Temporal Rift PART II: SLAVER SLASHING - A GOOD PARTTIME JOB
Posted By: Alexander_Valient<jdprosper@ripnet.com>
Date: 29 September 2003, 12:16 PM
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PART II: SLAVER SLASHING - A GOOD PARTTIME JOB
0900 Hours, June 5, 4463 Teran Year
NPFS Mary Rose, New Port Colony Free Trade Zone
Two figures stood looking out the forward viewport of the topside bridge of the Battlecruiser Mary Rose. At nearly a kilometer in length and threehundred meters across, she would have been a sight to tremble before in it`s glory days. Those days were long since past. The ship was one of millions of outdated relics of a bygone age that still had life in them. Parts of the cruisers superstructure were more than seven hundred years old but had been built so sturdily that the rest of the ship had been destroyed and rebuilt more than a dozen times. The Terran Excalibur class Battlecruiser design had been in service since 2860 ad and every attempt at finding a replacement design had failed miseraly. Durring the slaughter of The Twenty Years War the Alliance had commisioned the Terran government to retrive as many cruisers as could be found from their scrapyards and make them opperational. One of these ships had been the Mary Rose whose command crew was almost wiped out in her second mission, allowing an inexperienced Lutennant Rima Tharen the opportunity to take command. While Tharen had gone on to fame and glory over the course of her career, the cruiser had eventually dissapeared into the sea of time.
And now it had been found again. Her first starship to command.
"So what do you think Rima?" asked Alexander Valient. "It looks like she`s still in one piece."
"I already talked to Griffith, he`s the engineer who`s been working on restoring the Rose for the past ten years."
Rima began walking toward the high speed lift at the back of the bridge, Alex followed just behind and to her left.
"He says that we could take her out on combat duty by tomorrow if we need to."
"We may need to sooner than that if our intel. reports are any indication. A preventor cruiser is supposed to be making some sort of cargo transfer with a Rovinar civilian transport about four hours out from here."
They stepped onto the lift and the doors automatically closed behind them.
'Please State Destination'
"Main Bridge." Alex and Rima both said in unison.
"How long do we have until the rendevous?" Asked Rima.
"Fourteen hours. Do you think we can make it?"
"With this ship? ha! Not a problem." she paused for a moment. what could be a problem is loading supplies in eleven hours. At least with the jump 120 drives we can get an extra hour of loading time."
The lift stopped and the doors slid open. The pair walked out and to the right headding down the hallway towards the main bridge.
"We can transfer the 4th Attack bomber squadron over here from the Revalation along with some landing craft and boarding crews. Another repair and maintinance crew and some gunners are all the rest that we would need. "
"Ok I`ll see to it that everything gets sent over here. You had better get the bridge of your new ship."
"You mean old ship." responded Rima with a smirk.
"Whatever. I`ll see you on the bridge before we reach the target. " With that Alex walked off towards the launch bays.
2300 Hours, June 5, 4463 Teran Year
NPFS Mary Rose, En-route to intercept co-ordinates
"It`s not my fault it took that long to get the boarding troops over here!"
"Alex make yourself usefull or get off my bridge." was Rima`s terse response.
That was all Alex needed to hear before he slid into an epty operations console and started to check ship systems status.
Near the back of the bridge Ian Valient,a six foot tall Nekonian barely in his twentys, stood shaking his head over the whole exchange. He then took a seat next to Alex.
"How is it that you two always mannage to get into these arguments if youve been friends for so long?"
"Kid it`s more complicated than that."
"You two act like a married couple. It cant be that complicated. "
Alex sighed then glared at the at him. "Ok kid, her and I have been alive for more than three hundred years. And since as long as i`ve known her, even when she was married, we always had arguments like this. ok?"
"Alright Old man I know your my great, great, great, great, great grandfather or whatever, but it seems like you almost should have married her" nodding his head in Rima`s direction . "Instead. "
"Ok ya fuzzball we can talk abou this later if you want. but not now. "
"SIR!" yelled one of the crewman. "I have the the target ships on sensors."
"Time to intercept?"
He glanced back at his screens. "Ten more minutes at current jump drive speed."
"Bridge to engineering. Griffith pick up dammit!"
'this is engineering, I could almost hear you without the com line commander Tharen. ' Griffith`s thick polish accent was easily descernabe through the com unit.
"Griffith we need more speed from the jump engines."
'We are already at jump 120, that is the maximum speed for these engines.'
"Try pushing them to jump 128. we should only need them that fast for one minute."
'OK! Redlining the jumpdrives!'
"Speed has increased to jump 125...............127.............128............128.4 speed is holding constant. "
"Helm plot our course to arrive within onehundred kilometers of the target ships. All hands Combat alert Alpha. "
"aye!"
One minute later the Mary Rose ended her jump nintey kilometers from the target ships and slowed to sublight speeds.
"We have targets, one Republic Battlecruiser with Preventor markings and one Rovinar civilian transport. "
"Life signs for both of those ships. "
"The Preventor ship has sevenhundred humantype lifesigns. and the civilian transport has fivehundred Rovinar lifesigns, thirty seven human, four Kavarian, and two hundred and fifty three Nekonians. "
Ian jumped up from his seat. "They have to be slavers if they have that many Nekonians aboard!"
"At ease Ensign Valient." said Rima over her shoulder. "We`ll deal with this whole situation soon enough." She turned back to the helmsman.
"Helm, I want you to buzz them. Sixhundred meters should get the message across."
The Rose`s four Fusion drives lit up pushing the ship ahead at bewildering speed. The anchient cruiser swung around the two ships even closer than Rima had wanted, nearly grazing shields against shields.
"I think that got the message across. Open a channel to both ships. "
The com officer presed some the holo controls at her station. "Channel open."
"This is commander Tharen of the Starship Mary Rose. You are both under arrest for slavery, stand down and prepare to be boarded. If you do not comply you WILL be fired upon. "
"This is the Rovinar cruiser Saraith do you have any Idea what you have just interupted here?!?!?! We are in the middle of a prisoner exchange!! We still have to send a group of polital prisoners over to the Preventor ship in exchance for these freed Nekonians."
"I appologise Captain, you can simply hand the Nekonian Refugees over to us then and resume transfer of the political prisoners to the Preventor ship. "
"I am quite sorry commander Tharen but that is quite impossible. These 'Refugees' will be relocated to Rovinar space. The majority of them will eventually be set free several years from now but untill then I `m afraid any transfer can not be allowed. Good bye Commander. "
With that the captain signed off.
"Uh.....Um ........commander!.........t-the Rovinar ship and the Republic Cruiser are both charging weapons!. "
"Well that`s it then. Helm stand by evasive manuvers, weapons lock energy weapons and prepare to fire."
"Republic cruiser charging main Plasma Cannon."
"OPEN FIRE!!"
The Rose`s engines engaged taking them between the two enemy ships, dodging the plasma cannon shot. But almost all of the rapid fire phase cannon shots struk the Rose`s shields. The rovinar cruiser added the fire of its three slightly more powerfull phase cannons to the mix.
The Rose spead away all eight of her own phase cannon having little effect on the shields of either ship.
"Both ships are persuing us."
"Dammit we cant use our S.P. Torpedos on those ships especially if they have prisoners aboard, and we can`t call for help because that would only draw more preventor ships here."
"Incoming Disruptor fire!"
"BRACE!!"
the bridge crew was almost thrown forward out of their seats by the force of the blast.
"Dammage report!"
"Shields down to seventy percent, minor hull dammage where the disruptor broke throught the shields."
"Rima! I have something on sensors. " yelled Alex across to din of alarms. "It`s some sort of Temporal Rift according to the computer. "
"Well it`s worth a shot. Helm bring us around to the other side of that rift. I want you to keep that rift between us and the Republic cruiser. "
"I gotcha ."
The Rose swung arround the Rift which looked like a small white tear. Every now and then it looked like lightning would arc out of the tear a short distance. The Republic ship went to Starboard and the Rovina ship went to port of the rift, both keeping a safe distance. Just as ordered the helmsman kept the rift between the rose and the Republic ship.
"Weapons try and take down the Rovinar ship`s shields. If we are luckey that might be enought to make them re-consider handing over those prisoners. "
Phase cannon fire flashed back and forth between the two ships. Punctuated by the occasional disruptor beam shot. The Republic Cruiser continued it`s attempts to manuver arround the rift and get a clear line of fire.
"Shield down to fifty percent but the shield on the rovinar ship are down to thirty percent. "
"Bridge to Launch bays standby boarding parties. Make sure the pilots are ready for some action because they may come under fire. "
"Sir! Republic cruiser is charging main Plasma Cannon again. " shouted the sensors operator.
"I think they`ve given up trying to fire arround it!"
A blue plasma bolt three kilometers long streaked out from the Republic ship but it intersected the tear causing it to imediatly expand outwards increasing in speed. All three cruisers were pulled into the rift which then just as mysteriously reversed its expansion and disappeared.
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