The EAS Gandalf went gliding by in hyper space on its way to its designated patrol area. Right in the ether/buffer region that existed in between the two interstellar empires.
They were there to simply keep an eye on things, in the event of war.
Jose was standing in the observation room on board the Gandalf hands crossed behind his back as he studied the swirl of the hyper space that was around the ship. He felt peaceful, yet oddly tense at the same time, watching the swirling of the hyper space cloud in front of him. It was as if the peace that he enjoyed made him tense, and antsy, waiting for something to do, something to happen. Every muscle in his taught athletic frame was ready and pulsating to go into action at a second's notice. But, with Earth at such peace, he was likely not to get that any time soon.
He sighed, he wondered these days why he kept on signing up for these missions, or why he even bothered joining in the first place. He just missed the absolute end of the Drakh war, and the singing of peace between the major powers. Reaffirming their commitment to a long and peaceful future, and with pirates, the Hand, and who knew what else was out there, Earth would be busy being the guardians of that peace.
No such luck. The Hand disappeared, the Drakh were neutralized and became thieves on the outer quadrants, being hunted by Nike class Battlecruisers, and their Centauri counterparts.
So this was not one of these missions, another waste of a commission.
He went down to the bowels of the ship, the fighter hangar and barracks C. All the way down to the lowest level of the ship. He got there and saluted to the Marine guard who stood watch.
He entered and his crew was there. Each EAD had at least one Marine squadron on board, these days, to provide for close air support in the case of ground invasion. This was the group that was assigned to his command, the Marines. His second in command, and the CO of the Marine detachment, noticed him and jogged over and saluted rigidly.
He returned it crisply. The female marine was of an athletic build, in fact if she were taller she would be bordering on anorexia with her weightt the way it was. She was only five feet four inches tall, with auburn hair that she cut short, but kept bushy and thick. Piercing gray was the color of her eyes, showing an inquisitive personality behind them. "Sir" She greeted.
"Sergeant." He said in rough English.
"What brings you down here?"
"Boredom mostly, and the realization that I have not met my fighter crew, some of the people who we will be relying upon if we get into the thick of it."
"Ah" She said with a nod, and then slowly maneuvered him to introduce himself to the other pilots, and EWOs that sat in the back seat behind each one of the pilots in their Thunderbolt, riding into battle.
Captain Patterson, meanwhile, was sitting in his quarters having his own dinner. The ships passage was riding smoothly enough, and soon , they would be at their coordinates, and who knew what else they would have to be doing as soon as they got there. If anything at all.
He ate his meal in contemplation, wondering what the future might have held for him and his new crew. Out of all the assignments that he had ever taken on, this was the most unique. Him, being at the top like he was looking down. Trying to lead the ship to the best of his abilities. He missed not being able to fly regularly anymore. It was so much easier back in the day being CAG.
But yet, this is what he always wanted, a chance to prove himself and his mettle in the course of a command. Maybe one day make General, or higher.
He finished his meal and then went over to his desk, where he began to look through the status reports. The ship was working out nicely, it did not seem to have much of the normal wear and tear that most newer ships had, trying to work out all of their large and small problems in the course of a new adventure, and getting the ship 'broken in'. None of that, the builders of her had thus far done an excellent job with things.
That was not to say things were perfect though. They were not, several things needed to be adjusted in flight. But the engineering team was confident that they had indeed gotten everything. And the Marines were drilling, a lot, making sure to be in tiptop shape in the event of an emergency. They still needed to practice with the ship's weapons, and under combat situations, but he was confident that they would have plenty of time for that particular activity.
His command crew though, some of the best and the brightest in their fields. Soon, they would all be fighting and would be organized into an efficient and well-oiled group. He did not know how he was going to expedite the process yet, and that was his only main concern. Drilling might be one way, but that was what the entire Navy did. No, he wanted to do something else. But, that could wait too. Besides, combat was the best way of doing that, and it was unlikely they would be receiving any of that anytime soon.
He stroked his chin and realized that he would need to shave again soon, that thought usually never occurred to him.
Which brought his thoughts to another problem: With supplies, they were now so far from the regular Earth Alliance, on his training missions he was confident of resupply, but he was now going to be on the other side of the territories, without any knowledge of how long he would be staying. He really did not like the idea that he would have to rely on the Narns to maintain his position, and the Centauri were out of the question. Even though they were back to being perfect members of the ISA, some of the scars still ran deep between the two interstellar empires.
Captain Patterson sighed, and wondered again if he should not have just retired. The Force was offering less and less of the excitement that he craved with each passing year, though, his new challenges were enough to keep him busy.
He finished reading through the paperwork, and went and laid down again. Once again the thought of his personnel 'problem' occurred to him again, and he wondered about what he was going to do about it, he was not used to feeling this lost, but he was sure he would regain his confidence again.
And with that thought, he started to doze off.
In the rear engine room of the ship Lt. Cmdr Keegan was lost in thought, panicked thought, nearly so. He was marching to the actual main compartment looking for the chief engineer of the Gandalf.
He entered and turned left, asking a young crewman if he could find her, following her directions he found her soon enough. She was sitting in her office just off the main engine room, looking out through the window over looking the duty stations. The door was opened, so he knocked on the frame. She jolted around and gestured for him to enter.
He did so, saluting as he did, she returned it.
"What can I do for you?" She asked lazily.
"Its about CPO Anders" He said, evenly.
"What about him?"
"Well he is just not doing his job."
Stacia glared at him for a second in confusion, the young pilot gulped under her gaze. Almost entranced by her features, her expressive and puzzled eyes. Finally, she broke the silence.
"He truly is the best for his job on this level, and in this ship. If you do got a problem with him I do suggest you work it out, with him. Other then that there is nothing I can do, as for now…though I suppose I could speak to him too, see what is going on with him. If anything…if it is there, I will find it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, though Lt. have you talked to him?"
His brain had to be forced into high gear, taking a different and unexpected direction. "Sir, I have, twice in fact."
"Over this entire voyage so far?" She asked with a lopsided and knowing smile.
"Yes sir."
"Well, just try and get to know him then. Nothing wrong with that, I will see what I can do, though it is probably nothing. Now keep your Furies safe and we can keep them flying Lt." She said this with a wide grin, her eyes dancing a bit playfully.
"Yes sir" He said leaving the room with a slight bow. He closed his eyes slightly and blew out his cheeks, before continuing to march down the hall.
Colonel James Norman was standing watch as his Captain entered into the bridge. "Report" He said gently as he started to glance over the duty stations himself, smiling to see they were all manned.
"We are all on schedule, baring straight for the patrol area, ETA reads as one minute. All of the kinks have been worked out, except for those that we have to get worked out into battle, and combat systems. All systems read green for normal space jump."
The Captain smiled and nodded as he got up and sat in his chair. "Helm, prepare to jump back to normal space"
"Aye sir." The current female ensign on duty said as she poised her fingers over the flight board.
"Jump!" He ordered.
The energy surged, and then reached a quick critical point in the jump drive, spiking as the matrix formed a jump point that punched a hole through normal space and the hyper space. The Gandalf transitioned through this point gracefully as ever, emerging like a big dark predator from the waves of the ocean, her sensors instantly reaching out.
"Report" Captain Patterson said.
"We have transitioned to normal space, all systems clear, speed gathering back to about twenty five percent thrust."
"Sensors read all clear, no contacts in the immediate vaccinaty. Other then the regular jump gate beacon that is about a light year out."
"Roger that." Captain Patterson said, smiling to himself in satisfaction.
He went over to his friend, "Colonel, now that we are out here it will be a perfect time to excersise the weapons systems on board this ship, test them, make sure they are all up to full specs."
"Aye aye sir."
"Including the Railguns."
"The Railguns?"
"Yes, do what ever checks and tests on all weapons systems. Let us make sure that we can fight."
"Aye aye sir." The Colonel said as he hobbled off to go bother the fire control officer, and the enlisted men that were under him.
The Captain then went to go and sat down in his chair as he observed the rest of the crew being busy with their regular activities. He felt slightly bored now, all of his crew had simple mental activities, at least, to occupy themselves. He for the moment had nothing specific, but his wandering mind might reveal something that he could do in his day to day life.
In the fighter bay, Lt. Keegan was approaching the crouched figure of the CPO that was in charge of the fighter maintenance bay. He was crouching over his tools at the foot of one of the Thunderbolts.
He froze there for a second then, never a people person, at all. He then cleared his throat at the prone figure below him. He froze for a second and then got up, slowly turned around, and faced down his superior officer with a bit of defiance in his posture, but it was subtle.
"Sir." He said evenly.
"Chief." The Lt. responded with just the right tone of voice. "Look I uh-"
"Look, I should speak first. I do not know what it often is, officers make me…uncomfortable. To say the least, it is a personailty flaw I will admit."
"Ah." Keegan tried to roll this information over in his head but could not come up with a reason. Too bad he fell asleep in his psych classes that he took as a high school student, and while in college as well.
"I will try, just sir, give me space, I will make sure your birds are up when they are needed, and I will make sure to keep my people in line too. But I need space again."
"I understand the need for that, you should be a pilot."
"Can't, eyesight issues."
"Really?"
"Yes sir, and sir, if you will pardon me I found a broken down gyro in this Thunderbolt Starfury, and it needs to be fixed if we get jumped out here."
"Sure, I will leave you to it." Keegan said as he showed himself out, and above, leaving the hangar through the main briefing room at the top of the stairs. He then decided to pay Stacia another visit down in Engineering.
The weapons test went off without a hitch, all the regular systems that needed it were completely fixed and bought up to specs, though only through the first round, the rest of them would begin momentarily. Captain Patterson also ordered a CAP and practice to be set up, which the Marine squadron on board was conducting to almost perfection as they set up practice, mock dogfights, but always kept three fighters circling the ship.
The situation had not changed since they got there, a hyper burst message from the EAS Columbia through the local jump gate revealed no tension in the situation at all. Both fleets were just conducting excersises within a few light years of each other. The number of Narn/Centauri ships so close to each other without being on a joint mission though was a bit concerning. As was the continued political turmoil going on within the Republic since the new Emperor was put on the Centauri throne, who it was had surprised most people. The Centauri after all were still rebuilding from the Darque influence over the past couple of decades.
It took a while for Michael to find her, she was not in her quarters, or in engineering, and he could not use the computer to track down her location like you could in those sci fi vids that he used to like as a kid so much, boy had most of them gotten it so wrong.
He finally found her in the gym, working out. The gym was spartan in every sense of the word, almost no fixtures, and no where near as big as the gym's on any other class of Earth Alliance ship of the Warlock's relative sizes. This included the ridiculous arrangements on board a Poseidon class carrier. She got up, he went on over.
"Hello Lt. Cmdr." He greeted.
She smiled at him and shook his hand. "Hello. How did the meeting go?"
"Very well, thank you, your advice was spot on"
"Good I am glad. Wanna help me do some push ups?" She offered gesturing to the mat using her long arms to point toward it.
"No thank you." He said, his mind going into a slight panic. Which he did not show on his face. "I am still on duty on Captain Patterson has asked me to draw up drills for the fighters. Not like we are actually going to run into anything out here, but still it would be nice."
"Ah. Lt-" She said grabbing at his arm as he turned to leave. "Perhaps you can join me for dinner later, I always eat with one of the crew, and you are as good a person as any tonight."
"Yes ma'am." He thought for a second. "I would love to."
Captain Patterson was still sitting in his chair nearly half an hour later, a self satisfied smile was on his face. Everything was running so smoothly, given two months of drill and this ship would reach its fine edge, there his only task would be to make sure that they did not lose it. And things were so much simpler in the age of sail.
He was going over the results with Colonel James, and his fire control officer who were both pouring over his own notes and statistics.
"All and all I am most satisfied." Said the Colonel first.
"Yeah, me too, but this is only the beginning of the long road." The fire control officer said.
"Yeah, constant vigilance, at least for now, we still have a green crew here despite the great senior staff. For the most part though we should get our senior enlisted core up to spec first, make sure of that. The Marines need a planet to practice on the first chance they get." He went down into his own thoughts, silencing himself.
"And when will that be?"
"Who knows? The Earth Alliance wants us out here for at least two months. Until such time as either the situation on Centauri Prime normalizes, or Earth Alliance wants us to go home. Either way though, we are here for the long hall."
"Ah."
"Well, no time for practice then." The Colonel said with a bit of disappointment.
"Well, not necessarily, the Richard Colony moon is only a few light years from here, we can send shuttles in the jump gate."
"Bit impractical sir." Said the fire control officer.
"Yes, but we can work out all the nitty gritty details at a later date. Right now though, we should just use this time to investigate and do our jobs."
"Aye Sir." They both said at once.
"Well, that is it then. We have to still set up emergency triage and damage control tests, but I will speak to Lt. Cmdr. Clarke, and the Doctor at a later date and set those up, as of this moment, dismissed to you both."
All three got up and left, "Colonel, you have this watch?"
"Yes sir, good, I will relieve you at 0530, or whoever is on watch of that time."
"Lt. Walker will likely have it."
Captain Patterson glanced after the fire control officer who was mounting the lift to go down to his quarters.
"Very well." Captain Patterson said.
He was walking down the hallway, on his way the last little bit to his quarters which was just adjacent to the Bridge Deck.
"Battle Stations, battle stations, Captain Patterson to the bridge please." He looked up like a startled cat and then composed himself before trotting back into the bridge.
"Report." He said mounting his chair.
"We have received a distress call through the jump gate by the EAS Columbia sir, she says that she and a Narn heavy cruiser have been jumped by a group of three Centauri Cruisers."
"Damn, order General Quarters, and set condition one throughout the rest of the ship, man the fighters and prepare to jump to the site immediately. ETA?"
"Three minutes sir."
"Alright, stand by, stand by, JUMP!"
The Gandalf transitioned into the hyper space in a quick manner, going from almost no speed to a great speed in mere seconds. Transitioning from a ship that was on its way into battle from a normalized vessel, to a dragon of fire and activity as it charged into the face of hell itself.
They arrived outside the outer part of the solar system where the skirmish was taking place, the engines were still not charged yet, which gave the chance for the crew to finish getting ready.
Michael Keegan was busy scrambling into his Raptor, after being surprised out of going to his dinner with Stacia. He now felt anxious waiting for the order to deploy into battle.
Captain Patterson barked, "Status!"
"We have arrived outside the Narn border sector, the jump engines still need a full minute to recharge, all systems are reporting ready for combat, all small craft are manned and deployed."
"Good, stand by to jump the ship two thousand kilometers out, I want a read on the situation before we head off into the battle, let us not rush in too hastily now."
"Course plotted sir." The navigator reported after his hands raced expertly across his console.
"Then make the jump back into normal space."
The Predator jumped into the fold of the wolves, it staring down the barrels of its many weapons, its scanners assessing the situation on a constant basis.
"Sir, we have arrived, scanners read three Centauri vessels, and the two allied ships." He reported before getting into the specifics. "The Columbia has taken severe damage to her aft sections, some of her engines are down, and her starboard aft defenses are also off line, her E-Web system reads damaged but not off line, fighters are continuing to harass her. The Narn vessel has taken light damage but is being engaged by one Centauri vessel directly. I am reading three Centauri vessels and several fighters, two Morado class cruisers and one of their new Maximus, light damage to all three vessels."
"Tactical analysis on enemy formations." Captain Patterson ordered as he looked at the combat chart of the situations, Triangles representing enemies, and Squares representing the friendly formations.
"Sir it looks as though the Centauri are deployed in standard pincer, one of their vessels is reading moderate damage to their port side from the Columbia's main battery, she is now stalking off and looking like it is going to make another run. The Maximus is showing no damage, Earth and Narn fighters are attempting to box in the Centauri vessels and support their vessels, but the Maximus and the Centauri fighters are holding them at bay, we do not seem to be on their scopes yet, or they just do not care."
"Well we will teach them" The colonel said.
"Engines ahead Full, come about to combat course, head us straight for the Maximus, but take us along the Columbia's bows by 10 Kilometers, let us support them and take some of those fighters off their backs, hold our fighters in reserve, charge all weapons."
"Aye Sir" Several voices responded.
"Take us within one thousand kilometers of enemy vessel, stand by both E-Web and forward interceptors."
"Right," the fire control systems and officers were being prepped.
The Gandalf turned almost point blank at the Columbia, and brought itself up to speed.
It passed close by the starboard quarter of the ship, the fighters suddenly tried turning and spinning out of the way. The support cannons opened fire at almost point blank range, hitting the fighters all, the white orbs of ionic energy striking them hard as they went from the Gandalf and into the fighters, clearing the space around the Columbia of them. The ship she saved immediately turned its port bow to the Gandalf as it went after one of the cruisers.
The Gandalf closed on the enemy battlecruiser as the latter opened fire at her maximum effective range. The Gandalf interceptors fired in return, and caught the enemy fire easily, the burst after burst failed to connect with the Gandalf's hull. The Gandalf charged through this firestorm on its way close, the interceptors and E-Web tech was running hot as balls of energy got through and struck the Gandalf amidships, but her advanced armor shook off the blasts as the ships continued to close the distance.
"Sir, we are closing, distance now one thousand five hundred kilometers, some enemy fire has gotten through our screens, causing minor damage to the frontal arc, none to weapons."
"Tactical, you may commence firing with the forward cannons, save the G.."
The Gandalf fired her four frontal cannons, the heavy energy pulses fired rapidly at the Centauri battlecruiser they struck her all along her hull, causing hull damage, damage to the fins and weapons systems lining its hull, it was a surprisingly precise strike, even given the accuracy of the Gandalf's guns. Its port engine was hit, the Centauri defenses kept a third of the pulses out as the rest of them got through, she tried to rotate to bring more of her guns to bare on the enemy charging destroyer, which only presented more of her hull to the ships fire. After nearly two minutes of straight fire the Centauri's hull was beginning to buckle, she began an emergency retreat.
"Status"
"Enemy ship is beginning her retreat, looks as though we have done massive damage to enemy systems, the Narn ship is beginning to take heavy damage though."
"Let the battlecruiser go, she is no threat to us, and bring us around on the other Morado, all ahead flank."
The Gandalf turned and virtually pounced on the enemy, firing long range pot shots at the enemy vessel, which were intercepted easily at extreme range, even though that the Centauri had transferred most of their defensive facing the Narn. Thus the Gandalf stopped firing, until they got closer. They closed the distance rapidly, without the Centauri Cruiser paying them the least bit of attention, all its offensive fire was directed to the Narn Heavy Cruiser, who was returning fire.
The Narn Cruiser was putting up a ferocious struggle against the superior Centauri force of cruisers and fighters, ion bolts were racing out to scour the hull of its opponent, as particle beams did massive damage to the enemy structure, hitting precise places on the hull. But the Centauri ship's defensive nets were holding firm, and their fighters were harassing the Narn's defenses.
Two torpedoes flung themselves at the Narn Cruiser, hitting the side of the vessel causing a hole and fire to be ripped open in it, causing a massive hull breach and a fire to spread throughout the outer part of the ship.
"Sir, the Narn Cruiser is fighting to the death, she is not retreating, and her hyper space matrix seems to be disabled, she is leaking atmosphere."
"Open fire with forward ion cannons and then standby to give out a critical strike, target weapons and defensive batteries only for now."
"Yes sir."
Captain Patterson watched as the Gandalf's main Ion guns once more came online skewering the enemy hull, followed by the plasma mortars which hit the enemy cruiser causing multiple hull hits, the defensive were quite simply overwhelmed by heavy combined fire of the Gandalf and the Narn vessel, but it seemed that the Narns did not have the power to finish her, the Gandalf did.
The two G.O.D. powered up slowly, brought to life by the sudden commands and transfer of power for the fusion batteries that were responsible for controlling weapons. They both fired and spat out two long red flames of heavy fire power, which hit the Centauri ship along it long neck, piercing its side, causing the vessel to be sliced in two. The two parts have converted along into fire, which rapidly destroyed the entire vessel.
The Gandalf went into a holding pattern, which was a defensive position that could keep both the Columbia and the Narn Cruiser under defensive fire while the Gandalf responded to any new threat.
"Status."
"All systems are checking out, minor hull damage to the outer armor, no penetration, the only serious damage was a hit on our communication antennae, it will be easily repairable and the secondary array is coming up online now."
'Very Good." Captain Patterson said checking the status board, as he saw the enemy vessel that was remaining was slowly retreating away from the field of battle.
"Sir, the Columbia is hailing us."
"On visual." Captain Patterson said turning back to the main status screen as he looked out over it as it shifted in its water like manner as a view of the Captain of the EAS Columbia came up and on it.
"Thanks Captain, that was close timing, we were giving out, our defensive batteries were running over and hot. We have taken some pretty substantial damage, two of our hangars were destroyed when a torpedo hit that section, we are conducting what repairs we can as of the moment, but we may need to jump out of here."
"Don't mention it, any further assistance we can provide you is ours to give, we took only minor damage." He said getting up out of his chair and approaching the screen.
"That will not be necessary, just stay around and give us covering fire as we repair our jump-" the screen suddenly turned to static and the different sound of an explosion happened in the back ground off screen as the Captain had to scramble for a foot hold. Then it switched off.
"Sir, the Centauri vessel just fired an extremely focussed beam of energy at the Columbia."
Patterson, the Colonel and the rest of the crew looked as the beams path finished and caused mosre explosions which seperated the ship in two pieces, which slowly consumed the rest of the ship in a gaint fireball that spread out over a couple of kilometers, some small pieces of debris.
"Take us after that ship!" He ordered firmly sitting in his chair.
"Sir, it is too late, they are already jumping away." As they watched a distant flash of light consumed the battle cruiser as it made the spontaneous jump to hyper space.
"Should we pursue?" The Navigator asked.
"No, set a course for the Columbia debris field, full analysis please, lets see if there are no survivors."
When the Gandalf arrived: "Sir, I am reading no survivors other then the Furies that are out there. Also, the weapons signature of that is a Quantum discharge signature"
"What?!?"
"They do not have that technology." The Colonel supplemented.
"Well apparently they do."
"Hmm, have the science team get put together a team just to determine what happened."
The woman he was talking to nodded as she went to go and continue on her new duties.
"Sir, we are receiving a text message to the other end of the Earth Alliance, they are saying…sir, the message said that the Centauri just declared war on the entire combined forces of the ISA…but it specifies Narn and Human, and does not have any barring on any other race in the galaxy."
Captain Patterson sat down in shock, and tugged on his chin absentmindedly. He then started giving his orders as the Gandalf made one more transition.