Friday 30 March 2012

The Eyes of Terra

Chapter 1: The Encounter.



     Just ten ships. That's all the United Terran Navy can manage right now. We built them as large as we could, Kilometers long, hundredmillions of man hours. Over-engineered beautiful pieces of work. Used to police the trade routes for contraband. Boring. Contraband like the independents' manifesto. Excessive. No merchant ship could really challenge us. Not even a match for a fighter wing from one of these ships. 30,000 men crammed on board, just to look for data slates.
     We jumped into the system. We've been pursuing these bunch of pirates for about a week now. right to a habitable planet this time. An interesting discovery to say the least.
     “Captain Cross!” a comm line crackled. “They've moved into the asteroid field!”
     Asteroid fields aren't nearly as dense as people think they are. Not worth firing our big gun at it though. So I decide on a more conventional method.
     “Launch the shrikes.” shrikes are interceptors. Well armed, quick accel. Used to fly one myself, back in the day. Those days are over now. Too damn old.
     My hands are rough. Fighter pilot's hand. Shakes. Only thing that helps is whiskey. “Put 'em on screen. Front, gun view.” I order. The Mainscreen switched on, giving a view of the top of the main gun, a 900 meter railgun. I like a good view. The asteroids travelled at low velocities. Perfect place to hide. I figure it's time to end this pursuit. “Arm the swivel guns.” More railguns. A secondary battery beneath the main gun. 3 cannons. Good, solid slugs. “Give 'em hell.” I say. A few shots headed in the right direction. The large asteroid the pirate freighters hid behind exploded. It rustled the nest. “Give commander Danik the word.” He's been flying fighters for about 5 years. He's earned this hunt.

     Explosions rocked the pirates' hulls as plasma rockets from the fighters detonated. We set about dealing with the planet. I order an away team, and a pair of ore miners to deal with the resupply. Lastly, I order the star examined. It's a red dwarf. Might be a decent resupply point, though. I order one of the FIS batteries ejected. Need 'em to get out of system. Not even enough for one jump right now. Ion engines are slow to accelerate, efficient for sublight, but not fast enough for interstellar travel. Nothing really is, actually.

     The Sword of Truth is the name of my ship. She's done well thusfar. A Mars class, she Polices quite effectively, as the navy does. The three systems know her well. Sol, Alpha Centauri, and Barnard's star. Wolf 359 has no planets, so it was never colonized with more than a military outpost and science station. An interesting star, or so the science boys tell me.
     “I'm heading to my quarters. Let me know of any interesting discoveries on the planet.” I say. My XO, Commander Adams took over. He's a tall man. A good, bass voice. Black hair, with a well-trimmed beard... a pointed, Honest Abe. The bridge itself is something of a panorama from myself. Helps for voice projection, and so I can see everything going on. I can see we'll be here for a while.
    “Radio the flight deck. Send a few orbital landers down, and a science shuttle. On screen.” a few black shapes launched from the hangar. Drop pods full of power-armoured soldiers, among plenty of scientists. Good practice for them. They aren't really used that often. Hopefully this place can be colonized. The science shuttle holds all the amenities they'll need. Large for a shuttle, it's a bulky craft, full of specialized electronics. At the front are a number of sensor antennae. If this place doesn't have any sentients, this will be a great addition. A lot of green. A lot of blue. A couple moons, too... ah well. My old bones can rest for now.
     The ship's huge. Two kilometers of Steel. One of the advantages of a captain's position is a short walk to work. Gotta be close to the command deck. I take a quick shower. I say good night to my cat, Floyd. A tortoiseshell cat. Always been there for me. A nice, affectionate cat. He slept on my bed.

     I was rudely awoken. I had to run to the command deck. I dumped Floyd right onto the floor. Sorry, cat.
     It was about ten hours after we arrived in system when two unknown ships jumped in. We had never found another spacefaring race. I order the comm officer, Gordon Ericson to hail them. We get no response. I don't take kindly to uninvited guests.
     “Threat assessment.” I tell the sensor officer, Roger Henricks.
     “Sensors picking up nuclear weapons,” Henricks said, “And from the look of 'em, plenty of torpedo tubes and secondary weapons. They'll be in weapons range in an hour. All in all, they'd be difficult for us to counter.”
     “Magnify” I say. Two large trapezoidally-shaped ships came into view. Large batteries at the front of missiles, between them what appeared to be a fighter bay. Two double turrets of what appeared to be railguns also came into view, at the back of them. A large number of secondary batteries dotted the hull, which looked to be for anti-fighter duty.
     “Arm the Slammer. Prep all fighters for combat. Status on the away team?” I say.
     “No way we could get them back before they get here.” Ericson says.
    My hands start shaking a little. “Where are they on the planet?”
     “They touched down near the equator, in a mountainous region near the coast of the central continent.”
     “Tell them to sit tight, Ericson. We can't get 'em back. But we might be able to stake our claim. I have a plan. Adams, ready room, now. You too, Jacob.” Jacob Riggs is the tactical officer. Can't do this without him.
     “Alright gentlemen. Here's the story. Right now, we have a few objectives. First, we need to stake our claim. Second, we need to make sure they can't destroy our claim. Third, we have to get reinforcements, and fourth, we need to get that battery back, and jump out.”
     “Sir, shouldn't we try to negotiate with them?” Adams says.
     “We tried that. We will give them one more chance. This is our planet now. One way or another. We're holding onto this one. That's our mandate.”
     “Right, then.” he says. “I'll give orders to the flight leaders.”
     “We'll prioritize enemy weapon systems. Those nukes and rails have to be disabled. At least a month's damage. We'll grab the battery first. Just have to make it to the planet, and drop the base. Then we jump out.”

     I go back onto the command deck. Gut's pounding. Grit my teeth. First real combat action. Do me proud, men.
     “Alright. Ten minutes, give them their orders, get a move on! Come on you bastards, you wanna live forever?!”
     A thousand things happened at once. The hustle of the men was a sight to behold. Hundreds of voices went to all corners of the decks. The ship's on red alert for the first time. This is what we trained for. Let's see what the old girl can do.

     We made it to the battery. A massive, black shape, with extended solar panels all around. Lots of gold connectors at the top, slips right in at the aft-port quarter after folding the panels. The docking process started, magnetic clamps sealing to the surface of the battery. We started making a quick turn around when the unknowns launched their first salvo from about a million kilometers. Test shots, undoubtedly. Countermeasures deployed. Jets of green plasma fired from our turrets, and fighters scrambled to launch. Many explosions ensued as the warheads were detonated by the plasma. “I think we have our answer, Adams.” -- “They must not know about our claim on the planet, if they do, they don't care right now. Turn as fast as possible. Fire on the first ship possible.” Each ship is about 1500 meters in length. This should be a challenge.
     “Fire the slammer! Target the second ship's guns with the trips, and fire!” I ordered. “Scramble all fighters. Have them fly escort duty. Keep firing, then make ready for a broadside! We must reach that planet!” Our rails hit them hard. Looks like we cooked a few magazines, but not enough to destroy them. The slammer's kiloton slug took down one of their rail turrets in a single shot. Good girl.
    More shots were fired. This time it was their rails. No time to dodge. Four hits hit the top of the sword near the fighter bay. “Damage report.” I say. “Significant damage to the armour, but it's holding” Riggs says.
     The battle continued for a while. The flak guns and plasma projectors kept the missiles from being too big a threat. The plasma projectors didn't seem to have much effect on the fighters. Must have EM shields. These ships don't have a large fighter complement, fortunately. Neither do we, but we appear to have invested in more anti-fighter technology. Then they fired again. The slammer took a hit. Temperamental gun. The fighters kept 'em busy though. Our flak guns did enough damage to the magazines. The fighters kept at the rail turrets, and took 'em down. Our rails are down, too. I have questions. Lots of questions. But no chance right now to answer 'em. The ship's taken a beating. So have they. And nobody, them or us, is willing to commit their ships to this one engagement. But I've got my orders.

     The drop pods are all loaded and on standby. Company holding transports... an entire division's worth. Even drops the mess-hall in with 'em. Massive numbers of men, all crammed onto fifty odd ships, with all the proper amenities for the army. Even tanks, helicopters and pads. Lovely technology. The city ship is about to say goodbye to ten thousand men. Many families are split up. Thousands of people killed in the combat. But we held. I give the order.
     The pre-fabricated base was dropped. The drop pods were fitted with heat shields. They'll go right into the mountainside. A great way to defend themselves against whoever the hell these guys are.

     A white tunnel into subspace opened. The FIS-drives thrummed with power. After a few seconds, we jumped out.

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