Topic: Rising Tensions - The Riether/Core Combine Conflict

[Kitkat]

[Begin Star Wars style scroll here...]

Prologue

RISING TENSIONS

It has been two months since the
fateful first contact of the Riether,
and the peace will last for little more time.
Preparations have been made on the
Riether side to launch a large scale
investigation into these beings,
whom had been identified
as the CORE COMBINE.

Habitation ships were launched in virtually every direction;
the Riether were squeezing every bit of resource
out of their territory as they could.
And it was rumored that the main drydock of the Imperial Riether Navy,
ZARAKAZAN, was housing a great project, a ship to end all ships...

[SimplyNecro]

Everywhere across the Core Combines empire, everything EVERYTHING was put into overdrive, it had been quite a while since the Core Combine had been in a true war, all this time they have encountered nothing but weak primitive races that where easily enslaved, not since the great war had the Core Combine have a real challenge, and they where determined to show that they have NOT gone soft... the biofactories where being put into overdrive, the slaves where working quadruple time, and fleet after fleet was being grown, no matter how strong or weak the enemy was the Core Combine was intending to go overkill with them, they believed brutally crushing any race that got in their path would send an obvious message to others that they where not to be trifled with...

Felron: Core Combine Homeworld

The high Goraks had received the order...the Overlords themselves spoke, these Riether creatures were to be found and burtally crushed, as well as any technology and resources put to good use for the Core Combine, and if possible assimilation.

A strategy was quickly formatted, first the Riether worlds and territories would have to be scouted out, after which the Core would open up with raider fleets, fleets full of cheap, dime a dozen ships  that would be used to soften up the Riethers defences, the Core Combine would keep its main battle fleets and dreadnaughts back until they could be properly used for maximum effectiveness.

Unknown Space

Several Gonoraks where scouting out the systems around where the first skirmish took place, they where simple creatures, able to scout out and transmit data back to their respective fleets... when a Riether world was found be it a colony, military base, or anything of importance really... proper military actions would be taken.

Core Combine inner colony

Vokra was practically in paradice, he did not know how he had such luck as he was apparently promoted, having experience with the enemy must have somehow given quite a bit of credit and value which was all good in his mind, he was given command of a massive warfleet with 2 dreadnaughts and an uncountable amount of frigate and destroyer escorts as well as several carriers, of course it would be a while before he actually saw any action... dreadnaughts where very valuable ships replacable yes, but not without effort and the Core did not like to carelessly waste them... which was why they where sending smaller, weaker, and more numerous raider fleets to fight the first battles...

[Kitkat]

((Oi, anyway...))

"Readings are positive, D'Kora has emerged at the dropout point." The chief tactical monitoring officer at IRN HQ on Brithora.

"Excellent, now we just wait until they come..." Supreme Admiral Vor'Das said. Yes, this is indeed the Vor'Das seen in Chapter 1, who has since gotten several promotions to his current position.

D'Kora Dropped out of it's Hyper-Tunnel only 5 light years from Core Combine Territory, simply waiting.

Waiting

[SimplyNecro]

Core Combine Border territory

The Reither ships appearing so close to the Core's borders immediately sent an alarm to nearly all worlds near the area where they appeared, and the Core Combine was very quick to respond, of course even this situation was not enough to send a battle fleet or a dreadnaught, so the Core instead decided to send two of its battle ships, as well as a swarm of destroyers and frigates, most specifically 2 battle ship, 5 destroyers, and 10 frigates and lastly 1 carrier, a sizable raider fleet to the Core, and perhaps overkill, but the Riether ship was a sizable one, and of a class the Core Combine has yet to encounter, so they where generally ordered to go overkill, and to send a silent message to the Riether

"You where a fool to come here." is what it would be

Without word or warning, the Carrier's four way beak opened, the destroyers and frigates power up their weapons, and immediately began their assault on the ship, as always not one ounce of mercy would be shown to the enemy, and casualties among the Core Combine where always regarded as negligible...

Reither Borders

Despite a Riether ship appearing so close to their borders, the Core Combine was sticking to its old strategy, open up a second front and divert the Riether navy away from the Core's worlds and force them to defend their own, eventually the Core Combine hoped to spread the Riether's forces so thin that they would make themselves easy to pick off, this would be done with small to medium sized raider fleets, after the the Riether had spread themselves thin, they would be easy to pick off with the larger battle fleets...

In concordance to this strategy, five raider fleets appeared in Riether territory and began to skulk around for any colony or military facility they could find, in hopes of diverting the Riether's attention away from the Core's territory and putting them on the defensive, which would allow the Core to effectively use their mass number tactics...

[Kitkat]

"All hands, battlestations! We will take them out before they knew what hit them!"

"GENERAL, PREPARE THE DISRUPTOR!" The current captain of the Flagship D'Kora. He was soon to be displaced by it's actual captain, Vor'Das, but at the moment was "subbing" for him.

There was a whine that could be heard throughout the massive ship, as the Kinetic Disruptor prepared to fire...

Then, all of a sudden, it happened. A totally black stream of what seemed to be energetic lightning—but wasn't—shot out from two pontoon-shaped objects on the hull of the D'Kora. It impacted the closest Core Combine ships first, but shot between all of them quickly, interconnecting them in a literal wall of death. All of the ships seemed to stop in their tracks. They turned almost gray, and all of their lights went out. The ships—all of them, even the fighters—lost all functionality. The temperature in the ships dropped sharply, and worst of all, the crew couldn't stop it. Because even if there was a way, it would be impossible to think of it, or anything! The ships were left completely defenseless, helpless prey for the D'Kora to pick off. She wasted no time, and soon a great spray of laser fire—since the Riether hadn't bothered much with plasma—obliterated the fleet. Then, as quick as it had begun, it ended, and the D'Kora retreated from whence she came, leaving only a field of space junk (some of the more interesting pieces had been picked up).

This would be veeeery interesting for the Combine...


Meanwhile...

[SimplyNecro]

Core Combine Borders

They could not believe it....they simply could not believe it.... the sheer power the Riether ships displayed was absolutely amazing, the overlords themselves where reviewing the footage they where receiving of the fleet being disabled in an instant....and needless to say....the Overlords where VERY DISPLEASED, for the Riether to pull that kind of power out of their excretory area was a lack in proper research and observation. However after their anger subsided, a strange sense of excitement began to abound... if the Riether had this technology hidden away, who knows what other technology they might have... technology to be assimilated/Skrallified, still the strategy remained the same, quality in quantity, even at the loss of a fleet the Core Combine remained surprisingly calm...

Riether Borders

The Core Combine was sending raider fleet after raider fleet, and the Riether where now beginning to bear witness to the Core Combines nearly limitless manufacturing power, with each fleet the Riether managed to beat back a new one would appear. Indeed after the Riether displayed that power at the Core Combines borders, it had pressured them to step up their offensive on the Riether territory. However the Core Combine was still sending in its cheap mass produced units and ships, they where still keeping there primary battle fleets, their "Big guns" safe within their territory, in other words, the Core Combine has but yet to show a fraction of what they where capable of...

[Kitkat]

"We've lost contact with Colony 69, sir..." CTM reported "As well as 83... and 72..."
"What? What happened to them?" Vor'Das said, though he already knew what fate had befallen these tiny border worlds...
"Most likely destroyed sir" said CTM. "I don't think that we have any ships in that territory"
"Fine, fine." Vor'Das said, he was thinking. "This could work to our advantage. Fortify defenses on the larger, more important worlds. Then lure them in with the outposts!"
At this time, Tactical herself spoke up: "Aye, Admiral" She sent a short message to the factories, which read: RAMP UP WEAPON PRODUCTION; SHIP TO INNER COLONY WORLDS
Riether weren't known for overly descriptive messages, as this would more than suffice. Plus, there wasn't much to say.
"Position D'Kora near Tendarus, cloak, and wait for them..."

If only every ship had Kinetic Disruptors.

"Oh, and raise the Pop. Cap, and try to see if you can't get Zarakazan to produce a few more ships per month."

[SimplyNecro]

Riether Borders

The Core Combine raider fleets that succeeded in destroying a colony seemed to stop in their tracks, they remained on guard as several slave ships entered in orbit around the colonies the Core Combine had taken, they where willing to take every potential warrior they could get their hands on, the terraforming spores they used to transform the lusher worlds to their liking, made all the more easier, entire planetary populations where sent to the slave ships to transformed into Core slaves, weather the planetary population was low or high, they where sent to be transformed anyway, after all leaving them would be a waste of good labor...

The Core Combine continued to push into the Riether territories, encountering more and more resistance along the way, resistance the raider fleets simply where not numerous enough nor equipped to handle. the Core Combines advance came to a screeching halt a bloody stalemate of battles with no victories for the Core was proceeding...

Tendarus

Tendarus would not be spared of a Core Combine invasion, and they indeed planned to take this planet as their own... a war fleet appeared at Tendarus, not wanting to repeat their mistake at their borders they went far enough as to send a dreadnaught, along with its battleship escorts, as well as a usual swarm of frigates and destroyers as well as 2 carriers, lastly taking Gorak Vokra's advice from their last engagement with the Riether several probes where scouting the area in front of the fleet, the dreadnaught stayed back as the larger swarm of frigates and destroyers intended to take the brunt of whatever the Riether had to throw at them...

Core Combine Homeworld: Felron

Meanwhile on Felron...

A massive ship was near completion, when the Riether displayed one of their largest ships so early in battle, the Overlords themselves deemed construction of their newest ship a very high priority, 65 kilometers in length, armed with three gravity beams capable of tearing largest of ships into pieces, and armed with enough weapons that a planet bound civilization could start several world wars, it would be a monster to behold an unstopable force, the symbol of the Core Combines never ending Juggernaut of conquest...

When it was done, the Riether would not know what hit them...

[Kitkat]

The plan was playing out nicely, it seemed that even the bulk of the cloaked D'Kora wouldn't be discovered for the time being. The standard war compliment that was typical of the border worlds like Tendarus was more like a decoy, simply to draw the Core Combine fleet into range of the Kinetic Disruptor. They moved into position, directly in between the Core Combine fleet and the D'Kora. Suddenly, the backdrop of the universe seemed tho shimmer, and the D'kora appeared, and omen of death looming in space ahead of the fleet.

Then it fired. Again, a great black bolt shot through the opposing fleet, arcing through one or two Riether ships as well. Everything shut down, and in moments the Riether ships were upon them. It must have been a sight to behold, a huge black lightning bolt heading toward you, then knowing no more, quite possibly forever...

[SimplyNecro]

Tendarus

It was practically a repeat of what happened at the Core Combines borders when they first faced D'Kora, however this time it was just a little bit different... almost as though they seemingly expected the action, the dreadnaught had managed to not only minimize the damage D'Kora's kinetic disruptor did, but actually remain functional! Dreadnaughts where some of the most powerfull ships in the Core Combines arsenal, it was indeed going to be quite a fight... a fraction of the Dreadnaughts battleship escorts managed to remain active and began their assault, the 18 kilometer ships firing off in order to distract the smaller Riether ships, the dreadnaught had bigger fish to fry... (irony...)

One of the larger Riether ships had the unfortunate pleasure of getting in the dreadnaughts way, big mistake... the dreadnaught unleashed its main weapon without hesitation, to the Riether it looked as if the space around the Riether ship suddenly distorted, and what happened next was pretty obvious, the gravity beam practically destroyed its targets from the inside out, scrambling the ships innards like an egg and soon destroying the outside as well, for a split second the ship looked like it was twisted turned and crushed in multiple direction before exploding. with the ship out of the way the 48 kilometer dreadnaught began to approach D'Kora as quickly as it could, in hopes that it could get in range use its gravity beam to get rid of the pesky ship once and for all, or at least damage it to the point where they would force it to get heavy repairs... the commander of the ship was only hoping the gravity beam could be ready to fire as soon as they got in range.

And as a final resort, some of the Core Combines raider fleets at the Riether borders may need to be called in for reinforcements... just in case...

[Kitkat]

"No No No No NOOOOO!" Vor'Das was practically screaming. He was very displeased. Apparently an 8 second blast wasn't sufficient enough to disable such a high mass target. Indeed, it occurred to him that the disruptor technology was never tested on such large targets before. Certainly there was a way, though... In fact, it boiled down to simply activating the disruptors for a longer time. It would require quite a bit of power however, though that could come from the absorbed energy (since rather than a bolt of energy shooting to the ships and destroying them, the bolt actually DRAWS energy from the target in question, though often the energies are so high that they are simply dissipated via a heat exhaust port.) of course. The ship would have to wait for several minutes for the disruptor outriggers to power fully up again, and in the meantime the ship proceeded to execute evasive maneuvers, putting as many ships in front of it as it could as well. The D'Kora would survive, if it was the last thing to be done. What the Riether lacked in size compared to the Core Combine fleet, they certainly made up for in quality of engineering.

Alternately, if all else failed, a fighter could possibly locate a hangar or an airlock on the dreadnought, then from there, a smaller disruptor could be planted on the reactor. That would be rather confusing for the Core Combine. Of course, that has got to be nothing but wishful thinking, or is it?

[SimplyNecro]

The Core Combine commander had obviously realised it would take a bit more than just one dreadnaught to pierce the Riether's front line in order to get to D'Kora, which was obviously there main objective, the battleships continued to fight against the Riethers main force, acting primarily as a distraction. The 2 carriers the Core Combine brought with them that stayed back with the dreadnaught began to open up their 4 way beaks and began launching wave after wave of fighters, ya know... those REALLY annoying mollusk (I think...) that the Riether fighters had encountered when the Core and the Riether made first contact? Making use of their incredible agility and speed they began to chew at the Riether ships like piranhas, mainly to harass them, but even worse there appeared to be a new variant that the Riether had not encountered before, these fighters unlike their more numerous brethren that they where mixed in with seemed to give off a very slight green glow, it would actually be kinda hard to notice the difference at first... until the ship did its dirty deed, instead of firing at the ships it would instead charge straight at them and crash in to an enemy ship kamikaze style and explode, the Core seemed to also be working on their arsenal as well.

Unfortunately for the dreadnaught the Riethers tactics did manage to slow it down, a little bit at least, it would occasionally fire off its gravity beam, completely tearing a ship apart in front of it apart but the other managed to hold it off. Which is why the Core decided to divert some of its raider fleets to this battle, the fleet was not exactly numerous and was compose of only a small swarm of destroyers and frigates but what made it truly dangerous was the position it arrived at the battle in...

Behind D'Kora...

This small group of ships intention was to either do as much damage to D'kora as they can before they where destroyed, or cleverly sandwich the enemy ship between them and force them to approach the Dreadnaught and get them in range of the Gravity beam...

[Kitkat]

"Oh, excellent..." Vor'Das said sarcastically. It was a rather vexing situation, but it did very little to the battle plan. By this time, D'Kora had charged the disruptors enough to fire a sufficiently powerful blast. It fired, and the arc shot directly into the dreadnought. It's lights flickered, and it's engines sputtered, but it didn't quite give up. It still was marginally functional in the category of shields, and could still fire off some minor weapons, but these would have their energy dissipated before they could go anywhere. The hulking battleship also acted like a channel for the disruptor's "negative energy" to flow through, arcing to most of the Core Combine ships. Around three had been severely damaged/destroyed in the first attack, and several others were still sputtering, trying to gain power again (though they would be pretty much useless with the crew brain-dead). The smaller ships, like the fighters, were having a better time, since they were so small that they could slip through this great web of death, though quite a few got zapped by flying a little too close to the "infected" ships. The raider fleet wasn't so much of an immediate threat, especially because they could be blasted in the time being by the ground-to-space lasers recently placed around Tendarus, the colony for which the planet is named.

[SimplyNecro]

Things where going bad for the Core Combine fleet, their ships where being disabled left and right and the Riether appeared to be nullifying their actions, but they where in NO way done fighting just yet...

The green glowing fighters that had been engaging the Riethers combat ships, had suddenly disengage and began to speed past the main Riether combat fleet, heading straight towards the D'Kora, however the ships where not going to aim for just ANYWHERE on D'Kora, they where going to make a mass suicide attack straight towards the kinetic disruptor's which after its massive discharge would most likely be recharging giving the suicide ships an opening to attack, darting and dodging every ship and fighter that got in their way the ships charged D'Kora with singleminded determination not stopping for anything, and the alarming speed at which they where approaching was definitely bad news, ships then began to split off into smaller swarms and attacked their specific targets, repeated use of the Kinetic disruptor's had allowed them to get a good feel as to where they where located, when in range they shot straight towards the kinetic disruptor's, one ship did not do much damage but a whole SWARM of them constantly crashing and exploding like bombs every second in a non stop stream was bound to do damage.

The Raider fleet that had appeared behind the D'Kora ignored the planetary defences, like the fighters they charged with singleminded determination and attacked D'kora from behind mainly just to give the Riether an extra kick in the rear...

[Kitkat]

Fleet calculations didn't allow for automatic coping with that maneuver. There were several critical oversights in the battle tactics of the Riether fleet, namely their failing to factor in the possibility of a several-angle attack. Normally the plot of a battle was the two sides fighting face to face, so this came as quite a surprise. Though, that isn't to say that there was no possibility of countering the maneuver. The D'Kora was a big and ungainly ship, and didn't like to turn when you tell it to. Though, this also has its advantages. A big ship that can't dodge things well is bound to have extra armoring. However, a nuclear bomb isn't your usual asteroid, and the ablative armor was unlikely to hold up forever (but for the time being, it was holding true to the Riether motto of "never give up to your enemy"). With the frontal assault being, for the most part, handled by the D'Kora, the rear attack could be focused upon by the supporting ships, which proceeded to ram the opposing ships. The fighters, as usual, were being expended at a fairly equal rate on both sides, though with the advent of the kamikaze bombers on the Core Combine, the Riether were at somewhat of a disadvantage.