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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 3 - A Light In The Black -
Chapter 34 - Aftermath: Continued[]
Plotting the next Caper[]
"They… what?"
"They named the Monsoon class Battleship, the Helena Cameron." Luther Bedwyr said casually, "They named it after your boss."
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Monsoon Class Battleship
The SLS Billie Hoel was flying wingman for this leg of the trip to Port Orphan, a bit of a necessity considering the condition of OWS Capricious after a near miss by a surface launched nuclear anti-shipping missile.
“Oh this is not going to go over well at all. She’s going to be deploying her hammer for that and ringing someone’s bell.”
"You mean, she has a bigger hammer than you??" he was openly surprised.
“Much. I’m under orders to keep it something of a surprise. With any luck it might show up at Port Orphan about the time we do. She was already planning on using it for the final battle. Now she might break it out a bit early.”
"Not to be a pest, but… with the internal links knocked out and her remote broken, how is Sikh doing?" he asked. "I can't get a response from her directly until we get repairs, and I'm not sure I can trust it when most what we get from the systems is machine code."
“She’ll need a bit of repair work herself, but she’s still in there and intact. As long as we don’t run into more trouble it’ll be fine.”
"You can send to Fleet, we've got confirmed radiation burns and we're using emergency chelation on affected crew." He was back to 'officer' mode. "We didn't get that missile Soon Enough, at least, for us, it's just luck it was a near miss and not a contact burst."
“Acknowledged.”
"You know, Foster's probably having kittens-we were supposed to pull out but when those batteries opened up it was all hands on deck, and a Bonnie has the thrust-to-weight to get in there for screening, we made the call."
“He’ll understand that, but yes I expect he’ll also demand a pound of flesh, or in Sikh’s case a pound of silicon.”
Bedwyr sighed, "I'm going to lose my command over this…"
“I very much doubt that. He’ll work you over to make sure you learned from this but, I don’t think he’ll dismiss you from command.”
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New version of Bille Hoel's Human-like avatar of the AI
"I cocked it up, Billie." Luther said. "We almost lost Sikh entirely in the Radiation pulse, and half my crew got major doses right through the hull."
“I went with numbers from a combat algorithm based on SLDF doctrines that are okay with losing M5s in job lots and I’m still here because I learned from that mistake. And Sikh says she misses you too. But don’t read too much into that. My bet is actually on Cossack jumping that particular line first for us AIs”
"Thanks, we've about finished the jump computations, mind having a look and checking our numbers? I don't want to end up in a black hole coming home."
“Of course.”
Sneaking to the Prize[]
"This… is a horrible…
…idea I had." Amanda Roberts noted. "Saya, range to the target?"
"Four more hours at current thrust, if you can call it that," Saya Yeh said. "You should be on the ship."
"And miss the fun?" Amanda shook her head. "Lori has the Conn on the Evanescent because this is boarding work, and we're stealing another ship."
"A freighter."
"A freighter bound to have Marines aboard and military supplies on the docked DropShips." Amanda corrected. "Hence the full court press of our Marine complement and all our assault shuttles, wrapped in Mister Samuel's patented… okay, not patented so much as pirated, detection proof blankets, powered by Mister Samuel's improved Ion Thrusters tested and proven to be ninety nine percent effective against long range detection by SLDF standard sensors."
'We're crawling."
"Yeah, but we're crawling unobserved!"
"It's taking forever, in a proper fighter, or hell, even a proper shuttle, we would already be there!!"
"Soothe, Saya, soothe… yes, and they'd know we were on the way, and be ready for us," Amanda said cockily. "This way, they don't know we're coming until we're already drinking their beer."
"Coming? I am not even breathing hard."
"You'll have your fun, trust me. We're going to seize their Booty."
“Much more of this dirty talk and I may really need to couple after this mission.”
"Trina says there's an Elemental Marine who's been eyeing you. I understand he's built like a tunnel boring machine." Amanda commented. "That's what she says anyway."
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Tramp Class JumpShip
“I just may keep that in mind.”
In the windscreen of the Mark VIII, a Tramp class JumpShip with three docked DropShips sporting SLDF Materiel Command markings loomed.
Looking for Trouble[]
They'd been here…
… for a week. The drive was charged, but the orders to Bannerhoft had been suspended in the aftermath of a major military disaster there, and Pierre didn't know where the load of military spares and munitions would be called for yet.
News was scarce, and orders from Fleet Command were no doubt delayed due to another round of 'aggressive reorganization' by Her Majesty the Basileus.
"Anything yet?"
"System Control hasn’t forwarded anything but 'remain where you are and await orders', sir."
He felt exposed here, the Nadir point stations were minutes to hours away, depending on which one, due to the need to avoid having a station vaporized by incoming traffic at a sloppy angle, and the fighter patrols weren't due to pass through for another four hours.
"Keep monitoring for thermal blooms. That murderous pirate is out here, 'Roberts', and I don't want to try breathing vacuum if I can help it."
The breach alarms went off almost like magic, and Pierre's worst nightmare suddenly came true.
"Everybody on the deck NOW!!!" followed by pulsing laser fire raking the bridge…
The Killer Reborn[]
The Hijack…
…was over in minutes. The defending forces, including crew and infantry, were unarmored and facing men and women clad in battlesuits that made their low-power lasers, light projectile weapons, and needlers worthless.
"Secured, send to Evanescent that we've got the ship, we'll meet them at the rendezvous… they were nice enough to charge the drive for me and everything! Isn't that considerate?"
Saya was seeing a slightly different person in Roberts now-the person who basically executed the bridge crew with a vibroblade and pistol in less time than most warriors could draw a pistol.
“Was the singing really necessary?”
"It was a distraction," Amanda said. "Jumping in five… four… three…"
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\Discontinuity/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Saya was standing in a close, claustrophobic room, watching men conduct surgery.
"This better work this time, we're running out of subjects."
"It’ll work! She won't remember her own name!"
The patient screamed and tore free of her restraints. Saya watched her systematically murder each of the surgical team using random objects, surgical tools, anything in reach. Then the girl…just a girl, not old enough to even DREAM of her trial of position, started closing her own skull using a mirror and what tools she hadn't ruined…
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\Discontinuity/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Fu…Wow!" Amanda was… no, this was Captain Roberts now. "That one was intense!! WHOOO!!!"
“Uggh.. usually need necrosia for such visions, and such headaches…”
"Oh, babies… bleh. Checking our coordinates… we're at the rendezvous and …"
There was a thermal bloom off portside, as Evanescent arrived.
"Let's have a look at what we stole!" Roberts grinned widely.
Two hours later, they knew.
"Well, if at first you don't succeed…" Amanda observed. "We're not going to be short of food or medicines at least. Not sure what to do with the tanks though, and I don't think any of the Battlemech parts are going to work with Trina's Protomechs." She rolled a coin between her fingers, "I guess we just have to steal another one and hope it's got what we need."
"Wait, you want to do this again?"
Amanda shrugged, "Sure, why not? Though you're right, and we'll get a lot from the auction if we cut our losses and burn for home with a prize crew on the Tramp, instead of making another play. What do you think, Lori?"
"As Quartermaster, I vote we cut losses and make for home with what you stole, Captain," Lori stated. "We need ammunition, the crew needs surface time, and we still need to send the report and get a read receipt."
"And Saya? Trina? Chester? Samuel? Do you agree?"
"Prize crew and go home," Samuel said. "They're going to be ready for us to try the same trick twice."
"I had fun, I would like to do that more often," Trina stated. "But militarily, heading for port is the smarter move."
“The Warrior in me says try again but the officer training I have been receiving says cut losses and go home. Seeing how things played out for the Warriors of the Clans, I vote cut losses and go home.”
Chester, the Marine commander, furrowed his huge brow and said, "I vote we cut losses. We are exposed out here, and have insufficient munitions in a ship fight, and while I am confident in being able to storm any ship, anywhere, at any time, manpower has limits. We need to report in."
"You all are no fun at all sometimes. Fine. Lori, detail out a prize crew to helm the freighter, we're going home."
This the End of Book 3, turn the pages too Book 4: Strategos Conclusion!