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*Rise of the Warspite*
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by HappyTarget: [QB] Does the lack of replys indicate a lack or readers or a dislike for my writing? I don't bite... much :D Seriously, weather you like or dislike my work, let me know. Anyhoo, here's chapter 10. Its a little longer than those previous, just cause I had a lot of info to give out in it. Stay tuned for a short battle in Chapter 11. CHAPTER 10 [Tilley Base, one week later] Major Sterling had contacted him only a few days later with a line he could use to reach him. At that time, Thad said that if ONI wanted his cooperation they would have to guarantee that Lt. Jennifer Yuki would be assigned to where ever he was. Sterling had done some hemming and hawing over that, but in the end agreed. That fact let Thad know just how valuable he was. ONI was really desperate to keep him on side if they caved in to his demand so easily. One week to the day after his meeting with the Cerberus woman, she made contact again but in a more obtuse fashion. Thad was called in to Admiral McAllister's office. McAllister looked slightly annoyed with Thad when he entered. "Mister Armstrong… would you kindly explain why you didn't give me at least a heads up on this?" "Sir?" Thad replied, genuinely perplexed. "Don't play dumb with me mister. You went out and requested a transfer to the Grayson Navy! Now I know that the Star Kingdom has been loaning officers and enlisted personnel to Grayson, but I thought you liked it here!" Thad had to think fast. That witch hadn't even left him a message since that night, and now she springs this on him! He could bet that she was really enjoying toying with him like this. "Sir, the opportunity came up recently and I had to take advantage of it ASAP. I'm sorry if I offended you. I really did like it here, it's just…" "Its not a command position and a dead end career wise, I know, I know!" the admiral finished for him. "I sometimes wish I could relive my youth and go back into space on the command deck of a ship, so I know firsthand your desire." The admiral chuckled to himself, then stared into Thad's eyes. "I like you Lt. Cmdr., and can see you are a fine example of a Queens Officer, despite what your record says. That is why I give my full endorsement to your request. Someone with your drive and skill deserves to be out there fighting the Peeps, not forced behind a desk. It has been a pleasure to serve with you, even if our time together has been brief. Now go out there and kick some Peep but for me!" "Sir, yes Sir!" Thad said in a voice that would have done his instructors at Saganami Island proud. He saluted Admiral McAllister smartly. The admiral returned the salute. "You are dismissed… Captain!" on his last word the admiral broke into a grin. Thad got through half of his about face when the words struck home. Turning around much more sloppily, he gazed at the admiral open mouthed. "Excuse me sir… but did you just call me Captain?" "Yes son, I did. As part and parcel of your transfer to Grayson service, you have received a promotion to the rank of Captain in the GSN. Congratulations!" the admiral extended his hand, and Thad shook it mechanically. He had only wanted to go back into space. This was almost more than he had bargained for. To be placed into a foreign, albeit allied, navy was a shock. The bigger shock was that the Graysons had bumped him up from Lt. Cmdr. to a full Captain. He had heard that they were short on personnel with command experience, but to bump him up to Captain must have taken some pull. Thad walked out of McAllister's office in a dreamlike state. Taz was preening on his shoulder the whole way back to their quarters. Thad could tell that he thought his human's promotion was a great idea. While Thad himself had some doubts, he had chosen this path and could not walk away from it now. When he entered his quarters, his com terminal was beeping at him. He pressed the activation button and Major Sterling's smiling face appeared on the screen. "Congratulations Mr. Armstrong. Before you say anything, I have already put a rush on getting Lt. Yuki assigned to the GSN as well. This little stunt has allowed us to find a few more Cerberus plants in the military. We won't act on them yet because we don't want to tip our hand, but you can bet they are under the microscope now. I have taken the liberty of forwarding to you 'your' request for transfer and its reply. You should find your next command to be quite interesting, I think. But then you are going to find that out for yourself in a few weeks anyway, so I won't spoil the surprise! I'll be in touch with your new contact on Grayson shortly after you arrive there. Till then, bon voyage!" [Two weeks later, Grayson orbit, Blackbird shipyards main station] Thad looked out the armourplast portal at the insane amount of activity in the space that made up the Blackbird shipyards. He had never seen such a sprawling facility before. Sure some bases back in the Manticore system were more massive constructs, with dozens of capital ships under construction at any one time. Yet they were no where near as spread out as Blackbird Yard. As far as he could see, hulls hung in various states of completion. The sheer scale of the undertaking was underlined when he saw the size of the humans working on the nearby ships. They looked like gnats buzzing around an elephant as they moved from place to place on the mountain of metal and armor that would become a ship of the wall. Thad tugged down the blue on blue uniform, still thinking that it didn't look right on him. And this weird hat, a 'ball cap' they called it, was even more alien. How he longed for the beret of Manticore. His motions nearly dislodged his cat from his place on Thad's shoulder. An annoyed bleek told Thad to stop squirming. "Sorry bud." Thad apologized. A disdainful sniff answered him. "You should listen to him. You look like a little kid in dress cloths when you squirm like that." Jen teased form beside him. She looked even better in her Grayson uniform than she did in her Manticoran one, and knew it. The pips on her collar said that she was a Lt. Cmdr. in the GSN. "Geepers, stereo scolding!" Upon seeing that Jen was about to start up again Thad said, "Ok, ok, I'll stop squirming! Sheesh! Let's just find our way to the boat bay, shall we. It wouldn't do for us to be late the first day on the job now would it?" After boarding the pinnace, they sat down and watched as dozens of hulls flashed by the portals. Finally they came up to their final destination, located in a remote and isolated part of the yard. The pinnace pilot took them on a leisurely cruse around their new ship. The GSN battlecruiser Warspite's gleaming white, 880,735-ton bulk loomed in front of them. She was a brand new ship, not even totally finished yet. Her port broadside gravitic and lidar arrays had yet to be installed. Four graser mounts still had to be put in, and she was missing half her fore alpha nodes as well. Thad noticed something else too, she had fewer missile tubes than a battlecruiser should mount, and her aft hammerhead was odd looking. Thad couldn't place his finger on exactly what was wrong with it, just that it didn't look normal. The pinnace completed its tour and proceeded into the cavernous boat bay. As was custom, Thad exited the pinnace first because he was the ranking officer aboard. A Grayson marine detachment snapped to attention with a barked command from their squad leader. In front of him his new first officer, Cmdr. Julius Custer GSN, came to attention as well. The bosun's pipes stilled all activity in the bay. Cmdr. Custer saluted, and Thad returned it with equal correctness. "Permission to come aboard?" Thad asked, as until he formally assumed command he was a guest on Custer's ship. "Permission granted." Came the reply in a deep baritone. The man was short, but then most Graysons were. He was a full inch and a half below Thad's six feet. He had golden hair paired with a broad nose. He was in excellent physical shape and looked the part of a wrestler. His steel gray eyes cast a measured look at his new captain, then shifted to the treecat perched on his shoulder. "May I escort you to the bridge sir?" "Of course Commander, lead the way." Julius Custer led Thad and Jennifer out of the bay and into the intaship car. Once the doors had closed, Julius let out a deep breath. Turning towards them, he smiled. "I don't know about you two, but every time I do something official like that, I'm worried I'll say the wrong thing and make an ass out of myself." Cmdr. Custer smiled impishly. Extending his hand first to Thad, then Jen, he said, "Let me take this opportunity to welcome you both… correction you three aboard the Warspite." "Thank you Commander." Taz also bleeked his thanks from Thad's shoulder. "Thanks Sir." Jennifer Yuki replied. "I have some questions regarding the condition of the ship, but they can wait until after I have assumed command." "Of course Sir. I know the Warspite looks bad now, but you'll be pleasantly surprised by our special modifications. I guarantee it!" Just then the lift chimed that they were approaching their destination. Seconds later, the doors opened to reveal the spacious bridge. To the left side of the captain's chair was a rather large holo tank. Just beside that was tactical. Directly in front of his chair were the astrogation and helm consoles. To the right were damage control, communications, and backup terminals. All stations faced the captain's chair. Repeaters of every bridge station surrounded the chair itself, allowing the captain access to pertinent information instantly. Thad made his way up to the side of his chair. Standing Taz on the floor beside him, he depressed the intership com button. At the sound of the musical tone, everyone on the ship stopped what they were doing and listened. Thad's scarred face appeared ship wide on every com screen. Waiting a for a second, he commenced reading his orders. "From Admiral Honor Harrington, Grayson Space Navy," he read in his melodious voice, "to Captain Thaddeus Armstrong, Grayson Space Navy, Forty-Sixth Day, Tenth Month, Year Three Hundred and Twenty After Landing. Sir: You are hereby directed and required to proceed aboard The Protector's Starship Warspite, BC-Six-Two, there to take upon the duties and responsibilities of commanding officer in service of The Tester, and of Grayson. Fail in God's service at your peril. By order of High Admiral Wesley Matthews, for Protector of the Faith, Benjamin IX." Thad switched off the com. The orders had been the same in format ever since Grayson commissioned its first warship. By simply saying them, Thad had placed every man and woman on the ship under his authority. The Warspite was his now, and it felt good to be in command again. The Grayson Navy had been pitifully small when Manticore first made contact with Grayson. Their largest ship was only the size of a cruiser, and a single modern light cruiser could have smashed Grayson's entire navy. Since then though, they had grown by leaps and bounds. They now marshaled the third largest fleet in the sector, behind only the PRH and Manticoran navies. The Grayson Navy had acquitted itself quite well in battle, and had successfully drove off multiple Peep attacks. The most recent of witch was done under 'The Salamander' herself, Admiral Honor Harrington. Scuttlebutt said that she would be shipping out under Manticoran flag soon. Thad regretted that, he had hoped to learn much from such a skilled commander. But alas, it was not meant to be. "Exec, I would like to hold a dinner this evening. I would request that all senior officers be there please." "Aye Sir." "Now about those special modifications…" "Of course Captain. As you no doubt know, the Warspite's missile broadside is a few launchers short of the norm, and her aft hammerhead looks odd. This is because she is a prototype vessel, an entirely new way of designing warships. The fruits of project Ghost Rider were designed into her from the outset. Allow me to fill you in on project Ghost Rider." "As you know, normal missiles are about 15 meters long, have a maximum powered engagement range of 6,750,000 kilometers, and a terminal velocity of 75,000 KPS. The specs of Ghost Rider missiles, on the other hand, are gonna blow your mind. Though they are almost 31 meters in length, they contain three separate drives. These can be activated at any power level and any time. The tactical flexibility this gives us allows for a max powered engagement envelope of over 65,000,000 kilometers, with a terminal velocity of 0.81 light speed! Or you could use the first two stages to boost the missile, coast it to a programmed attack area, then kick in the last drive and use it for terminal attack maneuvers at a full 92,000 Gs. That mode gives our weapons unheard of reach and striking power." "But the new missiles are not the best goodie that BuWeps has given us to play with. The after hammerhead looks odd for a very good reason. It is designed to allow missile pods, stored internally, to leave the ship. Your standard battlecruiser mounts around 35 missile tubes. We, on the other hand, carry 250 missile pods with 8 Ghost Rider missiles each. We can fire a salvo of six every 12 seconds. The Warspite has over 2000 missiles and can put 240 missiles per minute into space from the pods alone. If you add the internal launchers, you get an extra 30 Ghost Rider missiles per broadside. That weight of fire combined with the missiles capabilities make us more than a match for even a squadron of battlecruisers." "Unfortunately, we are currently not allowed to utilize Ghost Riders full capabilities. BuShips is hurriedly building not just more battlecruisers like us, but full on superdreadnoughts of the same basic design. Once sufficient number are built, we are gonna smash the Peeps once and for all! But until then, our true capabilities must be kept secret." "Complimenting all that impressive armament, our defensive systems have been given a boost as well. Our EW drones are of the latest design. They are generations ahead of anything used before, capable of both intense active and subtle passive jamming. They are also capable of imitating our sensor signature exactly. Some missiles in each broadside are EW platforms, engaging in both ECM and ECCM activities. They fly out with the salvo, either showing up as five missiles or engaging in active jamming. They can even interpret data gathered on the ECM of a target, and change the salvos pen aids in mid flight, greatly increasing the chance of a hit. Our new internal compensators, based on Grayson design I might add, allow us to pull the acceleration previously available only to cruisers. And best of all, we can now close the exposed fore and rear of our wedge. The prototype bow and stern walls effectively halt all maneuvering and acceleration when they're in use. But that disadvantage is far outweighed by the added protection that they offer." Thad just stared at Commander Custer as his mind raced to grasp the enormity of what he had just been told. Once these systems came on line in a true fleet of the wall, the war was all but won. Once seemingly impregnable systems would become mere targets. When you had the power to send hundreds of thousands of missiles at the enemy from well beyond a range that he could respond back… "My God…" "That was my initial reaction as well Sir." [/QB][/QUOTE]
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