business.”
Ken looked over at the Admiral. “It’s almost as if they don’t know we with have full Heshe enhancements available.”
“Oh they know, they just have forgotten what that means. Three hundred years is a long time. Which presents us with an opportunity,” Cat added with a smile. “Ben, bring the fusion reactors online and up to 110%. Bleed their secondary containment fields 0.002 percent.” She paused to look directly at the Yorktown’s First Officer. “And Ben, keep those new shield emitters offline.”
As Ben moved to comply, he asked a question. “Admiral, our singularity power core is fully charged. We don’t need the fusion systems and deliberately bleeding their secondary shields will erode the lining of the containment chamber. The resulting x-ray emissions will light us up like a candle on a birthday cake in a dark room. Can I assume there is a method to your madness?”
“You could say there is a madness to my method to be sure,” Cat acknowledged. Turning in her chair she faced Ken. “Captain, what would happen if we were to target all six of our friends out there with our beam weapons using only our fusion power systems?”
“Not much I’m afraid Admiral. The fusion cores can’t push our plasma beams much past 40% of their rated capacity. In theory our weapons are more powerful than theirs but only because our Heshe tech gives us access to our singularity power systems. Without it we are on equal footing with each of Imera’s ships. We might be able to take on one or two if we were willing to fully commit ourselves but the likelihood that we would overload our older fusion power systems on the Yorktown are pretty high. We could not hope to take on six ships at once,” Ken answered. “We’ll need to use our singularity power core to have any chance of taking them out.”
“That’s my assessment as well,” Cat agreed with a coy smile. “Weapons… Target the primary shield emitters on each of the six ships out there. Keep the focus as tight as possible. Continuous fire until our core begin to overload. Load the railguns and fire them as well.”
“Aye Admiral. Locking weapons on multiple targets. Rigged for continuous fire. Share I tie-in our primary power systems?”
“Negative that!” Cat barked.
In unison, Ken and his first officer raised an eyebrow.
Cat smiled. “I want them to see our fusion systems fail. The moment they do, I want you to cut power to everything but grav plating and environmental. Let’s see if we can’t lure them in closer. When they pull closer we’ll bring our weapons and shields up to full power and selectively target their weapons and shields. I want to disable them without causing undue loss of life.”
Ken grinned. “Let’s give them a little incentive to close the gap. With your permission Admiral I’m going to order our fighter decoys to circle wide and come in towards Admiral Imera’s flagship from the rear. That should draw off a few of their fighter wings to provide close combat support and at the same time encourage the Admiral to close the distance to the Yorktown once our shields and fusion power systems go down.”
“Make it so Captain,” Cat agreed.
“Helm plot a jump to Hupenstanii space and load it in the jump buffers. We may need to bug out quickly.”
Ken looked up from his board. “That’s pretty risky given that we don’t know what happened to our test probe.”
“That it is… but it is a risk we may need to take.”
***
Senior Fleet Admiral Imera signaled his aid, Commander McMillian, to step over to his command chair on the bridge of his newly commissioned flagship the GCP Denali .
“Commander, alert our friend Mr. Drago that we will be needing his services sooner rather than later.”
McMillian stiffened but said nothing beyond a curt nod as he headed off the bridge to make his way towards a special communications center that only the most senior staff had access to.
“Helm, bring us about to
Ken looked over at the Admiral. “It’s almost as if they don’t know we with have full Heshe enhancements available.”
“Oh they know, they just have forgotten what that means. Three hundred years is a long time. Which presents us with an opportunity,” Cat added with a smile. “Ben, bring the fusion reactors online and up to 110%. Bleed their secondary containment fields 0.002 percent.” She paused to look directly at the Yorktown’s First Officer. “And Ben, keep those new shield emitters offline.”
As Ben moved to comply, he asked a question. “Admiral, our singularity power core is fully charged. We don’t need the fusion systems and deliberately bleeding their secondary shields will erode the lining of the containment chamber. The resulting x-ray emissions will light us up like a candle on a birthday cake in a dark room. Can I assume there is a method to your madness?”
“You could say there is a madness to my method to be sure,” Cat acknowledged. Turning in her chair she faced Ken. “Captain, what would happen if we were to target all six of our friends out there with our beam weapons using only our fusion power systems?”
“Not much I’m afraid Admiral. The fusion cores can’t push our plasma beams much past 40% of their rated capacity. In theory our weapons are more powerful than theirs but only because our Heshe tech gives us access to our singularity power systems. Without it we are on equal footing with each of Imera’s ships. We might be able to take on one or two if we were willing to fully commit ourselves but the likelihood that we would overload our older fusion power systems on the Yorktown are pretty high. We could not hope to take on six ships at once,” Ken answered. “We’ll need to use our singularity power core to have any chance of taking them out.”
“That’s my assessment as well,” Cat agreed with a coy smile. “Weapons… Target the primary shield emitters on each of the six ships out there. Keep the focus as tight as possible. Continuous fire until our core begin to overload. Load the railguns and fire them as well.”
“Aye Admiral. Locking weapons on multiple targets. Rigged for continuous fire. Share I tie-in our primary power systems?”
“Negative that!” Cat barked.
In unison, Ken and his first officer raised an eyebrow.
Cat smiled. “I want them to see our fusion systems fail. The moment they do, I want you to cut power to everything but grav plating and environmental. Let’s see if we can’t lure them in closer. When they pull closer we’ll bring our weapons and shields up to full power and selectively target their weapons and shields. I want to disable them without causing undue loss of life.”
Ken grinned. “Let’s give them a little incentive to close the gap. With your permission Admiral I’m going to order our fighter decoys to circle wide and come in towards Admiral Imera’s flagship from the rear. That should draw off a few of their fighter wings to provide close combat support and at the same time encourage the Admiral to close the distance to the Yorktown once our shields and fusion power systems go down.”
“Make it so Captain,” Cat agreed.
“Helm plot a jump to Hupenstanii space and load it in the jump buffers. We may need to bug out quickly.”
Ken looked up from his board. “That’s pretty risky given that we don’t know what happened to our test probe.”
“That it is… but it is a risk we may need to take.”
***
Senior Fleet Admiral Imera signaled his aid, Commander McMillian, to step over to his command chair on the bridge of his newly commissioned flagship the GCP Denali .
“Commander, alert our friend Mr. Drago that we will be needing his services sooner rather than later.”
McMillian stiffened but said nothing beyond a curt nod as he headed off the bridge to make his way towards a special communications center that only the most senior staff had access to.
“Helm, bring us about to
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