NationStates Jolt Archive

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With the creation of the Second, the Collective began its invasion of the human worlds. The WinTrees Commonwealth had already sacrificed one human to the Collective, and thus was the first target for assimilation.

Hundreds of vessels had already come through the hyperspace gate in the Tarsonis system, and more were coming through daily. A grand fleet assembled in stoic formation on the far side of Tarsonis Prime, pausing only momentarily to charge their drives as they entered hyperspace...


...and arrived in the Snora system, roughly six parsecs from the assembled WinTree's fleet.

Onboard HMS Dreadnaught - Snora System

All Hands, Action Stations.

Admiral Seric-Blair pulled himself out of his bed, and stumbled over the intercom located on the desk of his stateroom.
"Whats going on?" he half shouted over the noise of the alert klaxon.
"Multiple contacts in quadrant 6-Alpha-Red." replied a voice over the intercom.
"Direction and speed?" asked the Admiral pulling on his tunic which was draped over the desk.
"Unknown sir, they're too far out for the ships sensors, they were picked up by a long range Phantom patrol." the voice of the Lieutenant was nearly completely droned out by a artificer reattaching a access panel in the corridor outside the stateroom.
"Launch the alert fighters and vector any other patrols into sensor range of the contacts, I want some solid information on them before I reach the CIC."
"Yes sir."
"And send a flash alert to Keelth fleet headquarters, tell them we maybe about to engage the enemy Fleet."

A single line of text was sent over subspace communication towards the Snoran defenders.

<LOWER SHIELDS. SURRENDER SHIPS. PERFECTION MUST BE OBTAINED. WILL YOU SUBMIT?>

A massive vessel, easily twice as big as its closest competitor in the Collective fleet, took the forward position and activated its sublight drives. It punctuated the query with a lance of ion beams, cutting a swath of cerulean death across space. The rest of the fleet, almost dramatically, began moving with almost reckless speed towards the defenses.

Either the humans would submit...or they would be destroyed.

Admiral Seric-Blair steadied himself on the hatch frame leading to the CIC as the ship rocked from an impact.
<LOWER SHIELDS. SURRENDER SHIPS. PERFECTION MUST BE OBTAINED. WILL YOU SUBMIT?> rang over the comm-system.
“TURN THAT RUBBISH OFF, Status!” he shouted
“They’re firing sir, ion emissions.”
“Do we have a firing solution yet Captain?” he asked moving to the command table.
“Yes sir.” Replied Captain Cultard looking up from a damage control diagram which was displayed on the vid-screen mounted in the table.
“Instruct all ships to engage targets at will, rail batteries and missiles, I want them out of my sky lieutenant.” He said looking at the officer sat behind a large console at the side of the busy room. He then looked back to the Captain, “What do you rate our chances as Adrian?”
“We’re horribly out numbered sir, we might be able to take a few, but I don’t recommend hanging around here Admiral.” Replied the Captain under his breath
“I completely agree, but we have to buy time for the rest of the fleet to deploy at Keelth.”
“How long?”
“About 15 hours.”
“We won’t last that long.”
“I know.”

A wall of fire and flack enveloped the space between the Wintrees’ fleet and the Collective as rail guns sent their shells careering through space, missiles were launched and flew towards their targets.

The Dreadnaught was hit causing the ship to rock again, nearly throwing the Admiral off his feet.
“Valiant reports main power failure, they’ve lost their weapons.”
“Pull them out of line, have them withdraw to Keelth, full burn.” Replied the Admiral, “Flash message to Keelth Fleet command, message states ‘Have engaged enemy’, send them all intelligence we have gathered at this point, continue to until unable.”

As boxy gunships took up formation in front of the Collective's main capital ships in order to provide anti-missile fire, dozens of smaller "fighters" broke formation and descended upon the Valiant like flies to a fresh carcass. They ducked and weaved through the carnage that was the No Fly Zone between the two fleets, dodging explosions as laser bolt met missile and projectile met shield with seemingly reckless abandon. As the single ships came in range, they peppered the wounded capital ship with gunfire, focusing on the engines and power regulators. As the humanoid-controlled ships began picking them off, squadrons of the fighters simply began ramming the exposed Sublight engines. It was a suicide mission...

...but, then again, there was nothing in those fighters to die.



Approximately two dozen craft, roughly 100 meters long a piece, broke away from the main Collective fleet and headed down the Z axis, opening their outer doors. Hundreds of torpedoes, like a hive releasing deadly wasps, deployed from the ships and sought out targets within the Snoran fleet, always covered by another volley of ion beams and long-range pulse lasers to throw off any point defenses.

What ever cruel will gave strength to these ships, it was efficient to say the least.

“Commander, have Red and Green wings support Valiant.” Said the Admiral looking up from the sensor display mounted above the command table, the commander nodded and went about redeploying the fighters.
“Sir, multiple ships have broken off from the main fleet, they’ve redeployed to quadrants 4 and 5.” Said the Lieutenant.
Looking back at the sensor display the Admiral quickly replied, “Have the 4th Fleet Squadron redeploy and re-engage the hostiles on the new vector.”
“Yes sir… Wait… they’re firing, torpedoes… lots of them, inbound 45 seconds.”
“Interceptors?”
“Red and Green wings are in range, the rest of the air group won’t be able to intercept without moving through our firing solution.”

The Admiral tapped his leg in a rhythm, save the Valiant or try and minimize the damage to the rest of the fleet?
“Red and Green wings set intercept course to torpedoes.” He said solemnly.

“All squadrons, this is Red lead, we’ve been re-tasked to intercept missiles, inbound to the fleet from quadrant 4, vector 350. Squadron leaders, deploy into line and follow my lead.”

The interceptors, which were already half way to the retreating Valiant, were in the perfect position for an attack run on the missiles before they reached the fleet.

“All squadrons, this is Red lead, I’m seeing heavy supporting fire with those missiles, come in low and pop up just before your in range.” The fighter rocked as the enemy fire past by near him… “ENGAGE AT WILL” he shouted over the comm, he then pulled back hard on the stick and aimed at the first torpedo. Pulling the trigger he sent out of burst of rounds that cut the torpedo in half, seconds later he was caught in the path of a pulse laser and evaporated.

He death was at the exact same time that the massive explosion which ripped the Valiant in half. A lucky hit from one of the fighters destroyed the power grid causing the main reactor to overload.

The Lieutenant who had been silently counting down the time left to impact suddenly shouted, “Brace for impact!” and hugged the console tightly. The Admiral was pushed off his fleet and fell on the ground by the shockwave of one of the torpedoes hitting the hull.

Although the fighters had stopped many of the torpedoes others got through, peppering the fleets exposed hull. Of the 40 battleships, 20 (including the Valiant) were destroyed or damaged heavily, the Dreadnaught creaked as the engine section of the Ascot crashed into it.

A medic ran over to the Admiral who was lying on the floor, shook him and looked up to the recovering Captain shaking his head. The bridge had been extremely close to one of the impact points and was lucky to survive without a breach.

Captain Cultard stood up and took the comm-link off the command table. Looking around at the crewmembers, some who were lying on the floor dead, he clicked the comm-link on and said “All ships, this is Captain Cultard, Admiral Seric-Blair is dead, all ships that are able to are to withdraw to Keelth, execute an FTL jump as soon as you can.”

The fleet broke formation and scattered like a hive of bees, the ComNet was quickly crowded by the chaos of ships retrieving their fighter groups and panicked cries from crew members still aboard the dying ships which were fast being left behind.

Enemy fire slammed into the unlucky ships there were no-longer protected by the defensive formation.

It was all out panic, enhanced by the hostile ships which were given a free hand in picking off the fleeing ships.

Swarms of more small ships flew towards the retreating fleet, but these were different. As an ion lance carved the engine off of a retreating vessel like one would carve a plump turkey, these crab-like craft latched onto the ship and began tugging it back towards the Collective. More utility vehicles grabbed those ships that had already been disabled, behaving similarly. The Collective fleet began moving again, giving chase to the already-ragged humans and providing a cover for the crab-ships to get away with their bounty.

The fighters swarmed over the retreating fleet, focusing mostly on destroying the human single ships that had not yet docked and burning holes in the engine cores of the capital ships.

Two boxy vessels - obviously transports of some kind - began racing towards the dreadnought. Energy brimmed from the ships as they began charging some sort of teleportation matrix.

“Captain, ships approaching on an intercept course. Ship size and speed suggest assault ships.” Yelled the Lieutenant.
“Will they get to us before we get to the jump point?” asked Captain Cultard, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.
“Yes sir, ETA 2 miniutes.”
“Right,” said Cultard looking at a navigation display, “adjust course to 244, and prepare to re-engage, have the 3rd Fleet Group do the same. We’re going to provide cover fire for the rest of the fleet.” He then turned to the Marine Captain stood next to the hatch, “Set for boarding actions, reinforce the marine guards at engine control and CIC.”