NationStates Jolt Archive

Deep Space 1,490 AU from Sol.

The photon had travelled for millennia beyond count, many times from its birth it had been drawn and battered upon the realavistic curves and radiation winds of space. For time immemorial however it had not touched other matter. This was very shortly to change, The photon hit something as did trillions of others. If your view was to expand out from the subatomic size of the photon it would reveal in the end a white plain stretching out to what seemed to be almost infinity. Zoom out still further and it would become surrounded by a great wall that seemed to stretch up to touch the edge of the universe. If you zoomed out again it was the rectangular remains of a nameplate. Its legend bore the words “


ZMI DARKSPACE RESOURCE PLATFORM :59
ZMIMM “OMNIDIRECTIONAL WIDGET” ”
(1)
The nameplate had a rather large hole though it that partially obscured the letters “Omni” other than that it was clamped to the exterior strut of one of the huge almost insectile mass of the resource gathering platform. Take an oil rig, now put it in space, expand it, throw in a starship, a refinery a smelter a dozen warehouses and the mother of all molecule strippers. For variety add a few giant cantilevered arms with smaller chunky little catch field projectors mix in a heavily shielded habitat and control module usually clamped somewhere near the core of the unholy mess of struts, cables, ablative armour plate and huge coolant fins and throw in a small craft dock or 20 and you had a Darkspace resource platform. The purpose of all of this seemingly insane industrial hardware floating around out in the middle of nowhere was not in fact to be a damn great eyesore, however anyone in passing would need reminding of this. It ate comets and asteroid’s or rather it spent several months or years mining metal ore and smelting it, slowly extracting and refining volatiles and processing CHON into various forms of useable hydrocarbon goop. All of this created 1,200 ton blocks of processed metal, huge tanks of liquid gasses and hydrocarbon storage units. All of these would be made out of plascrete created from the CHON goop and what was basically dust on site in the resource platforms well equipped external construction cradles.

Every few weeks a ZMIMM Armed Trader [1]class transport would hurtle out of the darkness leaving the faint blue outline of the shock bubble from its transit drive behind it and spend about two days loading these containers, however at the moment the platform was alone in space.

Its slow 8 km in radius bulk was slideing though normal space about 28,000 kilometres from a comet massing about a little under 48 megatons, the huge platforms transit drive had been miscalculated and the ship had emerged out from target, however the cost of recharging and the wear and tear a vessel that large would cause using FTL transit drive was far more than running her on more conventional thrusters. In this case an array of 20 ZMI Mk.340 industrial grade photon drive units had provided the burn needed to send the platform on its way, now it was coasting.


Command and control module ZMI Merchant Marine mobile platform “Omnidirectional Widget”

First officer (civ) Peter Henderson was having a bad day, first old iron pants (Captain (civ) Jonathan “Iron Pants” Williams” named such for an accident involving a rupture in a plasma smelter that had lost the captain his third shells legs) had just spent the last fifty minutes babbling to him on the proper importance of the transit drive maintenance rota and his daughters upcoming wedding. If he heard the words “Guest list” or “that horrible little zone twenty fourers family” (1) one more time he felt he would be forced to hurl the multi tool on his belt at the man who was unfortunately his Captain shins, …again. The ships speakers were blaring out some thumping inner zone Megacity Two trad pop mix that added to his general dissatisfaction with the day. It might be said that Mr. Henderson was distracted and not paying attention to the insubstantial thin as light holographic smart dust displays that were hanging around him however the ships nano mechanical logic stack/energy state processor AI most certainly was. Named Rusty its main occupations in what could be broadly termed its life were exo geology, writing papers on some of the odder minutiae of 24th century file compression formats in Megacity ones zone 28 and its small bonsai garden in the platforms biodome. It was a normally quite existence for an AI with the capacity to calculate the orbits, masses and possible colours of every grain of dust in a solar system in .0048 of a pico second and Rusty (who was 48 it might be added) was quite happy with it and its large salary, he was after all a full citizen.

However he was not happy when the platforms various mass meters neatly skipped a beat before showing several large clumps of something closing unpleasantly fast. Warship fast. A further scan with the various optically active passive chunks of the platform, its LIDAR (which to Rusty’s great displeasure bounced back disturbing images of weapons) and a check of the long range exotic radiation detection arrays various sections showed what could be up to four bursts which Rusty firmly put in the “big swirly hyperspace jump exit thing” category. Shortly after this the objects came within the platforms large passive conventional energy detection range. Nothing but warships carried energy readings like that. More to the point they were for warships approaching awfully silent. Rusty decided to act.


Peter was just about to take another sip of painkiller dosed apple juice after the captain finally left the command module when the “Inbound” alarms blared out all over the ship. Shortly after this several thousand things happened. The Widgets arms usually kept stowed near to her body in transit started to wind out, on there edges point defence modules lenses being uncovered from under there ablative armoured plates and last ditch auto cannons flicking out from large canisters. The ships vast network of gasses, solids and energy danced like a pack of nuns after six days on brandy and the sound of music as external lines were pumped full of neutral gas or emptied. The central inhabited modules suddenly found there view of the outside world being cut off as the heavy metal storage and water storage units were repositioned with several disturbingly loud thumps that made the entire platform vibrate. Then the entire platform began a steady vibration as her drive array decelerated her to relative full stop. She could never hope to outrun warships, the comet would provide poor cover, and her huge transit drive would take over an hour to spin up. A single rack of counter shipping missile launchers rose from one of her outlying refinery complexes soon to be joined by five others on various parts of the platform. It was at this point that Peter dropped his mug and heard Rusty’s atvatars distinctly nasal sounding English College professors voice blare out over the ships audio systems and data nets. “INBOUND UNKNOWN WARSHIPS” At this point we shall draw a curtain over Peters long string of expletives and return to him as he asked why Rusty hadn’t asked who the hell they were. The response he got was that Rusty was trying in every language that was in his extensive database but as yet had failed to receive a response anywhere on the electromagnetic or exotic radiation bandwidths. He was also then coldly told by the AI to “Go to hell” and “Do your damn job you jumped up fruit juice drinking ex data sorter clerk weenie”.

At that point Peter ordered the platforms 239 pilot licensees to get in every thing that could mount a mining laser (which was nearly every small ship, tug, or one man rock rat single ship), kinetic slug thrower or mining charge launcher and as such man the defences. This mostly consisted of the civilian but heavily built ships scurrying through the platforms dense structure and preparing covered firing positions, as they could never go as fast or as manoeuvre as effectively as a space fighter in open space. At this point the platforms thousands of drones were already doing exactly that waiting for the humans who would command them.


[1] http://www.deviantart.com/view/12060245/

(1) The ZMI Merchant Marine, a venerable section of the incorporated state dating back to the early airborne zeppelin shipping that the original industrial city that forms the “old Zone” was founded to build and maintain in the 1920’s tech era of its probability line. Sometimes called the old service or if a more derogatory tone is called for “the old gasbags”.

(2) It should be noted that ZMI Megacity one where Captain Williams daughter and indeed the captains family makes its residence is split into zones as are all three of the ZMI megacities though Megactiy one is by far the largest. Given the cities nearly 2 billion strong populace this is a necessity of not only administration but at this point civic pride. Different ZMI Megacity zones can have as much history and differences between them as Liverpool and London, or Rome and Venice with in some cases histories just as filled with reasons to wish to brain ones neighbours with the nearest blunt object. If the government allowed that sort of thing any more which of course it didn’t.



[[OOC Open to pretty much near anything or anybody but I do have my limits ]]

TAG, I'll get my people in on this. But read my factbook while I work on a post.

[[OOC factbook read. Will continue next post below once you respond]]


And now for some random filler, on the far planet of Xixion mirthak the purveyor of oversized fruit found the fourth U'Tak fruit from the bottem of his pyramid had rotted. The ensuing toxic fumes caused his smart necklace to brake down into a samizdat device that reduced his entire civilisation to no more than drifting dust motes in the cold.


Please stand by for your regularly scheduled post.

Gorunde and his servant Shajja had been moving at near light speeds for eighty years, ever since the Observers had detected the regular movement through hyperspace of the frieghters moving to and from the mining station. He was on a mission. A mission to get FTL technology. They were arriving in the area just as the mysterious attackers jumped in. They observed the plight of the miners for a few minutes, their apparently helpless situation, then made their move.

He embodied himself in Commander Peter Henderson's cabin as a tall, gray skinned, featureless bald humanoid. He walked over to a comlink attached to the wall and activated it.
"Commander Henderson, please come to your cabin. It is vital that I speak with you, I believe I may be able to stop the attack, but I would need your approval for my course of action."
Psychicly, he communicated with Shajja
"Keep in contact with home while I am incorporated. I want to be updated,on any developments, also keep them updated on the progress of our mission. I may also need to to tell me of the status of the attacking and defending vessels if anything interesting happens"
"Yes sire"
"Don't call me sire. I hate it when people point out my superiority."

The first thing that happened as Gorunde embodied himself in Peters’s room was the fact that Rusty locked the door and activated the air intakes bio containment units, cut the data access and activated the rooms sole somewhat battered utility drone who’s tissue box sized mass hissed out of a compartment in the wall before it flicked out its tiny low powered utility laser (usually used to carve Peter’s meals or fix his plumbing).

“Commander Peterson will not be joining you, whoever you are, he is busy”, Rusty’s avatar wearing its usual mortar board and cloak was on every screen in the room at this point. “Now why don’t you explain my exotic radiation emitting friend what you intend to do about the war vessels closing with us to me? Since I am the one who will be dealing with this situation?”

By now four dumpy counter boarding tasked assault drones had floated down the habitat modules passage ways, surprising several crew members who were running to their action stations, and were waiting outside the door.

Inside Rusties logic stacks images and data danced, electromagnetic analysis from across the entire spectrum via the utility drones limited sensor were cross checked against thousands of races. They came up with a negative. Rusty was to put it mildly not happy with this.

"Exotic radiation? Oh, yes. You lesser beings probably don't understand: this is good for you. But what will I be doning about the attacking vessels you ask? I will destroy them. I can eliminate those attacking your station. But only if you provide me with the technology necessary of faster then light travel. You probably need a demonstration of my power before you agree. One moment, and you will see the extent of my abilities."

"There are two attack vehicles moving in for a strafing run. And four armed ... robots outside the door."
"Thank you Shajja."

He felt his energy flowing out from him, first he enveloped the assault drones and examined their systems, deeming them to be non threatening. Then he expanded further and found the two vehicles moving in for a strafing run. He concentrated on the larger, and with a small expenditure of his charged energy, blew open all the airlocks on it, causing catastrophic instant decompression. he then altered it flow of atoms in it s fusion reactor and caused it to expode, violently.

"The destruction of this station is of no consequence to me. I will not be permanently harmed by what would be most disasterous for you, seeing as you are a mere computer, while I am a member of the Rupil. I can easily board one of the vessels attacking you and offer my services to them for the same price. Now, seeing as you appear to be in charge of this station, you will make the decision: let your own weak defensive force fail to protect you, or allow me to destroy your enemy. Do not double cross me or the occupants of this station will never see another day."

OCC: I’m in.
IC:
“Captain, detecting a fusion reactor explosion.” Lieutenant Davis spoke up
“Location?” Captain Walker Riley asked.
“About 1490AU from Earth, 103.292.” Davis responded looking at his control panel.
“Helm, set course 103.292, Warp factor 5” Walker ordered, helm entered the coordinates and activated the warp drive.

***20 minutes later.***
“Open a channel to all vessels in the area.” Walker ordered
“Aye sir, channel open.” The communications officer replied
“To all vessels in the area, this is Captain Walker Riley, of the Federation Starship Excelsior, we have come after receiving reports of a fusion explosion in the area, if anyone has any answers please contact us.”

OOC: This looks interesting. Looks like I'm gonna be in.

Near Terran Solar System, aboard the Jupiter Class Supralight Carrier, Horatio Nelson

Captain Jeff Daniels slouched in the captain’s chair with a half empty mug of coffee in his hand and a half drained look in his eye. He was bored and today promised another boring patrol.

“Captain, I’ve just spotted some type of explosion on the sensors.”

Captain Daniels sat up and listened to Commander Brandon Carter, his XO and fire control officer.

“Commander, where is it?”

“Sir, it’s in the Sol system.”

“Very well commander.”

“Helm, execute an FTL jump. Security, put the ship on Yellow alert.”

Daniels sat up in his chair and took another swallow of his coffee that had grown cold.

A few minutes later, near the site of the explosion

Commander Chad Williams, in charge of both security and communication, played the following message of the bridge speakers.

To all vessels in the area, this is Captain Walker Riley, of the Federation Starship Excelsior, we have come after receiving reports of a fusion explosion in the area, if anyone has any answers please contact us.

“Williams, I want to reply to that ship.”

“Very well sir, frequencies open.”

Federation Vessel, this is the PSN Horatio Nelson. We were on a routine patrol mission when we picked up an explosion on our long range scanners. Please advise. Over.”

The RGSV Wrong 'em Boyo, a large spherical independent cruiser, happens to be traveling through the area.

The ship's powerful sensors detect anomalous energy emissions nearby, and it is steered towards the region in question.

"There appear to be several ships in this region besides ourselves, although none of them match examples in the databases," says the AI over the ship's PA system.
"I see. Well, we'll head over that way and see what's up," responds the captain.

“Permanently harmed really?” Rusties core was flashing through millions of possible events, one was selected. It wasn’t that Rusties intellect was vast, though his IQ was roughly 800, it was the speed that he could think at. One of the thoughts that was now flashing through the logic stacks that made up his brain was “I really, really hate god like aliens”. Rusty however was a ZMI AI and a full citizen so running parallel to these thoughts were “How can I make a bucket full of rungs from this creature?”.

As Rusty was on one level pondering this when the platforms long range sensors finally cleared from the explosion of the two hostile vessels. It was at this point that the huge passive sensor array an 8 kilometre wide platform carries about really showed its worth.

There were two bursts of exotic radiation marking ships coming out of FTL. One of the vessels was showing its location so heavily by a space warp drive that not even a blind man in a coal mine could have missed it. It appeared to be a cruiser sized advanced warship. Rusty was not pleased with this in the slightest and even less pleased when he found the thing giving of enough exotic radiation of various kinds to fry an egg. From orbit. The second ship was yet another warship. Rusty would have at this point slapped his head against his desk if he was human. A carrier by its lines, far less obvious than the first vessel and for Rusties probability estimation systems this put a far higher threat index over it. A third vessel at the extreme limit of detection seemed to be simply passing through, it was still outside range for identification however.

On the general principal that pirates rarely openly run to a battle and taking into account the fact that the ships seemed to come from a completely different tech base than the attackers he told the first officer.
“Peter we have two more inbound warships I give a +90% chance there civilised naval craft”

Peter was at this point feverently starting the arming sequence for the for the platforms 5 anti shipping batteries while “old iron pants” was targeting the inbound ships.

All of this was undertaken as the platforms auto cannon and PD gigawatt lasers were spearing the incoming junk from the two ships that had so unexpectedly just detonated. This was not easy, the vessels it seemed had been on an energy weapon strafing run on the platforms drive array and there blasts had sent a cone of debris straight for the platforms main core. Peters had attributed this to over stressed badly maintained pirate ships.

Given the crews present state of mind Rusty was in no hurry to disturb them further by the appearance of this alien who had just turned two attacking vessels into so much glowing junk with what appeared to be his mind, if it was a he. As he thought this two buoys deep within one of the platforms myriad bays started to auto prep to lay claim to the slowly cooling clouds salvage.

It was at this point that the first inbound new warship identified itself.

To all vessels in the area, this is Captain Walker Riley, of the Federation Starship Excelsior, we have come after receiving reports of a fusion explosion in the area, if anyone has any answers please contact us.”

Rusty piped that straight over the ship.

Which federation was the first question? After the brake a dozen entities claiming to be egalitarian federations had appeared, all claiming to be unifying the races of the universes for their own good, and going along with a lot of hooha about non interference with pre FTL races. Rusty decided at this point to lie given that if ZMI did make a deal with the Alien they would be clearly in violation of the all of the “federations” prime directive.

“Captain will I respond?” Old Iron pants looked up then snapped “about bloody time this close to sol, permission granted.” Peter winced at this and then said “what the hell about the bloody carrier?

It was at this point that Rusty piped the second transmission over the ship.

Federation Vessel, this is the PSN Horatio Nelson. We were on a routine patrol mission when we picked up an explosion on our long range scanners. Please advise. Over.”

“Captain?” Rusty stated.
“Just call for help Rusty! And let us handle the inbound’s! We’ll show em how rockhounds fight!” At this statement Peters realised why old iron pants had never made it into the ZMI space forces.

Rusty formulated a few thousand messages, found one which was appropriate and broadcast it on every bandwidth he was capable of. Including sending a report back “in” to sol, though it would take over a 18 hours even with FTL relay satellites and the other resource platforms bouncing the signal to make it to any sort of ZMI fleet unit capable of responding in the half hour he needed them.

“This is the ZMI merchant marine mining platform Omnidirectional Widget to the PSN Horatio Nelson and the Federation Starship Excelsior and any other naval vessels, we are under attack by unknown hostile vessels bearing no national markings request immediate assistance.”

“For terminating inbound hostiles to a ZMI civilian operation you will receive the standard ZMI bounty of 8 million rungs per raider destroyed”



All this time Rusty had been considering the Alien. Out of millions of possible outcomes he had considered the “carrot and the stick” seemed to be the operating concept with this, for want of a better term “gentlemen’s” system of negotiations. ZMI never liked being offered sticks, and while carrots where nice it was always good to read the small print first. It was also much nicer to be carrying a stick yourself.

The entity on his deck was a shell, this was clear from his scans. Unlike the standard ZMI replacement shell or combat shell this was no mere andriod with a human or AI mind. It was unerringly perfect as a working living being. However it was storing and using a large quantity of exotic radiation in its operation, and as the being had reached out and touched the assault drones with what looked like an active scan by exotic radiation, and as it had far more disturbingly reached out further and detonated Rusty summarised the incoming ships drive systems it had again used this power. However, the level overall had dropped.

The creature had limits. The platforms FTL drive cores limits were considerably higher. A device designed to hurl a 8 kilometre wide chunky mining platform and whatever it was hauling into transit space had a great deal of capacity and while it wasn’t charged up enough to make the jump it could do other things. Rusty silently messaged the crew via their implants. A line from the transit drive core to the habitat module began to be cleared. If he was correct, and by being correct Rusty meant having run more possible “if” scenarios than there are grains of sand on every beach of old earth, a lance of pure exotic radiation from the ships drive core, a dozen times more powerful than even a solar prominence would fry this creature where it stood. Permanently. More to the point any conventional plasma weapon such as the assault drones armour penetrating plasma lances should at least disrupt the creature. Rusty now had a stick. Now they could talk.

“It seems the situation has changed, we do not like being at anyone’s ..mercy however as a commercial entity ZMI is always ready for a fair deal.” At this Rusty gently pulsed the FTL drive core.
Rusty continued
“Why don’t we talk credits instead of killings.”

Meanwhile back on the bridge Peters finished the arming sequence and from each of the platforms five missile banks a stream of 5 huge ZMI Mk.8 “Grand Slam” anti shipping missiles blasted away on the end of a single use cartridge based chemical launch lasers beam targeting the nearest raiders as the pilots and drones now clambering over the platforms huge structures prepared there positions to repel possible borders.




[[OOC, I read the Rupil fact book it said nothing of OMG destroying entire ships with MIND BULLETS. I call shenanigans. Energy beings with some abilities I can live with, in the words of John Cryten “I hate godlike aliens”, but I can deal.

WANTED! One person to play the part of a unmarked raider group presently targeted by inbound missiles, possibly two warships, and after taking two casualties from “mind bullets” (thankyou Rupil).

If you people want I can carry on with the raiders as some independent bunch of space scum, be warned however I intent them to give you a good fight if this happens, after all not even Rusty has seen the pirates flagship yet …Well how did you think they were going to raid a resource platform?

Don’t worry if its up to me it will be a decommissioned out of date Battleship or Dreadnought bought on the black market. Lots of energy weapons and kinetics low on missile load and a few tech generations behind. (hint use your ECM) However I would really like another player to come up with the raiders and run with their own version of what they think the raiders are/will do.

[uncle voice] One more thing!Star Treck tech... *shudder* I can live with it but it don't mean I have to like it.[/uncle voice]

/OOC]]

[[Hey Doc, if you want me to I can run the raiders (although not as CGC - they'd probably miss the resource station altogether), either as NPCs or as Ventuusi Acquisitional Mining Corporation's hired goon types (trying to take out competition or something, and using mercs who don't know who's paying them)]]

OOC That was demonstrating the far reaches of his ability. He is the ONLY Rupil that can do that, and now he's exhausted. His threat of killing all the humans would have to have been carried out in a more conventional manner.
IC
"Now we seem to reach an impasse. I have no knowledge of whatever it is you people use for currency, while your allies are apparently coming in to remove my only bargining chip. However, I am of quite high status on my world, and would be willing to offer you, pending offical word from my government, exclusive resource colection operations rights for the entire system."

"Run that by the Thinker council, they should be okay with it. If this lesser being agrees then I want you to have a plan of action for taking out the other attackers ready."

"Those other ships I mentioned do not apear to be engaging either the attackers or the station. Also the station apears to be putting up a better defense than we anticipated. We may heve to offer our services to one of the other groups to get the desired results."

In Rusties Core the equivalent of a huge glittering money symbol appeared as the alien made its announcement.

“Exclusive… ah now that’s a word we like to hear.”
With that a dozen holo schematics of drive systems, power cores and FTL drives appeared. All however lacking detail or for that matter notation save for a scale.
Rusty continued his voice changing to that of a consummate sales man.

“ZMI offers a wide range of FTL transit systems to the discerning buyer. From the Mark.40 hyper space pulse jump drive for the one man scout willing to use stasis to the new ZMI Orbitron Mk.433 power core/transit core drive duo capable of crossing the galaxy in a month with a payload of up to 30 megatons. For the exclusive mining rights for an entire system we would be more than willing to construct and sell you the production rights for a standard Hyper space pulse drive”

A selection of hyper drive systems came up. The technology was nearly a matter of public knowledge at this point and while it could hurl a ship star to star in moments it was far from the state of the art. Everything from independent traders to lunar ferries used it.

“With a maximum capacity of 80 lights per day the standard Hyper space pulse drive is reliable as nuclear fusion, however” with this an elaborate device was highlighted out of the numerous drive systems on the cabins various screens. “This could be more what your looking for, if granted exclusive supply and upgrade rights for your future FTL needs in perpetuity ZMI would be willing to offer you this the Mark.9080 Heavy Orbitron matter compression power source coupled with the one of the latest “Avanti” type MK.500 transit drives with a top speed of over 1,200 lights per day.”


Outside this conversation the platforms missiles streaked towards there targets, the initial launch impetus granted them by the chemical lasers having accelerated them up to .2 of C they engaged their own bulky “hot” fusion drives. Inside each one the single huge anti shipping warhead began to arm. However they had been in there tubes a long time. The barrage had started out as 25 strong however this would change. Two simply failed to ignite there drives when the initial launch laser stopped, another four lost target lock and then promptly shut down. The rest of the 19 missile salvo however was still hunting.


Peter sat on the command deck his neural feed almost at capacity from the actions all over the platform.

“Captain all missiles fired we have six, I repeat six dead in space, 19 running hot and normal towards raiders.”


[[OOC for purposes of simplicity I hope that this Rupil has by now managed to figure out the platforms day night cycle, or just managed to decode the 24 hour wall clock in Peters cabin.
Newbish delight has been onto me over IRC he will be the raiders through his corporate proxy /OOC]]

Janathyn Reddyn stepped gingerly over a prostrate pirate, taking care to avoid getting his crisp suit dirty. There were a number pirates where either stretched out drunk, or else still complaining about their hangovers. Janathyn muttered to himself, mentally cursing the head of Eliminations for giving him this assignment.

He sighed stoically as he made his way onto the bridge, glancing around the tribal pirates with distate as he approached their chieftain.

"I see that we have arrived, what has happened?"

The chieftain spat out something in his abominable accent, to the effect that they had lost two of their ships for some reason, but that the rest of the small raiding force was intact. A few more ships had turned up.

"That one...another one of those designs? Are we in range of the station yet?"

The reply came that they were not, but that they were in range of the Federation ship. The dreadnought continued its slow, relentless approach toward the station, the other raider ships moving in formation.

The dreadnought was old, out of date by about a century. Its great redeeming feature was that it was built solidly, designed to be relentless in its approach. It was heavily armed, and strongly armoured. Accompanied as it was by the raider clan's other blackmarket ships it was not something to take lightly.

Railgun turrets swung ponderously around, missiles slid into firing tubes and laser systems came online. Weapons swung toward the Federation ship as the small pirate fleet headed toward the mining station - the dreadnought shrugging off the munitions from that station that had been weakened by distance, and countered by heavy armour, whilst some of the smaller ships - lacking in the armour that personified the dreadnought class, suffered severe damage.

"Whenever you are ready, chieftain."

The pirate grunted before bellowing orders to his crewmen. Missiles hissed out of their ports, curving in the empty space to target the Federation vessel, while lasers charged and silently fired upon the craft and railguns hissed with electricity, discharging shells with a well-practised routine. At that remained to was to see how much damage the dreadnought had done.

"Sire, the council says that they can have all export rights, but we must be able to refine enough for our own purposes."

"That should be good enough. I am weak from my demonstration. You will have to do the rest of the fighting. Prepare a suitable combat body. Something with no lungs and plenty of armor. And you may have to move from ship to ship... try a CS13."

"Where shoudl I embody myself?"

"I will determine that myself when we are ready. Did you observe the schematics that appeared onscreen?"

"Yes, they've been relayed to the builders."

"Good. I will finish the negotiations."

"Well, my technologically advanced friend, we will take the more powerful model. Though my government will probably have certain fine points to ound out in the agreement. Now I will excuse myself to complete my half of the agreement."

He reached up and broke his own neck, killing the body and releasing himself to engage his enemy. Shajja had recieved the requested design from the Builders, and was straining attemptingto remember all the parts of such a complex creature. Gorunde selected a formation of approaching vehicles, eight that could be designated as frigates. He told Shajja to embody himelf on the engine housing of the one at the rear of the formation.

Shajja was by no means a powerful warrior, having only ever won a single gladiatorial match. But the CS13 is a strong design. An insectoid about twelve feet in length, half as wide and eight feet tall. Covered in thick armor and with eight razor sharp slicing arms, it was supported by four powerful legs, each ending in a powerful grasping claw. He immediately began tearing into the exposed cables and engine parts of the poorly maintained ship. He began to tear apart the attacking vehicle.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Captain Jeff Daniels listened to the message again.

“This is the ZMI merchant marine mining platform Omnidirectional Widget to the PSN Horatio Nelson and the Federation Starship Excelsior and any other naval vessels, we are under attack by unknown hostile vessels bearing no national markings request immediate assistance.”

“For terminating inbound hostiles to a ZMI civilian operation you will receive the standard ZMI bounty of 8 million rungs per raider destroyed”

Apparently they were willing to pay him and to pay him well to destroy the raiders that had just appeared on his sensors. Daniels shrugged and turned back to the display showing the locations of the enemy ships...a fair number of enemy ships.

“Sir! The big sucker just fired a whole lot of ordinance at that Federation ship!”

After his outburst, Brandon Carter, the XO and fire control officer took a moment to compose himself.

“Sir, it looks like rail guns, missiles, and lasers.”

Captain Daniels briefly contemplated a strategy and then began to issue orders.

“Go to red alert. Fire control, flush the box launchers, and go to maximum on the missile turrets. Target that big ugly one with the box launchers. We’ve got to get those missiles into space. Equip the bombers with Copperhead missiles. Helm, take evasive action.”

The crew of the Horatio Nelson began to follow the orders of their Captain. On the exterior of the ship, box launchers vomited forth dozens of missiles equipped with bomb pumped X-ray lasers began to accelerate toward the enemy flotilla, while shield generators spun to maximum and power began to flow into the shield capacitor banks. The ship wheeled to the left and began to vomit salvos of eight missiles every 12 seconds.

“Captain, we have launched the first volley of eighty eight missiles and expended all of the missiles in our box launchers.”

Rusty looked on with a sort vague disbelief through the utility drones eyes as the alien broke its own neck. Well that was that sorted and hopefully a tidy profit for the company in the process. Rusty then vented the cabins atmosphere into space, ran a level one gamma radiation sterilisation sweep and had the utility drone wrap the body in a large black plastic bag.

Back in the command and control centre things were just getting interesting. The launchers were sliding back into their armoured housings and reloading, and down in one of the two large hanger bays the platforms 12 Type 10 (space tug variant) had finished replacing there towing and grappling module with two huge anti shipping torpedoes they had also replaced the large manipulator arms on her external hard points with Star Slam missile pods. Their crews stood by as a grinding sound resonating through the platforms structure from outside the bay signalled the fact that the platforms central core had at least over their bay been stripped of the cargo modules surrounding it.

Rusties calm voice announced this fact as the platforms PD array ashed another salvo of light slow missiles from one of the raider frigates into a rain of sparkling dust motes. Rusty however was unable to stop the kinetic penetrator rounds that followed and neatly punched holes in number 28 water storage tank causing a really huge set of fountains then some really spectacular looking ice sculptures.. The problem was not that the frigate sized raiders antique weapons were unable to damage the platform, it was just their was so much platform, Rusty was not sure at all however how the platforms integrity would hold up against a pounding by that monster of a old fashioned dreadnought that seemed to be acting as the Raiders flagship.

As the platform gently shook under the far away thuds of the kinetic rounds penetrations the captain replied to Rusties announcement that the Widgets tugs were ready for combat.

“This is Williams to Widget attack flight one, launch codes and course vectors uploaded, gentlemen good hunting.”

With that the 12 Type 10 (1) space tugs screamed out of the launch bay their big dual oversized drive systems (unique to the space tug variant) flaring as their pilots hurled them into combat.

At this point the dreadnought was seen to salvo at the federation starship. Rusties threat assessment of the ancient armed hulk did a little jig as he waited for the impacts of this impressive but archaic display of grand fire power. A few seconds after this the carrier launched its spread of missiles at the dreadnought and Rusty detected neutrino bursts flaring from its launch bays. Rusties logic core section tasked to watch the carrier said someone is playing with some nasty toys.

Back at the top of various refinery structures and cooling fin arrays the platforms own missile launchers finished there reload cycle and once more the launchers emerged from their armoured housings to swivel to face the enemy. Targeting the frigates that showed an good set of point defences Peter and Rusty prepped to launch another 25 Mk8. “Grand Slam” ship killers with Peter cursing the fact that the Mk.8 could no longer do what its name claimed in one or two hits these days.

In space waves of ordinance were still making their way towards their targets, missiles leaving glowing drive trails ahead of them streaked coherent energy beams and relativistic kinetic shot like a spray of fireworks.

In the bridge “old iron pants” was looking on as his “rock rats” in their now armed but not militarised space tugs made their way towards the enemies frigates with two huge relatively brand new MK.50 torpedoes carried in there module bay. He new that some of them very probably wouldn’t return until their back ups were installed into new shells back on Earth. The simple fact was that while the Omnidirectional Widget was big, she was also far out and her entire crew was barely 800. The Widget and the other dark space resource platforms had never been a high a enough concentration of personnel to warrant their own large logic stack arrays big enough to back up human minds, so the crew had nothing to rely upon but their yearly back ups when they returned to the Earth or if a Management Buyout class flagship of a ZMI defence fleet task force passed by. Given the fact that their duty was also hazardous the pay was far above standard but it took a certain sort of person to risk loosing a year of memories and life.


(1)http://www.deviantart.com/view/13898914/
Vanilla type 10 image.

OCC: Why are they firing on me? Am I the biggest ship here or something?
IC:
“Captain, shields down to seventy-eight percent.” Commander Grad, the Chief Tactical Officer, reported.
“Return fire, phasers, torpedoes full spread!” The captain ordered, “Fighters engage the target. And get more power to the shields!”
The captain’s orders were immediately obeyed.
“Open a channel to all the vessels in the area”
“Channel open sir.” The comm officer replied.
“This is the USS Excelsior, a starship from the United Space Federation of Veskaland. Attacking vessels, call off your attack and your vessels and your lives will be spared, if not you will be destroyed. You are out numbered and out gunned, surrender now we have reinforcements on the way.”
The USS Excelsior (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/veskaland/excelsiorrefit2001.jpg)

[[OOC Your in a ship which I presumed given that you stated you were the “federation” and is called the “excelsior” was using a star treck tech base … please forgive me if I was wrong but given this you would be the if not the biggest certainly the “hottest” target out their given the high energy amounts given off from Federation ships. Also your nomen culture of using warp factors and random numbers to represent 3d sectors of space or co-ords leads me to strengthen my conclusion of the use of star treck tech.
If you are flying a Treck tech based ship its one with one holy mother of a energy signature and the first thing the pirates would hit. Also the “Horatio Nelson” did arrive after you and thus would be in all probability if not further away certainly the second thing the pirates locked on to. /OOC]]


And now for something completely different.

In the far planet of Vlashlood the crewl grand ancient high lord Vrapt slowly ran his tongue over every nodule of the fair breeder Mistak’s third neck. Little did he know however that Mistak was in fact the last of the warrior clan b’Tiaxn from the far ice wastes that his mighty armies had strewn to the 10 winds years before in an orgy of destruction and forbidden fire god sacrifices.

As he slowly ran his claws over her delicate wings his ageing wizened scent glands didn’t notice her scent wasn’t quite that of a real breeder and as she plunged her b’Tiaxn warrior sting hook deep into his gut sack and wrenched out his still beating hearts he never knew the cause of his untimely and violent end


[[OOC Yes that’s filler../OOC]]

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

“Sir, that Federation ship just took some serious hits from that big sucker.”

Captain Daniels sat forward in his chair and studied a tactical readout on his viewer. To him, it looked like that Federation ship was going to lose.

“Very well, fire control. Can you...”

This is the USS Excelsior, a starship from the United Space Federation of Veskaland. Attacking vessels, call off your attack and your vessels and your lives will be spared, if not you will be destroyed. You are out numbered and out gunned, surrender now we have reinforcements on the way.

Daniels almost jumped as the message came out of the speaker.

“Sir, I have that transmission definitely came from the Federation ship.”

Daniels turned toward the communications officer that had just spoken and stared at him.

“Commander, that Federation ship is annoying. Turn all incoming communications off of the main speakers and listen to the messages yourself, then tell me if we receive a message.”

Commander Chad Williams, the communications officer turned red at what Captain Daniels had pointed out to him and hastily flipped a switch on his panel.

“Captain, the hangars report that they have loaded the bombers with copper head missiles.”

Daniels smiled as another volley of missiles was slammed out of the missile turrets.

“Fire control, launch the bombers. Order them to form up within our shield and then engage cloaking ECM. After they have all launched, order them to launch from different vectors and then to head for the hangar at top speed. Before the launch, one bomber in each group will use its ECM to simulate the energy signature of one of those Ascendant Missile cruisers. 25 Bombers in each group. ”

The carrier continued its maneuver, imposing its bulk between the hangar decks and the enemy vessels. As it continued the maneuver, the missile turrets continued to spit out their deadly stingers at that steady rate. The silence on the bridge was interrupted by the urgent voice of the fire control officer.

“Captain. We’ve got a problem. We’ve got two volleys of laser heads left. After that, we’re down to standard nukes. Also, I’ve got a report on the stores from fighter command. It seems we’ve only got enough laser heads for the first bomber strike to be equipped with them. After that, they’re down to standard nukes.”

“Very well fire control. Continue to engage.”

Outside the carrier, the bombers began to form up and to engage their cloaking ECM. It would require some time for all of the bombers to launch, and still more time for them to reach their assigned launch points.

Defense turrets sputtered their rounds like seeds being spat out, every third round of the heavy munitions lighting the way to show the gunner where he was firing. Missiles were shot down, destroyed, shattered. Missiles were also missed by the gunnery turrets, crashing into the heavy armour plating of the dreadnought and shattering high-tensile defensive structures, damaging bulkheads and wounding armour. Crewmen died where they stood, where they lay in drunken stupour, and where they sat at control and gunnery systems. But it was not enough, the old warship was built big, built strong, and built relentless. It was not built for manueverability, for which reason the tribal pirate crew had pointed it toward the oil rig and were generally trying to keep it pointed in that direction.

Energy weapons slammed into the sides of the whale-like dreadnought, damaging the armour plating and disabling a small few of the weapons, but little more - they did not have the relentless power of the station and capital ship combined that could penetrate the plating and kill the crew.

The dreadnoughts weapons returned fire steadily, maintaining a continuous barrage at the Federation ship with the weapons along one side, while the others that could fire forward began launching their projectiles toward the station. Along the top of the bulky warship lay its heaviest weapon, slowly charging to full power as its locks slid into place and ponderously swung it out to face the Federation ship that dared to threaten them. They would not surrender to such as these.

Frigates slid thorugh space, launching salvo after salvo toward the station, they wanted the object, but if they had to do damage it to get it, they would. If it turned out that they would not be able to gain control of the mining platform then they would destroy it - if they would not have it, noone would.

Carriers discharged raider fighters that hissed toward the station like mosquitos - alone little more than an irritation, but as a swarm surprisingly unplesant. Tracer fire lit up the astral emptiness and they prepared to engage in dogfights with the tuggs from Omnidirectional Widget.

As Shajja attacked one of the frigates - much to the surprise of the more sober crewmen - the defensive turrets swivelled and opened fire - from both the frigate being attacked and those around them. Sure, the frigate would take damage, but it would get that thing off them!

"Eliminate the shielded ship, captain."

The raider leader grunted back at the businessman as the Main Beam weapon finally reached full charge. The hum of charging filled the ship, and the eventual silence seemed strange to many as the dreadnought's primary weapons unleashed itself at the Federation ship.

Space. Now filled with screaming anti fighter missiles as the star slam pods on the tugs hard points belched forth a wall of smart hunting death. The fighters seemed manoverable yes, but lacking in modern missile arms, after all missile were expensive. The Type 10’s juddered under the impact of projectile fire and fighter carried lasers as their own top side defence unit hissed back a stream of needle rounds. The fighters had strayed to close to unleash their attack, the star slams began finding their targets, marking a fighters death with nothing more than a white spark. Now it was the Type 10’s turn against the guns of the frigates. Two vanished in blinding flashes as their main reactors were penetrated, another started to tumble, seemingly pristine save for where a lucky raider gunner had blasted a single gaping hole where the armoured pilots compartment should be. For all the “rock rats” piloting experience they were far from combat pilots and many would fail to evade the frigates weapons by the end of the day. However now they were in range, and the Grand Slams seemed to be keeping the frigates gunners occupied with what to them looked like far more pressing concerns.
The remaining 9 Type 10’s each dropped their torpedoes, which began their deadly silent approach towards the raider frigates.

Meanwhile the raider fighters who strayed to close to the platform were being slammed by a lashing wall of fire made up of mining rockets and needle canon fire from the drones and pilots of the platforms other small craft. Still the platform rocked as huge rounds from the Dreadnought slammed into its thick hide. Most would simply bury themselves in the huge arrays of cargo pods that had been drawn around the central core some however would do far more damage. One of the hydrocarbons refining plants towers was blasted clean away, carrying one of the platforms missile launchers with it. Elsewhere a huge conical array of cooling fins above one of the fusion smelters was slagged by a lucky energy cannon burst while far more worryingly to Rusty at least two of the platforms engines were crippled by a lucky heavy kinetic round that punched through their fuel feed lines which had thankfully been empty before burying itself in a storage pod containing 8,000 tons of copper.

However 25 Mark 8 Grand Slam’s streamed out of all five launchers including the one presently drifting off into space aboard the remains of a distilling tower when Peters flashing fingers touched the firing key. Their targets were the frigates now streaming out active point defences at the Widgets tugs.

Rusty was not enjoying this. Serious damage to production capacity, numerous shells, chunks of shrapnel and the remains of fighters were now polluting the cargo modules he and the crew had spend the last month refining. Well not all of the containers were being used in defence of the central core modules.


Outside on the surface of the platform her pilots had less than a minute to move before one by one huge docking clamps locking the warehouse sized plascrete storage units to the platforms freight handling system slid open. 34 huge blocks of plascrete containing water, carbon dioxide and Iron ingots started to fall into the path of incoming fire from the dreadnought. Rusty had for want of a better term built a wall. One of the Pirate Frigates distracted it seems by the approach of the Type 10’s never saw one of the huge tumbling blocks coming and its prow simply smashed away leaving its engine segment tumbling for a moment before its drives overloaded. The Type 10’s torpedoes were getting closer, their hulls now matching as best they could the background of space. However in front of them were 22 drive flames of the remaining Grand Slam salvo.

Ideas flashed through Rusties logic stacks to be dismissed by the million, finally one was reached that had a statistical chance of success.


Below the platform odd energies started to flow, huge devices hummed with power as the platforms single huge massive molecule strippers field of effect crackled into being. A wall of seemingly white light emitted from its huge circular maw, and three of the raider fighters who strayed into the beam glowed brightly for a moment before braking up, their parts streaming upwards into the platforms refining systems. A few moments later one of the massive cargo pods jettisoned by the platform drifted into the beam, this too began to glow brighter and brighter till it broke apart and streamed into the platform which had birthed it.

Rusty watched coolly through pick ups on the drifting cargo pods as the dreadnought shuddered under the carriers onslaught. Entire chunks of the massive ship seemed to rip off, however it simply seemed to shrug the damage off, its huge brutish armoured hide smashing and braking but still coming forward. He also watched with worry as the huge beam weapon was revealed, his threat assessments jumping once more as disturbing levels of power flowed into it even as the carriers missile salvos ripped into the vast ships side throwing up clouds of debris, smashed weapons and bodies into the dark.

OOC: Can I jump in with a few more pirates? TAG, if not.

[[OOC Yes you can, please limit your forces to something like a pirate carrier of a rival clan wanting in on the kill or some such, if youve read the city who fought by Mc Caffrey and silverburg think a neo barb version of the Kolnari clan structure. Ive got an offer from the NHSR to have a few of his ships pop in all elves at the hornburg style to keep the forces balanced. /OOC]]

OOC: Cool. Is there any specific tech I have to use or can I use anything?

[[OOC Not as such no, save the usual not flinging high yield atomic’s around as if they were snow flakes. This is the open depths of interstellar space ..anything could be out there. /OOC]]

OOC: Perfect. Think somewhere in between Star Wars and Culture tech for my ships.

IC: The fabric of space twisted unnaturally, then ripped backwards into a wormhole. The four Pulsar class LACs emerged, ending their short-range hyper-jump, and immediately slowed to assess the situation. The wormhole collapsed behind them and the fabric of space was smooth again. Their scanning arrays detected several large warships and some smaller ones around a large mining platform.

The captain of the lead vessel, the LAC Spectre, realised that her four LACs, each with a crew of five and two commandos, was not enough to remain here. The Pulsars had been decommissioned from military forces five years ago and, while powerful, they could not hope to survive in a fight.

~Ship, assess all contacts, delta sweep,~ said Captain Deyall.

~Excelsior- cruiser class, Horatio Nelson- carrier class, Wrong 'em Boyo- cruiser class, Unknown- dreadnought class, Omnidirectional Widget- stellar platform class, over 300 fighter class ships, multiple unidentified contacts due to interference,~ reported Spectre's AI. ~Situation appears to by an attempted raid on the mining platform, with capital warships called in to defend it. The Dreadnought is under heavy fire and will shortly be no factor.~

~Signal the LSV. Request orders. If we are to remain here, we need support. If we are to leave, we need to do so now before we attract to much attention,~ requested Deyall.
---

The LSV An Untimely Demise drifted several lightyears away. Commanded by Chief Colonel (self-awarded) Lonyru Horza, it was the home of the Blood Ravens, Second Chapter. Part of the largest pirate group in the outer Solana region, they had been awarded the honour of finding new locations for the Blood Ravens to hunt, as military interest in them was becoming a little high back home.

The four LACs under Captain Deyall was a recon mission to investigate a possible target. However the mining platform was already under attack, and had capital warships in defence. Attached to Deyall's transmission was Spectre's sensor scan, and Horza was studying it, assessing the capabilities. He would wait a while longer. Deyall would complain, but more information would reveal itself in time. When that happened, and if the An Untimely Demise could cope, then Horza would join the fight, while stealing the choicest pickings from under their noses.


LAC: Light Attack Craft (think gunboat)
LSV: Light Service Vessel (think carrier crossed with cruiser)

“Sir, we can’t take another hit like that, shields and armour plating are down, and there is only a titanium hull between us and the attacking ships.” Commander Grad reported. “We must abandon ship!”
Captain Riley nodded and gave the order. “Abandon Ship. This is not a drill. Abandon ship!”
“Computer, set autopilot, full impulse and ram the dreadnought.”
With that everyone on the bridge ran out and entered the escape pods.

A frigate with the markings of a New Haven Socialist Vessel drifted silently along the distant edge of the battlefield, a Porcupine-class Anti-Fighter Frigate. It passively scanned the environment continuously, taking care not to make its presence known until its backup arrived.

"New Haven Fleet Command, this is N.H.S.V. 'Sea Urchin', we're indicating pirate attacks near our position, which we are relaying to you now," Captain John Upham radioed over a secure FTL channel. "We have been contacted by a ZMI ship, and they are requesting assistance ASAP."

"'Sea Urchin', this is New Haven Fleet Command," the stern voice of the Command's Radio Chief, Lieutenant Commander Peter Swanson, radioed back. "Hold position, elements of the 2nd Fleet will arrive shortly to assist you. Do not engage until they arrive, DO NOT ENGAGE."

"Roger that, Fleet Command, 'Sea Urchin' out!"

OOC: Darn, I just typed up about three paragraphs, and it wouldn't post them for some reason, so they all got deleted. Let me sum up:
IC
Shajja was able to avoid the defensive fire thanks to early warnings by Gorunde. He jumped among the attacking frigates, which were in close formation and they did friendly fire damage to eachother while he did minor damage to exposed cables and equipment. He was killed after jumping around quite a bit, but he managed to disrupt the attack run and probably cause some major damage.

[[Just a quick OOC post - I'll post my IC stuff in a bit (i.e. when I'm not doing my coursework).

Fleet rundown:

Dreadnought, acting as flagship for raider fleet

Two light cruisers with carrier capability (ordnance based ships, rather than pure gunnery)

Fourteen frigates, varying armaments

Fighters, very much in the plural]]

The LAC Spectre

~Captain Deyall, I have a revised scan for you,~ announced the Ship AI.

~Go ahead,~ replied Deyall

~Pirate force: One dreadnought, two cruisers, fourteen frigates, multiple fighters. Defence force: One carrier, two cruisers, one frigate, one mining platform, over two hundred fifty fighters. Pirate dreadnought and cruiser Excelsior shortly to be no factor,~ reeled off the AI.

~If the AUD joins in, can we win?~ asked Deyall.

~If we attack now, possibly. If we wait until more of the forces are destroyed, probably. If more forces join the defenders, probably not.~ replied the AI.

Deyall sighed. For all the help they were, the AIs on Pulsar LACs, and the Spectre's in particular, were realists. They gave you straight facts, without hiding anything. If you would die pathetically, they would tell you exactly that without a hint of sorrow.
---

The LSV An Untimely Demise

"What do you think, Major? Should we commit, or is this to dangerous for not enough gain?" Chief Colonel Horza asked one of his subordinates.

"Control of that mining platform would be a great asset to the Blood Ravens, and if we could capture some of the capital vessels... when we returned home, you would rival Raven-General Falla in popularity and power." The Major paused, contemplating the possible outcomes. "I say we go for it, Sir."

"Excellent. Your thinking mirrors my own. You will make a good pirate chieftain when the time comes. The AUD tells me that if we strike now, we stand a better chance of victory. We move as soon as we're ready." Horza declared.
~Ship, deploy forces for an attack on the targets shown by the Spectre. I want at least four GFVs though,~ Horza told the Ship AI.

The AUD's AI had taken rather well to its life as a pirate vessel, and was almost as bloodthirsty as its crew chief. Horza had long ago learned to trust the AUD's judgement in these matters, and let the AI make the decisions.


GFV: General Fighting Vessel

After skimming through the first page of this thread, let the damned thing collide with an inhabited planet.

Damn you and your over-active imagination. :headbang:

[[OOC ... BEGONE! /OOC]]

Since I hate to see a post go to waste…

Present force disposition:

Omnidirectional Widget:
Dark space Resource platform down to 20 anti shipping missiles per salvo after the loss of one of its launchers, light structural damage, some systems damage to the conventional engines. Auto cannon points and main point defence gigawatt lasers on the deployed catch field projector arms still in full working order. Missile salvo of 22 Mk.8 Grand Slams presently targeting frigates showing increased number of point defence. Platform has jettisoned numerous superfluous or damaged storage pods to act as cover from pirate bombardment. Platforms main molecule stripper is in operation.

Utility Mining Craft:
From one to four personnel, from one man geological scouts to test bore equipped shuttles, over 290 small craft on the surface of the platform under cover adding their fire to the platforms point defence. Mixed weapons from heavy geological lasers to swarms of tiny guided rockets with warheads no bigger than a grenade. Force incapable of matching fighters in open space. Have taken losses due to bombardment of platform by dreadnaught and frigate strafing runs. Numbers now at 274.

Platforms Drones:
Similar to the utility mining craft save unmanned and apart from a small squad of counter boarding assigned assault drones not built for combat. Numbers in excess of 490. Incapable of leaving power transfer grid of the platform for very long. Limited fire power. Presently assisting Utility Mining Craft in adding to the platforms point defence while running repairs. Have taken losses due to bombardment of platform by dreadnaught and frigate strafing runs. Numbers now at 459.

Type 10 (tug variants):
Nine remaining in squadron, Suffered losses and damage to fighters and pirate defence gunners. Launched volley of Star Slam seeker missiles at pirate fighters. Have just fired torpedoes at pirate frigates now returning to Platform. Light structural damage on most of remaining squadron from pirate fighters attacks.

OCC: I’m still in btw, just got sick of that ship.
IC:
The VWS Dragonspire was cruising through hyperspace when it detected several transmissions. At least two of which were from the USS Excelsior, a ship that had so far evaded capture but today the crew of the Dragonspire knew that if they either captured or destroyed the Excelsior their mission would be over and they could return home. The Dragonspire commander, Commodore William Hayes ordered that the Dragonspire alter course to intercept the Excelsior, destroying all resistance on the way.
***5 minutes later***
The Dragonspire disengaged their engines and activated their main weapons systems, through the viewscreen they saw the USS Excelsior ram into what appeared to be a dreadnought. Chief Science officer Michaela Roman detected several small objects with an ancient Federation signal, they appeared to be escape pods, but the signal was so old it came from a time when democracy was a word never spoken in Veskaland.
The captain ordered a private channel be opened, directed at the P3X 1299 vessel.
“Vessel from P3X 1299, we have ascertained that the last communiqué received from the USS Excelsior was from you. This is the Veskaland Warship Dragonspire, you will respond to us with information about the communiqué immediately.”

(The Dragonspire can be found here. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/veskaland/insignia011.jpg))

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

“Sir, you’d better hear this one.”

“What is it, communications?”

“Captain, we’ve just picked up a message from a new ship that just came in.”

Vessel from P3X 1299, we have ascertained that the last communiqué received from the USS Excelsior was from you. This is the Veskaland Warship Dragonspire, you will respond to us with information about the communiqué immediately.

Captain Daniels listened to the message and shrugged.

“Apparently, they rather like to bluster don’t they. Comm. send that recording we have of the other message.”

”Federation Vessel, this is the PSN Horatio Nelson. We were on a routine patrol mission when we picked up an explosion on our long range scanners. Please advise. Over.” Federation vessel, that is the last message that we sent them.

At the fire control station, Commander Brandon Carter noticed a readout from fighter control.

“Captain, fighter control reports a successful launch.”

“Very well. Communications, transit to all bombers: You have a go for the mission plan.”

several minutes later

“Captain, sensors have just picked up transition signatures from two Ascendant class missile cruisers. We also have picked up missile launches.”

“Very well. Fire control, have fighter ops stand by for recovery.”

Daniels smiled and leaned back in the captain’s chair, as missiles continued to be spewed from the turrets on the ship. The game is afoot indeed.

Fighters stumbled, spun and exploded in the debris-filled space, shot down by defensive weaponry even as they shot down their foes. The small ships, while numerous, were dropping flies. Unfortunately, like flies these were very numerous and countered with their own fire.

The frigates were taking heavy damage from the fire from the station and other ships, as well as the attacking Rupil. Despite this, they kept on coming, with five of them either failing and drifting behind or detonating in an impressive burst of light and debris that tore into the others.

"Captain, more ships have arrived. A few different raiders, another Federation one now that the original has been abandoned, and a frigate lurking on the edges. I assume that you are taking them into account?"

The raider's response was short and terse. The businessman shrugged and left him to it, looking around at the crewmen in various stages of alchoholism.

Meanwhile, as the Federation ship moved closer to the dreadnought a cruiser's captain who was not completely sober yet decided that the starship was playing a game of "chicken", and advanced forward to meet it with guns blazing.

Guns redirected from the now abandoned Federation ship toward the gunnery positions of Omnidirectional Widget and opened fire in their vague direction. The raiders were working on a principle of "spray and pray".

As the dreadnought and cruiser (the one not currently engaged with the Federation starship) started firing at the mining station's defensive points the main battle cannon of the dreadnought began recharging while it slid back into position atop the heavily armoured ship.

The LSV An Untimely Demise

Horza had finally brought his ship into the area. The huge wormhole created by the vessel flashed out of existance as the LSV deployed several smaller vessels.

Four frigate-sized Sandbach GFVs shot away from the LSV and towards the hostiles. They were followed by ten corvette-sized Torrent SCVs and twelve additional Pulsar LACs, with were joined by the recon unit of four. Then, the An Untimely Demise launched a fighter group, sixty single-seat Kestrel fighters.

Each unit had its designated target, the GFVs headed for the PSN Horatio Nelson, the SCVs went for one of the newly arrived cruisers. The Pulsar LACs and the Kestrel fighters were angled for the utility craft deployed from the Omnidirectional Widget

*TightBeam Transmission* [1]
To: Pirate Forces
This is the An Untimely Demise, flagship of the Blood Ravens, Second Chapter. We offer support to you, if you are willing to share the profits of this engagement. If not, you will be destroyed as well, and only Blood Ravens will profit today.
*End Transmission*

Without waiting for a response, the Blood Ravens forces plowed into the fight, the GFVs rippling off their micro-missile batteries at the Horatio Nelson, with the SCVs firing their plasma cannon emplacements at the cruiser. The Kestrel fighters engaging the mining vessels used plasma cannons, or tried to cut them in half with their particle disintegrators.

The An Untimely Demise remained away from the combat zone, to monitor the battle and to prevent damage to the ship.


[1]: Encrypted and line-of-sight only. Only detectable by ships in direct path between the AUD and the pirate flagship.

“Light damage to sectors 4 through 23, emergency venting system on ferrous metals smelter 3 destroyed, passive e.m. sensor 8 destroyed,” Rusties voice halted “Captain I have a large wormhole event, signature is artificial, carrier sized vessel is emerging and deploying combat assets, they are actively locking onto us!”

Henderson groaned while Captain Williams checked the jump clock. Three hours till the platform could make a transit drive jump and even then only a relatively short one on her already low range.

Rusty reached out with the platforms vast passive array and took stock of the battle, the new raider force was streaming towards the carrier and the platform, this new vessel the “Dragonspire” was still wreathed in exotic radiation post its entry and its class was unreadable, its mass though clearly marking it as a capital vessel of some form. The ancient dreadnought was being battered by the carriers missiles, scores of X ray laser strikes leaving glowing gashes in its vast hide, in places it was beginning to vent atmosphere, but still it came on, its single huge main gun giving of ambient radiation like a fusion reactor without any shielding as it once more recharged. The abandoned federation starship, its hull partially scorched by the dreadnoughts main weapon was now however seemingly on a collision course its hull buckling and shattering as the dreadnoughts smaller turrets engaged it but still plummeting onwards. A few of the federation ships escape pods had been recovered by the platforms catch fields, while others would stream into the massive flurries of fire and be destroyed as flights of pirate raiders screamed over the platforms surface braving the combined fire of the utility craft, the drones and the auto cannon positions.

Rusty would have winced if he was human as a new wave of craft from the latest ship began to hit the platforms perimeter, the big gigawatt point defence lasers had been designed to vaporise errant rocks escaping from the catch net, there tracking mechanisms hopelessly trying to traverse their lenses to catch the incoming craft. Three of the gunship sized vessels, slower and less manoverable than the incoming fighters vanished in the blink of an eye as one of the lasers managed to wash over them leaving nothing but expanding clouds of glowing gas. Then the attacking ships were amongst the platforms insane jungle of jettisoned cargo pods, before they joined the other pirate fighter craft flitting above the platforms surface.

Unlike the first pirate groups fighters, who were just shooting up everything in sight, these were targeting the platforms defenders, star fighters however proving slightly ill suited to the almost close combat conditions of the platforms jumbled industry covered surface, as from behind towers, or nestled in-between cooling fins streams of defensive fire would come from the Utility mining craft and the drones. The auto cannon were otherwise busy defending the anti shipping missile batteries from the encroaching remaining 11 gunship sized ships ((OOC you had 14 in total right?)). They would fail twice to drive the ships away and two of the launchers were slagged in their armoured reloading housings, hydraulic struts and servo motors hopelessly fused and launch tubes riddled and misshapen.

Some of the new fighters hadn’t learned the deadly lesson of the platforms molecule stripper and as they flew through the invisible beam they too streamed into its maw.

Meanwhile the pirates cruisers which had been staying out of the battle started to slowly move up to protect the damaged side of their flag ship from the incoming fire of the carriers missiles and beams. Their weighty old missile tubes one by one cracking open revealing a hodge podge of mixed missiles from a dozen worlds and races.

The first pirates groups frigates where now meandering their way through the huge cargo pods, trying to avoid the unfortunate fate of their sister and with their passive sensors blinded by repeated grand slam hits they would never see the deadly night black torpedoes coming even as their commanders prepared them to engage the platform at close range.

Explosions and the dead and dieing from all sides started to drift around the platform, sometimes nothing but a dirty yellow projectile riddled armoured plate from a mining craft, or the shattered shell hole filled remnants of a fighter, the body of its pilot ripped to shreds by shrapnel from the platforms defences.

The platforms huge passive detection array looked out still further, then found yet another contact. Telescopic optic pick ups and huge flat active panels on dozens of points turned towards it. A ships signature was picked out flashed through the data base and matched. An NHSR porcupine class counter fighter frigate. Rusty was appalled his limited exotic radiation sensors had been blinded by the emergence of so many high energy events, the ships entry into the edges of the fray had gone unnoticed to him.

A tentative point to point low energy contact was made with the NHSR vessel and a data squirt was sent.

Rusty decided he couldn’t let the crew know however, if the platform defenders changed their actions it could give everything away.

On the bridge Williams was furiously plotting courses through the drifting cargo pods for the remaining Grand Slam batteries to once more target the frigates and to hit the dreadnought head on with the now remaining three batteries his curses from the two batteries the pulsar gunshihps had destroyed still echoing in the air. Henderson was on the other hand desperately trying to give some sense of order to the platforms defence.

The jump clock read 2 hours 48 minutes, deep in the core of the platform the huge transit drive field was beginning to crackle into existence, for now confined inside the massive armoured canister of the drive core as energy flowed into the system. It wouldn’t jump the platform very far, barely a few hundred thousand kilometres but Rusty could at least hope it would get them out of the fight for long enough to destroy the small attackers brought with them in the transit drives shock bubble.

OOC: Dang. My carrier must be insignificant.

OOC: very sorry wrote post at uni on second day back at term
mind broken, self repair in progress ..post will be editinated.

OOC: I can relate to that, and I was actually referring to the pirates.

OOC: P3X1299, my GFVs (frigates) are attacking the Horatio Nelson, and the SCVs (corvettes) are attacking an unspecified recently arrived cruiser. You had two cruisers arrive recently, you can claim the SCVs attacked one. If you mean the bombers, who are they attacking?

ZM, is it my corvette you destroyed? Because you state 3 remaining, when I launched 10 corvettes. Plus the frigates and the corvettes weren't heading towards you, but P3X1299's ships.

IC:
The Blood Ravens Kestrel fighter units, which had gone in expecting swift victory against the Mining Craft, were having problems. The Mining Craft were hiding behind protrusions and structures on the platform's surface. While the craft were easily destroyed by the high powered plasma weaponry, there was often very little time to take the shot. The weaponry on the mining craft posed little threat to the Kestrels' advanced shielding systems but losses were starting to creep in.

"Raven Kestrels, use active short-range sensors to detect and engage enemy craft. Use missiles or particle disintegrators if you need them," transmitted the leader, "And stay away from that damn molecule stripper. Break the damn thing if you have to, but stop flying into it."

A wingpair of Kestrels looped around and fired their plasma cannons at the molecule stripper, aiming to cause it to switch off but not destroy it completely.

The Pulsar LACs were taking more hits from the platform's defence weapons but fortunately were too small for the huge anti-ship missiles to track. Their micro-missile batteries and needle cannons were proving very effective against the small mining craft, and the larger plasma cannons on each LAC were trying to destroy the platform's weapons without severely damaging the platform itself.

OOC: The "cruisers" you are after are my bombers pretending to be cruisers that just came in. There are not going to be any cruisers there. The bombers are attacking that first group of pirates.

OOC I was refering to the pulsar gunships as corvette sized. My mind was broken please standby, somehow I trasnfered the four firgate sized things onto the 12 gunships ....

"Yeah, that last one got me. But I think he'll be going down soon. What now, sire?"

"There's a lot of fire flying around, and to be frank I'm not sure if that mining statioon will make it. In fact, judging from the appearance of this new group of atackers, I'd say it has no chance whatsoever. I'm going to suggest a new plan: board one of the ships, kill the crew, and take it back to be examined, or at least to use to for better long-range travel to get access to technical diagrams."

"Okay, which one would you suggest?"

OOC: any volunteers for being boarded by an alien bent on capturing your ship?

[[OOC..I would take that as a no. If necessary one of the pirate frigates will be sacrificed to slake your dark thirst, though I find your lack of confidence in the valiant defenders and the crews of the naval vessels disheartening. Now ... what class exactly is the Dragonspire? I will retroactively edit my last post to clear up the whole gunship issue, I’m afraid uni boggled my noggin somewhat. This said ..on with the fireworks. I would request the ability to call light and justifiable losses upon enemy units for the purposes of story telling as I have been doing, e.g. never a major ship or a main character, but I will kill off fighter craft within reason, or blow the head of a trooper or what have you... I try to justify the losses on both sides from battle given the forces involved and illustrate it and bring the thread forward via those losses. Feel free to do the same or to disapprove of this method. Personally I feel that the level of role-play so far shown justifies this action. Just hope that’s okay as I have issues before with this matter which can in unfortunate circumstances turn out badly for all involved. However as originator of the thread and tied to the responsibility their in I shall try to do my best to keep the floor show going as it were.

An actuall post may at some point follow this ..randomness. The missiles must after all fly, but after I think a little sleep. /OOC]] Post Script: edited my previous post so it makes sense.

[OOC: I haven't really launched any of my fighters yet, but if someone pounces on those bombers, they'd take a hit.]

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

“Captain, we’ve got additional contacts incoming. They’re closing fast.” Brandon Carter stared at the readouts on his screen. “Four frigate sized contacts and numerous smaller craft. They seem to be fighters.”

“Very well, fire control. Shift missile fire to the incoming ships.” Captain Daniels took a brief glance at his tactical display and noticed that his missile stocks were down by nearly twenty percent, excluding those that he had fired from the box launchers.

“Captain! Multiple enemy missile launches! Incoming fire!” From the fire control console, Brandon Carter gave the order for the point defense emplacements to target the incoming missiles.

Captain Daniels was shouting another order. “Helm! Evasive! Evasive!”

The point defense lasers frantically spat beams of energy into space, trying to knock down as many of the missiles as they could, in the short time. The missiles entered into the range of the chain guns and they began to create a wall of metal between the ship and the incoming missiles...but some got through. Some always got through. The shield of the Horatio Nelson did its level best, but some of the energy from the missile blasts leaked through, fragmenting the ships ceramic armor and knocking out a pair of the point defense lasers. Ceramic fragments began to trail from the port side of the ship, revealing the heavy, dark anti-kinetic alloy beneath it, and the bridge crew noticed a brief tremor from the explosion.

“Captain. Point defense reporting in. They were able to destroy some of the incoming fire, but not enough. This is gonna hurt!” Daniels turned back to his console and watched the tracks of the incoming missiles. “Shield impact in 5...4...3...2...Now!”

At the engineering console, Ensign Jim Deacon watched the power level of his shield drop alarmingly. “Captain, we’ve just lost thirty percent power in the shield. Fire control, do you have any more incoming missiles on sensors?”

Carter glanced at his console. “Negative incoming missiles. You are go to compensate for energy loss with shield capacitor banks.”

Deacon flipped the requisite switch on his console and the shield began to return to full power. He also noticed the damage report. “Captain. we’ve lost some ceramic armor and a pair of point defense lasers on the port side. No major structural damage. We do seem to be trailing a fair bit of ceramic, however there is nothing major wrong except those two lasers.”

“Very well engineering. Keep me informed.” Captain Daniels studied the tactical display and frowned. “Fire control, light up those frigates with anything that will bear also, notify fighter ops that we have a mission for those fighter in the hangar bay. Tell them to slag those frigates.”

Commander Brandon Carter began to punch commands into his console. On the exterior of the ship, railgun mounts began to traverse and missiles loaded with the new targeting data spat from the turrets. Fighters began to emerge from the bays and soon, eighteen had formed up behind the carrier. This group of fighters was equipped with laser cannons and they began a strafing run on the furthest of the frigates.

Aboard the ship, Captain Daniels gave another order, this time, to the communications officer. “Communications, send out the Code Alpha signal.”

“Sir!” Chad Williams, currently sitting at the communications console was surprised.

“Yes, Commander. I really do mean it. These pirates are that annoying.” Daniels hated having to explain his orders.

“Very well, Captain.” Commander Williams flipped up a plastic cover on his communications console, and pressed the bright green button beneath it, activating a certain transmitter in the FTL comm section.

One light month out from the Sol system

A patrol group of the P3X1299 Space Navy, consisting of a pair of Washington Class Supralight destroyers and a single Ascendant Class missile cruiser heard the call of the ship under imminent danger of attack. The code Alpha message carried only that and position data. After a brief flurry of communication between the ships, they set course, and engaged FTL at maximum speed.

[OOC: You pirates are really annoying. There's some minor damage on the carrier.]

OOC: Since the 'cruisers' are actually bombers, I'll continue with the corvettes (10 SCVs). There are 16 Pulsar gunships, with 3 destroyed, and 60 Kestrels with 7 destroyed. ZM, I agree with your request, it makes for better RPing.
The frigates missiles are micro-missiles, so there's lots of them, they're harder to hit with point-def. weps, but with smaller (anti-matter) warheads.

IC:
The GFVs attacking the Horatio Nelson

The four GFVs pulled out of their sweep, the scanners reporting damage.
~Minor damage to vessel only, shields holding. Point defences were lucky.~ came the report.
~Ripple off a second missile volley, and follow it with plasma fire. Try and aim for the weapons positions,~ ordered the captain.

~Fighter launches detected from target,~ reported the AI.
~Arm the needle cannons, and launch ours,~ was the reply.

Four Kestrel fighters separated from each of the GFVs and went into defensive holding patterns around the vessels, as the large missile banks were obscured in a flash of light as the micro-missiles were launched at the Horatio Nelson. Then the plasma weapons swivelled in their mounts and fired.

As the enemy fighters approached, the needle cannons opened up, the light anti-fighter weapons lacing the area with thousands of projectiles. The trail GFV took fire and the onboard AI estimated that they could survive at least two more runs before the shields needed reinforcing.

The SCVs attacking the "cruiser"

The plasma fire hit nothing, and the scanners soon found why.
~All ships, target is not, repeat, not a cruiser. Multiple targets, ident as bombers. Launch fighters and open fire,~ the AI communicated with the other SCVs.

The corvette-sized SCVs only carried two Kestrel fighters each, which gave twenty available to hit the bombers. In addition, the SCVs carried their own needle cannons and micro-missile launchers, both of which were capable as anti-fighter weapons.


OOC: P3X1299, how many bombers?

OOC: There'd be 25 in each group.

"That one. It used FTL to get in, and apparently has a small crew, only...15 people. All that weak humanoid form that everybody here uses. It should be easy to overrun the crew then get out of here. How do you feel abuot a little while longer in the physical world?"

"That would be most kind of you to let me go back. What form should I take?"

"A small combat model, to fit through the passageways and doors. The CV-13 should be good enough."

"Venomous. I like it."

"You have it?"

"The Builders are taking awhile- it is an old design, and venom has been outlawed from the games...got it now"

"Good place yourself in the command area and kill the crew. then I will embody myself to pilot it."

"Yes sire."

Shajja formed himself as directed, into a small venomous being. It was a fleshy disk about three feet in diameter, with ten prehensile tentacles, each seven feet long, 2 inches in diameter and ending in a deadly barb and small eye. It also had a number of poisounous barbs extending from the center disk. Shajja immediately lashed out and killed three of the crewmembers, who had been in the bridge, before slurping through a doorway to attack those minding gunnery stations.

OOC: ZM, can I disable the molecule stripper in my next attack. I'll destroy some of the external components, so it could possibly be fixed fairly rapidly.

IC:
The SCVs attacking the bombers

The Kestrel fighters tore in, coming at the bombers from the sides. There were 10 Kestrels and 5 SCVs attacking each group of 25 bombers, and soon the area was criss-crossed with plasma fire, the tiny streaks of micro-missiles and the almost invisible tracks of needle and particle cannon fire.

The GFVs attacking the Horatio Nelson

After firing a third missile volley to follow the second in the direction of the Horatio Nelson, the GFVs pulled away to use the plasma cannons against the carrier. It also gave the Kestrel fighters greater safety from the Horatio Nelson's weapons, allowing them to engage the incoming fighters with a much greater safety margin. The GFV From A Black Hole suffered considerable damage from the enemy fighter attack, but it was still 68% combat capable and the ship's needle cannons opened fire on the enemy targets, each gun spitting out thousands of razor-sharp hypervelocity projectiles every second.

Around the mining platform Omnidirectional Widget

The 51 remaining Kestrel fighters were ripping through the lightly armed utility craft and drones with ease, but the sheer weight of numbers was gradually taking its toll of them. Even the advanced shields on the Kestrels could not stand up to nearly 40 lasers fired at once, however light they were.

The Pulsar LACs were showing better survivability, but they were not invincible. Their larger size and slower speed made them easier targets for the platforms defence turrets, despite the continuing precision strikes against the weapons in attempts to disarm the platform. A Pulsar ship swung round on a strike run, vaporising a missile launcher with plasma fire, then it took three hits from laser turrets, breaching shields already weakened by utility craft, then it became a flaming comet which crashed into the side of the platform, causing a small explosion.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

The shields of the carrier shrugged off another of the missile volleys. Point defense against the missiles had gotten better, but they had also lost several more of the point defense lasers.

“Compensate with the capacitor banks, Engineering.”

“Captain! We’ve got incoming weapons fire! Sir! The capacitors have just popped. We’ve lost shields.!”

“Engineering, get the shields up again. As soon as possible!”

The unshielded carrier began to shed anti-laser armor under the impact of ballistic weapons.

“Captain, we’re losing ceramic armor. We’re taking plasma fire, but our ballistic armor seems to be holding up...for now.”

Captain Daniels winced at this news. He knew that if the enemy was using ballistic weapons, he would lose all of his protection against laser fire.

At the fire control console, Carter studied his readout. “Captain, fighter control reports we’ve launched half the fighters. Enemy ships also launching fighters.”

Daniels stared at his tactical readout and looked for solutions. Unfortunately, none presented themselves, save to keep blasting away at the pirates with all of his firepower. “Fire control, keep targeting all the pirates. Order the fighters to focus their attacks on one frigate at a time. Target enemies at will. ”

Outside the ship, space began to be dotted with the explosions of fighters and shattered chunks of ceramic armor.

Several light seconds away

The bomber groups never even noticed that they were being targeted by enemy fire until missiles began to explode in their formation. The orderly formations broke up, each bomber trying to learn where the incoming fire was coming from. It was a massacre, with forty of the bombers perishing in fiery explosions before ten of them managed to identify their attackers. As the remaining bombers came about, seven of them were blown into incandescent plasma. Three of them managed to actually fire their beams, with little effect, before they too perished under the onslaught.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Commander Carter was studying his sensor readouts. “Captain. We’ve got FTL signatures! They’re ours, sir. Coming in now! Yes! Captain, we’ve got one Ascendant Class cruiser and two destroyers.”

Daniels smiled. His gamble had paid off. “Communications, send the burst transmission.”

Commander Chad Williams, pushed a button on his communications console, sending the packet of compressed information to the newly arrived ships.

Captain Daniels smiled as he looked at his tactical readouts. These new ships must have received his call. He smiled as the two destroyers began to head for his carrier and the cruiser began to spit out volleys of forty missiles at only four second intervals.

OOC: My fighters are really crappy.

The SCVs, among the wreckage of the bombers

~All bombers destroyed. The What A Beautiful Morning has suffered minor damage from the bomber attacks,~ transmitted the lead ship's AI to the GFVs.

~Good work. Engage one of the new destroyers. They suffer under enhanced missile barrage, with plasma support. Watch for enemy fighters and the new cruiser,~ replied the GFV In Mortal Peril.

The SCVs increased power to their engines and accelerated towards the nearest destroyer, the one furthest from any of the other ships, their fighters taking up defensive orbits around them again.

The GFV In Mortal Peril

If the IMP's AI had been human, it would have cursed as this point. The Horatio Nelson had been joined by three other capital warships. The GFVs were now seriously outnumbered and outgunned.

~All GFVs, fire two more missile volleys at the Horatio Nelson, follow it with a prolonged barrage of plasma fire, then pull out to a safer distance. It's shields are down, hit it while it's hurt. With a bit of luck, we can remove it from this fight,~ the AI transmitted to the other GFVs.

Each GFV rippled off the two volleys of 100 micro-missiles each, launching a total of 800 micro-missiles headed for the Horatio Nelson. The plasma cannons fired off several shots each, then the GFVs activated the needle cannon batteries again, to try and intercept the missiles incoming from the cruiser.

As the GFVs pulled away, the needle cannons managed to destroy many of the missiles, but many more managed to impact the GFVs. The already damaged From A Black Hole was fatally damaged, but the AIs reacted instantly, Displacing the crew back to the safety of the LSV An Untimely Demise and recording the FABH's AI so that it would survive to take another ship. The three remaining GFVs took several hits each, causing the shields on the I Blame The Father and the Lisophist to collapse, severely damaging the IBTF, but causing only minor damage to the Lisophist. The In Mortal Peril suffered the least damage, it's shields holding up to the blasts.

However, more missiles were already on their way, so the three remaining GFVs activated their short-range jumpdrives, vanishing into a wormhole and reappearing out of range of the missile cruiser.

The Kestrel fighters supporting the GFVs broke off their highly successful attacks on the enemy fighters, and mimicked the GFVs jump before the cruiser could retarget its missiles on them.

The LSV An Untimely Demise

The AUD had noticed the new arrivals and was already reacting. The crew of the stricken From A Black Hole had been successfully Displaced back to the ship. In a planned response to the new arrivals, the LSV launched its two remaining GFVs and the single HFV, shielding the launches from enemy sensors with its huge bulk. It also began a hasty retool of the other ships left onboard so that they could engage the new ships with greater safety margins. After all, the AIs did their best to look after their crews.

It also Displaced the stricken GFV back to just outside the LSVs fields, but the Displacement partially failed. Two-thirds of the GFV were recovered, but the other third vanished in an enormous fireball as the micro-missile stocks detonated. That possibility had been precisely the reason the GFV was moved to a location outside the LSV, rather than directly into the main hangars.


HFV: Heavy Fighting Vessel (Bigger frigate than GFV)

OOC:P3X1299, would you be amenable to losing one of your capital ships? I would like to kill something big with Displacers and/or Drones.

[[OOC yep its fine to loose the molecule stripper though at some point I do intend to eat a capital ship with it. Also shoot at the platform please I wanna blow the jump drive up with ..flashyness and a hail of rads just because ya know I gotta ehem ur ..yes anyway I will post once I return from Uni, ..also I will aslo attempt to track down our errant poster namely Newibish delight a.k.a. the goblin collective or the dude in charge of the pirate dreadnought. Displacement and drones are all good I just request that displaceing bombs or ships near big flashy high energy events such as ..well space combat really could be possibly considered a "bad thing". /OOC]]

OOC: I don't mind losing a ship. I've got a feeling that carrier is gonna get some whoop-ass. :p

OOC: ZM, I wasn't planning on just Displacing bombs around. I planned to do something interesting, like removed the engine cores or placing the ship in the path of the molecule stripper, or removing a portion of the ship. Plus, if I tried to displace troops/drones I could have the Displacement fail, like it already has once.

I still have fighters and gunships attacking the platform, I just hadn't made any more posts with them because you haven't made an IC post since my last involving them.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Captain Daniels cursed as he noticed the incoming missiles. “Fire control! Stop those missiles!”

Commander Carter began to punch orders into his console and again the point defense weapons began to spit fire. The chain guns began to spit thousands of rounds of ammunition and the point defense lasers began to target the incoming missiles. Missiles began to explode in the space around the carrier “Impact in 5...4...3...2...Now!”

Nearly half of the missiles survived to impact the hull of the ship. Daniels winced as the hull began to ring with the impacts of the exploding missiles. Suddenly, the lights went out to be replaced by the glow of the red emergency lights, as the emergency lights came on, debris fell down from the ceiling and smoke began to appear from somewhere in the ceiling of the bridge.

Daniels fanned smoke away from his face. “Engineering report!”

Ensign Deacon frowned at his console and cursed. “Sir. The console has no external power. I’ve pinpointed the blown fuses in the main power line supplying the bridge. Sir, in these older carriers, the fuses I’m talking about also power the auxiliary command center. Without those centers, we’re essentially disabled. Weapons, if there are any left are operating on local control. Sir, this ship hasn’t had the refit to fix that design flaw.”

Daniels listened to the young engineer’s report. “How many people does it take to replace one of these fuses? How long are we talking about?”

Deacon looked at the captain. “Sir, assuming that we can get to the fuse, it will take at least four people several minutes to replace it. After that, we will have control of the ship back.”

Daniels looked around the bridge, noting that none of the consoles seemed to be active. “Well, it looks like we’ve got a job to do, everyone. Deacon, lead the way.”

The rest of the bridge crew followed Deacon as he gingerly picked his way toward the doors to the corridor. They forced the door open and started down the shadowy corridor.

Several Light Seconds Away

The cruiser and its two escorts continued to pummel the pirate ships with fierce barrages of missiles. The captain of the cruiser watched at the pirates pummeled the carrier that had summoned his help. The sensors of the cruiser registered that the carrier seemed to be losing speed and its weapons seemed to fire more erratically.


OOC: Free Eagles, how would you like to board that carrier? It's pretty much disabled and the weapons are firing on local control.

OOC: Yeah, okay. I'll Displace on a commando unit, some of which vanish due to Displacer faults, then I'll throw in a couple of shuttles with troops on. Although pirates don't make the best of troops... I'll do it later, okay?

OOC: Sure. Besides, that carrier is basically disabled.

The dreadnought shuddered under fire as more of its supporting ships exploded in mid-space, its armoured hull bearing the brunt of the impressive array of fire against it as missiles detonated against its hull.

Long lines of armour plating were now battered, dented, scorched and shattered but still the large ship continued its inexorable movement toward the mining platform even as more fighters were destroyed and frigates shattered.

"Captain, you are being...disappointing...that was not in our arrangement. Would you please try and do your job?"

The businessman turned and stalked off the bridge, heading toward a different section of the ship as the captain barked orders in his incomprehensible dialect.

Above the ship, the massive Main Battle Cannon swivelled once again, aiming this time a thte primary ship of the opposing pirate fleet. Vibrations shuddered through the dreadnought as the weapon charged, charged, charged.

Fighters attempted to destroy similarly sized craft, or strafed the platform itself with small-arms fire and light missiles. Despite the sheer number of them they were not successful enough to prevent the large missiles carried by the tugs from slamming into their larger ships, resulting in the destruction of more frigates, and causing damage to the remaining cruiser as well as further weakening the dreadnought itself.

OOC: Ventuus, you do realise that the LSV An Untimely Demise (I assume that's your target as it's my flagship) is actually just out of the battlezone, and it is a HUGE vessel. It had seven frigates inside it, along with sixteen corvettes, forty-two gunships, 120 fighters and 4 assault transports.

IC:
Aboard the LSV An Untimely Demise

~That carrier is nearly finished. Maybe we could add it to the Ravens' fleet,~ suggested Horza to the ship.
~An excellent suggestion. I will Displace over a boarding team immediately,~ replied the AI.

Somewhere deep inside the massive vessel, a group of pirates were ready to deploy as a boarding party.
~Volunteers for a Displacement boarding of enemy carrier, intent to capture,~ requested the AI. Some of the pirates, and indeed about a third of all living organisms, refused to allow themselves to be Displaced unless absolutely necessary, due to the small dangers involved.
Thirty-three pirates agreed and the AI selected the best fifteen for the primary team, and a further fifteen for the second team. It then fleshed out the teams with units from it's stockpiles.

The fifteen pirates were ready, and the AI activated the Displacers. Almost immediately it detected a fault.

Somewhere onboard the Horatio Nelson

The pirates materialised somewhere on the ship, and discovered their end of the fault detected by the computer. Only three of the pirates were still in one piece. Four more, or rather, pieces of four more were lying on the deck around them, and the other eight were nowhere to be seen. Their support had consisted of four stolen SK-4 combat synthetics and an AUD ship's avatar that would have taken control of the vessel itself after the crew had been neutralised. The avatar and one SK-4 were also missing and a second SK-4 was lying on the deck, now only useful as spares. The boarding force of twenty had been reduced to five (three humans, two SK-4s) before they had even got on board.

The LSV An Untimely Demise

Following the detection of the fault, it immediately shut down the Displacers indefinitely until they were fixed. The remaining pirate soldiers were notified to proceed to the nearby hangar bay for boarding onto two Defiant-class assault transports, which would board the Horatio Nelson the old fashioned way, through the hangar bays. On board each Defiant were thirty pirates, ten SK-4 synthetics and one ship's avatar. Immediately, the transports launched and headed at maximum power towards the target vessel. The lives of their comrades depended on them.

At the same time, the AI detected a targeting data stream aimed at the AUD. It identified the source of the stream, the pirate dreadnought. Specifically, the huge main gun it carried. The AI knew that the Dreadnought was considered to be a large ship, but the LSV dwarved it. Did they really think they could take out the LSV, or even damage it. As a precaution, the AI activated the AUD's missile banks, the only weapons the massive LSV actually had on its own hull. The range between the two ships was more than enough to mount a counter-fire operation to protect the LSV.


SK-4 Combat Synthetic: Advanced artificial combat unit armed with a twin laser cannon, 1 8mm cannon, 1 15mm cannon and 8 missiles. Multiple redundancy in all systems make them among the best combat units ever constructed. Operated by Blood Ravens after raiding a construction facility.

Aboard the Horatio Nelsonp

Daniels and the bridge crew hurried down the corridor towards where Deacon had said the fuses in that had blown were located. The captain ducked as more debris from the ceiling clattered to the floor.

The bridge crew had just nearly reached the room that held replacements for the fuses, when they heard weapons fire...and screams. Commander Chad Williams, the security and communications officer, drew his blast lance and crept down the corridor.

Daniels motioned to Carter, Deacon, and the helmsman, a Jake Styles. “You three get to the armory and bring back gauss rifles. This sounds bad.”

The three crewmembers crept away. Daniels frowned as he noticed a dead crewman, but he managed to walk over and pluck a light gauss pistol from the man’s hand.

He activated the light function of his standard issue blast lance and followed Williams down the corridor toward the source of the weapons fire.

Several Light Seconds Away

The captain of the cruiser winced as the carrier began to lose momentum and the fire from the weapons began to slacken and grow erratic. Some of the point defense chain guns were still attempting to knock down missiles, they were having some success, but not much.

The captain of the Ascendant class cruiser frowned as the enemy ships performed some type of FTL jump out of range of his missiles. “Helm pursue! Fire control, concentrate the missile fire on that cruiser looking thing (OOC: the LSV)! 2 volleys! Laser heads! Order the destroyers to load standard warheads for missile interdiction!”

The cruiser tossed out one volley of eighty missiles at the LSV, and then within four seconds another followed.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Captain Daniels stopped behind Commander Williams who had stopped behind a convenient corner in the corridor. Williams motioned with his hand, and Daniels moved to follow him around the corner...into a scene of carnage, and a robot? Williams and Daniels moved nearly as one, with Daniels firing the gauss pistol and Williams firing his blast lance.

Williams his captain by the arm and hauled him back around the corner. “What in deep space was that thing? We don’t have anything like that!”

Captain Daniels stared at his security chief. “We can stop it right?”

“Captain, honestly, I don’t know what it is. We’d better get out of here, now!”

OOC: What exactly is a gauss weapon? I've never heard of those before.

IC:
The LSV An Untimely Demise

For the second time in this increasingly dangerous battle, if an AI were human, it would have cursed. How could it have failed to realise that the AUD was in missile range of the cruiser. True, it had never seen the design before, but its sensors and analytical systems were without betters. From the moment the very first missile was fired by the cruiser, the maximum range should have been recorded.

The targeting streams from the missiles had come as a complete surprise to the AI, its attention focused on co-ordinating its deployed units, and its next few actions. The AI extended its defensive auras to their maximum extent and shunted the intensity to maximum, then activated the LSV's sole true weapon system, its micro-missile batteries. These missiles were, however, not designed to be used in this manner, even with anti-matter warheads. But that was not going to stop the LSV trying. It carried tens of thousands of missiles for several thousand launchers, but it could only use so many in the time available. It hastily reprogrammed the missile seekers and fired.

So fast was the AI's reaction, that only two point three seconds after it had detected the incoming missile tracks, the first micro-missile was launched. Swarms of missiles were launched in the few seconds available. The side of the LSV was obscured in a huge flash of roiling plasma and antimatter.

The Defiant-class assault shuttles, approaching the Horatio Nelson

Having observed the success of the GFVs manoeuvre earlier, the two Defiants duplicated it, this time to get closer to the enemy ships. They flashed into a wormhole not far from the LSV, and reappeared near to the hangar bay entries on the Horatio Nelson. Weapons fired to clear the path into the hangar, then the Defiants eased in and settled down to deploy their troops.

Somewhere on board the Horatio Nelson

The SK-4 moved into the corridor, weapons raised. The second moved out and covered the opposite direction. Both SK-4s had agreed that it might be in the best interests of their pirate comrades not to use their anti-armour missiles on board the vessel, relying instead on their standard weapons.
The pirates shouldered their laser rifles and followed the SK-4s, their ears still ringing from the crashes of the SK-4s 8mm guns, which had killed four of the five enemies they had just found. Only one had fallen to the pirates themselves.

~Which way to the hangars,~ they asked each other through their neural threads, aware that using voices could be overheard. They were aware of the impending arrival of reinforcements thanks to the AUD's AI.

The pirates worried about being ambushed, with only five of them, they would be royally screwed. The SK-4s were not worried, their semi-autonomous AIs were not capable of worry. But they were concerned for the safety of their living comrades, and aware of the danger posed by the two enemies hiding around the corner. One SK-4 led the pirates off in the opposite direction, the other was at the rear, moving backwards, watching the two enemies.

BUMP!

OOC: basically a weapon that uses magnetic force to propel a ferrous slug.

The Omnidirectional Widget

The platform juddered, under fighter launched missile strikes, rolling clouds of plasma scaring the surface of cargo modules, causing hundreds of pipes and conduits to loose integrity and begin to vent jets of material into space. Over 140 of her defending manned craft had been riddled, incinerated or blasted to shrapnel by fighter fire. Carl Hawthorn was one such pilot. The Dx-43 single person mining utility craft was an articulating hydraulic yellow crab with 4 claws. It didn’t and couldn’t hope to engage the fighters in open space. Instead it was jetting from tower to tower, hiding in crannies or cooling fins its two of its four claws fitted with heavy mining lasers.

One entire side of the craft was now a scorched black from the blast of a near by star fighter plowing into a cooling tower as it had suddenly found itself without a main drive array or for that matter a rear as the huge clanking crab had reached out and ripped a huge gash in the speeding fighter as it passed. Not the smartest thing in the world to do it had left Carl spinning for about 20 minutes before his clunky attitude control system had finally brought the big Dx under control. He was now firmly planted inside a cooling fin stack, twin 380 Megawatt lasers spitting out streams of coherent death and at the moment ..screaming.

DIE YOU MOTHER F***** C*** F*** and YOUR SISTERS TOOO AAAAAAAARGH!

Miners it can be noted are not the most gentle of groups Carl however blazing away, was it must be said hitting more than a few targets. Most being floating lumps of scrap. It seems that the fighters explosive demise had not only left him a tad unhinged but also fried most of his sensor systems leaving the Dx unit firing at anything that moved.

The Kestrel pirate fighters were three deep and moving in perfect formation through the mayhem filled maze of the platforms industrial topography. This would not be helpful to there continued survival as they passed straight through Carl’s field of fire. Most of the pilots had time to feel or see sparks fly as perfectly circular holes were neatly cut through their fighters mass. Some simply vanished as the mining beam designed to cut through metres of high ferrous rock slashed straight through their drive systems. Still others would have the unfortunate fate of having unexploded munitions detonate. The result was a wash of carnage that for a brief moment at least in one section of the platform lowered the quantity of incoming fire.

23 Seconds later a pirate fighter craft slammed 2 high yield plasma rounds into a storage module near the Dx and a shard of partially molten Iron ingot the size of car impaled the Dx’s cab at well over 4000 Km/h . Carl never even felt it.

Similar scenes would not be replayed across the platform. Carl was lucky or unlucky in how you saw it., in most cases the defenders were hiding there craft carefully as they could and taking pot shots at the streams of fighter craft. Later the utility craft pilots would say it was like watching a flock of gulls attack a crab on a beach when one of the utility craft broke cover or was spotted.

The utility craft could never bunch together, heavy weapons on the fighters would soon see to those that did.

The drones were in some ways having it worse at least in numbers, there were barely 200 of them left However over 100 of them had attempted to immolate themselves on pirate craft, those that were left were repairing systems even under fire, while giving as best as they could. The remains of their shattered yellow hulls surrounded the station in what looked like globes of yellow haze where their swarms had been destroyed.


The platform now began to shake violently as chunks of pirate frigate slammed into her. These parts that escaped the stations massive PD lasers on the catch arms were either going to fast for the system to traverse or massed simply too much for the system to make it do anything more than glow. Pirate fighters, and Defenders would both die in rolling clouds of high velocity kinetic shards as these hunks of dead ships some still with quick frozen semi exploded corpses inside slammed into the station.

Rusty would have grimaced in pain and gritted his teeth had he been human. He was down to two missile launchers and over half the auto cannon had been destroyed. The hyper drive was still only at 18 minutes. The huge crackling beam of the molecule stripper seemed to be the only system unaffected by the endemic failures that were flashing through the platform due to the combat damage. A whole section of one of the outer refineries had been blasted to rubble when what seemed like the entire bow of a pirate frigate destroyed by the Type 10’s torpedoes had slammed into it. To stay under the cover of the jettisoned cargo modules he had to waste 3 minutes of time on the main drives countering the impact, three minutes more from the jump clock. Three minutes more of punishment and blood. Rusty had no choice. Along the outer layers of the platform another layer of cargo modules began to tumble outwards. A few defenders had the time to scuttle away given the fact their relative speeds were rather low in comparison to the now drifting cargo modules. The pirate fighters were for a few minutes less lucky as what seemed entire sections of the platforms landscape began to move. A duo of pulsar Gunships were unfortunate in finding the very section of the platform directly infront of them moving up fast. One slammed straight into it, the other pulling a hard climb touched it briefly, sparks flying from its underside before it managed to escape, limping its hull partially cracked from the high speed impact. In its wake the other pulsar Gunships wreckage would begin to join the ever moving cloud of deadly high speed ricocheting debris that was making both the defenders and the pirates lives a nightmare. Flak rarely came in 30 ton led ingots.

Both Henderson and Williams were now no longer slinging there usual comments across the command deck. Simple tensely barked orders or streams of text directly to the crews implants shot across the bridge while they plotted another missile strike upon the dreadnought.

OOC: Very very sorry about the delay uni got the better of me.

In classic pulp sci fi gauss weapons were what you would consider similar to an ion weapon only without the ions. They use a concentrated beam of electromagnetic force and not a supercharged stream of ions to destroy their target. The other form of “gauss gun” would be the classic rail gun that P3X1299 stated he is useing. Such weapons have recoil limitations when used by personnel but still would hurl projectiles far harder than any mere explosive gun could ever hope to, though they could never match the devestation a full scale rail weapon could cause. On a side note the only rail weapons at my disposal are disposable counter cap ship killer gun platforms illustrated here.http://www.deviantart.com/view/8608655/

OOC: 95% of people on this website use ZM's second definition of gauss weapons. There are key differences between them and railguns, but they're closely related enough to allow the names to be mostly interchangable. And they're really extremely preactical as infantry weapons. My entire army is equiped with railguns in my other nation.

Edit: Touche, ZM.

OOC: Over 95% of all statistics are made up on the spot. >.>

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Captain Daniels and his security officer sprinted down the corridor away from the machines that had apparently infested his ship. He fired a slug from his gauss pistol toward the invaders.

Commander Chad Williams, the security officer heard Daniels fire a round from his gauss pistol. “Captain, the others are back with gauss rifles.”

Daniels took the gauss rifle that he was offered.

Captain Daniels and his bridge crew followed Williams back down the corridor toward the robots, gauss rifles at the ready. They were stalking their prey. Then something else happened to change their minds.

Several light seconds out from the carrier

The missile cruiser fired another volley of missiles toward the large pirate ship. The captain of the cruiser smiled with feral rage at the explosions that were bracketing the ship. “Hit them again!”

The forward missile tubes on the cruiser fired another volley of missiles at the pirate ship that the captain had previously targeted.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Alarms started to whoop at the weapons fire in the hangar bay. A computerized voice spoke, “Weapons fire detected in the starboard hangar bay. Dispatch a security detachment. Weapons fire detected in the starboard hangar bay. Dispatch a security detachment.”

Daniels looked toward his security officer. “We still haven’t fixed those fuses yet. There’s nothing that they can do from the bridge. Internal communications are down, so lets try to round up some of the guardsmen to get to that hangar.”

Ensign Deacon, the engineer, led the way over to a hatchway in the corridor wall. He spun the hatch dogs loose. “This passage should take us down to the hangar deck.”

Around the volume of the mining platform, Omnidirectional Widget

Having started the battle well, the Kestrel fighters and Pulsar gunships were taking more and more losses as the station disintegrated around them, flooding the immediate volume with debris. Magnetic shields had very little effect on a 1000 ton chunk of metal. Now that shields were frequently overloaded by debris, the mining lasers could punch into unprotected hulls, having much the same effect as the fighters' particle cannon, cutting the craft in half.

At an order from the LSV, the GFV In Mortal Peril bent space and appeared off the side of the platform, well away from the molecule stripper. The GFV's more comprehesive sensors detected an energy build-up deep within the platform. The AI quickly ran through a list of possible sources, and with the knowledge that the target was a mining platform, it came up with only two possibilities. It was either an FTL propulsion system, or a self-destruct mechanism. The GFV used its rapidly dwindling micro-missile stocks to vaporise any chunks of debris large enough to do it harm, while its needle cannons picked off any small craft it could target. As it did this, it searched the structure of the platform for the FTL drive, which it deemed the more likely possibility. The plasma cannons were being reserved to take out the drive, and prevent the platform leaving.

The LSV An Untimely Demise

As the flash subsided, it became apparent that the LSV's 2,147m long hull had suffered no damage from the missile barrage. Its micro-missile fire had destroyed very few of the incoming missiles, but the shields had held under the strain, and even now were returning to strength.

On the protected side, the LSV completed the recovery of the damaged GFV I Blame The Father and the remains of the From A Black Hole. The GFV Lisophist was also there, linking up with the HFV and other two GFVs. A third Defiant was leaving General Bay 3, containing its full complement of fifty soldiers, heading for the mining platform.

The AUD repeated its actions against the new missiles fired against it, the micro-missiles still its best defence weapon. The massive vessel re-engaged its engines and began moving away from the enemy cruiser. As soon as the smaller ships behind it moved off, it would initiate a short range shift and place itself out of range.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson
The Hangar

The Defiants, having delivered their cargo, blasted a hole in a locked bulkhead door to allow their forces through, then powered up and exited the hangar. The pirates clasped their pulse rifles and flicked off safeties. The SK-4s raised their projectile arms, and the two avatars armed their small X-ray laser pistols. A group of SK-4s led the boarding party through the ruined door, the pirates surrounded the avatars, with the remaining SK-4s at the rear. The boarders were not heading for the bridge, indeed they were not heading anywhere in particular. Their mission was to clear the ship of hostile forces. Then they would finish taking it over.

A Corridor Somewhere In The Ship

As a small amount of weapons fire bounced off the walls, the SK-4 watched the arrival of three more humans with its IR vision. Then an alarm came over the ship's PA and the five enemies moved off. The other SK-4 stopped and turned around. They were aware of the meaning of the announcement, and aware that the hangar was the probable destination of the five enemies. The two SK-4s began following the enemies, the pirates following them in bewilderment, unaware of the information and opinions the SK-4s possessed.

The dreadnought had already taken heavy damage from the pounding it had received as it approached the station. Its crew knew this, the businessman representative from the company who had arranged their presence knew this.

It was for this reason that the smartly dressed man was currently walking down through the long corridors of the ship to the hangar bay. The raiders let him through after barely a glance as he strode into the large area and climbed into his shuttle (a shuttle captured by Ventuusi Acquisitional - they were not stupid enough to use their own ships. Once inside he cracked open his laptop and wrote his report, waiting to see what would actually happen before he risked jepordising his mission.

Aboard the bridge, the captain grunted out commands. He had realised that he was unlikely to succeed in taking control of the station and had resolved, with typical barbarian attitude, that if he could not have it he would do his best to destroy it.

So, the main cannon atop the bulky dreadnought clanked as it aimed at Omnidirectional Widget and began humming, vibrations reverberating throughout the vessel as it charged.

Meanwhile, the surviving cruiser and remaining four frigates redoubled their effort to get to the mining platform, an attempt that they had just started when another frigate exploded from incoming fire, even as the dreadnought's short-range turrets and batteries opened fire at the mining station.

A Pulsar LAC near the dreadnought

The LSV An Untimely Demise monitered the shift in the dreadnought's main gun, until it was no longer pointing at the LSV, it was pointing at the platform. It seemed that the other pirates had decided that if they could not capture the platform, they would destroy it. The Blood Ravens, on the other hand, stood a good chance of capturing the platform, if they could prevent its escape.

The LAC Hammer & Sickle angled in towards the dreadnought, weaving nimbly around the fire coming from its remaining active weapons. As it passed the main gun, it fired two volleys from all 6 of its micro-missile launchers at the gun, in an attempt to disable the gun before it destroyed the platform.

The GFV In Mortal Peril, near the mining platform

The IMP had located what it decided was the FTL jump drive and fired its plasma cannons at it. The fire was carefully directed, so as not to damage the platform much more than it already was. The Blood Ravens attacks were all aimed at disabling weapons or other systems, including the drones and small mining craft, not random destruction of the platform. If they damaged it too much, they would be unable to use it.

The AI checked its missile stocks. Down to 18% now. The fighters that it was supporting were now numbering twenty-eight, plus the four from the IMP, with seven remaining Pulsar LACs. It attempted to scan the remaining number of mining craft and drones.

OOC: I haven't forgotten about this, I've been a college whipping boy. I'm gonna get something up tomorrow.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

The captain and his small entourage had found their way through some access tubes, down to the deck where the hangar bay was located. He and his men had located a few of the Naval Guardsmen and some crewmembers, though the crew members would probably not be much help against the pirates because they only had their standard issue light gauss pistols, the Naval Guardsmen on the other hand, would be excellent because they were carrying their standard blast lance, a weapon that fired an ion beam, would probably be helpful.

The captain’s party now numbered about twelve individuals and they were nearing the hangar, when Ensign Jim Deacon help up a hand. “Captain, we can seal off some of the corridors on this level.”

Captain Daniels looked at the young ensign and nodded. “Shut the next set of pressure doors then, after we’ve passed through them. We’ll have to seal the main entrances to the hangar.”

Deacon moved over to the door, and pushed the button that would close it. He smiled, then shot the panel with the gauss pistol that he was carrying.

Several light seconds out from the Horatio Nelson

The missile cruiser hung in space, it’s captain pondering his alternatives. He had used up nearly a fifth of his missile stocks, but missiles were made to be expended. The captain smiled thinly and gave the order. “Hit that big pirate vessel [OOC: the LSV] again.”

The cruiser spat out another volley of missiles.

A fire control officer on board the cruiser noticed an energy spike on his sensors. She was not sure what it was, but if she was correct, it was probably a good thing. “Captain, I’m picking up an energy spike on sensors. Probability of artificially produced wormhole, 50 percent.”


OOC: Anyone mind if I bring in a few more ships?

OOC: Not really. Just try not to overwhelm me, okay? I have very few ships left unused. (6 corvettes, 26 gunships, 60 fighters). Although is anyone wondering what happened to the 10 original corvettes? Where did they go?

IC:
The LSV An Untimely Demise

The last group of missiles had almost brought the LSV's shields down, but still they held. The micro-missiles had had even less effect that time, destroying a total of four missiles in a volley of eighty.

The HFV Traitor To The Cause and the GFVs Why Are We Here?, Lisophist and What's The Point? opened a wormhole and disappeared of somewhere into the realms of Ultraspace. Free from protecting its charges, the LSV opened its own, rather massive wormhole. As it did so, it registered another volley of missiles launched in its direction.
Oh well, at least it wouldn't have to worry about them.
It moved into its own wormhole, which collapsed almost instantly the ship was through.

The massive vessel reappeared nine point two light minutes from its original position, just in sensor range to continue monitering the engagement.

Somewhere on board the Horatio Nelson

The SK-4s stopped, their path blocked by the sudden closure of a door right in front of them. A nanosecond passed before the two combat synthetics made their decision.
"Stand clear," announced one, as the other took up position. When the pirates were safely behind cover, one SK-4 knealt down and leaned forward. This was to allow the missile, which launched vertically out of a cell in the units' back, to clear the low ceiling.
"Fire in the hole," it announced, as a streak of light partially obscured its back. The missile narrowly missed the corridor ceiling, adjusted its trajectory and impacted the door. The weapon, designed to punch into tanks, made short work of the door, and the way to the hangar bay was temporarily clear again.
The SK-4s immediately started thinking of an alternate way to open the doors, as they only had fifteen missiles left between them, and they had no idea how far away the hangar bay was.

Other, similar explosions would be heard in other areas of the ship, as the main boarding party forged their way around, although the avatars present in that group stood a good chance of initiating a ship-wide unlock through hacking and use of effectors.

BUMP for replies!

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

Captain Daniels and his assortment of crew members made their way toward the hangar bay where the intrusion of the pirates had been detected.

That’s when they encountered a second much larger party of pirates.

Daniels skidded to a halt in surprise, and raised his gauss rifle. He triggered the weapon, and ducked into a corridor. The other members of the crew that were with him, numbering approximately a dozen, officers and enlisted men followed suit, ducking into whatever cover that they could find, then popping out to fire their weapons.

Daniels paid no attention when the computer began to sound an alarm about a security breach.

Several light seconds out from the Horatio Nelson

The captain of the missile cruiser frowned as three of the Eagle MK II frigates and a pair of John Carter class corvettes emerged from the wormhole.

“Send them the targeting information and set course for a rendezvous,” the captain ordered.

The fire control officer frowned as the large enemy ship jumped out of range via a wormhole of its own. “Captain. That enemy ship has just jumped through a wormhole.”

“Very well, sir.” The communications officer flipped a stud on the console, and transferred the data, via the ship’s communication array.

The cruiser and its flanking destroyers headed toward the new ships.

Aboard the Horatio Nelson

The large pirate boarding party had, completely without warning, bumped into a group of enemies. In the initial five seconds, three pirates had gone down and an SK-4 had its left arm (complete with lasers) knocked off. The pirates returned fire with the variety of weapons they held. Laser rifles (of various types and ages) scorched walls black and projectiles, pulse, EM or normal, either embedded themselves in or ricocheted off the same walls. A single plasma rifle vaporised small sections of wall with each shot and an ancient machine gun chattered in short bursts as it threw out simple metal slugs.
Enemy fire came back at them, though in smaller amounts.

A few metres behind them, the avatars were hacking into the ships control systems. As the ship's main computer detected them, an alarm went off, declaring a security breach, the avatars quickly shut it off before it annoyed the pirates, then found the release for the door locks. Across the ship doors clicked open. For good measure, the avatars locked the ship's personnel out of the computers.

A corridor somewhere behind the enemy.

One of the SK-4s was about to blow out another door, when it suddenly opened. Without hesitation, the pirates went through. They found all the doors now opened. Without stopping to wonder how, they rushed in the direction they thought the enemy had gone, where they could here weapons fire.

Behind the enemy cruiser battle group

The 10 Torrent-class SCVs dropped out of a wormhole and fired upon the nearest ship, a destroyer. Eight seconds later, the three GFVs and one HFV appeared behind the SCVs. The AIs quickly assessed the situation and decided that they had only a small chance of victory, but doggedly decided to continue. If they could fend off the enemy ships, they could tow the enemy carrier through a wormhole.

Plasma cannon batteries opened up, fighters deployed, and micro-missiles fired. The ships planned to strike hard and fast, but with eight large enemy vessels, that plan had gone in to a black hole.

(OOC: 10 small corvettes, 3 small frigates and 1 large frigate against 2 corvettes, 3 frigates, 2 destroyers and 1 cruiser. I assume I'm outgunned)

The Dragonspire shook under the heavy piratical fire. The bridge crew were all calm, they all felt that the shields would hold. The Tactical officer returned fire, the space in front of the Dragonspire was ablaze with light as the plasma torpedoes fired one after another and the energy beams hit target, the pirate dreadnaught looked much more of a naught than a dread.

“Captain,” The Tactical officer spoke, her voice calm and loud, “The last hit we received lowered our forward shields to 76% effectiveness, energy beams cannons at 80% charge and plasma torps at maximum.”

“Good,” Captain Hayes looked at the read out on the tactical command screen, “Comms, tell Command that the Excelsior has been destroyed.”
“Aye sir,” came the reply.

“Helm,” Captain Hayes said, “Bring us up closer to the firing vessel. Tactical, Fire all torps on my mark, Helm when we are in range turn to port and cease movement, Tactical when we have stopped, fire all weapons.”