The Demise

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER FIVE: CHASE-----

“Second Wing, left flank, fire all torpedoes! Third Wing, form up, right flank, fire all flak lasers!”
“Second Wing copies! Torpedoes away! Half of ‘em have hit all these rocks!”
“Third Wing! She’s hiding behind some large asteroids! We can’t get a clear shot!”
“That’s why I hate fighting in an asteroid field..... Third Wing to left flank, fire! Fourth Wing, vertical echelon, pursue!”
“Fourth Wing! She’s dropping seismic charges! She’s drop–”
“Fourth Wing lost! Second Wing, scatter cone, pursue!”
“She’s launching cluster torpedoes! Breaking off! Repeat, breaking off!”
“Third Wing, take down those torps, then form up behind me!”
“No can do, sir! Torps’ve already split up, we can’t stop ‘em anymore! Forming up!”
“Second Wing taking losses!”
“First Wing calling base, come in base!”
“First Wing, this is base. Pull back, repeat pull back. We’re sending Hunter squadrons after her. Pull back!”

Tamarillho had found a way to monitor the military comms frequencies without being noticed. This proved to be very handy.

Though she didn’t know what Hunter squadrons were, she knew, regarding her situation of being in an asteroid belt, having just destroyed several high-quality fighters and forcing the rest to break off their attack, it would spell trouble.

Big trouble.

A squadron of fifteen small fighters appeared on her scanner viewscreen. The speed with which they moved and the uncanny maneuverability of the fighters in the rather dense asteroid belt caused a slight hint of sheer terror to appear in Tamarillho.

She struggled to find the frequency these fighters communicated on. She found it. Robotic computer sounds. Not good.

The pack of fighters soon caught up with her. Risking a look backwards, Tamarillho saw a sleek black fighter with an approximate conical shape and a sleek bluish engine trail. As it easily flew past a largish asteroid, it performed a barrel roll. No cockpit window. No pilot hatch. Just two sleek weapons mounted on what seemed to be the underside of the nose of the fighter.

She was being chased by a squadron of robotic fighters designed specifically for work inside asteroid belts.

“OK, so you may be built for work in these bloody rock-infested regions, but can you handle a few tricks of a human mind?”

She still had three of her five seismic charges left, and eighteen of her twenty cluster torpedoes. Weighing in at ten small torpedoes per cluster torp, this was quite an arsenal, though she knew not to waste it unless there was a very good reason to. For all she knew, there might be hundreds more Hunters coming her way, out of her scanner range.

However, losing the squadron of fighters was hard. They hadn’t fired yet, but that was probably because they were still in an area with a rather high asteroid density. The fighters were clearly trying to drive her to open space, like a group of cowboys chasing a cow into an enclosure. Spotting this threat, Tamarillho took her chances and ducked straight down, away from the ecliptic plane. The fighters, after a moment’s consideration, followed her. Now, they seemed to be simply hanging on to her, following her until a new opportunity arose for them to drive her into a clear space. She wouldn’t give them that opportunity. Not if it was up to her.

However, she soon noticed a lightly dense dust cloud in an otherwise empty region, probably the site where a large asteroid had been mined to dust. The fighters went into a tighter formation and started closing in. There was no clear way to evade flying into the dust cloud, so Tamarillho had to take action.

The fighters pulled closer together and prepared for the kill.
“Come on, come on, just a little bit closer..... GOTCHA!”
Just at the edge of the dust cloud, Tamarillho dropped one of her three remaining seismic charges at almost point-blank range. The fighters had little or no time to evade. Ten of the fifteen fighters perished in the explosion, the remaining five scattered in all directions. The shockwave of the blast sent Tamarillho’s fighter spinning straight in the direction of a large asteroid. She stabilized her fighter with the nose pointing approximately downward regarding her previous course. She fired up her afterburners and narrowly avoided scraping the asteroid. She needed a new trap, a new place where she could easily take out her pursuers.

Four more squadrons suddenly appeared on her scanner viewscreen, closing in fast. The five remaining fighters of the first squadron pulled back together and resumed their chase.

Tamarillho spot her chance. A large asteroid which had a tunnel running through it, a rather wide tunnel with an S-turn in the middle. Probably the result of the miner droids following the path of a metal vein and hollowing out the asteroid as they harvested the materials.

“Ok, so you can perform some nice astrobatics. But can you handle the dirty tricks of a human mind?”

She slowed down to 20% of normal maximum speed and let the fighters close in. When the four squadrons and five fighters – totalling sixty-five pursuers – were arrayed behind her, she kicked in the afterburners again and sped for the asteroid. Making a tight turn, Tamarillho ducked into the tunnel. The fighters followed in single file. Leading them towards the S-turn, Tamarillho couldn’t stop grinning.

As she predicted, the fighters closed their ranks so as not to lose her in the turn. When all sixty-five robotic menaces were arrayed in the S-turn, Tamarillho pressed the button hard and dropped her remaining two seismic charges.

She pushed her afterburners to overload to escape the shockwave and massive cloud of debris chasing her through the tunnel after the detonation immediately vaporised her pursuers.

Making a sharp turn upwards, Tamarillho spotted two more squadrons closing in on her from “above”. Noticing the big empty space in front of her, she took her chances and launched three cluster torpedoes. She tracked the small dots on her scanner and saw them closing in on the thirty blips, splitting up into thirty tiny dots as they got close. None of the fighters managed to escape; all thirty were hit head-on by a micro-torp.

Thinking she was safe, Tamarillho relaxed and loosened her grip on her control stick. She didn’t really notice the cloud of blips that assembled on the edge of her scanner viewscreen.

When she did, she panicked.

She spot twelve squadrons of fifteen fighters each assembling not so far from her location.

One hundred and eighty fighters. No more seismic charges. Hey! Fifteen cluster torpedoes..... One hundred and fifty micro-torps!

She turned around sharply and headed straight for the cloud of blips, ignoring the fact that every single atom of her instincts told her to run like hell. Closing in on the fighters, she launched all of her remaining cluster torpedoes and pulled the control stick back hard.

Even though the explosion was directly behind her, she was blinded momentarily by the flash. The chain reaction of one hundred and fifty fighters exploding almost simultaneously was so powerful, that the other thirty fighters also perished – the explosion even generated a shockwave, and a powerful one at that.

Rejoicing her victory, Tamarillho set a course for the Devonshire warp point and kicked in her afterburners.

-----END OF CHAPTER FIVE-----

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Who, Tamarillho or Janeway?

And indeed I thought it's be fun starting a story in a middle/late era, with highly developed technology (note the fact that I mentioned Assault Dreadnoughts, which are the third larget ships in Capship, and take a helluva lot of research to acquire) and large empires spanning lots of systems.

Revised "Part One", better? (I didn't modify a lot, as I personally like it this way)

[El_Phil]

Janeway. *spit*

Tamarilho has great potential, it'll be interesting to see what happens to her.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Well, as of yet, I have no idea. I do know something, however; but I won't tell it just yet. Perhaps she'll die in the execution of her mission, perhaps she'll get captured by an enemy ship, perhaps this'll be a story thread about the exciting adventures of an unarmed garbage scow I really have no idea whatsoever.....

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRST REVELATION-----

As the Vulture set a course for the next warp point, the second in the line of seven warpjumps that had to be made to reach Tangey, the TO said he’d picked up an incoming transmission. A directed transmission.

“Commander we’re receiving a call from “C-Alpha 5 Devonshire” directed specifically at us. Fleet Governor Cho on the line, he wants to speak with you.”
“Business or personal?”
She spotted the helmsman and the nav officer exchanging a look, but decided to ignore it. These were fresh rookies, who probably were all under 20 years of age.
“Business, ma’am. He says he needs to alert you.”
“Very well put him on screen then, it’s impolite to keep a ranking officer on the line for so long!”

The image of the twin suns of Devonshire, small specks of bright light at this distance, the planets invisible, flickered for a moment, then the face of Fleet Governor Yuang Cho appeared onscreen. The senior commanding officer in the Devonshire system, over sixty years of age, with a lifetime of combat action behind him, looked stern and impersonal. Tamarillho flashed on the thought that she heard a rumor that even on his wedding day, Cho looked like a statue or a robot, distant and emotionless. Oh well. He’s earned the right to have that look on his face 36/10. He’s the guy who singlehandedly saved the lives of sixteen million colonists when his ship was crippled. He’s lucky he survived the ramming maneuver.

“Commander Tamarillho, your new…. command,” the slight sarcasm with which Cho said the last word didn’t escape anyone on the bridge, “is going well, I assume? I must say, I had expected to be forced to deploy a recovery unit to get you back to a repair station after you completed your warpjump.”
“Well sir, looks like you were wrong. We’re still in one piece. You don’t even have to refill our supply of lifeboats yet.”
The corners of the FG’s mouth seemed to curl up very slightly, but it could also be a random muscle twitch.
“Now that the….. formalities are behind us, I have news for you.”
“Let me guess….. no new Exeter-class freighter waiting for me?”
“No, sorry to disappoint you. But, I do have something else waiting for you.”
Tamarillho clasped the arms of her seat. It couldn’t be? They were actually giving her command of a warship?
“No, no, Commander. I can see what you’re thinking. No. I’m sorry. But we ARE giving you other….. toys.”
“Like what, Sir?”
“A single squadron of five Wasp-class interceptors, and a heavy combat scout to escort you.”
“Why?”
“We’ve picked up evidence of unknown ship movements around Tangey, possibly enemy. We don’t want to lose you.”

This was the first moment Elsee Tamarillho realized she wasn’t just on a salvage mission, and she had been placed on the Vulture because of her previous commands, not despite them.

“I’m touched by your concern.”
“Not my concern, Central Command’s concern. Not that I don’t care about a promising young Commander, of course.”

Central Command? The central body of Grand Admirals which controlled any and all combat action and war fleet deployment? Now she knew for certain this wasn’t a simple fly-in, salvage, fly-out mission. Now she knew she was in trouble. Potentially BIG trouble.

“You are to proceed to New Carina at one point five max first grade speed.”
“Sir, besides the fact that civilian authorities are going to give me – and you – hell about this, I doubt this thing is even capable of reaching full first-grade max speed, let alone one point five.”
“I believe your helmsman might know the answer.”

Puzzled, Tamarillho looked at Ensign Durryn. He looked as baffled as herself. An 18-year-old Academy reject? What could he possibly do? OK, some of her previous engineers and helmsmen were able to work wonders – she still vividly remembered the day she outmaneuvered a Pirate Faar-Chi-class Hunter with a fully loaded London-class heavy freighter – but this young, inexperienced man – no, boy? He even had some pimples left.

A look of slow realization crept across the young man’s face.

“Ohhh….. Of course….. Setting course for New Carina, one point five max first grade.”

Fleet Governor Cho closed the comms channel. Tamarillho went over to the helm console. She was utterly at a loss for words.

The console in front of her wasn’t a standard-issue Star Hauler-class helm console like she had expected. It looked a little like the helm consoles she had seen on pictures of the bridge of the latest model of Soyuz-class destroyer.

In fact, it looked exactly like a Sojuz-class helm console.

-----END OF CHAPTER TWO-----

Well?

[TurinTurambar]

Nice! I like where it's going!

You have a keen mind for fiction, Young Padawan...

~T

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Thank you Turin Part Three coming up soon..... Going to name the chapters from now on I think.....

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER THREE: HAZARD-----

Ensign Durryn acted quickly. Within seconds, the stunned Tamarillho sensed the ship change course and she felt the familiar slight lurch as the vessel accelerated. She was surprised that the Vulture reacted so quickly. This design was old, and its engines far outdated. The antimatter plasma engines – primitive by today’s standards – provided less than half the thrust a semi-reactionless photon drive, as was currently widely used in the merchant navy, did. Yet, the ship accelerated faster than Tamarillho had expected. Taking into consideration the fact that the ship was slow (or so she thought), she had Durryn take them to the warp point at point five first-grade. She thought she was already pushing the ship’s engine capacities slightly, but as she saw the variable-speed indicator on the helm console display one point five max, she knew she had been wrong. What was going on?

At first she thought she was in command of an old-fashioned garbage scow, but now she realized there was more to the Scrap Vulture than met the eye. First her bridge helm console looked like it was transplanted from the newest destroyer class in the fleet, then the engines turned out to be better even than the current standard in merchant shipping….. There was more, she knew, there had to be more. She knew about the sealed-off corridors in outlying sectors of the ship, but she thought that was because of the fact that there were supposed to be test labs and armories there, and they hadn’t been built at the yard. Now she doubted that.

There was also something strange about the hull….. She did recognize it as the old Star Hauler-class, but it also reminded her of something, of something – she couldn’t remember, the image had been vague, but she had dismissed it as being a result of the curved cockpit screen of her transport shuttle. She didn’t take the opto-digital correctors into account then.

She awoke with a start from her ponderous mood when her TO shouted across the bridge.
“Ma’am! Unknown ship entering the system! It’s headed for New Carina!”
“Run a max-res deep-scan – for as far as your sensors permit – and check it with all known friendly and enemy vessels in the database!”
“Deepscanning….. I’ve got a positive hull recognition,” Tamarillho was surprised, but not too much. She didn’t expect any result this fast, but with the realizations of the past few minutes she thought it’d be logical. “it’s one of our Kent-class combat landers. But, hey, this is strange…..”
“What, Lieutenant?”
“It….. it seems to be equipped with….. no, that can’t be right….. with Tarmalean pulse-cannon turrets. And….. torpedo launchers?”

This wasn’t right. Sure, the Kent combat landers were armed, but that was with point-defense repeaters and light tracker turrets. Not with heavy anti-capital ship turrets, of enemy design no less! And torpedoes?

“Can you get me an ID on her torpedo stock?”
“Already done, ma’am. Four launchers, two tubes per launcher, one magazine per tube. Fifty-torp capacity per mag.”

Fifty torpedoes? Not even the AEGIS Cruisers deployed by Central Command in long-range fire-support duty had magazines that large.

“ID on the torps?”
“Twenty standard high-explosives, twenty long-rangers, ten heavy-duty capship killers per mag.”
“Ensign Durryn, reverse course, now!”
“Aye aye. Reverse course. Brace yourself.”

Tamarillho nearly fell our of her command chair when the ship did a perfect 100 in about half a second. Most Scouts didn’t react that fast. The image of the slightly unusual contours of her hull flashed back again. She could almost grasp it.

“Course looking good, first-grade max back to the ‘point.”
“When we’ve put one thousand clicks between us and that….. thing, change course for C-Alpha 5 Devonshire. Two first-grade max.”
Durryn turned around and looked at her for a second, puzzled. When he turned back, he changed the ship’s course again. Tamarillho remembered to grab a nearby bracer beam just in time. The nav officer didn’t.

“Ensign Terlan, back to your station. And remember the bracer beams next time.” she said on a slightly amused tone. The nav officer flushed a deep red and went back to his station.

Tamarillho’s expression suddenly changed from amusement, to surprise, to wonder, to horror.

She recognized the hull contours.

She was on the bridge of the first top-secret Hunter Assault Craft.

-----END OF CHAPTER THREE-----

[dogscoff]

Yeah! Keep it coming!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

For all those who wondered what was happening with this story, yes, it was dead for a while. However, recently I resumed writing, and I'll try to pick up the pace on updates again. Eventually, I will also be working on the already existing parts as well, expand them, and hopefully turn them into a book. I hope to have finished the online version before the end of the year, and I hope I can manage to get a good, book-worthy version before summer 2006. When (if) that's done, I'll see what I can do about publishing, and if I manage to do that, you'll be the first to know.



For now, here's the Epilogue to Part Two.



-----EPILOGUE-----

The post-human transcendi, the only survivors of the ancient Human Confederation, were in debate.

“We were wrong to bring her here – she needs to know nothing!” an elder post-human stated.
“If we were to keep her in the dark, what do you think would happen?” another elder asked. “How is she supposed to carry out our plan if she does not know what to do?”
“We have been like this for long enough. The plan has already entered its next to final stage; the sooner we can return to the physical plane the better!” This was the first time since the fall of the Confederation that a junior mingled with the debate of the elders. Most other juniors were shocked, the elders taken aback. The first elder recovered first.
“Exactly. We have been like this for a long time, I agree. That means that we can afford to spend a year or two more like this, no? What's two years on a scale of sixteen billion?”
“Still, remember that whoever was meant to carry out the plan would have needed specific information. We would have been forced to bring her here eventu-” The second elder was cut off by a sneer from the first.
“You've obviously forgotten a little too much of the physical plane, haven't you? We could've sent her a message on one of those crude “electronic” computer panels, she wouldn't even have to know we existed until we-”
“And do you really think she'd follow instruction given to her by a completely unknown person using a random computer console?!? You suggested this woman because of her intelligence and strength of will! She wouldn't follow orders like you apparently expect her to!”
“Then send the instructions directly into her mind. Manipulate her thoughts!”
“She has too much mental strength for that – she'd notice, what's more, she's probably capable of shutting us out too, of fighting us, killing us even! She has more mental strength than a Cargazian supertelepath prophet!”
“There HAS to be SOME way to give her the instructions WITHOUT having to bring her here!”
“No.” The second elder's “voice” was very calm. “There is, unfortunately, no other way in which we can instruct her, manipulate her. She – she is too strong-willed to accept anything but her own judgment, and only here are we strong enough to manipulate that.”
“We could have chosen someone else, someone who is just as intelligent but who is mentally weaker.”
“First, there is no-one – no human anyway – with her intelligence, with her specific intelligence. Second, anyone with less strength of will would shrink away from what he or she would have to do. Third – she is the only one who is capable of accessing the plasma launchers over Kythera, the plasma collection chamber inside these launchers and the biochemical laboratories on the Vespucci station. We need her. We need her here.”

-----END OF EPILOGUE-----