The Warrior
Posted By: Chris Cox<Spheira@netscape.net>
Date: 17 November 2000, 8:52 pm
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>Opening log from entry:-04.14.6:2308 [ent/(DE H c-2)//173-104-925-ADM]
>Reading three records...
>Open entry:-04.14.6:2308 [ent/(DE H c-2)//173-104-925-ADM]
A journey is often begun so that another may be avoided. On the many-branched path of existence, a difficult path may be the only one possible to take, or the only one which does not end in disaster. It is thus that we set out upon this journey, a journey of such great importance that the path we avoid would lead to all our deaths. We must do battle with an enemy we had hoped never to meet, with unwitting monsters who would see all we have built and discovered razed.
The Devotion arrived in-system some hours ago. We now await only the Sacred Promise and her support group, and then we may make the jump to the enemy. Word has arrived from the commander of the Contrition, which encountered and destroyed a human vessel some hours ago while on advance patrol on the periphery of the target system. I see no reason why our victory here should not be as complete as those before.
Most of the fleet has been waiting in this asteroid field for at least a week, and the troops are becoming restless. I understand their eagerness to fight, and yet I know that preparations must be made and the omens observed if this battle is to be fought correctly. When the time is right, we will go to battle with faith as strong as our weapons and nothing shall stand before us.
My Swords and I will know victory again soon.
>End of entry:
>Open entry:-04.15.6:1420 [ent/(DE H c-2)//173-104-925-ADM]
The Sacred Promise is here. All preparations have been made, and the fleet is about to make the jump to the target. Maugur addressed the crew a short while ago to say that the Gods are watching us today. I do not doubt that all aboard were aware of that already, but the message grows no more stale with each retelling. This is a holy war, and we are but the tools of the Gods, the instruments of their Will.The humans call this world Reach. It is an abstract, meaningless name, and its loss will bring sorrow to no-one but the foul creatures that inhabit it.
It is said remorse is the pain of sin. We feel no remorse.
>End of entry:
>Open entry:-04.15.6:1625 [ent/(DE H c-2)//173-104-925-ADM]
It is over. We made the jump scarcely two hours ago, and now nothing remains. The humans are cunning and fight with the fury of the possessed, but their vessels are woefully inadequate when pitted against our own. Our resolve was unshakable and our victory absolute. Not having any active duties to perform in a battle of spacecraft, I remained at my standby station and observed the combat via holograph. I feel it necessary to record my thoughts on the action as I have done in those that have passed before.
The fleet folded into the system as one and quickly moved into a high orbit over the planet that the enemy dishonors with the name Reach. As predicted, the enemy warships present there attempted to draw our vessels away from the planet so that some degree of evacuation could be carried out. To counter this the fleet divided into three sections, as was planned, each section beginning to bombard a different spaceport/orbital terminal facility. The humans, lacking the firepower or numbers to engage all three groups, concentrated all of their vessels on one (in this case the group containing the Purity of Spirit, gifting me with an excellent view of the combat). We then had simply to spring the trap, converging all of the sections back onto the attacking vessels and catching them in a crossfire that rivaled the stars themselves in its brilliance.
I have not yet had chance to examine the results of this battle in detail, but by my estimation the enemy lost twenty six sizable combat vessels, and many more lighter ones. Our casualties number at four: three CPVs and, regrettably, the CAR Repentance, which was engaged by several of the larger human vessels and hit four times by some manner of superluminally-powered thermonuclear weapon. I have witnessed this weapon in use by the enemy on several occasions, and I still believe it to be of non-human origin: their grasp of space-folding technology is far too rudimentary to allow them to make such a compact drive unit. It is in all probability their plunder from another race, whose loss we shall in passing avenge.
Several enemy spacecraft, all of them small, fled the engagement and are currently being hunted down by our patrol vessels. As I speak, our capital ships are completing the obliteration of the colony with plasma beams and seismic induction charges. I must confess that I would prefer to cleanse the place from the ground, so that we might defeat the enemy face to face and claw to claw, but time is short and efficiency must take precedence over our own preferences. The fire of our wrath is enough, whether dealt from above or below. None will be left alive to question our methods.
I would record more of my thoughts on this day, but Maugur has tasked me with organising airborne patrols over the planet, so that any survivors may be destroyed. Though my Swords remain unbloodied today, I have no doubt that tomorrow will set us against our Nemesis on more honorable terms. The path to virtue is never so easy.
The Reverence has located one of the fleeing human vessels. I am going to the focus deck to watch the hunt.
>End of entry:
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