High Orbitals - Circe Base
January 13th 3050
"... three more orbits, then Alpha is relieving us and we're heading downstairs. Shrike, you and Nickles take point this time around, let your seniors get some rest."
"Roger that, Brigand, hopefully you'll catch up on your beauty sleep back there."
"I'll remember that the next time I need to schedule some SAR training, Shrike."
"Yer all heart, Brigand, moving to point now."
The voices were calm, for all the jocularity they were focused, because while Circe Base was mostly just a minor training and R&R center located inside a rather curious nebula, the four Sparrowhawk IIs flew with meticulous precision, as if they were patrolling Fleet Central itself. After all, they were on the outskirts of Hegemony controlled space, and every so often one of the little pirate bands that seemed to spring up wherever civilization took root would test the defenses. Besides, it wouldn't do for the garrison to get sloppy in case some higher-up decided to pull a snap inspection, or worse yet a RFR visitor came by... never wanted to look bad in front of the competition, after all.
In the cockpit of one of the Sparrowhawk II's now flying trail, Lt (JG) Mikhail Sustinikov, call sign 'Brigand' was rather relaxed, even as his eyes drifted about in a practiced dance, sweeping about the outside with Mark One eyeball, then lingering on the HUD before dropping down for a sweep over the MFD's inside the cockpit itself. Thank god they finally managed to miniaturize the neurohelmet. But, like almost always, everything was calm and quiet. Apart from the Skywatch orbital defense platforms and a few dropships shuttling to and from the planet, orbital space was empty. The Fleet elements assigned to defend Circe Base were themselves based near the Nadir jump point, after all, with another detachment at the Zenith point.
Suddenly one of the MFD's started flashing, causing Mikhail to blink... a pre-emergence pulse HERE?
"Brigand, you getting what I'm getting boss?" came over the com from Shrike.
"Pre-emergence thermal pulse?"
"Exactly."
"I am, all Bandits, Brigand taking lead. Circe Base, we have an anomalous thermal pulse signature consistent with pre-emergence, however it is not at a pirate point, Bandit Flight is investigating."
"Roger, Bandit Flight, we show the signature as well... Correction, we have a deep radar contact at emergence point."
"I see it, Circe Base, small bugger, can't be much more than 50 tons, how the devil did it get there. Bandits moving in."
"Understood, broadcasting IFF query now... null-response, repeat null-response. Hold one... weapons are NOT free at this time, repeat, NOT free, confirm."
"Confirm not free, Circe Base, all Bandits, weapons NOT free. Acknowledge."
"Shrike acknowledges"
"Nickles acknowledges"
"Hotshot acknowledges"
"Circe Base, Bandit Flight confirming all weapons NOT free, approaching contact now and should have visual shortly."
"Roger that, Bandit Flight, we are not getting any response to communications attempts. Admiral Ustinov is launching now."
"Confirming negative response, coming up on visual... looks extremely small and rather boxy, picking up some emissions, appear to be active sensors... Flightcomp not recognizing it from the warbook. No matches, repeat, no matches... It's just sitting there in orbit, Circe Base, like they haven't even noticed us."
"Understood, Bandit Flight, Ustinov should be coming up at your 9 o'clock low."
"I see her, Circe Base... hold one... contact is manuevering to face Ustinov, picking up higher pulse-rate on target emissions."
"Bandit Flight, this is Ustinov-Actual, make a one element close-pass and attempt visual signalling then form up."
"Understood, Ustinov-Actual, Brigand and Hotshot making the pass, Shrike, Nickles, formate with Ustinov."
"Copy that, Brigand, heading to formate with Ustinov, Shrike out"
"Approaching contact from 5 o'clock high, lowering velocity at this time."
"Understood Brigand, we are not, repeat not picking up identifiable fire control emissions at this time, still no communications however."
"Understood Ustinov-Actual, making pass... now."
--
"Frak me, misjumped on the FIRST frakking jump?" To say that Lt Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson was pissed would be an understatement, to say the least.
"Navcomp is rebooting itself, running diagnostics on it now." lt Hamish "Skulls" McCall replied. "Whatever it was took DRADIS offline as well, think it was a power surge or something, but both are rebooting now."
"Any chance we could catch up with the others?" Racetrack asked, looking down at her own displays as the DRADIS came back online.
"Orders are to return to base."
"Frak it, it was the first frakking jump" she repeated, frustrated, looking up and around. The Raptor was facing space, glistening clouds of gas drifting about, making for a rather pretty scene, all things considered. But they weren't there to sightsee. Still muttering, she looked around, waiting for systems to stablize. "Huh... off to starboard, is that what I think it is?"
Skulls looked up at that, leaning forward a bit. "Planet and..." he turned his attention to his displays as the DRADIS finished it's self-test... "Sensors showing oxy-nitro... water detected... hot damn, it's a habitable planet... and DRADIS is still frakked up, getting a massive amount of interference."
"We are some lucky frak-ups then, DAMN!" Racetrack looked enthused, her earlier disgust and frustration melting away, a habitable planet... the triumph lasted just a moment when...
"Contact on DRADIS, two, make that four fighter-sized objects moving on an intercept course, and a larger one approaching from the other direction, we're being pincered."
"Frak it, Cylons... how long until the navicomp is rebooted?"
"Three minutes to finish and recalculate."
"Frak!" Racetrack nudged the thrusters, turning to face the larger of the incoming objects. "Are they targetting us?"
"Getting some EM radiation, but nothing consistant with Cylon scanners."
"You're frakking with me, EM?"
"Yes... two of the fighter-sized objects just broke off, others are slowing as they approach..."
"Not picking anything up on wireless?"
"Nothing... just EM, nothing on wireless, nothing resembling active DRADIS either. The EM is pulsing and appears to be acting like some sort of carrier, sort of what wireless might do if it were using EM frequencies..."
Suddenly the Raptor rocked, the lights in the cockpit going out as all the displays went blank, power failing completely. From the outside, it was even more dramatic, as an overstressed power relay that had been carrying the entire load finally failed, the pre-flight checks had missed the failing assembly. Sparks glittered in the blackness of space, even as the Raptor lost power.
"Frak it! Did they fire?"
"No idea, 'track, no power, no response..."
--
The approaching Sparrowhawk II's continued decelerating, intending to make the pass as slow as possible, when the shower of sparks from the failing relay lit up the underside of the unknown vessel in front of them.
"Ustinov-Actual, target appears to have suffered some sort of major malfunction, sparks are visible from what is apparantly the underside near what appears to be the drive assembly and not picking anything up at all, repeat all emissions have ceased."
"Understood, Brigand, match velocities and report."
The sleek aerospace fighter continued to decelerate, coming to a halt relative to the now slowly tumbling Raptor. Sustinikov was looking down into his cockpit, as the central MFD switched over to magnified visual mode, the sensor systems cameras zeroing in on the object.
"Appear to be two crew on board, one of them is pointing at us. There are no light sources within the cockpit, my guess is they have completely lost power."
--
"Those two fighters just stopped, look" Skulls pointed out the canopy transparency as the unusual fighter, so utterly different in appearance from a Viper or even a Raider hung motionless.
"So the frak what? They can blow us away without a sweat..." Racetrack growled, clearly growing even more irritated as she peered out at the odd little vessels. "What the... those are either skinjobs or humans, there's a pilot in the cockpit."
"I see that..."
--
"Brigand, we're launching a Battle Taxi at this time to see if we can use their grapnel system to recover that craft on board, hold position and keep an eye on it."
"Understood, Ustinov-Actual."
The massive yet rather graceful aerodyne shaped dropship decelerated smoothly, even as the small craft bay door slid open and a single spheroid shaped small craft boosted out, reoriented towards the still-tumbling Raptor and began accelerating to match orbits with the much smaller craft.
--
"Getting anything Skulls?"
"Nothing, everything is dead, no power at all, and without power we have no thrust, even thought he manual controls are operational, they aren't going to do us any good."
"Frak frak frak frak... that big one is closing and is slowing down too, and what the hell, it just launched something four times our size, looks like a big ball, which appears to be heading towards us." Racetrack was scowling as she checked her sidearm, glancing over at Skulls as he did the same in the darkness. "We're frakked, but we can take a few of those damn toasters down with us."
"That is if they are toasters, 'track, those aren't looking like anything Cylon."
"So they are being sneakier than normal, frak it, they must have hit us with some sort of weapon we didn't detect and shut everything down on us... the ball is slowing down and... what the frak?"
A loud clang echoed through the cabin as a magnetic grapnel struck the hull and stuck fast, then a second, and a third. The slow tumbling of the Raptor was arrested, and it was quickly apparant that the odd ball-shaped craft was 'reeling' them in, the thought causing them both more than a little queasiness.
--
The Battle Taxi slowly retracted the grapnels, bringing the unusual craft snugly up against the solid bow of the small transport. Once it appeared secure, the thrusters flared, swinging the small craft, that was normally used to transport battle-armored marines to board targets, around to face it's mother ship. A light tap of the thrusters, and the spheroid vessel crept forward, being careful to not build up much momentum as, with the odd craft grappled to the bow the iBattle Taxi/i would have a great deal of trouble decelerating.
The small craft bay door was still open as the Battle Taxi approached with it's cargo, with suited up bay personnel already preparing to deploy the dropships own emergency grapnel system to winch the unusual vessel inside, while the Battle Taxi landed under it's own power. Instead of 'launching' the magnetic grapnels, suited techs guided them out and carefully positioned them on the hull, so that as they were retracted the unusual vessel would be oriented 'down' properly, and thus hopefully preventing any injuries on the part of the two crew members on board.
--
"OK, this is getting frakking weird. Why did that one person bang on the canopy and give the thumbs up sign? No, we aren't frakking OK, you frakking moron!" Racetrack practically shouted, obviously growing even more stressed out as the Raptor was swallowed into the bay. The figures outside were all suited up, even as the bay doors closed behind them, and a bright red light flashed continuously, obviously warning of vacuum conditions but serving mostly to bathe the interior of the craft in a rather macabre reddish tones that even the bright lighting of the bay didn't entirely dispel.
--
"Pressure will be equalized in the bay in 3 minutes, Skipper." came the report from the small-craft bay. On the bridge of the Artemis class Assault Dropship, Lieutenant Commander Shelby Richards nodded slightly.
"Very well, Chief, secure the bay for landing."
"Gotcha, Skipper, it's mostly secure already, got my people locking down the strange craft. We're keeping the vacuum warning light running for now, however, don't want any accidents."
"Good job, Chief, Richards out."
The slender woman in the khaki and white jumpsuit 'duty' uniform of the Hegemony Navy leaned back at her command console, glancing around the small bridge of the Admiral Ustinov fondly. The fleet little Artemis's were as swift and nimble as fighters a fraction their tonnage, yet armed to the proverbial teeth. Ton for ton, they were the most lethal military vessels in the fleet, at a mere 5,000 tons of mass they mounted multiple extended-range PPC's, Gauss Rifles, both Extended Range and Pulse lasers of the largest size, along with multiple anti-missile systems to fend off the swarms of missiles most of the pirates in the region liked to use.
"Ms Pye, prepare for atmospheric reentry to Circe Base starport, priority routing on channel Delta-6." she commanded softly, almost casually, yet the bridge crew reacted with alacrity, beginning the landing checklist and process. After a moment, Lt. Cmdr Richards pressed a button on her console. "All hands, this is the captain speaking. Good work, people, when we get back dirtside the first round is on me."