Rhy?din planetary orbit
As before, it was quiet and peaceful over the jewel of a planet that marked the sole inhabited terrestrial body of this planetary system, its space marked only by the common, pedestrian traffic of cargo vessels and patrolling ships that kept watch over the shipping lanes.
As before, space was disturbed as multiple watery blooms of bluish, swirling light ripped open the fabric of space/time, well outside the boundary of the other traffic that circled and streamed to and fro over the planet/
And, as before, from those subspace ruptures emerged ships. The lead ship - the one that emerged from subspace first - was a tremendous monstrosity of a ship, a true colossus, a massive vessel that dwarfed the others emerging from separate subspace ruptures around it. Even the second ship - despite being a little over half its length and nearly that in solid mass - seemed a nearly irrelevant addition to the fleet that emerged from the portals into another dimension meant for faster-than-light travel, though the truth was that it was the more capable warship of the two.
On the bridge of the lead ship - the lettering on the side of which designated it as the GTVA Perses - the commanding officer of the 157th Terran-Vasudan Expeditionary Task Force sat in his command chair, a serene, calm presence in the middle of the hustle and bustle of a command crew on high alert. After all, when they had departed this space, it had been in the middle of an all-out capital ship slugfest against hostile warships, a few which made the Perses look like a tomcat in the midst of a Rottweiler fight. One of those ships had managed to obliterate a Deimos-class corvette with a single shot - no small trick, considering that class of ship was meant to withstand a hellstorm of punishment and survive.
The commanding officer - Fleet Admiral William P. Aldritch by name - directed his attention to the Vasudan manning one of the flagship?s captain?s chairs as the latter spoke, his voice a strange mix of growling harmonics overlaid by a computerized voice speaking Terran Basic language. ?Admiral, the Perses battle group has emerged from subspace. All ships report they are at full combat readiness. Initial scans indicate no hostile traffic in the area.?
He nodded, glancing down at his own control panels to confirm the report, though it was more a formal gesture made out of habit rather than any doubt in the Vasudan?s command capability. The battle group - consisting of a third of the combatant capital ships, as well as half of the AWACS craft and both medical cruisers - all read green on his boards, and he nodded to the Vasudan as he looked back up from the screens surrounding the central command chair that his executive officer would be occupying once he vacated it. ?Thank you, Captain Nikare. Order the Perses and Odysseus fighter screens to launch and begin their patrol patterns, please.?
As the Vasudan nodded and turned back to his communications consoles to relay the orders, he turned his chair towards the other captain?s chair, where his fleet executive officer, Corina Moceanu, sat, monitoring her own station. While she and the Vasudan technically held the same rank, when it came to command structure, Moceanu was a bit higher on the metaphorical food chain, having command of the entire fleet in the Admiral's absence.
?Captain Moceanu, relay to the battle group: stand down from Battle Group Condition Red, assume Condition Yellow. Deploy the group into primary geosynchronous orbit over the main continent, outside the primary space lanes, formation Trentini-Epsilon.? The battle group positioning he named was one devised by the captain of the Odysseus, a flying wedge formation with the Hades-class destroyer in the lead position, with the Perses just behind and the noncombatant ships between the two, the remaining ships deployed around them in a triangular pattern.
As before, it was quiet and peaceful over the jewel of a planet that marked the sole inhabited terrestrial body of this planetary system, its space marked only by the common, pedestrian traffic of cargo vessels and patrolling ships that kept watch over the shipping lanes.
As before, space was disturbed as multiple watery blooms of bluish, swirling light ripped open the fabric of space/time, well outside the boundary of the other traffic that circled and streamed to and fro over the planet/
And, as before, from those subspace ruptures emerged ships. The lead ship - the one that emerged from subspace first - was a tremendous monstrosity of a ship, a true colossus, a massive vessel that dwarfed the others emerging from separate subspace ruptures around it. Even the second ship - despite being a little over half its length and nearly that in solid mass - seemed a nearly irrelevant addition to the fleet that emerged from the portals into another dimension meant for faster-than-light travel, though the truth was that it was the more capable warship of the two.
On the bridge of the lead ship - the lettering on the side of which designated it as the GTVA Perses - the commanding officer of the 157th Terran-Vasudan Expeditionary Task Force sat in his command chair, a serene, calm presence in the middle of the hustle and bustle of a command crew on high alert. After all, when they had departed this space, it had been in the middle of an all-out capital ship slugfest against hostile warships, a few which made the Perses look like a tomcat in the midst of a Rottweiler fight. One of those ships had managed to obliterate a Deimos-class corvette with a single shot - no small trick, considering that class of ship was meant to withstand a hellstorm of punishment and survive.
The commanding officer - Fleet Admiral William P. Aldritch by name - directed his attention to the Vasudan manning one of the flagship?s captain?s chairs as the latter spoke, his voice a strange mix of growling harmonics overlaid by a computerized voice speaking Terran Basic language. ?Admiral, the Perses battle group has emerged from subspace. All ships report they are at full combat readiness. Initial scans indicate no hostile traffic in the area.?
He nodded, glancing down at his own control panels to confirm the report, though it was more a formal gesture made out of habit rather than any doubt in the Vasudan?s command capability. The battle group - consisting of a third of the combatant capital ships, as well as half of the AWACS craft and both medical cruisers - all read green on his boards, and he nodded to the Vasudan as he looked back up from the screens surrounding the central command chair that his executive officer would be occupying once he vacated it. ?Thank you, Captain Nikare. Order the Perses and Odysseus fighter screens to launch and begin their patrol patterns, please.?
As the Vasudan nodded and turned back to his communications consoles to relay the orders, he turned his chair towards the other captain?s chair, where his fleet executive officer, Corina Moceanu, sat, monitoring her own station. While she and the Vasudan technically held the same rank, when it came to command structure, Moceanu was a bit higher on the metaphorical food chain, having command of the entire fleet in the Admiral's absence.
?Captain Moceanu, relay to the battle group: stand down from Battle Group Condition Red, assume Condition Yellow. Deploy the group into primary geosynchronous orbit over the main continent, outside the primary space lanes, formation Trentini-Epsilon.? The battle group positioning he named was one devised by the captain of the Odysseus, a flying wedge formation with the Hades-class destroyer in the lead position, with the Perses just behind and the noncombatant ships between the two, the remaining ships deployed around them in a triangular pattern.