[center][img]https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--4RtANLk---/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18ptkybk1t385jpg.jpg [/img] [sup]An image of the Juran Light Destroyer[/sup][/center] [b][u][color=gray]CIC of the [i]JSBF Silent Sentinel[/i], 2 hours later[/color][/u][/b] Su'Talra watched grimly as data was fed back to him: three large warships, easily battlecruiser-sized, were moving towards his position. He had been drifting, but because of his speed and course just before going silent, he wasn't too far away from his last position- if anything, he had been getting closer to the investigating foreigners. Those three ships were easily large enough to deal with his small one, and there wasn't any way to fight them. They were moving too aggressively, and he didn't like it when unknown ships bolted straight for his position, and didn't attempt to make contact. He had been the first one to meet the fifth sentient species that the Jora knew of; they were spacefaring, barely, but they had the courtesy to ask who's at the door. [i][/i] Su'Talra snapped, in no mood for playing any sort of game with the aliens. Unfortunately, he knew that they wouldn't make it, not even if they full-burned at this very moment. If they opened up a hyperspace portal, there was a larger and larger chance that they could enter hyperspace with him, and follow him to one of the Juran systems- if they had the technology for it. No, if he wanted to get out of this system undetected, he'd either have to slingshot himself around and away by trying to glide past them, or... [i][/i] rasped Ni'Jioran, the Navigation officer. [i][/i] Su'Talra growled again, and began to order the Communications officer to prep another message. He was interrupted by him the next moment. [i][/i] Cu'Ylleri recited, staring at his console, back to Su'Talra. [i][/i] Su'Talra gnashed his teeth in annoyance, but easily conceded to the need to retreat. Unfortunately, the unknown ships had proved themselves to be an annoyance, and were now closing too fast to outrun. [hr] The Escort Corvette had spun around so its engines were facing the three approaching ships, some hundred thousand kilometers away still. Nonetheless, the range was getting far, far too close for comfort. It was with silence- as it was with everything in space- that the small, slender ship ejected blazing hot heat sinks, and the two rear fusion thrusters lit up like two small blue suns. At 100% efficiency, the forward drift ground to a halt, and then became a rapid acceleration. But it wasn't enough- two destroyers were set to arrive in the system in two and a half hours. The corvette needed to escape the system, and its best chance was an area of empty space even emptier than the rest, with a slight gravitational 'tramline' to the next system over- and this disturbance causes eddies in hyperspace, which the corvette can take and hide in. Escaping through this route would take three hours of travel. The three warships on the corvette's tail would intercept at about two hours. The corvette’s turrets unfolded out of their ports on the hull, five triple-barreled railguns turning to lock onto the oncoming carriers. Sixteen ports the size of a Jura also opened, and even smaller railgun turrets popped out- point defense. All the point defense railguns were designed to fire a 25mm 1-kilogram bolt at .002% of lightspeed- a whopping 6,000 meters per second. Such impact force from a tiny projectile at high speeds was easily enough to disable or destroy fighters, drones, and even lightly damage heavy armor. Every strike railgun turret fired at a rate of about 2.333 rounds per second, with 200mm rounds traveling at .0005% of lightspeed- 1,500 m/s. The SRTs easily had a greater fire rate and higher damage per second, but weren’t even close to being as pinpoint-accurate as the point defense- the SRTs relied more on spraying short 5-second bursts and letting the collective damage mount up. On a bigger ship, they were far more intimidating because they could fire almost forever, with all the ammunition- but a corvette was only armed for short, fleeing engagements, or to fight off a small group of fighters or tier 5-3 civilizations. Any warship worth its salt from tier 3 and up would be able to take a corvette on, and this corvette knew it. Sensing the incoming trio’s hostile intentions, the small patrol ship nonetheless attempted to communicate, sending a message that could hopefully be translated by the aliens. [i][/i] The message played on repeat for several minutes before cutting off, engines of its transmitting ship still at full burn, tearing through the ship’s internel helium-3 fuel supply. [hr] [center][img]http://68.media.tumblr.com/43c2b357cf1a12a9b0a58db756d5934a/tumblr_nppo1lKH9A1r57ixdo1_1280.jpg[/img][/center] [b][u][color=gray]CIC of the [i]JSBF Valiance[/i], Hydian System Deep Space Picket[/color][/u][/b] The Corvette was already sending a report back to Central Command of the intruders, as it took several long minutes to receive the foreign ships’ broadcast (due to it being ten light-minutes away) and use its computer to translate it. Within short order, a message was sent back in the same language. [i]”Mercantile Vessels of the Altis Acropolis, this is the [/i]JSBF Valiance[i], you are tresspassing deep in Juran Ark Federation space. You are hereby ordered to standby and prepare for an inspection. JAF Fleet units are en route; any attempt to flee will be taken as guilt of hostile intent, and treated accordingly. Hold speed and course, and wait for boarding parties for examination; resistance will be responded with accordingly. Do you copy?”[/i] The corvette didn’t slow until it reached the turnaround point for a backwards burn, drawing closer and closer with computer-guided precision. [hider=Technology & Concepts Used] [u]“Turnaround point”[/u] In space with ships that have thrusters on the rear, it’s hard for ships to speed up and then slow down only when they get close. Because their maximum thrust comes from the rear, a ship will spend the fastest course speeding up halfway to its destination, then flip around and spend the rest of the journey slowing down, so that when it arrives, it isn’t hurtling far faster than it needs to be. It’s much cheaper to have one set of engines, and simpy turn the entire ship to face whichever direction it needs to head away from, rather than put engines in the front, back, and anywhere else. Manuvering thrusters (pressurized gases or smaller thrusters) or gyroscopes are used to turn a ship. If a ship’s max speed is an acceleration of 250 m/s, and spends 3/4rths of a ten-minute journey accelerating at full speed towards a station it needs to dock at, then when it turns around to decelerate the last 2 ½ minutes, it’ll find it’s going (450 seconds or 7.5 minutes * 250m/s acceleration - 250 seconds or 2.5 minutes * 250m/s acceleration = too damn much speed to dock) 75,000 m/s too fast when it arrives. With three large warships hurtling towards my corvette, and my corvette speeding up, there’s a slim chance that either: The alien warships WON’T turnaround, and shoot past my corvette like a bullet, thus allowing the corvette to slip off and escape The alien warships WILL turnaround, but too soon, and slow down enough for my corvette to gain an acceleration lead, and outrun its captors with its large engines and small ship. [u]Acceleration lead[/u] In space, there’s no top speed. Anything can reach a high speed if it turns its engines on long enough, and will constantly keep going. Thus, top speed doesn’t exist, but top acceleration does. A small ship with powerful engines will easily have an acceleration higher than a larger ship, because less mass means it’s easier to move. However, if a bunch of big, slow warships spend an hour or more accelerating before the small ship begins to, the big, slow warships will catch the smaller ship before it can escape, simply because they had a speed high enough and a distance short enough that the smaller ship can’t beat it in enough time. [u]Tresspassing[/u] As a nation that has notable focus on military, the Jura are wary of anyone invading their space. Thus, when a seemingly harmless fleet shows up, friendly or not, it’s standard procedure to search them. If the mercantile fleet had been carrying an antimatter or nuclear warhead, a single ballistic missile- a missile fired with its engines inactive along a route to a target, such as a planet- could slip through all the outer patrol ships and inner fleets, activate its engines in high orbit, and shove its explosive into, say, the planet’s communication relay. With a planet’s communication relay gone, it’d leave them unable to communicate with the fleets or stations in high orbit, and would thus be easily susceptible to infiltration- no one could talk to anyone on the surface, and quantum communications have taken over most forms of communications. Because quantum communications have taken over most forms of communication, normal radios and such are less used and certainly not as effective. [/hider]