First new story in a very long time. Read and enjoy. If people like it, I'll make it into the originally-planned three or four-part series.
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These were dark times for humanity. Among the once-proud realm of humankind, only a handful of nations and factions remained free from the occupation of the cruel Iborrorani Zentus Axis and their powerful expeditionary fleets.
Earth remained independent but isolated, surrounded by several Sol Sector systems which had formed the former Core Worlds of the now-defunct Republic of Sol and even now provided refuge and safety to displaced millions. To the galactic north lay the Corporate District of Orion, a nation of still-glittering city-worlds now covered with the instruments of national defense and sovereignty. And to the galactic east, the Enaratolian Confederation remained free from alien conquest. This was a defiant nation, with a fierce navy that fought at all quarters and across the occupied-worlds border to guarantee the freedom of the last remaining bastion of human strength.
Re-conquest seemed impossible now. The powerful fleets had laid waste to fleet after human fleet. The newscast images from the Conflict at Beta Aquilae had been burned into the minds of every free human alive: the systematic annihilation of the Fiftieth Elite Warfleet and the slow death of the flagship of the Navy of Sol, the Priodon , by a numerically and technologically superior IZA force. Rumors from the far galactic north, where the bulk of the IZA was said to lie, told of other races that the Iborrorani fleets had subjugated and alien fleets that the Iborrorani navies had obliterated. Humanity was hanging on to whatever last vestiges of independence it now possessed; but even in the bleakest of hours there was hope. The Iborrorani, and the Naztain before them maybe there would be a deliverer among the thousands of stars that gleamed in the majestic band of the galaxy. Humanity hoped and prayed
The NCS-38 system had once been an empty, uninhabited solar system lying between the prosperous Republic of Sol system of Capella and a key juncture between the Republic and the Confederation. Now it housed GDST-38, a massive battlestation constructed shortly after the fall of the Pollux system to the immediate north, and the consolidation of human naval activities in the sector. Skirmishes between IZA scouting forces and Iborroran defensive forces were common, including one occurring this particular day
Samuel Priodon, standing upon the bridge of the ICS Daqing , was shouting out orders frantically. As the young commodore reconfigured his vessels targeting computers to compensate for a near-breach in an aft hull compartment, beads of sweat ran down his thick brown hair and across his face. The primary tactical display showed a plethora of red targeting brackets converging upon a large icon representing an enemy battlecruiser.
Finally , the captain thought to himself. Outside the Daqing , no fewer than thirty missiles leaped from their launchers, plasma boosters accelerating them forwards at fantastic rates, and began to weave towards the Iborroran ship. The massive battlecruiser, wounded as it already was, nevertheless managed to respond with a barrage of brightly-glittering pulses, emanating from an unseen launcher obscured by a bulkhead. Samuel was ready: grabbing the annunciation device, he brought the Daqing into a steep bank and began moving the vessel in a wide arc around the back of the battlecruiser.
The blast-screens automatically shaded the bridge windows as the Daqing passed through the exhaust wake of the enemy warship, and the most imperceptible of vibrations Samuel felt rising up from the polished bridge floor into the soles of his feet. The pulses of light, which were heading towards the missiles, suddenly veered off course and began to pursue the Enaratolian vessel. As if crashing into an unseen wall, the pulses deflected off the wake and flew harmlessly into space.
As the compromised battlecruisers hull began to erupt in gouts of plasma and internal atmosphere from shattered compartments and conduits, Samuel nodded and set a course for a waypoint fifty kilometers away. By the time the enemy vessel exploded, the Daqing was a safe distance away, blast shields up and heading towards GDST-38 for debriefing. Samuel nodded.
Iborrorani warships are powerful, but they do have their weaknesses. In this case, the plasma-projectile pulses that so often happen to intercept a missile barrage by a friendly captain can be easily dispatched if you know anything about the physical generator and tracker unit that forms the core of each pulse. They are programmed to lock onto the enemy unit with the greatest heat signature. Ordinarily, these would be our missiles, but if one maneuvers his or her vessel into the exhaust wake of the enemy vessel, the metallic hull will absorb so much heat that, to a wide-band infrared sensor, your ship will appear to be a massive, hotly glowing object roughly the size and shape of a capital ship exhaust wake, but with an Enaratolian electronic emissions signature. The plasma-projectile pulse generators will then abandon their pursuit of your missiles and head towards your ship. Once they enter the wake, their infrared sensors and guidance suite will quickly be overwhelmed by the radiation, and they will be unable to pursue your vessel any longer.
As the Daqing glided into the hangar bay, Samuel saluted his bridge personnel and prepared to disembark from the vessel. There would be a debriefing, presentation of awards and distinctions, as always. His ship would be repaired and re-armed, and he would with any amount of fortune gain another week of leave for his participation in this particular battle. In this tumultous age, though, nothing was guaranteed.
The capital ship slowly glided to a halt, braced by two magnetic grapples on either side
Suddenly, the station was rocked with a massive explosion. The hangar lights were extinguished, and the grapples lost power. As the bay began to vibrate and shake from the impact of more explosions, Samuel carefully guided the drifting Daqing out of the gaping bay opening. While the capital ship began to turn around to face the unseen enemy, capacitors whining with the characteristic sound of storage materials charging up under immense pressure, the unmistakable flares of Iborrorani weapons igniting upon the hull of the station lit up the bridge.
Before Samuel could engage the enemy vessels that were now pounding the crippled station into oblivion, a communications display lit up with a message. The text-only transmission was short and succinct:
GDST-38 has been declared eliminated. Enemy vessels were sighted in the adjacent Herant and Rigel systems, but destination was undetermined until now. Head to the Homeland Naval Base, Homeland (SPS-102a) for reassignment. Do not attempt to engage hostile forces. Enemy reinforcements expected soon- evacuate immediately.
The Daqing flew outwards, its path taking the vessel away from the gravity well of the NCS-38 star, as the warp flares of twelve more Iborrorani battlecruisers emerged with stellar brilliance. Before long, the vessel was lost to the depths of space as a streak of light, well on its way south to the Homeland Naval Base.
More than a week later, the Daqing emerged from the interstellar depths and began to descend into the atmosphere of the world of Homeland. As dark clouds parted to reveal a coldly industrial military base of stone and steel, perched against a dark, brooding ocean crashing futilely against a massive seawall, Samuel sat back. Bright lights gleamed across the sprawling arena of cold, grayish-blue stone and rock as he sighed.
_Is this all humanity has become? A hundred soulless bases built upon a hundred faceless worlds of slate and granite? The cause is truly hopeless: what can we hope to do against an empire that covered more worlds a hundred years ago than humanity did at its zenith?
I hear it is the same from Orion Prime to Antares to Triniranth to Earth: tired soldiers watching, steeled against an incessant enemy, their worlds covered with the instruments of war. Why does anyone care? Is it because we wish to die in dignity, against the enemy in battle, rather than wasting away within his death-camps? Is it because we wish to prevent the few worlds we have remaining from being despoiled by the presence of the occupiers? But I have been in more than fifty skirmishes to this date, and by the grace of God and the superior tactics of mankind I live and breathe today. If I am fortunate, another fifty Ill fight before the enemy finally dispatches me, and I die a hero._
Amidst a thousand other warships and vessels, the Daqing settled down upon a massive tarmac, the skies echoing with thunder and lit with lightning from another impending storm.
(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 04-26-2004).)
