Authors Note: This is my first fanfic I have ever written, for HW2 or otherwise. I will try to post often, about once every two weeks, although sometimes it may be shorter than that, depending on how much I've written. For example: I wrote this first chapter in about 4 hours. I don't know if I'm able of doing that again, but if I am, updates will be much more common, obviously. This story is about a captian whom I haven't named yet, his patrol squadron, and the unkown enemy that hunts them. Enjoy.
Chapter One - The Beginning
The ship was humming slightly, as it usually was. Nothing out of the ordinary, same old ship, same old crew, same old mice scurrying about the decks of the ship, nothing unusual. How incredibly boring. Captain Dren Sher-Ka was on one of the lower decks, staring out at the Maktaar nebula, as he found himself doing recently. Staring out at space, that is, not the nebula. The squadron of ships was rarely in the same sector of space for more than a few cycles, so it was very hard to stare at the same thing for very long, espescially when you had duties as the captian of one of the most powerful frigates in the Hiigaran Navy. Not that it was a huge responsiblity as of late, the last of the Vaygr forces had been mostly eradicated or captured, except for some of the most stubborn ones, but there weren't any of those battle groups anywhere near them. And as a result, a few carrier-groups had been dispatched as hunter-killer squads to find the last of them, and the majority of the Navy was on stand-down or dispatched on patrol routes. And so was his squad. It was an impressive force, 6 Flak Frigates, 4 Torpedo Frigates, 4 Ion Cannon Frigates, 3 Pulsar and regular Gunships each, and 5 Bombers and Interceptors each. There was also 1 Scout group, but they were just there for scanning derilects if they were found, or, if nescassarry, enemy forces. After every 40 cycles, they rendevouzed with one of the carriers that was assinged to them. There were several carriers, but they were all servicing multiple groups, not just his. But it wasn't usually nescassarry. They had only twice encountered enemies, the first time had been a Turanic raiding party, but they had been caught off gaurd by Dren and were quickly dispatched. The second one, however, had been Raiders of the same clan as the previous ones, probably out for revenge on their kiith-brothers. They might have been a problem, if the scout group hadn't been scanning a cluster of asteroids containing a newly discovered and highly unstable element. As they were scaning said asteroids (keeping a safe distance so as not to be overcome by radioactivity), the second scout picked up a blip on the radar, and turned to the direction of the source. She scanned the area and found a compliment of Bandits, mostly fighters, missile fighters, and three Assasin class Ion Array Frigates. Upon this discovery, they immediatly retreated to the saftey of the group. They changed their course, circling around the Pirates and came up behind them, close enough to be in cannon range, but not close enough so they could be detected. The Pirates did not have the best long range radar, and four well-placed Ion beams effectivley ripped out the engines of two of the Frigates before they knew what hit them. The Ion Cannons then turned on their axis while still firing, raking the side of the other Frigate, slicing off three of its magnetic web extenders, the fourth beam punctured right behind the bridge and right in front of the engine, penetrating the plasma drive, causing it to go critical and explode quite suddenly. A good half of the fighters were caught within the blast radius, melting from the heat and exposing the pilots that weren't killed instantly from the extreme heat to the vacuum of space. The interceptors and gunships cleaned up the rest, and then the group left, leaving the two disabled frigates, having destroyed its com and radio, so it could not move or call for help. But that was not the point. There really wasn't a point, in fact. Captain Dren sighed slightly as he tore himself away from the window, and slowly walked to the lift to return to the bridge for the daily system inspections. The doors opened, and he saw his first-mate Nuun-S'Jet also riding the lift. He immediately stood at attention, hand raised in salute.
"Hello, captain, sir."
"At ease, S'Jet, no need for formalities."
"If you say so, sir," He responded, with extra emphasis on the last word.
He lowered his hand from his forehead as Dren shook his head and laughed. He had an interesting sense of humor. He pressed the button on the wall panel labled 'Bridge' in large, clear letters. The lift shook slightly as it started it's ascension, but then smoothed out and speeded up. It took about 10 seconds to reach flight-deck level, where the bridge was located, but he didn't notice. He had been on this ship so long, everything was routine. He exited the lift, and looked back at Nuun.
"Where you headed to now?"
"Oh, you know, back up to nav deck for even more course planning. We have to avoid that newly discovered dark-matter cluster at the edge of the Shren-ka disc. How fun." He added sarcastically.
"Well, you'd better get up there, then. Inspections are in 30, and I don't want to fly into a dark matter cluster and be vaporised, thank you very much."
"I'll get right on it," He responded with an exagerated wink as the lift doors slid shut. He turned and walked down the corridor that led to the bridge. Well, didn't quite walk, more leaped slightly. He liked a bit of spring in his step, and kept the artificial gravity turned down rather low. Perhaps a tad bit lower than it should have been, but no one really minded. And a good deal of the younger officers enjoyed leaping off of walls down the hallways, speeding past other (often startled) people. This practice had become common, actually, and they had formed a game out of it. Whoever could leap the farthest (the gravity was strong enough so that they couldn't float all the way across a corridor) would win, and some had invented a race/game of tag, but Dren wasn't sure how exactly how they played it. He did know, however, that the amount of races had decreased when one of them had hurled himself down the research corridor and crashed into another person carrying a contained piece of a new alloy with strange radioactive properties. It had smashed open, exposing both men, and they had both been in the ward for a good deal of time with odd symptoms that included fur growing all over their bodies, growing a tail, oversized ears about 6 inches long, and claws on their feet. But they were eventually cured (more so the effects actually wore off then were cured), but they still acted strangely. Nonetheless, Dren stepped up to the door to the bridge, a scanner popped out of the ceiling, and took a retinal scan of his left eye.
"Good day, Captain Dren Sher-Ka, and welcome to the bridge," The cool female voice stated. He walked through the door, and a magnificent site opened before him. The bridge was about 7 different levels, one level dedicated to individual tasks. There was one for ship systems, research, life support, nav, com, combat systems, and the overall command level, watching over every aspect of the ship. One of the senior officers greeted him and went back to his computer screen. He floated over to his command chair, and grabbed it by the back so as not to overshoot his target. The bridge was the one place where low gravity could be a major annoyance. It was arranged with the seven levels along a common wall along the back, with the seventh level forming the 'floor' on the bottom, and reached out farther than the other levels to support the special super-dense glass window that formed the ceiling and the other three walls, stretching up all seven levels, overlapping the top and connecting to the rest of the frigate. Only the seventh floor was connected to it, the others were free-floating, connected only to the back wall. It was designed so that several mini-lifts could connect all the levels for quick access to every other one, but with the low gravity, you could float over to the glass and bound downwards or upwards to wherever you needed to go, as long as you got the angles right. This was the downfall of many a rookie in the bridge, un-expierienced as in how to get to other levels, but they eventually got the hang of it. It eventually came to pass where once a month, someone was elected (usually whoever wasn't working at the moment) to take a squegee and remove the shoe-prints from the window, as they often got so concentrated that it became hard to see out into space, and was unpleasant enough on its own. And it was getting close to time to get it cleaned again. Dismissing this thought, Captain Dren floated down into his chair, pressed a button on the arm, and a slit opened up on the floor next to him. A long, thin sheet of glass with anti-G transponders on either side floated up and over to him, and presented itself at an angle appropriate for typing. Symbols flickered into life across it's surface, and it became what it was: a hovering keyboard. He switched on his headset, and gave the command for the LEDs to turn on. At the floor and on the ceiling, 6 LEDs opened sots on either side of the main body of itself, and small antennas exited from them. They flashed once, and roared into life, spitting individual lines of code into the air around him. They eventually materialized a 3-D menu around Dren. He swiveled his chair to the left, brought up a sub-menu, and activated the Frigate's PA system.
"Attention all crew members of Hiigaran Ion Cannon Frigate Three-Oone-Four, prepare for monthly inspections," he announced.
"Aye, Captain, standard protocols engaged, preparing for inspections," Dozens of voices responded. Standard prototocols. Even more procedures. He couldn't stand them. But it's not like he had a say in how things were run in the Hiigaran Navy. He was a simple pawn, among hundreds of others in this game. What they were even playing for, he didn't know. He did what he was told, and only knew what command felt like he should know, and at the moment, that wasn't much. He was just running a simple patrol squad. The inspections began, as he went through all of the ship's systems and stations, making sure that everything was up to date, starting with weapons controls. As the most important part of the ship (even though that is debatable) , he had to have no doubt that they were running properly. The senior officers of the weapons (who was a slightly strange man, but he had spent most his life around machines that could de-molecularize just about anything, so it was to be expected from him) reported that everything was running properly, and after going through all of the sub-systems of the weapons, he added with a growl, "I haven't blown anything up in 3 months, and I'm getting bored, and me bored can be a very bad thing. . .". Dren rolled his eyes and laughed slightly. He went through all of the other 6 systems on the ship, and, to his surprise, everything was in ship-shape. That was an oddity, because usually, something, somewhere, had managed to blow itself up and needed serious repair. But, that just meant less work for him and the other officers, which was a welcome change from last month's fiasco, which had occured from some piece of machinery being to near the charged particle accelerator of the Ion Cannon too long, and exploding sometime after being moved back to the life support deck, breaking open some tanks filled with assorted chemicals, and causing them to react with each other, creating a nauseating gas that caused extreme drunkness spreading through the lower decks of the ship. The latter of the symptoms was discovered by one unfortunate woman, who stumbled around the deck, eventually finding herself in the janitors closet 13 decks above where she started and on the other side of the ship, and not quite sure how she got there. Everyone had walked around the ship with gas masks on for the next 2 weeks, but the gas eventually deteriorated, much to the releif of most people. Dren finished the last inspection, and closed down the sub-menu after a draining 3 and a half hours. He shut down the computer and stood up, yawning widely. He turned to the door and walked towards it, when his Nav officer suddenly shouted' "Captain, we have multiple unidentified contacts closing in on our posistion!"
Chapter One - The Beginning
The ship was humming slightly, as it usually was. Nothing out of the ordinary, same old ship, same old crew, same old mice scurrying about the decks of the ship, nothing unusual. How incredibly boring. Captain Dren Sher-Ka was on one of the lower decks, staring out at the Maktaar nebula, as he found himself doing recently. Staring out at space, that is, not the nebula. The squadron of ships was rarely in the same sector of space for more than a few cycles, so it was very hard to stare at the same thing for very long, espescially when you had duties as the captian of one of the most powerful frigates in the Hiigaran Navy. Not that it was a huge responsiblity as of late, the last of the Vaygr forces had been mostly eradicated or captured, except for some of the most stubborn ones, but there weren't any of those battle groups anywhere near them. And as a result, a few carrier-groups had been dispatched as hunter-killer squads to find the last of them, and the majority of the Navy was on stand-down or dispatched on patrol routes. And so was his squad. It was an impressive force, 6 Flak Frigates, 4 Torpedo Frigates, 4 Ion Cannon Frigates, 3 Pulsar and regular Gunships each, and 5 Bombers and Interceptors each. There was also 1 Scout group, but they were just there for scanning derilects if they were found, or, if nescassarry, enemy forces. After every 40 cycles, they rendevouzed with one of the carriers that was assinged to them. There were several carriers, but they were all servicing multiple groups, not just his. But it wasn't usually nescassarry. They had only twice encountered enemies, the first time had been a Turanic raiding party, but they had been caught off gaurd by Dren and were quickly dispatched. The second one, however, had been Raiders of the same clan as the previous ones, probably out for revenge on their kiith-brothers. They might have been a problem, if the scout group hadn't been scanning a cluster of asteroids containing a newly discovered and highly unstable element. As they were scaning said asteroids (keeping a safe distance so as not to be overcome by radioactivity), the second scout picked up a blip on the radar, and turned to the direction of the source. She scanned the area and found a compliment of Bandits, mostly fighters, missile fighters, and three Assasin class Ion Array Frigates. Upon this discovery, they immediatly retreated to the saftey of the group. They changed their course, circling around the Pirates and came up behind them, close enough to be in cannon range, but not close enough so they could be detected. The Pirates did not have the best long range radar, and four well-placed Ion beams effectivley ripped out the engines of two of the Frigates before they knew what hit them. The Ion Cannons then turned on their axis while still firing, raking the side of the other Frigate, slicing off three of its magnetic web extenders, the fourth beam punctured right behind the bridge and right in front of the engine, penetrating the plasma drive, causing it to go critical and explode quite suddenly. A good half of the fighters were caught within the blast radius, melting from the heat and exposing the pilots that weren't killed instantly from the extreme heat to the vacuum of space. The interceptors and gunships cleaned up the rest, and then the group left, leaving the two disabled frigates, having destroyed its com and radio, so it could not move or call for help. But that was not the point. There really wasn't a point, in fact. Captain Dren sighed slightly as he tore himself away from the window, and slowly walked to the lift to return to the bridge for the daily system inspections. The doors opened, and he saw his first-mate Nuun-S'Jet also riding the lift. He immediately stood at attention, hand raised in salute.
"Hello, captain, sir."
"At ease, S'Jet, no need for formalities."
"If you say so, sir," He responded, with extra emphasis on the last word.
He lowered his hand from his forehead as Dren shook his head and laughed. He had an interesting sense of humor. He pressed the button on the wall panel labled 'Bridge' in large, clear letters. The lift shook slightly as it started it's ascension, but then smoothed out and speeded up. It took about 10 seconds to reach flight-deck level, where the bridge was located, but he didn't notice. He had been on this ship so long, everything was routine. He exited the lift, and looked back at Nuun.
"Where you headed to now?"
"Oh, you know, back up to nav deck for even more course planning. We have to avoid that newly discovered dark-matter cluster at the edge of the Shren-ka disc. How fun." He added sarcastically.
"Well, you'd better get up there, then. Inspections are in 30, and I don't want to fly into a dark matter cluster and be vaporised, thank you very much."
"I'll get right on it," He responded with an exagerated wink as the lift doors slid shut. He turned and walked down the corridor that led to the bridge. Well, didn't quite walk, more leaped slightly. He liked a bit of spring in his step, and kept the artificial gravity turned down rather low. Perhaps a tad bit lower than it should have been, but no one really minded. And a good deal of the younger officers enjoyed leaping off of walls down the hallways, speeding past other (often startled) people. This practice had become common, actually, and they had formed a game out of it. Whoever could leap the farthest (the gravity was strong enough so that they couldn't float all the way across a corridor) would win, and some had invented a race/game of tag, but Dren wasn't sure how exactly how they played it. He did know, however, that the amount of races had decreased when one of them had hurled himself down the research corridor and crashed into another person carrying a contained piece of a new alloy with strange radioactive properties. It had smashed open, exposing both men, and they had both been in the ward for a good deal of time with odd symptoms that included fur growing all over their bodies, growing a tail, oversized ears about 6 inches long, and claws on their feet. But they were eventually cured (more so the effects actually wore off then were cured), but they still acted strangely. Nonetheless, Dren stepped up to the door to the bridge, a scanner popped out of the ceiling, and took a retinal scan of his left eye.
"Good day, Captain Dren Sher-Ka, and welcome to the bridge," The cool female voice stated. He walked through the door, and a magnificent site opened before him. The bridge was about 7 different levels, one level dedicated to individual tasks. There was one for ship systems, research, life support, nav, com, combat systems, and the overall command level, watching over every aspect of the ship. One of the senior officers greeted him and went back to his computer screen. He floated over to his command chair, and grabbed it by the back so as not to overshoot his target. The bridge was the one place where low gravity could be a major annoyance. It was arranged with the seven levels along a common wall along the back, with the seventh level forming the 'floor' on the bottom, and reached out farther than the other levels to support the special super-dense glass window that formed the ceiling and the other three walls, stretching up all seven levels, overlapping the top and connecting to the rest of the frigate. Only the seventh floor was connected to it, the others were free-floating, connected only to the back wall. It was designed so that several mini-lifts could connect all the levels for quick access to every other one, but with the low gravity, you could float over to the glass and bound downwards or upwards to wherever you needed to go, as long as you got the angles right. This was the downfall of many a rookie in the bridge, un-expierienced as in how to get to other levels, but they eventually got the hang of it. It eventually came to pass where once a month, someone was elected (usually whoever wasn't working at the moment) to take a squegee and remove the shoe-prints from the window, as they often got so concentrated that it became hard to see out into space, and was unpleasant enough on its own. And it was getting close to time to get it cleaned again. Dismissing this thought, Captain Dren floated down into his chair, pressed a button on the arm, and a slit opened up on the floor next to him. A long, thin sheet of glass with anti-G transponders on either side floated up and over to him, and presented itself at an angle appropriate for typing. Symbols flickered into life across it's surface, and it became what it was: a hovering keyboard. He switched on his headset, and gave the command for the LEDs to turn on. At the floor and on the ceiling, 6 LEDs opened sots on either side of the main body of itself, and small antennas exited from them. They flashed once, and roared into life, spitting individual lines of code into the air around him. They eventually materialized a 3-D menu around Dren. He swiveled his chair to the left, brought up a sub-menu, and activated the Frigate's PA system.
"Attention all crew members of Hiigaran Ion Cannon Frigate Three-Oone-Four, prepare for monthly inspections," he announced.
"Aye, Captain, standard protocols engaged, preparing for inspections," Dozens of voices responded. Standard prototocols. Even more procedures. He couldn't stand them. But it's not like he had a say in how things were run in the Hiigaran Navy. He was a simple pawn, among hundreds of others in this game. What they were even playing for, he didn't know. He did what he was told, and only knew what command felt like he should know, and at the moment, that wasn't much. He was just running a simple patrol squad. The inspections began, as he went through all of the ship's systems and stations, making sure that everything was up to date, starting with weapons controls. As the most important part of the ship (even though that is debatable) , he had to have no doubt that they were running properly. The senior officers of the weapons (who was a slightly strange man, but he had spent most his life around machines that could de-molecularize just about anything, so it was to be expected from him) reported that everything was running properly, and after going through all of the sub-systems of the weapons, he added with a growl, "I haven't blown anything up in 3 months, and I'm getting bored, and me bored can be a very bad thing. . .". Dren rolled his eyes and laughed slightly. He went through all of the other 6 systems on the ship, and, to his surprise, everything was in ship-shape. That was an oddity, because usually, something, somewhere, had managed to blow itself up and needed serious repair. But, that just meant less work for him and the other officers, which was a welcome change from last month's fiasco, which had occured from some piece of machinery being to near the charged particle accelerator of the Ion Cannon too long, and exploding sometime after being moved back to the life support deck, breaking open some tanks filled with assorted chemicals, and causing them to react with each other, creating a nauseating gas that caused extreme drunkness spreading through the lower decks of the ship. The latter of the symptoms was discovered by one unfortunate woman, who stumbled around the deck, eventually finding herself in the janitors closet 13 decks above where she started and on the other side of the ship, and not quite sure how she got there. Everyone had walked around the ship with gas masks on for the next 2 weeks, but the gas eventually deteriorated, much to the releif of most people. Dren finished the last inspection, and closed down the sub-menu after a draining 3 and a half hours. He shut down the computer and stood up, yawning widely. He turned to the door and walked towards it, when his Nav officer suddenly shouted' "Captain, we have multiple unidentified contacts closing in on our posistion!"
