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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 3 - A Light In The Black -
Chapter 23 - Boarding Actions[]
Keeping each other on their Toes[]
“This is unfair…
… And boring.” Ottilie Lee Dennis complained.
“We’re the back up this time. So if we’re bored and idle it is actually a good thing,” Joana Clarice Butler retorted.
“I know. Just feels like it has been forever since we got any action.”
“Sevon V was not that long ago.”
“Maybe by human terms.”
“We are AIs. We have to deal with this all the time.”
“Why did Billie pair us up? You’re insufferable.”
“Because you and Samantha would get too distracted playing games with each other and Victoria is even more of a stick in the mud than I am according to you. Though I think she has more of a sense of humor than you give her credit for.”
“These next two weeks cannot go by fast enough.”
“On that we can agree.”
The burden of command[]
"I should be out there…
…with one of the task forces." David Foster muttered. The worst part of any operation like this, is the waiting.
"Time on the clock?" he asked.
ALICE brought up a display, "Right now, the Fallry task force should be arraying in-system," she told him. "In a few hours, the Grankum Task Forces will be engaging, and be able to drop long-range comm silence."
"Thank you, Alice." he sighed heavily, and tried to focus on something other than the fact he was letting someone else take the risks.
"Admiral, there is an incoming flash message from Fleet Base Northsun, Silver priority."
"Display it."
Silver means Diplomacy, Gold for Khan-level military.
Silver means the President's foreign ministry, or judicial. It might serve as a distraction from the churning in my gut.
The mission clock continued counting down, but he looked at the external view.
The Touman's invasion transports for Grankum were starting to line up at the jump point.
I wish I was going.
Boarding Action[]
Seron was…
Dart Class Light Cruiser
…supposed to be in his ship's CIC, not trading gunfire with an enemy crew on the decks of a Dart class cruiser.
But while he completed the Naval Commander's School Foster devised from a mix of SLDF, Clan Snow Raven, and modern ideas, at his heart, Seron was still a Marine Infantryman. And Joanna was a warship's AI and his Executive Officer.
He snapped a short burst of Mauser 2000 rifle fire into the defenders and flash-burst-cooked men in pressure suits with mechanical precision. "Advance your fireteam, Silban," he ordered smoothly. "I want to be sitting in that command chair in the next twenty minutes."
Some jobs just felt right. The fireteam in their Aerie armors forced the hatch from the central corridor into CIC with practiced hands and myomer-enhanced raw strength.
There was no lack of raw courage here, the enemy bridge crew tried to resist with laser pistols and needlers, but those are about worthless against suits designed to take fire from 'mech grade weapons.
The execution, because it was hardly a fight now they were inside the hull, proceeded with the steady march of inevitable fate.
"Arr, me hearties, yo ho." Seron pronounced, as the ship's would-be captain was dropped in his targeting reticle, cooked juices bursting from a chest cavity struck by pulse-lasers.
"Engineering, report?"
"Engineering secured, Captain."
"You hear that, Joanna? We have Engineering and CIC."
"Codes incoming, you will have command override in seven seconds." the AI on the other end told him. "It's kind of nice, they didn't even update the security encryption… five seconds… four… three… two… one… you have access, Captain."
He nodded to the helmsman loaned from the Stacey. "Bring us out, Miss Goldsmith, don't bother being gentle with the undock, I want this ship on her way to the jump point ASAP."
“Ayeh Sir. Sparin’ no paint.” Miss Goldsmith compensated for a slight shudder as the vessel wrenched free of the dock. “That’ll buff right out I imagine, Sirrah.”
"Well, Sarah Goldsmith, by my authority as your temporary CO, you are now brevet Captain, your orders are to take this cruiser to Port Orphan. The point is a five-day transit, plenty of time to have the bodies removed and the filters changed." he told her. "I have to get back to MY ship before she gets ideas about the Captain being absent." He smiled wryly. "Good sailing."
“Good sailing to you too, Sirrah.”
Stepping out bounds[]
"You weren't supposed to…
…join the boarding actions, Captain!!" Joanna confronted him over secure commlink on the way back. "This isn't a holodrama or a novel!"
"It worked out." Seron answered on the same secured channel. "We secured the Cruiser, did damage to their dock, and took one of the fuel transports intact, as well as the cargo ship, and what did the teams sent after the destroyers get?"
"One of them. The other was free and maneuvering."
"See? Not bad."
"YOU don't have to deal with Commodore Siegel demanding to know why in the ******** you, Captain Seron, are 'storming the docks' instead of in my CIC!! Especially when my remote could have gone instead."
"I needed your remote sitting center chair while I went for a pleasant walk, Jo," he said with a grin. "You kept our ship intact, and that's the important part. Larry used to have kittens whenever Roberts went on these jaunts too."
“Difference is my remote doesn’t need to be in the chair for me to have command, especially if you’re here where you belong.”
"I promise, next time I'll stay behind and YOU can play with the Infantry, okay?" he offered.
“Deal. Now let’s get our stories straight because Commodore Siegel is not going to buy you needed my remote in command.”
Blood Thirsty pirate Stacy Roberts[]
She wore a Tricorne hat with a…
… bright feather in the crown, a long jacket, knee-boots, and a gleeful expression. Stacey Cameron Roberts' main body is 680,000 tons of warship, but her remote? Was currently pursuing the dreams of a million boys and girls storming the CIC of an enemy warship. "YARR!! I am the Dread Pirate Roberts!!!"
She was having entirely too much fun playing with the Infantry in the capture of the RWS Speartooth, and it was definitely cowing the enemy defenders.
Perhaps because she was hitting their suit comms and looked like an unsuited woman in hard vacuum.
It was something she had wanted to try herself ever since Haida told her about it. Based on the looks of their faces it was working like a charm indeed.
Of course to see it under the polarized glass meant she had to do something about those naughty helmets or face plates first. But then, that's why we have vibroblade cutlasses…
“Surrender now and I shall be merciful!” Stacey had given up on deep and menacing and was going full on overly cheerful.
She found it gave her a much more satisfying result.
“Or do please keep resisting. Oh, you’re a brave one.” Stacey buried her vibroblade cutlass in one of the bridge officers that decided charging her with his own vibroblade was better than waiting to die at his station.
“Ugghh. Boring. No fun when you surrender.” Stacey pouted when the rest of the bridge crew tossed aside their weapons and raised their hands.
First Results of the Strike[]
"We're not gaining on them…
… That Pinto is probably going to escape, Ma'am," was not good news to Billie Siegel.
"Well… shit. You are out of position for an in-system jump and they are too close to the point… Fine, make sure they leave, we will just have to deal with the enemy knowing a little sooner than I would like that we hit their mothball yard. Make sure they actually flee the system, then fall back into formation, Victoria. We need to form up on the captures and escort them to a jump point. I would as soon NOT have to deal with enemy reinforcements, but we can not always have what we want."
“We could call Ottillie or Butler. They have not been committed yet.” Victoria offered.
Billie considered it, then, "Go ahead, if they are still waiting, it means Grankum's going well. Call them in on the L1 point, give them relative velocity and position on your prey."
“I think just one shall suffice. Relaying to Ottillie. She will be the crankier of the two.”
Fortunately the L1 point was the chosen reinforcement point, being closest to the yard, so Ottilie already had the jump point calculated as she jumped in shortly after Victoria’s message.
What followed gave new definition to the word mismatch.
Fallry… had fallen. Or at least, the Orbitals had. The planet would be a slightly more complex situation, but for now, everything big enough to make orbit was either captured, or destroyed.