Sometimes twenty-twenty hindsight can be a real bitch, especially when it reveals that nothing you could have done would have changed your situation any. Without anyone to blame your problems on, you're forced to face reality, in this case, an ice covered, frozen wasteland of a reality. I am first lieutenant Kasan Moore of the Allied Girl Federation and chief recording officer of the Maiden's Fang, a mid class frigate made for interplanetary travel. During a routine battle simulation in the debris field located only six macro miles away from our home port, Orbit One, we were ambushed by a large cluster of meteor maws, basically space monsters with a rocky carapace to resemble meteors until you fly into a group of them, when they reveal their large maws big enough devour even large starships. It became quite obvious that they had blocked off any hope of returning to port, leaving us with the only alternative to cross the debris field and head to our next nearest port, Sister Seven, unless we wanted to become space monster chow. Crossing the debris field was not an easy task, when we weren't in danger of crashing into space debris, we were on the run from meteor maws or other giant space monsters intent on making us just another piece of space monster shit litering the debris field. Twice our frigate fell into the vile stomachs of the vicious space monsters, and only through the heroism of our brave girls did we survive those rather gruesome encounters. Needless to say, when we exited the debris field, our ship's hull was corroded in several areas and our shields were at thirty percent. Upon exiting the debris field, there was only thirty macro miles to Sister Seven, and we all breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the worse was behind us, back in the debris field. We were soon to learn just how wrong we really were.
As we passed several unnamed planets that lay closest to the debris field, we stopped in the shadow of a small planetoid in order to avoid burning out our main engines. Although antsy, we were glad to be out of the debris field, so many of us took this brief interlude to take up some much needed rest and relaxation, we were all kind of dishoveled after our close calls before. Our ships maintanance crew got to work repairing the systems of the ship critical for getting us to port, mostly the engines, although a few of them were asigned to try to redirect power to boost the functionality of our energy shielding in case we encountered any more space monsters. It had been only been roughly two hours when explosions rocked the ship and the emergency alarms kicked in, we were under fire! Although several of our ship's systems being powered down to conserve energy, our radar and detection equipment were not one of those systems. Nothing showed up on our sensors, but yet here we were, under attack from laser fire from an enemy ship. Someone on deck had just made the realization that it must be a cloaked ship when our assailant disengaged their cloaks and came in for the kill. The odd, semi spherical shape of the ship, looking almost like a compunet mouse, gave away our attackers identity, a pirate vessel of the Black Crescent clan. Some said they had followed us, others said they had layed in wait for us, while others say they had simply stumbled on to us, but regardless of the circumstance, what happened next was inevitable. With the shields disengaged for repair, it would take a good five minutes to get them rebooted, and by then, we would have been boarded. At almost three times the size of their ship, our captain gave the bravest orders of her career, she issued the order to retreat. We fired up the engines and blasted away from the planetoid, hoping to but our maintenance crew enough time to reboot the shields before we wound up as pirate shit. The nimble and speedy pirate cruiser was easily able to out run us, and with minimal weapon systems online, not one shot hit the enemy vessel. It didn't take them long before they had all but disabled our engines, and as we passed just over a frozen, inhospitable planet, a final, accurate shot sent an explosion through the rear of the ship as the engines went critcal. Rather than end up as sitting ducks for the pirates, however, the explosion propelled us to the surface of the planet, where we crash landed in a rocky area that tore up the hull of the ship.
Our initial analysis of our situation on the planet surface was grim, with our ship damaged beyond repair and almost the entire maintance crew blown off the ship from the explosion of the engines, their was little chance of getting off this rock. The collision with the planets surface further left us in a state of despair by destroying our ships computer, and with it, any capabilities we might have had to send out an SOS. What was left of our maintance crew gutted the few remaining working components of our ship to establish a perimeter, while scouting parties were sent out to elimate any nearby hostiles that might pose a threat to us. The rest of remained onboard the ship, freezing our butts off, and trying to take our minds of our hopeless situation. A few of the girls made love, but with the below freezing temperatures, most of us kept our clothes on and huddled together for warmth. One of the more resourceful girls, a weapons officer by the name of Julian Medina, took it upon herself to link up all the portable sensors not being used by the scouting parties in order to get a better readout of the surrounding areas. In a bout of irony, she was also the one to shout out that the enemy vessel must be cloaked just before they disengaged their cloaking field. Linking up the sensors was a brilliant idea, and we were able to get a readout of the surrounding by almost ten miles. It appeared that our landing (more like crashing) site was right in the center of a small patch of jagged, elevated terrain that was roughly about 3 square miles in area. Beyond that, bupkis, as the terrain was just frozen, snow covered plains. The jagged outcropping we had landed in was actually more like an above ground cave network, as we crashed through the ceiling and into a cluster of hollowed out cave tunnels. I think it was then, after seeing how brilliant Julian could be, that I first started falling for her.
A week since our crash landing on this barren, frozen rock and we had managed to establish some semblance of a base. Using the natural walls of the caves and removed portions of the ship, we had created a series of tunnels to serve as our living quarters. The initial scouting teams had only encountered minimal resistance in the way of local monsters, mainly frost cave worms and ice carpace beetles. Our metal doors that had been made using portions of our ships hull were holding against any attacks by the native denizens until extermination crews could be dispatched to take care of them. Even though the tunnels and caves kept us somewhat warmer than we would have been had we crashed in the wasteland, we were still met with a dire problem, rations were running low, and the crash left our greenage bay exposed to the harsh cold of the planet, quickly taking care of the delicate plantlife that we would otherwise harvest fruit from. If we didn't find a new source of food soon, our hunger would leave us delirious, and we would begin attacking and eating each other. With little alternative, we began sending out more scouting parties, establishing check points of several hundred feet to relay their communicators back to us. Although we knew that doing so would alert more of the native wildlife to our presence, there was no choice. Three days into our second week on the planet, our scouts made it out of the caves and into the harsh, bone chilling storms that frequent the planet. Most of the day the planet is under assault from terrifyingly strong blizzards, and at night, the visibility is reduced to zero, and the temperatures are so low that we must seek shelter or be left numb from the cold, insuring a quick, albeit warm, demise in the belly of one the monsters that inhabit the planet. Setting up corridors and passages, we quickly expand our base along the quickest route to the outside, to ensure our scouts maximum time to explore the planet. By the end of the third week, our food shortage has dropped from crisis to critical, surviving on the smaller ice carpace beetles when possible.
The situation doesn't change much by the start of our third month, and although disheartening, it seems like we might be able to forge a new life for ourself here on this frozen, barren world. Our scouts had encountered a couple of different varieties of plant life adapted to harshness of the planet, mostly predatory, but they had encountered a frost moss that grows on the underside of some rocks. Enough samples were brought back that we were able to grow the frost moss on several of the walls of the caverns, giving us a replenishable, albeit bitter tasting, source of food. Of the initial one hundred and fourty nine girls we had when crash landed, ten had been devoured while on scouting trips so far, and although tragic, the fact that so few had succumbed to such a hostile enviroment, and only when on scouting trips, left us with a guarded hope. It wasn't to last, however, as on the second week of the third month, Julian picked up a number of life forms approaching the opening of the cave wear we initially crash landed. Our guards stood at the ready, prepared to take out whatever this flying foe was that threatened our survival. If only we had realized by then that the inefficency of our blasters to the natives of this world were caused by their resistance to the cold, we could have recalibrated our weapons to work more efficently on them, but as no science officer had been dispatched on scouting missions due to the dangers, the scouts never realized that their blasters inefficency against the opponent could be fixed by such a simple solution. As the life signs closed in on the opening to the caverns, our troopers had their heavy blasters ready, and their energy pistols on standby, not expecting any close range combat, since the few turrets still operational had been lined up outside the ship, aimed at the open ceiling, ready to fire on all targets. There was only twenty four of whatever they were incoming, and the weather was in a rare calm between storms, we should have been able to wipe them out as they flew in through the open ceiling. We were so wrong.
Frosthag harpies, two dozen of them, circled over the outside of the cavern. So far, we had yet to see anything but carniplants and lesser beasts on this planet, so the presence of such a feared and loathed greater monster caught us by suprise. After a collective gasp, our troops began firing on the foul hags as the first few descended through the entrance. The laser fire caught them off guard, sending them quickly retreating to circle over the opening. Apparently they hadn't been expecting such high tech weaponary, but they weren't ready to retreat yet. Half a dozen of them flew through the opening, dodging as many of our shots as they could, but not phased by the hits they did take. They quickly spread out, flying under the rocky ceilings of the caverns, drawing our fire as more of them swooped in through the opening. By the time we realized their strategy, twelve had already made it into the cave, and began diving at our girls. At first their sharp talons and beaks did little to our well armored troopers, but they quickly realized that even our heavy weapons fire was causing only minimal damage. When the first two girls disappeard as squirming buldges into the harpies bellies, all fire was concentrated on them, leaving our troops open to more attacks. Three more had disappeared into the depths of the Frosthag harpies, and they quickly flew out and perched along the outside of the craggy rocks while more swooped in to replace them. As one of them swooped down and grabbed a girl in it's talons, our brave troopers concentrated our fire on the harpy, causing it to drop her. However, continuous fire had taken it's toll on the cave overhead, and a big portion of it collapsed, sending vicious stalgmites through the harpy's body and causing it to explode in a spray of ichor. The collapse, however, destroyed three of the four turrets, and trapped a number of our troops beneath the rubble, as well as extend the opening of the cavern. The one harpy killed by the collapse would be their only casualty, but as the battle raged on, every harpy was battling with buldging bellies, some of them with only sluggish movement within. That wasn't enough for them, however, as they swooped in for seconds, sending our girls scattering to avoid their open mouths and extended talons. By the time we realized that our energy sabers were working much more affectively on the harpies than our blasters, most of them had scarfed down their second girl, and some of them even had thirds. With our numbers dwindling, they retreated, three of our girls being carried in harpy talons to feed their hungers at a later time. Stunned by our overwhelming losses, most of the remaining troopers cried, and by night fall, the entire colony of us had learned of the awful news, fourty seven girls perished during the battle, while only one of the twenty three harpies had met a dire fate. All of us were stunned, how could two dozen harpies emerge unscathed while devouring a number of girls twice their own. Why had our blasters been so ineffective?
The next day, our scientists had figured out why our weapons were so ineffective, they were using a cold based type of energy. Simply rewiring the weapons would reverse the polarity to a heat based energy that would have insured a swift victory against the harpies. This news devasted us even more the intial losses, we could have easily have one that battle had we just made some minor ajustments to our energy weapons. Fourty seven girls died needlessly in the bowels of the fowl harpies because we had let such a simple problem go unchecked. The remaining troopers were the most bothered by this news, as had they had reported how ineffective their blasters had been against the native beasts, and how they had resorted to using beam saber weaponary against them, this tragedy could have been avoided. With only fifteen troopers left, the rest of the crew who lacked weaponary training were forced to recieve it, and higher officers would be forced into trooper duty now that our troopers were all but wiped out. Worse than that, with such a successful culling, it could be assured that the harpies would return, and in greater numbers. That attack came a week later, and since the initial attack, Julian had linked all of the portable sensors together, and with the few working devices that had been moved into the central chamber of the caverns as a make shift command center, our scanners range had been extended to nearly ten miles. When our scanners first picked up the incoming lifesigns, we had double checked to make sure the sensors were working properly, but it was quickly concluded that they were. From the speed and movement of the creatures, there could be no doubt that it was the Frosthag harpies, returning for another meal, but the sheer number of them put a knot in all our stomachs. Eighty seven harpies were headed our way, and even with the modified weaponary, the remaining girls were just not skilled enough yet with their blasters to be able to take on such numbers. With a heavy heart, our commander ordered the evacuation of the base.
The sub commander, who had argued back in space that we should simply attack the pirate vessel, once again rose to argument, wanting to just seal off the corridors leading to the wreckage. Without the proper tools or experts to handle such a task, however, the harpies would be able to make short work of any blockades we set up, and by then, would have circled around and trapped us within the caverns, picking us off at their leisure. Again, such an idea would have only led to us all becoming steaming piles of feces, but the sub commander continued to protest leaving the base. It was more than a little scary for the rest of us, the idea of leaving the relative safety our shelter had provided us, but we knew there was no other way. The harpies would be at our base in just under an hour and a half, and we needed to put as much distance between us and our base as possible, and hope the blizzards would kick up again and cover our tracks. It took fourty minutes to round up everyone at the entrance to the caves, and in that time, Julian had managed to set up a little suprise for the harpies when they entered the caverns to look for us. Several fire bombs had been rigged to go off when they broke through the third hatch, and hopefully enough of them would have made their way into the caves that the blast would eliminate most of them and send their survivors back to whatever foul rock they crawled out from under. I was falling more and more in love with her all the time.