Week 4 - The Clean Bombing of Falayis (2.452 billion Estrain killed)

Captain Jo'thus was a brave Quall N'Drone Warrior in service to Ar’yay HiveQueen. Captain Jo’thus was proud to be in charge of the assault team as he looked at his fleet, 10 Quall Destroyers, 10, Quall Light Frigates 550 Quall Interceptors and 300 Neo Flayer Star fighters. An assault force, it was a true Quall Armada, perhaps the first of its kind. Built not by Iron Republic scientists, but from the depths of the Hivemind, the Quall Armada was truly a thing of beauty.

Their orders were simple, They would support any and all Iron Republic actions, they would ignore the target that was clean bombed and would assist the IR fleet in engaging which ever target was remaining.
As they were the only one who responded to the strategy session by the time this plan was put in place, an additional 100 Quall Interceptor Star fighters were being deployed to defend the Blackheart security force. That squadron had orders to capture the Grey Scout Ship using their grappling lines to try to hold it in place for the black heart crew to disable it.

A small fleet, especially compared to the E Strain forces they were facing, thought Captain Jo’thus. This was ignoring whatever reinforcements the Trilat would send, but Jo’thus hoped that the rest of the Iron Republic officers would participate or else this attack would accomplish little.

He watched as the Interceptors formed up behind the S-Crow, the Blackheart lead ship. In formation around the S-Crow were a small security fleet by Blackheart’s standards, from the information held by the Hivemind. Jo’thus didn’t always believe the knowledge stored in the Hivemind. It was stored perfectly, he didn’t deny that. But it wasn’t stored facts, it was stored perceptions. And there was always a chance that perceptions were off. Mistakes were made, and those mistakes reverberated.

Mistakes like involving the Iron Republic in the “Refuge” Problem. The Hive Queens Council had been foolish. They had made a mistake reporting the threat of the penal colony to the Iron Republic, instead of just beginning an all out invasion and culling of the planet. If only they had acted sooner, raged the Quall Warrior. If only they could just wipe out these planets at will. But as he looked at the ship around him, full of actual functioning I.R. technology developed in those years after they had become the Quall’s allies. Despite his anger Jo’thus could see that would never have happened. His own HiveQueen Ar’yay was the first to build her own factories, to build her own vessels. To have Quall Warriors actually do what their hosts knew how to do and build the things they knew how to build. It was revolutionary for Quall Culture.
In the light of that, he was not surprised his Hive Queen had been declared Rogue. It had been coming in a long time. Ever since Hav’aun HiveQueen led the Quall Hive Queen Council into the service of the K’ias Empire and the losing side during the K’ias Wars, Quall with “creativity” were considered dangerous. The HiveQueens required stability to keep the multitudes of the Quall Horde from tearing reality apart.
Jo’thus finally let his anger go, realizing the Quall species suffered its current state of affairs due to their own lack of moderation. If they had implanted with more restraint there would not be facing the enemies they faced.
They would not be hated, and could have been loved.
His reverie was broken as the warning klaxons sounded. Jo’thus was still not used to this…Artificial Intelligence. It was called Rx and Jo’thus didn’t trust it.

“Rx what are these lights?” asked Jo’thus, “A yellow alert, we have no ships on the scanners.”

Rx replied, “Captain, a fleet of ships has slipped past our defensive nets.”

“I don’t see any? What is it?” asked Jo’thus, “Launch probes I want to know what goes on.”

“Probes sir? Really? Where?” asked Rx dryly.
“Send a pair to the Gas Giant, I want to see what occurs,” said the Quall Captain.
“Yes Sir,” said Rx.

The probes launched from the belly of the Quall Capital Ship and flew towards the Gas Giant. Unknown to them or their sensors they were surrounded by cloaked Trident Missile Ships, a fleet sent by Sector General Deer.

Ahead of them was the Gas Giant of Falayis and the Bloom Ships hiding inside it. And in the center of that Bloom Ship formation was the Flagship of Alice Clegg. And attached to the side of that ship was a smaller boarding vessel bearing the markings of Lt. Ryuk.

Their boarding hatches opened and then Ryuk’s Rabble made their way out into the quiet and nearly empty corridors of the Flagship. They used codes gotten from the prisoner to power down the automated weapons and disable the traps. When everything was secured, they motioned to the Unity Technomagi who followed them. They were able to make it to the bridge of the massive strangely shaped Bloom ship without any resistance. And the TechnoMagi began to hack into the console. Within moments they were linked into the ships’ brain. It was an organism. An Omnivore-class Bloom Ship. Designed off a small world worm, they would eat entire ships adding them to their own bulk. A living E-strain vessel. It had no true pilot.

As Ryuk had commanded, the ship’s data base was searched for any information about Alice Clegg. Scouts sent ahead reported the captain’s quarters were as empty as the rest of the ship. Ryuk’s Rabble were unsure of what to do, after all they had only been trained for a week before being sent in. They really hoped Ryuk was telling the truth when he took a finger and told them he could use it to bring them back to life.

One of the Hackers reported, “Good news, I’ve found it,” moments before an E-strain Manslayer bisected his head with its mandibles.

Luckily it only had taken .23 seconds to upload the information to Lt. Ryuk. It was the location of Captain Alice Clegg and her lover T’ronde Vale. Exact coordinates, and even the radiation signature to track the ship they were on.

Some of Ryuk’s Rabble tossed Vampiric Bolts at the E-strain Manslayer and it went down. They looked at each other with pride. Some laughed. One guy gave a thumbs up.
Then one of the scouts ran up the hallway leading to the bridge. He was white as a ghost and out of breath. Between huffing breaths he said, “There are…thousands of them.”

Like a wave the skittering Manslayers moved into the bridge. Truly there were thousands of E-strain Manslayers onboard and despite how good their one week of training was they were struck down within moments.
Their screams however, they lasted for ten full minutes.

Outside the Bloom Ship fleet had also suddenly come alive, moving to try and intercept invisible vessels. Like fish who had suddenly sensed a predator they tried to wheel about, to intimidate their unknown enemies. However infiltrators in their ranks were able to cause certain ships to smash into each other stopping the formation of the fleet. They left the Bloom Ship fleet completely open to the first volley.
Tanks hung from the cloaked vessels, and they fired their artillery cannons in unison. Their shells were small Neutron Bombs. As the Nbombs went off the entire fleet of Bloom Ships and Alice Clegg’s Former Flagship were killed off in an instant.

Hundreds of Thousands of E-strain died in that moment.

At the same moment, a fleet of Trident Missile ships began firing down at the surface of the Moon of Falayis. Their missiles destroyed Bloomship cocoons, and killed even more of the Manslayers but they were the lucky ones in a way. It was in that moment also that the Trident Missile ship Vengeance of Mandate delivered a clean bomb to the surface of Falayis.

It started with a low rumbling, as the waves of the impossible bomb traveled across the surface of the moon. It took a Djinni to create a Clean Bomb, able to kill all life within its range. And the range of this clean bomb killed all life on the Moon.

At the moment the bombardment had started Shadow Generators had activated and so a dead world was transported into a demi-dimension.

Quall Captain Jo’thus was actually more than pleased with the results. It was like a different Iron Republic had shown up on this day. One that was tactical, and one that was quite deadly. At that moment the communication network activated.

Jo’thus was confused for a moment, then remembered others could not simply communicate telepathically. He signaled to his Comm officer to accept the hail.

“I.R. forces, this is Blackheart collection team. We have succeeded in taking the Grey Scout Ship. But we have a problem, the ship is flying on autopilot. The crew onboard are not Grey, they are Gun runners from the Brethren Expanse, from Volans in particular. They were hoping to get their hands on some Estrain weaponry.”

“Volans Gunrunners?” asked Jo’thus, “This is an interesting proposition, we have heard at length of the rebellions in the Brethren Expanse.”

At that moment Jo’thus watched in confusion as a Nightmare Lord Starship shadow jumped into orbit around the Gas Giant of Falayis. A few moments later it teleported away, stealing the corpse of Alice Clegg’s old flagship, the Omnivore-class Bloom Ship “Mothership Titan”. Jo’thus checked with his science officer to be told telepathically that the ship taken was just a corpse.
Jo’thus knew nothing good would come from that.

For completing the mission with both primary and secondary missions accomplished, the Iron Republic and Quall players who joined this mission will gain the following reward

- Allies from the Brethren Expanse: the player may call in a Brethren Expanse Extermination Taskforce consisting of an I.R. Mothership, Four IR Starcruisers and eight Heavy Frigates. Single use reward use wisely.


Blackheart Security gains the following rewards:

-Captured Grey Scout ship and schematics
(for Research and Reverse Enginnering of Grey Weaponry)

- Volans Gunrunner contact


Lt. Ryuk gains the following reward:

- the real location of Alice Clegg Magnavore and her lover T'ronde Vale in the Brethren Expanse.

Viggo gains the following reward:
-Corpse of a giant organic ship

Ragman gains the following reward:
-Pride of a Job well done, +50 Max Army Morale

D's Prisoner 2 gains the following reward:
-No more torture. He may also now communicate freely to TRILAT players. He is still under house arrest

Unity Prime gains the following reward:

-One dead moon, without any mineral resources.


Anyone I forgot gets a pear tree, but only one.