Silently the Heavy Cruiser
Sanyangkkun (Hunter), a J
eonju-class Heavy Cruiser, drifted inside the planetary rings of the gas giant
Balam-i Haneul. Compared to other ships in the class, the
Sanyangkkun had upgraded and enhanced optics and active as well as passive sensor, built in for its purpose as a stealthy patrol ship. Additionally to that, the
Sanyangkkun had no FTL abilities, other than travel via the gate network. Instead it possessed a new type of experimental, interplanetary hyperdrive, allowing the
Sanyangkkun to ambush enemies by exiting hyperspace right behind them.
At this moment, the ship was not captained by her usual commander, but by someone you would not expect at the helm of a battleship, even less of just a heavy cruiser. But here she was, Princess Seo Mi Ran herself, the captain’s hat sitting on top of her head, her blonde hair slightly fussy underneath it. She refused to comb her hair stating that it looked a lot better when it stayed wild like that.
Even though she served as acting captain of the
Sanyangkkun, the insignia on her shoulder pads identified her only as a lieutenant. This trip was supposed to be her captain’s trials, the usual commander of the
Sanyangkkun serving as her evaluator. Yang Ye Jin would not be afraid to fail her, if the Princess didn’t do well enough to pass. From the point on where she got told that she had to evaluate the Princess, Captain Yang had to contain her scoff. A princess becoming a captain of the Royal Navy? Impossible. That girl couldn’t even rule properly yet.
All she had going for her was her popularity with the people. She was so young that she didn’t even have the name change yet, that was customary for the coming of age ceremony of the royal family.
If you asked the Princess about that, she would tell you that she will have her coming of age ceremony, where she chooses her new name and becomes the official Crown Princess when she successfully accomplished this trial. For the last two years, she had fought and prepared for it, all the while having to train for her royal duties as well.
“Seo-taeja, we have movement.” Seo Mi Ran slowly sat up in the captain’s chair. “Sensors conn, status report.”, she cooly commanded.
“Three blips just left the station. Trajectory seems to be the inter-system gate to the moon of the second planet. Taeja, they are headed to the Iridium mine on the moon, as far as we can tell.”
“We need to warn them, Taeja! They are completely unarmed!”, her second officer called out.
She stretched out the palm of her hand towards him. “No! We can’t. If we do that, we will blow our cover. Sensors, any visual on the bogies yet?”
“Negative, Taeja. They will be, though, in… 2 minutes.”
Seo Mi Ran nodded. “As soon as you have visual confirmation, tell me.”
A few more, almost silent, minutes later, the sensors officer called out again. “Taeja! We have visual confirmation. Two destroyer-class marauders and a cruiser-sized freighter, most likely armed. No known configuration.”
This was nothing uncommon. Pirates very commonly used makeshift ships cobbled together from several wrecked ships and mustered out vessels and this particular group of pirates was well known in the northern reaches of Cheonsang territory for its competent ship making.
“Gunnery station, make sure all gauss cannons are armed with the Shredder-Shells. Navigation, plot intercept course and warm up the hyperdrive.” In a hail of “Ne, bu-in!” and the occasional “Yes, ma’am” from the few refugees that had entered naval service voluntarily.
An impatient tapping of her fingers against the command console built into the armrest of her captain’s chair signified the Princess’ slight nervousness. She was about to engage in battle. Battle against a foe with more ships that, taken together, could potentially overpower the Sanyangkkun. A battle which would most certainly cost at least a few lives on this ship, only so she could get promoted to Captain.
It didn’t matter, the pirates were also threatening the fifty-odd people working at the mining station they seemed to be heading towards. As the supposed ruler of even those miners, she could not allow them to get hurt.
“Initiate hyperdrive! Main turrets armed, secondary to broadside configuration, torpedoes into their tubes!” A hectic, but orderly shuffle played out from the trained bridge crew following the orders of their princess. “Ready!”, the First Officer called out.
“Engage!”
A high pitch whine wailed through the hull of the ship as, in front of the
Sanyangkkun, a red rift opened up in front of the ship and started swallowing it until the ship was gone and with it, the rift closed.
In about a distance of one AU, right next to the cruiser-sized Q-Ship another red rift opened up and spit out the Sangyangkkun.
“Focus on the cruiser!”, Mi Ran’s order rang out through the bridge. All doubts in her mind were gone, her entire attention was focused on the matter at hand. “Turrets on target, Taeja!”
Demonstratively Mi Ran struck her index and middle finger out and pointed them forwards as she yelled. “Fire!”
Massive thunderous sounds rattled through the ship as the six double-barrelled Gauss-cannon turrets opened fire.
Trails of white magnesium smoke streamed from the shells into space. The superheated magnesium reaction propelled the shell forward even faster and helped with armour penetration.
With high force the cannon shells impacted on the armour of the Q-Cruiser before it could even react and activate the reactive shielding. The detonations onto the armour plating ripped it into pieces and armour debris was strewn out into space.
“Particle accelerator beams, fire!”, Mi Ran called when the smoke had cleared enough for the damage to the enemy cruiser to be visible.
By now, the escort destroyers had shaken the shock of a ship appearing out of nowhere and started firing. High explosive shells exploded onto the shield of the Sanyangkkun, but their kinetic energy was absorbed by the fully working shield capacitors.
Blue energy charged up in two balls at the side of the ship until it reached a critical point and a high-energy particle beam raced, at almost light speed, towards the cruiser and slashed into the hull structure of the ship and started superheating the plating until the first layer exploded outwards in slowly solidifying clouds of gaseous steel.
After a solid fifteen seconds of the beam lasting, it faded away to purge the charges accumulated by firing the particle accelerator.
“Fire the broadside torpedo tubes! Load regular ammo into the gauss cannons!”, Mi Ran ordered.
Flashes of fire erupted from the heavy cruiser’s broadside as a dozen torpedo tubes simultaneously propelled their payload forward towards the already damaged pirate cruiser. A few pitiful bursts of the remaining flak batteries connected with two torpedoes igniting them prematurely and sending blinding flashes of light into space followed by devastating shockwaves, which would seriously damage any fighter caught in a five hundred metre radius.
However, these few flak guns, that survived the battering their starboard side took from the expensive fragmentation grenades from the Sanyangkkun’s gauss cannons, were not nearly enough to protect the ship from the rest of the torpedoes and so a cacophony of bright lights danced over the hull of the makeshift cruiser annihilating any sliver of shielding and armour that was left.
Meanwhile, the main guns of the heavy cruiser opened fire upon the shielded destroyers, who were frantically trying to get close enough to the
Sanyangkkun to effectively fire their torpedo payload and guarantee several hits. Moving closer, though, meant that the secondaries, mostly small calibre kinetic cannons and plasma guns as well as several particle lancers, mostly used to combat fighter craft, but in their absence could also be used to penetrate shields, were able to fire and hit the incoming destroyers.
Before the two destroyers were even close enough to fire their torpedoes in hope of saving their flagship, the particle beams started charging up again. The two blue balls of light that were growing brighter and bluer arched forward again and spit out their charges in those brilliantly blue rays of death licking at the pirate cruiser’s hull and superstructure until the metal of the bow simply gave way and the beam poured right through the vessel exiting on the other side, quite literally impaling the ship.
After the beam had subsided, minor explosions racked through the hull of the ship until a bigger explosion separated an engine pylon from the main frame of the ship.
“Taeja, the enemy cruiser is breaking apart.”, the sensor officer reported matter-of-factly, to which the princess simply nodded. “Focus fire on the closest of the two destroyers.”
The constant fire of the primary turrets of the heavy cruiser soon were way too much to handle for the shields of a destroyer and with a flicker the yellow-brownish sheen that enveloped these pirate destroyers vanished leaving the hull bare.
Impacts of the heavy kinetic energy of the gauss cannons sent plumes of fire into space and with it, bits of the fairly light armour of the destroyers.
“Fire the missiles on the unshielded destroyer!”, Mi Ran commandeered.
Right behind the superstructure of the Sanyangkkun, which contained the bridge, were tubes for missiles, about one hundred of them. Now all of these tubes, in staggered order, fired the missiles, which arced towards the hapless destroyer.
A firework of gatling guns and flak cannons trying to intercept the massive amount of missiles erupted near the destroyer, but inevitably most missiles hit their intended target, one after the other engulfing the hapless destroyer in a flurry of explosions only interrupted by a single, big explosion that tore the ship apart.
“Destroyer one down.”, rang the report on the bridge of the
Sanyangkkun as the other destroyer frantically tried to close the range enough for it to at least deal some damage to the heavy cruiser. But that proved to be in vain, too, as the blue particle beams skewered the pitiful destroyer distributing its hull components over the nearby space.
“Destroyer two down, no further hostile contacts in sensor range.”
The princess sighed in relief. “Disengage combat mode. Damage report?”
“Nothing major, Taeja. The enemy didn’t even have the time to penetrate the shield properly. One electrical fire and a jammed small calibre gun. No casualties.”, her first officer reported.
“Good, good.”, the princess said contently. “Very well, then. I hereby renounce my position as acting captain of the Sanyangkkun and give my captain burden back to Captain Yang Ye Jin. I await her judgement of my abilities.”
The princess bowed, removed the captain’s hat, placed it onto the captain’s chair and walked through the doors of the bridge onto the now fairly lit corridors of the heavy cruiser towards her cabin. Despite her tough appearance and her strong mannerisms, she was tired now. It was not the same as the adrenaline fueled dogfighting she had experienced earlier in her training as navy officer.
But she made it through, most importantly, with no loss to the crew. She was quite relieved at that, but the next time, she was to command a ship, that would more than likely not be the case.
It seemed now, the way to her name day and coronation was cleared.
_____________________________________________________________________
Several weeks later, in front of the Royal PalaceThe crowd in front of the gates of the palace, mostly consisting of press and high ranking governmental officials as well as several high ranking navy officers patiently awaited the announced coronation and naming ceremony of their princess. The tension, a good kind of tension, was palpable.
When, finally, the mighty doors of the palace opened, they did not, as expected, see the Princess walk through, but the King and the Queen. Both positioned themselves on the topmost stair of the stairway down to the courtyard.
“My countrymen!”, King Seo Tae Sun exclaimed. “In everybody’s life, there comes a time when you have to make major decisions. During my lifetime I have made many such decisions that affected our nation, but now it is time to make my biggest decision I have ever made.”
“My wife and I have been ruling for more than fifty years and ever since we have allowed our daughter to try herself in the matters and affairs of the state, we have been more than impressed by her performance and are sure she will do very fine as the leader of this country.
As our daughter will become the queen of this country, Sa Ra and I are abdicating, hereby ending the Triarchy.”
A murmur went through the gathered crowd as they started to understand the consequences of what the former King had just said.
“With this, I am happy to announce the coronation of your new Queen! Princess Seo Mi Ran will from this day on be known as Queen Seo Nara! May she protect our nation!”
Despite the confusion of Tae Sun’s earlier exclamation a cheer erupted from the crowd, which silenced quickly when said person actually walked through the wide open gates of the palace.
Long white hair flowed in the draft, a majestic crown, the royal crown of the Cheonsang Kingdom, on her head accentuating her sharp, quite boyish face.
The more surprising thing, the thing that sent the crowd into more murmurs and very questioning looks were the pure white, majestic dragon wings proudly spread out as well as the soft, white scaled tail extending from her royal, warrior-styled dress.
Oh... she was
!
“My countrymen! Your eyes are not deceiving you. Remember when we found out that both Tatara and Nyali are merely modified humans? Turns out, our scientists were able to reverse engineer the modifications and re-apply them to humans.”
She stretched out her arms.
“Today, we begin a new era! In the last month, I have made sure that every major city in our Kingdom has a governmentally controlled conversion chamber where everybody who is willing to go through what I have gone through gets their new official ID.
I will also extend my hand to every refugee who wants to live in our country. With these new chambers, it is even easier for you to start your new life. You’re given, just as anybody who goes through conversion, a new ID, and immediate citizenship. You will be able to, right now, start contributing to this country of ours.”
She took a long breath and stared right into the puzzled and sometimes even staggered faces of the high ranking humans in front of her. The Tatara and Nyali, on the other hand, looked delighted at this news.
“We have the chance, my friends. We can make at least our part of the world better, even if others try to destroy us. With this, we can finally rest easy that there will be no racial tensions amongst us, because we will be able to fully understand each other.
But, let me address this to those of criminal mind. You will not be able to use the chambers as a tool to evade justice! The chambers are equipped with DNA scanners. Anybody found with matching DNA to somebody connected to a crime will be caught.
Today is the day, when everybody wanting to live here, can do so. And those who already are, can finally choose who they want to be.
I remember that I envied the Tatara for a long while. I have watched my personal guard, her body radiating with a warrior’s spirit and I had asked myself the question again and again, why I could not be like her. But now, I am.”
Slowly, her visible excitement toned down and she got serious again.
“But… as joyous as I am about this chance, I have other matters to address as well. Our neighbours, the splintered factions of the old, fiendish Imperium, are tangled in war once more.
To all independent nations, as the new head of state, I declare our nation to be neutral in this squabble. We do not want to be involved in your petty wars over this or that.
With this, my first royal decree, I proclaim military ships, without the intention of surrendering or seeking medical aid, both of which have to be clearly stated by visible flags or signs, to be shot down inside our borders. This is our sovereign territory and we do not wish our front yard to be just another battleground!”
With this, the new Queen saluted the people and walked back into the palace, her naked feet, without scales or claws as some other Tatara, sounding audibly on the stone.
Member
Grey
Apollosarcher
