“What do we have out there, Mr. Hoshi?” Captain Jones turned to his science officer. “Sensors are having a hard time reading it, captain, but from the general shape, it looks like a Saxon class frigate.” “Or what's left of it.” He turned to the view screen. Of course, the cameras delivering the video feed to the command centre were in need of a good maintenance, but the Valiant was three months away from Baikonur Shipyard, so they'd have to do with poor video footage till this rotation was finished. Even with the fuzz of the cameras, he could make out the various features of a Saxon. The large engine bay stood out, even with half of it missing. The turret frame, normally in the centre of the ship, still looked reasonably intact, but the hull next to it not so much. “Take us in a bit closer, Miss Dunn.” The Valiant, slightly larger than the wreckage in front it, moved sluggishly towards the debris. “Captain, I don't like the look of this.” “Neither do I, Alex.” Alexei, the tactical officer looked at his console. “Looks like she was hit with a couple of Longswords, hull penetration matches.” Jones turned to his officer and said “Longswords? Those are long range support weapons, not something for up close and personal fighting.” Alexei smiled, then replied “Good to see you still remember your courses at the Academy, Daniel. Unfortunately, we can't quite tell who did it in, but Longswords are usually ours, so that ship was probably ran by the Mars Federation.”

Jones turned back to the view screen. “Miss Dunn, how close are we to the nearest trade lane?” The helms woman seemed a little confused by that, but checked the convoy log stored on her computer, “Pretty close, Captain, around a days travel. Last ships through here, according to the logs, was a Bästastålet Smelting Group convoy from the asteroid belt to Baikonur. Convoy book says that they were being escorted by an Alaska class cruiser, the EMMS Endeavour.” Alexei spoke up from his corner of the command centre, “The Endeavour probably did this, then. With how close this ship is to the trade lanes, it was probably hunting for freighters.” Captain Jones turned a glance towards the view screen, “That seems about right, but why would a single frigate attack a convoy escorted by a cruiser? Something doesn't feel right. Hoshi, give me an active scan of the area. Miss Dunn, back us off from the debris, I'd like to put some distance between us and it.” “It'd be nice if you could make up your mind on whether to be closer or not, but okay, backing us off.” The Valiant's forward manoeuvring thrusters fired, rotating the ship along it's axis before shutting off and letting the horizontal thrusters level the ship out. The main drive engaged, pushing the ship away from the debris. Hoshi blinked at his console, then looked at the captain with a frown. “Captain, looks like we're not alone out here. We've got what looks like a small squadron of corvettes nearby, but due to the debris I can't give you any precise information on where they are. Energy emissions are low, seems like they are trying to hide.”

Alexei looked right at Captain Jones, then, in his normal, cautious voice spoke, “Could be scavengers looking for a haul. Might be some Martian ships looking for their missing ship.” Jones sighed, then turned to Hoshi. “Submit standard identification request. Miss Dunn, get the engines ready if this gets hot. Alexei, open missile tubes one and two and get the flak turrets online. I'd like them to be able to see our teeth.” Mr. Hoshi grabbed a radio headset and calmly spoke into it, “Unidentified vessels, this is the ECS Valiant requesting identification. I repeat, unidentified vessels, this is the ECS Valiant requesting identification.” Alexei tapped his computer display, arming the ships weapon systems. “Daniel, I've got the weapons online, my gun crew in the turret report ready to fight. She's good to go.” Mr. Hoshi took off the headset, throwing it to one side of the console. “Captain, we've got a response to the message. Unidentified craft are powering up. Looks like we'll have a fight on our hands. I've got four, no, five bandits on sensors.” Captain Jones quickly looked at the radar map. They'd been surrounded by the enemy ships, with no way of escape. He'd have to fight. The enemy ships started to move on an intercept, one of them, slightly larger than the others took the lead of the enemy assault. “Miss Dunn, take us in pursuit of the lead enemy vessel. Alex, get me a missile lock on that craft. Order your gun crew to fire on the leading hostile craft's wingmen. Let's see if we can't get them to back off.” The Valiant turned towards the enemy with a few quick bursts of thrusters, then charged at the enemy on the main drives, it's flak turret firing at a rapid pace turning the wreckage field into a war zone. Metal shards from the shells scattered in all directions, some of which hit the Valiant itself. “They are on our tail, captain!” “Full stop, lower our vertical!” “Alright, captain, let's hope this works.” Daniel turned to Alex just as the enemy ships strafed the hull. The room shook as the enemy cannon fire slammed into the hull, but before they knew it, the enemy were right in front of them. “Alex, fire those missiles!” The missiles left their tubes and jumped into action in seconds. The fighter was fast, but the missiles were faster. In just a few seconds, another piece of debris joined the field in the light and heat of a corvette explosion.

“Alex, reload the tubes, switch to shrapnel missiles. Open tubes three and four, let's not give them time to get back on balance. Miss Dunn, re-engage the main drive, let's chase these guys down.” Mr. Hoshi, who had been sorting sensor information, suddenly spoke, “Captain, looks like this is just a distraction. It seems that a small shuttle craft has docked on board the debris of the frigate. Looks like some kind of cargo shuttle, not sure what they could be carrying.” The captain broke his stare at the sensor images before turning to his science officer. “It'll have to wait till we've sent these guys packing. Then, I'd say we should go check out what they are looking for.” The Valiant's flak gunners weren't exactly known for their accuracy. They've not had a fight in months, especially since the ship was assigned to one of the least important patrol routes. Still, they could nail a few hits here and there and when you use Flak you don't necessarily have to hit directly. A shell from the flak cannon hit just close enough to one of the corvettes to send it's shrapnel straight into it's engines. The corvette leaked fuel like a man who had his hand cut off with an axe. “Daniel, my gun crew got a hit on one of the enemy craft and disabled it. We're down to three hostiles. The missiles are loaded and good to go on your orders.” Daniel smiled, it wasn't often that they had a battle, and even less often that it went so well. “Fire.” The Valiant's missiles cleared their tubes in seconds. The four missiles split up into two groups, one shrapnel and one regular missile in each group, before hunting down the enemy corvettes. The first group's missile hit a corvette dead in the centre, blowing it clean in half while the shrapnel missile detonated right behind it, sending steel spikes straight through the ships hull. The explosive missile in the second group, however, hit the corvettes sensor array with the shrapnel missile exploding just behind the ship, with the shrapnel flying through space to hit it directly in the engines. Half of the engines cut out, but the other engines kept running. Flying blind and with only one engine, while just about to enter a strafing run was most certainly not a good idea. “Captain! Enemy corvette is about to collide with us!” Captain Jones grabbed his radio and yelled “Brace for impact, I repeat brace for imp-!”

The corvette hit the Valiant at a diagonal, just in front of the engines but behind the ships magazine. The crew quarters. Captain Jones was knocked off his feet by the hit and the command centre's lights flickered as the power connection to the ships reactor was interrupted before the power was redistributed through other systems. His vision still blurry from the impact with the ground, he grabbed the edge of the sensor map and lifted himself to his feet. “Everyone alright?” He looked around the bridge. Mr. Hoshi was fine, since he had managed to get his safety harness on in time, albeit just barely. Alex, on the other hand, was bleeding from several cuts and scrapes from when he collided with the standing tactical console. Miss Dunn, however, was face down on her console. Daniel ran over to her. Her head had hit her console at full force. He checked her pulse and listened out for her breathing. She was alive. She had survived. Mr. Hoshi yelled towards the captain, “Final enemy ship is backing off! I've called for the medical team, they'll be here any moment.” A stern, and rather angry sounding voice came over the intercom. “What the bloody hell were we hit with? I've got red lights across the entire crew quarter section, there are broken power conduits on that entire side of the ship, and don't even get me started on the atmospheric system damage!” Alexei grabbed the radio and filled chief engineer Roberts in on everything he had missed the last few minutes. Captain Jones, on the other hand, tried to keep standing as the medical team came in through the door. One of the EMTs checked up on him quickly before loading Miss Dunn onto a cart to be taken to the ships sickbay. Jones took a look around his command centre. The ship was pretty beat up after the collision, but it's nothing time and a little elbow grease couldn't fix. “Alex, close the tubes and tell your gun crew to see if they can help with the damage. Seems we were unlucky, this time.” Alexei nodded at his captain, then grabbed a radio to give his orders.