Sovereign Chapter 1 (standard:science fiction, 2531 words) [1/3] show all parts
Author: St George	Added: Mar 13 2003	Views/Reads: 3458/2151	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The final part of the tale of the Furie war, told through the exloits of SNS Royal Sovereign.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

The problem was that each reactor's shells were powered by the other 
three, so if one or more of the other reactors were offline it took 
longer to charge the shells. Number 3 reactor's shell capacitors were 
currently at 77% and rising. If captain Adams drew off power from 
reactors 1 and 2 to power the ion drive, then it would mean number 3 
would take even longer to charge. 

Adams, however, was not going to draw off any power. Lott had proven
himself an excellent chief engineer aboard Broadsword and if he 
recommended waiting then that was good enough for her. She went over 
once again her new ship's first assignment. Because of the war a real 
shakedown cruise for a ship like this was not a luxury the navy could 
afford, instead ‘Sovereign had been given light duty, so that if 
anything did go wrong it would not be in the thick of combat. 

“Captain, Lott here. Reactor 3 is online, you've got manoeuvring speed.
In fact you've got about ten minutes at flank if you really need it, 
you'll have hyperdrive in about eight minutes give or take, depending 
on how much manoeuvring you plan to do.” 

“Excellent as always Lieutenant. Coms, inform Aeries STC (space traffic
control) that we are ready to depart and await vector for hyperjump.” A 
reply came back from STC giving them the necessary clearances and, once 
all links to the shipyard were disconnected, Adams ordered the ship 
forward. “Jump point reached Captain,” said the helmsman, “What's our 
course?” “Lay in a course for Titan, ahead standard.” With course set 
the navigators designed a hyperspace corridor and instructed the 
computer to make the required calculations for a stable portal. Due to 
the (in interstellar terms) extreme proximity of Mars and Saturn the 
journey was very short. Once again the crew felt the blurring of vision 
which indicates passage through a portal. They were now in a completely 
different part of the solar system, the sun, which had been quite 
bright in Martian orbit, was now almost as small as any other star. 

Titan is Saturn's largest moon (in fact it is larger than the two
smallest planets, Mercury and Pluto) and Neo Mir's extraterrestrial HQ. 
There were many ships in orbit, mainly examples of Neo Mir's beloved 
Argo class cutters and several gas harvesters (these harvested helium-3 
in Jupiter's atmosphere to power Neo Mir's fleet) but there were also 
some Anduril vessels and one Lucifer class destroyer. As ‘Sovereign 
moved toward the moon a transmission came in from one of the orbiting 
Argo class ships, “Royal Sovereign, welcome to Titan. I'm First 
Lieutenant Russell, first officer of Eurema's Dream. Captain Taylor is 
in a briefing but we should be ready to depart on schedule at 1400 
hours.” “1400, understood Eurema's Dream, we shall make ready. Royal 
Sovereign out.” During the transmission Russell's image had been 
displayed in the small flip up screen built into Adams' armrest, it now 
faded. 

Their first mission was simple enough, Eurema's Dream and the destroyer
SNS Thunder were going to test a new weapon in deep space, ‘Sovereign 
was there as escort and as an observer. At 1400 the three ships left in 
convoy. Once through their own portals the ships proceeded in order, 
first Royal Sovereign, then Eurema's Dream and finally Thunder. 
Although the test area was inside Alliance space it was not within the 
part protected by the Anduril guard stations (because of the high 
traffic volumes within the guard shell, testing of this particular 
device was impossible there). This was why an escort had been provided. 


“Captain, Thunder signal they are going to real-space.” “Acknowledged,
transmit back, good luck.” This was part of the plan. Thunder had to 
come out of hyperspace early and when the other two ships reached their 
destination Thunder would try to go by them in hyperspace. “Con, Helm, 
destination reached, real space minus 45 seconds.” As the ship slid 
through its portal the visual and EM sensors stretched out their 
groping fingers, searching for any interlopers. A moment later Eurema's 
Dream appeared through her own portal and signalled her two military 
companions that she was ready to begin the experiment. 

Thunder went once more to hyperspace and set course for a point beyond
the cutter's position. Eurema's dream had been extensively modified for 
this experiment. Her cargo decks, which on this incarnation of the Argo 
class occupied almost the whole ship, had been replaced with a graviton 
accelerator. Furthermore, the outer hull had been festooned with thin 
frail looking vanes. These vanes had lain flat and unnoticed during the 
journey, but now they were unfolding. The end result was as though the 
ship was shedding individual hull panels and each panel was floating a 
few metres away. When activated, the graviton accelerator working in 
consort with the vanes, so traumatised the fabric of hyperspace that 
every corridor within four light minutes (44.6 million miles) was 
closed down. As Thunder moved toward the cutter, its corridor became 
less and less stable until eventually it was forced to drop into real 
space. As soon as the destroyer was detected a transmission came from 
Eurema's Dream, “Royal Sovereign, I believe this is your department.” 
On that Adams ordered the primary armament to simulate firing on 
Thunder. For this was the purpose of the system, to force enemy ships 
into real space for an ambush. “Con, Comms, Eurema's Dream signal end 
exercise, they are setting course for Titan. Thunder also transmitting, 
they are making for SNI Nicosia and send congratulations on our first 
cruise.” “Acknowledge Thunder,” said Adams, “tell them thanks. Signal 
the cutter we are ready to depart. Helm, set course for Titan.” Captain 
Adam's orders were to escort the civilians to and from the test site, 
but she didn't like it. Thunder was going to Nicosia, the most distant 
human outpost, right on the edge of the Anduril guard sphere. Nicosia 
was mainly used to refuel ships either going into or coming out of 
enemy space. If thunder was headed there then it was better than even 
money she was about to see some action. 

Once underway Adams left the bridge in the hands of her 1st officer and
descended slowly within one of the vert tubes, enjoying as always the 
zero-G effect. She was heading for the officer's mess. As the ship had 
recently left port the galleys were well stocked, but this was a 
warship and luxury was not her speciality. Adams made it a point to 
savour her meal as she knew that the supply of fresh meat would soon 
run out and then the crew would be living on re-hydrated or deep frozen 
food and Soya substitute meat. The problem was not that of food 
storage. The reason that meat was in short supply was that Earth was 
the only farmable planet in human territory, so it was the source of 
all meat. Whereas plants could be grown hydroponically almost anywhere. 
There were not many other people in the room but the gunnery officer, 
Chambers, caught Adams' eye. He had a flexi (an electronic data viewing 
device in form not unlike a sheet of acetate) in his right hand and was 
muttering very fast under his breath. Chambers was a new one, 
Broadsword's gunnery officer had not survived the battle of Heretic. 
Using the handle of his fork he began to draw something on the touch 
sensitive flexi, whatever it was he seemed engrossed in it, his food 
lying untouched. 

The two ships moved on through hyperspace, like all warships ‘Sovereign
had no windows in her hull, she was not after all, designed for 
sightseeing and widows would weaken the hull and provide points of 
failure under stress. Eurema's Dream however did have panels of 
transparent aluminium in her hull through which the crew could see out, 
from the panoramic bridge window the battle-cruiser was visible four 
kilometres ahead, her twin ion vents glowing blue against her dark 
hull. Around both ships was the inescapable, depthless glow of 
hyperspace which so baffled physicists of all four spacefaring races; 
no-one knew what was radiating the glow, or where the energy came from. 


Chambers' mind was pre-occupied because someone was doing something to
one of his guns and he could not help, he was a gunnery officer not an 
engineer. Number seven gun of the primary armament was not functioning 
and Lieutenant Lott and a team from engineering were working on it now. 


Having deactivated the gravity net, Lott floated  next to the particle
accelerator which generated the gun's lethal pulse. He was once again 
watching a digi-logue readout and waiting, the accelerator had to be 
repressurised before work could begin. The canon was a complex system 
made of simple parts: the accelerator, with a diameter of ten metres 
circulated protons until they reached almost the speed of light (thank 
you relativity), a magnetic constrictor coil provided the motive force 
and once the protons were going fast enough the accelerator held them 
until the canon was fired. Once the order to fire was given a magnetic 
lock was deactivated so that the protons left the accelerator ring and 
moved into a temporarily ether shifted linear accelerator for the final 
push which created the destructive EP bolt. The problem was that one of 
the mag-rings in the constrictor coil was not functioning. Repair would 
be simple enough though, just replace the faulty part and repair it 
later. What took the time was repressurising the accelerator and then, 
once the part had been replaced, depressurising it again. It was a 
sensitive device and needed careful treatment. Lott had a theory as to 
what had happened: the mag-rings were sensitive to magnetic fields and 
if the transport case in which the ring had been shipped had a faulty 
gauss shield then that would account for the problem. It was not an 
uncommon problem on new ships, though it was usually spotted by the 
inspection crews before the ship was launched. 

The ships arrived at Titan without incident and took up orbit. There was
a famous ship sharing the moon's sky. All Alliance ships carry a 
transponder which identifies them to other friendly vessels and 
‘Sovereign's sensors showed many ships. Most had the human civilian 
designation SS, some had SNS, and others had AS or ANS (Anduril Ship 
and Anduril Naval Ship respectively) before their name, but there was 
one ship there who's transponder identified it as the USS Event 
Horizon. This was the ship which had been leased out, causing so much 
controversy among naval and Neo-Mir personnel. 


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