Ulroci
04-19-2009, 03:20 AM
[Foreword: This is a short story in-progress based on the lore from Sins of a Solar Empire. If you haven't played it yet: WHY NOT? It's a massive-scale RTS (For those of you who enjoy Galactic Empires: It's made by the same people!) with a pretty interesting story for a game without a story mode. It's not a game for everyone owing to its slow pace but since the game has no campaign or story mode, the lore can be found in text pretty much anywhere the game is. It's too deep to go into here, so do some research if you want to know who/what/when/where/etc. And for those wondering, this piece is written from a Vasari perspective.]
Fighting to Retreat
by Ulroci
-Quanth
We circled around the gravity well, scanning the fringes and between the asteroids for any hidden mines that unwitting Vasari or fleeing TEC ships hadn’t run into yet. Though the com-chat was near constant, all that the majority of us could hear anymore was the constant humming roar of the Vanatorak and the Ruskovak as they opened all ordinances on the planet’s surface. Amplified by their bombardment platforms, the blazing red ribbons pinpointed city centers and blasted whole populations of the humans into micro-particulate. As the fighters and bombers weaved their ways through the small asteroids, many derelict TEC ships, civilian escape vessels, and bits of space junk filled the outskirts, casting a grim cloud around the planet. The majority of our squadron flew alongside a massive wreck riddled with bomb craters and nearly cloven in two by a massive beam weapon. Along the blackened bow, the name “Colossus” along with its vessel number stood stark against the scarring in white letters. The monolithic metal corpse served both to us and to our pursuers as a beacon of our power and relentlessness.
After the recon teams had assessed the planet-side damage, the fighters and bombers were ordered to dock in their respective vessels and await landing procedure. My own squadron lit aboard the Kalivas who, as all the other carriers had, stayed in formation at the back of the assault fleet. Helpless as they were alone, with us swarming about them, they were as formidable as any other cruiser among us. So far away from the now calm combat zone, we could now see the full extent of the damage we had dealt from the clear shielding about the bay doors. Two other TEC capital ships, like the Colossus, floated around the planet like deathly spirits haunting a grave. The damage was apparent through their pockmarked armor and gaping gashes in their outer hulls, only accented by the scavenger vessels already picking the dead titans apart for salvage.
We had only lost one frigate in the battle—an unusually low casualty rate for an opposition this size—and ten small vessels like my own. It was a sobering loss for my squadron, for two of the lost were our own; a faulty call by our wing leader, leading us into a minefield. From what we could calculate at this point, the TEC’s losses were massive, leaving them losing somewhere between three dozen and forty frigates, roughly one dozen cruisers and three of their capital ships: Colossus, Python, and Valor along with every single one of the roughly one-hundred fighter craft detected near the planet. All of their structures that were of no use to us were scuttled or destroyed in combat; there was untold damage on the planet surface and an uncountable number of civilian deaths in their cities. For the few among us who still relished the taste of war, it was quite a flavorful sight.
Fighting to Retreat
by Ulroci
-Quanth
We circled around the gravity well, scanning the fringes and between the asteroids for any hidden mines that unwitting Vasari or fleeing TEC ships hadn’t run into yet. Though the com-chat was near constant, all that the majority of us could hear anymore was the constant humming roar of the Vanatorak and the Ruskovak as they opened all ordinances on the planet’s surface. Amplified by their bombardment platforms, the blazing red ribbons pinpointed city centers and blasted whole populations of the humans into micro-particulate. As the fighters and bombers weaved their ways through the small asteroids, many derelict TEC ships, civilian escape vessels, and bits of space junk filled the outskirts, casting a grim cloud around the planet. The majority of our squadron flew alongside a massive wreck riddled with bomb craters and nearly cloven in two by a massive beam weapon. Along the blackened bow, the name “Colossus” along with its vessel number stood stark against the scarring in white letters. The monolithic metal corpse served both to us and to our pursuers as a beacon of our power and relentlessness.
After the recon teams had assessed the planet-side damage, the fighters and bombers were ordered to dock in their respective vessels and await landing procedure. My own squadron lit aboard the Kalivas who, as all the other carriers had, stayed in formation at the back of the assault fleet. Helpless as they were alone, with us swarming about them, they were as formidable as any other cruiser among us. So far away from the now calm combat zone, we could now see the full extent of the damage we had dealt from the clear shielding about the bay doors. Two other TEC capital ships, like the Colossus, floated around the planet like deathly spirits haunting a grave. The damage was apparent through their pockmarked armor and gaping gashes in their outer hulls, only accented by the scavenger vessels already picking the dead titans apart for salvage.
We had only lost one frigate in the battle—an unusually low casualty rate for an opposition this size—and ten small vessels like my own. It was a sobering loss for my squadron, for two of the lost were our own; a faulty call by our wing leader, leading us into a minefield. From what we could calculate at this point, the TEC’s losses were massive, leaving them losing somewhere between three dozen and forty frigates, roughly one dozen cruisers and three of their capital ships: Colossus, Python, and Valor along with every single one of the roughly one-hundred fighter craft detected near the planet. All of their structures that were of no use to us were scuttled or destroyed in combat; there was untold damage on the planet surface and an uncountable number of civilian deaths in their cities. For the few among us who still relished the taste of war, it was quite a flavorful sight.