The screen flashes the words and a pre-recorded voice yells. "Captain, we've got six boogies commin' hot from sector 2."
You look at your radar and toggle the lead blip. You pause to consider as you say out loud to yourself, "Computer ETA, says two minutes, but I know that's wrong."
You've been playing Escape Velocity 3 (hey someone posted it and I got to thinking what an awesome story one could make out of it) - and have worked hard for the past two weeks in choosing a planet for your team and building up defenses. You begin to wonder if you spent too much on sector defense, rather than outfitting your own ship, as you realize your scanners are picking up six dreadnoughts that are faster, more manueaverable, and have more guns than you.
You hit "1" and immediatly call up a list of pre-programmed communication macros, and hit "1" again for the macro message to be displayed on the com windows of all allied players, "This is the A.P.S. Orion Star to all Aeon ships: Aeon HQ is under attack. Need all available assistance." You grimace as you realize it's only 3pm MST, and most of your friends are still in school. Still you toggle a quick window to see who's online, and see that you and two others are the only ones logged in. The rest of the Aeon fleet is in autopilot orbit of your home base - and everyone knows a ship on autopilot can't beat a skilled human player. Still, you, your friends, and the computer autopilots of eight warships outnumber the incomming dreadnoughts, but you fear for the worst anyway and begin dumping credits into the Galactic Bank transfer terminal at your base.
The klaxons sound. You already know those dreadnoughts have you in their sights and are locked on. You hurridly decide it would be best to fight it out in space, rather than await fate's decision on the planet. You hear the computer chime as your character is "transported" to your ship in orbit.
Already the orbiting station is lobbing missles at the attackers, and mines start going off early. You zoom out and see a weakening in the formation of dreadnoughts as two blips begin to fade indicating they are damaged. There is no need to toggle for ID of the ships - you know they're pirates from the Ryders of Death team. You get grazed by a torpedo. You zoom back in and hastily position your ship behind the planet's defense station and the attackers so you can fire long range torpedos behind the relative safety of a huge metal defense.
Three, then four, five, and six torpedos hit the station. Two more mines go off, sending one of the dreadnoughts reeling. You only hear the sound of an escape pod ejecting, but it is a good sound that makes you smile. By now, the invasion of five ships reaches your front doorstep as you play cat and mouse with the enemy so intent on seeing you dead. You do the dance and manage to run one of them into a mine, taking out their shields and some armor, while losing half your shields to laser fire.
What seems like forever, the computer finally warms up the ships in orbit and you see eight warships gracefully maneauver and launch their fighters and begin firing their torpedos. The dreadnoughts turn their attention away from you and begin taking out the launched fighters one by one.
Two, three, four, five, six, and soon after you hear the death cry of the ninth computer fighter pilot over the intercom. Two autopilot warships have broken off on pre-programmed instructions and begin retreating out of the sector. A third one violently pursues multiple targets, heading straight in the middle of the fray, then you realize that another one of your friends has logged on and is using the ship. You also hear the sounds of ships warping in and zoom out to ID your three fellow Aeon friends who have responded to your call for help from other sectors.
Laser fire reeks the starry background, as a second dreadnought begins to crack and burn, and soon a side of it is blown off. You see a fog of mist from the dreadnought as you grin at the captain's demise. Apparently he gambled without an auto-eject, or his ship's computer was damaged in the fighting. The drifting hulk just tumbles endlessly and because everyone is too busy to capture it, it breaks a part after three minutes.
One of the Aeon warships tumbles out of your sight, it too is adrift, but not as damaged as the dreadnought that passed by it a moment ago. The Aeon warship will remain salvageable because it is not severly damaged.
A third and fourth enemy dreadnought take the brunt of a combined attack of five warships (four on autopilot and executing pre-programmed evassive maneuavers and attacks), and three merchant vessels - including your own. The brief flash of a fallen shielding system wets your appetite to go in for the kill as the ship begins to retreat - but it's too late, it is has flown to close and gets clobbered by five torpedos at close range, blowing up before the pilot has time to hit the eject, and before you can claim the kill. There goes another million credit dreadnought.
However, the dreadnought's death was not in vain - it laid two cloaked mines in the middle of your group, and you realize the tactical mistake of your group as they both explode, sending three heavily damaged warships and one merchant vessel careening into oblivion. The warships drift, but you know they are only disabled for a moment. You ship's klaxon sounds, indicating your shields are gone to, and you see burn marks on your vessel. The other merchant vessel doesn't fair well, though. It flashes and a pod is ejected just as the ship disintegrates in a ball of pretty fire. The pod vanishes into the planet - it's pre-programmed destination.
The remaining three dreadnoughts, not wishing to stay any longer and play, fly past your planet and station, dodging fire from the station, and quickly jump into warp. The com channel on the bottom of the screen is lit up with excitement and congrats and cheers, as more and more of your team members login and find their ships either a good distance away from the planet, or heavily damaged. Calls for a counter attack ensue, but you urge your team to make repairs first.
Two of your friends volunteer to go take their cloakable scouts deep into the heart of Ryders of Death self-proclaimed territory, and they quickly warp out of the system without saying goodbye. A warship follows suit, no doubt on a mission of vengence as well. You manage to convice the others to stay and hammer out an attack plan - it's time to teach the Ryders a real lesson in hit and run tactics...
Looks good! I read about 2 sentences, but it sounds good!! It's very funny!!!