"Attention all hands, this is your Captain speaking! Prepare all stations for warp transit in nine zero minutes. This will be a hot jump, so prepare accordingly. Communications quarantine is now in effect. Section heads, report to the situation room in ten. Morrison, out."
There was a fleeting moment of silence, everyone frozen in their tracks with their heads still raised to the ceiling, while they processed the information. Then, as if on cue, everyone burst into a frenzy of motion, hurrying to and fro, going about their tasks. It was akin to an anthill under attack, Fareeha thought with a wry smirk. From the outside it looked like a chaotic and uncoordinated mess, but the trained eye spotted the precise motions, drilled procedures, absolute efficiency of everyone involved. Work stations were being cleared, equipment checked, loose items tucked away to prepare for loss of artificial g*.
She downed the last of her horrible standard-issue coffee and tossed the cup into a garbage chute before turning on her heel and marching down the corridor, path clear in mind. Elevator B-11 would take her to the central axis hub, where elevator A-03 would get her to the command deck. It was a standard ship design, ancient and well-tested by now, but revolutionary when it had been first introduced. Rapid spinning around its own axis produced g-forces approaching standard levels on the outermost decks, where most of the crew spent most of their time. The further inward one got on the ship, the less g-force was created by the spin, until one reached the central axis hub, where mag-boots were mandatory. Most people didn't like rapid transition from high to low g, but Fareeha wasn't most people. She always enjoyed the slow-motion lurch in her stomach that got more intense the closer the B-elevators got one to the center.
And the central axis hub, the heart of the ship, oh what a truly breathtaking marvel of engineering and ingenuity. A 900 meter long tube, about 20 meters in diameter, running almost two thirds the length of the ship. And within it, a smaller tube, the whole point of the vessel: its main gun. Capable of accelerating a 20 kilogram slug of superhardened of Osmium to 4.3 per cent of the speed of light, giving it the kinetic force of 40 megatons TNT equivalent. A weapon of unparalleled destructive power at the time the ship was constructed, almost forty years ago. It had since been eclipsed by behemoths even larger, but it still gave pause to any other vessel it encountered.
She had been just a few months old then, far too young to understand what was going on, but she had learned since. Humanity had been on the brink of extinction, hunted and exterminated by the very machines it had created to serve them. This vessel had been a last-ditch effort to turn the tide, and turning the tide it did, in a spectacular fashion. Not a single Omnic ship could withstand its awesome firepower, the force of its shots so great they often ripped through two or three ships before being stopped. Its construction had been haunted by bad news after bad news, hundreds of accidental worker deaths, delays and on-the-fly redesigns. Many had called it a fool's errand, the final nail in humanity's coffin, but its creators only called her the UFV Overwatch.
And now, after having been decommissioned and mothballed for almost a decade, it had been reactivated to help with the current war effort. Not against Omnics, this time, but other humans. It left a sour aftertaste in Fareeha's mouth, thinking about how this beacon of unity, creativity, and perseverance, had been tainted. But there was nothing to be done about it now. Humanities biggest strength, the myriad of different cultures, ideals, and ideologies, was also its greatest weakness. Conflict was a constant companion, even after Homo Sapiens had long left the bounds of Earth behind.
Before she knew it her steps had led her to the antechamber of the situation room, where several section leads were already assembled. Flight Lieutenant Oxton, head of the fighter wing of the Overwatch; Colonel Wilhelm, grizzled veteran and commander of the marine complement. And, of course, Dr. Ziegler, Chief Medical Officer of the ship, and by extension, the whole flotilla. She sent a coy wink to the blonde, whose cheeks flushed a bright red at the gesture. It was highly amusing to Fareeha how easily she could still fluster the doctor in public. A few choice words here, barely noticeable drag of fingers over a thigh there, and Angela turned into a blushing, stammering mess. Behind closed doors, though, things were decidedly different. She still remembered how those delicious thighs had felt wrapped around her head this morning, how hard those pale hands had pressed her head against...she quickly shook her head, trying to get her mind out of the gutter. They were about to conduct combat operations, and she needed her focus laser-sharp. A bit of teasing wouldn't hurt, though.
"Hey you." she said nonchalantly as she leaned against the wall next to Angela, arms crossed over her chest.
"Hi." the blonde replied meekly, looking anywhere but at her. If the redness creeping up her neck yet again was any indication, she hadn't been the only one thinking about their early-morning activities.
"How was your day so far, Dr. Ziegler?" she asked, keeping her voice light. "I had an amazing work-out session this morning. Exquisite, even. I was thinking of working out again tonight, do you think that would be overdoing it?"
"Fareeha!" Angela hissed, trying and failing to elbow her in the ribs. She heard Lena attempting to hold back a chortle, and sent a dazzling smile towards the brunette. Her and Angela's relationship was probably the worst-kept secret on the ship, but that was just the way they preferred it.
She could almost feel Angela winding up for a harsh, whisper-shouted reprimand, but it was cut off before it even started by the heavy bulkhead doors hissing open.
"Good, everyone I expected to show up is here." Admiral Morrison drawled, beckoning them into the room with a lazy wave of his hand. Not even half the section heads were here, but they were used to it by now. They were all where they'd do the most to get the ship combat-ready.
"Gather round." Morrison grunted, hitting a switch on the central table that dimmed the room and made a hologram flicker to life. A large ship was projected before them, roughly the same size as the Overwatch according to the readouts.
"This is the TSF Viper, a carrier on its way to launch an attack on Novy Novgorod. The planet is exposed, with most of the intervention fleet for that region being occupied elsewhere. Our orders are to intercept her along with her carrier group, and neutralize the threat. We'll go in close so our point-defense systems can aid in the containment of enemy fighter craft. Hope that makes your job easier, Oxton."
"It does, sir. Thank you."
Morrison acknowledged her with a nod before continuing: "FHC has expressed a desire for us to capture rather than destroy the carrier, which complicates things. If things go sideways we'll put a few rounds through that bitch and watch it go down in flames, but since we have the element of surprise on our side we should be able to manage. Amari, your RRSF will lead the boarding operations once we have cleared an approach vector. Wilhelm, you'll take half of your company to capture and pacify the ship once the RRSF has cleared the critical structures."
Both Fareeha and Reinhardt snapped to attention with crisp salutes.
"The rapid-response strike force won't disappoint you, Admiral." Fareeha said with conviction, the light-hearted banter from before all but forgotten. "Or the fleet high command, stupid gits." she murmured under her breath.
They spent the next forty minutes discussing known weaknesses of the vessel, various potential points of ingress and potential routes to engineering and the bridge. It was all a bit rushed, but that was military life in a nutshell. They were on a schedule, after all.
"I don't like it." Angela murmured after they left the situation room together.
"You never like it when I go into combat, ya amar." Fareeha answered with a smile, gently bumping Angela's shoulder with her own while they walked. "It's going to be fine, love. I'm going to be fine."
The doctor only hummed noncommittally, allowing herself a rare display of public affection and taking hold of Fareeha's hand.
She had a bad feeling about this.
Alright, peeps, here's the deal: I love sci-fi. Especially hard sci-fi, with more science than fiction behind it. I actually did the math on the kinetic yield of the overwatch's main gun, so you better appreciate the effort! (and maybe correct me if I did it wrong, i've never been good at maths ._.)
anyway, this was supposed to be a one-shot for this weeks r/pharmercy prompt, but I didn't want to go overboard with this and thus decided to cut it here. At least one chapter is still coming, maybe more. Depending on where this story takes me.
*"artifical g": g-force is a measurement of how acceleration gives objects a perception of weight. On earth, we are constantly 'Accelerated' downwards by the planet's gravity, and the earth's crust is pushing up against us, giving us weight. This is basically the same everywhere on the planet, and defined as 1 g.
note that, even in space, there is no "zero-gravity" gravity decreases with the square of the distance from the source, which means it can never reach zero. There is no place in the entire universe with 'zero gravity'. When people and objects in orbit around the earth appear weightless, it's because they are in a zero-g environment, not zero-G. The small g of g-force and capital G of gravity are distinctly different things. Weightlessness in orbit is because, for example the ISS, is in constant free fall towards the earth, but it moves sideways so quickly it constantly misses. If you go sky diving or bungee jumping you are also in free fall, and thus experience zero-g, but G (the gravity of the earth) is still acting on you. If we built a 400km high structure (which is how high the ISS orbits) and walked around there, you'd still feel 90 % of earth's gravity and could walk around just fine.
Creating artifical g in space is a tricky thing. One (relatively) easy way to do it is by spinning, which creates an outward, centrifugal force. The further inward you move towards the axis of the spin, the lesser this force becomes, until you're at the center and, relative to the vessel, weightless again. And weightlessness is a bad thingTM for the human body for prolonged periods of time.
Told you i'm a hard sci-fi geek :P
song of the day is stones from the sky by neurosis, namesake of this story and an amazing song from an amazing album.
also, something something pat-reon bullshit bla bla
cheers