"Prepare to iniate stardrive."

"Helm ready, sir." Replied the helmsman.

"Nav ready, sir." The navigator called out.

Astronavigation, and engineering replied inturn. The captain waited, observing the red supergiant. "'Once more into the breach.'" quoted the captain of theKSS Skate, Lt. Commander John Bigsly. Drawn out of his thoughs by the appearance of the KFS Blade, just coming into the system, John said, "There she's safe and sound, iniate the stardrive."

The long black ship turned towards the red incadecent ball of gass and sped up. Super heated ions flared accross the magnetic sheilds. When the ship was deep enough into the magnetic well, the stardrive flared thrusting the sixteen thousand ton ship into the curved space between two stars.

"Stardrive activation successful, arrival at the Maxtra V system in 14 hours." Remarked the man at the Astronavigation seat.  The captain thought for a moment, "Stand down from general quarters in 10 minutes, we'll be too far into the curve to be pulled out by then. I'll be in my wardroom. Ship's officers are to join me there in half an hour." John always felt like a fifth wheel, during a star jump. Having nothing to do but make the crew nervous, he usually spent his time in the wardroom reviewing what was known of the next star system.

It was only a short time before the ships doctor, Lt Jeff White wandered in and sat in his usual seat. "Good moring John." He said in way of greeting, bags under his eyes and his hair still damp from a recent shower. Like the captain, the ship's doctor had nothing to do during a star jump, hopefully.

"Hrmm, morning." was the reply from beneath the coffee cup.

"How are things with the captain, on this fine day?" Some obscure rule was written in an obsure place that required ships doctors to inquire on the health of the crew as the first topic of the conversation.

"Worried."

"Why's that Captain?"

Looking up the captain reconigized who he was talking to, "I'll tell you and the rest of the officers when they arrive."

"Tell us what, sir?" Someone said from the doorway. Looking up John reconized the Deffensive Officer LT j.g. Bob Brown. Still young and energetic, but also constantly worried about whatever might affect his job of defending the ship.

With an amused shake of his head John just said, "I'll tell you and the rest of the officers when they arrive." A look at the clock showed only five minutes to the end of the half hour.

Taking a cup of black coffee, Bob took his seat and waited with the other two officers, neither of them speaking. It didn't seem to be the proper time to desturb the captain in his thoughts.

The last three officers joined the meeting in the wardroom. All sections of the ship's 52 man crew were represented: Engineering, Offense, Defense, and Control. When all were seated the captain spoke up. "The Maxtra V system worries me. The Blade will be coming though 12 hours after we arrive. The system contains a Blue Super giant. A hot young one, throwing out lots of magnetic interference. We won't be able to do a complete check of the system in 12 hours." He turned to look at the offensive operator, Willam Mckensie. "Are the torpedos, and railgun fully operational?"

"Yes they are. We're only carrying two, as you know. But they're fully functional, and stored in the internal bays. The mass and magnetic sensors are also in the internal bays. I'm having some of the techs check them out right now. But with only 2 we won't be able to put up much of a fight. We still have 500 shots for the rail gun, but they won't be very effective if we meet anything larger then a frigate."

The skate was one of the newest torpedo ships. Capable of carring eight of the latest SAST-5 torpedos. Four ready for firing on external hardpoints and four sitting in internal bays ready to be loaded onto the external hardpoints when they were cleared. Torpedos mounted on the outside destroyed the steath charastics of the ships hull, so the skate was carrying only 2 in the internal bays. The other two bays were filled with sensors pods that detected the mass, and magnetic profiles of other ships. Since most ships have hulls shaped and built to defeat active radar and infared these sensors were needed for the Skate to complete its mission. But like the torpedos when the sensors were extended outside the ship they destroyed the stealth of the ship.

"That's the problem with these new torpedos. Sure they can take out any ship, almost impossible to detect after they're launched. Almost impossible to destroy too. But when they're mounted they take up too much room, and the hardpoints reflect radar like a mirror." Bob comented, not liking the new torpedos at all.

"Before we get into an arguement about how good things were in the old days, we have to figure out what we're going to do." The captain put in before the wardroom turned into a war room. Defensive Officers and Offensive Officers have a long standing rivaly. One's task is to defend the ship, and the other's is to destroy any ship they come accross.

"We have two torpedos and the rail gun. We can use the rail gun to take out the smaller ships, and significantly damage destroyers. We don't have the option of taking a quick scan of the system and then running back to the Blade with a report. The Blade will be in system 18 hours after us. It takes 14 hours to make the jump. We have one beacon we can send back that will take 2 hours to reach the blade.

"That means we have 2 hours to scan the system to detect hostile forces. With the magnetic interferance we'll only be able to scan two percent of the system in an hour. Which leaves ninety-siz percent unscanned before the deadline." His eyes wander over the other officers, "And you all know what that means."

"We have to put our torpedos into anything that can take out the Blade, and hope to heaven that there isn't more then two of them out there." commented Offense.

The captain nodded, "Right. Any cruisers and destroyers we'll have to take out. And hope that there aren't any carriers or battleships. The blade can take out any ship that opposes it, but it needs at least a minute, maybe two after its jump to charge its shields and guns. But it will launch its point defence fighters when it arrives insystem. That's standard procedure."

"But PD fighters are useless against rail guns and capital ships." Defense commented.

"Right. It'll take at least 5 minutes for the Blade to launch its interceptors and fighter bombers. And then they may not be armed for what is needed to take out opposing ships. So we need to take out any ships that can damage the Blade. It would be better if they gave us three days to do a proper scan of the system and then report. We have 2 hours."

The captain went on with his thoughts, "Now the admiral knows how hot this system will be. This is only one of three systems that the Blade will jump to.  But all the routes she can take will lead here. It'll depend on the reports from the other star systems, if they're hot she'll take the jump directly to here. If she does come through here she'll send a beacon to us that will arrive an hour before she does.

"The good news is that the Chester and Winshire will make the jump half an hour before the Blade. And they'll be able to help up with any trouble. Fifteen minutes after they arrive another two ships will make the jump. I don't know which two, but most likely one will be a tender, and the other an arsenal ship.  We don't have codes for any of the fleets arsonal ships. We may be able to get the codes from one of the arriving ships."

Everyone thought about the current situation, "So if there's any ships larger then a cruiser in Maxtra V system, then the Blade could be in trouble." said the defensive officer.

The captain just nodded, looking from officer to officer, "So I suggest you get your sleep, run your final checks and be prepared for anything."

Everyone was a battlestations, the Skate was getting ready to complete the jump though curved space. Tension was thick, the the crew were professionals and prepared for surprises. The countdown was falling slowly.

Astronavigation started speaking the countdown at ten. The captain looked deep in thought when the countdown reached five. "Helm, immediately after the jump I want a thirty degree change in heading. I don't care which thirty degrees, just give me thirty degrees." The captain didn't leave enough time for an 'Aye sir' or any questions. It's very dangerous to chain heading immediately after a jump. The ship still in transition from one gravity well to another, and the effects of traveling in the curved space between the stars. Those three factors increased the ships mass enormously, until the drives could shed the effects of the jump maneuvering the ship could tear it appart.

Helm made the course change immediately after the jump, but the helmsman did it gently. The bridge crew nervous about the results.

"Fighter sensors detected. Bearing in on jump insertion point." Shouted out the man covering the sensors.

"What type?"

"GSRQ-18, sir. Heavy fighters probably."

"Full stealth running!" ordered the captain.

All over the ship, laser cannon barrels retracted into their turrents, the turrents retracted into the ship. All the engines were shutdown, covers closing over the main engine vents, and maneuvering thrusters. The only thing that was left to break the stealth profile of the ship was the rail shotgun. Its barrel to large to retract, the turrent too large to enter the ship. Internal power was switched accross to batteries.

"All stations report stealth running." The cheif of the boat reported.

"What's the status of the mass cloak, batteries and star drive?"

"Mass cloak operating, batteries at one hundred percent, star drive charge is at forty-eight percent."

The captain swore under his breath, the jump took more energy then he thought. They'd have to run the engines to build up enough charge to make another jump.

"Sensors! How many fighters are out there?"

"Five, two with 18s, the rest with 15s" commenting on the sensor types

"Any intership communications detected?"

"Negative."

"Where are they?"

"Range two hundred kilometers, 180 degrees theta, 30 degrees fi." Giving the cordinates relative to the ship. Two hundred kilometers out, directly behind the ship, and 30 degrees above the plane of the skate.

"Raise the camera and aim it at those ships." Still useful, a pureply optical device raised into a bubble on the top of the ship gives a good view without revealing the ship. "Display on the main screen."

Slowly the computers were able to analyze the ships in the view, and determine what they were. It was nearly ten minutes before a positive identification was displayed. "Two interceptors, and 3 fighter bombers. No external tanks. Those models have an approxmate range of 10 light seconds." The COB said.

"Sensors! I want to know the second anymore ships are detected. Nav! Plot a course that intercepts those fighters incoming vector one light second away. I want to be there in four hours."

"Aye sir, that puts us at 21 kilometers per second, we can't run with our hydrogen scoops."

"I know. Engineering!" The captain shouted, "What's our fuel status?"

"We're at eighty-five percent, captain."

"Sensors! In an hour's time I want you to deploy the mass detector and magnetic radar. Those fighters should be back at their base by then."

The captain sat back in his chair and waited.

The hour passed slowly, at least for the captain. Sitting in the bridge chair waiting for sometihng to happen doesn't lend itself to make things interesting.  Fortunately the hour passed unevenfully.

"Deplying sensor pods now captain. Expecting complete sweep in two minutes." Outside the ship, bay doors opened breaking the smooth profile of the ship.  Two torpedo sized sensor pods were deployed. With the advent of stealth technology in the 20th century convientional sensor technology became less and less useful. The sensors carried in these pods gave the torpedo ship advanced scout characteristics.

Normal radar and infred sensors are easily bypassed. Advanced radar asorbing materials and a smooth well engineered curve is all that's needed fool radar.  Hiding the engines inside the body of a ship, venting the exhaust properly whipped out the IR signature of the engines. Running the super cool liquid hydrogen though the body of the ship and proper insulation removed the last traces of heat that can be detected.

The pods that were now locking into place used different technology to sense their prey. the first looked for the curvature of space caused by the mass of a star ship. The second sent out specially created particles that decayed sending out radio beams, if these beams didn't reach the sensor pod on the way back then the computers onboard assumed something was in the way. The nature of the systems made the first undetectable and the second only remotely more noticable.

"Large mass detected 23 theta, negative 5 fi range 15000 km." Sensor's reported.

"Hrm, good guess." The captain muttered to himself.

The report from the sensor pods were still coming in, "Large area in that direction not returning magnetic radar. A circle of approxametly 5000 km."

"Increase focuse on mag radar."

Seconds passed before results came back from the sensor pod, "Still nothing, even at maximum focuse the mag radar cannot detect any individual ships.  Blanked out area is a perfect sphere 50 km accross."

The captain looked at his executive officer, "That means either a very unusual rock or shield ships." Shield ships were small ships that were deployed by convoys. Equiped with only a small engine to keep up with the convoy and an enormous shield generator. "Activate the camera. Helm! Take barings from sensors. Sensors! Retract the pods. Sound general quarters!"

Throughout the ship alarms rang and men rushed from their of duty stations to general quarters. Having only an hour to relax from the stand down of general quarters, all were awake and waiting for the call.

"Pods retracted Captain!"

"Following bearing Captain!"

"Put the output from the camera to the tactical screen." From there the captain, XO and Weapon's Officers could view the display without disturbing the crew. One enlisted expert was also with the officers, running the equipment to bring anything into focus. But nothing appeared.

"Slow ship to 5 km per second." The captain said, not wanting to run into something they can't see. At this rate it would take them the better part of an hour to reach the object.

"Those fighters came from this direction, we have something the camera can't see, even with out back to the star. If it was a rock then we'd see it. Gentlemen I think we have found what we don't want to find here." The captain paused, "Sensors! Deploy the mag radar. Do a sweep to make sure we're going in the right-"

"GSRQ-9 Radar's dead astern!" Shouted out the man montering the detectors. "Looks like 5 of them. Coming up fast." The camera swiveled in its mount and tracked in on the approaching radars, "Looks like point defence fighters. Not heading directly towards us but they'll be close. Give them10 minutes."

"Change heading 30 degress theta, 20 degrees fi. Increase speed to 10 km per second. Make sure all outer doors are closed. Sensors retracted into their bays.  All turrents retracted and put our belly towards them so they don't see the RSG." The ship violently pitched to the side as the helmsman moved the ship to the proper heading.

Five minutes later the captain ordered the engines to idle and the exhausts closed. All sensors were shut down, the only eyes of the ship were detectors the senced the enemy radar and the camera. The point defence fighters flew on, not detecting the torpedo ship.

"When they pass I want to start tailing them. There's no way we can keep up but it looks like they're heading back to that sphere of ours." The captain left the tatical board and went back to his chair.

The fighters approached the sphere, the camera on the KSS Skate still couldn't pick up anything coming from the other side of the wall. Suddenly something happened. It was as if a curtain was moved from a window. The fighters went though the open shield, and it closed.

"All stop!"

"Aye all stop." Helm reported

"Helm get us to within 10 km of that shield, sensors deploy the mag radar and keep pinging that shield so we know have far we're from it. Don't let us get closer then 2 km." The captain walked back to the tactical display.

"Replay the camera... Freeze frame there." The frame froze midway between the opening and closing of the shield. "Select each ship and run a match on them."

The results came back slowly, some of the ships hiding the ships behind. "Looks like we have a nice taskforce out there. From what I can see we have 2 destroyers, 4 frigates and about 5 shield ships. There must be something else in there if they have those shields." He looks up at the wall, "It looks like we're down to 15 minutes to send the beacon back to the Blade. We know the system is hot, and we're going to send back the beacon. What we have to descide is do we send back what we have with it or do we investigate farther?"

"If the other systems the Blade can choose from are also hot, she'll definetly come here if the admiral thinks there is only 6 ships to oppose him. But there's at least on carrier in there or something. We've seen 10 different fighters and only those 2 destroyers have the capability of carry fighers, and only point defense." Commented the XO.

The captain sighed, "2 destroyers, 4 frigates and 5 fighters that couldn't land on any of those ships. The admiral would have my hide if I sent that back." He looks at the clock, "10 minutes, before the beacon starts back before the escorts start their jump. We have three options: Send back this report and possibly lead the Blade into a trap, wait and hope the shield will come down so we can get in there and make a proper report. Or send in a torpedo, blow one of those shield satelites run in with full sensors running, run out and send the beacon, before the shield ships close the breach. On both those last options we have to kill a shield ship to get back out. That leaves us with one torpedo."

The other officers looked at each other and at the captain, then the clock. "Kill a shield ship and hope they don't kill us before we get the beacon off." The XO said for the rest. The captain nodded, "Battle stations! Deploy the torpedos and turrents!" The crew was surprised but didn't hesitate as they rushed to do their duties. The captain and the officers ran to their chairs and strapped themselves in, just like the bridge crew was. Outside the ship the two 50 m long torpedos were pushed out of their bays and onto the racks. The 10 anti aircraft laser turrents were deployed and the RSG barrel was raised off the hull of the ship.

"I want torpedo 1 programmed for full manual targetting. If it loses telemetry before a final target I want it to hunt the nearest shield ship and destroy it."

"Aye sir." A pause, "Torpedo 1 programed and ready for launch."

"Fire!"

The massive cylinder left the rack and shot off towards the shield. Its bore laser activated when it got to within a kilometer of the shield, opening a hole to pass though. The inside view of the sphere came back, "2 more destroyers and another 10 shield ships detected."

"Aye." The captain said quickly looking at the pattern trying to find the key shield ship, but the shield closed to quickly.

"Telemetry lost Captain."

"Engineering prepare for flank speed. Full Sensors!" Not just the two podded scout sensors were activated but the old style radar was switched on. Without the stealth profile of the ship and the active sensors turned on the Skate was advertising it's presence.

"RSQ aim --" The captain begain the order.

"Shield collapsing." The massive ship-killing torpedo found it's targets. Without the shield ship the balance of the shield collapsed.  

"Flank speed! RSG aim target all shield ships." The captain sighed again, wasting a torpedo on a sheild ship was a disappointment. The Skate only carried 2 torpedos, 1 now. Torpedos that could kill a carrier or dreadnought if they hit in the right spot. Two would kill any ship. A shield ship was lightly armored and very small, the lasers on the Skate could take one out.

The Skate accelerated to its maximum speed of 50 kilometers per second, aimed directly into the heart of the sphere.

"Dump the raw sensor data to the probe, tell me when it's full." The Captain told the man on communications. "We don't have time to analyze it before the shield reassembles. Offense hold weapons but the RSG! Defense you have weapons free!"

"Point defence fighters coming in, looks like the five we saw before."

"Feed fighter data directly to defence, I don't want to know about them right now." With incoming sensor data coming in, fighters sure to be launching, captial ships now targetting the Skate, he didn't want to get overloaded with the information. He'll let the defensive officer handle keeping those ships away.

"Aye sir. New contact heavy crusier turning towards us."

"Bearing?"

"30 t, neg 10 f." The bearings clipped to save time.

"Change course neg 15 t, 30 f." The captain wanted to avoid that cruiser but still dive deeper into the bubble. He could easily destroy the ship but didn't want to waist his last torpedo.

"New contact 3500 km, heavy carrier, directly inline."

"Time for beacon?"

"2 minutes."

"This is going to be close."

The fighters were finially within range of the Skate and starting to unleash their gun and missles at the sleak ship. Lights dimmed as the shields absorbed the impact of both laser and projectile.

"Cut engines! 180 degree flip and then get us the hell out of here!" The captain ordered as the shields began to fail. A violent shake went though the ship as a rail gun shell ripped though the side of the ship.

"Destroyer within range." The man at sensors said a bit late.

"Evasive maneuvers, delta 3 S till we're clear." Hoping they could outrun that ship. "Where are those shield ships?"

"2 bearing, 2 t, 16 f."

"Head towards them, RSG don't target those ships. When we get past them cut the evasive maneuvers and switch the engine to interplanetary speed." Doingthe switch removed 99% of the maneuvering capabilities of the Skate but increased the speed to 500 km per second.

"Aye sir."

Another shell lanced though the hull of the ship this time sending the skate into a tumble. The bridge crew was shaken up.

"Make the switch now! Offence get that damn destroyer before it gets us." Short seconds later the last torpedo left its rack and started tracking towards the destroyer. The shelling stopped almost immediatly as the destroyer was now doing its own evasive maneuvers. They might have worked, with the improper targetting from the Skate and with the destroyer being behind the torpedo's tracking system. But these were the SAST-5 torpedos newest of the space anti ship torpedos. The tragetter controlled the missle until the destroyer was locked on and then let the electronics do the rest.

The torpedo traveled at over 1000 km per second, faster then most fighters. Along with the shield bore, it carried its own shield to protect it against small rail gun and lasers. The destroyer didn't have a chance to target it's large naval rail guns on the cylinder before it hit. The 20 kg anti-matter warhead made short work of the destroyer and any fighters in the vacinity. Plus it gave the Skate enough interference to escape.

It did just that, rocketing out of the area at 500 km per second before any of the ships could catch it.

"Send the beacon now!" The captain ordered as he watched the clock only seconds remaining before the timelimit was reached.

"Can't Captain! Launch tube jammed."

The captain swore and emotions were running high. "Switch the drive back to combat propulsion. Change our heading by 90 degrees, activate the stealth systems and retract the turrents. We may ride this out yet." The captain paused, "And get me a damage report." No pursuit followed, only long range interceptors could reach them now and none of those were yet in space before the Skate was away.

Scanning the damage report again, the captain swore again. One shell had hit behind the bridge and the other along the side of the ship. The first doing the most damage. Four of the lasers were out, the hull was breached in four places. The Star Drive was a damaged and could probably be repaired if men could get back there. Thankfully the bridge, gunnery and engineering compartments weren't hit, none of the 52 man crew was seriously injured. The bad news was that the mass stealth device was damaged and couldn't be repaired without a tender. The ship's radar profile was damaged, it was now detectable with conventional sensors, though the chances were low.

"Get the hull patched first, then fix the Star Drive. We're going to have to get out of here soon." The captain stood up, "XO you have the bridge. Keep us away from that task force, and see if you can get us to our fleet's jump point. But not too close they'll have patrols out there as well." He walked to aft of the bridge and into his cabin. Disappointed that the Skate took damage, waisted its torpedos and didn't even get a chance to send off the beacon. In hindsight he should have sent off the beacon first and played it safe. At least he got a destroyer and several fighters.