"Captain on deck!"
"""Captain on deck!"""
Stepping into his new office, Mike surveyed the combat information centre from his central map plot. With a layout like a skyscraper, Mike found himself inside an armoured bulkhead and directly in front of him were the two helmsmen, seated next to navigators, to the left were the weapon control officers with their electronic warfare specialists and point defence system officers. To the right were the drone operators and damage control officers while behind Mike was filled with logistics and comm specialists. Having looked into the eyes of every single person directly under his command, Mike's face remained entirely expressionless as he spoke up.
"Here's the deal people, I'm not here because I want to. Given the chance, I would rather command my own vessel, but desperate times command desperate means and I've been directly commissioned by both the commander of the royal guard and empress of the Solar empire to captain this vessel and make no mistake I will run the tightest ship any of you sorry excuses for warfighters have ever seen. While I'm not navy personal I can do each and every one of your jobs better than you, try and fuck with me and I won't give a shit about propper procedures, is that clear!?"
""""Sir, yes Sir!"""
While the CIC's response to Mike's little speech at least appeared genuine, small talk immediately broke out after.
"... Helm, new course 254, 89! Increase speed to 590 m/s!"
Instead of an immediate response to his order, the helmsman just turned in his chair to look at Mike, in response Mike instantly drew his pistol and unloaded it into the helmsman's chest.
"Mike! Cease fire!"
Not reacting immediately due to shock, Mike's XO Jack only managed to stop him after Mike's 3rd shot.
"I have no fucking use for incompetence! Be glad I didn't aim for your empty excuse for a head and get the fuck off my ship!"
Having made sure he didn't shoot anywhere he could penetrate the helmsman's armoured vacuum suit, Mike nevertheless grabbed the stunned officer by his neck and threw him out of his chair right as an emergency communication came through on the main holographic display in the middle of the CIC.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE!?"
Having received an alert that shots had been fired inside one of his ships, fleet commander Simon instantly chilled the heated atmosphere inside the CIC before he calmed down slightly when he saw the offender was Mike.
"Care to explain why you're shooting at my officers Mike?"
"Sir, your officers here don't seem to respect my orders."
"And that gives you the right to shoot at them?"
"Yeah, if they won't respect me or my orders I will make sure they fear me instead. The job you've tasked me with is to command, I can't do that surrounded by incompetence."
While Simon had been expecting trouble from Mike after appointing him to command a cruiser, the speed at which Mike started a fight had come at a surprise.
Still, the Solar empire needed Mike a lot more than Mike needed the Solar empire, and although extreme, his criticism was valid.
"... Next time you discipline your ship make sure not to use your gun, and don't kill anyone, even slightly broken I can still use some spare officers, even incompetent ones."
"Right-o bossman, I'll keep it to just my fists next time."
Having made sure he and Mike were on the same page, Simon made sure his staff officers understood the current situation.
"While Captain Mike isn't part of the Solar navy he has been directly commissioned to take this post by both myself and her royal highness! Not only does that mean his word is the same as mine and fully capable of fulfilling the duties, but Mike here is also our foremost expert on our current opponent. Disregard his orders again and Mike might not kill any of you because I ordered him not to, but make no mistake, I will make sure you would be better off dead!"
Cutting off comms before he blew a fuse, commander Simon instilled the entire combat information centre with the fear of god as he left Mike to the rest. Slightly bewildered, the helmsman pulled himself together before punching off the bullets that had been stopped by his bulletproof vacuum suit.
"New course 254, 89, increase full ahead flank right?"
Confirming Mike's orders the helmsman showed at least some of his professionalism as he put the entire event behind him.
"Right, take your girl for a spin, I want to see what she can do."
Pulling the helmsman up, Mike got the first-ever respectful response from the crew.
"Sir, my pleasure sir."
Finally getting the show back on the road, Mike returned to the central map plot as the Valourant finally got underway and started accelerating to flank speed.
(... 42 seconds to full speed, she is a fat lady alright, but can she dance?)
"Cut throttle and rotate, return us to the beacon asap"
"Copy, rotating in 5, sending ship-wide alert, extreme manoeuvres imminent."
As the Valourant cut power to its main drives, Mike rested one of his mag boots against the map plot as the helmsman banked his ship over hard, flipping a full 180 degrees before lighting the afterburner again to cancel out forward velocity.
"She's dancing all right, let's see some jukes! Helm, emergency evasive manoeuvres, give me some banks, Jack, don't let the others just sit and twiddle their thumbs, paint some calibration targets for weapons and have nav and sensors do a full sweep. If they can't work under full load I don't need them on my boat!"
Making sure both his XO and the rest of the crew were busy while he gave the helmsman his personal attention.
"Sir! Starting emergency evasion patterns!"
"Weps, targets! System reference 22-delta-echo! Maps and navs recalibrate all sensors and get me a full scan for tangos!"
While Mike and his new XO were busy beating their crew into shape, River and Jessica were doing their own preparations for departure from the former crown world of the Solar empire. Lucky enough to have a ship capable of the long duration required to reach the galactic centre with relatively good sensors, the pair were tasked with operating at the tip of the flotilla and would be finding safe passageways around Eden forces while scouting targets where the royal guard could 'repossess' supplies in route to the galactic centre.
Doing simulator flights to get used to their two-person setup of River acting as both pilot and navigation while Jessica handled weapons and drones, River quickly came to the conclusion that their performance would be down a bit without Mike, but not really that much.
The real problem with not having Mike onboard was communication, while both River and Jessica had gotten relatively good at understanding each other 99% of the time, the critical problem was the 1% when it really mattered that they were on the same page.
Elsewhere in the galaxy interest was also concentrated on the Solar Empire capital planet, while the Eden theocracy suffered an embarrassing defeat against the heretics the first time around, things would be very different this time around.
"While they are no doubt primitive, these heretics at least have some backbone…"
Having pulled together a proper task force consisting of 4 inquisitors this time around, inquisitor Joa, Iris and Mya were discussing their impression of the heretics while inquisitor Lua kept silent still carrying the shame of defeat from last time around.
"Backbone? You can't be serious. They're abandoning about ⅔ of their people to die, worse yet they're justifying it with a fucking lottery system. It is straight-up revolting, thinking they have the right to decide who lives and who dies when that's so far out of their authority."
While Inquisitor Joa was quite enthusiastic at the chance of finally fighting something that could kick back, Iris on the other hand was more preoccupied (and disgusted) by how the bugs she was about to squish needlessly squirmed around committing blasphemy by trying to control when they lived or died.
As if mere heretics had the right to try and take that away from here, Iris was already determined to skin every single one of the heretics alive for that transgression.
"It's not just that they think they can decide what kind of penance to give us, but due to incompetence they actually think they can get away with it."
"The fuck did you just say?"
Precisely because she was still ashamed of her defeat, the mere insinuation that she was incompetent was enough for inquisitor Lua to blow a fuse, meanwhile, Iris felt like Lua had shamed the entire Eden theocracy and thus deserved all the shit she gave her.
"You heard me bitch, the mere fact you're still here after returning home a loser is graceful enough of me, be thankful I restrain myself, Lua."
"You fucking!-"
"Let's leave it at that shall we?"
Speaking up for the first time in the meeting, Mya instantly put a damper on the situation as her blood-red eyes filled to the brim with bloodlust bore holes into both Lua and Iris. The most senior of all inquisitors present, Mya's scar-riddled face was clue enough that she was the only one among the group of inquisitors who had seen any kind of worthwhile fighting doing the last major round of rebellion within the Eden theocracy, if not for her propensity and enjoyment of slaughter Mya would have made cardinal a long time ago.
"After the heretics abandon their planet Lua will move in and cleanse it, I hope you are able to do that much without failing?"
Facing the full blunt of Mya's bloodlust, most of Lua's higher functions shut down, if she wanted to survive she knew she had no other choice but to obey.
No matter how shameful it was.
"Y-yes, it will be done."
"While Lua cleanses the planet the rest of us will go around and set a trap. These heretics can damage our ships, but they won't ever get that chance again."
"... Respectfully, inquisitor Mya, I'm not so sure it'll be possible for us to take them by surprise."
Disagreeing with Mya's opinion, Joa only showed a thin smile in response to his superior stare.
"Explain."
"Lua talked with one of those heretics, did you watch that footage?... I did, and judging by how he reacted, the heretic seemed too smart for someone that's supposed to know nothing about our ways or weapons… Then there's the other issue."
With an almost child-like smile, Joa mentioned something all the other inquisitors had overseen.
"The scavs haven't been suppressed recently, I imagine they might want a piece of the boon too."
-
"Captain! Multiple unknown contacts detected, they just appeared out of nowhere!"
Rudely interrupted in the middle of his playing around, Mike focused on the central map plot to see what his maps and navs officers were flipping out over together with his XO of all people.
"They shifted in from witch space so that's par for the course Jack. Sound the fleet-wide alarm and move into attack position, we're stopping them here before they get too close."
Looking around at his officers Mike had half expected some of them to refuse, but finding they were at least professional enough to follow his lead he started addressing their nerves.
"Our new guests here can't even manage to stick in formation together, we have pirates on our hands, let's show 'em what's good… Weapons, start with the largest target and work your way down from there, they're happy for their armour and redundant systems around here so don't bother with all that and just take out the bridge and one side of their engine clusters, the idea of an armoured CIC is a foreign concept around here."
As the skyscraper-sized cruiser came alive to execute Mike's orders, the rest of the Royal guard finally scrambled in response to the fleet-wide alert that had just gone out.
"Target acquired, killing with ripple fire."
Classified as a railgun cruiser, the Valourant came outfitted with not only 6 bow-mounted high calibre guns independently powered by their own fusion drives but also a slew of turret-mounted medium calibre railguns that were already starting to tear the smaller pirates apart.
"Opening up on first contact, their shields seem to be down!"
As Jack reported, the Valourant's first salvo tore directly through the hostile Eden cruiser, perhaps lacking maintenance, properly trained crew or even both its shields weren't nearly sufficient to counter the Valourant's railguns firing in series focusing on the bridge. While the first 2 penetrators harmlessly shattered off of the Eden cruiser's armour, penetrators number 3 to 6 tore directly through the entire length of the ship, puncturing not only the bridge but also multiple critical systems and detonating at least one ammunition cache.
"Great effect on target, first contact breaking up!"
"Counterfire detected, their lasers have minimal effect on our shields but I'm also picking up something strange."
"Weps keep taring them a new one, unknown contacts are shielded torpedoes, give them a lot of personal attention."
Responding to the weapons and systems officer's callouts, Mike was about to correct the helmsmen's course when he did it himself instead.
(I guess commanding really is just that, they're not kindergartners so unless something goes really, really wrong this will be easy sailing.)
With the largest ships of the pirate formation taking the brunt of the Valourant's fire, morale quickly evaporated among the poorly disciplined forces and what semblance of organised resistance quickly stopped.
"Right, weps seize offensive fire, sys and maps, locate neutralised hostiles and prepare for boarding operations. It's time to gather some intel."
""""Sir, Yes Sir!""""