Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Half a War ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Ranma 1/2, Homeworld or Homeworld: Cataclysm, yadda, yadda legal stuff. Don't sue me, you won't get enough to cover your legal bills.

Authors notes: to those of you unfamiliar with Homeworld some glossary. Kiith - a rough clan-like grouping that often fills a role in society like warrior, merchant, industrial, miner, religious caretaker, scientist and all sorts of roles. These kiithid (plural for kiith) could have members that numbered in the hundreds of thousands until the war struck. I've given the Hiigarans some time to recover their numbers and expand their territory.

The rest of the technical stuff you should be able to figure out, as it will be explained to some degree in the story.

Half a War

Time, Nabiki reflected, was the oddest thing. Their 45 minutes were almost up and it had been the longest 45 minutes of her life. The minutes had ticked by slowly as Akane's carrier C-Chan had retreated, trying to by time so it could build a fleet. At the same time those 45 minutes had been incredibly short and now she couldn't believe that the time had just passed, she didn't know where it had all gone.

"Kasumi why don't you go down to the infirmary and see if you can help them with the wounded." That was Kimiko's suggestion. Nabiki thought it was a good idea, Kasumi had never witnessed front line combat and she should be in someplace where she could be of help.

They hadn't met the main fleet yet but five minutes ago the enemy's fighter support had swept in and started attacking the frigates that Akane had ordered built. That had forced Akane to launch her fighters, which had been in the middle of refueling, as well as the corvettes that had been completed. The enemy fighters numbered nearly eighty interceptors and twenty bombers. When it was over the enemy fighters had been wiped out but Akane was down to seventeen of her original forty fighters and four of the sixteen corvettes that had been built. Two of her frigates were also heavily damaged. Reluctantly she ordered two repair corvettes built ASAP. Akane swore to herself as she realized she should have expected something like this. The Taidanni were known to be ruthless in their tactics and sacrificing fighters so the frigates could pound their opponents with impunity was a standard tactic.

"Taidan fleet will be in firing range in one minute Commander." came the report from the tactical officer.

"Okay bring the fleet around and engage head on. Remember concentrate on one ship at a time and try to nail them from the sides." Akane ordered. Although Soun could have taken command had he so desired he left it to Akane, this was her ship and her crew. She knew the limitations and capabilities of her crew better than he did. After all, she had used this ship to train at the Academy and was very familiar with it by now.

As the four assault frigates and two ion frigates turned to the left the C-Chan turned upward in a half loop as it reversed its vertical orientation. It would keep the top half pointed toward the enemy where its weaponry was concentrated while keeping the launch bays out of the direct line of fire.

Akane watched the Taidan frigates become visible in the view port and proceeded to order her remaining corvettes and fighters to circle around and take the frigates from behind. She also ordered them to concentrate fire on the ion frigates that were being trained on the C-Chan.

Suddenly the assault frigates of the Tendo fleet began opening fire at long range hoping to bring the enemy down as fast as possible. The Taidan were only seconds behind with their return volley and than the battle was on. Searing balls of high-energy plasma flew through space as lances of charged ions cut through the darkness to burrow into the dense armor covering the vulnerable crew inside each ship. The C-Chan was the first ship to score a kill managing to reduce an ion frigate a dense vapor. Unfortunately Akane's two damaged frigates were destroyed soon after. She checked the tactical display and saw that the destroyers were only three minutes away and the cruiser was only one minute behind them. She saw another enemy frigate succumb to the concentrated fire of the fighter and corvette group and a third that fell to hell frigate group. The odds where still thirteen frigates to her four, and the odds where one and a half minutes from getting worse.

Alarmingly the hyperspace indicator went off, startling everyone.

"Hyper space signature detected directly behind us. Two massive signatures as well twenty smaller signatures."

Akane cursed some more. There was no way they could hold out long enough to hyperspace now.

"Commander they're hailing us. It's on a Hiigaran frequency."

"Put them on the screen so we can respond." Akane prayed this wasn't some sort of cruel ruse.

"This is the carrier Senken to carrier C-Chan. We are here to assist, please transmit your comm frequencies so we can update our friend or foe recognition systems." Akane was elated and hardly heard her fathers shout of relief through her own.

"Transmit codes now by tight beam only and ask if we can speak to their commander." Akane ordered. She wanted to coordinate her forces properly with the Senken forcers and she needed communication to do so.

A woman's face appeared on the screen. She was middle aged although and had a confidant look about her, a katana could be seen strapped to her back. She spoke with a quiet and assured confidence. "Greetings kiith Tendo. We can handle the Taidan. If you would withdraw your ships and allow us to assist with repairs we will cover your retreat."

Akane didn't like retreating and she was about to tell the woman that her forces would assist in fighting the Taidan when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw her mother " Akane our forces need to retreat they are badly damaged and we don't want good soldiers to die needlessly." With that Akane relented and ordered her forces to retreat behind the advancing Senken forces.

"Thank you Akane. There is no dishonor in retreating. You're are heavily out gunned and unprepared for a battle of this magnitude." With that she left the channel open but started to give orders to her own crew. "Genma take the Vengeance between the enemy fleet and the C-Chan. Ranma bring you're fighters around and behind the enemy cruiser. Take it down then join the frigates as they cover the Vengeance. And remember this meeting was supposed to be secret, no witnesses."

"Right mom." Came the reply over the audio only channel. Akane thought the boy sounded very young. Nabiki had another suspicion but she kept it to herself until she could confirm it. Instead she brought up the visual of the Senken carrier as it launched its fighters from one of its three fighter bays. To her it appeared as if the fighters were moving unusually fast and she had the computer calculate their speed. When the answer came back to her she could only stare at in shock. Fighters simply could not move that fast, no engine design she had ever heard of could create that kind of output. Even if these were the Saotomes with their lost tech it shouldn't be that advanced, it was decades ahead of anything currently in the Hiigaran or Taidan fleets.

"Nodoka is that you?" Soun could only stare at the woman. She looked incredible for her age, unlike Genma who seemed to have lost all of his hair but was still recognizable even with the military barrette replacing his usual bandanna.

"Yes Soun it is. I am glad to see you are doing well. I assume that is your wife beside you." Kimiko could only marvel at the woman. Here they were in the middle of a battle and she was taking time for small talk of all things.

"Err yes, right. Kimiko this is Saotome Nodoka and her husband Genma Saotome. Nodoka this is Kimiko, my wife. Akane my youngest daughter is currently commanding our troops. I am sorry but can we save the rest of the introductions until the Taidan are no longer a threat?"

"Of course Soun. When this is done if you will meet us on the Senken and continue with formal introductions. Until than Soun." With that Nodoka closed the communication channel.

"Well she is very much as I remember her. Genma still doesn't seem to like talking over the comm systems I guess." Soun commented.

With that Nabiki went back to observing the battle between the Taidan and the Senken forces. It was quickly apparent that the battle would be one-sided. The Senken ships were vastly superior in design and the crews were using it to their advantage. While the Taidan and Hiigaran Military used standard Ion frigates, the Senken were using a system that mirrored the old Somtaaw design. The difference being that standard ion frigate design had the entire hull wrapped around a single ion accelerator with the business end pointed forward. It allowed for a great power to the weapon but limited the coverage. Recently the firing end of accelerator had been turreted in the design but the coverage was still limited to a fifteen-degree cone in front of the frigate. The Saotomes had used a principle of bending the accelerator chamber into a helix and using beam splitters to give their frigates a greater coverage with multiple beam firing points on the hull. The draw back was reduced firepower. However the Saotome vessels were vastly superior in maneuverability and could easily evade the enemy frigates while relentlessly pound their exposed flanks. By this time the three destroyers had joined the battle and were trying to engage the Senken cruiser Vengeance.

The Vengeance, Nabiki realized was as unique as the Senken carrier. It sported an impressive eight heavy turrets and over a dozen of the quick tracking ion beams that Nabiki had seen on the frigates. Also the Vengeance was deploying what appeared to be a type of drone, twelve in all, and they were taking up positions surrounding the cruiser. As she watched, the drones finished maneuvering into position and suddenly a curtain of energy surrounded Vengeance. She looked on in shock as energy cannon blasts and ion beams harmlessly dissipated against the wall of energy that enclosed Senken cruiser. She checked and saw that the same was happening around the Senken carrier as well as what appeared to be a missile ship of destroyer class size. Nabiki wondered if the Saotomes had found the lost Somtaaw kiith that had disappeared over two hundred years ago.

Whatever the origins of the technology it had the Taidan totally outclassed. As she watched she was treated to another marvel of the Saotomes engineering as a massive beam of white hot ions streamed from the front of the Vengeance. The beam was easily wide enough to swallow an entire corvette and she swore she saw the destroyer shudder upon impact. When the beam finished firing the destroyer was missing a large chunk of it's hull and vulnerable inner chambers were exposed to the cold vacuum of space. Energy cannon shots flew into the hole and the destroyer began to disintegrate into small fragments under the bombardment as well as the internal explosions signaled that ship was doomed.

By this time the two remaining destroyers were trying to turn tail and run. All that they accomplished was exposing their flanks to a withering salvo from the Vengeance's turrets and smaller ion beams. By this time Nabiki noticed that all but three of the original fifteen Taidan frigates were left in one piece. Also the fighter wing that had been led by Ranma was returning as well. A single run from the high-speed fighters reduced one of the last three frigates to harmless chunks of space debris. The fighters than turned their attention to the destroyers as thry tried to flee from the slower Vengeance. One of destroyers didn't make it as the Vengeance opened fire with it's massive ion beam again, this time destroying the ships engines and causing it's fusion power plant to explode. The fighter wing swarmed the remaining destroyer and began to take apart its armor at an astonishing rate. The destroyer detonated in short order joining the last of frigates in the silent death of the vacuum.

Nabiki began reviewing the battle performance of both Akane's fleet as well as the Senken's. Akane had done well for herself considering the resources she had. She had lost over half her fighters as well as most of her corvettes but only two of her frigates. Unfortunately a total of fifteen crewmembers had died, mostly fighter pilots. The Senken however had no fatalities and had lost only five of the sixty fighters she saw launch. A medical corvette that tracked the homing beacon located on every suit was currently retrieving those five pilots. Even given that the Senken had out numbered the Taidan forces, to come through a battle with so few losses was remarkable. Nabiki had been pretty confident of her hunch that the Saotomes were the Senken mercenaries, but it was still very satisfying to know that she was right.

Akane in the meantime was reviewing her fleet and beginning post battle operations. "Hangar crew send out a passenger shuttle and begin retrieving our people, as well as any Taidan survivors. Nabiki will want as much intel as possible so see if you can find any flight recorders after you've finished with rescue operations." Next Akane talked to Kasumi in the infirmary. "Kasumi how well are you handling the wounded down there?"

Kasumi answered over the intercom "We're doing well down here we shouldn't lose anyone, but I'm not sure if everyone will be able to pilot again. We'll do our best but these simply aren't the facilities I'm used to."

"I know Kasumi but its all we have right now." was Akane's reply. Kasumi's carrier the Homestead had the most complete and extensive hospital facilities found on any carrier class ship. The Homestead had nearly everything that a hospital could have, including very expensive bio fabrication tanks that allowed organs to be grown to temporarily replace any that a person might loose in battle. Once the patient could be transferred to a real hospital a fully compatible organ could be grown to replace the temporary one. A thought occurred to Nabiki as she listened to the conversation.

"Akane why don't you contact Nodoka and see if they might have better facilities for the wounded aboard the Senken, after all they spend a great deal of time away from colonized worlds." Kimiko suggested just as Nabiki opened her mouth. Nabiki was surprised to hear her mother suggest this. It was exactly what she had been about to suggest. Yes her mother was definitely a sharp woman, she wondered how her dad had managed to successfully marry her sometimes. Her parents were uncharacteristically tight lipped about the subject.

"Sure mom." With that Akane opened a channel with the Senken carrier. A brief moment later Nodoka's face appeared on screen looking surprisingly cheerful and motherly. Motherly was the only word Akane could think of to suitably describe her.

"Hello dear. What can I do for you?" Nabiki wondered about the woman. Really who could be so calm during, and after a battle like that.

"We were wondering if you could help us with our wounded Commander Nodoka. Our facilities are unfortunately not equipped to deal with some of the injuries that our crew has incurred." Akane was really very polite so long as the person she was talking to didn't happen to be a male under thirty years of age or possessing a lustful expression on their face. Kimiko hoped that Akane would eventually calm down and give a small measure of respect to nearly half the population that compromised her age group.

"Of course we can help Akane. Have who ever you can brought over to the Senken. We can handle everything after that. Oh and I would like for you and your family to come aboard the Senken so we can attend to the matter for which we went to all this trouble for."

Soun replied for his family "Of course Nodoka we will come aboard as soon the last of the wounded has been cared for." Now that the battle was finished Soun would be considered in command again and he felt it prudent to accept Nodoka's offer of hospitality.

Akane began communicating with Kasumi and started organizing the transfer of patients.

"Nabiki what will we do with surviving Taidan? The brig on this ship is very small and we won't have room for all of them." Akane asked her sister.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about it Akane. The Senken are picking up any and all survivors, including the Taidan. I guess I'll have to go aboard the Senken to get the answers I want."

Less than half an hour later the Tendo family left the C-Chan and prepared to meet their soon to be allies the Saotomes.

============================================================== =====

Authors notes again: The Characters are going to be a little OOC. This is for a number of reasons really. Ranma obviously grew up with both of his parents, as did the Tendo sisters. Also the Homeworld universe is a great deal more serious than the Ranma universe and the attitudes of the characters are going to reflect that as well.

Read And Review, C&C always welcome.