The wind whipping at Fleet Commander Proclus's coat was hot and humid, bearing the toxic stench of sulphur and burnt coal. He stood gazing out over the black night, noting the small orange flecks in the distance, tell tale signs of coal boilers burning full steam. Proclus' fleet had been observing the parley at Bangkok from afar, observing every word, every fleet movement through a carefull wrought system of drones. Best of all, the enemy fleets had no clue that they were under observation from an unknown party...
A detachment of his fleet had been sent to eradicate the prescence of the Japanese in the area, his spies had already made it clear that the Brittanians had no intention to honour the treaty, nor honour the other members of the treaty itself. The two Prussian equipped fleets were bickering amonst themselves, it would take very little effort to bring the two to blows. This left the Japanese the most imminent threat.
Proclus had once been a citizen of the city state of Venice, once the centre for art, architecture and praised as a haven for free thinkers, radicals and idealists. The repression upon Venice had been swift and brutal, all those ideals the Venetians held so dear were crushed without mercy or thought; forcing men like Proclus out into exile, the greatest thinkers of the Italian states fleeing like whipped dogs. Proclus had been on the run for years, hiding out in Marakesh; until word came of the safe haven in Antarctica.
Now was not the time for reminiscing, as dawn broke over the small pacific islands, Japanese spotter planes were observed in the distance. It was not long before ranging shots from the enemy vessels began causing geysers of water around the vessels. Any shots which would have caused immediate danger to vessels were observed to visibly deflect away from their targets before exploding harmlessly into the water. It was at this point that Proclus ordered his crew to begin targetting the enemy capital class ship, as with all of these nations built upon lies, once the head had been cut off, only chaos would remain. The gunners were experts at targetting, their shots striking home among the superstructure of the enemy vessel, fire directed at the crude shield generator of the enemy vessel. The shield generator offered no defense against the charged ion bombardment, erupting into flames rendering the battleship defenseless. The supporting vessels poured their fire into the battleship, fires were visibly breaking out over the ship as the ionized fire cascaded into blue explosions over the superstructure in the dawn haze.
The enemy aerial assets began engaging, launching long range rocket salvoes, targetting Proclus' captial ships. Proclus laughed at the attempts made by these rockets, so crude, so neanderthal. Without any guidance system whatsover, it was a simple matter for the automated Anti-Aircraft fire to annihilate the rockets in the air before they were of any danger to the vessel.
Proclus dispatched his destroyers to deal with the enemy air asset, the five destroyers moving forward with all haste offered by their unique design. A their turrets began to engage the enemy (operating using standard Anti-Aircraft procedure, the first unit brackets the enemy and passes targetting information to the following vessels), enemy frigates appeared from behind the nearby island. Clearly the Japanese fleet was larger than Proclus had realised! The Iron Men aboard the vessels fought bravely, but were outnumbered and out gunned by the large number of ships. In spite of the withering enemy fire, the destroyers were able to down one enemy vessel, causing it to collide with a frigate on the surface. It was in a short amount of time that four of his destroyers were sinking quickly, the fifth was swarming with enemy boarders utilizing crude rocket packs.
With a sigh, Proclus pressed the destruct button for the destroyer, causing a blue hemisphere of ionized atmosphere to erupt from the centre of the vessel, instantaneously vapourizing the destroyer, the boarders and the frigate who had sent the boarders over.
Rubbing his eyes from the explosion, Proclus again looked forward, towards the sinking wreck of the enemy battleship. A perfect circle had been carved through the centre of the superstructure, just above the waterline. Through the hole, a second perfect circle could be seen through the cruiser which had been in a tight formation following the battleship. "I must commend the designers" thought Proclus, it had been the first time he was required to fire the Particle Accelerator Cannon at anything more than an iceberg.
As he was admiring the destruction, two silent shapes had slipped unnoticed in front of the bows of the dreadnought. To anyone watching, two streams of wake began to appear, before lines of jagged teeth appeared out of the water. Anyone watching would have been able to prevent it. Anyone watching would have been able to direct fire, to warn the
Thermopylae about the imminent threat, but there was no one watching; the Antarcticans were obsessed with observing and recording the armour penetration statistics of the Particle Accelerator Cannon.
Great steel tentacles burst forth from the water, entangling themselves around the
Thermopylae; tearing through her bridge, crushing her gun turrets and ripping her particle accelerator clean from within it's housing. Before Proclus could react, the
Thermopylae was literally torn in twain, the last transmission from her captain bearing only the screams of the human bridge crew and the sound of tortured metal. Proclus could only stare in disbelief, in the full knowledge that Antarctica had been betrayed by one of their own. Jiro Horikoshi had been one of their best naval architects, a wizard at creating articulated servoes. The enemy vessels bore all of the signs of Horikoshi, clearly talks of his death had been greatly exaggerated.
It was when one of the enemy behemoths wrapped up the particle accelerator, drawing it in closer to its armoured central body, that the attack became clear to Proclus. The Japanese clearly had enhanced detection capability, they knew he was coming. Their goal was then to garner as much technology as possible to further their own war effort. Horikoshi knew of the destructive powers of the Antarctican fleet; but had been stonewalled by the Antarctican designers, who operated strictly about "need to know"; and simply he had not needed to know.
Proclus was left with no choice but to open fire upon the wreck of the
Thermopylae with all weapons, in an attempt to cause a critical reactor failure, which would cause the destruction of both it and its two attackers. Muttering apologies to his old friend Cato aboard the
Thermopylae; Proclus gave the order. The explosion caused by the destruction could have been witnessed for miles around. The sturginum reactor in the Aristotle class was highly stable under normal circumstances, but when placed under extreme stress due to ionizing radiation, the reactor simply became as crude a weapon as a stick of Nobel's
trinitrotoluene.
In the ensuing blindness and disarray that occured after the explosion, Proclus made his escape with his remaining vessels. His goal of crippling the Japanese war effort in the Pacific had been hampered by the involvement of Horikoshi. How many other vessels had he created? Proclus knew he must contact the Wells Chasm at once, the ships needed better detection and destruction methods to counter this new threat....
Well, that was my game vs Jason last night. No pictures, why? Because my antarcticans are not painted, and I would be too ashamed to put them forward without them being painted! Here is what my colour scheme will look like.
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| One Antarctican Frigate |
In other news, the Analogue Painting Challenge has begun! But an update on that later tonight.
Watch out or the penguins will get you!
CP
