Invasion form the outer rim. [LordTex & Frelance]

Space is empty.

There's not a whole lot to look at once you've seen the same set of stars all your life. Sure some of the Nebulas and asteroids are spectacular but running into them is near impossible if you're not moving.

Station X-21, or as everyone stationed on the 22 ships around it called the station, The Purgatory. The station was a prison for the men and woman who were to dangerous to be held on a planet prison. Being a five hour jump from the nearest planet helps to discourage people from trying to escape. The station was nearing an over flow, the recent war was the reason to that.

The war was thirty years ago, and lasted about ten. The Earth government wanted to localize before exploring further out into the reaches of space, while a branch of the mining colonies and several big ship building company wanted to explore now. The war broke out and divided the human race. The spacers colonized outer planets and built an army faster then the Earth government could believe. The combat that followed was bloody and ruthless. Advancements in Weapons, armor and tactics kept the war going until both factions came to a stand still and a truce. Within years the two factions merged back together under one banner, The Earth United Forces.

Now the EUF is focuses on both space exploration and the advancement of the inner colonies. Being in space does strange things to people. Different planets and gravity fields. Small changes started to happen to people over the generations. People on the water planet Gull started to develop a larger lung compasity, gaining the ability to hold there breathe for over a half hour, and started growing webbed fingers and toes. People on the inner colonies started to become smarter. Miners grew a fifth finger, and became the most dexterous people around. Other abnormality are recorded.

But for now, stationed outside The Purgatory is the Cutter, Hermes. Cutters are like a ship attached to a main gun, or multiple main guns. This one was a class 2, the Hermes has two main Accelerator Cannons running down the middle of the ship, half the ship's power is devoted to the reloading of these cannons, shaving the usually 20 second down time into a 10 second event. The ship has minimal point defense and three 50mm cannons on top of the ship. It doesn't have a whole lot of armor plating. The ship is meant to be a support craft.

The Hermes is commanded by Captain Fletcher, a highly skilled individual, and young for the rank. The ship's bridge is large and open. The captain's chair in the middle, Helm's up front, Sensors back left, and our main character mans the Tactical station opposite sensors. This is where Our story begins.

Name: Kane Arnos
Age: 25
Height: 6’3”
Genome Type: Spacer
•Taller than average height due to most of their live spent in zero gravity
•Completely at home in zero gravity
•Do not have to work as hard to keep muscles in zero gravity

Rank: Lieutenant Commander

Description: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs47/i/2009/184/9/3/hot_dog_by_nightwing1975.jpg

Skills:
•Excellent at Zero gravity walks
•Working knowledge of tactical weapons
•Entry level Officer training
•Leader among his peers
•Extensive knowledge of the weapon systems.

History:
Born only five years after the rim wars Kane grew up on a mining platform in the outer colonies. As he grew up he heard the locals speaking of the war, some against the inner colonies and some with. For Kane it didn’t matter much, he was only interested in the mining ships and the tools that they used to harvest the ore from the asteroids.

His lack of opinion on the war was mostly due to having a father who had lived all his life in the outer colonies working on the ships that came to and from the nearby space stations and mining platforms, while his mother had come from the inner colonies and settled on the space station near the asteroid field. So he was taught both sides of the war and told to choose form himself.

After graduating public school his instructors subjected that he should consider a career in the military. So he went to the Officers school on the nearby colony planet and left a few years later in the top ten percentile. He was assigned to the Cutter Hermes where he rose through the ranks to Lieutenant Commander at the tactical station.

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Kane walked onto the bridge to relieve the officer on duty. "Commander you are relived." The man stood up and saluted Kane saluted back but had to look down at the other man. He was not to much taller but it was enough to let anyone know that he was a spacer and most likely from the outer colonies. He took his seat at the Tactical station. He Commander briefed him of a few adjustments that had been made then left leaving Kane to his work.

Kane sat in silence for a few minutes as he rechecked the Commanders adjustments then ran a diagnostic just to make sure he was getting the correct information then updated the log before turning to Captain Fletcher. "Tactical is green across the board sir."

Captain Fletcher nodded, not doubting the commanders abilities, but glad the Lieutenant commander checked. The command deck resumed as normal. The helm's men leaning back in his chair relaxing, occasionally correcting their stationary position for spacial drift. The cadet at sensors watching intently at her screen, hoping to catch something to show her superiors and fast track herself through her slow schooling. Unfortunately for her, she got her chance.

Her console started to beep and she started to flick furiously through sensor pings, getting something on the passive sensors. "Captain... I'm getting something..."

Her supervisor walked over and looked at her screen "Its a Ghost cadet, it will go away in a minute." He continued to watch for a moment. The screen continued to show the dot, then more started to appear. "... Sir, theirs something out there..."

Before the captain could properly react an alarm sounded on the Captain's side console "Go to Red status! Charge the cannons and arm missiles!" He stood and after hitting a button and watching the view screen. Thirty ships were in front of them, assorted types, their was a cruiser, a handful of frigates, a Carrier, and The Progress, the station's guardian ship, a battleship. The rest of the fore cutters were on either side of their ship.

That was normal. What wasn't was fifty ships that were appearing out of an F.T.L. jump the ships rumbled as space was distorted for a moment and then the ships started firing.

Kane turned around after seeing the Capitan acknowledging his report. He focused on his screen for a few more moments just to make sure everything was running properly then alternated glancing at the cadet and his console.

He started to pay even more attention when she started to pick up ghost on her sensors. He had heard the reports of lost ships over the last few days and how they were becoming more frequent.

When the Captain gave the order to go to Red status he was only a split second behind the Captian as he gave the order to charge the Cannons and Arm the missiles. "Cannons and Missiles armed." He did not have time to looked away from his console as he started to get get firing solutions fed to his console from all over the ship. "Multiple firing solutions ready, sir." He glanced at the view screen behind his for a second and saw the ships. He knew they were in trouble when he saw the fleet that had just jumped out of FTL but turned back to his station and kept his cool as he waited for orders.

The captain almost jumped when a ship jumped out almost nose to nose with theirs. "Helms men! Bring the ship to port!" the ship shuddered and a hum could be heard as the engines powered up, likewise for the Accelerator Cannons witch were now at fifty percent charge. The ship listed to port and the enemy ship vanished from the view screen. Its weapons however didn't. The ship shook violently and an explosion could be heard under them. Something thundered like a turbine pulling apart but continuing to try and power something. Electronics flickered and the ship drifted to starboard despite the turn to port.

The captain clung to the side railing, orders came in to retreat to a bombardment position. Kane's console flashed reading that Cannon 1 was destroyed and the third out of fore engine was destroying itself and the second engine. A report came in that it was a Laser weapon that did the damage. Panic in the lower decks took hold as the crew of 50 tried to hold the ship together.

"Move the ship to the formation position!" the ship rotated with the hit and speed at half speed towards the fall back point. "Rotate!" the helm's men obliged making it look easy. The view screen centered on the battle, slowly getting smaller. The larger ships moved to farther positions, being closely followed by enemies outnumbering their own forces. Red lasers flew every witch way. "Target our pursuer and fire!" the ship that was nose to nose to them came upon them and at Kane's command the ship shuttered and the center of the bridge, where the helm's men and the Captain were exploded upwards and sent shrapnel everywhere.

Kane grabbed hold of his console as the ship shuddered and moved to evade the enemies ship that had just jumped in front of them. He read the damage reports quickly then spoke without taking his eyes off his screens. "We lost Cannon one and Engine three is destroyed." He sent the order to shut down engine three so that it would not destroy the ship.

He got a good look at the pursuing ship as the helms men turned them to face the ship. When he got the order to fire he turned back to the controls and targeted the front section of the ship where it rose up with the main gun hoping to cut off the front part of the ship. He then sent a volley of missiles the the sides of the ship just behind that section of the ship.

He was thrown against his console as the floor exploded and shrapnel was threw everywhere. After a few seconds he stood up and grabbed the rail over head to keep himself standing. He because of the adrenaline coursing through his veins he did not notice the gashes along his cheek. The shrapnel had just barely missed taking out his eye.

He realized very fast that the Capitan and the Helms men were not with them anymore. After the initial shock he checked his console then called out. "Report! What is the status on the Enemy ship!" He took a few steps towards the middle of the deck then grabbed what was left of the side rail and pointed to an officer that had not been on duty. "Take over tactical. You," He pointed to another officer that was getting up. "You have the helm now put as much distance between us and that ship!" He reached up and wiped the blood out of his eyes.

The one officer moved to Tactical and begun looking over his reports. The Cadet's supervisor moved to the helm's station, jumping a guard rail and throwing the ship's nose back around to blast the engines in the right direction. The Tactical officer reported. "The Second cannon is gone, the barrel is shot, several missile impacts on the ship, its ignoring us now and moving towards The Progress.... she's not fairing well commander." He paused a moment then continued "Engines two and three are down, were running on half power."

The Cadet spoke up after him "Sir, your now in charge of the last remaining cutter, she's coming up off the port bow. Minimal damage, both cannon's operational."

Kane listened to the reports come in and sighed as he thought about what to do. "Power down the gravity and put all power to the engines and remaining weapons." He turned to the cadet and nodded. "Okay, send the order to be ready to defend The Progress. Target the main weapons of the enemies weapons." He glanced around the bridge to make sure every console was stationed then made his way to the Captains chair as he said. "Helm's men bring us around to face The Progress. Cadet tell the Cutter to target the enemy ships engines with both cannons but sync their missiles with ours." He sat down in the Captains chair and waited until the weapons were ready.

The Cadet got to work, winging the procedure but getting the correct information out to the other ship. The helms men brought the ship to the bombardment position and rotated the ship back to the battle. The Progress was beaten, fires were spewing out of it's main engines, the command deck and medical facility were torn open. It looked like a gutted fish. The rest of the fleet wasn't fairing to well. The comm system came on and a man's voice could be heard. "This is Captain Richard, I'm taking command of the fleet." Captain Richard was the CO of the Battle Cruiser Athens, one of the EUF's more crude, but efficient ships. "I'm ordering the fleet to retreat to the fall back point." the order came out just as the other cutter started to fire it's main cannons and launch its missiles in unison with theirs.

Kane drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair as he listened to Captain Richard's order to retreat. "Com open a line to Captain Richards. Tactical I want a report on the ship. How much damage did we do." He clenched his fist as he looked at the Progress. "Helm Have use ready to retreat but wait for my order." He wanted to save who he could from the Progress. When he had a line to Captain Richards he spoke quickly and to the point. "This is Captain Kane of the Cutter Hermes. I am requesting to stay behind to cripple the ship engaging The Progress. The Progress is within our grasp I just need a few more hits." He did not want to leave the ship but if his request was denied he would jump.

Their was a bit of a pause and then the Captain came back on. "Leave the progress but continue to cover our retreat. Keep yourselves out of direct fire, then jump to the fall back point." The battle cruiser could be seen moving out of the main fray, several protruding sections of the ship started to retract inwards.

The Cadet spoke up. "The cutter is reporting five direct hits, they are barely Peirce their armor." one of the smaller ships in front of then blew a chunk of their missiles out of the air with a sweep of its laser gun, the rest of the warheads impacted on the port side and blew a hole open it.

The Tactical officer spoke up after a high pitch alarm went off "Radiological alarm! They've armed a nuke!" Their ship wouldn't be obliterated by the nuke from any distance they could reach with their engines.

"Yes Sir." He turned to the cadet not happy with the order but he was fighting at least and if he could not save the Progress he could at least try to save the others. He took in the report then issued his orders almost right after. "Tell the Cutter to fire both Cannons at the hole of the port side." He was about to issue orders for the missiles when he heard the warning of nukes. "Helm get us ready to jump and wait for my command."

"Com warn the rest of the fleet." He thought for a second the said. "Fire one more volley of missiles. As soon as they are away I want both us and the other cutter to jump." He turned back to the view screen and tried to spot the Nuke and hoping to god that he would not have to see it up close.

"Spooling up FTL sir." their was a whine from somewhere below decks. "Starting the clock." it was at fifteen seconds. Their were much to many missiles in the air to spot the nuke. The Volley of missiles launched with the other cutter's at ten seconds. The Other cutters cannons fired and struck the ship at five seconds. The nuke went off at three seconds. The ship was jostled to port before the FTL went off and sent them out. Their was a shuttering below decks as the FTL turned off. "Fuck!" the helmsmen slammed his console "Were off course sir." everyone's attention turned to them.

Kane held his breath as he watched the clock with one eye and the view screen with the other. When the nuke went off and the ship was jostled to port he clutched the the side of the chair as he thanked god that he had ordered the gravity to be turned off. But his relief was short lived as the Helm's curse caught his attention. "How far from the fall back point will be when we finish the jump?" If they were to far from the fleet he may not have any chance to get back before the invaders struck again. Not to mention the ship was going to need serious repairs.

The helm's men shook his head "Hold on, let me do some calculations" he went to work on his console.

The cadet was the next to speak. "The other cutter got out before us, it'll be at the fall back point. I counted six other ships with them." she tapped on her controls "....The ship's pretty banged up Theirs a fuel leak in the port tank, were down to Two engines, a lot of the port thrusters are destroyed, the backups are confiscating though. The crew quarters are on the out side of the ship, the nose of the ship has no power. Our water storage tank was left with our ammo bay back at the battle. We have seven volleys of missiles left and we have 23 crew alive, 7 of witch are wounded." her voice slowly started to get smaller as she talked, realizing what type of crisis they were in.

The Tac. officer shut his console down and leaned back in his chair seeming to give up.

The helm's men spoke up after a little bit. "Were Way to far off to even guess where we are. We'll get out of slip space between Planet Cyprus and.... its sun." he sighed.

Kane new they were in bad shape but he was thankful the other cutter had gotten to the fall back point. He pushed the other ship out of his mind and focused on his own ship. He listened to the Cadet as she gave her report. He noted the Tac officer's apparently giving up but didn't mention it. He had more important things to worry about. "Seal off all compartments that are breached. I want that fuel leak stopped."

He stood up and walked around the bridge slowly as he thought. "Ration the water and set up a temporary barracks a Make sure the med bay has power at all times and someone get me a report on Cyprus. I want to know everything about the planet and any stations in the system."

"Tac, run a Systems check on all the remaining weapons. I want them all up and ready at a moments notice." He was going to try and keep everyone busy for as long as possible. It would not be good to let them have to much time to think about the situation. He went back to the captains chair and started to draft a report to send to the nearest military base once they exited the jump.

The Helm's men stood from his console and went to a far wall side panel and started to seal off breached decks. The cadet Took things one at a time. First she sent the order to stop the fuel leak and then started to relay the rest of the information down. Tac. turned his console on and started to work on organizing the Missile loaders on the bow. "Sir, we have 5 crew members in the loading bay that are cut off from the rest of the ship, they still have air and power." Going outside during a jump was like wanting to paint yourself onto the side of a ship without a paint brush.

Kane looked up from his report as he was told about the cut off crew members. "Will their air last until we exit the jump?" He stood up as he asked and walked over to another terminal and brought up the schematics for the ship. He started looked for anyway they could get to the crew members without leaving the ship while he waited for an answer.

The Cadet answered him "Oh yea, they got five hours of air." the cadet paused and then added "Sir." he glanced back to see if he'd noticed and then back to her console. The hour passed quickly and the ship raddled as they slowed from FTL. The view screen flicked on and it showed the planet Cyprus dead ahead.

The helm's men reported "Lucky break. Were about 1 Million KMs from Cyprus, it'll take us twenty minutes to get into high orbit." Cyprus had two high yeild shipyards in orbit around it, and it's large moon, Bastion.

The Tac. officer spoke up "No contacts on DRATUS, sir, their is a fair amount of radiation coming from the two ship yards above the planet."

Kane looked back at the Cadet as she added sir to the end of his statement but he did not bother to mention her slip up. "Tell them to be ready to do a zero G walk as soon as I give the answer." He knew would need every crew member he had and would not risk their lives unless he had to. He walked back to the Captian's chair and sat down again as he finished off his message and read it over as the hour went by.

As they dropped out of FTL he sat up a bit straighter and his eyes locked on the image of Cyprus then the two shipyards before starting to scan the space around it and its moon. He listened to all the reports before making his decision. "Is their any com traffic from the planet to the shipyards or ship to ship communications?" He didn't like the fact that their was a lot of radiation at the shipyards but he had seen shipyards that gave off quite a bit but were still use able. "Helm put up a count down until the next safe jump time." He wanted to know exactly how long he had until he could jump again.

"Tac have the missiles armed and ready to fire on my command." He did not like that their was no contacts at all on Dratus but he needed the resources that the shipyard had to offer. "Will the radiation from the shipyards hide out our signature if we power down to the bare minimum?" If it would it could give him some way to hide until he was ready to fight again, not that he wanted to hide but he knew they would not survive another battle in this state.

Their was a pause and the the Cadet answered his first question. "No, not from what i can tell. Their are some comm comm chatter coming from the planet though. Its to garbled to understand from this distance sir."

The helm's men stood and walked over to a bridge console and punched in a time, it came up as '01,53,42' and counted down the seconds. "Our Nav. computer is suffering from the power loss, it's at half running power." he returned to his seat.

The tac officer was the next to talk. "The radiation is harmless to us, we Could hide behind, or even In the undamaged ship yard." he paused a moment tapping on his console. "...The yard is holding an Attack Carrier." he said surprised "... Its a Mark Five." he said more surprised. The mark fives were Brand new. That in particular ship was the first of it's kind, but it took a lot from its older sisters. "... It was scheduled to launch next week, fully outfitted with a squadron of Thunderbolt multy-purpose fighters, and loaded with ammunition.

"Give me an update as soon as you can understand anything." He needed contact with the planet if he was going to get through this and be able to do anything to help.

He watched the clock then let his eyes go back to the view screen. He needed to hide them and quick. "If you can put as much power into the computer as possible. I want to jump as soon as possible."

He turned to the Tac officer and smirked. Finally something was going his way. "Helm head for the undamaged yard. Lets see what we can find there." He looked back at the Tac officer when he heard him mention a Attack Carrier. "Whats the minimum crew requirement for Class five?" He stood up and walked over to the Tac station and looked over the officers shoulder. "What are the new features on the Class Five?" He had not had the time to read up on the Class fives.

The Tac officer paused as the ship shuddered into motion. The groaning in the engine room came back and then stopped abruptly. " It's about, 60 crew, not including pilots." he paused and started to read off what the computer spat at him" A twin 100mm cannon on top with Three 25mm, 14 interceptor auto-cannons, 22 Point Defense turrets, Two front mounted 150mm Ship gutters, and several side and belly mounted missile bays. The engines are state of the art. Its got electronic warfare software. The best FTL drive around..." the tac officer cleared his throat and leaned over his console, "And i hear it's got Polarized armor plating, and very thick armor at that." Polarized armor was like a magnet, it slowed incoming projectiles to do less damage, it has minimal effect for large ordinance, but the medium and smaller rounds proved to be halved in effectiveness.

The helm's men was nodding his head in approval at the read out. He was clearly impressed, the ship was Double and a half the size of their ship. The shipyards were coming into view, one of them was split in half, remittance of frigate frames, and a large battle cruiser Chassis were scattered around in a field of debris. The other shipyard was a little farther off. It seemed to be damaged, and broken, still shielding it's glorious contents.

Kane smiled as he listened to the read out. Then stood up and walked back to the Captains chair. "Helm get us as close to the Carrier as possible. If we can then dock with the Carrier." He sat down and for the first time noticed the Captain's body lying on the deck. He knelt down beside the body. Spoke a few soft words as he closed the mans eyes then with a sigh he took the Captain insignia and put them on his collar.

He stood up again then turned to the Cadet. "Have you been able to understand any of the transmissions from planet side?" He needed to get in contact with the planet if he was going to get enough people to make even the bare minimum of 60 crew. He turned to scan over the debris field that was left of the ship yards. "Whats the Carrier's name?"

The cadet nodded "Theirs a military base, they say they have many survivors, about twenty pilots. Their held up in a bunker, waiting for a place to fly to." she looked up at him and then at the view screen. The ship came into view, taking up a quarter of the yard. Their was One visible problem with the ship. A belly section of plating on the port side was on a claw on the other side of the yard, and the FTL was resting on a moving platform under the ship.

The pilot nearly shivered "What a Beaut!" he sighed and sat back.

The tac officer chimed in "Agreed. We'll need to get her fixed up though."