The Lost Colonial Ship

[Firebrand1]

Prolouge:

Shortly before the Mantis invaded, the group of settlers known as the Colonials were fearing an imminent attack from the Imperials. For this reason, the Colonials in Mizar deactivated their stargate, thus negating most possibility of attack from the Imperials, who had not developed Hyperdrive technology or ships capable of interstellar travel for long distances under their own power at that time. The story begins at a station in orbit of Lustra, the planet where the bulk of the shipbuilding facilities in Antares was located. In one of the construction facilities, there was a massive ship, a Dreadnaught made of designs stolen from the Imperial's classified data archives shortly before the exodus from Sol. It had yet to be completed, but due to increasing fear of an Imperial attack, the main weapon system, 2 powerful laser cannons mounted on either side of the hull, capable of turning an entire planet into glass, and it's hangar facilities were made fully operational. The ship was roughly 2,173 meters long, had 3 hangars, and was bristling with point-defense and long range pulse weapons. She was also the largest ship ever to have the (at the time) prototype Hyperdrive technology. It also had a full compliment of 15 Valkrie-class fighers and another 5 Valkries that were heavily modified for bomber duties. She was to be christened Daedalus, AFD 8607.

Shortly before she was to be commisioned, Antares came under attack, but not from the Imperials. A new enemy, with an armada of powerful ships, was laying siege to the planet Terasa, as it was closest to the Stargate. Daedalus, which was supposed to be undergoing it's shakedown cruise, was quickly diverted to the planet, along with 20 other defenders. Shortly thereafter, the facility at Lustra lost all contact with the Stargate and Terasa, and the fleet of 21 ships was never seen or heard from again, many believing all of them to have been wiped out in the initial attacks.

 

[balance]

not bad at all keep going :mrorange:

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 1

An exploration vessel, named Constellation, was charting the vast expanse between Gemini and Antares. The ship was an old Phoenix-class gunship, which was being sold for scrap. The pilot, Flame, bought it and converted it into a vessel of science. The war with the Mantis and the Krygar Remnant was far away, and life in Antares at least, was slowly returning to normal. At least, as normal as you can be when you've been under siege for 200 years.

The ship suddenly lost all power. "Not again!" said Flame in dismay. "Sir, i don't think it was the ship's fault this time," said his tactical officer, "look". Outside the main viewport was a bright blue wormhole, and Constellation was drifting towards it. The crew watched, helpless, as the ship entered the event horizon and was sucked into subspace. The view outside suddenly was one of a kalydescope, with a lot of swirling colors. Within a few seconds the psychedelic ride was over, and the ship drifted out of the other side. Flame went down to the third deck, where the Engineering bay was. "Captain, we're doing all we can to get the power back online. Shouldn't take long now." said the Chief Engineer. As he said it, the lights came back on. "Well, it's a start," said Flame, "but try and get the sensors online i want to see where we are." "Aye" said the Engineer. Flame went back up to the bridge. Most of the display consoles were blank, with their systems being offline. Looking out of the viewport, Flame could see a star that was relatively close. "Where do you suppose that is?" he asked, pointing out the star to his other 2 bridge officers. Both shrugged. Just then, most of the consoles on the bridge came back online. Going over to one console, Flame initiated short-range sensor sweeps of the area. "That's odd," he said, "I'm getting a large return off our port bow, a couple of hours away if we had engines. And it's not the star." With the engines offline, Constellation had no way of control and thus couldn't spin around and fly towards the sensor echo. Getting on the comm, Flame contacted Engineering. "Hey guys, how long do you think it will take you to fix the engines?" "Hard to say, sir, the wormhole's subspace effect damaged them a bit. Shouldn't take more than a couple hours." said a voice through the comm.

3 hours later, the engines and most of the other systems were back online. Flame took the pilot's seat and took the control yoke. Spinning the ship around, he engaged a course to the unidentified object, with his shields and (what was left of) his weapons on standby. It took about an hour to reach the object, at which time Flame engaged the floodlamps. In front of them was a ship, with heavy carbon scoring and minimal power readings. "Wow, look at the size of that thing." said Flame in awe. Bring the ship slowly around to the front, he angled the floodlamps at what looked like letters. There, amidst heavy carbon scoring, was the ship's name. Daedalus, A.F.D 8607.

 

[Firebrand1]

more coming soon, but i'm a bit busy atm so can't write lol

 

[Sinned]

Your stories are very nice,
Keep going.

Regards
Dark Lord

 

[balance]

i agree good read keep up the good work [ and i don't pay many compliments lol]

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 2

Flame brought the Constellation in a circle around Daedalus. He was in awe of the utter size of the ship, Daedalus being over 1,800 meters longer than the Constellation. "What do you suppose those are?" he asked, indicating one of the 3 hangars shown on his sensor display. "Hangars i bet. Looks like the ship is depressurized, if we land we'll have to use pressure suits." said his chief engineer. "That ship has been adrift for who knows how long, it's not surprising that it's lost power." said Flame in reply. The engineer shrugged, and turned back to his console. Flame put the ship on an approach course for one of the airlocks, and shortly after they were docked with the massive ship. "Engaging external power supply, we should be able to open the outer airlock doors now." said the engineer. Flame and 3 others put pressure suits on, and entered the airlock. The outer doors closed, and they attached a small power generator to the console of the inner doors. The console lit up. "Here goes nothing. The ship probably doesn't have artificial gravity, so turn your mag boots on." said Flame.
They opened the inner doors, and stepped onto the Daedalus.

"Well, we should be somewhere near the bridge, judging from our scans." said one of the away team. They set off exploring the labyrinth of corridors, until they got to a sealed door. "It says 'Turbolift,'" said Flame, "must be some kind of elevator system." They attached the power unit, and pressed a button. The power unit started whining, and a few seconds later they heard a whooshing sound, to which the doors opened. They stepped inside the turbolift. Flame took the power unit and connected it to the panel inside the lift. Most of the systems inside the turbolift relied upon the main computer, which was offline, but the lift could still move about. They accessed a map of the ship on one of the screens. "Looks like the bridge is up about 5 decks," said one of the away team members, an engineer, "i'll see if i can't get the lift to go back up." He opened one of the panels and started fiddling with the innards. "I've never seen some of this technology before, it's like a bunch of computer chips instead of wires." he said. He pulled one of the chips out of its socket to examine it, when the turbolift shot upwards with the force of a bullet. The away team, plastered to the floor, looked at the engineer. He struggled to get up, but couldn't. Less than 2 seconds later, the lift stopped suddenly, throwing the team into the ceiling. Picking himself off the floor, Flame said, "Well, that was fun. Let's never do it again." "Must have been the emergency brakes, said the engineer, "i think that chip i pulled was the inertial dampening system." The lift doors opened, revealing a large semicircular room with a lot of consoles and a huge viewscreen at the front. "I think we found the bridge." said Flame.

A few hours later, they had managed to get to the main engineering bay, and reactivated the ship's power systems. Artificial gravity was restored, the lights came back on, and the ship started slowly re-pressurized when the main computer came back online. The consoles on the bridge lit up, and the huge viewscreen's holographic enhancement system initialized. The engines were yet to be restored, and it was a slow job with only 7 people on board a ship designed for over 3,000. Flame walked over to 2 consoles at the very forward section of the bridge and sat down at one of the consoles. Looking at the holographic touch-screen display, he marvelled at the engineering that this ship had. One of the buttons caught his eyes, which said "INIT ENG" wondering what this button did, he pressed it. The ship instantly started rumbling. His commlink signaled. "Yes?" he said. "Uhh, sir, the ship's engine core just came online. It's out of alignment, it could rip the ship apart if we can't shut it back off." said one of the engineers frantically over the line. "Err, sorry." said Flame. He pressed the button again, and the rumbling stopped. "Must be the helm." he said to the other 2 people on the bridge, who were looking alarmed. "What a ship." he said under his breath, having learned his lesson on pressing buttons on an unfamiliar and very advanced ship.

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 3

A few days later, the crew of the Constellation had managed to get most Daedalus's systems online. With only a basic few days' knowledge of this ship's computer systems, it was proving to be a very tough job getting the ship back in working order, and the engines were still offline. Flame was in the officer's lounge behind the bridge of the Daedalus, studying the ship's logs to try and find what happened to it. "We've been diverted to Terasa," the small computer terminal was saying, "to defend it from an attacking armada. They have demonstrated considerable aggression and-" FILE CORRUPTED flashed on the terminal. Flame sighed. All of the ship's logs beyond that point were corrupted beyond anything they could even hope to fix, even if they did know how to use the ship's computer. Flame walked out onto the bridge and entered the turbolift. It took them a full day to learn that it was voice commanded. "Main hangar." said Flame, and the lift started descending through the bowels of the ship.

A few seconds later, the lift stopped and the doors opened. Flame stepped out into the corridor, and walked over to a set of heavy doors, which opened when he neared them. 2 of his crew were in the main hangar, studying the fighters and shuttlecraft. The hangar containment field, finally back online after a couple day's fiddling with, was humming slightly and bathed the forward section of the hangar in a blue glow. Flame walked over to one of his men, bent over one of the fighters, and said, "Any idea what these ships are?" the technician, who jumped slightly, looked up and said, "They're fighters. Judging from the manifest this ship is equipped with 15 of these, 5 bombers, and 4 shuttles. We haven't found what they're called yet though." Nodding, Flame walked over to one of the stranger looking fighters, which was resting on it's curved engine nacelles, which were mounted on pylons below the fuselage. The technician, who was watching him, said "Those are the bombers. From the looks of them, they're modular and can pack one hell of a punch." Flame, impressed, climbed up the ladder attached and got into the cockpit. The bomber's cockpit was a tandem 2-seater, and was pretty roomy. Flame pressed the master power button (labelled "MSTR PWR"), and the ship's cockpit instantly lit up as the computerized systems displays and heads up display activated. As he was looking at the multi-function displays, Flame's comlink signaled. Picking it up, he said "Yes?" "Sir, we're about to re-initialize the engines. If you wouldn't mind, we'd like you to come down to Engineering." said a voice through the comm. "Alright, on my way." Flame said as he shut down the bomber's electronics and climbed out of the cockpit.

A few minutes later, the turbolift arrived at Engineering. The room was huge, with the massive hyperdrive core in the center, with coolant tanks attached that ran supercooled plasma around the core when it was in operation to keep it from overheating. Flame walked in, and went over to his chief engineer. "Captain, we're starting our final checks to initiate the engines. If we're right, we should be able to restart the hyperdrive along with the sublight drive." said the engineer. "Do whatever you need to do." said Flame.
"Alright, we're ready," said the chief engineer, "initializing the plasma flow now." Flame looked at a console, which showed steadily rising power levels in the sublight engines. The hyperdrive core started pulsing slightly as well. "We'll need about 15 minutes to get the sublights and hyperdrive up to capacity," said the engineer, "then at least we'll be able to move around." A comms panel a few feet away signaled. Pressing a button, Flame said, "Engineering here." "Captain, we need you on the bridge. Now." said a voice through the system. The ship's on-board communications system, which was being a problem for the past few days, was finally starting to work right. "On my way." said Flame.

Up on the bridge, the holographically enhanced viewscreen was showing 3 ships of unknown origin, all with their weapons armed and pointed at Daedalus.

 

[Firebrand1]

Here we introduce the Serbu Syndicate, a pirate faction that cropped up after the mantis were eliminated from most of the known galaxy. Most of them are former smugglers, and they have a few advanced ships at their disposal, mainly stolen from Rebel and Imperial convoys.

Chapter 4

The tactical console on the bridge started beeping. "We're recieving an incoming transimission. Patching it through now." said the tactical officer. The viewscreen switched to a live video feed from one of the ships. "I am Captain Motaar of the Serbu Syndicate. Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded, or you will be destroyed." said the captain of the vessel. "This is Captain Flame of the Free Colonial Navy. Give us a few minutes." said Flame. "You have 5." said Motaar, who cut the transmission. "Options?" asked Flame. "Sir, our defensive systems are still offline and we can't even begin to figure out this ship's weapon systems. We probably wouldn't last long if they start shooting at us." said the tactical officer. Flame went over to a comms panel. "Bridge to engineering," he said, "how long until the sublight engines are up?" "Another 5 to 10 minutes, captain." said one of his engineers. "We don't have that long. Try and get the shields up, we may need them in about...3 minutes." said Flame. "Alright, but i can't promise anything, sir." said the engineer, who then cut the transmission. Suddenly, a bright flash of orange light lit up the bridge, as one of the pirate vessels fired a shot off the bow. "They're hailing us again." said the tactical officer, as the viewscreen switched to the video feed again. "Your 5 minutes are up. Prepare to be boarded." said Motaar. Flame's console beeped. It showed the lead vessel launching a small shuttlecraft, that was heading for one of Daedalus's hangars. Flame's console beeped again, and it showed the shields as online. "Great work, guys." said Flame under his breath, as the enemy boarding vessel was dashed against Daedalus's shields. "You shouldn't have done that." said Motaar, as he cut the transmission again and started firing. "Shields are holding, they're barely making a dent." said Flame's tactical officer in surprise. "Will they last until the engines are back up?" asked Flame. "Yeah, and then some." replied the officer. The pirate vessels continued pounding Daedalus with energy weapons and missiles, none of which had much of an effect on the ship's powerful shields. 2 minutes later, the sublight and hyperdrive engines were back online. Flame plotted a course to the nearest Colonial outpost, and engaged the hyperdrive. The ship shot forward, instantly destroying one of the pirate vessels as it was smashed against Daedalus's shields and then thrown into the ship's engine wake.

Shortly afterwards, they managed to get partial weapons online, mainly the ship's short range anti-starfighter pulse cannons. It would be another several hours to reach Goya, a planet on the outer edge of Antares that had it's space stations and drydock facilities refurbished. They had also managed to find out the names of the ship's compliment of fighters, which were Valkire-class fighter and bomber variants, as well as the ship's class (Freedom-class Dreadnought). The crew of the Constellation had spent over a week on the ship, and were eager to get it back to a shipyard so they could learn more about it, and have a full crew assigned. They still had not found out what happened to the ship's crew, or how it ended up adrift so far away from where it was last seen. Flame was particularly interested, but there was nothing more they could do as they lacked the knowledge of the ship's computer to try and recover the data of the ship's logs, which they would have to try and do at Goya.

 

[nebulaman]

EXTREMELY good start, this is a very engaging story. Keep it up, I'd love read more

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 5

Daedalus dropped out of hyperspace on the outer edge of Antares. She would continue to Goya on her sublight drive, as hypering though a system in a ship this big was close to suicidal, as it couldn't stop as fast as a smaller ship. Daedalus was still 3 hours away from the shipyards at Goya, and they still had the Constellation attached to the airlock. Shortly after they exited hyperspace, the tactical console started beeping. "Contact, 2 R-Storms heading for us on an intercept course," said Flame's tactical officer, "they're hailing." The ship's audio communication came to life. "Unidentified starship, you are approaching restricted airspace, state your intentions." Flame keyed his mic. "This is Captain Flame of the Colonial Dreadnought Daedalus. Our intentions are to dock with the shipyards at Goya." he said. "There is no Dreadnought by the name of Daedalus currently in the Navy." said the voice over the radio. "It's a long story, and we don't know most of it ourselves, can we please just dock now?" "Alright, but try anything and we'll blast you our of the stars." said the captain of one of the R-Storms. The 2 Storms, which were tiny compared to Daedalus, swung around and flanked the ship, escorting it to the largest shipyard. Flame snorted, and when the mic was off, he said, "Fat chance." He keyed his mic again, saying "Approach control, this is CNS Daedalus, requesting approach vectors for shipyard 13." "CNS Daedalus, cleared final approach to shipyard 13, vectors transferred to your helm, caution heavy merchant traffic," the contoller at the starbase replied. "Roger, Daedalus out." said Flame. The 2 R-Storms peeled off and headed back to the stabase. Flame told his auxiliary pilot on the Constellation to break off and head for the hangar as well, as Daedalus wouldn't fit in the shipyard with another ship attached to it. The ship got to 500 meters away from the shipyard, and Flame fired the reverse thrusters to slow the ship down, and shut off the sublight engines. Daedalus entered the shipyard, and docked smoothly. The airlocks pressurized, and Flame gave the order to disembark.

The crew of the Daedalus had taken a small shuttlecraft to the starbase, where they were talking with the Navy brass on how they had found Daedalus, and managed to bring it back there. The Navy was quite keen on this ship, as it would give them a huge advantage over the Mantis and Krygar. They were allowing Flame to keep his command on the Daedalus, as he found the ship in the first place, but he had to find his own crew to assign to it. He was also using the shipyard's resources to try and recover the ship's log data, which was going slowly due to the advanced nature of the computer. Flame was also keen on taking one of the starfighters out on a test flight to see how it performed, which he was about to do. They had found flight suits (which were pressurized and had airtight helmets in case the pilot had to eject) in a room off of the main hangar. Flame put one on, and headed for one of the fighters. It was a sleek design, with it's hyperdrive nacelles on the bottom of the ship, and no weapons visible on the outside, with the laser cannons and torpedo launchers nestled into the hull behind armor plating. Flame climbed into the cockpit, which was smaller than the bomber's and only had room for one person. They had managed to figure out what most of the controls and buttons in the cockpit did, ranging from starting the engines to the handles behind the seat for the ejection system. Flame started the ship up, and engaged it's anti-gravity lift system. The fighter rose smoothly off the hangar floor and started gliding towards the containment field. Flame raised the landing gear, and punched the throttle. The little fighter fighter instantly shot forward with a burst of speed, and nearly went out of control when Flame made to turn. The ship was light and speedy, highly maneuverable, and seemed to respond at the thought of moving the yoke rather than the action. Flame maneuvered over to a small space rock and engaged the fighter's weapons systems. He took aim, and fired a volley of hot plasma from the fighter's laser cannons, which ripped right through the rock as if it were butter. Then, his comm system came to life. "When you're finished playing around with that thing, come back to the Daedalus, we've been called to the battlefield." said a voice through the comm. Flame was surprised, as half the ship's weapon systems were still offline. He went back to the Daedalus's hangar and landed the fighter.

When he got to the bridge, the main viewscreen was one of utter devastation. "Where is that?" Flame asked. "It's our facility on Gazica. The Imperials attacked it while we had our guard down. The Navy has ordered us to track down the Imperial fleet and destroy it, they think it will be a good initiation for us." said one of the officers." "They can't be serious, they do realise that this ship is in no shape for a fight don't they? We don't even have a crew yet!" said Flame, outraged. "They're giving us a week to gather up a crew, then we have to set off." replied the officer. Flame sighed and said, "Well, we'd better get started, then."

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 6

5 days later, Flame had managed to assemble a crew of over 1,500 people, 50 of which were fighter pilots. There were another 200 new recruits en route but their transport ship wouldn't be there for another day. Flame was busy training their new fighter pilots in the operation of the Valkyrie-class fighters and their bomber variants. They had set up a makeshift proving ground, which included automated drones that fired low powered electric training bolts, a maneuverability test, and concluded with training on Daedalus's docking procedures. So far each pilot was showing promise, though with only 15 fighters and 5 bombers, 30 of the pilots would have to be put on reserve duty. Flame had already formed a squadron, which consisted of himself and 4 other highly promising pilots in the training groups. Shortly before the transport carrying the rest of the crew arrived, Flame and his squadron, which he named Storm squad, launched to intercept and escort the transport from the stargate. "Alright guys, no showboating around, lets make this quick and painless." said Flame over the comm channel. They set course and engaged their hyperdrives.

A few hours later, they were at the stargate. The transport, if on schedule, should be arriving from the Gemini training facilities within a matter of minutes. Storm squadron deactivated their sublight drives and waited for the transport. Suddenly, the gate activated with a bright flash of light and an echoing boom that the pilots could hear through their fighters' sound dampening systems. Out came the transport, which was a modified Conquest-class assault ship. The captain of the transport came on the comm channel and said, "This is the transport Freelancer, requesting an escort to the Goya shipyards." "Freelancer, this is Storm Squadron, we'll form up on you and escort you in." Flame replied. "Roger that, setting course now." said the captain of the Freelancer. The 5 starfighters formed up on the lumbering transport, and they engaged their hyperdrives.

Back on the Daedalus, one of Flame's new officers was reading a communique from Navy Command. They had found the Imperial fleet, and wanted the Daedalus to meet up with 5 other assault ships, which were all Vindicator-class artillery destroyers, as soon as possible. The officer decided to tell Flame when he got back.

3 hours later, the Freelancer and her fighter escorts warped in to the Goya shipyards. Storm squadron escorted the transport to the drydock facility that the Daedalus was docked with, and watched the ship connect with one of the facility's airlocks. The fighters then peeled off and headed back to the Daedalus. When they had landed, one of the mechanics came up to Flame and handed him a datapad, saying, "Sir, i was asked to give you this, they said it was urgent." Flame took the pad, and started reading it. When he was finished, he went over to one of the comm panels and said, "All personnel are to board and prepare for departure immediately, all senior officers report to the bridge." Flame then left the hangar and got into one of the turbolifts. When he got to the bridge, he said, "They've found the Imperial fleet that attacked Gazica, we're to rendezvous with 5 Vindicators at the Sol Stargate immediately." The officers nodded, and took their stations. "All crew are on board and accounted for," said the helmsman half an hour later, "prepping for departure, sir." The ship's airlocks depressurized and retracted, and the drydock disengaged it's tractor beams, allowing Daedalus to float freely. Her thrusters fired, and she started moving forward out of the drydock. When she was clear, the helmsman activated the sublights and maneuvered the ship for the jump to the Antares gate. The hyperdrive powered up, and a deep rumble could be heard through the ship. Flame said, "Take us out." and Daedalus disappeared in a bright flash as it went underway.

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 7

At the Antares gate, Daedalus was holding position while they entered the astrogation code for the Sol stargate. The ship had a pre-defined database of all the known astrogation codes at the time it was built, unfortunately the Sol code was out of date due to the rotation of the galaxy, and they needed to update it with the new position. The stargates have special sensors that can see through subspace to pick up any other gate transponder near the coordinates entered with the astrogation code, though the codes need to be updated every 300 years or so, because the sensors only scan within a specific distance of the coordinates. Once the helmsman had updated the codes, he entered it in and the gate activated a few seconds later. "Take us in." said Flame. Daedalus moved forward slowly, barely fitting through the gate. Once they entered, everyone on board had a sense of overwhelming euphoria, an effect of the wormhole, but a few seconds later the ride was over and they were in Sol.

Daedalus, this is the Excelsior, welcome to Sol." the 5 Vindicators flew over to Daedalus and formed up on it's port and starboard sides. "Excelsior, thanks. Tell us, why did we have to rendezvous here when the enemy fleet is still in Draconis?" asked Flame over the comm channel. "Because, that fleet is coming back to sol and we're going to intercept them here before they can get back to their base." replied the captain of the Excelsior. "Battle alert, put shields and weapons on standby." said Flame after hearing this. The main lights dimmed slightly, and red lights started flashing in unison to a klaxon.

Shortly after, the gate activated. There was a very tense atmosphere as the crews of the 6 ships waited, while broadcasting a jamming frequency that would prevent the Imperial ships from contacting their base. Suddenly, 5, 10, 20 ships exited the gate. "All ships, open fire, target the carriers!" said Flame over the comm channel as the Enemy fleet started launching STAM-class ships from it's vast hangar areas. The Vindicators started firing powerful photon missiles at the enemy fleet, while Daedalus focused it's laser weapons on the command ship. "Launch our fighters to get those STAM's off our backs." said Flame, as he headed for the turbolift to the main hangar.

In the hangar, pilots were scrambling to their cockpits when Flame arrived. He went over to his fighter and got inside, and watched as 3 bombers lifted off and flew out of the hangar. When he had powered up his engines and weapons, he keyed his mic on the squad frequency. "Alright, Storm 3 and 4, cover the bombers that just lifted off, the rest of you are with me to take care of the enemy fighter craft." 2 of the Valkyries lifted off, and Flame and the other 2 fighters soon followed. Outside the ship, the battle was raging. Missiles and lasers were going every which way, and Daedalus's 20 fighters were swarming out of her hangars. Almost instantly, Flame spotted an S-class Shock and peeled away to engage it. He fired his cannons, and the Shock was vaporized before it had a chance to react. Suddenly, his missile warning system started going off, which meant that someone had a target lock on him. He did a barrel roll and deactivated the inertial dampeners, throttled back his engines, and swung the ship around so it was flying backwards. He then saw the R-Storm that was locking onto him with it's missile guidance systems. He quickly fired a spray of plasma from his cannons, which sheared one of the engine pods off of the R-Storm and sent it spinning away into the abyss. Flame looked around, and saw that one of the Vindicators was taking heavy fire. "Storm squadron, Eagle squadron, form up on me and target that enemy cruiser." said Flame over the comm channel. The 2 squadrons of fighters targeted the enemy ship and fired off a volley of micro-photon missiles. They went straight through the ship's shields, and caused heavy damage. The Vindicator then fired off a volley of missile artillery and heavy lasers, which finished off the cruiser.

After 20 minutes of fighting, due mostly to the Daedalus and her fighters, over half of the Imperial fleet was destroyed, with the remaining half trying to escape. Daedalus had lost no fighters, thanks to their superb maneuverability and armor, but one Vindicator destroyer was heavily damaged and adrift, with most of it's power knocked out. Flame, who had returned to the bridge of the Daedalus, was directing fire. He knew that most of the ships would escape, there were simply too many, and the ones left were mainly smaller anti-fighter corvettes or frigate vessels. Daedalus's main laser weapon was making short work of the enemy ships, but just as they were getting ready to fire another volley, the enemy ships cleared the gravity well of the Gate and jumped to hyperspace, heading for a nebula on the outskirts of Sol. Flame ordered the fighters back, and the 2 more damaged Vindicators back to Antares for repairs, one of which would tow the other as it had no engine power. The remaining 4 ships went on a pursuit course to the nebula, after Daedalus's fighters had landed.

 

[Firebrand1]

Chapter 8

The enemy fleet had dropped out of hyperspace just outside of the nebula. Daedalus and the 3 Vindicators were doggedly pursuing them, with long range antimatter missiles firing from the Vindicators, and fighters pouring from the Daedalus. Antimatter missiles, while they have a longer range than photon missiles, do less damage due to the larger fuel tank, though they were still decimating the remains of the enemy fleet as the shrapnel ripped through the smaller frigates and corvettes. Suddenly, as the fighters were approaching for another attack run, sensor contact on the enemy fleet was lost completely. Flame, piloting a fighter, activated his comm. "What just happened?" he asked. "The enemy ships entered the nebula, sir, it has a dampening effect on our sensors." said one of the officers on Daedalus. "Alright, then, all fighters form up on me and head back to the ship." said Flame over his comm.

After they had landed, Flame met up with his senior officers on the bridge. "Well, if that nebula renders us blind, they must be blind as well," one of the officers was saying, "unless they have some kind of enhanced sensor system that can see through all the interference." "Most likely they can see through it, otherwise they'd probably be smashing into each other." Flame said. Turning to his chief engineer, he said, "Is there any way we can modify our sensors to be sensitive enough to see through the distortions?" "I don't know, captain, it's a very complicated system as it is. I'll see what i can do, but without actually replacing the scanners with more sensitive ones, i can't promise anything." replied the old engineer. "Keep me posted." said Flame, as the engineer left the bridge.

Several hours later, the engineer had managed to make the sensors so sensitive that they could detect the ships orbiting Earth, which was at the other end of the system. The main reason why it was so quick, according to the engineer, was because the sensors were actually supposed to be much more sensitive, they had just gone out of alignment during the 200 years the ship was adrift, though no one noticed because the sensors were so advanced that they still had the sensitivity of normal sensors, even when out of alignment (the ship was supposed to have been constructed using combined Ancient and a little bit of Mantis technology.). The Daedalus could now see through the nebula with ease, and quickly sent the coordinates for the enemy ships, which were holding position, to the 3 Vindicators, acting as a very advanced spotter and allowing the artillery ships to get up close and fire off several volleys of photon missiles. A few of the missiles veered off target due to the sensor distortions, but most of them hit with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Before they even knew what had hit them, most of the enemy fleet was destroyed, mainly because their shields were down. There were only 5 large cruisers left, and they made a beeline for the allied ships, only to be disabled and severely damaged by a spread of energy torpedoes from Daedalus. Flame was about to destroy the enemy ships, but thought better, thinking that they would be better off drifting in a nebula with no way to restart their engines or contact their base. Ordering the 3 Vindicators back to the gate, Flame left a few graviton mines, installed on the ship during it's week at the drydock, as a deterrent for any enemy rescue ships.

Daedalus and her task group returned to Goya to cheers, and Daedalus was now informally known as the Invincible, due to her coming out of that battle with barely a scratch. However, little did they know, that an even greater threat was lurking.