Welcome everyone to the first chapter of the crew of the Colonial Union Starship, USS SPITFIRE. Spitfire is a Intrepid Class Frigate, which is armed and fast for a small ship in a video game called, PULSAR: LOST COLONY. I have been playing this game quite regularly and I've become so interested in the game because of all the things you can do in the game, that I simply could not resist daydreaming of a crew desperately trying to combat a space infection, as well as combat other hostiles, either in space or on planet, while also trying their best to cope with each other.
These ships are literally not all that big, and literally only have enough room for a five person crew. So in game, this ship design has three turrets, the main turret with a missile launcher, and two smaller turrets, as all ships have a nuke launcher, just can only get them on the black market... No surprise, right?
But this story will incorporate some differences. The two turrets will have manual control and automation. If the automatic system say, were disabled by a computer virus or damaged, then they would need manual control in order to fire. Main gun, full manual control.
How about I just do a short ship tour in character instead? Haha.
The story begins at the Colonial Hub of Outpost 448, the large station sitting there in space, slightly at an angle as almost half the habitat section has been completely blown away. No one would really talk about it, all they would say is that it has been handled. So no one really asks about it anymore, nor do they see any progress of repairing and rebuilding the section at the moment. There's plenty of debris for them to salvage and restore a good portion of the habitat ring, but so far...it seems the Colonial Union are a little more busy with other issues. One regarding pirates, rogue ships, corrupted drones, hostile ancient vessels and stations in specific systems that almost all ships avoid, except for those that are gutsy to even try to take them on...but are never heard of again.
Lastly...there is something else going on out there in the galaxy...something no one can really explain just yet, except that whatever it is...it is spreading and they don't know how to stop it. We will get to that later at some point in the story but for right now...we focus our attention to one ship, one crew, just starting their careers on board this newly built vessel. And their Captain, just starting his career as a commanding officer as well. And it seems that the crew won't have a chance to get to know their Captain right away....
Two officers were steadily walking quickly through the promenade of the station, on their way to the teleport pad to transport over to the brand new Intrepid Class Colonial Frigate. One of them was the captain, Captain James Maxwell of the Colonial Union. He had been serving the Colonial Union for five years as the helm officer on board a Outrider class Research vessel, USS Tesla. Maxwell was just recently promoted to Captain after the incident with three raiders that attempted to disable and steal the Tesla. Marching beside him was Admiral Manchester, one of the few admiralty of the Colonial Union, and one of a very few on board the station. And they were very much in a hurry.
"You do understand the situation, Captain?"
"Yes, Admiral. It's not heard of for a Roland Class Heavy Cruiser to just crash onto a planet with no apparent reason." Said Captain Maxwell.
"Actually there was a reason, but it's something we've never encountered before." They both stepped onto the pad and the captain went ahead on selecting the destination and the energizer button.
Maxwell turned back around to face the admiral and just as he opened his mouth to respond, they both were dematerialized off the pad they are on and rematerialized on a similar pad but on the Spitfire. "I did not see that in the briefing summary." The Admiral waved a hand, leading the captain to the bridge, which is normally sealed off until the ship is handed to a commanding officer, which that hasn't happened yet.
They stepped into a circular bridge, with two very large wooden desks that rested just behind the captain's chair, tall at the six and seven o clock of the chair, where it drops into a shorter section at the nine and three o clock, continuing up to the eleven and one o clock, where it was completely wide open right down the middle to the pilot station. The station at the aft-starboard section of the bridge, which is south to the right, was the Engineering station. The big wooden desk on this side has three screens, one is where the engineer can control what systems can be on and off, generally anything they are not using it don't need can be turned off; second is power management, with a display for the Reactor stability and temperature. And the third had the jump drive screen, where the engineer can initiate the jump drive charging sequence, or if authorized and unlocked by the Captain, a Emergency Blind Jump. Something all Colonial Captains try very hard to avoid, as that can cause quite the havoc on the ship, plus not knowing where they will end up at. Two screens behind the engineer, along the wall of the bridge are the reactor coolant well as number of fuel capsules and distress beacon. Then one screen that almost every station, and almost every room on the ship has, is the ship status screen that will also show the selected vessel status screen right underneath it.
To the aft-port section, is the science station, where it also has three screens, and two screens on the otherwise, along the wall. One of the desk screens shows the viruses sent or received. Second screen shows various signatures the ship emits, as well as shield settings, then search option and list of programs to select. Third screen shows what the ship's sensors picks up, with the option to initiate an EM scan, select a target and scan for lifeforms, and components. One of the wall screens is the ship status screens, and the other is the communications screen.
The Captain has four screens, two that show up when communications with another vessel is initiated. The other two are to his two o clock, on the shorter section of the wooden desk. One is the nuke device status display, where the captain can load a nuke, but the Weapons officer at the weapons bay has to prep it for launch. Then the weapons officer in the weapons bay or the captain on the bridge can launch the nuke from the display. The other one is the missile status display, what type of missile, damage, speed, and what it is targeting. Such as engines, weapons, science or life support. Science power node contains Shields, programs, sensors, etc. So taking that out would really affect the vessel.
The two screens that appear starting from the ceiling, nearly to the deck of the bridge, and are huge for everyone to see, the left screen is the messages that was received and sent displayed in text, while the right screen displays suggestions that the captain can use or ignore and use his own, as well as play the audio or ship to ship visual transmission. The pilot only has two screens. The ship status screen to his right and the helm settings to his left to display systems he needs to align the ship to in order for the jump drive to work properly, or how the ships thrusters and engines should react on the controls. In the center, of course, but no screen, are the helm controls.
This is of course a general description of the bridge, and there's really not that many screenshots to find on Google unfortunately.
Once the door was closed behind Maxwell, the Admiral pulled out an holorecoder, stepped down to the command deck of the bridge and inserted the recorder into a slot in the armrest of the command chair. Then two screens appeared just above in front of the chair. Left one displayed everything in text, the right had an audio recording. "You know that our starships were designed to automatically eject a storage buoy upon a catastrophic, ship-wide system failure?"
Maxwell nodded his head, something all Captains learned in command school, in case there ships sustain too much damage to engage the emergency blind jump, that would essentially destroy the ship as well, thus engaging the EBJ would of been futile. "Yes, sir." Remembering a verbal response is more respected and required than a gesture or head nod for that matter.
"Left screen is displaying the last log entry by the Captain of the USS Concord, the Roland cruiser. And the right is the audio of him attempting to make such log." The Admiral said before hitting the play button.
"Captain's Log, supplemental. After we just arrived in the system one-three-eight-two, my science officer conducted a routine EM signature sweep and discovered an unknown bio-organic signature on the other side of the third planet. We just begun our investigation after having approached the planet, and so far sensors are coming up with very little information, but of course, we are not as heavily equipped in sensory and scientific equipment as a research vessel, and - *a large crash and the red alert klaxon went off in the background.* Report!!"
"Sublight engines just went offline! Helm is no longer responding!"
