[CaptRR]

I know its been a while, and for that I appologize. I hope that you will think it was worth the wait. Here are the latest chapters.

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Chapter 28

The Draven Dreadnaught “Landing City” was a flurry of activity. People swarmed everywhere. Most were engaged in the standard trials that always happen just before a ship was brought into war, but there were a few that stood back from the flurry to reflect. Some of them wrote letters home, the electronic documents would be sent just before the ship passed through the warp point into the Draven home system, and transmitted through the rest of the Republic. Other’s were off duty, and were resting up for the long days to come. Deep in the heart of the great ship, in the fleet command center of F-COM as it was called, Prince Dravel watched the plot.

The room was the largest on the ship, measuring nearly 15 meters tall and twice that wide. In space such large volumes were hard for life support systems to deal with, it also decreased the structural integrity of the vessel. However, the “Landing City” was the newest ship made from alliance technology. Her new life support systems could handle almost 4 times the amount of space they were forced to deal with. Add to that, the ships structure was made from Fiber Steel, a relatively new invention that had 3 times the strength of normal ship construction material, with only a slight increase in weight. All these factors when combined with the need for a central control room for fleet operations had led to the addition of F-COM.

The room was far from empty though, over 75 members of Dravel’s staff busied themselves on with the activities required to move a fleet of over 65 ships even if most of them didn’t have crews. Along the walls were 3 stories of terminals and equipment necessary to support the fleet. In the center along with Dravels desk was the largest and most prominent addition to the room the 10 meter tall Holographic plot.

Dravel nodded in approval as the Last of the suicide ships was moved into position at the front of the fleet, its slow speed was evidence of its huge mass, after all this ship had started life as a transport, the only ships in the Draven inventory that were larger were the mammoth dreadnaughts. Finally the ships icon flashed green, showing that all its systems were good.

“Sir,” Sosha answered from her station just to Dravel’s right, “The Gold Rush is reporting all systems are green, the fleet is now ready for transit.”

“Thank you Sosha,” Draven said with a sigh, this was the moment he had, had nightmares about for weeks, he was about to send almost 50 thousand Dravens into battle, a battle that they were probably going to lose. Dravel had sent many people to their deaths, he and death were no strangers, but he had never done so against his own people. The people his fleet was getting ready to attack were no less honorable than he. They were doing their best to defend the republic, even if it was being run by a madman, and because of Dravel those thousands of live would be snuffed out. He was sure the nightmares he had, had would be nothing compared to the ones to come. The only comfort that he could count on was that he was doing it to save the republic.

He looked over as Sosha, her beauty was simply amazing even at a time like this. Over the Last couple of weeks they had grown closer. When Dravel had first met her, he was sure that it was no more than a hormonal attraction, a school boy love affair, that would pass with time. He was definitely sure that the feelings that he harbored towards her were not the same as those that she harbored for him. Something had happen over the Last couple of weeks though, he had gotten to work closer to her than ever, and he began to feel that their was definitely something their, something that Dravel had never felt before. Was it love? Dravel really didn’t know, what he did know is that once all this living hell over with he was going to ask her to Marry him, it would cost him and most likely her as well their commission’s but in the end they would be giving up the military for a life as a President and first lady. But first they had to survive the immediate future.

“Sosha, patch me into the fleet broadcast channel” Dravel paused while hit buttons on her panel to put him on every speaker on every ship in the fleet. Such occasions were rare, but, Dravel felt in this case it was needed. As the warning tone signaled almost all work stopped on the F-COM, he was sure the same scene was being repeated all over the fleet, as people turned to hear him speak what could be the most important speech in all their lives. Dravel took a breath.

“Brave men and women of Third Fleet, I speak to all of you now on what may be the darkest day in our Republics history. None of us want to be here, I’m sure that when we signed up for service none of us ever though we would be engaging our own brothers in battle. If we had known we no doubt would have chosen another path, but as dreadful a task this is, I assure you that if we don’t do this, it will be the end of everything that we hold dear.

Today, we stand on the edge of an abyss. We can sit still, and do nothing while the Draven Republic collapse around us, or we can fight. Fight for our friends, our Mothers, our Brothers, our sisters, and our Fathers. What we do today, will determine the future of the universe, whether the Dravens will continue to exist or fade into the darkness of history. Today, all of us, every single member of our fleet, makes a state. We will not go quietly into the night! We will fight to the end, and only when the Last of us has no more breath will the Dravens truly be beaten; I say again we will not go Quetly into the night!”

At those Last words Dravens fist hit his desk, but the pounding was drowned out by the cheers around him. In every ship, everyone from the lowest ranking cook to the most decorated Admiral, crewmen cheered. Not for the deaths that were to come but for themselves, never had the future of so many relied on so few, no matter what happens history would never forget Third Fleet.

Dravel looked over to Sosha who had a broad grin on her face. Dravel stepped over to her, and put his hand on her shoulder, “Give the word to all ships, initiate Operation Redemption.”

Slowly the ships of Thrid fleet moved into the Warp point, and into their Destiny.

Chapter 29

Commander Linoris was bored. He had been giving command of the Kornephoras warp point defense station almost 6 months ago. At the time he had known that being assigned to the Defense base that orbited the warp point was a career ender, but he was still young and at the time had thought that it wouldn’t affect him. He would spend a few months their, 6 at the most and then be assigned one of the new dreadnaughts coming out of the yards, after all the way the war was going, the fleet was in need of command level officer. Unfortunately the war had ended when the Weyrlings defeated the terren’s, and that effectively ended Linoris’s chances of promotion. Now here he sat, in what must be the most boring assignment in the galaxy. The “alert” that Kornephoras X had ordered, had provided a few days of excitement while he went though drills, but that had passed quickly, and ground into dull routine.

Now here he was, on third watch, looking over the 3 warp point defense bases. Linoris sighed as he checked off another routine status report. Once again, all the automated systems appeared to work fine. He lifted his cup of Nanal leafe tea to his lips and began to take a sip.

Suddenly alarms went off; in his surprise Linoris spilled his cup on himself, leaving an impressive stain. “Son of a...”

His curse was cut off by the tech reporting, “We have incoming unscheduled transits, multiple signatures, and force estimate of at least 50 vessels.”

Linoris’s fear was now overtaking the burning sensation on chest. This wasn’t suppose to happen, all ships were required to file a flight plan before they transited the warp point. Certainly a fleet this size would have caught Linoris’s attention, it could only be an attack fleet. “Visuals.” He ordered. Almost instantly several of the screens scattered around the command deck showed a close up view of the warp point. It colors slightly distorted by the gravitational waves ripping though it, for a second it seemed that the storm at its center subside then in the blink of an eye, a bright light surged, and a ship took shape, then another, and another, and then they were lost in a sea of explosions.

The defenses on the warp point were an old Version. Their weapon systems had not been upgraded in almost a decade. After all the general theory was that if a fleet ever got this far the Draven Republic was doomed anyway. But what the defense system lacked in quality they more than made up in quantity. Before the first ship was finished transitioning, automatic defense system had activated the mines, and each of the small warheads had activated their friend or foe transceivers. By the time the second ship had finished transitioning it had been determined that the codes returned by the invading ships were not authorized. Cold computer logic kicked in, and each mine communicated with other beside them. Targets were prioritized, and compared to the mines internal database for the area that was weakest. When the third ship finished transitioning, the mines engaged their, hyper impeller engines. These engines could accelerate a device to almost a tenth of the speed of light inside of a second, unfortunately the devices were a one use variety, and the engine burned themselves up in half that time. It wasn’t a big deal though, at these ranges it brought the mine into lethal range of the invading ships almost instantly. The mines proximity warheads engaged and release the magnetic rings holding almost a liter of anti-matter. When the anti-matter came into contact with matter they exploded. The resulting explosions were equivalent to a 1 megaton nuclear explosion. Each ship had been assigned 10 mines, and as each went off, space itself rippled, as anti-matter and matte came together, and ships vaporized, but not fast enough.

The ships, Large transports really, were absorbing ungodly amounts of damage, often times, mines would have to attack the same target twice. Still the mines computer cores lashed out at the invaders, and ships would only appear for a few seconds before a group of mines would descend on them, lashing at them with Nuclear fire. But the ships kept coming, and soon the wall of fire produced by the mines began to slacken off, and finally the Last mine detonated, slightly damaging a large transport that had just translated into the system.

Only after the battle was over, would anyone relies the beauty of Prince Dravel’s plan. The lead ships had been procured from the bone yard, and had been programmed to go though the warp point first. They had no crews, and over the Last couple of weeks Dravels engineers had loaded as much armor onto the ships as they could handle. The result was a slow, ugly, defenseless ship that could absorb huge amounts of damage. This was an ideal answer to Dravel’s problems with regard to his inability to procure any mine sweepers. Instead of sweeping the mines guarding the warp point, Dravel had simply absorbed them with worthless ships. Now the doorway was clear, as the first of Dravel’s warships began to transition into the Kornephoras system.