Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread

[CaptRR]

Well here's some more fodder for the story people. I would have had this out of Saturday, but my computer had some problems and I had to reinstalled winxp, unfortunately I forgot to backup my story. Oh well it let me start the chapters again
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Chapter 15

The battle was not going well, Admiral Panar thought as a fresh round of fighters swarmed in on his line. A cruiser vanished in a cloud of plasma, there was no time for the crew to make it to escape pods, even if their was time they would have been incinerated by their dead mother ship's exploding fusion reactor. Panar closed his eyes for a moment, wishing that he could ignore what was happening, he had messed up, and badly, trapped by the despicable Terrens, his fleet was going too slow to escape, and unable to avoid the swarms of fighters coming in at his ships in all directions.

The battle should have been his, he had the terren fleet outnumbered, and in an even fight his capital ships could beat any terren vessel, but then the Terrens had flushed their carriers, and it had become obvious that they had made quantum leaps in fighter technology. First there were the numbers, he had expected to fight a few dozen, maybee a hundred, not the hundreds that were ripping his fleet to shreds. All things being equal his Fleet Defender Point Defense gun ships should have been able to stop them, but as the first formation of fighters got into range of his Fleet Defenders it had become clear that the terrens had beefed their defensive characteristics. Only about a dozen fighters died in that first salvo, not the tens of dozens that had been expected, and the survivors ripped into the fleet defenders with a vengeance. One Defender after another died, and with it the fleets primary fighter defense, and all the while the Terren carriers kept on on sending more waves of fighters.

Panar looked into his plot, as a Light Cruiser vanished from it, only to be replaced by the faint readings of escape pods, there were too many of those faint readings littering his plot.

"Admiral," it Commander Lakan, the Fleet Deputy Commander, "I'm afraid that was the Last Fleet Defender."

Panar knew he was right, the fighters sensing the sudden lack of Point Defense Fire split up and began hitting separate targets, within 30 minutes Panar had lost half his fleet and he hadn't even gotten into range of the enemies capital ships yet. He knew it was over. There was nothing he could do, he couldn't run, couldn't fight. The battle was basically decided, the only thing he could hope to do was inflict some casualties.

"Communications to all ships." He said.

"Yes sir," The communications officer responded. He flipped a few switches and then nodded to the admiral that he was on.

"All ships" Panar tried to sound like a leader, trying to sound like their was some fight left in him. "I want all ships to charge the enemy line into point blank range, we need to eliminate some of those Battleships." Panar knew that what he was doing was suicide, he no longer had the advantage in tonnage, and he was about even in numbers. His ships would be ripped to shreds, but he could at least take a few of them with him.

He took a deep breath as another ship vanished from the plot, "Good luck to all of you. Command Out." On the command deck their was no sound, only the necessary conversations for a ship at war.

Panars ship was one of the first destroyed in what would become known as the final charge. Over 35 Draven ships died in the charge, joining their 40 brothers in the. In the end over 28,000 Dravens sacrificed themselves for a single enemy Battleship. 28,000 Hero's lost in the silence of space.

Chapter 16

News of the Draven fleet traveled fast, and although details where hard find the repercussions where almost instant. Josha had been in numerous meetings with Central Powers Representatives over the Last couple of days, most had not been good.

This meeting was beginning in the same way, "Chairman" said the Central powers Speaker, "the actions of your fleet have left us in a predicament." The Weyrling slurred his speech slightly.

"I assure you Mr. Speaker that Sledgehammer fleet was not acting on my orders." He had said the same thing numerous times, it was true, but that didn't make any difference, the fact was the Draven fleet was gone, Operation Sledgehammer was now in serious doubt.

"And these numbers" continued the Speaker, "are you sure you can't get us the extra ships any sooner?"

"I'm afraid not sir, those are the best case estimates for the latest ship designs, we have increased production at most of our major shipyards but even at this hurried pace the newest Dreadnaughts are still a year away."

"This is not acceptable, your Admiral Panar may have cost us this war."

"I don't think its quite that bad," Josha knew even though he wasn't lying hw was stretching the truth "the Weyrling Sledgehammer fleet is still largely intact, and we are pulling some of our Reserves to the front in order to stop any incursions into alliance space. For now..."

"For now our fleet is on its own" The speaker interrupted, he wasn't mad, didn't show any emotion, just stating a fact.

Josha took a breath before continuing, he had to choose his next words carefully "Unfortunately that's true, but the new Draven ships coming out of the shipyards will be much more powerful than the entire Sledgehammer was before this mistake. Our reserves will be sufficient to hold major alliance systems, while rebuild. Besides if I know your matriarch she'll be keeping the terrens too occupied to worry about an invasion."

The mention of the matriarch seemed to calm the room. In fact Josha had expected more of a tong lashing than what he got. The Dravens had dropped the ball after all, but this conversation with the Central Powers Speaker had been very civilized, like a father having a conversation with one of his children who had made a mistake. That was a far cry from the Speaker that had been ready to bite his head off just a few days before. Something was different about the Speaker, something that Josha couldn't put his finger one.

In fact now that he thought about it, many of the Weyrlings he had met the Last couple of day had acted the same way, a kind of cool detachment that wasn't there before.

"O.K. Mr Chairman" said the speaker, "Our fleet will do what we can to convince the terrens to stay away from alliance space, but I expect you to have a working fleet in one year, at that time we will recommence Sledgehammer."

'Thank you Mr Speaker" Josha turned to leave, but stopped when the Speaker called out to him.

"Mr Chairman, the Matriarch will be coming to Alliance HQ in a few months, I will expect you to give her an update of the Draven fleet once she gets here."

"The matriarch is coming here?" Josha could hardly believe it, he had expected the Matriarch to stay with the Weyrling fleet.

"Yes, I believe she is being escorted by one of your ships," The Speaker thought for a moment, "a Captain Jalan, I think that's the name of the ships commander."

"Captain Jalan of the Troikens Pride?"

"Yes, you know him?"

Josha inhaled then let it out slowly, "lets just say I've had a few dealing with him in the past, he isn't very fond of the Alliance." Josha wanted to say more, but he couldn't come right out and tell the Speaker that he didn't trust one of the Captains from one of his ships. Even if that Captain had been basically appointed by Yalare along with most of the commanders of the Sledgehammer fleet.

No he couldn't say anything, all he could do was hope the Matriarch had a safe journey.