Labyrinth (Closed)
Posts: 896
  • Posted On: Jul 28 2006 6:28pm
Somewhere out in space, in an asteroid located to far from any imperial or coalition presence, rested several ships with there engine's powered down. They drifted in space, using only there thrusters to pervent themselves from hitting any asteroid's or other foreign debris that might bring them down.

If you where to take a closer look at this fleet, you'd have noticed it was comprised of two carriers, three frigates, and numerous corvette's and command shuttles.

"Status?" A commander aboard the carrier asked

A female officer looked at the sensor screen before relaying the feed into a holo image, the image was very clear and showed what was in front of them. A second later she pressed a key that caused a box to appear and zoomed into a area in the asteroid field, there the box distorted, before being realigned by the onboard computers. "Six ships sir, all with pirate insignias. I'm seeing one heavy cruiser, the rest are frigates." she said as she switched to a map overlay.

The ships where very far from them, in fact, they where well outside the passive detection range that would've picked there ships up. "I see...." he said with collapsed hands. "How many fighters you reckon?"

"I recommend six SF Fighters and two SF Bombers." She stated and turned in her seat. "Although I also recommend we equip with the new cloaking drives."

"Do it.." he said

Somewhere else in the ship another young officer walked down a corridor, the corridor's wall's where adorned with different pictures and plaques. "Gold Squadron... huh..." he said and tossed his drink into the trash can that was conveniently located under one of the pictures. "Bitch only got that position because Lavality favors her." he said and walked into his quarters, he threw his helmet down on the bunk. He was about to get some rest when his quarters was bathed in a bluish hue, he grabbed his helmet and ran out of his quarters, not even bothering to lock the door behind him.

It would take him only a few minutes to get to the hanger bay, but when he did, it was a bustle of activity.

Of course if you where outside the ship you wouldn't even notice that the ship and crew where preparing for a battle. The ships where running silent and no lights of any type where on, a large metal door had slammed shut over the normally open hanger bay that was only protected by a force field.

"Cloaking status?" The captain asked and was rewarded with a nod from his weapon's officer. "Order all ships to cloak, give an order to the command shuttles to attach themselves to the asteroid's and to engage there disguise cloak." he said

Outside all six of the command shuttles used there thrusters and moved toward one asteroid, it was a large roid that floated aimlessly in space. As if beckoning the shuttles to use it, at which point they did and attached themselves to the asteroid. A few second's later there hull turned a blue color before a holographic image of the asteroids surface appeared around the shuttle, it was now indistinguishable from the asteroid itself.

"Good.. good..." The captain said and looked at another display

In the hanger bay the young officer ran in and jumped into his fighter's cockpit. He checked everything and made sure nothing was misaligned. "Where using the cloaking drives so..." he said and opened a private channel with all his pirates."

~Ok everyone, before we launch. Remember, turn active sensors off. Engage proximity sensors and set them to 1000 meters. After which set your cloak to collapse's when you fire, but to re-engage when you stop firing.~ he said and made sure his worked. ~Now, if you want to be able to see out in front of your cockpit without worrying about you holographic display, then set your cloaking drive to only twenty five percent. This'll render you invisible to sensors, however keep in mind that while you may be in invisible, your fighter will still have a faint outline in space, that being said an operative pilot WILL see your fighter. A rookie won't because they won't know what to look for...~ he smiled

He took in a breath before continuing. ~Now remember, the bombers will be flying in complete cloak, so link your sensor suite to there's so they'll know if they are in course.~ with that he engaged his cloaking drives.

Outside the fighters faded slightly, but was still visible. Of course the light in the hanger bay is what made it visible, since the blast doors where down over the hanger bay exit, the fighters took another form of exit - the launch ramp.

While not used in any ships in this day and age, the Seren's had much use for it since there ships mostly operated under silent running.

"Ok..." the pilot said as his fighter floated to the launch ramp, the skids under his fighter touched the magnetic clamp and stayed in place. He raised his hand and gave several hand signals before hitting the booster. His fighter blew out of the small opening in the back of the ship and into space, he watched his fellow squad mates as they did the same and soon they where on there way.

They flew over the asteroids, nearly hugging them to take advantage of the element of surprise. As they got closer the bomber peeled away and used there landing skids to attach to the asteroids. There they used the cloaking shroud to make themselves appear as one with the asteroids. "To bad only bombers and command shuttles are equipped with that type of ability. Would prove useful to a fighter." the young officer said as he dodged an asteroid.

When he flew over another several enemy tie's, x-wings, y-wings and few other pirate variants flew right past them. They nearly scraped his hull and one almost slammed right into him, but all missed; a grin formed on the pilots face as he came about. He looked at his fellow pilots before opening a private comm.

~All fighters engage!~ he yelled

His fellow pilots disengaged there cloaking drives and opened fire. Within second's over ten of the fifteen enemy fighter's where nothing but blazing debris in space, some of that debris crashed harmlessly against an asteroid, others just floated in space.

The young officer engaged his cloaking drive. "Set it to twenty five percent, drop the active sensors to 0%.. after all I don't need it since i can see the enemy in front of it, after that bring the cloaking up to the fifty percent and bring spatial sensors to max." he said to the astromec unit in the back.

His fighter cloaked and began slightly harder to see now than before. He tailed the fighter in front of him but failed to notice the one behind. He looked as the sensors and smiled slightly before pushing his fighter around a very large asteroid.

The two enemy fighters flew around and around but finally stopped and drifted in space. It was as if the pilots where trying to find who they where chasing, suddenly four angry red energy beams fired from a crevious in the asteroid and struck the cockpit of one of the fighters. Another two red shots slammed into the other fighter's engine pods, which soon caused the fighter to blew up.

"Amateurs..." the officer said as his fighter slowly moved out of the crevious, it wasn't cloaked anymore. "Cloaking confused them and made it easy for me to hide in here." he said and looked at the pirate ships

~Bombers, you are CLEAR to engage. All fighters have been elimananted!~ The officer shouted over the private comm.

Out in space you couldn't see the bombers as they slowly moved toward the pirate ships, however if looked hard enough you would've seen two asteroid mysteriously moving toward the pirates, while they where moving in the right direction, it was almost as if they where being guided.

Of course those weren't really asteroids, just the bombers capitalizing on successful usage of the disguise cloak. While they had been attached to the asteroid the co-pilot in both bombers had managed to upload enough information to allow the onboard astermec unit to create a similar asteroid, just a lot smaller, to encase the bomber.

The bomber's didn't use there engines so they weren't picked up until it was to late - the discuss collapsed and the bombers opened up with there torpedo's, completely decimating the pirate fleet.

"Hmm.... that heavy cruiser is disabled isn't it?" the captain asked and another officer nodded. "I'm reading escape pods being launched."

The commander was very happy about this. "The trials are a success," he said and got up. "I should congratulate them on a well created drive."

"There are still a few flaws though."

"what's that?"

"While the drive does allow them to remain invisible to enemy sensors, they still can't operate on FULL cloak." The officer said. "As long as they operate on partial cloak, they'll see what's in front of them. Coupled with the holographic imaging technology that was built into there sensor suit, even with partial cloak they will still be able to see pretty well."

The commander nodded. "Although we can't put that type of cloaking on our capital ships can we?"

"No sir. The only cloaking that we can have on capital ships is the inability to be picked up on sensors; we can still be seen by sight." The officer said but smiled slightly.

The commander nodded once more before leaving. He waited until his pilot had landed and told them they had done a good job, now the fighters where ready to be used by the main force of the Serendivus