E.D.S. Little Rock
Edge of the Canary System
“All four Rail cannons and ship’s PDS’s deployed and ready, Captain,” Lieutenant Wei announced staring at his terminal. “Shall I arm missiles?”
Jessica looked at her terminal. Each of the three contacts indicated on the display were measuring out at approximately the size of a SF-19. She planned out in her head, too small for anti-ship missiles, nukes are out of the question and the Rail cannons are not effective at long range against small targets. They will have to wait for them to get into close range of the Rail cannons and PDS’s.
“No,” she said. “Can we get a good visual yet?”
“Barely,” the Ops Chief responded.
“Put it on the main screen, Chief,” she ordered.
“Aye, Captain,” he responded.
Jessica turned to face the main screen, and the image changed from one of the large yellow gas giant to a view of three shiny objects. They had a relatively narrow profile and were flying in formation. From this angle it looked like they were flying in a picket line with each space craft separated by a distance of around 100 meters.
“Comms, any response from our hails?” she asked.
“None, Captain. Just silence,” he replied.
She stood and turned to Lieutenant Wei. “Tactical, are we in their weapons range?”
“Unknown, Captain. We have no idea what the maximum range is on their weapons,” he stated as he turned to face her shrugging his shoulders.
“At their current speed when will they be on us then?” she replied.
“They are moving pretty fast. They will reach the max range of our Rail cannons in five minutes,” he said.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” she said as she sat back in her seat. Jessica looked over her terminal to get an idea of Senior Chief McKnight’s progress. Something was off. The display still showed her pod at the location of the beacon. She should have retrieved the beacon and been pretty much back inside the Little Rock by now. She turned to Sinclair and asked, “Have you noticed that the pod stopped moving?”
Sinclair looked down at his screen for a moment and then looked up at Jessica and replied, “No, no I didn’t. Sorry, I must have gotten distracted. It won’t happen again.”
Jessica sighed. She made a mental note for them to talk more about the XO’s role later. Now was not a time to chastise him for making an error. “XO, try to contact the pod and see what the issue is,” she said.
“Pod one, this is the Little Rock. Status report,” Sinclair ordered ask he keyed in to open a channel at his station.
“Little Rock, this is Pod one. Currently experiencing an unexplained power loss. I have life support, but no thrust capability. I am communicating through my suit’s radio, not the pod’s, ” McKnight’s voice responded over the Comms.
“Incoming! Three missiles,” Lieutenant Wei shouted out, interrupting the XO’s response to the pod.
“Location?” Jessica yelled back. She pretty much guessed but she had to be sure.
“From the three unidentified spacecraft,” he replied.
Anxiety began to build in Jessica. This was the first combat that the fleet had engaged in close to over twenty years. They practiced it, sure, but this was not a Sim and her crew expected her to make the right decisions to get them out of the situation on top.
She stood up and began to shout orders. “Helm, keep us in between the pod and our incoming contacts. Tactical, once they’re in range unleash the PDS’s. I want full dispersal pattern. I don’t want these missiles anywhere near impacting us or the pod. Everyone else, buckle in and keep watch over you stations.”
A resounding “Aye, Captain” echoed from each station on the bridge. As Jessica turned to sit back in her seat, she noticed the two Marine guards unfolding the Jump seats by the door and buckling themselves in. She then sat back in the command seat and buckled herself into the harness.
“Missiles in PDS range in ten seconds,” Lieutenant Wei called out.
“On screen,” she ordered.
The image on the view screen switched to an angle from one of the cameras attached to the Displacement drive. The armored view of the Little Rock’s dorsal hull came into view. Along the starboard side hull, she could make out the double-barrel Rail cannon turret and it was flanked by 4 PDS turrets on each side running up and down the hull. She knew that these were just on the dorsal side of this hull and the same image would be repeating on the ventral side.
Suddenly the PDS turrets sprung to life. Streams of fire erupted from the barrels. The specs said they could fire close to 1000 rounds a minute and at a time like this she was glad they could perform that well. One by one each missile exploded into pieces as they were shot down by the stream of high-velocity armor-piercing bullets. The crew let out a cheer after all missiles were destroyed.
“OK people, let’s act like we have done this before. Plus, we still have three bogeys baring down on us. Focus!” Sinclair shouted out.
Jessica turned to her XO and gave him a quick nod of approval. She was thinking the same thing and at least she could tell he was trying to learn from his previous over-site. “Tactical, status?” she asked.
“All three missiles intercepted. Spacecraft still heading for us.” He paused for a moment looking at his display. “Captain, contacts have increased speed. Heading straight at us!”
“What the hell were they doing?” she thought to herself. “Didn’t they just see that we had the capability to repel their attack? This is suicide.”
“Science, have you done a scan? Is there any sort of sign of life or are these drones?” she asked.
“Inconclusive, ma’am,” Lieutenant Ray responded.
“Great,” she thought. “Tactical, do we have a shot yet?”
“Yes…” he began then the bridge rocked as if the ship experienced an impact.
“What the hell?” she shouted out.
“Some sort of beam impacts, ma’am, from the enemy. Ventral Rail cannon off-line the ship’s armor took the rest of the damage from the other shots.”
“That is confirmed,” the Ops Chief echoed.
“Shoot!” Jessica thought to herself. The she ordered, “Helm, rotate the hull 20 degrees to the starboard. I want max coverage from the remaining PDS’s. Tactical, once you get a lock, fire.”
“Captain, I can’t guarantee I can take out all the bogeys with the Rail cannon. One, maybe two, but not all three. It takes too long to load,” Lieutenant Wei stated.
“That is fine. Just give me a full dispersal pattern again with the PDS’s that should tear them apart,” she said as she could feel the hull beneath her move and the display rotated to the right. She knew this was bad. Normally they could maneuver but they were anchored as they were acting as a huge shield to the pod. What got to her was why didn’t they break off and hit from different angles there was no way they could stop them. A question for a different time. Right now they had to survive this.
“Firing!” Wei said.
On the screen the end of one of the barrels of the Rail cannon gave a quick flash as the large hypersonic slug streaked out towards its target. Simultaneously the PDS’s began to rain fire in the direction of the oncoming spacecraft. The center spacecraft exploded into pieces as the Rail slug slammed in the direct center of the small craft. The other two craft still were bearing down on them. From her view, it even looked like they increased speed. Like they were even more determined after the loss of their friend.
“Captain, with their increase in speed I can get the Rail cannon in position for a second shot!” Wei exclaimed.
“This is madness,” she said quietly to herself. She knew it was a long shot with the Rail cannons as they were designed for anti-starship warfare not anti-fighter. Bright flashes overpowered the main view screen snapping her away from her thoughts, as the two remaining spaceships ran smack dab into the Little Rock’s PDS’s field of fire. The bridge shook and the force threw Jessica forward in her restrain
ts. Sirens began to blare across the bridge.
“Ops, report!” she yelled out.
“We have impacts along the hull. When the last two bogeys were taken out by the PDS’s whatever they used as a power plant exploded. The force of the explosion littered the hull with pieces of debris at a high rate of speed. Two dorsal side PDS’s are offline and several areas of the hull are showing damage. No hull breaches, but we are getting reports of minor injuries from areas of the ship,” he said.
Jessica looked down at her terminal and verified what the operations chief reported. On the display two PDS’s were showing red along with the ventral Rail cannon. She keyed into the Comms panel at her terminal and opened a line to Engineering. “Commander Magnuson, give me a status of things on your end.”
“We are fine down here. Just some bumps and bruises. Reactor is green and Displacement drive power transfer units are operational.” he said. “It will take some time though to replace and repair the Rail cannon and PDS’s. though.”
“How long?” she asked.
“Twelve hours minimum. Depends on how extensive the damage is to the Rail cannon,” he replied
“Get to it then. Also, I want progress reports touted to the bridge every two hours.”
“Yes, Captain.” he responded. Then the Comm unit beeped indicating the line was turned off.
She turned to Sinclair and said, “I don’t like sitting here for twelve hours without knowing if there are any other ships out there.”
“Agreed,” he responded.
“I want you to coordinate the retrieval of McKnight’s pod, and get science to launch a probe to scan the area. We might need to see if there is anybody else out there,” she said, unbuckling herself from her restraint and standing up.
“Won’t actively searching with a probe give us away?” he asked.
“If they didn’t know we were here after everything that just happened, launching a probe won’t make it any worse,” she replied, giving him a half smile as she reach for her coffee cup in the cup holder. “Also, secure from battle stations, but remain on alert status,” she turned to the helm station. “Ensign Hunter, charge the Displacement drive for a three light year Jump and lay in a course. This is just for an emergency though, I want to be prepared in case anymore ships show up.”
“Where shall I plot a course to?” Hunter asked.
“Your discretion, Ensign.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You have the Bridge, XO,” she said as she began to walk from her station. “I will be in my ready room. Comms, prepare to set a network link to command.”
“Captain?” the communications tech queried.
Stopping at the opening door to the Bridge, she turned and replied, “Yes, Specialist?”
“The system only has a class three network connection. We can’t do a live video link. Only packaged transmissions,” he said.
Jessica sighed. “Understood.” She turned to the Bridge crew and continued, “All stations, I want preliminary report data sent to me in exactly thirty minutes. I need to get this report to command no later than that.”
“What are you going to report?” Sinclair asked.
Turning to Sinclair, she stated with a straight face, “That it looks like we might be heading into a conflict with an unknown enemy.”
Jessica finished the recording of the video portion of her report just as the last of the requested report was sent to her terminal. After reviewing the data, she then attached the packets of info along with her report into one message file. Then she keyed in her captain’s access code to flag the message at the highest priority level and pressed send. She knew it would be a few hours before she would get a response. Class three network satellites were not the fastest way to communicate, but flagging the message Priority One should get the attention it needs.
She sat back in her chair in the ready room took a sip of her coffee, which seemed to cool since she last took a sip. Now had lost some of its flavor. She placed the cup back in its holder on the desk. She hated waiting. The probe they sent hadn’t picked up any other ships in the area, but it had just begun its scan. She looked at the time on the lower right hand side of her screen. It had only been a little over thirty minutes from when she left the Bridge, and she was feeling anxious. She didn’t like this feeling. She always thought of herself as the patient one. Haley was always the one that needed everything now. Not Jessica, she thought everything out, but right now sitting here waiting was driving her crazy.
Her comm panel at her desk beeped. She looked down and the screen said it was coming from the XO’s station at the bridge. She reached down and pressed the button. “Yes, XO,” she said.
“We have successfully retrieved the senior chief and I have her being seen by the Doc right now,” he reported.
“How does she seem?” she asked.
“A little shaken, but overall OK. Lieutenant Ray and the communications techs are going over the emergency buoy from the Moscow. Upon first look it seems to be tampered with. They have isolated it in the lab to make sure it can’t affect the anything on the ship. Hopefully we can get more answers soon,” he replied.
“Very good. Have the senior chief report to me after she is done with the Doc.” She paused looking at the stream of probe data that was being fed to her computer and continued. “XO, once you are finished with that have yourself and Major Thompson report to my ready room.”
“Will do, Captain,” he replied.
The comm panel clicked, and the line turned off. Jessica sat forward and pulled up some of the data on her screen that was retrieved from the encounter to review.
A knock and a chime came from her ready room door. Thompson must have knocked first, she thought. The last time he came to her office he pounded on the door instead of using the door bell and it scared the hell out of her.
“Enter!” she yelled out.
The door opened and both Sinclair and Thompson entered one after another.
“Glad to see you learned to use the door bell, Major,” she said, giving Thompson a smile.
“No, ma’am. That was the XO. Us Marines can be kind of set in our ways sometimes,” he replied as he took a position behind the left seat in front of her desk.
“Must be that heavy crayon diet,” the XO quipped.
Thompson shot him a stare that Jessica thought would have killed Sinclair instantly if that was possible.
“Okay, gentleman. Have a seat. You both can fight it out in the gym later,” she said motioning with her hand for them to sit at the two seats in front of her desk.
Both officers sat in the respective seats with Thompson wearing his black utility uniform sitting to the seat to her left and Sinclair sitting to her right.
Jessica leaned forward and said, “I have been reviewing the data and sent my preliminary report to command. I still think we need to investigate further while we are sitting here under repair.”
“What do you have in mind?” Sinclair asked.
“Canary Station. I want us to look at it closer and find out what is happening there,” she replied.
“Won’t the probe tell us that?” Sinclair replied.
Jessica pressed a button on her terminal and the screen rotated back into the desk. She pressed some more commands in as she stood up. “Yes and No.”
A holographic image began to display on her desk. It represented the Canary system. The system was small. The star glowed yellow in the center. There were two smaller rocky planets that orbited close to the star then there was the yellow gas giant that orbited father out. There were even dots representing the station and the network communications satellite on the display. She controlled the image to zoom in on the planet.
“The probe will get us the info from the system, but not any data inside the station.” She said
“What do you need me to do?” Major Thompson spoke up already anticipating what she was planning.
“I need you to take a squad of your Marines along with Lieutenant
Ray to the station and investigate it. Look for survivors, pull information from the computers, anything that can fill in the blanks on what happened here.”
“Why Lieutenant Ray?” Thompson asked.
“He is the lead science officer of this ship. If it is something alien in nature, I want him there,” she said.
“Isn’t he trying to work on the Moscow’s emergency buoy?” Sinclair asked.
She turned to Sinclair and answered, “Get another Comm specialist to help with it. It is what they are trained to do, right?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I can tell you now he is not going to like it,” Sinclair responded.
“I understand. He is just going to have to get over it and do his job,” she replied sitting back down in her chair.
“Just giving you a heads up, Captain.” Sinclair said raising his hand back defensively.
Jessica was tense she knew from Lieutenant Ray’s personnel file that he had issues. Like most of her crew, she didn’t get to pick her personnel and most of them were assigned to her. Lieutenant Ray had an issue of speaking his mind too much and had issues with previous officer assigned over him. He was smart and he knew it. That also fed into his ego which caused problems. She also knew it was her job to put him in the best position to succeed and maybe learn to grow up some.
“Mission parameters?” Thompson interrupted looking back and forth between Jessica and Sinclair.
“It is a simple search, rescue, and or recovery.” She began turning to the major with a more even tone relaxing a bit. She pressed a button on her keyboard and brought up her initial plan visually on the holo-display. A dot indicating the Little Rock popped up on the display. A red line then appeared connecting the Little Rock’s location and that of Canary Station’s. “Your squad, plus some support personnel, will fly in a shuttle to the station. The flight from our location to the station is about two hours depending on the station’s orbit. From there, your team will secure the station and find anyone that might need help. Then Lieutenant Ray and a couple of engineering techs can look over the station for damage.”
“Do you think Commander Magnuson is going to give up some of his techs so easily? Especially with them working to get the Rail cannon back online and trying repair the downed PDS turrets?” Sinclair interjected.
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