Codename Noether

[Ozei]

Crew
Nathan - Pilot
Yevon Si - Engine bay officer
Aisha - Weapons officer

Ship
Heavily damaged Zoltan prototype Z-XX1, codename Noether, callsign Zulu Alpha

Prologue
A top-notch zoltan engineering team had installed a new type of shields generator on heavy-duty hull of experimental mining ship. They were amazed how well it could cope with harsh conditions of asteroid fields it was supposed to mine, extending the period of time scientists could spend in these asteroid fields looking for new resources. Noether was clearly a success. Well, at least until the rebellion heard of the ship...

---

"Captain!" yelled Aisha via the intercom system, "inbound ships detected. No registered signatures."

Nathan looked at his radar screen. Indeed, multiple ships, no single one of them recognized, jumping in at the near beacon. "Damn. Charge up the weapons, all stray power to the shields" he answered. As half of their crew was on EVA mission gathering samples from nearby asteroids, they had barely the crucial stations manned. Also, as the ship was scientific vessel, they only had minimal weaponry. And to make the matters worse, it was also experimental...

Suddenly, the leadser of the EVA team, Nelis, contacted the bridge. "Captain, multiple hostile ships detected. Rebels."

Nathan cursed brefly and responded. "Numbers, class, weaponry?"

"Two elites, one rigger, heavy on lasers. Wait, I can see couple of attack drones... They are heading this way! We have been spotted! They're opening fire!"

"Return to the ship immediatly. Repeat, return immediatly!"

"Shuttle's engines took a hit! Trying to get them back onliHISSSSSssssss..."

"Nelis, do you read me?" Static on the comm channel. "Do you read me?" No answer.

"Captain, no life signs on the shuttle." It was Aisha. " I think we've lost them."

Suddenly, rebel ship hailed them. "Surrender, and you may keep your sorry lives. Fight, and you'll meet up with your late friends pretty soon. So how is it?"

Nathan was infuriated. "What do you want? This is scientific vessel. We want to stay out of this war. So let us."

"Oh, I'm so, so sorry." Rebel captain responded. "But this war knows no neutral sides. And your ship, well, it will make a killing in right hands. That is, in my hands. So hand over the ship, you alien scum, or face the inevitable."

"This ship will not end up in rebel hands. And besides, you can't pass the super shield in this. So please, my rebel friend, back up and you may survive."

Nathan had barely finished his sentence when all three rebel ships fired in unison. Their shots were absorbed by the super shield easily. "See?" Nathan laughed. "There's nothing you can do to us."

"We'll see about that" rebel answered and cut the communications. Rebel ships fired another barrage into the super shield.

"Captain?" It was Aisha. "They have tuned their weaponry to our shield's resonance frequency. Next barrage will..."

Aisha never finished his sentence as rebels fired their third barrage. As their super shield absorbed the shots, their multi-purpose shield generator overloaded causing multiple circuits to fail. The malfunctioning control circuit then caused on-board electricity generator to overload, rendering two of its cores useless and damaging the third...

"Yevon!" Captain yelled at the intercom. "We need FTL drive yesterday!"

"Givin' her all she's got, Captain! FTL ready in three, two, one..."

Nathan hit the jump button, just as sensors detected teleport signatures onboard...

To be continued...

[Ozei]

Crew
Nathan - Pilot
Yevon Si - Engine bay officer
Aisha - Weapons officer

Chapter one
Stardate 9035.14, unnamed federation outpost.

Nine galactic standard days after the rebel ambush, the Noether was docked to small federal repair outpost in some outer section of the galaxy. The ship was repaired or, to be honest, barely tinkered so that hull was somewhat intact and there were no more short circuits overloading the onboard electricity generator. However, this remote outpost had barely tools for patch up the leaking reactor cores, let alone highly experimental spare parts for the shields system. So the outcome was that Noether had little more protection than it's super shield system and because of malfunctioning circuits and damaged generator, only way they could power it was through directing some of the FTL drive's power to shields system to charge the flux capacitors up. And to make matters worse, with all power scarcity and short circuits, shield system barely managed to keep shield levels stable - but absorbing any hits would cause inevitable losses in the flux...

---

"Captain?" It was Yevon. "Good news and bad news."
"Start with the good ones."
"We managed to get engines running again. Enemy boarding team really hurt our thruster system, but now it's working - to some extent. And our blaster shields could be repaired."
"And the bad news?"
"Well... Our shields... They could be repaired, if we had parts. So after the super shield, it's up to your piloting."
"Crap. Glad our thrusters are operational, then."
"Well, they're... They're barely operational."
"Oh damn it! Do we have a single thing in this ship that works?"
"Weapons. The system was not hit at all, so we have some means of defending ourselves."
"Silver lining to every nebula, then."
"Speaking of which, the feds here managed to contact their outpost some four sectors away. They have zoltan research center nearby who might just have the parts we need to fix the generator."
"But not the super shield?"
"No, it's too unique."
"And it's some four sectors into galaxy?"
"Yes."
"Okay, we better give it a shot, then."
"I'll prepare her for departure. I'll need an hour."
"You do that. Get Aisha to help you."
"Ay ay, sir."

---

Ten minutes before departure a fed official, a pleasant chap named Mark, came to talk to Nathan.
"Bad news" he said. " Our patrolling ship saw a rebel auto-scout nearby. Before they could intercept it, it jumped away. We suspect it has spotted your ship."
"I see."
"We are going to abandon this station. If all you've told us is true, it would be suicide to be here when they arrive."
"I'm afraid that is the case."
"We are going to booby trap the station. It might buy us just enough time to get out of the sector before they find us."
"Yeah. I'm sorry about this."
"Not really a problem. This isn't the first time we have to do this."
"War is indeed hell."
"indeed."

---

Evacuation procedure was well on their way when a jump signature of single federation ship was detected. Battered Kestrel type A cruiser came to sight and permission for docking was granted. Nathan, Aisha and Yevon gazed at the docking Kestrel...

"That piece of junk has taken a beating" said Yevon. "I'm amaze it's still in one piece."
Nod of agreement from Aisha. "Yeah, with a hull so full of holes it should have given up a while ago."
"I've flown one of those" said Nathan. "They're still used in pilot training. It's a tough little ship."

Kestrel's airlock opened and two humans walked out. One was leaning to another, coughing blood. Medics rushed to help the injured.

"Is there anyone on the ship?" Asked one of the outpost officials.
"Nope, at least not alive." Answered the one in better condition. "We're the last survivors."
The other one coughed and some blood was scattered on walls. "Please, hear me..." He said.
He coughed again. "Please, listen to me..." He gazed upon Nathan.
Nathan stepped forward. "I hear you." He said to the injured.
"We're on a *cough* secret miss- *cough* mission, we have information ab- *cough* rebel... flagsh... flagship." Some violent coughing.
"What do you know about it" Nathan asked.
The injured man was barely whispering. "It has this... weakness..."
Nathan's eyes enlarged when the injured man told him about the major weakness within rebel flagship. "So you're saying that-" Nathan tried to ask, but interrupted when he noticed that the man had taken his last breath.

---

"So what does this mean?" asked Aisha, when Nathan told his crew about dying man's last words.
"It means that this war could be put to end." was Nathan's answer. His crew was quiet.
Nathan continued. "It sounds like suicide mission" he said. "But it might be just crazy enough to work. And it means that we could bring peace to the galaxy."
"Yeah..." Aisha sighed and continued. "But we also have what, four sectors, to clear without properly functioning generator. And even if we make it there, it's not certain whether or not we can repair our blaster shields or thrusters. And to just make the matters worse, rebels are on our tail already. They want this ship. We shall not give it to them, in the name of the Zoltan Government, but this war is between rebels and federation."
Nathan didn't respond immediatly. Eventually he said, almost whispered "But should the rebels win, the Great Zoltan Alliance shall be crushed and all Zoltan people be slaved by these vicious, racist rebels. So this is also our war."
All three were quiet for a moment. Finally Yevon opened his mouth. "I don't know about Aisha, but I'm not leaving my captain's side."
"Me neither" said Aisha. "Screw the generator; we can do with manpower. Let's go kick some rebel butt."

---

The outpost was evacuated and all but one federal ship and the Noether had jumped away. The ships hailed each other one last time and activated their FTL drives. The Noether was now on a mission, the vessel never built for combat was on its way to meet the worst the rebels could offer. Nathan felt neither confident nor courageous, but now they had no options. They would end this war and save the federation - or die trying.

To be continued...

[Ozei]

Crew
Nathan - Pilot
Yevon Si - Engine bay officer
Aisha - Weapons officer
King - Repair engineer

Chapter two
Stardate 9036.17, pirate controlled sector.

Captains log, entry by Nathan, stardate 9036.17
After leaving the outpost, we made our way through rest of the sector without sign of rebels. We encountered a few pirates while we were approaching next sector, currently under pirate control, but most of them took a single gaze at our Pike beam and decided to hunt easier prey. We had to teach a couple of those scums a lesson, but after our ion blasts had taken their shields down and our mighty Pike beam had teared their hull apart a little, every one of those attackers fled, surrendered or were destroyed. We managed to free one prisoner, an engi, from a slaver ship. Like many of these allies of ours, King is nowhere near talkative, but he is a wizard with spanner and so good addition to our crew. We are currently approaching a distress call emitting from lone space station...
Captains log, end of entry.

---

Nathan squinted a little while cautiously guiding the Noether towards space station emitting distress signal. He had hailed the station repeatedly, but no one had answered. King appeared on the doorway.
"No answer implies... no people" King said. "Sensors... not picking live signs."
"Yeah" answered Nathan. "But we still should check it out."
"They quiet... implies they gone or dead. Docking... not good."
"If we are lucky, we might find something usable, like drones, weapons, medical supplies, fuel..."
"Acknowledged. Salvageable goods mean... better chance of survival."
"Indeed."

The Noether docked to the station. Nathan and Aisha put on their life support suits and picked up a couple of blaster rifles from armoury, just in case. Who knows what diseases or hostile aliens might lurk inside the station. Sensor readings had lied before...

"Opening airlock" Aisha said. They heard a faint hiss when pressure between airlocks of ship and station regulated. Nothing yet, station still had air in it. Readings of their handheld sensors showed nothing toxic in the air. So far so good. The two zoltans cautiously entered hallway of the station. The first door on the right led to crew compartment, second to storage. They found nothing useful in the storage, but on the left side of the hallway they found command center of the station. From the log files they found that this station had been operational just a few galactic days ago, but was hastily evacuated after pirate assault. They found some fresh maps of the sector and stripped off everything they could. It wasn't much, some two drones' worth of drone parts, one unit of fuel and little scrap metal.

The Noether undocked and prepared for a jump.

---

Three beacons and zero encounters later Nathan began to worry. It was rare not to encounter a single ship in this ling a time, but maybe luck was on their side once. Nonetheless, Nathan started to feel a bit paranoid for all this silence but he deliberately pushed these thoughts out of his mind as he and his crew prepared Noether for another FTL jump. Nathan entered jump paremetres to FTL navigation computer and initiated jump sequence. Seconds before jump Aisha contacted Nathan through intercom.

"Captain, multiple ships jumping in. Picking up jump signatures from multiple rebel vessels; at least four elites , two riggers and..."
FTL activation cut Aishas speech.

---

As the Noether arrived at the destination beacon, Sensor readings went completely out of charts. Nathan gazed out of window.
"We're in a nebula!" he shouted. "This wasn't on the map!"
"Maps inaccurate." King responded. "Mean accuracy... 88.7 percent or less."
"Shit shit shit shit. Let's get the heck out..."
Nathan never finished his sentence as the ship jolted violently.
"We've hit, auto-scout detected!" That was Aisha. Nathan responded.
"Charge up weapons. Take that bastard down."

Auto scout had formidable arsenal, but only mediocre shield system. Nathan was sure their ion blasts would take those shields down quickly. Auto-scout fired it's dual laser. Nathan dodged the first shot, but the second one slammed into their shields.

Aisha took his time to lock ions on the auto-scout before firing. They didn't have time nor power to waste, so every shot should count. Aisha gained lock just as the supercapacitors of both ions had charged.

Aisha pulled the triggers, and supercapacitors discharged into gas chamber, superheating and ionizing the mixture of nitrogen, xenon and iodine. Four superconducting coils then accelerated the lumps of blue-glowing ionized plasma out of the gas chambers and to speeds of multiple kilometers per second.

Meanwhile Yevon had hard time vectoring the thrust of Noether's engines to complement Nathan's evasive maneuvers. He really wasn't fit for this; he was trained for duty on scientific vessel, not for combat. Nathan and Aisha both had former military career, but Yevon had never been in a situation this hectic. He was doing his best nevertheless, but he was the weakest link in their chain and he knew it.

Nathan's voice echoed through intercom.
"Shields holding. Incoming missile. Enemy shields still up, we missed."
As the enemy missile slammed into their super shield, completely knocking it out, Aisha responded.
"Another volley of ion ready. Pike beam charged."
"Fire at will"

This time Aisha fired the ions in one-two manner. The first one hit auto-scout's shields, short-circuiting it's shield system. Second ion hit engines, partially disabling the engines, living the auto ship sitting duck for the pike beam. Aisha fired, and the beam cut across the auto-scout, tearing apart it's hull and completely destroying it's navigation and targeting computers. Another shot from pike beam cut the auto-ship in half, and Noether's crew salvaged what they could.

"Phew, that was close." Yevon.
"Yea. Next shot would have hit us." Nathan said. "Probably we could have dealt with it, but it would have made damage nonetheless."
"Great piloting though, captain."
"Thanks. How long for FTL?"
"27 secs until full charge."
"Good. Let's get the heck out of here, these nebulas freak me out."
"Me too, captain. Me too."

---

Noether jumped away, but when they were gone, an unnoticed cruiser slided out of nebula to the jump beacon to read the Noether's jump signature, preparing its FTL drive...

To be continued...