Rise of the Remorhaz Society

[sachmo]

An old fashioned butt whuppin!

2412.8

The com unit chirped.
Gina Jager’s eyes snapped open, waking quickly from a fitful sleep. She glanced at it, and considered ignoring it.
It chirped again.
With a groan, she sat up and glanced at the id. It told her that it was a secure channel from Fleet Headquarters. That got her attention.
She quickly wiped the sleep from her eyes, ran her fingers through her hair, and cleared her throat. Whoever it was would just have to deal with her appearance.
She keyed the com unit, and was shocked to see the face of Grand Admiral Urian.
“Gina, did I wake you?” the Grand Admiral asked.
“Yes sir” she answered before thinking, “I mean, I was up sir, just resting.”
He smiled. “I see. The Ukra-Tal have been keeping your pretty busy.”
She ran her fingers through her hair again. She couldn’t believe he was seeing her in this condition!
“Yes sir, they’ve been active, but not really pressing us. Did you get my report, sir?”
She began to wonder where this conversation was going.
“I did”, replied the Grand Admiral, “and I agree with your conclusions. I think we’ve hurt them worse than they expected. I don’t think they will be mounting any more large scale offensives for a while.”
Well it’s always good when your superiors agree with you, she thought.
“That’s why I want you to come back to Remorhaz for a while, Gina. We need to discuss our strategy now the war against the Rage is over. I also thought you might want to be here for the funeral of the Bardron VI casualties.”
Gina processed the information. Why was her pulling her off of the line? She knew that she had been at war for years now. Maybe he thought she had lost her edge.
The Grand Admiral continued.
“We’re reorganizing the Navy into two main fleets. Ukra-Tal Fleet will be based on Highrock. The other fleet will be Romulan Fleet and will be based here on Remorhaz. I’m giving Romulan Fleet to R.J. Brennan. Ukra-Tal Fleet is yours, if you want it.”
Gina’s heart skipped a beat. Fleet command?
“It won’t be official until you get here, but consider yourself promoted. Congratulations, Admiral Jager. I know you are the right person for the job.”
Fleet command? As reality closed in on her, she felt her mouth turn up into a huge grin.
“Sir, I’d be honored” she managed to squeak out.

The next few days were a flurry of activity for the Remorhaz People’s Navy as the reorganization took place.
In Ukra-Tal Fleet, Gina chose her commanders from those she personally knew to be exemplary officers.
Task Force One, which was her previous command, was the easiest choice for her. Walter Reed was an officer that Gina strived to emulate throughout her career. Through a number of circumstances, she had earned the lion’s share of the glory and promotions, but she considered Reed to be the best officer in the Navy. She pressed Grand Admiral Urian to promote Reed to Fleet Admiral, which he did. His flag would be his former command, RSS Stormfront.
Task Force Two, presently based in the Bardron system, she gave to Gordon Lu. Gordon had been a protégé of Sakazawa, and Gina knew from personal experience that he was a brilliant tactician and an excellent leader. Lu was promoted to Rear Admiral. Lu chose RSS Ganymede as his flagship.
Task Force Three was the Iolo Defense Fleet renamed. The heroic defense of Correlia by the tiny fleet against incredible odds was one of the more celebrated stories of the war, and the name of the fleet’s commander was known by all of the children of the Remorhaz Society. Thom Hitcher retained command of his fleet, and was promoted to Rear Admiral. He retained his flag on the legendaryRSS Orion.

For the only task force in Romulan Fleet, Brennan chose to promote Will Crowley to Rear Admiral. Crowley had been XO to Lu while they served on RSS Intimidator, and he had a sterling reputation as an aggressive officer with a great head on his shoulders. Brennan wanted an officer who could plan on the run, since much of the war effort against the Romulans would be improvised as intelligence was gathered. Crowley had proved to be exactly the type of officer he was looking for.

While the reorganization was taking place, the war still raged. In Lenoltris, just days after Gina left in a shuttle for the four month trip to Remorhaz, long range scanners picked up two Ukra-Tal cruisers that had made the worm hole transit from Yukra. Fleet Admiral Walt Reed ordered Task Force One, with fourteen ships and twenty-four fighters to lay a course to intercept the enemy ships. One week later, they met in a quadrant adjacent to Lenoltris III.

At a range of almost three thousand miles, the two fleets deployed into battle formation. The Ukra-Tal ships continued to head right into the heart of the Remorhaz fleet, and so Reed deployed his ships to maximize point defense fire. The Ukra-Tal fleet consisted of a
Hedenso class cruiser, armed with three seeker launchers with very long range, four anti-missile “organs”, and advanced computers and shields. The other ship was a Hedmora class cruiser, with a main armament of two heavy acid launchers, advanced computers and anti-missile “organs”, also. As with most Ukra-Tal ships, their ships were part organic and, given enough time, could heal any damage suffered.
The range closed quickly. Reed pulled his wedge into a tight box, with the fighters out on the flanks.
The Hedenso opened fire on Stormfront at a range of one thousand miles. They would cover that distance in minutes if the Remorhaz ships reversed course, but the intercept time dropped exponentially as they moved to get into guns range of the Ukra-Tal ships. Warning klaxons sounded on the bridge as the seekers locked onto the flagship of the Remorhaz fleet. Reed watched the tactical display as the two fleets continued toward each other. He was confident that his own point-defense fire could knock down all of the enemy seekers, but he wanted to get the first shots in on the Hedmora, and hopefully knock it out before it could bring it’s powerful acid launchers to bare.
Finally, the enemy ships moved into range. At nine hundred miles, Reed ordered all ships to go to flank speed. If they could get the range down to five hundred miles quickly, they would get the first shot.
RSS Liberation was the fist ship to get into range. She was a Glory C Class destroyer, and her main armament was two missile launchers and one heavy cannon. At a maximum range of five hundred miles, she fired, missing with her cannon shot but targeting the Hedmora with a salvo of missiles. RSS Binghampton fired and hit once, damaging the Hedmora’s shields. RSS Hecate also hit once with a cannon shot, damaging her shields even further, but not doing much to slow the Hedmora down. RSS Firefly missed with all of its shots, but Stormfront hit it and brought its shields down to half strength. One of the elements of fighters entered the maximum range of the Ukra-Tal ships anti-missile launchers, and instantly a huge cloud of projectiles was ejected from the Hedenso. The projectiles caught the fighter squadron head on, shredding nine of the craft. The other three were able to avoid the attack.

The Ukra-Tal ships turned to make a raking pass at the Remorhaz battle line. The Hedmora fired another projectile cloud at the fighters, destroying all of them. It then opened fire on Binghampton, hitting with two heavy acid salvos. Fortunately, her shields held, barely, and she escaped the attack unscathed. The anti-missile clouds knocked down most of the Remorhaz missile salvoes, but two still sought their targets.
RSS Hercules now found herself three hundred miles from the enemy cruisers. Her captain was Lieutenant Commander Kahlid Pedram, an aggressive officer in his first command. He closed the range to within one hundred miles and opened fire on the Hedmora with a three cannon salvo. The Ukra-Tal countermeasures spoiled his shots, however, and only one found their target. The cruiser’s shields were down below half strength, but she still had suffered no structural damage. RSS Hecate also closed with the Hedmora and delivered a heavy salvo of cannon fire, hitting with all three shots at very close range. The Hedmora’s shields were almost down.
Binghampton fired and hit the Hedmora once, and then away turned to open the range with the Hedmora to preserve her shields. They would not survive another attack. Firefly closed and attacked, bringing down the Hedmora’s shields and bLasting a furrow in the ships outer skin. No significant damage was done, but the shields were down. Fleet Admiral Reed ordered all ships to continue firing on the battered cruiser, even as Stormfront closed range. Her cannon salvo damaged the organic armor on the port side of the ship so badly that it would be unable to “heal” damage to the ship. RSS Triumph gave the armor on the starboard side the same treatment.
At this point, the Hedmora and the Hedenso split up. Reed would not be fooled though, and continued to hound the enemy cruiser. Hercules remained at point-blank range, hitting the cruiser twice and destroying the ship’s shield generators and opening the crew quarters to space. Ukra-Tal bodies escaped the hole along with gasses and other debris. Buffalo moved into range and delivered a heavy cannon barrage, ripping the port side of the Hedmora open with great explosions. From bow to stern the Ukra-Tal ship was bleeding atmosphere and debris, and the crew of Buffalo watched as one heavy cannon shell ripped open an acid launcher, it’s contents streaming out into space from an ever-widening tear in the hull. Hecate and Firefly surrounded the Ukra-Tal ship, determined to destroy it before the single remaining launcher could launch another salvo of acid. Their combined firepower was more than enough to destroy all weapon systems on the Hedmora. The ship still lived, but would pose no threat to the Remorhaz fleet. Reed immediately turned his attention to the Hedenso.

Stormfront, Liberation, and Triumph brought the ships shields down with one combined salvo of heavy cannon fire. Binghampton bLasted its organic armor down to about half strength before the ship could return fire. Reed ordered all remaining capital ships to attack the Hedenso and leave the Hedmora to the remaining fighters. Hercules continued her relentless attacks and bLasted the remaining organic armor off of the Hedenso. Liberation attacked with a missile salvo and a cannon shot, which hit the cruiser amidships and destroyed two of the anti-missile cloud launchers.
The Remorhaz ships continued to pound the Hedenso with cannon fire, turning it into a twisted wreck. On the tactical display, Reed watched as the Remorhaz missile salvoes overwhelmed the crippled cruiser, bLasting it’s remaining superstructure into a cloud of small pieces.

Ensign Berton watched the Ukra-Tal ship slowly limp through space. Most of its engines were destroyed, its hull was holed and venting gas. Not ten minutes before, it had killed half of his squadron mates, and so it was with singular joy that he ordered his flight of FA-5 Warhammers to commence their attack runs on the Hedmora. Victory 2 rolled in to the attack, executing a prefect rocket attack. The heavy projectiles arced lazily through space, and then struck the ship right near it’s engine room with spectacular force. Quickly, the remaining engines of the Ukra-Tal ship went up as the warheads of the rockets carried on through the hull deep into the powerplant. The explosion consumed the ship in a huge fireball, rocking the fighters with concussive force. Berton watched impassively as the fireball quickly consumed itself, removing all evidence that a warship had even existed in this patch of space. He ordered his element to form up on him and set a course for Highrock, but as he turned he kept his eye on the spot where the Ukra-Tal cruiser had died.
“There’s more where that came from, you slimy bastards.” he whispered to the ghosts as he continued his turn for home. “We’ll be waiting.”

[ June 11, 2004, 13:25: Message edited by: sachmo ]