Terran Empire - Unity (Mirror Trek AU Fan Fic)
Moderator: LadyTevar
-
SpecWar826
- Youngling
- Posts: 80
- Joined: 2004-02-02 10:35pm
- Location: I don't know I'm Lost
-
HappyTarget
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 439
- Joined: 2003-01-29 08:24pm
- Location: Michigan USA
- Contact:
-
Crazedwraith
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11924
- Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
- Location: Cheshire, England
-
SpecWar826
- Youngling
- Posts: 80
- Joined: 2004-02-02 10:35pm
- Location: I don't know I'm Lost
-
Crazedwraith
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11924
- Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
- Location: Cheshire, England
-
HappyTarget
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 439
- Joined: 2003-01-29 08:24pm
- Location: Michigan USA
- Contact:
Not that the ISC usually does that sort of thing, but yes, they can be used for orbital bombardments. And given their on the whole wider beams than most other heavy energy weapons in the TEverse, they can do some pretty nasty stuff to a planet in short order.Hey Happytarget, quick question. Can PPDs be used in orbital bombartments?
Cult of Weber Missionary
-
HappyTarget
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 439
- Joined: 2003-01-29 08:24pm
- Location: Michigan USA
- Contact:
Just a little bump to say that chapter 46 is nearly done (~1900 words on the page so far) and should be up soon. The long wait is finally over and I'm REALLY sorry it's taken as long as it has. 
Grumbles about work and good games... Wait, why am I grumbling about good games? Good games rock! 
Grumbles about work and good games... Wait, why am I grumbling about good games? Good games rock! Cult of Weber Missionary
-
Natorgator
- Jedi Knight
- Posts: 856
- Joined: 2003-04-26 08:23pm
- Location: Atlanta, GA
-
consequences
- Homicidal Maniac
- Posts: 6964
- Joined: 2002-07-07 03:06pm
"Hey, if you think beating Red Faction on Hard Difficulty isn't work..."HappyTarget wrote:Just a little bump to say that chapter 46 is nearly done (~1900 words on the page so far) and should be up soon. The long wait is finally over and I'm REALLY sorry it's taken as long as it has.
-
Akira
- Official SD.Net Chew Toy
- Posts: 165
- Joined: 2002-08-23 08:28am
- Location: Terran Empire, 2nd Fleet, ISS Athena
Chapter 46 – Battle on the Banks of the Lethe
Flag Bridge, ISS Nebuchadnezzar, Lethe Star System, Delta Quadrant
The seconds’ long flight through the turbulent, energized atmosphere of Nephthys was nearly over now. The attack on the enemy shrouded deep within her boiling embrace had gone off without a hitch, with the computers handling the rapid targeting and launch of weapons human reaction speeds couldn’t really compensate for. The computer could also have handled warship maneuvering, but the ingrained distrust of dominant machines that virtually every Imperial Citizen combined with a warriors desire to fight had made the helm officers decline to let the computer execute the maneuver. And it was a simple end for end switch about mid way through the passage anyhow, so nothing could really go wrong. The computer could handle the evasion routines while the helm officers would execute the combat maneuvers.
Nothing did. The maneuver was slick as one could ask for considering the warships were being manhandled while traveling at just over a quarter of the speed of light. The second, lesser volley of weapons fire from the formations rear arcs speared outwards to rain destruction and death down on the enemy. From as far as CIC’s best guess with the limited sensor data, Force Beta was combat ineffective, which left only the paltry in comparison Force Alpha to be dealt with. Punching out of Nepthys’ atmosphere like a blade of blue tinged orange fire and once again reentering the star flecked ebon void that ships of war called home, the vessels of the Nebuchadnezzar Battlegroup reoriented themselves once again to demand Force Alpha’s surrender at the tip of a lance.
Ulysses scanned the butcher’s bill out of the corner of his eye as he kept his attention largely focused on the remaining enemy. He had won yet another system back into the arms of a government he hated and despised, done it with only minimal casualties in exchange for what he’d caused the enemy in turn. The news services throughout the Empire would inflate his public image even further. Hero of the Empire! Ulysses had to hold himself back from spitting on the deck. The propaganda mills made it seem like he was winning the war single handedly, without the support of hundreds of thousands of military personnel and the millions of civilians who were working like men and women possessed to achieve what he needed them to. He was really nothing more than a killer if one cut away all the rhetoric. He had just competently and quickly consigned thousands of sentient beings to their death, for tough as escape pods were, they couldn’t hope to survive that devil spawn pit that was the lower atmosphere of a class S Ultragiant.
And for what? For fame? Certainly not, for though he may fight for the Empire’s civilians, they didn’t KNOW him. They merely knew what the propaganda TOLD them about him. For the Emperor? Emphatically not, for if the chance presented itself, Ulysses would end his existence without a second thought nor a troubled nights sleep.
No, the true reason Ulysses fought the Empire’s enemies was because of the men and women working around him now. Even more so than safeguarding civilians, Uly fought and now led his fellow warriors into battle for their sake. To give them an example of what a true officer should be, to endure the same risks as they did and fight along side them, to lead them through the valley in the shadow of death, that is why he sat in his chair and unflinchingly destroyed the enemy. They were his comrades in arms, and his battle tempered blade. It was his job to ensure that as many of them survived this war as possible so that they could instill in others the example he had set for them. Change them on a more basic level by showing them that they didn’t have to be worse than the barbarians they were concerned about.
If a follower of Spock couldn’t cause overt change, then the only logical thing to do was cause covert change. It may not be as fast, but that didn’t make it any less substantial. Just look at a glacier, moving mere inches in a year, yet capable of drastically altering the surface of a world.
Perhaps that was what had been bothering him this entire engagement, his own concern about being worthy of orchestrating such a change. Was it niggling self doubt that was causing him to second guess himself? Ulysses shook himself. Analyze later, there’s still a battle to be won, he thought. His darker half growled its agreement, thirsting for greater bloodlettings to sate its appetite however momentarily. Ulysses ignored it and breathed in to order a com channel to Force Alpha.
ISCV Superdreadnought Path of the True, Lethe system, that same time
Junior Fleet Marshal Grot watched the steadily advancing crimson blob of fading and brightening light beads that was the enemy task force on his holodisplay. It was obvious from their maneuver that they had bought the bait. A competent enemy could have smelled his trap a mile away, and Ulysses Vanguard was anything but incompetent. So what better way to mask the actual trap than with a more obvious one that was really a ruse? The enemy had done everything by the numbers, eliminating the superior threat and then continuing to advance to defeat the dispersed enemy in detail. It was primarily how Ulysses had won First Prescott’s Star in spite of the odds against him. It would be something he would be looking for in his enemy for this battle. Grot saw no reason not to oblige him when inspiration struck for this battle.
With luck, a stumbling block in the Galactic Unity’s road towards peaceful coexistence would be removed this day. Without it, the short lived counteroffensive of Ulysses’ 2000th Fleet would be at an end. Either way, things were about to get very messy for the hard charging, young Imperial officer in command of the enemy force on Grot’s holodisplay. And considering the drubbing Ulysses had given the previous GU officers and crews sent out against him, as far as Grot was concerned (to borrow a useful Human expression) he couldn’t care less on the subject. Revenge wasn’t proper for a flag officer in the ISC Peaceforces to feel, but feel it he did. His telepathic crewmen picked up on it through the complex, multileveled interplay that always existed between open ESPers, but his non telepathic crewmen also picked it up via his perch on his chair. He was sitting on its edge, leaning forward, calm and collected but with a predatory gleam in his black eyes that said one Ulysses S. Vanguard would be made to pay for baring the road to peace.
The cost of the op so far had smarted, for even with barely functional wrecks and minimal crews, the Peaceforce vessels used as bait in the planet had been exactly that, bait. While the GU had the numbers to be so callous with their assets and though all crews on the ships were volunteers, their loss to the cause of peace and justice was painful none the less. They were just one more reason why the Terran Empire must fall, for it forced peace loving peoples of the galaxy to make such choices and take such actions.
“Execute the plan as ordered.” Grot’s slightly nasally voice echoed on the largely silent flag bridge of his new flagship, sending his crews into instant activity.
ISS Nebuchadnezzar, that same time
Ulysses slow intake of breath became a pinched hiss and his hazel eye narrowed as the plethora of asteroids and moonlets that had been captured by Nepthys swirled out of their customary orbits. For a seconds long eternity, Uly was paralyzed as he realized the scope of the trap. Nepthys no longer HAD any captured asteroids and moonlets, for they had all been replaced by enemy warships using deception EW. A small part of Uly’s brain had to admit that it was a very well executed trap even as the rest of him snapped into action thanks to years of experience and training. His hand snapped to the emergency fleet-wide broadcast button on his right console.
“ALL UNITS, SHATTER FORMATION AND PRO…”
Whump-CRUNCH! The substantial mass of the ship lurched as the first FTL plasma wave caught her prow and washed across her shields. Nearly immediately, the Neb’s helmswoman began to throw the warship into emergency evasion maneuvers, bouncing the ship around inside her maneuvering bubble like it was a spooked horse. Not that it helped much, for a virtual tidal bore of recon drones were flooding into TF 2000.3’s formation mere seconds behind the onrushing PPDs. With all ships currently more worried about immediate survival than plugging the drones, the enemy had a far simpler time punching the stealthy sensor platforms in close enough to get accurate fixes on his ships.
One of the Achilles class escorts, the Angra Mainya, shifted from dancing every bit as much as the Neb to stand and fight. Bearing her fangs and talons in defiance of the ship-killing weapons bearing down on the Task Force’s position, her PPCs and Phalanx batteries opened. They sent a blizzard of light sleeting outwards, reaching for the closest drones even as the valiant warship slammed her engines to the firewall to gain the range on the incoming swarm. Seconds later, she was joined by virtually every other of the 29 Achilles in the Task Force’s screen. The ISS Angra Mainya along with her squadron mates and their crews performed their duty to the end, flaying the enemy drones with close in weapons fire and burning them from the sky.
Their sacrifice was both the cause of their own demise as well as the reason why as much of TF 2000.3 escaped the trap that did. Sensor systems in the GU force detected the spikes of their fire control and targeting priorities were reorganized on the fly to take out the threat to the fragile remote sensor platforms. Stealthed weapons platforms, seeded throughout local Nepthys space and held in reserve for their eventual need, were activated. Registering as nothing more than golf ball sized micro meteorites while they stayed under the cloaking blanket of their EW, the GU weapons platforms spat PPDs directly into the faces of the onrushing Achilles'. The Imperial Destroyers were no match for firepower that could crumple a Superdreadnought’s shields. They disappeared in star bright boils as superluminal packets of plasma seared them from the face of the galaxy leaving nothing but a smattering of atomized debris and expanding clouds of energetic subatomic particles behind.
Whump CRUNCH! The ship trembled down to her metallic bones as another hammer blow slammed into the shields as they tried desperately to regenerate themselves. A second Whump CRUNCH slammed into the rapidly dwindling shields split seconds later as another enemy combatant found her quarry with the PPD carrier beam.
“… CEED TO POINT EMBER ASAP!” Ulysses shouted. Point Ember was the preplanned rendezvous point should something go terribly wrong with the assault. Even as Ulysses’ voice finished the order, the Nebuchadnezzar's Combat Information Center was feeding fresh data on the firming up enemy contacts onto his holodisplay. Tentatively, the new ships looked like two squadrons of SDs plus a heavy escort of BBs and BCs with their attached screening elements. But this was very preliminary, and relied almost exclusively on degraded sensor hits from long range. Considering the volume of questing PPDs sleeting through his formation, Ulysses was inclined to agree with CIC’s estimate.
Whump CRUNCH! Whump CRUNCH! Whump CRUNCH! A third PPD had a bearing on the Nebuchadnezzar now. Captain Erika Benteen was desperately trying to stave off what was coming with the inevitability of the incoming tide. The enveloping effect was draining 5 shields rather than just one with each successful hit. Although emergency reinforcement blunted the primary axis of attack, it simultaneously drew available energy away from the other shield arcs. With an enveloping weapon like the PPD, that was very bad news in a firefight, as though your primary shield might hold, the warp around would inevitably seep through the weaker side shields to hit the hull. Ulysses engineering readout showed that the slipstream cores were spooling up to initiate the jump to slipstream, but the scant seconds that took were ticking by like hours as the Neb continued to be hit again and again. Some of the enemy were now close enough to engage the TF’s dispersing ships with their secondary weapons, and the deadly cones of phaser beams began to sweep through warships already fending off heavy PPD assault.
All enemy vessels were cycling their PPDs as fast as they could, slamming his ships with heavy enough fire to have a telling effect in spite of Uly’s ships maneuvers and EW efforts. His order to shatter formation was obeyed nearly immediately. The warships of TF flew apart in a chaotic, seemingly random starburst that was actually precisely coordinated to prevent collisions between ships and open up avenues of escape for the entire formation as rapidly as possible. Shoals of EW drones set to mimic their motherships spewed from their launchers to confuse the enemy as much as possible, but with the edge the GU had in electronics warfare, their true effectiveness, especially with the recon drones now probing his remaining units, was bound to be severely blunted.
The units of his command began to die under the assault. First to go were the fleeter but lighter ships. They were harder to hit to begin with, but once an enemy locked them up they were dead to the concentrated fire of even secondary weapons. Then the Neb's squadron mate, the Arawn staggered out of her evasion routine, a large section of her engineering section molten wreckage bleeding fire and shattered debris. Slowly tumbling on his holodisplay, her STL drive dead and power failing, the Arawn continued to coast along her last trajectory at close to half the speed of light. A handful of escape pods erupted from her stricken form, only to be backlit as one or possibly more than one of her QSS cores unleashed their barely constrained energies and consumed the once proud Imperial Ship of the Line.
At virtually the same time the SDs Pylkie and Ekibiogami had scythes of highly energetic plasma slam into their hulls as the last vestiges of their shields failed. Like blood in an ocean filled with hungry sharks, the damage brought a fullisade of standard phasers and plasma torpedoes. Pylkie died the most spectacularly, her back breaking and the ship literally splitting into two rough halves just as she jumped to slipstream. The resulting debris field stretched for nearly 30 light minutes along her planed flight path. The Ekibiogami merely stalled and went dark as her QSS cores went into emergency shutdown. Great glowing debris and explosion spewing rents carved deep into her sleek form with most of her portside primary hull and nacelles cleaved away by a glancing PPD hit that punched through her exhausted shields like so much tissue paper.
Whump CRUNCH! WhumWhump CRUNCRUNCH! Ulysses felt the ship lurch sideways and saw his holodisplay flicker briefly even as the familiar wave of subtle nausea swept over him. The star flecked battlefield of his holodisplay elongated for a brief instant and then was replaced by the swirling aqua void of slipstream space. Long ranged sensors detected seven other Imperial signatures vectoring in on Point Ember. As the seconds ticked by, they were joined by another two. No others appeared. Not one more ship out of the nearly 100 that had entered the battle at his side. Ulysses face was a mask of un-emotion, but his hands were balled into white knuckled fists on the arm rests of his chair.
Flag Bridge, ISS Nebuchadnezzar, Lethe Star System, Delta Quadrant
The seconds’ long flight through the turbulent, energized atmosphere of Nephthys was nearly over now. The attack on the enemy shrouded deep within her boiling embrace had gone off without a hitch, with the computers handling the rapid targeting and launch of weapons human reaction speeds couldn’t really compensate for. The computer could also have handled warship maneuvering, but the ingrained distrust of dominant machines that virtually every Imperial Citizen combined with a warriors desire to fight had made the helm officers decline to let the computer execute the maneuver. And it was a simple end for end switch about mid way through the passage anyhow, so nothing could really go wrong. The computer could handle the evasion routines while the helm officers would execute the combat maneuvers.
Nothing did. The maneuver was slick as one could ask for considering the warships were being manhandled while traveling at just over a quarter of the speed of light. The second, lesser volley of weapons fire from the formations rear arcs speared outwards to rain destruction and death down on the enemy. From as far as CIC’s best guess with the limited sensor data, Force Beta was combat ineffective, which left only the paltry in comparison Force Alpha to be dealt with. Punching out of Nepthys’ atmosphere like a blade of blue tinged orange fire and once again reentering the star flecked ebon void that ships of war called home, the vessels of the Nebuchadnezzar Battlegroup reoriented themselves once again to demand Force Alpha’s surrender at the tip of a lance.
Ulysses scanned the butcher’s bill out of the corner of his eye as he kept his attention largely focused on the remaining enemy. He had won yet another system back into the arms of a government he hated and despised, done it with only minimal casualties in exchange for what he’d caused the enemy in turn. The news services throughout the Empire would inflate his public image even further. Hero of the Empire! Ulysses had to hold himself back from spitting on the deck. The propaganda mills made it seem like he was winning the war single handedly, without the support of hundreds of thousands of military personnel and the millions of civilians who were working like men and women possessed to achieve what he needed them to. He was really nothing more than a killer if one cut away all the rhetoric. He had just competently and quickly consigned thousands of sentient beings to their death, for tough as escape pods were, they couldn’t hope to survive that devil spawn pit that was the lower atmosphere of a class S Ultragiant.
And for what? For fame? Certainly not, for though he may fight for the Empire’s civilians, they didn’t KNOW him. They merely knew what the propaganda TOLD them about him. For the Emperor? Emphatically not, for if the chance presented itself, Ulysses would end his existence without a second thought nor a troubled nights sleep.
No, the true reason Ulysses fought the Empire’s enemies was because of the men and women working around him now. Even more so than safeguarding civilians, Uly fought and now led his fellow warriors into battle for their sake. To give them an example of what a true officer should be, to endure the same risks as they did and fight along side them, to lead them through the valley in the shadow of death, that is why he sat in his chair and unflinchingly destroyed the enemy. They were his comrades in arms, and his battle tempered blade. It was his job to ensure that as many of them survived this war as possible so that they could instill in others the example he had set for them. Change them on a more basic level by showing them that they didn’t have to be worse than the barbarians they were concerned about.
If a follower of Spock couldn’t cause overt change, then the only logical thing to do was cause covert change. It may not be as fast, but that didn’t make it any less substantial. Just look at a glacier, moving mere inches in a year, yet capable of drastically altering the surface of a world.
Perhaps that was what had been bothering him this entire engagement, his own concern about being worthy of orchestrating such a change. Was it niggling self doubt that was causing him to second guess himself? Ulysses shook himself. Analyze later, there’s still a battle to be won, he thought. His darker half growled its agreement, thirsting for greater bloodlettings to sate its appetite however momentarily. Ulysses ignored it and breathed in to order a com channel to Force Alpha.
ISCV Superdreadnought Path of the True, Lethe system, that same time
Junior Fleet Marshal Grot watched the steadily advancing crimson blob of fading and brightening light beads that was the enemy task force on his holodisplay. It was obvious from their maneuver that they had bought the bait. A competent enemy could have smelled his trap a mile away, and Ulysses Vanguard was anything but incompetent. So what better way to mask the actual trap than with a more obvious one that was really a ruse? The enemy had done everything by the numbers, eliminating the superior threat and then continuing to advance to defeat the dispersed enemy in detail. It was primarily how Ulysses had won First Prescott’s Star in spite of the odds against him. It would be something he would be looking for in his enemy for this battle. Grot saw no reason not to oblige him when inspiration struck for this battle.
With luck, a stumbling block in the Galactic Unity’s road towards peaceful coexistence would be removed this day. Without it, the short lived counteroffensive of Ulysses’ 2000th Fleet would be at an end. Either way, things were about to get very messy for the hard charging, young Imperial officer in command of the enemy force on Grot’s holodisplay. And considering the drubbing Ulysses had given the previous GU officers and crews sent out against him, as far as Grot was concerned (to borrow a useful Human expression) he couldn’t care less on the subject. Revenge wasn’t proper for a flag officer in the ISC Peaceforces to feel, but feel it he did. His telepathic crewmen picked up on it through the complex, multileveled interplay that always existed between open ESPers, but his non telepathic crewmen also picked it up via his perch on his chair. He was sitting on its edge, leaning forward, calm and collected but with a predatory gleam in his black eyes that said one Ulysses S. Vanguard would be made to pay for baring the road to peace.
The cost of the op so far had smarted, for even with barely functional wrecks and minimal crews, the Peaceforce vessels used as bait in the planet had been exactly that, bait. While the GU had the numbers to be so callous with their assets and though all crews on the ships were volunteers, their loss to the cause of peace and justice was painful none the less. They were just one more reason why the Terran Empire must fall, for it forced peace loving peoples of the galaxy to make such choices and take such actions.
“Execute the plan as ordered.” Grot’s slightly nasally voice echoed on the largely silent flag bridge of his new flagship, sending his crews into instant activity.
ISS Nebuchadnezzar, that same time
Ulysses slow intake of breath became a pinched hiss and his hazel eye narrowed as the plethora of asteroids and moonlets that had been captured by Nepthys swirled out of their customary orbits. For a seconds long eternity, Uly was paralyzed as he realized the scope of the trap. Nepthys no longer HAD any captured asteroids and moonlets, for they had all been replaced by enemy warships using deception EW. A small part of Uly’s brain had to admit that it was a very well executed trap even as the rest of him snapped into action thanks to years of experience and training. His hand snapped to the emergency fleet-wide broadcast button on his right console.
“ALL UNITS, SHATTER FORMATION AND PRO…”
Whump-CRUNCH! The substantial mass of the ship lurched as the first FTL plasma wave caught her prow and washed across her shields. Nearly immediately, the Neb’s helmswoman began to throw the warship into emergency evasion maneuvers, bouncing the ship around inside her maneuvering bubble like it was a spooked horse. Not that it helped much, for a virtual tidal bore of recon drones were flooding into TF 2000.3’s formation mere seconds behind the onrushing PPDs. With all ships currently more worried about immediate survival than plugging the drones, the enemy had a far simpler time punching the stealthy sensor platforms in close enough to get accurate fixes on his ships.
One of the Achilles class escorts, the Angra Mainya, shifted from dancing every bit as much as the Neb to stand and fight. Bearing her fangs and talons in defiance of the ship-killing weapons bearing down on the Task Force’s position, her PPCs and Phalanx batteries opened. They sent a blizzard of light sleeting outwards, reaching for the closest drones even as the valiant warship slammed her engines to the firewall to gain the range on the incoming swarm. Seconds later, she was joined by virtually every other of the 29 Achilles in the Task Force’s screen. The ISS Angra Mainya along with her squadron mates and their crews performed their duty to the end, flaying the enemy drones with close in weapons fire and burning them from the sky.
Their sacrifice was both the cause of their own demise as well as the reason why as much of TF 2000.3 escaped the trap that did. Sensor systems in the GU force detected the spikes of their fire control and targeting priorities were reorganized on the fly to take out the threat to the fragile remote sensor platforms. Stealthed weapons platforms, seeded throughout local Nepthys space and held in reserve for their eventual need, were activated. Registering as nothing more than golf ball sized micro meteorites while they stayed under the cloaking blanket of their EW, the GU weapons platforms spat PPDs directly into the faces of the onrushing Achilles'. The Imperial Destroyers were no match for firepower that could crumple a Superdreadnought’s shields. They disappeared in star bright boils as superluminal packets of plasma seared them from the face of the galaxy leaving nothing but a smattering of atomized debris and expanding clouds of energetic subatomic particles behind.
Whump CRUNCH! The ship trembled down to her metallic bones as another hammer blow slammed into the shields as they tried desperately to regenerate themselves. A second Whump CRUNCH slammed into the rapidly dwindling shields split seconds later as another enemy combatant found her quarry with the PPD carrier beam.
“… CEED TO POINT EMBER ASAP!” Ulysses shouted. Point Ember was the preplanned rendezvous point should something go terribly wrong with the assault. Even as Ulysses’ voice finished the order, the Nebuchadnezzar's Combat Information Center was feeding fresh data on the firming up enemy contacts onto his holodisplay. Tentatively, the new ships looked like two squadrons of SDs plus a heavy escort of BBs and BCs with their attached screening elements. But this was very preliminary, and relied almost exclusively on degraded sensor hits from long range. Considering the volume of questing PPDs sleeting through his formation, Ulysses was inclined to agree with CIC’s estimate.
Whump CRUNCH! Whump CRUNCH! Whump CRUNCH! A third PPD had a bearing on the Nebuchadnezzar now. Captain Erika Benteen was desperately trying to stave off what was coming with the inevitability of the incoming tide. The enveloping effect was draining 5 shields rather than just one with each successful hit. Although emergency reinforcement blunted the primary axis of attack, it simultaneously drew available energy away from the other shield arcs. With an enveloping weapon like the PPD, that was very bad news in a firefight, as though your primary shield might hold, the warp around would inevitably seep through the weaker side shields to hit the hull. Ulysses engineering readout showed that the slipstream cores were spooling up to initiate the jump to slipstream, but the scant seconds that took were ticking by like hours as the Neb continued to be hit again and again. Some of the enemy were now close enough to engage the TF’s dispersing ships with their secondary weapons, and the deadly cones of phaser beams began to sweep through warships already fending off heavy PPD assault.
All enemy vessels were cycling their PPDs as fast as they could, slamming his ships with heavy enough fire to have a telling effect in spite of Uly’s ships maneuvers and EW efforts. His order to shatter formation was obeyed nearly immediately. The warships of TF flew apart in a chaotic, seemingly random starburst that was actually precisely coordinated to prevent collisions between ships and open up avenues of escape for the entire formation as rapidly as possible. Shoals of EW drones set to mimic their motherships spewed from their launchers to confuse the enemy as much as possible, but with the edge the GU had in electronics warfare, their true effectiveness, especially with the recon drones now probing his remaining units, was bound to be severely blunted.
The units of his command began to die under the assault. First to go were the fleeter but lighter ships. They were harder to hit to begin with, but once an enemy locked them up they were dead to the concentrated fire of even secondary weapons. Then the Neb's squadron mate, the Arawn staggered out of her evasion routine, a large section of her engineering section molten wreckage bleeding fire and shattered debris. Slowly tumbling on his holodisplay, her STL drive dead and power failing, the Arawn continued to coast along her last trajectory at close to half the speed of light. A handful of escape pods erupted from her stricken form, only to be backlit as one or possibly more than one of her QSS cores unleashed their barely constrained energies and consumed the once proud Imperial Ship of the Line.
At virtually the same time the SDs Pylkie and Ekibiogami had scythes of highly energetic plasma slam into their hulls as the last vestiges of their shields failed. Like blood in an ocean filled with hungry sharks, the damage brought a fullisade of standard phasers and plasma torpedoes. Pylkie died the most spectacularly, her back breaking and the ship literally splitting into two rough halves just as she jumped to slipstream. The resulting debris field stretched for nearly 30 light minutes along her planed flight path. The Ekibiogami merely stalled and went dark as her QSS cores went into emergency shutdown. Great glowing debris and explosion spewing rents carved deep into her sleek form with most of her portside primary hull and nacelles cleaved away by a glancing PPD hit that punched through her exhausted shields like so much tissue paper.
Whump CRUNCH! WhumWhump CRUNCRUNCH! Ulysses felt the ship lurch sideways and saw his holodisplay flicker briefly even as the familiar wave of subtle nausea swept over him. The star flecked battlefield of his holodisplay elongated for a brief instant and then was replaced by the swirling aqua void of slipstream space. Long ranged sensors detected seven other Imperial signatures vectoring in on Point Ember. As the seconds ticked by, they were joined by another two. No others appeared. Not one more ship out of the nearly 100 that had entered the battle at his side. Ulysses face was a mask of un-emotion, but his hands were balled into white knuckled fists on the arm rests of his chair.
-
Crazedwraith
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11924
- Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
- Location: Cheshire, England
Just got through reading the entire fic and all I can say is sweet. The writing reminds me alot of Weber and the battle scenes are superb. As for the most recent addition...ouch. About 90% losses? I assume the survivors are Wraiths and Sovereigns.
"Typical Canadian wimpiness. That's why you have the snowball and we have the H-bomb." Grandpa Simpson
-
Black Wolff
- Redshirt
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 2004-04-30 01:07am
-
Akira
- Official SD.Net Chew Toy
- Posts: 165
- Joined: 2002-08-23 08:28am
- Location: Terran Empire, 2nd Fleet, ISS Athena
I no longer have the URL for that forum. Unless you give it to me, Happy will have to post it there.Black Wolff wrote:I've really enjoyed the update, thanks for posting. It was a while...but I'm just glad that the story is continuing.
Do you think there is any chance you'll also be posting again back at the TrekBBS Fan Fiction forum?
~Black Wolff
-
darthdavid
- Pathetic Attention Whore
- Posts: 5470
- Joined: 2003-02-17 12:04pm
- Location: Bat Country!
-
Black Wolff
- Redshirt
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 2004-04-30 01:07am
www.trekbbs.com I think the old thread might be there, if you dig through the back pages...and if you would consider it I'm sure there are posters there that would appreciate it...
~Black Wolff
~Black Wolff
new chapters
Awesome writing!! I'm totally hooked. When do you think you will have more chapters written and posted??
-
darthdavid
- Pathetic Attention Whore
- Posts: 5470
- Joined: 2003-02-17 12:04pm
- Location: Bat Country!
-
HappyTarget
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 439
- Joined: 2003-01-29 08:24pm
- Location: Michigan USA
- Contact:
Chapter 47 – Hail the Conquering Hero
ISS Nebuchadnezzar
The ragged, bloody elements of what had once been an Imperial Task Force coalesced around the lone ship of the line to escape the Lethe star system as Point Ember drew ever closer. The Nebuchadnezzar had developed a distinct shudder that was growing steadily worse. Which was only to be expected considering close to ¼ of her forward primary hull was a crumpled, molten mass of white hot alloy and ceramic with rivulets of seared and melted hull trailing aft where the plasma had washed over her naked armor. Her port dorsal nacelle pylon had sheared off to a drive plasma bleeding melted stump, with the port ventral nacelle pylon severely compromised and being held in place by little more than the combined will and prayers of the Neb’s crew.
The creaks, pops and groans of stressed alloy could be heard and felt throughout the warship as her structural integrity field fought a loosing battle against the ships substantial battle damage. Flying on little more than a wing and a prayer, the port ventral nacelle kept trying to break itself free from the Neb. Ulysses considered ordering the fleet to drop to sublight and continue on under emergency warp power, but that would increase the trip’s length from just over twenty minutes to three days at high warp. With Damage Control teams barely holding their heads above water as it was, the increase in transit time was an unacceptable risk. Especially with over a fifth of her crew dead or MIA and a further 1/3 wounded. Ulysses winced mentally as his mind coldly went over the casualty list for the hundredth time, twisting the dagger in his heart. TEN ships out of 100. ONLY ten bloody ships! 90 of HIS ships lost because of his mistake, taking Gods knows how many of their crew with them to the void.
Prescott’s Star had already been informed of what had transpired. Rear Admiral Cadence Ulinova (senior officer in command of the post in Ulysses absence) had begun to command an escort to link up with the shattered remnants of the Imperial Task Force, but Ulysses had countermanded her at once. He didn’t want to risk further weakening the Prescott’s Star’s Fleet element on the off chance that the Galactic Unity would choose this moment to engage in an assault. Depleted as his units currently were, it would be when HE would choose to strike at the enemy.
Long ranged enemy recon flights had been sniffing around Prescott’s Star virtually since the end of the last battle. While Ulysses was certain they couldn’t pierce the distortion his EW teams were putting up at the range the enemy was forced to stay at, he was also not willing to risk the chance that the enemy COULD see through the jamming.
So Ulysses stewed on the Flag Bridge of the Nebuchadnezzar while the ship threatened to shake herself apart around him. On the holodisplay, the damaged units of his detached command flew along side the battered flagship. A Soulwolf had speared a more heavily damaged sister ship with a tractor beam, pulling it along to their destination in spite of her own QSS engines failing condition.
A com window blossomed on the holodisplay and the faintly frowning face of Erika Benteen stared back at him.
“Admiral, my chief engineer tells me that the ship could fly apart at any moment.” The young officer inhaled, using the brief respite the action generated to gather her courage. “Sir, I respectfully suggest that you transfer your flag to one of the less heavily damaged vessels.”
“Understood Captain, but I will not transfer my flag.” The Imperial officer in the com window started to protest but stopped when she saw his upraised hand. “The Nebuchadnezzar served with distinction during the battle and has held together so far. I’m not about to leave when we’re so close to home. I thank you for your concern over my safety, but I will not leave until we are safely back at Prescott’s Star.”
“Very well Admiral, the decision is yours and I thank you for the vote of confidence in my ship and her crew.” Where some would have held him accountable for the grievous losses the Task Force, Captain Benteen had been in enough combat to know that even the best tacticians and strategists sometimes got bit on the ass. She could see on Ulysses face that he was haunted every bit as much as she by the losses incurred in the scant seconds the enemy ambush had held them in its fiery grasp.
Psych evaluations and tests could only prepare one so much for the dragging weight combat losses placed on a commander’s soul. Her first large scale command had been Squadron CO for a Destroyer screen during the latter half of the Imperial/Borg War, and after loosing nearly all of them during a single battle, she knew full well what was presently running through Ulysses’ mind. The second guessing, the searching for missed clues, the self doubt, he seemed to be handling it as well as can be expected. But she could see it in his eyes, hiding behind the mask of non-emotion that shrouded his face, the pain the loss was causing him.
In that moment she understood why so many were willing to follow him through the valley in the shadow of death, why Ulysses was known with fondness as The Skipper. He wasn’t just a leader, he LEAD. He was one of the good ones, those all too few commanders who saw those they ordered as more than mere numbers. Erika had been around the block enough to know the difference, for many flag officers saw those under them as assets to be exploited in the bloody arithmetic of combat in order to cause the greatest amounts of enemy casualties in the achievement of your objectives. But not this one.
Ulysses nodded in reply to her acquiescence. “Carry on Captain.” He said as he cut the channel.
The intervening minutes stretched on for a seeming eternity, but the Neb held together, seeming to almost sigh in thanks as she reverted to normal space just at the edge of Prescott’s Star’s defensive perimeter. A Superdreadnought Battlegroup’s worth of escorts with a swarm of tugs and fleet train mobile repair slips awaited them. The shattered bulk of the ISS Nebuchadnezzar shuddered slightly as the powerful tractors of the tugs latched on and slipped her into the comforting nest of a waiting mobile repair slip. Repairs began at once, even as the massive cage like vessel came about and began lumbering back in-system at full impulse. No one would ever call the gangly, fragile MRS vessels beautiful, but they were certainly a sight for sore eyes for any crew of a warship that had taken combat damage in the field. Having gotten his people home, Uly sank back in his chair and closed his eyes. The faces of those who had so recently died under his orders swam before him. To many faces…far to many…
- - -
Commissar Stevens looked over her charge from her vantage point along the far wall of the Flag Bridge. With the holodisplay off, she had an unobstructed view of Admiral Vanguard. She gave herself a mental kick for forgetting, just for a moment, that in spite of the young officer’s tactical brilliance, he had been only a mere third officer of a fleet support vessel scant months before. While she could find no fault in his performance as leader of the Imperial forces for Sector 2000, he lacked the weight of experience that one acquired by moving up the chain of command more conventionally.
One gained the tools to deal with the loss of comrades in arms that were under your command gradually. Ulysses was getting the advanced course after only taking a few entry level classes, and it was certain to be weighing heavily on him. Jessica made a mental note to keep a closer eye on him, for as much as she had come to grudgingly admire him and his abilities, he was T’var’s protégé and thus deserved more in depth scrutiny than your average Imperial Officer.
While she may respect him, he could well prove an enemy of the Empire. And there is no doubt as to my duty where that ever to happen she thought, fingering the comforting shape of the back of her type II phaser’s pistol grip. No, there was no doubt at all.
ISS Valley Forge, 20 minutes later
Ulysses sat behind his desk deep in the bowels of his ship. She was still undergoing repairs, but they yard dogs said she’d be back in fighting trim within two days. Technically she was combat ready now, but there were still some harmonic vibrations in her new QSS nacelles that could prove a problem down the road. Not wanting to take any chances, he, P’tel and the repair slip foreman had all agreed it needed to be fixed before the Forge returned to active duty.
Suddenly, deep space fireworks began going off near the Forge’s repair slip. The fake window built into the bulkhead of his working office showed the beautiful, silent burst of sparkling primary colors far better than any standard window could. Uly’s silent revere was broken by the strobe of light that was soon accompanied by a multitude of others, exploding in complex patterns with rainbow colors rippling across the explosions in carefully timed sequence to be considered pleasing to the human eye. Scowling at the celebratory light show, Ulysses tried to figure out who could possibly think of celebrating at a time like this as he left his high backed chair and paced over to the fake window. The cacophony of vibrant colored explosions rose to a crescendo, with hundreds of silver and red hued fireworks going off as one resulting in an impressively done flag of the Terran Empire.
Striding back over to his desk to activate the communication system, his scowl deepening to shadow the darkening of his already stormy mood, Ulysses was surprised anew when it chirped for attention before he got there. Depressing the call admittance button on the smooth control panel, the young Admiral forced his voice to civility in spite of the feelings boiling within him.
“Vanguard here.”
“Admiral, we have a priority com from Lilith. It’s Prime Minister Allonzo.”
Ulysses ground his teeth together. Of all the people to be pestering him now it would have to be him. A bigger boot licker and ass kisser he had never met, but Carl Allonzo’s political capabilities outshone both of them. Which wasn’t a good thing. While politics might be a worthy job choice for those virtuous and seeking public service, those that embraced the role of “Politician” as easily as Carl had made could also make very good livings selling used aircars. In the recent elections on Lilith, Carl had woven a masterful display of propaganda and mud slinging that would have done a Bu Truth lackey proud.
How the people of Lilith had been convinced by this snake oil salesman to elect him as their direct spokesman to the Terran Empire’s ruling body for the sector was beyond Uly. Course it was the first large-scale democratic election held within the Empire for such a position in centuries, so one might expect the voting public to be a bit rusty on weeding out the bad eggs. Not that it made dealing with such an unsavory character any less distasteful. To Ulysses, Carl Allonzo was everything a public servant shouldn’t be, seeking only to gain power over others with no thoughts as to how to best wield that power in service OF them.
Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself while his non-synthetic hand raised itself to knead the bridge of his nose, Uly spoke.
“Put it through Lt. Cmdr. Wendell. I’ll take it here.”
“Aye sir.”
The large multipurpose display that was mounted on the wall behind his desk switched over from a master systems display repeater to show the silver sword and Terra emblem of the Empire with a crimson stand by flashing beneath it. Seconds later, the smiling, cherubic features of PM Allonzo popped up on the viewer. The smile was as fake as any Ulysses had seen, and it certainly never reached the man’s eyes.
“Admiral Vanguard, on behalf of the entire sector I extend our warmest congratulations upon the liberation of many systems, the destruction of the enemy menacing them and successful return of your ships.”
Ulysses could only cock an eyebrow in very Vulcan fashion at that. The stupid bootlicker is so eager to butter me up, he doesn’t realize just how precarious our position in this sector is right now. I just barely survived walking right into a well laid ambush that bought my formation 90% casualties (Uly winced as he thought anew about the toll in sentient beings that meant) in units I NEED to defend this sector and he’s hailing me like some damned conquering hero, Uly thought. The PM continued, not noticing the surprise and growing anger Ulysses was careful to mask.
“I’ve already declared today to be a sector wide day of celebration on behalf of your great victories over the enemies of the Empire! I wish to come aboard your flagship to discuss further plans we can implement to glorify your triumph today.”
“Very well Prime Minister, you may come aboard. I am free now as a matter of fact if that is convenient for you.” Much as Ulysses might loath the man personally, he was determined to set precedent where the position was concerned. Like him or not, he was the duly appointed peoples representative. And since Uly was the acting Sector Governor, that meant that if Uly wanted the position to actually mean something when he was inevitably replaced, he had to at least try and work with the PM.
“It certainly is Admiral, I shall transport up directly.”
“Very good, Vanguard out.”
Merry Christmas all. Don't say I never gave ya nothin! It's looking like Unity is gonna wrap up about Chapter 50, so we're nearly done. I really hope to find more time to write as I really enjoy doing it (hopefully as much as you all enjoy reading it). RL has gotten a lot more busy for me this last year than it has been previous, but I promise I'll keep writing (hopefully more often 
)
ISS Nebuchadnezzar
The ragged, bloody elements of what had once been an Imperial Task Force coalesced around the lone ship of the line to escape the Lethe star system as Point Ember drew ever closer. The Nebuchadnezzar had developed a distinct shudder that was growing steadily worse. Which was only to be expected considering close to ¼ of her forward primary hull was a crumpled, molten mass of white hot alloy and ceramic with rivulets of seared and melted hull trailing aft where the plasma had washed over her naked armor. Her port dorsal nacelle pylon had sheared off to a drive plasma bleeding melted stump, with the port ventral nacelle pylon severely compromised and being held in place by little more than the combined will and prayers of the Neb’s crew.
The creaks, pops and groans of stressed alloy could be heard and felt throughout the warship as her structural integrity field fought a loosing battle against the ships substantial battle damage. Flying on little more than a wing and a prayer, the port ventral nacelle kept trying to break itself free from the Neb. Ulysses considered ordering the fleet to drop to sublight and continue on under emergency warp power, but that would increase the trip’s length from just over twenty minutes to three days at high warp. With Damage Control teams barely holding their heads above water as it was, the increase in transit time was an unacceptable risk. Especially with over a fifth of her crew dead or MIA and a further 1/3 wounded. Ulysses winced mentally as his mind coldly went over the casualty list for the hundredth time, twisting the dagger in his heart. TEN ships out of 100. ONLY ten bloody ships! 90 of HIS ships lost because of his mistake, taking Gods knows how many of their crew with them to the void.
Prescott’s Star had already been informed of what had transpired. Rear Admiral Cadence Ulinova (senior officer in command of the post in Ulysses absence) had begun to command an escort to link up with the shattered remnants of the Imperial Task Force, but Ulysses had countermanded her at once. He didn’t want to risk further weakening the Prescott’s Star’s Fleet element on the off chance that the Galactic Unity would choose this moment to engage in an assault. Depleted as his units currently were, it would be when HE would choose to strike at the enemy.
Long ranged enemy recon flights had been sniffing around Prescott’s Star virtually since the end of the last battle. While Ulysses was certain they couldn’t pierce the distortion his EW teams were putting up at the range the enemy was forced to stay at, he was also not willing to risk the chance that the enemy COULD see through the jamming.
So Ulysses stewed on the Flag Bridge of the Nebuchadnezzar while the ship threatened to shake herself apart around him. On the holodisplay, the damaged units of his detached command flew along side the battered flagship. A Soulwolf had speared a more heavily damaged sister ship with a tractor beam, pulling it along to their destination in spite of her own QSS engines failing condition.
A com window blossomed on the holodisplay and the faintly frowning face of Erika Benteen stared back at him.
“Admiral, my chief engineer tells me that the ship could fly apart at any moment.” The young officer inhaled, using the brief respite the action generated to gather her courage. “Sir, I respectfully suggest that you transfer your flag to one of the less heavily damaged vessels.”
“Understood Captain, but I will not transfer my flag.” The Imperial officer in the com window started to protest but stopped when she saw his upraised hand. “The Nebuchadnezzar served with distinction during the battle and has held together so far. I’m not about to leave when we’re so close to home. I thank you for your concern over my safety, but I will not leave until we are safely back at Prescott’s Star.”
“Very well Admiral, the decision is yours and I thank you for the vote of confidence in my ship and her crew.” Where some would have held him accountable for the grievous losses the Task Force, Captain Benteen had been in enough combat to know that even the best tacticians and strategists sometimes got bit on the ass. She could see on Ulysses face that he was haunted every bit as much as she by the losses incurred in the scant seconds the enemy ambush had held them in its fiery grasp.
Psych evaluations and tests could only prepare one so much for the dragging weight combat losses placed on a commander’s soul. Her first large scale command had been Squadron CO for a Destroyer screen during the latter half of the Imperial/Borg War, and after loosing nearly all of them during a single battle, she knew full well what was presently running through Ulysses’ mind. The second guessing, the searching for missed clues, the self doubt, he seemed to be handling it as well as can be expected. But she could see it in his eyes, hiding behind the mask of non-emotion that shrouded his face, the pain the loss was causing him.
In that moment she understood why so many were willing to follow him through the valley in the shadow of death, why Ulysses was known with fondness as The Skipper. He wasn’t just a leader, he LEAD. He was one of the good ones, those all too few commanders who saw those they ordered as more than mere numbers. Erika had been around the block enough to know the difference, for many flag officers saw those under them as assets to be exploited in the bloody arithmetic of combat in order to cause the greatest amounts of enemy casualties in the achievement of your objectives. But not this one.
Ulysses nodded in reply to her acquiescence. “Carry on Captain.” He said as he cut the channel.
The intervening minutes stretched on for a seeming eternity, but the Neb held together, seeming to almost sigh in thanks as she reverted to normal space just at the edge of Prescott’s Star’s defensive perimeter. A Superdreadnought Battlegroup’s worth of escorts with a swarm of tugs and fleet train mobile repair slips awaited them. The shattered bulk of the ISS Nebuchadnezzar shuddered slightly as the powerful tractors of the tugs latched on and slipped her into the comforting nest of a waiting mobile repair slip. Repairs began at once, even as the massive cage like vessel came about and began lumbering back in-system at full impulse. No one would ever call the gangly, fragile MRS vessels beautiful, but they were certainly a sight for sore eyes for any crew of a warship that had taken combat damage in the field. Having gotten his people home, Uly sank back in his chair and closed his eyes. The faces of those who had so recently died under his orders swam before him. To many faces…far to many…
- - -
Commissar Stevens looked over her charge from her vantage point along the far wall of the Flag Bridge. With the holodisplay off, she had an unobstructed view of Admiral Vanguard. She gave herself a mental kick for forgetting, just for a moment, that in spite of the young officer’s tactical brilliance, he had been only a mere third officer of a fleet support vessel scant months before. While she could find no fault in his performance as leader of the Imperial forces for Sector 2000, he lacked the weight of experience that one acquired by moving up the chain of command more conventionally.
One gained the tools to deal with the loss of comrades in arms that were under your command gradually. Ulysses was getting the advanced course after only taking a few entry level classes, and it was certain to be weighing heavily on him. Jessica made a mental note to keep a closer eye on him, for as much as she had come to grudgingly admire him and his abilities, he was T’var’s protégé and thus deserved more in depth scrutiny than your average Imperial Officer.
While she may respect him, he could well prove an enemy of the Empire. And there is no doubt as to my duty where that ever to happen she thought, fingering the comforting shape of the back of her type II phaser’s pistol grip. No, there was no doubt at all.
ISS Valley Forge, 20 minutes later
Ulysses sat behind his desk deep in the bowels of his ship. She was still undergoing repairs, but they yard dogs said she’d be back in fighting trim within two days. Technically she was combat ready now, but there were still some harmonic vibrations in her new QSS nacelles that could prove a problem down the road. Not wanting to take any chances, he, P’tel and the repair slip foreman had all agreed it needed to be fixed before the Forge returned to active duty.
Suddenly, deep space fireworks began going off near the Forge’s repair slip. The fake window built into the bulkhead of his working office showed the beautiful, silent burst of sparkling primary colors far better than any standard window could. Uly’s silent revere was broken by the strobe of light that was soon accompanied by a multitude of others, exploding in complex patterns with rainbow colors rippling across the explosions in carefully timed sequence to be considered pleasing to the human eye. Scowling at the celebratory light show, Ulysses tried to figure out who could possibly think of celebrating at a time like this as he left his high backed chair and paced over to the fake window. The cacophony of vibrant colored explosions rose to a crescendo, with hundreds of silver and red hued fireworks going off as one resulting in an impressively done flag of the Terran Empire.
Striding back over to his desk to activate the communication system, his scowl deepening to shadow the darkening of his already stormy mood, Ulysses was surprised anew when it chirped for attention before he got there. Depressing the call admittance button on the smooth control panel, the young Admiral forced his voice to civility in spite of the feelings boiling within him.
“Vanguard here.”
“Admiral, we have a priority com from Lilith. It’s Prime Minister Allonzo.”
Ulysses ground his teeth together. Of all the people to be pestering him now it would have to be him. A bigger boot licker and ass kisser he had never met, but Carl Allonzo’s political capabilities outshone both of them. Which wasn’t a good thing. While politics might be a worthy job choice for those virtuous and seeking public service, those that embraced the role of “Politician” as easily as Carl had made could also make very good livings selling used aircars. In the recent elections on Lilith, Carl had woven a masterful display of propaganda and mud slinging that would have done a Bu Truth lackey proud.
How the people of Lilith had been convinced by this snake oil salesman to elect him as their direct spokesman to the Terran Empire’s ruling body for the sector was beyond Uly. Course it was the first large-scale democratic election held within the Empire for such a position in centuries, so one might expect the voting public to be a bit rusty on weeding out the bad eggs. Not that it made dealing with such an unsavory character any less distasteful. To Ulysses, Carl Allonzo was everything a public servant shouldn’t be, seeking only to gain power over others with no thoughts as to how to best wield that power in service OF them.
Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself while his non-synthetic hand raised itself to knead the bridge of his nose, Uly spoke.
“Put it through Lt. Cmdr. Wendell. I’ll take it here.”
“Aye sir.”
The large multipurpose display that was mounted on the wall behind his desk switched over from a master systems display repeater to show the silver sword and Terra emblem of the Empire with a crimson stand by flashing beneath it. Seconds later, the smiling, cherubic features of PM Allonzo popped up on the viewer. The smile was as fake as any Ulysses had seen, and it certainly never reached the man’s eyes.
“Admiral Vanguard, on behalf of the entire sector I extend our warmest congratulations upon the liberation of many systems, the destruction of the enemy menacing them and successful return of your ships.”
Ulysses could only cock an eyebrow in very Vulcan fashion at that. The stupid bootlicker is so eager to butter me up, he doesn’t realize just how precarious our position in this sector is right now. I just barely survived walking right into a well laid ambush that bought my formation 90% casualties (Uly winced as he thought anew about the toll in sentient beings that meant) in units I NEED to defend this sector and he’s hailing me like some damned conquering hero, Uly thought. The PM continued, not noticing the surprise and growing anger Ulysses was careful to mask.
“I’ve already declared today to be a sector wide day of celebration on behalf of your great victories over the enemies of the Empire! I wish to come aboard your flagship to discuss further plans we can implement to glorify your triumph today.”
“Very well Prime Minister, you may come aboard. I am free now as a matter of fact if that is convenient for you.” Much as Ulysses might loath the man personally, he was determined to set precedent where the position was concerned. Like him or not, he was the duly appointed peoples representative. And since Uly was the acting Sector Governor, that meant that if Uly wanted the position to actually mean something when he was inevitably replaced, he had to at least try and work with the PM.
“It certainly is Admiral, I shall transport up directly.”
“Very good, Vanguard out.”
Merry Christmas all. Don't say I never gave ya nothin!
It's looking like Unity is gonna wrap up about Chapter 50, so we're nearly done. I really hope to find more time to write as I really enjoy doing it (hopefully as much as you all enjoy reading it). RL has gotten a lot more busy for me this last year than it has been previous, but I promise I'll keep writing (hopefully more often )Cult of Weber Missionary
-
Crazedwraith
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11924
- Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
- Location: Cheshire, England
-
Prozac the Robert
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1327
- Joined: 2004-05-05 09:01am
- Location: UK
-
darthdavid
- Pathetic Attention Whore
- Posts: 5470
- Joined: 2003-02-17 12:04pm
- Location: Bat Country!
-
consequences
- Homicidal Maniac
- Posts: 6964
- Joined: 2002-07-07 03:06pm
-
HappyTarget
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 439
- Joined: 2003-01-29 08:24pm
- Location: Michigan USA
- Contact: