Alpha swarm moved forward at a steady pace, one harvester flanked by four drones. They moved in absolute unison, a hive mind, each unit strengthened by the presence of the rest, processing power multiplied exponentially. They flash-scanned the opposition; one destroyer, four fighters, an even match. Alien processing units evaluated every possible outcome, every tactic, every maneuver, down to the most minute thruster calculations. Every algorithm finalized into a sum of acceptable losses, the wreckage would be claimed for the Collective and hauled back to The Ravine for dismantling, study, and integration.
Auxiliary thrusters engaged and the swarm went into overdrive, power cores ramped up to a deafening, reverberating hum as weapons were brought online. They moved in, a relentless, single-minded swarm, overwhelming the opposition.
As the battle commenced, Arya tried to keep one eye on the scanners to keep track of combat status while the other was focused on the navcom. Chatter from the fighters was blaring in over the speaker as they engaged the swarm, and the Hatshepsut had made a bee-line towards the larger Harvester to keep it from getting close enough to interfere.
"Working as fast as I can down here, this ship is a mess, form a defensive line and keep them at bay!" Arya yelled out, typing as fast as she could to load the navcom files and begin jump preparations. Mikhail, one of the fighters from the Overwatch, confirmed her request, "Defend the Bastet. Destroy these scourge. Permission to open fire... granted."
Arya brought up the chief engineer's files on one console, and hastily punched in the long string of alphanumeric code - coordinates for Omicron Epsilon, outside of Fort Carthage - into the navcom. Several times she had to back up and change a number or verify that it had been input correctly; typically this would be done automatically on the bridge, but down here the system wasnt set up for initiating a jump.
Once the coordinates had been locked in, she ran over to the Jump drive and threw a lever, initiating the spool. The system began to groan and activate, and then an alarm blared, red lights lit up around the jump drive, and the spool shut down. She rushed back to the navcom; an error was displayed onscreen: data for the jump was corrupted, the coordinates were incorrect.
"Navcom coordinates for Epsilon are corrupted, I cant get a fix on fort carthage. Trying for Mu instead." She informed the others, she had done a jump with the legacy recently and was struggling to recall these coordinates from memory, it took several tries and multiple errors but, eventually, the navcom accepted the input, reading out [Coordinates verified: Omicron Mu 23255.-16.4033]
"Coordinates locked, seems stable, charging jump drive... hope this works, just keep them off of us for a little while longer!"
One of the scanner blips flashed and disappeared, and she heard Anders' voice crackle over the speaker, "The cruiser is down. We're moving back to the fleet."
As she threw the lever to begin spooling the jump drive again, sparks showered the engineering bay, temporarily blinding her. Arya blinked the spots from her vision and looked around for the source; the power cells she had jury-rigged together to run the jump drive on were fine, but the circuits connecting them to the drive itself had burned out. "Circuits fried, I need a minute to repair them, jump terminated." She worked as quickly as she could, replacing the smoking cables with scrap from around the engineering bay to re-establish a power circuit with the cells and the drive.
Once again she confirmed coordinates and spooled up the drive, this time everything seemed to work correctly, the humming in the engineering bay grew to a deafening roar and the room was flooded with bright white light. "Looks good, charging drive, coordinates holding steady in the navcom." Squinting her eyes to read the navcom screen, it showed spooling up to 90%... and stuck. "Something isnt locking in, the jump drive is stuck at 90% spool..."
She slammed a fist against the side of the navcom terminal in frustration, and the readout jumped: [95%...98%...99%...100% Jump drive charging complete, ready to jump]
"Alright, got it, we're good to go! Initiating Jump!" She mashed the button on the navcom to complete the jump, the light emitting from the drive flared and, for a moment, time seemed to freeze, leaving her suspended in pure white light. Seconds later, she was thrown against the floor plating as the Bastet blipped out of existence and just as quickly re-appeared, just outside of Akabat Orbit.
After recovering from the disorientation of the jump, Arya disconnected the power cells from the drive and plugged them into some of the other systems that needed power to start up: RCS thrusters for minor maneuvering, the communications antennae to support longer range transmissions, and the local life support module; air in the engineering bay was getting pretty stale and low on oxygen content. Everything had gone into making the jump.
Stellar cartography systems were down, so she had to send out a few active scanner pulses and best-guess her positioning in Omicron Mu. Jump drives were rarely pinpoint accurate. Crunching the numbers, and cross-referencing what she knew of the system layout, she surmised that the Bastet had arrived somewhere close to Akabat orbit, though she couldnt tell which side of the planet she was on from here; the engineering bay had no viewports.
She set the communications array to transmit a long range S.O.S. pulse. Akabat would pick it up relatively quickly, there was quite a bit of traffic in this area. Meanwhile, she rigged a crude system for controlling the RCS thrusters manually. She would have minimal strafing ability, nothing over a couple meters per second in any direction, but it might be enough to work into a drydock bay at the Akabat mooring fixture.
It wasnt long before a vessel had heard the distress signal and found her - a mammoth-class transport run by Order logistics personnel. They were able to, with great frustrating and effort, hook up tow cables to the derelict and haul it to the Mooring station in low orbit. From there, Arya was able to work with the station's flight control tower to slowly nudge the ship into drydock; flying blind was no easy feat even at low speeds.
Now, the real work would begin: repairing this legacy and restoring the Bastet to full functionality.
Arya sighed and rubbed her temples, her head was pounding from piles of paperwork, engineering reports, shipyard requests, and a number of other tasks requiring her attention. Due to her efforts in the recovery of the Bastet, and her prior experience serving aboard it, the Legacy had placed her in charge of the restoration project. In addition to compiling a list of necessary materials from the shipyard's technicians, she had to outsource acquisition of some items to the Order's allies: the Gaians, Junkers, Zoners, Bundschuh, and Blood Dragons.
This was going to be a long process, and they were just getting started.
Arya went over the shipping reports and made final reports to be sent to accounting so that the transport captains could get their due payment. Their allies had come through, everything had been delivered in a relatively timely fashion, and while awaiting materials from outside Order territory the engineers and dockworkers at Akabat had been tirelessly working to repair the ship, day and night. Bulkheads were repaired, hull panels torn off and replaced, and sections of the ship pressurized one at a time allowing Arya and her officers to delve into new areas, recovering lost information, personal effects, and the corpses of perished crewmen.
Most of the major systems had to be stripped out and replaced, either due to extensive damage or because they were simply outdated. Everything possible to bring the Bastet up to modern-day ship standards was being done, including the addition of state-of-the-art weaponry and an upgraded jump drive. The forward hangar bays were removed entirely, and replaced with newer mag-launch tubes designed specifically for the newest line of Bastet-Mk2 fighters - fitting, Arya mused - and a compliment of Onuris-class interceptor-scouts. The upper cargo bay - situated between the two conning towers - was modified with external bay doors, allowing it to open up and be used as a landing and launch bay for much larger vessels; intended for freighters moving personnel to and from the ship.
In only a few weeks' time, the Bastet had been transformed from a crippled derelict into a fully functioning Order command ship, a testament to the Legacy of Orillion. Now it was time to assign crew and prepare for the ship's third maiden voyage.
Arya finished her report and stood from her desk aboard the Akabat mooring station. Time to head down and meet the Colonel.
Becker already had the ceremony prepared. All Arya had to do was arrive, look good in her uniform and stand by.
It wasn't truly eventful, as new ships were christened into the Order all the time, though this was cause for a little detour. Most of who had arrived, which looked like quite a few, were ship-maintenance personnel, most of whom had worked on the ship's reconstruction over the past few weeks. Becker herself had actually come all the way from '49 to host it, owing to the significance of the event.
She stood on a slightly raised platform in front of nearly everyone, most of the soon-to-be bridge staff standing to the side with Arya. Upon a few claps, the small crowd began to calm down.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she started, her Rheinlandic tone adding to the atmosphere.
"I will keep this brief, as I usually do, as there are things to do, people to meet and threats to eliminate. Over the past few weeks, we've accomplished quite a few amazing feats. The restart of Lisbon, the cell's growth as a more prominent force within the Order and, of course, Major Davis' retrieval of the Bastet."
The took a moment to scan the room, unknown to everyone what she was looking for, before she began to speak again.
"Feats that are but only the first step in the Legacy's mark on humanity. Recovering our lost relics, memorializing them and allowing them to once again breath fire into the heart of our cause is not something we're not strangers to, and certainly not afraid of. This project was the product of weeks of hard work, planning, dedication and loyalty, traits that the Order prides itself on. Traits that I believe will resonate from the Bastet's new captain."
She turned her head towards Arya, motioning for her to step forward.
"Without the Major's contributions to this effort, the Bastet would very likely either be sitting here decaying, or out there forgotten. Because of her, the memories of this ship's past can be remembered, shared and utilized to bring vengeance for those we've lost."
She reached into her pocket and stepped over towards Davis, grabbing the edge of the small, velcro-backed 'Major' rank patch on her shoulder, yanking it off. With a small push, another took its place.
"At this moment, I'm authorizing Colonel Arya Davis as the new commander of this ship, effective immediately. These men will serve as the Bastet's crew, seeing as they already know the ship. See to it she's put to good use, Davis."
A short, brief salute was all she gave before turning and walking down the middle isle, the men and women in the room looking to Arya for direction.
It was done, promoted and given command of perhaps the oldest ship in the cell. What was left was for her to decide.
Arya stood, shocked and stunned, in front of the crowd. She hadn't expected a promotion, or command of the vessel - though that was something she had hoped for, someday. She had only very recently received her prior promotion from Captain to Major, so this was highly unusual. Still, she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
She cleared her throat, addressing the gathered crowd, "Well then... I didn't have a speech prepared for this. Where to start..." A wave of chuckling laughter swept through the crowd, it did little to ease her nervousness. "...the beginning is as good a place as any. When I joined the Order, it was to be a fighter pilot, I loved the adrenaline, and I'm sure many of you know that feeling. Command has not been a seamless transition for me, it's a different pace and something that's taken a great deal of struggle coming to terms with."
Silence had overcome the crowd. "Before she was lost, I served aboard the Bastet for several years. This was one of the first three Geb-Class Light Carriers the Order built, along with the OCV-Hathor and OCV-Orillion, and it has had a long and tumultuous service with the Order. Two great admirals with Order High Command - Aki Kimura and Kaylee Staite - have called this ship their home. The Order Science Division called her their flagship. It has been beyond the borders of Sirius, it has seen mutiny and gone rogue to hunt the wild, it has been attacked by unknown aliens beyond known space, and it has returned to the order to continue service under new crew. All of this led to the Bastet's loss at the Battle of Omicron Minor, I saw her succumb to fire from Nomad battleships from the cockpit of my fighter during that most fateful of days, and feared she was lost forever."
Her words had a notable impact on the crowd, especially the mention of Omicron Minor, many of the personnel here had been part of that tragedy. "I was, of course, overjoyed when a random offer from the Junkers at Tarancon wound up being the Bastet herself, and I leapt at the opportunity to recover one of the most illustrious ships to ever serve this organization. Restoring her has been no easy feat, but through our commitment to the Order's values, through our tenacity, and through the efforts of our allies, we have accomplished the impossible: we have brought the Bastet back from the dead, to once again fight in the name of humanity."
"I will do all that I can to fill the shoes of my predecessors, and I will strive to follow the example that Admirals Kimura and Staite set. I trust that each and every one of you hold the same commitment to this endeavor as I do, and with that commitment we will accomplish great things. Long live the Order, and long live the Bastet!"
Roaring applause filled the hall. Arya only hoped that she could live up to this responsibility.
![[Image: Tenacity.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Tenacity.gif)
