Finally, they had a weapons lock on one of the Pirate ships and unleashed the full fury a Destroyer was capable of, all aimed at that one ship. The ship that was being targeted by FNS Hidacki was severely damaged when it was hit. Minutes later, escape pods were being ejected as the crew abandoned ship. Another one of the Pirate ships seemed to be waiting back near the Jump-Point, perhaps trying to close the door and trap FNS Hidacki here in this System. The Captain wasn’t too concerned about that at this point, for now, he needed to escape the Pirate kill zone then he could decide how to deal with these enemies. Even with one engine down, Hidacki gradually began to pull away from the pursuing Pirate ships, and the Point-Defense systems were becoming increasingly successful at stopping enemy Rail-Gun rounds and missiles from reaching the Shields. The Pirates kept trying to attack the area where Hidacki was already damaged, and she kept trying to shield that side as much as possible. The Jump-Drives were also in the process of recharging, but really, they needed to be out of effective range of the Pirate weapons before they could attempt to do a Micro-Jump. With one of the Pirates out of the fight, the crew of FNS Hidacki began targeting the next closest Pirate ship.
This new target started trying to evade the incoming fire, having seen what happened to their comrade. They didn’t want to end up in the same position. FNS Hidacki continued fighting, always firing everything she could at whichever ship was closest as she began drawing away from her attackers. Many of Hidacki’s shots made it through and impacted the targets Shields, but none got through those. The course they were currently following would take them out into the black, to a place where it should be safe enough for them to carry out what repairs they could. The drive damage would most likely require a shipyard, but they could at least patch the hull and restore most, if not all the lost shield emitters, probably even bring a few Point-Defense Lasers from the damaged areas back online. If FNS Hidacki could put enough distance between herself and these Pirates by the time the Jump-Drives were ready, they could Micro-Jump to safety and be well out of range of the Pirate Sensors. If they could manage that, the crew of FNS Hidacki should be able to carry out her repairs in peace. Once the ship was repaired, they could see about dealing with the remaining three Pirate ships. When she went back, they would not be ambushing her, and the Shields would be at full strength long before the Pirates were inside engagement range. Captain Sydnasi was even considering implementing some of the tactics that Colin Gordon used when he brought FNS Destiny home safely.
Nearly two hours later, Hidacki’s Jump-Drives were finally charged and ready. By then, they were far enough from their pursuers that they could dodge any Rail-Gun rounds, and the enemy Lasers were no longer very useful. Hidacki disappeared from real space, reappearing several seconds later, far enough away that the Pirates could no longer see her with their Sensors.
Cotoni System
The two tasks forces, one comprising two Destroyers and three Patrol Boats, the other with two Destroyers and four Patrol Boats, departed for their respective destinations. On the way, they would be aggressively patrolling to see if they could do something about the recent spate of Pirate attacks in the sector. At the same time, a Courier left to make a speed run back to Sankarah requesting reinforcements. Cotoni’s mobile defenses would be quite severely depleted till the return of these two task forces. A mobile reserve was kept in Sankarah, and Hanadon was hoping Headquarters would see fit to deploy them to Cotoni, at least till they had some idea about what was going on in this region.
In the Kuiper belt, a stealthed Spy Ship sat patiently watching while the two task forces left the System. The Spy Ship’s Captain smiled to himself, everything was going exactly according to plan. Once the eleven ships in those two task forces exited, the Spy Ship quietly made its way to its exit Jump-Point and left the System, heading for a nearby unoccupied System where the small fleet that intended to attack Cotoni was hiding. There was no expectation the Pirates could hold Cotoni System for very long. At some point, the Federation would do something to take the place back, but really, their job was to make the Federation Focus on Cotoni, rather than the real target. In the meantime, they would take everything they could from there, it should be quite a successful raid. Nineteen ships, if you included the Freighters and the Spy ship could carry a lot of booty away when they left. But of course, when they left, the plan was to leave nothing behind making it difficult, and expensive for the Federation to re-occupy the System.
On Cotoni Station, Admiral Hanadon was busy trying to plan ways of adequately defending the System if they were attacked. Hanadon knew FNS Destiny was almost due to return after her trip to Cambridge. If the reports coming out about the capabilities of the new Patrol Boats the people there were building were even half true, this would make a step change in the ability of the Federation to take the war to the Pirates. It would make System Defense so much easier, at least for the Systems that could afford to buy some of these little ships. The Admiral just hoped that his Destroyers returned before any more attacks took place. In the past, the Pirates had always carried out hit and run raids, skulking back to wherever they were based between times. Somehow, this time, it didn’t smell like a simple hit and run attack, it seemed like there was something else, something much more sinister going on. Hanadon just didn’t know what it was yet. DNI hadn’t heard of anything, at least, if they had, they weren’t telling the Admiral about it.
FNS Vasta
FNS Vasta exited Jump into FD-5101E to be met by a wall of missiles. Unfortunately for FNS Vasta and her crew, the Captain was not as well prepared as he should’ve been. While he did have his Point-Defense online and the Shields were set to activate as he exited, he did not have the ship at Alert One or even Alert Two or Three. The crew Down-Jumped, all fat dumb and happy, never expecting the shit storm they were about to endure. Being a largely automated system, the Point-Defense made a valiant effort, shooting down all but six of the missiles from the first wave, but those six impacted on the hull, killing dozens of people and injuring scores more. The Shields, or at least the ones that didn’t have damaged nodes, only then began coming up, finally giving FNS Vasta some level of protection and a little room to maneuver while she prepared to defend herself. Unfortunately, the first missiles to hit took out nearly half the torpedo tubes in the front of the ship and severely depleted the Shield-Nodes there. The Captain ordered them to flank speed as he tried to escape the trap that he’d so stupidly blundered into. Of course, as soon as the ship had detected the incoming missiles, the AI automatically sounded the Alert One alarms so even then, the crew was rushing to their duty stations. More missiles penetrated the Point-Defense, and battered down the Shields along one side of the ship, allowing four more impacts on the hull, causing, even more, deaths and injuries.
By now, Vasta was accelerating hard as she tried to escape the trap and of course, the Pirate ships all began to take up the chase. Fortunately, for Vesta’s crew, all the essential power and propulsion stems were still intact, so Vasta started pulling away while her Jump-Drive recharged. Still, too many Shield-Nodes and Point-Defense turrets were damaged during the initial onslaught for Vasta to be able to withstand too much punishment from her attackers. Finally, the remaining crew all reached their duty stations, and FNS Vasta began unleashing deadly fire back toward her tormentors. She landed quite a few good hits on the enemy ships, but none had any more effect than to cause the attackers to back off a little and give FNS Vasta at least some space. The running battle continued for another six hours till FNS Vasta reached a point where she could risk a Jump. When the time came, Vasta also Jumped well out into the black, that space between Star Systems where it would be next to impossible for a search to find her. On board FNS Vasta, there was pandemonium while the crew desperately tried to save their ship. They had lost a lot of crew mates during the attack, but there was no time to grieve yet. Some of the dead and wounded were people they could least afford to lose. The Captain didn’t know quite what had happened yet, he barely ha
d his head around the extent of the damage and casualties his ship had sustained. All he could do right then, was recover the dead and wounded and begin repairing the ship. From his understanding, the repairs could take months. The Captain found himself hoping there were enough spare parts to at least fix the damaged Shield-Nodes and Point-Defense turrets. FNS Vasta had barely escaped the engagement, she had lost a lot of reaction mass and even some of the air reserves, so the situation was critical. Over the next two days, the crew recovered all the remaining bodies and made a beginning assessing the damage to the ship. It didn’t take long to realize, the damage was extensive, and there was simply no way for them to repair everything with the materials on hand. The Captain met with his Engineering staff to see what the most critical repairs were. They would need to concentrate on those first then see what was left to begin making other repairs afterward.
One of the problems with interstellar navigation is that only occasionally does a Jump-Point have an exit in an adjacent System. Often, to move a ship from one System to another that was only perhaps, four or five light years away, might require six Jumps and the ship might cover 100 light years. This meant that the nearest System, astronomically speaking, might not actually be in Federation Space, so going there without knowing where “there” was could, in fact, provoke a war, or at least land FNS Vasta in more trouble than she was in already. Fortunately, over the years, the Federation had managed to compile a relatively accurate picture of the part of the Galaxy in which it existed. FNS Vasta, had charts available that showed the Captain what the nearest System was in relation to the Federation, and it was not good, the System belonged to an aggressively independent species. There had been several run-ins between the Federation and them, but now, the borders were firmly established, and the two powers were in an uneasy peace. There was even some modest trade going on because both powers had something the other wanted or needed. The only way for Vasta to make her way home was the Jump-Point she’d used to enter FD-5101E. This made it imperative to complete as many repairs on the ship as they could manage before making an attempt. If necessary, FNS Vasta might need to fight her way out of the System before she could head for home.
Sibmarin Colony
Task Force One Down-Jumped into the Sibmarin System with Active Scanners coming on full as soon as they cleared the Jump-Point event horizon. Of course, by then, the Pirates were long gone, but before leaving, they caused a lot of damage to infrastructure and taken everything they could. Luckily for the colonists, when news of Zafar reached them, the Colony’s government put in extensive civil defense measures so the Colonists themselves could survive if an attack took place. Sibmarin Colony was quite a bit older than Zafar had been when it was attacked and its people had been carrying out extensive mining. They had a few played out underground mines from mineral extraction efforts not too far from the three settlements. They had been expanding those mines over the previous two years to give the population somewhere secure and reasonably safe to hide. The government found these mines made excellent storage places for preserved foodstuffs, so they were already well stocked with food. When five unidentified ships appeared in the System, the alarms were sounded, and almost everyone dropped everything and made their way on foot to the mines. When the first sensor satellite was destroyed, the authorities sealed the tunnel entrances, at least, they sealed the obvious ones. Only a select few people on the planet knew where the other entrances were and they were all safely inside the mines so they could not tell anyone if they were captured.
Of course, the sensor network was one of the first things the Pirates destroyed because they did not want the locals to know what they were doing. What the Pirates did not know, was that the Sibmarin government had invested a considerable amount of the Colony’s meagre resources into a stealthed backup network. This secondary network was passive in nature, only ever radiating anything when directed to from the ground although the platforms that made it up were recording all the time, only overwriting the record after thirty days. All the sensor platforms were unmanned, even orbital control was based on the ground, using the satellites to relay signals to incoming ships. Now the people on the ground had no way to safely talk to the incoming ships, not till they were entirely sure that the ships were friendly.
Captain Farash of the Destroyer FNS Coostan looked down at the devastation on the planet below. He realized this wasn’t just the usual smash and grab. As they orbited Sibmarin looking for survivors, it became apparent that either the Pirates had taken almost everyone, or the world's population were hiding somewhere. They couldn’t see very many bodies, far less than were visible in the images FNS Destiny took of Zafar. Farash knew they would need to send troops down to the surface to look for any survivors down there but decided to try establishing radio contact first. He ordered his Comm Tech to begin trying to raise somebody. The signals were being sent out for nearly ten minutes when the duty Scan-Tech informed him that he had detected side splash from Laser Comms. Unfortunately, the event was too short for him to be able to obtain any kind of direction. Nearly ten minutes after that, the Communication System lit up with a message from the planet. The relief in the task force was palpable when news that most of the Colonists were safe was released. The colony was lucky in some ways that a Courier boat on his regular rounds saw the Pirates arrival in the System just before he Jumped out. It was the pilot of that Courier who carried news of the attack back to Cotoni.
Hikanol Colony
Task Force Two Down-Jumped into the Hikanol System. This task force also started its active Scanners immediately to look for any trouble that might be lurking in the System. Again, the Pirates had long since left. Hikanol did have four Patrol Boats, one of which was Jump-Capable. The Jump-Capable ship was sent to Cotoni for help while the other three stayed to try to defend the colony. It wasn’t long before the incoming task force began seeing quite a lot of debris between the Jump-Point and the planet. Eventually, they even started picking up pings from escape pods. The Task Force made its way to the scene of the debris and began recovering the escape pods, along with the surviving crew. None of the Patrol Boats was in one piece. They had all been cut to pieces, but clearly, they also managed to extract some blood from the Pirates, there were the remains of at least one unidentified ship that had been left behind by the Pirates.
Unfortunately, the government for Hikanol thought their few Patrol Boats would be enough to deter any Pirates, so they had not put anywhere near as much effort into civil defense as the government of Sibmarin had. Consequently, when the Patrol Boats were cut to pieces, all the local people could do was to try to scatter into the countryside. The downside was that most of them were ill-prepared so they could only take whatever transport they had, with whatever they could carry and try to disappear or at least hope the Raiders wouldn’t bother trying to chase them all down. The tactic only worked at all because the purpose of the raid was to seek to draw the Federation Navy here while Cotoni was attacked, so the Pirates didn’t have the time to pursue too many people into the countryside. Of course, nobody other than the Pirates knew about this at the time. On the downside, some people had become disoriented and lost so now efforts were being made to find them. The Raiders had been able to catch a few hundred people who they carried off into slavery, but the greater problem was that the invaders had destroyed or taken a significant percentage of the colony’s food stores. The people here were likely to have a hard time of it over the next year. The only bright side of the entire thing was that not long after many of the fields were set alight, it started raining so the fires couldn’t really take hold, preserving at least some of the crops.
After the escape pods had been all picked up, Task Force Two proceeded to the planet and took up orbit. The Raiders destroyed all the System’s orbital scanning network here as well, but the Task Force managed to replace that from on board stocks. When the Task Force settled into orbit, the government were begging for help. Of course, Task Force Two would provide all the help i
t could manage, but really that wouldn’t be much more than a drop in the bucket, in the short term at least. The best thing the Task Force could do would be to send one of the Patrol Boats back to Cotoni with a list of the needed emergency materials. Luckily, this Taskforce had one extra Patrol Boat because the one that was sent from Hikanol had returned. Each of the two Destroyers sent a platoon of Troopers down to the surface to help wherever it was needed. The first thing the Troopers did was to start actively searching for the people they knew to be lost. This was aided by infrared Scans carried out from orbit that identified the current location of at least some of the people on the ground.
Cotoni System
Admiral Hanadon watched in shock as fifteen unidentified ships Down-Jumped into Cotoni System. They were still days away from the Station, at least they were days away if they didn’t Micro-Jump closer. Hanadon did the math, the Courier had left the System bound for Sankarah eight days ago. That meant he should be close to relaying the message Hanadon sent to Naval Headquarters. Even if they dispatched the ready reserve immediately, Cotoni couldn’t expect any help from that direction for at least two weeks. Whichever way Hanadon looked at the situation it was bad. He had neither the hulls nor the time to evacuate the Station, let alone remove the ordnance stored in the System. Hanadon carefully considered his options before deciding on which course of action to take. The Admiral contacted the Officer commanding the Troopers in Cotoni System and relayed his instructions. If the available System Defences couldn’t stop the Pirates, Hanadon was entirely determined they would not capture the Station, the population, or any of the stored munitions. As it happened, the Trooper Commander agreed with the Admirals decision.
The Troopers began making the necessary preparations. They wanted to take as many of the Pirates with them as possible if the worst came to the worst. It might be a Pyrrhic victory, but it would still be a win. With those orders given the Admiral called the Captains of his two remaining Destroyers, FNS Shanonah, Captain Nahala and FNS Tumosah, Captain Cradlina to a meeting to discuss how they could help slow down or better yet, turn back the Pirates. Of course, it was clear that only two Destroyers and fourteen Patrol Boats were never going to be able to do more than slow down the oncoming armada. When the Captains were both in front of the Admiral they were shown the Scan-Data.
Star Man 2: Star Rise Page 30