NationStates Jolt Archive

Admiral Henderson was busily trying to get the leaders of other habitat cubes to rejoin the union. After

communications had been restored after the terrorist attacks, dozens, if not scores, of cubes had taken the

opportunity to separate from the nation. War was threatened, and most war machines had been obliterated in the

explosions that had taken the lives of millions.

Elsewhere, an IP military commander was looking at a readout of locations of the guards and soldiers as they

were distributed amongst the cubes. The transmitters hidden on the soldiers' bodies were showing an increasing

number of them as "Nontransmitting". As the power to transmit came from the body of the subject, that meant ...

Everyone knew what that meant.

The forces left to the military of Independent Pluto were a mere echo of what they should have been. There were

perhaps a dozen Escorts, and maybe half that of Patrol and Missile Boats. That and the automated defenses were

all that were left to defend a billion people.

Henderson, done with his immediate duties as acting president of IP, put his computer terminal on standby, and

got up to have a cup of coffee. Or rather, moved from his chair. The newly acquired artificial gravity was down to

conserve power. He saw a small object floating near the door. He gently pushed off a wall, and grabbed it on his

way out. It was a little black box, easily recognizable as a backup storage unit for a computer. In the small device,

thousands of gigabytes of data could be stored.

He tucked it in his pocket, and went to get a pouch of coffee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The admiral was now sending yet another message to a group of cubes calling themselves the "Free Lands".

How they got this name, without any lands at all, was beyond anyone to guess. Henderson sent the message,

asking the rogue "Lands" to rejoin, and sighed. Almost a quarter of the cubes that comprised IP had now split

off, and it was hard keeping track of all of the names that they had for themselves. "New Humanity" was one, "

Independent Kuiper Belt Objects" was another.

A noise came from his computer, indicating a priority message. To acheive priority staus, a piece of data had to

go through many different functionaries. It had to be truly important to get through to the president during a

crisis.

The message actually pulled up a live sensor feed. Henderson frowned at this. He looked at the image displayed,

and ran a cross-check on an object there. It was clearly a ship, and not an exceptionally odd-shaped asteroid. In

fact, it looked like the sort of thing one sees in history books ...

An alert Klaxon sounded throughout every cube. Even those that had split off could not disable a message of

this priority. Henderson's voice sounded. "There is a Kalan ship approaching. Repeat. There is a Kalan ship

approaching. This is not a drill."

OOC: No, you should not know who the Kalan are.

Xanthalian Dictator Vladimir Museveni read the current report on Independant Pluto with concern. He orderd a message sent to IP leadership right away, asking if they needed any help putting their nation back together after a series of carefully planned terrorist attacks knocked out a great deal of their tactical capability and prompted many of their cubes to seceed from the union.

Independant Pluto Government HQ:
We of the Socialist Republic of Xanthal regard with significant concern the events taking place in your nation. While we never considered you to be our allies, you never proved to be our enemies either. As it would be in everyone's best intrest to ensure that your nation and its recent spinoffs are secured as quickly as possible, we would like to offer you our assistance in restoring your state in hopes of preventing further conflict and unrest and promoting future positive relations between our nations. We can provide to you monetary, diplomatic, supply, and/or military aid if requested and approved of by my myself and my ministries. I await your reply.
-Xanthalian Dictator Vladimir Museveni

Henderson skimmed the message, and rapidly typed a response. "Military aid right now. Sector A1d is free of debris, and enemy ship is in sector B1f. All tactical data is availible to you. Critical that enemy is destroyed."

Alerts continued ringing out across IP, and the defense systems came online. The stationary spheres began firing their powerful lasers with pinpoint precision at a point on the Kalan ship's hull. There was no appreciable effect. The mobile weapon platforms were all down. A general came in to the admiral's office."Sir, we need your authorization to arm the IPBM's."

"Granted."

"Thank you sir."

OOC: Here's a link to the terrorist attacks and related events, for a little background:

http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=101400&highlight=

Admiral Henderson:
We have dispatched a small combat fleet of one Andromeda, two Intrepid, ten Sabre, five Dreadnaught, and two Super Dreadnaught class vessels. We can also dispatch an Eclipse class vessel, but that might be overkill.
-Xanthalian Dictator Vladimir Museveni

OOC: RP the scene of the battle and I'll RP arriving there.

OOC: Note that victory or even non-destruction of my nation is not mandatory. Also note that I am no ally of yours (though I'm not an enemy).

IC:

Henderson opened a communications channel to the Kalan ship. They were openly receiving communications.

"This is Admiral John Henderson of Independant Pluto. You are unwelcome. If I am not mistaken, you are about to deliver and ultimatum, and then have massive reinforcements arrive. Correct?"

A face appeared on the screen. "It seems, Mr. Henderson, that your grandfather has taught you all about us." The man chuckled. "Indeed, we are going to offer your rogue colony a choice. You may become again a part of the mother nation, or be destroyed."

"I don't think that we quite qualify as a colony anymore, seeing as we have over a billion people. I say again, you are not welcome."

"You have dropped below that mark, if I am not mistaken. Your little nation doesn't seem to be doing too well at the moment. Or is it fifty nations? I have a hard time keeping track."

Henderson cut off transmission, and gave rapid orders to his aides.

"Send out a request for help to anyone that's not an enemy of the state. Anyone. From the Trium to LRR. You, tell General Smith to launch a fifty megaton IPBM at the enemy at his convenience."

He resumed communication. "Sorry. Must have been a communications glitch. You were saying?"

The enemy captain's tone of sarcastic politeness vanished. "Goodbye. My offer remains open."

Undoubtedly timed for dramatic effect, the number of hostile ships increased a hundredfold, enemy ships dropping out of hyperspace. At just the same time, the general fires the IPBM at the front end of the fleet. It was well-aimed, and struck a carrier before it had a chance to raise shields. The fleet, composed mainly of destroyers, began dispersing among the asteroids of the Kuiper Belt.

Henderson gave orders to update Xanthal on the situation, but the reply came back, "They're blocking all communications. We just got off that round of requests for help."

There was considerable consternation in Xanthal when communications stopped going through, but the Armada proceeded as planned, the small fleet arrived in the designated sector about ten minutes later. All the ships are in battle mode, and scan the area to pick out their nemesis and allies.

OOC: Sensor readings, as you could be able to tell: about ninety enemy ships: Mostly Destroyers, some frigates, and about four carriers, each launching a max of fifty fighters. Fairly standard weaponry, and no exceptionally large ships. We have a dozen Frigate-sized escorts, with a variety of weaponry, and siz pairs of Patrol and Missile Boats. The Patrol Boats have as their pirmary weapon one large laser cannon, and the Missile Boats two large missile launchers. They pair up and disperse in the Belt.

IC: "Standard attack strategy," remarked Admiral Henderson uselessy. Te Crews of the ships knew what they were doing without orders. "Despatch a Miniliner to one of the SI3Ds to figure out why they aren't working."

Henderson, done with orders that he needed to give to others, stlled down to observe the battle's progress and give the occaisonal order. The appearance of the Xanthalian battle group did little to change the odds.

On board of one of the Patrol Boats, the captain gave orders at a furious pace. An enemy destroyer was within range, and they had been sighted. Their Missile Boat counterpart was about a minute away. The small ship was repeatedly struck by enemy missiles, but the shields held.

"Drop shields and prepare to fire," called the captain. "Fire!"

The main laser cannon fired once for several seconds, and stopped. The Missile Boat was still about thirty seconds distant.

"Firing sequence, again!"

Again the shields dropped and the cannon fired. The enemy's shields flickered, and died. A huge missile streaked from behind the Patrol boat and buried itself in the enemy destroyer, where it exploded. They went in search of another target.

The Xanthalian battle fleet advances on the nearest alien vessel and hails it.
"Attention alien vessel: Please connect us with whoever is in charge of your attack force."

Communicatios are opened with the Xantrhalian ship.

"We are in the middle of a battle. This had better be important, or we'll assume that you're an enemy."

"Whether or not we are your enemies has yet to be established. We are contacting you to hear your side of this. Why are you attacking Independant Pluto?"

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

Tag

http://well-of-souls.com/homeworld/hws/kushan/drone_frigate1.gif

Never fear, Admiral Elijah Baley's 23rd patrol regiment is here!

"Whether or not we are your enemies has yet to be established. We are contacting you to hear your side of this. Why are you attacking Independant Pluto?"

"Hang on, I'll connect you to one of our administrative windbags. Don't do anything hostile, or you'll regret it."

"This is Regional Governor's Assistant Marc Schmidt. Who is this?"

"Fleet Captain Andrea Hastings of the Xanthalian Armada. We have been asked to take a side in your battle with the nation of Independant Pluto. Before we rush blindly off to help IP though, we would like to know your side of this. Why are you attacking them? Do your nations know each other?"

Marc coughed into a hankerchief. "Well, it's a rather, ah, long story. See, about a hundred years ago, the Kalan, a federation af planets, sent out, ah, several colony ships. We never got back word from some of them, this one being included. It seems to have established itself rather well, but it did so illegally. We were send to, ah, reclaim it. It is, ah resisting our efforts."

He looked rather pleased at his success at explaining.

Admiral Elijah Baley sits in his captains chair on the bridge of his flagship, the LRRSV John Paul Jones (Zeppelin Bassist, not the naval hero), a Frederick Douglass class battlecruiser.

"Sir, incoming transmission from Independent Pluto."
"What does it say?"
"They want us to come help them with something."
"Set a hyperspace course for Independent Pluto."
"Aye, sir. Course plotted, entering hyperspace in five...four...three...two...now!"

The 23rd patrol regiment dissappears into hyperspace. Its one Robert Plant class carrier, 20 torpedo frigates, 8 ion drone frigates, 20 assault frigates, 35 ion cannon frigates, and two Frederick Douglass class battlecruisers dissappear into hyperspace.

"What took you so long to come and get them?"

"What took you so long to come and get them?"

"That, I am sorry to say, is classified."

OOC: Yes, I have a backstory that can be used if necessary

"Mmm... Can you provide a copy of your laws and records of this colony's origins? If you can, we will recognize your claim. I doubt that you need the help, but our leadership might even be persuaded to give you a hand if you ask."

The 23rd PR exits hyperspace in the Kupier belt, in easy sensors detection range.

Henderson had given up on trying to maintain live communication with his staff. The computer interface allowed him to give orders, receive updates, and track the progress of the battle. It lookes as though the enemy was taking the occaisonal loss, but attritionwould wear down the IP forces soon. The damned Xanthalians weren't helping! In fact, sensors showed that they were enjoying a chat[i] with the Kalan. [i]Just what we need, thought Henderson. More enemies!

The enemy ships were moving towards the main cluster of cubes, not concerning themselves with the inexplicably unoperational defense systems. The ship that had been sent to investigate hadn't returned yet, though it was visible as a dot on the 3D map of the area. There was no way to really plan strategy without communications. The enemy seemed to be able to get through their own jamming at will, though.

An alarm sounded, indicating a hit on the cube. Henderson sent a message to the sensros officer to the effect of "What the hell was that and how did it get through the shields?"

The response was an "I don't know." The answer to the question, however, made itself clear in a matter of moments. A missile appeared a few hundred meters from the cube, and detonated on the shields. The Kalan had FTL weaponry! The question was, what the hell could they do about it?

A new set of dots manifested on the projection. They were clearly representing an LRR battlegroup. A wild card, then. They had been helped in the past by the nation against pirates, but the last time they were here, it was to arrest the president.

bump

The Xanthalian fleet withdraws, broadcasting a message as they go. "Investigation confirms that the Kalan have a legitimate claim to the 'nation' of Independent Pluto. Unfortunately, we are of the opinion that IP should be granted independence. Under these circumstances we cannot in good conscience help either Independent Pluto or the Kalan. Xanthal will remain neutral in this conflict until further notice."

OOC: No IC response to that one. No way to hear it. Sorry.

OOC: I know. It kinda makes it more interesting. If anyone does anything too heinous we'll jump in on the other side's behalf.

OOC: Xanthal, check TG's.

BUMP for LRR

Bump again for that lazy, no-good LRR.

Bump again for that lazy, no-good LRR.

Well, you sort of have to hail them first. :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :evil: :evil: :evil: :x :x :x :x :x :x :tantrum:

Henderson gave orders to update Xanthal on the situation, but the reply came back, "They're blocking all communications. We just got off that round of requests for help.

"We can't get through to IP command."
"We should send a frigate to go make contact."
"Ok, Nashua, go make contact with the IP government."
"Understood, we are away."

The Franconia class assault frigate glides through space towards the IP government cube.

After several hours on 20% thrust, the frigate reaches the docking bay of the cube.

Henderson continued looking at the display of the ongoing battle. The Kalan ships were definitely preparing for a major assault on the central cubes themselves. They were only mildly harased by the remaining IP ships, who had destroyed no more than three Kalan ships altogether.

He noted the LRR frigate moving toward the cubes, and went back to hovering over the IPBM firing button.

The Nashua motors in close to the cubes. A corvette detaches from the ship's hull and motors into the cube's docking bay, carrying the captain and several naval infantrymen.

The Xanthalian Armada begins massing just outside the combat zone. Reports indicate almost forty ships present and more on the way.

Henderson keyed in the code for opening a docking bay and lowering the shield. He noted that the Kalan ships had massed in htree different places, in approximately equal amounts. He wondered what they were planning. The IP fleet was no threat anymore, and all that stood between the Kalan and IP were the small defenses of the cubes themselves.

The corvette motors into the docking bay, and the pilot looks for a suitable landing area.

"Independent Pluto control, this is C-32435. Requesting landing permission, over."

The bay dorrs close, and the area is pressurized. An automated speaker system directs the corvette to a landing space.

The corvette sets down, and the ramp opens up. The captain of the Nashua walks out, vz-61P slung over his shoulder. Accompanying him are one of the ship's engineers and a trio of naval infantrymen, carrying plasma rifles.

They walk out onto the bay's floor and head to what looks like a door or exit.

The Xanthalian Armada presence is now sixty ships. More can be seen on long-range sensors arriving.

multipost

A computerized voice directs the group to follow a lighted path, leading to a lift, and then to the main command center.

OOC: My apologies if this is the latest in a series of multiposts

A computerized voice directs the group to follow a lighted pat, leading to a lift, and then to the main command center.

OOC: My apologies if this is the latest in a series of multiposts

Captain Vanzetti arrives in the command center, accompanied by the naval infantrymen and the engineer. They wait to be directed to Admiral Henderson.

The Xanthalian fleet stops growing at seventy-five ships. They all sit on the edge of the combat zone, monitoring the proceedings and awaiting orders.

One of the security guards standing in the room directs the group to a door at the far end. The door opens automatically, and they are ushered in. The only person in the room is Henderson, sitting in front of a holographic simulation of the area of the Kuiper Belt. He turned around.

"Hello. You are the LRR delegation, I assume. What do you plan to do regarding this . . . situation? Whatever your superiors decide to do, it'd better be fast."

bump

One of the security guards standing in the room directs the group to a door at the far end. The door opens automatically, and they are ushered in. The only person in the room is Henderson, sitting in front of a holographic simulation of the area of the Kuiper Belt. He turned around.

"Hello. You are the LRR delegation, I assume. What do you plan to do regarding this . . . situation? Whatever your superiors decide to do, it'd better be fast."

"First, we need to know the sides. What do you want, and what do the others want?"

"Let's see . . . WE want to retain our independence, which we've had for a century, and they want to either conquer us or kill us all. That answer your queston?"

OOC: Sorry I haven't posted, but the server has been off whenever I'm on.

"Let's see . . . WE want to retain our independence, which we've had for a century, and they want to either conquer us or kill us all. That answer your queston?"

OOC: Sorry I haven't posted, but the server has been off whenever I'm on.

"Yup. So, since the fleet's only a hair's breadth away, I guess you want us to help out. Well, that's what we came for."

"Good for you. Now, do the fleet know this, or do you have to go back and tell them?"

tap

"Do you have any communications equipment?"

"None that works under the Kalan the jamming equipment." He paused. "You came without a way of letting your fleet know what happened. In case you didn't notice, we have maybe 8 hours before the Kalan fleet gets here. And it looks like your fleet and Xanthal's are going to be spectators."

"None that works under the Kalan the jamming equipment." He paused. "You came without a way of letting your fleet know what happened. In case you didn't notice, we have maybe 8 hours before the Kalan fleet gets here. And it looks like your fleet and Xanthal's are going to be spectators."

"We've got some comms equipment back in the frigate."

Captain Vanzetti dispatches two naval infantrymen to the corvette, where they inform the frigate of the situation. The frigate then sends a low-frequency transmission to the rest of the 23rd patrol regiment.

"None that works under the Kalan the jamming equipment." He paused. "You came without a way of letting your fleet know what happened. In case you didn't notice, we have maybe 8 hours before the Kalan fleet gets here. And it looks like your fleet and Xanthal's are going to be spectators."

"We've got some comms equipment back in the frigate."

Captain Vanzetti dispatches two naval infantrymen to the corvette, where they inform the frigate of the situation. The frigate then sends a low-frequency transmission to the rest of the 23rd patrol regiment.

"None that works under the Kalan the jamming equipment." He paused. "You came without a way of letting your fleet know what happened. In case you didn't notice, we have maybe 8 hours before the Kalan fleet gets here. And it looks like your fleet and Xanthal's are going to be spectators."

"We've got some comms equipment back in the frigate."

Captain Vanzetti dispatches two naval infantrymen to the corvette, where they inform the frigate of the situation. The frigate then sends a low-frequency transmission to the rest of the 23rd patrol regiment.

Henderson mumured to his comms officer, "See that you not only find out what they're sending but how they're punching it through the jamming."

"Yes sir."

Henderson mumured to his comms officer, "See that you not only find out what they're sending but how they're punching it through the jamming."

"Yes sir."

The Xanthalian fleet continues sitting in space outside the combat zone, watching.

OOC: Well, at least you came back... If nothing happens soon though, I'm just gonna withdraw my ships and leave. This RP is already dragging about a century behind my new ones.

OOC: I'm really sorry, but i don't get on much now. Seldom is the server behaving when I'm on. Frankly, I'm ready to just abandon this RP and probably the whole nation, starting a new nation in the same physical area.