CYTM106

=Chapter 106=
==Can you tell me where can we start over?==
Operation: Cronus
Sol System
Word of Blake Protectorate
3078
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The initial waves of Operation: Cronus began with recon sweeps arriving using short-duration points in off-axis locations.  The cutter forces from LCN and Jade Falcon deployed through to jump points that were in clock-motion, dropping into existence and firing their engines to clear those short duration points for Patrol or starmates.
Basically, this was 'kicking the hive' with low-cost assets intended to draw out defenders or transmit data-a recon-in-force maneuver that also served to establish emergence zones for the larger naval vessels.
Behind them, came the Landmark class Destroyers.  Essentially, the operation placed the LCN as the ablative meat for the rest of the Operation's taskforce elements.
Blakist fighters and Pocket Warships had data on facing these opponents before-they knew the Landmark class to be almost supernaturally tough to put down, even with repeated Alamo strikes.
They weren't ready for the Freds though.  Two megaton warships with docking collars loaded with fighter carriers and fast assault dropships, not a single landing ship among them.
Each group from the LCN had a specific role and target, their first role, was to secure entry control positions to cover the arrival of the rest of the fleet.  Their second, was to suppress spaceborne defenders and confirm the locations of control bases, fortified stations, and other hard-points before visiting destruction on those points.
The last major engagement in the Sol system, Word of Blake had local superiority in seconds, destroying hundreds of billions of C-bills worth of shipping and demonstrating how powerful their Pocket Warship (aka heavy armed assault dropship) doctrine was on the defense against an unprepared adversary.
LCN and Jade Falcon forces were not an under prepared adversary.
Standing battle doctrine on board both Jade Falcon, and Lyran, Warships was running depressurized.  Among other side-effects, the LCN/Falcon capital ships were easily a match for the SDS pickets they were up against in terms of toughness. While having nearly as much firepower and more imagination and options, while the cutters provided a rather potent counter to the hordes of 'pocket warship' droppers, while having more than enough strategic mobility to begin dominating the engagement early.
At D Plus 12 Hours, the Terra L1, Mars L1, Jupiter and Saturn Lagrange points, and both Zenith and Nadir points were cleared of defenders and minefields.  the dozens of defensive stations Word of Blake had either revived, or installed, were burning wreckage, and the SDS control relays were popped, trapping outer system based drone vessels without local command that can control their movements or issue orders.
(An order or instruction that takes 20 minutes to an hour to arrive is too late, and WoB didn't trust their automated vessels with more than the most primitive AI systems, preferring centralized control and coordination.)
At D plus 13 hours, Jade Falcon forces were moving on Titan , while the Battleship LCS Hermann Steiner and her group were moving on Luna, and the only thing in the way, were what could be scrambled from the ground at each location.
At D Plus 14, Kowloonese Marines from 5th MEU were storming Ceres. Freeing it from Bureau of Terran Affairs troops and their Manei Domini overseers. Metis would fall to the 6th MEU and a full Elemental Star in support.  Eros Station's uprising got backing from 7th MEU's marine assault troops.
The Belt Liberation began in earnest at D Plus Fifteen hours.  
Meanwhile, LCS Frederick Steiner's group began the zone by zone suppression of Terran close orbital defenses.  There was nothing gentle in that suppression.  For the first time since its resurrection, the Lyran Commonwealth Navy engaged in orbital counter-bombardment of planetary defense points, fortresses, and concentrations of surface-to-orbit weapons.
Some of this wasn't to Stone's plan or intent.
Elizabeth Ngo had discussed it with Peter while they were preparing Second Fleet, and nearly a month ago, four cutters and one Landmark had infiltrated Sol's oort cloud, and seeded it with pre-planned kinetic bombardment weapons aimed at Hilton Head, the Cairo fortress, and certain other points on Terra where it was KNOWN that the Blakists had fortified, including SDS control centers.
D Plus 16 hours and the Lyran Fleet shifted their positions in a coordinated move, as something pushing .75 Light speed slammed into the sites of Terran SDS control, Hilton Head, and the Cairo installation.
Effectively, Comstar would not be returning to operation.  At least, not without a lot of rebuilding.
On the bridge of the Battleship, LCS Hermann Steiner, Commander Elizabeth Ngo watched as Hilton Head, the archive, storehouse and headquarters of Comstar for almost three hundred years, was converted to a bright flash of actinic light as relativistic impactors smashed the site with an average shot drift of only 100 meters from pre-calculated targeting data.
Millions will die. she thought
"...and I have become death, the destroyer of worlds." she spoke.  
"They're never going to forgive this." Captain Nicole Minh, her flag captain and her superior officer, said.
"I know." Liz stated, "They hit us first.  Never let someone hit you twice..." she turned, "The ecological damage will be minimal compared to a normal orbital bombardment. The crust is thick and WAS stable in the target areas because the builders feared nuclear attack. The shockwaves should damage defensive infrastructure and the hits will likely damage their ability to react when the landing forces arrive-we've filled our portion of the mission."
"But..the cost..." Minh began to say
"Yeah.  That's what you get when you declare unrestricted war-someone else will hit you back with proportional force-they used bioweapons and destroyed worlds, we've destroyed military assets, industries, and their government."
As Terra turned, the blazing blur where Geneva, home of the Bureau of Terran Affairs government was situated. It was beginning to shift to red, as the Alps gained a new volcano.
"It'll take a few decades for them to recover." Liz appended.  "For now, the Solar System is almost valueless except as a symbol...and as a source of people who want to be somewhere else."  she crossed her arms, "They're going to kill me for this."
"Mum, how can you be so...calm about this?" Captain Minh asked
"I wasn't supposed to live to forty." Liz told her captain. "I doubt I'll make it to fifty.  The Blakists committed war-crime upon war crime upon war crime, but the billions they murdered?" she gestured at the wounded world below, "To most of the coalition, the billions murdered by the Word and their sock puppets, the murdered worlds like Galedon or Alarion? don't add up to one city on the planet below us, and I've just annihilated six, triggered earthquakes and tectonic instability for the next thirty years in areas that haven't seen a quake in the last thirty thousand years, and dumped enough dust an ash to give them a couple years without a summer on most of the planet.  Not enough to make it uninhabitable, but it's not going to be pleasant for a LONG time...and all the people who die of that? That's on my hands.  I designed Crowbar and I got Peter's permission to use it. God help me."
"Is this where the end begins then?" Nicole asked.
"Can you tell me where we start over?" Liz countered, "Can you tell ME where the end begins?"
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