Chronicles of Sol: The Fall-Chapter 246 - Two Hundred and Five Vulcan Test Trial

Several figures gathered in the hangar, one of which drew near Countryman. A woman who looked far younger than she really was. Afterall, Eriko Dykes recently celebrated her 59th birthday, of course he wasn't a spring chicken either being just a few months short of his 199th birthday, next year would be the big two hundred. Something Countryman was looking forward to. Countryman smiled, well you look good in that uniform again.

She chuckled, "Well I couldn't turn down a chance to get out there and do something. I mean, I love my kids but they drive me crazy sometimes."

Countryman chuckled, "Well I get what you mean."

"I've heard you've got one of your own."

"So I do, little Rika will be four in august. I do enjoy my moments with her, but I don't know what we would do without Rose. I'm sure you've met her mother?"

"Aside from those council meetings I used to sit in on? Not really, I haven't really spoken with her."

"Let's just say, Ruri is hopeless, and leave it at that. "

"Right, now about this ship you asked me to captain? I understand this is a trial of a new configuration. Anything special I need to know about?"

"Not really, the design team did a lot of work on the interior getting her ready to operate as a patrol corvette and not a simple dropship. Armor and internal protections were left the same, we've also maintained the standard armaments and defenses. The design team did make a few changes to the power plant, but by far the largest change was the inclusion of four dorsal mounted pulsar torpedo turrets, each featuring dual heavy pulsar turrets."

"I've heard about the pulsar torpedoes but I'm not all that familiar with them."

"Pulsar torpedoes are, despite the name, not conventional torpedoes. Instead of a conventional projectile containing a warhead and guidance mechanism, we are dealing with a condensed ionic plasma charge. These highly compressed charges are semi-guided and have an effect quite similar to an electro-cannon discharge. The Pulsar projectors on your ship can fire up to three charges every six seconds."

"Not all that different from modern torpedo launchers. Range? Accuracy? What kind of damage will I see with a hit?"

"Pulsars don't do much to hull and armor, but they wreak havoc with systems and shields. In theory, you'd use them to knock out a target's defenses, and leave them vulnerable to your particle cannons. As for range and accuracy? Well that's what you are here to determine, we've got an educated guess though. They should be pretty accurate, even against actively evasive targets and should be effective at about half a hyperlight second."

"Right, basically what the electro cannon was supposed to do for the Enterprise. Only the damn thing's poor range makes it unreliable as an option. I hope the Pulsars have a better energy draw too, since the electro cannons are notorious for eating energy like nothing else."

Countryman shifted as he led her toward the ship, "Well I can't say they are useless, but they are a rather niche option alright. Yet I've made good use of them on occasion."

Dykes nodded, "So you have, but I hope you don't mind me reserving judgment on them. I've never actually had the option of an electro-cannon. I'm much more interested in getting to play with modern photons, best I ever got to play with were old-style fusion warheads."

"I'm quite aware, your work with the Velos was rather inspiring. We could have used more people like you during the war. Maybe we'd still have a homeworld."

She chuckled, "Perhaps, but I think we could have used a bit more time actually. I've seen the production reports, hell I had my transfer orders. They were going to give me command of an X-1212 destroyer fresh off the line, I was to take command on June 3rd. If the battle happened in June rather than late May, we might have won, and that would have given us a reprieve to rebuild the fleet, reclaim Mars and then push out to Alpha Centauri."

"The plan was to push out to Alpha Centauri right away, but you might be right about that. Unfortunately it's hard to say what would have happened, and we do have more immediate concerns."

"I've been keeping up to date, might not be on the council but I do have ears."

"Right, well, I wish you luck."

She smiled, then headed aboard.

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Dykes stepped onto the bridge of the refitted Vulcan dropship, her ship now. Being a dropship it didn't really have a name, something she wanted to fix right away. Being a small ship it didn't have a large crew, which was perfectly fine with her. On the Velos she'd only had a crew of fifty, and here she had an even smaller one.

It even showed on the bridge, where she had a helmsman, two weapon officers, an engineer, and an operations officer. Including herself that was a third of the crew, the rest of the crew were her other shifts, and engineering staff. During a crisis off-shift personnel were also supposed to serve as damage control and security personnel.

Her bridge was pretty simply laid out, wide view screens provided vision in any direction she looked. The captain's chair was settled on a raised dais at the rear of the bridge, with the usual set of consoles for her use. The helm was at the fore of the bridge centered in front of the forward viewscreen. The weapon stations were mounted port and starboard on either side of the helm. The operations station on the port side toward the rear, and the bridge engineering station was on the starboard side. Unlike on bigger ships, she didn't have a dedicated XO, her first officer was going to have to pull double duty.

Dykes had reviewed their names, but she'd have to get to know these people during the mission. The files only said so much. She turned to her new XO and Operations officer, Commander Bell. "Mr. Bell, are we ready to depart?"

"Yes, Ma'am all systems are good, we just finished taking on the last of our supplies and the crew are all accounted for. Flight control gave us clearance to leave when ready"

"Excellent," she replied before turning to the Ensign at the helm, "Ensign Cortez, prepare to take us out."

"Aye, Ma'am" replied the young lady as her hands flew over the controls, "Bringing AIF grid online, main reactor online, engines are warming, linking with hangar bay catapult... Ready to take her out Ma'am."

"Take us out," she ordered.

The ship roared to life under Cortez's hands and rocketed out of the open bay. Slipping past the active bay shield and into the storm. It was time to get this trial underway, the first part was just a basic shakedown and patrol cruise. They'd test fire the weapons on some asteroids in a few days. In the meantime, they'd be more or less escorting the Enterprise as she headed for a nearby debris field. Long range scans showed it had the minerals they were looking for, the question was quantity.

She'd been informed this final field was going to be the last stop, regardless of the quantity, before they made their way back. To her that just meant plenty of time to get to know her ship.

"How's the plating holding?"

A lieutenant standing at the Engineering console looked up from his display, "AIF is holding, readings are looking good, power flow stable."

"Wonderful," she shifted to Cortez. "Bring us into formation with the Enterprise. Commander Bell, I want full active scans, continuous search."

February 25th, 008 SDE:

Dykes watched her screens, her little ship was ranging ahead of the Enterprise, they'd picked up an energy signature entering the target gravity well just a few minutes ago. The same well they were entering now, the Enterprise had slowed to give her time to investigate.

She had a feeling it might be a cooperative vessel, they'd already encountered a Bresh'i vessel, several actually, which had given them a chance to notice they all had similar energy signatures suggesting they were all of common origin.

A shadow in the swirling gasses of the storm was suddenly illuminated by an energy discharge, giving her her first glimpse of the alien vessel, her hull a metallic green with red trim, her lines rugged yet aggressive. Several large spinal-mounted guns could be seen jutting from the hull, while an energy shield flickered around the hull protecting it from the ravages of the storm. Alien lettering could be seen emblazoned in gold along the hull of the ship. She was close, far too close for her liking. The alien gunports glowed, and her eyes widened, "BRACE!"

The ship rocked.

"Hull plating is holding, minimal damage." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Lock pulsars and fire!"

Dykes didn't know why this group chose to fire first without so much as a single hail, but she'd find out later. In the meantime, she'd finally get to see how effective Pulsar torpedoes were.

The turrets deployed and her chief weapon's officer opened fire. White-blue energy bolts shot from the hull in rapid succession. Alien shields flared, then collapsed as the energy bolts slammed into the hull.

"Well the pulsars work, hostile has lost shields and I'm reading numerous system disruptions. Shall I hit them again?"

She leaned forward, a predatory grin on her face, "By all means, then alert the Enterprise that we will need a boarding party."

Bell commented, "Might be nice if we kept some marines onboard in the future."

"Yes, but the only way we'd get them onto another ship is to dock with it, we don't have any shuttlebays."

"Right Ma'am that might be an issue. I'm sure the council will think of something though."

She just shook her head and focused on the ship, her hull notably darker now, armored viewports having gone dark. The second barrage had assured them they were disabled. Now she had a few questions, who were these people, and why did they attack? Dykes had been briefed on the agreements between the cooperative and the hive, one the hive had offered to extend to them. Were they perhaps from some other group? Or was there some kind of falling out?

Whatever the answer, the only way to find out would be to board the alien vessel. Her questions would never be answered sitting over here, so she was stuck waiting for the Enterprise to send that boarding party.