Valkyrie Rising by Evan Currie

Author:Evan Currie [Currie, Evan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Atlantis System

Admiral Nadine Brookes looked out through the large, transparent, aluminum bulkheads that permitted her to watch over the ship with her own eyes. It was a design compromise in some ways, but like the designers, Nadine couldn’t quite imagine being completely restricted to repeater displays.

The entire observation deck could be sealed off in emergencies, along with the entire island that sat along the rear of the Cheyenne class hull. She wasn’t alone on the deck; it was a popular place whenever there was anything worth looking at in the immediate environs, and this time there certainly was something worth looking at.

Their colliers had arrived in-system several days after the battle had ended, and they were now parked all around the damaged alien warship. Their crews were swarming all over the imposing bulk of the ship, tearing it down with laser cutters as they sliced the big ship into pieces small enough for the squadron to haul back to Earth.

By the time anyone had gotten to Hayden to check on the last ships destroyed by Earth vessels, they’d actually been nowhere to be found. Given the extreme speeds they’d been travelling at when they were finally destroyed, it seemed likely that the hulls were either speeding off into the galaxy at large or were caught in an extremely long orbit of Hayden’s star.

This time, Nadine had sent most of her squadron to anchor the ship and pull it to a stop. A messy and dangerous business, they’d still managed to bring it to a rest, relative to the local star, and now Earth had a shot at a real, good look at the guts of an alien ship.

All depending on how much of it survived the nuclear weapons detonating inside its armor.

Still, even pictures of destroyed technology might yield clues for the researchers back in Earth Space, so no matter how badly the interior was torn up, Nadine wasn’t about to pass up this chance.

Still, the sheer size of the alien ships necessitated taking their time and cutting it up. When they had it down to manageable-sized chunks, they’d chain them to the hulls of the Hood and Cheyenne class warships and jump them home using the more powerful reactors on those ships. For the moment, however, it was up to the colliers and support ships and crews to get in and see the job done.

“Admiral.”

“Captain,” she returned without looking away from the vista beyond the bulkhead.

“I’ve finished speaking with the colony administrators,” Patrick said, his tone clearly relieved.

“And did they finally accept that we don’t have remotely enough lift to evacuate them?”

“I think so,” he replied, sighing. “Though I expect that the USF is going to be getting a request for significant transport over the next few months.”

She nodded, accepting that. “Might be for the best. We just don’t have enough ships to protect all the colonies and outposts.”

“True, but we can’t abandon the investments we’ve put into these colonies, Admiral”

“Patrick, if we can’t protect it, we’ve effectively already lost it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.