A Traveller's Rest

Posted on Sun Jun 30th, 2019 @ 9:38pm by The Narrator
Edited on on Sun Jun 30th, 2019 @ 9:42pm

833 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: S1:4: A Murder Of Crows
Location: Carpathia Star System, L5 point of Tangerine Dream, 1.5AU's from Canopus Station
Timeline: MD67: 12AM

USS Traveller: In Warp

Four days.

Four days of back-breaking repair work, preventative maintenance, and numerous prayers of a pantheon of higher powers that the beaten remains of the warp coils would hold out for just five more minutes. They were heterodyning wildly, pulsing back and forth as the warp field its self was used as a stabiliser to keep them from all burning out at once. Like a bullet spinning for stabilisation, the Traveller flew in a spinning bubble of altered space-time. It was that or reduce speed, but given the stalemate in velocities between it and the Reka carriers in hot pursuit, the race needed to be won.

And whilst the engineers earned the moniker of miracle makers, everyone else dived into the task of preparing as best they could. The op's department had sent parties out onto the hull to repair the bow phaser cannons, bringing them both back to full functionality. Sickbay had been filled with injuries from that work detail, as working out on the hull whilst at light speed pelted the work area in a rainstorm of highly charged particles.

What armour couldn't be repaired was reinforced from beneath, with the sections under them filled with water to act as a baffle against an energy hit. Every emergency generator was tied into the shield grid, threatening to overcharge the entire array but ready to give them mechanical lives to the cause. Non-essential personnel were ushered to the cryocrypts at the heart of the ship, the bays of sleeping Starfleet officers and noncoms as good as an armoured bunker in the event of a hit.

They were almost home, ready to make a fight of it or at least a last stand worth of Shadi's ancestors writing a poem or three.

Canopus Gaurd Fleet, L5 Trojan point

The rock had no name. Like 99.99% of the Carpathia star system, it had an eighteen digit alphanumeric classification number. The grey and white potato of a rock dwarfed Canopus Station by comparison, but its size was secondary to its location. Caught in the Trojan field of asteroids that shared the orbital path of the gas giant Tangerine Dream, it lay directly in the path of the approaching starships. They would have to drop out of warp close by before heading deeper into the system, and Canopus Station Tac Op's had designated it the rally and reflex point for the Guard Fleet.

'Fleet' might have been overselling the humble force arrayed there. Four Wallace class corvettes and three of Canopus Station's Mk3 Gryphon squadrons waited in the void, their engines hot and weapons primed, but burning time instead of deuterium. The USS Balliol Delta, the lead ship under the command of Commander Arlidd, drifted a little further away from the asteroid with a disdainful puff of its RCS thrusters. Wyvern, Hydra and Medusa Squadron's were clung to the rock to reserve their fuel. Banter and the chatter of soldiers awaiting the lightning of battle to flash over their heads lit up the short wave radio channels.

Behind them at a distance of over 150 million kilometres, Canopus Station and the four operational shore batteries waited. Each of the launchers was fitted for the new class 18 system defence torpedoes. The large weapons were a multi-drive affair, with a cruise stage able to reach warp one and a terminal guidance stage containing the antimatter warhead. For every six SDT fired, a smaller guidance weapon would be fired. This command and control unit could only talk to the torpedoes in its flight, guiding them to their targets and confusing the sensors of the enemy.

The fact that the Class 18 System Defence Torpedo's had never had real world fighting conditions to bloody their teeth against did not stop their designers from promising utter success. Or your money back.

Bone Shard Crown Den fleet: In Warp

The Reka were aroused. This is not to say they had amorous affection for their prey, but the hunt was a seduction to their baser instincts. If the strange ship had just hidden in the clouds of dust they might have grown bored, the inner fiction points of their Den causing the carriers to begin fighting once more between themselves, they might have escaped scot-free. But they had run, and in doing so bloodied and weakened some of the stronger Reka factions within the Done Shard Crown's Den.

The patriarch had been pleased to see this and had given the order to chase them down with pleasure. Fewer mouths to feed, fewer squabbles over what meagre meat there was to eat. Depending on how the outcome of the battle went, the patriarch had a feeling the Myriad would be pleased. And pleased Myriad meant rewards. And the reward was always worth culling the flock to achieve.

A murder of crows, starved and maddened by their history, were within grasp of a prize worth of their devotion to their Myriad masters.

 

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