Capture

[Xing]

Liberty naval admiral Simon Alban, in command at prison station St-Mitchell knew something went wrong when the blink marking the hijacked cruiser and the rhino super heavy freighter suddenly stopped in the middle of ther route. He asked his comm specialist to reach for general Kaitlynn's ships, but the channel was disrupted - not too surprising in the area, somehow the strange cyan nebula that covered the whole Alaska system was from time to time refractive to communication signal. Maybe the ship were merely experiencing some minor ion storm unseen on scanner.

Anyway, security wasn't much compromised.
It only hapenned for a milisecond, so fast, if the officer at the radar didnt jumped in surprise, he'd have thought he'd dreamed about it.
For just that milisecond, over a dozen of capital type "dots" appeared on the screen, and disappeared.
Right in front of where the Rhino and the cruiser were...
Which both disappeared right after.

"Admiral, I have a ..."
"... very bad feeling about this? Me too."
Alban immediately seized his comm unit, and punched in the code for a general alert.
They witnessed such things before of course. Some of the crafts the orders sent in system were able of cloack, and so did some of the nomads. Their stealth modes allowed them to go by unseen on both scanner and visual... but at each activation and deactivation of the cloacking device - or whatever it was on a nomad body, their scanner could pick them up for a few seconds.

They never picked up something that massive since quite a long time.
"Why does it always happen on my shift..."
He rose up from his command chair, obviously nervous. The command room aboard St-Mitchell was suddenly busy with activity, holo screen projecting reports, intel, communication from the nearest naval vessel...

Within a few minutes, 3 cruiser patrol with their escort of a total of 6 gunboat and 12 Avenger class starfighter answered the call. From St-Mitchell, he authorised the deployment of a whole special combat squadron, using a strange prototype of the LSF...
The opaque black Raven Claws launched in a hurry, their engine burning blue ion fuel... then disappeared slowly, as their stealth technologies made them cloack in the nebula of Alaska.
"Admiral Alban to strike force Iota. Mission orders are to rescue, and scare 'em off."
A holoprojector on the floor deployed where he stood, as a 3d map of the soon-to-be battlefield appeared. miniature projection showing his own forces, approaching the area where the unknown crafts appeared for the last time.

Long minutes passed, as they came within range through the difficult to navigate asteroids.
"Sir! We detect multiple vessel engaging their cruise engines and running away in the direction of Omicron Minor!"
Admiral Alban cursed silently, as he openned his comm, asking for the nearest units around the Omicron Minor limits to stand at the ready.
That was bad news. It was certainly the Order, trying to rescue their commander. And if they were heading home, it meant they were succesful. He had to...
His fighter ops officer spoke next, pointing hastily toward the battlefield hologram,
"Sir! contact! Our men are requesting orders, they are entering maximal firing solution in a few seconds!"

--

"I see" Isabelle said, as they went downward through a lift. A bit more of a walk, and they arrived where she guessed it to be; the ship's hangar, with a number of fighter crafts aligned on the side, ready for launch. Down, was the hangar hatch door, set in a diagonal setup unlike the horizontal one on the Citadelle. She looked around, and finally saw a larger ship... it was an armored transport painted in the order's distinctive grey-black configuration.
At some time, it was hard to control her emotions in this kind of situation. But she was iron disciplined when needed.
"That said, where is your sister? Guess I owe her some civilised talk... even though it will merely be showing some respect toward each other."

--

"Admiral, we are standing ready, heavy positron canons are charged, and can fire at your order." Said the colonel commanding the expedition from one of the cruiser. The gunboat captains came up with similar readyness message, and so did the fighters.
Strangely, only two crafts remained; an order dreadnaught, and the cruiser... they seemed merely to be moving away, though at a slow pace, the battleship unable to go in cruise mode with so many obstacles.

things weren't that calm on the other side. At the Omicron Minor, the trap he'd set up was going into a full fledged fleet combat, cruiser and dreadnaught exchanging fire with the order warships.

"Very well. Fire on my command....."

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