[FT-AAR] First contact (long)

G'day guys,

Played some 3D FT on Friday night (basically allowed you to MD up/down
in
addition to forward etc). I wouldn't do it with too many ships (and big
ships might be a pain to "base"), but for small groups of little ships,
its
a heap of fun. We're going to start scrounging old TV and car aerials,
looks
better than having a counter with +/-x next to the fig ;)

For those who are interested (or can tolerate more poor writing
skills!)....
Oh and sorry if I got the German ranks messed up, Derek's been at an
anime
marathon all day so I couldn't double check with him.

Beth

>>>>>>>>
FIRST CONTACT

Her throat was dry as she strained to pick up the slightest noise out of
place. She was fresh out of the Academy and already a SENSO on a light
cruiser. Her palms were sweaty, more from fear of letting everyone down
only
three days in to her first posting than from fear about what lay out
there.
This Crunchie ship must have something good on board if they'd diverted
a
cruiser squadron to go find it. Things were stretched pretty thin these
days
and a cruiser squadron was a big commitment.
	
Things had briefly looked up when the Needham Treaty was signed with the
P'taah Faction of the Phalon Conglomerate. They'd promised advanced
technologies, tunable weapons, plasma artillery, even some Sa'Vasku
stuff.
It hadn't materialised. At least not quick enough for the war weary
human
commanders. The rumour of a consignment of fusing plasma projectors and
the
schematics for multi-layer armour just there for the taking, floating on
board a Crunchie ship derelict in space, had been enough to electrify
the
atmosphere at the station back round Zwickhau. They'd made it here in
two
days and her stomach were still in a mess. The jump drugs messed her up
so
good she was almost tempted to try a jump with out them! And now her
Kaptain
was on her for the slightest indication of ships, Crunchie, Pred,
Spikey,
Euries, Feds, anything. She'd been top of her class a week ago, the
best.
But this was all different, harder, strange. She strained to find the
slightest hint of something that was not part of the background roar of
the
universe. Funny how with all this technology some of the best pattern
analysers were still the human ears and eyes. 

She'd been studying classical woodwind, Oboe, when the Preds had first
come.
In those thrilling days she'd thought of them as some far off exotic
novelty. Wow, other life in the galaxy. Nice, but not nearly as
important as
getting that rising tone just right in the fifth act of Martinoise's
Requiem. She'd been annoyed more than afraid when Papa had been called
up,
despite his age, to lead a unit on some far off colony. He'd seen
action,
won a few medals in the Third Solar War, made a bit of a name for
himself.
With the Preds making inroads with each passing month that made Papa a
valuable commodity, or so those government mouths had said. It was when
her
brother Kurt had died defending Rheinhold that it had coming crashing
home.
The Preds weren't some novelty off a tri-vid, they were real and they
were
after her people, her family. They were vicious, savage, animals who had
saliva and blood dripping from their jaws and they took you alive to
feed to
their young! They had to be stopped. That's what Klaus had told her the
day
he'd signed up. She hadn't wanted him to go at all. Papa had gone, Kurt
had
already gone, must he go too? Mama had kept her own council and Klaus
had
been insistent. In the end she'd seen him off at the lift port, though
she'd
nearly been ill when she'd noticed his fine, long fingers curled around
the
barrel of that ugly metal Sturmgewehr. Papa and Klaus had died within
days
of each other, the grams with the news for Mama arriving the same day.
She'd
been waiting outside in the dawn light the next morning when they opened
the
doors to the recruiting centre. First to sign up for the
Kriegsraumflotte
that day. That now seemed so long ago, had it really only been months?

Pfzzt. It jarred her back to the here and now. A contact. Barely
noticeable
against the background hissing and burbling that is space, but
definitely
there, the jarring pulse of a ship. A dancing pattern of spikes on her
upper
board goes red, the AI has it now too, weak but real. 

"Audio contact Sir" 
"Bearing"
"Still trying to get a solid fix Sir"

She can sense the Kaptain, his eyes boring in to her demanding more. She
can
feel the tension mounting around the bridge as they wait for her to
speak
again. Sweat begins trickling down her neck. Concentrate, she tells
herself.
Shutting out all but the spitting sounds in her ear and the waveforms on
her
boards she focuses on that faint pulse. The pulse grows, splits and
becomes
three. Three very recognisable forms.

"Euries Sir! A Voroshilev, Tibet and Beijing"
"Deploy sensors"

A new purr in her ear, sensor buoys giving her extra feed, more
sensitive
than standard ship mounts.

"SENSO, what's their bearing?"

Almost got them, just a little bit more she thinks as she plays her
boards,
cutting out clutter and tying the patterns down, trying to get a Doppler
swipe. Got them!

"43 Port 10 Down, range 42000 km and holding steady"

She let out a long breath, one she hadn't realised she was holding.
First
contact over, this was no training exercise and she'd done it. It wasn't
the
Crunchie they were after, but at least they knew something must really
be
out here if the Euries were after it too. BANG! A return that nearly
took
her ear off! Loud, clear and coming straight at them. Not fast, but not
cautious either. That was no Eurie! Great big screaming Fed engines, she
could id them in her sleep.

"Sir Fed contacts at 180000 km and coming in at 0.42lsh"
"How many?"
"Three, a Jerez, Suffren and Milan Sir"

Compared to the Euries these Feds were blazing up the skies. In fact it
was
proving hard to keep track of the Euries with the mammoth Fed engines
blasting all the frequencies. She tried to filter them out, block them
out,
just like she would a nova or quasar. Yep there it was the tell-tale
Eurie
engine click, but she knew she'd be lucky to keep a solid hold on them
for
long.

"They're either being kaptained by an idiot, or they know something we
don't
about the location of that Phalon ship." Kaptain Born commented almost
to
himself, before turning to a young man sitting straight as a board off
to
her left. "Where are they headed Ehrlich?" 

The time seemed to stretch unbearably as they waited for Max's answer.
She
felt a momentary twinge for Max, he was as green and nervous as she was.
Max
remained painfully straight in his chair, but his efforts still weren't
producing an answer.

"Ehrlich?" the Kaptain pressed.

She concentrated on her own boards now trying to anticipate Max's
response,
trying to see if she could pick anything up herself. She spotted it
herself
as the words began to spill from Max. A flicker out of place, not hard
edged
and active like the Feds or Euries, but a dead dull weight dipping the
spectrum as it blocked out the background hiss that should've been
coming
through that spot. They'd found the Crunchie ship and it was right in
the
middle of the lot of them. The Kaptain had gone rigid and was looking
decidedly uncomfortable. Just then Tycho spoke up from comms.

"Kaptain, incoming message from the Bremen..."

Born reached over and picked up a headset, his shaking hands betraying
his
own nervousness. Their CO was not known as a military genius and
probably
wouldn't have gotten his own command, let alone a cruiser if it hadn't
been
for the losses to the Preds. He made some short sharp comments to his CO
before dropping the headset, clearing his throat and turning back to his
bridge crew. 

"Flottillenadmiral Huygens says we're to keep the Crunchie for ourselves
at
all costs. We are authorised to fire preemptively. The Euries and Feds
want
this as badly as we do so it looks like we're going to have to fight for
it.
Nav, we're to tie in to their systems, try and keep with them."

The Kaptain settled into his chair, she could see his knuckles were
white,
gripping the arm rests. She felt herself pushed back in her seat as the
ship
pulled in tight behind the Bremen. She could tell from the shift in
returns
that they were diving down under the Crunchie. The Euries was still
holding
their ground, but the Feds had started a steep, fast climb. Funny how
out
here some commanders still sort the high ground. They followed the
Bremen
in, down and forward, closing the distance between them and their prize.

"We're entering long range of the Euries sir" Emil reported off to her
right.
"Target the Tibet" Born commanded. His shoulders slumping almost
imperceptibly when the shots went wide. Her pulse quickened as she saw
that
the Bremen's forward guns had been more accurate, hitting the Tibet fair
on
the nose, but her spirits dipped as she watched the shots skitter off
the
Eurie's shields.

In the midst of this she heard it, a hot fizzing shriek. Incoming fire,
burning its way straight at her. She opened her mouth to tell the
Kaptain,
but Emil was sharp and alert. "Incoming fire" he reported calmly. She
envied
his calm, wondered if she'd ever seem that serene under fire.

"Turn away, turn away" Born urged, but it felt like the ship was trapped
in
syrup, dragging itself slowly away from the path of the fire. WAM! Fire
sliced down their starboard side, vaporising armor plates and shaking
the
ship. She'd heard a lot at the Academy about how old the Eurie ships
were.
It had seemed reassuring. Not so any more, that ancient ship was doing a
damn good job of trying to destroy them. The jolts from the incoming
fire
were shoving her around, she slammed into her boards. Suddenly she was
finding it hard to breath, could taste the warm metal tang of blood in
her
mouth.

Emil's board transfixed her. Her world was shrinking down to the lights
on
his board, the throbbing, crackling cacophony from her headset, and the
ache
in her chest as her heart pounded in the base of her throat. She watched
as
they changed course, pulling up and away from the Euries. The Feds were
up
there, but for now they were out of weapons range, not as a great a
threat.
But the ship wasn't climbing fast enough, the Euries were still pounding
them.

"Incoming barrage from the Voroshilev" Emil intoned.

She braced waiting for the shots to hit the already weakened hull. Time
was
stretching again and she felt as if she were being stretched with it.
She
wondered how far it could go, if it might snap. This time the beams
sliced
in to the ship itself, the lights went red and the shrill falsetto of a
depressurisation alarm filled her head. Mercifully someone muted it as
the
Kaptain straightened himself, listened to the woeful reports of damage
flood
in. The forward guns were down, the fire control was fried, FTL was
offline,
the primary feed to the main engines had been destroyed and the power
core
was threatening to overload. She felt a weight in the pit of her
stomach, a
lead weight pinning her to her seat. There was a trickle down her cheek.
She
wiped at it, only realising it was blood not sweat when she saw it
coating
her fingers.

"Take her down, full possible speed." Born ordered, shifting in his
chair,
his shirt drenched.
"That will take us out of formation sir" the nav officer warned.
"You have your orders". Born said sharply.

She watched their course on Emil's monitor, saw them fall away from the
Bremen and the Köln which where maintaining their forward momentum. The
Euries were coming in underneath the Feds swinging sharply around and
down
overhead. They were caught between them. Fire was now coming from both
directions, the Bremen was taking most of it, but the Euries had guessed
at
her ships weakened state and were sending secondary fire their way to
finish
them off. She felt like she was watching someone else's actions,
watching
someone else's life. They'd lost the PDS, all the main batteries, their
drives were dead in the water and life support was critical. 

"Missiles, there's missiles" she heard Emil report above the alarms and
chatter filling the dully lit bridge. 

She crossed her fingers and started to silently recite a prayer her
Grandmother had taught her as a child. There was silence, they were dead
in
the water, nothing they could do to save themselves. 

"They've gone short. A full 1000 km short of our mark sir. The Feds must
be
at extreme range, but they are closing sir."
"We need those engines NOW Selye!!" Born yelled in to his link with
engineering. There was a short response, she couldn't tell what it had
been
though. 

It seemed like an age watching the directed chaos in front of her eyes,
listening to the whirs and cracks from her headset. Shots, explosions,
reports, orders, sparks, pulsing lights, pulsing sounds, running into
one
another. Her head was swimming, no training had prepared her for this.
Her
eyes settled on the Kaptain slumped in his seat, fingering his collar.
Not a
vision that inspired confidence. She could feel a knot rising in her
throat,
a feeling of desperation.

"Minimum thrust back on line sir." Came the clear report from below.
"Nav, hard to port, down full". The Kaptain ordered, making the ship
veer
further from her squadron mates, hoping to slip from the Feds and Euries
attentions.

She flinched as she heard the whoop of close beam fire trill through her
sensors. Then a massive rolling howl sweep across her channels and she
choked as she realised it had been the Bremen's bridge exploding. The
whole
front section of the ship detached by a well timed combination of
missile
detonations and concentrated beams. She was going numb, wondering if
sanity
would reassert itself before the Euries or Feds turned their attentions
back
her way.

"The Köln has struck its colours sir"

That left them as the sole functioning NSL ship. The Feds and Euries
were
directing more fire at each other, but odd shots were still coming their
way. How was the ship going to stand up? Her breathing was coming
faster,
shallower. Her head was swimming. She heard a quiet, firm voice beside
her.

"Keep yourself busy. Give yourself a purpose. DO NOT let your mind dwell
on
it. Do you understand?" Emil asked catching her eye.
"Yes sir!" she blurted, memories of her training sims finally kicking
in. 

Suddenly she knew she had to feel useful, her life depended on it. She
started a standard damage control run through on her board, patching
together circuits, redirecting feeds, stowing free gear that could
become an
airborne hazard. All the while trying to ignore the popping of the
remaining
hull sections on the Bremen, the shifting Doppler scream of the diving
Feds,
the Euries swinging back in behind them, the building whine of incoming
missiles.

"Missiles off the starboard bow! Brace for impact! All hands brace for
impact!"

The force doubled her up and then tore her from her harness, slamming
her
over the rail and down in to the well below. It hurt to breathe, but she
could move, she was still whole. She pulled herself to her feet, moving
back
to her station, averting her eyes from the sickening remains of her
Kaptain
and Ehrlich.

"Fregattenkapitan Virchow to the bridge" Emil spoke smoothly into the
comm
system.
"He's dead Fischer, he was trying to clear the gun decks when we took
that
second wave. It was quick." Came back Doc Schrodinger's quiet reply.

Emil smoothly rose from his station, taking in the bridge with a sweep
of
his eyes, all heads turned his way. He motioned her to take over his
station
and leaned over toggling the comms on. "This is Kapitanleutnant Emil
Fischer. As of this moment I am in command of this vessel. Do your jobs
well
and we will be fine. Best speed." His message was short, but his
confident
voice ringing out across the ship seemed to ease the tension, give them
new
hope. 

She turned back to her new tasks, wondered what he'd do next. Half a
ship, a
pretty raw crew, despite his words it had to be a hard task. Her
thoughts
were sheared in two by the whine of more missiles. 

"Missiles starboard high sir" she reported, willing her voice steady.
"Full ahead" he ordered.

She could feel the vibrations of the labouring engines. This time the
impact
didn't unseat her, but it was not good. The vibrations had taken on a
new
whine, the pulsing was all wrong.

"We beat the missiles sir, but the relay redirects for the power core
have
failed. We have to evacuate the ship sir, she's got about 10 minutes
tops."
Selye's frantic voice reported from the main core.
"Range to the Phalon ship?" Emil asked swinging his attention to her

She searched desperately for it amongst the many flickering icons in
front
of her. Finally, "560 km sir"

Emil hit his comms again. On a private line, "Boas get that precious
xeno-database and those marines of yours on the shuttles, we're going
in."
Then shipwide, "This is Fischer. Abandon ship. All hands to the
shuttles. I
repeat abandon ship, all hands to the shuttles. Pilots to set course for
the
Phalon ship, we're not expecting resistance, but let the marines go in
first. Out." She felt disorientated. They couldn't stay here obviously,
but
to go there?! His voice snapped her out of it. "Come on lets move!!" She
stood, patted her pockets, quickly double checking her medpacs, rations,
breather, ear comms. She headed for the hatch, down a narrow clearway,
following others to the shuttles, grabbing a side arm from an open
weapons
locker as she went. Her main headset sat discarded back on the bridge,
but
she swore she could still hear the sizzle of weapons fire. A thought
stuck
in her mind. It wouldn't budge as she jogged along. As Grandma used to
say,
out of the frying pan and in to the fire...