Hospital Wing, Juneau Shipyard, Alaska System
27th June, 826 A.S.
The noise of the ECG filled the room as John slowly woke up to a terrible headache. He looked around, only to realize that he was not in sickbay as he expected it. The room was well lit, with no windows only a door directly in front of his bed. He tried to sit up but as he moved, he felt a great pain coming from his chest, so he decided not to get up yet. The small area of the room he was able to see led him to the conclusion that he was most likely in a hospital.
“So we made it home. First good news of the last year.”
Although he still didn't remember what happened. His last memory was giving out the order to jump the ship. As he was trying to remember what went wrong why he wasn't able to remember the events after his last order the door of the room slid open and a person wearing medical clothes walked in. With his extraordinary skills John came to the conclusion that this person was a nurse or a doctor.
"Where am i?"
"Hospital wing. Juneau shipyard." She walked next to the bed and looked at John.
"Please don't try to move much. They've brought you in with severe head trauma and some broken bones, along with serious injuries to your lower abdomen. Do you feel any kind of pain at the moment?"
"Well…now that you've asked, my head is killing me. Do you have something for that?"
"Sure...I'll get something. Anything else?"
"Yes...who's in charge regarding the situation of my ship and crew?"
"It's Admiral Prower"
"Good. Then tell him we need to talk. I believe he has many questions for me. As i have many questions for him as well."
"Allright Admiral."
He stared at the ceiling. The doc left the room and the door closed behind her...
Miles adjusted his glasses, looking over the various reports from the inspection crews onboard the damaged dreadnought. Miles himself entered the infirmary. Before even approaching the injured man, he spoke to the doctor.
"So, what kind of condition is he in?"
"He's just woken up from his injuries. He's in stable condition, however he's suffered various injuries, included broken bones, head trauma, and other injuries. I recommend being light on him right now as he still requires quite a bit of treatment until he'll start his recovery process."
"I'll bear it in mind, thank you doctor."
After the short conversation, Miles entered the room. He pulled up a chair near the bed Sader was put in.
"Admiral Sader. My name is Miles Prower, Admiral of the 5th Fleet. I understand this was your former position within the fleet before your vessel vanished from all known channels we had. Given the current situation and how long your vessel has been missing, can you give me a brief rundown of where you, your men, and vessel have been? Only go with details you immediately remember, there's no need to strain yourself on anything you don't recall right now."
Hospital Wing, Juneau Shipyard, Alaska System
27th June, 826 A.S.
John finally finds the buttons and adjusts the beds position so he could sit. Honestly he was a bit surprised by the name of the guy. The relative of Nicole Prower became the de facto leader of the fifth fleet. It annoyed him bit but there was nothing to do. This isn't going to change. Clearing his throat John started speaking.
“So you're the one in charge of the fleet now? Interesting. In any case let's skip the pleasantries and get down to business. As you most likely know we were en route to Cortez to reinforce battlegroup kilo there. After leaving zone 21 we set course and engaged cruise. About 20 minutes later we picked up a strange signal on scanners. After examination we determined that it was a cloaked vessel, but before we could raise shields we were ambushed by nomads. They scored really good hits on us but we managed to get the shields up eventually. Up to this point we were fighting small fighters and bombers but for long as a giant nomad battleship decloaked right next to us. The first lucky shots knocked out our comm system and we could not ask for help. Worse that more and more nomads just kept decloaking near us. With two nomad battleships and their fighter escorts i ordered a retreat using the jump drive. The two ships quickly took out our shields and started ripping through our hull. We barely escaped. And just before the jump we took another hit near the bridge which caused a secondary explosion inside the bridge. We jumped into an unknown, remote and uninhabited system where the XO took over command for a time and organized repairs. I was severely injured thanks to that last hit by the nomads and spent some days in the medbay. In the end we managed to get the ship operational again and found out that we are in the middle of nowhere. First we started scouting the system for a jump hole or a habitable planet just in case we have to abandon the ship. We searched for months, but unfortunately we found no jumpholes and there weren't any habitable planets in the system either. This is when we started repairing the jump drive. It took us months to get the ship fixed up enough for us to even attempt a jump. Last thing i remember is giving the order to jump. And then i woke up here”
The man sat up in the chair, listening to the mans story.
"Now Admiral, I understand this has been a rather difficult experience for you and your crew. However as it stands, the war has been taxing on Liberty's forces aswell. As it stands the Odyssey is not in any shape to be given combat duties and as such it's tied up in drydock here. As for your crew, until we can gather all we need they'll be forced to rest here on the station until the investigation is over, I hope you understand. Now, Admiral, you've been gone for well over a year. Alot's changed in this time, and the Navy isn't as strong as it was. Now despite my sisters opinion of you I like my own conclusions. Your record is exemplary and I have no reason to distrust your word on the matter. Given the traumatic experience you and your crew have been in, think of this as a rest. We will have to take the necessary precautions, testimonies and medical checks for you and your crew. While this is happening I'll question your caption while you rest, and slowly remember the details of your excursion.
John simply listened to the young Admiral's speech knowing well what needs to be done has to be done. After all he was involved with the design of the protocoll for situations like this one.
“Sure thing mister Prower. But here is a request i have for you. Think of it like two small favors. First i would like you to move up the Odyssey on the waiting list. She's one of the best ships of the navy still. And from the things i've heard. You kinda need all hands on deck. Or at least as many as you can get. I'm pretty sure the Juneau's dockmaster still owes me a favor or two so this one should not be a problem. Now the other favor. If my sense is correct this one is the more problematic. I would like to get my acces codes restored to the navy's network. So i can get up to speed with the current situation and when they finall let me out of here i can be of actual help and resume my job.”
The man sat up in the chair, listening to the mans story.
"I can have your access restored to read-only in our databases, a precaution necessary until the primary investigation is over and your crew and yourself are fully cleared for action. For the repair of the Odyssey, it's already top priority following previously set needs to construction and repair facilities. The investigation should only last a brief period of time, however the matter of restoring the warship is difficult. Luckily the Navy has been keeping continuous surplus on hand for immediate repairs following our counter-offensive against Gallia. For now, you'll have access equivalent to your prior security clearance. I do have to depart now, Admiral."
Miles stood, handing a datapad with the altered permissions to him.
"I recommend resting well. In time you'll be back in action. I don't forsee any issues for my investigation or the repair of Battleship Odyssey. The newest set of escorts that will accompany you are currently on shakedown cruise, the latest set of the Navy's warships. They'll be assigned to the Odyssey force and stationed here after their shakedown pending the repair completion. Rest easy, Admiral."
With that, Miles departed, heading towards the repair bays, meeting with one of his agents on the way to meet the Captain in charge.
Executive officer's cabin, L.N.S. Odyssey, Juneau shipyard's drydock, Alaska System
27th June, 826 A.S.
Recording his personal log drake was enjoying a cigarette and finally some time away from the medical teams the navy sent aboard the ship to check the crew for...well everything. But most importantly nomad infection.
" Executive officer's log june 27th 826 after settlement. After we making it back to Juneau we recieved a rather cold welcome. I'M not really surprised honestly. We've been away for more than a year. After mooring with the station the injured from our sickbay were transferred to Juneau's hospital wing. Then they started their investigation. I handed over the ship's log. They also downloaded every data they could from the computers to analyze. After wich they started the medical examination of the crew as well as psychical examination. I wonder if they want to know wheter or not we contracted some disease or determine if we are infected with nomads or both. I guess both are reasonable questions they need to ask. Still if i see one more idiot dressed in white asking for a blood sample then by god i will strangle him and...
Hearing someone knock on the door he paused the recording and stood up from his chair then made his way to the door. Pressing the button to open it he saw Miles standing on the other side as the door slid open. He quickly rose to attention and saluted the Admiral before stepping aside to let him in.
"Admiral Prower. I was wondering when you'd arrive. Your vampires took enough blood from me yet? Or do they need more to proove that i'm no infected."
Miles returned the salute.
"At ease, Captain. And no, we have all we need, in fact the vast majority of your crew has been cleared for active duty again. I'm sure you've taken notice of repair teams swarming over the ship in earnest. The only ones not cleared are the critically wounded, but we'll have replacements covered for temporary assignment while they recover. Alongside you'll be getting a batch of officers fresh from midshipmen school to cover the lack of personnel on the ship. Despite the extensive damage, repairs shouldn't take too long. Despite this, I'd like your thoughts. What happened out there?"
He had entered mid-conversation, standing near a wall. His demeanor seemed to mellow a bit following the reports from his investigators that the ship and it's crew were clean.
As Miles walked in the door closed behind him. Drake feeling a bit relieved that finally they are indeed treated as friends instead of potential hostiles. Clearing his thorat a bit he looked into the eyes of the Admiral.
"A goddamn trap or simply pure bad luck. Those pests hit us hard with their inital volley. Sader when he saw the battle was lost ordered an emergency jump. But the last lucky shot caused a secondary explosion on the main bridge. Sader was severly injured so after exiting hyperspace i evacuated the bridge and assumed command. We then relocated to the auxiliary command center. But setting it up was very demanding since the ship was heavily damaged. After meeting up with Commander McKenzie not too far from the new command center we made our way there. Shortly after that Lieutenant Commander Foster our CHENG finally managed to give us a damage report. With our comm array destroyed no weapons or shields protect ourselves not to mention main power being knocked out we also had to act as fast as possible since the more immediate problem was the life support system not working. She asked for more people so i sent two or three maybe. As much as i would've liked to have every crewmember who knew how to hold a hammer or a screwdriver help with repairs i could not."
Drake noticing his cigarette had already burned out on the ashtray he picked out a new one and lighted it.
"After repairing the life support and getting main power back online we started focusing on sensors and the impulse engines. We did not know where we are at the time. We thought we were in alaska. And then more bad news. Sensors came back online and after a scan we concluded we are not in the Alaska nebula but somwhere else. But it did not matter as we still had more urgent problems ahead. We had to make a list of the casualties and rescources. So we did just that when once again bad news. CHENG's initial assesment was too optimistic. And another problem rose as if our situation wasn't already a complete and utter disaster. Our food supply was fine. But our water supply was extremely low thanks to the damage we recieved. Our water tanks got hit as well. We had two months left with serious rationing. We spent the next month trying to repair the impulse engines. Wich was a sucess. We managed to repair some of the damaged parts of the ship. Including the watertank using whatever we were able to scrap from other less important parts of the ship. After that. Things started to look a bit better. The engines were back online, water tank repaired. Sader managed to recover. Well not fully but he resumed command. We left the nebula and searched for a water source. We found it in the form of ice on an asteroid or moon not sure wich one. Then we spent the rest of the time trying to patch the ship up as much as we can and find a way back home. Eventually we were left with no other choice but to try the jump drive again. It was risky. It took us about 4 months to repair it. And we knew there was a high risk of disaster with the ship's current state. But we were starting to run low on food and there was no other way. Sader ordered the jump. The stress on the ship's hull was as high as we calculated. Honestly its a miracle we're even here. Sader was once again injured during the jump along with some other officers aboard the bridge. It was due to a failiure in the inertial dampeners i think. I remember i hit my head into the bulkhead as well. Then you arrived after about 45 minutes. Thats all i know."
The Admiral listen to his testimony, mentally crosschecking it with the stories he'd been given from other crew, matching the details to a great degree.
"I can't imagine having to go through that time with no guarantee of rescue coming. However now there shouldn't be any sudden things such as this anymore. Our drydocks should have the warship back in action soon. I don't have an exact estimate as I haven't seen the chief engineer yet, however while the damage is extensive, we're repairing alot of vessels right now and the process has been streamlined. For now, you and your crew will be given R&R time to recover from the traumatic event. I encourage you to have any men who may suffer PTSD from the event to report right away to medical for treatment."
He kept standing, while mostly devoid of emotion due to the dozens of other issues weighing on his mind, he was sympathetic to the struggles of the rescued ship and men.