Astral

Astral

Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:47 pm

#1 by The Hedge Knight

The lights were blaring red, one of the ships command crew was shouting over the on board announcement system that it was not a drill. The FSS Astral was a Geran class battleship, not as large as the nigh invincible Amedes battleship but not as small as a Eupens; the ship was covered with cannons and other weapons and stocked with a battalion of marines. All of its systems were manned by one of its professional five thousand crew members of varying rank and station, her polished and gleaming armor was strong enough to prevent any other ship mounted gun to break through it and her engines were powerful enough to quickly get her across a battlefield in minutes. That was what the propaganda pieces said at least.

The truth of the matter however, was that the Astral was in a dismal state of disrepair. The Geran class had been decommissioned long ago after the end of the Hundred Year War and all of them had been scrapped for parts for the old and reliable Amedes or the new light Eupens. The Astral was simply an old rust bucket that had been forgotten about, of the five thousand optimal support crew; the Astral only had two thousand. Of the thousand it held, there were hardly a third of that; as a final insult to the ships captain, the Astral had not seen combat for nearly a decade. The Federation had preferred to shove her into their backwater colonies and dusty bases and forget about her, the only people stocking her were either those too hopeless to do any good anywhere else or people the Federation would like to have 'removed' from service but had something holding them back from straight up killing them.

The ship was posted at Euphrates VI. The planet was once the Federations largest and most important military base before more were captured and it began to gradually see less and less funding and support until it was just another forgotten outpost of the Federations overstretched and under funded naval forces. The Astral was to be stationed for two months while the Federation decided what to do with the crew and then finally scrapped for parts.

Now the Astral was in the middle of a war zone.

One of the crew members, Petty Officer Second Class Jared Wright, or White as everyone called him, found himself sprinting down one of the ships hallways. He could already hear some of the gun batteries on the ship tuning up and then begin to fire at the unknown enemy, White was not a very tall man at 5'8 and found himself hardly being able to squeeze past the sprinting crewmen and get to the elevator at the end of the hallway that led to weapon battery V6, his post. Many of the ships decks had been simply shut off as the number of crew winded down and the rest were shoved into the most crucial and important areas. At least a hundred crewmen were packed in the hallway and the ship's rocking and shaking was not making matters any easier.

After finally clawing his way through the mass of bodies, he stumbled into the elevator. Two marines and three other crewmen crowded din with him and clicked their destinations before the doors finally shut and the machine began working. The two marines were in their combat armor, their bulky size causing the three crewmen to be shoved together in the elevator. Looking at the other two, White noticed that the man to his right was in the ships command crew.

"You have any idea what's going on?" He asked, the elevator slowly passing from the floor to floor. Sometimes he heard the commotion of the crew or systems on the other side, sometimes the silence of a closed off floor. The ensign, a tall and lanky man with a name tape that said 'Chrissie' looked over at him nervously, a bead of sweat sliding down from his forehead in the hot and crowded elevator. He glanced over and then at the list of floors, praying to get to his faster.

"I er..." he looked over at White again, and then glanced at the two marines. The two of them were staring intently at him, along with the other man in the elevator. Everyone wanted to know, with a look of defeat, Chrissie began speaking again. "Union I think, there's an entire fleet out there." White choked, they had been at war with the Galactic Union for years but the line was always well away from Euphrates.

"I thought that sixth fleet had been holding them off?" Chrissie sighed and looked over at the list of floors again.

"The Union sent another fleet out of no where, we got no idea where it came from. The sixth got its ass kicked, the remains are trying to make their way back we think but we lost contact with them. The fifth is making its way over but until then-" one of the marines, a short and stocky man with some of the most pale skin that White had seen in a long time (which is saying a lot, since White had a reason for his nick name other than his last name) interrupted him.

"You mean we got a fuckin' fleet ridin' our asses?" Chrissie gulped and shook his head.

"Two, they didn't leave the other one behind." The man's eyes widened and so did White's. "Like I said, the fifth should be making its way here soon... we have to hold them off until then."

The mood in the elevator had suddenly gotten a lot more grim, and White was just about at his stop. After another minute, he squeezed out of the elevator and into the hallway. The door shut and the elevator left behind him, along with the men inside; remembering Chrissie's words he quickly looked around the large and open gun deck, looking for the weapon he was assigned to. This part of the deck only had the guns for the right side of the ship for his deck, but there were plenty of them on the battle ship. Each of the M885B anti-ship cannons were completely huge. Originally they were planetary defense cannons, but were refurbished for ship to ship combat. Each one of the cannons had four men assigned to it, two loaders, a calibrator and a commander. White was a calibrator, and his cannon was right in the middle of the deck.

White began sprinting down the deck, past the cannons and waving to the occasional acquaintance he passed. There was hardly a wall to the right, mostly a giant screen that showed the view on the other side and squares of black rubber that the weapons cannon moved around in. From what he did see however, they were in a lot of trouble, there were at least four battle ships out there firing at them; not to mention smaller frigates and cruisers which were in the dozens. Their own fleet was firing in return, though the battle had not raged on long enough for either side to lose a ship; their shields working at full capacity.

He finally found his battery, gun battery 27, and nearly tripped as he ran to his post. The rest of the crew was obviously relieved to see him, the commander, a woman everyone called Ice; had the biggest sign of relief on her face. "Holy shit White, we are the only gun not shooting on this deck, where were you?" White simply shrugged her off and muttered that he was sleeping, before walking over to his terminal and turning the machine on. The other two crew men were Corbay and Jones, Jones was a dark skinned man of seven foot one, one of the tallest men on the ship. He had joined somewhere around ten years ago but was bumped to the Astral after 'dishonorable service.' He didn't like to talk about it. Corbay was his opposite, a shorter man at 5'7, he was the youngest man on the ship. Only seventeen years old, in the military on a waiver. His family had a long naval history and his grandfather was an admiral who had pulled some strings to get him as far from combat as possible. Although Jones was slower and more deliberate, Corbay was all energy and excitement.

Ice walked around and made sure everyone was working well, her radio blared with orders from the command deck on who to target and she yelled over to White, "that battleship to the far left, X34003, Y26719!" White quickly punched in the coordinates and tried to find a good spot to fire at that would damage the ship more, confident with his aim, he adjusted the movement of the cannon to keep up with the ships momentum and shouted that they were good. Ice continued her orders.

"Load!" Jones handed Corbay a shell, who stood at the top of the platform and next to the cannon. Corbay ran over and shoved the oversized shell down the muzzle of the tube. The round slid down the cannon and into position. Ice finished her order. "FIRE!" Corbay stumbled away from the muzzle and leaned against the railing of the platform while covering his ears and looking down. Jones did the same from the ground and Ice watched to see if they made contact, ear muffs preventing the sound of the cannon from reaching her ears. White simply looked to the side and held his ears for a moment.

The entire cannon shook and the front half of the tube flew back into the rest of the machine. The shell flew forward at amazing speeds and slammed into the other ships shields, causing the blue ball surrounding the ship to lighten up where it made contact. Smoke flew in all directions, and as the front part of the cannon slid back into view; the crew could clearly see it red hot from firing. Ice shouted for White to adjust, and then went right back to business.

"Aim!" White punched in the new coordinates and accounted the movement of the ship. "Load!" Corbay shoved another shell down the tube and found his place huddled to the railing.

"Fire!" The floor seemed to shake as the barrel of the cannon slammed back and the shell flew forward. Ice smiled as she looked forward and yelled to the crew, "not long now till those shields give ou-" she spoke far too soon as the next volley from the opposing ship made contact. Their shield flickered and died as the systems overloaded and at least twenty high explosive shells slammed against her armor. None of the explosives hit the gun deck, but enough slammed into the ship that the entire vessel seemed to shake and the lights briefly flickered. The gun battery directly above theirs didn't fire after that, having been hit directly. Everyone on the deck was screaming something different.

"AIM." Screamed Ice, White was only more than happy to try and keep his mind off of his quickly approaching demise, Corbay would not shut the hell up and Jones was just grabbing a shell and getting ready. "LOAD!" Corbay didn't hear her, preferring to continue ranting.

"Ohmygod did you guys feel that! Holy shit my feet shook and I nearly fell off and-" "LOAD" shouted Ice again, Corbay continued raving, "we nearly died! The guys right above us just got wiped out and-" "I SAID LOAD YOU ANNOYING PIECE OF SHIT." Everyone turned around and stared at her, she quickly blush and told him to load in a much quieter voice. Corbay simply said "Jesus, alright!" And took the round from Jones. Satisfied that everything was back in order, she shouted for Jones to fire.

"Aim! Load! Fire! Aim! Load! Fire! Aim! Load! Fire!" The cycle continued, the rest of the system defense fleet had awakened and had joined the fight; the Astral was now not the sole target in the area and the other ships happily took the fire off of her. They watched gleefully as the other ships shields began to falter and fail. With the rest of the fleet holding the other ships off, they finally were able to turn their shields back on.

"Aim! Load! Fire!" The shell went flying forth, they couldn't tell which theirs were as it flew into the vacuum but they could tell the shells worked as they lit up across the side of the ship. One of the shells broke through the armor and made it into one of the fuel tanks, the Union battleship quickly lit up from bow to stern as fuel lines across the entire vessel blew like a bunch of fire crackers. The end of the ship and her crew was punctuated by the detonation of the main fuel tanks in the center of the ship, the craft split into two with tons of parts and crew flying into the vacuum outside. A few life vessels managed to get away, though at least half were blown away by the Federation fleet. The entire crew cheered as they saw the battleship detonate.

It continued more or less like so for at least half an hour, the ships all exchanging fire as normal. The other battleship, identified as the Brevity, was a victim of a poor captain and a faulty shield system; the rest of the battle was not going as easily. The morale of the crew, which had been bolstered by the destruction of the enemy, was quickly dropped as they saw one of their cruisers fly past, towards the enemy fleet. Corbay, looked over as they stopped firing, the ship with the word Victorious stamped across the side in bold had gotten in the way of their guns.

"What the hell are they doing." Was all he said, dumbfounded. Jones saw it before everyone else.

"Their engines." The gun crew saw it now, the ships twin engines had been blown out by a direct hit and floated towards the other fleet, the captain was frantically attempting to use his thrusters to steer him away from the other fleet but was failing horribly and found himself flying straight towards one of their own ships.

--

On board the Pride, a vessel given to the Federation as a sign of goodwill from the Imperium, an ally of the Federation. The ship was one of the larger ships in the fleet, classified as a destroyer by the Imperium, it was about the size of the Astral. The Imperium was known for ridiculous sizes.

The captain did not know how his crew were reacting, but the entire command staff was going nuts as they realized the Victorious was going to intercept them. Ignoring his assistant who constantly told him he needed to get to an escape pod with the rest of them, he ordered the crew who had decided to stay their posts to get them the hell away from the incoming ship and behind the Astral, whose captain had agreed to cover them as they fell back. Captain Efield had been in the Federation for forty years, having been an exemplary sailor his entire life, the only reason he had never made admiral was the large amount of drinking he did after the death of his wife.

Efield now watched with sorrow, his life in the navy had been over for years he knew, but he hadn't expected to be in such a dismal battle when he went to sleep last night. Ensign Tristy screamed over to him, "Sir! They are targeting our engines! The shields breached! I can't get any of the engineers there before-" Efield had anticipated this, and had already spent time debating in his head what to do. Disabling their engines was the most logical decision their enemy could make, and would effectively take out two birds with one stone.

"Fire upon the Victorious, tell the broadsides they are a priority one target." The rest of the crew looked at him, dumbfounded. He nodded for them to follow his orders, slowly they relented and began working their posts again. Efield watched from a screen as the Victorious flew towards his ship, it continued for a moment before a resounding boom sounded across the ship as the full staffed broadsides lit up their cannons. The front of the Victorious crumbled in like paper for a moment before explosions tore across the poor ships hull, the fuel line detonated along with its ammo stores from the close range fire without a shield and the entire ship began to tear into pieces.

The entire crew was grim as they watched the pieces fly in different directions, the threat was averted. Ensign Monroe screamed from his console, "SIR! THE LARGEST PIECE IS GOING TO HIT-" the entire ship shook as a piece of the Victorious slammed into her bulkhead, tearing deep into the battleship and crumpling the side in. "Us..." he finished, the sound of defeat in his voice clear. The rest of the pieces began to slam into the ship, Efield simply pulled a flask from his pocket and began to drink.

--

Thanks for reading this bloated beast that's been on my head for a while. Expect one or two more chapters after this one before it's finished.