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

[Starhawk]

OOC: Well by the story Icara would never send their crews to a suicide mission on purpose, unless they were renegades, but the Icarans would never trust renegades with a warship either.
The funny thing is that I only ever built TWO light cruisers as my research into cruiser technology progressed far faster then I thought it would.
I'll probobly put the Light cruiser Retribution into mothballs over Icara to stand aside as a "museam" like the Saber and Enterprise the other will probobly be scrapped.
The Cruisers I'll probobly turn into escort carriers as I like that idea the best

Oh and Kerensky, not yet but a Character I have in mind will likely be based on some of your personality traits.

Well anyway I'll shut my big yap and give you guys what you really want, some story

2418.4 Sunburst and Glory:
The 3rd fleet’s three heavy cruisers had rejoined the fleet only two months ago after being totally overhauled, and their return was just in time as the sensors had picked up a ten ship fleet of Phong light cruisers heading for their position at full military thrust.
Ross sat tensely in his command chair aboard Hawkwing watching the tactical display intently, this would be the first combat test of the new I-Lasers and if anything went wrong, no nothing would go wrong Ross wouldn’t let anything go wrong. And besides that-he thought- if the heavy cruisers failed he still had a small group of cruisers with old PPB cannons to fall back on.
“Admiral, targets entering weapons range in two minutes.” The tactical officer chimed off every minute as the fleets closed, to Ross ears the countdown sounded like a dirge, but whether it was for his enemy or his heavy cruisers Ross did not know.

The ranges closed until finally the targeting lights shown a brilliant green, the chief weapons officer nodded in the Captain’s direction, Captain Barret looked at Ross anxiously awaiting the order to fire.
“Open fire all batteries.” Ross said grimly, he felt himself cross his fingers, he also prayed quietly as the seconds ticked off. Finally the weapons batteries of the three Midwinter class heavy cruisers lit space with green fire. A massive wall of beams sliced into the leading Phong warships, the first shots brought down the shields with ease, the rest of the broadsides lashed into armored hulls and broke them like toys, vaporizing entire sections of plating and hull. In less then five seconds five Phong light cruisers vanished in brilliant fireballs.
The Cruisers of the 3rd fleet joined their larger cousins in the attack, they opened up with their Phased Poloron cannons and destroyed another two Phong warships.

“Admiral, the Phong ships are attempting to retreat!” Barret smiled sharkishly as he watched the three remaining Phong ships turn about and head away from the fleet at high speed.
“Kill them all mister Barret, I want no survivors of this little fleet of theirs.” Ross felt the power of his ship anew, she had been formidable with her old weapons systems but with these new guns, against the Phong she would be invincible!

The Icaran heavy cruisers though larger then their Phong counterparts were far faster due to their superior engines, they had no trouble catching up with the inferior Phong ships, the three enemy ships fired their weapons desperately but to no effect, the superior ECM and shielding of the Icaran warships made the Phong DU fire totally ineffective.
Unfortunately that handicap was only on the Phong’s side, the Lenin was the first of the Icaran warships to enter weapons range, she opened fire with all the fury of hell, two of the surviving enemy ships vanished in brilliant explosions, and debris fields. The third ship was hit three times by the Lenin’s batteries, she lost 2/3 speed and all but one of her guns.
Defender finished the job when she entered weapons range, her beams sliced the enemy ship into slags of metal and wreckage in barely a second’s time.

Ross leaned back in his command chair proudly, he smiled at his bridge crew and signaled his congratulations to the rest of the fleet, on the first successful combat action of the Midwinter class heavy cruisers and their new I-Laser armament.

Meanwhile
The first fleet under Admiral Babcock continued their invasion of the Mestra system and claimed yet another planet to the cause of Icara, a second Phong colony was destroyed by one of the 1st fleet’s Midwinter class heavy cruisers when it was decided that the colony would not be worth the loss of Icaran lives.

2418.6
The shipyard of Icara city hummed with noise and activity, a massive three kilometer long hull began to take shape within the “dry dock” facility, as thousands of workers buzzed about like ants, nano-welding hull plating together, wiring power cells together, or doing one of any hundred jobs that were involved in the construction of a space fairing capital warship.
This scene was being repeated across nearly a dozen worlds of Icara and also in orbit of Icara it’s self as the orbital yards began construction. The first “block” of the newest and deadliest class starship ever constructed by Icara was well on it’s way t joining service. The Lord Nelson class Dreadnought was larger stronger and faster then any known warship besides those of the Manti’s, these ships would be the new ships of the line for Icara, each dreadnought cost nearly two billion credits and took large amounts of raw materials to build yet when they were completed, this first block alone would possess more firepower then the entire current Royal navy put together and that fact alone is what convinced the House of Lords, and Praetor Leonidas to authorize the navy to begin construction.

[Starhawk]

A brief history and genealogy of Icara
This is a little bit of a side to my story, to give you guys an idea of why the Icarans are who they are. [note] Icarans come from an alternate history of Earth.[/note]

What is an Icaran?:
An Icaran is a human being plane and simple, the current generations of Icarans have been geneticaly engineered for increased lifespans, this process is known as "sustain" or "prolong" depending on what world you are from.

Where did it all begin?:
The Icaran civilization began in the year 3000 BC in Lacedonia, near the ancient city of Sparta the founding of Icara (literally Homeland in ancient Icaran) by a tribe known as Icarani would begin what is now known as the "Dawn"-or Dawn of Civilization.
Originally the Icarans were a nation of philosophers and poets devoted to peace and the understanding of the universe and nature wherein they were created.

This all changed however when their neighbors the Spartans launched a brutal war on Icara leading to half the Icarani tribe's extermination before they finally repulsed the brutal Spartan invasion.

This invasion led to centuries of Icaran "defense" wherein Icara became the dominant global power on Earth, with no "dark ages" occuring the technological developments of the world continued to increase.

By the twentieth century Icara had colonized Mars, and dozens of moons and asteroids throughout Sol. This age of peace ended however when rival nations of earth unified against Icara and launched a nuclear sneak attack on Icara's earth heald territories.

The resulting war Lasted for decades and ended in the "final march" wherein the Praetor of Icara personally led the Last remnants of the Icaran military against the "Sol Coalition" forces in an effort to defend the Icaran colony ships that were evacuating Sol in search of a new world they could claim for themselves.

The final march was the Last valiant act of the Royal military of that era, the Royal army and marines charged in human waves in desperate attempts to beat back the Coalition forces that were attacking evacuation sites, the Icarans faced their end with bravery unmatched in all of history, soldiers wept and prayed and kissed their loved ones good bye and then without hesitation through themselves at their enemies.
The soldiers of Icara charged into the armored advance, thousands died, but many soldiers took out tanks with them, grenades strapped to their bodies exploding under the treads of enemy tanks.
In space the defense was equally valiant, when Icaran ships were too badly damaged to fight they charged their enemies and rammed them or died trying.

In the end though defeat was inevitable, nearly a billian Icarans made it out of Sol on evacuation ships, the Praetor was knocked unconcious by one of his own commanders and loaded into the Last evacuation ship before the captain who knocked him out led the Last Icaran cruiser in a suicide charge at Coalition warship destroying both ships and allowing the evac ship to make it out.

The age of rebuilding:
The Icaran evacuation fleet ended up far from where they had initially intended too and only five hundred million people survived the trip as many vessels were destroyed in the anomoly that transproted them to this system. The survivors found themselves half way across the galaxy in a star system with two inhabitable worlds.
Due to the small population of the evacuation fleet only a single world was colonized, and named Icara after their long lost homeland.
It was the year 2120 at this stage of history and for centuries Icarans rebuilt their shattered civilization, and attempted to find out what had transported them to this particular system.
Modern scientists found out that it was in fact a warp point that had transported the colony fleet so far from earth, and also realized that the warp point to earth had collapsed during the centuries of rebuilding. However they also harnessed grav sail technology which would allow them to traverse the remaining warp points safely.

What the Icarans Believe:
The Icarans beleive that they were chosen by God to rule over humanity, and view the fall of their Solar empire as proof of this since they fell to other nations that had once been considered allies of Icara.

Their Religion
The Icaran religion is an offshoot of Christianity and is known as "The Path", though Icarans who follow this religion still refer to themselves as Christians.

The main differences between the Path and "traditional" Christian denominations is that the Path believes that the Praetor line was chosen by God to lead his chosen people to victory over the nations of man and unify humanity in his name.
These "Praetors" (Divine Ruler in ancient Icaran) are considered saints in the Path and although not worshipped or prayed to they are revered as "the chosen" and followed almost religously by the general populace.

The Praetor Line:
The "Praetor Line" is a single family line that goes back millenia and has ruled the Icaran Empire since the begining of recorded history.
This family "though of course changed through marrage and the introduction of new blood" is considered divinely chosen and many Icarans throughout history have died to protect the members of "The Praetor Line". In fact during the battle known as "The Last March" an entire battle squadron died to get the Praetor on to one of the evacuation ships even though it took rendering him unconcious to do so.

The "Praetorship" is heald by men alone because of the traditions of millenia, The women of a Praetor family are treated with great respect however and the wife or "Praetani" is revered almost as much as her husband.

The Society of Icara:
The Icaran government is based on a system similar to Fuedalism yet also different in that the nobility is not chosen by the Praetor for simple political reasons. Instead the nobility of Icara is directly related by blood to the Praetor line and many are in fact directly related to the Praetor himself.

The general poplation of Icara is not treated like the common surfs of fuedalism but instead they are treated with a great deal of respect. In fact the Praetor and nobles are required by Icaran law and religion to ensure the safety and proper treatment of every commoner under their vigilance.

The Icaran population as a whole beleives strongly in their government and it's "divine right" to rule over all humanity and as such it is the dream of almost every healthy young Icaran to join the armed forces and add themselves to the cause.

The Icaran Race:
Icara was a multinational Empire during it's glory days in Sol and as such has several races within it a general breakdown follows:

Icaran 90%: (Icaran refers to the general "mixed race" population, after centuries of intermarrage of the races within the Icaran empire it has become difficult to tell the ancestry of an Icaran simply by their appearance)

White 4%: Though intermarrage has caused most of the Icaran bloodlines to mix there are still many who were isolated from the bulk of the Colonial population due to historal events, many of these retained their original "ancestral appearance".

Asiatic 5%: Though the vast bulk of Icaran population sees mixing of races as something only natural many of those from more "traditional" asian nations that had once been ruled by Icara retained their beleifs that mixing of races diminished the blood of their people and as such refused to do so.
Though this is not the only reason, one of the evac ships from asia crash landed on the southern continent of the world now named Brandenburg and their descendents were only discovered in the early 22nd century.
In the early 24th century the viewpoint of "pure blood" began to change however as the Asiatic genetic base was begining to become more and more restrictive to their population. Many people of pure Asian extract still remain however and in fact those of pure Asian decent outnumber those of any other "pure" bloodline in all of Icara.

African 1%: The sole evacuation ship from Africa to survive the anomoly crash landed on the world now known as Brandenburg and were only discovered during the early 22nd century. With only one colony ship from that continent the descendents of "pure extract" from that line are extremely few in number.

Xeno's Within the Empire:
Xeno refers to any non-human race within the Icaran Empire.
Xeno's do not have the same rights as their human counterparts and are seen as inferior and untrustworthy, at present they are not allowed to vote, own their own property, or serve in the Royal Armed forces.
Xeno's of the Phong varient are forced to serve the industrial complex of Icara until thier (debt of blood) is paid off, most likely this debt will Last for centuries and provide Icara with a free labor force until the time where the debt is paid off.

Though it is known that other Xenos exist currently only the Phong have been brought into the Empire.

(note) Okay that's a brief bit on why Icarans are the way they are, what they beleive and what they look like.

Also note the racial breakdown is in no way based on prejudice but is instead based on how the war with the Sol Coalition went, the initial nuclear strikes were in Africa and Europe and the wars began there.

[Starhawk]

2418.7
Admiral William Ross led the three heavy cruisers of the 3rd fleet confidently into battle with the 7 Phong Light cruisers, the battle report showed that all 7 enemy ships were destroyed before a single one of them entered weapons range. The result of this engagement was that the Royal Armed Forces assigned the 1st Germania Mobile army regiment to the 3rd fleet as soon as their training on Germania was completed.

Mestra System, Mestra II Orbit
The hammer Falls
“Alright you grunts we’re dropping in on the LZ in 5 mikes, lock and load!” Sgt Black shouted to his platoon who had formed up in the launch bay, along with every other unit in the regiment. The regimental prayer had just been finished and now it was the Sergeants turn to address their individual platoons.
Sgt Black smiled toothishly while he watched his platoon file into their dropships, “Now ladies and gentlemen I know most of us have seen action before, and we love it but I want you to remember, keep your heads down and your guns blazing, we are gonna rip the spines out of those yellow bastards and then we’re gonna piss down their necks, AND WE’RE GONNA DO IT SMILING! Do you get me you Grunts!”
“Yes SIR!” was the unanimous response over the com net, just before the dropship slid into a locked position at the Batton‘s drop rack.

An army infantry dropship was a relatively small craft capable of carrying ten fully armed troopers and two pilots, when readied for a drop operation such a craft is loaded into a “drop rack” mounted on the underside of a troopship, this turns the dropship “nose down” to the planet they are facing to increase initial drop speed.
The launch rack its self is basically just a super sized rail cannon which instead of launching shells acts as a “catapult” for the dropships loaded onto it, this initial “drop shot” accelerates the dropship to trans sonic speeds and dramatically increases the survival rate of deploying dropships due to the fact that most anti-aircraft gunners would have a hard time tracking a vessel headed straight down at trans sonic speeds.
An army “tank carrier” drop ship works much the same way except instead of 10 infantry it carries two tanks, or APCs, or 6 armed buggies.

The drop shot happened sooner then Black had expected and even he grunted as the dropship accelerated at twenty gees (only 5 of which were felt, thanks to inertial compensators), Black could feel the blood in his body pooling at his feet, even though the marines were all wearing environmental hard suits for this drop the gravities experienced for the initial ten seconds of drop acceleration was too much for the suit to filter out entirely, the veteran army Sergeant often wondered if anyone was even trying to make the suits more gee resistant or if some pencil pusher back home decided it would be too expensive.
His thoughts came to a rather abrupt end as the horrendous crashing noise of their dropship entering the atmosphere filled the troop compartment. Less then a minute later the pilot’s voice echoed over the com net.
“We’ve got a hot LZ troopers get ready for a rough landing.” the pilot sounded remarkably calm considering the fact that “flak” was already coming straight at the dropships.
Almost before realizing the time had passed Sgt. Black noticed the troop compartment door slide open and noticed he could see the ugly landscape of the enemy planet coming up fast.
The dropship came to a rest about a meter above the ground and the automatic crash harnesses of the army troopers unlocked and Sgt. Black bellowed for his troops to unload.
Enemy energy bolts filled the air, Icaran beams lashing out in return as the Icaran regiment surged towards the enemy defensive position.
Armed buggies raced on ahead of the infantry troops, their three man crews unleashing hellish amounts of fire for such a small vehicle cut down dozens of Phong defenders and opened a gap for the infantry to charge forward.

Black’s platoon was one of the “Alpha” units which meant they were in the leading elements of the advance and as such faced the heaviest enemy fire, the entire platoon fired as it advanced up the hill that acted as the enemy “fortress”, enemy fire came down upon the army troopers in relentless torrents, a trooper in front of Black was hit in the face by an energy bolt, his faceplate vanished and a spray of blood and gore was all that remained of the trooper’s once young face.
Another trooper fell just beside Black, a hole the size of a football burned in her chest, worse still a green glowing orb landed on another trooper’s body armor.
“God!, get it off get it…..” the voice was cut off and screams echoed from where the trooper had once been standing, the explosion erupting from the Phong grenade vaporized the trooper it had attached to and sent three others sprawling through the air, severed limbs, blood and internal gore spraying from their bodies.

“Continue the advance damn you! Follow the company flag bearer DO NOT stay STILL!” a voice bellowed from further up the hill and Black just barely recognized it as Lieutenant Steinburger, the company commander of the “Alpha” unit that Black’s platoon was a part of.
After what seemed like an eternity the lead elements of the company made it to the enemy positions on top of the hill, but the fighting was far from over as the enemy forces engaged the Icarans in a brutal series of hand to hand and close in firefights all along the hilltop.
The armed buggies that had led the charge along other portions of the advance finally came racing in along the hilltop and sprayed fire into the enemy resistance killing or driving off hundreds of Phong defenders.

Operation Hammer ended two weeks later when the Company that Black’s platoon was attached to seized the Phong government bunker and eliminated the entire planetary government staff. Remarkably only 12 Icarans had died in the battle, unfortunately dozens more were wounded many of whom seriously. The Capture of Hill 752 by the Alpha units played a critical role in breaking the defensive perimeter of the Phong colony and the loss of 10 Icaran lives on that hill saved hundreds of others during the two week invasion.

[douglas]

Starhawk said:
OOC: Well by the story Icara would never send their crews to a suicide mission on purpose, unless they were renegades, but the Icarans would never trust renegades with a warship either.

Would the Icarans trust renegades who had to do what they were told or have the self-destruct device on the ship triggered remotely? Of course, this assumes you have self-destruct devices on all your ships.

[Starhawk]

I consider self destruct devices a waste of space and tonnage I prefer not being borded to begin with.

Hmmm I'll just go for the armed carrier Idea I suppose, as it's more economical at present.

Oh and do you guys consider my guys "bad guys" "good guys" or "neutral"?
I was wondering because I have a specific idea in the way I'm trying to develope the Icaran personality but I won't say what it was until you guys tell me what you think, this way I can see if I was able to get their character across properly or not.

[Power Man]

Given their actions so far and based on your background I would have to consider them "bad guys". But more in the way of "Bad to have near me". As a race I would label them "neutral"
I like to spread out and tend to think that even though someone else currently has the planets, eventually, all the systems are mine. I will try to make treaties, and will honor them untill the other guy breaks them.
Your guys shoot first and even if I got a treaty with them I would keep an eye on and move some guard fleets into our borders.

A question. Can you tell us if we will be seeing any more of the "SOL colalition "?? Or is that going to be a suprise?

[Renegade 13]

Hmmm, well I'd describe the Icarans as an "expansionist" empire. As such, they are neither "good" nor "bad", since they do not believe that other races have the right to govern themselves. They are not evil, since they simply believe in their own people, which is a healthy form of nationalism. However, they aren't exactly good either, since they don't seem to be interested in forming treaties with empires whom they believe they can defeat in battle, thereby seizing their territories. I too would call them "neutral" (sort of )

[Starhawk]

Hmm thanks for your opinions anyone else that wants to can also chime in on how you see my race.
Same with if I'm writing anything you consider offensive so that I'll know to be more careful about that.

As far as the Sol Coalition goes, they are still lurking about in my space but for the past few years they havn't bothered contacting me and I havn't contacted them.

2419.0 The Nature of High Technology
Lin unbuckled her tunic and collapsed onto her bed, she had been running battle drills for eight hours, ever since the I-Lasers in battery three suddenly overheated during a test firing. The maintenance staff had run so many tests on the subsystems that they practically had to take the weapons apart, and after ten hours of that they asked her to run a combat drill, that went horribly as the same damned battery overheated and nearly took out the heat syncs. Master Chief Tankousky and his work crews worked on the weapons for another hour then had the battle drill run again. And that time the bloody heat syncs collapsed entirely and the firing mechanism burned it’s self to a crisp along with the focusing lens.
Finally after hours of tests and drills and testing the drills battery three functioned without burning it‘s self out, the entire weapon internals had to be replaced the next morning but at least at the moment the engineers said the weapon would fire properly if it needed too. Lin got up and tossed her dirt caked tunic into a wash unit before stepping into her modest bathroom, she sneered at the reflection in the mirror for a moment before disrobing and stepping into the shower to clean the greasy sludge from the battery three off of her exhausted and aching body.

As the warm water kicked in Lin leaned back against her stall and forced herself to relax and enjoy the warmth of the “simulated” water spray. After a few minutes she wearily dried herself off and dressed in her robe before collapsing into bed again. It seemed like only seconds after she had closed her eyes when the com panel on her wall began to beep, then shrill until finally she slammed her fist into the audio only key.
“What is it?” her tone was less then pleasant but at the moment she was fully expecting one of her engineers to inform her that battery three had gone ape**** again.
“Well Captain Yu that’s no way to address your superior now is it?” the voice on the other end of the com link made Yu snap upright with embarrassment.
“Admiral Ross! I’m sorry sir I was expecting.”
“That’s alright Lin I was just messing with you, unfortunately I do have serious business to inform you of, the long range sensors have detected three Phong light cruisers, now I’ve ordered the fleet to alert but not full battle stations because we know that with their capabilities just one of our heavy cruisers could kill all three of them.
And Yu I’ve chosen Lenin for the job, you guys have taken to much crap from those bastards without being able to give much back, so here’s your chance, intercept and destroy those ships then report back to fleet. Understood?” Yu could almost hear the smile on Ross’ face and unconsciously nodded, before remembering that she had set the unit to audio only.
“Understood sir, I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will Yu, give em hell, then send them there Ross out.”

Yu wiped the sleep from her eyes and tabbed another key on the com panel:
“Bridge, Lieutenant Manning here.”
“Lieutenant this is the Captain, you are about to receive coordinates from fleet command, lay in a course to intercept three hostile warships, based on those locations and maximum speed of hostile craft understood?”
“Aye ma’am.”
“Good I’ll be on the bridge next watch, only com me if it’s an emergency.”
“Aye.”
Yu turned off the com unit and finally laid back down and allowed herself to relax again and began meditating like she had been taught by her grandmother when she was ten, in no time she had slipped off to sleep.

Two Days Later:
The Lenin had finally begun closing with the enemy warships after two days of approaching one another.
“Captain Yu, talisman is acquiring lock on the lead two ships, the third one is staying too far out of range at the moment.”
“Confirmed weps.” Yu swiveled her command chair towards the tactical station and waited for the officer to signal combat range.
The officer looked up and nodded sharply at Yu, she spun her chair back to face the main screen, her mind raced, this was her first solo op against an enemy squadron where she wasn’t using the traditional Phased Poloron beam cannons and the thought of failure made her nauseated.
“Weps, open fire.”
The chief weapons officer nodded, the board of targeting info from the gunnery crews lit up and after what seemed like an eternity he pressed the firing studs on his control panel.
Green beams silently connected the Icaran heavy cruiser to the leading two enemy ships and in the blink of an eye both ships vanished in a ball of fire.
“ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! MALFUNCTION!” the computerized voice rang out and Yu clenched her fists in rage and frustration.
“Ma’am battery three is overheating, malfunctions across the board, Master Chief Rameraz says he’s going to have to shut down all but our secondary batteries or else risk total system collapse.”
“Well Damn it all Lieutenant why don’t you just tell Rameraz to have us spit at the enemy.” Yu snapped violently, these new weapons were all [censored], useless [censored], at least as far as her ship was concerned and it frustrated her beyond belief.
“Target secondary batteries and fire.” She continued irritably.

The secondary batteries easily destroyed the enemy warship and Lenin turned around to rejoin the rest of the fleet, for the two day trip the engineers put up with hell from Yu until they finally discovered the source of the problem, some nimrod back at the dock that retrofit them had totally screwed up the heat syncing and installed heat syncs that were designed to deal with the much weaker phased poloron weapons right next to I-laser grade syncs. Yu was going to have someone’s head when she got back to the fleet and most of the engineers spent their time dodging her for the trip back.

[Starhawk]

2419.1 The new breed
The first Lord Nelson class dreadnoughts slipped out of their massive docks and began deploying to their fleets with all possible speed.

[3rd Fleet]:
“My Lord she’s a beast of a ship!” Ross uttered as the massive three kilometer form of the HMS Shadowclaw jumped through the warp point, she dwarfed every other ship in the fleet and made the older cruisers look like toys.
“Aye sir, but she’s also faster then every other ship in our fleet.” Sandra Fowler said with a smile as she looked over what was going to be her new command.
“Yeah that’s right, she uses the new Quantum reaction engines and Solar grav sails doesn’t she?” Ross looked back at Sandra and remembered seeing that same look on her face when he first gave her command of Saber all those years ago, before she was turned into an orbiting museum over Icara.
“That’s right sir, she also uses the new inertial compensation that the quantum reactor has produced, that means that she can go nearly twice as fast as a Heavy cruiser and her crew won’t feel a thing, it’s marvelous isn’t it sir?” She beamed at her Admiral quickly and returned her eyes to the massive warship in front of her.

The cavernous boat bay of the dreadnought overwhelmed Admiral Ross as he walked down the cutter’s ramp, two columns awaited him in parade formation, one of marines the other of ops crew, all of them came to attention sharply and saluted equally as formally. Ross returned the massed salute and walked forward between the two columns, Fowler a step behind him.

“Admiral on DECK!” the marine sentry inside the massive command center announced, the entire command crew snapped to attention and turned to face the entrance.
“As you were.” Ross smiled openly at the magnificent command center that lay before his eyes, it was huge compared to that of his heavy cruiser, two tiered layout with the command chair on a raised “arm” in the center of the bridge. A holotank sat just behind the command chair and it too impressed Ross, the level of detail and it’s sheer size was breathtaking. He turned to see Fowler glowing with pride and excitement he nodded at her as she walked off to inspect her new bridge.
The Shadowclaw was the first and so far only dreadnought assigned to 3rd fleet so Ross made sure he had pulled the best officers and crew he could for her new command staff, unfortunately captain Yu Lin did not have the seniority of Fowler and so she had to remain aboard [/i]Lenin[/i] until the next dreadnought arrived to reinforce their fleet.
Ross had nothing against Fowler, she was a superb officer and an excellent Captain but he had rather hoped to serve directly with the officer who had served as his flag captain while Hawkwing had undergone repairs and who had been his friend since his days in the academy back in the class of 86.
The joyful moment would not let its self fade so easily however and the Admiral felt his apprehension flow away as he strolled the bridge investigating all the latest gadgets the fleet had installed onto their new behemoths, his curiosity wanted to see what this new AI was like as well but she was offline at the moment and remain so for another month until calibration was completed.

Meanwhile;
The first fleet had received priority for receipt of block one production of the Lord Nelson class dreadnought including the class ship herself. Admiral Tyson Babcock was as impressed with the Lord Nelson as Ross had been with the Shadowclaw however Tyson allowed himself a little quirk of pride in the fact that his flagship was not just any dreadnought but she was the FIRST dreadnought, and the one that bore the class name as well as the best crew.
Along with Lord Nelson the dreadnoughts Falcon, Repulse, and Reinhardt joined the 1st fleet, making it the most powerful formation of warships in Icaran space.

[rdouglass]

2 chapters in one day! I find myself looking forward to the next installment more and more. Good stuff!!!