Battlestar

In a distant future, humanity has spread to the stars, controlling a volume of space a thousand light years across. All is not well though, wars have been raging between the mighty Terran Federation and various rebellious, independence craving human factions developing for centuries at the fringes of human exploration. By far the most powerful of these rebellious factions is the Nordic Empire, with which a feeble peace is currently in place, a peace that isn't expected to last for long. But then an unknown alien species invades the human sphere, inflicting death and destruction upon humanity on a totally incomprehensible scale. Soon it becomes clear that humanity will have to choose; either it unites and might survive, or remains divided and will fall.

Cautionary: romance, straight, long read, plenty of sex but be patient.

Setting: SciFi, Human Space, 3647 A.D.

Characters:

Lieutenant Helga "Helly" Korobitsyna, 23, Terran Federation Navy (TFN), call sign "Bunny", from Khabarovsk/Earth/Terran Federation.

Lieutenant Commander Benjamin "Benjy" Arundel, 38, Royal Navy (RN), call sign "Scorpion", from Exchester/Caledon/Nordic Empire.

Alfhild, 24, Benjamin's deceased betrothed, from Bjorgin/Noregr/Nordic Empire.

Admiral Keith Fitzpatrick, 63, Task Force 66 TFN commander.

Captain Heinz Mölders, 52, Pacifica's Fighter Group commander

Commander Brendon Mackay, 44, Call Sign 'Viking' Benjy's Wing Commander

Lieutenant commander Tom Kershaw, 34, call sign 'Hawker', Bunny's squadron leader

Lieutenant Elise Reeves, 28, call sign 'Storm', Bunny's flight leader.

Lieutenant Jason Rodriguez, 25, call sign 'Spark' Bunny's flight mate.

Lieutenant Samantha Bergfalk, 31, Benjy's crew chief

Lieutenant Holgar Elbenson, 29, call sign 'Snake', Benjy's senior flight leader

Info:

Battlestar: the largest size of capital ships.

FSS Pacifica: CB 243, Enterprise class battlestar, length 1,843 meter, Mass 23,186,000 ton, complement 18,674 souls

The Terran Federation: the mother empire of humanity, Capital New Berlin/Earth

The Nordic Empire: realm of the Nordicans, Capital Edinborg/Caledon

The Sha-Sheen: unknown alien race, reptilian, soon to be at war with humanity

The Scourge: alien race, arachnid, infesting the fringe, preying on the living

The Mark I eyeball: the oldest and most basic of sensors, the human eye

Check your six: look behind you

Abbreviations: 3dv = Holographic movies/television, TFN = Terran Federation Navy, TF = Task Force, FTL = Faster Than Light, CB = Carrier Battle, FSS = Federation Star Ship, CSP = Combat Space Patrol, Imps = Imperials, IFF = Identification Friend or Foe, M.A.M. = Matter Anti-Matter, HMSS = Her Majesties Space Ship, MIA = Missing In Action

Battlestar

Thoughts in the Void

The floor to ceiling armorplast window on the starboard observation deck is so large that its boundaries are beyond her peripheral vision. Combined with its utter clarity it creates the sensation of being outside the ship without a suit. Helga looks for, and finds, the Pleiades; the nine blue stars defining it blaze brightly at just over a hundred light years away. Somewhere beyond them lies Earth, another four hundred and fifty light years away.

Her mind drifts off to her far away home, to the cold winters and short balmy summers of Khabarovsk Krai. To fishing with her father on the Amur River. To hiking through the pristine forests further to the north and south with her teenage friends. To watching 3dv dramas with her mother and sister in the evenings. But adventure had called, and the easiest way to the stars had been through the military, especially during times of war. So after turning eighteen she had joined the naval academy, to do her bit for the federation, and to travel the universe.

At that time the third secession war had already been raging for seventeen years. It had been about yet another renegade star cluster on the core-ward fringe turning its back on the Terran Federation and joining the Nordic Empire, which itself had rebelled, and separated from the federation, over four centuries ago. The third secession war had ended in an uneasy truce two years after she joined the military, and just a year before she graduated from the academy.

After graduating she had left Earth for the first time as a freshly winged junior lieutenant on board the newly launched battlestar Constitution, for a six month shake down cruise patrolling the star systems near Sol. Constitution was a battle carrier; a hybrid battleship/carrier over a mile long. In addition to its battleship armament it also operated a fighter group consisting of eight wings of Hellcat fighters. One of these fighters had carried the call sign 'Bunny'; that one had been hers.

With pirates and alien raiders seldom operating this close to the Terran Federation's core, the cruise, much to her youthful disappointment, hadn't brought much excitement. Constitution had returned to Earth after a pretty uneventful cruise, and had then gone into dock to rectify the problems that had surfaced during her shake down. This had seen the 647th Fighter Wing including her squadron disembark the ship, and all its personnel sent on six weeks leave.

She had spent most of it with her family in Khabarovsk: with hindsight, that had been a good decision. Near the end of her leave she had been informed that her wing was going to embark on the famous battlestar Enterprise, which had just come out of dock after a two year repair, refit, and upgrade. Enterprise's new deployment had been secret, but everybody had known the ship would be heading out to the fringe again, most probably to the contested border with the Nordic Empire.

That had meant she wouldn't see Earth again for at least two years, which had made both her mother and her younger sister cry. Her new ship had ended up at the frontier with the empire as expected, joining Task Force 66, guarding a delicate truce. Within the year the whole situation came close to boiling point again however, with everyone expecting a new war to erupt at any moment, when everything had changed for the worse.

A new war had come, but not the expected one. A formerly unknown alien species had come out of nowhere. They had invaded federation territory about a hundred light years to the galactic south east from the contested border with the Nordic Empire. The aliens had obliterated the local defense force, and then devastated any inhabited planets in their path; countless billions had died. Information coming back from the war zone had soon revealed the new enemy was a ruthless humanoid alien race of reptilian origin, with a tech level comparable to their own.

The aliens called themselves the Sha-Sheen, and in combat they displayed an emotionless coldness never encountered before. It had soon become clear Sha-Sheen resources were enormous and the Terran Federation would need all its might to defeat them. At that point a considerable portion of the fleet was deployed to the border with the Nordic Empire however, and leaving this border undefended wasn't considered a real option.

***

About two months after the initial invasion two federation battlestars, both damaged in combat with the Sha-Sheen, had met up with their task force. One of them, the Pacifica, had only been lightly damaged, but the other one, the Atlantic, had been in a really bad shape. Helga had been among the crew members who had watched with horror from the observation deck, as the scarred hulk slowly maneuvered into position abeam of Enterprise.

Her hull had been blackened and breached in hundreds of places, complete decks had been ripped open, or didn't even exist anymore, and her entire half mile long port launch bay was simply missing. It had really been beyond comprehension that the ship was still operational at all. In addition to the horrific damage to Atlantic both battlestars had also lost just over two thirds of their fighter complement; almost four hundred Hellcats, and their pilots, gone.

The task force had set course to the closest base, where Atlantic had transferred her remaining fighters to her sister Pacifica and then, after some emergency repairs, headed core-ward, probably to the Martian orbital docks. After absorbing Atlantic's remaining fighters, Pacifica still had only six of her normal eight wings, so one of Enterprise's eight wings had then been transferred to Pacifica also, leaving both battlestars only one wing short.

And so Helga had changed ship for a second time, because her squadron was part of the wing transferred to Pacifica, but not before she and all the other 'rookies' in her wing had been promoted to lieutenant. Normally this would have warranted some festivities, but in the light of the recent developments they had organized a memorial gathering for the many thousands of crew from Atlantic, including hundreds of their fellow pilots, that had so recently lost their lives in the service of the Terran Federation, instead.

With the transfer complete the Gneisenau, the battlestar that had, together with Enterprise made up the core of Task Force 66, had left for the new combat zone to fight the Sha-Sheen. Helga and her squadron mates had watched their former task force mates leave with heavy hearts. They were going into harm's way, while they themselves stayed behind to babysit the damned Nordic Empire. Another month passed, and the news from the front hadn't been good, but then another surprise had come.

It had been Helga's own squadron, flying point during a sweep of the border, which had first intercepted the, presumed, empire liner entering federation space. The sleek civilian ship had been squawking triple zero, claiming it was on a diplomatic mission, and it had been escorted by what looked like two entire wings of Hurricane fighters from the Nordic Royal Navy. The latter wasn't strange, but it was inconvenient never the less.

Her squadron had started escorting the liner, which was named the Britannica, to the nearest federation center of government; a water world aptly named Ocean. About a third of Task Force 66, including Pacifica, had joined them en-route. Once the ships of the task force had joined Britannica the TF's commanding officer had requested the Royal Navy escort to stand down. The request had been honored, but to everyone's amazement the fighters hadn't retreated towards Empire space but landed on the liner instead.

When asked if all empire liners could accommodate fighter craft the answer had been, "No, empire liners generally don't have the ability to handle fighters, but the royal yacht has." That had been but the first of a number of further surprises. It would soon become clear that the ship was transporting Prince Edvard, heir to the Nordic Empire's throne, and that he had been sent to offer not just peace but an alliance.

If the Terran Federation was willing to grand the worlds on the fringe the right for self-government the Nordic Royal Navy would join them in their fight against the Sha-Sheen. This was firmly beyond the local governor's mandate, so the proposal went down the FTL net all the way to Earth. There it caused a heated senate battle which lasted for the better part of six days, but in the end, because of the Sha-Sheen invasion threat, the proposal was accepted.

On Pacifica the news had an impact like a bomb. After orbiting Ocean in formation with the empire's royal yacht for a week everyone had known something was up, but no one had expected anything beyond a peace treaty with their arch enemy. An alliance with the Nordic Empire, their despised enemy for four centuries, was a concept so alien most of the crew simply couldn't grasp it.

***

Within the hour Pacifica had headed back to the task force, accompanied by the royal yacht. During the transit, while Helga's squadron was boarding their Hellcats for a CSP mission, an empire shuttle had landed in Pacifica's starboard hangar bay and disgorged its cargo no hundred feet from them. Out had come half a dozen men and two women, no brass by the looks of it, as far as that was possible to determine regarding the unfamiliar uniforms and insignia.

Federation Navy personnel was dressed in blue, and their army colleagues in green, but these people were dressed in brown, in brown leather. They were also all light skinned and tall, but what caught the eye most was their hair. The men all had beards, in various forms, and all of them had long braids, the men as well as the women. To Helga they had looked like anachronisms, like warriors from some long ago barbaric time.

The patrol had been uneventful, but they had returned to a ship in turmoil. As soon as they rejoined the task force they were going to deploy to the front, but that had only been part of the news. An empire battle squadron had apparently joined the task force the day before, to escort Britannica home. But before doing so the royal yacht would transfer her two elite fighter wings to Enterprise and Pacifica, bringing the fighter groups of both battle carriers up to full strength.

The imperials they had watched arriving just before they went on patrol had been quartermasters and mechanics sent over to prepare for the transfer of their wing. Soon a steady stream of shuttles, both federation and imperial, had started to bring over people and materials, and as the missing wing's bay space was located next to that of Helga's wing she and her colleagues had been able to watch the entire operation up close.

An endless stream of parts and munitions had arrived first, to disappear into Pacifica's vast magazines. Then the various fighter handling and maintenance equipment had started to arrive, with the tools for the mechanics. They had watched it all with mixed feelings, but it had been nothing compared to when the first of their Hurricane fighters started floating into the landing bay.

Helga had felt a shiver run down her back, and she hadn't been the only one feeling that way; this was the enemy arriving within the protective walls of their castle. And the Hurricanes were very different beasts compared to their own Hellcats. They were of roughly the same size, but there every similarity ended. Their own Hellcats looked elegant and sleek, these craft looked angular and aggressive. Like axes compared to their own rapiers.

And where their Hellcats sported a light gray-blue coat adorned with colorful emblems and markings, the Hurricanes came in a spotty dark gray, covered in monochromatic emblems and markings in an even deeper dark gray. Soon pilots had started to emerge from cockpits, dressed in the same dark brown leather as they all were. It was then she had realized it couldn't be real leather. These had to be vacuum suits, so the 'leather' was probably synthetic fabric.

Forty two fighters in total had arrived, three squadrons each twelve-strong and six spares. Two things had stood out: the professionalism, and the fact that all the pilots were male. Both of those were well known of course. Everyone who ever flew into combat against the Royal Navy knew their pilots were second to none. And these men, going by their deployment, were probably the proverbial 'best of the best' to boot.

Also well-known was the fact that the Empire didn't deploy women at the sharp edge, either in their navy or their army, which Helga found backwards and ridiculous. Hundreds of Federation Navy personnel had been standing and sitting around watching the Nordicans arrive. The atmosphere hadn't been hostile, but it hadn't been exactly welcoming either. Helga herself had been one of the people closest to their new shipmates' bay space.

Sitting on a spare parts crate she had watched a small group of the Imp pilots talking to each other maybe ten yards away, taking in their demeanor. Suddenly one of them had looked towards her and smiled, she had looked away, feeling caught. And then he started walking towards her,

Shit,

she had thought. She watched him approach; he was clearly older than the others, a lot older actually, late thirties by the looks of it.

He had also been a big man, even compared to the rest of them, and far from ugly, going by what was visible above his short and tight cut beard. What he also was, if their rank insignia resembled the Terran Federation's, was a lieutenant commander, and thus a superior officer. This had meant she should have gotten up and saluted him, but something inside her had simply balked at the thought, and thus she hadn't moved a finger.

He had come to a stop before her, forcing her to look up at him with his presence, his eyes had been a startling ice blue. He had clearly looked at her wings, then smiled at her, offered her his hand, "Hello beautiful," he had said, his accent thick and strange, "Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Arundel, Benjy to my friends."

She had slowly risen, accepted his hand, "Lieutenant Korobitsyna, pleased to meet you Lieutenant Commander Arundel, where are your female pilots if I may ask?"

Her voice had sounded even colder than she herself had expected, like liquid ice. To her surprise he had produced this loud bellowing laugh, drawing the attention of everyone within fifty yards who hadn't been looking at them already. Then, to her utter horror, he had bent and kissed her hand, and she had known her face was turning beet red. He had straightened again, locked eyes with her, "I'm sorry, lady Korobitsyna, in the empire, angels like you are only allowed to fly out of harm's way."

He had said it loud enough inside the now silent bay for anyone within a hundred feet or so to hear. She had withdrawn her hand, "That's Lieutenant Korobitsyna for you, Sir," she had answered.

He had smiled, lowered his head, "I'm sorry Lieutenant, I shouldn't have made fun of you. In my defense, I couldn't help but notice the less than warm welcome your people are offering mine. Soon though, we will have to trust each other with our lives. I just tried to 'break the ice' a little."

"Trust?" she had answered, "We will never forget you nuked Arasham, killing three billion innocent people."

He had sighed, "Yes, that was an unfortunate affair, a black day in the Royal Navy's history. Did you know the officer who ordered it had just been informed his entire family died in the virus bombing of Scandia?"

She had stepped back, "We didn't..."

He had followed her, "Yes, your government said you didn't, and neither did you nuke Grendel or Scotia."

His voice had become harsh, deep down she had known he was right, everyone in the federation, deep down, knew the federal government had lied about the horrific attacks on those three planets. He had continued, his voice turning warm again, "In war, shit happens, Lieutenant, in the end no one keeps their hands clean. We are both soldiers, if we are to win this war against the Sha-Sheen we'll have to stand together. We have to bury the past; that can start with you and me, here and now."

She simply hadn't been able to, he had seen it in her eyes, and his face had saddened. "I'm sorry," was the last thing he had said before turning and rejoining what she now assumed were his squadron's men. It wouldn't be the last time he tried to befriend her.

***

Pacifica and her escort had rejoined the task force, the remaining wing on Britannica had transferred to Enterprise, and a supply ship, a battle cruiser, and a pair of heavy cruisers from the empire battle squadron had joined their formation too. Then both groups had gone their own way, Britannica and her escort returning towards the empire, and Task Force 66 setting course for the combat zone.

That had been three weeks and five jumps ago, and while command had certainly done its best to remedy the clear animosity between the federation crew and their new imperial allies it hadn't had much effect. It also hadn't been the federation crew alone who were less then happy to share a ship with their former arch enemies. The imperial Lieutenant Commander's persistent attempts to get on her good side representing the proverbial exception to the rule.