Strat-2 Chpt-21

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==Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 2 - Chapter 21 - Part IV: The Outworlds Wars==
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===Raid of Grankum===
Outer system - Grankum star System - Outworlds Wastes
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"How in the name…
…of hell, did nobody notice this?" Lord Commodore Halford wanted to shout, but his emotions felt…damped.
There were a collection of Capital Iron in the Northsun system that nobody predicted could, in this modern day, even be imagined.
And it was patrolling.
She'll take my head… he steeled his nerves, and then, "All hands, recover our fighters and prepare for jump."
"Sir?"
"I am about to give up my head to keep this crew and ship alive. Don't ****** question me," he snarled. "Intelligence was wrong and they've got a goddam fleet, and that fleet's pointed at our core worlds, damn your eyes, so I'm not going to follow an order I can't guarantee we can execute, and leave our core worlds undefended when these ****** come looking for payback, and that means Her Majesty will be cutting off my head, and adding it to her ****** bookshelf…but at least some of you might live a few months longer."
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===Outworlds Raid elsewhere===
Outer system - Grankum star System - Outworlds Wastes
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"Details…
…matter," Larry stated. "For example, notice how they're running their patrol pattern? What does that detail tell you?"
Amanda studied them on the telescopic enhancement. "They're pulled back from the jump points, she said. "They know someone is coming, just not sure who."
"Right,” he said. "That's an SLDF standard patrol pattern in wartime for Dropship based defensive squadrons, it's practically right out of the textbooks at Albion."
She began to smile. "I get it. The hole," she said, and looked up. “It's a defense that's optimized to be reactive. They're going to move to envelop, force an attacker to fight at a positional disadvantage, but the basic assumption is that the attacker is going to slow down for the engagement because…"
"Because?"
"Because the only reason to defend in that pattern, is to protect static assets, it's low value to make a fast pass against fortified installations, so an attacker has to close, match frame of reference, and beat their way through-an attack moving at high speed doesn't linger long enough to do serious damage!"
"Right. That's exactly it. Warfare in the Star League's era, at least, the formal sort that everyone practiced, was pretty ritualized." Larry inclined his head. "Does this give you ideas, Captain?"
Amanda started giggling. "Yo, Ho, ****** Ho. Illusive is better optimized for a standing fight, the key targets are those two modified Mules."
"Pocket Warships." Amanda said.
"Yeah,” he stated. "We can't let them lay missiles, because those missiles are going to be nuclear… and those things are borderline as tough as a proper Warship."
"Fighters on the Mules, we sweep through at high velocity laying buckshot and rockets," she said. "The Mules will focus on the bigger target, lets our Aerospace Fighters deliver the eggs."
"And Foster?" he urged.
"I think if we're riding point on this, then Illusive should be riding in behind us, laying down covering fire."
Larry made notes, "Okay, that's how you want to fight it, but it's not what Foster thinks… not entirely anyway."
"What did I miss?"
"The objective." Larry handed her the fragmentary order. "We're targeting the stations and gantries, our fighters pull cover, and we're coming in a few seconds behind Illusive, who's going to be keeping the patrol busy. It's still going to be a high-speed pass-through to the nearest L1 point, with a jump-out immediately. Cavalry sweep, not a Liberation operation. We're supposed to shoot as many holes as we can in their infrastructure and docks as we can during a two minute pass."
Her expression shifted. "That's logical-also a tactic their patrol pattern cannot compensate for without uncovering critical approaches. Their Dropships and Fighters will have to break the cover of the weapons and sensor emplacements on the station, and they will straggle if they try to pursue or intercept, leaving them open for defeat in detail."
She considered timing and looked at the chart again.
"Slingshot, like over Johnson." she stated. "We come in around the planet, using gravity to boost our velocity, cross the orbit of the station here...and that should drop us right into a pass through the L1 orbit in forty hours, while Illusive is moving in, we'll cross paths about two minutes separation, only our strike wing will have dropped ordnance…here." She glanced up at Mister Bedwyr, "On a ballistic trajectory so they don't have to fight to match velocities, we'll do recovery one hour out from the point. Those Ironsides will have to be burning in overthrust in the right direction for twenty minutes before we pass through the station orbit intersect to catch up with us… and they won't be, because they're not thinking about this the same way we are."
If it worked, they'd hit the L1 point at high velocity. The core's charge will discharge and they would come out off-angle through the nadir point at Fallry. This would be creating the impression of a larger force hitting both worlds.
At least, in theory.
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===Tools of Offense are not best Defense===
Outer system - Quatre Belle star System - Raven Alliance
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Those who…
...say "The best defense is a good offense." often forget that a poor offense is no defense at all. In offices on Alpheratz, engineers working under contract to the remnant Outworlds Military Command (loaned to said command by their Snow Raven allies) are finishing the touches on the first requirements to production of an indigenous built Corvette-one intended not only for use by the Raven Alliance, but as an export model to the Alliance's allies, to step in to the space between presently fashionable Pocket Warships, and the massive Compact Core fleets that nobody can afford to maintain.
Unfortunately, the closest things to a testbed or prototype, are a considerable distance away, actively prosecuting a war, and the core forges needed to build a new prototype, are in the immediate moment, under threat by the sort of fleet units that it was not actually intended to counter if it had been built in the first place.
Which it hadn't.
But, thanks to aid traded for food and other considerations, it does exist in the form of digital simulations and an evolving design document, and does so, in both the design offices on Alpheatz, and in the Snow Raven's own archives on Dante.
Unfortunately, it does not exist in the production slipways of Quatre Belle… at least, not yet.
Those slipways themselves, are presently hosting a massive aerospace dogfight between the Snow Ravens and the Quatre Belle shipyards.
The Base capability of the Outworlder design, especially its point defense capability against missile and fighter strikes, and the advanced sensor and coordination arrays specified, would have been a significant boon. Unfortunately, Acton Howe has to command this from the bridge of a much heavier vessel, one that has less point defense per cubic meter, but significantly better gun and missile range and throw weight.
Warships, are tools of offense. They actually serve quite poorly in the defensive role, unless supplemented by Dropship and Aerospace Fighter squadrons.
<<"All vessels in the Alliance Naval Star, attention to orders. Dropship squadrons and fighters are to continue defending the yard and planet. Warships are to converge on the enemy carrier group. The mission is to destroy the enemy's transport. Acknowledge.">>
When you're using offense as a defense, it's good to go hard. In this case, cutting off the enemy's ability to escape and remain a fleet-in-being.
The mentality is different. The Sons are striking a strategic, fixed target in a manner their ancestors secured a number of Outworlds colonies, and following a playbook written by Amos Forlough's campaign against a largely helpless, ground bound Outworlds in the 26th century.
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===Striking the Primary Objectives===
Sons of Plunder Task Force - Quatre Belle star System - Raven Alliance
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"They're being aggressive…
…sir."
Lord Captain Philo Rhodes nodded. "They are. Unexpected… hmmm… we can catch them between two fires. We eliminate the fleet units and the planet's open to bombardment at leisure, they can't replace them without that yard." He smiled. "Open the formation and let's see if they take the bait and try to close."
"Milord?"
"Continue the strike missions to knock out the shipyard, they're going to try and intercept us." Rhodes said confidently, "When they do, we'll crush them in a vise. Then finish what we came to do." Rhodes he said with conviction
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===Battle in Space and Cyberspace===
The system's…
…command net wasn't exactly bad, it was just new and inadequate. Sevon V's network was mostly assembled out of unfinished intentions and budget cuts.
Simon hated working with half-done work like this. The intentions were admirable, but the physical resources were terrible.
<They tried, at least.> The implanted AI swept through shoddy, human-written code done by half-experts who must have been working from textbooks left over from the last millennium to try and bridge gaps from repurposed hardware never meant for this application, and custom-grade superior, star-league derived technologies that still had the Nirasaki override codes embedded at the hardware level, despite being clearly newly made.
Can you do it, Simon? Helena's agitation was a spur.
<Working on it. Damn, they used…most of the processor from an Olympus recharging station for some of this, one that must have had half the server racks shot out with weapons fire.>
Three centuries, some of it spent in frost-idle as her only outside contact while in cryostasis, left the Desmond unit 'Simon' with in-depth experiences his host couldn't process… but he could.
And an appreciation for truly elegant coding… that wasn't present here. This was done by someone smart, but undereducated, then papered over by someone who wasn't particularly clever, but was very well educated… for a given value of education.
Clanner code isn't particularly creative, even by the standards of an Artificial Intelligence that needs to lean on their grafted human half for that innovative spark.
<Surface batteries are integrated,> Simon told his mistress. <You have access to eleven missile batteries, but warning-they're in less than great shape after a few centuries left in storage mode. Locations on display now, there's also… crap, they buried three Naval Autocannons in the mountains, looks like they set up to use glaciers for cooling… I take it back, somebody was creative as hell, and not particularly well educated.>
"What about the detection grid?" Helena asked out loud.
<Well, they've got one… two. Two grids, one is about half dead and dates to sometime in the 26th or 27th century, the other is the one the Snow Ravens emplaced. I'm patching the two together now… main issue with the programming is going to be a brute-force resolution, I need you to sit very still for a few minutes while I overclock.>
Overclock?? You can do that?
<It's why you can sidestep small arms fire at close range. I doubt the original engineers realized I could find a way to do it with soft tasks, like reprogramming some centuries old, bug-laden, human input coding to make dissimilar systems talk to each other and coordinate with our fleet.>
This is how she did it then, isn't it? Helena realized. I suddenly have a lot of questions.
<Hold still then, and try to empty your mind, I need to borrow resources.> Simon told her.
The first hurdle was getting the two systems to actually properly talk to each other. There was an attempt made but the solution, well it left a lot to be desired. Fortunately going pure old school brute binary and then building back up the most critical parts that way would be fastest.
The mishmash of systems was simply frustrating and the frameworks were absolute kludge jobs patching around issues rather than using simple fundamental solutions.
That it all worked together as much as it did was about the only thing that really redeemed it for Simon.
Time just was not on their side to do anything other than a kludge job of his own but re-writing the communication protocols was all he really had the time to do. Simon hated that he had to do it this way. It made him feel like he was compromising. Doing it right would take hours and they only had minutes at most.
Minutes that were starting to add up. More than he usually ran at such high levels for and for sure much longer than Helena was used to. But it had to be done. Re-writing critical parts of an operating system that could understand the inputs from such a variety of hardware manufacturers was not something that even he could do any faster.
<No. Why… If you are going to use that hardware to solve this problem it needs configured like this… Seriously that just needs a variable flipped…>
The system began a controlled power down, but everything should now work together in a much more satisfactory way.
<Rebooting the system for the changes to take effect. It will take a few minutes for them to come back up with systems this old and complicated. It is still a bit of a kludge, but I should have the systems properly talking to each other now. It will not hold up against any cyber warfare and I would not trust it to actually keep going but for now it will work. I will throttle down and patch what I can while the battle unfolds.>
<Ow. That is one hell of a headache…> Helena complained.
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In space, the 1st Destroyer Division readied for battle, with an expanded battlespace awareness that kept growing as nodes in the local network were added.
Sevon V had a fighting chance to make it now. There was even the faint chance of pulling an actual win now.
Kilometers away, camouflaged ferrocrete doors opened, and surface-to-space missiles left idle since the 2600s began cycling automated tests and readying for launch…and in the mountains, three massive Naval Autocannons slid from recessed bunkers where they'd been placed by long gone, long dead Outworlds Nationalists sometime around 2764, and raised their muzzles to the sky, centuries old ammunition rolling into place on automatic trolleys with robotic arms and cranes to load them, guided by a sensor network that was impossible for the men and women who put them there to repel a Star League attack that never came again.
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===Feeling Clean===
Drone Ship Fleet - Quatre Belle star System - Raven Alliance
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204 spread her Voidseeker-Strike…
…wing, and followed it up with the more primitive Blackwasp-improved that would serve as screeners for the strike fighters.
The addition of sensor data from the newly established network meant she had more to work with.
A lot more. "That's a lot of DropShip," Lara, her 'chief tinbender' marveled. "Lots of fighters too…"
"The DropShip are running empty-they're here to make a withdrawal." 204's voice said tartly. In this situation, her humanoid avatar robot was stored in a closet. Her human crew? They were at stations in case the ship's AI needed to delegate functions to handle something complicated.
Something like the jamming coming from some of the Royal Dropships on the other side, or to jam the targeting of the battle group backing up the enemy's landing forces.
In the shadows of her awareness, the rest of the Destroyer Division was arraying for battle against the enemy's Texas class and escorts.
This was the kind of fleet action that their designers had imagined, the only difference being scale, and a few options that the Reagan SDS planners never would have allowed.
In fifty seconds, the battle would truly begin.
Her first targets, were the ships running loaded. The Unions, Confederates, a Dictator, and the Fortresses class DropShips.
Then the landing ships that were arriving empty, with the intent of leaving loaded.
For the first time since she turned her back on Terra during the Coup, and followed a first lord into exile, TQF-204M5B felt Clean, because she would finally begin to make up for centuries spent watching horrors and doing nothing. 
She finally wanted to live again.
All those long years she spent in low power mode, helping 66 with the intel work. The reports of atrocities, often accompanied by holovid recordings, and what had happened the last time her Ladyship went for a vacation. There was no stopping her from joining this expedition even though she was not part of the 1st Destroyer Division. It led to some dark times for her.
Being assigned a human crew had helped get her through those times.
Battle was now before her and she felt like winning this one.
Billie Hoel’s ATAC system was now joining with the sensor feeds. There were few things that could stand up to a supported Texas Class Battleship and every extra bit would help.
Fortunately the Texas and her attendant escorts had proven too eager to get to the planet, leaving the transports and their troops unsupported. Why shouldn’t they? There was no indication that they were here until her emergence wave flashed near them a few minutes ago and she had begun launching fighters.
She needed them more for self defense. Her guns could rip apart those troopships easy enough.
The enemy formation was not completely helpless. So she waited for the troop escorts to make for her.
Then 66 joined her.
<Jumping Anger Close eh?> 204 chided.
<Hush now. We got work to do.> 66 responded.
It was grim work she found but it was work that needed to be done.
Caught between two Destroyers expressing their displeasure in the terrajoule range was no place for even the best Gunboat Dropship.
Still there were enough she was taking some minor armor damage as the enemy kept closing. There were enough of them that this would still take a few minutes.
The Texas was reacting now though. Pulling away from the planet below. Caught in a low orbit fighting gravity while also fighting an enemy, one that had a thrust advantage on top of that, was the sort of thing that would see you fail your Midshipman’s exams and thus prevent you from ever advancing to Captain of a vessel.
Several of its attendant fighters and Dropships went towards the planet instead.
Her Ladyship would have to use what defenses she had at her disposal to deal with those.
Whoever these Sons of Plunder really were, they were at least able to read a manual. They made a forgivable mistake really. They assumed they knew where all enemy forces were. They would have been right if it had not been for the impossible to predict arrival of her, her sisters, and her cousins.
All but Victoria came thrusting hard out of hiding now. Laying their missiles as planned along the enemy main force’s flight path.
There were too many escorts for there to be much hope that these missiles would do much of anything so they were loaded with conventional warheads. For now.
Billie Hoel began orchestrating the deadly dance. Keeping her command at the very limits of the enemy’s effective range. They needed to wear down the escorts before they could do anything to the beast that was the heart of the formation.
One managed to reach out and connect with Ottillie Lee Dennis.
<I’m okay but looks like they also found the chapter on bracket firing in their old SLDF manuals,> Ottillie winced.
<Then as soon as 204 and 66 are done we break off. If they do not come after us we can fleet in being them from orbital bombardment. Watch for opportunities before then though.> Billie updated her threat assessments.
They were peppering the front most escorts trying to break the enemy’s formation discipline.
Another burst of naval weapons fire bracketed then hit Johnston.
<Engines 2 and 3 are non-responsive. I cannot maintain separation from enemy forces. No choice I may as well take as many with me as I can.> Joana Johnston reported.
Billie didn’t like it. Losing a hull this early in the fight was not good.
But the data coming from her nets showed that if she did allow the sacrifice there was indeed a good chance the forward two escorts would be destroyed and the Texas could also take some damage.
It shot up considerably if she made a different decision.
<Regina, go in with her. The rest of us will try and offer what support we can and exploit the opportunity you create.>
Johnston and Raymond were the last two unmodified M5s in the formation. This move would certainly doom them both but this would give them the opening they needed.
As they pushed ahead Ottillie took another burst of fire.
<Armor still holding, barely.>
Johnston and Raymond began their death ride. Their weapons firing to the limits of their cooling arrays.
Shots began trading between the forces.
Slam after slam of naval autocannon shell, beams of naval lasers, discharges of naval particle cannons, and the impacts of naval missiles became a fast and unrelenting barrage.
Then after a few brief minutes the death ride accomplished its goal. The lead two escorting Pocket Warships were finished. The Texas even received a few hits but not as many as hoped.
The other escorts started pushing up though.
Unless Billie wanted to expend more irreplaceable hulls it was time to pull out.
Then Victoria showed up behind the Texas in its known dead zone where it had no weapons to cover aft.
With the escorts out of position a flight of missiles flew out. Only one found its mark and opened a can of sunshine on the Texas.
<Only a surface detonation. Loading another shot.>
The Texas came around to bring its weapons to bear.
Revenge was a nasty dish.
<Armor is still holding but lost a port thruster. I will not be able to do that again without enduring more return fire. And I think I see survivors returning from their attack run on the surface. Looks like her Ladyship did a number on them.> Vicky reported.
<Get out of there. You have done enough. Time to pull out.> As Billie ordered that as another brace of bracket fire found its mark on Ottillie.
<Not so good now. I can still pull out but I am going to need lots of yard time after that.>
The enemy force seemed content to use the opportunity to disengage as well.
66 would watch them until they left. From a safe distance of course.
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===Butcher's Bill continues to Rise===
Trouble had…
…split off from the main group.
Her Destroyers were arrayed against a Texas which unlike many Warships could make full use of all it’s firepower at once, which forced them to try and array themselves so it could only bring one arc to bear on them at a time. The supporting Titans were staying with it as were three of the Mules.
A Mule was able to use that and break away. A pair of emergence signatures at the Planet-Moon L1 point that Vicky had just cleared to ambush the Texas signaled the arrival of a pair of Type 51 Gunboats.
They almost certainly were per-arranged support that was late to the party and used the closer point to catch up.
She would have to deal with those with what defenses she now had.
They were setting up for a low orbit pass as the battle was beginning in earnest farther out in the system.
Sevon V looked to be a nice, soft easy target and it was until just a few minutes ago.
Right as they were at their most vulnerable she let loose. It meant they got a few shots off but for the Mule and one of the Type 51s it would be the last shots they got off.
The fighters were entering the upper atmosphere and the missile batteries flared to life, launching capital missiles right when the fighters had the least freedom to maneuver to avoid bouncing back out into space or burn up. Some did as they panicked. What few survived her barrage continued down.
They were quickly dispatched by ground fire from the garrison mechs as they attempted a last ditch suicide run at the garrison hangers.
The last Type 51 started to pull away from the world seeing it now had teeth and realized it had a Destroyer now bearing down on it.
Even in her damaged state, Victoria was able to make short work of the last vessel as it tried desperately to retreat.
The butcher’s bill for this was two Destroyers lost outright, two more with battle damage that would take weeks to repair for Victoria and months for Ottillie.
In exchange they took out three Mules, two Titans, numerous transport Dropships, and best estimate of the former SLS Juneau needing quite likely also months of yard time from the damage it suffered. The fourth Mule would likely need significant yard time as well.
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===Change in Plans===
Grankum's defenders…
…were better than either Dave Foster, or Captain Roberts expected them to be. To be frank, things were not going well.
"Evasion pattern." The enemy's assault dropship squadron included several types from the Blake War, and unlike previous encounters, these knew what they were doing.
"Steady…all ahead 150% rated power, we can't win this in a straight fight." Rounds counted down on the point defenses as another flurry of capital missiles streaked toward them from the enemy's heavies.
Breaking off would not be possible, the enemy's DropShip and fighter swarms could exceed their acceleration and both Illusive and Evanescent were too far into the system, too far from the point, to jump back out-the nearest point to escape, was ahead, through the storm.
They'd drilled for this, but until now, it didn't seem real. Gunner's mates in powered armor were refilling the ammo bins on the LBX and LRM point defenses under nearly three gees of thrust, a condition where a single mistake could amputate limbs or crush even an armored man.
"Port guns are back up!!"
Amanda's mind reeled through, as the indicator in her vision flashed from red to green again, and the round counter spun like a top.
They knew where we'd emerge, they knew… they were ready for us.
"Hits on Illusive!!" Lori announced, "They've lost their CIC."
Oh god no… "What about their Aux?" she demanded.
"Aux control from Illusive shows they've got helm and limited jump control-they're going to have to aim for a stable point."
Shit, there goes plan A "Send to Illusive, 'RTB at all available speed, we'll catch up' and the plot solution for the Nadir, that's the closest one to the base on our mutual course lines." she ordered.
"Aye, mum…what about us?"
"We need to make noise to draw off pursuit." she judged. "Guns, as soon as we're close to that base, I want main guns laying into it. I don't care what you hit, as long as it's something... and maintain accel."
"Aye, mum."
She tongued her comm to the shipwide. "Chaplain rated personnel, now is time to focus your prayers, our sister ship OWS Illusive has taken a hit to the CIC. We can't stop to assist, so pray for our brothers and sisters. Pray hard. That is all. In the meantime, all loose rates and Marines in armor are to report to gunnery for relay duty, we're burning through ammo on the point defenses and if we don't keep it up, we're going to be dead. Aviators remain on standby."
The plan was teats up, now it was time to scramble to get out.
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===Deadly Beauty of Space===
Fleet Captain David…
…Foster had pushed for the doctrine of pressure suits and depressurized ops. Now, he was pinned in the command seat on his own CIC, and he could see open space above and to his side…and could do nothing about it.
He couldn't even call down to engineering, where the auxiliary control was. He could only sit, and wait for the inevitable end.
"Space… really is beautiful." he mused aloud.
/\/\/\/\Discontinuity/\/\/\/\/\/
And he was looking into colorless chaos as the jump drive activated. In the corner of his eye, he saw a suited body fall off into that chaos as the remains of the portside nose section broke away under graviton shear.
At least we're not on fire…
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