Chapter 4: Chapter Three Aftermath

 

Countryman stepped back from the console. He had just finished routing the sensor feeds to the console. Allowing him to see what was going on outside. Fortunately, the Cathamari weren’t about to press the attack. He was reading only two other ships out there, and they were busy fighting the Yorktown, the Coto, and the Umikaze. It seemed the hit to the bridge had just been an unlucky hit. If Reynolds survived that impact, Countryman made a note to give the Captain a stern lecture. Countryman could forgive him for simply being young though. He would learn from this mistake.

He looked over at Megumi. “I’m going to transfer extra power to the hull plating. Keep an eye on things here.”

She nodded, as he rushed over to the main power distribution console. It took him only moments to shunt power from the engines to the hull plating. They weren’t actively maneuvering and that extra power might protect them from any stray shots. A glance showed an instant effect as the extra power increased AIF regeneration, and pushed the AIF back to 83% field strength instantly. That might be good enough. He headed back to the armor substation, and glanced at the feed.

On-screen both remaining Cathamari cruisers were breaking off. He felt relieved to see them going. It would give them a much-needed reprieve. Countryman went right back to work on optimizing the armor.

---

Reynolds groaned as he heard the bridge door open. Those cursed lizards had hit the bridge moments ago. The armor had thankfully absorbed most of the blow. Didn’t make the results hurt any less.

Someone stopped by his side. It was a young woman in a medic’s uniform. She checked him over, and then pressed an auto-injector to his neck. Instantly the world mercifully faded to black as the pain faded.

---

Countryman took the incoming hail. He had been monitoring fleet communications. As it turned out, the Cathamari were retreating in full force. It was starting to look like they had won, but one look at the sensors told him of the cost.

After a moment an older woman appeared on his screen. She looked a little haggard, but given the state of her ship, he wasn’t surprised. The Baltimore was still intact, but that was about it. She had taken heavy damage, her main drives were gone. Power had failed on several decks, and half the ship was vented to space. That only scratched the surface of how much damage she had taken. The ship would need at least a month in dry dock undergoing repairs to be battle-ready again, probably more.

She sighed, “Thank you for the assist, Enterprise.”

“Glad to have been of help. Do you need any further help?”

She nodded, “Main power is out, and auxiliary power is failing. It’s only a matter of time before life support fails. Do you have room for a few hundred evacuees?”

He nodded “We do. I’ll alert the main port hangar bay. We stand ready to receive you.”

The channel was closed soon after that. He immediately went to work on making sure that the bays were ready to receive survivors. With the Cathamari retreating, that gave them time to pick up the pieces. At least in the meantime. Later they were going to have to have a meeting between the remaining captains, and high-ranking officers. That was something he was not looking forward to.

He sighed, and got out of his chair at the armor substation. Reynolds was in the medical bay and that meant he had to go down and greet the people coming abroad. He glanced over at Megumi, “Think you will be okay without me for a while?”

“It won’t go as quickly, but I think I can manage.”

---

Countryman arrived in the bay a few minutes later. The bay doors were open, so he could not enter the hangar proper, but there was a control station that provided a full view of the bay. He settled into the room and observed as the shuttles from the Baltimore landed. A couple of escape pods were also being maneuvered into the bay. Special mag tractors were actively aiding the ships into landing in the bay.

Mag tractors were the closest humanity had ever developed to the tractor beams seen in centuries-old science fiction. The mag tractor fires a special grav disk that locks onto the hull of a targeted ship. Once secured to the hull, an electromagnetic towing beam is locked onto the targeted ship. The disk is what allows the beam to lock on, and without the beam, would do nothing. Once locked, the beam basically functions just like the fictional tractor beams. He knew of a few projects that were working on getting rid of the disk, but they had not made much progress.

The beams were very useful in hangar operations and towing as they were already. Getting rid of the disk would be helpful, but not as much as force field technology would be. A technology that humanity had not yet cracked. Force fields would allow them to create an atmospheric shield around the bay door, which would allow them to open the bay without depressurizing the hangar. It would be a real boon to open bay hangar operations. 

Not to mention it would mean less waiting for him. He watched the consoles. Waiting for the shuttles to land. Staying out of the way of the hangar crew. A few of which were out on the deck in pressure suits. Armored pressure suits to be specific. They weren’t all that different from the personal armor used by the ship's marines in fact. It was a common practice for them to be armored. It was very useful in the event of accidents, or unexpected boardings, for example.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait too long before the last shuttle landed. Through the viewport, he watched as the massive armored bay doors closed. The mechanisms allowed them to close surprisingly quickly despite their size and weight. The exact mechanisms were highly classified, but they worked in part through the use of miniaturized pulse wave thrusters. In addition to traditional mechanical mechanisms. When combined with an antigravity field, it allowed the doors to close very quickly indeed. It was needed though, because experience had shown that a ship’s hangars were very vulnerable to enemy fire when open. Being able to close them quickly if a hostile ship moved into position to fire on the hangars had saved quite a few carriers.

The Enterprise not only had the benefit of fast hangar bay door mechanisms. Her hangar deck was also reinforced. Internal armor was common on modern ships, and was also present in the hangar. That plating was more substantial than the plating found elsewhere, since the hangar plating was meant to stand up against ship weapons. That wasn’t the only protection added to the bay, much of the protections were meant to ensure penetrating hits to the hangars were contained to only the hangars.

The moment the doors were fully closed, the system began to repressurize the bay. He watched the bay monitor controls for a moment, and when the bay was pressurized, headed for the door. He had some newcomers to greet.

---

After greeting a number of frightened young officers and crewmen from the Baltimore, he was soon met by a familiar face. It was the older woman he had talked to on the comm.

She smiled, “Thank you for taking us aboard,” she paused glancing at the markings on his uniform, “Commander. Where is your captain?”

“The bridge was hit, and he was injured. Captain Reynolds is currently in the medical bay. As first officer I am currently in command.”

She said “I see. I’m Captain Mary Williams, and you are?”

“Commander Jac Countryman, I was in charge of the Warp Three project until recently”

She gave him a look, “Never heard of it.” Then her eyes narrowed, “You, on the other hand, I have heard of. Can’t say I liked everything I have heard about you.”

“Not everyone does. I’ll let your people get settled. We can talk more later.”

She shook her head, “I pray your Captain recovers soon.”

Countryman noted the phrase. That wasn’t a common expression these days. It told him much about her. “He’ll pull through. I know it. Now if you will excuse me, I have other duties to attend to.”

With that he left her in the hangars. He had a feeling she was going to be trouble. He made a note to keep an eye on her at all times. Countryman did not get to be a hundred and ninety-one without a keen sense of who his enemies were. She wasn’t an enemy yet, but she might be. Best to keep an eye on her.

---

Countryman stepped onto the bridge. Damage control teams had installed a temporary patch to seal the breach in the hull, and the emergency bulkhead was retracted back into the floor. The patch was quite visible on the left side of the bridge, and he could see a break in the viewscreen on that side of the bridge. It was annoying but he could live with it for a few hours or days if needed. It was only going to be there until they got around to fixing the exterior hull damage. The fix was also very simple, easily done with an experienced work crew. They could have it done before the day was out.

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He crossed the short distance from the upper deck entrance and settled into the command chair. Someone reported that he was on the deck. He glanced at the young ensign at the Operations console.

“Status?” he inquired.

“Preliminary repairs have been completed. We are ready to get underway at any moment now.”

“That is good. What about the Cathamari. Any sign of them?”

“Several ships are still on long-range sensors maneuvering through the minefields. They don’t appear to be heading back this way yet.”

He nodded, that sounded good. The longer those reptiles stayed away, the more time they would have to pick up the pieces. Speaking of pieces, there were no doubt numerous ships in the area in need of assistance. When he inquired about that, she reported back that they were indeed picking up distress calls from multiple ships. The nearest was from the EFS Essex, a Charleston class light cruiser.

Countryman glanced at the young woman who took the helm, and ordered a course set for the Essex. He tried to ignore the reddish swirling clouds that were engulfing the Earth. He knew what they meant, but like everyone else he was trying not to focus on that. In the meantime, he had wounded ships to aid. That would give everyone something to think about for a while.

As they headed for the Essex he mentally reviewed what he knew about the ship. It was a standard Charleston class cruiser. It was a smaller cruiser class with a crew complement of nearly five hundred. 

He also kept an eye on the sensors, but they reached the EFS Essex without incident. The ship in question had taken heavy damage in the fighting. That was obvious just with a visual inspection. Her hull was breached, and she was venting drive plasma.

He ordered a scan.

His operations officer took a few moments to run a scan of the ship, before reporting, “She has taken heavy damage to her main drives, and engineering sections. I’m also reading a reactor leak that has completely irradiated her rear sections. I’m also reading moderate damage to her primary hull...”

He cut her off, “Any lifesigns over there?”

She nodded, “Yes sir. I am reading concentrations in the forward sections of the primary hull. Looks like most of the crew survived.”

That was good news, now they just had to get them off the ship. That would be the hard part. The vast majority of the hangar bays on a Charleston class cruiser were located in the aft bays. There was one shuttle bay located to the fore, and a few docking ports designed for small ships. He accessed the scans from his station to look at them directly. Where he noted more bad news. The forward shuttle bay had been destroyed, and the primary hull damage had vented a number of sections between the crew and the forward docking ports. That was going to complicate things. He sighed.

“Hail the Essex.”

After a few moments his operations officer looked up, “No response sir.”

That wasn’t surprising, but it was worth the try. First order of business would be to deal with that leaking reactor. He didn’t trust it, and already had a plan. It was located in the secondary hull. If all else fails he would be able to sever the connecting links, and then tow the manned primary hull away from the leaking reactor. Buying them more time to evacuate the crew. There was also the fact that the reactor module itself was designed to be jettisoned in the case of emergency. Standard procedure for a leaking reactor was to jettison the reactor if shut down procedures failed. Both could be done remotely. Although not from the Enterprise. They would need the ship’s prefix code for off-ship systems access. 

Unfortunately those codes were known only to the high admiralty, and they had lost contact with fleet HQ. They wouldn’t be able to get them. It might be possible to guess those codes but it would take too long for that. Fortunately there was a way to get that system to activate. Since the crew wasn’t responding to hails, perhaps the ship’s computer would.

He moved down to the operations console. “Try contacting the ship’s computer. Send our fleet id code, and a request to shut down the main reactor.”

She nodded, and after a moment there was a response. A simple text, requesting authorization. He smiled, that he could do. His clearance codes would be sufficient.

“Let me take care of that.”

He input the codes, and watched the computer respond. The ship immediately attempted to shut down the leaking reactor. After a few minutes it reported failure, and then immediately without asking, initiated the auto-eject sequence which jammed. The mechanisms had taken damage which the computer promptly reported. The ensign at operations stared at her screen. “What did you send the computer?”

“My Alpha One-One clearance codes”

She blinked, giving him an odd look. “Alpha One-One? How the hell does a commander have that clearance level?”

He chuckled, “Well Ensign. I am not just any commander. I’ve been working on one top-secret project or another for decades. Some here on Earth others out in the Colonies.”

“I see.”

Countryman stretched, then turned to tactical. The young woman manning the station now noticed his attention, she smiled, “I have the cutting beams charged and standing by sir. Would you like me to start?”

He liked her. She anticipated his command, but didn’t do anything until he was ready for her. Countryman nodded. She turned to her console. On screen he watched as a continuous blue beam shot out to strike the Essex. Even with her hull plating offline, it was going to take awhile. Titan alloy was remarkably resilient even without an active structural reinforcement field. Although the mix of titanium, artificial polymers, rydium and circuitry was actually rather heavy. That was its only real downside, it was a very heavy material to build a ship with. 

He headed up to his chair. Since he had time, he was going to check the crew manifest. As commander, he needed to know who the officers were. Now seemed like a good time.

---

The Essex rescue went smoothly after that. He learned that the officer at Operations was named Misaki. While the tactical officer was Kaori. They both had promising records. They were good choices in his opinion for bridge crew. Sure, they were back up officers, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have them moved up to primary bridge crew. There were a few openings now. Although the captain would have final say on that.

The reactor separation had gone smoothly on their end, and it had been a simple matter to tow the primary hull away from the severed secondary hull where the leaking reactor module was located. Getting the crew off had been a little involved, but nothing unexpected cropped up. They ended up rescuing over three hundred people, which was a majority of the crew.

After that, the Enterprise visited several more stricken ships rendering aid, before coming across the Yamato. The massive ship was burning when they found it, the hull rupturing. However, the crew had already evacuated and were awaiting rescue in either escape pods or shuttles. Making it a simple job of recovery for the Enterprise. It had taken a couple of hours for his pilots to collect them all, but they ended up rescuing a substantial portion of the crew. Including the commanding officer, Captain Ashley Drakes.

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