ALJ Chpt 1

frameless|right|300px|link=A Long Journey
Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
==Chapter 1 - A Long Journey==
----
4 April 2774
Al Na'ir (Terran Hegemony)
Commodore Patricia Mitchell, commander 83rd Fleet Recovery and Salvage, one of many thrown together commands to assist in emergency repairs of damaged ships, watched her escort, a single Essex II Destroyer bear down on the incoming three Vigilant Corvettes. Besides deploying all her Dropships, which she had done already, her Jumpships were helpless for another 27 hours. The Essex II managed to hammer the first Vigilant hard enough that it lost all power. As it turned maneuvered to engage the next Vigilant, missiles streaked across space and a nuclear flash hit the Essex II causing near catastrophic damage, but as the missiles were inbound, return fire from the Essex savaged the second Vigilant which caused a massive explosion, obviously an internal ammunition explosion. The dying Essex II raked the third Vigilant with fire but not enough to destroy it as it bore in on the lightly defended Jumpships.
She had three Elephant Dropships deployed and all three were on an intercept course for the incoming Vigilant, and they had deployed all twelve of their small craft. The lead Elephant took a beating from the incoming Vigilant, but it's stiff armor kept it in the fight. She saw the Elephants engines flare bright as it accelerated towards the Vigilant, it never wavered and matched the evasive action of the Vigilant impacting at full thrust, both vessels seemed to merge into one and then exploded. 
She felt the tear in her eye break loose as she gave the order for one Elephant Tug to make for the dark Vigilant and commence boarding action with their marines and the second Elephant to grab the Essex II. 
----
7 April 2774
The massive emergence wave caused a brief panic until the incoming ships IFF reported friendly. A Riga II Destroyer and two Essex II Destroyers escorted the massive Newgrange Yardship into the Zenith Jump Point. They had been summoned by a lurking Bug Eye in the outer system. 
"Rear Admiral Beckley is hailing us, ma'am."
"Good to see you, sir." Commodore Mitchell said
"Sorry we are late, I heard about your losses and am sorry for them also. Status?"
"The Essex II will need an extremely long stay in a shipyard, estimates are over a year. She took a nuke that almost broke her back. She has a ton of warped frames. We captured a Vigilant Corvette, probably a month in a yard to repair her." Commodore Mitchell replied
"Push the Essex II into the sun, we do not have that kind of time."
"Aye sir, replacement escort?" Commodore Mitchell asked
"We do not have the ships to spare Commodore, the SDS systems are proving to be more deadly than predicted."
"Admiral, that last Vigilant almost got all of us, my entire squadron. We cannot operate without an escort. I have over a thousand personnel out here doing EVA work on ships that should be in shipyards. Repair the Vigilant and we will use that as our escort ship. We have recovered 80% of the Essex crew and they can man the Vigilant, hell, they already are. The armor is easy to fix, but it needs new reactors, engines are fine, but quite a few weapons are offline or destroyed." Commodore Mitchell argued her point
"One month, Commodore Mitchell, that is all I will allow. Get the Vigilant into the Newgrange. I have a priority meeting to get to, I will return and when I do, all repairs halt. Clear?"
"Yes sir, one month of repair time. No problem, sir." Commodore Mitchell replied
----
13 April 2774
"Patricia, glad you made it. What have you brought me to fix this time?" Commodore Paul Jamus asked
"Vigilant Corvette we captured. It's going to be my new escort but I want to make some changes. Not really structural but it should not be too hard for your Newgrange to handle. I have seen them strip 90% of the armor off a Luxor Cruiser and replace it in just over a week." Commodore Patricia Mitchell said as she handed over a list of changes she wanted to make.
Commodore Jamus looked the list over and coughed "Jesus, Patricia, you are almost redesigning the damned thing. Your going all energy weapons, gonna need a bigger reactor suite to handle the load plus additional wiring. HPG? That could cause some problems down the road, those are super controlled items."
"We play right after the initial fight ends, I like being able to call for help if I need it. You saying it cannot be done?" Commodore Mitchell asked
"I didn't say that, just that there will be hell to pay later on. Not sure I want my head under the ax." Commodore Jamus replied
"I got you thru astrophysics and navigation. All the extra hours working with you in the sims. I even covered for you when you were technically AWOL. I was there for you when needed, be here when I need you, Paul." Commodore Mitchell said
"No need to play the trump cards, Patricia, we will make it happen. I have some excellent ship wright engineers onboard who can work magic. But we are even after this, we are still friends but my debt to you is paid in full, agreed?" Commodore Jamus replied
"Clean slate, Paul. I will even owe you a favor. You need me, I will be there." Commodore Mitchell said
-----
5 May 2774
The rechristened SLS Second Chance, Vigilant Corvette was like a new ship, she was almost brand new after all. Her armor had been upgraded and increased, 90 tons of Improved Ferro Aluminum now coated her hide. She had a Mobile HPG installed along with a Large Naval Comm Scanner sensor suite. Her weapons were totally revamped, a pair of NL/55 now occupied each firing arc, a pair of HNPPC were mounted in each broadside, each firing arc also included four large pulse lasers and a point defense bay of four small pulse lasers. Her onboard fight compliment had been increased to twelve. The changes actually increased her cargo capacity to 14,067 tons and every crew member AND attached bay personnel and marines actually had their own quarters, even if the marines were assigned to steerage level quarters, it was better than being in a bay. Twelve hundred double heat sinks now could handle every weapon firing around the clock. 
Instead of four reactors, she now sported two, but these were meant to power a Lola III Destroyer, a ship 5 times the Vigilant's size and easily handled the load required from the new Vigilant Corvette. They just barely made the deadline, but they made it.
Rear Admiral Beckley looked over what work had been done and blew his top. "What the hell did you do, Commodore Mitchell? I said repair her NOT redesign her into something else. I should have you court martial for this. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"She is repaired, we had to make some changes. Neither of us had any NAC/10s to replace the ruined ones. Nor did we have the right reactors. No sense putting in the reactors and have so much power we could never use. I pulled the weapons from my own issued equipment. When they formed these Recovery and Salvage groups, we were given leave to modify designs to fit mission profiles or to make battle ready ships recovered. I have replaced Naval Lasers with larger ones if the power plants could handle the load on my own authority. We work alone with minimal outside support so that the main fleets can continue the fight against Amaris. I have had you yourself tell me that every ship is extremely valuable and we must make every effort to return a repairable ship to service. I did just that, sir." Commodore Mitchell replied
"You will never make Rear Admiral, I can promise you that. You hear me, Commodore Mitchell?"
"Loud and clear, sir. May I return to my squadron now, we have missions to complete?" Commodore Mitchell replied stiffly
"Dismissed, Commodore Mitchell, return to your taskings." Rear Admiral Beckley said sternly
----
Chapter Note: Record Sheet, SLS Last Chance
----
Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
1