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*Rise of the Warspite*
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by HappyTarget: [QB] Sorry bout the wait, but here is chapter 20. Had to work, which kept me away from my PC. :mad: Of course, work brings in money to upgrade said PC, so it aint all bad. That said, heres what you have been waiting for. Let me know what you think! :) CHAPTER 20 [PRH B.G. 109, Hyperspace] The ships of Battle Group 109 cruised through the frozen thunderstorm of hyperspace. They were currently in the depths of a fairly powerful, yet little used grav wave. It's massive force was pulling them along at an apparent velocity of thousands of times the speed of light. Hyperspace was crisscrossed by grav waves, streams similar to Earth's trade winds. Ships could enter and exit hyperspace without the presence of a grave wave, but travel in hyper without one limited the apparent velocity of a ship to merely a few hundred times the speed of light. But when a grave wave was entered, the ship could pull considerably more speed. And it could be harnessed to provide power for a ship while in one as well. These two facts where counterweighed by the fact that a minor miscalculation or alpha node damage could cause catastrophic failure of the ship's hull. When entering a grav wave, the impeller wedge needed to be reconfigured from bands of stressed gravity above and below the ship to a pair of huge gravity sails fore and aft of the ship. These needed to be precisely aligned with the grav wave in order to allow safe passage into it from normal hyperspace. Although traveling in a grav wave was dangerous, its benefits for interstellar travel far outweighed the inherent risks involved. Hence powerful grav waves were often heavily used by both military and civilian ships. The one Citizen Admiral Sarah Grant's ships were in started in what was deep space and ended in deep space. It passed near no inhabited systems and was not used by anyone, as it was usually faster to just take a less direct route. Yet that very lack of use was exactly why BG 109 was in the wave. Since operational secrecy was paramount to its success, Sarah was forced to use an indirect approach to her target. It added a full month of flight time to the mission. Despite the fact that they would take longer to get to the target, their risk of detection actually decreased because they were using waves and areas of hyperspace that were well away from those usually traveled. PNS Lion's bridge was under the dimmed lighting. Her third officer, Citizen Lt. Cmdr. Wendy Heisenberg, sat in the command chair. The pale bluish-white cast by the repeater displays formed a pool of light around the ship's throne. Although she was on the graveyard shift, she took pains to do everything by the book. Despite the way it strained the relationship between her and her fellow watch officers, protocol had to be enforced for a very good reason. She knew that even though it was 'night' aboard the ship, something unexpected could pop up and it would be her responsibility to deal with it until the captain and the admiral could be roused from their slumber. Plus the Peoples Commissioner, it wouldn't do for her to fail to notify him during an emergency either. The fact that she was effectively in command of the battle group till they returned to the bridge was an extra incentive for wariness. Wendy settled more comfortably into plush safety of the acceleration couch. She longed for the day when she would have one of her own. If this mission went the way it was supposed to, she was virtually guaranteed a command slot. Wendy had just gotten comfortable when the tactical board beeped. The tac officer frowned, then punched in commands to his console. Wendy strode to the station and placed a hand on the young officer's shoulder. "What's up Citizen Lt.?" "I'm not exactly sure Citizen Lt. Cmdr. It may only be a sensor glitch, but the destroyer PNS Redguard has picked up a faint return on her passive array." Then the console beeped again as three more contacts appeared. All four were still the amber of unknowns, but they couldn't all be sensor ghosts. Wendy's stomach did a flip-flop. Those contacts could only be ships, and even though they had no right to be in this part of space, their amber beads still glowed back at her from the holo tank, drawing ever closer to the battle group. And it was her job to do something about it. "Com," she said in a surprisingly even voice, "flash message to the battle group. Sound General Quarters and go to stealth mode immediately." "On the chip and being sent right now Citizen Lt. Cmdr." Even as he spoke, alarms began to wail across the Lion's massive bulk The lighting across the ship was brought up to full standard and crewmembers jumped from their bunks to man their stations. "Now get me the Captain, the Admiral and Commissioner Foche." The com officer punched a series of commands into his terminal in rapid succession. When he pointed to her, she spoke into the pickup. "I have four…" glancing at the holo tank again, "make that six contacts coming towards us on almost a direct reciprocal of our current heading. I have ordered the battle group to engage GQ and go to stealth mode. It may buy us some time if they haven't picked us up already. But on the speed and course they are on now, it will be about 15 minutes before they have to see us." Sarah Grant's voice was the first to reply. "You did exactly what you should have. I should be on the bridge in about three minutes." [Citizen Admiral Grant's personal quarters] The piercing wail of the GQ alarm had brought Sarah almost instantly awake. After so many years in uniform she had become a very light sleeper. Pivoting out from under the covers, she shoved her feet into the pair of pants laid out on the small desk near her bed. She was almost fully dressed by the time Third Officer Heisenberg commed her room. After closing the channel, she finished dressing then bolted out of her room to the lift. Fortunately, the battleship's designers had planned for just such an eventuality. There was a lift that ran direct to the Flag Bridge just down the hall from her quarters. The rest of her staff was berthed on the same level, and as she left her room she noticed nearly all of them were leaving their rooms as well. Her chief of staff had even managed to beat her to the lift. As the doors began to close, an arm was shoved in-between them. Sarah's eyes flowed from the chocolate brown hand to the face of her com officer, Citizen Lt. Jake Bellows. He was a vital cog in the living mechanism that was Battle Group 109's command structure. With out him, or another officer to fill his shoes, precious attention would have to be diverted from fighting the battle in order to send out the flag's commands. The doors reopened to admit him, but they didn't notice an important fact. The lift was already jammed full. "You go instead of me." Commissioner Foche said as he exited the lift. "I'll get the next one. I'm just dead weight during a battle anyway." Jake made as if to protest that he should go first, as he was the senior officer. But Gunther Foche would have none of it and physically shoved him into the lift and pressed the activation button. As the doors closed, Sarah gave him a quick thankful smile. Some Commissioners would have demanded they go in the first lift, even though once they had signed off on a plan they had virtually nothing to do. Fortunately for Sarah and her staff, Gunther was a decent sort. He was perfectly willing to wait if it meant that her entire team was on the Flag Bridge planning and executing maneuvers that would guarantee the battle group's safety. The lift opened to the Flag Bridge, and junior officers left their stations to make way for the senior command staff. Sarah settled into her chair, displays and control consoles dropping down from above and rising up from the floor. She swiveled the seat until she had an excellent view of the flag bridge's massive holo tank. The six amber beads floated in standard transit formation. Even as she watched, they turned the angry crimson of hostile warships. Of all the rotten luck Sarah thought. Virtually the only thing it could be was a Manty patrol sent to uncover the exact thing she was hoping to accomplish. If even one of those ships got away, it could blow the lid off of the entire operation. Looking down at her plot, she saw that CIC was tentatively IDing them as destroyers. That was both bad and good. If they closed enough to enter weapons range they would be handily vaporized by the considerable firepower her wall of battle had. But the very fact that they were light units meant that they could pull a higher acceleration than a large portion of her wall. And the fact that they most likely mounted that dammed new internal compensator meant that they probably out run anything she had. But fortune had decided to smile on her just a little bit. The fact that the Manties and her ships were on a virtual collision course gave her an edge. If the enemy didn't see her ships until it was to late for them to scatter and evade her units, she could still continue the mission. "Assuming that accelerations remain constant, how long till the Manties see us and how long till they can't escape even if they scatter?" "It's now 10 minutes till even merchant sensors could pick us up. Say six, seven minutes tops for the Manties. If they don't scatter before five and a half minutes, they will have no choice but to enter our energy envelope Citizen Admiral." No wedge could be brought up in the savage force of a grav wave. She would have to close to energy range because any impeller wedge, even one as small as a missile's, would cause a nearly instantaneous and catastrophic failure of its drive. Hence all combat in a grav wave had to be done with energy weapons. "And if we increase speed to max?" The lift doors opened and Commissioner Foche strode onto the Flag Bridge. Sarah acknowledged him with a small nod. "They see us even sooner and are able to get at least one ship off clean because they can pull a higher accel." "Remain steady on speed then, but come right point six degrees. That will put us in optimal firing position when the time comes." "Aye Citizen Admiral." Now the waiting game began. Only half a minute separated success and failure. Hyperspace combat was always deadly. The fact that no impeller wedge's could function removed the impenetrable roof and belly bands used by a warship for defense. And since the sidewalls that went with them were inoperable in a grav wave as well, they were gone to. That left the massive sails fore and aft. They were impenetrable as well, but they only shielded the ship fore and aft. Everything else was up to armor alone. Battleships mounted considerably more armor than mere destroyers, but without their powerful sidewalls to go with them, a lucky hit could hurt. Yet Sarah was confident that if the Manties would cross the point of no return, they would die. Simple math dictated nothing less as the numbers were considerably in BG 109's favor. A part of her knew that the slaughter she was about to unleash would haunt her. But she pushed those feelings back into a tiny room in her head filled with the rest of her self-loathing. As much as she hated killing, she would do what needed to be done to ensure that her people survived and that the mission was executed. The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness, each one seeming to last an eternity. Then a snarl emanated from nearly everyone onboard. The Manties had crossed the invisible line that sealed their fate. There would be no escape for them. Still the Manticoran destroyers came, still oblivious to the death lying in wait in front of them. Then, five and three quarter minutes out the entire enemy squadron abruptly split up into a starburst. Some turned end for end in a doomed attempt to run away. Others veered ninety degrees off of their original course to try and break contact. One did nothing at all except pile on more accell. Even with the Manties more efficient internal compensator, he must have stripped his safety margin to nil. He was doing the smartest thing he could, the thing Sarah would have tried in his situation. By increasing the closure rate to max, he limited the engagement window she would have. Not that it would matter in the end. Battleship energy weapons were just to powerful for an unshielded tin can to withstand. "Com, assign targeting priority for sub group one through six as follows…" This way, each ship would have a chunk of Sarah's wall firing on it. "Aye, aye Citizen Admiral." As the range finally dropped to Sarah's energy weapon envelope she issued a single command. "All ships, OPEN FIRE!!!" From every ship in the battle group silent, invisible death flickered from the broadside energy mounts. Grasers and lasers turned hyperspace into a seething ball of energy. The distance was so short, and being that energy mounts are light speed weapons, it was all over quite quickly. In mere seconds, what had been six enemy destroyers and their crews was turned into expanding balls of white hot plasma as their fusion bottles let go. All except for one. The single contact that had executed a headlong charge of her wall of battle punched through a gap and streaked out the other side. It was streaming air and debris, but its Warshawski sails were still operating perfectly. And it was now shooting away from her warships at an incredible velocity. In less than 20 seconds it would be outside energy range and beyond any chance of her being able to attack it. "Orders from the flag. Target remaining enemy immediately!" The massive battleships of BG 109 swung ponderously around. They were the only ships that still had a clear shot around the bogies sail. Finally, their weapons came to bear, and the final enemy ceased to exist a mere three seconds away from freedom. Sarah let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. That was far to close. Sarah spun to her tactical officer. "Who the HELL is the BA$TARD that let that ship through!?!" She hissed through clenched teeth. Citizen Lt. Bellows went pale. The tone of her voice could have melted through armoplast. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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