Resurgence Taurian Concordat Chapter 2

== Into the Deathfields ==
All of the crews that would be piloting vessels for attacking Taurus were given priority of training in the various asteroid fields in the Deep Periphery.  Precentor Kral already began giving orders to find maneuverable paths through the asteroid field.  With the defenses of Camadeierre all but abandoned with the recall of the Clean Kill mercenary unit to Taurus, the additional forces would be arriving in system soon.  It was likely that the faithful fighting on Landmark would take longer to arrive as the Red Chasseurs were going to be a formidable fight. 
Demi-Precentor Jaron Koppel was leading his detachment of vessels, scanning the asteroid field, already finding a handful of potential routes.  They all would require the occasional blast to clear an asteroid or two however, the true concern was what lay in wait.  SASF Marines were incredibly dangerous foes and they were dug in with likely multiple layers of defenses and battle lines.  Not even the agents embedded within the Taurian Concordat could gain meaningful intel on what was set up out there. 
Koppel relayed the last scan report back to the Precentor’s vessel when the technician monitoring communications caught a huge uptick in activity.  Multiple holopanels displayed the new information.  Friendly IFFs were emerging from the nearest pirate point, just hours away from the fastest units reinforcing them. 
This was when all of the detachment commanders received their “Go” signal.  Instinctively the bridge crew set upon the best course designated previously by Koppel. A level II of dropships with two Level IIs of aerospace escorts took a column formation and changed course for the asteroid field. 
On a larger holopanel the numerous other detachments also began moving to pierce the field.  It looked like numerous trails of ants tearing into an apple with the bulk of the force moving to crash right through the main defenses holding the most direct route, typically used for normal space faring traffic. 
As his ships moved towards the field, all the crew onboard was on edge.  Long range weapons were in range, yet no weapons fire had begun from the field. The core force was already engaged of course, as warships began to tear each other apart and the asteroid based defenses came to life.  While the Word of Blake forces had the superior numbers, the defended gap in the asteroids nullified those numbers.
Koppel continued to look all around through the forward Ferroglass shield and going back to his ship’s scans.  A Model 96 “Elephant” was a significant vessel between the armor and firepower and it would be able to take the brunt of the expected surprise attacks.  This would give the supporting aerospace fighters and dropships time to react. 
He took in a deep breath as his ships passed through the first asteroids and they began to navigate their path.  The holopanel of the various detachments showed an array of situations.  Some were set upon immediately, a number of ships were already destroyed and others were being boarded.  The quiet of his route was deafening, even just the lateral thrusters bursting to make slight adjustments to their path had some crew members jumping. 
All of the asteroids seemingly had metallic cores from the scans, so there was little they could do to find hidden emplacements.  A number of ghost sensor readings gave Koppel pause but one by one, nothing happened. 
“Sir, we have an inbound asteroid, firing solution set to deflect it.”
“Solid copy, do it.”
A Gauss Rifle slug slammed into the asteroid, sending it tumbling into another asteroid.  In a bit of bad luck, the new asteroid began tumbling toward the column, followed up by another slug, sending it off course and into the field.  The focus on the tumbling asteroids was broken by alarms going off from contact on a Union dropship behind the Elephant. 
Like one would see in a hallway full of trip lasers, multiple asteroids began emitting lasers and began spinning around a Union, the lasers were melting away huge gouges of armor and cutting through weapons systems.  Numerous decks were being penetrated by the second as the quartet of asteroids continued to spin around the ship, its momentum carrying it slowly through the laser death spiral.
“Status!” shouted Koppel into his own transponder.
“Sir! Critical damage!  All decks and counting!” screeching of alarms and sparking equipment could be heard in the background.
Shifting his focus he looked at his holopanel, the aerospace fighters were hitting the asteroids from all angles but they continued to burn the ship’s hull, the space rock taking all of the damage, protecting the weapons.  All four of the dropships behind took evasive maneuvers into the asteroid field to avoid the lasers. 
An aerodyne dropship flew right into a hornet’s nest, in seconds dozens of dots came to life on the area scans as the ship was swarmed.  The SASF Marines were cutting their way into the ship at multiple points.
“Get everyone you can to escape pods!” Koppel yelled back to the attacked Union.
Only too late he realized the ship was dead in the water.  Rear camera feeds showed the ship venting atmosphere on multiple decks, fires emanating from inside.  The Elephant’s scans showed the majority of the ship’s life support had failed.
This was something he had never expected to be fighting; the enemy he was attacking, behind him. “Aerospace fighters, Alpha wing, fill in the gap while the dropships regroup, Bravo wing, use smaller weapons to try to blast off those Taurians from the hull!” Koppel gave as orders.
A pair of Rusalkas were giving slow passes to the aerodyne dropship using their laser arrays to try to take out the boarders, each pass managed to get one or two but the volume of fire in return was starting to add up on the armor.  Even when the fighters hit the hull, it was either kill the SASF Marines or lose the ship. The four Battlemechs onboard would be worth a lot on the ground but, in space, were simply large chunks of metal in their bays.
As the ships began moving back into column formation six asteroids of varying locations and angles began opening up on the dropships.  Two were directly along their route while the other four were adrift to the flanks. Lasers pierced through the blackness, reflecting light off asteroids.  Autocannons flashed as loud series of thuds could be heard across the hulls of the dropships.  Waves of missiles were corkscrewing through the field, some catching stray asteroids, others slamming into the dropships.  Immediately, bridge staff identified some of the firing vectors were trying to predict where aerospace fighters would go based on asteroids in their path. 
One fighter came about hard around a group of asteroids and caught three LRM 20 salvos directly to the nose, ripping through, and shattering the cockpit.  Going nose over tail, the fighter careened off and slammed into another asteroid. 
Bravo wing was unable to stop the boarders on the aerodyne craft and were ordered back to the surviving dropships, now only four left and taking heavy damage. Trying to pick apart defensive positions in asteroids with minor thruster capabilities was a long process because of the volume of fire the rock itself could take, on top of the armored position within, and further on top of it navigating the asteroid field.
“All column vessels press forward!  Do not let them slow us down, their only strength is the close quarters, we have minutes before we are through!” ordered Koppel to his column.
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Category:Resurgence
Chapter 2