Creative Writing The War of a Thousand Stars

Constructive Criticism is welcome.

PROLOGUE

Man had traversed the galaxy for nearly two hundred and twenty eight years. Colonies were founded, and lost; alien races were met, bargained with, and fought against; resources discovered, exploited and exhausted. Humanity developed new technology at an astounding rate, sometimes creating its own, sometimes reverse engineering alien technology. Though by not the strongest empire by any standards, nor the largest, or richest, humanity (or Terrans, as they had come to be known) was a force to be reckoned with due to its insatiable hunger for bigger and better things.

That hunger had driven humanity to fragment yet again. The colonies had all declared independance and only a few planets chose to create permanent alliances. In order to keep border wars from occuring, a United Nations style government (called the United Terran Planets, or UTP) was created, losely tying all the systems together. Some planetary governments took advantage of this newfound peace, allowing some worlds to become prison planets, pleasure planets, enourmous garbage dumps and the like, all in the name of profit.

The thirst for profit brought about pirates and the need for a dedicated military. This new organization was meant to be a defender for all humanity and was called The Intergalactic Peace Keeping Force, or IPKF for short. At first funded by the UTP, inefficency took its toll and the IPKF was forced to declare itself as a pseudo-mercenary group. They would aid a planet in exchange for whatever resources were needed.

The IPKF later declared itself independant of any government and opened its services to any race, provided they could pay them in some form. Their popularity sky-rocketed, although militaries of nearly every race had an extreme dislike for the IPKF, angered at the loss of some of their duties.

The IPKF is now a multi-species organization with contact centers on hundreds of worlds.

One such target of the IPKF slammed his ship out of hyperspace. The pilot, a grim man in his fourties, flicked the intercom on. "Alright guys, we managed to shake 'em. Everyone get prepared for combat. Here's the plan: fighters will launch now, missiles will be prepped now and gun batteries will charge now. The first ship we see, we blast, then jump to another system and lay low for a while."

The crew responded positively.

For nearly twenty minutes all remained quiet, until suddenly, a distinct shimmering of local space slowly began; first as a pale distortion, then as a multicoloured form of a ship, finally snapping back into normal reality.

The ship looked quite different from any IPKF ship they had ever seen before, but orders were orders.

Missiles flared out of their launchers, space bombs were launched, plasma batteries and particle beam cannons fired at maximum power.

The tell-tale shimmer of a shield system absorbed the first few salvoes but eventually collapsed, leaving the hull exposed. Ordanance detonated against the forward hull, melting thousands of tons of metal and electronics.

The captain whooped. "Status report on the enemy!" The triumphant voice of a young technician piped up. "From the looks of it, they're dead in spa-... Captain, we're getting more signals. Looks to be about three more ships coming in!" The leader of the pirate ship began to grit his teeth. "Alright. Lets prepare to fold."

Three more ships snapped into view, not much bigger than the initial ship with a length of 420 metres. Small sections of the ship churned and moved, and swarms of fighters began to rush out. The fighters, about 15 metres long, launched salvoes of unguided missiles at the ship which had fired on their comrades.

Though the anti-missile systems managed to stop some of the missiles, nearly fourty-three missiles slammed against the shield, collapsing it.

The captain barely had time to issue the order to retreat before massive energy cannons tore through his ship, evaporating the vessel and its crew in mere seconds.

More hyperspace distortions appeared, first a few, then a dozen, increasing until suddenly hundreds of ships filled the immeadiate area.

The message "Scout Wing 1 has deployed, ready for orders" was sent back to the origin point of this fleet.

No force, be it pirate, IPKF or full-scale military could stand against them alone.

Whether or not this would be realised in time was unknown.

 

Chapter 1 Sneak Peek (not final)

“It was easy to overlook at first. The galaxy is a big place, and there wasn’t time to explore every place there were mysteries. For a while, as a joke, we stuck a big ‘Thar be Dragons Here’ label in the region where the first incident occurred. But when it began spreading, we got a bit concerned…”
-Lieutenant Farino’s Memoirs

The scout wing sat in silence, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It would continue to wait for months until its orders would finally come to it.

They came as a brief burst, totally unintelligible to any but the scout wing.

After nearly seven months of inactivity, the scout wing began to move again.


A lone ship, it’s engines at full thrust, cruised through its patrol area. The Flaming Lassie was a new Venture class cruiser, freshly commissioned for the IPKF. Though certainly not the strongest ship by most standards, its strengths were its speed, sensor range and accuracy. And one of it’s crew members, William Farino, sat at the window, gazing as the stars flew past at a dizzying speed. “This speed is incredible. Can you imagine this thing once it activates its FTL drive?”

His room-mate, a young human woman named Milera Day, smirked. “It’ll be just as fast as most vessels its size, of course. The only reason this ship goes so incredibly fast is because the engines actually make up more of it than everything else put together. Its like putting a rocket-pack on a cat.”

Will frowned. “Well you sure sucked the fun out of that one. Please tell me you aren’t entirely by the book.”

“Of course not. I just like screwing with newbies minds, is all.”

“Newbie? But, aren’t you a raw recruit too?”

“Nope. I served with the Tethasia Militia since I was a teen.”

“I heard that they’re some of the best troops around, those Tethasians. Does that apply to fighter pilots like you?”

“Yep. What else have you heard about us?”

Will blushed. “Um, a friend of mine said that Tethasians are great in the sack.”

Milera threw back her head and laughed. “No more than any other human, from what I’ve heard. What about you? You don’t look entirely human, y’know.”

Will looked back at the stars. “I’m a quarter Emwelt. I don’t really have any basis for comparison but apparently it gives me slightly faster reflexes. Then again, I don’t quite have the stamina of a standard human, so it… balances out, I guess.”

Milera smiled. “Hey, no worries. Your lineage compliments you. Gives your eyes a nice shade of blue. All the eye. Its sorta cute. Plus, the teeth don’t really bother me.”

Will licked his teeth. Only the back couple teeth were truly flat and meant for grinding, all the other teeth had, at the least, gentle points, and at most they were outright canine. He hated them.

 

continuation of Chapter 1

They gave him a hungry, aggressive look, although he was in actuality rather docile. True, he was a combat pilot, and a good one at that, but he had specially requested either recon or escort duty. He received the former.

The Emwelt were a race descended from canines. Interspecies breeding was quite rare, and usually never resulted in pregnancy due to incompatible reproductive systems of one sort or another. And usually any children that did result were sterile. He was a fluke from a fluke, and he knew it. People assumed it was a source of pride for him, that he was truly unique, but he hated it. He didn’t always fit in either society. Emwelts were so much faster and sensitive to the environment, leaving him deaf and dumb in a hunters realm, while humans were stronger and their noses weren’t nearly as sensitive.

This woman didn’t stink though. She smelled nice. Will took a deep breath. He could tell her about how old she was, what she had for breakfast, and then he could ask her why she was wearing used panties.

“I ran out of clean ones, so I just turned an old pair inside out.” Milera laughed. Will stood, confused. Then it hit him. She was a telepath. “That’s right, Willy boy. Not strong enough to serve as a Truth-Sayer for a politician, but strong enough to get the general idea. Your thoughts were going ‘nice, nice, nice…. Ew.’ Then I caught an image of what sort of panties you think I wear.”

Wills face flushed, embarrassed.

Milera flicked his nose. “My undies are sexier than that, kid.”




***

The planet Grishvarl was a small world near the outer rim. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a simple planet that was home to a mostly agrarian society that had gained some technology from a crashed ship.

A passing detachment from the mysterious Scout Wing, however, did not see it as a simple, peaceful planet of little value. Scan reports flooded in. In a bizarre script made up of pictographs, numerals, and a symbol system not unlike a visual morse code. “Population: 2 million quadraped sentient life-forms. Technology: None of note. Potential for planet: Training grounds, Food production, research center, waste disposal.” A list of options appeared on a monitor. Between three shrouded figures, a rapid discussion took place, deciding what to do.

Having made their choice, an invasion force was readied.

***

Onboard The Flaming Lassie, a calm female voice emitted from the speakers. “We have received a comminque from the planet Grishvarl. They have detected a fleet above their world. They wish us to investigate. Payment will consist of food.” A groan could be heard through the ship. “Which means you don’t have to eat rations for a while.” A much louder cheer rang through the corridors.

Captain Reinhardous leaned back in his chair and tweaked his mustache. “Tell them we will arrive in approximately 3 hours. FTL drives to work at peak speed. I hear Grishvarlite fruits are rather tasty around this time.”

The ship came to a halt, then reoriented itself, aimed at a star. The rear cylinders of the engines began to rotate and glow a pale blue. Then, the ship was gone.

 

A prototype rough sketch of the Flaming Lassie, with some CGing. Honestly it is a bit shoddy, but *shrugs* oh well.

This is the general shape of the Lassie. However, with the engine nacelles, make them more rounded. Additionally, I'm going to revise the weaponry someday to make it look a bit beefier.

One of these days, I may get around to doing a good version.

 

Chapter 1: Enigma (complete version)

“It was easy to overlook at first. The galaxy is a big place, and there wasn’t time to explore every place there were mysteries. For a while, as a joke, we stuck a big ‘Thar be Dragons Here’ label in the region where the first incident occurred. But when it began spreading, we got a bit concerned…”
-Lieutenant Farino’s Memoirs

The scout wing sat in silence, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It would continue to wait for months until its orders would finally come to it.

They came as a brief burst, totally unintelligible to any but the scout wing.

After nearly seven months of inactivity, the scout wing began to move again.


A lone ship, it’s engines at full thrust, cruised through its patrol area. The Flaming Lassie was a new Venture class cruiser, freshly commissioned for the IPKF. Though certainly not the strongest ship by most standards, its strengths were its speed, sensor range and accuracy. And one of it’s crew members, William Farino, sat at the window, gazing as the stars flew past at a dizzying speed. “This speed is incredible. Can you imagine this thing once it activates its FTL drive?”

His room-mate, a young human woman named Milera Day, smirked. “It’ll be just as fast as most vessels its size, of course. The only reason this ship goes so incredibly fast is because the engines actually make up more of it than everything else put together. Its like putting a rocket-pack on a cat.”

Will frowned. “Well you sure sucked the fun out of that one. Please tell me you aren’t entirely by the book.”

“Of course not. I just like screwing with newbies minds, is all.”

“Newbie? But, aren’t you a raw recruit too?”

“Nope. I served with the Tethasia Militia since I was a teen.”

“I heard that they’re some of the best troops around, those Tethasians. Does that apply to fighter pilots like you?”

“Yep. What else have you heard about us?”

Will blushed. “Um, a friend of mine said that Tethasians are great in the sack.”

Milera threw back her head and laughed. “No more than any other human, from what I’ve heard. What about you? You don’t look entirely human, y’know.”

Will looked back at the stars. “I’m a quarter Emwelt. I don’t really have any basis for comparison but apparently it gives me slightly faster reflexes. Then again, I don’t quite have the stamina of a standard human, so it… balances out, I guess.”

Milera smiled. “Hey, no worries. Your lineage compliments you. Gives your eyes a nice shade of blue. All the eye. Its sorta cute. Plus, the teeth don’t really bother me.”

Will licked his teeth. Only the back couple teeth were truly flat and meant for grinding, all the other teeth had, at the least, gentle points, and at most they were outright canine. He hated them. They gave him a hungry, aggressive look, although he was in actuality rather docile. True, he was a combat pilot, and a good one at that, but he had specially requested either recon or escort duty. He received the former.

The Emwelt were a race descended from canines. Interspecies breeding was quite rare, and usually never resulted in pregnancy due to incompatible reproductive systems of one sort or another. And usually any children that did result were sterile. He was a fluke from a fluke, and he knew it. People assumed it was a source of pride for him, that he was truly unique, but he hated it. He didn’t always fit in either society. Emwelts were so much faster and sensitive to the environment, leaving him deaf and dumb in a hunters realm, while humans were stronger and their noses weren’t nearly as sensitive.

This woman didn’t stink though. She smelled nice. Will took a deep breath. He could tell her about how old she was, what she had for breakfast, and then he could ask her why she was wearing used panties.

“I ran out of clean ones, so I just turned an old pair inside out.” Milera laughed. Will stood, confused. Then it hit him. She was a telepath. “That’s right, Willy boy. Not strong enough to serve as a Truth-Sayer for a politician, but strong enough to get the general idea. Your thoughts were going ‘nice, nice, nice…. Ew.’ Then I caught an image of what sort of panties you think I wear.”

Wills face flushed, embarrassed.

Milera flicked his nose. “My undies are sexier than that, kid.”


***

The planet Grishvarl was a small world near the outer rim. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a simple planet that was home to a mostly agrarian society that had gained some technology from a crashed ship.

A passing detachment from the mysterious Scout Wing, however, did not see it as a simple, peaceful planet of little value. Scan reports flooded in. In a bizarre script made up of pictographs, numerals, and a symbol system not unlike a visual morse code. “Population: 2 million quadraped sentient life-forms. Technology: None of note. Potential for planet: Training grounds, Food production, research center, waste disposal.” A list of options appeared on a monitor. Between three shrouded figures, a rapid discussion took place, deciding what to do.

Having made their choice, an invasion force was readied.

***

Onboard The Flaming Lassie, a calm female voice emitted from the speakers. “We have received a comminque from the planet Grishvarl. They have detected a fleet above their world. They wish us to investigate. Payment will consist of food.” A groan could be heard through the ship. “Which means you don’t have to eat rations for a while.” A much louder cheer rang through the corridors.

Captain Reinhardous leaned back in his chair and tweaked his mustache. “Tell them we will arrive in approximately 3 hours. FTL drives to work at peak speed. I hear Grishvarlite fruits are rather tasty around this time.”

The ship came to a halt, then reoriented itself, aimed at a star. The rear cylinders of the engines began to rotate and glow a pale blue. Then, the ship was gone.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The physics of faster than light travel, or FTL, were different for each style of movement used. The Flaming Lassie used a simple but speedy method which shifted it into a seperate dimension. The projected time of arrival to Grishvarl was 1 hour now that they were on the go.

Reinhardous considered what tactics to use. There wasnt much information on the enemy, so he didn't know what they would have. "Well, lets not launch fighters at first. If they have a lightning field, we'd lose too many. Same goes for Pulse Waves and any such point defense system."

"But sir, we don't even know if they have shields!" spoke an aid.

*continued in next post*

 

Chapter 1 continued. Damn character limit.

"Yes, or what type of shield they may have... Well, first try to open communication channels, obviously. If we fail to sue for peace, launch a spread of missiles. That way, we'll be able to tell the relative strength of the shield, or hull if we're lucky, without the risk of reflective fields or feedback shields. That'll also indicate the presence of a lightning field. Afterwards, amplify the targeting lasers to a degree that they might pick them up. That'll help us know if they have reflective fields of feedback shields."

Reflective fields could bounce an energy weapon away, but control over the trajectory was limited. Feedback shields were nasty little devices that redirected the energy back into the cannon, usually blowing the cannon to shreds in the process. Lightning fields were computer controlled weapons that worked by sending a huge shock of raw energy towards small targets, like fighters and missiles. While no harm to a large ship, fighters were usually heavily damaged, and missiles were destroyed completely. While it was unlikely that someoine picking on a small planet like this would be able to afford such expensive devices, it was always possible that they had stolen ships or friends in high places. Best not to risk it so soon, and with such a novice crew.

Reinhardous felt his fingers work their usually pattern through his mustache. This would be a wonderful mission, it would. The food they were offered could feed the crew for an entire 4 months before falling back on IPKF standard meals. Which meant he would cost the IPKF less money. Which meant that he'd get to be first in line for new upgrades and servicing. He chuckled to himself. Nearly every other captain focused on ammunition and direct cash deals, but by allowing payment through simple things like food, clothing, medicine and whatnot, he'd managed to work his way through 3 other ships before being promoted to the Lassie. None of them were new ships, like the Lassie, and seemed to be continually falling apart, but he'd managed to operate them so efficiently that they could, and had, taken on ships that served as mainline combat vessels. He still got a kick out of watching the old news reports featuring his second ship, a Herbert class scout, The Leto, disable a Fegearan Destroyer and demand their surrender.

He missed those ships. Every crew was like a family to him, and he expected the same feeling to develop with this crew. But he always hated endings. His first ship, another Herbert class scout,The Hawk, had been retired after The Battle of Antares. Most of the crew did at that point too. The Leto was caught in the tractor beam of a Fegearan Heavy Destroyer seeking revenge for its smaller sister vessels embarrasement. Leto had the crew abandon ship, at which point he activated the self destruct and fled himself. He managed to kill the bridge crew of the Fegearan vessel, But a full 9 of the 30 ship members were shot down in their escape pods.

He had never forgiven himself for that, even though analysts said it was an outstanding performance and he was lucky he didn't lose more.

His third ship, an Anderson class science vessel, Academicia, had most of its hull burned away by a space amoeba. The brass decided it wasn't worth the repairs, retired it, and incorporated its crew into The Flaming Lassie.

It took some getting used to the feeling of a cruiser. Scout ships were so manoueverable, and clausterphobic inside, that when Reinhardous stepped into the Lassie to find corridors one could walk two-abreast in, while the handling was significantly different, he almost took up smoking again.

However, he was glad to be out of that damned Anderson class. He never liked that ship. It was a good ship alright, but something about it just felt inherently wrong.

Ah well. There would be more time for reminiscing later. There were stratagems to plan.

***
One lone, black, pear shaped object from the Scout Wing Detachement, no larger than a small automobile, landed in a clearing. A large door opened.

None of the soldiers who went to investigate saw anything leave.

But all died very quickly from their unseen foe. The attack had begun.

***

Finally, The Flaming Lassie phased back into real space. It saw a ship there, orbiting the planet.

"This is the IPKF Flaming Lassie, please identify yourself." The comm officer hailed the ship.

No response.

"Veeer shek ta toosh more a a a pevek?" he tried again.

No response.

He tried sending a binary signal.

Finally something came back! Another binary signal...

"Surrender. This is ours. You are ours. We do not tolerate thieves."

Reinhardous looked at the message receipt, confused. He puffed in frustration. "Screw it, open fire."

A small missile salvo issued forth from a launcher, impacting in a staggered pattern. When the explosion died down, two things seemed apparent.

The first was that whoever owned this ship didn't use shields.

The second was that the hull was ridiculously strong. There was only a light singeing. But, of course, they were only light missiles meant as anti-fighter weapons. On most ships, they'd severely dent the hull or make small openings, not much more.

Reinhardous waited for a signal, but he didn't need to wait long this time. The ship turned to face them, and thats when it opened fire. Some extremely strong plasma weapon made full impact on the Lassies shields, which dropped a full 42% in strength.

Reinhardous screamed "Open fire with all energy weapons, launch fighters, prep a cruise missile! Go!"

The Flaming Lassie began to retaliate, particle beams slowly whittling away at the enemy hull. "My God, they're tough bastards." Reinhardous joked. Another blast rocked the control and command cabin. "Shields at 6% sir! Another hit like that and we can count on losing half the ship!"

Reinhardous bit his lip. "****, this isn't gonna be as easy as I... how is the cruise missile?"

"Still prepping, sir!"

***

Farino zipped out of the launch bay, his long thing fighter rapidly picking up speed. His fighter was set to Manuever Mode B, where it handled much more like it was in atmosphere instead of in space. It was more taxing on the engines, but the quick briefing had said that it'd be better to spend as little time in one spot due to unknown weaponry on this ship. As he roared away from the Lassie, he saw the enemy. It gave him the creeps.

The dark, dull grey of their hull was seamless. Though there were many, many windows, absolutely no light came through them. As he flew past, he shone his spotlight in through the windows.

Not a living soul inside, but the control panels were still active, and still going through their work.

But why were there buttons if they werent being used? Why have windows if it was an AI controlled ship? This didn't make any sense!

Suddenly his com-speaker crackled to life. "Clear the area! They're gonna launch a cruise missile!"

Farino's eyes widened. Those missiles were meant for taking on much, much larger ships, or even space stations! Not 100 meter ships with 2 decks!

Farino punched his afterburners and got out of there.
***

One of the techs shouted "Ready sir!"

"LAUNCH!"

One of the six large missiles slowly began to move out of its bay, then suddenly accelerated to a full third the speed of light after clearing the bay. The missile smacked against the enemy hull, piercing it and continuing in for a split second before finally detonating. A massive explosion engulfed the ship, and even the Lassie shuddered under the sheer force of the explosion.

A deathly silence engulfed the entire ship.

Finally the silence was broken by the query of "A report, please?"

One of the tech scrambled and looked at his monitor. "All fighters managed to get ok. One got his tail singed but no serious harm. Our shields managed to hold up and have regenerated to 8%... Feed on the enemy ship coming in now sir... 93.43% of the hull vaporized, no energy signals, and-... wait.. it just self destructed."

Reinhardous spat. "They're smart. They didn't want us knowing who did this... scan the surface of the planet. They may have gotten troops on."

"Scanning... yeah, they got something down there. But it isnt making sense, sir... I see the transport ship, and then theres some structures beside it."

"Structures? They must have been here longer than we thought."

"It gets weirder. One of them is slowly finishing right in front of my eyes."

Reinhardous froze. ".... What?"

"It's like its being built by cloaked workers."

"But we can see it being built! What the hell is the point if you're letting your handiwork be seen?"

"..Maybe they're trying to take advantage of some local myth?"

Reinhardous snorted. "Just bombard it now. Gives me the creeps... launch 3 plasma bombs, that should take care of it, according to the readings."

***

The bombardment was quick, and painless. The payment was speedy, and delicious. The reports were confusing and mysterious. The Lassy departed, heading straight for headquarters. 12 attacks had occured in other systems, and the brass wanted to know the details of all of them.

Farino just lay in his bed and wondered about the enigmatic ship.