InaG Chpt 24

==It's not a Gundam - Chapter 24 -Operation Odessa- Book 2 -==
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===A Brooding in the shadow of Failure===
Aboard McKenna-class Battleship Spear of BlakeRuins of Gabriel, Odessa IV
Odessa System, Lyran Commonwealth
August 3027
Precentor Tharkad Ulthan Everson was not in a good mood.
 
The First Circuit had chosen to not let the Scavenger Lords flounder. Instead, they had chosen to ... accelerate things.
 
Holy Shroud III had failed. It had failed the moment the Mobile Dolls proved unable to cripple the Great Houses, and Marik's Heretics, in the initial strikes. Now the die was cast. There was no other option than to prosecute a war in secret with one hand tied behind their back. Oh what he would do if he still had all of the Lyran ROM and Com Guard at his command!
 
But no, so many decided to side with a Marik of all people.
 
Before him, the Ruins of Gabriel hung over a gas giant. Odessa IV's sheer mass concealed the lion's share of their fleet outside of Sol. It was a naval base further expanded by the use of the Mobile Dolls to aid in construction. New Ships, WARships, were being assembled. Each of them sorely needed in the face of that monstrosity Cameron possessed.
He scowled, "Blake damn you, Aliz."
 
That fool had ruined everything. Once he could trust any of his brethren in the order. But now? Now he had to have his agents search for heresy where there had once not been.
 
All because Pedrigor failed to consider the possibilities. Thomas Marik was already a Blakist. A Cameron under their wing would have allowed them to realize the Prophet's vision. Now? A nascent second star League was now their enemy.
 
An attack on the Ruins of Gabriel was inevitable. There was no point in hiding the fact that the Scavenger Lords were preparing to strike back ... and he doubted Gabriel could stay hidden for along with so many heretics. Wells told him it was today. Had he not had forewarning the coalition would have captured The Ruins, with much of the infrastructure and ships intact. Now? It was to be a charnel house.
 
Tugs moved the space base closer to the Gas Giant. Close enough that the space needed for the Bulge's jump would drag it into Odessa IV's crushing gravity. Space mines were laid. Defense Satellites were deployed. Swarms of Mobile Dolls from Combat Pods to Drone ASFs and Dropships were prepared. WarShips were brought out of mothball and even with skeleton crews the sheer automation of MD tech allowed them to fight just as effective as fully manned ones.
 
The Guild and the Lyran would arrive to face the might of an armed and fully operational battle station.
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===Battle for Gabriel===
For hours, he waited. The McKenna he now captained stood as Gabriel's principal defender, salvaged from an old battleground and reborn with the ingenuity of Blake's chosen, something he believed surpassed the cobbled together garbage of the Junkers. It until finally late in the Terran Standard Day that they detected a mass of intra-system jumps.
 
"Precentor!" one of the Bridge Adepts spoke up, "Large number of jumpships have entered the Odessa System!"
 
"So it begins..." he muttered.
 
He stood up and looked at the holographic display itself. Steiner and Davion men and mercenaries were joined by forces bearing the Cameron Star and the Junker Wrench.
 
"Activate all defenses," Everson ordered. "They have tripped the wire."
 
The enemy arrived at the expected jump points and into the range of pre-sighted guns. Naval Gauss slugs slammed into the fleet almost immediately, joined soon after by a barrage of anti-ship missiles.
 
The Precentor scowled as a crackling barrier blocked the worst of the damage. Damn the Guild and NAIS!
 
Even so, he still had the advantage. The quick reaction still put the coalition in disarray. Some ships were still struck and began listing. Some were out of formation and at the moment incapable of launching their strike craft or providing fire support.
 
"Send the First Wave."
 
It was not ASFs that surged forward. It was the shuttles. Unmanned, they were pushed to the extreme and rocketed toward the fleet without any sense of self-preservation. Instead of firing weapons, they continued to accelerate and through the point defense barrage their cargo jettisoned and scattered.
 
Balls and Oggos fell upon FedCom-Guild lines just as their transports crashed into ships desperately maneuvering to avoid death.
 
In the void, Mechs, mobile suits, and pods grappled. Whatever range advantage was rendered null by the sheer number of drones the Precentor was drowning them with.
 
"The enemy is pinned Precentor." An Adept reported.
 
"Good. Proceed with the bombardment."
 
With the enemy distracted and without care for mindless Mobile Dolls the long range bombardment resumed. Naval grade energy and kinetic weapons cut into the coalition, ripping apart ships well below the kind they were rated for.
 
"Second Wave."
 
Once more, another swarm of Mobile Pods hurled themselves into the fight. Claws rendered steel, small lasers and AC/2s wore down hulls by sheer volume.
 
Once again the Ruins of Gabriel roared with long-range fire, striking both friend and foe.
"Precentor! Another cluster of jumps port side!"
 
"The second wing." He surmised, "Divide the third wave of pods. Continue the bombardment as-is. Ensure our ASFs are loaded for anti-ship duty."
 
Elsewhere, robotic arms quickly pried gunpods from ASF hard points and replaced them with missiles. Almost immediately after the ASFs launched, emptying their arsenals before turning back to rearm. Like clockwork, the second flotilla suffered a fate similar to the first.
 
"More contacts! Starboard this time!"
 
Everson frowned. Wells did not speak of a third wing.
 
"Divert the fourth wave. Defensive posture. We will see whatever forces they decide to bring before we act properly."
 
Instead of charging into the battle, the Balls and Oggos stopped short of the arrival point the third wave appeared and with it came the most famous dropship in the Inner Sphere.
"The Ptolemaios..."
 
It was indeed a beautiful ship, and it was also one of the most sought after. Compared to the ungainly Bulge, it was a symbol of nobility ... worthy only in the hands of betters.
 
What would he do with a ship like that? Become Primus. First Lord even.
 
The gunline of boths sides formed up. Shields both physical and energy based blocked masses volleys of weapons fire and unlike passive space mines or static turrets, mass formations of Combat Pods could not be maneuvered around uncontested. Like the land wars of the 18th century, blocks of men fired upon each other. Unlike them, his forces were ultimately expendable.
 
His forces pushed as Ball and Oggos were knocked out of formation. Behind his pods OZ Mechs closed in with anti-ship weapons. The Ptolemaios would be captured … but its wings still needed to be clipped.
 
"Precentor! Jump detected! I-it's the Bulge!"
The Precentor frowned as the Bulge appeared. It appeared over the northern axis. In the way of minefields and dozens of automated turrets. There was little chance of maneuvering it any other way. Any close and it would risk being dragged into the Gas Giant.
 
"Trying to brute force my defenses, aren't you, Cameron?" He snarled, "You will regret doing so!"
 
"Precentor-"
 
"Confound it, Adept! What is it now!?"
The terrified junior Blakist pointed to the display and another, much smaller blob of forces coming from the southern pole. And unlike the other units, it was weaving through the defenses like a snake.
 
Left and right, they rocketed through a debris field littered with mines and turrets, seemingly using some as a springboard. It was madness. It was chaotic. IT was a squadron of Outworlds Alliance ASFs, the best pilots this side of the Inner Sphere. And they were happy to prove it.
 
But leading them was a lone mech.
 
A mech that danced around his defenses like it was a game.
A mech that moved three times faster than what any mobile suit or ASF ever could.
 
Adorned with a Psycho-Pack was a red Spider and his gut told the Precentor who it was.
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===Unification ===
The point defense gunsfailed to track them, and capital missiles failed to lock onto them. At their speed and with the fleet so tightly packed, none of them could do so without risking striking each other.
 
Battlemechs who had hitched themselves into the ASFs that acted as sub-flight units leapt into action with guns blazing and fists swinging.
 
In the middle of this, a lone Spider caught the Blakists in its web. Cameron leapt from ship to ship, hybrid Beam Vulcan/Saber PPCs on the bug mech's arms riddling the work of centuries with holes and gashes.
 
What Virgo that scrambled to face him were cut down. For all their machine efficiency, they fumbled against the dozens of blows raining down upon them.
 
Free from Gabriel's bombardment, the other forces continued their assault. The Demi-Precentors who acted as his second-in-command tried and failed to stop them. There were simply too few hands to direct the swarm. A force with human initiative blasted apart the innumerable cloud of Balls and savaged what drone Unions and Leopards interspersed among them. Unmanned Leos were swatted aside by the armored fist of Lyran Commandos, while Unmanned ASFs were shot down by Rifleman and Catapults sitting on FedSun droppers. Without direction, an army was an aimless mob and the Precentor watched as his fleet disintegrated before his eyes.
 
Suddenly his McKenna shook. He fell back into his seat just as a trio of Moebius Zeros rocketed past the bridge. They had just mauled the battleship's side.
 
The battle was lost. He knew it. He fumbled with his chair's console, trying and failing to contact the greater order.
 
Everson couldn't transmit anything through the HPG; because it was in the middle of receiving a message.
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===Ashes of Defeat===
Across the Inner Sphere and Periphery was a joint message. Three Successor Lords, a Cameron, and Thomas Marik himself, all denouncing the First Circuit. Not Comstar itself; the First Circuit. Asking not for revolution, but for protest. And with both evidence and a First Lord to vouch for it the public would eat it up just as much as the Order's bottom rung.
 
Blakist would not take up righteous arms against Blakist, heretic or not. They would simply stand aside and let the Prophet's great machine grind to a halt.
 
No help would come for him, and no way would he be able to contact the others.
 
"Wells…" he whispered, "You set us up…"
 
Those were his last words as the Bulge finally added its weapons to the fight … and burned all in its path to ash and dust.
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==Chapter Notes==
*; Author's Chapter Notes : Begun the August War has; ironically in October by the time I have posted this (October 2024).
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Chapter 24