Captain Andrew Hunt was in the mess hall on the Missouri awaiting confirmation of his new command to come through from Admiral David Hale. Hunt was told a new Assault Battle Cruiser had just been commissioned for the fight against Rheinland, the LNS Utah.
The senior crew members had been picked by Hunt and he also had a senior member of the LSF as his Executive Officer and Intelligence advisor, Secretary Julia Wolfe. She wasn't always on board as she had her own gunboat to command along with her fighter.
The captain was thrilled to be given his own ship after many years as an XO on a Siege Cruiser. He was experienced and very well respected amongst his subordinates. Hunt always thrived to get the best out a ship and her crew as well as trying to improve himself in the process.
The ship was fully armed with twin Anti-Matter Light Mortar Artillery Batteries, a Cruiser class Anti-Matter Battle Razor, a Long Range Cruise Ballistic Missile Launcher, 6 Cruiser Point Defence Batteries and 2 Battleship Primary Turrets. The weapons array was still in the experiential phase and was subject to change once primary tests had been completed.
Due to construction deadlines, the Utah was fitted with a basic reinforced ablative steel alloy armour strengthened with a steel mesh underlay, this made the ship slightly massive and slow but, the weapons more than compensated for this. Captain Hunt had order the construction of a Titanium Armour but that would take some time. He wanted the Utah to go through her shakedown runs to iron out any "aches and pains" in her construction....
The Utah was now ready for her shakedown runs, it had an experimental jump drive that needed testing before anything else could be done. Captain Hunt had a skeleton crew for the initial runs, Julia Wolfe was on board for the jump drive tests, after all if was proven successful she would want her LSF Ships to be equipped with them.
Hunt boarded the Utah and proceeded to command, many of the crew saluting him on his way. He was in awe of the size of the vessel. Finally he reached the bridge.
"CAPTAIN ON THE DECK!!!" Said the helmsman Scott Hudson
"At ease ladies and gentlemen. Give me ship-wide..... This is Captain Andrew Hunt, first off I want to say what a fine crew you all are and I look forward to working with you. Now that's out of the way we will be performing some manoeuvres and testing the jump drive. Once they are completed it will be a weapons and shields test. The final tests will be drills and crew performance. That is all carry on everyone.... Mr Hudson we have clearance to leave dry dock, take us out nice and slow."
"Aye aye captain"
There was an audience of various ships to witness the launch from Norfolk Ship yard, the engineers had outdone themselves yet again. It was a sight to behold, its huge quad impulse engine's blasting away to give the ship its thrust, the size of its weapons. The civilians watching were very excited, comm chatter was heard all over New York.
"Mr Hudson, all ahead 1 third... We need to be away from any bases and planets to test the drive. Engineering, bring main deflector on-line, power up the jump drive" Hunt was in his element barking thee orders to the crew.
"Aye aye skipper" The chief engineer was Lieutenant Commander Shamus O'Brien and he worked on the experimental drive along with other parts of the ship, so in essence it was his vessel just as much as the captains.
The Utah finally reached a safe distance, the captain ordered all civilian ships away and gave the order to activate the drive to jump into Texas, but something was wrong.
"Comm --- Engineering. Sir something is not right, there is a phase imbalance in the starboard engines, we should deactivate the jump drive"
It was too late to act, the drive generated a field around the ship and then it disappeared.
Sirens were sounding all over the ship, the crew running around frantically trying to ascertain what happened.
"All decks report! I want a sensor sweep of the area"
The shield generator had overloaded and the jump drive had melted and was rendered a total right-off. Once the system wide sensor sweep was completed there was panic, even from the captain but he didn't let it show. They had jumped far beyond than what the drive was initially capable of doing, they had breached into the edge worlds...... Omicron Delta, Nomad space...................
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