Project New Dawn

[Frostpfote]

Project New Dawn

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Act 2: An endless journey

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First contact

Aboard the New Dawn's lower bridge, one day later.
Motivated by the news that the launch site was apparently unharmed, the crew is now even more dedicated to finally start with their research. Luckily for them they manage to arrive two days early at the first debris field. Wrecks of both the Order and the Core flying around, probably resting there for the past decade or so. As they do not yet have the resources to power the decontamination chambers they picked a field with no nomadic remains in it. About 15 clicks away from the edge of the field Aurora slows the ship down and calls in a meeting with the Captain and some of the commanders…

It doesn't take long and all decisions are made, the ship is in the right position and the salvaging drones are ready to be launched. A majority of the available crewmembers along with some scientists stare out of the windows of the bridge towards the debris field as hangar doors open. The construction bots have managed to prepare 20 snubcraft sized drones, only equipped with a light shield generator and a strong tractor beam to pull in chunks of debris to be refined into usable materials. Like a colony of ants the drones begin to dismantle the first destroyed cruiser and retrieve the chunks back to the hangar to be picked up by transport vessels. Each piece is filled with valuable alloys that are desperately needed for repairs and upgrades to the armor. After just a couple of minutes construction drones begin to seal leaks in the hull and reinforce important sections with armor plates. Aurora lets the drones run for about a day before recalling them to their launchpads in the hangar. Most of the leaks have been sealed and the ship received a noticeable upgrade in armor, now capable of resisting several torpedo hits to the armored belt. The engines go back to full speed once the hangar doors had closed, leaving just a few transporter wreckages behind of the once sizeable debris field. As the mighty dreadnought pushes its way through clouds of stardust they deploy an upgraded version of the communication beacon that they had recently used to contact the launch site. With this indirect method of linking to the communication network and Aurora’s capabilities to overcome most levels of encryption they hope to be able to make their way to the first contaminated debris field. Hundreds of samples and the first milestone of their mission await them. The highly motivated crew listens closely as the beacon is deployed. It takes a moment before the right frequency is filtered out and the decryption process can be started. With every second the transmission becomes more understandable, a patrol report indicating strange activities near one of the dense nebula clouds in Omicron Delta – a system scattered with battle remains. Many of the bigger debris fields have been scavenged to such an extend that neither the class nor the original shiptype can be recognized anymore. If they want to get anything of value for their research they must head there immediately at god speed before the report reaches whoever was supposed to receive it. The course is set to close proximity and the weapons are primed. Whatever awaits them may not be willing to leave under the premise of research that would be conducted.

“ETA 10 minutes to target location.”, shouts one of the officers on the bridge. All scientists immediately leave and gather in the laboratories prepare tests for all the samples that they are eager to get their hands on. The engines slow down as New Dawn’s momentum will easily carry them towards the field. But such a big ship isn’t hidden easily, as they have definitely been noticed by now. Aurora engages the backwards thruster to slow the ship down – not one second to early. A relatively small missile managed to make it past the point defense perimeter and explode close to the sensor array, temporarily disrupting the radar and causing the ship to engage full backward thrust in the process. People around the bridge section can barely stay on their feet as the ship slows down rapidly. While most of the crew are still trying to recover from the change in momentum, Aurora has already activated the point defense systems and brought most of the guns on target. Due to the damaged radar she’s unable to lock on guided missiles which would take care of smaller crafts, though this provides a great opportunity to test the combat capabilities of some of the recently constructed light escort drones that were meant to replace the need for actual fighter support. It doesn’t take long for the ambushers to leave their hideout within the nebula to land a devastating strike on their presumably blinded prey. A variety of different snubcrafts, two gunboats and several salvaging vessels emerged from the clouds and are each individually tracked by visual intel rather than an actual radar. Engaging the enemy this way would most likely result in less accurate projectiles, but these Junker-esque scavengers should not be too much of a threat despite their decent tactic of blinding the New Dawn's fire control.

The capability of an artificial intelligence to take over dozens of gunner's tasks and perform them to near perfection is the death sentence of the initial snubcraft that dare to get close to the behemoth. Occasional explosions light up the usually dark space, leftover atmosphere aboard the ships causing each ship to be engulfed in flames upon detonation. However, the gunboats seem to have weapons unusual to their shipclass. Once in range they fire a projectile similar to a capital ship mortar, most likely taking out their entire powercore for a few seconds before the crew regains control over the vessel. The New Dawn's shield takes countless heavy hits this way, the gunship's mixture of decent mobility combined with good tanking capabilities makes it difficult to focus one down before it gets far enough away again to avoid any semi accurate counter battery fire. This cat and mouse game goes on for several minutes, even long enough to entirely drain the New Dawn's shields. However, a turning point soon occurs. While the gunboats' tactic is rather efficient given the current circumstances, the monotony of their engagements gives Aurora ample time to find a pattern and adjust the Nephelim's fire to hit them more and more often, crippling the two vessels until even they explode, causing silence to once again dominate the large emptiness of space.

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