In the GRIM DARKNESS of the far future, there can be only WAR.
Keep us posted!
Xenos are best studied through the scope of a las rifle, you know.
Victory!Jubilant throngs on Terra rejoiced today on news that the First Fleet had emerged victorious against the Xeno threat. This marks the first battle tests of the new laser-equipped warships Saratoga, Insidius, Thunder, Anastasia, and Hornet. The well-trained fleets performed flawlessly and were able to support one another without error. The hornets and and anastasia jump ships provided area defense against incoming missiles at a range of 450,000 km, while the thunder gauss ships were able to easily shred any missiles that passed this range. The Xeno forces, now identified as the Zaltraxian Oligarchy, were divided into two primary battle groups-- a missile heavy group stationed near the third planet in the system, and a large mixed force patrolling the periphery of the planetary system. Our heavy cruisers and carrier remained stationed at the jump point to prevent the xenos from fleeing through the black hole system (though such a strategy would be ultimately fruitless, fleet containment is a primary concern). Even xeno-antimissile fire was easily shrugged off by our beam weaponry. Once we had closed to primary weapon range, approximatly 100,000 km, the aliens did score a series of direct hits against our primary command ship; there was not enough time to track, target, and fire on the fast missiles at our engagement range. However, two volleys managed only to bring the shields to one half strength.
The saratogas, now in optimal firing range, opened fire. Each of the 8 40cm Far-xray lasers cut through the alien hulls, puncturing the armor and doing substantial internal damage. No ships targeted by a saratoga were able to survive a single shot. The Insidius, of which 18 joined this engagement, mopped up the stragglers in small packs of three. Many of these corvettes did not need to fire.
Two wings of fast attack craft were handled similarly: the xenos fired their missiles in futility, and were easily chased down and punctured by ships more than 20x their size. The large caliber beams on the saratoga were said to penetrate both sides of the small vessels.
The fleet now turns its attention to the Zaltraxian homeworld. The ground campaign is likely to be hard fought, scientists estimate that there are greater than 6 billion citizens residing on the primary planet. Observers wonder whether 6 divisions of crack troops will be enough to stamp the aliens down. It will take greater than a month for reinforcements to arrive, as the older troop transports used for reinforcements will be unable to navigate the black hole gateway to the Zaltraxian system.
in other news Propulsion engineers on Mars today reported a breakthrough on interdimensional physics. Says Kurt Engle of New Angelas Labs: "We've long understood that jump points connect two points in real space through a tunnel in a higher dimensional space, however, we've never had any way of accessing those higher dimensions directly. Our new transmitter technology has allowed us to broadcast directly into the higher dimensions, enabling us to measure bleed-through of the electromagnetic energy from the higher dimensions back into our own. Our preliminary results support a notion that this higher-dimensional space is a highly efficient medium for ultra long range, ultrafast interstellar communication. We estimate that the relatively weak energy envelope expanded to enshroud several galaxies in our galactic neighborhood. We postulate that with some investment and advancement, we will be able to generate wormholes that will allow for far greater travel range than the naturally-occurring jumpgate travel allows."
