2153 - SSV Hyderabad, Second Fleet, Flotilla Charlie - Deployed
The Hyderabad was the lead cruiser for a small patrol flotilla and they had an assigned mission to travel through the Traverse on a routine "show the flag" tour through the Second Fleet's area of responsibility. The recurring mission was two-fold; first it entailed scheduled stops to drop supplies, provide tech assistance as required and collect status reports from two active sites, Therum and Chohe. Therum was a small mining and research site in the Knossos system of the Artemus Tau cluster and Chohe was a small Sirta Foundation research outpost in the Hades Gamma's Cacus system. Second, and a much larger portion of their mission, was to scan for anomalies, pirates and slavers throughout their entire sector. Their full area of responsibility covered the entirety of the Artemus Tau, Hades Gamma, Voyager and Gemini Sigma clusters; four clusters with fourteen systems, combining for a total of fifty five planets to be scanned. The relay dropped them into the Hades Gamma cluster, and the plan was to scan all twenty four planets within its five systems in a clockwise rotation, ending at the Chohe research outpost before moving into the next cluster. A similar pattern would be the standard for all four clusters-with only two scheduled stops the entire time, which equated to a lot of ship time; roughly ten weeks before they set foot on Chohe, another 10 weeks until Therum, and a final six weeks before they were back at Eden Prime.
It was David's second time out on the circuit and being familiar with the routine and relatively unconcerned about career progression, he took the six-month tour in stride. Being a 'mover and shaker' as David called her, and determined to make a great first impression, Hannah couldn't have been any more in contrast to David's easy going attitude. She spent every spare moment she found in the first couple of weeks familiarizing herself with the variety of weapons on the cruiser, and since they encountered nothing of interest during that time, the Operations Officer had ample time to run her and all the fire teams through multiple drills. Near the end of the month, they encountered their first hint of action somewhere near Nonuel in the Plutus system and Hannah was more than ready for action. However, it ended up just being a couple of small merc transports, easily dispatched by the frigates in the flotilla, so the cruiser never put its guns to use.
The stop at Chohe didn't amount to much either, but at least she got off the ship for a bit; it was as close to a mid-tour break as she was going to get. The outpost had some defensive weapons to maintain, but the majority of the research facility was underground so they didn't see much of the actual planet while they were there, with perfectly good reason; the planet's atmosphere was practically nonexistent, a near-vacuum, and though the advertised average temperature was pleasant, it was very misleading, because the days were extremely hot and the nights extremely cold...and there was twenty-seven hours of each, for a fifty-four hour day. The facility was very constricting, with small rooms and narrow passageways, and Hannah was more than ready to be back on the cruiser and underway. After they jumped to the Gemini Sigma cluster, they had a repeat of the pirate chase at Nonuel, this time near Mavigon in the Han system, and Hannah started to wonder if the Hyderabad really was just a flag ship, carrying supplies and support, while the frigate crews would be the only ones to actually get any action.
The second half of the tour was a bit more challenging and made Hannah reconsider her rush to judgment. Two weeks into the Artemus Tao cluster, the flotilla chased yet more pirate vessels when they jumped into the Macedon system; the pirates had three Corvettes which easily outran the frigates, and while the first two escaped, a well-placed shot from the Hyderabad incapacitated a third. The captain immediately dispatched a boarding team with the intent to take prisoners and recover information on the location of the main pirate base in the system. Hannah was shocked as the boarding shuttle closed on the enemy and the Corvette exploded, taking the Alliance shuttle and the twelve Marines with it. It was a staggering wakeup call for the young ensign and a painful reminder as to why the Alliance needed the flotilla out in the Traverse to begin with; pirates had no respect for life. Hannah was taken aback and a bit nervous when she was called before the investigative review board looking into the death of the Marines. The responsibilities associated with her position were highlighted when she realized they were looking at her targeting solutions, debating if any miscalculations on her part resulted in the eezo core breach that caused the explosion. She had complete faith in her work, but still breathed a sigh of relief when the board ruled her targeting solution was perfect and the pirates purposely overloaded their own core to prevent capture. The relief she felt was a shallow victory, knowing there were still twelve dead Marines, no matter how it happened. After a hasty salvage operation and a solemn memorial service broadcast flotilla wide, the mission pressed on.
The last stop in the Artemis Tau cluster, Therum, proved much more interesting than Chohe, with the surface being dotted with mine entrances, Prothean ruins, and an occasional river of lava. Unfortunately, those rivers of lava made much of the surface ungodly hot and the team had to stay in environmental suits any time they were outside, in case one of the many volcanic rifts decided to act up. Therum was a budding mining colony; a potentially very rich mining colony with pockets of trace eezo, as well as a plethora of heavy metals much desired across all of Citadel space. Jonah Ashland of Eldfell-Ashland Energy had two fully loaded freighters ready to return to the Sol system and requested fleet escort to the relay in Hades Gamma. Once the freighters broke atmosphere, the Hyderabad and two frigates led out to the Artemis Tau relay with the two frigates following behind and the last three frigates of Flotilla Charlie in trail. When they emerged at the Hades Gamma relay in the Antaeus system, on-board sensors detected a small ship jumping away in FTL. The captain assumed it to be a pirate scout ship and deployed the flotilla in a defensive configuration around the relay and freighters. The relay realignment from Artemis Tau to the Exodus cluster took approximately ninety minutes, during which time the two freighters would have been sitting ducks had they not been escorted. As it was, the appearance of the cruiser and accompanying frigates must have been enough to dissuade an attack, because no pirates showed up and shortly after the relay completed its realignment and came back online, the EAE freighters jumped to the Exodus cluster and the bulk of the Second Fleet without incident.
The next realignment took much longer and a lengthy five hours later the flotilla jumped to the Voyager cluster to finish the last six weeks of the mission. The cluster contained three systems, composed of fourteen planets, and turned out to be remarkably busy with an unusually high level of mercenary activity. After tracking multiple signals over a number of days, the flotilla narrowed the main base of operations down to the planet Agebinium in the Amazon system and a quick scan revealed an illegal mining operation. Standard procedure was to remove the mercs, by force if necessary, then cordon off the mine and occupy the site. The holding force would consist of four squads, for a total of twenty four Marines, supported by four Alliance Heavy Turrets on the ground, and the Hyderabad and two frigates in geosynchronous orbit above the site. The remaining three frigates from the flotilla would resume patrol and finish scanning the remainder of the cluster. First Fleet would dispatch a relief force for long term security, along with a geological survey crew to establish the status of the mine as a viable resource. Once they arrived, Flotilla Charlie would be released to return to Eden Prime.
Captain Joab Laban stood in the CIC of the Hyderabad and saw the last of the ready lights go green. "Initiate Operation Alpha." Immediately, two UT-47 Kodiak shuttles dropped out from the frigates that would be remaining on station. As soon as they were clear, the frigates made sequential touchdowns, each in turn belching an M29 Grizzly Infantry Fighting Vehicle off the rear loading ramp as soon as it touched dirt, then rapidly rising back into space. Each shuttle and each Grizzly carried a squad of six Marines. The Grizzlies approached first and eliminated external defenses with the help of the frigates' GUARDIAN laser turrets. Once the external defenses were down, the shuttles approached and the Marines disembarked. A driver and a gunman stayed in each Grizzly to guard the entrance, but the other twenty Marines breached the facility to take down the mercs.
As the shuttles relayed insertion complete messages, Captain Laban smiled and hit the comm once again. "Initiate Phase Bravo." Immediately, two Kodiaks dropped from the Hyderabad, each with equipment for two heavy turrets, four weapons maintenance technicians and a weapons officer; Ensign Hannah Shepard was thrilled to be one of the team members.
As the Marines pressed through the mine pursuing and clearing out the mercs, three Corvettes lifted out from a valley over the hill from the mine. As soon as they crested the top of the hill, they cleared the ground clutter and showed up on the shipboard scanners. The XO shouted out, "We've got contact! Only one klick northeast of insertion!" The shuttle operators and Grizzly gunners on the ground immediately rotated weapons into a defensive posture, but it was unnecessary; the surviving mercs had evacuated through a rear exit and made a run for it. They scattered in three different directions, and they scattered fast. The on-duty weapons team on the Hyderabad took out one Corvette, but the other two slipped away, hugging low in the mountains until they were out of line of site of the cruiser.
Listening to the comm chatter as she worked, Ensign Shepard called back to the XO and requested permission to change the turret installation configuration, shifting one of the four to the newly discovered rear entrance. Once the mine was cleared and the rear door declared secure, Hannah had a shuttle take one of the turret packages, two techs and her to the new location to set up the last defensive position. While they worked, the second shuttle took the remainder of the assembly team back to the Hyderabad. They finished the assembly and Hannah synced the entire system up to a unified defensive grid. Just as she was getting ready to program the system to enter an initial test cycle, the board went red and proximity alarms started going off. Thinking she did something wrong, she pulled up her omnitool to run a diagnostic, just as the turret she was standing at started to fire. The sound dampeners in her helmet were fast, but the initial shot and concussion still made her flinch in pain as the force rattled through her whole body. She yelled, "Damn it! We've got premature initiation. Shut it down!"
She glanced up at the technicians to see if they heard her above the 'fwhoomp' of the rocket launcher and saw a wide-eyed young seaman frozen in place, staring at the sky. Her head snapped around and she saw it; a mercenary Corvette had tried to sneak in fast and low and the turret had reacted and started the targeting cycle as soon as the defense grid came on line. The Corvette was now a burning mass of junk...headed straight for them. She didn't stop to think; she yelled at the seaman to move and dove behind the turret stand, praying it would protect her. The last thing she remembered was a huge explosion shaking the ground, being pelted with rocks that came off the cliff side and a huge fireball rolling over top of her. As her vision went dark, she thought... at least I'm wearing a hard suit.
Hannah woke up thinking how much her body hurt, then her memory returned in a flash of fire. She immediately tried to sit up and check out her surroundings, but she moved too quickly, felt nauseas, and flopped back flat, groaning in agony. She heard a familiar voice, though it sounded distant, almost like the speaker was underwater.
"Ensign Shepard. Just take it slow and lay still for a moment. Can you open your eyes for me please?"
As she opened her eyes and looked around, she recognized Dr Low and realized she was in the med bay back on the Hyderabad. "Hey, Doc. I guess I was med evac'd after the crash, huh?"
"Yes, and it's a great sign that your memory seems intact. No apparent slurred speech and no excessive light sensitivity. Good. How do you actually feel?" Dr Low was looking in her eyes, testing pupillary reaction and who knew what else.
Hannah smirked, "Like I had a cannon go off right next to my ear and then got smashed by a crashing Corvette?"
Dr Low chuckled. "Well, now I know your funny bone isn't broken either." Her brow wrinkled and she pressed on, "Any nausea?"
"Yeah, that's why I flopped back down. I sat up too quick and felt like I was gonna hurl. Do I have a concussion? And can I get a drink? My throat feels like I swallowed part of that burning ship."
"Oh! Absolutely!" Dr Low grabbed a glass of water and handed it to Hannah as she continued her exam. "Yes, you have a concussion, so I didn't administer any sedatives or pain meds yet. I wanted to wait until you woke up. You also had a suit breach." The doctor watched the ensign carefully for her reaction to that statement, and Hannah quickly realized there was some reaction Dr Low was waiting for.
She started speaking, slowly, trying to give her brain time to catch up and figure out what she was missing. "Suit breach. Hell, that could have come from any number of things, but most likely shrapnel from the Corvette." It suddenly dawned on her and she immediately understood the implications and struggled to sit up. "Oh, hell! The Corvette! Was there an eezo core breach? Was I exposed to eezo?"
Dr Low grabbed her arm and helped her sit up, then adjusted the top of the bed so Hannah could lean back against it. "Let me start out by saying straight up...you and the baby are perfectly fine. Now, the details. Yes, there was a breach, but your hard suit minimized your exposure. You are in the majority grouping of it having no effect, but we'll be monitoring your pregnancy over your last trimester anyway, so we'll monitor eezo symptoms as well, just to be sure. Your daughter is also showing absolutely zero signs of precancerous mutation, but it's too soon to tell if there are any mutagenic effects. There is still a small chance she could develop eezo nodules in her nervous system, but I don't think the level of exposure was sufficient to result in biotics manifestation. I can't guarantee that, we'll just have to put it in her record and monitor her. Questions?"
Hannah shook her head. "I'm not gonna ever come see you again, Doc. You always seem to deliver the most surprising news." They both grinned as Hannah continued. "Questions. Not really. Oh...on the other hand... You say you'll have to monitor Samantha. How long?"
Dr Low smiled, "Samantha? I assume you've picked a name?"
Hannah beamed, "Yes, in honor of my mother; Samantha Jean McCormick. The baby will be named after both of us and, of course, take David's name. She'll be Samantha Hannah Shepard."
Dr Low opened her omnitool and made an entry. "Wonderful! I've added it to your file, but of course you can change it any time until it's logged on the birth record. Of course even then you can change it, just requires a bit more work to do so. Anyway, if biotics are going to manifest, it generally occurs before or with puberty, unless there's an extraneous event that forces the issue one way or the other. So it's essential to monitor until fourteen, maybe? Current practices dictate we monitor until they turn eighteen. Once they hit adulthood, it's up to them if they want to continue the monitoring program." Dr Low registered Hannah's nod of understanding and continued, "Now, if you have no further questions, I've had a very worried young man standing out in the hallway wringing his hands for the last two hours. He's already been given all the information, so no explanations are necessary. You ready for some company?" Dr Low's eyebrows quirked in anticipation of a yes.
Hannah sighed, "One more question, Doc... Seaman Winters?"
Dr Low's happy expression fell into a well of sadness. "Perished in the crash, I'm afraid. The Marine contingent at the door grabbed Seaman Michaels and pulled him to safety, but Winters was too far away. They couldn't reach him in time. They lost a couple men as well, during the assault. I'm sorry, Ensign."
"Well, shit. I kinda figured. Winters froze. I saw him and it was like his feet were glued to the ground. He just stared at the Corvette as it blazed towards him. I yelled, but was diving behind cover so I never saw what he did. I was hoping...at the last minute..." Hannah met Dr Low's eyes as she finished. "...he'd do... something. Ya know?"
"Yes. I know. Sometimes soldiers run into something that's just bigger than them and their brain can't process it. They just can't get past it, don't know what to do with it. Unfortunately, it happens sometimes." After a silent pause, the doctor shrugged her shoulders and walked to the door, preparing to let David into the room.
"Hey, Doc?" Hannah waited until Dr Low stopped and looked back at her. She spoke softly into the subdued quiet, "I have a rule. We've shared death. It's not Ensign anymore. It's Hannah."
The Doctor's eyes clouded for a brief moment before shining clear. "Very well, Hannah. I'm Jennifer." She smiled and gave a quick nod, as if to confirm to herself it was ok. "My friends call me Jenn, and you're right, we've shared death. That bonds us in a way nothing else can."
Hannah smiled back at her, "Thanks, Jenn. I'd love to see my husband now."
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