After the shock of the announcement, the others began to ask questions about the first humans and how they died. Arlie seemed to think a moment then she spoke while telepathically asking Aurora to bring Xaros to Voros:

“I will tell you the story. It is a story of how the first humans fell and the rise of the gods but this is not the place. Also Rose, Lily, I have something to tell you in private later.”

Then Arlie raised her hands and a portal sprang into existence. Then she told them her living room would be more appropriate and comfortable. The party stepped through and then they made themselves comfortable around Arlie’s table. Once they were gathered Arlie began to tell the story all the while creating visual images for all to see.

“I guess the best place to begin is the year before the Earth-Cathamari War. After nearly a century of war Earth and her colonies were finally looking at an age of peace. Earth had recovered from the effects of WWIII. Which had ended 98 years prior and built a powerful fleet commanded by a powerful flagship called the EFS Yamato she was the largest spacefaring ship ever built by humans and believed invincible, we were wrong, all of Earth’s warring colonies who had been at war with each other for much of the last century had finally been brought into line by the Earth military. It was in this period that Humans made first contact with an alien race that race was called the Cathamari.

Spoiler: Spoiler

The Yamato: This massive Earth Dreadnaught served during the Third Colonial War and the Earth-Cathamari War. She was 9700 meters long and had 700 decks, crew 12700. 8 massive quad core engines gave her a top speed of .6C and class 4 maneuverability (turn rate 185 degrees per minute) her armament was: 180 Fusion torp banks, 32 super heavy particle banks, 45 heavy particle banks, 55 standard, 90 light, 4 Cutting Beams and 20 fighters. Her defenses were Class II Radiation Shields, Energy Web Projectors, and 12 meters of mark III overlord armor. She is also equipped with 3 mag tractor projectors and class one spatial sensors.

The Cathamari first showed up near Titan Colony on March 3rd, 2 BDE on the Solean calendar, or on the old calendar March 3rd, 156 CSD. There were four Cathamari cruisers to be specific they were Ravager class Battlecruisers they were met by the TFS Hammerhead the namesake ship of the Hammerhead Class. Both civilizations managed to communicate, but all the Cathamari were interested in was humanity's immediate unconditional surrender. Old Earth naturally refused, and the Cathamari opened fire the resulting battle lasted 14 minutes and 29 seconds and nearly ended in a victory for the TFS Hammerhead but a lucky hit to her magazine belt sank the ship. The Cathamari retreated before the TFS Mako who was approaching could engage them. The Cathamari returned two months later. For Two years Earth and the Cathamari fought each other. Notable battles occurred at Titan, Mars, Venus, and Luna the last battle occurred at Earth on May 23, 000 SDE or 158 CSD. The battle of Earth technically began late the day before when a massive Cathamari fleet assaulted the Lunar defense perimeter. By this point in the war Earth’s fleet was devastated with only a little over 2000 warships remaining, most of Earth’s resources were dedicated to rebuilding the fleet. The Lunar defense perimeter was Earth’s last real line of defense with four converted defense stations, billions of mines orbiting the planet, and millions of automated torpedo platforms. The Cathamari lost half their fleet penetrating the perimeter. Of their 30,000 ships only around 14,000 penetrated the perimeter. The resulting fighting was serious, but a good number of their ships slipped past the fleet to attack the planet, where they were engaged by the planetary defense system, a vast series of orbital slammers, ground to space beam weapon sites, ground to space shield penetrating missile and torpedo batteries and ground to space heavy particle cannon batteries. They losing ships to these defenses, began bombarding the planet with unintended consequences.”

Arlie paused for a moment gauging their responses and then continued.

“Which brings us to the beginning of our story and my role in the story back then I went by the name Jac Countryman. I was at Star Tech HQ that day heading to board the EFS Enterprise .........

As Countryman exited the lift a massive ship came into view. She was the first of her kind the ship was shaped like an elongated saucer with an indent dead center on her the fore of the primary hull, a strong swept-back neck attached to a large half-disk mounted above her primary hull linked the two hulls. Swept-back struts linked to a pair of nacelles mounted below the primary hull a second pair of equally thick struts linked directly to the secondary hull with a third set of struts linking the other two pairs together.

On the far side of the ship from his position Countryman could see two massive landing struts extending from the primary hull to the ground with a ramp leading into the ship going between them. The name and registry of the ship were emblazoned in several places on the ship's hull but Countryman couldn’t read it from his point of view. Countryman, however, knew the name was EFS Enterprise. A dozen workers could be seen loading supplies and equipment into the ship. A moment after he left the lift the entire room shook. A deck officer greeted him a few seconds later.

“Commander, your credentials please,”

“Here,” replied Countryman as he showed the officer his credentials.

“Ah, Commander Countryman Captain Reynolds was just asking about your whereabouts.”

“Where can I find him?” asked Countryman as the room shook again.

“He is over their directing the workers loading the ship.” replied the deck officer.

Countryman thanked the officer and then headed down the ramp. A few minutes later he walked up to Captain Reynolds and introduced himself.

“Commander Countryman tell me why did command assign me a scientist for a first officer?”

“Because I helped design the Enterprise and I am the foremost expert on her and the new systems she is equipped with,” replied Countryman while silently running a quick diagnostic of his defense systems, just in case he needed them. As Countryman was a cyborg, like most cyborgs of the era his implants were concealed so he, for the most part, looked like a normal human of around 50. His eyes were the only noticeable implant but only when one looked closely.

“That doesn’t mean you will make a good officer, but since I am stuck with you. Why don’t you help me get the last of this equipment on board, and while you're at it, why don’t you give me the rundown on my new ship,” replied Reynolds

“The EFS Enterprise is a heavy cruiser she is equipped with an experimental warp drive that gives her a top theoretical cruising speed of 11 times the speed of light. She has five main particle pulse wave engines with a tri-core configuration and two dual-core antimatter reactors giving her a top speed on sublight of .98c, Class II maneuverability (turn rate 362 degrees per second) and she can reach top speed in 30 minutes when using the Pulse Detonation Drive. She is 5020 meters long has 194 decks in the primary hull and 25 in the secondary. She carries 24 fighters, she is armored with mark III overlord armor plating 12 meters thick, she has class II radiation shields and improved energy web projectors, her armament is 20 forward torpedo launchers 12 aft, 12 triple tube light photon missile launcher banks, 18 medium particle banks, 8 heavy particle banks, 2 cutting beam arrays, 1 fusion mine disperser, 2 mag tractor projectors, and 2 electro cannon banks.”

Spoiler: Spoiler

Earth propulsion technology: The Pulse detonation drive is the Pulse wave engine equivalent to an afterburner. The Particle Pulse Wave Engine is a sublight drive system that functions by bombarding a Rydium core with sustained particle beams. This process generates pulse waves which in turn generates thrust. An interesting benefit of this tech is that the pulse waves effectively nullify 60% of the equipped ship’s mass. All modern Earth spaceships use this propulsion system.

Rydium is an artificially synthesised and remarkably stable super heavy element when bombarded with a laser or particle beam it radiates a mix of EM radiation and Graviton based Pulse Waves, Rydium also has remarkable energy conversion properties and is used heavily in Human technology.

Earth Armor (Mark Three Overlord): Third generation Overlord Armor plating. It functions by running an energy field through a series of layered plates. These plates have dispersion layers and dispersion field generators that disperse the energy of weapons fire over the hull of the entire ship. Energy absorbers embedded in the plating absorb and shunt incoming energy into the AIF field partially recharging it. Provides superior protection over Polarized Hull plating. Like Polarized Plating when the energy field fails the ship becomes vulnerable to attack. Damaged plates and hull breaches reduces its effectiveness. Field strength increases with thickness increasing the amount of damage it can absorb. Absorber efficiency improves with the size of the equipped ship which consequently improves the defensive effect.

Earth Weapons:

Earth weapons have good armor penetration, but most don’t do well vs shields. The effective range of common Earth weapons is as follows:

Particle cannons: 10,000 km light, 15,000 km medium, 20,000 km for heavy cannons

Cutting Beams: 25,0000 km

Electro Cannon: 4782 Km

Photon Missiles: 30,000 km light 35,000 km standard

Mk V Fusion Torpedos: 90,000 Km

Reynolds then looked over at Countryman and asked,

“Electro Cannons?”

“A new weapon system still experimental. It fires a highly charged stream of ionized plasma at a target it doesn’t do much hull damage, but it is devastating to organic tissue, and in theory it should collapse the shields the Cathamari use to protect their ships it will also disrupt subsystems. According to theory the high energy blast of the electro cannons, will destabilize the shield matrix of the targeted ship, causing it to violently release all the energy stored in the matrix as an EMP resulting in the collapse of said shield matrix rendering the target vulnerable to more conventional energy weapons. Early testing revealed it has a short effective range not much better than a plasma thrower, but the weapon is more effective than any known weapon at defeating our armor plating a sustained burst will completely drain our Overlord Hull Plating in just a few minutes.”

“Would have been useful back during the colonial wars, but now I think I would prefer a volley of Mark V Fusion Torpedoes,” replied Reynolds then he continued, “by the way does the increased power generation provided by the antimatter reactors provide any benefits to the shields, hull plating and weapons?”

“Yes, the shields are 20% stronger than older versions. But just like the old models, they will collapse if too much energy is directed against them too quickly and any energy they fail to mitigate will still strike the ship. Most of the ship’s systems benefit from the increased power generation, the most notable is the ship’s hull plating. With significant increases in both regeneration and integrity. The hull plating should last twice as long under fire before failing. As for weapons the only notable improvement is increased yield and armor penetration, but the systems are still largely unoptimized so they won’t perform to full potential.” said Countryman.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Sheilds: Radiation shields are a type of early energy shield tech, and are a precursor to a type of shield called absorption shields. When energy hits a radiation shield, the energy flows across the shield bubble and is radiated outward as light causing the shield to glow. Any energy the shield can’t mitigate will strike the ship and if too much energy hits the bubble at once, the shield generators will overload collapsing the shield. The more advanced absorption shields have an additional layer that absorbs excess energy that the shield can’t mitigate to be radiated later. Absorption shields fail when the bubble reaches saturation, and must then radiate the absorbed energy but they will continue to mitigate incoming weapons fire.

“I think I heard something about that. Is it due to the rush order caused by the Cathamari breaching the Lunar perimeter?”

“Yes, sir. Other than the onboard nano-fabricators and disassemblers, all other systems are fully installed, the final scheduled week in the yard was to be spent finishing those two systems and to optimize her primary systems.”

“Those fabricators are for the advanced repair systems, I heard about right?”

“Yes, sir. The Enterprise was designed with long-range deployment mission profiles in mind, as such the ship would be expected to spend months without access to a friendly port, as a result, she is equipped with eight pairs of retractable repair arms, mounted on the underbelly, and industrial-grade fabricators and disassemblers to facilitate field repair of the hull. She also has internal fuel refineries allowing her to refine deuterium in the field if necessary and four large hydroponics bays allowing her to grow food onboard, which greatly extends her operating range. She is also equipped with 3 pairs of enhanced high-density fuel cells, which give her a range of 4000 lightyears assuming no engagements,” said Countryman

“4000 lightyears? Why would we need that much range? After all you're talking about nearly four centuries worth of fuel,” said Reynolds.

“Keep in mind that the actual range will be much lower, since it's not just the engines drawing power, but the weapons and armor too. A typical combat engagement is expected to consume roughly 20 lightyears worth of fuel. The Enterprise’s intended mission profile is a long-range search and destroy mission. Her goal was to locate and destroy the Cathamari homeworld, for that mission she is carrying 10 antimatter bombs and because of the distances involved resupply was determined to be a practical impossibility.”

“Antimatter bombs? You mean my ship is carrying some stripped-down torpedoes outfitted with experimental warheads? What kind of firepower do these bombs have?”

“Yes, and each warhead has a yield of 100,000 megatons. Which means just one of those bombs is an extinction-level event if dropped on a planet,” replied Countryman.

“As I recall our torpedoes have nowhere near that yield.”

“That is correct, they have a variable yield of up to 200 megatons each, but that is more than enough for their intended purpose,” said Countryman.

“True, now since the ship is equipped for field repair, can you tell me what kind of quality I can expect and can the Enterprise repair other vessels,”

“The quality, in theory, should be shipyard quality, sir, since the ship is supposed to have Industrial grade fabricators, but until we get those working it would be much lower and in practice that would only really apply to the hull and some systems would require an actual yard or a landing if it is urgent enough. As for repairing other ships, the answer is yes we can, and we are equipped with four anchorage arms for that purpose,” said Countryman as they loaded the last of the supplies on board. “We can even build new ships if we need them, in theory, and assuming we had the necessary materials,” thought Countryman.

“Well let's get to the bridge. I hope you didn’t change the layout too much, and on the way you can tell me more about those new warp engines.”

“Don’t worry it is a standard bridge module. Deck one has the same layout as every other ship in the fleet,” replied Countryman as they started up the ramp and the room shook once again.

They reached the top of the room and one of the workers hit the control panel and the ramp began to retract and the armored door started to slide into place. Reynolds looked around the loading bay, and then started toward the lift on the left side of the bay. Countryman stopped him and said:

“Wrong way, captain, the bridge is this way.”

The captain cursed about engineers changing layouts and then followed Countryman across the bay and down a hallway to one of the ship’s main Tram Lifts. They boarded grabbed the handrails and activated the voice controls and set their destination for deck one. The Lift swiftly carried them through the ship to deck one.

“The warp drive functions by folding space in a radius of about 100 Km in front of and behind the equipped ship. The process generates spatial distortions that will rip apart most debris in front of and behind the ship, but we still have to contend with translight particle impacts and we should avoid colliding with large objects like asteroids, other starships, or planets. Our hull plating can deal with a fair amount of the small stuff, but as added protection, the warp field can be calibrated to push debris and particles away from the ship, but this calibration increases fuel consumption by 40% and loses effectiveness as speed increases. theory states it will become ineffective past warp six, but we can only reach warp 3.98 in theory, that's 98.2C, when pushing the engines. The spatial distortions generated by the warp field also generate a pressure wave that acts on the ship, creating resistance to forward movement, this forces the sublight engines to remain active at all times, to maintain warp cruise speed.”

“So, sublights provide thrust at both, warp and sublight velocities?”

“Yes, sir. The only thing the warp engines do is fold space in a bubble around the ship, thereby shortening the distance between two points. Speed is, therefore, a factor of your sublight speed and the spatial folding rate. I’ll have the curve for that on your desk later, since that isn’t something to go over in a lift,” said Countryman.

“What about combat at warp?” asked Reynolds.

“Consider that a practical, impossibility, sir. The first issue is power generation, most of our available power generation would be going to the engines, so we will have very little power to spare for the weapons, which require a lot of power I might add. The second bigger issue is the fact that warp engines generate significant spatial distortions around the ship, these distortions make it almost impossible to fire torpedoes, and they will often cause energy weapons fire to miss entirely and they will mess up our targeting vectors. The final issue is the relative speeds of the ships involved would make targeting solutions problematic, since the ships would only be in effective firing range for a few seconds at most,” said Countryman

“I see,” said Reynolds as they exited the lift.

They came out in a short hallway with 4 doors. The one behind them led into the lift, the one to the left led into the Captain’s Ready Room, the right led to the officer’s conference room and the door opposite the lift led to the bridge.

Standing next to the bridge door were a pair of security officers. They walked up to the door. Reynolds placed his hand on the palm scanner and the door opened as Reynolds walked through the door Countryman also put his hand on the scanner to register his entry. They entered the bridge on its upper level. Jutting out toward the center was a small balcony with the captain’s chair located in the center. Mounted at eye level from the chair on all the walls were a series of screens that provide a 360-degree view of what was going on around the ship. On either side of the captain's chair are a pair of staircases that led to the lower level. To the fore and on the left was the helm to the right of the helm was navigation both the helm and navigation consoles had a midsize viewscreen mounted in front of them. On the left side of the bridge was a bank of consoles dedicated to tactical, on the right side was a bank dedicated to engineering. In the center was a large display console which was currently dark but when active it typically displayed a tactical representation of what was going on around the ship. The rear wall had three consoles against it, two were science stations, and the third was the Operations console. Most of the bridge crew was present but the second officer was not on the bridge.

Reynolds asked the operations officer where Commander Greyman was.

“Deck 97 Main Engineering sir,” replied the young ensign.

“Tell Greyman to finish whatever he is doing down there and get up here,” then he turned to Countryman and said:

“Take your station, start the pre-launch checks and while you’re at you can tell me how long it took to build this.”

“Aye sir,” replied Countryman as he took his station, a console next to the engineering console bank, and started the checks.

“The Enterprise is the result of the Warp Three Project, which began about five years ago,” said Countryman.

“Warp three? Wouldn’t you start with warp one?” asked Reynolds.

“Yes, Mars created a warp one engine about 50 years ago, but it had so many issues it wasn’t viable. A major breakthrough in spatial fields five years ago, lead to the first viable warp one engine, but it wasn’t practical for interstellar travel. To that end the warp three project was proposed whose goal was to create a warp engine capable of reaching warp three, that was the easy part, the hard part was power generation. The project should have been finished a year ago, but it was slowed because of the war and Admiral Carrington’s Project.”

“Admiral Carrington’s Project? That was the mission to capture a Cathamari cruiser intact, right?”

“Correct, the primary goal of that project was to get our hands on an intact Cathamari warp engine, so that we could reverse engineer it. Ultimately the project was deemed a total failure, 6 months ago after 92 successful captures failed to yield an intact warp engine. As a result, the Warp Three Project was reevaluated and a significant amount of resources were devoted to the project, which got us back on schedule.

“You seem to be better informed than I am, since I thought that project failed to capture any cruisers.”

“I have Alpha One-One level security clearance, so being informed about high-security projects comes with the territory.”

“How does a commander get, High Admiralty level clearance?” asked Reynolds shocked to hear that Countryman had the highest level of security clearance.

“By working on top-secret projects for over a hundred years, and we are green across the board so we can launch when you're ready,” said Countryman. Reynolds quickly acknowledged Countryman’s statement and began barking orders.

“Bring all engines online and energize the hull plating,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir” replied a young man at one of the engineering consoles. He had a 2nd Lieutenants markings and was clearly the senior engineering officer on the bridge. A moment later he informed the captain that the engines were online and the hull plating was charged.

“Retract landing struts and open the docking bay doors,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir retracting struts,” acknowledged the young man at the helm.

“Aye sir, opening bay doors.” acknowledged the junior officer at operations.

Moments later the doors above the ship began to open. As they opened water began to pour in and flood the bay the EFS Enterprise was in. Within seconds the bay was completely flooded.

“Helm take us out,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir,” replied the ensign at the helm.

Moments later the ship began to lift out of the bay. The ship cut through the water with ease and moments later they were above the water. Behind them was an island covered with an extensive city. The island was one of many artificial islands built over the last two centuries. The city on the island was called Star Tech HQ. It was dominated by many dome-like structures and towering spires that stretched high into the sky. It was the largest academic city on Earth and the center of Earth’s space technologies research, which was organized by the organization called Star Tech. Reddish energy bolts were raining down from the sky all around them. Several of HQ’s domes had been damaged, smoke was rising from several of the structures and the entire city was visibly sinking into the sea. Which meant the supports that kept the artificial island it was built on afloat had been destroyed. They could see blue particle beams shooting upwards from distant ground battery sites, to strike targets in orbit and missiles flying to strike targets in orbit all around them. Ahead of them, they could see the new destroyers Coto and Umikaze rising into the sky with them. The destroyers resembled the Enterprise but they were smaller and the secondary hull was below the primary hull and the nacelles were mounted at the same height.

Spoiler: Spoiler

The Coto and Umikaze are the first of their class. Equipped with Warp drive they are among the first of Earth’s FTL capable ships. They are armed with 24 forward torpedo launchers,14 aft, 1 cutting beam array, 4 medium particle cannon banks, 2 fusion mine dispersers, and 1 Electro Cannon Bank. Warp cruise speed: 11 times the speed of light. Top sublight: .98C Class I maneuverability. Length: 970

Defenses: Class II radiation Shields, Energy Web Projectors, and 3 meters of mark III overlord armor

A few minutes later they left the atmosphere and entered low orbit. From this vantage point, the could see strange reddish storms spreading across the surface of the Earth. Countryman scanned the storms and noted that they were radioactive plasma storms heavily concentrated in the upper atmosphere. Ahead of them was a Cathamari Battle Claw class battlecruiser bombarding the planet. Like all Cathamari ships she had a triangular forward section a sleek neck swept back to a rounded central body from which two pairs of swept-back wings were attached. The ship was predominately black with red streaks on her wings and sides. The overall coloring pattern and shape gave her an almost predatory look. Reynolds gave the order to open fire. A volley of torpedoes shot out at the cruiser looking like blue streaks. 2 of them were stopped by her shields, which glowed with an eerie red light, but the rest passed through and dealt severe damage to the cruiser. The Enterprise then finished her off with a particle beam fired directly into her main reactor. As the ship exploded the captain gave the helmsman the order to increase speed.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Battle Claw: Cathamari cruiser designed for fighting Earthships: Class IV Maneuverability, max sublight: .48 C

Armament: 72 Plasma Torpedo banks, 14 concussion plasma banks and 14 fighters. Class II sega shielding. FTL Cruise speed: 124 times light speed

Cathamari torpedoes have an effective range of 12000 Km

Cathamari Plasma Cannons have an effective range of 10000 Km

Moments later their orbit increased and several more cruisers attacking the planet came into view they were engaged with 3 Earth Cruisers. At a glance, Countryman was not sure of their class. The cruisers were either Tokyo or Osaka class vessels but other than armament ships of those classes were identical in appearance and capability. The Earth ships had an elongated saucer with a v-shaped wedge missing from the aft section. A pair of thick struts attached to the endpoints of the v swept back to a central point behind the hull where a half-disk secondary hull was mounted. A second set of struts swept back and out from the side of the saucer to a pair of nacelles, which were connected to the secondary hull as well by another pair of sturdy struts. The primary hull, the Secondary hull and nacelles were all located on the same plane. Unlike the Enterprise, none of these cruisers had warp capability since there were only three ships in the fleet with that ability. Both the Earth Cruisers and the Cathamari Cruisers were exchanging torpedo volleys.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Tokyo class heavy cruisers were designed to fight the Cathamari. Class III Maneuverability, Top speed: .82 C Armament: 12 light particle cannons, 6 heavy, 12 fusion torpedo banks, and one Cutting Beam Array. Length: 2200

Osaka Class heavy cruisers were designed to intercept and destroy pirate vessels and now serve as escorts. Class III Maneuverability, Top Speed .82 C Armament: 24 Light particle cannons, 8 heavy, 2 fusion torpedo banks, and one cutting beam array. Length: 2200

As the Enterprise was entering weapons range they witnessed some Cathamari Torpedos get intercepted by the energy web of one the Earth Cruisers. Moments later Reynolds ordered tactical to target the nearest Cathamari ship and open fire. Along the hull of the Enterprise, numerous turrets and emitter arrays lined up with the target and opened fire. Thousands of bluish particle bolts ripped across space to strike the damaged alien cruiser. Its weakened shields held up for barely ten seconds before failing, the hull lasted only a second and a half longer, before the ship was reduced to an expanding cloud of atoms. The other cruisers responded quickly and engaged the Enterprise, reddish bolts of plasma striking the hull, to little effect. While one fired her torpedoes at the Enterprise. A minute after the Enterprise sunk the first cruiser, the Coto and Umikaze joined them in the engagement. The addition of the three ships, changed the dynamic in favor of the Earth fleet. Both the Coto and Umikaze opened fire with their torpedoes, glowing blue bolts flew out across space, the Cathamari cruisers already struggling with the sheer volume the three earth cruisers had been putting out were overwhelmed. The remaining cruisers were struck and exploded in massive fireballs.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Energy Web: A device that projects a web of laser pulses and magnetic fields that intercepts and destroys incoming ballistic ordinance

It is not 100% effective and can only be maintained for a few seconds before it must shut down and recharge

As the last cruiser in the area sunk, Reynolds decided to check on the ship's status and that of their allies.

“Status report,” barked Reynolds.

“Hull Plating at 97% sir, No Damage,” replied the senior engineer on deck.

“ Coto and Umikaze report light damage. The Maryland was sunk and the Aksay reports moderate damage, and Paris has taken heavy damage. The Paris’s engineers say they can have her combat-ready again in 23 minutes,” replied the Operations officer.

“Order the Aksay to guard the Paris and scan for enemy ships,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir,” acknowledged operations.

“Sir, we are receiving a distress call from the EFS Baltimore,” reported operations.

“Navigation set course for the Baltimore fastest possible speed,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir,” replied the woman at navigation.

“Operations order the Coto and Umikaze to follow us,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir”, replied the operations officer.

“Course set” declared the navigation officer.

“Helm engage,” ordered Reynolds.

The ship then surged forward and a few minutes later the Baltimore came into view, an Osaka class heavy cruiser. The ship was under attack by multiple Cathamari Battlecruisers and was taking heavy damage. Her hull plating was visibly failing and several breaches in the hull could be seen, the attacking cruisers were dumping their torpedoes in mass and the Baltimore’s failing defense systems were struggling to protect the ship. The ship was just hanging their drifting. They hailed the Baltimore as they closed. The Baltimore’s captain Mary Williams informed them that her hull plating was failing, she was out of torpedoes and her Main Engines were offline. Which only confirmed what Countryman had already deduced from observing the ship. There was only one other Earthship in the area a Charleston class light cruiser. The Charleston was taking heavy damage as well. They watched a volley of Cathamari torpedoes strike the ship, and penetrate the hull, before the Enterprise could enter weapons range. The resulting secondary explosions tore the light cruiser apart. There was no time to abandon the ship. As soon as they were in range Reynolds ordered tactical to target the nearest hostile and open fire. The Enterprise fired a volley of torpedoes from her forward launchers the blue streaks sailed across space, a few of the torpedoes were stopped, by their shields but the remaining torpedoes struck the ship amidships.

Spoiler: Spoiler

The Charleston class is a light cruiser and carrier employed by the Earth fleet. Class II Maneuverability, top speed: .87C Armament: 4 Particle Cannon Banks, 15 torpedo banks, and 30 fighters. Length: 950

“Direct hit, captain moderate damage to their hull and their shields are down sir,” stated the chief tactical officer.

“Helm put us in a defensive position above the Baltimore. Tactical target their reactor” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir” replied the helm officer.

“Reactor targeted,” reported tactical.

“Beams fire,” ordered Reynolds.

An instant later a light blue particle beam shot forth from the dorsal beam array and penetrated through the target ship's hull and main reactor. A second later the hostile cruiser was torn apart by an antimatter explosion. A few seconds later the ship sailed into a defensive position above the Baltimore.

“We are in position, sir,” said the helm officer.

“Tactical fire at will, operations order our escorts to strike at their flanks,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir,” replied tactical, and operations.

Seconds later the Enterprise opened fire with her main batteries on the nearest hostiles and started firing torpedoes on targets of opportunity. A couple more Cathamari cruisers already damaged from previous engagements quickly sank, under the fire. While the Baltimores engineers took the opportunity to try and get their engines back online. Several Cathamari cruisers came about and fired a torpedo volley at the Enterprise, large red bolts could be seen streaking across space towards the Enterprise. Reynolds ordered the web deployed and 3/4 of the torpedos were blocked the rest struck the hull.

“Hull Plating 79% sir,” reported a junior engineer.

“Order the Umikaze to attack the ship bearing 203 mark 4,” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir,” said the operations officer.

“They’re firing aft torpedoes,” reported tactical.

“Deploy Energy Web” ordered Countryman. The web deployed and intercepted most of the torpedoes. Reynolds was surprised that the Web could be deployed as he thought it had a longer recharge. Countryman quickly informed him of the improved recharge of the new generation energy webs on the Enterprise.

“They are coming around for another pass, sir,” reported the chief tactical officer.

“Tactical focus fire on the nearest one” ordered Reynolds.

“Aye sir, focusing fire” acknowledged tactical.

The focused fire quickly tore through the targeted ship’s shields and the cruiser was shredded by the barrage. The rest opened fire. About half of their torpedoes were stopped by the web this time and the rest struck the hull. Another of the enemy cruisers sank as it passed by.

“Hull plating is at 40% sir and that last hit damaged the web projectors” reported engineering.

“How long before the Baltimore’s engines are back online?” asked Reynolds, somewhat concerned.

“Five minutes, sir,” replied operations.

“They are launching aft torpedoes,” reported Tactical.

“Deploy web” ordered Reynolds.

The Web deployed and blocked most of the torpedos despite the damage its projector took. The Cathamari went around for another pass as they were turning two more cruisers were sunk by the Coto when she hit them with a barrage of torpedoes bringing the total to 8. While the Umikaze managed to sink another, with a particle beam through the reactor when its shields failed. The Cruisers launched another volley at the Enterprise. Her damaged projectors were barely able to stop the volley from depleting the hull plating.

“Hull Plating at four percent sir”

“Helm Evasive Pattern Gamma Six. Countryman get down to engineering and see what you can do about the hull plating,” ordered Reynolds, counting on Countrymans knowledge of the ship to get them out of this before it failed.

“Yes, sir. I will head to main engineering immediately,” replied Countryman.

Countryman quickly vaulted up the stairs and headed through the main door. He was only halfway down the corridor when the ship shook and he heard an explosion. He accessed the wall panel next to the lift and quickly brought up the status display. It showed a diagram of the ship. One section was highlighted red at the top center of the ship. A line next to it read “main bridge: destroyed.” Several other sections were highlighted orange.

Countryman then entered the lift and ran into Richard Greyman, whom he dragged with him to engineering. As he entered he saw several engineers rushing about in a hurry. He ordered them to transfer control to the Auxiliary Bridge. He then accessed an engineering console it took him a couple minutes but he managed to restore the hull plating to 20% and increase its resistance slightly. He gave a couple more orders to the engineers in the room and asked where the chief engineer was. They told him she was in Warp Engineering.

Then he accessed the external sensors. They showed the surviving Cathamari cruisers in full retreat but he could also see that the strange plasma storms now completely engulfed the Earth. Countryman knew at that moment that the Earth was dying and it filled him with a mix of sorrow and anger. Moments later he and Greyman left Main Engineering and headed to the Auxiliary Bridge on deck 4. Once there he assumed command of the Enterprise. From all around the battlefield they were receiving distress calls from the damaged ships that had survived the battle.

As Countryman went about directing repairs he ordered the fighters dispatched to search for survivors and sent the Umikaze and the Coto to aid the damaged ships they found. He then invited Captain Mary Williams aboard (She was an older woman of around 50 with blonde hair and blue eyes.) and began to discuss with her the salvaging of her ship. Both of them agreed that her ship was too badly damaged to repair. After some debate, they decided to transfer the Baltimores bridge module to the Enterprise to replace the Enterprise’s destroyed bridge. Since both ships had identical bridge modules it would be a simple job. The consoles would have to be reconfigured but that would be easy. After that, the conversation shifted to the future of humanity. After hours of debate, they decided they would have to leave the Sol system, but first they would have to prepare for the trip as best they could and rescue as many survivors as they could.