Among the Stars

[Singular Quartet]

Among the Stars
A Piece of Original Scientific Fiction
By The Singular Quartet

Chapter 1 - Third Contact

Two hundred and fifty ships dropped from warp. Moving at a relative velocity of 1.6c, they had been in detection range for one hour and thirteen minutes. Still at a range of a million kilometers, and having used a local moon for a quick deceleration, sinks had been raised and main guns had opened fire.

In orbit of the planet, one thousand, three hundred and eighteen ships sat, shifted to a defensive formation.

The first fleet, the Hakai 1st Fleet, scattered as the largest guns of the other fleet, the Human 4th fleet, a conglomeration of the Nimitz, Constitution, and Yamato battlegroups, opened fire at extreme range. Four picket ships of the 4th fleet exploded from the 1st Fleet's barrage.

Two hundred lasers, with beams around 30 centimeters and giga-wattage in the hundreds of millions, impacted with the moon that the 1st Fleet had, perhaps, used as a break. In truth, the 4th fleet watched as the 1st slingshotted around the moon, parts of the fleet breaking off and scattering into different directions at varying speeds.

Within half an hour, two portions of the 1st Fleet, had passed to within spitting distance of the 4th, and each of them came together, they exchange broadsides. Slingshotting wide to bring themselves around the planet, but still orbiting fast, exchanging longer and longer broadsides with each swing. The other three portions took a slower trek to the 4th fleet, coasting and bringing about a constant stream of fire against the 4th.

---

Admiral Jenson O'reilly was not having a good day. His personal store of coffee had given out that morning, and to add insult to injury, the Captain of the Constitution, a Micheal Anderson, drank some sort of chai shit. Then the enemy fleet had shown up on supra-light. O'reilly had wondered if his wife would call once this mess was over with news his dog had died from eating burnt horseflesh.

He had pushed these thoughts from his mind at the initial barrage. Those damn energy cannons. The Navy had converted a few old frigates for the sci-boys to try and figure out something, and he had hopes, but he kept that from his mind, also.

He needed to work with what he had.

He watched the projector, the red/green triangles of the enemy fleet circling his fleet like a pack of wolves, the blue/green boxes of his fleets, speckled with blue/yellow on the fringes of damaged ships, and the slow flecks of blue/red appearing at the fringes of the fleet. He wondered if this is what Penderson felt, after he had first approached Denning IV.

His thoughts of the 3rd fleet settled, and he kept watch on the projector.

---

If asked which english term he preferred, Admiral or Alpha, Savadro Athast would say Alpha. He did not know english. In fact, no Hakai knew their language, at least... In the Navy. He hard heard rumors, though.

Athast felt his sinks shudder under the weight as his ship slipped through the beams of the Constitution. His gunners had been unleashing torrents of fire into it's shields since his and Arran's pack had first passed the Human Fleet. The other three Beta's packs had caught up, and Athast had called for a slow encirclement. Each Pack would take a vector, and fire at it until it died. How each Pack fought was left entirely up to it's commander.

Athast had decided he would take the focus of the dreadnought, while the others dealt with some of the other ships in it's battlegroup. He watched from the corner of the eyes of his ship as a sudden bulge formed in the pocket battle-cruiser Saratoga, detonating outward in a brilliance of X-rays, entire sections of the ship vaporizing from the sudden energy.

It's other guns flickered for but a moment, coming back stronger than before as it's sinks realigned, rearranging for the sudden loss of it's forward section. The blast was to clean, though. The bright sheen of molten bulkheads was all that Athast needed to see. He assigned a higher priority to the Saratoga. It's weapons and shields ran off the main reactor, and it was down a third of a ship. All that power was freed up, some of it going to the sinks to cover the bare areas, but the rest went straight to the weapons.

He checked the partial schematics that had been complied from the hulks of the last battle.

There were sinks built directly behind those bulkheads. These fuckers were expecting it to happen. A callous waste of life, but an ingenious design.

It would be an honor to pry back the planet from their cold, dead fingers. To leave the rotting hulks of their warships in the unyielding freeze of vacuum.

[Lindar]

It would be an honor to pry back the planet from their cold, dead fingers. To leave the rotting hulks of their warships in the unyielding freeze of vacuum.

that sounds cold, and i wonder if they're really going to steal the planet in that manner...