Bridge of the TSFV Luna, Flagship of the Terran's 8th Fleet, GC 3478, June 4th, 0007 Hours—
“…Get us the hell out of here, Helm!" Even as his words were leaving his mouth, Gray felt the slight thrumming of the ship's reactors coming up through the deck kick into high gear and become an oscillating buzzing under his feet a moment before he felt a force pushing him back into his chair. The reactors were pumping out every scrap of power they could for their thrusters, and the inertial dampeners were having trouble compensating for the crew. It also didn't help that with the starship this close to a planet's gravity well, it was putting extra strain on the gravity generators. "And sensor stations, get me a deep scan of the planet and nearby space!"
The G's placed on his body wasn't anything he couldn't resist with ease, but he allowed it to push him back into his seat. As he settled back into his chair, he forced his body to relax and focused on taking in the situation at hand. It had been years since he had been shocked out of his bridge persona, as Gray liked to call it, but he was okay with this being the standard to make him have an emotional outburst.
"Weapon's free order to all weapons crews, Tactical One. This is not the time to conserve ammunition." Gray ordered, his voice falling back into his regular cadence. "And divert all the power in the coils of the MPC back to the shields; we need them at full power. LRS, do you have any idea where we are? Or what in the nine hells brought us here?"
Ensign Haies let the words hang in the air a long second before he spoke, exasperation filling his voice, “…I have no idea. The stars I can pick out don't match any star maps in our database. And this planet… if that is actually what it is — which I'm almost positive it's not — shouldn't exist. And our starships and swarm units are popping into existence without detectable warp displacement or breach. None of this makes sense."
Gray studied the display, frowning at the surface of the planet it depicted. There were mountain ranges, lakes, oceans, deserts, and what looked like the border of continents. All in all, it appeared pretty standard to him. Though… there was something nagging at him. And it wasn't Ensign Haies comment, everything just looked off, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Then, his eyes widened in shock as what was bothering him finally became apparent. Tapping a few buttons on his arm console, he quickly brought up the distance the ship was from the planet's surface before he asked, "How large is this… planet?" Captain Gray asked, his voice suddenly hoarse as he found his mouth dry. The entire bottom of the holo display was covered by the planet, a display that was still expanding to cover a light minute around Luna.
“…I don't know. We haven't detected a noticeable curve to the planet yet. But this mountain can contain earth with room to spare." A single mountain within the mountain range Gray was looking at, and not even the largest one, was highlighted, "If what we are seeing is accurate, I can't even fathom how we aren't hyper-compressed smears falling into a black hole's accretion disk."
Gray didn't know what to say to that. If this was indeed a solid planet, they should be at the mouth of a black hole. Or, at the very least, an absurdly large star. Which suggested it was hollow. And if it was hollow, didn't that mean someone built it? But if someone did, who the hell could? And how? It's so far beyond megastructures that it's like comparing a Dyson Sphere to a single-room hut. It—
It was something to accept and shove to the back of his mind until he had more information or at least the time to ask pointless, inane questions to which no one had the answers. At this point, it was like asking why life existed. The bottom line was they weren't dead despite the impossibilities around them, and he would prefer to keep himself and his crew that way. He would just have to have his mental breakdown on humanity's place in the universe at a future date.
"Ensign Haies," Gray snapped, his voice laced with authority and decisiveness again, "Set the scanners for a deep scan of the planet and tag it for investigation by the science department later. For now, search for any of our fleet in that mess above and find us a way out of this place."
"Yes, sir," He snapped back, his back stiffening with purpose and direction.
The ship rocked violently to the left, and Shield One shouted, "Shield section six at five percent!"
"What just hit us!?" Captain Gray asked the room, straining to keep his usual composure, though he was starting to think he might as well give up at this point.
But the SRS was already answering the question before he even finished, "A leviathan just appeared seven hundred miles to our stern; it's releasing drones, and its crown is moving to smash into us from all sides."
"Helm, do whatever you have to, but get us within spitting distance of that bas—
"A barrage of Splinter Missiles and seven Hammerhead Cruisers have impacted the Leviathan, driving it toward the ground!" SRS cut in before Captain Gray could finish.
"Belay that, Helm, go back to—
"A spiker appeared ten miles away, approaching us in octant 6!" SRS cut back again, panic in her voice, “It’s—" she couldn't finish before everyone was thrown to the side even more violently than a moment before; the only thing keeping them in their seats was their harnesses. Then, within the next four seconds, they were hit two more times, causing the entire ship to list to the side from the repeated impacts.
"Target down!" Reported the SRS, "sending new priority targets to tactical stations to cover our weak points!"
"Reported hull breaches on decks thirty-five through forty-one sector 6." The external damage assessor said, "We are down nine major and thirteen lesser railgun emplacements in those sections. Five shield projectors are destroyed, two are partially functional, and the rest are recharging."
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"Helm," said Captain Gray when there was a moment in the shouting, "tilt the ship forty-five degrees relative to the planet, "Don't let anything above get a clear shot on the weakened section of our hull. Internal Comm, tell the engineering departments to do what they have to in order to compensate for the shift in gravity."
"Captain," a hesitant voice called out from his left, full of shock. Turning, Gray saw that it was the Internal Damage Assessor who spoke. Under his steady gaze, the woman pulled herself together in a second and crisply reported, "The spike impacts reached the FACC. There are no survivors."
Blinking once, Gray took in the fact that Admiral Rhictor was dead, then moved on to what it meant. Leaning back in his chair, Gray crossed his right leg over his left and folded his hands in his lap. "External Comm, report the loss of the Admiral to Command and the rest of the fleet. Then, inform them that I am taking command of the 8th Fleet until a replacement can be appointed. Send out a general comm to every nearby ship, regardless of nationality, and order them diplomatically to from up on Luna until we can deal with the current crisis."
"Yes, sir!”
"A leviathan being harassed by fighter squadrons appeared four thousand miles ahead, Captain!"
Glancing at the markers that appeared on the holo, Gray tapped a few commands into his console, bringing up a sensor scan of the creature. Taking in the information at a glance, he started speaking again, "Tactical one, give the big bitch which offered to be our target practice for the day a taste of the Moon Breakers. ECO, request the fighters harassing the leviathan to break off and regroup with us for close support and resupply."
"Our starboard flight decks are damaged, Captain." The IDA interjected.
"Then get the crews working on it ASAP, Ensign. Make it a priority one, as we are going to have a lot of fighters needing a place to land soon."
"Sir?" She questioned, in a rare moment of hesitation. It wasn't uncalled for, as there were many damaged sections in the ship that needed to be repaired. Several of the main power lines running through the ship were cut, and without them, shifting power between shields and weapons could lead to blowouts, crippling the ship.
Throwing another look at the holo display showing the hectic battle space with intermingled swarms and fleet units, Gray only became more sure as he said in a grim tone, "They are targeting medical ships, carriers, and transports. This cluster fuck is hurting us more than them. Our formations are what give us the advantage, and they are irrevocably shattered."
A heavy silence hung in the air as everyone looked at the holo display, really seeing the whole of the events playing out instead of one section. If it was fate or just the odds playing in his favor, the TFSV Enterprise exploded, and an arm of Bolt Drones shot off toward another carrier nearby. Then, the ship gave two near-simultaneous shudders as the duel Moon Breaker cannons fired.
Calling the projectile shells wasn't right, as they could maneuver like missiles to a degree, but calling them missiles wasn't suitable either, as they had minimal computing hardware and were mostly a lump of enriched steel. They were fired at nearly the same speed as the MPC, though that velocity would have to be cut down in the atmosphere, thin as it was. Both cannons fired two shots, the first of which had thrusters designed to spin the screw-like tip and was meant to dive as deep as possible into a leviathan before sending a directed blast forward into the creature. The second shell was meant to follow the hole as deep as it could before it became buried into the creature's flesh and exploded.
Without a rent in a leviathan's chitin scales and being so close that you could practically sneeze on the creature, the rounds would never be able to kill the thing. Good thing for Gray and his crew; all of the hard work was already done. And it just appeared in front of them at the perfect angle.
By the time Gray looked back to the display, he saw two of the wounded sections of the leviathan's armor bubble out, throwing pieces of its chitin outward before deflating. It remained still for a moment, long enough that the words to fire another salvo were on his tongue before the behemoth languidly tipped onto its side and started falling from the sky.
Captain Gray celebrated the minor victory for a fraction of a second, then focused on the cluster of spikers that appeared in octant two as they tried to climb back into space. Every minute felt like a lifetime to Gray as half a dozen emergencies with the potential to destroy the ship popped up. But each and everyone was dealt with the calm surety of his crew. As one problem after another was solved, they rose into the void, gathering followers from each of the three armadas of the Coalition.
Battleships of the Silver Empire were covering for destroyers of the Crimson Monarchs. Fighters from every faction were docking with any ship capable of housing them as they frantically searched for a resupply of their armaments. The one thing Gray found weird was that out of all the ships that appeared, there was never another Dreadnought.
First, it was a handful of ships, then ten, and finally, hundreds gathered in a loose cone. But with every second that had passed, one thing became apparent. They were losing the fight. Well, this fight.
They knew that other collections of ships were light minutes or hours away, still fighting and being reinforced, but whatever had brought them here had apparently written off this location for the Coalition. Without the constant flow of reinforcements, the dozen nearby leviathans gained the upper hand, and their only option was to escape.
“What do you mean we cannot escape this planet, ECO?" Gray asked.
"Captain, destroyers have reported that five hundred million miles from the planet's surface, there is some kind of spatial warping. Ships heading into space will appear several thousand miles lower heading down and at a fraction of their previous velocity. They are also reporting that the closer to the border they are, the harder it becomes to initiate a warp bubble, as space is too sticky — their words. Several have blown out their warp drives." The External Comm Officer said.
Gray was at a loss at what to do now, though he had just accepted the latest impossible event on Ensign Oblo's word. I might be becoming a little jaded, Gray thought with a bemused chuckle before shaking the thoughts out of his head and focusing on what was important. If they couldn't go up, then all that was left was a retreat along the planet's surface, hoping to run into help. And he didn't put much faith in that working out. As he thought of what they could do, a voice spoke up.
"Captain," The ICO spoke into the room, calling Gray's attention. "I know where we can go."
"Where," Captain Gray asked, a new spark of hope appearing in his heart.
"The surface. Our gravity wells can hover our ships due to the special nature of the space around us. They're not positive, but they say it could be done indefinitely. And a leviathan can't get close to us, as it would crash into the ground. All we would have to deal with for a time is their swarms of space drones, which also have trouble in a thick atmosphere."
Gray turned to look at her, locking eyes with the woman. She looked back at him with absolute surety, her fists clenched with determination. She must have checked the data at least a dozen times before coming to him with this.
Nodding, Gray turned to the Helm Officer, "Take us down. ICO, get Lieutenant Colonel Marrow on the comm and have him pick out the most defensible position for us to… land; we will need him to defend any ground assaults, so we best get his input. ECO, tell the fleet what we are attempting, and if we can do it, so can they." Locking his eyes forward, Gray watched the holo, curious to see if he just signed his and his people's death warrants.