[GZG] RE: [GZG Fiction] In Orbit

In Orbit

New Guardian Times, Martian Orbit, December 15th, 2196.

Having left the beaches of San Juan and passed through the VR fighter
base at Harper, I have been granted access to the IJN fleet in orbit of
Mars. An honour I will endeavour to share with you here.

An IJN battleship is a noble thing to behold. To the uninitiated it
lacks any detail you could imagine would denote nobility. Yet there it
is, nobility dripping from the superstructure. 

A Yamato class battleship has no poise or grace. She has no silver lined
or velvet lined regalia. She does not have sleek lines. What she does
have is an enormous and blockish back end, its huge engines bulging to
the sides; tacked on the front is a flattened front end, as if some
morbidly obese titan has used it for a seat. Rising above this a
protruding superstructure. As a whole the Settsu has the lines of a
well-fed arachnid drawing its swollen abdomen along behind. 

There is no suggestion that she knifes through space like the Arashi or
Ronin cruisers. She just ploughs. You feel she should be considered a
cart horse not praised like a thoroughbred; made to carry a hod not
treated as if she were wearing a winner's sash. 

She doesn't delight the eye like the Soyokaze destroyer. She does have
symmetry, in a flat, broad, waddling kind of way. The flat forward
sections having none of the threat of the thick bodied hulls of the
smaller Kesshi or more imposing Musashi.

The high degree of automation common on modern warships meaning that she
only requires one hundred forty nine crew. Among her full compliment she
has a monk, two doctors, a dentist, a psychologist, three agronomists
and another biologist, five chemists, and two plumbers. 

Each of the brave souls that dwell upon her love her, despite the
criticisms that can be leveled at her appearance. They know every
centimetre of the ship's 256 metre length. Within her 126,000 tonne mass
she houses all the facilities typical of small cities or long haul
mining platforms. A wide range of diets can be catered for; there is a
barber, a laundry, a bar, a library, a mundane general needs store and
an additional small store for perceived luxuries (like book prints, the
download only versions available from jacks in each cabin), a music
studio, a daily news service, VR suites, gaming lab, VRcinnie theatre,
and a fully equipped gymnasium - a must if mental degradation and
psychological displacement are not to dog the crew. There is also a full
fabrication unit, metals workshop, crystal forge, chemical laboratory
and hydroponics garden. Initially it was though the later could double
as a recreational attraction, but it's cramped and artificial layout
means it is not frequented as much as had been anticipated. Having said
that it is far more thoroughly utilised for relaxation than the
equivalent on the ships of other nations; the result no doubt of the
efforts of the chief agronomist, who has made the area over as a
traditional Japanese garden, or as close to it as possible given the
constraints. 

Algal scrubbers keep the air of the ship clean under normal conditions,
chemical scrubbers called upon only under dire circumstances. The
gallery the scrubbers hang in is actually a favourite haunt of off duty
crew members seeking some solitude to read or draw or paint. It is a
large airy space, with hanging sheets of sandwiched tanks, the bulk of
the algae suspended within them under diurnal illumination. Other
flatbed scrubbers sit off to the side, but it is the green tinge and
fresh smell the tanks give the room that is its greatest attraction.
This place is also the central hub of the ships scuttlebutt grapevine.
All gossip and small talk passes through here at some point. The
standing joke is that it takes on 53 seconds for the latest news and
rumours to reach the gallery from the farthest nook of the ship; and
only another 27 seconds to get from there to the Captain. About the only
thing the battleship lacks is a pony riding ring. 

Yet for all of this a Yamato in action is a ferocious thing. Deep in her
innards the Settsu carries the supplies, the explosives, fuel and
replacement parts to maintain her squadron and mehca fighters and all
her bot fighters besides. In addition, she carries tonnes of submunition
packs and salvo missiles. She sports three different classes of beams,
which together have a 360 degree coverage, though she is strongest in
the forward arc. Down her spine runs a single Hyperspatial Distortion
Cannon. 

In defence she sports a trio of PDS suites; and she carries enough
foam-based fire-fighting equipment that she is better equipped than most
small cities on the colonial worlds. In battle mode she can run at less
than one twentieth of gravity and 96% decompression for hours on end.
End result, she is proud.

Out of her glowing battle history, the Settsu's heritage of action,
legends have grown up to shroud her. This is how she has been swathed in
nobility. Given the damage the Yamamoto class battleship have done, I
would not find it hard to believe that today every Vak vessel that
engages an IJN force has as its primary priority the destruction of all
these fine vessels. That's a precious and proud, if deadly, honour. 

The Battleship Settsu fought in the Battle of the Two Moons and after a
short sojourn patrolling the outer orbits, in case the fleeing Vak
capital ships returned, she has come back to orbit Mars. It is doubtful
she will stay for long, but for now I have the prestigious honour of
being granted a berth aboard her. Before the last Martian space battle I
guess, if I were to be honest, that you would probably never have heard
of her, unless of course you had a child, parent or spouse amongst her
crew. That does nothing to diminish her pride however and deservedly so.

The Settsu has been on active service, without returning to her home
spacedock on Earth, longer than any other vessel in the United Human
fleet. She left home to participate in the defence of Mars against the
Vak raid in 2192. Without her it is estimated at least three times the
1.3 that died when Bradbury was struck would have perished if further
ortillery strikes had been allowed. In all this time the ship has
weathered numerous solar storms and her crew has not set foot dirtside
for more than a year. In fact they have felt nothing but artificially
generated gravity for nearly thirteen months. And in the last two years,
three months the Settsu has made a total of one hundred and eleven FTL
jumps and covered more than 457 AU by STL.

The Settsu's bot fighter compliment have despatched over three hundred
enemy fighters and her mecha fighters have been on thirty seven
assaults, landing directly on the Vak ships and tearing at the super
structure, gun ports and anything else they can grip. The crack gunnery
crew of the Settsu have not been out done however. They have destroyed
countless small alien raiders, and Kites. Of the larger Vak ships the
Settsu has crippled or destroyed thirty one cruiser size or larger
vessels. Her beams, cannon and missiles have smashed into the largest of
the Vak ships; the great four-pronged monstrosities, all nacelles and
gapping K-gun maws that spew their rods at lethally high velocities. 

Her successes have not come debt free. This proud vessel has known her
share of disaster. The number of her bots that have perished could not
be counted on the hands of her entire flight deck crew. She has been hit
on a dozen occasions, twice taking moderate damage; leading to mass
burials in space. She has taken part in fifteen separate post battle
memorial rituals. 

Through all of this she has not returned to spacedock to patch her
wounds, all repairs being done with what they can manufacture on board
and with speed enough to be ready for the next engagement. Her crew
keeps its calm face when together, but in private unguarded moments they
will, with only semi-jocularity, question the sanity and decisions of
the chief engineer in keeping the ship in such good shape that there is
less than a pressing need to fall back to the orbital yards for
overhaul. 

The Settsu has been out and about for so long that her crew has come to
put her above even their captain. They adore her and cherish her, even
as they quietly acknowledge that internally they rail at her confines.
They would give almost anything to feel dirt under their feet, but the
one thing they won't give is the Settsu itself. While they have seen
three captains come and go the ship is their constant companion. 

As you would probably expect of the largely Japanese crew, they are
humble and self effacing when questioned directly, but disciplined when
considered from afar. They have their jokes and their gripes, but they
always maintain their formal and polite dignity. They are not in the
least bit romantic about their long lived mission. Once you know them
with any degree of depth you can see they are not only tired of it,
resentful of seeing the same metal walkways day after day, but they hate
it. They yearn pathetically for the smallest comforts of home, for fresh
sushi, good sake and the caress of a loved one. Dig beneath this though
and they are proud; proud of their history, their families, their ship
and ultimately of their own efforts. And given what they have endured
and accomplished you would be too. 

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