It all starts out on a nice Terran Planet where the TEC decide to start exploring the Solar System. The flagship of the fleet is a Marza Capital Ship, which find a number of asteroids nearby. We clear out the asteroids containing pirate scum and proceed to colonize them for mining operations. Everything is going well until we encounter a desert world and lay claim with a small colony. A new race is encountered here and it is clear they are hostile. We destroy their scout ships and try to proceed exploring. Our Flag ship is trying to clear out pirates from another world when our desert colony is attacked by siege frigates. Our colonist nearly get wiped out but a couple of quick gauss turrets followed by the late arrival of the Flagship.
It is clear that the enemy has declared War on us and we draw the proverbial line in the sand at a Asteroid belt seperating the rest of the solar system from our collection of asteroids and 2 planets. The Desert world is Isolated with only a single phase jump entrance from the uncolonizable asteroid field, and there are 2 larger asteroids leading to our Homeworld from the asteroid field. We build up a Starbase at the Desert world and one at the asteroid. We managed to complete them as the next waves of attackers. crash against our defenses. It was bloody for the enemy, who lost many ships. Our scout ships keep track of enemy build up at the Asteroid belt. Three Seperate factions have all joined together in an attempt to destroy us.
Our response was to continue upgrades on our defensive space stations and create vast minefields at the incoming jump points. We created additional capital ships to help hold the line, while the Marza flagship was isolated at the Desert world. A Dunov and a new Marza were placed into service at the dead asteroid leading to our homeworld. Out investments paid off from both fronts. A Massive invasion force larger than our Captains have ever seen phase jumped in and began Assaulting out starbases. However they were caught unprepared for our space mines and their fleet was crippled. This gave our Flag ship Marza experience nessesary to wield its ultimate ability, missile barrage, which quickly finished off all remaing forces from the invasion fleet.
The war was looking good for us at this time. We had caused the destruction of hundreds of enemy vessels at a fraction of the cost of the enemy. We eventually even were able to push all enemy ships from the Asteroid belt which served as the chokepoint to our growing Empire. Our next objection was aggressive expansion. But this would be no easy task. We had 3 different ways to go. They were to an Ice world, a magnetic storm and a Volcanic planet. The Ice world was heavily fortified and the race there was fully reliant on strikecraft, a technology which we had not developed strongly. Our scout spotted at least 20 Carrier vessels and a dozen or more Heavy cruisers. All this backed by a fortification only rivaled by our own. Their mine field was small, but completely surrounding their starbase. Our Captains knew that attacking that world would be suicide. We settled our attack strategy on taking the Volcanic world and use it and the 3 connecting asteroids to chain it to our homeworld in a longer trade route. This supplemental income fueled our extra costs to raise the fleet supply and train additional capital ship crews.
We had two new Capital ships to join our seasoned vets. They were two new Kol Battleships. They were trained in the specialty of flak cannons and adaptive shielding. Their powers would help neutralize strike craft while the Marzas missile barrage ability destroyed all frigate class enemies. This combination of unique abilities was the key to bursting our enemies defenses. The enemy fleets lost all hope at our awesome organization and teamwork. They retreated time and time again as we took several worlds from them in quick succesion. Our scout have pin pointed a enemy homeworld only 4 jumps away. We bolstered our fleet with an additional Marza and Kol and Dunov. Three Kol, two Dunov, three Marzas, and then a dozen Kodiac Heavy Cruisers and another dozen Hoshiko repair ships rounded our our fleet. At the point when all 3 Marzas had reached the ability to weild missile barrage, nothing could stand up against them. They looked upon enemy fleets which would sometimes number in the hundreds with a hunger. They didn't attack, they devoured enemy fleets. The ships learned new skilled from the battles and soon they were unstoppable.
From the Volcanic world, our Flagship and its death squad would soon conquer half a dozen worlds and nearly exterminate the Advent race of people. It was a juggling act. We had to heavily fortify every world were conquered because we lacked the fleet to defend them. And splitting apart the Death Fleet wasn't something our ambitious leaders wanted to think about. They had a taste for blood and we weren't going to be pushed around anymore.
After many months of fighting. Our plan was going better than expected. We had conquered half of the Solar system and had routed the remaining enemy forced by destroying everything in our path. Our fortifications were expensive to build, but their protection gave our colonies the safety and piece of mind while our Death Fleet was out conquering new worlds. The Death Fleet, whos' crews were so fully experienced now that they could max out their ships so completely and obliterate the enemy without even their own ship's shield becoming unstable, let alone collapse. The enemy was apparently in a full blown retreat as we managed to conquer every last planet in our Solar system. Our economy was stronger than ever with a trade route spanning 15 worlds bringing in triple the credit return compared to the colony taxes.
At this point we looked outand had new ambitions to begin conquering a new star system. Our scientists had already perfected the art of the interstellar phase jumps and our scouting parties discovered 2 more nearby stars within range. With this discovery came a massive retaliation. An enemy fleet larger and stronger than ever before has appeared on our long range scopes. It had Over 50 Carrier Cruisers and flew the flag of the Vasari. We had only seen their kind in our space minimaly until now. Who knows how long they had been planning this assault against us. Our most heavily defended planet, a Terran world was their target. It was the only phase lane connecting from the star to the rest of our Empire. Our entire Empire's future depends on this world survival. Of course, it was heavily mined and we fortified it with a massive starbase and rows of gauss turrets, but the sheer number of enemy strike craft simply overwhelmed all of the defenders. And the heavy cruisers went to work at disassembling the gauss turrets. It seemed hopeless. Command did have something up its sleave though. Instead of ordering the Death fleet back home, from where they were our in the cosmos, they commisioned the construction of a new death fleet to be used for homeworld security. And being built right there at Ground Zero, 7 Frigate factories worked tirelessly to build our own set of Strike craft carriers.
The battle raged as we lost ground to the heavy cruisers while enemy bombers decimated our own heavy defenders. Half of the mine field was detonated and still the enemy pushed. Our starbase on its last legs from the relentless bombing runs. Our first new marza was completed and entered the battle. At that time, there was a massive enemy movement through the remaining mines which dealt a seriously crippling blow. The Marza seemed to instantly level up from the massive destruction and gain missile barrage withing minutes of its creation. Using the newfound power, it strove to finish off the rest if the strike craft hosts. Within a matter of seconds half of the Carrier ships exploded and the remaining ships must have been frightened by our display or might. They foolishy and hastily attempt retreat, through the remaining mine field which promptly finished them off. It was an amazing outcome. Our goverment realized we could persevere even against the most impossible odds.
Meanwhile the Death Fleet receieved word of the attack from the Vasari Empire. Their Admiral decided to take the fight to them. They left from the righ ice worlds they were colonizing. Upon arrival at the first Vasari planet, one jump away from the star, our forces entered into the most difficult battle they had faced thus far. These ships were far more powerful and the starbase was even capable of moving. Faced with numerous phase inhibitors, We decided to press the attack and hope for the best. While the Death Fleet was all but invincible in our own empire's culture, here our ability advantage of eight level 10 capital ships was diminished. We fought the local structures near the edge of the gravity well for a time waiting for the enemy fleet to mass around our Marzas. They slowly surrounded us and our commanders waited until the very last second to give the order. Those were just skirmishers though. The bigger problem was staring us in the face, a Massive starbase fully equipped to deal with us.
Luckily for us, it could have destroyed us ship by ship, and we did lose many heavy cruisers and robotics vessels, but our dunovs kept the capital ships shields from collapsing . Unfortunately the Vasari have a devious technology that lets their missiles penetrate our shields. Our hulls were beginning to become serverely damaged. It was so bad that one of our Kol Battlships was at 30%, and even dunovs keeping its shields up wasn't stopping new damage from occuring. The Admiral ordered it to the edge of the gravity well, where it would out of range. Unfortnately enemy reinforcements arrived. The Starbase was nearly dead, but our ships were equally damaged, and now faced withoverpowering odds. It was very close but our admiral was smarter than he let on. He ordered a renewed attack and focus fired everything we had to take out that starbase. It was worth the risk, as the explosion faded, the enemy reinforcements lost their nerve and retreated. If only they realized how crippled we were, with low shields, and massive hull damage and empty antimatter reserves.
But we were victorious where the Vasari were not. The recent Vasari attack cost them everything. And unlike their invasion, ours ended with the destruction of a world and we gained a valuable foothold on their territory.
Too be continued...
