- Chapter 3 - "Close Encounters; Prelude" - Blood Pirate[1] Perspective
SS Blackstar (Maw-class Cruiser)[2] (SSIN-%!*XK)
Somewhere in the Warden's Maw | Freelands-Raxin Border Region
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In the cold expanse of of the Warden's Maw, no one could hear you scream. Thus, it made for the perfect spot for an ambush.
Aboard the massive command center of the Blackstar, which was hidden beneath thick armor and energy shielding rather than poking out like a sore thumb on some spot on the ship, the Uhtek Blood Pirate Captain Kojo, otherwise known as The Jackal, peered out into the empty void that was Warden's Maw. It was completely barren of any life—any celestial bodies, for that matter—thus making it an incredibly mysterious and often dangerous spot for everyone, from the most unaware of freighters to the most seasoned of privateers. However, The Jackal knew it like the back of his hand. Their UIC prey had made the ultimate mistake of venturing into the Warden's Maw, on a mission that, according to a communications intercept, intended to investigate the recent incident involving another Blood Pirate ship, the Uhtek-commanded ship known as the Bandit's Hand, which fell to a Raxin vessel known as the Roxy.
The only things those corporate dogs would be finding tonight would be dust and blood—correction, their dust and blood. The boss guaranteed The Jackal a large sum of money and a promotion, should he complete his objective and eliminate the UIC ship, preferably taking the ship as his own. Knowing his good streak in the eyes of General Anteater, The Jackal wasn't out to disappoint.
Steam crept beneath his throne as the expansive command center was entered by a Formican pirate, a crew of the ship. He reluctantly clicked his mandibles and tapped his arms together, worried. "Ahh... Cap'n... I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but..."
"Spill it." The Jackal said, his voice artificially baritone from the armor he wore. All Uhteks wore armor as humans or Formicans wore clothes, due to their sensitive skin, and The Jackal's was colored snow white, though decorated with red "war paint" and bling from his plunders. "Or don't, if it ain't important."
"Er... yeh," The Formican stammered, freezing up as his commander's onyx visor looked him down. "Th' Navigator's apologizin' for the maneuver we had to do back there — that UIC Ship woulda picked us up right away, let alone those radar buoys its planting.. had we.. uhh... blasted right into th—"
The Jackal motioned for the man to come closer by tilting his head upwards, to which the Formican reluctantly did so, coming so close to the man that he could hear his metallic breathing increasing in speed.
"I'm aware of the change in our path," The Jackal said, snarling. "Which was exactly my plan. That ship's a mere destroyer: it would crumble against this ship's superior firepower, combined with our escort frigate. A destroyer is tough, yes, but it's no match for us Blood Pirates..." Pausing briefly, he continued, again in a much more sinister tone. "Nothing is impossible to us pirates."
"And... yer exactly right!" The Formican said. "So, cap'n, as per your guidance, our projected exit path's gonna be.. right next to the enemy ship."
A red notification light went off aside The Jackal's command screen, the holographic display to his side.
Time to go to work.
"Battlestations, gents! Let's get ready to rumble! Get us a short range warp jump ready ASAP!"
The world stretched itself out around the Blackstar as she executed a short range jump, a sullen rumble being the only thing necessary to indicate that they were on their way faster than light.
- Chapter 3 - "Close Encounters" - UIC Perspective
UIC Yevosh (Supernova-class Destroyer)[3] (SSIN-117)
Near Marlowe's Drift[4], Edge of the Warden's Maw | Freelands-Raxin Border Region
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As the Yevosh drifted closer and closer to the edge of the Warden's Maw, Xytan decided to pass the time and make things more exciting by singing his favorite song. "Ninety-nine bottles of Ambrosia™[5] on the wall, Ninety ni—"
"No." Kurt quickly shut up his navigator as his first mate, Kano, entered the bridge. Kano was an Uhtek that was surprisingly bearable to deal with—in fact, Kurt thought he was likely the only bearable and sane person onboard the ship. Aside from himself, of course. Kano was diligent, mature, and very straight-to-the-point in his work, sometimes stubbornly so. Though, that was to be expected from the second most senior member onboard the ship. He quickly took his spot, snapping his fingers to get Xytan's attention and tell him to go back to his station. The navigator did so, preparing to back to Navigation when he paused, mandibles agape at the information on his screen. "Woahhh. Well, Uhtek, it's a good time you showed up now!"
Both Kurt and Kano looked at each other, then at Xytan. "Elaborate," The Uhtek spoke.
"For one, there's an asteroid field coming up directly to our front, we'll be reaching it in a couple hundred kilometers, about 15 minutes at this speed. Nothing too big." He then paused, assessing some of the data. "The biggie is that I think there's some warp readings nearby. Two, actually. Similar in size to UIC ships, so we might not be alone."
"Raise our readiness to yellow," Kurt said. "I want guns trained on those ships as soon as they come into view, and we should keep tracking it when we're outside of visual range. If it's pirate in origin, I want it dead, cooked well done."
"Aye, captain," Kano said.
The image on the deep space scanner came up on Kurt's screen, indicating the ships in question had warped into the area nearby. He looked at the dark outlines in the sea of blues, indicating the asteroid belt, which had a field of a hazy purple color around their figures, indicating the warp energy. "One is a cruiser tonnage, other is a frigate. That's raising all sorts of red flags, man."
Xytan looked up from his station. "Backup, Captain?"
Kurt shook his head, assuming a serious tone. "But that's the thing: We didn't call for backup."
Just barely in their visual range, among the planetoids and other space rocks in their path, two massive blue spheres suddenly ripped two holes open in space time. It might've seen like a far away distance, but there was only a couple thousand kilometers between the ships, in reality, which was way too close to any skilled UIC commander. Out of the vortex came a Maw-class cruiser, and then a Formican-made Xaros-class Heavy Frigate[6], though their visual appearances alone were enough to cause panic in Kurt's mind due to their blood red color scheme, chipped war paint, and red low-emission repulsor engines, as opposed to the blue engines usually mounted on most Corporate ships in the Freelands. The incoming cruiser in particular, nearly 5 kilometers in length, easily dwarfed their destroyer, which was a mere 1.5km long in full length. Its collision lights seemed to be on, however, as if it was indi—
"Holy mother of fuck!" A crew member in the Navigation section of the command center rather abruptly cursed out loud. "Incoming, incoming, incoming! Plasma cannons, straight ahead — and fast!"
"Reorient to bearing zero eight five, get our gravity well generator online, and get us the fuck out of the fucking way, combat speed." Kurt ordered, holding on to his butt as the ship executed a sharp left turn and kicked its systems into full gear, its engines flaring up to its maximum output possible as the ship sped forwards, entering the belt and evading the plasma fire. The space rocks around them were automatically pushed away from the destroyer as the plasma cannon rounds from earlier slammed into nearby rocks, shattering them into hundreds of pieces in silent, colorful explosions that rattled the ship. Kurt gave a sigh of relief. "That was way too close."
"Too close?!" Xytan began to panic, worrying about the possible outcome of the rather one-sided engagement they were in. "That's a danger close-ass pirate crusier over there! And a fucking Heavy Frigate! Don't know about this one, Chief!"
"Mother of—Fucking keep it together!" Kurt hollered. At this point, Xytan's anxiety was getting annoying, which would become a liability in the heat of battle. The man had two choices: he could stay, manning his post and manning the fuck up while he was at it; or he could leave, and Kurt could find someone else to replace him until he stopped being a whiny bitch. At this point, Kurt was fine with both outcomes. "If you don't want to sit here, I can put your ass out of this bridge and get someone to sub for you until we kill these ships. Now, hold it together, crew. We might be a destroyer, but there's some pirate motherfuckers downrange there, and they look like easy pickings. Let's get to work."
"Aye aye!" Kano hollered. "Battlestations, crew! Let's take down these fuckers!"
Soon, the Blood Pirate ships began to move. And fast. The Yevosh hadn't engaged them yet, but it was already activating its countermeasures and point defense weapons in preparation for another plasma cannon bombardment from the Cruiser. Instead of doing so, the much larger ship began to launch a portion of its strike craft complement, comprised solely of the one type of craft that were specifically designed for taking out starships: Titan-class anti-capital gunboats.
"Strike craft inbound," Kano said without emotion. "Plan of action?"
"Launch our Striker-class Corvettes[7] to counter them, and get our point defense guns online to screen those gunboats." Kurt clenched the side of his command chair tightly as the Corvettes launched, the Yevosh's mass driver CIWS-based Point Defense Guns, combined with the flak fire from the Uhtek-designed Strikers, being enough to effectively screen the gunboats, allowing for the Yevosh's more accurate pulse laser-based point defense to surgically take out each of the gunboats, ending the Cruiser's long range assault.
"Keep us moving," Kurt ordered. "Get us in range of that ship, but keep the Yevosh out of range of anything big on that ship. We're small, but we're fast enough to dodge it."
"A-aye aye," Xytan said, inputting the respective navigation coordinates to the helmsman, who maneuvered the Yevosh through incoming fire as if she were a sporting yacht. As plasma fire that bore colors all across the color spectrum flew past or hit the ship's shields or a nearby asteroid, splashing colorful radiation harmlessly across the viewscreen, Kurt began to consider their odds. Maybe Xytan was right. Maybe this was a bad idea, and he did have the right to be scared about this battle. By all known naval tactics doctrines and textbooks and video games, a destroyer going up in a one-on-one fight against a cruiser or larger was likely going to result in a win for the latter. Not to mention, they were outnumbered two to one. A Heavy Frigate was not a threat to be trifled with, so they had to put an equal amount of focus in on it as they did against the Cruiser. The Yevosh did have a good crew, and he did doubt the capability of mere pirates, but the Blood Pirates were a different story. They were vicious, relentless, and a real pain in the ass to deal with.
Kano swore, speaking plainly. "Communications jammed, I'll try to get it un-FUBAR'd, boss."
Kurt turned to his first mate. "Okay, but, Kano. What's the possibility of Freelands Corporate backup coming if we let out a distress beacon now? Or amplified one of the communications buoy into one?"
"At this current rate, with that cruiser in here trying to jam our communications?" Kano paused. "I'd say an hour, more or less. Why?"
Kurt sighed loudly as he put his hand to his chin, drumming his fingers against his cheek as he did so. That one hour might as well have been one minute. With those odds, they'd be good as dead before a ship from the UIC, XB, or UMC arrived to back them up...
...Or would they?
As soon as Kurt thought up a possible solution to their dilemma, however, an alert came up over the captain's command module and everyone else's screens — it was from the Pirate Cruiser, strangely, identifying itself as the SS Blackstar, lacking a coherent SSIN due to the SSIN scrambler it carried. Perplexed, Kurt raised his eyebrow. "Are the fucking pirates trying to taunt us?"
"Negative," Kano said. "It appears it's an... OPFOR communications burst, prepared specifically for us. Shall we play it?"
Reluctantly, Kurt swallowed. It was his job to kill the enemy, not download holovideos on the Meganet with them. For all he cared, this was a virus. "Play it."
The holovid started, the holographic projector on the bridge that previously displayed a map of the battlespace (or star system, when they weren't fighting) turning on and revealing the figure of The Jackal. The Uhtek Pirate commander stood in his chair as if it were a throne, chuckling deeply, his artificially baritone voice slightly muffled by the crude quality of the holovid. His onyx, featureless helmet visor stared right back into Kurt's blue eyes, removing him of any human figures and instead making him more akin to a robot.
His monologue was, to say the least, ominous:
"Ahoy, Yevosh. I do hope you had a nice introduction to my baby, the Black Star. Oh, you pitiful little babies... defenseless little bootlicking rats... This battle here makes me beating you all the more saddening to me, knowing how fast this battle is going to end. In case you didn't figure it out already, it It is I — the The Jackal. The one and only, and the man who is going to become a Pirate Star! To the corporate rats onboard the destroyer we are hailing... you are beaten. I have come to claim what is rightfully mine. This sector, your ship, and your crew, are now under my control, but I am giving you a chance for survival: stand down, and prepare for occupation, and I might spare you. Or, stay and fight, and die like the rest of your pathetic company has done to my crew. I'll be sure to make your erasure from existence quick and painless... mostly."
The message cut off, and Kurt inappropriately burst out into maniacal laughter, much to the dismay of the crew. "What a fucking edgelord."
"Pardon, Captain?"
"There's no way in hell I'm giving that monkey the Yevosh, Kano" Kurt said. "No offense."
Kano then spoke up, gulping. "Non taken... and I don't mean to disrespect you, Captain, but I don't think they intend to bargain. I think they're gonna forcefully take it from us. That, or they'll kill us."
"What makes you say tha—"
"Contacts! Two more!" Xytan suddenly screamed, pinging the two nearly frigate-sized objects that broke off from the side of the Blackstar, almost invisible compared to the much larger size of their mother ship. These new contacts were Formican-made Xytisos-class Caravels,[8] fast ships that could double as blockade runners, but mostly found themselves fulfilling roles in between traditionally corvette roles and frigate roles. If it weren't for the green heavy PACs[9] found on the Caravels, Kurt would've mistaken them for something else, or even a torpedo or civilian ship. Their impulse engines lit up bright in the darkness of space as they gradually began to pick up speed, attempting to flank the Yevosh from both sides. Typical Pirate tactics. Kurt sighed, wishing he had more Corvettes to spare than the ones he already had, which were already beginning to engage the Caravels with abysmal results. A single Destroyer could only fend off so many threats at once, let alone two borderline frigates, one actual, and one cruiser currently shelling them from afar.
The two larger starships, on the other hand, slowly diverted their path away from the Yevosh and instead looked to go on a longer, flanking route towards the Destroyer, their own anti-FTL Gravity well generators pushing away all the asteroids in their path. Meanwhile, the two Caravels still sped towards the Yevosh like a torpedo, with no clear intention on whether or not they were going to outright ram the Destroyer or buzz the bridge. This seemed to beg the question to Kurt, though: Was The Jackal simply going to leave the Yevosh to die against two Caravels while they went around for a flanking maneuver?
If so... the Jackal is one of the laziest captains that I've ever met in my life...
...wait a second... Eureka! I've got an idea! An opportunity to turn this fight around!
Exiting his thoughts, Kurt grinned slyly. "I have an idea."
Xytan worryingly clicked his mandibles. "Oh joy."
"Kano, remove the weapons safety locks on our MORAY-class homing mines[10]. Prepare to dump... a shit ton of them."
His first mate nodded. "MORAYs armed, Captain."
"Set their fuses to radio frequence detonation only. Disable proxmity detonation. Stand by for a launch vector." Kurt said, tapping in a code into his command screen: 2323. Should he press those numbers on the radio frequency prompt and press ENTER, they'd all set off, which would create quite the spectacle (and do a lot of damage to anything remotely nearby, either downright obliterating them or disabling them from the resulting EMP.)
"Alright, Kano," Kurt clasped his hands together, placing them over his mouth. "Set the MORAYs' course for mark two zero zero. Full burn for ten seconds, then full stop."
A pause came over Kano as he tapped in the parameters. "Aye, Captain. The MORAYs' course has been set for mark two zero zero, full burn for ten seconds, then full stop. MORAYs ready to launch at your request."
"Wouldn't that take them away from the Blackstar's direction?" Xytan spoke up, to which Kurt only responded with a glare. "I am aware. Keep your mouth shut unless it's something important, Xytan." The Formican sat back down, rubbing his mandibles nervously with his two front arms while his other two free arms fiddled with his fingers nervously. Meanwhile, Kurt linked up with the MORAYs on his command screen, setting a timer. "Sixty seconds. On my mark, Kano, launch those MORAYs."
"Aye, Captain," Kano said, his hand hovering over the control panel. "All other weapons are hot and ready."
"Excellent. Prepare to roll out, fellas," he announced, klaxon sirens blaring in the background as he stood up, holding onto the railing separating his raised level of the command center from the rest of the command center, where lower-ranking personnel manned consoles and computers. His knuckles were white as snow as he gave his orders: "Engineering, divert power to our shields and engines. Shields UP! We're about to tank whatever they're going to throw at us. Kano, remember, keep those MORAYs in here until I say so."
"Plasma fire inbound!" Xytan suddenly screamed. The Caravels swooped in on the upper section of the Yevosh, pink fire bouncing down onto the shields as two emerald green glowing spheres shot past the bridge, giving everyone in the bridge goosebumps as an intense wave of heat washed over the ship. Thankfully, the Caravels' pulse lasers had done no damage—their more dangerous, dumb-fired plasma bolts had missed the ship, but just barely. Radiation from the plasma ordinance splashed over the viewscreens, briefly distorting them before their vision came back once more.
The Yevosh rocketed past the two Caravels, causing them to quickly leave sight as the front viewscreen instead focused in on the two larger starships. Luckily, that's why rear viewscreens existed, the realization of this causing Kurt to assume a grin on his face as he held on, watching the Caravels perform a U-turn and pursue the destroyer, locking on and firing their plasma bolts at the Yevosh. "Good. Keep chasing me, you assholes. Chase my ass to oblivion," he muttered, before assessing his crew. "Xytan, set a maneuver. Prime the lower maneuvering impulse thrusters and have them fully charged, ready to activate on my command. Otherwise, full power to engines and direct us to bearing one-eight-seven, grid reference Alpha-zero-seven. Declination zero zero point one four degrees."
"Aye aye!" Xytan said. "New heading: bearing one-eight-seven, grid reference Alpha-zero-seve—" he paused his repeat, turning to Kurt. "Wait a second... that'd put us on a collision course towards the Blackstar and the frigate..!"
“Which is exactly where I need us,” Kurt wasted no time in replying. This was no time for crew insubordination, and, like he said, Xytan could be temporarily removed from his post if he proved to be a problem. “You got a problem with that, Navigator?”
Xytan paused, before shaking his head and returning to his station. "No, Captain. I don't."
“Then man your goddamn post and get your bug ass ready! We’re executing the maneuver… ten seconds! Kano, launch those MORAYs!"
Kano nodded, hitting his console. On the side viewscreens, the small mobile mines began their burn towards their destination, away from the fighting. "MORAYs away! On course, mark two zero zero, full burn!"
Kurt returned the elephant in the room: The Blackstar and its frigate escort were no more than 20 kilometers away from the front of the Yevosh. At the speed they were going at now, they'd be making that distance in seconds. Kurt held on tightly to the railing as the distance between the Yevosh and the Blackstar continued to plummet rapidly, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. One very annoying thing then happened: The Blackstar's engines flared up to a hot white color as it executed a short range warp jump, seemingly teleporting out of the way of the incoming destroyer, leaving the Frigate to face the Yevosh by itself.
It was trying to run.
Another hail came in, with The Jackal's figure appearing once more on the holovid. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Captain? Are you that mentally daft, that you're going to try and ram us?! Are you that pathetic?"
"Why don't you just wait and see, you bloodsuckin' bastard?" Kurt taunted, closing communications with the pirates. What came next was crazy—nothing they'd ever taught him in the UIC fleet school, or nothing they'd ever condone. But, hopefully... it'd work. Unbeknownst to the Blackstar and its allies, they'd just fallen right into his trap.
Just when he thought they were about to slam into the Frigate, Kurt cried out, "Now! Hit it!", and gritted his teeth for the impending G-forces that were about to hit the command center.
The destroyer soared upwards and over the ship, part of the Yevosh's prow grazing the top half of the Heavy Frigate and producing a thick gash on its surface, nearly severing the long hallway-like walkway design in between the open space in its center effortlessly. The shields of the frigate blinked once, then vanished, allowing one Caravel that hadn't been paying attention to slam into the unshielded Heavy Frigate, which yet again slammed into one of the thin outer "semi-rings" on the frigate. The other Caravel pulled up at the right time and continued trailing the Yevosh, but as for their attempted shots with their plasma weaponry that were aimed at the Yevosh...
Green spheres of plasma burrowed into the hull of the Heavy Frigate, causing the surface to boil and crackle like a burning sheet of paper. These spheres detonated inside the hull seconds after, sending three massive green explosions through the hull of the Heavy Frigate as it ultimately burst into a miasma of violet, green, blue, and white flames soon after, briefly producing a new star in the rather empty Warden's Maw before dissipating.
Xytan stopped bracing for impact. "Holy shit.. did we just—"
"No time for comment, Xytan," Kano nodded, turning to Kurt. "That's two ships down, but we've still got a Caravel and a Cruiser to deal with."
Kurt nodded in response. "Cut the main engines, keep us drifting for a little, but activate our maneuvering thrusters and reorient ourselves one eight zero degrees. Execute now. Engage the Caravel immediately when in range."
The Yevosh, still moving forwards due to momentum, performed a clean 180-degree turn to face the Caravel currently trailing it, whose continued existence still boggled Kurt after his order to engage it went out. The Yevosh gathered a veritable gold orb of of energy on its prow as one of the heavy PACs charged a beam, the turret aimed straight at the small, borderline frigate-sized light ship. An orange beam of energy shot across space, producing a deep surgical incision across the Caravel's shields—and later hull—on its first passover, before ultimately cutting the Caravel clean in half on the other, resulting in a flowery orange explosion. The beam cut off and dissipated, and the Yevosh pushed on, moving debris out of its way with its gravity generator and shields.
"We're getting overheating in the engines," Engineering reported.
"Vent the heat from the heavy PAC," Kurt replied, watching the thick white vapor extrude from various pores across the ship. The Yevosh then became abruptly silent as the Engines remained powered off, cooling down after being on overdrive for almost ten minutes. No one said anything until Xytan prematurely began to cheer. "Ho-lee shitbuckets, boss! That was the most brilliant ship killing spree I've ever witnessed! All enemy contacts eliminated! We've won!"
“No,” Kurt simply said as he returned to his station, watching a rather large planetoid come into view in front of them, briefly blocking the Yevosh's view of the Blackstar. “This isn't over yet, guys. We've still got one last ship to take out, the big one. Kano, status on our charge for the PAC?”
"Fifty nine percent and rising, Captain. All other weapons are ready to fire, on demand." Kano answered crisply. Kurt sat back down, resting his elbows on his command chair's armrest. In a full broadside, they had zero chances of survival, nor did he have any ways of hurting the shields aside from the PAC beam and the MORAYs. "Ready both PAC turrets and all of our other weapons. Fire up our thrusters again to get us in front of that cruiser. Let's hope it takes the bait."
A rumble resonated throughout the ship as its maneuvering thrusters fired, allowing it to pick up enough speed for its main engines to put it back into combat speed. Its pulse laser point defense guns kept firing in an attempt to destroy the incoming plasma artillery launched by the Blackstar, which slammed into the nearby planetoid, causing it to detonate and pepper each ships' shields with tiny space rocks. Their own plasma bolts fired at the cruiser did negligible damage to its shields, but Kurt quickly found himself moving from the offensive to the defensive as he saw a blue light gather on a long barrel on the front of the Blackstar, outlined with orange streaks in the bottom of the barrel.
"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!! Divert power to rear shields NOW!" Kurt hollered, fearing it was already too late as the thunderous boom of the Blackstar's SHMAC[11] firing shook the space. A large slug crashed through several of the asteroids, practically knocking the Yevosh off course and completely shattering its shields as it slammed into the ship, thankfully slowing down slightly due to the asteroids and planetoids in the way. Had there not been any asteroids to buffer the tungsten rail accelerated sabot, it would've been a one-shot kill situation, with the Blackstar ending the Yevosh's existence in one fell swoop.
The Jackal came back once more to taunt his prey. "Enjoying your beatdown, bootlicker scum? It's all going to be over soon..."
"Up yours, you pirate asshole," Kurt retorted, closing communication with the Blood Pirate for good. Now, he was pissed the hell off. The Blackstar, using its also high speed as a cruiser, jumped in front of the Yevosh's path out of the asteroid belt, coming into view in the front viewport. Red flashes flickered across its hull as the pulse laser turrets charged, while tiny dots of green appeared along its lateral sides. It was preparing a full broadside of pulse lasers and plasma bolts.
There was also something there, aside from the Blackstar, that was too small to be seen on the viewscreen without zooming further in: the nest of MORAY mines. True to his suspicions, he had launched them in the opposite direction of the fighting and finally baited the Cruiser into entering their minefield. As the Yevosh initiated its highly-dangerous maneuver of grazing and later destroying the Destroyer and the two Caravels, the Morays had fulfilled their burns and drifted into a web in the belt—a web which the Yevosh had effectively snagged the Blackstar in.
Kurt smirked, opening a channel with his opponent. "Hey, Jackal! Here's this for a beatdown! Sayonara, you monkey motherfucker!"
He then tapped his command console and sent the signal to detonate the mines.
The viewscreens on the command center automatically polarized to prevent the crew from being blinded by the ensuing explosions. There was first a flash of blue, then white, then a flash of electricity, as the Cruiser vanished in a white orb of energy. Waves of energy impacted the recharging shields of the Yevosh, briefly producing a rainbow miasma before cutting off the shields entirely from the resulting EMP, causing the ship to be disabled and drift for a few moments before power suddenly kicked back on. The Blackstar, on the other hand, was not so lucky. As the cloud of fire expanded and cooled, it revealed a slowly capsizing Maw-class Crusier, all of its lights off as it could do nothing but sit in the graveyard of glassy, broken asteroids it had walked right into.
"PACs are back at one hundred percent," Kano said. "Ready to fire."
Kurt's order was crisp and quick: "Fire."
Deadly orange fingers of energy stretched themselves across space, headed straight for the doomed Blackstar. The lances of energy weren't as thick as the point defense pulse lasers, but were still small enough to be seen as needle thin from afar. The two beams from the PAC turrets struck both the forward and aft of the ship from the side, punching straight through to the other end and crisscrossing one another, before both beams sliced back into the reactor of the Cruiser. This set off a chain explosion, detonating the cruiser like a balloon, with the end result neither resembling ship nor debris: just a mangled mass of flaming metal in space...
Kurt relaxed, flopping backwards into his seat as the crew in the command center cheered, congratulating themselves for their victory. The human privateer then turned to Xytan, chuckling. "So much for getting 'torn to pieces by a pirate cruiser,' eh?"
"Fuck you, Kurt."
Kurt laughed, folding his arms as he looked at the destroyed assortment of pirate ships before him. "Alright. Here's what I need in the next 30 minutes: The Blackstar's Voyage Data Recorder, an after action report and a damage report from our ship, and..." he paused, for dramatic effect. "A cold bottle of Ambrosia™. Don't stall on any of them—especially that bottle!"
- Code: Select all
:: ACTIONS ::
Freelands: Business as usual.
United Interspace Corporation: Investigate reports of Raxin pirates in the Freelands.
UIC Yevosh (SSIN-117) --> SS Blackstar (SSIN N/A) [Heavy Particle Accelerator Cannon]
Context Notes:
1 - Blood Pirates - The Blood Pirates are a powerful, ravenous gang of roving pirates, marauders, general simpletons, whose antics often earn them great notoriety in the more lawless zones of the galaxy. They commonly raid and hijack corporate ships — especially in the Sagittarius sector — where they sell their wares and loot elsewhere in the Freelands, where they enjoy significant clout. Through their trading and raiding, the Blood Pirates have amassed a sizable fleet, large enough to cause organizations such as Xeizzaz Bioelectronics and the United Interspace Corporation to divert ridiculous amounts of materiel, at times, solely to destroy them.
The Blood Pirates' current leader is a man known as General Anteater, a cannibalistic human of African-terran descent. Along with having a strange appetite for Formicans and a desire to complete "the galaxy's best cookbook," the man is alleged to indoctrinate young Blood pirates through strange sexual rituals.
2 - Independent Maw-class Cruisers - Situated at a length of around 5km long, the Maw line of cruisers is a powerhouse in the Freelands warship category, often finding itself used by pirates, mercenaries, and warlords alike due to its size and firepower. Built by independent shipbuilders for the market rather than a specific race or corporation, the Maw line of cruisers are formidable, speedy, and easy to use.
3 - UIC Supernova-class Destroyers - The Supernova series of destroyer is as synonymous with the UIC as colonization and exploration programs are to the megacorporation. They are average in weapon composition and size compared to other destroyers, but have still managed to prove their worth, strength, and reliability alongside other, more specialized UIC destroyers.
Fitted with the signature Particle Accelerator Cannon turret, these ships can turn into essentially snipers during battles, eliminating high priority targets from afar while defending itself with a small corvette-capable hangar, various mass driver and pulse laser countermeasures, and plasma-based artillery guns. In an unintended design flaw, these can also serve as impromptu freighters, due to adequate cargo space and effective weapon complement.
4 - Marlowe's Drift - Marlowe's Drift is an astronomical body located near the edge of the Warden's Maw, still considered a part of the Freelands-Raxin border region. It is unassuming aside from the massive asteroid belt and cloudy nebula, where it gets its name from due to the drift of these clouds.
5 - Ambrosia™ - Ambrosia™ is a pale lager brewed by the corporation of the same name in the Freelands, acting as a subsidary of the United Interspace Corporation. Due to its taste, affordability, and aesthetic bottle, it has found itself to be popular not just in the Freelands, but the rest of the galaxy.
6 - Formican Xaros-class Heavy Frigate - The Xaros series of heavy frigate is a Formican-made heavy frigate, serving as the middle ground between small and nimble corvettes and big and tough destroyers, Due to these ships' medium size, they are not deployed en masse and are often used as escorts or patrol vessels. Due to their relatively manageable cost of maintenance, many Formican pirates have found use of the old ships they used to use against the Uhteks.
7 - Uthek Striker-class Corvette - These tough, yet nimble corvettes are dedicated fighter screeners and have found use in crowd control in space, able to dish out tremendous damage to clumps of strike craft using fast-firing autocannons and flak guns alike. In space, they can easily deter incoming bombers and interceptors, but the Striker struggles to engage anything larger than a frigate.
8 - Formican Xytisos-class Caravel - Serving as the middle ground between small and nimble corvettes and bigger and tougher frigates and destroyers, The Xytisos-class Caravel deserves the spot as its own sort of ship type in the Freelands due to its history, size, and nature. While generally larger than a corvette these are smaller than frigates and destroyers and are built with an emphasis on speed, making them excellent blockade runners and hit and run craft, capable of dealing comparable damage as a Freelands frigate would while staying within the size and speed of a corvette. These ships are often deployed as raiders by pirates or independent individuals or, in organized fleets, in large numbers as escorts or "heavy corvettes." Due to their medium size, relatively manageable cost of maintenance, and overall cheapness, these ships have easily become a staple of the Freelands navy.
These nimble vessels have been given fame for completing shipping runs and maneuvers in record time, and hold high popularity in the Freelands as reliable, "beginner" vessels. In space, this can easily engage incoming strike craft due to an abundance of anti-fighter countermeasures and small point defense weapons, but it struggles in engaging craft larger than a frigate.
9 - PACs - Particle Accelerator Cannons, or PACs, for short, are ship-based ion cannons that accelerate ionized particles at near lightspeed to destroy shields or ships. They vary in size, from small point defense lasers, to larger spinal-based cannons similar in function to mass drivers and turret-based beam weapons.
10 - MORAY-class Homing Mines - MORAY-class homing mines are space mines of an Uhtek design capable of a wide degree of motion before activation. Along with masking their thermal and radar signature to prevent showing up on radar and sonar, these mines are capable of decimating any nearby ships in the resulting nuclear explosion, surely disabling a ship if not completely destroying it from the nuke.
11 - SHMAC - M2552 Super Heavy Mass Accelerator Cannons, or SHMAC Cannons (no pun intended) are, as the name suggests, comically large spinal or turret-based railguns that launch (usually) very large and very heavy sabots of tungsten or another material at relativistic speeds, often ignoring energy shields entirely and one-shotting most smaller, unshielded spaceships and heavily damaging larger ones on direct hit. The downside is that these machines usually take a long time to reload, meaning that in order to use them effectively, coordination with other ships and volley firing is the main tactic.
![(Maw-class Cruiser)[2]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/7b1a/f/2013/174/d/5/festival_by_tinnenmannetje-d6abqvd.jpg){kind=link}
![(Supernova-class Destroyer)[3]](https://img00.deviantart.net/bcdf/i/2012/275/0/f/solarwind_cruiser_by_daemoria-d5gjunq.jpg){kind=link}
