Back Home – Tales
by Warringer
Ram them 'til they give up
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He laid back and fixed his eyes up towards the ceiling of the room.
How had had he ended up in all this again?
He shook his head clear for a moment, trying to ignore the pain from his right hand as the painkillers slowly lost their effectivity.
In the end it was all his father, who was responsible. Damn drunk asshole...
To get away from him he had left his home town as soon as he had gone through high school, fully intending to get into the Military to get as far away from him as possible. In the end it had gotten him to Navy. Hey, it got him far away from his father and he got to see the world.
He still didn't quite know why the captain of his first tour recommended him for the US Naval Academy, but he had ended up there, getting good enough notes to get through it and leave as a fresh Ensign. And right onto a tour on the Ticonderoga as part of Enterprise's escort.
They had just come back to Pearl as the damned cat stuck and the Big E was sunk in Pearl, hit by one of their asteroids.
Another tour on the Ticonderoga had followed and got him a promotion to Lieutenant. And was send back to the USNA, where they were preparing him to be the commander of a space ship. The number of officers needed for the rapidly growing fleet of Earth had left the Navy to get as many of their officers to receive these rapid schoolings before they ended up stuck on a ship.
Fate wanted him to be the commanding officer of a Monsoon class Gunboat, the CCS-78, a nameless ship that allowed her crew to give her a name. However he had been stuck with a crew entirely made up of Nerds and Geeks of various strength, who had used the recruitment drive of the Navy to get themselves on a spaceship and try to be Kirk or Skywalker or whatsoever. At least his Chief Engineer was a rather normal guy, having been a reactor technician on a Los Angeles.
As such his ship had ended up with the name A Highly Effective Pirate.
And when the war with the Doranians had really gone into it hot phase, his ship had been in the middle, first as part of an escort for a group of Warlocks and than as part of the new Enterprise's escort.
It had lost him his ship, but none of his crew and crushed his right hand into a bloody pulp...
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"Fuck," he swore out loud as his ship began to vibrate like a stuck gong.
"Ve lost the particle cannon, kapt'in," came the cry from the direction of the tactical console and he tried to ignore the fake Russian accent.
He stared at the display as if he could try to force the Doranian Cruiser in front of his ship to blow up by sheer force of will alone.
"Recycle the shield," he ordered with a strangely level voice that didn't show any sign of nervousness or panic.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was glad for the actual belt harness that kept him secured to his seat, because the numerous hits and glances would have thrown him out of it at least seven times. At the same time he was glad for the distinct lack of exploding consoles.
That there was a flickering and static in the main holo display, but one could ignore it.
"Shields down, cycling," he heard the voice of this tactical officer, this time without the fake accent.
Again somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered how the hell Andrew Wells had managed to end up on his ship. Or even managed to get the rank of an Ensign. During High School he had never shown any sign of wanting to become a sailor.
But at the same time, the War had changed much. And someone like Wells was unlikely to let such an opportunity slide.
But the more or less constant use of that fake accent and the strange look on his face every time he was called 'Mr. Wells' or 'Ensign Wells' was disturbing. It was as if he was getting of each time he was called that. So he had slowly moved to call him just 'Wells' or 'Andrew'.
On the screen the Cruiser was stuck by the Particle Cannon of one of CCS-78 squadron mates in one of the reactor sections and the entire stern hull simply bobbled up like boiling water, popping apart as plasma reacted with the metal of the hull and the atmosphere inside the hull, resulting in a massive fireball that left little more than the bow half of the ship intact. And even that just barely with the edges of the hull glowing and burning where the hull was sporting breaches large enough to leak both hydrogen from burst pipes and atmosphere from sealed compartments, sending rather short lived jets of flames into the emptiness of space.
Space around his ship wasn't much different. The entire battle had started rather orderly, but had quickly descended into a big free for all as the Doranians fought tooth and claw to defend the most important shipyards of their dying small empire.
But he and his ships had managed to stay close to the Big E as screening elements as the large Victory was taking care of the massive orbital installations, Dreadnoughts and few new Super Dreadnoughts the Doranians had managed to get together as defense.
All around them Particle Beams, Plasma Bolts and laser beams were standing in space, zigging back and forth between the fleets and installations. And his small Corvette was dodging with nearly the maneuverability of a fighter to not be targeted or hit. Fighters and Bombers were all around landing and again starting from the Big E and other Carrier vessels to do bombing runs on the surface of the planet or other orbital installations or even fight of the crude, but nonetheless rather effective Doranian fighters.
Brussels had been rather surprised when the Doranians had first used dedicated fighters, even through those were not much more than shuttles that had been armed to the teeth and fitted with powerful drives and maneuvering jets.
"Shield back up at eighty percent," Welles announced." O'Conner says that the generators have taken damage from that last hit. And fifty percent of the E-Web and shield projectors are down."
He grit his teeth. He knew that he the most sensitive thing would be to go and withdraw from the fight, but he would leave the Big E. Not while he remembered what had happened to the previous Big E.
"Frack," another voice piped in." Super Dreadnought at fifty klicks. They are going for the Big E."
His face whirled around and glared at the sensory display.
Doranian Super Dreadnoughts were a development the Doranians had pulled out of their hats when the Allies had first pushed forward into Doranian space. They were easily ten kilometers in diameter and looked even more like the ID4 city destroyers than the Cruisers and Dreadnoughts. To make things worse the Doranians had learned from the Earth ships.
The Super Dreadnoughts were equipped with dual layered shields and turreted weapons that allowed them to target anything around the ship. The massive plasma cannon as spinal mount was not helping matters either. One on one they were able to take on a Victory if the Victory could not use its main cannon.
"Display," he ordered.
The Super Dreadnought appeared on the screen. Battle damage, recent and not so recent was clearly visible and it was clear that this ship was not really in a way to really fight. It was most likely at Magna Doran to be repaired and now...
"Fuck," he swore again." They want to ram the Big E."
His glance went back to the tactical display. The battle was still ranging around them and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. The Doranians would loose no matter what when Magna Doran fell.
Glancing back and forth between the tactical and the normal display a plan began to form in his mind.
"O'Conner," he screamed out loud to his Chief Engineer as he pressed the button of the Internal Communication system." Get me everything you got in the drives and the reactor. Pour as many energy as you can into the shields and E-Web."
"What?" came the screamed response.
"Do it!"
He released the button and glared at his helm.
"Set course on that Super Dreadnought," he said as he glared at the Ensign at the helm.
"Are we..."
He grimaced and nodded grimly.
"Yes, we are."
Again he pressed the button of the Internal Communication system, this time on ship wide.
"We are gonna ram them 'til they give up."
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He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head slightly as he looked up to Rear Admiral DeConto.
The Admiral and former Chief of Naval Operations, smiled a little as he gave him a very elaborate letter. Before he had gotten a Purple Heart and several other medals as well as a promotion.
"Your new orders, Commander Harris."
He placed the letter on his bed and saluted to the Admiral.
"Thank you, sir."
DeConto smirked a little.
"You are getting a new Nadesico," he said," It might not be a cruiser, but it is defiantly a step up from a Monsoon. USS Pathfinder."
Alexander 'Xander' Levalle Harris nodded again and looked at the view port of his room on the Pasteur.
"My crew?" he asked.
DeConto laughed a little.
"I gather you want to keep them?"
He grinned a little.
"They may be nerds, but they are my nerds."