A Galaxy Divided

A report came not long after that they left. Honestly, I was much more pleased with that idea than anything. Now I marched my way down the damaged sections of the ship where the broadsides came in. The engineering crews were working good but I wanted a full damage report.

"Report Officer." I said approaching the Officer of Engineering.

"Good news, the shields held back most of the enemy weapon fire. Bad news, that didn't stop others from getting through. A lot of damage was due to shrapnel. Easy fix when we make port and it will not harm our abilities to fly, but those ECm missiles tore the outer hull good. Six locations have lost hyper space stability due to this unless we get those hols patched up enough to last a jump. The rest is minor damage we can live with. She is holding up just like what we were promised." I nodded and looked about, seeing an ECM warhead, or what was left of it anyway, roll own the hall on a cart.

Returning to the bridge, I contacted our allies and had the ship stabilized and returned to normal operations. Once we wer all on a good standing,. I contacted the caption of the team on the wreck. "Progress?"

"Power and gravity are finally on. Most this stuff resembles what is back home so its not taking too much to work around. Good news is we can read most of this. We can get her to fly and maybe shields fo hyperspace, but its still going to take a long while to get the rest of everything back up. That will include repairs to the existing damage." I thought to myself for a moment.

"Good work and keep it up, well be here a little longer anyway." With that, it was time to get those hols patched up.

As the skip torpedoes were hauled on to the superstructure and lashed down, I grinned quietly. It had been an eventful trip to get us to Iceworld, but nothing drew spacers like knowing their home was untouchable. The clock was ticking down, and we would be gone shortly.

"FTL jump in three... two... one... executing."

As we entered the safety of FTL space, I relaxed and took the ship off general quarters. Relieving the bridge to my excec, I went to my personal quarters to sleep this flight away.

****

Approaching Iceworld was always an experience. The greatest free holding and capital of the Brethren of the Stars, Iceworld was a drifting gas giant that had slowly fallen into entropy. What had once been the size of Yavin was now a blue icicle drifting through uncharted space after millennia of drifting without significant heat. Nowadays, it was ringed with space stations built from the derelict hunks of old prize ships. Pulling into orbit for a docking slip, I got my boarding team and pinace for a trip dockside.

****

At risk of getting labeled unjustly, I first have to explain myself. The Brethren of the Stars was NOT an outlaw guild, as implicated by every other organized group with two pennies and a jig to it's name. The Brethren was merely the guiding organization that relieved Guild space of it's assorted malcontents, beggars, and other unsavory types and transformed them into responsible citizens- just not to the Guild and Empire. As a direct result of the cost to transport, feed, and socialize the unlisted undesirables, a light tax was applied to wealthy groups who could stand to pay for the rehabilitation of their unwanted populace. When this tax was not paid, however, things got... messy. My ship, the Dreamcatcher, was generally responsible for damages mitigation and rapid response- thus, her relatively heavy armament. Orders had come from High Command; new orders to boot. After our discovery of the super dreadnought wreck, estimated by my catamarans to be at least 8,500,000 tons. I was now detached to one of our operating squadrons- BatCruRon3, or Battlecruiser Three for civies. The thing was, this action had me worried. Guild regs had put a hard 33,000 ton limit at ship construction. Mostly we got around this with massive superstructures that were tons lighter and mounted the heavy gear. Push came to hove, though, and they could be detached to pass an inspection. These battlecruisers, though, were more than double that, with each one weighing in at 875,000 tons. While we could mount three times the armament of a cruiser on them, it would be the first flagrant breech of Guild rules. Either way, I had two weeks for Dreamcather to be repaired. Then, we would head out to find that derelict hulk and start tearing it down. Pity the enemies in our way.

Its been a week. The ship we found finally had engine power and we were moving. The goal was to get her into the next sector and that thankfully would not take long. Someone caught onto the firefight and alerted the guild. When they did arrive, it would be a sector full of debris and nothing more.

That would at least make them tun away from it and call it a pirate disagreement. Fact was though, we still could not jump the ship. Patch work was only barely half done. Not enough for a safe jump. Even now as the ships moved at a nice pace, I looked over a star chart.

"It will be a week before we make it to our outpost at this pace. I really advise we get this sucker able to fight. If we are discovered without operable weapons, what good will this ship do us?" My Co asked as I looked, trying to plan a faster way home.

"I ordered those to be looked over those. The auto defences are enabled for emergencies only. As for manned weapons, this ship has more of that then we have people able to fire the dam things. From what we can tell, they take a four man crew to operate." I pointed out with a deep sigh. "We will need the guilds backup to hull this thing home. However if we do that, we risk being uncovered. We don't have the firepower right now to fight a war."

"I understand this ma'am, but our allies are better suited for this. I know you want to keep this on a need to know basis. but this is the biggest hope the alliance has. We must contact our allies and call for aid." I looked up. He seamed so sure it would be enough. Would it? Three Battlecruisers cant hold against the armada of the Guild, who might I ad likes breaking their own rules. Of the twenty planets we control, four are of the most value and Vandor was the highest.

"We can call them in, but that wont save us for long. However, it would give us more crew. How long?" I sat down in a chair giving up on the star map.

"Half a week, maybe sooner. After that though we are limited on supplies as far as military ships." This was also true. No one anticipated the finding of this wreck. The fact it was found was helpful, but it could have been at a better time.

"I will call in the remaining frigates we can spare. We must clear the guild out of our territory first. Mos of our military fleet will have to take care of that. Time is up Von, spread the word." And so this is what it comes too. Great, if only it waiting another year.

As the Brethren's squadron of battlecruisers and a tacked-on destroyer squadron entered the system, I swore quietly. Someone had moved the super dreadnought. After a quick discussion with the commodore of BatCruRon3 and DesRon18, all of us launched our small single-seater companies. Standard operating procedure gave corvettes like mine eighteen fighters, normally catamarans; destroyers had six light Ferret fighters; while the new battlecruisers had twenty four catamarans and twelve Ferrets. All told, we had two hundred and thirty four kites out there, searching for the wreck with full active sensors.

It still took about four hours to pinpoint the super dreadnought making full speed for the closest inhabited systems. Another three hours were spent launching resupply jigs to keep the fighters gassed up while we started moving into an assault formation. It was quiet late when we started making real headway on the beast, and it would get only later.

When we finally made the approach on the SD out there, I waited as the commodore started making radio contact, demanding that the super dreadnought strike drives and evacuate it's crew. Giving my new EWO a quiet wave to do a one-way hack on the message while my communications officer double-checked all the relays. Due to parts shortages and crew stopgaps, none of our battlecruisers had very good communications or sensor suites, with nonexistent Electronic Warfare systems and untrained EWOs. Dreamcatcher would serve as a stopgap measure in those departments, while DesRon18 got us enough information to stay in good shape.

((EWO= Electronic Warfare Officer))

"Ma'am, a fleet of banned ships has arrived. iD's are similar to the one rat you dealt with a week ago." I layed back on my bed as the Co gave a report. I took in a deep breath and sighed.

"If its not one dam problem its another." I muttered and slowly got up. "Get me an up to date report on what that wreck can do. In the meantime, call our allies into a defencive unit at the rear of the ship. We must protect it." He nodded and walked off quickly. Getting up I made my way to the bridge. Once there, I assembled our status.

"Ma'am." An officer came up to me. "The ship captured is fully repaired for a jump but we can only get one. However it will take about three hours to get that warp drive active. The enemy as we know of is two hours out. We have to hold them off if she is to escape." I nodded.

"Very well. Send this communicate to the guild officer in the closest system, and state that its from me. He has two hours to move or we cant do a thing." He nodded. I looked out of the bridge and examined the area. Numbers were against us, but that would not stop us from trying. "Don't arm weapons yet. Give them an hour. Comms officer, please send out this message. to these people."

"This is Empress jane of the Vandorian Trade Empire. Please stand down, we are not interested in a fight. I repeat please stand down, we are not interested in a fight."

The communication was cut. "Whatever you do don't arm weapons till the last minute. if this group has any sense of honor then they won't attack until provoked. Blockade the wreck."

With that last report, I got a transmission from the team onboard with a full report of working systems. Sense we began to bring in more crew, working on the ship has increased greatly, but not as much as I woul like. none the less, I looked over the report. From there I would form a plan.

As the, quote,"Empress", unquote, had said, she didn't want to fight. While signaling my crew to stop roaring with mirth at the message, I waited for the Commodore's response. This time, he didn't bother to tightbeam it- this one was open to all and sundry. Only a deaf mynoc on a rock would'nt hear it.

"This is the Commodore Fisk Talker, of the Brethren. Super Dreadnought, strike your shields and engines and prepare to be boarded. Failure to do so in more than ten minutes will result in being fired upon."

Short, sweet, and brutally to the point. The scary thing was, it wouldn't be that hard. The four battlecruisers and twelve destroyers of BatCruRon3 or DesRon18 could do the job alone, and so could the combined fighter compliment of the group. Either way, that thing was ours- in one piece or in many. Even if all we got was scrap metal and slagged circuits, we would be out ahead.

****

Looking over my command bridge, I tapped a few keys to bring up Commodore Fisk.

"Commodore, I had an idea."

"Alright, Captain..."

"Iber. Klien Iber, sir."

"Thank you, Captain Iber. What is it?"

"Simple, sir. I've got some sensor, jammer, and interference pods that my catamarans can tow and slingshot on to the SD. The pods are invisible to something that huge, and it's sensors will never find them as long as they stay passive. Once I activate them, though, they're going to be blind, deaf, and dumb."

"What about getting them to the target."

"That's what the slingshot is for. Two catamarans tow one between them in a sling, set velocity for the target, get up to speed, and then reverse acceleration. Momentum does the rest."

"Nice. It should work, and it won't hurt. Get cracking."

"Aye sir."