NationStates Jolt Archive

Sol System. A crowded place? You could say that. Still, many spaces were empty...

Six fighters dove 'under' one of the floating mountains of the Asteroid Belt, twisting to head towards their goal, a ship that just broke one kilometer in length. Hull plates gleamed in the bright running lamps of it's hull. Several flags were painted on the side, including the Crimmond Imperial banner, Naval Jack and a strange flag with eleven stars and a haggard battle axe.

The CSS Juggernaut floated in concert with the rock of iron ore and nickel composite nicknamed Mount Forge. The name came from the massive space station lodged in one side of the rock. The station was long abandoned, but could hold a colony... if it could be decontaminated, pressurized and had working reactors. What was better was that the asteroid was above most of the belt and projections showed it clear of any unavoidable collisions for about two centuries.

Reading a report on the station and the asteroid, Rear Admiral Santiana looked up for a moment to watch the fighters pass by the viewport. No one had bothered them or the old station since they arrived. That didn't bother her too much, as there were allways ships in and out. What bothered her was what would happen when the got the station running. It had no real shielding at the moment, so a contruction ship was on its way to start shielding the Forge and the surrounding area of asteroid. For now, she went back to the reports.

OOC: Bringing back one of my old nation's space stations. Open to all.

The Forge suddenly burst to life as the Admiral watched. "Report."

"Fusion plants four and eight are coming online, ma'am. We'll be able to test the main systems systematicly to see what needs replacing." said her science officer. The news brought a smile to her face. It had been hard to get this command, let alone this assignment. Her brother was Warlord Santiana, who fought on the loosing side of the civil war.

-----

The fighter patrol dove down towards the Forge, to see the station power to life after so long. Unfortunatly, the first system to come online were defenses. Before they could be warned off, the station obliterated the fighters in a salvo of missiles.

-----

Santiana blinked, looked at the rest of the crew around her. "Just when things go well for a change..." she mutters and stands. "Tell all fighters to stay clear and tell that repair crew to test something other than weapons!"

One month later

Admiral Santiana stepped from the shuttle and into the airlock of the Forge command center. The key areas of the station were deemed habitable and the rest was scheduled for decon soon.

She walked up to the raised platform and around a three dimensional image of the Forge and the mopuntain it was imbedded in. It also showed her fleet in orbit. "Allright. The reactors are ready fro full load. Let's turn them on."

Crews began the cold start proceedures they had trained for weeks and the whole station shuddered internally. She saw man sized pieces of rock fly from the asteroids surface as the masive power cores came to life, but no abnormal warning lights came on. They all expected the hull breach and radiation warning lights to flash indignantly at them.

-------

In orbit, the fleet watched running lights and internal lights come on all over the station, listened as the automated comm system checked itself and the sensors started active sweeps of the area.

The Forge was waking.

[OOC: I have no pictures of the forge imbedded in an asteroid, though I have older pictures from when it was free floating. Top View (http://home.earthlink.net/~alpha_zero_usm/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/forge.jpg) and Bottom View (http://home.earthlink.net/~alpha_zero_usm/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/forge1.jpg).

The Enternal Hunter glided through the asteriod belt, it's grav-drive whining as it propelled the ship over and under debris. Although it was only a battlescout the The Enternal Hunter had one of the most decorated captains in the kzinti fleet onboard for this mission.

Ever since the evacuation of Epilson Eridiana the two military fleets were hastily converted into refugee ships with barely enough space for anyone, things were becoming tense.

The objective was simple enough, go out into the asteriod belt and fine anything that would be able to relieve any pressure off the ships while the habitat was being built. But knowing the monkeys of sol things were never easy for the kzinti.

Thraat-Captain Shrieked furious as his fur bristled on end, a smaller kzinti, his fur ragged laid on the floor barely conscious, he was the ship's telepath and Thraat-Captain hated him, Telepath was well used to the abuse he recieved, it was considered by most to be a disgrace to be a telepath, ignoring the fact they were so usefull.

"get your stink out of my air!" Thraat-captain screamed as he kicked the telepath towards the crew quarters, "May the One Fanged God protect you, kshat*, for I shall not"

Thraat-Captain groomed himself quickly before returning to the bridge, his anger spent for now. The bridge was cramped, fillied with many view screens of many different natures. Some were reading radiation levels while another scan the area for heat sources, like those produced by a fleet or space station.

The klaxons blared loudly as the fleet fleet came into range, although the Battlescout sensor suite was superior to most it could not tell the make or number of ships at this extreme of ranges and with all the debris floating around.

Recc-sensor operator stared at the monitor infront of him reading over the data carefully before speaking "Dominate one, it appears to be an fleet we have not encountered before, a monkey fleet most likely aswell as a hollowed out asteriod."

Thraat-Captain was surpised, he was sure the patriarch had encountered most if not all of the monkeys that inhabited Sol, The mission would have to be changed because of this. His bat like ears fanned his head slowly in deep thought The monkeys could be building an outpost to watch us, the patriarch must know of this event but sending off a message would alert them to our presence, scream and leap would mean certain honourless death, we must as the patriarch said "watch and learn for the monkeys to reveal their weaknesses to us"

Thraat opened the inship comm. to the weapons post where Weapons Operator, a new arrival on the ship who was eager to earn a name, to eager perhaps. "Weapons Operator, set the weapons on stand by, do not fire unless I tell you to"

Z'wagarh-Navigator did not need to be told what to do, for he had served with Thraat-Captain since he was a young Hero**. The Enternal Hunter slowed down and started to drift towards the fleet in a long arc, the ship was running on minimum power and the scent filters were struggling to get the fear and excitement scent out of the air. They would watch and learn.

*offal eating herbivore, an insult
** A kzinti warrior

The fleet went about it's dull duty of sending out fighters and retrieving them, orbiting the Forge and it's mountain and sending regular coded reports back to Terra.

The IFF codes of all the ships were broadcasting regularly, pinging out the names and affiliation of each ship. After an hour, the pinging from the Forge's IFF changed from it's unique IFF signal to one that closely coincided with the fleet around it. Shields came up around teh station, then fell, then repeated again. Weapons were fired off at targets, shuttles were launched and retrieved.

And there, coming towards the Dreadnaught, the fleet and the Forge was another ship. A Lion Class Battleship (http://www.strategy-gaming.com/previews/star_trek_starfleet_command/lyran.jpg) slid towards the fleet. Though it was a Lyran hull, it was a quite old one, heavily modified.

None of the ships seemed to notice the Kzinti craft approaching, or if they did, they were not deemed a threat.

Three days later

The Enternal Hunter drifted slowly in the shadow of a small asteriod, Thraat-Captain sat in his chair alert for what was coming onto the 72th hour of their stalking. Although his body was whining of exhaustion, Thraat-Captain's mind was still sharp and alert.

"Recc-Sensor Operator, bring the communications relay online it is time for us to send word to the patriarch" Thraat-Captain said clamly, he waited for a moment taking notice the large kzinti was still asleep, usually it wasn't wise to wake an 8 ft bipedal tiger-like creature but Thraat-Captain had dominance and his rule was absolute onboard this ship. A swift kick with claws retracted to the back of Recc-Sensor operator's head was all it took for the kzinti to stirr and listen to Thraat-Captains order again.

Activating the communications relay while attempting to remain hidden was a difficult affair as a large amount of radiation was fired off when the message was sent, and hyperwave communications were out of the question while in the gravity well of Sol.

All Thraat-Captain and the other kzinti onboard could do was hope the One Fanged God would grant them his blessing.

After the message was sent they would again sneak out from their shadow and continue their quiet watch making sure to be within arms reach of any floating rocks incase the prey had caught their scent in the wind.

The Battleship altered course and came to a stop, scannuing the area activly. So did the Forge. Apparently the burst of radiation had not gone unnoticed, but the Imperial ships were under orders to defend the Forge, not hunt down pirates or other fleets, so the scans stopped after a minute or so.

----

Admiral Santiana spoke on the commlink between the Forge and the battleship. The channel wasn't secured. They hadn't managed to get the comm up and running fully yet. "Admiral Dracul. I didn't know the Huntress was still in service. I assumed she had been scrapped for parts."

The man on the other end just laughed. "The Huntress is a good ship. I've been assigned to defend this little outpos. At least until it can do that itself. Then I'm off to go pester the Yut fleets for a while." He grinned, both speaking in a varient of Polish.

-----

Fighters dove in and out of the asteroids, achring and vectoring around the mountains. Suddenly the three snubfighters found themselves facing the seemingly dead Kzinti ship. "Woah!" the lead said, scanning the ship with eyes and sensors. "That isn't a pirate raider... Scatter boys!" As the three fighters broke off, they each took differing courses away, as fast as their powerplants could accelerate them.

Thraat-Captain shrieked as the monkey ships retreated, they had been discovered and they were easily outnumbered. The entire ship was coming to life as it jetted away irratically. the grav drive groaned as it was continued to speed through the void dodging under and over asteroids.

"Weapons-Operator, Load the K'zhec Missiles. I'm loading the firing solution now" The speaker blared and no sooner than the message ended the firing solution was loaded into the combat computer.

K'zhec Missiles were one of a few weapons in the kzinti arsenal that were designed in the non-combative role. The entire ship shuddered briefly as two missiles were launched, one towards the monkey fleet and the other farther ahead of their current course. The missiles exploded harmlessly in the void, to the the human eye anyways, to any scanning and sensor suite a thick soup of particles rapadily expanded degrading the range of most if not all sensor equipment, although it was still in it's field testing phases and it wasn't known whether the particle soup did infact work.

Battlestations! Battlestations! Defend the Forge!

Santiana shouted into the pickups, watching as the shields around the station sprang to life. The fleet was gearing up... the snub-fighters had warned them and the two blobs on their sensors gave them confirmation.

The Huntress moved away from the station towards the soupy sensor returns and started a general transmission. "This is Admiral Dracul, commanding CSS Huntress of the Crimmond Imperial Navy. Identify yourselves and your purpose for being here."

The ship had no idea if the Kzinti were in the area still... he only knew where the asteroids were, as the computer extrapolated their courses automatically. So the massive battleship rounded one of the rocks and charged through the center of one of those masses of particles, message repeating in several Terran languages. "Respond or be considered a pirate force." By his voice, that would most likely mean the Huntress would mercilessly attack the Kzinti.

Provided he could find them, that is...

Thraat-Captain stared at the viewscreen intensely, watching the massive battleship move from a distance. The message was loud and clear, either give up now or stand tall and bring honor to the patriarch. His ears slowly fanning his head as his naked pink rat like tail swayed back and forth in thought.

Thraat-Captain started a recording, what sounded like hiss and spat was The Hero's Tongue, the language of the kzinti, few monkeys could understand it, let alone speak aside from those from scolopendra and the nation of El Sentiel. It also was a message but a roaster of the Crew and of their past battles and victories, quite the list even by kzinti standards, that would hopefully keep them busy for a while as they deciphered it. While they made a dash for a thicker patch of asteriods.

There was also the problem of the particle cloud, as it expanded it grew thinner with every passing hour until it provided no more cover for their stalking.

Flipping the comm Thraat-Captain whispered fearing the monkeys would hear his voice with their sensor equipment. "Weapons-Operator, how many K'zhec Missiles do we have?"

"6 dominate one, would you like me to load them?"

"load 3 the firing solution will be uploaded immediately"

a quick burst of radiation singled the message had been sent and soon after The Enternal Hunter came to life again as it made a mad dash off towards dense field of space debris, 30 seconds later and 3 K'zhec Missiles were fired. Two towards the battleship and one into the thick asteriod field.

"Incoming!" a shout erupted from the sensor station, right before two more 'blob' missiles detonated. The Admiral was throughly pissed off now...

"Ignore the message they sent. I recognize the language... So the Kzinti want to play with missiles, eh? Fire one full volley. Coat that area in them!"

The old Lyran ship shuddered as hundreds of those strange modifications proved to be missile batteries. The aptly named Swarms flowed towards the Kzinti, each missile detonating at a different point along the way, upping chances of a glancing blow. A few plowed into the asteroids, blowing off car sized pieces, but the Huntress had no idea of if they killed or wounded their prey.

Another message was sent out. "Kzinti ships, consider that your first and only warning. Our Empires are not at war, but unless you identify yourselves now, we will be. And then we shall drive you from this system with great pleasure... smashing any ship we can in the process."


As he transmitted, he noticed that another Imperial ship had followed. One that was supposed to be 'cloaked'*. But the disruptions had revealed it. "ID that ship. If it's the Terra Incognita, send the colonel my warmest greetings." By his tone, that wasn't very warm.

[*Crimmond cloaks are based on problems similar to the failed US Stealth Boat (http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/00012/00012D99.jpg). That ship was stealthy as could be... and left a hole on Radar. So it was declared unfit for service. The Crimmond stealth ships were much the same, but instead of scrapping them, the navy installed a sensor noise maker, to duplicate what was on the other side of the ship well enough that it could travel through a Solar System undetected. But Asteroid Belts, comets, being near a star(Mercury's orbital distance or closer), being in orbit of a planet or in an amorphous cloud that disrupts sensors causes no end in dificulties for the system and the crews.]

Thraat-Admiral closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, a curious taste arose in his mouth,blood, his own for that matter. It took considerable effort to open his eyes again as his head throbbed relentlessly. everything was fuzzy and had a purple tinge spolched across the viewscreen of his pressurized armor, again it was his blood.

he didn't remember putting his suit on but he was thankfull that he did, before him he saw the brilliant virgin starscape. a large fracture had formed along the viewscreen and up past his limited vision. He glanced to his side looking for his two bridge crew, Recc-Sensor operator was no where to be found, probably ripped from the bridge when the bridge was torn open, Z'wagarh-Navigator was clearly dead as a piece of the support structure had collapsed inward piercing Z'wagarh-Navigator's body.

It hurt to think, too remember. Thraat-Captain closed his eyes again, his head pulsing, slowly the fog in his head thinned and his memories started to return.

//~Discontinuity~\\

"Faster" Thraat-Captain yelled at Z'wagarh-Navigator, as The Enternal Hunter reckless speed through the asteriod field. "override the asteriod field safety commands, make the ship go faster!"

it had not taken long for the monkey battleship's missiles to catch up, Grav polarizers could only dampen so many Gs afterall. The Klaxons blared even louder as the ship surged forward with renewed vigor. Thraat-Captain could feel the Gs begin build, the ship was now accellerating at high .C through an asteriod field, there was no computer in the whole Kzinti nation that was capable of handling all those computations aswell as tracking inbound missiles.

The ship continued gaining speed as the pain had become intolerable, lines of white had clouded Thraat-Captains vision as he continued to scream for the ship to go faster, Only a little longer than they would of safely made it out of the thickest part of the rock field Thraat-Captain thought proudly.

And then it happened. Time seemed to slow down as the events unfolded in an almost cinematic way before Thraat-Captains barely conscious eyes. The battlescout leap over one of the rocks, but couldn't manuver enough for it's tail section to crash into the next one. The tail was a mangled mess, with wires and debris floating out into the void like the entails of a wounded animal. Jotok-Engineer shared a similar fate and was ejected into the void.

Meanwhile on the Bridge the rank odour of burning metal forced the bridge crew back to consciousness. The klaxons continued to blared as the red hue of emergency lights illuminated the bridge, the back-up generators had provided barely sufficient energy to power the ships computer and sensor systems. Thraat-Captain wasted no time and put on his pressurized armor.

Flickering to life slowly, the viewscreen allowed the bridge crew to watch as a missile streaked towards them a dead on course with the bridge. Fear scent drifted throughout the bridge as the air scrubbers barely managed to remain operational. Thraat-Captain began to panic as he pulled the safety harness over his body and recited a cubs oath to the Patriarch.

The missile Detonated before impacted causing "minor damage" to the bridge section, as the ship drifted lifeless in space and by some act of fate or misfortune the back-up generators still provided power to the ship or what was left of it although the ship computer did not share such a lucky fate. it had auto-destructed erasing everything but crew menifest and the ships battle record, all Thraat-Captain could do was wait and watch the starry-night sky.

Passing over the wreck, the Huntress's shields brush aside what debris comes into it's path and slowly halts, scanning the area.

"Sir... we have lifesigns. The ship is torn up, but looks like their dead in the water."

The Admiral nodded and stared at the ship. "Definantly Kzinti. Can we attach tow cables?"

"Not without sending a team over to do it manually. The ship may not be strong enough in areas and we'd end up skinning it."

-----

As the Kzinti watched and waited, panels opened on the Battleship's hull, long clamps attached to tendrils cranked out into the void, with a technician in a normal EVA suit and something much larger and armed in some type of armor.

As the clamps came to a halt, both the passengers lept to the Kzinti ship. The other clamps were unmanned. Apparently they assumed two could do the job.

Inside the ship, the thumps of magnetic boots could be heard and tehy could probably be seen from viewports, the tech working quickly to manhandle the clamp into place while the other, in it's faceless helmet, continually looked around for threats.

The thumping of magnetic boots pierced Thraat-Captains brain, violently announcing the boarding of the monkeys of Sol. As quickly as his aching body would allow he removed the safety harness and floated for a moment.

"So the honorless monkeys of Sol come to rape the graves of my ship!" He yelled into the void, his comm. unit turned off.

he pushed himself off towards the backwall where the crest of The Enternal Hunter lay embedded into the hull. With considerable effort and cursing pry the crest from the hull using his W'tsai blade as a crowbar, not the most fitting use for ones right of adulthood, about the size and double the weight of a large human sword it was capable of cutting through even the most resistant prey. His last act to honor his departed crew.

He pushed himself silently off the wall again with feline grace, he had not bothered to turn on his own gravboots for it was easier to move his aching body in zero G. The ship was small, it took little time for Thraat-Captain to find his guests.

"Technician... keep to the clamp. Not all are dead here." The marine said, tapping the man on the shoulder to make sure he did as told.

As the tech scurried for the 'safety' of the closest magnetic clamp, the marine aimed his weapon ast the lifesign and saw the creature emerge from one of the ripped apart bulkheads. He then saw the blade and tossed the firearm aside, sending it spinning uselessly into space, drawing out his own curved and ornately etched bladse, he dropped into an aggressive stance, pulling up the glare blocking face shield, leaving his face visable under armored polymer. Horns protruded from his forehead and his shape was more bluntly shaped in profile and sharply angled. He was obviously not human.

Some would call it foolish to abandon an obvious advantage, but many called the Civils foolish. He shouted on the comm to the Kzinti, but saw no reaction that saw the creature was listening, or even understood. He stepped foreward and switched off his boots, floating slowly towards the other, blades held in front of him.

Thraat-Captain growled, the spots of blood on his visor blocked out tiny bits of his visions, not enough to kill an upstart monkey. by any means. If the monkey had the death wish then Thraat-Captain would me more than happy to oblige him.

In a true feline grace he twisted his body around facing the ceiling his clawed hands and feet gripping onto the ceiling panels, readying himself for a deadly leap, and then he remembered the foolish monkey tossed away his gun. He pushed himself off the ceiling towards the far wall and the again towards the drifting weapon.

He smiled wickedly as he gripped the weapon in his massive clawed hand leveling it at the foolish monkey, his other hand holding his W'tsai blade lashed out at the marine savagely.

"foolish monkey..." he spoke in plain english as he pulled the trigger.

The Civil Marine merely activated his magnetic boots again and dropped back to the ship. As the Kzinti trys to use his own weapon against him, the Civil starts to laugh. The weapon's firing mechanism refused to operate and a minature picture of a lock was seen on it. Either he had locked it before tossing it away, which was unlikely, or the rifle was built with with one of microchips that only let certain people fire it.

The Civil stood on the hull and waited, dual blades stil in hands.

Wasting no time after the weapon failed to fire, Thraat-Captain stabbed with the end of the gun at the monkey's chest in a feint as he brought his W'tsai blade downwards. even if the gun didn't fire it was foolish still to give your enemy another weapon to use.

He instincts told him to scream and leap but his head told him to keep at a distance, to let the monkey make another mistake, all Thraat-Captain would have to do is wait for him to make another one, a fatal one.