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I had not originally planned to write an AAR about this game (in fact, I have never written on before) but I have to admit, it has been so interesting right from the beginning that I should have started it quite a while ago. In the end, events won me over and made the decision for me to give it a try anyways.

has really been a hell of a fun game up to now, I hope it proves an interesting read. I’ll try to put screenshots of my current situation as soon as “history” catches up with current events and use them as well as reference for past events.
Note: I want to try and give it some backgroud, to make things more interesting and because I wanted to try my hand at writing in english. Any suggestions on the writing/playing style are welcome!

My start settings:
Irregular galaxy, 1000 stars, normal colony prevalence, normal independent alien life, starting expansion, restless galaxy, expensive research, normal space creatures, many pirates
My empire: basic tech, normal home system, empire size “starting”, monarchy.
19 random enemy empires.
33% all victory conditions, after 20 years.

The First Cappan War

Stardate: 2754, Year 1 of the United Terran Imperium:

Soat, orbiting the ringed gas giant Alzuk 4, Alzuk system.

The Imperium had recently began its exploration of the stars thanks to the discovery of “hyperspace”. Its discovery had united the two most powerful nations on Soat in the effort to produce ships that could traverse the great distances between the stars. This nominal union became official with the marriage of King Gerald the first of the Falkling Kingdom to the princess Akane of the Asbargican dynasty. With the blessing of their new emperor, the first brave pioneers set out from Soat to explore the nearby stars. Thanks to their tireless efforts, 2 nearby hospitable planets were discovered and scheduled for colonization.

Sixty million volunteers were sent with the colony ships “Soat’s Fate” and “Queen’s Honor” to begin settlement of Amasai in the Kareda system and Shoi in the Monlale Mafer system. The colonies were established without problems, the citizens of the empire prospered enormously thanks to the influx of resources from the new colonies and the opening of the first interstellar trade routes.

That same year, contact was established with a nearby alien empire: The Cappa Commonwealth. The Dhayut, the giant insectoids that inhabited the Cappa system proved to be immediately fairly xenophobic and aggressive. Their embassy rights were revoked less than a week after the Cappans had arrived because of a pretty serious “diplomatic incident”. The late minister for interstellar trade, outraged by the continuous harassment of Imperial freighters had gone to the embassy to file a formal complaint. He was never seen again. A week later, the police arrived to inquire on the minister’s fate: the bugs didn’t deny it, they had killed the “puny screaming monkey, for it hadn’t displayed the required amount of respect to his biological superiors." Two brave policemen died to the bugs in the embassy building that day, and a military team in heavy combat gear was sent in to restore order. With flamethrowers.

Relations were tense, constant raids on Imperial freighters forced command to boost naval strength by commissioning 10 new destroyers and a similar number of frigates for fleet duties. The number of escorts was also doubled to strengthen patrols in the nearby systems where our mining assets were located. Freighter production at Soat space port was immediately halted, recruiting campaigns all over the 3 continents provided the manpower for the 1st and 2nd fleet being built in orbit. The economy held, if only by the tightest margin and a slightly positive balance at the end of the year broke a tight smile on the face of the Treasure minister.

War was declared on the Imperium fairly soon after that. The declaration of war sent through a hypercomm line, no video, only text. It went along the lines of “Your weak empire is ripe for assimilation, prepare yourselves for WAR!”. No further threats or messages were sent after that. The following contact with the Dhayuts was the appearance of the Cappan 1st fleet above Shoi moon and the anhiliation of the nearby gas mining station in the system.

The colonies were pretty far with current hyperspace technology, 1st fleet had only barely made it to Shoi when Amasai was taken. Hurriedly, 2 battalions of troops were deployed to retake Shoi and the fleet departed, abandoning them to their duty, heading to face the Cappan fleet. 2nd fleet, was assembling at Soat and was ordered to leave for Molale Mafer ASAP.

In the meantime, contact had been established with another 2 neighboring empires: The Boskar Collective and the Great Sluken Collective. It was evident that the mammalian one wasn’t the preferred evolutionary path in this sector of the galaxy. “Billions of goddamn angry bugs right on our doorstep, all waiting to devour our carcasses. What exactly am I meant to offer them for peace? Piles of hot shit to buzz around in cold nights?”, the Foreign & Alien relations minister had commented to the emperor when he was asked if peaceful coexistence was even remotely possible. “Give them that and anything else they may want- just stall them as long as it takes to hammer the Dhayut.” The emperor had answered, with no empathy for the man that finding himself in a completely hostile galaxy, was tasked with the seemingly impossible job of making everyone somehow “live happily ever after”.

One piece of good news did arrive that year, when one of our explorer ships encountered a ship from the United Zenox Technocracy, a race of highly advanced felines that lived to our north. Their capital, Osloi, was right in the middle of Sluken territory. The Foreign minister brightened up for a week, working feverishly for the diplomatic encounter he had always envisioned: An advanced race, who’s apparent goal wasn’t to exterminate us on sight. When word came back from the felines, his optimism was brought to an abrubt end and he fell back in his usual depression. The cats were in a pile of shit as deep as our own. They were at war with the Sluken, and losing badly. Had no time to come in for a chat unless we could help them somehow. Which obviously, we couldn’t given we had our own dramatic situation to worry about.

First Blood

First fleet made it to the Kareda system, only to find it infested by bugs. The colony was overrun, the imperial citizens enslaved, 2 hostile fleets in the area. Admiral Osler from the first fleet opted to engage first the ones attacking our mining base near a gas giant to try and save it, hoping to lure the second, larger fleet once the enemy strike force was destroyed. The engagement began well for the Imperials, the enemy task force was decimated in less than a day with no losses. Suddenly, contacts multiplied at the gas giant: Enemy fleet had done an in-system jump to engage. Things were starting to get serious.

First fleet opened fire on the closest frigate, anhiliating it in seconds. A moment later, an imperial destroyer exploded in a dazzling fireball.

Red Invader, had appeared on the battlefield. Command ship of the Dhayut fleet, it was an amazingly powerful destroyer, scavenged by the Dhayut who knows where, it was at least 5 times more powerful than our most powerful ships. To top that off, it was always flanked by the Dominator, a frigate with 3 times the firepower of our most powerful destroyers. Battle started going bad very quickly after that, first fleet was routed with barely 5 ships of 10 making it out alive, heavily damaged and out of fuel.

When word reached the capital, every single department went in crazed agitation. High Command was shocked at the loss of almost a quarter of its fleet assets in a single battle. Intelligence had no idea how the Cappa, with a similar technological level as the Imperium, had produced two ships that could so vastly outperform ours. They juggled the question to Research and Development, who puzzled over it for a while, then shrugged it off to the next department in line. No one knew and the chain continued, word spread out: if the Cappa could build such ships, we didn’t stand a chance.

Only the Emperor didn’t, couldn’t, lose his faith. Replacements for first fleet were ordered at our single shipyard, along with a further contingent of destroyers and frigates to form the new 3rd fleet. The economy was running in deficit now, freighters were blown to bits by Dhayuts in space but could not be replaced as the production bottleneck at Soat Spaceport had reached outrageous levels. Economy stagnated, no colonies left and an enemy with ships capable of obliterating entire fleets. Things were definitely looking grim. Things couldn’t get much worse.

As always, things did get worse. 2nd fleet was attacked in the Monlale Mafer system. In a desperate attempt to even out the battlefield on an interstellar level, the admiral in command launched his ships on a kamikaze run against Red Invader in order to overcome it’s defenses with concentrated firepower. They had almost managed, when the last imperial destroyer blew up, Red Invader had it’s shields down and was attempting to flee the area. One heavily damaged frigate and two escorts was all that was left of second fleet.

The production bottleneck at Soat was now definitely a big problem. Economy was in the red. Minister for interstellar trade was never replaced as there was no interstellar trade left. Military had only a handful of destroyers left. Friendly cats similarly reduced to home colony and strapped for cash like us. Contact was established with another 3 races: The friendly, furry Atuuks, a highly advanced mechanoid race that called themselves “Ancient Guardians” and the Mortalens of the Perul Supremacy. The mortalens immediately decided that being friends was an expensive matter: Holiday hotel in the Trandusha system, or war.

To top that off, the Boskara decided to declare war, with 4 times our military might and three advanced cruisers in their fleet.

A desperate gamble
With fleets undergoing a total rebuild and the patrolling escorts and frigates being decimated at every turn by hostile taskforces the situation was looking very bad indeed.

The imperial treasury was restored by selling our slightly more advanced technology to the rich Atuuk Enclave. 500k in cash made for a nice boost for our wrecked economy. Soat was fairly well protected with its space port and 3 defensive bases, so no ships were spared patrol duties in the effort to contain the dramatic situation. With no way around the production bottleneck at Soat spaceport, high command decided on a daring plan: Build a starbase with production capabilities in a nearby deserted system with a Casion rich gas giant.

Gamurr 6, in the Gamurr system, fitted the requirements ideally. A construction ship was commandeered from its usual tasks and sent to work on it, high command even managed to kit out a small escort task force composed of a couple of the surviving Striker class destroyers, and 2 Tetrarch class frigate.

Trade relations were established with the furry Atuuks, and some interstellar trade started flowing in, no such luck with the Ancient Guardians who seemed to favor an isolationist approach on their planet Utopia.

Things brightened up slightly when contact was made with other empires, all of them remarkably less hostile than our first encounters and many of them at war with them as well, draining their resources from our front. Gifts were sent to potentially friendly races, and a Free Trade Agreement was secured with both the Securans and the Kiadian empires.

The Mortalens, luckily, never lived up on their threat to declare war even when their request was denied. After careful analysis of the possible repercussions, it was the decided that the credits from the resort base were essential to our survival. We needed cash, and the Trandusha system brought it in. Furthermore, the Perul Supremacy had so many wars going on another one might just tip them off balance.

The refurbished 1st fleet was sent to retake our colony at Shoi, retaken by the Dhayuts. It succeeded without drawing much attention in rescuing the tortured colonists working in the concentration camps, but found the colony in a very poor state: less than half the original population had survived the three successive invasions. 16 million brave imperial citizens had already died on Shoi, but the horror wasn’t over.

First fleet recovered its troops and headed for Amasai in the Kareda System. Newly appointed Admiral Braxton, a tough man, knew the chance of another successful invasion without bloodshed were slim at best but his orders had been explicit: Take back the colonies, but preserve your fleet at all costs.
Amasai was still crawling with bugs all over the place, a general retreat was ordered and the fleet headed back to Soat for refueling. The newly refurbished 2nd Fleet was going to rotate in its place in an attempt to defend Shoi.

2nd fleet arrived just in time to defend the colony from an enemy strike force, routing them away with no losses. Fuel was short, but since 3rd Fleet was under construction and 1st fleet was still refueling, 2nd fleet was forced to stay in the Monlale Mafer Junction system for more than its due share. When Red Invader came back, fuel was dangerously low. Admiral Grahmbrein made a bold attempt to destroy the accompanying frigate “Dominator” this time, but succeeded only in getting 3 more expensive ships destroyed before being forced to retreat. Shoi fell soon after that, and this time the insects left 4 battalions guarding it
The sleek, advanced profile of Red Invader seemed omnipresent. Morale was dangerously low, conscription was forced on the general population of Soat in order to restore fleet strength once more.

Construction of Gamurr Station was progressing smoothly, the Zenox had recently broken through the Sluken lines and had managed tocolonize a nearby moon but otherwise the system was quiet. Soon, another production yard would be lifting some of the burden off Soat Space Port. High command decided that it was long past time to build a specialized task force for planetary invasion ,and troop transports were scrounged up to form the “1st Invasion Task Force”.

From above, Soat appeared like a peaceful, refreshing view. Its blue seas covered most of the surface, but the boot shaped FalklIng continent was beginning to appear on the horizion. In the tactical room on Soat Space Port, Admiral Braxton had just finished detailing his officers on their future battleplan.

“In 6 months, this sector has to be under our control” Braxton continued “The Boskara have been getting more and more aggressive on our front, with their ships raiding mining stations and freighters, we don’t have the resources to counter them at the moment, so we need to dispose of the Dhayuts as quickly as possible.”

4 enemy systems had been drawn up as targets, each one was to be targeted by an imperial fleet and conquered as quickly as possible, after that, the fleets were to then continue to their next targets in line, and the next, eventually merging in pairs to attack the inner systems of the Cappa Commonwealth. Finally, the plan culminated with the siege and conquest of Cappa 3, the Commonwealth homeworld, with all four fleets simultaneously attacking the system.

“What about Red Invader, sir?” Said a young tactical officer, barely whispering the name in almost terrorized reverence, as if fearing that the ship might suddenly be summoned above Soat by the mere vocalization of its name.
“We avoid it. Mission aborts if Red Invader jumps in before we have all four fleets working toghether. No point engaging it at the moment. Its travelling with the Dhayut’s entire fleet and we cannot afford another defeat.” Braxton replied sternly, as if to reproach the junior officer for his manifested fear.

Alarms started shrieking in the tactical room, the screen lit up automatically, switching view to the newly built Gamurr Station. A Boskaran fleet had surrounded the station, and was mercilessly hammering the escort task force.
“Holy…those are cruisers, sir!” said Commodore Rung, the first to find his voice.
“Indeed.” The first fleet admiral replied through his teeth, coldly. Things were never boring in the Imperium.
“Sir, we going to engage them?” The junior Tac officer asked.
“No.” Braxton replied. “Prepare the fleets for immediate departure. The original battleplan still holds. We can’t do anything for Gamurr Station.”
A muffled, ashamed sigh of relief was the last thing Braxton heard when he stormed out of the room.

Revenge

The plan was executed without a hiccup. No losses were taken and 7 enemy colonies were conquered, including the two long disputed human settlements. Several enemy taskforces were eliminated in the process, but no sign of Red Invader. Had it been destroyed in some other war? The admiral found himself thinking for a moment. No. Its still out there, no doubt about it. All the outer colonies had been conquered and only the inner colonies remained. 3 more colonies, and the fight would be taken to Cappa itself.

The Foreign Affairs minister, even dared propose that a peaceful subjugation of the Cappans might be possible without further bloodshed. He was shouted down in seconds by the other outraged ministers. It was either them, or us.

Peaceful subjugation wasn’t really an option, the emperor reflected. Despite the new colonies, the Imperium’s economy was still disastrous and hadn’t had time for recovery. Of the known races, we had one of the weakest economies. Thanks to the military burden Soat Space Sport had had to bear, very few freighters had been built in the last 20 years. The only possible solution to be on level with the other powers in the galaxy, including the Imperium’s dangerous and hostile neighbours, the Sluken and the Boskara, was to take over Cappa 3 and it’s vast economic resources.

The FA minister had managed to achieve something useful in the midst of the raging hostilities. A peace treaty had been negotiated with the Boskarans. Giving them a mining station in a contested zone had been enough to placate them and stop the organized raids. Occasional, single ship attacks on the already weak imperial trade routes still occurred, but it was rare enough not to be considered dangerous and more often then not the escorts managed to repel these sporadic raids.

In the mean time, an unexpected event lightend up all hopes of surviving in this hostile galaxy. The Implacable Warlord had been dug up on a distant world by one of our exploration teams. A fully operational, very advanced Capital Ship.

Despite the good news, the ship was still many light years away. It wouldn’t be any use in the current campaign. Good old terran tech would have to suffice this time around.

The invasion kept going, tougher and tougher resistance had to be beaten back all the time, but finally, the Terran war machine arrived in the Cappa System, there, the Dhayut Battle Fleet had been refitting and refueling.

Admiral Braxton ordered the fleets to converge at the Commonwealth mining station orbiting Cappa 7, in an attempt to lure out the Dhayut fleet. The mining station was hammered, and the Dhayut fleet soon jumped in to engage, led by Red Invader and Dominator.

“All ships, concentrated fire on Dominator. I want that bug infested fleet down with minimal losses”.

36 ships, most of them new Striker IV class destroyers, converged on the enemy frigate. Its shields brightened vigorously under the concentrated laser fire, holding the deadly onslaught at bay for quite a few critical seconds. Various imperial destroyers had started taking damage, when suddenly the shields dimmed and the first laser shots got through. In seconds, the hull of the dominator was a burning wreck. A dazzling nuclear explosion lit the battlefield like a small sun when the ship’s reactor finally went critical and blew up. An exultant chorus rose up in the command deck. The admiral allowed himself to smile for a second. His next order would stir things quite a bit on his ships.

“All ships, concentrate fire on Bremen IV class, designation 002.”

His crew all turned towards him in mute dismay. “We’re not targeting Red Invader?” said the tactical officer, looking genuinely confused.

“Negative, Mr Jonson. Forward the order to all fleets.”

Bremen IV 002 went down in seconds, and so did all the other less technologically advanced destroyers in the Dhayut fleet. Red Invader was now alone, no longer a deadly predator, but a dangerous prey to be hunted mercilessly. When its shields started failing, it fled out of system at full speed.

“Don’t chase. Keep moving towards those Cappan orbital stations. Lets kick their front door down.”
The three orbitals were a sight to behold: gigantic stations, brimming with weapons and powerful shields to boot. One after the other, they went down to the combined power of the Terran Fleet, followed swiftly by the huge space port, larger than Soats. The spaceport fell down wreaking havoc on the planets surface. There had been losses, a Tetrarch class frigate and a destroyer had jumped too close and had been blasted in seconds by the combined power of the three battlestations, and several other ships had been left venting atmosphere, hull pierced in orbit around Cappa 7

“Call in invasion task force. Bug hunting season is about to open on Cappa 3.”
Suddenly, Red Invader jumped back in the fray. Started targeting a nearby frigate and opened up on it. Shields held, though only by the tightest margin.

This time, the admirals orders were swift to come and very concise.
“Focus fire. Kill the bastard.”

The bastard held, for quite a while. Its shields were impressive, and the frigate never stood a chance. No surrender request was received and none was offered. In the end, Red Invader blew up. No escape pods were released: that wasn’t the Dhayut way.

The admiral allowed himself a sigh of relief. That was tough. “All ships, prepare for invasion.”

“Sir, we’ve got another contact in system, orbiting Cappa 3. It’s an ancient guardian ship.” Word came from the sensors console.

“Leave it alone, they have never interfered, they generally only watch”.

“Yes si…uh…Admiral Grahmbrein’s command ship has acquired a target lock on the ship….He’s firing sir!”

“Oh my God…” Not even God could stop those lasers. Shield impact.

“Sir, ancient guardian destroyer Xeros is powering up weapons…it opened fire!”

“Terran ships, stand down or you will be destroyed. Leave this system immediately.” Warned a metallic voice, devoid of any emotion on the ship's loudspeakers.

“Crap. Concentrate fire, we’re not aborting this now!” Braxton ordered “Call up Admiral Grahmbrein, I’ll have his balls for this!”
“Sir…the admirals flagship…has just been destroyed.”
The monumental amount of fire from the Terran Fleet was almost enough to break the shields of the guardian ship. It had to flee the area, but not before issuing a last warning.
“Your ships will be destroyed. You are advised to leave the system immediately.” Said the voice flatly.

“Keep going, land the troops men. We have to finish this.” Braxton ordered.

7 battalions of the planned 20 had landed when multiple hyperspace contacts appeared on sensors.

“Sir, 3 new contacts…it’s the ancient guardians…they have a capital ship”

The Mighty Challenger, turned on its gravity well, blocking all hypersppace engines around Cappa 3. Massive weapons arrays opened up without warning on the terran fleet.
Admiral Braxton barely managed to catch the huge outline of the gigantic capital ship before his ship was obliterated in a single salvo.
11 ships, of the original 38 made it out of the system alive.

To be continued...

nice visuals and epic engagements, way to go Tungsten

Great start. A nice pace of candy and pure action.

Thanks for the comments guys, I hadn't realized it would be such a task to write it all when I started. I'm trying to stall playing my game so I have time to catch up with the story...very frustrating to have the game open for reference but paused the whole time anyway...next installment coming soon...The Burden Of Victory...hope you all enjoy it...

Tung

your work and abstinence will not be in vein [:)]

The burden of Victory

The once powerful Cappan Commonwealth had been finally defeated. Without a fleet or any production capability their days were numbered. Not surprisingly, they had become a subjugate dominion of the Ancient Guardians. They knew we would be back, and knew they needed protection from us. Badly.

The cost of the enterprise had been astronomical. The 3 remaining terran fleets combined couldn’t make a battleworthy taskforce. 6 destroyers and 3 frigates were all that was left of the once mighty war machine, all damaged and desperetaly in need of refueling. Of the 20 battalions recruited for the invasion, only 6 had made it back. The troop transports with the soldiers in cryostasis had been hunted down by the Guardians just as mercilessly as the warships.

Galaxy Wide our reputation had suffered tremendously from the war…we were the favored boogeymen in alien stories. Only our most trusted allies: the Securans and the Kiadians kept their embassies on Soat. All the others, including the once friendly Atuuk decided it was time to abandon us to clean our own rot.

Emperor Gerald reviewed the situation. Over 20 years of war, and all that we had to account for it was a small empire of poor, baclward colonies, a wrecked economy, almost no defensive capabilities left whatsoever and a tech base that was light years behind the prosperous empires around us.

On top of that, the Sluken, sly and timely as ever, had just decided it was their turn at our sorry hides. Apparently, they hadn’t taken too well the news of their insect cousins being squashed with such poor manners.

Their military power was at the time, about 5 times our own (around 10k). Our empires were similarly sized but ours was made mainly of new colonies that had been either conquered from the Dhayut or recently colonized. Individually their destroyers could muster up over twice the firepower of our own. Again, the emperor knew, he had to unfairly ask his citizens to face a superior opponent against terrible odds. Odds, which worsened considerably when the Boskarans, bored with their current unproductive wars with half the known galaxy, decided to turn on us as well. Again.

No point recriminating, this was the hand he had been dealt. Had to make good with it. “Order our shipyard to maintain military production for the moment, those freighters will have to wait.” He ordered his Industrial minister.
“My lord, may I suggest we also build more spaceports? Amasai, Khandrela 2 and Urd Radamar 3 would be ideal locations to boost our productive output”.
“Approved.” The Emperor confirmed, he had a lot of things to do yet. “Form up 1st fleet with the Implacable Warlord. Until the new ships start rolling out, that ship might well be our best hope for survival.”
Newly appointed Admiral Alexander Valorey nodded quickly in confirmation, then glanced at the portrait of Admiral Braxton hanging in the Emperors war room. He had a lot to do if he wanted to live up to the guy’s reputation. Or…rephrasing it…he had a lot to do if he wanted to live at all. First Admirals didn’t seem to last very long in the Imperium. He thought cynically.

The Implacable Warlord was a truly beautiful ship. Giraxon II class in its original navy, or so the ship computer claimed. It had a sleek design, with an elongated cylindrical hull. It’s bright, golden plating made for quite a view in the surrounding blackness of the void. Which also meant, it could be seen from very far away.. Could be a disadvantage…He mused. But not really, considering its size any third rate gravitic sensor could pick it up a million AUs away. No, stealth was not its strong point. 12 shatterforce lasers, 6 plasma thunderbolt torperdo tubes and 12 ultramodern fighters are its more evident qualities.

1st fleet was in a sorry state: 2 destroyers and a frigate left. Barely a task force. Morale was dangerously low, even the aggregation of the Warlord didn’t manage to lift it much. It meant they were going out again. With 2nd fleet undergoing repairs, and the 2 ships in third fleet assigned to patrol duties, they were the imperium’s last line of defense. Intelligence had reported a Sluken task force heading for Kareda. Time to see if this new toy is worth the maintenance cost. The admiral thought. “Hyperspace when ready Captain Rovak.” He said, glancing to his side. How old was his captain? Too damn young. Was the only answer he could muster. Senior captains were very rare indeed after the Cappan debacle.

1st fleet arrived just in time to see the Mining Station orbiting Kareda 11 blow up. 3 Sluken destroyers, Imperia class and a Capri class frigate formed the attacking strike force. No time to worry about the dead now. “All hands, prepare for battle. Open fire on the closest Sluken ship as soon as we close range”. The Admiral ordered. The Implacable Warlord had never been battletested. Weapons and shields seemed to work, and its AI had been fairly cooperative…but in these situations, any number of unpredictable things could go wrong. “Order Soat’s Fire and Grizzly to take our flanks, Valiant will take rear guard”.

Nods came back from his bridge crew, and the fleet assumed the required formation, distances were rapidly closing… The Warlords fighters had just reached the enemy and had began working on the enemy fighter escort. The ensuing dog fight was brief, and deadly for the sluken. Torpedo bombers bore in on the destroyer, unloading ther deadly payload. Slukens shields were flickering continuously to absorb blast after blast.

“Target lock, sir” Came the voice from tactical.
“Open fire, lieutenant, maximum firepower”.

The hull ripped apart on the first volley. The admiral breathed a sigh of relief. Atmosphere vented out briefly, then the ship exploded in a small, bright fireball.

“Next target, Imperia IV 019. Open fire when ready”. The time had come for the last surprise. “Turn on the gravity well, our unwelcome guests now seem to be in quite a hurry to go home.”
The battle was very brief, and for once, inexorably one sided.

Sluken Onslaught

The peaceful colony of Bairrato, orbiting Gamurr 6, had fallen. 70 million Zenox enslaved, and the Sluken had gained a foothold inside our border, a mere week of hyperspace away from Alzuk.

The United Zenox Technocracy was still losing its war with the Sluken Collective. Apparently, the felines couldn’t muster up sufficiently military forces to keep the aggressive bugs at bay. On our the galactic northern border, the bugs had long ago taken the Zenox colony of Beulpoye, in the Mailstrum Minor system. The establishment of a bug spaceport there was worrisome news indeed, the Kareda system, that had already suffered from the Dhayut dominance, was only a month in hyperspace away.

The FA Minister had attempted every reasonable diplomatic approach the man could conceive to convince the Zenox we were not the aggressive boogeymen the galaxy pictured us as, but to no avail. The Zenox wanted nothing to do with the likes of us.

Science ministry was under heavy pressure too, our ships were vastly outdated: the Sluken ships were faster, stronger and better shielded. There were also more of them, many more.

Head of the intelligence service Lorien Redan came up with a feasible plan to close the technological gap and give the Imperium a fighting chance. A battalion of specially trained agents was quickly dispatched to Sluken and Boskara colonies in order to obtain whatever knowledge the insects had over us, with priority given to weapon systems. Many did not make it back, but it wasn't long before the first results started turning in...and the Terran Imperium gained access to many new technologies, including the fearsome Shaktur Firestorm Torpedo.

The battered 3rd Fleet was dispatched to dispose of the 3 nearby pirate bases. The Emperor was firmly convinced that improving galactic public opinion was of foremost importance in the current situation, we had to convince the rest of the galaxy we were not savages if we ever wanted to acchieve peaceful relations.

The policing helped a little in the long run, but overall the situation didn't seem to improve all that much. We were still suspected to be psycopathic warmongers despite 3rd fleet's commendable efforts.

Our nasty reputation was harming all our diplomatic relations immensely, with trade sanctions popping up from all over the known galaxy. Even the Atuuk had come to fear us. Their fear, had been so great they had began intensive conscription campaigns on their planet. One of their elders: Bing O’Bibanga (ahem... it sounded surprisingly Atuukish to me, hope you don't mind ), had been elected military dictator in everything but name in order to cope with “the hairless monkey threat”.

2nd fleet was still stationed in the Kareda system after the succesful anhiliation of the sluken strike force. Morale was exceptionally high for once and the crew had even been allowed some leave on the nearby moon.

Alexander Valorey contemplated the view from his private quarters on the Implacable Warlord. Amasai was a truly beautiful moon from above. It’s spectacular oceans, raging with tides from the pull of the nearby gas giant, looked like organized, moving blue mountain ranges from this distance. The regular outline of the new space port was appearing on the eastern horizon.

He had received confidential orders from high command that day. A sluken battlefleet was heading towards Amasai. Twenty-three ships strong. Almost 6 times what he had here. Command had ordered him to move out of Kareda ASAP. He was to inform the crew and the moon's government that the fleet was scheduled for ordinary maintenence at Soat and would be departing within 3 days. The Warlord was too valuble to risk at this stage, but Command couldn't afford the colonies to think they wouldn't employ the ship in their defense: unrest and outright rebellions would start all over the newly created empire. Still, with most of the empire’s fleet-ships still being hollow hulls under construction at Soat, his fleet had been deemed more valuable than 110 million imperial subjects.

“Problems Admiral” A metallic voice interrupted from his comm screen. No questioning inflexion was modulated in the tone, apparently the communication software was still glitched.

“Just a little confused, Warly.” Warly was the new nick-name for the ships AI. It had been found intact with the ship, and helped with the routine management of the vessel. It was surprisingly smart, though terribly unforthcoming. It supplied no information whatsoever on its origin. Command decided to keep it because its chips were deeply integrated in the Warlords system, and an overhaul of the alien artifact was not possible with so many ships with more pressing needs.

“The orders were very explicit” It continued.

“You know you shouldn’t be reading those Warly. Those were private for the fleet admiral”

“I am the Ship. Anything passing through my hypercomm line has to pass inside my circuits”

“Well... then I’ll just have to give you clearance and promote you to Admiral Warly, no point arguing with you.” The admiral chuckled. Would probably make a better admiral than me too, his thoughts carried on grimly. He'd been a Commodore during the Cappan Debacle, just a few months back. Newly promoted with nowhere near the experience for the job he was now tasked with. He had also been the most senior field officer to survive the massacre.

“I would be honored to serve your nation in such a manner” The metallic voice replied flatly.
“I... was joking. Holy... Who programmed you? Didn’t have much of a sense of humor did he.” Warly remained silent at the question he had refused to answer since his discovery, probably not fully catching the irony. “Anyway" he went on. "What do they think I should do, abandon them? knowing what I know? We freed them not 10 years ago! Half the population is still being treated for traumatic stress disorder, they’d probably just go totally crazy if some more crazed, bloodthirsty bugs set foot on their moon for God’s sake!”.

After a few moments of silence that the admiral took for the AI equivalent of deep concentration, Warly replied.

“Admiral, my battle analysis computers show that I could take out the enemy fleet with no losses on our part at 89% certainty.”

“And what do I tell command if the 11% part of your analysis proves true? I was talked into it when I discussed my orders with the ships hard-drive? You know, they don’t have that much of a sense of humor back home either..”.

“Admiral, I was specifically created to help admirals and captains make the correct decisions in combat. If the 11% chance of my defeat proves true, you wouldn’t have to tell them anything. You would probably be dead.”

The admiral let the statement hang in the air for a few minutes, could he risk court martial, dishonorable discharge and possibly the imperium’s last hope to defend a single colony on a piece of high-tech hardware hunch?

He sighed. He had always been impulsive, but this one really did seem totally crazy.

“Well Warly…Matter of fact, after having seen you in battle, I think I actually agree with your analysis. Thing is, high command will never come around to see it our way. No point in even asking them, they have already made up their minds on the matter.”

The computer remained silent for a second, then the comm screen turned black, and started emitting static.

“Admiral, I have to officially report a severe malfunction in my Hypercomm link. I am in the process of repairing the damage, it will take approximately three days. I will then forwarded a complete report to high command on my status. We were not able to receive any orders today. I apologize for the inconvience”.

“You warmongering piece of junk…they should have left you’re rusty ciruits buried under a planet of sand for the next thousand years!” He smiled. The piece of junk had a sense of humor after all.

The preparations were swift. They would engage at the mining station orbiting Kareda 7, were the Sluken fleet was supposedly going to exit hyperspace. Warly had confirmed that if the ships all arrived precisely on schedule and in tight formation, the odds of defeat would rise to an impressive 98%. That, fortunately, was very rare: it required exact in system coordinates and near perfect coordination on the Sluken part to avoid a catastrophic fleet collision. Would the hive mind be able to coordinate such a feat? Warly didn’t think so, the insects were disconnected from the hive mind while in hyperspace and only in contact with their ship overlord…and had no reason to suspect anyone would be waiting for them at their exit point.

He documented as much as he could on Sluken war tactics. Warly had put a vast collection of galactic documents on the matter. Some of these documents, generally the most interesting ones Warly dutifully highlighted for him, had a misty provenance the AI never cared to elaborate on. He discovered Sluken were quite intelligent and cunning, more so than the Dhayut. Their tactics relied on deception and trickery as much as they did on brute force. On top of that, what made them maybe the most dangerous foes in the known universe was the fact that death, for the Sluken, was not something to be feared. They actually "revered" the idea of dieing.

The documents also stated that somewhere in the Slukis empire there was a giant, black temple where the Sluken fervently perpetrated their macabre religion. It was called "Temple of Eternal Darkness". There, the insects united to make sacrifices in the name of their gods and prayed that one day, their own death might unite them with their dark masters. Despite this, they weren’t suicidal: they first had to earn their place as chosen ones before being accepted by the Gods.

Macabre, disturbing, unsettling. All these adjectives came to Alexander’s mind as he avidly read through the documents. They also had the capability of biologically bonding to other creatures cellular structure. Their peculiar biological pattern gave them the ability to incorporate parts from other creatures: limbs, claws or, in more extreme cases, the creature’s brain.

Little time remained. No point recriminating on his decision or thinking it over any more than he already had. The sluken had been detected on the long sensors. The 2ndd battle of Kareda was about to begin. He fervently hoped his fate would prove better than the one of his predecessor, Admiral Osler.

got to wonder if Kareda is once again infested, no news is bad news

Nice AAR. Waiting for next episode

Nice narration.

And of course I would not mind, even if I am a bit late in reading this.