NationStates Jolt Archive

Banize Harbour, The Free Republic

The natural cliffs overlooking the perfect harbour, about ten miles from the town of Banize, had always been an impediment to dock building that would make the harbour useful to anyone , until now that is. With tensions building in the Klatch the Naval Guard needed a harbout pointing west, and Banize Harbour was right on the Western most tip of Ilek-Vaad. The Naval Guard had dug, from the inside of the cliff out, forming a cave with walls several hundred feet thick in the natural granite, huge blast doors faced the bay and were now opening for the first time. The large quays inside had enough space for one hundred ships and the coastal defences and Marine compliment to protect them, the Harbour was also only about thirty seconds flight from SouthWest Air Command.

The blast doors opened slowly and a single ship cut through the waters inside the cave, out into the cold sun over the harbour. The ships Captain, Petra Nerva of the Naval Guard stood on the deck watching the cave mouth as the NGS Istvan Vaikov, a brand new Tormentor BattleCruiser (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10732807&postcount=60), cruised under the cliff and out into the harbour.

The ship safely out, Captain Nerva walked back inside and into the lift, going down, into Fire Control. The Fire Control Command stood at attention as she entered and sat in the Captains Chair, she looked over the crew as they resumed their seats and got back to work. Captain Nerva had been chosen for this assignment because she was the most experienced Jaguar Arsenal-Cruiser Captain, she was intimately familiar with the advanced systems and operations that the new Tormentor Class Battlecruiser shared with the Jaguar Arsenal-Cruiser.

"Report, Leftenant." she asked as she turned towards the Status Leftenant.

"All systems report operational, satellite links established, all sensing arrays are reporting. Both reactors show 100% capacity. All systems check out diagnostically." He replied as he went down the checklists.

Captain Nerva stood "Very well, full ahead Helm. Take us to targetting point A, get satellite fixes on targets and begin full sensing sweep ahead of us. Let's see if the diagnostics are correct."

Helm responded as she spoke "Aye,aye Captain, full ahead, laying course to staging area."

The Istvan Vaikov accelerated rapidly, quickly climbing out of the water and up onto the 'points' of it's W shaped hull, reaching over eighty knots within minutes. It was well underway.

The Istvan Vaikov sliced through the water at speed, Captain Nerva watched the progess on the satellite fed plasma screens and watched as a group of three Jaguar Arsenal-Cruisers came into view. The Arsenal Cruisers quickly accelerated and tried to keep up with the Tormentor BattleCruiser but were quickly left behind.

Captain Nerva smiled as the Fire Control Leftenant spoke up "Capatin, we are nearing staging point A, we have the three targets locked, selected and in range."

Captain Nerva stood looking over at the screen now displaying the targets, three Tlaxcalla Class Battleships that had been towed into postion, they were displaying at fifteen hundred miles distant.

"Fire Apollyon Missles at will, one for each ship. Evasive maneuvers, close to destroy targets." She calmly commanded.

The BattleCruiser launched three Apollyon Cruise missiles simultaneously, the missiles quickly accelerated to six times the speed of sound and made their way in a serpentine pattern to the targets, as they did that the Istvan Vaikov, made wide S maneuvers as it closed on the targets, evading imaginary missles and torpedos, the BattleCruiser barely broke speed.

The Battlecruiser closed in on the three battleships as the Apollyon missles hit their targets, dead in mid-ship, tearing gaping holes in the conning towers. Captain Nerva looked over at one the side screens that was quicklly calculation gun range, at eight hundred miles out she nodded.

"Fire main guns and peel off attack pattern."

Three of the four main gun batteries turned and fired their one and a half ton shells with syaellite guided precision, all three battleships were struck simuiltaneoulsy by the huge shells at the waterlinme and the following explosions roiled the sea and left gaping holes with water pouring in. All three targets began listing quickly as they filled with water. In under three minutes, all three battleships had been critically damaged by the Tormentor Battlecruiser, which was now safely out of range.

Captain Nerva resumed her seat "Helm, slow to half speed and set course for observation point Teztcatlipoca,Comm, report to command that all three targets are neutralized."

*****

Nearly a thousand miles away, aboard the Teztcatlipoca Admiral Connacht monitored the Istvan Vaikov's performace along with Assistant to the Minister of Defence, Lyon Abel. Admiral Connacht nodded at the fire-control monitor.

"Not bad at all, very quick and efficent. Not a bad new ship at all, with speed like that it is an ideal first strike weapon."

Mr. Abel nodded back "Yes, so far it has performed as expected. It will be interesting to see how it manages on longer deployments."

"After they meet us here, I am sending them north to South Haven and back round the penninsula to Corcyra and then another target exercise. We should get a good idea of it's longevity and performance." Commented the Admiral as she leaned over to study some cahrts.

Mr. Abel simply commented "If all goes well I can see them going into full production."