| Author |
Untitled Darkspace Story... |
Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
|  Posted: 2004-09-13 14:52
Partially inspired by finding out what happened to GTN... will be looking for titles soon  You can download the MS Word doc HERE
[Edited to add .doc DL ]
Chapter 1:
Admiral Coeus looked around the shattered bridge of his cruiser, the NCX-Charger. He would have sighed if he could afford the time, but instead he rose painfully to his feet and barked another order to his helmsman. Captain Beatte had commanded the ship well, but Coeus had to take over when Beatte suffered a blow to the head and was taken to the sick bay, if it was even left. Glancing at his status screen he took note of a fresh hull breach on E-deck, which brought the total number of gleaming gaps in the outer and inner hulls of the Charger to 3. Ducking through space, he brought the Assault class cruiser around to stare the closest Elite Assault Dreadnought right in the eye – he imagined the commander of the enemy EAD staring through his bridge glass right at the bridge of the Charger as well.
“Divert all power to forward shields and weapons, take the Antimatter drive Pulse Shield and ECCM offline – prepare the Marine landing pods and someone seal that ruptured valve!” Admiral Coeus barked. He wasn’t so far out of the captain’s chair that he forgot how to run a ship in battle – just a little rusty was all. Coeus gritted his teeth as he watched the distance between the Charger and the enemy’s EAD tick down at an alarming rate. He pondered the odds of going toe to toe with an EAD of that size, even if it was badly damaged.
“Admiral, forward shields down to 50%, ablative armor is completely eroded. We have hull breaches on E, C, and B decks, Torpedo tubes 3 and 4 are offline, both pulse beams are destroyed and we have a fire in Engineering – we can’t take much more of this!” Beatte’s second in command yelled over the roar of a ship on the verge of tearing itself apart.
“Hull integrity down to 45% - engines are failing, energy reserves nearly depleted. Distance to the GTN ship is closing to CL2K range – we have to abort!” a midshipman shouted to Commander Jameson and Admiral Coeus. He was already planning out a route to the escape pods in his little non-com brain. And he was right.
“Computer, set self destruct, helm set the autopilot to a collision course with the Depthcharge and set weapons to auto fire. All hands abandon ship, all hands abandon ship!” Coeus was making his way to the bridge’s Command Escape Pod as he shouted these orders.
“So much for the Charger, she was a beautiful ship.” Commander Jameson muttered under his breath.
Something was wrong; Coeus wasn’t headed for the escape pod. He was still sitting in the captain’s chair!
“Somebody help me! Someone HELP!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. The bridge was entirely empty – the GTN ship hung ahead of him motionless in space. The air was dead silent and a wisp of arid smoke puffed from various systems at various times. Coeus started to panic. He tugged and yanked at the buckle around his waist but to no avail. He reached for his combat knife… where was his combat knife! He had to have his combat knife damnit! He neve- something moved.
“Whose there?” Coeus called out. He swiveled the captain’s chair to and fro. He spun around completely, getting a view of the entire bridge. The systems were smashed, only a few computer displays were functional, and the bridge glass was no longer shattered. Instead of the Depthcharge hanging out front, Coeus saw Exarthia. It was burning. There were no ships – friendly or enemy – in the skies around. Bits and pieces of hull drifted by the window. Coeus could see the markings on them, they were all human, ICC and UGTO. Had the Uggies taken over Exarthia? They must be punished! Coeus felt something lump onto his shoulder. He spun around quickly and was on his feet outside the hull of the Charger standing on the starboard side of the conning tower. Facing him was an impossible face.
“But… you’re dead!” Coeus said to the ICC officer in a UGTO uniform in front of him.
“And you killed me!” Beatte said, “Just like you’re going to kill everyone that we know!” Coeus turned around again, and stared up at his beautiful blue homeworld Exarthia, a planet so gorgeous that it was said to rival the splendor of Earth before Humans tainted it. He could see the capital in flames from space, he could see the polar caps melting and the world – already covered in smoke and falling debris – was slowing being flooded to death.
“No, no… that’s not possible! The UGTO would never destroy Exarthia! It’s too important to them to have a habitable planet for them to colonize!” Coeus turned around to face his dead friend once more.
“Don’t you ever listen?” Beatte’s ghost said, “I already told you, the UGTO didn’t kill Exarthia, YOU did!” Beatte reached out a long-nailed grey hand toward Coeus, but the Admiral recoiled, and stepped back. He fell. He fell for a long time before sitting up in his bed on the station Logical, covered in sweat.
“Something is terribly wrong.” He thought to himself over and over as he rushed to dress as quickly as he could. He ran out the door, stopped and glanced back at his bed from the doorway. He thought he could make out the shape of a man – the man appeared to be wearing a UGTO uniform, with the patch of the long-gone GTN symbol emblazoned on the chest.
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Have A Nice Day
'In time, all your questions will be answered. Not what you hoped for, not what you dreamed. All preconceptions crumble!' -Dark Tranquillity - Format C: For Cortex
[ This Message was edited by: Coeus {NCX-Charger} on 2004-09-13 14:53 ]
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Darkspace: Twilight
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