Prologue: Despair I
Commanders ready room, INS Gift, In transit towards Strunlek IV
2966
...the howling of the klaxon made me jump up from the chair in my ready room. The following speaker announcement made me storm for the door. |Attention. All hands. Battle stations. Set condition one throughout the fleet.| The calm female AI generated voice had something comically in such a situation and was a stark contrast to the flashing red light and klaxon.
I stopped right in front of the exit and took a moment to make sure my appearance was appropriate for an imperial officer. Back straight, the arms folded behind the back. With all the composure and calmness I cold muster I walked through the automatic door. |Commander on deck.| the AI announced me to the CIC crew. The set condition prevented any form of formal respect and the crew continued with its concentrated work. I walked to the center of the command deck. The watch commander gave me a short salute. “Commander!” “Lieutenant Gater, report.” I ordered.
“Aye Commander, sensors of vanguard report multiple unknown contacts. Lord Admiral Briggs ordered battle stations for the fleet. Sensor data is yet to be transmitted.”
“Contacts, out here?”
“Yes commander.” The Lieutenant confirmed.
I was in thoughts. What could it be? My ship the INS Gift was part of the Second Imperial Expedition Fleet. We were send far away from charted space to explore new territories and worlds for the Emperor. We left the save borders and hyperlanes of the Empire months ago. Normal ships like the Gift could only travel along hyperlanes when it came to inter system journeys. The fleet possessed a specialized ship to create a wormhole for the fleet to travel through. These ships were precious beyond comparison. Only the largest star nations possessed some of them. Running into such a ship out here by accident was nearly impossible. Had our journey details been leaked? Was it a trap by one of the rivals of the Empire? Maybe the Federation? A chance to destroy or capture an Imperial Wormholer would surely entice.
An older man in officer uniform approached the command deck. I nodded in his direction “Colonel”.
“Commander, what is the situation?”
“Lieutenant, bring the man up to speed.”
Colonel Tirso Costa. My XO, my second in command. He was of the imperial old guard. His blood was discipline infused with proud military tradition. A good officer. Not exactly known for being a strategically master mind, which is probably the reason he never got his own command despite his age and experience. But a damn good second in command. He was supposed to retire before the journey started but for some reasons he volunteered. My bet was on ‘wanting to avoid his nagging wive’ or maybe the pay offered was just to good. The officer corps had left a lot to be desired lately. Good replacements were hard to come by. We went back quite some time. I was a green Ensign and later Lieutenant under him. When I made my first command I chose him as my second in command. I was glad to have him.
As time went by more and more of the command staff arrived at their stations. Some were asleep when the alarm was sounded, some had free time. Now they were all manning their stations and the CIC was filled to the brim.
“Feds or the Republic?” Tirso asked.
“Could also be the corps. I heard rumors they managed to get a wormholer operational.” I replied.
“Sir, we got the sensor data.”
“Put them on the map”
The central screen glowed up with a three dimensional map of the system. In its center was the Gift. Part of the main fleet. We were in transit to the third planet and half way there. Previous long distance observations indicated a habitable planet. Multiple small and large blue dots showed the position of the other ships. Some light seconds ahead the vanguard was displayed. Rearguard and patrols were dotted around and behind the main fleet. Some more light seconds ahead of the vanguard masses of red dots with intercept course towards us were shown.
“Mierda. That are a hell of a lot contacts, Commander.” Commented Tirso.
“Conference call from Lord Admiral Briggs, Sir.”
“On screen”
The map was downsized to a fraction to make place for the faces of the other ship commanders and that of Lord Admiral Briggs. He started the call without ado.
“I am sure you have all seen the sensor data. Unknown contacts are burning hard towards us. All communication attempts have not been answered. We must consider them hostile. Sensors indicate them to have a mass advantage of two to one. I have ordered the vanguard to do a hard burn back to the main fleet. We will have to continue our burn for Strunlek IV to meet up with them in time. Our wormholer limits our maximum g and we can’t avoid a confrontation. Current vectors indicate a fast and hard pass. Battle plan and formation will be shared via TacLink shortly. Primary objective is to protect the INS Horizon at all costs. Remember, no one of us is going home without that wormhole drive active.” The Admiral paused for a moment. “Comrades, I will be honest. From our data, this battle will not be easy. Set condition two throughout the fleet. For the Empire. Briggs out.”
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“You heard the Admiral. Set condition two. Time to get in your suites, spacers!” Colonel Costa ordered loudly.
|Attention. All hands. Set condition two throughout the ship.|
On the inside I was uneasy, on the outside I mimicked the relaxed and confident commander. A battle, against a two to one mass advantage. No way to escape, a hard and fast pass, a direct and merciless fight. Everything could happen and we had to protect the Horizon at all cost.
Tirso knew me too good to fall for my charade. “This reminds me of the fleet action in Sleems back in ‘62.” he said to me.
“Lets hope not. We lost good people back then.”
“Hah. Yes, but these corps got a good beating. I think Briggs was there too. Before he made Lord.”
“If I remember correctly he got the title because of his successful boarding of the Implantation. A corp battleship…” I reminisced for just a moment an easier time. One without the pressure and responsible of command. A time where enemy and friend was clearly defined. Nowadays things were more… complicated in the Terran Empire. “You got the CIC. I will get my suite.”
“Aye, Commander” said Colonel Tirso Costa with a nod.
I left the CIC for my ready room and went over to my locker. With practiced hand movements I changed my uniform for my spacer suite. I attached gloves and boots and grabbed my helmet. I took a short moment to look at the picture of my wive and son that I had attached to the inside of the locker door. I had to leave them both behind when I got the transfer order. Months apart from family was normal for spacers like myself, yet this time it hit different. Irina was pregnant with my second child and she doesn’t even know in which part of the universe I currently am. I tore myself away from the picture and continued to equip myself.
From the safe I grabbed my personal firearm and attached it to my side. My trusty weapon was an old T-12 cycler 11mm semi automatic loaded with wolfram AP rounds. I preferred powder over modern laser and plasma or even needler based weapons despite its drawbacks. I once stood in front of a marine in assault armor and my new needler wasn’t able to penetrate its armor. Since then I never switched again from my T-12. I closed safe and locker and returned to the command deck.
Tirso and the CIC crew had also switched into spacer suites in the mean time. “Colonel , status?” I asked Tirso.
“All compartments report condition two readiness.”
“Alright, sound the deco alert.”
|Attention. All hands. Condition two is in force through the ship. Warning. All hands. Condition two decompression alert. Connect suite to O2 source.|
I took my helmet and put it on. The helmets OS took a few seconds to boot but then I was welcomed by the familiar head up display that informed me of the most important information. The AI voice of Gerhard my support AI spoke to me. Greetings Commander Rayko Hauck. Sensors online, connection established. Pressure check completed. All systems nominal. I did just as the previous ship AI announcement asked and put my air tube into the next outlet. The helmet got internal O2 supply but that was backup that I needed in case the life support was damaged by enemy weapon fire. The tube also included a wireless charging interface to keep Gerhard from running on batteries. I gave a short thumbs up to Tirso and then spoke to my AI.
“Gerhard, connect to command channel 1.”
Yes Commander… connection established.
“CO, CO, comm check.”
“Costa here, loud and clear.”
“De Mulder, comm confirmed.”
“Gater, I receive you commander.”
“Dereumaux here. Engineering got you loud and clear.”
“CO comm check completed.”
“Deco status?” I asked.
The voice of Costa answered “Deco looks good sir. All compartments report green. Reducing atmosphere.” I heard the klaxon of the decompression alert become more and more faint as the atmosphere was slowly pumped out of the ships interior and into the backup cylinders. In a fight pressurized compartments were a problem. Weapon fire can easily compromise the ships hull leading to a explosive decompression which would do more damage than the weapon impact itself. Especially railguns were a dangerous. They could punch holes through the whole ship.
TacLink connection established to fleet. Informed me the stoic voice of Gerhard. “Gerhard, put the Admirals plans on screen.”
The assembled command officers and I took a look at the Admirals information. It looked pretty straight forward. The enemy fleet will pass us on the port side. Our military ships will form a concentrated defense cordon on the port side of the fleet, screening the Horizon from enemy fire. Other none combat ships will stay close to the Horizon to provide additional cover in case something got through.
“Looks like the Admiral wants us in the first row.” I confirmed what everyone saw on the map. “Helm, take us to the designated escort position” “Aye, Commander.”
The Gift was a relatively new frigate with specialization in point defense. Yet, as a ship of its size, it had the full range of ship to ship weapons. Two Morgan Defense RG-3kg class railguns provided only limited railgun capacity, but made the ship superior to smaller vessels. These normally couldn’t provide the reactor output needed by railguns.
A total of 16 633mm missile launch tubes with reload automatic, eight for each side, provided ample firepower in missile exchanges. The automatic reload system and cold launch capabilities paired with superior point defense systems allowed the Gift to punch outside its weight class.
16 twin 35mm revolver cannons supplemented by 12 5 cm pd-laser provided coverage against enemy missiles for the Gift and escorted ships and close combat capabilities by switching to AP rounds from the default KETF munition. But the high efficiency of the Gift’s point defense system was mainly archived by the superior electronics compared to other ships. Its high-performance computers allowed for advanced missile tracking and vector prediction supported by a dedicated trained AI system.
In its role of a point defense frigate the Gift was now ordered into the first row as a escort for the heavy cruiser INF Will of the Emperor.
I watched the tactical map as the fleet regrouped into its battle formation. The Gift positioned itself slightly in front and portside of the Will of the Emperor. Now there was only one thing we could do. Wait. The tension before the battle was always the worst for me. Condemned to do nothing my thoughts ran amok. Only the occasional status report coming in over radio and the other officers discussing the situation provided a bit of distraction otherwise I could only hear my own breathing inside the helmet.
“TacLink is hot.” Informed me Colonel Costa. “Acknowledged.”
The tactical screens started to fill with orders. I felt how the adrenaline began to rush into my veins. I had to force me to remain calm and not show my tension to my crew.
“Gerhard, ship wide channel.” Channel is open Commander.
My voice was transited into every helmet speaker on the ship. “This is Commander Hauck. Three minutes until contact. This is it. Now is the time comrades. The Emperor calls upon your pledge of duty to the realm. The Empire protects we protect the Empire. Hauck out.” Channel closed.
I turned to my officers. “Time to strap in.” I sat down in the commanders chair and buckled up. I double checked the tube of my helmet and took a detailed look on the TacLink fleet orders displayed in my chair displays. “Mister Gater. Prepare for sync missile launch with fleet. Tubes one to sixteen. Standard compliment.” The command was acknowledged. And shortly after the attack orders were displayed in my helmets head up display together with the fleet wide counter.
“Mister Gater, on my mark.”
3...2...1…
“Launch!”