Reynolds shifted in his command seat, as he studied the alien bridge. It seemed a little crowded, unorderly, and frankly old. He had but a moment ago introduced himself, and his people as the Sol Refuge. Honestly that was overstepping things a little. They hadn’t officially named their little group just yet. In fact, there was actually a bit of debate on that in the council meetings. The subject had cropped up a few times, more than a few times actually, but other than floating a few names around none of them had yet to actually stick. Names like the Sol Remnant, and Sol Refuge had both been floating around for a while. In fact they kept coming back to those two names, even as others were proposed. Pretty much all of them included the name Sol, rather than Earth, Terra, and the like. That was deliberate. There was a reason they often refered to themselves as the People of Sol. It was because as a people they better identified as all coming from the Sol System, but not all of them identified as being from the same planet or in some cases moon. Many of their number were in fact refugees from the colonies, and many of those had grown up in those colonies. Only seeing Earth for the brief time before the Cathamari rained destruction down upon the cradle of humanity.
As for the aliens, they seemed roughly humanoid. Close enough that he could tell the difference. A green-skinned man with some impressive horns was the one who finally spoke, “I’m Chief Investigator Oran commander of the Chi’ran Commonwealth expeditionary vessel CCES Bok’Wa. I can’t say that I am familiar with the Sol Refuge.”
Reynolds felt his expression darken a little. They knew a little about the Chi’ran Commonwealth. They were one of the bigger players in the area, and rather xenophobic from what they had seen. The Chi’ran were quite aggressive at defending their borders and from what he could tell didn’t negotiate. “I can’t say that entirely surprises me. We are rather new to the area, but we have heard a bit about the Chi’ran Commonwealth. Your people seem to be rather xenophobic.”
Oran sighed, “Yes there is a strong trend of xenophobia among our people. I can’t say I entirely agree with it, but I do understand it. Let’s just say we have been burned a few times too many while dealing with aliens. We’ve learned to be more cautious since then. Perhaps you understand what I mean? You have apparently met the Cathamari afterall.”
Reynolds nodded, “Oh, yes we are quite familiar with the Cathamari, unfortunately. Not exactly a subject I would care to discuss on a first meeting.”
“Nor would I. Plenty of more pleasant topics to discuss. Such as what you are doing in this system, captain? Unless I am overstepping my bounds?”
Reynolds waved that off, “Not really. We aren’t planning to stay if that is what you are worried about.”
“I see, so if may ask what are you doing in this system?”
“Replenishing our stores before we move on. We’ll be gone in a few weeks at the latest.”
The alien nodded, “In that case, you might want to be aware that planet is highly desired by a few of the local warlords. If they catch you mining it, there will be some trouble.”
Reynolds shifted into his seat. It sounded like a threat, but with the tone, it felt more like a friendly warning. “I will keep that in mind, Investigator. I take it you don’t have an issue with us mining the planet?”
“Not particularly. The Commonwealth doesn’t really have an interest in this system. We have other concerns anyway. Namely all the warmongering warlords on our borders, and the rather unwelcome Valorian intrusions into our space. I’m mainly here to see where you fit in the grand scheme of things, and determine if we should be concerned about you or not.”
Reynolds nodded along, “Your honesty is appreciated, Investigator. Perhaps we can discuss things somewhere more comfortable. If you would match my course, we can escort you to the planet.
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Deep Space, November 8th, 001 SDE, 1423 hours:
The ship shuddered under the impact of another hit. The commander cursed, wishing she hadn’t taken this job, but focused on the report. “Aft Shields at 43 percent.”
“Maintain course, return fire aft pulse batteries!”
She focused her view aft. They had been engaged by three Chi’ran destroyers. She hated the entire sector, but the Chi’ran were the worst of the lot. They were the most dangerous of the local races, and an utter menace to trade. She hated fighting them, and at the moment they were outmatched. The enemy had a three-to-one advantage in both numbers and firepower.
Her ordered barrage struck the forward shields of the destroyer that was hot on their tail. They flared bright purple in response to the impacts of the low-yield plasma rounds.
Her tactical officer reported the hits. More importantly, she noted the enemy’s drop in shield strength. “Aft torpedoes, fire!”
Plasma torpedoes were powerful, but they didn’t have a lot of range. Thankfully that wasn’t a problem at the moment. Several bright red bolts of light streaked out, expanding as they crossed the distance. The torpedoes slammed into the Chi’ran shields with tremendous force. The defensive barriers glowed bright and then flickered. They were failing. One hit got through, and exploded. An impressive fireball flared up blocking her view of anything else.
Her ship shuddered again, “Port shields, 12%!”
That was the problem, the other ones. They were on the fucking port shields again! She glanced at the tactical chart and growled out her next order, “Hard to port, return fire all port side batteries! Divert auxiliary power to the shields.”
She glanced at her console, and watched the power kick in, boosting the shield strength, but what they really needed was a chance to dump all the energy the shields had absorbed since the fight had started. The ship turned hard as her crew carried out her orders, and angry red little bolts zipped across the distance to strike the other destroyer.
Her shields flared brightly but held. Her tactical officer reported the effects of their torpedoes. As it turned out, they had failed to destroy the Chi’ran destroyer, but they dealt heavy damage to her bow sections, in fact, she had lost half the bow. It had vaporized by the impact of the torpedoes. Thankfully that was a mission kill, and the ship was moving off. She was now facing off two against one. Speaking of that where was the third Chi’ran destroyer?
Her question was answered all too soon.
“Sir! Hyperspace window, dead ahead!”
“Evasive action!”
She watched as the other ship reemerged into normal space, narrowly avoiding a collision, and opened fire with a full volley of disrupter and plasma fire. Her ship shuddered, and several alarms blared. “Forward shields, 41%, port shields are gone! Hull breaches decks four, six, and eight. Sections 13 through 63 on deck four are gone. Sections 31, 53, and 82 on deck six. Section fourteen, through twenty on deck eight. Emergency forcefields are in place and holding.”
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That was bad, they needed to protect the port side even more now. At least for a few seconds so that the port shield generators could cycle. That would take about fifteen seconds, but in a battle that could be an eternity. At the moment she would have liked nothing more than to run, but the damn Chi’ran were jamming them. Something she could have been doing, but they needed all the power they could get for the shields and weapons. At least she had thought so. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Bring us about to heading 119 mark 12!”
She waited as her crew swung the ship around to the new heading. Lining them up so that the forward launchers could fire. The moment they had an angle, she gave the order. Bright red plasma bolts screamed out of the launchers. The Chi’ran ship attempted to evade with a hard vectoring to starboard. Causing two of the torpedoes to sail off into space harmlessly. The rest slammed into destroyer #3’s shields with tremendous force. They flared brightly, but held barely.
She gave the order to fire with the forward batteries before the enemy could change their position. Even as destroyer #2 was coming in for another attack on their port shields. She noticed it, and glanced at her console. The port shields hadn’t recovered yet, but they were close. The commander was worried about it, but if this gamble paid off, they could even things out.
From her position, she watched as a flurry of red plasma bolts from the pulse batteries slammed into destroyer #3’s failing shields. Their low yield meant little, and the number of hits quickly added up. The shields flickered with each hit and soon failed. Multiple bolts splashed against the destroyer’s armor. With a number penetrating the armor to damage the hull.
The other destroyer fired. She gave her next order. Her cruiser rolled as the thrusters fired full. Rapidly the depleted port shields were brought out of the angle of fire, presenting the enemy with her ventral shields which had so far been untouched. Deadly disrupter bolts slammed into her ventral shields, and the ship shuddered under the impacts.
“Ventral shields, 89%.”
That would have been worse if the enemy had used their plasma throwers. Thankfully they hadn’t. “Return fire, all ventral batteries!”
The pulse cannons spat deadly red spheres of plasma downrange at the attacking destroyer. Scoring a few hits on her shields. Nothing serious. As for the other ship, she had taken a few hits to the hull, but the damage was fairly minimal. There was some damage to a few key systems, but nothing crippling. #3 came about and returned fire.
Deadly disrupter bolts raked over the shields of her cruiser. Just as the port shield finished cycling no less. That was a bit of good news, but they were still in trouble. Worse, she was almost out of torpedoes. Her ship was an up-armed variant of the military’s Ophera class light cruiser. A variant that gave her more torpedoes to work with but of the two hundred torpedoes she left port with she only had about twenty left. Ten for the aft tubes, and ten more for the forward tubes. The aft ones were about loaded, but the fore tubes would take a bit longer to be reloaded. She knew she would need to make these count.
Feeling much better about her chances now, even with the caveat of being almost out of torpedoes she gave her next set of orders. The aft torpedoes would be finished loading in just a few seconds, and she wanted to take advantage. “Engineering, vent some drive plasma, and introduce a level one instability to the aft shields.”
Her crew gave her a look of confusion but followed her orders. She wanted it to look like some previous damage had resulted in their aft shields weakening suddenly. The enemy had been going after her port shields moments before with a dogged vengeance. She was going to use that tendency against them.
Almost instantly, the #2 destroyer changed course, bringing it right onto her aft vector seconds later. Her cruiser shuddered as several disrupter bolts slammed into the aft shields. She gave the order to return fire with the aft batteries but held the order for the torpedoes. They weren’t yet in position.
Meanwhile, the #3 destroyer was coming about. While discharging another volley of disrupter bolts. Each strike shook her cruiser. Internally she was praying the shields would continue to hold. Suddenly alarms flared, as the #3 destroyer’s missile tubes discharged a volley of plasma missiles in rapid order. The distinctive green glow of Chi’ran plasma missiles dotted her screen as they careened towards her ship.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have any options for the missiles, but to hope the shields could take the hit. She smiled to herself when the ship on her tail entered the perfect position. About time too since her sheilds were straining fast thanks to the intentional weakness she put in them. She gave the order.
The tubes flashed as large spheres of red death were spat at the attacking destroyer, and she was too close now to evade. Instead as if to spite her, the Chi’ran ship launched her missiles.
“Quick stabilize the shields! Increase speed!”
The shields stabilized quickly, but they were not going to lose the missiles. As her torpedoes slammed into the #2 destroyer, the missiles from both destroyers collided with her shields. Her ship was rocked hard and the simultaneous detonations saturated her sensor feeds. They had been hit on multiple quarters as the missiles had attempted to hit all of her weakened shield quadrants.
“Aft shields have failed!”
“Forward shields failing!”
“Starboard shields have failed!
“Dorsal shields at 21 percent”
She cursed, that was a bad hit. She had pretty much lost three of her six shield quadrants, and that fourth wasn’t doing much better. That left her with only two decently strong shield vectors. A moment later, she received the report on the #2 destroyer.
The other ship had lost forward shields, and taken damage to her bow. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to be considered a mission kill. The ship returned fire with another volley of disrupter bolts.
Her ship shuddered. She didn’t even wait for the damage report, “Return fire all batteries! Helm bring us about to heading 223 mark 90, show em our belly.”
Red plasma pulses found their mark on the relatively unprotected hull of the damaged #2 destroyer, as they came about. Entering the new bearing, and rolling to present their ventral shields to the enemy.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the #2 destroyer, and the ship went up in a fireball. With a bit of pride her tactical officer shouted, “Target destroyed, sir!!!”
That left her with one more ship to worry about. A ship that was coming about on a new heading. Disrupter batteries firing. Her ship shuddered under the impacts, but thankfully her port shields were taking the brunt of the damage. Hopefully it would stay that way a moment longer.
She gave the order to return fire. Shields flared brightly as red pulses raked the final destroyer. One of them flickered and gave out allowing her plasma bolts to rake the hull again.
She glanced at her console. The forward tubes would be loaded in three seconds. Unfortunately to use them would mean presenting the enemy with a failing shield. It might absorb one or two hits before going down. That wasn’t a lot. However the captain was going to roll the dice.
“Bring us about, hard to port.”
The crew seemed worried but complied. The ship swung to port. Her ship shuddered as the destroyer took advantage, and bloodied her ship was a barrage of disrupter fire. She gave the order the instant she had an angle. Along with another to bring them to a new line with stronger shields to show.”
A few moments later, her torps hit with impressive force against the destroyer. Her shields flared brightly and buckled. When the light cleared, she had taken a fair amount of damage, but wasn’t dead.
The destroyer responded by firing another volley of missiles before making the jump to hyperspace. She cursed, and attempted evasive action. Perhaps it helped, as they were still alive after the missiles hit. It seemed the battle was over though.
“Damage report!”
An instant later engineering relayed a report of all the damage they took. It was bad, very bad. The shield grid had taken the brunt of the punishment, but their hull wasn’t in good shape either. Worse, they had lost warp drive, and several of their cargo bays had been vented to space. They had lost several months' worth of supplies and a few fuel pods. Even more bad news the main communications array had been destroyed during their exchange.
Now they were stranded in deep space with heavy hull damage, and only a few weeks worth of supplies. “What about the distress beacon?”
“That didn’t take a hit, but...”
“I know.” She really did know the problem. The beacon only had an on, and off switch, and once on would transmit a broadband general distress call. Just about anyone could pick it up. Unfortunately it wasn’t like they had much choice.
With a sigh, she said, “Activate the beacon.”