Our ship is an experimental strike vessel that used beaming technology to transport bombs into the enemy ship.
Orders are to begin flanking the enemy and target the command ships. Take out drones/other shit as necessary.
You realize you forgot something...
Right -
the names of your senior officers. Next to you stand the Security Officer, the Intelligence Officer, and the Engineering Officer. In the long run you're going to need to know more than just their titles, after all. You also conclude you should probably know the
name of your ship by the time you're in battle. But for now, you disregard your concerning memory loss because now you have a
fight to win.The
Spark class Strike Corvette. A cunning design, using prototype beaming tech to deliver lethal payloads without worrying about point defense and similar countermeasures. During the testing of the first Spark classes, they observed that a Spark required a notable amount of time to calculate the hyperspace trajectories for the beaming tech. This would become its greatest flaw; the payload delivery device would take too long to target to truly replace missiles in modern naval combat. But the engineers persevered.
The result was a fast and agile corvette, with the intention of bombing vital targets and escaping without a dent. To make up for the targeting time, it was equipped with two frontal railguns. These guns would allow the Spark to continue being useful in combat during targeting. A spinal weapon was foregone in favor of room for the delivery device. Fighters deemed unnecessary. Only a handful of Sparks were constructed by the time the manufacturing facilities were scuttled to prevent enemy capture, and you pilot one of these sparks.
"Intelligence!" you bark.
"Give me a gap in their flanks!"Immediately responsive to your command, the Intelligence officer runs the short path to the primary sensor console and leans over the seated Ensign while discussing something with him. After a surprisingly brief period of time, he stands up and faces you.
"We've got an incoming gap. We should be able to get past their defensive network in approximately a minute. Engineering?""Correct." states the Engineering officer without even a glance upwards from her device.
"And that's it - we should be able to slip past easily."Without further thought, you know your plan of action.
"Get us through when ready and let's see if we can do some damage. Security, find us some apparent command ships to target.""Roger."A minute passes, but time seems to have just about ceased with the tension of the battle around you. The tactical map paints a vivid picture of the battle via its signature symbols overlaid in the space above it. You watch your allied ships respond to the flow of the battles with the commands of TacCom, and how the countless enemy ships repel the reformed plans with ease. Reinforcements continue arriving, as the rest of the fleets from more distant systems find their way to the battle.
You spent the apparent eternity studying the table for targets with your Security officer. He mutters observations as his fingers point to different central-looking dots within the enemy hordes. Finally, you both come to a consensus on a small group of targets hidden behind their front-lines.
Suddenly, the Intelligence Officer pops back into existence from somewhere near the sensor consoles.
"Alright, we have our opportunity. Helm, I want thrusters to max through these particular coordinates." he orders, staring at a tiny absence of dots at the side of the enemy fleets. The crew is lurched backwards as the gravity systems adjust to the new acceleration. The tiny white dot representing your ship starts to speed towards the cloud of red on the tactical map.
"We're being targeted. Engineering, shields ready!""Shields are ready, yes. Any passing potshots should be shrugged off for now."The white dot is starting to be absorbed into the envelope of pure red as your senior officers - barring Engineering - grow increasingly concerned. The ship starts periodically shaking in response to impacts on the shields.
"That'd be the shields and the potshots I mentioned earlier. We're not being chased, right?""It doesn't look like i--No. The enemy ships are resuming in their previous maneuvers - they either didn't notice us or don't believe we're important enough to change plans.""...and to confirm that statement, we're losing the targeting locks now at the same rate we're gaining them. Just as long as we don't suddenly stop, they shouldn't actively pursue us. And sir, we're approaching our targets.""Begin targeting with Payload Transporter. In the meantime, use our kinetics to clear out any strikecraft and pursuing ships.""Yes, sir. Ensign! Begin calculations towards Target C! Intelligence - I'm going to need your help finding these ..."The corvette whips around in space right at the moment it enters the range of the large command vessel, dodging the occasional laser fire from surrounding ships. A hostile ship breaks from the formation to intercept you, but is unable to get past the shields. You watch as the railcannons situated on the front of your vessel finally pierce through that ship's armor and hit the reactor, causing a meltdown and eliminating the hostile from play.
"I'm seeing more of them breaking off to engage! Security, please handle this!""Shields are getting dangerously low! We don't have much time before having to rely on armor!"You look at the status screen, confirming Engineering's claim.
"If engaging their vessels is only going to draw more in, we need to limit ourselves to the payload transporter and point defense. Engineering! See if you can transfer some degree of power from the Railcannons to shields.""I'll see what I can do, sir!" she yells as she exits the bridge.
The ensuing battle provides a steady flow of impacts against the shields, and eventually the armor. As the frequent enemy weapons fire manages to hit the ship despite its evasive maneuvers, payload targeting continues. You hear the repeated and somewhat comforting sound of the Autoturrets firing at detected missiles and other projectiles, hopefully keeping at least some harm out of your way. The panicked Security Officer announces the status of payload delivery calculations every time the progress bar on his console moves. The Engineering Officer isn't even on the ship, and is instead working with Damage Control to try to get damaged systems functional again. Intelligence is still maintaining a calm appearance as he moves from console to console, determining the state of the battle.
"Sir!" The familiar voice of your Engineering Officer comes in over radio.
"It doesn't look good - we have damage to the Reactor, Life Support, and Shields. I haven't had much time to survey the system damage to Life Support and Shielding, but I've had some luck in keeping the Reactor from exploding and keeping it delivering power. The damage's pretty light and we don't have a hull breach here, but Damage Control teams are reporting breaches across the ship."You're getting tenser by the second. Annoyed with the current affairs, you turn to the Security Officer, who's already looking at you.
"Please tell me targeting is almost done."You swear you see his frown dissipate for a moment as he begins speaking.
"I was just in the process of informing you, Captain. Targeting is complete, and we can fire when ready.""Fire."Finally. You begin formulating a plan to get out of here once the payload is delivered. Thrusters are still at full functionality, and last you checked, you should be able to outrun most if not all of their ships. Once out, you can do something about the damage and begin helping in another, way. You cough and wave some smoke away from your face.
"Payload... delivered!"Almost immediately, the intimidating Dreadnought that was looming just outside of weapons range experiences an explosion begins to envelope the entire vessel. The Dreadnought breaks apart under the extreme pressure and smaller explosions go off across the ship, likely from smaller critically failing subsystems or secondary reactors. By this time the expanding explosion isn't even from your payload, it's originating from what you can only assume to be the Dreadnought's primary reactor. A few nearby enemy ships are caught in the blast despite their best efforts to escape it, and go down with their mother ship.
"We've done what we came here to do. Get us out of here and lose any chasing hostiles."The Ensign at the helm begins to engage full thrust out a gap again provided by Intelligence, but the Intelligence Officer starts to look extremely worried.
"Perfect." he says under his breath before turning to face you completely.
"Captain, it looks like the Dreadnought's entire escort is now pulling out of formation to chase us and just us.""It looks like they're out of weapons range for now, but we're going to have to pass through a large amount of them to escape."You stare at the tactical map. A swarm of red is exiting their parent cloud in order to pursue you. As the white dot exits through the formation ships, your entire vessel begins to shudder as it receives a massive amount of weapons fire. But it looks like you survived, because it quickly ends and the tactical map shows your ship triumphantly
outside of the enemy swarm. You shift the gaze of the tactical map to the allied fleet, which is in dire conditions by this point.
Your fleet is shredded and scattered. TacCom is ordering the tactical retreat of whole fleets before you get back into safety. Eventually, you hear a fleet-wide announcement from the Commander.
"Attention, all fleets. This battle is over - I want all fleets but the 3rd Tertiary to disengage and retreat. 3rd Tertiary, cover their retreat."With the announcement, new orders appear over the tactical map -
"COVER RETREAT OF ALLIED FORCES."Your senior officers, all assembled at the Tactical Map and looking at you, offer their opinions.
"We're out of range of just about all their weapons, and it looks like taking out that Command ship has put the closest part of their fleet into disarray for the time being. Honestly, Captain, without the support of the main fleets, we can't do much.""I don't think our ship can handle much more, sir. We've encountered heavy damage and I haven't even finished determining all the damaged sites. Shields are down and will be for a while, and the armor is practically nonexistant by this point.""It looks like the majority of their fleet is jumping out to pursue our retreating forces, so we may have a chance of succesful engagement if we attack from behind the front lines of the 3rd Tertiary, but even our own fleet is heavily harmed - most of their ships have been destroyed. So engagement may not be the best option."The planet below is the homeworld of both you and your civilization. Hiding is an option, running away is an option, fighting is an option, and just about anything you think of is an option. Regardless of what you do, however, this battle is lost. What are your orders?
Armament- Payload Transporter - A weapon using prototype beaming tech (not fit for transporting life) to beam payloads directly onto enemy ships. Requires a relatively large amount of time to gain a reliable lock, however. Works with any type of explosive payload as ammunition.
- 2x Railcannon - Railcannons are the mainstay of allied forces. Usually situated on the broadside or front of a military ship, these weapons fire large slugs magnetically at high speeds into enemy hulls and shields. Though they're seen as fixed mounts, Railcannons are afforded a small degree of movement to properly track and reliably hit targets.
- 4x Autoturrets - Relatively small rail gun turrets meant to be used to dent moderate sized craft, or to eliminate smaller strikecraft and projectiles. Work off the same principle as the railcannon, except with much smaller slugs and smaller speeds.
Magazine- 167 Railcannon Rounds
- 19 Nuclear Payloads
Damage- Life Support - Hull breach &
Damage - Shields - Hull breach & Damage
- Reactor - Light damage??
- 3x Other Unknown Damage Sites
AttributesShields: Average
Armor: Average
Speed: Good
Agility: Good
Combat system is still WIP and will be for an undetermined amount of time. Expect some weird stuff with combat, but I'll be trying to maintain the same front-end appearance while I tweak and change stuff.
Among those changes is the narrative style. I'm kind of liking the current detailed all-at-once way of narrating it, but that may not last.
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Topic: Galaxy Spark [SG] - Tactical Retreat (Read 1113 times)