USD: The Next Day

Location: Nu Crateris, SMS Grazhdanin, Bridge

Lavigne sat quietly on the bridge, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He had no desire to speak or interact with the Corpo personnel on Captain Walker’s bridge. The only time he spoke was to coordinate the multiple repair gangs that had been organized and worked on the ship’s critical systems that needed maintenance.

By necessity, his plan required secrecy. It was highly unlikely that anyone from the crew would purposefully give it away, but that was a risk that his circle had decided was too great to take.

The Corpos had been proactive in selecting the repair gangs as they continued to work; the time spent cruising toward Nucrateri Station giving them time to sort through the roster.

Lavigne wasn’t sure what their criteria was, but he was thankful that they had not removed Petty Officer Morrison’s team. That was an oversight, since the man was likely the exact opposite of who the Corpos wanted to have partially free run of the ship.

Noting a red patrol moving toward Morrison’s team on the monitor, Lavigne pulled up his radio. “Team 4A, there is a red leak on section 54 incoming to your position. Looks like you should expedite and move to section 44-L if you don’t want scorched. You have about 3 minutes.”

“Roger that sir, we’ll whip on out of here now that we’ve fixed things.”

Lavigne nodded to himself and went back to monitoring the other teams. It was uneventful. The ship still groaned and sounded terrible to someone who knew what to listen for, but it wasn’t about to become uninhabitable at least.

Being on the bridge gave him access to all kinds of information that the rest of the crew—the Solarian crew—didn’t have access to. Like the fact that they were in Nu Crateris headed for the system’s main shipping station.

Or that Commodore Brigit was attempting to harass the station into providing needed supplies while threatening to have them all arrested on trumped-up charges.

Lavigne suspected that the fringe elements weren’t the types to go along with things, and he was proven right when they had threatened to destroy their own propellant tanks rather than give them away.

The fleet wasn’t entirely out of fuel. They had tapped some of the massive reserves from the captured Grazhdanin which carried more than enough in its massive bulk to serve the small fleet.

Lavigne suspected they wanted the resources simply for reducing overhead. He recalled something about corporate officers having to pay out of their salary for any excess expendables used while getting to keep part of the value of prize ships or acquired resources.

It was anathema to Lavigne, who had been raised believing that those who were capable should do their best to help everyone prosper, instead of focusing solely on one’s own advancement and profits. Looking over his shoulder, he glanced at the Captain. The Traitor.

Lavigne had to turn back to his console and force down his feelings and mute them. How could the man betray everything Solaria stood for? He had sold out to the Corpos and given them the ship. Had caused them to be ambushed, and the Otvazhny to be destroyed.

He wanted to demand answers. He was in no position to.

As he watched Morrison’s team moving away from the patrol, he told himself that would change.

A chime from another bridge station had the Corpo comm officer alert Captain Walker, “Sir, we just received a transmission from the CSS Denarii, which transited through the jump point from 92 Pegasi. They are broadcasting a fleet-wide distress.”

Lavigne did his best to hide his interest as the Captain had the message played on the main screen. A young Corpo Naval officer appeared who looked little older than Lavigne himself.

“This is Captain Hawkes PF-131 92 Pegasi Detachment. CVA BA-133, CVA BA-156, DD X3-551, FF HG 333, FF HG 334, considered lost. We are the only survivor. Broadcasting combat telemetry data to fleet, now.”

Lavigne’s mind was racing; did the fleet stationed at the naval base in 13 Centauri respond quickly enough to strike the Corpos in the back? Something in him doubted that they would have been able to manage that; but it wasn’t impossible if they had reacted immediately.

Regardless, it meant that they needed to finish their preparations and have the plan ready to spring at a moment’s notice.

The comms officer spoke again. “Captain, the commodore is transmitting to the fleet to prepare for combat.”

“Lieutenant Lavigne, return your repair crews to their berths at once. Tactical sound General Quarters. Put the Commodore’s directives on my console.”

Lavigne confirmed and started pulling back his crews, a sick feeling spreading through him. Were the Corpos going to kill the civilians on the station?

USD: Four hours later

Location: Nu Crateris, IND Iron Horse, CIC

Captain-Major Thraker frowned as he watched the tactical plot. The new Corpo frigate that had arrived had moved to integrate with the other picket ships. Their formation had shifted from bracketing the jump point, which was standard, to a delta wedge shifted in the refugee convoy’s direction.

Still, it was not enough for him to say that anything was afoot.

“Captain.”

Thraker looked at his SigINT officer.

“Yes, lieutenant?”

“Picking up EM signatures at Nucrateri Station. Not sure, but it could be weapons fire.”

Thraker frowned. “Can we verify on optical?”

“Sorry Sir, it’s too far for us to get any high-res imagery. Best we can say is the light sources from their fleet and the station are mixed.”

Across the bridge, a young comm officer put his hand on his earpiece, listening intently to a message. “Captain! SRS Tears of Fire is hailing us. Captain Myers is requesting to talk.”

Captain Thraker nodded and walked over to the comm station. He would have had it played on the main screen, but it had been on the fritz for the last few weeks and needed replaced.

“Put her through.”

A familiar face appeared on the smaller screen, blue hair and eyes framed by her blue and white uniform seated on her captain’s chair. Not for the first time, Thraker felt a small bit of envy at just how clean and polished everything looked in the FedTech vessel’s CIC.

She spoke first, “Captain Thraker, we are getting disturbing sensor data from Nucrateri Station. I.. well I can send over our telemetry. We have visual confirmation of the Corpo fleet opening fire on the station. It doesn’t look good.”

“Thank you, Captain. Give me a moment to look at the data.”

“Of course.”

Thraker’s eyes narrowed and he felt a growing sense of alarm. Nucrateri station wasn’t a large orbital by any standards, but it housed a population of thousands. Even if they had actively resisted occupation, there were laws and stipulations on all parties that prohibited genocide.

Even in a backwater system on the frontier, it was nearly impossible to erase all records and data on such a type of event. All across the system, independent ships would file records of what was broadcast on the system relay along with their own sensor data.

Hiding the action in the long term was nearly impossible. Not that it helped the people there at the moment. And there was only one law that was a defense against the charge of genocide in the IFRB courts.

“Show me the telemetry.”

Before the comm officer could bring the data up, the officer at Tactical jumped out of his seat. “Captain! Corpo picket fleet just lit off their drives. Hard burn on an intercept course!”

“Sound General Quarters.”

|GENERAL QUARTERS|

|THIS IS NOT A DRILL|

|ACTION STATIONS|

The four smaller screens on his console aggravated him, but he knew he had dealt with worse control setups before.

“Comms, Hail the incoming Corporate Ships.”

“Sir, I’ve been trying. They aren’t responding.”

Captain Thraker grunted. Someone had let loose the fox in the chicken coop, hadn’t they?

Their course already had them barreling right into a scrum. The tactical map flickered a moment before snapping back into focus. Reading the course lines and his estimate of the enemy ships’ acceleration, it was already too late for them to avoid an engagement.

At least for the Iron Horse and five civilian ships in the convoy. He suspected the SRS ships still had room to skirt around, although he wasn’t sure just how fast the two freighters could accelerate. If they had been a little faster and made it to the jump point a half day earlier, they would have got out free.

Thraker steadied himself. There was no use crying over spilled nutri-drink.

“Tactical, do we have a full analysis of the Corporate ships?”

“Sir, SigINT makes it to be one cruiser and six fast movers!”

Realizing it would be much better to get confirmation from the Tears, Thraker had his comm officer call Captain Myers back.

“Captain, I trust you’ve seen the movements near the jump point?”

Alex nodded. “I have. Estimating approximately three hours before they are in weapon range.”

“So, you’ve already come to the same conclusion; they have hostile intentions.”

“They didn’t answer my hail and their superior formation just destroyed a civilian station with over twenty thousand people on it. I think they are intent on killing everyone and trying to hide it.”

The vehemence in the young woman’s voice surprised him. But maybe it shouldn’t have. He had seen worse atrocities in the early days of the collapse, but she had likely never seen the like.

He didn’t understand the reason for the Corpo’s actions, but he didn’t need to in order to be sure of their intentions.

“Captain Myers, the civilian ships we are escorting have no place being in combat. I plan to cease de-acceleration to move ahead of them. I understand that your two freighters are armed?”

Alex nodded on the screen. “They have basic PDC-K and PDC-L suites. Also two heavy rails, each. They have missile tubes, but no missiles currently.”

Thraker frowned, “We have not had any missile replenishment, either. I would consider having those freighters avoid combat altogether with over a thousand refugees on board. Are they able to avoid the projected combat zone?”

“They could, but if you are planning for the Tears and Iron Horse to move ahead and engage first, I think we should leave them to protect the other civilian ships. I understand they are completely unarmed.”

Thraker didn’t disagree, and he would have suggested that if she hadn’t. It was good to have confirmation on the freighter’s acceleration curve, though.

“Very well, I think that would be appropriate. I would like to request that we merge tac-nets for the combat. If we can come up with a patch to use your telemetry for targeting solutions, I believe it will improve our chances.”

Thraker glanced at the tactical map again, feeling apprehension. An old worn-down destroyer and an advanced corvette against a heavy cruiser and frigate squadron. It was a crapshoot, unless…

“Do you have more of those smart shells? It would turn this from a hard scrum into something we can manage.”

Alex nodded. “I have some, but not many. I was planning on taking out the cruiser at least with one from outside of standard railgun range.”

Thraker nodded, smart girl. “That would be ideal. I might have been feeling too pessimistic about our chances. What are your thoughts?”

“I think having the Iron Horse in lead at first would be ideal. I’m sure they will pile missiles on us as we close. From the public James’s Starship entries they are carrying a salvo size of about 64 missiles. Worse, if they cold launch they could throw 224 at once.”

Thraker blinked, “You’ve identified their classes?”

Alex nodded, “A BA series heavy cruiser, two X3 class Destroyers, and four HG class frigates. I can read the hull numbers and names if you want.”

Thraker grunted and declined; he wasn’t familiarized with the specific classes, but he had seriously underestimated the FedTech ship’s sensor capabilities. Or their intelligence gathering ability.

“They won’t cold launch.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “How can you be sure?”

“Corpo doctrine prohibits the use of it. If they were Ertan or Imperials, maybe.”

Alex looked away for a moment, then back to Thraker, “My systems are ready for tac-net merge. Just waiting for authorization codes on your end.”

Thraker nodded, “EWAR, get them what they need.”

“Yessir.”

It took several minutes for the negotiation to be finalized. The IHMC ships had their own protocols, and he would have expected it to take much longer if he were working with other mercenaries or a navy.

Thraker frowned as the main screen of the bridge flashed to life. The poor fuzzy picture spun and whirled worse than ever before it flashed several times.

“What’s wrong with that blasted thing?” Thraker said.

The picture finally corrected itself after the torturous spinning, and then settled in a crystal-clear clarity he had not seen for years.

That was promising. Maybe the two ships would be a match for the enemy after all, at the very least the old girl seemed to have some fight in her yet.