Onslaught: The Flight

[Richpur]

No excuses from here, just a case of total imaginative block.

[Bakan]

It's okay, I lied.

Today after running errands right after posting this, I'll be moving my computer into it's new case. Obviously this means I can't DM while my comp is in several dozen pieces. I HOPE to get everything installed and Windows XP Professional installed by tonight, with reinstalling key programs happening tommarrow. We shall see.

[Heiro]

Originally Posted by Richpur

No excuses from here, just a case of total imaginative block.

Ditto, cept the bit about Imaginative block...

Although, im waiting for the DM post before i do anything

[Wo2]

Well I'll wait. I've got compy troubles too. The one I'm using is good for nothing but net surfing because my CD drive is toast until I can get a replacement. That will probaly take a long long long long (You get the pont) time.

[Inspectre]

/ooc New ships are finally here, one for me, one for Io Cor. ooc/

Name: (to be decided by Io Cor)
Class: Heavy Cruiser
Length: 462 meters
Mass: 11.4 million metric tons
Crew: 3,548; 584 officers, 2,964 enlisted
Troops: 500 Marines
Support Craft:
2 Traveler Shuttles

Engines:

Uridium Sub-light Engines
Hyperspace FTL Engines

Weapons:

36 Point-Defense Rail Guns
12 Light Graviton Cannons
18 Medium Plasma Cannons
4 Heavy Tachyon Beam Cannons
10 Ion Cannons
8 Point-Defense Missile Launchers
6 Omega Torpedo Tubes (4 forward, 2 aft)


Defense:

Class X Energy Shields
Neutronium Heavy Armor Plating


Enjoy Io Cor



Name: Avenging Angel
Class: Assault Frigate
Length: 184 meters
Mass: 4.5 million metric tons
Crew: 82; 12 officers, 70 enlisted
Troops: 50 Marines

Support Craft:
4 Valkyrie Interceptors
2 Brimstone Heavy Bombers

Engines:

Uridium Sub-light Engines
Hyperspace FTL Engines

Weapons:

8 Heavy Tachyon Cannons
4 Light Plasma Cannons
6 Point Defense Rail Guns
2 Point Defense Missile Launchers
4 Flak Cannons
20 Missile Launchers (more like two Box Launchers with 10 tubes each, as opposed to twenty different firing platforms)

Defense:

Class X Energy Shields
Neutronium Heavy Armor Plating

[Bakan]

Bakan: "Good. Order the remaining escort ships to form up. Status of the Slipstream core?"

Engineering: "Core is 87% charged, navigational system still doing the random jump calculations."

Communications: "Looks like several of the escort ships have linked their navigation systems together."

Bakan: "Good, if they are working together, let's keep them together. As soon as the core is charged, prepare to jump."

Science: "Sir, I'm picking up a major disturbance..... holy mother of god."

Bakan: "What... oh shit!"

*The tatical officer points to the main holographical display, where ships are represented by dots, the size and color representing the size and alliance of the ships in the combat zone. Shimmering into place is a dot, a dot that only get's bigger and bigger, until the shimmering effect that represents a ship exiting slipstream fades, revealing a ship that drawfs even the motherships.*

Bakan: "Specs on her, NOW!!"

Science: "Cerebus Carrier, 25 KM in length, she's armed and ready to fight sir. However, her guns are still charging it seems. Wait, she just fired a plasma projectile. It's heading towards mothership #1."

*Outside in the mess of a space battle, a large plasma projectile streaks through space. Several deathgliders chasing some TIE fighters are vaproized by it as it flies through uncarring straight into Mothership #1. The shields, wisely reinforced by her captain, crackle with barely restrained power, sending discharges across her hull and onto nearby ships. The hull underneath blackens and crispens as her heavy armor struggles to reflect the worst of the aftereffects away from the vulnerable innards of the ship. After several long seconds of this, in which several nearby ships shields are crippled by the discharges, the shields stabilize.*

Science: "Don't ask..... her shields are at 37%, she WON'T take another hit."

Tatical: "Almost looked like a MAC round."

Science: "It was... sort of. Plasma field around what looks like a asteroid, those damn buggers learn quick. But they are not very durable, we could probably destroy them before they strike if we have enough warning. Looks like she has 12 of those turrets..... CRAP, she's launching another volley. Targets are.... Mothership #1, Mothership #2, US, MOthership #4, Mothership #5, Red Sky At Dawn... rest are heading towards Wayland station!"

Bakan: "Order our escorts, GET RID OF THOSE ****ING WEAPONS NOW!!! Get our sky clear, then stay out of range of that carrier, use only long-range weapons!"

[Inspectre]

/ooc Bah, sorry about my recent vacation from this thread, been quite busy with other . . . distractions. So let’s see . . . 1,820 Deathgliders, 50 garden-variety Gou’ald Motherships, and 5 big-mother Gou’ald Motherships. Business as usual. ooc/

/ooc The cruiser is yours to name and own, Io Cor. Try to keep it in one piece. Ooc/

Joseph sat quietly in his chair throughout the captains’ meeting, content to let the other captains debate the merits and pitfalls of each path they could take. It seemed unlikely to Joseph that any of the paths would be entirely risk free, but Joseph was equally sure that they would make it regardless. Failure was simply not an option. The discussion continued for quite some time, until it was abruptly ended by Admiral Bakan.

"People, we have a problem, we have a small fleet of Gou'uld ships inbound. Estimating approximenty 30 minutes till they are here. Your orders are to form up with the motherships, we will be exiting. If the path to the hyper-slipstream gate is clear, we will go that way, otherwise.... we will have to risk the hyper-slipstream cores onboard the motherships. Also, station personal are evacuating this station, they will be filling out your missing crew. Good luck."

Joseph stood up, stretched, and turned to his old friend from Tetra Genus. “Well Captain Azaed, it appears we each have ships to get to. Good luck.”

Joseph shook his fellow captain’s hand, and then moved to exit the room. However, Joseph noticed that the doorway was currently clogged with other captains attempting to return to their ships. Shrugging, Joseph allowed the rest of the ship captains to file out first. Meanwhile, he tapped his right ear lobe, activating his sub-dermal communicator.

“Thomas, get the Thanatos ready to accept station personnel. Fill in any holes in the duty schedules due to casualties, and then start cramming them into the guest and crew quarters. We’ll take as many of these people out of here as are willing to come: no one gets left behind, understand?”

“Of course, captain. I won’t let any crazy b*stards stay, either. The sensors officer informs me we have company coming. Shall I make preparations to roll out the red carpet?”

“Yes indeed. I intend to give our parasitic friends quite the warm welcome.”

“Glad to hear, sir. I’ll see to it most of the passengers are onboard and we’re ready to disembark by the time you get here.”

Seeing that the crowd around the door had almost thinned out to nothing, Joseph decided it was time to wrap up his conversation with Thomas and move out.

“I’m sure you will, Thomas. Joseph out.”

A quick tap of his ear lobe deactivated the communicator, and Joseph moved toward the door. He followed the last captain out, and began to move down the hall when he heard someone behind him. A moment later, a hand clamped itself down on his shoulder, and spun him roughly around.

“You son of a b*tch!”

Before Joseph could react, he felt a fist plow into his jaw. Seeing stars, Joseph staggered back into a nearby wall. He steadied himself against it, and waited for his vision to clear. A moment later it did, and Joseph saw a tall, lanky man standing a short distance away, glaring at him.

“How the f*ck did anyone not kill you yet, Swarm or our own people?”

“Just lucky, I guess. You certainly seem to share the same knack for survival, Andrew.”

The man brushed a stand on blond hair out of his face, blatantly annoying Joseph’s attempt to change the subject.

“You miserable, worthless, sonofab*tch. I can’t believe the Federation let you keep the Thanatos, let alone let you go free after slaughtering everyone on Tetra Genus.”

“I was under orders, Andrew. You and I both know what following those orders cost me.”

“Those orders cost me my only son!!”

“They cost me mine as well.”

As usual, Andrew was not in the mood to listen to reason. As Andrew stepped forward, his hand flashed out, and caught Joseph across the face in a backhand.

“I would challenge you to a duel here and now, were it not for the fact that we have incoming Gou’ald!”

Joseph could see the insatiable bloodlust in Andrew Tanner’s eyes, and sighed. Even after all these years, he still blamed Joseph entirely for the loss of his son. Or more accurately, he blamed the Swarm, and included Joseph amongst them.

“Even after all these years, you still haven’t sated your taste for blood? Very well then. When this is all over, assuming we survive, we shall have our duel. I presume you’ll want to use Genus Blades?”

“Of course. I’ll see you later . . . and do try to stay alive. I want to kill you myself!”

That said, the constantly simmering man known as Andrew Tanner stalked off. Joseph watched him go, sadly shaking his head, before walking off himself, continuing to head to his own ship.
*************

“Who does that man think he is! I’m going to kill him! I’ll going to ram my blade into his gut, and watch the life drain from his eyes. And then, I’m going to spit in his face! He’ll rue the day he ever took command of that ship, and considered turning it against his own people. “Under orders” my *ss!”

Andrew continued to quiver with repressed rage as he stomped back to his ship, muttering obscenities under his breath as he went.

The blond haired, blue-eyed man had been a model Federation officer before the war. A loving husband and father, he had strongly considered retiring early from Federation service and take a desk job at the Tetra Genus Defense Fleet’s Headquarters, so he could spend more time with his family. Unfortunately, the Swarm came and changed everything.

Near the beginning of the war, Andrew’s wife volunteered for a reserve medical ship, attempting to save the lives of the few survivors from each Swarm attack. Both of their ships were assigned to different fleets, which greatly limited the time they could be together, as each fleet served in different theaters of engagement. Eventually, Andrew was able to get a transfer to the 31st Battlegroup, the same battlegroup that his wife’s ship was a part of. They were now able to spend time together, when their duty schedules occasionally coincided. Even this was not meant to be, however.

Just two months after Andrew’s transfer, the 31st Battlegroup stumbled into the battle that was later to be dubbed “The Ambush at Deneb”. A large number of Swarm ships drew the heavier ships of the 31st away from the rest of the fleet, and then a second wave of Swarm ships swept in from behind to strike the vulnerable support ships. Andrew immediately pulled his ship back to engage the raiders, but it was much too late.

An Overlord transport had docked with the medical ship Andrew’s wife was stationed on. A few quick laser blasts blew the accursed tick off, but it did nothing to stop the Vong soldiers already inside the medical ship. Despite the danger and the battle raging around them, Andrew personally led an assault-shuttle full of marines over to the stricken medical ship.

A recognized master of the Genus Blades, Andrew personally slew nearly a dozen Vong single-handedly in hand-to-hand combat. However, he was much too late to save his wife. He found her in one of the auxiliary medical bays, hanging from the ceiling. The Vong had ritually tortured her, along with the rest of the crew, before killing them all. It was only later, after the coroners were done examining the bodies, that Andrew learned his wife was also pregnant at the time.

This left only Andrew’s son, who was staying with his grandmother on Tetra Genus. Unfortunately, Andrew’s requests for a transfer to the Tetra Genus Defense Fleet were denied. Instead, he was assigned with the rest of the 31st’s remains to the 9th Fleet. The day Tetra Genus was attacked, the 9th Fleet was on patrol half-way across the galaxy. The back-to-back loss, according to most of Andrew’s closest friends, turned a few screws lose in his head. Much like Joseph, Andrew took any and every dangerous assignment he could. However, Andrew’s motivations were much different. Instead of wanting to save as many people as he could, Andrew wanted to kill as many Swarm as he could. Meanwhile, Andrew began to search for the man that had killed his son, the man that had betrayed his own people by killing them all in the h*llish glow of a Stellar Converter. Andrew would never forgive any of them, and he’d kill all of them if he could.

“Captain on deck!!”

The bridge crew of the Avenging Angel, Andrew’s latest ship, came smoothly to attention. Unfortunately, like Joseph, Andrew soon found his sanity called into question by the Federation High Command. If it wasn’t for Andrew’s experience as a ship captain, and his obvious skill at killing Swarm, he would have been dismissed after losing his second ship in battle. However, it was only after his fourth ship had been shot out from under him that the High Command decided Andrew was simply too reckless in battle to command a ship. So, Andrew did like his nemesis had done: stolen a top-of-the-line, experimental warship and sought his own fortunes in the war. The Federation experimental assault frigate Nevermore was soon re-named the Avenging Angel, and after a quick paint job Andrew was free to move about, right beneath the nose of the unaware Federation. Or rather, the uncaring Federation.

“Alright men, we’ve got lots of Snakeheads out there. Let’s kill ‘em all! Start powering up all weapon systems and engines.”

“Yes sir!!”

****************

Onboard the Thanatos, things finally seemed ready for the ship to enter combat.

“All of the passengers are now onboard, sir. We are ready to move.” Thomas reported, and then looked at the tactical screen with a worried expression.

“It seems, sir, that we are one of the last ships to leave dock, due to hauling aboard so many extra passengers. The battle has already started.”

“It won’t be much of a battle anyway. We were just leaving.” Joseph said with a slight smile.

“I suppose so, although try telling that to the casualties.” Thomas replied, watching the green and red dots close in on the tactical screen, and then begin to mix together a short distance away from Wayland Station. Ten of those dots abruptly faded out, as the Gou’ald Motherships activated their cloaking devices.

“Looks like we’re about to be bushwhacked. Stay on your toes, people. They may be planning an attack on Wayland. Helm, get us clear of the station. Weapons Officer, you know what to do.”

“Aye sir.”

However, a moment later it seemed the Gou’ald had another target in mind, as all ten Motherships re-appeared close to the Stellar Voyage. All of them opened fire simultaneously, hammering the Intrepid class ship with a mix of laser and plasma fire. The smaller ship could hardly stand up to so much punishment, despite dodging out of the way for the worst of it, and spun away from the ten larger ships, heavily damaged and clearly crippled. The ten Motherships were not done yet, however, firing a single blue beam into each ship of the fleet, including the Thanatos. Then, the ten Gou’ald ships cloaked again, this time joined by another fifteen of their massive brethren.

“What just hit us?”

“No damage to the shields . . . whatever it was obviously was most ineffective.” The Weapons Officer reported, but the Sensors Officer was quick to correct.

“Not necessarily . . . that beam was actually a taychon particle tracer. Now all they need is the right scanner, and they can follow us to the ends of the galaxy.”

“Son of a b*tch! They’re learning fast, aren’t they?” Thomas growled in frustration, the hope draining out of his face.

“So they can follow us. That doesn’t mean we’re beaten yet, nor that we can’t still fight. Helm, bring us around and set course for the Stellar Voyage. We’ll drop into an escort formation with it, and render what assistance we can. Weapons Officer, feel free to give any nearby Gou’ald an explanation as to why this ship is classified as a Deathdealer leviathan.”

“It’ll be my pleasure, sir.”

A moment later a Gou’ald Deathglider proved to be the first pupil, as a trio of Graviton beams reached out to “clip its wings” – literally. The fighter craft’s shields proved to be no match for such raw power, and it was instantly ripped apart as the graviton beams pulled its hull in three separate directions. The destruction of the Deathglider, however, seemed to be a signal, and seconds later a horde of Deathgliders swarmed over the Thanatos in earnest, peppering its shielded hull with laser fire.

“Communications officer, inform the Flight Commander that the Valkyries are free to launch. But tell them to keep close – this will be quite the dogfight for them, and if they stray too far they might bite off more than they can chew.”

“Yes sir. . . . The Flight Commander reports that the Valkyries will be spaceborn in one minute, sir.”

“Good. Helm, keep us steady on course – these Deathgliders are nothing to fear.”

Joseph’s observation proved to be right, as the Deathgliders weaponry was not powerful enough to penetrate the leviathan’s ships even when fired en-masse. Thus, they were limited to being little more than an annoyance. However, there were things on the other side to fear, and as proof of that a Mothership decloaked directly in front of the Thanatos, weapons already blazing as it began to take shape, seemingly from empty space.

“Weapons Officer, remove that obstacle from our path now!”

“Yes sir!” The Weapons Officer replied, and was quick to obey.

All six heavy plasma cannons fired a moment later, plowing into the Gou’ald mothership’s shields at point-blank range and causing them to flare brightly. However, the plasma blasts did not penetrate, and the Gou’ald mothership returned fire with its own plasma projectiles: dozens of them.

“Weapons Officer, hit that thing with our Tachyon cannons and Omega Torpedo Tubes 1 & 2!” Joseph shouted, bracing himself against his command chair as the bridge shook violently under the Gou’ald assault.

Four brilliant beams of light flashed out from the bow of the Thanatos, followed by two silvery cigars. Considering how close the Gou’ald mothership was, its crew had precious little time to react, and all of the Thanatos’s weaponry struck true. The four tachyon beams burned their way through the Gou’ald mothership’s shields, blackening several sections of armor plating. The two Omega torpedoes blew those armor plates apart as moment later, as well as a significant chuck of the Gou’ald mothership itself.

“Finish it off, Weapons Officer. Omega Torpedo Tubes 3 & 4.”

Two more silvery cigars flew from the front of the Thanatos, and made their way deep into the listing Gou’ald mothership before detonating. The resulting explosion vaporized most of what was left of the capital ship, leaving a few pieces to drift away, and a few pieces to slam against the Thanatos’s shields, before bouncing off and continuing to drift. One such piece, unnoticed by anyone onboard, plowed into a Deathglider as it was deflected away by the Thanatos’s shields.

“Now then, let’s continue to head for the Stellar Voyage’s last known position. She is undoubtedly in need of help.”

As the Thanatos neared the Stellar Voyage’s position, however, Joseph turned out to be wrong. The near-crippled Federation vessel still had plenty of fight left, a fact underlined by the sudden destruction of a super-mothership, caused by the impact of a damaged warp nacelle going at Warp 9. The Stellar Voyage, now devoid of its characteristic warp nacelles, appeared a moment later, firing several photon torpedoes off at a distant Gou’ald mothership.

“Well, it appears that the Stellar Voyage is not as badly damaged as we thought.” Joseph observed, but the Sensors Officer shook her head.

“She’s still badly damaged sir. I’m reading hull breaches on nearly every deck of that ship; it’s a wonder she’s still in one piece. Another couple good hits will probably finish her.”

Joseph nodded thoughtfully, considering his options.

“Communications officer, open a channel to the Stellar Voyage.”

“Channel open, sir.”

“Captain, it would seem your ship has taken quite a beating. We’re here to render what assistance we can. Although it would deprive you of your greatest asset: mobility, you may enter the protection of our shields if you so wish. Captain McKinley out.”

Joseph then motions for the Communications Officer to cut the channel, and considers his options.

“Weapons Officer, begin charging the Stellar Converter. The sooner we can take out those Super-Motherships, the better. Communications officer, open a channel to all friendly ships.”

“Aye sir. Channel open.”

“Attention all friendly ships, this is Captain Joseph McKinley of the Thanatos. If any of you can bring down the shields on one of those remaining Super-Motherships, the Thanatos’s Stellar Converter should be able to take it out. If those shields stay up however, our chances of success are greatly diminished. It’s been an honor to fight alongside all of you. Captain McKinley out.”

Several minutes passed as the battle continued to rage around the Thanatos, and then the Sensors Operator paled.

“Um, sir . . . I think you need to see this.”

“Holy mother of god . . .” The tactical officer whispered, staring at the utterly massive red dot that had just appeared a short distance away from the battle.

“Sensors identify that as a Cerberus class carrier, sir.” The Sensors Officer reported a moment later.

“Aren’t those things supposed to be a myth to scare rookies fresh from the academy?” Thomas grumbled, glaring at the red dot as if that would remove it from existence.

“It will be back to being just a myth soon enough. Weapons Officer, redirect our Stellar Converter to point directly at that . . . thing.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice, sir. Uh oh . . . looks like it’s decided to fire first.” The Weapons Officer reported, tracking the Cerberus’s plasma projectile on the tactical screen. The weapon blast plowed into the first Mothership, nearly destroying it outright.

“God . . . what the h*ck was that? It nearly killed the Mothership in one shot!!!” Thomas exclaimed, looking at the readouts of the Cerberus carrier in shock.

“Some sort of plasma cannon, firing shots similar to our MAC rounds.” The Sensors Officer reported after a moment of study. “The rounds appear to be asteroids, surrounded by a plasma field. We should be able to break them up with concentrated weapons fire before they get to us.”

“Which is a good thing, because we’ve got more of them incoming. Looks like nearly a dozen of them.” The Tactical Officer reported, a thin tickle of sweat making its way down his brow.

“Hmm . . . I have an idea. How about we kill that f*cking thing before it does the same to us?” Thomas said.

“I tend to agree with you. Weapons Officer, if that Stellar Converter is ready to fire, use it.” Joseph ordered, shaking his head in amazement as the dozen or so plasma projectiles began to make their way towards the fleet. A Mothership, equipped with planetary-level shields had barely survived a single shot. What chances did any of the other ships have from surviving a single shot?

“Stellar Converter is charged. Locking onto the Cerberus . . . firing.”

The maw of the Thanatos swung open, and a familiar golden-orange light began to shine forward, stretching out to touch the Cerberus carrier some distance away. However, some sort of energy screen crackled into existence around the carrier’s hull, shielding it from the full fury of the Stellar Converter.

“What the? Some sort of energy shield just sprang up into existence around the Cerberus, sir. It’s absorbing the energy from the Stellar Converter!!”

“What!!? Impossible!!” Thomas exclaimed.

“Nothing is impossible for the Swarm.” Joseph murmured, feeling an icy hand clench around his heart.

Fortunately, there appeared to be limits to this new defense for the Swarm, as the field abruptly collapsed near the end of the Stellar Converter blast. The remaining conversion energy shone forth, touching the bare hull of the Cerberus carrier and converting it into pure energy.

The Cerberus twisted away in pain, a fireball emerging from one side of its “nose” where the Stellar Converter’s beam had touched it. Where the Stellar Converter had managed to hit, there was a blackened crater extending several meters down into the Cerberus carrier’s hull. The wound was near superficial for such a massive ship, however, although it doubtless hurt from the living creature’s perspective. Almost immediately, the massive ship began to slowly swing around, bringing virtually all of its weapons to bear on the Thanatos.

“Looks like the Cerberus carrier lost about 5% hull integrity. Another 10% or so of its outer hull is dead, although I suspect it will be able to regenerate that, given enough time.” The Sensors Operator reported a moment later.

“So in other words, we kicked it in the snout, and managed to do little more than p*ss it off.” Thomas summarized, and then added. “Oh, we also seem to have gotten its attention, something I definitely could do without.”

“Indeed. I think we could all do without that.” Joseph replied as the first of a second wave of plasma projectiles emerged from the Cerberus carrier, and began to head towards the Thanatos.

[No Dachi]

Why did I get singlied out for punishment? I've posted, unlike a lot of people I could mention, and I have a good excuse for not posting further than the one post I did...

The Red Sky At Dawn was almost aware of the incoming projectile before it was fired. With a good deal of mass on it and encased in a layer of plasma, the round was somewhat similar to that of the MAC cannon from Billibridge Station. It was also moving very fast. Luckily the shipmind thought at many, many times human speed and so had a slight chance of escape. Firing all topside manuoevreing thrusters and throwing the advanced drives into full downward movement, the Red Sky At Dawn powered its Effector to full. It examined its trajectory and that of the projectile carefully and realised that the weapon round was still going to strike it a glancing blow. This glancing blow would, however, probably carry sufficient force to cause sufficient damage. The Red Sky At Dawn was left with no choice. With the Effector on full power, it struck the projectile a mighty blow on its underside. The highly volatile plasma ((me not being an expert on advanced physics, here)) instantly exploded, breaking the asteroid into a number of smaller pieces, although each was still travelling at sufficient velocity to cause substantial damage. The Red Sky At Dawn now fired its main armaments. Two Heavy Laser Beams instantly vapourised the two largest sub-particles whilst the four Ion Beam Arrays melted their own targets into oblivion. Still there were a lot of rocks on course to strike the crimson warship. Its Light Mass Drivers b egan to blaze furiously as they closed range, the small hyper-accelerated metal projectiles hitting the oncomig rock with titantic force and shattering it to pieces. Five small fragments of the original large asteroid still got through and struck the warship on its topside. The impact sent the Red Sky At Dawn into a brief spin that was quickly corrected by its manouevreing thrusters, but they also caused severe damage. All five had penetrated the first layer of armoured hull and two had penetrated the second layer, coming to rest somewhere inside the ship's superstructure. The Red Sky At Dawn quickly sent its entire fleet of Repair Drones out to perform 'first aid' on itself. Back and forth over the hull the little robots went, dilligently reapiring their creator and charge. Within a few seconds, the holes in the armour had been patched up with sealant, but the major damage had been done inside the ship. The Reapir Drones returned to their launch tubes before making their way through the internal passageways of the vessel to the damage sites.

The Red Sky At Dawn had other worries, though. It had taken heavy internal damage which had only served to further worsen the power shortages it was feeling fdollow the heavy-duty use of its Effector. An emergency re-charge was needed, but that would require the ship to be vunerable and motionless for a minute or so.

GPC Red Sky At Dawn; LSV Spectral Juror: Deflecting that round has severely drained my power, I need to re-charge. You will need to cover me. I will request help from Admiral Fluffie as well.
LSV Spectral Juror; GPC Red Sky At Dawn: Affirm, moving into guard position.

The smaller, but still very large, shape of the Light Support Vehicle now moved into a protective positoon above the stricked General Purpose Cruiser while the Red Sky At Dawn spoke to Admirial Fluffie via its Displacement Drone.

"Admiral Fluffie," the shipmind began, "I have narrowly avoided a fatal blow from one of the mass drivers of that Cerberus carrier. I will require cover whilst I gain power." The Red Sky At Dawn finished the message quickly before closing the channel to cut its power output, and presently began charging. There was one other thing that needed doing, though. The Cerberus carrier had likely scarred the crimson warship permanently, and this would not do. Six anti-ship missiles were ready, as were tow missiles with very special warheads. The old warship was certain that the special warheads would not be wasted; the blast from the Thanatos' weapon had taken out its shields. Now the Cerberus carrier would pay for its affront to the Red Sky At Dawn. Eight missiles burst from their pods, leaving brilliant gleaming vapour trails, before they locked on to their targets and activated their miniature phase engines. The missiles were designed for long-range use and had to move very fast as such. Presently, the dissapeared from site, and a second later...

Six brilliant white spheres of light blossomed open on the hull of the carrier, weakeneing its strucural integrity further still. More fireballs burst from the side of the gigantic Cerberus vessel, a trail of brilliant flame, flowing like liquid in the near-zero gravity, cascades off into the empty void. But the anti-ship missiles had been but pinpricks on the gigantic carrier's skin, causing very little actual damage, if any at all. No, that honour was reserved for the Red Sky At Dawn's special warheads. Both hit at more-or-less the same time. Two flashes of white light, then, two brilliant balls of white light, similar to those of the anti-ship missiles, but much larger. The Red Sky At Dawn did not like using its fusion warheads, but still carried them, despite its negative incliniation and the fact that there were more effective mass-destructive warheads to put on missiles. But still the old warship retained them, because the explosions that they produced were quite beautiful to watch...

[Fluffie]

The Displacement Drone spoke, requesting the Imperial ships for aid. Taking a short breath and about to speak, the Captain of the Thunderer was quicker, already barking the order to form up with the Red Sky. Seconds later, the Dreadnaught began turning about, the Minotaur following a tad later as the Captain relayed those orders. Smiling at the efficiency of his Captain, the Admiral looked back to the screen showing the unfolding battle which was taking a rather dramatic turn to the worse kind of result...

Those plasmatetic roids of destruction weren't friendly, not at all. With laser fire bursting out from the Dreadnaughts in all directions, striking both closeby Deathgliders and Go'uld Motherships, some batteries redirected their fire at the new, more than just dangerous threats. Well aware that his two ships wouldn't be able to both defend the Red Sky and take down the roids, the Admiral turned to the Displacement Roid again.

"We should be in position to safeguard you now, Red Sky. However, the threat of those asteroids remains... I think my two Dreadnaughts will be sufficient to cover you for another short while, so the Spectral Juror can focuss its full attention on those asteroids - remember, we NEED to protect them..."

While waiting for a reply, Fluffie watches as his Dreadnaughts position themselves so, that their rear turrets both opening up on a single plasmatetic roid (cool wording ++), hoping to inflict damage or at least annoy it enough to make sure she doesn't crash into another Mothership, with all the possibly fatal results as such...

[Wo2]

ARGHHH... I hit backspace to erase a word on my post and the bloody thing went back a page before I could hit the stop button. My post is lost and I don't feel like trying to retype it Right now.

[Bakan]

End of this mission will occur sometime saturday/sunday.

FINAL WARNING: You do not post, you are left behind, and DIE!!!!

[Wo2]

[ooc] Darius=Weapons Officer. Rakia=No1. [ooc/]

*Wo2's skin crawled as the Cerebrus jumped in. It was massive and far too powerfull for him to take it out with the Shadow Wind's weapons. Also he had the problem of being left behind.*

SO: "It's Firing a second volley... Its targeted Mothership #1 again. You know as well as I that it won't take a second hit."

Rakia: "We can't afford to take any losses."

Wo2: "I know but we have that problem of the Impending jump? We'll need to time our move perfectly. Darius! How good is your shot?"

Darius: "Hopefully, good enough."

*Without another word Darius set to work at his weapons station. With fingers flying he targeted one Polaron missile and set it's course as quick as he could. He then slamed his fist on the fire button. The lone missile roared to life and speed out of the missile rack. It moved towards the Plasma round with startling speed. It finally reached it's location but a little late. The onboard computers realized it wouldn't be able to destroy its target so it commanded the warhead to detonate. The resulting explosion forced the alien projectile off course.*

Wo2: "Good shot. That was a little close though. Anyway Analyze the make up of those enemy shots.

SO: "Well they seem to be a asteriod encased in a plasma skin and propeled at high velocity's...heck It's just like a MAC round with plasma."

Wo2: "Well they learn fast, i'll give them that much. Shouldn't our Statis armour be able to stop a MAC round?"

SO: "Yes but that plasma shell would still cause damage."

Wo2: "I'f we set our shields right we should be able to peel that shell right off... Get to work. We are about to draw fire. Darius, lock onto that thing with anything that can hit it at this range and charge up our Particle Beam."

Darius: "Aye sir."

*Wo2 waited for his crew to finish their work so he could implement his plan. As he waited he went over the sensor log's of the Red Sky At Dawn's attack on the carrier. It had barely made it through with a Stella Converter. Wo2 was gratefull for the attack though, because it weakened the shields to a point where he could pierce it with his super-weapon.*

SO: "Modifcations Complete sir."

Wo2: "Good. Darius, get its attention."

*The Shadow Wind opened up with it's heavy Neutron turretes, the purple bolt's lancing towards the massive carrier. The bolt's slamed into the weakened shield and caused it to glow purple, the deadly radiation still seeping through and causing havoc to anything living. The massive ship now knew the Shadow Wind exsited but deiced it still wasn't a threat. The bright blue white light at the front of the Shadow Wind got its attention in a hurry though. The powerfull Particle Beam lanced out from Wo2's ship and slamed into the shields of the carrier. The shields glowed fiercly white for a moment before they collapsed around the beam. The energy from the beam slamed into the ship, on the old wound made by the Stella Converter, digging deep into the ship before finally running out of energy. This got the carrier mad, it targeted the Shadow Wind and fired at it with it's Plasma rounds.*

Wo2: "Those shields better hold... Tie our Navigation in with the fleet, we won't be staying behind."

*The orange blast streaked towards the Shado Wind and slamed against the shields. The plasma shell was taken by the shields, leaving a orange glow around the area of impact. The Stasis armour of Wo2's ship then took the Asteriod and warped the time flow around it, slowing it to a point where when it did hit, it would be too slow to do any damage.*

Rakia: "It worked..."

Wo2: "Tie in our Nav with the fleet and prepare to Jump."

[flapjack]

*flapjack watched the immense cerebus carrier as it fired again and as several of the projectiles where put off course, deciding that he wouldn't leave that carrier behind without at least a couple of scars and a big headache to remember them by*

no1: no major threats to the motherships right now sir, i don't what you're planning but this ship won't hold much longer if we do something stupid.

operations: sir, the shields of that carrier are going down on several locations, its armour is still way to strong for us to do much damage tough

tactical: darned, i wanted to give it some photons.

me: the shields are down, right? then how about we use our transporters for what they're supposed to be used for, helm, set a course for that cerebus, full speed, tactical, keep those fighters off our back, operations, prepare 2 tri-kobalt charges for transporter use, lock the transporters onto whatever appears important on that carrier.

Helm: aye sir, all ahead full and heading towards the carrier, we should be able to make it back in time for the jump.

tactical: they're dead, they're very, very, very dead.

Operations: err, yes sir, but, are you sure it'll work? i mean, it's never properly been tested and we could very well fry our transporters if we do this wrong.

engineering: we're already low on power and now you're going to do what?? The impulse engines are working at full power and our plasma reserves are running low fast.

*The USS Stellar Voyage quickly turned around, moving at even higher speeds then ever before as it strained the impulse drives to their utter limits, phasers firing at deathgliders as they came to close and photon torpedoes being fired at the remaining goa'uld motherships whenever possible. Within seconds the Stellar Voyage had closed the gap between it and the cerebus carrier to such an extent that it was now within transporter range, the hole in its shields slowly beginning to close as it opened fire at the Stellar Voyage with several of its smaller plasma cannons. The shields barely capable of holding the shots back when they impacted.*

Operations: we're within transporter range, we should drop the shields to allow for easy transporting.

Tactical: What? are you nuts, that thing will rip us apart if we drop our shields now.

me: hmm, there's a problem indeed, Operations, can you route all power from the shield generators in the structural integrity field?

Operations: Well, I could, but I'd risk blowing the generators apart.

me: then drop the forward shields and dump all power from the generators directly into the structural integrity field and beam those 2 warheads onto that ship

Operations: shields down, transport in progress

*In space the forward shield arc flickers for a moment before disappearing, at the same time the hull glows a strange blue as the structural integrety field went into overdrive and pushed the field up to over 1000% of its normal power. At the same time the transporters did their work and beamed 2 tri-kobalt warheads off the USS Stellar Voyage and directly into the primary drive section of the Cerebus carrier where they detonated the very moment they finished materializing, sending 2 shockwaves through the massive drives and severely damaging its port engine array. A few moments later the carrier returns fire with some of its weapons, mainly light plasma weapons, luckily doing only little damage thanks to the much reinforced hull integrity field. The Stellar Voyage then turns tail, throwing most of its shield energy into its aft shield and quickly moves into formation with mothership 2*

Operations: oh yes, it'll remember us for certain sir, but we only have 6 tri-kobalt bombs left sir.

Helm: in position for the jump now

[MeakerSE]

From "slipheed" an apropriate game for this setting!

"Look at the size of that thing!"

"Come to a stop, retract the nacelles, divert power to the weapons array and hit in the weakened spot"

As the nacelles retract they dim as power is drawn from them even lighting and life support go down to minimum as the cooling systems are brought up to full load in the nose of the ship, a high pitched humm preceedes a long arc of phaser fire from the cannon, this time however it does not stop, seconds pass as the nose of the ship can be seen to redden, the temperature on the bridge rises as more and more energy is unleashed from the planetary class phaser.

"Time to critical weapons failure 30 seconds"

"Time to critical weapons failure now 25 seconds"

"Warning critical weapons failure in 10, 9 , 8 , 7, 6, 5"

A conduit explodes on the brige for good measure,

"Cease fire, open the nacelles and restore the engines. Keep all auxilary power on the cooling to keep it under control and get us out of here!"

The beam stops abruptly as the nacelles open and brighten visisbly, a sudden wave of enemy fire heads toward the ship as it moves off in an evasive pattern accelerating to full speed. Beads of sweat fall from Meakers forehead as the temperature drops on the bridge.

"Try to form us up with mothership 3 that seems to be where the commands are coming from, and give it some fighter cover and from those asteroids."

[Richpur]

The entire crew stood around in cargo bay seventeen on mothership three looking like a cadet review; lost, confused and hoping someone was going to tell them what they were doing next. Unfortunately the two people they were expecting to tell them didn’t know either, they were going into a battle, they ought to be fighting, but how do you fight when you’re stuck on an unarmed colony ship.

“Do you suppose someone could find me some rocks to throw at them?” Richard grumbles to no-one in particular.

“By the looks of it that’s what they’re using against us.” Rachel replies with a hint of irony as she turns away from the makeshift tactical link. “Just theirs are the size of a small frigate and coated in plasma.”

“Do it yourself MAC rounds?” Richard comments with a certain degree of incredulity. “When we get a new ship remind me to bolt one of them on somewhere.”

[No Dachi]

The Spectral Juror heard the Admiral concern about the Ceberus Carrier's still-operational MAC Cannon, having also been tuned in to the displacement drone by the Red Sky At Dawn. The Light Support Vessel could undertstand the Admiral's anxiety very well. The MAC Cannon on the Cerberus Carrier was primitive but still incredibly powerful. All 12 of those turrets had to be destroyed before they could fire their second salvo, and with the carrier's incredible firepower, it would be far from easy. However, this was just the kind of task that an LSV was designed for. The Spectral Juror quickly spoke to the Imperial Admiral through the displacement drone, still on the birdge of the Thunderer, calculating the time untill the carrier's next MAC Cannon shots as it did so.

"Understood, Admiral. If you and your two Dreadnaughts can keep the swarm ships form attacking me at close quarters, I will be able to eliminate the MAC batteries at range." Said the Spectral Juror, its accent and voice very similar to the Red Sky At Dawn's, but ever so slightly different. With this said, the Spectral Juror closed the channel. Its calculations were finished. The cannons on the carrier would fire again in thirty four seconds. It would need a lot of firepower to take out all ten of the remaining MAC Cannons - two of them had been destroyed by the Red Sky At Dawn's fusion warhead payload. But those warheads had been sent through a hole in the carrier's shields, and the other MAC turrets were positioned in such a way that it would be most difficult to destroy them through the same hole. Fortunatly, a series of powerful attacks form a number of other escorts had severely weakened the carrier's remaining shield arcs. The Spectral Juror's energy weapon contingent was perfectly engineered for taking out what remained of the shields. The LSV settled in its guard position above the Red Sky At Dawn and deactivated its main drives - it would need to conserve as much power as possible in order to sustain a bombardment on the scale that it was planning. The warship, however young, could also see that the commanders and crews of the two Imperial warships were highly dedicated, and it trusted them to keep the swarm vessels from it. Now in position, the Spectral Juror configured itself for an all-out long-range artillery attack. With a merchanical grinding made inaudible by the vaccuum surrounding it, the LSV's weapon batteries deployed. Sliding out from the flawlessly smooth, unbroken outer hull come weapon banks and missile batteries, all facing front toward the Cerberus Carrier, so massive in its design that it dwarfed the comparatively tiny Light Support Vessel. Finally, the Spectral Juror calibrated its weaponry for the range and location of the target and made the final calculations necessary to hit the enemy vessel. With all of this done, the Spectral Juror opened up.

To begin with, the shields had to be destroyed. Immediately, the Spectral Juror's four Ion Beam Arrays opened up, each firing in turn so that a constant stream of energy was striking the Cerberus Carrier's front shield arcs. Firing in this way, the Spectral Juror would be able to sustain a continuous ion bombardment of the enemy carrier's shields without the Arrays overheating. Again and again the cannons lit up as they discharged their energy beam at the target, holding fire for five seconds before falling silent again, only for the next array to open fire immediately after it. The beams, a brillaint blue-white colour, struck the carrier's front shield arc head on, making them glow first a slight blue, then all the way up to pure white as they gradually gave way to the constant stream of weapon energy hitting them. Finally, two explosions burst from the hull of the carrier as the shield generators finally give up the ghost and blew out. The carrier was now only protected on the front port arc, the angle form which the Spectral Juror was firing, by its thick armour - still a formidable barrier to any kind of weapon. Unfortunatly for the carrier, the LSV was not yet finished. With a hole now blown in the target's outer defenses, the warship was determined to take out the other shield arcs, opening the carrier up to bombardment from all angles. Suddenly activating its advanced drives again, the LSV surged forward toward the enemy carrier, EMP Burst Emitters running hot. Before the massive enemy ship could bring its main cannons to bear, the newest warship of the Ancients was upon it, flitting through the hole in its front port shields. Immediately the EMP Burst Emitters flashed bright blue as they puled electromagnetic radiation at the remaining shield generators sitting on the outside of the ship's hull. Inside the generators, wiring melted and elextronics exploded under the radiation bombardment; the carrier's shields were torn apart internally and, quickly, fell. All that remained now was the carrier, its hull exposed and its drives taken out. The Spectral Juror checked back at the little clock it had made to show the time untill the Cerberus Carrier's next MAC Cannon salvo. Twelve seconds. The little warship would have to act fast. Swinging back in a half-loop upwards and over the carrier once more, the warship rotated lengthways so that its topside was facing the enemy carrier. The LSV was now taking light weaponry fire, but none of that mattered. If the MAC Cannons fired again, the damage they would cause to the fleet would be horrific. The Red Sky At Dawn had instilled in the Spectral Juror a sense of duty to the peaceful races of the galaxy, and this sense of duty compelled the LSV to take out the MAC batteries whether or not it itself was destroyed in the process. The Spectral Juror fired its 2 Shock Missiles. At such close range, the missiles hit the carrier almost immediately. Two sections of the carrier's hull, each around 100 metres in diameter and centered on a MAC cannon turret each began to glow red, then, in less than a second, they glow increased in intensity to white before the section exploded in a great pillar of light and flame rushing out into the void. When the debris cleared, both MAC cannons were gone. Eight left. Once more, the LSV dived down on the carrier, moving fast enough that the carrier's lighter weapons had trouble training themselves on it. The Spectral Juror targetted its Light Mass Drivers, four on one of the MAC batters, four on another, and fired. Four metal slugs, hyperaccelerated, smashed into each of the massive turrets. The Spectral Juror had calculated their trajectories very precisely with data from its sensors. The slugs cut through power conduits, targetting mechanisms, reloading mexhanisms and, one for each cannon, the projectiles themselves being loaded into firing positions. At once, the volatile plasma coating the massive asteroids exploded, blowing both turrets apart. Six MAC batteries remained, but the Spectral Juror had fired all of its main anti-subsystem weaponry. The Light Mass Drivers and the Shock Missile Batteries would take another twenty seconds to load each, and the LSV did not have enough power left to fire its Ion Beam Arrays or EMP Burst Emitters. It had failed...

But no, another warship, large - around the size of a cruiser - was plummeting down toward the Cerberus Carrier...

---

The Bemühung's main drives blazed brilliant white, working at full capacity to propell the Patrol Cruiser toward its target at incredible speed. Captain Kriegern sat in his command chair. The manouevre was risky and would possibly lose him and his crew their lives, but the crew of the other warships that attacked the carrier had faced the same risks with courage in their hearts and duty in their minds, and Kriegern and his crew would do the same. The Captain looked at the viewscreen's image of the gigantic carrier looming ever closer as the Bemühung dived down on it. The Captain looked to the Senior Sensor Officer.

"Range?" He ordered an answer rather than asked for one. None of the bridge crew would mind by now. They knew the Captain was cool to the point of ice under fire, but also that he considered the bridge to be no place for unnecessary courtesy whilst in the lines of battle.

"We are two kilometres out and closing fast, sir." Replied the Senior Sensor Officer, having been through enough battles herself to know not to add any frills to the reply. The Captain nodded, then turned to the Coms Officer.

"Tell the Flight Controller that he is to release all five Heavy Bombers from their racks at four hundred metres out. Sensors, give a continous uplink of our range to the Flight Controller's console."

"Aye sir," the Coms Officer replied, quickly relaying the message to the Flight Controller. The Senior Sensor Officer said nothing, but Kriegern could see from his command chair that she was performing the ordered task. The Captain's plan was risky but, he thought, warranted. The Bemühung was currently diving on the enemy carrier at maximum speed. At exactly four hundred metres from the carrier, the cruiser's five heavy bombers would launch from their racks. With their parent vessel travelling at such incredible speed, the heavy bombers would need no time to accelerate, they would dive down on one MAC Cannon turret each, presicion-blast it to oblivion and then activate their engines, putting full power to them and pulling up before straking off to rejoin the cruiser. The Bemühung itself would put two anti ship missiles into the sixth and final MAC turret before pulling up sharply and moving back toward the Motherships with every bit of the haste with which it had descended on the Cerberus. The Bombers, being much fast than the Cruiser with all their power put to their engines, would catch up with their parent vessel and be taken back on board, just in time for the Bemühung to jump out. The Captain's heart was pounding. This could well be the death of him, but even if the Bemühung was gutted by energy weapons fire before it released its payload, travelling at this epeed it would crash into the carrier with enough force to do some serious damage. Just like the kamikaze pilots of old Earth, the Captain thought to himself vaguely. Kriegern had always been interested in military history.

"Sir, our front shields are taking heavy fire from enemy plasma batteries," one of the three Junior Sensor Officers reported, his face anxious, "we can only take this level of fire for six more seconds." the man finished, his report punctuated by the entire ship bucking sharply upwards. Captain Kriegern looked once more to the Senior Sensor Officer, her face still impassive and emotionless despite the possibility of impending death.

"Range?" Once more, demaning the answer.

"A kilometre and closing, sir," she responded quickly. The Captain nodded. The seconds passed by like hours, then, suddenly-

"The shields are down!" the same Junior Sensor Officer shouted again, and immediately the ship began to buck and jump in all directions as the Energy Shields failed, instead the full force of the enemy guns making every shot felt to the crew. But, immediately after the man's panicked shout came the much more calm voice of the Gunnery Officer.

"Firing both anti-ship missile tubes! Tube one fired, tube two fired, both torpedoes hit!" On the viewscreen, one of the MAC Cannon turrets was obliterated by the tremendous explosions caused by the impacting anti-ship missiles. Immediately, the helmsman pulled the nose of the cruiser up. The hull of the carrier rushed past the viewscreen, so close that Kriegern could pick out individual features on its surface before they vanished again. Unseen to any of the crew on the ship, all five Heavy Bombers spiralled toward their targets, moving with such speed that they could not be hit, before releasing all eight of their heavy missiles along with as many plasma bombs as they could fire off before pulling up again. Five explosions burst from the MAC turrets, then, when the smoke cleared, the turrets were gone. The Bemühung raced back toward the Motherships, the heavy bombers running fast to catch up. Almost out of nowehre, two Deathgliders descended and immediately two of the helpless, unarmed and unwieldy bombers were no more. Kriegern saw this on the viewscreen, his stomach falling. That was four men dead.

"Coms, order Flight Control to release all fighters, I want those Deathgliders taken out!" barked the Captain. The Coms Officer complied immediately, and within secons Kriegern saw a flight of six medium fighters descend on the Deathgliders. The sudden counter-attack caught the Deathgliders by surprise, and within seconds both were blown away by concentrated laser fire.

"Incoming Mothership to starboard!" Came a report from one of the JSOs, and the enemy ship loomed up on another viewscreen. Captain Kreigern briefly stared Death in his empty eye sockets, only see a series of explosions engulf the bow of the enemy Mothership. Under heavy fire, the Ghou'uld ship turned away. A few seconds was all the Bemühung needed to escape.

"What was that?" Asked the Captain, before his question was answered by a voice reverberating around the bridge from the speakers. The Captain looked up at the Coms Officer to see him just as mystified as the rest of the crew.

"Attention UNSF Teuton Class Medium Patrol Cruiser Bemühung, this is the Light Support Vessel Spectral Juror, I have your approach covered, maintain your present course and speed." Said the voice, and immediately Kriegern saw the sense in complying. On another viewscreen, the Captain saw the little warship that he had seen attack the carrier swoop overhead like some majestic bird of prey, guns blazing in all directions. The Navigation Officer, partner to the Helmsman, now looked at his console in a puzzled manner.

"Sir, the warship has transmitted jump co-ordinates to us, and locked them into our navigational computer." The Navigation Officer was clearly worried, but the Captain merely shrugged.

"This ship is obviously our friend, and apparently it wants us to follow it. Let us do so, I see no harm in it." Then, glad to be alive despite the odds, the Captain relaxed back into his seat, letting the combined anxiety and worry and fear flow out of him. On two viewscreens showing the stern and port docking bays, the Captain could see the last of the fighters coming safely home...

Both the Spectral Juror and the Bemühung now sped away from the Cerberus, both having taken serious damage. The Spectral Juror's once pristine and flawless outer hull was now scorched from plasma blasts and dented from light mass driver fire, and the young warship was very much aware of a rather major fire raging in a small hull breech on its topside. A light mass driver round from the Cerberus Carrier had penetrated its outer hull and torn through a power conduit near the surface of the warship, then gone further down still and pierced a gas vent. Highly inflammable gas combined with sparks from the ruptured conduit to form a stream of red-orange flame flowing out into space and trailing a line of fire and smoke behind the LSV as it retreated back toward the Mothership. Repair drones fought the blaze desparately but efficiently, using their miniature Effectors to block the gas vent off whilst others repaired the ruptured power conduit. with this finally done, they patched up the gas vent, but the blaze had already caused widespread internal damage, particularly to the vital fire control circuitry running up and down the ship's port side. This would require extensive and detailed repair work by specialist drones carried aboard the Red Sky At Dawn. The Spectral Juror largely tried to ignore the damage - the injury - and instead concentrated on safeguarding the Patrol Cruiser that had finished off its job. If anything, the Cruiser - named the Bemühung - was even worse off that itself. Both of its main shields were blown out and would require extensive repairs; the Spectral Juror had already dispatched some repair drones to assess the damage and see what they could do in the short term, and it looked bad. The large warship had breached on several decks, which human damage control teams were currently trying to patch up, and was losing atmosphere between this and a small number of internal fires, which the Captain of the vessel had informed the LSV were under control, but still burning nonetheless. The Captain had, however, reported a large number of wounded were overwhelming medical staff. The LSV had been quick to remember that the Red Sky At Dawn carried a, very small, number of medical drones, but it would be unable to deploy them untill they had jumped to safety. Almost absent-mindedly, the Spectral Juror tracked an approaching Deathglider with two of its Light Mass Drivers and blew it out of the sky. It had survived its first battle, and that was something...

[Crazyboy]

"Engines stabalising. Coolant systems holding. Power surge disabled."

"Bring us back towardst the motherships. Ahead full"

*The Darkstar, having stopped spinning, jetted back towards the Motherships, shot past the Gou'ald ship that they had attacked, fire pouring out of holes in its armour as it driffed lifelessly towards the planet, sucked in by its gravity.*

"Find the nearest thread to the motherships and lock us... Holy..."

*Just as Crazy was speaking, the massive Cerberus Carrier appeared, virtually on top of the Darkstar. If it wasn't for the melded pilot, and his split second reflexes, the small ship would have slammed straight into the back shields of the cruiser. However, due to his AI enhanced reflexs combined with him beind melded with the ship, his reaction times were vastly increased. The Darkstar dived, suddenly changing course. Its bottom shields burst to life as they made contact with the shields of the carrier. The little ship bounced away from the ship and skirted under it*

"What the hell... where did that come from"

[i]"Unknown sir. Its big, its bad and its just opened up on one of the motherships. Shit its got some powerful guns. Mothership #1 just took a hell of a beating. Looks like its firing some sort of MAC rounds. Coated in plasma. Its got twelve of them. Its firing again. On the motherships, wayland station and the Red Sky."

"Crap. Get us an intercept course on those projectiles. We Have to take them out before they hit home. Target the one heading towards Motherhip #1 first. Thats the must vunerable ship. She won't ba taking another hit. Then target the nearest ones in order. We might be able to save at least a few of the ships"

*The Darkstar shot under the belly of the massive carrier, shots from its smaller guns blasting past behind the ship as it accelerated even more to chase down the plasma projectiles. A purple glow emanated from the tips of the ships stubby 'wings', housing the smaller guns, as they charged up. The ship pulled up as it cleared the front of the carrier, aligning itself with the shot heading for Mothership #1. As it came into range, the Darkstar fired. The purple quantum bolts smashed into the round. The first shots hitting the back end, causing it to spin, heading slightly up from the mothership. The second volley hit it square on, the shots piercing the plasma coating, and at the same time causing it to detonate. The quantum bolts smashed into the asteriod inside the plasma coating, cutting it open, as the plasma exploded. The round detonated, sending tiny shards of rock in all directions, and catching a deathglider in the process, which went spinning into the shields of another escort*

"Round #1 down. Locking in the second."

*The pilot of the Darkstar calculated how much time they would have to hit the remaining 5 rounds before they impacted. It would be tight. They would have precisly 36 seconds to take out each round before they impacted. Tight, but it could be done. He diverted power from the auxillery fusion drives into the engines to give them more acceleration, as they charged after the second round. This one was heading at Mothership #5. Once again, purple shots from the Darkstar lit up space. The shots this time slammed into the front of the projectile causing it to almost stop, before it erupted into a ball of flame. This time very little of the asteroid inside the coating of plasma survived and only a little debry floated from the explosion. The Darkstar banked sharply, coming in behind the third round. It lined up almost immeditly, and the light quantum bolt cannons flared to life as they spewed forth their firepower. Eight shots hit squarly in the back of the round, causing the volitile plasma coating to erupt in a ball of fire. This boosted the asteroid inside to higher speeds, meaning the explosion only took out two thirds of it, but all the plasma coating had erupted. The remains of the asteroid hurtled towards Mothership #4 and hit it near the bottom, bouncing off its shields and bracking up.*

"Three down, two to go"

*The Darkstar jerked, stopped, and dived down as a round skimmed over its head.*

"Didn't realise we had over taken one"

*The ship turned, facing under the round and blasted it. The shots caused the round to fly off course, hurtling off harmless into the void.*

"The last round is heading at Mothership #3. Its accelerating still. Its out of range of our bolt cannons!"

*The ship turned and followed after the plasma round. The pilot divereted the last of the power from the auxillery fusion reactors and dumped it into the engines, before the fusion drives red lined and had coolant dumped into them, as they were shutdown. The Darkstar jolted forward as its acceleration suddenly increased five fold.*

"Round is 500meters from Mothership. Still out of range of our light guns. Diverting all weapon power into main forward cannon. I just hope it doesn't cut through into the mothership"

*The main forward beam weapon of the Darkstar lit up and streaked across space. The plasma projectile hurtled towards Mothership #3. Shots from other escorts streaked past behind it. The purple beam from the Darkstar sliced through space and impacted on the side of the round, before raking across its middle. The shot lasted 2 seconds, before ending, having sliced the asteroid clean in half. The plamsa coating seemed almost uneffected, till it changed from the ghostly blue of super heated plasma, to white, as it had been heated up even more. So much more that the asteroid it was coating melted, till it had all seeped away from the coating and small lumps of rocks bounced around space. The plasma, menwhile, was still hurtling towards the mothership, albeit off course from its target. One half of the plasma missed totally, and carened right into a Gou'ald ship. The other, however, smashed into the port side of Mothershp #3...*

[Wo2]

Don't read other post's eh crazy? The shot that was Aimed at Mothership #1 was already blown off course by my missile. Just thought I'd let you know.

[Crazyboy]

I do read other posts. Just have a bad memory =/

[Wo2]

oh ok then.

[Heiro]

One must remain calm in these situations. The words echo around inside his head, before dissolving into the midst of other thought, tactics and vocalised plans parting before the utter calm of his original panicked mind. Anarchy it seems is a way of life for this mind, breaking and deserting things before he can even begin to conceive there usefulness to the world. Regretfully the plan he settled on had less successfully been added to the list of possibly useful, and started off being left alone to fester in the mess of adjectival science. The idea pops to the forefront of his mind that second, and looking haphazardly at the room he hesitates, wishing for something else more logical, more… passable. Telling his mind to sod off, he looks at her, her beauty, and begins to reconsider. Shame its too late, really.

Leaning to the left, he continues the train of thought. The beeps from the consoles scratch at his ears to listen and he continues seeming existentially away until Laura shakes him

“You alright?”
“Erm, yes… fine…I think.”
“You think?”
“Occasionally, yes”

She looks him in the eye, giving him a horrid face before looking at the screen. Diverting his eyes from her mesmerising body, he smirks. Before he sees the screen that is…

“Well. May I just be the first to say it.”
“…”
The crew’s obvious silence scares him, which sends shock waves through his ideas, rippling them infinitely before feeling over half of them break and shatter under the pressure.

“Holy Shit.”

All eyes, except the helm who are piloting with all earnest, flick to the viewer. The enormous mass of hull of the Carrion Cruiser flashes up, and breaks out the crews chilled sweat. A couple of men step from their stations and start whispering prayers, before getting up and returning. However, Drakes mind continues whirling through options, as it was trained to do.

“Helm, charge the warp plasma reactor, we need some precision working, right now!”
“Aye, charging. It’ll be at full power in under a minute Drake.”
“Good. Turn everything we don’t need off. Take us slowly into the mass of fighters, make sure you don’t miss men.”
They chorus; Aye, before the guns begin their standard firing patterns, smashing scores of gliders down in the minutes they work.

Inside, the electrons fire, and the numbers click around, he calculates the time he needs, the chance of success and the survival chances. His mind then proceeds to ready his body for a heart attack. Breaking into a deeper, more frozen sweat, he stands up and looks at the pads. The calculations start furiously again, before he sits back down. No human could make that time, its… just impossible. Wiping his forehead, he looks forlornly around the room. Scanning the viewers again, he looks at the main hull in more detail. The crew gasp, almost in unison, as drake sighs. He jumps to his feet, before pushing past a gaping crewmember, and pulling one of the helmsmen from his seat. Grabbing the sticks, he focuses his mind on the task. Realising that its futile to concentrate, and use only the illogical guessing that comes with instinct, he hits the equivalent of the big red button of commands. Hitting the last key, the ship jolts horrendously, shifting everything backward, stretching it, and bending it against the laws of physics that hold it in place. A loud pop fills the cabin, and they are plunged into blackness…

[Hewitt]

*In another part of the battle the Yamato found herself caught in amongst a group of G'oauld motherships. Energy beams filled the void of space as ship after ship fired at the heavily modified WWII ship while trying to avoid the return fire from their prey. Long since Hewitt had called the black tiger squadron back into the relative saftely of the Yamato's hanger bay for there was certainly no place for fighters in this heavy weaponary firefight.*

TO: Sir! That big-ass living swarm ship of doom just launched another volley of those plasma pseudo-MAC thingies at the motherships!!

Hewitt: Helm! Get us into a covering position NOW!

Helm: But sir, there are G'oauld motherships all over us! How am I supposed to get through them?

*As if to back up his point the control bridge suddenly shook under yet another direct hit to Yamato's conning tower.*

Hewitt: We'll fire a volley of type-1 torps into anything that gets into our way just get us into position!!

Helm: Ok sir...

*With a surge of energy to the ships main drive the Yamato's forward acceleration increases. One of the five enemy motherships engaged with the Yamato angles inward to try and cut her off and receives a full volley of six anti-ship torpedoes as a reward. The high-yield warheads rip through shield and armour and turn the enemy ship into a giant ball of exploding incandensant gas and energy...*

Helm: Hang on!

*...which the Yamato runs straight into.*

Hewitt: *&#$!!!

*Hewitt's world becomes bathed in a variety of bright yellows, oranges and dull reds as his ship is rocked continuously by the violence going on around his ship. Debris bouncing off the Yamato's hull plating is heard quite clearly as she continues her fight through hell and on a vast number of occasions Hewitt finds himself wondering how in all things good and holy did that one massive bang not send them all into oblivion. The insane flight through the exploding mothership seems to last forever but in reality takes but a mere few seconds. When the orange lights clear to once again reveal the void of space Hewitt finds that he is covered in sweat.*

Helm: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Let's do that again!

Hewitt:Just get us into position please.

*With clear space now in front of the Yamato she begins to pull away from the pursing enemy motherships, if ever so slightly. Her rear shock cannon batteries catch one enemy ship with a full volley causing it to immedately drop back to recharge it's shielding. The light shock cannons continuously exchange fire with the motherships. Blast for blast they slightly lower the shields of the two ships now at the front of the small group while plasma scarring continued to mar the once pristine silver hull of the Yamato.*

Hewitt: We can't do much with those enemy ships on our ass. Fire another WM missile volley WO, three for the ship that just dropped off and five each for the others. Stagger the launch as usual.

WO: Yes sir, locking onto targets... preping launch tubes...

No.1: That's gonna leave us with but a single volley sir. After that, unless we can find a place that can dupilcate the alien tech of those missiles...

Hewitt: I'm well aware of the consequences No.1.

*One by one the launch tubes housing the wave motion missiles opened up all the way along the Yamato's control section. Nine seperate pairs of the deadly cruise missiles shoot forth from their cylindrical prisons free to go forth and wreak the havoc they had been designed for. With the enemy ships so close they had littile warning of their impending doom and before they could react the first two ships in the group of four were hit one by one with no less than five missiles each. One missile was enough to cause the shields to waver the second blew them out completely on both of the first two victims. After that there was no hope for the G`oauld and Jaffa onboard as the three remaining missiles tore into each ship as if their armour was made from tinfoil.
The third ship was a bit further back and was able to shoot down one of the incoming missiles with a laser volley. But already having suffered a severe blow from the Yamato's shock cannons the two other missiles assigned to the cripped ship made short work of her and soon there was three giant exploding balls of incandesant gas.
The last ship by now was doing everything it could to pull back and shoot down the group of WMM's. She took down one missile with a cross hatching of laser beams and a second with a lucky shoot from a plasma turret but the others flew onwards and soon two of the powerful weapons systems were exploding against her shields. The last WMM flew past the bright streaks of laser fire, beyond the invisible barrier where the shields should've been and smashed dead center into the pyramid structure of the enemy mother ship, exploding tremendously. Bits and pieces of the ships hull and armour plating flew in all directions but the ship held together and as the exploding gas cleared it showed that the missile had left one full face of the pyramid black with a large crater pin pointing the location of impact.

The ship was left drifting uncontrolably, escape pods erupted from her unspoit surfaces but the ship still did remain.*

WO: We're clear sir.

Hewitt: Right, now to take care of those asteriods...

*Up ahead were the five magnificent shapes of humanities last ditch effort for survival. Not far away, five green blobs screamed towards them at tremendous speed and further still was the terrifiying sight of the 25km beast that had spawned them. As the Yamato closed into a covering position two of the green blobs of doom were dispatched by other ships in the escort fleet while others did there best to beat the crap out of the swarm carrier. G'oauld ships still buzzed about the battlefield but their numbers were notably much less than when they arrived.*

Hewitt: Ok, it looks like we're gonna have to take care of three of the buggers you think you can handle that WO?

WO: Just tell the poxy git driving this bucket of bolts to keep her steady while I make good use of the pea-shooters at my disposal.

Helm: Whatever you say you trigger-happy ninny. *grins*

Hewitt: ffs, just shoot the damn things already.

*Cruising along at breakneck speed, the Yamato moves onward towards the motherships. Bringing all of her main batteries to bare she crosses in front of mothership #5 and lets loose with a massive volley that visibly rolls the Yamato to one side. Fifteen bluish-green energy beams made up of a volitile mix of plasma, tachyon particles and other mean nuclear-like stuff streak outwards at the incoming psuedo-MAC round and hit it dead on, blowing the hyped-up piece of rock into space dust.*

WO: Sir, the charge cycle on the heavy's isn't fast enough!

Hewitt: Try for a deflection then hurry!

*The Yamato's Medium shock cannons were the only ones ready when the time came to do something about the round headed for mothership #4. Using a decade of experience as a freelance gunner, the WO made the appropriate calculatiations, said a quick prayer then opened fire on the next pseudo-MAC round. The six beams of the medium cannons were not enough to destroy the incoming projectile alone but they still carried a large punch and when the sextet of energy collided with the plasma-induced roid it sent the thing off at almost a right angle, away from the motherships.*

WO: YES!! Two down! One to go!

*The last round was headed for mothership #2 and was getting close. It was very likely it would hit first before the Yamato could bring her guns to bare. Hewitt glanced at the motherships he was trying to protect when he noticed something and got a particularly insane idea.*

WO: It's no good sir, by the time all weapons are charged the round will be in front of us and by then deflection will do little good sir.

*Ignoring the lament of his weapons officer, Hewitt took a few quick strides over to the main sensor screen and studied it quickly.*

Yes... it might just work...

Hewitt: Helm, when I say 'go', I want you to turn hard to port.

Helm: But sir!! That will run us straight into the motherships!! ( )

Hewitt: Trust me on this. Do what I say and we all leave from this as heroes understood?

Helm: But-

Hewitt: UNDERSTOOD!?

Helm: Eep, yes sir...

WO: Sir, I don't underst-

Hewitt: WO, at the same time I want you to count to two and unleash hell upon that last rock.

WO: The turn will bring our guns to bare... sir I'm no helmsman but I know this bucket of bolts is no agile fighter... I sure as hell hope you know what your doing sir...

Hewitt: Don't I always? *grins*

*The Yamato was now running alongside mothership #3 on her way to stop the roid headed for ship #2. But the deadly swarm round was less than two kilometres away and closing.*

WO: It's almost in front of us sir.

Hewitt: just a little longer...

SO: One kilometre from impact.

WO: She's now dead ahea-

Hewitt: GO!!!

*Suddenly the Yamato drew all the attention of the motherships from the psuedo-MAC to itself as she turned right at the mothership #3. As she sweep steeply to port her main guns swung around and drew aim at the last roid now only five hundred metres away.

Then the Yamato fired.

Fifteen beams of energy struck the asteroid only 200 metres from mothership #2. The nasty swarm roid was blown to smittereens almost instantly, showering the intended target with a thick cloud of space dust and burnt off energy.
Onboard Yamato however, there was no celebrations as everyone onboard the bridge was staring wide-eyed at the immense white hull of mothership #3 filling their viewscreens.*

Helm: Oh crap, oh crap, oh craaaap!

*The whiteness grew more and more detailed as the helm struggled to bring the ship out of the suicidal turn. But he did little more than straighten her up. Hewitt watched on and for a brief second wondered on how wrong he was as he found himself able to read all the warning messages on mothership #3's larger panels...

...and then suddenly the whiteness dissappeared and the black void of space returned!*

Random Mothership #3 personnel 1: *staring out a view port* God this is dull.

Random Mothership #3 personnel 2: *drinking coffee* Yeah tell me about it. I thought space battles were supposed to be exciting. *sip*

VVVRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Random Mothership #3 personnel 1: Sweet jesus!!

Random Mothership #3 personnel 2: *spills coffee* $@%#&!! *gags* !&%@! *coughs* !&@! !&^!!

*The Yamato just managed to narrowly miss mothership #3 but had saved mothership #2 from the evil swarm roid and rocketed in between the two massive behemoths unhinded.

Onboard there was much rejoicing (and relief).*

Hewitt: Ok, bring us alongside mothership #2 and get ready for the jump.

Helm: *sweating profusely* Aye aye sir...

[Planetkiller II]

"Fire a couple more shots to keep off pursuers, then get us into position for the jump."

ooc// sorry I can't do a proper post at the moment, I just don't have the time //ooc

[Fluffie]

Originally Posted by Hewitt

Helm: Oh crap, oh crap, oh craaaap!

*The whiteness grew more and more detailed as the helm struggled to bring the ship out of the suicidal turn. But he did little more than straighten her up. Hewitt watched on and for a brief second wondered on how wrong he was as he found himself able to read all the warning messages on mothership #3's larger panels...

...and then suddenly the whiteness dissappeared and the black void of space returned!*

Random Mothership #3 personnel 1: *staring out a view port* God this is dull.

Random Mothership #3 personnel 2: *drinking coffee* Yeah tell me about it. I thought space battles were supposed to be exciting. *sip*

VVVRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Random Mothership #3 personnel 1: Sweet jesus!!

Random Mothership #3 personnel 2: *spills coffee* $@%#&!! *gags* !&%@! *coughs* !&@! !&^!!

hehehehehhe hehehehe

[Shadow275]

Do have a post, will get it, it will be here.

Just let me read the others, see what's up with the carrier first.

[Shadow275]

Farle threw the last ‘guest’ into the 19th Silverwing shuttle, the guest didn’t exactly enjoy the fact he was cramped into the one man shuttle with another person, but he surmised that it would be better to be alive and cramped than go on a suicide mission with that man.

-

“Ai, launch the shuttles, full evasive, get them to one of the motherships.”

Shuttles launched, they are on the way to the mothership.

“Hope they don’t mind alittle company, we can’t have them here for this next thing. Charge the cannon to maximum power now.”

Cannon charging

“And charge the dimension drive”

I hope you know what your doing, charging drive.

*Farle tapped into a control panel, he activated the plasma field shield.

Plasma bloomed from outlets, directed by magnetic fields; it spread out thinly over the ships hull, leaving only the engines not covered. It shimmered as more drive plasma was pumped into the constricting magnetic field, turning the plasma to a dark shaded orange, the colour of a dying sun. Eventually, a meter of boiling, churning plasma covered the hull, its beauty magnified by the plasma’s destructive power.

“Activate the radio transceiver.”

Channel open

“Fleet, this is Captain Farle Shadow of the Fallen Angel. I am about to engage the carrier, please keep me reasonably free of enemy ships until I get near it, then I’ll take it from there. This is Farle, signing off.”

Channel closed. What are we doing then?

“Transfer drive controls to me. Status on D-drive and cannon?”

Dimensional drive currently at 92%. Polytech cannon currently at 84%. You have control of drives.

“Excellent, enable the creation reactor and task that off to me”

Sir?

“Do it.”

*Farle felt the reactor connect to his link, he could feel every one of the hundreds of trillions of nanites in the core. It threatened to overspill his link, he acted and quickly turned down the squelch on the system. He went to work, removing the non-critical bulkheads between the polytech cannon and the D-drive. While those nanites worked, he used others to build a conduit, a superconductor wrapped with copper, he laid down the conduit, connecting one end to the polytech cannon’s shell chamber and the other connected directly into the core of the D-drive. He turned the programming to automatic and left them to do their collective jobs.

“Fire engines, maximum thrust”

Fusion drives engaged

The Angel’s quad fusion drive flared, spitting plasma, it suddenly bit and the mass of the ship started to accelerate away from the motherships. The ship headed 30 degrees up from the carriers position, dodging most of the incoming fire, it’s speed increased.

“Give me distance from carrier and angle”

10,000 km, 56 degrees downward

The ship accelerated onward, the enemy weapons fire had a hard time tracking the vessel, but eventually caught up with the speedy ship and fired several medium sized shells toward it. As they approached, the plasma started to become slightly unstable, as the shells entered the field they were melted away by the insanely high temperatures.

7,000 km, 80 degrees downward, Drive and cannon fully charged.

“This is where the fun starts, hack the mothership’s computer, copy all the hyperspatial data”

Oh dear, I have predicted what you are about to do, download is complete

“Then lets do this.”

*Farle threw the ship into a near 90 degree downward turn, the ships hull creaked against the massive stress it was put under. The turn stopped and the vessel was pointed directly at the hole the stellar converter had made and that Wo2 had opened up. It belted toward the carrier, the carrier’s guns already having realised that it was a threat and should be shot down. The weapons fire came down hard and fast, using up the plasma in the field around the ship quickly, the field fell quickly, the shots rained onto the hull, the tri-poly creaked and moaned. Complaining about the stress it was being put under, yet it held.

100 km.

“Emergency reverse thrust! Full Reverse!”

*The ships engines span around and fired. The hull strained against this new force, the structural integraty field used up all its reserves keeping the hull in one piece. The ship flew straight into the hole, immediately ripping all of the ion cannons from the hull and half of the rail guns. The ship impacted with the bottom of the hole with great force, Farle was thrown from his seat and banged his head into a nearby control panel. He groaned, rolling onto his back and rubbing his temple.

“Report!”

Lost all ion turrets, half of the rail guns, heavy damage to structural, nanites have been deployed to repair all damage.

“Arm the D-drive now!”

*A large piece of ship armour slid back, cutting through the biological ship around it, a large pylon emerged from the newly made hole, penetrating into the hull of the carrier with ease. Biological fluids started to flow into the newly made space, the pylon stopped extending at its maximum distance and sent the deployed signal back to the ship. 5 other pylons deployed around the ship, extending on all planes around the ship.

Drive armed

“Transfer cannon and drive control to me”

Done…wait a sec….oh f..

Farle fired the cannon.

---

Inside the reactor chamber.

The main reactor stood suspended in the centre of the room, five massive conduits started slinking out of the 5 sub-reactors held in a star shape with the main reactor in the centre. They wormed their way toward the main reactor, seeking the docking ports, finally reaching them they flared and lept into the port. The clamps slamming shut.

The main reactor glowed, the fusion reaction inside powering the vessel, the massive power output now being put to good purpose, firing the cannon. The reaction became more furious as injectors pumped more hydrogen into the mix, then a catalyst to speed it further. The ship’s lights dimmed as extra power was diverted to the reactor’s containment shielding. The 5 sub-reactors started to power-up, plasma diverted from the main reactor and injected into the sub-reactors. They burned, generating yet more energy to power the almighty cannon blast.

A containment vessel mounted in the reactor chamber started to glow, lightening jumped from it as polytechumantium was dumped into it. It stewed, creating minute amounts of antimatter, antiprotons and antineutrons. The reactor’s computer started to load fusion plasma into the vessel, giving the reaction yet more energy, plasma was pumped in until the reaction was close to critical mass. The plasma pump was then deactivated.

The Containment vessel’s energy levels increased exponentially as the hydrogen fused with hydrogen, releasing more energy into the mixture. The sensors registered the massive energy increase and informed cannon control that it was ready to be fired

Farle stepped in at this point, directing the massive amount of cannon energy down the only just finished conduit. The conduit exploded, a line of fire was created as the massive amount of energy burned away the superconductor, like a lightening bolt hitting a wire. The massive amount of energy only took 2 seconds to reach the D-drive core, the solid state drive, already activated and generating the field around the ship, It nearly exploded as the energy expanded the field projected by the pylons by many thousands of factors. The field expanded along the surface of the carrier, with no pylon to project it, it covered the entire carrier in a blinding field of lightening.

Drive online

Farle only caught the beginning of the statement as a blue stasis field surrounded him, protecting him.

-

Time seemed to stop.

-

A laser shot hung in the air, an unfortunate fighter pilot stared at it with a horrified expression, neither moved, like some cruel force had frozen him the moment before death for some twisted reason.

-

The world faded.

Splinters of reality started to form, like movie multi-splits, each boxed neatly into its own. Each one slowly faded from black until Farle could see 12 distinct realities, then they all restarted, the space battle he had left in one, still raging on without him. Another he saw a woman play with her child, smiling; the third has a horrible vision of humans hung by their feet, split down the middle, innards hanging out.
Each one was different, Farle looked at them all without moving, he finally looked at number 12.

He saw himself.

Fallen Angels

The voice echoed in his head, unblockable, he tried to shut it out, it just came stronger.

He saw himself point at something, the view shifted, it showed a battlefield, bodies strewn everywhere, some were decaying rapidly and a grey goo was forming from the decay. Someone got up, a man, he looked about, suddenly a dark cloud rose from the grey goo, the man screamed at the sight of this cloud. He ran, the cloud gave chase; it was faster and caught up with him in seconds. The man fell, his body melted, his screams grew louder, and his skin bubbled away, revealing the muscle structure underneath. The cloud seemed to get bigger as the man’s body melted, the man screamed his last as his vocal cords snapped, his heart was revealed, still beating in his chest, it started to melt too, blood spurted into the cloud.

Farle’s double turned to him again, its voice echoed through his head, colder and more lifeless than before.

The flesh of Fallen Angels

-

The visions faded.

[Shadow275]

Killer of the thread?

(Continuation of post will follow eventually)

[flapjack]

no, waiting for DM

[Bakan]

/me grumbles about how when classes start all free time seems to vanish

AKA: HOPEFULLY tonight I should be able to get enough time to DM. Those who haven't posted shall be.... left behind to the tender mercies of the Swarm

[Fluffie]

Originally Posted by Bakan

/me grumbles about how when classes start all free time seems to vanish

No shit, Sherlock.

[No Dachi]

Originally Posted by Fluffie

No shit, Sherlock.

*ND produces a gigantic sledgehammer and whacks Fluffie in the back of the head with it, as punishment for swearing*

[Fluffie]

Originally Posted by No Dachi

*ND produces a gigantic sledgehammer and whacks Fluffie in the back of the head with it, as punishment for swearing*

*Crawls back up, grabs Dachi's balls and... rips them off.*

:eek:

[No Dachi]

Ow. My balls. Bitch :/

[Hewitt]

*winces*

Er... ND, as far as I can tell there's only one bitch around here and I'm telling you now, it ain't fluffie... :eek:

[Bakan]

*Walks over to fluffie and pulls out his mallet of pain, and strikes fluffie with it in the balls.*

[Fluffie]

*Coughs, falls over and holds that particular area between his legs, moaning.

At.. least.. I.. still... *cough* ...have... them...

*Moans, moans some more and then rolls over, curling up into a little ball of Fluff to prevent someone from actually reaching his manlihood :\

[Bakan]

*Pulling out a heavy cattle-prod, Bakan zap Fluffie, causing him to un-curl reflexivily. During this moment of vulnerability, Bakan pulls out a rusty knife and cuts off Fluffies testicals, and thows them at a swarm ship, which promptly consumes them. Within seconds though, after realizing the sheer "UGH" factor of consuming said testicals was, it flies itself into a star thus destroying itself.*

[Wo2]

less insults. More DM.

[Bakan]

*Sighing, the engineering officer hits the button. On all ships, time seems to freeze, then slowely, piece by piece sucked away, painfully. While seeming to last a eternity, in reality within 2 seconds the jump sequence is completed, with all ships managed to evacuating the combat zone.*

ALL SHIPS: All your power systems are disrupted by the sever jump, with many of your crew feeling the painful aftereffects. However as you get sensors online, you realize that the fleet was split up.

Mothership #1 Fleet
Location: Unknown System - Unusual Object Detected
No Dachi
Fluffie
Lady Hawk

Mothership #2 Fleet
Location: Unknown Solar System, CLOSE orbit of Gas Giant
Hewitt
Crazyboy
KraKto$is

Mothership #3 Fleet
Location: Asteroid Field
Inspetre
Planetkiller II
MeakerSE

Mothership #4 Fleet/Mothership #5 Fleet
Location: Badlands 2 Plasma Storms approaching - Mothership
Darkling
Richpur
Heiro
Flapjack
Mad Cat
wo2
ShadowHawk

[Shadow275]

I was planning on completing my post, which by all accounts is unfinished.

But since I'm back at school, you'll have to wait.

Btw Bakan, not with motherships at the moment, you'll see why in my finishing post.

[flapjack]

*As the jump iniated the USS Stellar Voyage had not yet assumed it's escort position of mothership 2 and was sucked along with the closest mothership, number 5*

*It only took flapjack a few moments to realise they where in the badlands area, a plasma storm was heading their way and it was heading over fast, his bridge crew already coming back to their senses while the rest of the crew started to recover as well, there were dozens of injured people in sickbay and it was getting full, the messhall had served as a temporary refuge for the not so heavily injured, while the medical staff and the EMH where hard at work patching people up*

me: status report, now.

Operations: shield generators offline, shields down, hull intregrity field generator overloaded across several decks, hull intregity at 65%, hull intregity field holding at 75%, starboard warp nacelle missing, port warp nacelle critically damage, buzzard collector still working, primary deflector array cycling to restart, phaser banks on decks 3 to 12 are offline due to power failures, primary EPS conduits offline across most of the ship, plasma conduit ruptures across all decks, hull breaches in decks 2 to 8, warp core missing, port impulse drive cycling to restart, starboard impulse drive experienced a reactor overload and was shutdown, it should be up in the next couple of minutes, shuttle bay damaged but still operable, shuttles and delta flyer reporting no damages, injuries all across the ship, several dead, cargo bay 2 outerdoors lost, cargo bay 2 is exposed to space, emergency forcefields are in place and holding across the ship, repair crews are at work to get the primary EPS online.

me: okay, to summarize it, we're a floating brick of duranium with our primary systems bashed up all over the place and beyond recognition. the EPS systems are the primary concern now, launch the shuttles and request aid from neighbouring ships, inform of their status. Engineering, start work on the secondary warp reactor, it should still be intact.

engineering: sir, secondary warp core? Aye sir, but that will take several hours to complete with all availble crew sir.

me: start on it with a couple of people, i'm certain there are things that need to be done that don't need half the ship's crew, when the primary EPS comes back online you're free to use everybody left on this ship.

engineering: will do sir, we should have main power back in about 2 minutes, when the secondary EPS comes online

[MeakerSE]

I am quite frankly hurt by being left out

[Bakan]

Originally Posted by MeakerSE

I am quite frankly hurt by being left out

Whoops, fixed.

[MeakerSE]

Yay, I will post later.

[Wo2]

*Wo2 grabs his head in a effort to get the pain to stop.*

Wo2: "Gaahhh... Report?"

*Rakia lurxhed his way to one of the counsle and fired up the diganostic system.*

Rakia: "Were no worse of then when we made the jump, aside from some shield damage were a-ok."

Wo2: "Well thats a relief. Scan the array I want to know who came with us."

SO: "urk... little advil would be nice....... Ugh. Well Mother ship 4 and 5 are with us along with Darkling, Richpur, Heiro, Flapjack, Mad Cat, ShadowHawk, and of course, ourselves. Oh and Flapjacks ship, the USS Stellar Voyager is in bad shape. Doutb she'd be able to take any hit from this up coming plasma storm."

Wo2: " Well we aren't in imedate danger... Move us in so our sheilds protect them, we'll need to figure out something new as soon as we need to move again, cause we don't have any tractor beams. Oh and transfer power from the Stasis Armour to the Intre-phase Drive, we may need to jump out of the way of the plasma in hurry. Get me a comm channle to Captain flapjack."

Comm: "Your on"

Wo2: "Captain flapjack, well cover you with our shields for now but if you can get some grapling hooks or a tractor beam, and attach to our hull, we'll be able to carry you with us until you have your engines back up. I'll keep the channle open."

[flapjack]

*as the comm channel cracked to life, so did the starboard impulse drive, unfortunately catching the helmsman by surprise as the ship suddenly lurched forward, only to stop a moment later when the helmsman reacts*

helm: looks like our drives are back on sir.

Operations: starboard impulse drive cycling to restart, port impulse drive is back online, secondary EPS systems are operating at nominal efficiency, all decks have power, phaser banks on decks 3 to 12 are still offline tough, primary deflector is online, shield generators are beginning to restart and our forward shields are up to 5%, we're in the shield of another ship right now tough.

Communications: being hailed from the other ship, they're offering they're assistance.

me: tell them that unless they have a way to fix this ship's bigger hull breaches and the nacelles, there isn't any need for help, we're capable of moving under our own power and we should be able to dodge most of that plasma storm, that which does hit will be absorbed mostly by the shields.

me: reconfigure the buzzard collector to work for plasma, that high-energy plasma looks to tempting to let it slip, the navigational arrays have the highest possible priority, we need those to dodge the plasma streams in that storm

Operations: surprisingly, our sensor systems are mostly intact and are running at about 75% efficiency, it won't go any higher without extensive repairs. Sir, 1 of the other ships appears to be equipped with some kind of factory system, perhaps it can manufacture us a pair of new warp nacelles.

me: very well, hail that ship, helm, get us in closer to it, comms, open a channel.

comms: opening channel, channel opened, they should be recieving this.

me: "Unknown vessel, this is the USS Stellar Voyage, we request assistance in our repairs and would like to know if the factory system you appear to have aboard is still working, as you may have noticed we've lost a warp nacelle and the other 1 is damaged beyond repair, if your factory system could produce 2 new warp nacelles we would be very greatfull, if you need blue-prints or materials, we have a cargo bay filled with mostly useless junk and another cargo bay partially filled with mostly useless stuff."

[MeakerSE]

Phaser blasts and plasma bolts fly around in the last few moments of the battle as the Collistian provides cover for Mothership 3. The computer signals to Meaker

"I am reading a large energy surge from the mothership looks like it's about to jump"

"Ok, take us into an escort possition"

As the ship takes up possition two bolts hit the shields and the ship is rattled violently, however the shields disperce the energy just as there is a large flash and the ship is hurtled into high speed by the mothership, controlls flicker as electronic interference starts to effect ths systems.

"Shitting down to prevent dammage, routing contoll to be handled by the mothership activating EM shielding"

The last few seconds were bumpy due to the lag of control but the ship makes it in one piece. The powered down ship comes out along with the mothership as main power goes offline.

"Damn" Meaker knew it would be trocky to get it back online, to make matters worse, he found himself hurtleing toward an asteroid, quickly he activates the auxilary power on the console by his chair which had its own energy cell and diverts power to life support and weapons, shjelds he thought could wait, after his hand glided over the controls a short low power blast errupted from the cannon, shattering the small asteroid into tiny fragments, after engaging thrusters the ship slowed and came to a stop.

Meaker rose from his chair and took a manual door opener with him knowing power was short at the moment and most of it was needed for startup, after reaching engineering the powered down experimental drive system encorperating a warp core and transward drive was lifeless.
"Damn again" was his only reaction as he fetched the tools he needed from the emergency hatch and proceeded to set about the several steps needed to restart the core manually. He went to the rear of the warp core to the divertion chamber which could shunt energy to the transwarp drive if needed. Getting the apropriate tool, which remarkably resembled a torque rench he closed off the intake valve. Next he operned the dilithium chamber and checked the cristals, there seemed to be no visible dammage and the scanner also found nothing,. Now came opening the plasma injectors, after a few button presses there was a loud clunk as they moved into the open possition.

The core was now ready to be restarted as he returned to the main console and diverted all power to heating the plasma and restarting the reaction, the lights dimmed as the core produced a low hum a dim blue glow, much to Meakers relief the hum increased in pitch and the cores blue glow brightened. The backup voice computer reported the core was succesfully reactivated. From the main panel he restarted the main computers AI.

"Running system diagnostic, main kernal online, memory banks clear, starting main AI retrieval. Hello captain, I take it we made it through in one piece?"

"Only just, we almost hit a rather large chunk of rock, anyway, recharge auxilary power and power up the transwarp drive would you?"

"Way ahead of you!"

With a hissing sound the valves automatic system opened the intake valve and enegy readings on the side of the diversion chamber (whuch despite its name did more power conversion) began to rise. Cleaning up the tools back into the emergency hatch Meaker walked through the doors seperating the transwarp drive from the warp core (to allow either to be ejected if needs be) although the likely hood of escaping a fully powered transwarp drive exploding was minimul at best there was always a small chance. The drive was in the final stage of powering up, the drive produced a green glow giving some clue to its bord orogin, the drive was horizontal, not needing to be at right angled with the nacelles and alowed for greater structural strength, noticing no problems Meaker returned to the bridge.

"Dammage report"

"Shields up and now running at 70%, full impulse, warp and transwarp drives are now operational, sensors at 100% though the weapon relays took a beating and are at 69% efficiantcy, hull integrity 99%"

"Good get repair drones to the weapon systems and start repairs, move us back into escort possition and help clear a path for the mothership, who else came along for the ride?"

"repairs underway, two other ships belonging to Inspectre and Planet killer are in the local area"

"Ah good."

The ship powered up and the nacelles unfolded, the ship glided round and with a series of short burts started to clear a path for the mothership.

[Wo2]

Comm: "Captain Flapjack has responded to are message. They have engines back up and they say they can handle themselves, unless we have some way of sealing up their larger breachs."

Wo2: "Well that we can't. Helm pull us away from his ship. Darius put our shields back to normall power. EO transfer our now freed power to the Inter-phased Drive and the Phased cloak."

*The the officers responded affermitive and went about their buisiness. The Shadow Wind pulled its self away from the crippled ship and put its self back in postion with the rest of the fleet. The storm drew ever closer and Wo2 was unsure what such a high concentration of plasma would to to his Inter-phase drive or his cloak. He hoped they wouldn't die off at the wrong moment, because with out the point to point capablites of the Inter-phased drive, his ship wouldn't be fast enough to avoid the plasma funnels.*

Wo2: "Status?"

EO: "Shields at 90% and rising. All weapons check out. The Inter-phased control systems had a glich but it seems to be cleard up for now. The Repair crews are taking this opertunity to do a better repair of our cloak. Every thing seems fine."

Wo2: "Good. Charge up our scanners and plot a safe vector using our Inter-phased drive."

SO: "On it."

[Fluffie]

Some time later, the mighty Imperial Dreadnaughts find themselves, along with some other ships and a rather large Mothership, in a totally (or at least, void of enemies for the moment) empty spot of space. Knowing the rest of his crew probably feels like him, Fluffie still barks out the order, probably rougher than he'd like due to his head hurting.

"Form up with the Mothership, one Dreadnaught each side. All stations keep ready for immidiate combat while we await further orders."

The two mighty ships (or, maybe not so mighty, but mighty enough for the moment) engage their engines and slowly make their way through the blackish space, locking theirselves into escort positions. Watching one of the multiple viewscreens and portholes and windows around him, Fluffie smiled. The Red Sky and the Jural Spector were indeed with him, the navigation sharing had worked. Another ship, something looking like an attack cruiser was also present...

Vaguely remembering it from earlier battles, Fluffie realised he didn't know at all who or what they were. Quickly letting his fingertips enter some commands into a nearby console, a communications channel was opened, addressing the vessel.

"Greetings, Heavy Cruiser. This is the Imperial Dreadnaught Thunderer, good to see another combat capable looking ship with us. Might I be as daring as to ask who and what you are? If you have not heard of the Empire before, I shall gladly explain... However, my memory doesn't bring up any knowledge about you this very instant, my excuses for this..."

Leaving the channel open for the ship's reply, Fluffie turned to the Displacement Droid.

"Well, yet another battle we have jointly survived, Red Da... Excuse me, Red Sky. Seems my mind wants to call you differently, must be the numerous variations your full name offers. I hope you're not offended by this, of course.

But, let us stick to the subject at hand, we have to move on... My sensors have no good reading on that object yet, are yours giving any better results? And... I assume that the Mothership crew will be giving us orders anytime soon, right?"

Now waiting the replies of two different ships, Fluffie hoped he'd be able to keep them seperated. Looking out of a view window, he saw the big, bulking Mothership closeby... Thinking of the lives they were saving, Fluffie was reminded of the Empire, or maybe rather... the Demise of it...

[Heiro]

…The blackness encapsulates the ship; the monitor display, porthole viewers and scans provide little to no information, except the distance traveled. Occasionally, a large blue particle flashes past the ship, as one would expect. Realizing there destination would have been altered considerably by this pre-mature jump, they all eagerly watch the scanners awaiting some information concerning their location, and if not, at least their general status. Dropping from the seat, Drake lets the helmsman take his own post once again.

Drake watches the monitors as the helmsman takes his seat.
“Take a 10 degree turn, that should bring us into the badlands. At least then when can try to regain contact.”
“That or hide.”
“Exactly.”

Around 15 minutes later, the helmsman hits the warning button, and prepares to deactivate the hyper drive. With a sudden jolt, the drive deactivates. The helmsman, his fingers working like any would over a woman’s tightly closed shirt, begins to try to control the exit. The crew looks on in awe at the viewer, as the blue particles become more intense, until the entire viewer flashes blue, and the temporary blindness begins to set in. Seconds later there eyes reacclimatize to the normality of space. Moment’s later; Laura lets out a shrieking scream. In the wake of a large ship the crew panic. Drake calls for order, at the top of his lungs, and the helmsmen slam the engines on full reverse.

*

On Mother ship #5, the crew begins recovering, and to romanticize their escape. When the proximity sensors beep however, they all begin to jump, sending men to discover and disrupt the incoming.
“Sir! Small ship, 10 click from the hull! It’s traveling at post hyper speed!”
“Dear god! Evasive action, it’ll punch right through us!”
Hitting the thruster keys, the ship lurches, yet the captain knows in vain it’s impossible to dodge…

*

“Full thrust, port side!”
“Aye sir! Adjusting now”

The ship rocks, slamming onto its side and beginning to steeply rise to avoid collision. Drake curses under his breath, then gives the order:

“Brace for impact!”
Checking the distance readings, he shouts:
“5 seconds!”
Drake drops into his seat, and grasps Laura’s hand tightly, tears running down her face. Whispering calming words over the massive noise, more to console himself than anything, he begins to doubt his own choices. With a muffled shout over the panicked crew, the helmsman shouts:
“Clear!!”
Suddenly, the sound of scrapping metal fills the cabin, ripping and drawing along both ships, like fingers down a blackboard. The underside thruster’s burn long and hard against the metal of the mother ship, flames roaring out the side, dissipating into space harmlessly, but scorching both ships nonetheless. As the ships pull apart, Drake sighs, and as he stands up, Laura leaps up and hugs him. Kissing him, she gestures to the cabin, and smiles. Sitting down again so he can speak, he asks for the comm. in the least embarrassing way…

*

The crew of mother ship #5 breath a sigh of relief as the sound of scraping ends. Punching into the comm. the captain sits back down.

“Welcome to the party Captain… Nice to see you’re still in one piece…”