[CaptRR]

Chapter 18

Captain Jalan sat silently in his chair; he always did that just before a battle. It was a time to contemplate what he would do, to weigh his options so to speak. Sometimes this time would give him the opportunity to change his strategy, but he knew he could do no such thing here. His plans has been laid out weeks in advance.

Jalan was amazed that his plan had been this easy, well most of his plan had been easy anyway. Jalan knew that his crew would never attack an allied ship unless that ship had attacked them first. So the trick was to make the crew, or at the very least the Command Deck crew think that the Indestructible had initiated an attack on the Troikens Pride, it would have to be convincing too, but not debilitating, after all the Indestructible was almost twice the size of Trookens Pride, and she had better shielding too, but Jalan had the element of surprise, and he knew that would help balance the scales dramatically.

Slowly Jalan had sought allies to his plan, it hadn't been that hard either, Troikens Pride hadn't exactly been the symbol of Draven Pride. In fact his ship had become sort of the dumping ground to much to the Republic's problem cases. The result was an almost endless list of people who were just begging for a little bit of revenge on the Republic. Jalan had chosen just 2 other people to help him in his plan, the Simulations Officer, and an environmental tech that had been sent to his ship after he had beaded most of the air out of a compartment that was being worked on. The tech and the work crew had been having some problems, and while it was never proven that the tech did anything, there were some suspicions.

Together the 3 co-conspiracier's worked on Jalan's plan, and with his command codes it had been easy to insert the program into the Tactical, and enviromental networks. In fact the hardest part had been waiting until the time was right, that part had taken 2 weeks.

Now here he was, the time was almost perfect, but their was a problem, and his name was Commander Lancer. Unlike most of the ships crew, Lancer was an exhalent officer. As far as Jalan could ascertain the only reason he was on Troikens Pride was to keep an eye on Jalan. Lancer was smart, too smart, he had even questioned the logic of moving behind the Indestructible when Jalan gave the order.

"It's not a good defensive position, and will weaken our combined point defense" Lancer had said in respond to Jalan's order several hours before. Still despite his objections, he followed the order, but Jalan was sure that if Lancer ever suspected what he was doing, that the man would take his sidearm and shoot Jalan dead on the spot. He would watch Lancer, if he gave the slightest indication of figuring it out, Jalan would kill him.

Right now though, Jalan had other things to worry about, it was almost time for his plan to kick off, the program had been set into motion even before the order to move behind the Indestructible had been given. Jalan looked around the command deck, it was the night shift, and it was at minimum staffing, only about 5 people in all. Commander Lancer was studying something at his desk in front of the main plot, beside him sat the night shift tactical officer who was going over something with the pilot. The other two officers were at their stations on the side walls engaged In their duties.

Suddenly a loud explosion echoed through the ship, almost instantly the battle stations siren sounded. Jalan knew it was the shuttle bay that had suddenly depressurized as per his program, the resulting sudden decompression would cause a lot of noise, and a few rattled shuttle bay tech, but otherwise no other damage. The damage computers on the other hand would report an explosion.

Jalan put on his best game face, and tried to look surpised, "Commander what going on!"

Lancer had jumped out of his seat and run to the damage control station and was quickly punching in commands. "Sir, theirs' been an explosion in the shuttle bay, no idea of the cause yet, we are reading loss of air pressure on that deck."

By now the Tactical officer had pulled up the main plot and run through a scan, Jalan knew that what she was actually seeing was a program super-imposed over the current scans, they showed her exactly what Jalan wanted. "Captain, if these reading are correct..." she trailed off quickly tapping buttons on her console, obviously double-checking her readings.

"Lieutenant, what is it!" Jalan's annoyance wasn't an act

"Y-yes sir, if these readings are correct, the Weyrling's fired at our shuttle bay.

"What?" it was Lancer "why would they do that, they are totally out of position."

"It doesn't matter, commander, Tactical, get me a firing solution on the Indestructible."

Lancer was at his side almost instantly, his voice lowered so the rest of the bridge couldn't hear it. "Captain, this doesn't make sense, they are totally out of position for a fight, we need to contact the Indestructible."

Jalan didn't bother to lower his voice, "Commander, we have been fired on by our so called allies, its obvious that they intended to hit our shuttle bay to prevent us from launching escape pods. Now I will defend this ship and if you try to stop me, you will be shot!"

Lancer didn't budge for a moment, and Jalans hand slowly gripped his phaser weapon. He was stopped by the sound of his tactical officer, "Captain, the Telekinetic Projectors are on line, and we have a firing solution plotted, shield will be up any moment."

"Good," Jalan looked back at Lancer, the first officer was moving to his station, obviously not wishing to press the argument now. "Pilot go full thrust, Tactical you can fire as soon as you are in point blank."

Jalan felt the ship suddenly accelerate, and the image of the Indestructible grew in his screen.

"Firing in 4, 3, 2, 1." The ship seemed to thump as the Trokens Pride's 4 telekinetic Projectors ripped through space, and into the Indestructible's armor. The damage though was minimum, and ever so slowly the Projectors recycled.

The Indestructible didn't wait though, the damage to her armor had been superficial only, she was a command ship and was heavy on the defensive systems, she also had good engines, and those engines went to 100 percent as her Captain accelerated in wide maneuvers designed bring Indestructible's weapons to bare, at the same time her RADAR image was lost in a hail of ECM.

"We've lost her on sensors," it was Lancer, he was running both the damage control station as well as the Sensor station, a double duty for sure.

"Tactical, estimate their course from the Last reading and forward them to the pilot." Troikens Pride shuddered at the sudden violent course change. Jalan wanted to curse, he had hoped to do more damage on the first volley. He still had the advantage, but only slightly. If he knew the Weyrling Captain, he would be trying to assess his damage, he wouldn't to contact Triokens Pride yet; it would give away his position if he did.

Space was big, and rarely did combat resolve itself quickly, that was certainly the case here. For 3 hours Indestructible and Triokens Pride volleyed for position, their ECM's keeping the other from getting an accurate lock on the other. Occasionally the two ships would come out of their ECM interference and exchange fire, but these shots rarely hit once the Indestructible had managed to come close and sheer off some comm. antennas. Jalan was getting impatient, this should have been over quickly, the first volley should have taken out Indestructible's engines, If the ship was unable to move her ECM's would be worthless.

"Sir," it was the tactile officer, the head one. By now the main command crew had come to their stations, also everyone was in EV suites, just in case their was a breach. "We are getting a several sensor ghosts off our port."

"Can you get a solution."

"Working on it, they have some good ECM on that ship."

"Work Faster" Jalan snapped.

Several minutes passed, suddenly the tac officer yelled, "Clear reading on our port."

The bridge erupted in activity. Quickly the coordinates where sent to fireing control, and a solution was plotted, and the Telekinetic Projectors opened up at the Indestructible. Most missed, but some got through the ECM. The shields on the Indestructible absorbed most of the volley, but their was few systems that could stop that fury for long, and inevitably a hole developed in the Indestructible's protective layer.

The tactical officer noticed this, and the remaining Projectors opened fire on the weakened part of the shields. Armor was torn from the Indestructible's hull like paper being blown off by a bazooka, but the armor did its job, and protected the vulnerable hull beneath it.

"Direct hit, I think we got some though, ecm is still playing hell with fire control"

"Noted" Jalan thought for a moment, the Indestructible's damn ECM had to be eliminated, and the only way to do that was to get in closer, use his Radar to burn though the ECM's, all he needed was one clear shot. "Pilot, bring us in closer, I want to get below its ECM curtain."

Lancer spoke up, "Sir? That will also make our ECM less effective."

"I realize that Commander, but we have more weapons than they do, so follow my orders or I will have you removed."

The command deck was silent, Commander Lancer wanted to remove the Captain, but in the middle of a battle? Lancer would be court marshaled for sure, no he had to play along, and just hope Jalan didn't get them all killed. "Pilot, you heard the Captain, take us in closer."

"Yes Sir."

The Troikens pride accelerated towards Indestructible, but Indestructible suddenly changed direction and began accelerating away, firing polaran beams as she retreated. Jalan was furious, he had been tricked, now he would have to slow his acceleration and then redouble back onto Indestructible in order to get a clear shot.

Jalan began to pace around the command deck. He was losing the advantage. If the Indestructible got away it would most certainly warn HQ, and his ship would be hunted down. That was when, a polaron beam finally made it though the Troikens Prides's ECM. It was a lucky shot, and hit right on the ships Telekinetic Projector, the shrapnel from the exploding projector hit several of the engine pods and ripped through them. Almost instantly 80% if Troikens Prides thrust vanished and Indestructible began pulling away quicly. Jalan knew the battle was lost.

Chapter 19

Josha went back into his office like a hurricane. He had just got the dressing down of his life by the Central Powers Speaker, the Weyrlings were furious, and who could blame them. A Draven ship had attacked the Matriarchs vessel, it was all Josha could do to keep the Weyrlings from sending their fleet into Lasat to take out Troikens Pride personally. Creator, what had that madman Jalan done!

Josha rubbed his head, it made no sense, why had Jalan been put into a position of escorting the matriarch in the first place, and why hadn't the approval for those orders come to him. Something was up, someone was trying to kill the Matriarch. Quickly Josha opened his computer, and began searching all the deployment orders concerning Troikens Pride. It didn't take long to find the order for deployment with the Indestructible. Then Josha looked in shock at what he saw. The approval had come through the Prime Minister himself.

Josha sat frozen for a second, not believing what he was thinking. The prime minister knew Jalans history as well as anyone, the only reason he would have approved the orders, were if he was hoping Jalan was going to do something. But that would meant the Yalare had plotted to kill the Matriarch.

Josha sat in his office for a long time, not knowing what to do. He couldn't tell the Weyrlings, they would tear into home systems, and while the new ships would probably stop them, it would be bloody, the Weyrligns were good generals, but the Dravens had probably the most Industrial Empire in known space. No this was a Draven problem, the Central Powers need to stay out of it, but what can he do. Slowly Josha took out a the keypad and began typing a letting to Central Powers speaker, he knew some of explanations seemed flimsy at best, but they should be enough to keep a war from breaking out. Although it would mean sacrificing Trokioens Pride, unfortunately he would have to offer up that ship as a sacrificial lamb to satisfy the Weyrlings while Josha took care of bigger problems. His second letter was to Commander Draval.

[ March 31, 2003, 02:38: Message edited by: CaptRR ]