Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

April 4th, 003 SDE, VCS Bountiful Treasure, Location Wesk sector grid 23A-47, Captain Reidia of Clan Minara

The captain double-checked the recent engineering reports. Her ship the Bountiful Treasure was a custom-hulled dreadnought, while classified as War Spirit Class, it didn’t exactly conform to the parameters of the hull in question. She had improved it into a ship fitting of the title Flagship. She liked to think of her ship as the flagship of the Confederation, but it was really just the flagship of the Minara clan, her clan.

At the moment she was in the Wesk sector and en route to meet up with a taskforce that had been placed under her command. She had another report to review regarding the combat readiness of the group. She was much happier about the readiness of her ship.

The War Spirit class was the larger, more expensive cousin of the Yinta line of dreadnoughts. Both lines were largely obsolete, but she knew her fleet was developing a successor to the Yinta, titled Yinta II. However she had always liked the War Spirit. Her version of the class maintained the original size of 4100 Metras long, 2200 Metra span, and one hundred thirty-seven decks. She had upgraded the main shields with a starbase level generator and outfitted it with secondary battleship-grade shields. Along with redundant surface-level force shields and internal shielding. Reidia had also invested in enhanced structural integrity systems and some Erudite-Tritanium plating. While most forms of armor were practically worthless and not worth the cost, but that was for the regular stuff. Erudite was rare and expensive but it was a remarkably rare metal with properties that made it resistant to plasma and disrupter blasts. It had cost her a lot of credits but she felt a layer of the stuff would help. Now she was very happy she had made the investment. It was going to be a huge help given her mission.

To compensate for the extra mass of the expensive plating, her ship featured a heavy plasma oscillation drive and hyper-plasma thrusters. Giving her excellent fuel economy while cruising, and high sublights speeds. While the special thrusters gave her good maneuvering ability. Superior to most other ships in her weight class. Three high-capacity antimatter reactors provided most of the ship’s main power, but she also had six smaller supplemental reactors along with twenty fusion reactors to provide all of the power she needed.

That power not only allowed for a fairly impressive sublight drive and strong shields. It also allowed for a top-of-the-line warp drive rated for warp four point eight cruise and a top speed of warp five point four.

Perhaps most impressive about her ship was the armaments. She had taken her time investing in the best weapon systems on the market. Plasma mortars were a weapon system of Valorian origin, originally designed for orbital bombardment, but their sheer power made them deadly anti-ship weapons if you could overcome their limited accuracy and range issues. Something the Cathamari did when they sought to improve a few they acquired. She had purchased a number of Heavy Cathamari Concussion Plasma Mortars. A brutish and crude weapon, but it fired very powerful concussive plasma charges. That would tear through shields and shatter hulls. Thanks to the explosive nature of a concussive plasma charge it was quite destructive on contact with shields and hulls. She had some two hundred and fifty batteries of these heavy mortars.

The Bountiful Treasure was also outfitted with super heavy plasma torpedo launchers on mounted projector turrets. 82 launchers with quad tubes and a wide firing arc. They fired powerful guided plasma rounds that could make quick work of most ships. She also carried an additional sixty-eight torpedo launchers designed to fire antimatter torpedoes.

Along with six thousand heavy disrupter cannons, twelve thousand heavy pulse cannons, and twenty-two thousand Type Six light pulse cannons. In addition to that there was also the spinal mounted shockwave distrupter lance. It fired a powerful shock pulse that was particularly effective against unshielded hulls but it was still somewhat decent against shielded targets. She mainly purchased the weapon systems since disrupters were the best anti-hull weapons in the galaxy and some of her larger foes could take a beating with conventional plasma and still need more hits to destroy. Plasma was pretty potent as well as it could burn through armor and hull with little issue, but was also quite effective against shields.

At the moment she was feeling pretty glad she had invested in those disrupters, as she figured they might prove more effective against Refuge armor than a standard plasma round. Which is good, as she didn’t feel as confident in the fleet she had been assigned.

The ships she was heading to meet had been assigned to checkpoint 44. One of a number of positions that had been manned with ships to intercept and engage the Refuge forces. She had been given the brief on the mission. Numerous ships had been dispatched and positioned with the goal of wearing them down. Command had given up on defeating them in a singular battle, but believed them too great a threat to be ignored. A growing menace that had to be dealt with. Given what she had seen she had to agree. Previous battles had revealed that they had weaponry that represented a clear threat to the Valorian navy. They had no known homeport and were previously known to be at war with the Cathamari. Scouting missions sent to uncover their origins had failed to uncover a homeworld or any colonies. Command had come to the conclusion that they had likely been defeated by the Cathamari and these were a remnant force. Most such forces ended up preying on trade and raiding frontier worlds. Now that the clan was in charge that was no longer acceptable. Of course the aliens also seemed to have cracked the warp five barrier and had ships that could actually cruise at or above warp five.

She had a feeling that there were people in power who were also interested in their technology. Regardless of the reasons it was her mission to carry out the orders. Which left her trying to figure out how she would employ her sorry fleet.

She had been given a dozen Protector class cruisers, a couple hundred Ophera class cruisers, light carrier configuration, two converted Merchantmen freighters outfitted for carrier operations, eight hundred Cutter Class Destroyers and a few thousand Patroller frigates. It sounded like a good fleet on paper, but she had seen the details on what they had. The fighter loadout was decent, Lancer Intercepters, Star-pike Heavy fighters, and Halberd Class Fighter-bombers. Antimatter and plasma warheads were stocked for them, and enough firepower to threaten most worlds in this sector. Capital ship power was somewhat lacking however and she wasn’t sure this fleet would fare very well if the enemy managed to close to knife range.

Reidia was considering how she would use them, when a head suddenly looked up from her console, “Captain! We just received an urgent alert from checkpoint 44. They have engaged the Refuge Menace.”

The ship shuddered under the impact of an energy blast. Someone reported “Shield stability down 86%!” Almost immediately the ship shuddered again as an energy beam slammed into the forward shields.

“Forward shields failing!”

“Hull breach! Deck nine, section 47 alpha!”

The reports just kept pouring in faster than she could think. One moment they had been at the back of the line. The next her sistership was exploding in front of her. Now an alien battleship was less than 5000 kilometers off her port bow, firing powerful energy weapons at her.

“Bring us about, heading one one six mark two eight. Increase speed. All primary power to shields!”

The ship shuddered again as heavy cannon tore into her weakened shields. While that beam continued to tear into the hull. Sections ruptured, conduits were severed, bulkheads collapsed and fires broke out. Most other ships would already be destroyed by this abuse, but her ship was fairly large. Its sheer size helped to absorb the abuse.

Not that size helped her sistership. Everything about this was completely wrong. Her ship was a fleet carrier, not a battleship. Carriers were supposed to destroy battleships, but that didn’t seem to apply at close range. There was no way to bring her many wings of fighters to bear effectively. Not at this range, with the alien battleship hammering into her flight decks. Worse, given the rush to get her ship into service for this, her onboard weaponry was less than a typical carrier. She only had a number of point defense batteries and half a dozen light plasma cannon batteries. Not much more than a normal Merchantman class freighter, but her ship had been converted with extensive flightdecks to support a large fighter fleet and updated shields.

Her mind raced for a solution, as one of the cruisers supporting them dived on the battleship. Her torpedo batteries flashed as they spat plasma at the alien capital ship. They slammed into a red barrier a moment later and then the battleship fired on the cruiser. Several lightning like discharges hit the ship and a massive burst of light signaled the final hit.

Before she could even blink, a pair of sustained beams tore into the cruiser. Entire sections were vented in an instant. Entire sections ignited and fires started burning uncontrolled, some of them visible as the hull started to fracture. Moments before an explosion shattered half the ship. As the remaining sections started spinning out of control escape pods started launching into the void. A moment later a detonation inside the hull of the stricken ship sent out flaming debris that slammed into one unfortunate pod with deadly force. The tiny emergency vehicle didn’t stand a chance as it was torn open and melted in the same moment. The fuel pod for its small emergency drive also ignited, burning brightly for a moment or two before cooling off leaving behind a smoldering glowing wreck.

Just one more reminder that the battle was not going well. They were taking heavy damage, their fighter wings were already decimated. The alien fighters and missile defenses were proving very effective. It didn’t help that no one saw them coming until they were basically on top of the checkpoint. Her ship shook a moment later as several heavy cannons fired on her. The shields, still unstable from the previous hits, failed to provide full protection. Her next order was on her lips, when suddenly, “Sir! We have a new ship on sensors. It’s the Bountiful Treasure.”

She blinked, “Already?”

They were still over an hour out, how were they here? Not that she had time to question it. Her crew seemed excited as the Dreadnought Bountiful Treasure proceeded to engage the alien battleship in a deadly exchange of plasma and particle beams. Familiar red and blue energy streams sailed between the two ships as they unleashed their arsenals. Lightning blasts even struck the dreadnought’s powerful shields as she watched. Several alien torpedoes even struck the dreadnought, but she held firm. Giving the commander the time she needed to put more than a little distance between. “Full power to the engines. I want as much distance between us and that battleship as you can give us.”

An officer then reported, “Hanger one reports they have twelve bomber wings ready to launch.”

She smiled, they weren’t being fired on for the moment. The commander gave the order, “deploy them all. Target that battleship.”

“Aye, sir,” was the reply just moments before multiple wings of fighters and bombers started launching. It was time to give a little of what they had been taking.