XIS Triton, Wuin System, Year of Our Lord Emperor Foxfire Rose Seventeen, Death of the Life Season...
Having settled into orbit over the ruddy-peach orb that was the planet Wuin, the Xiscapian Imperial Starship Triton came alive with gleaming darts like silver remora fleeing the cover of an impossibly massive shark, small craft deploying from the Nova Carrier with all the silent grace of seeds on the wind. They were not the curved shapes of fighters angling in for battle, however, but the tri-winged shuttles and rounded hulls of drop ships carrying crew on leave and transfer down to the planet. Nearby, the shapes of the Xiscapian Wuin Defense Fleet glimmered in the darkness where the sun hit them, all smaller than the gigantic Triton, maintaining vigil over the system. Elsewhere, well outside the range of the naked eye, groups of weapons platforms hibernated, FTLi arrays hummed on standby and lonely automated sensor stations transmitted their never-ending readings of what lay in the system and beyond. Not too far away, the Alversian holding in the system was visible only as a distant false star, and around it, invisible, prowled a People's Fleet, similarly watchful.
As this hinted at, peace on the planets and in the blackness of space was deceptive. The Korr Wars had ended more than a decade ago, the Calaverians had been defeated and were now firmly under the thumb of the Kitsune Empire, the SASM had been obliterated, the False Rebellion crushed and the Alliance of Imitated Worlds was no more, but the Kitsune Empire still had enemies in the form of the Intergalactic Empire of Greal. Mere weeks previously a ragtag fleet from the Zillar Republic had assaulted this very system, driven across the galaxy by Greali expansionist designs, and though the only losses the Xiscapians and their Alversian allies had incurred came from downed fighters, the most painful death had occurred after the battle. The kitsune diplomat who had been sent to attempt to negotiate with the Zillars, Ambassador Atox, was callously murdered by a Greali Admiral, and the two nations had very nearly come to blows over the matter. Across the Kitsune Empire mothballed ships were once more being pulled from their hangers, fleets were being formed, armies were assembling, weapons were being manufactured and new recruits, infuriated by the Greali actions, were signing up for the Grand Army, and in particular the Imperial Navy, in droves.
The Triton had come to the Wuin System because the Carrier that had previously been a part of the garrison III Fleet, the Strong, had been ordered to travel to Xiscapia in order to replace lost fighters and crew and undergo repairs in a system not quite as exposed as Wuin, though it could hardly be called vulnerable. The Triton, from the IX Fleet, had been one of those ships that had been mothballed, and was moving in to act as a stopgap for the Strong in case the Zillars attacked again...or more likely, the Greali made an assault. Her crew, also having been called up from the Naval Reserves, were generally inexperienced, with the notable exception of her Master and Commander, one Captain Yukio. The mood aboard, as well as on the planet, was one of cautious optimism mixed with trepidation. The kitsune were confident they could meet the Greali in battle, but no one was especially eager to do so.
On the starboard side of the Carrier Commander Matsuyama stepped into a hanger bay, tail swishing behind him, and stared. Searching orange eyes gazed up at the sight before him behind an elongated snout, one off-white furred hand coming up to brush coal-colored hair veined with blonde, the lanky kitsune eying what was to be his new command. As with all Nova Carriers, the Triton held aboard her as standard compliment ten Destructor class Corvettes, three situated on the beam of the ship, three directly opposite on the other side, two along the starboard hull and two on the port. Each vessel was held within a mind-boggling huge armored blister that concealed a hanger bay to hold the two hundred meter Strike Ships, which would actually rotate ninety degrees to launch the corvette, and similarly open to receive it. Matsuyama was currently standing inside Starboard Hanger Two, home of the corvette Imperial-10.
A fine example of Xiscapian engineering, the Destructor class Corvette had the long, rounded shape with a relatively simple superstructure that both eased mass-production and made the relatively small craft very tough. Bearing twin Nakamoto Dockyards Kessel Engines, the ship was swift and carried aboard a large number of counter-thrusters that enabled it to pull off tricky maneuvers and put itself into different firing positions quickly, sort of like an oversized, ridiculously heavily armed fighter. A large "tower" atop it appeared to be a command center with a pair of humongous fuel cells attached; in fact, it was a ruse to trick an opponent into firing on the structure, and housed only a small observation platform with an attached beacon made specifically to attract homing missiles, designed to be able to take a crippling amount of damage without debilitating any other part of the ship. The true bridge was housed, as in any sensible craft, in the midsection of the vessel, with fuel cells, reactor and munitions stores nearby. A tiny hanger situated on the underside of the picket held a single old Flyer class Diplomatic Shuttle, for ferry and transport duties.
He knew the specifications for the ship well, having reviewed all the necessary documents: It was two hundred meters long, consisted of eight adjacent decks, and a standard acceleration sublight speed of Class Forty, nearly as good as a fighter. The hyperdrive unit made 0.8 past lightspeed, the hull armor was rated to stand up against Grade Three weaponry, or anything up to and including the size of the I-10 herself, and the shields had a strength rating of Three, in the same brand as Grade Three weaponry. Armament consisted of duel bow-mounted torpedo tubes for enemy warships, a pair of all-purpose missile batteries, eight heavy Anti-Ship Particle Cannons for long range, fifteen solid-shot coilguns for close quarters, and twenty laser turrets which could serve either a point-defense role in space or anti-personnel capacity in atmosphere. She had a crew of twenty seven, five bridge officers, eight engineer-technicians, six medical personnel, two pilots and six Marines, all cross-trained to various degrees in each others duties. The corvette could fill a multitude of mission profiles, including patrol, escort, transport, picket, hunter-killer, anti-fighter, close ground support and reconnaissance.
And she was his.
Held on by struts on a colossal cradle, the ship was tended to on all sides by dozens of maintenance crew and drones. The kitsune and their droids swarmed around, inside and even on and over her, testing armor, checking systems, loading weapons, running diagnostics, fueling and any other of the hundreds of tasks that were to be filled out before she was fit to go. Their voices, shouted orders, yelled reports, the chatter of conversation and the occasional laugh or cry mixed with the sounds of thrusters firing experimentally, booted feet on metal, the clang of tools and the hiss and whir of hydrospanners as the corvette was examined and climbed over by the crew, like a queen ant being tended to by worker drones. Despite the din, the noises echoed in the cavernous hanger, bouncing off the far bulkheads and high ceiling, presided over by catwalks leading to the hanger control center, all illuminated by simple Guilda energy crystals fused into the bulkheads and even the deck itself. From what he could see, Matsuyama was the first of the actual crew to arrive.
At the base of the structure holding the I-10 in place Matsuyama stopped, and finally tore his gaze away from the ship -his ship!- rising up dozens of meters overhead. Like many of the rest of the kitsune on the Triton, he was quite green, he'd only graduated from the Imperial Academy a year or so ago and, aside from his time on the Light Cruiser Unshakable in the First Fleet as a Lieutenant, this would be his first assignment. Corvette Commander was a common position for newly minted combat officers, a stepping stone to promotion of bigger and better armed warships, but Matsuyama didn't really have any aspirations to rising to seniority aboard a cruiser or carrier. He was, he had to admit, here less because of any sense of ambition or desire to be a hero than he was because he loved his country and this seemed more interesting than going to university and becoming a consultant or whatever it was he might have ended up as. He didn't regret that decision, but staring up at the I-10, he wondered if he would be able to handle taking her into battle against the Greali if that's what it came to.
Shaking the idea off, trying to assure himself with the thought that they weren't at war with the humanist empire yet, he turned to his crew roister, looking to see if he knew anyone from Academy.
