The Acari Gambit

[WKE235]

The Acari Gambit

 

Minouth, High Chancellor of the Acari, slowly moved through the busy command center within the Imperial Palace. His eyes were in constant motion, darting across the various displays contained on the multitude of work stations spread out across the vast and cavernous room. From time to time he would stop at one of the stations to more closely examine one of the screens, only to move on after a few moments. Ever since hostilities had commenced with The Colony, this slow move through the command center had become a daily ritual for the High Chancellor. The stroll provided little in the way of information as he received and read summary reports from all areas each morning after waking. But every being did fear the Chancellor would stop at their station and discover something that displeased him. Displeasing the Chancellor would result in a transfer to the fertilizer stations on the cities outskirts, or perhaps worse. And the Chancellor used this daily stroll to reinforce this fear and keep his troopers on their toes.

 

After moving through the command center, Minouth reached a dais near one end of the room. Seating himself in a chair on the dais, Minouth cried out “Display!”. Even as the last of the Chancellors robes settled into place, a large holographic view of space in and around the Acari home world sprang into being within the command center. Surrounding the planet were several thousand lights. Each light represented an Acari ship now orbiting the world in order to protect it from The Colony. After staring at the display for a few moments, a smile crossed Minouth’s face. Over 2000 small ships now acted as a screen over the Acari home world. A screen that protected 6 of the most massively armored and powerful surface fortresses that Acari designers could come up with. Seeing nothing amiss, Minouth used a stylus on his chair to change the display. The Acari HW shrank out of sight to be replaced by a view of the entire Acari home system. Most of the planets and moons were ringed with tell-tale red to indicate colonies that had fallen to The Colony, with many others ringed in yellow to indicate colonies still controlled by the Acari, but minor in size. The Acari home world was the only bright white spot on the whole display. There was one bright blue spot pulsing on and off near the second moon of the second planet, indicating a battle in space. Using the stylus, Minouth brought up an information display about the battle.

 

Looking over the pictures and data, Minouth’s smile grew wider. The recently commissioned Star Cruiser the Park 9 had taken the battle to the enemy. All 67 of the Octahedron defense satellites towed to the battle by the ship had survived the battle intact. And the fleet had managed to destroy a freighter in service to The Colony. As Minouth continued to stare at the battle results, his smile slowly faded. Something was not right. His fleet had destroyed a 500,000 ton capacity freighter with no armor and no weapons. Only added fuel tanks, a transwarp drive, and lots of MK I Antimatter engines. As he scanned the battle information over and over, his puzzlement grew. Why would the colony have a high speed freighter moving about in HIS system without protection or escort. Either they thought so little of the Acari that the believed they could act in such a manner, or they were so confident of eventual victory that ….

 

A voice rang out from one of the many work stations in the room. “Chancellor, the city is under attack!”

Standing up from his command chair in surprise, he barked “WHAT?! This cannot be! DISPLAY!”

The large holographic view of space in and around the Acari home world sprang back into being. Surrounding the planet, the thousands of little lights continued to slowly orbit the planet. The large surface forts sat weapons silent and unmoving. No battle in progress. No ships in distress. Just a peaceful display of the Acari’s awesome might. In the midst of the display, Minouth noticed one green dot. Hard to see within the mass of white lights, it was given away by its movement away from the planet at increasing speed.

“Focus on that ship, now!” Minouth bellowed motioning towards the receding speck of light.

The display shifted to a real time view of a massive ship, engines on full thrust, moving away from the planet. Totaling in at over 1.3 Million tons, there was no mistaking the sight. Sinking back into his sear, Minouth shook his head in disbelief. “An Apshai Troop Transport, over the planet. But how? And when?”. Shaking in anger he turned towards the nearest command station. “Get me Admiral Aleove, now!”.

Pressing a few buttons in record speed, the soldier quickly complied, and a holographic image of Aleove appeared above the station.

“High Chancellor Minouth, what a pleasant surprise. How can the Grand Fleet assist you”.

“You can explain” Minouth hissed through his teeth “why our cities are under attack on the ground”.

Stunned by the question, Aleove sputtered “But, but, that’s not possible. We’ve seen no enemy ships approach the planet and everything is fine. I do not see how.”.

“No enemy ships Admiral? Then what is this!!” Minouth roared as he pointed to a display of the Apshain Troop Transport.

“The Apshain ship sir? They are not an enemy of the Acari. We checked the records twice and we have no declaration of war on record with them. They are neutrals sir. Our standing orders are to attack any declared enemy. Attacking a neutral approaching the planet under such conditions would be unthinkable.”

“Neutrals Admiral? What about the Lexann attack? Was that the act of a neutral?”

“Chancellor, that attack was over 40 cycles ago. And in all the time since then, the council never choose to issue a declaration of war. Why, when I was talking with the commander of the Apshai ship, it mentioned that ..”

With a look of disbelief, Minouth looked up from monitor displaying the scene of a burning building. “Admiral, did you just say you spoke TO the commander of the Apshain ship?”

Aleove pulled on his collar as if trying to loosen a noose tightening about his neck. “Uh . Yes sir, part of SOP. Being this was the first visit by the Apshai to the Acari home system, we spoke to ascertain why they were entering orbit”

“And…” prompted Minouth, even as he gave a hand signal to one of the soldiers nearby.

“Well sir, he claimed to be here to help resolve the situation with The Colony once and for all. He even offered to place his ship on one side of the planet away from the massed defense forces so as to avoid interfering with out operations. A very friendly being”.

“So, in summary Admiral” Minouth began in a tone that made any nearby soldiers flinch in fear. He continued as a picture of the Apshain ship sprang up, “A million plus ton troop transport from the Apshai moved into orbit. Despite the attack on our ships so long ago, despite the fact the ship was named SLAMMER, despite the fleet flag declaring the name that translates as “Death Dealer”, you found the ship commander to be a nice being, and allowed the ship to move into orbit at a spot where they could land a base on the planets surface and place troops virtually undetected, behind our screen of several thousand defense ships? Is that what you are claiming Admiral?“

Sensing what was to come, Admiral Aleove, eyes showing his rising fear and panic, blurted out “I was only following orders Chancellor! We were not at war with them and I had to allow the ship into orbit. I was just following orders!!”

“Such a loyal soldier, to follow orders so precisely. Hmmm.. how can we reward such actions…” Minouth intoned as a finger moved towards a nearby button.

“I was only following orders! I was only following orders!!” Aleove screamed in the holograph.

“Then I order you to die Admiral”. Minouth pushed a glowing red button, and the holograph vanished in a flash of light. Above him, one of the thousands of ships briefly flared white and disappeared from the display.

 

Turning back to the command center, Minouth yelled out “At THAT is the price all of you will pay for any further acts of incompetence. Now get me information about the force attacking the cities. We have a world to save”.

[Laserwolf]

translation:

 

Do not leave your HW defense settings on R. UNLESS it fits your plans.

 

Great story sir, well done. You are correct, it was a gambit.

 

BTW, sorry about the troopers...

 

Apshai ground forces, dropped onto the planet under the "unsuspecting" Acari Imperium orbital defenses and command by Field Marshal Heng issue forth in a full scale assault. All units are given orders to freely use tactical nuclear weapons, which are concentrated especially on the Acari fixed defenses. One Fortress is atomized out right and an NBC unit later succumbs to extreme radiation exposure, but Acari medical personnel quickly contain further radiation issues. The Acari ground forces are commanded by none other than Emperor Parislestalised himself, a highly decorated ground officer of Grand Marshal level and proud owner of the Golden Tick Battle Cross. Parislestalised directs his units to crush the hated invaders, and though the Apshai troopers are hard to kill, the Acari soldiers have considerable amounts of high tech ground equipment at their disposal. Hopped up on performance-enhancing drugs and unleashing an arsenal of biomunitions of their own, the Acari soldiers overwhelm their enemies. Their technology turns the tide, shifting what might have been a close battle into a rout. The Apshai invasion force fights bravely but is overrun and annihilated by a vast swarm of Acari mite and battle hardened tick troopers, who celebrate their victory with considerable clicking and clacking of their mandibles.

 

Attacker losses: <all 25 divisions>

Defender losses: 1 Fortress, 1 NBC

[WKE235]

translation:

 

Do not leave your HW defense settings on R. UNLESS it fits your plans.

 

Great story sir, well done. You are correct, it was a gambit.

 

BTW, sorry about the troopers...

 

Apshai ground forces, dropped onto the planet under the "unsuspecting" Acari Imperium orbital defenses and command by Field Marshal Heng issue forth in a full scale assault. All units are given orders to freely use tactical nuclear weapons, which are concentrated especially on the Acari fixed defenses. One Fortress is atomized out right and an NBC unit later succumbs to extreme radiation exposure, but Acari medical personnel quickly contain further radiation issues. The Acari ground forces are commanded by none other than Emperor Parislestalised himself, a highly decorated ground officer of Grand Marshal level and proud owner of the Golden Tick Battle Cross. Parislestalised directs his units to crush the hated invaders, and though the Apshai troopers are hard to kill, the Acari soldiers have considerable amounts of high tech ground equipment at their disposal. Hopped up on performance-enhancing drugs and unleashing an arsenal of biomunitions of their own, the Acari soldiers overwhelm their enemies. Their technology turns the tide, shifting what might have been a close battle into a rout. The Apshai invasion force fights bravely but is overrun and annihilated by a vast swarm of Acari mite and battle hardened tick troopers, who celebrate their victory with considerable clicking and clacking of their mandibles.

 

Attacker losses: <all 25 divisions>

Defender losses: 1 Fortress, 1 NBC

 

Awww .. you ruined my chance for a follow-up piece. I had some nice pieces planned out about the winged apshain spiders flying about, and the performance enhanced tick fanactical troops making super leaps into the air to take them out. Plus an entire piece where the High Chancellor interogates the Field Marshal captured in the battle while the Emperor gives a victory speech in the background. Sigh ... you always ruin my fun Norm.

 

And what's even more annoying is, with all that free use of tactical nuclear weapons, none of the infrastructure (like mines or industry) gets damaged.

 

Here's one strange result of the battle. Despite my loss, I still had a large list of "Captured equipment" that I could analyze at my leisure. Sure, everything on the list was already known to me. But that was rather strange. Who in the heck is left to analyze it???

 

And one last observation. We have a fight here going on with The Colony (Ants), Apshai (Spiders), and Acari (Ticks). Nature at it's finest.

 

AND >>>> Kudos to Pete for stepping in to write the missive on the battle. Well done! I know it's not possible to do those for space battles given the volume of fighting. But I'm glad to see you still step in and add such an item for major, key, or pivotal battles. A very nice RTG touch. Thanks!

[Laserwolf]

By all means continue with the story. I was working on a piece as well.

[WKE235]

The most upsetting thing about this attack is all of the mistakes I made. The first time I build the transport, I somehow left a zero off the entry for engines. SO .. I had to scrap and rebuild the ship (two turns lost).

 

Then, when trying to load the ship, I tried to load "Colonists" instead of a "Colony Beacon". Of course that failed. But the ship left orbit the next pulse and with multiple jumps, was past the point of return (not enough fuel to come back and get the beacon). So once more, I built another ship, a tiny freighter, loaded up the beacon, and caught up with the ship (two turns lost).

 

And finally, the two sauntered on in for the battle.

 

In all my mistakes cost me 5 turns (a BI error on building the transwarp drives delayed the original building one turn). My New Year Surprise as I orginally intended became a Spring Time review. Frustrating to make all of those mistakes.

[The Flock]

all those insects, sounds Yummy

[WKE235]

all those insects, sounds Yummy

 

And just why do you think the spiders developed wings and spiked tails? To make it easier to get more of those oh so tasty birds. The thought of a whole new flock is, well, exciiting enough to make the emperor drool (which is not a pretty sight).

[AKO]

Just wondering if the Acari have a different opinion of their neutral friends the Apshai.

[Laserwolf]

We have completely dis-assembled every captured Apshai trooper. There was not a neutral one to be found. They ALL insisted on fighting us.

[The Flock]

all those insects, sounds Yummy

 

And just why do you think the spiders developed wings and spiked tails? To make it easier to get more of those oh so tasty birds. The thought of a whole new flock is, well, exciiting enough to make the emperor drool (which is not a pretty sight).

 

 

So are you saying they float like a butterfly and sting like a bee?

 

yummy bees, and butterflies

 

 

 

Just wondering if the Acari have a different opinion of their neutral friends the Apshai.

 

Sounds like this Pearl harbor, did not go as planned for the attackers

[Lord Xaar]

And what's even more annoying is, with all that free use of tactical nuclear weapons, none of the infrastructure (like mines or industry) gets damaged.

 

Here's one strange result of the battle. Despite my loss, I still had a large list of "Captured equipment" that I could analyze at my leisure. Sure, everything on the list was already known to me. But that was rather strange. Who in the heck is left to analyze it???

 

And one last observation. We have a fight here going on with The Colony (Ants), Apshai (Spiders), and Acari (Ticks). Nature at it's finest.

 

AND >>>> Kudos to Pete for stepping in to write the missive on the battle. Well done! I know it's not possible to do those for space battles given the volume of fighting. But I'm glad to see you still step in and add such an item for major, key, or pivotal battles. A very nice RTG touch. Thanks!

 

 

Is there a change in the CSV result for the planet? It might make an attacker think twice using Full Nuclear Release if they capture an irradiated charcoal briquet.... Certainly I agree it seems like there could be infrastructure damage, perhaps the battle wasn't large enough to affect pop groups?

 

-LX

[WKE235]

Is there a change in the CSV result for the planet? It might make an attacker think twice using Full Nuclear Release if they capture an irradiated charcoal briquet.... Certainly I agree it seems like there could be infrastructure damage, perhaps the battle wasn't large enough to affect pop groups?

 

-LX

 

I wish I knew. For some strange reason, he won't let me get close enough to the planet to do a Pmap.

 

Lets not forget his troops used large amounts of biological and chemical munitions as well. What a cocktail .. radiation, chemicals, and biological agents, mutating happily in the brew. I might come back to find the Acari mites and ticks wiped out by lethal bacteria. Well, one can hope.

 

Take note that the radiation level on a homeworld may not matter. Pete has mentioned in mails that HW's are treated special, as generally ideal for you race. I asked about this as my original race, due to negative Colonization Bonuses, used to get a Less than Ideal CSV rating from the HW. Of course I never asked what would happen if pollution or radiation got to really high levels. But I bet even low levels likely have no impact.