F105 SS Jurassic, captained by Caratore, has just returned from a highly successful lone raiding mission behind the Utrek front line. Here in an exclusive for Latest Victory News Caratore describes the adventures of his intrepid crew :
Our mission was simple, go behind the front line into Utrek held space and cause as much havoc as possible to the vital shipping and logistical networks the Utrek rely on. Our first target was encountered within a few hours : an Eritran freighter. Under UNP Interstellar Space Law neutral freighters are allowed to travel unbothered as long as their cargo is non-military and not for a combatant. We deployed our new SROPS lighter and a team led by Lieutenant Pzeko boarded the Eritran freighter. At first it looked like they were clean, according to the crew and their manifest they were carrying industrial diamonds for the Bolitic and thus not an acceptable target. However then Pzeko noticed that the ship's mass was less than it should have been if the cargo was as listed. Eventually military grade isotopes bound for the Utrek were found hidden on the ship. The crew were taken into custody (to be released later) and the freighter destroyed. We always have to take care to abide by the rules and our prisoners were well cared for no matter how much they bleated.
The next few days we had an easier time, Utrek military transports are an automatic target. We encountered 3 Type R transporters over the next 4 days and destroyed each. After that we found a civilian Utrek transport, we took the crew prisoner and destroyed that ship too.
By now of course our actions were coming to the notice of the Utrek and we expected a response. However it is maybe a measure of their lack of ships that the response didn't involve warships but a trick. The Utrek fitted a transport as a Q-ship with hidden laser cannons. When we confronted the transport we were fired upon. Luckily the Isometric is a superb warship, the most agile ship in the known galaxy and the transport was quickly destroyed. Damage was not too bad, one crewman was injured by blast fragments.
This wasn't the end of the Utrek trickery however. A few days later, after repairs, we resumed our hunt and discovered something quite odd. An ancient Tarbot ship, a ship so old we had to refer back to the tactical database at GHQ to identify it : a Henara class transport. A type out of production for 100 years! What was more strange was that the ship had a UNP callsign and was owned by a Ms Sarah Parker.
The SROPS commanded by Pzeko went over to investigate. What happened next is unclear but it appears Pzeko and his small team found the ship crewed only by the slim form of Ms Parker who said she was on her way back from the Eritran free states to Earth. Ms Parker asked Pzeko if he could fix her radio, the tightness of her skirt is thought to have clouded Pzeko's judgement and while they were alone the truth came out. Ms Parker was really a shape shifting alien, Pzeko was killed and the alien took Pzeko's form and soon killed the other 2 DDS men.
By now however we were getting suspicious, scans indicated that Ms Parker's DNA was human... but too perfect. When her signature disappeared to be left just by that of Pzeko with similarly perfect DNA we knew something was up. We quickly interrogated DDS Xenology's database and discovered there was a rumoured race of shape shifting aliens out beyond DDS/UNP charted space and it was said they could be detected by "too perfect DNA". We seized control of the SROPS remotely leaving Pzeko or whatever it was on the Tarbot ship.
The Tarbotian ship also then was found to be more than it seemed. It had powerful shields and was able to withstand our laser weapons. Unfortunately we had no TPMs aboard. The ship then fired at us with some kind of anti-matter weapon that destabilised our shields. I decided to get out of there so we could regroup. Unfortunately the ship's propulsion was also upgraded and the ship was easily able to keep up with us at 712c (our limit at the time because of the state of the reactor). I decided the only option was to hit the enemy ship with something. Positioning our ship directly in front of the enemy, which was now firing at us, i had the SROPS ejected from the docking bay right into the enemy's path. The enemy was destroyed, unfortunately the SROPS too but they are cheaper than Isometrics to replace.
We were then signaled to return to Remedia Prime for a minor refit and a new assignment. Its just as well as we were not really able to continue the raiding mission without a SROPS. The SROPS received it's combat debut on our mission and it has proved to be a highly useful addition to the DDS arsenal.
Our raiding mission was a great success, a number of Utrek transports had been destroyed at little loss to ourselves though Lt. Pzeko and Ratings Temblemen and Rodney were popular members of the crew and will be missed. The Isometric really is a perfect ship for this kind of lone raiding mission and no doubt there will be more in future.
