Desperation

[Error]

Meinholl stared in disbelief at his tactical officer.

"A mining ship." he said flatly. The other man nodded.

"A mining ship... ignore it. Load tubes one through twenty with ship to ship tac nukes, and bring the point defense grid online. Maser, relay to all CSN ships: Load all tubes with nukes, standby to fire on our target. End message." Meinholl stared at the tiny blip of the mining vessel, blazing away and doing precisely squat to his vessel. He shook his head in disbelief.

He turned at the shout from his tactical officer. The man stared at his board, gesturing helplessly to the DRADIS.

Meinholl turned, and saw; the little Prowler, the Night Hawk, decloaked in front of the enemy fleet. An alarm rang as its missiles launched, racing in towards the enemy ships.

The admiral clenched his fists as the DRADIS swept again, now displaying several contacts in the place of the Prowler. Staring across the room, visual feeds showed the dots of missiles closing. He looked on as the thermonuclear weapons, fifty megatkns each, detonated in a series of brilliant flashes, eclipsing the lead enemy vessel. The light faded, and he turned back to DRADIS, watching... only for the enemy ships to keep coming.

He muttered a heartfelt curse.

[Professor Fenway]

Hgalvan looked in silence at the bridge, and by extension, the fleet surrounding it. He looked away, and the silver sphere caught his eye. It was pulsing with a dim light. he approached it and picked it up. It was humming slightly. He walked closer to the bridge controls, and it pulsed slightly faster. He was closer to the warp-gate.

"Sir," one of the officers behind him said. "I'm detecting long-range Subspace signatures in the 776-HG Frequency range."

"What? Those are NeoRoman transmissions!" Hgalvan jumped slightly. "Can we read them?"

"No. Too much interference." Hgalvan paused. The Milky Way was dead for certain, and if the Novans were going there...

"Signal the fleet to follow us and prepare to bridge a jump. Target the warp-gate."

"Sir?"

"Target the warp-gate. Take it with us. We're going to the core."

The battleship began moving, faster than usual, and headed directly towards the warpgate, with the rest of the fleet behind it. After a few seconds, arcs of lightning flew out from the FTL drive and connected to the fleet, but no Novan ships. And one sped in the opposite direction, and connected with the Warp-gate. The gate began shimmering and distorting as the matrix destabilized with the influx of energy.

30 seconds to jump.

[Error]

Unfortunately for all involved, the two systems were never compatible.

The massive jump systems within the gate were hit with energy from the jump bridge, sparking off several explosions in the circuitry. These spread, blowing support structures apart and tearing holes in the hull. With a final bang, the gate blew itself apart, debris sailing in all directions.

Meinholl swore at the top of his lungs as the ship lurched under him. Grabbing the console, he turned to tactical, who was already speaking.

"Admiral, the NeoRoman tried to jump out, and take the gate with him. I think. The two systems reacted... badly. JumpGate destroyed, sir." The man said, visibly unnerved. Meinholl swore again.

"Guns, target the NeoRoman. All aft batteries, standby to fire. Forward guns on the ringworld vessels. Signal to fleet: fire all tubes, guns to free fire. Repeat, weapons free."

The massive aft batteries of the battlecarrier came to life, locking onto the Restitution, slinging their AP payloads towards the battleship. At the same time, the fleet unloaded their missile tubes, hundreds of nukes blazing towards the ringworld fleet.

Several frigates broke off from formation, coming up behind the NR battleship and firing into its aft shields, and a cruiser unloaded her aft torpedo tubes towards the same.

OOC, Prometheus is capable (mostly) of jump bridging, though it's more "expand the field to cover the entire fleet".

[Professor Fenway]

Hgalvan was flung to the floor as the jump gate detonated, and he barely held on to the rapidly pulsing silver orb in his right hand. The ship rocked again, and sparks flew out of the command console as the entire system fried. "Sir!" cried the officer behind him, desperately pushing buttons and attempting to right the ship. "FTL activity is off the charts! The system is destabilizing!" The ship rocked again. "We're being fired on!"

Outside the ship, the FTL drive was arcing power everywhere, covering the entire ship in a sort of web of electricity as it destabilized. Hgalvan swore and picked himself up. He looked at the orb, and then at the jumpgate, and then back at the orb. "Channel the FTL energy as best as you can! Do NOT decrease the power! Increase it to maximum power!"

"Our ship is NOT going to survive that overload!" The officer shielded his eyes as a console exploded, and then looked back at Hgalvan.

"Do it!" Hgalvan then raced out of the bridge, orb in hand, dodging fire and debris as the ship began falling apart, heading towards the experimental FTL core.

[Error]

Valkyrius glared at the icon representing the Restitution.

"Comms, run ECCM to full power. Past it. Guns, focus all your fire on the bridge of that ship." he ordered. Acknowledgements rang out, and Repulse swung around, bearing across the NeoRoman's bow. The guns picked up, slamming shells into the forward shields. Valkyrius frowned for a moment.

"Guns, load splintering shells. And relay to the Artemis to stick to Resitution's tail, their main guns can't hit directly aft. Blow that FTL system if possible.

The guns paused, then resumed firing; this time, after leaving the barrel, the shells fragmented into dozens of machined shards, hitting the battleship's shields with a cloud of HV debris.

[Professor Fenway]

Hgalvan dodged a collapsing beam, which was on fire, and kept going, barely noticing the now-severe burns coursing down his face. He reached the engine room and was thrown forward into it, as a torpedo breached the shields and smashed through the hallway. The door slammed down behind him, keeping the airlock, and Hgalvan pushed up and limped forward. The core was ahead of him, and it was bright. Power continuously arced out of it and connected with the ship around it. The entire room around it was molten, except for a small walkway that went up right to it, but this glowed red-hot. Hgalvan limped onto the walkway.

The core was composed of a cylinder with a Yttrium core, accessed by a very simple mechanical door. It was designed this way for emergency access. All the other locks had melted off; and it was hanging slightly open. Light poured out of this. Hgalvan limped forward and grasped the door. He screamed as his hand burst into flame. He threw the door open, and with his other hand, slammed the sphere into the core as his face was melted off by the sheer radiation. Behind him, the room was torn apart by weapons fire.

The ship detonated violently as the sphere was thrust in; a massive sphere of energy rose from it directly and expanded at an extremely accelerated pace, and it held the consistency of the warp-gate's field. The Novan ships attempted to evade this sphere, as did every other, but to no avail. It expanded too quickly. Subspace signatures were massive.

As the first ship was drawn in, there was a flash of light as the ship entered Subspace. The field kept growing.

At the heart, the sphere, still somehow within the core, was hovering and pulsing extremely rapidly.

[Error]

Meinholl was tossed violently to the floor as his ship was hit by the wave. Prometheus' shields were blown to half-power by the blast, shorting out circuits everywhere.

Valkyrius was picked up and thrown into a wall, hard, as his own vessel was hit. Not quite as lucky, Repulse lost shields and slammed sideways, meeting a chunk of the JumpGate coming the other way. The port-forward engine was torn off its gimbal, and the wepons system shorted out, reducing the ship's firepower to near nil.

The fleet was in various staes of damage and disarray, being pulled into the subspace field. Aboard the flagship, a tactical officer relayed orders to all Novan ships; jump. They did so, the preplanned escape point waiting in their navicomps as space lit up with aseries of flashes, distortions, and deonations.

All in all, 3 ships were lost due to drive failure, 2 due to the subspace field, and 1 due to nukes detonating in their tubes. Unfortunately, the Novans wouldn't have much time to regroup before the enemy came at them again.

[Professor Fenway]

In an extremely distant galaxy, a large collection of ships was slowly approaching a point in space, where a massive series of rings was slowly spinning. The white and red colors of the hulls glimmered off the reflection of the nearby stars.

Without warning, a large sphere of energy appeared nearly directly in front of them and began expanding. The fleet stopped as it grew, and then it stabilized and grew no more. There was a flash of light, and three ships were disgorged from the sphere, clearly functional, but shocked.

Aboard the largest ship, a dreadnought, the man sighed and pressed a button. "This is Hierarch Taylor of the NeoRoman Revenge Fleet. Who are you?"

[Error]

OOC: Those 3 supposed to be Novan?

[Professor Fenway]

2 are Novan military. (They're the ones that fell into the field.) The other is a Novan civilian ship.

[Error]

A slightly rattled Commander Arneil pulled himself upright, flipping the switch on his command console. "This is Commander Arneil, of the CSV Artemis. The other vessels present are" - he checked his DRADIS monitor - "CSV Meander and the CS Geminio. We are, ah, formerly of the Novan Andromeda fleet. Apparently, no longer."

The other Commander chimed in - "NeoRoman, be aware. The ringworld ships we faced are fond of manipulation. They managed to convince your Admiral Hgalvan, of the Restitution, that the Novan fleet was intending to leave them to die."

At this point, the two frigates formed up around the civilian, who was apparently still gathering his wits.

Commander Arneil queried - "Where, exactly, are we, Hierarch Taylor?"

[Professor Fenway]

Taylor was slightly surprised. "We'll explain things later. For now you are ordered to stand down and stand aside." Taylor shut the channel off and turned around. "Signal the main platoon to follow me into the subspace portal."

"Yes sir!" an officer replied. The Dreadnought turned and plunged into the portal, along with a sizable number of the fleet behind him.


On the other side, the dreadnought emerged and the fleet formed up in front of the portal. Debris was everywhere; the destroyed hulks of ships were floating around. There were also disabled ships. In the distance was the wall of Ringworld ships, stunned by the subspace signature but recovering and approaching fast. The NeoRoman fleet formed a blockade and fired into them, incinerating their ships as they continued coming, and pushed them back. Taylor opened a broadcast channel.

"This is Hierarch Taylor of the N.R.S Homeworld. All ships that can hear this message are hereby ordered to jump to our location and travel through the subspace portal. All ships that disobey will be left behind. We will hold the area secure for as long as possible."

[Error]

The Novan fleet, recovering in the nearby Omega Serpentis system, cauht the broadcast. Meinholl, looking up from a burned-out console, raised an eyebrow. "Put me on comms."

Stepping up to the main board, he raised the handset. "Hierarch Taylor, this is Admiral Meinholl of the CSV Prometheus. There's little point in holding there; we're departing shortly. Oh, and if they're still around, thank the crew of the Restitution for blowing up our bloody jumpgate. We lost 2 ships to that." he said flatly.

- - -
Aboard Repulse, Valkyrius listened in, slightly nonplussed. Fipping several switches, he linked to the comms channel.

"Hierarch, so you're aware, Acting Admiral Hgalvan was decieved by a Ringworldian transmission, mimicing Admiral Meinholl. It said...ah... quote, you brough the ringworld ships here, you deserve to die here, unquote. Be aware of similar deceptions. And send Hgalvan my thanks for breaking my starship, too." Valkyrius stated, slightly more heated than his superior. Both ships cut comms.

- - -
Commander Arneil was rather concerned. A subspace portal, theoretically leading back to Andromeda, was open to them. They were ready to pass through, but weren't sure what to expect on the far side.

"Frak it. Commander, Geminio, follow us through the portal. With luck, we can get to the relay in Omega Serpentis."

[Professor Fenway]

Taylor cursed something under his breath and reopened the broadcast channel. "Admiral Meinholl,I have come through a portal with a fleet of 60 ships and 3 dreadnought class vessels and I am offering you a sanctuary from the Irikan fleet. Don't be stupid and refuse this offer." He paused for a second. "Your ships have survived and are on the other side of the subspace portal. Countless other ships lie beyond this portal. We know nothing of the Restitution, but it seems that we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for their sacrifice!"

[Error]

Meinholl shot back, "And hundreds more would be here if it weren't for them blasting the gate. Thank you, Hierarch, but we are leaving to go elsewhere. Should you wish to fight these vessels, go ahead. All CSN vessels, report to positions and stand by."

As he finished, the three Novan ships passed throuh the portal. As Arneil feared, not everyone made it; the civilian ship collided with a cruiser hulk, destroying the bridge. The commander ground his teeth.

Remembering the fleet's backup plan, he turned to his helmsman. "Jump us to the relay. Tell Meander to do the same."

The two frigates jumped, flashes lighting the sky briefly.

Meinholl noted the surviving ships moving into position. He grunted his approval, adjusting some settings on the helm. Picking up the comms handset again, he spoke to the NeoRomans: "Hierarch Taylor. Before we go, you should be aware... there are the following losses attributed to the Restitution's attempted escape. Six hundred fifty one crewmen. One cruiser. Two frigates. One destroyer. Trust me when I say we do not forget."

The ships moved into formation, and Prometheus' jump drives wamed.

OOC: Prometheus has two things here. Jump field extenders, allowing for a limited "group jump", and the "relay" an experimental jump range extender. If it works, they're all ~3 jumps from Novus.