An Excerpt From The Logs Of The Tsa Warspite
Jaeger
Join Date: 2002-11-28 Member: 10202Members
Join Date: 2002-11-28 Member: 10202Members
<div class="IPBDescription">My first contibution to this forum</div> "Team Two, go."
A shudder was felt through the ship as the tiny battle taxis blasted free from her hull. A fraction of a second later, the outer hangar cordon was filled with a piercing whine as the pneumatic locks shifted violently back into place, preventing the maintenance crew from finding their abrupt end in a cold vacuum.
"Team One, go."
The same scene was replayed with identical precision on the opposite side of the ship, as two more battle taxis rocketed away from their thin steel cocoons, hurtling themselves into the void. This time, however, one of the pressure seals was an instant too slow in closing, leaving one junior technician on the deck minus his toolkit.
As the foot-square tin box floated through the cold expanse beyond the ship's hull, a vastly different scene was being played out a thousand kilometers away.
Light panels smashed, steel plating strewn about, wires dangling in all haphazard fashion across wrenched plating and twisted molybdenum alloys, and the acrid ammonia odor of burnt propellant stung the nostrils of the bridge crewman who delivered the distress call. The once proud Hyrnesses-class destroyer he had come to call home was adrift and burning. The fate of his 10,000 fellow crewmwmbers, he would probably never know. All he knew was he was the sole survivor on Deck Twelve, and it was his duty to do everything in his power to survive.
"Sir, Air Boss reports successful launch of the Marines. The Xerxes and the Fire Fang are requesting assistance. I'm getting a distress call from the Templar, she's adrift and burning, but I don't see any life pods."
A call of alarm from the ship's sensor tech snapped the captain to a start. "Sir! The Trebuchet's circling on the Ericsson's bow, she's gonna blow her outta the sky!"
"Fo'ard batteries, fire as weapons bear! Lay as much as you can into the Trebuchet, we need to crack her hide now!" the captain bellowed. As if by some unseen switch, his ship's guns sent their destructive energies across two thousand kilometers of nothing to strike home against the Trebuchet's thickly armored hull, vaporizing armor plating into gobbets of molten steel as they seeked to rip the heart out of the powerful cruiser.
It was too little, too late.
The Trebuchet, her helmsman apparently one of the finest the captain had ever seen, continued his sharp turn across the Ericcson's port bow, as her gunners continued to pour unbelievable fire into the withering and stricken corvette. The Ericsson had taken enough. The spindle-like docking collar that took the brunt of the Trebuchet's abuse went first, snapping structure and hardened support. Seconds later, the captain looked on in gaping horror as the ship slowly immolated itself. The bridge viewport was blown apart, and a glistening cloud of debris hurled into space. How many of those speckles were crewmen, the captain suppressed thinking about. In a flash of white-hot flame and actinic lightning, the signal of a critical reactor overload, the Ericsson was no more.
In a burst of inarticulate rage, the captain swore his command to destroy the Trebuchet.
From his perspective, the order was not much to warrant concern. Minute flashes burst from the ship's autocannons, slightly larger flashes erupted from the ship's forward railguns. The antiship lasers, invisible in the vacuum of space, discharged their energy, creating a burble across the ship's bow. The captain always described the effect as though it were looking at a road in the distance during the midday, where the concrete seemed to turn into water. A mirage of sorts. On the Trebuchet's end however, the effects were a little more real. Hull plating buckled and snapped as autocannon shells exploded against her hull. The railguns wreaked more havoc on this ship's ever-dissapearing armor, as entire sheets of molybdenum and steel flayed away under the impact of the hypervelocity slugs. Not yet escaped from her punishment, the lasers now exploited the gaping rents left in the Trebuchet's armored hide, spalling away what was left of her hull, slicing and tearing into the ship's interior. Explosions rocked her hull as crew compartments and ship subsystems were ripped open. One shot touched off her number two magazine, and the captain watched in silent awe as the forward third of his enemy's vessel literally erupted in flame.
Captain Howard Myers had just resolved a tactical engagement. His Hyrnesses destroyer, the Warspite, had destroyed the pirate Trebuchet and any chance of continued pirate activity in the system. Already, the marine units he sent to capture the opposition's remaining frigates had achieved a decisive victory. Two Gattahal-class frigates and a good four months of pirate supplies were now under his command and would soon be appropriated by his superiors higher up to be distributed wherever the TSA had a need. And if today's events were any sign, that need wouldn't be far behind.
For what concerned Myers the most, was that the Trebuchet now lying in smouldering ruin might contain a living, preserved specipen of alien Kharaa, a creature his training had taught him to recognize as a "Lerk". He'd heard rumors of terrorist cells destroying deep-space colonies with captured Kharaa, but today would bring the undenyable implications of such a possibility to his mind.
"Communications, give me a sitrep. What's the status of the Group?"
"The Xerxes reports minor damage to her aft batteries, a squadron of fighters apparently scrammed by her port and tried splashing her drives. Engineering says they'll have everything back up with running repairs. The Fire Fang reports a loss on it's number four laser battery. Captain Devereaux says he can strip it off and have his techs weld an armor patch in-place, or ram a ship with it," the commo tech interjected with a dry laugh, "suits him, crazed sunnovagun. Templar reports fires on all decks, but her crew remains at 75%. She's got a tough hide, I'd assume the Trebuchet took her for dead. Captain Bryce is dead though, the ship's command has been relegated to her chief engineer. The Templar's out of the fight for sure, but her crew can be shuffled aboard the other ships within eight hours. Corvus, Fenris, and Agrippa all report light or minimal damage, and the cargo ships are fine."
The commo tech cleared a lump in his throat, finishing his report, "And the Ericsson is completely gone. I have nothing left on her transponder or maintenance frequencies. There isn't a trace of any of her IFF boxes. Marine Team Two reports successful recovery of only one life pod. They count four survivors, all from the engineering division."
"Damn it," muttered Myers. "They really gave us a thrashing on this one." Gesturing to the helm, he cleared his throat and said "Bring the drives on line, set course for HQ. Communications, contact the fleet. Tell them we've recovered two pirate frigates, and Objective Bravo is secure."
Myers was left with an unsettling feeling. Inspection of the Trebuchet's ruined hull would be left to the follow-on teams, but he didn't like not knowing what was- or what he hoped what wasn't- on that ship.
The ships of Expeditionary Battle Group Epsilon charged their drives and jumped outsystem.
A shudder was felt through the ship as the tiny battle taxis blasted free from her hull. A fraction of a second later, the outer hangar cordon was filled with a piercing whine as the pneumatic locks shifted violently back into place, preventing the maintenance crew from finding their abrupt end in a cold vacuum.
"Team One, go."
The same scene was replayed with identical precision on the opposite side of the ship, as two more battle taxis rocketed away from their thin steel cocoons, hurtling themselves into the void. This time, however, one of the pressure seals was an instant too slow in closing, leaving one junior technician on the deck minus his toolkit.
As the foot-square tin box floated through the cold expanse beyond the ship's hull, a vastly different scene was being played out a thousand kilometers away.
Light panels smashed, steel plating strewn about, wires dangling in all haphazard fashion across wrenched plating and twisted molybdenum alloys, and the acrid ammonia odor of burnt propellant stung the nostrils of the bridge crewman who delivered the distress call. The once proud Hyrnesses-class destroyer he had come to call home was adrift and burning. The fate of his 10,000 fellow crewmwmbers, he would probably never know. All he knew was he was the sole survivor on Deck Twelve, and it was his duty to do everything in his power to survive.
"Sir, Air Boss reports successful launch of the Marines. The Xerxes and the Fire Fang are requesting assistance. I'm getting a distress call from the Templar, she's adrift and burning, but I don't see any life pods."
A call of alarm from the ship's sensor tech snapped the captain to a start. "Sir! The Trebuchet's circling on the Ericsson's bow, she's gonna blow her outta the sky!"
"Fo'ard batteries, fire as weapons bear! Lay as much as you can into the Trebuchet, we need to crack her hide now!" the captain bellowed. As if by some unseen switch, his ship's guns sent their destructive energies across two thousand kilometers of nothing to strike home against the Trebuchet's thickly armored hull, vaporizing armor plating into gobbets of molten steel as they seeked to rip the heart out of the powerful cruiser.
It was too little, too late.
The Trebuchet, her helmsman apparently one of the finest the captain had ever seen, continued his sharp turn across the Ericcson's port bow, as her gunners continued to pour unbelievable fire into the withering and stricken corvette. The Ericsson had taken enough. The spindle-like docking collar that took the brunt of the Trebuchet's abuse went first, snapping structure and hardened support. Seconds later, the captain looked on in gaping horror as the ship slowly immolated itself. The bridge viewport was blown apart, and a glistening cloud of debris hurled into space. How many of those speckles were crewmen, the captain suppressed thinking about. In a flash of white-hot flame and actinic lightning, the signal of a critical reactor overload, the Ericsson was no more.
In a burst of inarticulate rage, the captain swore his command to destroy the Trebuchet.
From his perspective, the order was not much to warrant concern. Minute flashes burst from the ship's autocannons, slightly larger flashes erupted from the ship's forward railguns. The antiship lasers, invisible in the vacuum of space, discharged their energy, creating a burble across the ship's bow. The captain always described the effect as though it were looking at a road in the distance during the midday, where the concrete seemed to turn into water. A mirage of sorts. On the Trebuchet's end however, the effects were a little more real. Hull plating buckled and snapped as autocannon shells exploded against her hull. The railguns wreaked more havoc on this ship's ever-dissapearing armor, as entire sheets of molybdenum and steel flayed away under the impact of the hypervelocity slugs. Not yet escaped from her punishment, the lasers now exploited the gaping rents left in the Trebuchet's armored hide, spalling away what was left of her hull, slicing and tearing into the ship's interior. Explosions rocked her hull as crew compartments and ship subsystems were ripped open. One shot touched off her number two magazine, and the captain watched in silent awe as the forward third of his enemy's vessel literally erupted in flame.
Captain Howard Myers had just resolved a tactical engagement. His Hyrnesses destroyer, the Warspite, had destroyed the pirate Trebuchet and any chance of continued pirate activity in the system. Already, the marine units he sent to capture the opposition's remaining frigates had achieved a decisive victory. Two Gattahal-class frigates and a good four months of pirate supplies were now under his command and would soon be appropriated by his superiors higher up to be distributed wherever the TSA had a need. And if today's events were any sign, that need wouldn't be far behind.
For what concerned Myers the most, was that the Trebuchet now lying in smouldering ruin might contain a living, preserved specipen of alien Kharaa, a creature his training had taught him to recognize as a "Lerk". He'd heard rumors of terrorist cells destroying deep-space colonies with captured Kharaa, but today would bring the undenyable implications of such a possibility to his mind.
"Communications, give me a sitrep. What's the status of the Group?"
"The Xerxes reports minor damage to her aft batteries, a squadron of fighters apparently scrammed by her port and tried splashing her drives. Engineering says they'll have everything back up with running repairs. The Fire Fang reports a loss on it's number four laser battery. Captain Devereaux says he can strip it off and have his techs weld an armor patch in-place, or ram a ship with it," the commo tech interjected with a dry laugh, "suits him, crazed sunnovagun. Templar reports fires on all decks, but her crew remains at 75%. She's got a tough hide, I'd assume the Trebuchet took her for dead. Captain Bryce is dead though, the ship's command has been relegated to her chief engineer. The Templar's out of the fight for sure, but her crew can be shuffled aboard the other ships within eight hours. Corvus, Fenris, and Agrippa all report light or minimal damage, and the cargo ships are fine."
The commo tech cleared a lump in his throat, finishing his report, "And the Ericsson is completely gone. I have nothing left on her transponder or maintenance frequencies. There isn't a trace of any of her IFF boxes. Marine Team Two reports successful recovery of only one life pod. They count four survivors, all from the engineering division."
"Damn it," muttered Myers. "They really gave us a thrashing on this one." Gesturing to the helm, he cleared his throat and said "Bring the drives on line, set course for HQ. Communications, contact the fleet. Tell them we've recovered two pirate frigates, and Objective Bravo is secure."
Myers was left with an unsettling feeling. Inspection of the Trebuchet's ruined hull would be left to the follow-on teams, but he didn't like not knowing what was- or what he hoped what wasn't- on that ship.
The ships of Expeditionary Battle Group Epsilon charged their drives and jumped outsystem.
Comments
Minor typo there, but apart from that, very good <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> I just wonder where you got your military terminology from - it's very detailed and accurate <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> Nice work, keep it up.
welcome to the fan-fiction forums
this was a pretty tight peice of work, I could imagine the battle in space raging all in my head, let's have some more!