NationStates Jolt Archive

The ships had been in lunar orbit for nearly a day, their bays packed with supplies and people as shuttles and landers clung to airlocks like parasitic creatures. Their VASMIR drives had pushed them along in their days long journey, and now their operation was moving into effect. The landers were modified ones left over from the UCSNE's true spacefaring days, and were based on civilian designs. But these landers bore the UCSNE Flag, along with the initials "NEMC" on the sides of their gray hulks. As the initial 4 landers neared the surface, retrothrusters activated and spiderlike landing legs extended from their bellies, silent in the cold of space. The landing doors on one of the landers slammed down, and an armored space suit, rifle slung over it's shoulder, emerged. A Colonel's insignia sat on his helmet, and stenciled under it was "Struecker". Another armored figure, from inside the lander, tossed him a pair of cylinders with wrapped ends. Struecker caught them one handed in the Lunar gravity, and kangaroo hopped out into the area between the landers, just south of the Copernicus crater. His right arm uprighted one of the cylinders, slamming it into the lunar ground. He ripped off the plastic wrapping over one end, and pulled out the UCSNE flag. Over the communications, cheers arose. The armored figure pulled out hte second flag, with the rifle, wave, and Feather adorned on it, and put it next to the UCSNE flag. A roar, even louder, erupted once more, but this time with a single word.
"MARINES!"
The armored figures descended from the landers, some on foot, some on armored rovers and transports as they began to form a perimiter around the site, and Marine Engineers set to work on making temporary habitats. New Empire's first claim of non-Earth territory for 20 years had taken place.

News networks everywhere gobbled up the story, the nationalist Right praising the efforts, the Center sticking with facts, and the Globalist Left denouncing the "continuing imperialist actionss of the Dleroes administration". Dleroes herself was pleased to see the UCSNE back in space, their relative isolation outside of earth orbit causing worry about the nation's vulnerability to space attacks, even a bit of the infectious ShaRa worries that occupied the minds and fleets of the more advanced APTO space nations. Soon, the UCSNE would have an outpost on the final frontier, but how long would it last, not against invaders, but angry lunar nations?

OOC-bump... Whatever you got to say, say it before before I start building.

*tagged for intel.*

secrete rp

<<<Bio scanning>>>
::::commencing:::::
[<<<Signal---Scrambling>>>
[CONFIRMED]

Vessel: Unidentified--Orgin: Earth
Vessel: Unidentified--Orgin: Earth
Vessel: Unidentified--Orgin: Outter Rim
Vessel: Unidentified--Orgin: Unknown
Vessel:IDENTIFIED--ORGIN: EARTH
ACCESSING:::::::CONFIRMED: Species 00EE986-USNE

Reference First Contact #24543:::::Priority::::HIGH
STATUS: HOSTILE>>>Initiate SR154-0090k<<<
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=72339&highlight=

Heh, and were going to the moon in a short......We ain't gonna see yer marines, landin on a different side....

Heh, and were going to the moon in a short......We ain't gonna see yer marines, landin on a different side....

The combat engineers had done their job, and done it well, to the looks of Struecker. The power armored crews had set up a large village of HabDomes, connected via airlocks to larger hangars where unused equipment was stored. The Gray on Gray camoflauge of the Marines sometimes made it hard to identify with naked eye, so most used the SquadNET and applied ID tags to their Visor Displays. They went out on normal patrols, but now the Sentry Rovers, or "RoverTanks", made their presence known. Colonel Davis Struecker turned his attention to his Secure Datalink to the Command Ship, one of only 3 "Capital ships" the UCSNE owned. It was more of a heavily armed and armored, mobile space station, and featured one of the old "Rods of God" used by the old fleet. He looked over the schematics of the installation to be put in the side of the Copernicus crater.
[Lunar Defense Installation 01]
[Level-Classifed V-5]
[Only to be transmitted by Laser Datalink, Encryption T44310321]
[Purpose-Establish Lunar Base of Operations and Supply point for UCSNE and APTO nations. LDI1 will also feature a complement of F-115 and F/A-117 fighters, as well as Projects 03 and 04. LDI1 will use one extra-large armored dock for use by NEOS01, NEOS02, NEOS03. Type 40 LASER, Type 98 Railgun, Type 103 MassDriver and missile banks also to be installed for orbital defense. LDI1 will meet all C4 requirements and have it's own secure networks. LDI1 will feature large scale (20,000 Stage 2) permanent protected habitats. LDI1 must also have capability for long range (Extra Solar) communications and sensors for use with Deep Space nations. For further information, access Encrypt File 014213 attached to this communication. Once downloaded, all net evidence of these documents is to be destroyed per UCSNE/APCOM Regulation 4.982 Information Security.]
OOC-Everything within the brackets is secret, and since it's a laser burst transmission, the only way to hack it is to interrupt the signal physically.

The men huddled together in the cramped room.

"yeah, so it looks as if they're gonna set up a military base on the moon"

"we have anything on the drawing boards that could possibly affect that?"

"no, no we don't. we've got the tacit angle killsats, but that's really it. nothing else is even under development"

"well, the premier has handed down a directive for the National Areospace Agency to collaborate with the Air Force on space weaponry projects. There's a conventional war on, but we've got ourselves a long-term mandate to get the Kilean military into space."

One of the men looked up.

"we could go forwards with starlight. I mean, that's just low orbit stuff...."

Another man cut in

"what we really need to do is stealth a MIRV bus, get some solar panels and radio equipment slapped on, and park it in lunar orbit."

The think tank got to work, scribbling ideas on notepads.

[Week 2]
The area under the Copernicus southern rim was hollow, a huge cavern strewn with technical equipment. Engineers in huge robotic exoframes trundled around, doing the work of 10 men on the moon, maybe 60 of Earth. They handled the huge turret equipment with ease, almost grace, as holes were carved in the cavern ceiling for the camoflauged weapons. The area here was for the bulky 155mm Defensive Railguns, and workers suspended from the ceiling were beginning to prepare it for the huge armored plates that would cover the entire facility. This cavern was only one of the weapons banks and hubs for land vehicles, around the middle of the crescent would be things like the habitation areas, command centers, and craft hangars, with a huge armored ship bay sheltering just north of the facility. The whole area was to be connected by EM monorails, and powered by Fusion reactors and Pebblebeds, but for now solar panels covered the amount of energy they used in construction.

The high speed Spaceplane rocketed from the atmosphere, it's sleek form miniscule against the background of Earth. It slowed, vernier thrusters manuvering it towards the geosync space station, busier than usual cycling around supplies to the Copernicus Base. This Spaceplane was transferring an unusual cargo, but it was not a large one. The armored container was routinely transferred, save for the two ORC suited guards. It was loaded onto the Shuttle, and sat among the other supplies, the significance of it not yet known.

The container sat in the Earth Moon shuttle, and was once again escorted through the bowels of a ship, this time the NEOS01 Command ship. The container was then moved up to the armory, and would wait there until the situation called for it.

[Week 4]

The Copernicus Caverns were now complete, and Col. Struecker was glad to have the outer defense banks online. While the 155mm railguns and LASER systems weren't the most powerful things in orbit of the Earth, they packed enough punch to send anything short of a capship to it's grave. The first Hab area was complete as well, and now the thousands of Marines and other personnel could live in safety and warmth compared to the cold HabDomes. A hydroponics section was running, and soon the soldiers would enjoy fresh food instead of their rations, which actually weren't all that bad. Of course, some things weren't going quite as planned. About a dozen Marines, not used to the Low Gravity, had suffered injuries during construction, but were recovering in the NEOS01 MediFacs. Recently, a Senator, escorted by a NEAF detachment, had been given a tour of the Research areas, but kept well away from the part of the Copernicus Base where the weapons were installed. Struecker was glad to see a project the Senate wasn't screaming about. The Marines had also taken to some interesting activities. Earlier in the week, one of the Platoons had played what was described as "Probably the first game of Football played on the moon ever". Of course, punting was a bit tricky, but they did enjoy themselves. Struecker, however, spent his days going through the specs and information about the UCSNE's spacefaring enemies. Markov was starting a MiliSpace program, along with G-Corp, but they weren't of any worry. If the beatings they recieved the last time they meddled with the UCSNE made their point, they'd never worry about them for a long, long time. It was the information on the Sha'Ra, or lack of it, that scared the Colonel most. Images of planets destroyed, the forms of their ships, the photos from ground actions, all showed a Hellish, seemingly invincible enemy. Nearly a dozen Capships lost by Adejaani in a recent fleet battle, hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides. And almost no information on how to fight them. But the worst things were the rumors and speculation by the APTO Spacefarers, the suspicion of Sha'Ra allied nations, and maybe even Sha'Ra probes into Sol. Struecker looked up from the laptop to the Earth hovering in the sky, and in his mind's eye, it burned. The scream of humanity and New Empire as spiderlike planet killers reaped it's surface of life. He shivered, and hopped off to check on the crews at the Rover Hangars.

OOC-Bumping before I install the heavy weapons and special equipment.

[Week 10]

Copernicus' defenses and hab areas were nearly complete. The accelerated growth of the hydroponics gave the Marines a nice change in the cycles of rations, and everyone had quarters in the rim of the crater. A large hall served for mess, gatherings, and the occasional movie. A temporary long range commset had been installed so the Marines could exchange emails with their families, although all outgoing mail underwent censorship of details, especially on the installation of the Missile banks and silos, as well as the ExtraSolar comm systems and Anti-Shipping massdrivers (The rods of god). Work was beginning on the huge hangars that would house the aircraft and rovers of Copernicus. Thanks to a lack of gravity, top of the line equipment, and the determined spirit of the Marines, the work was going especially fast. The huge massdriver components had been shipped down, and were undergoing assembly and installation. Soon, Copernicus would be able to destroy even the mightiest of spacefaring vessels, or, should the situation present itself, bombard whatever side of the Earth that happened to be facing the moon.