- CHAPTER 13 -
- Flag Officer's Dining Room, ISS Shiva -
Ulysses went through his meal mechanically. It wasn't the food's fault, on the contrary it was some of the best marlin he had ever eaten. The problem was the company. To a man, each and every officer present at the dinner had agreed without question to Chriton's orders. And it was orders, not some proposed mission change to be debated. After seeing how Chriton took dissent to his plans, Ulysses could understand how they would lack initiative in voicing their concerns. It wasn't conducive to further career advancement. It also wasn't conductive to intelligent mission planning, but Chriton and his staff didn't seem to care about that. Chriton's word was law as far as his staffers were concerned, not batting an eyelash at his irrational and down right stupid command decisions.
First the meal, then the after dinner drinks, seemed to take forever. He tried to talk some sense into the other officers, choosing his words with utmost care, but every time he brought up his doubts about Chriton's plan, they clamed up almost immediately. Or worse yet, they tried to bring him around to Chriton's side. Needless to say, he was soon spending much of the evening starring out the giant window of the dining room, nursing his scotch on the rocks. At least it was the real thing, not that synthehol garbage. It made the time pass smoother than it would without it, and eventually the night of hell was over.
Admiral Chriton dismissed the officers and they proceeded to their own ships and quarters. The walk back to the shuttle was uneventful, as was the return trip to the Hopolite's shuttlebay. Once Ulysses was safely inside his new quarters, Hopolite's CO stateroom, he smashed his fist into the bulkhead. Smashed it HARD. And yelped in pain, jerking his bruised hand back from the wall, waving it rapidly back and forth like that would somehow ease the pain. He scowled at the offending wall, even his physical pain and momentary lapse in judgement not breaking through his anger. But it wasn't anger alone, there was a good dash of fear mixed in there as well. For after what ever was on the other side of that portal was done with 24th fleet, the first place they would come to was right here. And there would only be the Hopolite between them and the rest of the Galaxy.
- Terran Empire space, near the border of what was once the Lyran Star Empire and the Mirak Star League -
The Imperial patrol cruised along its standard course. The three upgraded Nova class vessels backed up by two Defiants traveled without cloak on their daily trek through space. This had been a quiet area of the Empire for two generations. Both the Lyrans and the Mirak were well under the yoke of Imperial control. Had been since their conquest by the then burgeoning infant Terran Empire. The patrol searched for the same things they always did, pirates whom wouldn't pay for the privilege, rogue Lyran and Mirak warships (uncommon though far from unheard of), and the odd cargo vessel that needed a little Imperial 'inspecting' for contraband.
Captain Dorothy Chambers lounged, pouting and bored to near tears, in her command chair. Her shoulder length copper hair went along well with her new command cloak. The newly minted captain had been placed in overall command of the patrol as well. Being the daughter of one of the Imperial Council members certainly had its perks. Getting a Nova, especially an upgraded one like the ISS Ogre, as her first command was a definite sign that her star was on the rise.
The Nova class was one of the newest designs of Imperial patrol vessels. It incorporated many of the plusses of both the Defiant class and the Sovereign class. It had five foreword PPC's and dual Q-torp launchers courtesy of the Defiant program. From the Sovereign program, it mounted type XII phasers with the B-upgrade (B-upgrade is an add-on that allows older style phaser arrays to rapidly remodulate their beams settings similar to Type XIV phasers), regenerative shielding, and the general styling of the vessel. It also had bioneural gel packs to speed up ships systems.
Dorothy stared at the main viewer as the rocks of the asteroid belt shattered and burst apart as the Imperial patrol blew through them at 75 PSL. Cruising at full impulse through an asteroid field as dense as this always gave her an unbridled sense of power. It also gave the dull routine of the patrol a more exciting face. Although getting assigned to a Nova class ship for your fist command was a definite sign of family ties to the Imperial leadership, it also meant that you usually weren't assigned to dangerous areas until you were considerably more seasoned. It wouldn't do for all of the future ruling members of the Terran Empire to be killed by a lucky pirate or rebel.
But politics bored Dorothy. The Machiavellian intrigues of the Imperial Council were nothing compared to the way she felt when she was on a starship. As she had advanced in rank, that feeling had merely grown. And when she was on a starship's command deck, she alone was the meader out of punishment and discipline. While the Council members might exercise that same power on a near galactic scale, they were always at arm's length with the actual execution of their power. That wasn't for Dorothy. She craved the visceral, spine tingling thrill that came with watching an errant crewmember writhe and scream in an agonizer.
That was what made this cruise so yawn inducing. There had been nothing to punish. Everything had run incredibly smoothly, without one single hiccup in the systems to enable her to send an engineer to an agonizer. Not one wrong move on the part of her helmsman either. She was maneuvering through the latest challenge Dorothy had set for her like the Ogre was a racing shuttle, not a multi million ton starship. And the rest of the squadron was hard pressed to keep up with the flagship as well, which caused both satisfaction and dismay. Dismay because it further emphasized her helmsman's lack of errors. Satisfaction because it meant that she could rib extra hard on the other Captains for their less than stellar performance when they all got back to the starbase. That thought brought a smile to her normally dour expression. Perhaps this patrol wasn't a total waste of time then. The small squadron rushed on through the tumbling, ever changing maze of the asteroid field, completely unaware that predators with very sharp claws and teeth were stalking it.
- Imperial Lyran Vessel Scarlet Fang, trailing behind the Imperial patrol -
The Lyran heavy cruiser ghosted behind the enemy. It was as invisible to its prey as its crews ancient ancestors hiding in the tall grass of the savana were to theirs. Only instead of hiding downwind of its prey in a thicket of tall grass, it was cruising under cloak. Its two consorts were as well, maintaining formation by encrypted, stealthed datalink. All three ships were new build units, graciously provided by the Cartels. They mounted the latest advances in disrupter, phaser and ESG tech. The phaser arrays were about on par with Imperial Type-X's, but it was the new variable sweep Expanding Sphere Generator. Lyran commanders could now choose weather they wanted to set up a normal ESG attack or a more concentrated, longer ranged Lance attack using the same weapon.
The Scarlet Fang's commander, Captain Zathran, kneaded his claws in and out of the upholstery on his command chair's arms. It was a bad habit, but he couldn't settle his jagged nerves. Here he was, a green captain with an even greener crew, about to launch the first major attack against those whom had enslaved his people. He had every right to be nervous. This battle would either be a glorious victory, or a near final defeat. This battle would tell weather the revitalized Lyran military's secret training had been enough to prepare them for the crucible of battle.
The Lyran people had been through so much. First the little war against the Mirak. Then in the middle of that, the honorless Terrans launched their surprise attack. On BOTH empires! Until that moment, the only thing known about the Terrans was that they were expansionistic and aggressive. But no formal contact was made, not even a single human had ever been seen by the feline eyes of a Lyran, before they launched their attack. Weakened by their fight with each other, both domains were quickly swallowed up by the ravenous maw of the Terran Empire.
Zathran thanked the gods that the conquest had been before the Terrans invented the Genesis Device. That was the main reason why both the Lyran and Mirak homeworlds remained largely as they did since time immemorial. He brown dappled coat quivered as he remembered the footage of the device being used against an enemy of the Empire. Whole ecosystems, billions of sentient life forms wiped out in seconds, replaced by the ideal environment for human populations. And, Zathran worried to himself, they may be yet used against my beloved homeworld even if our attack succeeds here today.
"Captain?" His first officer asked, mild concern emanating from him into Zathran's sent receptors. The young captain realized that he had been gathering wool instead of concentrating on the mission at hand. It was much easier when you followed orders rather than gave them. Command had a way of expanding your horizons, to cause you to worry about things that were beyond your control.
"Excuse me exec," Zathran replied with a sheepish, tooth hidden grin on his face, "you were saying?"
"We are coming up on the intercept point sir. Our 'allies'" Commander Casmir spit the word out like a piece of spoiled meat, "should be in position now. If they can find their way here that is."
"Very well. Are the weapons fully powered?"
"Yes Captain, phasers, disrupters and ESG's are fully charged and ready to fire the moment we drop cloak. Boarding parties are also standing by in the transporter rooms."
"Alright, you may proceed with the attack as planned." The Lyran cruisers were the hammer of this ambush. Now if only the anvil was anyone else life would be good indeed.
- Mirak Star Ship Blood Oath, lying in wait in front of the Imperial patrol -
It turned Captain Hobbes' stomach to be ordered to work with Lyrans. Yet that was exactly what the Patriarch had ordered the newly rebuilt Mirak Star Navy to do. The Cartels had sat both the Patriarch and the Lyran's Emperor down and made it a condition of their support. Their support was the main reason that Hobbes was on a squeaky new vessel instead of an ancient leftover from the time before the occupation. The Mirak peoples had been ground under the heels of the Terran Empire for far to long. Mirak engineers had jumped at the chance to offer up new warship designs. Hobbes current command was the end result of their efforts. It retained the classic arrow like shape of its ancient predecessors, but it was an entirely new beast. Hobbes just hoped that the new fighters and missiles worked like the tech heads said cuz it was his but on the line with a virtually untried weapons system.
"It is time to show ourselves to our prey. Decloak and begin the attack! May our claws strike deep!!" An eager growl of agreement answered him, backed up by the sent of a pack on the hunt. This was good, it indicated that they were ready to face their prey at last.
- ISS Ogre -
The squadron had just cleared the asteroid field when all hell broke loose.
"SIR, in front of us!" On the main viewer, what had been unbroken space moments before was filled with four cruiser sized ships. Their hulls were painted in brown and red, in stripes arranged like the pattern on a tiger. Their warp nacelles glowed a pale greenish blue from their perch on the rear of the ship. And all four vessels were powering up their weapons and defensive systems.
"Red Alert! Order the squadron to assume combat spread, formation Chamber Alpha. Divert power to the weapons systems." On her command, the squadron's Novas assumed an arrowhead formation with the Ogre in the lead. The Defiants took up position above and below the command ship.
- MSS Blood Oath -
Hobbes smiled a slow smile. When faced with four cruisers dropping nearly in your lap, and you only had five destroyers, an intelligent captain would at least execute a tactical retreat to further asses the situation. This one merely rushed out to meet his attack head on. It looked like the enemy commander didn't even intend to use the considerable maneuverability of her lighter warships to their full potential. They were currently in tight, showing no signs of breaking off for independent maneuvers.
He had been like this one once, brash, arrogant, and overly confident. The Mirak Star Navy had done its best to leash these traits into an effective officer, and on the hole they succeeded. But even without the expected help, Hobbes would have attacked the enemy with only his own ships. It would be a much more interesting fight if that happened, for Imperial warships, even destroyers and frigates had sharp teeth and tough hides. But what the enemy didn't know was that the four Mirak cruisers weren't the only enemy they needed to worry about. In fact, the other jaw of the trap should be swinging closed right about . now.
"Sir, three Lyran cruisers decloaking behind the Imperials." There was regret mixed with anger there. Hobbes could hardly blame his tactical officer. He to was angry that Lyran's had to 'help' with his attack, and he to regretted that they had had the balls to show up.
"And look at what the Imperials do now." Hobbes said, and his smile got bigger, showing the needle sharp points of his teeth in a predatory grin
- ISS Ogre -
"Captain, there is a new force decloaking behind us. They appear to be." there was shock in her tac officer's voice. "Sir, you're not going to believe this but they're LYRANS sir. They to are targeting us and moving in to attack." As he spoke, he put up a rear view in the lower right corner of the main viewer. In it was a sight out of the history holos. The three ships were highly similar to what Imperial historians called the XCA class. Their angular, almost feline in form, hulls were brilliant gold and crimson with their warp engines and impulse drive gave off an emerald glow. They would have been truly beautiful warships if they weren't trying to kill her.
This was very bad news. If both the Lyrans AND the Mirak were jointly attacking the Empire, it meant that they had somehow managed to put aside their 200-year blood feud and work together for a change. For a second, Dorothy's thought about how this area was going to be a quiet area no longer. Then she refocused on getting her command out of the trap they had walked into. All of her ships were rear echelon patrol units, and as such it was unlikely that they would ever receive the quantum slipstream drive upgrade. She quickly glanced over the display on the right side of her command chair. The kitties had planed out this attack excellently, as the nearest subspace tunnel was on the far side of the systems enormous gas giant. That left good old-fashioned warp drive. Dorothy cursed the accountant on Terra whom had decided not to include cloaking devices on patrol ships. She could really use one now.
"Helm, lay in a course 932 mark 003, warp 7!"
"Course laid in." The ensign said, then she pushed the execute button on her panel. The familiar rising whine of the warp engines filled the bridge. It reached its apex, then rapidly powered down again to a stop. Staring at the viewer, instead of seeing the smeared rainbows of warp, they saw the same still stars and the approaching enemy. The helmsman pressed the button again, harder this time. Again the warp engine whine rose in pitch and stopped, and again nothing happened. The now frantic ensign punched in a series of buttons on her console. "Sir, we can't generate a warp field around the ship!" That was another useful bit of information. The kitties had somehow gotten a hold of a warp field dissipater and stuck it on their ships. It was a relatively common piece of Imperial tec, heck most Imperial ships of cruiser size and larger carried them as standard equipment. But neither the Lyrans nor the Mirak were supposed to have them, heck no one outside of the Imperial military and system police forces were supposed to have them. Of course neither the Mirak nor the Lyrans were supposed to have warships either, yet there they were.
"Get a hold of Starfleet Command on subspace com."
"No good sir, they're jamming all frequencies!"
"Damn. Very well, if it's a fight they want, it's a fight they'll get. Order all ships to target the lead Mirak ship. We'll blow through them and make a impulse dash to the nearest subspace tunnel." That was the nice thing about a warp inhibitor, Dorothy thought, it affected all ships in its area of effect, weather they were friendly or enemy. The kitties would have to pursue us on impulse, and by the time they get turned around, we should be far enough away from them to make a run for it.
"Mirak coming in range now sir! Lyrans as well!"
- MSS Blood Oath -
Hobbes held up his clawed hand and closed it into a fist. His tac officer pressed a single button on his panel and the fruits of the long exiled Mirak weapons engineers streamed into space.
Out of massive box launchers, hundreds of missiles swarmed towards the oncoming Imperial patrol. Seconds after leaving their tubes, they jumped to extremely high impulse, pulling speeds that no ship could hope to achieve. Their internal compensator didn't need to worry about keeping biological beings alive, so the fleet little missiles charged towards the enemy at over 98 PSL. On their heels came the new fighters. They to shot ahead of there mother ships as well, if not with the mind numbing speed of the new missiles still faster than 83 PSL. They were easily the fastest crewed fighters in known space, which made them the fastest warships in known space.
- ISS Ogre -
If Dorothy hadn't been seated in her chair, she was certain she would have fallen to the floor. Mere missiles were coming at her, technology long since abandoned by Imperial Star Fleet as obsolete tech. But there were SO MANY! She focused on her training.
"Target the missiles! Use everything, PPC's, phasers, proximity quantums, the works! And divert all available energy to forward shields." Missile signatures, unlike the insane amounts of ECM generated by photon and quantum torpedoes that prevented most PD fire from even touching them, were easily picked up. The weapons arrays on the entire squadron opened up in rapid-fire mode. Phaser arrays played from one target to the next in the closely bunched swarm, often not even stopping their fire between them, just changing the aim point on the fly. Blue flares of quantum torpedoes flashed out, bursting proximity warheads among the missiles, taking still more to oblivion. But it took time to kill so many targets, and time was what the Imperials had the least of. The missiles were not only armored, they had shield generators as well. That made them very hard to kill with PD tactics. Seeded in with the missiles were decoys, making themselves look like entire salvos of missiles all on their own, further complicating the plot and causing fire to be wasted for no loss in attacking warheads. Just the same, scores were destroyed short of the targets. But there were far to many for them all to be killed in the short engagement window, and the salvos survivors rushed on to self-immolation.
- MSS Blood Oath -
There was a visceral snarl on Blood Oath's bridge as the Mirak struck back at the Empire. The strong musk of fighting filled the air. It was a blow for all those whom had had their homes turned into labor camps. It was a blow for all those whom had been made into object lessons by the Imperial authorities. And most of all, it was a blow for freedom.
"Reload the next salvo and fire when ready."
- ILV Scarlet Fang -
The view screen flared as explosions of the surviving 80 missiles walked across the Imperial formation. Lyrans had scoffed at missiles. In fact, they still scoffed at them. The ESG had been specifically designed to stop Mirak missiles, so they had every right to scoff them. But it was harder to do that now than it had been minutes before. While individually those missiles only had an individual yield of 500 Megatons, there were so many of them and they all hit at virtually the same time that they made for nasty customers. Not content to let the Mirak have all the fun, Zathran turned to his tactical officer.
"You man engage when ready."
"It shall be done sir."
- ISS Ogre, main bridge -
The ship shuddered to a virtual halt as the first volley broke over her foreword shields. The rest of the squadron was little better off. On the Ogre's bridge, sparks flew from overloaded panels and the lights flickered for a heart stopping moment before they powered up again.
"Foreword shields down to 53 %. Minor hull damage, forward armor down 10 %."
"Screw this, all ships, target nearest Mirak Vessel and fire!" Q-torps spat from the launchers of all five vessels.
"Targets shields are down to 10 %. target shields gone, they're taking hull damage!" the Ogre's first officer shouted joyously. The Ogre rocked again as a volley of disrupters screamed in from the Mirak. They were just enough to keep the Ogre and her squadron mates' foreword shields down near 50 %, burning back their ongoing regeneration. Then the Imperials writhed again as a fresh attack came from behind.
Three ESG lances speared out from the Lyran cruisers. Their shimmering amber energy fields slammed into the rear of the Nova's. Once they had drained their rear shields to around 45%, the three Lyran's volleyed their disrupter arrays and glowing green splinters of energy knifed into the Nova's draining shields. At the end of the initial attack, the Nova's had only ~ 50 % forward shields and ~ 30 % rear shields. The Defiants were slightly better off with ~ 45 % fore shields and 100% rear.
"Target's weapons systems are severely damaged!" Fresh Q-torps were volleyed. As the range wound down, the squadron began to open up with PPC's and phasers as well. Orange/red beams and amber bolts of phased energy slammed into the targeted Mirak cruiser. Her shields were already down, so the fire rained on her armored hull unabated. "Target is dropping out of formation!" The Ogre's tactical officer shouted in triumph. The phaser and quantum strikes had gouged glowing, flaming craters on the Mirak's foreword hull. Lifepods and shuttles began to flee the stricken and dyeing vessel, then the computer automatically dimmed the area around it as a star bright explosion claimed the vessel.
"Shift fire to the next Mirak vessel." Dorothy commanded.
Then the enemy's fighters streaked in, volleying their ordinance. While shorter ranged than that of a ship, the fighter's ordinance was no less deadly. The 20 fighters launched their own version of the new missile, and it streaked in to strike before more than a handful were killed. One of the Defiants staggered out of the formation streaming debris, atmosphere and drive plasma. Its foreword shields were knocked flat, and the grid overloaded and brought down the rest, leaveing the stricken ship virtually defenseless. There was a giant whole near where its port weapons emplacement should be, and a molten fracture ran rearward from that along the darkened nacelle. The stricken Defiant boosted power to its impulse drive in an effort to courageously rejoin the formation. It didn't make it. A fresh volley of green disrupters streaked in from the Lyran vessels and turned the ship into energetic plasma.
The Mirak launched a fresh salvo of missiles right into the faces of the remaining Imperials. The missiles streamed in, taking out a Nova. Its entire nacelle strut was sheared off at the root and a massive hole gaped from the engineering hull. It spun out of formation missing its starboard nacelle, all helm control lost with lights flickering as internal power failed. As it fell further and further behind the rest of the formation, it started spewing escape pods. Secondary explosions began to ripple across the ship. They rose rapidly in frequency until the entire vessel blew apart from the inside out.
"Fore shields down to 10 %. Aft shields down to 46 %. Fore armor down to 13%. Aft armor down to 82 %. Hull breaches on decks 3, 4, 6, and 9. PPC 1, 2 and 3 are offline, dorsal phaser array is slightly damaged, port quantum launcher is offline. Main power failing!" the Ogre's tac officer said, then coughed on the acrid smoke that was filling the bridge. The science panel was on fire, they yellow dancing, crackling light giving the smoke filled bridge a look of hell. The internal suppression systems must be offline Dorothy thought distractedly, trying to get her mind off of the charred corpse of her helmsman. She had been burned when the EPS conduit near her station had blown, not even the fire retardant, anti ballistic fabric of her uniform was able to hold that much released energy at bay.
"Return fire damn it!" she said as she jumped for the helm station while a crewman put the fire out with an old fashioned manual fire extinguisher. She had to push the scorched helm officer out of the charred chair to sit down. Helm was still partially functional, despite being scorched and half destroyed. The synthetic fabric that had sheathed the station's chair was half melted and felt crunchy under her. It gave off a noxious scent of burnt synthetic and charred flesh.
Feeble next to the storm crashing in on it, the remaining Imperial vessels shot back at their attackers. They managed to take down the next Mirak's shields, but then it was over. The Mirak fighters swung back in from their latest combat maneuvers and volleyed their disrupters till their small capacitors ran dry. At the same time the Lyrans launched their next attack, flailing on the Imperials rear shields with first a lance strike, then a disrupter volley combined with a phaser strike. The remaining Defiant ceased to exist as her warp core breached. That explosion, combined with the devastating disrupter and phaser assault, broke the other Nova in half down the middle. Only the Ogre was left relatively intact. The disrupter bolts smashed into her armored rear and flank, gouging molten pits in the ablative layer and the weaker triple hull.
Dorothy was thrown out of the helm station despite the tractor restraints best efforts as the Ogre was forced sideways. Without the tractor restraints, she would have been slammed into the bridge's wall hard enough to fracture her skull. She landed hard on the deck near where her helmsman had fallen. Her sightless, blackened face still smoked slightly, her tortured expression forever stuck on it. Dorothy felt her stomach somersault and she vomited onto the deck. Then she heard a whine of a transporter beam and was stunned by a low powered disruptor bolt before she even began to turn.
- ISS Ogre, main engineering -
"Warp core breach in three minutes." The dispassionate voice of the Ogre's main computer announced. The chief engineer wiped a grimy hand across his brow to remove sweat and blood that had collected there. A piece of exploding panel caught him on his forehead. It was a minor wound, more of an annoyance than anything else.
"Come on baby, hold together just a little longer." He worked frantically on his panel, trying to solve the unsolvable. His impeccable engineering skills could do nothing. The damage was just too severe. There was only one option. "Computer, eject the warp core, authorization Vigo Delta Niner Alpha Enable."
"Acknowledged, jettisoning the warp core."
The reinforced armored blast door on the bottom of the secondary hull that was hoped would never have to be used slid open. Force fields sprang up around the warp core shaft at the same time. The magnetic connectors and physical couplers disengaged and the core was forced violently out of the ship on its own micro impulse drive. It managed to move far enough away before it blew that the pitted and fractured hull of the Ogre merely rocked slightly. The Ogre's chief engineer sighed in relief. Through the broken bulkheads and swirling veil of smoke, he began to search for anyone left alive in engineering.
Then he heard the wine of a transporter. Without thinking, he ducked behind a still burning workstation. There laid his wife of five years, a broken bulkhead crushing her to the deck, her unseeing eyes starring into oblivion. He lost it. Jumping up, using the workstation for cover, he fired wildly at the oncoming figures in power armor. He was yelling incoherently, barely seeing his targets through his tears of rage and sorrow. A mere Type- 2 phaser wasn't much of a match against a power armor's shields and ablative outer armor layer. He played the beam across the torso of the first raider. The Lyran's personal shield hummed and glowed from the maximum powered assault. But while the chief engineer was occupied, the second raider leaped using a light burst from his AG field, closing the distance between them in a single bound. Inside the raider's gauntlets, the Lyran extended his claws. They mated with tiny recesses inside the armored fingers. That caused foot and a half long blades to extend from the end of the gauntlets. The blades were specially designed, coming to almost a single molecule along the sharpened edge, enabling them to cut through most anything. Ogre's chief engineer's face took on the look of shocked surprise as the Lyran marine drove the blades into his ribcage, lifting them slightly as the entered, the bones there providing no more resistance than his soft organs. He then removed them and allowed the human to drop to the deck. After a quick inspection of the rest of engineering using both visual and enhanced sensors his armor possessed, the raider keyed his com.
"Engineering secure, proceeding to deck 14."
- Flag Officer's Dining Room, ISS Shiva -
Ulysses went through his meal mechanically. It wasn't the food's fault, on the contrary it was some of the best marlin he had ever eaten. The problem was the company. To a man, each and every officer present at the dinner had agreed without question to Chriton's orders. And it was orders, not some proposed mission change to be debated. After seeing how Chriton took dissent to his plans, Ulysses could understand how they would lack initiative in voicing their concerns. It wasn't conducive to further career advancement. It also wasn't conductive to intelligent mission planning, but Chriton and his staff didn't seem to care about that. Chriton's word was law as far as his staffers were concerned, not batting an eyelash at his irrational and down right stupid command decisions.
First the meal, then the after dinner drinks, seemed to take forever. He tried to talk some sense into the other officers, choosing his words with utmost care, but every time he brought up his doubts about Chriton's plan, they clamed up almost immediately. Or worse yet, they tried to bring him around to Chriton's side. Needless to say, he was soon spending much of the evening starring out the giant window of the dining room, nursing his scotch on the rocks. At least it was the real thing, not that synthehol garbage. It made the time pass smoother than it would without it, and eventually the night of hell was over.
Admiral Chriton dismissed the officers and they proceeded to their own ships and quarters. The walk back to the shuttle was uneventful, as was the return trip to the Hopolite's shuttlebay. Once Ulysses was safely inside his new quarters, Hopolite's CO stateroom, he smashed his fist into the bulkhead. Smashed it HARD. And yelped in pain, jerking his bruised hand back from the wall, waving it rapidly back and forth like that would somehow ease the pain. He scowled at the offending wall, even his physical pain and momentary lapse in judgement not breaking through his anger. But it wasn't anger alone, there was a good dash of fear mixed in there as well. For after what ever was on the other side of that portal was done with 24th fleet, the first place they would come to was right here. And there would only be the Hopolite between them and the rest of the Galaxy.
- Terran Empire space, near the border of what was once the Lyran Star Empire and the Mirak Star League -
The Imperial patrol cruised along its standard course. The three upgraded Nova class vessels backed up by two Defiants traveled without cloak on their daily trek through space. This had been a quiet area of the Empire for two generations. Both the Lyrans and the Mirak were well under the yoke of Imperial control. Had been since their conquest by the then burgeoning infant Terran Empire. The patrol searched for the same things they always did, pirates whom wouldn't pay for the privilege, rogue Lyran and Mirak warships (uncommon though far from unheard of), and the odd cargo vessel that needed a little Imperial 'inspecting' for contraband.
Captain Dorothy Chambers lounged, pouting and bored to near tears, in her command chair. Her shoulder length copper hair went along well with her new command cloak. The newly minted captain had been placed in overall command of the patrol as well. Being the daughter of one of the Imperial Council members certainly had its perks. Getting a Nova, especially an upgraded one like the ISS Ogre, as her first command was a definite sign that her star was on the rise.
The Nova class was one of the newest designs of Imperial patrol vessels. It incorporated many of the plusses of both the Defiant class and the Sovereign class. It had five foreword PPC's and dual Q-torp launchers courtesy of the Defiant program. From the Sovereign program, it mounted type XII phasers with the B-upgrade (B-upgrade is an add-on that allows older style phaser arrays to rapidly remodulate their beams settings similar to Type XIV phasers), regenerative shielding, and the general styling of the vessel. It also had bioneural gel packs to speed up ships systems.
Dorothy stared at the main viewer as the rocks of the asteroid belt shattered and burst apart as the Imperial patrol blew through them at 75 PSL. Cruising at full impulse through an asteroid field as dense as this always gave her an unbridled sense of power. It also gave the dull routine of the patrol a more exciting face. Although getting assigned to a Nova class ship for your fist command was a definite sign of family ties to the Imperial leadership, it also meant that you usually weren't assigned to dangerous areas until you were considerably more seasoned. It wouldn't do for all of the future ruling members of the Terran Empire to be killed by a lucky pirate or rebel.
But politics bored Dorothy. The Machiavellian intrigues of the Imperial Council were nothing compared to the way she felt when she was on a starship. As she had advanced in rank, that feeling had merely grown. And when she was on a starship's command deck, she alone was the meader out of punishment and discipline. While the Council members might exercise that same power on a near galactic scale, they were always at arm's length with the actual execution of their power. That wasn't for Dorothy. She craved the visceral, spine tingling thrill that came with watching an errant crewmember writhe and scream in an agonizer.
That was what made this cruise so yawn inducing. There had been nothing to punish. Everything had run incredibly smoothly, without one single hiccup in the systems to enable her to send an engineer to an agonizer. Not one wrong move on the part of her helmsman either. She was maneuvering through the latest challenge Dorothy had set for her like the Ogre was a racing shuttle, not a multi million ton starship. And the rest of the squadron was hard pressed to keep up with the flagship as well, which caused both satisfaction and dismay. Dismay because it further emphasized her helmsman's lack of errors. Satisfaction because it meant that she could rib extra hard on the other Captains for their less than stellar performance when they all got back to the starbase. That thought brought a smile to her normally dour expression. Perhaps this patrol wasn't a total waste of time then. The small squadron rushed on through the tumbling, ever changing maze of the asteroid field, completely unaware that predators with very sharp claws and teeth were stalking it.
- Imperial Lyran Vessel Scarlet Fang, trailing behind the Imperial patrol -
The Lyran heavy cruiser ghosted behind the enemy. It was as invisible to its prey as its crews ancient ancestors hiding in the tall grass of the savana were to theirs. Only instead of hiding downwind of its prey in a thicket of tall grass, it was cruising under cloak. Its two consorts were as well, maintaining formation by encrypted, stealthed datalink. All three ships were new build units, graciously provided by the Cartels. They mounted the latest advances in disrupter, phaser and ESG tech. The phaser arrays were about on par with Imperial Type-X's, but it was the new variable sweep Expanding Sphere Generator. Lyran commanders could now choose weather they wanted to set up a normal ESG attack or a more concentrated, longer ranged Lance attack using the same weapon.
The Scarlet Fang's commander, Captain Zathran, kneaded his claws in and out of the upholstery on his command chair's arms. It was a bad habit, but he couldn't settle his jagged nerves. Here he was, a green captain with an even greener crew, about to launch the first major attack against those whom had enslaved his people. He had every right to be nervous. This battle would either be a glorious victory, or a near final defeat. This battle would tell weather the revitalized Lyran military's secret training had been enough to prepare them for the crucible of battle.
The Lyran people had been through so much. First the little war against the Mirak. Then in the middle of that, the honorless Terrans launched their surprise attack. On BOTH empires! Until that moment, the only thing known about the Terrans was that they were expansionistic and aggressive. But no formal contact was made, not even a single human had ever been seen by the feline eyes of a Lyran, before they launched their attack. Weakened by their fight with each other, both domains were quickly swallowed up by the ravenous maw of the Terran Empire.
Zathran thanked the gods that the conquest had been before the Terrans invented the Genesis Device. That was the main reason why both the Lyran and Mirak homeworlds remained largely as they did since time immemorial. He brown dappled coat quivered as he remembered the footage of the device being used against an enemy of the Empire. Whole ecosystems, billions of sentient life forms wiped out in seconds, replaced by the ideal environment for human populations. And, Zathran worried to himself, they may be yet used against my beloved homeworld even if our attack succeeds here today.
"Captain?" His first officer asked, mild concern emanating from him into Zathran's sent receptors. The young captain realized that he had been gathering wool instead of concentrating on the mission at hand. It was much easier when you followed orders rather than gave them. Command had a way of expanding your horizons, to cause you to worry about things that were beyond your control.
"Excuse me exec," Zathran replied with a sheepish, tooth hidden grin on his face, "you were saying?"
"We are coming up on the intercept point sir. Our 'allies'" Commander Casmir spit the word out like a piece of spoiled meat, "should be in position now. If they can find their way here that is."
"Very well. Are the weapons fully powered?"
"Yes Captain, phasers, disrupters and ESG's are fully charged and ready to fire the moment we drop cloak. Boarding parties are also standing by in the transporter rooms."
"Alright, you may proceed with the attack as planned." The Lyran cruisers were the hammer of this ambush. Now if only the anvil was anyone else life would be good indeed.
- Mirak Star Ship Blood Oath, lying in wait in front of the Imperial patrol -
It turned Captain Hobbes' stomach to be ordered to work with Lyrans. Yet that was exactly what the Patriarch had ordered the newly rebuilt Mirak Star Navy to do. The Cartels had sat both the Patriarch and the Lyran's Emperor down and made it a condition of their support. Their support was the main reason that Hobbes was on a squeaky new vessel instead of an ancient leftover from the time before the occupation. The Mirak peoples had been ground under the heels of the Terran Empire for far to long. Mirak engineers had jumped at the chance to offer up new warship designs. Hobbes current command was the end result of their efforts. It retained the classic arrow like shape of its ancient predecessors, but it was an entirely new beast. Hobbes just hoped that the new fighters and missiles worked like the tech heads said cuz it was his but on the line with a virtually untried weapons system.
"It is time to show ourselves to our prey. Decloak and begin the attack! May our claws strike deep!!" An eager growl of agreement answered him, backed up by the sent of a pack on the hunt. This was good, it indicated that they were ready to face their prey at last.
- ISS Ogre -
The squadron had just cleared the asteroid field when all hell broke loose.
"SIR, in front of us!" On the main viewer, what had been unbroken space moments before was filled with four cruiser sized ships. Their hulls were painted in brown and red, in stripes arranged like the pattern on a tiger. Their warp nacelles glowed a pale greenish blue from their perch on the rear of the ship. And all four vessels were powering up their weapons and defensive systems.
"Red Alert! Order the squadron to assume combat spread, formation Chamber Alpha. Divert power to the weapons systems." On her command, the squadron's Novas assumed an arrowhead formation with the Ogre in the lead. The Defiants took up position above and below the command ship.
- MSS Blood Oath -
Hobbes smiled a slow smile. When faced with four cruisers dropping nearly in your lap, and you only had five destroyers, an intelligent captain would at least execute a tactical retreat to further asses the situation. This one merely rushed out to meet his attack head on. It looked like the enemy commander didn't even intend to use the considerable maneuverability of her lighter warships to their full potential. They were currently in tight, showing no signs of breaking off for independent maneuvers.
He had been like this one once, brash, arrogant, and overly confident. The Mirak Star Navy had done its best to leash these traits into an effective officer, and on the hole they succeeded. But even without the expected help, Hobbes would have attacked the enemy with only his own ships. It would be a much more interesting fight if that happened, for Imperial warships, even destroyers and frigates had sharp teeth and tough hides. But what the enemy didn't know was that the four Mirak cruisers weren't the only enemy they needed to worry about. In fact, the other jaw of the trap should be swinging closed right about . now.
"Sir, three Lyran cruisers decloaking behind the Imperials." There was regret mixed with anger there. Hobbes could hardly blame his tactical officer. He to was angry that Lyran's had to 'help' with his attack, and he to regretted that they had had the balls to show up.
"And look at what the Imperials do now." Hobbes said, and his smile got bigger, showing the needle sharp points of his teeth in a predatory grin
- ISS Ogre -
"Captain, there is a new force decloaking behind us. They appear to be." there was shock in her tac officer's voice. "Sir, you're not going to believe this but they're LYRANS sir. They to are targeting us and moving in to attack." As he spoke, he put up a rear view in the lower right corner of the main viewer. In it was a sight out of the history holos. The three ships were highly similar to what Imperial historians called the XCA class. Their angular, almost feline in form, hulls were brilliant gold and crimson with their warp engines and impulse drive gave off an emerald glow. They would have been truly beautiful warships if they weren't trying to kill her.
This was very bad news. If both the Lyrans AND the Mirak were jointly attacking the Empire, it meant that they had somehow managed to put aside their 200-year blood feud and work together for a change. For a second, Dorothy's thought about how this area was going to be a quiet area no longer. Then she refocused on getting her command out of the trap they had walked into. All of her ships were rear echelon patrol units, and as such it was unlikely that they would ever receive the quantum slipstream drive upgrade. She quickly glanced over the display on the right side of her command chair. The kitties had planed out this attack excellently, as the nearest subspace tunnel was on the far side of the systems enormous gas giant. That left good old-fashioned warp drive. Dorothy cursed the accountant on Terra whom had decided not to include cloaking devices on patrol ships. She could really use one now.
"Helm, lay in a course 932 mark 003, warp 7!"
"Course laid in." The ensign said, then she pushed the execute button on her panel. The familiar rising whine of the warp engines filled the bridge. It reached its apex, then rapidly powered down again to a stop. Staring at the viewer, instead of seeing the smeared rainbows of warp, they saw the same still stars and the approaching enemy. The helmsman pressed the button again, harder this time. Again the warp engine whine rose in pitch and stopped, and again nothing happened. The now frantic ensign punched in a series of buttons on her console. "Sir, we can't generate a warp field around the ship!" That was another useful bit of information. The kitties had somehow gotten a hold of a warp field dissipater and stuck it on their ships. It was a relatively common piece of Imperial tec, heck most Imperial ships of cruiser size and larger carried them as standard equipment. But neither the Lyrans nor the Mirak were supposed to have them, heck no one outside of the Imperial military and system police forces were supposed to have them. Of course neither the Mirak nor the Lyrans were supposed to have warships either, yet there they were.
"Get a hold of Starfleet Command on subspace com."
"No good sir, they're jamming all frequencies!"
"Damn. Very well, if it's a fight they want, it's a fight they'll get. Order all ships to target the lead Mirak ship. We'll blow through them and make a impulse dash to the nearest subspace tunnel." That was the nice thing about a warp inhibitor, Dorothy thought, it affected all ships in its area of effect, weather they were friendly or enemy. The kitties would have to pursue us on impulse, and by the time they get turned around, we should be far enough away from them to make a run for it.
"Mirak coming in range now sir! Lyrans as well!"
- MSS Blood Oath -
Hobbes held up his clawed hand and closed it into a fist. His tac officer pressed a single button on his panel and the fruits of the long exiled Mirak weapons engineers streamed into space.
Out of massive box launchers, hundreds of missiles swarmed towards the oncoming Imperial patrol. Seconds after leaving their tubes, they jumped to extremely high impulse, pulling speeds that no ship could hope to achieve. Their internal compensator didn't need to worry about keeping biological beings alive, so the fleet little missiles charged towards the enemy at over 98 PSL. On their heels came the new fighters. They to shot ahead of there mother ships as well, if not with the mind numbing speed of the new missiles still faster than 83 PSL. They were easily the fastest crewed fighters in known space, which made them the fastest warships in known space.
- ISS Ogre -
If Dorothy hadn't been seated in her chair, she was certain she would have fallen to the floor. Mere missiles were coming at her, technology long since abandoned by Imperial Star Fleet as obsolete tech. But there were SO MANY! She focused on her training.
"Target the missiles! Use everything, PPC's, phasers, proximity quantums, the works! And divert all available energy to forward shields." Missile signatures, unlike the insane amounts of ECM generated by photon and quantum torpedoes that prevented most PD fire from even touching them, were easily picked up. The weapons arrays on the entire squadron opened up in rapid-fire mode. Phaser arrays played from one target to the next in the closely bunched swarm, often not even stopping their fire between them, just changing the aim point on the fly. Blue flares of quantum torpedoes flashed out, bursting proximity warheads among the missiles, taking still more to oblivion. But it took time to kill so many targets, and time was what the Imperials had the least of. The missiles were not only armored, they had shield generators as well. That made them very hard to kill with PD tactics. Seeded in with the missiles were decoys, making themselves look like entire salvos of missiles all on their own, further complicating the plot and causing fire to be wasted for no loss in attacking warheads. Just the same, scores were destroyed short of the targets. But there were far to many for them all to be killed in the short engagement window, and the salvos survivors rushed on to self-immolation.
- MSS Blood Oath -
There was a visceral snarl on Blood Oath's bridge as the Mirak struck back at the Empire. The strong musk of fighting filled the air. It was a blow for all those whom had had their homes turned into labor camps. It was a blow for all those whom had been made into object lessons by the Imperial authorities. And most of all, it was a blow for freedom.
"Reload the next salvo and fire when ready."
- ILV Scarlet Fang -
The view screen flared as explosions of the surviving 80 missiles walked across the Imperial formation. Lyrans had scoffed at missiles. In fact, they still scoffed at them. The ESG had been specifically designed to stop Mirak missiles, so they had every right to scoff them. But it was harder to do that now than it had been minutes before. While individually those missiles only had an individual yield of 500 Megatons, there were so many of them and they all hit at virtually the same time that they made for nasty customers. Not content to let the Mirak have all the fun, Zathran turned to his tactical officer.
"You man engage when ready."
"It shall be done sir."
- ISS Ogre, main bridge -
The ship shuddered to a virtual halt as the first volley broke over her foreword shields. The rest of the squadron was little better off. On the Ogre's bridge, sparks flew from overloaded panels and the lights flickered for a heart stopping moment before they powered up again.
"Foreword shields down to 53 %. Minor hull damage, forward armor down 10 %."
"Screw this, all ships, target nearest Mirak Vessel and fire!" Q-torps spat from the launchers of all five vessels.
"Targets shields are down to 10 %. target shields gone, they're taking hull damage!" the Ogre's first officer shouted joyously. The Ogre rocked again as a volley of disrupters screamed in from the Mirak. They were just enough to keep the Ogre and her squadron mates' foreword shields down near 50 %, burning back their ongoing regeneration. Then the Imperials writhed again as a fresh attack came from behind.
Three ESG lances speared out from the Lyran cruisers. Their shimmering amber energy fields slammed into the rear of the Nova's. Once they had drained their rear shields to around 45%, the three Lyran's volleyed their disrupter arrays and glowing green splinters of energy knifed into the Nova's draining shields. At the end of the initial attack, the Nova's had only ~ 50 % forward shields and ~ 30 % rear shields. The Defiants were slightly better off with ~ 45 % fore shields and 100% rear.
"Target's weapons systems are severely damaged!" Fresh Q-torps were volleyed. As the range wound down, the squadron began to open up with PPC's and phasers as well. Orange/red beams and amber bolts of phased energy slammed into the targeted Mirak cruiser. Her shields were already down, so the fire rained on her armored hull unabated. "Target is dropping out of formation!" The Ogre's tactical officer shouted in triumph. The phaser and quantum strikes had gouged glowing, flaming craters on the Mirak's foreword hull. Lifepods and shuttles began to flee the stricken and dyeing vessel, then the computer automatically dimmed the area around it as a star bright explosion claimed the vessel.
"Shift fire to the next Mirak vessel." Dorothy commanded.
Then the enemy's fighters streaked in, volleying their ordinance. While shorter ranged than that of a ship, the fighter's ordinance was no less deadly. The 20 fighters launched their own version of the new missile, and it streaked in to strike before more than a handful were killed. One of the Defiants staggered out of the formation streaming debris, atmosphere and drive plasma. Its foreword shields were knocked flat, and the grid overloaded and brought down the rest, leaveing the stricken ship virtually defenseless. There was a giant whole near where its port weapons emplacement should be, and a molten fracture ran rearward from that along the darkened nacelle. The stricken Defiant boosted power to its impulse drive in an effort to courageously rejoin the formation. It didn't make it. A fresh volley of green disrupters streaked in from the Lyran vessels and turned the ship into energetic plasma.
The Mirak launched a fresh salvo of missiles right into the faces of the remaining Imperials. The missiles streamed in, taking out a Nova. Its entire nacelle strut was sheared off at the root and a massive hole gaped from the engineering hull. It spun out of formation missing its starboard nacelle, all helm control lost with lights flickering as internal power failed. As it fell further and further behind the rest of the formation, it started spewing escape pods. Secondary explosions began to ripple across the ship. They rose rapidly in frequency until the entire vessel blew apart from the inside out.
"Fore shields down to 10 %. Aft shields down to 46 %. Fore armor down to 13%. Aft armor down to 82 %. Hull breaches on decks 3, 4, 6, and 9. PPC 1, 2 and 3 are offline, dorsal phaser array is slightly damaged, port quantum launcher is offline. Main power failing!" the Ogre's tac officer said, then coughed on the acrid smoke that was filling the bridge. The science panel was on fire, they yellow dancing, crackling light giving the smoke filled bridge a look of hell. The internal suppression systems must be offline Dorothy thought distractedly, trying to get her mind off of the charred corpse of her helmsman. She had been burned when the EPS conduit near her station had blown, not even the fire retardant, anti ballistic fabric of her uniform was able to hold that much released energy at bay.
"Return fire damn it!" she said as she jumped for the helm station while a crewman put the fire out with an old fashioned manual fire extinguisher. She had to push the scorched helm officer out of the charred chair to sit down. Helm was still partially functional, despite being scorched and half destroyed. The synthetic fabric that had sheathed the station's chair was half melted and felt crunchy under her. It gave off a noxious scent of burnt synthetic and charred flesh.
Feeble next to the storm crashing in on it, the remaining Imperial vessels shot back at their attackers. They managed to take down the next Mirak's shields, but then it was over. The Mirak fighters swung back in from their latest combat maneuvers and volleyed their disrupters till their small capacitors ran dry. At the same time the Lyrans launched their next attack, flailing on the Imperials rear shields with first a lance strike, then a disrupter volley combined with a phaser strike. The remaining Defiant ceased to exist as her warp core breached. That explosion, combined with the devastating disrupter and phaser assault, broke the other Nova in half down the middle. Only the Ogre was left relatively intact. The disrupter bolts smashed into her armored rear and flank, gouging molten pits in the ablative layer and the weaker triple hull.
Dorothy was thrown out of the helm station despite the tractor restraints best efforts as the Ogre was forced sideways. Without the tractor restraints, she would have been slammed into the bridge's wall hard enough to fracture her skull. She landed hard on the deck near where her helmsman had fallen. Her sightless, blackened face still smoked slightly, her tortured expression forever stuck on it. Dorothy felt her stomach somersault and she vomited onto the deck. Then she heard a whine of a transporter beam and was stunned by a low powered disruptor bolt before she even began to turn.
- ISS Ogre, main engineering -
"Warp core breach in three minutes." The dispassionate voice of the Ogre's main computer announced. The chief engineer wiped a grimy hand across his brow to remove sweat and blood that had collected there. A piece of exploding panel caught him on his forehead. It was a minor wound, more of an annoyance than anything else.
"Come on baby, hold together just a little longer." He worked frantically on his panel, trying to solve the unsolvable. His impeccable engineering skills could do nothing. The damage was just too severe. There was only one option. "Computer, eject the warp core, authorization Vigo Delta Niner Alpha Enable."
"Acknowledged, jettisoning the warp core."
The reinforced armored blast door on the bottom of the secondary hull that was hoped would never have to be used slid open. Force fields sprang up around the warp core shaft at the same time. The magnetic connectors and physical couplers disengaged and the core was forced violently out of the ship on its own micro impulse drive. It managed to move far enough away before it blew that the pitted and fractured hull of the Ogre merely rocked slightly. The Ogre's chief engineer sighed in relief. Through the broken bulkheads and swirling veil of smoke, he began to search for anyone left alive in engineering.
Then he heard the wine of a transporter. Without thinking, he ducked behind a still burning workstation. There laid his wife of five years, a broken bulkhead crushing her to the deck, her unseeing eyes starring into oblivion. He lost it. Jumping up, using the workstation for cover, he fired wildly at the oncoming figures in power armor. He was yelling incoherently, barely seeing his targets through his tears of rage and sorrow. A mere Type- 2 phaser wasn't much of a match against a power armor's shields and ablative outer armor layer. He played the beam across the torso of the first raider. The Lyran's personal shield hummed and glowed from the maximum powered assault. But while the chief engineer was occupied, the second raider leaped using a light burst from his AG field, closing the distance between them in a single bound. Inside the raider's gauntlets, the Lyran extended his claws. They mated with tiny recesses inside the armored fingers. That caused foot and a half long blades to extend from the end of the gauntlets. The blades were specially designed, coming to almost a single molecule along the sharpened edge, enabling them to cut through most anything. Ogre's chief engineer's face took on the look of shocked surprise as the Lyran marine drove the blades into his ribcage, lifting them slightly as the entered, the bones there providing no more resistance than his soft organs. He then removed them and allowed the human to drop to the deck. After a quick inspection of the rest of engineering using both visual and enhanced sensors his armor possessed, the raider keyed his com.
"Engineering secure, proceeding to deck 14."