Current location:	Rhoose, South Wales
Current mood:	creative
Current music:	OST- Grease

Fic: Battlegroup 8/?
Eight

Admiral of the Fleet Alistair Thomas, Commanding Officer Royal Star Service was officially unamused.

One might go so far as to say he was mildly vexed.

“I want to know why exactly my second in command is in hospital, I want the names of everyone involved and I want heads and I want them yesterday!”

Commander Joan Williams winced, raising her hand to her now tender ears, “Christ boss, cool it will you, I’m sure they didn’t hear planetside…”

“I. Don’t. Care” Thompson voice was calm, dangerously so, the very quietness and levelness managing to portray his unhappiness far better then he previous shouting had, “somebody just attempted to assassinate my second in command, worse, they tried to assassinate the officer in command of the Sol System defences aboard a station which is being marred by personnel troubles and so called ‘administrative’ delays. Somebody is deliberately attacking the Royal Star Service and I want to know who and I want to know why. And I want their heads on a bloody platter”

“So do it,” Joan replied annoyed, “but shouting at me isn’t going to help. Now, the question is, are those problems actually related?”

“Finding out is now your concern Commander,” Thompson replied annoyed, “I’ll be passing along word to Murielle to contact you for orders. I’m going to be giving you some pretty broad powers in this, don’t disappoint me”

“Aye Sir,” Joan replied, taking her orders chip off her boss before fleeing the room.

-----

Lieutenant Hayes grimaced, her hands clenched as she gazed annoyed at the tactical display, “Set condition one and prepare to jump to space-normal”

“Aye Ma’m,” came the swift reply from the only other officer present on the bridge, Ensign Bridges, “Condition One and rig for jump”

Nodding, the tactical officer gazed across the display, trying to identify targets from the twisted mass of blurry markers on the screen, some were already marked as ships, hostile or alliance, some marked as spent weapons or debris but most were simply unidentified.

“Report!” Hayes turned at the brisk word from the bridge hatch, catching the Captain pulling his uniform top over his head as he stepped into the room.

“We have a furball Captain, space-normal,” she replied, stepping smartly away from the console to give her Captain a better view, “identified alliance warships, Narn and League as well as several Drakh ships. Ship is ordered to battlestations and we are rigged to jump”

Hayes watched passively, her Command having devolved to the Captain as soon as he stepped onto the bridge, waiting for orders.

“Jump us out on the edge of the furball, and be ready to contact the Alliance ships, I want a sit-rep ASAP,”

Nodding, Hayes stepped towards her own tactical console, surrendering the central display as the rest of the command crew raced onto the bridge. She almost didn’t hear her Captains whispered final comment.

“Dropping right into a fight, oh joy”

-----

“He came towards me swiftly,” Peters said softly, grimacing at a stab of pain from her abdomen, “but there was something in his eyes that frightened me. It was… as if he truly believed he could not die, not then or there”

“Religious fanatic?” Joan asked softly, her eyes speaking her sympathy even as her body language screamed professional doing her job.

“I don’t know,” Peters replied, her form twisting under the thin hospital sheets as she tried to get more comfortable, her face dropping into a pained grimace as the movement sent shards of pain radiating outwards from her stomach, “something about him seemed off though I cant tell you what. It was an impression more then anything else, it may not mean anything”

Joan nodded, “what happened next?”

“I attempted to fight him off, protect myself until security could arrive and deal with him,” Peters shook her head, “but he was fast, well trained and I had already lost the full use of my right arm because of his first blow. He gutted me, caught me right in the stomach”

Joan nodded; glancing once at her recorder, making sure the small device was still working.

“It was at that point that the banging at the hatch started, I could hear the handle trying to turn but there was also another sound, I wondered at that moment if he had blocked the door from opening but I also noticed that he appeared to be distracted, though more annoyed by the sounds outside the door. I used the opportunity to dive forward, knife in my hand; I knew that that was most likely my last shot at killing him before he finished me off”

Peters gulped, turning her face away from Joan in distress, “he turned, his knife caught me again even as my own caught his throat. I thought I had missed everything vital as he continued to pound his blade into me again and again, the pain forced me to the ground at that point and I blacked out”

Joan nodded, “do you remember anything else?”

“Not until I woke up here,” Peters replied, and Joan didn’t need to look to know that tears were coming into the eyes of the shaken woman.

“Thank you,” Joan replied softly, grasping the officer’s hand once, reassuringly before she left the room.

-----

“Receiving a tactical update from a Vree Xill class Cruiser,” Hayes noted loudly, her hands racing as she transferred the data from the communications systems to the tactical computers, an annoyed frown passing across her features as the data slowly crept across, anti-virals and hardware scanners taking their turn on the data before allowing its transfer.

Nodding, Captain Jones turned his gaze onto the rapidly shifting display, unidentified icons flicking in rapid succession, some to blue, allied, but most glaring red, threat.

He shook his head warily, and then grimaced, his eyes not missing the fact that the surviving allied warships were englobed, trapped and unable to escape.

“Increase speed to Squadron Flank,” he ordered swiftly, “lets break our allies out”