Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Pirate Raider: Smaller vessels, typically built for speed, and featuring a fairly large cargo hold. Many of them are converted civilian vessels armed with whatever weapons were available. Some however are purpose built by the more established pirate, and therefore better equipped for the task. Pirate Raiders are very effective ships when it comes to their main role. Hitting trade routes, and making off with valuable cargo. Common weapons typically found on pirate raiders include laser cannons, particle cannons, ion cannons, ion torpedoes, and low-yield plasma cannons. Rarely they can include more exotic weapons, but never anything powerful enough to actually harm the heavier capital ships such as heavy cruisers or battleships.

Countryman shifted in his seat, as he surveyed the debris. Twenty-nine raiders had been reduced to expanding clouds of debris, and it had barely been a minute. No new contacts were yet on sensors, but their range was severely reduced so that did not mean there were no contacts. In this thick cloud of dust, they had a sensor range of less than a hundred thousand kilometers. That wasn’t much in space terms, especially when you factored in that was the range of the long-range sensors. The short-range scanners were having just as much trouble with this soup and were now limited to just a few thousand kilometers. Weapon ranges were unaffected, and now he had to deal with the fact that he could shoot further than he could see. It used to be the other way around. Normally at this point, he would give the order to resume normal operations, but he would rather remain in a state of heightened alert. They were not alone in this system after all. So instead, he gave the order to drop back to general quarters, and the alert lights shifted from red to yellow. Across the hull, he knew the turrets would be retracting back into their gun ports.

Turning in his seat, he gave his next order. It was time to launch their scouting mission. With reduced sensor range those fighters would be his eyes. Thankfully communications were not affected the way sensors were, which meant they would prove effective at locating threats before they got too close to the fleet.

“Aye, sir. Both main hangers report ready, and are opening the bay doors. Fighters will be in the void in four minutes.” reported Megumi.

Countryman nodded. That was about what he expected since he had not ordered a hot launch, but a standard one. As such that time table included the decompression cycle for the bay which would take a little over three minutes to complete. It was one of the little complications in spaceborne carrier operations. One that slowed operations, and certainly made it interesting to deploy fighters in battle. If he had ordered a hot launch his hanger crews would have skipped the decompression cycle, and simply opened the doors. That would lead to the bay explosively decompressing, as the air would rush out into space. It would also allow fighters to be deployed more quickly, but they would also lose valuable air. The life support systems could clean, and recycle their air, but it could not replace air that was lost.

There were of course tricks for speeding up spaceborne carrier operations. The most obvious was open bay operations. The idea being that instead of closing and recompressing the bay you leave it open. This is actually great when the carrier is not under fire, or in danger of hostile attack. By eliminating the cycling of the bay doors, and leaving the bay in a state of vacuum, it became possible for simultaneous launch and recovery operations. However, if the carrier was under threat, this wasn’t so good. Open bay doors left the hangers vulnerable to hostile fire, and created an obvious weakness. Now while the Enterprise featured reinforced, and armored hangers that didn’t mean they wanted people firing into the hangers.

The other big trick for speeding it up, was to simply leave the bay in vacuum, but otherwise conduct business as normal. That meant they were still cycling the doors after recovery or launch of fighters. They just weren’t doing the lengthy atmospheric cycling process. Obviously, the cycling of doors did slow bay operations a little in terms of launch and recovery, but it also left the bay protected from potential hostiles when they weren’t actively deploying or recovering auxiliary craft. Since he planned for a lot of activity, he wanted to bay to stay in vacuum for the foreseeable future. Deck crews and pilots would just have to operate in their vacuum suits. Something they would be wearing anyway. Open bay operations were not an option in his mind, since this soup prevented them from knowing for sure about possible threats to the ship. It was better that the doors stayed closed as much as possible. At least until the system was secure. In the meantime, it was time for every commander's favorite game, the waiting game.

Greyman came up the stairs, “I guess this curbstomp, answers our question about anyone being here.”

Countryman nodded, “We all agreed there was a decent chance of it. The only variable we couldn’t account for was trade routes, but everything else painted the system as a great place to hide and if needed fight. Prime territory for a pirate haven. Thankfully most of them seem stupid.”

“Not all of them, just that one group. One of them tried to run the moment it saw us, and most of the others were ignoring us. If not for that one group, I don’t believe the other ships would have attacked us.”

Countryman nodded, as he recalled the target practice exercise. “Yes you may be right about that. That does seem to have been the case, not that it matters, they are all dead now. Hopefully we were fast enough that they were unable to get a signal out.”

Greyman concurred, but Countryman had a feeling that one of them may have. While that curbstomp had been dreadfully short, it was still long enough for someone to have hit the comm. With twenty-nine ships there was a good chance that one of them thought to warn anyone else that may be in the system.

The pirate captain shifted as he watched the short video. It wasn’t much, just a short bit of transmission that one of their raiders had managed to make. A burst transmission containing their final logs. Roughly fifty ships belonging to various clans had been in that area, most of them on outbound courses. Twenty-nine of those ships were gone, completely silent. No one was able to raise them. The rest, like startled rodents, were making best possible speed away from the... massacre. It wasn’t a battle, not at all.

He glanced at the ship on the screen, uncomfortable. They had no readings, none at all to tell them who built it or what it was carrying. It reminded him of those alien fighters that nearly wrecked his ship. He had been lucky to get away, and now these strange ships were here.

His clan leader commented, “Trust those fools in clan Rish’nak to get everyone killed. That was clearly a battleship, and not a mega-freighter. What were they thinking?!”

“No idea. Glory? Fame? Riches? You can never really tell with that group. Then again not everyone in our line of work is smart. Many aren’t that bright.”

His leader laughed, “Yeah, well that ain’t us. Anyone who actually makes it, needs to be smart. Anyway, start packing. I don’t know what that ship is doing here, but I would rather not stick around and find out. I’m going to get this old bucket ready to jump, and make sure that pack of bitches you call a crew gets your cruiser secure in the hangar. I don’t want to leave our best ship behind, even if it is in bad shape.”

He nodded, and watched, the wily Mishran clan leader leave the room. He glanced back at the screens. It seemed they were doing, a lot more running these days, and to think they had finally found a comfortable place. After the Cathamari had conquered his world, his crew had been left adrift. They had initially gone like many others to the Valorians. Unfortunately they had been unwelcome. It was the Mishran clan leader who had just left, who provided their salvation. Whereas the Valorians had either been indifferent, unwilling to help poor refugees, or in some cases outright hostile, the Mishran had provided them a home. This colossal old mega-freighter turned mobile pirate base was that home.

Perhaps it wasn’t that surprising, that they had. The Mishran while largely regarded as a race of brigands, pirates, and mercenaries today, were not always so. Many centuries ago, they had been a proud accomplished people with an empire of their own, and a strong warrior culture. They had been some of the most fearsome warriors in this part of the galaxy, but they had also been accomplished artists. Then everything had fallen apart around them, when a devastating plague had swept across their world. It was a truly frightful plague. It was made all the worse because it did not kill people, not directly anyway. It killed plants, but if that was all it did things might not have been so bad. A byproduct of it killing the plants was an incredibly potent toxin harmful to everything plants, people, microbes. Anything living was killed by this toxin. Worse the plague spread to worlds beyond the Mishran empire before a solution of sorts was found. Unfortunately the worlds already touched by the plague were left dead, unable to support life. The surviving Mishran fled into other empires where fear left them largely unwelcome. Many were eventually forced into piracy, and before long many of them became generational pirates. He found it uncomfortable with how closely their situation mirrored that of the ancient Mishran. Even if the cause was different. He slipped out of the room, to get his crew moving.

The young woman checked her fighter over. They were still a few weeks out, but she wanted to make sure her craft was ready to fly. In fact, she was looking forward to being able to fly it. There was nothing she loved more than flying her fighter. In the cockpit, she was in her own special little world. The damn comm broke that illusional a little, but she could turn that off.

Checking her fighter also gave her an excuse not to be in the briefing, like everyone else in the crew. The captain had called a crew conference. Where basically anyone not manning an essential post was expected to show up. Honestly, she just thought it was an excuse for the captain to talk people’s ears off. That man sure loved to talk. Although she had to wonder how a man ended up in a captain’s post to begin with.

Men in officer’s positions were not all that common in the Valorian navy. Most officers were women. This fact had led to all sorts of gossip about him. With quite a few sordid theories. She wasn’t sure, she believed them, but given what happened at their last mission. Along with the one before that, and the one before that. There might be something to it. The man was an utter incompetent, and it was only a matter of time before he got them all killed. She just knew it. That was why, she and half the crew along with her, had applied for transfers. The other half were either too enamored with him, or just as inept as he was. She sighed when as if to prove her point, she found a power coupling for the pulse cannon had been forced back in backwards.

This was why she liked to check her fighter over herself. The fucking maintenance staff was utterly incapable of doing their jobs right. There was little excuse for how bad it was. How they ever managed to get through training, and be posted to a ship was beyond her. She wished she could be on any other ship, but this one. Give her a ship, where the staff actually cares, and where things were actually done right. Unfortunately, her transfer request had been denied, again.

Grabbing a tool, she started working the power coupling out. This wasn’t at all what she had imagined when she joined the navy. Her family had been in the military for generations. Her sister had said there were a few bad ships, but she had had a generally good experience in the navy. In fact because of her family, she had even been promised a slot on a good ship. So she had joined, gone to the academy. Not the nicest experience, she most remembered those days they got packed into aging transports like sardines. Worse, there was only one toilet for a thousand cadets, and not a single shower. Well not any working showers anyway. On the flip side, as bad as that was, she did have some genuinely good experiences at the academy. It was where she had found her love of piloting.

So how did she end up in this tub? With an utterly inept crew, and a questionable captain? She asked herself that all the time, but the answer was a simple and unfortunate accident. Honestly she wasn’t entirely sure on the details, but her sister’s ship had a reactor breach during routine maintenance. Her sister had the unfortunate luck of being aboard at the time, and was among the dead. That had pretty much killed her slot as well. As for the rest of her family? Her mother had passed years ago, heart condition, incurable. Her father? Who knows. Her other sister? Long term exploration mission, hadn’t heard from her in years. Her aunt? Well, alive and present, but they didn’t have the best relationship. Which covered a few of her other family members as well.

Sighing to herself, she cursed her terrible luck. Not for the first time, she wished her sister hadn’t died, and not just because of the way it had screwed over her life. She genuinely missed her sister as well. Hard not to since, she was the only family that truly cared about her. With a loud pop, the power coupling finally slipped out of the housing. She assessed the damage, and cursed the mothers of the maintenance crew. They had done a number on this. Not for the first time, she questioned how they even managed to get their jobs. Grabbing another tool, she went to work fixing the housing best she could.

A few minutes later, with the housing repaired, and a new coupling in place. Properly installed this time, she slipped into the cockpit, and ran a diagnostic. As she started that up, to see if the computer could find anything else the stupid maintenance crew had broken, the comm beeped. That made her jump, and she looked up to see it was receiving a wideband, general distress call. Curious, she flipped a switch, and the transmission began playing.

“... to anyone hearing this. This is the Bel’krak, we are under attack. Require immediate assistance...” he broke off, as an explosion came over the channel, quickly followed by a few loud shouts from people in the background, then the man continued, “Hull breached, severe damage, all systems failing. We never even saw them...” those were his last words, as another explosion came over the channel followed by the distinct static of an active transmitter being destroyed. The ship had likely just been destroyed.

She checked the recorder. It had been recorded, so she sent it along to the captain and then checked the database. Where she learned that the Bel’krak was a pirate ship, one with quite the bounty on it. Last known position, the Delta Four system. The very same system they were heading for. Their next mission was in that system, a sweep for pirates. It seemed someone was doing their job for them. She hoped this wasn’t a bad omen for the mission, but a sign that just maybe won’t go horribly wrong like their last one had, and the one before that. She just had little hope for it, not with the inepts she was surrounded by.

Reynolds watched the enemy ship go down on the screen. It was a cruiser, although not a big one. They had engaged it mainly due to it being too close to the Enterprise. Over the last few hours, they had located and engaged nearly a hundred ships. Most of them were small raider-sized vessels, but a few were larger like this one. These alien pirates tended to either run on sight, or attack. Nothing in between. Rather than risk an attack, they had started shooting first.

“Target destroyed sir. No further contacts spotted.”

“Keep an eye out.” Reynolds figured there must be a pirate port somewhere around here. The system was practically crawling with pirate ships. Definitely enough to support the idea of this system being a Pirate Haven.

He glanced at the tactical map he had displayed on his command console. On it the positions of the Enterprise, her fighters, and the Umikaze were being tracked. Along with any new contacts found. They were a bit spread out at the moment. Not much he could do about that, they had spread their forces out a bit to maximize visibility. They were not too far apart to prevent them from aiding each other, either. So it wasn’t a problem. Although a few extra scouts might help. Unfortunately while the Coto was a good ship, she did not carry fighters. She didn’t even have fighter racks. So while she technically had the hanger space to allow a couple of them to land, and refuel she had nowhere to stow them. At least not without doing some work adapting her shuttle racks to stow fighters.

That meant neither his ship nor Drake's ship could contribute fighters for recon. They did have personnel shuttles, which could fulfill the role. With a little bit of modification naturally, but no one wanted to risk them with such a dangerous mission. While modern overlord armor was fairly robust, those ships were so tiny. Their armor barely better than paper. He knew why, those shuttles thanks to their small size had very limited power generation, which meant weaker armor. They also had less surface area when compared to a larger vessel, which meant less area to disperse the energy of a shot over. In other words, the absorbers were less effective on such a small ship. Worse the plating was pretty thin, which further limited what it could do to protect the ship. Those shuttles were never really intended for battle, and their armor wasn’t rated to protect against anything bigger than a fighter’s cannons. They were fairly agile however and could give most opponents the slip. That speed was part of why he was still considering it, even after his discussion with the other captains. Sixty fighters was a good number, but it wasn’t enough for this. They had gaps in their screen, the sheer scope of the space they were searching too vast.

Once again he mentally reviewed their inventory, while giving his next order. There wasn’t much to do beyond proceeding to the next waypoint and monitoring incoming sensor data. That gave him ample time to think. The Coto had very limited hanger space, and her designers had chosen not to fill that limited space with fighters. Still he did have a few ships. About twenty light personnel shuttles, five of which were the more heavily armored officer varients. He also had two dropships, and ten X-1205 combat shuttles, and that was it. A grand total of 32 ships, a mere fraction of the five hundred the Enterprise boasted. Which was again a mere pittance compared to the true carriers of the fleets. Most carrier classes had hundreds of fighters, the mighty Lincoln Class Supercarriers had an impressive inventory of seven thousand, and five hundred fighters alone. That didn’t count the other auxiliaries a ship of that type could carry. A fact that really put his tiny inventory in perspective. Of course, it wasn’t fair to compare his inventory with the supermassive Lincoln class carriers. Those ships were huge almost six thousand meters long, and with nearly a thousand decks. They were larger, and had more tonnage then most battleships.

Suddenly his operations officer looked up from their console. “The Enterprise reports, they found a source of Erudite on the dwarf planet in grid 37 alpha.”

He smiled, it seemed they were going to find their goal more quickly then they thought. Her next words notwithstanding, “Unfortunately it seems there is a pirate base built right on top of the largest deposit.”

He doubted that was a coincidence. It was apparently valuable to the Krall, and likely other alien races as well. Valuable enough perhaps, that a few of the more enterprising pirates may have started their own mining operation. Before he could much think on that however, a new contact appeared on the screens. It was a big one, tonnage readings roughly on par with that of a Lincoln class carrier, and a similar bulky profile. In addition it was being escorted by a fair number of smaller vessels. About thirty cruiser-sized contacts, and nearly a hundred fifty raider-sized contacts. A force large enough to be a threat if they attacked.

He gave the order for tactical to target, that ship. A second later the Coto rocked, slightly as something struck the hull. It seemed they could see him, and had already opened fire. A statement confirmed a second later.

‘That was a nuke, hull plating is holding, radiation levels well within tolerance.”

He had questions about pirates shooting at him with nukes, but this was a situation where it was better to shoot first, and ask questions later. He responded accordingly, “Return fire! All batteries! Fire for maximum effect.”

A second later he heard the familiar whine of particle cannons discharging. On the screen, he could see the energy bursts depicted leaping out across the void to strike the attacking pirate force.