The TCS Black Raven moved with a grace that only battle-hardened war-cruisers have. Her primary hull was darkened from having to fend off the numerous ambushes that she’d encountered from her nine months deep behind enemy lines. Her superstructure was lined from bow to stern with man-made scars, where her engineers had repaired battle damage in order of practicality rather than sleekness. Her Engines, Sensors, Weapons complement and Shielding had all been upgraded, replaced or added to by her crew, to the extent that when she eventually returned to space-dock for re-fit that she’d have to be redesignated with a new ship class, since her specifications no longer fit that of her original “Walker” Cruiser class design. A tough ship to fight under her original design, she was now a “Ship of the Line”, a warship unrivalled by anything else in her class or any other for that matter.

Commodore Samantha Ryan surveyed her Bridge with a feeling of pride. We’ve been through so much and lost so many, but they still put the same performance in everyday, as if we’ve been only a week out of Space-Dock, she marvelled as a couple of ensigns passed her on the way to their duty stations. The only ship that’s seen as much combat as us is the Tiger Claw, and she’s been busier than usual since Paladin took her over.

“Conn, Sensors” Samantha heard over her headpiece.

“Conn here, ‘Becks.’ We’re not in combat, so there’s no need yell, ok?”

Master Chief Rebecca “Becks” Chambers gave a slight smile that nearly made the junior members of the bridge wonder if she’d gone insane, while leaving the more experienced members of the crew nearly beside themselves at the insider's joke. Standing at a diminutive 5’6” with fiery-shoulder length hair, she’d served her entire career under "her" skipper, leaving her side only to get married and to give birth to three kids. Thirty years in Navy blue and I still get to tease the skipper about her wandering imagination, ‘Becks’ chuckled to herself. Though she’s a good one to have, plus I have done some things that I otherwise wouldn’t of been able to of done as just a normal NCO.

“Sure, Skipper. You just looked as if you’d fallen asleep during a Holo-Vid again and needed the wake-up.”

“Ok, ok ok, you’ve got my attention now, what’s up this time, Chief?”

“I’m flicking over to a secure channel…….. I’m receiving a FLASH-traffic Comm-Signal from the Diligent for your eyes only, Commodore. Considering you’re presently doing a complete systems check and we’ve got the same security clearances, I decided to look at it first before I bothered you with it. It’s Paladin, Skipper, and he’s requesting an emergency landing with a large Trauma Med team standing by.”

“Bring him in yourself then Becks, you know the drill.”

“Aye Aye, Skipper”

“ME-DIEC!!! I NEED A MEDIC RIGHT NOW!” I heard Commodore James Taggart screaming at the top of his lungs the second I walked out of my personal turbo-lift to the flight-deck.

“Calm down Taggart! The kid’s in a Statis Pod, he’s not going to be getting any worse while he’s frozen in there, no matter who he is!” I yelled. As a French descendant, ‘Paladin’, or ‘Pally’ as we generally called him, had developed a reputation around the entire fleet of greatly overdramatising things when his temper was up.

“Have a look at the kid and tell me what you think” he said, meanwhile grabbing my arm and pulling me over towards the pod.

My God! He wasn’t kidding!

The last thing that I can remember after that was seeing the floor rush up upon me.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

“She’s coming round” was the next thing I heard.

“That’s good. Combine the surprise with the way her head hit the floor, I thought that I might have had to of put her into the ‘Tank’ for a while.”

“Doc……..?”

“Lay still Skipper, you scared the hell out of me. I thought that you’d re-broken your neck with that little escapade you had on the flight deck.”

“Where’s Taggart?”

“Right here, Sammi. When I called the med-team, I didn’t expect for them to be treating two patients at once."

Then everything went dark again.

End of Part One

This is a work-in-progress which I'll be adding to as I get the time. Enjoy. :)
Cathy.