Explanations and Amends

Posted on Tue Oct 23rd, 2018 @ 4:03pm by

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/5
Location: Flight Deck

Alex scrunched his nose at himself and shook his head as he saw the female pilot walk away from the male pilot he saw had exited the cockpit block that he'd towed in. That would be the squadron commander, Bad News. He glanced down and saw that his flight suit was the worse for wear after well over ten hours in it, he hadn't even gotten out for that one refuel and rearm he'd managed after the initial ambush. Now it was all wrinkled and not the freshest thing possible, but it was what he had. And of course, what had just happened with Renee, the one from THIS universe, not his own. He sighed and ran his left hand through his short brown hair as he made his way up to the officer and looked up at him, extending his right hand, "Bad News, I assume? Lieutenant Commander Alexander Setine, callsign Shockwave."

"No, my ship was Bad News. I'm Lieutenant Commander Jack Carver, callsign Hammerhead." Jack's expression was thunder. "Mind telling me who the hell you are, why the hell you think you can command my pilots around, what the hell those things were, why the hell they're shooting at us and why the hell I have to write two letters to next of kin?"

Dropping his hand, Alex decided he couldn’t blame Commander Carver, if the roles had been reversed, he likely would have had the same reaction, but this did at least give him a couple of questions he didn’t need to ask, “Well, Commander, I don’t have exact answers on some things, but here’s a hack at the others: I was ordered to take command of the fighter engagement by my commanding officer with the tacit approval of your own Captain, she didn’t argue the order. It was determined I had the best knowledge of the enemy and their capabilities and tactics. Those drones and that command and control fighter were Shalti and the four others were Kojal, aliens that are nasty shits that have overrun the Federation where I’m from and they don’t need a reason to shoot at you, even if you didn’t have Federation signatures. I genuinely am sorry that you have two letters to write, I’m just glad I underestimated your craft and that your people followed my direction so that you didn’t have to write more.” He shook his head, “Look, I’m sorry I had to do what I did, I know what I’d think in your shoes and thanks for not shooting me. I genuinely was trying to keep the casualties to a minimum and I had no idea how you were armed and what you could do and there just wasn’t enough time to brief you and your people, we had about sixty seconds to do that and it was mostly taken up by the proverbial handshake and hello.”

Jack let out a string of curses in various Federation languages as the two of them walked. He was fuming. "Never heard of the Shalti and Kojal. Still no idea where you're from - 'the Federation where you're from'? Are you saying from some kind of parallel universe? Still doesn't explain why they're shooting at us. And if you were put in command out there, why the hell had nobody thought to inform me? From where I was sitting I was just told to emergency scramble and defend the ship. Then out of the blue you start giving commands."

“You weren’t on the command channel?” Alex asked, then shook his head, “Different situation, different rules... What a balls-up..” He sighed and nodded, “Miscommunications screw everything up. But yes, I’m an officer of the Federation and since my Skipper invoked the Cochrane Protocols, she sure as hell thinks it’s an alternate timeline or universe or something. Gem told me we jumped about forty light years laterally when we went through that rift, so it wouldn’t surprise me. But you don’t know about the Shalti and Kojal? That’s good. They... Are bad news, no pun intended. Long story short, thirteen and a half years ago, we made first contact with an aggressor species pair that proceeded to run over everyone in their path with numbers and technology, we figure let loose when Voyager came back with the help of Admiral Janeway. Temporal contamination. The Skipper is probably going to be doing a helluva brief and who knows what she’s gonna spill. But quite frankly, they were shooting at you because you ain’t one of them, especially since you’re squawking Federation IFF codes. Your instinct was right to go after their c-n-c fighter, just the wrong way, trust me, been there, done that, which is why we made The Playbook.”

"Yes, and my people died for it. I'm not happy about this, any of this. I'm down two good crew and down two ships I can't replace at a moment's notice. Whatever's happening next, I'm going to have to face it with six Gryphons, instead of eight." Jack scowled. Were this a comic book instead of a Federation starship he'd have a thundercloud following him overhead. "From now on forward, the one who commands my people is me, though. Understood?" Jack gave Alex a sideways glance.

Alex raised his hands in mock surrender, "I have no problem with that, as long as I can teach what I can to help keep them alive." He dropped his hands, "I know it doesn't help the pain of losing your people, trust me I know. Ten hours ago, I had a full dozen in my squadron, now I'm the only survivor. I'll even subordinate myself to your command, if it means anything, I'll send the performance capabilities of my craft to you, wish I could send the specs, but the Protocols." He shrugged, "But, I'm sure you have questions that I can help with."

"So these swarm fighters. How is their evasion? I'm thinking we load up on microtorpedoes, fifty-four a ship, and saturate the area with firepower, dump the empty launcher pods and engage as heavy fighters. Give them something to think about, force them into heavy evasive. The way they were clustered together I think six Gryphons each dumping a swarm of microtorps is going to cause them problems." Jack theorized as they walked.

"It will, the only problem will be target overload. We don't know how they do it, but they communicate on a faster-than-light level within their hive mind, which is why we tend to play it safe with most of the fighters while a subunit hops in to try to take out their control. We have three different 'plays' depending on number of controllers and our own assets, as well as others for force makeup. They'll vector drones in to intercept the most dangerous shots if possible while coordinating the rest onto perceived weak spots. The problem with forcing them into heavy evasive is that they move around so much in their own formations it almost is its own form of evasion. You'd definitely get a heavy blow in right off, but I'd be worried about your performance after you have to dump them. The good news is that they haven't seen you in action yet, the bad news is your fighters aren't nearly as maneuverable as theirs. Gem did a quick profile on what she observed and it's definitely better than what we went into combat with at first. You'd really want either parasites to go along with the Gryphons or some Manticores like my own, even some Blink craft, as outriders to cover your weak spots." Alex pondered for a minute, then nodded, "When it comes to those Kojal fighters, it's more a damage-check than anything. They take a lot of hits and just keep coming, whether fighter, starship or ground combatants. Think a male Klingon on PMS in the middle of mating season and you can get the normal standard of aggression of a Kojal warrior."

"Whoa there, big guy. Give me a chance to keep up." Jack held up his hands. "Who's Gem? What are parasites? Just - give your debrief to the captain and I'll give mine, and after that we'll sit down and have an in-depth talk about what we're facing and how to deal with it. You can show me your battle plans and formations, and I'll see if I can adapt them to suit my ships."

Alex couldn't help but smile and laugh lightly at the interruption, "Right, sorry, old habit, hard to get me to shut up at times." He took a deep breath, "Parasites are something we toyed with before we designed the Manticores, autonomous drones armed with a single pulse phaser intended to stand off against swarming drone fighters, but they didn't work as we'd intended. We have some people working on the design back at Nova base, but it's the-" He shook his head, "Plans and formations later, right. As for Gem, her real name is Gemini and she's my fighter's artificial intelligence, actually more a limited AI because when we experimented with fully AI craft, they really were rather unstable and not combat-capable. She's got an... Interesting personality, but helps me with data management and awareness, giving me a complete view of a combat area along with flight and fire patterns along with predictive data based off of previously observed combat situations. Without having to actually look around or at a display for locations of friends and enemies, I can make tactical decisions faster and better than before Gem. She keeps claiming a thirty-two percent increase in human efficiency with her help, rounded up."

Jack gave a nod. "I see. Well, we don't have anything like 'parasites' nor the facilities to develop them. Gem sounds like an asset. She has a predicting element you said?" He considering for a moment. "The Gryphon project, especially its performance characteristics, handling envelopes and weapon performance are still classified, but if we're attacked again and you'll be flying with us, would it help Gem if she knew the capabilities and limitations of our ships?"

"It absolutely would, because I'm guessing I can assume we didn't see the full capabilities in that fight?" Alex shook his head slightly, "Not important at the very moment, but Gem? Sometimes I want to murder her, but yes, she's overall wonderful, would be very difficult to manage a combat without her, can't even use the Manticore to best effect without her either. Of course, her primary personality programmer should be held to account for Gem's sass, that's for sure."

"You saw the base ship in action, but she has hard points for two optional mission pods." Jack explained as they approached the bridge. "In her base form she's a heavy fighter. Two pulse cannons, twenty four micro torpedoes out of two launchers and dorsal mounted type seven phaser mounts. She can change role depending on what mission pods are mounted, ranging from detachable micro torpedo pods with fifteen rounds each to five round regular size torpedo launchers, single shot superheavy torpedoes, cluster bombs, enhanced sensor suite, sensor jamming pod, search and rescue equipment, medical evac pods, light cargo containers - she can perform any role from heavy fighter to armed light cargo ship, search and rescue ship, light bomber, recon, even heavy bomber."

Alex whistled under his breath, "We definitely don't build anything like that... We have shuttles for the bulk of those, but only space superiority fighters and assault fighters, essentially light bombers loaded with shipkillers. Our 'normal' space supers are Banshees, the Manticore just went into true production, we just..." Alex shook his head, "We have decent-to-good ships and once we get enough Manticores out there, we'll have a significant edge in quality and firepower, once we get enough pilots to survive. That's our biggest problem, the average age of my squadron was twenty-one, that's adding me into the mix. We just can't get them enough training before we're forced to commit them to combat."

"Gryphons are powerful and can do a lot, but they're big, heavy, expensive and a bit bloated. Your ship - Manticore, you called it? - moves a lot better. That's the problem with trying to find a one size fits all solution for a dozen problems. Peace breeds complacency." A pause. "But also allows for proper length of training for pilots. I'm sorry to hear your Federation is doing so bad they can't give pilots their due training before sending them out. Loss of life is always tragic, but when proper training could've prevented it, only more so." A sigh. "Ok, here we are. Let's get debriefed and figure out what's going on, so I can get back to my people and make sure we're ready to fly again."

"Which means we need to get ready for the Big meet. The Skipper wants me there and I'm pretty sure your Captain will want you there too." Alex glanced around quickly, "But before we head up there? Is there a place I can grab a shower and replicate a new flight suit? I really don't want to kill anyone with my smell."

"You can use the fighter pilot dressing rooms. If they start asking questions just tell them I said it's ok." Jack mused. "The computer can show you the way."

"Thank you, sir." Courtesy really wasn't a bad thing and anyways... Not his territory. Alex smiled slightly, "I promise I won't be long and I won't make waves."

OFF:

Lieutenant Commander Alexander 'Shockwave' Setine
Squadron Commander
USS Icarus

&

Lieutenant Commander Jack 'Hammerhead' Carver
Commander Air Group
USS Wellington