The changes weren't too major - since I'm writing all this on the fly there were a few plot-holes to fill and some underdeveloped characters that needed a bit of fleshing. (Cova, for instance, was meant to be a use-and-lose character - and look how that turned out for him!) So it all fits a little better now, but it's still far from perfect. The story itself remains basically unchanged: X2 alternate-universe, everyone gets their crap jacked up by the Kha'ak - but no deus ex machina to tell everyone nicely who the hell they are.
In other news, I now have avid readers! Awesome! Welcome aboard, gsheriston.
Great new part.
Like the current mood too. It is a little too close to call, and difficult to see from where - and, if - any salvation will come.
Nice.
Feels like we're nearing the climax?
Reckon I'm gonna have to go back to the start soon and read it again - remind myself how we got here.
By all means, but looking back at those earlier chapters makes me cringe a bit. 16 is not a good age for me to start writing a story But I polished things up a little in my brush-up update back in... April? So it's not so bad now.
Cova stood at the viewing hole for the only occupied cell. Duvall sat on the spartan cot, his head bowed, his fists clenched.
"What's going on, Duvall? Why'd Trent remove you from duty?"
Duvall looked up then, and Cova took half a step back in surprise at the undisguised animosity on the Captain's face. He surged up from his bed and slammed his hands against the bulkhead either side of the small window, his nose centimetres from the glass.
"You don't understand, you pathetic little creature!" he spat.
Cova just stared at Duvall. What had happened to him, to turn him from an admittedly taciturn man when Cova had first met him, to this raging maniac?
"What are you on about?"
"This! All of this! You can't stop it, little man. There is no point trying."
"You're making no sense..." Cova's plan to see what the hell was going on was starting to backfire, he reflected.
"This universe is OURS," roared Duvall. Cova flinched. The noise even seemed to startle Duvall, who grunted and blinked his eyes clear. They clouded again. "Ours. You steal our resources, invade our territory, and fill the aether with your disgusting, undisciplined psychic babble. OURS!"
The final shout again seemed to surprise Duvall, but this time his expression remained lucid. It became desperate. "Look, I don't know who you are, but you have to help me. The Director, he- ah..." his face became drawn. Cova had no idea what to make of this discussion at all. "When the Department imprisoned me, they must've done something while I was unconscious. Don't have much time. The aliens, there's nothing we can do. They won't negotiate. Once the Commonwealth is defeated they will completely exterminate all sentient life other than themselves. Only option is to run."
"What... I don't know how-"
"Go! Find the Director. Kill him for me, the bastard. You need to- ack." Duvall fell back, slumping against the bottom of the cell door. Cova rushed up to the little window, trying to see what had happened to the captain.
"You can do NOTHING." Cova jumped in surprise and stumbled back against the opposite bulkhead as Duvall's face slammed against the small pane. He shook his head and calmed his panicked breathing, then headed back for the main door, pondering what Duvall had said. Duvalls, plural? He'd been thoroughly unsettled by the whole conversation.
"This universe is ours," whispered Duvall to himself, alone in his darkened cell.
--------
The starfield span as the broken ship spun.
Castro took a deep breath, one of the few she still could without her helmet. She couldn't believe she was about to attempt her insane plan. She checked the life support readout for the sixth time; black, black as space should be. Dead, like she would be if she didn't move. She squinted out of her canopy at the battle still raging about her drifting fighter. There was an Argon destroyer less than a kilometre away, but she couldn't tell which one through the clouds of exhaust, burning atmosphere and flashing weapons fire. It was accelerating still towards the enemy line; the only reason it hadn't yet overhauled her was the speed her own fighter had been going when it was wrecked.
Castro checked her helmet, making sure the faceplate wasn't cracked and the sealing ring wasn't warped. This done, she slipped it on, turned the seal ring and worked the clasps. She took another bracing breath, then wrenched the emergency release lever for the cockpit canopy. She was immediately surrounded by blinding fog as the water vapour in her atmosphere condensed, but it was quickly blown away as the air escaped into the relative vacuum.
She released her acceleration restraints and clambered carefully out of her seat. She cringed back as an alien vessel sped past her, chased by the searing flashes of particle accelerator shots. The Argon fighter doing the shooting was swiftly nailed by a trio of light enemy craft, expiring in a silent actinic flash as its fusion toroid exploded. She turned back towards her own wrecked Nova, pulling herself hand over hand towards the stern. She had to know, she had to see for herself if MacKinnan was dead. For all that he was irreverent and obnoxious at times, he was well-liked, and was a first-rate gunner.
The hull became blackened and scarred the closer Castro came to the stern, with the odd rent clean through the armoured shell, exposing shorted circuitry and ruptured coolant pipes. She looked off to her left, searching for the nearby destroyer, making sure it was still there - it was. It disappeared under her Nova as it spun on its three-axis rotation, to reappear to her right and in front of her.
Castro came to the lip of the ventral hull, and peered over the edge, looking down at the ruined stern. She barely recognised what she saw as her own ship. A blackened, broken, twisted view greeted her. The armoured glass of the rear cockpit was shattered and stained black; not with soot, as she first thought, but the burned blood of MacKinnan. It was all over the inside of the cabin. She activated her helmet lights, grimaced, and shut them off again. There wasn't much left of him.
The largest hole was right where the plasma capacitor should be - that was the probable cause of the explosion. It explained the fried circuitry and failed systems, at least.
She cast about for the destroyer again, and located it above her, to her left. It wouldn't be easy to get on a clean trajectory towards it, and she didn't want to waste her thruster fuel slowing down enough to control her spin. She mentally recounted every equation she knew of high-velocity orbital mechanics and three-dimensional angular momentum, but all it amounted to was an educated guess.
She waited for the Nova to rotate round again, then timed her jump to take advantage of the spin to catapult her on a quicker course towards the capital ship. It worked, mostly. Her suit told her she'd need a constant left side burn to push her into the destroyer, but she had just enough fuel to make it.
That still left more than a kilometre of open space filled with charging ships, colossal weapon volleys and innumerable missiles to get across.
She tried to hail the ship, but her suit's communication suite wasn't nearly powerful enough to shout over the electromagnetic noise of the battle. A trio of missiles, Dragonflies perhaps, shot past her on either side. She watched them slam into an enemy heavy fighter, silently blossoming into spheres of orange flame as they impacted the ship's shields. The ship itself streamed out of the other side of the conflagration largely unscathed, to trade fire with an Argon corvette. It lost, but not before forcing the M6 to withdraw, limping and aflame.
Seven hundred and fifty metres. The destroyer filled most of her view, but it still felt as if it were half the universe away. Castro did her best to remain still as another enemy craft shot past her not five metres to her left; she felt the heat from its engine exhaust even through her suit. A salvo of plasma scraped past one of its corners, before a light missile detonated against its shields. The impact threw the vessel off-course, and it annihilated itself against the shields of the destroyer. The destroyer's gun batteries were pouring PPC sabots towards the enemy capital line, while the AA artillery nests chattered IRE and particle cannon rounds at the myriad strike craft.
Three hundred metres. Castro had to screw her eyes shut against the glare as a thick orange beam speared the flank of the destroyer, its shields flashing silver. She hoped that there wouldn't be too many of those - she needed a ride out of here. Having it full of holes was not high on her priority list. Her rangefinder beeped. It threw up a rather alarming closing rate - she was coming up on the destroyer far too fast for her comfort. She quickly ran a few numbers through her suit computer, and ended up even unhappier. If she burned her retros, she wouldn't have enough fuel to intercept the destroyer, and if she carried on her current burn profile she'd bounce off the hull and off into space.
As luck would have it, a wounded corvette drifted across her course, venting atmosphere. As Castro passed through the cloud of gas and smoke, friction tugged at her, slowing her down just enough that as long as she found a handhold on the hull she should be all right.
As the capacitors on the nearest battery warmed to fire, going from a cherry red to sunburst orange to straw yellow to a cool blue, the local shields started to peel back. That was her chance. A final course adjustment, and Castro started to hope.
She passed the shield layer an instant before the cannon fired, sending a volley of light towards the enemy. The photonic overspill blinded her, totally overcoming her visor's polarisation. She lost sight of her target handhold, fumbled, and missed. Instead, she grabbed one of the power shunts from the energy capacitors. While it was technically in a cool-down cycle, it was still running at a couple of thousand degrees; a temperature your average Navy-issue spacesuit simply isn't designed to handle. Her gloves sublimated, and half of her hands vaporised with them. She screamed in agony as her bones fused with the alloy.
"Warning," the tinny, monotone voice of the small onboard computer piped through her helmet speakers. "Pressure suit breach detected. Atmospheric leak detected. At current rate of loss, life expectancy approximately four mizuras."
All Castro could do in response was groan. A terrible coldness was spreading up her arms, and she knew she was going into shock. She tugged back, trying to free her arms, but her only reward was pain.
She was stuck. She sobbed. She was going to die.
--------
The Marshall looked to his communications section. "Report."
"Not good. All vessels reporting fewer than twenty percent magazines and shields. Fighter squadrons becoming ineffective." As if to punctuate the sentence, the deck bucked as the carrier was hit.
He grimaced, sighed, and keyed the shipwide tannoy. "All hands. Clear the foredecks and brace for impact. Gunnery, clear our path. Engineering, give me ramming speed." He paused. "Your performance has been exemplary." He leaned back in his chair. "Helmsman, collision course for that mothership."
"... Course plotted, aye. Engines answering maximum thrust profile."
The bridge became quiet as the order sank in. The Marshall's face was a mask of determination. Underneath, he was fighting to remain quiet, to keep himself from recalling the order. He didn't want to die. The distant thunder of the guns could be heard transmitted through the hull.
Perhaps realising the Argon One's intent, several alien destroyers broke off from their skirmishes to fire at the carrier. Orange beams pounded the vessel, until its long-suffering shields finally collapsed.
--------
"Commander Trent! The Argon One is on a collision course for the mothership. They're accelerating hard."
"Show me."
The gravidar display dissolved into an image of the Argon flagship, streaming atmosphere and smoke and fire from holes all across its hull, while beam after beam stabbed into the armour plate. Debris trailed in its wake.
"What the feth do they think they're doing?! Dexter! Hail them!"
"Aye, sir... They- they've opened a channel, but I'm not sure anyone's available to talk." The signals man squinted, listening closer. "Shall I put it through?"
"Please."
The bridge filled with the sounds of chaos. Trent balled his fists.
Wow!
Things just keep getting worse for these Argon! Nice addition, anyway. Good stuff.
Of course, I know what happens next. Well, you see, I've played the game, so know the Argon One is actually unkillable. So regardless of odds and even in the face of overwhelming firepower and technological inferiority, they'll be fine and dandy. Hence, when everything else Argon has been blown to hell, the Argon One can just tottle around headbutting all the evil aliens until they die.
Bet the aliens are just kicking themselves that they never made unkillable ships!
On a serious note, good stuff, keep it coming, please!
Normally, they probably would. The implication is that the other races are either busy, or unaware. 'Busy' is more likely, since a few sectors were wiped clean prior to the AP invasion. It's hard to miss that
So no, they're not getting reinforcements. Will they lose? Or will some plucky ex-convict pirate and his two inept friends sweep in and somehow, against astronomical odds when the entire Navy has failed, save the day? Or Option Number Three?
[ponder]Hmm... I wonder how SOTS is getting on with Siege.
I'll bet there's some stuff on his computer already. It'd be grand if he's got enough to wrap it up and get it into the Superbox.
He still has ten days to tidy it up and plug any gaps. Wouldn't that be awesome![/ponder]
Oh, hey guys! Just looking in to see how this was getting on.
Hope it hasn't died completely...
Well, crap. I recently began playing the X games again, after a long absence at uni, and rekindled my love for all things Ego.
Inevitably, I remembered this story, and a promise to Zig, at least, to finish it (Side note, didn't get any email in June from Ego servers telling me I had a reply here - sorry it took me so long to find it! I think it's safe to say Siege won't be making an appearance in the Superbox. )
I then discovered a half-written chapter on my laptop, which looks to be one of the final two or three, probably. I'm switching between Ego forums and typing merrily away at it as I type this, so hopefully it should be up fairly soon.
Maybe.
Thanks again for all the positive comments, and thanks to those long-time readers/sufferers for their apparently-infinite patience!
The Imperator gasped for breath. He pressed his back against the cold marble wall of one of the upper hallways of the Senate, looking back the way he'd come. The faint, bass rumble of thunder rolled through the walls; the remnants of the cataclysmic storm from earlier in the night.
He'd been addressing the Senate, trying to arrange immediate evacuation dispensations to make sure all available ships would assist in the exodus. However, several dozen armed terrorists had broken into the Senate hall, and began indiscriminately killing anyone they could see. They had brushed aside the elite security troops and static defences with ease.
The Imperator had managed to slip away, but now the dedicated power supplies had been sabotaged and there was likely no one else left alive in the building.
Besides, of course, the terrorists.
He had to get to the roof. There was an escape shuttle there, that would take him to a private hangar in the spaceport quarter. He checked his snub nosed laser pistol... full charge. Good enough for seven or eight shots. It should at least slow a pursuer down, so long as there was just the one of them. No such luck there, he mused.
Bootsteps echoed down the curved hall, behind him. He pushed off the wall and started jogging as quietly as he could towards the north apex - there was a passage through the walls that had an entrance there. It would take him to the roof.
As he rounded the final corner, he caught sight of the ruined apex, and a trio of terrorists stood at guard among the rubble. He swore under his breath and ducked back behind the corner. He checked his pistol again. That apex passage was his only feasible route of escape. He had no choice.
He took a deep breath.
The Imperator raised the little pistol in front of him as he ran out from his cover. Neurological implants made sure his aim didn't waver with his footfalls. Seven violet shafts of light speared through the dusty air, impacting the head and neck of the nearest guard, who fell to the ground. His colleagues returned fire, chemical projectile rounds ripping through the Imperator's light robes with ease.
The Argon Federation's most powerful, and most secret, statesman was stopped in his tracks, his arm outstretched and still clutching the pistol. He toppled over backwards, and hit the marble floor with a rustling thud. Blood pooled around him, staining the pale grey stone black under the soft blue emergency lighting.
He watched with thinning vision as the three guards appeared over him, the armour of one still smoking lightly from the barrage it had just received. Their blank faceplates reflected the sorry state the Imperator was in. They reflected the enormous puddle of blood he was lying in.
Wordlessly, they aimed their rifles at him again, and fired a single salvo.
--------
"Dexter, I want to know who is in command of the fleet. Coordinate with them as much as possible. All other stations, report," Trent said, to break the silence that had fallen over the bridge with the loss of the Argon One.
"Lateral thrusters are getting a little sluggish. Engines are running a little hot, but our coolant supplies should hold."
"Casualty reports are coming in... mostly minor and moderate injuries. Few actual deaths. Power distribution and life support systems are holding, but only by the grace of their redundancies."
"The hull has a few holes, but only in non-essential areas. Those compartments had been evacuated prior to the battle anyway. Shields at seventeen percent - the backup generators are working to recharge them as fast as they can. Missile magazine at ten- no, nine percent, and most of those are anti-capital yields. Useless against all these strike craft. Gun batteries are near full effectiveness, but the reservoir capacitors are starting to degrade."
"The rest of the fleet is doing about the same as we are, Captain. I still don't know too much about the enemy, but whatever was on that mothership the Argon One hit, it was important. Their fleet is much less coordinated now."
Trent looked thoughtful as the deck bucked.
"Shields at four percent, sir. We're about to lose half the generators to overload."
"We're withdrawing," Trent finally said. "Weapons, load all remaining Hornets into the launch cradles. I want them fired in a spherical formation aound the ship - and then I want them detonated at minimum safe distance. I want our path clear so we can escape."
"Sir!" protested Clarke, "That would leave us blind until the EMP died down. I wouldn't be able to warn you about anything incoming. Not to mention the danger to the Argon fleet."
"Then you have your work cut out. I want a projected trajectory cone for all ships - friendly and hostile - near enough to cause a problem, and then I want you to give that information to the helm, so he can plot the best course. As for the fleet... well. They're screwed either way."
Clarke scowled. "Aye, sir. Working."
"Weapons, launch when ready."
"Launching."
More than forty of the large-yield nuclear missiles rocketed out of the tubes, flying straight out in all directions, as Dexter warned all nearby Argon vessels to pull clear. He only received one or two queries as to exactly why before the Hornets detonated, starting as brilliant white points of light and expanding into huge spheres of broiling phosphorescence. Communications between every Argon ship in a two-hundred kilometre radius were disrupted as they were swamped by the electromagnetic noise from the cataclysmic explosion.
As soon as the detonate command was sent to the missiles, the polarising filters on the bridge viewports had automatically blacked the windows out to protect the bridge officers from the lightburst. They slowly lightened again, showing the now-thoroughly-clear space around the veteran destroyer. The only debris was a faintly-glowing smog of metal plasmas from the vaporised ships unlucky enough to have been caught inside the envelope of destruction.
"All stations, report."
"Shields are completely dead, Captain. Even the generators themselves are shot. I can try to-"
He never finished his sentence. An energy beam sliced through the defenceless bridge, effectively decapitating the vessel. Secondary explosions and fires tore through adjacent sections, and sent the vessel adrift with no command and control. The guns faltered, no longer receiving targetting data from sensor and weapons stations. Damage control were paralysed, not knowing where best to direct their efforts in the absence of ops. Hardwired safeguards quenched the fusion engines automatically, leaving the ship with no power besides rapidly-failing emergency supplies.
--------
Cova had been making his way aft as the ship trembled with the Hornet detonation, and had paused to consider the relative quiet following the rumble.
Then all hell broke loose.
A huge blast echoed through the superstructure, followed by groans and metallic twangs as supporting spars snapped under new stresses. Smaller explosions sent further shocks through the bulkheads, overloading power junctions and lighting arrays. The engines became ominously silent, as did the guns, allowing the desperate shouts and sounds of fires and secondaries to travel much further throughout the vessel. The apparent gravity dropped off suddenly as the acceleration from the engines cut out. Cova floated from the deck.
He made an instant decision to find an escape pod while he was still able.
He kicked off from the deck and used the grab hoops to pull himself down the gangway, ignoring the crew members he passed along the way; the haggard medics, sooty damage-control teams, section leaders trying to find out just what the hell was going on. Cova knew he had to get to the escape pods before someone intelligent and in charge decided evacuation was the best plan left open to the stricken ship.
The smell of smoke pervaded everything, suffused with the more acrid tang of blown energy capacitors and the ionised-air-smell of ruptured Planck tubes. It took him another couple of mizuras to reach the aft quarter of the ship, and Cova found himself surrounded with engineers trying to restart the mighty fusion reactors. He overheard a couple of them talking in worried tones as he drifted past. They both ignored him.
"I'm telling you, the only way the engines would have cut out like that is if the bridge-"
"Look. The bridge is fine, all right? It was just an overload. Once the comms calm down we'll be able to talk to Ops and get everything back under control."
"Yeah, if there still is an Ops."
"Just get back to trying to get the magnetic pinches to work, all right? Feth."
Cova rounded a corner at an intersection and carried on following the directions to the emergency lifeboats stencilled in red on the bulkheads every five metres. He was passing an aid station when someone called his name.
"Cova! Where are you going?"
It was Dorden, the medico, who had happened to look up from the bedside of another civilian aboard as Cova was passing the hatch. His name patch read 'J CALVERT'. Cova stopped in the corridor outside the entrance to the little infirmary. "Just wandering about, really," he lied. "There's little for me to do."
Dorden looked mystified. He knew Cova was at least trained in first aid; why wasn't he helping the medical teams? "Little for- never mind. I thought you should know, and I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but Naeva's dead. We've had to sedate the other guy since then, he's insane."
"I see. Does Trent know?"
"I haven't been able to reach-"
The far bulkhead of the aid station blew in, showering the chamber with shrapnel as the shock front rammed Cova against the far bulkhead of the corridor. Dazed, he watched the blast door slam down over the entrance to the aid station, as he heard the rushing whoosh of a rapid decompression. The noise faded as the atmosphere from the aid station and a couple of adjacent compartments vented to space. Klaxons blared in the corridor as he fumbled for the nearest grab hoop to pull himself out into the docking hall, where he would be better able to find an escape pod. His ears were ringing. He felt numb, and lucky. If I'd been just the other side of that hatch...
A damage assessment team hurried past him in the other direction, not even throwing a glance his way. He struggled to regain control of his senses as he traversed the hall. Finally, he reached a bank of lifeboats, and entered the nearest.
Cova slapped at the door controls, emergency explosive bolts slamming the hatch home behind him. He strapped in, and the small onboard computer automatically launched the little four-man pod. It was empty but for him.
As soon as the vicious eight-gee acceleration cut out and left him in freefall, Cova heaved an immense sigh of relief. He might just survive this clusterhump of a situation yet.
He queried the computer, and it said it would take three tazuras to reach Argon Prime. So long as I make it through this furball. The lifeboat carried enough oxygen to last four hundred-kilo Argon men for four tazuras, and food rations for a wozura for the same number - he wouldn't starve or suffocate.
He unstrapped himself and floated to the back of the cramped compartment. The Myrmidon was shrinking from his view, trailing fire from a dozen holes. The guns were firing only sporadically and erratically, and were badly aimed. There was no plasma torch from the stern of the ship, and where the bridge should be, there was only another fire. So Trent's dead, too.
Another pair of orange beams struck the aft quarter of the ship, and punctured the cryogenic deuterium tanks. Explosions rippled along the superstructure of the wounded destroyer, flaying the hull from the chassis and tearing the bones of the ship apart.
There was a chapter. Nearly finished, I was going to polish it off and post a couple of weeks ago. Given my 'recent' update schedule, this would have put me far ahead of time.
However.
A couple of weeks ago, I was burgled. My laptop was stolen, between backups, and with it every unpublished word of Siege.
So I'll start again, and hopefully before we all die of old age, I might finish this story!
There was a chapter. Nearly finished, I was going to polish it off and post a couple of weeks ago. Given my 'recent' update schedule, this would have put me far ahead of time.
However.
A couple of weeks ago, I was burgled. My laptop was stolen, between backups, and with it every unpublished word of Siege.
So I'll start again, and hopefully before we all die of old age, I might finish this story!
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it. 
But I polished things up a little in my brush-up update back in... April? So it's not so bad now.
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