Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-One: Execution
Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-One: Execution
Tigress Zenith Point, August 30, 3036
"Ma'am!' The sensors officer yelled out from his station. "We've got a massive contact fast approaching, and our Battlecomputer isn't identifying it."
"Get our transit drives spinning up, and detach our escorts," Admiral Jewel ordered. "That doesn't look like it's a friendly Warship here to deliver a message." Turning to her XO she signaled for him to begin the proper procedures.
"All hands, proceed to your battle stations, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill," most of the lights dimmed as the ship immediately transitioned into the preparations for a fight deep into the void. "All fighter pilots proceed to the launch bays, and Dropships prepare for detachment."
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"I hate being stuck in the void," Natasha snarled as the two of us huddled inside the most secure room in the Manassas."There's nothing I can fight and rarely something for me to do about the enemies that we might be facing."
"Hey, at least we have two little ones to keep calm for this one," I pulled her in for a hug while helping her to console one of the Cameron twins. "We would only be a distraction on the bridge or as a member of one of the gun crews."
"It's just so damn frustrating!" Natasha slammed her fist into the bulkhead before stopping to calm down the little girl seated in her lap. "I'm stuck, and there's nothing for me to do except wait for us to either win or lose."
"Sometimes we have to put our lives in the hands of those that we trust, and then we just hope and pray that they manage to fulfill our faith and trust in them."
New Avalon, August 30th, 3036
"Vesar Kristofur, this court finds you guilty, and the jury has ordered that the execution be carried out immediately following your final words and meal."
"I have no need of a final meal, and I wish to state my final words here, where everyone can hear them and they are a part of the public records," Kristofur stated before standing up from his chair.
"You have no clue what you have unleashed upon the Inner Sphere with my death, for there is death coming, it may not be in your lifetime, but your children will suffer, and all of the unity in the universe cannot save you from what is coming!" The man began to rant wildly for a long time before a certain sense of clarity came upon him. "Take me away, I have become mad, and I should be put down like the dog that I am." He offered himself up to the military police that was his escorts and they took him outside to the place of his execution.
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"What exactly was all that about?" Hanse asked Allard once Kristofur had been escorted to the firing squad.
"Given that we have the information of Primus Sims' visions of the Clans, we expect that given the state of his mind after our interrogation that he may have been suffering from delusions," Quintus replied. "But we will be investigating all the same."
"That's not a Texas or a Mckenna," Jewel said to her crew as the Manassas spun around to face the unidentified battleship. "Get us facing them, we need to start hitting them with everything that we got."
The Manassas triggered its maneuvering thrusters and spun around to face the oncoming enemy, lashing out with its new Heavy NPPCs and NAC/35s as soon as they entered extreme range, the massive guns reaching across the void and carving away tons of the enemy battleship's Ferro-Carbide armor before they passed each other in the void, the enemy's return fire missing all the while.
The Manassas spun around so that its broadside weapons were facing the enemy battleship and began exchanging fire with the larger Warship even as their escorts battled it out in a vicious furball in the void in between.
"Ma'am, we're taking some hits but our armor is holding for now. Our return fire is causing some damage, and we've managed to close their ASF bay doors, and it looks like they won't be able to repair and refit their fighters."
"Good, spin us around and have us give them a fresh face of armor, see if we can get our nose pointed at them for part of our rotation to bring our heavier guns to bear against the enemy," Jewel ordered the bridge crew. "Can any of our escorts get close enough to board or cause damage?"
"That's a negative ma'am, they've got standard Gauss Rifles that nearly tore one of our Sting's to pieces when it got close enough."
"Well then, it looks like we have a good old-fashioned slugfest on our hands then," Jewel replied with a smirk. "Get our gunnery crews aiming for critical areas, see if we can knock something critical loose so that we can board the Battleship."
The Manassas spun around to give its forward arc of firepower a chance to open up while also transitioning to the freshest armor that it had, while the enemy battleship seemed to wallow in place before trying to run.
"They're running, give chase!" Jewel ordered. "Get us to enough thrust to beat their acceleration and then slow us down to match them."
"Aye ma'am, pushing the crew to the limits," the navigation officer replied.
The Manassas rocketed forward, the improved transit drive pushing the crew to their limits while firing their forward arc into the thrusters of the enemy battleship until the battleship turned and began to open fire again.
"Get us out of their firing arcs," Jewel ordered. "We've got nearly the same range as them, but our accuracy is better at range."
"Pulling back, prepare for chemical thruster boost," the navigations officer warned before the Manassas seemed to leap upwards, out of the range that the enemy battleship had been consistently hitting at and returning fire with its broadsides.
"We just lost one of our NAC/20s, I'm rerouting damage control teams over now!"
"Keep the pressure up, they're starting to slow down their return fire," Jewel ordered. "Once that ship is disabled I want Marines on standby for boarding actions."
The Manassas spun around and its trio of heavy NPPCs lashed out and arced through the enemy battleship, striking one of the primary power conduits and causing the battleship to darken, its lights and everything else going dim aside from emergency power.