NationStates Jolt Archive

Quiet.

That was the general atmosphere at Axis. Floating alone in the asteroid belt with just her colonies and hyperspace gates, the asteroid fortress rarely got many any more. Since the fall of the old New Havenic regime, the only traffic had been from within Bryn Shander or roid miners stopping for supplies or a drink. The rock's large complex of shipyards were almost completely empty, Bryn Shander's navy having been constructed long ago before the founding of the Concordat of Hermes. For many years, the only vessels built in the Axis yards were commercial vessels and large luxury yachts.

Soon, however, that would change.

-----

"Axis Control, this is SV-016, KNS Minovsky. We're coming in on approach and would like permission to dock."

"SV-016, this is Axis Control. You have been granted docking clearance in bay C-47, slip D. Just follow the guide lights and try not to clip the bulkhead this time."

"Aye, Axis Control. We'll be careful this time. SV-016 out."

The 300m Chronos class science vessel slowly made it's way along the side of the asteroid before finding bay C-47. Around a minute or two passed as the ship waited patiently in the airlock for the pressure to equalize with the interior of the bay. When that was finished, the huge blast doors slid open with a slight hiss. Inside, two of her sister ships were docked in slips A and B. Slip C was occupied by one of their escort vessels, an old Talos class destroyer. Gently and smoothly, the Minovsky pulled into the slip before she came to a stop as the magnetic clamps moored the starship to her pier. Before the captain even had time to announce shore leaves, dockworkers were already attaching gangways, fuel hoses, and umbilical connections to the ship. When the ship's primary bulkhead opened, crewmen quickly exited the ship, some with duffel bags, and made their way down the dock towards the interior of the asteroid. Some would head to their homes. Others, who lived elsewhere in Bryn Shander, headed to bars and brothels. One group, however, had another destination in mind.


The four men in labcoats made their way through the complex maze of tunnels and shafts that made up the fortress. Two of them, the larger of the group, pushed a small stainless steel cart, it's contents hidden by a white sheet draped over and tied at the corners. Were they anywhere else, the cart may have been a hindrance. In the microgravity of Axis, the cart was only as heavy as the pull the magnetic wheels exerted on the metal floor. Eventually, the four reached their destination: Block 34 Section A. The headquarters of Bryn Shander's Axis Design Bureau.

Inside was an ornate lobby that looked to be more at home in a 1920s hotel than a design bureau in an asteroid floating through the middle of nowhere. Sitting behind a counter that looked like stained oak, a small mousey receptionist greeted them.

"Hi! You must be the guys Colonel Steinman was expecting. Dr. Barton, right?"

"Y-yeah. That's me." said one of the men as he stepped forward. He adjusted his glasses and brushed some of his messy black hair from his eyes before continuing. "We have the plans, data, and a model of a new prototype right here. We've been informed that the Colonel would want to see it right away."

"Okay. I'll let him know that you're here. Please have a seat."

The four men stepped back a few feet and sat on a round velvet bench that was built around one of the lobby's large marble pillars. Behind the counter, the receptionist picked up a phone and hit a few keys.

"Colonel Steinman, Dr. Barton and his party are here with a prototype. No, I can't see what it is. Ok, I'll send them up."

The four labcoats stood up as she hung up the phone and walked back towards her counter.

"The Colonel will see you now. Take the elevator up to the fourth floor. He's in the office at the end of the hall."

They all nodded their thanks before boarding the waiting elevator car, cart in tow. A short ride later and the doors slid open. Sure enough, the office at the end of the hall had the Colonels's name on the door. One of the men knocked.

"Come in." was the loud but slightly muffled reply.

Entering, the four men saluted the Colonel, who sat behind his hardwood desk and moved some papers off to the side.

"At ease. Show me what you've got."

The four men relaxed and went to work removing the obscuring sheet and setting up their presentation. The centerpiece of which was a scale model of the proposed ship.

"Well, as you're aware, given that you are the one who provided the funding for our project, our fleet is outdated and largely obsolete." began Dr. Barton. "What we have here is the first step in fixing that. This is the Kusanagi class frigate, the replacement for our aging fleet of Serpent class vessels. At 186m, the Kusanagi is nearly 50% longer than the Serpent, and is much more heavily armed. Instead of the Serpent's pathetic battery of three 120MW megaparticle guns in single mounts, the Kusanagi will mount twelve 500MW megaparticle guns in dual mounts. In addition, the Kusanagi has much better command facilities, space for two mobile suits and four fighters, a much more powerful reactor system, and new engines. The Kusanagi will also have a new state of the art hyperdrive that will be capable of tapping into the gate network on the fly."

The labcoats continued describing the ship's systems and presenting it's plans for more than an hour before they finished. In the end, the fruits of their labor were approved, and plans for construction of the new ship were laid out. Within a week, Axis' yards would once again be alive with activity.

Before the keels had been laid for the first batch of Kusanagi class frigates, the Axis Design Bureau had been hard at work designing a destroyer to match. Based on the Kusanagi's design, the as of yet unnamed DD-637 class was some 1.85 times the size of the new frigates at just over 344m. Like the Kusanagi, DD-637 carried it's guns in centerline twin mounts, with twin 120mm autocannon mounts running along the superstructure to provide anti-aircraft and missile defense, and a large spinal megaparticle gun. Unlike the Kusanagi, DD-637 carried two extra megaparticle turrets just forward of the superstructure, and her AAA battery was twice that of the frigate's. As with Kusanagi, DD-637 was approved by Colonel Steinman without issue, and construction of the first hundred ships began immediately


For the frigates under construction, everything was going as planned. It had been about two months since construction began, and most of the internal systems were installed and working. Today, the main guns were being installed. One by one, each gun was slid into it's barbette, already completely assembled. When the guns were in place, locking rings were installed and cables were connected. The process plated out repeatedly in Axis' shipyards as each new frigate was armed. The next day, the secondary weapons would be installed, then the ship's internal surfaces and bulkheads would be put into place. Then, the spinal gun would be installed, also in one piece like the turrets. When that was done, every system would be checked several times to ensure that everything worked correctly and nothing would have to be reinstalled. When all lights were green, the ship's thick, multi-layered armor would be installed. Though there are no certainties in construction, especially warship construction, the best estimates had the first ships completed within two more months.

Slowly but surely, the ships of the Year 00 Rearmament Plan inched towards completion. The lead ship of the FF-1593 class, Kusanagi, was all but complete. With her were Hrunting, Curtana, Gram, and several of her other sisters. As armor plates were bolted in and sealed, all that was left to do was take the ships out on test drives.

For the DD-637 class, everything was progressing well. The lead ship had been christened Trondheim, and as lead ship the name was attatched to the class. No longer little more than keels attatched to a scafolding, the ships of the Trondheim class were taking shape. Already they looked like greatly enlarged versions of the Kusanagi class, and for the most part, they were. One slip from Trondheim's blossoming form was her sister, Oslo, and next to Oslo was Bergen.

Several levels down, yet another class of ship was under construction. Much larger than the Kusanagi and Trondheim, the lead ship of class CL-279, Suiseiseki was begining to come together.

The first of the ships were now complete. The first hundred and fifty Kusanagis were already on space trials, working along side the first two hundred Trondheims. Operating seperately in the belt and Forodren Annon, the first fifty Suiseiseki class light cruisers were testing their systems. Most important of which were the brand new FA-01 Goshawk attack fighters, and the new FF-02 Sparrowhawk space superiority fighters. Over the next several months, the crews of the ships would learn every system in their ship until they could operate with their eyes closed.

For the new CA-109, BB-37, and SD-06 classes, things were progressing slowly. Several designs had been collected from various contractors, only to be rejected. Perhaps soon, the fitting designs would be found and construction could begin.

-CL-295 May. asteroid belt near Axis-

"VF-193B2, return to the ship. We'd like to have you test the cables on Hangar-3."

"May, this is VF-193B2, returning to the ship."

"Roger, VF-193B2. Try not to miss the cables like Johnson."

White smoke and a black skidmark appeared on the landing deck of May's #3 hangar as the FF-02 Sparrowhawk slammed down, it's hook grabbing onto an arresting cable and pulling it to a quick stop. For LTJG Ichiro Mizuki, this was his fifth landing of the day. Around his fighter, the flight deck crew worked to quickly get him and his fighter onto the elevator and belowdeck so that the next fighter in his flight could land. These excersizes had gone almost non-stop for the past week, and the grease covering much of the color coded space suits the flight deck crew wore showed it.

With a slight jolt, the elevator began to descend into the hangar. Inside, Mizuki's flight leader was climbing out of his cockpit, his Sparrowhawk neatly lined up against the wall next to the FF-02s of the squadron's Flight A. As Mizuki's Sparrowhawk was wheeled off of the elevator and into it's spot next to the others, an old MS-06F Zaku II took a spot on the hanger's #2 catapult.

Since the production of the new generation of suits had been delayed, the new ships built under the Year 00 Rearmament Plan had been assigned the old suits to use as trainers until the new suits could be acquired. For the most part, this arangement was fine. The old suits would function almost exactly the same as the new ones, though with quite a bit less preformance. Fortunately for LTJG Mizumi and the other fighter pilots, the production of the Goshawks and Sparrowhawks was ahead of schedule and the new fighters were onboard the ships before they were even commissioned.

The elevator was coming down again when Mizumi climbed out of his cockpit and joined his flight leader and the pilots of Flight A, taking off his helmet. On his previous ship, the heavy cruiser Miranda, such an act would be suicide. Fortunately, the new generation of ships had weak forcefields that maintained atmospheric integrity of the hangars while allowing objects to enter and exit without trouble.

"So, I hear that you bolted, Johnson."

"Yeah, yeah. The sun was in my eyes."

"We're more than two AUs out. That excuse may work in the Earthsphere, but it's not going to work here."

"Yeah, well, your mom."

". . ."

"So, I hear that they're going to test the main gun today. That should be something to see."

"Yeah, my buddies in Engineering say that this ship's spinal gun rival's the Inverse's."

"Wow. We ought to head up to the bridge to watch."


Some hours later, the pilots of VF-193 did just that, finding places to stand near the windows of the main bridge. In the distance in front of the ship was a midsized asteroid. On the bridge, dozens of people stood around to watch while the crew on duty shouted commands and prepared for the test. When the captain spoke the order to fire, however, everyone went silent.

From the bow of the ship was a bright, golden flash. When the initial flash subsided, the ship was awash in a golden light as the huge beam lanced through space. It only took a few seconds to reach the asteroid, and cameras on the ship and deployed probes documented the impact.

In a fraction of a second, the golden beam punched cleanly through the huge iron rock as though it were a snowball. Less than a second later, the wash from the beam ripped the asteroid apart in a sea of golden sparks and molten metal and rock. Though not very impressive from the bridge, the cameras got quite a show. As the beam shut down, the shot was replayed on screens mounted on the bridge over and over while other screens displayed technical data on the test. For the pilots of VF-193, the show was amazing. Though they piloted powerful fighters that packed a considerable amount of firepower, it was rare to see a four kilometer wide asteroid all but disintigrate before your eyes.

One by one, the people gathered on the bridge to watch the test dispursed, likely returning to their quarters or the mess hall. For the pilots of VF-193, the destination would be their quarters. They had a long day today, and tomorrow would be no different. Hopefully they would be able to get some rest.

Far away from May, inside the asteroid Pezun that was parked in Luna's L4 point, sixteen near clones of Suiseiseki and her sisters were under construction. The sixteen ships were of the Galileo (SV-067) class, a new class of science vessel that was at its most basic a Suiseiseki class light cruiser that had been extended 100m. As a result of the extension, the Galileos had four more reactors than Suiseiseki, twelve more twin 120mm autocannon mounts, science labs, hydroponics bays, and large cargo areas. The new ships were designed to replace the old and vulnerable Chronos class science vessels that required a small escort fleet for protection and could only be deployed for a few months at a time. On the other hand, the Galileos would be able to operate alone for years without contact with another vessel.

The first of the ships, Galileo was nearing completion. As soon as she was ready to leave the slip and her systems were all working fine, the new ship would head to the moon Asherton in orbit of the gas giant Vulcan in the Asherton star system. There, she would be outfitted with her more advanced sensor systems and spend several months under space trials. When all was ready, the ship would travel to the headquarters of the Hermes Alliance, the asteroid Axis in Sol's asteroid belt. From there, the hyperspace gate would make a single, long distance gate and Galileo would depart the Milky Way on her first mission.

-Several Months Later-
The CA-109 class, designated Achilles after the lead ship, had been designed and fifty units completed. A new ortillery ship, Helsinki, was built on a modified Trondheim hull and put into full production. Perhaps most importantly, the BB-37 class battleship, Myrkul, was under construction throughout Bryn Shander. Three ships of the class, Myrkul, Shar, and Talos were being built at Axis. Another three, Velsharoon, Cyric, and Jergal were under construction at A Baoa Qu. At Mathilde in orbit of Mars, Tempus and Torm had been laid down. Finally, Talona, Beshaba, Tymora, and Loviatar were being produced in Forodren Annon.

The twelve battleships of the Myrkul class were easily going to be the most powerful ships that Bryn Shander had ever produced, greatly outclassing the much larger Inverse class dreadnoughts.

-Many More Months Later-
They were done. After about three and a half years of frantic work, the twelve ships of the Myrkul class were complete and were being commissioned. Now, the old second generation ships could all be decommissioned and sold at auction or delegated to police duty. Now, Bryn Shander would have very little to fear in even the darkest depths of the galaxy.

As well as the Myrkuls, the Helsinkis were also completed. However, there was no time for the machinery in Bryn Shander's shipyards to go idle, as orders for more ships were soon recieved...