The Demise

[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 This design was old, and its engines far outdated.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]

Little background again

She didn’t take the opto-digital correctors into account then.

Opto-digital correctors are one of the greatest discoveries in interplanetary shuttle travel (or so the inventors say), it incorporates an advanced optical (the "opto-" part) detection grid on the cockpit window. The data thus collected is sent to an optical digital computer (the "digital" part) which corrects for any distortions in the image, then sends the corrected data back to the optical grid, which displays them onto the interior of the cockpit. This is handy as it avoids the outside images being distorted by the curved window (think along the lines of the Enterprise shuttlepods).

“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.”

This is an obscenely large number of launchers for a ship.

“Twenty standard high-explosives, twenty long-rangers, ten heavy-duty capship killers per mag.”

The "standard high explosives" are standard-issue missiles with a medium to large warhead. The "long-rangers" are missiles with the same size, but a smaller warhead. It has an overpowered engine and increased fuel (i.e. drive plasma) supply, giving it a very long range (one hundred fifty first-grade clicks). The "heavy-duty capship killers" are, as the name implies, absurdly large warheads mounted on a short-ranged low-speed engine.

Tamarillho remembered to grab a nearby bracer beam just in time.

"Bracer beams" are non-structural support beams placed almost everywhere on starships where there existed the chance of people falling over and not being able to grab a wall support in time if the ship made a sudden unexpected movement. Think along the lines of the Voyager's bridge, where there are unusual bars behind Janeway's and Chakotay's chairs. Sorry Phil

Hunter Assault Craft are the fastest, nastiest little ships in Capship. They can mount 15(!) engines at 1 required for movement. They are 500kT, which makes them too small to be a true singular threat to larger capital warships, but they are very effective scouts and harassment ships. Also, when you can swarm a large capital warship with a rather large group of them, it'll be like a cloud of enraged hornets attacking a man with a stack of fly-swatters. Yes I took that from Schlock Mercenary

Next info block is gonna contain some background on Tamarillho.

[dogscoff]

Next info block is gonna contain some background on Tamarillho.

And a planet/system/ship/brewery named after me..?

[El_Phil]

Ahh plot, background and a good story. Combined with the hint of BLAM in the offing and things are looking good!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

The D-SCOFF Module (D-SCOFF stands for "Deep-Space COmms interception Friend or Foe) is a comms interception device deployed on lone satellites and automated stations to intercept friendly and enemy transmissions. Good with you?

Commander Elsee Tamarillho is a 34-year-old merchant navy officer. She is young by merchant navy standards - most people reach Commander rank between the ages of 35 and 40 - yet has commanded freighters since she was 23. She has commanded seven cargo ships to this date, excluding the Vulture which isn't a cargo ship - and never was anyway, since salvage ships weren't considered cargo haulers - which is excessively young. Most people receive their first merchant ship command between 28 and 35. She climbed through the merchant ranks quickly. A week after she joined her first merchant crew - at age 17 - she was promoted from Ensign to Second Lieutenant. This made her the youngest SL ever in recorded Kytheran history, both naval and merchant. She made Lieutenant Commander at 22, and served as a second-in-command on the NKCS Profitable Journey (all Kytheran merchant ships have names like this, it's said to be a lucky charm) before her CO retired a few months later. Then, she received her first command.

She made Commander at age 26, again giving her a mention in the Kytheran history books - well, merchant shipping archives anyway. Her previous crews say she's "an experienced commanding officer, who knows what to do at every turn. She is highly respected on the ship. The crew greatly looks up to her, yet she's not arrogant. She's the last person to shout at a rookie for doing something wrong. She's simply a fantastic person."



Antimatter plasma engines are old-fashioned engines, which rely on a fusion torch-like drive system, yet it uses a mixture of rapidly-fusing plasma and antimatter for thrust, instead of simply plasma. Semi-reactionless photon drives are far more complicated.

They rely on the natural flow of photonic particles to accelerate the ship and to steer it. It does have a semi-secondary photon torch engine, which it mainly uses for acceleration to higher speeds, after which the reactionless drives take over. This is why it's called semi-reactionless.

The reactionless drives rely on photon capturing and direction conduits lining the entire outer hull of the ship. They emit passive quantum fields, essentially "capturing" photons in the field. The photons are then directed to the opposite direction the ship steers - if it's going dead ahead, they're directed backwards, if they're making a 50 left, they're directed to 50 right - which in itself does not provide much thrust, but the special subquantum generators take care of that.

The subquantum generators emit active seeking fields of sub-elemental particles, essentially the particles that existed before the Big Bang as Kytheran astrophysicists have proven. A chain reaction among these particles created the Big Bang. These particles have highly unusual qualities, and are not understood at all. However, they can be used for several things already - among which a rather strange form of quantum manipulation.

Photons are essentially oversized underpowered quantums. The sub-elemental particles "grab" the photon as it's directed by the passive quantum fields. The photon is being held in place. This way, the photons are utterly still and do not move. The quantum fields still push it, however. This force is thus not transferred to the photon but translated into forward motion. That is how semi-reactionless photon drives work at high speeds.



Hope you're still with me after that rant

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER FOUR: FIGHT OR FLIGHT-----

Tamarillho sat stunned in her command chair. The realization that she was on the bridge of Central Command’s latest and most top-secret warship almost caused her to faint. Sure, she had wanted to make the jump to the combat navy at some point, but she had wanted to decide for herself when she felt ready. Now, she had no choice. She was commanding possibly the most powerful and dangerous ship in the Commonwealth Navy. There was no resigning now.

A sudden cry from her TO caused her already present fear to deepen.

“NAAH!!!!! Ma’am, that Kent’s coming after us!”
“What…..?”
Her TO looked at the verge of mental breakdown. He was whimpering slightly.
“It’s chasing us….. It’s chasing us…..”
“Come on man, get back to your senses.”
He continued whimpering and slowly turned a rather pale shade of chalk-white.
“No….. No…..”
Tamarillho realized she’d have to check her own small screen to see what was going on.

She felt her face change color to the same shade of white as the TO’s.

The Kent had all of its turrets trained on the fleeing Vulture, and it was preparing four long-ranged torpedoes, two standard ones and two heavy-duty, the torp’s target trackers flickering on the Vulture’s hull.

“Ensign..... Durryn..... take..... take us to the next..... warp point.....”
“Aye ma’am.”

Tamarillho felt the ship change course, but her eyes were riveted on the unknown warship racing towards them, slowly catching up with them. A cold fear slowly crept up into her stomach. She felt her heart rate decreasing. Several sentences lurked at the edge of her mind, ready to be shouted aloud over the bridge, but “Abandon ship! All hands abandon ship!”, “Kamikaze course!” and “Push the engines to as far as they’ll go! I don’t care about the Caranck border!” didn’t manage to reach her vocal cords.

Tamarillho noticed her nav officer was talking to her, but it didn’t quite register.

“Excuse me, Ensign? What did you say?”
“It’s diverting course, ma’am. It’s got its torps trained on C-Devonshire. Some of its turrets are still tracking us, but the larger part have diverted to C-Devonshire.”
It took a few moments for it to sink in, but after that she felt she was fully in control of her faculties again, and acted quickly.
“Durryn, course nearest warp point. Push the engines as far as they’ll go. Lieutenant Wheliin, get back to your senses and start jamming any and all transmissions to and from us. We’ve got a chance here, people.”

A bright light in the corner of the viewscreen attracted her attention. She immediately realized what it was, even though it took a few seconds for the shockwave to hit. C-Alpha 5 Devonshire was gone.

“Ma’am, it’s coming after us again!”
“Durryn, take us to the Cartsial Storm. Try to keep away from the pulse-energy pockets.”

She always felt nervous when sending her ship into a stellar storm where it might get damaged, but she felt it was their only chance. If they managed to lure the Kent into it as well, they should be saved – that is, if Durryn managed to stay away from the dense pockets of gas where energy pulses arced back and forth. Any ship coming too close to these pulse-energy pockets would unavoidably receive a powerful jolt of raw energy, which could easily blow out several bulkheads, and if a ship would go through one of the pockets, the energy would be completely drained but the ship’d receive massive damage. Some of the larger pockets could destroy a largish Destroyer were it to pass through. All pilots and crews were explicitly warned against entering these stellar storms when they first enrolled in a Commonwealth Navy Academy. In fact, the entire first week at any Academy consisted solely of a red-faced officer shouting these words over and over again at his recruits. Entering a storm like this without explicit orders would be punished severely. The least one could expect was a lifetime ban from piloting any space craft.

“I’ve got a fix on a clear corridor. Kent’s following. It’s at 17-right, distance fifteen hundred clicks and closing.”
Fortunately for scientists, explorers and reckless maniacs, almost all stellar storms had clear tracts of open space running through them. Most were less than fifteen m-3-clicks in diameter, barely enough to accommodate a medium-sized probe, but larger corridors are known to exist.
Unfortunately, however, all corridors changed continuously, so piloting any space craft through them was very risky. Tamarillho wasn’t at all certain if Durryn wasn’t going to get them all killed, but it was better than a certain death running.

The knot in Tamarillho’s throat tightened as she felt the slight jolts of the ship being pulled by the EM fields in the storm as the gases closed around them.
“Ma’am, way we’ve come in’s just closed.”

So here they were. Inside a very dangerous storm, with no clear way out, and a large warship approaching, bent on killing them. Well, at least Tamarillho’s command chair was comfortable.

-----END OF CHAPTER FOUR-----

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Little more background info on Part Four and no I'm not just doing this to increase my post count.

The Caranck Border is the border at the edge of a solar system. Beyond the Border there is nothing of interest save for a few comets and the odd Oort cloud. It represents the edge of the system in SEIV. Ships don't normally go beyond the Caranck border. Tamarillho's impulse to say she didn't care about it meant that she was willing to go into really empty space far out of reach of any help just to try and shake off the chasing Kent.

Yes, I am naming all my freighters and other transports after British cities The reason the Vulture (or NKCS Star Asteroid as its official name goes) doesn't carry a name like this is because salvage craft aren't considered real cargo transports, since they have to pick up debris before transporting it.

When Terlan (the nav officer) mentioned "C-Devonshire" he meant C-Alpha 5 Devonshire. C-Alpha 5 Devonshire is the central command station for the Devonshire system. It relays all orders and almost all comms traffic in the entire system, and coordinates system defenses and economy. All Kytheran systems are commanded by a C-[class] [subclass] [system name] station. Alpha is the class. It is a general-purpose "inner rim" command station, designed to coordinate a system close to the core of the Commonwealth. Beta is a more military station, while Gamma is a station with a focus on economic coordination. There are more types, but most are simply small variations - usually in size - on the ones mentioned here. 5 means it is of subclass 5 - the highest level. When a station is first constructed, it is level 1. As its comman duties and capabilities increase, and more additional sections get constructed, it raises in level. The maximum level is always 5. Devonshire speaks for itself; it is in the Devonshire system.