That looks like a drone carrier.
It was one of the largest military ships he had ever seen and easily the size of an Alliance cruiser. From memory, these ships were used to command small strike forces. It was rare they travelled alone, and if he was right, it could be a serious problem.
Lieutenant Devereux had already sent the data to the Captain.
“Good work, Xenophon,” she said. “It’s definitely a drone carrier, and probably leading a small force to wipe out our scouts, one group at a time.”
“That why they left a derelict to draw us in?” he asked.
She nodded, but he couldn’t tell if she was impressed or irritated by his questions. Either way, they were interrupted buy the voice of the Captain.
“All crew, prepare for FTL jump. Gunners keep the carrier busy until we’re underway.”
Xenophon could sense the worry in the Captain’s voice. He could see why, as he watched three-dozen drones detach from the ship and set an intercept course with their own small formation of ships. The drones were small, perhaps ten metres, maybe slightly more. They were fast and lightly armed, no match for heavy fighters but easily able to swamp a few frigates, given enough time. As he watched them, he forgot to check his own tactical display. It was too late when he finally spotted the lock errors on the system.
“No, no!” he cried to himself. The gun tracking system shutdown as powerful enemy countermeasures saturated their vessel. It was a textbook attack, and it had rendered the entire targeting matrix defunct.
“It’s the drones,” explained Lieutenant Devereux. “Switch to manual gunnery and look for the Wild Weasel drones. Take them out.”
A cloud of plasma rounds scattered the formation of drones, but they were already in range. The computer-controlled attack aircraft rolled with speed and precision that made his gunnery harder and harder. He looked at the first group of six, staring intently to find the illusive Wild Weasel craft. They were specially modified to suppress air defences and destroy the frigates capacity to destroy other drones. Blasts of energy fired from the guns of the drones struck their own frigate, but he was able to draw two into his sights.
He managed to hit the first, a standard interceptor drone with two direct impacts. One plasma round was easily capable of destroying a drone, and the two simply vaporised the craft, causing enough damage to a second that it spun wildly out of control before finally self-destructing. He tried to track the rest of the formation, but it passed the ship and moved off to the port side. The automated turrets did their best to track them using optical systems, but with radar, microwave and thermal targeting all jammed, the system was severely limited. Only one more drone was hit as they moved out of sight.
A dull rumble indicated a number of hits to the hull, but he had no idea how serious it might be. He scanned his area of space for more hostiles and was drawn to one of their destroyers. Three smouldering holes in the hull showed where one of the drones had rammed the armour and caused catastrophic damage to the vessel.
Gods, how many men and women? One of the gundecks tore apart, and he tried to imagine how terrible it would be inside that ship. With no air, freezing temperatures and no gravity, it would be a terrible death in the void of space. His attention was brought back by another flash to his left. It indicated the arrival of more ships. The FTP drives must have been charging up as he could feel the rumble through the hull of the ship. One of the frigates to his right disappeared. As he watched the area of space it had vacated, he spotted the shapes of the newly arrived ships coalesced into mighty warships. Xenophon didn’t recognise all of them, but he did spot at least a dozen cruisers, of which at least four were definitely Laconian in design. As they arrived in position, each vessel opened fire. The powerful streaks of energy from their massed batteries sent colour pulse and beams out to their opponents.
“Jump in 5…4…3…2…1…now!” called the helmsman. Xenophon could feel a dull throbbing in his skull as the FTL drive powered up, and with a thump they hurtled away from the battle. In just a few seconds the feeling resumed, and they were back in position around their base in the Nebula.
“All stations report in,” called the Captain.
Xenophon sat there quietly, an empty feeling washing over him. He had played his part in the battle, but once the warships had moved in, they had left. He wanted to know how the battle had turned out. The capital ships were the pride of the colonies, and he had spotted just a glimpse of them before the small vessel jumped back to safe space.
“This is the Captain. Good work people. We left one frigate behind, but we did our job. We were there to draw in their drone ships. Fleet is mopping up, and I am pleased to let you know the battle is progressing well.”
Progressing well? Xenophon thought. How could he have trained all this time, just to be sent back to the safe zone every time a battle occurred?
“Gun crews, I need your crew to perform a full stage two service and check of all gun and capacitor system. Make sure they are ready for action in less than an hour,” ordered Lieutenant Devereux.
Fort Plymouth, Aegospotami Nebulae
The skirmish out on the rim of the Nebula was nearly three days ago, and still Xenophon could not forget what had happened. He sat in a comfortable chair and watched the rest of the crew spending some time relaxing on board the station. This part of the recreation room was sparsely equipped with a pool table and a few vintage arcade machines set up. Two other officers sat nearby. One was busy watching news reports on a small video screen, and the second just kept looking into his glass of alcohol. He watched them both for a moment and then looked to the window. It was unusual to be able to stand near an actual window that looked out onto space. This particular area in the room gave him a perfect view of the stars, as well as the mysterious clouds of dust and gas that ran through this region.
“Anything on this sector?” he asked the man watching the screen. The man turned, a look of irritation on his face.
“It just says there have been three incursions by Laconian forces. All have been stopped. The media reckon we’re mobilising to fight one final battle to finish them off.”
“Interesting,” he replied.
“Really? How can we destroy them if we can’t even find their ships?”
Xenophon shrugged, unsure as to what to say or even to what he was referring to. They must be doing something right if they’d hit three groups already. As he thought on the problem, he spotted a group of officers, all wearing their more casual off duty uniforms. They made their way towards him and the other midshipman from his ship.
“Xenophon,” said Lieutenant Devereux, “very good work out on the Rim. I think you probably saved us from a nasty ambush.”
She sat down next to him, followed by another Lieutenant that went by the name Calum. Xenophon had spoken with him on several other occasions and found the man to be infuriating.
Why does the asshole have to come and sit next to me? Stupid socialist whiner from a worthless family and wants a handout without doing anything to deserve it, he thought angrily.
“Thanks,” he replied when he realised he hadn’t responded to her comment.
“What’s wrong, Xenophon? Still worried you might have to give up a few more of your family’s estate to help the rest of us?” asked Calum in his typical self-righteous tone.
“What?” he muttered back, both unwilling and uninterested in being drawn into another argument that in reality was an excuse for the young officer to rant.
“Well, from what you said last time, you think somehow your family deserves to see the rest of us struggle by.”