Post 10
“Attention Unaligned Engineering groups, all are to move to assist with the efforts of repair on the shield generators, additionally groups four and five are to move from the engines and weapons to assist with the shield, Master out.”
With the orders aligned, he sat back to his command throne, and begin overlooking the sad, sad shape of the ship. Hull plates were still scorched, among other horrific tragedies. It would be tens of day cycles before his ship would be as perfect as the empire demands, for now, it will do. He glanced down to his second in command, while he himself was a Master, his submissives were hierophants, the bridge staff and coordinating members of the ship. They moved jarringly throughout the bridge, as they were relatively wet-eared, just starting their tenure in the navy. Soon they will either step up or be pushed away from the glorious light of war, as it should be.
“Navigator, report on the status of the Warp Drive.”
“It is spooling now Ship Master, error levels are low but I stand vigilant.”
He turned to look at the Navigator, a Irrega’Gald with dark purple chitin, it’s mantis-like appendages tapping on the holographic console with precision and speed, a competent one. He always knew that the Irrega’s were among the few races that could be trusted to keep their place, unlike the damned En-Sen-Pair as evidenced by the fact that the fleet his ship makes up is heading to one of the few worlds they still had. He brooded just a small bit of why they had to fight so much against the Empress, why they fought so viciously against the rightful order of life, and wondered by they fell to their insanity so easily. He knew it was useless to think like an unenlightened since an unenlightened was the very mad ones that would annihilate themselves if left alone for even a second.
“Submissive Bannadhil.”
He snapped out of his idle state, turning to the commander of the squadron, standing up from his throne at attention.
“Yes, Grand Master?”
“Your ship has a special second objective, assigned directly from the Fleet Lord.”
“I am honored.”
“Let me finish speaking. As I give these orders, a shuttle is ferrying a
VIP over to your ship. Do not under any circumstances let this one get taken by the rebels, if your ship goes down, they are to be put down. However, under any other circumstance, they are to be kept alive, this is the Empress’s mandate, do you understand?”
“Yes, Commander, her will is mine to follow..”
“Good, I will let my Hierophants handle the logistical problems.”
The Holofeed cuts and the commander began to wonder just what he did to deserve this.
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To describe the almost blistering, seething and hot rage that the Ship Master felt by the nerve of this En-Sen-Pair would be improbable, perhaps leaning on impossible. It took every chance it could to insult the ship, insult the men, insult the empress herself, and had he not been bidden otherwise, they would’ve left to take a long walk out a short airlock from the moment it first spoke. But alas, the EMpress and her mandates must be broken. He wasn’t stupid enough to get him killed over a backtalking dead man walking. After the short, little escort to his cell in the brig, he was back to his throne, and the battle was to begin shortly. His blood lust was nothing less than what could be expected after having dealt with the single most annoying pest he had ever seen for what seemed like days of utter torment, he was ready to let steam by the true combat.
“Warp Anchor activating in three. Two… one.”
The real problem of Warp drives was the fact that stopping in one piece cost ten times as much energy as going fast, hence the requirement for the massive antimatter “charges” required to take the stars.
The Master of the Ship was only slightly taken back at a number of enemy contacts before the fleet. There must have been two hundred ships on approach in all, fifty more than expected. He already knew that this was going to be less mashing pests with a hammer and more trickery of the primitives. He already ordered the primary shields up when the first nuclear device detonated, much to no one's surprise. The first time they had used these “Nuclear” landmines, they had taken down tens of good, hardworking vessels of the Unitarian Fleet with nothing but cowardly, cunning tactics. Inwardly, he noted that such cleverness would be applauded in the Empire by the Empress herself, but to see such low handed tactics used on them? It burned the blood out of him, and just as the ships entered missile range, his vessel began churning out missile after missile. It’s built in fabricators creating energy based projectiles and shunting them out into space just ripe for the enemy. So far, not a single bolt, missile or anything had even touched the shields of his ship, but others were not so lucky, already several ships had reported minor breaches.
The battle was an interesting one, for sure. He wondered just how he should handle it when his superior requested more close firing support by the missile cruisers, and he was in perfect position to give it, but it would put his rapshod ship in danger. Of course, he could try a mix between the two actions, moving to attack but some keeping distance so as to not draw fire.
Simple choices for such a grand ship, what should I do?