Peace War

Chapter 1

Ovaap Resrek gazed at the sight opening before him through a thick plexiglass window. Under a thick, white, almost milky alien sky, an imposing dark figure loomed next to a snowy mountain range. He was looking at a piece of what was to be the hull superstructure of the United Orcs Starfleet vessel HemmoCruiser III. Numerous smaller craft buzzed around it, the tiny white flashes from their onboard welders revealing them as construction drones, tirelessly building the giant frame piece by piece. They'd been at it for weeks now, but the structure still resembled nothing like the self-sustaining space colony it was supposed to become. Ovaap Resrek, like everyone else in the base, wondered whether it would ever be finished before the Bacterians located the outpost. The accursed Bacterians! The alien invaders had destroyed his home, all of their homes, forcing what was left of the United Orcs to flee into space in a desperate search for a hiding place. Everything was happening like it had before, so many years ago, during the Great Cataclysm of Orceron ... First their birthplace had been destroyed, and now their new home was gone too, infested with Bacterian monstrosities and occupied by their armies. All he and his comrades had worked so hard to rebuild over the years had vanished in an instant, and no-one even knew why the Bacterians were doing it. It didn't make any sense. His long life, Ovaap reflected, was not at all a blessing ... It was a cruel burden, being forced to witness history repeating its greatest tragedies over and over again. Generations changed and entire civilizations rose and fell, but nothing ever truly changed ... Suddenly a holoscreen embedded into the table flashed to life, bathing the room in a green glow and waking up Ovaap from his thoughts. Like everything else in the base, the holoemitter was quickly put together and barely working, the image flickering irregularly. "Ovaap Resrek to Command Control ... Ovaap Resrek to Command Control ..." Ovaap stood up, straightening the knertty he had bought on Reel 5. He approached the door of his quarters and keyed the controls, but the mass of metal remained silent. He activated his cranial implant. "Resrek to Maintenance, my door is malfunctioning again." A crackling voice responded inside his head. "Just a minute ... We're powering it up." The stained red light mounted on the door frame lit up, and the pressure seal opened with a cheerless rattle. Ovaap stepped into the corridor, a hastily welded together construction with a red floor and unpainted gray, hexagonal walls; it had been thrown together only recently to connect the two base complexes on the planet. Ovaap stumbled as he made his way over the doorsteps and exposed pipes that littered the floor. Suddenly he heard a computerized voice echoing throughout the metallic passageway. "Base wide alert: Ionic storm approaching. Repeat: Ionic storm approaching. Seek shelter immediately."

Chapter 2

The Command Center seemed to be the only place on the planet with proper heating, although it too was a quick and dirty makeshift arrangement and looked unfinished; wires hung from the ceiling and the floor was covered in ductwork. In typical fashion, a large viewscreen had been placed on one wall, currently displaying a detailed simulation of the starship being constructed outside. Ovaap straightened his posture and entered the room, performing an old-fashioned salute in the general direction of Päähemmo that went largely unnoticed, and sat down on a chair that looked like it had been removed from an old personal transporter. - You have been invited here for a situation report. The idle rotating image of the main display changed into a simplistic map of the last lines of defense the United Orcs had against the Bacterians. Päähemmo's expression darkened, his eyes studying the diagram. - The last communication of our outermost remaining outpost reported thousands of Bacterian vessels on approach. Therefore we may safely assume it no longer exists. A green dot on the screen disappeared. - Since then, contact has been lost with thirty other bases in the region; all are presumed to be destroyed or taken over by the enemy. This time, almost a half of the remaining dots vanished. - As before, our efforts at comprehending the Bacterian propulsion systems have been fruitless. Simply put, they appear to violate known physical laws with abandon. Obviously, our scientific knowledge is woefully lacking compared to theirs, despite Mr. Baasegnar's laudable work. - What we do know for certain is that their vessels are vastly faster than ours, and the more we learn of their capabilities, the clearer it becomes that they could reach our location at any given time. We think the only reason we are still alive is because they are thorough. Every colony, outpost, station we have established - systematically wiped out, conquered or seeded with unspeakable biological weapons one at a time. What we are facing here is a campaign of total extermination. The Päähemmo and most of his entourage seemed horrified. Ovaap didn't feel any better. - The general evacuation is still in effect and the refugee fleets are on the move. We are trying to coordinate the evacuation through relays but it is proving to be increasingly difficult - The network has suffered extensive damage and large regions of colonized space are simply unreachable. Direct subspace broadcasts are out of the question; they would reveal this system immediately as the primary staging ground. - Even with subspace radio silence, it is only a matter of time before the enemy finds this base, as pointed out earlier. We can only hope all convoys have reached us by then ... and that the project is finished on schedule. Once HemmoCruiser reaches operational capability we depart immediately towards the Rim. The screen now displayed a rotating schematic of the finished HemmoCruiser. - This concludes the general situation report. Department heads will be briefed at eleven hundred hours.

Chapter 3

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