Imperium 29 - Conclusion

The year after the Alkari perished, the galactic war was over. Kikitik's last stand came at her last developed world: The Gaia of Dunatis that had been a toxic dustball once upon a time.

35 Zeon bases were not nearly enough against 479 Spike bombers and their payloads of thousands of Anti-Matter and Omega bombs - least of all with a Roar in the system to break down all the bases' armor at once. The colony was destroyed along with its bases, instantaneously. In the meantime, the Klackons had rebuilt three more tiny desperation colonies...

...but the Sakkra were prepared for that eventuality. The reign of Kikitik ended along with all her Klackon minions. The galaxy was ruled by dragon-spawn alone.

RBO-29 cackled, breathing fire, flexing his powerful wings. "I have won!" he declared to all who would listen, living or dead. "All my enemies, all who could or would resist me, have been destroyed!"

The earth of the Hoard world shook, faintly.

A voice was heard from far away.

"Ten million, thirteen thousand, and forty two ... Ten million, thirteen thousand, and forty-three! Ten million, thirteen thousand, and forty-three BC! That's far more than we had in 2500! And if you combine our treasury levels from 2400 and 2500, you get ten million, one hundred, twenty six, plus ten million, four thousand, five hundred ninety seven: That's...

Twenty Million, Four Thousand, Seven Hundred and Twenty Three!!!

...WONDERFUL!!!!! Now, what has the dragon been doing to prepare for this crisis he said was imminent?" And as the Count of Sesame emerged from the treasury, in a suit of neutronium powered armor with a personal barrier shield, a massive rifle slung over his shoulder, and carrying a flaming plasma sword, thunder rolled across the Hoard world in memory of the very first Really Big One he had slain.

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Back to the Front Page

Imperium 29 - Radio Silence

In 2533, a minor Klackon fleet (only 33 Ranger cruisers, 11 Dragoon twin-plasma boats, and - inexplicably - a few hundred Sabre nuclear missile fighters) was slaughtered at the one-time Darlok homeworld, and Sakkra propulsion engineers developed a high-energy focus that would ensure true space superiority if it ever was deployed. The Klackons had a brand-new cruiser design known as the Avenger, but a Sakkra battle fleet would scan one the following year in the course of an attempt, at long, long last, to take Maalor. Klackon technology had advanced to the point of an overwhelming lead over everyone else in the galaxy, but surely a well-designed Sakkra fleet could overcome even their latest hardware ... or so RBO-29 reasoned.

So opened the year 2534, in which the Sakkra encountered a starship so devastatingly powerful that to have a hope of destroying even one, they would need to rebuild their entire fleet. Within moments of their arrival, the entire starfleet sent to meet it had been destroyed entirely.

Fortunately for RBO-29, the starship in question would not leave the planet it guarded, and was the only one of its type in existence, built not by Klackons but by the Ancients of the half-forgotten past. The fleet it destroyed was a single fighter-class starship with long-range tanks, whose loss the Sakkra barely noticed. As for the new Klackon design, the Avenger was certainly dangerous, particularly because of its proton torpedoes, impossible to dodge even for Sakkra fleets, but their fighters and bombers were up to the task of winning Maalor's orbit anyway - and so the troops rolled in.

The first wave of invaders failed: Though Klackon deflector shields were outmatched by the Sakkra absorption shielding, the bugs had traded in their tritanium exoskeletons for massive suits of neutronium powered armor fitted with jump jets for autonomous flight. Their fusion rifles still outclassed the best weaponry available to the Sakkra, though the new ion rifles helped somewhat, and tritanium armor was still a long way away for Sakkra science. It was therefore fortunate for RBO-29 that his spies managed to lift it the very next year, from the Alkari, setting his construction engineers' sights on powered armor to match the bugs'. Perhaps in response, Skylord dissolved their alliance - though he claimed it was because of a cry that rang out for new star systems - but RBO-29's concentration was elsewhere at first: In 2537, two years after the first, his second wave arrived at Maalor, outnumbering the defenders by more than four to one.

A double-strength planetary shield, the Proton Torpedoes that made the Avenger so dangerous, Class VII Deflectors, and some outdated but miniaturization-improving junk were lifted from the Maalor labs by reverse-engineering experts. The Sakkra had reached the point of galactic dominance, and nothing left in the galaxy could stop them.

Beta Ceti lost 22 bases in the Klackon attack the next year, but had 38 to spare as Sakkra spies struck in Alkari space once more and returned with Andrium armor. Alkari fleets in orbit over Sakkra stars, and then the transports that were sent as soon as the alliance was disolved, were wiped out as an afterthought while RBO-29 concentrated on Klackon worlds. Ukko fell in 2542, yielding the secrets of powered armor and armored exoskeletons at once, along with designs for the Zeon missiles into whose teeth the Sakkra bombers had flown since dodging was impossible. Proteus fell the following year, yielding class 6 robotic controls, warp dissipator blueprints, a mark 7 battle computer, and outmoded irridium fuel. By then, the final Sakkra war designs were ready to hit the field.

The Doom 4.0s were misnamed by some flunky whom RBO-29 devoured: They were of course warp 6 starships like the rest. The Finality bombers got their name because they carried Omega bombs, but of course the Spike 6.0s were still more deadly. The Firestorm 6 was to be the last word in space superiority since the galaxy at that point could hardly stand up to RBO-29 for long. Some 16 would be completed before the end.

The Sakkra cut a swath across the entire galaxy. Even a fleet of 32000+ Knight cruisers couldn't stop them. The Sakkra ships dodged five clouds of infinite Stinger missiles, and in spite of their uncountable tachyon beams, the Knights retreated before the Roars could demonstrate what an Ionic Stream Projector could do to them, given time, when shielded behind a repulsor beam. Class 100 Terraforming ensured the Sakkra could not be defeated in the upcoming galactic election, but RBO-29 was not content. Kikitik admitted, "We can no longer sustain this horrible war," and RBO-29 leered as he said, "I know," and grinned. Skylord announced that he would "cure the galaxy of the Sakkra madness" ... and the death fleets came for him. A Sakkra spy lifted outdated construction tech from the Klackons as a warm-up, then nabbed their state-of-the-art Mark VIII Battle Computer in 2548, shortly after his own techniques were improved by discoveries incidental to Sakkra computer scientists' new ECM Jammer - a mark 7.

More peace offers were rejected. More Spikes soared through the skies, taking the place of the ones that met Zeon missiles head-on and died. No longer bothering with conquest, the Sakkra fleet razed enemy colonies to the ground: Enemy votes lost were more important than Sakkra votes gained. Then, just as a redundant Hercular missile design was completed by Sakkra weapons engineers, right on schedule, in 2550, a galaxy-wide transmission poured out from the Orion system.

It called for no Council. Instead, the GNN droid reported the end of the Alkari people. The galaxy was reduced to a battle between the once-invincible Klackons and the Sakkra who had in turn become more invincible still.

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Next: Conclusion

Imperium 29 - Communications Breakdown

Nordia and Darrian had been lost (again!) to overwhelming attack forces, but were re-established in 2517, along with the rich Kulthos colony over which three alien factions had been fighting a war. Sakkra forces meanwhile moved in on the Mrrshan world of Klystron and captured it easily, along with a total of zero factories. Rigel, already re-established with a pair of missile bases, destroyed an Alkari deep-probing fleet in 2519, but Nordia and Darrian were then lost yet again under a rain of Mrrshan Omega bombs and Stingers. Raids and counter-raids continued endlessly, forcing Sakkra colonists to turn around new-founded and new-conquered worlds with mind-bending speed.

Seven years after its capture, the one-time Darlok homeworld had its shield in place and no less than 16 missile bases. A larger Mrrshan attack force might have overwhelmed even that, but it was not to be ... and the Sakkra were preparing their next move to take on the galaxy. The Klackons and Alkari were already congratulating them on their successful Mrrshan battles (apparently, these somehow proved the honor in their words of peace) when the Sakkra received a Meklar declaration of open war, and with a newly-designed ion rifle for their troops and a newly-rebuilt (again) Darrian colony, RBO-29's people set out to ensure the safety of all their worlds in that corner of the galaxy.

Darrian would be glassed one final time in 2523, but that was the year as well that the fortified cat world of Gienah and the Meklar homeworld itself fell to invading Sakkra troops. A flood of new technology, including deadly Scatter Pack VIIs, set RBO-29 on a course toward the conquest of the galaxy. Two years later, after taking Escalon from the Mrrshans, rejecting a Klackon alliance but forging one with the Alkari, and taking Darrian and Misha from the Meklar people, netting class 6 shields, no-longer-advanced terraforming, and the designs for anti-matter torpedoes and a graviton beam, the Sakkra held 18 worlds and a High Council veto. As the usual transmission crossed the stars from still-hidden Orion, they prepared to name their dragon emperor High Master of the galaxy.

And found that they would fall two votes short. The only thing for it was to gain a greater proportion of the galaxy's population ... at the expense of their enemies.

The following year, they took Nordia, and the Meklar were no more. The year after, a Sakkra colony was built at Fierias - which an Alkari fleet had bombed to glass after Sakkra forces destroyed its defenses - and conquered the final Mrrshan colony, at Keeta.

The last of the Mrrshans died. The end was coming.

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Next: Radio Silence

Imperium 29 - Taking Offense?

The Mrrshans had declared war on RBO-29 again, just moments after voting for him in the High Council meeting, demonstrating that the insects had no monopoly on insanity. The Meklar likewise had angry words for their Sakkra neighbors, even reporting that their trade agreement was broken - although, upon further review, it turned out that actually it wasn't - the Klackons remained capable of declaring war at any moment if they tuned in to the wrong radio station, and so the threats to the Sakkra empire were by no means ended. In 2504, a Mrrshan assault fleet blasted Nordia into oblivion ... but the Sakkra were able to answer, thanks to their new range technology.

Darrian became a Sakkra world in 2505, though their ground forces barely scratched out the victory. Meanwhile, Sakkra spies at Misha snatched an old Meklar shield design, and RBO-29's top physicists came up with an Ion Stream Projector, a device that he hoped might have a prayer of dealing with the insects' temporal-fugue fleets. It would not of course come in time to deal with the latest incoming offering from the Klackon cold war machine.

Missiles carried by the hundred-plus Knight and Ranger cruisers could penetrate Sakkra bases, as could their Tachyon beams ... and the hundreds of Dragoon destroyers carried twin Plasma Cannons - still more devastating weaponry. Mrrshan attacks were repelled at Darrian and Galos - the latter had built a shield and thirteen missile bases with sheer Sakkra lizard-power, not even taking time out to assemble factories - but when the Klackon fleet hit Rigel, the jungle world was burned to ashes beneath the relentless fire of their beams. Imra was to be the next Klackon victim - the very next year, under the fire of an even larger number of Knights, Rangers, and Dragoons - but the absence of the outdated neutron fighters left Sakkra repulsor and ISP ships with more room to maneuver, and the tide began to turn. Missile fire (useless against Sakkra ships that could dodge around even Pulsons) wiped out all the planet's bases, but the colony survived, and the Klackon ships did not.

As further industrial technology rolled in, opening a path toward Klackonesque Tritanium armor, plans went into motion to expand Sakkra power still more. Rigel was re-founded in 2513 with the destruction of another Klackon fleet (after destroying more Mrrshan invaders all over the galaxy) and RBO-29 made his move on his long-time Darlok enemies.

The bases at Narzina's homeworld fell to a bomber fleet while a well-armed repulsor cruiser handled the ships in orbit. The following year, with the conveniently-timed completion of designs for a personal absorption shield, ground forces took the planet.

The Darloks were no more, and for the first time in their history, the Sakkra actually managed, upon conquering an alien planet, to recover some of its builders' technology!

Death spores would never be used, and radiation controls for colony bases were no longer needed, but every improvement to planetology would help with Sakkra productivity, and it was always good, in RBO-29's opinion, to have another class - Mark 4 in this case - of battle computer.

Count Refsalot would not doubt have been horrified by the act of xenocide, but RBO-29 had found a way to deal with him: Insisting at the height of his people's danger that his hoard of gold was being kept aside for the ultimate emergency, and that it might come soon to hand, he told the Count of Sesame that he trusted no one else to catalog it and ensure that it all was there, ready to be spent in defense of the galaxy. Count Refsalot had been kept busy tallying the money for years on end, with no contact with anything beyond the treasury.

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Next: Communications Breakdown

Imperium 29 - Flying High?

In 2481, the Sakkra planted RBO-29's flag - for the third or fourth time - on the surface of Galos IV, thereby putting him back in touch with Narzina and Skylord, at least briefly. He took advantage of the opportunity to trade an auto-repair system to the Darloks for a neutron blaster - which became the first Sakkra beam weapon since lasers that could be built with a heavy mount. At the same time, he traded basic waste reduction techniques to Skylord for massively outdated controlled barren environment tech ... and made another deal of far greater importance with the Alkari.

Megabolt cannons, acquired for atmospheric terraforming, would finally give Sakkra beam ships significant punch ... and a hope of hitting agile fighters, such as those used by the Klackons and - ironically - the Alkari themselves. Of course, they couldn't be used in time to protect Galos itself from an incoming Alkari fleet: It arrived two years later, just as Sakkra scientists discovered means of cutting their factory waste in half and improving the miniaturization of their fleets. Other defenders were in place, but might as well have saved their energy.

This image (from two years later, since the WarEagle and colony ships weren't present with the original fleet) should offer some idea of what the colony was up against. Unlike the Klackons', this fleet included little in the way of beam ships (though the WarEagle itself was quite deadly) - meaning that the fleet could be chased away without too-numerous losses in space ... though not of course before the colony was razed to the glassy surface. The net result - after also killing a Darlok colony fleet - was that the Sakkra people rebuilt the place yet again in 2486, leading - thanks to their year-old Advanced Space Scanners - to a nearly-complete picture of the galaxy.

By this time, events were beginning to turn RBO-29's way. Miamar offered unconditional peace in 2487, and then agreed to an immediate trade agreement ... and the exchange of her anti-matter bomb designs for advanced soil enrichment technology. The following year, Reajax II fuel cells opened every star within nine parsecs of Sakkra worlds to their fleets ... and opened the way to research into Ion Drives that would one day enable travel at warp 6. A major Meklar death fleet - five battleships and over thirty cruisers - was somehow repelled from Galos, and a couple of minor trades were capped by a major one with the Klackons: The latest Sakkra reduced waste technology for a Mark VI battle computer from the insect laboratories. With the completion of the Sakkra planetologists' Complete Eco Restoration project, work began on a universal antidote in 2497, and by 2500, work was nearly complete on advanced force field and weapons technologies. Of course, the other alien races didn't take the Sakkra lightly.

In spite of yet more bombers with built-in maneuverability - 366 anti-matter bomb racks graced the Darlok fleet that reached Nordia in 2500, the spud world just recently re-established as a Sakkra colony - Sakkra repulsor ships managed to hold the line and save the system successfully. Right on schedule, the Orion transmission station began another High Council meeting, but that was as inconclusive as all those that came before, leaving RBO-29 to glory in his ten-planet empire...

...and his treasury of 10,004,597 BC!

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Next: Taking Offense?

Imperium 29 - Losing Ground

The Klackon war raged on, and the Sakkra did everything in their power to survive. Desperate to improve their defense fleets, they learned to build inertial stabilizers from MS-35 even though the cost was the secret of atmospheric terraforming. They raised ten merculite bases at their fertile colony of Rigel along with over 750 fighters in time to intercept the next Klackon fleet. It showed up in 2460, and all the assembled defenses would be needed.

Hundreds of twin-fusion bombers roared into the sky, supported by over a thousand fighters, each mounting a real (non-laser) weapon ... and a fleet of missile cruisers with a payload of 1,855 Stingers. The missile cruisers were quicker to fire than any of the defending forces, and all the bombers and hundreds of the fighters used actual combat speed. The bases fell, one and all. Fighters burned in the sky, endlessly. The bombers could barely be scratched before they dropped their deadly payload, and though nearly all the enemy fighters died, all but a handful of the Sakkra fighters burned with them, together with every missile base on the planet's surface. 358 factories went up in flames, and no less than 79 million Sakkra died - nearly two thirds of the planet's population - under a relentless hail of stingers and fusion bombs from above. The planet held - just barely - but another fleet was on the way ... and another was bound for Anraq, in its glowing nebula, where no shielding, even on a planet's surface, could be sustained. The Klackons came in, thousands strong, with agile fighters and bombers such as RBO-29 himself might almost have designed. (A slightly different choice of weapons on the fighters, less armor in favor of more maneuverability if possible, computers, or - thanks to cheaper costs - ships ... and they'd pretty much be there.)

In desperation, the dragon traded technology to his friends in the galaxy for such devices as might conceivably aid his cause.

The greatest hope was for ships built with Mrrshan-designed auto-repair systems, acquired in exchange for atmospheric terraforming technology, but the Dragon took whatever he could get that might miniaturize his ships, improve his defenses, or increase his people's productivity. Scatter Pack Rockets devised by the Alkari were acquired for the latest improved industrial construction techniques, as were outdated robotic controls from the Darloks (to help with spying and computer miniaturization, even a little bit). Atmospheric terraforming went to the Darloks as well for enhanced ecological restoration techniques - and the Sakkra themselves developed Stinger missiles even as they traded their old Merculite designs and atmospheric terraforming to the Alkari, for an old battle computer and the plans for an anti-matter bomb. They taught Miamar their oldest terraforming techniques in exchange for outdated duralloy armor, just to miniaturize their fleets ... the year before she again declared war on them. Sakkra scientists came up with advanced soil enrichment techniques as much to help their colonies' meat shields breed more quickly as for any other reason. They built defenses of every kind they could ... and still the Klackons flooded into Sakkra space with invincible bomber fleets.

The dragon had his ruined colonies rebuilt only to see them turned to glass again, often in the course of a space battle. Anraq twice, the back-line world of Rigel, the reach colony of Galos, again and again, in the central galaxy, and Imra - not for the first time, though the first since it became so heavily defended - burned out in blazes of terrible glory. Growl cruisers, fitted with auto-repair nanites, patrolled the skies, but even they couldn't stand up to the largest fighter fleets, nor kill enough bombers soon enough to keep hundreds from reaching planetary bases, and Sakkra production centers were too desperately needed for present defense to think of completing even a single full-sized battleship. Klackon colonies were built on the ruins of Sakkra cities, reduced to cinders themselves by the lone Sakkra bomber fleet, and replaced anew by tiny Sakkra colonies where fully-developed worlds once had been. Perhaps in time the Growls and bombers might have begun to turn the tide, but the danger was immense, and it was not put to the test.

After enormous losses of ships and population on both sides, in 2473, Kikitik approached RBO-29 with an offer of peace. And for the first time in galactic history, in spite of its being proposed by another, the dragon accepted cleanly. He immediately began trading for desperately-needed technology - Atmospheric Terraforming and Advanced Soil Enrichment, heedless of the benefit that both would provide the insects, thinking only of worlds already made gaiian that would one day be his, for an advanced ECM Jammer to improve his computing power, his spies' hacking ability, and his planets' hope of survival in the face of bombs and missile volleys ... and the object of his greatest desire: A deep-space repulsor beam. The Darloks too eventually received scatter pack rockets for an older variety of ECM, because war with the Klackons was sure to resume, later if not sooner ... and another war was still ongoing, and being taken very seriously. The year after another transmission from Orion opened a new High Council meeting (as inconclusive as ever) Iranha was attacked by a massive Mrrshan fleet.

Shown here in composite with the Leopard cruiser and Cheetah destroyers (thankfully, none of those designs were present) discovered by a scanner ship in Mrrshan space the year before, Miamar's highly maneuverable and (of course) incredibly accurate battle fleet carried 229 Omega-V bomb racks mounting ten apiece, and 164 Stinger missile launchers - the payload was two apiece, but Sakkra scanners couldn't even depict them before the first set had already been launched! Even with their new ECM and a Terror 4.0 repulsor cruiser in place, the planet lost all eight of the missile bases it had managed to finish by then, some forty million Sakkra, and all of its factories. And four years later, seeking to expand, the Meklar announced that their non-aggression pact was voided.

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Next: Flying High?

Imperium 29 - Butting Heads

Though peace had been made with the Klackons, no one on RBO-29's council had any illusions that it would last; nor had the dragon himself forgotten his right - in his own eyes - to the nearby Klackon colonies at Exis and Maalor. Though his star fleets could do nothing at either star, not all of his agents were so helpless, and in 2441, a chameleon-like dragonspawn penetrated to one of the Exis weapons labs and came away with means - perhaps - of creating a wedge at those worlds for the fleet.

RBO-29 kept the news to himself, but continued to implement Count Refsalot's plans, including one for the peaceful acquisition of Iranha: A colony ship prepared for just that purpose when a Meklar fleet was detected, moving in, waited at Reticuli as the Meklar glassed the world, and then raced in to establish a new Sakkra colony just as the machine-fleet departed.

The acquisition was peaceful, yes. But it was well understood that keeping the world would not be easy.

All available Sakkra ships, and countless more as yet unbuilt, were ordered to defend the world from Klackon transports and at least four - four so far - Klackon and Mrrshan fleets. It was hoped that one or even both of the Mrrshan starfleets would honor the recent peace treaty ... but as it was no longer fresh in the Mrrshan memory, and more time still would pass before they arrived, the hope was by no means guaranteed. Indeed, in 2449, the larger, trailing Mrrshan attack fleet - a Puma dreadnought, three Warcat cruisers, and an armed colony ship - demonstrated that the period of peace had expired. It was well for RBO-29 that he did not trust to words of peace; over 700 Sakkra fighters faced them down, and saved the planet - from starfleets and transports alike - by main force of NPGs.

Suitably impressed, when Orion's next transmission burst forth across the deeps of space, calling forth the galactic High Council, the Meklar, Mrrshan, and Alkari emperors voted that RBO-29 deserved the title of High Master - to rule over the whole of the galaxy! The Sakkra vote would be enough to push him over the top: To establish the New Republic, with himself as its permanent chief executive. Count Refsalot cheered and congratulated him, and declared their work complete.

RBO-29 said, "Oh ... but don't you think Kikitik is so much more deserving?" With an evil grin, he cast his votes against himself, and when the High Council dissolved, inconclusive yet again, he turned to his cabinet with eyes aflame. "High Master am I? Is that what they want me to be? When I don't even have a veto on Council proceedings? They mock at me! I don't want an empty title; I want all the galaxy!" And he grinned a grin of unabated greed.

With a hopeful look, Refsalot suggested, "At least you'll have pleased Kikitik, and diplomacy should go more smoothly."

The dragon rolled its fiery eyes. "That loony insect? Pah! She's as likely to attack us as not no matter what we do!"

Two years later, as if to prove his point, she declared war on him. His scientists taught Miamar their latest industrial tech improvements in exchange for a new battle computer - the Mrrshan-designed Mark III - and his people prepared to defend themselves as best they could ... and incidentally to take Galos by storm from the Darlok people, rejecting peace with Narzina when their troops were en route, but requesting and receiving it once the star system was theirs.

(Note: Click the map above for a much larger, true-scale map of the galaxy.)

Even Count Refsalot had to approve that course: The 'Loks might otherwise never have granted peace, and if a deal had been made with the transports still on the way, it would only have been shattered on their arrival. As well, Galos brought the Sakkra into contact with Skylord, the expansionist xenophobe who ruled the Alkari. Sadly for RBO-29 however, he made a grave mistake, establishing a large trade agreement with the bird people while under the misapprehension that he had even the slightest hope of holding the Galos colony. Perhaps he believed the Iranha fleet would be able to move down when that star had other defenses in place ... but if so, he was mistaken. Two thirds of the entire Sakkra star force was lost at Iranha the very next year before it could take out the latest Klackon attack fleet.

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Next: Losing Ground

Imperium 29 - Communicating?

As a new century dawned, RBO-29 found himself with a new temporary problem.

One year after the Council transmission from Orion, while Sakkra forces were defending Imra and preparing to invade the world of Iranha II, where they could expect as usual to be hopelessly outclassed by Klackon ground forces, Miamar set her Mrrshan Hegemony against the Sakkra in all-out war. Sadly for Miamar however, declaring war and prosecuting it are not always equally easy.

When the Meklar people conquered her Nordia colony, she found that none of her ships could reach Sakkra space any longer, nor could their fleets reach her worlds. She could only sit and stew and prosecute her other existing wars, while the Sakkra continued their energetic defense of stars like Anraq from the Klackons and sent more transports to their doom. Having failed to learn their lesson at Maalor, they refrained from bombing Iranha in much the same manner, still hoping to capture intact factories. Instead, as at Maalor, they only lost their efforts, as a missile base was built in time to render their efforts there hopeless. So, resigned, RBO-29 at last took Count Refsalot's advice and offered peace to Kikitik. The Klackon queen's eyes glowed blue with pleasure as she agreed - not only to peace, but to a trade package worth some 80 BC.

The Mrrshans continued to fight and claw their way back toward Sakkra space, always to lose once more any ground that they gained, re-establishing contact again only to lose it in 2409 and again in 2416. In the meantime, RBO-29 tried to follow Count Refsalot's peaceful policies, researching Terraforming +40 technology in 2410 and looking ahead toward the means of establishing breathable atmospheres even over hostile worlds. Two years later, the first Improved Space Scanner was installed at Hoard Sentry Station, and scientists started work on a project to double the 2300 efficiency ratings of their factories' robotic controls. Nearly every other technological field was ripe for completion as well when Narzina decided to follow Miamar's example...

...in every foolhardy detail. They declared war in 2420 only to lose the single world that gave them contact with the Sakkra two years afterward - even as Merculite Missiles, leading the way toward still more-advanced Stingers, finally gave Sakkra missile bases a reason to be built. What those bases could possibly do to help if the Klackons again declared war, of course, was better left unexplored. The insectoids not only possessed more advanced technology in every field than their Sakkra counterparts, not only had the largest population, the most worlds under their control, and by far the highest production figures in the galaxy, but had somehow developed the secrets of the dread Temporal Fugue! At the once-Darlok star of Galos, a Klackon battle fleet sat in orbit, demonstrating this terrifying ability: Slipping back and forth through time, they were able to appear in virtually infinite numbers by returning their future selves to the present indefinitely, even as time-limited scanners, observing more of them blink out in time-slips than had ever arrived in the system, broke down and reported them as negative entities!

The Sakkra had just developed Zortium armor and were seeking to improve their industrial technology, but it was hard to believe that armor of any kind could protect against such a deadly ploy as this. The Klackons didn't even need it to take control - the latest faction to do so - of the once-Mrrshan Nordia colony.

Still Sakkra science carried on, bringing home the secrets first of fusion drives and then of planetary shielding, just as another transmission filled the galaxy's spacewaves, right on schedule, from Orion. The High Council met once more, and once more decided nothing. And of course over the course of the next two years, the Mrrshans and Darloks, who had briefly retaken Nordia and Galos, saw their worlds turned to glass by monster Klackon fleets, and lost touch again with the Sakkra empire. In fact, it was in an attempt to slip in and try to hold Nordia for himself that RBO-29 discovered the nature of Mrrshan armament.

Bearing in mind that heavy blast cannons - to say nothing of stinger missiles and omega bombs - were capable of penetrating then-current Sakkra planetary shielding, observing that the latest Mrrshan fleet at Nordia did not include a colony ship, and that the fleet therefore couldn't - yet - be dispatched to his colonies, the dragon decided to count his blessings.

The year was then 2429, and ten years later, after discovering atmospheric terraforming technology, improvements to Sakkra robotic controls, and a more-efficient means of building factories, on Count Refsalot's advice, RBO-29 took advantage of another fleeting period of contact with the Mrrshans to sign an official peace. (Three years later, the fleeting period ended, as Nordia was conquered by the Klackons yet again.)

It would not be long before the Sakkra people saw starfleets that would prove more deadly still.

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Next: Butting Heads

Imperium 29 - Back to Back

Wave after wave of Sakkra invaders fought to retake Beta Ceti ... and failed. Battle after battle was fought in the skies of Anraq; spores fell, and Sakkra perished by the million, by the ten million, but still the Sakkra navy held on and killed or repulsed the enemy, preventing them from sending their deadly transports. Sakkra transports finally arrived at Imra and Beta Ceti together in 2393 in overwhelming numbers, only to witness Klackon ground troops marching to the field in massive armored exoskeletons, individual war machines that made the Sakkra battle suits seem in comparison like cardboard uniforms. Reports came in of combat losses of at least six to one. Imra could not be captured until 2394, when a fleet of transports nine times as numerous as the Klackon defenders arrived to claim the toxic world - deemed too strategically important, due to its proximity to the Hoard world, to be left under insect control. It was then that Count Refsalot noticed an opportunity created by increasingly strong relations with MS-35. Stretched to the limits of his strength by the ongoing Klackon war, even RBO-29 leapt to make the proposal.

With a non-agression pact established along the Meklar front, RBO-29 turned still more of his energy toward prosecuting the Klackon war. When reports came back from the 2395 invasion of Beta Ceti that Sakkra lives were lost against the defenders at a rate of ten to one, when the GNN newsdroid reported that the Sakkra toiled in last place in advanced technology thanks to their crippling war - while the Klackons, in spite of the same war, were number one - when Kikitik proposed a peace agreement, even offering an incentive to accept, RBO-29 raved, "Never! Never while Beta Ceti is in their hands! ... Or their pincers, or whatever those things are."

When Klackon ships couldn't spore Anraq, they took out factories with their spies - five went up in flames in the year 2397 - but the dragon was unmoved. He had sent more than two hundred new transports to Beta Ceti, each carrying a million combat-hardened Sakkra, dressed in their feeble battle suits with their faint deflector fields, carrying their meager hand lasers - prepared to fight; prepared to die. The first wave struck in 2399, outnumbering the defenders five to one, with a second wave on its way, not many years behind. Laser fire lanced out across the planet's night side; fusion blasts rocked the foundations of the hills. Exoskeletons collapsed and spun out of control, their joints split open behind their overloaded shields. Battle suits exploded, and melted into gleaming slag. Walls and hillsides crumbled. The earth rumbled and shook as deep-buried underground bunkers collapsed from within. As dawn touched the sky at last, and Beta Ceti rose in splendor over the horizon of its third world, smoke and fire rose from the ruins of the Klackon colony - smoke and dragon fire. The Sakkra at last controlled the planet and its star. Kikitik acknowledged the grim reality, and called RBO-29 once more, proposing peace at last, even offering concessions ... and the dragon answered, "No! I shall take Maalor from you ... although how, I don't quite know. I want your worlds; I want them all!" Greed burned green in his fiery eyes. When he looked upon the next leader to greet him, it burned there still.

Empress Miamar of the Mrrshan hegemony had come to power over her race through the ruthless wielding of sheer military might. She took control of the Nordia system, her seventh star, just within communications range of Beta Ceti, by the same means. She had no interest in trade agreements - only with war and victory. While RBO-9 was re-establishing a trade package with Narzina of the Darloks though, he did persuade Miamar to accept an industrial improvement in exchange for specialized dead-world environmental controls. His reasoning for the offer was that it would improve his workers' production slightly and make colony ships for certain worlds easier to build ... and, his greed shining bright and grim in his eyes, that the more and faster the Mrrshans built factories for him, the more would be ready and waiting when his invasions arrived at her worlds.

That done, and Rigel defended against yet another Klackon fleet, the leaders of the galaxy convened their third High Council meeting as the carrier transmission reached them from Orion once again. It was again indecisive, and so the dragon returned to his cavern palace, to revel in his possessions ... and plan to acquire more.

Proud as he was of his seven planets - none with bases yet, since missile bases at then-current Sakkra technological levels would be protected with shields made of wax paper and firing pea guns at best - his true joy was in his cold, hard cash: The hoard he had gathered over the millenia, adding to it every century since the beginning of his memory, so vast it could only be counted in billions of galactic credits, already totalling Ten million, one hundred and twenty six BC!

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Next: Communicating?

Imperium 29 - Not Speaking

The Klackon war - which Count Refsalot called, "This unspeakable exercise in self-destructive folly" - did not go well. At Imra, as RBO-29 cheerfully reported afterward, the third time was the charm, but not before technologically superior Klackon forces, dug in to fortified positions, inflicted casualties to the tune of three to one.

Following an inconclusive council vote and an agreement to MS-35's proposed trade package increase, RBO-29 started plotting his next move in the war. He successfully defended Imra from a small colony fleet as his scientists developed Neutron Pellet Guns, leading the way toward Merculite Missile technology, but lacked the force he needed to resist an incoming fleet at a much more important target: Beyond the coreward nebula, the Hoard-like terran world of Beta Ceti III! And when another force arrived at Imra, though only one of the aptly-named Avenger cruisers survived to retreat...

...most of his fighters perished, and they could not save the colony. Clearly, RBO-9 decided, better tools were necessary. He taught Darlok engineers to build his new NPGs in exchange for their plans for a deep space scanner, to better equip his spies and spot the movement of enemy fleets, but this new technology could do little to stop the Klackon menace. The very next year, at Anraq, he discovered the hard way that both Klackon destroyer designs carried spores. And - still smarting from the losses he'd taken at Imra - he learned the hard way at Beta Ceti that their ground forces had been equipped with new, even shinier toys.

The Klackon empire had acquired their twelfth star systems over the corpses of the Sakkra at Beta Ceti. Invasion after invasion failed at the Klackon world of Maalor, and by 2381, failure to recognize the danger of Imra's proximity led to a deadly threat...

...as the bugs dropped a small payload of death spores into the skies of the Hoard world itself! An emergency meeting of RBO-29's inmost council was convened; even Count Refsalot was invited again, and contributed as well as he could in the face of the enormous threat. An emergency fighter fleet was able to fight off the spore ships the following year, but the battle was by no means over, either above the Hoard or at Beta Ceti ... where the Sakkra finally reestablished control of the planetary orbit, with dozens of transports coming in. And finally, for once, the Sakkra ground forces would be able to use some new toys.

Battle Suits were developed in 2382, with Zortium Armor planned for use in future wars. Personal Deflector Shields would be ready by the following year, with planetary shields on the horizon. Another assault fleet was repelled at the Hoard world, but not before half of the planet's population had been destroyed by bombs and spores. So many fighters had died in the planet's defense that more than three fourths of the incoming Klackon transports landed safely on the planet's surface, and buildings crumbled as their foundations were shaken by fusion rifle bursts. Even the soldiers' shielded titanium battle suits couldn't stand up to those fusion blasts for long - the bugs' shielded duralloy suits held up far better against Sakkra laser fire. RBO-29 himself joined the battle, sending gouts of fire across the landscape, and Count Refsalot acted as field general, contributing as well with precision fire from his regulation blaster and even leading charges with a hand-made laser sword. When the dust settled over the Hoard world, amid screaming ambulance sirens, the Sakkra had won the battle - but not the war.

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Next: Back to Back

Imperium 29 - Working Out Differences

For perhaps the first half-century of RBO-29's rule, nearly all his policies were informed by Count Refsalot's advice and counsel. Their thinking did strongly diverge however, and after numerous grumbling arguments, the rapport (such as it was) between dragon and dragon-slayer began to break down in the middle of the 24th century. Terraforming techniques developed into a project to protect life on toxic worlds naturally, but when the latest industrial improvements suggested means of designing specialized battle suits, Refsalot lobbied in vain to pursue further infrastructure development instead. He grudgingly agreed that the battle suits were quicker to develop and that neither alternatives would provide an enormous boost over what the empire could do already, but any boost was good, he argued - and "what do we want with battle suits anyway?"

RBO-29 responded grumpily, "We'll need them. The bugs are crazy. Just you wait."

Of course, there were some things on which they did agree.

Even as new Defense Department R&D projects started working toward ECM, advanced shields, and gatling lasers, the shipyards turned out their first WingedEgg colony ship: The first to carry long-range fuel tanks in the empire. Count Refsalot remarked that the timing might have been better, as nuclear engines would have sped the ship's deployment considerably, but the first functioning prototype - the Ssithis Fission Drive still on display at the Reticuli Museum of Science and Industry - was still two years from completion, following numerous setbacks in its development.

Four years after the Ssithis Drive was successfully tested, RBO-29 devoured the computer engineers responsible for informing him that - with an ECM Jammer completed - the only project they could devise with which to move forward was an improvement to the same Jamming device. Their timing might have been better: He would probably have been in a much better mood after hearing of the Beta Ceti colony founded later the same year. The news would only get better as Refsalot and RBO-29 remained - for the moment - on more or less the same page.

After the development of double-power deflectors led toward research into a basic personal shield, and toxic environmental controls opened up the chance to double their terraforming abilities, Sakkra scientists moved on from gatling lasers to work on a delightful little weapons system known as the NPG, even as other Sakkra scientists made the most startling discovery to that time in their history: It was possible to communicate with Klackons - at least, with a few of their scientists - and they were willing to trade the secrets of 5-parsec Deuterium fuel cells for Sakkra waste-scrubbing techniques! (RBO-29 insisted that the means of reduced waste production be given them rather than cleanup techniques, as the least effective of the two and the one the bugs' construction skills made them most likely to supercede.)

By the following year, the new range tech was already bearing fruit: It put the Sakkra people in touch with two new races, each (slightly) less insane than the buggies! MS-35 ruled a compact but no-doubt powerful Meklar empire, Narzina held sway over the equally condensed but likely-to-be-annoying Darloks, and each was able to overcome its native xenophobia (to say nothing of militaristic tendencies) long enough to agree to establish significant trade with Beta Ceti.

The diplomatic scene was heating up rapidly. Just three years later, when the Sakkra claimed the rich world of Maalor, a new transmission burst forth across the galaxy from its mysterious "Orion" origin, linking the leaders of every space-faring race in a galactic council meeting! Though none was chosen that day, the council was appointed to select a ruler for the whole of the galaxy, and was scheduled to meet once more just seven years later, and again thereafter, every 25 years. RBO-29 murmured darkly, "Well, this can't be a good thing."

With a sanguine smile, Refsalot said, "It will be if you win."

The dragon slitted its fiery eyes, but said nothing ... and perhaps it knew something that Refsalot didn't. The following year, before a just-completed Sakkra defensive fleet of laser fighters could arrive, the Klackons - who had sent a colony fleet of their own - took control of Maalor's orbit and launched a wave of combat transports from their nearest world. Sakkra reinforcements had to travel through the rimward nebula or cross enormous distances, and would surely come too late. Nevertheless, RBO-29 did what he could, beginning by working closely with Darlok scientists.

Hand lasers wouldn't save the barely-inhabited colony from the incoming transports, but they might help when the Sakkra transports already en route to reclaim it from its new Klackon masters. Out-of-date Darlok terraforming techniques were another matter, but at least they would help other Sakkra worlds produce things a very little bit faster. It was the best the Darloks were willing to do to help, and RBO-29 was willing to take anything; in exchange, he increased their ships' effective range and taught them to improve their factory-construction techniques. The following year, the Sakkra defense fleet - still too small to deal with the all the incoming Klackon transports - dismantled the bug people's orbiting fleet. The year after that, knowing the bugs would not take lightly to his upcoming "invasion" of Maalor, he decided to make it a clean sweep ... and sent transports to the new Klackon world of Imra.

Count Refsalot raged. Any attempt to invade Imra would be totally irresponsible, he argued. It was bad enough that there would be a battle at Maalor; the Sakkra people were not prepared to fight a war with the overwhelmingly powerful insects, and while the Maalor invasion might fail if not supported, perhaps leaving room for peace, a dedicated effort to capture Imra would inevitably....

His words fell upon deaf ears ... which was unfortunate, as they were prophetic.

The first invasion of Imra failed, so RBO-29 sent another ... and just one year before the second High Council election, Sakkra transports invaded two Klackon worlds ... and were slaughtered ... and instigated a declaration of war.

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Next: Not Speaking