Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Ten
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Lexington was one of the ten vessels of the 23rd Cruiser Task Force. The second of up to date six Ticonderoga class Fast Attack Cruisers. She was a brand new ship, having left dock three month ago, before going through trials and only now getting into her first battle.
She was a move away from the classic blocky design implemented by the Terran Nave and a move towards a sleek flat design, that presented only a small slim silhouette from front, aft and the sides, while having a large silhouette from ventral and dorsal sides. With her seven hundred meter length she wasn't longer than any other cruiser, but she packed quite a few new technologies making her more than a match for older cruisers, even with a lower number of weapons.
She was also the fastest cruiser ever build, since two fifth of her volume were taken by fusion reactors with Zero Point Backup Taps, a large gravimetric drive that allowed her to move as fast and nimble as a frigate, a String Drive that was more powerful than any other of her class and allowing higher speeds on a string, and had a newly designed Jump Point Projector making her one of the few ships of her size class able to enter hyperspace on her own.
As she dropped from her String, together with the other nine ships of the 23rd CTF and right on top of a Minbari Task Force that moved closer to the planet of Zendamor.
"I got twenty hard targeting solutions," the tactical officer said and smiled," This Interferometric Software for the gravimetric sensors works great."
Major John Sheridan, commander of Lexington, nodded and smiled a grin that would have send most people packing if they didn't know him, since the Cougar-morph was a nice guy to be around outside of battle.
He wasn't really surprised that it worked, using the gravimetric sensors of the String Drive to look out for the quantum singularities used by the Minbari in their reactors. The data of the sensors was send to the other ships over the TacNet of the Task Force and every ship worked on the readout of the Software by itself. The only drawback of the system was the fact that it only worked for a certain distance and a certain number of targets.
"All ships fire at will," he said and his eyes locked on one of the holographic projections in the Command Center.
The holo showed a representation of Lexington, where her three dorsal and three ventral turrets turned get into the right position for their targeting solutions. Green lights lit up on the ventral hull as Harpoon V anti cap ship missiles left their launch positions, each of them carrying a 200 ton non nuclear fusion warhead.
His glance turned towards another hologram, this one showing one of the Tinashis his TF was targeting. The dorsal turrets fired, dual graser beams of three turrets lancing out towards the crystalline hull of the Tinashi.
The beams slammed into the forwards dorsal hull, some of their energy dissipating as heat as the crystalline material of the armor started to heat up and than to simply vaporise, ripping a large hole into the forward hull, opening the decks behind to hard vacuum. The hull breach was than used by the cybernetic intelligence of three Harpoons who slammed into the ship. With a spectacular explosion the frontal half of the Tinashi ceased to be with the aft half starting to spin in space, smalling into another Tinashi and breaking off one of its drive fins.
"Fire solution for MAC One and Two."
Sheridan's grin intensified as he thought about the most powerful weapon ever integrated into the hull of a Fast Attack Cruiser.
"Fire."
Deep within the hull of Lexington shutters closed and energy from capacitator banks started to flow into two pairs of long rails, each of them surrounded by a conducting force field. Two fitfy ton ten meter diameter disks of conductive material slid between the rails, closing the circuit and letting high currents flow through the rails and the disk. The disks started to slide along the 500 meter long rails and left the MACs as 20 PSL.
The only thing Sheridan saw were twin explosions of light as the disks from the MACs impacted into the broadside hull of a Tinashi, ripping large holes into the armor and half of the ship.
Suddenly the ship shook as the Minbari got over their shock and started to fire.
"We lost Houston and Miami."
Sheridan cursed as the targeting systems suddenly dropped in effectivity as the Task Force lost two vessels at once and the Interferometric Software lost data.
Beams of energy impacted into the ship, passing a dual defensive layer of DefNet and EWeb fields, each of them managing to dissipate some of the beams energy, but not all.
"Hull Breach, Forward Dorsal Hull, Decks four to six. Force fields in place. String Drive recallibrating."
"Break of," Sheridan said and Lexington started to turn about.
A pair of Sharlins started to home in of the remaining eight ships of the 23rd CTF, firing at them.
"We lost Boston and Marakesh."
Sheridan cursed again. He knew something like this would happen when he had gotten orders to drop deep into the Minbari formations with 43rd CTF and 2nd DTF, while the other ships came from all other sides.
Suddenly the screen lit up as one of the Sharins blew up in a spectacular display of energy. Sheridan looked over to the tactical display and couldn't help but stare for a moment.
"She's still fighting?" he muttered," That is one hell on an AI."
On the display Erwin Rommel, the Willsberg class dreadnaught, dove into the fight from above, two of her gravimetric engines glowing in a light that showed that they had started to burn with a slow atomic fire, gas leaking from numerous hull breaches, her last remaining masers and gauss guns blazing at the surviving Sharlin.
"She's going to ram the Sharlin," the tactical officer called out and Sheridan couldn't help but stare at the display as the wedge shaped dreadnought smalled into the Sharin like an oversized arrow head.
Rommel pierced through the whole Sharlin, ripping away crystalline armor and other parts of the Minbari vessel, continuing to fire even as she left the holed vessels behind.
"Those ships can take some punishment," someone on the bridge said and Sheridan just nodded as Rommel took on the next Sharlin coming from underneath Lexington, her remaining guns still blazing.
The last they saw of Rommel was a bright explosion as she rammed the Sharlin, destroying both the Minbari ship and the once proud deadnought.
"At least she went in a blaze of glory," a heavily German accented voice suddenly said and heads whiped around to look at a holographic image of a man in a WWII Afrika Korps uniform.
"Erwin Rommel at your service."
With that Lexington gained its very own AI.