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dominican -> RE: The Iiiiz Have It (4/4/2008 7:53:48 PM)
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oi, thanks for your interesting insights. You obviously have a lot more experience with Starships Unlimited than I. The pirates are enough of a pest at difficulty level 3, I can't imagine them being a lot tougher to deal with. But I haven't seen the bigger pirates like you have, so that might be one aspect of the easier difficulty levels. Here's another chapter, the 3rd Battle for Lyncis III.
A History of the Iiiiz – Part 13
A totally unprovoked attack by the Minervans in 2842, yet again on the unfortunate Iiiiz and Keracks innocently living in harmony and bliss, led to the 3rd Battle for Lyncis III. This one caught the Iiiiz nearly unprepared, as only the brave crews of the corvette Stingray and the scout ship Hermes were in position to give battle versus the frogs of Grus II. The reptilian race sent four warships against the Iiiiz, the corvette Israel and three gunboats, with the strange and unknown names of Russia, Portugal and Zimbabwe. They carried 4th-generation weapons in the Wave family - 13 Advanced Disruptors - distributed among the four lizard ships.
Immediately, frantic calls were sent to nearby Iiiiz star systems, and in moments, help was on the way, but would it be too late in arriving? Coming from Ursa I was the gunboat Sabre, from Perseus III the former-Avian scout Aphid, and from a Lyncis resource site, the former-Kerack scout Boa. For the time being, it was up to the Hermes and Stingray, as well as surface weapons, to save the planet.
The Hermes’ ship captain was a brave soul, but a foolhardy one sometimes as well. He and his crew, of course, were Robots, having rebelled against the straight-laced Robot mechanical race more than four centuries before, in 2412. For quite a while the Hermes and the Sabre were the entire Iiiiz fleet. On this day, however, the Hermes’ captain was a little too ambitious. It was never known just what happened to the captain’s electronic circuits in those last moments, what caused him to charge into a pack of iguanas when retreat would have been the better part of valor, but charge he did. It was the charge of the light starship, with similar results. Flashes, sparks, disrupted circuits, burned-out components, crumpled armor plating, unresponsive laser beams, screaming and swearing, the unforgiving vacuum of space, death and destruction. The four turtle ships hurled disruptor wave after disruptor wave at the brave little ship, mixing in radiation waves as well, and the Hermes was not built to withstand such an overwhelming onslaught. The final garbled radio waves of the captain seemed to consist of some kind of poem, recalling the fate of something or someone named Mary and her adoring four-legged white life form.
(Truth be told, I mistakenly accepted the stupid computer-suggested maneuver in the heat of battle, rather than hit the retreat maneuver button like I meant to, to get away for the moment from the enemy. Mary and her little lamb, of course, comes from the book and movie 2001.)
And so now only the corvette Stingray was left to duel the four amphibian starships. The Stingray picked out one target to focus on, the corvette Israel, and as the Israel neared the planet, Lyncis’ gun crews far below began adding their input. Lyncis III had three armor components, but it wasn’t long before disruptor waves from all four ships had destroyed the first two plates and were going to work on the third. When the third was gone, lives would be lost on Lyncis. It was a desperate situation. In minutes, the Sabre had entered the star system but was making its way too slowly, it seemed. Time nearly stood still, like watching a car wreck in slow motion. The Stingray’s laser beams were having an effect on the Israel, and she soon backed off and out of the fray, not retreated, but not a threat either, for the time being.
At 2943.09, the last of Lyncis III’s atomic armor was destroyed, and now its internal components began to take hits, but worst of all, Iiiiz and Kerack civilians began to lose their lives. Finally, at .11, the Sabre arrived, the venerable, brave Sabre, and it began to throw laser beams at the Zimbabwe, but Lyncis was dying. The population was reduced to 142 from its original 190. At 2844.03, only 119 lives remained on the planet. The Stingray joined in on the attack on the Zimbabwe, and slowly its disruptor screens and laser screens were blown away, leaving it vulnerable to severe internal body blows. At nearly the same time, the Boa finally arrived, its Kerack crew determined to avenge the Kerack lives being lost on the planet below.
But still the snakes continued to fling disruptor waves at Lyncis III. At .05, 91 citizens remained, at .06 it was down to 79, at .07, only 58 citizens remained. Could they hold out any longer? When the Zimbabwe retreated, the Iiiiz and Kerack crews turned their attention to the Portugal, and at .09 it too fell away from the planet, and emphasis was immediately shifted to the gunboat Russia. Lyncis’s population count fell to 52. The Russia took massive laser beams from three directions and exploded at .11. Back to the Zimbabwe, and it too was destroyed at .12. The two remaining Minervan ships, the Israel and the Portugal, gathered what strength they had remaining and began their long trip across the stars to the opposite corner of the galaxy.
The 3rd Battle of Lyncis III had ended. The Hermes was lost. Lyncis’ body count was 138 of an original 190. Indications were that the snakes only had three starships remaining, and if two of them were damaged, that left only one undamaged one. It was time to lick their wounds, install new armor, and take the battle across the stars, to the Minervans’ home world, Grus II. The Iiiiz had had enough.
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