Chronicles of Sol: The Fall-Chapter 232 One Ninety-Three Hull Breach

The figure slipped around the corner and glanced out into the room. Mangled metal and torn hull plating greeted the eye, beyond that the swirling gasses of the storm. A bolt flashed across their view illuminating the gasses like a discharge of lightning, then another followed. Only it wasn't lightning, but one of the ubiquitous ionic discharges common to the storm. "Good gods, was anyone in here?"

"Aye, routine maintenance team," replied another.

The figure gave the wound another look.

Countryman stepped onto the bridge, Ruri only a step behind him. Greyman was there to greet him before he could even ask his first question. "Sir, we ran into an Eddy, opened up right on top of us. Damage is rather confined, we have two hull breaches, casualty reports are still coming in."

"How many?"

"So far rather light, the outer sections thankfully aren't that crowded these days, but we've got people in them for one reason or another regardless."

"Right, people are reluctant to move back into those quarters, but that doesn't answer the question."

"We had a routine maintenance sweep underway, they were checking the entire AIF system. At least eighty deaths have been confirmed, another two hundred remain unaccounted for, but it could have been far worse."

Countryman settled heavily into his chair, more lives lost was not welcome news. The fact that he knew there wasn't anything he could have done to avoid this only worsened the knowledge. Sure they could have stayed in their asteroid port, but that wasn't really a solution now was it? Besides, coming out here had been of general benefit, the Drifters had been a welcome source of information, and hell, even some supplies. "Ruri? Get started on analyzing our sensor record, maybe this incident will help accelerate our efforts to develop a defense."

She nodded, "Hmm, I don't think it will speed up the sensor project. I've got our best minds on it, but we are still months away from a working prototype."

"Perhaps not, but maybe we could find something that might help us survive the next one we hit?"

As Ruri rushed down the stairs, Greyman spoke up, "I guess it's a good thing we are going back already. We won't be able to patch a hull breach in this storm."

"We might be able to do a bit better once those shield upgrades are in place."

Greyman nodded, but didn't reply. He didn't need to.

Countryman had been impressed with the Stormwolf. While its armor and engines were dated, the ship had some interesting shields, and her weapons were notable. Most notable were the dual-purpose missile launchers. He'd been very impressed by those, they had a good deal of potential. The tracking of those energy projectiles, their speed and yield were very impressive. Maybe not as good as his energy web system, but they did have a nice range advantage. It would pair well with his own defense system. Meanwhile the Stormwolf's shields had allowed damage control teams to conduct limited repairs to the hull. Something that wouldn't have been possible on the Enterprise.

"How bad are the hull breaches?"

"The eddy ripped open two sections on the port dorsal, deck fourteen sections thirty-one through fifty-six, and deck fifty-one, sections thirteen through nineteen. No vital systems were affected, internal armor is holding, and emergency bulkheads are in place and holding."

"So just a minor hit," commented Countryman as he mentally did the math on how much that would cost them to fix. It didn't help that they were lacking in reserves. "We might need to go prospecting soon."

"Our options in that regard are limited. We could try trading with the Drifters, but their ore demands are pretty high. Wouldn't be easy to get a good price for the materials we'd need. We could try looking up the Raythil Cooperative, but we don't have an exact locale on any of their ports. Still, the prices for ore would likely be better with their ports. Our last option would be a foray into the Deep Storm. It would be risky, but the prospects for reward might just be worth it."

"Risky indeed, we either come out rich, or the ship gets ripped apart. As much as I'd like to augment our reserves, I don't want to pull a Janeway."

"Pull a Janeway?"

He sighed, "Nice way to remind me that my references are rather out of date." he paused then after a moment shifted, "Well, Janeway was the commander of a fictional starship, the USS Voyager. The ship ended up lost in a distant part of the galaxy, and had to take the long way home to Earth. During one of the early episodes, she sets out to augment their fuel reserves with a risky nebula exploration but instead depletes them by nearly a fifth."

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Greyman chuckled, "Well let's hope we don't mess up that badly."

"We can only hope. I'll consider a foray into the deep storm. If we don't find a profitable arrangement with the Cooperative that is."

"Understood sir," replied Greyman.

June 23rd, 007 SDE:

The swirling gasses parted before them as the shadow of a familiar rock came into view. It was huge, dwarfing even the Enterprise, its metallic surface glimmered in the viewer as ionic discharges lit up the storm. They'd finally made it back to Anchorage. The new hull breaches hadn't compromised their speed, so they'd made good time. Although not without further incidents, they'd had a brief run in with a Raider vessel. Nothing that major, a Light Cruiser, no escorts.

One of his fighter sweeps had found it, hiding in a debris field. Being a tempting target, they'd diverted to sink the ship. Countryman found the engagement profitable. After a successful first strike with his bomber wing, he'd put a few holes in their hull, then boarded. Taking their fuel reserve, and emptying the hold of valuable materials. Overall they'd come out ahead with that one. Not to mention that particular debris field was one he'd claimed control over, it would be poor form to ignore an intruder.

Of course securing the fifty-eight lightyear radius around their new port of Anchorage he'd claimed would take some doing. The DP-12s would do well to secure Anchorage, but the other systems would need patrols and sensor posts. Resources were going to be tight pulling that off, so it was nice the Raiders had made a small donation.

For now he focused on Anchorage, while Eri brought the Enterprise in line with the deep tunnel leading to the dock. The Asteroid was just over five hundred kilometers across, and primarily made up of iron and nickel. There were dense deposits of osmium, but they had also found a few tungsten deposits. The lack of Titanium however had been sorely felt. Surveys of the local debris field failed to turn up any other source of the valuable metal. At the moment, the dock was a large chamber with a few docking scaffolds and an osmium lining located at the end of a tunnel that had been dug for just over two hundred kilometers deep and wide enough to fit the Enterprise. A tunnel that started at the bottom of a natural chasm that they had dug into in order to excavate their harbor.

The defenses of the place were poor, the main doors were steel, sturdy enough to keep the storm out, but not designed for a sustained bombardment. Outside the doors, they'd place four light particle turrets, nothing all that substantial. There wasn't anything else, no surface gun emplacements, no DP-12s in orbit, not even a single fighter bay to maintain patrols. When they'd left, defenses hadn't seemed too important, but now that they knew they had neighbors, the value of such expenses had gone up.

A proper defense would be vital. Anchorage was the only place they could conduct port level repairs, and it would offer them storage to off load extra supplies. They had another eight years before the first surfacing and the Storm was a hostile place. He took a moment to consider what defenses they would need to put in place. What level of monitoring and patrols would be required? Did they dare leave a garrison?

The idea was a sticky one, on one hand, it would relieve pressures on the Enterprise, but the facilities would be lacking, and worse the defenses were currently less than stellar. Yet leaving one would give them options that an unmanned defense wouldn't offer. It was at the very least something to discuss in council. Thinking more on it, the garrison might be a good idea, but perhaps not immediately. They would need time to establish suitable infrastructure. Of course, when it came time to leave the storm, they'd likely have to evacuate the facility. That was something they would have to keep in mind.

As the chasm was coming into view, Countryman turned to Misaki and asked, "Are the DP-12s ready to deploy?"

"Yes, sir! The last Artic was loaded two minutes ago, and is standing by for the launch order."

"Excellent, permission granted."

The Enterprise didn't have that many DP-12s in storage, but Countryman wanted the few they did have deployed right away. That way they could give any unwelcome guests a rather nasty surprise. They had 24 of them to defend Anchorage with, which had raised a few questions on optimal placement. Ultimately, they'd decided to arrange them in an orbital grid about a quarter lightsecond away from Anchorage. Located at positions to allow for interlocking fields of fire. The main gun on the DP-12 had an effective range of one hyper-light second here in the Storm. The dual particle turrets had a much higher fire rate and a similar effective range envelope, while the missiles could effectively strike targets up to three hyper-lightseconds away. In normal space, they had about nine hundred thousand kilometers of range, comparable to his own shipboard missiles and torpedoes.

Here in hyperspace, however, the missiles went a hell of a lot faster and could still adjust like they used to. Allowing them to effectively track and strike targets at ranges of nearly a billion kilometers. A thought that wasn't that easy to get around. Combat in hyperspace was definitely not the same as in normal space. The ranges were greater, ships were even faster, and sensors were constantly flooded with extra noise.

A moment later the ship slipped into the tunnel, while the Artic shuttles headed off to deploy the defense platforms. More would be required, but they'd need time to produce them and more materials to go with them. Ruri also had ideas for putting pulsars on them, which would need resources to develop. That was the mental calculus he kept hitting, they kept needing more materials for the things they wanted to do.

The tunnel was long, so he had plenty of time to think and not much to do. So he focused on considering the issues they had to deal with. Which projects took priority, how much they could afford to spend and even what projects could be left to slide for a while. Looking up the Raythil, or visiting the Deep Storm was becoming increasingly attractive. But did they go sooner, or wait for the Sensor Development Program to bear fruit? Ruri was project lead for it, but he'd been pitching in during his spare time, and he knew Vera had found time to work on it some as well. Now that her shield project was finished, she had more time to apply to the project, either that or take up another project. Then there was his Propulsion project, which he'd brought Ruri into for the prototyping phase. Something that was going to play well with their fighter update program.