A Squelch of Empires (crossover)

[fractalsponge1]

Argh, people should not be allowed to introduce such anticipation... Great update, ECR.

The next steps should be...interesting. Hopefully the stormtroopers on board have at literally and metaphorically kept their heads, or, Guard or not, it's going be a bitch boarding all those incoming ships. But then again, insanity is generally not conducive to organized resistance...

[Simon_Jester]

Argh, people should not be allowed to introduce such anticipation... Great update, ECR.

The next steps should be...interesting. Hopefully the stormtroopers on board have at literally and metaphorically kept their heads, or, Guard or not, it's going be a bitch boarding all those incoming ships. But then again, insanity is generally not conducive to organized resistance...

True, but the legions of Chaos tend to be fairly effective anyway. They often make up for their lack of organization with their ability to export insanity into your organization.

[LadyTevar]

YAY! UPDATE!

And what a great update. Yes, Amberly would have hit Cain if he'd used any memories of her, but I'm sure that would have been just as shocking to Lennart.

[Playerofeve]

Oh my god I can't stop reading it's just to good.

Waiting patiently for an update.

[Thanas]

^Welcome to the board.

Friendly reminder - it is generally not that good of a job to post in a thread that is one month old. Otherwise people like me might get their hopes up for an update and then have their hopes dashed.

[Master_Baerne]

You beat me to it, Thanas.

Seriously though, while I'm sure ECR appreciates the praise, the rest of us don't.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Appreciate the praise?

Well, if I said I didn't you'd be right to call me a liar, but there are at least two other layers to that, one of them being 'Crap, I have to live up to that sort of expectation now', and the other one being, has it really been that long, how much time have I been wasting when I should have been writing and writing-up? Better get a move on.

Other things being, uncritical praise may be good for a scribbler's ego but not for their sense of craft. I'm really not all that happy about this chapter, or rather half chapter. I think I said, changing up from a ludicrously unreliable old system to shiny-new might affect my writing style? It has. Not crashing every hour feels like a new beginning, and this reads like a prologue.

Probably going to be three chapters, in fact, for the full battle. This is the initial manoeuvring phase, the rest will follow as soon as it gets written.


A Squelch of Empires ch 19


‘Well, it’s not as if we haven’t done this before.’ Lennart said. It was a peculiar but well recognised form of relief, to be finally confronted with the worst, and this was very bad indeed.

‘The last time, there were only two of them, they weren’t in open space, the beings trying to jack them didn’t have nearly as many tentacles- there weren’t nearly as many of them with quite so many guns, for another thing- and I don’t recall mind devouring monsters lurking round reality’s corners in the Palmus Viridis incident.’ Brenn pointed out, pessimistically.

‘You know what?’ Lennart said, to relieve some of the tension. ‘You’re right, we’re screwed.’

‘Sir, you know I didn’t mean it like that.’ Brenn said, hurt. The fact that it actually got a laugh- a nervous, neurotic chuckle but some release of tension nonetheless- was what hurt most of all.

‘I know, but accepting the fact that what we need to do is fundamentally insane seems an essential first step to a working battle plan.’ Lennart pointed out. ‘Any bright ideas?’


‘Apart from get every scrap of data possible before we move in, from the distributed probes and possibly another launched towards the wormhole now? Only on the most general terms- grab anyone who isn’t corrupt and haul them in behind us, reinforce whoever’s still fighting, fire on whoever the taint has taken.’

‘We may be handicapping ourselves with the Imperium troops; one of the things we should have done more of last time was use bio and chemical weapons, and I don’t think the Guard have full NBC suits. Decontamination is going to be fun, in so many separate ways.’ Lennart said, envisioning a raft of spacesuited men being bathed in blaster generated heat beams.


‘No, politically it’s worth it, although protecting loyal Starfleet crew from rampaging or just bloodthirsty Guardsmen is going to be nightmarishly complicated too- and I think I’ve just made one problem solve another.’ He realised.

‘Go in with nonlethals, paralytics and anaesthetics, tactically it’ll be enough to make a difference, and they can always be turned on the Guard if it comes to that.’ Brenn realised.

‘System subversion/demolition and slicer teams, too, as many as we can put together, although some of it can be done from here- on a ship with most of the sysops dead or deranged we might get somewhere. No one way trips. Not in this space, not here. I want it done, but nobody goes in without a plan for getting out.’ Lennart said, remembering the last time.


‘Well, engineering can offer you four thousand men and six thousand droids for the system subversion role.’ Mirannon, who had been listening in, said. ‘In terms of hitting things with the Force though, unless there’s an exceptional concentration of talent among Deep Field, it’s pretty much you and me, and there could be a lot of that needing done.’

‘It’s not going to be a barrel of laughs on board, either. I don’t understand the logic of Chaos, if there is any, but why did they hit the battlecruisers and not us? First and last, we fight the ship. If we come up against some kind of psychic horror that we have to deal with face to face, with it’s own weapons, then we’ll have to play it by ear.

I do not want to face them on their own terms, boarding Imperial ships to recapture is already too damn’ close to that. Or is it that you actually want to go jumping around hitting gribblies with a shiny stick?’ Lennart probed.

There was a long pause, then ‘I’m starting to understand why you hate the Force so much. You have to be constantly at war with yourself, constantly suspecting your own motives.’ Mirannon said.

‘Less of the second person, if you don’t mind- and no, it’s not mandatory, the force would very much prefer it if you didn’t. We probably are going to have to face them in their way, but I intend to fight ship to ship as far as possible, tilt the odds as far as I can in our favour before we descend to that.’ Lennart stated.


‘I am going to buy a pet pachyderm at this rate.’ Brenn grumbled. ‘Everyone keeps leaving the metaphorical elephants in the room to me, I might as well get a real one. Why is that?’

‘Captain’s privilege to offload all the crap jobs.’ Lennart pointed out. ‘You’ve worked out that we might have a problem with the chaos battlefleet in the way?’

‘I’m going to charitably assume everyone else was too high- minded to worry about the details,’ Brenn said looking around his fellow bridge officers with a mock glare, ‘but yes, those and the Imperium survivors of the Battle of the Rishi Mouth, who are going to be spoilt for choice as to who to shoot.’


‘It’s going to be a long, messy day.’ Lennart agreed. ‘All recon comes with us- small craft load maximum available yield warheads, hyper capable fighters and shuttles deploy now and jump with us on flag nav solution, short range scramble immediately on emergence, we can load now and start plotting as soon as we have the target area imaged. Shandon?’

‘I sent one drone with four more on standby, dropped short just in case; the general picture looks something like this,’ the raw, multispectrum image appeared, a false colour overlay showing all of space a faint, ochre yellow and three broad technicolour blurs, that began to be overlaid with contact dots as the probe distinguished individual ships.


‘It looks as if the Imperium survivors made it out of the wormhole first and collected themselves about here, loosely, the chaos battle group is between them and the wormhole, and the 401st is pretty much adjacent to the mouth, here.’

‘The chaos group attacked them mind to mind before they got into gun range.’ Lennart realised. ‘They’re moving towards, but most of that is outward drift form the wormhole. I think we might have an opportunity here. Give me a closer look at the battlecruisers.’

What had once been a neat, ordered formation was now a gaggle, ships lying at all attitudes relative to one another, tumbling lazily- and subtly different in outline. Chaos was already starting to work on them.

‘So much for the best case scenario.’ Lennart muttered. ‘Is there anything left uncorrupted?’ He said, more loudly.


‘Possible- there has definitely been weapons fire, one of the cruisers and one of the destroyers of the escort are gone, there are plasma and debris clouds that used to be them.’ Wathavrah reported. ‘Broadcast nonsense, anyone still sane is using tight beam.’

A rather worried looking Commmissar was hustled up to the bridge module. Being tractored in the wake of a speeding assault shuttle had evidently been a somewhat traumatic experience, but he had coped, as Lennart suspected he always would.

What was wrong with the man? Why was he so reluctant to admit to himself that he was a hero, and more than that, a natural at it? Probably just common sense, he decided, deliberately choosing to refuse to psychoanalyse.


'Ah, there you are. Quick question- mental versus physical force. If we take the chaos battle group apart-' said as casually as if it was virtually inevitable, which was quite a long way from the truth but there was no sense dwelling on the difficulties, 'how much difference will it make to the psychic attack? Are those ships essential to the gribbly presence?'

'Gribbly?' The commissar asked, bemused, before working out what it obviously had to mean. He was not entirely comfortable being an authority on the powers of darkness- he was, but was remembering what he had gone through to get that knowledge.

'Not now.' He stated. 'At first they would have been an essential jumping off point, but now they've anchored themselves on your ships.'


'So blowing up the modern art might be good to prevent a second attack, but it's not going to do anything about what's already happened. Right, lads, scrub the warmup phase.' He announced to the bridge module at large.

'At the moment we're looking at sensor data from seventy light years distance; as soon as the tankers-' there was a pair of blue- white flashes as both fleet tankers, one of them showing obvious scars, materialised in the middle of the Imperium fleet.

Both of them manoeuvred to their respective targets, the fleet carrier Cittern holding the 88th and 597th regiments, the Mechanicus- owned Dominator cruiser that accompanied their titan carrier; both found themselves encumbered by the wasp- swarm of shuttles and transports in the way.

'Meridians.' Lennart ordered. 'Manoeuvre in close, tractor beams, manipulate those flying bricks to their destination- tidy that damn' sloppy boatwork up and let's be moving. Cautionary, do not, repeat do not, allow any of them to dock directly to the tankers.' Lennart pointed out, and none of them needed to be told why.


The pair of fleet tankers would not clamp on to the Imperium ships; it would all be done by globe fields and tractors. Just in case. The only troops loyal to the Golden Throne on any of their ships were, in fact, the Commissar and his honour guard.

The order was routed as given, and the pair of huge, bulbous fleet tankers accelerated towards their charges. They had been picked, too; the logistics division in the subsector with the highest efficiency rating, which included retrieval operations.

They had not been particularly happy to get the job, and were even less comfortable about it now, but they would do it like professional spacemen. Somewhere in the back of all of their heads was the recollection of what had happened, unbidden, over Ord Corban; a fleet logistics tender used as a kamikaze, power- diving into a rebel Lucrehulk.

Not that Lennart had intended or expected it in any way, but one of them was damaged already, so...


They were nervous, the Imperial ships were nervous- if Stone didn't realise there was a much quicker and surer route to getting hold of a hyperdrive equipped ship, by stealing one of the tankers, he wasn't the cyborg Lennart took him for.

Two of the Meridians stood by each tanker, watching and waiting ready to 'delouse' the tankers, the ball-and-framework serial- numbered ships H3C5F1V8 and R8E9B6W7. No nicknames, not in oversector outer.

It was a frustratingly slow business, despite being carried out at breakneck pace. There probably were renegade individuals, ditherers, super-patriots willing to defy orders to do the Emperor's work, cowards and lunatics among the shuttle swarm; none of it mattered. Tractor- grabbed and catapulted towards their destinations, they were given minimal opportunity to be weird.


An impartial observer, Lennart thought watching the process, might say that's because we want to keep all the wierdness to ourselves. Might even be true, too.

At what point does 'stop trying to steal my act, you thieving git' turn into 'we must preserve the purity of the psychic atmosphere'? How many pettinesses and jealousies, how much self- serving egotism, were concealed under the pompous gibberish that masqueraded as laws of magic?

From an outsider's point of view, for that matter, how much of the eternal game of ego was there under military discipline, which often seemed like pompous gibberish to someone, something, who didn't know the whys and wherefores?

It would be far stranger to have a system which wasn't based around the ego in some way. Was there any way to use that, he thought; to play their system- well, unsystem, this was chaos- against them, as they would play ours against us if they could?


'Both ships englobed, fighter complements ready, course matrix laid in and ready.' Brenn reported.

Lennart, still pondering the intersections between psychics and psychology, took a second to react. 'Ah. Right, go with deployment plan...C, I think. Signal the force to proceed accordingly.'

Plan A was the close-range combat drop, right into dogfighting distance; against anything even vaguely close to their own size it would have been the preferred option, but not on a heavy squadron- the chances of doing enough damage to paralyse the enemy before they started returning fire were vanishingly small.

Plan B was an emergence just beyond gun range, and suffered from the fatal drawback that it would expose the tankers and the Imperium ships to a long, slow approach- suicidal, and also far too time consuming. For a straight up fight against larger craft, a distant fencing fight was the chosen tactic, but not today.

Plan C was the short-middle distance compromise; a light minute distant, long enough for a good gun fight on the way in, to pick and prepare a target for the boarding action.

A handful of seconds of blue-white streak- at least chaos hadn't managed to warp hyperspace, even if it could be- and then emergence, and commitment to battle. The drone projection/estimate flashed away to be replaced with the real thing.


‘Ob, for what good it'll do, set the rattlers to interdict and drop zones on the four capital ships, Shandon signal Glacier that preventing their escape is critical. First and foremost, we have to serve the political objective- which means retrieving one of them.

At least one. Secondary objective, deny them to Chaos. The blood god went for the flagship...you know, the forces of Chaos do approximate the fundamental behaviours. Feed, fight, fuck and I can't think of a good F-word for what it is that Tzeentch does. Perhaps 'D' might work better, destroy, devour, deceive and, hm, dick around?'

He was primarily attempting to lighten the mood, and thought he had failed when one of the pit technicians said 'Fool.'


'You had better not mean that the way it sounded- oh, right, good catch. Considering their likely effect on the Imperial mind- we will have to fight the Khornates, but at least we can.

Barathrum, the one with the suppurating wounds, that's the property of the God of Ick; Nurgle, he's called, and that may be a demolition job. Or if we can take her down in ship to ship and tow her back through the wormhole, she's easily the most visually grotesque and therefore convincing- but we will need a very, very long cable.

Blistmok, I'm not sure how much effectiveness the chaos power of change, deceit, revolt, all that jazz would have; the average citizen of the Galactic Empire exists in a more Tzeentchian state anyway, scheming, dodging, ducking and diving their way through life, so if there is any one on which we can win a war of loyalties, she's it.

Bucinator seems to have been seized primarily by the minions of Slaanesh... and I think I'll be asking for voulnteers for that one. Possible, but messy.

Shandon, if you have a work crew spare can you get into their internal PA? Flag officer access, should be easier than going for the datanet, start talking to the crews, not the ships. Find out if there are any loyalists left, any pockets of resistance we can work with.'


'On it, might take...murphy strikes. One of the escort destroyers-' he glanced down at the oversight console, switched in the feed from the operator handling it, listened for a couple of seconds. 'The moonbats are out tonight.' He offered his commanding officer an earphone, but Lennart said 'PA.'

'Wh, w, who are you? Three are we if why am I, fry, no, no, the faces, no friendly ships in this space, no friendly space in this face, it smiled and stretched out its teeth to shake us...' there was a babble of other voices in the background, but it had the sound of shock and confusion, there was nothing even as organised as Chaos.

'And “move fist for great justice” to you, too.' Lennart replied, and added 'Kill it' to the comtech whose board it had come in on.


'Possession?' Wathavrah asked. Wondering if the instruction to kill it ought not to be directed to him.

'No, no structure to it...didn't you hear the voices in the background?' He said, and Wathavrah looked sceptical for a second- had I just been imagining it? Lennart had time to ask himself- before nodding.

'There's no pattern there; I think they were just driven ordinarily mad, if that term makes any sense at all, by transition shock, backlash and the sight of all of this. At least, not yet- but they're easy prey for anything that does decide to snap them up.

I need a voulnteer, deputy department head or below, who knows shiphandling and tactics, an aid team and a skeleton command crew to bring that ship back under command- Imperator-I class Irallia, right? Infantry force, too- Third Composite should do.'

Brenn looked slightly aggrieved, but said nothing. Rythanor spoke up for him. 'Deputy heads, skipper?'

'Well, there are four battlecruisers out there.' Lennart said, meaning that he would have to dispatch his more senior people to a more senior ship. 'Is there anyone you can find who's actually still sane?'


'Signal to noise, and given that we're dealing with toxic noise- this should be easier, but it isn't.' Rythanor reported. 'Attempting to target via machine level intrusion, hack their internal security systems for data-' his tone changed, harder and more businesslike. 'ESM red, central and local fire control scanners, escort, Proelium class Nightblade.'

'Helm, 1500 relative evasion,' a glance at the target display on the main projection screen; almost intact. 'Shandon, get me their commander, Ob, I'm probably going to want synchronised local burnthrough and ionise.'

A side display came to life, incoming message; knowing it would be the Nightblade's commanding officer, Lennart added, just in time for the audio to pick up, 'Pick a part of the ship we can afford to lose if the converged sheaf overpenetrates- ah Captain Dervin. What state, specifically what state of mind, is your ship in?'


'You meant me to hear that, you, you renegade.' Dervin was a round- headed man with a sunburn red complexion, thinning light brown hair and short beard, and he looked about as scared as he could get- far more so than a man with forty thousand other men looking to him could ever afford to admit.

'Of course. Just as you meant to attempt to lock weapons on to me.' Glance down into the pit; Nightblade's gun crews were doing a poor job of holding on target, as Lennart had every right to expect from his far more experienced defensive jamming team.

'You probably know Black Prince by reputation; getting us to kill you is not going to be an escape from the madness. For the record, I ask; do you remain loyal to His Imperial Majesty Palpatine the First, to the New Order and the Starfleet?'

'You can't make me.' Dervin said, actually more than half shrieked. 'You can't force me back there to face those, those-'


'There are points at which language breaks down, are there not?' Lennart said, commiserating rather than sympathising. 'Monstrosities.' he added in Huttese, so much more expressive and nuanced a language for discussing foul and grotesque things.

'You looked into the abyss; it opened under the feet of your comrades in the ships you were supposed to be escorting. Have the terrors of the warp driven you out of your identity?' How much use were words, on a man who had left the wit to hear them behind?

'Have you forgotten that you and your crew are supposed to be spacemen and warriors, have your brains been washed clean of the principles you swore by and the oaths you took?' Lennart was being deliberately formal and pompous, because it was not chaotic, and the dichotomy might help Dervin think.

'You don't know what you're asking. The fiends that can, I never believed I had a soul until I felt them try to rip it open.'


So much for plan A; he was clearly out of control. There was another voice, though, just off camera, bridge PA; 'Captain, have you considered the consequences of this? Commodore Lennart has clearly invoked the oaths of allegiance.'

'Identify that voice and get me his file.' Lennart said to the com- scan team, and turned back to hear Dervin start to rant.

'The oaths don't cover this, physical death is a thing but this is the death of the mind, it's eternal torture, we have to run, sanity only lies in getting away...'

The thought crossed Lennart's mind that if the powers of Chaos really understood the Empire, all they would need to do would be to focus on one man on each ship. Launch a concentrated attack on the Captain, bend him to their will or destroy his mind, and their own discipline would do the rest.

They should have to follow him, no matter how obviously pants-on-the-head mad he was; obedience to lawful authority was the bulwark of the new order, and by his standards, in this environment, it was too heavily enforced and too deeply ingrained.


'Captain Dervin, I'm by no means certain you deserve a last chance, but here it is anyway. Breaking and running, leaving your kin and comrades behind in the claws of chaos, is not prudence, it is cowardice.' He's right, though, Lennart thought on a much lower level. Willingly heading into that is bloody mad.

All civilised, intellectual and rational instincts say, into the fire with you. This is something that has to be fought. It's the hindbrain that looks at that primal fury and realises what a horrifically bad plan it is. Actually, more like it's the hindbrain that slows the rest of the brain down for all the carefully ignored ugly thoughts to catch up.

Thoughts like, four battle cruisers. Their crews may have been reduced to asylum fodder, but they have a kriffload of heavy metal to play with, they can afford to make an unbelievable number of mistakes and still come out ahead.

I wonder if I can keep this moving fast enough that I can railroad the rest of the crew, the rest of the group, into action before that catches up with them too? Too late for that, considering I brought it up myself anyway.


'Is that all that you are, Dervin? A coward, a faintheart and a deserter? You're supposed to be a captain- someone who can command, more importantly can deserve, obedience. Live up to the trust that has been placed in you, and fight your ship.'

The face in the holo tank quivered, afraid to make any response and not quite quick witted enough to lie, certainly not under the circumstances. His eyes showed an internal fight between pride and terror- and pride was losing.

'Commodore Lennart, you mentioned cowardice- are you formally charging Captain Dervin with an incapacitating offence?' the voice said again, and Lennart tried to read the tone.

Not enthusiastic, which was good. Anyone who wanted to see their commanding officer reduced to this sort of quivering wreck was probably quite untrustworthy in themselves. Disappointed in him, that made sense, and forcing itself to be hard and carry the decision through.


Lennart was tempted to say 'Do you think I have to?', put the ship's, presumably the executive officer, on the spot. He looked closely at Dervin. If he broke the right way, how much good would he be?

A ping, as two datafiles popped up- also a set of images of the 401st, internal states guessed at, no time now. Captain Argel Dervin was a bureaucrat born and bred; efficiency reports were excellent, but they were singularly lacking in combat. He was a new man, joined after the Clone Wars, and now, under real pressure for possibly the first time, he had cracked.

His exec was trying again- 'Captain, there is no practical alternative. You have to do this, the only legitimate course of action is to turn and face. All moral considerations aside,' and there was a note of disgust in the tone there, 'we are heading deeper into enemy space, and safety lies on the other side of the battle group.'

No positive response, though, just an incoherent moan of panic from Dervin, who collapsed and put his head in his hands.


Glancing at the exec's file, Commander Yorg Thanas, thirty-eight years old, legal specialist, security code-fingerprints splashed throughout his file- what had he been under suspicion of? No, it had actually been his brother who had refused a bombardment order. There was a cross reference, but no time to chase it down now.

Lennart would never quite understand the kinks the New Order had about families; it seemed to hate them and believe absolutely in them at the same time. Official policy was that of the primacy of the state over the kin-group, but the security services seemed to assume that was doomed to fail, and blood would always out.

If one member of a family went rogue, criminal or even Rebel, the rest always came under suspicion, were always vetted, frequently watched, anyone in a position of importance usually had their career damaged by it. Making executive officer, at that age, under those conditions, wasn't bad going at all.


'Captain Dervin, military exigencies force me to relieve you of your command- charges may be preferred at a more opportune moment. Commander Thanas- you came up through the legal branch. Under the circumstances I approve of the symbolism, but how much do you know about combat command?'

'I understand the theory of it, and before you ask I have had some experience in the courtroom, defending errant sailors foul of the local law.' The commander pointed out.

Lennart thought about that for a second, and realised it was entirely to the point. The teacher in him had been about to tell the legal officer to regard the rules in the book the same way he would regard the law in a criminal trial- as the basis and beginning of the matter, but a long way from being the end.

'Well, if you can keep anticipating your opponent's moves like that you shouldn't do too badly.' Lennart acknowledged the hit. 'Bring your ship around on our port quarter, link to the squadron net and follow us in.'


'Shandon, anything?' he added to the com-scan chief officer.

'There's a firefight underway on board Blistmok, might be loyal versus corrupt; Bucinator's just random babble, doesn't seem to be anyone in charge at all, The polluted one's manoeuvring towards the chaos battle group, and the flag is turning bows on and accelerating.'

'Right; signal the tankers to manoeuvre towards Blistmok, mark Benificent as primary target, squadron manoeuvre order, tactical-independent around base course- let's make ourselves a crossing target. Tangent to cross Benificent's beam at fifty thousand. Commence firing.'

[Thanas]

Very nice (Yay, I'm in).

Might I ask as to what you envisioned a Proelium class to be?

[darthdavid]

Nice . Can't wait for the rest of this battle...

[jpdt19]

Proelium Class? As in... Battlecruisers. As in, Super Capital

And Black Prince is a destroyer.

Ouch. Hang on, i could have sworn the 401/410st included Bellators? Or am i misremembering

Anyway, wonderful chapter.

Although, i don't understand why having an officer with legal origins take over is a good thing? Then again, i don't understand a fair amount of what goes on in your stories until you explain subtly a chapter or so later

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I'm more or less going with the fast- pursuit concept, but I think you're right about the fighter bays. Tiered engines in the swallowtail, thirty-eight hundred 'g', and the more I think about the armament layout the less happy I am about it. Good heat dispersal, well shielded, not very well armoured though.

Roughly about three point one petatons/second throw weight; the revised idea is now two banks of four quad 32- teraton turrets forward of the superstructure, two banks of three quad 32- teraton turrets aft of the superstructure in standard beam positions, one quad-32 turret as a 'stern chaser' just aft of the superstructure facing aft (let's see the Millennium Falcon try it now...) and two twin 192's similar to the main guns of the Imperator-I as bow chasers, at least one, possibly two (divert power) twin ion turrets of the same grade, down the centreline. There's not much to suggest they superfire, you may have to dip the bow. Pursuit tractors, large banks of light turbolaser- sixty-four quad turrets, plus fighter weight point defence.

Fighter complement should be larger than the Imperator, probably not as large as I thought at first, but now I'm starting to wonder about the composition of the wing, and that square tower. I think the Empire does use TIEs as light outrider and search craft- witness the Bombers combing the Hoth asteroid field in ESB- but more than that, Starwings and Skiprays definitely are used as long range recon.

What if the tower is designed to serve, the class are designed around the concept of, an unusually large complement of hyperdrive capable small craft? Consider Rebel fighter tactics for a moment- the sort of hit and fade, jump in, attack, jump out moves they make throughout the computer games and the EU.

What is the Imperial counter to that? Watch them closely, get a bead on their direction, send a ship of force immediately on a pursuit vector- sometimes it works. Sometimes, and the rest of the time they break the trail or lay a counter- ambush.

I think it's possible that the Proelium might be intended to coordinate the operations of a wing of hyperdrive fighters, small craft and probe droids, for the purpose of pursue and destroy. That capability did exist in Imperial service with the inherited Venators, but they're mostly retired now- something could, and by the civil war should, have succeeded them, and this might be it.

The tower would therefore contain mainly specialised sensors and communications gear for the purpose. Skiprays, Starwings, Avengers and other hyper capable versions of the TIE series, possibly local uptake, third party designs- the Skiprays and Starwings have a big footprint, it might be necessary to go with something smaller to keep the numbers up.

Ground complement is probably armour light, mainly infantry for ship to ship- useful for this.

jpdt, Barathrum, Blistmok, Benificent and Bucinator are the four Bellator class battlecruisers that form the core of the 401st Battlecruiser Squadron, but the squadron is considered to include an organic escort, three light cruisers and eight destroyers, Irallia and Nightblade- which have rallied to the cause- being among them. Proelium class are heavy destroyers, not battlecruisers. The Bellators are more than enough trouble to be getting on with. Blistmok, incidentally, are in-universe zoology, a species of lizard more or less equivalent to a velociraptor.

Legal origins- well, I'm a gamer, and a Moorcock fan. Law in opposition to Chaos. (Balance? not bloody likely )

[Vehrec]

Proelium Class? As in... Battlecruisers. As in, Super Capital

And Black Prince is a destroyer.

Ouch. Hang on, i could have sworn the 401/410st included Bellators? Or am i misremembering

Anyway, wonderful chapter.

Although, i don't understand why having an officer with legal origins take over is a good thing? Then again, i don't understand a fair amount of what goes on in your stories until you explain subtly a chapter or so later

Well, there could be worse things. He's already demonstrated one of the most vital abilities of an officer-the ability to keep one's cool under tremendous pressure. They tend to self-sort pretty rapidly in wartime conditions, but the cost is high and you need to keep a sharp eye so you can recognize Dick Winters out of a crowd of ten less competent men. An organized structured mind also might be proof in some general ways against the powers of Chaos, prone to their own patterns and rules.

One thing I would have liked to seen would have been Cain doing something after he arrived. He shows up and fades into the background except for one question. It might be a good idea to toss him to com-scan, have him aid the search for the various Empire-loyalists, even if he doesn't speak the language. Rig an auto translator, stand him in front of it and go from there. Have him search for areas that are on the verge of breaking, or where the cause is lost and the whole thing might as well be cauterized. On second thought, we'd need to have someone check his suspicions. Might not be worth it. Still, he feels a bit like a third wheel on a bicycle here.

[Thanas]

I'm more or less going with the fast- pursuit concept, but I think you're right about the fighter bays. Tiered engines in the swallowtail, thirty-eight hundred 'g', and the more I think about the armament layout the less happy I am about it. Good heat dispersal, well shielded, not very well armoured though.

Roughly about three point one petatons/second throw weight; the revised idea is now two banks of four quad 32- teraton turrets forward of the superstructure, two banks of three quad 32- teraton turrets aft of the superstructure in standard beam positions, one quad-32 turret as a 'stern chaser' just aft of the superstructure facing aft (let's see the Millennium Falcon try it now...) and two twin 192's similar to the main guns of the Imperator-I as bow chasers, at least one, possibly two (divert power) twin ion turrets of the same grade, down the centreline. There's not much to suggest they superfire, you may have to dip the bow. Pursuit tractors, large banks of light turbolaser- sixty-four quad turrets, plus fighter weight point defence.

Fighter complement should be larger than the Imperator, probably not as large as I thought at first, but now I'm starting to wonder about the composition of the wing, and that square tower. I think the Empire does use TIEs as light outrider and search craft- witness the Bombers combing the Hoth asteroid field in ESB- but more than that, Starwings and Skiprays definitely are used as long range recon.

What if the tower is designed to serve, the class are designed around the concept of, an unusually large complement of hyperdrive capable small craft? Consider Rebel fighter tactics for a moment- the sort of hit and fade, jump in, attack, jump out moves they make throughout the computer games and the EU.

What is the Imperial counter to that? Watch them closely, get a bead on their direction, send a ship of force immediately on a pursuit vector- sometimes it works. Sometimes, and the rest of the time they break the trail or lay a counter- ambush.

I think it's possible that the Proelium might be intended to coordinate the operations of a wing of hyperdrive fighters, small craft and probe droids, for the purpose of pursue and destroy. That capability did exist in Imperial service with the inherited Venators, but they're mostly retired now- something could, and by the civil war should, have succeeded them, and this might be it.

The tower would therefore contain mainly specialised sensors and communications gear for the purpose. Skiprays, Starwings, Avengers and other hyper capable versions of the TIE series, possibly local uptake, third party designs- the Skiprays and Starwings have a big footprint, it might be necessary to go with something smaller to keep the numbers up.

Ground complement is probably armour light, mainly infantry for ship to ship- useful for this.

Ah, so that is the fast pursuit thing fractalsponge, others and moi discussed in the art gallery thread. Thanks for that explanation.

jpdt, Barathrum, Blistmok, Benificent and Bucinator are the four Bellator class battlecruisers that form the core of the 401st Battlecruiser Squadron, but the squadron is considered to include an organic escort, three light cruisers and eight destroyers, Irallia and Nightblade- which have rallied to the cause- being among them. Proelium class are heavy destroyers, not battlecruisers. The Bellators are more than enough trouble to be getting on with. Blistmok, incidentally, are in-universe zoology, a species of lizard more or less equivalent to a velociraptor. [/quote]

Bucinator...that's a nice one.

As for long-range patrol, maybe a couple of Decimators would be good, but they are probably too large and are oftentimes described as an independent command. Other than that, I think you are right about the skiprays and starwings. Maybe TIE Bombers as well, but if they are, I think they might be better some of the EW variant.

[LadyTevar]

I second Vehrec. What's Cain up to?

[fractalsponge1]

I third the comment about Cain; Vehrec's suggestion seems a particularly good idea.

I am looking forward to the fight. Hopefully the Khornate bloodlust and general Chaos insanity should go very significantly and obviously against the efficiency of the former 401st; a victory of 6 destroyers, even including Black Prince and another heavy, over a single competent Bellator in normal combat is fairly far beyond the bounds of my credulity, at least. If Blistmok is brought back under control by its own crew and stormtrooper complement, now that'd be quite a fair match, especially with the other two out of it... Chances for retrieval for most ought to be fairly decent - the Nurgle-thing ship is probably a CTL, but the others - bridge crew and officers are probably mad or otherwise incapacitated, but the stormtroopers ought to be much less affected, and they're the primary armed force on any of the ships in question. Even against a majority of the spacers gone crazy, that ought to be good odds with some help from the Guard, especially if it's going against gibbering wrecks. Though the two Daemon Princes and two Greater Daemons might be more of a problem to get rid of...

Sorry, compulsive hypothesizing, feel free to ignore that; as always, great work and eagerly looking forward to more.

[Simon_Jester]

I third the comment about Cain; Vehrec's suggestion seems a particularly good idea.

I am looking forward to the fight. Hopefully the Khornate bloodlust and general Chaos insanity should go very significantly and obviously against the efficiency of the former 401st; a victory of 6 destroyers, even including Black Prince and another heavy, over a single competent Bellator in normal combat is fairly far beyond the bounds of my credulity, at least.

Much of the crew will be dead or completely incapacitated in one way or another. The Tzeentchian ship is probably the biggest actual threat, I'd think, because the followers of Tzeentch are the ones whose ability to think is impaired the least by their Chaos-warping.

If Blistmok is brought back under control by its own crew and stormtrooper complement, now that'd be quite a fair match, especially with the other two out of it... Chances for retrieval for most ought to be fairly decent - the Nurgle-thing ship is probably a CTL, but the others - bridge crew and officers are probably mad or otherwise incapacitated, but the stormtroopers ought to be much less affected, and they're the primary armed force on any of the ships in question. Even against a majority of the spacers gone crazy, that ought to be good odds with some help from the Guard, especially if it's going against gibbering wrecks. Though the two Daemon Princes and two Greater Daemons might be more of a problem to get rid of...

The stormtroopers are going to be in trouble if the heavy daemons start pulling their lesser counterparts through to reinforce; their heavy weapons are only so heavy.

And yeah, the only thing to do with the Nurglite ship is slag it and drop it into the nearest black hole, probably.

[Andras]

never mind, confused by chaos!

[fractalsponge1]

Black Prince already outguns 1 Bellator by about 33%. And the Bellator couldn't be considered 'competent' at the moment anyway.

Um, a single Bellator throws nearly an 80-petaton alpha. True about the Beneficent's current condition, though.

The stormtroopers are going to be in trouble if the heavy daemons start pulling their lesser counterparts through to reinforce; their heavy weapons are only so heavy.

Well, I thought you needed some weird sacrificial rite thing or a big warp tear to bring in Daemons, which I don't think has happened yet; a daemon prince or greater daemon for each battlecruiser, general mind-fuckery and transition shock for the rest. A daemon prince is probably nothing to laugh at, but it seems to me it's going to be fairly limited to corrupting or disorientating the existing crew, at least this early on.

[Andras]

Ok, I got confused by the description just above, I thought it was a Bellator.

[Simon_Jester]

General note: I seem to be a bit confused about the tactical situation. As I understand it, the local battlegroup (including the four massive Bellator-class ships, naturally) has come through the wormhole and is in the process of being eaten by daemons. But, for instance, what about the ship that Lennart just rallied? Which side of the wormhole are they currently on?

Black Prince already outguns 1 Bellator by about 33%. And the Bellator couldn't be considered 'competent' at the moment anyway.

Um, a single Bellator throws nearly an 80-petaton alpha. True about the Beneficent's current condition, though.

Note to self: approach massive spacefaring battlecruiser from behind.

The stormtroopers are going to be in trouble if the heavy daemons start pulling their lesser counterparts through to reinforce; their heavy weapons are only so heavy.

Well, I thought you needed some weird sacrificial rite thing or a big warp tear to bring in Daemons, which I don't think has happened yet; a daemon prince or greater daemon for each battlecruiser, general mind-fuckery and transition shock for the rest. A daemon prince is probably nothing to laugh at, but it seems to me it's going to be fairly limited to corrupting or disorientating the existing crew, at least this early on.

[/quote]The presence of so many unshielded minds in deep space seems to constitute something of a warp tear in and of itself; otherwise the big daemons wouldn't even have been able to get involved in the first place, would they?

[fractalsponge1]

General note: I seem to be a bit confused about the tactical situation. As I understand it, the local battlegroup (including the four massive Bellator-class ships, naturally) has come through the wormhole and is in the process of being eaten by daemons. But, for instance, what about the ship that Lennart just rallied? Which side of the wormhole are they currently on?

If I'm reading this correctly, 4 Bellators, 3 light cruisers, and 8 destroyers went with the 401st through the wormhole. One cruiser and one destroyer destroyed, possibly fratricide. Of the four Bellators, one (Khornate, Beneficent [flag]) is engaging, one is (possibly) in the process of having control contested at blasterpoint (Tzeentch, Blistmok), one is moving towards the Chaos fleet (Nurglite, Barathrum), and one is pretty much out of it having an orgy or something (Slaanesh, Bucinator). Now all ships are on the Imperium side of the wormhole right at the mouth, with a chaos battlegroup between them and the survivors of the Rishi Maze battle. Lennart has three Imperators and a Spoliator from Deep Field, plus two tankers and 4 Meridians, in addition to Cittern and the Mecahnicus light carrier carrying IoM allied forces. ISDI Irallia and Proelium-class Nightblade from the escort group are presumably going to in with them, with whatever former 401st ships can be brought around in tactical time. Hopefully Blistmok, or it's a bloody day.

The presence of so many unshielded minds in deep space seems to constitute something of a warp tear in and of itself; otherwise the big daemons wouldn't even have been able to get involved in the first place, would they?

Any more than a typical IoM fleet? I thought the big daemons came with the Chaos fleet, and teleported/warped through the battlecruisers' command staff's minds or something - any other warp things would depend on what's happening on the battlecruisers themselves right now.

((DoublePost removed, LadyT))

[Simon_Jester]

The presence of so many unshielded minds in deep space seems to constitute something of a warp tear in and of itself; otherwise the big daemons wouldn't even have been able to get involved in the first place, would they?

Any more than a typical IoM fleet?

Typical IoM fleets aren't stupid inexperienced enough to try wandering around deep space in the 40k Milky Way without psychic screening.

[fractalsponge1]

The presence of so many unshielded minds in deep space seems to constitute something of a warp tear in and of itself; otherwise the big daemons wouldn't even have been able to get involved in the first place, would they?

Any more than a typical IoM fleet?

Typical IoM fleets aren't stupid inexperienced enough to try wandering around deep space in the 40k Milky Way without psychic screening.

Deep space is worse than just your garden-variety world? I thought Gellar Fields are for warp travel - are they also typically used in space that's not manifestly obviously warp-tainted?

[starfury]

What class is the Black Prince again, I read it being a mere imperator destroyer ?

[Count Chocula]

It's a low-number ISD-I, II-refit, by this story it's likely been refit some more in Corellia after the Hull No. 721 original arc. Lennart and Mirannon, and their crew, have made it an extraordinarily effective destroyer.