Mission 1: First Command

  — 12th of Renesari, Year 390 PD, 13:00 station time, Refitting Berth 14B, HMSS Forge —

  Looking out the viewport of the observation pod overlooking Berth 14B of the orbital shipyard she stood aboard, a young looking woman fought to keep her expression still. While her shoulder-length red hair with its natural silver highlights were tucked up into an elaborate set of braids around her head, the slight twitching of the fox-like ears atop her head and the way her fox-like tail sprouting behind her shimmied ever so slightly however gave away to those that knew her well just how excited she clearly was. And why wouldn’t I be? She thought to herself, my first hyper-capable command, at last! The woman tightened her grip and the green and black cap that she held in her hands before her, inverted from the standard naval officer’s black and green, and the clearest of indicators that the wearer was the captain of one of His Majesty’s hyper-capable vessels of war.

  It certainly is a beautiful sight, even if she isn’t fully clothed yet. For indeed the vessel in front of her was currently in the midst of refit. Whole sections of her outer armor had been peeled away as work crews swarmed various parts of the ship. The observer watching them narrowed her eyes as she saw a crew putting in the final touches to the armored plating surrounding the forward grav drive. That’s odd. She thought, I thought the Sword-class destroyers normally had two forward missile tubes. Why does this one only have one forward weapon port then? Her musings were soon interrupted by the sound of the door chime ringing through the room. With a sigh she donned her cap and scooped up the message tube that had been resting on the table beside her. Her luggage and personal belongings had already been sent ahead and awaited her aboard ship in her future quarters, so she was quick to ready herself before heading to open the door. It quietly slid open and there before her stood a man about a head shorter than her, his body thin from exercise and good diet, with gray hair and two gray mouse-like ears atop his head. He had a perfectly waxed gray mustache under his nose, but was otherwise clean-shaved, and wore the uniform of a Ship’s Steward. She recognized him immediately of course, for he was her assigned steward, and she felt they had gotten to know each other reasonably well this past week as she made the necessary preparations for today.

  “There you are Ma’am!” The older man spoke to her as he saluted, his voice a surprisingly rich baritone that sounded almost musical. “I am happy to report that your luggage has been properly stowed and all is in preparation for your arrival aboardship. May I escort you to the docking tube?”

  “Very well William, I suppose I can stop gawking and go about with my orders. Please, lead the way.” She gestured down the hallway with her arm as he gave her a polite bow before leading her towards the docking tube that would take her to the ship.

  Twenty minutes later, the pair found themselves before the entryway to the docking tube for the Wakizashi, where a pair of Royal Marine sentries stood guard in their black and green combat armor and their pulse rifles held at ease. After a swift exchange of salutes, the woman and her steward each presented their IDs to the two guards. After scanning their IDs and confirming with the station’s database that the two were where they were supposed to be, the guards handed back their IDs and waved them through. The tube extended out thirty meters from the station before reaching the ship’s port-side personnel airlock, and the two of them passed by several workers that were heading back to the station during their walk to the ship. Upon reaching the airlock, which was currently being kept open while work crews moved back and forth between the ship and the station, the two were greeted by the sounds of a bosun’s whistle announcing the arrival of an Officer of the King’s Navy, and the group of marines and naval personnel that were standing by near the entrance of the airlock all came to attention and saluted as one. Standing a few steps in front of the rest stood a short, stocky man with short rusty brown hair underneath his officer’s cap, with squirrel-like ears and a bushy squirrel’s tail sprouting out behind him. Like her, he wore the same black and green uniform of the Royal High-Rest Navy, though he sported the rank insignia of a lieutenant commander on his breast. He watched as she returned the salute, then turned her taller, leaner frame towards the High-Rest flag that was engraved into the wall nearby and saluted it as well, before turning back to him.

  “Permission to come aboard?” She queried, her voice an almost husky alto that nearly took him aback. Nevertheless, the squirrel-kin mentally shook his head as he replied back in his one smooth tenor tone, “Permission granted, ma’am. Welcome aboard the Wakizashi.”

  “Thank you, lieutenant commander. The rest of you, at ease, and dismissed. I’m sure you all have plenty of more important things to do around here than standing around here.” A chorus of ‘Aye, ma’ams!’ and quick salutes responded back to her as the greeting party dispersed to return to their previously interrupted schedules, and the woman turned to waiting squirrel-kin and offered out her hand, which he quickly shook. “Lieutenant Commander Cassidy Redbough, I presume?”

  “Yes ma’am, your new XO. Shall I guide you to the bridge? I imagine you have some official orders to read off before I can round up the rest of the officers for a sit-rep with you.”

  “Please, lead the way.” As the two began walking down the gangway that would take them to the bridge, she turned her head back towards her steward. “I trust you already know your way around William?”

  “I do, ma’am.” he replied, along with a short bow. “I’ll make my own way to your quarters and continue my own preparations.” With that, he took his leave and left down a different gangway.

  About 10 minutes later they arrived at the bridge, nestled deep in the armored core of the vessel. With a nod of greeting to the officer on watch, she strode up to the captain’s command chair and inserted her ID before laying a palm down on the reader in front of it. Once her identity was verified by the ship’s computer, she flipped a switch on the communications console embedded into one of the arms of the chair, starting a shipwide broadcast. She straightened up and pulled open the document case she was carrying, carefully unfolding the archaic paper in front of her before holding it up to begin reading aloud.

  “To Commander Rina Silverveil, you are hereby ordered to report to the Royal High-Rest Naval Vessel Wakizashi, whereupon you are to assume command as the vessel’s master and commander, in the name of His Majesty, King Edward Blackwall III. May you fail not in your duty, and execute your orders with honor and dignity. Signed, Admiral Carter Miststep, First Space Lord, and Duchess Bethany Flametree, Minister of War.” She folded the paper back up in a deliberate manner before turning towards her new XO and saluting. “Lieutenant Commander Redbough, I hereby assume command of this vessel, in the name of King and Country.”

  The LC returned the salute as he replied, “Commander Silverveil, you have command.”

  They both ended the salute and she turned back towards the communicator in front of her. “Alright crew, I know you are all busy getting this ship back into functional order, so I will keep this short. I promise you all as the commander of this vessel that I will put forth every ounce of my body and soul into this ship and its crew, that we may execute our duty to its fullest extent. I only ask that you do the same, that we might show the rest of the navy how it’s done! Commander Silverveil, out.” With that, she clicked off the transmitter and moved over to the third officer in the room, currently keeping an eye on things as the current officer of the watch. As she approached the other woman, Rina took the time to look her over. The woman stood up from the workstation she was sitting at and saluted, revealing a tall, statuesque frame with shoulder length, dark brown hair currently pulled up in a bun and a pair of otter-like ears on top of her head. She had the badge of a lieutenant on her uniform, with her otter-like tail hanging down behind her legs, and her large amber eyes seemed to glimmer with a curiosity that made her seem young for her rank. She quickly accepted the offered handshake from her new commander as she spoke.

  “Welcome aboard ma’am. Lieutenant Crystal Sprywave, your Navigation Officer.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, I won’t keep you long. Once I’ve finished catching up on my reports and have had time to go over some things with the Lieutenant Commander, I hope to meet up with each of my officers individually to see what you all need. Regardless, I intend to have dinner in the officer’s mess with all of you at 18:00 ship’s time, after which we will all reconvene to my briefing room to go over the status of the refit.”

  “Of course ma’am. Do you want me to let the others know?”

  “Please do, Lieutenant. I suspect the LC here will be a mite busy between now and dinner.”

  The burly lieutenant commander gave a short guffaw at that. “Yes, I suppose that is one way of putting it. Shall I show you to your quarters then ma’am?”

  “Please do, LC. Lieutenant, I will see you later.”

  “Aye ma’am!”

  — 12th of Renesari, Year 390 PD, 16:00 local time, Captain’s Quarters, RHNV Wakizashi —

  ‘What a mess.’ thought Rina as she leant back in her chair, a teacup cradled in both hands. ‘BuWeaps really got their claws deep into this refit. And of course they couldn’t be bothered to come up with any recommendations on how to use any of the new tech they are stuffing in here!’ With a sigh, she took another sip of her tea before putting back onto its coaster on the desk in front of her, picking up the data slate with the most recent report on the Wakizashi’s refit once again before looking across the desk to the pitying look her XO was giving her.

  “Quite the mess they are leaving us, isn’t it ma’am?” he queried her, before leaning back in his own chair while picking up his own teacup. Rina could only shake her head as she waved her other hand at the data slate she just picked up.

  “Yes, and it’s up to us to figure out how to put their latest brainchild to any actual use. I figured something was up when I was checking out the ship from the docking berth’s observation pod and noticed only one weapon port in the forward grav drive, but this…” With an exasperated snort she tossed the slate back on the desk as she leant back again, looking towards the ceiling of her cabin’s office.

  When she had pulled up the official orders for the ship, including the work orders, she nearly wanted to scream in rage. Her first command, and it was for a ship slated to be a testbed for a new suite of hardware that the Bureau of Weapons Development wanted to experiment with before going to the Bureau of Shipbuilding for a brand new design built around the new hardware.

  Before the retrofit, the Wakizashi had begun as a standard Sword-class destroyer, and it was shaping up to have a similar outward appearance once its current retrofit was completed. At each end of the 140 meter long, vessel sat an elongated sphere arranged like the head of a hammer, which housed the twin grav drives and their dedicated reactors that maneuvered the ship in-system, with its reactor core located in an armored sphere at the center of the vessel. Forward of the main reactor buried in the center of the ship sat the bridge, with the ship’s boat bay below it and crew quarters above it. Meanwhile the ship’s hyperdrive and engineering workshops were situated immediately aft of the reactor, along with the ship’s inertial compensators. The standard Sword-class was wider than it was tall, though still roughly tubular in shape, in order to house its primary weapons: sixteen missile tubes mounted vertically, split evenly fore and aft of the reactor with their tubes opening along the dorsal side of the vessel, with ammunition bays filled with anti-ship missiles centrally located between clusters of four tubes each. The class was also supposed to have four more missile tubes, two each along the length of the armored bulges protecting the fore and aft grav drives. These each had their own ammunition bays, albeit smaller than the ones for the main batteries, as they weren’t operable whenever the grav drives were in use. Finally, in the event that another vessel got close enough to prevent an effective missile launch, the ship had four plasma cannons mounted into two ventral turrets. For defense against missiles and small-craft, the vessel was armed with twenty four launch tubes arranged evenly along the port and starboard flanks of the vessel for launching shorter ranged counter missiles, along with a further forty point defense lasers forming small bulges along the ship’s armored hull, spread evenly across the vessel’s surface for maximum coverage.

  Post retrofit, however, things had changed drastically. Gone were the forward anti-ship missile tubes, both the eight vertical tubes and the two originally mounted in the forward grav drive cluster. Now a state of the art railgun was mounted along the vessel’s dorsal spine, its ammunition bay and the capacitor bank needed to power it taking over the space originally used for the forward vertical missile tubes, with its sole opening through the ships forward grav drive housing. While the gun itself was fairly impressive, able to launch a 10kg projectile at just roughly half the speed of light, it had the problem of only being able to fire in a straight line, and the ship couldn’t be operating its forward grav drive while firing the weapon! This meant you not only had to correctly determine what heading to face the ship in order to hopefully hit your target, but you also couldn’t change course or speed while doing so. Plus, it looked like it would take almost 10 minutes to recharge the capacitor bank between firings, which made for a fairly lengthy reload time, though if you did manage to hit your shot that shot would likely be instantly fatal to whoever was on the other end, as it would hit with the same energy released by a powerful nuclear weapon. She could see using it as a first strike weapon, taking out key installations or fixed defenses from beyond traditional sensor range before more conventional forces moved in, but trying to hit something actively taking evasive action seemed unlikely.

  But the railgun wasn’t the only unconventional weapon the techs were installing in this refit. Taking over the space originally dedicated to the ammunition bay of the ships forward facing missile tubes sat a ventrally mounted weapons bay for launching another new experimental weapon, something the techies in BuWeps were calling an “energy torpedo”. From what Rina could tell, it looked as though they had stripped out most of the sensors, data recorders, and transmitters from the Navy’s latest generation recon drone and replaced them with a plasma cannon from a heavy cruiser! It would have to get in real close to hit anything, but the size of the launcher and the volatility of the shots it could fire meant that if it did, one of these torpedoes could readily wreck anything smaller than a battleship! And if multiple managed to hit the same spot at once, they may even seriously damage one of those. That being said, they were quite slow, and thanks to the power draw for the massive plasma cannon, their endurance was much reduced compared to even a standard anti-ship missile, let alone a standard recon drone. The latest mark 14 Starlance anti-ship missiles, the largest her ship’s remaining launchers could fire, had a powered envelope of 6 million km, with a from rest flight time of roughly 2 hours to reach that distance. These new torpedoes, however, had a powered envelope of a mere 2 million km, and would take over two and half hours to get there from rest! This once again made it useless as a conventional weapon, but the torpedoes did still have all of the stealth tech that made their recon drone frames so sneaky, so she could see using them for sneak attacks or maybe even as guided mines. They also only had room for two of them in that cramped weapons bay, so if they were going to be used they had to be real certain they could hit with them.

  ‘Thankfully they left most of the rest of our armaments in place, though we did lose our stern launchers to make room for that dedicated EW computer bank.’ She thought to herself, ‘Might help us look more like a hole in space and actually have a chance at using our less conventional weapon options.’ After ruminating a bit longer she shook her head before looking back towards Cassidy. “Well, not much we can do about the changes. Guess we better start brainstorming how to best take advantage of them. I can think of a few scenarios already, but I’d like to get some feedback from the rest of you before the annual fleet exercises. I know they are still a couple months away, but assuming the refit stays on schedule we’re only going to have a week to get everyone used to the new layout and systems before they start.”

  The squirrel-kin across from her grimaced at the reminder, then nodded. “Aye, no use complaining about things we can’t change. I’m guessing that’s why you wanted to have a meeting with all of your officers after dinner tonight?”

  “Partially, yes. I also figured it would be a good time to start getting to know all of you a little better. The sooner we can be working as a team before the fleet exercises, the better.”

  “Right, I’ll try to see what ideas I can come up with while keeping an eye on these dockies. If that is everything, I should probably get back to that.”

  “No that will be all for now, thank you for your time.”

  “Aye, ma’am. See you again at 18:00.” He rose and saluted, then left the cabin.

  ‘Just need to figure out how not to embarrass ourselves in two months, huh?’ She thought to herself after he left. ‘Hmm…maybe if we try doing this…’

  — 12th of Renesari, Year 390 PD, 18:40, Officer’s dining room, RHNV Wakizashi —

  The clinking of silverware and settling of glasses began to slow, as Rina’s officers began laying down their utensils as they finished the scrumptious strawberry trifle that William had prepared for them. Rina picked up her wineglass as she looked about the table from her seat at its head thoughtfully. ‘I think we may have a good crew here.’ she thought as she took another sip of her wine. Like her, most of her officers were relatively recent assignments. While this meant there was less concern of jealousy from someone who felt they were due an in-ship promotion that they got passed up on, it meant her command crew needed more time to gel into a proper team that was ready to truly exceed the sum of their individual contributions. And time was not something they had a lot of, if they wanted to put in a good showing at the upcoming fleet exercises.

  Seated to her right at the rectangular dining table sat Lieutenant Trent Broadmoor, her ship’s Weapons Officer. The wiry looking gray and white mouse-kin was taller than the average mouse-kin (equalling her own 184 cm), and radiated confidence in his own abilities. According to the dossier she had on him, the fact that he was still only a lieutenant at age 30 (4 years older than her own 26) was due to him having passed up the promotions offered to him, seemingly to prefer spending his time ‘in the trenches’ as he put it.

  Continuing down that side of the table, next to Trent sat Crystal, who she had met earlier on the bridge when she had first arrived. The 24 year old otter-kin was the tallest of her crew at 191 cm, with an almost svelte figure and a child-like face that seemed to always have a smile on it. Crystal practically radiated optimism and cheerfulness that was almost annoying to Rina, though she doubted that she would ever be able to tell Crystal that.

  Next to Crystal sat lieutenant Alexander Underhill, her ship’s Lead Engineer. Alexander (he refused to let anybody call him Alex, apparently), was seemingly the opposite of Crystal, as a black haired mole-kin with narrowed eyes set into a round face atop a short (154 cm), stout frame. Where Crystal was seemingly always cheerful and outgoing, he maintained a mostly serious look on his face and clearly wanted nothing more than to return to his workstation and get back to work.

  Last one to be seated on that side of the table was the older of the two Midshipmen aboard ship, Vallen Skyskimmer. The black and gray haired 21 year old squirrel-kin had been was starting his second year aboard the Wakizashi, and according to his dossier and the performance results left to her by the ship’s previous captain, the young man was proving to be a whiz at programming attack missiles, and was also a certified marksman. A fact that the ship’s marine complement could apparently attest, as the young sailor often spent his free time at the marine’s practice range to “keep sharp”. Cassidy had suggested they put him in charge of the crew operating the new railgun that was being installed during their afternoon meeting, something she found herself also veering towards.

  At the opposite end of the table from her, Cassidy sat with Kurt Greenfield to his right, the ship’s other midshipman. The brown-haired mouse-kin was the youngest at the table, at 20 years of age, and had just graduated from the academy a few weeks earlier. While not at the top of his class academically, he scored quite highly in his ship handling and navigation courses, which combined with his earnestness and willingness to learn from everyone, officer or not, was apparently endearing him well to the rest of the crew. She was thinking of assigning him to the boat bay to work with the ship’s flight control team.

  To Kurt’s right, heading back up the side of the table on her left, sat the commander of the ship’s marine complement, Lieutenant Michael Springflower. The almost grizzled looking mouse-kin moved with a grace that belied his broad, muscular frame, and he spoke with a measured tone that spoke to the wealth of life experience that he brought to his position, having been one of the few individuals who managed to transition from NCO status into a full officer’s position.

  Next to him sat the ship’s doctor, Lieutenant Commander Irene Springswimmer. While not the oldest crewmember on board at 29, the brunette otter-kin was both old enough and talented enough, according to her dossier, to have long been able to either open her own private practice, or taken a position at Oceansoul Naval Hospital. When asked earlier in the night why she had chosen to stay ship-side, the doctor replied matter of factly “This is where I belong. Someone needs to be around to put you all back together again when trouble next finds you, and the way I see it, it might as well be me.” Rina certainly approved of the doctor’s attitude, and saw no reason to question her commitment any further.

  Finally, seated between the doctor and herself sat the only noble aboard the ship, Lieutenant Sarah Sprystep, her ship’s Electronic Warfare and Intelligence Officer. The 25 year old hare-kin had long white hair kept pinned up in elegant braids, and sat with refined elegance that seemed at odds with her amazonian frame. The second child of a baron on Highland, she was much more used to dealing with the rugged mountainfolk of her home barony than other nobles, something she made sure her new captain knew the moment they met. “Don’t worry about me gettin’ all uppity about takin’ orders from a commoner.” she had said to Rina, “My parents made sure me and my siblings were well aware that just cuz someone’s not a noble, it doesn’t mean you can’t respect ‘em. Besides, talent means more than one’s bloodline in my experience.”

  ‘Yes,’ Rina thought as she finished looking around the table, ‘I think this crew will do just fine.’ She then caught Kurt’s eye before slowly waving her glass at him. He looked puzzled at first, then blushed as he remembered that as the youngest officer present, it was his duty to perform the customary end-of-dinner toast. After taking a deep breath to settle himself, he picked up his glass and carefully stood up, catching the rest of the table’s attention in the process. Raising it up his glass, he spoke, “Ladies and Gentlemen, to the King!”

  “To the King!” the rest responded, with everyone taking a final sip from their glasses. Rina then stood and nodded to Kurt before speaking to the rest of the table. “Thank you, Mr. Greenfield. Now then, with dinner finished I believe it is time we adjourned to the briefing room where we can discuss the retrofit, and figure out how to use the new toys BuWeps decided to force upon us.” With a slight chuckle from several of the others, the group all stood and moved down the hall to the adjacent conference room that sat across from her quarters.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Once everyone was seated, Rina asked Cassidy to start things off by giving a current update on the status of the retrofit. With a nod, he pulled up a report onto the room’s vidscreen along the back wall that they could all turn to see, and began to speak. “Very well, as you can see here, the…”

  — 20th of Grosari, Year 390 PD, 08:00 ship time, RHNV Wakizashi —

  “Flight Control to Wakizashi. You are cleared for departure. Safe journeys.”

  “Thank you Control, we are underway…now. Wakizashi out.”

  Rina listened in as her ship’s communication’s officer finalized their departure with the station’s flight controller, watching the monitors in front of her as the Wakizashi’s forward grav drive began humming to life as the docking clamps holding the ship in its berth released them, the small artificial gravity well ahead that the drive projected ahead of the ship beginning to slowly pull them forward as her helmsmen slowly moved the ship away from the Royal High-Rest Naval Station Forge, having finally completed their refit. The ship’s inertial compensators began spooling up as the ship picked up speed, ensuring that once they cleared the station they would be able to start accelerating at levels that would normally prove quite fatal to the ship’s crew while cutting the flight time across the system to a few hours, rather than most of the day.

  Like the rest of her crew, she wore the standard RHN shipsuit under her uniform, with her tail curled around her waist to keep it out of the way. The integrated emergency air supply of the suit added extra bulk along her back, though the rest of the suit was quite form fitting, barely noticeable underneath her uniform. She left the specially designed helmet that could quickly be locked and sealed to the ring of the suit around her neck hanging from a designated hook on her command chair, ready to be donned at a moment’s notice. She leaned back as she switched her station’s primary display to show their current position within local space, watching as the ship moved further out from the station. Her helmsmen spoke up as they cleared the station’s restricted travel zone.

  “Station cleared, setting course for naval station Taiga.”

  “Acknowledged, Helm.” She replied. “Continue course at standard military power. No point wearing out our brand new drives so soon.”

  “Aye ma’am, coming about and moving to standard military power. Estimated time of arrival is 2 hours and 28 minutes from now.”

  “Understood. Lieutenant Commander Redbough, you have the bridge. Send me an alert when we are 30 minutes out from the station.”

  “Aye skipper.” Her XO replied as she rose and picked up her helmet, removing her security key from the seat as she did so. He slid into the seat as she vacated it, inserting his own security key into place as she made her way from the bridge to the office in her quarters.

  ‘Might as well wrap up some more paperwork while I still have the time. Should probably review that readiness report I sent to Vice Admiral Springbottom another time as well.’ she thought, as she walked into her office. ‘Hopefully they are open to suggestions from junior officers. Our armament is far too unconventional to be of any use in the kinds of engagements we are used to.’

  Putting her helmet on its rack by her desk, she took a seat and leaned back, thinking over the past month and a bit since she had come aboard. Working with her XO, she had reorganized the crew into three shifts, with each shift rotating between assisting with the retrofit, running through sims on the new or updated systems that were being installed, and a rest period to sleep and prepare for the next cycle. This included her and her officers, and while she knew she was running everyone a bit ragged, by the time the refitting was finished she could tell that the crew was now eager to start working with the actual hardware in front of them, rather than just the crude sims they had been working with previously. There was also a much deeper sense of camaraderie amongst the crew, and her officer’s teamwork under pressure was really starting to solidify. ‘Now to just give them that extra push over the next ten days, and we might actually be ready for action when the fleet exercises start.’ She shook her head as she leant forward at her desk and booted up her workstation, pulling up the readiness report she had put together for the vice admiral that she was told to report to when her ship arrived at its next destination. ‘Alright, enough lollygagging. It won’t matter one bit if we are ready for action if we aren’t allowed to see it!’ With that, she got to work, humming to herself as she did so.

  —21st of Grosari, Year 390 PD, 13:30 ship time, RHNV Freedom’s Defender

  Vice Admiral Tracy Springbottom, Countess Everspring and commander of Home Fleet’s 3rd Battle Squadron, couldn’t help a hefty sigh as she finished reviewing the readiness reports from Forge and Wakizashi, regarding the latter’s recent ‘updates’, courtesy of BuWep's latest R&D brainchildren. The chime on her office door went off, causing her to shake her head clear before pressing the intercom button on her desk.

  “Yes?”, asked the blonde haired rabbit-in.

  Her aide responded from his desk on the other side of the door, “Commander Silverveil is here to see you ma’am.”

  “Very good Richard, go ahead and send her in”

  “At once, ma’am.”

  The door slid open, and the slender fox-kin stepped inside and saluted. Tracy nodded back without getting back and motioned to the empty seat in front of her desk. “At ease Commander, and take a seat. We have much to discuss.”

  “I suspected as much, your grace, when you didn’t immediately tell me to report to Captain Brightrun’s division.” Rina replied as she took the proffered seat, propping up the data slate she had been carrying on the desk in front of her as she did so.

  The countess gave an exasperated snort before replying. “Well, I was going to do that, but then I got a notice from Rear Admiral Cherrywood that I may want to pay close attention to your ship’s readiness reports before deciding what to do with you, something I am now glad I did. As it stands, I still could assign you to the captain’s destroyer division, but I think we both know that that would be a waste of potential. Sure, your ship’s missile defense is largely untouched and would still mesh in just fine with the rest of the squadron as an escort, after all nobody expects a single destroyer to contribute much to a wall of battle. But it is clear to me that BuWeps, and to some degree BuShips, are wanting to use these exercises to test out a new type of weapons platform, without having to design one from scratch.”

  “That is my read of the situation as well, your grace.” Rina leaned back as she tapped the screen of the data slate in front of her a few times. “I think that between our extensive EW upgrades, and the new weaponry that strongly favors first strike tactics, that it might be better to think of the Wakizashi as something more akin to a wet-navy’s attack submarine, rather than the traditional escort role we normally use destroyers for.” The vice admiral across from her raised an eyebrow at that before gesturing for Rina to continue. Sensing an opportunity, she began speaking with more confidence. “Sword-class destroyers are already fairly quick and nimble for their size, and we haven’t lost any of that with the refit. In fact, my engineering team thinks that with some of the weight we lost with the armament changes, we may have reduced the power requirements for our drive systems by roughly 7%, which should let us start moving from a cold start faster. Between that, the fact that our new primary weapon is extremely difficult to detect when firing compared to standard missile tubes, and our improved stealth profile and EW capabilities, means that we are much better equipped as scouts and for hit-and-run ambushes or sneak attacks than just about anything else in the fleet. I’m thinking that the best use for us would be as the opening blow to an engagement. We get in close enough to an enemy formation to send an alert back to the rest of the fleet about their composition and formation, then once the missiles start launching we take a few shots of opportunity with our railgun to try and create gaps in their defensive screen, all from stealth. I still haven’t figured out how to use those silly ‘energy torpedoes’ that BuWeps gave us though, outside of maybe dropping them onto someone chasing us as some sort of guided mine.”

  Tracy took a few moments to think things over before responding. “I think I see where you are coming from. It’s too bad they ripped out all of the telemetry links for the forward missile tubes when they took away the tubes themselves. It might have been interesting to see if we could use your ship to extend the range of some of our missiles by taking over their guidance mid-flight. Though I suppose that would just make your ship a bigger target, as it is much harder to hide that sort of thing than the single quick pulse of a railgun firing.”

  “Yeah, I briefly had that thought as well, before filing it away as not worth the risk, at least regarding the exercises. Being able to shorten the command timing on just eight missiles like that doesn’t seem like it would make much of a difference in a fleet-on-fleet action like this.”

  “Indeed, but being able to punch a few holes in their missile defence network by harrying their escorts? That does seem much more valuable than adding your ship to our defensive screen. Though I suspect once the other side starts figuring out what is happening, your effectiveness will start to drop dramatically.”

  Rina shrugged at that. “Yeah, I had the same thought. Still, I think BuWeps may be on to something here. Having a couple of dedicated stealth frigates armed with these railguns as their primary weapon as a fleet’s scouts, or for raiding opposing supply lines? It could actually tip things in our favor in longer engagements. Might also be great for counter-piracy operations.”

  Tracy chuckled lightly, as she replied, “Yes well, first we need to prove this brainchild in the upcoming exercises before we get ahead of ourselves with those kinds of thoughts. But I am finding myself in agreement. I tell you what, how about you come back with your XO for dinner tonight, and afterwards we continue this chat with my chief of staff and my tac officer. See if we can iron out some plans to start simming before the exercises come. For the record, I will be assigning your vessel to ‘detached operations’, reporting directly to me.”

  “Very well, my lady.” Rina replied as she rose from her seat, scooping up her data slate under her arm as she reached out to shake the hand Tracy was offering her. “I must say, it is a relief to know that I will be serving under someone willing to take a more…flexible view of things.”

  “HA!” The countess practically barked back. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to strangle the person whose bright idea it was to spring this kind of weapons test on us right before a fleet exercise. After all, your ship is hardly some ‘silver bullet’ that will somehow cripple an entire fleet just by showing up! But I also know the exact stubborn old fools you are referring to, and I guarantee so does whoever at the Admiralty that got your ship assigned to my squadron. Clearly, somebody high up at the Admiralty thinks that there really is some potential here, and wants this project to succeed. Which means it's on us to give it its best chance.”

  “As you say, my lady. Until tonight” Rina gave the countess one final salute, then left, leaving the countess to her own thoughts.

  — 3rd of Lifesari, Year 390 PD, 06:40 ship time, RHNV Wakizashi —

  For the last two days, the crew of the Wakizashi had been hard at work pretending to be a hole in space, dutifully reporting back all that they saw from their hidden positions back to their squadron and helping feed them targeting data for their missile crews. The first two days of the biannual exercises they were a part of consisted of Home Fleet dividing up its four Battle Squadrons into two teams of two squadrons each in straight-up fleet on fleet action, with each squadron teaming up with a different one at then end of each exercise. Due to the size and scale of these engagements, Vice Admiral Springbottom and Commander Silverveil both felt that trying to utilize the Wakizashi’s less conventional weapons probably wouldn’t accomplish much, and instead decided to experiment a bit and see if having a stealthed warship scouting out an opposing fleet’s formations and feeding them back to their own fleet could improve their own long range accuracy in any way. Or at least, improve it enough to more than offset their own reduction in missile defence that they had to sacrifice by sending the stealthed vessel out to scout.

  The results, while not exactly breathtaking, showed promise. The Wakizashi was able to get in close enough to get a read on the opposition force’s missile defense plans and formations, and was in a position to get a better read on the ‘damage’ they were taking, sending that information back to the gunners of the other ships in the squadron. This let their squadron mates adjust their missiles’ pre-programmed flight plans to take better advantage of gaps in their opposition’s defenses, with each successful strike only further increasing the accuracy of their own strikes. Overall, the squadron as a whole had an average long range accuracy 11% higher than the rest of the fleet, all while only taking 3% more ‘hits’ than the other squadrons.

  This certainly got the attention of the other squadron commanders, who began to question how that was possible. They would have to wait though, as today was the start of the single squadron exercises, where each squadron would be taking each other on in a round robin to see who could score the most hits on each other. ‘Which means it's finally time for us to see some real action.’ Rina thought to herself. They had been underway under stealth conditions since their first round of exercises had begun forty minutes prior, on a course that would take them ‘below’ the Fourth Battle Squadron’s formation as they approached. The plan was rather simple: Wakizashi would scout out the oncoming force’s formation, send the information back to their own force via a tight-beamed lasercomm to a nearby recon drone that was acting as a relay, and then fire their main gun targeting one of the heavy cruisers or battlecruisers towards the center of the formation’s screening elements, in an attempt to punch a hole in the screen’s defensive envelope. All timed for just before the arrival of their own squadron’s first volley of missiles, which would be concentrated on whichever dreadnought the Wakizashi just tried to expose. The hope was that the Wakizashi might be able to open up a wide enough gap that they could remove one of their opponents four dreadnoughts in the first volley, putting them on enough of a back foot to try and snowball from there. ‘And hopefully we can get out in one piece afterwards too.’ That was the tricky part. Rina suspected that this might just work on the first pass, and maybe the second, but after that? Well, she suspected that tomorrow’s opponents were going to be much more difficult to pull this off on. ‘Well, that’s why we brainstormed so much and spent all that time in the sims, now isn’t it?’

  “Navigation, time until we are in position?” she asked aloud.

  Crystal was quick to reply, clearly anticipating her skipper’s question. “72 minutes, ma’am. At the current course for both squadrons, ours should be in position to fire in 81 minutes.”

  “Very good. Lieutenant Commander, sound General Quarters in 12 minutes.”

  “Aye Skipper!”

  “Sensors, Comms, do we still have solid links on the recon drones?”

  “Sensors here, still tracking them on the passives just fine.”

  “Comms here, laser comm links are still good.”

  Rina nodded in approval to the bridge technicians as they reported in. “Very well. Guns, go ahead and start trickle charging the main gun. Helm, once we are in position stand by for my command to come about on the heading that Guns will be sending you.”

  “Aye, ma’am.” “Aye Aye, skipper!”

  “Oh, and guns, don’t wait for my order to fire the main gun, as soon as you have the shot, fire. I want us ready to move as soon as possible, just in case someone spots the discharge from it.

  “Understood ma’am.”

  13 minutes later, and the klaxon of the alarm bringing the ship to full readiness quieted, as a palpable tension filled the crew. Rina flipped on the switch for the shipwide broadcast system on her console, and began to speak.

  “All hands, this is your captain speaking. You have all worked hard for this day, this moment. Soon, we will put those long hours you have spent preparing this ship to the test, to see if we can prove that our one ship really can tip the balance of power. This is your moment, so hold your head high, trust in your training, in your fellow crewmates, and in your ship. Make me proud to serve alongside you. Commander Silverveil, out.” She then turned to her XO, and shared a sly grin with him before asking, “You ready for this?”

  “Absolutely, skipper.” He replied, clearly holding back a bit of laughter. “Let’s get ‘em.”

  She checked the timer on her console, seeing that it was almost time.

  “Helm, swerve us into position on my mark.” She held her breath as she watched the timer countdown for the final seconds, before shouting out “MARK!”

  The ship heaved as the both grav drives flared to life, twisting the ship on its own central axis as it spun around to face the projected path of the oncoming squadron, the drives cutting out within seconds of firing, and then the whole ship shuddered briefly as the capacitors for the railgun dumped their charge all at once, firing the gun as the ship reached the predetermined firing position. As the weapon discharged, a signal was sent via laser comm to the closest recon drone, which relayed the signal back to their own squadron, and from there to the observers and referees as well, to make sure the computers that were registering ‘hits’ for the exercise could properly determine their success. This was a training exercise, after all, and you couldn’t exactly fire actual live rounds from a railgun without damaging something.

  The forward grav drive activated again, pulling the ship forward while correcting the spin, then bringing the ship onto a new course that would have it cross the oncoming squadron’s path from their current position ‘below’ and between the opposing squadron and their own, to a new position ‘above’ their opponents, with their ships between the Wakizashi and her squadron mates.

  “Time until we intercept their course?” Rina asked.

  “20 minutes, ma’am.” Her helmsman promptly responded.

  “How long until the squadron’s first volley reaches them?”

  Her bridge’s sensor tech took a moment to look over the plot in front of her before responding. “Looks like about 11 minutes, ma’am.”

  Rina bit her lip as she thought for a moment, then nodded to herself. “Alright the. Guns, start charging the main gun for one more shot, and ready the torpedoes. Helm, be ready to implement an evasive spin that will give us one more shot with the main gun once it is ready to go again, preferably on an untouched or lightly damaged battlecruiser. Proceed with our Bravo exit plan after that.”

  “Aye skipper.”

  The tension on the bridge was palpable, as Rina watched the sensor plot in front of her. Over the course of the next 10 minutes, both squadrons launched two more volleys of missiles, though the smaller cruisers and destroyers weren’t in range yet to add their smaller birds to the volleys until the third volley. Then, right before each squadron was about to roll in place to move their less-armored dorsal hulls away from the incoming fire, an alert came through the fleet tac-net, indicating that the referees had declared the battlecruiser RHNV Highlander’s Glory as ‘out-of-action and without power’. They had completely taken out their first target with just the one shot! Some of the crew began to cheer, even as the first volley of missiles from each side began crashing into each formation's remaining defenses. She watched in awe as the 368 missiles fired from the squadron’s four Victory-class dreadnoughts and eight Guardian-class battlecruisers attempted to crash through the sudden gap in their opponent’s defensive line, all focused on the dreadnought RHNV Enduring Call. Roughly a third of these were dedicated to electronic warfare, attempting to either jam or pull away the counter-missiles that were being launched out from the dreadnought and its remaining escorts, though they still managed to wipe out 114 of the incoming missiles, before their onboard jammers and electronic decoys came to life, pulling another 86 off course. Finally, their point defense lasers swiveled into position and engaged, managing to stop 67 more. This still left almost 100 ship-killers unaccounted for, which began detonating their training warheads all across the ship’s hull. While the actual damage to the ship’s armored hull was negligible at best (they were using training rounds, after all), the computer sims determined that the ship had taken ‘catastrophic damage to its forward reactor core.’ Then the second volley struck, this time with another 120 missiles getting through, and the ailing dreadnought was declared destroyed.

  The opposition didn’t take the loss sitting down though. Their first two volleys were just as large as 3rd squadron’s, though they had concentrated their fire across four of the squadron’s eight battlecruisers. None of them were officially out-of-action, but all of them had been declared as having taken damage, with the RHNV Shieldmaiden losing all power to their aft grav drive as nearly a dozen missiles from the second volley exploded all over across the rear-most quarter of the ship.

  3rd squadron changed course just as their destroyer and cruiser escorts began to get into range, moving to take advantage of their now larger throw rate of missiles compared to 4th fleet. Vice Admiral Springbottom clearly sought to keep the range open, having her escorts focus their fire on the escorts of 4th squadron’s lead dreadnought, while her own dreadnoughts and battlecruisers focused their fire on the dreadnought. Each side fired two volleys over the course of the next 10 minutes, at which point the Wakizashi made its presence felt once more, as it fired its main gun straight down the throat of the unsuspecting RHNV Strident Defender as it snaked into position, peeling away afterwards on an evasive course away from the action. The computer sims determined that the battlecruiser’s entire forward magazines would have detonated when the railgun’s projectile hit it, leaving it ‘dead in space’. 3rd Squadron’s heavy ships took immediate advantage of the loss to pound 4th Squadron’s lead dreadnought, with the ship being declared fully destroyed within the next two volleys.

  Vice Admiral Stoneclaw, the 4th Battle Squadron’s commanding officer, decided to cut his losses after that and signaled his surrender. Rina couldn’t stop the slight grin that crept onto her face as her bridge crew cheered at the end of the exercise. After all, a mere destroyer had been given credit for the destruction of two battlecruisers! She let them have their moment, before calling out to them.

  “Alright, alright, that’s enough! You all did great work there, but let’s not celebrate too soon. We have two more exercises to go, and the other squadron CO’s aren’t idiots. At least one of them is going to figure out that we clearly have something special here, and will probably try to find a way to make our lives much more difficult going forward. Which means we need to go over the data from this one very carefully and see if we can come up with other ways to keep them from doing so. Helm, set a course back to the squadron. Lieutenant Commander, go ahead and bring the crew down from general quarters, and resume standard watch rotations. All officers, meet me in my briefing room in one hour for a debrief and analysis session.” She paused for a moment as she looked each of her bridge crew in the eye, getting their acknowledgment of her orders before continuing. “Once again, great work team. Now, let’s be about it!”

  “AYE, AYE, SKIPPER”

  — 5th of Lifesari, Year 390 PD, 20:10 ship time, RHNV Freedom’s Defender —

  “Well, those went both better and worse than I was hoping for.”

  Rina looked up from the data slate she was looking at towards Vice Admiral Springbottom, her confusion about her commander’s comment clear on her face.

  “Oh?” she asked, “I thought they went pretty well, all things considered. After all, the only round we had any significant losses in was that last round against 1st Squadron, which even then it was very close.”

  The admiral shook her head as she replied. “Yes, but they had less than two days to analyze the data streams from our previous two rounds, which considering they had two other exercises to prepare for before facing us shouldn’t have been enough time for them to figure out what was happening. I mean, they probably figured out pretty quickly that we had more than just recon drones out there, since they clearly tried to follow suit, but figuring out where your ship was so quickly? Then there was that formation shift of theirs shortly after your first shot, one clearly meant to try and deny you an easy shot. That screams to me that they were scanning for the specific EM pulse that your ship’s main gun gives off when it fires, and probably had a set of pre-programmed maneuvers set up in advance that would go off automatically as soon as whichever ship or ships was assigned to look for you detected the pulse and reported it to the squadron’s tac-net. No, I suspect someone else, either from one of the other squadrons or one of our observers, probably dropped a hint on what to be looking for to them. I’m just not sure why.”

  Rina bit her lip as she thought for a moment. “Ummm…I can think of two possibilities right off the bat.” She held up her hand, extending one finger. “First, somebody in BuWeps wanted to see how well we could do with the new tech against someone that wasn’t responding to it completely cold. Or…”

  “Or?” Tracy prompted.

  Rina held up her second finger. “Or somebody amongst the referees isn’t as unbiased as they claim. Maybe they want to make the 1st Battle Squadron look good, or want to see BuWeap's latest project fail. Hard to say, really.”

  Tracy sighed, before giving a wry smile to her companion. “Of course…you can never rule out politics. Regardless, I feel that you and your crew acquitted yourselves well this past week, and I will be certain the admiralty knows as well. Though I suspect you and I are going to find ourselves fairly busy with meetings and paperwork the next few weeks.”

  Rina couldn’t stop herself from groaning. “I’m sure you're right, your grace. If there isn’t anything else you have for me, I should probably get back to my ship. Might as well get started on the reports that I am sure BuWeaps is going to be asking me for soon.” Rina stood and offered up a quick salute, which the admiral returned, though she didn’t get up from her seat. “Until next time, your grace.”

  Tracy nodded in response, and leant back into her chair as the commander left. ‘I never was one to enjoy the politicking and patronage games of the Admiralty,’ she thought, ‘but I may just have to. That is one officer that could certainly benefit from it.’ She flipped open her workstation and began typing out a message. ‘At the very least, he should find her of special interest…’

  — End of Mission 1 —