NationStates Jolt Archive

"However we need to implement these measures safely. I agree with the warnings but what kind. Warning beacons?"

Fusion

They were ready. They would start. They launched. Something left the Fusion atmosphere. Something big...

"Ideally, the right type of warning would alert a crew before they came two close to the planet's surface. A beacon would be sufficient if we deployed them in large enough numbers. I'm thinking maybe a kind of grid around the planet that will provide a powerful enough warning to alert people if they are coming to close" Mason digressed.

"Agreed. We should set it up asap." As Tarnis stopped speaking, a military officer walked in a whispered in Tarnis' ear. Tarnis' eyes widened.

"Something has just come to my attention. Approximately 30 minutes ago one of MilComm's satellites picked up something leaving the Fusion atmosphere. Initial scans class it as a ship but we do not know what kind. We need immediate action!"

Mason frowned at the news
"A Vessel? Do we know what make or type it is? What are it's weapons? How many crew does it have? I think it is important to know this information before we try and confront it. Standard Alversian Procedure. Shadow the ship with something smaller and manoourverable that can send scanner reports back to us while we assemble a fleet of 'heavies' to deal with it. That way, we won't stumble in blind and we know what we are facing."
Mason looked at Tarnis to see if he agreed. It would be a risky strategy, but no riskier than sending a fleet in to confront something about which they knew nothing.

Mason frowned at the news
"A Vessel? Do we know what make or type it is? What are it's weapons? How many crew does it have? I think it is important to know this information before we try and confront it. Standard Alversian Procedure. Shadow the ship with something smaller and manoourverable that can send scanner reports back to us while we assemble a fleet of 'heavies' to deal with it. That way, we won't stumble in blind and we know what we are facing."
Mason looked at Tarnis to see if he agreed. It would be a risky strategy, but no riskier than sending a fleet in to confront something about which they knew nothing.
"Quite frankly, Admiral," said Lintel calmly, "no one has ever encountered a situation like this, so a ship would be equally mysterious. However, this proves that these things are dangerious. If they can get offworld, they can probably use their influence to destroy other planets. I suggest a recon fighter, or a fast-moving probe, to check out this vessal. Whatever we do, it must be decided and done quickly."

Kaori listened knowing this would be an ideal mission for her ship and crew. With their cloaking device and small agile ship they could stay out of trouble and send back scans.

"I'd like to suggest 'Fukido Bay' for that job. We have the ways and means to stay out of trouble and stay undetected as we scan" she softly said.

"Well our planet should be safe. Should they approach, the planetary defense system, Watchdog will go active. Nothing will get through that amount of firepower. But for the meantime, if you and the crew of Fukido Bay are willing to track their ship I see no reason why you shouldn't. Are we in agreement?"

It couldn't decelerate enough... it was heading straight towards it. Gabriel did not have much to say as he was not a very good orator, he was only listening and watching the events, but as the reports of the strange ship arrived his image disappeared from the projector as a last transmission reached Londim from him:

"1 Astronomical Unit away and approaching! I cannot retreat the MCLR, I repeat, I cannot retreat my starship. I'll be in range for engagement and scan in 7 hours but..." - transmission ends abruptly -

´"It closed... at least this means nothing more will come from the Shadow. But now I have this thing."´ was what he mind wondered as the missile cruiser continued heading towards the alien craft, the speed of his cruiser decelerating until, once almost in range to fire against it, reaching 2720 meters per second, the maximum combat speed.

That would happen in 7 hours from now... he was ready to fight... for mankind's supremacy.

"Well our planet should be safe. Should they approach, the planetary defense system, Watchdog will go active. Nothing will get through that amount of firepower. But for the meantime, if you and the crew of Fukido Bay are willing to track their ship I see no reason why you shouldn't. Are we in agreement?"
"I support this." said Lintel. Ginta nodded and flashed a quick grin at Karoi.

"I'd like to suggest 'Fukido Bay' for that job. We have the ways and means to stay out of trouble and stay undetected as we scan" she softly said.

"Hmm... if Neo Kirisubo wants to volunteer for the mission, im fine with that," quietly says Genesis.

Dont like this at all... Fusion is where it came from.... maybe i should sent small recon team of mobile suits to the area around there.... but... no i will do that, Genesis though to himself. Then Genesis signaled to Lao to muted the conference for a moment. "yes, Commander?" asked Captian Lao. "What is it?" "I want you to organize a small recon team and have them ready within the hour," ordered Genesis. "I understand Commander. It will be done," confidently replied Lao. "And Lao, unmute the conference", reminded Genesis.

Uknown Object

They floated through space looking for any sign of those that had disturbed them. They had power but so did the ones they sought. Events would be interesting.For now they would send a message for all to hear:



We are looking for those who found us.We are looking for what you possess. We are the Kezarn.

Kaori returned a little smile to Ginta and said to the meeting "I'll head back to my ship and we'll leave right away.

I'll keep in touch with MilComm as we have news and gather our scans."

She rose to her feet and tapped her comm badge. With a few words of command a transporter beam had whisked her into her shuttlecraft and she was heading back to her ship.

##

Ten minutes later 'Fukido Bay' was leaving Londim and once they picked up the contact they cloaked.

Kaori was concerned about the message they were able to pick up and translate from this giant ship but passed it on anyway along with their scans as they continued to tail it under cloak.

We are looking for those who found us.We are looking for what you possess. We are the Kezarn.

The message suddenly came over the comms system, loud enough for Admiral Wittcomb to choke on his coffee and spit out.

"*cough* Whe-where did that come from!?" He shouted over his own shock.

The communications officer, whom had been sleeping, was caught off gaurd as they were not expecting anything to come from the deepness of space.

"Sir, it came from the C601 Region, roughly fifty-eight light years from our current position."

"Admiral, we're recieving reports from the rest of the fleet, it seems the message was on a fleet wide channel."

"I don't care on what type of channel it came on, can we contact them from here?"

"Sir, there is some sort of interference, unable to send a long range communication."

For four months the Ritisea and her sister ships Elara, Adrastea, and the Lysithea had been exploring space in the name of the Kingdom of Aagartha, search for anything that was out there, and now they had their first contact with a foreign people. Admiral Wiitcomb, believing that this would allow his fleet to return home in triumphant rather than another failed mission for the logs, ordered his fleet to lay in a course for the region to find out what had sent out that call.

Within ten minutes of recieving the communication, the four ships had entered sub-space, well on their way to find out...

OOC: I hope you guys don't mind me joining in on the fun

It was not, of course, the Xiscapian's job nor duty to protect Londim space. However, the Starrider was sitting around doing nothing, and the Londim's had their own problems to worry about. The Xiscapian ship, with a go-ahead from Lintel, cut from Londim's orbit and micro jumped to a position just behind the four intruding ships:
Unidentified ships, you have entered Londim territorial space. Cease forward movement and power down all weapons. If you cooperate, this may be resolved peacefully. If you attempt to disobey, you will be destroyed.
Quite ambitious for a single ship, but Gaff, the X.O. and now acting Captain of the Starrider, was like that. The Starrider's shields were up, but its weapons were powered down...for the moment.

Unidentified ships, you have entered Londim territorial space. Cease forward movement and power down all weapons. If you cooperate, this may be resolved peacefully. If you attempt to disobey, you will be destroyed.

The warning made it quite clear to Admiral Wittcomb, he ordered his fleet to exit sub-space just out of the ship's weapon range. He then ordered his science officers, whom had come to the bridge shortly after the fleet began its jump, to scan the Londium vessel's capabilities.

He turned to his second lieutenant,"Shields up, and notify the fleet to do the same."

He then had his XO, Lt.Colonol Raquel, to have weapons on standby before identifying himself and their intentions.

"This is the Seventh Expenditionary Fleet of the Kingdom of Aagartha, Admiral Wittcomb in command of the Battlecarrier Ritisea, to Londium vessel, we had no intent on violating your borders. We were merely responding to a communication that we recieved two hours ago. We do not wish to fight, but you will find that we are more than prepared to defend ourselves."

"This is the Seventh Expenditionary Fleet of the Kingdom of Aagarta, Admiral Wittcomb in command of the Battlecarrier Ritisea, to Londium vessel, we had no intent on violating your borders. We were merely responding to a communication that we recieved two hours ago. We do not wish to fight, but you will find that we are more than prepared to defend ourselves."
The Starrider drew no closer, only hovered just behind the ships.
We are not a Londim ship, we are Xiscapians, kitsune. We are here to assist the Londim's with an incident inside their boarders. What transmission did you receive?

"Xiscapians, at around 1245 hours we recieved the following transmission,

'We are looking for those who found us.We are looking for what you possess. We are the Kezarn.'

This transmission we believe to origanted from a region of space we call C601. We have no knowledge of this area of space, and would like to know what incident you speak of?"

Admiral Wittcomb had to keep his excitement down, first contact with another civilization! He could hardly contain his excitement, however if he didn't his head on his shoulders this could quickly turn into a bloodbath, which could prove disastrous for Aagartha as she had no allies, and these Xiscapians had these Londim on their side, and who knows esle. What would be said in these next few comms exchanges could alter the course of history for the Aagarthian people, he felt the eyes of the world bearing on him...

Meanwhile, the Ritisea and her three sister ships formed a defensive position resembling the pattern of a rhombus, the Ritisea and Lysithea deployed above the Adrastea and the Elara.


OCC: A picture of how each ship looks (from above)
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x114/Tsukasa_of_CS/voadsp8.jpg

The Starrider appeared to ignore all the ships, though in reality all ships were being closely watched by scanners in case they wanted to try something stupid.
"Xiscapians, at around 1245 hours we recieved the following transmission,

'We are looking for those who found us.We are looking for what you possess. We are the Kezarn.'

This transmission we believe to origanted from a region of space we call C601. We have no knowledge of this area of space, and would like to know what incident you speak of?"
This reigon is in the home system of the Londims. The specific area which we feel must be the area from which the transmission came was from a planet called Fusion. Before we go further, we would like to suggest a face-to-face meeting. Is this acceptable?
OOC: The Starrider. (http://prinzeugn.deviantart.com/art/Space-Battleship-51986076) Cruiser sized, but heavily armed.

While the Xiscapians broadcasted their response, Wittcomb recieved news from his science officers that the scanners were not working properly due to their quickend exit out of sub-space, in effect, he did not know his adversary's potential, the kind of situation that he hated and always avoided.

Admiral Wittcomb weighed his options.

He could accept this, but they could just be stalling for time for more ships to arrive and jump them, or he could extend a hand of friendship with a blind fold, either way he felt the tension starting to gain wieght.

"When and were do you want to meet?"

"When and were do you want to meet?"
The message back was short and to the point:
As soon as possible and wherever you'd like. Our ship, or one of yours.

By the their response, Admiral Wittcomb could tell the Kitsune commander was a man who got quick to the point and didn't screw around...

"We will meet onboard the Ritisea along with my commanders, feel free to bring your bodygaurds. A crewmember will then guide you to the conference room."

"Raquel, dress nice, were about to have a ball."

"I hope your joking for own sake Admiral."

(OOC: Aagartha, that pic seems like a C-ship (http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/figures/Jshipst.jpg) with a more interesting style. That C-ship image linked in this OOC comment is more or less like the cruiser, asides from the fact its armor is very reflective it and has retractable weapon systems it draws outside from its hull when in combat. Once Hadnium becomes possible to be manufactured they'll look like conic mirrors reflecting the image of the space around them)

"Wake up Gabriel! We are in range to engage and scan the target. Target 800 kilometers away", the voice reached Gabriel's mind as he woke up. It was now that he would have to face it. The cruiser had decelerated enough to maintain a stable flight path. His will was to immediately order the AI to annihilate the planet and fire against the incoming alien ship, but a sense of logic dictated his action as he ordered mentally:

"Scan the target... full alert and ready all active protection systems"
The readings of the alien craft were being interpreted, it would take two seconds for the readings to be concluded.

´"We are looking for those who found us.We are looking for what you possess. We are the Kezarn."´. The message sounded like something to remind him of something as well, before the readings.
´"I'll have to add it later to the list of extincted threats to mankind"´, he thought with confidence as in those few seconds the results of the scan arrived.

Watchdoghad gone active when the Aagarthan ships had enter Londim space. The meeting between the Xiscapians and Aagarthan's was closely monitored. When it looked like there would be no hostilities Watchdogwent dormant.

Tarnis had ordered Elon back to the Eclipseto maintain a defenive orbit of Londim. Scans had shown that the Kezarn ship was slowly approaching but the Londim military stayed down, waiting for the results of the scans.

The Eclipse now went up to assist the Xiscapian's in this meeting.



Hello Aagarthans,

Welcome to Londim space. I am Captain Elon and this is my ship the Eclipse. (http://www.bu.edu/core/cc105/lectures/L04-SpaceMotion/images/spaceship.jpg)

You have entered at a time where we are dealing with a threatand so please excuse us if the initial meeting was hostile.

Kaori kept sending scans and recorded transmissions to MilComm as she promised.

Even with running under cloak and the tension rising her crew was coping well with it. They were also aware if they were detected they might well have to fight.

However if they fought Neo-Kirisubans either won or died at their posts.

She handed this watch over to her XO as she retreated to her cabin where a shower greeted her. As she let the water run over her she yawned and pondered the ship they were watching.

Unknown Vessel

They slowly drifted through space looking for any sign of the others. The ship was large and clumsy looking. Only clumsly looking. It was a powerful ship and could hold out in battle for a large amount of time before calling for backup. The next scanof the soace around them took place. They picked something.

A ship followed them but the Kezarn did not act. Instead they allowed this ship to follow....for now at least.

Kaori finished her shower, got dried off and slipped just as she was under the sheets.

She pondered calling her lover up to her but the Chief Engineer was still on her shift. So filing this plan for now she drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile on the bridge things were running normally and the XO was confident in the ability of their cloaking device to keep them undetected.

By the their response, Admiral Wittcomb could tell the Kitsune commander was a man who got quick to the point and didn't screw around...

"We will meet onboard the Ritisea along with my commanders, feel free to bring your bodygaurds. A crewmember will then guide you to the conference room."

"Raquel, dress nice, were about to have a ball."

"I hope your joking for own sake Admiral."
Very well. You may expect us along in minutes.
Gaff and two Marines (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/bingo275/DecJanFeb06/Galactic%20Marine.jpg) boarded ashuttle (http://www.revell.de/starwars/reqRessources/img/produkte/abb_imperialShuttle.jpg) and dropped from the hanger of the Starrider. The pilot lowered the folding wings in flight mode and flew the short distance to the Ritisea.
Ritisea, this is the Xiscapian diplomatic shuttle, requesting docking aboard the ship.

"You are cleared to dock shuttle, and welcome aboard."

The Ritisea's hanger Bay 4 opend, allowing the shuttle to come aboard the Ritisea.

Ensign Mickal greeted the crew and then guided the Xiscipains to the domed shape conference room where Admiral Wittcomb along with several others were waiting. The gray and white halls of the Ritisea glistend with that military shine that can only be achieved when a mistake occurs and someone has to clean it with a toothbrush....Mickal wasn't exactly thrilled to be on the Admiral's ship after that.


While Wittcomb waited for the Kitsunes, he sent a transmission to the Londims who were waiting.

"Captain Elon, this is Admiral Wittcomb of the Aagarthan Fleet, we would like to extend a hand of friendship to you and your people. I beleive it would efficient if you came aboard and explained your situation, we might be able to help you in your time of need."

As soon as the transmission had been sent, the forty-three year old looked up to greet the Xiscipians as they entered the room.

"Welcome aboard the Ritisea, I would like to introduce to you Commander Terry of the Adrastea, Commander Kiros of the Elara, and Commander Miwa of the Lysithea. If you don't mind, the Londims will be joing us shortly."

With military fashion the three commanders saluted their guests before taking their seats. Admiral Wittcomb however, remained standing.

"Now, what is this planet Fusion and whats the issue surrounding it?"


OOC: I wouldn't say they look like cones, more like the general outline of a Star Destroyer from starwars, but with a smooth texture. And if that doesn't work, go to youtube and watch Voices of a Distant Star, either part 2 or 3.

X.O. Gaff bowed and made his greetings before getting down to business. His two Marines took posts at the door, one on either side. "The situation is unique, as far as we can tell. Basically, there's a powerful, hostile alien presence on Fusion. When the Londim's send terraforming crews some time ago, they were all killed in mysterious gravitational anomolies. Since then we, the Londims and a number of other races who have volunteered to help, have sent probes and a satallite to scout the planet. A ship was launched, and is now being tailed by one of our allie's ships. Debate is still going on at this time as to what should be done: Extend the hand of diplomacy, ignore the ship and planet, or completly destroy the aliens," Gaff's tail whipped sharply and he privatly considered that the total annihilation of the hostiles would be best. But he didn't say that, nor was it his place to. "As far as we know, you are welcome to join us."

Admiral Wittcomb thought for a moment before answering.

"Is it possible that these gravitational anomolies could bave been a natural occurence on the planet? And how are you certain that these aliens are hostile? The terraforming could have somehow endagered their lives and they reacted accordingly.

Destroying them may not be a smart move, there might be more of them out there and god knows how they would react once they found out about their kin's fate. But ignoring them may also be a mistake, if they are hostile then steps should be taken to find out who they are and what they are planning on doing in the near future."

Admiral Wittcomb thought for a moment before answering.

"Is it possible that these gravitational anomolies could bave been a natural occurence on the planet? And how are you certain that these aliens are hostile? The terraforming could have somehow endagered their lives and they reacted accordingly.

Destroying them may not be a smart move, there might be more of them out there and god knows how they would react once they found out about their kin's fate. But ignoring them may also be a mistake, if they are hostile then steps should be taken to find out who they are and what they are planning on doing in the near future."
The human was at least not completly brain dead. "We are sure the gravitational anomolies are of a artifical or at least controlled nature. Whenever a ship draws near they start up, so as to suck the ship to a firey death on the surface. That is how most of the original terraforming team died. If the aliens were indeed friendly, they would have tried contact long before now. We have not, as of yet, actually acted against them. We are watching...so far. We had not actually considered that there might be more. So far as we are aware, our situation is distictly unique in the galaxy."

"You are cleared to dock shuttle, and welcome aboard."

The Ritisea's hanger Bay 4 opend, allowing the shuttle to come aboard the Ritisea.

Ensign Mickal greeted the crew and then guided the Xiscipains to the domed shape conference room where Admiral Wittcomb along with several others were waiting. The gray and white halls of the Ritisea glistend with that military shine that can only be achieved when a mistake occurs and someone has to clean it with a toothbrush....Mickal wasn't exactly thrilled to be on the Admiral's ship after that.


While Wittcomb waited for the Kitsunes, he sent a transmission to the Londims who were waiting.

"Captain Elon, this is Admiral Wittcomb of the Aagarthan Fleet, we would like to extend a hand of friendship to you and your people. I beleive it would efficient if you came aboard and explained your situation, we might be able to help you in your time of need."

As soon as the transmission had been sent, the forty-three year old looked up to greet the Xiscipians as they entered the room.

"Welcome aboard the Ritisea, I would like to introduce to you Commander Terry of the Adrastea, Commander Kiros of the Elara, and Commander Miwa of the Lysithea. If you don't mind, the Londims will be joing us shortly."

With military fashion the three commanders saluted their guests before taking their seats. Admiral Wittcomb however, remained standing.

"Now, what is this planet Fusion and whats the issue surrounding it?"


OOC: I wouldn't say they look like cones, more like the general outline of a Star Destroyer from starwars, but with a smooth texture. And if that doesn't work, go to youtube and watch Voices of a Distant Star, either part 2 or 3.


Captain Elon looked at the reply and smiled. A stranger was an ally they hadn't befriended yet.



I shall come to the meeting in good faith to accpet this hand and explain the situation proper. These are mysterious times.

Kezarn Ship

They had ignored the ship following them for some time but the follower started to annoy them. It was time to let the followers know they were there. A message was sent:



To those that shadow us. We know you are there and weknow you are some of those that disturbed us. Turn away or die. Your ship will become a burning testament to our power if you do not heed this warning.

"We are sure the gravitational anomolies are of a artifical or at least controlled nature. Whenever a ship draws near they start up, so as to suck the ship to a firey death on the surface. That is how most of the original terraforming team died. If the aliens were indeed friendly, they would have tried contact long before now. We have not, as of yet, actually acted against them. We are watching...so far. We had not actually considered that there might be more. So far as we are aware, our situation is distictly unique in the galaxy."

"Hmm, then at this point, other than their ability to create gravitational anomalies, the only thing can be done is to speculate as to what they are capable of doing. And as we are in Londim space, it is the soverign right of the Londim government to decide what should be done about these beings."

With that, Admiral Wittcomb stood up to welcome Captain Elon into the conference room.

Kezarn Ship

They had ignored the ship following them for some time but the follower started to annoy them. It was time to let the followers know they were there. A message was sent:

Quote:

To those that shadow us. We know you are there and weknow you are some of those that disturbed us. Turn away or die. Your ship will become a burning testament to our power if you do not heed this warning.

On the bridge of the 'Fukido bay'

The XO listened to the message that the comm officer had picked up and adding in the scans they'd been able to take knew they couldn't match this ship for sheer firepower.

It was more important to get back with what information they'd gathered now they could be spotted through their cloaking device and were heavily outgunned.

"Helm reverse course to Londim, warp 9. We need to get this information back. I'll tell Captain Mikato.

Lt Fujito, you have the conn."

With these ordered the ship jumped to warp and decloaked once they were safely away. They had enough information to see how hard it would be to battle this ship and they knew it was coming to Londim.

This wasn't a retreat. Kirisuban's picked their battles carefully.

(OOC: Seems like my latest post was simply ignored or missed as I still have no idea on what were the results of the scan of that alien ship, and it seems from the way that the RP advanced that it simply passed straight through the cruiser and ignored its presence as it continued heading towards Londim, and at the time the cruiser was already close to Fusion... and Gabriel being the xenophobic alien hater he is, wouldn't let it pass peacefully through his way, so I hope it can be retconned somehow)

ooc: Londim can tell you scans in more detail but I'm assuming the Fukido Bay picked up massive weapons signatures, quite a large amount of crew as well as being too large for them to fight.

They'd probally have some idea of a ships scematic as well by now.

The Alversians had noted the new arrivals to the system but for once decided to forgo the normal rules of first contact. A large and, according to their tracker's initial scans, very heavily armoured ship was marauding through Londim Space. Far be it from Mason to engage in neutral space, he was looking to end this threat before it got a chance to grow.

ooc: Londim can tell you scans in more detail but I'm assuming the Fukido Bay picked up massive weapons signatures, quite a large amount of crew as well as being too large for them to fight.

They'd probally have some idea of a ships scematic as well by now.

OOC: The Kezarn have a massive warship. This (http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-B5-Ships/Earth_SA-23E.jpg) is what the ship looks like. At each end are engines, however with the technology that the Kezarn possess these double up as weapons. The top two are Cannons that fire high powered energy beams, the bottom ones electrical pulses which are designed to knock out power on enemy ships.

Around the main bridge, the central area, has four rapid firing lasers. All of it is protected by a powerful shield.

Ship Measurements:

Height: 200 meters high
Length: 100 meters
Width: 50 meters
Weight: 40000 Metric Tonnes.

Crew Numbers as of yet are still unknown.

OOC: The Kezarn have a massive warship. This (http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-B5-Ships/Earth_SA-23E.jpg) is what the ship looks like. At each end are engines, however with the technology that the Kezarn possess these double up as weapons. The top two are Cannons that fire high powered energy beams, the bottom ones electrical pulses which are designed to knock out power on enemy ships.

Around the main bridge, the central area, has four rapid firing lasers. All of it is protected by a powerful shield.

Ship Measurements:

Height: 200 meters high
Length: 100 meters
Width: 50 meters
Weight: 40000 Metric Tonnes.

Crew Numbers as of yet are still unknown.


Soooo....we are basically shooting at a ship that looks like a starfury?

Yes we are.

"Commander it seems a new group has entered," reported Captain Lao. "Im not sure who they are but they seem to be meeting with Xiscapia and Londim." "I see.... well they are not of my concern at the moment," replied Genesis. "Is all of the preperations complete yet?" "Yes, Commander it is," said Lao. "All that is left is your blessing Commander." "I see, then I will be on the mobile suit deck," Genesis said as he started towards the door. i wonder what is going to happen next......

(OOC: I've largely upgraded ranges after seeing some articles on the range of MT missiles, it's literally a long range missile cruiser now. Regarding my style for designing starships which lack interstellar travel capability, it's... different (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/waverider/figures/fig32.jpg) - this pic is for a waverider spaceplane which works as a multi-role orbital weapon platforms and as an hypersonic orbital bomber. I don't intend to take designs from existing Sci-fi universes. And sorry for the "technobabble", but I tend to get too far on the "hard" side of sci-fi during combat)

The Sniper was designed to engage at at myriad of targets at a longer range than most, to bombard planets from a distance up to 1 astronomical unit with the use of SBMs and to engage spacecrafts from a distance from up to 1,000 kilometers, or more against larger spaceships. Gabriel knew that waiting for it to reach a closer range was foolish. Perhaps it could outmaneuver the xenos with a longer engagement range. Its weapons finally were unfolded from inside its hull as it was getting ready for combat

´"To be extinct, for that is the fate of all aliens"´, the phrase on his mind was interrupted by the emotionless voice of the Von Braun weak Artificial Intelligence. It was obvious that those aliens were not coming in peace and were a threat to both his people and Londim:

"Target Detected... Range 1,000 kilometers and approaching, starting preliminary lock of mini-nuclear Spacewinder MK-5 long-range missiles, four fusion Stellar Ballistic Missiles ready for simultaneous fire from vertical launch system cells... ECM Decoys online", the AI announced into his mind as his vision saw the targeting reticle of a directly sent to his brain heads-up display locking an invisible dot in the middle of space, while other data was also viewed, including available ammunition, estimated relative speed of target and a huge imaginary line was drawn indicating the actual direction his ship was heading towards rather than the direction of the thrusters due to inertia, and it was not only ahead of him, but at his left as well. The 3D Radar indicated that it was 250 kilometers "below" his horizon and a couple of hundred of kilometers ahead, whereas a straight line traced from his ship to that alien ship would measure 1,000 kilometers.

Combat with a cruiser like the Sniper against medium-sized targets had basically three phases of engagement. The first, entirely missile based the "Recommended Stage", was the long-range engagement with fusion SBMs and/or Spacewinder MK-5 self-guide smart missiles with mini-nuclear warheads, ranging from 1,000 kilometers to 450 kilometers, it was the ideal range from where the cruiser should destroy its targets, whereas the MK-5 missiles shall focus on secondary targets of the ship like turrets while the missile heads towards its main body, and the overwhelming amount of missiles would destroy it. The second phase, should the first not work, ranges is from 450 to 300 kilometers, and involves the deployment of both fusion missiles, Spacewinder MK-5 and Spacewinder MK-4 Beyond visual range missiles, with the latter focused on destroying point-defense system. Finally the third, less desirable phase would involve, beside the use of missiles and of fusion SBMs at ranges larger than 20km, the use of its forty 30mm point-defense autocannon turrets and active protection system, two C301 railguns with maximum range of 300 kilometers, equipped with 60x480mm solid incendiary armor-piercing sabot projectile rather than a kinetic energy projectile with its high-velocity, electrically charged discarding sabot covering a 20mm diameter fin-stabilized nanite incendiary penetrator for atmospheric strikes. This entirely solid and highly dense project can easily generate enough energy to tear a gap in the electromagnetic field of smaller ships with the 1,340 megajoules of kinetic impact it provokes at a muzzle velocity of almost 300 kilometers per second, and is designed specifically for space combat. However a C301 railgun has a rate of fire of only 30 rounds per minute and requires insanely large amounts of power that only the massive fusion reactors of larger starships can provide.

In such stage the odds would probably turn against it as its protection can only hold against 800 megajoules of energy per cubic centimeter against energy and 1,200 MJ against kinetic energy. Cruisers sacrifice protection for improved propulsion and weapon systems.

"Von Braun, initiate inertial flight mode!", Gabriel mentally ordered as the ship inertial compensation system, which automatically adjusted its direction towards the intended direction by the pilot by using the vectorial thrusters, was disabled to allow inertial flight. A method of flight which involved taking advantage of all 3 dimensions to fly in a 3D angle with a continually changing inclination in all axis in relation to an enemy fleet or ship and continually change direction vertically, horizontally and laterally, including using thrusters for "strafing" the starship and making it point its guns towards the enemy while moving to an entirely opposite direction, making aiming against it more complicated than should it simply fly against its target in a straight route.

The fusion engines started to boost it at a 1g acceleration as ordered by Gabriel's direct brain control over it. It was like his second body, instead of arms and legs he pulled thrusters, instead of eyes he shifted the view of several sensors and computerized recreations of the outside being seen by him. Soon a set of thrusters below the cruiser started to propel it below as a group of lateral thrusters moved it to the left while it also moved forwards towards the alien ship.

The vision shifted to a lateral sight of the space, surrounding the cruiser. The targeting reticle was visibly painting the enemy ship below and at his left

"Sub-targets identified... 900 kilometers range and approaching... selecting potential weapon ports to be destroyed... four large cannons mounted on wing ports targeted for lock. Four possibly directed energy weapons on its center targeted for lock. Awaiting input on quantity of missiles against each target"

He thought about it. and commanded mentally, keeping an eye on the indication of range in the HUD:

"Ready 2 missiles against each of the four larger cannons, one missile for each of the four directed energy weapons on its center of mass and ready remaining two missiles, one against the body of the alien ship and one against its engines! Prepare them for inertial vectorial flight configuration to reduce effectiveness of point-defense. Program them for simultaneous impact! Full power to active protection system!"

Another interval of minutes passed as a new announcement came into his mind, maybe the system took its time to reply for some reason as he continued to observe the empty vastness of space:

"Acknowledged, also, allied ships were detected nearby, upload of target data to missiles computerized systems complete, Range 820 kilometers, engagement range for Spacewinders in 30..."
He waited for the countdown. Solar Communes never had a test of strength before with its technology, and killing those aliens would not bring him prestige in his home system, but also a valuable information regarding the combat capabilities of the cruiser, should he succeed.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1... target on range!", as soon as he could hear that cold voice of the machine on his mind he immediately awaited as the 9 targeting reticles on the ship and several of its subsystems, finally as a beeping sound announced the targets were locked. With a brain input similar to that of someone who pulls a trigger, he commanded all the large 14 Spacewinder MK-5 smart missiles from 14 different missile turrets to fire at a vectorial trajectory against the hostile ship. 2 towards each of its powered energy beam cannons, 2 towards each its electrical pulse cannons, one towards each of its rapid firing lasers, 1 towards the ship as a whole and the last one moving to impact with any of its engines. The missiles first thrusted down towards the alien ship as they still moved away from them accompanying the inertia of the cruiser, until finally after five seconds they changed of direction and towards the alien ship vertically, while they continued to move against it. The individual micro-fusion powered thrusters of the missiles regularly adjusted their position and trajectory as they continued to approach the target at a high acceleration. Each armed with about 1.7 megatons mini-nuclear warheads, each capable of dealing 700 MJ of damage per impact. The combined damage from a successful impact by all missiles against that strange ship would then be of 9,800 MJ, although that was improbable. The situation was about to get intense in such place of the space.

(OOC: More or less like this the trajectory between both ships, the two slashes represent the position and direction of the cruiser and overall trajectory of the missiles while the "_" represent the position and direction of the alien ship
Basically it is in a diagonal trajectory, both horizontally and vertically,
whereas it is horizontally, together with the missiles,
approaching in distance from the alien ship a bit faster than the
relative speed it is getting farther from it regarding the height
between Gabriel's and the alien starship to allow it to maintain
a distance while the missiles are "getting down" to the alien ship
"height", the missiles obviously are faster than the ship. X and Y axis:
\
\
_
z and x axis:
/
\
_

Hope it's not too much complicated to understand)

OOC: I understood that. Very well detailed. The RP is about to get vry interesting...

IC:

Kezarn Ship

They had sensed that something came to destroy them long before their own probes did. They knew this ship had almost 0% chance surviving as the first missiles would damage the shields enough to allow the other missiles to hit. They knew this but did not fear it. They locked onto where the missiles had been launched from but refrained from firing. They sent a message:



*maniacally laughing* Fool. You have doomed everyone. All shall suffer.

Fusion

It was visible from space. Launches occurred from all parts of the planet. Wave after wave of Kezarn ships had launched. At least 10 headed for he area where the missiles had been launched from. The others, numbering almost a hundred headed for Londim and her allies. They all sent messages:



You wish to know what happened to those that landed on our planet. You shall find out first hand. We tell you this. They did not go quickly nor peacefully.

Londim

Londim's outer probes went crazy as they read all the intel coming in. The message was received quickly and the events all came into focus. Tarnis stared wide eyed:

"My God. Gabriel what have you done?", he whispered to himself.

Gaff's eyes widened as he listened to voices unheard by the non-kitsunes. The man left in command on the Starrider was screaming, hundreds of ships launched from Fusion. Gaff nodded and the two Marines vanished, teleported by beams back to the ship. Gaff looked around at the assembled humans. "You wanted to help? Now is your chance. At least a hundred ships have taken off from Fusion, and they are most definitly hostile. Follow our lead. We must protect Londim."
He too disappeared, back to his ship. The Starrider turned quickly and jumped for it's destination.
Londim, conference room...
Lintel and Ginta were stranded, their ship off to combat. "Is there anything we can do to help?" asked Lintel. She wanted nothing more than to be in command of her own ship right now, but it was impossible. She would have to trust Gaff's judgement.

"I understand that you have immense battle experience. In this, I want your help coordinating all battle fleets. Londim itself should be safe for quite a while. I have mentioned Watchdog numerous times but have not explained what it is. Watchdog consists of Pulse Cannons and Rapid Firing Lasers that orbit the planet and fire on any hostiles. That is the first defence. Secondary are the Armed Space Stations that can launch fighters and each Space Station has it's own weapons. Should these fail, the Planet side Anti Spaceship guns will come into effect and blow any remaining enemies out of the sky. Some of our batle fleets have already launched, numbering almost 2000 ships. We may have more numbers but we don't know how the Kezarn battle."

"I understand that you have immense battle experience. In this, I want your help coordinating all battle fleets. Londim itself should be safe for quite a while. I have mentioned Watchdog numerous times but have not explained what it is. Watchdog consists of Pulse Cannons and Rapid Firing Lasers that orbit the planet and fire on any hostiles. That is the first defence. Secondary are the Armed Space Stations that can launch fighters and each Space Station has it's own weapons. Should these fail, the Planet side Anti Spaceship guns will come into effect and blow any remaining enemies out of the sky. Some of our batle fleets have already launched, numbering almost 2000 ships. We may have more numbers but we don't know how the Kezarn battle."
"Okay," Lintel rose and began pacing. "You have nearly two thousand ships, plus ours, the Alversians, and a number of others. We outnumber the enemy by 20 to one. However, it would be foolish to simply send in everything we've got. We have no idea how these ships work, or what their weapons are. Do you have a fully automated ship, one which you can afford to lose, but looks like a warship? If we can make them engage it, that will tell us how they fight, and maybe give us some idea of what we're going up against," she considered. "Oh, and by gods, don't lauch any fighters. Fighters, in most space combat, are worse than useless. Missiles with people in them."

*maniacally laughing* Fool. You have doomed everyone. All shall suffer.

Was the last transmission of the alien scum...

"Warning! Multiple hostile launches detected at Planet, distance 0.03 Astronomical Units! 10 hostile ships detecting heading towards us. Estimated Engagement time is of six hours!", the system announced in his mind as Gabriel became entirely focused on such situation and adrenalin started to flow, as he mentally asked to it:

"Von Braun, did you assert the launch locations in the planet? "

"The coordinates of the five primary alien launch points at Planet Fusion were stored, ready for command... targeted planet is on range for nuclear c-frac extermination".

"No extermination, this is not Gliese 581 and I don't want to have Londim as enemies of the Confed. Calculate the trajectory of primary clusters of alien ships, I am going to have to exterminate these aliens the hard way"

"Estimated trajectory stored... ready for deployment of SBMs against hostile fleet, distance among some of them is short enough to allow the fusion reaction to spread throughout a one-digit long number of targets"

"Good, target two regions of the estimated space quadrant where the hostile fleet shall reach once two fusion missiles reach them from here for launch and prepare pre-targeting of all the ten incoming hostile ships once they become more visible to the sensors, no sub-targeting this time."

"Two regions of space selected as targets for fusion bombardment of alien ships, SBMs computers uploaded with targeting data. Estimated chances of successful interdiction: 50%. Estimated time for missiles to reach region: 4 hours. Estimated speed of missiles upon impact: 0.0008c"

Gabriel listened... after about 4 hours of continuous flight the missiles would have fifty percent chances of taking down one or two dozens of hostile ships with an uncontrolled fusion reaction in space combined with the kinetic energy of the impact which would push starships debris behind with significant speeds, that was his bid to attempt helping Londim with his available resources. Such type of targeting was highly experimental and relied on several heuristics algorithms of extreme complexity which sought to predict possible movements of sentient entities piloting starships, which due to their complexity can only be processed and stored correctly through quantum computing and even with such advanced technology, they cannot predict perfectly a position in space for their function. Soon he repeated the same thought process of "pulling a trigger" as the four massive, gravity and air-less vertical launch cells of the Sniper, almost as deep as ground based missile silos and each capable of carrying four missiles at the same cell, opened one of their four hatches on each of the four sides of the conic cruiser, as the fusion engines of the four missiles were started and they, following the same direction of the cruiser started to move at four different angles, a simple way to describe it is as if their directions represented North, West, South and East directions. But soon they headed to an entirely opposite direciton with the use of their vectorial thrusters and started to accelerate against their actual direction. Unlike as the dozen of seconds of the missiles, it took them almost a minute to shift towards the intended direction as the thrusters compensated the inertia. At the same time the four stellar ballistic missiles left the cells of the Von Braun, Gabriel gave a new order to its AI:

"Is it possible to reopen the Shadow for communications with the Confed in this sector?"

"It is, but estimated chances of a Shadow entity being drawn by the conflict are significantly large"

"All right, I'll handle this alone! They wanted a test of the fullest capabilities of the Sniper Class, now they will have it. Forget about transmissions. From this distance, by the time the signal reaches Solar Communes the war will be long over!"

There was no point into opening again a rift to the Shadow Universe. Even a single psychic demon coming from there would be a huge trouble and the risk was too significant to try faster-than-light communications through such unreliable medium.

"Retracting weapon systems for high-speed travel towards engagement, Engage in 6 hours. Do you wish to sleep?"

"Yes, but for 5 hours and 40 minutes", Gabriel replied as he was put to supervised sleep until reaching the engagement range. During such time a nanite needle was employed by a robot to administer nutrients to his body as well directly through the bloodstream. Such unconventional method of feeding was commonplace in smaller starships or ships with mostly automated crew and pilots who were too impatient to wait. A constant1g acceleration was too messy on the digestive system of an human being for those ships to actually have a cafeteria instead of such device.

6 hours was the time he had to wait for engagement with the 10 ships towards him... while in 4 hours two fusion missiles with the impressive power of 300 megatons each would have a 50% chance of impacting against some of the alien ships of the large fleet heading towards Londim. He hoped nobody would be foolish to engage in close range combat against that fleet, or whoever did it could be caught in the fusion reaction as well.

Captain Mikato had warped into Londim space just in time it seemed.

She was back on her bridge again and in uniform the comms officer sent to MilComm what they had found out about the Kezarn ship as well as the being to see through their cloaking device.

So as they made orbit they prepared for possible battle. The weapons were checked and augmentations made on the shields to improve them.

With the help of their allies they could fight but they'd make a pretty good hospital ship as well given their transporter technologies.

"Yes we have a few Automative Ships that we can send out first. I'll order it now." replied Tarnis to Lintel.


The Kezarn Fleet was moving in. Tarnis monitored the situation. His fleets were sitting above planetary orbit waiting for the Kezarn to come to them. Rushing into a battle was the quickest way of losing. Who knew what the Kezarn had learned from the destruction of one of their own. Maybe this had made the smarter, stronger, deadlier.

The Kezarn fleet was on a steady course to Londim or so it seemed. Almost instantly the Fleet split into two going in opposite directions. There they stopped, halting as if waiting for something. They didn't have to wait long. In the large gap they had left, something was happening. An electrical storm which was getting bigger then a flash which could've blinded anyone that saw it. That space wasn't empty now. Instead a massive warship, far larger than the largest Londim had to offer, graced the battlezone. The Warship glowed before releasing a surge of energy into the far reaches of space. Londim probes went offline as the surge hit them. This fleet had left Londim in the dark.

Admiral Wittcomb had kept his small fleet behind the frontlines, waiting for more information and tactical analysis to come when that behemoth of a ship appeard in the middle of the alien fleet. Wittcomb nearly cried out in horror and shock, but instead went dircetly to relaying orders.

"This is the Admiral, all mech units are to launch and form a defensive perimeter around the fleet. The Adrastea and the Elara are to take up center position, the Ritisea on the left flank and the Lysithea on the right. All weapons are to be brought online and are to fire on my command, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

As Wittcomb shouted out his commands, the ion turrets of the fleet came out of their hiding place in the hulls and began to glow blue while the mech squadrons flew out of the hanger bays of the four ships to take up positions around the fleet. As Wittcomb prepared his ships for combat, the eight thousand souls under his command began to wonder in shock and awe of the awsome sight of these alien vessels, for many, it would be their first and last time in combat.


OOC: a picture of the mechs:
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x114/Tsukasa_of_CS/voadsp4.jpg

(OOC: All the mentioned ships can be found in the "Military" link in the signature)

It was like slowly waking up, the input was first blurred like if he was opening his eyes when finally the image of the space became

"Agent Gabriel. Emergency wake up. Massive hostile ship detected. Estimated chances of success on our current situation if it decides to engage Von Braun: 15%. Time to intercept the ten enemy ships at our direction: 2 hours and five minutes. Time for already launched fusion missiles to possibly impact with the hostile fleet: five minutes. Chances are still 50%"

"Damn! My only chance is to give another shot and seek aid through the... Shadow. Von Braun, launch 4 additional fusion missiles against estimated enemy fleet meeting point and then prepare to upload all recorded data to the Observation Outpost and initiate energy burst to open temporary rift to the Shadow."

"Acknowledged, Calculating probabilistic mechanics... complete. Launching missiles on 4 estimated meeting points of enemy fleet, Chances of successful interdiction, 65%. Estimated time for impact: 2 hours"

And again a group of stellar ballistic fusion missiles, this time of four rather than two, was launched towards the enemy fleet as the AI continued to operate its commands.

"Full power to engines... preparing upload and redundancy message system. Burst in five seconds..."

For a brief period of time, the spacetime of a region nearby the cruiser in the space became distorted and shifted as a massive burst of energy went on its direction and then simply disappeared from sight.
------------------

Solar Communes Territorial Space, Shadow Universe Kinetic Dilation Anomaly Observation Outpost

"You won't believe this!", the communications officer said.

"What?", another officer on his side asked

"That nutjob Gabriel managed to go more or less safely through that freaky parallel universe, and now he sent a message through it back to us, seems very desperate".

"What is so desperate to be about if he managed to get through it?"

"A significant alien threat to mankind, and now this OSA freak is requesting an immediate Xenocide mission through the Shadow, seems like he sent it directly to Glacius as well!"

"What the? He wants to risk an entire fleet through the Shadow Universe? This is suicide, pure and simply! And we don't have a large starfleet, there is only so much a Moho Mine can make!"

"Hopefully the majority will think the same..."

But the "majority" of the Neural Net did not. Soon the 1st expeditionary fleet of Solar Communes Armada, crewed by only the most daring and strong of will, was to enter into foreign space. It was concluded, perhaps due to their "irrational" fear and hatred of aliens, that they could not simply let such event in blank, leave the humans of Londim to their own fate and let a potential threat to human race ignored, plus the reports on the salvaged alien technology and material to be lated called as Hadnium were very promising. The First Xenocide Operation of Solar Communes history began as an entire expeditionary fleet was starting to head towards the strange gateway to Chaos.

It was not something taken lightly to send such numbers towards such place, but there were not better options considering its urgency. 3 720 meters long ACCLA-720 Redoubtable Long Range Assault Cruiser-Carriers loaded with a total of 24 150 meters long and 365 meters wide Anarquia Space Superiority Fighters and 12 180 meters long Asterisc Space Interceptor, 6 Sniper cruisers carrying a total of 6 Space Superiority and 6 Interceptor Fighters, 8 FFAO-350 Exterminator Class frigates carrying inside a total of 32 BAE-150 weapons platform spaceplanes and 32 FAI-65 multi-role fighter spaceplanes were to join the battle and exterminate the alien threat.

As they jumped in the gateway to the strange realm on their way to Londim system another event happened

------------------

A pair of two gigantic stellar ballistic missiles, each with a load of 300 megatons, were moving at about 24,000 meters per second towards the large warship expected position... with a 50% chance of impacting with it. On the other hand four more fusion ballistic missiles also headed towards the alien fleet as the ten ships moving towards Gabriel would take an hour to be on engagement range of his cruiser.

The massive Kezarn warship sat where it was with some of the smaller ships acting as a defensive ring around it. Their scans had detected missiles coming towards them but they waited. Waited until the missiles came onto radar. As this happened every ship seemed to link to each other. Then pure energy seemed to engulf each ship before all that anyone would be able to see was a large yellow ball of light, which steadily grew.

This was Fury Ball, a defensive move. The yellow ball that surrounded the ships was a shield that not only blocked incoming firepower but destroyed it completely. As enemy fire was destroyed, the energy was absorbed and sent directly to the largest ship. If the Nuclear missiles were destroyed then the large ship would be getting a huge amount of power.

OOC: Solar Communes, I'm leaving it open to you how successful the ballistic missiles will be against this defence.

(OOC: Here what I did: http://www.random.org/, I'll keep my word on the 50% chances regarding it, including the possibility of only one of the missiles hitting. Probabilistic mechanics and quantum computers - they are described in the final part of SC factbook.)

Time dilation was already having some effect as the two missiles continued accelerating towards the target at a speed higher than twenty four kilometers per second, almost as fast as a C401 rail gun projectile, but much larger than it.


For an eyewitness it would seem the impacts were simultaneous because of the extremely fast speeds of both. The impact of the first missile was somehow stopped by that strange force field, but its kinetic and nuclear energy opened a gap over it through which the second flew through. Two fusion reactions of 300 megatons worth each happened at a near instantaneous period of time. The first occurred against the force field, delivering a massive blast of energy which although initially defeated it, was later absorbed. The second however occurred against the hull of the large ship, the result of the impact and explosion could not be ascertained for now...

At least 20 of the Kezarn ships were wiped out in the explosion and the Large Warship, nicknamed Kezarn King, suffered damage on it's hull.However the energy from the explosion and the destruction of Kezarn ships went directly to the King which used the energy to regenerate the damaged area. The Kezarn King powered up and launched 5 of it's own Nukes...

3 were headed for the ship that had launched the first nukes at the Kezarn, the others towards the ships that surrounded Londim.

"Shields up, red alert" Kaori Mikato ordered.

Once the attack started she knew the Fukido Bay was as much as target as any other ship here.

She already knew they'd need to deal with this the old fashioned way since the enemy could see through their cloaking device.

At least they had their temporary allies here. They weren't alone.

The Fukido Bay then moved in behind the Londim ships for now.

The missiles approached Londim. However Watchdog was active and waiting to be used. As the missiles came into range, lasers started firing towards the missiles and the pulse cannons let loose. It looked like a deadly firework show and it did its job. Both missiles were destroyed, the explosions being extremely large. All the ships crews cheered...for the moment..

Kezarn Ships

The 10 that were making their way towards Gabriel had begun to prep for Annihilation. All weapons were powered up to maximum power and shields were at full power. They were ready to engage.

Meanwhile the fleet started moving towards Londim, with the large ship following behind. A battle was about to commence...

The Starrider appeared at Londim. This was where the big fight would be apparently going down. Ginta and Lintel dissapeared abruptly, being beamed up to the ship. The shields were set to maximum and all the weapons powered up and manned. Now all they could do was wait...

At the same time as the Star Rider was moving into position, Mason and the Formidable moved alongside to cover the flank of the Xiscapian vessel. Her own shields and weapons were fully powered and she waited for the order to engage. Mason decided not to bother with the cloak as the Fukido Bay had already proven their futility.

It was time... a retreating maneuver would not work, and three of the missiles were approaching after the probabilistic mechanics based system only managed to intercept two of them with another fusion missile launched at a long distance as an emergency measure. While a fleet of ten hostile xenos approached his range, he awaited them to reach maximum engagement range: 300 kilometers, from where he could launch 30 simultaneous missiles and fire the two rail guns of the Sniper Class. The vectorial direction of the cruiser was 40 degrees above the fleet and 30 degrees to its left, to reduce chances of impact. It was a flying at a maximum combat speed at 2,720 meters per second and in few seconds would close range to the hostile ships, and then go away through inertia. Its engines were mostly deactivate save for the adjustments and zig-zag random multi-vectorial thrusts to change its direction. The system was warning Gabriel about the situation:

"Incoming missiles at 40º/32°12', 40º2'41''/30º and 39º40'30''/31º, Critical Impact in 1 minute... All point-defense online. Overkill Authorized... Launching all missiles!"

A total of 30 missiles were launched automatically by the Artificial Intelligence in a way that gave the impression it was not Gabriel anymore who was piloting it, they splitted in 3 groups of 10 missiles, each group headed towards one of the 3 missiles that were heading towards his direction. Almost instantly it did another announcement:

"Simultaneous lock on 10 alien ships initiated... finished and ready to fire!"

Gabriel did not think as he commanded 14 Spacewinder MK-4 and 16 Spacewinder MK-5 missiles to engage the ten alien ships as they approached his own ship. 3 missiles headed against each of them. Coupled with this action, two rail gun cannon turrets aimed at two different alien starships which were the closest to him, as two solid 60mm core penetrator projectiles flew towards two of the ten hostiles, at a relativistic muzzle velocity of 300 kilometers per second, which meant in such range almost instantaneous impact and a deliverance of 1,340 megajoules of kinetic energy against each of them.

It would be a complicated situation, as he feared the Shadow did not help their fleet to arrive at their intended destination, he was alone other than with the help of the other fleets there.. 150 kilometers was now the distance a straight line traced from his ship to the center of the alien fleet would have.

The 10 Kezarn ships saw the missiles coming for them and fired as if there was no tomorrow. Hundreds of missiles, including 20 nuclear fusion missiles went to intercept the incoming missiles. The others went straight for Gabriel...


The rest of the Fleet appeared in front of Londim and it's allies. Shields were at maximum. It was time for battle...

The fleet's ion turrets fired like it was the fourth of July, destroying almost a hundred of the missles that were heading for Gabriel, four of them being the nuclear fusion missles.

The mech squadrons began harrasing the Kezarn ships, firing missles and ion bolts at their engines. Meanwhile, the fleet slipped into subspace, returning to normal space almost three-hundred kilometers behind the Kezarn fleet.

"All ships, FIRE!" And with the Admiral's words, 120 ballistic missles were launched from the Aagarthan fleet, hopefully catching the Kezarn offguard.

"All Mech squadrons, get the hell out of there!"

The Mech pilots didn't need to be told twice to move it, all of them getting a safe distance away, except for three who had been destroyed by Kezarn fire.

"Enemy ships exiting FTL travel at point 339029."
Lintel nodded as she viewed the enemies up close with the Starrider's scanners. "They appear to favor missiles, although that could be just for long range. I want point-defense on maximum." The Xiscapian ship was turned to face the enemy fleet. "Fire our Heavy Ions, straight at them. Then I want to rest of our forward-facing weapons to open fire. We'll gage how much damage they can take, and how agile they are."
The two huge Heavy Ion Cannons mounted on the bow fired, two massive beams of blue light slamming at insane speeds towards the first few ships. The weapons were overpowered for a ship like the Starrider, meaning extra energy had to be diverted from other systems to give it power. This time it was the engines. Immediatly after two Light Guns, one on top of the ship and one on the bottom, fired. Their beams were white, and, as opposed to the Heavy Guns, were more accurate and faster firing but didn't do as much damage. They were made to destroy ships of a frigate size or smaller, but they still did have effect on capitals.

"Tactical locate the weapons systems on those craft and concentrate our fire on the closest target" Kaori ordered as her helm officer took them into a firing positon.

"All forward weapons now" she ordered.

Her bridge crew reacted quickly as the firepower of two phaser banks and a spread of photon torpedo's came from the Fukido Bay aimed at the closest enemy ship.

Now it would be victory or death for the Neo Kirisuban crew.

The massive explosion was impressively recreated through the sensors to his Brain-Computer Interface, but Gabriel had no time to watch it as he mentally ordered in a frenetic way of thoughts and fears while it continually shifted its vectorial direction through its thrusters and started to strafe away from the alien ships:

"Sequential rail gun fire! Prioritize closest enemies! Missile Swarm now, priority on farthest and their engines!"

"Acknowledged", the AI replied coldly as the two large rail gun turrets started to aim and fire against the closest alien ships as they approached them, it was programmed to shoot one by one, focusing both rail guns on a single target in sequential fire mode, while a second later a swarm of 30 missiles flew and was locked, this time 6 against each of the 5 most distant alien ships, focused on targeting their engines and taking diagonal trajectories towards them rather than a straight line. At the same time, from now on, one 60mm solid round would be fired against the alien ships per second due to the double fire rate of sequential fire mode of both rail guns, dealing 1,340 MJ of damage each. On his mind it was unlikely that a ship or its shield could stand a continual barrage of 1,340 MJ of damage per second as it continued in vectorial flight in a diagonal, approaching the 10 alien ships nearby, 2 of them already damaged by the two rounds of the rail guns that were fired before...

Anything hostile up to 300 kilometers of distance from his position would be eventually obliterated now, if his cruiser could stand the enemy fire until then.

Its 40 point-defense autocannon turrets were continually pointing towards the overall direction of the alien ships preemptively to shoot against incoming missiles.

The reinforcements never arrived... probably they were lost forever in the Warp.

--------------

4 Stellar Ballistic missiles were still heading against the large warship, while the remaining 10 missiles in Gabriel's cruiser were more to enough to obliterate a planet, if necessary...

More Kezarn ships fell along with their crews. Now it was time for round two.

Around 50 Kezarn ships left their positions hurtling forward to Londim and it's allies, taking evasive action and getting through the field of fire. These ships then fired every missile they had, enough to take out half of the Londim fleet. While the missiles launched the ships fired lasers at the enemies, in this fire 30 Londim ships went down as if the laser fire were piercing the shields. It seemed that the Kezarn weapon technology was more superior than what Londim possessed.

At the same time the Londim crews all opened fire trying to take down the enemy fleet. Meanwhile the Kezarn King sat and absorbed the energy from the destruction around it. It would soon be time...

"Sir? Enemy vessels, 30 degrees port!" One of the Ensigns called

"Battlestations! Red Alert!" Mason demanded as the Kezan ships attacked, "Evasive manevoers, fire phasers on full! I want a full spread of torpedeos now!"

"Yes, Captain!"

The Formidable was able to remain out of the Kezan missile's path although a few did richocet off the shields. At the same time, she fired her torpedoes, each powerful enough to destroy a moon and fired her phasers, red beams that could bore through to the planet's core.

"Multiple blips. Missiles have been launched."
"Point-defenses open fire, take evasive action."
"We cannot move quickly enough, our engines are drained."
"Reroute power from weapons to starboard deflector shields."
"Aye. Power rerouted."
"Using engine power."
The ship crawled slowly, painfully away, not moving quickly enough. Twenty AS cannons opened fire on the missiles, automated and firing hundreds of shots a second. A wall of fire seperated the missiles from the Starrider. A few missiles got though, but the shields took the hits easily. However, the systems on the ship were uneven: The shields had most of the power, while the engines and weapons were being drained.
"Get us back to full capacity."
"Power rerouted."
"Enemy ships approaching."
"Both MAC guns, fire. Followed by the Light guns. Aim for the bridge. If we can immobilize them we can hide behind their ship so if they want to shoot more missiles at us they'll have to destroy their own ship."
The tactic was no guarenteed to work. In fact, many Admirals would coldly destroy their own ship to destroy an enemy. But all they could do now was pray that their weapons connected with the bridge of the foremost approaching Kezan ship.

"Captain Sama, smaller enemy contacts coming our way" the tactical officer reported.

"Full weapon spread" Captain Mikato ordered as the tried and trusted Neo Kirisuban tactics played out.

They fired and then moved before they became an easy target especially since their cloaking device was no benefit.

The phasers and photon torpedoes impacted into the enemy formation as the Fukido twisted sharply to its new firing position and making herself a hard target.

Perhaps it was the heat the battle while missiles were deflected or destroyed by the active protection system and swarms of missiles from his cruiser flew against the aliens as its large cannons teared whatever was closest apart, and the fact the electromagnetic field and the ice shield reflected occasional beams of energy from close enough alien ships to fire before they were destroyed, while sometimes it seemed the field was about to be broken by a superior quantity of energy as evasive vectorial flight tried to avoid those beams as the EM coating was wearing down on its vectored thrust fusion engines, perhaps the impending threat of overwhelming numbers was what got Gabriel to think on the possibility of doing it. No reinforcements from his allies, coupled with the quantity of non-human forces there were putting a couple of worries in his mind, as another message reached Londim through the Shadow FTL medium, it seemed to be in a slightly worried tone, and due to the intense concentration on the battle, he forgot to set the message as private, and it was broadcasted unintentionally to all allied forces, after receiving interference from the Warp:

"This is not a mere alien threat, this is a threat to our own survival as a species. Requesting permission for long-range orbital ballistic bomb*static*xenocide*static* need authorization for *another voice rather than Gabriel's* Exterminatus *shifts back to Gabriel's voice* before it's too late! It's either us or th*static*"

After that, he requested a bit of information from the Von Braun's Artificial Intelligence, as it assumed control of all weapons systems, aiming and firing them and Gabriel simply watched the battlefield as its commander:

"Von Braun, do we have enough energy for a warp into the Shadow Universe?"

"Yes, however, chances of arriving at intended destination after leaving the Shadow are of 25%, chances of not becoming insane or possessed by psychic entity are of 65% and chances of not becoming lost forever in the Shadow are of 70%"

"Thanks for your optimism", Gabriel mentally replied as he thought:
´"The Shadow is only for emergences. I don't want to face another demon"´ and continued. This time his cruiser sought to open hole in the invading fleet lines of fire to head towards Londim and commit an orbital bombardment operation that in other corners of the galaxy was more known as an Exterminatus. It flying at an oblique route as the EM cannons continually fired against whatever was the closest alien ship and the missiles were locked and launched at a rate of one salvo of 30 missiles at each 2 seconds for the next 10 seconds, soon it only had enough for more 3 salvos of 30 missiles which were saved for the next part of the impending war, although more Spacewinder MK-4 and Spacewinder MK-5 missiles were inside the ship cargo hold for more 33 salvos, the launchers could only be re-armed once they are retracted. However the potential combined energy of damage dealt by all those missiles and of the EM cannons during the time they were both being fired was of 10,380 MJ per second, which soon would be enough to blow up the 10 ships chasing him in those 10 decisive seconds as the field was about to be depleted because the damage the cruiser was receiving was greater than that its electromagnetic field could stop and the beams too intense to be completely reflected by the ice shield. The readers counted 30 MJ of remaining field resistance at a one square meter segment the most targeted region of the cruiser as the last ship was destroyed and he headed towards Fusion, and towards the larger enemy fleet which was slowly being recharged by its fusion reactors back to the 400 MJ maximum electromagnetic reactive field, also known as shield in other places.

The Sniper Class cruiser headed towards fusion, probably it could at least serve as a distraction for the enemy aliens if he did not receive authorization to slag their planet.

The Kezarn ships were taking heavy losses. It seemed they would lose and they knew it. With this in mind they launched every missile they had and went into hyperspace. The Kezarn had left the system....


At least for now.

Londim

Tarnis looked at the screens.

"Where have they gone? Where have they gone?!"

The 'Fukido Bay' had taken light damage in the fight but it was nothing they couldn't handle. The engineers would have the warp drive restored and the eps conduits on F deck replaced in a matter of hours.

There was also a few minor injuries but these where being dealt with in the sickbay.

So Kaori stood the crew down from the red alert as they sent their status report to MilComm and Commander Tarnis.

She head a feeling they might be back again and in greater numbers. If they could raise one fleet they could always raise another in the future and she didn't want they knocking on the door of her home system.

Fortuneatly, the Formidable had remained on the outskirts of the battle, using her relatively impressive firepower and manourverability to pound the Kezan with torpedoes and phaser fire, as well as CD laser fire where possible.

When they had repeated, Mason turned to one of the ensigns on the bridge
"Report. Battle damage"

"Minor hull breaches on decks 31 and 34 but other than that, nothing Sir. We got away scott free"

"Never assume the best Ensign, give me a more precise report when you can"

"Yes, Sir"

The point-defenses brought down the last of the missiles, and a few more concussed the ship.
"Report." said Litel.
"Admiral, our shields are down to eighty four percent. Our attack and defenses were largly successful, at least six enemy ships have been destroyed or heavily damaged by our guns."
"Any hull damage?"
"No ma'am. The shields deflected all incoming missiles."
"Good. Let me know if anything comes up. Doctor Ginta and myself may be going planetside soon, so have a shuttle ready."
"Yes Admiral."
"Oh, and open a broadband frequency. Offer assistance."
"It will be done."
Allied ships, this is the Starrider. Does anyone require assistance in repairs or treating the injured?

Hearing the hail Captain Mikato got it piped to her office where she answered it.

"Admiral Lintel, this is Captain Mikato from the 'Fukido Bay' reporting in.

We should be fine since our damage was light and will be back to full operational status in a few hours. Casualties were also light with only minor wounds."

Aboard the Formidable, most of the damage caused had already been repaired. The shields had taken the brunt of the attacks and only minor attacks had penetrated them. Mallon was relieved that the Starrider had not suffered extreme damage,

To: Xiscapian vessel Starrider

Negative to offer of aid, we have suffered no casualties and our
damage has been light. However, it seems the Londim Fleet has
suffered heavily. Do they need assistance?

Captain Mason

The Formidable moved into position on the Starrider's lower port stern. This was a standard defence formation and would provide mutual protection incase the Kezan decided it was time for a second wave.

"This is Gabriel, no damage beyond what the universal constructor *attachment available (http://www.planetdeusex.ru/images/285.jpg)* and what the nano-robots can repair was done and there is no live crew here besides me either. I am heading to Fusion to send a nanite probe, I suggest an immediate orbital investigation to be held on the Planet."

The message was broadcasted as Gabriel prepared to enter again in hibernation during the remaining dozens of hours of the trip to the planet. It was a complicated but ensured victory, and after the aliens fled, all he could think was an increasing disgust against those beings, whatever they were. He got a new one for the anti-alien phrasings in his mind:

´"To be Coward, that is the mark of the Alien"´

It would take him a few more than a day to arrive at Fusion.

The battle had taught the Londimians a lot and plans were already in the works to make the ships stronger and shields more powerful.



To Starrider,

That's a negative. We're bringing back the injured planet side. The deceased are being checked and their families notified.



To All,

No sensors or probes picked up the Kezarn ships returning to Fusion. They may have even left the system altogether to roam space. We were lucky in we outnumbered them. Others may not be so lucky. I would like to conduct another meeting and decide another course of action. I also thank you for your help in battle.

As affirmative reports came in from all the allied ships who combating the Kezarns, and Lintel breathed a sigh of relief, hearing of no outstanding casualties or heavy damage.
To All,

No sensors or probes picked up the Kezarn ships returning to Fusion. They may have even left the system altogether to roam space. We were lucky in we outnumbered them. Others may not be so lucky. I would like to conduct another meeting and decide another course of action. I also thank you for your help in battle.
We will be down in minutes to meet back up.
Lintel and Ginta got to their shuttle and in no time they were back on the planet Londim. Once again it seemed that they were first to arrive except for, of course, Commander Tarnis. Both of the kitsune bowed. "Greetings, Commander."

Captain Mikato also heard Admiral Lintel's message and said "I'll be going down as well. Comms tell the Starrider I'm on my way."

So after making sure she was presentable in her skirt uniform and had her swords and the scans they'd taken of 'Kazarn King' she took a shuttle to the surface for another meeting.

It promised to be an important meeting. Kaori had the feeling they'd be back again..

##

She arrived a few minutes after Admiral Lintel and Ginta landing outside the building and bowing to the guards.

Mason and the Formidable were the next to arrive,

"It seems our enemy have revealed themselves" he stated bitterly, "Luckily our own vessel was not badly hit, their weapons do not appear to be as effective against our shielding"

"Follow me. The meeting will not be held in this conference room. I am now taking you all to an area that is above top secret. It seems information that was classified before, only viewable to the Emperor and his closest advisors has been declassified to my level.

According to the new reports, Fusion was not a simple terraform gone wrong. According to these notes, experiments were also taking place to create a new life form to help Londim grow as a power. These life forms, were the Kezarn. These reports tell us that the Kezarn had an extraoridinary rate of evolution. I mean look at what we faced. A race only conceived six years ago already space faring. Who knows what we'll face should they return. They'll only use the mistakes they made to become stronger.

At first they seemed peaceful enough, helping with the Terraforming. Then they got a taste. All those bodies that went missing were devoured by the Kezarn. The source of their power to control planets is still unknown.

I will understand any anger you will have but I feel the same way. I lost a lot of good soldiers up there, some of them friends of mine. I vow revenge upon the Kezarn for all the suffering they have caused,the deaths they have caused.

Tell me what you feel and if it helps vent your anger."

Kaori handed Commander Tarnis a neo-kirisuban datapad containing the scans they'd managed to take of the huge Kazarn ship.They'd been sent to millcomm already but she couldn't be sure if he'd seen them or not.

"I'm not sure if you've seen these or not Commander but in case they come back this is what we pieced together about the enemy flagship.

You have my sympathies as well but I feel they'll be back here sooner rather than later. That looked like a tactical withdrawal to me" she softly said.

Ginta looked over the data while Lintel considered this from a military standpoint.
"Commander," she began, pacing, "right now the situation looks grim. We have a planet we cannot land on in enemy hands inside your home system, and a rouge fleet somewhere out there, probably recovering the attack again. Despite the immense objects of scientific interest they might provide, these creatures of your creation are too dangerious to be left alive. They seemed to only use missiles, they probably don't have beam technology yet, but if what you said is correct, it is only a matter of time. I once again support the choice of glassing Fusion from afar. No matter how many missiles they may have, certain weapons cannot be deflected or destroyed by missiles. If we get rid of the center, no more ships can be produced and they will lose their only supply base. Once that is acheived it would be a relatively simple matter to have the Londim fleet hunt down and destroy the Kezarn fleet."
Ginta vaugly nodded from the piles of data in front of him. "Six years," he muttered. "Commander Tarnis, about the exact nature of this project. Were the Kezarn intended to be supersoldiers? Or were they test subjects? From what I say of their ships, they are crude, and not very durable with seemingly either weak or no shields of any kind. But in a mere six years...it took the Terrans...what, some three hundred years to go from guns and horses to cars and space shuttles? And then another few hundred to extraplantary? If the Kezarn develop at this rate consistently, I fear we may be looking at another SASM." Both were professionally calm, almost cold even. It was not their nature to be quick to anger or panic.

Kaori handed Commander Tarnis a neo-kirisuban datapad containing the scans they'd managed to take of the huge Kazarn ship.They'd been sent to millcomm already but she couldn't be sure if he'd seen them or not.

"I'm not sure if you've seen these or not Commander but in case they come back this is what we pieced together about the enemy flagship.

You have my sympathies as well but I feel they'll be back here sooner rather than later. That looked like a tactical withdrawal to me" she softly said.

"Tactical is most likely but we do not know where they would retreat to. In those six years who knows if they went to another planet. Who knows if there are other planets like Fusion. You have my and the Emperor's permission to destroy Fusion. It has only brought us heartache."

Ginta looked over the data while Lintel considered this from a military standpoint.
"Commander," she began, pacing, "right now the situation looks grim. We have a planet we cannot land on in enemy hands inside your home system, and a rouge fleet somewhere out there, probably recovering the attack again. Despite the immense objects of scientific interest they might provide, these creatures of your creation are too dangerious to be left alive. They seemed to only use missiles, they probably don't have beam technology yet, but if what you said is correct, it is only a matter of time. I once again support the choice of glassing Fusion from afar. No matter how many missiles they may have, certain weapons cannot be deflected or destroyed by missiles. If we get rid of the center, no more ships can be produced and they will lose their only supply base. Once that is acheived it would be a relatively simple matter to have the Londim fleet hunt down and destroy the Kezarn fleet."
Ginta vaugly nodded from the piles of data in front of him. "Six years," he muttered. "Commander Tarnis, about the exact nature of this project. Were the Kezarn intended to be supersoldiers? Or were they test subjects? From what I say of their ships, they are crude, and not very durable with seemingly either weak or no shields of any kind. But in a mere six years...it took the Terrans...what, some three hundred years to go from guns and horses to cars and space shuttles? And then another few hundred to extraplantary? If the Kezarn develop at this rate consistently, I fear we may be looking at another SASM." Both were professionally calm, almost cold even. It was not their nature to be quick to anger or panic.

"If they continue to rate at this rate I estimate that within a few months there technology will far surpass our own. Even now they will be getting stronger. They were not designed as super soldiers. More like super workers and scientists. According to initial reports they were designed to help create more efficient technology, military being a small part, the majority being for the improvement of life. It seems something went wrong. They are creating technology efficiently but they seem to be bent on the destrution of life.I would send my best fleet after them but we have no where to start. They seemed to have completely vanished. Should they come back they won'tbe what we faced before. They'll be stronger, faster, deadlier.

If we follow your rate of the Terrans evolution. 500/6 equaling 48 and a third. So the rate of technoligical evolution is 48.33 Terran years to 1 Kezarn year. In one month they go forward in technology by about 4 years. That's about a year a week. If they return in a week who knows what technology they shall have..."

"If we have your permission to destroy Fusion, then I suggest we do, as quickly as possible. Locating a fleet in deep space is like trying to find an atom in a haystack. You cannot do it...with ships. A large number of probes, simplistic in nature and dispersed widely, may up the odds somewhat. Also, keep your eyes and ears open, and make sure your boarders are well guarded. In the meantime, I would go so far as to suggest to search any and all nearby planets for presence of the Kezarn." said Lintel primely.

Captain Mikato nodded as Admiral Lintel spoke.

What she said made perfect sense and it looked like Fusion would have to be destroyed to save the other planets in the Londim system.

The Fusionians might even come knocking on the Neo-Kirisuban star system some day as well unless checked now.

"I'd have to agree Commander" she commented. "Either they have to go or a lot of innocents will suffer."

Mason nodded grimly at Lintel's suggestion
"Sometimes we must be cruel to be kind" He said sadly, "It's a pity they are not willing to negotiate with us. A species with that rate of evolution could be of immense benefit to the entire galaxy."

The Formidable was one of the most advanced ships in the Alversian fleet and that made her VERY advanced indeed. However, while the Kezarn weapons of the moment had had minimal effect upon his vessel, if what the Londim said was true then they could be facing a very different species in as little as a month's time. Mason could feel another SASM-like war looming.

Gabriel was awakened again, he had no idea on the nature of the Kezarns as he did not attend the conference

"Location is nearby Fusion and currently stopped... Distance: zero-dot-zero-one astronomical units. Estimated time to arrive: six hours and fifty-one minutes. We are currently in effective range for orbital bombardment and effective c-frac attack", the artificial intelligence announced as the far sight of the planet Fusion was ahead on his artificial vision and magnified by the quantum computers. Gabriel did not have further questions or interest on the readings as another message arrived to Londim.

"This is Gabriel aboard the Von Braun, I am currently in range for deep planetary scan, and for relativistic orbital bombardment with an estimated time of 3 hours, would you authorize an orbital bombardment? If not I'll proceed with the surveillance probes."

"If we have your permission to destroy Fusion, then I suggest we do, as quickly as possible. Locating a fleet in deep space is like trying to find an atom in a haystack. You cannot do it...with ships. A large number of probes, simplistic in nature and dispersed widely, may up the odds somewhat. Also, keep your eyes and ears open, and make sure your boarders are well guarded. In the meantime, I would go so far as to suggest to search any and all nearby planets for presence of the Kezarn." said Lintel primely.



Captain Mikato nodded as Admiral Lintel spoke.

What she said made perfect sense and it looked like Fusion would have to be destroyed to save the other planets in the Londim system.

The Fusionians might even come knocking on the Neo-Kirisuban star system some day as well unless checked now.

"I'd have to agree Commander" she commented. "Either they have to go or a lot of innocents will suffer."


Mason nodded grimly at Lintel's suggestion
"Sometimes we must be cruel to be kind" He said sadly, "It's a pity they are not willing to negotiate with us. A species with that rate of evolution could be of immense benefit to the entire galaxy."

The Formidable was one of the most advanced ships in the Alversian fleet and that made her VERY advanced indeed. However, while the Kezarn weapons of the moment had had minimal effect upon his vessel, if what the Londim said was true then they could be facing a very different species in as little as a month's time. Mason could feel another SASM-like war looming.

"So it is agreed. Fusion will be destroyed. Probes sent out. The Kezarn hunted."

Gabriel was awakened again, he had no idea on the nature of the Kezarns as he did not attend the conference

"Location is nearby Fusion and currently stopped... Distance: zero-dot-zero-one astronomical units. Estimated time to arrive: six hours and fifty-one minutes. We are currently in effective range for orbital bombardment and effective c-frac attack", the artificial intelligence announced as the far sight of the planet Fusion was ahead on his artificial vision and magnified by the quantum computers. Gabriel did not have further questions or interest on the readings as another message arrived to Londim.

"This is Gabriel aboard the Von Braun, I am currently in range for deep planetary scan, and for relativistic orbital bombardment with an estimated time of 3 hours, would you authorize an orbital bombardment? If not I'll proceed with the surveillance probes."

" A message from Gabriel. He is in range to destroy Fusion. I am giving the order."

Gabriel. You have permission to destroy Fusion. I repeat: Destroy Fusion.

Lintel nodded. "Very good, then. I believe Doctor Ginta has something to say?"
Ginta looked up from studying the data amassed from the battle. "What? Oh, yes. If at all possible, if anyone encounters the Kezarn, I would like at least one ship and one specimen to study. These creatures are porbably a goldmine of genetic information, and taking one of their ships will partially reveal how they work. This could be very, very important."

Mason smiled at the thought
"That won't be easy, Doctor. By the time we have caught up with their fleet it could already have outstripped our own technology. In those circumstances, trying to catch one would be nothing short of impossible." He was, of course, speaking for his own ship but he imagined that the other captains present would feel the same.
"You speak the truth, Admiral. But we destroyed the SASM, did we not? I am sure that we can take on this new threat as well, especially with so many helpful allies," he looked around at the assembly. "You have all shown courage, bravery and dedication in the heat of battle. You are the rocks which upon your nations are built. I feel honored to be serving with you all." "As do I," Litel volunteered.

Mason smiled at the thought
"That won't be easy, Doctor. By the time we have caught up with their fleet it could already have outstripped our own technology. In those circumstances, trying to catch one would be nothing short of impossible." He was, of course, speaking for his own ship but he imagined that the other captains present would feel the same.

"We should send probes to find them. For all we know they may be in another star system by now and we may not be able to recognise them should we find them. The only way me recognise them is if they come to us but why should they?"

"My own vessel can reach warp 9 so we should be fast enough to catch up with a small Kezarn ship.

Assuming it can be isolated the engines and main systems can be knocked out and we could warp away with it under tow.

Assuming its no bigger than our own tonnage off course. Thats all we can tow with our tractor beams" Kaori replied glancing to Ginta and the others.

There was quite a few ifs and assumptions with this plan but she was confident the 'Fukido Bay' could play a part again.

"We might also be able to abduct a crew member with our transporter technology" she also added.

"You assume a lot, Commander Kaori. Our own vessel is also capable of Warp nine and we are considerably better armed than your own vessel" He wasn't boasting, just telling the truth, "If we were to accompany you as a 'Big Gun' so to speak, then you could get down to the business of taking one of their ships while we distracted the rest of their fleet. What do you think?" He asked her.

"Just both of your ships going would be suicide. Who knows what weapons they have now. I say we take this one step at a time. First the destruction of Fusion. That is being taken care of by Gabriel but the Kezarn may have left something for us if they were to think of this being an outcome."

No support was given... destroying the entire infrastructure of a planet would be a great challenge that would involved countless simulations and calculations on the fly of the best coordinates for impact. There was a limit where even the best probabilistic mechanics coupled with quantum computers, softwares with trillions of lines of code and advanced artificial intelligences wouldn't allow a successful achievement. But perhaps it might work, three thousand megatons were considered to be enough to destroy Earth at least twice.

"Von Braun, can you calculate optimal coordinates for bombardment with our 10 remaining warheads of 300 megatons each? Focus on alien infrastructure."

"Planetary scans indicate a major heat signatures in possible metropolises, by using the MIRV module and splitting each of the ballistic missiles into 10 separate warheads after atmospheric entry, it will be possible to cover the entire planet with radioactive fallout, with 90% chances of rendering it completely devoid of life and non-habitable."

´"Habitable planets are so rare, that the use of orbital bombardment should be used only in extreme cases. In fact sometimes I wonder whether we should consider deploying such technology at all against a planet. Is it right to annihilate the entire ecosystem of a planet? To destroy something countless times rarer than a diamond that is an Earth or Super-Earth and the work of hundreds of millions of evolution? If all civilizations resorted recklessly to these practices, eventually an habitable planet would not become a rarity, but simply non-existent"´

He reminded those words as a simple thought was what remained between the complete obliteration of that planet from most life forms except those impressively resistant to radiation. A nuclear winter would probably ensure for such scale of bombardment, killing off anything that survived the radiation. It was something his mind tried to forget, to ignore. The horrors of nuclear war were never erased from Solar Communes history and its implications were well known. The non-sentient life forms from that planet were not those to be blamed... in fact should he knew the truth, Gabriel would immediately know who to blame. It was a difficult realization... to be the one responsible for the destruction of an entire planet and of most life on it...

The ten last fusion missiles of the cruiser were launched as he commanded, after being programmed with coordinates by the Artificial Intelligence of the starship, which according to several data on gravity, atmospheric composition, estimations of winds and sea streams, has defined the optimal impact points for those missiles. They would impact against the planet from 10 positions, each more or less having similar distances between them as some of them, and after they entered atmosphere, each missile would split in 10 warheads of 30 megatons each, at a relativistic speed of almost one thousandth of the speed of light. They would accelerate continually for three hours until impacting with their destination.

One less inhabitable planet in a desolate, lifeless Space where such inhabitable planets are countless times rarer than a black diamond...

Fusion was gone but the Kezarn were not.

The Kezarn fleet flew through space constantly getting stronger, faster, deadlier. Already their shields and weaponry were becoming advanced. However for now they searched for a new planet to claim as a base either through discovery or force.

Almost impossibly the fleet had grown since the battle. The Kezarn King was more advanced and within was a military base creating ships and weaponry. Building had also started on the Kezarn Queen and Kezarn Prince. They would be ready within less than 2 weeks. If they were to go operational then the Kezarn would be almost unstoppable.

Londim

Tarnis paced the room trying to think of the best course of action. Leave the Kezarn so they became someone else's problem was tempting but Tarnis was a proud being and made sure his mistakes were taken care of personally.

"So what do we do?"

"Commander Tarnis, I have the feeling they will be back here homeworld or not.

We need to find this fleet before they advance too far for us to fight them. Then they'll have to be engaged ASAP" Captain Mikato replied gravely.

The Neo-Kirisuban's were warriors and this was the time for firm action. The Kezarn had to be dealt with before they became a galactic menace.

"If you insist. I shall send the 3rd Fleet, the best and most efficient fleet Londim has to offer. I believe they would've headed towards Fusion but with that gone, they'll move further out, maybe leaving the Solar System altogether."

"That is a highly optimistic claim, Captain. There is a very high chance that they will seek revenge for the destruction of their homeworld" Mason thought out loud as he often did, "They will already be more advanced than us by this stage, I would imagine, judging by their previous rate of growth. Then again, I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong" he stated optimistically.

"Of course. I merely suggested they may have left to get stronger. I fear they will be back and the next time, not all of us may survive. They may have gone searching for a new planet to get a base of operations."

"As I have said before, a wide scattering of probes to find such a planet is needed. Judging their tech level, and this is only by what we have, they were far less advanced than we are. However, it would not take them long to become our equals, or even surpass us. The sooner we can engage them, the less advanced they'll be, and so much the better." said Lintel.

"I agree with Captain Lintel" Mason stated calmly, "The sooner we can remove this problem, the sooner we can get back to our families and not have to worry about a super-race in the near future"

(OOC: Lots of nukes can't destroy a world in the sense of making it cease to exist, but they'll render it as a glassed nuclear wasteland.)

"Multiple Impacts detected at Planet Fusion... nuclear fallout detected... radiation levels at 500 rems, habitability: 0.05%. Estimated costs of radiation cleanup: 500 trillions of energy credits."

It was over, for now Fusion was nothing but a completely non-habitable wasteland. The fusion missiles did not destroy ever inch of land and life from it, but the radioactive fallout would be a challenge for even the most resistant life forms to survive soon, and a hundred of craters were visible from space covered the planet as a dust of radioactive particles spread through it.

"Hydrogen and Helium-3 reserves only enough for way back travel... missiles almost depleted".

He could not remain there, and lacking a reliable medium of faster-than-light travel would make of his ship a hindrance to their search for those aliens as he announced:

"This is Gabriel to Londim. I am afraid my mission and operational capabilities end here. This ship is not equipped with technology to interdict faster-than-light targets and it is currently almost depleted of ammunitions, as it was designed to have the support of several logistics fleets for long-term warfare. I am afraid I will have to return as this ship reached its operational limits without dedicated logistics support... also I fear its technology is not compatible with yours, and thus resupplying it here might not work."

Unless if they offered him some financial compensation... but even then the cruiser would lose most of its edge without a load of stellar ballistic missiles.

"As I have said before, a wide scattering of probes to find such a planet is needed. Judging their tech level, and this is only by what we have, they were far less advanced than we are. However, it would not take them long to become our equals, or even surpass us. The sooner we can engage them, the less advanced they'll be, and so much the better." said Lintel.

"I agree with Captain Lintel" Mason stated calmly, "The sooner we can remove this problem, the sooner we can get back to our families and not have to worry about a super-race in the near future"

"The probes are being set up and being readied to launch. We shall soon learn where the Kezarn disappeared too and then we shall stop them from bringing havoc to the known universe."

(OOC: Lots of nukes can't destroy a world in the sense of making it cease to exist, but they'll render it as a glassed nuclear wasteland.)

"Multiple Impacts detected at Planet Fusion... nuclear fallout detected... radiation levels at 500 rems, habitability: 0.05%. Estimated costs of radiation cleanup: 500 trillions of energy credits."

It was over, for now Fusion was nothing but a completely non-habitable wasteland. The fusion missiles did not destroy ever inch of land and life from it, but the radioactive fallout would be a challenge for even the most resistant life forms to survive soon, and a hundred of craters were visible from space covered the planet as a dust of radioactive particles spread through it.

"Hydrogen and Helium-3 reserves only enough for way back travel... missiles almost depleted".

He could not remain there, and lacking a reliable medium of faster-than-light travel would make of his ship a hindrance to their search for those aliens as he announced:

"This is Gabriel to Londim. I am afraid my mission and operational capabilities end here. This ship is not equipped with technology to interdict faster-than-light targets and it is currently almost depleted of ammunitions, as it was designed to have the support of several logistics fleets for long-term warfare. I am afraid I will have to return as this ship reached its operational limits without dedicated logistics support... also I fear its technology is not compatible with yours, and thus resupplying it here might not work."

Unless if they offered him some financial compensation... but even then the cruiser would lose most of its edge without a load of stellar ballistic missiles.

"You help has been much appreciated. For your brave work and courage in battle we give you 100,000 Credits and The Emperor's Seal. These are not given out lightly. With this seal you will be recognised as an honorary Londim citizen.

It is best to go backand repair and resupply your ships. If possibel retunr to us to help us in the search for the Kezarn."

The Kezarn

They had grown stronger and were ready once again. They were headed back to battle, this time they would get through the defences and bring the fight onto the planet surface. Only then would Londim realise what true horror was.

"Our repairs are nearly complete Commander Tarnis but I've asked to be re-supplied by supply ship.

I was due some crew replacements anyway so they'll arrive along with photon torpedo's and more spare parts. We can meet them half way and be back here in a day to two days" Kaori softly replied as she brought the allies up to date on their situation.

Hilanam, Southern Hemisphere Londim

The cities 2 million inhabitants went about their usual business keeping the city running. Little were they to know the city wouldn't need running much longer...

The blast was heard fro miles around and the explosion itself seen 500 miles away. Hilanam was now little more than a crater and any trace of its inhabitants gone. The Kezarn were back and this time they were much deadlier.

Secret Military Base

Tarnis had been told of the events and already every available soldier was ready for war. It had been many centuries since war had come to Londim's land.

He addressed the Captains of the allied ships.

"Approximately 10 minutes ago, the city of Hilanam was destroyed killing all 2 million inhabitants. Shortly after we received this message." He played the message out.


We the Kezarn have returned. We need a home. We have decided your home shall become our home. However our home is infested by rodents. Rodents which must be exterminated. It has begun.

Mason saw the message and sighed
"I thought it would be too much to hope they would just flee." he stared at the remains of the planet, "What do you have to counter-attack?" He asked.

Gabriel logically was just lying about supplies. His ship deck where usually lots of stasis chambers would exist to allow its crew to travel for decades or centuries without significant aging was refitted mostly as a cargo bay for additional armament, with the inconvenient being that the vertical launch cells could not be loaded during flight. Docking, rather than landing in the planet, in a nearby space station for repairs, and aware of the rewards, somehow he felt that leaving them behind would not be something that would be forgotten and rid of any guilty should they fall. It was no wonder that while his cruiser was docked, a myriad of robots came to outer space, bringing with them hundreds of missiles and more twenty fusion ballistic missiles that were stored in that cargo bay. They were being brought through a large opening of the hull in that bay, also customized for Gabriel's needs, and soon the access several "holes" opened surrounding almost the entirety of his starship aft, from where the missiles were armed and readied to be fired again. Equally, the massive fuel storage was again filled with hydrogen and helium-3 for the fusion engines. that he acquired from the base. It was ready for combat... and for boarding.

Soon the orbital bombardment was heard as he dashed towards the dock where he could reach the cruiser and return to the bridge to assume its control again. This was much beyond any threat Solar Communes has faced before. And if he did nothing about it, it could eventually reach his system.

But much before running back to his cruiser, Gabriel asked quickly to the staff of the base:

"Do you have boarding ships? I need six boarding ships urgently and docked in my cruiser!"

Hopefully that would not be necessary. He was not a Space Pirate, and the robots had a limited combat capacity, but it might become the last hope soon... to board the flagship of the alien threat.

"Already?" Ginta cried and threw up his hands. "They've been gone for hours! How could they have possibly gotten though?"
Lintel was muttering into her comm unit. "Beam Doctor Ginta up, keep a lock on me, if anything happens up there I don't just want to know it, I want to be there. A city has been destroyed here, we're going to investigate. Rake the planet with scans. I want to know how they did it."

Already the Kezarn had evolved, their ships almost unrecognizable. Their rate of evolution was getting faster. This time they were much smarter. Soldiers had been made at an extraordinary rate and now they would descend upon Londim.

The Kezarn ships were still too far out to be attacked by Watchdog and the Kezarn teleporters were powerful. Within minutes thousands of Kezarn warriors descended upon Londim.

War had broken out...

Captain Mikato swore in kirisuban and tapped her comm badge checking in with her ship.

She listened carefully and found she was stuck here because the ships shields were up.

"The XO's in charge now. I'll remain on the surface and beam me down a hand phaser and power packs just in case I need them.

Do what you can to fight them in space. I'll do what I can here. Mikato out."

With that message in English she wondered if she would ever see her ship or even her homeworld again but she'd fight and either be victorious or die.

There was no in between when Neo Kirisuban's went to war.

Mason sighed and turned to his Commander,
"Mister Reid! Beam down a Detachment of Marines to aid the defense! Lead them yourself!"
"Yes, Captain!" The man saluted and ran from the bridge. Mason turned to face the enemy fleet,
"Red Alert! Battlestations! Prepare to engage!" He called over the ship's P.A

Meanwhile down on the surface, 200 Alversian Marines appeared, led by the tall Thomas Reid, he was armed, like his men with the Alversian Space Carbine. He troops instantly formed a protective ring to repel attack before moving off.
"Find the local HQ!" Reid bellowed over the increasing sounds of battle, "Find the Londim HQ, see where they need reinforcements!"

As Ginta was beamed up Lintel spoke into her communicater again. "I want all our small craft and Marines down here now. We have a ground war on our hands. If any of their larger ships get in range open fire on them."
Moments later two hundred Marines were beamed down to the surface, and the Black Guard joined them. The Major in charge started bellowing orders. "Alright you stupid kits, let's go! Form up and move out! Londim and Alversian soldiers will help you out, right now your orders are simple, if it's not human or kitsune, shoot the crap out of it!" Fifty shuriken class fighters as well as fifty Light Assault Mechs and fifteen Heavy Assault mechs screamed down out of the atmosphere. The fighters would strafe the Krezan ground troops, while the LAM and HAM were walking tanks, the bane of infantry. All but three HAM, five LAM, ten fighters and twenty Marines moved towards the source of the fighting. The remaining soldiers, fighters and mechs would act as a guard force for the base and Lintel.

OOC: Where is the battle actually taking place at? Also, can I get a rough estimate on the amount of Krezan ships and troops there area in the system?
IC:
The Starrider moved forward, speeding towards the Krezan ships. The beams and guns opened up once again, superheated fire lancing towards the abomination's ships, shells the size of a bus expelled at unholy speeds.

War had begun. Londim soldiers were already battling the Kezarn. Both sides were receiving losses but for every Kezarn troop that fell more would appear in their place.

"We need to find where they are transporting from!", shouted General Kinamo. He was an experienced warrior however experienced warriors had fear. The Kezarn were unlike any enemy they had faced before. The Kezarn adapted quickly and outmaneuvered the Londim soldiers quickly.

In space the 3rd and 5th fleets were speeding towards the area where the probes had picked up activity. As soon as the Kezarn were identified all Londim ships opened fire....to no effect. The Kezarn had already developed stronger sheilds and with that possibility, stronger weapons.

The war had begun and many would not see its end...

OOC: Where is the battle actually taking place at? Also, can I get a rough estimate on the amount of Krezan ships and troops there area in the system?
IC:
The Starrider moved forward, speeding towards the Krezan ships. The beams and guns opened up once again, superheated fire lancing towards the abomination's ships, shells the size of a bus expelled at unholy speeds.


OOC: The battle is taking place near where Hilanam was destroyed. Around 2000 miles from the position of the base where the meetings are being held.

Amount of Kezarn ships now is about 2000, so all of them. Number of Kezarns needed to operate one ship is 300 so 600000 are in space while on the ground we're looking at about 500,000 Kezarn troops. However Kezarn technology is allowing cloning of its troops so their numbers can go unlimited. The key to winning this war is destroying the Kezarn ships.

OOC: Damn...that's a huge amount of forces...over a million Krezan soldiers involved in the conflict.
IC:
The little Xiscapian force made good time, beamed from their present position to just outside the war zone. From afar the snipers set up positions, and no one wanted to get too close to the rolling, struggling mass of Krezan and Londim troops. The fighters began their strafing runs while the mechs charged straight into the chaos, careful to only move into the areas where the Krezan were highly concentrated, least they kill friendly Londim soldiers with their weapons or mechs. The Marines moved to flank the Krezan, spreading out into individual units. If they could find the Commander and kill him it might provide sufficent confusion for a quick win...but there was always the possibility that the Commander gave orders from safe on a ship, or even that there was no Commander, only each soldier going into it for himself.

The XO of the Fujiko Bay was Commander Keiko Kitigawa and they were in combat after launching all five armed shuttle they had to the surface.

Sensors were counting 2000 enemy starships of varying sizes and this looked like a heroic last stand as they dog fighted with the smaller Kezarn ships for now.

Blasts rocked of the shields but the agility of the ship kept them out of most of the trouble they would be in.

It was now a case of death or victory since they were so badly outnumbered even with their allies help.

###

On the surface the five shuttles were firing their phasers while doing strafing runs against the enemy ground forces. These agile twins of the Fujiko bay were nearly the equal of fighters and were armed with twin phaser cannons.

They would fight as long as they had m/am power and weapon power and they would continue to fight for as long as they were able.

###

Captain Mikato was still in the meeting area and now armed with a hand phaser and reloads. All she could do was wait for now since she had to co-ordinate her shuttles on the surface.

On the surface, John Anderson, a Marine Lieutenant fighting for his life against the Kezarn ground forces. His small unit was hiding in the ruins of a building, fighting and firing.

However, peering over the wall, John could see a mob of enemy troops rushing down the street towards their position,
“Marines!” He bellowed at the top of his voice, “Volley!”

Immediately, a group of about two dozen Marines broke cover and formed three ranks in the middle of the street. The first rank was down one knee and the other two were staggered so that everyman had a shot. They clicked their rifles so that each was on maximum yield, a shot so powerful that it could pierce concrete, armour, even personal shields. It had been designed to fight the SASM Bioroids however, one lone shot would drain the battery and it took a full three seconds to recharge again. Thus, the only time it could be used was in volley fire.

Each Marine raised his weapon to his shoulder and waited patiently for the order to fire. John held on that order. He knew at close range, the single shots could tear through up to three people. He had to wait until they were close.

The mob started to shoot at them, seeing what was about to happen. Three men, collapsed out of the Alversian formation, their rifles clattering along the ground. Still John held his nerve, as did the Marines. They waited. And waited. Then,

“Marines! Fire!!” John roared with all the breath he could muster.

Instantly, the little formation disappeared behind clouds of smoke erupting from their guns. The shot was so powerful; it overheated the barrel every time it was fired. The smoke drifted over the attacked ranks, temporarily rendering them invisible from view. At first, John hesitated, waiting for the screaming ranks to come charging through into his small, exposed unit. The Marines were obviously expecting this too, for the kneeling front rank was tensioned, waiting to leap into the attacking troops.

The smoke cleared and all that was left was carnage. The ground ahead, where there had previously been an attacking mob, was now carpeted with a layer of bloody corpses. The troops behind, who had survived the initial volley had stopped, stunned by the ferocity and devastation of the Alversian volley. John did not waste his few seconds. By now his troop’s guns had recharged and they were ready for another salvo,

“Marines! Fire by Rank!” He let the order sink in for a few seconds before, “Front rank! Fire!”

The first, kneeling rank disappeared behind a smokescreen again as the second rank raised their weapons to their shoulders, anticipating the next call

“Second rank! Fire!”

Now the second rank was engulfed in smoke and the third rank took aim with their weapons,

“Third rank! Fire!”

The third rank also vanished as the smoke gushed from their guns. All ranks had now fired, but by this stage, the first ranks guns had recharged and they now brought them up to their shoulders again,

“Front rank! Fire!” John repeated and, for a third time, the kneeling troops fired. The tactic had been developed by the Alversians in order to hit their enemy with as much fire as possible without exposing the troops. The orders continued to flow, although John was starting to get quite hoarse now due to his shouting,
“Second rank! Fire!”
“Third rank! Fire!”
“Front rank! Fire”
With each volley, the attacking troops were dropping like flies to join their comrades already there. The rest were panicking and instantly turned and fled. The Marines rose and broke formation to return to their cover. Their job was done.

Elsewhere on the battlefields the Neo Kirisuban shuttle pilots and gunners were keeping up the strafing attacks on their enemy.

Sustained phaser cannon fire swept over the Kezarn as more were inducted into the afterlife.

Their Captain was keeping them informed of where the greatest need for them was from the command bunker but Captain Mikato would rather have been in this fight.

(OOC: I'll assume he got the boarding ships he asked for in his cruiser vacant flight deck, also I'll take some liberties here, and if this spoils the RP somehow I'll edit this post)

Wearing the same sort of power armor used by the Space Pirates, the less protected but extremely agile and mounted with full vectored thrust support Type XII advanced power armor, Gabriel had, with the aid of two humanoid robots attached a pair of door-breaching quad-tandem mini-rocket pods armed with 4 rockets each, attaching also an underbarrel 55mm multipurpose grenade launcher to his 6mm C502 gauss rifle, also standard issue armament for boarding missions. After inserting a 20-round magazine into the rifle, a 55mm Nanite HEDP grenade into the launcher and downloading a assault HUD into his Infolink, Gabriel's vision changed as a heads-up display mixed with the vision of his eyes and a crosshair appeared in the overall direction his weapon pointed at, while several displays on the bottom of his vision indicated weapon condition, armor condition, remaining ammunition, his own health condition and a sound analyzer system capable of pointing the location of a potential hostile by its noises in a 3d automap on the bottom left of his vision. Plus a nanite electronics infector was also carried to dominate the alien ships electronics, should his daring plan of taking over their dreadnought work.

He was not trained for boarding an alien starship, but considering the situation in hand and their expertise in such sort of attack that was the best that could be done, he immediately ordered mentally to the artificial intelligence controlling the cruiser:

"Locate and neutralize all point defense and escorts of the xenu flagship! Target its engine systems as well to cripple it. We are going to defeat it the hard way. Maximum assault mode authorized!"

That was the last thing he said before getting into one of the boarding ships accompanied by three humanoid combat robots armed with C502 semi-automatic gauss rifles and 55mm grenade launchers, or with ETC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrothermal-Chemical_technology) 16.5x130mm Heavy Machineguns. It was a primitive technology for him, at least regarding flight control, as it relied on intermediary I/O interfaces rather than on a direct BCI. But he knew how pilot those types of ships, however he regretted not bringing one or two specialized Cariben boarding ships with him, but now it was too late and both ways he had to reach Solar Communes would be unreliable for fast deployment on their specific forms.

The cruiser was approaching the enemy fleet from an oblique direction regarding all three dimensions, trying to sneak right into the center of their formation, to use inertia to launch the boarding ships straight against its flagship, if it manages to destroy all nearby point-defense and escorts. Gabriel breathed hardly inside the power armor as the time for the final confrontation with the alien threat approached. Drawn from compartments inside the hull, ten tactical high energy laser turrets started to brighten the darkness of space near Londim's orbit frenetically at several different directions while hundreds of countermeasures and point-defense rolling airframe rockets came out of tiny vertical launch cells from almost every direction, adjusting their vectored thrust to compensate the inertia of the cruiser and head for the barrage of missiles which was being fired brutally against the Sniper Class Cruiser as it approached boarding speed and range and its pair of gauss cannons pounded its way through as missiles and more missiles were continually launched from vertical launch cells against the nearby Kezarn ships, the artificial intelligence almost reaching its limits of combat capability when four stellar ballistic fusion missiles also were launched towards 4 different directions against 4 points of the larger alien fleet to damage the closest escorts to the flagship, it was obvious that such daring move would call the entire attention of the Kezarn to Gabriel's ship. Sometimes it seemed it was the end as some large missiles came as close as 350 meters away from the hull, but they were always interdicted by the relatively large quantity of point-defense systems.

He was just 50 kilometers away from the alien flagship... suddenly a megaton worth missile managed to bypass its active protection systems. The nanite smart armor and its electromagnetic field did their best to dissipate the energy, but soon the location where the other flight deck was located before was completely decimated, including the dropship it held, leaving a large hole in the cruiser hull and an entirely destroyed flight deck as fragments started to move through space, while the impact inertially pushed the cruiser uncontrollably to the left as the intact point-defenses frenetically continued taking off as its vectored thrust attempted to correct the trajectory derail. Fortunately it did not impact against its power systems, and only took off one of the point-defense THELs, it still could continue in battle, but somehow that was a lucky survival.

"Impact detected at flight deck 1! Hull situation critical! Overall hull structural stability 65% and going down... Chances of Surviving another similar Impact: 0%. Activating damage control module for flight deck 1. Targeting point defense systems", the system announced as it simultaneously managed repair robots towards the damaged deck to stop the damage levels and combat.

A salvo of 30 missiles, couple with continual fire of the cruiser gauss cannons, sought to destroy every point defense system of the Kezarn dreadnought as its point defense systems were occupied with smaller Kezarn ships and missiles. The enemy forces were approaching and soon the cruiser would be overwhelmed. A fusion missile came from it again to blow a hole into the Kezarn flagship that would serve as the boarding point, while three others also flew towards the approaching Kezarn ships. The situation was dire, the technology those alien ships possessed was impressive, but now it was too late to give up. 40 kilometers away only, and the cruiser was now being actively engaged as it focused all its power against a single region of the Kezarn flagship to neutralize its shields as a tiny gap was opened on its hull by the fusion missile and all close point defense turrets were damaged or destroyed by a very calculated, decisive and unexpected attack.

"It is time... To be extinct! For that is the fate of all Aliens! Unit 157, assume flight controls, all stay in full alert combat module! Von Braun, prepare boarding maneuver and after it jump to the Shadow and back to the closest safe area in this system, for mankind, for the triumph of the Confederation!"

And before the final moment he sent a message to all allied forces:

"This is Gabriel, the reinforcements I hoped that would arrive from my civilization were lost in the realm of Chaos my people knows as the Shadow of the Universe and I am the only one now to accomplish their mission. While you hear this message, my Cruiser is under heavy damage and being chased, but I have managed to successfully open a hole in the xenu scum flagship. I am sending you all the data my cruiser could gather about it, including the coordinates of the hole I am getting inside soon. Yes, you heard it correctly with the help of Humanoid Combat Robots, I am going to board their flagship and conquer it. I request you to create a diversion on their forces as should I manage to take control of it, I will need some time to hack their weapon against themselves!"

Using roll and yaw reaction control, the cruiser, through vectored thrust, rolled in the middle of the space as it moved and yawed to make the dreadnought face its left as the battle continued... the electromagnetic field was being pounded almost beyond its protection capabilities as the opening on the flight deck two revealed the dread space around and the massive dreadnought hull became visible to the six boarding ships as it was continually pounded to disable its shields in that region. Six catapults launched them towards the target in an angled direction and Gabriel could see the chaos of battle as beams of light came very close to the boarding ships attempting to intercept them before they could reach the Kezarn flagship, and they continually used vectored thrust to dodge the fire the best they could. At the same time the cruiser left a massive trail of energy behind and vanishing, as it jumped to the Immaterium as a desperate attempt to retreat from an inevitable defeat, leaving them behind, and without cover. There was no turning back now, it was either victory... or death.

"Boarding Ship 1 lost!", the integrated system announced with an downloaded subset of the Cruiser AI as a beam of pure energy vaporized one of the six boarding ships as they were almost reaching the hull breach of the alien craft while its shields were about to regain power in that region. Almost in the same moment, another couple of boarding ships was destroyed just as they were about to reach the alien dreadnought. Luckily Gabriel wasn't inside one of them, but each Humanoid Combat Robot had a cost of millions of energy credits, and they were not expendable assets. Not that such detail mattered now as the three remaining boarding ships reached what seemed to be the 12th deck of the dreadnought, its vectorial brakes stopping them just in time to not collide with its internal walls in what seemed to be a flight deck.

"Beta and Omega Teams! What is your status?"

"Fireteams safe and not damaged, ready for combat, Alpha team leader."

"Good, I am leaving the ship first to the alien craft, cover me!"

Gabriel left the safety of the boarding ship and, covered by two robot riflemen and one robotic heavy machinegunner, made his way through that place, suffering from low gravity due to its damage. The shield trapped them inside the alien ship and now there was not much to be done but to seek victory as 3 teams with 4 individuals each came from the three surviving boarding ships to the alien floor of that strange deck. They had to get through 11 decks to reach the bridge of that ship, and all odds were probably against them. Soon the "sonar" of Gabriel's HUD flashed hostiles approaching towards their location.

"Fire and maneuver! Forward!", Gabriel shouted as all the 11 robots and him charged towards one of the exits of that flight deck ahead of them, as some of the robots turned their torsos 180 degrees to watch their back. That would be either the most foolish or the most heroic action ever done by a Solarian.

The breach of the Kezarn ship had been messaged to all soldiers and ships. The ship itself would start to regenerate the damaged area, making it stronger. The Kezarn evolution was now almost going at an extremely fast rate. The battle fueled this evolution further.

On the ship, there were now thousands of soldiers, created to stop the internal hostile threat. 50 of these soldiers made their way towards the area of the breach wary of the threat. They knew the hull had been breached but the total size of the boarding force was unknown. Probes were sent in first to calculate the number of enemies and then to temporarily blind them. The probes acted like flashbangs, a sort of defence mechanism to keep them operational as long as possible.

As the probes took images and sent them back they activated the flashbangs while around the corner the first wave activated shields and through Flame Grenades. Flame Grenades were designed to give a devastating explosions and then send flaming shrapnel at the enemy. The grenades were thrown towards the enemy and the temporary blast doors shut to maximise the force of the explosions.

On the ground

The Kezarn kept coming and coming. The Cosmos (Londim Fighters) were in action to strafe the Kezarn ground troops. Both sides were evenly matched. Pulse tanks followed. The Pulse tanks fired Pulse missiles which on impact would explode then send a wave of energy to take down enemy soldiers still standing. They fired...

"TANKS!"
"Got 'em Bravo leader."
The Marines got out of the way of the tanks, still on the outskirts of the battle, as their fighters swooped down and straffed the tanks, blowing them into the air. They could not possibly hope to defeat this ariel meanace without any AA capabilities. The mechs continued to smash though Krezan ground troops like bullets though glass, leaving mutilated, bloodied corpses behind. The Marines finally entered the main battle in a gap found at the southwestern flank. They took up positions behind cover and inside ruined buildings to combat the enemy soldiers.
Space
The Starrider, having been ignored, continued to accelerate as the crew watched in satisfaction as a dozen Krezan ships detonated in firey explosions of superheated gas.

(OOC: How do the Kezarn Look like? Xenomorphs?)

They continued running towards the blast doors, despite the impeding threat, dozens of almost autocannon worth rounds flying against the alien probes, while the gauss rifles were also continually fired against them by the robots, turning their torso around to continue moving towards the same direction and shoot while running. Then the blinding light came as the viewscreen of the power armor automatically adjusted to avoid it from taking away a few precious seconds from Gabriel's mind. Immediately its fully digital imaging system switched to sonar mode and infrared tracking for as long as the bright light remained, and the robots equally adapted their sensors for that new situation, proving that such tactic would not be effective to stop them. Then the first alien came, there was not much to define its shape and form through infrared and sonar only but it was obvious when they were about to launch grenades.


"Jump!", Gabriel shouted as the first probes approached, his power armor thrusters putting him into flight inside that large hangar while the robots used the limits of their actuators to make a tall jump accompanying him, and in mid air Gabriel aimed his rifle against the mass of Kezarn forces approaching before they could react. Twelve High Explosive Dual Purpose grenades flew against the fifty Kezarn that were surrounding them as they continued heading on an overall direction towards the blast door the best they could in that situation and bullets sprayed at very high muzzle velocities against the Kezarn. At the moment they were in mid air, the explosion sent a blast of flaming fragments all around, but the fragments sent above were not as powerful as those sent through the same height of the detonation. One of the robots was damaged beyond repair though as it did not time its jump correctly during that moment. It was gone while the remaining ones did not lose a single second by using their flexibility to fire without interruptions against the threat. The machinegunners were even propelled in flight through the low gravity by the recoil of their massive weapons after the jump, something they quickly learned to take advantage of while the battle continued, while their sensors returned to optical mode as the blinding lights were gone.

The blast door was targeted. A volley of two door-breaching rockets were launched against it from Gabriel's mini-rocket pods as he mentally commanded their launch. They impact at an almost perfect 60 degrees oblique shot against it, but rather than contemplating it, or even checking whether they opened his way through, he was too concentrated in the combat for that, using the vectored thrust of his "jetpack" to dodge fire and take cover of the advantages of that environment, flying behind ships and shooting. He rarely remained static in a single position during the battle, as that was to be a sitting duck and nothing more. Without checking further, he ordered the fireteams to head towards the blast door the rockets impacted against as two fireteams gave them cover with the continuous fire of two heavy machineguns and five gauss rifles. There was not time for a body count, but the amount of static dots in the "sonar" of his HUD was not small.

"Keep moving!"

They were about to discover whether the rockets managed to open a hole in that blast door for them to continue in their way or not.

In space Commander Kitigawa and the Fukido Bay had continued to engage the enemy ships blasting them with both forward phaser banks at close range.

They had also drawn power from the cloaking device to augment the weapons and these blasts were a lot more powerful than normal.

On the surface the shuttle crews had linked up with the Londim fighters and would follow the lead of the local pilots. They knew the planet a lot better so it made sense.

Captain Mikato was reading over the battle reports and sensors keeping a track on the space and land battle.

She could see the key was defeating the ships since that would cut of reinforcements to the Kezarn on the ground.

She also hoped Gabriel could be successful. Taking out a capital ship might swing the battle in the allies favour.

John and the Alversian Marines were surrounded by a large band of the enemy, not that it mattered as the discipline and training of the Marines prevented them from breaking and fleeing. They had been trained primarily to board and defend ships in space. This was the territory of the Army, not the Navy. Despite this, the Marines knew what they were doing on land, right now they were surrounded on all four sides but they did not panic. John was in the centre, sweat running down his face into his armour, his arm aching from overuse and his pistol roasting hot from the action it had seen. His troops were equally as exhausted by they knew their discipline had to hold if they were to stand a chance of getting out of this alive,

"Marines!" He shouted hoarsely, "Volley by Rank!"

The troops formed themselves into their traditional three ranks, although this time they were in a circle. Kezarn fire peppered the formation and men collapsed back into the centre of the ring. John knew he couldn't hold the order back, maybe the smoke would be enough to throw them back alone,

"Front rank! FIRE!!"

The smoke engulfed the entire formation and rose into the sky in a little ring, John could already see a ring of crumpled and mangled bodies from his first volley alone, and there was more terror to come,

"Second Rank! FIRE!!"

A second blast of smoke, the third rank readied themselves,

"Third Rank! FIRE!!"

Another blast of noise and small, long strings of red laser fire ripped themselves from the Marine barrels to tear through the formations of Kezarn troops, no matter how tough their armour become, no matter how hard they adapted, the sheer firepower of that single shot was enough to penetrate. It could tear through up to four people but now the Marines were content just to conceal themselves temporarily from the view of their enemy. The Kezarn return fire had become ragged but even so, another Marine twisted and fell out of the formation, blood foaming from his mouth, a black smoking hole in his frontal armour and the smell of burned flesh.

The Marines couldn't see through the smoke of their overheating barrels to notice that the Kezarn were twisting and collapsing with every volley, their bodies were starting to form a defensive wall around the Marines. Their nerve was starting to fail and they broke again, the Marines had managed to fight their way out of destruction with discipline, training and sheer firepower. They left a small bundle of their own dead in the centre of the open area but there wasn't enough time to leap in and bury them. They would have to stay where they were until the battle had concluded.

OOC: The basic description of the Kezarn are that they are bipeds, however have four arms to perform better. Their faces are round but they have a small snout as well. Their eyes are little more than slits, however this allows to concentrate fire a lot better. They also have teeth that can rip right through flesh so hand to hand combat against the Kezarn is almost impossible to win. The average Kezarn stands at 6 foot tall. The armour they wear is blood red.

IC:

The blast doors were hit, damaged but not destroyed. The remaining Kezarn were now angered, their shields powered up and then the rage was released. With a scream they charged Gabriel and his robots.

Meanwhile on the ground, General Kinamo and his men fought on. The main battle was at a stalemate, neither side making any progress. It seemed this would turn into a war of attrition.

In space, the Kezarn were still out of range for Watchdog.The battleships fired upon the Kezarn but the Kezarn were only receiving minimal damage. It seemed their shield technology had surpassed Londim's.

Civilians on the planet were being evacuated and transported to Londim's secondary planet, Resa.


To all Allies,

Should any ships become heavy with casualties do not return to Londim. Instead go to the planet Resa. This is where treatment will be available. Londim is now a military base.

Commander Kitagawa's comm heard heard this and passed the message on as they continued to engage the enemy.

"Acknowledge the message" she was told after hearing it. The smaller ships were falling to the Neo Kirisuban ship as his agile hunter tried to thin out the enemy numbers but the larger ships were still intact.

Their shields were well advanced of what the Londim defence fleet could throw at them.

###

The Neo-Kirisuban pilots had broken off to rest and to meet up with their captain outside the command bunker. It was a temporary base of operations as the 10 women (two to each shuttle) reported their results.

"We'll keep harrassing the enemy for as long as we are able to" Kaori told her crews knowing it was the best they could do.

The Starrider continued to spray fire at the Krezan ships, half a dozen scorthed and shattered hulls marked those which had already fallen victim to the ship's guns.
Londim...
As the fighters stafed Krezan soldiers and the mechs continued to wreck havoic the SBAU spread themselves across a block of city, taking up residence in buildings and any place with cover, blasting the unsuspecting Krezan troops. If the oppertunity presented itself, a SBAU would pop out of cover to kill a Krezan the old-fashioned way, that being with their sword.

The Marines, lacking armoured units for obvious reasons, fought hard on the ground as Infantry, although their numbers had been badly reduced and they were slowly being driven from their positions, their disciplined fire and powerful volleys were shredding almost every Kezarn attack. In front of the Marine positions lay a carpet of burning bodies, some of which were still on fire. Even personal shields would do nothing more than prevent the shot penetrating two people. The Marines fought like demons, refusing to surrender and teaming up with Londim troops whereever they could find them.

In space, the Formidable manovered through the enemy formation, dodging fire and dishing out her own red phaser rounds, but she was taking hits and it was starting to show,
"Is there no way to even boost the range of this defence system?" Mason asked as another console blew on the bridge, hurling two Ensigns into the air.

(OOC: Just to point it out, the power armor looks slightly like this one (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cb/Outwars_bigscreen2.jpg) but is black colored and doesn't have a glass-shaped helmet, in fact it is feature by not having any spot for the eyes of the wearer because it also uses BCI and external sensors directly connected to the combatant's brain which "replace" his eyes)

The xenus seem to have evolved their tactics slower, perhaps due to the reason of never having before to face a soldier capable of flying with a vectored jetpack and robots capable of leaping tall enough to escape from their charge. In a few milliseconds before the swarm of Kezarn was to engage them at melee, all of them have "jumped" again simultaneously while Gabriel loaded another grenade on his launcher, a gestured imitated by the seven remaining riflemen besides himself while the three machinegunners kept firing against the threat . Directional shields were vulnerable to top attack munitions, and in those few seconds his forces were again in mid air, the eight riflemen/grenadiers of the three fireteams fired HEDPs grenades against the Kezarn heads. After the explosion below them, Gabriel continued hovering in mid air when the robots landed again to continue facing the remaining aliens as he fired simultaneously a swarm of four quad-tandem mini-rockets against the blast door on its already damaged area to open a hole on it, again it was a mere thought... it was a strange concept but the Space Marines and Pirates of Solar Communes could kill with a thought, rather than only with the pull of a trigger. One of the machinegunner robots reloaded his weapon with another large 16.5mm APGPSB(Gyrojet Smart Bullet) 200-round boxed link belt, even though it had a considerable amount of rounds remaining, while the other two and seven robotic riflemen gave it cover. The process repeated until all of them reloaded their clips, one by one rather than all at once, including Gabriel, who loaded another large and bulky magazine of fifteen caseless 6.5x72mm depleted-uranium matrix tipped armor piercing electrically charged rounds on his C502 gauss powered armor battle rifle and another HEDP grenade.

Gabriel finally landed on the ground then and they sought to get through the hole that was opened in the blast door, as a part of a long way towards the bridge of the alien craft while his sonar pointed out the closest aliens for him to shoot against. They finally managed to get out from that flight deck and get further through deck 12. Now they had to continue facing the aliens and find an access to the deck above.

Defence mechanisms on the ship had now come online. Laser grids blocked certain corridors, faceless bots had taken firing positions, calculated to give the best defence while maximizing offence. Thousands of Kezarn were on this ship and they were hungry for blood. They had taken up key strategic points as well but further up the ship.

If Gabriel survived the next 2 decks he would find a much more dangerous enemy...

Space

Londim battleships were fighting bravely but starting to retreat, the sheer number of Kezarn ships starting to overwhelm them. Should the Kezarn follow, Watchdog would go active.

On the Ground

Londim soldiers bravely fought on trying to push the tide of Kezarn soldiers back. The Fighters continuously killed more Kezarn and Tanks blew apart groups. Yet the Kezarn kept coming...

Space

Fukido Bay was steadily taking damage despite its agility and then finally a shot took out its shield generator. They had given the Kezarn ships a hard time although.

They had to retreat for now to make repairs before they got boarded but it was only temporary. Commander Kitagawa and her crew would be back once they were ready.

The Surface

The Neo Kirisuban shuttles had taken off again to join the battle and working together with Londim fighters kept sending more Kezarn into the afterlife. This left their commanding officer watching screens and trying to co-ordinate things.

Kaori Mikato was a woman of action but now she had to fight her battle from a command bunker. She was well armed with a hand phaser and reloads just in case and had both her swords on her. Even the Neo Kirisubans liked the old fashioned ways of killing the enemy.

The Starrider was having a certain degree of success with the Krezan ships. While their tech level had certainly improved, in space they were still not advanced enough to pose a serious threat to the kitsune vessal. However, the Starrider was still only a Cruiser, not a large Destroyer or Battleship. It simply did not have the supplies and ammunition to keep up long-term combat against an enemy of vastly superior numbers. Thus the Starrider began to fall back along with the Fukido Bay, hastening to recharge it's power crystals for the beam weapons, firing missiles and MAC shells as it retreated.
Londim...
The Marine soldiers continued to keep an exit open, slaughtering any Krezan who came too close. The battle was a stalemate, the Krezan and Londim were in a deadlock.

The Formidable took a shot to her stern and explosions rocked the ship along her entire side. The crew on the bridge were thrown from their feet as the ship was plunged into darkness.
"Report!" Mason staggered to his feet.
"We took as hit to our port engine!" an Ensign replied, "We need to withdraw!"
Mason nodded and the Formidable, flaming wreckage spilling along her entire side, pulled herself from the battle and headed back.

On the surface, the Marines found themselves with the Xiscapians, fighting to keep a gap open for the forces to withdraw if they needed it.

"Give the Formidable covering fire. She's being gutted out there." ordered Gaff. The weapons alongside the Starrider, already nearly depleted, began to fire the last of their rounds and energy at the nearby Krezan ships.
Londim...
"Oy! Glad to-" The Major paused as he swung his katana and slashed a bloody line across a Krezan chest. "-see you lot here!" He yelled to the Alversian Marines. Both Marine forces had formed with each other and fought as one entity instead of two seperate forces, as per field handbooks suggested.

Mason watched in gratitude as the Starrider came across and distracted his pursuers. His ship had been shredded on four seperate decks and even now, flames were burning through the port side of his ship. For now, however, Damage Control teams were working like mad to limit the damage and get some of the ruined systems back online.

Surface

The Marines had formed up into their standard three ranks, with the Xiscapians forming their flank protection. The Marines were using their single shot, known as 'Setting Three' in volleys to devastate the advancing Kezarn. The Xiscapians were engaged in hand to hand combat, the Kezarn couldn't even get close enough to engage the Alversians. Although this meant that they were permanently surrounded by a small grey cloud.

Two ships lay in ruins and another was crippled as the Starrider sat practically in front of the retreating Alversian vessal like a protective parent. If it had been an animal it would have roared a challenge, daring any ships to even come close. For now it seemed the Krezan were giving them a wide berth, and that was just as well. They were out of ammunition.
TO: APS Formidable
Do you require repair or medical teams to assist you?
XIW Starrider
OOC: Finally adopted a prefix. XIW stands for "Xiscapian Imperial Warship."
Londim...
As the Krezan continued their assault the Marines engaged them furiously, moving like a whirlwind of destruction in covering the Alversian flank. Smoke from the fire and burning bodies and rubble clouded the field, lite by explosions or bright laser flashs. As squadrons of fighters continued to strafe the Krezan patrols hovered above the pocket of Alversians and Xiscapians, lending a hand by blasting large squads and platoons of enemy soldiers. Mechs continued their unhindered rampage, literally running though sections of Krezan soldiers, crushing or throwing them into the air and scattering the rest among the fighting.

OOC: The best Prefix is the Royal Navy's, HMS

TO: XIW Starrider

Thank you for your offer but we have gotten the damage and casualties
under control. Nevertheless, we need to withdraw from action and that means
bringing our Marines with us. Can you cover their withdrawal to an area safe
enough for transport without bring a few unwanted guests aboard?

Captain Mason
APS Formidable

His ship was listing badly, it had to be said. Despite this, she had managed to put out most of the fires and her systems were coming back online after being knocked out by the force of the explosion. The crew had suffered as well but, mercifully, the Medical Bay was undamaged and so the Medics and Doctors worked like machines to try and attend to all the wounded.

0.2 Astronomical Units away from the Kezarn fleet

A great burst of energy announced the return of the Von Braun to the physical universe, it was a stroke of luck that it did not become lost in the Warp. There was no more signs of damage, because all the debris and beyond repair structure was removed during its way while repairs were completed on the damaged sector. its eight powerful fusion engines started to thrust it facing the distant, beyond visual range alien fleet, it maintained a cruise speed of 900 meters per second for now.

"Assault Module Online, estimated impact speed 0.003c, ETA for impact: 7 hours and 30 minutes, launch complete", the system registered on its computers when the ten remaining loaded stellar ballistic fusion missiles came out from the openings of large slanted vertical launch cells, adjusting their vectored thrust to compensate inertia and head towards ten separate sectors where the Kezarn fleet swarmed, all away from the flagship though, because there was no way to ascertain whether Gabriel was still alive. But the AI sent a message to the allied forces:

This is Von Braun, a pseudo artificial intelligence controlling flight of the Sniper Class Cruiser. In 7 hours and 30 minutes, 3 gigatons of warheads shall impact against multiple areas of the alien fleet at a speed of ninety thousands of kilometers per second, so you be aware for such information might help you in your strategies and tactics. I am well beyond the range for all forms of engagement besides stellar ballistic missiles, but if I could attract their fleet to my position it would be very convenient, however these are the last fusion ballistic missiles, now the Sniper Class engagement range is limited to about two thousand of kilometers.

Also, I inform you that the chances of Gabriel surviving without additional boarding efforts from other parties and their space special forces are of 20% or less.

-----------

Kezarn Flagship Deck 12

It was so close, but the large, now unsealed, magnetic elevator shaft came well above deck 10, which he presumed to be the most he could ascend through it without significant risks, but there was a huge dilemma. The only one who could fly through it was Gabriel with his powerful micro-fusion jetpack, the robots, or those which were still kicking after the fierce corridor fighting with aliens and turrets, only eight of the initial force of 11 robots, would have to be left behind because the time they would take to climb everything would be enough for a trap to be set against them, and he would have to probably face all the future threats alone, but the Kezarn were swarming them in that deck and there was no other accessible way to further progress. They were basically in a bottleneck, meaning that the Kezarn would have to reach them in tight formations very vulnerable to grenade fire.

"Beta Team: Hold this position till the end! Form Allen Team with Omega and remaining Alpha. Allen Team, prepare the tripwires behind you and make a diversionary attack against the electronics in sector three of this deck and then attempt to find an alternate route! If you survive, meet me at Deck 10!". Splitting the remaining robots might seem, but wasn't a bad idea considering the cramped spaces around.

Another 15-round magazine loaded on his gauss rifle, besides extra 30 magazines he had cluttered in his armor compartments, the auxiliary gunner handing him more 16 mini-rockets he carried in his power armor and another grenade ready among a load of 8 HEDP grenades. That was his equipment for the entire journey towards Deck 1's Bridge. The four robots of Beta team scattered around the corridor and remained at full alert, while the four robots of the Allen team headed out and sought to distract the Kezarn for as long as they can hold, laying some HEDP grenades converted into proximity mines or tripwires behind them, shooting whatever came with relativistic gauss rifle projectiles, because most were focused on reaching the four robots guarding the shaft entrance for logical reasons.

A thrust of heat came from Gabriel's back as he took a straight flight towards Deck 10. On his way a massive block of an unknown metal fell at the shaft at a high speed, probably fired by the Kezarn. It was a reaction time of fraction of seconds and the instant control of the jetpack vectored thrust through the brain computer interface the only reasons why the block did not fell against him and kill him, he dodged it just in time, the displaced air from the fall making a slight turbulence on his flight route, when he was about to get up to deck 10. Finally he was hovering just at the blast door of the shaft that led towards deck 10, but it was locked. Not having time to calculate anything he fired six simultaneous mini-rockets against it simultaneously with his gauss rifle shot and with a grenade while he flew above to avoid being caught by his own made explosion. Fragments flew on the opposite side and ricocheted on the shaft until falling down, after that he reduced slowly the thrust to land at a safe fall speed through the now opened hole. A turret with Four Kezarn greeted him immediately, 80 meters away from him. Another situation when a thousandth of a second can make the difference between life and death. A single, well-placed mini-rocket blew the turret while the four-armed abominations charged and fired when he simultaneously shot against the closest of them and retreated back by flying into the shaft, the portable shield was completely destroyed. 50 meters... another grenade loaded and they were approaching, while remaining in the shaft much would be very risky. ... 40 meter was the distance of the closest of them when Gabriel let his thruster go down to the height of deck 10 and fired a grenade and a shot of rifle again. The HUD was pointing several "WARNING" messages when he got a visual lock on the Kezarn and decided to get out of the shaft... the still alive two Kezarns were only at 10 meters from Gabriel in that tight corridor when he shot against one of them in its head, killing it instantly, the other was about to slash Gabriel when flames roared again from his jetpack and he flew a few meters above it, firing his gauss rifle against the top of its head. He continued his way flying rather than walking to have a certain tactical advantage against the enemy. Doubts became to fill his mind when the odds were shaping impressively against him, but now to give up would be to accept death, and he would go through the end for it. One of the seven remaining grenades was loaded, while his rifle still had 10 rounds and then he heard an explosion below while he went further inside that deck.

´"I should never have done this!"´ he thought when he finally witnessed something which seemed worser than the demon he face aboard his own starship, everything was getting very complicated and there were still nine decks to get through. The fact he was still alive was already a huge stroke of luck.

The beta team shot against all Kezarn who survived the explosion of the proximity mines while their sensors were simultaneously with the combat watching the shaft for Kezarns coming from it. They have lasted for now taking all tactical directives Gabriel issue them with, and due to their almost instantaneous reaction times and deadly accuracy beyond that of even the most skilled humans.

Explosions constantly chased Allen team's robots tails when Kezarn continued hunting them. Having depleting half of their supplies of explosives, they finally reached a room filled with what were thought to be electronic devices, and quickly ridding from the Kezarn technician in that room, they started to shoot everything they had against that equipment, whatever it was, probably something related to engine or propulsion due to the proximity deck 12 had to the alien ship engines. But the exit of that room was surrounded by Kezarn. The machinegunner used suppressive fire to avoid them from overwhelming Allen team and to block them from even having a chance of firing a grenade, while the others took potshots on all Kezarns coming to that room in deck 12, they would keep them busy for as long as needed while Gabriel made his way above, a way also blocked by a significant threat.

OOC: And what does that stand for?
IC:
TO: APS Formidable
We will transmit a message down to the Marines on Londim. They will attempt to fall back to a secure location so your Marines may be transported aboard.
XIW Starrider
Londim...
The Major in charge listened carefully to the commands being issued out of his comlink peice on the side of his helmet. He quickly patched into his whole company as well as the Alversian Commander in charge on the ground:
"Alright, listen up everyone! The Formidable is withdrawing from battle and it needs it's Marines back saftly. We are to proceed to a uncontested area and await pick-up. You got that?"
There was a chorus of affirmatives and the patrols began clearing the Krezan from the area, creating a blank area around the Alversian and Xiscapian Marines so they would retreat saftly out of the gap.

OOC: HMS, Her Majesty's Ship

The Marines on the ground, led by the Tactical Officer John, formed into a fighting column and marched through the gap at a double quick pace. Their armour was black with the battle, it was dented. The troops were exhausted and it was only going to get worse. For now they would have to try and hold a gap from which they could be transported. There were too many to teleport on the ship, it would have to be done with shuttles.

The Xiscapian Marines, ragged and dirtied themselves, made a ring around the Alversians, forcing the Krezan soldiers to stay away or be shot. The patrols above them helped greatly, bombing and strafing the Krezan anytime a large force got too close, decimating them. Fire flew from every direction and still more Xiscapians collapsed, but the back door was open. The force had gone from two hundred down to a hundred and thirty four, sixty six Xiscapians killed in combat so far.

The Neo Kirisuban shuttles had been directed to this fighting to evacuate the seriously wounded.

Lt Naomi Kazuya was the pilot in command of this makeshift squadron and she sent the following message to her allies.

"Attention honourable allies. We can take 25 seriously injured casualties out of here once we land.

We also have the NKS Fukido Bay which can transport another 100 casualties or personel as well once you give us the word."

Two shuttles also swooped round to blast away at the Kezarn so they'd continue to keep their distance.

They finally found a courtyard that was as near as empty as it could be. It would have to do and the Pilots would have to kiss their lucky charms before they landed. It was the only way.

John turned to the Major and called out,
"We'll take the north and west, can you hold the south and east!?!" He called to the Xiscapian referring to the perimeter of the courtyard, "This is gonna get rough!"

"Can you hold the south and east!?!"
"Will do, you keep up your end!" He yelled back as his remaining Marines took up positions. They seemed to be left alone for the moment, but there was a good chance of a Krezan assault any second. A message was patched though:

"Attention honourable allies. We can take 25 seriously injured casualties out of here once we land.

We also have the NKS Fukido Bay which can transport another 100 casualties or personel as well once you give us the word."
He indicated the communicator, then pointed in the direction of the NK shuttles. "We've got additional transport if we need it!"
The mechs were also falling back, having taken no casualties. They stood in a wall in front of the Marine positions, with enough firepower combined to wipe out a tank battalion if they so wished. The patrols followed, ready to blast any incoming Krezan from the Alversian north or west.

Suddenly there was a scream from within the ruined buildings to the north and east. Almost immediately, the wall seemed to disintergrate as enemy Kezarn swarmed through it. The Marines were started but waited patiently for the order to fire,
"Marines! Volley, Setting Three! Ready! Fire" John croaked through his dust filled throat.
The first few lines of Kezarn seemed to disintergrate as they were hit by the volley and the rest leap over their dead to continue the offensive.

"Fire by rank! Front Rank! Fire!"

The Marines began their clockwork bombardment of the Kezarn assualt and, within moments the ground was clogged with dead Kezarn. Alversians dropped back, dead or wounded. The wounded were left to crawl back into the centre of the courtyard. The Alversians hated to abandon their wounded like that but no one dared to stop the deadly volleys that were keeping their enemies at bay.

The thin Marine line was holding. John hoped the Xiscapians to the east were holding as well.

Krezan swarmed towards the Xiscapian lines, hooting and growling and brandishing weapons. Before they were able to get within thirty yards of the walls the mechs opened fire. Beam shot, automatic railgun fire and missiles made a rapidly expanding cloud of dust and ash. Explosions threw the enemy soldiers high into the air, shrapnel tearing though those left standing, and Krezan who tried to retreat or continue their advance were patiently picked off by railgun fire or Marine rifles. On the Alversian side the patrols strafed and bombed the Krezan, attempting to lend a hand to their allies. Chaingun and beam turrets fired in lines and circles along with dumb missiles streaked and detonating on the ground, splash damage being essential. They were careful not to shoot near the Alversians, least they be exposed to friendly fire.

The Kezarn withdrew for the moment, but it was obvious that they were planning to renew their offensive. It seemed the determined group of Alversians and Xiscapians had drawn their attention. As soon as they had withdrawn, the Alversian line split in two. The first line went forward and started to drag Kezarn bodies towards the edge of the perimeter while the second tended to the wounded and tried to make them as comfortable as possible.

The Kezarn bodies were stacked high so that they formed a protective wall along the west and north of the courtyard. The wall, when finished, was over four feet tall and permitted the Alversians protection should they be attacked again. Now, XX-30 Fighters were dropping down from space to offer support to their own troops and they were pounding the parts of the city where they saw the Kezarn gathering.

0.2 Astronomical Units away from the Kezarn fleet

A great burst of energy announced the return of the Von Braun to the physical universe, it was a stroke of luck that it did not become lost in the Warp. There was no more signs of damage, because all the debris and beyond repair structure was removed during its way while repairs were completed on the damaged sector. its eight powerful fusion engines started to thrust it facing the distant, beyond visual range alien fleet, it maintained a cruise speed of 900 meters per second for now.

"Assault Module Online, estimated impact speed 0.003c, ETA for impact: 7 hours and 30 minutes, launch complete", the system registered on its computers when the ten remaining loaded stellar ballistic fusion missiles came out from the openings of large slanted vertical launch cells, adjusting their vectored thrust to compensate inertia and head towards ten separate sectors where the Kezarn fleet swarmed, all away from the flagship though, because there was no way to ascertain whether Gabriel was still alive. But the AI sent a message to the allied forces:



-----------

Kezarn Flagship Deck 12

It was so close, but the large, now unsealed, magnetic elevator shaft came well above deck 10, which he presumed to be the most he could ascend through it without significant risks, but there was a huge dilemma. The only one who could fly through it was Gabriel with his powerful micro-fusion jetpack, the robots, or those which were still kicking after the fierce corridor fighting with aliens and turrets, only eight of the initial force of 11 robots, would have to be left behind because the time they would take to climb everything would be enough for a trap to be set against them, and he would have to probably face all the future threats alone, but the Kezarn were swarming them in that deck and there was no other accessible way to further progress. They were basically in a bottleneck, meaning that the Kezarn would have to reach them in tight formations very vulnerable to grenade fire.

"Beta Team: Hold this position till the end! Form Allen Team with Omega and remaining Alpha. Allen Team, prepare the tripwires behind you and make a diversionary attack against the electronics in sector three of this deck and then attempt to find an alternate route! If you survive, meet me at Deck 10!". Splitting the remaining robots might seem, but wasn't a bad idea considering the cramped spaces around.

Another 15-round magazine loaded on his gauss rifle, besides extra 30 magazines he had cluttered in his armor compartments, the auxiliary gunner handing him more 16 mini-rockets he carried in his power armor and another grenade ready among a load of 8 HEDP grenades. That was his equipment for the entire journey towards Deck 1's Bridge. The four robots of Beta team scattered around the corridor and remained at full alert, while the four robots of the Allen team headed out and sought to distract the Kezarn for as long as they can hold, laying some HEDP grenades converted into proximity mines or tripwires behind them, shooting whatever came with relativistic gauss rifle projectiles, because most were focused on reaching the four robots guarding the shaft entrance for logical reasons.

A thrust of heat came from Gabriel's back as he took a straight flight towards Deck 10. On his way a massive block of an unknown metal fell at the shaft at a high speed, probably fired by the Kezarn. It was a reaction time of fraction of seconds and the instant control of the jetpack vectored thrust through the brain computer interface the only reasons why the block did not fell against him and kill him, he dodged it just in time, the displaced air from the fall making a slight turbulence on his flight route, when he was about to get up to deck 10. Finally he was hovering just at the blast door of the shaft that led towards deck 10, but it was locked. Not having time to calculate anything he fired six simultaneous mini-rockets against it simultaneously with his gauss rifle shot and with a grenade while he flew above to avoid being caught by his own made explosion. Fragments flew on the opposite side and ricocheted on the shaft until falling down, after that he reduced slowly the thrust to land at a safe fall speed through the now opened hole. A turret with Four Kezarn greeted him immediately, 80 meters away from him. Another situation when a thousandth of a second can make the difference between life and death. A single, well-placed mini-rocket blew the turret while the four-armed abominations charged and fired when he simultaneously shot against the closest of them and retreated back by flying into the shaft, the portable shield was completely destroyed. 50 meters... another grenade loaded and they were approaching, while remaining in the shaft much would be very risky. ... 40 meter was the distance of the closest of them when Gabriel let his thruster go down to the height of deck 10 and fired a grenade and a shot of rifle again. The HUD was pointing several "WARNING" messages when he got a visual lock on the Kezarn and decided to get out of the shaft... the still alive two Kezarns were only at 10 meters from Gabriel in that tight corridor when he shot against one of them in its head, killing it instantly, the other was about to slash Gabriel when flames roared again from his jetpack and he flew a few meters above it, firing his gauss rifle against the top of its head. He continued his way flying rather than walking to have a certain tactical advantage against the enemy. Doubts became to fill his mind when the odds were shaping impressively against him, but now to give up would be to accept death, and he would go through the end for it. One of the seven remaining grenades was loaded, while his rifle still had 10 rounds and then he heard an explosion below while he went further inside that deck.

´"I should never have done this!"´ he thought when he finally witnessed something which seemed worser than the demon he face aboard his own starship, everything was getting very complicated and there were still nine decks to get through. The fact he was still alive was already a huge stroke of luck.

The beta team shot against all Kezarn who survived the explosion of the proximity mines while their sensors were simultaneously with the combat watching the shaft for Kezarns coming from it. They have lasted for now taking all tactical directives Gabriel issue them with, and due to their almost instantaneous reaction times and deadly accuracy beyond that of even the most skilled humans.

Explosions constantly chased Allen team's robots tails when Kezarn continued hunting them. Having depleting half of their supplies of explosives, they finally reached a room filled with what were thought to be electronic devices, and quickly ridding from the Kezarn technician in that room, they started to shoot everything they had against that equipment, whatever it was, probably something related to engine or propulsion due to the proximity deck 12 had to the alien ship engines. But the exit of that room was surrounded by Kezarn. The machinegunner used suppressive fire to avoid them from overwhelming Allen team and to block them from even having a chance of firing a grenade, while the others took potshots on all Kezarns coming to that room in deck 12, they would keep them busy for as long as needed while Gabriel made his way above, a way also blocked by a significant threat.

OOC: Sorry for the lateness, been a bit busy. Not gonna make this easy for you. ;)

IC:

Deck 10

Deck 10 was a large deck. Large open spaces to allow whole battalions to wander through and take out any threat but there were no battalions here. A loud roar echoed through the whole of deck 10, followed by another and another. The sources of the roars were things that belonged in nightmares.

They were four legged beasts, twice the size of the tallest man, almost impenetrable armour, agile, speedy and unfortunately for Gabriel they could fly. The closest thing they could represent would be dragons but they didn't have large tails or couldn't breath fire. These 3 beasts, sensing an intrusion, hurtled towards Gabriel intent on killing him.

The Ground

The Kezarn swarm was temporarily halted but Londim soldiers were ready. The waited and then more soldiers transported but they were not allow. A hundred of the flying beasts were also transported down. Instantly they took flight and took out some of the fighters with their teeth. Then they bore down on all the soldiers. The soldiers fired back but to no avail, it seemed these beasts were going to change the tide of the battle for the worse.

Space

The drawback of the Alversian ship and Xiscapian ship meant Londim had to focus its power. Both sides were taking losses but the Kezarn were just about winning...

Seeing the battle being joined by flying Kezarn Lt Kazuya knew this battle had just gotten interesting.

They still had to get the injured out as they took turns to make a quick landing, load up the seriously wounded and then fly to the secondary planet.

Naomi leapt out of her shuttle to added her phaser rifle fire to cover the others landing and taking off and she'd be the last to leave.

She knew the risk but had to keep the enemy busy as her allies were fighting for their lives.

The Fukido Bay was also entering the atmosphere having gotten partial shielding back online. Now they would be a rescue ship firing their phasers to try and take out the flying Kezarn the best they could as they also approached the courtyard.

The fighters were suddenly forced to divert from bombing runs to dogfighting the flying things. They were fast, but flesh-and-blood simply wasn't a match to shields and metal. However stable and tough they may be, a fighter could take multiple hits while it would only take a couple of missiles to blow apart one of the beasts.
Courtyard...
"Shit!"
The flying things were coming to the courtyard. The soldiers were Marines, not regular ground forces. If they had been XGA they would have been able to call for Heavy Attack Troopers to use their AA rocket lauchers to destroy the things, but as such they had very little heavy weaponry. Most still had grenades, and a few had shoulder fired plasma RPGs, but not nearly enough to combat a arial threat. Therefore ten LAM mechs rose into the air to do what they did best: Rip apart whatever stood in their way. Activating their energy swords, they tore upward towards the attacking units. On the ground the rest of the remaining mechs fired their missiles. Some 440 small missiles, designed to fire in swarms to destroy fighter craft or vehicles or just make life hell for infantry, streaked upwards to the flyers. On the ground the Marines kept a sharp eye out for approaching Krezan soldiers. They knew with the flyers had come a fresh assortment of Krezan troops.

With a scream, Kezarn emerged from the rubble to the north, south, east and west. From every direction. The exhausted Marines lifted their weapons to their shoulders and awaited the commands from their commander. The wall of bodies began to take hits from Kezarn fire but no Marines fell, protected by their barrier,
"Marines! S3 Volley! Ready! FIRE!" John roared for what felt like the hundredth time. Once again, the Alversian line vanished in a plume of smoke. XX-30's swooped down and dogfighted with the flying beasts, although they were better suited to making strafing runs on the ground troops and their blasters tore away whole formations of enemy troops.

"Marines! Fire by rank!" John waited again,

"Front rank! Fire!"...

So began the disciplined Alversian volleys again.

The renewed Krezan assault was accompinied by the flying units. This had been expected. "Marines! Fire at will!"
The air between the Marines behind the walls and the incoming Krezan was filled with blue bolts, deadly and quick, howling towards their targets. Vollys of grenades, RPG shots and railgun fire also smashed into the Krezan soldiers, and even while the mechs fired missiles at the flyers they shot their beam cannons into the midst of the enemy soldiers.

The combined Alversian volleys and Xiscapian barrages took their toll on the Kezarn and they quickly withdrew. As they did so, they left even more dead and dying comrades in their wake. The ground in front of the Courtyard was clogged with dead.
"Move those bodies!" John croaked again, taking a deep drink of cool, refreshing water.
His Marines started to shift the bodies out of the way to create a clean killing area, devoid of cover. The bodies went into maintaining their barricade which had lost several 'sections's during the attack. 2 more Alversians had been wounded but, thanks to their defenses in the North and West, none had been killed.

"When are those transports getting here?" yelled the Major. They all sweated heavily under their armor, and five of them were wounded in various ways from the fighting before, although none critically. Two Xiscapian Marines had been immobilized, one by a broken left leg and the other had a bite taken out of his from one of the Krezan. The teeth were apparently so sharp they could bite though solid armor. Unlike the ship above them, the Marines and mechs had plenty of ammunition to spare. But all were worn out, sweaty, hot and aching. The rifles were beginning to feel heavy in their arms, and they all, aside from the sentrys looking out for more troops, rested, leaning against piles of rubble or sitting on the ground, ready to spring up into action at a moments notice.

"En route" John, having posted Sentries in each position now came across to the Xiscapian Major and gave him an exhausted salute,
"How many troops do you have left?" He asked, there were about 105 Alversian Marines fit for duty. Most of them were now mingling with the Xiscapians, sharing water or medical kits as well as rations. All were throughly exhausted.

The battle had been observed from the Kezarn ships tracking the number of Kezarn dying and where the enemy moved. The Alversians and Xiscapians were tough opponents that even the Kezarn respected them. It would almost be a waste to destroy them...

Missiles were launched from the ships towards the positions of the Xiscapians, Alversians and Londimians. Spacial bombardment would do much damage allowing for the next wave, if it was needed.

"How many troops do you have left?"
"Roughly a hundred and thirty, give or take a few. Major Donson, by the way." He gave a slight bow, then straightened up suddenly as reports flowed in his ears from his helmet comm. "Missiles have been fired at the planet from the Krezan ships. I hope Watchdog goes into effect real soon, otherwise we're all toast."

"Section Commander John Devlin, John gave a small bow, "I hope Watchdog hurries up, but I hope those transports hurry up as well! The Perimeter's not gonna hold for much longer against these scales of attacks"

"All of our troops are tired of the fighting, Section Commander. The mechs can hold indefinitly, or at least until their ammunition runs out, but we can't take many more concentrated assaults. The Starrider's ammunition is nearly depleted, and reports indicate your ship has been heavily damaged. We need to win this battle, and fast." The Section Commander could not see Donson's face under the helmet, which he now removed. The man was in his early fourties, gray haired and orange eyed, with tawny fur. He looked grim, and behind him his tail drooped. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and sighed, blowing out though his lips.

John nodded, his own helmet had long been abandoned, along with most of his troop's who went bareheaded.

His shiny black hair stretched down to his shoulders. He was in his late twenties.
"Setting 3 has infinite ammunition" He stated, staring at the rifle that had been laid on the ground nearby, "But we can only use it in volley fire so the more men I lose, the less effective it becomes" He sighed.

Donson looked curious. "Infinite ammunition? What kind of power supply does it use?" The Xiscapian's own blaster rifle was powered by Guilda crystals, like most everything else the Xiscapians built. Anibet gas flowed though the primary chamber of the gun and, when superheated, made a solid bolt of blue-white energy which burned on contact and had the same amount of force as a bullet. It held some five hundred and fifty shots a clip, with either a somewhat more powerful single shot mode, a three-shot burst, or fully automatic. In fighting like this, the fully automatic mode was definitly favored.

"It uses a photonic regenerative phase modulator as a power source," John explained it as best he could, "When the trigger is pulled, it reacts with a metal on the inside of the bolt chamber and fires an immensely powerful shot. However, the shot will not only overheat the barrel but also the modulator itself. It takes about three seconds to cool down so we can fire once every three seconds. Much less using ranked volleys of course" He suggested.

You could almost see Donson mouthing the words "photonic regenerative phase modulator." He shrugged. "Never been much for technobabble myself, but that sounds like a handy weapon of choice. Is this exclusively Marine issue, or is it standered issue thoughout the APA as well?"

"No, it's standard throughout all services" He answered calmly, "But the Modulator is quite bulky so it doesn't really fit in anything smaller than a Rifle and Setting 3 is too slow for a Squad Support weapon so it is only a rifle setting. Even so, the APN, the APA, the DGC and the AMC use them extensively across the System. This version," He pointed at the Marine weapon, which looked quite short for a combat rifle, "Is the carbine version for the armored Regiments and the Marine Corps. The APA and DGC versions are longer and more accurate"

Donson nodded. "A fine weapon, having seen it in action. I'm quite impressed by Setting Three. Seems useful for attacks such as these," he nodded towards the wall of dead Krezan, "but I expect it would be difficult to use it against an organized fighting unit."
It felt quite surreal, talking calmly about arms with a wall of slaughtered enemy soldiers upwind, missiles bearing down from space, and a battle of epic proportions happening only a mile or two away.

Sensors activated....

Objects identified

Defence Action

Watchdog.....Active

As soon as Watchdog went active, all Space Cannons targeted the missiles bearing down upon Londim. Watchdog was one of the most advanced planetary systems constructed.

Everywhere missiles exploded as Watchdog took them down and from the ground it looked like a gigantic fireworks display. However some missiles did get through and they were still on target.

The various battles now occurring were taking their toll on soldiers who became tired. The wave of Kezarn seemed to have stopped for now but who knew how they would change in the next battle. The Kezarn were probably already evolving...

Seeing the aerial battle rage above her head Naomi Kayuza adjusted her longsword and hoped they could leave with the wounded soon.

They could have done with the ships doctor here. The mechs were able to hold them off for now as she watched the sky snapping off a shot here and there.

She felt tired as well. She had been pretty much in combat as long as her allies had and there was no Neo Kirisuban reinforcements coming anytime soon although a call for help had been sent. A message would take days to get home and even if they left right away then the battle might well be by the time a fleet got there.

The first three shuttles were now loaded up with the most seriously wounded and these took off heading to Resa. The others would follow later.

Then the Fukiko Bay moved into view above the courtyard as its firepower raked the aerial kezarn who weren't already being engaged.

John nodded then glanced casually upwards,
"INCOMING!" He roared and threw himself to the ground. As he did so, explosions erupted around the courtyard and just beyond. A few Alversians were thrown high into the air and sections of the corpse wall were blown away under the force of the impact.
The attack had been quick and almost immediately, exhausted Marines moved to rebuild the wall and rescue the wounded. The dead, much unlike the Alversians, had to be left where they were. The rest of the Marines ran to their sections and prepared for more action, anticipating another assualt after the bombardment.

Some missiles had evidently slipped though the Watchdog defensive screen, and now impacted in and around the courtyard. Another seven soldiers were killed upon detonation, and three were wounded. The Xiscapians had originally planned to escort the Alversians away from the contested area and get back to the battle, but they were taking losses and there was very little more they could do. The battle would be won in space. They waited anxiously as the Starrider got into orbit above their position. The Battlecruiser would be able to beam up the vast majority of the soldiers, and those who couldn't be beamed would be picked up by Alversian or Neo Kirisubo shuttles, if there was room. Lintel now joined her troops in the courtyard with her bodyguard of soldiers and mechs, to be beamed up along with them. She had been observing and compiling reports as well as directing the ground forces.

The shuttles were struggling to fight their way through the maelstrom that was the battle in orbit. The first shuttle managed to sneak through the fighting and land in the centre of the square. First off were twenty reinforcements to help the line hold. 20 fresh Marines plus heavy support weapons and rations. Then the embarking of the wounded began. At that moment, it was 1 man to 3 wounded getting onto the shuttle and soon it was full. The Marines went back to their positions now strengthened with new troops. They would have to hold the line and allow the shuttles time to land.

Captain Mikato was back on board her ship leaving Commander Kitagawa to look after the beaming up of the wounded.

The commander used the Captains ready room to contact her allies as the battle raged in the sky above them. They still needed their shields to prevent boarding so they could only be dropped for a few seconds at a time.

So she needed to talk to an officer on the ground and fast. She knew the Starrider could also evacuate and it was up her to co-ordinate rescue efforts.

The Flyers, as had been dubbed by Londim troops, were still attacking, now going for ground troops. Some had been grabbed and tore apart in the air and eaten. The Flyers were intelligent creatures and had cause mass panic in the ranks of the troops. AA guns were now being used to shoot them down, but they were agile.

Meanwhile in space the battle raged on, ships on both sides turning into coffins. The Londim ships which held wounded were retreating back to Resa. The numbers were too much in favour of the Kezarn. The order was given.

"RETREAT!"

This one word was sent to all Londim ships and the allies. A new strategy would have to be thought of and quick. If a head to head battle continued then the Kezarn would surely win.

There was a flash of light and all but the Major and twenty five able bodied soldiers were beamed to the Starrider. Those left would need to relie on allied shuttles to get them to safty. The Major's comm crackled.
"Krrrrk...need you...Starrid...shields...eaming remain...forces-"
His line of communication dissolved into static as the battle became too frenzed and the communicator failed. Another one, a mere ding, much clearer:
"What can I do for you, ma'am?" he asked Commander Kitagawa.
Seconds later:
"RETREAT!"
"Damnit!," he swore, "we have to fall back fast now. The Londim army is in retreat, it won't be long until Krezan forces reach this area. Those shuttles need to hurry!"

"We can't fall back!" John cried from his position on the front line, "The bastards have us surrounded! We can't punch through with the troops we have here"
There was a flash and twenty of the wounded Marines were teleported to the Formidable, still in orbit over the planet. John felt relief that the Wounded were being evacuated but they still needed to wait for the shuttles to take off the Soldiers who still stood.
John sighed as a loud cry signalled the beginning of another attack,
"Marines! Setting three Volley! Fire on my Mark!"
He watched the Kezarn leap over the rubble and headed back into the killing ground. More Marines were plucked back or slumped over the body wall.
"FIRE!"
When the smoke had cleared, the Kezarn were gone and another layer of bodies had been added to the mound in front of them.
"We can't hold on forever" He sighed.

Scans were being done to locate both Londim and Allied troops still in battle. They needed to get everyone to safety and quick. One of the satellites picked up the stranded Alversian and Xiscapian troops who seemed to be trapped.

"Get Rescue Shuttles out there now. I want them escorted by Fighters. The fighters can give death from above on any approaching Kezarn while we get the Allies on the Shuttles. Move!"

The Shuttles and Fighters launched and flew towards the trapped. The shuttles were surrounded on all sides by fighters. As they neared the pick up zone, Kezarn troops came into view. The Fighter pilots needed no orders. They fired upon the Kezarn, killing many on the first wave. This act now gave them time to rescue the trapped.

(OOC: Sorry for taking so long to post, but I wasn't sure whether to just lead him to death, I preferred to make it as an unknown for now, so it's up to you, if these aliens can be harmed or not by his gauss rifle and mini-rockets. Also it's up to you whether all the fusion missiles will hit the kezarn ships, an amount of them will miss or all will miss, and the damage they shall provoke and also up to you whether the robots have destroyed any important or critical device in the flagship deck 12 or not)

Things were becoming very grave in Deck 10. During flight he fired a grenade, all his rockets and shots of his gauss gun against the three alien beasts, hoping they would not be invincible as they looked to be. It seems that now it became clear the foolishness of his action. Reversing the thrust of the jetpack, Gabriel has gone just in time to dodge from the closest beast melee strike, roaring flames touching the skin of it while he landed quickly on the ground and kept an watch on his sensors to predict the next move of the monster, running away as fast as he could from it and trying to make his way up to the next deck, using whatever could appear as cover, but his chances were very dim.

-------------------------

In Deck 12, the four robots from beta team continued to bravely stand against the aliens, covering the entrance of the elevator, their mission, to be part of such diversionary attack, was suicidal. Scorch marks riddled that tight corridor, and their heavy caliber machineguns and gauss rifles continued wrecking havoc over whatever managed to bypass the tripwires and proximity explosives one of the robots continually armed at the edge of the corridor and inside the large elevator behind them. However, there was a limit to the maximum of ammunition they can carry, and their explosives were almost depleted while more and more aliens continued trying to get them, probably for rage rather than anything else. They had enough for only more 30 minutes of combat.

The four robots of Allen team have managed to continue their diversionary attack, after managing to lure and ambush several Kezarns on the room filled with what seemed to be electronics which they destroyed, and continued making through the corridors of that massive starship, with their machinegunner watching their back with a 180 degrees torso twist, while they were destroying whatever electronics and devices they could find in their way. However their goal was now to find an entrance to deck 11 besides the busy elevator and its battle-ridden corridor, to give the impression they were also going for the top of the ship, thus making the Kezarn have to choose between focusing on them or on Gabriel, which maybe would work considered their methodical anti-materiel attacks destroying every vulnerable device of the flagship on their way. It was not certain whether their random attacks would damage one of the flagship subsystems or only provoke minor damage, but for now they were still succeeding, and apparently were a greater threat to the Kezarn than Gabriel ever was. They eventually found a secondary access, a ramp which would probably take them to deck 11, however the Kezarn were closing on their tail in increasingly large numbers and their ammunitions were only enough for more 10 minutes of continuous fire.

---------------------------

6 hours and 59 minutes after the launch of the ten fusion ballistic missiles

Flying at an incredibly fast, relativistic speed of about 900 kilometers per second the ten relativistic kinetic-kill and fusion missiles launched by the still far away Von Braun cruiser were now about to impact against several different positions of the Kezarn fleet. Hopefully their combined impact would be enough to severely damage their fleet and turn the tide of battle, should they all be successful. The combined power of 3 gigatons was more than enough to seriously damage a capship, but whether the counter counter-measures and insanely high velocity and kinetic energy of these missiles coupled with their fusion would allow them to bypass Kezarn shields or not was yet to be seen.

The remaining Xiscapians were protected by their mecha, fighters and patrols, and as the Londim shuttles came in the fighters and patrols twisted and shot up into the sky, back for the Starrider, leaving only the mecha to defend in case of another attack. The Londim fighter tore though the seeming eternal tide of Krezan, but the Xiscapians and Alversians had been doing the same for the past half hour, and it wasn't enough.
Starrider...
The Marines were beamed aboard saftly and the wounded rushed to the medical bay, but the Starrider could not locate it's own soldiers and beam them up without also beaming up fighters, other soldiers, rubble, Krezan and whatever else was around them. They would have to relie on Allied shuttles to evac them out. Lintel watched the failing space battle and knew the same was happening on the ground. But now that the Krezan were all grouped in one place, it was possible that a WMD strike, once all allied soldiers were saftly away, would wipe out the Krezan, along with Londim, for good. But Lintel wasn't sure the Allies, particularly the Londims themselves, would approve of this, and at any rate she didn't think any of them had any weapons of mass destruction with them with enough power to obliterate the Krezan army and fleet.

Another batch of Alversian shuttles managed to fight their way to the Courtyard. They were on an exchange mission, taking off wounded and exhausted Marines and Allied troops as well bringing fresh Reserves to hold the perimeter until all could be evacuated. The Marines had given a good account of themselves and still they fought bitterly to resist, aided by the APNAF aircraft that swooped down on strafing runs of the enemy positions.

Aboard the Formidable, Alversian wounded were rushed to the Sickbay while others were simply given ship leave to rest and prepare for more action in the coming weeks. For now, they would have to be content and wait.

Ship Battle

The beasts were still after Gabriel. Though they had been hit and sustained some injuries, they still wanted to take Gabriel out. That was their mission and failure wasn't an option for them. They were doing this to protect the rest of their people.

By now the Kezarn had worked out not to keep charging at the robots. So instead they fired grenades and RPG's towards the robots positions. Hopefully that would stop them and allow the Kezarn to concentrate on killing Gabriel.

The ship sensors had picked up traces of incoming missiles. Shileds were put up but it was more than likely at least one would get through due to the combined force.

Space Battle

The last of the battleships were retreating, giving covering fire to allow those with the injured to get away first.

Ground Battle

The Londim fighters had managed to drive back the Kezarn allowing for the shuttls to pick up the Londim and Allied soldiers.

Kitagawa seen the Fukido bay finally able to drop its shields and beam people aboard five at a time.

She felt bad about retreating and said to the Xiscapian Major "we'll be leaving once all the wounded are aboard anyway. We'll be back although."

She sounded defiant as another Neo Kirisuban shuttle took off fully laden. There was only her one left now as the medics rushed people to her rescue shuttle.

The Major nodded as the remaining Xiscapians clumped together. The mecha were a strong line of defense, the Krezan not having shown any kind of anti-vehicle weapons. The mechs could smash though the Krezan for as long as the ammunition held up and the pilots stayed awake. Nevertheless, the remaining kitsune needed a shuttle. Any shuttle. Xiscapian shuttles only transported a dozen at a time, so it would only take two to transport all the Marines, or a single drop ship.

The Alversians were still holding the perimeter, although they had been reduced in number thanks to casualties and evacuation. Now two last shuttles arrived, preparing to pick up the last of the Allied troops. They had held all the plateau against all the odds but now it was time to go.
"Time to pull back!" John called to the Xiscapian Major.

The shuttles, with the last of the Alversians onboard, heaved slowly into the air before, under the cover of a half-dozen XX-30's they zoomed for the upper atmosphere and the Formidable. About 300 Alversian Marines had ended up fighting on the surface. Their losses had been relatively heavy, 74 Marines had been killed and another 102 wounded.

"Aye," the Major nodded, then called to his troops. "The shuttles are here! Load up, on the double!" The Marines scurried for the safety of the Alversian shuttles as the mecha mantained their line for just a few more minutes, protecting the entire evacuation. The Major himself was the last to climb aboard, looking out the shuttle's ramp at the blasted landscape soaked with blood and carpeted with bodies, mostly Krezan.

Of the two hundred Marines who went in, one hundred and twenty-three came back, thirty of them wounded. There was no casualties reported among the mecha, fighters or patrols, having racked up hundreds of kills on Krezan soldiers.
Starrider...
"Admiral, the last of the Marines are away and the mecha are entering the hangers now."
"Good. Begin moving out of orbit and plot a course for the Londim fallback planet, Ressa(ooc: ?)." said Lintel. More Marines came now, all alive and uninjured. The wounded were mostly due to laser shots and shrapnel, the armor of the Marine soldiers having protected them well. On the Bridge Ginta stared out across space down to the planet. He prayed for all ther safty, but especially for that of Kaori.
Are you alright, love? Where are you now?
The last of the Alversians and Xiscapians had evacuated Londim, and the Londim army and fleet were retreating even now, all that was left was for the Neo Kirisubo to get off the planet.

The Formidable, limping badly from her damage but no longer in immediate danger, set off for the fallback planet. With the knowledge that his Marines were scattered across at least three ships, Mason was anxious to get there as soon as possible and reunite his crew. The Marines had proven themselves to be formidable opponents. With a combination of discipline, weapons and tactics, they had inflicted severe casualties on the invaders for little losses.

The Fukido Bay and her shuttles were the last to leave.

Inside the small starship injured patients were everywhere and the small medical staff were under severe pressure.

Every crew member who wasn't dead on her feet was helping out as the injured were also transferred of the now docked shuttles and even taken to holodecks as space ran out.

The battle was now to save allied lives rather than taking on the Kezarn.

The Starrider's Marines were either on the ship itself or on the Formidable. However, they were not nearly so swamped with casualties, with almost a full half of the medical bay unoccupied. Following standered regulations and policy, the Starrider opened a line of communication with the Fukido Bay.
Fukido Bay, this is the XIW Starrider, we are transmitting to inquire if you need assistance in ship repairs or medical teams. Our engineers and doctors on standby if you require such.

In her ready room Captain Kaori Mikato fielded the call. Her ships repairs were continuing as they made the journey to Resa along with the allied fleet.

Her thoughts were also on Ginta as she spoke. She hoped he was still alive and on that ship.

"XIW Starrider. This is Captain Mikato commanding NKS Fukido bay. Medical teams would be really appreciated. We have 84 seriously wounded warriors on board. Thankfully my own medical people are winning this particular battle for now."

OOC: It's Resa.Named after Londim's nations old capital city.

IC:

Londim had suffered many losses and families would be mourning for the dead. At this point Londim was lost. Morale among the survivors was down and Commander Tarnis had a big sense of guilt. If he hadn't ordered the investigation then none of this would have happened.

Resa came into view and they breathed a sigh of relief. Here they would rest while the Generals would talk. Emperor Huchnom would now take charge of the army. He had a lot of experience with the military and it was time to fight back. He sent a message to the allies:



To my Soldiers and Our Allies,

You have shown a considerable amount of courage and have fought battles that you could I have fled. I, and the people, thank you. However this is the very beginning of a war with the Kerzarn. They are a dangerous threat but what we know now that charging into battle head on with them is suicide. We need a new tactic and anyone who can come up with a tactic that will turn the tide of this war will receive my deepest gratitude.

OOC: Pardon my intrusion, but I just wanted to mention that viruses designed to fit the exact genetic make-up of the enemy race have always been popular... well, maybe not popular, but certainly effective... just in case you are looking for an interesting tactic... =)

Upon the message from the Kirisuban ship, Mason contacted his Medical Officer,
"How are we doing for casualties?" he asked,
"We're coping fine at the moment. Most of the badly wounded have been stabilised and the lightly wounded attended to."
"Good, how many men can you spare?"
"About a dozen?"
"Send them to the Fukido Bay. They're struggling to cope with their Casualties."
"I'll send them over immediately, Sir"

Mason sat back in his chair and sighed. He thought of the battle and the results that had been gained. He didn't doubt for a second that a full Alversian Army could met, and defeat, the Kezarn in the field if his Marines were anything to go by. For the moment, he was content to sit back and maintain course to Resa, there the war could be decided.

Captain Mikato heard the Commander Tarnis' broadcast and then fielded the return message from the Alversians.

She'd let them on board since her CMO and her nurses had their hands full. What had seemed to be a routine mission had ended up as a war and a losing one so far.

They needed new ideas and fast before the Kezarn got too advanced to fight at a later date.

They'd won this round for now but she believed there would be another round to fight once they reached Resa. She doubted the Kezarn would remain on Londim.

This really wasn't the Neo Kirisuban's war but she would lend as much aid as she could before she received new orders.

The two warships were already close enough for a transport and so, within minutes, a flash of light and a dozen Doctors and Nurses had been beamed over to the Fukido Bay. As they spread out to help the Medical staff, the Officer in charge approached the CMO and saluted,
"Doctor Clinton, reporting with a detachment of Medical Staff for your disposal"

"XIW Starrider. This is Captain Mikato commanding NKS Fukido bay. Medical teams would be really appreciated. We have 84 seriously wounded warriors on board. Thankfully my own medical people are winning this particular battle for now."
Roger that, NKS Fukido Bay, Medical Teams beaming over now.
Beaming into the corridor outside of the medical bay to prevent overcrowding of the patients, doctors and Alversian medics already inside, the medical teams consisted of ten doctors and ten nurses, stripped out of their medical combat gear and into smocks, surgical maks and close-fitting sheaths for their tails and hats, to prevent fur and hair contaminating open wounds and medical instruments. A grav-lift containing medicine, bandages and various medical tools was lightly pushed by a nurse inside. Once in they too spread out among the wounded, assisting the Alversian and Neo Kirisubon doctors.
To my Soldiers and Our Allies,

You have shown a considerable amount of courage and have fought battles that you could I have fled. I, and the people, thank you. However this is the very beginning of a war with the Kerzarn. They are a dangerous threat but what we know now that charging into battle head on with them is suicide. We need a new tactic and anyone who can come up with a tactic that will turn the tide of this war will receive my deepest gratitude.
Lintel was hesitant to share her tactic. It called for the destruction of an entire planet once again, not an enemy planet, but a once allied home planet now occupied by enemy forces. Any Londim stuck on the planet would surely be killed, if the Krezan didn't get to them first. She ran over other possibilities in her mind. Diplomacy, of course, was out of the question at this point. To make a disease for biological warfare would require a Krezan in good condition, alive or dead. Besides, such an agent would need to reach all the Krezan ships too, or enough to cripple their fleet. And if the time scale at which the Krezan were evolving and adapting was consistant, such an attack might not be effective. For now Xiscapian technology well outclass Krezan, but she couldn't count on that advantage. However, they knew where the Krezan flagship was. If they could put together a strike team, to inflitrate and destroy that ships and whoever was leading the Krezan, then there was a good chance it would severly disrupt the Krezan chain of command, if there was one at all. Xiscapians, militarily, had always beleived in doing more with less. And, once again, there was no guarentee that the team would even be able to make it onto the ship, never mind the fact that the Krezan could be of a single entity, a hive mind or receiving orders telepathically from some far distant planet.

(OOC: As in the last time you didn't mention the damage provoked by the missile which managed to pierce, I hope there is no problem in this, and again, whether the explosion will damage other nearby alien ships or not is up to you. And I hope the plan and the "Relativistic FTL Nullifier" isn't too far-fetched stuff, and as always most damage provoked is up to you. And also I have changed my tactics and ship designs during all time, sorry for it, but I wasn't sure about them before. Currently all my starships are optimized for very long range combat. Also, guess who got lucky? (http://www.random.org/integers/). Although depending on how you RP it, I won't force it if he is just going to die with no chances)

Kezarn fleet position

The shields were not enough to detain one of the fusion missiles. It hit straight against a Kezarn battleship past its shields... 300 megatons of damage are enough to destroy even the most resistant material in the universe, and thus it was completely annihilated, perhaps a hopeful sign that not everything was lost...

Outer Space, 0.1 AU(~15 millions of Kilometers) Away from Kezarn fleet

"This is Von Braun Artificial Intelligence... I have suffered significant damage over one of the flight decks, and a dropship was completely lost, but I am still combat capable and damage control modules have stabilized the situation... commander Gabriel's current chances of survival are estimated between 10 and 0.1%, and thus I have decided to make a way through the gross of the xenu. I recommend all to employ longer range tactics of engagement... targets locked... I've have just fired five hundred of missiles packing a total of about 47 kilotons against the smaller xenu ships, and hopefully they will be able to severely damage them... they shall arrive in about 86 days to their target due to the distance I currently am from their fleet to finish what my gauss cannons cannot clean from it, should those targets remain at their position... aiming gauss cannons for kinetic bombardment... estimated arrival time of first rounds: 13 hours, rate of fire at 1 round per second flying at 300 kilometers per second, saturation of kinetic penetrating relativistic projectiles initated. Downloading tactical assault plan to allied forces... high priority quantum encryption active."

500 missiles flew like a swarm hornets from multiple opened launch cells in the conical surface of the torchship, adjusting their inertial flight direction vector through vectored thrust and accelerating until reaching the speed of 2 kilometers per second, from where their engines were disabled to save fuel as they continued heading towards their intended target, taking advantage of the lack of friction and of the law of Inertia, and before that, spreading at significant, three-digit kilometers distances between them to difficult interception.

A plan was transmitted to Londim fleet... it was not very pleasant and perhaps it was so crazy "it could work", but it was the fastest available option... according to the data no starship could survive a solar flare, and just like a powerful and mass scale enough fusion bombardment can trigger the transformation of a gas giant into a sun, such action could also trigger a very devastating solar flare. While an annexed document included a strange theory about the full nullification of faster-than-light travel coupled with the blueprints for a practical device capable of covering an entire solar system. However, should the fleet be destroyed while they chased the bait before they reached the star, then a flare bombardment would not be required. Another notice is that the cruiser would require the help of a large cargo ship or carrier for resupplying and repair.

Of course, in the unlikely event of Gabriel succeeding, everything would change then. A "Plan B" in such case pointing that the Sniper Cruiser fusion and heat exhaust is powerful enough to destroy a smaller space ship getting behind its nozzles and that the dreadnought boarded could be used against the Kezarn. However the cream of the crop was the suggestion of a mass scale boarding of all Kezarn battleships while they were busy trying to destroy their captured dreadnought.

The Cruiser was moving slowly, with its engines turned off, awaiting patiently for the Kezarn to slowly come in the next days or maybe dozens of hours, for range was its major advantage, while one by one, more and more projectiles came from its two 120mm gauss cannons pointed towards the Kezarn. A long "charge" against the cruiser was what they would hopefully, and foolish do. The Sniper could fire nonstop its gauss cannons for 2 hours, and not much would survive a massed attack of thousands of relativistic projectiles.

Kezarn Flagship Deck 12

"Beta Team chance of survival: 0%"

The robots guarding the elevator shaft could do little besides disabling the magnetic control system of their portable fusion power units... a trick they had on their "sleeves" to make a very effective kamikaze bombing strike. And maybe that would be enough to severely damage that deck, or entirely destroy it... fusion in vacuum seems entirely different. Rather than a mushroom, it is more of a all-spread reaction annihilating everything nearby, melting both metal and flesh alike. But when four micro-fusion chambers blow up simultaneously on purpose, the result isn't much controllable. The Kezarn would have a damn problem of damage control to keep them busy, besides Gabriel, should he survive further.

But before that, the other four robots from Allen team successfully dodged a swarm of grenades and rockets with their natural flexibility, answering them with some their own while they strafed with their torsos always pointing at the direction of the Kezarn while they did not run towards them. They slowly made their up to deck 11, but maybe, ironically they could end being destroyed by the uncontrolled fusion reaction of their own allies.

Deck 10

They did not give up yet. Gabriel this time had only one chance, he aimed straight against the eye of the beast, the closest to him of the three and such shot would definitively be enough to kill it in that instant. Fortunately his skills accounted for his accurate shot against its eye, while he immediately aimed against the other beast closing in, while he equally started to fly with his jetpack. Although not actually faster than a bike in atmosphere or than a 2000s tank in space, it was still faster than running on foot and allowed him to fly at the opposite direction of that he was aiming at, allowing him to effectively retreat and shoot at the same time. Once and twice... two shots at high muzzle velocity which maybe could kill, coupled with the first, provenly accurate one, the three beasts, giving him time to further find his way above, but even if he did survive, the still remaining Allen team of robots had little chances of surviving the blast, and perhaps such blast would turn in favor of Gabriel in his own combat as well... the stakes were getting even higher.

Dr Ari Fujimoto was directing her nurses in English since her allies were here and very glad to have the Xiscapian medics with her. She was also in red medical scrubs as were her nurses. The Kitsune were also involved in the fight to save lives today.

Hearing a transporter whine outside her small sickbay which was already overflowing with serious cases but ore of these were being moved to 'recovery areas' on the ship she looked up from the Alversian solidier she was treating and sealed the deep wound that had been caused by a Kezarn attack.

"Welcome to my sickbay Dr Clinton. I'm Dr Ari Fujimoto, CMO of the Fukido Bay. We also have a Xiscapian medical team here as well" she said with a warm but very tired looking smile on her face having slipped her surgical mask off to greet the Alversian medical team.

She looked in her early 30's and too dedicated to her job to leave the fleet just yet. She already had given the state two children who had then been adopted into loving families and thus fulfilling her duty. Now she seen her duty as being to her shipmates who were her family now.

Dr Clinton nodded and looked around at his Medical Team,
"File out" He ordered, "Treat the most serious cases first, then look at the others"
"Aye, Sir" The Doctors and Nurses spread out across the Medical Bay, treating the more serious wounds or dropping in to aid an allied Medic who was struggling with a particular patient. They were busy but not overwhelmed.

A Xiscapian doctor leaned over a Neo Kirisubon patient, the front of his smock splattered with her blood. A nasty shoulder wound was becoming infected far faster then it should have, and he was forced to cut away the bacteria covered meat to prevent the infection from spreading. It was quite possible her whole arm might have to come off. It would need to be replaced with a cloned or bionic part, and he placed a sample of undiseased tissue for the cloning vats in a jar and stowed it in a cart. Elsewhere a nurse was trying to restrain a screaming kitsune as the last of his burned ears were cut away. An explosion had shredded them, and he could no longer hear anything, his top ears gone and his bottom ones deaf from the force of the blast. "Mother! Mother, dear Qonn help me, mother save me, ahhhhh!" He was clamped down to his bed as the nurse bandaged his head and injected a drug. He became limp and his head lolled, unconcious. Elsewhere injuries were less serious. Minor cuts, laser burns to arms or legs, easily repairable damage. Like the Alversians and Neo Kirisubon, the medical teams were working quickly with dozens of patients, but they were not swamped. Bacta became a precious tool, closing wounds and sealing them from infections, soothing burns and calming terrified patients.

Dr Fujimoto's red garbed nurses were scattered round the ship since the patients were as well. They had long overspilled from the sickbay area and were mostly in the activated holodecks, the mess hall and cargo holds.

Dr Clinton's medics were guided to areas where the warriors of all sides were. Even some of the Neo Kirisuban bridge crew were here having taken plasma burns when some consoles blew out during the battle.

A few shuttle gunners had also been badly injured during the ground battle to evacuate the warriors on the surface. They had joined the first officer on the ground and added their firepower to help fight off the flying Kezarn.

With the medical efforts continuing the teams were working well together as the three nationalities combined their medical skills to save lives today.

The halls echoed with curses as an Alversian Marine had a series of blaster bolts along his arm disinfected and healed. The man had refused anything to ease his pain and now tear were running down his face,
"I will not be doped!" He insisted, "I ain't no idiot!"
Elsewhere, the Alversian Medical Staff were helping deal with both their own casualties as well as the Xiscapians. The Alversians had suffered quite badly from the ground battle and a variety of wounds were being treated with calmness and precision.

Nurse Keiko Ogawa was dead on her feet but still going. She also wasn't going to take any messing as she took a tranquilising hypospray from her medical case.

"I know you don't want this but this is for the best. Think of the others round you" she told him giving him a stern look and glancing over to an Alversian medic.

She wasn't sure about the ethics of giving this but he might accept it from his own medic.

Most of the Xiscapians had been treated by this point, they seemed to have had the least casualties. With thirty wounded, most had been able to get assistance on the Starrider, and only a few of the wounded were here or on the Formidible. However, Alversian casualties had been +100, and the Neo Kirisubon had taken eighty four wounded, mostly ship's crew but some from the ground battle. This made over two hundred total injured humans or kitsune, but most of the kitsune were elsewhere, and the casualties were being swiftly and effectively treated by the combined efforts of the Alversian, Xiscapian and Neo Kirisubon doctors and nurses. Beige Alversian medical uniforms mixed with the red of Neo Kirisubon scrubs and Xiscapian black, red and white. The number of injured finally seemed to be going down.

A new plan of action had to be formed. The problem was thinking of one. They knew the key to the Kezarn attack was their main ship but it was very well defended. There wasn't much of a point of fighting on Londim again without more reinforcements either.

The Kezarn fleet would have to be taken out but it would take time to get them all. Time which they didn't have.

While they journeyed to Resa Kaori Mikato had to think about the options they had.

The Kezarn had occupied Londim and had the potential to hop to other planets and take them as well. The level of casualties they'd taken would have crippled most armies but they didn't even look stretched.

The enemy flag ship looked like the key issue but how to take it out. The whole fleet was the issue since this was how they got around. Beaming a nuclear weapon into their bridge might do the trick but how to get close.

Neo Kirisuban ships still carried nuclear warheads in store and these were usually used for self destruction but could be used for the destruction of others.

With the beginning of an idea she could present this to Commander Tarnis.

(OOC: It seems my last post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13507835&postcount=450) was missed)

OOC:

Sorry about not posting but I kind of lost any direction of the RP. Instead I shall draw up a final conclusion now. Londim was reclaimed by the Londimians and the Allies but at a huge cost of both life and money.

Gabriel, defying odds, destroyed the Mothership. Its up to you Solar Communes whether he survived or not. However some Kezarn have escaped unknown to the Allies. Their threat is still out there and may come back at any time.

All Allied Leaders received the Londim Soaring Eagle medal for their accomplishments and bravery.

Any RP's Londim now takes part in will be after the Kezarn War.

The Fukido Bay was allowed by the Neo Kirisuban admiralty to stay where she was and she seen the war out mainly as a hospital ship although they did face ship to ship combat during the moping up operations.

Then they returned home to get a much needed refit and shore leave. A year after the war ended they resumed their mission of exploration again but Captain Mikato knew the Kezarn might well return.

Captain Mason and the Formidable were realised after a few more months on station as the Alversian Ambassadors before a proper Diplomat could arrive. After this, the Formidable departed for other systems and stars to continue the Deep Space Fleet's mission of peace and exploration. However, the vessel ran into a heavy ion storm, exactly a year after the Kezarn War.

The Formidable was lost with all Hands.

OOC: Ahh, Alversia, why ya gotta be like that? :( :p
IC:
After Londim was reclaimed the Starrider made it's farewells and headed back for Xiscapia. The crew was shocked and overjoyed to learn that by the time they had returned the Rebellion was over. Lintel, Ginta and the rest returned to an unthreatened, if weary and war-battered, Xiscapia. Ginta had spent as much time as possible with Kaori before they left, and he vowed he would see her again. Lintel was awarded the Command Banner for leadership and tenacity in time of crisis.

OOC: Dunno, thought someone should NOT have a happy ending for once :p