SDNW4 Story Thread 2

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Shroom Man 777
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Nueva Cordoba
Estella Real de España
Sector W-14
Unreal Time


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The Estella Real de España was once a great empire, a mighty colonial power that stretched throughout the Spin Zone. However, it had declined over the centuries and its place of preeminence had been taken over by the likes of New Anglia and the perfidious French. Today, the Estella Real was but a shadow of its former self, clinging to the traditions of its proud past and the supposed superiority of Españian culture in an effort to deny the fact that its glory days had come and gone, and that it had been since surpassed by its neighbors.

To enter Españia was like travelling back in time, before the 31st century. Galleon ships still plied the space lanes with their wooden hulls and solar sails catching the stellar wind. Its position made the nation a hub for interstellar trade, and so it was decreed that their space galleons were to look as they did centuries ago in order to preserve the image of Españian culture, to show its neighbors the beauty and finesse of all things Españian. Their cities and villages too were constructed to the rustic aesthetic of centuries ago, to preserve the nation's cultural identity, so that the influences of the Francs and the Saxons would not erode their heritage.

This stand-offish attitude towards its neighbors, their inability to accept the changing times, and the massive chip on their collective shoulders led to the Estella Real's estrangement with its neighbors. So, while Españia's cultural anachronisms and exotic sights made it a perfect tourist destination, the nation's bullheadedness and utter refusal to talk to those it considers as uncultured usurpers taking its rightful place as a great colonial power made it the perfect hiding spot for those on the run from the other galactic powers, which the Estella Real didn't care much for anyway. Bah.

Which was why Ethereal Aun'anielt was now in Nueva Cordoba, enjoying the Mediterranean climate that its terraformers had painstakingly recreated throughout the whole planet, and taking in the sights and sounds of Españia. Of course, there was no way these gue'la could hope to match the greatness of old T'au, or even the Enclaves they had built in Nova-Atlantis thanks to the hospitality of those pompous bigheaded post-gue'la (whose only redeeming trait separating them from the rest of the galaxy's groveling gue'la was that they were smart enough to let the Tau grace them with their presence). Except Aun'anielt was not really enjoying the climate, as stuffy as it was, nor the sights or sounds of the primitive natives and their stupid beliefs like Catholicism or their ugly "baroque" architecture or whatever it was. Such inferior specimens were in dire need of the Greater Good, or at least mandatory sterilization, but even the post-gue'la back at Nova-Atlantis were a bunch of hypocrites who got cold feet after they couldn't muster the guts to go all the way. The cowards ended up selling out Aun'anielt's organization just because the rest of the galaxy's gue'la blubbered and whined and couldn't stomach a few nanites. What a bunch of pink-gutted humans.

It sickened Aun'anielt. Those humans were always the cause of all things wrong. They just couldn't conform to order, to the Greater Good. At least there were some of them whose cyber-postbrains weren't malfunctioning, sensible types who at least sympathized with the cause enough to give Aun'anielt a warning. He had managed to escape just in time, right before the raid, and now here he was, on the run and in hiding.

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Oh how the mighty have fallen, Aun'anielt thought. He could have fled to Nova Miratia, there were some Tau there, but they were even worse than the gue'la. They renounced the Greater Good, ended up becoming a bunch of stoners and addicts and other useless parasites, the exact opposite of what the Greater Good embodied - the anathema of what the surviving Ethereals had striven to do in Nova-Atlantis. Aun'anielt suspected that the Miratian Tau's Ethereals were impotent, and that they simply couldn't get their pheromone glands to function. Useless and worthless, just like everything else from that damned nation.

Aun'anielt took off his clothes and stroked himself for a while. It was so hard to find female company these days. Unlike his fellows, who had to resort to disgusting human females in their desperation. But Aun'anielt still had his pride left. That was one of the few things he still had. Still, he couldn't help but wonder why there were so few female Ethereals...

After finishing his deed, he decided to get himself cleaned up. He turned on the faucet and waited for the water to accumulate in the tub. Damned primitive human plumbing. If it had been a Nova-Atlantean post-faucet, which was a truly superior design compared to everything else in the rest of the galaxy (save for that of Tau technology), Aun’anielt knew that he wouldn’t have had to wait for so long.

Either way, the tub emitted a ding, signalling that it was filled up and the faucet turned off. Aun’anielt tested the waters with a purple toe, felt that it was just right, and slid inside the bathtub. It felt good, the soothing water washed off the dirt and grime of the human planet along with all the problems plaguing the Ethereal’s so-called mind. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to sleep alone in bed that night, so he decided to sleep in the tub.

A creaking noise woke him from his short nap. At least the primitive wooden floors had that sound-warning function thing, which Nova-Atlantean post-floors did not, at least as far as Aun’anielt knew. The room doors opened, and a shadowy figure walked into the bathroom. Aun’anielt narrowed his eyes. It was definitely a human form, though clothed in black and masked.

He wasn’t surprised by this. He knew why the human had come. It was about time.

“Why have you come here?” Aun’anielt asked. How the human had slipped by his guards, he had no idea. If they were still alive, he still had a chance if he summoned them with his pheromones, but that would take time. He had to distract the assassin, somehow. “Who sent you?”

The assassin gave no response. It simply pulled out its weapon, which Aun’anielt recognized immediately. A Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm. Aun’anielt’s own Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm. The human pointed it at Aun’anielt’s defenseless, naked, bathtubbing form and squeezed the trigger. It didn’t fire. Instead, the passive anti-theft measures activated and the weapon announced that it was being used by an unauthorized user, and then the active anti-theft measures kicked in and -

- and the human assassin tossed the Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm into the bathtub. Aun’anielt would have screamed in horror, but several thousand volts of electricity was coursing through his body, seizing his muscles up and causing his blue form to convulse and flop in the tub like a salmon in water.

The assassin pulled something out from its blacksuit, a gleaming silvery device, and touched it on the water. Aun’anielt felt his mind explode as the pain that coursed through his body was amplified by a million times. The device did more than amplify the pain, as its sensory-feedback somehow began to cause systemic organ failure. By the time the Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm’s active anti-theft measures subsided, Aun’anielt was already dead.

The assassin withdrew the silver device and left the bathroom, and Aun’anielt in the tub with his Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm.
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on 2011-07-25 07:34am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

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Anglian Broadcasting Corporation News

TAU ETHEREAL FOUND DEAD IN NUEVA CORDOBA

NUEVA CORDOBA, Estella Real de España - A Tau Ethereal identified as Aun'anielt was found dead in his hotel bathroom last night. Authorities have determined the death to have been caused by fatal electrocution from a Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm that was with him in his bathtub. Reports suggest that the Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm's active anti-theft device had been engaged, causing the fatal electrocution. Normally, Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearms only activate their anti-theft measures when wielded by unauthorized users, detected through fingerprint or identification tag-based anti-theft systems, but forensics investigators suggest that the fingerprint identification system may have malfunctioned when skin on Aun'anielt's fingertips wrinkled up due to a prolonged period in the bathtub, causing it to be registered as unauthorized by the Dawkins/Tsien Militech DS-37 Viper Sidearm's anti-theft systems. The Nova-Atlantean Dawkins/Tsien Militech corporation is renowned throughout the galaxy for placing elaborate anti-theft security measures on their weapons to electrocute unauthorized users with thousands of volts of electricity.

Nueva Cordoban police have not ruled out foul play in the circumstances leading to Aun'anielt's death, however all evidence points out that the Ethereal was alone in the bathroom during his time of death. The Tau Ethereal was apparently wanted in Nova-Atlantis, and several other countries, for his involvement in the nanoterrorism attacks in the former Outlands Commissions. However, the Estella Real de España does not have any extradition treaties with Nova-Atlantis, or most other nations in the Spin Zone for that matter, and Aun'anielt may have been living in secret in España for some time prior to his death.

More on this story as it develops.
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Auroras Conceived

Post by Simon_Jester »

Central Administration Complex
Prime City, Reisenburg, Sector W-7
October 12, 3400


The First Technarch slapped his hands together and smiled. "Calvin! You wanted us here to review the Auroras?

The Second for Security seemed less enthusiastic. "My people have been running more studies, and we're having serious misgivings about the class. Given the production requirements-"

Jim Borrego, Second for Industry, cut in, his voice raised and his Bolivaran accent thick. "They're a waste. Three beamlines, half as much dureum as a dreadnought, the building slip, all for something that fights like a third of a dreadnought. A waste!"

"Yes, Jim. Especially with beamline production of the new types being a bottleneck- we should be concentrating five to a dreadnought, not three to a battlecruiser. Better use of our facilities, less risk of losing valuable hardware in combat-"

The Second for Finance interrupted, this time. "We need something we can split up and move around in that tonnage range. The Sheppoes have their older battlestar classes, the Prussians their big cruisers. Besides, this puts more beamlines on more hulls fast-"

"We can't build the guns, Rafe!"

"I know, I know, eight per year is too many, but I'm really enthusiastic about the idea of using these for antipiracy sweeps- nothing less than a battleship can..."

"Remember Brennan's World, in '91? We lost two heavy cruisers- we'd have probably lost an Aurora too."

"But-"

The First Technarch rapped out a single word. "Enough!"

Still seeming at ease despite his sharp tone of a moment earlier, Dr. O'Connell leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. "Didn't you tell me, Cal, about improving performance with a fully self-aware AI?"

"I did, but..."

The Second for Simulation cut in. "I'm confused. I thought warships had more computer support than that."

"They have processor power, Rashid; what they don't have is self-awareness. The software shuffles information and runs algorithms, but there's no, no... what's the word?"

"I can think of several words. This should have been tried before. Why wasn't it-"

"Problems- security risks, minimal gain. The advantage over our existing systems is in reaction time and integration, not data handling. Expert systems were good enough until now, still would be if the Auroras didn't depend so much on evasion and smoke and mirrors. I know I signed off on them at the time, but the more I look at the simulations, the less I like it. They're just not a good pay-off for their tonnage, not unless everything goes right."

"But a tactical AI would help."

"It depends on who you ask. Operations isn't so sure, but your people think it is."

O'Connell nodded. "We can still implement this, yes?"

"The hulls are designed for but not with the special hardware. Full fitting and integration would take... call it three to six months; SpaceSec wanted to commission and then fit one or two on a trial basis."

"I remember. The software?"

"Preliminary contract for the programming, a short-notice arrangement with Geppetto. He says he can deliver on notice, but didn't want to guarantee anything under four months' lead time."

"Aside from the use of the building slips, would this cost much of anything extra?"

"...We'd have to delay starting on Revenge until next year- she's scheduled for one of the battlecruisers' slips. And I have to wonder about the software-hardware stability. We've never done anything like it before."

"This is Geppetto, Cal. Let's at least work out a plan for installation, test the software, see if it can work- get our money's worth out of Fleet 3410's white elephants, eh?"

Dr. Lanning sighed. "...All right. But I want you to promise- promise- that if the AI package doesn't work out as well as the advocates keep saying it will, we stop building Auroras at twelve. Put the money and the guns into dreadnoughts, and start looking into other things to fill the battlecruisers' role. I'm really worrying about the concept's viability in an all-up war."

O'Connell smiled. "We'll give the battlecruiser construction program a nice, close lookover this year. Keep your mind open- if AI control opens as many doors as Rashid's people expect, we can't afford not to."

"Better hope they're safe."

"If not, we section up the whole production run and sink them in the Bermuda Tetrahedron. I do not want to have to deal with a robot uprising."

Lanning let out a long breath and nodded. "All right. Me neither."
Last edited by Simon_Jester on 2011-08-27 02:06pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Mayabird »

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Brrunk had been excited because she'd just moved out of the nursery and into the fledgling dorm. It meant she was growing up and becoming more responsible and everyone was proud of her for it. It also meant she was the youngest of the sixteen in the room. And so, a few sleep-shifts in, she woke up to a dark, quiet room, without a single sign of any of the others around.

She sucked in her breath, a small gasp of fear. It was the first time in her life she'd ever felt alone. There had always been someone nearby, parents or other nestlings or teachers or even maintenance Modulars. But now? There was no one.

A little part of her wanted to cry.

Another little part which wanted to be a dutiful strong grown-up like in the stories and nursery songs chided that other part for wanting to cry. She had to be strong!

A more sensible part thought that the others must have left without her and surely everyone was outside the room or dorm. She just needed to go out there and join them. Maybe she overslept (as embarrassing as that would be).

And then she remembered something her uncle Epaulette had said in a message to her.

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"When you move in, your fellow fledglings will no doubt try to pull a classic prank on you - make you think that you're alone! They'll be hiding around, watching and waiting for you to embarrass yourself from fright. If you rush out of the room, they'll probably have the hatch booby-trapped and something sticky will pour or spray on you! Don't be afraid, because it's a trick! I will leave your response to your wonderful imagination."

So if they were hiding around, she needed to trick them into showing themselves.

"If nobody's around," she said loudly, "I'll steal Siasio's blanket!"

"NOT MY BLANKET!" yelled Siasio, and then all the others groaned.

"Ia, you ruined it!" "How could you?" "You got tricked by a chick!"

"I'm not a chick anymore!" Brrunk sniffed at the insult.

"You are not!" said the dorm head, the eldest fledgling, who was named Whistle-ichiti. "And since you were clever, lead us out, Fledgling Brrunk!"

She pumped her growing wings, which were sore sometimes these days but not at the moment, and started as if she was to go through the exit. Then, "Is something wrong with the door?"

"Hmm?" Whistle-ichiti asked, trying to sound innocent, but he was not the greatest of liars.

"There's something on the door!" Brrunk claimed, although she couldn't see anything.

Siasio, who was already fuming, lost her temper. "There's no way you can see the trap! You're cheating! Who told you?" The others groaned as she gave it away, again.

"Ia, disarm the trap," said Whistle-ichiti. The younger made a little growl of displeasure but went to the hatch anyway. She tried, but it was on a hair-trigger, and she (plus two others perched too close) were sprayed with the adhesive. The three of them made upset squeals while the rest giggled at them.

"You'll do well here," Whistle-ichiti said as an aside to Brrunk, and her breast feathers puffed with pride.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by KlavoHunter »

CANANAAN
IN GODDAMN UNREAL TIME, 3400


And so, the Crusaders cast the die forth, the First New Army of Guynald rolling out in heavy metal and holy nuclear fire to crush the pathetic Cananaanite peoples who had always so suffered in between the Byzantines and Klavostanis. Long ago, the two sides had sworn an unholy pact in their desperately needy hyperdrive colony fleets, and with control of the ultimate high ground, plundered the land, robbing the Cananaanites of all they had, before then continuing to fight against one another for even greater share of the bounty of the worlds, until so much had been destroyed that they left - the Klavostanis leaving mostly in shame at their deeds, where the Byzantines mostly took pride in it. Certainly it was a very visible split in character between the two nascent nations, and after so much official neglect to this historical site of atrocity, the Byzantines had seen fit finally to expend a minimal official amount of support on it.

Even that tiny flexing of a muscle of a star empire provoked a massive fresh new wave of violence across Cananaan and its habitable moons, and the death machines pouring out of the Byzantine Manufactories demanded to be used, to wage death upon other humans with the weapons that had been designed to destroy humanity's foes. Having easily shed the blood of all the Cananaanites they found, the Crusaders now invaded the lands of their Jihadi foe. But the Klavostanis here were a cagey foe, and were far better-prepared to receive this tide of metal.
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Armed mainly with primitive gunpowder weapons, for which even the regressed technological base on Canaan could easily supply, these brave border fighters easily noted the earthshaking approach of this army, and raced swiftly on their camels and horses along intimately familiar paths back to alert others. Messages were dispatched back to the Lord of the Caliphate, al-Humungus, who had earned his position through strength and ferocity - if there was any force on Cananaan that could repel these Crusaders, it would be his.

But until then, these militia muj would have some surprises in store for the Byzantines. They could nibble the edge off of this adamantium herd, win ambushes to shake the confidence of the enemy before their master came to deliver the finishing blow!
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The lead Varangian Rus tank rumbled through the pass, turret traversing pointlessly as they looked around for threats, vaguely disorienting the turret crew with the motion. A single pair of eyes peeking over the ridge down at the incoming column finally decided that they had come far enough, and he motioned for his comrades to move up. Jerking on the leads and shoving the camel into position, they had provided themselves with a firing position that could handle the heavy-variant Space RPG launcher. The inexperienced, still-buttoned-up tank crew took many fatal seconds too long to notice the new threat, having learned bad habits of trying their utmost to avoid mere bullets which were all the Cananaanites had. The turret traversed to start to try and point at the Klavostanis, but it was far too late, as the missile streaked out from its complaining and alarmed launcher mount, and slammed into the turret ring of the the tank full of complaining and alarmed crew, who all horrifically burned alive in the following moments.

The Byzantine column rolled to a sudden, disorganized halt, the second tank not stopping until it slammed into the burning wreck of its comrade. Its turret traversed, and it fired a shell into the hillside that missed where the Muj had been, for they had already withdrawn. Adding insult to injury, there was another explosion, and an enormous boulder rolled down the hill, further blocking the Crusaders' path and adding to the confusion to cover their withdrawal from the successful ambush. The hillside soon became a muddy set of craters as the other tanks that could aim at it also fired, plastering the poor terrain thoroughly, before one of the Crusader officers remembered something about infantry sweeps, and had some of the IFVs at the back of the column dismount their infantry to march up to the front and secure the area to make sure the Muj were really dead - or gone, as it turned out. It took them some while more to find a tow vehicle that could get the dead tank out of the way, and the boulder, having mostly eschewed such pedestrian things as support vehicles in priority.
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Delaying actions like this bogged the Crusader army down, buying precious time for the only force on Cananaan that could possibly oppose this appalling onslaught of tanks - the personal warband of al-Humungus! Kicking up sand and dust as they rolled on towards the front, they attracted even more young Ghazi to add to their fighting force. They would need them, as they drew nearer and nearer to the thunderous flashes of nuclear weapons going off, as the Crusaders showed their displeasure with the irregulars who were impeding their progress. Even though the militias were fighting and dying at the moment, al-Humungus did not press his men to their very utmost in speed to engage in battle yet - Behind that dreadful mask and all the raw fury inside him, al-Humungus hid a cunning enough mind, it was how he had become so much more than a merely successful wasteland bandit.

Defeating an army like this would be no easy feat, and it would be quite expensive in blood to do it, but al-Humungus was hardly shy about such things if it meant victory. He was the lord of unimaginably vast tracts of land, and held the allegiance of billions. He could easily make some sacrifices to ensure that his enemies would put themselves in a position where he could make them suffer a thousandfold worse! Yes... nothing would attract Guynald's Crusaders like the city of Iram, and it could resist them... for long enough.

Leaving this wasteland city as he had the rest, he used a brutally simple method of winnowing out those of the young Ghazi he would take; only those who could keep up on foot with his motorized armada for the entire first night would be allowed to join them, for al-Humungus could find far more willing young fighters than he had weapons to give them, the cottage industries of nearly Ork-like firearms and vehicles, and the legacies of better equipment from the disgraced mercenary bands who had come here to fight and instead died, leaving the Jihadi force to be far more ramshackle a thing than their opponent.

Ramshackle, but most of al-Humungus' men were intimately familiar with their weapons, where the Crusaders smashed away recklessly like children with daddy's tools, not knowing truly how best to use them. The sun rose naturally in the morning to inaugurate another day of killing. The slit throats of the night watch were not noticed until too late, until the ululating howls of the suicide infiltration squads pierced the stillness as they attacked without fear, knowing themselves to be going to heaven as martyrs this morning already, opening up with their killyshnikovs on tents full of sleeping Byzantine troops, and then hurling themselves inside of open vehicles and triggering their suicide vests in enormous explosions that cooked off even more lethal of munitions. It was an unexpected start to the day, and it was only going to get worse for the Army of Guynald.
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As one of his very few aircraft returned from the front with their report on the enemy's disposition, al-Humungus smiled behind his mask, and raised a flare gun up to the sky, and fired off a single glowing green shell that blazed in the sky for a long time...

After a disastrously bloody breakfast, the Crusader armor began to roll forth again again along the front, kicking up such a fountain of dust behind them that the inexperienced Byzantines failed to note the dust roiling before them. Failed to note the many tanks in hull-down positions before them...
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The very latest and greatest Jihadi tanks on Cananaan were from the last great railgun-armed generation of Klavostani tanks, those that were already starting to show their age when the Chamarrans arrived. However, the laws of physics were still in effect, and not even the glacis plate of a Varangian Rus could withstand such a shot. Spectacular explosions rose to the sky as the mighty armored speartip of the Horde of al-Humungus pierced into the enemy. Roaring up out of cover, these hardened road warriors knew exactly how to exploit the confusion of their ambush, and attacked into the teeth of the oncoming Crusaders.

Punching through the leading edge of tanks, the ranks of Chimera IFVs that trailed along in the wake of their bigger cousins were easy pickings for the Jihadis, as chaos instead of smooth orders went through the Crusader unit. Some of the infantry-carriers moved to flee, and others to deploy their loads of soldiers. Bolts of fantastically-fast metal slammed through the thinner-skinned vehicles with more ease than they had the tanks before. Pulling himself out of the burning wreckage that contained his dying comrades, a terrified-looking young Byzantine clutched an antitank rocket to his chest like a holy Imperial idol of protection. He raised it towards the killer of his friends, and then he fell down as the Klavostani co-ax spat hundreds of highly accelerated flakes of ammunition through him. Sightless eyes watched the remains of his unit rout in the face of the onslaught, but rather than pursue, al-Humungus’ men turned back, and beat their own retreat away from the battlefield where they had been winning so convincingly.

They made it away in good time, too, as panicked word of the resistance they faced finally made it up the chain of command - finally, a target worthy of the God-Emperor’s most holy purifying fires! Those Kondensator artillery vehicles that were laagered up and ready to fire rushed into action as they received the order to use their new favorite toys again. Great radioactive-symbol-painted shells were worked in to where the autorammer could do the rest, sealing the breech and then soon deafening all around as the railgun hurled its payload out.

But rather than delighting the Crusader artillery crews with retina-scorching fire to match the assault upon their blown eardrums, one of the treasured extra-large vehicles of al-Humungus’ horde raised its barrel skyward, large sensitive sensors splayed out all around the weapon, and then fired a counter-munition. As the two rounds neared one another, the Jihadi shell engaged its terminal guidance, sniffing out the radiological signature of the incoming Crusader nuke, and blew itself through it, shredding the weapon of mass destruction into a non-initiate-able mess that fell to the ground mostly harmlessly.

As the range opened up between the two armies, the nuclear artillery grew even more ineffective, as the Byzantines did not have sufficient concentration of artillery on-call at the moment to punch through - indeed, it had come as a complete surprise to many senior knights who’d only fought with sword, armor, and gun until this day, that simply firing a nuclear weapon on a 35th-century battlefield did not automatically guarantee the scouring of their enemies. Nor were any of the forward Crusader units in any condition to pursue at this moment, so when King Guynald was roused to his field HQ, it was said that his roars of rage were long, loud, and inarticulate, at the beguiling nature of his most hated foe!

“M’lord,” one of his senior vassals reported, wiping his beard free of his leader’s spittle, knowing best how to redirect his master’s rage, “The ill-fashioned enemy flees, but we know where to!” He gestured for the young man at the controls for the Field HQ’s holomap, who found himself bellowed at when he did not center the map upon Iram quickly enough, causing cold sweat to pour down his spine - the only thing that would calm one of Guynald’s most ferocious rages was spilt blood.

“There?!?” King Guynald snarled, staring at the image before him, in far more detail than any graph or map he’d ever laid eyes on before, though he paid attention to little of it. “I will make it their GRAVE!” He pounded his fist on the edge of the holomap, which stubbornly resisted even his most dramatic effort, as Byzantine construction standards had long since been adjusted to survive the most belligerent gesticulations of even the God-Emperor’s Space Marines. Glaring with intensity that might cleave through energy shields, Guynald decided his dignity would be best preserved at this moment with relative calm, much to the fortune of the hapless young staff crusader.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” The rest of the camp sprung into action, mounting up their fusion-powered steeds and steeling themselves for battle, alighting off after the hated foe.

Despite the spirited pursuit, they failed to catch their foe short of their stronghold, leaving the Byzantine army to draw itself up short before the city of Iram of the Pillars, a miraculous oasis and bastion of some measure of civilization amidst this region of devastated wastes. It was then that Guynald had one of his more coherent thoughts, as he stared out upon the city where al-Humungus lay in wait.

“Wait... if he wants to hide in there, we’ve got more than enough firepower to nuke him out!” Strutting back into the back of his command IFV, Guynald crudely outlined the fire mission he wanted. The front ranks of tanks and infantry remained just outside of artillery range of the city, as there were some damn Jihadi guns that had announced their presence when they drew too close. But not outside the range of the big Kondensator tubes...

In the time it took the grand host of Guynald to shake itself out into proper formation for this grand bombardment, it gave al-Humungus all the time he needed to perform the final fortifications of Iram, and prepare for the onslaught of weapons of mass destruction. It was not for nothing that Iram remained a city of significance despite the nuclear halocaust unleashed on the planet, with ancient, yet functional anti-nuclear defense weapons adding to those expensive mobile platforms. They would do what they could - and if it wasn’t enough, well, al-Humungus had planned for that, as well.

Basements became bunkers, rooftops became shooters’ perches, convenient clutter and cover became IED killzones, weapons were distributed amongst the willing populace. Out the back, the flight of women and children obscured the withdrawal of al-Humungus’ better units out of the city, leaving the expendable troops and equipment in there to undertake such a fight... From well behind the lines, al-Humungus smiled behind his mask. Let the barbarian infidel have his overconfident pride at softening up the city - accepting his invitation to battle at this place was Guynald’s mistake in the first place.

As men up the chain of command signalled their readiness, Guynald stood up out of the cupola, and slashed forth his sword imperiously, razor chain teeth gnashing angrily. “FIRE!” The grandest battery of artillery seen on this world in centuries fired as one, hurtling atomic death forth. But unlike the casual devastation they’d unleashed upon the Cananaanites, there was still much in the way of technology defending their foes this time. The most spectacular fireworks the city’d seen in nearly a millenia lit up the city brighter than the sun, as mighty forces strove to commit or deny complete and total annihilation.

However, the deployment of nuclear weapons was old hat to interstellar warfare, and long ago defenses against such had been devised. In addition to the more modern makes of mobile anti-strategic weapon vehicles that had shielded the Jihadis earlier in the battle, now the blazing beams of the famed Pillars of Iram, laser towers from the age of Cananaan’s colonization and first devastating wars, joined in the fray, obsolete but rugged systems identifying and barely tracking the swift railgun-launched nuclear shells before burning them down. It was said that the Byzantine roars of Guynald drowned out the sound of the guns, for there were no nukes initiating!

To assuage his rage, the Byzantine temporary liaison explained the intricacies of modern technology, that such contingencies had been planned for, that they should load the purple-banded Warp Shells. Such cunning weapons packed even fantastically more punch, and, better yet, did not give off telltale radiological signatures the way the common nuclear galactic yardstick of firepower did. When the barrage shifted to try and target the fixed defenses in particular, rather than an indiscriminate bombardment, one gun crew loaded the shell they were instructed to under careful watch of a tech-magos and eerie retinue, and then added their Kondensator’s fury to the fusillade. The automatic defense systems, inexpertly managed, downgraded this ‘dud’ round to the bottom of their priority lists.

With a terrific howl of tortured reality, the reinforced ancient metallicrete defense tower vanished without a trace, and the awesome explosive power of the Warp Shell was overlapped by several conventional nukes streaking in, causing complete overkill in the target area as many blocks all around were incinerated and blasted flat, killing tens of thousands in an instant.

Even obsolete gear was programmed to adapt to blatantly obvious changes on the battlefield, even if the illiterates on both sides of the battlefield were not versed at all in the finer points of nuclear combat. The next attempted warp shell found itself smoked out of existence first as the Byzantine bombardment came for another tower in the exact same stratagem, a failure this time, Iram’s defenses held for this moment.

The guns fell silent briefly, as the Archmagos of Armaments was again consulted on his mastery of belligerent ballistics, and then the crusader cannon delivered death indiscriminately in a longer, more patient siege bombardment, mixing in conventional-payload shells of high-explosive and smart submunitions with their nukes and achingly limited supply of warp shells to make sure the latter of those made it through. The defense towers selfishly prioritized their own defenses, sacrificing other sectors of the city without hesitation to the wonder if that rad-less shell was a conventional or a warp shell, and of course zapping the old-fashioned nukes as well wherever they found them. Reduced to unleashing their few remaining warp shells at random throughout the city, Guynald expressed his anger in this way, scorching entire dead sectors into Iram. Then, he decided to neutralize the towers the old-fashioned way.

Muhammad Abdul al-Muhammad clutched the rifle in his hands that he’d run his naked ass off for days ago, and shied away deeper into the dusty basement bunker-hole in which he was hiding - he’d been one of the lucky ones, not incinerated in an instant by the weapons of mass destruction, nor torn to bloody rags by the shrapnel blasts of window- and foxhole- seeking smartbombs. Outside, he could hear shouting in his native tongue. Praise Allah, it was time! Scrambling upstairs to a window, he gawked downwards over the edge.

Through the deserted streets of Iram rumbled a dust-stained column of Byzantine tanks in all their grim glory and heavy metal might, turrets panning warily about, and Muhammad’s breath caught as one’s death-gaze passed by him, but nothing happened. Moments later, there was a terrific boom as the first IED went off, obscuring the entire area with dust and smoke. Certain that it was time, Muhammad leapt up to the window with his killyshnikov out, and unleashed fully-automatic fire with his finger on the trigger, and an ululating battle cry with his throat. Holding the trigger down long after the gun had clicked empty, Muhammad was fumbling for the release when something struck him in the throat, and he fell to the floor, clutching his wound and gurgling. He had enough time while bleeding out to contemplate how stripping his clothes off to ensure he was unencumbered enough to keep up with the horde that first night had not been such a clever idea after all...

But while lightly-armed young men like Muhammad died, it was not just the women and children who fled out the opposite side of Iram with their carts, camels, and ramshackle cars; but also savage, bearded, eyepatched veterans, in their technicals and tanks. al-Humungus watched the burning city from his vantage point to the north, listening to the dull roar of battle in the distance as the Crusaders plunged head-on into the city against crumbling defenses. Giving the signal to them with another flare, his men all as one pulled on their GAY-BAN sunglasses, and forced the Byzantines to Deal With It.

Please start video at 1:19. (Or at 1:42 for Maximum Deal With It!)
It was hardly as if the Jihadis did not have their own modest stockpile of nuclear weapons, they just lacked as effective of delivery methods as their enemies. But luring them into a doomed city and lighting off a dozen devices was one good way to bring them to bear upon one’s enemies. The corpse of Iram was completely annihilated, with all the warriors inside along with it.

And then, the Horde of al-Humungus charged, driving hard into the flank of the shocked Byzantine army. Railguns and rockets began to destroy Varangian Rus tanks as they were taken by surprise, and certainly thinner-skinned vehicles suffered worse. It took the destruction of one section of Guynald’s insufficient artillery and their ammo dump to shock him into the realization he was defeated once again, instead of adding to his share of victories this day the way he deserved with so much better an army!

As both sides departed the ruined radioactive crater that was Iram, al-Humungus went to prepare himself and his armies for the arrival of his less-successful great-great-uncle Humungus al-Turbani, and his cargoship holds full of BEEEF-gotten goods and units of mercenaries. And Guynald returned to his capital, and whatever plans he had were derailed by the terror of the Nova Atlantean nanoplague that transformed his body into that of a hated xenos Tau, and his subsequent execution.
"The 4th Earl of Hereford led the fight on the bridge, but he and his men were caught in the arrow fire. Then one of de Harclay's pikemen, concealed beneath the bridge, thrust upwards between the planks and skewered the Earl of Hereford through the anus, twisting the head of the iron pike into his intestines. His dying screams turned the advance into a panic."'

SDNW4: The Sultanate of Klavostan
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by White Haven »

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Previously, on the Sixth Cruiser Squadron wrote:"Alpha's One and Two have opened fire on their own missiles. High probability they have lost fire control with the launching vessels' destruction. Evaluate as main battery fire, no dedicated point-defense at that range. No reaction from Bravo squadrons; their salvos are still running hot." After a few seconds, he spoke up again with a grimace, "Hit rates are low with heavy railguns, they're not getting many."

"We can't risk allowing them to take us under unopposed energy-fire when our shields are destabilized by the missile strike. Tactical, engage the closest Bravo heavies, all weapons. Flag Alpha as neutral, but keep an eye on them and be prepared to reclassify as needed." The captain looked around the bridge, a grim smile on his face, "So much for doing this the easy way."
Sparks rained down from the ceiling above the bridge's holotank, forcing West to observe the much less-populated plot from a distance. The brilliant yellow-white streaks cascaded through the battlefield, creating the effect of a massive barrage of projectile-fire from far outside the squadron's sensor range, albeit a remarkably inaccurate one.

The lighting thrown off by the holotank and the falling sparks was perhaps more noticeable than it would have been, given that much of the bridge's normal lights had shut down due to power grid damage or, in a few cases, been burned out. All told, the command deck was one of the best-defended areas of the Majestic, most of the damage that penetrated this far consisted of transmitted physical shock or loss of power due to blown surge dampeners. That had not, of course, made the battle any less unpleasant, it just meant that West and his command staff had been able to focus on directing it rather than dealing with such unpleasantness as shrapnel or hull breaches.

At the sound of a clearing throat, the captain turned away from the spark-shrouded tactical plot to look at the now-standing figure of his operations officer. In the dim, flickering light, he almost missed what she held in her hand; in fact it escaped his notice entirely until shortly after he began to speak.

"What is it, Illyana?" he asked, the formality that'd locked into place over his demeanor during the battle itself relaxing in its aftermath. "Do you have the damage...wait..." The woman began to smile as West's eyes properly focused on the object in her hand as she extended it towards him, then even more so as his eyebrows shot up and began wrestling with his hairline. With a bemused expression, he reached out and took the rumpled, cylindrical shape, turning it this way and that before finally looking back at the grin now threatening to break through its owner's cheeks.

"Do I even want to know why you have this aboard a starship?"

"Most likely not, captain." Illyana Kozlova's voice wavered slightly with suppressed mirth. It had a trace of a manic tone, humor used as a shield against the cold realization of the number of deaths that'd occurred in such a totally senseless conflict.

"Fair enough, fair enough..." West mused with a shake of his head and a faint smile of his own. A more formal captain might have slapped her down, but he recognized the refuge in absurdity, the desire to make the universe just a bit more surreal to make it seem less capricious. Also, it appealed to his own sense of humor. A finger followed a strap around the lumpy curve until it came to a halt at a metal fastener, one that he pulled off with a quiet clicking sound. He looked up from the device towards the woman, smiling more easily, and nodded, "Thank you."

With that, he turned back towards the plot, raised the device in one hand, and pressed a button set into the hard surface at one end. With a fairly anticlimatic *whoomph* sound it lengthened and then flared out in all directions, the umbrella sheltering West from the showering sparks as he stepped back up to the plot. A ripple of suppressed chuckles and choked-off laughter ran across the bridge, drawing a smile more of satisfaction than humor from the captain.

That smile didn't last once he got a closer look at the plot once again. It held only icons and the data-tags attached to them, but his own trained mind supplied him the reality behind them. Almost all of the tight cluster of Sixth Cruiser icons were surrounded by varying degrees and types of damage overlap. There were notably fewer of them than there had been mere hours ago.

And, most cruel of ironies, Falcata was not among them.

A haze of small craft suffused the battleground, cutters and pinnaces and suited work parties attacking the wreckage of savaged ships, looking first for survivors, then for munitions and usable salvage. The plot held a decent helping of yellow icons, the neutral color assigned to the Alpha forces that the Sixth had ended up fighting alongside. West grimaced at the memory of the tense moments in the wake of the retreat of the shattered remnants of the Bravo hostiles, the interminable seconds when both the Sixth Cruiser and the battered survivors of the Alpha contingent hung facing one another, waiting to see if the battle was truly over or not.

At West's command, his ships began shutting down their fire-control systems one at a time, slowly, with gaps in between. After a few, the Alpha vessels began following suit, exchanging one ship's FCS emissions for the next until the last went silent.

West shook himself out of that brief reverie and reached down, shifting the umbrella forwards to shield the controls along the railing around the holotank. With a few keypresses, a new status icon bloomed next to each of the glowing green icons, a tiny wormhole displaying the status of the ship's hyperdrives. All were grayed-out, unpowered, but with the loss of Falcata, none had the overlapping crossbars that would have indicated a damaged drive. With a low grunt, he nodded to himself and called out of the curtain of sparks drizzling from the edges of the umbrella, "All ships, power to hyperdrives but do not jump. Division leaders are to draw power from shields and weapons evenly, all other ships are to draw from weapon systems exclusively. I want us ready to leave at a moment's notice if things go south. SAR teams, continue looking for survivors, then attempt to recover still-intact bodies if time permits. Logistics vessels, begin stripping our own wrecks."

He hesitated for a few seconds at a thought, then shook his head slightly, the subtle movement unseen behind the curtain. "Bravo wrecks are fair game as well, but leave Alpha alone, and if any of them are going for a Bravo wreck, leave them alone too. We owe them that much. All ships are to submit lists of needed repair supplies to LogCom for salvage prioritization." Another hesitation, this one deepening into a thoughtful pause. "Set scuttling charges as per norm. I wouldn't mind giving Alpha a leg up, but we can't risk Bravo taking the field after we leave."

Several acknowledgments sounded from across the half-darkened deck, leaving West to stare into the plot from beneath the ridiculous umbrella, surrounded by a rippling haze of falling sparks that winked out shortly after striking the deck around his feet.
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Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Master_Baerne »

NSA Victoire,
Victoire-class Superdreadnought, Flagship First Battle Squadron
Orbiting Firmament, Firmament Sector, Federated Ascendancy


Fifteen minutes left, according to the antique timepiece on bulkhead. It was an ancient mechanical model, inconvenient and imprecise when compared with the digital systems that had replaced it and its ilk before mankind reached the stars, and even moreso when measured against the holographic ones that had replaced them. Still, Admiral Gabrielle Seagrace, with the courtesy title of Lady Newport due to her status as Countess Seagrace’s heir, liked the thing. It reminded her of her childhood on New Baerne. The family estate had been constructed when the planet was newly settled and was full of old things; having one in her ready-room just off the flagbridge took Seagrace back to a simpler time, when she commanded no ships, gave no orders, and planned no coups.

On the other hand, was it really a coup if one was acting against traitors? Perhaps technically, but not in the spirit of the word, Gabrielle was certain. The evidence her mother had presented was quite convincing, and… if the Admiral was being honest with herself, the possibility of ruling the Ascendancy was more than a little appealing. What flag officer didn’t nourish dreams of wresting the purse-strings from civilian control? Come to think of it, what spacer or soldier of any rank?

Most of Capitol Fleet’s heavy ships were out of the Ascendancy at the moment, dispatched to assist the Bragulan, Chamarran, and Eoghan forces against the MEH far to antispinward. The only really noteworthy unit left in the system, apart from the fixed defenses, was First Battle Squadron, which Admiral Seagrace commanded. The eight super dreadnoughts were currently in orbit around Firmament itself, perfectly placed to neutralize any resistance that the conspirators might be able to organize - hopefully through sheer intimidation; the reason Gabrielle had agree to go along with this in the first place was because she knew her mother would try anyway and her participation could save thousands, perhaps millions of Ascendant lives.

The situation was this: the group currently in control of the Ascendancy consisted of the Grand Dukes, the Admiralty, and the head of the Secret Interieur. Of those, at least one Grand Duke, two members of the Admiralty, and the spymaster had been implicated by Countess Seagrace’s evidence, which had been obtained from the Duke’s personal aid after a patrolling cruiser had stumbled across the abandoned station the conspirators had used to meet. The Countess had sent a trusted family retainer to her daughter with the evidence and with instructions, should she choose to act, as well as the time at which her fleet would arrive in Firmament, regardless of her decision. That time was fast approaching - less than seven minutes, according to the ticking timepiece. Gabrielle felt her heart start to race as adrenaline began to flow. She stood up, took a deep breath, and stepped through the door onto the bridge. The senior officers of the fleet had all been briefed and had agreed to her plan; they were loyal to their Admiral, to the murdered Lady Ascendant, and to the Ascendancy itself, and were willing to follow one to avenge another and rescue the third. They waited with baited breath for her to speak, while the junior officers and enlisted grew more and more confused.

“Squadron orders,” said the Admiral, a barely-detectable quaver in her voice, “roll the ships, target planetary defensive installations. Do not fire without my express orders.” The huge ships inverted themselves at a pace that seemed almost glacial, but really took no more than a few seconds. Protesting officers were escorted off their bridge by picked security troops. Seagrace keyed open a communications channel to the planet. “Ladies and gentlebeings, this is Admiral Gabrielle Seagrace, Lady Newport, commanding First Battle Squadron. I have evidence that senior members of the acting government are traitors; that evidence will be transmitted as soon as I finish. My mother, Countess Seagrace of New Baerne, is en route to Firmament at this moment with troops whose loyalty has been guaranteed; they will secure the capitol and capture the traitors. If you are a loyal Ascendant, do not resist them. No one will be harmed if it can be helped, and no one will be denied a fair trial. Segrace out.”

The reaction was immediate. The communications channels were instantly filled with shouted questions, demands for explanations, and more. One of the missile batteries at the north pole fired a full salvo at Seagrace’s ships, but the missiles veered off target of their own accord and self-destructed when they were clear of the planet’s orbit. Several surface fighter squadrons based in underground hangars tried to launch, but the titanic grasers mounted by the super dreadnoughts simply targeted the hangars, and they subsided.

Right on time, Inception Sector Fleet flashed into existence. Another squadron of mixed dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts, two squadrons of battlecruisers, and enough lighter ships to screen the troopships appearing behind them. Automatic system defenses scanned them, recognized them as friendly, and stood down, while manual ones remained silent. The consensus seemed to be one of acceptance. Before long, dropships were ferrying Army units in full power armor down to the surface of Firmament, where they began th hunt for the traitors.
Conversion Table:

2000 Mockingbirds = 2 Kilomockingbirds
Basic Unit of Laryngitis = 1 Hoarsepower
453.6 Graham Crackers = 1 Pound Cake
1 Kilogram of Falling Figs - 1 Fig Newton
Time Between Slipping on a Banana Peel and Smacking the Pavement = 1 Bananosecond
Half of a Large Intestine = 1 Semicolon
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Zor »

Novaya Brogoroff: Sector E-16

They were the lost, they were abandoned, they had no were else to go. Loathed more than Humans, the Tau or even the insufferable Apexi by their own people. They were the castoffs of Bragule.

Some were conscripts that managed to pull off the rare sucessful mutiny and escaped with their lives, some were driven by a wanderlust despite the nature of Byzonic society, others were left behinds abandoned by retreating forces, some were overworked dock workers who took the wrong opportunity to take a nap in a hidden cargo bay and others were their children of these people. To Byzon, these facts were of little concern: they were traitors. To the rest of the galaxy, they were feared and shunned. Mostly they lived on the margins among criminals, pirates, smugglers, remote mining complexes and so forth, a fact which did not do much for their standing. In the grand scheme of things, they were tiny in number, but they existed none the less.

Then, among their ranks emerged one Praticular Bear of accomplishment, one Gregordi Hrasivinkov. He wrote and published, made connections and gathered support among these dispossessed Brags. He gathered followers and finances and eventually spacecraft. Eventually he managed to negotiate a set of contracts in deep space mining, allowing for the creation of a series of settlements on an area of a unremarkable and largely unsettled planet in unclaimed space. Similar in many respects to Mars save for a high level of vulcanism and a thick atmosphere, from the red soil of this world would rise a new society. In the end some seven million of these dispossed . They named this new land after a now long atomized city of Bragule's past, Novaya Brogoroff. A new Bragule of freedom of justice would be built here, a free and democratic society without corruption.

That was twelve years ago. The colonies remained and survived and politics as usual were going on. In the Novaya Brogoroff's duma chamber a meeting was in process. One hundred and forty seven Bragulans sat in the makeshift structure, two of whom were gaurds and flanked another one in chains.

The Chairman then says it "All in favor!"

With one exception the ranks of the assembled representatives came a chorus of "AYE!"

"All opposed!"

The chained figure let out a weak cry "...nay..."

"So, the motion has passed." The chairman said calmly "Councilbear Struukov, you have been found guilty of anti-democratic behavior, betrayal of the public trust and conspiracy to undermine the rise of the Novaya Brogoroff Democratic state!" What Struukov had done was a few months ago was argue in favor of a budget where more funds were to be sent to provide schools with datapads and resulted in the budget for the redundant systems being cut back by 16%. Four days ago a disaster struck. In Settlement Six, the local chapter of the Sentinels of Freedom were doing one of their shakedowns for Byzonist sympathizers, wreckers accidentally damaged a habitation unit's life support system, leading to the deaths of some thirty two innocents. The political comintators began to get active about this failure and after the debate went back and forth, they finally focused in on who was to blame this time.

Struukov made a wimpering sound.

"Very well, in the name of the people" The Chancellor hit a button, causing a guillotine to rise up. Today's scapegoat was brought for the sacrifice. "You are sentenced to DEATH!"

The Mechanism dropped and Struukov was no more. There was a screen at the back of the council hall, on it was a message "THIS LEGISLATIVE BODY HAS GONE 28 DAYS WITHOUT ONE OF ITS MEMBERS BEING EXECUTED IN SHAME". As the blade fell, it reset as the new record was set. As the emerald blood was washed away and the council got on discussing issues as slowly. In the meanwhile, vigilantes patrolled the colonies streets for suspicion of anti-democratic actives, pundits let off fevered incoherent tirades against who was going to undermine their position while spouting out about the necessity of securing themselves against agents seeking their demise and vigilante groups would go about searching for questionable individuals. At the same time, cloning vats kept up the population by supplying it with an endless supply of blank slates. Remarkably no one bear could gain control in this society. For one thing there were any number of factions of alliances in the council competing for status and any one who gained too much power would soon find himself considerably shorter. Hrasivinkov would have been proud, if he himself was not executed six years ago. It was emotionally charged to the point of madness, it was brutal and it was ruthless....

It was democracy, Bragulan Style.
Last edited by Zor on 2011-09-26 07:19pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Siege »

Written by Fingolfin, minor prosaic touch-ups by yours truly.


Paradise Lost

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She had fled her home reality. Far away from home, that was under attack by constant invasions from that “Other” reality, which was filled with hellish nightmares to make ordinary nightmares look like just the stuff of curious imagination. It was Chaos embodied. Filled with little devils of all manner of variety, they invaded her realm with viciousness and malice that frightened her. She, despite all her power, was powerless against a realm that itself was a consciousness bent on consuming other realities and turning its inhabitants into its slaves; slaves that existed simply to feed the Gods that ruled that realm.

Within her reality she was revered as a God, and she used her powers to protect her people, however feeble they were. She regarded them as her beloved children, and spoilt them, and fattened them. Perhaps on hindsight, she should not have. But there was no turning back now. Far too much time and space had passed to reverse any of her mistakes. She would have to live with them, and hope that her efforts would protect herself and her people from destruction.

She took a gamble. She decided to flee from her reality, which was in dire danger of fracturing and sinking into that “Other” realm. She had hoped that the next reality would be more hospitable than the last, and she might find allies against the Gods that ruled that “Other” realm, who sought to consume her, her people and all other things. She directed the construction of a massive transposition device, that would send her people into the next reality. It was a vast undertaking, one that stretched the abilities of her science, and in some ways defied the known laws of physics. But her reality was itself damaged beyond repair, and physics as one had come to know, was not altogether applicable now. Such was the irony, that the invasion of that “Other” realm would give her the means to escape.

She’d come away quite mad. She knew that now. Her dreams were haunted by visions of great ruined starscraper towers linked by cobwebs. In a flickering sky, constellations aligned in sanity-wracking hieroglyphs that inspired madness in all those who gazed upon them. Monstrous, evil shapes flitted from shadow to shadow, through streets awash with the blood of billions. She couldn’t stop hearing that endless, high-pitched wailing, a sound as if a hundred million souls are pleading for a mercy that never came. They were visions, not nightmares. If only they’d been. They were recollections of a fractured galaxy sinking into the thrall of an incomprehensible, ancient evil.

She couldn’t stand against that. So she fled, plunging what remained of her people, kept blissfully ignorant of the true scale of the threat hanging over them, headlong into another reality and emerged on the other side, physically fine but barely holding on to the latest shreds of her sanity. Victory! Heady with the rush of success she set her people to work adapting to their new surroundings, determined to seek out allies and weapons to fight against the “Other” realm. Compared to the monumental feat of escape she had managed this task should be relatively easy. She was wrong.

Her mistake was to assume that the inhabitants of the new reality would simply accept her, even worship her as her own people did. But there were already beings that equaled her in power and ability, entire nations just as rich in energy and warships as she was, and almost as knowledgeable of the secrets of the cosmos. And then there was the Warrior God, who immediately turned his powers and stared deep into her when she entered the new reality. While clearly his powers were amplified through technological means, he was nevertheless more than her equal, having consumed the souls of millions of psykers throughout the millennium to fuel his vast powers. She was nauseated by his cruelty; quavered under his piercing gaze, his deep suspicion, and his intense jealousy.

And now, he was sending his forces against her, together with other galactic nations who felt threatened by her and her people. They were jealous of her! Jealous of her accomplishments! Jealous of her benevolence! Now they were here to rob and ravage her and her children, and the Warrior God would surely seek her out to consume her soul to further enrich himself.

What should she do? She was cornered. She had no where else to go. Thre was no time to build another transposition device. She was desperate.

“Maybe it is time to reconsider our offer.”

She froze. That impossible voice again. That voice, buzzing like a hail of locusts, soothing like honey. They had found her, spoke to her through that silver thread her passage had strung between realities. Could it be true what they whispered to her? Could it be that there really was no escape -- that the universe was just a series of interlocking dominoes, falling one after the other to this tidal wave of evil? Her mind’s eye caught glimpses of the Other Side, her ancient home, now an infernal realm riven by impossible, burning geometries and the flapping of black wings. Billions of souls writhed in agony, an obscene symphony dedicated to dark gods. To gaze upon this place terrified her more than anything.

Or perhaps not anything.

Hers was a struggle for survival against all odds, the soothing voice whispered to her. For a moment, she noticed, the terrible wailing stopped. She could survive still, live through what was to come, live through the inevitable fall of this reality, live forever even. Insight bloomed. It wasn’t even that difficult, she realized. Let go. Surrender. Sacrifice.

It was a terrifying choice, one from which she had fled across the barriers of realities. But now, facing imminent, utter destruction, a small part of her mind couldn’t help but desperately wonder... Perhaps it was worth it?

In a distant dimension full of strange lights and the screams of the damned, something bared its innumerous fangs and smiled.
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SDN World 2: The North Frequesuan Trust
SDN World 3: The Sultanate of Egypt
SDN World 4: The United Solarian Sovereignty
SDN World 5: San Dorado
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Siege »

Thyiiluue


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Bragulan Listening Post #4531-112
Wild Space Frontier


Master-Sergeant Grygory Rydzyn sat hunched over his cathode ray screen, its soft green glow illuminating what had been his entire world for six hours, and would be for six more. He could hear, peripherally, the creaking movements of his five comrades as they shifted in their chairs, each of them bent over just such a screen somewhere in the utter darkness behind him. It was hot and cramped in the compartment, and their concentration was constantly interrupted by the scratching of their own uniforms against their leather chairs and the bubbling of boiling water in the valves that ran across the far wall and the ceiling. The interior of the listening post would be quite spacious by human standards. But it wasn't a human listening post. It was a post belonging to the Imperial Bragulan Navy, and it was manned, consequently, entirely by Bragulans.

Still, Grygory and his comrades were lucky in a way. They were afforded chairs. They were never interrupted by the glowering of commissars and their beating sticks, and they had the unheard-of luxury of twelve-hour shifts. This was because each and every single one of them came from politically dependent families whose forefathers had faithfully served the Star Empire for centuries; they had attended prestigious military academies and passed all de-education training with flying colors. This qualified them for the highly sought-after job of MASINT operator on the very frontiers of the Empire, looking at the fuzzy returns of the great hyperwave radars that peered into the depths of Wild Space for a trace of the hated Solarian enemies.

It was a good job. It was a quiet job, because everyone knew that the Solarians were too frightened of the might of the Imperator to do anything more than occasionally dip their toes in Wild Space. The last thing Grygory had witnessed on his screens was a tiny Solarian ship, one the puny humans called an 'IOU' but which the Bragulans referred to as a 'tin can', which had come in on a lazy arc through hyperspace. Grygory had dutifully reported the ship by punching in the contact on his teletype and there had been some excitement on the decks below him, but before the station's komandir, Seventh General Kostya Lyoshavik, could dispatch a flight of gunskimmers the tiny human ship had doubled back toward the Solarian frontier, two sectors away. That had been two weeks ago. Since then the frontier had been quiet. No doubt the Solarians had realized the power of the gargantuan hyperwave arrays that, by scattering cosmic amounts of radiation into hyperspace and filtering the returns through the bewilderingly complex sets of vacuum-tubed Universal Bearing Machines buried deep inside the bragsteel hull of the listening post, could pick up even the smallest trace of movement. There could be no deceiving the Star Empire. He and his comrades were the eyes of the Imperator, and they saw everything.

For a moment Grygory smiled and risked an upward glance. There, in the corner of his screen, was stuck a picture of his cubs, far away on Dolinovodno. He had not seen them in months, but he could rest in the knowledge that his work was keeping them safe. It was an honor to be here, doing this glorious work.

When he looked back his screen had changed. A cloud of light-green contacts lit up his board. Believing it a common error at first he banged a mighty paw against the side of his console, the sudden sound of it no doubt surprising his comrades. But when the screen cycled through its lazy 360-degree arc the contacts were still there – had vectored, in fact, minutely in the general direction of the listening post. All around him he could hear his comrades stir, heard surprise growls. Realization dawned on him. Something was happening, something that hadn't happened since the end of the Great War so many centuries ago. The humans were coming.

He grabbed for the teletype.


Solarian Dreadstar USS Perilous
Approaching Sector X-26


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“Wait for it,” remarked the holo of Brigadier Stalin. “In five... four... three... We're there. That's it. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now officially the deepest-striking Star Force flotilla in the history of the Sovereignty.”

General Irys Summers' impassive expression belied the fact that she was having second thoughts about this entire operation. Second, and then third, fourth, fifth... It was, she knew, how her Replicant brain was programmed to function: highly recursive, self-correcting, always analyzing every decision for potential errors in judgment. It was exactly what Star Force wanted of its supreme commanders, but it didn't make her nights any easier. Especially not now, during what was arguably the most daring, most risky, and most potentially rewarding operation the Sovereignty had mounted since the First Bragulan War.

She turned away from the fractal madness of hyperspace that zoomed by on the holographic projectors and faced the handful of commanders on her bridge: Stalin, Kandinsky and Gunsly. Everyone else present was a hologram, with the exception of the two civilians who were attempting to stay unobtrusively hidden in the half-shadows of the bridge's recesses. She appreciated their effort, but they weren't fooling anyone. All the generals knew that this operation had been arranged somehow by Twennysex and Hank, for a purpose they didn't care to divulge the specifics of to the military leadership, and that rankled.

It rankled even more because she got the impression they had been planning this caper for quite some time, maybe months or maybe years, and now it fell to her to act as their pawn. She couldn't fathom what kind of game a creature like Twennysex and a man -if you could even still call him that- like Hank might be playing, but she was pretty sure she didn't like being a pawn in it. “I suppose this wouldn't be a good time to ask about the specifics of our visit to this god-forsaken arse-end of space?” she asked. The question came out harsher than she'd intended. Let them deal with it, she thought.

Hank looked at the Apexai, then shrugged. “I suppose it would,” he replied, much to the general's surprise. He stepped out of the shadows and into the circle of holograms. He was still wearing that black suit, or maybe he'd brought an entire wardrobe of exactly similar suits – Summers couldn't tell. He'd lost the ubiquitous sunglasses though, so on the upside he didn't look like a CEID goon any longer. On the downside, the general wasn't entirely sure she liked the obsessive glint in his eyes. “As you know, generals, the goal of this whole exercise is to take and hold Thyiiluue for as long as we can manage without undue casualties. More specifically, para-marine ground teams under General Gunsly are to investigate a number of sites our Apexai friends have designated as being of interest, and scavenge any relics that may yet remain at these sites.”

The tycoon sent out some kind of data-pulse that bypassed the holo-projector's security protocols and took direct command of it. “I hope you don't mind me commandeering your holo's for a moment, general.” He smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes and Summers got he impression he didn't care in the slightest if she minded or not. Damned ghoul. She decided to let the matter rest. He obviously picked up on that and continued. Pinpricks of light swirled into new holos, the locations of ancient Apexai cities projected on a holograph of the planet they were now rapidly approaching. “These are the locations of the sites.”

“Pardon me, but presumably the Bragulans went over these with a fine-toothed comb – after having nuked them from orbit, of course,” said Kandinsky. “What makes you think there'll be anything left?”

“Because we don't believe the Bragulans were smart enough to look everywhere. This planet was the primary Apexai technological laboratory for over a millennium. We are not looking for just any random artifacts, but specifically for a series of crystal thrifts, hidden behind hyperspace veils.” Another burst of information, dizzying multispatial diagrams hinting at dimensions hidden behind dimensions. “Now, it is our belief that the information that would be stored in these thrifts would be of immense value to our understanding of Apexai technology.”

“I suppose I see the value in that,” nodded Summers. “Is there anything else we should know about these laboratories?”

“Yes. They may be booby-trapped.”

May be?”

“We don't know what type of defenses we may encounter planet-side, general. The Apexai who built the place were vaporized when the Bragulans nuked the surface into a glowing cinder. And even before that the Apexai tech-smiths weren't big on sharing their knowledge. There's only so much knowledge about the peculiarities of this world that made it out. But we know that there was an IBGV team on the planet for some time afterward – and we know they disappeared without a trace over a century ago. It stands to reason there may be automated defenses of some kind active still.”

“Well, that's reassuring,” mumbled Gunsly.

“These thrifts are important. It will be up to the marines to secure them, and fight through anything they may encounter on the way. But there is something else. Myself and Mr. Twennysex will take a team of para-marines down here,” another location flashed up, this one a significant distance away from the other locations, which themselves were scattered over almost half the planet. “There is a final dimensional vault located at this location, from which we intend to secure one specific relic.”

“You?” Kandinsky raised an eyebrow. “Why you? What's so important about this relic?”

“That is classified.”

General Kandinsky glowered. “I have the highest security clearance in the Sovereignty.”

A minute smile played along Hank's lips. “No, you don't.”

For a moment it looked like the general was about to object, but a look from Summers made him think otherwise. “Fine,” Kandinsky growled. “What does this relic of yours look like?”

“We don't know.”

“How can you not know?”

“Because we just don't. We have only the vaguest of descriptions of this thing and what it does. We don't know how big it is, and we don't know how long we need to extract it. But it is of utmost importance that we do. To the exclusion of everything else we do here. Anything less, and I wouldn't be here. Am I making myself clear?”

The generals looked at each other. For all they'd been told, they all had the same gut feeling: there was still something that was very much kept hidden from them. And it didn't make them feel comfortable to squat on a dead planet this close to Bragulan space without even the foggiest clue as to what, exactly, they were here for.


Former Apexai crown world Thyiiluue
Sector X-26


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The planet Thyiiluue had been dead for over four centuries. All life on its once-vibrant surface had been destroyed by Bragulan thermonuclear weapons. It atmosphere had been boiled away; its once-great cities had been turned to eviscerated husks. Ruined starscraper towers pierced the belly of the sky like ribs on a long-dead carcass. The remains of annihilated saucers lay crashed in the refuse of burnt-out alien forests.

But still there was life. Even the Imperial Bureau of Galactic Vigilance had been able to make out whispers of energy beneath the surface of the world, faint dimensional sussurrations that suggested the hated Apexai weren't quite as dead as the Imperator wanted them to be. Teams of IBGV commandos had prowled the surface, killing any of the remaining alien warmachines, then killing them again, and again, until they stayed dead. And still there were these traces, faint hints on the edges of their atomic oscilloscopes, that seemed to imply there was something still here.

It had been enough to drive Komandir Berstuk Dodola nuts. Here he was, tasked with making sure a dead world stayed dead, and no matter what he did this world just didn't seem to want to die properly. Years turned to decades and the High Command became impatient with his efforts: there were other worlds to conquer, and more important goals for the Star Empire to achieve. Resources were reallocated until only a mere trickle of supplies yet reached this bombed-out wasteland.

But Dodola had refused to give up. He'd been given orders to make sure that Thyiiluue was dead, and by Byzon's blessed right buttock that was what he'd do even if it meant the end of him. He sent his men, hardcore IBVG fanatics to the last, deeper and deeper into the pits of this Apexai graveworld, searching for, well, he didn't know what he was looking for. But there had to be something.

And then, some 104 years ago, the entire IBGV team had disappeared, never to return again.

Now there were new arrivals on Thyiiluue. Their coming was heralded by a flashing in the heavens, as the formidable Star Force flotilla transitioned to realspace at the edge of the hypershelf and set a burning course for the planet in the near distance. Swarms of fighters screamed away from their motherships, some equipped with sensors to map the dead world, the rest with heavy weapons to blow the remaining Bragulan communications satellites out of their decaying orbits. Massive landers detached from their USMC transports, ferrying brigades and divisions toward the surface even as the warships took up orbital overwatch positions.

The Sovereignty had arrived.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by White Haven »

0140 Local Time

"Brianna, Wayne, Ryan, Ray, you'll be with me on this one. Susan, Cass, you two stay with the ship. I'd love to keep you in the loop, but any comlink strong enough to reach the ship is going to get noticed, and that's the last we need. Stay buttoned up. Keep in touch with the Negotiable Anger so he'll know if something happens to the ship, and notify him if we don't make it back. This is the first real lead we've had, and frankly if we can't do this quietly, we can do this the loud way." Ruiz's instructions were punctuated by the odd pause or grunt as he geared himself up for the night's excursion. Armorweave bodyglove. Shoulder harness. Body shield. Suit.

The instructions were largely a formality, as no one in the team was at all surprised about who was and wasn't going out into the local night. Two RSIS agents, an RSMC sniper, and two Custodians were the natural choices, a far cry from a pilot and a forensic technician. Each was going through their own equipment, checking weapons, fitting gear, adjusting loadout. Ruiz continued as he slipped on a pair of wraparound sunglasses that concealed a whole host of passive sensors to cut through the night. "With any luck, none of this will be necessary, but I'll be damned if I lose anyone out there because I got sloppy. Brianna, Wayne, Ryan, I fully expect you two are more experienced than I am in...the consequences if things go poorly. Ray and I, however, are very, very experienced in the investigative side of things. Things go to shit, we'll follow your lead. Things go as planned or go...unusual, I'll handle it."

He paused for a few moments, frowning...and then nodded, "Wayne, if it drops in the pot, you're lead. Ryan, you're his second. Bri, you're the most likely to be underestimated," his lips twitched in a smile, mirrored shortly thereafter by the petite, pretty redhead's own, "So I don't want it looking like you're in charge, that might sacrifice that advantage. So you know what you're working with, Ray and I are damned good shots with a pistol, and I'm a strong telepath and remote-viewer. And yes, that has a lot to do with how good a shot I am. Ray's busted his ass to keep pace with me all these years."

A gently-closed fist thumped softly into Ruiz's arm, a grin on Raymond's face, "And I make it look easy. Poor guy's gotta work for it."

"Yeah, yeah, you're so awesome it hurts, Ray," Ruiz replied with a snort and a grin of his own, "Anyway, I'll be keeping a third eye out for anything unusual on the esper front, or any minds I spot where they shouldn't be. Consider me overwatch. Beyond that, I think we're good to roll. Try to keep things quiet out there, we're well out of our jurisdiction and I don't want the local law enforcement to get involved if it's possible to avoid it. The task force is spread pretty thin, so we don't have that big a stick close to hand."

A few minutes later, as the team began to filter through the cargo bay towards the ship's landing hatch, a hand on his shoulder drew Armando Ruiz to a halt. He turned with a slightly surprised look, then just grimaced as that brought the short, blonde forensics technician into view, "We've had this conversation already, Cass."

"I need to be there in case you find something that you can't bring back, and you know it!" the shorter woman replied, clearly frustrated.

"You're not trained for field ops, and we both know it. I've even taken you out to the range before, you're lucky to hit the target on a good day. It's not a good day out there." A hand ran through Arm's close-cropped black hair with an exasperated sigh, "Look, if we secure the target and we're not under threat, I'll call you in, and if not I'll get you plenty of sensory recordings. Trust me, I'll be logging the op. But if you come along and things go badly, you're either going to be a liability to the team or outright get yourself killed."

"..."

"I still say I should be there."

"And I still say no. We'll be back in a few hours, Cass."

With that, the telepath turned away and joined the other four figures clustered around the still-closed boarding ramp. Cass stayed behind, staring at his back with an expression of half-glare, half-worry.

"Alright...let's go."

"Hang on a sec, Arm," came a reply in Susan's voice from an open access panel in the bulkhead. A few seconds later, the sound of a socket-wrench ratcheting around echoed out from the opening. Ruiz's arms folded over his chest, one eyebrow sliding upwards as he looked over at the expressions of the team, running the gamut from chagrined to bemused to irritated. After a long, awkward silence, Ryan volunteered an explanation.

"Ramp's busted."

The slap of Ruiz's hand impacting his forehead drew a muttered curse from through the open access panel.
__________

Fifteen minutes later, five figures descended down the ramp from the landed freighter and began ghosting their way through the city towards what might actually be the first bit of concrete evidence in the entire manhunt.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Mayabird »

“The planet Sayam!” declared Epaulette.

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“A lush tropical hothouse world, exotic and foreign, full of beautiful sights, an independent system ruled by the military...by which I mean a noble, generous and elderly king!”

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“It is also notable for its prostitution and medical tourism industry, but that doesn't make nearly as nice pictures for the brochures, does it, Secretary?”

“Meep,” agreed Secretary, who was not entirely happy being crammed back into the little shiny cart, but he would endure.

“And now, here I am, completely inexplicably! Though it is not actually inexplicable because of my lecture series. Now, I admit, we Refugees aren't exactly the most experienced in the ways of ambassadors and embassies and what our duties are actually supposed to be, considering we have been doing this for less than a year, but it occurs to me that I probably should not be traipsing off to some other nation, even for a short vacation, no matter how much we are being paid. But it is a great sum of money and the Refuge is still short on liquid assets and exchangeable goods and will be for quite some time yet and the Centralist government even matched it! I don't understand that last bit, but at any rate, our main interest with them, which was to get them in opposition to the MEH and not sell them ships, has been met, and they are so oddly eager now to fight that they have little interest in anything else. I am sure that my brief absence will not cause any difficulties back at Centrum.

“And Secretary, have you seen some of the other names for the lectures? Chiduubein - she's the Phosako psychologist I was telling you about - Sorathrpsis Copperplate Llakanos, myself of course, oh, and Bart Blade! That Bart Blade! The esteemed Bart Blade from Shepistan! I had read that Sayam is his favorite world, and he makes frequent vacations here to lecture (a hard worker or maybe a fellow conversationalist? Perhaps both? Anyway) to packed crowds of the curious and air-conditioning seeking (and I must say that I am eager to experience for myself a tropical climate). Supposedly also he has completely professional relationships with prostitutes from clean Old Shroomanist brothels – that's a strange false religion, if you ever feel like studying up on it – though rumors vary on what exactly 'completely professional relationships mean.' I think it means drinking tea after hours.

“Anyway, his lectures are very relevant to our situation, too! That is why you arranged my entire schedule so that we could attend all of them. Very thoughtful of you and excellent work. I appreciate it greatly, for it must have been very difficult to arrange.”
Spoiler
”So Mr. Secretary, when would his Excellency like to have his lectures?” asked the CI in charge of scheduling the series.

“He is very taken with this Bart Blade person from Shepistan and wants to see all his lectures, so just whenever Mr. Blade isn't talking.”

The CI worked for a second. “Done. Any special arrangements we should make?”
“Very difficult, your Excellency,” Secretary agreed.

“Oh, no need for formality on this trip. I am not on official duties, so you may call me Epaulette. If nothing else, you have earned it, for you and your opposite Staffer are most wonderful fellows. I daresay you two could probably run the entire embassy without me. But at any rate, it looks like this shuttle is landing soon and then we can meet our contact. Then a water-boat ride! Imagine! Outside the two rings, I do not believe we even have space back at the Refuge for enough water to float a water-boat, even if we had the resources to waste so lavishly. A novelty to us, but apparently it is a common mode of transportation on this world.”

“Actually, there are some enclosed ocean bays on Garden that are large enough,” Secretary said. “And Prajuk's Horizon has some large lakes as well.”

“Is that so? Well then, it is a reminder of just how big planets are, even if they are inefficient. And perhaps we should suggest putting a couple water-boats in those bays.”

“I am making a note of it now.”

“Excellent. Oh Secretary, I fear this trip may be too much fun!” Epaulette announced.

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“It will certainly be exciting,” said Secretary.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Siege »

1743 Solaris Time

The Spystar set down on the roof of the skyscraper completely unopposed, mostly owing to the fact that no-one was aware of its arrival. Sliding down from orbit under full cover of active scatterscreens it would be nearly impossible to tell it was there even if you knew where to look and had the highly exotic means to detect it -- two qualities this outback world decidedly lacked.

The six floors directly underneath the landing pad on the roof were leased by a minor charititable foundation that was, in reality, just one of many fronts for Directorate operations in Wild Space. The local employees, none of whom were aware of this connection, were conveniently on a team building exercise in a corporate retreat on the other side of the planet, leaving their offices empty and the strike team free to use them as a staging ground.

The Central Espionage and Intelligence Directorate had sent a five-person team. The first to debark was Agent Freki, one of several concurrent iterations of Agent Freki in fact, whose assigned function was that of 'human cyborg relations' which in CEID terminology meant he was a sentient infiltrator/assassin program capable of controlling a multitude of host bodies. This particular instance of Freki occuppied a robotic frame with a synthskin covering of sufficient quality to pass as human.

Freki stalked toward the elevator doors that granted access to the building's innards, located an optical datasocket, and spent one second commandeering the office tower's security system. The building was owned by a local and perfectly innocent real estate firm, which unfortunately but not coincidentally happened to have financed its aquisition through the Orion Bank. Through its more than intimate connections with the Bank the Directorate had obtained the security setup, allowing its operatives to ghost through the security system as if they weren't even there.

The elevator doors sprang open with the customary 'ping!' and Freki entered, followed swiftly by the team's four remaining members. Two of them looked for all the galaxy as if they were clones - which, in a very real way, they were. They were two women, both dressed in formal black suits with white shirts, black ties and reflective black sunglasses. Both had their hair pulled back in tight ponytails. They wore black leather gloves, and the third buttons on their suit jackets were not black like the others, but absorbed light like a strange crystal. They were Mmes. April and June, and they couldn't be more obviously with the Directorate if they'd tried.

To people who had knowledge of such things there was a simple metric to rank the importance attached by the Directorate to its operations. If there was one hybrid psion present, it was Important. If there were more than one, well, that meant the Directorate optioned for overkill bordering on the shamefully gratuitous, which usually meant Someone Important was seriously pissed off, which in turn meant it was generally best to evacuate the planet, preferably to a sector on the other side of Wild Space.

The last two members of the team weren't visible as the elevator doors swished shut. The presence of Agents Starling and Duquesne was obscured in much the same way as the Spystar was, hidden behind scatterscreens that completely removed the Mirrormen from most commonly used means of detection. For all their chromed, high-tech, billion-credit warsuits they were nothing more than bodyguards for the twin psions, something they might have resented if they were in fact allowed to have such feelings, which they weren't.

It took the elevator some five seconds to descend to the ground floor, which the agents spent silently contemplating the remarkably banal background music floating from a set of overhead speakers. Then the 'ping!' repeated itself and the doors opened to reveal an utterly unimaginative corporate lobby of a sort that was repeated, thousands of times, across hundreds of worlds throughout the galaxy. Fake marble floors stretched out before them, from the stainless-steel elevators, past a security post, a computerized index of the office's tenants and a reception desk manned by a vapid blonde, to a set of revolving glass doors that granted access to the street.

The security man and the blonde turned, in unison, toward the elevator, surprised to see it come down from the top floors the employees of which, they knew, were on retreat in some far-off place. Consternation was visible across the face of the guard (the blonde expressed something more akin to utterly bewildered abashment) as the two mirror-shaded women stalked out of the elevator, followed shortly by a hulking man in black fatigues. "And who might you people be then?" guffawed the guard, with the common bluster associated with security guards throughout the universe.

Mme. June, distinguishable from her twin only by the ever so slight decoloration of her hair, looked at him and smiled. "We're with you."

The man looked at her for a moment, then his face reddened and he smiled as if embarassed. "Oh. Of- of course you are. I'm terribly sorry. Have a nice day, mmes."

"You too, Jenkins. Say hi to the wife from me. She's eight months along now, isn't she? I bet it'll be twins."

The guard mumbled something in return but the two women were already past his desk now. The blonde was looking on in utter confusion, at least until Freki threw her a look and commandeered her commercial-grade implants with a single pulse of data. A moment later she shuddered, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy as she collapsed back in her leather chair. Freki grinned predatorily, stuck his hands in his fatigues, and followed the two psions out.

The team found themselves on a tree-lined boulevard. Ground-effect vehicles hovered by at low-altitude across the busy street, which wasn't as busy as the streets they were used to. Even so they took a moment to get their bearings. April looked at June. "You were showing off." It wasn't a question.

June shrugged innocently. "This way the only thing he'll remember is that he might have twins. I thought it apropos. And it negates the need for anything more permanently invasive."

"Hmm." April was clearly already thinking about other things. What foot traffic there was flowed weirdly around the small group, individuals swerving abruptly as if they were instinctually avoiding them without actually being aware of their presence. April pointed in one way down the street. "The factory is that way."

Requiring no further instructions the small group of agents began ghosting their way through the city towards what might actually be the first bit of concrete evidence in the entire manhunt.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Severnaya, Bragulan Star Empire

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Severnaya was known for its place in the Bragulag Archipelago. A frostbitten world orbiting a dying sun in a solar system littered with icy planetoids and moons terraformed for the sole purpose of making frigid hells for Bragule's captives, so that they could luxuriate in the miserable cold, enduring the harsh environments whilst performing grueling backbreaking labor until the last of their days. The notion of engineering an entire system so that all its worlds would be equally inhospitable permafrozen wastelands would be absurd, if it were not for the fact that countless millions suffered in the bragulags daily. Prisoners of war, political dissidents, common criminals, undesirables. All enemies of the state, and in their defeat and internment, the fruits of their compelled labor would go on to aid Bragule and thus earn them their rehabilitation even in death.

But aside from the bragulags, the world Severnaya itself was home to a considerable IBGV presence. As an edgeworld on Bragule's antispinward frontier that bordered the Wilderspace separating the Star Empire from all its enemies, it was thus the location of the ByzonEye - a massive hypernucleonic trans-sensory array that was, as its name implied, the Imperator’s unblinking eye watching the enemies of the Bragulan people vigilantly.

When word came from a Wilderspace listening station of a massive Solarian presence bound for the desolated Apexai Sectors, the ByzonEye turned its accusing gaze towards the incoming human armada. If it was possible, the great eye widened, for the forces that came were unlike any before in their numerosity and their vectors would bring them perilously close to the Star Empire’s territory. Bragule was immediately informed of the vile Solarian treachery.

BRAGCON was set to Condition 2 - the highest state of readiness short of all out war in the Koprulu Zone. The last time it had gone beyond that was during the Battle of Tannhauser Gate fifty years ago. For some, they acknowledged that the relative peace and quiet between now and then had to come pass, eventually. It was about time. Though, regrettably, it had come at a time not of Bragule’s choosing, but of the Solarians’. Their bold move had to be countered. But fully half of Bragule’s forces were at the anti-spinward, participating in the OMINOUS ENEMA SHITS, a move that some in the military protested (rightfully) as it would leave the BSE itself in a weakened strategic state that Bragule’s enemies could take advantage of. The counter-argument was that the Byzantines too had sent half their forces to the anti-spinward, as did the Haruhiists, leaving the Solarians the only ones with a wholly intact military. Bragule’s Karlack allies could be used to contain them, though even with that there were those who did not wish to test the reliability of the Swarm, for while bear and bug were comrades, theirs was an uneasy alliance based on convenience foremost and Bragule was under no illusion that the Karlacks did not gaze upon them hungrily just as they did every other living thing in the galaxy.

The remaining Bragulan militaries were readied for war. But even then, there were only two bragfleets positioned at Kirensk and Bolshaya Chernovyi. A half-fleet had been dispatched to the Outlands to pacify the Scron threat. Sending the two Kosmoflotts out to engage the Solarians was not an option as they would be outmatched easily by the USSF, so instead they stayed in their home sectors where they could be bolstered by the Proletarian Defense Forces and other stationary defenses, and be at a better position to resist any Solarian incursion.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the leaders of Bragule pondered on how to best rebuke this human transgression.
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on 2011-08-02 02:58am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Bragule

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Bragule was contemplating its next move. The Solarians had placed their pieces perilously close to the BSE and the Imperator would not accept this. Yet, Bragule had not the force necessary to drive the hated humans away. For now, the balance of power in the Koprulu Zone had shifted disfavorably.

The staunch critics of the inhumanism movement, those who opposed sending half of Bragule’s fleets to the OMINOUS, were already baying at the doors and calling for the summary de-education of those responsible for Bragule’s alliances with the Chamarrans, Refugees, Eoghans and Ascendants (amongst many others). Yet the value of these inhumanist Bragulans, their ideological favor in spreading Byzonism to the galaxy and in gaining Bragule new allies and undoing its previous status as galactic pariah, were enough that they would not be liquidated so easily no matter how hard the ultramilitants tried. When pressed on how they planned to dislodge the Solarians from Thyiiluue, the ultramilitants themselves had no adequate answer save for fortifying the adjacent sectors of bragspace or harassing the Solarians with mere gunskimmer overflights. Proposals of withdrawing the Kosmoflotts from the OMINOUS operations in the antispinward were shot down, for that would cost Bragule the prestige it had struggled so hard to gain amongst the non-human nations of the galaxy, and it would take weeks for the fleets to make it back anyway. Recalling the half-fleet from the Outlands was unviable, as it would leave the Bragulan hinterspaces exposed to any opportunistic spinward powers, from the various Outlander remnants and Centralists, to the Refugees, Hiigarans and Anglians, and even the undying Scron themselves.

The ultramilitants’ indecision was... most disappointing to the Imperator, who was already displeased with the apparent un-extinction of the Scron. When called for a solution for the Solarian problem, even his generals could offer no better solution than to wait the Solarians out. This was unacceptable. Bragule would appear weak if the Solarians could easily intrude upon the Brag-side of the Wild Space demarcation line and sit themselves pretty on an Apexai deadworld with impunity. Their purpose too, for as foolish as humans were they seldom act without reason, for braving possible Bragulan retaliation and venturing forth further past the line than they have ever had, was curious. IBGV archeotechnological teams had found nothing on that dead world Thyiiluue. Either the humans were on a fools errand, or those conspiring arrogant Apexai fiends of theirs had told them something the Imperator’s own caged greyoids had not. The latter was actually more likely than the former, as the Imperator knew the Solarians well. The Hank would not act so carelessly, thought Byzon.

It was then that a most curious bear from the Bureau of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs, known to all in the Imperator’s Council as little more than a front for the IBGV, came up with a proposal that was actually interesting. If the Solarians had opted to take advantage of the shift in the Koprulu Zone’s balance of power, then Bragule would shift that balance once more to undo what had been so advantageous to the humans. That curious bear earned the Imperator’s favor that day, for his cunning would serve Bragule and the cause of inhumanism quite well.

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BRAGULAN RESPONSE TO THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH MINISTER OF THE IMPERIAL MINISTRY OF THE AMBASSADORY
From the People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs


Bragule will receive the Pfhor diplomatic fleet and will send them coordinates to an approved de-militarized meeting zone in the Bragulan Star Empire.

It is the belief of the great Imperator, Darvyl Sagatantron Byzon, Happy Friend of All People, that the Pfhor and the Star Empire have mutual interests in both regional Koprulu Zone affairs and the greater galactic cosmopolitical situation and can work together for make benefit both our glorious nations.

Let us together work for a more prosperous future for our great and noble peoples in their long march to create cosmic harmony between all nations!

BRAGULAN MESSAGE TO THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH MINISTER OF THE IMPERIAL MINISTRY OF THE AMBASSADORY OF PFHOR PRIME
From the People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs


Bragule cordially invites the diplomatic warships of the Pfhor to the Bragulan Star Empire. The specific coordinates are as follows:

- Bolshaya Chernovyi, antispinward edgespace quadrant, Space Sector X-27 adjacent to the Wilderspace Apexai Dead Sector (W-27) -

While our good peoples discuss a bright and prosperous future of mutual cooperation to work for common interests and against common threats, we also offer an opportunity for your diplomatic warships to engage in exercises and maneuvers with Bragule’s Kosmoflott Grozhyskhov stationed in Bolshaya Chernovyi. Should this offer be accepted, the Pfhor may bring a slightly larger amount of diplomatic warships for its fleet. The exercises will be held in the antispinward Wilderspaces of the Apexai deadzone.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Pollux »

BRAGULAN MESSAGE TO THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH MINISTER OF THE IMPERIAL MINISTRY OF THE AMBASSADORY OF PFHOR PRIME
From the People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs

Bragule cordially invites the diplomatic warships of the Pfhor to the Bragulan Star Empire. The specific coordinates are as follows:

- Bolshaya Chernovyi, antispinward edgespace quadrant, Space Sector X-27 adjacent to the Wilderspace Apexai Dead Sector (W-27) -

While our good peoples discuss a bright and prosperous future of mutual cooperation to work for common interests and against common threats, we also offer an opportunity for your diplomatic warships to engage in exercises and maneuvers with Bragule’s Kosmoflott Grozhyskhov stationed in Bolshaya Chernovyi. Should this offer be accepted, the Pfhor may bring a slightly larger amount of diplomatic warships for its fleet. The exercises will be held in the antispinward Wilderspaces of the Apexai deadzone.
FROM: Office of the High Minister of the Imperial Ministry of the Ambassadory, Pfhor Prime
TO: The People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs


We are delighted to have this opportunity to engage in exercises with your Navy. We shall send a detachment of warships from Battle Group Seven, one of our finest fleets, with our diplomatic vessels.

May this meeting foster a new age of friendship between our peoples.

In the Emperor's Name,
High Minister of the Ambassadory Hlsfard of the Pale, 5th Duke of the Palelands

-------

/-/Pfhor-Translator-Active/-/

Directive from Battle Group VII Command//Tfear//Nshara
TO: Admiral Nlpfharl, 1st Diplomatic Fleet

Messages from (?Bragule) received. Finish resupply and maintenance, and proceed under low (?power) to homeward edge of Sector [+6, -5]. Friendly fleet will be there to (?accompany) you. Assist our friends in whatever means they might request. Joint exercises with (?Bragule) fleet are to proceed as planned.

Attached are notes on (?Bragule) courtesies and customs (?traditions). Distribute these documents to all officers and other crew that might come into contact with (?Bragule) diplomats. Visitors are to have access to the ship up to Clearance Third-Class.

The Ministry of the Navy reiterates that embarrassment of the nation in the exercise or meetings will be punished with the maximum enforcement (?dismemberment).

FLEET COMPOSITION:
BBH-002 Sfiera [FLAGSHIP]
BBL-034 Righteousness
CCH-021 Epsilon Euboea
CCL-119 City of Orchards upon the Blue River
CCL-117 Fortress-City of Nlsfarna
MCL-004 General Brlapfh
FFL-201 Defense of the Nation through Construction of Fortresses in Border Provinces
FFL-092 Javelin of Sfiera
FFL-184 Heroic (?Reliquary)
FFL-265 Nebulon’s Bane
FFL-202 Fusillade
AMB-002 Glorious Peace
AMB-003 Freedom of Nations


-------

Result:

The Pfhor diplomatic fleet (consisting of 1 Heavy Battleship, 1 Light Battleship, 1 Heavy Cruiser, 2 Light Cruisers, 1 Light Marine Cruiser, 5 Frigates, and 2 Yachts) heads for Sector X-27 to meet the Bragulan Fleet.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by DarthShady »

Somewhere in Karlack Space

Voices, thoughts, images, traveled through the void - from one end of the K-Zone to the other. Images of human warships, Solarian warships, of soldiers and dead worlds. Places far and close. Bragule was threatened. The Hive Mind contemplated the actions of the Solarians, they had used the momentary weakness of the Bears against them, what would happen if they struck the first blow? What if this was the opening move of the long awaited war? And if it happened now, with the Bragulan fleet occupied elsewhere... If the Bragulan Empire were weakened, that would also weaken The Swarm.

The Aspects soon came to the inevitable conclusion, this could not be allowed. The will of the Hive Mind reached out, stirring the chitinous hordes, directing the Star Broods. The Karlack quickly mobilized and a mighty Brood was assembled. A Brood that would bring doom to the humans, and salvation to the Bragulans, maybe it was not their preferred type of salvation, but it was salvation nonetheless.
Image
A billion hungry creatures screeched and clawed inside the massive Brood Ships, and with a single minded unity only a hive mind could possess, the very fabric of space and time was warped and twisted as the Broods entered hyperspace. Their destination - Bragulan Space.

***

Encrypted Transmission
From: The Karlack Swarm
To: The Bragulan Star Empire


We have sensed your peril. We shall protect the Bear. We shall devour the humans. We are coming!

End Transmission
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Image

Earth
Sol System
Multiversal Empire of Happiness
June 2, 3401


Times were tough for the Multiversal Empire of Happiness. The coalition of other humans had overwhelmed Wolf 359 and was now on the verge of taking Alpha Centauri. The OMINOUS forces had taken Farthing a week ago and were too close to be ignored. The Xylyx were also maneuvering en masse down rimward, and their intentions were ambiguous at best. The MEHN couldn’t concentrate any of its forces at one area to repulse any one of them, because it would mean leaving entire systems defenseless against the others who might take advantage of that fact. It seemed hopeless, the MEH had no chance against its determined attackers. Not against their numbers.

But the Goddess’ power was everything, thus defeat was absurd.

Sasha was brooding darkly over the terrible choice she had to make when an approaching Saint abased itself before her.

“Great One,” it grovelled. “It’s General Dung Beans of Xena on line 5.”

Sasha nodded, and a hologram appeared before her.

“This is Sasha,” she acknowledged.

“Goddess Sasha, I'm afraid we have a heck of a situation down here.”

“How bad could it be, Dung?” she asked, worried.

“According to NORADE we've got OMINOUS spacecraft coming at us from all directions and fleet groups pushing up through Xena. I don't know how they snuck in on us.”

“NORADE? Isn’t it supposed to be NORAD?” Sasha wondered aloud.

“The E stands for Extreme,” General Dung Beans explained.

“Oh.”

“Your instructions, Goddess?”

“You better double check this with NORADE. This doesn't make any sense. I'll call the Hierarchy.” Sasha turned on another communicator, a direct line to the leader of the Chamarran Hierarchy. Thankfully, there was someone on the other side.

“Nyah, Queen Kithandra here.” Kara Kithandra rubbed her eyes as she got out of bed and answered the call.

“What’s going on over there, Kara?”

“Why Goddess Sasha, whatever do you mean?”

“I have um... you're throwing everything you've got at us, Kara We're supposed to be neighbors, you maniac!” Sasha shouted, unable to take it anymore. Why does everyone in the galaxy have to hate us so much?!

“Listen very carefully. I'm not your pet, Sasha. We Kithandras have a legacy to consider.”

“I don't give a wooden nickle about your legacy. You call them off. Kara, you call them off. You know, we'll retaliate.”

“Oh, don't be so sure, Goddess.” Kara hung up and her hologram disappeared, leaving Sasha alone in her throne room. She returned to the other line with General Dung Beans.

“Ma’am.” Dung Beans awaited her instructions like a true soldier.

“Verification?” Sasha asked.

“You betcha.”

“Sweet Your Anus.” Sasha gasped. Then she made her decision and, with a vicious smile, gave the order. “It's time to hit back, make it happen.”

“Yes, ma’am.”



Xena System
Multiversal Empire of Happiness
June 2, 3401


“This is General Dung Beans. OMINOUS invasion confirmed. Execute launch order: 0, 1, 0, Alpha, Delta, Charlie.”

A long, hard cylindrical shaft aligned itself with the projected entry vectors of the incoming OMINOUS fleet, bringing its rigid hull to bear at the system’s hyperlimit. It was the strategic Space Gun, a marvel of MEH technology, designed and prototyped in record time - less than a year - and now it was ready for action. It was a product of hypersciences utterly beyond the ken of the rest of the galaxy’s primitive peoples, an advanced superweapon capable of incredible destruction. It was the Multiversal Empire of Happiness’ weapon of vengeance, and now they would use it to destroy the incoming OMINOUS fleet, and then the human coalition fleet at Alpha Centauri, before moving on to strike back at the treacherous Hierarchy, slagging its worlds, and then all the worlds of all the other nations. This was the Goddess’ weapon to punish the galaxy’s wickedness.

Image

SUC-NORADE fed the weapon thehyperspace telemetry needed to guide its devastating warheads into the OMINOUS fleet.

“We have confirmation. Missiles primed.” Gauss coils lining the interior of the cylinder began to hum and glow as they were powered up. The hyper-matriculator at the head of the shaft began to throb as the very fabric of the space-time continuum curved around it. The massive warheads, which were the seed of the great Space Gun, were loaded into the firing tube. The subspace firing pin was cocked. “Armed.”

Final targeting patterns were inputted. The weapon found its targets and locked on to them. They would have no chance. The Space Gun’s multikilometer barrel stiffened as the trans-aetheric circulation was redirected to the tightening coils of its shaft, and at the shaft’s end the Space Gun’s head seemed to throb harder and harder, as though eager to penetrate the space-time continuum itself and shoot out a stream of blinding exotic particles into the lightless crevasse of the subspace singularity.

Just as the Goddess planned. Soon, the galaxy would rue this boner. Hard.

“10 seconds to launch. Open the missile silos.”

The Space Gun’s head opened, and as it did so it seemed as though the entirety of its shaft quivered as it did. The countdown began.

...9....8...7...

The Space Gun’s whole form bulged as reality could barely contain the potency of the energies building up deep inside it. The whole MEH watched the weapon with baited breath. The Space Gun would blast right in the faces of Sasha’s enemies. The Goddess would be finally satisfied.

6.. 5... 4... 3... 2...

Suddenly, NORADE’s sensor grid detected something wrong, something anomalous. It tried to warn the Space Gun, but -

Image

A bright flash of light blinded NORADE’s sensors. Hyper-kinetic shockwaves buffeted everything within millions of miles around the Space Gun, rocking ships and space stations alike. The Space Gun itself was gone. One second it was there, and the next... it wasn’t. Debris transmuted into anti-particulates or simply floated away into trans-Yuggothian space, leaving behind only a lingering plume of phlogistonic vapor wracked by harsh ionic discharges, like a lightning storm in space. Even that was blown away by the solar wind, and the great weapon’s last remains were scattered ignobly to the nine vectors.



Chamarra Prime
Chamarran Hierarchy
June 2, 3401


Her Majesty Queen Kara Kithandra stretched herself and swished her tail. Today was going to be a big day. After getting herself ready, she left her chambers, skipped her morning activities and went straight to the throne room. There, many of her royal advisors, officials from the government and military, and representatives from all the noble houses had gathered. Holotanks displayed the OMINOUS fleets and their progress in the MEH and most in attendance were clustered around these, surveying the going ons of the war. The palace guards announced her arrival and called for attention, and the entire room became silent as the Queen of the Hierarchy and the Grand Battlemistress of the Golden Fleet made her presence known.

Kara settled herself on her comfortably cushioned throne and leaned back, crossing her legs and regarding all those in attendance. She searched for one figure, and saw that she was approaching her. The black-clad catgirl knelt before her, and Kara gestured for her to rise.

Yes, it was excessively formal compared to the usually casual going ons in the throne room, but everyone was present and they had to put up a show. They couldn’t have a pillow fight, not with everyone watching. It would be too distracting from the task at hand.

“Is it done, Mela?” Kara asked her Shadowmistress with a smirk.

“No, Your Majesty.” Mela Kithandra bowed serenely. “It has only begun.”
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

OPERATION INHUMAN JUSTICE

Image



Xena System
Multiversal Empire of Happiness
June 2, 3401


Space raid sirens blared across the worlds and habitats of the Xena system. MEHmen and machines alike rushed to their shelters. Conscripts, national guardsmen and MEH Marines scrambled to their positions. In space, the Xena fleet took formation a short distance from the projected hyperspace reversion point of the incoming OMINOUS force while system defense installations prepared for the inevitable. Everyone knew what was at stake here. The aliens, and even humans, of this new galaxy had come to attack the Multiversal Empire of Happiness and destroy their way of life. They had come to take the Goddess Sasha away. The Goddess who had saved them from the dangers of the old ‘verse and brought them to this new galaxy hoping for peace and safety. Instead, they had found themselves a hostile and unfriendly universe, and now all the armies of the galaxy descended upon them. It was time for the Final War.

Image

The Xena fleet made ready. The reports from NORADE were unquestionable. The force that was coming for them was similar in size of the one that had swept over Wolf 359. Wolf was gone, Alpha Centauri couldn’t help them now and neither could Sol. Their strategic retaliation weapons had failed them, and now there was nothing to stop what was to come. Nothing but them. They were alone. Outnumbered. Outgunned. But as a great MEHN captain once said, they would never give up, never surrender. The galaxy might come to take away the Multiversal Empire’s worlds, but they would never take away the Multiversal Empire’s happiness.

The OMINOUS force arrived in the system. The enemy was led by the Ascendants, Bragulans and Chamarrans, the ABCs from Farthing. And they brought the rest of the OMINOUS with them, more bears and cats, and Eoghans and Refugees from the staging grounds near Chamarran space. And with them was a massive warship, the likes of which the MEHN had never encountered before. Greater than even the Goddess’ Slaughter Devices, or the compensatory battle barges of those stiff and most unhappy Byzantines and their own bullying God-Emperor.

Image

It was a Chamarran Juggernaut. Its sleek hull gleamed in the starlight and stretched for a great many kilometers. Countless drone fighters swarmed around it, their sublight drives glowing in the black, making the supership look as though it was in an ocean of diamond fireflies. The Pride of Chamarra had come to Xena to wage war and kill for the first time in the centuries since the foundation of the Chamarran nation. It was the last of its kind, a kind that had torn through half of known space and laid waste to countless worlds of man before betraying the gods themselves in what became known in Chamarran myth as the War of Heaven. Today it was present to partake in the only spectacle since then that could hope to match that First Chamarran War.

The rest of the Hierarchy Spaceforce warships, those not attached to the ABC, formed up around the massive mothership to complete Chamarra’s Golden Armada. Now, with the penultimate addition to their forces ready, OMINOUS went into the Xena system, moving onwards as sure and steady as the rising tide. They were a wall of warships coming to block out the sun.

And the Xena Fleet went to meet them in full force. To them, it seemed as though the OMINOUS forces were moving slowly as the multifleets sorted out their positioning while they advanced. This betrayed a lack of cohesion on their part, something that the smaller and undergunned MEHnoids could use to their advantage. Yes, they were at a disadvantage now, numerically and gigatonnically, but if they stole the initiative from the OMINOUS ENEMA SHITS, then perhaps with the sufficient application of the violence of action, they could at least inflict lasting damage on these usurpers. Bloody more than their noses, but also bleed them at their breasts and make blood come out of their milkbags like the war-hungry whores they all were.

Yes.

The Xena warrior warships barreled towards the incoming OMINOUS, the MEHN ships of the line forming up in a tight and concentrated pattern. The OMINOUS ships were dispersed over a wide area, no doubt with the intention to englobulate the lesser Xena Fleet and drown it in fire, but with inertia, speed and force concentration, the Xena Fleet could conceivably form a clenched fist of metal to break through the OMINOUS ENEMA.

But then, NORADE picked up even more hyperjump signatures, previously obscured by the unprecedented and massive wake of the initial OMINOUS realspace reversion. It came from another vector, diagonal to the original OMINOUS force. Like in Wolf 359, the coalition had brought reinforcements.

Yes, the combined inhumanist fleets had moved slowly because of a lack of cohesion, because many of its constituent navies had never before participated in such a grand operation, nor had they operated with their allies before. But there was also another reason why they moved as such a pace.

They were waiting.

Image

For Byzantium.

Obscene dreadnoughts emerged from the Immaterium, eldritch energies not belonging to reality coruscating in the wake of their grand entrance, casting negative shadows on their crenellated hulls and bestatued armours of contempt. Massive guns that protruded from mounts and turrets fashioned in the likeness of screaming gargoyles and spiked skulls moved to aim and track the enemies of Man, those who would deign to worship an alien for a god in the most blasphoritous heresy possible. Banners displaying aquillas and skullspikes fluttered in the solar wind. Written in the cobalt blood of slain xenos on those sanctified cloths were Gothic words of doom to the Imperium’s enemies.

The forms of these horrible things were so hard and massive that unto their sight the MEHN’s great Interstellar Slaughter Devices were sure to become slaughtered devices. Only the contrastingly sleek auric form of the Pride of Chamarra was greater than the battle barges of the Imperium.

But at their sight, at the sound of their engines roaring, the knowledge of their weapons bearing, the Xena Fleet did not slow. No, time was short. Instead they hastened. Drives burned hotter than the suns as the Slaughter Devices, megafrigates and ultradestroyers closed the gap. Like charging cavalry they did not hesitate. As they neared, hundreds of OMINOUS ships opened fire with vast innumerable quantities of missiles, guided by so many active-aggressive sensors that burned through the insufficient jamming screens of the Density with contemptuous ease. When they came within range, all the warships of the Xena Fleet opened fire with all batteries, shooting down missile after missile, thermonuclear blossoms and turbolaser flakbursts drowning the void as warheads were downed by the hundreds each. But they got through, they always got through, and the leading MEHN ships were wrecked by the initial explosions. Yet they didn’t stop. Even as they died, they didn’t stop.

Soon, OMINOUS ships joined them in dying too. Xena’s Fort defense cruisers were equipped with Heim drives and as the main fleet engaged the OMINOUS, the Forts used the ensuing confusion to make a tactical jump - right inside the enemy’s formations, surprising the unsuspecting adversaries and allowing the Forts to deliver an alpha strike to the nearest OMINOUS warships, the leading ships of the ABC. And if that was not enough, the MEHN’s only Stealth-class Slaughter Device and a wing of Spy-class megacorvettes dropped out of cloak and pounced at the OMINOUS from the rear in another daring surprise attack. They struck the OMINOUS rear guard, of Eoghans and Refugees, and entangled them in a vicious hit and run attack - using stealth, low-observability and stand-off weaponry, to their advantage.

More enemies died. But still, it wasn’t enough. Nothing was. The Forts were isolated by the Ascendant, Bragulan and Chamarran Farthing-Fleets and though they tried to dart in and out of the tango with their Heim drives, maximizing the advantages tactical FTL gave them, even then they were quickly whittled down. They were fast, but they were few and the enemy was many, and it did not take long for the last Fort to succumb like all the others as it ran face first into a wall of missiles, beams and bolts at superluminal speed. The resultant impact was not pretty. And the same fate befell the MEHN shadow force, as the leading Stealth Slaughter Device was itself slaughtered by the Shear Cannons of the largest of the Refugee ships - viciously torn apart by scalar gravitomagnetics, its insides spilling out and its crews sucked into the vacuum of space like the blood and guts of a living, breathing thing being butchered. Eoghan kill-packs of their own stealthers relished in hunting down the Spy megacorvettes; as each time the Spies came to attack an enemy ships, they revealed themselves and in turn became the victim of counter-ambushes.

The MEHN’s surprise attacks succeeded in distracting portions of the OMINOUS forces. The ABC Fleet and the Refugee-Eoghan forces branched off to deal with the nuisances. While the main bulk of the OMINOUS went on to destroy the Xena Fleet.


[Recommended Listening]


EHW Density, Pellaeon Class Star Destroyer

Attack ships were on fire off the shoulder of Gabrielle. Graser beams glittered in the dark near Xena’s gate. All these moments were played out in crisp digitally-enhanced clarity in the false-windows of the Density’s bridge, displayed in real time while the surround sound system projected the noise of battle, the thundering rumbles of exploding ships echoing from thousands of miles away mixing with the report of turbolaser bolts to create a martial symphony, like drums in the deep.

Image

General Dung Beans dined in silence. The auto-table laid out a gourmet meal before his command chair, and realizing that it may be his very last, he decided to eat quietly. The current situation was not lost to him. In fact, he knew all to well the state of his fleet and of his sailors. So it was that he resigned himself to fate. And ate.

A quivering MEH Marine looked up at the false-windows and regarded the sights of battle with fear and terror. General Dung watched his guard. The Marine was young and inexperienced, probably one of those conscripts given guard duty as the actual elite MEHMC men were reassigned planetside for the more important task of repelling the enemy invasions.

"Can you sing, Marine?” Dung asked after downing a glass of fine wine.

"Well, yes. At least, well enough for the Corps. But, we have no songs for great bridges and… thin times." Private Ray, serial number 245 replied hesitantly.

"And why should your songs be unfit for my bridge? Come, sing me a song." The General reassured him before he resumed eating.

Ray breathed deeply to calm his nerves. Overhead, the Xena Fleet had become a magnificent constellation, with burning ships instead of stars. Two Byzantine battleships were coming for the Density, one at each side firing broadsides. Ray realized that their Star Destroyer was going to join the constellation soon, so he sang.

Home is behind, the world ahead

And there are many paths to tread.

Through shadow, to the edge of night

Until the stars are all alight.

Mist and shadow cloud and shade

All shall fade, all shall fade.


Image

Blood dribbled down General Dung Beans’ chin as he finished a rare Lapine steak.


Image

Half an AU onward,
All in the valley of Death
Sailed the Xena Fleet.
"Forward the Heavy Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said.
Into the ominous enema
Sailed the Xena Fleet.

Image

Forward, the Heavy Brigade!"
Was there a MEHman dismay'd?
Not tho' the sailor knew
Some one had blubber'd.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to fight and fry.
Into the ominous enema
Sailed the Xena Fleet.

Image

Beamcannon to right of them,
K-bolter to left of them,
Missile in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with beam and bolt,
Boldly they sailed and well,
Into the ominous enema,
Into the hole of heck
Sailed the Xena Fleet.

Image

Flash'd all their turbolasers bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in space
Blasting the gunners there,
Charging an armada, while
All the ‘verse wonder'd.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Chamarran and Bragulan
Reel'd from the blaster-bolt
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they sailed back, but not,
Not the Xena Fleet.

Image

Beamcannon to right of them,
K-bolter to left of them,
Missile in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with beam and bolt,
While ship and sailor fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the ominous enema,
Back from the hole of heck,
All that was left of them,
Left of Xena Fleet.

Image

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the ‘verse wonder'd.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Heavy Brigade,
Noble Xena Fleet!
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Agent Sorchus »

Outside the system SOL-MEH Spoiler

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[img]http://images.wikia.com/worldsofsdn/images/d/da/Anton_f_02.jpg[/img]
The Eoghan fleet rendezvous'd in a H2 Nebula. The fleet had split into the Atlantean component and each Eoghan squadron had come separately. Here they all gathered at the appropriate time and let the fleet from farthing and planet kitty litter break through the estimated limit of the fatties sector sensors before the combined fleet jumped for hyperspace.

Fleet admiral Sakti glanced about the information center, the nearly km of armor that separated the location from the prow suited the admiral fine. The displays showed the force as it slipped through the Immaterial bands of hyperspace, the massive bulks of the Atlantean Dreadnoughts and Bombardment Ships would already be showing up clearly on the Sol sensors. The smaller battleships should be blending in as one massive stain in space and with the rest of the over two hundred warcraft that were flying through space. Or at least most of them.

"Operations tell the Heavy frigate groups to de-cloak now. We want them to know we are here. Destroyer groups to also drop their hyperspace baffles but retain all other ECM."

<Confirmed> the subconscious network of responses and low level information informed the admiral of the message's reception.

Now onto the hardest part, waiting. The Admiral only had the various tactical overviews and broad-plans to review, not any of the real prep for war that the lower decks busied themselves with. Only the Marines plans for a lightning strike were new, and they were optimistic in hoping for the Sol fleet to try and break for one of the other zones so that they could make landing un-opposed. It read like the farce of a plan it was.

Music Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD1q21dr ... re=related Spoiler

Code: Select all

[img]http://images.wikia.com/worldsofsdn/images/3/37/Luke_h_01.jpg[/img]
The flag ship TIDE OF ETERNITY twisted out of the depths of hyperspace in the midst of the waves of OMINOUS starships. They were like a band of carrion birds falling on the still struggling corpse of the MeH. Still... they had a lot of fight left, especially here in the lair of their god.

"Begin broad transmission to all vessels in system. Vessels and crew of the MeH you will shut down all power and submit to OMINOUS. Failure to do so will end in your destruction. All military assets are to stand down now or suffer the fate of the butchers. <End> Flagship gunnery put a x-ray laser into the first ship that complains."

They'd have little chance to do more than singe any but the weakest of civilian ships at this range, but it would be easier if they saw that there was willingness to follow through.

"Form up, tight and self supporting. Three groups, EUC battleships and Bombardment ships, Troop transports and secondary escorts, and a strong group of Atlantean Dread's. Anyship not in groups according to plan 712bis form up for fast attacks into territory." The fast attack group was made up of Atlantean destroyers, EUC destroyers, and a couple of larger Frigates. All meant to run in as fast as possible to trash the sol system if the defenders wanted to try and run off to fight another fight.

<All ships engage at max range> "Do not allow the defenders to decisively engage, keep movement by squadron and plan." Spoiler

Code: Select all

[img]http://images.wikia.com/worldsofsdn/images/5/5d/Roberto_07.jpg[/img]
Last edited by Agent Sorchus on 2011-08-14 02:25pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Wolf 359

Image

Wolf 359 was theirs.

Well, not quite. While the Coalition had certainly won supremacy over the system’s aerospace, the dirtside theater was an entirely different matter. Grand Admirals and so on might shrug it off, thinking it as a simple matter of overwhelming the qualitatively obscene technological advantages of the MEHMC due to their just as ridiculously paltry numbers, with the MEH Marines having just half a million men while the Coalition fielded more than a billion ground troops, for the guys actually tasked with the job of trying to overwhelm the MEH Marines, whelming them turned out to be quite a bit of a pickle.

“Take cover make stand!” Sergeant Strakowalski shouted as they were greeted by a wall of blaster fire. A couple of clonetroopers near Strakowalski got tagged by bolts to the chest, blasting through their armor and vaporizing the contents of their chest cavities. 1 Megajoule.

“Look, sir! Droids!” Another trooper pointed out, and turns out he was right.

“Who knew!” Strakowalski snapped back, because if he found out the person who really did know, he’d probably shoot him in the face. Intel said nothing about the massive multitudes of metal heading their way, holy crap there must be thousands of them. All they were told was that the MEH had half a million soldiers in total, and divided between all the planets in the MEH, that meant a handful of MEH Marines per planet in total. But these were droids, that looked quite like Centralite protocol droids, except armed with blaster rifles. “Where are the fatties?!” Strak cried disappointingly.

As if to answer his prayers, the enormous obsidian form of a MEH Marine emerged in the battlefield. It brought up its weapon and fired at another incoming Centralite troop transport. The devastating device downed the gunship, but the vehicle’s forward momentum brought it crashing down on the horde of MEHnoid battle droids, plowing through them and turning them into a scrap heap. The crashed gunship exploded, immolating all its clone passengers and taking out the remaining robots along with them.

The volume of blaster fire from the droids decreased considerably, now that their own bodily volumes were flattened and blown to bits. But the lone MEH Marine continued firing off shots with his multi-protonic autoshotgun, vaporizing more Centralite clonetroopers where they hid regardless of cover. Even a Granix tank exploded after taking a bolt to the turret.

“Holy craps,” Strak cursed. Shits. Cover was useless, the MEH Marine had the advantage of firepower. But still, it was only one mang while the Centralite army had a billion. For every one of them the Marine killed, a hundred more could take his place. With the rest of the enemy droids too busy being dead to support the lone MEH Marine, Strak got up and fired a rapid burst from his own autoblaster while beckoning to the rest of his brother clonetroopers. “Follow me, men! Strak Attack!”

Image

Their faces brightened up under their faceless visors and masks as they seized the initiative and attacked using a strategy they were all intimately familiar with. Hundreds of men screamed with one voice, going “STRAK ATTACK!” while charging the MEH Marine with all their autoblasters blazing.

“Pew-pew-pew!” Strak screamed as he tried to avoid shitting his pants. The MEH Marine seemed to ignore the torrent of blaster fire while opening up with his own weapon, each shot leaving nothing of the killed clonetrooper behind. But more and more clonetroopers opened up on the steroidified fatty, and the Marine began to reel. “Focus fire!” Strak screamed some more. “Five hundred rounds rapid!”

With that call, all the clones directed their shots at one single point of the MEH Marine’s armor and fired as one. In that instant, the Marine’s whole musculo-roided arm disappeared in an explosion of blood and viscera as the megajoules refuted its very tissues. But the Marine refused to concede. He brought up the anti-tank weapon with his other, just-as-huge, arm and fired a tank-busting blast. But the Centralite clonetroopers continued to unleash a relentless torrent of blaster fire at the MEH Marine, so many were the incoming bolts that they intercepted the MEH Marine’s anti-tank bolt in a human wave version of point defense. A blaster bolt struck the anti-tank round, detonating it mere meters away from the Marine who fired it. The explosion threw him like an enormous rag doll stuffed with potatoes, slamming it against the wrecked hull of another Granix. But it wasn’t dead, not yet. It struggled to move, but stopped when dozens of blaster barrels were pointed at its ruinated form.

“Turns out we did burn your calories, am i rite?” Sergeant Strakowalski gloated. The other clones laughed with him.

“You... smarmy... assholes...” the MEH Marine gasped. Scores of blasters opened fire simultaneously, vaporizing the Marine irregardless of the megajoules required if he was a spherical mass of iron or mostly composed of water.

“lolololol!” Strak laughed out loud. “Alrite, guise, let’s clear this place up and call in some reinforcements. Pop smoke for the FLAATs.”

Image

With the MEH Marine dead and the battle droids destroyed, the clonetroopers formed up around the area to secure a landing zone for the incoming Coalition transports. With the LZ clear, they started landing and depositing more clonetroops and even war droids to combat the remaining MEH resistance forces. There were more Marines out there, and it seemed as though the MEH had ‘conscripted’ its slaved droid populace into the war effort, greatly boosting the numbers of their men, or machines, at arms. Steroidified MEHman and slave-circuited machine would never give up and never surrender, they’d fight to the death if they had to. The clonetroopers knew this now that they had made hard contact. They realized that this wasn’t going to be easy. As they said, it wasn’t over yet. Not by a longshot.
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Hard Contact


Wolf 359

Image

The Centralist clonetroopers planted the black flag on the ruins of Wolf 359’s largest city. It signified the victory of Centralism over all enemies, despite the fact that the Centrality had some help in the ground war, for it was the Centrality that contributed the vast majority of ground troops for the occupation effort. More than a billion Centralites, clones and non-clones alike, had fought to secure their victory here, and some of them had died in the effort. It was with their blood that the Centrality earned the right to plant the flag first.

But wars weren’t won by planting flags. Oh no. It was a lot harder than that. Which was why Sergeant Strakowalski and his squad were now being sent outside the ‘green zone’, the parts successfully pacified and occupied by Coalition ground troops, and into MEH territory heretofore unexplored by Coalition forces.

To burn MEH flags and break Sasha statues.

Oh, and to find any and all signs of resistance and exterminate them with extreme prejudice too.

Most of Wolf’s major urban populations remained intact. The Shinran high command didn’t have the stomach to sanction indiscriminate orbital bombardment, and many enemy elements still lurked in the sprawling acropoli of Wolf’s cities. Hawk fighters soared high in the stratosphere, daring any anti-air assets to attempt an attack at them, and thus make itself vulnerable for an aerospace strike. The fighters also provided escort for Coalition transport craft, such as the FLAAT that was now transporting Sgt. Strakowalski’s squad.

Image

The gunship soared high above the battlefield. The streets below were filled with battling battle droids, wave after wave of armed MEHnoid slave machines rushing at the Centralite killbots in an attempt at overwhelming their in-built kill-meters. Machine versus machine, it was a surreal sight, but the clonetroopers thanked Dovan that at least this time they weren’t the ones being expended casually. With the enemy droids focused on that front, at least the rest of the city should be easier to infiltrate -

Blaster fire stitched through the air, enemy AAA attempting to down them, but the weapon was quickly silenced when a Hawk promptly bombed the attacker to oblivion. Any other MEHnoids still in the area probably got the hint, as no more AAA batteries opened up on the gunship. So the FLAAT descended into the cityscape, but as it passed by the jutting skyscrapers, it came under fire from MEHnoid battle droids behind the buildings’ windows. But the FLAAT came armed with mini-lasers, and green beams of death came from the gunship’s spherical side-turrets to vaporize the MEH machines.

With that out of the way, the FLAAT continued its descent. It would deposit the troops on a designated LZ, and then Strakowalski’s squad would have to walk to their destination, whatever it was. Intel had intercepted MEHnoid droid communications suggesting that there was something of value up ahead. The FLAAT couldn’t go in deeper into the city without passing through a labyrinth of jutting skyscrapers infested with more droid snipers or MEH Marines with MANPADs, and a squad of clonetroopers cost far less points than a single aerospacecraft - so it was academic.

Image

“You lucky bastard,” Strakowalski said to the FLAAT pilot. “Hey, wanna come with us and stretch your legs? Try walking, you might get too fat sitting in that cockpit and flying all the time.”

“LOL, no thanks,” the pilot laughed from beneath his bulging owl-like goggle-visors. “Did you know that I didn’t get any instructions to wait for you guys or to come back to pick you up?”

“Oh, really?” Strak asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, really,” the pilot nodded.

“No way,” Strak couldn’t believe it. Was command writing them off that obviously? Shit.

“Well, whatever. Maybe command just wants you to walk all the way back to base. Like you said, exercise. Good luck, man,” the pilot said unconvincingly as the FLAAT began to take off.

“Lick my smarmy vat-grown clone ass-” Strak was cut off by the pilot screaming before he was also cut off when the ascending gunship got cut off by enemy fire. The FLAAT broke into two as something big and fast literally plowed through its armored fuselage. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Strak threw himself to the ground and curled up into a ball, waiting to die. The desecrated wreckage of the FLAAT came down around him, but miraculously he was spared. The rest of his squad had taken cover elsewhere, leaving him the only one standing in the clearing. He poked his head out to find out what had downed the FLAAT. There it was.

Image

A MEHMC Merkava hovertank, said to be one of the deadliest ground vehicles the enemy had. Intel said there were only five thousand in existence, and it was just Strak’s luck to be in the same place as one of them. The hovertank turned around for another run, clipping a building as it did so. Glass and masonry shattered upon impact, raining bits and pieces on the flying fighting machine, covering parts of it in dust and rubble. The hovertank banked to the side, and then bobbed to the other side right after that, flying in an erratic and evasive course as it swooped around to survey the scene and perhaps look at the enemy aerospacecraft it had downed. Strak hid himself in the wreckage while keeping an eye on the machine.

The flying tank pitched and yawed drunkenly and plowed into another building, burying half its hull into it before reversing its course and excavating itself from the prefab structure. Now more of it was covered in rubble. Its turret traversed to knock aside a large piece of wall that had gotten on its hull.

Did these guys fail their driver’s license exams? Strak strakked mentally before realizing something. He remembered seeing the FLAAT’s destruction, but it wasn’t from enemy weapon’s fire, it was because the hovertank drove through it. The tank also drove into the buildings, and that ‘evasive’ course the tank was taking was probably not as ‘evasive’ as it was. Then he remembered something else. The first MEH Marine they had fought earlier, it had absorbed so many blaster bolts because its advanced armor was shielded. Yet now, that drunkenly flying MEHMC tank had bits of masonry all over its hull...

In a flash of comprehension, Strak whistled his fellow team mates. He couldn’t radio them, that would risk detection and he couldn’t be too careful even if he was too smarmy. His cowering clone comrades crawled into visual range, and Strak tried to signal them by hand. Maybe it was the smoke from the burning FLAAT, maybe the rest of them were just stupid, but they couldn’t get what he was saying even though he was pointing to the blundering hovertank above them.

Finally, Strak had enough and he shouted while pointing at the tank.

“NO SHIELDS! It’s got no shields, Dovan damn it!” he shouted his lungs out as though he was some kind of deranged duck.

The men finally got it. One of them even facepalmed his visor. They cleverly moved out of cover and positioned themselves, passing out RL-87 rocket launchers and ML-101 MANPADS to each other.

Image

Half a dozen missiles struck the stricken MEHMC tank, blanketing it shaped plasma charges. The entire vehicle disappeared in the ensuing fireball, consumed by the flames, only to be spat right back out. The hovertank came out no worse for the wear, hull and turret still intact, and it weaved and dodged and turned to face its attackers. But somehow, if it was possible, its trajectory seemed even more off-course than its previous drunken meanderings. It fired with its co-axial weapons, but the bolts scattered uselessly, though their yields were undeniable as they demolished whole buildings in their potency. Then a secondary explosion rocked the tanks underbelly. With its shields, it would’ve been nigh invincible to meager man-portable weapons, and even bereft of them its armor could have withstood anything short of a micronuke perhaps, but its exposed antigravity coils were far from indestructible. Yet the damage done like breaking a helicraft’s hind-rotors, and while the hovertank was still mostly intact and undamaged, it was spinning wildly out of control while remaining mostly intact and undamaged.

In its death-spiral it flattened several buildings, some of which exploded inexplicably, before finally coming to a halt on the ground. Despite all of that, the MEHMC tank was still mostly intact and undamaged.

A hatch opened on top of the hovertank’s turret, which was probably the only thing not buried by tons of rubble. From it crawled out a truly swollen example of a MEHman, who tried to claw his way out of the hatch before promptly getting stuck. He struggled feebly, at first merely to get out of his vehicle, but then it seemed as though he was having difficulty with even breathing.

“Looks like he has asthma, lol who knew?”

“Should we help him, sir?”

Strakowalski shook his head.

“No, we barely have enough medical supplies for our own people. Let’s proceed with the mission.”

“Yes, sir.”
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

BAD WOLF


Wolf 359

Image

They ventured deeper into the city, towards their final destination. Strangely, the further they went in, the lesser resistance they encountered. They had walked kilometers now without encountering a single battle droid, or anything else for that matter. It was strange. Mildly disconcerting for the clonetroopers, who were used to encountering (and maybe shooting) screaming people and other bystanders in the middle of an urban warzone. But there in Wolf’s acropoli, it was as silent as a tomb.

Were the people somewhere else? Hiding in shelters, maybe? Had they fled? These were possible. Who knew? For Sgt. Strakowalski, the whole thing stank. Maybe even in a literal sense, though that may be just molds growing in his face mask. It reeked of an ambush.

So he decided to split his squad into two groups. They would separate, circle around in a way that each group would end up going around the other’s back, so if any enemies were following one group, the other group would surely spot them. They moved out and went through winding course that took them around an apparently abandoned acropolis’ enormous street-like corridors. It was a good thing that Intel had apparently obtained the city plans from the memory banks of captured protocol droids.

Sgt. Strakowalski was consulting these maps when he heard someone cry from a nearby room.

“No! You can’t let the Sarge see this!”

Sgt. Strak cursed under his breath, kicked the door open and went into the room.

“What can’t you let me see?” he demanded.

One of the clones lowered his head in shame.

“This...”

Image

There before him, laid out on a dining table, was a magnificent feast made out of the finest cooked meats, roasted to meet the standards of the new MEHman’s decadency. Strak looked around, seeing his men sitting themselves around the feast and gorging themselves. Near them was a MEHnoid food-droid serving them drinks. Behind them, sitting on the floor, was a terrified-looking family of fatsos quivering and jiggling in fear. A clonetrooper stood over them, brandishing a gun menacingly while telling them to order their food-bot to serve more food.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Sgt. Strak growled.

“We’re interrogating the civilians, sir. For... directions.”

“Directions to your pie-hole, I bet.” Strak spat. This was the worst thing that could happen.

“Sir, I tried to stop them,” another clone said apologetically. “But they’ve had nothing to eat but shitty Cent-Ration Paste for weeks. And Major Strakhanoff charges so much for his food, the men simply can’t afford it.”

Strak sighed. He knew that the Major’s scam couldn’t last forever. Dovan damn it. At least the Major gave him a good fat cut.

Then the radio came to life. It was from the other group. Strak received it immediately, fearing that they might have been ambushed or something.

“Sergeant Strak, come in! You’ve gotta see this!”

“We’re going there ASAP, soldier!” Strak replied. He turned to his men, who were busy gorging themselves with the MEHappy meal. “On your feet, fatties. Come on, we’re moving out. Oscar mike.”

The two groups linked up and the squad became whole again. The others hadn’t found the enemy waiting in ambush, or ghosting them from behind. No, what they found was much worse.

Image

“Holy shit. So this was what they sent us out to find...” Strak trailed off as he looked at what was in front of him. Thousands of MEHmen on stretchers, in a disused holo-auditorium turned into some kind of field hospital. The clonetroops’ medic immediately checked the MEHnoids for signs of life. They were still alive, mostly. Most of them were showing signs of a normal body mass index, which for MEH standards was borderline starvation and emaciation. They laid there on their cots, weak and feeble. Strak couldn’t help but think of the MEH Marine in the hovertank he saw earlier. Were they all asthmatic? Who knew.

One of the few remaining MEHnoid medibots rolled towards him, intending to stab him with a syringe or administer an enema or insert a catheter or something, but a blaster bolt blew it to pieces. A private, holding a smoking blaster, approached Strak.

“Uh, what do you want us to do, sir?” he asked.

“Who knows?” Strak said, smarmlessly this time. “Call in HQ, tell them what we found and ask for further instructions.”
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

[i]Previously on SDNW4[/i] wrote: A billion hungry creatures screeched and clawed inside the massive Brood Ships, and with a single minded unity only a hive mind could possess, the very fabric of space and time was warped and twisted as the Broods entered hyperspace. Their destination - Bragulan Space.

Encrypted Transmission
From: The Karlack Swarm
To: The Bragulan Star Empire

We have sensed your peril. We shall protect the Bear. We shall devour the humans. We are coming!

End Transmission

Code: Select all

From: The Bragulan Star Empire
To: The Karlack Swarm

We gratefully receive your assistance. All inbound Karlack forces are to position themselves at the Derevnya Gadyukino system in the Severnaya sector and rendezvous with Bragulan Proletarian Defense Forces in the region to make the necessary defensive preparations in case of any Solarian aggression and violation of sovereign Bragulan territory.


The Thyiiluue Threshold

Image

Derevnya Gadyukino System
Severnaya Sector
Bragulan Star Empire


The Imperial Military Maritime Space Fleet and People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs Relay Gunskimmer-Substation for the Broadcasting of Bragulan Ideologically Correct Educational Materials to Severely Byzonism-Challenged Puny Humans and Collectoroid Robots of Wild Space floated serenely in the dead system. Its misshapen metal hull, a bragtag patchwork of what had once been the proud Niva-class gunskimmer Bragnum Force combined with the components of an over-sized radionucleonic hyper-antennae, somehow seemed at home with the metallic asteroids littering space.

Due the Bragnum Force's Pyhrric victory over a foul Collectoroid robot warship almost year ago, the wrecked ship and what remained of its crew were rewarded by being passed over to the Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs to relay Byzonic messages to Wild Space from the desolate Derevnya Gadyukino system. Indefinitely.

Crewman 2nd Class Pyotr Fukeseyev resented being the only crewman on duty in the gunskimmer-substation's control center. Oh, of course, his sense of Byzonism was impeccable - ever since having that close call with death at the hands of those undying nightmare machines, he'd never ever forget to say his thanks to Byzon for killing those miserable aliens before every bedtime - but he still wasn't happy about having to hook up Byzonist messages to spread the gloury of Bragulanity to distant xenos nobody gave a shits about while the rest of the crew was sitting at their stations, earphones and all, listening to all sorts of interesting emissions from the nearby sectors sucked in by the ship's passive-aggressive arrays.

The other crew members were ooh-ing and aah-ing at the signal emissions of the Solarian fleet at the Apexai deadworld and cheering on the rallying bragfleets at Bolshaya Chernovyi and Kirensk while Pyotr had to don a bragspec spacesuit, complete with brass diving helmet, to perform an EVA while carrying drums of magnetic tape. He had to get out of the gunskimmer portion of the station and jump across to the transmitter antenna section, go crawl it and input the new messages while trying his best to conserve his oxygen. It was after this lengthy and nerve-wracking process, when Pyotr was on the verge of jumping back to the gunskimmer and completing the mission for the day, when suddenly a bright light flashed in space.

The light faded, and in its place were hideous forms suspended in space, thousands of them, all teeming with death-dealing life, swarming and surrounding the gunskimmer-station.

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Pyotr soiled the diapers of his suit as he beheld the horrible forms of the Swarm. The Karlack Star Brood had arrived at Severnaya. They announced their presence with a deafening psychic scream that, though passing unnoticed for nil-psyk Bragulans, was unmistakable to all receptive beings across entire parsecs.





The People's Truthful Bi-Daily Ideologically Purified Accurate Information Broadcast to the Proud Patriotic Bragulan Listeners of THE GALAXY begins thusly:

PFHOR PARTNERS PARTAKE IN INTERNATIONAL INHUMANE INTERACTIONS WITH WELCOMING BRAGULAN BROTHERS


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The Pfhor Diplomatic Fleet sails for bragspace to engage in exercises with bragships at Bolshaya Chernovyi, near the Wilderspace Apexai deadworlds, while the ambassadors of both nations discuss an alliance.

In a stunning rebuke directed at various humanistic transgressions of space, Bragule shows the entire universe that while its fleets may be busy fighting at the antispinward vectors in inhuman solidarity with comrade-nations from the rest of the galaxy in a feat of selfless internationalism, the territories of Bragspace remain forever invincible from invasion. For, just as the power of Bragule’s vast military aids the Bragulan people’s friends in the liberation of Farthing and the face-stomping of the MEH, then the power of friendship too shall vanquish any enemy of Bragule that strikes close to home. The Empire shows to all that it is not only wealthy in the weapons and radiations that are the fruits of its people’s proletarian labours, but also in comrades for the friendliness and glowing warmth of the Bragulan people knows no bounds.

The Bragulan Star Empire has sent a massive people’s liberation armada to the antispinward to join the multinational inhuman coalition force known as the OMINOUS to save the multi-speciestic peoples of Farthing from the atrocities of the human Multiversal Empire of Happiness. Now, this force brings the fight to the MEH itself, to put an end to human oppression stemming from yet another Earth.

The Pfhor have sent their Diplomatic Fleet to bragspace, upon the invitation of Bragule for the betterment of inter-urso-tricloptic diplomatic relations. While the Pfhor Diplomatic Fleet and Kosmoflott Grozhyskhov engage in exercises and maneuvers in Bolshaya Chernovyi, the ambassadors and diplomats of both nations shall discuss a wide variety of matters of great importance for both comrade-nations ranging from simple trade and inter-societal exchanges to make better cultural learnings, to prospective security pacts and military alliances to safeguard mutual national interests.

The message is clear, as Bragule tells the universe that the game has changed, and that they will bury all those who cross the Bragulan Star Empire.
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
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Siege
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Re: SDNW4 Story Thread 2

Post by Siege »

Solarian Dreadstar USS Perilous
Polar Orbit over Thyiiluue


"This doesn't look good." The digital avatar representing General Summers frowned. She was in direct communication with the Presidential Palace, facilitated by boring a data-tunnel through the very fabric of space-time. The two talkers shared a featureless gray thought-space, unnecessary embellishments having been left out by dint of necessity- generating the real-time connection was consuming enough energy as it was, energy that Perilous might soon need for other, rather more violent purposes.

The general looked at a highly classified holo that combined intelligence generated by Cevaukian A-SEC with sensor readings gathered by the Sovereignty's VLSA at Augerau. In brief, they showed Bragulan allies converging on the Bragulan border, just a relatively short hyperspace dash removed from the area of operations around Thyiiluue, force dispositions laid out with startling clarity. There was very little stealth in space, and none of the aliens bothered to conceal their movements much. "That's enough to dislodge us."

"The Star Force assures me that we can reinforce you," the avatar of President Sinclair was dressed in an immaculate white suit. She scratched her chin. "But the Cevaukians are mighty antsy about the Pfhor involvement in all this. Chairman Nureno has made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that he cannot support any course of action that leads to a clash with the Pfhor Empire at this time."

Summers arched an eyebrow. "And the Warmaster?"

"Trego... Was not as half-hearted. I wouldn't exactly call that crazy alien enthusiastic about the prospect of testing his mettle against the Pfhor Imperial Navy, but...

"But he is."

"Quite. Even so, with the Imperium and the Holy Empire otherwise engaged I'm doubtful we can sustain your presence at Thyiiluue against the forces being arraigned against you. I'm of half a mind-"

"Beg your pardon." The featureless thought-space swirled with a sudden burst of data-packets as a third presence manifested, one clad in a familiar black suit. "The aliens aren't going to do any fighting."

"Hank." The general uttered the word as if it were a mortal curse. "What are you doing on my secure connection. You have no business here."

The tycoon ignored her as if she weren't important. "If the Pfhor were going to do actual fighting they'd have sent an actual fleet, not this token force. The exercises are exactly what the Brags say they are: exercises."

"But there's Pfhor." President Sinclair accused. "Pfhor, and Karlacks. We didn't know there'd be Karlacks."

"Correction, you didn't know. There was always an outside chance they'd show. Ask Olympic, I bet he'd give you the same odds. Still, I'm sort of glad they did show."

"For what possible reason could you be glad about having the damned Swarm on our proverbial doorstep?" the general accused.

"Because, general, that means this matter will now officially be of interest to the Star Kingdom. And everybody else that loathes the Swarm, at that. That goodwill Byzon may have accrued by involving himself in the war against the MEH? This will just remind everyone that at the end of the day, the Brags are still in bed with the bugs... And we're the shinin' city on top 'o the hill, standing fast against the tide of darkness, yada yada, and so forth. It'll be brilliant for propaganda. Or would be, you know, if there was going to be a fight here. Which there isn't."

"I'm not sure how you can be so sure," Sinclair said levelly. "But do enlighten us."

"Look at the disposition of Pfhor forces. We've parked two Dreadstars and a full rosette of Warstars over Thyiiluue, and they send one heavy battleship in response. They're posturing. Aggressively posturing, true. But posturing all the same."

"So you believe." General Summers was far from convinced.

"So I believe," Hank nodded, as if that was all one needed.

Sinclair seemed doubtful too. "I hope you're right, but you're still two sectors away. That's an awfully long way if any more... 'outside chances'... happen to come to pass. I'm of half a mind to send you further reinforcements, just in case."

Summers was about to say something but Hank headed her off, shaking his head. "That would be... unwise."

"Why?"

"Because we've made the first move, which was provocatively placing an entire fleet within striking distance of the Bragulan border. The Brags sent their reply- not by hurtling into Wild Space to give battle, as they did at Majella or at Nova Genoa, but by summoning their allies and scheduling exercises. We provoked, and they sent us a warning. Summoning Pfhor and Karlacks can be summarized as Byzon saying 'you're lucky we're busy elsewhere, but don't forget we have friends too'. If we were to respond by sending even more warships, that would equate to us saying 'so what, bring it on'. Byzon and his generals wouldn't be able to let that slip by. He'd have no other recourse than to answer with actual violence- precisely the thing we want to avoid." A chattering of data and a decision-making tree flowered in the middle of the thought-space, each branch representing courses of action and their predicted outcome.

An awful lot of those branches, Sinclair couldn't help but notice, ended in full-blown war. Some even ended in wars that engulfed the entire K-Zone. She'd known this was a dangerous game to play all along, but now she wondered just how obsessed Hank was with whatever it was he'd gone that far into Wild Space to get. Still, the logic seemed to hold up. "Alright then," the president finally concluded. "We'll sit tight for now. But I want you ready to move at the first sign that Brood is crossing the sector border. Moreover..."

"Yes?"

"You need to hurry. The Brags will tolerate this situation for only so long. You have to get clear before Byzon changes his mind. And Sidney?"

"Yes?"

"As much as I think Nureno is an overcautious jackass at times, he's right in this case. We don't want a war with the Pfhor, Brags and Karlacks. I don't know what it is exactly that you're digging for, and I know you're just going to lie to me if I ask you, but you better realize you're gambling with the lives of three hundred billion citizens here. That's no laughing matter. You better not be bloody wrong."

That actually seemed to give Hank pause for a moment. Then he nodded. "I quite agree. Time to get to work."

The thought-space dissolved. General Summers found herself back on the bridge of her dreadstar and brooding. She didn't like this. She didn't like any of this: the way she couldn't get any straight answers from anyone, the way Hank kept running circles around her, the way he talked to Sinclair. It made her wonder who was in bloody charge here. She didn't like wondering about that, it ran straight into her conditioning and made her head hurt. But there was one thing that, right now, she liked even less than even all those other things. She keyed in a command, bringing up a private channel to the taskforce's head spook, one Assistant Director Ridley, whose impassive face materialized almost immediately on one of the hologrammatic screens. "General Summers," he greeted curtly, with that completely unsurprised tone of voice the general was fairly sure they taught in spook school somewhere.

"Director Ridley."

"What can I do for you?"

Theirs was an uneasy partnership. Technically Summers was in supreme command of the entire fleet, and the small Directorate detachment was just aboard to collate and coordinate intelligence. In reality however it was quite clear that somebody - specifically Hank and Twennysex - were running the show, and Summers suspected that CEID knew more about what was really going on at than she did. That... complicated matters. Even so it was a fair bet they had a common ground here. "Director, I want to know how the hell this Hank character, a bloody civilian, keeps breaking into my supposedly totally secure military communications."

Ridley regarded her for a moment. "I would think that obvious. He designed the submeson core systems."

"He-" The general took a moment to process that information. "No, Perilous' core is a proprietary DeBarros Omnicomms system."

"General, when the submeson core was first developed, everyone in the Sovereignty was yokels and DeBarros was five people hand-casting autocannons in a shed on Kerenkov. Then Hank arranged for us to take in the Apexai. Guess who lead the charge in reverse-engineering their technology?" The spook saw understanding begin to take root. He smiled mirthlessly. "That's right. Pan-Empyrean built the first sub-meson core, the first hyperfield generator, the first fifth-generation hyperdrive that the Sovereignty ever built. The first autolaser. The first dark energy reactor. And so on. And then he farmed out the designs to other corporations so they could mass-produce them. How do you think he got so rich?"

"I- shit. I figured he was rich by virtue of being an old fart."

"In other words, you assumed," Ridley smiled, a little more honestly this time, to take the sting out of it. "I hope you're not usually in the habit of doing that sort of thing, general. We might soon be in need of a more facts-based attitude."

"No, no. Just, holy shit. That sheds new light on what the hell we're here to do in the first place."

"You think we're here to widen Mr. Hank's profit margin?"

"I don't know what to think- Wait, you mean the Directorate doesn't know either?"

"General, if anybody knows they sure didn't tell me. But since I don't like sitting in a ship a stone's throw away from Bragulan space for no particularly well-articulated reason I made some inquiries. And the complete radio silence from my sources in the Silver Shield has me guessing. We in the Directorate don't like guessing, general. Especially not when we know who has the answers and we aren't allowed to touch them." The spook wanted to continue, then seemed to realize something and visibly halted himself. "But yes, these electronic communications systems. So fickle. One never knows who's listening in."

The general caught on quickly. "I take your meaning. Perhaps it would be prudent to continue this talk some other time... And some other way."

Ridley smiled again. "I will contact you shortly... And in person."
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SDN World 2: The North Frequesuan Trust
SDN World 3: The Sultanate of Egypt
SDN World 4: The United Solarian Sovereignty
SDN World 5: San Dorado
There'll be a bodycount, we're gonna watch it rise
The folks at CNN, they won't believe their eyes
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