Battle over Chrome II

The Battle over Chrome II was the battle that kicked off the efforts of the Joint Expedition Task Force (JETF), an exploration effort into deep space headed by RWI (Redwood Industries), CNL (Crazy North Logistics), and RCSP (Royal Coalition of Spatial Protection). The flagship of the JETF, the RWI Prometheus, was attacked and heavily damaged by a vessel of an unknown faction that appeared out of nowhere and bombarded the landing forces.

Interference
As the Prometheus entered the Chrome system, it began using its high-powered scanners to search the second planet for the previously-detected mysterious signal. Though it was detected again, the ship could not maintain a lock on it. Admiral Jack Roberts, the head of the expedition, and Captain Steven Dawson, the commanding officer of the Prometheus, and their second officers, Sam Reed and Michael Lynch, were informed by a bridge officer that something was deflecting their scans somehow, and that the lock on the signal had been lost. Another officer informed them that the Prometheus 's long-range comms were also down. At that moment, Dawson put the ship into tactical alert as a large ship appeared out of nowhere.

Roberts suggested a diplomatic approach and attempted to converse with the enemy ship's crew, but to no avail. Lynch detected an energy buildup from the ship, which then let loose a barrage of homing projectiles at the Prometheus. Though the shields held, they were weakened to nearly forty percent power. The FTL core had also been knocked offline, and other internal systems began to fail as well. Roberts ordered Blue Squadron, the attached V-203 wing led by his friend, Commander Craz of CNL, to scramble and strafe the enemy ship while Lynch made his way down to the engine room to help with the repairs.

The Landing Attempt
Another swarm of missiles hit the Prometheus. Roberts urged Dawson to authorize the launch of the expedition landing forces, and Dawson ordered the Prometheus 's few weapons to target the enemy warship and cover them. Roberts and Reed made their way down to the hangar bay, where they met with Lieutenant Commander Castle, a former member of Jack's old colony whom he had convinced to join RWI at some point over the previous year. Castle boarded the lander and the landing force launched. Four Pioneer-class landers and multiple dropships from all factions deployed from the Prometheus. Though the Prometheus drew much of the fire from the enemy ship, a few missiles targeted the expedition forces. Roberts' Pioneer lander was hit and he, Castle, and Reed crashed on the planet's surface. Meanwhile, the enemy ship retreated, leaving the Prometheus nearly helpless in orbit as its main reactors went offline. Several other landing ships and fighters had been hit or destroyed, including Craz, who crashed on the planet and met up with another downed pilot to make their way to the rendezvous point.

Ground Battle
Roberts and Reed awoke to their Pioneer lander crashed into the planet's surface. The Marauder-class Rover the ship was carrying was totaled, and most of the other crewmembers were killed upon landing, except for Castle. The three men soon spotted a strange towering structure atop a nearby mountain. As they made their way closer to the mountain, they came across a crashed Valkyrie-class Dropship and a lost crewmember, Lieutenant Collier, who joined the three in their trek toward the mountain. An unfamiliar gunship soon flew overhead in the direction of the mountain, and the four followed it.

The group soon came across a strange structure guarded by several foot soldiers, the gunship that flew over them earlier, and a mech walker. They engaged the enemy troops, and Castle used his new rocket launcher to to destroy the mech and the gunship. Once the facility was clear, they investigated the rooftop. The architecture was not familiar to any of them, and it looked too old and degraded to identify clearly. No clues were found in the destroyed vehicles or dead soldiers' uniforms either. As soon as it was clear, the group moved on.

Strange Discovery
As the team climbed the mountain and drew closer to the tower, they soon saw a second tower on another peak on the other side of the mountain. Castle broke down the doors of the first tower and the team entered cautiously, coming into a room with a strange chamber. They climbed into the chamber, Roberts activated the controls, and the team somehow teleported into an identical room, which turned out to be in the second tower. They emerged from the building and saw their crashed ships from afar, and soon made their way to a nearby radar station. Meanwhile, in orbit, the Prometheus was still undergoing dire repairs. Reactors were down and power was fluctuating across the vessel, but the scanners were almost ready again. Additionally, Commander Lynch was missing.

Battle for the Radar Station
As Roberts and his team secured the radar base, a salvaged Valkyrie dropship landed on a landing platform, and from it emerged Craz, his wingman, and Lieutenant Timedoctor, a special operative whom Craz and his wingman had rescued from his crashed shuttle from a gunship and several troopers, who also belonged to the mysterious faction. Time began searching through the base’s files for the signal they’d been tracking earlier, but the base soon came under attack by a carrier and it’s complement of gunships and soldiers. Roberts and his team fought well, and defended Time while he downloaded the files. With some help from Dawson and the Prometheus’s long-range Mark V torpedoes, the carrier was destroyed along with the enemy troops. The squad evacuated on the Valkyrie, escaping to a nearby outpost, though they were shot down by more gunships. That night, a group of soldiers investigated the carrier’s wreckage. A man named Archon reprimanded a soldier for their failure, who vowed to make up for it. Archon remarked that their capital ship would soon return.

Tracking Down the Signal
The crew defended themselves from the attacking enemies at the outpost. Roberts managed to contact the Prometheus and requested a resupply drop. The crew hijacked some rovers and drove to the supply drop pods, where they replenished their ammo, weaponry, and other supplies. At last, they came to another base, where they pinpointed the signal’s exact location. They hijacked a dropship that resembled a dragonfly, and took off towards an ancient city. Before they could land, however, they were intercepted by gunships and shot down. The team fought through waves of soldiers and shot down multiple gunships before making it to the base of the mountain, where they used another teleporter to infiltrate a building in the city, where they discovered more ancient technology.

Behind the Scenes

 * The Battle over Chrome II is the first battle of the series 'Space Engineers: Colony Alliances,' the fourth series in the Colony saga.
 * The events of the conflict take place over Colony Alliances Episodes 1-5.