The Fleets Scattered. It could be their only course.
Away. Away.
To where?
Far.
But...
Away. Away.
To where?
Far.
But...
Arise
- Thread starter Álli Méra
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Martyr
Álli Méra
Sometimes I forget my name
Welcome to Arise! My goal is a somewhat poetic, shameless space opera. I hope you'll enjoy it! The metaphor use is horrific, I'll not lie, but damn it this seems like it could be fun!
The Fleets Scattered. It could be their only course.
Away. Away.
To where?
Far.
But that story is not yours.
Earth Orbit: 11, October 2205.
The flicker and fade of lasers. The static washout of Particle Annihilators. These are the truths spoken by the races of men. Of thunder which is felt and never heard.
A Super Carrier splinters in low orbit of Luna, Her spine broken. A shoal of fighters, human and drone and AI, flicker to life as power surges and ignites one last time.
70,000 miles away that carrier's escorts make hard burn peeling away the layers of the foe's defenses like an onion. Theirs is the fury of dead men. Suicidal, Desperate rage. Sprinting, breaking, broken hulled and hulked. Momentum carrying dead friends in one final charge until, miraculously, they are through. Stillness and clear space inside the envelope of this ship. The core of an artificial extinction event, A payload launched in haste before they pass back into the teeth of the foe.
Boarders.
Around Luna, an angel drifts. Quiet. Dieing. Preparing. One final call of the horn.
Ships fly and fight and die in their thousands. Yet in truth, there was only ever one real target.
That beast of a flagship drifts in defiance of all comers. At 1.5 miles in length she is one of the single largest sapient made objects in space.
The Karrakalla is not a human ship.
The Karrakalla is a foe. The, foe.
Her captain intends to kill you.
He intends to Kill every human in the Sol system.
With Karrakalla and her attendant fleet?
He just might.
It's a damn shame, for him, that the bastard starts with you.
How Do you die, Martyr?
[ ] Upon the raven's wing. A dagger in the dark.
[ ] Upon the trumpet's blast. The lance or the blade.
[ ] From darkness and from shadow. An Archangel's final song.
[ ] One among and above the choir. Voice of thousands and of one.
[ ] Beware the wasp's sting. Venom, Spite, and howling hate.
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Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[X] From darkness and from shadow. An Archangel's Final song.
Terran Imperium
[French]
- Location
- Southern France
[X] From darkness and from shadow. An Archangel's Final song.
Álli Méra
Sometimes I forget my name
It's Capital Class.
Edit: The votes correspond to descriptions in the text. I understand they may be a bit vague so I'll give a sort of broad answer if y'all ask.
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Álli Méra
Sometimes I forget my name
Fighter Swarms
EDIT: Starting to doze. I'll get the update up tomorrow morning I think. around noon at the latest
- Location
- Somewhere, probably Earth
What are the others, then?
Ultramandalore
Errant Quester
- Location
- just south of Parts Unknown
[X] One among and above the choir. A voice of thousand.
In Fire
Álli Méra
Sometimes I forget my name
[X] From darkness and from shadow. An Archangel's Final song.
_____
High Lunar Orbit
UNIS Gabriel
It's the dripping and slight shhhhhhh of leaking atmosphere that wakes you. pat-pat-pat. Good god it's cold. "Well..."
There is a spar of Railing impaling your XO.
Your Helmsman sits at his station. His head's at your feet though.
Sensors is a mass of charred flesh and steel.
But there's Mindy and Danial and Lukas. Secondary fire control is up and communications with it. Danial's neck deep in the guts of the some router or another keeping your power flow regular.
Karrakalla drifts in at the edge of your firing arc, the spinal mount charged. No one knows. there can be no confirmation not until the very last moments. Triangulation will alert the swarms outside that this last great Archangel remains, at least for now. Hand dancing a practiced series of motions across the arm of your Captain's Chair. The all sections intercom. your eyes close, for just a moment, and you remember the happier times. Coffee that is most certainly not spiked and card games in the off duty hours. You've a Great Granddaughter now. True her mother is rather a bit young... But... Humans are an endangered species these days and 18 isn't so terrible. Not compared to the few outer colonies that can still funnel soldiers to the Home-world. Oh the scars. Hope went into this war. What's going to come out?
"All crew, Status." Your voice is a rasped, wet thing. Thready.
This is it then.
The reports, as they come, are expected. The main spine is severed, the spinal PA the only thing holding you together.. Engineering is a mess, you've got most of a chief engineer trying to coax just a bit more power into the capacitors. and three engineers to help him. the rest of them fast patching. Nothing meant to hold. Just to keep the air and heat in long enough for the evacuation shuttles to launch. But then only just before you fire.
Evacuation begins in one minute.
You smile.
____
UNIS Kestrel
Lunar Orbit/Decaying
....
The Alarm continues to Howl in a dying room. The screens of a CIC, old when her crew were young, flicker and fade, Flicker and fade. In corridors not exposed to space the sounds of boots pounding down halls is heard.
"De-orbit is T-minus seven minutes seventeen seconds. All hands to nearest evacuation shuttles"
There is a woman here in this dying heart. Cheeks wet, uniform charred, she's bleeding from a score of wounds. hands shaking breath hitching. This has to be done this must be done.
"Miss Cartwright, the all hands evacuation has been ordered. Please, there is nothing that can be done. Kestrel is dying." She snarls and then grins through her tears as a communications station flickers for a moment and then snaps to life CIC as a whole following suit a moment later. She has no illusions for the fate of the ship, but the broadcast she just received...
"Ensign Cartwright! For God's sake my black box is being loaded! You will die here!"
"Raven 1, raven 1 this is Kestrel. Raven 1 This is Kestrel!" Come on, Come on, Come-
'Kestrel?! This is raven flight. We hear you.'
-YES!
"Stand by raven flight updated telemetry inbound."
____
Engagement Envelope around Karrakalla
Raven Flight engaging.
"Sym, you there?"
"I am active Captain."
"Guide us in?"
"Always Captain."
"Raven Flight cease ballistic acceleration, all active. All flights, all active, Hard burn. Start aft, Ripple it forward, targets are the emitters."
____
Karrakalla Interior S-D-17
UNMC Major Lefevre Commanding
"Blow out the bulkheads if you have to, I don't care! We're not taking her, we're hulking her. O'Connell! How is it going in Engineering?" Hearing the vicious sense of self satisfaction in her voice would have put the major off just five years ago. Now though?
"All dead Sir."
"Good, Anything not human between you and the bridge dies, The Raven's are leading a gun run on the ventral emitters in around 83 seconds. Nothing gets to fix them understood?
"Aye Sir."
____
Engagement Envelope around Karrakalla
UNIS Manuela Diaz
"All Ships Ripple Fire Aft moving forward, Marines confirmed at the port side Friendly fire is minimal likely."
"Steiner, aye!"
"Dobronov, aye!
"aye, aye, aye, aye"
She smiles, it's a small thing, a sad thing? There are so few left. But there are enough.
"Accelerating"
____
High Lunar Orbit
UNIS Gabriel
"Mindy open a channel to the Karrakalla."
"Human..."
Funny how he manages to inject enough venom into the translators to make that a slur. Of course his features just twist further with your first statement.
"Your son was a soldier Prince Na'an... Soldiers die. It is no fault of my people you pushed a man with no real skill onto Prosper."
"You will die, you will all die, I will hunt your species to the last mewling child! I will not be bargained with, I will not forgive. I will end you!"
____
Engagement Envelope around Karrakalla
Raven Flight engaging.
"Good Hits, Good Hits! All flights break for Earth."
____
UNIS Manuela Diaz
"Shield are down Pound 'em!"
____
UNIS Kestrel
"Gabriel, The Karrakalla's Shields are down and the Starboard Armor is slagged!"
_____
UNIS Gabriel
It's a small gesture that you make and Danial's not anywhere near the holofield pickups. But everyone who has heard a Spinal PA's static wash knows what it means.
"No, Prince Na'an, You won't."
____
The Karrakalla bursts and splinters under the gun of a ship that starts to ripple with secondary explosions even as the Particle Annihilator begins to fire. The beam holds for 56 seconds.
Earth falls, slowly, over months and years of fighting, but it lives. Many evacuated away and smuggled out by resistances and militaries belonging to the Homeworld and her colonies
The remains of the UNIF fleet make their limping bedraggled way out of the system.
Earth Remains.
____
The Airlock cycles and your Void suit reads a breathable if incredibly stale atmosphere on the other side. This is what you live for honestly. This freighter likely hasn't had a human step foot on it in
[ ] Decades. Populations have begun to climb again, Your Grandmother tells you stories sometimes. Of days of hope and peace and living as a free people. But now mankind exists on the fringes. It's forgotten by most, just another victim of the Pyrama Imperium. Even if an unusually stubborn one. Every now and Again you Ache for a world you never knew. What might it have meant for you to have had a home?
[ ] Centuries. It's said they roam the black from forgotten, hidden colonies. It's said, though the Pyrama try to strangle the news reports that Former human core worlds have rearmed. that Humans have begun to demonstrate in numbers to large for them to be anything but organized. It is said by the world singers that Earth has not been pacified. It is said that Earth is calling her children home.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[X] Decades. Populations have begun to climb again, Your Grandmother tells you stories sometimes. Of days of hope and peace and living as a free people. But now mankind exists on the fringes. It's forgotten by most, just another victim of the Pyrama Imperium. Even if an unusually stubborn one. Every now and Again you Ache for a world you never knew. What might it have meant for you to have had a home?
- Location
- St. Petersburg
[x] Decades. Populations have begun to climb again, Your Grandmother tells you stories sometimes. Of days of hope and peace and living as a free people. But now mankind exists on the fringes. It's forgotten by most, just another victim of the Pyrama Imperium. Even if an unusually stubborn one. Every now and Again you Ache for a world you never knew. What might it have meant for you to have had a home?
Ultramandalore
Errant Quester
- Location
- just south of Parts Unknown
[X] Decades. Populations have begun to climb again, Your Grandmother tells you stories sometimes. Of days of hope and peace and living as a free people. But now mankind exists on the fringes. It's forgotten by most, just another victim of the Pyrama Imperium. Even if an unusually stubborn one. Every now and Again you Ache for a world you never knew. What might it have meant for you to have had a home?
- Location
- Somewhere, probably Earth
[x] Centuries. It's said they roam the black from forgotten, hidden colonies. It's said, though the Pyrama try to strangle the news reports that Former human core worlds have rearmed. that Humans have begun to demonstrate in numbers to large for them to be anything but organized. It is said by the world singers that Earth has not been pacified. It is said that Earth is calling her children home.
[x] Centuries. It's said they roam the black from forgotten, hidden colonies. It's said, though the Pyrama try to strangle the news reports that Former human core worlds have rearmed. that Humans have begun to demonstrate in numbers to large for them to be anything but organized. It is said by the world singers that Earth has not been pacified. It is said that Earth is calling her children home.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Centuries. It's said they roam the black from forgotten, hidden colonies. It's said, though the Pyrama try to strangle the news reports that Former human core worlds have rearmed. that Humans have begun to demonstrate in numbers to large for them to be anything but organized. It is said by the world singers that Earth has not been pacified. It is said that Earth is calling her children home.
[X] Centuries. It's said they roam the black from forgotten, hidden colonies. It's said, though the Pyrama try to strangle the news reports that Former human core worlds have rearmed. that Humans have begun to demonstrate in numbers to large for them to be anything but organized. It is said by the world singers that Earth has not been pacified. It is said that Earth is calling her children home.
[X] Centuries. It's said they roam the black from forgotten, hidden colonies. It's said, though the Pyrama try to strangle the news reports that Former human core worlds have rearmed. that Humans have begun to demonstrate in numbers to large for them to be anything but organized. It is said by the world singers that Earth has not been pacified. It is said that Earth is calling her children home.