Here is a pet project of mine, I don't think of myself as the next great author but I would love any constructive criticism from the community:
Chapter One
“God damn it!” Ever since Captain William Gross had joined the Belarian Shipping Company he had tried at every junction to butt heads with his superiors. Their latest foolish idea was to send his ship ,unescorted, to pick up a load of titanium and iron ore. His destination would be Vixes , a polluted mining world on the rim of Trader Space. It lay in the Wayward Star Cluster, the most notorious pirate haven in the known galaxy.
Gross would be nervous about the prospect of carrying anything through pirate territory with a proper escort, not to mention completely alone as he would be on this run. The only comforting thought he had was that the ore he would be carrying wasn’t valuable enough to steal, of course there was no guarantee the pirates would see things that way.
But that was what the Company demanded, and so he would do it. The BSC wasn’t in the best financial position at the moment. Recent rioting on many industrial planets had slowed manufacturing, creating a ripple effect that damaged every sector of the Trader’s economy. Some analysts feared that this could eventually cause a complete collapse of civilization or possibly civil war however, all Gross worried about was losing his life and ship to pirates in the outer rim because BSC couldn’t afford a warship to protect him.
He stepped out of the administrative building of the BSC shipyard where his vessel had been undergoing repairs. The Honorable Businessman was not the fastest nor the biggest ship in the BSC fleet and she may not have been the cleanest by any standards, but to Will she was the best vessel ever launched, with the possible exception of Admiral Kol’s flagship in the War of the Deviants’ Expulsion. She was a standard Prosperous-class freighter with no weapons and a class four phase drive.
Phase drives were ranked based mainly on charging speed, the fastest were class ten drives such as those used in the massive Akkan-class cruise ships that wealthy merchants vacationed on over paradise planets in the Core. The slowest were class one drives which occasionally brought a ship into phase space, with the proper alignment of nearby heavenly bodies. The Honorable lay comfortably in the middle.
The effect of the recent economic downturn could be seen in the number of filled berths in the shipyard, it had never been as busy as the Company’s headquarters, but it had never been this empty. Only about one in four slips were filled, and a quarter of the ships that were there would probably never leave the surface again they were so decrepit.
Gross stepped onto the bridge of the Honorable. His crew had remained mostly unchanged for well over three years. The first officer, Lieutenant Daniel Literaff, stood at his station adjacent to the captain’s chair which stood in the middle of the wide room. Pilot George Seymore was at the helm, reading some book about aliens on his console as usual. The Trade Order had expanded to thousands of planets all over the galaxy’s Northern Arm, but had never encountered anything that could be called an “alien intelligence.” Some planets had indigenous life, but none fostered anything close to a civilization. However, Seymore still read books about the possibility.
Will slipped into his chair and activated the command console. “Mr. Literaff, status report”, he said as he skimmed information about the ship’s main systems.
“All crewmen have reported in, Sir. The helium fuel tanks for the reactor are all full, and all thrusters have just been inspected, read for liftoff, Sir”, replied the officer.
“Very well, are we cleared for launch, pilot?”
As Gross entered the bridge, Seymore had hastily closed the e-book window on his display and started pressing buttons and entering commands, “yard control reports the berth is clear, all docking cables and boarding ramps have been retracted, I’m ready to activate the reactor on your mark, sir.”
“Activate in three... two... activate.” The deck of the bridge started to vibrate as the fusion core began producing energy. A window on the captain’s display opened, showing current readouts from the reactor, they were all green. “Fire launch thrusters”, said the captain.
“Firing launch thrusters aye, sir.” The vibration changed frequency as the reactor ramped up its energy production, then it was drowned by a dull roar as thrusters on the underside of the ship fired. The vessel lifted off from the ground and began to ascend toward the stars.
The next few minutes were spent watching instrument displays and hoping nothing went wrong, the thrusters were controlled by a computer until the ship left the atmosphere. Luckily, nothing deadly happened, thruster five’s control gasket failed under stress but the computer was able to compensate. As they entered space, Will ordered the sublight engines engaged to propel them to the minimum distance away from the planet that they could safely phase jump.
Gross then connected his console microphone to the ship’s intercom for the crew’s mission briefing, “Ship, this is the captain speaking. The BSC has ordered the Honorable to pick up a load of ore from Vixes in the Wayward Star Cluster. I know that you are probably worried about pirates, but I assure you that I will not allow this ship to be taken or in any way diverted from its mission. That is all”, as he deactivated the mic, he hoped that he could fulfill his promise.
Then the pilot spoke up, “sir, we have reached minimum safe distance, permission to jump to phase space?”
“Jump on my mark, ready... mark.”
The vibration of the hull changed octave again while the phase drive charged, then the space outside the bridge stretched as the ship left the normal dimension for somewhere where she could go faster.
The Honorable dropped from phase space near Vixes, all her systems were still green as she reentered normal reality. Then something on the radar confused the computer enough that it reported the anomaly to the pilot, who in turn reported it to the captain.
“Sir, I’m picking up a strange ship on the radar.”
Will looked at his console and saw what the pilot was talking about, a small ship about the same size as the Honorable. It did not resemble any vessel he had ever seen before. “Do you have a visual?” The pilot grunted an affirmative as he sent the captain the feed from one of the hull cameras. The vessel was strangely dark, not made of any metal Will knew of. It was slightly reminiscent of a bird, but seemed more alien than that. On the bow were two openings that looked like they might be weapons. This was affirmed a moment later when the pilot said:
“Sir, unknown ship is firing on us.”
Really nice. What happens next?
I'm working on it, hopefully I'll have it up in a day or two if my life doesn't get in the way too much.
And here it is, not quite as long as the last one:
Chapter 2
Its funny how time slows down when a person is under stress, Gross could see the energy projectiles as they flew through space toward his ship. It seemed like they spent an eternity in transit, but he knew it couldn’t have taken more than a second. The Honorable shuddered as they made contact, alarms began blaring as red warning symbols flashed across the captain’s console. At some point, Will managed to break out of his trance and begin shouting orders, “prepare for evasive maneuvers. Damage report, Mr. Literaff.”
“We were hit in the cargo bay, sir, all major systems are still online. I don’t think we’ll be that lucky next time”, exclaimed the first officer.
“Enemy firing again, sir”, reported the pilot as the ship shuddered again.
“Captain, we can’t hold out against this for very long, we’re not a warship”, said Literaff.
“I understand that. Do we have enough time to phase out again, pilot?”
“If we get lucky, I doubt it though.”
At that moment, the ship decided to make contact. Garbled hissing and popping came over the radio for a few moments, then the ship’s on board translator was able to make sense of the message, “... you can see, your ship is doomed. The remainder of the Exodus Fleet will arrive in minutes. You may surrender to the Glorious Race, and die painlessly. Or you may fight and be killed slowly along with the rest of your species”, said the computerized voice of the ship’s comms console.
“Pilot”, said the captain calmly, “how much time will it take to enter the atmosphere.”
“Too long if they start firing again, sir”, replied Seymore, “we don’t have many options.”
“Very well, these people don’t seem friendly to the Trade Order, and we probably will not be able to escape them no matter what we try. Plot a collision course.”
“WHAT? Sir, the situation doesn’t look good, but making yourself a martyr isn’t the only way out”, exclaimed the pilot.
“I agree, sir. We could escape in a pod to the planet’s surface. One ship cannot threaten an entire planet”, added the first officer.
“You may do as you will, I plan to do all I can to slow the threat that they just made. Patch me through to ship”, the captain replied, still calmly.
“Of course, sir.”
This time, Gross’s voice on the ship’s intercom was less reassuring than it had been before they had arrived in this mess, “crewmen, this is the captain. I did most of what I promised, no pirate will lay his claws on this vessel. However, we are being threatened by a warship that no one has ever encountered before. This vessel doesn’t have much chance of survival no matter what is done. I have decided that I will do everything in my power to stop the violent intentions of our opponents, but there is little chance that you will live to tell the tale if you follow me. I do not expect suicide from my crew, if you wish to abandon the Honorable, the escape pods are open”, silence settled over the ship as the captain clicked off. Slowly, some crewmen began to move toward escape pods, others stayed at their stations as the Honorable banked toward their foe.
Then the pilot spoke, “sir, collision in T-minus two minutes. Permission to abandon?”
“The same for me, sir”, added the first officer.
“Granted, for both of you. It was an honor serving with you”, replied Gross. They stepped off the bridge as the first escape pod was jettisoned. The captain opened the ship’s piloting controls on his own console and watched the radar signatures of the two opponents approached one another. He began a transmission to the other ship, “sir, this is the captain of the BSC freighter Honorable Businessman, I have decided not to surrender.”
The reply came quickly, “then you will die.” As the other vessel’s officer spoke, they opened fire. Energy pulses slammed into the Honorable. Warnings started to flash across the captain’s display as he worked as fast as he could at the controls, keeping the vessel on course and in the fewest possible number of pieces. In the corner, a small display counted down from two minutes toward zero.
One thirty...
One...
At thirty second, Will entered what he expected to be his final command, pushing the sublight engines to full capacity and then some to reach maximum possible impact velocity. Then he opened the comm channel again and said, “I would be honored to know the name of my opponent, if you please.” The ship shuddered as more weapons fire made contact, secondary explosions wracked the chassis.
Over the mic, the enemy replied, “fool, you have dared to disobey the...” the computer tried to translate what came next, but gave up ”... Vasari.”
Will had never heard of them, but didn’t have the time to learn more. fifteen seconds.
As five seconds passed, the radar lit up with thousands of signatures. They varied in size from the same as the ship the Honorable was bearing down on to massive battleships. Gross stared out the viewports with awe at what the aliens had called “the Exodus Fleet.” All he could think was ,”so Seymore was right after all.” Then the Honorable made contact, deceleration flung the captain from his seat into the forward bulkhead of the bridge. He felt his ship break apart under him, the alarms increased in intensity as air began leaking faster from the stricken hulk.
Then the reactor failed, disintegrating everything within a mile radius.
Cool. Nice lengths.
Very good, you should check out the DS thread of lore writing, if you haven't already. Please continue, would love to see where you will take your story.....
Here is the next installment:
Chapter 3
Commander Thomas Gross was nearly identical to his brother, they were both tall and strong with dirty blond hair. They had both been officers on merchant ships before the war. They both craved for some sort of adventure in their lives at all times. The only difference most people saw was that one had survived to get his adventure, and the other had died carrying out his.
It had been almost ten years since his brother died, the first casualty to the war that now threatened the future of humanity. The future of humanity wasn’t looking very good at the moment, after conquering the Wayward Cluster the aliens had systematically destroyed or enslaved all trader worlds in their path. Some had even begun to wonder whether the battle was even worth fighting at all, or whether it was better to capitulate to the encroaching threat.
Thomas stood in the lobby of the commanding general of the Core Fleet. One wall was entirely made of clear trans-steel and overlooked the Fleet Yard, the largest and busiest naval base in the known galaxy. Ships were almost constantly taking off and landing, being resupplied and refueled. Everything seemed rushed compared to prewar yard activity, but the battle humanity was fighting forced change. The ships themselves were mostly converted old merchant freighters, although rumor was that High Command was designing and building the first purpose built battleship in living memory.
After the aliens attacked, the Trader military was shown to be incompetent at best, underfunded and under-supplied at worst. That had quickly changed, the reigning Aluxi dynasty had increased military spending by two orders of magnitude. Sadly for them, the rioting that had been going on only intensified and the Aluxi were deposed. The new Emergency Government had continued the buildup, increasing minimum wage and spending credits on massive orbital processing plants along with the new space bound war factories and aggressively oriented research labs. A combination of these had pulled the Order out of the depression it had been wallowing in and allowed the speedy creation of a formidable war machine.
However, more was needed because the work that had been done only slowed the aliens’ advance. Even slowed down they were still approaching the Trader capital at Ashvon alarmingly fast.
That is where Gross and people like him stepped in. The Trader military was only so good with only guns and ammo, the thing that had kept the Vasari, as the aliens styled themselves from completely overwhelming the Order were the officers who led the Trader fleets into battle. Gross was one of these, he had joined the Emergency Defense Navy only a week after he turned eighteen and became eligible. Now, he was waiting for an interview with the commanding officer of the Core Fleet about his recent promotion to the rank of Commander.
The commander’s secretary’s desk beeped, looking up she said, “Commander Gross, the Admiral will see you now.”
Gross nodded assent and strode into Vice Admiral Ferrost’s office. Ferrost was the oldest serving man in the Emergency Defense Navy. It was joked that he had fought in the Dynarian Civil War over eight hundred years before. He was a stickler for protocol, meaning that Gross would either walk out of this office with a new ship or as a gun captain on a battleship, the “proper” places for a commander. Tom wouldn’t complain about the first option, but the second wouldn’t be up his alley.
The Admiral glanced up from his papers as Gross saluted. “At ease”, he said, “congratulations for your promotion, take a seat.” He finished writing on a paper, tapped a few commands into his computer, then settled back into his chair. “Now, you need a new assignment. Luckily for you, no ships that are surviving engagements come back needing gun captains ranked commander.”
“What do you mean ‘ships that are surviving engagements’?”
“Vessel’s smaller than a Grizzly-class heavy cruiser.” Grizzlies were converted merchant ships with the heaviest guns they could carry. Rumors were also circulating that Command had ordered a new class of custom build cruisers to support their new experimental battleships. They were also known to draw enemy torpedoes like bees to honey. “However, these smaller ships are beneath your new rank.” There was the protocol coming through. “So, I’ve decided to put you in command of a vessel that will be launched in less than a week. It is of a new design that has been in the works since the war began. You have experience aboard torpedo frigates?”
Gross had served aboard a merchant converted hastily to a torpedo frigate almost for the entire time he had been in the Navy, the T.D.N. Ballistic, so he nodded assent. Ferrost continued, “this new ship should be a big step up from the vessels you have served on up till now. She was purpose built for war.”
“What else can you tell me about her?”
“She is the second vessel of her class, the Javelis-class Long Range Missile Frigates. Unchristened as of yet, but she’ll be called the T.D.N. Resolute when she is. Here is an image”, the Admiral tapped a button on his console and a holoprojector lit up from his desk, showing a rotating image of a sturdy looking warship, slightly birdlike in the way missile pods projected from both sides like wings. Overall though, she looked like she could do some damage. “The Resolute is being completed in one of our orbital shipyards, if you wish, she can be yours when she is launched. The Javelis represent the first step to our new, modernized fleet that has been under construction for years now.” Ferrost pressed another button and the image of the Javelis was replaced with an image of seven vessels, side by side, rotating in the air between them. Tom could see a new attack carrier, a replacement for the Grizzlies, an anti-fighter vessel, but in the center was the most prominent of the new classes. It had heavy, forward facing weapons, and bristled with auto turrets and lighter weapons everywhere else. Finally, it seemed, the Traders would have the tool to turn the tide.
Its been a while, but I remembered this and wrote another installment:
Chapter 4
A small shuttle left phase space near the planet Derious, a heavily industrialized world roughly halfway between the front lines and Ashvon. The ship approached the massive orbital shipyards that nearly ringed the planet. As it exchanged signs and countersigns with the base’s commanders, the passengers admired the work of the newly declared Trader Emergency Coalition. In the airdocks of the yard were thousands of new warships in various stages of construction. The men on the shuttle were to be the captains of the first group of launches that was scheduled for the next day. The yard’s first delivery of new warships included six dozen new Cobalt class attack frigates, over forty Garda class anti-fighter frigates, nearly as many Javelis class long range missile frigates, a dozen Kodiak class heavy cruisers, ten Percheron class light carriers, and three Kol class battleships. Construction problems had delayed the christening of the twenty Krosov siege ships that Command had ordered, meaning that this new fleet would have to content itself with a victory over its enemies in space without being able to take back an enemy planet.
Commander Thomas Gross tried to find his ships amongst the multitude of slips, eventually he spotted airdock 5-873B where the T.D.N. Resolute was undergoing final preparations for launch. The shuttle he was riding entered a docking bay and he was shown off by the flight attendant with a quick “good luck”. The passengers were ushered into an auditorium where they took their seats by order of rank. Once they were seated, the room’ speakers announced Admiral Gregory Atrento. The officer’s all rose to attention as the leader of the newly created First Kol Attack Fleet took the podium.
“At ease, gentlemen. Welcome to the last hope for humanity.” Atrento had a love of drama that sometimes put him up against his superiors, but no one could deny his ability as a commander. In the few actions that the Order claimed as draws, he had led a substantial part of the fleet. Outgunned and outnumbered, he had somehow held off the enemy siege ships while evacuees fled the planet below. After doing this three times, Atrento was the most qualified admiral to lead the first counterattack.
“Now, to business. The fleet to depart tomorrow is entirely made up of untested warships. Command has ordered me to attack the enemy forward post at Alemi, which used to be a major agrarian planet. Our scouts report that the enemy’s defensive fleet is only made up of two battleships, a carrier, and their supporting ships. This will be the first time we will have a ship that can stand toe to toe with the Vasari capital ships, it will also be the first time that we almost outnumber the enemy. Keep in mind that Command has also promised that two Sova carriers are en route and should arrive only about half an hour after we do so we must be punctual.”
From there, the admiral explained the strategy for their action. He highlighted points on a map of the system projected behind the podium to clarify his words. Within an hour, all of the officers had a good idea of what was expected of them and Atrento dismissed them for the night.
Eleven o’clock, Derious Orbital Standard Time. Commander Gross strode onto the bridge of his new ship. Sitting in his command console, he reviewed the reports from his officers. With everything registering green except for a door jammed shut in airlock three, Tom looked up at his communications officer and said, “tell dock control we are all clear for launch.”
As Lieutenant Ernest Alear relayed his message, Gross brought up the tactical display on his console. Using information from all of the fleet’s sensor arrays, plus other friendly sensors, the computer was able to create a three dimensional map of the local gravity well showing ships, orbital structures, and nearby asteroids. On board the flagship, T.D.N. Phoenix, Atrento had a similar display. However, his allowed him to send commands to his ships, much like the strategy video games played by children.
In airdock 5-873B, the main door slowly opened in tandem with over a hundred others in the shipyard. Over the inter-ship radio, Admiral Atrento said, “all vessels are cleared to launch, form up at the edge of the gravity well and prepare for phase jump.”
On board the Resolute, Gross began giving orders to move into open space, ”retract docking clamps.”
“Docking clamps retracted, captain”, replied the chief engineer, lieutenant George Wendell.
“Pilot, take us out of the bay.”
The vessel vibrated as the fusion reactor began delivering power to the main thrusters. Outside the trans-steel viewports, the mechanical inside of the construction airdock gave way to open space. As the Resolute cleared her bay, pilot James Enery said, “sir, we are fully clear of the airdock.”
Looking ahead through the viewport at the fleet moving into position, Commander Thomas Gross said, “good, all ahead full.”
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