The Carlson Chronicle Chapter 1
Chapter 13

2-Feb-2346

Alex checked and re-checked the broken circuit 4 times now. The computer diagnostic system swore there was nothing wrong, yet it still showed as open. Unless he could close it and keep it closed, there’d be no way to charge the main guns. A half dozen ‘Graf Spee’ class cruisers sat all around the mighty battleship, acting as escorts. Bad Ass was launching birds, honing their launch and recovery skills more so then their flight or combat skills, while Flow and Tina drilled their gunnery staff without mercy.

“Enemy ships, close a board! Main batteries, track right and engage!” Flow roared, as the two main gun turrets moved quickly to starboard, the low deck gun acquiring the computer generated target faster than it’s counterpart by a mere 2.2 seconds.

“In an actual battle situation, without both batteries operating as one, we’ll never get a kill. We need all 8 guns to destroy a Garshan heavy! Now, neutral your guns, and let’s try it again!”

Meanwhile, down in engineering...

“We got a scrammed reactor here! I see radiation leaks on three decks, and unless you want to glow in the dark people, move your asses!” Elisha barked, as techs and engineers ran here and there, silencing alarms, sealing off damage that she had earmarked for destruction as part of the training exercises.

Alex, still struggling with that fused and broken circuit, cursed it silently, looking for someone with some form of repair skills.

“Val! Report to the bridge, and bring a tool kit!” He called out, as Amythyst looked quizzically at him.

“Problems hun?”

“No, this circuit is either screwed or the computer is screwed. I’m just tired of dealing with it.” He said as Val came running over. As winded as she looked, you’d think she ran all the way from engineering.

“You ok little one?” He asked her, as she stood there gasping.

“Yeppers! Just let me...catch my breath!” She said as Amy giggled. She smiled to Amy and then to Leo.

“Ok, what did you break THIS time?” She asked, pulling a small screwdriver off of her belt. Leo grinned this time, as Amy almost fell off of her chair. Alex frowned.

“Ha ha. Look, it’s the main gun circuit. I close it, the computer says it’s closed, yet the gun refuses to charge.”

“Ok, hop up, let me take a look.” She asked as he stood, and she took the chair. Looking out the main viewer and then down into the organized chaos of the flight deck was a totally new experience for Valerie. She stared down at Flow and Tina as they blasted invisible baddies, at Jett as she called in coordinates for said fire, and the rest of the crew, just doing their jobs. It filled her with a sense of awe, and now she knew how Alex and Leo felt everytime they went into battle.

A feeling of absolute authority and command.

Flipping her screwdriver, she began taking the panel off of the right side arm-rest. Within seconds, she found the problem. Whoever wired the chair, made one of the switch wires too short, and it had come off during final assembly. Taking strippers off her belt, she cut a new wire, and quick connected it to the existing harness, fitted a new connector, and connected it to the switch in question. Flipping the switch, the computer acknowleged the closed circuit, and the main gun began charging. Smiling, she put the panel back, and began putting the screws in that held it down. As she finished tightening the last screw, the gun chimed fully charged. Thinking it was all part of the simulation, she grabbed the firing trigger that had risen out of the armrest, a targeting HUD showing up on the main screen, aimed at a spot away from any other ships, and before Alex could stop her, squeezed the trigger...

Garshan Battle Cruiser ‘Scathing Victory’,

Dead ahead of ‘Richelieu’ 100,000Km away,

Same time

Sub-Captain Lacy Shival watched all with absolute amusement. She was unaware just how well armed and defended this ship really was, but her orders were to ‘observe and report’. The two teenaged children who had contacted her and offered information about the defensive strengths and weaknesses of this race called ‘Humans’ proved only slightly useful, but after some rigorous training, in a dozen or so years, they’d make good agents.

“Helm, ahead slow, maintain ECM posture and emissions minimal. No need to be seen by these primitives. Interesting ship design though. Are those guns in turrets?” She asked, a chuckle at the end, as if dismissing weapons in actual turrets as folly.

“Yes ma’am, they are. Some form of rail gun I believe. Without an active scan, it’s the best guess I have.”

“Well, an active scan would give away our position.” She added, the sensor man nodding.

“What do you suppose those two large openings on the front are for? Hydrogen collection? Oh, this will be too easy, conquering these fools.” She finished with a laugh.

Her sensor man on the other hand, was no longer laughing, as energy seemed to be collecting at the front of that ship, it’s escorts sweeping further out to the sides.

“Umm, Ma’am?” He began, as she was still consumed with a bit of guffaw, thinking how fun it would be to put the screws to another primitive race...

Then Val squeezed the trigger...

The paired beams streaked across space, the left one catching Shival’s cruiser a glancing blow off of her exposed engineering section, but the starboard gun caught them napping for sure, slamming into her ship, dead amidships. As she was under ECM Shield (i.e.-Cloaked) her shields were down...

The blasts that hit the battle cruiser blew off an entire thruster panel from the stern, but the blast amidships did as much damage to her ship, as a wet navy torpedo would do to ship caught in much the same way.

“WHAT THE FRACK WAS THAT!?” Shival screamed, as crewmen slowly climbed back into their chairs, the lighting on her bridge a dull red, as damage reports of a nearly crippled ship came streaming in from every possible location.

“Sub Captain! I have power failures on all decks, no power to the drives, ECM shield is not only down, but slagged, our FTL is also slag, only our secondary batteries report manned and ready, but with only back up power, we can’t raise the shield AND charge the guns! We’re sitting Ashnals Ma’am!” He yelled to her, referencing a small woodland creature native to their homeworld of Garshain, that was easy to hunt and tasty once prepared by a knowledgable chef...

“Get us out of here! Fold if you have to!” She ordered.

“Wait! Val don’t!” Alex yelled as Val’s hand wrapped around the gun joystick and trigger and she squeezed the trigger. He was so distracted by Amy’s flirting, he was paying no attention to Val’s work, and completion of said work. Only the chime of a fully charged main gun broke his conversation off with Amy, and as he turned to see if Val was finished, she grabbed the stick, pointed it at a random spot in space, and squeezed the trigger...

“CONTACT!! Close aboard! Holy mother! Look at the size of that thing!” Jett yelled as she did an active scan of Shival’s ship.

“GARSHANS!” Amy yelled, as Alex almost threw Val out of his seat, slapping the ‘Red Alert’ button on his left side arm-rest.

The battle alert sent crews running, pressure doors over sensitive areas slamming shut, DCT teams taking up stations, waiting for damage to require they act, and Air Boss Bad Ass Austin to begin actual launch orders.

“Blackbirds, Blackbirds, this is a danger close fire mission, enemy ship is within the hundred. Use of Torps is not authorized, repeat, use of torps is NOT authorized! Give ’em hell kids!”

As Amy yelled Garshans, Flow and Tina sprang into action, spinning both of the main turrets toward the crippled Battle cruiser, firing the moment they had a lock, 8 Null’Em balls streaking toward their target...

Lacy was running, Jayce and Becca close behind, as they made it to the emergency evac room, just as 8 Null’Em balls slammed into the amidships of her cruiser. Activating the controls, she grabbed a teenager in each arm, and dove through the portal, as the ship dissolved around them.

‘Scathing Victory’ disappeared in a conflagration that dimmed the main screen...

As a mighty cheer went up among the bridge crew, Alex turned to Amythyst.

“Garshans? You’re sure?”

“Positive. That was an older Kanin hull. As weapon suppliers, the Kanin had sold off all older, mothballed ships to both the Garshans and the VorGosh as a means of controlling trade with what would be later called a war of opportunity.” She finished. He nodded.

“Great job people! Bad Ass! Recall our birds! Jett, scan space out to the LY mark, I want to know if there are anymore surprises waiting for us!”

“On it boss!” She replied excitedly, activating her full sensor suite, and not the limited version they only showed when coming and going from Center.

While the rest of the class had sensors at or slightly lower then the Galhadians, during their civil war, the ‘Richelieu’ had sensors from the last round of electronics upgrades the Galhadians ever made. Far superior to anything the Garshans had or could ever build, not even the extremely gifted VorGosh would be able to develop sensors like these. They truly were the absolute best.

So when Jett expanded her search, not only did she see every spec of cosmic dust out to 1 light year distance, she could tell what it was made of, what the most common grain of dirt was present in it, it’s sub atomic particle make up, and whether it had farted recently.

“CONTACT! Bearing 045, range 250,000Km! Inclination +15! Mass Spec swears it’s a ship under ECM screen!” She shouted, throwing what she saw onto the main screen. It was a ship alright, and it was turning toward them!

Amythyst, tired of sitting and playing wall flower, grabbed Alex’s hand, and ran down to the forward most part of the bridge, hitting two glowing buttons on the wall. An aparatus rose out of the floor, shaped like a pair of small bowling balls, connected to each other by a U shaped metal tube. To explain it another way, a tuning fork had risen from the floor, with a glowing red ball at the top of each fork blade.

Grabbing the ball on the right and motioning Alex to grab the other, she began pulling in vast amounts of mana.

Alex watched for all of a second, then understood why this device was installed. He began drawing in all the available mana surrounding them.

Within seconds, he saw a red gunsight appear on a smaller screen in front of them, and as Amy turned the fork, the cursor tracked to overlay across the new Garshan ship. When he felt he couldn’t hold anymore mana, he concentrated, and a pulse of reddish yellow energy streaked from an emitter far forward on the bow, just above the apertures for the main guns. Amy sank to her knees, and he felt like he had just run a marathon, finished first then ran it again.

The energy pulse slammed into the slowly de-cloaking ship, entering it from the bow and exploding somewhere amidships. Seconds later, the entire million ton ship, vaporized!

A mighty cheer rang up all around them again, as Alex pulled Amy close, noticing she had a small nose bleed, he hugging her tighter and kissing her forehead, as members of their inner circle and bridge crew in general moved to them, hugging and congratulating them...

“Ok, back to your stations. Come on Amy, let’s get you to sickbay.”

“No, I’m fine. Just not used to going all out like that. It’s been a long time since I ever had to use that much mana, or anything close to it.”

“Ok then. Jett! Anything else out here I should know about?”

“Neg Boss! Skies clear to 1 LY.”

“Ok, Pop, where to next?”

“Ok, shift one sector to the right, try map coordinates 14x/21y/-2z.”

“Ok, got those Jett?”

“Yep, we can fold anytime.”

“Bad Ass, you got your birds back?”

“Last one just touched down. Fold on your mark.”

“Attention all ships, Fold to the following coordinates: 14x/21y/-2z, acknowledge?”

“All ships acknowledge receipt of orders, ready when you are!”

“Fold!” And the sight of deep space and two expanding balls of gas that had been Garshan ships that thrilled everyone was replaced by a looming gas giant and over a thousand ships orbiting and firing on a blue-green world, almost twice the size of Earth...

“Oh no! That’s Marrok!” Barnard yelled out, nearly coming out of his chair at Ops.

“Well, Marrok or not, we can’t tangle with over a thousand ships. Jett, angle for this moon system, and let’s see if we can’t call in some back up.”

“Roger that skipper.” As she slid the ‘Richelieu’ behind what would later be called ‘Soft Growl’...

“Ok, call made and coordinates sent. We should see 4 other Andros in seconds.” Jett said, as the first, then second and finally the last two Andros in this sector arrived at their location, 2 and 5 arriving within 150 Km of them.

“Ya know, when you can read the warning stickers about radiation on the sides of the gun barrels of an Andro’s mains, they skipped too close!” Flow yelped from his station. Jett giggled.

A few seconds later, James Carlson’s head and shoulders showed up on the main screen, Karen could be seen in the adviser’s seat beside him. She smiled to Alex.

“I see you found some Garshans. But if this is the Marrokian home system, I dare say we’re too late.”

“Yes, it appears that way.” Alex replied as Barnard could be seen comforting a quietly crying Claudia.

“Orders?” James asked.

“Well, we may not be able to save them, but we sure as hell can avenge them. Battle stations! Escorts, fold insystem and harass the hell outta their lessor ships, leave the battle wagons to us!” He ordered, getting a slew of affirms.

“Andros! Form on us! Let’s teach these bitches who they’re fucking with!”

As the 5 battleships slipped forward, Mannis turned to Iris, she leaning up and kissing his cheek slightly, as their young daughter watched all.

“Father? 200 to 1 is never fair odds. I’ve no love for the Garshans mind you, but isn’t this tantamount to commiting suicide?” She asked, looking up from the viewer as her mother got kissed again. He broke off the kiss, looked at the screen, then turned back to Iris.

“Is our final nudge in place, my dear?”

“Yes, and I must say, it is your most clever nudge to date. An engineering archeaologist on board an actual ancient warship. Very clever, I must say.” Iris said with a grin.

“Go study Anna, you already know how this ends. You’ve watched it at least a hundred times.”

“I know Father, I just like watching Deus Ex Machina. It never gets old.”

“Hahahahaha! Off to the lab with you!” He said, as she stood and ran back to her studies...