I feel the need to contribute something of worth to the community all of a sudden, and I don't really have anything else ready to go.
Well, technically I didn't have anything ready to go, but this only took a hour or so. I'll probably resurrect this for any other random writings I happen to do for FS.
A Good NameHull Number 129 began life in the Capella III Han-Ronald shipyards, ten months after the start of the NTF Rebellion. It was to become a Hecate-class destroyer. She was to be the first of the “Flight 2” Hecates, incorporating a variety of improvements and changes to better meet the needs of fleet service. Her future looked bright indeed, then, at the keel-laying ceremony. And work on her progressed at a good pace despite the drains on manpower and resources of wartime.
Eight months later she had come to resemble her final form greatly, though still obviously not complete. Her hull structure was mostly complete, though armor plating had yet to be attached. Her drives were freshly installed, but the subspace drive was uncalibrated and would be until she began builder’s trials. Still, she was technically spaceworthy, though mostly unarmed. Until her subspace drive was calibrated, however, she could not jump under her own power.
The Shivans did not allow the time to complete her. The decision was made to evacuate Capella, and because subspace drive calibration of a ship that size took a week even under the best of circumstances, Hull Number 129 was to be abandoned. Yet the workers at the shipyard took exception to this, and assembling a skeleton crew of 3500, got her underway for the Vega node as part of a convoy fleeing the shipyard. Three Triton freighters were used to provide motive power for subspace jumps.
This decision was a brave one, as she was still unarmored. And the cost was high. Nearly half of the civilians who crewed her lost their lives as Hull Number 129 and the other convoy ships came under intense bomber attack at the Vega node. At the last moment one of the Tritons that let her jump was destroyed, and it appeared all the efforts made so far would be for nothing. But the Leviathan-class GTC
Andrasta came to her aid, grappling on in place of the destroyed Triton, and Hull Number 129 escaped to Vega. Much was made of her escape, the unlooked-for miracle of the evacuation.
After calibration of her subspace drives in Vega, she was sent to the RNI shipyards in Laramis for completion and, eventually, modification into the prototype of a new class. There, eight months later and almost completed, she once again had the misfortune to encounter the Shivans before she was ready when a Shivan “splinter fleet” attacked Laramis. The SCv
Despair attacked the dock facility where she was undergoing final touches, and though the three cruisers assigned to its defense fought back valiantly, the GVC
Anubis was lost with all 742 of her crew and Hull Number 129 was badly damaged and would require extensive repair.
It took another two and a half months to repair her. She was to finally be launched under the name
Roma, but her captain petitioned the Admirality for a different name, and the Admiralty agreed after consideration. An impassioned speech at her commissioning ceremony invoked all those who had given their lives during her odyssey. Many whose efforts had brought about this day had not lived to see it. But they had not died in vain, and if any of them moved from beyond the grave, she would be their instrument.
Hull Number 129 became the GTD
Goryo. She would be the Vengeful Ghosts.
