CCP

 

“So much for the Communist Collusion that Bezos took up, and the free Market took him down, in a day.” /some policy wonk

 

Twenty years on,

 Until now, we had enjoyed peace and Commerce.  Established trade routes, Trillions of tons of Resources, Humans were on the Map! With such decentralised Governments as we had, the Free market blossomed like never before in History, with new colonies in the Asteroid belt, Ceres, Capernia and Hydra, new finds were being exploited on an almost weekly basis. Better still a consortium had cooked up a way to make cash, so we were on our way to the Gas giants, to explore and exploit, like the Explorers of old.

 

The Collapse

 Some of us managers knew, or had a feeling, so we were Coordinating, trying to figure out what would happen to us when the big A took a big Shit, most saw it coming. We knew it would happen fast, but our Government either didn’t know or didn’t care.I lost my job because I wouldn’t comply, but that’s how big things start. My name is Bob, call me Bobbio, most do, I used to manage a facility, short runs to the close asteroids, easy work, until the slowdown, as if they knew what was coming.  I organized a network of Managers and we created contingency plans, when when Amazon was hit, we just weren’t ready. 

   The Luna Facility was erased, and the only reason the Mars group was spared was because. Well, Mars. Once we knew the fleet was destroyed, we were become wanderers, with no home, or means of supply, we were dead. That’s when Elon stepped up. The scene at the Spaceport was intense, we had nowhere near enough ships to evacuate everyone, then the first SS landed, then  the Second, and a Third, The marines cordoned off the area with live fire, and the Fugees got out. On and on through the next month, Elon saved the Amazonians, and gave them their own stake in shipping, and so They became Uighur Shipping Inc. and we were doing well.

 

“They came from out of the Black, hundreds of what we thought to be God rods, but they were just rocks, all very precise, all very devastating, and we were fucked, to coin an old phrase”/railship gunner m.k.

 

 The attack on our Territories wasn’t direct at all, they hit us in a different way. By targeting the rocks in the path of our Colony rocks, they created an unavoidable debris field, not just knocking out our infrastructure, but our comm signals as well. Others weren’t as fortunate, the Amazon/CCP base was erased by one rock, they estimated it at 100 meters in diameter, a direct hit, there was no chance for them, if there ever was. Ceres suffered a glancing blow, with 100 Million dead, but they survived. As we picked up the pieces, TPTB were zeroing origin points, and the Railships were underway in a spherical defence sweep, but we still had no idea what we were after.

 

 With the rise and subsequent fall of Amazon, the CCP had a great foil, and covered their tracks well, they had railguns, we knew that, but for the last 2 decades they have laid low, operating from Luna and a few Asteroids, we considered them a non threat to us. As it has always been, the CCP is patient, and built its own networks, while still trading with the Sol System, biding their time as they have always done, waiting for the time to strike.

 

 It was the Gas Giant Consortium that did the heavy lifting, they spun their sensors around and provided targeting for our ships, then hit hi G and Out! Good enough for us, we began taking out fixed emplacements like fish in a barrel, then the first of our ships was vaporized. The fleet performed a split wing, and flanked what turned out to be 500 plus CCP ships; we had been ambushed! Intelligence had screwed the pooch again, so fight we did. The pickets were easy enough, but the Destroyers were having a field day with our Frigates, one Captain would comment, “there seems to be something wrong with our Shells, they can’t hit anything” His ship was subsequently destroyed.

 Once we completed the flanking maneuver, they were ours, you see, the CCP ships seem to make very slow turns, and ours were built for hi G turns, living in the Belt we build for that,

we hit their Engines and Ventral sections, most declared mayday! Some self-destructed, fair enough. A loss of 18 ships and 6k Souls on our side, against 300 ships lost, 200 taken as prizes, and who knows how many dead. We Sunned our dead, cleaned up and sent the former CCP home, you can’t take prisoners out here, and we actually hate bloodshed, Life is hard enough out here.

Life goes on..