Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only much of the convoluted plot, Night Wolf and a few other things are of my own creation (but inspired from many things under copyright, which aren't mine).
Chapter 15 – First flight of the Victory
Katie Sanderson looked around the bridge of her new vessel, she'd flown with both the Royal Airforce and then later with UNIT air command, she'd flown, experienced so much, she'd been to UNIT's moon base a many times with the cargo run, trained with them in lower gravity, flown harriers during the aborted 'invasion of the clan of Great Britain' as those who remembered it knew it had been called in some circles.
Now she had her own ship, UNIT had promoted, now Group Captain Katie Sanderson…or just Captain to her crew of the Royal Space Core Ship Victory.
The bridge wasn't laid out in any way that corresponded with any Earth based vessels.
From her captain's chair there were three huge screens visible, there were two stations in front of her, there was a further station to the far left and right.
Behind the Captain's chair and a position that occupied much of the rear of the bridge held the SSC officer's position.
The secondary systems coordinator was one of the most important during any mission and much day to day running of the ship.
The SSC officer would coordinate with the various departments throughout the ship, battle strategy analysis, linguistics (and diplomacy), sensor analysis, engine and power control and various other departments, their relevant information would be sent to the SSC who would relate it back to the captain.
The SSC was a high stress position which required a quick and lateral thinker and someone who could handle themselves in a crunch.
The captain wasn't excluded in the technology department, above her chair was what many had described as the periscope, simply because it was, it provided a real time, uninterrupted by technology view of the outside space area through a series of high precision mirrors and lens which were displayed on a screen on the periscope arm.
The periscope would also display various other information for the captain during normal operations.
Walking around the bridge she nodded to the officers who were manning the 'night' shift, although technically there wasn't any night in space, but the ship still operated under a 24 hour system for convenience's sake.
Captain Sanderson looked at the three screens two of which were displaying the area around a 180 degree view of the bow, starboard and port side of the ship.
The third screen displayed various sensor detail, location of satellites that would, if the ship hadn't been hidden to all but those who knew by the Fidelius charm, and various other information.
Captain Sanderson nodded to herself and walked out of the bridge.
For the past month they had been completing various trails and checks on the new ship, while all the crew, herself included had experience in other ships, there was still fine tuning, understanding and training on the Victory her ship.
Various trails and small cruises around the solar system and to just outside their solar system.
But tomorrow they would have scientists and other personnel from Night Wolf and would start their official shakedown.
Extended use of the hyperspace window generator engines, some exploration and a chance to give the new Thylacine fighters a test flight in unfamiliar space.
---
Captain Sanderson walked around the bridge as reports came in of various piece of equipment coming aboard and other personnel getting ready for their first 'official' journey.
"Captain, request from Night Wolf hanger, specialist fighter coming from the surface." Sanderson nodded to her SSC officer, she'd been informed by Barry Davis that one of the team was bringing…that craft. The craft that she'd and quite a few others had tried to tame.
"Put it up, I want to see the…craft." Two of the screens switched from forward 180 to one facing Earth and a second facing out of the open cargo bay.
"Got a lock, it's just exiting the atmosphere…" The screen in front of her showed the ship, a ring around it indicated its speed, although anyone who needed to know it's speed already had it on their own monitors, the data would also be down in sensor analysis and probably in battle analysis as well considering this small ship was the only thing of an unknown quality currently approaching the RSCS Victory.
As the coms call came in Sanderson was surprised, despite herself, the voice sounded surprisingly young, and while she had been briefed by the General, it was still interesting to hear the pilot's voice.
"Ship landed."
"Lock down the bay doors." She turned towards the front of the bridge. "Check all systems, that imbalance should be sorted out, double check the coordinates for Research Outpost 5, and let's get on the road." She said suppressing a smile.
A few moments later a young man, and an older one stepped onto the bridge, Captain Sanderson turned and nodded to both of them.
"Captain Jones, Mr Potter…"
"Captain Sanderson." Jones nodded a salute, Potter just looked around in…not quite wonder…but certainly intrigue.
"Let's get going shall we…" She smiled and looked towards the front of the bridge. "Coordinates locked in?"
"Locked in, hyper drive engines ready."
"Good, well, let's get going." She leaned into her chair.
"Hyperdrive ready and activating." The officer at the front of the bridge stated, slightly unnecessarily, but it was their first full flight and Captain Sanderson said they'd do it all by the book. "Hyperspace bubble forming…" From the 180 view Sanderson watched as the blue of the hyperspace bubble stretched back and around the ship. "Entering edge of hyperspace, coordinates are stable."
Then the blue light of hyperspace was streaking past the ship.
"Bring us up to full power on the window generators…"
"Yes Captain."
She rose and wandered over to where Mr Potter was discussing their destination.
"Couldn't help overhear Mr Potter." She paused glancing over at her screen near her chair. "We'll be arriving at P-788-248 within 25 minutes."
"Cool. Fast." He said, he seemed to be slightly dazzled by the whole experience.
"Very."
But if they had minerals, and of course the navigational beacons to create a genuine hyperspace network they could transverse the space in even quicker, and without the massive power drain that occurred when they brought the engines up to absolute 100 of power output.
She walked back over to Alexander Jackson her SSC officer.
"How's our power?" This was always one of the…not so much a problem, but it was always something you kept an eye on.
"All engines are at full output, we're reading…" He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. "90 percent on all three primary reactors, 85 percent on the two secondary and 70 percent on the two tertiary reactors."
"She's one hell of a beast." She said mainly to herself. "No problems though."
"No captain, got a report from the power and engine control, the minor imbalance was just a minor output problem with the manoeuvring engines."
"Fixed?" She asked.
"Nothing to fix, but it's not a problem any more." He smiled.
"Good." She nodded to him before settling back into her chair.
Alexander was one of the many UNIT officers who wasn't part of the armed forces, however Alexander was recommended for his position.
The role of SSC was one of the more complex requiring the officer to complete many complicated assessments and assignments while at their position, it also required an intimate and detailed knowledge of the ship and its systems.
Alexander Jackson was an electrical engineer, with a degree in History, specialising in battle strategy through the ages, although the battle strategy she learnt only later when they began to work together.
The Victory was, like the Hattah and Firefox limited to one main SSC officer and another officer in training for that role and others, someone with a passion for the ship and the work.
It was a matter of training and learning about the systems and the ship, it wasn't, something Sanderson learned very early on in her career that could be learnt in simulators, or from reading books. You could gain some of the theory from that, but you had to actually be there, to learn how the ship behaved, to assemble the information and bring the relevant information to the captain.
The SSC was effectively the captain's 2IC (second in command), having access to far more information than anyone else on the ship, and it was their job to display and bring to attention the most relevant and pertinent to the situation this became vital during an engagement or during complex manoeuvring.
"Approaching coordinates of Research Outpost 5."
Smiling to herself she waited for the slightly jostle at the ship left from the hyperspace window generated by the ship's engines.
The image on the screens transitioned from the blue and white sweeping past the ship to the black of space and ahead of them a small green/blue planet, which bore no resemblance to Earth.
The planet, which aside from having Research Outpost 5 on it had no actual name, except for the code given by the analysts and researchers who gleaned the information from various alien databases back on Earth P-788-42.
Captain Sanderson touched the screen to her side bringing up the initial sensor information.
P788 was roughly the size of Mars, with three 'moons' which could be described as orbiting asteroids rather than moons.
"Bring us into a synchronous orbit with the Outpost, prepare to start trasmatting down the supplies and teleporting Captain Jones and his team."
"Captain." Alexander acknowledged.
RSCS Victory swept easily from it's point in space over to area above the planet which lined up to the Outpost's location.
"Captain? Mr Potter has been delivered to…the Shadow Blaze…"
"Then by all means grant permission, open the bay doors. How's the transfer of supplies going?"
"80 of supplies away, another 10 minutes and we'll have it all down."
"Good. Make sure Parkes has his squad kitted up for launch."
The captain could tell Alexander was smiling without turning around.
"Squadron Leader Parkes has had his squad kitted up and standing by since we left from Earth captain."
She nodded. Parkes had excellent training in zero-grav piloting he had piloted the Earth – lunar base run many times, he had also had a huge amount of training in the Thylacines including many of the initial prototypes.
Finishing it's resupply of Outpost 5 RSCS Victory moved out of orbit towards the outer planets of the binary star system.
Victory easily moved through the system its 5 engines powering it forth, 3 of the engines were primary while the other two were for manoeuvring and allowed for greater control during any engagement that they may encounter.
RSCS Victory slowed to a stop between the two outermost planets of the system, a large desolate planet of an unknown composition that they would be determining its contents and a planet which according to the initial survey completed by Firefox was gaseous or an ice based planetoid.
"Ready to deploy Thylacines."
"Launch."
The Victory wasn't small by any measure of the world, in fact it, like the ASCS Hattah and the almost completed Flinders it was marginally larger than the Firefox.
Victory was approximately 400 meters long, 220 wide and 180 high, the large engines at the back and the engine and power room sat at the stern of the ship, from there the gravity field was cast forth around the ship giving the occupants of the ship near Earth gravity.
All the research, scientific and analysis labs, groups and personnel were within the main portions of the gravity field.
The bridge sat roughly 3/4 of the way forward from the engine and power section and at the very edge of the gravity field in the centre of the ship, this allowed them easy of movement and the rest of the ship maximum space for their analysis etc.
Forward of the bridge were various zero grav storage bays and the Thylacine docks.
These opened up on the port and starboard sides of the ship, 2 bays on either side opened up allowing 4 in each bay of the small yet powerful Thylacine fighters to slip out of the vast ship.
The Thylacines would re-enter the ship via a single channel at the bow of the ship hidden behind various charms and large herculanium blast doors.
The Thylacines were the fighter craft designed and build by the Australian facility in the Gibson Desert, a single person fighter craft which would operate in space only (in keeping with the UN's orders for no fighter craft that could be used within the atmosphere).
The Thylacine was an compacted X shaped craft with the pilot standing in the centre of the craft to minimise the effects of the gravitational forces while piloting.
The craft had four omni-directional engines and could stay in battle for around 20 hours without requiring to return to the ship to recharge its power.
Captain Katie Sanderson couldn't help but smile watching the Thylacines launch.
Of course she'd seen them launch before, watched them launch from her own ship in the trials, and final testing.
But this was real world, with a full crew, all the Thylacine pilots part of her crew and they were out in the middle of another system.
She smiled again to herself.
"Successful launch captain, Squadron Leader Parkes requests to begin manoeuvrers." Reported the communications officer to her right, she nodded.
"Sensor analysis has begun captain and battle strategy have formed up a battle space of the local are."
"Already?" She asked SSC surprised, the 'battle space' was the area of space which the occupied that was available to their sensors, scanners and their visual range, built up into an easily read and interpreted battle space that could be sent to various craft such as Thylacines and also other UNIT vessels allowing for different perspectives or covert analysis from various points of view.
The far right screen swapped from a view from the stern to set of graphic representations and small images of the real world objects. You could see in the battle space the Thylacines performing various manoeuvres, the planet behind them and other things such as the two suns and the other two planets in their vicinity.
Captain Katie Sanderson walked through the corridors of her ship, it was 'night', more or less.
The sensor analysis people were still working, though many of them had admitted that even they required rest…a little after she'd ordered them off for some food and rest she herself had left the bridge to Lt Russell for the evening.
Walking into her rooms she thumbed the iPod sitting on the desk bringing some music to the room balancing out the hum of the ship.
Looking around she sort of wished the ship had window…although she'd rather have a structurally sound ship than a thing with windows which could blow in any given battle.
---
Sanderson was reading over the initial analysis of the liquid, she'd earlier authorised samples to be transmatted off the planetoid.
The liquid was more or less water, with various trace impurities, many of which they were still identifying.
"Captain…" Alexander started sounding a little…uncertain.
"Alexander?" She asked casually as she flicked off the analysis to a scan of the battle space, there didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary.
"Battle analysis were doing a scan of the other planet, they're picking up something…" He said his as he flicked through the various screens whilst typing over the keyboard in front of him.
"Care to elaborate?"
"It's at edge of this system…we're only picking up vague energy emissions, nothing tangible at this range."
"Get the Thylacines into a defensive pattern around us." She said to the communications officer before turning back to Alexander. "Get the sensor analysis…"
"They're already on it."
"Already on what?" She asked curiously.
"They've stopped their analysis of the planets and focusing on the…whatever it is."
The captain smiled before turning back towards the front of the bridge, she felt the shift in the gravity of the ship as the gravity field altered as the engines engaged, absorbing much of the inertia involved as the ship moved.
Outside the thylacines manoeuvred around falling into a standard defensive position around the ship, one thylacine above, one below at the bow and stern of the ship, another two half way along the ship on both the starboard and port side of the ship. They flew at the same speed as the ship which currently wasn't at its full speed.
"Anything?"
"Analysis is still coming in…"
"Can we see anything?" She could hear Alexander working furiously behind her she flicked through the screen on her own periscope bringing up the available to her.
She could just about make out…something even with the various visual enhancements added to the image.
It was…something, in fact she could only make it out by what wasn't there, the stars behind the whatever would occasionally blot out for a moment.
"Captain…Captain.." She'd tuned out everything while studying the view…not something a captain should do.
"Yes Alexander…?"
"Got an image…more of an energy analysis…" The left hand side screen at the front of the bridge cut out displaying an image of the space ahead of them, various rings and what seemed like a silhouette gave an impression of what was ahead.
"Battle analysis suggest that there are two vessels, one is firing on the other…"
"Get linguistics to send basic number and language codes, and a standard hail. Battle Alert Alexander." Captain Sanderson said calmly.
Alexander Jackson touched a control in front of him, a light around the ship switched on flashing blue alerting the crew to the battle situation, whilst all internal doors closed shut reinforcing structural integrity.
All weapons divisions came to readiness, all interceptors placements came online and the scanning systems became ready for incoming fire.
Had the thylacines not been launched they would have been prepped to launch, while the actual order to launch would have come from the captain.
"No response from hail captain…"
"Well Alexander, sensor analysis got anything?"
"Real time image coming up now, the sensor guys are filtering it, it looks like they're using some sort of energy weapons and deflection gear to shield themselves…"
"Like a force-field?"
"Battle analysis say no…it's more a jamming field, though they're not sure which ship it's coming from."
The image flicked up replacing the silhouetted image, while leaving the centre screen showing the blackness of space in front of them with some more visible fluctuating patterns of space.
"Approaching energy field."
The RSCS Victory slowed as it approached the area, from their now closer viewpoint they could make out two ships, one firing something at the other.
"High probability of weapons fire…"
"Are they making any attempt to change course towards us?"
"No, they're…we're receiving a signal from the ship that's being attacked."
"Translation?" Captain Sanderson asked as she watched the screen, they only had a partial idea of where the ship was, if they started firing weapons now they might hit the other ship which was also within the jamming field…even if they relied on line of sight…
"Alert thylacines, prepare for assault on attacking craft." She ordered her communications officer.
"Thylacines report ready, breaking defensive, reforming to a standard attack formation…"
Outside the ship the thylacines broke formation quickly reforming into a standard V attack formation, they were still some distance from the target.
"Alexander, what's linguistics' take on it?" She asked impatiently.
In one of the many labs inside the RSCS Victory held the linguistics and diplomacy lab and department for the UNIT vessel, in it held various computers with databases canalised and partially translated pieces of alien text, all as references for the linguistics department to work with…
Unfortunately many of the databases came from various points in time, and some may or may not have originated outside of this universe.
Then there was the fact that one of their largest sources of information came from a Dalek information and communication system, and while it might be able to translate something…it did so into native Skaro, leaving the linguistics to translate it back into English.
Alexander was meanwhile sorting, checking and reading through the various reports coming in from the various departments throughout the ship, readiness reports from the weapons departments, from power and engine control, analysis of the battle space, battle projections and firing solutions, sensor sweeps of the surrounding system for other ships.
"Nothing yet captain, they say it's going to take a while, they've got nothing so far."
"Ah hell." She muttered to herself.
"Analysis of the ships suggest transmat attack…the jamming field is on a similar frequency, analysis suggest they are transmatting over while jamming the other ship." Alexander rattled off quickly.
"Suggests, I thought you'd get scrabbled inside out if you tried that?"
"If we tried it."
Sanderson shook her head. "Thylacines attack on line of sight only, no instruments, who knows what this jamming field will do to the sensors."
"Aye captain."
The Thylacines moved forward, their small but powerful engines pushed them forward away from the Victory the space in front of them was…warped slightly to the naked eye. But as they drew closer towards the field the could make out two ship, one was burning, burning red and yellow fire.
Burning an oxygen atmosphere.
They would get a clear shot in 20 seconds.
10 seconds away the attacking ship seemed to see them.
"Break formation!" Parkes shouted as the ship spun to face them, scattering, the thylacines spinning on their own axis corkscrewing away while targeting the ship and opening fire.
At almost the same time the ship completed a tight back flip seemingly latching onto the ship it was attacking.
On the bridge captain Sanderson watched Parkes's squad perform a textbook break and scatter manoeuvre and began firing at the ship, before the balls of energy launched out from the Thylacines could hit their mark both ships were unveiled in a red glow…and disappeared.
"What…"
"Unknown…analysis underway…"
"Get the squad to do a thorough search of the area, go over it with scanners, get them to do an searches as well, I want to know everything about what happened."
A few days later Captain Sanderson walked down through the main corridor of the ship towards the various labs, set away from the sensor, battle and linguistics departments were other labs similar to what could be found in any relatively good research facility.
Here they were analysing and studying the samples from the two planets, plus the minute samples that had been recovered from the 'altercation' that they had witnessed.
After getting a brief verbal report, an informal 'how's it going?' she continued on to the linguistics department who had informed her that they had…something.
"Captain…thank you for coming down…"
"Have you worked out the transmission?"
"…" the lead doctor in front of her stayed silent looking a little guilty.
"I'll take that as a no." She said leaning on one of the desks.
"Not precisely captain…" He said leaning onto his own desk and hit a few keys, one side of the room were large wall sized screen, they changed to display two things, a image of static and a second image of…some form of text.
The captain glanced at it and then back at the doctor.
He smiled nervously.
"We've managed to separate out the transmission, it was a video transmission of some sort…there may have been some audio…we're not sure…"
"And this second part?"
"Text…we think it might be a distress call."
"How?"
"Generally distress calls…anything from the basic SOS, to the more complicated used by various species that we have catalogued follow a repeating pattern, usually with a basic description or plea…we're not sure yet who they are…however it was a language that was spoken…"
"Rather than?"
"A separate written language to the spoken one…this eliminates many within out databases." Another scientist added.
"Right…" She said slowly. They didn't know who they were…but it was something.
"What about the other ship?" She asked hoping maybe that they'd got something that was missed during the heat of the moment.
"Nothing, nothing they transmitted…battle analysis asked us to look over the battle from a sociological stand point…" He paused. "But as far as working up a sociological profile based on how a species pilot's their ship…we haven't got much to base out findings on captain…I couldn't begin to think about it…except that we have started to think about it…" He added with a smile.
The captain shook her head with a smile.
Inside another lab totally unlike the linguistics lab, even though it was the same size, there were screens around the room, and in the centre of the room, while there were some private desks near the back. It had the feel of a planning and war room…which was pretty much what it was.
"Captain…" She stared at him. He hit a button showing the ships from various angles and different sensor perspectives.
"The ship was being attacked…although not with weapons, the initial supposition was correct, they were trying to take something from the ship…watch there." He had a remote of some kind in his hand and freeze framed the image showing a side of the ship and then an explosion in the middle. "We think they were taking whatever the ship had then detonating small charges to blow out the atmosphere in the ship."
"Any ideas on the species of the attacking ship?"
"It has transmat technology, the energy analysis proves that, they've got some sort of space warping technology…"
The captain listened as a vague picture was built.
"One other thing captain…the species…judging by how they used their technology and the construction of the ship, they…the species are not humanoid, or if they are they're no taller than 75 cm."
Later that week RSCS Victory was once again in orbit around P788 above Research Outpost 5.
Transmatting up to the ship various discoveries they had made, including several species of wood which had many things in common with the magical woods the sorcerers used.
According to the raved reports from the biology labs it could 'revolutionise and change the manner in which they constructed their ships'.
The work in deciphering the fragment of the message they had received was progressing slowly.
Captain Sanderson flicked through a set of buttons bringing of the cleaned up image of the two vessels.
On her personal screen in front of her was a picture which had been cleaned up from the various scans of the 'altercation' both from Victory's own sensors and from the Thylacines.
The picture showed the two vessels, the unknown attacking ship was a dark colour, possibly a very dark red.
There were notes accompanying the image, but it wasn't the first time she'd looked at the image.
The second vessel, was something different, the various departments were working on 'best guesses' for now, the two ships did not conform to anything in their various databases…for now, or it may be that the images were too distorted to gain a match. The only thing…aside they had gleaned from the sensor data of the attack ship was that they were definitely oxygen breathers and their ship was build in an atmosphere and designed to land.
That wasn't much…but it was more they had when they started.
--//
I'm not sure about this chapter, it's almost triple the length of my previous chapters.
I know not a lot is going on here…but I really wanted to show that this isn't Star Trek, they can't hit a button and a computer will work it all out, their technology is pieced together from varying sources, things take time to work out.
Also the question of opening fire on the ship, this is the Victory's shakedown cruise, also in a battle situation there are clear cut lines ie; if you're shot at you fight back. This doesn't happen…and since they can't communicate and were unsure of what was actually happening… well they needed more information.
Both species will be seen and elaborated on in future chapters (not quite sure how future), however both species have been featured in Doctor Who (in one and many of its forms).
The next time a chapter features a lot of scenes in space it will be more action (and some drama).