Chapter 28 - The Advisor[]
New Syrtis Combat Training Centre
New Syrtis Star System
Federated Suns
3156
[New Officer Tactical Training, Cycle 1...]
Tera had chosen the pardon, and she had no intention of looking back. She was in a classroom with the kind of officers who used to chase her...and not for a date.
"Lukassi! Your analysis?" the instructor, Lt. Colonel Foche, demanded.
"Sir! The best transit point into the system shown, is not labeled, Sir."
"I know that, where is it?"
She touched a compact image on her tablet with the stylus, and carefully marked a comet on a deep dive into the system. "Here,sir. Duration is fifteen minutes when it crosses the orbit of the fifth planet. That puts our emergence wave hitting the enemy patrol ships with EMP and thermal, we'll recover faster and be in position for raking fire against both the dropships before the Vengeance Carrier Dropship can launch her fighters."
"That's a loud approach, what's the stealth approach?" Foche asked.
"Here, this group of asteroid. The period is predictable and the window is eight minutes every three hours, or, if you want to risk a collision, the center of the rosette is stable on a constant, and large enough to pass a Merchant or Tramp class JumpShip. Another stealth insertion is possible at several points around the system's gas giants, particularly La Grange points not aligned with observation from planetside early warning or zenith and nadir early warning installations. If we stick with the six minute base window, I can find twenty or thirty probable entry vectors. In my...prior career, the priority was fast smash and grab, there are twenty probable points for delivering a Union Dropship with a company of 'Mechs before most early warning sats pick us up with a surveillance ship, it's more like a hundred, Sir."
Foche nodded, "The rest of you, Cadet Lukassi has predicted the largest number of probable entry points on her quiz. Her calculations check out with known KF theory and physics and I am very disappointed in those of you who managed to be outdone by her...which is all of you. You may take comfort in knowing that for this examination, the writer specified that a full answer covers roughly twice the number of locations that Cadet Lukassi marked down. This scenario actually happened over the Lyran world of Melissia during the counter-invasions of 3148 and 49. The writer of the scenario participated and used her own calculations and solutions as the basis for the exam. I will now run the composited actual events, based on logs, sensor data, and weapons-camera footage, at one hundred times speed so we aren't spending the next week watching what they actually did, and what their opponents did in response."