Hilda
“Twenty million kilometers out. It’s an old Pathfinder class Cruiser, Captain,” Commander Glass reported as he received intelligence from his various ops departments that reported to him. “Appears to be heavily modified with Commonwealth tech.”
Hilda stared at the holographic display of the cruiser, and surrounding area of space. The starship was lodged among the edges of the small asteroid field, no doubt laying in wait for a fresh target to jump on. The ship had been attacking shipping lanes around the Grimm Hearth system for weeks, but always managed to slip away before local forces could arrive.
The ‘Jade Grip’ had been en route to Grimm’s Hearth star system when they received new, and information on fresh attacks. It had delayed them from reaching Grimm’s Hearth by more than a week, but Hilda couldn’t allow the starship to get away, no matter how much she wished to reach the star system, and question the Bishop of Grimm’s Hearth.
“Isn’t showing any signs it has spotted us,” Captain Atwood said from Hilda’s side. They had been tracking it for days, and she had thought the trail had gone cold until a probe had finally spotted the Capital Starship nestled safely in the asteroid field. Powered down it seemed like any other rock out there, but they had been hunting it, and yet Hilda knew they had just gotten lucky.
The Sword-class Battleship was one of the most advanced classes of starships in the Commonwealth Forces fleet. The ‘Jade Grip’ wasn't as advanced as the ‘Skreap’, the personal starship of the Crown Prince of the Commonwealth of Drala. There was no starship in all the Commonwealth that was, but the Sword-class Battleship wasn’t just the newest line of Battleships, but also the newest class of Starships of the Line. Only the Talon-class Carrier, and Victory-class Dreadnought were larger, but of much older designs.
There were few ships which could match the sensor range of the Sword-class Battleship, and it could even match that of several planetary star systems, or orbital space stations. The Pathfinder Cruiser was an old Furse design, and even retrofitted with advanced Commonwealth tech, Hilda doubted they could hope to match her own starship at that range with sensors.
“They would have reacted by now,” Hilda agreed with a nod as she folded her arms behind her. It was against protocol, but she was glad the old captain was on the main Command Deck instead of CIC.
The cruiser had avoided patrols on the various fleets for weeks now. The outer star systems sworn to System-lord Ironstone had been hit again, and again along with starships. They should have been under the System-lord’s protection, but few lords risked their own fleets outside a few jumps from their own home system. They might send a few ships from time to time to patrol, but there were no serious attempts, or the raiders had access to the patrol routes of the fleets.
It wasn’t just the System Fleet that the Cruiser, or any other raiders had to avoid. There was the Sector Fleet as well, and even the larger Commonwealth Garrison Fleet of Bastion, which was next to useless, and made up of outdated starships, and untrained crews. Still, one of them should have been able to track down a lone cruiser, unless they could access the routes of the three main fleets, and that always drew Hilda back to the Bishop of Gimm’s Hearth. Few would be in such a position to learn that information, but a Bishop might be, and yet it was almost unthinkable to consider a bishop helping raiders attack the very people it was meant to serve. Almost.
Attacks on starships inside the border of the Commonwealth along the Nord Void were nothing new. Attacks on the Bastian Sector were less common than attacks on the Furia, or Kingsgate Sector, but it happened, and the Grimm Hearth System split those sectors in half, and reached all the way to the Nord Void itself. The star system itself protected the Bastian System from the attacks by the east, and attacks so close to it were also rare, which made these raiders bold, stupid, or very well informed.
“Launch starfighters into the defensive screen,” Hilda finally said after a moment. She watched the holographic display in the middle of the command deck as mere forty two starfighters and their support craft launched from the hangar bays. The thirty standard starfighters, twelve heavy starships were joined by various assault shuttles, three assault boats, two corvettes, and a single frigate which were already providing support for the Battleship.
“Commander Cross, target the closest asteroids with the mass driver railgun cannons,” Hilda gave the order to her weapons officer as he stood at his workstation. “Helm,” she continued. “Prepare to make a micro jump into full weapons range on my mark with the emergency Jump Drive, and then open fire on that ship with everything we have Commander Cross. Target subsystems to disable her. Commander Lorch tell your starfighters to stay clear of the debris coming from that asteroid field, but to be ready to move to block any retreat or attempt to go further into the field. Inform the captains of the corvettes, and frigate to watch our rear, and be ready to block further escape attempts. They aren’t getting away this time.”
“Aye aye captain,” Hilda heard the chorus from her senior staff as they went about to ready her orders with their own staffs.
The damaged asteroids should prevent them from launching to FTL with their jump drives unless they wanted their ship to tear apart from a thousand tiny impacts. It should also prevent them from getting further into the asteroid field until a safe course could be charted, and their point defense weapons should be overwhelmed trying to blast the more dangerous debris from ramming into it’s hull. If they timed it right ‘The Jade Grip’ would arrive mere seconds after the blasts from the mass drivers, before the cruiser could react.
“Make sure our point defense system is ready to react to the debris coming from the asteroid field as well as any attacks the cruiser can get off,” Captain Atwood added. Her XO should have had his own command, Hilda thought, but she was more than glad he had agreed to take the position as her second in command.
“Ready Captain,” Hilda heard as the various departments reported in with the completion of their orders, and standing by.
“Fire,” Hilda commanded, and watched as the main forward facing Mass Driver Railgun Cannons opened fire. It would take time for them to reach their target, but they should be too far for, and too low in power to register on the enemy cruiser’s sensors from that distance. She watched the holographic display for any signs that the cruiser noticed the weapon fire though.
The Mass Driver round neared its target as it sailed through space, and Hilda held her breath for a moment before she gave the next command. “Launch,” she said before she could see the impact, but safe in the knowledge that the cruiser had not spotted them. They would spot the jump, it wasn’t possible to miss the massive amount of energy required to perform a jump, no matter how far or small the jump was. The Explosion from the asteroid should keep them from reacting to the ‘Jade Grip’, and instead the threat of the incoming debris against its own shields, and armored hull.
The ‘Jade Grip’ launched to FTL with it’s massive Jump Drive engines. Hilda felt the sickness in the pit of her stomach as her vision blurred. The same sickness that every member of her crew would now be feeling. She did her best to push aside the sickness as she did during every jump, but it took several seconds for her to regain her composure, and took note of the new reading coming through on the command table on the cruiser just over ten thousand kilometers.
The holographic display came into focus, and Hilda could already see The ‘Jade Grip’ opening fire as Commander Cross reacted with rail-guns, lasers, plasma cannons, and missiles launched from the many forward facing missile tubes, and point defense systems were already opening fire on large chunks of the asteroid which were launched out of the asteroid field.
The cruiser still hadn’t reacted when the first barrage of weapon fire slammed into it’s shield, followed by a second which broke through, and into the armored hull of the capital starship. Hilda could see large explosions rip through sections of the hull with the impact of the third barrage. Large cannons on the cruiser were destroyed, but Hilda could see the remaining turrets start to move to acquire targets before a fourth barrage slammed into the cruiser, and blew most of them apart.
“She is venting atmosphere, it’s main weapons are down, and engines are off-line Captain,” Commander Glass reported as more cannons, and systems on the cruiser were destroyed by his continued fire. It was an unfair fight, even if the cruiser had known they were there. A single capital starship stood little chance against a starship of the line. A battle cruiser, or heavy cruiser might be able to stand toe to toe for a while, but a regular cruiser was out gunned, out armored, out tonnaged, and just out matched in general.
“Ser,” Commander Bass called out from his work station from the communications section of the command deck. “We are receiving a hail from the cruiser. The vessel is surrendering.”
Hilda nodded. “Very well,” she said with a slight smile. “Good job people. Guess these Furse didn’t wish to meet their ancestors today,” She said with a smirk. “Commander Bass tell them boarding parties are on the way, and the marines have orders to shoot anyone who resists, or if any data is deleted from their computers.”
“Aye aye Captain,” Bass replied, and went back to his console and began to relay the orders to the surrendering crew of the battered cruiser.
“Commander Ironstorm, tell your marines to secure that vessel. Once the ship is cleared I want everyone left alive brought to the ‘Jade Grip’ for questioning, and a new home in our brig until they can be transferred elsewhere to be held accountable for their action.”
“Yes ma’am, shuttles are clearing our hangar bays now,” Commander Ironstorm replied as he studied designs of a standard Furse Pathfinder-class Cruiser to relay information to his own teams from the command deck of the ‘Jade Grip’.
“Commander Glass,” Hilda continued. “I want people combing that ship for all available information. I want to know every place that starship has been, and I want to know who sold these scum Commonwealth tech,” She said with a quick glance to her Ops commander.
“On it ser, I’ll have teams on board as soon as it is cleared.” The Ops commander replied.
Hilda touched the edge of the central command table to open an inter ship comm to engineering. “Commander Zero, I want that ship inspected when we are given the all clear. Let me know if we can make the ship FTL ready, or if we have to tow it. Either way it will offer a nice bonus for the crew when we sell it in the Grimm Hearth System.”
“I’ll check it out myself,” the chief engineer replied with a smug grin on the small display.
“Good job,” Hilda said once again to her staff.
