[b][i]EFG Curious, being repaired at Faira’Karte[/i][/b]

It has been some time since the Commander visited her ship. The refits were still undergoing, mostly because of a quick but large change in the design spec done after the recent engagements with the Ancients. Both the Studious as the only reconstructed ‘block B’ Comet class, and the Curious were classes in their own now, the former spotting improved reactors and one extra unit, along with double barreled P-5 turrets, and the latter with an entire modular section added over where the docking port and second P-15 used to be, the extra gun sacrificed for a hangar. Even now though a replacement class was being drafted, all but ensuring the two modified Comets would be the only examples of it’s class that would ever fly.

Reaching the break room on the Morale sector, she found the victim she was looking for, having not seen the man for a week once she was stuck with the engineers on the ‘Karte. “Good evening XO, how’s the ship?” she smiled at prefect Linsis.

Truth be told, he’d expected to be kicked out at Opportunity when the Curious limped back to the system along with the rest of the OEP personnel. Seeing the Faira work together on such a large scale was truly quite something. Since he had no engineering background, let alone knew anything about Faira technology, he’s been swamped in various logistics, requisitions and similar paperwork, had there been any paper involved. During this time, he gave the break room a new purpose, opposite of its name. Though working on Faira calendar meant shorter days and therefore sleep more often, the monotone nature of his work took its toll. It was for that reason he was glad for any diversion, and even the sight of the commander didn’t sour his day, though she certainly had her moments.

“Evening, sir.” he stood up with a salute, “It almost looks like it’s supposed to again, save for the modifications. Looks like they were busy back at Terminus without us. Have you had time to follow the news?”

“Enough bled through the paperwork to paint an image of complete insanity. That and few of our countrymen making a name for themselves. Lieutenant Caliri of the Enlightenment has been bumped to receive command of one of the corvettes to be attached to the Singularity once she’s finished. The Curious will need a new CO by then as well, although that might happen far sooner. I will probably be leaving to work on the Superdestroyer.” the Commander sighed.

“Enough about work though. I hear you ruined the break room for everyone with it so they have to party at command and control. Come on, you need a break too!” the commander said, pointing to the door, “You up for a game, or perhaps some news from the blackdocks?”

“I do take breaks, I’m just trying to find a better environment for when I am working. And I did what now? Didn’t realize sitting in the corner was so obstructive, they need only ask and I’d be on my way.”

“I was speaking figuratively, but even if, they do it out of respect for your personal space. You are nowadays responsible for their well being, and believe it or not, the crew took well to you. Aurigae is a good person, but she couldn’t make a decision if her life depended on it, much less everybody else's, the woman takes no risks which leaves her in a dead end. You took charge and made more or less the correct call after being here for a couple of hours. Thing like that impress people.” Astra said encouragingly.

“Now get off that bench, do you want me to show you what we came up with or not?!”

“That’s nice to hear. Truth be told, the phrase ‘cooking out of water’ doesn’t come even close to describing what that engagement was, but I’ll take the results. Just glad that wreck was there to provide cover.” the Narix launched himself to his feet. “Lead the way, and tell them to pick up all the bottles when they’re done.” the Narix grinned.

“Aaaaw, see? You know them so well already!” The commander grinned as she lead out of the breakroom, where one of the Stonemasons was juggling still full bottles and another one od Virgo’s squadron was showing off tricks with chips, all with an ‘about time’ face on them.

One visit to a transport room later, the commanders of the Curious were on a berth observation deck on the ‘Karte, with the Curious and Latanos sharing the two klik berth. “My poor ship. It grown a tumor.” Astra whined, seeing the unshapely hangar module.

“Have you seen the bottles adept-legionnaire Solaire was carrying? That stuff has hallucinogenic properties, don’t be surprised if some of them start reporting nonexistent targets tomorrow morning.” he chuckled. “Only if one of them were to drink an entire bottle in the matter of a dozen minutes on an empty stomach.” he quickly explained to clear up any possible misunderstanding.

“I thought that hangar was your design. Could have been worse, look what they’re doing to the Latanos.” he pointed to the hexagonal shield projectors. “It’s got a rash. With the general shape of the ship, you’d expect they’d have the common sense to make the projectors rounded. There’s an adage: ‘Do you know what happens when you quit the Fifth? You get your brain back.’ I think I now understand.”

“Hah! Good thing you’re here then!” Astra laughed. “An, well, you can only do so much with the armor technology the Curious uses and a hull designed for something entirely different. It is always better to integrate stuff from the beginning. As to why it is happening, well… The Vanguard is being turned form an exploration fleet into a full fledged combat evaluation. I mean, it makes sense, between us and the Explorer, Vanguard has the most combat hours logged.” she shrugged.

“Note the armor on the module though.” Astra said summoning a camera output window and zooming in over the viewscreen. “We developed our own version of the crystalline armor the unknowns used. It’s nowhere near as tough, but still an improvement. We’ve added a slat armor over it with an electric charge. None of ours use ion weapons, not even the Ancients do, but it could still help one day. We set the control system to default to negative charge to eliminate the charge of cations, which are somewhat more dangerous in plasma weapons than the electron part. In addition to that, jet vents for coolant have been installed along the plates, both to cool down and disrupt the incoming bolts.” she noted, encircling the small turret like vents on the ship.”

Linsis nodded in silence, the commander’s words passing right over his head. He knew the words and their individual meaning, but combined, they were just noise to him. Perhaps he should stick to his supply manifests.

“Funny thing, if the Curious had a hangar in the first place, the turret that hangar replaced might have still been there. The circle of life. How many craft can that hold?”

“It will fit about sixteen craft plus a Pillager. It’s no destroyer still, but you put in there eight superiority fighters, two tactical bombers and six heavy bombers and you can take on one if you’re on the attack. Defense… Well, better leave that to the Meteor. It will help tremendously with the scouting though, especially once we couple in the last piece of the puzzle. I’ve been pouring almost non-stop over the Ancient strike craft jump drive. So far I made one small enough to equip the hangar with a jumpgate so we can launch the fighters through FTL at least.” the commander explained.

“That should make the mapping of the nebula somewhat more bearable. Not for the pilots flying recon, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

“There aren’t going to be any pilots flying recon. One of the lightning bolts in the nebula would vaporize anything short of a cruiser, shielded at that. I don’t know how I feel about even the Guardians, and it’s a good thing the Fifth doesn’t have any Partisan, or it would have to stay behind, shield or not.” Astra frowned.

“Guardians are staying behind. We don’t expect to be ambushed by fighters or bombers in the Nebula, so Ascari is leaving them home. Not to mention those things are so small and their reactors so flimsy they don’t allow the mounting of shields. Though I overheard an engineer from the Fifth spewing fire and smoke at the task of mounting shields on the Privateers. Something about removing turrets.”

“They will stop bitching as soon as they get hit by the yearly output of their powerplant concentrated to a fraction of a second and live. If not, I will remotely power off their shields and then we’ll see how long they last.” the commander grunted, not liking her technology to be dissed in any way.

“Whoa, blue on blue. Their problem is the small size of the ship. They had to figure out a place to put the projectors, not to mention the extra power output. It’s worse because even the high ups don’t like it, seeing as the Privateer is our newest class. Has the Fifth been told what to expect, or did you not want to spoil the surprise for them?”

“They have been told alright. I don’t want blood on my hands. Or whatever charred remains of it are there among the cloud of plasma that used to be a ship. Normally we’d ferry those ships through under our shield, but since we are in need of fanning out…” the commander sighed. “Come, let’s hit the breakroom here. Those on military ships have nothing on the civilian fleet. I want to see how you improved your game since last time!” she said, referring to the Faira space combat simulator games.

“Eheh...” the prefect laughed uneasily, remembering the royal beating she referenced. “Although I did take breaks, most of them consisted of food and sleep. Sometimes mixed.” he shook his head to banish the memory of waking up over a half-eaten ration pack. “Best not hold out much hope.”

“Come on, don’t be an Ascari. I told you that I am soon leaving the Curious, and there’s no way i am leaving the Captain in charge. What reason could I possibly have for trying to drill ship movements into you?” Astra dropped as she lead to the game consoles. “Like it or not, you are the only other person available with hands-on experience commanding a frigate. Suck it up and learn, I’ll give it to you as an order in writing if you need.” Astra smirked as she launched the game, choosing the Ancient fleet to play.

“I’m not an Ascari, I can see over tables when I’m standing straight.” he took a shot at the primarch’s height, or lackthereof. “And I believe that would be the first time in our history someone’s been ordered by his superior officer to play, and our military has a few weird orders on record.” he took a seat, selecting the Faira fleet. “Is the humpback Comet already in, or is that just a sideline project?”

“Oh don’t you dare call it that!” Astra hissed, “Oi damn it! You’re just trying to distract me… and it’s working.” Astra huffed as she missed a few seconds on setting up her resourcing. “You have to research interspecies technology exchange first, then branch into the fighter line with any class, that unlocks the hangar refit for the comets, you can find it under the Curious class.” Astra noted, herself going first for capital ship building research, followed by bombers.

He decided to take the frigate branch of research for practice’s sake, though he was tempted by the Meteors. “What’s wrong with the name? I know: There is a jolly bunch of marines on board who would no doubt offer a plethora of fitting names. Especially now since they’ve ingested unknown amounts of several types of liquors.” he teased as the first corvettes and multirole fighters of his imaginary fleet formed around the resource operations.

Astra has meanwhile been busy sending her interceptors to peek on resourcing spots, and mining those still unoccupied, but close to Linsis’ base rather than her own, her fighters keeping an eye out for any scouts and her single Demon hanging back. She didn’t bother with advancing to the Superdestroyer branch yet.

Creepy crawlies started popping up around his mining ops as the sensor range of his fleet increased with each expansion to new resource sources. Finally, a pair of cruisers with the oracle upgrade enabled were complete and set out, charting the playable area, each with a wing of fighter drones attached to its hull. A lone Pulsar with eight drones of its own lay in wait to the side, away from the main forces. Eight more minutes and the research necessary for the frigates would be done, but a lot could still happen between that and the first frigate’s arrival.

Astra was playing a dangerous game, but she wondered how Linsis would adapt. Her scouts have no doubt been detected by now, but she dared to send them closer to see what kind of defenses his resourcing operation had. Then she pulled everything out courtesy of the jump capable strike craft, and sent a large force of fighters into the sensor range of the Narix’s civilian fleet, feigning an attack run on the harbor ship.

That was indeed a lot of fighters, which could mean the commander neglected large capital ships. He scrambled the defenses of a half-spent resource op, a fighterless Pulsar and Nebula, and jumped them in range behind the strikeforce using the Nebula’s drive, putting them between the commander’s fighters and his harbor ship. Finally, one of his scout cruisers reported a large contact, but disappeared from the map before it could be further identified. He set both the backup Pulsar and his Meteor to aggressive behavior, waiting for the commander’s reaction to the two ships in her fighters’ back yard.

A flash of metal smile came from the other side of the table as a duet of Liliths jumped upon the unprotected Nebula and Pulsar, while a Moloch jumped to the resourcing operation. Astra tasked the Fighters with disabling and disarming the Faira ships. With their numbers it shouldn’t take long for the two ships to be dead in space, but if push came to shove, the Liliths would finish them off quickly unless the XO had something up his sleeve. Astra was trying to bait Linsis strike craft away.

And there was the catch. Using the Pulsar’s jump drive, he moved the two ships behind the Liliths, setting the pulsar’s torpedos and largest turrets to target the Liliths’ engines while the Nebula, reinforced by the Pulsar and it’s eight drones he originally held in reserve to aid the oracle cruisers, bit into the fighters. He left the resource op to its own devices, the reason for choosing that one was its near-depletion. Its fighter complement should tie up the Moloch for a minute or two. Neither of their two destroyers have so far been deployed, but to his knowledge, the Demon was outclassed by even the unupgraded Meteor in firepower. The remaining cruiser has not found anything new and now lingered close to where the large contact was reported by its unlucky brother.

The ruse worked, mostly. Astra tasked the Moloch to ignore the few pesky fighters that were doing sum zilch to it and focused on the economic vessels. Even if the fighters disabled the moloch (their weapons could do little more), it would repair over time. Just replenishing the resourcing ships would take five minutes of build time. It would be a loss anyway, either he didn’t build bombers or capital ships for five minutes, giving Astra a head start even with her bomber research, or he would not replenish his economy and she would bleed him dry in the long run. Speaking of which, her last heavy bomber wing has finished building.

Abandoning the liliths to their fate, she waited half a minute later for one of her resource drops to have the resources for the jump she was about to execute. She started with jumping all of the fighters form the fight straight to the Meteor in two groups, sicing them onto the P-15 turrets. In the same thought, she carefully placed the jump of the heavy bombers, setting them to appear inside the Meteor’s shield for a quick delivery. Somebody was going to get hurt.

Letting the engagement with the Liliths to play out as it would, he turned his attention to where the oracle cruiser perished. Grabbing the two freshly arrived Comets, he set them to jump to the large contact’s last known location. He then set the Meteor to jump some distance away from them, on the other side of the presumed Demon. As the resources for the jump arrived, a sneak attack at the Meteor took place. Aided by the Comets, it should hold against the Demon even with a few dents. Though jumping the Meteor would leave another resource op, this one slightly bigger, open to attack with just two Nebulas and the ships that were fighting the Liliths to defend it, once they were finished. Screw it, they’ll be done soon enough, he thought and jumped the Meteor.

The one redeeming quality of an awful design like the Demon was that there was no safe approach. Even from behind it’s missiles and a couple of heavy plasma cannons could still reach you. Not as good a layout as a Meteor or anything else the Faira built, but with the insanity it called armor, it made it work. The fighters have managed to disable one of the P-15 turrets and some of the bombs have landed, directly on the hull courtesy of Astra’s precision jumping. Speaking of which, she needed to do that again, her budget taking a bit of a hit with that jump. She tasked the Fighters with protecting the Demon just in case Lindus had enough resource points to launch a torpedo strike, and routed the bombers to go for the other P-15.

It was still there, and right between the Meteor and the Comets. Perhaps gods existed after all? Shame the torpedoes did not fit into the budget. At least Astra’s fighters left the resource op alone. If he could keep the Meteor alive long enough, that would cost her. Unfortunately, she had a nasty habit of bypassing the ship’s shield. Time to see what the fighter AI of the simulator could do. Ordering the capital ships to engage the Demon, the fighter drones began mixing it up with the cheeky bombers. Good thing they weren’t the monsters the Explorer cooked up. If only did the Faira ships have a reasonable amount of point defense turrets. Where was a Warlord when you needed one?

Having finished the two Liliths, in spite of losing the Nebula, the battered Pulsars could still be used. Another thing that needed resources. More ships, or torpedoes? It had to be torpedoes, two Pulsars couldn’t do much against that thing. It was just the matter of keeping the Meteor armed and waiting for the resources. Close, but not quite there yet.

“Come on, come on, COME ON!” Astra growled as she watched the demon’s build bar rise, but the health bar drop. When the demon dropped to 25%, another demon finished building, jumping alongside the battered one, Astra’s production finally catching up with Linsis’.

“Death and taxes, now what?” he hissed at the game sound of a new contact. “Well, there certainly have been better developments in the history of warfare.” The Comets kept pelting the dying Demon and the meteor was, almost miraculously, still operational, albeit the bombers have taken their toll on it. So this is what her resources have been going into. The first Demon was about to fall and he turned the Meteor to shorten the flight path of the torpedoes. Just a little kiss on the cheek and they would be ready. Firing the torpedoes would leave him with empty pockets, but once they were launched, the newly arrived Demon would have a bad time.

“You know what the problem with torpedoes is? Flight time.” Astra said as both her demons were swallowed by subspace windows before the torpedoes crossed the distance. The two ships materialized back in he rbase, where a repair transport was waiting for them. Five minutes Linsis had to find them to finish them off before the first demon was up to full strength. Astra was ahead of resources still, but right now she would have traded that for a few fighters [i]right now[/i]. The demons were starting to spew up more interceptors, but now it was down to dumb luck on how fast Linsis could find her. And she still had two minutes on the superdestroyer research, not to mention the actual build time for a Lucifer. One of the demons had to live, she set her goal. “Any word from home? What’s the mood there? The civ fleet is getting sort of restless with all the ships coming to the Nebula, and with being basically on the front line should there be a way through.” she asked, hoping to distract the Narix from focusing on the game.

Fortunately, one of the oracle cruisers was still around, even though it was limited to travelling through real space. And he had a decent idea of where the ships would NOT be - neither of his three remaining resource ops nor the harbor ship could see the two destroyers and any escorts they might have had. Between the Comets, the Meteor, the oracle ship and the two Pulsars, finding them would be rather quick.

“No idea, haven’t heard from there.” he replied to the commander’s inquiry mechanically. “Last I heard, construction of the mother of manned missiles was going smoothly.” he tried whether another verbal attack at Faira ships would provoke a reaction from the commander.

“You mean the greatest thing to leave a berth since the Meteor, thank you?” Astra smirked, “We seem to bi killing the Ancients well enough - on or off the sim, but there’s the big question. Do they have more of these?” she cheekily shown her panel as she queued up a production of the Lucifer. She knew she was revealing her hand, but the chance to snap a picture of the Prefect’s surprised face was worth tossing the game. “One I think the Singularity can deal with. If they have more, well… It’s been a pleasure serving with you.”

“Don’t think the primarch would agree, but you can’t win with the southerners.” his face remained expressionless, as he’s already accepted defeat when the second Demon showed up. “On the offense, the MOM might work, but what will you do when it takes a hit?” he hinted at it’s cast hull. “Ask the Nightmares to kindly take half a decade off so you can build a new one or patch up the one you have? Or when the enemy is behind it?” he snorted. “Mind jumping can only get you so far.” The whole time, the area where the destroyers could be hiding grew smaller and smaller until…

[i]Hostile contact identified[/i]

There they were. Why the commander keep them both where they were instead of letting one get fixed and using the other one to harass his units to make him waste further resources? Maybe she was low herself, all being funneled into the superdestroyer? The damage done was at about 60%. His ships could reach them in time, but which one was producing the bloody Lucifer? Reason commanded it be the newer one, but that’s what everyone would think. But the damaged one was an easier target. Fifty-fifty. He set his ships to attack the undamaged ship, ordering a single Pulsar to disable the damaged one.

There it was. The timer on the Demon’s jump drive was still ticking, thirty seconds left. That meant that when she made her jump, she would have about fourteen and a half seconds to slag Linsis’ production with whatever she had left. The healthier demon was packed with all of the fighters she managed to produce, and the one being repaired was positioned to be the first one hit. It annoyed her a little when most ships overlooked the damaged ship and went straight for the good one, the Comets chewing a bit off of it’s health pool, while the crippled meteor could sit back and plink until it’s turrets repaired. What she found amusing was one pulsar trying in vain to disable the older ship - Linsis apparently didn’t notice the small transport still working on it, undermining the corvette’s effort. The newer demon dropped to 70% integrity when it’s drive charged. Astra crossed her fingers and jumped it to the last known location of Linsis’ civilian fleet, leaving the older demon on site to draw the AI’s fire.

For some reason the older Demon refused to yield. Zooming closer to it,Linsis’ face sunk into his palm. “Oh for fuck’s sake, really?” It was then the second Demon jumped, planting itself in the middle of the civilian fleet.

“Tell me, commander, if this battle took place today, how many Faira would’ve been left at its conclusion?” he asked as the harbor ship’s health bar sped towards zero.

“Not as many as I’d like, about as many as could be expected. Game wise, you need to protect your rear slightly little more. Tactics wise, I see improvement though, playing around is not without it’s worth it seems. You’re using your ships well within their design parameters, although you are on the conservative side. If you switched your Meteor to siege mode when you jumped my first destroyer, the game would have ended right there and then. You might have lost the meteor as well to the bomber strike, but, within our knowledge, the ancients’ destroyers count as win conditions, until we see a planet or a city ship of theirs.” Astra said, rubbing her temples, “I was worried form that moment on, you had me on a run and I got by only because you kept the civvies alone. On real deployment, I would compare that to leaving a node behind you without a watch or downright blockade. You would have been cut off from your supply lines.” she said as her old demon finally fell, but along with Linsis’ production ship.

“In real life, jumping a ship doesn’t cost arbitrary resources and a transport craft cannot regenerate a ship’s engines as they are pelted by a corvette either. But still, a loss is a loss.”

“Well, I agree on the engines, though mind this is a civilian issue simulation. On the resources… does it not though? It costs power, that doesn’t magically appear from nowhere. Different resource, but a resource still. Well then… rematch?”