Field Dispatches
Intelligence reports from the frontier. Intercepted transmissions, field observations, and classified briefings from across the Outer Line.
What Is The Outer Line
And what these posts are about
The Outer Line is a tactical space RTS set in 2149. You are a military commander on the Outer Line, a chain of Gravity Wells at the edge of explored territory where three human factions are competing for resources and strategic position. Nobody has declared war. Everyone is fighting one. Your facti...
Beyond the Line
Dispatches from the edge of mapped space
The first thing you notice about the Outer Line is the silence. Not literal silence. There's always noise on a ship. The air recyclers, the hum of th...
Iron and Rust
An Orion Industrial League story
Mara Solis had been awake for nineteen hours when the number three coolant pump on the Draga decided to seize. She heard it before the diagnostic fla...
Standard Procedure
A United Solar Federation story
Commander Yen had read the Outer Line Operations Manual three times before his transfer came through. The document was four hundred and twelve pages l...
The Shipyard Walks
Life aboard the biggest ship you've never seen
The thing about the Anvil is that you can walk for twenty minutes in a straight line and still be inside her. Davi Okonkwo knew this because he timed...
Efficient Frontier
A Nexus Energy Compact story
The numbers were beautiful until they weren't. Analyst First Class Serin Halak watched the engagement unfold on her tactical display from the Combat...
Ghosts in the Deep
A United Solar Federation story
The stabilization counter read five seconds when the first contact appeared on sensors. Lieutenant Kira Vasic had been watching the counter since the...
The Gravity Well
Twelve hours on patrol in the most crowded place you'll never leave
Asha Merin knew every rock in Gravity Well Kessler's Drift by shape. The big one near the northern approach, the one the crew called the Fist because...
Bleed Rate
The arithmetic of losing slowly
Tomás Garza had been staring at the logistics display for eleven minutes. He knew it was eleven because the timestamp on the last update was still vis...
First Jump
Sol system, 2127
The charge coil assembly hummed at a frequency Sara Okonkwo had never heard in a simulation. She'd spent fourteen months listening to models of what...
No Flag, No Country
A Riftborn story
The wreck was a League destroyer, or had been. Jossa Pell could tell from the hull plating before the Vael's sensors finished their sweep. ORI ships...
Holding Ground
A United Solar Federation story
Commander Aldric Wren stood at the observation gallery of the Military Station and looked at what he'd built. Gravity Well Copernican Yard spread bef...
The Kill Box
A Nexus Energy Compact story
Admiral Lian Qoro had eight ships and thirty seconds to decide which three would die. The ORI fleet came through the dust field at 0347, eleven conta...
Old Hands
An Orion Industrial League story
The number three coolant pump on the Draga was new. Mara Solis noticed it every time the engine room hummed to life, a clean note where the old rasp u...
The Relay
A United Solar Federation story
Petty Officer Tomasz Bek had been staring at the same screen for six hours when the first contact appeared. He almost missed it. The sensor display o...
Dispatch II: The Cost
Return to the Outer Line
I came back on the Karelian. Same ship, same route, same thread stretching from the core systems into the frontier. Captain Okafor was still running i...
Yield
A Nexus Energy Compact story
The shields on the Thessaly had never failed. Lieutenant Commander Noor Hadid knew this the way she knew the ship's reactor output curve or the optim...
Tonnage
A United Solar Federation story
Rear Admiral Lena Kessler counted the enemy fleet on the tactical display and stopped at forty-three. Forty-three confirmed contacts inside Graveyard...
Academy
An Orion Industrial League story
Chief Warrant Officer Davi Renko had nineteen students and a simulator that froze every forty minutes. The Academy in Crucible Anchorage was six mont...
Salvage Rights
A story from the Outer Line
The Essen was in three pieces when Nika Sorel found her. The largest section was the stern, reactor to aft thrusters, still mostly intact. It tumbled...
The Thread
A United Solar Federation story
The first Jump was the hardest. Commander Alexei Maro stood on the bridge of the transport Helios as the Jump Drive charged, watching Copernican Yard...