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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 3 - A Light In The Black -
Chapter 21 - Next Verse[]
Sizing up the Enemy[]
Fifteen Minute intervals…
The local defenses at Grankum were running fifteen minute intervals for the Assault Dropships assigned, apparently, to the system's station complexes.
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Grankum System - Map of region as of 3130
And, by 'complexes', Larry could count emissions from multiple stations out here, including telescope shots of what had to be dropship yards.
"Well, Reggie, what do you think?"
"It's a forward fleet base." Regina stated. "Standard SLDF layout even if the actual stations are… well, they look improvised. No wonder you got reamed."
"I think we're going to be counting their DropShips in squadrons." Tala Chiang was the new CAG. Well, 'new' in that two years ago she'd been flying for the militia in the outer reaches of the Northsun system.
"How many?"
"Regina can argue with me here, but I count at least fifteen Titans Fighter Carrier DropShips. Those spheroids look like maybe… Regina, do those look like Pentagons Assault Ships to you?"
"Yes. At least ten of them. The use of Fortress class seems a little strange to me, those are usually ground attackers or landing force support."
"Filling in for something they either didn't have or can't build maybe." Larry mused. "Okay, ident on the fighters we've seen?"
"Mostly Ironsides, there are a few Hammerheads we've spotted, light on the Swifts though…" Talia frowned. "That's a lot of investment out here, especially with the restricted radio traffic."
"Jumpship interval's been steady since we got here, they're alternating so there's only maybe a week between arrival and departure… but those are not production yards." Regina asserted.
"You don't think?"
"Born in one!" the AI stated. "No, those aren't production-ready facilities, they're fueling, cargo-transfer, and light repair only-the drydocks are too sparse, and they lack the supporting infrastructure they'd need for a production site. This system's a mothball-and-maintenance site."
"What about those?" Larry highlighted a number of stations on off-axis orbits.
"Gun platforms." Regina speculated, bringing the visual resolution up. "Missiles, not guns, excuse me. Those are launching and guidance platforms for standard anti-shipping missiles."
"I think we can verify to higher that we've found a major enemy site," Larry commented. "Maybe part of their key defenses and certainly important enough to garrison with heavy assets… telescopic on the planet?"
"Star pattern fortification, there's a major enemy ground presence at Grankum," Regina stated. "The job they did camo'ing their bunker complexes would work better if they didn't run tractor-trailers into them on a regular basis. And if they didn't have cultivated fields between the arms of the star pattern. The bizarre part, is this:"
The image clarified more.
"Where are the agricultural tractors, or ag mechs?" Larry wondered aloud.
"They are using hand labor." M'kembra 'Call me Mike' was older than Larry. The elemental-breed Marine commander was older than Admiral Foster, even. "They are using hand labor, Captain. See how the rows in the field are uneven? Hand labor, and maybe draft animals."
"Things are quiet in the Marine decks?"
"Aff…"
Recounting the Battle Exercise[]
”You know…”
…they are still trying to dispute the results of the Fleet Exercise.” Ruel Chistu speared some salad in a bowl before him. “But I must admit, slipping three Mule Q Ships in the middle of the target fleet with the exercise codes for nuclear ordinance and wiping out the convoy before the escorts even knew what hit them because they were too target fixated on the Dropships supplied for the exercise was inspired. Though not very ‘Pirate’ like really.”
“I suppose that is true. Capture would be a higher priority but I think it still counts. If you can’t capture, you might as well kill to deny the enemy.” Helena dug around her salad until she found a tomato to spear on her fork.
“I find myself uncertain which way I should vote on the matter. It requires foreknowledge that I am not convinced our enemy is able to obtain and heavily relied on misdirection but yet it also showed just how many lessons we have let slip since the Word of Blake’s Jihad. This troubles me.”
“In other words, they want a re-match but without the taxi cabs. Trouble is, only Division 1 has hulls with organic aerospace capacity and they are currently concentrated at Port Orphan because any day now we are about to launch another offensive.”
“Hence, the dilemma continues.”
“Then tell them this. I know it was really about seeing what my ladies are actually capable of. If we did not have a war to prosecute I would be happy to arrange more exercises. Ones where they are much more free to break script and show you if you thought what they did at Sevon V was impressive then wait until you see what they have learned from Larry Nichols, Dave Foster, and yes, even Amanda Roberts. The lessons those three taught my ladies means if we had to fight that again I don’t think we would have lost more than some fighters, and that Texas would be a slowly expanding debris field currently giving off low levels of radiation.”
“It is a shame you were not born into the Clans. I think you would have reshaped our history greatly.” Ruel Chistu bowed his head.
“More likely I would have been put up against a wall and shot for daring to question Nicholas’ vision.”
“I hate to admit that you are likely right about that.”
“Cheer up Ruel. That you are troubled and are asking questions means there is hope for you yet. Now let’s finish our salads. I’m a busy lady with a mountain of paperwork growing on my desk by the minute.”
“I have seen your desk. I am not ashamed to admit it frightens me.”
“Should have seen it before I got serious and organized everything.”
Writing Up a Shopping List[]
"Fallry used to…
…have their own military unit-the second Trader Sentinels, a unit that worked closely with the Department of Mega Engineering and the SLDF pre-Amaris." Joanna was briefing her crew and Captain, because they found something.
"So there was a garrison here before."
"Yes… and there appears to still be a garrison." Joanna stated.
Telescopic imagery and signals were put together in the AI's processors, rendering the image more completely than a naked eye would allow.
"What are those?"
"RWS Lamprey and RWS Speartooth, according to their transponder codes," she explained. "The SLDF identifications are just as vestigial. You are looking at a pair of Essex 1 class destroyers, escorting the Dart Class Light Cruiser, SLS Desaix, a vessel that was superseded by the Avatar class, but kept in reserves until the early 28th century. Desaix was last assigned to the Outworlds regional patrols in 2694. She was reported lost to a jump core malfunction that year."
"So someone fixed it for the Sons of Plunder." Seron speculated.
"I can't say. Those ships are in a mothball configuration," she told him. "They're coming out of it. They've got their transponders up, and Neutrino count says they've got about half the fusion toroids active. The Dart class is relatively weak, and the Essex 1 series were notoriously soft skinned ships. Based on progress and activity, I would say those JumpShip-mobile unpressurized yard structures are relatively recent arrivals, no more than maybe four to six months of work on getting those ships up and running."
"She'll be slow, but she carries six DropShips," Seron observed. "Would those be…"
"The Achilles class Assault DropShips in the adjoining docking structures? Probably. Two Achilles, two Pentagons, one Mule class and a Titan." Her avatar frowned, "the mule class is, at least, conventional, not a Q-Mule. It's a cargo hauler meant to carry spare parts and consumable stores."
"A conventional layout for a cruiser." Seron observed. "If Admiral Foster's lectures on SLDF doctrine hold true… But these are ships being prepared for operation, not ships already in operation."
"That would be suggested by the presence of three Aqueduct class Liquid Transport DropShips moored on the central spine of the gantry." she confirmed. "They are fueling them and preparing them for use, but the users are not yet aboard, or assigned. The ships are not ready."
"That means they are vulnerable," he said quietly. "For the moment, they are vulnerable."
"You said 'no heroics'." Joanna observed.
"We are not going to be doing heroics. This system is within a jump of Port Orphan, where there happens to be a destroyer group," he told her. "So, we send a report and wait for the Admiral to give the order."
"What is going through your mind, Captain Seron?"
"I'm thinking the Outworlds Alliance can use a couple more destroyers and a Cruiser if we can take the things intact." He smiled savagely, and added "Yo-Ho-Ho."
Gazing at Wonder[]
Port Orphan…
…orbited a black hole/dwarf sun binary. Kolossus was settled in the off-accretion disk of a planetary nebula forming around a young main-sequence star.
Amanda Roberts was looking at a Red Giant, with only her helmet's faceplate between her, and the majesty of a dying sun.
This stop-off was on the way to their target system, a last-chance recharge before plunging into areas that have not been charted on anyone's maps since the fall of the Star League.
An 'end run' to try and get behind the 'front lines' to locate the Sons of Plunder's actual supply routes and convoys.
Convoys they would have to have to support the raids into the Outworlds Alliance's core systems last year.
"You sit on the nose of your ship, sketching?" interrupted her admiration for the dying star several AU away, and she glanced around to find Sayah Yeh clinging to the safety rail.
"We're not in combat, nothing on sensors in a solar system at the end of its life." Amanda listed off. "Larry taught me how to wonder again… while we were doing a three week dive at a gas giant. Everything we think is so important, so big, so impossible to manage? The Universe is so much bigger than that."
Saya anchored her magnetic boots on the decking meant for shipyard inspectors, and joined her Captain. "Stargazing?"
"Aye." Amanda said mock-seriously. "The call of sea and stars, a good ship and a Letter of Marque. Out where we are free to be."
"Bad poetry as well?" the Goliath Scorpion officer asked lightly.
"Yah," Amanda confirmed. "Including the bad poetry, I guess."