Strike Range

Ch4: And I want it... in Black.

"The universe will be mine! Mwu-hah-hah-ha-ha! *Cough-cough* "

O'malley; 21st Film series Red vs Blue

    The newly arrived fleet formed up, experienced masters of beach-heading battlefronts.  They were vengeful over the destruction of the depot, and ready for action.  Their formation was storming across the sky of Kalida, the huge 2-mile battlecruisers of the fleet visible from the ground.  The few remaining servants of the Ohansu empire looked up to them, and shuddered at the sight of their arrowheads marching across the sky.   

    If one looked carefully at their formation, one could see a gap in the fleet.  An honor guard formation, ready to clear the road for it's commander.  To anyone looking at the formation, it seemed to be one heck of a gap in the formation, now that the ships had moved into position, but it would be filled soon enough.

    Suddenly, a greater light appeared.  The rear-most Devestator of the fleet was slowly overshadowed by something far bigger....  Space seemed to waver in a massive shockwave, as the fleet nearly broke, even the commanders familiar with their great command ship still getting shocked by her size.  More of the fleet fell into darker shadow, the light being overwhelmed by the dark ship approaching.

     The mighty Citadel closed in, slowing from her former super-luminal speeds, taking up it's place among it's honor guard.  Big beyond all belief, it was the evil pride of the Ohansu and Black fleets.  The massive staggered arrowhead, with it's outswept nacells was the biggest ship to ever roam the skies, twice as long as the already infamous Metamor, was as close to black as could be, if it were not for her lights, and the slight grayish tint to her glossy paint.   Her mighty engines set space itself to rumbling, making audible a bone-chilling screech that gave anyone close to the hull of one of the fleet's ships the worst case of goosebumps imaginable.  Her form bristled with weapons, ready to fire on any poor fool who found her.

    Yet, for all her ferocious firepower and size, her fearsome silhouette and death-gray hull, it was not her herself that made the commanders of the fleet worried for the most part.  It was her passenger, their commander who was the real reason for worry.  The man in command of all the Ohansu forces, and the eviliest man this side of hades that was the reason to be frightened out of your wits.

    The mighty Citadel's docking bay doors opened, nowhere near to their full extent, but enough to let a small cruiser out.  That ship was the black of death, markings on her hull making it clear that she was the personal ship of the evil Lord Dominatus; commander of the Ohansu forces, and a master of the dark arts.  She had been designed in a far earlier day, her hull reminiscent  of some of the most famous designs of the Alliance.

    Her sublight drives kicked in, slowly propelling her down to the planet.  Her shields flared as they deflected the mostly salvaged  guardian fleet of the outpost, making her way to the base below.  Her master's scowl deepened with every passing moment, and he intended to make sure that someone would pay for this heinously devastated field of battle.  

Lord Dominatus's Personal Ship; Main Bridge; 12:05  

    His dark figure stood tall in the space, overshadowing his officers. "Don't give me excuses.  I want to know who those people were that we saw running from this base.  I don't care how it's done, as long as it is done as soon as possible."  His voice could have made a baby cry, dark and menacing.  The black cowl hiding his face seemed to drink the acidic light of the bridge, enlarging his shadow.   

    "Whoever it was was not one of ours, that much is-"  His first officer could feel a hand at his throat, pulling him off the ground, and slowly choking him. "Erk-uk-ek-eekee-graglle..."

    "That is clear, commander.   Tell me something that isn't as obvious as your lack of vision!" Lord Dominatus released his power, dropping his subordinate

 to the deck with a clanging thud. The poor man gasped, trying to take in air.  The dark lord looked down upon him as he sat down in his upraised throne.   He didn't like fools, and wouldn't put up with them.

    The man's breath rattled while he talked, his throat still having problems passing air.  "They might have been-"  He had to take a ragged breath, trying to get a decent lungful of air.  "federation resistance ships.  Some of their energy signatures match the scattered fragments of data from the Tigris Expanse battle..."  The officer collapsed back onto the deck, his limbs slowly loosing strength due to his low intake of air.

    Dominatus motioned to the guards with one of his gauntleted fists.  The two grabbed the rattling commander, taking him to the sickbay.  As the man was dragged off, he clenched his fists in fury.  "Twice they have eluded my forces, twice they have spited me.  I did not put up with it in the old days, and I will not put up with it now."  He slammed his fists into the specially padded ends of his throne's arms, furious.  He pointed to his communications officer.  "Upon the next sighting of one of these rebels, I want the sighting ship to disengage and report the location immediately.  Have all ships on alert, and ready for high speed interceptions."

    "Yes, my lord."  The communications officer began typing in the text message, while checking for reception of his transmissions to the ground.  He was getting worried due to the lack of response.

    "The third time I intend to be the last."  Dominatus's black cowl hid his scarred visage, and the gaze strong enough to rip space.  "Any word from the ground?  I want an answer on their readiness for the new spacedock facility."

    "Negative.  I cannot get even person-to-person communications from the ground, much less ground to space beacons, anything."  The communications officer shook his head, worried about his face.  "I'm not even getting a signal confirmation from the ground equipment, any of it.  I've got the sensors up on my board, and though I am no science expert, it seems anything strippable in a short time has been taken."  He gulped slightly, worried that he was about to share the commander's fate.  He kept his eyes on his station, trying not to give his lord a face to focus on.

    "Then it means that those rebel scum have been uncontested for at least a day.   Which, in itself means the garrison here has been destroyed."  Dominatus was not happy, by any stretch of the word.   Anger, could not even describe the dark, cold and calculating rage he felt.  Once, he might have burst into a violent fit, likely killing the bearer of the message, but now...  now he was worse.  "If the plans for the experiment have been stolen, the commander of the outpost will find the worst death of all, if he has not been mercifully killed."  The evil master of the ship had lowered his voice to a whisper, but that whisper was more thunderous than his first outraged bellows.

    The communications officer quivered for a moment, thinking he was about to meet the maker of the universe.   Then, the noise of the bridge slowly returned.  He looked behind him, to see Dominatus pacing away from him, making a circuit of the bridge.  He relaxed slightly, knowing he was going to be out of danger for a minute or so.

    "Confirmed, my lord.  The compound is stripped of almost all of those pre-fabricated buildings, and anything else that required less than a day's worth of demolition."  The science officer spoke up from the back of the room, as unhappy at the news as his dark master.  "Also, none of the labor force remains on the planet.  There is heavy concentrations of weapons fire residue in the vicinity of the compound, at least part of it capital class, quite a bit more fighter class, and some of it personel weapons class."

    "Then someone will be paying dearly indeed.  No band of rebels should have been able to over-whelm a ground battallion."  He looked at his crew.  "From now on, quit cowering about giving me factual bad news.  If it is a bad news opinion, go ahead and shut up, but if it is an important piece of information, give it to me."  His voice was harsh, but forgiving.  "I do not kill the bearers of bad news.  Only fools and those responsible for creating that bad news do I kill out of hand."

    "However..."  The whole crew tensed at his continuation.  "I want to be on the ground in the next ten minutes to survey the damage, and make a determination on how best to kill the commander of this outpost if he still lives." He moved past the helm station to make his point, before climbing back to his throne, and once again over-looking the bridge from it.  As the ship angled down towards the planet, he had one last thing to say.  "Yes, whoever is left will pay for this incompetent display of wretched worthlessness."

    "My lord, there is an unfortunate possibility."  The science officer was sweating as his lord turned to him startledly.

    "What?"  Dominatus's snap got a jump out of several of the bridge crew.  Usually that snap was followed by the snap of a neck, though the frequency had been slowly receeding in recent years, according to the memory of the elder members of the crew.  Dominatus's temper was not something anyone wanted to bring down upon themselves.

    "Sir, I have been analyzing the residue left over from the rebel retreat.  I haven't had much time, but there is a distinct pattern already building."  The officer's tone was one that was rarely used in the dark lord's presence.  One that indicated that he had to be somewhere right then.  "You have to see this.  It's hard to explain verbally, but visually, there can be little doubt."  He had weighed the risk against the need, and found that he absolutely had to provide for the need, as urgently as possible.

    Dominatus had gotten such urgent requests rarely enough to know his officers only asked for them in emergencies.  True emergencies.  He had rarely had such crews as they.  At the beginning of his career, and in the few major wars of the galaxy.  He quickly strided over, wondering what he was to be shown.  "What is-..."  He was stopped short by the massive readings. "That can't be right.  You must have miscalculated the sensors.  At least one of those traces supposedly has more power than the Citadel brewing.  That's impossible!"

    "Self error has already been eliminated.  Whenever an anomalous result is recorded, the computer self-checks the calibration of all sensors, and only reports such traces if it cannot possibly find any explanation for them."  The science officer didn't like the implications, but he went on.  "Whatever this trace-" he pointed to a twin streak on the monitor, possibly two discrete traces, but so closely matching in variables as to be unlikely- "and these two to the planetary north are; they're at least 500 times as big as the Leviathan series ships."

    "They could be the supposed 'city-ships' that are hinted at in the rebel transmissions that we occasionally pick up."  The tactical officer spoke up, voicing the concern on everyone's mind.  "I can't think of anything else other than a citadel class battleship that could put out those levels of energy."  He stood taller, trying to keep from looking nervous.  "Due to the fact that those rebels are smart enough to send couriers with all their utmost important data and orders, we have not had confirmation of these ships existence, and even this is not conclusive."

    "A disturbing, but likely possibility.  Another possibility is that these traces MIGHT have been manufactured to try and create the illusion of greater forces at these rebel's discretion."  Dominatus didn't want to concede the point quite yet, not until he saw one with his own two eyes.  "Still, the fact that they are willing to expend such energy, and have such energy available is worrisome."  He snorted for a second, but made a quick decision.  "Consider your points towards promotion gotten, for the moment."

    "Yes sir." The two nodded quickly, and got back to work.  A moment of victory dancing could easily loose those points, and more.

    "It will be interesting.  For the first time in many a year, a fleet has arisen that is up to the challenge of taking on the Ohansu empire."  Dominatus's eyes narrowed, the change barely visible through the light reflecting off of them from the bridge lights.  "It will be sweet revenge to blast them all from the stars."  He stood by the main screen, watching the atmospheric ionization slowly build from the ship's passage.  "First thing is that we need a way to track them..."

    "Let us hope there is a way..."  The officer spoke softly, but the only thing saving him was the fact that his lord thought the same.  The ship bucked as it entered the lower atmosphere, slowing to sub-sonic speeds in preparation for landing.  The nearly wrecked outpost loomed under the ship's bow.

    "All stations, brace for landing procedures."  The bridge crew locked themselves into their seats, as Dominatus merely stood.  

    The ship shuddered as the landing gear unfurled, and the ship spiraled down to one of the heavily cluttered and damaged landing pads.  The helmsman looked somewhat nervous as the ship closed in, but, with a heavy thud, and a shock that rippled the ship he managed to land it safely.  Even as the officers on the bridge pitched forward with the sudden stop of motion, Dominatus only took note of the swaying with a swish of his cloak.

    "We are grounded, my lord.  All stations are still reporting in.  Our research complex may have held, as there is a heavy duty shield raised around it."  The operations officer looked to his dark lord for clues as to a plan of action.  "A visit is in order, perhaps; my lord?"

    "Yes.  If anyone still lives, they will be desperately trying to still mount a defense, thinking that we have come for them."  Dominatus slowly strode towards the lift, an ominous smile on his face.  "They will not be far wrong."  His tone chilled everyone.

Kalida; Research center; 13:50 FT

    The depot commander slowly slumped to the ground, dribbling blood from his orifices.  His insides had been shredded without ever leaving his body. The final, wet thump of his body hitting the floor jolted the troopers, and other assorted personel gathered.  None of them had ever seen anything like the horrible torture that the dark lord had inflicted on the man, even as he had screamed for mercy.

    "Apology accepted, you worthless scum."  Dominatus turned away, uninterested in the squishy results as the troopers tried to drag their former commander out of the building.  "I want the project transferred to the Citadel immediately.  It is clear that even with my reforms, the regular navy is too incompetent to be trusted with this program."  Dominatus slowly glided away from the huddled group.   "This is not something which should be taken lightly, or treated carelessly.  This is our ticket to unlimited power.  The next person who nearly destroys it will beg for that commander's fate before the end."

    The entire room had chills as he pronounced that, knowing how brutally Dominatus had killed their commander.  When he turned back around, they all jumped, figuring he was going to make an example of all of them.  

    "Can anyone give me an accurate account of what has happened here?"  Dominatus's request was actually... civil.  The assembled personelle looked at each other, wondering if it was a trick.

    "I can, sir.  Um, I mean my lord."  A somewhat nervous looking trooper came forward.  His black armor was dented and pitted from debris impacts and hostile fire.  His helmet in hand, he wasn't exactly within regulation, but after a major battle, Dominatus was willing to begrudge him a point on cleanliness.

    "Go on.  I don't mind hearing the harsh truth, as long as the person telling it doesn't act like a fool."  Dominatus gestured to a chair and table for him to make his report from.

    "Um, yes..."  He sat down, relieved to take the battle's strain off his legs.  "The orbital battle appeared to be a rout from the ground.  There was a massive rebel fleet attacking the defenders.  There must have been 25 thousand or so.  The sky was glittering with their numbers."  Several of the other troopers nodded in agreement.  They had all been looking up as the alert siren went off.  "There were numerous detonations with the characteristics of one of our ships blowing apart.  I saw several ships head out of the battle, possibly either retreating into deep space, or trying to get a message out."

    Dominatus nodded, seeing a good idea when he heard it.  "At least someone upstairs had a bit of sense.  Go on."  His dark cloak ruffled in some unfelt breeze, even as he stood still over the trooper.

    "Most of them were destroyed, but there were one or two that took fire, but managed to warp out of the system.  If you didn't recieve word, it may be that they either could not handle the strain of warp speed, or had engine failures in deep space, and are still effecting repairs."  The trooper took a deep breath, unused to having to report so openly to a superior.  Most of the time he was waved off by indifferent and incompetent officers.  "After a few minutes, most of the combatants disappeared.  They may have merely cloaked."

    "A possibility, but I sense, both in your tone and words, and your thoughts that it was not the case."  Dominatus could not make out what exactly happened in those few seconds.

    "Frankly, sir, it happened too fast for me to make out.  One moment they were there, and a few seconds later, after I ducked trying to escape a shot at the compound from a fighter, they weren't."  The trooper's eyes seemed to loose focus, as if they were looking back instead of looking at the present.  "I didn't have time to make accurate observations at the time, as the base was coming under fighter attack."

    "Did you get a general sense of the orbital battle?  Any main tactics, perhaps?"  

    "I couldn't tell our ships from theirs, but it seemed to be some kind of pincer movement, with several huge ships skimming the atmosphere, and a fleet from above pinning them to the planet." The trooper shook his head.  "Likely they were just normal sized ships in ultra-low orbit."  He looked rather remorseful.  "The battle was over in a way, before it even reached the ground.  They had enough ships to spare a few to attack the compound directly even while the battle was still going on.  At least one Redemption class cruiser, and several others of unknown design.  They, along with more fighters than I've seen even in our combat drills, annihilated

 the air defenses of the base."

    "Anihilated?  The base commander was stupid enough not to launch fighters?"  Dominatus was more than a little annoyed.  It was one of the stupider things he had heard about in recent history.

    "No, they were launched at the first alert, and sent up to try and hold off the orbital fleet.  The defenses held without them for a short while, but there appeared to be several elite squadrons attacking.  Plus, the designers of the defenses never thought fighters would launch an all-out assault with minimal capital ship protection."  The trooper coughed, trying to work the dust out of his lungs.  "They couldn't track the fighters, and were eliminated. Troops started landing immediately afterward.  They've put their resources to interesting use.  They used the greater capacity of a few starships to land a beach-head force, then landed a large number of troops in dropships from their primary troopcarriers."

    Dominatus looked a little disturbed, and pre-occupied.  No-one had ever seen anything like it in him.  "That explains why the compound couldn't stop the ground attacks, go on."

    The trooper nodded in agreement.  "There must have been hundreds of thousands of them by the end, maybe even more than a million. When the ground fighting started, I moved with my squad to try and secure a major intersection.  We chased a enemy battalion halfway across the base, trying madly to wipe them out.  Whoever designed the training program for the rebels is a near-genius. They used smoke bombs, ion grenades, everything, to hold us back until they met up with another batalion."

    Dominatus was not liking the way the discussion was going.  "What I want to know is how do you fall for the Ion-plamsa trick...  It's far too easy to tell the two types apart."

    "No, no it's not when you only have a split-second of time to decide to duck or to stay put."  The trooper moved the topic off the subject.  "Anyway, we had the einforcements  pinned down on the other end of the main parade grounds.  They pulled a few inventive tricks to get the squad we were chasing to them, but then, when they went on the offensive, it was a total slaughter."  The trooper's voice shook.  "They took out the whole first squad of my battalion with automatic fire.  Mowed them down, and took plasma grenades to the second squad."

    "What happened?  I can tell they did something traumatic..." Dominatus had a sinking feeling he knew who the commander of the enemy forces was. "Did you see the squad's commander?"

    "Yes..."  The soldier, for all his training, was breaking down slightly.  "A black man, with one of those foxes for a second officer.  He vaporized several of my squad-mates right next to me, and he..."  The trooper had a wracking sob... "He brought the building we were in front of down on the whole battalion.  I was buried under several feet of rubble.  The rest of my battalion was killed, I could hear their screams for help for at least an hour."  He was just about crying openly, clearly disturbed by his ordeal.

    "I was the one who rescued him.  They tried a whole new level of brutality in their offenses in this assault."  A medical officer stepped forward. He patted the trooper on his armored back.  "I've never seen the like of this battle.  Men dead all over the place, often missing arms, or other body parts.  A whole new level of firepower."

    "Firepower is always increasing, and the brutality you think they exhbit..."  Dominatus spat in the dirt.  "Is how they've always fought.  I've brought another garrison.  The current remaining trooper and support personel will be transferred to the Citadel, for further training, and to help pin down the rebel's tactics."  Dominatus swept out of the room.

    As he walked out of the building, one of his aides ran up. He held over statistics charts concerning the battle's flow. "Sir, you look pre-occupied.  What in the heck could creep even you out?"  The aide could almost feel the malevolent force emanating from his dark lord.

    "In the short month I've been working with you, Piedion, you've been able to pick out my every mood better than anyone I've ever met."  Dominatus kept on walking, out into the field of wreckage around the building.  "Yes, I am disturbed, greatly disturbed.  I know the person behind this almost artful attack.  He's been the only one to use such tactics, in all of known history."  Dominatus stopped cold, anger snapping into his voice. "Yes, he still lives!  I have thrown everything imaginable at him!  Fleets, armies, temporal black holes, the works!  And yet...  and yet, for everything I've tried, he still lives."  His last words trailed off into silence.

    Dominatus's brief outburst of fury had Piedion jumpy, and standing back out of range from his master.  "Who?  I know it has to be someone very old to have worked himself up so far in your memory."

    "Commander Alverez Davision.  The former executive officer to my never-dying nemesis."  Dominatus's voice was like honey for a moment, before going Siberian cold.  Darkness swirled around him, called in by his fury. "Yes, his shrewd and cunning mind is shown in his tactics.  The-  wait, who am I kidding?  It's his usual marine solution to everything.  Insane firepower and numbers. Brutal, unsophisticated, yet utterly effective."  A hint of respect crept into his voice.

    "Sounds like the kind of man that formerly commanded the empire."  Piedion wondered if perhaps something could be worked out of the situation.  He didn't like wasteful solutions.

    "Yes, he is many a time.  That got the former master of the empire dead; at my hand.  Yes, they are alike, but, Davison posesses a modicum of inventiveness, or else I would have struck him out at the very beginning."  Dominatus looked out over the smoking ruin angrily.  "That's why I founded the black fleet through that puppet Giovanni, to stop him, and his once pitiful band.  And since Giovanni couldn't do the job, it's now up to me."

    Dominatus spat, startling his aide for a moment.  Piedion had never seen, much less heard about the lord's cruder behavior.  He almost seemed like one of the soldiers at times.  Piedion decided that his lord might need temperance in his decisions. "Perhaps you have been going about this the wrong way the whole time.  It has always been better to subvert, than to outright destroy."

    "Yes, it has been, hasn't it?" Dominatus chuckled slowly, wistfully.  "You have a devious mind, Lt.. Far more devious than I would have expected from one so young."  Piedion smiled for a moment, as his lord turned around. He started to say something, but his lord cut him off.  "Yes, Davison could almost be part of our order.  He has always found our way to be more attractive than the destructive government of the federation.  He would be part of our order, if not for his mistaken devotion to 'Peace' and 'nobility' and that blasted 'honor'."  Dominatus's wistful moment faded.  "Yes, I think I can show him the true nature of the universe..."

    "Your victory has always been assured, my lord. Assured, and complete."  Piedion bowed, hoping that the dangerous seed he had planted would not immediately backfire on him.  He kept his tone neutral, trying to get Dominatus to follow his idea, take it for his own; and to prevent himself from dying a horrible lingering death.

    "Yes, it could be possible, but I know better.  Davison will always fight to the last man, and do everything in his power to stop me.  He'll plant an unpleasant surprise at every step like a gardener sows grass seed."  Dominatus started marching to his looming personal craft.  "He is one of my greatest nemesis, one of the worst possible things to happen in this fight."  His hood hid all his features again, his face cloaked in blackness.  "My other problem was taken care of long ago, so early on in my quest."  His steps clomped loud, a beat to which he intended to set the destruction of the rebelion to.  "It will be an excruciating, yet enjoyable experience to hunt him down, and make him suffer for every little thing he does to me from now until then."

    Piedion was not happy with his lord's choice.  "As you say, my lord..."  His own eyes were dark.  He had a few ideas of his own on how to run an empire.

TBC