Crusade chapter 4 (standard:science fiction, 1881 words) [4/11] show all parts
Author: St George	Added: Mar 11 2003	Views/Reads: 2345/1725	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
chapter 4

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

Once more the torpedoes streaked away on their deadly mission. “Sir, 
direct hit all four torps.” came the bridge gunnery officer. 

Then pinprick explosions began to break out on the surface of the enemy
ship, the torpedoes must have destroyed her shields and the tiny 
explosions were caused by the Anduril fighters EP blasters. “TORPEDO, 
TORPEDO, TORPEDO!” cried the Sensor officer, whilst at the same moment 
Alecto directed all available defensive weapons onto the incoming 
threats; even so, without fighter cover there was every chance that one 
of the four inbound would hit. “Helm, evasive manoeuvres.” Crusader 
groaned her disapproval as the helmsmen pulled hard back and the ship 
strained against momentum to avoid the torpedoes. On the approach 
Alecto destroyed one, and, missing by only a few tens of yards, the 
others continued on, arcing round back toward her; as they passed by 
another was destroyed, but the other two hit the shields in quick 
succession shaking the entire vessel. Fortunately the shields were 
divided into three sections, port, starboard and keel, the torpedoes 
hit the undamaged port array knocking 44% off the shield charge in a 
moment. If they had hit the damaged starboard array then it would have 
been completely depleted. 

On the holoscape a pair of Anduril torpedoes hit the enemy, blasting a
massive crater in the now unshielded enemy. The holoscape showed a blue 
point of light appear in front of the enemy's bow, she was attempting 
to retreat into hyperspace. “Sierra turrets, concentrate on the bow, 
knock out their portal projector.” Second by second the portal grew, 
soon it would be large enough for the ship to escape. Despite the 
gaping wound in her flank no critical systems seemed to be damaged but 
at least she had stopped firing, conserving power for the hyperdrive. 
The portal was big enough and the battleship entered it, all seemed 
lost. But suddenly the portal moved, twisted around itself and closed 
taking the first fifth of the enemy ship with it. Unbeknown to Carver, 
Kerray-win had concentrated her canon on the enemy's computer core, 
this was less well armoured than the portal projector and when it was 
destroyed the portal had destabilised and collapsed. Battleship or not, 
nothing could survive this sort of punishment and all systems finally 
went off-line. So ended the first battle of the war. 

An hour later Captain Tennit and his first officer were in Carver's
office along with Logan and Chief gunnery officer Beauchamp (they could 
not conveniently go aboard Kerray-win as it was built for four foot 
tall Andurils not six foot tall humans). “Firstly, thank you, we would 
not have been able to defeat a battleship alone,” said Alecto, 
translating Captain Tennit's words, “Secondly, we have recovered 
several of the vessels memory cells and have discovered its mission. 
Megaeran command believed that the Anduril navy was developing a secret 
weapon, and when a long range probe detected a battle cruiser leaving 
port bound for the sol system, a very remote and obscure location, they 
thought we were going to test it; it seems that because of the highly 
unique design of human starships they didn't even realise Crusader was 
a ship, they thought that we were towing a cargo container. The enemy 
planned to destroy both container and ship before in one go. 
Fortunately, when we detected the incoming vessel I set up a 
hyper-spatial jamming field, so Megaeran command still does not know of 
your existence.” “Even so,” responded Carver, “they will soon know that 
their ship was destroyed and whatever happens next, our fight for 
survival begins here.”  Unwittingly speaking a line which would become 
famous. 

Crusader cut short its shakedown cruise and departed for Mars within the
hour. Kerray-win also left, heading for the nearest Anduril outpost 
(neither Captain wanted to risk a signal that could be intercepted by 
the enemy). 

“Personal log, Captain Richard Carver: In my first log entry I seem to
recall including a Machiavelli quote, I am once again proved right 
about his continuing validity and I have another quote, ‘War cannot be 
avoided, merely postponed to the advantage of others', the war has now 
come.” 

Once she was in range Crusader received a signal from Io orbital
station, wanting to know why they had arrived back almost five weeks 
early (naval command had kept Carver's transmission a secret). Carver 
refused to explain though, he simply requested a priority course for 
Martian orbit for Crusader,  and then flew ahead to Hellas station. He 
delivered in person a full record of the battle of Bernard's star, as 
it would become known, plus his own account and that of Captain Tennit. 
It was obvious to all what must be done; fulfilling the Aachen pact, 
Stellar navy supreme commander; Grand Admiral Sampson officially 
offered the services of the force: 18 destroyers, 12 frigates, 12 
corvettes, 2 light cruisers one medium cruiser (SNS Broadsword) and one 
battleship. 

Despite not having completed her shakedown, Crusader was officially
added to the active service list. As soon as she had her full 
compliment of soldiers and fighters on board Crusader was ordered back 
into action, with the first blow now struck Anduril high command was 
eager to push the enemy hard, blitzkrieg was a word not lost on them. 
Despite this they still wanted to keep their human allies a secret, 
ready to reveal when the time was right and for this reason Crusader 
was ordered to protect an Anduril space-dock, whilst the fleet which 
usually resided there attacked a shipyard on the edge of Megaeran 
space. Defence was not a role suited to battleships; Crusader was 
designed to work in the ‘lone wolf' role, hunting enemy warships and 
freighters. Because of this, and because she would be needed at the 
front soon herself, SNS Broadsword accompanied Crusader. Broadsword's 
Captain was Cassandra Adams; formerly of Neo Mir, she had commanded the 
Endeavour 2 mission and was one of the three candidates for CO of 
Crusader (Carver and Takahama being the other two). Broadsword was a 
Sword class medium cruiser, the largest ship that the Martian shipyards 
could produce, although she was smaller by some 600 hundred metres than 
the Knight class, and had only five primary EP turrets. Broadsword was 
more suited to the defensive role as she was more manoeuvrable and 
could fire directly ahead (though not directly astern) and was equipped 
with a secondary armament of six 5.5 kiloton EP turrets to back up the 
primary canon. 


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