At this rate im going to have to start a list of my officers so I know who is who...
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The Europa came out of warp speed like a bullet striking a million kilometer long block of gelatin. The technique allowed her captain to spread the shock of deceleration out of a long area. In combat situations it was not ideal, as it kept the ship from being combat effective for a few seconds, in the present circumstances however it allowed Captain Renard to minimize the strain on her ship’s hull. This was the Europa’s first major FTL excursion and her captain saw no reason to take unnecessary chances.
Data hung before her in holographic sheets, numbers and reports scrolling past as the ships systems reported their readiness to her. She wasn’t a specialist but years of service on bridge crews allowed her to interpret data and notice if anything was going catastrophically wrong. Now they were back at the speed of lazy photons, the plot position indicator, or PPI, sprang to life. Angry red welts appeared on the display as targeting programs quested into the void, one by one turning green as the IFF hand shakes were confirmed. Lieutenant Monroe, her sensor officer, looked visibly relieved as the last of the coded bursts confirmed there were no hostile or unidentified ships present. Her weapons officer looked a little disappointed. She permitted herself a slight smile, there was nearly no chance of a meeting engagement being fought at a rendezvous like this but hope, apparently, sprang eternal.
Then the transmission from HSV Trapper began. After its conclusion there was a stiff silence on the bridge for several seconds. Commander Emery cleared his throat.
“Well there are Captains and then there are Captains,” he noted judiciously. A general grin flashed around the BDC the tension vanishing.
“True enough,” Marssia replied with her own smile, “Signals, transmit out thanks to the Trapper for its welcome on station, find out who has the most recent encryption data and get us a copy.” She moved through the data stream with precise finger movements looking over the dispositions of the fleet, mentally calculating maneuvers on the off chance they were engaged.
“Echo 4,” she spoke tripping the comm circuit to Commander Casey in combat air control, “keep the fighters stood to for another numbers, fifteen, minutes and then stand down. Break.”
“Priority two, Europa Actual to Resource Actual,” she began. The communications net gave preferential treatment to rank, if she called over an open net and Resource Actual was on the comms to his subordinate there was a good chance her message would step on him. Flagging it priority two allowed the computer to wait for a gap in communications if necessary. This wasn’t urgent ships business, it was a social call.
“Good to see you again Captain Lee, some welcome wouldn’t you say?”
Data hung before her in holographic sheets, numbers and reports scrolling past as the ships systems reported their readiness to her. She wasn’t a specialist but years of service on bridge crews allowed her to interpret data and notice if anything was going catastrophically wrong. Now they were back at the speed of lazy photons, the plot position indicator, or PPI, sprang to life. Angry red welts appeared on the display as targeting programs quested into the void, one by one turning green as the IFF hand shakes were confirmed. Lieutenant Monroe, her sensor officer, looked visibly relieved as the last of the coded bursts confirmed there were no hostile or unidentified ships present. Her weapons officer looked a little disappointed. She permitted herself a slight smile, there was nearly no chance of a meeting engagement being fought at a rendezvous like this but hope, apparently, sprang eternal.
Then the transmission from HSV Trapper began. After its conclusion there was a stiff silence on the bridge for several seconds. Commander Emery cleared his throat.
“Well there are Captains and then there are Captains,” he noted judiciously. A general grin flashed around the BDC the tension vanishing.
“True enough,” Marssia replied with her own smile, “Signals, transmit out thanks to the Trapper for its welcome on station, find out who has the most recent encryption data and get us a copy.” She moved through the data stream with precise finger movements looking over the dispositions of the fleet, mentally calculating maneuvers on the off chance they were engaged.
“Echo 4,” she spoke tripping the comm circuit to Commander Casey in combat air control, “keep the fighters stood to for another numbers, fifteen, minutes and then stand down. Break.”
“Priority two, Europa Actual to Resource Actual,” she began. The communications net gave preferential treatment to rank, if she called over an open net and Resource Actual was on the comms to his subordinate there was a good chance her message would step on him. Flagging it priority two allowed the computer to wait for a gap in communications if necessary. This wasn’t urgent ships business, it was a social call.
“Good to see you again Captain Lee, some welcome wouldn’t you say?”
Thanks :D
I dont know that everyone would be familiar with each other, its a big universe afterall, but it would be kind of fun to draw a few character connections.
I dont know that everyone would be familiar with each other, its a big universe afterall, but it would be kind of fun to draw a few character connections.
I liked it LHG!
Do we want to introduce our Captains, do we know each other from previous service and such?
The Europa has:
Marissia Renard - A senior fleet officer from the world of Aldivi an old and central colony of the Hegemony. Id like for her to have served with Captain Lee of the Resource before, possibly during counter revolutionary activities in the Pegimind Cluster. She was XO on a ship that was hit hard underwent emergency battle field repairs.
Do we want to introduce our Captains, do we know each other from previous service and such?
The Europa has:
Marissia Renard - A senior fleet officer from the world of Aldivi an old and central colony of the Hegemony. Id like for her to have served with Captain Lee of the Resource before, possibly during counter revolutionary activities in the Pegimind Cluster. She was XO on a ship that was hit hard underwent emergency battle field repairs.
HSV Europa
“Attention on deck!” the XO boomed as the captain entered. The dozen senior officers stiffened into varying attitudes of attention. They looked exhausted and had every reason to be. If they looked rested on the eve of a shake down cruise Captain Marissia Renard would know the reason why and the Heavens help them if they didn’t have a good excuse.
“At ease people,” she commanded, her voice containing the barest hint of Aldvinan accent, erased by long practice at the fleet academy. The collection of officers around the table relaxed like an organic creature, datapads began to vanish as they realized the meeting was about to begin. She nodded approvingly; her subordinates saw no reason to stop their work simply because they were waiting for a meeting to start. She was a spare woman in her late thirties, her red hair closely cropped so as not to blind her in zero-G. With the deliberate long strides of a career spacer she moved to the front of the ready room, taking her seat beside Commander Emery, her XO.
“Group,” she began, the word keying in the command group commo circuit, some of her people simply couldn’t be spared for this meeting and would monitor it on the net.
“We have been assigned to Hegemony Deep Space Task Force 148, which, in order to save verbiage, I will henceforth refer to as force Tango.” The joke bought a polite giggle, the Hegemony bureaucrats thrived on alphabet soup.
“HSV Mictlantecuhtli, Mike element for similar reasons, has the flag. She’s a dreadnaught, Tetol class, I don’t know her commander but I expect to get personnel records in the near future. We have another cruiser the Nelson, the destroyers Vespera, Vulture’s Claw and Trapper, and the repair ship Resource under Captain Lee.” As she spoke each name a small hologram of each ship joined the others until they were swimming in a squadron in simulated space.
“I’ve served with Captain Lee before and he is as solid a skipper as they come. Lieutenant Patron, make sure you coordinate with him for any non standard equipment we might need, or equipment that we can use to convert fleet standard to fit this boat,“ there was a slight ironic tone to her voice and another round of laughter at ‘fleet standard’.
She turned to an extremely fit officer in gray battle dress.
“Colonel Cambden, you’ll need to get in touch with their Mike’s ground commander to coordinate the deployment of our marines. Ditto fighter control.” Both officers nodded, although clearly they had both already done so of their own initiative. She leaned forward resting on her hands. She was proud of her crew and proud of her ship.
“Europa is a new ship ladies and gentlemen and there are plenty of people who look at new things with skepticism. Whatever happens on this cruise we are going to prove that this boat was money well spent and that its crew is the best the Hegemony has to offer. Clear?”
From around the room and across the comms came a chorus of Crystal, Clear, Roger that and a dozen other acknowledgements.
“Section chief I’ll expect your final reports by 0:300 Zulu and I plan to light the drives and be on station four hours after that. Make it happen boys and girls. Dismissed.”
“Attention on deck!” the XO boomed as the captain entered. The dozen senior officers stiffened into varying attitudes of attention. They looked exhausted and had every reason to be. If they looked rested on the eve of a shake down cruise Captain Marissia Renard would know the reason why and the Heavens help them if they didn’t have a good excuse.
“At ease people,” she commanded, her voice containing the barest hint of Aldvinan accent, erased by long practice at the fleet academy. The collection of officers around the table relaxed like an organic creature, datapads began to vanish as they realized the meeting was about to begin. She nodded approvingly; her subordinates saw no reason to stop their work simply because they were waiting for a meeting to start. She was a spare woman in her late thirties, her red hair closely cropped so as not to blind her in zero-G. With the deliberate long strides of a career spacer she moved to the front of the ready room, taking her seat beside Commander Emery, her XO.
“Group,” she began, the word keying in the command group commo circuit, some of her people simply couldn’t be spared for this meeting and would monitor it on the net.
“We have been assigned to Hegemony Deep Space Task Force 148, which, in order to save verbiage, I will henceforth refer to as force Tango.” The joke bought a polite giggle, the Hegemony bureaucrats thrived on alphabet soup.
“HSV Mictlantecuhtli, Mike element for similar reasons, has the flag. She’s a dreadnaught, Tetol class, I don’t know her commander but I expect to get personnel records in the near future. We have another cruiser the Nelson, the destroyers Vespera, Vulture’s Claw and Trapper, and the repair ship Resource under Captain Lee.” As she spoke each name a small hologram of each ship joined the others until they were swimming in a squadron in simulated space.
“I’ve served with Captain Lee before and he is as solid a skipper as they come. Lieutenant Patron, make sure you coordinate with him for any non standard equipment we might need, or equipment that we can use to convert fleet standard to fit this boat,“ there was a slight ironic tone to her voice and another round of laughter at ‘fleet standard’.
She turned to an extremely fit officer in gray battle dress.
“Colonel Cambden, you’ll need to get in touch with their Mike’s ground commander to coordinate the deployment of our marines. Ditto fighter control.” Both officers nodded, although clearly they had both already done so of their own initiative. She leaned forward resting on her hands. She was proud of her crew and proud of her ship.
“Europa is a new ship ladies and gentlemen and there are plenty of people who look at new things with skepticism. Whatever happens on this cruise we are going to prove that this boat was money well spent and that its crew is the best the Hegemony has to offer. Clear?”
From around the room and across the comms came a chorus of Crystal, Clear, Roger that and a dozen other acknowledgements.
“Section chief I’ll expect your final reports by 0:300 Zulu and I plan to light the drives and be on station four hours after that. Make it happen boys and girls. Dismissed.”
Loved the first post, definitely the tone I want to go for!
I'm interested. Are you planning on enforcing historical gender roles?
“Fire in the hole!” the private screamed as he cocked back his arm to throw a grenade down the short hallway. The action drew his body slightly out from behind the bulkhead that sheltered him. A blaster bolt from down the corridor struck him in the side and spun him back against the bulkhead hard, the grenade falling from nerveless fingers.
“Medic,” Lieutenant Adriana Racine called by reflex as she leaned out and kicked the grenade down the hallway clattering it across the deck plating. There was a shout of alarm from the Imperials at the end of the hall and then the subsonic WHUMPH of the grenade’s detonation filled the air. These Imperials were good, caught by surprise, underequipped and in a poor defensive position they were still managing to make a real nuisance of themselves. Well, Racine was good too and platoon E-1 was at least as good as its newbie CO.
“Go, go,go!” she screamed at her troops, suiting words to action and springing forward from behind the shelter of her bulkhead, muscles screaming as she raced forward, her skin prickling with adrenaline as the rush of hormones burned through her blood. Cassik, one of the Ulsam veterans, fired a long burst from his blast rifle into the billowing smoke even as he grabbed one of the replacements and shoved the man bodily forward after his Lieutenant.
Racine, Cassik and two replacements whose names escaped her, burst into the small room the Imperials had been using as an improvised strong point. There were a half dozen of them in naval security uniforms and two in the white laminate plate of Stormtroopers. Presumably they had organized the hasty defense which had delayed the attack for several critical minutes. Not all the Imperials were dead but the effect of a close quarters concussion grenade was a horrifying thing. The waves of energy released had jellied the internal organs and ruptured the membranes of the defenders; blood was evident at ears, eyes and nose. The room stank of expended cordite, burning plastic and the sickly sweet smell of charred meat.
Both of the stormtroopers were still moving, albeit weakly, their armor was some protection from the blast but not much. Racine shot one of the struggling figures in the chest and neck with her blaster rifle while Cassik drew some sort of vibro weapon from his boot and thrust it under the remaining troopers helmet, yanking it free with a vicious twist. Racine turned her head back down the passageway.
“Clear up front!” she yelled.
“Coming through!” a voice yelled back. Mastin? Marsteen? Damnit she should know the name but she was new to the unit and they would have to manage. There were more important things than names for her to know right now. She took deep breaths, deliberately refocusing herself and oxygenating her blood. The room was hot, heated by blaster fire and the combustion of the grenade, the pollutants tickled the back of her throat. She touched the side of her heavy blast helmet.
“Echo one six to Echo one four,” she spoke, her helmet AI triggering the link to corporal Besk, currently in command of the group that had been assigned to the engineering section. He had already breached engineering, ahead of schedule where she had been delayed. She smiled wryly to herself, she was lucky to have such good NCOs, too good in fact, to promote them up to officer rank when there were so many replacements to integrate into the unit. Racine knew from her own experience that good corporals and sergeants were much more important to a unit than good officers. Although by all that was holy she would try to be a good one.
“We have reached the bridge, breaching in figures two, say again two minutes.” She turned to the shuttered blast door, watching as the demolitions expert spread the quicklfash gel that would burn through the heavy door in a matter of seconds. If it were her in there, she would open the door toss grenades and shut it again before the attackers could react. No point in trusting to defenses they must have known the attackers could defeat. She smiled grimly. It would be what it would be.
“Medic,” Lieutenant Adriana Racine called by reflex as she leaned out and kicked the grenade down the hallway clattering it across the deck plating. There was a shout of alarm from the Imperials at the end of the hall and then the subsonic WHUMPH of the grenade’s detonation filled the air. These Imperials were good, caught by surprise, underequipped and in a poor defensive position they were still managing to make a real nuisance of themselves. Well, Racine was good too and platoon E-1 was at least as good as its newbie CO.
“Go, go,go!” she screamed at her troops, suiting words to action and springing forward from behind the shelter of her bulkhead, muscles screaming as she raced forward, her skin prickling with adrenaline as the rush of hormones burned through her blood. Cassik, one of the Ulsam veterans, fired a long burst from his blast rifle into the billowing smoke even as he grabbed one of the replacements and shoved the man bodily forward after his Lieutenant.
Racine, Cassik and two replacements whose names escaped her, burst into the small room the Imperials had been using as an improvised strong point. There were a half dozen of them in naval security uniforms and two in the white laminate plate of Stormtroopers. Presumably they had organized the hasty defense which had delayed the attack for several critical minutes. Not all the Imperials were dead but the effect of a close quarters concussion grenade was a horrifying thing. The waves of energy released had jellied the internal organs and ruptured the membranes of the defenders; blood was evident at ears, eyes and nose. The room stank of expended cordite, burning plastic and the sickly sweet smell of charred meat.
Both of the stormtroopers were still moving, albeit weakly, their armor was some protection from the blast but not much. Racine shot one of the struggling figures in the chest and neck with her blaster rifle while Cassik drew some sort of vibro weapon from his boot and thrust it under the remaining troopers helmet, yanking it free with a vicious twist. Racine turned her head back down the passageway.
“Clear up front!” she yelled.
“Coming through!” a voice yelled back. Mastin? Marsteen? Damnit she should know the name but she was new to the unit and they would have to manage. There were more important things than names for her to know right now. She took deep breaths, deliberately refocusing herself and oxygenating her blood. The room was hot, heated by blaster fire and the combustion of the grenade, the pollutants tickled the back of her throat. She touched the side of her heavy blast helmet.
“Echo one six to Echo one four,” she spoke, her helmet AI triggering the link to corporal Besk, currently in command of the group that had been assigned to the engineering section. He had already breached engineering, ahead of schedule where she had been delayed. She smiled wryly to herself, she was lucky to have such good NCOs, too good in fact, to promote them up to officer rank when there were so many replacements to integrate into the unit. Racine knew from her own experience that good corporals and sergeants were much more important to a unit than good officers. Although by all that was holy she would try to be a good one.
“We have reached the bridge, breaching in figures two, say again two minutes.” She turned to the shuttered blast door, watching as the demolitions expert spread the quicklfash gel that would burn through the heavy door in a matter of seconds. If it were her in there, she would open the door toss grenades and shut it again before the attackers could react. No point in trusting to defenses they must have known the attackers could defeat. She smiled grimly. It would be what it would be.
Im still here, am I approved?
HSV Europa:
The Europa is a new ship, the first of its class. It represents the tactical shift that has been underway for several generations of construction. It is large for a cruiser not quite reaching the battle cruiser class in raw tonnage but equaling it in fire power. It has less versatility then regular cruiser designs due to the majority of its offensive power being made up of banks of rail guns rather than the more traditional mix of lasers and ion cannons.
Naval architects in Hegemony planning group hope that the Europa will be able to punch above her weight class without suffering too much for the decreased variety in armaments. A ship of this sort would allow more dreadnaughts to be pulled from non-essential postings, allowing the fleet to concentrate its heavy ships more effectively. Having completed its initial shake down the Europa has been added to the task force to provide additional fire power as well as to give the planning councils an opportunity to observe her results in the field.
Length-Width-Height
1300m 430m 240m
Class: Crusier
Tonnage: 10,600,000 tonnes
Reference image
PRIMARY ARMAMENT
100 dual 240mm rail-gun turrets firing 300 rounds/minute with interchangeable ammo.
Ammo types: Hull-piercing High Explosive, Radiological anti-biological hull-piercing, Semi-guided Shaped Explosive, Debris-Distributing high explosive Flak.
(HPHE, RABHP, SGSE, DDHEF)
50 550mm guided missile launchers firing 40 laser/radar guided missiles/salvo, approx reload is 45 seconds.
20 850mm radar/laser/fly-by-wire guided torpedoes. Nuclear-tipped, yield is approximately 25 megatons. Shaped charge.
SECONDARY ARMAMENT
100 8GW Point-defense lasers
90 40mm Shrike auto-cannons firing 1200 rounds/second.
4 2500mm rail-gun turrets firing 4 rounds/minute. Rounds are depleted uranium solid-core fusion explosive.
ARMOR/SHIELDING
Armor is rated as 25 meter thick Iridium-Titanium alloy interweaved with Carbon-fiber netting
Outer layer is 2m thick nanite-regenative armor.
Shielding is Solid-State Plasma shielding. Extremely powerful.
COUNTERMEASURES
400 chaff rocket launchers
90 flare launchers
60 ECM emitters located around the hull, providing extremely large amounts of jamming power totalling 120TW of EM radation.
ENGINES
Intra-system engines are fusion-powered CARV7 forced-fusion engines providing 1,800,000 tonnes of thrust. x12
Inter-system engines are VAR4 VASMIR drives providing 600,000 tonnes of thrust. x6
FTL engines are Mass-canceling fields combined with Alcubierre Drive technology to provide a 120x SoL rating.
REACTORS
6 Tokamak heavy fusion reactors providing .75 YW of power. (Yottawatt)
3 Anti-Matter Medium reactors providing 1200GW of power.
CREW
45,000 crew across the ship and all decks.
2 Battalions of Orbital-Drop Troopers.
COMPUTER SYSTEMS
6 Main Computer cores manage all systems. All systems are EMP hardened and isolated to prevent hacking attacks.
4 Backup computer cores on standby. EMP hardened and isolated from primary networks.
1 AIs assist in managing the ship, named Cato.
FIGHTER AND BOMBER COMPLEMENT
Facilities to launch and re-arm 80 Tornado Fighter-bombers with 40mm auto-cannons firing 1000 rounds/minute. Each one carries 4 guided 4 kiloton tipped tactical nuclear missiles.
Facilities to launch and re-arm 30 Wailer Heavy Bombers. 4 dual 30mm auto-cannons mounted on turrets provide defense, along with a medium-strength plasma shield. Each one carries 6 2 megaton shaped charge nuclear-tipped missiles.
The Europa is a new ship, the first of its class. It represents the tactical shift that has been underway for several generations of construction. It is large for a cruiser not quite reaching the battle cruiser class in raw tonnage but equaling it in fire power. It has less versatility then regular cruiser designs due to the majority of its offensive power being made up of banks of rail guns rather than the more traditional mix of lasers and ion cannons.
Naval architects in Hegemony planning group hope that the Europa will be able to punch above her weight class without suffering too much for the decreased variety in armaments. A ship of this sort would allow more dreadnaughts to be pulled from non-essential postings, allowing the fleet to concentrate its heavy ships more effectively. Having completed its initial shake down the Europa has been added to the task force to provide additional fire power as well as to give the planning councils an opportunity to observe her results in the field.
Length-Width-Height
1300m 430m 240m
Class: Crusier
Tonnage: 10,600,000 tonnes
Reference image
PRIMARY ARMAMENT
100 dual 240mm rail-gun turrets firing 300 rounds/minute with interchangeable ammo.
Ammo types: Hull-piercing High Explosive, Radiological anti-biological hull-piercing, Semi-guided Shaped Explosive, Debris-Distributing high explosive Flak.
(HPHE, RABHP, SGSE, DDHEF)
50 550mm guided missile launchers firing 40 laser/radar guided missiles/salvo, approx reload is 45 seconds.
20 850mm radar/laser/fly-by-wire guided torpedoes. Nuclear-tipped, yield is approximately 25 megatons. Shaped charge.
SECONDARY ARMAMENT
100 8GW Point-defense lasers
90 40mm Shrike auto-cannons firing 1200 rounds/second.
4 2500mm rail-gun turrets firing 4 rounds/minute. Rounds are depleted uranium solid-core fusion explosive.
ARMOR/SHIELDING
Armor is rated as 25 meter thick Iridium-Titanium alloy interweaved with Carbon-fiber netting
Outer layer is 2m thick nanite-regenative armor.
Shielding is Solid-State Plasma shielding. Extremely powerful.
COUNTERMEASURES
400 chaff rocket launchers
90 flare launchers
60 ECM emitters located around the hull, providing extremely large amounts of jamming power totalling 120TW of EM radation.
ENGINES
Intra-system engines are fusion-powered CARV7 forced-fusion engines providing 1,800,000 tonnes of thrust. x12
Inter-system engines are VAR4 VASMIR drives providing 600,000 tonnes of thrust. x6
FTL engines are Mass-canceling fields combined with Alcubierre Drive technology to provide a 120x SoL rating.
REACTORS
6 Tokamak heavy fusion reactors providing .75 YW of power. (Yottawatt)
3 Anti-Matter Medium reactors providing 1200GW of power.
CREW
45,000 crew across the ship and all decks.
2 Battalions of Orbital-Drop Troopers.
COMPUTER SYSTEMS
6 Main Computer cores manage all systems. All systems are EMP hardened and isolated to prevent hacking attacks.
4 Backup computer cores on standby. EMP hardened and isolated from primary networks.
1 AIs assist in managing the ship, named Cato.
FIGHTER AND BOMBER COMPLEMENT
Facilities to launch and re-arm 80 Tornado Fighter-bombers with 40mm auto-cannons firing 1000 rounds/minute. Each one carries 4 guided 4 kiloton tipped tactical nuclear missiles.
Facilities to launch and re-arm 30 Wailer Heavy Bombers. 4 dual 30mm auto-cannons mounted on turrets provide defense, along with a medium-strength plasma shield. Each one carries 6 2 megaton shaped charge nuclear-tipped missiles.
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