Ariel - The Coridian insurgency

[Reliant121]

Chapter one - Coming of the storm

Alone in space, a metallic object began to spring to life. At first, it was merely a the internal lighting sparking into operation. The lights that littered the hull then began to glitter their soft yellow glow, some flashing in sequence and some constantly beaming. A series of spotlights also energized their radiant lights, spreading their intrusive glare against the darkness.
A flash of light erupted in the hollow space at the centre of the gate, a bright red sparkle that glistened for seconds before withering into a low glow. The hull itself of the gate began to move and extend, spreading almost like a spider when it rears its legs and fangs. The ring of which each of these long arms was attached to began to glow with a similar light to that of the pulsing spark in its empty centre. The spark began to grow in intensity, now pulsating in a sequence of energy.
Suddenly, without any warning, the light plumed forward and formed a huge cone stretching to the tips of the outstretched arms. The cone was spiked with streaks of lightning-like plasma, ripping at the empty darkness. A streak of light then appeared from nowhere, and struck the array near where the ring was. A violent thunderstorm of energy rippled around the array, before clearing away almost as quickly as it had appeared.
And there, sat in the centre of the rift, was a cold and dark creature of dull grey metal. It began moving clear of the array, accelerating quickly into the abyss.

"Radiation fallout rated at yellow-C. Non-lethal poisoning, appropriate radiation dosage has been prepared at all medical injection stations," The AI, who was programmed to respond to the name of "Vera" said in a her clean and perfected english accent. Across the patrol cruiser Ticonderoga, crewmen and officers alike made their way to one of the medical stations that were dotted around the hull. Placing their hand into a large opening filled with a gelatinous substance, they were each injected with a serum of an anti-radiation compound called Zaraline, a vital item for long distance Slipstream jumps. Slipstream inherently caused a large dosage of radiation poisoning for crew-members but it was never fatal.
"All stations report clear of slipstream influence. Helm is registering at 100%, slipstream wash has dissipated," Lieutenant Daedalus said. Karina Daedalus was sat at the head of the command centre in her lightly padded seat, playing her hands across the touch screen. Her fingers were a blur as she ran a series of diagnostics of the systems, helm, environmental control and tactical to name but a few.
"Set a course for the coordinates. Take us into orbit around Draeven IX, full impulse," Said a masculine voice sitting in the command chair. A voice belonging to Robert De Meltosi, commander of the Ticonderoga. "Once we are there, send out transmissions to all of our rangers."
By rangers, he was referring to a battalion of ships under direct attachment to his craft, all of them Destroyers or frigates. his ship served as the command and control ship of 15 patrol vessels operating in the Hetasmae sector in the Weyland zone, bordering the Coridian twilight. De Meltosi was weary. Being so close to the Twilight was a disconcerting position for anyone of his age. He could remember the tales his family had told him of the last event, the known as the 1 day incurson. He wasn't comfortable being near the home of those mass murdering creatures.
About 5 hours later, the ship drifted into orbit of Draeven IX, a moderately inhabitable world of AH (average habitability) class. It would have been perfect as a agricultural colony, growing crops that could serve the entire sector. Unfortunately, the proximity of it to the Coridian Twilight meant that it would be challenging to get any funding or support that is vital for a budding colony. No-one had ever attempted to make landing on Draeven IX anyway. Until 10 years ago that is.
Now, it was a secret military surveillance base. Buried deep within the rugged hulls of the upper major continent, named Ulysme, was a small base of operations equipped with some of the latest long range scanning technology. It was close to the Twilight, and there was little need for environmental modification or precautions. It was perfect really. And even more perfect for a CnC cruiser, like the Ticonderoga was operating as.
"TAS Ticonderoga hailing Draeven IX facility. We are transmitting on coded frequency, requesting immediate response. Over," Comms officer Imogen Carvelle said over the communications system, situated back and to the right of the commander. After a few seconds, a small machine-made beep sounded, before the channel became open on both ends.
"Ticonderoga, this is Draeven IX, watchmen Everheart on duty. We are receiving you loud and clear," came the reply.
"Requesting permission to tie into your surveillance network, and to receive situational report on this sector."
"Affirmative, Ticonderoga. Patching you in now. Our interlink encryption is sequence AA-5-6-Omega, variation Blue."
"Patch us in, Carvelle," De Meltosi ordered, shifting in his chair. "Draeven facility, could we get an audio readout of major sector activity, please?"
"Of course captain. In the past 24 hours there has been no major natural phenomenon in operation, apart from the Sabra XVI comet making its pass on the Y'sumane system. No major artificial movements either. Uneventful to the last, I'm afraid."
"Very well. We'll keep a tie in to the surveillance equipment for the duration of our stay. Ticonderoga out."
The line went dead.


Lt. Imogen Carvelle was just beginning to lapse into a daydream, when a button on her panel began to blink red, accompanied by a mechanical alert sound. Glancing at her panel, her eyes widened to the sight of the slipstream node becoming active.
"Captain, the Slipstream node is going active! Something is coming through, And by the looks of it she is coming in hot!" She cried, spinning around in her chair. De Meltosi leapt up from his chair, and hurried over to her seat, leaning over the top of her shoulder. "Coming in hot" was the term for a ship exiting Slipstream at break-neck speed and without any safety precautions and checks. It was a fair bit faster, but often lead to small hull damages or irregularities, and was generally avoided in normal circumstance. Whatever was coming in, was coming in a hurry.
"Begin scanning the Slipstream, full spectral analysis. Give me everything you can on what's coming through, and display it on the main monitor," He ordered, settling back into his chair. On the screen, a composite grid of the slipstream tunnel appeared, along with the visual representation of the scanning equipment aboard the node itself of which the Ticonderoga had remote access to. As the sensor beam traced along from side to side of the tunnel, a reading appeared in the centre, rapidly approaching the aperture of the tunnel.
"Metallurgic analysis: Tritanium hull, Plasma-conductive armour plating, Veridium drive coils. Energy analysis...." Carvelle paused, as if she had seen a ghost. On the screen, a readout appeared next to the signature. She highlighted the offending word, and said it aloud. "Positron."
The room fell silent. Mouths fell agape, and all heads turned toward that of the commanding officer. He knew, as well as they, what a Positron energy signal denoted. Only one place ever produced Positron based energy grids. And that was the Coridian Twilight. There had been no activity from the twilight in some 200 years. Some had even theorized that it had completely collapsed, leaving all vestige of civilized government far from the place. It appeared, evidently, that something rather contrary had occured.
"That thing is huge. Some 900 metres in length. At the least, she's a battlecruiser. She could even be a small battleship. We bloody well don't have the power to take something like that on!" Tactical officer Darren Bridge shouted aloud, his strong english accent ringing throughout the bridge. De Meltosi knew it as well. What he also knew was that they couldn't have detected the Ticonderoga yet. They didnt have access to the nodes in this sector, they were all controlled by Triumvirate vessels.
"They're coming through! I estimate 20 seconds before they leave the node!" Carvelle shouted in urgency.
"Captain, I can take us down. I know this thing isn't rated for atmospheric travel, but I can do it. Just give me full power to the helm, And we can be in the atmosphere. That'll protect us a little from long range scans, and will buy us some time to come up with a plan," Daedalus said softly without turning.
"Do it."
Daedalus forcibly drew power from all other non-essential systems and shunted them into the plasma-stream engines, giving her the necessary power to get the ship down into the atmosphere. The Amazon class light cruiser was certainly not designed for atmospheric flight. It had never even been considered in designing of the ship. But now was as good a time as any to test whether it was possible. And she was confident she could do it.
Slewing the bow by 20 degrees toward the atmosphere, she powered the ship forward at 1/4 impulse speed. It began to descend at an alarming rate toward the atmosphere's edge, the hull slowly beginning to heat up. Before long, traces of flame were edging the shields of the ship as she descended into the atmosphere.
"Alert, Hull pressure exceeding tolerant levels. Alert, hull temperature at 5,000 kelvin and rising," Came the computer's monotone alert.
She pushed the descent angle down by futher 5 degrees. Looking at the chronometer, she knew it was past the time the Coridian vessel had left slipstream. Every second counted now.
"Alert, Hull pressure exceeding maximum rated limitations. Alert, Hull temperature at 6,000 Kelvin."
"Transfer power from communications to the shields!" De Meltosi shouted over the gentle rumbling of the hull. The ship began to shiver and shudder.
"We're in the atmosphere!" Carvelle screamed. The temperature began to decrease slowly, as did the pressure. the Hard part was over, breaching the atmosphere.
Daedalus angled the ship downward yet further and pushing the engines a little harder. It was beginning to get to a stage where it would be difficult to draw free of the descent she had locked them in.
Suddenly, wrapping her hands around the manual steering column, she pulled it hard toward her, angling the thrusters to draw out of the decent. She slid her hand along the touchpad for the helm power, slamming every molecule of plasma through the reaction chamber. Slowly, the bow's angle began to rise. On the viewscreen, the deep green of a deep forest was rapidly approaching. De Meltosi settled into his chair, and gripped the armrests tightly. "Daedalus...." he had said warningly a while back, and now his face was completely drained of colour. He knew damn well that this was going to be close.
The ship pulled into a horizontal merely metres away from the forest top, setting a stream of trees into back-breaking bends as the winds streaked past.
"Right people, we need a plan," De Meltosi said purposefully, lifting himself from the chair.









______

comment please

[Tsukiyumi]

Some nice work Reliant. Good setup, and it's engaging. I think you nailed it. Keep it up.

[Sionnach Glic]

Nice, I'll be looking out for more.

[Mikey]

I agree that it was engaging, because the language wasn't too flowery or Victorian, and also because of how thoroughly your universe has been set up around here.

[Reliant121]

I agree that it was engaging, because the language wasn't too flowery or Victorian, and also because of how thoroughly your universe has been set up around here.

I admit that it was a challenge not to make it flowery and victorian, because that naturally is my writing style. According to my english teacher, I could rewrite Jane Eyre and still make it just as complex and flowery, if not more so.

[Mikey]

Mission accomplished, then.

[Reliant121]

Commisar T'kamat stood on the bridge of the Vengeance, glaring at the world before them. 4 hours before they had detected the vessel retreating into the atmosphere of the apparently barren world. Moments after, he ordered an intercept course. He was confident that a border ship would not be competent enough to defend itself against the weapons at the his disposal.
His only slight concern was of the transmission that had been sent through a slipstream buoy from the hiding warship. They had not determined the nature of the message as yet, the communications frequencies and encryption sequences were considerably different from Coridian technology. But his suspicions lay with it being a distress signal, which means that time was of the essence.
"Ready weapons for combat," He said sternly, not expecting any reply but the hum of plasma streaming through the weapons. His expected reply came. All around the ship, the turrets and fixed weapon emplacements lit up, and the energy signature of the combat ship dramatically increased.
"Lord, i am not detecting the Triumvirate ship on sensors. She must have hidden within the atmosphere of the planet where i cannot find them," The Acolyte assigned to the sensors reported softly. He stood in front of a giant touch screen display at the rear of the bridge.
"Bring us into orbit. That might give us better view of what is occuring," T'Kamat replied. He slithered free of his seat, snaking across the metal bulkheads. His long and flexible Serkathan body trailed behind him as he lifted, He snaked toward the forward console of the bridge, the helm control. Another nameless acolyte stood sat at the station, operating the controls. The monstrous ship drew into orbit around the planet.
"Initiate detailed scan of the planet." his orders were followed. An image of the planet appeared with a grid running through it. Slowly, sector by sector, the ships sensor array swept across the image with no sign of the ship. Impatience tainted T'kamat's serpentine features, furrowing the tuft of scales framing the top of his black eyes and tensing his already tight mouth.
At that moment, a signal bleeped into life. He glanced up with triumph. A series of other signals also appeared, all very small. Fighter or bomber sized ones. That was not the prize he was searching for...what had happened to the Triumvirate cruiser? Where had his prize gone? Even more concerning, was the lack of fighters aboard this ship. She was completely devoid of support ships of any kind, beyond useless shuttles. On top of that, the AA armament of this ship was fairly in-comprehensive and weak, the concentration had been on heavy hitting anti-capital ship weaponry.
"Fighters approach us, Commander," The Sensor Acolyte said with slight tones of alarm. T'Kamat grunted, and slid away to the weapons station. Gently laying his fingers a long the panel, he turned to the Acolyte.
"Initiate defensive operations. Do not let a single ship through," He hissed softly, before turning away and retreating to his command chair. "Combat stations, prepare for multiple attack." He said, signaling for the battlestations klaxon to sound off. Moments later, the grindingly deep siren sounded across the ship.


"Alpha 2, tighten up! Alright boys, thats a big motherfucker but she's got a fairly pissy AA armament! Which means, we can do some damage! Alpha, Beta we're on interference and covering Gamma. Gamma, give the bastards a one hellova terran Welcome!" Flight lieutenant Jamestone shouted over the intercom, directing his wing of attack fighters out of the atmosphere. There in front of them was the Coridian ship, a sleek and clean axial hull with a small section dropping below the main hull. Extending from the rear were a pair of small planes which mounted the huge plasma stream engines. No windows were on the hull, barring from a small set in a small semi-circle where the bridge was, sunken into the hull.
"Jesus christ, that things a goddamn monster!" Alpha 3 signaled over the comm system, stating what everyone else of the group were quite obviously thinking. It was massive. Few of them would ever have come up against a 900 metre battlecruiser in their life, much less be firing at breakneck speed across the AA ranges of one. Luckily, this thing wasnt as threatening as it looked in that area.
"Entering range of the AA weapons.....now!" Jamestone announced. "Break formation and engage maneuvers!" He said, ripping his fighter into a tight barrel roll over Alpha 2 to his left. Moments later, the rest of the group engaged in equally hair-raising movements, accompanied by a brilliant firestorm of purple energy bolts lighting up the space around them. Pulling along the hull, Jamestone's co pilot, Louis Santa-Vera, let loose with the turret mounted laser cannon, letting loose a torrent of bright red laser bolts against the shields. They caused the entire shield bubble to glisten into life, shimmering a bright purple, a colour much like that of the energy cannons the Coridian ship was using. The effect was minimal, barely a 0.001 percent drop in the shields output, but it was enough of a distraction to cause three of the AA batteries to chase after him, spreading their tracing laser blasts across his flight path. Spinning his fighter into wild movementes, Jamestone just about evaded the streaks of laser energy that were following his every move.
"Alpha and beta flights, this is Gamma. we're beginning our attack run!" Flight leader Higgins reported as he dragged his Mosquito bomber into a sharp 180 turn, completely reversing his course along with the rest of his flight. "Preparing for multiple plasma bomb launches! We could do with some distraction, but when they are released, everyone keep the fuck clear of the detonation radius!"
"Roger!" Jamestone said, swinging in over the top of Gamma flight, and powering forward with them as they increased speed. He definitely had the speed edge, pulling ahead of the bombers. At that moment, the forward AA battery of the Coridian cruiser lit up, spewing forth a virtual cloud of laser fire. Each fighter went evasive, spinning and darting out of range of the defensive fire.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Higgins screamed, as the plasma bomb launcher mounted on the underside of his ship spewed forth the magazine of bombs in its firing chamber. Each one of the two launchers merely pushed the bombs out, letting a stream of 10 glowing red balls slip into the shields of the Coridian ship. A series of fantastically bright explosions ripped through space, forcing the shimmering shields to glow with an incandescence that was entirely unnatural. With the last two bombers, the part of the shields coverage failed, letting 5 of the bombs crash into the hull. Bombs of the size that these bombers mounted would not do masses of general hull damage, they were more capable at precision strikes at strategic targets. With luck, they might overload a power relay, or catch a plasma conduit, but nothing more.
The explosions rocked the hull, splashing plasma flames across the previously smooth hull, ripping small tears into the metallic plating. A few cannons went dark, meaning at the primary power relays may have been severed, but it took merely seconds for the back ups to come into operation. The bombers all pulled sharply away from the hull as the vengeful cannons let loose their firestorm at the bombers, taking a few down in splashes of flame.

[Reliant121]

"There is a breach in their shields! It looks like a few of the bombers managed to get through to the hull too! The armour has been weakened!" Lt. Cmdr. Bridge reported, darting his view back and forth from the tactical console of which he was stationed at. A cross sectional image of the Coridian cruiser was there, along with a display of the shield strengths. The weakness was on the dorsal surface, roughly 170 metres from the bow, right along the central axis of the ship.

"Forward battery, open fire! Let loose everything we have! Concentrate on those coordinates!" Meltosi bellowed from his seat, standing up and pointing toward the viewscreen. before him lay the birds eye view image of the enemy vessel, portrayed as such because they had maneuvered the Ticonderoga in position above it. They had a perfect shot at the unshielded position. And they were certainly going to take advantage of that perfect positioning.

The forward twin turret lit up, and twin piercing yellow beams shot forward through space, slamming into the weakly armoured spot on the hull. Tearing into the interior, atmosphere and crewman alike were sucked into space. The secondary also opened up, slicing a line across the hull. The hull flicked with plasma flame and explosion, and power around the immediate area glimmered into and out of life.

"They are coming about, their forward cannons are targeting us!" Bridge shouted in alarm, grasping his console tightly in anticipation of the firestorm to come. The crew had a few seconds to react, and the captain had enough time to order evasive maneuvers before the strike hit.

The Purple beams slammed against the forward shields, sparking the entire shield bubble to life as the energy of the blast was spread about the entire bubble in an attempt to reduce the effect. The blast was still powerful, making the ship rock and shudder under the strain, and even sending a few careless crewmen sprawling toward the cold metal deck below their feet.

"Shields at 62%!" Bridge reported, already firing off another barrage from the forward batteries. he knew it would have little effect now, as it would just strike to forward shield array of the Coridian cruiser. The enemy shields registered at 85%, just as another strike leapt from the Coridian turrets toward the Ticonderoga. This time the ship shuddered move violently, knocking people out of chairs and into railings, sending the weak bodied and unbalanced straight to the floor. There wasn't much time before the shields would fall, as they were only at 20% now.

"Power is failing! We're loosing noncritical systems and control consoles across the board, commander!"

"Transmit emergency distress beacon, and all information we have on that ship! Hurry!" Meltosi screamed. Carvelle strangled every last drop of power in her console before it began to flicker. just getting the message out of the transmitters, and into the Slipstream relay attached to the nearest node. The console before her fell dark. Only the helm console and the environmental controls remained functioning now, as their power systems were on another plasma circuit.

"Helm....set bearing 016 mark 7....Full impulse. Do not stop from that bearing," Meltosi said softly. "Everyone....abandon ship!" The bridge crew all ran out of the room, and to the small lifeboats, along with the rest of the crew. "Mira, deactivate environmental systems and channel all power into the engines."

"Warning. that process requires grade omega security clearance."

"Grade omega clearance, Captain De Meltosi, access 09-87 alpha." A single synthetic and computer generated signal sounded off, acknowledging his request.

The Ticonderoga was sent hurtling toward the Coridian ship at breakneck speed, small sections of hull breaking away as another barrage ripped into the hull. The fighters and bombers that remained pulled off to escort the life pods. De Meltosi stood before his chair and saluted toward the view screen. he picked up the dress uniform hat that he had placed behind his command chair, and put it on.

"Burn...in...hell!" He hissed to himself, slamming his fist against the helm console and pushing every available ounce of plasma through the already strained capacitors. The ship accelerate forward, and drove into its doom. Slamming head first into the side of the Coridian ship, the bridge and the sensors were the first to go. The Captain met his cold and immediate end, slammed into the hull panel of the enemy craft. At the precise moment of his death, a series of charges along the length of the ship exploding, ripping the light cruiser apart. The Slipstream core finally gave up the game, and detonated, showering the Coridian ship in explosive plasma. A large chunk sliced into the bridge area, virtually decapitating the Coridian ship, and knocking it into a dangerous spiral toward the planet below.