Frozen Soul, and other works: Prologue

(NERV Game Site – Official DAtS Offline Forums)

Number5Alive, Golddigger, BurtBacharach, CrazyCelt, Blaze, DoYouEvenLyft?, MarcoPolo, MightMakesRight, l33tpally, Bennie, SEA-TAC_Sweetie, Requiesce-in-Pace, MacD, HaveGunsWillTravel, TheDespoiler, Guardian, GunKitty, Chummer, Inquisitor, Lizard, RedFox, SemiSolidSnake, ElfMama, Not_the_Face!, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, Anonymous7, Anonymous9, AggregatorOfSorrows, M.Mollen, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, DigDug, BigGunn, Dolcett, Starwatcher, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, Hullu_Kapteeni, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, Queen’s_Bitch, BackDat@55Up, DoYouEvenDPS?, MajorTom, Parca, and DarkAngel are in the chat.

Chummer: OK, what the hell did you people do?

Inquisitor: What? What are you talking about?

DoYouEvenDPS?: I haven’t done anything lately.

Chummer: Well, SOMEONE had to have done something pretty big, because the Imperial Navy’s Ninth Fleet just passed through Alpha Centauri in a damn hurry!

Anonymous4: Where were they headed?

Chummer: To one of the Consortium Gateways.

Knocker: Can’t be an invasion, then. Invading through a Gateway is damn near impossible if there are defenses in place.

GrimDark: And ALL known Gateways have defenses in place.

Dolcett: Hmm. That’s odd. The Kul’tiran First Fleet just headed for Consortium space as well.

Not_the_Face!: The First Fleet, or the ‘Mercenary’ force?

Dolcett: The actual fleet.

BloodForTheBloodGod: The Confederates are moving, too. Sixth Fleet just left Dimiya.

BackDat@55Up: What? The Confederate Twelfth Fleet just left Ba Sing Se! There was an emergency recall of shore leaves and everything! Scuttlebutt says we’re headed to the Consortium, too!

Number5Alive: That is disturbing. My business partner in the Consortium says that the Fifth and Seventh Fleets are on the move, and the Tenth and Fifteenth are already on mission somewhere.

M.Mollen: Coldana. They were on mission at Coldana.

Starwatcher: Does this have anything to do with the fact that the Black Star ships near Nuevo Edo have left?

M.Mollen: Yes.

Inquisitor: It is the X’thari, isn’t it? There’s been talk, saying that, because of the size of the Swarm, some treaty has been invoked.

M.Mollen: The Treaty of Helbizore, yes. The normal actions of the X’thari can be dangerous enough, but when a Harvester is sighted, all the Major Powers are bound by treaty to put aside their current issues, and work together to drive off the threat.

ElfMama: Harvester? Is that the big ass thing we saw in the cinematic that NERV put out?

M.Mollen: Yes. It is a Planet-Eater. Literally strips a planet down to the bedrock, and uses the biomass and resources to make more X’thari and X’thari ships. It poses a threat to all life in the galaxy.

GrimDark: Like the fucking Tyranids on steroids. Fucking wonderful.

Starwatcher: So, what is Black Star doing in all of this?

M.Mollen: This will be the biggest fleet battle in the game to date, and the stakes are as high as it gets. Of course, Black Star will be in the middle of it!

TheDespoiler: Hmm. This enemy sounds like a foe worthy of our guns.

Inquisitor: What will you be doing in the battle?

M.Mollen: Unclear so far. We have combat data of the Harvester and the Swarm in action, so we’re going over it now, to see if we can formulate a plan of attack.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: You have COMBAT DATA on this thing? How the hell did you do that? From everything I’ve heard about it, nothing fights that thing and lives. Hell, the best anyone has done to one is blow its face off by self-destructing a dreadnought in the thing’s mouth. And unless this is a new one, that means it got better from a hit like that!

M.Mollen: The Consortium Navy’s Fifteenth Fleet, and what remained of Tenth Fleet as they desperately tried to get to Coldana through the blockade, fought the Swarm to the last, buying time for the people of Coldana to prepare defenses on the ground.

GrimDark: What do they expect ground defenses to do against the Swarm, much less the Harvester?

M.Mollen: Nothing, in the end. But they intend to make the Swarm bleed for every inch of ground, hoping to buy time for the rest of the galaxy to implement the Treaty before another world is consumed.

Lizard: You mean, they knew they were dead, all of them, even the civilians, and they lined up to fight to the end, against hopeless odds? And these are NPCs, not Nomads?

M.Mollen: Yes, for the sole purpose of ensuring that whoever comes next has the best chance at ending the threat permanently as they can possibly get.

BurtBacharach: That is a tale worthy of song.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: It is damn impressive, for sure. But that doesn’t explain how you got combat data out.

M.Mollen: Two sources. First, the BSS Heartseeker and her sister ships used their Anchor Drives to jump in, and lead the X’thari on a chase, giving the Consortium a chance to strike at the Swarm’s capitol ships, instead of dealing with the escorts.

Anonymous9: Ah, yes. The X’thari absolutely hate anyone playing with their toys except them. Always trying to blow anyone using that Anchor Drive that isn’t X’thari to particulate matter.

M.Mollen: Quite. Only reason the drives aren’t used more often, honestly. Anyways, there was also a Transition capable freighter in system, containing the only Nomad presence in Coldana. That freighter waited until the last Consortium ship died before transitioning out. They brought with them all the combat data they could, and a copy of Coldana’s complete database, as well as personal messages from everyone they left behind, both the fleet and those on the ground.

Anonymous4: How in the hell did they get so much data in their systems?

HaveGunsWillTravel: They dumped their cargo, and the system government outfitted them with military sensors, and filled their entire cargo bay with servers to hold the data. There are fleet bases with less storage capacity than what they crammed into the Fucking Bitch.

Anonymous3: That has to be a Nomad ship, right?

Guardian: Yeah, it is.

DoYouEvenLyft?: So, just how tough is this Harvester, anyways?

M.Mollen: It got hit twice with a shuttlecraft moving at five hundred times light speed, and survived with what looked like minor injuries. Some bleeding, but nothing that would slow it down for long, if it really is the same Harvester as before.

Requiesce-in-Pace: What the hell? How did it survive something like that? One should have been enough to end it!

M.Mollen: That’s why we’re going over the combat data. We know it can be made to bleed. If it bleeds, we can kill it. But we need to figure out how. If we figure that out? Well, knowing is half the battle.

MightMakesRight: *whistles* The NERV site has video of the battle up now! There’s gotta be over a thousand ships in that fleet! That is going to be one hell of a fight.

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Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X