Posts: 894
Threads: 73
Joined: May 2020
Staff roles: Story Developer
Sierra Ice Field; California System; Republic Of Liberty
Insurgent battlecruiser INS Roanoke was floating through Sierra Ice Field. It hull looked battered and recently patched, lights were dimmed down to conserve power and also simulate day/night cycle onboard for convenience of its crew. Vessel was sailing with low speed and relived mostly on maneuvering thrusters and vectoring engine flaps to avoid large ice rocks while it shields and hull were more then capable of deflecting smaller ice chunks.
Night cycle meant rest time for primary shift and Captain Belle justified this for training for her newer crewmembers at their station. Off-duty shift was carefully monitoring ensigns at their stations, giving them advices on orders given by bridge. Weapons systems were switched off and running only simulated mode for training purposes. No loud alarms have been sounded and ship was not at general quarters order.
Careful observer could notice strange, however, as all senior officers were on bridge or their stations and tension aboard was palpable - partially because lone battlecruiser was far from friendly territory, but mainly what was about to happen onboard.
Few dozens of Virginia's most trusted men were already carefully positioning themselves around the ship, keepin an eye on most vital systems and components and awaiting the signal, Morreti's men from LFRM led by Grant were doing the same, still memorizing maze which was Roanoke's interior.
"Helm, set course for the new waypoint. Ops, look for friendly contacts - we should've met with our patrol some while ago. No active sweeping - don't want to startle any Rogues' or Hacker's patrols if I don't have to.", Virginia barked her commands as she sat in her chair at the bridge, easing her nerves with her favourite smokes as usual.
Nervously looking Ben Sheffield was standing behind her and was checking all officers around them with his eyes, looking for any signs of potentially suspicious activity. Belle's aide brought her cup of black coffee when sensors started beeping as they detected friendly looking contacts at last.
Near instantly those friendly contacts revealed themselves to be a quarter of Prosecutors, a mainline service fighter. Their reputation for dogfighting and aggression often saw them used in purely offensive capacities, falling quite short of the expectations needed of a fast attack craft due to the sheer size of it. To allow somebody to track you and stay on your six was a death sentence. The leader of this pack opened a communications channel. "Roanoke-actual this is Virgo three, requesting permission to join formation." Somewhat amusingly, and after having been given the ship to escape with, Morreti had decided instead to create something of an urban legend by putting it to use with the original IFF codes. By returning like this, it was probably a morale booster, even if one born from falsehood. On a secure channel, he addressed his wingmen with a gentle reminder. "Wait for the shield to go down."
Simply waiting was easy enough, but it lent the situation an awful taste of anticipation, and while Morreti might enjoy the adrenaline spike he was currently experiencing, it was by no means everyone's cup of tea. Even if he'd seen or heard nothing yet, he fully expected things onboard to be tense and for the Captain to be most burdened by it, regardless of repeated denial.
Regardless of how anyone felt about this, there was no turning back now.
On indefinite hiatus because the current state of gameplay sucks - ping me over discord if replies are needed
Posts: 894
Threads: 73
Joined: May 2020
Staff roles: Story Developer
Insurgent battlecruiser hasn't changed its course - instead it continued along its merry way through ice field and avoiding any large icy rocks with slow speed and maneuvering thrusters as it continued training its new helm crew.
Appearance of their escort winds was indeed a morale boost, especially for nervous fresh crewmen who still remembered their past experience with Rogues in California
Virginia quickly leaned forward and looked on her own display to verify that they are those pilots she has been told to expect. With a simple nod she gave signal to her radio operator, who opened lower powered radio communication, "Virgo Three, this is Roanoke - we have been expecting you. You are cleared to enter formation, over.".
Virginia took a sip from her cup and took a deep breath to calm herself before issuing her crucial command, "Ops, test our cloaking device now. Best to check it before we proceed further.". "Yes sir.", replied operator and with pushes of several buttons, power to shield generators has been cut and Roanoke began charging its faulty cloaking device.
Virginia felt as her heart began to race with anticipation and readied herself physicially and mentally to grab hand piece of ship's intercom and was preparing message in her thoughts.
For a brief moment, a faint shimmer enveloped the warship as its shield dissipated in preparation for the cloak. Immediately, the approaching fighters broke their tight formation and covered the remaining distance to the Roanoke at full throttle. Passing mere meters over the battlecruiser's hull, each ship released a swarm of Screamer EMP mines - each programmed with the Roanoke's schematics to target the communications array.
A series of bright flashes erupted across the warship's dorsal hull. External lights wavered as its power distributor briefly struggled with the abrupt surge; then it stabilized, the ship unharmed, apart from the sparks and electrical discharges sputtering from the now disabled radio dishes.
As the fighters - their deception revealed - looped about to form up around the now mute battlecruiser, one broke off and approached the ship's ventral hangar.
"This is Thorn," the lone craft transmitted to its wingmen. "We're going in."
As planned, the airlock's doors parted, admitting the Prosecutor into the Roanoke's bowels.
The hangar bay was in disarray. Armed men hurried across the deck, moving carts carrying ammunition and fuel out of the way for the landing fighter. A dozen insurgent crew members huddled at the far wall, hands tied behind their backs, a trio of guards standing watch over them - their otherwise identical uniforms decorated with identifying armbands. A handful of bodies lay half hidden behind the scarred wreckage of a forklift.
As it set down on its landing pad, the Prosecutor's cargo hatch opened and two figured clad in heavy body armor dropped to the deck, their booted feet impacting the steel floor with an audible thud. A third figure climbed down the still descending ladder from the ship's cockpit, joining them at the bottom. Together, they drew their weapons and strode towards the hangar's exit, their mirrored helmet visors revealing no interest in the men and women who had fought to secure the area for their arrival.
Posts: 894
Threads: 73
Joined: May 2020
Staff roles: Story Developer
As EMP mines hit the battlecruiser, lights and other secondary systems flickered and alarms were sounded through the ship for a brief time. "Cut that noise off!", Virginia gave direct order to her operator and grabbed intercom's handpiece as soon as the alarms went silent, "Attention crew, this is your captain speaking. We aren't under attack, I repeat, we aren't under attack...".
Her voice were echoing from various speaker aboard the ship, giving drilled yet unexperience crewmen some sense of comfort that situation is under control, but in her attempts to calm majority of her crew - gave hardliners aboard valuable hints to mount their resistance and wrestle vessel's control back to Insurgency. "... wait at you battle stations or crew quarters and don't resist - we are finding our new future in Liberty Free Republic. You won't be harmed, I repear, don't resist and you won't be harmed. Your families and relatives are being moved to safe location and you will meet them once this is over."
First laser shots were heard through the vessel as Insurgency hardliners began resisting Belle's and Grant's marines, first small detonations where heard through the vessel as resistance began using emergency oxygen tanks as improvised explosives. "Crew, this your former XO and CO speaking, Ben Sheffield.", Ben said into his handpiece and began reassuring crew, "I confirm that we are leaving Insurgency and ship's being secured as we speak. I stand by my captain and I urge you to do the same. Vespucci'd be grave for us all - ourselves and our dear ones - stand down, follow our orders and everything wi-".
Ben's speech was cut short when three bridge lower ranks pulled out their laser handguns and yelled, "DEATH TO TRAITORS!", and started shooting immediately after. "Everyone down, tak- CAPTAIN!", Virginia started yelling orders before her aide jumped in front of her as Insurgency loyalists began shooting and pulled her down, taking three shots instead od her.
Virginia pulled Morreti's kemwer laser pistol from her holster and replied with fire back, hitting one of her assailants before Ben and rest of the bridge managed to gun down remaining two of them.
She looked at her mortally wounded aide, ensign William Pierce, and removed her coat to press it against his burned and bleedings wounds in order to stabilize him. However, his eyes were more than telling that life was leaving him quickly. "Did... I fulfilled my duty?", he asked her as she was kneeling over him, still pressing his bleeding wounds. "Yes, you did, ensign Pierce", she comforted him as best as she could, "You saved your captain and I'll never forget that.". William smirked, trying to move his hand to salute her, but most of his strength already left him. She noticed his gesture and helped him to finish his salute by guiding his hand, saluting him back in response. "Thank you for your service.", Virginia said as he died in her hands and gently closed his eyes.
"More of them coming our way!", Ben yelled at her as he was tending her dying aide and tried to get her attention, "Captain! More of them are coming!". "Fine! Let's greet these assholes!", Virginia finally replied with anger and fire in her voice and ducked behind cover of one bridge's consoles, readying her handgun at bridge's main entrance, "Everyone behind cover! Don't get yourself killed!".
Half a dozen of foes was running to the bridge, encircling all exits and preparing themselves for shootout and securing Roanoke's bridge.
Other dozen was running towards hangar bay - equipped with mix of hanguns, long arms and explosives to set off hangar's torpedo, mine and other volatile munition magazines should they be unable to secure control over the bridge to not let battlecruiser fall into enemy hands.
But unknown for all them aside for fighters staying outside of Roanoke, large Rogue patrol was approaching them as they have been escorting their smugglers incidently through the same area.
Roanoke's sensors has been picking them up already, but shootout at the bridge meant that none was paying attention to screens right now.
As the sole combat capable craft in the area, Morreti swung about to put his ship on a collision course with the group of lowlifes rapidly approaching.
This was no patrol formation, at least not in the proper sense, it was every ship the Rogues had available to them. Interceptors, heavy fighters and bombers, all thrown together into one cluster for the sake of flexibility at the cost of cohesion. This was how they always operated, throwing an assortment of ships at a problem and then dealing with the situation as it unfolded.
Ready to criticize that approach, Morreti spooled the maxim on the top of his ship and brought the rest of the weapons online as well. One of the Rogues had forgotten the fact he was openly broadcasting and complained that a single ship was so willing to engage them. It was likely the only hint people on the bridge would get about trouble outside, if they had a functioning comms array. "Was wondering if I'd have anything to do." By contrast, Morreti had said nothing over comms to his adversaries, who were currently working up a storm of profanity as they closed the distance and bunched up
The pack fired early, in a multitude of general directions that were intended to hit the lone Prosecutor. There was such a large volume of fire that nobody currently shooting was able to really see where shots were going, and as a result most of the initial spray missed, save for some glancing shots that the shield generator shrugged off. Still, it looked like a lot of things had been shot off from their target, as many small objects seemed to drop away from it as it came into range and eventually shot straight past them.
Both sides rapidly turned to reorient, but the pack had to struggle with several close calls, nearly slamming into each other en masse. By the time this was done, they took note of the fact that the Prosecutor was sitting perfectly still, watching them and waiting for them to come after it. There was a moment's hesitation, broken up by panic as the realisation struck that the Prosecutor wasn't missing any of its pieces.
It had dumped all of its mines to lighten the load. And to avoid the impending storm of the pulse mines, the pack scattered, voltage visibly arcing its way across multiple ships and outright disabling a few, even fatally electrocuting one of the pilots. With their numbers only partially thinned, the hunt was on now. One of the interceptors finding itself under fire, while the rest slowly brought their guns to bear on the Prosecutor, with varying degrees of promptness.
Even if they were individually outclassed, this was still a fight for the lives of the people Morreti agreed to help. Overlooking the fact that his own was in far more immediate danger.
On indefinite hiatus because the current state of gameplay sucks - ping me over discord if replies are needed
The first corridor was deserted, save for two men - one wounded, one treating the injury - crouching by the doorway. They wore the armbands denoting them as Cobra's men.
"Who the hell are you?" The injured soldier sputtered as the team of three stepped past them, plasma carbines trained down the hallway.
"Put more pressure on that wound," the trio's leader, Thorn, growled, ignoring the question. The soldier stared up at him for a moment, then followed the advice, pressing his bloodied hands against his equally bloodied abdomen. Thorn nodded at his two comrades. "Cowell, take point. Ibeh, take our six." Both men formed up around him. "Move out."
The three heavily armed and armored men started down the corridor, following the ship schematics projected onto their visors' heads-up displays. The sounds of combat echoed through the narrow hallways - weapons fire, explosions, shouts. The emergency lighting flickered with each detonation, casting dark, jumping shadows across the deck and bulkheads.
"ROE?" Cowell, the point man, asked over their helmets' closed frequency.
"Armbands are friendlies," Thorn answered. "Anyone else is a foe until identified otherwise."
The team kept advancing, steadily sweeping their weapons across the hallway. Ahead, an intersection came into view, hastily erected barricades blocking their way. Half a dozen bodies lay strewn about the makeshift position. Cowell raised a closed fist and the team froze.
"Movement?" Thorn asked. Cowell shook his head. "Ibeh, hold here. Cowell, with me." Cautiously, they approached the piles of crates and overturned carts, carefully moving around the corpses. Suddenly, a young man in a dirtied uniform jumped up from behind the barricades, a sidearm raised at the approaching men. Thorn and Cowell froze. The crewman's eyes were wide and his arms shook in near panic.
"Not another step!" He cried. "You're not-"
He was cut off by a bolt of plasma impacting his chest, then a second scorching his face. With a muffled thud, he collapsed to the deck. Cowell moved forward, glancing over the barricades. Three more bodies waited within.
"Clear."
Thorn stepped up beside him, scanning the intersection. Nothing moved. In the distance, the sound of battle raged on.
"I hope that wasn't a friendly," Ibeh remarked from behind.
"No armband," Thorn noted, inspecting the young crewman's partially burnt uniform. "Form up. Let's keep moving."
Posts: 894
Threads: 73
Joined: May 2020
Staff roles: Story Developer
A light show of electromagnetic blasts did get someone's attention on Roanoke. Although the fight for the bridge was still fierce, and the senior officers hadn't had the slightest idea of what was going on outside so far, several gunners switched the turrets to local control and armed their weapons.
Even with the limited sensors of the various firing stations, it was clear to them that the Liberty Rogues were a problem for all of them, so now and then uncoordinated fire was heard from the battlecruiser towards the distant enemy ships.
"What's out there-", Virginia turned momentarily towards the ship's windows when she instinctively felt and heard her own ship's fire. Her question, however, was interrupted by covering fire from the main entrance to the bridge. "Grant, Robin, they're holding us under fire here on the bridge, the ship is out of control, no shields, and I don't need to tell you how much trouble it is when we're in the ice belt and there's fighting outside!", Virginia announced not-so-quietly into her radio to the friendly forces on board. "The engine room is almost under our control, hold on!", came the voice of Sergeant Mark Robin, the commander of her most loyal and tough Marines, the ones she could trust with the most dangerous tasks. While she had no doubt about the professionalism of Grant and his men, fighting in the maze that was called the engineering was beyond even their capabilities and required not only factual knowledge of the place, but experience in how the crew moved around there.
When the enemy discovered that Virginia and her officers were hiding quite effectively behind all manner of consoles and terminals, they began firing their own weapons to blast the displays on the bridge in an attempt to pepper the defenders with sharp glass and components.
Virginia cursed quietly, shielding her head as a large viewscreen shattered directly above her head and showered her with sharp shards, causing several superficial cuts and also turning the floor around her into rather dangerous terrain.
As Thorn and his men slowly approached the bridge, they could see another two-man crew of enemies carrying an improvised charge made of twin oxygen tanks and an incendiary grenade towards the bridge.
The tip of the spear advanced steadily. Resistance along this migraine of a maze was stiff. They were flesh covering an artery, puncturing it would shatter resolve. Belle's insistence over the radio gave this a sense of urgency.
"Picking up the pace, Captain."
Grant's answer was brief, surgical and almost curt. He had no choice in this regard, the strike team was forced to round a corner here. It was a deft procedure, required focus. Flashbangs around the corner, guns and men followed the echoing thunder. Particle bolts streamed forward, rendering faces unidentifiable and limbs severed. Blood was a premium in terms of aftermath, burns pocked the surfaces instead, bodies too. Walking over them was tedious, tripping could prove fatal and more importantly delay pace.
A pair of pipes birthed an assailant, his knife aimed for Grant, but turned on himself. A slam of the hand on the hilt ended that struggle, jugular opened, now blood was in abundance. Nodding to signal combat effectiveness, the team continued. Their advance was now without pause. The enemy was aware of this. Their attention divided as a result. To turn and stop Grant, or to push and take out Belle. They were doing both and hence neither. This would make them increasingly desperate, and that element couldn't be ignored.
Creeping steps were replaced by jogging, suppressive bursts by single shot kills, and fists with knives. The spear was now bleeding its victim dry, a matter of time and persistence.
On indefinite hiatus because the current state of gameplay sucks - ping me over discord if replies are needed
Thorn, Cowell, and Ibeh stepped out of a tight elevator - its claustrophobic confines rendered all the more unpleasant by a pair of dead bodies - onto the command deck. Weapons and heads on a swivel, a quick sweep of the three-way junction that greeted them revealed no immediate threats.
"Those were foes, right?" Ibeh commented, sparing a glance back at the two corpses as the lift doors closed again.
"They shot at me," Cowell muttered in response, pulling off the charred remains of his left shoulder guard. Thorn stepped past them into the junction. Straight ahead would be the bridge. The corridor was dark - someone had cut off even the emergency lighting. Any number of hostiles could be hiding in the shadows.
"Form up," Thorn barked. Cowell and Ibeh fell in on either side of him, carbines trained down the hallway. "Night vision." The Roanoke's interior took on a green hue as the three soldiers' visors switched on image intensification. The eerie view revealed motion only a few yards ahead - figures shifting in the cover of bulkheads, support beams, and doorways. Beyond them Thorn made out two more men, lugging a large shape between them towards the command bridge.
"I count thirteen," Cowell spoke over closed comms.
"Looks like they've got gas tanks up ahead," Ibeh added.
"IED," Thorn speculated.
"Plan?"
Thorn reached down and drew a small cylinder from a pouch on his hip. "As we go, five second intervals." His thumb depressed a fuze on the cylinder.
"Understood." Cowell and Ibeh drew their own stun grenades.
"Go."
Thorn's flashbang arced down the corridor, clattering to the deck between the first pair of enemies hiding in the dark. Raising his carbine, Thorn memorized their positions and deactivated his helmet's night vision. A flash of blinding light erupted from the grenade - rendered just bearable by the visor's automatic polarization. The deafening explosion echoed down the length of the corridor and drowned out the cries of the two men closest to Thorn as he fired two bursts of plasma at their locations.
Thorn advanced, Cowell and Ibeh in lock-step beside him. Two more bursts brought down two more startled enemies. Cowell lobbed his grenade down the corridor. Again, the shadows vanished in a brief but brilliant flash of light. Three more foes dropped dead to the deck. A fourth attempted to return fire, blind and deaf. Bolts of energy zipped harmlessly past the three advancing soldiers, sparks showering them from where they struck the walls. Ibeh rushed forward, combat knife drawn from its sheath, and stabbed the man twice in the gut, once in the throat. He collapsed, gurgling.
Cowell stepped forward, underhanding his flashbang at the remaining group of enemy crewmen standing between them and those carrying the gas tanks. Thorn and Ibeh raised their carbines, ready to shoot once the stun grenade flushed their targets out of cover.
One man, however, lunged out from behind a steel beam, and swatted at the device as it arced through the air. It sailed back towards Cowell, who instinctively spun around to face away.
The grenade detonated between the three special ops soldiers - at this close range overwhelming even their helmets' dampening systems. Thorn squeezed his eyes shut, dropping to one knee and blindly firing a burst of plasma down the corridor. His ears rang. Something struck him in the chest; he could feel his chest plate denting from the impact of a large caliber round. A second hit threw him sprawling to the deck.
Someone grabbed him by the shoulder pauldrons and dragged him across the steel floor, depositing him with his back against the wall. Slowly, sight and hearing returned to him, only to greet him with the sound of large rounds striking the steel support beam beside him. Through teary eyes, he saw Cowell crouched across the hallway, loading a fresh battery into his carbine.
"Status?" Thorn growled.
"They've set up a machine gun."
Thorn reach for his chest piece. The steel-coated polymer armor had two dents half an inch deep in it. "Figured. Ibeh?"
"Up ahead," Cowell nodded down the corridor. "Pinned down."
"Ibeh, report," Thorn raised him on their closed frequency.
"Took a round to the left leg," the soldier replied, his voice strained. Thorn sighed. It had been going too well up until now.
"Can you see the IED?"
There was a pause. Then a curse. "They're just outside the bridge. Looks like they're priming a detonator."
They were running out of time. But this was exactly the kind of messy situation that Thorn and his men had trained for. He rose to his feet, careful not to expose himself to the machine gun fire still spraying against their modest cover.
"On my mark, fire at the gas tanks."
"Copy," Cowell and Ibeh responded in unison. Thorn took a deep breath and braced himself.
"Mark."
He charged out from behind the steel beam, keeping his head low. Bullets zipped past him, leaving thin trails of chemical propellant behind. With a glance down the hallway, Thorn could make out the muzzle flash of a machine gun placed in the middle of the corridor. It tracked him, its gunner desperate to score another hit. Thorn ducked and crashed into the opposite wall, as Cowell and Ibeh stepped out from behind their cover, unleashing a barrage of plasma. Bolts of high energy particles struck the walls, deck, and ceiling, showering the remaining enemy combatants in sparks.
Suddenly, a wave of heat washed over Thorn and his men, followed by a concussive blast that sent all three of them tumbling to the deck. A blinding ball of fire enveloped their opponents, incinerating them alive. Then it vanished and only a dark corridor filled with smoke and ash remained.
Cowell groaned. Ibeh coughed. Thorn shook his head, trying to keep his vision from spinning.
"Status?" He barked.
"I think we hit them," Ibeh responded, his voice hoarse.
![[Image: GAy6bGA.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/GAy6bGA.gif)
