From the Begining New Chapter Added (9/12/06)

[Starhawk]

The Newest Breed of War pt2:
The Superior’s cutter number ten slipped into the massive docking bay; the bay was so large the cutter wouldn’t even be visible with the naked eye from the farthest end, hundreds of cutters and other small craft called this bay home and as Ross stared out of the view port of his cutter he suddenly felt like a child who had seen the sky for the first time.
The cutter’s hatch opened and a ramp slid down to the deck with a quiet clank that seemed to be swallowed up by the sheer size of the bay, as Ross stepped into view he paused for a moment, stunned yet again as he saw the honor guard that awaited him a full eight thousand crew and marines; at their head Commodore Rukia Fujita and a tall, olive complexioned man whom looked almost frail as he stood next to the shorter but much more muscularly built Spartan Commodore in her full dress mess uniform.

The traditional steel whistle called out an ancient whistle alerting all hands present to a flag officer’s arrival on deck; at the sound the entire company snapped to attention with a sound that would bring confidence to any commander; Ross proudly returned the salute and cleared his throat “As you were.”
A few seconds later Commodore Fujita and the frail looking man at her side stepped forward, Fujita smiled like a schoolgirl as she allowed herself to relish the look of absolute shock on her new Admiral’s face.
“Welcome aboard the Holy Crusade Admiral.” The young woman offered her hand to Ross, who took it and grinned sheepishly as he realized he had been gawking like a backwater mudfoot.
“Thank you Commodore, she’s certainly one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen.” His grin widened as he looked around the massive “boat bay” again, still staggered by its sheer size.
“Tell me commodore how do you keep the enemy from flying straight into this great big beast and blowing you all apart?” Ross smiled wickedly this time and suppressed a chuckle when he saw the look of shock on face of the Captain next to Fujita.

Being acquainted with Ross’ quirky sense of humor Fujita was totally unflustered as she smiled back and managed a velvet smooth voice “Well Admiral unlike that bucket of bolts that was your old flagship the Holy Crusade has the latest in void shield technology, oh and not to mention a fifteen meter thick blast door that seals off the entire launch bay in battle conditions.” Fujita turned to her aid and her smile turned once again into a grin as she noticed the man’s confusion.
“Oh Admiral may I present Flag Captain Elijah Jones of the New Bethlehem colony.” She nudged the younger man who stepped forward and saluted.

“It’s an honor to be meeting you Admiral.” Elijah’s voice was surprisingly deep for a man that looked so thin, his accent was also very unusual within the Icaran Empire and Ross had to remind himself that the New Bethlehem colony had not been part of the Icaran Empire until it was discovered by the Midwinter about ten Terran years ago, fortunately for both Icara and New Bethlehem the Colony’s leaders had decided to join the Empire voluntarily due to both political and religious reasons instead of trying to put up resistance.

“Good to meet you too Jones, how long have you been aboard Crusade?” Ross always liked to get to know his senior officers and he had realized long ago that a more casual approach often helped; obviously he could look up the man’s entire service record in about five minutes but he preferred hearing things straight from the “horses mouth”. He suppressed a grin at the thought of a big hairy mammal no Icaran had seen in a few centuries talking.

“Well sir she’s only about four months old and I’ve been with her since her latter stages of construction, so I’d say about one standard year.” Jones said crisply and smiled with pride as Ross nodded and looked around at the amazing “boat bay” again.
“It almost doesn’t fit to call this thing a ship does it?” Ross asked no one in particular as Rukia and Jones turned to lead him out of the massive boat bay.

A few minutes later Admiral William Ross and his new command staff, Commodore Rukia Fujita and Captain Elijah Jones stepped off the lift and onto the main bridge, William came up short as he stepped off the lift and saw the sprawling two tiered command center.
“My Lord I’ve seen planetary defense command centers smaller then this!” Ross said excitedly as he looked around the sleek dimly lit bridge.
“Well sir considering this warship is 60 kilometers in diameter and rates 25 megatons I’d say she deserves a good command center.” Rukia grinned and guided Ross to one of the many holographic displays on the bridge before she continued talking. “This particular station shows a display of the overall ship’s status, including our armaments and shield capabilities.”
“So what are the capabilities of this ship Commodore?” Ross felt more excited then he had since laid eyes on the first Yu Hing Pe super dreadnought to roll of the line, this ship was something that was generations beyond anything Ross had ever seen before in sheer size and power.
“We have eight spinal mount I-lasers capable of a 50 terawatt stream for five seconds, beyond that we have 89 massive mount I-lasers on top of that each capable of the standard 2 terawatt 3 second stream.” Rukia smiled as she noticed the shocked expression on Ross’ face, she tabbed a control on the panel and the hologram changed from a view of the exterior of the massive warship to a display of the internal layout.
“We have the latest generation energy focusing lenses so we lose less then five percent of energy per shot, making them about twenty percent more effective then the weapons on the current build SDs, though NavTech is working on that, we’ve made some other improvements too……” After an hour of briefings on the newest improvements made to the Holy Crusade William decided to take some of the tech manuals to his quarters and invited Rukia to come along, partly because he wanted to talk to her and private and partly because he had no clue how to get to his own quarters.

As the two officers stepped through the door to Ross’ quarters and the marine closed the hatch behind them William turned to Rukia and smiled humorlessly “So Rukia tell me what’s been going on back home, I hear some things are changing” he tried to keep his tone from becoming grim but it didn’t seem to help much and he realized that as Rukia’s face suddenly turned pale.
“Well sir some of the frontier worlds have begun rioting more and more and the Praetor has declared them rogue until such time as the FSD can get in there and stabilize the situation…..and sir I didn’t want to tell you this in front of the rest of the crew but Home Fleet got tarred pretty bad trying to take out a Mantisoran controlled colony.” She paused for a moment and her eyes darted about the room like she was trying to do anything but look at the shocked expression on Ross’ face.

“Is Lin….?” He felt the words stick in his throat and he couldn’t manage to force them free.
“She’s uninjured Sir but she’s under review by the Admiralty, they don’t think she did anything wrong per se but she lost all but one of her fleet’s SDs and one of her Flag Monitors took a beating.” Rukia stepped closer to Ross and resisted the urge to put her hand on his shoulder, an official review by the Admiralty would not likely end Lin’s career but it could easily be seen as a black mark on her permanent records, but more then that Ross knew how Lin would feel about losing so many of her own ships and crews taking over one planet.

“Well as long as she’s alright she’ll pull through this, how are things on the military front I hear there are some strange reforms in the works?” Ross managed to keep his voice more casual this time and he could barely contain the mix of Relief and worry knotting his belly.

“Actually yes sir, the fleets are all being pulled back to Norvor and many of our outlying worlds are being isolated via warp point closing ships. Our orders for now though don’t include falling back to Norvor at this time but it probably won’t be much longer.” Rukia sat in the chair Ross waved her too before continuing “Sir its only scuttlebutt but it makes sense since so far everyone except us has been recalled to Norvor and the fleets are being reorganized as the battlemoons come on line, we’ve also got word that all production of Super Dreadnoughts has temporarily ceased until the fleets get back home.”

William frowned thoughtfully and rubbed his forehead, in a way it made sense to recall the fleets if the frontier worlds were rioting and the United Mantis Kingdom was reorganizing into more effective defensive and offensive units, word had reached the Navy that most of the so called “new frontier” worlds had fallen to the Mantis navy months ago and even the Royal Navy couldn’t be everywhere so continuing to take worlds they couldn’t hold made no sense.
“So when does the new building program begin?” Ross was more curious then grim this time, he knew there was no way in hell Rodrick would let the navy sit on the defensive for long but the frontier worlds had to be reminded that no matter who they once belonged to they were now Icaran citizens, and Icaran citizens don’t riot.
“Well it’s supposed to start early next year once everything back home has been cleaned up and we get the fleet reorganized.” She managed a brief smile, she had been back on Icara for the past year and a half with a mix of recovering from her injuries and helping get the crew of the Holy Crusade up and ready for launch so she had actually looked forward to getting back out on the front lines, but Ross and most of First fleet hadn’t even seen Icara for almost three years and she knew they’d look forward to the recall for at least a little while.

“So tell me more about what’s been going on back home.”