NationStates Jolt Archive

The Admiral's glazed, dark red eyes gazed disinterestedly at the burning planet before him. November 7, the Dominion's latest conquest. They had struck the tiny colony planet without warning, the droid and cyborg armies of the Corporation had landed suddenly and raped the planet of it resources, and now nothing was left but fire and ash. Those life forms taken prisoner were now slaves aboard the factory ships, the rest had been vaporized with what was left of the planet.
“Sir, the last of the supplies has been loaded on the factory ships- 800 females,” chirped a robotic officer.
The Admiral turned to face the droid when a series of hacking coughs over took him. Fine, grey mist poured out of his metallic face plate as the coughing fit shook his metal-encased body.
“F-fine,” the Admiral spat hoarsely between hacks, “Prepare the f-fleet to move to our n-n-next tar… get.”
“Admiral Kurtz,” said a decidedly more organic voice, “We have several capital ships on our sensors… and thousands of fighters.”
“Turn our ships around, captain” the cyborg Admiral said through his grated metal face plate, his wheezing was audible, “Take them head on, I do not care who or what they are. Standard formation- Capitol Ships in front, carriers and factory ships behind- we will melt down their ships and add their men to our workforce.”
The wheezing mishmash of flesh and metal that was Kurtz turned around and glared at his bridge. Kurtz’s capital ship- The Orthanc- had a command center devoid of feeling or art. Computer banks whirred and beeped under massive windows that stared into the nothingness of space. Droid operators manned the computers, dealing with radar bleeps and engine heat with equal interest.
The Captain, a stout old man with short grey hair and a drawn, grey face stood quietly behind Admiral Kurtz- who was at least three feet taller than he.
“Prepare the Orthanc for battle, man all guns,” the Admiral wheezed, his red, robotic eyes eyeing the control room.
“Yessir,” the Captain replied and began issuing orders.
The Dominion’s massive, black armored, dagger shaped capitol ships turned from the planet November 7 towards space. Behind them blocky factory ships and long, blunt faced carriers formed up, and readied for battle. The Dominion’s fleet was unlike any other in the galaxy, it had no base planet. Factory ships manned with droids and slaves built new ships and fighters, while the massive capital ships and carriers, filled with fighters and droid invasion forces, fought for the resources that the factories put to use. The Dominion fleet was the bane of small colonies everywhere- its prey was the unarmed and weak. Kurtz had one simple motivation, to build a fleet strong enough to systematically overthrow the great Empires of the Universe. A strategic genius, the cyborg had both the tactical skill and determination to see his conquest through.

(OOC: I'm guessing this is completely unrelated to the "Ravages of the Plague" thread in which you have the same thing happening?)

IC:
Fleet Commander Klervan tightened and released his fists, needing something to do while a Star Sovereignty colony burned helplessly. He was careless. Too careless. A colony world like that, poor in resources as it was, was evidently of enough value to whoever these honorless fiends were to ravage it and slaughter thousands of innocents. Thousands of unarmed civilians... And without even a proclamation of hostility. Was there no more decency left? Not a shred of morality left in battle?

The sensor readings continued to feed into the large viewscreen mounted at the front of the sector headquarters at Dulcais Prime. The cloaked vessels and satellites captured the images of numerous, unidentified vessels in orbit of the world, transmitting the atrocities the alien forces committed right from the beginning as the aliens raped and pillaged, so to speak. The cloaked vessels there did what they could to save the inhabitants, but they were only a few, small ships. There were so very, very many lives that they were unable to save before running out of space and the aliens arrived. But from the safety of their advanced cloaking screens, they were able to keep watch of what the aliens were doing, and to send the recordings back to Dulcais Prime through communications microwormholes, which could not be intercepted without being at the very room where the microwormholes were opened, since there was nothing in space to intercept. There was little else these few ships could do, other than flee, for a few shuttles and scouts were no match for the fleet in orbit.

As soon as sector headquarters got wind of the attack, a fleet was pulled together to meet the hostiles. But it was a backwater colony in a backwater sector. There were few enough ships in the Dulcais Sector already, and they were needed to defend the more productive worlds. Yet, it was already clear from the start that these new enemies would not stop at the colony. They would keep pushing, taking world after world. Something had to be done. Once these images got back to the capital of the Rhinaran Star Sovereignty, the uncalled-for attack and the killing and capturing of many hundreds of citizens, there would be an uproar. The might of the Star Sovereignty would bear down upon these aliens, and the aliens would lament the day they attacked a Star Sovereignty world. But as for now? As for now, there was only a small number of vessels available for an immediate response. Too few to take on an enemy fleet that size. But Rhinaran starships were built with such quality that even the Federation and Romulans would envy.

***

"All warfare is based on deception." -Sun Tzu, The Art of War

***

As their people were shown no mercy, so shall they show no mercy. As their people were given no warning, neither shall the enemy receive any. The Rhinaran fleet may be small, but they would make the enemy think there were more of them than there truly was. When a direct assault would prove fatal, then rely not upon strength, but use every advantage you have against every disadvantage of the enemy's.

As the cloaked fleet dropped out of warp, the sensor ship quickly began scanning the enemy fleet. This, combined with the information gathered by the other cloaked ships and satellites that were here from the beginning, would undoubtedly prove extremely valuable.

Without further delay, upon the signal of Commander Torren aboard the capital ship, twenty-four vessels and what looked like thousands of fighters decloaked and charged at the enemy.

2x cruisers (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/cruiser01.JPG)
5x destroyers (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/destroyer01.JPG)
9x frigates (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/frigate01.JPG)
5x corvettes (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/corvette01.JPG)
2x carriers (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/carrier01.JPG) with assorted (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/fighter01.JPG) fighters (http://people.ucsc.edu/~mattko/fighter02.JPG)
1x sensor ship

Without giving the enemy fleet any time to respond, the fighters surged ahead while frigates launched long-ranged torpedoes inbetween them. The warheads zoomed past the fighters and into the enemy fleet to damage them at the best, or to at least distract them at the worst while the swarms of fighters closed in for the attack. Meanwhile, the sensor ship started emitting all sorts of interference that would hopefully jam whatever form of sensors the aliens were using. With any luck, not only would the aliens not be able to get a reading on what kind of ships they were engaging in battle with, but they would have a heck of a time just trying to get an accurate count on the number of Rhinaran vessels there, and their viewscreens would just be abuzz with snow.

((As my entire fleet is engaging only a small group of your ships, perhaps I could win and stage and invasion of one of your outer planets?
And yeah, this is seperate from the Ravages of the Plauge, I couldnt fit with the story there and figured that the intro was still ok))

"The echoes our sensors picked up were indeed cloaked ships," the Captain reported, eyeing the coughing cyborg in front of him nervously, never had the Admiral been so rash in engaging an established power.
"Have they engaged signal jammers?" the Kurtz wheezed.
"Yessir, our optics are up, however we've lost most other sensors until our techs can get them back online" the Captian replied.
"How long."
"A few minutes at most."
"Very good Captain Javis, deploy the fighters."

The fourteen, oblong, blunt carriers of Kurtz's fleet opened their hundreds of hangar bays, releasing a blizzard of fighters that swarmed between the advancing capital ships. The fighters were simple, V-shaped, pilotless drones armed with a powerful Guass cannon for bombarding heavy ships and two light plasma guns for fighter engagements. Where a cockpit would normally be was a single circular red eye. While the gauss cannon packed a considerable punch, the fighter's true stength was in sheer numbers... as they general lacked of intelligence and had only average speed.

"Taking missle fire," an officer on the bridge of Orthanc reported.
"Deploy sheilds." the captian ordered.

The massive, black, dagger shapped 'Super Battleship' Orthanc advanced in front of the other capital ships, who were replicas of it but half the size. As the Rhinarian torpedoes smashed into the hull of the leviathan, blue energy rippled across its surface and abosorbed the shots the armor could not.

"All ships fire," Kurtz wheezed as the sensors came back online and the hologram table in front of him began displaying the battle, "And hail their fleet Commander, I want to see who it is I'm fighting."

As the clouds of Dominion fighters collided with the Rhinarian squadrons, green, crackling shots from the capitol ships, guass shells, flew out to greet the frigates and cruisers of the Star Soveriegnty.

((Im new to Future tech RPing, my capital ships are all heavy battleship- type vessles along with carriers and non-combat factory ships. What would be a reasonably powerful, but not goddmoddish number of ships? remember, this is my ENTIRE fleet. thnx for any advice))

bump

'nother bump

The Dominion fighters flew out to meet their Rhinaran counterparts, countless speckles of light forming two huge wave fronts that would violently collide into each other in mere seconds. But just as the triangular drones opened up their Gauss cannon and plasma gun fire, before the two fronts were close enough to collide, the black forms of the Rhinaran fighters broke formation, snapped around in a quick and forceful 180-degree turn, and blasted back towards the Rhinaran starships, their impulse engines glowing bright red behind them. Several of the Dominion fighters' shots hit a few random Rhinaran fighters, blasting right through them and turning them into balls of fire and broken metal fragments. It was almost too easy. The rest of the Rhinaran fighters, however, twisted and dodged the incoming shots as if they had eyes behind them as they fled from the incoming Dominion ships at speeds faster than before.

Meanwhile, the frigates continued bombarding the invaders with torpedoes inbetween the retreating Rhinaran fighters, littering the intervening space between the two forces with dozens upon dozens of small, glowing warheads. The frigates were not necessarily attacking the closest enemy warships, nor were they attacking any single one in particular. One torpedo from a frigate could be aimed for a nearby enemy warship, while the torpedo shot immediately after that one could be aimed for a warship on the other side of the battlefield. And so, the torpedoes were shot unsystematically, weaving a web of random torpedo paths across the three-dimensional field. When the Rhinaran fighters made their sudden retreat before ever engaging the enemy fighters, the numerous torpedoes already flying through the dense formation of enemy fighters simultaneously detonated. All across the Dominion's half of the battlefield, the several dozen Rhinaran torpedoes exploded in midflight, turning into huge balls of energy and flames that expanded quickly to encompanse any small ships unfortunate enough to be caught in them. With any luck, this would take out a good portion of the Dominion fighters close enough to the detonations within their ranks.

With this signal, the Rhinaran fighters once again pulled another 180 and blasted back toward the Dominion ships. Red disruptor beams lashed out to cut the enemy drone fighters to pieces.

And so the true fighting began. The Dominion's gauss shells hit the larger Rhinaran vessels, and the bubble shield flashed an angry red in the areas hit by the enemy fire. After being hit a few times, though, the more mobile frigates and destroyers used their high evasive maneuvering abilities to move about in sudden, erratic directions in an attempt to overcome the tracking of the Dominion gauss cannons, thereby hopefully avoiding getting hit by moving out of the way before the cannon could be aimed very accurately.

The Rhinaran cruisers, however, were not as agile, and their larger profiles resulted in them taking more hits than did the frigates and destroyers, but this disadvantage was compensated for by their much tougher double shielding and stronger hull. When the Rhinaran warships opened fire, bolts of glowing red repulsor fires burst out of the cannons in rapid succession, pounding relentlessly into whatever got in their way.

"Incoming hail from the aliens," said the comm officer aboard the small fleet's flagship.

Commander Torren kept a steady eye on the viewscreen and other bits of information coming in to his armrest console. "Have they said anything?"

"Negative, sir."

"Then do not answer their hail." Torren tapped in a few commands onto his console. "Send them a text message in standard first-encounter languages. Tell them that they have trespassed into Star Sovereign space and have committed acts of war. They are to disarmed their weapons and stand down. End of message."

"Affirmative, sir." A few seconds later, "The message is sent."

The text message to the Dominion said just that, written in several of the most common languages spoken in the galaxy. None of them, of course, was the native tongue of the Rhinarans. No point in letting the enemy know more about you than need be, after all.

While tapping away at his console again, Commander Torren said, "Tell the Iventhal and Praathim to begin phase three."

In a few more seconds, many more energy signatures of cloaked ships would appear on sensors sophisticated enough to read it, coming in to flank both sides of the Dominion fleet.


(OOC: Bear in mind that winning is in the eye of the beholder ;) After all, certain Native American tribes considered tapping the enemy with a stick in battle is victory conditions a couple hundred years ago, whereas the US military of that time thought quite differently. But yes, seeing as how you have a much larger force there than I do, it'd be hard for me to defeat you at this time, so you can be the victor, in the traditional sense of the word.

As for fleet size? Well, that's a big question that can't be answered easily. A lot of times, it depends on who you're RPing with. I've seen some people who absolutely refuse to even believe in an all-space nation with no holdings on any planets. Me? I don't mind it that much, as long as it doesn't slip into the godmod range...which is what we're here to dicuss, sooooo... Well, first of all, since you have organic personnel in your fleet, then you're going to need a good number of ships producing food, unless you have replicator technology a la Star Trek. There's also energy production that you have to worry about, which requires slightly more logistics to handle than planet-based nations have to worry about. Organics also require a lot of space for living area, dining, waste removal, exercise, medical, recreation (which is even more important for an all-space-based nation, since they don't have planet-side vacations), etc., which means either a good chunk of your warships have to be dedicated to those purposes or you otherwise need a fair chunk of non-warships in your fleet to be dedicated to those purposes. I don't know the ratio of organics to inorganic sentient creatures in your nation, so it's hard to provide a number for the portion of non-combatant ships as compared to combatant ones. I'll leave that up your discretion. It's likely that non-combatant ships will outnumber combatant ones (even if you're mostly artificial lifeforms), not including those pilot-less fighters. After all, to keep an aggressive space-based nation going, there would need to be a lot of factories that are constantly churning out replacement parts from general wear and tear and from constant battles. You'll also need huge freighters to carry all the resources that you strip from the planets, and a good number of them too, unless you use them up so fast that you never have any additional resources in storage.

Now, for your fleet of all heavy battleships. The first thing you want to consider is size. The bigger they are, the fewer of them you'll have. To get some kind of number, let's look at the Battle of Cardassia during the Dominion War in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. That was the last battle of the war, and it was all or nothing, they both sides threw pretty much everything they had against the other. The three allied empires (the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans) had a combined fleet of over 1000 ships, which averages about 300-400 ships for each of those powers. Out of that, only a small portion of them were big battleships of Galaxy-class and Sovereign-class vessels, with the rest made up of smaller ships like Nebulae, Constitutions, and Defiants. So, let's say that 1/20 of those are big ships, which gives us 15-20 of them. Now keep in mind that these are huge empires (the Federation alone would have a population in the trillions), so given your nation's much smaller population, you may need to adjust accordingly. However, also note that the Dominion War has been going on for a few years now, so a number of their big warships would've been lost over the years. So if your nation never really went up against a superior or even an equal foe before, then you could potentially have more than 15-20 big warships.

Another example, if you don't watch Star Trek, is the Battle of Endor from Star Wars. The Empire had three dozen star destroyers (including the Executor), and the rebels had roughly a dozen large warships (one of which was actually a medical ship) plus several dozen smaller ones.

So, in my opinion, for a nation of your size, with your economy geared towards self-sufficiency in space with a war-filled lifestyle, I'd said no more than several dozen (maybe 50) Star Trek type battlecruisers (Sovereign, Negh'var, D'deridex, etc), with another 50 dedicated to civilians, whether it be food/energy production, factories, recreation, or what-have-you. For your standard Star Wars star destroyers, maybe 25-30, with 70-75 civilian vessels to support them. The bigger and more complicated your ships, the more non-combatant ships you need for every-day support, so I'd say stick around 100 or so ships total for now, not including fighters and stuff. As your nation grows and through more RP, your fleet can continue to grow. Just remember, while a nation of just starships is very flexible, it also has a lot of weaknesses that planet-based powers don't have to worry about as much.

Heh heh, hope I didn't bore you to death ;) I've got a question, though. Do your civilian (like the factory ships) ships in the rear have their shields up the whole time, or are they keeping them down until my ships come in weapons range, so as to conserve power, since that's a bigger issue for pure space powers?)

OOC thanks alot for all the advice, and the factory ships have no sheilding activated at the moment- but as you'll see they are surrounded by capital ships, and then carriers. But if you could sneak through those and hit one, crippling it momentarily it might make a good bit of action. My forces are a combination of Star Wars, Halo, and a bit of Real World Matrix tech... Im not much of a Trekkie. Any advice or critism of my RPing style/skills welcome

"Sir," the Captain said, "They've refused our hail, sending a standard 'stand-down' message in text."
"Get their commander on the screen, I want to- to see the face of my en...enemy," the Admiral responded, stifling coughs, "Hack into their comms if you must!"

The Dominion fleet advanced, ignoring the torpedoes sent hurtling their way. Seven of the 49 identical Battleships circled around the back of the fleet, forming a perfect sphere of warships around the (10) huge factory ships and (30) carriers.

The Dominion fighters, souless drones made solely for death, swarmed around the Rhinarian torpedoes- sacrificing themselves so that the heavy ships would not take the hit. But for every one destroyed, five took its place as the massive Dominion carriers deployed endless squadrons of the drones.

"Sir we are getting echoes around our flanks, we suspect cloaked ships," chirped a robotic officer on the Bridge of the Orthanc.
"Order the ships on our flanks to begin firing randomly, send out fighters to probe the left and right, and angle our sheilds accordingly" replied Kurtz, his robotic voice measured and calm.... he lived for this.
The Orthanc, twice the size as the Dominion ships and easily triple the largest Rhinarian vessel in the fight, turned so that its side faced the enemy.
"Tell our foward ships to focus all Guass fire on the nearest heavy cruiser, continue to fire laser weaponry at any fighters in range." the Admiral said, "Now give them a broadside."

Thousands of thick, crackling green beams of light flew from the Orthanc and the surrounding ships toward the nearest cruiser.

...November Sector Probe...status...green...all systems functioning properly...sensor reports...heavy energy fluctuations off November 7...request strike force to investigate...

Space Dock No. 64, Gargan System

"Load up, boys, probes report a battle off November 7, that's Rhinaran territory, too close for comfort. High Com is ordering us to investigate, over."

The captain of the Gigantor II battleship Pride of Cyronia spoke into the ship's comm system, as his battleship prepared to jump to the probe's slipspace signal, escorted by 20 escorts, including two carriers and a dozen Insurrection destroyers. He spoke once again. "All hands, prepare to jump, I want all ships alert as soon as we exit the wormhole, over." The bridge of the Cyronia began recieving numerous readiness reports from the various ships in the fleet. Once the final ship, the Foghorn, a Tempest class carrier, reported it was ready to go, the ships began to form up in a jump formation. Their slipspace generators powered up, and then ignited, cutting holes in real space, and disappearing in flashes of blue light.

Reentering probe-side, they went into formation, with the Cyronia leading, and the escorts cover it's flanks and the twin carriers. Fighter patrols consisting of SSF-34 Guardians fanned out, their delta formations cruising along the void. Establishing communications with the Rhinaran fleet was top priority, and soon, a hailing frequency was sent, asking if aid was needed.

Then, they saw it. November 7, once a rich world, was now one of fire and ash. Burned by pirates, no doubt. Sensors were going wild, there was a massive unknown fleet, numbering nearly one hundred, facing down the tiny Rhinaran fleet. The Cyronia immeditatly sent slipspace communications to fleet command, asking for reinforcements.

"All hands, general quarters, man your battle stations, prepare for immediate engagment, all ahead full. Let's go kill us some pirates!"

With that, the Velkyan fleet pushed it's drivers to full, as it cruised towards the battle, it's numerous missiles, lasers, MAC guns, rail drivers, and torpedoes ready to fight.

"Bigger and Better" is the common phrase used by Gadget Corporation when designing their products. If it's bigger, badder, stronger, and faster, it's undeniably better, at least in the eight eyes of Head R&D Coordinator Mort Glipman. As per his belief, much of this holds true; large vessels have not only the ability to change the tide of battle, but also have mental effects upon your opponent, and are capable of standing as imposing figures of opposition. Of course, bigger ships also have more room to place the outlandishly gigantic, purple-smiley-face GadgetCorp logos (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v649/Ycom/GCLogo.png) that can often be seen across the cosmos. Free marketing, after all, when your customers do the advertising for you.

One of Mort's favorite designs happens to be the Vortian Nanosaucer, which looks just like it sounds. Shaped like a humongous, flat disk, the impressive craft is well-armed, highly-maneuverable, and has plenty of room for an equally-humongous Logo on both its top and underside, much like a giant flying billboard. Strangely enough, the Nanosaucer is used more is reconnaissance, diplomatic, and exploration scenarios than it is in battle, despite its excellent efficiency and capability in combat. Most think that it was simply designed AS a giant, flying billboard instead of a ship of combat, and that the shield and weapons systems are just there for show. Strangely, those who say this don't seem to wonder why the hangers are always fully-stocked with Wraiths and AI Storms. However, no matter what the real truth may be, it is an undeniable fact that the Nanosaucer is the most common GadgetCorp ship in production that is used by the company.

Of course, as it happened, one of these vessels was sent to explore a sector that hadn't been investigated in the last Universal Year, in hopes of finding recently-advanced life forms, potential customers, and just doing a bit of expeditionary work for mapping out the sector after a careless employee spilled his coffee on the old files.
_________________________________________________________________

"Sector four?"

"Clear. No signs of life."

"Sectors five and six?"

"Sector five shows readings indicating a potential for life. Sector six has only dead systems."

These last words were followed by the squeak of leather, in turn accompanied by an exasperated sigh, as a bulky blue robot (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v649/Ycom/Mechanoids/G109Helper.png) leaned back into its leather chair. "Ever wonder why they send us out here?"

The droid next to him, of the same model, continued with his work at the terminal. "Because Jim spilled his coffee on the old map?"

"Besides that. All we ever find are dead-"

"He-llo!"

The lazing droid leaned forward, sputtering out a, "What?"

"Sensor readings indicate a high-level energy oscillation in the vicinity of sector twelve. We're also detecting a large amount of artificial level-4-and-below energy signatures in the area. Probably what's creating this flux. Should we check it out?"

"Might as well get rid of some of the boredom from this trip. Besides, Command will probably want us to check it out. Plot a course."

"Alright. Approximate arrival time is T-Minus one-point-three-two-seven-four minutes and counting."

(OOC: I've got other plans for the factory ships, but thanks for the opportunity!)

IC:
The Rhinaran fighters unleashed their disruptors and microtorpedoes, creating as much chaos along the Dominion battlelines as possible. The Dominion's anti-fighter laser fire struck a number of the Rhinaran fighters. Some such strikes caused the fighters' red energy shields to flare, while others simply sliced right through the fighters without any effort, turning them into pieces of debris. Other fighters got in the way of some of the gauss cannon shots, some causing the gauss shells to ricochet back with a burst of red shields and an unexpected jerk of the fighter, while other gauss shells tore right through the fighters as if they were nothing.

The signals of cloaked ships showed that they continued slowly moving in on the flanks of the Dominion fleet, yet moving around just enough to avoid being hit by the random fire from the enemy warships and fighters.

The destroyers moved in close to one of the regular battleships, hugging as close to the enemy ship as possible without colliding with their shields. Using their superior maneuverability and their much smaller size to their advantage, the destroyers flew circles around the Dominion battleships, attempting to be so close to it that its normal weapons against warships would have difficulty locking on, and any other Dominion battleships that wanted to shoot at the destroyers would risk hitting their own battleship should they miss.

Of the two cruisers, the one in the lead began pulling up as the bombardment of gauss cannons focused on it. The shells blasted through the cruiser and right out the other side like nothing, riddling it with holes and causing small explosions visible on the hull of the cruiser, but otherwise miraculously not slowing it down. The cruiser continued to fire, though most of the shots missed the Dominion vessels that it aimed at.

The other cruiser also pulled up, but kept its distance from the first cruiser to prevent from being hit by stray gauss shells. Its torpedoes and disruptor fire strafed the front ranks of the Dominion battleships to sow more disarray in the group.

On the bridge of the flagship, a slight smile graced the edges of Commander Torren's lips as he watched the viewscreen, which showed the Dominion battleships on the flanks of their formation firing randomly at the cloak signatures. "So they can detect cloaked vessels. They're more advanced than they appear. Or at the least managed to steal the technology."

"Commander," came the communications officer once again. "Incoming hail from the Velkyans. They are approaching at full speed and wish to inquire as to whether we need assistance or not."

Torren took in a deep breath. "They're going to ruin everything," he expelled quietly between this teeth. Speaking up in his normal volume, the commander said, "Return with a tightbeam message. Tell them that we will gladly accept their aid against these trespassers who opened hostilities without warning. However, we are in the midst of a very precarious yet vitally important operation. Please hold back for the moment, and they will receive a message from us in one minute regarding the status of said operation. End message."

***

Meanwhile, down on the surface of the planet and under heavy cloak, a trio of vessels moved mere meters off of the ground. Having injected themselves into the ruined planet's atmosphere on the far side, away from the battle and the prying eyes of sensors, they snuck back towards the closer side of the planet while masking their signature into that of the planet's. The three ships stopped in the shadows of a mountain range.

On the darkened bridge of the destroyer Praathim, the leader of the three ships, Subcommander Norvalis asked, "Have the colonists been located?"

"Yes, sir," the operations officer replied. "Sensors reading over a thousand Rhinaran biosignatures across several of the non-combatant ships at the center of the enemy formation. None of those ships are shielded."

"Well done, sublieutenant," Novalis said with a slight nod of her head. "Start making transporter locks on as many of those signatures as possible. Tell the other two ships to do the same. On my mark, we will begin beaming procedures."

"The other two ships confirm their readiness, and are standing by," said the comms officer.

The subcommander said a single word: "Now."

All together, the three ships hiding in the valley between the mountains decloaked and their secondary stealth systems immediately went up. Energy signatures were cut low and the active camouflage on the hull of their ships changed to look like the surrounding ground. Combined with the simultaneous jamming from the sensor ship and the cloak signatures harassing the flank of the alien fleet, the Dominion would hopefully be too distracted to notice the three little ships all the way down on the planet surface.

As the cloak dropped, the three ships immediately began beaming the Rhinaran colonists that the recently Dominion enslaved off of the unshielded factory ships. The instant one group of colonists were beamed off in a mere two seconds, the transporters were already working on beaming the next group over, giving no breathing room to pause even for a nanosecond. After all, if the aliens noticed what was happening on their factory ships, they may put up countermeasures before all of the Rhinaran colonists were rescued.

***

Back onboard the flagship of the Rhinaran fleet, the communications officer noticed a slight oddity in the comms traffic, but shrugged it off. It was probably nothing. And so the Dominion slowly began hacking into the Rhinaran comm system. But being the secretive people that they were, Rhinaran communications technology had many, many safeguards against outsider intrusions. Thus, hacking into the system would take, especially for those unfamiliar with the Rhinarans, a very long time. A dozen minutes at the best to get through the outer shell of electronic defenses, but likely more on the scale of hours.

(OOC: By the way, I'll be out almost all day Saturday, so I won't get a chance to respond until Sunday. Maybe Saturday night.)

On board the Slave Ship Industria

Four Rhinarians lay down in their cramped bunk room, their thin, filthy matresses squeaking with the slightest movement. The room was a tiny cube with a toliet in one corner and a showerhead in another. The steel walls were coated in some places with rust, in others with splatters of blood. Cheap yellow lighting flickered sporatically in the tiny compartment, and the loudhumm of outdated air filters nixed any chance of sleep for the poor colonists. All day they had been forced to work on an assembly line producing Dominion drone fighters next to ancient droids and slaves from various galaxies and empires, all under the watchful, unblinking eyes of Dominion war droids- metallic, skeletal figures, each with one, red glaring round eye and armed with plasma rifles and electrostaffs. Other than their fellow slaves, none had seen any forms of life on the ship- it seemed to be completely automated. Then again, they had seen less than 1% of the massive factory complex...
Above the Rhinarian's cots, mounted on the wall, was a large round red eye- recording all that happened in the room.
A loud buzz, followed by a flash of light... and the Rhinarians disappeared. The odd occurence was sent to the factory co-ordinator, yet another robot, on board the Orthanc.

On Board SuperBattleship Orthanc

"This is Captain Reinhart of the Terror Admiral, requesting permission to end firing at Cruiser 185 and engage Rhinarian destroyers," said the hologram in front of the Admiral. Behind the image of the captain was a hologram of the Terror which was under heavy fire from two destroyers that were hugging the ship's outline by what seemed like inches.
Kurtz coughed and said, "Permission granted."
Behind his metallic mask, a heavly scarred and twisted face smiled. Captain Reihhart was a lunatic, a verfied psychopath, which was why he had joined the Dominion... it would be interesting to see how he 'engaged' the two destroyers.
"Sir, more ships in bound, suspected hostiles..." a droid on the bridge reported.
"Hail them, open fire only when they do... order the Hammer, Star Bane,
and Executor to prepare to engage... drone squadrons on board the Hive (a carrier) are to ready themselves to take on the newcomers." stated the Admiral

"The target cruiser is taking heavy damage," Captain Javis stated, watching the holograms fight over the strategy table.
"Order the charge," Kurtz said.

The Orthanc, flanked by the Battleships Valhalla and Sunrise left the main Dominion formation and charged straight for the main cluster of Rhinarians ships, guns blazing. Explosions rippled across the Orthanc's incredible sheilding as it drew torpedo and laser fire. All around it, the superior Rhinarian fighters clashed in impressive dogfights with the unending tide of drones. Kurtz watched amusedly as a fighter outmanuvered two drones and vaporized them with well placed shots only to be cut to peices by anti-fighter plasma fire from the Orthanc just outside the bridge windows.
"Have we located th-their flagship?" the Admiral asked.
"Yessir, our sensors pick up most of the communication relays coming from this ship here." the captian replied, pointing to a Rhinarian vessel on the hologram table.
"Deploy the pods..."
From two heavily fortified notches in the sides of the daggershaped Dominion flagship, hundreds of 'pods', small vessels triple the size of fighters and filled with Dominion wardroids, zoomed out into space towards Commander Torren's ship. None had any weaponry, but instead were heavily sheilded and each had three drone escort.

The Bridge of Captian Reinharts Battleship, Terror

Captian Reinhart smiled the smile a lunatic. In one of his hands was a standard Dominion plasma pistol, with his free hand he gripped the manual controls to his huge ship. The Terror shook as a destroyer flew over the bridge, unleashing an assortment of weapons into the hull.
"We're losing pressure captain," a droid officer reported.
"Lock down all air systems, stablize us boyo!" the captian replied, laughing.

The Rhinarian vessel prepared to turn and make another pass.
Reinhart's green eyes watched the smaller ship with wild interest, his scarred grinning face never even flinced as a deflected guass shell exploded on the reinforced duraglass of the bridge windows, causing the lights to flicker.
The Destroyer swung around, its nose headed straight at the bridge. The psychopathic captain's hand tightened on the controls of the Terror.
As the Destroyer swooped down over the battleship, firing wildly, Reinhart pushed up on the controls of his vessel. The Battleship tilted madly- crashing into the Rhinarian destroyer. Bolts of electricity shot across both hulls as the sheilds connected. The computers and holograms on Reinhart's bridge flickered on and off; for a moment the artificial gravity failed, sending officer corp into the air and crashing back down just as suddenly. The captain laughed as he wiped the blood from his nose.

((What happens to the destroyer when a battleship crashes into it I leave up to you, also the Dominion doesnt yet know about the colonists your stealing back))

The Battle in Space

Being much smaller than the battleship Terror, the little Rhinaran destroyer stood little chance in a near head-on collision. Its shields did its best to offer what protection it could, but was sadly not enough. The now unshielded hull of the destroyer grated against the shields of the battleship at high speeds and tore itself apart, unleashing a fiery trail in its wake and undoubtedly causing much damage to the Dominion battleship and whatever may remain of its shields. It did not take long for the other destroyer to pull away from the battleship, in case the Dominion vessel should try that tactic a second time. Yet, it stayed just close enough and out of the way of the battleship's main weaponry enough to still be a challenge for the much larger vessel to target it. That desperate act of ramming must have weakened the battleship, and the second destroyer would do its best to finish it off by targetting weak spots in the shields and hull.

On the bridge of the Rhinaran flagship, Commander Torren frowned at the sight of the pods heading toward his ship. "Report," he said.

"They appear to be modules," the ops officer began. "Outfitted with engines and shields, but no weaponry."

"Any known explosives in the modules?" Torren asked.

The ops officer said, "Negative."

"Boarding pods, then," said the commander. "Lock all forward weapons on the pods and fire. Have the torpedo frigates shoot down as many as they can. Slowly swing us about to 270 mark 10. Prepare the pressure beams and full impulse on my command, and tell me when those modules are within 1.5 kilometers of us. Have the Iventhal step up its jamming." The commands rolled off his tongue in quick succession, but his trained and mostly experienced bridge crew were able to follow all of it with relative ease, as the various department only had one or two of those commands each.

The main disruptor cannon on the nose of the second cruiser blasted large, elongated globes of disruptor pulses into the pods coming at it while the two forward-facing torpedo tubes simultaneously launched eight photon torpedoes each, with a reloading period of four seconds for the next round of fire. Each photon torpedo ought to be enough to knock out the small Dominion pods, if not outright obliterate them and their drone escorts with its explosive yield.

Meanwhile, the frigates turned their attention to the pods, pounding their new prey from the side. Even with the combined firepower of the cruiser and these frigates, taking out all of those hundreds upon hundreds of Dominion pods before they would reach the cruiser would be neigh impossible.

The five smallish corvettes weaved their way through the dizzying swarm of Rhinaran and Dominion fighters, blasting at any drones that got in their way, to get to the rear of the Orthanc/Valhalla/Sunrise formation to attack the rearmost ship from its back.

The sensor ship started flooding the local space with transmissions of all forms, from long wavelengths to high frequencies, from low delta signals to ultrahigh theta bands, all designed to bombard the Dominion sensors and communications systems with so much information that they would hopefully overload and not be able to function properly, thus making them both blind and deaf. If successful, then the pods would not be able to aim at the second cruiser, Dominion weapons will fail to lock on target, and the factory ships would not be able to send any transmissions to the factory coordinator robot aboard the Orthanc, among other things. If...

Planetside

With each of the three destroyers beaming twelve people every two seconds, 1080 Rhinaran souls would be rescued after a minute, and that minute mark was nearing. Upon the beaming of the last of the colonists by two of the destroyers, the third one would be beaming twelve photon torpedo warheads onto one of the factory ships that did not currently hold any Rhinarans captive. Each of the warheads would be placed in strategic locations, such as the main bridge, power generators, and near the engines, and would go off mere seconds after being beamed up to give the aliens little to no warning. Of course, this required that their rescue attempts continue to go unnoticed and the selected locations remain unshielded by the time enough of the colonists have been retrieved to warrant this backdoor attack.

(OOC: Whether I get all of my people back and manage to beam those warheads onto one of your factory ships, and the damage the warheads do to your ship if successful, is up to you.)

11 ships from the Star Kingdom of Telepany came into real space on the edge of the system. 5 frigates (2 flack and 3 ion cannon) 3 destroyers 1 prototype cruiser (with no traditional wepons) and 2 fleet carriers.


"This is Commodore Lorn from Telepany's 3rd task force we were hunting pirates in the area and we SHI... " as he saw the huge blob on his screen.

Quickly tuning the open comm off he barked "Battle formation, Carriers launch everything they got, sensors and shields on max. Get me communications with the Rhinaran flagship and tell him we're coming to his aid!"

Just then 10 Pulsar gunships and 30 Interceptor fighters and 15 Hydron bombers shot from the carriers hangers and and formed a defensive sphere around he fleet as it moved twords the intertwined fleets. Although, it looked like it would be too late do help.


OOC: most of my ships are Homeworld 2 (Higaran) based and this is my first time attemping a space battle so if I mess up please tell me and ill try to correct it.
Also my home (and only) system is in a nebula that creates extremely powerful emp blasts so my shields and sensors are noticably stronger to compensate

Slave Ship Industria
“They… vanished,” said the officer, running a hand through his short hair.
“Are you sure there was no error in the computer system?” Captain Harrison demanded, a cigarette smoldering in his mouth.
“Yes,” the officer said, “We’ve checked and rechecked the data.”
“Then it must be a teleportation device… deploy the shields, see how many Rhinarians we have left on board.” the Captain said, “Send word to Orthanc, there must be ships outside their range.”
“Sir the comms are down, we’re receiving to many signals… they could be jamming us.” The officer replied, looking at the computer bank in front of him confusedly.

Bridge of Orthanc
“Admiral, our sensors are overloaded…” a comm. officer reported.
“They’re jamming us, cut all non-essential transmissions- incoming or outgoing. Establish communication, first priority. Focus all other sensors on locating the enemy,” Kurtz growled, “There’s the sensor ship, fire guns 12-183 manually- tear it to pieces.”

As the massive spaceship opened fire on Iventhal, the Valhalla quickly turned and delivered a powerful broadside barrage on the corvettes encircling the three ships. Inaccurate due to the Iventhal’s jamming of its tracking system, guass shells from Orthanc’s escort ripped through not only the corvettes, but the surrounding fighters, Dominion or Rhinarian.

Rhinarian Command Ship
As the massive, jet black hull of Orthanc came to rest just above the Rhinarian flagship, several well shielded Dominion pods collided with the Cruiser’s hull. As effective as the proton torpedoes were, many of the pods survived the barrage due to the Orthanc’s anti-fighter plasma fire targeting any missiles that the drones did not purposely collide with.

Inside the cruiser, the walls of several corridors blew inward, revealing cold metallic tunnels that led to Dominion pods. Skeletal robots, each with a single red eye, came forth from the modules, most armed with plasma rifles- others with guass cannons. And yet the boarders were not the least of Commander Torren’s concerns, as the Orthanc was now drawing the ship towards one of its hangar bays with a powerful tractor beam.

The Terror
“Hull integrity maintained, increased stress on infrastructure in sections 23, 25, 28,” the officer shouted to a cackling Reinhart.
“Did you see those flames?!” the mad captain shrieked, his child like eyes fixed on the floating debris just outside the bridge, “Beauti-ful!”
“Captain, we are losing engine pressure… we need to get to the nearest slave ship or we’ll be stranded…” the officer said.
“Full power to the engines!” the captian shouted…
“But sir!”
Reinhart fired a plasma bolt just left of the officers ear, who quickly diverted all power to the engines.
The Terror nose dived as the Rhinarian destroyer turned to make a pass, leaving the smaller vessel exposed to the fire of two other battleships. Each vessel fired a devastating broadside at the destroyer, filling the void with green, crackling guass.

((I wrote this quickly, sorrry for typos and poor structure. You DID get the warheads on board, I just didnt mention them.))

Planetside
As the last of the colonists were being beamed off by two of the destroyers hiding on the planet, the third destroyer sent the payload of a dozen photon warheads up to the Dominion Industria with a one second delay. After materializing in what the Rhinarans judged as key locations on the factory ship, the warheads counted down the one second and blew. In each of the warheads, three kilograms of matter and anti-matter collided to create a 60+ megaton blast, stronger than any nuclear weapon in the arsenal of 20th century Earth but without the radioactive sideffects. Just pure energy. The combined might of all twelve of the warheads situated in areas that would potentially create secondary explosions from the Industria's engines and power sources would hopefully be enough to reduce the gigantic behemoth to rubble.

Without waiting, each of the three destroyers now began beaming up twelve more warheads to take out three more factory ships. With any luck, the jamming from the Iventhal would still be keeping the other nine factory ships from knowing what was happening, and their shields would still be down. If not, the warheads would just be redirected to right next to the factory ships' shields. With twelve warheads around each ship, a 750+ megaton blast ought to give the Dominion ships a good beating nonetheless.

In Space
The sensor ship was far in the back when the Orthanc's guns opened fire on it. As the shots blasted toward the Rhinaran vessel, a group of them seemed to disappear, and the space around the area where the shots disappeared shimmered unpleasantly for a moment before it went away, and then the shots from the Dominion battleship flew back on course again without further interference. At the same time the shimmering occured, numerous vessels, including the forward cruiser that originally got all the beating, and several hundred of the fighters, flickered in and out uncertainly before resolidifying and continuing to fight.

While sitting still to begin with, the sudden barrage of shots fired at it forced the Iventhal to start moving. Even with well over a hundred guns were aimed at it, its distance from the fighting and the fact that the guns were aimed manually gave it plenty of breathing room as most of the gauss shells zipped harmlessly past the side of the sensor ship. Not all missed, however, and those that struck their target were either repelled by the shields or, if they managed to sneak past it, sometimes embedded themselves into the armored hull of the sensor ship, somethings punching through to deal out more punishment inside. But the damage was done, as a few of the shells hit both secondary emitter arrays, cutting down the ship's abilities by a half. The change was noticeable as the jamming decreased its effectiveness and, if anyone happened to be paying attention at the time, a small number of the cloak signatures along the flanks of the Dominion line ceased to exist. As the impulse drives came to life, the sensor ship started speeding up to half the speed of light - a speed hard to keep up with by manual targetting - to dodge the gauss shells.

While the corvettes were stronger than fighters, they were still weak compared to warships. And so, of the five corvettes, one was hit on the port wing by the Valhalla, ripping small holes into the wing structure. The corvette began turning out of control before it managed to stabilize and slow itself down, but it was otherwise dead in the water. The other four moved behind the Valhalla and concentrated their firepower there, in an attempt to break through the shielding and hit the engines from behind.

The destroyer attacking the Terror suddenly met with two warships' worth of gauss shells full in the face. The shields became a solid red projection for what seemed an eternity as the destroyer began to spiral haphazardly down toward the Terror. As the destroyer moved out of the bulk of the gauss fire and back near the moving Terror, the shields faded back to its transparent state to show scars across the surface of the ship and gas leaking out of a couple of spots to leave a trail behind the vessel. But the destroyer was a tough little ship, and it continued using the Terror as its shield against the other Dominion warships while it did all it could to bring the Terror to the grave.

As for the Rhinaran flagship, it attempted to jump to full impulse right before the pods could crash through the hull, but the Orthanc's tractor beam prevented that attempt. When the Dominion boarders exited their pods and entered the cruiser's corridors, they were met with no one. Instead, there was a flash of light and a buzz at regular intervals along the corridor as security forcefields were raised, cutting the invaders off from access to the rest of the ship through powerful internal shielding.

While some of the torpedo frigates continued to shoot down any more pods aimed for the cruiser, a few others turned their attention to the Orthanc. To get the cruiser into the hangar bay, the Dominion warship's shield must go down - at least, around the hangar bay. And so, some of these frigates began firing into the unshielded hangar bay, delicately aiming the torpedoes inbetween the cruiser and the Orthanc, while others fired at the tractor beam to destroy it before it could draw the cruiser in. They were joined by the cruiser itself as the Rhinaran flagship blasted both tractor beam and the interior of the hangar with its variety of energy and projectile weapons. A volley of photon torpedoes ought to do good work against unshielded hangar bays, especially now that the two ships were so close that the Orthanc's anti-fighter defenses had virtually no time to lock onto the fast-moving torpedoes.

"The Praathim reports that all colonists have been retrieved," the communications officer on the bridge of the Rhinaran flagship said.

"Send a message to the Velkyans! Tell them that we are done, and that they are most welcomed to join us in battle!" Commander Torren ordered. The situation was quickly growing ugly, and help would be gladly accepted against these foul creatures that invaded without warning.

The comms officers spoke up again, "Incoming message from the Star Kingdom of Telepany. Their fleet is engaging the invaders as well."

"Give them our thanks," said Torren. "Coordinate our efforts with both fleets. Have them distract the hostiles to give the Praathim wing time to escape unnoticed."

Commodore Lorn aboard the fleet carrier HMS Truth barked out "Alpha and Omega squadrons help out the Rhinaran fighters. Beta squadron cover the bombers as they make a pass on that ship thats dueling with the Rhiaran Destroyer. Move the Ion frigates and destroyers to max range on that fleet. Have the lancer, the carriers, and the Flak frigates stay back"
The Flag captian exclaimed "But Sir, we were given the Lancer to test it out and this looks like as good of a time as any, and even if they get it it's useless in Telepany"
The Commodore replied "It maybe useless aginst us but if they manage to copy the technology it could be used aginst our allies, others, and I will not let these monsters use our wepons to kill others. Also it is only medium ranged with light armor so it would be shreded before it could do any good"

Shortly after the orders were given the comms officer reported "They want us to help distract them from Praathim wing, whatever that is."
Lorn paused for a moment then said "Change of plans move the lancer and flack frigates up with the destroyers and Ion frigates but keep the lancer out of range unless I say and if they target the lancer pull it back"

The Orthanc
Two Rhinarian torpedoes smashed into the hangar bay, filling it with fire and chunks of twisted metal. Just before the rest of the torpedoes could enter, causing more infrastructure damage, the shields deployed- cutting off the tractor beam and momentarily releasing Torren’s command ship. The cruiser’s liberty was short lived, however, as the Sunrise, cruising parallel to the much larger Orthanc, caught the Rhinarian vessel in its own tractor beam. Instead of pulling it inward, the tractor beam held the cruiser in place, trapping it between the Sunrise and Orthanc. Both ships let lose volley after volley of guass shells at the cruiser, as well as small EMP missiles- meant to disrupt its communication with the rest of the fleet. As the cruiser sat motionless, both Dominion capital ships released swarms of boarding pods- some aimed at the Flagship and others at the frigates.

The Valhalla
Eight large, heavily armed and shielded drones rocketed out of the Battleship’s hangar bays- each armed with four plasma turrets and three guass cannons each. The robotic heavy fighters dodged the smaller drones clashing with Rhinarian vessles all around them, their single red eyes fixed on the corvettes. Once in range the heavy drones unleashed a barrage of small missiles and plasma fire, meant to drive the corvettes away from the Valhalla’s rear.

On Bridge of the Industria
“Find the rest!” the captain cried, wiping his forehead. A sentry drone on board had found an active warhead by a munitions stockpile… the Rhinarians had beamed active weapons aboard the ship…
“Six more found, and disa-” an officer on the bridge reported, before explosions rocked the ship. The lights on the bridge failed, the computer systems blinked in and out.
“Sir!” the officer shouted, “Major infrastructure damage, factories 1-86 have been wiped out, as have resource stores 3,5,8.”
“What of the engine!” the captain, bordering hysterics, demanded.
“Engines stable, we found- sonofa… sir the Industria’s integrity has been compromised… the ship is cleaving in two…”
“Send emergency broadcasts to all Dominion ships,” the captain said- the sound of wrenching metal could be heard in the background, “We need to land to repair, bring us into November 7’s atmosphere.”

In the center of the Dominion Formation
The slave ships, which had deployed their shields shortly after the Industria, cut engine power and diverted all energy to shielding as soon as calamity befell the Industria. Still, the heaviest shields at full power can only do so much against a 60+ megaton blast. The warheads exploded in space, ripping massive tears through the factory ships’ armor.
After the catastrophe, all of the slave ships (which still had engine power, the rest were dragged via heavy tractor beams), twenty battleships and ten carriers left the battle and entered November 7’s now-radioactive atmosphere... the Dominion’s bombardment of the planet would leave it irradiated and desolate for millennia to come.

The Valhalla
Several of the medium fighters chased after the heavy drones, firing off their pair of disruptors and their microtorpedoes onto the eight drones. The corvettes, being larger than fighters, were less maneuverable, but had better defenses. One of the corvettes was knocked out of commission in the original rush of the heavy drones, but the other three quickly retaliated, combining their firepower on a single heavy drone. They then initiated tractor locks onto seperate heavy drones, using their higher mass to pull the smaller drones along. Using both the tractor and pressure beams, two of the corvettes swung their targetted heavy drones into each other to blow them both up, while the third corvette dragged its heavy drone and launched it at the rear of the Valhalla in hopes of dashing it to pieces against the shields.

Planetside
When the rest of the factory ships raised their shields, the three destroyers recloaked and prepared to sneak back out from the far side of the planet. But then part of the Dominion fleet approached the planet, and the destroyers paused. Under heavy cloak, and further masked by the heavy radiation of the planet, they watched as various factory ships were tractored back to the world. If they were damaged so badly that their engines would not work, their shields were bound to be down as well, or at the least a very minimal. Perhaps even the Industria, most heavily damaged of them all. This, of course, meant that a shieldless, uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere would deal the final blow to them, burning them up and breaking them into fragments to rain down on the world they destroyed just hours earlier.

"Use the nacelle collectors," said Subcommander Norvalis aboard the Praathim. "Gather as much of the radiation as possible and have them in concentrated form in six torpedoes. Have a ten percent mixture of theta radiation (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Theta_radiation) in each. Advise the other two ships to do the same."

Theta radiation by itself had the ability to do slight damage against shields not designed to contain them, but more importantly, they were very effective against sensors, basically doing the equivalent of putting a brick wall in front of one's eyes. While the destroyers did not have very much theta radiation, a small mixture of that plus the concentrated and localized radiation readily available to the Rhinarans would create large pockets of space that could disable sensors, tractor beams, and the likes. With the tractor beams disabled and the sensors blinded, the damaged factory ships would crash into the planet and none of the other Dominion ships would be able to do a thing about it. At least, that was the plan.

As so, upon the Dominion ships' entrance into the atmosphere, well within the gravitational pull of the planet, the three destroyers decloaked not far behind them, screaming at full thrusters and letting loose an irradiated torpedo at each of the tractor beam emitters tugging along a damaged factory ship, and at the factory ships' engines. This was immediately followed by other torpedoes that detonated at various points in the projected free fall path of the factory ships to prevent them from being retractored lower in the atmosphere. As the radiation fields expanded, the three destroyers began their jump into transwarp to get out of there as quick as possible.

Rhinaran Flagship
The hull of the cruiser was riddled with little explosions as the shields began to fail. It continued firing upon the tractor beam emitters to free itself, as it had little else it could do, and it was on the brink of destruction.

The frigates were faring better, though. Since the pods would have to travel at high velocities to ram and breach a hull, their turning radius would be virtually non-existant until they slowed down and re-aimed themselves at a moving target. Either way, the frigates would simply dodge them or outrun them, all the while continuing to unload their endless supply of torpedoes into the surrounding space to destroy drones, pods, and the tractor beam emitters holding the cruiser in place.

20 fighters from Telepany finally got in range of the massive fighter battle and each launched their 2 long range anti-fighter missiles then closed in with their guns and their 2 short range anti-fighter missiles in a desperate attempt to lessen the odds aginst them.

Slightly behind them the other 10 fighters escorting the 15 bombers changed course as the bomber commander changed the target to the Sunrise tractor beam hoping to get a lucky shot through the shields.

Noticably farther back the Ion frigates with the gunships closed in on the Terror to add their wepons to the fray.

Much father back the destroyers, flak frigates and the cruiser moved as fast as they could to get to the battle with the destroyers and cruiser redlining their drives at 130% praying that nothing would give.

((Sorry on the late post. A bit of a spotty internet connection lately.))

As the battle raged on, the massive saucer, positioned just correctly so that it was only slightly visible, considering its unique thinness, sat observing. The two pilots of the craft were currently watching from the main viewport on the bridge, mindlessly "drinking" several cans of oil as they watched on, much like one would watch a holovision show or a Grungeball game.

Beebeep!

"Man, that beeping has been going on forever!"

"Beeping? You dolt! That's the telecomm alert! The message is twelve minutes old!...Huh. Looks like it's from the, uh...I don't know who they are. Looks like it's from the ones on the left though." The robot pointed towards the Industrian ships. "Too bad you were too much of an idiot to answer it...Oh, maybe they left a message." The mechanoid pressed several buttons upon the console in front of it.

Nothing happened.

"Huh...Nope. Well, it was probably just a hailing message anyway. Should we respond?"

"Oh, sure why not. They don't look too busy." The thing obviously didn't take the battle too seriously for the moment.

The image of the GadgetCorp logo filled the screen for several moments, before it switched to the image of the two robots, situated in the roomy interior of the ship's bridge.

"Uh...." The robot on the right turned to look at his companion, then turned back to the screen. "Uh, yes, hello...We..."

The second robot finished his statement with a, "We noticed that you sent us some sort of hailing telecomm earlier. Terribly sorry we were so rude as not to answer. Just that we were, um...Preoccupied with something."

"Yes, preoccupied. That's it. Anyway, uh...Did you require something? A little help in your predicament, or are you just another customer?"

(( I apologize for not being able to post today, I will respond tommorrow))

Im really sorry about not posting, but Ive recently been swamped with work and school stuff. I hate to abandon this, but life comes first. You guys have my permission to wipe out the Dominion fleet if you wish, in any way you want.
Sorry again.