Fan Fiction Page
Story 1
BISHOP
Chapter 1
“Corporate Ship, Zero – Alpha
– One - One – Niner, you are cleared for launch, good luck out
there.” Toned the metallic voice of planet Pygar
flight control
“Roger that control, Transport Bishop
over and out” answered the bored voice of the sensors
officer; he closed the channel silently as the sub-light engines gently pushed
the ship to full power and out towards interplanetary space.
Once several K from the small planetoid the massive engines of the Jetan Battle
cruiser began to glow and draw in ambient energy from surrounding space signalling
the charging of the cruise drives, as they activated they pushed the massive
ship to an astonishing speed of 600, which was faster than light its self
though, in this age of interstellar travel that was nothing new or special.
Becoming
bored of nothing but blank sensor readouts the young sensors officer vented
his frustrations to his friend, a nearby female helms officer, "Why
are we here?"
"Are you talking physically of philosophically?
Because physically we're here because we both chose a job with ZST and because
we were both assigned to this transport as graveyard shift officers due to
our experience with liberty vessels of similar class and weight. However if
you are talking in spiritual terms then…"
She answered. "Ok! I get the point,
you're not really interested in humouring me but don't you ever wonder why
we're doing this?"
"Doing what exactly?"
she asked, tilting her head slightly in some attempt to reinterpret what he
meant.
"Trading, this constant boring routine
of New Tokyo, Theta and back again, it's not like the boss doesn't have other
ships to do this kind of job, I hear he even closed a deal a few months ago
to buy a freight converted battleship. That thing makes so much profit on
one run it makes us and all of the trains together obsolete! We’re trading
on a low profit, low danger runs when we should be out there, in the disputed
sectors actually making a difference, instead of sneaking past pirate patrols
to make just enough to stay in space, this is the flagship after all, those
guns on the hull sure as hell aren't for decoration!!”,
replied the bored sensor’s officer.
"So what you're saying is you want to go on some suicide mission in a single advanced, yet outnumbered and unsupported battle cruiser into uncharted space to start a fight we are not equipped to even participate in?"
"No
what I'm saying is that maybe it's time this ship actually did what it was
built to do, it is a BATTLE cruiser after all, it may sound immature but I
want to see some act-"
The rest of his sentence was cut off by a short beeping from the sensors console,
long range scanners had detected several VHF signals approaching on a parallel
course at cruise speeds with weapons armed and shields active, all FF signatures
showed white for neutral, but out here FF signatures could not always be trusted.
Both bridge officers leapt into action. "I
count 3 contacts, FF says neutral but scanners say armed, we've got 3 maybe
4 minutes until they reach us, what's the call?"
asked sensors.
"What are you looking at me for? You’re
ranking officer?" shouted back the navigator, her
surprise quickly turning to panic.
"Ok, calm down, we don't know if they're
hostile" before the words had completely left his
mouth missile alarms began wailing all over the ship
"Incoming missile"
chimed the computer, ECM’s launched automatically and deflected the
missiles but they would only work for so long, at the same time 4 additional
red contacts appeared on scanners coming in from the other direction, a trap,
and the cruiser had flown blindly into it.
"Awwww shoot me! Can this day get ANY
WORSE?"
"Oh trust me, it can"
came a new voice from the blast doors at the rear of the bridge, the sensors
officer went pale as he suddenly realised who the voice belonged to, turning
slowly in his chair he made eye contact with his commanding officer.
"S-sir I-I I’m sorry, I wasn't
paying attention to scanners i-i-i-"
"Now is not the time"
the commander interrupted "you have
a job to do and I expect you perform your duty, now, how long until they reach
us?"
The officer turned in his place to check the readouts "eta
on red VHFs is two minutes, less if they hit the engines sir"
"alright then I guess we've got no
choice" said the commander quietly, he walked up
to the captains chair and sat heavily in it before pressing a button in the
armrest, the ship wide intercom came online.
"This is Commander Zero to all hands,
Battle Stations!"
At the commanders words, automated computerised defence systems keyed into
that specific final word came online, emergency bulkheads lowered into position,
primary shields went from meteor deterring low power to torpedo deflecting
full strength, the thirteen main guns warmed up quickly and were brought to
bear on the approaching fighters, torpedo tubes were loaded and opened to
space, and as a final measure a dead-mans switch was activated, if the ship
fell to boarders it would take only three seconds for the reactors to turn
the ship into vaporised gas, a cruel but necessary measure, one way or another
no pirate would be getting this ship or its technology.
"Well" sighed
zero "looks like you'll be seeing some
action after all."
"About time too" he thought to himself
"I was starting to think they'd forgotten all about me, well
I guess it's time to refresh some memories"
TO
BE CONTINUED...