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Old June 20th, 2002, 06:48 AM

sachmo sachmo is offline
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Default Re: Rise of the Remorhaz Society

On the Attack

2405.0

“We made it.” Gina Jager said to herself.
“Captain?” the XO asked. She must have said that louder then she thought. God, was she tired!
Out of the bridge windows, she could make out the cavernous berth where Nemesis would spend the next month being repaired. She could also make out the outline of RSS Manticore, the newest addition to the fleet. Even shrouded in the darkness of her berth, Manticore looked dangerous. She was not an upgrade, but a true Nemesis C Class Frigate. Her lines were a bit less severe then those of her own ship. She looked more…deadly? She only hoped the Manticore was as dangerous as she looked. She would be in action soon.
Gina snapped out of her fog. Nemesis was on final approach, and she needed to have her wits about her. Everyone on the ship was tired, so she needed to be sharp in case someone dropped the ball. After the Battle of the Rocks, pranging her ship on the wall of the Space Yard would probably get her busted down to shave tail Lieutenant, maybe serving as nav officer on a colony ship.
“Helm, bring her in slow. Sensor, I need constant ranging marks.”
Nemesis fired her retros expertly, braking the ship to a safe approach speed. At the same moment, the ship executed a quarter roll, so that Nemesis would dock upright. Gina smiled, impressed by the skill which Helm Officer Dorland was displaying on the approach.
“Very nice, Mr. Dorland. Excellent approach.”
Dorland absently responded, “Yes mam.”
Gina sat back in the command chair as they silently slipped into their berth. One Last flash from the retros, and they were motionless. The harbormaster on the berth started moving the gantry into position. For the next month, Captain Jager would have nothing but time on her hands. Plenty of time to go over the Last cruise in her mind, over and over, and over…she was not looking forward to this respite at all.

2405.1

On Spitfire, the colonists finished constructing the Space Port. The Tudran System would now be able to export the valuable minerals to the rest of the empire. This was a huge step in the war.

In the Yullado System, Intimidator picked up a Norakian colony ship on radar. She was alone. Captain Lu was not. He had Artemis with him. It was over in moments. Chalk up another 34 million Norakian victims to this senseless war. Gamma Fleet continued on to the Xillantha system.

Nemesis finished repairs on schedule, and the immediately joined the ships on station in the Wurtuy System. It was time to win back the imitative.

2405.2

Operation Strangle was complete. Loxias and Eagle had laid a field of defensive satellites outside of the Wurtuy-Lapzooli wormhole. Lapzooli was the home system of the Norak Continuum. This move should allow the Remorhaz fleet to interdict any ships trying to come thru this wormhole, or at least make it a very costly voyage. Furious took up station off of the wormhole, with Hyperion moving to join her. Eagle had the grizzly duty of destroying a lone Norakian colony ship that appeared in the Wurtuy system. She made short work of it.

Hawk pulled into the Space Yard at Glory. She was to be upgraded to the new System Patrol Class Eagle C. In place of supply storage, the ship was given another Depleted Uranium Cannon. These third generation cannon had double the range and move lethality then the first generation. Eagle and Falcon headed for Glory for a refit also. Production on all ships was halted so that the Society could build up enough mineral resources to upgrade the mining facilities, assuming the Science Guild finished the project that they felt confident would improve the miners efficiency. It was a gamble the Chairman had to take.

In the Xillantha System, Gamma Fleet completed the jump in system. Xillantha VI held a colony of 66 million Norakians. A single frigate protected her. Gamma Fleet would give them all that they could handle.

2405.3

The offensive had begun. Gamma fleet approached Xillantha VI. For some reason that neither captain could fathom, the Norak Alagoa frigate that had been covering the planet left orbit to join another Alagoa. The planet was completely open to attack.
Captain Lu was the senior officer and would be in charge of the attack. Captain R.J. Brennan was in command of the Artemis.
“Captain Brennan!” the Sonar Officer called out. “I read at least five weapons platforms on the surface!”
Well, so much for undefended, Brennan thought.
“Ok, get that information to Intimidator ASAP. No one told us that this would be easy.” His command console rang. As he answered it, the face of Captain Lu greeted him.
“R.J., we are going to do this by the book. We move into optimal firing range and let fly. Then we high tail it out of range. It’s been my experience that this works very well against well-defended planets. They can’t dodge our salvos, so we have the advantage. The downside is that if a barrage catches us, there is no way our ship could survive that number of missiles. Be careful, and follow me in. Good luck and God bless.”
Brennan smiled. “We’ll be right behind you, sir. Just save some for us, ok? We can’t let you experienced officers have all of the fun, right?” Brennan laughed, but was puzzled by Captain Lu’s reaction. Was he…disappointed? Or was it fear?
“Don’t worry, Brennan, there will be plenty of action to go around today. Lu out.”
With that, the link went dead. Brennan liked Captain Lu, and hoped that he hadn’t gotten on his bad side. Otherwise it would be a long trip home.
They began their run. At twelve parsecs, on board Intimidator, the Sensor Officer called out. “Sir, I have multiple bogies coming from the surface. We have been targeted, Captain.”
Lu frowned. Twelve parsecs? “Nav, how far out are we?”
“12 parsecs, Captain.”
Must be a new type of missile, then. The intel boys back home would love to hear about this. “Right, that changes nothing. Move to 9 parsecs and fire a full spread.”
On the first run, Intimidator’s missiles took out one of the weapons platforms, but Artemis fired too soon, and her missiles failed to reach the planet.
Chalk on up to battlefield jitters, Lu mused. He opened the com link and reminded Brennan, as gently as possible, to hold fire until nine parsecs. To Lu it appeared that Brennan digested the advice.
On the second run, it appeared to Lu that he was right. Artemis held fire until nine parsecs, and both ships succeeded in knocking out another two weapons platform.
The next four runs took place with neither ship taking damage. The Norak colony on Xillantha VI was bLasted out of existence.
During the conference between Lu and Brennan after the battle, he spoke with considerably less bravado. Nuking colonies would do that to a man, and Lu thought that there might be hope for him yet.

In the Wurtuy System, Hyperion and Furious prepared to jump into the Lapzooli System. This would be the first raid on the Norak home system. The ships joined up, and entered the wormhole…

To be continued...
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