Lieutenant John Gerd of the Umojan Protectorate was in charge of the night watch on his sector of Barus Prime that day. He yawned, wondering why he needed to be up at this hour, as he leaned sleepily against a computer panel in the command center. The room was pretty much a metal mesh, Nothing ever happened on the sleepy colony, and Gerd and his men were getting restless.
Suddenly, Gerd heard a sound in the distance. It came again, closer this time. He ran outside, and was suddenly knocked off his feet by an explosion. He lifted his face out of the dirt to see a Dominion Krima Assault Bomber flying directly above him. Looking around, he could see about a squad of them, with a few wraiths mixed in, flying through the base.
“Holy shit!” Gerd said through clenched teeth, and ran as another bomb hit the command center, “What the hell happened to the missile turrets?!”
His question was quickly answered as he ran by a turret’s burnt out shell. More bombs were falling all around him, and his base was burning to the ground. A few brave marines were trying to shoot down the low flying dive-bombers, but the support wraiths cut them to shreds.
Gerd ran to the communications bunker in hopes of alerting the planet, only to be greeted by it’s burnt out shell.
He grabbed a rifle from the disembodied arm of what he assumed to be a ghost, and took a shot into at krima’s open bombing bay. The result was spectacular, as the central body of the short plane disappeared in a blinding explosion. The two wings went flying off to the sides, and landed in the dirt about a foot from Gerd. He shuddered at the thought of one of the those slicing him in two. He quickly jumped on his belly to avoid being hit by a passing wraith, and took a quick shot at the engine before running to the ruins of the command center.
The bombers by now had exhausted there ammunition, and began to fly back to their orbiting battlecruiser. Gerd meanwhile ran into the burning hulk of the command center, and picked up a handheld radio, “To anyone who can hear my voice, this is Lieutenant John Gerd. Our base has been hit by a Domminion bomber squad, and we request immediate reinforcements and supplies. Acknowledge, please acknowledge. This is Lt. John Gerd, do you copy, over.”
“Damn!” he threw the radio to the ground. He walked slowly away from the command center just before the rest caught fire. He looked out at the remains of his base, and saw just how devastating the attack had been. Burning and decapitated corpses littered the narrow streets, and wounded men lay moaning on the ground. The bunkers and missile turrets were just burnt out shells, and the rest of the base was either burnt or burning. It appeared that the only thing that had escaped total destruction was an unmanned siege tank that lay outside of the base’s war factory’s remains.
Gerd sat down against a nearby marine’s corpse, and put his hand in his pocket. He pulled out a picture of his wife and two children, and sat there, starring into the eyes of his wife. As he sat there his eyes grew heavy, and he drifted into sleep.
Dominion Flagship “Emperor’s Pride’
General Dresner looked out at Barus Prime with pride. The planets pitiful defenses had hardly lasted an hour against his bombing raids.
“Now,” he said to himself, “We just need to fight off the reinforcements.” Dresner walked over to the monitoring station.
“Blesnakski, keep scanning the area, the Protectorate’s Third Fleet should move into a view at any moment,” he gestured of into space, “It outnumbers us seven to five in capital ships, so we need to know that they’re here in advance.”
“Yes sir,” the stocky young lieutenant replied, “If they move into the sector we’ll know… Wait! Sir, here they are!”
Dresner looked at the readings, “Yes, that’s them,” He turned to another officer, “Get the pilots to their wraiths.”
The man gave a salute and was gone. Dresner turned to his gun crew, “Arm lasers, begin charging yamato guns on all ships!” Dresner watched as the enemy fleet materialized into view.
“Sir, the enemy flagship, UPSS DarkClaw is hailing us. Should I put them through?” asked a technician
“Switch to main screen,” Dresner retorted. The image of the enemy general appeared.
“General Dresner I presume, I am General Kord of the Umojan Protectorate’s Third Fleet. I demand you surrender immediately,” said the enemy figure.
“Yamato guns…charged sir!” came a technicians voice.
“We refuse your terms General Kord,” Dresner sneered. He turned to gun control, “Lock on to targets… and fire!”
The yamato guns shot out as brilliant streaks of light, and in short time impacted against the hulls of the targeted vessels. The results were spectacular, as all but two of the seven enemy ships were blown to peace’s. One of the remaining cruisers fired off a yamato shot of its own, severely damaging one of Dresners battlecruisers before having Dominion wraiths rip it to pieces. The other opened up a signal for surrender, and Dresner beemed with pride. He had just destroyed an entire fleet of enemy ships, without losing any of his own.
A cloaked squad of wraiths changed Dresner’s mood.
“Sir!” cried Blesnakski, “Our ships are taking fire, and not from the battlecruiser!”
“What!” Dresner shouted, “You mean they have fighters out there? Shoot them down!”
“We can’t sir! The Umojan’s have improved the cloaking devices on there ships, we can’t detect them!”
“This is bad! Get our fighters in and fire where there missiles are coming from!”
“Sir we’ve just lost contact with the ‘CrabsClaw’!” cried out another officer. The ‘Glory’ shock from an enemy wraith impacting its hull.
A thousand voices seemed to be rising from the bridge, “Shields are fried!… Darkhammer hit!… Main engines offline!… Enemy beginning to decloak!… Launching fighters!”
The terror was over as quickly as it had begun. Dresner was in a daze as to how and what had happened, all he knew was he had lost two of his ships, his fleet was now immobile, and the enemy ship that surrendered had disappeared. He whipped the sweat from his brow. The Emperor would not be pleased.
Dresner pushed his thoughts aside for a moment, and asked for a damage report from Blesnakski.
“Sir,” Came Blesnakski’s reply, “We only have one mobile ship, the TDSS ‘Edmund Duke.’ It is the only vessel her with long range radio still intact. All our Emperor class ships have lost shields. five-hundred fifty-six have been tailed dead, ninety-eight wounded, one-hundred twenty-three missing.”
“Have the ‘Duke’ limp back within transmission range of one of a friendly planet, and request reinforcements. Heads are going to role over this one Blesnakski, and if we’re not lucky, they’ll be ours.”
“Yes sir.”
“The Umojans will be back with another fleet soon, so if the reinforcements don’t get here soon we’re done for. Start doing whatever repairs you can. We’ll need any gun we can get.”
Just then the lights flashed.
“Sir, our reactor has been damaged. We should cut power to the weapons systems to keep life support on.”
“Very well,” Drenser sighed, “You know, just thirty minutes ago we though we had won.”
