Free Battle Earth: 12 by Nick S. Thomas

soon followed suit.
    "I've never got used to it. This kind of travel," stated Taylor.
    "It certainly makes life easy," replied Barclay.
    "Yes, and immensely unpredictable. How can you plan for defence when the enemy can be on you with no warning at all?"
    "Then be thankful that they have such limited access to the technology."
    Taylor agreed. "Yes, for if they ever manage to reverse engineer it, we're in more trouble than you can imagine."
    The three ships passed safely through the gateway the other side, and it closed up behind them. Within seconds, they were struck by light debris they could see floating about space before them.
    "Looks like they had a hell of a fight."
    They could see the debris of one of the smaller support vessels and a number of fighters, as well as debris that Taylor could only imagine came from the Tourville.
    "They had a rough time of it," said Barclay.
    "Yeah, and I don't see any sign of damage to enemy craft."
    "They must have hit them hard and fast."
    Taylor tried to imagine what could have done it, and Barclay was quick to pose the question.
    "What did this? A large vessel would have torn them apart, but how could lesser craft get the drop on them? I'd expect a few enemy losses at least. The Tourville is a powerful vessel with a fine crew."
    Taylor nodded in agreement.
    "Send out teams to investigate the wrecks. Let's try and get an idea of what went on here."
    "It's all in the file," replied the Captain.
    "No, the crew of the Tourville who survived have no idea how it went down. When they were struck, it happened hard and fast. The bridge crew were taken out and all recording equipment destroyed. All we know at this stage is that the Tourville was boarded with little resistance. Let's avoid that happening a second time around."
    Barclay started sending out his orders to have the crews prepared.
    "So what now?” he then asked Taylor.
    "We sit and wait. Learn what we can."
    "You expect they'll come back this way?"
    "I would. Investigative teams would be easy pickings, and they must know there's a chance I would have come along to see it for myself."
    "So what is stopping us from suffering the same fate?"
    "The fact we know they're coming. I need to know everything we can about this attack. Next time they come for us, I want to know exactly how they're gonna do it. Let's shoot these bastards down before they have another chance at this kind of devastation. Almost two hundred crew lost their lives aboard the Tourville, and countless more from her support vessels."
    "Sounds like we could have done with a little more support."
    "Damn right, Captain. I need somewhere to go over the last recordings of these vessels, if you can salvage them."
    "I'll have them with you within the hour. You may use my quarters while you are aboard."
    "Thank you, please have Captain Morris and Sergeant Jafar sent up to me."
    The Captain acknowledged and showed him to his quarters before leaving him in peace. The Captain's quarters were spartan to say the least. The only decoration in the room was a single picture of his family secured to the wall beside his desk. The room looked like it saw little use, and Taylor liked that about the Captain. He could already see he was a man loved by his crew, and that was a valuable asset.
    Taylor, Morris, and Jafar had been going over the few reports they had received from the Tourville when Barclay entered.
    "We've recovered the last recorded data from the Lampo. A small destroyer, it was the hulk we saw when we first arrived. We also managed to salvage a little data from one of the fighters. It's not much, but it's all we can get."
    "Thank you, Captain. Please join us so we have a fresh pair of eyes on all of this."
    Taylor brought up the new information and projected it onto the table. He took them to the point in time thirty minutes before the attack. They had the ship’s technical logs but no video information at all. He went through the info minute by minute until he reached the