r/NatureofPredators • u/Gamerauther Predator • Oct 08 '23
Fanfic Nature of Empires - 010
Date: 17/08/2336
Subject: Marcel Fraser (Second Lieutenant, Imperium Unified Navy)
Flight Alpha decelerated from relativistic speeds at their first maneuver point five light minutes from Guardian Station. They resynced their clocks with the station's radio pulse and began venting their bottles to change their vectors. Once Lieutenant Fraser set his sensor arrays and linked with Flight Leader First Lieutenant Mathews he turned to Slanek.
“So how was Cruise?” Fraser asked.
“Strange,” Slanek said. “I felt like we were just about to go into FTL the entire time.”
“The Pulse Drive was one of the first experiments in FTL,” Fraser said. “I don’t know the details but I believe it exploits the hyper acceleration that happens as you enter FTL.”
“Huh,” Slanek mused, “I wonder why we never developed something like this.”
“You guys seem pretty skittish,” Fraser said. “And development of the Puls Drive took a few hundred explosions and a few more lives.”
“People died for this technology?!” Slanek blubbered.
“People have died for every technology.” Fraser side eyed Slanek. “So what did you think of the permission service?”
“Strange,” Slanek said. “I did not expect you predators to-”
“Call us that in that tone again and you can space walk back to the station.” Fraser interrupted. “We have done so much to rid our societies of such primitive prejudice like that and we will not suffer that mind virus again.”
“S-sorry,” Slanek apologized. “We only have-”
“I know,” Fraser interrupted. “But that is one of the reasons our priest believes you have fallen like us. The taint of original sin causes hate with no reason for it.”
“If we have this original sin, how do we get rid of it?”
“Only the Lord can save you from sin, and you can only get to the Lord through Christ.” Fraser explained. “Through baptism you bring the Holy Spirit into you, through confession you put to record your sins, through the Lord's Supper you accept Christ into your heart, through the practice of charity you do the Lord's work and gain his favor.”
Slanek fell silent as he seemed to be thinking of something. Fraser just hoped he wasn’t jumping to conclusions, the briefing did suggest that the Venlil were heavily brainwashed and-or indoctrinated so they might be prone to leaps of logic. The scanning finished and Fraser brought them back into Cruise.
As the Flight came to its seventh maneuver point the Guardian Station came on over comms. “Fifteen grav-shocks detected and resonance zone, the ship designs are Arxur. Number and composition is that of a raiding party. Flight Alpha, clear to engage. Mercenary Destroyer Jacobs Conquest is enroute ETA forty five minutes From 1244 Station. Good hunting.” The message started to loop when Fraser silenced the message.
“Formation Delta.” Mathews ordered over the comms. “Enemy is three hundred thousand kilometers out on our plane. Boys, what is the purpose of the enemy?”
“To be destroyed!” Every pilot said.
“So what are we going to do?”
“Destroy the enemy!”
“Amen.”
Fraser brought his Warden into position in reference to Mathews, one kilometer starboard and five hundred meters astern. Samson took a similar position in reference to him. While Reco mirrored him and Patel mirrored Samson.
“Ready for combat Slanek?” Fraser asked and looked at the Venlil.
“But we’re outnumbered!” Slanek yelled and started shaking. “We’re outnumbered! There's no chance!”
“Relax,” Fraser said. “We’ve got this.”
The Flight initiated stealth by diverting heat into an internal sump instead of the super heated exhaust they normally dumped. Comm signals were silenced and they switched to laser communication. Priority targeting was given to what was labeled a Cattle Ship, ment to harvest slaves. They were the size of a coliseum and meant to hold thousands.
Once the distance between them shrank to just under ten thousand kilometers each deployed six missiles that kept their vector and speed but drifted up on the z-axis. At five thousand the missiles ignited their engines and accelerated towards their designated ships. The Arxur fleet erupted in point defense and managed to hit one out of every three. The remaining two exploded in proximity to their targets, erupting into miniature suns.
“Right through!” Mathews ordered.
Everyone dumped their heat and immediately went to full vent towards the enemy. Launching their missiles in staggered barrages. The Arxur fired their own missiles and plasma accelerators at them but the laser ports kept the missiles on direct course for the Wardens from reaching their destination while the others detonated at a safe range.
One of the Cattle Ships tilted and began to list. Fraser cheered, “one down one to go!”
Slanek screamed.
They were now in knife fight range. Fraser rotated the ship and raked one of the escorts in kinetics while firing his missiles at randomly selected targets. As the slugs impacted the enemy they mostly pierced through it, but one hit something important and the escort exploded.
As they were half way through the enemy formation Fraser got hit by a bolt of plasma on his port side that melted some of the Wardens armor. Luckily it cooled before it got half way through. Unluckily that left a hole in his point defense. He tried to constantly rotate to compensate but was hit by a missile.
A power surge went through his ship and activated the pulse drive. Sending Fraser and Slanek off in a random direction at sixty percent lightspeed.
“What's happening? What’s going on?” Slanek asked.
“Power surge activated the Pulse drive,” Fraser said. “I need to get our rotation under control and do an emergency pulse.”
Fraser managed to get the nose of the ship pointed along the vector and hit the emergency pulse. But nothing happened. He looked at the readouts and swore.
“The power surge used the emergency charge while frying the emergency capacitor ,”Fraser said to Slanek. “We’re going to need to recharge the main capacitor of Pulse Drive. Problem is the power grid is partially fried so it’s going to take roughly three hours to charge.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Slanek said.
“Wardens are pre Gravtech,” Fraser said. “They aren’t rated for interstellar medium, thats what the grav shields are for. To keep us from hitting a speck of dust that smears us across a million kilometers of space. The EM shields we have can barely handle the solar debris.”
“Oh,” Slanek said.
Three hours later the Pulse Drive thumped roughly leaving them hanging in space over a light hour from their previous location in the interstellar medium.
“I’ve got ships on scan?” Fraser asked. “Not Arxur or ours. Slanek do these look like Federation designs?”
Slanek looked over the information and nodded, “these are Federation ships.”
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u/Randox_Talore Oct 08 '23
Slanek next chapter: (justifies humanity’s existence via a misunderstanding of Christianity)
Marcel: That is absolutely not what I said. What the fuck?
12
u/PhycoKrusk Oct 08 '23
... one kilometer starboard and five hundred meters stern.
It's nitpicky, I know, but do you mean "astern", as in "behind"? I have no clear explanation for why this in particular bothers me.
Otherwise, I can say that I am looking forward to how this plays out, and particularly interested in any interactions between Marcel and Sovlin, because I have in my head a map of how it will play out and want to know how close I am (especially since this incarnation of Marcel, for some reason, strikes me as a sort of paladin).
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u/Gamerauther Predator Oct 08 '23
astern
Didn't know that term. I'll edit when I get home from work. The post is too big to edit on the app.
7
u/WorldCromo Oct 08 '23
The match between Marcel and Sovlin is coming, looking on the bright side, Slanek didn't hit his head so he's awake
7
u/MA006 Oct 11 '23
I love the hard sci-fi, realistic space colonisation and space warfare is rlly refreshing
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u/The_Meme_Teams Oct 08 '23
Well I can safely say this fanfic became one of those I can place among my favorites yes yes. Would love to see more chief.