Dramatic SFB: GWO Turn 7

[Gregory Flusche]

Nice wright up

On Sat, Sep 4, 2021 at 1:34 AM Matt via SFBdrama <sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org>
wrote:

>
> "Drop out of high warp, Navigator." The captain of the light strike
> cruiser *Taranto* said.
>
> "Aye sir. We have dropped out of high warp. Now traveling at warp three
> point zero", the navigator replied smartly. Now that the main sensors
> weren't addled by the energy required to travel so fast, other stations
> around the bridge were reporting.
>
> "270,000 miles from the Hydran colony." A gaseous planet with a green
> atmosphere, rich in methane, hung in the display at the captain's elbow.
>
> Fire control signals began to wash the metal-hulled Jindarian ship. "Sir!
> Several orbital defenses are present. I see half a constellation of defense
> satellites, a small commercial base, and a ship."
>
> "Sir, the ship has the warp signature of a cruiser -- she appears to be a
> command cruiser!"
>
> "The base is hailing us. It's a system activity base, and we found our
> target planet."
>
> "Give her no reply" The captain said.
>
> "The ship is speeding up, sir."
>
> "So much for a quick in-and-out raid", the captain thought and then he
> smiled. *Time to dance among the stars*.
>
>
> The captain began laying out his plan to the crew manning the stations
> around him. "Helm", the captain said. "I want high speed until we get to
> about 150 K-miles, then slow down and pop the drogue." "Tactical, that ship
> is going to make a lot of trouble for us. Hydrans like to charge. I want
> you to hit it in the nose and keep hitting it. Stay off the flanks."
> "Sensors. I expect them to make a lot of noise. Particularly that base of
> theirs. For this approach, I want you to cut through it. Give tactical
> their edge. We'll see if they have the power for it later."
>
> The bridge was briefly filled with a chorus of "Aye." "Helm," the captain
> returned to her, "Stay out of overload range. That ship is going to
> accelerate like a space banshee. Stay ahead of it so tactical can smack
> them around. Don't you let them smack us around."
>
> The *Taranto* kept up just a touch below her entry speed while the Hydran
> swung wide around the planet and then took on a bearing to intercept the
> raider. The Jindarian ship curved around to centerline the system activity
> monitoring base. The Hydran ship also curved her course to come in ahead of
> the Jindarian.
>
> Just as the *Taranto* reached 150,000 miles to the base, she slowed down
> to warp 2.3 and a tethered drogue slide out of the hatch. The base
> activated it's specialized sensors to blanket the *Taranto* with subspace
> static. The computers on the drogue analyzed the patterns in the static and
> were able to pull the truth from the randomness. Feeding the
> signals-analysis back to the *Taranto*, fire control firmed up again.
>
> But the Hydran ship was getting to close. The *Taranto* swung steeply
> across the defender's bow. One of the orbitals spat a hellbore at the
> raider and a pair of phasers lanced out from the defender. The hellbore
> arrived half a second before the phasers and warmed the shields without
> finding a weakness to focus on. The phasers created the weakness on the
> Taranto's port flank, but only for later shots. The *Taranto* bucked as
> she fired a rail gun at the defender, hit, and scored half damage against
> the forward shield through the reinforcement.
>
> Now the two were far to close for the captain's plans. The helm officer
> had waited a second or two too late to perform her swing away from
> threatening the orbitals, and now was well within overload range with the
> Hydran. Fortunately, the Hydran captain must not have expected the
> *Taranto* to engage as closely and had not pumped the extra power to the
> torpedoes.
>
> Nonetheless, the raider did not care to be so close to so powerful an
> adversary. She brought in the drogue and sped up a touch. Another orbital
> fired their hellbore while the defender added another pair of phasers. The
> *Taranto* bucked as the weakened shield became moreso. Making the best of
> the unexpected range, the raider returned fire with her full phaser array
> and further damaged the Hydran's forward shielding.
>
> The two ships were engaged in a furious knife fight as moments later, the
> defending ship fired a hellbore and more phasers. The hellbore missed but
> the phasers continued to weaken the already-damaged shield of the
> Jindarian. The raider kicked again as a second meteorite streaked out and
> collided with the Hydran's nose. Moments later, another ship-borne hellbore
> struck the fleeing raider. That weakened shield was down to half strength
> but the Hydran's forward shielding was down to a third of it's original
> strength.
>
> Both ships accelerated, nearly doubling their speeds but keeping a rough
> parity in distance. The defender was hampered because she was in orbit a
> few minutes ago, which allowed the raider to match  the known acceleration
> curve. The Hydran ship was spending her power lavishly on recharging the
> weapons systems used moments ago and on her engines. This was seen by the
> raider when the Hydran could no longer maintain her jamming. The Jindarian,
> on the other hand, couldn't keep full reserve power and left the phasers
> uncharged. Both ships were breathing heavy, in their own ways.
>
> The Hydran turned slightly, to bring her last hellbore into play. The
> Jindarian ship shuddered as three hydran phasers played along a new shield
> and then the hellbore struck again. Only the use of reserve power was
> keeping the Hydran fire from knocking down that shield. The jindarian
> weapon's officer was doing a good job, though, as yet another rail gun sent
> a collection of rocks into the Hydran's front. That shield was now a hair's
> breadth from folding.
>
> Both ships had exhausted their weapons systems and streaked out-system.
> The Hydran was trying to keep up with the Jindarian, who was trying to open
> the range. Very quickly, the Jindarian was approaching the point where the
> defending ship would chase her right out of the system!
>
> The Hydran accelerated again, to warp 3, while the Jindarian pushed her
> speed all the way to 3.15. At these speeds, the Hydran only loaded one
> weapon so that she could protect that faltering shield. The Jindarian could
> only load half her rail guns and could not reload the phasers. To make up
> the lack, the Hydran launched her Stinger fighters  and tried to bracket
> her quarry. The *Taranto* reached as far as she was willing to go from
> the planet and begun to swing around.
>
> As the opportunity allowed, she fired another rail gun at her adversary,
> but the energy was completely absorbed by the reinforcing energy. Later,
> the raider was able to repeat the attack and scored a hit. Rock at
> superluminal velocities sliced through the protective energy field and
> slowed only enough to keep the resulting collisions from being
> catastrophic. The Hydran took hits on all of their forward weapon systems.
> Overloads in the power grid damaged the warp engines. an instant before,
> the Hydran fired her only charged hellbore and hit the Jindarian with a
> flare of energy. Reserve power again slowed the erosion of the Jindarian's
> weak flank shield.
>
> The two ships streaked along at about 450,000 miles from the planet that
> anchored them together. For many seconds, the two were maintaining a
> distance of about 100,000 miles. Suddenly the *Taranto* pulled into a
> wrenching turn that put her pursuer going the wrong direction to keep up.
> Knowing that the Hydran could not perform the same trick at the speeds they
> were going, the Jindarian opened the range again and forced the defender to
> sweep around. For a moment, the helm officer of the *Taranto* played with
> staying on the Hydran's flank. She was reminded otherwise when the Hydran
> fired several phasers into the Jindarian's weak shield. Afterward, the
> Taranto flew away from the defending ship, which took them into range of
> the long-suffering and wholly-abandoned Stinger fighters. Those fighters
> had their day, firing a full alpha-strike at 100,000 miles and severely
> weakening the *Taranto*'s front shield. Without the phasers to deal with
> them properly, the raider simply allowed them to be left behind the
> speeding ship.
>
> The Hydran slowed down, having expected things to go quite different than
> the sharp turn the Jindarian made. The raider used her speed to keep the
> distance comfortably outside of overload range and traded shots with her
> adversary. The hellbore hit and the rail gun did not. This time the mushy
> medicine-ball feeling of the shields absorbing another smothering hellbore
> was punctuated by an explosion in the right engine-deck. A moment later,
> the Taranto fired another rail gun at the Hydran and missed.
>
> With her shields beginning to fail and facing a ship that is technically
> two ship-classifications larger, the light strike cruiser *Taranto*
> reached for the orbital limit. Having achieved it, she dropped into
> high-warp and was gone. At the end, she failed to raid the colony but
> succeded in harassing the Hydran forces. The defending Hydran ship is going
> to spend a couple of weeks in the dockyards, getting her weapons repaired.
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