Above the Aeridale Mountain Range, UTS, 15 FEB 2012: 1320



Vice Admiral Nathan Keller stood on the bridge of the guided missile cruiser Skyship Watcher, and he had a decision to make. Just two days ago, satellite photos had picked up a large fleet of Iyectan ships, assumed to be the main military fleet of the nation with which the Skylords were at war. To end this threat, Keller had initiated Operation Zeus, comprising thirty Sentinel-class missile cruiser airships, some two hundred Army SAM launchers and vehicles, countless Navy ships offshore, and twenty Air Force strategic bombers ready to fire their own missiles. In case any vessels survived this missile apocalypse, two whole Air Navy battle groups were arrayed behind his line of CGs, ready to finish off the survivors. To their knowledge, Iyecte had no idea of this massive armada arrayed against them, but something still felt wrong to Keller. The enemy ships were all huge, much larger than the biggest known Iyectan military vessels, and Keller was confident enough in Skylord military intelligence to know that Iyecte had no secret megaships in the works. The facts that there were only two identified military airships in the formation and that they had not moved at all over the past few days also nagged at his brain. The doubt could not have come at a worst time. At this very moment, captains of all of the missile cruisers, including his own flag captain, had their fingers poised over buttons to launch their entire payload, expectantly waiting for him. On the ground, young Army officers sitting in armored SAM vehicles and at launchers nervously clung to radios in one hand and a firing trigger in the other, firing solutions programmed to land directly in the heart of the Iyectan fleet. He bit his lip, his heart pounding as he thought. All of a sudden, something awakened deep inside him, as if it was a part of his very being, and it was like a switch had been flipped in his thought process.

These are our enemy, and we have them at their weakest. They’ve killed our civilians and devastated our ships. They’re no better than animals, not worthy of mercy. Something inside him was shocked at these thoughts, but it was overpowered by rage and a desire to act decisively.

“All ships,” he said into the force-wide radio. “Open fire.”

As the sky erupted into a cloud of rockets and the ship rocked from multiple launches, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Vice Admiral Nathan Keller thought he had saved the United Territories of the Skylords. Little did he know he had sown the very first seed of its destruction.



Southern Pacific Ocean, 22 MAY 2015: 1630



Lieutenant Cassius Augustinus leaned against the guardrail outside the bridge of his ship, the creatively named LCR 266. The Marcus Lurius-class littoral combat ship was near the tail end of a column of eight heading from Portus Julius in Rome to the tiny southern Pacific island nation of Alessia, which had requested them for evaluation. These were of the Aeneas variant of the ship, with a nuclear reactor, solar panels, and hydroelectric turbines powering electric motors that gave the small ships an almost unlimited range. Because this was an evaluation ship, there was only a skeleton crew on board­­–eight Romans and thirty Alessians–and no ammunition for the 57mm cannon that was the vessel’s primary armament. There were a few lockers of 5.56mm ammunition for Beretta AR160 Pilum rifles and a load of 20mm rounds for the Phalanx mounted above the hangar, but aside from that the ships were unarmed, as Alessia had some rounds they wanted to test out.

Cassius watched LCR 265 in front turn to keep in formation with LCR 260, the squadron leader. Behind them was LCR 267, which had been getting annoyingly close to his ship throughout the entire voyage. The vessels traveled in a loose column, not expecting major trouble. Their course required coming dangerously close to the national waters of the Imperial Territories of the Skylords, but Cassius had no fear. The ITS had been quiet after shocking the world in suddenly taking over its home continent in the South Pacific, and he had full confidence in the Roman navigators on both his ship and 260. Several key technologies, including the Navy’s GPS, had been omitted from this order of ships, partly out of secrecy and partly because Alessia had their own systems. Barring a massive unexpected problem, they had nothing to worry about.

He turned and entered the sparsely populated bridge, with only three other crewmen on deck. His Alessian XO, Dominic Yarra, leaned against his chair and cast a look at his CO.

“Anything out there?” Yarra asked. Cassius shrugged.

“Water,” he said. “Anything new from 260?”

“Nope. A weather dispatch came in though. It’s supposed to get pretty bad tonight, but no one sounded worried about it. We should be fine.”

Cassius nodded. Being designed for coastal waters, the Lurius class could only handle so much deep-water stress before the shallow draft ships were in danger. Ordinarily ships that would be in danger of a storm would receive an additional warning to change course, and as they did not receive any such warning, this storm was probably not too big. Nevertheless, he grabbed a microphone from the overhead and turned on the 1MC.

“All hands, rig for storm running,” he said ship-wide. Because of the small crew and light load it was a token order, but it gave him a sense of calm. They’d get through this, and in a few days he’d be on his way back to Rome.



Southern Pacific Ocean, 23 MAY 2015: 0015



What idiot thought a ship this small could cross an ocean? Cassius thought to himself as they crested yet another wave almost as tall as the ship. The huge storm had set upon them soon after sunset, and the tiny vessels were struggling just to stay afloat. He fought back another urge to vomit as the ship smashed back down, water splashing over the bridge windows. Yarra clung for dear life onto the back of the helmsman’s station, and the quartermaster in the aft of the bridge looked like he was about to lose his dinner all over the logbook. Cassius stumbled over to the starboard side of the bridge, catching the hatch and looking out the porthole just in time to see a large sharp bow fill his view, “267” painted on its side.

“HARD TO PORT!” he screamed as the looming hull crashed down, narrowly missing his ship. Out of breath, he watched as the ship bounded past his, frantically turning to starboard as they too tried to avoid a collision. Cassius threw himself to the center of the bridge as the ship yawed, grabbing the radio as he went. He stabbed several buttons and pressed the PTT.

“267, 266. That was us you just passed.” Almost as soon as he said it, a fleet-wide transmission came from the flagship.

“267, 260. Get back in formation.”

“260, 267. Our throttle is jammed and our computers got soaked in seawater. We’re stuck on ahead full, sir. Rudder is really sluggish too.” The exhaustion of 267’s commander was very obvious over the radio as he tried to regain control of his troubled vessel.

“Roger 267. 266, fall back and bring up the rear. 267, you’ll be taking 266’s place. Keep zig-zagging, bow thrusters, and anything else you can do to keep our course and speed and inform me of any additional problems.”

Cassius radioed his acknowledgment and turned to the helm.

“Helm, go to ahead three quarters and come sixty degrees starboard. Bring us slowly behind 267.”

“Ahead three quarters, sixty degrees starboard aye sir,” the helmsman dutifully responded. The ship slowed down and gradually got back into their loose column behind 267 even as waves and rain obscured the faint lights of the lead ships. To reward their quick actions, another wave crashed into 266, yawing the vessel almost horizontal before it came back up.


Southern Pacific Ocean, 23 MAY 2015: 0716


After several more hours of nauseating nautical beating, the storm was gone. 260 had ordered an all-stop, sending 265 to help out 267 as they tried to fix their broken ship while Cassius and 266 kept up the rear guard. Everyone was exhausted. As he sleepily watched 265 pull away from 267, Cassius jumped at the sound of the comm console chirping, this one from the CIC. He snatched it and put the phone to his ear.

“Bridge, CIC. Aerial contact at 118, altitude 100 meters, speed 200 kph. Distance 20 klicks and closing. No IFF, no idea what it is but it’s big, sir.”

“Roger that, CIC.” Cassius’s blood ran cold as a sneaking suspicion crept into his mind. He turned to helm.

“Get me a position, ASAP,” he ordered. Yarra gave him a quizzical look.

“Aye sir,” the helmsman acknowledged, pulling up a map on his console. While they had no GPS, the built-in navigation computer could pull up a rough guess of their course based on a variety of sensors all over the ship. In addition, the quartermaster had begun to check his course notes with a chart. As they worked, Cassius flipped on ship-to-ship.

“260, 266. Aerial radar contact at 118, altitude 100 meters, 20 klicks closing. Are you getting this?”

“266, 260. We see it too. Stand down, it hasn’t done anything yet.”

Before he could respond, the helmsman and quartermaster looked up from their work, horror in their eyes. Cassius nodded at them, and the quartermaster, a recent promotion to chief petty officer, responded.

“Sir, we’re 350 klicks from the ITS coast.” That was not good. While anywhere else they were simply in the Exclusive Economic Zone and not exclusively sovereign waters, the ITS had claimed their territorial waters out to the end of that region. Despite some outcry in the League of Nations, the claim did not affect most nations and was thus unofficially acknowledged. It should have been a non-issue, but now they were eight foreign combatant ships inside ITS-claimed waters. They had to get out of there fast.

“Aye aye, 260. My navigators just gave us a position at 350 klicks from the ITS, sir. Could you confirm?”

“Crap, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that 266,” the squadron commander said. “All ships, come to starboard 90 degrees and punch it.”

“260, 263. We’ve got a visual on that contact,” interrupted another ship. Cassius looked off to his left and saw it too, even if he did not know exactly what he was looking at.

It looked like a ship, visually similar to a guided missile destroyer, but it was flying. Stubby wings protruded from the hull, and as the ship banked slightly he could see rotors inside. Strips of light ran along the bottom of the vessel. What looked like gun barrels also stuck out from both sides of the aircraft. Two large engine nacelles were attached to the stern, belching out fire. The ship flared out as it closed with 260, which had stopped maneuvering.

“All ships, all stop. Don’t make a move,” 260 ordered over the fleet. “Let’s see what they want.”

Cassius stepped outside of the bridge and looked out over the scene. The airship was surprisingly quiet, with only a slight thumping of the four large rotors audible. The calm seas provided no additional noises. As he watched the ship hover over 260, it descended to just over the ocean. He watched several rigid-hull inflatable boats drop out of a hatch in the stern and split off, heading to each of the ships while a helicopter flew from the airship to 260. With a lump in his throat, he watched as one of the RHIBs motored up to his ship.

“All ships, 260. Let them come aboard, they’re only searching. Provide the nav logs and we should be all good.” Cassius sent back two PTT clicks in acknowledgement and switched to the 1MC again.

“All hands, CO. Assist the occupants of the incoming RHIB in anything they need. It’s an inspection boarding team.”

Several minutes later, he heard heavy footsteps stomp up the ladder to the bridge. The hatch opened to reveal four Kryptek Typhon-clad soldiers carrying G36CV rifles. Their gray-toned subdued flag patches showed a winged sword with a fractured Earth at the base of the blade, as if it was stabbed. Each soldier had his name and “ITS Marines” in white on the front of his LBT 6094 plate carrier, and one with the insignia of a staff sergeant stepped forward. His imposing stature and glare confirmed a theory Cassius had been formulating since his first day in the Navy; Marine senior NCOs are terrifying no matter the nationality. He knew enough Anglican to communicate decently with anyone from Britannia, Americata, Australia, or the ITS, and was confident he could talk his way out of trouble.

“Good morning, staff sergeant,” he said, painfully aware of his Latin accent. “What’s the matter?”

Fortunately this Marine understood the concept of a language barrier, and his words were slow but measured.

“What are you doing in Skylord waters? You’re Roman Navy, yes?”

Cassius nodded.

“Welcome aboard LCR 266. All of these ships are unarmed evaluation vehicles for Alessia.” He gestured at Yarra, who nodded at the Marine. “We are not commissioned, if that’s what you were wondering.”

“I don’t care about the ship right now, Lieutenant. Are you Roman Navy or not?” Unwilling to lose the calm and measured side of this NCO, Cassius chose his next words carefully.

“Yes, I am. Lieutenant Cassius Augustinus of the Imperial Roman Navy, formerly assigned to IRS Scipio. Myself and my crew will be returned to Rome once we turn these ships over to Alessia.”

The staff sergeant nodded, apparently satisfied. Suddenly more footsteps clamored up the ladder. A lance corporal poked his head onto the bridge, and Cassius’s heart skipped a beat when he saw what the man was carrying: a belt of .50 caliber ammunition for one of the three heavy machine guns onboard.

“Staff sarn’t, we found this along with some belts of 20 mike mike, 5.56, and 9 mil,” the man spoke quickly. It took Cassius a few seconds to decipher the shortening of “sergeant” the man had used. He tried to speak.

“Alessia doesn’t use these calibers but wanted to try them out, so we brought a small amount of ammunit…” The staff sergeant put up his hand and looked almost warmly at Cassius. It was more than a little worrying.

"That’s it?” the NCO asked, still looking at Cassius and Yarra.

“Yes staff sarn’t. Couldn’t find anything bigger. The ship’s pretty empty.”

The Marine smirked and nodded at the Roman and Alessian.

“Sounds good. Put that stuff back and head back to the boat. We’re done here. Good afternoon, gentlemen.” At that, he turned around and followed the lance corporal down the ladder. The three other Marines clamored after him.

Once the ITS boat had pulled away, Cassius let out a huge sigh of relief. Yarra leaned back in his chair, wiping sweat from his brow as the quartermaster and helmsman shared a relieved look. Cassius watched as the RHIBs were retrieved by the airship, which rose up about fifty feet and hovered in front of 260. It began to turn, as if to go away.

“So glad that’s over with,” Yarra said, still breathing heavily. He had been holding his breath for most of the time the Marines were on board.

“Now we can just get out of here. Good job, everyone,” Cassius said.

As if on cue, a massive explosion punctuated his sentence as one of the large-caliber guns on the side of the airship went off, sending a large shell straight into 260. The tiny LCS was not designed to engage most large combatants, and it split in half under the hit. A second later, both halves of the ship exploded. Before anyone else could react, the airship sent several more shells into 261, reducing that ship to burning wreckage slipping below the surface. Cassius watched in stunned horror as 262 met the same fate. The broadside finished, the airship paused. 263 had already begun frantically maneuvering around the sinking hulk of 262, sending a large wake as the ship went to full throttle. He watched as the ship passed under the hull of the airship, only to fall prey to the yet-unfired cannons on the other side. He grabbed the 1MC.

“ALL HANDS GENERAL QUARTERS!” he shouted, forgoing normal comm procedures. He turned to the bridge crew.

“Helm, come about and slowly go to ahead full. Get us out of here!”

“Come about, slow ahead full aye sir,” the helmsman answered dutifully. Cassius hoped that at least the airship would be busy enough with the remaining ships that they, at the very end of the formation and thus at the end of the line for destruction, might be able to slip away. As the ship slowly sped back up, a move he meant to make their departure as unnoticeable as possible, he got an idea. He switched to the 32MC, for weapons control.

“Fire control, bridge. How long until you can get the Phalanx up and running on manual control?” As he spoke, he saw Yarra break into a nervous yet sly grin.

“Bridge, fire control. I can get it up in twenty seconds.”

“Do it, fire on my command,” Cassius ordered. As fire control acknowledged, he watched 264 take several small-caliber hits from a deck-mounted turret, probably 5-inch, and sink. A series of sharp cracks rang out, and he watched as 265 put up the first resistance of the incredibly one-sided battle.

“266 and 267, 265. Get the hell out of here, we’ll do what we can to cover you.” 265 was firing its bow-mounted .50 caliber machine gun. While the weapon was devastating against buildings, small boats, vehicles, and people, it probably wasn’t doing anything against the armored airship, but it was a gesture the Skylords were probably not expecting. It didn’t last long though, as the main battery of the airship fired two shots into 265. The rounds went straight through, splitting the ship in two. Even while horrified, Cassius wanted to cheer at the sight of the gunner on the separated bow still shooting as his half of the ship slipped below the waves. By this point, 266 was almost completely turned while 267 was broadside to the airship, which crept predatorily towards the next in line. It pulled right up to 267, whose damaged rudder slowed its turning speed. Cassius watched three large caliber guns fire at point blank range right into 267. It was like the ship vanished; one moment it was frantically turning and throttling along on the calm sea, the next it was gone. A chill went up his spine as he realized that he was supposed to be in that position. The storm damage had done more to 267 than just provide a maintenance annoyance. With 260 through 265 and 267 now beneath the waves, his ship was the sole survivor, and could not be ignored any longer. Cassius stepped just outside the bridge to get the best vantage point, and waited until the airship was broadside to their stern. When it stopped turning, he grinned and grabbed the comm circuit.

“Fire!” he shouted, ducking back inside.

A heavy buzzing and vibrating filled the ship as the 20mm rotary cannon let loose with everything, strafing the airship. Cassius watched through a flight control camera, one of several around the helicopter hangar pointing aft to assist in landing and takeoff, as the airship’s side turned into a shower of sparks. Hundreds of rounds strafed the hull, deck turret, and superstructure, the fire control officer aiming for anything like radar or weapons. Several rounds must have hit something important; he saw several large flashes go off behind one of the heavy hull cannons, which slumped down. When the buzzing ended, the gun out of ammunition, he surveyed the damage they caused. Predictably, there wasn’t much. Even a 20mm was designed to shoot down missiles, not damage ships. Several radar antennae looked inoperable, and some red splotches on the superstructure suggested that they had hit more than just machinery. The airship turned until its bow faced the stern of 266, both ships in line with each other. Cassius suddenly heard yelling from the stern, and watched in shock and admiration as men both Roman and Alessian poured out onto the flight deck, armed with AR160s and even a few Beretta P4 Gladius 9mm pistols. They opened fire on the airship, which simply followed. If 20mm and .50 caliber did nothing, the 5.56 and 9mm firearms were even more useless, but it was the thought that counted in his mind. While Cassius watched in admiration, Yarra stared with true horror.

“Get them off of there!” he exclaimed. Cassius paused and realized exactly why Yarra was so shocked, but before he could get on the 1MC, the airship acted. Flashes came from the two guns on the bow turret as well as four ports in the bow, and neatly spaced explosions ran their way up the flight deck, shaking the ship. A large explosion on the deck below confirmed to him that the shells had made their way through the hangar and into the superstructure in front. The barrage didn’t end at the helicopter hangar, however, and the bridge crew was knocked to the deck as more explosions ripped along the entire top of LCR 266, working their way up to the very fore, taking out the 57mm turret and bow .50 before the airship relented.

Cassius picked himself up off of the deck, his ears ringing. A quick look around confirmed that the other crewmen were still alive, if hurt. The flight ops camera was destroyed, so he stumbled out onto the wing outside the bridge. The thin roof intended to protect watch standers from weather was gone, and he could see a line of craters all along the vessel. The Phalanx and mast were gone, and sparks and shattered glass suggested that the solar panels were gone too. While he could barely see the flight deck, the shattered deck did not offer much hope for the men who had been fighting valiantly, if in vain, on it earlier. The airship hovered just behind. Cassius noticed that they were still moving, so he switched on the 2MC to engineering.

“Powerplant, bridge. Damage report.”

“Shaken up but everything’s fine, sir,” his chief engineer reported. “No shells got in here, if that’s what you’re worried about. We can keep up this speed just fine.”

Cassius allowed himself a small fist-bump with Yarra. He also heard more sharp pops from astern, and peeking over gave another triumphant grin. The watch deck below the flight deck, only a small slit in the hull a few meters below the flight deck, had two .50 caliber machine guns, and was apparently untouched enough that some crewmen had been able to get to them.

At least we won’t go down without a fight, he thought.

It was then that he noticed the airship’s very slight turn to port. It had been turning for the entire time, and Cassius noticed something right behind the main superstructure. It looked like an old fire control director, except it had two very large missiles on the sides. And it was pointing at them.

Just as Cassius turned around to order a turn, one of the rockets launched. It covered the distance between the two ships in milliseconds and dove straight into the flight deck, penetrating all the way to engineering on the bottommost deck before exploding. As LCR 266 was torn apart, Cassius was catapulted into the water from the bridge wing. He landed head first, flipping over underwater and making his way to the surface just in time to see what was left of his ship start to sink. After the missile exploded, it split 266’s hull in two and physically threw the fore superstructure forward. Both halves burned as they sank, and he noticed with sadness that the two machine gunners in the stern did not survive to keep shooting as that half of the ship went down. Within seconds, it was like the entire fleet had never existed. He clung to a piece of floating wreckage and scanned the infuriatingly calm seas for survivors. A hand rose out of the water and grabbed his wreckage, revealing Yarra, who spat water out as he gasped for air. Cassius spotted the helmsman treading water next to a few personnel from the CIC, but could not find the quartermaster. Yarra noticed his gaze.

“QMC went down after saving helm,” he said solemnly. Cassius slammed his fist against the wreckage.

The survivors of LCR 266 watched as the Skylord airship hovered over several other sinking sites, sending and retrieving RHIBs before moving onto the next one. Eventually it hovered over them, a weird humming from the light strips now audible. As the RHIB approached them, Cassius saw at the bow none other than the staff sergeant who had boarded them. It came alongside them, and he was grabbed and pulled aboard. Despite weak protests, as he felt ashamed to have survived the destruction of his ship, he accepted his life. The RHIB picked up the remaining survivors, seven total, and was retrieved by the airship. Cassius limply allowed himself to be carried off of the boat and forced into a circle in the large cargo bay alongside other survivors.

For Lieutenant Cassius Augustinus and the other survivors of the attack, their role in the war of Earth was brief and cut short. The ITS used the incident, in which “armed warships of Rome” violated their territorial waters, to declare war on the Roman Empire. Rome’s allies, just as affronted as the Empire, declared war back, and within hours of the incident, the world was at war. The survivors missed so many actions, from the initial humiliating defeats of Koro Sea and Sydney to the close defeat of a combined Roman, Americati, Shogunate, and Britannian amphibious fleet at Black Reef to the actual Coalition victories of Colorado Springs and Atlantic Sky, but in the end, the ITS’s sheer power with their Air Navy and space presence brought every major power to its knees one by one. The Shogunate fell first, followed by Western Americata. Britannia threw all of its forces at expelling ITS armies from the Germanic Federation, and failing miserably, was forced to surrender. Carthage, Persia, Russia, China, the Pan-Persian State, the Gaelic Liberation Army, the Glory of Byzantium Front and the Islamic Caliphate each attempted to side with the ITS, and all were backstabbed eventually. Two months after the Southern Pacific incident, the last Americati forces surrendered in their stronghold in Phoenix, and two weeks later the last Roman legion was wiped out after 1,000 legionaries held onto their tiny Greek island, the last vestige of Roman territory even after the official imperial surrender, to the last man for three weeks against continual ITS assault totaling 25,000 troops and almost 50 ships. Cassius was forced to watch as the Imperial Territories of the Skylords grew to control the entire world, ruling it all under an iron fist. Almost as soon as the war ended, however, he had heard talk in his prison camp that things might change very soon.