BCS Athena,
Wellington System,
Britannic Coalition,
The Periphery,
September 23rd, 3068
"Sir – I'm picking up an energy spike at pirate point Bravo Four!" called the navigation officer from her post.
"Keep an eye on it", replied Demi-Precentor Terrell Forbes. "XO, go to Condition Amber".
Adept Jane Asher raised a quizzical eyebrow, "Sir?"
"Just call it a training exercise…Blake knows we've had little enough excitement out here".
Asher gave a small smile and nodded, before calling out orders to the bridge crew. "Condition bars" mounted at roughly eye-level around the walls, switched from a steady green glow to amber. Warning klaxons sounded throughout the ship and Forbes pictured in his mind's eye, the crew dropping whatever they were doing and running to battle stations. Although weapons would not be activated at this alert level, it was still a good opportunity to make sure everybody knew their roles in a potential combat situation.
"Sir, we have a vessel inbound. EM signature indicates a small civilian jumpship", called the navigation officer.
Forbes' brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "Do we have any scheduled arrivals for this time?" he asked Asher.
He waited while his XO punched a query into the computer terminal at her command post.
"Negative, sir", came the reply.
"Hmm. Helm, come to course Three Zero Niner, all ahead one quarter".
"Course Three Zero Niner, all-ahead one quarter, aye sir", came the helmsman's answering call.
Turning to Asher he said, "Civilian or not, our orders from Command were explicit…no-one gets in without being checked".
Asher nodded agreement.
"Here they come!" called the navigation officer.
Checking sensor readings relayed to their command stations, both the captain and XO could see the IR bloom expand and fade as the jumpship tore a hole in space and entered the Wellington system. The Athena's sensor suite immediately highlighted the vessel's position, although at over fifty thousand kilometres distant, it was far too small to see with the naked eye. A few moments later, the ship's powerful hull cameras displayed a magnified view on the main screen.
The image resolution was good enough to immediately tell them something was very wrong. There were muted gasps and curses from several of the bridge crew, Forbes and Asher among them. Firstly, because they recognised the jumpship as a Coalition design, secondly because of the obvious battle damage that scarred its hull.
"Alright, go to Condition Red and launch flight II Alpha…just in case anyone tries following them in".
"Aye, sir!" This time there was no query from Asher.
The steady amber lights changed to a blinking red and a different, higher pitched klaxon told everyone they were now in a potential combat situation.
Minutes later, a flight of six Stingray aerospace fighters left their launch bays and rocketed at full throttle towards the stricken jumpship.
"Comms, try hailing them. I want to know if they have any problems that require urgent attention".
"Aye, sir!"
The communications officer went to work, broadcasting on all commonly used civilian frequencies. "Unidentified jumpship, this is the Britannic Coalition warship Athena, if you are able to respond, please do so".
There was a pause while she waited for a response. When none came, she tried again. "Unidentified jumpship, this is the Coalition warship Athena. We see that you've sustained damage. If you require assistance, please respond".
When there was still no response, she looked at Forbes, shaking her head.
"Keep trying – the signal might be getting distorted by solar radiation".
Stingray F-92,
Intercept course to unidentified Jumpship,
Wellington System
"Unidentified jumpship, this is Adept Ben Carmichael of the Coalition warship Athena, do you require assistance?"
Carmichael pulled back slowly on his stick, sending the 60-ton fighter into a lazy loop around the slowly drifting jumpship.
Getting no response, he tried again. "Unidentified jumpship, this is Adept Carmichael of the Coalition warship Athena. If you can hear me, please respond".
There were a few seconds of silence before the headphones built into his flight helmet crackled into life.
"…L…dr…sy…is…Pen…orp...ump…shhhhh…rel…"
The signal died for several seconds before coming back, still laced with static, but much clearer.
"…I repeat, this is the Pendercorp jumpship Minstrel. We have just fled Black Isle in the Royalist Alliance. Our facility was attacked and destroyed by unknown forces. Our dropships were fired on as we lifted off and a warship of unknown origin fired on us as we prepared to jump out. Our lithium fusion batteries were damaged and the jump overloaded our KF drive. We have a radiation leak, though we've sealed the affected compartments off. Several of our crew have been killed and many are wounded. We're losing life support and station-keeping ability…we need help immediately!"
The desperation in those last words briefly tore through his normally cool, professional demeanour.
"Blake's Blood!" he muttered, before tapping the transmit button. "Copy that Minstrel, forwarding sit-rep to the Athena. Please stand by".
"For god's sake, hurry…I don't know how much longer we can hold position. Once we lose our station keeping thrusters, we're headed straight into the sun!"
Carmichael forced down the lump in his throat and took a deep breath to calm himself. "Acknowledged Minstrel, we're doing everything we can".
BCS Athena,
Wellington System,
Britannic Coalition,
"Oh, shit!" muttered Forbes as he listened to the pilot's report. The rest of the bridge crew who were close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation listened in mute shock.
"Okay", said Forbes when the link had been cut, "Scramble the St Pancras with a medical team. Make sure they've got NBC suits and decontamination gear with them. Tell Adept Findlay I'll brief her once they're en route…we haven't got time to do things by the book this time".
He straightened up and clapped his hands to jolt the stunned bridge back into action. "Come on people – look alive, we've got a jumpship to save!"
Down in sickbay, alerted by a terse comms message from the bridge, a flustered Adept Emma Findlay directed her team of medics to load the dropship with everything they would need…and probably quite a lot of stuff they wouldn't. With an emergency of this nature it was hard to be sure.
It was obvious the St Pancras' pilot was in one big hurry. No sooner had they dogged the hatch down and confirmed they were ready to go, than the hull resounded with clangs and thumps as the docking collar and clamps, which held the dropship in place, uncoupled, allowing the vessel to drift free.
She didn't drift for long though. The pilot brought her engines up to full power almost immediately and within minutes they were speeding towards the Minstrel under 4Gs of thrust.
Forbes was true to his word and almost as soon as they were underway, Findlay was summoned to the St Pancras' bridge. She took a spare seat at the comms station and donned a headset. As the briefing went on, her expression went from surprised, to incredulous, to outright shock.
The co-pilot, noticing her expression, asked, "What is it, Doc?"
By the time she'd finished explaining, the bridge crew were wearing identical expressions. The briefing was relayed throughout the ship, so that everyone aboard would know the gravity of the situation.
Back aboard the Athena, Adept Asher was giving voice to some questions that had surfaced as she contemplated the rescue mission.
"Do we know if the St Pancras has enough space to evacuate everyone?" she asked Forbes quietly.
"I've no idea. They didn't say how many they had aboard before the coms went off-line again".
"Shouldn't we send the Tottenham as backup, just in case?"
"Good idea – make it happen".
Asher nodded and quietly issued orders for the Athena's second dropship to be launched. Less than quarter of an hour later, following an extremely abbreviated pre-flight check, the spheroid Union class vessel burned silently into the dark, star-spangled void, its drive flares glowing brightly.
Just then another idea struck Forbes. He hurried back to his command chair and sat down, punching a string of commands into the communications console in front of him, opening a link to the naval headquarters on Wellington.
"Command, this is the Athena, I need you to contact the Cygnus naval yard immediately".
"Sir?" came the puzzled reply.
"We have an emergency situation here!" Forbes snapped impatiently. "A civilian jumpship just entered the system. She's been attacked and has a damaged KF drive. Her life support and manoeuvring thrusters are also hit. I need you to call the naval yard and get them to send their yard ship out here ASAP. We don't have any towing equipment and if we don't get a hold of that ship in the next few hours, it'll fall straight into the sun's gravity field".
There were a few moments of silence on the other end of the connection as the comms officer digested that bit of news.
"Of course, sir…right away", came the chastened reply.
"And while you're at it, tell Demi-Precentor Hutchinson we're attempting to evacuate the jumpship personnel. We've sent both dropships, with medical teams. They've got NBC suits and decontamination gear, just in case".
"Aye sir, I'll forward your message".
Unable to do any more, except monitor the situation, Terrell Forbes and his crew simply sat and watched the unfolding drama.
Yard Ship Stornoway,
Arcturus Orbital Dockyard,
Newcastle System,
Britannic Coalition
Captain Hereford Lasker, skipper of the Faslane class yard ship Stornoway, heaved a sigh of relief as his ship's berth came into view. He and his crew had just finished the mother of all shifts, marshalling vessels in and out of Cygnus Astra's vast naval yard. He was just about to give the order to the helmsman to make the necessary course adjustments to put them on final approach, when the bulkhead-mounted speakers came to life.
"Control to Stornoway, Priority One message from Wellington Naval Command", said the stations' comms officer in a terse, unemotional tone.
Lasker sighed, closed his eyes and waited for the rest of the message.
"The warship Athena reports a jumpship in distress near the system's zenith jump point. They're requesting immediate assistance to salvage the vessel while they try and evac the crew".
Lasker groaned. "Couldn't you at least have waited until the relief crew took over?"
The comms officer remained annoyingly unsympathetic. "The relief crew won't be here for another half hour and even when they do, they'll have to go through a full systems check to make sure you haven't broken anything".
The skipper gave a snort of annoyance but said nothing.
"Anyway, our naval brethren have requested immediate assistance and in emergencies, we are obliged to render it, so I'd suggest you get plotting a course for the nadir jump point right away. I'll inform Wellington you're on your way".
The Stornoway's captain waited until the link was cut before unleashing a quiet stream of curses at the console in front of him.
The navigator clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Look on the bright side, sir…we'll be getting plenty of overtime out of this…"
