Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

April 4th 001 SDE, 1750 hours, six hours after the Battle began:

The ship shuddered, “Aft shields failing!”

Another shake, “Dorsal shields are gone!”

“Hull breach, emergency force fields holding.”

She cursed, “Return fire!”

Glancing at her screens, she checked on the Guilded Heart. Her shields were down, the ship was venting atmosphere but thankfully she wasn’t taking fire anymore. Unfortunately that fire was now striking her ship and a Broadsword had a lot of firepower. The cursed ship must have been running dark. Of course, the asteroids in the area didn’t help Regardless of why they hadn’t seen it until it had already been in range and their escorts had run ahead to run off a pair of heavy cruisers and their escorts that had been moving to cut off their retreat.

“No effect! Enemy shields are holding.”

“Helm brings us about, but keep us between that ship and the Heart. Line up the forward tubes.”

“Aye! Ma’am, lining up forward tubes.”

Her ship shuddered and someone shouted about another hull breach. She just prayed the ship would hold together. She glanced at the screens, the Coto was close now. Another minute and she would be in weapons range, another thirty seconds after that the Umikaze would be in range. If not for the system-wide jamming field they could have been in range already.

Another shudder, she heard a whine in the distance and then someone shouted, “We have lost shields!”

She glanced at the screen, they were lined up. “FIRE!”

The ship groaned as several torpedoes cleared the tubes. A moment later the glowing bolts of deadly red energy struck the cruiser pounding into her ship. Her shields flared brightly and for a moment she stopped firing.

It took several seconds for the dust to clear and the ship appeared seemingly unharmed. Her gun ports glowed and one of them spat deadly plasma. Her ship shuddered and every alarm on the bridge went off at once. Moments before beams of deadly blue energy slammed into the cruiser one after another.

“Damage report!”

“That last hit was bad, Engineering reports primary containment is failing. Estimate five minutes to reactor breach!”

She cursed, even as she gave the order, “ALL hands abandon ship!”

Reia hated giving the order but she didn’t really have a choice. The only other option might just doom her crew. As her crew was clearing the bridge, she quickly checked what systems were functioning. She cursed again, the main drives were fried. The ship wasn’t going anywhere. That cut off one option and she moved to appraise the Coto of their situation and ended up noting that the Guilded Heart was launching escape pods. She must have taken more damage than she thought. That wasn’t good.

It took her only a moment to inform Captain Reynolds and then she rushed off to her escape pod. Taking only a moment to check that everyone else had gotten off. The sensors reported all the other pods had already been launched. Even better she wasn’t reading any life signs remaining on the ship. She was the last one off, it seemed. Last living one anyway. She hit the launch button and strapped in as the pod, engaged its automatic pilot. A basic plasma engine rapidly thrust her away from her dying cruiser and hopefully to a safe distance. Thankfully her pod like all the others contained a basic shield system. It wasn’t much, weaker than those found on most fighters, but it was enough to provide some protection.

Looking out she watched as the two destroyers ripped apart the Cathamari cruiser in a matter of minutes. The cruiser fought back and scored several hits, but none of them were that damaging. Before long she watched as her own ship went up in a fireball. The shockwave rocked her pod and then moments later her sister’s ship detonated. Not long after that the Cathmari cruiser went dead, she was still there but the ship had been vented to space. Her hull rent open in multiple places. This little bit of battle was done and now she was stuck here in a pod waiting to be picked up

The young woman sighed as she glanced at the monitor. She didn’t feel all that safe, but there wasn’t much she could do. The local command staff was doing what they could to keep the station intact. Despite the chaos going on out there. Which meant she had precious little she could do but sit here and hope the shields held. The only good thing about this battle is that it had somehow attracted a battleship belonging to a group her company had been hired to investigate. A group they had had little luck even locating.

So since she had nothing else to do, she decided to watch the alien battleship fight. Not for the first time she watched heavy plasma cannons rake the armored hull of the alien vessel with no evident effect and once again she was left wondering. What in the galaxy is that ship made of!? Neutronium? If so that would explain their lack of shields, but how did they afford to plate the entire hull of a starship with the toughest mineral known to science? That stuff was notoriously difficult to produce and work. Even small amounts of it could cost as much as a small starship just to refine into an alloy. Building a capital ship out of it seemed... far-fetched. She watched the plasma of another hit wash over their hull. Covering far more surface area than it should. Not to mention the way plasma fire got dispersed over their hull was strange. Perhaps it was some other material, but she wasn’t sure what.

The seeming invulnerability of their hull plating wasn’t the only thing she had noted about them. That warship also had a tendency of avoiding getting hit by torpedoes. The Cathamari had launched countless volleys of torpedoes at them, but rarely succeeded in scoring a hit. Nothing that did any apparent damage either. Most of the time the ship simply wasn’t there to take the hit. These aliens evidently had some way to... teleport on the battlefield. She wasn’t sure that was what they were doing, but it was the only word that fit what she saw. The ship would simply blur before appearing elsewhere. While she didn’t know how they were doing it, the feat itself was extremely impressive. It gave their giant warship a level of mobility that belies its size. Mobility these aliens were using to the advantage.

Another big item of note were their torpedoes. She had watched the glowing blue projectiles annihilate cruisers in short order. The only ships that seemed to hold up to any real number of them were Cathamari cruisers but the only ship that seemed immune was that Cathamari dreadnought. It had already absorbed far too many hits to count without any notable damage. Nothing more than a few scratches to the paint and broken shield emitters. The emitters might matter, but the ship had so many that her shield strength wasn’t really affected.

On the flipside the Dreadnought’s heavy plasma cannons were proving equally ineffective. As for her Starfire Plasma torpedoes, they hadn’t had a chance to prove their worth. Without fail the aliens had evaded every volley. Often appearing right next to some other poor cruiser and ripping her to shreds at point blank. A display that put into perspective how powerful those alien weapons were. Her Particle cannons and beam arrays didn’t seem that impressive at first, but once they got through the shields they would shred a vessel far faster than most plasma weapons. Still she felt her torpedoes were more worrisome.

On the screen she watched as the ship blurred away from yet another torpedo volley. Reappearing near three Cathamari battle cruisers and directly above an Ophera class light cruiser. All four vessels opened fire with torpedoes as the alien vessel returned fire and for the first time she didn’t dodge. Why she didn’t know, but it didn’t do much anyway. Instead a net of angry red lines materialized in a bubble around the alien battleship. The plasma torpedoes destabilized harmlessly on contact with the barrier. None of them impacted the hull and moments later all four ships melted under heavy sustained particle fire. The Light cruiser taking several sustained beams fired from the battleship’s ventral arrays. Her shields held at first, but the second volley penetrated thanks to a localized failure. The beams tore through the hull, penetrating multiple decks going right through main engineering and out the other side. Seconds later the ship was torn apart by internal detonations.

The three Cathamari cruisers survived a little longer, but only by minutes. They too were soon ripped to shreds. Even as the ship continued to exchange heavy fire with the Cathamari dreadnought. She even watched as a cruiser drifted into the crossfire between them only to be destroyed in mere seconds. A sight that merely highlighted why ships were avoiding the region of space between these two titans. They were mighty warships that would destroy just about anyone that crossed their paths. The significance of these two ships did not escape her.

Sali pulled the towel over her frame more tightly as the ship shuddered. On the other side of the glass, the ship’s light flashed an ominous red. At the moment she was quite alone and had no idea what was going on outside these walls. Normally that might have been great for a prospective escape. No one was watching her and the ship was distracted. An opportunity like this was hard to come by, only she was currently naked. The only thing she had was this towel and it was even worse for her modesty than the shift. She missed her shift already too bad it was little more than base elements now. That had been the most terrifying moment in her life. One she couldn’t help thinking about.

It had only been a few hours ago, at least she hoped it had been. It was hard to tell. She distinctly recalled what she had been doing. As usual she had been working with the alien material Rydium and once again the guy who usually helps by carting the material away from her station to the pool was out. That meant she ended up being the one doing that and as fitting her apparent poor luck the ship ended up in battle while she was working.

She had been at the pool the large crystal growing in the middle of it, a few others had been working nearby when the lights had turned yellow. Almost instantly the floor manager was shouting orders to wrap things up. So instead of going back to her station where she felt safer, she ended up sitting next to the pool. Slowly adding bricks to the scary waters. Every time they entered the heavy blocks would simply melt away in seconds. A sight that left her a bit uncomfortable working so close to those waters.

Then suddenly the lights turned red and that whole room shook. Sali found herself tumbling right into the pool. Naturally, she panicked. Flailing about in the water, even swallowing some of it as her clothes disintegrated in the water. How long that went on, she wasn’t sure, but she hadn’t exactly been calm when they fished her out.

Eventually she did calm down and found herself quite intact. Only to turn entirely red when she realized that she was completely naked and in public no less. Sure it was with strangely colored aliens, but they were so like her own species it didn’t matter. Her skin had flushed a lovely shade of purple as she tried futilely to cover her nudity. As someone, she wasn’t sure who tried to calm her down. At some point she was asked if she had swallowed any and meekly she had said yes. They rushed her here after that.

Now here she was all alone, with no real idea what was going on. Entirely naked with only this small towel that someone had given her after they had dried her off with heated air. It had been a bit of a whirlwind as the alien doctors dried her off, blasted her with strange light subjected her to half a dozen scans and then stuffed her in here for observation. Even now she wasn’t entirely sure she was going to be okay. Not for the first time she was regretting taking that bath, even if it had been quite unplanned.

Suddenly she heard voices. It was hard to make out what they were saying, but thankfully they sounded female. A moment later a pair appeared by the door, one of them walked off, while the second a face that seemed familiar walked in. It took her a moment to place her, it was the female doctor she had met when she got here. The one who helped her through her stun sickness. She felt herself relax a little.

The woman smiled, “Well, Sali how are you feeling?”

“A little cold and my stomach feels... heavy.”

She reached into the bag she was carrying pulling out a shift, “I can imagine, but the good news is your going to be just fine.”

“I am?”

She nodded, “You will. It will take a few days for all the Rydium and nanites you swallowed to be flushed from your system.”

Taking the offered shift, she dropped the towel as she felt tension she wasn’t aware of drain away, “So I’m not going to melt into a puddle of goo?”

The woman laughed, “Goo? Sali dear who told you that?”

She frowned, “But!”

Controlling herself the doctor interjected, “That wasn’t ever a danger. For safety reasons those nanites were programmed not to break down living matter, but industrial nanites aren’t that smart so they can cause other problems.”

Sali gave her a look, “Other problems?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. We reprogrammed them. They’ll also collect all those heavy elements you swallowed and help flush them out. As I said you will be fine,” the ship shuddered.

Deciding to worry about something else she asked, “So why is the ship shaking so much?”

“Well we are being shot at.”

Sali sighed, “I could guess that. I wanted to know who we are fighting.”

“I’m not entirely sure. Its a bit chaotic out there.”

Sali frowned, “Chaotic?”

“I’ll show you what I mean,” said the young doctor. Who led her out of the room and down the hall. There was a nice monitor in the room and a single bed hooked up to a lot of bulky medical equipment.

The doctor worked a console and after a couple of minutes. The display shifted from a blank medical diagram of a generic body to an external view of space. Sali quickly noted the massive Cathamari ship that was firing on them. Even the Valorian vessel that fired on that ship. Only to disintegrate in a couple of hits. As she watched the scene only grew more chaotic. Making it hard to tell who was fighting who. As Valorian ships were shooting at Valorian ships. Cathamari ships were firing on other Cathamari ships. Valorians were shoot at Cathamari vessels and vice versa. All in the mix of this chaos, the Enterprise was engaged in a slugging match with a dreadnought and engaging other vessels. Breifly she considered trying to escape, she could see Valorian ships out there and as the view shifted she spotted the familiar world of Cantra. For once she knew exactly where they were, but after a moment she simply sat on the bed and watched. It wasn’t that bad here, and that? Well it was so chaotic she feared trying to jump ship just might get her killed.