Turned Tables...... (Fiction, long) Part 1

This is a fictionalization of a recent game:

Captain Kanov glanced at his chrono and fretted about the time. His 
vessel had been alongside the forward refuelling vessel for an hour 
taking on supplies and slush hydrogen for fuel. A mishap transhipping 
a Needle Missile had severely injured a crewman as it crushed him 
against a bulkhead. "Bad Omens" he muttered and made a sign learned 
from his grandmather to ward away evil. His vessel, the CNS Black 
Prince was a Raider. A Heavy Battlecruiser with the speed to run from 
anything tough enough to destroy her, the BP was on a deep raid into 
Republican territory. So far her kill total was up to 500 million 
tonnes of merchant and escort hulls. Her only damage had been a minor 
particle beam strike on her midships point defense battery. "Easily 
repaired" he thought. "Captain!" a voice called out from sensor bay 
1. kanov walked to the "pit" as the bridge staff called it. "Yes, 
lieutenant?" Kanov inquired. "Sir, sensors have an n-space distortion 
about 3.5 million klicks out, level two." Lt (jg) Peters looked up at 
her Captain, suddenly tense. A level 2 meant multiple ships about to 
translate into realspace. And the range was almost maximum missile 
range. "General quarters!" Kanov shouted. "Get those people off that 
DAMNED resupply ship!!" Through the vessel, the crew frenziedly 
finished their repairs and ran to duty stations.

On board the Light Cruiser Northampton, Captain Smythe watched his 
tac display. 50 kilometers off his port and starboard hung the two 
destroyers Ardive and Ardent. Tied into the Northampton's Tac net, 
they prepped for the crash fold into realspace. "Now we find out if 
the information was worth the price.." He said quietly.

Space boiled with vehement, but silent energy as the three vessels 
suddenly spat out into realspace at .25 Lightspeed. "Target!!" 
Shouted Northampton's exec. "Classify as one Type 9 CNS Heavy 
Battlecruiser!!" Smythe turned to astrogation. "Target!!" again came 
the call "Classify one additional unit as CNS Merchant hull, Type 
2!!" Smythe bared his teeth as only those two immobile vessels hung 
in the holo display. "Take them! Tac option Gamma!" Smythe almost 
shouted.

Outside the two attacking destroyers each separated an antiship 
missile. Carrying a 20 megaton warhead, even a near miss would cause 
catastrophic damage from enhanced EMP and fast radiation effects. The 
missiles accelerated away toward the immobile Battlecruiser. Even as 
Smythe watched her point defenses flared, taking one missile down, 
the other acquired the merchant vessel and detonated squarely on her 
hull.The catastrophic explosion flared around the hull of the Black 
Prince, spinning it away, hull blackened. As Smythe opened his mouth 
to issue orders to close and destroy the Battlecruiser, the enemy 
suddenly brought her bow in line with Ardive as she frantically tried 
to evade. Two bright spears of yellow-orange energy lanced from the 
battlecruiser's bow and intersected the Ardive's Fuel tankage. The 
next instant, the ship was a vanishing halo of fiery debris. Smythe 
blinked as the shockwave slammed past his own hull. "Damn! She has 
two Spinal Particle Cannon!! Maximum Evasive! Get us out of her 
arc!!" The two Rep ships twisted furiously around to either side of 
the Raider, each trying to close to point blank range.
On board the Black Prince, Kanov cursed silently. The Resupply vessel 
still had significant ammo stores on board when she blew. the 
resultant fireball had knocked out half his fire controls and his 
Portside point defense battery was down. Worse, his drives were 
damaged and the Prince, usually nimble for her size, now maneuvered 
like a pig. "Target that other damned destroyer!!" He bellowed.

Mike Wikan
Game Design\Conceptual Art
n-Space, Inc.
A Producer of 3D Entertainment Software