The UNSC Sigma Octanus-part-2
Posted By: Alexander_Valient<jdprosper@ripnet.com>
Date: 23 September 2003, 12:15 PM
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"DETECTING SLIPSTREAM DISTURBANCE.............AFT!!!!!"
Sure enough the Covanant assault carrier returned to normal space directly behind them and began launching more Seraph fighters just as the first wave of 60 reached the Sigma Octanus.
"The plasma launched by the first three carriers has disapated sir."
"Piont Defense Guns and Lasers, help out our Longsword fighters. "
The 12 long sword fighters were fighting desparetly to stay alive against 80 Seraphs.
"Helm bring us about and point us at that Assault carrier. Stand by on MAC-2. "
"INCOMING PLASMA!"
The Assault Carrier launched two plasma blasts at the Sigma Octanus point blank, as she was half way throught her turn. Counermeasure plate number 5 detached and intercepted the first plasma blast but the second shot hit the Octanus on her port side amidships. the impact nearly throwing the bridge crew to the deck. Countermeasure plate 06 misfired and spiraled off into space.
"Hull breach deck eight. Armour dammage in surrounding sections on decks seven, eight and nine. "
"continuing our turn."
"Fire MAC-2 and the particle beams as we bear."
"YES SIR!"
With a massive dogfight roiling arround it the Octanus completed its turn.
"Firing ."
the three MAC rounds took down the shields and dammaged the nose of the carrier, then the particle beam cannons fired chewing into the forward hull sections. A secondary explosion blew a hole in the port side of the ship causing it to tumble.
"Fire the particle beam cannons again! target their engines."
The twin beams cut through the hull in the aft sections of the ship this time seaking out the engine core.
When the beams ceased fire the ship was still there.
"Weapons............... Why is it still there?"
They were jolted out of their surprise as a seraph fighter slammed into the hull.
"Slight dammage to hull armour on deck four from that colision."
"I`m showing internal secondary explosions from the carrier. It`s dead in space. "
"Lasers and autoguns guns, keep the fire on those fighters. how are the longswords doing? "
"Not good we have five...........make that four left. "
"The remaining carriers are closing and I have incoming boarding craft. "
"Weapons, lock archer missiles onto those transports and fire at will. Sensors designate the remaining carriers as ships two, three and four. "
"Archer missile pods B7 through C2 away!"
The sensor screen came up with target info tags for each of the remaining ships.
"Helm take us towards carrier two, bring engines up to 100% . Weapons, lock Shiva class nukes onto carriers three and four. Next lock Missile pods C3 through F1 onto carriers three and four. Launch Nukes on my first mark and missiles on my second."
The ship`s engines lit up again turning it towad carrier two and accelerating slowly moving through the cloud of Seraphs which had begun to concentrate their attacks on the heavily armoured laser turrets. The remaining flight of Longswords skimmed the outer edge of the engagment picking off fighters that strayed to far from their wingmates and keeping the Covie fighters away from the main engines.
"Sir! All three port side laser turrets have been taken out of action by enemy fire along with some of the autoguns. "
"Roll the ship 180 degrees and let the starboard gunners take a crack at em`."
With undammaged guns brought to bear nearly a squadron of enemy fighters were shot down with ten seconds. The Octanus was now beginning accelerate and leave the cloud of fighters behind.
"Enemy cruisers now within missile range. "
"MAC-1 at 100%, MAC-2 at 95%."
At that very moment all three Assault Carriers fired their plasma cannons.
"INCOMING PLASMA!"
"Helm reduce power to 60% so we can launch countermeasures. "
"Countermeasure plates 07 through 12 are away and on intercept courses for plasma. "
"Wepons lock MAC`s onto Carrier two and stand by!"
Just as the first plasma shot was intercepted by a Countermeasure plate the captain shouted.
"Mark One! and Fire the MAC`s. "
Six MAC rounds streaked toward carrier two and a Shiva class nuke towards three and four each.
"Mark Two!"
Archer missiles streaked away towards Carriers three and four, chasing after the nukes launched before them.
Carrier two was holed from stem to stern by MAC rounds before exploding. Then the nukes detonated but carriers three and four seemd to just shrug off the explosions. Finally the Archer missiles launched at the last minute reached their targets and the shields of both ships failed.
"Emergency manuver! bring us about towards carrier three and fire particle beam cannons when we are within range. Lock and fire Missile pods F2 through F9 at carrier three as well. "
Archer missiles bagan launching as the ship bagan a quick turn to starboard and relative up. They reached their target in under twenty second perering the carrier with craters in its outer hull.
"Their charging plasma cannons!"
"Fire the damned Particle Cannons!"
the twin beams streaked out hitting the assault carriers starboard plasma cannon while it was at maximum charge. A huge roiling plasma storm exploded out of the starboard side of the ship leaving a giant smouldering crater the size of half the ship.
"Three plasma shots incoming!"
"plates are away."
Plates 13 through 15 launched themselves at the incoming plasma, but the thruster on plate 13 failed at the last minute sending it the wrong way. the plasma shot flew past uncheked.
"ALL HANDS BRACE FOR IMPAC- "
The bridge crew were thrown from their stations by the ferocity of the blast and it`s proximity to the bridge. The shot hit in the forward starboard sections destroying MAC-2 and dammaging the doors to the shuttle bay on that side of the ship.
"Report! " shouted the captain as he climbed back into the command chair.
"MAC-2 is out and so are the firing controlls for the particle beam cannons. Hull breaches on decks four five and six , thouought section five. Emergency bulkheads are holding. "
"Status of MAC-1?"
"MAC-1 is at 78% but it`s charging slowly."
"Transfer the power from the particle beams and MAC-2 to MAC-1 then get firing solutions for the remaining carrier."
"Carrier is charging weapons again"
"The bastards dont know when to give up. Do we have target lock on that ship yet?!"
"Give me another 20 seconds to rotate the ship sir."
"Launch whats left of our Archer missiles at that thing in the mean time."
"Remaining missiles away. We now have target lock on the carrier for MAC-1. Charge is at 89%. "
"Dont bother with max charge!! Kill that ship now! "
Two white hot MAC rounds flew at the enemy ship followed by the third after a moments delay.
The first two shots hit the ship in the forward sections causing the nose of the ship to break off and drift away. The third shot impacted the center sections of the ship near it`s gravity lift but failed to pass al the way through the ship. The carriers pulse lasers shot down half of the remaining Archer missiles before they reached the carrier a moment later. Most of them impacting in and near the damaged nose section, leaving dosens of hull breaches and craters in the ship.
Then the Plasma Cannons fired again.
"Countermeasures! Make sure you get both of them this time!"
"Plates 16 and 17 away."
"Sir the loading mechanism for MAC-1 has jammed."
"What?!"
The Captain stared off ahead at the last assault carrier sitting there almost asking them to kill it.
"Sir?"
"Plasma intercepted. Five Countermeasure Plates remaining."
"Helm take us in to point blank range with that cruiser and swing us arround near its engines. Weapons Target all Lasers and Autoguns on their reactors and fire at will. "
All of the weapons on the starboard side of the Octanus began poinding the Aft sections of the enemy ship blasting away at the un-shielded hull. The carrier in return retaliated with its remaining pulse lasers scoring hundreds of tiny dents in the heavy hull armour of the Sigma Octanus but noe of the shots were powerfull enough to do any real dammage.
"We are now holding steady behind the enmy ship. They shouldn`t be able to hit us wih plasma weapons from here. "
The carrier launched two more shots.
"Launch plates. Weapons hurry up and burn through that armour!"
A blackened hole near the engines of the carrier was starting to grow larger where the lasers poured continuous fire and the 50mm shells chipped away at hull. The two plasma shots were arcing arround the carrier and behind in wide loops in oppisite directions and armour plates spead out toward them. The Seraph fighters chose that moment to re-appear. Ten of them began pouring pulse laser fire into each plate while the rest flew in towards the ship to ettack the engines and point defense systems.
"Launch additional plates incase they mannage to shoot the first two down. Weapons how much more time will you be on that carrier? "
"Any moment sir!"
The plasma heading towards the front of the Octanus was intercepted by the second plate launched but both plates fired aft were shot apart by the seraph fighters before they could intercept the plasma.
"Plasma incoming for engine one!"
"Shut down the drive engines and close the protective armour. Engineering Brace for engine dammage!"
"Impact in three............two .......one.........
The plasma impacted the topside main engine then exploded outward killing fully twenty Seraph fighters that haden`t pulled away until the last minute. A moment later the laser fire finally cut through the reactors on the Covanent ship. The ensuing fire ball shatered the Assault Carrier into a million pieces and then expanded to engulf the Sigma Octanus swallowing both in light.
* * *
Ten hours later the UNSC Carrier Bonaventure arrived in system.
"I still think the he was insane. To take a brand new untested cruiser off into the occupied worlds and then what? Dissapear! Now we wont even know if those systems really are worth installing on ships in the rest of the fleet. All because some refugee`s and un-trained officers thought that they could get some revenge against the Covanant."
"Sir you really should calm down the Doctor says that much more stress and you might have another heart attack."
"Thank you for your concern Lutennant. Sensors is there anything in the system? "
"Negative sir But I am showing alot of debris. "
"What kind of debris exactly?"
"It...........it looks like covanant hull plating sir.................wait, I am showing trace ammounts of vapourised Titanium A battle plate. "
"Just as I thought they went and got themselves killed. "
"Captain! Dectecting Slipstream distortion off our port quarter! "
Dammit only the Covanant can manuver their ships through slipspace with this much accuracy.
"Go to combat alert Alpha and stand by to launch fighters. "
"A ship is appearing!"
A dark blocky and angular ship now hung in space near the Bonaventure.
"That isnt a Covie ship!"
"This is the UNSC Sigma Octanus hailing Bonaventure please come in."
"I dont belive it! I just dont belive it!"
Was all the captain could get out.
The first officer rushed forward to communications officer.
"This is Bonavanture go ahead. How were you able to jump so close to us?"
"We mannaged to take down all of the covanant ships in this system. Eleven of them. After that it was easy to salvage Slipstream drive systems from the half destroyed Asault Carriers that were still left over. We took our last Countermeasure Plate and cut it up to seal the outer hull breaches. After that it was just a matter of puting the Covie Slipstream drive in to replace our own Slipstream drive which was destroyed when one of out engines was hit. We were just finishing up some test jumps when you arrived in system. "
"Is there any more Covanant debris left worth salvaging?"
"I`m afraid not sir what ever we didnt salvage I thought best to destroy in case the Covies came back in system. "
"Good job commander. Now I want you to get back to Earth so that the people back home know that all of the tech that Oni supplied us with acctually works. "
"Thank you Sir! And I hope we get to work with you in the future. It would have really been handy to have had a carrier here earlier, what with eighty Seraphs harassings us and all. See you around."
With that the transmission ended and the ship began to turn and head out system . Within a minute the Octanus had entered Slipspace and dissapeared.
"What are you all stairing at! Helm get us back to Earth. We`re already going to show up two weeks later than those joy riders on the Octanus. Get to work!"
Fin
(For now)
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