Several converging torrents of turbolaser energy tore into the hostile freighter, plowing through its thin hull, the baptizing heat of the salvo erasing any present traces of the Reaver host, leaving the junked remnants of the ship to drift, out of control, among her former host companions, likewise now just hostless wrecks.
The Fuhrer pulled clear away from the engagement, her shields having never been compromised, and with the battle debris falling away behind her, her danger of becoming host infected dropping rapidly down to zero. But still, as the newer battle regulations restricted, her shields remained up and recharging up to full.
It was a lesson learned during a previous battle in which, having mopped up one enemy squadron, the fleet had dropped shields in preparation for a jump into hyperspace. Enemy reinforcements, undetected because they didn't use sensors or anything apart from their sublight and hyper drive engines, had burst forth from the latter to attack the fleet, quickly ramming and infecting a Star Destroyer and two escorting gunships.
The crew of the destroyed had managed to evacuate it safely, but the crews of the gunships had to be sacrificed as the companion vessels purged all three of them with turbolaser and ion cannons, scuttling the three vessels.
But for every failure, the fleet had ten successes against the Reavers during the past month, destroying three big and several smaller fleets, for the combined loss, including the above, of a single star destroyer and thirty light cruiser sized or smaller vessels. The fleet was nearing the end of its cruising period, thanks in large part to the annihilation of the resupply convoy by the Reavers three weeks earlier, something that irked the Grand Fleet commander to no end.
The unpleasant truth is that they would have to return all the way to Vladet to reprovision, but courier ships had passed the word along that upon their next sailing, enough freighters would travel with them to effect three reprovisionings while underway, upon which the freighters would stay with the fleet for their own protection.
Admiral Brand secretly admitted to himself that he was itching at the bit to get a chance to see his family again, even if he was away only for a month. Morale was a little low, mainly due the crews need to see whether or not their families or relatives had survived the siege of Coruscant. Many would have time to mourn those that did not, or rejoice with those that did. His attention turned back to the sensor board, the newly modified version that incorporated the scans that would be able to detect the biological 'scent' emitted by the Reaver virus, such as it was.
There, the sensors indicated that the squadron of Regent class destroyers, the Fuhrer, Tsar, and Monarch, with their respective escorts, had returned to their normal deployment stations after pursuing and eliminating the last vestiges of the enemy fleet. He sent the orders out via hypercomm to the fleet that after the mines had been laid for any other Reaver ships that might respond to the coordinates from where this comm message may have been sent, that the ships were to proceed into hyperspace, non-stop to Vladet.
The Emperor watched gleefully from the bridge of the Dominion as the large and bulky vessel approached the field of debris from the Reaver fleet. This type of vessel hadn't been seen in the Empire from quite some time, but the situation they found themselves in dictated that they should make a return to help with solving it.
Previously, these ships, designed in secret at the Maw Installation, deployed only to Byss, had gone by the names of 'World Devastators', but now, under a new Empire and flag, they had been redesignated 'Reaver Purpose Recycling Vessels' or 'Reapers' for short. The vessel now approaching the field was named Reaper-3, and this would be the trial to see whether or not it was worth following up with additional vessels to the six already built or still being built.
Dotted with a hundred heavy turbolaser batteries and two hundred AG-3G Quad Laser Cannons, the Reapers were formidable warships, but offensive operations were not their purpose. Rather, those weapons and the ship's shields would protect the vessel from any enemy derelicts that either might be playing possum or still posses some form of function that could infect or damage the Reaper.
Already tractor beams began dragging the carcasses of enemy ships into the blast furnaces, where any traces of the Reaver strain was purified and eliminated by the scouring heat. The melted materials were then sorted by type. Rather than having onboard factories to manufacture vessels of war, the materials were cooled into ingots that would be transferred by freighter to manufacturing facilities around the Empire for use in anything from civilian to commercial to military projects. Current circumstances dictated the latter was the most likely destinations for these.
Already a publicity campaign was underway to help forestall any outcry from the public about the resurrection of these vessels, once termed as horrible weapons of war that had savaged numerous Alliance planets in the old days. But with all that had done on and the horrors that had been incurred as thus far in the wars against both the Reavers and the Cree'Ar, the outcry was minimal in some areas, and non-existent in others.
Already, plowing though the thickest portion of the debris field, freighters were emerging from the aft docking bays of Reaper-3, filled to the brims with ingots of durasteel, titanium, plastics, and other materials. Debris that wasn't sucked in on the first pass was either brushed aside by the shields, or obliterated for target practice for the crews of the turbolaser and laser cannon mounts. Thus far, no signs of Reaver infection had been detected.
Time would tell whether or not this was worth it, but for now cheering broke out among the crew and witnesses present, and Emperor Kraken exchanged handshakes with several of the military and political dignitaries present. With that being said and done, he and a few of the others headed for the hangar bay. Although he would have loved to be able to stay the night and break in his personal quarters reserved aboard the fleet flagship, the Emperor had a shattered Empire to rebuild and run, and that could not be done as effectively onboard the ship as on the surface of the planet.
The Fuhrer pulled clear away from the engagement, her shields having never been compromised, and with the battle debris falling away behind her, her danger of becoming host infected dropping rapidly down to zero. But still, as the newer battle regulations restricted, her shields remained up and recharging up to full.
It was a lesson learned during a previous battle in which, having mopped up one enemy squadron, the fleet had dropped shields in preparation for a jump into hyperspace. Enemy reinforcements, undetected because they didn't use sensors or anything apart from their sublight and hyper drive engines, had burst forth from the latter to attack the fleet, quickly ramming and infecting a Star Destroyer and two escorting gunships.
The crew of the destroyed had managed to evacuate it safely, but the crews of the gunships had to be sacrificed as the companion vessels purged all three of them with turbolaser and ion cannons, scuttling the three vessels.
But for every failure, the fleet had ten successes against the Reavers during the past month, destroying three big and several smaller fleets, for the combined loss, including the above, of a single star destroyer and thirty light cruiser sized or smaller vessels. The fleet was nearing the end of its cruising period, thanks in large part to the annihilation of the resupply convoy by the Reavers three weeks earlier, something that irked the Grand Fleet commander to no end.
The unpleasant truth is that they would have to return all the way to Vladet to reprovision, but courier ships had passed the word along that upon their next sailing, enough freighters would travel with them to effect three reprovisionings while underway, upon which the freighters would stay with the fleet for their own protection.
Admiral Brand secretly admitted to himself that he was itching at the bit to get a chance to see his family again, even if he was away only for a month. Morale was a little low, mainly due the crews need to see whether or not their families or relatives had survived the siege of Coruscant. Many would have time to mourn those that did not, or rejoice with those that did. His attention turned back to the sensor board, the newly modified version that incorporated the scans that would be able to detect the biological 'scent' emitted by the Reaver virus, such as it was.
There, the sensors indicated that the squadron of Regent class destroyers, the Fuhrer, Tsar, and Monarch, with their respective escorts, had returned to their normal deployment stations after pursuing and eliminating the last vestiges of the enemy fleet. He sent the orders out via hypercomm to the fleet that after the mines had been laid for any other Reaver ships that might respond to the coordinates from where this comm message may have been sent, that the ships were to proceed into hyperspace, non-stop to Vladet.
* * *
The Emperor watched gleefully from the bridge of the Dominion as the large and bulky vessel approached the field of debris from the Reaver fleet. This type of vessel hadn't been seen in the Empire from quite some time, but the situation they found themselves in dictated that they should make a return to help with solving it.
Previously, these ships, designed in secret at the Maw Installation, deployed only to Byss, had gone by the names of 'World Devastators', but now, under a new Empire and flag, they had been redesignated 'Reaver Purpose Recycling Vessels' or 'Reapers' for short. The vessel now approaching the field was named Reaper-3, and this would be the trial to see whether or not it was worth following up with additional vessels to the six already built or still being built.
Dotted with a hundred heavy turbolaser batteries and two hundred AG-3G Quad Laser Cannons, the Reapers were formidable warships, but offensive operations were not their purpose. Rather, those weapons and the ship's shields would protect the vessel from any enemy derelicts that either might be playing possum or still posses some form of function that could infect or damage the Reaper.
Already tractor beams began dragging the carcasses of enemy ships into the blast furnaces, where any traces of the Reaver strain was purified and eliminated by the scouring heat. The melted materials were then sorted by type. Rather than having onboard factories to manufacture vessels of war, the materials were cooled into ingots that would be transferred by freighter to manufacturing facilities around the Empire for use in anything from civilian to commercial to military projects. Current circumstances dictated the latter was the most likely destinations for these.
Already a publicity campaign was underway to help forestall any outcry from the public about the resurrection of these vessels, once termed as horrible weapons of war that had savaged numerous Alliance planets in the old days. But with all that had done on and the horrors that had been incurred as thus far in the wars against both the Reavers and the Cree'Ar, the outcry was minimal in some areas, and non-existent in others.
Already, plowing though the thickest portion of the debris field, freighters were emerging from the aft docking bays of Reaper-3, filled to the brims with ingots of durasteel, titanium, plastics, and other materials. Debris that wasn't sucked in on the first pass was either brushed aside by the shields, or obliterated for target practice for the crews of the turbolaser and laser cannon mounts. Thus far, no signs of Reaver infection had been detected.
Time would tell whether or not this was worth it, but for now cheering broke out among the crew and witnesses present, and Emperor Kraken exchanged handshakes with several of the military and political dignitaries present. With that being said and done, he and a few of the others headed for the hangar bay. Although he would have loved to be able to stay the night and break in his personal quarters reserved aboard the fleet flagship, the Emperor had a shattered Empire to rebuild and run, and that could not be done as effectively onboard the ship as on the surface of the planet.