[Starhawk]

"2402.8 Setting Sail old and new
HMS Enterprise was the biggest nastiest mother in the Royal Navy and as far as Ross was concerned that could go for the whole galaxy. She was as fast as her smaller cousins but she packed a LOT more firepower for her size.
This was just a shakedown cruise Ross reminded himself, they were going to test out her engines by doing a loop around the system and then head out to Brandenburg where they would commence weapons tests on drones and an old freighter that had met an unfortunate end at the hands of an asteroid storm when she was abandoned by her crew.
The freighter was five times the mass of Enterprise so the Admiralty figured even her scorched up gutted old hull would serve as a great weapons test for this new toy of theirs and that was all fine with Ross he just wanted to take her out of port.

But the first ship out of port was his old command HMS Saber under the command of Brevet Captain Sandra Fowler and watching her leave port ahead of him brought a lump to the Captain's throat, she was smaller and less well armed but she had been his ship until this point and now he had to entrust her to Fowler and hope that kid didn't screw up.
******

"Helm, set course for the Beta Triaron warp point at maximum thrust once we've cleared spacedock." Fowler's voice was the professional cold tone they had taught back at the academy but inside her guts felt like a bunch of butterflies, yeah if they were vomitting she thought to herself as her helmsman acknowledged her order.

HMS Saber moved silently out of dock in orbit of Icara with pride, she was leaving on a simple guard mission to protect the newly established Haden Supply base on the Phong Border but it was something that was deemed necessary by the admiralty.
As Sandra rememberd Rear Admiral Lord Ralley even went so far as to calling the diplomats whom had established an unguaded supply base with a "large civilian population on the frontier with a hostile power a bunch of blustering idiots with no military sense beyond what they saw in the holotheatre!", he was probobly right but the young Commander couldn't help but grin to herself as she remembered a navy man calling a bunch of nobles blustering idiots with no sense.
Her ship would take a few months to arrive at Haden but it would give her time to get to know her crew, including her new Exec 1st Lieutenant Tiara Somal from Brandenburg....all in all it was looking like it was going to be a good cruise.

2403.1 Tragedy
It had been 3 months of cruising at full speed when HMS Saber finally reached her destination, and none too soon she neeted resupply and some of her crew needed to be sent groundside if only for a day or two.
As they warped throuh the node and entered the Escandor system morale was high and Sandra Fowler was looking forward to meeting the base' commander as he had been an old classmate of hers back at the academy.

The warp jump was met with the usual nausea by the crew and the usual grumbling as it wore off and Sandra frowned for a moment as her stomach settled back into it's proper place.

"Helm lay in a course for Handra supply ba....." Her sentince was never finished alarms and klaxon hooted and screamed throughout the ship as the tactical officer sounded the automatic general quarters alert that was required when an enemy starship was detected.

"What the hell is this about?!" Sandra snapped at her Tac officer over the howling klaxons and almost instantly Sandra was kicking herself over the loss of control in her voice.

The tactical officer looked sick as he looked up, his face was sheet white and tears seemed to swell in his eyes as his shaky voice announed "Ma'am Handra base is gone....there's no beacon, no energy traces nothing...they're just gone."

Fowler fealt a wave of gut wrenching fear wash through her as she considered the possibilities but she didn't let any of it show as she simply nodded to the tactical officer.
"Tactical, make sure there isn't a malfunction, it's possible their generators were just knocked out by an accident...run more scans as we close." her voice was controlled this time as the klaxons stopped howling now that her crew was at full battlstations and each secton had punched the "go" button which signalled their readiness.

Saber closed for two days before the cause of th loss of contact became clear, the surface of the planet was nothing but scorched earth for miles upon miles, none of it looked nuclear which told her it would match the attack pattern of a Phong warship....there were even craters miles outside of where the outpost had once been sugjesting that the bastards had shelled all signs of Icaran life on the surface.
That theory was quickly confirmed as battle sensors detected the presence of a Phong frigate at the far side of the planet (which explained why she hadn't been detected until now).

The need for revenge burned in Sandra's blood as she considered the 32 million Icarans that lay dead on the planets surface and now the Phong who killed them would die even if she had to get out of her ship and ram a knife down their yellow throats herself.
"Captain the Phong Frigate is closing at her maximum speed, tactical computers recognize her as a Annihilator class frigate, the same kind encountered by HMS Repulse." Commander Somal's heavy accent sounded venomus and cruel as she said the words.
Sandra swollowed hard as she memories of the split open hull of Repulse burned at the back of her mind....they would not do that to her ship damnit....not if she could help it.
"Guns, get me missile lock as soon as possible, cannon crews one through three stand by, we are going to run right down her throat." Fowler snapped the visor of her vac helm closed and her crew did likewise, they had all seen the pictures of those poor spacers from Repulse who hadn't managed to get their visors down in time or had their vac suits compromised.

Saber fired both missile tubes, 2 fusion missiles streaked across space, their ion trails like two snakes weaving across the stars as they sought their prey.
One of the missiles was quickly destroyed by the enemy ship's point defenses but the second missile easily peirced her defenses and a magnificent explosion erupted from her hull where it struck home, one of her cannons and an engine exploded flames as the initial impact spread but she still came on.

"Ma'am they are closing to cannon range!" The Weapons officer announced as the enemy ship flew past Saber firing their cannons as they went, two shots missed but the third impacted on Sabers' hull doing moderate damage and wounding several crewmen.

"Helm, turn us about I want to fire streight into her backside!" Fowler's lip curled as the damage report came in.
The Icaran frigate swept around behind the Phong frigate and opened up on it with all three of her cannons, two shots slammed streight into her engines blowing them to peices the third shot went higher then the enemy ships engine block and knocked one of her cannon turrets clean off. The gunnery crews fealt a surge of pride at their strikes but the enemy used the one engine she still had left to turn about and return fire.
The first enemy shot passed within inches of the main bridge but the second shot struck home on Saber's prow fortunately it did little damage.
Saber's missile tubes spat out another volley as she took advantage of her full engines and passed by the enemy frigate racking it with a broadside from her cannons.
As the Icaran frigate passed the enemy warship her missiles struck home on the battered hulk that remained and their explosions tore the ship's entire front end off, secondary explosions turned what was left of the frigate into burning wreckage.

"My compliments gunnery crews, you to guns." She smiled at her weapons officer as her voice echoed her pride over the comns. But still she fealt sick as she looked back to Harden and saw the wreckage and craters that had once been so many lives.
Fowler pressed a button on her control panel and a voice responded.
"Chief Engineer Mullins here." a tired sounding voice replied from the other end.

"Damage report chief?" Fowler dreaded the reply, she knew her ship had been hit twice in the battle and Repulse had only been it twice when her port side was torn open in a 20 meter hole.

"We've lost in-system communications and all but wo of our messenger drones were blown apart when the prow launcher was knocked out....other then that all we need is a resupply and a minor overhaul." Engineer Mullins sounded frustrated at the damage that had been sustained but mixed with that he also sounded very releived that the damage had been light.

They wouldn't need in-system comns anyway Sandra thought bitterly as she continued checking with section heads to get the full status of her ship after that action....1 crewman was killed and 8 wounded but it had been far less then she expected.

Two hours later, after personally inspecting her ship she ordered one of her two remaining messenger drones launched out of her port missile tube to inform Icara of what had happened, on it was a scathing reproach to the certain "nobles" who had endorsed Harden's construction before any military escort could be managed along with a report that she would stay on her post until such time as reinforcments could arrive or a courier was sent to inform her to withdraw.

Fowler also had the second drone prepared with a blank message recorder just in case her ship was attacked by a superior force and she was destroyed or forced to withdraw.