Lieutenant David Walkerton surveyed the horizon in front of him, seeing exactly nothing, just like the last six times this hour. Honestly, if there's nothing on the radar, there's gonna be nothing for me to see from here, he thought somewhat resentfully to himself as he went back into the safety (and warmth) of the bridge of the aptly named C.N.S. Tenacious, rubbing the feeling back into his hands. Then again, our ships are difficult to detect with radar also, so you never know he grudgingly admitted.
"Anything out there, Lt?" asked Ensign Shayrp from his position over by the helm.
"Nothing, as usual," Replied Walkerton, glaring a bit at the helmsman before returning to his position over by Commander McFarland in the command chair. "Nothing unusual to report, sir," he stated, offering a salute. "The horizon is clear as far as can be seen."
"Thank you, LT. That will be all," replied McFarland with the ghost of what could have been a smile. "Now go get yourself some coffee or something. Can't have you dying on me just yet."
"Of course not, sir. Then you'd have to find somebody else to stand on the balcony with binoculars," answered Walkerton as he moved toward the captain's prized coffee machine. After he got his coffee, he moved over to stand by the window, partially to continue his watch and partially to celebrate being able to do so indoors. As he was peering out the window with his binoculars, however, he noticed something he hadn't seen the first time: pillars of oily black smoke rising just above the horizon. He whipped around back toward the command chair, his coffee forgotten in his haste. "Contact! Smoke, fifteen degrees off the starboard bow!"
McFarland sat bold upright in the chair and immediately began issuing orders. "Wake the captain! All hands, yellow alert! Prepare firefighting and rescue teams! And alert the flagship that we may have found Covenant's fleet. Ensign Shayrp, make for that smoke, full speed."
"Full speed, aye!" called Shayrp as he turned the ship toward the rising smoke and increased the ship's speed.
Despite the frantic pace of activity on the rest of the ship, the bridge was nearly silent as the Tenacious sliced through the water toward those ominous clouds of smoke.
Captain Joshua Arthawes had been in the navy for his entire life. He'd seen a lot of horrific things, both human-caused and natural, but he'd never seen something like this before.
Stretched out before the Tenacious was a scene of utter devastation. The surface of the water was littered with the remains of ships, lifeboats, and bits of bodies, and all of it was engulfed in a sea of flames. Contrary to popular belief, when a ship is sunk, there is rarely anything left of it floating on the surface. Since modern ships are made of metal, and metal doesn't float by itself, the entire ship will simply slide under the waves, sometimes in a matter of a couple hours. What does float are the lifeboats, as they are designed to do, the bodies of the crew, and the fuel. And if there's even a small source of flames anywhere, all of that fuel floating on the surface will ignite and just burn, ceaselessly. That appeared to be what had happened here, and it left the entire scene looking like something out of an apocalyptic painting. The whole sea appeared to be ablaze, with the charred remains of humans and lifeboats drifting through the inferno. Captain Arthawes and his crew looked on silently as their ship cut through the devastation, searching for any survivors, or even anything that might still be afloat where they could have sought shelter.
"What happened here...?" breathed Ensign Shayrp as he looked on in shock at the scene spread all around them.
"North Covenant and Iryllia must have gone at it," said Captain Arthawes, his face grim as he surveyed the area. "And judging by the markings on the majority of those boats and the uniforms of the men in the water, North Covenant lost." He refrained from saying 'the uniforms on what used to be men'; he didn't need Shayrp to throw up on his helm.
"Captain, we just received word that two Destroyers and a tow ship just arrived from the Second," celled the radioman. "They're making a sweep parallel to us to look for survivors."
"Very good. Tell them to maintain contact, and inform us of anything they find," replied Arthawes without looking away from the vista in front of him. "Shayrp, bring us through that gap in the flames over there."
"Aye sir..." said Shayrp quietly, but as he moved to do so, something suddenly appeared out of the darkness like a revanent, sliding out of a wall of smoke like a ghost ship from one of the tales fishermen like to tell. It was a huge ship, bearing North Covenantian markings, with the name 'N.C.S. Reveal' just visible on her bow.
"Hard to port, all stop!" barked Arthawes, his ship coming to a halt and sliding out of the way of the Covenantian ship. As he was able to take another look at it, he realized he was looking at a Covanentian Heavy Cruiser, and a badly damaged one at that. She was listing badly to one side, and he could see the marks where shells and missile fire had left their scars. As the Chargrenite ship pulled sideways, figures could be seen appearing on the Covanentian ship, waving their arms frantically at the Chargrenites.
Arthawes trurned to his bridge and began barking orders. "Shayrp, bring us alongside that ship, carefully now. McFarland, get the rescue teams ready to go. Walkerton, inform fleet command and the other ships here that we've found a live one, and we're going to try and rescue them. And hail the Reveal and tell them that we're going to try and get them out of here. Use the signal lights if you have to; I'm not confident that their radio is working properly. Get going!"
The bridge became a frenzy of activity almost instantly, the somber mood swept away in the face of the task at hand.
Two hours later, the Tenacious, her two Destroyer compatriots, and the tow ship pulling the Reveal were finally able to see the edge of the debris field. The Reveal, while damaged and barely able to move under her own power, wasn't in imminent danger of sinking, so all that had been done was the wounded had been taken onto the Chargrenite ships for medical attention and tow cables had been affixed to the bow of th ship so that she could be dragged out of the burning oil fields to the relative safety of the sea outside. From there they had orders to bring the ship and her crew to the Chargrenite city of Rentinen, where Admiral Beyer and the Third Fleet were currently based, as it was closer than the Second's current station at Hurbran. Captain Arthawes allowed himself to feel a moment of satisfaction over having managed to rescue nearly nine hundred men from what would have been a hellish death by fire in the debris field, but returned his focus to the task at hand. There was still a vast distance that needed to be crossed before they were safely in Rentinen, and there was no guarantee they'd make it unmolested.
"All ships maintain maximum speed. Keep you eyes on the radar; we don't know who else is lurking around here," he ordered, checking the movements of his impromptu squadron on the HUD. Even as he issued the orders, he looked over at his own radar display and saw a pair of blips on it, approaching at alarming speed. "Oh, damn," he breathed to himself.
The ships could be seen clearly now; they were a pair of Iryllians, a light cruiser, like the Tenacious, and a heavy cruiser. The two ships had slowed and were now making course straight for Arthawes's formation, and were showing no signs of slowing.
Arthawes considered his options. Chargrenite ships were very well built, and as a general rule could be counted upon to have a punch above their weight class, and there were three of them, however the Iryllians had the advantage in raw size and weight class, so under normal circumstances this could be considered to be a pretty even fight. However, with both of the Iryllian ships being damaged and with the Chargrenites having to protect their crippled charge, what would happen in a fight was anyone's guess. And that was even ignoring the possibility of starting a war.
Arthawes turned to his radioman. "Hail them. Tell them that we're conducting search and rescue operations after having discovered the disaster area back there, and are currently rescuing this ship. We wish for no conflict."
Arthawes turned back to the HUD as the radioman nodded and began transmitting the message, almost holding his breath as he considered his avenues of attack should the Iryllians decide they wanted to fight after all.
