[GZG] RE: [GZG Fiction] In Orbit

In Orbit

New Guardian Times, Martian Orbit, December 15th, 2196.

Having left the beaches of San Juan and passed through the VR fighter base at
Harper, I have been granted access to the IJN fleet in orbit of Mars. An
honour I will endeavour to share with you here.

An IJN battleship is a noble thing to behold. To the uninitiated it lacks any
detail you could imagine would denote nobility. Yet there it is, nobility
dripping from the superstructure.

A Yamato class battleship has no poise or grace. She has no silver lined or
velvet lined regalia. She does not have sleek lines. What she does have is an
enormous and blockish back end, its huge engines bulging to the sides; tacked
on the front is a flattened front end, as if some morbidly obese titan has
used it for a seat. Rising above this a protruding superstructure. As a whole
the Settsu has the lines of a
well-fed arachnid drawing its swollen abdomen along behind.

There is no suggestion that she knifes through space like the Arashi or Ronin
cruisers. She just ploughs. You feel she should be considered a cart horse not
praised like a thoroughbred; made to carry a hod not treated as if she were
wearing a winner's sash.

She doesn't delight the eye like the Soyokaze destroyer. She does have
symmetry, in a flat, broad, waddling kind of way. The flat forward sections
having none of the threat of the thick bodied hulls of the smaller Kesshi or
more imposing Musashi.

The high degree of automation common on modern warships meaning that she only
requires one hundred forty nine crew. Among her full compliment she has a
monk, two doctors, a dentist, a psychologist, three agronomists and another
biologist, five chemists, and two plumbers.

Each of the brave souls that dwell upon her love her, despite the criticisms
that can be leveled at her appearance. They know every centimetre of the
ship's 256 metre length. Within her 126,000 tonne mass she houses all the
facilities typical of small cities or long haul mining platforms. A wide range
of diets can be catered for; there is a barber, a laundry, a bar, a library, a
mundane general needs store and an additional small store for perceived
luxuries (like book prints, the download only versions available from jacks in
each cabin), a music studio, a daily news service, VR suites, gaming lab,
VRcinnie theatre,
and a fully equipped gymnasium - a must if mental degradation and
psychological displacement are not to dog the crew. There is also a full
fabrication unit, metals workshop, crystal forge, chemical laboratory and
hydroponics garden. Initially it was though the later could double as a
recreational attraction, but it's cramped and artificial layout means it is
not frequented as much as had been anticipated. Having said that it is far
more thoroughly utilised for relaxation than the equivalent on the ships of
other nations; the result no doubt of the efforts of the chief agronomist, who
has made the area over as a traditional Japanese garden, or as close to it as
possible given the constraints.

Algal scrubbers keep the air of the ship clean under normal conditions,
chemical scrubbers called upon only under dire circumstances. The gallery the
scrubbers hang in is actually a favourite haunt of off duty crew members
seeking some solitude to read or draw or paint. It is a large airy space, with
hanging sheets of sandwiched tanks, the bulk of the algae suspended within
them under diurnal illumination. Other flatbed scrubbers sit off to the side,
but it is the green tinge and fresh smell the tanks give the room that is its
greatest attraction. This place is also the central hub of the ships
scuttlebutt grapevine. All gossip and small talk passes through here at some
point. The standing joke is that it takes on 53 seconds for the latest news
and rumours to reach the gallery from the farthest nook of the ship; and only
another 27 seconds to get from there to the Captain. About the only thing the
battleship lacks is a pony riding ring.

Yet for all of this a Yamato in action is a ferocious thing. Deep in her
innards the Settsu carries the supplies, the explosives, fuel and replacement
parts to maintain her squadron and mehca fighters and all her bot fighters
besides. In addition, she carries tonnes of submunition packs and salvo
missiles. She sports three different classes of beams, which together have a
360 degree coverage, though she is strongest in the forward arc. Down her
spine runs a single Hyperspatial Distortion Cannon.

In defence she sports a trio of PDS suites; and she carries enough
foam-based fire-fighting equipment that she is better equipped than most
small cities on the colonial worlds. In battle mode she can run at less than
one twentieth of gravity and 96% decompression for hours on end. End result,
she is proud.

Out of her glowing battle history, the Settsu's heritage of action, legends
have grown up to shroud her. This is how she has been swathed in nobility.
Given the damage the Yamamoto class battleship have done, I would not find it
hard to believe that today every Vak vessel that engages an IJN force has as
its primary priority the destruction of all these fine vessels. That's a
precious and proud, if deadly, honour.

The Battleship Settsu fought in the Battle of the Two Moons and after a short
sojourn patrolling the outer orbits, in case the fleeing Vak capital ships
returned, she has come back to orbit Mars. It is doubtful she will stay for
long, but for now I have the prestigious honour of being granted a berth
aboard her. Before the last Martian space battle I guess, if I were to be
honest, that you would probably never have heard of her, unless of course you
had a child, parent or spouse amongst her crew. That does nothing to diminish
her pride however and deservedly so.

The Settsu has been on active service, without returning to her home spacedock
on Earth, longer than any other vessel in the United Human fleet. She left
home to participate in the defence of Mars against the Vak raid in 2192.
Without her it is estimated at least three times the 1.3 that died when
Bradbury was struck would have perished if further ortillery strikes had been
allowed. In all this time the ship has weathered numerous solar storms and her
crew has not set foot dirtside for more than a year. In fact they have felt
nothing but artificially generated gravity for nearly thirteen months. And in
the last two years, three months the Settsu has made a total of one hundred
and eleven FTL jumps and covered more than 457 AU by STL.

The Settsu's bot fighter compliment have despatched over three hundred enemy
fighters and her mecha fighters have been on thirty seven assaults, landing
directly on the Vak ships and tearing at the super structure, gun ports and
anything else they can grip. The crack gunnery crew of the Settsu have not
been out done however. They have destroyed countless small alien raiders, and
Kites. Of the larger Vak ships the Settsu has crippled or destroyed thirty one
cruiser size or larger vessels. Her beams, cannon and missiles have smashed
into the largest of
the Vak ships; the great four-pronged monstrosities, all nacelles and
gapping K-gun maws that spew their rods at lethally high velocities.

Her successes have not come debt free. This proud vessel has known her share
of disaster. The number of her bots that have perished could not be counted on
the hands of her entire flight deck crew. She has been hit on a dozen
occasions, twice taking moderate damage; leading to mass burials in space. She
has taken part in fifteen separate post battle memorial rituals.

Through all of this she has not returned to spacedock to patch her wounds, all
repairs being done with what they can manufacture on board and with speed
enough to be ready for the next engagement. Her crew keeps its calm face when
together, but in private unguarded moments they
will, with only semi-jocularity, question the sanity and decisions of
the chief engineer in keeping the ship in such good shape that there is less
than a pressing need to fall back to the orbital yards for overhaul.

The Settsu has been out and about for so long that her crew has come to put
her above even their captain. They adore her and cherish her, even as they
quietly acknowledge that internally they rail at her confines. They would give
almost anything to feel dirt under their feet, but the one thing they won't
give is the Settsu itself. While they have seen three captains come and go the
ship is their constant companion.

As you would probably expect of the largely Japanese crew, they are humble and
self effacing when questioned directly, but disciplined when considered from
afar. They have their jokes and their gripes, but they always maintain their
formal and polite dignity. They are not in the least bit romantic about their
long lived mission. Once you know them with any degree of depth you can see
they are not only tired of it, resentful of seeing the same metal walkways day
after day, but they hate it. They yearn pathetically for the smallest comforts
of home, for fresh sushi, good sake and the caress of a loved one. Dig beneath
this though and they are proud; proud of their history, their families, their
ship and ultimately of their own efforts. And given what they have endured and
accomplished you would be too.