Post by contributor on Mar 29, 2013 23:24:04 GMT -5
Revenge Is Sweet!
It seems like a lot of people end up with a real hatred of one faction or another. "They killed most of my early captains...They destroyed my favorite ship...They're a bunch of self-obsessed, fat-headed pigs..." but not me. For me there's one thing that I loath. It's about the only thing that's ever killed my best captains, the alien.
The first time I met an alien I was still playing on one of the more basic difficulty levels. I had this pilot that was unstoppable, but we were both starting to get a bit bored. Then I met it. "Oh a new ship type, cool! Oh, it's an alien, awesome. Eh, look at those stats and the level ??? Oh well this captain can take anything. "Battlestations!"" Turns out that captain couldn't do a thing. Couldn't change range. Couldn't hit it with torps, guns, or kitchen sinks. Couldn't hold off his boarders. I was dead in 6 or 7 turns. damn.
As I worked my way up the difficulty settings, I unlocked just about everything. I'd lose a captain here and there to aliens. A few times I went looking for them, nothing. I finally discovered I could run from a lot of them, but still every time I tried to fight it was the same abysmal result. My first pilot on insane was trying to unlock that reward for sticking with your starting ship for the first 20 levels. Somewhere around level 17 he met his first alien. I jammed retreat and got away unscathed. Damn that was close, but I wasn't out of the woods yet. I flew one AU and bumped into another one, a different type, a big, blue thing with claws and a hulking human-like face. The Bolllish Carrier landed a few torps on my tail-lights and then moved in for the kill. Back to level 1, damn.
I did finally unlock everything and then the only thing was to finally develop an alien killing captain. My first captain was off to a good start. I wasn't ready to actually go looking for a fight yet, when I ran into a level 14 Xrangg. He was actually a few levels below mine. I moved in and got my first victory over an alien. What a rush! Something went terribly wrong though. In the next four years I met 6 aliens. Three of which I killed, two of which I escaped, the last of which was a Bolllish Carrier. I hit retreat and he landed a few torps on me. My strategy had been to board but I'd lost too many crew in his torpedo barrage. We closed and I boarded, but I didn't have the men to mount a proper assault. Time to start over.
I took a break from playing a bit, lost my tablet and had to start over on unlocks. It was taking a long time to get a good captain started. I ended up flying a Pirate Doomcruiser, because I just had to get out of the Neutiquam Erro I started with, but didn't have much money. It was the first time I flew one of those and might not be the last. With the right upgrades she turned into a competent little gunning boarder.
I was still working my way through awards and hoping I'd be able turn this captain into a real alien killer when I got a new encounter. It felt like the same place as the last captain, cruising into Sernouaan Alpha from the east (is there some connection between the Bolllish and the planet Octolax?). It was big, blue and ugly, a level 29 Bolllish Carrier and me sitting at level 21. His ship outclassed mine in every regard, damn. But this time I wasn't waiting around for him to get a few torps in on me. I advanced while his first torp exploded 100 yards off the starboard bow.
I advanced again while my crew suited up for battle. What was that thing? We were about to see from the inside, but to this day I still can't say with any certainty whether that ship was a living creature or something else. We were doing well so far, no damage, but the real battle was about to begin.
The Shalun Mercenaries were the first shuttle to breach the Carrier, followed by some of the regular crew. Man did they give em hell. I've never been so proud in my damn life, but the cost was high. We did 38 damage spread between his engines and crew, but we lost 28 of our own men in that first charge, 40% of my ship. The details get a little hazy after that. We pressed the attack for little while but then pulled back to the Doomcruiser we barely had enough men to run the engines but we had done so much damage to theirs we were hoping we might be able to finish things off with guns. No luck. We could change range but there was no way to hit the thing.
I remember at that moment feeling the strong temptation to try to make a run for it. Why not get out with the crew, what's left of the ship and my own skin? It was one of those decisions that was made in an instant, and looking back on it, it couldn't have been any other way. I had neglected to notice that our sails were mostly shredded and at long range we would have been pounded by Bolllish torps until we were soft enough to be stuffed into a cocoon with their larva to be absorbed alive. No the only way out was to go back into the Carrier and finish what we started.
We were now outnumbered more than three to one, but we believed we'd gotten some good hits on their captain in the previous incursions. This time, I went in first, with my templar officer at my side. We nearly melted down our Leviathan canons cutting a path to their captain while the Military Officer took a squad back to their engines to finish what we started and keep their engine crew from interfering with what was happening on the bridge.
Sure enough, it was their captain who had been at the forefront of their earlier defense. He was personally responsible for the death of more than a few of my men, but he had paid for it. He was hurting bad, now he just had to pay his debt in full. As we arrived on their bridge, if you can call it that, the xenos broke from their usual swarming tactics. They seemed to know that this was between me and their captain. I passed my Leviathan to my templar and he handed me my blades. More than once I would be thankful that he kept his eagle eyes on the remaining xeno soldiers. They learned the hard way that attempting to interfere with the duel would see one of his shells shatter their backbone.
Even with his injuries the Bollish captain was a daunting opponent, twice my size, in his home environment and having lived in his weaponry from the day he was born. His blows came fast but were not well placed. He was trying to rattle me, force me to lose my nerve and miss a step, but I'd been preparing for this day since I took command from my father. The duel became frantic. I was landing a lot of blows but it was impossible to know what real damage they were doing to his xeno-biology. I was taking hits as well. He shattered one of my blades and drove the broken end into my forearm. A soldier whipped a spine in my thigh, before the templar cut him down.
Before long though it was clear who was going to win this battle. The Bollish captain was down to one arm now and it was moving slowly. The Military Officer made it back up to the bridge with the last remaining crew member as my blade pierced through the alien captain's neck. The point found it's way cleanly between two vertebrae and the beast's body went instantly limp. It was finished.
It's impossible to describe the emotions I felt at that moment. My ship was in ruins, 68 good men had died that day, I was going to need some strong medicine to recover, but nothing could have been sweeter than standing in that stinking carcass of a Bollish Carrier with the enemy captain laying dead at my feet.
