Empire vs. NMLA: The Last Stand at Thalax IV
20 Sep 2024Haraldsen
The Imperial Fleet emerged from Witch Space in all its glory, their immaculate, white hulls glinting majestically against the backdrop of the stars. Admiral Thorne stood on the bridge of his flagship, the Imperator, his eyes fixed on the distant planet of Thalax IV and the NMLA Carrier John Tyburn. Of course they had to name the ship after this terrorist scum, he thought. Anyway, this was supposed to be an easy victory, a swift strike to crush the rebellion on the planet and the last remnants of the NMLA terrorists.As if rehearsing a well-practiced drill, the crews of the Imperial ships meticulously readied their weapons, their sights locked on the Tyburn. They measured speed and trajectory, calculated the distance to their target, and analyzed potential weak points and evasive maneuvers. One by one, the capital ships reported their readiness to the admiral. Firing solutions were flawlessly computed, poised to be executed. In a swift and devastating display of Imperial might, the John Tyburn would be turned into a flaming wreck by a concentrated barrage, serving as a stark warning to all who even contemplated rebellion against the Empire.
Only a few dozen kilometers were left to get within range. Nothing, if you're on a spaceship.
But as the fleet advanced, the space around Thalax IV erupted in a deadly dance of light and shockwaves. Mines, cleverly placed and densely packed in minefields near the planet and the NLMA carrier, detonated in a chain reaction. Explosions rocked the approaching Imperial ships, sending shockwaves through their formation.
"All ships, evasive maneuvers!" Thorne barked, gripping the edge of his command console. The fleet scattered, capital ships veering wildly to avoid the mines and each other. The Imperator shuddered from its emergency maneuvering as it narrowly avoided a collision with another capital ship, the Valiant.
Near miss. A collision of two battlecruisers would've been a catastrophic start. Admiral Thorne scowled, observing ships breaking formation, as all plans of a swift and decisive victory collapsed in an instant. But no one becomes an admiral through planning alone. Choices, odds and probabilities roiled in the strategist's mind, invisible to others, hidden behind the stern gaze of a battle-hardened commander. This was not his first rodeo with the NMLA, which he had successfully fought in the Battle of Mudhrid many years earlier.
"Sir, we're detecting multiple torpedo launches!" shouted the tactical officer. On the view-screen, swarms of enemy fighters armed with torpedoes streaked towards the Imperial fleet, their payloads leaving trails of fire in the void. As more and more dots filled the screens, the officer added to the report, his voice tinged with uncertainty. "There are... Too many to count!"
"Deploy countermeasures! All batteries, open fire!" Thorne commanded. The space around the fleet lit up with defensive fire, but the torpedoes kept coming, too numerous for the defensive weaponry and smaller ships to intercept. The admiral reluctantly admitted his first costly mistake. No one had expected the NMLA to have so many torpedo-capable fighters or such a well-placed minefield, and now, the titanic, selfless effort made by people of Thalax IV took first lives of their oppressors.
One by one, the first torpedoes of many found their marks. The Defender was struck amidships, its hull buckling under the impact. The Vanguard took a direct hit to its bridge, flames and debris spewing into space. Escorts buzzed, frenziedly maneuvering, firing desperately both at torpedoes and incoming fighters, overwhelmed, abandoning any order and formation. In blind devotion, a few smaller vessels threw themselves between torpedoes and their targets, protecting the capital ships by sacrificing themselves.
"For the Empire!" A short transmission from the Skeller, a light escort frigate, reached the flagship and died out abruptly. Admiral Thorne watched silently as less than a kilometer away, a massive torpedo explosion ripped the frigate's hull in half, an instant death sentence for everyone on board, willing and unwilling alike. This torpedo was heading straight for the Imperator's bridge.
"Launch fighters to intercept those damn torpedoes!" Thorne ordered the carrier Invincible, which was maneuvering out of the vicinity of a minefield.
"Aye, sir!" came the response. But as the Invincible began to deploy its fighters, the Vanguard, being hit earlier and out of control yet still accelerating, collided with the carrier. The impact was catastrophic, crippling the Invincible's launch bays, collapsing adjacent compartments and causing multiple internal explosions to erupt through the cracks in the hull. Only a handful of fighters managed to scramble before most of the bays were rendered inoperable. And for the Vanguard, it was all over. With the bridge turned into a twisted flaming inferno and a wide gaping hole in the side, the ship careened to death, heading deeper into the minefield, leaving a trail of metal debris as the remaining crew began a desperate evacuation.
"Invincible, report!" Thorne demanded.
"Sir, we've lost most of our launch capacity! And only a few fighters of the first wave made it!" the carrier's captain responded, his voice strained.
“Damn it! Get those fighters to cover our flanks!” Thorne barked, frustration boiling over as he saw one measure after another failing to stop the expected swift victory from turning into an embarrassing and costly defeat.
This order was already bordering on desperation. A handful of fighters were unable to tip the balance. Their first attack attempt only forced a few NMLA pilots to turn around and go for another run, with more support on their side. Thorne hesitated for a moment, his pride warring with the dire situation. He had been against involving ABEL, but War Minister Valeria had spoken out in favor of a contingency plan. He knew what he had to do. With a heavy sigh, he opened a secure channel to ABEL who had a capital ship waiting nearby.
“This is Admiral Thorne. We need your immediate assistance. Our launch capacity is compromised, and we’re taking heavy fire. Requesting backup,” he said, the words tasting bitter in his mouth.
Minutes passed, each one feeling like an eternity. The battle raged on, and Thorne’s forces were pushed to their limits. Just as his hope for backup began to wane, a new contact appeared on the sensors. A massive capital ship from ABEL, the Herald of Salvation, was finally dropping out of Witch Space. For a moment, hope flickered in Thorne’s eyes. Reinforcements, at last.
But the Herald of Salvation did not move to assist. Instead, it precisely followed its orders, aligning itself to deploy the Dawnbreaker weapon. As the colossal weapon began to glow with an ominous light, drawing immense power, it aimed unerringly at Thalax IV. The threat was clear and imminent.
"Herald of Salvation command, this is Admiral Thorne! Stop charging your main weapon. We need immediate support against these fighters and their torpedoes, not your damn superweapon!" Thorne shouted into the comms, notes of dismay finally breaking the last remaining chains of professional composure in his voice.
The main comms display on the bridge of the Imperator flickered to life, revealing the stern face of Commander Ralston aboard the Herald of Salvation. "Admiral Thorne, our orders are clear. We are to annihilate Thalax IV. Your fleet's losses are not our concern."
"Not your concern? We're being decimated out here!" Thorne roared, but Ralston's expression remained impassive.
"Proceed with your mission, Admiral. And I suggest you move your ships out of the way of our weapon to avoid being decimated even further. Herald of Salvation out." The screen went dark. Helpless, almost personally insulted, Thorne landed his fist on the console in front of him. Whoever that commander Ralston was, he just treated the Admiral of the Empire as a nuisance, and, being tied by a fight that descended into a catastrophe, the Admiral had nothing to say in his defence.
As the torpedoes continued to rain down on the Imperial fleet, the chaos intensified. Further ships collided in their frantic attempts to evade the onslaught and the minefields. The Valiant and the Resolute, both heavily damaged already, failed to maneuver in time and collided violently along their longsides. As they slid past each other, their hulls scraped and bumped, triggering a series of explosions. The void was soon filled with the wreckage of these once-proud vessels. The Imperator itself was hit, a torpedo breaching its starboard side and sending alarms blaring throughout the ship.
"Admiral, we must retreat!" the second-in-command pleaded, but Thorne's eyes were locked on the Herald of Salvation and its still charging weapon. The nature of the monstrous device was unknown to him, yet the sheer size and the amounts of energy it accumulated clearly implied that even his flagship wasn't the strongest piece on the board. By far.
"Order the fleet to fall back and regroup. We will not be defeated by these rebels!" Thorne finally commanded, his voice filled with rage.
As the Imperial fleet pulled back, Thorne's attention shifted to the John Tyburn. Out of the deadly minefields, without the harrowing display of his ships scattering and exploding one by one, the Admiral could reinforce his grip, previously undermined by shock and desperation. Familiar, even calming cavalcade of odds and options returned to his mind as he orchestrated the retreat and regrouping. Now, the distance and angle were far from optimal, yet the alternative that presented itself tasted like blood.
"Focus all fire on the John Tyburn! It's their main force! We will destroy it to end this here and now!" he ordered. The Imperial ships, once regrouped, unleashed a concentrated attack run on the NMLA carrier. The John Tyburn shuddered under the relentless assault, its shields flickering and hull breaching in multiple places.
It felt as if time had come to a standstill as a blinding light, almost like a newborn star nearby, but eerily cold and synthetic, spread from behind the battered ranks of the Imperial fleet. And unlike the warmth of the stars, this flash brought only a cold breeze of death to anyone the light reached. The Dawnbreaker on the Herald of Salvation fired, a spear of pure destruction lancing towards Thalax IV. It sliced through space, touching several combatant ships, friend and foe alike, instantly wiping those out as if they had never existed, disintegrating them in its path before moving on to the planet. Once it reached its target, Thalax IV erupted in a cataclysmic explosion, shockwaves rippling through space.
For a moment, all combat ceased. Imperial and NMLA forces alike stared in stunned silence at the total annihilation of Thalax IV. The sheer scale of the destruction left everyone momentarily paralyzed.
"By the stars…" whispered Thorne, his voice barely audible. The bridge crew of the Imperator stood frozen, their faces pale with shock.
On the John Tyburn, Cassia Verda watched in horror as the planet disintegrated. “We need to get out of here, now!” she ordered, her voice trembling.
“Cassia, power is failing! We do not have sufficient energy!” a crew member shouted back, panic evident in his voice.
“Do whatever it takes!” Cassia demanded, her eyes never leaving the view of the obliterated planet. “What about the emergency protocols? We can’t stay here!”
Even before the uprising on Thalax IV, Cassia knew that these people were condemned, that the brief flicker of their freedom was doomed to be trampled underfoot. The Empire could not let such a bold rebellion go unpunished. As she stood on the bridge of the John Tyburn after the uprising, overseeing preparations, she already envisioned armed attacks, arrests and violence. Executions. Tears, hopelessness and injustice. Another episode, one of countless in which the Empire extinguished the freedom and will of its citizens.
She wasn't prepared to see the entire world shattered. Millions of deaths in a flash of light. It was mass murder, executed without any form of justice.
In the engine room, Chief Engineer Meyer spurred his men on to top performance, and with an almost superhuman effort the engineers managed to redirect enough energy to the jump drive. Finally, the John Tyburn initiated emergency jump procedures. With a last burst of energy, the battered carrier vanished into Witch Space, escaping the battlefield.
Back on the Imperator, Thorne finally found his voice. “Status report!” he barked, trying to regain control of his shaken crew.
“Sir, we’ve lost contact with several smaller ships,” an officer responded, his hands trembling over the controls. “And… Thalax IV is gone.”
Thorne took a deep breath, his mind racing. “Prepare to take us to a safe distance from the remains of the planet. We need to regroup and assess the situation.”
As the Imperator began to pull back, Thorne couldn’t shake the image of the destroyed planet from his mind. “What have we unleashed?” he muttered to himself, the weight of the moment pressing down on him.
The once-mighty Imperial fleet, now a mere specter of its former glory, drifted aimlessly in the void, burdened by the crushing weight of their failure because the John Tyburn slipped through their grasp. Deep within, Thorne had harbored doubts about an easy victory even before the fleet embarked on its ill-fated journey to the cursed system of Thalax. Now, everything lay in ruins, a whole once-habitable world reduced to nothingness. In an instant, all his efforts were rendered meaningless, a fate far more agonizing than mere defeat. The bravery, the sacrifice, the blind, zealous devotion of his crew - all were rendered hollow and futile by the unnatural might of the Dawnbreaker. Its deadly strike not only obliterated ships and shattered the planet, but it also erased the very essence of the people and their cause, as if they had never existed at all.
The main comms screen onboard the Imperator flickered to life once more, revealing Commander Ralston. “Your fleet looks quite ravaged, Admiral, but at least the order to wipe out the rebellion has been fulfilled,” Ralston said matter-of-factly.
Thorne’s eyes flashed with anger once more. The helplessness, the futility of any attempts to reach Ralston, disarmed the admiral, who was used to both the heat of battle and the cold of the high Imperial halls, but could not remember ever meeting anyone so soulless. “The John Tyburn escaped, so it's a temporary victory at best. And it's absolutely dishonorable to go into battle with a weapon like the Dawnbreaker.”
Ralston’s expression remained impassive. “Stand in the ashes of billions of dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters… the silence is your answer. The Mission has been accomplished."
The screen went dark again while the Herald of Salvation prepared to jump out of the system, leaving Thorne and what was left of his fleet to grapple with the aftermath of the battle.
As the remains of the shattered planet drifted apart in silence, echoes of millions of souls faded away into the emptiness.
This log was created with the kind assistance of Meowers.
As always, thanks for proof reading and your contributions!