[Starhawk]

Reverence and Heroes

HMS Reverence had been detached from the 4th SD division 2nd fleet right after the battle of DNX-N1 VII, much to the chagrin of Captain Willard Scott who hated sitting on the sidelines while the 2nd fleet took out two more enemy worlds, but since there were no spier sats in this system Admiral Raley had decided to detach an SD to protect each of his three newest conquests while the 2nd fleet moved on.
Yeah moves on and leaves us here to play babysitter Willard tightened his grip on his coffee mug as his anger rose again, he had been here for a week now and he often scolded himself for what he thought of as a childish anger, Of course your not going to be left here for good idiot! he told himself once again and forced himself to relax and take a sip of coffee, as the liquid touched his tongue Scott let out a noise that loosely resembled a hiss and turned bright red as several of his bridge crew made a concentrated effort not to turn their heads, a chuckle made him turn brighter red as he turned to face his exec.
“Navy coffee eh skip?” Sailing Master Nikki Leung was tall for a Brandenburger, at about 179 centimeters she was a good 15 centimeters taller then the other Brandenburg women Scott had met, though he admitted to himself he hadn’t met all that many and for some odd reason Leung often had an odd effect of making him stare at her, she was pretty yes but it was more the fact that Scott was so used to seeing “Icarans” which after so many years of mixed relationships, it was nearly impossible to tell someone’s heritage just by looking at them. But Brandenburg had been a fluke of warp travel, two of the ESS colony ships that were with the Solar evacuation colony had crashed on Brandenburg’s surface and remained isolated there for over fifty years, which had kept their bloodlines far more “pure” then Icara’s had ever been, though these days Brandenburgers were joining the military in large numbers-with most of their naval recruits being women- they still tended to remain “ethnically proud” and many outright refused any relationship with a non-Brandenburg Icaran, Nikki’s mother and father had been like that and when Scott first found out that his exec was a Brandenburger he prayed like mad that she wasn’t going to be one of the “ethnists” that still plagued her homeworld, and fortunately she hadn’t been, unfortunately she was outspoken and often brazen when it came to her Captain and Scott had resigned himself to the fact that it was just her nature.
“If you can call this syrup coffee Nik.” He grimaced at her as he looked down at the thick liquid in his cup again.
“Well you should try tea more often anyway sir, that’s the problem with you Icara born people after all, your always drinking caffeine, it amazes me you ever get any sleep.” She grinned wickedly at his expression, she had tried introducing him to tea a few months earlier with something called “liquorish root” but that was so rich it made him gag, he was about to say something else when his tactical officer’s voice cut through the air like a siren.
“Enemy ships uncloaking, seven point niner five light seconds out and closing!” Willard quickly laid his coffee mug aside and slammed his palm down on the button which brought up his tactical display.
“Sound actions stations, all hands beat to quarters!” Commander Leung’s voice was smooth professionalism as she brought up her own chair’s tac displays, seconds later klaxons and drums sounded throughout the ship followed swiftly by the sound of running feet, as crewman and marines raced to their battle stations.
“Can you get me a count on the enemy, tac?” Willard turned to face the tactical station and saw the tac officer of the watch going from one of his crewmen to the other, trying to get a definite plot.
“Sir our sensors can’t seem to agree on count, Lscan One detects 5, Lscan Two detects 9 and our lightwave telescopes seem to think there are 8 of them.” the tactical officer reddened with embarrassment as he reported what was supposed to be impossible, they should know easily how many enemy ships there were by drive signals alone but…..but why couldn’t they?
“Alright tac let’s assume it’s 9 can you tell me what size enemy ships we are dealing with?” Willard forced the agitation out of his voice as he watched his own display change count on the enemy ships every few seconds.
“Aye sir, I can tell you that they are some of those small battleships the Earth Corps Alliance uses.” the tac officer’s voice sounded almost relieved as he was able to answer at least one question.
“Sir I can get us a better read of numbers if we get closer.” one of the Lscan operators whispered to her tac officer and blushed as she realized her voice had carried further then she meant it too as Willard’s gaze turned to her or a moment before turning back to the tac officer who simply shrugged and nodded.
“Alright helm, break orbit, navigation plot a soonest intercept course for the enemy ships, tactical….try and get me a clean picture before we get into shooting range please.” Willard paused and turned toward another bridge station “Astrogation plot the enemy ships’ current excel, course and velocity and see if you can tell me where they came from.”
“Aye sir plotting course.” The helmsman sang out
“Aye sir course plotted time to intercept one five niner minutes.” navigation rang out
“Focusing scans on mid range aye.” the tac officer said as he punched in some calculations.
“Plotting enemy drive signature aye.” the chief astrogator replied.
“Well I guess we’re going to be very busy.” Leung said sardonically as she toggled her tac display’s modes, Willard simply grunted a reply with a brief grin of his own.

Two and a half hours later the enemy signature had become all to clear, there were eight enemy Danube class battleships inbound at maximum military power, each one equipped with eleven fusion capital missiles and one heavy mounted I-laser cannon. When Willard heard the numbers his blood ran cold, not a single enemy troop carrier in the mix which meant either they were here to nuke the planet and it’s four hundred million people to keep it out of Icara’s hands or they were here for some other purpose that Willard couldn’t understand, and either way they were probably going to destroy his ship to do whatever it was they were here for.

Bridge: ECANS George Washington:
“What the hell is an Icaran doing here?” Junior Rear Admiral Brian Monteghue said angrily, his tactical section had detected the Icaran’s barely an hour ago which he knew meant they had detected him long before that.
“I don’t know sir but whatever she’s doing here she’s alone.” Commander Alex Stark said grimly as his own readers showed the enemy ship closing, he knew that for his Admiral to cuss in public he was worried, no matter how calm he looked.
The 5th battleship squadron Northern fleet had been ordered to proceed under cloak and maximum power to DNX-N1 VII in order to retrieve the planetary governor and his family before the Icaran StateSec forces “purged” the government officials and their families to ensure compliance. Personally Commander Stark was terrified by the implications of an enemy Superdreadnought holding a parking orbit over an ECA planet, had they already purged the government? Or worse yet did thy know the battleships were coming somehow? The media had broadcast reports of tragedy befalling the 36 ships of the Southern Cross fleet but no one knew for sure how the Icarans had engaged them, if there were any survivors from that battle the Icarans certainly weren’t about to tell anyone and so absolutely no information got out. Stark’s thoughts suddenly became more grim, he had heard from the Anderman reports of the atrocities committed by Icaran Naval and Army forces, entire world’s burned simply because there was no available troopship to secure it, or “no time”, entire governments wiped out because they might insight riots, the billions of Andermanian and Allied lives lost because Icaran warships intercepted and destroyed dozens of colony ships and population transports….wherever the Icarans struck it was as if a shroud engulfed the region, no one ever heard from the conquered worlds again, and even now billions of people were behind that ever growing shroud of darkness and whether or not the Icarans could be stopped was a question that terrified every inhabited world in their path, the mere name Icara brought terror and tears where it was uttered and even though Andermanian newsies had said that their valiant 9th fleet had driven the Icarans out of Nepsis Stark knew the grim fact was that the only reason the Icarans left is because after they destroyed the Andermanian 12th fleet and the combined Alliance minelayer/sweeper task force they were simply too banged up to engage the 9th, and Stark felt with grim certainty that when the Icarans did return to Nepsis the 9th fleet was only going to slow them down.
“Admiral, enemy ship is closing the range with us, she’ll be in our weapons range in two minutes, we’ll be in hers in three.” the tactical officer sounded surprisingly confident considering the enemy ship outstripped their’s by an order of magnitudes but if they could saturate that bastard’s point defense with missiles and keep the range open then maybe they could take her out and get to the planet to retrieve refugees.

HMS Reverence
“I can’t believe those sons’a’*****es are going to nuke their own world just to keep us from getting it.” CPO Anders murmured from his station at Lscan Two, Willard was tempted to chew the Petty Officer out for breaking military discipline but he had just said what they were all thinking, Icaran news services had told them all how the ECA and the Andermanian alliance had destroyed several of their own worlds just to keep them out of Icaran hands, rumor had it that’s what happened in Nepsis when the 1st fleet was forced to pull out the Andermanian 9th had just moved in and laid waste to the planet.
Willard Scott would be damned before he let those hundreds of millions of Icarans die at the hands of that ECA naval task force.
“Captain I have an idea…..though it’s a little risky sir.” Leung whispered as she looked up from her tactical repeaters.
Willard could almost feel her grin as she said “risky” like it really mattered at this moment, he turned around and saw not a grin but a sharkish smile as she returned her attention to he repeaters.
“By all means Commander don’t keep me in the dark.” He managed a light tone even though his nerves were frayed and her habit of sinking into her work so much that she forgot the world at large tended to make that worse.
She looked up from her displays, with that same Sharkish smile “Well sir, I think we should let them fire their missiles off at us, if they do the might just try to get into energy range and bring our shields down before their missiles finish us off, and well as you know sir we could easily win a gun duel with them….” she paused again for a moment in thought before her smile grew broader “Well Captain I think we could actually manage a broadside into their formation before we are forced to break range to keep from getting our asses blown off, but after that broadside we’d be restricted to chase mounts only if we want to keep our range open enough that we have time to get out of the way of their missiles….but if we are off by even one second we’ll have about 88 missiles roaring up our rather large tailpipe.” her smile became a grin as she realized how cocky she herself sounded.
Willard quirked an eyebrow as he thought it over, if he got off a broadside with his full arsenal he could destroy at least two of those battleships, even at maximum range but his XO was certainly correct in her math, if they were off by one second 88 missiles would tear them apart like so much tissue paper.
“Alright Nikki let’s play risky.” He tried to smile back but he knew that she was just as afraid as him, and that her smile was pure nerves, for some reason it reminded him that she had once mentioned that she used to giggle like an idiot whenever she got nervous, and he was glad at least that she had outgrown that. “Helm, cut accel in half, I want to have the velocity to turn a broadside on those targets, but prepare to go back to full military power on my orders.”
“Aye sir.” the bridge suddenly went quiet as the crew focused on the tasks ahead of them, the chief gunnery officer sat on the edge of her seat, her two gunner’s mates were keeping themselves busy checking and rechecking the status of the gunnery crews and their weapons.

George Washington
“Admiral sir they are cutting their accel in half, and it looks they are changing course to bring themselves to a broadside to us.” the tactical officer frowned as he read off the numbers, the Icaran was indeed cutting her acceleration and turning broadside to the task force.
“Thank you tactical…..guns how much longer to range?” Rear Admiral Monteghue said softly as he looked over his shoulder at the gunnery station.
“Thirty seconds to missile envelope, fifty before we reach energy range.”
Monteghue turned to face Commander Alex Stark “They are either overly cocky, or they’ve got a longer range then we suspect Alex.” his voice was quiet enough that only the commander could hear him and his face was expressionless, but his eyes showed he was worried and Alex couldn’t blame him one whit.
“Either she’s got a cocky dumb captain or they’re confident they can stand up to us all….and if it’s the latter we’ve got a lot to worry about Alex.” The Admiral turned back towards the display and saw the lone enemy super dreadnought turning her broadside to his fleet in defiance.
“Missile lock, all tubes firing!” the sudden announcement turned just about everyone’s head, unfortunately for them the tactical display showed a massive “wall” of light lance out from the Icaran towards two battleships as the SD fired it’s broadside….

Reverence:
The two battleships that were hit rocked as their shields flared to life for barely a minute before imploding and the huge energy forces made contact with the hulls of the two battleships, as the beams lashed out the green beams slashed through decks and hull plating with ease, it wasn’t quite accurate to say the two battleships exploded, it was more like they just broke apart spilling wreckage and bodies into space.

“Incoming missiles, I count sixty six birds!” The tactical officer said coldly as the Reverence’s own tactical displays came to life with the light codes of the enemy capital missiles.
“Helm hard about…now!” Captain Scott clenched his right hand into a fist at his side as he saw the enemy battleships closing to within their own energy range, seconds passed and almost imperceptivity a light streak glowed to life on the displays as the ECA beams lashed out from their battleships, out of the six beams only two struck home but it was enough to reduce the shield power of the SD.
The massive warship spun about with surprising ease and grace as her main engine burst to life sending her at the full 500 gees of military acceleration back towards the planet she was fighting to protect.
The enemy battleships continued to close however, and even though the were slower to accelerate they would eventually gain on their prey.
“Gunner crews, aft chase mounts pick a target and open fire!” Scott barked the order out like a curse.

George Washington
“Holy mother!” The tactical officer blurted angrily as the Icaran’s aft chase batteries came to life burning through the Valley Forge‘s shields with amazing ease.
The battleship’s hull plating collapsed before the wrath of the beam fire and within moments all that remained of the once mighty battleship was an expanding ball of fire, and wreckage.
“Admiral, no one could have survived that….”Alex Stark said grimly as he watched the last flare of light die out.
“Alright keep the remaining ships together in a tight formation, if we’re going to take that bastard down we’ve got to focus our own fire.” Monteghue forced his voice to sound unemotional, even as his own heart was aching as the realization of what was happening to his command struck home, 3 battleships were blown out of the sky before they had even reduced their enemy’s shields, there were at least a thousand survivors out there floating in escape pods or vac suits but that still left almost five thousand of his people dead or dying.
The three remaining ECA battleships returned to energy weapon range and fired again, this time all three of their shots hit the enemy SD and it’s shields weakened even further, barely a minute later 66 more missiles rippled from the battleships and the closest 11 actually managed to strike home but her acceleration took her away from the remainders.
“Their shields can’t have much power left sir, we might just have…..bastard!” Alex swore louder then he intended as he saw the enemy’s chase mounts unleash another volley, this time James Madison was torn open from bow to stern like an old tin can, hull plating and atmosphere formed an icy cloud as they spilled free from the sliced hull, her power systems flickered for a moment and then stopped as she slowly drifted away from the fight, escape pods launched from her in droves as she continued to drift, until finally her hull began to break apart.

Reverence
The two remaining enemy battleships fired their I-laser turrets again and this time it had a dramatic effect as the Reverence rolled up on her starboard with the force of the enemy beams, her shields flared for a moment and then failed outright under the enemy fire, the only thing that saved the Reverence from direct damage was that just as her shields failed the energy pouring into her through the enemy beams faded.
“My God that was close…” Scott whispered to Nikki, and turned to see that she too was pale with the shock, by all rights those two cannons should have sliced into her armor and killed Lord only knew how many crewmen.
“Helm take us in, guns give me a lock on both those ships hold fire until we are point blank, then let’s end this.” Scott winked at his XO and grinned “I said we’d play it risky didn’t I Nikki.” She nodded nervously and his grin faded as he turned back to face the main screen, they both knew just how risky it was to run straight into two enemy ships without any shields, even in a super dreadnought.

George Washington:
“Sir she’s turning about to engage us!” A voice called out from the tactical station, but by then everyone already knew that the enemy ship had turned about and was closing in at maximum military thrust.
“She’s got no energy field around her, she must have lost her shields.” Stark stared at his display even as he spoke, his heart seemed to stop for an instant as he realized what the Icarans were doing, They’re going to try and finish us in one fell swoop they know they can’t keep taking us on with only they’re chase mounts or we’d be guaranteed a lucky shot on her eventually. his mind raced as he saw the enemy ship closing, it seemed an eternity but finally the two ECA battleships fired straight at their massive foe. The commander’s thoughts turned to his family, and his own failure to achieve their mission objective, for unless a miracle happened he knew that these were his last few seconds of life.

Reverence
The one enemy ship’s sensors had targeted one of the many sensor ghosts cost by the ECM generators carried by all Icaran warships and missed by over a kilometer, the second beam however passed barely a meter over the forward hull of the massive Icaran super dreadnought so close that a long streak of paint boiled with the heat. But her fire proved much more accurate as she opened fire on the Lake Superior tearing her apart with a hellish beauty.
George Washington too was struck, and went up in a brilliant flash of light as her reactor breached, there wasn’t even a chance for anyone of her crew to reach the escape pods, the only fortunate thing for those poor souls was that they never even had time to feel pain.
As their last opponent disappeared Scott felt an odd mix of triumph and horror, eight battleships meant 16,000 lives and Scott had been through battles before and had indeed been aboard a super dreadnought that was crippled during the earlier months of the Andermanian crusade, he knew what it was like for the crews of those ships in their last few moments of life.
“Sir I’ve got escape pod and vac suit rescue beacons, from all over the place, should I order out SAR teams.” Nikki’s voice startled him back into the present as he pulled his eyes away from the still sparkling debris of their final victim.
“Yes, deploy cutters and take us around to pick up as many survivors as we can, damned if I’m going to let those people die out here….” Captain Willard Scott’s expression turned pale for a moment as the sheer destruction he had just unleashed, and the luck of his own ship’s survival sank in.

The SAR teams launched by the Reverence picked up 2,018 survivors from the eight enemy battleships, these POWs were then taken by StateSec transports to Icaran POW camps in the home system where they could receive medical care, food, and basic-albeit uncomfortable- living quarters until the war ended.
Neither side ever figured out what the other was doing there, as the survivors the Icaran’s recovered refused to speak of their final mission to their nation, and because not one ECA soldier ever returned home from the 5th battleship squadron their homeland would never know that the governor and his family were all still very much alive, though in political prisoner camps far away from their home world.