AN: I'm back from the dead! Firstly, I would like to apologise that it has taken so long for this chapter to be released, I can't blame drunk Liam for this one. I can however blame the motley bunch of muppets that have invaded my Discord since they've been…. 'helping' yeah I'll stick with that 'helping me write this one up.
Secondly and somewhat more importantly (Even though I've written it second on the list.) I've begun a full rewrite of BDD, this is no way me giving up on BDD but I've noticed a number of continuity errors, either through drunkenness or laziness so I've made a decision to correct this problem whilst I'm only sixteen chapters into it rather than thirty plus chapters in.
Thirdly I'm human, though that may surprise some of my most loyal readers who know I consume an unhealthy amount of booze on the regular, I unfortunately am not a multi-millionaire cyborg sent back from the future, I get writers block and fatigue from time to time, I'll try and keep up a more regular update schedule going forward. (No promises are made.)
If you made it this far into the AN, what are you doing here still? The fic is below, go read it, shoo, shoo.
August 6th 2150 CE [Common Era], Hierarchy Outer Colony Space,
Turian Patrol Battlegroup 218: Battlegroup Invictus,
HNV Invictus CA-I-32, Hierarchy-Hegemony Border Region.
Combat Information Centre, 21:03 Hierarchy Military Time.
Executive Officer Ka'mara Nyx stood proud atop of the commanders platform overlooking the Invictus' night shift, not the most glorious of duties to be sure, but a duty that needed doing nevertheless, only half of the consoles were staffed.
With a couple of extra technicians performing maintenance on the deactivated consoles, Ka'mara's eyes were scanning through several reports on her issued command data pad, most of which were regular shift reports and requisition requests from the chief engineer.
Most of which would undoubtedly be rejected by the powers that be, due to the coming white paper foisted upon the Hierarchy by the Council's Defence Spending Committee; Ka'mara's attention was suddenly pulled aside by a bright flash beside one of the deactivated consoles, followed by the yelp of 'Bosh'tet' from the synthesized voice modulator of the ships resident male Quarrian.
"Do you need any assistance?" Ka'mara asked with the usual Turian flanging twang rather sardonically, the young Quarrian's helmet smacked against the frame, startled from being addressed by the ships XO.
"N-no ma'am, just voicing my displeasure of dealing with improperly maintained hardware, ma'am." He replied back rather hastily, Ka'mara's brow plates furrowed for a split second at the news, not liking the fact crewmen had been cutting corners on her ship, also at the Quarrian Technicians' tone.
"Do the best you can Technician." She curtly responded, before placing her attention back on her data pad to finish up the reports, with the monotony of night shift duties little could be done to alleviate mind numbing boredom, but everyone did their duties, some more on auto pilot than others.
It wouldn't be until an hour later when Ka'mara's attention was pulled once more, this time by a female junior sensors operator, stationed to the portside of the CIC. "Ma'am I've got several unknown FTL wakes on long range sensors." She reported.
Ka'mara taking immediate stock on the situation, quickly turned to the senior communications officer standing at his post around the holo image of the HNV Invictus. "Lieutenant Commander Varirius, are we receiving proper IFF codes from the unknowns?" Ka'mara asked curtly.
"Negative ma'am, they're running dark, no transmissions and no attempts to contact us so far." Varirius replied.
"Send the challenge, then contact the rest of the battlegroup have us raise our posture to Alert Bravo One." Ka'mara ordered.
"Expecting trouble Commander?" Varirius responded to the order.
"Always Varirius, we're skimming the Hegemony's border, we're potentially dealing with pirates, let's hope the Spirits make them see sense and they'll retreat once they realise they're picking a fight with the Hierarchy's finest." Ka'mara stated resolutely.
"Spirits willing, Commander, spirits willing…." Lt. Cmdr. Varirius muttered under his breath, thinking privately 'since when did Batarian's see sense?'
"Sensors, how long until we intercept the unknown's predicted exit trajectory?" Ka'mara asked the female junior officer, who was diligently keeping up to date with the sensor data on the Unknown contacts.
"Fifteen minutes, at our current speed ma'am." She reported back.
"Sound general quarters, wake the crew and send a communique to Fleet-Command report we have several unknown contacts, potentially Batarian Pirates, we're moving to intercept." Ka'mara ordered, before addressing the Chief Gunnery Officer. "Prepare for a potential engagement."
August 6th 2150 Common Era, Hierarchy Outer Colony Space,
Turian Patrol Battlegroup 218: Battlegroup Invictus,
HNV Invictus CA-I-32, Hierarchy-Hegemony Border Region.
Combat Information Centre, 22:03 Hierarchy Military Time.
"Sir, all ships are reporting that they're in position ready to intercept the unknown force." Ka'mara reported to her commanding officer who took his place on the command platform overlooking the CIC and bridge.
"Sir, I count six confirmed objects on sensors, two cruiser and four frigate's…." The female junior sensors operator reported. "Something isn't right though; these readings are massive!" She exclaimed.
"Report." Captain Maxius Alenius ordered.
"Sir, the frigates are blinding my sensors their FTL wakes are far larger and massively unstable my instruments are struggling to see anything." She reported, Ka'mara noticed the Quarrian Technician stiffen at the report.
"Technician if you know something, report it now!" Ka'mara barked a little more harshly than she had intended to but it had shaken the Quarrian out of his stupor.
"Ma'am, it's a Quarrian Migrant Fleet tactic, it done to mask our numbers in case of hostilities, there's more than six ships in transit, there's another ship riding the slip stream behind the first, possibly two." He answered her, Ka'mara may not be an expert in micro expressions especially Quarrian ones at that, be she could tell he was telling her the truth.
"Do you honestly think the Hegemony has the audacity to attack the most powerful navy in the known galaxy with an entire pirate fleet, such an action would spark a war, what red sand are you on Technician." The Captain shot back ardently.
"Unknown force is emerging from FTL!" The junior sensor officer reported; emerging fifteen hundred kilometres off of the bow a fleet of vessels, eighteen in total, four cruisers, eight frigates and six troop transports pulling up to the rear of the formation.
Alenius looked like he'd swallowed a truly bitter fruit, this wasn't a pirate raiding force, it was a full spirits damned slaver fleet. "Enemy force is powering weapons!" Alenius frowned, even with the first salvo advantage and the fact the enemies drives were saturated from FTL Battlegroup Invictus was doomed by virtue of the slavers simply having more.
Opening a battlegroup wide channel Alenius gave what would be potentially his last order in his life. "All vessels open fire; we know what these slaver vermin will do to us if they take prisoners…. We shan't be giving them any!" The feeling of the deck plate vibrating under their feet told them the first shot had been fired from the Invictus' main gun, the Chief Gunnery Officer not hesitating a second the moment he'd been given the clearance and the target lock necessary to guarantee the first hit.
"All vessels, focus fire on priority targets Aurek, Besh, Cresh, Dorn, Esk and Forn, if we can break the slavers command chain, we might be able to force the enemy to think twice before attempting an attack on the Outer Colonies!"
To say the battle was short but brutal would do little to describe the carnage that had unfolded since the first shots were fired, lasting half an hour a small portion of space was littered with the broken corpses of multiple ships on both sides.
Two of the transports had been destroyed within the first five minutes of the engagement, as had two hegemony cruisers and three frigates, one cruiser was crippled acting as little more than a stationary gun platform to protect the remaining transports.
The cost had been the entirety of battlegroup Invictus, sans the Invictus herself, which had suffered multiple hull breaches, entire compartments vented into space to prevent fires from breaking out throughout the vessel.
"Ma'am I've lost the main gun!" The Chief Gunnery Officer bellowed to Ka'mara as she looked at the corpse that was once her commanding officer. "Ma'am!" The Invictus' CGO barked out trying to get her attention.
"We're fighting a lost battle, might I make a suggestion and retreat, we're more use to the Hierarchy alive to report this than dead leaving an entire sector of the Hierarchy border open to a full Hegemony invasion!" The Quarrian Technician shouted as he desperately patched what he could to keep the Invictus in the fight.
"Navigation, blind jump us out of here, Technician get to the engineering console and re-route everything we can spare from non-essential systems into the drive…." The Quarrian technician was all too happy to get to the console occupied by a dead crewmen.
"…. CGO you're XO now, jettison the Black Box in case the spirits damn us today!" Ka'mara ordered without hesitation. "Helm point our nose directly at the enemy, between their formation, show them our pride to be Turian by retreating into enemy space!"
"Drive is fully charged and then some ma'am if you're doing this do it now before the Eezo drive goes critical!" The Quarrian technician, was quick to mutter a pray, as the Invictus' acting Captain ordered the jump.
To the surviving hegemony slaver vessels realising the ship was going for a ballistic trajectory they fired every ECS thruster to manoeuvre out of the Invictus' flight path, doubling their fire rate to cripple the aged Hierarchy cruiser.
Only to fail doing so, as the ship shot forward towards them at speeds beyond the universal constant of light speed.
Aboard the Surviving cruiser the Batarian watched as his second in commands life faded as he choked the failure of an officer before him, with his fleet near enough impotent to attempt his planned invasion of one of the local Hierarchy outer colonies, he snarled and gave the order to retreat back to Hegemony space to regain his lost forces and pride.
"The Hierarchy will pay ten fold for this slight against me." He swore, throwing the corpse of his now dead XO to the floor at his feet. "I'll guarantee it." He growled.
August 6th 2206 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2150 CE [Common Era].
Human Systems Alliance Space, Frontier Colonial Systems.
SSV Lion BS 106, Combat Information Centre.
[Play: Lion's Law: Open Your Eyes – Intro & Knock 'Em Out.]
"Batteries Alpha 1-1, Alpha 1-3 re-direct your fire fifteen degrees off the port bow, focus fire on the enemy batteries!" barked the ships commander down his wireless.
"White Lead, focus on the enemy bombers making their attack run on our aft port quarter!" The ships red headed executive officer ordered.
"Aye ma'am we see them, White 2, White 5 follow my attack vector!" a slightly static filled radio transmission replied.
"Vampire, Vampire, Vampire enemy missile saturation attack on the portside!" Another officer barked in one of the upper alcoves overlooking the CIC.
"Re-tasking portside CIWS to intercept!" Another officer responded; the ships XO looked to her commanding officer, his face as calm as ever, his brown-green eyes as sharp as ever. "Dylan better be sticking with the fucking plan, if he's pulling another fashionably late manoeuvre, I don't care if he's a superior officer I'm kicking his arse!" the Executive officer of the Lion growled.
Her commander smiled. "He knows the plan Kallen, he'll do his job and we'll do ours until then!" Kallen nodded to her commander in understanding.
"Hull breach portside between frames forty and forty seven, Bulkheads have sealed the breach!" Another of the CIC's numerous officers barked aloud.
"I just hope that asshole realises the Lion's tough, she isn't invincible!" Kallen retorted hearing the news of a hull breach.
"Damage Response Teams are on site shoring up the bulkheads." Her commander looked to the tactical displays hanging from the ceiling just above the CIC's war table, before quickly glancing to an old analogue wrist watch donned on his inner left wrist.
"Helm on my mark fire all portside emergency thrusters!" He ordered, the Helmsman not even questioning the order primed the necessary switch to fire the single use solid fuel emergency thrusters.
"3… 2… MARK!" he barked the ship lurched, the artificial plates barely able to compensate for the sudden and brutal change in direction and velocity.
Dradis lit up with a new unknown contact on rapid approach on minimal power, using nothing but docking thrusters for micro adjustments on its ballistic trajectory, the marker quickly identified as the SSV Fastidious Redoubt.
The two vessels passed one another with tens of metres to spare. "Fastidious has fired a full salvo, confirmed one enemy battlecruiser destroyed!" Came the inevitable report.
"About time you Irish bastard, I was getting worried you'd turned your coat you were taking so fucking long!" Her commander barked down his wireless, to receive a short but dramatic retort in reply.
"I'll turn your damn coat in a second if you don't wind your damn neck in, oh and you owe me a fucking pint for this stunt. Ya eejit!" Kallen just shook her head in response typical 'British Banter' in a life and death situation wasn't new to her it was however just a little grating at times.
"Helm, all ahead full! We're finishing this fight…." The Lion's captain would've finished his speech if not for the senior communications officer barking out. "ENDEX, ENDEX, ENDEX, Priority Alpha-one message from NAV-COM!" She barked from her post.
"Hoshi report!" he ordered.
"Sir, Unknown contact has breached Leonidas' Orbital Defence Zone, one ship, unknown class, no IFF and is not responding to hails, ODP's on the western hemisphere are down for maintenance! All vessels within 50 lightyears are to report combat stations ready ASAP while the 7th is to deploy immediately." Hoshi reported.
Kallen picked up her own wireless midway through the report. "Sir, Voyager Actual is on SEC-COM-ONE." Kallen reported.
Nodding in acknowledgement he picked up his own wireless. "Voyager Actual to Lion Actual take your battlegroup to Century Anchorage, top up your bunkers captain, I need you and yours making the fleets presence known on the Frontier. How copy? Over." The stern feminine voice of the Voyager's American OIC ordered.
"Lion actual copies your last ma'am, give 'em hell for me. Over."
"Godspeed Lion Actual, also this bout of ours isn't over expect to pick up where we left off Liam, until consider it draw. Out."
Shaking his head Liam smirked placing his wireless back onto its base. "You always have to get the last word in Janeway. Navigations, plot us an FTL jump to Century Anchorage. Hoshi get the word to the others, Re-Org on our Pos we're jumping distribute the Co-Ord's as soon as Nav transfers the data." Hoshi and the others nodded acknowledging the orders given.
Liam turned to Kallen. "Bring our birds back to the barn, get the deck chiefs to fully kit them with the usual interception loadouts, I'm expecting things to get more than a little interesting." Kallen raised one delicate brow.
"How interesting?" She asked as she picked up her wireless.
"Serenity Interesting." Liam retorted back.
"Chief as soon as we dock, pull every Simunition round from the bunkers and dump them at Century, then pull every spare round of APAC and APACHE from Century and secure them, if they give you any hint of shit boot their arses to me, I'll sort it."
'Chief' being the Lion's Chief Gunnery Officer nodded, in understanding speaking into his always donned headset's microphone to reorganise the crewmen operating the Highly Automated Weapons Handling System (HAWHS) so the robotic moles were ready at the munitions airlocks for rapid transfers of bulk ammunition.
With the full battlegroup taking up formation on the Lion, the 75th Reserve Battlegroup consisting of one Lion class Battlestar, one Triglav class Artillery Cruiser, one Vanguard class Battleship, six Daring class Fleet Escort Destroyers and twelve City class Frigates disappeared from their position in a flash of bright white light as their 'Jump Drives' folded two points of space together to instantaneously jump from one set of co-ordinates to another.
To Be Continued….
AN: I want to thank you all once again for sticking with me through the highs and lows of my upload schedule and I shall once again pass the blame onto those of you who've continually given me shit on my Discord. (You know who you are.) Strat *cough, cough* Mike *cough, cough* Bad Dragon *cough, cough* and the rest of you who show up from time to time, especially you Menial!
Any fans interested in seeing the sheer insanity that is my fever dream of a discord to input your own ideas or just to shit post and commit acts of heresy, feel free to PM me I'll post a link for any and all willing to join. Or use one of the remaining ten invites using the link on my profile.
Also, the Mandalorian is one of the best shows out there, fight me.
GRLS has spoken.
