Dear Jane - The chaos started with a railgun
22 Jan 2021Dwengo
It all started with a railgun dart. It streaked through space at thirteen percent the speed of light and struck the starboard side of the corvette The Emperor's Pearl. ...No wait, let me start from the beginning
I should have spotted it! We jumped into the upper atmosphere of a gas giant to mask the gamma ray burst signature of our ships. The toxic cocktail of clouds looked so close you could just reach out and grab them. The moment we came out of hyper space their was turbulence and noise as my ship roiled from the dense upper atmosphere of the giant. One ship, the Honour and Glory in War and Victory miscalculated their relative velocity and just kind of... disappeared into the maelstrom of clouds. ...I couldn't see it of course. My heads up display was projecting a synthetic image of The War and Victory as it went deeper into the Giant. The transponder stopped responding to requests not more then 5 seconds after disappearing into the atmosphere.
The hull creaked and moaned as the upper atmosphere screamed past at high speed. The ship rocked and jutted about through high and low pressure pockets of atmosphere. my passive sensors were completely blind, as were the rest of my task force, two military grade corvettes and four escorting vultures. as we fought with the flight sticks to pull out of the volatile atmosphere of the gas giant. our sensors began coming back online one by one.
At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing, a capitol ship escorted by six corvettes were sat in space above us. Their hard points already exposed to the hard vacuum. They began to bring their weapons to bear on us. My immediate thoughts were that it was a trap. That one of my assets was a double agent. Worse, they had infiltrated the Imperial Intelligence Institute. But I had no time for any more thoughts then that.
It all started with a railgun dart, it streaked through space at thirteen percent the speed of light and struck the starboard side of the corvette in my task force. The Emperor's Pearl. It sliced through her shields, slammed into her reactive armour turning into super heated plasma due to the volatile kinetic energy. It careened on through her protective outer hull and into the pressurised hull that shielded her precious life forms.
The super heated plasma carried on through the ship, ripping through the crew quarters, canteen, sickbay and gym. Licking at the sensor processor as it passed onto the other side, ripping through the pressurised hull and expending the remainder of its energy leaving a glowing red angry scar on the inside of the outer hull as it tried to exit the ship.
Conduits blew and arced in the hot air, fires flared from starboard to portside, emergency clotting sprinklers fired on at the first sign of a drop in air pressure. The globules of composite material pulled towards the hull breach. immediately hardening on contact with its counterpart material on the inner hull.
Warnings began showing up on the deck of my own ship. "Active sensor scan, now!" I shouted at the crew. We needed to find out just what we were up against, our sensors were fuzzy from the un orthodox jump into the gas giant. "Sir, The Pearl took a direct hit from a rail gun". I clenched my jaw. To say we were in a tight spot would be an understatement. "In bound missiles sir, heat seeking". The mechanical sound of the point defence systems was replaced by the "BRRRRRR" of their chain gun as they tracked and destroyed as many missiles as they could.
"Full power to shields. Give me all callsigns".
"You have comms sir"
"All signs, head back into the giant". The crew looked around at me in bewilderment, but to go up against a battallion of startships was foolhardy, and I didn't fancy dyeing today.
"drop a heat sink and bring us about ninety degrees, lets try and get low into the giant"
"aye sir" said the pilot as the ship reeled from a missile impact.
"Shields holding sir, seventy five percent".
"Sir, The pearl is gone"
I looked at the signals officer, as if to say are you sure. But I could see on the synthetic image that all that was left were exotic particles.
Her shields and sensors down, she was easy pickings for the enemy, unable to target missiles, they slammed into the hull and detonated their payload, exposing the pressurised hull, giving the follow up volley of plasma bolts a perfect opening to tear apart the ship. one bolt of super heated plasma directly hit the power plant. The pearl briefly became a star as her reactors blew.
"Get us out of here NOW"! I shouted at the pilots. "On it sir".
We had done an about turn and we were now facing the gas giant, the point defence systems still relentlessly "BRRRRRRing" as they struggled to keep enemy missiles at bay.
"Sir, the capital ship has turned her rail gun on us."
"Reduce shields on the bow. Overpower shields on stern".
By reducing shields at the front, it gave us additional power to use on the rear of the ship.
Just as the ships massive engines rumbled to move the mass of the ship. a dart from the railgun of the capitol ship slammed into the rear engine array at a small percentage of the speed of light. Where it hit, there was no appreciable armour plating... It ripped through the shields like paper, obliterated the central aft engines and carried on into the ships interior. It turned the Frameshift drive into exotic matter, glanced the cargo bay, instantly incinerating everything inside and sliced through the crew quarters, kitchen, , fighter hanger and obliterated the life support systems. Only stopping as it slammed into the reinforced bulkhead of the bridge buckling it inwards, compromising the pressurised hull integrity. Save for the bridge, the imperial cutter was sliced in two.
The extreme GeForce exerted by the impact of the dart had caused me to pass out. When I came to, I was in a state of confusion, I was still in my chair but I was facing the ceiling. My chair had been ripped from its titanium struts. The bridge was eerily quiet. All displays were offline. Strobe lights flared along the gangway to escape pods. The signals officers chair had ripped off its struts and slammed into the second officers chair behind fatally wounding him. An automated PA announcement came online. "All hands abandon ship. BEEP BEEP All hands abandon ship. BEEP BEEP". My Remlock mask came online. There must have been a hull breach on the bridge. Gravity flickered offline and the chair I was in began to lift gently off the floor. I needed to get off the dyeing ship, it was on a trajectory heading into the gas giant. I had... Maybe ten minutes before my fate was sealed.
My head ached from the rattling it took during the railgun impact. Glancing around the bridge. no one was moving. Aside from the drone of the PA, everything was silent. I flicked the emergency seat release and the gel like suspensor fluid receded back into the chair. Every part of my body ached from the impossible forces that had exerted itself upon me. I gingerly stood up, acutely aware that any sort of impact on the ship would be fatal to me with gravity offline. I gingerly shuffled to the array of escape pods. None had been used. The ship would be lost with all hands it would seem.
Using the hand rails I pulled my self into the escape pod and pressed the eject button. It slammed the door behind me shut and then filled entirely with gel before ejecting me at hyper sonic speed away from the ailing ship.
...The complete blackness of space, the silence of the vacuum, can all have a sobering effect on even the mightiest of commanders.
Jane, Its hard to think of a time when I stopped to look back at my life, and wonder about the things that I have done, the decisions that I have made. And the lives that I have changed forever. I have maybe, five minutes before life support goes offline.
[TBC}