The year is 2193. A race who I not-so-fondly refer to as "Zerglings" appear, as if out of nowhere. Diplomatic negotiations were short, as a few thermonuclear missiles my way showed, and like an avalanche they crashed into me: waves upon waves of ships bearing down, lasers sawing my ships in two, missiles annihilating my battleships, turning them into fiery wrecks as their oxygen supplies rushed out.
I am forced back, my sprawling empire slowly engulfed by this crushing stampede. My expeditionary force destroyed, the colonials fared no better, and one by one my systems fell, planets going dark as their surfaces were glassed under alien bombardment. My counter-attack was ineffective, the 2nd and 3rd fleets wiped out to the man as they tried to halt the onslaught. It quickly became apparent that we were to be wiped out, our history snuffed in the blink of an eye. Unless we protected Sol.
Our colonies were abandoned, colony ships swarming down through the skies to evacuate those we could, but it's not enough - the Zerglings are always on our tail, pushing forwards, systematically picking off the outlying colonies.. The Colonial fleets pull back, and all that is left is for the ground forces of each colony to deliver them one final slice of hell. One final charge, one final cry of defiance.
Five Carriers, twenty-four Battleships, twenty-two Dreadnoughts, fourty-three Battlecruisers, sixty-six Destroyers and forty Frigates. Alongside the PDCs and swarms of fighters, this was the last force of humanity. The last ring of steel between them and our homeworld. Already I was planning.
They came, jumping into the system with their lasers blazing, missiles launched in a horrifying chorus. We fought back, cutting their missiles down as we responded in kind. Our carriers deployed their fighters, Kunai-class. Named for their deadly precision and deadlier payload. In one fell swoop they take down a handful of the larger ships, but like flies, we were only swatting at a fragment of the horde. They continued to jump in, wave upon wave, terrible as the ocean. And every time we pushed them back. Every we staved them off, and slowly we began to breathe. Now we could begin.
We wanted them to pay,
I wanted them to pay, and knowing we could hold off their attack, knowing we were like the Germans at the Somme two-hundred years past, unmoving, we started designing. Missile launchers of every size, from the small AA launchers to fifty-ton behemoths that could blow up a small country. Lasers, meson cannons, affixed to tri and quad-barrelled turrets, tiny pods brimmed to the teeth and thirsting for blood. Armour plating as thick as a house, maybe two. We didn't care. We didn't care about the money, we didn't care about the resource cost. We gave it a dozen hangars for fighters to berth, affixed every square inch with weaponry. It would move slow, but we didn't care. We even wanted it that way - we wanted the Zerglings to know, to fear them. To throw how many ships they wanted at it and be as much as an ant upon the skin. Three-hundred-thousand tons of pure destruction. They were too tame to be called Battleships, too cliché Deathstars.
I called them Neptune-class, for they would be the gods of the black ocean.
I kicked my economy into production, shipyards flaring to life as they built these mythological beasts, deities in construction. One could have done, but that wasn't enough. Ten was hardly the amount. More and more shipyards built and built, factories on earth their sole purpose to build more shipyards, feed them and grow them into monstrous sizes. All to feed the beast that was the fury of Neptune. I didn't care that this would bankrupt our economy, watching our wealth sink into the depths. I didn't care that our resources, so few now were near-depletion. I didn't care that I was bringing my nation to ruination - I would make it salvation. We made one for every lost ship in the battle for Sol, one for every colonial ship whose crew were killed. The years passed, the onslaught still coming. A decade, and they were complete.
One-hundred-eighty. One-hundred-eighty loomed around their shipyards. This was it: a decade of waiting. Glistening in their armour and to the bone. It was time for revenge. It was time to reclaim my lost colony, it was time to take the fight to them, to wipe
them off the face of the galaxy and reduce their homeworld to ash. I could feel my heart racing, wicked grin crossing my face. It was time to let the real fun begin.
MFW I realise I forgot to add fuel tanks: