2417.8
End of an Era
Ross stood next to Yu in the Spaceyard’s gallery staring at the gutted hulls of their ships, both officers were frowning, the captain of
Defender couldn’t even bring himself to watch his ship gutted like a fish Ross, and captain Farrin-
Hawkwing’s new captain- had only stayed for five minutes before giving the yard master his compliments and beating a hasty retreat from the scene.
The General class heavy cruiser was obsolete and throughout the entire navy they were becoming extinct, gutted at the hands of yard dogs and completely overhauled with totally new systems and internal configurations, they were becoming the
Midwinters and although they would be far more powerful then in their former incarnations it was still hard for captains who had lived and fought on the old Generals for nearly ten years now to watch them be opened up from stem to stern and have their innards torn out and discarded like old garbage.
Ross felt as if his firstborn had been sacrificed on an altar before the gods of “progress” when he first heard that the
Hawkwing was going to be overhauled, the officers and crew of that old cruiser had fought, lived and died in her hull, their was blood fused into the metal of the bulkheads because of extreme heat caused when shields burned through, blood Icaran spacers who had died in the great metal beast had shed protecting the empire, and now it was all being torn out. Ross’ chest felt empty as he turned to Yu.
His depressed mood suddenly turned to curiosity when he saw the young woman smiling at her opened ship. “Why are you smiling? I thought you were just as sick over this as I was?”.
“I was Sir, but my ship has seen so much death, useless and needless death that seeing her get a new heart, a new -soul- if you will makes me feel better somehow, like she’s got a new life ahead of her now.” Yu’s smile faded, memories of the several disastrous engagements
Lenin flashed in her eyes.
“Yeah, I forgot about what happened to your ship in Fornax, I suppose your right, that poor old lady deserves a new life after all she’s been through.” Ross felt something brighten in his own mood as Yu smiled at him again, to him it was like his ship was being gutted but to Yu, her ship was undergoing surgery to give it a new chance at a good life, it had been said that
Lenin was cursed, for the first four battles she engaged in she was crippled or in the very least hulled, her crew had been reduced to 1/3 of it’s original compliment by the time she had been re-assigned to the 3rd fleet. That was when the curse it said was broken, for that transfer saved
Lenin and her crew from the devastating ambush in Mestra where 5,000 Icarans had died in less then ten minutes.
Ross and Yu watched their ships for a short while before returning to their temporary duties on Wardo base, five months of planet bound duty while the heavy cruisers of 3rd fleet were retrofit to Midwinter specs. It was the end of an Era for the IRN as the largest of her Phased poloron equipped warships were given I-Laser cannons. The old cruisers and light cruisers of the navy could not handle the power requirements of I-Laser technology and thus were facing extinction as soon as enough ships of the ‘new generation’ were built and many captains and Admirals prepared their ’wakes’-the traditional farewell party to a valiant ship facing it’s retirement- as their ships names appeared on the ‘obsolete’ list that would soon lead to their scrapping
I'm proud to announce that my story covers 71 pages in font 10 in MSN Word!!!
(passes around beers)