Chapter 16: Home front

Back in the Alderian system, life was slowly returning to the bruised and battered Alderian fleet. Crippled ships were deactivated to be repaired when a repair slot opened up for them Their crews were transferred to fill in the gaps left in less critically damaged ships. Even one of the older spaces stations had been deactivated except for a caretaker crew and most of her crew sent to the fleet. Aboard the Space station Queen Ann, life was still running as it was supposed to. Her fifty million bulk drifted through space. Her weapons stood ready, her sensors continued to reach out and searched the endless dimensions of space until a threat was located and then the crew would be ready.

Lieutenant Commander Timothy Hatch was at the sensor station. He was watching for the slightest hint that any Gormarian ships were snooping around. He had already caught two destroyers and they had been quickly captured.

Timothy reached over and picked up his coffee cup. As he took a sip of his coffee, the long ranged sensors detected a small hyperwake coming in and started flashing. Bringing up the sensor scan, he frowned as he wondered who was coming in on that vector and with only four ships. He started to reach for the general alarm but instead turned in his chair. He looked across the command deck until his eyes settled on the station commander, and he said, "Admiral, I have a small hyper wake coming in at sector two, it looks like four contacts."

Turning back to his board, he started typing more commands in to his sensor board to refine the data as best as he could. Up on the top of the massive ten-mile long battlestation, sensor dishes started turning and locked onto the incoming hyperwake. They started straining to identify the ships for their human crew.

Admiral of the Red Sir Jamie Breckenridge looked up as he was called, saw the young man and nodded his head. Handing the datapad back to the Ensign he was talking to he walked across the command deck and looked at the sensor scope. Jamie rubbed his chin and thought for a second after he finished examining the scans. He looked up at the CIC board and walked over. The board showed the probable location of the emergence and then he started looking for the nearest ships in the area and his eyes settled onto one of the small cruiser fleets. The fleet was doing independent training in the outer asteroid belt. With a squint of his eyes he tried to read the name but couldn't, so he sighed and pulled out his glasses and looked again. Quickly reading the name off, he said, "Com, I want you to contact the twenty-ninth light cruiser fleet over in sector two, and tell them that we have a contact, and its possibly four ships coming in. They are to intercept and possibly engage if they are hostile."

Pressing the icon, he said into it, "All hands, Red alert, man your battlestations. I repeat all hands man your battlestations."

While her alarms blared throughout the station, her crew rushed to their duty stations and started bringing her massive weapons stations fully online. Scattered in the hundreds of landing bays of the station alarms sounded. Pilots looked up at the alarms and rushed out of their ready rooms and five hundred fighters belched from the landing bays followed by three hundred bombers.

Lieutenant Christie Sanders sat at her com board as Admiral Breckenridge walked back over to the sensor station. Taking a quick sip of her water, she went back to issuing the Admirals order. "Cruiser Athena, you are clear for repair bay nineteen, you may proceed in at one quarter speed on vector 33, Mark 6, and you may contact the tug Peanut for a tow into the bay if needed."

On her, screen the heavily damaged cruiser limped along, her portside open to space, and frozen water along her flank shows that her main water tanks have been ripped open. Radar, and shattered weapon mounts litter the deck of the main hull. Several repair teams were cutting away the damaged plates so new ones could be installed in their place.

Suddenly Admiral Breckenridge's voice broke into Christie thoughts and she turned her head and listened to his orders. With a nod, she opened up her miniature CIC screen. She quickly scanned it up to sector two, located the twenty-ninth light cruiser fleet, and pressed it with her finger. The list of ships came up with one flashing as the flotilla leader, USS Sapphire. The CIC also showed the ships captain's name, the ship's statistics and that it still had battle damage. Pressing the ships name, she opened a communication to the vessel, and said into her com unit, "H.M.S. Sapphire this is the Queen Ann, proceed to sector 2, section thirty. We have detected an incoming hyperwake. Possible four, I repeat possibly four contacts. ETA is seven minutes."

Across the star system from the space station, ten light cruisers slowly cruised through a small asteroid field as several ships tested their recently repaired weapon system. They were also searching for any targets that were possibly hiding in the field. They had already captured two destroyers in the last week thanks to the sensor officer on the Queen Ann.

Captain William Griffs, of the HMS Sapphire sat in his command chair and studied the damage reports coming in. Freezing the datapad, he turned his chair, and said to his second in command, "John, it looks like we will need to exchange the oxygenic reactor next time we lay into the repair docks. Chief engineer Thomas said he has done the best he can on it, but its going to take a full replacement."

Lieutenant Commander John Hancock looked up at the captain, and said, "Yes Sir, and missile tube four is back online. Which I am happy for, we now have all our weapons back. The only thing left is the damaged to the boat bay. Which by all the reports I have here, and I have been going over all of them. It is going to take the repair dock to get them unjammed and back on their tracks... " and then he started to yawn, "Damn, thirty-six hours of repairs are getting to me."

"Getting to all of us, we need some down time," William said.

Lieutenant Cindy Granger yawned, and scratched her head, the shortage of crews were starting to tell on the ones who stood guard in the space stations as crew were siphoned off and sent to the fleet. She had heard that each station was down around twelve percent, several at fifteen percent. Another quick yawn and she finished her first cup of hot tea. Setting the up to the side, she looked at her communications board trying to stay awake. The board started flashing during one of her yawns and then the pinging started in her ear from the earpiece she was wearing. Pressing her hand to her earpiece she said into to the com unit, "This is the H.M.S. Sapphire, go ahead." Cindy listened to the report and turned to the captain and made her report, "Captain, Queen Ann has a hyper wake coming into sector 2 section 30. ETA is seven minutes, possible four contacts."

Captain Griffs looked up from his damage report, and said, "Contact the rest of the fleet and tell them we are heading for the sector. Formation Delta" Turing on the ship intercom, he said, "All hands, Red Alert, all hands to battle stations."

Around the light cruiser, the men and woman dropped whatever they were doing and rushed to their battle stations. The exhausted crew quickly climbed into their combat suits, and then into their battle stations and activated their gunnery stations. On the bridge, the crew climbed into their combat suits as the red alert alarm flashed through the ship while the repair techs left the bridge taking the damaged computer and the welder with them.

In the main CIC, the compartments turned from red to green as the ships weapons, and stations were manned. The small fleet of light cruisers turned and headed for the intersection of the strange ships that were due to drop into real space in the next few minutes. Missiles slid up their rails and into their launching positions as energy poured into the lasers.

Cindy changed frequency on her com unit and brought up fleet control after donning her suit. She quickly brought the rest of the squadron onto the battlenet, and listened to the reports coming in and then made her report. "Sir all ships answering orders and changing course and going into formation Delta. Cruisers Ruby and Opal are pulling ahead of us Garnet is climbing above us while Topaz and Jarvis Bay are falling astern and stacking. All ships are at battlestations. All fighters are prepped and ready for launch except for ours."

"Thank you Lieutenant Granger, Ensign Howard if we get a positive ID that they are Gormarians we will open fire."

Ensign John Howard was sitting down at his battle stations when the Captain issued his orders. "Yes, Sir, do you want me to wait for your command or should I just launch."

William finished sealing his suit and sat down, as he pondered the question. 'Four ships could be merchants or a quick scouting group. If I open fire, I could kill a lot of civilians. Especially if one of the ships was a liner, no better wait, ' he thought as he issued his orders, "No wait, if they open fire on us, you may fire then. Otherwise wait until I say so."

"Yes Sir, I follow ready your orders as fire only when fired upon," John said as he checked the energy readings and noticed one of the starboard lasers was fluctuating. Turning on the com he said, "Turret three, you have a power spike in number two gun."

"Yeah we know, we are fixing it. Three minutes is how much time we need."

"Roger, bridge out," John said and made his report to the captain, "Sir, turret three has a power problem but estimated time of repairs is three minutes."

"Roger that guns, keep me informed on the situation," William said as he started planning the flotillas movements.

"Come on lock that power conduit down. We may need these weapons," Sergeant Mickey Olson shouted as he watched the repairwoman wiggle into the small access panel, until she was bent almost in half at the waist.

"I am fucking trying, they made these ports to damn small in this class of ship," snapped tech-specialist Nancy Woo, as she snarled, "get the fuck on there you son of a bitch."

Inside the compartment, Nancy was twisted almost in two directions as she was wrestling a wrench onto the conduit to tighten it down, but with only two inches of maneuvering room on each side it was a constant tighten, remove adjust and tighten regime. Finally, with a hard yank she locked the conduit down and watched as the energy burst through the transparent conduit.

"Got it," Nancy cried out as she started to wiggled out, and she continued her rant, "God damn fucking ship designers should have to repair their own designs. OUCH! Fuck that hurt."

"Nancy, are you okay? Mickey asked.

"No! My back hurts, and I just fucking sliced my arm open. You had better get a med-tech for me. Its bad," Nancy said as she looked at the six inch cut along her forearm.

"Okay, calling one now," Mickey said as he actived the com unit.

"And get me a fucking hammer so I can beat the fucking crap out or the designers of this ship," Nancy snarled as she wiggled out of the repair port.

"Sir, power has been restored to turret three and a med-tech sent to see to an injury."

"Thank you Ensign Howard," replied Captain Griffs as he walked over to the CIC display and waited, "ETA?"

"Ninety seconds until they drop out, that is if they do drop out," replied the ensign operating the station.

"Okay people, let's do this right, the admiralty is watching and that means his Royal Majesty is watching. Main screen on the exit point," William said as he walked back to his command chair and sat down. Aviating his force belt, he watched the main screen and it started showing the fluctuation of a ship getting ready to drop out of hyperspeed.

Aboard the destroyer Fire Storm, Commander Jack Torais paced the damaged bridge. Looking at the scanners, he saw the Catamaran off his port beam. Across from her were the Dragon and the destroyer Terrible. Looking at the counter he saw that there were less then ninety seconds until they dropped out of hyper.