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Episode 1: Part 3: The Action at Carnegia
“Sonett, this is Admiral Landover of the Wheel fleet. We do not have any intention of leaving the system until we have spoken with an ambassador from the DSC. You do not have the authority to force us from the system.”
Alexi Perrobs watched as the admiral ended communications with the Pretoria.
“Bastards.” The Admiral continued. “They think they can waltz around our ships like this. Can’t wait to rip it apart and see what’s inside. They won’t know what the hell they’re looking at.”
The Admiral paced around the bridge of the EXPULSION. Alexi waited for him to say something, or give an order, but he did not. The next voice to raise came over the bridge PA system, from the long range scanning deck near the helm of the EXPULSION.
“Scanner to bridge, scanner to bridge.” Came the crackling voice. Alexi was not familiar with the head scanning officer, as they rarely passed each other in the halls of the EXPULSION. Jana had told Alexi that he (Alexi could not recall his name) was a pleasant fellow, with an intricate knowledge of the harmonica. He made a mental note to meet up with him sometime.
“This is the bridge.” Responded Evan, the internal comms officer. Alexi was responsible for communication in between vessels, while Evan took care of communications inside the ship.
“We’ve finished our scans of the DELIVERANCE. It’s not good.” Continued the voice over the PA.
“What’s the situation?”
“Well, a lot of it we knew already. The shields and engines are totally destroyed, as is the majority of the hull. The asteroids did a huge number on it. Life support has totally failed ; the whole place is decompressed. There’s no vital signs either. Have you guys managed to contact them?”
Evan turned to Alexi. Alexi shook his head.
“No, we got nothing over here.” Evan said.
“Well, that’s that then. We’ve gotten no reports of any escape pods or vital signs on the planet, either, unless they went below the surface. But even then we’d be able to see the crashed pods… unless they dragged those underground as well. Either way there’s no way of telling if they’re down on the planet, and the fact remains that the ship is deserted. Any idea what happened there?”
“No, none. We’ll keep you updated. Anything else?”
“Yeah, there is one thing… The DELIVERANCE is missing its battery. We think it-“
The head scanning officer was cut off by the Admiral, who had barged over to Evan’s station as soon as he had heard the battery being mentioned.
“The battery.” He stated. “Where is it?”
“Well, it’s not on the ship.” Answered the officer. “We thought it was destroyed by an asteroid, but…”
“That’s impossible. The battery is much too small a target for an asteroid.”
“With all due respect, there are a lot of asteroids in that belt.”
“No! No! No!” The Admiral raged, throwing his hands up into the air. He spun to Jana.
“Jana! Where is that scavenger vessel?”
Jana, surprised at the Admiral’s outburst, rapidly examined the screen in front of her.
“It’s still hiding in the belt, sir.”
“Keep firing at it! I don’t care about the Confederates, we can deal with them after. This ship must not leave the system. Evan, scramble the fighters, scramble everything!”
Evan opened up a communications channel to all stations on the EXPULSION, doing exactly as the admiral ordered.
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Sonnett saw an attack coming, and responded in kind. He did not have time to see where the missiles were aimed or where the Wheel fighters were flying. He made a choice, a fairly rational one, based on the situation. In fact, despite everything that was to happen, he would receive a medal from the DSC for what he did during the action at Carnegia.
“Engines and shields to full. Move into position for MAC attack.”
He spoke the orders calmly and without emotion. A true captain and man of culture should never act excited or show nervousness (the former was permitted, within reason, in the company of a lady). The Pretoria’s engines kicked in and the shields whined to life. All across the vessel, men ran to their stations. To load missiles, to man stations. As a Battlecruiser, the Pretoria did not have any fighters of its own to scramble, as most of its interior was needed for its magnetic accelerator cannon. Two shots, two good shots were all he needed. Unlike the shields on DSC vessels, Wheel vessels had localized shields – the shield would activate instantly in a very specific location as soon as a projectile came within range. This was very efficient in terms of energy consumption, as the entire shield did not need to be activated unless the situation was extremely dire. It was, however, a great weakness. If the Pretoria got in two well placed shots, one after the other, the localized shield would be too weak to stop the second magnetically accelerated giant hunk of metal from piercing the EXPULSION.
As the first missiles left the tubes of the Pretoria, Sonnet saw the EXPULSION rotating to meet them, its fighters changing their destinations. He turned from the viewscreen, and ordered a call for the missile frigates DSCS-VALKYRIE and DSCS-HESPERIDES.
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The world around Jay exploded in a brilliant flash of light and fire. The Space Wasp was pelted with stone as the missiles exploded around him once more. Dozens of miles away, he could see tiny shapes moving towards him, becoming larger and larger. Regaining composure, he checked the systems of the wasp. To his mild bemusement, he discovered that his only defense, the Wasp’s taped on beam cannon, had been destroyed by a sizable rock. He wondered aloud how he was supposed to defeat the Wheel battleship now that his secret weapon was gone.
But now was no time for self-loathing humour. He locked his red goggles back over his eyes and restarted his engines. Dodging asteroids, he had only a few seconds to glance out at the events transpiring outside the asteroid belt. While the missiles continued to fly towards him, his radar did show that the Wheel fighters had changed course. Eventually, the battleship began to change orientation too, with the missiles stopping shortly after. Even through the airless void of space, he heard explosions and the whines of the engines of massive ships. He once again paused at the edge of the asteroid belt, and drifted slowly outwards.
Chaos. The Battlecruiser had been joined by two missile frigates, who kept their distance while the cruiser absorbed most of the fire. The frigates were releasing salvo after salvo at the EXPULSION, who responded with equal or even greater firepower. Neither vessel was in the correct position to fire their MACs, but Jay guessed the battle would end fairly quickly once one of them did. In his awe, he continued to drift outwards from the asteroid belt as the battle continued. Streaks of rocket fuel and the bright greens of lasers filled the space in between the opposing sides. He could not see them, but he knew smaller magnetically accelerated projectiles were also flying between the two vessels.
Stunned by the glamour of the Space Opera unfolding in front of him, Jay did not notice the Wheel fighter beelining towards him. It was by pure luck that he managed to glance at his radar screen and spot the glowing green triangle moving towards him. Sticking the engines into full reverse, he smashed back through the asteroid belt.The Space Wasps' bulk absorbed most of the rocks, the rest being vaporized in its engines. After two seconds of reversing, the Wasp came to a halt with a crash, its rear having met a much larger asteroid. The impact knocked out the cabin light, leaving Jay illuminated by the red glow of the emergency lighting. The Wheel fighter had meanwhile disengaged, its much lighter frame not as suited to asteroid belt maneouvering.
Quite suddenly, a shockwave travelled across the battlefield as the Pretoria let loose thousands of tons of accelerated metal. The warhead travelled straight towards the EXPULSION and annihilated itself on its shields, which flickered on a split second before impact.As the fire from the explosion spread, the shields of the EXPULSION activated as they were needed, leaving the vessel itself unharmed. Space hung silent for an infinitesimal place in time.
Jay, ever the opportunist, took the chance and gunned his engines in the direction of the Pretoria. As the battle started up once more around him, he sped beneath the massive hull of the Deep Space Confederacy Battlecruiser, and off into space, accelerating to nearly 300,000 km per second, the battery of the DELIVERANCE stowed safely in his trunk.
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An hour later and Five hundred kilometers away, Alexi Perrobs was sucked into the void as a second MAC round from the Pretoria ripped through the EXPULSION. He was carrying a message to the lower decks when the projectile hit, dragging him and his armed escorts out into the space around Carnegia.
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