Gravities Reach

Prologue

The Serenity entered orbit without any fuss or fanfare. She fired her maneuvering thrusters and slipped onto her assigned parking place. There were parked in a very high orbit so that they were not in danger of any other vessels or the millions of satellites and relay boosters that blanketed the planet below. In between both of them there was a large orbital station and a dockyard which were in polar orbits one at the north pole and the other at the south. The Serenity had stopped here as part of her patrol route on their way to Sushanee. They were here to wave the flag and give the crew some shore leave.

Collision Course

The alarms started to blear as the two missiles were launched. In seconds the Serenity’s computer had tracked and projected their flight path. The comms officer informed Jay that they had just received a all ship message from the planet and that the missiles were for routine satellite destruction. As Jaywatched the Serenities tracking information is appeared that the two missiles were heading towards two large unpowered satellites that were in danger of falling out of orbit and impacting the planet below. Once it Jay was sure that there was not a danger of anything hitting the Serenity she went back to the report that she was reading.

She was halfway through the report when there was an urgent call from Kindoo Pachakan who was at the the tactical station. It appeared that the two missiles had hit the satellites and instead of breaking them it to large pieces that would burn up into the atmosphere they shattered sending pieces of satellite scattering across the sky like shotgun pellets. As Jay watched in horror the spreading field of debris spread through the other satellites that were on orbit. As one was hit it would shatter scattering more debris every directions which would then hit more satellites and the process would begin. Traveling at over 17,500 mph the wave of destructive debris got bigger and bigger every passing second.

Jay ordered the Serenity to red alert and began to maneuver her out of their assigned position. As they tracked the expanding debris it hit the dockyard which was above the northern pole. the dockyards shields had been risen at the first sign of trouble but it only prolonged the inevitable. The shields were designed to take some punishment from small orbital debris but not from the massive force that slammed into it. The shields flashed out of existence as the shield generators over loaded and failed. The dockyard was bombarded with flying debris and it staggered hard with the impacts. As Jay watched the lights dimmed and then disappeared altogether as the power failed. It then started its slow slide out of its orbital position and into the planets atmosphere below.

Space Rescue

With impulse engines a full Serenity swooped in behind the debris cloud. she was not fat enough to outrun it but she would be close enough to give help to the orbital station as quick as possible. She watched the view screen as the station was hit. Its shields like a firework display but just barely held as the debris swept past. the station was call out for help from anyone who would listen as the Serenity docked on the far side of the station.

The Trauma Response Teams surged out of the docking collars that had been attached to the station with Arya Snow in overall command. Dr Gwen Moss waited in the triage waiting areas for the casualties to arrive. Hamish McDonald sent a few of his engineers onto the station to help with emergency repairs. As Bill Grayjoy kept operational awareness Jay and Pachakan kept situational awareness with what was happening outside the station and in orbit.

Pachakan’s console beeped a warning as the debris came around planet heading towards them. Jay sent out an emergency recall to all the teams that were on the station but as she watched the time spinning down she knew that they would not be able to undock from the station before they were hit again.

The station was hit its weakened shields failed almost immediately as its hull to the punishment. The station rocked from the impacts and began to fall out of orbit. The docking collars that attacked the Serenity to the station were pushed past their design limits and tore off. The bulkheads in the area before the triage area slammed down instantly to stop the triage areas from decompressing. Jay ordered Audrey Williams to move the Serenity as far as possible from the Station as it began its plummet. Williams powered up the impulse engines and began to move the Serenity away from the station as a large chunk of it crashed into the Serenity just forward of the impulse engines.

Dropping From Orbit

Shields filed due to the shear size of the chunk of the station. It impacted the hull collapsing a large section of the hull, crushing bulkheads and venting sections into space. Power surges spiked through the ship causing the major system to overload and the impulse engines fluttered and then died. As the crew feverishly tried to get power back to the systems Serenity was gripped by the planets gravity and was sucked into the atmosphere.

The Serenity had fallen from orbit into the ocean like a fiery phoenix plummeting from the sky. Hull glowing red hot from re-entry leaving bits of hull plating and debris in its wake. Williams had managed with the partially functioning maneuvering thrusters to orientate the Serenity nose down and aimed at the deepest part of the planets ocean as it hit. That is where she would have been safe but it was not to be as a piece of falling station slammed into the aft section of the Serenity spinning it off it course by a few degrees which was enough to go off course.

A cloud of steam and a tsunami wave was the only sign on the surface of Serenity’s meteoric fall from orbit as it punched under the surface. Power flickered and died all across the Serenity and the emergency power tried keep the main systems working. Jay ordered the ballast tanks to be purged increasing the Serenities buoyancy and firing of any remaining engines. The serenity began to pull up from its dive into the deep but the sea floor rushed up to meet it. The impact with the sea floor buckled the already damaged outer hull plates and crushed the bottom deck space by two meters causing flooding to those areas. Jay ordered the emergency ballast tanks to be blown which made the Serenity inch close to the surface. It breached the water like a leviathan rising from the deep.

Epilogue

The badly damaged Serenity manouvered to the remains of the station that had survived the drop from orbit. While McDonald and the engineering teams tried to keep the Serenity from sinking into the depths of the ocean while Dr Moss and Snow along with the sickbay and trauma response teams helped with any casualties they could find.

It took weeks before the Serenity could be lifted from the planet and with the arrival of the MRD Lily Sloane with its powerful tractor beams and tugs it was able haul the Serenity into orbit. After it was held safely in the protective embrace of its docking clamps as it headed for the space dock phoenix and long stay in a repair dock.