Chapter Seventy-Two: Audacity
Ross 248 March 14th, 3016
"Why is that second Yardship not moving yet?" Commodore Frye asked. "We've got the ships that can move out of the space station already moving to the jump point."
"Ma'am," The comms officer replied. "Marines are reporting that they are locked out of the ships systems, they can move the ship, but they're going to have to do it directly from engineering until we can bully past the lockout."
"Well, have them start moving then, we've got to start getting out of this system." Commodore said in response. "Have the mobile ships jump to the rendezvous point A system, we'll have the ones that can't move jump to point B and start getting out of this system before any enemies jump into the system."
"Understood Ma'am," The comms officer responded, "Relaying the message now."
"Alright people, we're going to need to maintain a careful lookout." She told her bridge crew. "We need to make absolutely sure that there isn't anything else here that might try and take a bite out of us."
"Mathis, am I hearing the comms properly?" I asked. "I was a little distracted pulling the last of the data."
"Yes sir, we've found five Elephant class dropships attached to the station." Mathis said. "They're stripping as many people as they can from the Sting's in order to crew them, and using the ones that had their gunships shot out from underneath them as primary crews."
"Makes sense." I replied before turning my high end comms gear on. "This is Marksman Actual, I need the stats on those tugs ASAP." I told anyone who was listening. "I may have a plan."
"Rook, is the jump calculated?" Paige asked the tech specialist. "Because we're ready to leave this godforsaken system."
"Yes Ma'am." He responded. "Everything checks out and we are able to move to Plan A." He paused. "Our Sting escorts are attaching to the collars now, we are ready to leave as soon as they are on board."
"Jump us out as soon as we have confirmation that they are attached." Paige told him and the Marines around her. "And when we are at the rendezvous point I want the company to move the POW's to the Stings for holding." She sat down in the captain's chair. "I don't want any escapees here."
"Black Lion is moving to the jump point along with the other three with intact drives." Sergeant Lovell reported to the officer in charge. "The Sting's are docking now with the recovered crews for the Elephants."
"Good, we're going to need to move quickly if we want to pull this off." The officer responded. "The rest of the escorts and aerospace fighters are docking with the Age of Discovery and heading to the rendezvous point in order to provide some extra firepower there."
"Hull wants us to prioritize the Cruisers and Destroyers." Lovell said. "If we can get those up and running later we'll have the makings of a decent sized fleet."
"This is Marksman Actual." came over their comms systems. "I need the stats on those tugs ASAP, I may have a plan."
"Safe thrust is 2.5gs, and maximum is 4, reinforced bow and has lots of internal cargo space." Lovell read off the computer screen in front of him. "What's the plan sir?"
"We're going to send the station into the gap between the systems after we've gotten the Warships we can out of here." You could almost here the grin in his voice. "If we can get all five of the Elephants to coordinate, we can shift the station and get it's orbit to shift to the gaps in between systems, allowing us to come and take what we need at our leisure."
"That'll take time sir, we've still got to get the Warships out of here." The officer reported. "We've only gotten the mobile ones out of here so far."
"I know it'll take time Captain, I'm not worried about it." Their CO inhaled audibly. "If the worst comes, we'll just scuttle everything and leave."
"Copy on implausible plan number seventy five." Commodore Frye weighed in. "We'll cover you, and I'll have some people start crunching numbers on where to launch it for ease of access."
"Get this hunk of junk moving." The marine Sergeant told the boarding crew onboard the previously enemy Warship, now theirs. "We have been ordered to move to rendezvous point B."
"Copy that Sarge." The marine in charge of navigation responded. "But you have to remember this is the secondary CIC, and we're unfamiliar with these systems. Give me fifteen minutes, and we'll be mobile."
"Sarge!" A separate member of the fireteam called out. "We've gotten all of the POW's locked up on the Archon's Favor."
"That's good news." The sergeant replied. "Most of these people weren't any problem, but station some guards just in case."
Ross 248 March 22nd, 3016
"That's the last one that we can manage." Lovell reported to Hull. "We've gotten all of them except for the Vincent's, the Congress, and that Aegis out and jumped to rendezvous point B."
"Good, Have the Manassas on standby to grab the rest of the Elephants after we're done." Hull replied. Two of the tugs had left with the Warships that had jumped out.
"Let's go." The infantry boarded the Colossus and got ready to leave the system while the three tugs all synchronized their drives and began to push the Space station out of it's stellar orbit and onto a path that would have it be in the gap between systems in half a year.
"Docking and moving to the jump point." The last tug docked with the Manassas; they jumped out headed for rendezvous point A.
Author's note: The list of ships that we managed to leave with are as follows. 1 Black Lion, 2 Lola II, 1 Volga, 2 Essex, 1 Aegis, 1 Sovetskii Soyuz, and two Faslane's. The second one is still locked out and will take months to break into the computer systems. We also managed to capture the Narbonne. But it'll need many months of yard work before it's able to be flown properly again.