[El_Phil]

Right I'm posting this and the text file I copied in. This spacing thing still has me confused. I think people want a double spaced after each line, then people talk about paragraphs. Meh. So take the text file and demonstate how you would like it formated. Until then here's my current stab at formating.

Back to Saintes for my first two parted month! Wooo:


"Better to fight for something than live for nothing." - General Patton
2402.4
Lieutenant Commander O'Hara looked on amazed at her Captain. Tanner was so calm it was beyond belief. How did he manage it? He was relaxed. He was untroubled. He was also suffering a vicious head injury she noticed. That would explain it, but what to do? There was only one real option

"Medical team to the bridge." She commanded on the internal comms before striding over to the captains chair.

"Sorry to interrupt sir, but your clearly injured and possibly concussed. I can handle the damage control and I would recommend you get treated for that head wound."

Tanner turned, the retort forming in his mind when he suddenly saw two O'Haras in front of him. Despite his best efforts to focus the image continued to swim around. 'She may have a point.' He thought.

"Very well Commander. But keep me informed of all major developments." With that he made his way unsteadily towards the medical team entering the bridge.

Commodore Delap who had watched the exchange was impressed, not many officers would have had the guts to do that. He'd have to take a closer look at this O'Hara. On the screen she had just started speaking

"I am afraid I can't give a detailed damage report sir, all I can tell you is that Saintes was hit by one enemy missile and we were heavily damaged. Sensors are down, PWO reports no functional tubes and helm barely has manoeuvring power. We're in no fit state for combat"

"Our sensors report no hostiles nearby so don't worry on that account. Is there anything Leander can do to assist Commander?" Delap asked

"I honestly don't know. We still haven't restored internal comms to the engine room. I have sent a runner down to assess the situation and report back."

"Good work commander. Leander out." Delpa ended the conversation and turned to captain Jennings.

"I don't like it Dave, they dinos sent that ship out on a suicide mission just to try and get one ship back to the homeworld. What cargo can be so important that it has to get to a blockaded planet?"

"Whatever it is we stopped it. That's got to be a good thing."

"True. But the cost was too high Dave."

Jennings was nonplussed. "We don't know the casualty figures from Saintes Mike."

"The engineering section was hit by a large nuclear missile, at least one of the crew must have died." Delap replied.

Mike nodded. That was sadly obvious.

"So the cost was too high." Delap finished.

***

In the bowels of Saintes engineering section Chief Sutton didn't have time to worry about the dead and injured. He was too busy working to make sure their numbers weren't boosted.

"Robby power it up." he yelled at his assistant. This should do it, hopefully. Petty Officer Robson made the link, reconnecting the damage report machine to the ships power grid.

"Got it! Good work, now go check in with the reactor team." Sutton ordered.

'Right lets have a look.' he said to himself while reading through the reams of damage report data. 'Engines 4,5 and 6 gone, half the supplies gone, 80% of the escape pods gone, tube one destroyed, tube two autoloader shot, fuel lines cut to the remaining engines. It could be worse.' Then a sudden alert flashed to the top of the report and nothing else mattered. 'Reactor containment cascade failure.' he read. 'Bugger.'

"Are the internal comms running yet?" He yelled at the room

"Been up for a couple of minutes chief." A voice from the dark replied.

"Get me the bridge. They're going to want to hear this."

***

"What the status Chief." O'Hara asked

"We're not going to die in the next few hours put it that way. Half of the engineering section is either vaporised or is floating in space and most of the repairs can't be done in space. The big problem is the reactor, it's rooted."

O'Hara bit back the comment she was going to make. Something more technical than 'rooted' would be good and a few 'maams' wouldn't hurt. But Sutton had the look of a man who'd been hand gliding over Hell. "How bad is it? Will we be able to get back to a yard on our own power?"

"This isn't a damaged reactor. It's rooted. It's going to blow and when it does it'll take the ship with it."

"I thought you said we weren't going to die in the next few hours?" O'Hara exploded at the man over the comms.

"Oh it'll take 15 hours or so, but we will lose containment." Sutton was ridiculously relaxed about it.

"Shouldn't you be trying to fix it?!" O'Hara had resisted jumping out of her chair during her last outburst, but couldn't manage it this time.

Sutton was too numb to care. It was only a ship. Over half of his people were dead or seriously injured and only now was he getting the time to think about that.

"How exactly? It's a containment cascade failure. We have dozens of safety systems, which are now floating in space or destroyed incidentally, devoted just to stopping this happening, because it is unstoppable." Sutton's voice grew in emotion as he remembered what he'd read earlier. Most of the escape pods were damaged. The reactor was going to fail and he couldn't stop it. Bugger indeed.

***

El Presidente Marks hadn't left the situation room since news of the Jraenar blockade runner had reached him. He could have got a feed sent to his desk, instead he had chosen to go to the situation room and watch the battles unfold. Like the rest of the room he had cheered at Task Force Two's success. When Task Force One started their pursuit he willed them on, then held his breath as Saintes vanished behind the nuclear inferno. The sight of her emerging damaged but unbowed would stay with him for years. Lives had been lost this day, but they had not been lost in vain. Or so he hoped. As he turned to take his leave of Admiral Watson a transmission from Leander

"We have a situation onboard Saintes and it doesn't look good. She's suffering a reactor containment failure which her engineer tells me is unstoppable. Also most of their escape pods were damaged by the missile blast. However they've got approximately 15 hours until a breach occurs so we have time to try and find a solution." Commodore Delap was short and to the point.

"We'll get the design bureau and engineering sections right on it Delap. Can you attempt a docking?" Admiral Watson replied while other officers started recieving and processing the data.

"Not a chance, Saintes docking port is warped beyond use."

"Isn't she using an Armstrong reactor?" El Presidente interrupted, remembering a technical briefing from months ago

One of the officers checked a screen "Yes sir."

"Then get them onto it as well." Marks ordered

"They wont like it sir, the management is still angry about losing the Leander contracts and the emergency work on Falcon" Watson replied.

"If they ever want another government contract and want to stay out of prison they will help" Marks reply brooked no argument.