other two are under repair.

Wo2: Hmm... Our allies need a helmping hand. Target the nearest two enemy formations, Set the web's on wide dispertion and fire to grab as many of them in it as you can. If we do this right we can grab those ships. Now the Web won't be enough to move the larger ships so that will be it's target. As it tries to constric around the large ship, the small ships under it's pull will have to use more engine power. Give them less for weapons. Or that could fail and the webs will trap to capital ships. Either way it's a win.

*Two balls of orange energy streaked from the ship. They hurteled towrads ther targets and began to expand into large shifting webs of plasma. The two webs each got caught on Coral Devestators and began to wrap around, with several smaller ships in their paths.*

WO: Webs fired

Wo2: Rakia do you know the status of our missle rack's?

Rakia: Yes sir. They were hit hard we only have seven up and running.

Wo2: Not good. Weapons, what's our over all weapon status.

WO: three Heavy neutron turrets, two plasma web launchers, one hundred eighty-six point defense turrets, eight eveloping plasma cannons and our Particle beam is still charging.

Wo2: erk... Whats the status of the mother ship under our protection?

SO: en-route to the gate.

Wo2: Wait for it to make it's jump then make us the biggest target, Fire all weapons at the nearest targets. When they come to beat us down, activate the Phase Cloak.

[Inspectre]

“The Flight Commander copies, and will do what he can to keep the Swarm off of the Motherships.”

“Good. Now then, let’s take care of these left-overs.” Joseph said, looking at the few survivors of the Stellar Converter blast on the tactical screen.

“The surviving Mutalisks, all nineteen of them, are gathering together again to continue their attack run, sir. One of the Guardians is simply drifting, obviously crippled. The other Guardian and Devourer are still closing to engage.” The Tactical Officer reported, continuing to do his job as he fed valuable information to his captain.

Joseph thought for a moment, and then announced, “Those Mutas are scarcely a threat anymore. Weapons Officer, focus our heaviest firepower on that Devourer and Guardian. Use the Graviton beams to finish off the wounded Guardian before it can recover.”

The Weapons Officer did as he was told without comment, and on the viewscreen Joseph watched as all eight Graviton beams speared out as one against the crippled Zerg capital ship. Rather than rip the Guardian to shreds, however, the Weapons Officer chose to focus all of the Graviton beams on a single spot. This proved to be the most expedient route to finishing the creature off, as all eight Light Graviton beams were focused on the Guardian’s head. The combined force of all eight beams easily pulled the creature’s head off the rest of its body, and then stabbed deeper inside to suck out most of its bodily fluids. Mere seconds later, the Guardian was nothing more than a shattered husk, surrounded by its own ichor and the remains of its head.

The other Guardian and Devourer fared little better, as they were now well within the optimum firing distance for the Heavy Tachyon beams. The now recharged Heavy Tachyon beams. The Guardian simply died as the one of the Heavy Tachyon beams plowed directly into it, blackening its outer chitin to charcoal before burning through and turning its body fluids instantly into steam. The Devourer, proving it was as tough as it was stubborn in its refusal to die, survived the first Tachyon beam to lance into it. However, a second Heavy Tachyon beam bored into it a moment after the first finished scoring a long, deep burn along its side. The second beam of energy hit exactly the same spot as the first, and quickly finished eating its way through the Devourer’s thick hide. It then burrowed through the Devourer’s internal organs, vaporizing them on contact. The Weapons Officer even managed to swing the Tachyon beam around a bit, raking it nearly the entire length of the Devourer. The end result was the crisped and empty husk of a Devourer, as the few parts of its internal organs that weren’t vaporized by the tachyon beam were sucked out into space.

None of the bridge crew cheered the creatures’ destruction. There was no point in it: all they had managed to do was kill a few cells in a body with millions of more cells that were exactly identical to the destroyed ones. However, the Thanatos still had something to say, as its point defense batteries finally opened up in full at last on the oncoming Mutalisks.
As the swarm had approached, the point defense gunners could do little except pray and prepare themselves for a futile, last-ditch effort to stop the battering ram of Mutalisks from reaching the Thanatos by throwing up a wall of near-lightspeed bullets. Now, however, the point-defense gunners could make a difference, and they threw themselves into their work with grim gusto. The four forward Rail Gun turrets spat out a dozen iron-nickel slugs in as many seconds, shredding the front ranks of the greatly diminished swarm of Mutalisks. All but one of the projectiles hit, killing several of the nineteen remaining creatures.

One Mutalisk was simply torn in half as two slugs hit it simultaneously. Another of the foul creatures was destroyed as a slug ripped off a wing in passing, before continuing on to strike the Mutalisk directly behind the first. The slug, somewhat slowed by its passage through the first Mutalisk’s wing, merely stunned its second victim, but that Mutalisk perished as well as another slug immediately followed the first. This slug was at full speed, and it crushed a good portion of the Mutalisk’s chest, instantly stopping what based for a heart within the bat-like creature. The other seven slugs had similar effects, adding another five Mutalisks to the death count and reducing the Mutalisk swarm to eleven.

But now, finally, the Mutalisks had entered their own firing range, and could fight back against the metal giant that had been steadily killing them. A steady stream of organic projectiles emerged from each Mutalisk’s “mouth”, impacting against the forward shields of the Thanatos. Each organic creature had little effect as it died on impact with the Thanatos’s shields, but each of the little monsters drained away a tiny bit of shield power with its death. In massed amounts, the effects of the Mutalisks’ weapon could be devastating, but with only eleven of them, they were barely more than a minor annoyance to the great warship. Again, another wall of slugs sped away from the forward four Rail Gun point-defense turrets, and this time they were joined by two Graviton beams. The resulting chaos left only two Mutalisks remaining, and with mindless determination they continued to close on the Thanatos. Their miniscule brains aware that they couldn’t possibly win alone against the massive ship, they instead chose death over survival, and dived down on the Thanatos’s forward shields as they finally reached the leviathan. Firing all of the way, the two creatures slammed into shields, absorbing a far greater amount of energy away than their organic projectiles ever could. Nonetheless, the energy loss was miniscule compared to the total amount of power the reactors deep inside the Thanatos were pumping into the shield generators.

“Forward shield down to 52%. Other shield arcs holding stable at previous levels.” The Weapons Officer reported, and Joseph grunted in response. They were doing fairly well this battle so far, but they had a long way to go before this battle was over and the Thanatos’s shields would be allowed to recharge.

“See what you can do to reinforce the forward shields with power from other arcs. I don’t particularly like the idea of having a weak frontal shield when we attempt to hold off that arm of the Swarm task force.”

Joseph’s frown turned into a grimace as he added, “Nor do I relish the thought of firing the Stellar Converter at another mass of Mutalisks, if they manage to get that close again and our forward shield is still weak.”

“Aye sir. I’ll attempt to balance out the shields arcs a bit. No point in having my fingers over the weapon buttons anyway, at least not until we get back to the Motherships.” The Weapons Officer replied, focusing even more intently on his console as he attempted to gradually shift energy from one shield arc to another.

“I’ll see what I can do as well.” The bridge engineering officer replied, turning his back to the rest of the bridge as he moved to face his own console fully and begin to issue commands through it.

Meanwhile, the gunships and interceptors were fairing as well as could be expected when fighting against a large number of Swarm capital ships, backed up by a mass of Swarm strike craft.

“He’s behind you! Behind you!” One of the interceptors screamed over the comm channel as a coralskipper slid in behind another interceptor.

“I see him . . . d*mn this one is good. Don’t know if I can shake him.” The tailed interceptor’s pilot grunted as a number of plasma projectile peppered his aft shields. The coralskipper’s pilot was apparently devoting much of his fighter’s dovil basin into engines, as the coralskipper easily managed to match the nimble interceptor’s speed and rapid evasive maneuvers. This, however, meant that the dovil basin was barely focusing on defense at all, and the very first shot fired by another Valkyrie closing to assist penetrated, burning a hole through the coralskipper’s ****pit and killing the pilot.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Just kill a couple Vong for me.”

There certainly was no shortage of targets to choose from, as the six Valkyrie interceptors danced with nearly three-times their own number in coralskippers. These coralskippers were the escorts for a trio of CoralDevestators closing on the fourth Mothership, and while they were kept busy by the Valkyries, the Lancer gunships were free to operate at peak efficiency. This proved deadly for the heavier Vong ships, as the anti-capital ship gunships hammered away with near-impunity. The crews of two CoralDevestators had already gone to their deaths, and a third was spinning helplessly a short distance away, crippled by the countless holes pock-marking its hull.

The coralskippers should have been able to prevent the destruction of so many of their charges, but unfortunately they were prevented from doing so by six interceptors that twisted in, cut, and danced away virtually unharmed before the coralskippers could react. The prideful Vong pilots, angered by the interceptors’ hit-and-run tactics, quickly focused their full attention on the infidel Federation fighters, leaving the capital ships to fend for themselves. Along the six interceptors were holding their own so far, the Vong coralskippers’ tactics were working in that the Federation interceptors were slowly being worn down.

The Flight Commander shook his head sadly as he spared a moment from flying to look down at his control console and readjust his already thin shields so that all sides were still covered. Suddenly, a coralskipper in front of him exploded as a Graviton beam tore it apart.

“It’s the Thanatos!!” One of the other pilots shouted jubilantly.

It was indeed the Thanatos, finally arriving at the scene of this latest battle after several minutes of travel time. The Weapons and Engineering Officers had spent the time well, and the forward shield of the Thanatos was now back up to 72%, at the cost of reducing the other shield arcs down to roughly 80%.

“Concentrate all firepower on the lead CoralDevestator. I want that b*stard dead.” Joseph commanded, and the Weapons Officer obeyed as he finally turned his attention back to the weapons console.

Three Heavy Tachyon beams slashed out at the Vong capital ship, and while dovil basins managed to stop two of the beams, the third broke through to scorch a deep trench in the ship’s organic hull. A moment later, all eight Graviton beams stabbed out as one again, all hitting the weakened section of the CoralDevestator’s hull. The combined beams turned the trench into a tear, exposing a significant portion of the CoralDevestator’s interior to vacuum. The eight Lancer gunships immediately pounced of the stricken Vong ship like piranha, and a minute later the ship’s red contact disappeared from the tactical screen.

The success of the Thanatos was short-lived, however, as the Tactical Officer’s eyes suddenly widened, and he whispered “Oh my God . . .” A moment later, he found his voice again, and screamed “INCOMING!!! MAC round, Bilibrige shipyards!! It’s heading this way!!”

“Evasive action! NOW!!” Joseph bellowed, only to be met by a helpless shrug from the Helmsman.

“Not enough time. We’re not going to get out of the way fast enough.”

Joseph and the rest of his bridge crew could then only watch helplessly as the purple dot streaked toward them. A short distance from the mass of red contacts close to the Thanatos, the purple dot disappeared as the MAC round exploded like a light-speed fragmentation grenade, showering everything nearby with high-velocity shrapnel.

“Brace for impact!!” Joseph shouted, and then closed his eyes as he held onto his command chair’s armrests with all his strength. When the shrapnel finally sliced through the Swarm and reached the Thanatos, the impact was far worse than the Stellar Converter’s near-fatal blast. One ensign was flung out of his chair as its restraining straps ruptured. The unfortunate crewman was flung across the bridge and smashed into the opposite wall, painting it with his blood.

When the nightmare jolt was finally over, Joseph opened his eyes to find a good portion of his ship’s bridge destroyed. Most of the bridge lights had been blown out by power surges, and now the bridge was bathed in the red glow of the emergency lighting. Several control consoles around the bridge were shattered and spewing sparks, but fortunately there were few casualties and the few minor electrical fires were being quickly put out by several of the bridge crew. The Weapons Officer, nursing a burnt hand, quickly unstrapped himself from his ruined console and moved to one of the auxiliary Weapon stations, kicking the shell-shocked ensign out of that chair.

“I’ve notified the Medical Bay, and they’re sending several medics up here now to deal with the wounded.” The Communications Officer reported, but Joseph didn’t hear him as he unstrapped himself in one quick motion, leapt up from his chair, and strode over to the body of the ensign that had been thrown across the room. Kneeling down to hopelessly check for a pulse, Joseph was amazed when his fingers felt a weak flutter. Suddenly the ensign’s eyes snapped open. With surprising strength, the ensign wrapped a hand around Joseph’s wrist. “Sir.” The ensign croaked, and then shuddered. His grip on Joseph’s wrist weakened and faltered, and his hand would have dropped away had Joseph not moved to hold the ensign’s hand with his own. “So . . . cold.” The ensign whispered, weakly digging in his pants’ left pocket with his other hand. Joseph quickly helped the man by dipping his free hand into the pocket, and emerging with a small photograph. Joseph got a glimpse of a young girl with blond hair before pushing the photograph into the dying ensign’s hand. The ensign laughed for a moment, before stopping to cough deeply. “At least . . . at least I saved . . . my daughter.” The ensign whispered before descending into a coughing-fit again. This time, blood sprayed out from the man’s parted lips, and Joseph wondered how long until the medics arrived, although it was doubtful they could save the man anyway. Using what was clearly the last of his strength, the man looked up into Joseph’s eyes, and grabbed the front of his uniform jacket with the hand that was still clenching the photograph. “Protect her . . . for me.” The ensign said, and then collapsed back, entering the short coma that proceeded the final sleep.

“I will.” Joseph answered, then pushed himself back up onto his feet. “What’s our status?” He asked the bridge engineering officer, who was furiously working away at his damaged console.

“Well, the port shield has completely collapsed, and the hull has been breached in several places by the MAC round’s shrapnel. Not too much to worry about with a ship this size, but several power conduits have also been severed. Before the repair crews can get to them, I have to cut off power to them, so that the blasted things don’t spray electricity all over the place and shock the people trying to do the repairs. But because of this, it looks like our port side is effectively crippled: no power to the weapons on that side, and I’m not sure how many other weapons I’m going to have to shut down to save the rest of the power grid. I can tell you right now, however, that the Forward Port turret of Graviton beams has been shut down, so our Weapons Officer only has six of those to shoot with. I’m struggling to save one of the Plasma turrets right now, but he might not have two of our Plasma cannons to shoot with either. Thankfully, our point defense turrets are still good, although one of the Port-side ones has been completely cut off from power thanks to the broken conduits.”

Joseph shook his head at the carnage, and turned to face his Tactical Officer. “Things aren’t looking good, captain. The MAC round may have torn a good number of Swarm ships to shreds, but a large number of Swarm strike craft have, predictably, survived the attack. They’ve noticed the gaping hole in our shields and fire-cover, and are moving to exploit it. We’ve also got more Swarm capital ships closing, although at the moment almost all of the ones in the immediate area around us are dead or crippled. Oh, and to make this bad news worse.”

The Tactical Officer touched a key, and the tactical screen zoomed in on the area that the Bilibrige Shipyards was located in. Was located in, as there was nothing simply a large field of debris and a small handful of red contacts.

“Bilibrige Shipyards just self-destructed. We’re now on our own as to dealing with Task Force Three.”

“Alright, Communications Officer, tell the Flight Commander to pull back into escort formation and keep those strike craft off of our port side. Weapons Officer, see if there’s anyway you can at least get some shield power over to our port side. Engineering, you know what you need to do, so I’ll leave you to it.”

His orders given, Joseph strode back to his command chair, strapped himself back into it, and grimly watched the tactical screen as it displayed the large number of Swarm ships moving in to finish off the Thanatos. More than likely, they would take heavy losses despite the damage to the Deathdealer leviathan, but they would still finish his ship off.

Looks like I’ve failed you after all, Sarah and Toby . . . and you most of all, Ensign Hall.

A slight shudder suddenly ran through the deck, and Joseph looked up at the Tactical Officer, expecting to find that a group of Guardians had suddenly appeared and were bombarding the port side.

“The fourth Mothership . . . she . . . she just caught us in a tractor beam! Yes, YESS!!! She’s moving to extend her shields around us!!”

“Shield arcs are now effectively over 300%, sir, including the Port side.” The Weapons Officer reported, giving out a rare grin as he watched the Mothership’s shields form around the Thanatos.”

The corners of Joseph’s mouth twitched upward as well, as he said, “Well, apparently we have a new lease on life, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s not waste it. I’d rather not abuse the Mothership’s hospitality, so I want this ship back to full power in five minutes, and then we’ll stand on our own two feet again. Communications officer, we’re not out of hot water yet, and that’s an awful lot of Swarm ships for us to deal with alone. Open a channel to all the allied ships.”

“Channel open, sir. I’m not sure how good the transmission will be with all of the damage we’ve taken, but they should still hear you.”

Joseph nodded in confirmation, and then delivered his message.

“Attention allied ships, this is captain Joseph McKinley of the Thanatos again. We are currently located near Mothership Four, and are badly damaged. We got too close to that last MAC round, and are currently affecting repairs under the cover of Mothership Four’s shields. However, a large number of Swarm ships are still closing, and the Bilibrige Shipyards just blew themselves up. We need immediate assistance. Repeat, this is Joseph McKinley of the Thanatos. We are located at Mothership Four, and require immediate assistance.”

[flapjack]

*as the USS stellar voyage swung around rapidly, the drives coming back online to get the ship back under control while the phasers where already charged back to 50% and the photon torpedo tube was reloaded*

comms: transmission from the Thanatos, they are requesting that we move over to the arm attacking the mothership to give the motherships back-up

me: helm, set a course, engineering, fix whatever damage you've sustained down there and get the aft shields back up to full power, NOW. Operations, reallocation of shield power, redirect power from all shields to the aft shields to equalize them. Tactical, target anything hostile that gets close with phasers and give them the required amount of phaser fire.

Helm: course set, coming about and heading there at full impulse

engineering: we lost a couple of EPS conduits down here and had a small coolant leak, but we've already patched up the coolant leak and i've got a team fixing the EPS conduits, and we're already using the shield generators at 150% of the nominal maximum, i wouldn't recommend overpowering them any further

operations: reallocating shields.

Tactical: more targets, YEA

*the USS stellar voyage then came about again, not completely tough and headed towards the arm attacking the motherships at full impulse (0,25C), the phasers lancing out from time to time as swarm ships came to close to the tactical officer's reach*

operations: aft shields at 60%, port shields at 80%, starboard shields at 80%, forward shields at 100% sir

No1: much better, keep at it

operations: sir, we're coming within firing range of the other arm, there are lot of capital ships in that arm sir.

Tactical: shall i show the power of photon torpedoes ?

me: very well, start with photon torpedoes and when we close with them, use the phasers, at full power

tactical: as you wish

*A photon torpedo promptly left the USS stellar voyage's forward torpedo tubes as the tactical officer targetted the closest coraldevastator, the phasers lancing out as the ships closed in with eachother and the coraldevastator returned fire, the return fire being absorbed easily by the forward shields while the phaser hits ripped large sections off the already damaged coraldevastator*

[Fluffie]

(Comms) "Communications from the Thanatos, they are requesting aid at defending the rear."

(Senors) "Sensors show the Stellar Voyage is breaking off to... Damnit! Admiral, we have a lot of boogies closing on the Red Sky! They all appear to be fighters."

(Admiral) "Helm, move us to the Red Sky. All turrets, take down fighters, bigger guns fire at anything you can get a lock on. I don't want us looking any less active, if anything, double the amount of shots fired."

(Captain) "We are turning about... What about our TIEs, sir? They will be there faster than we will, not that it'll take us long, but still, they'll be able to intercept."

(Admiral) "We'll still weaken our defences by a lot though..."

Fluffie turned silent for a moment, looking out into space, pondering the situation. Maybe a few seconds later, he looked back at the Captain and nodded.

"Dispatch half our TIEs, have them intercept and bugger those Swarm craft before as fast as possible. Try to reinforce our starboard shields by weakening the others. Not too much, of course."

"Aye, sir."

The Admiral walked off, carrying out his orders. The Dreadnaught began catching up with the Red Sky, beginning to position its front and port side in a firing arc of the three fighter squadrons - not much after that had been done a massive hail of fire broke loose, red beams lancing away from the big bulking ship, even some of the heavier cannons taking shots at the small fighters. Some of the shots even hit home, the beam ripping straight through the fighter and then going on a bit more.

(Sensors) "Captain.. Admiral! We have multiple Guardians emerging from behind the fighter screen!"

Smiling, Fluffie looked at the Captain, who, previously busy with another task, looked up and swiftly ordered the port and forward turbolasers and normal lasers to open up. They did so and a concentrated burst of heavy fire made its way through space, quickly beginning to tear away the flank and front of the Guardian formation.

And, still, somewhere in the whole confusion of space and battle, there were 8 TIE fighter pilots, still defying any law of physics ever invented, getting their craft in the silliest maneuvers and emerging from them, behind an enemy...

Which usually meant the end for said victim.

Standing on his bridge and proudly watching his ship engage the enemy forces, still, Fluffie smiled, turning to the droid.

"Couldn't help but notice these incomings... Looked like a bit much, so I decided to lend you a hand."

[No Dachi]

The Red Sky At Dawn immediately finds itself caught between two actions. The mysterious vessel with its ancient-style hull composition could not be ignored, but neither could the mass of Corralskippers diving toward him at break-neck speed. No Dachi came to a desicion using the time-tested, smooth and never-failing logic of his higher-mechanical mind and began to accelerate into the mass of enemy ships, heading straight for the myserious vessel with its biofilm-protected hull. The Corralskippers naturally pursue. The Red Sky At Dawn needed a tactic, and quickly came up with one. Almost immediately, the two rear light mass driver cannons fell idle and vented steam from their coolant tanks off into the empty void at the ship's command. To the rash and assuming eyes of the Corralskippers' Vong pilots, it would look like the crimson warship was performing an emergency vent procedure in an attempt to avoid damage to the guns from overheating. Elated, the squadron leaders urged their wingmen on and closed in on the seemingly hapless, lumbering warship. No Dachi waited patiently, all the time keeping one 'eye' on the Skippers and another 'eye' on the myserious enemy ship. Shots from the Corralskippers' plasma weaponry began to impact on the Red Sky's rear hull armour. With only the five leading vessels in range and firing, damage was minor and relatively insignificent, but the other Skippers were closing fast. Two more open fire, but still No Dachi waited, watching the swarm of comparatively tiny enemy strike craft on his sensors. Three more enter range and open fire, and suddenly the crimson warship brakes, moving downward, advanced drive working in full reverse along with the manouevreing thrusters. Caught off-guard, around two thirds of the sixty (guessing that Corralskippers use the normal squadron of twenty size) fail to react and overshoot their target, ending up a good distance vertically above it, while the remainder drop down below and follow, crosshairs remaining trained. Neither party comes out the winner. As soon as the forty Corralskippers that did not dive downards were directly above it, the Red Sky At Dawn fired all four strike craft missiles. The missiles shot straight and true, leaving a trail of solid fuel vapour hanging behind them, before breaking into the five smaller missilets and seeking separate targets. In twenty blinding flashes of light, two squadrons of the Corralskippers drop to half strength, the remainder twisting and wheeling in desparate attempts to avoid flying scraps of debris and shrapnel. Presently, the two light mass drivers jerk into life, pick their targets with lightning speed and open fire, spraying the group of twenty pursueing Corralskippers with high-velocity metal rail ammunition. Taken completely by surprise, four of the Corralskippers are destroyed and two damaged, all five of the survivors wheeling off to attack from a less well-protected angle. They need not bother, for in a flash the mighty Thunderer is above its partner ship, guns blazing, TIE FIghters entering the confused tangle of dogfighting strike craft. No Dachi immediately ceased fire, hearing the Admiral's hail as he did so.

"I thank you, Admiral. I hate to be so brief, but there is something important that I must do, and I have not the time to explain what it is or why I must do it. Follow me, if you wish to, if not we shall meet at the next rendevous. Red Sky At Dawn out." The warship rattled off his gratitude quickly, before firing his advanced drive to full frontal power and tearing away through the mass of ships, friendly and enemy alike. Moving wildly and erratically as he dodges ship and weapons fire with evasive manouvres with presicion that can only a machine can hope to have, No Dachi tore forwards through the massed swarmers, heading straight for the mysterious ship. His hull armour, taking shots from all directions, being worn away by the second, the Red Sky At Dawn launched all of its remaining Gun Drones to distract the enemy ships surrounding him, and began to fire off the Decoy Drones still clinging to hul outer hull. The ancient warship detected several minor hull breaches, and sent repair drones to patch them with sealant. None of this mattered to the Red Sky At Dawn. He had to find out as much as possible about the enemy ship with the bio-film coated composite hull, and if he perished trying then so be it. Now very close to the enemy ship, No Dachi fired off a quick message over a very specialised form of communication that he had not used for countless millenia; the shipmind conference.

"This is the General Affairs Cruiser Red Sky At Dawn hailing unidentified vessel, if you can recieve this message, please respond..." Even as he sent the message, No Dachi knew he would be destroyed if he remained in the vicinity of the mystery ship, sitting as it did almost in the centre of the enemy formation, he would be destroyed. Now approaching full sublight speed, No Dachi performed as many close-range sensor scans as he could on the ship before pulling up sharply and spiralling through the remaining enemy ships, still taking fire, emerging from the top of the formation like a bird of prey through the forest canopy of some teeming jungle. Presently, his battle sense once again superceded his desire to find some relic of his creators, and he began to concentrate once more, wheeling around and heading back for the Thunderer. With his speed carrying him clear enough of any craft that have chosen to pursue him, No Dachi turned his attention to the line of Guardians attacking the Thunderer. In a twentieth of a second, the Red Sky At Dawn tagged one of the Guardians not under fire from the Imperial Dreadnaught and fired Missile Pod 1, containing the anti capital ship missile. Once more, a heavy-payload missile homed in on its helpless target, spiralling and random to avoid any potential intercept fire - rather unnecessary, as the Guardian was in no position to shoot down incoming missiles. The torpedo slammed into the creature's mouthparts, rending its natural armour as it penetrated further into its body, before detonating. A blinding pule of white light and other radiation appears on No Dachi's various screens for a few moments, and is gone, along with any trace of the Zerg flier. Even as the Red Sky At Dawn relished in its temporary victory, it noticed something else. A large group of Mutalisks closing in on itself and the Thunderer. Acting quickly, No Dachi spoke to the Admiral from its displacement drone.

"Admiral, this is the Red Sky At Dawn. We have a large group of Zerg Mutalisks incoming, prepare for combat."

[Planetkiller II]

"Attention RSAD and Thunderer, incomming suicide units. We'll try and head them off at the pass. Comms off. Helm, take us right down their throats!"

*The Striker came about, swinging low under the Thunderer's stern and shooting up (if you could call it up in space), avoiding the incomming fire from the Coralskippers. One of the pursuing skippers was blown to pieces by the one operational Class B weapon.*

"We may still not be at full operational efficiency, but I don't want that to cause our deaths. Gunnery, be ready to fire on my mark, we're going to draw them close together then let their own suicide systems do the grunt work. Systems, how are we doing defences wise?"

Systems: A few hits, but only grazes so far, shields are holding up fine, not even a small hole yet.

"Great, let's keep it that way. Helm, full speed ahead, right through their formation!"

*The fishlike form darted forward, spurred on by an increase of power to the ABC drives. She just missed the closest mutalisk, and only just avoided the second by a skillful manoeuvre at the last second by the pilot. Then they were into the mass of small beasties, it became impossible to tell whether the silently screamed creatures were managing to throw themselves to their doom on the shields of the Manta-class. But then she was out, with not a scratch on the shining metallic green of her hull. The shields were likely another story, but the move had had the desired effect; the Mutalisks were milling around in her wake, undecided as to whether to pursue, or continue to the other targets of the RSAD and Thunderer. Donovan did not allow them time to think about it.*

"Gunnery, fire both Class C cannons at one of the mutalisks, preferably one near the middle of that mess, I want them downed right now."

*Four lances of fire descended upon a hapless mutalisk, which detonated in a burst of bio gunk and a massive tounge of flame which engulfed its surrounding friends in a chain of sequencial explosions. There was a chorus of cheers on the battle deck as they saw the pretty lights. Anthothy was the quickest to settle back to business.*

"Good work people, but it's not over yet, not by a long shot. First order of business, let's deal with these coralskippers then get back into position with the RSAD and Thunderer."

Systems: Shields are experiencing power fluctuations in the forward area, I don't think they'll hold much longer. Rear shields are 100% effective and all other areas are over 75% efficient, a few small gaps appearing though, we need to be careful sir.

"Indeed, I intend to be. Gunnery, fire away."

Gunnery: Aye sir, I'll be glad to blow some of them out of the sky.

*The Striker Draconis turned and flew back into the fray.*

[Richpur]

“Sir, we have a large incoming projectile.” The tactical officer announces.

“Oh; really?” Richard replies in a nonplussed monotone as he looks at the Phoenix’s nose rapidly growing on the main viewer. “And I suppose she’s just forgotten we’re here.”

“Looks like it sir.”

Richard looks over at Rachel with an expression mid way between pleading and dismay. Not thinking he can honestly cope with this person.

“That ship is a little bit larger than one of our torpedoes, was not actually designed to explode on impact, and already has a couple of CoralSkippers embedded in her hull. Do you really think if she actually hits us it’ll make that much difference?”

“No ma’am.”

At this point people actually look back up at the viewer, where the Phoenix’s engine exhausts are now filling the entire screen. Then they flare up and the 3D screen fills the bridge with holographic exhaust plasma. Outside the real plasma cuts into the hull armour, the first layer ablating rapidly, taking the bulk of the first few seconds’ energy with it. Then the sustained plasma burn is driven through the gashes in the ablative, the heat being dissipated through the second armour layer; the energy from the blast sucked out of the superconducting layer to be stored in another bank of capacitors and used later.

As the tail end of the Phoenix’s exhaust trail flickers over the hull, the tactical officer comes up with his first sensible comment of the last few minutes.

“Shall we go back to firing at things now?”

“Indeed.” Rachel replies, “If I’m not mistaken that large mass coming towards us from behind is a rather large number of mutalists; isn’t it?”

From a dead standstill to full throttle takes a matter of seconds and the Pegasus is once again underway, the mutalist swarm in pursuit and closing fast. Unlike the Phoenix these ‘ships’ basically are missiles. A mass of barely sentient beings who have somehow evolved to know no fear, no despair, and have a large warhead on the front; the perfect kamikaze.

“Hayden; on my mark I want a full combat acceleration through zee plus forty five degrees and all the power you can route through the ventral thrusters.”

“Sir, are you serious?”

“Hayden…”

“Yes sir. I do sir.”

“Tactical; range readouts on that swarm.”

“Five kilometres sir… four… three… two…”

“Now!”

The full power of the Pegasus’ main engines is suddenly diverted upwards, pushing the stern of the ship down against the combined power of the thruster system. The bow is yanked upwards, the hull groaning under the unaccustomed stress as the kilometre long vessel is torn through a three hundred and sixty degree bank in under fifteen hundred metres. As the ship comes back onto her original heading the violent manoeuvre ceases and the ship surges on in a once again straight line, this time behind the mutalists.

“Targets in the envelope. Locked loaded hoping there’s nothing in the way.”

“Fire.”

The solitary torpedo tube opens and disgorges its payload into the fray. It hurtles straight forward into the heart of the mutalist swarm, busy looking around to see where their lumbering target has got to. Once there the torpedo detonates, a brief hyperspace tap draining enormous amounts of energy into the containment area, then the field starts to degrade. With the immense quantity of raw energy no longer containable the field simply shuts down, letting the power flow unchecked into the surrounding area, viciously distorting space, time and a few other dimensions most people aren’t even aware of. The effect is only brief, but in that scant few microseconds the mutalist swarm is sucked out of existence, only to be deposited back when the distortion terminates; their component atoms spread out over a much larger area.

[Inspectre]

“Well, if there was one thing I had to admire about the Swarm, it’s that they certainly don’t give up.” The Weapons Officer replied, lashing out at a quartet of coralskippers with the six remaining Light Graviton Beams. The coralskippers, just entering their fourth strafing run against the shields of the Mothership, could do little except take the punishment.

The gravity singularities thrown up by the dovil basins were able to absorb three of the Graviton beams, leaving the remaining three to continue tearing at the Vong fighters’ hulls. One Graviton beam struck a coralskipper directly in the ****pit, forcibly ejecting the pilot at unsurvivable speeds and leaving the craft to spin out of control and slam into the Mothership’s shields. The other two Graviton beams struck a single coralskipper, literally ripping it in half and sending both pieces spinning off into the void. A third coralskipper died as its dovil basin absorbed a Graviton beam, at the cost of leaving it open to fire from the Thanatos’s numerous point-defense turrets. Several iron-nickel slugs tore it to pieces a moment later before the dovil basin could compensate.

The fourth and final coralskipper was either lucky or skilled, as it managed to avoid the Graviton beams and point-defense fire being spat at it for long enough to break off its attack run. It looked for a moment that the coralskipper’s pilot would live to fight another day, when suddenly an interceptor dropped in behind the Vong craft and shoved a missile into its backside. Although the act was wasteful considering the interceptor’s maximum payload was only four missiles, it certainly was effective as the missile plowed through the living armor to detonate inside the craft, turning it into a fireworks display as pieces of flaming coral went in all directions.

“They certainly don’t. We’re kicking the h*ll out of the b*stards, and they’re still coming.” Thomas remarked, looking at the tactical screen that was once again filled with red contacts closing on the Thanatos, and by extension, the Fourth Mothership.

“Well then, we’ll keep kicking the h*ll out of them until they can’t get back up anymore. How’s that port sublight engine, Engineering? Are we going to be able to move under our own power soon?” Joseph asked, turning away from the battle for a moment to take care of his ship.

“The port engine is pretty shot up, as is most of the Aft section of the Port side. That last MAC round really did a number on us along with the Swarm. I think we might be able to stabilize it long enough to limp through the hyper-slipstream gate under our own power, however.”

“Good. Keep my notified. Our wounded ship is attracting the Swarm’s attention to this Mothership like piranhas sensing blood. We have to get away from here and lure the Swarm fleet away before the Mothership takes any serious damage.”

“Well, you better work fast then. The remaining survivors of the MAC round are gathering for another attack, and we have an entire wave of fresh ships moving up from the core of Swarm Task Force Three.” The Tactical Officer grumbled, indicating the mass of Swarm ships closing for yet another attack run against the Thanatos and the Mothership that was slowly dragging them toward the hyper-slipstream gate and safety by a tractor beam.

Most of the massing Swarm ships were strike craft; nimble enough to evade the shrapnel from the MAC round and thus escape destruction. Surprisingly enough, there was also a good portion of capital ships making up the attack force: those lucky enough to avoid being hit by MAC shrapnel.

“Looks like the attack is being led by a damaged CoralDevestator.” The Tactical Officer reported, highlighting the approaching Vong capital ship on the tactical screen. The viewscreen also switched to display a sensor image of the craft, and clearly showed the damage that the ship had sustained. Some sections of the ship’s hull were badly mangled, and some spots still leaked atmosphere despite the crew’s obvious attempts to seal the wounds in the living ship.

“Well, teach that ship the danger of leading a charge, Weapons Officer.” Joseph said grimly, not particularly liking the idea of killing a wounded enemy so mercilessly. Then he remembered what these monsters had done to his home, and the homes of countless other billions, and his heart hardened again. Six Graviton beams stabbed out once more, but this time all of them were stopped by dovil basins.

“They’re focusing all of their energy on protecting against a frontal attack by us . . .“ Thomas theorized, then turned to the Communications officer. “Any chance of getting the Flight Commander to teach that ship a lesson in the dangers of concentrating all defenses in any one direction?”

“No.” The Tactical Officer answered for the Communications Officer, gesturing at the tactical screen. “All of our strike craft are busy dealing with the smaller Swarm craft, and there’s a fair number of strike craft escorting that CoralDevestator anyway. Looks like we’re going to have to wait for them to get close, and then hit them with everything we’ve got again.”

“Alright. See what you can do to support our strike craft, Weapons Officer. We’ll let that CoralDevestator close a bit more. Tell me . . . is Omega Torpedo Tube 4 loaded once more?”

“Why yes, it is . . . been loaded for quite some time now. Was planning on saving it for a special occasion.”

Joseph smiled, a cold predatory smile as he regarded the approaching CoralDevestator. “Yes . . . perhaps we can still teach them a lesson after all . . . let that Vong capital ship close a bit more, then shift all firepower back onto it. When it raises its black holes again in defense, fire the Omega Torpedo, and send it on a course that it bring it up from below.”

“Heh . . . that should teach the b*stard some proper tactics.” The Weapons Officer said, slashing apart another two coralskippers and a Mutalisk with his recharged weapons.

Another minute passes as the CoralDevestator continued to close, then Joseph said, “Now, Weapons Officer.”

On the viewscreen, the space in front of the CoralDevestator was lit up once more as Graviton and Tachyon Beams impacted against the singularities thrown up in their path. The last Tachyon Beam actually broke through the exhausted dovil basins’ defenses, scorching a long black line across the CoralDevestator’s hull and opening yet more of the ship to vacuum. However, that wound paled to the devastation wrought by the Omega torpedo as it slipped past the Vong cruiser’s defenses, and slammed into a lower section of its hull. The torpedo penetrated the armor nearly all of the way through, and then detonated in an impressive show of fireworks that mimicked the earlier destruction of the Vong coralskipper at the hands of an interceptor’s missile.

The victory was short-lived, however, as the Tactical Officer reported, “Got another CoralDevestator closing. This one looks to be a full strength . . . sh*t!! That one just got hammered by a photon torpedo!!! It’s the Stellar Voyage, sir, they have arrived on scene to assist, apparently!!”

“Good. We’ll certainly need their help.” Joseph grunted as the viewscreen showed the Stellar Voyage continuing to close on the wounded CoralDevestator, finishing it off with a series of precise, full-power phaser blasts.

“Open a channel with that ship. I’d like to thank her captain personally.” Joseph ordered, and a moment later was obeyed.

“This is Captain Joseph of the Thanatos. Thank you for the assistance Stellar Voyage. There is certainly no shortage of targets out there, and we need the additional firepower. Hopefully we can keep these b*stards off of the Motherships for just a bit longer.”

[flapjack]

comms: incoming transmission from the Thanatos:
“This is Captain Joseph of the Thanatos. Thank you for the assistance Stellar Voyage. There is certainly no shortage of targets out there, and we need the additional firepower. Hopefully we can keep these b*stards off of the Motherships for just a bit longer.”

me: comms, return the hail, it's not a problem captain Joseph, i'm getting pretty sick of these things by now and i've got another 34 photon torpedoes ready to fire as well as a couple of replicators capable of building new ones

operations: more incoming sir, mostly strike craft this time, wait a moment, what are those, sir, there are friendly fighters behind those strike craft, we might be able to help them a little but we have to be carefull

tactical: firing aft phasers into the strike craft

me: tactical, take that devourer out, now

tactical: torpedo away

*on screen the USS stellar voyage once more opened up with its aft phasers, killing 2 coralskippers and crippling another with the first volley, then firing its forward phasers into 2 coraldevastators, hitting them both but not crippling them. This is then immediatly followed by another photon torpedo which strikes a devourer, destroying it with a nice white flash*

[Crazyboy]

"Alert alert. All hands report to battle stations. Repeat, all hands to battle stations."

*Crazy straightened his uniform as he marched onto the bridge, having been rudly awakened by the klaxons sounding around his ship.*

"Whats with all the noise"

Lt Johnstone: "Scanners are detecting a massive amount of weapons fire in sector 12. Unable to get a full scan till we leave hyperspace."

"Give me a status report. How have repairs gone?"

Lt Golokov: "1 Fusion reactor is still offline. Leaks have been sealed, but the core needs replacing. Three of our dual-linked light quantum cannons are offline along with our cloak. The one fighter sitting in the bay is AOK."

"All right. Well, thats better than when we started heading here."

*Crazy sat down in his command chair, behind the other two bridge officers, and pulled two consoles into place, and hit two switches, locking the consoles into place.*

"Johnstone, boost power to scanners by 50%. Give me as much info as possible on whats going on. I want to know what we'll be aheading into."

Lt Johnstone: "Aye sir. Boosting power. Holy... reading a massive amount of hostile ships. Can't get any sillhouets. I'm also picking up signals of the motherships along with multiple friendly craft. Looks like as though they're making a run for the jumpgate."

"Damn. Looks like they're in trouble. Golokov, arm our guns. Set Fusion drive #2 to armour regeneration and drive #3 to boost our weapons. Darkstar ..."

Darkstar: "Determining best jump vector. All major systems are green. Seven entry points located"

*Crazy scanned over his console, half of which was awash with red and blue dots, all of which were continually changing position. Seven green dots appeared on the console, all of them on the edge of the battle, and none in a good place to help*

"Damnit. Darkstar, give me an entry point, as close to the motherships as possible. And make it in the middle of the swarm formation"

Darkstar: "Aye Captain. Course is plotted"

"Take us in"

*Near the lead mothership, space seemed to be sucked into a single point, as a white light appeared. Moments later, that light burst forth, in a massive surge of energy. Three devourers, caught in the shockwave of the jump-point opening were ripped apart, from the sheer energy release needed. Then a jet black ship glided through the blue vortex.*

"Holy crap. Theres a whole hell load of them buggers here. Darkstar, initiate attack sequence, Alpha Niner. Lets take out some 'o these little devils"

Darkstar: "Aye. Attack sequence initiated."

*Crazy was pushed back into his seat as the Darkstar suddenly shot forward. It spun around, and headed directly towards the Motherships, its enhanced human/AI pilot, having been interfaced with the ship itself, effortlessly directing the ship around the masses of zerg ships. Lieutenant Golokov tapped away on his console, directing the fire from the two heavy quantum bolt cannons, aided by Darkstar. The purple-pink shots shot from the front of the ship, and smashed into the side of a group of gaurdians. The shots ripped off their spider like limbs, shattering one ship completly and knocking two more spinning off.*

[Wo2]

*The Shadow Wind unloads its fury onto the nearby ships. Many of the weakers ones explode in bright fireballs sending shratnel at the ships closest to them. The Swarm, at this point, takes notice to the Battleship sitting behind them. A few of the captains ar momentarliy confused at how the ship got by their blockade, they were keeping the humans at bay. The ships immeditaly around the gap, that the Shadow Wind snuck through, turn to fire on the craft. The captains are again confused when the ship vanishes. Most know it was a cloacking device so they fire on the spot where the ship was. The vessel unload huge amounts energy and munttion, that would have been more then enough to finish the Battle ship, but instead the weapons keep flying past the point where the ship was.*

Wo2: Status?

SO: Phased cloakc is working perfectly, They can't see us or hit us.

Wo2: Perfect...

SO: Sir the Station has fired again.

Wo2: So long as we remain cloaked we'll be fine.

*Wo2 watch the progectile race towards him and expand into a cloud of destruction. The cloud hit the enemy swarm againg and ships were vaporised, turned into twisted hulks of metal or sluge, or simply ripped to shreds. The ships that had turn to face Wo2's ship were caught completly off guard by the shoot. The ones that weren't hit, immediatly turned their attention back to the human fleet and the station.*

Wo2: Decloak and give them another volley, target the engines this time.

SO: Decloaking.

WO: Targets Aquired...Firing.

*The Shadow Wind pahed back into being and opened up again. The guns on the ship sent massive amounts of energy at the engines off the enemy craft. The drive nozels on the enemy ships erupted in explosions and energy. The vessels began to drift in space, unable to turn them selves or run.*

Wo2: Perfect. Re-engage cloak and get me the status of our motheship, has it made the jump yet?

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by Bakan

Hewitt
Without warning, you find your ship in the middle of the main battle. Your ship, while free of the main dock, is still entangled within the docking clamps and section of the dock. Several coralskippers come towards you, only to be destroyed by 2 remaining flights of Federation fighters. Mothership #2 captures you in a tractor beam until you can get your ship stabilized.

15 minutes ago...

SO: Sir! I'm picking up another large group headed straight for us!! That makes a total of 8072 incoming... and counting.

*Things were going from bad to worse. So far the forced lockdown had keep them dock bound and vunerable, the ships maintence crew had been had at it for almost two hours but to no avail and were now onboard trying desperately to think up new ways to get themselves away from this infested platform. The attacks upon the Yamato steadly increased in intesity as the last of the shipyards defences fell to the swarm.*

And now there must be none for they are surely massing solely against us...

*Hewitt stared grimly at the tactical display before him. The red dots representing the swarm far outstretched the numbers of the few green friendlies scattered around the shipyard complex. 2672 incoming... and yet only a small portion of the two 'task forces' engaged in this section of space. They had to leave NOW. But how god damn it, how... *

SO: There’s a single group very close sir. Unable to get exact numbers... somewhere around 600 to 800...

TO: Profile suggests Mutilisks sir, and they are grouping together. Like one giant hammer come to pound us.

Hewitt: They probably think they came shield some of numbers with their own bodies. Clever. grrr! We’re siting ducks! I wish I could just blow those stupid clamps to kingdom come and be done with it!

WO: I thought bugs couldn’t think sir.

Hewitt: They can’t. But these ain’t ordinary bugs...

WO: Good thing we have some extraordinary bug swatters then sir.

*If sound could travel in space the crew of the Yamato would be deafened by the hideous screeching of the swarm. The massive cloud of bat-like creatures was closing, ready to die for the swarm and the hive mind behind it all.*

TO: There coming at us bow high sir.

WO: Not smart enough it seems. *grins*

Hewitt: They’ll be aimming for the conning tower and bridge control. Charge the weapons banks and ready the launch tubes. Let's take these b*stards down!

WO: Yes sir!

*Electrical whirls and mechanical whines sounded as the Yamato's gun crews readied their respective batteries for the incoming swarm. Those that could brought their weapons to bare directly while other turrets keep the flanks covered. Missiles powered up in the few remaining undamaged tubes and the entire front deck of the old battleship vibrated as the massive shock cannons moved into position. Meanwhile the first wave of critters moved onwards visible as a large crawling mass, ominous and unstoppable.*

WO: Targets are in range of our wave motion missiles. Preparing to en-

Hewitt: Hold your fire! Wait until I say go...

WO: Um... sir?

Hewitt: I said wait! That’s an order.

WO: Yes sir... holding fire...

*Hewitt stared at the tactical screen trying to look focused but really just so the others couldn’t see the fear he must surely be showing.*

TO: Sir. If I may ask what it is you are doing-

*Hewitt turns to face the two officers doubt creeping into their faces.*

Hewitt: Wait until they get in range of our point defence. Then launch the missiles and fire the cannons. But I want the missiles to come in on their sides understood.

TO: The detonations will knock the group around and break them up...

WO: Brilliant sir!

Hewitt: Don’t thank me yet. Now here’s specifically what I want you to do...

*Closer and closer the bugs came and still the Yamato was silent. The swarm was moving slowly and while this baffled a few tactians the plan remained unchanged, the crew holding it as a source of hope.

A few seconds later hell was unleashed.

As soon as the swarm entered their range the AA turrets opened fire filling the surrounding space with multiple streams of pale yellow light. Immediately zerg began dying as the rapid firing lasers tore into the first few ranks, vapouring scores of the suicidal bat-things within seconds. As the bodies built up they as predicted began to absorb some of the laser beams and the great momentum of the swarm carried them onwards to their goal.

Then the shock cannons fired.

*There was a massive roar through the ship as the heavy artillery opened up. Six bluish-green beams, three bigger than the others, cut through the rain of yellow and smashed into the shield of bodies shattering it instantly. The beams continued unabated tearing through the very heart of the zerg swarm, incinerating anything unfortunate enough to get in the way...

Hundreds died in the dense pack.

At the same time missiles were launched, the light point defense rockets shooting from their turrets while their large cousins with the wave motion energy charged payloads arced from the control bridge. They bore onward to the target quickly and unhinded thanks to the lack of enemy point defence.

Before the critters could do anything to fill the gapping hole made by the massive shock cannons the missiles plunged themselves into the mass and exploded throwing chunks of the swarm all over space. Confusion set in as the chaos wraught by the attack reigned supreme, some mutilisks collided with one another and self-detated others found themselves flying in circles, many had lost appendages while others had been disorientated by the shockwaves. The gun crews of the Yamato watched on with glee as the pack was broke up. Mutilisks that had previously been protected on all sides found themselves disorientated and vunerable, scattered and broken they became easy targets for the unrelentless AA which did not hesitate to eat them up.

Their numbers were still great however and although dispersed they still came onwards. Seeming to abandon whatever plan they had made the zerg mutilisks decided to go for broke and increased in speed dramtically revealing the guardians and devourers that had been hidden in the masses.*

TO: Good god sir.

WO: I see em, I see em...

*The laser batteries were too busy with the remaining mutilisks to deal with the newly discovered threat. Far too busy. Red energy beams joined the light display as the two missile screen guns opened up but even then a few mutilisks managed to slip past. Meanwhile the guardians and devourers began to circle around for a clear shot.*

Hewitt: Brace for impact!

*Hewitt’s world shuddered violently as a mutilisk slammed into the side of the conning tower once again causing groans to echo up and down the ship as she swayed against the resistance of the docking clamps. Two more considerable bangs came when two more crashed into the front deck.

But that was it. No more mutilisks made it through.

The guardians and devourers continued on their way. They angled to come up underneath the Yamato where her weapons could not reach but to do so they had to cross in front of her port side batteries. Guessing what would happen if any of those bugs were allowed past the six light shock cannon batteries opened up and in a multitude of bluish-green light the zerg craft were no more.*

WO: YES!! *Does a little dance* That was the last of them sir. We got them.

Hewitt: Don’t celebrate just yet...

*Although the first wave had been defeated with minimal damage Hewitt knew they had been lucky. That strike had really only been a test, the bulk of the enemy forces had hung back. Watching. Analyising. The next strike would be the killer for sure.*

SO: Sir, I’m picking up some strange energy readings from the shipyards. I think they have started the auto-destruct sequence.

WO: Well, it was nice knowing you sir.

*Then all of a sudden everything went black.*

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

NOW......

Hewitt: What the hell just happened? Where did those bloody alien cruisers come from!?

SO: Sir, it appears that just before the station destroyed itself they enveloped us with some kind of energy field which... displaced us. We are now with the motherships sir, in fact mothership #2 is pulling us in.

Hewitt: Well that's nice of them... what about the wave motion engine? *actives his comm unit* EO this is the captain. What happened to the power?

EO: Something tripped all the powerbreakers sir. I think it was some kind of power surge... anywho, the WME is undamaged and just needs a minute to charge back up.

Hewitt: Ok then... when your finished with that see if you can get some crews to start repairing more gun batteries. It's quiet for now but later on even one extra laser could make all the difference.

EO: Aye aye captain. It will be done. Um.. sir?

Hewitt: Yes?

EO: What should I do about our 'souvenir' from billbrige?

*Hewitt smacks his head on the command panel in frustration. With all the fighting a few minutes before hand he had forgotten about those retched docking clamps. Using the ships external cameras (one of a number of systems running off the back up power supply) Hewitt couldn't help but chuckle ruefully at extra assembly Yamato had inherited.*

Hewitt: Leave it for now. Adjust the control thrusters when they come back online to compensate for the additional baggage and that is all.

EO: Yes sir. Anything else?

Hewitt: No, no... I've kept you from bashing things together for too long with this chatter I think.

EO: Heh, that you have sir. Engineering out.

*Hewitt turns to the comunications deck officer.*

Hewitt: Do we still have subspace communications online?

CO: Sonar and radar are offline sir but the comms are still working.

Hewitt: Good, let the motherships know our current status and then request a brief run down of what the hell is happening out here so we can go out and finally kick some ass.

CO: YES sir.

[flapjack]

ooc/ hewitt, since sonar uses sound waves, it won't work in space /ooc

[Hewitt]

ooc: I'm well aware of that however upon researching this vessel I found in one description that the Yamato is equiped with subspace radar and sonar. I think the idea is to use waves of sub particles instead of sound to detect hidden mines and cloaked ship a short distance away.

[Bakan]

*Watching the glows that were the Bilibrige shipyards destroying themselves, Fleet Admiral Bakan sighed and shook his head sadly. When it had first started off, Bakan was a captain of a explorer vessel, nothing high-profile, but he was happy. Then the war struck. Experianced officers were in short supply, thus those that had any experiance whatsoever were quickly promoted through the ranks. Though if he had any say in it, Bakan would still be on his small explorer vessel with his original crew, far to many of whom had joined the ranks of the dead, the rest scattered far and wide fighting a hopeless war.*

*Shaking his head and snapping himself back to reality, Bakan watched as the motherships finally reached visual range of the hyper-slipstream gate. The hyper-slipstream system was represented the peak of the Federation. Each gate was part of a large network, designed to allow ships to travel throughout the galaxy rapidly without consuming power. Only the largest and most advance ships could create a hyper-slipstream portal and travel through it safely, but the network allowed any ship to travel safely with far less power being used.*

*Watching the gate, Bakan smiles as the worst of the enemy ships blocking it was destroyed or disabled, then frowned as the gate lit up, like a ancient X-mas tree, indicated ships arriving. The gate itself was simply a metal ring, with 4 docking ports at the top, bottom, left and right. Inside the ring, a blue vortex formed, the initial subspace displacement wave created a devasting energy blast that destroyed several ships near the gate. Stabilizing, slips started to slip through the gate. Watching the monitor, Bakan sighed as the IFF system processed the new ships and posted it's results in bright red letters.*

Incoming Ships
Peace Brigade
1 Star Destroyer - Vengence
24 Daggir Craft
24 Zag'Gir
72 Mastakith

Bakan: "All ships, we have incoming peace brigade ships blocking our path to the gate. We have to clear them off. Concentrate your heavy firepower on the Star Destroyer, I'm issuing orders to the remaining Federation fighters to attack their fighters. Help out with their fighters as much as you can. We just have to get pass that Star Destroyer, then we are home free."

1 DM post till completetion (aka, this is the final battle for this mission)

No Dachi: Your sensor scans get through and you record the results. Yet obviously you hold off on analysizing them until after this mission.

[ooc] Reason this post is short cause my GF should be here any minute, and I wanted to give you something to work with.[/ooc]

[Darkling]

Sat's voice the only sounds in the ****pit as Geth'lath seemed lost within his memories.
"I should have figutrerd this would happened, I pushed his sytems harder than I should off. Geth'lath if can hear me ill make this better for you now its my fault your like this not me"
Sencerity within the deep voice as the lights dim to nothing, the shimmering along surface of the mecha stopping. All silent outside as the battle seemed to focus elsewhere neither of them noticing righyt now.
"Listen to me and do aexcatly as I say, dont lose your thoughts or aims. follow my voice"
Geth'lath looking about him feling tugs of figners grip his arms and claw at his skin, feling sharp pain shudder up his back. The feeling of cold metal, beign twisted inside him.
"Sat is that you, help me!"
Buckling in pain falling forward free from grips of the useen hands darkness clinging to him.
"I intend to but you have to do as I say please for both our sakes"
Bitting back a scream reaching abck to feel where the sharp object stabbed him, but only feeling burnt blistered skin.
Whats..whats happenign to me!"
Panic rife in his voice now hearing Sat's reply barly
"This is your knightmares manifested I cannot say what your seeing or feelings but get throught this and you will live yet"
The almost goddly voice echoing all around him"

Crawling desprantly forward Geth'lath bitting his tongue back from the pain wrakcing his bbody
"Is this all ive done to everyone, all the apin adn suffering vie caused"
Unable to surpess his thought as they wandered freely
"if it is so then my death would be a blessing"

"No not a blessing but ratehr the easy way out, if our as strong as you say then endure the suffering you have caused and bet it. Then you shall, we shall become stronger as one. It is our calling for betetr or worst we have ended up being made for war, I said to you before we are not very diffrent from each other. As such I wont find anyone else that can achieve tasks that will make us feared and reveared"
Sats words strangly hipnotic, images flashing before Geth'lath of his past the good and the bad truing to balckness ocne more
"The past is the past, as the futuer is the future. If im beaten by this then I am weak and deserev to die. NO! I am stronger than this, spave shall learn to fear me"

A grin growing across his face, the pain throbing still but it didnt mattr now it was just physical reaction. Standing up shakly lets out roar of defaince shattering the darkness as it quaks in fear almost.

The Titanium Angel seem to stand in its odd way, floating just a few inches from the ground rasing its good arm a metal shaking scream bellows from it somwhere. Casuing some crates to spill over its armour puslign alive a pair of eye blazing with light open upon its mishaped head. Staring out across the view, no this was diffrent Geth'lath could feel the sensors agisnt his skin almost, knowing the layout of the cargo hold without even thinking about it.
"And so we have awakened to our true self"
Sat's vocie not over the communciatiosn this time but isnde of his head
"Explain this how last thing remeber is.. is"
Feeling growing headache as he tries to remeber the past only thoughts of the previous battles his encouters with Sat adn the incident at the research base coming trhough strong
"Dont your past is nothing anymore, and we are seprete enties yet the same entites. I feel what you are doing, you feel what I am doing."

The mecha lurchs forward stopping suddenly Geth'lath looking shocked
"I didnt touch anyhting though"
Not sure what esle to sayu
"No but you thoiught of moving forward then stopping as we moved and so it was done. I dont expect you to udenstand it fully but this is wat my designers truly wnated from us, a compelte absence of the barriers between amn and machine, without feelings to get in the way, without controls to fumble with or screen to glance at. In short a fighting machine to be feared in battle."

Comrahedning slowly at first simply noding in respocne
"Then it appers as though it ahs been obatined although at whaty cost I cannot say. although it matters little no all that maters is we fight, for the weak die and the strong survive"
Without anothr word there seemed to be agreement between the two the Titanium angel zooming out th cargo bay, grapping hold of the staff as it leaves shifitng into its sword stae within second of being held. Looking on the feild of battle with a grim satifaction
"We go to war this day adn shall bathe within the blood of victory"

Ziping inbetween allied ships at the newly aproaching fleet disgreadging all poilcy or miltary conduct start slashing into some fighters, bulking their metal hulls, not able to get a full strneght swing with juse one arm. Grabing hold of one fighter latching itself on the ckockpit visible from his height. Geth'lath willing the emcha to headbutt the the armoured glass, sending a scheking as both hulls ipact, again hitting the ckockpit with it full weight unable to take the stress buckling inon the pilot. Its clear windows awash with blood the ghastly remains of the pilot inside somwhere, quickly leaeching some power of the idle ship, feeling it surge through him a feeling of utter exileration.

Using the fighter a sheild charges forrad to another one ramming bith of them toghtor a fireball the end result as the reactor on one them went.
Gipping tightly onto the sword as it shifts into a staff, holding it like a lance, the mecha striagting its body out charges as a horse would in jousting contest, the rider ready to forced his wooden lance into his foe. Second later imapled metal being on end of the lance, catching the fighter at its side wripping its left flight controller off. Bring himself about in a qiuck spin kicning hard at under side of the fighter sending it flying towards the star destoyer.

[Crazyboy]

*The Darkstar nimble dodged between two mutalists as they collided together and smashed apart. Shots pounded from the two heavy quantum bolt cannons on the fore of the ship. The shots slammed into a gaurdian, blowing off its spider like arms, and sending it spinning out of control. The gaurdian smashed into the side of a CoralDevtator, smashing through its hull and ripping the ship in half.*

Star: "Energy surge from jumpgate. Incoming ships"

"What? Show me!"

Star: "Incoming force of Peace Brigade class vessels. One hundread twenty one vessels identified. Incoming orders from fleet command"

*Crazy frowned as he looked over the display on his console. More ships to deal with. And a nice big Star Destroyer blocking their path to the gate. Well, he had just recieved orders to take it down*

"All right. New priority mission. Target the Star Destroyer. Golokov, get our Death Ray online. We'll need some serious firepower to take that thing out"

Lt Golokov: "Aye sir. Diverting power from sub-systems. Death Ray is charging at full power"

"Star. Take us it"

Star: "Confirmed Captain. Attack vector locked in."

*The Darkstar spun around, two shots taking out a CoralSkipper. The sleak black ship the changed course, and shot ahead of the Motherships, directly towards the newly arrived ships, dodging their fire and charing through the mass of fighters, heading for the star destroyer. As the Darkstar] approached the Star Destroyer, the massive ship opened up on the smaller ship. Shots spun past as the pilot of the Darkstar used all his concentration to avoid the shots.*

"Come on. Come on. Get us closer to that beast. Golokov, target their main shield generators."

Lt Johnstone: "Sir. Aft shields are taking a beating."

"Shut down all non-essential systems, and divert their power to the aft shields"

Lt Golokov: "Main cannons are in range of the star destroyer"

"Take them down Mr Golokov"

*The Darkstar swooped down towards the Star Destroyer, spinning and dodging away from the fire pouring from the ship. Purple-pink blasts came from the Darkstar as it opened up on the Star Destroyer. The shots slammed into the massive ship, causing a ripple effect as they smashed into the ships shields. A massive beam lanced from the Vampire class ship, and smashed into the Port shield generator. The shields around it absorbed the shot, flickered and strained. The beam burst through the shield and smashed into the generator, and blast a hole in it*

Lt Golokov: "Port Shield Genertor hit . Estimate around 20% power loss to it. We're coming around for another pass."

Ly Johnstone: "We've lost port aft shields. Armour taking hits. Its adapting and regenerating. Nothing serious at the moment"

[Heiro]

The Small hatch hisses open, and Drake clambers up the ladder, his silk shirt and sash splattered with green mysterious blood. Smiling, he throws his sword up onto the deck, where it clatters down, into a dribbling mess of glittering honour amongst the crew. As he shuts the hatch behind him, the whole deck erupts in cheer, a look of relaxed humour filling the stressed air. Turning around to accept the doc’s handshake, and, his medical opinion, of a nod and a swift pat on the back, he turns around to see something flying towards him at great speed. Hitting him right across the left jaw, the crew instantly silences, a stunned awe dropping over each man.

“Drake… Don’t you ever do that to me again! I was so worried!”

Laura, helping him to his feet suddenly embraces the captain, before dragging him, sword and all to sit down. Ripping her shirt clean in half, she starts to clean his scrapes and blood covered wounds.

“Don’t worry about that now! Ash scan for survivors, and charge last stand, we are heading for that gate, full speed”
“Aye Drake!”

The ship jinks in space, obvious to the guardian group chasing it, shots fire from the ships external lasers, pounding shot after shot into their hull, unable to make anything but a scratch. On the deck, the jubilation ceases, as the ship shakes under the hail of resin flak from the pursuers. Drake curses his bad luck, and mutters something about the lack of staff capable of getting his ship out of here safely, before residing to the fact they need to run.

“Ok, scan back Drake. We have 7 surviving pilots, 4 however, are in such a position they will be dead before we reach them, and the other three are on the course out of here.”
“Ok, it is now our cause to get them safely out. Make sure we do not fail.”

The helm sweeps the ship under the debris of the ensuing battle, jinking left and right, passing under a large floating hulk. Firing close quarters laser turrets, the ship begins using a method known of old; Ploughing the way. Rank after rank of laser fire ploughs into the myst of mutalists that remain. Some take hits; the Phoenix however cares not, smashing through and past anything between it and its escape, the blood from the small living ships streaking across its hull, like the tears of a giant high in the clouds.

The fighters, guns blasing, as they run like the shortened dogs they are, are being gunned down, or slowly picked at by mutalists, as they run. The ranks begin to thicken, and suddenly, the middle ranks explode outward, the phoenix spinning its thrusters, lasers picking off the mutalists as the shuttles dock. The third enters the phoenix cargo hold, and the doors shut, a mutalist creeping in past all the defenses, slamming into its hull and exploding. The phoenix shakes, and The door floats off into space, but the Phoenix guns off toward its final destination, the Hyperslipstream gate…

[Bakan]

[ooc] Okay people, cause my last DM post was.... shitty to say the least, I'm adding this on.[/ooc]

*Groaning as he watches the tatical monitors, Bakan curses the crew of the peace brigade ship. The peace brigade, scum whom nearly every race despised who showed up at the onset of the war. They consisted of members from all races who believed that the war was unwinnable, the parasites were gods, or some other trash and followed their new masters. Several captains whom Bakan once called friends had defected over and put their ships as the swarms disposal.*

Science Commander: "Sir, the Star Destroyer is the Vengence, reported lost about 9 months ago. No sign of fight launch, she may not have any. However, while she has superficial hull damage, she is equiped with a full load of weapons. Transmitting to the fleet."

Vengence Specs
60 Taim & Bak Heavy Turbolaser Batteries
60 Borstel Ion Cannon Batteries
10 Phylon Tractor Beam Projectors
1 Light MAC Cannon
2 Type XX Phaser Batteries

Bakan: "Great, not only a Star Destroyer that's in relatively intact condition, but one that has been upgraded."

Tatical Coordinator: "Sir, looks like the Darkstar just ran a pass, her main weapons was activated...... reading significant damage to the Destroyer's port primary shield generator.... it's offline.... however the backups have kicked in, reading only a 20% shield power drop."

Bakan: "That's not enough, we have to get her out of our path, she's big enough to block us from entering."

Fighter Commander: "Sir, we only have about 7 Delta Fighters from the shipyards still in combat, they are no match for the escorts from the Vengence."

Communications Officer: "I'm picking up a lot of chatter, looks like the Vengence was not suppose to be here. A lot of swarm ships were destroyed when she entered."

Bakan: "Typical Peace Brigader. Hope he get's gutted if he lives through this."

Tatical Officer: "Looks like the Swarm ships blocking our path have been destroyed. Those behind us..... they are being held off, barely. We are currently towing 2 escort ships so far that have taken critical damage."

Bakan: "Okay, form up the motherships, use the slave systems, I want us all in tight so that we can share shield energy. Order our escorts to concentrate their efforts on the Star Destroyer, I want her out of our path so that we can get out of here."

*The mothership shakes slightly, causing Bakan to grip the rail surrounding the holographical display, showing the position of all the ships in the fleet along with all hostile ships.*

Tatical Officer: "Star destroyer has opened fire, minimal damage shields, looks like she's firing at all motherships, trying to slow us down."

Bakan: "Keep us moving together, she dosen't have enough raw firepower unless she focuses, she's try to delay us..... position of the other 2 task forces?"

Science Officer: "Oh crap..... they are inbound, estimating they will be in firing range in 10 minutes."

Bakan: "So we have 10 minutes to get out of here, notify all escort ships I want that Star Destroyer off my screens NOW!!"

Crazyboy
Your attack runs manages to cause a shield generator to die, but you are not so lucky as the Star Destroyer opens fire. Your ship's manuverability allows you to dodge many of the shots, but one of the Phaser Cannons fires, striking your port engine and causing it to explode.

Darkling
Without warning, the swarm ships turn tail and flee, attempting to regroup. However several of the Peace Brigade fighters head towards the mothership you are near, their torpedo tubes glowing at they prepare to launch a volley.

Hewitt
Your request for a status update is quickly granted, and your ship is tied into the battle-network as the orders to take on the Star Destroyer are issued. By this point your ship's power systems have stabilized, granting you 75% power. Plus your helm officer is able to adapt your ships thrusters to compensate for your "cargo" at a cost of manuverability being reduced to 85% and speed to 90%.

Wo2
You are informed that the ships are close, very close to being able to jump, however there is a little problem of a Star Destroyer blocking the path. As you recieve this news, you phase cloak system, normally able to do the rapid cloak's/decloak's, fails, uncloaking and returning your ship's phase to normal. Your engineer reports the damage is easy to repair, but he needs time.

Flapjack
The swarm ships react to the loss of the devastator badly. Several dozen leeches speeds towards your ship, attaching themselves to your shilds and start draining them, and when filled explode. Several mutalisks also fly towards your ship, ramming into the shields. Many of them are blocked, however 3 managed to punch through, ramming into you starboard nacelle, causing it to rupture.

Inspectre
You see the Steller voyager take several hits, and her starboard nacelle explode violently. As your sensor officer analyzes and points out the leechers, 2 Coral Devastators break off and head towards your ship, their plasma turrets glowing a bright oranage as if they are over-charging themselves to deliever a massive blast. Finally your engineering officer reports that he managed to restore partial power to the port sublight engine.

Richpur
Your ship shudders violently as another wave of coralskippers run a pass over your ship. Your shields, down for recharging allow the blasts to strike the hull itself. On the bridge, panels blow out and some lower-ranking officers are thrown around. The coralskippers bank smoothly and level out, preparing for another run.

Planetkiller II
As your turn back into the fray, you see the Phoenix and Steller Voyage each suffer major attacks. As both of their enemies prepare another run, you recieve telementry on the Star Destroyer, along with the orders for all ships to attack it to clear it out of the flight path.

No Dachi
Your sensors scan the vessel. A quick scan of the hull reveals it to be approximently 246,641 years old (+- 50,000 years). Also a partial computer memory dump is achieved, as if the ship is trying to send the data to you but being blocked by something. Further analysis will have to wait as the Star Destroyer enters the scene and starts firing at the motherships, who's shields easily withstand the assualt, though further attacks will drain them.

Fluffie
Seeing the Star Destroyer, you reconize it from one of the fleets your ship used to be part of. However the new weapons emplacements you don't reconize, yet you can tell from data scans that the rest of the ship is the same as the stock Star Destroyer that you are familiar with. Meanwhile you manage to hold course with the Red sky at Dawn, protecting it as best you can as several coralskippers start to head towards your crippled side.

[flapjack]

*flapjack held on as the USS stellar voyage swayed suddenly to port, the helm officer is quick to compensate as the engineering officer starts cursing*

engineering: they took out the starboard warp nacelle, it's got a big hole and is venting plasma, i've already shut it down. I'd need a couple of hours to fix it, out of combat, there is no way to fix that hole as long as we're in combat tough. I'd prefer a spacedock.

me: it doesn't look like we're going to be able to use a spacedock soon, as in, when we get on the other side of that hyper-slipstream gate

operations: sir, there is a star destroyer in the gate's opening

me: isn't there a way to force that gate open? that might damage the star destroyer, get on it operations, FAST. Tactical, defend the ship for the moment, helm set a new course, intercept that star destroyer. Tactical, give it our torpedoes, keep firing till it dies

tactical: torpedoes away, switching to point-defense mode

*the USS Stellar voyage quickly shuts down the starboard nacelle while the engineering officer continues to curse at the mutalisks while changing the polarity of the shields as fast as possible (to throw off any leeches that get to attached to our shields), the helm officer brings the ship about in a maneuver that appears to defy all laws of physics (and does defy them) while the tactical officer proceeds to shoot down several coralskippers which, in his opinion, where to close to the ship. When the USS stellar voyage assumes its new intercept course the TO hits another couple of controls, sending off 1 torpedo every 5 seconds at the star destroyer while the helm officer is busy flying like a nutcase to avoid enemy fire*

[Fluffie]

(Admiral) "Alright, one rogue Star Destroyer to take down."

So the Admiral spoke upon the appearance of said craft out of the Gate. Softly shaking his head, he wondered why those manning the craft had ever been allowed to join the Empire - let alone be onboard a craft like a Star Destroyer! The battle around them continued, guns still sending volley after volley into the shapes of the enemy ships... Helm was still keeping them within range of the Red Sky, giving her anti fighter coverage, as well as blasting anything else that got within the Thunderer's firing arcs.

The Star Destroyer changed the whole scene of the battle, though. Moments before its arrival, the Motherships' path had been almost clear, unblocked by anything too sizable to form a problem. A problem had arrived though, in the shape of the large Destroyer blocking the exit. Turning to look at his Captain, Fluffie slightly raised his shoulders.

(Captain) "Shall I give the orders, Admiral?"

(Sensors) "Wow! Sir, a Vampire class ship just managed to take down one of the primary shield generators... Secondary generator has kicked in, 20# loss in shields. Other vessels seem to be turning and engaging her."

(TIE Wing Command) "We have incoming on your starboard, Thunderer. We are moving to intercept."

(Captain) "Roger that Commander."

Fluffie looked out into space and then onto the sensor screen, showing the stats and specs known about this... modified, heavily modified, Destroyer. For now she seemed to be spreading her weapons fire among the Motherships, but who knew what might happen if that firepower focussed itself...

(Fluffie) "Helm, break away from the Red Sky, take us on an attack course that'll give us some good shots at the Destroyer's drives. Captain, inform our TIEs where we are going, tell our gunnery crews to take their shots whenever they have an aim."

(Captain) "Admiral!"

The Captain quickly walked off to a terminal, while giving other people orders as well. The Dreadnaught already was turning about, the helmsmen deciding it best to kick to full drive - the path they were taking would include lots of incoming fire probably.

(Admiral, talking to the droid) "Red Sky, we are moving off to engage that Star Destroyer's drive system - we are hoping this'll shut their power down."

(TIE Commander) "Roger that Thunderer, proceeding to keep fighters off you."

(Captain) "Gunnery crews have their orders... Laser cannons and turbolasers will open up as soon as they get the target in their firing arc, quad lasers are on defence."

Fluffie nodded, watching out into space, seeing his Dreadnaught pick up speed and for the first time do that what she wasn't really good at - beginning to fly evasive and offensive... Thus far she had been more used as a firing platform, but the shields were beginning to drop uncomfortably low and the soon coming storm of fire wouldn't make the ride easier.

His thoughts true, soon the ship's shields began absorbing enemy fire - most of it on its forward shields. Watching the shield's status on a monitor with a concerned frown, the Captain didn't like it much... But he knew this one of the only ways, so he kept his mouth shut.

(Helm, taking the Dreadnaught down in a dive, giving her front and port good chances to open up) "Gunnery crews, feel free to open up."

Not bothering to reply, the laser cannons roared and the turbolasers thundered, honouring the ship's name. The shots concentrated on a small area, they hoped to batter through a small spot, which would then give them a small amount of time to have some lasers rip through the ship's drives - hopefully putting her dead in space...

[Planetkiller II]

Nav: Sir, Peace Brigade ships slipping in in front of the motherships! We have a Star Destroyer!

Comms: Fleet control is ordering everyone to eliminate

"Normally, I would see the Peace Brigade as a bad thing. Today however, we have two plasma torpedoes with that Star Destroyer's name on them. Helm, set us up for an attack run."

Balistics: Oh this is going to be SO good! I've been waiting to find a nice target for my prettys...

"Quite. Cobras, give us cover."

GOLD Lead: GOLD Flight acknowledges, we'll clear the way, you give them a headache to remember us by.

*The fighters finished destroying their current targets before forming up with their mother ship for a second, then peeling away at breakneck speed towards the enemy PB group. Dorsal and ventral proton cannon spat blue fire at the larger vessels, not causing much damage, but drawing some of them away from their friends. The Striker Draconis followed them in, hard and fast, avoiding most of the enemy fire on her way to perform a high speed bombing run.*

"Open the torpedo bay!"

Balistics: Aye sir, opening now. Torpedo assembly in position, fire on your command.

"Target their engines, and keep your finger on the button. Helm, full speed at that Star Destroyer, I don't want us to break off until the last possible second!"

*They did just that, diving through the melee of ships and weapons fire towards the massive triangular vessel. She nimbly threaded her way around the port side of the SD, rolling in mid flight to avoid a blast of energy from one of the enemy weapons. She came into position to fire for only a moment, but it was enough. The balistics officer let loose both missiles with a touch to a holographic control and they streamed out, blue drive tail blazing behind them. The weapons headed the short distance to the engine outtakes of the SD, ready to spread there firey green power into the innermost systems of the vessel as The Striker Draconis got out of there, waiting only for the explosions.*

[No Dachi]

Dachi is busy, and will post tomorrow! Watch this space!

[Fluffie]

(Sensors) "The Striker Draconis seems to be... Admiral, she seems to go and fire her PLASMA TORPEDOES at the drives!"

(Captain) "Woah..."

(Admiral) "Helm, take us out of here. Comms, send a message to the Striker, giving her the exact location our gunnery crews have been barraging thus far."

A number of affirmative replies later, the Thunderer is already well on her way out of there, her aft batteries continueing the job the front and port ones begun - keeping the spot soft for the the Striker, which was probably going to make a nice and shiny display of fireworks.

(TIE Commander) "We are making ourselves scarce for a moment, Sir. Don't think that if the Destroyer blows, our hulls will take it. We will hunt out there and return when it's safe."

(Captain) "Roger that. Good hunting."

(Engineering) "Admiral.. Captain.. Shields are beginning to get drained, our hull is still fully intact. If this goes on, we might need it, sirs."

Nodding, the Captain and the Admiral both knew... But for now, they were keeping their eye on the Star Destroyer - which while becoming further and further away from them, should hopefully go up in a blast soon.

[Shadow275]

Shadow275
You form up with Mothership #3, only to see it's shields around the cargo bay fail and several ships make their way into it. The shield is reformed, however the invasion does nothing to ablate the onslaught from the swarm onto the mothership. You also see several more troop transports, slower and large craft that can hold about 25 Vong warriors apiece fly towards the mothership, along with several dozen leechers, wormlike creatures that stick onto shields and drain the energy until they can't absorb anymore and then explode.

ooc:/ A short and sharp.

Mothership 3#'s shields have just failed around the cargo bay. Several ships have entered and the shield has been restored.

"Damn. Fly into the shield, get them to drop them, then kill them with the rail guns."

*The Angel swooped into the shields, they quickly opened up to allow her access to the inside then snapped shut. The Angel quickly went to work, locking onto the enemy ships and tearing them apart with DU rounds from her dual turreted railguns. The troop carrier was blown into shreds as a pair of Ion beams lanced out, turning the carrier into vapourised ship in an instant.

Ships destroyed

"Get us out of here, then target the destroyer ship infront of the gate."

[Richpur]

“Hyperspace wake detected,” Tactical calls out, “a large mass just arrived at the gate. Peace Brigade; looks like some people are still determined to be absorbed.”

“There used to be a saying that in a world of six billion people you would always be able to find someone misguided enough to support anything. There are a lot more people available to find them in now.” Observes Richard, clearly suffering from a short bout of excessive philosophy. “Anyway; we seem to have almost run out of targets here, set course for that large contact hanging in the middle of the motherships’ paths.”

The statement ‘run out of targets’ was perhaps a bit of wishful thinking; as the ether around the Pegasus is literally swarming with, well, Swarm. With her turrets tracking the larger targets in the milling medley of bio-ships and encasing them in clouds of flak and exploding mutalists; the vessel slowly comes about. Slowly does of course mean something rather different for a ship of this size. Even though it takes her a little over ten seconds to make the required right angle turn, this still means that the bow and stern ends are doing a little over two hundred and eighty kilometres per hour in opposite directions.

Once she is pointing in the right direction the plasma flow billows up to full thrust, the magnetic fields of the afterburner constricting in upon the flow and firing the distinctive long blue tongue of plasma out into space behind them. The Pegasus tears through the remains of the fleet between her and the new arrival, both front cannon running a continuous barrage into the space before them.

Under the hail of fire swarms of mutalists and CoralSkippers are blasted into dust as they flock towards the rapidly approaching vessel. Inevitably with only two of the intended three turrets operational, a squad of CoralSkippers evades the blasts and swoops in low over the hull, plasma weapons glowing brightly as they pour fire into her hull, one shot; either incredibly accurate or insanely lucky; goes directly up the barrel of the already offline middle turret.

“Rear turret, concentrate fire on that squadron, don’t let them make another pass. Damage report.”

“Those fighters shouldn’t have the firepower to damage us through our armour.”

Inside the turret a team of engineers has got the electromagnetic barrel lining hard-tapped into the main power grid for realignment. The plasma smashes into the grid, transferring the bulk of its energy into the power systems; the spike runs through the ship, blowing fuses and tripping emergency dampeners. Inevitably one surge terminates in the bridge console supply.

“Sir, we have some weird energy readings coming from inside the ship.”

“Which ship?!” Enquires Richard exasperatedly.

On his right a console explodes violently, catapulting a young officer into the air. Richard’s peripheral vision picks up the movement and he ducks just in time for the unfortunate ensign to fly over his head. The blackened remnants of the console pour smoke into the bridge while the similarly blacked remains of the ensign pour blood into the carpet.

“Damn, what was that?” Richard asks.

“Ensign Dramatic-Emphasis, sir.”

“I mean what caused that.”

“Energy surge; seems one of the plasma shots got into the power relays somehow. The automatic cut-offs protected the main generators, but it looks like the engine feed has been shut down. Engineering’s working on it now, but they say the manual reset will take a few minutes. ”

“So we’re heading directly for a Star Destroyer, with all our engines down.” Hayden remarks dryly. “I might as well put my feet up.”

“Never mind, make sure those CoralSkimmers get taken out, and intensify the forward bombardment, we should be entering the exit blast area in a few minutes but until then I don’t want any more ships getting that close.”

The Pegasus drifts across the battlefield, her engines silent but her guns ablaze. Soon however the guns also fall silent from lack of targets; the swarm pulls back, leaving the vessel to drift into the purview of the Peace Brigade; and the minefield of crippled craft left over from their entrance.

As she plummets into the debris field the uncanny luck that has been partly responsible for her crew’s survival seems to intervene; threading her gracefully between the tumbling derelicts as she ploughs along her unalterably straight course. Soon her headlong passage carries her into the smaller zone where the ships simply ceased to exist; a slightly denser vacuum surrounding the portal.

The Pegasus’ course heading directly for the star destroyer soon attracts its decidedly unwanted attentions; and with her engines offline she makes a rather attractive target. One round bursts from the bow of the star destroyer, sheathed in plasma and travelling faster than anything else in the system.

“MAC Round!” yells Hayden, who with nothing else to do has been monitoring the long-range sensor feed.

“What?” gasps Rachel, “From where?”

“The destroyer; a ship that size shouldn’t have them!”

“Impact in thirty seconds.” Says tactical, his face joining the group of alarmed expressions.

“Shields!” Richard orders, probably a bit louder than intended.

“There’s not enough power in the capacitors to get the field started, and if we divert that much through the system in the state it is, it’ll blow the relays.” Comes the hasty reply from engineering.

“Kelven, if we don’t have those shields in the next twenty seconds the relays will be all that’s left of the damn ship! Do it!”

“Aye sir…” the message trails off with the distinctive rumble of a chair wheeling across the engineering floor.

“Ten seconds to impact.”

“Kelven…”

“I’m working on it.” He replies as the lighting goes out, power draining from all over the ship.

“Five seconds!”

“Now would be a good time please…”

“Done!”

“Raise shields!” Richard cries out, whirling round to face the tactical officer; whose finger is already slamming into the panel.

Space around the Pegasus begins to warp as the incandescent MAC round speeds towards the ship, power levels rising fast as the field generators are jumped up to full output and all the safeties overridden, cutting the usually short warm-up sequence to zero. The shield generators begin to synch, the process only takes a few milliseconds, but it’s a few milliseconds they don’t have.

Before the field is fully up the MAC round plunges into it, the fledgling shield absorbing some of the round’s power, but not enough. The shell curls on it’s path through the shields; being designed to be fired from a magnetic accelerator, it is rather susceptible to even the incomplete field in place. Nevertheless the field imbalance proves its downfall, arcing the round inwards toward the ship.

Even with the majority of it’s speed lost into the shields the MAC round makes a rather spectacular impact, blasting clouds of ablative from the armour as the plasma shell ripples out along the secondary layer, burning away at it from the inside. The shockwave flows out over the hull, tearing a hole in the ablative layer several times larger than the projectile itself.

The mass itself, stripped of its plasma jacket spears into the third layer of armour, here it meets the first real resistance to its passage, but even that doesn’t last for long. Slowed enough by its passage that the MAC round is back to operating under strictly Newtonian mechanics, the projectile ploughs into the internal structure of the ship, tearing through bulkheads and blast shields like so much tissue paper.

The sections it tunnels through seal off, their atmosphere venting into space where the power to the emergency force fields has been redirected into the main shield. In a final twist of fate demonstrating the perverse nature of the universe, this very failing proves to be the Pegasus’ saving grace.

“Direct hit to reactor three! We’re venting plasma through the transit passage. Temperatures in the exposed decks approaching twenty five thousand degrees, unless they were in combat armour the people down there are gone sir.”

Richard closes his eyes for several long seconds, how many people he has lost to these devils in the past he does not wish to remember, but now the number is rising again.

“Kelven,” he starts.

“You’ve got three quarters thrust and weapon power is holding steady.” Kelven says in a slightly strained voice over the intercom. “I’ve lost a lot of good people down here Richard, give those bastards hell.”

[Inspectre]

“Down another one.” The Weapons Officer commented as he speared yet another coralskipper with a Graviton beam, tearing the Vong fighter’s fragile living-coral hull apart.

“That only leaves one hundred seventy-one to go in our immediate area.” The Tactical Officer replied, calling up a running total of all enemy ships around the Fourth Mothership and displaying it on the tactical screen.

Although the numbers of Swarm capital ships appeared to be slowly dwindling, the strike craft were fairly constant, as more continued to swarm in to replace lost units. With the addition of the Stellar Voyage, those capital ship numbers were dropping even more rapidly, as the Federation ship appeared to be concentrating on the heavier members of the Swarm.

“Receiving a return communiqué from the Stellar Voyage, sir. Putting it on speakers now.” The Communications Officer reported, then played the message he had just received from the allied ship.

“it's not a problem captain Joseph, i'm getting pretty sick of these things by now and i've got another 34 photon torpedoes ready to fire as well as a couple of replicators capable of building new ones”

“Let’s hope he continues to spend those photon torpedoes freely then.” Thomas muttered as yet another bluish-white streak flew from the sleek Federation ship to plow into a Devourer, tearing the creature apart. Phasers also speared out from the allied craft to wound, but not cripple, two separate CoralDevestators.

The nearby Swarm ships did not react well to the sudden addition of another thorn in their side, and quickly moved to overwhelm the Stellar Voyage. Hordes of Leeches and Mutalisks closed in on the Federation ship, and unfortunately the crew of the Thanatos could do little but watch. They had serious problems of their own, in the form of two lightly-damaged, suicidal CoralDevestators.

“Sh*t. Yes sir, those two CoralDevestators the Stellar Voyage just fired upon have indeed set a collision course with us and the Mothership. They’re powering up their drives for ramming speed, and are holding their remaining dovin basils in reserve for throwing up gravity wells in any direction.”

“Sounds like they’ve learned not to direct all their defenses in one direction . . . think we should tell them we don’t have any more loaded torpedoes, and can’t do our last trick again?” Thomas grunted as he watched the two Vong capital ships begin to close the distance.

“I don’t think they would believe us either way.” Joseph said, watching as the Weapons Officer directed his fire against the two ships without having to be told.

“Between the impact of such a large mass against the Mothership’s shields and the dovil basins, it’s possible that the drain will be enough to collapse the port-side shields.” The Tactical Officer reported, turning around to skewer Joseph with an iron-hard gaze. “We can’t allow those ships to crash, sir. If they do, this Mothership is in all likelihood finished.”

In his mind, Joseph pictured the inevitable result: Swarm transports attaching themselves to the Mothership’s hull like ticks, before spewing their hideous contents into the Mothership itself. Zerglings and Flood “jellyfish” charging down gangways, lined on either side with cyrotube after cryotube. And somewhere amongst all those cryotubes filled with the sleeping hope of the dying Federation, a young girl with blond hair sleeps, blissfully unaware of the Flood Jellyfish beginning to eat away at the cryotube’s seal, eager to have a body at last . . .

Joseph closed his eyes to the imagined horror, and saw behind his eyelids the pleading face of Ensign Hall. “Those ships will never get near the Mothership.” Joseph replied, opening his eyes again to glare at the approaching Vong cruisers.

A moment later, Joseph’s vow became prophetic, as the Weapons Officer directed every gun the Thanatos had still operational against one of the CoralDevestators. The Vong ship’s dovil basins did what they could, but they could not possibly withstand the amount of fire being directed against them. Singularities popped up in front of two Heavy Tachyon Beams and three Graviton Beams, absorbing that energy while even more stabbed past to strike the hull of the CoralDevestator. The three remaining Graviton beams that the Thanatos could fire struck various places around the hull, ripping off large chunks of coral armor and even an entire weapons’ arm. The Heavy Tachyon beam finished the wounded Vong ship, burning deeply into the living vessel and killing it. The crippled and dying ship continued drifting on its present course towards the Mothership, until a fresh series of Graviton beams literally ripped it apart, sending the pieces spinning off in a dozen different directions, all of them away from the threatened Mothership.

With the Thanatos focusing all of its firepower against one CoralDevestator, this left the second one to close virtually unopposed. Before the Weapons Officer could redirect his fire against this second threat, the CoralDevestator had closed to its own firing range. Plasma projectiles leapt from the weapon emplacements all along the CoralDevestator’s hull, and continued to do so at a constant rate. Joseph knew such continuous fire would quickly burn the living ship out, but since it was about to die anyway, it obviously wanted to do as much damage as possible.

The first wave of plasma projectiles slammed against the Mothership’s shields, causing only minimal damage compared to the near-planetary level of energy being pumped into them. The projectiles were not the real threat, however, and the Vong ship continued to close the distance at a frightening rate in its suicidal dive.

“Weapons Officer . . . take . . . that . . . ship . . . OUT.” Joseph grated, watching the Vong cruiser enter into the effective range of the Thanatos’s point-defense batteries. Although nowhere near powerful enough to seriously compromise the CoralDevestator’s hull, all eight of the point-defense Rail Gun turrets opened up on the capital ship, spraying its hull with near-lightspeed slugs. Each impact only broke a tiny piece of coral off of the ship, if that, and so the dovil basins didn’t even bother to create singularies to absorb part of the hail of iron-nickel slugs peppering the Vong craft’s hull. However, that soon changed as the turret gunners changed tactics: instead of spraying the CoralDevestator’s hull with slugs, the gunners concentrated their fire against one single spot on the ship’s hull. Gunners also worked together, doubling or tripling the amount of fire being thrown against one tiny part of the capital ship’s hull. This got a reaction out of the CoralDevestator’s dovil basins, and singularities soon popped up to block the point-defense turrets’ line of fire.

The turret gunners continued to fire, however, forcing the dovil basins to keep the miniature black holes open, and holding those black holes in place. The Weapons Officer didn’t need to be told to take advantage of this, and six Graviton beams stabbed out a moment later. All six slipped past the strained defenses of the CoralDevestator, as the dovil basins were forced to stop the Graviton beams, or stop the massed fire of point-defense turrets that were becoming more and more effective. Suddenly, most of the singularities blocking the Rail Gun slugs winked out, as the Graviton beams that the Weapons Officer had carefully aimed shredded the dovil basins protecting the Vong craft.

Having stripped the CoralDevestator of its protection, the Weapons Officer immediately followed the attack up with a plasma barrage of his own, using two of the plasma cannons to vaporize a hole in the nose of the Vong ship. The remaining four bolts of plasma followed the first two in, entering deep into the Swarm capital ship before detonating. The resultant blast utterly destroyed the Vong ship from the inside out, leaving only small chunks of coral plating to go spinning off in every direction.

“Nice shot.” Thomas acknowledged, and the Weapons Officer nodded in acceptance of the compliment.
“That shot just drained the Lower Bow Battery, however.” The Weapons Officer grunted, turning to the Bridge Engineering Officer. “Any chance of rerouting power through backup conduits so the two Lower Bow Plasma Cannons can recharge?”

The Engineering Officer checked, then shook his head sadly. “Sorry lad, but those relays are still down. Looks like we’re down to four plasma cannons at the moment, as I predicted we would be. On the plus side, I’ve just managed to restore some power to the port sublight engines. I think we can move under our own power now, at least for a little while.”

“Incoming jump signature from the hyper-slipstream gate!!” The Tactical Officer shouted and then swore as he saw that the contacts were red. However, the entrance of these new enemies was actually welcome, as the energy released by the hyper-slipstream gate destroyed the few Swarm ships remaining in place to block the Motherships’ path.

“What kind of idiot hypers into the middle of a battle, especially when people on the same side are parked in front of the gate?” Thomas grumbled in disgust. “Oh, don’t tell me . . . Peace Brigade.”

“Yes indeed. I’m reading one Star Destroyer with moderate strike craft cover. They have all been ID’d as belonging to the Peace Brigade.” The Tactical Officer reported a moment later, earning a groan from Thomas.

“I told you not to tell me . . . f*cking traitors. As if we didn’t have enough problems with the Swarm, now these *sswipes have to butt in.”

Joseph remained silent for a few moments in quiet thought, and then said, “Communications officer, open a channel to that Star Destroyer. I want to have a talk with its captain.”

“Sh*t!! We have more incoming sir, two Devourers!! They’re over-charging themselves, no doubt in an attempt to breach the Mothership’s shields.”

“Are they targeting us, or the Mothership?” Joseph asked, aware that an over-charged blast from a Devourer might be able to penetrate even the Mothership’s thick shields in one spot. The Tactical Officer checked his sensor readings, and then nodded. “Us, sir.”

“Alright then, I think it’s time we get the h*ll out of here. Communications Officer, send a message to the Fourth Mothership thanking them for their assistance, and informing them that we can now move under our own power again and want them to cast us off by deactivating the tractor beam. Engineering Officer, I need that port engine up to as much as you can give me, right now.”

“Aye sir, but we’re going to be able to move at about only 30% thrust, or risk unbalancing the engines. Any more than that, and the port engine isn’t just going to be crippled: it’s going to explode.” The Engineering Officer cautioned, but Joseph waved him off.

“Just do it, Engineering Officer, or we’re going to have a lot greater worries in a couple minutes. Weapons Officer, keep those two off of us.”

“I thought you’d never ask, sir!” The Weapons Officer replied, hammering in the commands that would fire the Graviton beams once more.

Six greenish-white beams lanced out from the Thanatos a few moments later, all of them slamming into the Devourer. The tough Zerg ship would have generally shrugged the blows off, but once again the Weapons Officer of the Thanatos had concentrated his fire. All six Graviton beams lanced out to latch onto the Devourer’s head and attempt to rip it away from the rest of its body. The thick skin of the Devourer was meant to absorb such stresses, and this time the creature’s head did not separate away from the rest of its body.

However, the attack did momentarily distract the simple-minded Zerg ship-killer, and for a moment it forgot that it was charging up for an exceptionally large blast of energy. By the time it remembered that it needed to concentrate on forming the projectile, it was too late and the Devourer had lost control of the reaction. Several seconds after that, the Devourer exploded as its own energy round reached critical mass and flew apart while still inside the thing’s gullet.

“And I make this look all too easy.” The Weapons Officer said with a smirk as he watched his own handiwork on the viewscreen.

“Indeed you do, but I think we need to get the h*ll out of here . . . now.” Thomas said, nervously watching the glow emanating from the second Devourer’s mouth grow brighter and brighter.

“Port and starboard engines now up to 30%. We’ll be moving if that Mothership lets us go.”

“The Mothership’s tractor beam has been disengaged.” The Tactical Officer reported, causing Joseph to mutter “Go, go, go.”

The Thanatos, finally free of being dragged along by the Fourth Mothership, ignited its engines once more and began to move away. Meanwhile, the Devourer, finally satisfied that its plasma ball was big enough to breach the Mothership’s shields, opened its fanged mouth wide and spat forth the ball of energy that it had been forming for the past several minutes. Unfortunately, the Devourer hadn’t expected the target to suddenly start moving under its own power and change position, and there was no way to compensate. The massive ball of energy streaked forth, easily crashed through the Mothership’s shields, continued on course to where the Thanatos had been, plowed through the weakened aft shields of the Thanatos, and then simply glanced off the armor plated underside of the leviathan-class ship. The Devourer had only moments to contemplate its failure before eight Lancer-class gunships from the Thanatos, and escorted by six Valkyrie interceptors, blew it apart in a flurry of ion beams and missiles.

“Minor damage to the lower aft hull, sir. We were lucky that Devourer only managed to hit us with a glancing blow.” The Engineering Officer reported after the bridge crew recovered from the slight impact.

“No, we were lucky our Helmsman was able to do such a quick course change and throw that Devourer’s aim off. Good job, Helm.” Joseph corrected, earning him a sheepish smile from the Helmsman.

“Now then, let’s go deal with this Star Destroyer, one way or another.” Joseph announced. “Helm, set course for the hyper-slipstream gate, best speed we can manage.”

[Bakan]

Originally Posted by No Dachi

Dachi is busy, and will post tomorrow! Watch this space!

Dachi did not POST! Space was wasted

[Darkling]

ooc-Better late than never, a;though a rather patetic reply right now admitidly

The Titanium Angel lows through a swarm of fighters, knocking some of them back with a swing of his sword
"Out of my way"
Bitterly shouts Sat proccesing the data in the abckground geth'lath sensing it as it gets compelted
"Sorry about this Sat but there little choice in the matter"
As the peace birgade fighters start to charge their torpedos, the mecha sharply rams into side of one with shoudler butt. Sneding it flying out in a firery explosion Geth'lath letting of grunt as his shoudler went numb in the hit.
Bringing the sword about within a second recovery slices at udnerbelly of another cutting the topedo launcher cleanly, setting of the weapon premartly, the titanium angel blown back in the blast as other fighters caught in the blast follow the chain reaction.
Shaking his head in dazed confusion Catching sight of two fighters left arming their deadly weapons, Rushes forwrd with a fury in his step the dreadfull sound of one deadly wepons launching from its tube seconds later blwoing up clipping the fighter in the explsion. Standing in its path the battered Titanium Angel its armour scroched from the heat.
"We cant do that again barly enough armour left intact now"
Sat's vocie groaning in his head, a rather disconserting feeling to have
"I know but what choice did I have beside I coudnly stop intime so got in the torpedo's way"
Hearing somthing like sigh from Sat mearly shruging it off, willing the titanium angel to grab the fighter by one of its odd looking wings the staff disapering within the Vector trap. Gripping the crippled fighter charges towards the last and final one swinging his make shift club around and beats at active Peace bridage craft, swing after swing sending the two craft crunching togethor
"Die like dgos you are, misrable curs"
Spitting anrgly Geth'lath finshes with one final hard swing sending both craft flying out randonly into space seazed togethor by twisted metal.

[Bakan]

[ooc] Just to let you know, the FINAL DM of this mission will occur TONIGHT!! If you have not posted, you ant to do it now.

Please submit via PM and/or integrated into a post the repairs you want done based on the spreadsheet. List it in the order of systems you want repaired.

Also to be introduced is the "Plot Save" and "Experiance" systems

Plot Save: Based on your experiance you will earn plot save points. These point can be used for your ship/crew to do something blanetly impossible (ie: slingshot around a star to go back in time, charge a superweapon in 1 post instead of 3-6, etc etc). The more "unreal" the save is, the more points you need. If you don't have enough points, bad things can happen. Once you use a "plot save" I will deduct the points and you will have to refill them.

Experiance: This is based off your score and overall post quality. A higher score means your ship can do things better, as in inflight repairs, kill more enemies, repairs all systems at spacedock in 1 post, etc etc. Lower score means you do what you are doing now.

That is all. Starting from this point, DM'ing will start in about.... 5 hours.

[No Dachi]

Originally Posted by Bakan

Dachi did not POST! Space was wasted

Dachi is sorry, please forgive him. Also, please do not kill Dachi's ship/penalise him in any other way due to lack of posting due to RL busy-ness.

[Richpur]

“Hayden, give us a burst on the lateral thrusters array,” Richard orders, “minimum power, just enough to set us rolling; then cut all engines. All turrets lockdown on current vectors and cease all active tracking. Shut down all power to decks six through thirty-seven; evacuate all non-essential personnel from those decks and supply the rest with personal support units. Kelven, have someone drag a portable power pack to the torpedo bay and rig it up.”

“Playing dead.” Rachel mutters. “Not too far from the truth.”

“Well I doubt they’ve had a ship survive a direct MAC impact before. Lets use that to our advantage.”

With most of her systems shut down and plasma venting from the crater caused by her close encounter with a MAC round, the Pegasus tumbles slowly through space, drifting towards the Peace Brigade fleet. The mangled shell of generator three hiccoughs and surges an extra charge of superheated gas into the passage, melting away at the edges of the already molten channel. The blast of heat breaches the thick armour on one of the ship’s armouries and munitions begin to go critical as the shockwave carries them out of the hull.

The firework display trailing behind the vessel, while impressive, is insignificant compared to the energies being expended in the battle zone their originator is now slipping into. As one derelict amongst a cloud of debris that will likely be lingering around the system for many years to come, the Pegasus passes unnoticed by both fleets. Indeed if the star destroyer was not lit up so brilliantly it is likely the Pegasus herself would not have noticed the passage.

“This is getting a little tense.” Breathes Hayden, ducking as a pair of Daggirs swoop over the top of the ship and blast a couple of fighters from space, their hulls almost scraping against the Pegasus’ own.

After a few minutes the Pegasus becomes formally inaugurated as part of the terrain when a squadron of Mastakith loops in behind her and for a few moments seems to park in the apertures of the main engine, hiding from whatever is after them.

“Ideal time to go active wouldn’t you say?” Rachel smiles.

“Yes Ma’am.” Hayden replies with a grin. “Engine prestart sequence engaged and overridden.”

“Torpedo room;” Richard calls into the intercom. “Fire.”

The array of engines on Pegasus’ stern suddenly ignites into an inferno of white-hot plasma. One after another the Mastakiths’ hulls collapse in the torrent of heat; their power plants rupturing, causing miniature explosions amidst the turbulent flow. Myriad jets arrest the Pegasus’ erratic tumbling as power returns to the bulk of the ship and force fields cut off the plasma flow from generator 3, trapping it inside the inactive reactor’s shell.

Simultaneously the torpedo lights up inside its tube, ramming itself along the passage; the torpedo tube doors spiral open, the actuators being run off the portable generator while main power is still offline. As the doors lock back into the surrounding hull the torpedo bursts through the opening, flinging itself into space. As it flies towards the Vengeance lines of fire spring along the outer surface cutting the nose cone into segments which twirl away in the torpedo’s plasma wake.

From inside the torpedo a collection of emitters extend themselves upon spidery limbs, spinning a tightly packed web of quasi-solid energy in the centre. Moments before impact with the star destroyer the web expands, wrapping itself onto the ship’s shields and sucking the power out of them like a mechanical leech. Waves of shimmering blue ripple out over the shields, pulsing erratically like a badly tuned strip light; fading with each burst and fluctuation until almost imperceptibly, it vanishes altogether.

“Now.” Richard says simply as the shield readout hits zero.

Coming up underneath the star destroyer, the Pegasus rolls to point her undamaged side towards the vessel and targets all three cannon into the hanger bay. Each cannon fires in turn, hurling a solid slug of osmium nine metres across into the weaker internal armour. With the triad of turrets beating into the Vengeance’s underbelly the torpedo room fires it’s second shot.

The torpedo swings out of the launch tube and aims downward, immediately fragmenting into six smaller missiles. Following pre-programmed routes the individual warheads arch round the Pegasus and the Vengeance and converge on the central spire of the command centre.

“Tracking projectiles; looks like number four hit a Daggir, nice hit.” The tactical officer reports, “Warhead two just got taken out by point defence systems; five crashed into one of those large polyhedral things.”

“They’re called shield generators.” Rachel groans over the top of the running commentary.

“All others on target, one just went down, guidance failure… Confirmed hits, three and six are contacts.”

The twin missiles impact on the spire from opposite directions, their shaped explosives punching a hole clean through the command area. Leaking atmosphere and officers into space.

[Inspectre]

“Communications Officer, send a hail to the Vengeance.”

“Aye sir . . . you’re on.”

“Attention crew of the Vengeance, this is Captain Joseph McKinley of the Deathdealer leviathan Thanatos – “

“Yes, I know who you are.” A voice suddenly replied, cutting Joseph off. Suddenly the viewscreen changed from a display of the battle occurring around the Thanatos to the view of a Star Destroyer’s bridge.

“They’ve accepted our hail.” The Communications Officer whispered, stating the obvious as the Star Destroyer’s bridge crew glared out at them from the viewscreen. Although most, if not all, of the bridge crew wore Peace Brigade uniforms and insignia, a man standing near the center of the Star Destroyer’s bridge wore Imperial attire. However, while the man’s uniform was definitely Imperial, it had been stripped of all former insignia. All that remained was a Peace Brigade armband; other than that, the uniform was bare.

“As a matter of fact, I know exactly who you are, Joseph McKinley . . . or should I say, the Butcher of Tetra Genus?”

Joseph’s eyes narrowed at the familiar insult, and he just barely managed to keep his voice level as he replied, “I am indeed known by that name in some circles.”

“That is all you are to me. You, and the rest of your d*mnable Federation.” The man spat, but a moment later he regained his composure and lifted the corners of his mouth up into a slight, though forced, smile.

“But where are my manners. You have introduced yourself, and now I must do likewise.”

The man pulled himself up to his full height, and snapped to attention before throwing off a mock salute. “I am Captain Henry Pense, former Captain of the Star Destroyer Vengeance, Imperial fleet; now Battle Captain of the Star Destroyer Vengeance, Peace Brigade.” A moment later, the captain dropped his false jovial tone, and there was a hard edge to his voice as he said, “And I am here to stop those Motherships from escaping this system.”

“Typical Peace Brigade . . . although you certainly are an above-average arrogant f*cker, aren’t you?” Thomas growled, clearly not caring what kind of reaction that brought from the captain of a Star Destroyer. “What kind of riches did they promise you, traitor!?”

Although brash, Thomas’s statements did fit the bill for a majority of Peace Brigade officers. Lured forth by the promise of great riches and power by representatives of the Swarm, many Federation citizens and even Federation soldiers joined the ranks of the Peace Brigade. Many of these were the petty criminals and bullies, eager to do the Swarm’s bidding now that they could finally put into practice what they had hereto been only able to do in privacy of their corrupt and perverted minds. A great many others, sadly, choose to abandon the Federation that had protected them for so long in favor of appeasing its foul conqueror.

Most Peace Brigade members did not like to be reminded of their betrayal, however, and would generally react violently when confronted with the matter. Pense was a different story, however, as he simply stood there and blinked for a moment before giving his reply. As the former Imperial captain did so, Joseph thought he caught a glimpse in the man’s eyes of the same ghosts that haunted him.

“Once, I thought exactly like you did. Once, I was a proud servant of the Empire. Once, I even had a home on a little planet called Venaii Seven. Have you ever heard of the place? Of course you haven’t . . . the place was barely important enough to be marked on stellar charts as inhabited. However, then the Swarm came, and Venaii Seven was important enough to them. I personally begged the Emperor for assistance, and was refused additional reinforcements. Venaii Seven was too unimportant to stretch the fleet any thinner than it already was, already spread out to defend all of the more important worlds.”

Pense paused to draw a pained breath, and Joseph felt like he was looking into a mirror as the images of a burnt and dying planet danced in the Peace Brigader’s eyes.

“I couldn’t let my homeworld, die, now could I? So I said to hell with the Emperor and sent my ship into battle over Venaii Seven anyway. I also contacted a nearby Federation fleet, figuring they would be willing to help fight a common enemy.”

Pense gave a short, bitter laugh, and then said, “Oh, the Federation fleet came alright, only much later in the battle than expected. So much later that nearly all of my homeworld’s defenses had been wiped out, and defeat appeared inevitable. The Swarm was beginning to send ships down to the surface to begin conquering and converting the planet like they did to every other planet before Venaii Seven. Only this time it would be different. This time the Federation had developed a marvelous plan to cripple the Swarm and slow its unstoppable advance through the galaxy.”

Joseph winced as he realized what the plan was, but allowed Pense to continue his monologue without interruption.

“The plan was named the Deathdealer Protocol, named after the infamous leviathan-class ships that would form the heart of the plan. You intimately know about the Deathdealer Protocol, don’t you, Butcher of Tetra Genus? Yes . . . in the best interests of the rest of the galaxy, Venaii Seven had to suffer. No, not suffer, die, die a pointless death that robbed me off my home, that robbed me of my friends, that robbed me of my family! Your Federation didn’t even try to save my home. Within minutes after they had hyper-spaced in, the Federation fleet began to make preparations to leave the system, leaving behind a charred cinder of a planet after a Deathdealer was done with it. Your Federation took from me everything that I had once held dear . . . and you have the gull to call me a traitor!! Who abandoned countless worlds to the Swarm in order to better protect the more developed planets!!? Who came up with a plan to slaughter billions of people!!? Who has more to answer for the countless billions of lives that have been lost during this war!!?”

Several veins along Pense’s neck bulged as he continued to work himself up into a sort of fervor. Joseph began to calculate the chances that Pense would suddenly drop dead from a heartattack, thus solving their problem the easy way. However, a young lithe woman with long brunette hair suddenly stood up from her position at one of the console dotting the Star Destroyer’s bridge, and quickly moved to stand beside Pense. She threw her arms around the furious captain in a blatant sign of affection, and stood up on tip-toe to whisper something into his ear. Whatever the woman said, it clearly calmed Pense down, as he immediately regained his composure and the veins settled back into his neck.

“It has taken me many long years to recover from that utter . . . betrayal. But when I finally got over the loss, I felt as if my eyes had been opened.”

As Pense began to talk again in a much more level tone, the woman released her grip on him and began to walk away. However, Pense stopped her immediately by wrapping an arm around her waist. The woman, apparently seeing her affections being returned, stopped and moved to stand directly beside Pense, before throwing an arm around his waist as well.

“I finally realized the utter futility of this war. Directly combating the Swarm didn’t work, destroying planets about to be converted didn’t work, falling back to defend our home systems didn’t work, and this foolish plan of yours isn’t going to work either. That is why I joined the Peace Brigade. It is time to accept that the Federation is beaten, and attempt to appease its conquerors. The Swarm isn’t nearly the monster the Federation believes it is: populations of most conquered worlds are allowed to live in peace, in return for some slave labor and host bodies, not slaughtered out of hand. I have had to do some distasteful things as a member of the Peace Brigade, it is true, but I finally have something to live for again, and I will do whatever I have to in order to protect it.”

Joseph’s attention was, because of Pense’s arm, drawn to the woman’s waist. Although he wasn’t sure, Joseph could have sworn that the woman was in the fifth month or so of pregnancy. A moment later, Joseph redirected his attention to Pense’s face once more, and noticed the pleading in the man’s eyes as he continued his speech.

“Surely life is better than death? You have condemned those five million people to a sleep from which they will never awaken if you continue. Stop, and turn back. If you surrender now, I give you my word that the Swarm will show you mercy, and find some use for those five million people that doesn’t involve suffering and death. Otherwise, I will be forced to destroy you, and those people will have died for nothing but an empty dream. The dream that was the Federation is dead. It’s time to wake up . . . Joseph.”

Although Joseph sensed that Pense’s words had a grain of truth, the memory of Tetra Genus exploding into flames danced before his eyes. He would not be able to live with himself if all of those people died for a Federation that ceased to exist. Slowly, Joseph shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Captain Pense, but I have orders of my own. I would ask you to move your ship out of the Motherships’ way, but we both know that you would refuse.”

Captain Pense bowed his head for a moment, and murmured “And at last we come to it. Very well, Captain Joseph McKinley, Butcher of Tetra Genus, I wish you well, and hope death comes to you mercifully. Pense out.”

“He cut the channel.” The Communications Officer reported a moment later as the image of the Star Destroyer’s bridge winked out.

“He’s still an arrogant b*stard.” Thomas grunted, then turned to face Joseph. “Well, I suppose it’s time we go take him down a peg or two?”

“Indeed. Communications Officer, contact the Flight Officer, and tell him to pull back all interceptors and gunships back to the Thanatos for close escort. Inform the Mothership that we will also be leaving the cover of its shields to deal with the blockade ahead. Weapons Officer, start charging all weapons, including the Stellar Converter - we’re going to need it. Engineering, I’m going to need all the power you can give me, especially to the shields.”

“The port shields are still weak as h*ll, sir, but the shield generator is intact and I’m shifting power to strengthen them.”

“Good. See to it that the Frontal shields quadrants are close to 100% as well . . . that Star Destroyer appears to be carrying even more heavy armament than usual.”

“Many of the other ship captains have already engaged the Star Destroyer in combat, although it appears to be continuing to focus its firepower on the Motherships. The thing has taken a beating, but looks like it can take a helluva lot more.”

“Star Destroyers are built to last: I’d be surprised if the thing didn’t take a beating. And, it would appear we are running out of time.” Joseph said, noticing the closing red swarm of enemy contacts from the former Bilibrige Shipyards.

“So you want to use the Stellar Converter to blast it out of the way . . . sounds good to me.” The Tactical Officer said, then looked expectedly at the Weapons Officer.

Taking the hit, the Weapons Officer reported a moment later, “The Stellar Converter array has cooled, and I’ve begun charging it. Current power: 11%.”

“Good. Tactical Officer, inform me the moment that the Vengeance begins to turn to engage us. Meanwhile, Weapons Officer, continue charging that Stellar Converter and keep that Star Destroyer’s escorts, Peace Brigade and Swarm alike, away from us.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice, sir.” The Weapons Officer reported with a grin as he was essentially given free reign to shoot at anything entering weapons range on the way to engage the Star Destroyer. Almost immediately, he began his new assignment by ripping apart three nearby Mutalisks with Graviton beams.

“Sir? Why do you think the Star Destroyer is going to engage us? It’s got a few more worries than just us to deal with currently.” The Tactical Officer asked, not quite as easily satisfied with Joseph’s orders as the Weapons Officer.

“I know Pense. He is aware of this ship, and he is aware of its capabilities. He won’t let us get close enough to deliver a crippling blow without some resistance. He also has to guard the hyper-slipstream gate, so he’ll wait for us to come to him. He’ll turn to engage us when we’re close enough. Just let me know when he does.” Joseph replied, for once deciding to clearly explain the reasoning behind his orders.

“Ah, you have a point sir. For some reason I didn’t think of that.” The Tactical Officer replied, clearly embarrassed that he hadn’t analyzed the situation enough to supply his own answers.

“Stellar Converter up to 23%.” The Weapons Officer replied as the Thanatos passed the Third Mothership. As the massive Deathdealer leviathan went past, a concentrated barrage of Graviton beam fire ripped an Overlord apart. The Zerg troop transport had been wandering around after failing to slip inside the Third Mothership’s shields in time, and now slipped the full contents of its hold as the beams of intense gravity tore it to pieces. Zerglings and Vong soldiers alike began to die as they were exposed to vacuum, but their suffering was put to a quick end as the Weapons Officer vaporized the remains with a blast from one of the four operational plasma cannons. The handful of coralskippers and Mutalisks that had been escorting the Overlord flew into a rage at the destruction of their charge, but all of them joined it in death under the point-defense turrets of the Thanatos and its interceptor escort.

“Stellar Converter at 37%.” The Weapons Officer reported again a few minutes later, as the Thanatos slipped into a brief escort formation with the Second Mothership. A CoralDevestator began to close from above and to the left, but a slew of Graviton beams, followed by an Omega torpedo, taught the surviving members of the Vong ship’s crew the folly of engaging a leviathan alone. However, that was a lesson they could make little use of, as a gunship broke off from escort formation around the Thanatos, and finished the wounded CoralDevestator with a precise Ion Beam to the bridge.

“Stellar Converter at 55%.” The Weapons Officer called as the Thanatos pulled even with the First Mothership, and neared the edge of the swirling melee of ships that were currently battling for control of the hyper-slipstream gate. Several Mastakith fighters noticed the large capital ship nearing the hyper-slipstream gate, and moved to intercept. In return, the Thanatos’s interceptors moved to intercept them.

The Mastakith fighters were extremely fast and maneuverable, and the interceptor pilots were hard put to maintain a bead long enough to punch through a Mastakith’s shields. However, the Mastakiths also didn’t have a capital ship for support, but the interceptors did. More than once Light Graviton Beams slashed out from the Thanatos, occasionally striking a Mastakith and draining nearly all of its shield power away. This left the nimble fighters more than vulnerable to a flurry of laser cannon fire from a tailing interceptors, or the high-velocity slugs of a point-defense Rail Gun. Soon enough, the half squadron of Mastakiths were down, and the Thanatos continued on its way deeper into the battle.

“Stellar Converter at 66%. Almost there.” The Weapons Officer announced as the Thanatos now neared the hyper-slipstream gate, and the Star Destroyer nearly parked within the ringed gate itself.

“The Vengeance is still ignoring us, sir. However, we do have Daggirs and Zag’Girs incoming.” The Tactical Officer warned as a full squadron of twelve red contacts closed on the Thanatos, followed by another full squadron of Mastakiths.

“Take them out.” Joseph said simply, and allowed his crew to do their jobs.

The Weapons Officer did his job as he fired one of the Thanatos’s Heavy Tachyon Beam cannons at the oncoming fighters. Although easily maneuverable enough to avoid such heavy anti-capital ship armament, the fighters’ pilots were taken aback that anyone would even be stupid enough to try shooting them at strike craft. Two Zag’Girs and a Mastakith perished in this way, before the remaining Peace Brigaders were able to react and get out of the Heavy Tachyon Beam’s way. A flurry of greenish-white gravity beams killed another Zag’Gir as the Peace Brigade fighter formation broke apart.

The Flight Commander did his job as his interceptors and gunships raced forward to intercept the enemy strike craft well away from the Thanatos. Although the gunships were too slow to be much use in a dogfight, they were effective enough for the head-on pass that they did against the oncoming Peace Brigade fighters, managing to shoot down a Mastakith and a Daggir with their Ion Beams. The Interceptors, designed for destroying strike craft, did far better as they devastated the remainder of the Peace Brigade fighter formation with missiles and laser cannon shots. Four Mastakiths, three Zag’girs, and a Daggir died in the opening rounds as the interceptors cut in for individual dogfights against Peace Brigade opponents.

The Tactical Officer did his job as he shouted, “The Vengeance is turning to face us sir!!!” Sure enough, the massive, kilometer-plus long dagger of armor plating and weapons was being to ponderously turn to point its bow at the approaching Thanatos.

“Weapons Officer, start giving them a taste of our weapons!” Joseph shouted, and the Weapons Officer leaped to obey.

“Stellar Converter at 74%!!” The Weapons Officer shouted as he fired what guns the Thanatos had charged, and two Heavy Tachyon Beams plus four plasma cannon bursts shot out towards the Star Destroyer. The range was still rather large for plasma cannons, and although the Weapons Officer could hardly miss such a large target, the plasma blasts had largely dissipated by the time they reached the Vengeance’s shields. The tachyon beams were another story, however, and Joseph could imagine the shudder that passed through the Star Destroyer’s decks as the two heavy beams slammed against the capital ship’s shields. However, despite the immense power being thrown at them and the damage they had already sustained, the Star Destroyer’s shields held. Then, the Star Destroyer fought back.

He must have fired every gun he had. Joseph thought as the world suddenly turned vertical for a moment as the Star Destroyer’s weapons hit his ship. When the bridge returned to normal a few seconds later, the Engineering Officer reported, “Frontal Shields down to 64%!! I don’t think she can take much more of this, sir! Another blast or two like that, and the shields will be gone!”

“Stellar Converter up to 88%!!!” The Weapons Officer screamed, hammering his control panel as he fired the Thantos’s entire armament once more. However, Joseph knew it was a hopeless cause. Although the two ships were nearly equal on a ton-for-ton basis, the Star Destroyer had more guns, and was completely fresh. The Thanatos was not, and now their only hope was for either one of the other ship captains to get in a lucky blow, or the Stellar Converter. Meanwhile, what guns had been recharged, namely the six Light Graviton beams, struck out against the Star Destroyer, and once again were stopped by the steel titan’s shields.

A moment later, the bridge once again became a scene of utter chaos, before returning to normal yet again. The Engineering Officer bellowed, “Frontal Shields down to 49%!!! Captain, either get us out of here or say your prayers, because this ship really can’t take any more of a beating like this!!”

“Stellar Converter at 98%!!!” The Weapons Officer shouted.

“Looks like we won’t have to worry about either, Engineering Officer!!” Joseph shouted in reply, then turned to the Communications Officer.

“Open a channel to all of the other ship captains, and tell them to get the hell away from the Vengeance. They wouldn’t want to be caught in the blast. Weapons Officer, open the Cradle, and fire on my signal!!!”

“F*ck!!! Sir, I’ve just picked up a massive power reading from the Star Destroyer!! It appears to be charging an array of its own . . . . oh sh*t, it’s powering up its light MAC for another shot!!” The Tactical Officer reported, and Joseph nodded grimly.

“Looks like Pense wants to make sure he takes us out with this barrage. Weapons Officer, target that power build-up.”

“Cradle open, Stellar Converter at 99% . . . 100!!!”

“FIRE!!”

On the viewscreen, the golden beam of light once again began to emerge from the “mouth” of the Thanatos, covering the Star Destroyer with the unnatural glow. However, the energy from a Stellar Converter could not affect energy shields, nor could penetrate them, so that for the moment the Star Destroyer was safe. However, the Stellar Converter did drain energy from shields, and Joseph watched on the Tactical screen as the numbers on the Star Destroyer’s already badly weakened frontal shields began to drop. A few seconds later, a purple dot emerged from the red of the Star Destroyer, and zoomed towards the Thanatos.

“Incoming MAC round!!!” The Tactical Officer screamed, and Joseph’s voice cracked like a whip as he shouted, “Brace yourselves!!”

The silvery blur of a light MAC round sped from the underside of the Star Destroyer where its light MAC cannon had been installed, and headed towards the Thanatos. However, due to the fact that the Weapons Officer had been aiming the Stellar Converter specifically at that spot, the MAC round had to travel through the full fury of the Stellar Converter Beam’s field. MAC rounds, despite having a plasma screen for additional damage, did not come equipped with shields. As it sped towards its target, it began to glow with a golden inner light, and suddenly a critical mass was reached. The MAC round detonated, converted into a significant amount of pure energy. The blast stripped the Thanatos of nearly all that was left of its frontal shields, but it did far worse to the Vengeance. The detonation of the MAC round finally caused the collapse of the Star Destroyer’s frontal shields, allowing the Stellar Converter to finally touch bare hull. Almost instantly that section of the Star Destroyer’s hull began to glow with an inner light, and simply melted away a few moments later as pure energy. The effect spread, eating away a good section of the Star Destroyer’s bow, as if the ship was an icicle being subjected to a blow-dryer. Finally the golden glow of the Stellar Converter faded, and the remainder of the field’s energy was released in an explosion that further crippled the Star Destroyer.

“The Vengeance is beginning to drift, sir. I’m reading power buildups in its reactors, looks like they’re heading towards meltdown. She’s finished, sir.” The Tactical Officer reported.

This piece of news brought a loud cheer from the entire bridge crew as they rejoiced in the destruction of the last obstacle to the Motherships. Joseph felt an odd sense of rage build within him, and a moment later he snapped, “Just what the h*ll are you doing!!? Stop cheering at once, because those people on that ship died for what they believed in, however misguided those beliefs were. And we haven’t won yet.”

“We haven’t won at all.” Joseph muttered a few seconds later.

“Escape pod just launched from the bridge area. Looks like Captain Pense thinks he’s going to get away . . .” The Weapons Officer reported, and then chuckled. “Well guess again, *sshole . . .”

“Weapons Officer, stop! You will not destroy that pod. Communications Officer, inform the Flight Bay to launch a Beserker transport to dock with that escape pod and retrieve its passengers. The passengers are not to be harmed, and given medical treatment if required.”

“Aye sir.” Both officer reported, more than a bit chastised by the tongue lashing their commander had suddenly given them.

“Hmm . . . that’s interesting. Picking up a burst transmission from the Vengeance now.” The Communications Officer said a few moments later, and then displayed the compressed and broadcasted message on the viewscreen.

The viewscreen showed a scene from hell: small fires were raging everywhere, crewmen lay dead on the floor and draped over consoles, and many screens appeared to have burnt out. A moment after the transmission started, Joseph noticed Captain Pense walking determinedly across the screen, a figure draped over his arms. It took only a moment longer for Joseph to recognize the unconscious figure as the woman who had comforted Pense, and it appeared that he was making his way to one of the bridge’s escape pods. The camera angle shifted to show Pense gently lying the woman down on the escape pod’s seat, strapping her down, and then gently stroking her blood-soaked hair for a few moments before stepping back and sealing the escape pod. Pense then turned to face the camera, and said in an uneven but determined voice, “Although I’m not sure if I would do you the same courtesy, Captain McKinley, please spare my wife and child. I want to die knowing that at least I protected them. Good bye.”

“Transmission ended.” The Communications Officer reported, and a moment later the Tactical Officer said, “He’s gone.” As the viewscreen shifted back to an image of the badly-crippled Star Destroyer, the massive ship’s reactors reached critical, and consumed what remained of the ship in a massive fireball.

“Sigh . . . alright people, this battle is over. Have that Beserker transport continue to dock with the escape pod and rescue Mrs. Pense, and bring her back to the Thanatos. Engineering Officer, see if you can keep this ship together long enough to keep the way clear for the Motherships to jump out. They will leave first, and then we will follow. Weapons Officer, do your best to cover the ships as they enter the gate.”

“Aye sir.”

As the bridge crew rushed to fulfill the remainder of Joseph’s orders, he slumped back into his command chair and thought about a Peace Brigade captain named Henry Pense. Recalling the man’s last words, Joseph nodded to himself and whispered, “I have spared your wife and child, and will protect them for you. I will.”

[Bakan]

*The Star Destroyer explodes in a violent way, sending energy and debris flying all over space, but more importantly clearing the path to the hyper-slipstream gate. Hearing the cheers of his crew, Bakan smiles and turns to face the crew.*

Bakan: "Alright, we don't have all day, activate the hyper-slipstream gate, course for Wayland shipyards. Have all escorts form up."

*The hyper-slipstream gate spins around, with blue energy from the slipstream dimension crackling around it. Reaching a peak, a portal opens up, violently displacing the immedient space around the gate, before stabilizing, resembling a pool of water within the ring.*

Bakan: "All ships, move through."

*Entering first are the motherships, sliding through as if they were slipping through space, followed shortly by the escort fleet, firing their weapons at the oncoming Swarm ships, discouraging them from following.*

*Gripping the console, Bakan bites his toungue as he feels his body stretch, seemingly streaching accross light years. Looking ahead to see stars streaking by, to the point where it seemed he was traveling through a long bright blue tunnel. Then without warning Bakan was violently jolted forward, only staying upright thanks to his continued grip on the railing.*

Bakan: "Status?"

XO: "We made it through sir. Escort fleet is with us.... damnit, several swarm ships have followed us."

Bakan: "Well, it was to be expected, just keep us on course."

*The XO smiles and continues to issue orders to the crew, stabilizing damage and issuing orders to the fleet. Watching the monitors, Bakan watches as the fleet exits the gate, which looked different from the one they just traveled from. The ring was longer, more cylinder in shape. Looking at a tatical monitor that displayed the image behind them, Bakan watches as large quad-trianium plates sealed over the active wormhole, blocking off the access. The inside of the cylinder lit up, and hundreds of phaser banks opened fire, each one striking it's target, a swarm vessel, not ceasing fire until the target was destroyed. There was no other word for this clean-up other than a massacer, for the swarm ships never stood a chance.*

XO: "Enemy vessels cleared from screens, we are in the green. Wayland shipyards are hailing us."

Bakan: "Open a channel."

*On the main holographical pad, a image forms of a striking women, dressed in a ragged uniform, yet held herself up straight. Her short red hair touching her neck, she looked through the hologram as if staring directly at Bakan. Sighing to himself, Bakan grits his teeth and smiles.*

Bakan: "Hello Admiral Yettevia, we have a situation......"

Yettevia: "You damn right you have a situation, every day we suffer raids from swarm patrols, and now your stroll on here with a HUGE_ASS target sign on your collective asses!!"

Bakan: "Funny, I remember you saying something different a few years ago."

Yettevia: "Don't get cute there, I don't have time for it. I have cleared all the docking ports for your escorts, unfortunally we have nothing big enough for the motherships, so we will have to shuttle repair crews and supplies to you."

*Bakan blinks and looks at Yettevia in mild shock.*

Bakan: "You know, I would have thought this would be harder."

Yettevia: "Don't be a smartass, I know this project is possibly our last chance. Not to mention that any day we will fall under attack here, thus as compensation you are to take my station crew with you."

Bakan: "What? There is no way we can take another 100,000 people.."

Yettevia: "100,000, geez honey I knew you were dense but not this badly, I'm operating with a crew of 14,000 here, I'm sure you have enough room for us, not to mention we have a retrofitted Soverign class cruiser and a Victory Class Star Destroyer here, along with some other ships that some of your captains will like to know about. Like it or not, we are coming with you."

Bakan: "Sounds reasonable, I'm sending a complete status update of the escort fleet over, try to get the repairs done as quickly as possible, for the sooner we leave, the better."

Yettevia: "Already getting the repairs crews on station, we will get your ships patched up as soon as possible."

Bakan: "Sounds good.... you know, it's nice to see you."

*Yettevia smiles slightly and tips her head.*

Yettevia: "How nice for you to say that, just don't forget that the divorce papers have been collecting dust since they were stamped and approved ex-husband of mine. Don't get to ****y. I'm sending docking instructions to your escort fleet, we will get done what we can. Wayland station out."

*The hologram flickers and vanishes, not before she winks at Bakan. Sitting down and sighing, Bakan looks around at the crew. The stand still, some of them pointely examining their panels that mysteriously have completly gotten their attention. Finally the XO coughs slightly.*

XO: "That's the...."

Bakan: "Yup, she is the ex."

XO: "Ahhh, interesting. This will be interesting."

Bakan: "Yup, that it will be. Once we are docked, have the ship captains meet me at the officer's lounge on the station..... also contact the station and see if Yettevia will be so kind to join us, and maybe have some food for the captains."

*Smiling slightly, Bakan watches Wayland station grow larger on the monitor. Unlike Bilibrige, this station is one large structure. Consisting of 3 globes merged together at the bottom section, with one large disc with a curved top, it floats of the gas giant Wayland. On the top disc, several large doors open, allowing ships to enter. Several smaller shuttles launch from the docks, heading towards the motherships as the escort fleet limps their way into the docks.*

ALL
Those that are able to fly under their own power with the rest being towed fly through the gate. Your communications officers recieve the docking instructions and your helm officers limp your ships into spacedock. Flying through the giant doors, you see the entire upper-section of the ship is hollow, with enough docking slots for a fleet of ships. However, only a small handful of the docking ports being occupied with a variety of ships. Docking into position, repair drones instantly cover your hull as repair crews board your ships, consulting with your engineering crews on repairs, tearing out old parts and replacing them.

REWARDS
Inspectre: 2 New Ships, Full Repairs Will be Granted
Fluffie: 1 New Ship, Full Repairs will be Granted
Planetkiller II: Full Repairs, Upgrade of Choice
No Dachi: Full Repairs, raw materials to form a 2 new ships granted.
Richpur: Full Repairs, 1 new ship granted
Heiro: Full Repairs, upgrade of choice
Rest: Full Repairs

Explaination of Rewards
New Ships - You will/can submit new ships to me. If they are approved, they will fall under your control unless I specify other. In order to claim them, once I have approved of their specs, they will be at the shipyard (basically they are already there, you just don't know until I tell you :P)
Upgrade of Choice - You can upgrade your ship with a system of your choice, though I reserve the final approval.
Full Repairs - Your ship is fully repaired to the condition it normally is in.

For those of you that have been [U}SILLY[/u] and not posted, and have talked to me (*cough*Lady Hawk, KraK*cough*) you are already at the Spacedock, and have been summoned to the meeting. If anyone else wishes to join, PM your ships and if I approve, head to the meeting.

[Hewitt]

ooc: You know what sucks the most is I'm only late by a few hours...



*Hewitt awoke to find himself laying mere inches from the edge of the control platform, a seven metre drop on the other side. Just sitting up proved to be a difficult task as he was hit by a fierce wave of dizziness and nausea. His stomach clenched and before he knew what he was doing he was holding onto a nearby railing and being violently sick. He feebly wiped at the mess around his mouth as he was pulled to his feet by a couple of helping hands.*

No.1: Are you alright sir? You look terrible.

Hewitt: I've been worse.

*Hewitt tasted something metallic and saltly dribble into his mouth. Rubbing it way he was only mildly shocked to find it smeared with blood. He looked at the two men holding him, he tried to make it look as if he didn't need their support but in reality he would've dropped to the floor the moment they let go. He hoped his 2IC and the ships doctor didn't notice that the simple motion of moving his head back and forth had made him nauseus again.*

Hewitt: What happened here?

*Hewitt waved the men off and sat quickly down in his chair before his legs could give.*

MD: Sir, I think I should-

*Hewitt snapped around to look at the doctor. It took all his effort not to wince from pain.*

Hewitt: Shouldn't you be tending to some wounded luetentant?

MD: *frowns* Sir. Your face is covered in blood and half of your right leg bone is exposed to the air.

Hewitt: I said go tend some wounded leutentant! That's an order!!

MD: But s-

Hewitt: GO DAMN YOU! *Hewitt definately winced this time as a massive headache settled in.* Look... come for me later, I have a ship to run at present.

*The doctor looked at his captain up and down before murmering a quiet 'Yes sir' and moving off. Hewitt made a mental note to appologise to the man later.*

Hewitt: Now... commander, I'll ask again. What happened? Better tell me what the bloody hell hit us!?

No.1: Ion cannon sir. The Vengence might've been aimming for the motherships but somehow we got in the way sir. It was a direct hit to the conning tower. Kinda lucky in a way sir, anywhere else and we'd probably have personnel taking a vacuum bath at the moment if you get the drift sir. Oh, and speaking of drift sir... that's presently what we are doing. We are dead in space sir.

Hewitt: Well that's just bloody fantastic. We are within perfect firing for that Star Destroyer and we can't even shot off a bb-gun in response.

No.1: That about sums it up sir.

*Suddenly Hewitt became aware of another officer listening in on this conversation.*

TO: I wouldn't worry about the Vengence sir. The remaining escort ships tore her to pieces shortly after taking us out.

No.1: I was just about to say that Lt Commander, but thank you for saving me the breath. Now if don't mind...

TO: Erm, right. I'll get back to work then shall I sir?

No.1: Yes, yes you shall.

TO: Yeah...

*Looking more confused by the second the tactical officer simply turned and wandered off in a random direction, all the while mumbling under his breath and not paying attention. Which quickly landed him in a very embarrising situation when he ran start into a female co-workers... yeah like I have to continue that line for you to get the idea. *

Hewitt: Is he injuried in some way?

No.1: He's been like that ever since he discovered his wife was on the critically wounded list.

Hewitt: ... Oh. Will she make it?

No.1: Um, of course... anywho you should know that we are on the other side of the gate now sir. Mothership #2 has been towing us ever since we lost all power... again.

Hewitt: So that's it. The battle is over... for now at least. How long have I been out?

No.1: At least 15 minutes sir. I've been keeping things under control since then.

Hewitt: Everything?

No.1: *grins slightly* Yes sir, that means you have absolutely nothing to do.

Hewitt: Heh, terrific... *becomes serious again* how much damage is there to Yamato now.

No.1: The EO mentioned something about 9 out of ten electronic devices blew up when we were hit; engines are shot so we have no power except what's left in the power cells and I believe just about all our antennae and half of our sensor equipment is one big giant melted blob of steel.

Hewitt: How many bolts of weapons fire hit us again?

No.1: Six sir.

*Hewitt sat bolt upright then immediately wished he hadn't.*

Hewitt: Six!

No.1: Erm... actually make that seven.

Hewitt: Bloody h... is the ship salvagable?

No.1: Like I said eariler sir, we were lucky. We'll be docking with the wayland shipyards for repairs in a few minutes sir.

Hewitt: Good, make certain the bloody thing is working this time. If the station crew ask why simply point to the big ass attachment to our port bow.

No.1: Yes sir.

*The two highest ranking officers on the ship stood looking at one another for a few more moments.*

Hewitt: Nothing for me to do at all...

No.1: I'll call the MD. You need medical attention.

[flapjack]

*flapjack sighed as the USS Stellar voyage entered spacedock slowly*

me: at long last we've arrived. Operations, make sure those docking ports will release when we want to, i don't want us looking like the yamato over there if we have to undock. Engineering, fix that starboard warp nacelle, it'll be very usefull in the form of emergency maneuvers (which are done under warp power from 1 warp nacelle) and have the repair crews fix the photon torpedo tubes, fast

engineering: already on it sir, 2 men just went into the nacelle to place an emergency hull part, the forcefield generators in the nacelle went out with the nacelle itself but we should have it fixed in an hour or so

comm: we're being hailed, admiral bakan is requesting you proceed to the officers lounge on the station

me: where is that

operations: somewhere in the center sir, i've got it on sensors, but the main docking array isn't responding properly, you'll either have to go across in a spacesuit, a shuttle of a transporter

me: very well, make sure somene is manning the transporter room 1, i'll be there in a moment

*flapjack quickly made his way to transporter room 1, from where he was transported directly onto the station and into the officer's lounge, where he quickly looked around to find that he was the first in the room*

*flapjack then quickly found himself a chair and sat down, waiting for the others to arrive*

[Hewitt]

*The Yamato drifted free from mothership #2 as the escort fleet made it's way to the multidomed spacestation hovering over Wayland. She was a sorry sight indeed, both her stern and bow covered by dents, marks and scratches; her decks scattered with pieces of junk the biggest piece of all jutting out of the side of her port bow like some alien extension - an ugly mass of twisted metal and broken wires. Her endless banks of anti-fighter guns and missile tubes surrounded by craters, three of her majestic turrets hung dead and lifeless. But most shocking of all the most recent addition to the list of disfigurements - the Yamato's conning tower, once a spire of shiny silver metal it now more resembled a blackened stump. There was still silver but in the form of the solidified mounds of melted steel that used to be a spectacular mass of antennae.

And so did the sorry looking mass of metal that was the Yamato limp into the wayland shipyards, trailing several thin wisps smoke from extinguished fires now being vented out the few electronic airlocks that still functioned.

Some time later Hewitt found himself onboard the station. He couldn't help but feel a little sad for his stricken vessel as he peered at it from on of the station's many viewing decks. With a sigh he forced himself to move on, the ship was now in the very capable hands of the shipyard techs but he still had his doubts.
Still he couldn't help but chuckle when he caught a glance at his own reflection. He put all his weight on the two metal crutches that supported him as he adjusted the linen bandage adorning his forehead. Still using the reflection he made a few more small adjustments to his navy blue uniform before getting in a few scratches around the base of the itching cast covering his lower right leg. The treatment he had received was primative yes, but not the MD's fault - he had done his best in the conditions. The medbay had lost all power before he had finally limped over there and most of the doctors medical equipment had been damaged when the storage unit they were kept in burst into flames thanks to an overloaded power relay close by. So when he had limped out of the medical arena onboard Yamato he looked as he did now, jacked up on painkillers to add to his 'tattered doll' appearance.

Hewitt found it all funny in a strange, twisted way...

Satisfied with his appearance, Hewitt left the viewing deck and moved at his limping pace along the station's corridors to the officers lounge. The door opened with a dull hiss and Hewitt entered the meeting place crutches and all.*

[Darkling]

The titanium angel stops with sudden decress in thrust, mumbling in an anoyed manner as the titanium angel stops sharply into one of the bays, stratling the repir crew in there.
"Leech all power you can get least they can do to us for losing our ship"
Sighing heavily
"So muhc for being a trader, worst aprt is we are broke now you realise, oour spare weaponry and credit chips where being stored there, not to emntion place for me to sleep."
Not even intrested in Sat's complaints right now notivng the crew's starting dumfounded at his odd mecha
"Little use they will do me, this will lead me to ruin all these heroics no porfit in it. Im going to the ofciers lounge sicne im wanted there, sit tight"
Sat's vocie repyling in his mind as geth'lath enters one the lifts.
"I always do, ill be watching of course be carfull with your words more we alinate ourself now, the more we stand out"
Grumbling knowing full well how he ahd to act.

Briskly striding through the crowds, finally finding the officers lounge stepping inside looking drastcily out of place with his rough apperance, litraly wearing all he owned now.

[KraKto$is8]

[ooc] Am I repaired too? [/ooc]

* As The Helsceaða approaches the docking station, Bealdor Cræctosis looks out at the mass of ships hurrying (well, as fast as a towed ship can hurry) towards the station. He turns to his First Officer, Wudere. *

Cræctosis: What? Are we late? Did they battle without us?

Wudere: It seems so. Just as well we were'nt in there anyway, what with our broken shields.

Cræctosis: But now everyone will hate us for not turning up! A grand start for the new boys. They'll hate us even more when they discover our secret.

Wudere: We just need to stay on ship, don't communicate by hologram. Say our initialiser's broken. For supplies we can send Estful, he looks normal enough. We've lived in this ship for long enough to survive in it for a few more days. Then we can battle our enemies!

Cræctosis: I suppose so. At least we're here - I thought we were gonna be stuck forever on that asteroid.

* Now Cwild, one of the Lieutenants, chips in defensively. *

Cwild: Hey! I didn't know about the energy field, okay? I've said I'm sorry!

Cræctosis: Relax, Cwild. I'm not blaming you for anything.

* After docking, Cræctosis received a message summoning him to a meeting. He sent back a reply, saying he couldn't attend. The response was quick and sharp; it was imperative he attended. *

* Leaving The Helsceaða for the first time in over three years, Cræctosis looked around at the modern docking station. How wonderful was the architecture! How shiny the walls! How graceful the robots buzzing around! And the computers and technology's probably pretty good too. *

* Entering the Officer's Lounge, all eyes present turned to Cræctosis, the captain from afar. According to the sparse information he had sent, he was a semi-mercenary captain who wished to exact revenge on The Swarm. He was apparantly human and had a crew of fifteen, including himself. *

* But when they saw this stunted humanoid enter, they were confused. Barely reaching five feet tall, he was almost as wide as he was tall. His wide shoulders bulged with muscles, and his grimy uniform seemed a memory of a bygone age. Pale, flaccid, drooping skin adorned his face, eyes deep-set and glowing with a dull bluish tint. Atop the head sat a mop of greasy fibres - hardly worthy of being called hair. His hands were large and dextrous, fingernails prominent. They looked like hands that had grasped the controls of thousands of machines and wielded them with power and accuracy. *

Character History
[ooc] Oh what fun it is to combine signup with roleplay! [/ooc]
About two hundred years ago, Cræctosis and Wudere were technicians on the highly experimental craft Fénr. It was a small colony ship, taking around 200 explorers to another edge of the galaxy. The experimental part was the hyper-slipstream transport mechanism. However, it didn't work. Or rather, it did. To cut a long story short, the drive caused mutations in the reproductive systems of the ship's inhabitants - mutations that were not expressed until the next generation. Except for Cræctosis and Wudere, who were in close contact with the drive; their mutations manifested in their own selves, about 5 years after working on the ship.
There was a public furore, and many of the mutant children were thrown out of their homes, stigmatised and unloved. Cræctosis, Wudere, and a handful of humanitarian benefactors took these children and teens under their wing, and did all they could to help them. There was about fifty of them. They lived on a small uninhabited moon in the same sector Fénr had originally been exploring, away from society. They called their colony Se Geðeode.
Tests and observations showed that the mutants had greatly extended lifespans - not one of them yet has died of old age. This seems to be partly because of an interesting telomere regulation process within the body's cells, and a DNA regulating mechanism. They have shorter stature - their average height being around 5' - and greater strength than the average human. This seems to be caused by a premature hypersecretion of testosterone. There are many other features, however the lack of proper scientific equipment and knowledge within Se Geðeode has restricted further knowledge being gleaned.
The second generation of mutants seemed to be the same as the first generation - implying that the mutation is stable and not erratic. The third generation was just beginning when something terrible happened: the swarm came. Destroying, killing, absorbing, only fifteen of the mutants escaped the moon, leaving Se Geðeode to be consumed by their enemies. In their Ðeof Beaduscip, the mutants took the long journey to Federation territory. Always trying to avoid the swarm, for ten years they travelled. Eventually, their quest seemed futile. They performed the final upgrade on their ship, using a mixture of arcane technology and modern weaponry, and decided to face their foe head-on.

* If questioned, Cræctosis explains the above to anyone interested. *

[ooc] Thanks for the PM Bakan [/ooc]

[Wo2]

[ooc] While since I missed alot of time and aciton i'm gonna have one big post that took place in diffrent times. Oooo... I just thought of something. My Stasis armour would be incredably effective against MAC rounds. [ooc/]

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ At the time of the cloak failure_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Wo2 felt the familer senstation of phase cloak, vanish from him.*

Wo2: "What the hell just happened?"

EO: "We had a power surge thanks to over use of the cloak... Were back in real phase."

*Wo2 glance at the screen to see the horrid wedge shaped Star Destroyer. He knew what those ships were capable of without upgrades and from this distance he could see new upgrades.*

Comm: "Message from command. It's the status of the S}tar destroyer."

*The comm's officer flicked a switch and the screen changed to a picture of the star destroy, with all new upgrades clearly outlined.*

Wo2: "This is a bad turn of ev..."

*Wo2 was cut off premateruly from a volley that the mighty ship had directed in thier direction. The shileds of theShadow Wind glowed with the force of the impact.*

Wo2: "RETURN FIRE!"

*The Shadow Wind's guns pivoted around and unleashed a volley against the ship. The two ships battled it out and wo2 realized, in the long run he would lose. At the point in time the Thanatos approached.*

Comm: "I'm getting comm chater between the two ships but I can't make it out, feed back from our shileds is too great."

*The Star Destroyer lost intrest in Wo2's ship, at the this point. Wo2 deiced not to push his luck, he had already lost one of his shield generators and didn't want to lose his ship. His ship turned and headed behind the Star Destroyer, Intent on removing a threat.
At that point the Thanatos andVengance opened up on each other with hellish intent. Each ship took hits and recived them as hard. Despite all the hits the Star Destroyer had taken, still it's shields held.*

Wo2: "Weapons... Charge the particle beam and prepare to fire on my co..."

SO: "SIR I'm reading massive energy build up in both ship's. The Star destroyer is charging it's light MAC and the Thanatos is charging a... I don't belive it. A Stella Converter."

*Wo2 shuddered, he had personlay seen a Stella Converter being used. He had watched as the orangish beam had punched a hole in planet in meer seconds, leaving a asteroid belt for any prying eyes. His Particle Beam was also capable of destroying a planet, but it was more built for Ship busting missions. Dangersous in it's own way, Wo2's Particle beam was not as Brutish as a Stella Converter.
On The screen the Thanatos Fired it's weapon at the Star Destroyer, Energy danced across the shield of the ship causing it to glow a orangish tint. A dot flew from the wedge shaped craft a streaked towrads the Thanatos, it was the MAC round. The MAC round didn't reach it's target though, having to fly through the energy beam it was detonated early and the blast ripped the shields off both ships.*

Wo2: "LOW POWER ON THE BEAM... FIRE!!

*Acting with extream skill theShadow Wind's WO targeted the low power beam with extreme percision and skill. The Blue-white stream, lance out from the front of the ship and headed into the Vengance. The beam cut a hole into the ship as it headed for the reactor of the Star Destroyer. It reached it with just enough energy left to overload it, this in turn would cause the ship's reacotr to explode...but not right away, it would take time to build to meltdown levels. It was probaly unnescisary, the Stella Coverter had removed any fight the ship may of had. Dooming it was merly a precauction.*

Wo2: "Helm, Set course for the Hyper gate."

Helm: "Course set."

*The Shadow Wind turned and fly towards the gate and watchs the Vengance spew escape pods. Ahead of him the Gate powers up and the rest of the fleet begins to pass through. Moments later wo2 joins them in the gate.*

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Now_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*Wo2 steps out of his room in his dress uniform, he has been summoened to a meeting. Reaching to his wrist he activates his comm.*

Rakia: "Rakia here sir. What can I do for you?"

Wo2: "I'm on my way to the meeting. Whats the ships status?

Rakia: "These repair crew are amazing sir. They've repaired most of the damage and we will be at 100% status when your done from you meeting."

Wo2: "Good. We'll probaly be leaving soon so stay alert. Wo2 out"

*Wo2 reached the airlock and began his journey through the station towards the designated metting room. The first part was over. Now the real fun began.*

[ooc] Just thought I'd squeze myself into the destruction of the Vengence I mean hey. There was a possiblity of a good post, so I took it. [ooc/]

[Lady Hawk]

Some Time ago -

EO - The engines are still off line

SO - the fleet has left sir

No1 - those aliens are closing

LH - DAMN..... We are being left behind because of your incompetence EO you told me that those engines would be working.

EO - Well they were

LH - Look are they now

EO - Well...... yes I think so

LH - You think so

SO - Aliens closing to extreme weapons range

Helm - we have only manovering thrusters Ma,am

LH - do what ever

SO - they are closing at battle speed sir

No1 - EO........

EO - Working - sweat poors off her brow as she realises the stress of what she has to do

SO - Closing

Helm - this is like flying a large pile of metal thru a treacle toffee vat

On screen the first of the Alein Ships begins to enter Long Weapon range

LH - EO.......????

EO - Got it

With that the Ship lurches forward to catch up with teh rest of teh fleet.

EO - ACDT teams get to work on the weapons, main priority is to get them back on line as quickly as possible, We need every weapon we can get.

[Shadow275]

*The Fallen Angel slid into the dock with an almost alien grace, its thrusters flaring briefly before cutting out.

I have taken main systems offline to faciliate a quicker repair by docking personel.

"Excellent"

*The main bridge lights faded out, only a single path light remained on, guiding Farle to the airlock and the station....

The airlock hissed, venting a small puff of a white gas, then slid open. Farle took a step inside then depressed the highlighted [b]CYCLE[/i] button, the pumps started with a muted hum, changing the enviroment to the station enviroment. Farle pulled four plasma pistols from the airlock's secured weapons locker and sealed it again. Holstering two of them in his hip holster, two into the pistol holder installed on his arms. The 'lock ceased its working, Farle hit the external door open button and stepped out.

Farle headed to the meeting room, wondering what was going to be said now.

[Crazyboy]

*The Darkstar slowly slid towards the shipyards, heading for one of the open docking ports. The ship 'bled' as it moved through space, with plasma streaming out of its dead fusion drive. Holes in the ships armour left a trail of debry behind the ship, as dead parts of the ships bio-nano armour were discarded from the ship, as it struggled to repair itself with minium power.*

Lt Johnstone: "We're approaching the shipyards sir.."

"Activate docking procedure"

Star: "Docking procedure online. Computerised control activated. I'm taking us in"

*The black shape slipped into a docking bay, and shuddered as it landed and the docking clamps took hold off it.*

Lt Johnstone: "Docking clamps in place. Shutting down all engines. We're getting power from the shipyards sir"

"Good. Get repair crews working on our engines asap. Divert the marjority of power we are getting to the armour. I want it full regenerated by the time we leave here. Star, start running repairs on all biological systems. Start with the major ones."

*With that, Crazy rose from his seat, and headed from his ship, in the gloomy dark, as repair crews slowly filtered on board. The airlock hissed, as it opened up, a sudden gush of air blowing into the ship, stale smelling, like on most space stations. Crazy took a few minutes to adjust himself to the shipyards. They were a lot larger than his small ship, and this took some getting used to after long periods in the small spaces of his ship.*

*Slowly, Crazy made his way towards the meeting with the other Captains*

(ooc- Do full repairs include new fighters to replace lost ones? -ooc)

[Heiro]

The thruster’s jet behind the ship, the mutalist swarm now in pursuit easily keeping pace with what looks like a fireball now, its outer red coating glossing in the lights of the flak and bioelectric plasma incoming on its hull, and its tail flaring like the primal explosions of a volcano, the pressure built, now being discharged. Regretfully flying through not around, the Phoenix looked totally unlike it did when the combat started, hull panels covered in the gore from mutalists caught in broadsides, and projectile resin crammed into the metal, fused into the hulls weakened structure. Suddenly, the swarm debris ends, and pure space, black, untainted roams in front of him. A cheer rouses amongst each mans heart, a feeling of success, of well being. Within seconds, this cheer is stifled, crushed in the lungs and hearts of each of the men, as the first wave of fighter fire slams into the shield less hull of the Phoenix. Plasma slams home into the hull scorching away the ornate paintwork phoenix, and the hidden space core emblem underneath. A torpedo screams forward toward the hull, unprepared it slams into the belly of the ship, an explosion throwing it off into space, mixing with the plasma trails behind it into a fury of fire in space.

The ships wake being torn asunder by the fiery rage of the phoenix, as it rips through space, oxygen spraying from the fresh scar on the belly, matching the scrapes from collision, and the lumps from other ships. Righting itself, the Phoenix breaks heavily downward, its forward thrusters pushing it into a dive, through a tight group of fighters, marked with scratched core brigade ranks. Banking upward with a swift gun of the plasma drive, the lasers flash outward, 12 shots pounding into space around the fighters as the ship burns right between the fighter craft, its plasma tail ripping three ships apart in its wake, the lasers accounting for the other two. The drive cuts out for a second, and thrusters fire in both the directions of left and down, the Phoenix performing a rudimentary handbrake turn in space, its tail bursting with explosive accelerating like an approached pond skater, toward its one and only target, the hyperslipstream gate.

The ranks of laser fire that follow, pouring into the fighters that defend the major ship. The bridges lights flash on all stations, targets come into range, a myriad of damage reports flash up, communications from various sources buzz through the speakers. All this time, Drake looks stoic, staring blankly into space, waiting for something almost, something stellar, something past his station. The minutes pass as heartbeats, and the heartbeats of his pass as minutes as he holds his breath, hoping for something, anything to happen, to change the fate, to change what he thinks from reality to falsehood, the very same falsehood that brings people like him into this fight. He thinks to himself, one solitary sentiment, speaking it out loud over the utter chaos that is his bridge.

“I hate hope.”

The ship pitches left, dodging nimbly out of the path of an incoming fighter, the mutalists breaking the debris field behind him, down to around 40 in number now, homing in like hyenas to the kill. The laser cannons hone in on the lone craft and blow it out of the sky with relative ease, the skilled gunners making short work of such a lightly armoured craft, the 6 laser shots punching high velocity holes in the engine as it passes. Actively tracking now, the laser turrets split their fire, shooting off in all directions as the engines roar to life again, thrusting the ship ever forward. The next batch of fighters, in tight knit formation, fire their weapons at the fast moving bird, the plasma from a pair of the 5 slams into the front amour, impacting into the resin-flak holes that create the semi permeable defense. The bridge console of the third gunner; Travis Jenkins, the human equivalent of a Talorian Dust mite, sparks, and the engineering section duck as a large puff of plasma flame jets from the engineering crawlspace. However, Doc falls grabbing his left leg, unlucky enough to be caught in the high temperature blast. However, the phoenix does not faultier, and the fighters, jinking to barely escape collision pass by within seconds. Breaking the lines of remnants, the phoenix jets into the hyperspace gate, and is dragged along through space, and deposited, in space, again, in yet another new system. Climbing from his seat as the ship drifts in neatly into the dock, taken by a beam of the tractoring nature, Drake takes Laura’s hand, before leading her swiftly down the ladder.

Once the hatch shuts and Drake drops onto the deck, he smiles. Finally he thinks, Alone.
Turning around, he grasps Laura by the hips, and kicks open the door to his cabin, kissing her with a passion he didn’t think he had left. Shutting the door, he lowers her to the bed, kissing her neck and slowly working his way down her body, kissing everything he sees. She giggles as he inserts his tongue into her belly button, and they begin to undress…

*

Upgrade:

From the coralskippers, and a collection of parts in the hold:
4 Resin Flak barrage cannons: Fire small lumps of shaped resin salvaged from the 3 skippers inside the hull, and replicated with the help of the station, fitted to a collection of large gatling cannons now strapped to the outer hull.

Also:

3 Fighters, saved from the battle before.

[Richpur]

[Non-linear temporal sequencing engaged: Begin post.]


“Sir, we are picking up large amounts of debris coming from the hole through the Vengeance’s command tower… but no decrease in transmissions.”

“Deep scan; how can that ship still be running?” asks Richard incredulously.

“Scan results confirm, all command functions appear to be emanating from a point deep inside the rear of the ship. Also, the debris appears to be 40% photosynthetic foliage, 17% fibrous flora and 29% other vegetation.”

“We just nuked their arboretum.” Rachel concludes in the inevitable monotone of someone trying to decide whether to laugh or despair. “Next time, lets verify our scans before shooting shall we? This time we only hit the wrong part of the ship; next time we might hit the wrong ship.” At that the entire bridge falls silent except for the constant background warble of indicators and machinery.

The silence is broken by a siren demanding to have some person pay attention to it. This person is the tactical officer and he simply looks at it for about half a second and puts it on viewer, the computer runs a gamma correction over the image and it snaps into focus. The Thanatos hangs in the middle of the front wall, her nose open to show an immensely bright light.

“Think they know we’re here?” Someone asks.

“No, until a few seconds ago we were a derelict; now we’re so close they probably can’t read us through that MAC’s energy signature.”

“They’re firing!” Tactical announces.

“Which one?”

“Both.”

Within moments a shockwave from the exploding MAC round crashes into the Pegasus, catching slightly to the side of her bow and spinning her broadside onto the torrential beam of the stellar converter. Ablative armour simply vanished in a flickering swathe of energy under the converter’s blast; saturating the energy absorbent layer beneath as it went. For a few moments the second layer managed to withstand the forces applied to it, but that too flickered out of material existence; the crystalline matrix armour beginning its light speed journey across the galaxy. The dense composite of her final defence served little better; the dense inner skin permeating with a fractal spider’s web of rapidly expanding fissures of brightly glowing matter. Layer by layer the armour peels off as waves of light and hard radiation.

Finally the beam cuts off with a detonation that shatters the fragile remnants of the Pegasus’ hull; the ship’s delicate integrity barely holding together by some miracle of fate. Inside the ship is in even worse condition, a multitude of systems melted into indistinguishable sheets of glowing metal and scorched ceramic pooling against their access bulkheads. The computer core stutters it’s way through a self diagnostic before declaring that it cannot verify any systems operational directives and transfers the ship control to manual control, somehow assuming the crew are in a position to take over.

They are not. While ship’s controls flash and flicker demanding input, the majority of her crew lies unconscious on the deck. On the bridge the main screen somehow maintains a static embellished image as the vessel drifts sideways towards the gate, the inertia from her previous encounters carrying her inexorably onward. As the ship touches the outlying hyperspace field some fragmentary collection of emergency protocols kick the Pegasus’ core into operation, interacting with the slipstream.

As the field probes into the shimmering edge it catches in the current, tearing the ship into hyperspace. She gets sucked along the tunnel; blue streaks and spatial distortions from the interacting drive fields send her spinning end over end as the tertiary backup computer fights to regain some semblance of control. With most of its pathways dripping down through the access conduits forming cooling stalactites of semi-molten circuitry, it is a losing battle and before long, an irrelevant one.

The Pegasus emerges backwards into real space with her core stuck in a feedback loop, drawing power from the growing hyperspace rift inside. It is only a matter of seconds before the power flowing through the damaged circuits has fused them solid and begun to send ripples into the rest of the crippled grid.

On the bridge a slender hand clasps the top of a fallen ceiling support, its owner gasping for air. Quickly her ragged breathing slows and steadies; the hand slips from the beam surface and it starts to move; her nanonic muscles power up for the first time in decades and with one heave she hurls the mass from her. Pulling herself to her feet she looks around the rest of the crew.

Hayden is slumped dazed across his console; the tactical officer lays perfectly still half way down the slope from his seat to the rest of the bridge. Communications is hidden behind a landslide of metal and smoke; somehow she doubts anyone is left alive back there. Finally she reaches down and places two fingers against Richard’s neck, a pulse, faint but there. Silently she places one hand against his forehead and projects her conscious down into his cerebral cortex, releasing several stimulants into his bloodstream. Almost instantly his eyes open and a thought resonates back up the link.

”Thank you.”

After a few seconds of lingering against one another’s thoughts the couple get back up to their feet and part mental company. Rachel turns the one operational console on her chair towards her and quickly directs the environmental system to include a fifty parts per million dose of cordrazine in the air supply. Before long the bridge crew is coming around, dazed, confused, but alive.

“Incoming message from the station,” the tactical officer says as he collapses back into his chair, “We are to dock with them and the commanding officers are to attend a meeting; directions are enclosed.”

“Acknowledge their message please.”

“You’re on.”

“Wayland station, this is the Pegasus returning your hail, I will be arriving in the conference room shortly.”

With a hand gesture Richard signals for the channel to be cut, he’s not really feeling up to a prolonged conversation, and really would rather spend the next few hours in bed than at a conference.

“Start up the hyperspace transporter and set co-ordinates for the conference facility they mentioned. “

A static hyperspace field shimmers into place around Richard as his pattern gets projected into hyperspace, the signal translating back out into real space inside the station’s conference room.

Even as Richard was dematerialising the bridge door was pulled open and Kelven half fell into the bridge, clutching at the edge of a nearby console to hold himself upright as he caught his breath.

“The intercom is down; came as fast as I could. The core is going critical, we’ve got about one, maybe two minutes till the rift breaches containment.”

Rachel hits a button on his chair opening all frequencies, not bothering to use normal protocols for this one.

“Wayland station this is the Pegasus, we have a hyper-core breach in under two minutes, prepare for emergency transport!”

No reply comes over the communication channels for about ten seconds and Rachel is about to repeat the hail when a shimmering light forms around her, pulsing up into a streaking field of residual energy as the mass transport takes place. The entire crew suddenly finds themselves in clusters of people on a massive walkway round the edge of the station, looking out towards the massive ring of the hyperspace gate.

After a few seconds the view flares into incandescent splendour as the Pegasus’ hyperdrive goes critical, folding space upon itself in a static slipstream effect. Space is pulled inward towards the ship, becoming semi visible as the interstellar particle soup glows in the acceleration field, spiralling in towards the ship and caving into a whirling funnel of exotic energy. The ship goes down into the gaping hole in space, slipping away; then with a vast billow of light space seals itself shut over the craft.

“I think.” Rachel starts in the ensuing silence. “I think, that we need a new ship.”

[Fluffie]

Post on monday. Promise!

Unless girl comes by or if I drop dead or if I go to a friend's place or if I go to another city.

Ciao

[No Dachi]

Originally Posted by Fluffie

Post on monday. Promise!

What the cool Dutch-type dude said

[Planetkiller II]

Snap

[Inspectre]

After docking with the space station, Joseph leaves the Thanatos and heads to the meeting. Once there, he notices a captain whom he recognizes from the defense at Tetra Genus. "It seems we keep running into each other." The captain says, offering his hand. "Actually, I came here to help with the defense, but I suppose I'll be helping guard the Motherships with you now." "That's a piece of good news." Joseph said, sitting down next to his fellow captain. "We could use all the help we can get. The Thanatos took a meeting escorting the Mothership here, but hopefully we'll have time to make proper repairs."

"Don't worry. I'll have your back. We survivors of Tetra Genus have to watch out for each other, ya?"

"Ya." Joseph said, bowing his head.

/ooc It's crap, but it's all you're getting when I have four final exams this week. ooc/

[Fluffie]

(Helm) "Docking procedure... Complete."

(Engineering) "We are getting external power, I am expecting repair crews from the station to board so they can help us out a bit. Let's hope they have spares."

(Sensors) "Positive ID check on the other Dreadnaught in here, Admiral. She indeed is the Minotaur."

The Captain turned to look at Fluffie - both were smiling now. They knew the Minotaur all too well - it was a Dreadnaught that had been part of their battlegroup before. Moving his head to look at the Comms, Fluffie nodded.

(Fluffie) "Open a channel, if you will."

(Comms) "Aye, Sir. Opening channel...... Channel open."

(Minotaur) "Good day to you Thunderer, mighty well to see you out here."

(Fluffie) "Likewise, Minotaur. I take it you ended up here after that emergency jump... Do you know the status or location of any other Imperial vessels?"

(Minotaur) "Afraid not... Admiral Fluffie?"

(Fluffie) "Indeed... I take it I should have introduced myself earlier. Nevermind though, I take it you will see no problem in flying under my command again?"

(Minotaur) "A please as always, sir. We have been here for a while now, we are back to top notch status. We shall send over crews to fasten your repairs, our sensors show you have docked by now."

(Fluffie) "Roger that Minotaur, I shall inform my crew of this immidiatly. I shall leave you with my Captain now to catch up on our current mission, I have a briefing to attend to. Good seeing you again, Admiral Fluffie out."

(Minotaur) "Likewise."

After that, the Captain took over for Fluffie - taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of aboard the Dreadnaught. Reinstalling weaponry and tuning the engines and shield generators back to top notch... All systems had been on a tough ride during the whole battle, protecting the Motherships from the Swarm on their first journey. For the moment they were safely docked within Wayland... But who knew how long that'd last.

The Admiral took a final look around his bridge and then began walking away, heading toward the doors, leading into one of the many hallways in the Dreadnaught, which'd eventually lead him out of the ship and into the station. As the doors opened before him, the Admiral realised something....... Looking back and calling for the Captain, he called out.

(Admiral) "Captain! Make sure our crew gets some rest too, but make sure we are ready to depart and engage in combat at any given time."

(Captain) "Sir, shall see to it."

And with that, the Admiral continued his journey, out of the ship, into the station - destination: briefing.