18:00, July 27th, YC 118 - Perimeter, 12AU Beyond System Edge
Another boom rang out throughout the CNV Eyrie. "Idiots!" Shouted it s captain. Another chunk of ice had fallen out of the tractor beam of a nearby mining barge. He was beginning to get irritated. He and his ship had been sitting amongst a cluster of Hulk class mining barges about 200 strong, for a week now. "Tactical, status on all point defense batteries." he asked through gritted teeth. He was getting increasingly furious at the inexperience and ignorance of some of the miners. "All batteries forward of frame 1320 are operational, engineering section batteries are down for maintenance until 22:00." the tactical officer replied. "Very well, engage all moving, objects on a collision course that aren't transmitting IFF."
The manned barges from the Caldari Provisions corporation were crunching away at an incredibly expansive ice field nearly twelve astrometric units outside the edge of the Perimeter system. So close to the biggest trade hub in New Eden, the Caldari State was taking no chances. The Eyrie was Leviathan Class, constructed only two months ago. Captain Xan was not taking particularly kindly to the careless miners scratching the paint job, nor did he appreciate that he was sitting idle in a titan class vessel babysitting miners. Despite the size of the ship, the humming of some of the loading systems of midships point defense batteries was audible when they were onlined. A few green lights illuminated on the screen to his right as a few 140mm rotary railguns on the ship s port side reduced a 20m chunk of ice bound for the ship to ice cubes, which probably would've gone nicely with a can of Quafe.
The barges were surrounding five Charon class freighters, their plasma streams taking chunks out of an an iceball the size of a small station, nearly 50 kilometers in wide in any direction. They had carved one side of it flat, and begin carving 100 by 100 meter sections of ice out of it. With any luck, they would finish it before the end of the day. The cluster of asteroids had only recently been detected drifting into the system. They were immediately quarantined by the Caldari Navy to be mined, refined, and stashed away. With tensions rising over territory with the Gallente, the Caldari Navy was preparing for things to get ugly. The Gallente had been getting more and more aggressive, strengthening their borders with thousands of ships, and the Caldari were getting increasingly concerned about a violent conflict arising. They didn't want a war, and were being very careful not to provoke a conflict, but then again, the Gallente weren't likely to give them a choice. Despite not having been aggressive in the past, tensions had been rising over long standing territorial disputes for years. Sooner or later, there would be violence.
The Eyrie was a prototype modular Leviathan class. Advanced reactors, and reinforced structuring. The only thing that rivaled the ship's tactical computers were some of the most advanced capsuleer ships, and even those barely came close. HSC-241 was her designation. Four enormous railguns, the largest ever built complimented eight capital torpedo launchers loaded with advanced torpedoes built to be faster, and packed with high speed detonation charges. Not many things would be able to escape them.
"Captain, tactical. We ve just been pinged by a long range scanning probe. Signal pattern is indicative of a combat scanning probe." the tactical officer said in a somewhat elevated voice across the bridge. This worried the captain. CONCORD had designated Perimeter a 0.9 sec system. Nobody had any reason to be running a combat scan out here. If the scan had hit the Eyrie, the probe had been at least 4 AU outside of the system s edge to begin with. "Gravimetrics, report all contacts. he ordered. No contacts captain. replied the detection systems officer."
"We've just been pinged again, four probes this time." said the TSO. Now there was a problem. Four probe hits wasn't a coincidence. Someone was looking for them. "Engineering, status on cloaking systems?" asked Xan. By the time he finished his sentence, the engineering systems officer was already telling him that cloaking systems were operable. "Right then, ESO, cloak us up." he ordered. "Cloak active, we're invisible." reported the ESO.
Chances were they hadn't been detected, or at least it was unlikely they had been distinguished from the barges, not to mention gravimetric interference from the ice field. Five pings, then eight. In the span of 10 minutes, someone had hit them with a full barrage of probes, with combat indicative wave patterns. That wasn't an accident. Someone was trying to find him, and the likelihood of them being friendly was nearly nonexistent. What was worse was that none of the ships present were those of capsuleers; CONCORD wasn't going to interfere in a state-on-state war. Xan, however, was. Bold though it was, he doubted any kind of attack force in a 0.9 was going to be ready to fight a titan. The crews were likely smuggled in, supplied ships by the capsuleer market. An old tactic used in a somewhat different manner by the Gallente during the Gallente-Caldari war.
He was starting to go over the implications of a fight in his head when the flash appeared on the main monitor at the front of the bridge. "Contact, twelve clicks! More ships dropping out of warp! 87 contacts, looks like 65 Domini, ten Oneri, five ceptors, seven contacts unknown. It s an attack fleet sir, looks pretty heavy. Looks like they're landing about 80 kilometers offboard, bearing 270, elevation 020, probably launching sentries." exclaimed the TSO. Something wasn't right. Something was off here. Seven unknown ships? At this range, anything would be registered by the ship's computers. "Sound general quarters! Communications, tell the civies to haul ass. Tactical, I want detailed info on those unknowns, imagery, grav signatures, and drive plume analysis. ESO, standby to decloak. They re not going to get all the barges, they re after the heavies." he shouted. He would wait for them to form up, then he would mow them down efficiently.
"Conn tactical, analysis complete. The unknowns are definitely Gallente, but no transponders, no ID, nothing. Size puts them in the strategic cruiser to battlecruiser range. Looks like hold on, something's up." the TSO trailed off. "Come on then, spit it out!" Xan yelled. "Domis dropping sentries, oneri chaining. Sir, the barges aren't warping off. They're launching drones!" This wasn t going to end well. Those barges could probably inflict minor losses, but they would get mowed down. He had to act now- it was way too late to wonder if this was a good idea.
"ESO, conn, kill the cloak. Tactical, standby point defense cannons, divert power to railguns, I want those Oneri dead and I want them dead now. Point defense cannons, mow down the ceptors and then hit anything that gets close enough. Torpedoes, domis." He took a brief break to let the ship decloak and took a sip of his tea. "Lets end this quickly and go home." He was not going to toy with his prey, he was going to wipe them out quickly and efficiently. This was the pride of the Caldari Navy, an experimental titan. He was having none of their nonsense. This was awfully bold, attacking the Caldari Navy in Perimeter. It was, however a mistake.
Cliffhanger. I know. I m mean, but hey, I can t just release it all at once. By the time of this being uploaded, I've gone through several litres of tea and a few electro-swing mixes making the next chapter. This story is going to wander wildly, and it's going to drift wherever it wants. Honestly, it's going to be you lot that tell me where to take this story, so suggestions are welcome. I just needed something to kick it off, and why not some sort of supposedly even encounter. Also, I apologize if there are some grammatical errors but the file got a little bit messed up when it was imported. It deleted all apostrophes and quotation marks, as well as turning all exclamation marks into periods.
Anyways, reviews and suggestions appreciated. Cheers.
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