The Grey Chronicles Part One: New Declaration of An Old War

Chapter 3: A Ship Out of Place.

The Anarchist, Pyrotus System, March of 8096 AL.

Ten minutes had passed before the world stopped turning, the pull in Salem's gut stopped, and everything returned to his view. The ship lurched from slipspace and came to a slow stop as its inhabitants recovered from the jump.

"How far off was the jump?" Salem asked, barely preventing himself from hurling; hastily targeted slipspace jumps were prone to causing such discomfort.

"Only thirty-three-thousand kilometers, sir," Jaeger replied.

"Good, I want the enemy's numbers, immediately," Salem stood, pressing a button on the arm of his chair. The curved table folded and lowered into the floor, once it was out of the way he stepped up to the helm of his ship.

As the bridge crew went about their business, Salem surveyed the battlefield. The starmap displayed a holographic image of the ships around him, allies were marked green while hostiles were red. He counted two mid-sized cruisers and four frigates; the cruisers were engaging a group of Stonehaaryn destroyers, Seth's entourage, while the frigates flew in behind the small battle group. He saw a third, larger cruiser approaching Seth's flagship, the Endless Curse, and started in surprise. He'd seen that model of ship hundreds of times before, it was easily recognizable.

"What the hell? Is that..?" Salem said to himself in disbelief, squinting at the hologram, "Is that what I think it is?"

"That's, yeah, that's exactly what you think it is," Augustus looked up from the console, "That's a Hive."

Their surprise was justified; the Hive class cruisers belonged to the Machinae fleet, they were massive fighter transports carrying over a thousand assorted fighters and bombers. When Jaeger had told him Machinae ships were attacking Seth he had expected one of the Jarls; knowing them, they'd assume the Stonehaaryns had carried out the attack on the Citadel, and they would have been tempted to retaliate accordingly, but the Hive he was looking at didn't belong to any of the Jarls' fleets; Hives were only found among M. Fleet, and the Royal Fleet Salem commanded.

"This just got a lot more interesting," Salem said, "Prime a pair of Jerichos."

"Jerichos?" Augustus asked, "Are they really necessary?"

"Prime the Jerichos and prepare a firing sequence for the plasma mortars," Salem ignored his brother and called the order to the officer in charge of the weapons systems, "We'll nuke the Hives' hangars and wipe out the weapons systems in one volley."

"But Salem, Jerichos?" His brother asked anxiously; the EMPs from the nuclear blasts could potentially harm the ships they were trying to save.

"I know, but Seth doesn't have that much time; we need to put down that Hive fast, before it can deploy its fighters. I'll fly the missiles into the hangars before I detonate. The Hive's shields should reflect the explosions inward. Trust me." Salem turned back to his weapon station officer, "I want you to prime the Daisychains, once we've disabled the Hive I want to pilot the ship into the center of the battle so we can take the heat off of them."

Augustus wrung his hands together uneasily, but he understood Salem's reasoning. If they went in guns blazing, the enemy fleet would have to turn and fight, taking the focus off of Seth's ships; you can't just ignore a Machinae flagship. He stood and turned to the crew.

"Aye, you heard him! Briggs!" Augustus looked to the weapons officer, "Prepare a firing sequence and load the Daisychains, we're going to take our ships back."

There was an urgent buzz of activity around the bridge as the crew carried out Augustus' orders. Within a minute Salem was given the go ahead from his brother that the weapons were ready. He double-checked the firing sequence for the Jerichos; he wanted them to fly into the hangar before the individual warheads split off from the main chassis of the missile. The force of sixteen small nuclear explosions followed by two massive blasts would rip the cruiser apart and leave Seth's cruiser unharmed...he hoped. His fingers tapped at the command console on the starmap, approving the sequence.