Wanton use of nukes and the path to galactic conquest!

[Hartzaden]

heh yea boarding is a blood sport now. just lost under 30 men to snag a M2 its insane. to be honest i havent gotten a single guy upto 5* because there attrition rate is through the roof now. i hope the boss learns a thing you 2. otherwise i feel sorry for the men who leave the tubes.

[crawlerw]

i might have missed it, but have you captured any prototype M7's yet.
If not then its worth a go just for the hell of it. those race's dont deserve dem

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

i might have missed it, but have you captured any prototype M7's yet.
If not then its worth a go just for the hell of it. those race's dont deserve dem

Prototype M7's?



Prev chapter<->Next chapter
101 - Boron


I think we'll go do a bit of Boron related search and rescue in that Xenon sector. For one thing it'll give us the opportunity to work some more fleet exercises and you never know, that may come in handy at some point so probably best everyone knows what they're meant to be doing. I've finally got all the main capitals fully kitted out with weapons, so it'll interesting to see how much mess a 12x Flak equipped Raptor makes of a cloud of Xenon fighters, and I've little doubt there will be a cloud of Xenon fighters cos life's like that. Yes, today I think 'Night Hawk II' can show me what he can do, with Blue and Purple acting as support wings.

Plan then is to head through the north gate of Grand Exchange into X-598 and then move on from there. With the fleet allocation for this op all set..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/101-1.gif

.. and stationed ready to roll through the gate. A slight change for this op, the captain of 'Providence' has been assigned a new ship, one of the two Aquilo's we stole recently. This isn't actually the promotion it may appear, more an expedient means to an end as it seperates the delicate task of Pod-shepherding from the task of blow-everything-the-hell-up. I'm thinking this will be far better for the safety of the troops. Obviously this will leave the new 'Providence' with a whole bunch of live rounds, but I can assure everyone there's absolutely no danger as this is an OTAS ship, one of their finest of the line. Aside from all the other modernisations the OTAS boffins saw fit to install the Aquilo fire control system comes with integrated breathalyser.


Operation: 'Save The Fishy!'

Anyways, first job on the agenda is, as always, find some plucky volunteer to risk their neck seeing what horrors lie the other side. Of course if I don't get a volunteer I'll just pick someone and send them in anyway, this ain't a democracy you know. Ah, 'Swiftshire', good lad..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/101-2.gif

.. Yipe, wouldn't have fancied trying to deploy a fleet thru a gate with that lot waiting the other side. Fortunately 'Swiftshire' has done an admirable job of scoping out the area and while he keeps the Xenon busy attempting to chase him down and shove probes in uncomfortable places we'll be able deploy thru the gate and get a defensive position set up.

With the fleet safely through the gate we're taking a slight curved route eastwards and then north with the aim of avoiding the centre of the sector since that seems to be where the majority of the Xenon forces are concentrated and 'Swiftshire' seems to have managed to royally tick them off..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/101-3.gif


.. Time to recall him I think and then get the bombers on the job. I've brought the other pair of new pilots along this time since the other two got dragged along for the OTAS op. Personally I'm of the opinion these two are getting the short end of the stick, still it's their own fault, they should have piped up a bit quicker when I was asking for volunteers to blow up a Boreas. Still, on the plus side, they've got no shortage of heavies to shoot at..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/101-4.jpg

.. Bombs away!

A short while and multiple cataclysmic explosions later it seems I have a small dilemma on my hands. The original plan calls for a shoot'n'scoot policy to get across Xenon space with maximum expediency, so while I appreciate the prospect of some high value salvage there is a time and a place for such things and now is really neither..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/101-5.gif

.. unfortunately I also need those PPC's. Typical really, any other time you can't get a single one, and then when you've got fiften other things to do there's three of them just floating there taunting you.

Sending the rest of the fleet on then I double back to make a fast pickup, but my lucks in as while there's a few Xenon reinforcements starting to jump in now they're nothing significant and they're a good distance away as well, so making my way back to meet up with the rest of fleet by the gate it's send in the scouts again. Think we'll send 'Swiftshire' in again since he did such a fine job last time. What can you see the other side then?

.. <static> ..



Time: 8-04:05
Credits: 472,224

[Wanted Bob]

Ah, good to see you back in action again!

Great chapter as always, leaving us with a cliffhanger...

[Olterin]

Hmm... no, I've had more than enough of slugging boarding pods around - I'll take the heavy firepower (with decent fire-control systems) without the pod capability, please

Great chapter, as always, looking forward to more

[chelo_boga]

It seems 'Swiftshire' has bite the dust.

Either that or his comm system got screwed

[Targ Collective]

Ah, so you're back in action.

Good to see 2.5 didn't scare you off.

[Gothsheep]

Man, everybody keeps giving me the weirdest looks on this mission. I don't get it.

Anyway brothers, It's time to reallocate your assets! Woo!

[crawlerw]

i might have missed it, but have you captured any prototype M7's yet.
If not then its worth a go just for the hell of it. those race's dont deserve dem

Prototype M7's?

Prototype M7
The Argamemnon, a prototype Deimon corvete. no hangar less turrets. just looks a hell of alot cooler.



on another note great story keep it comming

[TEA_Cypher]

I knew it would happen, scouting into Zenon sectors is never fun, but dont give up on me quiet yet.

[Sandos87]

Great stuff! Spent the last few days plowing thru all three stories up to date (Yes, i'm currently in possession of more free-time than is generally healthy). Although, my eyes did start to hurt and blur things up after a few hours of reading off a computer screen.. But then again, nothing is worth doing if it's not worth doing in excess. I'm sure a nuke-lover can relate to that

First post evvah! Yay for me..

[Hartzaden]

First post evvah! Yay for me..

you ever considerd joining? we could allways use another warm body to eat flak.

[Bomar]

Guess ill give it a try.

Ship name: Solstice
Type: kestrel or any m4 variant
Weapons? Meh, as long as they shoot I am happy.

[Sandos87]

you ever considerd joining? we could allways use another warm body to eat flak.

Now that you mention it, flak is something i've never tasted before.. I'm intrigued.
I'll give it a go!

Ship name: "Sir Nukalot"
Ship: Meh. Just give me a few assorted bits of ship debree, a roll of duct tape and a snorkel. I'll figure out the rest. (Any will do, I'm not picky)
Weapons: A Y-shaped branch, a rubberband and a twelvepack of rotten eggs. Or maybe pies if i get a big branch. (Anything you can scramble together)
Preferred role: Since space has virtually no gravity i can lob stuff at any distance, so feel free to put me anywhere..

[Alkadari]

Man, everybody keeps giving me the weirdest looks on this mission. I don't get it.

Anyway brothers, It's time to reallocate your assets! Woo!

We did install the Xenon frequency jammers in Gothsheep's ship, didn't we?

[zackinger]

Hey Boss, it´s the capt´n of the Bloody Mary here, ... wow now we´re here.. in the middle of nowhere with hordes of sentinent lawnmowers trying to kill us... guns blazing and the Adrenaline constantly at some very unhealthy level ... to be honest, i´ve never felt more alive!

although after having seen all those fighter jocks bite the dust, rock-pulling seemed a lot less boring than at the beginning

But there has been one minor issue that has been brought up time and again amongst the guys over here... so we´ve been talking a bit... . We, and especially the Rocket Jockeys out there are risking life and limb every day, and there´s a lot of bills to pay at every port... and - now don´t shoot me on the spot if i bring this up- the wages you´re paying... well... erm... they are too much to die but to low to really live.

On the other hand, we fully understand that you can´t spare any more with all those costs of meatshield...erm... Marine training, fixing our rustbuckets and everything else, so we´ve had an idea....

There´s so many juicy traders out there only waiting to get relieved of their precious cargo... you just have to be diplomatic enough with them.

So how about let´s say, if we make it back alive from this mission, and we´re passing some ripe Freighter, my gunnery officer could perhaps have a little accident, spilling his entire coffee over his console, and because of that perhaps one of the turrets goes berserk on said freighter... Well it´s entirely not my fault if my gunny is that clumsy and i´ll really reprimand him harshly for that, and really apologize very nicely to the trader, but on the other hand, floating booty is free booty right ? RIGHT ???

It´s just an idea boss, just an idea ...

[Duzzit]

Now then, since some of us are luckily not in a xenon sector at the moment, as much as i'd love to teach those 01010101's a lesson, where is the nearest bar that we have access to and a good tab?

[Hartzaden]

hay the drunks in another ship.

RAID HIS STASH

[Duzzit]

Someone entering my room.
Greetings, please enter password.
Would be raiders "haha lets find something valuable".

Warning password not given, activating security measures.

-Hiss- Sleeping Gas sweeps across the room.

I come back later and remove their bodies, but only leave them a note saying next time it wont be knockout gas.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Prev chapter<->Next chapter
102 - Core


.. <static> ..

Oh dear, I think that was terminal.

Well, there's only one thing to do when you've just sent some poor dude to his certain death.. and that's to send some more! Yep, guilt is for the living and I promise to be really upset about it later, there may even be tears, but right now I'm working to the theory you throw enough bodies then sooner or later they're bound to miss one of them..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/102-1.gif

.. There we go, made it safely through that time!

I've decided I might need someone to cover the rear so I've dropped in 'Awesomesauce' to keep an eye on the west gate and blitz anything that pokes it's nose through. Meantime we're pushing further in sector. Fortunately there's doesn't seem as many heavies here in 627 as there was in 598, just a scattering of fighters and I've been watching 'Providence' picking them off one by one with the odd Flail. The few Q's in the area appear to be keeping a respectful distance right at the moment, only one looks like trying to have a go..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/102-2.jpg

.. and gets a face full of atomics sent its way for it's trouble.

With the fleet safely at the east gate and with considerably less trouble than in 598 we're doing fairly well. Sadly we managed to lose one more of Green wing on the way through, as 'Radar Malfunction' appeared to suffer a steering malfunction and wound up headbutting a Q. It's an interesting tactical choice, not one I suspect has historically proven to be remarkably effective tho and certainly wasn't today. Green wing, while having survived a lot longer than I'd originally anticipated is starting to get a bit thin on the ground these days. Think we'll have to source some new recruits when we get back.

Meantime tho we're one jumpgate away from the Xenon Core system and I suspect that might be tad more defended than this one, at least you'd fairly expect it to be so it looks very much like I need another reluctant hero to go check through this gate and 'Looky Looky' is up this time. It was going to be 'Radar Malfunction', but he elected to excuse himself from the job by reducing himself to a molecular smear. Off you go then!

.. <static> ..

Oh dear.

.. <static> ..

Wait no, there we go. Sorry, you're where? .. What have I said about drinking in the middle of ops?



Time: 8-10:58
Credits: 6,934,253