Enigma wrote:I doubt I'd be that evil. I guess I'm just ensuring my survival.
And trowing several nice crafty battle plans into the water.
Wouldn't that be counter intuitive? Can't exactly ensure my survival if I am endangering the host?
Not if you hit the power switch before the ship can jump into combat, or you make it run away.
Things like that, this could mean a hard to port instead of the intended roll.
Iushnevan orbital space, His Imperial Majesty’s Starship Oyadan. Urbanus class light cruiser.
Lieutenant-Commander Nguyen was sitting in the in- pit observer’s chair, overseeing his team as they calculated their way through a range of contingencies.
He was not the ship’s capital-N navigator, but he was the senior ranking member of the branch currently on board, a circumstance which was really starting to worry him.
Oyadan was short- handed, and had no mission, was just hanging there in orbit. That was a very strange state for the flagship of a sector fleet whose sector was exploding around it.
Working out the pattern of who was present and who was absent made things look even less above board.
He did not have the spotless record that might be expected for service aboard a fleet flagship. No military offences, not really, and very few political- well, none he had been caught for anyway.
He was a man with a family to support, and he had taken unofficial steps to help himself do that.
Renting out his expertise, mainly- providing courses off the military map to civilian spacers, using the ship’s computers to calculate for them, under the pretence of training and exercise.
It was technically illegal, but it wasn’t really wrong, was it? Just a man with responsibilities, dodging his way through life, trying to support what sometimes felt like an entire ozark’s worth of in-laws.
There was an older standard, going back to the republic fleet when the amount of a spacer’s pay had been lower and the timing of it essentially random, when pretty much every man had been expected to make what of his opportunities he could.
It only really counted as theft when a man took something that left his shipmates short, only really counted as corruption when he took more than his services were worth.
Lieutenant-Commander Nguyen was not quite up to regional or strategic force standards. He had never found occasion to take a destroyer through the Kessel run, never found himself having to turn off the computers and plot a course on a slide rule.
He was well above average, though, and charged a fair rate for his services- or gratis, in the case of his youngest brother in law and his business partner, who thought they knew how to fly a light freighter and got lost with embarrassing frequency.
That and, when all was said and done, it was useful exercise, and it did help keep the department in practise. By any reasonable interpretation of the old standard, he was an honest man.
What was worrying him was how few of his shipmates could say the same. Good men- dull men maybe, but good men- had been transferred out to other ships and bases, given leave, or detached on unspecified duties, leaving Oyadan far below complement.
New men had been attached, some of whom he knew by reputation, and those reputations were not good.
Slave- drivers, some rumours said that was more than just a figure of speech; theft in the full sense of the term, open, hungry profiteering and bloody- minded ambition.
The ship’s gunnery officer had dodged three formal charges for lack of evidence, but it was morally certain he had a second career as a hypermatter salesman;
the new chief engineer was known to regard multiple redundancy as an opportunity to make several profits on the black market;
the deputy chief medic was widely rumoured to dispense more, and more entertaining, drugs than strict medical necessity would allow.
Nguyen was coming to the unpleasant realisation that he had fallen among thieves. Not only that, he had been mistaken by them for one of their own.
As far as he was concerned, his sideline was just that. It did not make him a criminal, didn’t affect his essential loyalties.
He had met his future wife at agronomy college; his family were medical herb breeders, they did most of their farming with an eyedropper and a pair of tweezers. He hated the idea, endless fiddly little things, constant minute care, and repetitive.
His plan had been to get his bachelor’s, then apply to the Imperial Starfleet, try to get into life support if all else failed, but hopefully aim for exobiology, bio- survey work.
He had got that far, but the Starfleet, in what passed for wisdom, put him through their own battery of aptitude tests and decided he would make a useful navigator, and trained him as such.
Given the choice of quitting and trying to put his qualifications to use, or going where destiny took him, he had thought about his wife’s kinfolk and decided to study hard about this hyperspace thing.
Not that they were bad people, as such; just that there were so incredibly many of them. Carys came from a relatively new- settled agri- zoned world, big, wide open, more land and work to do than people.
They bred big families, which each member in turn- the result was family trees that looked near- horizontal.
She had three sisters and five brothers, and the smallest family any of them had married into was four strong.
If he had known what that meant, at the time…he would still have proposed to her, but with his fingers crossed behind his back. A relatively harmless little scam for the purpose of their care and feeding had landed him in this mess, after all.
What mess? Well, that was where the rumours came in. What had filtered into the public net from personal sources- cameras on Ghorn II, for instance; what of the news reports had made it out before Sector clamped down.
Ferry pilots shooting their mouths off. Private letters, guesswork, inference. Scuttlebutt.
All of the sources said the same unpleasant and all too likely things. Regional force units had found trouble the local force had failed to notice.
There were further rumours of exchanges of fire, even the Moff’s cousin killed by regional units- there was less backing that up. On this ship, the dominant feeling was that Region had turned against them.
Who specifically were ‘them’, though? The galaxy-spanning imperial Starfleet, or this particular collection of rogues, chancers, reprimandees, failures and malcontents?
There were entirely too many civilians on board as well, friends and relatives of the moff. A high proportion of them were armed, and he kept trying not to think too loudly, henchman, when he looked at them.
Worst and most dubious of all, the ship’s two ‘long divisions’- a ten regiment MARDET- had been rotated out, and replacement units had not yet been received on board.
The situation stank, but the worst case scenario couldn’t possibly be true. Could it?
That being that the moff was about to go renegade. There widespread rumours of ubiqtorate data raids, missing information, hacker’s calling cards left all over the system. Maybe they had something genuinely incriminating to hold against him.
That and he was going to hijack his own flagship and take it with him, or at least use it to escape prosecution. That would be a truly terrifying prospect. Only slightly worse than having to serve a full commission with this lot, though.
‘Pong!’ The exec’s voice shouted down into the pit. Barbarian, Nguyen thought.
‘That’s Phong, you walking depleted chromosome.’ Nguyen snarled back at him. Mainly to see just how bad things had got, just how much common military courtesy had degraded. Partly to see if the exec actually knew what a chromosome was. ‘What do you want?’
‘Don’t get lippy with me, or I’ll exert my authority all over your ass.’ The exec would have been happier as a gangland enforcer, in fact Nguyen suspected he had started out that way. ‘Where’s that goddam’ course?’
‘You mean, the course that this is the first I’m hearing about?’ Nguyen said, looking him in the eye and refusing to back down. Commander Urv Eldon was a high-G worlder, a short, wide, heavy, bad- tempered man from a planet of short, wide, heavy men.
At one metre sixty-four he was a giant among his people, or would be if they hadn’t kicked him out. He probably did qualify as near human, although Nguyen had his doubts about the qualifying prefix.
Even though he was a bully at the best of times, this was worse than usual, and he was certainly behaving like a man who felt the bounds of formal discipline loosen.
‘Don’t get smart with me.’ Eldon said.
‘Wasted effort.’ Nguyen agreed. ‘We’re deploying at last?’
‘Yes.’ Eldon said slowly, as if sizing the acting chief nav officer up. Having doubts about, trying to measure, his commitment? If so, commitment to what? Another point in favour of the worst case scenario.
‘I have precalculated courses for Ghorn, Corban, the Selezen Cluster,’ the rRasfenoni home worlds, ‘both mouths of the run; we can move in thirty seconds, once someone gets their act together well enough to pass on information like- where are we going?’ Nguyen said.
The Run was the offshoot of the Perlemian that stretched through the sector; the endpoints were a good place to go to intercept fleeing, or arriving, rebels.
The exec threw him a datapad- with unnecessary force, but Nguyen managed to catch it, looked at the numbers, started entering them into the master map; made a rough approximation in his head, didn’t believe it.
Decided to say nothing while the exec was standing there looking at him- he wanted more time to think.
The emergence point he had been given was nowhere.
Empty void, not even a nebula, about fourth on the list of ‘most barren and uninteresting places in the sector’. Another pointer in favour of the worst case.
What the kriff did he do if it was that bad?
The bridge door slid open- it was their supreme leader, Moff Edro Vlantir Xeale himself, and a partial entourage; two of his own species, an advisor and a bodyguard.
Four humans- two more guards, an older, grey haired man and an eye- candy female medic. Of course, he must still be getting used to his cyberfeet.
Maybe that was the reason he wanted the stormtroopers left behind? Hopefully- but looking at him, Nguyen thought not.
Ah, dreck, Nguyen thought. If I speak up, I’m screwed. Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong, still bad. If I don’t say anything, I’m making myself a traitor by default, maybe. No, probably.
I don’t want to be a hero, I don’t want to have to be a hero. Somebody else say something….no.
Dreck. I hope the pension Carys gets out of this is worth it. Then again, at least I’ll be shot of the in- laws.
‘Well?’ Xeale demanded. ‘Are we ready to be on our way?’
Nguyen, standing in the Pit, was at eye- level with a set of metal toes. ‘No, your excellency.’ Might as well stick to the party line for now, no sense going off too soon. Maybe there is a reasonable explanation.
‘I wasn’t informed of our destination until a few moments ago. And…’ time to put it to the proof, ‘I don’t understand why we’re going there.’
What?’ Xeale shouted. It had been a stressful, and painful, week. The cybernetics were the least of his problems.
Initially, when the organisation had first come across the potential goldmine of Ord Corban, the political situation here had been delicate and volatile, just after the birth of the Empire.
Taking control and making money was not the sort of job one sent a fool to do, and there was such a thing as intelligent corruption, buying into existing large and buying out existing smaller local rivals, discrediting some and co-opting others, who to woo and who to whack.
It had been the happiest years of his life, a fresh adventure in grand larceny, manipulation of the law and backstabbing every day.
More recently, as things had stabilised out, the excitement of the job had worn off. Being the undisputed power, with all might legal and illegal, didn’t stir the blood as much as the race to the top did.
He had got complacent- had he also got stupid? Lost his edge, let circumstances creep up on him?
This Kor Alric- he terrified him. Not the personal injury, the sheer willingness and delight in the use of unsubtlety. The privy council? How did a psychotic, a giggling torturer like that become an agent of the privy council?
Because he did their will, or at least appeared to. If Adannan was corruptible- and what being was not?- he had moved too fast to give Xeale time to work out what to buy him off with.
Trying to hide the evidence to gain time had got his cousin Ulbin killed. After that, under the threat of superior authority, his supporters and minions, from the subordinate powers of the sector who he had thought he owned body and soul- they had started to desert him.
More scared of the shadow of Palpatine than of himself.
Now this one, this flyspeck tried to challenge his authority. Xeale snapped ‘It’s not your business to understand.’
‘Yes, but…’ Nguyen swallowed. This did not come easy, challenging the power of a being of the Moff’s standing. The empire was very strong on obedience to authority.
One of the factors that made it a lot easier for the mid to higher subordinate levels of authority- like a Moff- to go renegade than it was for the groundlings. ‘There are certain circumstances,’ Nguyen said, ‘under which an Imperial officer does have the right to ask for an explanation of his orders.’
‘What? Nonsense.’ The moff said. ‘I am a direct representative of His Imperial Majesty, whose very word is law.’
‘Yes, His Majesty’s word is law, and I have his signature right here on Chapter 3, Section 5 of the Imperial Military Code of Conduct, by which I ask for a formal explanation.’ Nguyen said, more quickly than he had intended. This was trouble now.
‘Explain.’ The moff turned and asked his aide.
‘Receiving an illegal order.’ The aide explained. ‘Most people aren’t aware that provision still exists; it should have been deleted years ago.’
‘Who is he?’ Xeale asked; the aide fiddled with a datapad, handed it to the Moff.
‘Ah. Lieutenant-Commander Phong Nguyen, reprimanded for unauthorised activity, suspected of abusing Imperial property for personal gain, marginal case for consorting with enemies of the state-you are in no position to accuse anyone of acting illegally.’
‘Sir, I have a misdemeanour on my record- but if what you’re about to do had a straightforward, legitimate explanation, you wouldn’t need to resort to blackmail.’ Nguyen said.
‘How dare you!’ Xeale shouted. The two Falleen with him visibly winced, thinking, it’s true, resorting to cliché like that, he’s losing it.
‘There’s nothing out there. Empty space. There are no friendlies, no enemies, nothing to go there for; the only reason is if we’re running away, which makes your moffship either a deserter or a traitor.’ Nguyen stated. He sounded a lot calmer than he felt, but he managed to get the words out.
The reaction in the rest of the bridge crew was interesting. Quite a few of them had only minor blots on their record. They had not been asked, and had not intended, to turn against the Empire.
Everybody missed the fluorescent green line of text appearing incongruously in the middle of a starmap- “That’s it. You tell him.”
There was no need to persuade this junior officer with the unexpected backbone and streak of honesty. He was going to die, and painfully and humiliatingly, for this.
He needed a reasoned argument to soothe and persuade the rest of them. Xeale was not in a generous mood, or in a thinking one for that matter, and did not pitch it quite right.
I am the Sector Governor,’ “Moff” was a title Xeale had always found embarrassing, as it was actually a near homonym to one of the most common Falleen slang terms for female pubic hair. By all the gods of theft and deception, though, he would like to hold it a little longer.
‘I am authority here, the trusted friend of His Imperial Majesty, and you are endangering us all by delay. Imperial spacers are dying out there, man. You will plot a course to-‘ the place really did have no name- ‘our destination. Now.’
‘Governor,’ Nguyen said, ‘I am within my rights in asking how what you are doing serves the greater cause of the Empire, that’s the whole point of the provision, and if the best you can do is “shut up and soldier”, then-‘
It was hard to do this, hard to run so directly against authority- and terrible to think that he might be wrong.
Part of him had been willing the Falleen to come up with a sensible explanation, some kind of rendezvous, some good excuse to make this not go the way it seemed it was going to have to.
‘-With all due respect, my lord- no. I will not accept an illegitimate order, I will not program your voyage to nowhere for you.’
If Xeale had kept his temper and used his glands, he might have got away with it. Nguyen was about as resistant to that influence as any human could reasonably be, having worked with exotic scents and pollens all through his childhood, but no-one was completely resistant.
It could have worked, if he had kept control of his temper. ‘Shoot him.’ He ordered.
Nguyen had his gun drawn in a flash, but who and what to shoot? No way he could get the moff and all his bodyguards- he flicked the overload dowel out of the service blaster’s powerpack with his thumbnail, just before one of the human guards, being of a sadistic streak, shot him in the gut.
That was, in fact, not an unusual response to somebody who actually dared to quote chapter three section five. He heard shouting, swearing, two further shots, a kick in the ribs, then. This is what you get for deciding on a new career as a martyr, he thought dimly, then nothing.
Two junior ratings picked him up and carted him out of the bridge- as well for them, because thirty seconds later, his blaster powerpack blew up, shredding the navigation main and both secondary consoles.
Oyadan was unable to find and activate his presets, and took far too long trying to shift navigation up to the flag bridge.
She was still there, order, counter-order, disorder, when a sister-ship of hers and five smaller craft flashed out of hyperspace on an intercept course, all bearing the winged mace insignia of Fleet Destroyer Squadron 851.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:
There was five seconds of nothing happening; then a ragged, poorly coordinated fire began. In releasing the turrets from central control, they must have severed the link to central fire direction as well. Nerves and high spirits- and none of it, none of it at all, was excusable. If that prat keeps this up, he might make me join the Empire, Caliphant thought.
You mean Rebellion, right?
Wonderful fanfic. Please continue to grace us with your fine literature.
Somewhat behind schedule, that's what a weekend away in a field does for you. Anyway, I said it was going to be a long battle.
Satori; the character thinking that- Caliphant- is a junior officer pitchforked into a position of responsibility far and away above what he could normally expect. He's still basically thinking like one of the lads; responsible for not very much and determined to enjoy life.
Imperial military regulations are basically draconian- w/ref Phongn, and Chapter 3 Section 5, that is basically a hangover from the republican fleet- and I do not think an officer has any right to refuse an illegal order. You can query it, but the choice is carry it through, resign, or try to arrest your boss there and then. If 851 manage to disable and board fast enough to get to him, LCdr Nguyen may survive. If not, they'll name a strike cruiser after him or something.
Caliphant is realising just why the regulations are that rigid, and how a man gets captured by the system- how you go from a proud, healthy, agressive young officer to a dried out, miserable old bastard of a senior officer. Responsibility is landing on him with a sickening thud, here, and what he means by 'joining the Empire' is taking the regs seriously.
Anyway,
33 section 4
The arrival of Alliance reinforcements was not a surprise, but it was an unpleasant fact. Reiver looked almost undamaged, apart from the splashed-on phoenix emblems, but as she manoeuvred to take in the situation and open up firing arcs, she wasn’t handling at peak performance at all.
Slow to manoeuvre, slow to open fire, ECM barely credible.
Of course, her computers- once it became obvious that the stormtroopers left on board wouldn’t be able to hold her against rebel boarders and her own renegade crew, they would have done their best to render her useless to the enemy.
They must not have been able to get to the reactor, but if they had managed to blow out the main computer, that would explain a lot.
They rolled to bear, nosed down and opened fire, quickly begun, slowly executed. Their target was Voracious.
There had been no time to swap out the tracer compound; when Caliphant noticed the green turbolaser bolts flashing around his ship, his first thought was that this was a hell of a time for a practical joke.
No, he realised, no-one could be that insane. To fire on a friendly vessel, during combat, for a laugh? No. If it was supposed to be a wakeup call, the only person with authority to do that was Lennart, and he wouldn’t be wasting main guns- he would use the LTL, and probably be scoring hits with them.
Glance at the tactical map; it was the new rebel entry, the former-Imperial renegade destroyer. Roll and climb, out of the planetary plane, try to maximise aspect change relative to the battered rebel cruiser and his new opponent both.
‘Damn.’ He said, after the first ten seconds. Voices were getting shrill- one of the sensor techs was practically screaming his reports, and the helm team were getting spooked by it- he needed to do something to bleed off the tension.
His crew were still looking warily at each other, not entirely certain they could trust each other- and probably rightly so.
He also wondered if what he was going to say was going to fly, or go down like a lead balloon. That was another thing- he couldn’t even trust their taste in classic rock.
‘When we touch ground,’ he said, ‘I m going to chase every woman I see. And I expect to score with at least half of them.’
‘How do you work that out?’ one of the gunnery deputies asked. At least no-one said “if we get that far.”
‘Simple. With the size of the streak of luck we must be riding now, I stand a good chance of keeling over from sexual exhaustion.’
That drew venomous glares from the female members of the bridge crew, and nervous laughter from most of the men.
‘Really?’ the gunnery officer asked, as Voracious kicked under the impact of a heavy turbolaser hit on the port wing from Reiver.
‘Well,’ Caliphant said, pretending to think about it, ‘maybe just five or six.’
‘Helm,’ he added, ‘Fine course is yours. Twenty degrees deviation.’ That put helm and nav in charge of not being hit, allowing them to manoeuvre without further orders, up to twenty degrees either side of the base course.
As soon as the rebels figured that out, he would do something else. They were definitely sending a lot of fire his way, hopefully no more than he could keep stunting his way out of.
At that, he was doing better than Lycarin was. Perseverance already had her shields weakened, and now they were taking full advantage of that to try to finish him.
Most of the rebel cruiser’s guns were engaging him, Reiver was splitting fire, one turret line on Voracious and one on Perseverance, and Mon Evarra was shooting at all three.
The mon cal warship’s fire was distinctive; somehow they had managed to get hold of blue and violet tracer. They were purple fireballs exploding off, carving into the Imperial destroyer’s shields. She was the most effective.
What to do with her? Lennart thought. As things stood, Perseverance was going to be hounded to destruction. Withdraw her and let her rebuild her shields? In theory, yes, but that would expose the other ships of the squadron. Margins, it was all about margins.
‘851-yod-alpha-trey, this is Black Prince Actual.’ Lennart commed him, making it an official order. ‘Maximum evasion, continue return fire with homing weapons only.
Do not, repeat do not, stabilise your course for energy weapon fire. When your shield load reaches eighty-five percent, jump out to RV point Initial. Other units of the squadron, Perseverance is the rebel primary target, use that to get your own shots in. Main priority targets Reiver, Mon Evarra.’
Acknowledgements; Lycarin barely contained anger, knowing that he had been relegated to use as a stalking horse. It was all right for him to be angry, provided he obeyed.
Lennart took a deep breath, thought about what the Alliance plan was. Six against three was bad odds- against four, really, but One and Indivisible was a fortress and a firing platform at this stage, not a mobile warship.
On the other hand, three Imperial groups, apparently inviting defeat in detail, and one of those groups breaking up under fire and scattering in three separate directions.
That made them the obvious target. One of the ships, the only one not actually in a state of panic, was the second largest ship in the Imperial force. Primary target, then.
Dordd had been quietly seething at his ship’s place in the third wave, unable to give vent to that for the sake of crew confidence. He had settled on a tone of fresh chances; now that the real bad apples were gone, they could get down to work. Don’t worry, our time will come, he had said.
Someone pointed out that that meant most of those left on board must qualify as fake bad apples. Criminal, and fraudulent as well. At lest it showed some wit.
Dordd had expected Pel Aldrem to be his biggest problem, ranting and protesting the loudest about the whole business, but he had held his peace- seemed to think it was too late in the day for buggering about.
There had been a few more twisted jokes, one involving selective shutdowns of the artificial gravity system, all good warped fun and essential to the process of not going completely mad. They had tapered off as deployment time came closer.
Aldrem was sweating it out in the confines of battery command, realising he had managed to pitchfork himself into a job which he had never really thought about in sufficient detail.
It was the defensive responsibilities that were mainly worrying him; Dynamic was slow and not very subtle to manoeuvre, her defensive EW was being conducted with one shift on station and the second standing behind them reading out of the ops manuals, and that basically left only the third traditional defensive measure, shoot at the enemy until they went away.
His command staff consisted of himself, Fendon and Suluur doing something close to their normal jobs- electromechanical systems and local control, Jhareylia on comms, the rest of his team in turrets A and B;
Two local junior lieutenant signal interpreters, the team of console ops under them, including a senior chief offensive EW operator Aldrem was considering as a potential replacement for himself when he moved back to Black Prince. Assuming both ships continued to exist.
They flashed back into realspace- their own sensors instantly duplicating the relayed info from the recon cruiser and flagship, the extra perspective sharpening a few of the ranges and bearings.
Targets in front of them- two major rebel warships, several minor- they might as well make an entrance with a bang, even if it wasn’t exactly what he was supposed to be doing.
‘Main turrets to central battery control.’ He announced, over the gunnery systems net. On one hand, it was going to be an unusually difficult shot- calculating the enemy’s base course, spotting manoeuvre patterns and EW weaknesses was what central fire control’s job was, after all.
On the other hand, it wasn’t as if the target had any place being there.
The Imperial third wave announced it’s presence with a closely grouped salvo zeroed in on the belly of the Quasar Fire corvette-carrier- Dynamic’s sensors didn’t even have time to match the sensor picture against the registry to find the target’s name.
Three bolts missed, six impacted. Well, at least the guns were in working order, and it was always a good way to say hello.
The Quasar Fire and her cargo of rebel fighters detonated, there was screaming on the internal net from the exec that Jhareylia was stalling, some nonsense about fire plans and permission.
Aldrem announced ‘Main turrets return to individual control- Com-Scan, gave me course track data on those ships. Let’s start establishing some kind of prediction.
External line; Gunnery direction Hialaya Karu, this is main battery fire control, Dynamic. My intentions are to lay holding fire from one turret on the MC80, offensive fire from the other pair against Riever. What are your intentions? Over.’ And then added, internally, ‘Turrets, copy that?’
Two straightforward affirmative grunts from Gendrik and Hruthhal, a nervous, giggly ‘acknowledged.’ from Banks in turret C.
‘’Ru, you have Mon Evarra, and power priority. If you find you can’t keep her past regen rate, chop back to power parity and target Reiver. Krivin, Lieutenant Banks, target renegade destroyer Reiver. Sensors and engines if possible.
You have the master prediction, open fire.’ Aldrem said, hoping that he was getting it right.
In theory, the MC-80 was actually the harder target. Less able to give punishment, more able to receive it, slower and slightly less agile- but basically, a fair match for an Imperator- class destroyer.
Mon Evarra, in particular, was a slippery one. She was the ship the Alliance had picked to intercept and ambush a crack Imperial destroyer, and had made a fairly good job of it.
Casualties; in their brief close range duel, Black Prince had battered through the rebel ship’s shields with close, grouped salvos, started picking off components- she had run the rope out, done as much damage as she could then picked the right moment to go.
An Imperial defensive victory, but it had been close. How many of their key personnel had Black Prince managed to kill off- were they going to be any easier a target this time?
It took several seconds for Dynamic to compose the full tactical picture and start acting on it- more than enough time for the rebel to get the first shots in.
One of the peculiarities of the Mon Cal; they almost never triple, very rarely mounted twin guns. Single blisters, of whatever they could manufacture or find to hand.
That arrangement was better for a fleet melee or a close quarters dodging match, not so good for an open, long range gunnery duel. Which this was- sort of. Medium close.
It meant they needed a lot more gunlayers than a triple, quad, octuple-turret Imperial warship, but it also bred them. Mon Evarra’s gun crews were unpleasantly good shots.
Aft and such of the flanks as could bear spat blue and purple shot at both trailing Imperial ships- scoring very quickly, second and third round hits.
But they were shooting at five separate Imperial ships. Spreading their power between all of them, not hitting any hard enough to stand any real chance of burning through.
They knew that, and this was just probing fire, intended to test the targets out, see who would be an easy and who a hard kill.
Reiver had Voracious pinned, and evading her fire- some return fire, they were clearly on the learning curve. The crew of the renegade were not shooting particularly well, they couldn’t have transferred gun crews out.
Transferring over even a couple of Mon Evarra’s veteran gunlayers, trained in the use of capital turbolasers, would have done wonders for Reiver’s shooting. Just as well they hadn’t.
The Imperials were about to deprive them of the requirement for fine target selection, anyway. Tevar was about to do something mad.
Fist was, after all, the largest single ship. Perseverance was in trouble- only footwork was keeping her alive, and if Lycarin had demonstrated more of that earlier, his ship wouldn’t be in such trouble now.
Dynamic was displaying unexpected skill with her guns; much more than she was with her engine plant. The mechanics of shielding made it a very bad idea to switch targets in mid- fight. Give an enemy ship the chance to cool off and you threw away all the effort expended so far.
It made no sense for them to stop shooting at Perseverance; did Lycarin have the sense to execute an escape jump at the right point, what would he do if the rebels did temporarily cease fire?
That was what Tevar would do right now, if she was in their position. Hold fire for a few seconds, long enough to make them think they had a breathing space, then simultaneous concentrated fire from all three rebel capital ships present, burn past the threshold and bring her down.
There was an obvious counter. Her ship’s crew would probably hate it.
The fighter swarm was closing the planet fast; too fast for Konstantin Vehrec, who was swearing violently to himself and wishing he had the sense to ride in one of the shuttles or transports as a passenger, where he could be plotting and directing in comfort as a proper raid leader, instead of sweating blood here trying to work out what to do with fifty squadrons.
There was no way he was going to be left out of the saddle for this one, so he was leading from his own personal Avenger. For all the late-model TIE’s other qualities it really did not have the electronics for command, leaving him juggling the facts and calculations in his head like a one armed data hanger.
Worse, the rebels really hadn’t put up any worthy challenge. The group that had jumped out to intercept them had flown right into the fire of their own planetary heavies, those that had escaped being destroyed had been traumatised and disoriented, easy meat for warship LTL fire.
What there was to be done now was, on the face of it, more bombers’ work than fighters’. Given that most of his force consisted of mobile reserve, what did he send down into that thick, stormy atmosphere, and what retain in orbit for full freedom of manoeuvre?
The list of craft that could actually bombard from orbit was short. The assault shuttles with their megaton LTL, escort shuttles with their heavy tail stingers, the bomber-hunter avenger variant TIE Assault with their quad long guns, that was it.
In clear air- over a planet whose sky hadn’t changed colour with dust and debris- the Starwings, the old twin- gun, bomber wing protoAvengers, /sa Bombers, not much else.
The Hunters and /ln could do it in theory, but in practise they and all the old blaster armed craft shed their energy on the way down, just dug holes in the upper atmosphere.
Chance of fighter threat from the planet- theoretical rather than real. If they had been leeching off the Imperial fleet’s pilot training programs, they could have a healthy pool of pilots, and enough assembly line space down on the planet to build craft for them, but there was no sign they had realised that potential. Or holding back?
In the defenders’ position, he would have reprised their earlier plan, lure the Imperial strike force in, cut them up and cause chaos with point defence fire, then sortie. It would be something to do, at least.
So split the force before the optimum moment, deny them an obvious target.
‘Attack stream; shuttles, transporters, Starwings, stay beyond the atmosphere. Clone War fighters and my squadron, upper atmosphere covering party.
Other craft, prepare to descend to repulsor altitude and strike planetary defence targets, stand by for targeting orders.’ So much for the preparative, now to figure out who to send where.
The strike force spread out, leaving the actual designated attack elements nearest the centre of the ring. Not as many as he had thought, but then again there weren’t so many targets, either.
The planet was in terrible shape, they were approaching the side that had taken hits from Black Prince before their shields could be raised- and then so many of the shields blown away.
The back side would be more intact, and if the rebs had any sense they would be marshalling there, ready to hit the imperials as they came over the horizon.
Defensive ESM howled at him; heavy targeters, capital defence guns. Were they so short of light weapons that they had to resort to going after starfighters with four hundred teraton cannon?
Or- there was a brilliant crimson flash ahead of them, twenty degrees across; a flak burst. Too soon, they hadn’t got the range yet. Crap. Expectable given how good a target the wave of Imperial fighters must make, but still crap.
The only reasonable counter was to separate further, put so much distance between fighters that it became insupportably wasteful to use heavy shot on them.
‘Triple separation. ATRs, torpedoes, dogleg them out, one round each on that turret complex.’ A large salvo for a point target, but there would be defences, some would not make it, and anyway overkill was vastly preferable to underkill.
One thing flak bursts could do was swat volatile missiles out of the sky, so send the torps on an almost right angled course out and back in again.
More flak fire. Still short- how often had the rebel gunners ever had a chance to fire a shot in anger? They had fought and won one engagement, so they weren’t completely green.
They were struggling with flak fire, though, and most of his charges were well enough shielded to take some flare- the lethal radius of the bursts was much less than it could have been. Small mercies.
‘All craft, maximum practical approach speed.’ The other obvious move. Better hit atmosphere fast than hang around out here with heavy turbolasers taking potshots at them.
There was a beep on command channel, the helmet speakers making it sound like it came from behind him. Equal- rank or subordinate commanders’ voices would have seemed to come from beside or slightly forward, juniors from increasingly far in front.
In dogfight mode, the voices would be set to sound as if they were from the direction they were actually in. Ergonomics in action.
‘Vehrec? Lennart.’ It was a broadcast over the swarm to prevent him being fingered as the commander; the other fighters’ com units would have tuned them out at that point.
‘Your clone war fighters are committed, but have the rest calculate standby courses out to reinforce the main battle. The last remaining rebel heavy’s on her way in and- wait one.’
HIMS Fist was taking heavy fire; she was the obvious target for the rebels, and Tevar was doing a good job of sidestepping it- but one of her evasion turns went further than just footwork, as the bare-metal patched bow swung round to point between Reiver and Mon Evarra.
They had to be got rid of, and that meant doing something about them, now. She made her decision calmly, looking at the main tactical board- somehow that seemed to divorce the situation, just coloured light on a wall.
If she could have looked out of her bridge window and seen stars, it would have occurred to her that this was nuts.
One turret line bore on Reiver, the other on Mon Evarra. Fist commenced rapid sequential, the inboard gun in each battery forward to aft, eighth of a second apart, then outboard, forward to aft, two continuous lines of green tracer and glowing red ion bolt, and the engines flared as the destroyer accelerated up to three thousand ‘g’.
The rebel ships fire pattern didn’t change; they didn’t think they needed to. If the Imperials were going to try rebel tactics for once, press to close quarters and fire both sides, that suited them- they thought.
Perseverance was still their first priority; kill her, then turn on the charging Fist.
The rebels sent streams of red, green and purple fire after the Vic-III, scoring hits- Mon Evarra accounting for about half of them- scorching her and driving shield integrity down. Two minutes to failure, three if they were lucky.
‘Awesome weight of fire,’ Lennart said waving a hand at the image of One and Indivisible, ‘just as well they can’t shoot to save themselves. Signals, any idea where Alliance command actually is? The Lucrehulk isn’t the flag, just the manoeuvre element?’
One and Indivisible was taking hits- a few missiles from Perseverance’s twenty-round salvos had got through, mainly flying past to the blind side and detonating there.
Voracious was making relatively good practise pounding away at the wallowing cruiser, Hialaya Karu’s first shots had been placed there- an easy target to start with. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.
‘Believe so, Captain.’ Rythanor confirmed. ‘No decodes yet, but traffic analysis’ best guess is that Admonisher is senior officer.’
‘So their largest ship, their highest rank, and their most battle- experienced crew are in three different places. Not brilliant. And damn Tevar, that was my plan C. Engineering? If we do a five second bounce, will anything fall off?’
The only reason Mirannon didn’t scream at him was that he suspected there wasn’t time. ‘Go bradyonic, give and take fire, jump back to lightspeed? Definitely shock damage, possibly to the stasis systems. Unless it’s life and death it’s not worth the risk.’
‘The second step would be a microjump.’ Lennart admitted.
‘If I lose the stasis curve we’ll get about, oh, two point seven million years older during the second transition to lightspeed. That is an estimate I have no intention whatever of refining.’ Mirannon stated, flatly.
‘No possibility of a safe transition?’
‘Not two flash transitions that close together- manual says five hundred seconds. I reckon sixty, marginal, high risk. Not five. Is it actually life and death?’
‘Not for us. Lycarin, maybe.’ Lennart admitted.
‘Not worth it.’ Mirannon opined. Privately, Lennart agreed with him- the man wasn’t worth it, but the ship and the crew deserved better.
‘We probably will be doing a bounce, then.’ Lennart advised, and dropped the link. It was a tactical option, and he had known, really, a daft one. Had to ask, though. ‘So much for plan C.’
If they had jumped in to support Fist, between the two rebel ships, Admonisher would have followed them, and it was hard to think of a position the rebels would like more to find the Imperial flagship in than that. If he was going to do that, he needed to be able to get out fast.
‘Nav- there.’ A supporting position, just right for crossfire against Reiver; the apparent first position. ‘Bounce and circle to- there.’ The second, real, re-entry point was a light second astern.
Second order; Admonisher would expect them to bounce, so the rebel ship’s true drop point would be calculated on that basis. So move a step past that, and ambush the ambush.
‘Laid in, skipper.’ Brenn reported.
‘Right. Signals, tell Perseverance to get out now, move to RV Initial, cool off, then rejoin. Nav, take us in.’
The rebel fire was starting to zero in on Fist; Were they- yes, they were making the mistake of leaving an already pounded ship, shields burnt thin, to escape and regenerate. Or at least, it looked that way.
Fire on Perseverance had slackened to basically light and mediums; Lycarin, now, was reluctant to go. Anger and wounded pride combined with a possible tactical opportunity. She turned back into the attack.
Lennart managed to stop himself screaming at the display; it would have done little good. He would be better off doing the same to the man himself. ‘Signals, Perseverance. Lycarin, what the kriff are you doing?’
The informality and unprofessionality did not serve as any kind of signal at all. Lycarin ignored his commander’s obvious intent.
‘I’m attacking. The rebs hit us hard early on, nearly took us out of the fight. I admit that- but my people can’t stand it any more, taking fire and giving nothing. They’ve had enough- I’ve had enough. We need to shoot back.’
‘Not in that bloody silly way, man.’ He had made the same mistake again- assuming that it was necessary to hold a relatively straight and stable course in order to fire effectively.
‘Manoeuvre, kriff it, zig-zag, your ship has turrets for a reason. Twenty degrees either side of a base course twenty-five degrees off the bearing of the target at least. Do it now. Lennart out.’
‘Scan, what are One and Indivisible’s turrets doing? Doesn’t look like their full weight of fire they’re putting against Fist.’
‘No, skipper, it isn’t. Half the turrets are holding fire, still tracking Perseverance.’
Crap. To give an order and then contradict it two seconds later- Lycarin would be at least, confused. Order, counter order, disorder- micromanagement as the golden road to failure.
Time and timing, the bane of all their lives- too much happening too fast, too soon- the usual cry of the defeated.
Lots of things happening very fast, the more you can make happen to the enemy the better, and the first to let it get on top of him and fall behind the curve was the first bound for defeat.
Lennart thought he was doing a moderately good job so far, but definitely not brilliant- supervising them enough to cramp their own initiative, not enough to prevent all their mistakes.
Witness Lycarin, who definitely was making a mistake, and Tevar, who was taking a calculated risk that Lennart, at least, would not.
Fist’s fire was scoring, pounding away on the shielding of both ships- and what little fire the rebels could spare aft was zeroing in on Dynamic, who was evading gently, and doing some deadly accurate shooting.
Dordd could afford to be much more radical than that without spoiling Aldrem’s aim; that must be all his helm team could cope with. Still, between them, Dynamic and Fist against Reiver and Mon Evarra- almost a fair fight, close enough for jazz anyway.
‘Hialaya Karu, we need more pressure on One and Indivisible. She’s your primary target.’ Lennart ordered, then ‘Signals, pass our images of One and Indivisible’s turret setup to Perseverance, flagged urgent. And find me his exec’s file.’
Falldess was starting to enjoy herself. There were enough of the crew of Tarazed Meridian with her to fill most of the offensively important jobs, the bulk of the dead weight was in damage control.
Six prime and six secondary crews for single thirty- teraton turbolasers stretched across ten twin sixty- five teraton turrets- not exactly familiar with the weapons, but they had a relatively easy target to start off with.
One and Indivisible was wallowing. Perfect. Hialaya Karu banked graciously into a wide sweeping turn, generating lateral velocity and pivoting to keep the alpha arc open, laid down a long ripple of fire into the rebel cruiser.
Some hits- green flashes off the hull- but if the catastrophic loss of one of their main arms hadn’t been enough, then she was going to have to be beaten to death.
Falldess looked around for further targets to engage; the lighter rebel elements were scattering and trading fire with the Imperial escort ships, both basically irrelevances-
Light Forces Wave One were on their way to besiege one of the larger giants’ moons, Light Forces Wave Two were laying fire on Reiver and Mon Evarra- and taking losses from the rebel cruiser’s lighter guns- Light Forces Wave Three were adding to the basket.
Play it out. Ride the decisions down. Fist was in this for death or glory- who was it who had said “Never mind manoeuvres- always go at them”?
Voracious was worrying away at the maimed rebel cruiser, taking hits but giving better than she got; Dynamic’s shooting eye was in, but force help her when the rebels decided to make her their primary target.
The last rebel heavy was on her way inbound, chasing the last Imperial heavy in the area.
Two complicated flashes of white light, and the sensor picture fuzzed as the computers tried to work out exactly what had happened; and one brilliant flare of red.
Black Prince had made her false entry, the rebel ship had appeared to follow; the Imperial ship had flown her ring manoeuvre, emerged behind Admonisher- and the rebel ship had been clever too.
She hadn’t quite predicted the actual endpoint, but had expected trickery- she emerged half a light second out and off on the flank, impossible for Black Prince to get between her and the lighter Imperial ships.
And, of course, the rebels had marked Lycarin down for a fool, and monitored Black Prince’s command- circuit calls. They had no decodes either, but every time he was yelled at, Perseverance did something smarter.
The obvious time to lower the boom on him, fire the closely grouped salvo that would burn through his shielding and smash into his hull, was when Black Prince was in her state of transition.
The flag might react quickly enough to pass Lycarin a warning, but left to his own devices, he would take too long to make up his mind.
Fatally long. In her erratic, ill- matched weapon galleries, One and Indivisible still carried enough guns to put out seven petatons a second. By the time Lycarin had finished panicking, her shields were gone- and it was the exec who gave the word to make transition, get out of here.
The rebels tracked the vulnerable destroyer as she managed to turn to escape vector and begin acceleration, pursuing, smashing and splintering the armoured hull, burning away the bow, port main turret line, most of sublight engines, carving deep into the superstructure.
One shot punched through the bridge module. Nav computers melted- along with everything else, including Lycarin and far too many of his crew.
Transit aborted- a small mercy for the crew who otherwise would have died as their ship tore itself apart without benefit of working tensor and stasis fields.
The reactor let go, most of the starboard turret line blew up in electrical explosions under the surge.
Perseverance was, to all practical intents and purposes, destroyed. A tumbling wreck, molten- hot, with a handful of fortunate escape pods, remained.
Five to four odds, now. In terms of tonnage, closer to four to one against.
Bloody idiot, Lennart thought, cursing Lycarin for getting himself killed- then stopped himself. No, he decided, I will not waste time and optimism second guessing myself, not now when all’s still to do.
‘Gunnery, let’s see if that bastard’s as slick as he thinks he is. Target Admonisher, sequential turret salvos, fire.’
Hopefully the Fist's little ploy works out better than the Perseverance's last actions.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
LadyTevar wrote:Hopefully the Fist's little ploy works out better than the Perseverance's last actions.
Yea, indeed.
I'm hoping I can take some of Hialaya Karu her heavier guns back to Tarazed Meridian.
Probably not going to happen, Lennart would let Mirannon bold them on the Black Prince, if things go as normal.
It's been a while, but-
this is actually the first half of a chapter. The second half is nearly written, and should be up later today or possibly monday.
What I wanted to do is write the action out to a resolution, keep going until I got something blown up. For length related reasons, this is the first half of that now. More soon.
Ch 34
The rebel fire pattern projected through time was an instructive sight. Mon Evarra had entered spitting violet tracer in all directions, scattering fire across the Imperial squadron.
She had rapidly found herself forced to reduce her horizons to the closest, between the three- now two- ships almost directly in front of her, and then everything that could be brought to bear on one.
That would be Captain Tevar’s Fist, accelerating towards the rebel pair- thirty thousand kilometres distant and accelerating at thirty kilometres per second per second.
Reiver’s gunnery was mediocre. Her crew had surrendered, not defected- few of them must have been willing to serve the Alliance to Restore the Republic. She was not truly capable of living up to the standard expected from a line destroyer.
Tevar had effectively bet her ship’s life- and her own- on that. The rebel MC-80 was doing her best to prove the Imperial captain wrong.
‘Aldrem?’ Dordd com’d his temporary main battery commander. ‘Tactical assessment.’
‘If they were all that was in it, Fist would be able to take Reiver with shielding to spare- Reiver’s on a scratch crew.’ Aldrem said, and thought through the permutations.
‘Ourselves against Mon Evarra- I can put the fire in, but helm control can’t stop them hitting us back. Probably going to be a mutual, them and us both crippled if not hulked outright.
Our best option is to go for the easy meat first, help Fist put down Reiver then turn on Mon Evarra. Captain, their best option is to focus on us.
If they combine fire and finish us off, they can move on to Fist, and roll up the Imperial line from there, move in and establish local superiority in one fight after another. ‘ Aldrem pointed out.
That was, if anything, an optimistic assessment of the situation, Dordd thought. Single ship against single ship, Fist would take Reiver down, but take enough heat doing it to be at a real disadvantage in further combat.
Dynamic against Mon Evarra, he didn’t actually expect to be able to do that well. Much as it hurt to admit it, the probable result between a well- armed ship with minimal footwork and electronic deception and a well armed ship that could sidestep punishment was just too obvious.
They would be able to hurt the rebel ‘cruiser’, but not badly enough to bring her within Fist’s reach. The most likely aggregate result was the destruction of both Imperial starships and the renegade star destroyer and severe damage to Mon Evarra, leaving her hurt too badly for further combat immediately, but not too much to limp away and fight another day.
That would constitute a rebel victory. Mon Evarra could work that out, but Reiver?
‘Except that Fist is making too direct a challenge for that- she has most of their attention.’ Dordd said, then did something else he wasn’t supposed to do- discussed an officer of equal or superior rank with a junior.
‘Do you think Captain Tevar has fully integrated that factor in a bold but balanced plan based on the psychological impact of relentless aggression, or-‘
‘Did injured unit and local pride decide her into charging straight down their throats?’ Aldrem finished the captain’s sentence for him. ‘Sometimes “Banzai” does constitute a plan- but ask me again when you’re writing up the after action report.’
‘One thing, though,’ Aldrem added, ‘I don’t think a crack ship like Mon Evarra is going to be that easily rattled, they can do the numbers as well as we can.’
Looking at his own fire plan, it had been overtaken by circumstances, so on the gunnery net he said ‘Eddaru, Reiver’s now main target, drop back to power parity and point on.’ At the hit rate they had been getting, the only real point was to obfuscate the Imperial plan, and the time for that was well past.
‘So why aren’t they shooting at- commence maximum evasion now.’ Dordd wondered, then turned round and snapped out the order to his helm team.
Motion compensation was managed from battery control, which at the moment meant Aldrem, he resisted the urge to swear, then decided to give in to it anyway.
Dynamic surged forward, porpoised and pulled a 270 degree turn to starboard; the volley of shot from Mon Evarra splashed around them landing two hits out of the thirty-five that could bear.
It was possible to return snapshots only, as Dynamic’s drastic motion carried Reiver into and out of her fire arc, and they did, Hruthhal and Gendrik scoring once or twice, Banks slightly wild, firing too soon and keeping firing after the target had gone- but getting close and landing one hit, not bad for a novice.
Aldrem and Captain Dordd were both thinking the same thing; as soon as they stabilised out from full evasion or at least started to show a predictable pattern, Mon Evarra would lob a couple of converged sheaves at them trying for the cheap kill.
She was keeping a light, open fire on them anyway, hitting worryingly often with her lighter guns.
Was the time they gained for Fist by diverting the Mon Cal cruiser’s fire worth more than the hits they could land? Both men came to the same conclusion; no.
‘Helm,’ Dordd gave the preparatory order, ‘stand by to steady down to 750 ‘g’ evasive, then one point two seconds later, diving corkscrew right, maximum evasive power.’
‘Then reverse left, four hundred seventy milliseconds later- as a suggestion.’ Aldrem added.
‘Do it.’ Dordd ordered.
As both of them had been expecting, Mon Evarra waited to see if the move was genuine, then fired a narrow spread at their predicted position- reversing the turn took Dynamic out of most of the fire pattern, not all.
Five hits forward, around the secondary reactor- damage the shields, but nothing penetrated, not close enough together for that. They made two more attempts, one that landed another pair of hits, one that missed entirely.
So we can survive their fire, Dordd thought, at the price of taking ourselves virtually out of the fight- too unstable a gun platform.
It’s a miracle they can score hits at all, but we can’t hold on target long enough to get the hit rate to burn down a Mon Cal’s shields- and it costs us more energy to evade than it does her to keep us evading.
If this goes on long enough, she’ll economise us to death. In the extremely unlikely event that it does last that
long.
Mon Evarra knew the numbers too, realised how little she was achieving, checked fire on Dynamic, and turned the bulk of her fire back on to Fist.
So now the situation was relatively clear. Both rebel ships concentrating on Fist, who was still splitting her fire between two targets, one turret line on each; the Mon Cal was playing bullfighter, offensively, insultingly small little sideslips and weaves, ducking and dancing out of the line of fire- there were hits, but not in proportion.
Tevar had four years’ seniority. Dordd had a week. He could only advise.
‘Captain Tevar,’ he com’d to Fist, ‘this is Captain Dordd, Dynamic Actual. Our analysis suggests concentration on a single target.’
She thought about that for a second. Dordd’s shiphandling performance had been…unimpressive. Gunnery excellent, but the fact that the flagship had had to detach a specialist to supervise didn’t mean he could get credit for that.
What he was saying did make first-order sense, but-
‘Captain Dordd, if we withdraw fire from Reiver then that gives her a free shot at us, she can vastly increase her hit rate.’
‘I know.’ Dordd said. ‘Mon Evarra is the one you should leave to last.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’ Tevar said. ‘She’s a smaller ship, less powerful, she should be an easier kill.’ And, indeed, by the usual Imperial reckoning, that was perfectly true.
Mon Cal cruisers could take a beating, but usually, if attacked boldly and directly, an Imperator’s superior attack could overcome the Mon Cal’s superior defence before the Mon Cal’s mediocre offence could break through an Imperator’s above-average defence.
On the other hand, the damned thing was still there, and the scanner picture was confusing- so many antenna and so much computer power down, they were at an EW disadvantage.
It was possible that the Rebel was deliberately running her shields hot, trying to convince them that they were doing better than they were, luring them into firing at a target that could take it and away from one that couldn’t.
To her own bridge crew she asked ‘Gunnery, what hit rate are we actually getting on that ship?’
‘Fist Actual, this is main battery direction Dynamic.’ Aldrem decided to intervene. ‘I know Mon Evarra well; she’s a crack ship, and she is fooling you. She has primary responsibility for the destruction of HIMS Lamprey, damage credit on three other Imperial destroyers.
She’s simulating a hit rate of twenty percent; I’m watching your tracers fly by on the other side, you’re getting a quarter of that.’
‘Gunnery? Is that feasible? Com-Scan?’
‘Com-Scan, trace their fire back.’ Her gunnery officer suggested.
Ah, Tevar thought. ‘Helm, Gunnery, we will be rolling to open alpha arc on Reiver, combat systems, focus shields sixty-forty against Mon Evarra once the roll is complete. Begin roll. Com-scan?’
‘I’m sorry, Captain, I can’t believe I forgot to do that.’ Her chief scan officer reported. ‘They’ve been playing us for fools. The positions we’re registering impact flares in are not the positions they’re firing from, their EW’s been running us in circles.’
‘If that’s true, we haven’t even heated them beyond dissipation rate.’ Gunnery admitted. ‘Firing on Reiver now.’
And if that is the case, Tevar thought, then once we have brought Reiver down, then we still have the most difficult opponent to go. Although now, at least, the situation was clear.
Both Rebel ships concentrating on Fist, both Imperial ships concentrating on Reiver, first loss would leave the survivor facing odds of two to one.
‘Why not us?’ Dordd wondered. ‘Why aren’t they shooting at us?’
‘Try this scenario, Captain.’ Aldrem offered. ‘Mon Evarra picks that fight with us, manages to burn through Black Prince’s shielding and do some damage, we conduct a successful rescue under fire and do some damage in return, minor victory on both sides.
The rebs don’t get that many of those. Mon Evarra’s captain gets bumped up the ladder, leaving her executive officer in charge- who is junior to whoever from the base command here has Reiver now.
Mon Evarra’s too good a ship to miss a trick like that, the only reason I can think of is if they were overruled by a senior officer- ordered to concentrate fire on the flagship’s target.’
‘If you’re right about that,’ Dordd said, ‘then where’s Mon Evarra’s former captain?’ Tactically, that sounded right for what they were seeing- the down side of republican military virtue. Fire had continued while they were speaking, of course.
‘Best guess?’ Aldrem said. ‘Admonisher.’
Lennart had brought Black Prince out of hyperspace astern and half a light second distant from the Clone War heavy destroyer and opened fire at once;
Admonisher had taken a split second longer to react- but no more than that. She chose to take the hit, and return it with interest.
The Rebel ship carried the same DBY-827 heavy turbolasers as the Venator, but mounted them very differently; eight groups of three quadruple turrets, ninety-six barrels and half as much energy again to put through each of them, shielding and electronics to match, and larger, more heavily armoured and more damage resistant.
They carried a large fighter complement, too, sixty squadrons which had also come in in hyperspace and were deploying now.
They did have one drawback- two, counting the crew requirement. They were the upper end of destroyer classification, heavy and slow. In theory, Black Prince should be significantly better at the footwork.
She would have to be, with up to ninety-six heavy turbolasers pointed at her. Actually, Admonisher wasn’t fool enough for that.
She had a very small alpha arc, a five degree cone around the bow; that would have restricted her evasion to the point where she would be taking more hits than the fire of the two ventral batteries was worth.
Instead, the heavy destroyer dipped her bow, exposing the six dorsal batteries, and commenced return fire. Black Prince’s first full volley was accurate- slamming into the dorsal central shields, burning into but not quite through the shielding;
two would have done so, but Lennart didn’t think he would be given the opportunity to get a second full shot off, and he was right.
The Imperial destroyer rolled on to closing course in the same relative attitude, battery to battery, and accelerated towards the rebel, twisting to sidestep the rebel’s battery salvos- one of them hit the forward starboard side of the superstructure.
Not quite a shield penetration, close but not enough. Two would have been.
‘Well, we outpointed her four to one.’ Lennart said, tracing a course track in the tactical tank as he spoke. ‘Guns, salvos by half battery, axials independent, ripple.’
Every sixth of a second, each battery would have it’s turrets fire one of their subassemblies, the four half batteries alternating with the heavy axials, a continuous string of half- petaton shot or salvos of shot.
The veteran destroyer’s helm team and defensive EW would try to prevent it looking as if there was a pattern, keep them guessing, try to force them to fire at an area rather than a point target- and the Admonisher would be doing the same to them, of course.
The base courses each of them ought to take up were obvious; the rebels to close on the four-ship main destroyer action to take art in that, the Imperial ship to move outwards onto the rebel’s stern aspect for the easiest and most effective shot.
So much so that, naturally, both of them decided to do something other than the predictable.
The rebel had been aiming ‘down’, below the ecliptic plane; she changed course by eighty degrees, aiming to skim along below it, closing at a shallow angle and not quite maximising aspect change- not the most optimal move, but the most optimal move was also one of the most easily anticipated.
Black Prince, in contrast, feinted outwards, drew a full salvo, rolled and darted inwards in an erratic zig-zag, wildly varying thrust and scattering rebel shot ahead and astern of her.
Force be damned, Lennart thought, this is prediction, urgent, immediate, detailed and absolutely vital. The thought occurred to him that he should have challenged Adannan to a contest of effective foresight; give him tactical control of something and whoever gets hit less often, wins.
Wouldn’t have worked; there was nothing to use as a stake that was cheap enough, in military potential and life hazarded, to be worth the risk of losing.
Maybe I am being too hard on the Force, Lennart realised; there was more than enough evidence that a skilled jedi really could perceive, analyse and react faster than an ordinary human- but for this, Lennart thought, I’ll be damned if Adannan can.
Come to think of it, if we have a moment or two to breathe- unlikely until this is over- I could make worse use of it than trying to predict him, and what he’s up to. If we get that moment.
The first clash was an Imperial victory on points, Black Prince had landed more hits- but there was no pause, just enough elapsed time for a reassessment of decisions made.
Admonisher chose to hold her course and ride out the possibilities. Black Prince- and Lennart felt as if it was the ship, that the deck under his feet and the mottled bow stretching out ahead were making the choice, not him-
she chose to bring Admonisher closer to the centre of the alpha arc, head relatively directly for her now, to buy distance that could be used to be more of a crossing target later if the probabilities turned sour.
How long is a decision cycle? Five seconds, less? Long enough for something as fast and powerful as an Imperial destroyer to inflict terrible damage- or have it inflicted.
There was no room for mistakes, barely enough to pretend to make them in order to deceive. Admonisher was good, almost too good for a ship that had only just entered the fight and hadn’t really shaken down. They would improve as they warmed up- not a good thought.
Vehrec’s fighters were coming out of the gauntlet, approaching the planet now. The flak bursts had given up- one turret and probably central control knocked out by the heavy warheads, and the lighter defence batteries had achieved little.
The rebels really did seem to have almost nothing left in the way of fighters, and what little had come up to meet them had been sent tumbling back down again in short order. Personally, Vehrec had bagged one single, solitary Z-95. One measly outdated snubfighter.
He was just deciding to leave the non-hyper capable fighters behind and go in search of more interesting prey than a pounded planet when the situation changed.
Half of Admonisher’s fighter wing, visible in the distance, seemed to turn towards them and prepare for microjump- five squadrons of Y-wings, eight squadrons of Z-95s, six of A-wings and eleven of X-wings.
That and, down on the nightside of the planet, one of the shield domes flickered out, revealing a small horde- maybe another ten to fifteen squadrons- of fighter and transport grade signatures, which started to climb for orbit.
LTL fire from the assault shuttles- and two of the Starwings, since when were they heavy gun fighters?- managed to kill the shield generator and started raking the hangars, there was a massive secondary explosion when an ordnance dump went up, that was a start. This was much more like it.
Three divisions; the old booster-ring fighters, the shuttles and transports, and the modern fighters and fighter-bombers. Division two could stay on the rebels coming up from the planet, division one would move to englobe the most likely rebel drop point, division three would stay in high orbit for the moment and react as things happened.
He gave the orders accordingly; the Admonisher’s fighter group made a high exit, five planetary diameters off- too far for direct support. Conservative navigation- unlikely from the Alliance- or simply missed timing, something else that was supposed to happen but didn’t?
Anyway, the assault and escort shuttles were having a field day. First light turbolasers and area defence lasers reaching down deep into the atmosphere, then the JV-7’s forward guns and the Lambdas’ conventional guns coming into play as the rebels cleared the thick lower air- and the transports had heavy antiship torpedoes.
Not many of the escaping rebel small craft had enough shielding to withstand one, and the Alliance fighters were spending most of their energy in defending their own transports, shooting the arrows not the archer- and the predictability of having to do that made them easy targets in turn.
Still debatable whether enough of them would make it to orbit and disrupt the Imperial formation, softening them up in time for Admonisher’s fighters to attack. Well, things are definitely looking up, Vehrec thought. Looks like I’m going to get that fight after all.
Voracious and Hialaya Karu were making excellent practise pounding heat into One and Indivisible; excellent, that was, for an essentially immobile, very large and very obvious target.
In a way, it didn’t matter; One and Indivisible couldn’t really contribute to a rebel victory any more, she couldn’t manoeuvre, could just about turn to bear, but could take no creative part in the battle.
What she could do was maul the living daylights out of any Imperial ship careless enough to assume that she was out of it. She had to be put down, and as fast as possible to release the two Imperial light destroyers to other targets.
One and Indivisible’s fighter complement might have something to say about that, though. At last they were starting to emerge in numbers, and a very odd lot they were too.
A real zoo of the modern and ancient, B and Y wing bombers and fighter-bombers, some X-wings, and handfuls of a dozen other types including PTB625, Starhammers, Torrents, Tri-fighters and Nimbus, Cords and Stingers, all the variety of the third rate- even a single flight of Aurek fighters, the design was four thousand years old.
‘That must make servicing and maintenance a pain in the ass- let’s take some of the load off them.’ Caliphant decided- not that he really had an option, as Voracious was the closest large target and where they seemed to be heading anyway.
Did he trust any of his gunners to be able to do flak fire? No, not really.
‘Warn the fighter wing, establish an LTL clear fire corridor and open fire, target bomber-types first. Torps…’ he thought about it. The torpedo control crew had done well so far.
‘Do you think you can burst a salvo in amongst the rebel fighter stream, get them with blast effect?’
‘Not straight up, Sir. We’ll have to get fancy.’ They said, sounding highly dubious- as well they might because it was extremely unlikely.
‘Do it.’ Caliphant ordered. Main gun fire continued throughout, splattering One and Indivisible’s shielding, and what was left of the rebel cruiser was returning fire from everything that could bear, surrounding Voracious in fire, but it was poorly coordinated, largely under local control, and spraying wild.
It was tense, jittery work staying ahead of their targeting teams, being one step ahead for all of five hundred or a thousand steps, and time was on the larger ship’s side usually. Bulk was survivability, which gave time, stress and chances for the smaller ship to make a mistake.
Voracious had already nearly made several- presenting her main battery for a sustained burst of fire and taking half a second too long to move back to evasive. Fortunately, the lighter guns tracked faster than the heavier, ten hits but all from thirty and forty teraton weapons. Not much, considering.
The rebels were still mostly firing broad area salvos, covering an area- landing a few hits, they had the power available to manage that much, and they were slowly burning through the shielding, but nothing like as bad as it could have been if they had been able to concentrate fire on a point target.
Force knew what structural strain was being caused to Voracious by continual hard evasion burns, but it was better than taking the hits they would otherwise.
One and Indivisible really needed her fighters to pin Voracious in place and make her an easier target for the main guns, but Voracious still had most of the fighter complement of wave two to work with, as well as whatever tricks she could manage.
Strange that ships were still usually referred to as female, despite- no, because of- the majority of crews and commanders being male; although merchant ships frequently were referred to as ‘it’, no more than they deserved.
The fighter waves edged towards each other, homogenous cloud of mainly TIE/ln Fighters and /sa Bombers on one side, history’s dustbin on the other, the first flares of heavy guns and long range warheads reached out; and the surprise.
Voracious’ torpedo launchers had cold- launched one salvo, and had them under command guidance- dog-legged them through their own fighter support for cover.
Two near collisions, one actual collision between two TIEs trying to get out of the way, and one near disaster when one of their hothead advanced-trainee volunteers shot one, and fortunately for all concerned failed to detonate it.
The other three picked their way to the forward edge of the Imperial swarm, then lunged forwards under cover of what jamming the destroyer and the fighters could provide for them.
One was picked off at range, bursting in a blue-white fireball that cooled to red at the core; the other two were not successfully shot.
Surprise, tactical novelty- interacting factors, so many of the rebels being unable to believe and react effectively to the Empire pulling something out of the hat for once- and above all jamming.
Both the torpedoes fireballed in the rebel swarm. Heavy ship killers, at least equivalent to an HTL shot and more effective at translating that power into structural damage- the largest and heaviest rebel fighters were also the slowest and least able to get out of the blast wave.
Those not destroyed were still damaged and disoriented enough for Voracious’ light turbolasers to do their job for once, picking off the B’s, Y’s, Starhammers and the old patrol bombers, and as the Imperial forces tore into the disorganised rebels, it was doubtful whether the rebels would have enough of anything left to threaten Voracious.
Now it mattered whether or not the Imperial fighters could punch a big enough hole in the rebel flight groups to let their bombers through to release on One and Indivisible.
Admonisher was keeping her dorsal batteries on the Imperial flagship, which left the two ventral turret clusters to find what targets and do what damage they may- and that was Dynamic and Hialaya Karu.
Both ships had to manoeuvre with respect to the big rebel destroyer now, and pay her more electronic attention- neither ship was under significant fire from any other rebel, so it was unlikely to be decisive, at least not quickly. Unless the other rebel ships took their flagship’s lead.
The situation was still volatile, the Empire was ahead on points- half a planet and half a cruiser, and numerous smaller craft, was more than a fair trade for a light destroyer, however much they felt it could have been avoided. It hadn’t, and that was that.
There was still more than enough potential for the situation to change. If I make a major error that leaves Admonisher free to engage another target, Lennart thought, them she could roll up the rest of the Imperial force.
Conversely, if they make that mistake then I could do the same, he added. That was why both flagships had chosen each other as targets.
What was left to manoeuvre with, anything that could be withdrawn from other places and committed where it was needed? Detached Forces wave One, it was time to reattach.
They had hit one of the moons of Corban-III, a resource extraction site, blown out the lighter shields and battered down the defences, collapsed the envirodomes pinning what rebels were left alive in the subsurface workings for later assault and extraction.
Gas mining platforms in the atmosphere of the giant, strafed and some were burning- one had fusion-fireballed- but the other moon of importance had it’s shields up, and there were numerous smaller targets throughout the moon and ring system.
‘Signals, record for transmission- helm, roll out rather than counteryaw- “Light forces wave one, engage-‘ a line around the area on the tactical map- ‘these targets from your present position. Medium intensity fire plan, do not conduct mop up operations.
Once the initial fire plan is complete, make a tactical hyperjump to positions-‘ another, much smaller, oval on the tactical map- ‘target Mon Evarra and conduct harassing fire.” Right, transmit that. And light forces wave two, your assessment of the situation?’ Lennart added and mentally kicked himself for it.
Too much the teacher yet, wanting them to think it through and realise for themselves what had to be done when he should simply have snapped out the order.
It was Raesene who came back with the right answer anyway. ‘You want us to move in closer on One and Indivisible and try to finish her off more quickly?’
‘She’s just going to keep rolling to present her active shields and weapons to the destroyers, the frigates can englobe her and try for the core ship.’ Lennart confirmed. ‘Do it.’
He would have given a more detailed order if there had been time, felt guilty about not doing so, but Admonisher was pressing them too hard.
The light forces of wave two had been circling like exceptionally heavily armed vultures, adding what heavy and medium guns they had to the fire raking One and Indivisible.
It was their safest and surest use, and given what was happening elsewhere in the battle none of them were surprised to be called upon to do something more demanding and dangerous.
What else was there not being used to the fullest, what was there to manoeuvre with? Light forces wave three, Dynamic’s and Hialaya Karu’s escort, had local ascendancy- an Illustris, numerous strike cruisers and lighter ships, it would have been strange if they hadn’t. T
here was an escort carrier burning, the rebels had got that far, but no major loss.
Brenn, Rythanor and the rest of the bridge team had been handling the ship while he gave orders to the squadron, and doing not too badly although they had taken a couple of hits Lennart was sure he could have avoided.
Admonisher was handling well, strangely flat at the moment though- ‘Helm, pitch up to port, five hundred, one point five seconds roll inverted, dive port seven hundred.’
A specific evasion order in response to a specific move on behalf of the enemy; Admonisher rolling to present her alpha arc, in order to inspire Black prince into a radical and predictable full power evasion.
Lennart refused to react that far- and hoped Admonisher’s captain hadn’t guessed that far ahead as well. Black Prince’s relatively gentle evasion turn was met with a full salvo anyway, which flashed past within a thousand metres of the point where the Imperial destroyer had rolled inverted.
‘Gunnery, full converged sheaf,’ dot on the map, ‘there.’
The main guns crashed out together, shield control started to scream about something, and Lennart glanced at engineering- liaison to see the main reactor seemed to have been taken off line.
Had they been hit in that last burst- and much harder than Lennart thought? Sixth sense, intuition, the feel of the ship around him said no, and it also said a full power bank to starboard would be a good idea.
He measured out the order trying to look confident and reassuring, then there was an almighty thump, the lights and gravity went out, most of the bridge crew swore by the gods of excrement, and there was a magnificent multi-hued green fireball off in the distance beyond the bridge windows.
‘Execute.’ Lennart confirmed the order to helm control, and to gunnery ‘Again once, then previous routine.’ The flicker-crash of their own rounds out, and then back to normal, insofar as this maelstrom could be called normal.
‘Skipper, gunnery. I think we blew his forward upper shields out.’ Wathavrah reported.
‘He’ll make a slow turn to port, her new base course is going to be 336 negative 8, adjust fire plan accordingly.’ Lennart said, mind too buzzing to say ‘nice shot’, but his tone did it for him.
He was thinking about what he would do with damage like that, with no head-on shielding and some damage to the bow, how he would nurse his own ship. First order, after a shock like that it would take them all time, which he needed himself.
‘Engineering,’ the com unit connected him, ‘Gethrim, did you really do what that felt like?’
‘Give thanks for a set of above-spec circuit breakers and APUs when you say that, and yes.’ The chief engineer admitted.
Lennart decided not to admit to being completely dumbfounded, and said ‘Both, as usual?’ meaning to write him up for his usual combination of commendation for quick thinking and reprimand for eccentric thinking, which almost managed to make sense.
‘You could have warned me.’ The deputy chief engineer who had drawn the bridge- liaison straw this time complained.
‘If he’d told anybody,’ Lennart said to the liaison officer, ‘I would have stopped him, because only a lunatic would do that. Right?’ He added to Mirannon.
‘Pretty much.’ he admitted. ‘We’re actually lucky their second salvo managed to hit.’
‘As lucky as we are,’ Lennart asked rhetorically, ‘that the third full salvo didn’t?’
‘Ah. QX, you have a point.’ Mirannon admitted. What he had done was to take the main reactor out of circuit for two seconds, and use the main power grid to take up the energy from the bow shields and the volley deposited on them.
Regenerating shields for a second and a half- and he had nearly torn the power grid in half and come close to blowing out most of the electronics to do so.
‘That may have been a technical miracle, but I don’t like being in a position where I have to depend on miracles- particularly not when they’re sprung on me as a surprise.’ Lennart said.
‘Skipper, I am the resident miracle worker, and I have to say I don’t particularly care for it myself- especially as I don’t think I could do that again if I tried.’ Mirannon admitted.
‘At least warn me next time you intend to try.’ Lennart said.
They had made a dent, at least, and avoided having to suffer the consequences of taking one in return. One more step- out of how many?
Over Ord Corban, things were getting interesting. Vehrec had sent the light clone wars fighters up as first shock group, scattering their light lasers across the rebel formation to break it up and kill off the slower and more fragile Z–95s, the Y-wings which were too slow to escape a concentration of fire- and also on warhead interception.
The rebels had almost total warhead ascendancy in the opening phase because virtually every Imperial capable of it was carrying heavy antiship torpedoes, but that was the tradeoff the Imperials had chose to make, and didn’t seem to be doing too badly out of it so far.
The planet could give the alliance fighters little jamming support, and too many of the Imperial craft were shuttles and transports with inherently superior electronics fits; no obscurement, and the rapid light lasers of the Nimbus and Aethersprite were perfect for the intercept job.
Maybe not quite as useful as those freak Starwings he seemed to have inherited from Black Prince’s fighter wing, which were having a field day picking off rebel fighters flying straight and level for launch.
The alliance fighters were, in any case, coming in dumb. Whoever was in charge, probably a flight controller based on Admonisher, simply wasn’t thinking big enough and believed they could run a mass fighter battle as basically a small fighter battle, but much more of it.
Fast and confused, speed and manoeuvre and winner take all- going all the way back to the deep past of the republic, before the clone wars.
Major fighter combat simply didn’t work like that. The quantity produced a quality all it’s own, it was inherently more collective, and inherently more attritional.
Try to bring everyone back, and the chances were that a group commander would lose far more of his people than if they just accepted some of them were going to die and planned accordingly.
The rebel controller fell straight into that trap, and tried to do a grand scale version of a straightforward slash, and set his force’s pacing, spacing and timing to match.
He failed to keep close control, failed to push the leading edge of the Alliance formation in to their deaths, and got them killed anyway when the solid, integrated wall of shot the Imperial formation spat out carved the leading rebel elements apart.
What was left of the A’s and X’s scattered under the weight of fire and tried to break past the Imperial formation, but the trailing elements of division three and the turrets of the transports were there waiting for them.
That included Vehrec’s Avengers; as the scattered cloud of Alliance fighters zig-zagged towards a dragon’s mouth of Imperial fire, he itched to call ‘Break and Attack’, but that would give an opportunity back to the rebels that they didn’t deserve.
A solid gun formation was still the best move- although one of the Y-wing squadron commanders was relatively smart, taking two other squadrons with him and moving out wide on the flank to get crossfire and maybe break up the Imperial formation.
Better deal with that; Vehrec detached three squadrons of division three to intercept- including those gunship Starwings, it would be interesting to watch them in isolation.
The main event, though, the rebels were still being stupid. Rather than expose themselves to formal, organised fire, the lead elements had counterthrusted and picked a furball with division one.
The clone war types were fragile but unbelievably dextrous- and from the counterforce point of view, hardly worth the trouble it took to put them down.
Only the Actis had firepower remotely close to the current generation of craft. Actually, if the rebels had held to their original plan of cutting through and engaging the Imperial rear echelon, they would have been better off.
Most of their losses had actually been down to the heavy- gunned division three firing past the light fighters any way. And in some unfortunate cases, into. There had been friendly fire losses- but there had been far more enemy losses, which made the price acceptable.
The Alliance mocked the Empire for being so casual with each other’s lives, but there were maybe a hundred exploded Alliance fighters to argue to the contrary.
Small scale, flight, squadron, maybe even wing, he would concede the Alliance had a tactical edge, but it was precisely that efficiency in small things that led them into error when they started counting in hundreds.
His second personal kill was an A-wing trying to bolt past and join the planetary group; he lined up on the leader of a pair, tracked it, made sure it knew it was being targeted- then twitched right and snapshot into the wingman who had been trying to protect his leader, and who had made an easy target of himself trying to line up on the Avenger.
Some of the A-wings were trying to use their pivot guns to strafe past the Imperials as they broke outside; if they were just strafing they were safely ignorable- never hit anything like that- if they were flying with their concentration on the guns, they were easy targets- one of them was his third kill.
One man turret or pivot fighters never worked, not with a human pilot anyway. Too much to do. There was a fireball on the right where one strafing A-wing ploughed head- on into an old bomber-winged protoAvenger;
deliberate probably, but could have been accidental, there was definitely something wrong with those things’ avionics, as often as they managed to ram things their collision detection must be nonexistent.
Not that it mattered at the moment; the opportunity for a mass area shoot, formation on formation, had dwindled to nearly nothing, so he gave the order; ‘Division three, break and attack.’
That committed everything to one fight or another, this was the time of attrition, when he would see if the superior Imperial plan for large scale action had tipped the odds in the rolling fight that was now breaking out.
Probably, he thought, probably; the numbers were trending that way, so many of their best icebreakers, the A–wings, were gone, and only in the O-club bar afterwards were X-wings capable of taking on odds of five to one. They were good, but they weren’t that good.
With that order it had turned into a tiderace of a battle, waves of fighters crashing against each other, and Vehrec and his bodyguard found themselves zig-zagging out of the fight, looking to find a vantage point from which he could actually make a difference as a group commander.
Where were the rebels strongest, and who were they threatening? Where were there Imperials without much heat on, that he could point at a better target?
Avengers were not designed for AWACS work, that was the root of it- although, was any fighter? All of his thoughts about large scale action and grand tactics, and this was starting to look like a pretty elementary problem.
Who else was with the force? Black Prince’s multirole wing commander, riding one of the ATRs. Perfect. They could do the sensor sweeps and filtering, identify situations that he could he could then focus on- basically, staff work.
The flank guard group had run out of targets close to; he sent the mixed group of Starwings, Hunters and Avengers down to reinforce division two blockading the planet- there were dogfights in low orbit now, some of the rebels had made it that far.
Subformations of division three, pursuing threats identified by active sensor- he made more use of his scanner than he did his guns, using it like a spotlight, picking up on concentrations of rebel fighters.
As the battle grew thinner and more spread out, he was able to withdraw squadrons from the furball and use them for long range massed fire again.
There was one critical point, when the half- strength remains of three X and A wing squadrons tried to hunt him down in person; oh, good, part of him thought- the squadron had lost one, but eleven Avengers, good odds, bring it on.
That part of him was disappointed in himself when he vectored in two squadrons of Actis to shred them before they got that far, and the rebels broke and ran before any of the Avengers could get a clear shot.
Just as relieved, though, not to have to bother with that now when there was a battle to fight.
Move and countermove, the rebels picking up some victories but not many- half way through the texture of the fight changed, and Vehrec guessed the controllers on Admonisher had too much to do, trying to steer the other half of their fighter complement past Black Prince’s point defence envelope, and had handed over control to the planet.
That made things slightly harder- they could coordinate their efforts with what was left of planetary point defence- but only slightly, as they came from the same mould, prone to make the same mistakes, and had been pounded pretty badly already.
Thrust and counterthrust, volley, evade and reform, things were tipping the Empire’s way- then, a pause, nothing much happening- as it stretched out, no urgent com traffic, no crossing flashes of laserfire, he realised most of the rebel fighters had turned to flee.
There were maybe seven or eight squadrons left- about what he had lost, actually- bolting for hyperspace, and a handful of runs out from the edge of the atmosphere, although not many.
H’m. Ninety to a hundred Imperial fighters destroyed and ten shuttles and transports, for the cost of some three hundred rebel. That could, he thought, have been so much worse.
‘Vehrec? Lennart.’ Voice over the com unit again. ‘Leave your division one and the stormtrooper transports to blockade the planet, take the rest to coordinate with Fist for torpedo strikes on Reiver.’
They were tired; not every day they had to fight a battle like that. Physically and emotionally tired, and in some cases low on fuel. Still, if there was more to do, who could say stop, enough? Although-
‘Captain Lennart, you have the other half of Admonisher’s fighter complement on attack approaches. No support?’
‘Not necessary.’ Lennart replied.
Operationally, there was half a solution, the hyperdrive fighters as a manoeuvre element. Detached Forces Wave One ought to be arriving there soon, as well.
As far as the fighter situation went, it was half true; evading as Black Prince was, not all of Admonisher’s fighters had the thrust to catch her, and those that did were scattered everywhere by the Imperial destroyer’s erratic course track- not exactly welcome, but feasibly within the limits of point defence to eliminate in detail.
Same reason why he didn’t want a heavy rocket strike on Admonisher, however welcome it might be; if that ship’s point defence was up to the same standard as her main guns, then it would cost too many Imperial fighters.
In fact, the poor performance of her fighter wing had been a pleasant surprise. Unexpected, definitely welcome- and slightly puzzling.
Both ships were, broadly speaking, closing on each other; another factor in Black Prince’s favour- she was the further out, and by using full power in evasion, that drove her closer in to the main four- ship destroyer action; Admonisher’s doing the same would push her outwards and away. Both thought it preferable to lose distance than take hits.
Why not accept help, surround Admonisher and pound her with everything the squadron could throw?
Because they couldn’t do the footwork, was the short version. Better she waste her fire trying and failing- most of the time- to hit Black Prince than she be given a shoal of new targets that she would be able to inflict real damage on.
Although…Lennart called up an internal systems monitoring status tracker; yes, there it was. He walked over to one of the sensor-signal interpretation consoles, knocked on it. ‘Doctor Nygma, are you in there?’
‘How did you figure it out?’ the mad doctor’s voice came back.
‘Same logic you used to figure out there was no point keeping quiet.’ Lennart said, keeping an eye on the main tactical board- nothing desperately urgent, just a stream of eight hundred teraton salvos incoming.
‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t say that, well actually I probably would, but the thing of the think is that I have very iodosyncratic logic processes.’
Lennart couldn’t spare the brain space to remember what the prefix ‘Iodo-‘ meant, but he did say ‘Because you’re trying to make sense of the actions and decisions of people too frightened and confused to think logically?’
‘Krutz. I was hoping that the only use for crazy-bad logic was the fun of it, that there actually wasn’t a reason.’ Nygma said.
‘You think you’ve got problems? I need your support with that rebel cruiser, I need you to board it and cause chaos.’
‘Chaos is good messy fun,’ Nygma said, ‘especially in the mathematical sense- but isn’t that being rather badly shot at?’ Nygma quibbled.
‘No, Voracious and Hialaya Karu are doing rather well.’ Lennart deadpanned, and went on ‘Did you make identical identities, or did you produce a spectrum of enhanced and altered character traits as an exercise in the mathematics of survival?’
‘Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t, what’s it to you?’ Nygma said, truculently, then ‘See? That was a version exhibiting mild paranoia. Although I used to do that when there was just a fleshy one or two of me too.’
‘And facing down a heavy destroyer, I have time for this?’ Lennart wondered.
Admonisher briefly sideslipped towards the main action, rolled to present her batteries to Fist- Lennart ordered a concentration on her stern over the engines, Admonisher snapshot with what was ready and turned back to face them.
‘Summon up all your inner misery and gloom,’ Lennart continued, ‘transfer to our holocom unit- not in that order- and go and enter into a suicide pact with One and Indivisible’s computers.
Change the life system to fluorine settings, redefine the meaning of ‘up’, hypnotise them with light fixtures; go wild. Oh, and ransack them for anything and everything of intelligence use.’
‘Is there a less traumatic alternative?’ Nygma asked.
‘Well, if you think being threatened would improve your performance, I can charge you with interfering with the operations of the Imperial armed forces, and have you downloaded to a digital watch to await trial.’
Lennart said, looking away to the tactical map, watching the emergence, dispersal to attack formation, and first shots fired from detached forces wave one.
‘You know, this is getting perilously close to treading on the toes of a cultural icon. I seem to remember a paranoid android-‘
‘Is that from the same story that involved the use of an axe as a reprogramming tool?’ Lennart asked, rhetorically. ‘Com-Scan, internal network rolling purge-‘
‘All right, all right.’ Dr Nygma agreed to go. ‘Just don’t call me Eddie.’
‘You know,’ Lennart added conversationally to Brenn, ‘Occasionally I wonder if we blow our own trumpet too much, if we really are special or if there aren’t thousands of Imperial ships who would have been able to do the same, if they had the chance.
Then I realise I only think that way because I’m forgetting moments like this.’
‘Hot work, isn’t it? Brenn agreed. ‘I wonder who’s in charge over there. They are fairly good.’
‘Mon Evarra’s behaving like a private ship.’ Lennart said. ‘That could be it. They always were bold, especially for Mon Cal.’
‘Guns, Helm, I want this-‘ sketched the move, a slow roll towards One and Indivisible, long range time on target salvo, ‘as an opening, third order him.’
‘We should, so we shouldn’t, so we will, so we can’t?’ Rythanor wondered, not quite getting it. ‘Something inbound- very large, hard driven civilian, five light years and seventy seconds out; I’d positively identify an FSCV if I could think of any remotely intelligent reason for one being there.’
‘Get the drop point and keep watch on it. Anyway, from there, immediate turn away, roll back to bear and second volley, yaw left and volley on Admonisher, thrust, nose-down three step zigzag, corkscrew right and up from there.’ A complicated sequence- but it had the effect he was after.
One and Indivisible was suffering, electronically- some very strange emissions coming out of her main com antenna, most of the guns in local control, engines firing and counterfiring; no fit state to resist fire.
The two full volleys Black Prince sent into One and Indivisible burnt shielding away, but it was the reaction from Admonisher that was important, rolling to bear and spitting out one full volley that the turnaway sidestepped, then breaking off in turn when Black Prince turned back towards her unprotected bow.
The first converged sheaf missed, but gunnery had been expecting Admonisher to roll round to present her dorsal surface; a slight sideslip took the rebel out of some of the volley, but not all. Starboard bow, already running hot.
There was a blue-violet flare of a shield bubble blowing out- local overload- followed by an orange-red billow of vapourised durasteel and payload. What did a Shockwave carry up there in the bow? Forward repulsor, tractor beam cluster, life support stores. Nothing vital.
The return shot was a set of single battery volleys, three hit Black Prince, one over the superstructure, one forward, one aft and port. Energy, no burnthroughs, not yet. By the breadth of a highly unauthorised miracle.
The Shockwave class’s shielding was, for their size, average; capable of withstanding an instantaneous surge of two point five petatons, total load to failure six hundred petatons.
The Imperial destroyer couldn’t match those numbers, and didn’t intend to- as long as she could keep hitting often enough to burn through that shielding, and keep moving enough that her own thinner shields could take what of Admonisher’s fire actually caught up with her.
So far, Lennart was winning, but by less than the margin of error.
One and Indivisible was, by this stage, much less well off. The volleys burnt through one shield- outer edge of the starboard half of the ring. There were more threat angles than the mangled ship had shields left to cover.
Her guns turned towards Black Prince- a spectacularly silly move, as with the distance and the fire control problems, the hit probabilities were low- and she desperately needed her guns as the chief defence against the Imperial ships close to.
Voracious was close, and still trying to fend off the fighters, but Hialaya Karu had clear space around her, and used it to stabilise out and fire a sequence of full time-on-target volleys into the cruiser.
One caught the outer starboard limb and exploded it; Hialaya Karu started to work inwards from there. That and the cruiser had never even begun to react effectively to the frigates and corvettes moving to englobe her.
Comarre Meridian was exchanging fire with the core globe- had taken an unlucky hit, and the concrete bow cap starting to burn made an interesting sight- but Obdurate had moved out at a wider tangent, and was attacking the armature that held the connected the core ship to the doughnut.
There was a fireball, strangely channelled by the globe and the ring, and the globe was briefly visible on sensor images as floating free, blasted loose or cut loose it was hard to say, because there was an emergence flare from hyperspace, and the FSCV emerged, very close to and on collision track with One and Indivisible.
Light forces wave two knew what was going to happen; they ceased fire and scattered. Escape pods and shuttles from the container transport followed them at maximum thrust; Commander Carcovaan had found a way to prevent his chance slipping by him after all.
There was very little a ship as badly battered as One and Indivisible could do- that little was done, laserfire reaching out to and tearing the travelhead of the forcefield ship apart, but there was too much mass, too much momentum, and most of it was containers of hypermatter fuel and billets of durasteel. Carcovaan had commandeered the base replenishment transport.
The containers behaved like a shotgun blast, catching the core ship- already raked by fire from Voracious and Hialaya Karu, and now flare after flare of metal heated to vapourisation by the impact as the stern travelhead continued to drive the stack forward.
The stack broke down after the first few, the last half- dozen bubbled and the aft main motors going wild, but it had done it’s work, and there were a few shredded fragments of rebel cruiser left.
‘See? Caliphant said to Voracious’ bridge team. ‘The rebels can’t possibly hope to win against Imperial resources. Even our kamikazes come in extra large.’
Lennart’s response was slightly more considered. ‘That really wasn’t necessary, this late in the action and coming apart as it was, and that was a perfectly good transport. I’ve half a mind to dock the cost out of Carcovaan’s pay.’
‘Don’t look at me, my head’s hurting trying to work out how to split up the kill credit.’ Brenn replied.
‘At least we have a final total of how much there is to be had. Com-scan, send Hialaya Karu to join Fist, and signal Voracious and the rest of light forces wave two to join us. We still have Admonisher to put down.’
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Lady Tevar, the big problem isn't killing Reiver; the renegade destroyer's jamming and footwork are not up to first-line requirements, and her gunnery isn't as efficient as it should be either. Part of the downside of a captured ship- the rebs simply did not have time to man her properly.
Fist should be able to dispose of her without excessive difficulty- the big problem is Mon Evarra, which is performing to a much higher standard. In fact, Mon Evarra would probably have been better off without Reiver entirely, able to manoeuvre freely, evade and attack without the larger renegade ISD to hold her back.
Vianca, heavier weaponry on a Meridian [Acclamator-II] frigate- it would require a major rebuild. I've already committed myself to the figure of 204 teratons/second, 8.56E23 W- and the existing weapon fit draws, actually, 185 teratons/second, saving the rest for engines. The power surplus isn't there, the structural support for weapon turrets in alternate places- and the power trunking for them- just aren't there.
What might work is to double up on the forward fighter bays and convert the after bays- one of which is wrecked and needing reconstruction anyway- for assault concussion missile or heavy torpedo launch.
Fractalsponge, good to have you around- the units that intercepted Oyadan were 851's light-cruiser flagship Jorvik, an Allegiance modern heavy destroyer, a Tector, two Imperator and a Venator; necessary if the sector group had been generally loyal to the moff and offered effective resistance, but overkill under the actual circumstances- they could in theory be free to redeploy, move to Ord Corban.
There is another problem in-theatre; the rRasfenoni are still to deal with, and whatever paramilitary forces the criminal element can scrape up.
Now, think of this. I know there's a fair bit of dislike for Forces of Corruption round here, and the whole idea of a third-force armed criminal movement. I may find it difficult to resist the image of a handful of, say, Keldabe- class destroyers and similar, waiting for the Moff at the middle of nowhere rendesvous point, and something other than the Oyadan turns up to meet them.
I believe I've already mentioned HIMS Cosmonaut Ijon Tichy, of the regional support group- a Mandator class dreadnaught. I think Black Sun's paramilitary wing might find itself missing a few feathers after that.
FTL ramming- or at least, emerging from hyperspace on a collision course- might be good in theory, but there are only a few TIE Shuttles left to do it with. Most of Fist's small craft went to join the formation that is now under the tactical label of Strike Wing, Division Two, and now manoeuvring, under Vehrec's command, for torpedo attacks on Reiver.
The numbers are against the Alliance now, and an optimistic projection would say Fist's main problem would be preventing anyone else stealing her kill. A pessimistic projection would be more worried about what the rebels are going to try to do to change that.
Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Vianca, heavier weaponry on a Meridian [Acclamator-II] frigate- it would require a major rebuild. I've already committed myself to the figure of 204 teratons/second, 8.56E23 W- and the existing weapon fit draws, actually, 185 teratons/second, saving the rest for engines. The power surplus isn't there, the structural support for weapon turrets in alternate places- and the power trunking for them- just aren't there.
What might work is to double up on the forward fighter bays and convert the after bays- one of which is wrecked and needing reconstruction anyway- for assault concussion missile or heavy torpedo launch.
What about adding a extra reactor in the wrecked hanger?
That way the power is there, and didn't she have a few hole breaches?
Are any of them on the right place?
If not, oke.
Just don't like way the laucher(s) would be pointed then.
As much as I would dearly love to see a Mandator II in action, Ijon Tichy against a few mercenary light destroyers probably wouldn't last long enough for a half-chapter. Not that this should in the least dissuade you from including it anyway, mind you
As for Reiver, I'd be surprised if there weren't some kind of internal shennanigans that might reduce the effectiveness a bit more even; sabotage by hold-outs from the original crew? Maybe a stormtrooper detachment that went to ground among the warrens of storage bays that the rebels didn't find in time before the fight?
Either way, great work; looking forward to the denouemont of 2nd Battle of Ord Corban, and, of course, more action against the rRaesfenoni - dare I hope for the 851 detachment moving as a heavy squadron?
So one question I forgot to ask would be How many people were on the FSCV when it impacted? Its got a tiny crew to start with, and I would not be surprised if they got away in escape pods after that stunt. Will anything of that super-freighter be salvageable?
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
The first half of ch 35 is written in manuscript, expect to see it typed up and posted by, oh, Monday probably.
If the mercenary elements really are unfortunate enough to run foul of one of the regional support group's largest ships, it's not going to last long at all, which may be more life than they deserve.
The name of the ship is a tribute to a character by Stanislaw Lem- I very much doubt the Empire would have named a ship after anyone like him, actually. I should probably explain this for anyone who doesn't know, anyway.
Ijon Tichy was an explorer and an encounterer of the extremely strange, in a wild maze of civilizations- I'm casting this as the pre to very early Republic- tourist, xenoanthropologist, surveyor and pioneer. (As well as reluctant diplomat and part time temporal engineer.)
HIMS Cosmonaut Ijon Tichy was almost certainly a pre-existing unit of Kuat's home fleet, which it would be perfectly reasonable to expect from a ship of that name to be somewhat idiosyncratic. Probably a Mandator-I 'refitted'- in other words, they admitted that he could do it all along- with a deep range hyperdrive.
Then, yes, there are still the rRasfenoni home worlds to deal with. Coming up with something sufficiently elegantly asymmetric to live up to the name and the reputation will be fun. 851-Yod are not having it easy, and may well need support. That could happen.
As for Reiver, there were six hours between the two actions; not that long, on the abstract, but most of Reiver's stormtroopers had been deployed in the initial close pass and drop.
The destroyer wasn't boarded and captured in a mass action; she surrendered, under the guns of a ship that threw three times her broadside- and which monitored the initial fighting, between holdouts and the surrendered who didn't want to get blown to bits.
Admonisher rushed troops and armed crew on board to sieze the key facilities, and actually, Reiver's suffering more from being crewed by a mix of transferees out of the existing rebel ships, boaring troops pointed at jobs and told 'go make that work', and such few Imperials as could be found to defect in earnest. A collection of people, not a proper crew.
Considering that there was no way they should have wasted that ship by committing her to combat, instead have sent Reiver away immediately for deconstruction for intelligence purposes- why not? Still rooting out the holdouts. For that matter, even processing the defectors and finding out who of them were genuine and who were Imperial- loyalists planning sabotage would have taken time. They have made a difference; they've bought that time for her to be caught and engaged.
FSCVs, the description says one thing, my brain says another- A set of main motors at each end? A variable length string of forcefield globes in the middle? Space Train, that says to me.
The forward end is wrecked completely, of a fourteen- bubble string the contents of four impacted in a pack, three bubbles ruptured and sprayed containers everywhere some of which are recoverable, the after seve bubbles and the aft main motor ship- what I've been referring to as the travelhead- are intact and retrievable.
On the forward travelhead, Carcovaan had more voulnteers than there were jobs for them to do- and they were fortunate enough to find a nearly immobile target, if they had been attacking a moving warship someone would have had to ride it in.
As it was, distant drop, take the measure of the situation, line up so they came out of the second jump pointing directly at the target, remain on board long enough to confirm they were going to hit then get out. Pods and shuttles. No losses in the ram itself, the cruiser did not have it's problems to seek at that point and interception fire was ineffective- but there are a lot of rebel fighters out there, and they are not best pleased.
One of the great things I love about this story is how many different problems that need to be solved by violence or cunning. Very realistic in that sense of a hegemonic empire's 'small wars'; not necessarily altogether small, often asymmetric, and always complicated.
I wonder what the rRaesfenoni would have to throw against 851-yodh or 851-aleph and co. if it came to a stand-up fight. If they occupy a couple dozen worlds of some industry in the sector, and have been pursuing secret small scale wars of expansion for over a thousand years, they could conceivably have built up quite an array of interesting toys, though obviously limited by what could actually be hidden from the rest of the galaxy for that long. I can't envision a cloud of mostly dumb impactors really doing anything against a competently handled squadron of destroyer+ warships though. Several line destroyer equivalent + frigates and surface defenses? There are limits to asymmetrical warfare, and if you're going to do something as risky as going after *all* your neighbors in succession you'd probably want a more conventional insurance policy.
I assume also we'll see some ground force action too; after all the prize of Ord Corban for Adannan, and the stuff that needs to be suppressed for Lennart, is probably on the surface, as blackened and inhospitable as that now may be. And one wonders about the recovery and intelligence possibilities for Reiver and Admonisher, or Mon Evarra for that matter, if they were ionized and crippled during the ship-to-ship action. A legion-scale boarding action in detail would be quite an epic half-chapter, imho.
All this is just wondering out loud of course; you write this as you were intending - I'm looking forward to the next chapter
I did say Monday, so...
Note the feed parts for other elements. I'm not happy with this, myself- t's an artifact of the resolution I've chosen to write at, and I want to get this battle done.
Ch 35a
‘So far, so good, but I don’t see how much longer the Rebels can keep playing a losing game.’ Lennart said.
‘The results may be in our favour, but the odds aren’t, and if they keep ruthlessly playing the odds- no, they’re not stupid enough to stick to numbers that are wrong. Are we about to play musical jump points?’ Brenn suggested.
‘More like hyperspace roulette.’ Lennart said. ‘The alliance tried to break the planetary blockade too soon, before it was fully established in fact, we don’t know what else is still down there. Reiver can’t last much longer, but Mon Evarra’s going to be difficult to put down.’
‘At four to one? She’s good, but-‘ Brenn said.
‘Good enough to last long enough to take the odds down to three to one. They’ll have to, though. Mon Evarra may be a crack ship, not the sort I would want to send anybody but us against, but still less do I want to have to send them up against that.’
He meant Admonisher, dancing though Black Prince’s fire and landing hits of her own in return. The Imperial ship was hitting the rebel about twice as often as she was being hit in return, which would have been excellent if they weren’t up against a ship with twice the firepower and shielding.
Not that the situation wasn’t likely to change.
‘As we close,’ Lennart assessed, ‘the conventional odds of hitting go up- which would in theory be disadvantageous for us, but both of us will switch to full converged sheaf, time on target salvos- we’re as likely to burn through as they are and we will hit more often.
Very close action favours us, and I expect they’ve looked deeply enough at the numbers to work that out.’
‘They’ll stay in place long enough to let their bombers get to us, and then manoeuvre clear for another pass?’ Brenn theorised.
‘That implies a faith in their small craft that I don’t see being justified. Let’s hope so, but I doubt it.’
Up above in the Imperial suite, Adannan was watching the battle, without a great deal of comprehension. His goons were clustered around him- and that was all they really were, he admitted to himself.
I have surrounded myself with inferiors, he thought. Then again, is it actually possible for a dark adept not to do so?
The flares and flashes out there were irrelevant to the larger plan. Simply a backdrop. Lennart wouldn’t have gone and picked a fight he didn’t expect to win. Just because he didn’t think it was going to be easy was no reason to doubt that.
Casualties, too- lesser beings, what did they matter? Nothing. Upon Imperial victory- then what?
There would still be rebel elements alive on the planet; they would have to be dug out- and he had the authority, first to order what was left of that planet’s fortifications preserved, second to take charge of the ground operation personally.
It would be entertaining, but there were too many variables, too many people on both sides who had an interest in his non- survival.
What was Lennart’s plan? Carefully, he tried eavesdropping on the Captain’s thoughts- they were utterly taken up with the moment. Lennart’s mind was a blizzard of potential futures considered, as unlike meditation as it was possible to be- active searching, grabbing at the might- be.
Adannan could barely follow it at all, but he prodded gently- introduced a tendril of himself, his scent as it were, to see what would happen and what Lennart thought he needed to do.
Half a dozen plans- almost all of them involving violence, mostly ridiculous degrees of overkill. Interestingly, the mental model Lennart seemed to be using to plot his demise was the Jedi he had worked with during the Clone Wars, adjusted slightly for circumstance.
The thought of obedience was not in him, and his political thought revolved around how to get away with killing the dark jedi, and…what?
Evidence? How can he prove anything? Even if he heard every word- and he thinks he has, how?- I could have been lying. His word against mine…no, my word against the suspicions of whoever this mess ends up in the lap of.
There are some remarkably suspicious people out there, I should know, I am one, and I would gleefully take any of my rivals’ heads off on the strength of what he has against me, Adannan thought.
So- I threaten him with the power of the Sith, and he calls my bluff- the empire might gain him, but I get an Inquisitor’s lightsabre to chew on. Not good.
Bluff? Not likely, he knows the situation too well. Any hope of tripping him up with that- allowing his own information to lead him into error? I know the people and personalities better than he does…and most of them are opportunist sociopaths, savage to a fault. Not really.
Run through the potential sequence of events. I confront him and force him to bend the knee as my apprentice- or attempt to do so immediately after he has fought and defeated a superior enemy force, and is riding high in the respect and confidence of his crew. Worst possible time.
It’ll have to be done, though. I am being appallingly weak over this. When would be the right moment- when he is at his lowest and most miserable? How to arrange that, have him sacked?
If I dismiss him from his post, that would work- in fact, it might be necessary. The chances are he would give me all the excuses I need then, and obviously it restricts his power to use his position against me.
Yes, that would be it; make sure his only path of service to the Empire is through the Force.
On Fist’s improvised emergency bridge, Captain Tevar was retaining control of her temper, with some difficulty. She wanted Reiver dead, destroyed, taken apart, chopped into little bits she could jump up and down on then have the bits disintegrated.
In the unlikely event there were many of the original crew left on board, she wanted to do the same to them for turning their coats and letting her ship down.
Yelling at the image on the bridge viewscreens wasn’t going to do it though, and the next obvious thing, screaming at her bridge crew, wasn’t going to achieve anything either.
What she was trying to do was to keep her shields up mainly against Mon Evarra, manoeuvre primarily with respect to the much smarter, much more elusive Mon Cal ship, and keep her guns focused on Reiver.
The rest of the force- Dynamic was already here supporting her, and it occurred to Tevar that she hadn’t had to pass a single order to the lighter destroyer, he had simply slotted himself into her plans.
Well, the lines of authority were hardly as clear as they could have been, the formal structure Lennart had intended to operate under largely having dissolved on her arrival.
Which was fine, as long as the force itself didn’t dissolve. Which could still happen. Admonisher was landing hits at a rate of ten to fifteen percent, on a ship that was behaving like a cross between a ghost and a swarm of locusts; turned against her ship, she wouldn’t expect to survive longer than thirty seconds against that gunnery.
They had to finish here, had to grind Reiver down and move to englobe and burn down the rebel heavy- but first Reiver, for the sake of the name and the honour of the sector group.
Strategically, the Alliance had made a mistake with her; they should have withdrawn Reiver for refit elsewhere, where they could dismember her computer systems for intelligence purposes in peace and then reconstruct her for deception and false flag operations far away from here.
Hazarding her at all was an error. Of course, that they had to was down to the fact that Lennart had lunged for them too quickly, helped by a little deception and a lot of cut corners. They hadn’t had time to get the ship clear.
Tactically speaking, Reiver simply wasn’t ready. Everything suggested she was on a skeleton crew of Imperial defectors and rebel volunteers, her fire was enthusiastic but ragged, her reactor wasn’t even developing full power, and her evasion was from another age- slow, hesitant, gentle turns seconds apart.
In a way, Tevar wished it would put up more of a fight, but then, Mon Evarra was more than making up for it.
The elimination of the rebel cruiser left two Imperial destroyers and numerous frigates free to seek other targets; where were they- ah.
Too close a distance to microjump in both cases, but Voracious was accelerating in a tangent to swing round Admonisher and join Black Prince, and Hialaya Karu was accelerating to take a position off Fist’s starboard beam.
For a crew in an unfamiliar ship and burdened by many fools, Karu was shooting well. Too well, in fact- against Mon Evarra, any help was welcome, but as against Reiver, Captain Tevar wanted to order her- keep off, he’s mine.
Apparently, the Rebel ship felt the same way. There was an electrogravitic surge and a spray of stray tachyons- hyperdrive being brought online.
‘Guns-‘ Tevar began a preparative order.
‘Her shields are still up, a component shot-‘
Hialaya Karu’s fire was arcing in now, fairly accurate, not that that gave Tevar much encouragement.
‘Group together, bridge aimpoint, time on target-‘ Tevar gave the order, the guns waited until they were all charged together.
Tevar had to reach down into the fire control section of the pit and point it out on screen, would have had to do so even with proper facilities, Fist’s bridge hadn’t been customised with the same information handling devices as Black Prince- but soon would be, Tevar thought, this is damned undignified.
The rounds crashed out- and the ship kicked from Mon Evarra’s taking the opportunity to put her shots in- as Reiver turned and accelerated to hyperspace.
They caught the renegade destroyer over the port flank aft- one main repulsor emitter, a secondary reactor, life support aeroponics, parts and spares. One of the hyperdrive cores, but Reiver had the same multiple redundancy as all the class.
She managed to make the jump. Tevar opened her mouth to scream in frustrated rage, decided that would not be consistent with her status as the captain of an Imperial warship, turned to her chief navigation officer and said, in a sweetly reasonable voice that her crew knew was the prelude to her tearing somebody’s head off,
‘If you would care to plot that and chart a pursuit course, I would be obliged.’
There was only one safe response. ‘Aye aye, Captain.’
Mon Evarra was behaving like a wolfhound let loose. Without the lead ship to conform to, she accelerated away, vectored laterally- sideways in plain English- moving away from Fist and curving round, strafing Dynamic.
Which made the fundamental mistake, helmsman reacting automatically as per doctrine before Dordd could countermand him, of turning her belly. The most heavily armoured and most structurally sound surface the ship had, and one whose shielding could take a bit more abuse than it had so far.
It was a standard posture for bayless, all-gun ships; under the circumstances it was worse than useless.
Aldrem grabbed the edges of his console and tried hard not to step beyond his established station by yelling at the helm control team; that was Dordd’s job.
Useless to try and ride the attack out, their only effective defence was their firepower, and there was no reason at all for the rebels to stop shooting at them.
Hialaya Karu was sending out a long string of yellowish-green bolts, a rippling fire tracking across the darting, hummingbird Mon Cal ship, some hitting her- but not enough to divert her from the much closer, much more tempting target.
Dordd shouted at his helm control team, and the destroyer’s bow began to dip- too slowly, and yawing out of line- good but unintentional, and the result of nerves. For a moment, he believed in cloning, considering how many places he wanted to be in at once.
Mon Evarra mistimed it slightly- couldn’t quite believe that Dynamic was moving so slowly.
There was a temporary pause, maybe half a second, and the bridge crew looked at Dordd, hopefully; maybe the reb had decided to stop shooting at them? He started to issue the order ‘Brace for impact-‘ realised it would be pointless, take far too long to react to for any good to be done.
Started to say ‘Roll 120 starboard-‘ then the time on target hit.
The converged sheaf the rebel ship fired was aimed for the turret complex. The speed of Dynamic’s turn meant it hit too soon, just under the bow.
Fortunately, what was up there wasn’t all that vital- the chemical flare of armour boiling off, navigation shield generators, repulsor, manoeuvre jets- not as if they were using them anyway.
Crap, Aldrem thought. Damn decentralised Mon Cal, there’s no critical aim point, except try to chew through the entire length of the ship to get at the reactor and engines.
No obvious bridge module, not even a single weapon complex, with triple turrets I can’t viably take fire window shots to knock their turrets out.
On this ship, I feel as if I’m fighting with my feet nailed to the ground. No alternatives, are there? They’ll probably get me before I manage to get them. Damn probability. ‘On the bow, on my mark, converged sheaf, fire.’
Mon Evarra’s second salvo hit about ten milliseconds after Dynamic’s first. From the rebel ship, there was a flare of light, a blue-violet planar explosion as the bow shield overloaded and blew out, but only two relatively small green fireballs as shot hit the physical hull- one followed by a secondary cluster of blasts as antifighter missiles in a point defence cluster near the hit detonated, but not much against a ship that size.
On the Imperial ship, the shields served to glance some of the incoming energy- but not enough. The splashes of rebel fire over the long, thin ship appeared as if it was being grasped and squeezed in an indigo fist; felt more or less like that, too.
Mon Evarra was faster to manoeuvre, and knew it; climbed and rolled- Aldrem tried to get A turret to put a shot into the rebel’s less focused flank shields, but they shifted energy too fast, there was no blind spot.
The order that would decentralise their fire and give them a chance to outreact the rebels was ‘Independent Fire-‘ even handing over power and trust to men he had known for years was difficult.
He wanted to be the master of his own fate, and that of any poor bastard unlucky enough to be on the receiving end. That was human, faith in himself and his own talent; it was not, he forced himself to accept, professional. What they had to do was whatever worked.
‘Local control, fire at will. Vary aimpoints, make them dance.’ The three turrets had aimed apart and started spitting fire at the rebel before he had got as far as the ‘t’ in ‘control’.
‘Right, you son of a sea snake,’ he muttered looking at the image of the Mon Cal cruiser, ‘where is your soft spot…’
Her game plan now, Aldrem thought, Reiver barely made it out alive, and Fist is moving to pursue- hyperdrive activating now. Captain Tevar’s locked on to that ship, in the worst possible sense of the term.
Reiver lost shield capacity and took damage, hasn’t left the system, is close around Corban-III-e, the last remaining credibly defended outworld- although not heavily enough defended to keep Fist away. Hoping to cool off enough to re-enter the fight.
Not likely to get the chance- but while Fist is taking Reiver apart, Mon Evarra has a chance to do the same to us, then pursue.
Damn them and their deceptive, shifting ship designs, it’s like trying to pick out an individual wrinkle on my great- granny’s face. And she had the looks of a small moon. We have identified most of the actual weapon blisters, Aldrem thought, but that’s little help.
Taking out one gun at a time is going to be pathetically slow, we may do more by overpenetration- if there was such a thing as doing too much damage- but they were almost as well armoured internally as they were externally, their shock resistance and damage limitation measures were excellent. She would have to be pounded to death.
Did they have a big enough stick? Nine guns looked very well on paper, fifteen hundred and forty-eight teratons a salvo, but Dynamic’s powerplant could only give them a thousand and eighteen. Not enough, not enough at all- and they had already burnt off most of their capacitor load.
Was there a panacea target? Bridge- no, not obvious enough where it was. It would matter if it could be hit, but it couldn’t except by dumb luck, so- the heatsinks.
Well, thank you very kriffing much, Dordd thought looking at the retreating flare of Fist’s engine vents as the larger ship accelerated to lightspeed. Leaving me to deal with this thing.
The numbers didn’t work; despite everything the rebels could do in evasion and jamming, Aldrem and his turret team were getting a hit rate of eighty-five percent or better, extraordinary. The alliance gun crews were very good, not in Pel Aldrem’s class but then considering the target they didn’t need to be.
At these rates, neither craft had more than two minutes to live- but Dynamic would run out of time before Mon Evarra.
Dordd had tried to get torpedoes off, they were a great equaliser in theory, but the rebel’s point defence was too good, splashing them apart almost as soon as they were out of the tubes. At least the safety interlocks worked.
‘I intend to spin the ship to mask the torpedo tubes- stand by.’
The alliance ship would keep firing- could the shield control crew keep focus oriented on the rebel, avoid showing thin, vulnerable spots? Could the torpedo team get their shots off safely from a rapidly spinning ship? Absurd to have to ask, under normal circumstances.
Turning away would mask the guns; Aldrem would probably scream at him- admittedly with good cause- but he had to do something different, playing it straight would lead to defeat.
Main battery control was calling, anyway. ‘What is it, Lieutenant?’
‘The rebels are lining up for another time on target on the turret line.’ Aldrem said. His tone- contained frustration and rage- added, in effect, so kriffing well manoeuvre. To the turrets he said ‘This is central, we’re going to be manoeuvring fairly wildly,’ I hope, he didn’t say, ‘I’ll take the shot.’
Dynamic’s helm control was having a miserable time of it; they could keep the ship alive by dong solely that, but they couldn’t really fight the ship, and although the Captain was trying not to make it worse by shouting at them, spooking them into being even less effective, there were moments when he simply couldn’t help it.
Threaten them with disrating? No, too little, Dordd thought. Execution? Too much chance of having to follow through on that threat too soon, and is there anyone who would actually be better? Probably not.
They were still poor, and Dordd realised that he had never cancelled the preparative for the torpedo turn to bear. Dynamic pitched down again, and some of the rebel gunners tracked the manoeuvre, others not; there was a figure eight shaped splash of violet impacts, over the forward superstructure and the turret line.
The simultaneous crash was more than the shields could take, three bolts leaked through- two into the forward edge of the superstructure.
Crew quarters, damage control bunker, and the ship’s main offices- no effect on the immediate fighting ability of the ship, and possibly rather good in the long term.
The third hit burned through the armour beside C turret. Most of the vapourised metal blew outwards, baffles and tensors doing what they could, but the shock damage-
Fendon lunged for that panel, almost snapped the switches off cutting power to C and draining the capacitor bank back into A and B. It took half a second for the containment shield around the energy cells to heat to the point of uselessness; an eternity, and just long enough.
Instead of a multi-petaton eruption that would have broken the ship’s back and laid her armoured skin wide open, they got a relative fizzle; a low yield detonation that mostly vented out through the hole the shot had carved in the ship’s hull. Mostly.
When the flare had cleared, C turret- closest to main battery command- was lying askew, mounting twisted out of shape, and blackened- obviously inoperable, and most of the indicators on the status board were red. Or black.
Suluur was staring at the board in undisguised horror; of course, Ahdria- but the rest of them wanted to stay alive still. Aldrem was about to shout at him when he visibly brought himself back under control.
Dynamic had put her nose down, been hit hard, and was now pitching back up; six guns charged and operational- Aldrem steered both turrets onto line and squeezed the trigger as the sight came on.
Exactly as he had intended- starboard side, over the highest point of neutrino flux, and so close together as to be almost a single impact- even Mon Cal shielding couldn’t cope, flared brightly and faded;
the armour of the rebel ship burst outwards in a cloud of superheated vapour- and there was a definite secondary explosion, as at least one set of coils overloaded and destroyed themselves.
Blow for blow, and neither side daft enough to think that was anything near an end of it. Dynamic was porpoising, her bow coming back up too fast for Aldrem to get a second shot off, and exposing the ship’s belly again.
Aldrem and Dordd both screamed at the helm team to roll to bring the guns to bear, but instead of pivoting on the main engines, which would have resulted in the ship’s bow describing an arc, the confused, frightened helm crew made a manoeuvre thrusters roll, in place, on the long axis, and inherently slower considering the bow manoeuvre thrusters were gone.
Not all the rebel guns fired, the heatsink hit had done that much- and they had moved very fast to avoid overloading what was left of it. Enough to punch through traumatised, shock- damaged shields.
For a second, Dordd saw the bow of his ship outlined in creation-hot plasma.
Oh kriff the reactor’s gone, he thought; no, can’t have, if I’m still alive enough to think I’m dead, it must be the secondary. Time to leave. ‘Helm, input navigation package E and execute.’
A preplanned escape jump to the outer system- Dordd hoped his ship was in sufficient shape to make it. And before they were hit again, he added to himself- underside and bow shields were almost completely gone, shield generators damaged, dorsal- mid weak.
This time, they got it right. A blizzard of blue- white replaced the violet flare he was expecting.
‘Lads,’ Aldrem announced, before deciding to say it formally, ‘Main battery direction will remain closed up; turret crews A and B, assist damage control with turret C.’
Best compromise available. He didn’t want Suluur going down there and trying to pull incandescent durasteel beams off the mangled body of his girlfriend- or the thin red smear which was actually more likely. He did need to do something, and this was it.
His old friend was a stoic, a fairly distant man most of the time. Aldrem didn’t want to think about how he would react after finding, and losing, someone who had managed to get under his skin and made him show a more human side.
Stang, Aldrem thought, she’s even getting to me, I’m more worried about that than I am about three guns out of action. Conventional wisdom said keep busy, find something to do to avoid having time to grieve.
‘While we’re waiting for them to catch us,’ he said, blackly, ‘I want a breakdown of Mon Evarra’s shooting skills. Performance of individual weapon mounts, identify their battery groups, their reaction times to changing circumstances and changing plans. Our best direction to come at them from, and theirs to us. Bring the data up.’
On the bridge, Dordd was listening to the long, long list of damage reports come in, as they drifted in the outer fringes of the system. Wondering what they could be expected to achieve if- when- they had to go back into the fire.
There were things happening outsystem, too- a situation update from the flag on Jorvik; She and Allegiance-class Daring, Tector-class Peltast, Imperator-I Tigress, Imperial-II Speaker, Venator-class Varangian, were in theatre over Iushnevan, had ionised and were in the process of boarding the Moff’s flagship; the sector group was offering only scattered and uncoordinated resistance.
Larger units of the regional support group were on their way; the warhogs were coming out to play. The capital ships, the battleships and battlecruisers of the regional support force, seldom found a chance to use their guns in anger.
Most rebel ships, the cost of the damage they could conceivably do was less than the fuel and wear cost of moving to intercept them.
This time, they had a genuine fight on their hands, at least four destroyer- class rebel ships and probably a multiplanetary siege campaign to conduct. They were not going to get left out.
Like most regional support groups, they had a single Heavy Battle Squadron, in this case three Mandator- class. As more Executors came off the slips, they would first be assigned one to a support group or task force as a fast striker and leadship, then additional heavy battle squadrons built around them.
They hadn’t got theirs yet, Trucidatior was committed keeping an eye on a nationalised mining company which was showing signs of intending to revert to type, and evidently Stormbird had drawn the short straw and had to remain behind as reaction force in case of other trouble elsewhere.
The third unit of the Heavy Battle Squadron, the Cosmonaut Ijon Tichy, was due to arrive in sector in twenty minutes.
Glorious. If the situation wasn’t complicated and confusing enough, it would get that way soon. Tichy had a reputation for the obscure and convoluted, not surprising in a ship named for a man who may have been his own grandmother.
Apparently, Tichy was heading for the middle of nowhere; up to something, no doubt. A wavefront of cruisers and most of first battle squadron was heading for the rRasfenoni home planets; first battlecruiser squadron was moving towards the rimward end of the trade spur, blockade and interdict.
Anyone heading to help them, quickly enough to matter? Jorvik, maybe.
Fist did not want or need help, at this precise point in time; Black Prince had given her the precalculated drop point Lennart had been intending to use to assault Corban-III-e, and Tevar had chosen to go with that rather than wait long enough to calculate one.
It brought them out at relatively long gun range from the target, and too far for the planet’s guns- they could reach, but at five light seconds out, the target area was so big barrage fire was all they could hope for.
Reiver started screaming for help, but there were no uncommitted rebels to help her- Karu was engaging Mon Evarra now, from medium range, and scoring hits.
Fist rolled to bear and opened fire. Imperial and Rebel manuals both recommended slow bombardment fire at this distance, form a stable platform; Reiver had learned better by now, began to evade- slow and meandering though, not full blooded dancing and darting- and Fist was on a closing vector.
Single shot, rippling fire at first- one main turbolaser firing every twelfth of a second, and the four heavy ion cannon together; it looked as if Fist was scribbling on Reiver, the long line of bolts tracking over her, wandering on and off target.
Reiver was salvo- firing, all guns together, a terrific thump of recoil that did more for her evasion than any of the moves she actually intended, but that in itself guaranteed never hitting with more than one or two shot.
Useful against a frigate, enough, given time, against a light destroyer, but useless against an equal. No real chance of a breach and no more heat than Fist could radiate away.
Reiver would be calculating another escape course- to deep space, to some hidden rebel base, to shelter under the fire- umbrella of Admonisher.
Tevar intended to chase them to wherever she had to, out of the galaxy if need be- and just as she was promising herself to spend less time swearing revenge and more effort working on it, the fourth- last step in her plan came good.
That being, pound Reiver until she stopped being able to fight back. Three turbolaser bolts hit in mid- manoeuvre, as Reiver had no forward thrust on, and blasted away a panel of the shields- and the four ion bolts were lucky enough to hit in the same spot.
Reiver’s turret line spasms, one gun spat out what looked like a flak bolt that burst five kilometres off, one seemed to melt. Reiver started to roll to expose her other side, but it was slow, uncoordinated, barely under control.
‘Ion cannon, maximum firepower.’ She ordered; bolt- cluster after cluster splashed into the damaged destroyer scattering lightning over the hull.
The lights went out, but there was still light- the turbolasers had not been ordered to cease, and they continued to drive their stream of shot into the unpowered hull, there were fires and molten metal glowing.
There was a scatter of escape pods, on independent isolated systems, or solid chemical boost. Fire on them- no. It would be an excess to start popping escape pods, particularly at this range, and especially as it would be more cruel to just leave them drifting there.
‘Captain…’ her exec suggested. ‘it is possible that we could retake that ship.’
Tevar’s tactical map was less complex than Lennart’s but it still managed to show the essentials. Black Prince was fencing with Admonisher, if that was the right term for the hammerblows both ships were giving and taking.
Dynamic was- gone? No, far out in the cometary halo. Hialaya Karu engaging Mon Evarra, and capitalising on the damage Dynamic had done- the rebel ship did not look healthy now, but was still hitting back.
Voracious- trading fire with Admonisher, which kept turning to present her belly batteries to the light destroyer, both ships giving and taking hits.
Two wolfpacks of frigates and corvettes, the fast group chasing Admonisher and filling the space around her with fire, the shower of tracer looking a lot more impressive than the reality that they were mainly MTL.
The slow wolfpack was going for Mon Evarra, another blizzard of mainly mediums, and those few ships that did have heavy turbolasers starting to take return fire.
A boarding action would take minimum half an hour, with a complement of shuttles mostly busy elsewhere, could be two or three hours to flush the ship clean. Far too long.
‘Possible but not practical. Main guns, time on target, finish her.’
Reiver had nothing now, no defensive EW, no tensors- Fist fired three full time on target salvos. The first hit the superstructure, shattering it in a nova of molten metal; the second burnt into the ship’s bow, blasting it open.
Third time was the charm. Reactor. It had cut out under the ion barrage, but was still very hot, and the structural centre of the ship, best placed to transmit the shock; Reiver burst apart, the green fireball then the spreading billow of yellow-orange-white.
Tevar chose not to resist the impulse this time, and let loose a howl of triumph. A kill, and an exceptionally large one. Mediocrely handled, but that was the point, wasn’t it? To be better than they were, and win by that.
The bridge crew were equally excited; hardly the dignified resolution they tried to drum into them at the academy, but she could let them have their moment.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
At the head of page 8, there are a few posts where it was discussed; Stravo decided that, as it wasn't close to being completed and there wasn't enough clutter around to need its being cleared up, it wasn't necessary.
I certainly wouldn't object if it happened, but he's right, it isn't completed yet, and I reckon there are at least three stories and probably more ahead of me in the hypothetical queue; Children of Heaven, the collected Jolan Gix, the Naked Stars AU, and Brother-Lieutenant Mattathias at least.
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
