Post by GuardianAngel1911-Admin on Nov 21, 2013 23:52:33 GMT
Chapter 1
The Battle Dreadnaught Essex arrived in orbit over Tarnus at 0400 hours Human Imperial time. The gleaming silver hull of the sleek new ship is made of the newest most durable form of Exasteel, Exasteel-T a special blend of Exasteel and Telcos, creating a metallic hull capable of flying through a supernova with no damage. Of course that was assuming its new shields were to fail, but that was unlikely. They were designed to withstand sustained firepower of 20 Terratons over the course of two hours without failing. The ship has a somewhat ovoid shape to the hull, the massive DL-99 Hyperion Plasma cannons and the ST-200 Laser cannons, 600 of each spread across the hull. In addition to those it has 200 ElectroMagnetic Charge cannons spread out along the spines of the 12 mile long ship, all in all the ship had a full 360 range of fire, all controlled by the team of 40 tactical commanders and the ships state of the art ASI, Artificial Sentient Intelligence.
Supreme Admiral Julius Cordian was in command of this, the newest ship in the fleet, on its maiden voyage to liberate Tarnus from a hostile force of Pharoastarns, one of the Human Empire’s main enemies. They had visited Earth many thousands of years ago and left a few words from their language behind but nothing else, no architecture or technology. However their appearance had inspired the Egyptian mythos. As he gazed upon the rotating planet of fertile farmlands, vast oceans, and industrial foundries he saw the Pharoastran Capital ship. It was an Anubisari Excha-Class Battle Cruiser, half the size of a dreadnaught but no less a threat in a battle, the massive ship was slightly rectangular except for the forward which sloped downward at a sharp angle. Flanking it where two spherical Yardos Class Frigates, each one taller than the Cruiser but only around a fourth of the length. In total the Essex was facing enough firepower to glass the Earth in an hour, in a matter of three hours the combined firepower could utterly shatter the planet. Cordian had been in worse situations, but this new ship as devastating as it is meant to be is untested. He contemplatively stroked his beard contemplating the best way to begin the engagement hoping to hit them hard before they saw the Essex.
“Okay men, our first objective is to wipe out the enemy ships, from there we can deploy our ground forces to retake the major cities. I want the fighters and bombers initiating takeoff now. All of them, I want them leaving the hangers as soon as our guns begin firing.” Cordian barked at the men on the bridge and the ship as a whole, holding down the intercom button and broadcasting the order to the ship at large. The bridge officers set about readying the weapons systems, the tactical commanders putting on their VRHUD helmets and linking to the ships mainframe and the mainframe of the ships contingent of fighters, bombers, landing craft and other vehicles. The helmet essentially gave them a full feed of the entire battlefield from every angle, and with the combination of them and the ship they were able to control and direct the forces with hive mind like precision. The link also gave the squadrons the ability to receive data from their wingmen and react much sooner than they might otherwise be able to.
“Supreme Admiral, the pilots are ready to take off on your command, and the weapons are ready for our commands. We merely await your order.” One of the Tactical Commanders, Rachael Torius, said in a calm mechanical monotone, a side effect of the connection while it was up.
“Very well..” Cordian said, his brown eyes watching the enemy ships. “Fire in three…” The Bridge became very quiet time seeming to slow down. “Two…” The sound of the thousands of fighters engines getting ready for takeoff echoed throughout the ship. “One, Fire!” Cordian said, his voice seeming to echo for several minutes even though it was only seconds.
The Laser Cannon blasts hit first, less than a microsecond after firing, all three enemy ships lighting up with explosive ripples across their now visible red honeycomb like RetShield, upon seeing the shield is up the Cannons stop firing. However, half a second later the gold glowing blasts from the EMC Cannons follows tearing through the shield causing some scoring on the ships and causing the lighting of their bridges to flicker briefly. A nanosecond after that the plasma cannon volley, golden blasts of energy, slam into the Pharoastarn ships some causing only minor damage and reflecting off, other blasts ripping through the hulls of the frigates causing life forms and debris to fly out into the vacuum of space. In the next half second the glowing orange plasma blasts of the Pharoastarn ships slam into the Essex’s shields. Cordian watches as the blasts spread across the energy shield trying to burn through to the metal underneath to no avail. As the three ships continue their volley of plasma blasts the Laser Cannons of the Essex once again begin firing, less than a nanosecond between each shot. Sixty billion focused high energy laser blasts as thin as a pencil every minute, however despite the massive rate of fire the Laser Cannons do not put out the same damage in each shot, but they make up for it in sheer overwhelming rate of fire. However the main purpose isn’t to cause mass damage, the Laser Cannons are made to find the weakpoints, weapon system reactors, life support, hyperfusion reactors, and damage or rupture the systems. As soon as the first few seconds of the battle end the fighters and bombers swarm past the view screen as the Pharoastarn complement swarms towards them.
“Enemy fighters and bombers deploying to meet ours, a total of two hundred fifty craft. There are one hundred Anubisari Tri-Claws, one hundred Anubisari Strikers, forty Anubisari Demolisher bombers, five Anubisari transport landing craft and…ten unknown craft..” Rachael said.
“Unknown craft? What do you mean, is there no record of them? Are they not Pharoastarn in make?” Cordian looked towards the Tactical Commanders confused. Perhaps they weren’t the only ones deploying new technology on this day.
“There is no record of the craft, but they are clearly Pharoastarn, the markings, the apparent composition….but there’s something off about them sir, there are no visible weapons systems. We are performing further analysis however.” Rachael said.
“Analysis complete Rachael, there are no weapons systems hidden or otherwise, however further analysis shows the craft is not Anubisari, repeat not Anubisari…” One of the other Tactical Commanders says. Cordian felt a tremor go through his body, the Anubisari were the warrior caste of the Pharoastarn, if the craft weren’t of Anubisari make then what were they.
“Thank you John..I can see that as well, it would seem these are of Baastian make, the markings would indicate as much. Adjusting strategy to account for unknown variables but if Baastians are involved we cannot counter until after we’ve suffered losses from them.” Rachael said. Cordian wasn’t sure but he thought that for a split second a hint of fear had entered her otherwise monotone voice.
“Very well, remain ready for anything….keep up the good work.” Cordian said, keeping the worry from his voice and off his face. The Baastian caste were the Pharoastarn priests and mystics, their magics were unpredictable, there was no telling what the purpose of these craft was until as Rachael said they had already done it.
The Essex’s complement was of one hundred V-Class Viper Strike fighters, one hundred fifty R-Class Rapiers, and fifty E-Class Executioner Bombers began firing first, the Rapiers shooting ahead of the others and spreading out in varying arcs of flight leaving a trail of gold light in their wake. The slender fighters, named for the blade their shape resembles, are the pinnacle of combat between fighters, single engine craft with the engine and cockpit forming a ring reminiscent of the hilt of a rapier, with an in space top speed of 29,896 miles per hour, their primary weapon is a single FS-2 photon cannon on the tip, capable of putting out 20 terrawatts of power, enough to destroy their Anubisari Striker equivalents with a single shot. The Rapiers quickly begin darting through the void of space like beams of light. The Anubisari Strikers, somewhat star shaped craft that spin through the void with four points each with a Pharoastarn Plasma Cannon, move to intercept, but they have one disadvantage against the Rapiers. While they have more powerful weapons and stronger shields their armor is pathetic and the Anubisari RetShields have a major flaw, the points where the honeycomb pattern meet are weak to focused energy blasts, the Rapiers specialty, the Rapiers are also far faster and more agile allowing them to fly circles around their foes. As Cordian watches this last fact is evident, the Rapiers move through the air dancing around the devastating plasma blasts with ease and firing off the devastating beams of gold energy. The Vipers and Executioners race around the side of the large cloud of fighters as the Rapiers keep the Strikers and Tri-Claws busy, as they make their move several Strikers break off contact with the Rapiers to go after them, with the Rapiers hot on their tail. At the same time the three pronged Tri-Claws and the massive bulky heavily armored Demolishers make their move to attack the Essex with several Rapiers breaking off to go after them.
The Rapiers chasing them open fire not just with their photon cannons but their secondary weapons, twin ST-30 laser cannons, far smaller and with less punch than their larger ST-200 counterparts at only10 terrawatts each but still effective against enemy craft. The points on the Tri-Claws spin around and begin firing plasma blasts at the Rapiers, the ships dodging around them as they fire their weapons, the void of space awash with gold and red light. The Tri-Claws break out of their formation to defend the bombers but several rapiers break through the defensive wall leaving a small cloud of debris from the destroyed Tri-Claws. The trail of light from their single massive HyperFusion engines narrowed to as thin as the ship itself as they push after the bombers firing at the Demolishers. However the bulky semi cylinder spacecraft’s armor is durable enough to take a single blast from a DL-99 Plasma Cannon, but with enough shots the Rapiers could take them down. Cordian knew the only question was, would they be able to do that before the Demolishers could start their first attack run.
The Battle Dreadnaught Essex arrived in orbit over Tarnus at 0400 hours Human Imperial time. The gleaming silver hull of the sleek new ship is made of the newest most durable form of Exasteel, Exasteel-T a special blend of Exasteel and Telcos, creating a metallic hull capable of flying through a supernova with no damage. Of course that was assuming its new shields were to fail, but that was unlikely. They were designed to withstand sustained firepower of 20 Terratons over the course of two hours without failing. The ship has a somewhat ovoid shape to the hull, the massive DL-99 Hyperion Plasma cannons and the ST-200 Laser cannons, 600 of each spread across the hull. In addition to those it has 200 ElectroMagnetic Charge cannons spread out along the spines of the 12 mile long ship, all in all the ship had a full 360 range of fire, all controlled by the team of 40 tactical commanders and the ships state of the art ASI, Artificial Sentient Intelligence.
Supreme Admiral Julius Cordian was in command of this, the newest ship in the fleet, on its maiden voyage to liberate Tarnus from a hostile force of Pharoastarns, one of the Human Empire’s main enemies. They had visited Earth many thousands of years ago and left a few words from their language behind but nothing else, no architecture or technology. However their appearance had inspired the Egyptian mythos. As he gazed upon the rotating planet of fertile farmlands, vast oceans, and industrial foundries he saw the Pharoastran Capital ship. It was an Anubisari Excha-Class Battle Cruiser, half the size of a dreadnaught but no less a threat in a battle, the massive ship was slightly rectangular except for the forward which sloped downward at a sharp angle. Flanking it where two spherical Yardos Class Frigates, each one taller than the Cruiser but only around a fourth of the length. In total the Essex was facing enough firepower to glass the Earth in an hour, in a matter of three hours the combined firepower could utterly shatter the planet. Cordian had been in worse situations, but this new ship as devastating as it is meant to be is untested. He contemplatively stroked his beard contemplating the best way to begin the engagement hoping to hit them hard before they saw the Essex.
“Okay men, our first objective is to wipe out the enemy ships, from there we can deploy our ground forces to retake the major cities. I want the fighters and bombers initiating takeoff now. All of them, I want them leaving the hangers as soon as our guns begin firing.” Cordian barked at the men on the bridge and the ship as a whole, holding down the intercom button and broadcasting the order to the ship at large. The bridge officers set about readying the weapons systems, the tactical commanders putting on their VRHUD helmets and linking to the ships mainframe and the mainframe of the ships contingent of fighters, bombers, landing craft and other vehicles. The helmet essentially gave them a full feed of the entire battlefield from every angle, and with the combination of them and the ship they were able to control and direct the forces with hive mind like precision. The link also gave the squadrons the ability to receive data from their wingmen and react much sooner than they might otherwise be able to.
“Supreme Admiral, the pilots are ready to take off on your command, and the weapons are ready for our commands. We merely await your order.” One of the Tactical Commanders, Rachael Torius, said in a calm mechanical monotone, a side effect of the connection while it was up.
“Very well..” Cordian said, his brown eyes watching the enemy ships. “Fire in three…” The Bridge became very quiet time seeming to slow down. “Two…” The sound of the thousands of fighters engines getting ready for takeoff echoed throughout the ship. “One, Fire!” Cordian said, his voice seeming to echo for several minutes even though it was only seconds.
The Laser Cannon blasts hit first, less than a microsecond after firing, all three enemy ships lighting up with explosive ripples across their now visible red honeycomb like RetShield, upon seeing the shield is up the Cannons stop firing. However, half a second later the gold glowing blasts from the EMC Cannons follows tearing through the shield causing some scoring on the ships and causing the lighting of their bridges to flicker briefly. A nanosecond after that the plasma cannon volley, golden blasts of energy, slam into the Pharoastarn ships some causing only minor damage and reflecting off, other blasts ripping through the hulls of the frigates causing life forms and debris to fly out into the vacuum of space. In the next half second the glowing orange plasma blasts of the Pharoastarn ships slam into the Essex’s shields. Cordian watches as the blasts spread across the energy shield trying to burn through to the metal underneath to no avail. As the three ships continue their volley of plasma blasts the Laser Cannons of the Essex once again begin firing, less than a nanosecond between each shot. Sixty billion focused high energy laser blasts as thin as a pencil every minute, however despite the massive rate of fire the Laser Cannons do not put out the same damage in each shot, but they make up for it in sheer overwhelming rate of fire. However the main purpose isn’t to cause mass damage, the Laser Cannons are made to find the weakpoints, weapon system reactors, life support, hyperfusion reactors, and damage or rupture the systems. As soon as the first few seconds of the battle end the fighters and bombers swarm past the view screen as the Pharoastarn complement swarms towards them.
“Enemy fighters and bombers deploying to meet ours, a total of two hundred fifty craft. There are one hundred Anubisari Tri-Claws, one hundred Anubisari Strikers, forty Anubisari Demolisher bombers, five Anubisari transport landing craft and…ten unknown craft..” Rachael said.
“Unknown craft? What do you mean, is there no record of them? Are they not Pharoastarn in make?” Cordian looked towards the Tactical Commanders confused. Perhaps they weren’t the only ones deploying new technology on this day.
“There is no record of the craft, but they are clearly Pharoastarn, the markings, the apparent composition….but there’s something off about them sir, there are no visible weapons systems. We are performing further analysis however.” Rachael said.
“Analysis complete Rachael, there are no weapons systems hidden or otherwise, however further analysis shows the craft is not Anubisari, repeat not Anubisari…” One of the other Tactical Commanders says. Cordian felt a tremor go through his body, the Anubisari were the warrior caste of the Pharoastarn, if the craft weren’t of Anubisari make then what were they.
“Thank you John..I can see that as well, it would seem these are of Baastian make, the markings would indicate as much. Adjusting strategy to account for unknown variables but if Baastians are involved we cannot counter until after we’ve suffered losses from them.” Rachael said. Cordian wasn’t sure but he thought that for a split second a hint of fear had entered her otherwise monotone voice.
“Very well, remain ready for anything….keep up the good work.” Cordian said, keeping the worry from his voice and off his face. The Baastian caste were the Pharoastarn priests and mystics, their magics were unpredictable, there was no telling what the purpose of these craft was until as Rachael said they had already done it.
The Essex’s complement was of one hundred V-Class Viper Strike fighters, one hundred fifty R-Class Rapiers, and fifty E-Class Executioner Bombers began firing first, the Rapiers shooting ahead of the others and spreading out in varying arcs of flight leaving a trail of gold light in their wake. The slender fighters, named for the blade their shape resembles, are the pinnacle of combat between fighters, single engine craft with the engine and cockpit forming a ring reminiscent of the hilt of a rapier, with an in space top speed of 29,896 miles per hour, their primary weapon is a single FS-2 photon cannon on the tip, capable of putting out 20 terrawatts of power, enough to destroy their Anubisari Striker equivalents with a single shot. The Rapiers quickly begin darting through the void of space like beams of light. The Anubisari Strikers, somewhat star shaped craft that spin through the void with four points each with a Pharoastarn Plasma Cannon, move to intercept, but they have one disadvantage against the Rapiers. While they have more powerful weapons and stronger shields their armor is pathetic and the Anubisari RetShields have a major flaw, the points where the honeycomb pattern meet are weak to focused energy blasts, the Rapiers specialty, the Rapiers are also far faster and more agile allowing them to fly circles around their foes. As Cordian watches this last fact is evident, the Rapiers move through the air dancing around the devastating plasma blasts with ease and firing off the devastating beams of gold energy. The Vipers and Executioners race around the side of the large cloud of fighters as the Rapiers keep the Strikers and Tri-Claws busy, as they make their move several Strikers break off contact with the Rapiers to go after them, with the Rapiers hot on their tail. At the same time the three pronged Tri-Claws and the massive bulky heavily armored Demolishers make their move to attack the Essex with several Rapiers breaking off to go after them.
The Rapiers chasing them open fire not just with their photon cannons but their secondary weapons, twin ST-30 laser cannons, far smaller and with less punch than their larger ST-200 counterparts at only10 terrawatts each but still effective against enemy craft. The points on the Tri-Claws spin around and begin firing plasma blasts at the Rapiers, the ships dodging around them as they fire their weapons, the void of space awash with gold and red light. The Tri-Claws break out of their formation to defend the bombers but several rapiers break through the defensive wall leaving a small cloud of debris from the destroyed Tri-Claws. The trail of light from their single massive HyperFusion engines narrowed to as thin as the ship itself as they push after the bombers firing at the Demolishers. However the bulky semi cylinder spacecraft’s armor is durable enough to take a single blast from a DL-99 Plasma Cannon, but with enough shots the Rapiers could take them down. Cordian knew the only question was, would they be able to do that before the Demolishers could start their first attack run.
