NationStates Jolt Archive

The small engineering vessel, a 60 meter long ship with several robotic arms extending from the hull approached the upper atmosphere of Earth. Launched from Chimera Station they were tasked with the collection of a satellite. The satellite belonged not to a nation, or military alliance currently. But it once belonged to the Security Council of the GUDA(Global Unity Defense Alliance I think it was). When New York and New Jersey was a respected power they held a seat on the Security Council and thus they were entitled to part of the defense system once the alliance went belly up. The satellites varied in size and in function, some were Spy Sats, some belonged to the extensive GUDA Anti ICBM net, which more than had holes that could be exploited now, and some were Anti Space Vessel Satellites.

The engineering shuttle had been tasked with the collection of one of these Anti Warship Satellites. "Are you sure these codes will deactive the sat?From what I heard Hephastus had weapons decades inadvance of what we currently go on our warships...one of these things could...." The engineer was cut off by the projects commander, "Alright thats enough of that talk, the codes are the same as all former SC members have. Nothing has changed from then till now. So we're gonna deactivate the satellite and were going to pull it back toward Chimera. Okay?" The rest of the crew eight in all just sighed and shrugged alittle.

A robotic arm on the port side extended slowly toward the targeted weapon sat which they had lined up with and were keeping the same speed. "Alright arm extending...preparing to grab onto the main body." There was a quick hush as the codes were sent to the satellite and it was expected that it had shut down. If not, well then they were in for a relatively rude surprise. The weapon satellite came with a mixed array of weapons from sophisticated anti-ship torpedos to plasma based weaponry. Weapons which would take centuries for the Federal Republic to catch up with were going to be reserved engineered in a matter of years.

"No weapon signature from the satellite..the codes have appeared to work.."

"Alright if nothing else lets get the hell out of here."

The engineering vessel began to power up its engines and slowly moving the satellite out of orbit began to proceed back to the orbitting Chimera Shipyard. The engineering ship moved slowly and carefully they didnt wish to damage the satellite or bump into any others as they pulled away to make the short trip home.

The engineering vessel made it back to the station in one peace. The satellite was moved quickly from the hangar deck down on the freight elevators to the research areas of the staryard. Nothing as sophisticated as what was on the research base at Charon or on the surface it didnt matter for the time being. They were going to be given the inital crack at how to reverse engineer the weapon. Understanding it wasnt the key issue. It was making it work that was. Aside from the engineering vessels movements everything else about this project was kept secret. It would be none to few until signifficant progress in the weaponry could be made.

The test bed for it was sitting in the dry dock. Almost fully completed it had yet to have any weapon systems installed on the vessel. The new Cruiser, a refit of the Washington class would become the most powerful vessel in the Federal Navy however the researchers would have to get the damn thing to work. Of course when one had little grasp of such a concept getting it to work was a challenge that was not easily handled. The Stations manager knew of the project and he was apprehensive about it. The last thing he wanted was that thing exploding inside of the station or firing inside of the station, the risk was to great.

To prevent any tampering security was beefed up in the area of the base where the satellite was being held. There was also an increased fighter pressance from the surface and Chimera's own fighters were constantly on patrols of six hours on, six hours off. The satellite right now was of the upmost importance.