USS Repulse

Vanguard class Battleship NCC-89901

In Orbit above John Glenn City

Titan


─•~:~•─


"Can you turn off the bloody comm's already, Morris? That damned beeping is starting to annoy me" Tovey said to his XO.

Morris hit a single switch, and at last there was peace in Repulse, even if there was chaos on the moon below the massive battleship.

The appearance of the Borg Diamond was spotted instantly by the mass of QC transmitters and private sensor pods in the Solar System, and the ten planets and hundreds of other independent settlements were immediately thrown into a state of panic.

A swarm of freighters, shuttles, interplanetary transports, and anything that could fly, were trying to get as many people as far away as they possibly could in as little time as possible. Evacuating the population of a settled planet was a challenge under the best of circumstances. Even with a mass of Starships in orbit, there were always complications to moving vast numbers of people.

For one thing, even with Titan's cleared atmosphere, the presence of vast amounts of hydrocarbons made transporter locks difficult in certain areas. People living in the "country" would either have to make their way to a city like JGC and transporter hubs or be evacuated "the old-fashioned way" by shuttle. There were also always those who were too sick to be safely beamed away, further adding to the complications. And naturally, given the nature of a wild, near-lawless colony like Titan, there were those who refused to leave their homes for any reason.

Titan only had a population of Three Million, but that was still three million families that needed to get away from the moon and Saturn. The few warp capable transports were causing massive distortions in subspace as they hauled ass out of the Solar System, ruining any kind of stealthy approach by the battleships. The other ships that were limited to impulse power were simply flying as fast as they could, anywhere they could, paying no mind to things like traffic lanes or station keeping.

Tovey held tightly onto his seat as Repulse's helmsman rolled the massive battleship quickly to port to avoid an oncoming super freighter that didn't seem to know, or care, that there was something in his direct path forward.

"Sorry!" the Trill Ensign at the helm said to the bridge, "He wasn't responding to comms, and I figured you didn't want us to ram a super freighter"

"Pay it no mind, Ensign Kent, just try to keep us in a relatively stable orbit if you could" Tovey sighed deeply.

For as large and bulky as she was, Repulse was simply stupefying in her manoeuvrability. She easily matched a Sovereign, and if she was a bit faster at impulse, she might even give an Intrepid a run for her money. "Mikey" hoped the agility would be the winning advantage in just under five minutes.

He could only imagine the chaos happening around Earth at the moment. If evacuation of three million was this much of a challenge, Nine Billion would be an impossibility, to say nothing of the thirty million people living on Luna or the twelve million in the four massive orbital habitats. Drills had been occasionally performed at a local level and following the Battle of Earth just a decade ago, evacuation plans that hadn't been looked at in decades were quickly updated and modernized, but fully evacuating Earth should Repulse, and her sister Vanguard fail would be a living nightmare.

Tovey took a look at Rain, manning the gunner's table in place of his normal gunner, LT Kylix. Rain was an intimidating woman and put a chill down Tovey's spine every time he saw her. But scary as she might be, she was steely confident, and Tovey found himself drawing from her strength.

"Is the Borg ship in range yet?" He asked Rain.

She shook her head, letting her hyper-focus drown out anything except for assigned task, implementing the firing solution devised by herself, Virnas and Mark Castle.

"I still think this plan is a bit premature. We should try to assist with the evacuations instead. Or perhaps engage the Borg over Luna. We'd have Home Fleet behind us, and Earth's orbital weapons platforms-" Quinn started saying from the guest chair, before the other "Mike" stopped him.

"Hey, Vice Ad, I won't take a shot at you like the Major did, but I will echo my own boss. Shut the fuck up!" Gunnery Sargent Mike Bagsley said near the CIC table.

Quinn stiffened but held his words anyway. The Marines were clearly not to be trifled with.

The Science Officer, below the loft and to the left, shouted out next, "Visual contact! The Borg Ship is entering main battery range in five...four..." she started counting down.

"Now?" Tovey again asked Rain.

"Not yet," Rain replied.

The countdown hit zero, and Tovey took a line from a German Captain that had killed his great, great, great, great, great grandfather in the Denmark Straits on Earth, "I'm not letting my ship get shot out from under my arse. Open Fire!"

Rain hit a single switch on the table, and Repulse fired her thunderous guns into the coldness of space.

From the belly of the massive battleship, the Nadion Pulse Cannons fired three-thousand-pound tritanium shells coated in Nadion particles, the same type of particles that composed phaser beams. The system was not completely different from the old BL MKV 15" naval cannon mounted onto Repulse's much older namesake that still sat at the bottom of the Indian Ocean on Earth, beyond the fact that Royal Navy sailors could never possibly imagine things like Tritanium or Nadion particles.

The shells moved across space at the speed of light, and thanks to the Nadion particles, they left a cloud of orange tracer in their wake as they flew towards the target. Tovey watched the tracers with his eyes as Repulse continued her initial salvo. Beside his BB, Vanguard added her own shells to the trail, and a cloud of metal drew an orange streak across the brown sky of Saturn as they flew headlong into the Borg Diamond.

After two minutes, the shells stopped, and both Repulse and Vanguard began the minute-long process of reloading their magazines. Unlike the Royal Navy's battle cruiser of the second world war, the Starship Repulse didn't require men to manually reload her guns.

At a distance of 1 AU, it would take another two minutes for Tovey to know if his opening salvo had been effective. It would be the longest two minutes of his life.


─•~:~•─


Priority alert. Incoming projectiles, heading 215 mark 008. Increasing power to defensive systems and adjusting course to heading 21-

The Combat Algorithm was interrupted, and the Queen was thrown from her feet as the Diamond was rocked by the physical impact of tritanium shells slamming into her subspace grid and primary shield emitter.

Around her, consoles and machinery exploded in sparks as EPS taps were overwhelmed trying to contain the power surges they were experiencing as each of the twelve shells fired by 5618's curious new ships found targets. Their Nadion based particle weaponry had managed to exploit a glaring flaw in Diamond assimilation platform design, and this new type of weapon – designated by the combat algorithm as Nadion Pulse Cannon MK1 – was exploiting that critical flaw.

Her emotional subproccessors were experiencing conflicting feelings. One as admiration for 5618's innovative resistance, noting that the Collective had finally moved their resistance quotient to 1-A, sharing that status only with 8472. The second feeling was anger. Anger at her Collective for allowing such a critical design flaw into platform construction, and anger at 5618 for defying her wishes.

"Damage assessment,"

Subspace grid has deteriorated 18.2%. Primary shield emitter is offline, engaging secondary emitter in 22.21 seconds. EPS Taps 1-1, 2-1, 301, 574 destroyed. Secondary taps on outer hull section 88892 and 88893 destroyed. Impulse power reduced to 78.43% efficiency.

The Queen picked herself up, straightened her hair, and allowed her emotional subproccessors to subside as she revised her initial plans, "Increase power to impulse engines. We must reach the third planet quicker. Don't bother trying to adapt, just move!"


─•~:~•─


"Well, she definitely felt that, Jackie. I registered the primary shield emitter go offline, but it looks like she managed to get a secondary grid up pretty fast," Jack shouted from his own Gunner's Table on Vanny.

Jack may not have been quite the starship gunner that Mark was, but he still knew how to operate a weapon's console, and he was putting all of his experience to effective use today.

Vanguard's shells joined those fired from Repulse and slammed into the Borg Diamond like a shuttle slamming into an asteroid. Motion in space was relative to individual perspective, but Jack would swear on everything he knew that his opening salvo had absolutely rocked the diamond shaped monstrosity in front of the battleship, at the same distance as Earth was from the Sun.

Thanks to Vanguard's enhanced sensor package, Jack and the crew were able to watch each of their six shells slam into the Borg's hull, and Jack again swore he could feel the shock-wave of the impact in his body even through space and a view screen.

"God Damn! I'll never get over how good it feels firing my big old guns at somethin! You know how fuckin long I've been waitin to shoot at somethin real, Jack?" Captain Jackie Fishier shouted back from the loft.

The young and fiery skipper had leapt to her feet in excitement, knowing that the massive pile of requests she had sent in for live fire exercises were finally getting put to beneficial use today.

Beside her at the XO's station, Alynna Nechayev could only smile. She was skeptical at such a large ship being an effective combatant, but Vanguard had earned her respect, as had Jackie. She contemplated sending a request to reassign Vanguard to Hell's Own when the mission was over, but her contemplation was interrupted by a grave warning from T'Pella, who had taken over a science console after being kicked off the Gunner's table.

"Captain, the Borg Ship is increasing impulse power. She's now travelling at half impulse. Estimating asteroid belt crossing in twelve minutes and Earth Orbit in twenty-two," the Vulcan girl shouted out.

Jack sighed, "Ideally, I'd like to get on the fucking thing before she gets across the asteroid belt. Suggestions, Skipper?"

Jackie jumped from her chair, wrapped her arms around Jack's shoulders and said, "You keep rockin that Borg claptrap like yer gonna rock me tonight in my cabin! Ready another salvo and fire at will!"

Jack nodded and updated the firing solution with the new vector of the Borg Diamond. In the back of his mind, he wanted to wince at the idea of making love to a woman, but a very terrifying notion was overriding his usual wiring.

Jackie's idea didn't sound half bad.