Firestorm.

[Kadaeux]

Captain Adrianne Swan sat stiffly in her command seat, after an 8 hour shift she could almost think of nothing except a hot shower and meal followed by another six hours of sack time, but it was not to be, the ship was on combat stations after the sensor crew picked up a jumpgate emergence, but nothing had come through to all appearances.
Adrianne almost thought she could sense a phantom vessel out there tracking her frigate with all weapons brought to bear.
Fighter patrols had been escorting her sensor cutters as they made intense sweeps of local space with some of the most powerful sensors that the Libertanian possessed.
'Status Lieutenant?' She called out with a musical voice.
'Bug Eyes report nothing other than jump residue.' A dour faced man in a starched uniform replied with a voice almost as stiff as his uniform.
'CONTACT!' Called out a young cadet manning one of the sensor stations. A quick successive callings out of the other cadets confirmed the sensor contact on their own boards.
Adrianne turned towards them keying up the battle-tank in the centre of the CIC. A holographic display showed the other vessel in stark relief as it sat there to all appearances dead in space. 'Configuration?' She asked as the Lieutenant called up the referencing system.
'Unknown, presumably of Gothican manufacture, it appears deficient in armaments, only two gunship bays. Unable to scan more than 70% of the vessel.' The Lieutenant called out as the battle klaxons began blaring.
'Engage target!' Adrianne said calmly, the first catch of a long patrol, the simple needs of cleanliness, food and sleep forgotten as the rush of blood responded to the call of battle.



Lord Captain Kyagan smiled grimly, the Frigate was more than twice the size of his Destroyer and predictably chose to engage in combat with him. 'Prepare firestorm weapons systems, power up primary weapons but place them on hold. Launch gunships with orders to engage the enemy fighters. Their bug-eyes are primary targets.' Kyagan watched the tactical display as it registered the launch of the two raven class gunships, in response the Libertanian frigate launched the remainder of it's squadrons.



Adrianne watched earnestly as the two groups of vessels, hers and theirs, converged in the tactical tank. She refused to look at the optical scanners pickups now, the enemy vessel had a way about it, her eyes seemed unable to focus on it. She knew it was a popular Gothican fitting to their stealth ships. It made individual vessels nearly impossible to identify. 'Open fire with the particle lances.' She called out to the crew. A screeching filled their ears for a moment as the weapons discharged at the closing destroyer.
'No effect Captian.' Adrianne's weapons officer replied to the unasked question.
'Launch protocharge missiles and torpedoes.' She answered calmly never expecting the Particle lances to have much effect this early in the engagement. The deck seemed to leap as the missiles and torpedoes threw themselves out of the ships propulsion envelope.



Kyagan smiled as the missile and torpedo launches were detected the moment they left the launch tubes. 'Hard to starboard and hold position, present our port side, open firestorm gun ports, range 3 million kilometres, saturation flak fire. Also arm the secondary flasher gunports, same range and saturation. Program 20 minute fire pattern. On minute 21 engage cloak and full acceleration.'
In a flurry of confirmations the 2 Kilometre long destroyer swung 90 degree to starboard presenting the port side to the Libertanian Frigate, close to 500 gunports opened presenting the twin barrel firestorm cannons. In sequence the barrels thudded back against their stops increasing in speed until those in the soundproof gunnery shelters could hear a dull screaming of the frictionless metals. A nanosecond later the ammunition hoppers began feeding high explosive shells into the system at a rate of a million rounds a minute, the hoppers screamed and the metal shreik of the rail-cannons thudding out the firepower at a quarter of the speed of light shielded in their own propulsion envelopes.




At a distance of 3 million kilometres a curtain of fire one hundred thousand kilometres in diameter seemed to explode in a curtain of destruction and superheated shrapnel controlled by the propulsion envelopes. The proto-missiles and torpedoes slammed into the impenetrable curtain with seemingly no effects as the destruction shredded the missiles apart at a near atomic level preventing them from detonating.
Minutes later the Frigate began firing it's energy weapons into the cloud in an attempt to disperse the constant fire enough to get clear sensor readings but the flashers amongst the destruction kept throwing out sensor ghosts and jamming fields in intense quantities, after twenty four minutes the cloud of death dispersed and neither the Destroyer, its gunships or the Frigates own strike craft or Bug-eyes could be found.

Adrianne was in a rage, it had been nearly forty-eight hours since the short engagement left her feeling deflated, not a trace of the battle could be found other than energy residue common of any combat engagement, not a single fragment of her fighters or sensor cutters could be found, let alone the enemy destroyer and gunships.
It was almost as if it had merely been a test, but she had seen it, almost felt it on a tangible level. If it was a weapons test there was no way they would be left alive to tell of it's devastating results, she knew damn well what would have happened if her Frigate had been within the zone of destruction the enemy had just exhibited.
'Sensor contact aft!' An ensign called out having replaced the cadets since the engagement now the training was called to a temporary halt.
The crew looked to her waiting for a response. All they saw was her shoulders sag and her burying her head in her hands, they didn't see it Adrianne knew, but it was already too late.

Moments later Adrianne and her ship was destroyed by the same firestorm that consumed it's missiles, torpedoes and beam fire earlier...



On board the Destroyer Vampyric Kyagan smiled, the test was a success, and not a single hitch in the process.