Great losses, Great sacrifice chapter 7

[steveo1259]

Chapter 7 : Preparations

The excelsior came through the gate slowly, making several transporters swerve to avoid being swatted against the hull of the massive ship. It slowly accelerated on a direct course for the shipyard, getting docking permission five KMs out the docking computer brought the ship in.
“Get me the Fleet Admiral, now”
The bridge bristled with activity, people tapping the screens in-front of them with practiced ease. A few minutes later the Fleet Admiral appeared on screen.
“Sir, we have a massive problem, the black are back!” said the captain.
“WHAT?” the admiral almost screamed.
“The black are back and they are putting up the toughest fight ever. We are sending the ships logs of what we encountered. Hopefully, you’ll be able to make a decision on what to do quickly.
But while your making the decision, the excelsior performed exceptionally well in fights sir, I recommend that you go back in your order to only build one of this class of ship and build 2 or 3 more sister ships. The firepower of this ship matches the power of 3 or 4 M2 class ships, with that sort of power we could easily take down the immediate threat. We took out the massive black ships very quickly because of the upgraded weapons systems on this ship alone. The only problem is that our weapons don’t seem to affect the gate and that once the black ships get organized they can catch this big ships underside or over side very easily. It drains the shields so quickly.”
“I see, I think that looking over the logs I will give the order to build three more excelsior class ships. Meanwhile, I want your ship loaded for combat. That means lots of spare energy for jumps, spare shields and components for weapons and most importantly 350 of the best missiles credits can buy.”
Supplies started being transported into the excelsior’s empty cargo bay. Technicians started unpacking the equipment and took it to the various areas for storage or usage. It was like organized chaos. The excelsior’s new mission was to jump to the home sectors of each race, and make temporary peace treaties with the races in the hope that they would come of aid in the argons worst nightmare.

The boron agreed instantly, the teldi took a little persuasion but agreed to send some of their fleet to fight. The paranid, considering their early loses in the war made a comprise to protect the home sectors while the rest of the fleets were fighting the black. The spilt where being awkward like on many other occasions and refused to fight where the boron were. This was going to seriously strain the forces of the races as no one was willing to co-operate without someone else backing out or demanding something in return. Fortunately the excelsior and her sister ships would balance it out, but they weren’t scheduled for completion for at least a week, even with all three shipyards on flat out. They couldn’t afford to wait that long, even if the xenon where holding out, they couldn’t for long. Still the races had let all xenon traffic pass through, which wasn’t a lot so they must have been holding up all right.

Strangely the khakk hadn’t even been heard from, which was weird. Usually they attacked every hour but they hadn’t been heard from for mouths. They weren’t around when the argon first met the black, but it was only shortly after they introduced themselves in the massacre of President’s End.

……

Seven hours later and the entire fleet was stationed just off the gate to xenon space. Even the esteemed space trader Julian Brennan had agreed to send a couple of his own personalized destroyers.
The argon had sent their entire fleet, which consisted of three battle cruisers, five carriers full of fighters, twenty destroyers, sixty of the most recent M6’s, but only three of the new Hyperion.

The boron had sent roughly the same, but they had sent more fighters. About 200 more.

The teladi had been rather sparing, but that wasn’t surprising, considering that they where only after profit.

The excelsior was at the front of the invasion fleet, she was going to led the massive fleet into battle and hopefully destroy the black and their gate once and for all. The captain was busy planning various maneuvers and strike groups for the fleet when the first officer walked in.

“Captain”
“Commander, please sit down”
“Thank you, captain … Brex thinks he’s found a way to make the weapons more affective against the gate.”
“Really, how?”
“He thinks that if he set up a tachyon field between 50 ships, and they flew in formation over the gate, it might be enough to disable it long enough to fire missiles at it. After that the pulse weapons should be more effective, but our phasors are completely useless on the gate.”
“Okay, tell him to start preparations on this ship and any others he sees fit, he has two hours.”
“Aye Sir”

As the door slid shut Trasker got up and went to the FMS, he ordered a coffee and went back to planning various tactics when the comms panel chimed. The Captain, now slightly annoyed at being interrupted twice in the space of a mizura answered the call.
“Hello captain.”
“Admiral, what do you want?!”

…


so what do you think?