The Inner Sphere Graveyard

This was an idea that came to me out of the blue and in part from the nature of the Inner Sphere of Battletech.

Wrote a wee story to set the mood, with some good help from Dsherratt74 (hope I got the name right this time ) in the advising and editing stakes.

As I always emphasize, please check his work out whenever you can – fantastic creative soul.

[link]

The story:


….Devlin Stone had to see it all for himself. The paltry view ports and cameras did not do it justice. He has to see it as it is.

He took control of the exoskeleton in its sealed environmental shell to see it all for real. Even knowing the scale, this vastness still stunned him.

Standing on the side of the warship, he just could not believe what he was looking at. The scale of devastation just staggered his mind.

In his sight, lay the largest field of space debris he has ever seen. The sky was just full of wreckage, so much material, so many devastated star fairing ships he just looked on speechless. All tumbled in a silent perfect dance, their hulls if fortunate illuminated by the star giving those radiance to show off their death marks.

All these magnificent pieces of human engineering, all these works of experience, achievement, struggle, and advance were nothing more than spinning hulks of empty gutted metal shell. These vehicles, the backbone of the Inner Sphere, reduced to this.

It is an atrocity, he thought.

Once, even the merest dropship was precious to such a point that the manufacture of such ships was becoming a lost art. There was a belief that should they have been too scarce, the vain wars waged by the main five self indulgent factions may have ceased.

Then the Gray Death Legion found that memory core on Helm that unlocked all the secrets of the Star League’s great technology and suddenly everyone learned how to build and squander the knowledge of man for a cup of rice.

If that did not help matters, the return of Kerensky’s exiles in the form of the hideous Clans accelerated such matters; to this.

The Word of Blake was so utterly convinced in some stupid prophecy that would see the Star League reform and they would rise to prominence within its ranks. Devlin winced and shook his head at the notion. The idea of a prophecy is the foundation of primitive people who have no idea of science, education, self governance, or democracy.

For people who traverse the stars, who utilise advance technology, and are free to think, believed such nonsense on a scale that it would be laughable if the outcome was not so tragic.

The Word were livid that their dream was not going to be fulfilled the way they hoped, they had to make it come to pass by force. This is end result, he thought. They did not come off well from it. Then again very few, if any did.

All around him floated junk, just junk nothing more. Vast fields of wrecked ships, including vessels deemed “miles long” and “long lost” just useless hulks in space.
The planet they orbited also worthless now due to the stupidity of a man who selfishly regarded planets like property and thus scorched them so no one can have it.

He looked at the flotsam and wondered was it worth it? Really was it worth it? Billions dead, worlds ruined, ships in bits, technology lost, just to fulfil a stupid ‘prophecy’? He stood there staring out across the gulf of space towards it, a graveyard in the void…..


I have an attraction to dereliction, to abandonment, to worn, and I wanted to do a flotsam scene of dead ships. The contrasts of blue/grey of the metal of the ships to the orange and yellow of the stars, skies, and sheens makes this piece really rises and feel more woeful.

I also am pleased how the planet came out – hopefully ruined and desolate but with an atmosphere to show that this world once supported life.

Enjoy!