Center Worlds - Spark

It took three weeks to patch the hull enough for stable neospace flight, then the TGX-4 lumbered its shaky way out of the combat zone and into neutral space around the central system of the Confederacy. Limping into high orbit days later, it finally gasped to a halt and Gya had every major system shut down on board. Now the real repair work could commence, as teams of engineers ascended to the ship from the orbital yards and began to slowly repair and refit every single centimer of the hull. Before that happened, every single part of the ship was evacuated and vented, so that no pockets of resistance survived. The ship was firmly in the control of Clan Camelin, and Gya intended for it to remain that way.

Structural repairs took the longest time, as hundreds of square mets of new hull plating were manufactured for the ship and then mounted onto the hull and secured into place. Massive damage had been done to the left side of the hull, with both fuel tanks, the entire port armor frame laid bare, guns torn off, and the landing bays both exposed to vacuum.

Gya took charge of what repairs she could, slowly reworking entire sections of waveguide and electrical conduit in and around the bridge, repairing many lengths of silver fabric that allowed for the superconductive elements to function the entire length of the massive ship, while teams worked on fully rebuilding the destroyed central computer.

Over ten months, the TGX-4 began to live again, the crew would finish a section, it would be tested, and then brought to operational status. Engines slowly came online, all weapon ports were rebuilt, armor covered the entire hull and all the tubing and duct work was remolded into the place where smashed pipework and vented rends had been before.

Gya made sure that none of the old Computer core was left, the entire thing was stripped out, even the undamaged parts and a full new core was put into place. As she told one of the techs “How would you feel if you woke up, only to have a thought in the back of your mind that you had been betrayed by your Commander?” No memory units remained of the original TGX-4 core.

Based upon what had been said by the surviving bridge crew, Commander Desinlo ordered autopsies of the Michelab officers. The results were surprising and she shared them only with the senior Camelin administration as well as the palace staff.

The Michelab officers, all of them, had a parasite attached to the base of their skulls. A parasite that was almost legend in its obscurity, but a terrifying legend. A Ridyah, supplied according to legend, by one of the Confederacy Gods, one of the Mesotra.

Legend said the Gods used these to maintain control among the Hablis while they slept so that they could be kept appraised of the movements within the Confederacy until it was time for them to awaken. No Ridyah had been recorded in a Grand Cycle or longer, so this was of great importance, however, it was quickly buried and silenced so the general public had no idea. Gya was not told why, just that this was a directive from Commander Camelin and Lord Emperor Masilec.

She had spent a considerable amount of time on the ground, in the Palace, having long talks with the Lord Emperor over the state of the war, and giving him ideas and advice on disparate military strategy. He had access to hundreds of military advisers, but not many who had actual combat experience in an ongoing Clan War.

She enforced the Tara truce, including disciplining her officers when they were caught attempting to sabotage a Michelab ship in orbit for repairs. As she later put it. “When we stop following the simple rules of warfare, we lose the grip on civilization that binds us together. We have to have rules that we live by, even in war, or it becomes a slaughter. We are Clan Camelin, and we do not slaughter.”

Gya was 22 when she captured the TGX-4, and 23 when it launched, fully refit, to join the fight on behalf of Clan Camelin. Now with her being a full Commander, and the newly promoted Captain Sylva Cato as her XO, the TGX-4 was ready to see action.

The ship had been refit as a support vessel, as Gya felt more at ease in that type of role. She felt that support was much better than the front line, so the TGX-4 had been fully rebuilt to now be a fully mobile refit and repair facility. Four docking bays able to handle two N’Gouras each, strip and rebuild their outer shells in a matter of days, multiple bays ready to hold, launch, repair, and rebuild waves of Superiority fighters to support the fight. The TGX-4 was a carrier and a repair dock all in one place. Michelab had no idea how dangerous that could be until it mattered.

With the TGX-4 dropping out a million kims from the battle, it sat back, not to directly engage, but as ships were damaged or thirsty they would flick out to the TGX-4 for repair and refuel, and be back in the fight. The battle turned in Clan Camelin’s favor quickly, waves of fighters swept down to assault the Michelab refractories. The battle was won by Clan Camelin, and the legend of Captain Bitch and the Ice Princess began to spread.

Gya never faltered, and Cato was very aggressive in her duties. Gya never stepped away from the bridge in a crisis and never seemed to get upset, she remained calm, and poised, and snapped orders with a commanding voice that never changed tone or timbre. She was as cool as ice, which quickly earned her the title, along with her steel grey eyes and hair which she kept colored to an ethereal blue.

The very pale blue hair made her look even more white than before, which added to the almost supernatural presence that she had. On the bridge, it was controlled and never panicked. If an officer began to panic or be concerned, they just had to look at their Commander, who never faltered. Gya’s calmness kept the bridge running smoothly and the ship ran cleanly.

Sylva Cato gained her reputation early on as well. She took no quarter from anybody and allowed for nothing to go wrong. When it invariably did, she came down on those responsible like a helva-born clustercat. The crew began to refer to her as Captain Bitch and Cato reveled in it. She had many talks with Gya about her attitude, and she had decided that if Gya was going to be calm and unemotional, then Sylva would be the emotion for them both. Together, they got the crew running like a well-oiled machine and the TGX-4 became one of the best support vessels in the entire combined fleet.

Five more cycles of war flooded the Confederacy. The major clans now were only Michelab with its massive production and refinery zones, and Camelin, with the military might and tactical strategy required to keep Michelab off guard. It still took many cycles to finally wear the other clan down to the point where they finally began to withdraw and fall back. Millions of citizens had died, on both sides, the toll of war was always the civilians, and even though Clan Camelin had made every attempt to keep the civilians on the Michelab worlds out of the battles, at times they became unwitting targets when a planet needed to be bombarded or conquered by force.