This is the first half of a fanfic I wrote about a mission Idea I had awhile back, I never got around to finishing it (I can though, if it's wanted).
“We’re coming up on the node, sir. We’ll exit subspace in approximately three minutes.” Captain Lewis Brecht was jolted out of his reflective musings by the words of a young lieutenant at the helm. His own summary display by his chair confirmed her count, two minutes, fifty two seconds before they reached Luyten. “Yes, lieutenant, thank you.” He’d been in command of the Archon for nearly a month now, but until today, never taken her into combat. ‘And that’s still not a certainty, even today’ he thought.
“Lieutenant.”
“Yes sir?”
“I need you to transmit some messages for me. Remind all the pilots that we are not going to fire the first shot. They are to go no further than five hundred meters from the Archon unless otherwise ordered, particularly not towards the two cruisers. Also, remind them that they are also not to fire under any circumstances unless fired upon first. Tell the same thing to the gunners, and remind them that if we do have to fire, that we should aim to disarm, disable or simply frighten, and that kill shots are to be taken only as a last resort. Lieutenant Commander Torbell.” The man at the weapons control monitor turned to face his captain. “Yes sir?”
“Begin powering up our defence systems – I want the laser batteries at full power, and the Anti Fighter beams at 50 percent. Load the flak and missile launchers, but keep our capital ship beams down. Bring the Stiletto beams online, and charge them to full capacity. As soon as we exit subspace, I want the turret and subsystem shields up, and the tractor beams online.”
“Affirmative sir but…shouldn’t we bring the Anti Cap beams up as well?”
“We’re here to talk, not fight, commander. When they scan our weapons, I want them to see that we trust them not to fire.”
“And if they do, sir? Fire that is.”
“If they fire, which I doubt very much that they will, then our defences will undoubtedly be more than adequate, for a while anyway. Besides – they don’t take more than a minute each to charge, and I hardly think two cruisers will be capable of damaging us too much in that amount of time.”
“Assuming, of course, that the situation hasn’t changed in the last fifteen minutes?”
“I see no reason to expect the worst, Commander, but if it has changed, then we will change with it. Either way, we’ll know about it in…” he checked his display “One minute, thirty one seconds. Now, see to our defences.”
“Yes, Captain”
Brecht sat, watching the shifting, blue white vortex of subspace on the bridges main display, directly ahead of him, trying to keep the anxiety he felt from showing on his face. It was natural to be nervous before a battle, even one with a practically predetermined outcome, such as this one. There was nothing in the Luyten system that the civilians could have taken control of that could stand up to the Archon – there was very little in the fleet that could do that. Spanning just over eleven hundred meters from bow to stern, the Archon represented the latest in GTVA capital ship technology. Despite possessing enough offensive firepower to fight a Deimos class corvette to a standstill, the Archon still had room for a full twelve man squadron of fighters, and a multitude of technological extras. Six Stiletto class Anti Subsystem Punch beams, three Rictor class tractor emitters, fully shielded turrets and subsystems, and a pair of high energy Deuterium Fission reactors providing enough energy to make the Archon the fastest and most manoeuvrable capital ship in the fleet. In short, the most advanced vessel ever built by the GTVA, and the first in a long line of peacekeeper vessels – medium sized system patrol ships capable of maintaining in system order, allowing the fleets heavier artillery to be deployed as a fleet – all in the one place to provide an overwhelming how of force towards external threats – such a system could have defeated the NTF within a month of its spreading beyond Polaris, and possibly even given pause to the entire Shivan Fleet assayed against us, with the Exception of the Sathannas juggernauts of course.
And now Brecht had been charged with the implementation of that system. All his confidence in it could not disrupt the underlying tension in his mind, however. This ship was new, the crew was new – he’d never seen them perform under the conditions of combat, never seen their reactions to battle stress. He’d run drills, of course, simulated attacks, counterfeit assaults, but real battle stress was something he’d never seen his crew face. If push came to shove today, it was going to be an interesting fight…for both sides.
“Entering realspace in five…four…three…two…one…”
The blue swirls ahead suddenly became a mass of blue white haze, brightening to a white flash before congealing into recognizable shapes. “Alpha and Beta wings, launch and form up around the Archon, Gamma and Delta, stand by. Bring the shields and tractor emitters online, give me a tactical display. Brecht realised a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The situation hadn’t changed while they’d been under the communications blackout imposed by inter system travel. The Aten class GVC Chemset was still hovering protectively over the Isis class transport that was transporting the Luyten Vasudan Consul. About five kilometres ahead of them, and three ahead of the Archon, were the two Leviathan class cruisers that had been taken by the angry civilian mob out of drydock two hours ago. The situation wasn’t particularly complex, but it was highly volatile. The Vasudan Mega Corporation Akheton maintained a rare ores mine on Luyten I, extracting the rare and valuable metals in the planets crust for use in their shipyard facilities. Since Luyten was a primarily Terran system, most of their workers were Terrans. About three weeks ago, there had been a bad accident, after a nearby dormant volcano had erupted without warning, triggering earthquakes which completely collapsed one of the mine corridors, trapping and ultimately killing the fourteen Terrans supervising the mining drones working inside it. Since the mine was owned and operated by a Vasudan group, the matter had been turned over to the Vasudan Consulate for investigation, and it was found that the mines safety standards were within acceptable levels, and that the accident was just that, an accident. This was not the answer that the angry Terrans of the system wanted to hear. They claimed that Vasudan prejudices against their terran workers had led to extremely low safety standards, and that the Vasudan Consulate was doing nothing more than covering up these acts, Vasudans helping Vasudans, and to hell with everyone else. Tension and resentment had built up until an angry Terran mob stormed the Luyten 5 drydock, and made off with the two Leviathan class heavy cruisers that were undergoing repairs there, the GTC Iowa and the GTC Catapult. They had blockaded the node and were threatening to destroy the Vasudan Consuls ship unless he publicly retracted his findings, and told the galaxy the ‘truth’ about Akheton. It was precisely the kind of situation that the Archon was designed to diffuse.
“Give me a general transmission, all GTVA frequencies – This is Captain Lewis Brecht of the GTCa Archon. I hereby order you to stand down your blockade and turn over custody of your ships to me.”
“Captain Brecht, this is Martin Rakowski, spokesperson for the citizens of Luyten. The Vasudan government has deceived you, and murdered fourteen Terrans – fourteen of our friends, fourteen members of our families. We can not allow that to stand. Please, leave now, we don’t want more Terran lives lost.”
“Nobody wants to see any lives lost, Mr Rakowski, Terran or Vasudan. However I can not leave this system until you allow the Consul to leave, and return custody of those cruisers to the GTVA”
“We will not allow this collaborator to leave unpunished, Captain. We will not break off our blockade.”
“Think about what you’re doing here, Mr Rakowski. You’re outnumbered and out gunned – attack that transport and you condemn yourself and your crew.”
“You think that we are alone in this, Captain Brecht? We are nothing more than the power behind the cause – the belief in this Vasudan treachery is far more widely accepted. As you will soon see.”
“He’s cut his transmission, Captain,” his communications officer reported. “And he’s sending a subspace burst transmission, but I think it’s encoded. The computer can’t translate it”
Suddenly, blue dots began to appear on the tactical display “Ensign Pilcher, report”
The young ensign at the Sensor controls was staring intently at her monitor. “Picking up multiple incoming jump signatures, freighters and fighters mostly, a few transports…there’s more coming sir – seven, eleven, twelve, fifteen…there are over twenty small craft arriving from all points around the node Captain, and almost a dozen fighters! It’s a full scale fleet!”
“Calm down ensign! Scramble the remaining fighters, charge Anti Capital ship beams, and bring Anti fighter defences to full power. Rotate us 90 degrees to port, I want the starboard Stiletto’s to target the Iowa’s engines, but not fire. There’s still a chance for peace here!”
“You see, Captain, that we are far from defenceless against you. Are you now willing to risk your own crew?”
“Even with this many ships, you’re still outgunned and outclassed by military ships!”
“Not as much as you may think, Captain. Scan the vessels around you – they may not be military, but we’re all living on the fringe out here – nobody survives with the factory package out here.”
“He’s right sir” Said Ensign Pilcher “There isn’t a vessel out there without at least one Anti Fighter beam, most of them have Flak, high grade armour, upgraded shields - that Medical Frigate has a pair of slash beams bolted to the sides. They aren’t your standard freighters, that’s for sure.”
Brecht nodded to her in recognition. “Rakowski, this is your last warning. Tell your vessels to stand down and let the Consul go, orr we will open fire.” The comm. stayed silent.
“Sir!” It was Pilcher again “Eight of the small vessels are moving towards us, along with both Cruisers! They’re attacking, sir!”
“Very well, Rakowski, you’ve made your choice. May God have mercy on your soul. Cut transmission.”
“Lieutenant Sykes,” He addressed his Comm officer, “Send a message back through the node, inform GTVA command of our situation and request reinforcements ASAP.” He reached over to his status display panel and keyed for a ship wide intercom transmission. “This is the captain to All hands : Combat alert, repeat, combat alert., All hands to battle stations.”
Finally, It was time to find out how his crew would react to battle stress.
