Strat-2 Chpt-6

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==Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 2Chapter 6 - Rise up me hearties yo-ho==
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===First Encounter===
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"What the ****** was…
…that??" 
"Couple enemy fighters were near the edge of our emergence, Sir." 
Foster cursed more, "Status!!"
"Engineering reports no damage to the KF core. There brownouts in portside forward are just tripped breakers, we'll have guns up soon."
"Roll starboard toward them. I don't like our point defenses blind." Dave ordered. "Marines ready?"
"Ready and away."
"Launch fighters as we roll, CAG, we're losing surprise every second."
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"Illusive is streaming…
…vapor trails portside fore, and she's missing some of her gun mounts and armor, Captain," Sam reported. "There must've been debris in the emergence zone."
Shit. Shit shit shit. "Bedwyr, once our fighters are out of the barn I want the reserve wing prepped and launching," Amanda instructed. "Divert four of our heavies from the target to cover Illusive's flank."
"Ma'am, they have-"
"They have a damned good reason to be pulling back and they aren't." she scowled. "Probably the DC sensors were sheared with those weapons mounts, so they don't yet know, but it's-"
"A bad idea, ma'am," Larry spoke up gently. "Lori, inform the Illusive they're jump-sheared. Fleet Captain Foster knows full well what to do in this situation."
Amanda bit her lip, "Right… ******. I almost screwed up didn't I?"
"You're still learning." Larry reminded her. "A Captain can't be expected to be omniscient, I'm just presenting options."
"Ready the secondaries anyway, Bedwyr," she said. "But yeah, stick to the original plan for now."
"Aye, Ma'am."
"We're going to be lower on firepower from this," Amanda noted. "Across the whole operation, and we probably have casualties already from that."
"The gun-mounts in that section have trained crew," Larry reminded her. "If they paid attention and weren't killed by the shearing, they'll be alright."
"Your word to god's ear…"
It was a foul omen though. A mistake in an operation with little room for mistakes. "Mister Samuel, bring us to a closing trajectory on our targets, maintain formation with our fighters and small craft on the approach, ninety seconds back."
"Aye, mum."
She turned to Larry, "Gunnery sections?"
"We're all green, and all stations reporting in." he told her.
"Rig for open battle, helmets down and drop press." she recited. "We'll restock when we take their damn station, in the meantime, I don't want fires or shockwaves from being hit. All outer decks, condition Three."
She raised, settled, and sealed her own helmet as she spoke. "Time?" Larry asked.
"Alert the crew they have five minutes before they need to be bottled on the emergency conduits or suffocating." she stated.
It actually took the crew only one and a half to go from ready to sealed. The ship's innate noises stopped as the atmosphere either vented out, or filled reserve tanks that could be blown without blowing the hull out behind blowout panels on the aft quarter.
Hoses linked, and the orderly quiet of intersuit channels replaced the sound of random voices in the CIC.
"Engineer, stand to all DC parties ready for action," she ordered. "CAG…you know what to do."
In her mind, diagrams of the battlespace filled in as information from the ship's sensors and systems scrolled through her vision, giving a sense of the battlespace in Augmented Reality overlay.
Including the damage to the technical 'flag' for the operation, OWS Illusive.
Even two years ago, Amanda would've had trouble parsing it with her conscious, meat-based mind, but as of the present, everything was crisp, she could grasp it.
The Protomech pilots from Kappa Galaxy would understand the expanded situational awareness, how it feels, but their implants didn't include damaging cuts to the punishment/reward centers, she felt no euphoria, just cold calm and placid focus.
"Miss Lori, broadcast on Hailing channels, Jolie Rouge, yo ho." she said.
Jolie Rouge, the 'Pretty red' or 'Jolly Roger'. The classical, historic act, announcing that quarter would not be given, nor asked. Derived from age-of-sail piracy in the Caribbean Seas, coined for the original flag's red, not black, coloration by french speaking privateers in the innumerable wars of the Spanish succession, adopted by anglophone and Hispanic privateers, buccaneers, and Pirates.
"Identification?" Lori asked.
"Insert text, 'I am the great, DREAD pirate Roberts, those who are here, will not be here. Your doom is at hand, for I am the Greatest Pirate you will ever see…and I have come for your souls.' set on repeat."
"Psyops?"
"Psyops."
"You screwed up the quote." 
"I know," Amanda said. "But maybe they'll give me points for originality. Let's cut their throats, yo-ho… Mister Nichols, are we in main gun range?"
"Just barely."
"Well…engage! Try not to hit our own craft. Set point defenses to 'goalkeeper’ range."
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"Not the most…
…graceful Batchall I have ever heard, but then, this enemy is exceedingly dezgra," Star Captain Wlhemina Seigel chuckled. "Foster should put more effort into influencing that girl, her take on classical literature is atrocious and overblown.""Fighter wings away, ovKhan, boarding shuttles will be launching in one minute."
She sighed, "We need to do more drills." Her comment came with a shake of her head.
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The intended…
…effect was achieved. The enemy got the challenge, got the arrival of not one, but two warships with fighters out, and decided the one making the threats was the leader and needed to be knocked out first.
After all, warships belong to navies, and senior officers are the ones making bold announcements, so knock out the leader and the rest are easier to take down.
This was entirely wrong on nearly every front… But it also distracted the defenders at the jump point from recognizing that one of the two corvettes was already heavily damaged, and it wasn't the one making bold announcements about reaping souls.
In nearly every particular, the Harvest and Garrison forces in the system, were both well prepared, and totally unprepared. They reacted to this enemy, the way they had to every drill they bothered to remember or attend-most of which, were influenced by leaders and lords interested in getting the damned thing over with, instead of learning useful lessons.
In the darkness of the jump points, pinprick flames of fighter craft flew into the merge, and in the silence of interplanetary space, they burst in bright flashes as lives ended, while small craft bearing the assault element slid past…
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