War for the Cores - Homeworld 2 based fanfiction

[fudge_dragon]

Right this is my first attempt at a fan fiction, Its based roughly on the events of Homeworld 2 and I haven't yet thought up a good name for it Just did think one up. Before anyone asks, I'm going to take a DeepChrome stance to updates, that is they arrive when the arrive, that is when I finish writing them. Without further ado I give you the first two chapters (plus a prelude), constructive criticism welcome.

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Prelude

The Hiigarans, exiled for millennia to the desolate planet of Kharak, had forgotten their past until discovering a derelict starship in the desert sands. Within lay the Guidestone, a galactic map that proved they did not belong on Kharak and reinforced their belief that Sajuuk, He Whose Hand Shapes What Is, had banished them there. The ruins revealed a second secret—an ancient Hyperspace Core. Building on this technology, the Hiigarans returned
home and unseated their oppressors. Long and bitter was the journey, but the Exiles at last claimed their homeworld, Hiigara. Under the guidance of Karan S’jet, the Hiigarans have forged an empire spanning the Inner Rim. Although outnumbered, they emerged a dominant force, for they alone, with the Bentusi, possess the ability to Far Jump: to cross vast distances in the blink of an eye.

The Vaygr are a space-borne nomadic race dominating the wild and lawless Eastern Galactic Fringe. Travelling from system to system on conventional drives, they enslave any races they encounter, cannibalizing their technology in the process. For centuries, they have conquered and absorbed civilizations in this fashion. As a result, the Vaygr are less a singular race than a conglomeration of clans, led by strong and brutal warlords in fleets known as Crusades. Discovery of ancient Progenitor relics throughout Vaygr history
has led some warlords to believe they were the Sajuuk-Khar, Chosen of Sajuuk. These messianic pretenders searched for the Three Cores, keys to
hyperspace and the path to Sajuuk. This changed when a warlord named Makaan discovered a Core deep in the Hethlim Ice-Fields. With it, Makaan sensed the locations of the remaining two cores. Contact with remnants of the Taiidan Imperial Fleet revealed a common purpose. Under the Vaygr banner, they have been moving inexorably closer to Hiigara.

Chapter 1 – Departure

Talos Soban stared out the window of the shuttle he was in; staring down at Hiigara for what might be the last time.

As the ground shrank away from the viewport and shifted to blackness he caught sight of his messy brown hair, which appeared to be almost black in the low light.

“Damn it,” he muttered, “I hate rude awakenings.”

He then spent the next five minutes trying to smooth his hair into something that looked the tiniest bit presentable.

Failing that he turned his head upwards and stared through the glass roof of the converted light corvette at what he would be travelling in for the next twelve hours, a captured Taiidani missile destroyer.

He sighed and shook his head.

That thing hasn’t seen action since the beast war, how the HELL does it still fly.

“Curse those Vaygr,” he said angrily.

Since word of the Vaygr advance had got out all vessels with their own hyperspace module had been commandeered to help shuttle people to some top secret project. As the corvette neared to a stop, a sudden clunk pulled Talos from his thoughts and he turned to look at the hatchway that had sprung open and hearty voice drifted through.

“Talos Soban?” the voice said.

Talos puzzled over this for a second as his eyes focused on the figure stood outside, the voice was strangely familiar.

“Hang on!” The figure exclaimed, “Talos Cormaric Soban?” it said as it stepped forward into the light.

It was then that Talos realised who it was. “Sofia Mannan?” he said quietly.

“Yea, it’s me,” she replied, “now you better get aboard, the captains itching to set off.”

Talos quickly picked up his single holdall and walked out of the airlock, but not before he had banged his head on the bulkhead door.

This inspired a chuckle from his old friend. “Ugh”, he groaned, “I keep forgetting how small these things are.”

His friend smiled and shook her head causing her waist length blond ponytail swing behind her, “I keep forgetting how tall you are. Didn’t you have trouble with some of the smaller doors at the academy also?” she enquired.

“Yea,” he replied, “I suppose you’re right. I’ve still got the bumps from those as well.”

With a load clang the airlock slammed shut and the shuttle disengaged from the docking port. As it raced away into the distance Sofia took Talos by the arm and turned him to face her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, “you seem troubled.”

“Do I?” he asked, “I suppose I am a little, Every day down on Hiigara I dreamed about being assigned, but now that it’s happened I realise how much I’m going to miss my home.”

She thought for a second and the replied, “I know the feeling, I felt like that when I was assigned to the Kiith Mannan command carrier, but isn’t this what we all enter the academy for, so that we can seek adventure out among the stars and relive the adventure our ancestors faced on the homeward journey.”

Talos shook his head slowly, “I suppose you’re right, but could they please avoid waking us at three in the morning.”

“I think they don’t want people to know we’ve been assigned, anyone would think Intel was afraid we had been infiltrated with Vaygr spies. Anyway you got off easy, they had me up at midnight.” She explained with an air of tiredness

He sighed, “Now how did you come to be here.”

Sophia shook her head, “Same way you came to be here,” she assumed, “random selection, and according to this piece of paper,” she said with an evil grin, “I’m your commanding officer, Now come on, I’ll show you to the bunkroom, you can fill me in on what happened at the academy after I left while we walk.

He chuckled slightly, “Yea, I can tell you how I finally passed that Quar-Jet damned test.” he said with a grin, before following her deeper into the ship.

Five minutes later he was sat in the bunkroom with his old friend telling her about how he had finally managed to leave enough of the test drone alive for the salvaging exercise that he had next, when a group of three young fighter pilots that he didn’t recognise burst in.

“Ah,” Sophia exclaimed, “here’s the rest of our strike wing.”

“That’s Reydavic,” she explained pointing at a man with short dark hair and long lean limbs on the right,” but prefers to be known as Ray, he’s a Somtaaw, just a word of warning, don’t take anything he says seriously.”

Rey simply smiled and shrugged at her comment.

“The centre pilot is Reginald or Regi for short, he’s Paaktu,” she continued pointing at a shortish man with skin so dark that you could have believed that he had spent the last six years on Kharak rather than Hiigara, however his most defining feature was his bright pink hair.

Following Talos’s gaze he smiled understandingly. “Hey I may be short but I’ve got to make a fashion statement somehow,” he explained in a rich northern accent to smiles from the rest of the squadron.

“and the woman on the left is Charlie, we’re not actually sure of her birth Kiith but she’s an adopted Soban.” She finally continued indicating a large, menacing looking woman with well toned muscles who simply smiled.

“And this,” she said, indicating Talos beside her, “is Talos Soban, a good friend and the best interceptor pilot I know.”

Ray had just opened his mouth to say hi when the Captains voice boomed from the comm. system.

“Good to see you’ve got the introductions done down there but I’ve just received hyperspace clearance from orbit control, we’ll be jumping in five… four… three… two… one… Engaging quantum wavefront generation.”

As the intercom shut off Talos braced himself and could see that his wingmen were physically doing the same. Only Sophia seemed relaxed.

Then the blue wall of light shot through the wall of the bunkroom towards them, as it passed Talos felt like he was being thrown forward and, as his body struggled to compensate he felt a searing pain in the back of his neck.

Opening his eyes he found himself to be lying on the floor with his head rested against the bunk. He hauled himself to his feet, cursing as he felt blood on the back of his neck where he had banged it. He looked around, only Sophia remained standing.

“The one thing the academy can’t teach you, suppressing mental reactions during hyperspace transition,” he muttered to himself.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Sophia told him, “it only took me 3 jumps before I stopped landing on my ass, and strangely it doesn’t bother people while sleeping,” she explained, “Now everyone get some rest, I want to be perfectly awake tomorrow, none of us have any idea where we have been assigned to and we were all up at the crack of dawn so I want to be prepared.” She finished.

Chapter 2 –Tanis Base
Grumbling, Talos picked himself up off the floor.

Five minutes ago they had been called to the bridge by the captain because of what he had called, “An immediate hyperspace interrupt”.

Suddenly the captain growled out an old Kharak curse as 10 Turanic Raider corvettes shot out from behind an asteroid.

As he begin issuing orders to the weapon crews the comm. burst into life on the Hiigaran frequencies and a Hiigaran voice barked out a single order, “Identify”.

The captain moved forward and confusedly replied, “Kiith Kaalel missile destroyer Kar-Sen”. To the surprise of all on board, the corvettes suddenly became Kiith Somtaaw mimics.

“Sorry for the deception,” the captain of the mimic wing explained, “but its better for security if hostile ship disappearances are linked to pirate activity rather than the actions of Hiigara.

You may pass,” the pilot continued, “Deactivating inhibitor now, you are cleared for Tanis base on vector 217 delta.” he finished.

As the destroyer’s hyperspace window reopened and the crew braced themselves, Talos spotted a siege cannon strapped to the side of one of the asteroids, they must have been assigned to something important, the Somtaaw were taking no chances.

A whole half an hour later Talos found himself on his feet for the first time after a quantum wavefront pass.

Sophia looked at him with interest, “Looks like you’re a natural hyperspacer,” she said, “you adapted one jump faster than me”.

The captain walked past and settled down in his chair on the bridge.

“Welcome to Tanis Base,” he said gruffly, “I leave you here, I must return to Hiigara and start informing the next set of people of their impending assignment, a shuttle will meet you down at the airlock.”

After thanking him for the ride and saying a quick goodbye, Sophia let Talos and the squadron back to the bunkroom to collect their belongings before heading down to the airlock together and the squeezing into the seats of a small converted corvette.

Talos managed to bag himself a window seat and as the destroyer disappeared into its blue wavefront, Tanis base itself came into view.

It was an awe inspiring sight. The base itself was built onto a piece of wreckage of an ancient ship bigger than anything used by current known galactic races and resourcers could be seen swarming the surface of the base itself.

As they neared the base itself Talos peered out the window trying to get a good view at the front of the base.

It looks like theirs something inset in the base superstructure itself, Sujuuk they must be really paranoid about the Vaygr finding out, we still don’t know and its not like we’re going anywhere in a small corvette.

As the last of these thoughts flashed though his mind the corvette flipped through 90 degrees and shot up into a small hanger.

Suddenly Talos smacked his head on the seat in front as the artificial gravity in the corvette flipped through 90 degrees by itself and reasserted itself in this new direction.

Then the shuttle touched down with a clunk onto the vertical landing pad, the abnormal gravity holding it in place.

As they all stepped down out of their improvised transportation a smartly dressed man in a military uniform approached them and shook Sophia’s hand.

“Good to see you have made it safely,” he greeted her; “I’m Goran Paaktu, your temporary commanding officer and Fleet Intel,” he continued as he ran his hand through his short, neatly arranged black hair.

“If you don’t mind I can take you immediately to your lodgings here?” he asked.

Sophia reassured him that they didn’t mind in the slightest and he began to lead them further into the Tanis complex.

As the departed Talos got the feeling that there was something they were still not being told as he attempted to remember the twists and turns that they took to navigate the maze of tunnels.

What felt like half an hour later but what was only actually five minutes they passed through what seemed like a boarding tunnel.

Fleet Intel then punched a console, a sliding door moved into position behind them and the tunnel began to rotate.

When it finally stopped a second door in front of them opened and Goran tuned to face them.

“I’m sorry for the extreme secrecy but it was on Fleet Commands orders, Welcome to the Pride of Hiigara,” He said with a flourish, “our new mothership.

Oh Sajuuk damn it, that’s the top secret project. Another all eggs in one basket banana. We’d have been much better off repairing the Kiith carrier fleets hanging around from the beast wars era.

Fleet Intel’s continued voice broke Talos’s metal criticisms, “Your quarters are not much further, if you would continue following me please.”

After another long corridor, a left and two rights they arrived at a lift shaft into which they all stepped.

“This lift can take you to all floors of the pride that you have clearance for, your quarters are here on the same level as the hanger, directly opposite the lift,” he explained, pointing at the diagram and indicating the various buttons laid into it, “We have a small morale sector here, but it’s unstaffed while we are here at Tanis.”

He turned to them, “If there is anywhere else you need to know about we will let you know immediately, you have temporary clearance for the bridge, which is here,” he said turning back to the diagram, “Normally we would brief over the intercom but we want to talk to you in person before the mothership tests. Oh and finally although the pride does have a numerous mess halls but what little crew we have is eating in the officers’ mess on the bridge, I have to say its surprising how little crew you actually need when you have an unbound.” He finished, “See you on the bridge for dinner at 1900 hours.”

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If there are any experienced fanficion writers lurking could they please enlighten me if their is a way to copy across from word and keep the source formatting. adding or the VB code tags is a pain in the neck.

Edit: good to see it posted I got dumped to a white screen when I clicked submit and was dreading reformating my text again.

[Angelofthenight]

Well lets see it's DAMN GOOD

[fudge_dragon]

Thanks for the comment. I can finaly post the next chapters now. I should have them up later today (its early morning for me).
Seeing my first positive comment.... Now i know why other people write fanfictions.

Ok Chapters are up

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Chapter 3 – Karan S’jet

Talos tapped on the button for the bridge for what seemed the hundredth time in the last few minutes.

This lift’s taking forever, damn 1900s coming up fast.

“You know, hit that button anymore and the lift’ll probably break down. We haven’t got any maintenance crews on board at the moment so you would be a bit stuck.” A calm female voice said from out of nowhere.

Ahh, where the hell did that voice come from?

“Um, who is this? And you know, how?” he asked timidly.

“This is Karan S’jet,” the voice replied, “Upper left rear corner, speaker and camera set.”

Talos did a double take.

KARAN S’JET!?!?!

“Karan S’jet?” he muttered turning towards the described camera, “The ‘Karan S’jet’? As in ‘Fleet command Karan S’jet’?” he continued to mutter in a stunned awe.

“The very same”, the speaker replied, “I get that reaction from everybody but it does get dull after a while.”

Talos visibly seemed to lighten up slightly.

“Sorry about that then”, he apologised, “It must get boring being stuck in the tank all the time forced to listen to people doing that when they realise your in the vicinity.”

“It does”, she replied, with a synth sigh thrown in, “at least I get some interesting people to talk to, like the ones that get over it on the first hint.”

“Thanks”, Talos muttered, “I think.”

“Your welcome”, she replied warmly, “I better be going. You’re coming up on the bridge and I need to prepare for extraction; I feel like eating food I can taste, rather than the junk the feedlines give me.”

“Ok”, Talos finished with a laugh, “See you then.”

As Talos walked onto the bridge he briefly spotted Karan disappearing up through the ceiling of her tank wearing her wirehead suit before turning to face the room.

The bridge was an image of tidiness; all the consoles sat blank around the edge of the bridge albeit minus their chairs, under the large, variable transparency, metal alloy windows that doubled as the bridges viewscreens which currently were set to their full transparency, showing images of space, with perimeter station chimera visible in the distance. Two metal doors apparently covered a large circular pit, across which a large table sat: stretching from one end of the bridge, touching Karan’s wirehead tank, to the other, ending about three feet of the centre console. Around this the console’s chairs had been arranged to seat the current crewmembers of the Pride. Most of which, the 4 members of Talos’ squad included were already present.

Goran spotted Talos and waved him over.

“We need to await fleet command before we start eating, but seeming as you and the rest of your squad is here I might as well explain tomorrow’s orders”, he began”, Tomorrow is going to be a test of both your combat ability and the Pride’s abilities to maintain a remote link with its fleet.”

At that moment the elevator door opened and a clean clothed Karan S’jet wandered in.

“Starting the briefing without me?” She asked, Pinning Fleet Intel with a harsh stare, he simply shrugged. She then continued where he had left off, “You are going to be flying a modified type of interceptor, which has had its main weapons stripped out and replaced with the latest combat simulation software, while I control a similar squadron under remote link from the tank. This will prove whether the remote control systems work and will give us an accurate measure of your abilities.”

Sofia cocked an eyebrow.

“You have a question?” Karan asked.

Sofia mumbled something.

“You may wish to speak up. It’s not like your going to be struck down if you speak to me or anything.” Karan replied wearily.

“Sorry M’lady”, Sofia muttered apologetically.

“And please, for the love of Sajuuk drop the titles! There’s only the 5 of you, Fleet Intel and an under-strength bridge crew aboard. Certainly no reason to be formal!” she exclaimed with an exasperated sigh. “Just call me Karan.”

“Sorry”, Sofia apologised again, “The Kiith fleet was so tight on that, that if you forgot to call someone by their title or rank you risked getting thrown out of an airlock.”

Karan’s features softened slightly. “I’ll have to talk to the Mannan-sa about that.” She muttered. “Anyway, what was your question?” She said, swiftly returning to the original topic.

“If your wing is running on remote link won’t they be too sluggish to keep up in a dogfight?” Sofia asked.

Karan smiled. “Under the old system back on the old mothership yes, they would. But we have developed a new system with a much higher bandwidth rate. Under my guidance they are now more accurate and have higher reaction times than a normal pilot. Such is the nature of an Unbound.” She explained.

“So you’re saying we can’t win.” Talos piped up.

“Yes”, said Karan with a mischievous glint in her eye. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Disable two and I’ll be happy.”

A load rumble interrupted further conversation. The conversations participants looked around and quickly traced it to its source, Fleet Intel!

Karan let out a laugh, “Looks like we are all hungry. Well that’s the briefing out of the way. Might as well dig in.”

Chapter 4 – Adrenaline, and an alarming discovery

As the converted interceptors flew from the hanger on the side of the pride, Sofia’s voice crackled over the intercom.

“Ok this is it. Karan’s wing will be launching from Chimera station in a few moments so we need to be ready.”

“Aggressive formation I assume”, Charlie’s voice replied.

“Hmm”, Sofia pondered, “I have a feeling brute force won’t be the answer here. What’s your take on this Talos? You’re our best pilot.”

Talos thought for a moment and then got back to his wing, “Well Karan’s unbound state hypes up reaction times, we can only counter that with more speed and agility so I’m saying evasive tactics. It’s your call.”

“Indeed”, replied Sofia, “Well that made sense to me, Squad switch to evasive tactics, when we break up into pairs Talos cover me, Rey you fly wingman for Regi and Charlie, well you’re gonna have to freelance.”

An, “Aye Lieutenant”, came back from all squad members, accept for Charlie, who simply said, “My pleasure”.

Further tactics discussions were cut short by Karan’s voice joining them on the intercom. “This is Fleet Command. Stand by for remote uplink test. Launching remote interceptors.” She said in her usual business voice, and then just before she cut the feed she added, in a slightly more casual tone, “Good luck, and try not to lose too soon.”

With that five modified interceptors cleared Chimera and began to speed towards the waiting squadron which then began to accelerate themselves. After getting into range of each others weapons, Sofia barked a single order, “Split. Now.”

As one the squad peeled out into 3 distinct parts and drove in opposite directions. In her tank Karan lifted an eyebrow, earning a funny state from Fleet Intel, “Now that’s not a tactic I was expecting”, she told the bridge with her synth voice.

Taking a gamble, she split her squad up into a two and a three, sending the larger part after Regi’s wing and the remaining two after the lone Charlie, choosing to ignore the Lieutenant and her wingman for now.

Spotting that Karan was going after their wing mates Sofia and Talos spun round and as they did so Sofia realised an alarming fact.

“Charlie, your interceptor is still set to aggressive!” She yelled at the disobedient wingman, “You wont have the speed to avoid the two Karan has sent after you.”

“I’ll be fine”, the headstrong pilot replied, “Besides it’s only…”

Talos swore imaginatively, as the red tracer beams flashed out from the two pursuing ships, striking Charlie’s interceptor on the engine housing. Suddenly the communicator to her ship cut out and her engine stopped as the simulator reported critical damage.

Meanwhile as Talos and Sofia’s craft sped towards their bedraggled wingmen Ray and Regi were having a lot more luck than their disabled team-mate. As Karan’s three interceptors moved in to get a clear target, both pilots spun round and were suddenly going the other way, filling one of the targets with tracer fire, promptly causing it to cut out. As a whoop of joy went up from the pair Talos and Sofia finally clashed with the pair of interceptors that had bagged Charlie.

As the first rounds of fire flashed between the two parties, Talos and Sofia managed to avoid most of the incoming fire, while one of Karan’s craft cut out, the simulator reporting that its engine had failed. As they swung back round to finish it off, Sofia came onto the comm, sounding a bit annoyed, “That last volley took out my targeting systems, my guns have gone offline. You take lead position. I’ll cover you and attempt to draw some fire.” She explained.

“OK,” Talos replied confidently, but in his head, things weren’t quite so sure.

Oww shit, that means we’re down to 3 active guns, and our other pair aren’t doing to good either.

Indeed they weren’t, Regi had been taken down due to a precision volley from Karan’s interceptors and Ray was now doing his best to avoid getting to shot up. In the meantime Talos took down the disabled interceptor and moved to target the second, only to realise Sofia’s engine had just cut out. In a flash of inspiration, Talos spun round and began to head towards Rays position, pushing the engine harder than the energy allocation for evasive advised. He quickly reached the Somtaaw on the communicator.

“Ray, I have a plan,” Talos explained.

“I’m all ears,” he replied back, “Anything to stop her shooting me up.”

Talos briefly had a flashback of Sofia telling him not to take Raydavic seriously as he outlined the plan. “I’m going to come back towards you full speed, bring the interceptor following with me. I want you to target mine while I target yours.”

“Ok,” the pilot said back, before joking, “What if I get shot up before you get here.”

“You don’t.” Talos finished grimly, cutting the comm.

Talos managed to avoid most of the fire from the hostile interceptors, Instead it plunged into Ray as he came round to execute the plan. As Ray’s interceptor shut down, Talos desperately squeezed the trigger, in an attempt to shut one of his three attackers. Luck shone on him as one promptly slowed to a halt. Talos then shot back towards Tanis, in an attempt to buy time.

Oh Shit, Oh Shit. That really backfired, now I know why I wasn’t made squadron leader. My plans never work. He thought as he neared the massive mothership. It wasn’t long before another plan formed in his mind however, and as he shot round behind the mothership he cut his engines. At the speeds that they had been travelling, not even Karan could react fast enough. As Karan’s interceptors passed, Talos filled one with simulated lead, before starting his engine again to pursue the final ship, which had sped out of sight round towards the hanger. As he sped round the corner himself, his engine cut out and he swore again. Directly ahead of him sat a resource collector. If it wasn’t for the cut out he would have crashed into it.

Damn, Damn, Damn, Just after I got the adrenaline pumping as well.

Karan’s voice burst back onto the intercom, “Right that it. We’re done. I’ll bring you all home.”

Five minutes later stood on the deck of the bridge, Fleet Intel stood before them looking sombre. The success of the system and them outperforming the expectations had just been overshadowed by the news he had just received. Fleet Intel began to explain.

“While you were conducting the training exercise the missile destroyer came in again with the next batch of 15 pilots, this time to guard the mothership until launch. Sadly the captain also brought bad news. The Kiith Somtaaw checkpoint has been completely destroyed.”
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It might be a little while before the next set. Thats all for the prewritten chapters. From now on its post as I write and Im knee deep in schoolwork at the minute

Hmm.. Thats weird. I changed the title and for some reason I lost the little fiction Icon. Wierd

[daperson1]

Err.. Karen is 'Permanently' attached to the ship - it says so in one of the scenes in one of the homeworld games... She can't disconnect and go have lunch XD.

[Chrome]

Yeah, I always saw and thought that about the Mothership connections--given the size of ship that it is, it can't exactly make do for itself while she's unplugged.

However, you may be referring to the HW1 manual when talking about Karan and the original MS. It's possible she may be able to disconnect for short periods of time if the technology had advanced in the 100 years since.

Still, I don't think it's something Karan should be capable of given that size and type of ship. There's too much for her to sit on.

[Darcnighte]

Nice start, fudge dragon It's good to find there's still fresh blood out there, in terms of fan-fic writers.

As for this karen getting in and out thing, I think that it's very plausible, as the pride of hiigara is still, docked with tanis, whilst tests are being carried out, the meal, could be construed as something of a last supper, before everything kicks off.

I am very much looking forward to following this story as it unfolds, keep it up.

[fudge_dragon]

:Whistles: Just as you start to think that no-one has read in 3 comments come along at once, Allong with meaningful discussion. On the subject of Karen Darcnighte's got it right. Although the Pride is too big to do without her, she isn't permenantly integrated like she was in homeworld 1. I'm playing it again at the moment. I think the line that daperson1 was refuering to was part of the whole sacrifices thing. "The greatest of these was made by the scientist Karan S'jet, who had herself permininatly integratged into the mothership's systems as its living core." Or something like that anyway. The mothership is currently docked with Tanis base and most of its critical systems are offline, but once the action heats up then yes, she's stuck in the tank.

Anyway, I'll probaly have another chapter or two up by the end of the week. I've been sitting on a couple while I get some things straight (along with a homeworld 2 polycount Somtaaw recon mesh that I made but have no idea how to texture.)

[fudge_dragon]

Well. I promised some chapters earlier this week. They are later than I expected, I found myself unable to access the forums Thursday afternoon through to Friday evening and I was working Sunday. But here they are. Enjoy and Critique. Oh and could anyof my fellow writers explain what the deal with the line spacing is, this is the first time going directly from word into the full editor and every blank line turned into 3.


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Chapter 5 – Hurried Preparations

Stood in front of the enlarged crew of the Pride; Fleet Intel briefed them on what they had managed to ascertain of the Vaygr fleet incoming on Tanis. “We have been tracking the Vaygr fleet since it entered the derelict, It appears to be a large fleet consisting of both combat and non-combat capital craft, along with hundreds of fighters. It appears that they are expecting a heavy defence. However as of yesterday we lost them: the fleet simply dropped of our scopes. As our long ranged sensors track on movement we can only assume they have stopped, though as of the moment we have no idea why.”

“Maybe they still believe they have the element of surprise and are waiting for something else”, chimed up a burly bomber pilot from the back row.

Fleet Intel pondered this for a moment. “Indeed”, he began, “It may be possible that they suffered greater damage than we thought when attacking that outpost and are repairing. Kiith Somtaaw have been known to pick their siege targets well when they realise they are not getting out alive.” He concluded.

Karan’s voice floated down from a speaker above their heads, “In light of this we have seen fit to accelerate the final phase of the Mothership’s construction. We plan to finish the final trials this afternoon and then launch tomorrow the morning.”

“With any luck we can slip past and reach Hiigara before the Vaygr fleet realises we’ve gone”, Fleet Intel finished for her.

“Break for lunch”, came Karan’s voice, “Then I want everyone at their stations, this lull could break at any time.”

After lunch Talos and his wing, along with all the new pilots, made their way down to the hanger. They were to await the construction of the new strike craft wings. As they stood there in the cool hanger, Fleet Commands voice drifted down from the ceiling of the large hanger.

“This is Fleet Command. Stand by for Hyperspace Core transfer,” She intoned.

What felt like hours later to the waiting crew a grinding noise was heard as the core slid home and the Mothership door banged closed.

Karan’s voice came once again, “Fleet Command on-line,” she said before pausing, “Mothership status report. Navigation online… Stand by to initiate main engine sequence.”

A load rumble grew from the back of the hanger as the engines brought themselves up to full power.

“Main engines online,” Karan informed the crew.

Suddenly a large lurch gripped the ship followed by a strong shaking as it strained against the mooring holding it in place, many of the crew, who had not seen the outside of the mothership or what held it in place were unprepared for such a shock and were promptly swept off their feet. Finally the tremors stopped with a final lurch as Karan shut the engines down to a hot standby.

“Engine test complete, all standard drives are operational.” She announced to the shaken crew before continuing down her checklist of components, “Engineering online… The mothership is standing by.”

“This is Fleet Intelligence.” Announced a second voice, one that all members of the crew, both old and new, had come to recognise over the last day or two, “Before launching the Mothership we must conduct a series of trials to ensure all critical systems are operational. Throughout these trials the Mothership will remain docked with Tanis. Once these trials are complete, we will launch the Mothership and test the Hyperspace Core. The first trial will test the Resourcing System. Tanis Control has provided us with a resource collector for this purpose; it will salvage the resource containers also provided by Tanis to both check our resourcing capability and to provide us with the RUs we need to produce ships.” He explained.

“Beginning resource salvage test now,” Karan told them, “Be warned pilots, the collector is going to be coming in through the frigate hanger so their may be a draft down there.”

Many of the pilots laughed at her humour but Talos looked up to where the frigate hanger joined onto the side of the strike craft one, he carefully noted the tunnel above the frigate hanger that led through to the ships phased disassembly array towards the back of the ship. Things like spacecraft had always interested him, and the confusing interior of the Pride was certainly an interesting thing to study. As he continued to stare the Collector flew over their heads, blocking his view of the hanger. He brought his view back down to the level he was on: knowing what would come next.

“Resourcing Systems fully operational. Trial successful.” Karan announced.

Up on the bridge Fleet Intel securitised his test schedule before activating his microphone once again.

“We will now test the Mothership’s production capabilities by building a Fighter Facility subsystem.” He ordered

As Karan sent the mental order a massive door halfway up the hanger snapped open revealing an atmosphere containment field like the one at the front of the hanger. Further up the massive PDA switched into reverse to turn the RUs back into usable components for the construction of the new module. Moments later the maintenance bots swarmed out of the PDA channel carrying parts of the Fighter Facility subsystem out of the open hatch to bolt them into place.

What felt like only minutes later Karan’s announcement bounced around the hanger, “Fighter Facility Subsystem complete. Engineering is online and ready for fighter production.”

Fleet Intel voice joined it seconds later, “To test basic combat capabilities and to prepare us for the Vaygr attacks we need to construct an Interceptor Squadron.”

At this prompt the mini PDA in the new module fired up and multiple fighter frames began to take form just as the resource collector came back in with more containers. This time a bout of overconfidence had caused the pilot to carry two salvage containers at once and as he entered the atmospheric field in the frigate hanger both of the containers dropped out of the jaws of the collector, causing most of the pilots in the hanger of jump a mile at the unexpected noise. Moments later from the disruption the PDA in the fighter facility subsystem cut out just as it was preparing to apply the armour coat to the fighters.

“We’ve ran out of resources people,” came an exasperated sigh from the roof, “Don’t overload yourself again, or I’ll be sending you out to collect those crates without your ship,” Karan threatened in the general direction of the resourcer.

Once the containers had been collected up and loaded into the PDA the fighters were soon finished and sat gleaming on the deck of the hanger.

“Alright folks, Sofia, you and your squad are up first. We’re going to continue to produce another squad of interceptors so launch and wait for another squad.” Karan informed them.

Talos looked up towards the nearest camera as he and his squad gave a hearty, “eye command.”

Climbing into their new ships, Talos noted the new model of interceptor they were flying and noted with approval a number of key points that he had been dying to get improved for years.

I could easily modify these

And with that thought he soared out of the hanger and into space, forming up with the mothership in parade. Minutes passed before the second squad launched to join them and as the new squad dropped into parade Fleet Intel briefed them on the task ahead.

“Stand by to begin combat trials.” He began, “Chimera station will assist by providing target drones. Destroy Them.”

Probes began launching from Perimeter Station Chimera and stopped at an area just to the right, gradually turning red as Karan flagged them as hostile.

Orders flickered onto the view screen in front of Talos.

=Fleet Command=: From now on during combat we will be using the text based communication. I can send different messages to multiple squads with this unlike the Comm. In addition text based messages between squad members are not sent via the Pride. This takes the workload of me slightly in combat. Now switch to aggressive energy allocation and assume claw formation with your squad. Then target the upper left target drone and then sweep to the right.

-Sofia Mannan-: You heard command, lock in aggressive allocation and assume claw formation, move out.

Similar orders clicked onto the screens of all the interceptor pilots and then they were off. The two squads ripped into the drones as one. Talos’ team hitting the upper target drones while there fellow pilots in the other wing attacked the bottom. In short order the probes had been decimated.

Just as the speakers crackled into life to give congratulations from Karan S’jet, a priority message cut it off as it broadcasted on all Hiigaran channels.

“Attention Tanis Control. This is Chimera Station. We have multiple targets closing on vector three-fourteen.”



Chapter 6 – The Storm Breaks

Karan S’jet frowned in her tank as Chimera Station’s readings fed in.


“Signal indicates Vaygr bomber strike force. This is a scramble alert! All pilots to their stations repeat, all pilots to their stations!” Te message continued.

Talos watched with apprehension as a single squadron of interceptors launched out of the bays to the rear of chimera before looping over and diving between chimera’s sails; the squadron forming up on the far side.

The squad quickly added itself to the fleet network and reported its status. At the same time Talos floored his interceptor without waiting for orders from Fleet Command. As the distance between Talos and his squad increased Sofia rallied the rest of the formation and sped of after him, pushing her interceptor’s reactor into the danger levels to catch up as Fleet Intel briefed all squads via the Comm.

“Tanis is under attack!” He exclaimed, “All forces to combat alert. This is not a test. The enemy must be eliminated.”

The three squads of interceptors reached the Vaygr at about the same time; tearing into the leading formation leaving just one craft alive. As the three teams turned back round the remaining pilot and the following wing swept past and unleashed their first wave of fusion bombs against Chimera Station. The bombs were flawlessly aimed: plasma leaks and fires broke out across the surface of the station and aboard the Pride the sensors reported critical damage. The three formations of interceptors sped round and finished off the bombers with well chosen fire. As the fighters broke up Talos believed he could see a lone Vaygr pilot, eyes wide with fear, beating on his cockpit with his fists; his occupation capsule refusing to eject.

Fleet Intel spoke on the Comm. once more. “Chimera Station is offline.” He explained, “Multiple enemy reinforcements detected. Engineering has begun construction of bombers as these will be needed to defend Tanis and ultimately the Mothership. Bomber crews stand by.” He ordered. “Estimated time before contact, 5 minutes.”

The three wings of Interceptors flew back and formed up in front of the mothership, resetting their energy allocations and assuming delta formation. As the first wing of bombers launched fleet Intel updated his estimate.

“Estimated time before contact, 3 minutes.”

The second squad launched with seconds to spare as three Vaygr hyperspace gates hurled forward out of nowhere and deployed just in front of Tanis: each opening their hyperspacial links. As they began to defold strike craft from hyperspace new orders flashed up on Talos’s screen.

=Fleet Command=: Assume defensive allocation and cover those bombers. Do not let the Vaygr strike craft reach them as we don’t have replacement pilots.

-Sofia Mannan-: What about defending the mothership?

=Fleet Command=: We can’t afford to go splitting our forces so we’ll have to count on the Tanis turrets to keep them off our back. Now go! Every second those gates stand our enemy has an effectively unlimited supply of fighters!

Every member of the 3 squads scrambled to obey orders: sitting as a screen just ahead of the bombers as the enemy fighter wings swept towards them. As the two groups of fighters clashed the flash of mass driver barrels lit up the dark of space. The swarm of craft looped and rolled and spun in a bid to outfight the other. As the debris settled Talos was amazed to see that the Hiigaran forces had survived with only a few scratches to show from it. While the three enemy wings that they had engaged were limping round with only 3 individual craft left.

Fleet Command really did pick the initial pilots well, Talos found himself thinking.

While the Hiigaran Interceptors finished off the last Vaygr craft a large flash lit up the right hand panel of the cockpit causing his whole canopy to tint for a second or two. The bombers had done their job.

“Enemy Hyperspace gate destroyed.” Fleet Intel announced.

The two remaining gates defolded a second group of fighters. This wing sped towards the bombers hoping to make up for the failure of their fellows. But it was not to be; As the Vaygr strike craft met the Hiigaran fighters they found themselves hopelessly outnumbered due to the loss of the gate. The Hiigarans wiped out the Vaygr fighters clearing the way for the bombers to hit the second gate.

“Gate destroyed.” Fleet Intel announced once more, accompanied by a large flash as the gate’s reactor detonated.

While this was going on the bombers that the Vaygr gates had and originally dispatched were taking their toll on the mothership and Karan’s voice spoke out on the Comm.

“The mothership is under attack. We cannot stay here any longer. Emergency launch underway.”

Talos watched as the Pride heaved itself out of the Tanis docking bay. A number of Vaygr bombers were smashed against the hull as the mothership left its moorings and assumed a ready position in front of Tanis. The one gate brought in just one last group of fighters which was quickly overwhelmed by the Hiigaran forces waiting for it and it was not long before the final gate was brought down.

Fleet Intel the contacted all ships on the priority channel. “The Vaygr have breached the Tanis perimeter. Long range sensors have detected multiple enemy signals converging on Tanis. All ships initiate docking procedures and stand by for hyperspace.”

All five Hiigaran squadrons obeyed this order with considerable haste. As the last ships entered the hanger a massive Vaygr fleet defolded from hyperspace around Tanis.

As all the pilots jumped from their ships Karan’s voice kept them up to date on the situation.

“The Vaygr have arrived. Emergency Hyperspace procedures initiated. Course set for the Homeworld.”

As the regular hum of a quantum wavefront filled the air the last words Talos heard before it passed him were these, “The Mothership. Must. Survive.”
________________________________________


I should probaly point out as it doesn't appear to be clear from the writing in hindsight that Talos is your steriotypical fighter ace, inconistant when coming up with plans but brilliant at exicuting them, always looking to push a bit more from his fighter, tries to act cool when out of the cockpit but in reality is a bit of a social klutz (although we havn't really seen this side of him yet)

Just thought it might make talos's apparently random thoughts a bit less random.