//for the moment, closed RP between me and stewcool, and maybe jimmy if you want to join in.
The Citadelle de Quebec lazily made it's final orbit around California Minor before it engaged full drive at escaping velocity. The hum of the single fusial engine could even be heard in the quarter of general Kaitlynn, where she still laid in her bed, her eyes wide openned.
Her comm unit was bipping with insistance for a few seconds already, but she didn't felt like moving to take up the call. Her mind was quite absent today.
At first, there was this agent from the LSF, Jimmy, with which she somehow managed to share a certain sympathy after all what the young man went through. For some reason, despite her best efforts, the picture of the handsome young man still stayed in her mind for a long while... yes, there was something different in the lowly ranked agent that made him quite different from every other naval or LSF officers that tried to court her...
Ah but she wasn't going to think about this for all day long...
More importantly, she dispatched in the early hours of the morning a liberty cruiser of rather recent fabrication. The fact a whole cruiser's crew decided to defect with its commander... was most disturbing. What was going on? The commander looked serious when she talked about hunting down the nomads.
And then, there were their recent orders directly from high command concerning the Citadelle de Quebec and possible operations of prime importance... in Alaska.
Could it be, the situation was now getting out of control as she suspected ever since the first time she was dispatched in the system, during the St-Mitchell incident? ... smoke was reducing the visibility of her men. She had trouble seeing through the highly intoxicated area, despite her combat helmet. Then, a group of men in Liberty naval uniform came out of nowhere, shooting widly. They weren't serious about taking down her squad of course. They were merely there to slow them down, and disrupt their moral slowly.
But every time one of these suicide killer died, their eyes flashed for one last second this bright, plasma like aura, signing them as a nomad infested being...
The fact, during their last seconds they became themselves again, asking for her help, was most distressing.
"General Kaitlynn?"
She jumped slightly, before realising the voice came from her comm unit. Well, captain Lavoie must be really in a hurry to have activated the overide...
"Yes captain?"
"Sorry to bother you, general. But High Command has requested a change of plan. We are to stop by the Missouri, where a prison liner will take the crew to Manhattan where they will be court martialed as intended."
There was a slight pause. The voice came back, slightly hesitant - barely noticeable except by someone who knew him.
"The high ranked officers and commander Elation however, are to be taken within Area 21... for interogation. They wish you to be there as well. A heavily armored Rhino military shuttle will come pick you and the prisonners to... St-Mitchell. We are ordered to wait for your return meanwhile, with standard patrol duties."
Another pause, then,
"Good luck, Isabelle."
Kaitlynn remained silent for a long time. Finally, commander Trinity was quite right...
It wasn't going to be as simple as she hoped. Not at all.
"Copy that, captain. And thanks."
The order was given, Commander Trinity Elation and her crew were put on board the armored rhino.
Kaitlynn, Commander of The Citadelle de Quebec, came on board last.
The whole crew of Trinity knew what was ahead. So they all stayed quite.
Trinity Elation was deep in thought. Thinking, what will become of her cruiser. Her crew and their lives.
What she nor the people on board the Rhino knew was that the Order Guard found out about the Cruiser going missing. The Cruiser, Trinity watched, was escorting the rhino to St. Mitchell. Her Cruiser the Liberty Cruiser that got herself and her crew into all this.
Trinity watched, out the little window she had, the mines go by as the Rhino entered Zone-21 the entrance to Alaska was dead ahead.
Entering Alaska wasn't what the 106th,men of the Citadelle de Quebec who took the cruiser for decomission, expected. The Tenabras, an Osiris class Battleship, along with 2 Cruiser escorts and 4 Gunboats was sitting right in front of them.
"This is Travis "Tenabras" Elation, Commander of the Osiris Battleship sitting right in front of you. You have a commander and crew that belongs to the Order Guard and we want them back."
It was Trinity's brother. His ship finally out of Evora Shipyard from its extensive modernization.
"If you move you will be destroyed. We kindly ask you to power down your ships and prepare to be boarded."
Isabelle frowned slightly, as she moved in the cockpit, looking at the massive warship in front of her. It wasnt that different from the Citadelle, actually. Yet, the sleeker shape of this "Osiris", definitevely made it a special design...
The stolen prototype, of course.
She looked back at Elation, just a few seconds, before turning back her attention to the warship. Elation. So, it was probably a relative of the commander. The man would do anything to saver her, no doubt.
But she still had cards.
"This is general Isabelle Kaitlynn, of the 106th battlegroup. We hold commander Elation prisonner, along with her officers here, aboard this transport ship. This cruiser has enough firepower to chew a big hole in that nose of your's with it's artillery main gun. You are in a Liberty military controlled space. A patrol will soon be coming in a matter of minutes."
"Are you sure you want to do this? I'd suggest you back off asquick as you can, sir, because you won't stand a chance."
"Miss Isabelle from what I can tell you dont see the power of this Osiris, and its fleet. We've studied the main cannon to that cruiser. Long before my sister even got a hold of it. Each of the ships in this fleet can eat that cannon for breakfast. You see, if it shoots at us. Whichever ship it hits *pause* in fact any ship that shoots us. Will not only be destroyed it will make these ships stronger. I'm sure a General such as yourself knows our technology is far greater then yours. If you dont understand the situation heres the gist of it. You shoot us, we absorb the damage and that damage adds power to our guns and our ships. Which allow us to shoot faster and stronger rounds every hit we take. Now the energy from that cannon on the cruiser. Should give my ship with its enhanced armor already a huge boost. Which from my calculations would make it so I can one shot that ship and blow a whole so large in it, it will split in two."
Trinity smiles a bit along with the rest of her crew. They know the firepower of Tenabras and its fleet. They also know that Tenabras is holding at least 10 Fighters/Bombers.
Travis then makes a final comment before waiting for Isabelle to respond.
"As for the patrols we will be long gone before they arrive. We just want that cruiser back and the prisoners you hold. As for you and your men. We will let you go freely. If needed we will give you a small ship to get back home."
"That is very kind of you, sir. However, I'm afraid you are quite bluffing. If you believe Liberty technologies was lagging behind your terrorist petty researches in Omicron Minor... if you did have power absorbing technologies, Alaska would have fallen to your clutches since a long while."
Isabelle sure didn't liked this. No matter if this tech was true or not, wasn't important. She wasn't too concerned about herself, the Rhino was heavily modified, with engines built over engines, and half the cargo hold merely being a power generator, they could escape their opponents only on sublight engines easily.
But, she couldn't afford to lose the 20 men who hijacked the cruiser.
And she certainly won't accept to fail her mission. Especially on such sensitive matter...
Oh, high command wasn't going to be pleased at all.
"So, before you get jumped by a whole section of the liberty fleet - and sir, I can assure you they are incoming, eveyr ship coming here are beaconed, and they already noticed we have ceased moving - you woulnt stand very long faced with the heavy guns."
She leaned back on her seat, trying to look in control.
She didn't even wanted to look back at her prisonners in the cell.
Hopefully fleet made it fast there...
"So, for the last time, back off, and you might have a chance to leave this system alive."
"Isabelle yours eyes deceive you."
"Commence Order number 15601."
Right when Travis said that the rest of his fleet appeared. Right out of no where. As if cloaked. It was, as he put it, the backup ships for Tenabras and his fleet. The combined fleets took up the whole open area right in front of the gate. Some had to use Juneau Shipyard just to fit in the area.
"Isabelle we dont need prisoners we just want what belongs to us. No fleet in all of Alaska is strong enough to take on a fleet this large. For the second time. Please stand down, and allow us to get what we want and leave."
The cloaked fleet then went back into its invisible state. All you can hear was ships moving, as though they were moving away from the scene to make room for certain unexpected ships.
Isabelle sighed. She looked calm nonetheless on the holocam transmission.
Inside, she felt quite cold. Shef left the transmission post for a few seconds, as she went back in the cell area.
"Well, looks like you are a very valuable element of the Order, isn't it?"
She stood for a few seconds silent, thoughtful.
"this commander Travis is right. We do not have such a large fleet in Alaska system. I actually wonder how he risked bringing so much with him. Meaning, he must be well placed in the Order hierarchy to have such influence."
Isabelle shook slowly her head, not really expecting any answer. She was mostly reflecting aloud.
She went back to the communication post suddenly, as an idea arose in her mind...
"Silver squad, report in."
"Good, prepare to evacuate the cruiser through the airlock. The rhino will be moored to you to evacuate, copy? excellent."
She then switched channel,
"Very well commander. I will now evacuate the cruiser. Stand by."
An impressive fleet this was.
But as immense an elephant could get, it would never be able to crush the flying fly...
"Pilot, moor to the cruiser. Get these engines running."
Travis thought for a minute somethings up. Though he wanted his sister back home safe.
"Roger that all ships prepare to escort Trinity home."
Travis turned around, comm still one, he went over to a man. The man who deals with communications. He told the man something but all you could here on the other end was Mitchell, and Adelka.
The crew of the Trinity went off from the cruiser back into the rhino. Due to the sheer size of the engine, added to that the prison cell, they were now quite squeezed in with 20 armed troopers...
Once the airlock disengaged, Isabelle tapped slowly on the shoulder of the pilot, three time in a quick succession.
Everyone of the soldiers suddenly helf tight to whatever they could find, an access ramp, a liquid hydrogen pipe... Isabelle herself strapped to her seat. No need to take chance.
The pilot nodded once.
And pushed on the thrusters.
This sound wasn't that of an engine, but that of a thundering projectile. Those at the back of the ship had to tighten their teeth as the infernal noises of the engine powered 4 hyper-boosters, one of the newest naval technologies developped by the LSF. The engine's normal twin blue tongues of fire, became a long trail of purple plasma... and so did the thrusters.
At that sight, Isabelle knew where this tech must have came from. And they still dare playing with these after St-Mitchell...
But she had to cut short her reflection. They obviously took the fleet by surprise, as no one probably saw a ship this large with such incredible acceleration. And it wasn't even on cruise engine.
Despite the inertial compensators, everyone aboard could feel the immense pressure exerced on their body. Their mass was suddenly very nearly twice their own...
Isabelle could see the pilot was indeed struggling to maneouver.
"w...weapon... charge those cou... countermeasures."
She struggled to get her words out, air seeming harder by the seconds to breath in,
"nav... g.. get us... b...hind the... first... lign of d... defence."
The men merely nodded.
The ship rocketed past the barrier of Order crafts, made a bone crushing looping, made a barell roll and turned its tail back, heading toward Alaska jumpgate.
Now, what they needed...
Hell, what could they assemble in so little time to...
No, that was a really bad idea, she thought.
Travis, clearly stunned at what he just saw. Had to make sure his sister was safe. Knowing that even comming back at them the Rhino would have to slow down to get through the gate back to New York. If it went in at that speed it surely would fall apart.
Tenabras made one of the most risky commands he could ever think up.
"Drop the stopper!"
A stopper was one of the orders "new toys" bringing any ship from speeds above cruise speed or at it. To a jolting stop. Anyone or anything in the ship that isn't fastened would go flying. However anything near it gets pushed hard.
Tenabras dropped a weird looking mine that went straight at the Rhino. Exploding a few yards in front of it. The stopper did its job.
This time they werent taking chances.
"All ships box the rhino in."
Tenabras along with 5 other ships squeezed in on the Rhino. If it moved it would run into one of the ships. Far larger then it.
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