Captain Nathan Wright CS DSO
London
Sol Star System, the Core, the Terran Empire (Alpha Quadrant)
Monday 4th April 2692
Nathan Wright was very much a product of the Amsus War. He was a Captain at the age of thirty-four, was the Commanding Officer of an Imperial Battlecruiser and had a chest full of medals (by the standards of the Terran Empire anyway). Given the need to crew ships as quickly as possible the Imperial Navy had played it fast and loose with promotions and had seen some officers reach dizzying heights as a result, the most obvious of this was of course Highlady Harrington, in some cases this had come back to bite them in the arse, but for the most part in the post-war years it left the Imperial Navy with a cadre of experienced Starship Captains. This was not exactly a bad thing as it meant that all of the new construction coming off of the production lines would have an experienced Captain, whilst smaller vessels (such as cruisers and destroyers) would be commanded by the next generation. It was a happy side-effect of the war, one that the Office of Naval Personnel was glad to have as it made their job a whole hell of a lot easier.
Nathan Wright, who had been made a Companion of the Order of the Sword in the Victory Honours List to go with his Distinguished Service Order, had made Captain in fourteen years (this was a full four years below the ‘average’ time in service for a Captain), having been promoted rapidly through the ranks in the ten years since the resurgence of the Empire, during which most of his service had been. Wright was, rightly so, proud of his achievement even by wartime standards, and they had all made possible by hard work and determination. He had seen more combat in his ten years, and in particular his time in command of cruisers and destroyers, to last him a lifetime and he was one of those that was decidedly happy that the war was over, despite the success it had brought him. He was a strong believer in the Empire of course, and was proud to have taken part in its restoration, but at the same time he knew the cost that it had taken to get it restored, and that he had no wish to visit that kind of warfare on the Empire ever again.
Wright had commanded the Heavy Cruiser, HMS Sir Edward Pellew, during the Grand Invasion and had for just over a year immediately after the war he had served as the Operations Officer for Home Fleet as it completed its re-orientation to defending the Core. Then, a few weeks ago, he had received new orders that had given him command of the new-build Battlecruiser, HMS Repulse. He, and his crew, had then spent the time since them working up in the Sol System with absolutely no idea as to where they were actually going or what they were doing, just that they had to be ready soonest. The powers that be were keeping very hush-hush about the entire affair, which to Wright was not particularly promising as it implied that something either very important or very dangerous was going on, possibly both, either of which would mean that his time in command of the Repulse was going to be… interesting to say the least. But then as the saying went, if you couldn’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined, and unlike many who had joined because of the war, he was one of those who had joined up before there was even a hint that the Empire would be restored.
That was until he had received orders late the previous night to report to the Admiralty at 0900hrs the following morning, to speak to none other than the Chief of Fleet Operations, Highlady Harrington herself.
Wright made his ways through the corridors of the Admiralty, his peaked cap tucked under his arm. Given his rank he was able to make good progress through the busy corridors. He had to admit that he was very interested in finding out what was going on, he considered it likely that he would not like it but he still wanted to know precisely what he would be up to in the upcoming months. On the one hand he wondered if it was routine, but then he wouldn’t be getting a personal briefing from the Chief of Fleet Operations herself, more to the point he wouldn’t have had his every request on the personnel front granted, as a general rule Starship Captains were free to request whoever they wanted, they just didn’t always get them. But Wright had, very single personnel request he had made had been accepted with unheard of speed.
Which left the other possibility; something special. Now he hadn’t gotten wind of anything out of the ordinary going on, and as a Starship Captain he had a fairly decent network of contacts across the Fleet and in the Admiralty itself, none of them had given him anything. This meant that if there was something going on it was being kept classified at the highest levels, not something that instilled Wright with confidence. It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t prepared or even unwilling to take on any mission that the Imperial Navy wanted him to carry out, he just didn’t like being kept in the dark. Once he knew what his task was going to be he could start thinking about how to handle it. Never the less, whilst special operations such as this were unusual they were also more dangerous and could go wrong very quickly. It wasn’t so much that Wright himself was afraid to face death in the name of the Empire, but he had seen far too many people under his command go to their deaths and he had no desire to see any more. But he was an Imperial Naval Officer, he would do his duty.
“Captain Wright, to see Admiral Harrington,” Wright said as he stepped up to Harrington’s aide.
“You’re expected, Captain,” The Chief Petty Officer replied. “Go right in.”
Admiral Harrington was sat behind her desk hard at work across a variety of tablets and her main computer console. One wall of her office was dominated by a massive screen that showed the locations of every single ship in the Imperial Navy, and could be manipulated from her desk with ease. She looked up at he entered and smiled warmly and leant across her desk to shake his hand. She was only five years older than he was, but look how far she had come. But then she was a prodigy when it came to Naval Service and she had the knack it seemed of being in the right place at the right time over and over again, and doing exactly the right thing in those circumstances. The fact that she had become close to the likes of Walker Von Karin, Darien Cain and, of course, the King, had no doubt helped in that regard. Never the less no one could question her skills, nor her sense of humility, Wright could tell from her eyes that she knew her failings as much as anyone, and had seen as much, if not more, death as he had.
“Captain, thank you for coming so promptly,” Harrington commented. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Wright replied, he had never interacted with a naval officer who was also a noble before so he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed.
“Ma’am will suffice I think, as far as I’m concerned I’m a naval officer first,” Harrington replied with a slight smile. “Or at least that’s what I tell my self during endless meetings of the Highlord Council.”
“I can imagine, Ma’am,” Wright smiled in return.
“Well, I would imagine that you are wondering what we’ve got in store for you, I’m sorry about all the secrecy but I’m sure that once you hear me out you’ll understand exactly why we’ve been keeping it under our hats for so long,” Harrington commented. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that this entire briefing his top secret.”
Wright nodded and Harrington handed him a tablet, this one was special as it had a thin golden stripe along the thin side which identified it as formal ‘written’ orders, the information on them could be accessed and updated but not altered by the reader, and all edits by the issuer were saved in case of something untoward happening. These constituted legal orders and were typically required to remain safely in the Captain’s Quarters for obvious reasons.
“A few months ago an Imperial scout entered this spacial anomaly, it appears to be a stable wormhole, which is obviously quite unusual as we’ve only encountered a few before, most of which are comparatively short, a few hundred lightyears, as a result of their stable nature, this one is different,” Harrington explained. “This wormhole comes out approximately two point five million lightyears away in the Andromeda Galaxy. And if that wasn’t enough the system it comes into appears to have an Earth-Type planet that is capable of supporting life with next to no terraforming required, I’m sure you can see where this is going…”
Wright nodded, a little dazed by the enormity of what he was being told.
“The Royal Cresian Empire has been pushing for a jointly settled colony for years now, but we’ve had to keep shooting them down during the war because our concerns were elsewhere, however with the discovery of this world the situation has changed somewhat,” Harrington continued. “Aside from the obvious political advantages with our allies the entire affair has another added bonus, the Apilon Rift showed us how important having a fall back position was, but we were damn lucky the Hegemony didn’t head there during the dark times, the idea here is to establish a new wing of both our Empires in order to provide ourselves with the ultimate fallback position, if the worst should happen… again.”
“What about if there are hostiles in the Andromeda Galaxy, it’s a damn big place, Ma’am,” Wright commented.
“Indeed, it is for that reason that the decision has been made that the expedition will be on the small scale, at least initially, which isn’t so much of a problem as the colony will be small to begin with whilst we get the joint nature of the entire thing worked out, the idea being that you’ll keep your heads down and not get noticed by any locals,” Harrington replied. “There is also a practical reason for that, this is an expedition, if it fails, and I’m sorry to say there is a good chance that it will fail given what we are asking you to do, we want to lose as little as possible.”
Harrington sighed.
“I don’t like thinking like that however we have to prioritise our resources, having an extra-galactic colony will be advantageous in the long-run, but in the short-term we simply can’t afford to detail an entire fleet, or even aspects of it, to a distant station that is outside of the entire galaxy,” Harrington continued bluntly. “I appreciate that we’re putting you, and whatever ship the RCE decides to send after we persuaded them the merits of keeping a low profile, but that is just the way things are, and I should note that once this is made common knowledge to your crew it will be a voluntary assignment, however we are strongly recommending that families remain behind rather than join the colony at least initially.
Wright nodded slowly, but there was a question that was bothering him.
“Why have you chosen me for this assignment, Ma’am,” He asked. “If we’re having just one Military Guardship, surely there was another officer better qualified or more experienced…”
“You sell yourself short, Captain, you were chosen because you have a reputation for hard work and getting things done with what resources you had available at the time, both of which are going to be essential if this thing is to work,” Harrington replied with a slight smile. “That’s also the reason why we let you have pretty much carte blanche in regards to your senior officers.”
“I guess that makes sense, Ma’am,” Wright nodded.
“Alright, so this is how this is going to work, the Imperial Navy is deploying one Battlecruiser, the Repulse, as well as several scout vessels and possibly a few corvettes but no promises on that one, the RCN is deploying a similarly rated vessel, we suspect it’ll be one of those new ships of theirs,” Harrington explained. “Now you are both Captains so your working relationship is going to be essential to ensuring that this get done right, there won’t be a flag officer present so the two of you will answer to the Colonial government.”
“How is the joint colonial government going to be structured,” Wright queried.
“As per the last suggestion, which to my knowledge was accepted by the Cresians, there will be a joint civil service headed up by two executives, one Imperial one Cresians, each of whom has power of veto over the other, they’ll work together in the fashion of the Consuls of Ancient Rome,” Harrington replied. “Ground defence will be the responsibility of the Imperial Marines and the Royal Cresian Marines, law enforcement will be a joint-taskforce including ISF officers, and the rest of the colonies facets will likewise be joint operations between the two of us.”
Harrington leant back in her chair.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the importance of this mission. Through the fire of war they’ve become close allies of ours, in peacetime we can develop that even more,” Harrington finished. “Your orders are to proceed to the Kuiper Belt, there you’ll assume command of a convoy of a colony ship and two charted star liners from Cunard Line, wait twenty-four hours, then escort them out to the co-ordinates on that tablet, you’ll rendezvous with the Cresian contingent there, you’ll then proceed through the wormhole and as soon as the Marines complete their sweep of the ground sight the colony will be established.”
Wright nodded.
“Any questions, Captain?”
“None that I can think of at the moment, Ma’am,” Wright replied.
Captain Nathan Wright CS DSO
HMS Repulse BC-380
Andromeda Colony Rendezvous Point, Somewhere in the Delta Quadrant
Wednesday 6th April 2692
The Imperial Battlecruiser Repulse cruised at the head of a small group of Imperial Starships, the warship keeping a careful watch over its charges. The largest of these was a Colony Ship, crammed full of prefabricated structures ready to be put together, resources and big pieces of machinery and equipment, all of which would be essential in getting the colony started. The actual colonists themselves were aboard two Starliners of the Imperial Cunard Line, these large ships were specially designed to carry a large number of people in comfort across interstellar distances, usually operating on fixed routes. The Imperial Government had charted two of these vessels and crammed as many people aboard them as was physically possible. As a result of an agreement with the Cunard Line one of those Starliners would establish an ongoing route between the colony and Earth, it was a big investment but it was also a risky one (in case something went wrong out here) however a combination of being the first extragalactic contract and the incentive that the Imperial Government was giving them had convinced them to take that particular risk.
Aside from the Daring-Class Battlecruiser the Office of Fleet Operations had been able to scrounge up a quartet of Long Night-Class Corvettes, which was saying something given how essential those small but capable ships were in securing the now massive Imperial Frontier. There was also a contingent of scout vessels, but in terms of actual combat power the Repulse was the only proper warship of the Imperial Navy. Serving as the guardian for this clutch of ships was no mean feat, they all had substantial defensive capability (especially the Starliners) but the Repulse was the only source of offensive firepower, and as the old saying went you didn’t win a battle by being on the defensive the entire time; at some point you had to go on the offensive. Never the less considering the forces at his disposal Wright was confident at being able to secure the target system, sure he wouldn’t be able to hold it against a sustained assault but he would be able to ensure that the rule of law and order was maintained, and that if there was an attack coming they would find out about it soon enough to summon reinforcements.
“Captain on the Bridge!”
Wright waved his bridge crew back into their seats as he settled into the command chair at the centre of the bridge and looked over the tactical hologram at the centre of the chamber. As it had been for the past few hours it was entirely empty except for his ships, when the wormhole wasn’t open this was just another bit of deep space. At some point in the future a space station would be built here to protect its, possibly even an Overwatch-Class Battlestation depending on how the colony developed, but for now once again, subtly was deemed to be the best course, after all without getting close it was nigh impossible to detect the wormhole at all. For good measure however he would seed the area with recon drones that would report back through the wormhole to give him some forewarning if there was a surprise attack force coming through this way. Wright shook himself slightly as he accepted a cup of tea from his yeoman, it was both a blessing and a curse that he automatically felt this way, but either way it was the influence of a decade of constant warfare; and had left many in the Terran Empire pessimistic, but then if you assumed (and prepared for) the worse, you were pleasantly surprised when it turned out differently.
Wright blinked as the tactical hologram updated itself, new contacts had appeared on the display.
“Contact report,” He ordered crisply.
“It’s the Cresians,” Lieutenant Commander Alexander Munro, the ship’s Chief Tactical Officer, reported. “They’ve arrived.”
