2480
It's been a year since we lost our Sand Line colony, and I haven't done anything about it. What
can we do about that Tornado doomship? I mean, apart from noticing some more of them flying around in Meklar space and hoping they don't come our way. At least the heroic efforts of our pilots out at Waters Edge have bought us a little time to consolidate in peace and quiet, building up factories and research - and planetary shields and at least token missile bases - while we wait for the next wave, but ... the thing is, waiting for the next wave of death all the time is
stressful! I sometimes even think about it when I'm
cleaning! It's the worst. So I'm going to try something here. Because if there's one thing those killer machines are
not expecting us to do...
...it's to take the offensive!
I don't want to give up on the dream of Super Giant Spaceships or the things we can build from their component parts, so it's finally time to retire the last of our old laser fighters, the Mask 3.0s that saved our empire - for a little while - around forty years ago. There are less than thirty of the little guys left, and they had to go to make room for a special
new kind of fighter: The kind that carries Fusion Bombs into space! We can't afford
many, but we
can afford
some, right here at our homeworld, and if I remember to change their orders around, we'll even have a few more coming from another world close enough to ...
ooooooh! There's a spare liter bottle of hand sanitizer hidden at the back of the desk drawer here! What a find! Best day of the year!
[Twenty minutes of celebration and careful cleaning later...]
So now ... let's see. I was supposed to remember to do something right? What was it again? Something to do with spaceships? Let's see. Oh! Refill the hand soap dispenser by the washstand! The one that
looks just like a spaceship!
Gotta be!
Oh, and there's a Bulrathi fleet about to show up at Waters Edge, but nothing we can't handle. I had sent the fleet to About Time to start a slow journey back toward home, but I had to send them back again to take care of this. Maybe we don't even need them all, but better safe than sort of torn to bits and infected with horrible diseases by alien bear creatures, right?
2481
Like I said: Not scary. It's just like the fleet we beat a couple years ago, only with fewer Teeth. We don't have as many smallcraft either, and a couple of our Distance missile boats pay the price, burning under stinger fire that probably would have been directed elsewhere otherwise, but I'm okay with that. Hyper or not, the Distances haven't been much good for a lonnnnnnnnng time anyway. I mean ... I don't have a perfect grasp of history, but I think when they were first built, they were
already obsolete! Anyway, we've got
new ships now!
I know, I know: What good are sixty little fusion bombers going to do against the Meklar menace? They've got 14 layers of shields at their bases, and super-advanced ECM! Our ships are too slow to outrun their Merculite missiles, and even with our best battle computer, even if they could empty their entire fusion bomb payloads without once getting hit, all sixty Cleanup 3s
combined would probably only take out
one Meklar missile base! So what's the use?
Well, all of that is true. At the Meklar planets with their Class X Planetary Shields and their Andrium Merculite missile bases, these little guys can't do much of anything. That's why those planets ... are not where I'm sending these! It'll take a little while. But they
will get where they
are going! Hopefully.
2482
Pretty peaceful year so far except for the giant warships flying all over space. I just ignore them. Only way to stay sane. And mostly they aren't flying toward our worlds at least!
Mostly! So I'm working a little on research, already thinking I should actually have been working on it
more when I first wandered in here for a look around, but how was I to know I'd get a breather after I took care of those fleets and, you know, the thing at Sand Line that I'm not thinking about at all and not dwelling on and especially not shapeshifting into an undulate just so I have the ideal kind of teeth for grinding over it, no sirree! But we're starting to make progress. Just a little at a time, and just starting, and the aliens are probably pulling even further ahead, but it's
something at least!
Which has
NOTHING TO DO WITH SAND LINE so it's a good thing I'm
NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT!!!
2483
Of course, it's possible the Meklar couldn't have heard me thinking anyway. But I wanted to be completely safe. You see, I have a little secret: Their death fleet left the planet as soon as they conquered it to rebase at one of their other worlds. They'd barely had time to get started after they conquered Sand Line, and the thing about planetary shields and missile bases is that it takes a little while to
build them, and until you get the first one up - the first planetary pentashield layeer at least - they don't protect your planet from
anything!
The
other thing about planetary shields and missile bases is that it's
way harder to build them when you've just had 13 million assault bots and 72 stolen factories cleaned right off your planet by orbital bombardment! I was hoping to do
more damage, but there's only so much we can do against their basic shielding and ECM technology.
There's only one problem with this ingenious plan - apart from the part where I forgot to build more bombers at Imra to help out ... and apart from the thing where sixty of our bombers with a dozen Disposable Wipe hyper rocket boats for support only managed to take out about a quarter of the conquerors. But it's a
big problem I hadn't even considered, and the problem is this:
The Meklar are at war with practically everybody! But no, I knew that; I just didn't think. I didn't realize that when we started cleaning up Meklar soldiers, there would be Cats and Bears suddenly trying to
talk to me! They must imagine that having a mutual enemy means I'll be willing to share their unclean and infected thoughts and take in all the memetic equivalents of viruses that are always plunging through them! The bears were talking about doing something
together, and the Cat lady even seemed to want to
trade with us! Or worse: To
agree to trading
regularly! I rejected this idea so fast and so hard that the computer interface practically screamed! The idea of disease-ridden, intercommunicating cat people swarming all over our spaceports trying to
trade with us is too horrible even to
contemplate!
Anyway, I think it's okay now. They finally stopped trying to call me, and I scrubbed the floor really nicely, and now I think all of the calling stuff isn't
really my fault: I think it's just that they noticed us being
successful at something when we took our attack to the machines, so they tried to
trick me the way these dastardly intercommunicating monsters do to each other all the
time! Take those bears pretending like we're on the same side or something - as if any Darlok can ever be on any side but its own! Here's their
real idea of "together"ness if you wisely ignore their holocalls and just observe their actions:
They
could have made peace like the cat people did a while ago, but of course they wouldn't do that
really! They want their latest five-cruiser fleet to have another go at Waters Edge instead. Which, sadly, with all the factories the place still needs to build, is why our main defensive fleet still can't leave.
Oh, but hey, there's some good news coming too, hiding out on the left side of the screen! Or, maybe instead of "good news" I should say ... a possible opportunity. I'm
always on the look-out for a chance to do some more
cleaning!
2484
So it might not have been a long respite, but at least I didn't exactly waste it. Waters Edge is developing nicely, its factories are keeping up with its population, and it's doubled its missile base count without the need for any more emergency spending. And the only ship type I haven't seen before in this Bulrathi fleet is the colony duo, which isn't scaring anybody: It's like what a Tooth would be if you took away all its missiles and armor and shields and battle scanner and ECM: Just a single ion cannon, with a targeting computer
we could have built! I mean, okay, it can colonize dead worlds and fly outside of standard range, and those are its main missions in theory, but as a
warship, it ... isn't. So honestly I could probably have sent most of our ships away and still wiped this fleet clean.
Of course, I can imagine what the bear people must think of me for blowing up their cruisers, especially the poor colony ships!
They love me to pieces (unless that's
wanting me
in pieces; these
are Bulrathi, remember) and keep trying to call me, of course! Because my bombers blew up some more Meklar. What they don't know is that here at our homeworld we just built a whole lot
more! We're not going to have much of a window - more enemy ships are already on the way - but while we were defending Waters Edge (
again) a big Alkari war fleet showed up in the next system over, ignoring the giant "KEEP OUT" sign there! They met a single Meklar dread in orbit - and both fleets
annihilated each other! That's exactly what I was hoping for (and expecting ever since I saw the ships' flight paths and ETAs) - and preparing for, with the latest set of Cleanup 3s! Because I know a little secret: The Meklar haven't owned the Keep Out sign for all that long - and a poor world like that one has a
lot of trouble building planetary shields and missile bases quickly. So far, it still doesn't have any!
Maybe I should be sending some of the new bombers to Sand Line just to help them out a little; I don't know. Probably that would be a little more prudent. But right now, I'm not feeling prudent. I'm feeling like taking all the advantage I can of the little window that's opened at what was once our first interstellar colony!
That ... and I'm taking another risk too, and hoping it pans out. Scrapping our lone Spray destroyer isn't that big a deal, though it would have been useful for scanning enemy fleets. But the reason I'm doing it is to make way for a new cruiser design: The Frostbit 3. It's an unarmed cruiser - the first we've built in our empire in decades - and its job, if it can do it, will be to secure a certain tundra world for us again, in case - in
case - it's possible, even temporarily!
2485
The birds tried to call me too, probably to sing the praises of our bombers like the bears. The Meklar Sand Line colony has
almost been completely destroyed - not quite, and they have a new dreadnought design about to arrive there, so I
really should have sent more bombers, but
almost anyway! And the Meklar who invaded Keep Out are finally being reminded of the planet's name: More than half of them got scrubbed away this year, and there should still be time to finish the job!
So there are those alien diplomats, trying over and over again to reach me - the bears keep moving their rotten, stench-belching, tooth-filled mouths every year, for instance, making terrifying sounds in their indecipherable language, probably under the impression that their noise is somehow reassuring! Everyone at war with us is suddenly no more than wary; the cat people are pretending to be peaceful with their lying cat eyes gleaming, and even the Meklar themselves seem like they're starting to be troubled by the prospect of a war where they don't always win every fight! All because of a little bombing. Why, if I were insane and suicidal enough to actually
interact with any of them, I'll bet we could end up at peace with practically everybody and get all kinds of - ugh! I don't even want to think about it! Trade? Technological secrets developed by their filthy alien minds? Treaties where we have to
promise things? I can't even begin to describe all the horrible, disgusting things! And yet this is the way they live!
... or die. There are more aliens coming to the doomed Keep Out colony because they apparently can't read.
An Alkari twin-colonizer fleet with 85 fighter escorts divided among three different designs will reach the soon-to-be ruins of the Meklar colony at the same time as 23 unescorted robot transports. So you know what
that means: I'll have to make sure to clean out a big old bowl so I can have some
popcorn ready!
!
