Immortality Beckons

Author: xCUSx

Original post: https://forums-archive.eveonline.com/message/2157958#post2157958

Author's note: I've written a bit of eve fiction before, mainly for my corp and previous corps. Writing up battle reports, corp ops and all the usual stuff, but I wanted to try something a bit different for the EON comp. Flicking through the EVE Chronicles and assorted fluff I was inspired by a couple of sentences in the story of the Caldari/Gallente Breakout chronicle. The paragraph concerning Admiral Tovil-Toba's hopeless attack on Gallente Prime caught my attention as being worthy of a short story, and the fact that this was Pre-Capsuleer would make a nice change to my regular fiction.

Entry for the YC114 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the Eight Thousand Suns in New Eden category.

Organized chaos encompassed the bridge of Admiral Yakiya Tovil-Toba's flagship carrier. Red warning strobes cast hellish silhouettes across the steel bulkheads, reducing the commotion to a ghastly series of still life images, like the crazed scribblings of a blacklisted artist Toba mused. Punishing fire from the Gallente orbital defences was pounding his shields, the vast ship rumbling as it soaked up the rain of plasma. The Admiral took in the chaos, his experienced eyes picking out the vital details and ignoring the flashing hellscape around him. A glance to his left showed him the status of his fighter wings, the glowing map screens ordered by squadron name, weapon and fuel status, and casualties sustained. To his right engineering officers moved with a calm precision, rerouteing power to various systems, all the while keeping his shields energised against the incoming firestorm. Even a glance however was enough to confirm to the Admiral that they could only last so much longer.

Ahead the main exterior viewers brought Gallente Prime into focus. Light swirls of white cloud barely obscured vast cities, twinkling like jewels against the emerald green land masses. On any other day, and viewed by any other man it would have been considered beautiful, a beacon of light and culture against the inky void of space. However Tovil-Toba was not one of those men. Anger boiled under his cool exterior as he looked down on the homeworld of his enemy. Satisfaction filled his heart as one of the larger cities burned under the onslaught of his proud fighter pilots, the one man craft scything past the lumbering planetary defence fleet to strafe the planet below. The Admiral couldn't feel anything but indifference for the inhabitants as their homes burned around them. Tovil-Toba himself had been part of the fleet guarding Caldari Prime when the Gallenteans had arrived. The shame of leaving his planet to die burned hot within him. He knew the images would never leave him. He had led the fleet to safety as the first of the colossal bombardment platforms had opened up on his homeworld, sending incandescent spears of burning plasma into the planet, burning off the cloud cover with their intensity, and annihilating the the innocents below. The bombardment fleet was driven off by the skill and courage of the Caldari fighter pilots, but the defenders knew the vast armada would return again, and soon.

This was his great moment, his great time to make amends. Forget this new generation, capsuleers they were being called. Deathless soldiers waging an eternal war. Immortality beckoned, it was said. Where then was the glory and the magnificence? The honour of giving that one great gift to the State and dying in glorious battle? "Deathless," Admiral Tovil-Toba muttered under his breath. "They can keep it. Immortality however..."

He had taken this fleet, this rag-tag array of ships at the merest gesture of approval from the State War Council. It was a fools errand, doomed to failure before it began, but desperate times called for drastic actions. Entering the fringes of the Gallente system, the fleet had scattered, attacking almost wildly. Strafing orbital warehouses, attacking merchant shipping, bouncing between moons and mounting daring hit and run attacks on Gallente control towers. All the apparent chaos designed to lure the bulk of the Gallente fleet from their precious homeworld, scattering them across the system. For a whole week they had been running amok, playing cat and mouse with the Gallente fleet, but regrouped now for this, the final act. A handful of battleships, and Tovil-Toba's carrier, the Magnificent, attacking the Gallente homeworld in what would appear to be an act of crass retaliation. In truth, it was an act of desperation. Back on Caldari Prime, a vast fleet of ships were trying furiously to evacuate the remaining population, taking them to safety while the Admiral tried to keep the Gallente fleet pinned down. Hoping against hope that the Gallente would take the bait the Magnificent and her escorts had finally landed in the high orbital reaches of Gallente Prime, blasting apart several defence vessels before the foe could react. Here and now, this was the final act. The Caldari State would be independent, and this would be the hammer blow that secured her freedom.

A proximity alert brought the Admiral back to the present, drawing his attention to the tactical displays. A Navigation officer cancelled the alarm as the tac-maps showed a friendly battleship moving in across the port bow. With vast tears in its armour and venting its internal atmosphere, the vessel's huge railguns were still loading and firing as it passed within a few kilometres of the flagship. The firepower of the few remaining battleships was hammering one of the infamous bombardment vessels, their erratic orbits saving them from the worst, but clearly none would survive this day. Pinpoint railgun fire was punching clean holes through hull plating, explosive decompression finishing the job, blasting clear vast chunks of the enormous weapon platform's hull. Tovil-Toba watched on an exterior monitor, willing them on, desperate to see one of the hated planet killers go down before his brave men and women were vanquished. His hands clutching the edge of the map table, Tovil-Toba turned to his squadron commander. "Redirect two wings to engage that damn platform." he ordered brusquely. The officer saluted quickly, busying himself with a communications console.

Railguns punished the platform relentlessly as the Magnificent's fighters added to the carnage, sweeping low over its hull to blast at vulnerable weapon and communication systems. With a cheer that echoed though the armoured bridge the behemoth came apart, the colossal wreckage wrapped in the flames of its own escaping atmosphere. Slapping a gloved hand on the edge of the map table, the Admiral called to a nearby comms rating. "My compliments to the fleet. Vengeance for Caldari Prime. Send it."

A violent jolt shook the deck, knocking several bustling ratings to the floor. The main viewport flashed static for a second before returning an image of the enemy homeworld. Tovil-Toba staggered, catching the arm of the captain's chair to hold himself upright as his tactical officer called to him from across the bridge. "Admiral, scans show the Gallente fleet has arrived in orbit," he reported quickly. "Multiple target locks detected from the enemy capitals." Plasma fire flickered and blistered through the fleet. The battleships tried to evade, running erratic low orbit courses, making sharp directional changes and suddenly reversing thrust but to no avail. Within moments the mighty vessels succumbed. The first ship's hull blew out in a storm of shrapnel moments before the second detonated, the incoming fire rupturing its magazine. The third began to drop quickly into the inexorable grip of Gallente Prime's atmosphere, its thrusters crippled. Admiral Tovil-Toba pulled himself to his feet, straightening his uniform jacket and adjusting his lapels. With a grim smile, brushing his long greatcoat over his knees, he sat down in the captain's chair. Watching the mangled wreckage of his fleet drifting amid the ruins of their colossal prey for a moment, he felt the that final moment he had longed for approaching. This was it. Immortality.

Titanic impacts rocked the ship as the Magnificent's shields finally collapsed. A flood of reports reached the Admiral's ears from all over the armoured bridge. “Deflection amplifiers are offline sir!” “Main capacitor arrays dry sir, shield boosters are offline!” “Hull breaches detected across the ship sir, heavy damage to the forward hangar bays!” Tovil-Toba stood unsteadily, unbuttoning his heavy coat and pulling a silver hipflask from within. "Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure and an honour" he shouted over the tumult, raising the flask in salute. The assembled crew turned to face him, faces resolute, the Admiral's sense of destiny washing over them. "One final act my brothers, one final gesture so great that our hated foes will forever tremble in its memory!" The officers stood proud, the violent rocking of the hull not able to move them as the monstrous Gallente firepower punished the crippled carrier, pushing it lower in to the upper reaches of the planet's atmosphere. Admiral Tovil-Toba took a breath, preparing his final orders. "Engineering!" he called, as the main viewports showed a vast city climbing over the low horizon. The two engineering officers took a pace forward, backs ramrod straight and saluting with parade ground sharpness. "Aye sir?" they chorused. "Primary thrust to full!" he ordered, taking a swig of stinging spirits from his hipflask. "Aye aye sir!"

Ablaze from prow to stern, shuddering under a rain of plasma fire the Magnificent and her crew began their final descent in to immortality.