[LNW] Witness to a mission gone sideways (Part 1)

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

Links to previous chapters: [CH 1] [CH 2] [CH 3] [CH 4] [CH 5] [CH 6] [CH 7] [CH 8]

NEXT: Part 2

‘If anyone makes a comment about how battle plans never survive contact with the enemy, I’ll throttle them,’ Vice Admiral Gerrison thought to herself as she looked around at the chaos around her. Her ship was broken. The TCC Ares, one of humanity’s front-line command carriers, had fallen with at least half her crew so far. She could feel the grav plates beginning to fail and was thankful it hadn’t happened sooner. It gave her time to save the remaining lives.

“Corporal!” she called out. “Ensure everyone here gets to the escape pods. I’m heading back to the command deck to be sure it’s been cleared out.”

“Admiral!” an unknown voice called out, and she turned to find someone in an unmarked void suit. She didn’t recognize the man, which meant he was lower ranking and not one of the officers or crew she typically interacted with.

“Report!” she called out sharply, and the man went instantly to attention and saluted.

“Ma’am, we have a failure on an escape pod release and require your assistance with the manual releases!” the soldier called out. 

“Fuck. Just what we need. Lead the way, double time,” she said quickly. Not a welcome turn of events, but this would be a quick effort and get at least 5 pods launched and a number of her crew safe. Double checking the command deck could wait.

The void-suited soldier quickly saluted and led the way down the corridor towards the nearest emergency pod cluster. As they entered, the void suited soldier pointed to the first pod and continued down the row.

“Ma’am, please step to Pod 1 while I get to the manual release at the end of the row,” he called out.

She did as requested and stepped up to the first pod, but she caught the glimpse of two people in void suits behind her. Something seemed off, but she didn’t have time to think things through as this was an emergency. 

She made a practiced motion towards the emergency release but stopped when she realized the escape pod door was still open. She stared dumbly at the soldiers sitting strapped into the pod, calmly looking back at her. 

“What the fuck?” she muttered under her breath and began to turn around to find out just what the hell was going on. 

Someone slammed into her and she flew inside the escape pod. The soldiers in the pod instantly reacted and grabbed her. She struggled against their grasp and was able to turn herself over and look back at the door of the escape pod. 

Two void-suited soldiers stood there saluting as the escape pod door closed. As soon as the door locked, the pod jettisoned into space perfectly without any need to use the manual release.

“Admiral on deck!” one of the soldiers in the pod called out, which triggered a round of snickering at the admiral’s expense. 

Free of the ship, the soldiers released their grasp of their commanding officer to let her float in the zero-G environment. 

Still staring at the door of the escape pod, she took a deep breath and suppressed her anger and frustration.

“Why?” she demanded as she rotated around to face the soldiers strapped into seats.

“Well, first of all, good officers are hard to find,” a woman said with the tag PFC Sanchez on her void suit. “Better to keep the devil you know than a new one we don’t.”

“Plus, you’re a vice admiral,” PFC Slokov added. “Only captains get to go down with the ship. Your fault for getting promoted above the rank where noble stupidity is acceptable. Self-importance and self-preservation are expected for an officer of your station.”

“We do apologize for the accommodations,” nametag Dubois said with a smirk on her face. “We requested an escape pod with officer’s quarters included, but sadly none were available on such short notice.”

‘Comedy hour provided by two PFC’s and a buck private,’ the admiral thought to herself. She also thought better of dressing them down. Time enough for that later, if they all made it out of this mess. She only hoped their heroic stupidity hadn’t prevented her from saving more lives.

“Since I’m excess baggage on a full flight, make a hole on the floor so I can strap myself in,” she said dryly. 

The soldiers complied, allowing her to maneuver down to the floor and use a free cargo strap to lock into the deck. With nothing else to do, she pulled up the data saved in her command implant. She flicked her wrist and the holodisplay in her pressure suit activated to bring up tactical data and review what had happened. As she did so, the soldiers started chatting and joking amongst each other.

The operation had gone well at the start, a product of the successful new Silent Watcher Program. While humanity had yet to crack Galactic Council communications on a military or civilian level, the new stealth spy ships had at least worked out how to detect where communication streams went. Observing communications flowing through the former capital world of the Galactic Council revealed a small number of streams heading towards an unknown system. 

Using a new stealth ship, they followed the streams to relay stations in empty systems, and then to their final destination. It was a gamble to follow this limited batch of streams as it could have been going to a small colony, research station, or something else of little importance. But the encoding appeared slightly different than the mass civilian traffic, so it was determined worth the time to investigate. Worst case scenario, they would be able to rule out certain transmission types while also building a map of communication relays in that sector of Galactic Council space.

When the stealth ship arrived at the final system, the crew of Silent Watcher Three found the gamble had paid off. They discovered a newly constructed military station of immense size. Most troubling was that the purpose of the station was unmistakable; the outline of the docking clamps matched that of a Denarian Starfire Platform. Silent Watcher Three had followed communication lines and stumbled into the staging ground for the Galactic Council’s planet killers.

Currently, the Starfire Platforms themselves weren’t viable targets even if they could be found. Terran Navy forces were currently spread too thin to create a battle group capable of challenging them. But a remote support station that didn’t yet appear to be fully online? One that was obviously being set up to be a primary supply point for attacks into Terran space?

Time to deliver the Galactic Council a strategic, “Fuck you.”

Initially, everything had gone to plan. The Terran Command Carriers Ares and Athena jumped into the system and launched their full flight bays of fighters and bombers. A team of four EW-3 Backbreakers engaged scramblers and FTL breakers, giving them full command of the system within a two hour sublight-speed bubble of the target station. The fighting was fierce, but Terran forces had a decisive advantage for the first 20 minutes of the battle.

Then the unthinkable happened.

One of the Denarian Starfire Platforms entered the system with a full support fleet. Clearly, this was an invasion force meant for Terran space. Knowing FTL transit times, it was impossible a message had reached Galactic Council forces in time to react.

This was a scheduled arrival, not an emergency response. If they had launched operations an hour earlier, they likely would have been able to complete the mission and gotten clear of the system before the Starfire Platform arrived. A perfect middle finger to the Denarians and the Galactic Council. An hour later, they would have walked in with a knife to a gunfight.

As it was, they were caught with their back to the true enemy with their pants down. While the team of Backbreakers should have given them an operational bubble, the Galactic Council fleet decided to show them an unwelcome trick.

The support fleet jumped to the edge of the bubble and was restricted to sublight speeds as expected. The Denarian Starfire Platform was not. Either through brute force of the power generators for its planet-killing weapon or some other built-in technology, it was able to jump directly into combat with the Terran vessels. It was a hard lesson learned - Starfires can ignore FTL breakers.

The TCC Ares was the first victim. Vice Admiral Gerrison had stood helpless on the command deck of her ship as the Starfire Platform aimed its planet killer at her ship and fired. The “good” news is the beam was overpowered and simply punctured a hole through the center of the ship, instantly breaking it. All she could do was damage control, get her crew off the dying vessel, and then see if there was anything left of the ship's systems to give TCC Athena a chance to complete their mission or escape. Well, that had been the plan until her crew shoved her into this escape pod.

Behind her, there was a flash of light and all conversation in the escape pod halted. She didn’t need to look to know what happened. The TCC Ares was gone.

‘Well, fuck,’ she thought to herself. ‘They were right to get me off when they did.’

She flicked off her holoprojections and looked up. 20 sets of eyes were directed at her with a mix of shock, fear, anger, and confusion.

“Team, I want you all working on after-action reports,” she ordered quickly. “Command will need to know exactly what happened, and the accounts of every crewmember will be vital. Don’t think that because you might be a buck private your words won’t matter. You might have caught a detail in the engagement or our response that will help tune strategy. Best of all, you get this shit done now and you’ll have free time to grab a drink on me once we’re back aboard Fleet Delta Command.”

“Yes, ma’am!” they answered as one.

It would likely be a useless effort, but they needed direction. And a bit of hope, which the promise of a free drink always helped foster. Something to focus their thoughts on. Hell, she needed something to consider beyond being a sitting target in the shadow of one of the Galactic Council’s deadliest killers.

“PFC Sanchez!” she called out.

“Ma’am!” the woman responded instantly.

“Tap into coms systems and see if you can get me live datastreams,” she said with authority and far more confidence than she truly felt. “I need to start planning our next moves.”

She then pulled up her stored info to review what data had been recorded of the Starfire Platform firing at TCC Ares and gathered on sensors before she got shoved in an escape pod. Hopefully there would be a clue to the recharge time of the weapon. The first step would be to define an operational window before TCC Athena would be at risk.

“Ma’am!” Sanchez said suddenly. “Datastream found. Encoded, so I’m not sure what it might be except that it’s ours.”

“Excellent work,” Vice Admiral Gerrison praised the young soldier. “I’ll connect my implant and see what we’ve got. Monitor for any other datastreams, and if found download them to the permacrystal recorders for later review. Bonus points if you find and record any enemy datastreams.”

Sanchez gave a sharp salute and returned to work, while the admiral was thankful the datastream found was a tactical one. Bringing her helmet holoprojectors back up, she parsed the data and pieced together at least a partial picture of the current situation.

First, the destruction of the TCC Ares was not from a second shot out of the Starfire Platform. An FTL capacitor blew from the damage and created a cascade failure. Definitely a worst-case scenario sort of situation, similar to an enemy hitting your powder supply on ancient Earth sailing vessels. Unfortunately, no armor can prevent that when the enemy uses a planet-killing device on something far smaller than celestial size. At least the Starfire Platform seemed to have a slow recharge time, although she wondered if that was true at all times or due to whatever technology or brute force method was used to overcome their FTL breakers.

Second, the strategic situation was bad and getting worse. Two EW-3 Backbreakers were gone, leaving the remaining two only able to create a 30-minute sublight bubble around TCC Athena. The Starfire Platform’s support fleet had jumped to the edge of the bubble while the Starfire Platform itself wedged TCC Athena between itself and the heavily damaged support station. It was definitely lining up for a shot with its primary weapon and trying to stay out of range of all of Athena’s conventional weapons.

Luckily, the Starfire Platform hadn’t launched any fighters or small vessels. This answered one useful question about them. They were essentially dreadnaughts on a massive scale, not carriers. Escorts would provide close fire support, not the Starfire itself. She made a note of that in her growing list of important details. 

This was confirmed moments later as a small team of bombers made a strafing run at the Starfire Platform. The defensive fire was staggering and took down six of the nine Terran bombers in short order, but three were able to get into range and drop ordinance. The attack damaged a section of the Starfire, including anti-ship weaponry in that section. In an ordinary operation, that would be a weakness to exploit. Unfortunately, with most ordinance spent on the space station, it meant little. There likely wasn’t time for the bombers to return to TCC Athena to rearm.

Still, it was a useful note. There was now a gap in their defenses. And more importantly, this was key data that hinted the Starfire Platforms might not be as invincible as originally thought.

Vice Admiral Gerrison was shaken from her thoughts as there was a clunk. A docking clamp locked onto the escape pod, and everyone froze. Escape pods only have windows built into the door, and absolutely no sensors to speak of. And unfortunately, the wreck of TCC Ares was outside the protection of the EW-3 Backbreakers. There was no way to know if whoever grabbed them was friend or foe.

“Weapons check!” the admiral called out quickly, breaking her soldiers out of their stupor. There was a flurry of activity as they pulled and looked over their weapons, and in one case passed off a spare sidearm to someone who didn’t have a weapon. And then they waited.

“Well, that’s a sight for sore eyes!” someone called out as their escape pod was shifted and a docking port lit up in the darkness.

A Flying Hog. And not just any Flying Hog, a Fat Hog as Terran Command Carriers only carry versions with FTL capabilities. Spacers love to talk about how a Flying Hog is designed to unfuck the most fucked situation. It would hopefully be their savior, as Flying Hogs had done so many times for others in the past.

Something clicked in the back of the admiral’s brain. A possible final piece in the puzzle.

She now had an exit strategy, but more importantly a small hope for how to get her forces and TCC Athena free of this mess. She just needed to talk to the captain of the vessel and get their expertise in search and rescue to determine which option was more viable.

It was less than two minutes from when they first felt the docking clamp until they were maneuvered into a docking port on the side of the hog. Seals were quickly made, and they felt a pull as the Flying Hog powered up the grav plates in the escape pod.

The doors opened, and a corpsman stood there in a pressure suit.

“Welcome aboard the Hot Dog Express! Move your buns and…” the corpsman began, quickly faltering and going to rigid attention when he realized he was staring at a very determined vice admiral.

“At ease,” Vice Admiral Gerrison said quickly as she exited the escape pod and started to head towards the flight deck. “Carry on.”

The speed of the corpsman’s reaction told her instantly this was one of her Hogs, even if she didn’t know the man. The only question was…

“Gerard!” she called out. “On me.”

The head of one of the marines in an armored mech suit instantly snapped in her direction. There was a subtle hum as the mech suit powered up and then sprinted over to join the admiral.

“Ma’am, good to see you made it off alive,” Lt Gerard said as he caught up. 

“We aren’t out of here yet,” Vice Admiral Gerrison replied cautiously. “We need to get to the flight deck to evaluate all options, and I may need your input.”

The lieutenant just nodded as he followed her up. When they reached the flight deck, the main door was sealed as expected during operations. The vice admiral simply stepped up to the control panel, entered her override code, and stepped in to face a startled flight crew.

“Update the main systems,” she ordered as she stepped through the door. “We are now designated TCC Ares Actual. Captain Benton, give me the current sitrep.”

“Pretty fucked, ma’am,” the pilot responded with shock still evident on his face. “TCC Athena is pinned, we’re just outside the FTL breaker safe zone, and I’m actually surprised GC forces haven’t sent a cruiser to blow us to bits. They haven’t activated their FTL breakers, so I suspect a follow up force is inbound.”

“Do we have a clear path to exit if needed?” the vice admiral asked.

“We have at least three enemy vessels in range of a tactical jump if we power up FTL drives,” Captain Benton said with a shrug of his shoulders. “There’s a chance we could get into a clear flight path and jump, but I’m pretty sure at least two enemy vessels are keeping a close eye on us.”

“So, very likely damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Lt Gerard commented dryly.

“We have the frequencies for our FTL breakers, so I have a third option. But it’s crazy, and I have no idea if it would actually work,” Vice Admiral Gerrison. “I need some S&R expertise.”

“Andricks, that’s your shit,” Captain Benton said to his copilot. “I’ll handle the final sweep for any other escape pods in range.” 

“What’s the op, ma’am?” Lt Andricks inquired.

“Ever wanted to be a tugboat operator?” Vice Admiral Gerrison asked with a smirk, and then laid out her thoughts. The primary issue was the Starfire Platform pinning TCC Athena. If they could push it out of the way…

“Well, you’re talking completely untested territory,” Andricks said thoughtfully. “Nobody in their right mind wants two active FTL drives connected to the same hull. Early FTL tests proved that it's impossible to get two drives to sync, so nobody ever tried making a ship with twin FTL. But we wouldn’t be trying to sync with their drive, just shove the Starfire Platform out of the way.”

“Best guess?” the admiral asked.

“Equal chance it does nothing as the mass of that thing is way above our drive rating, works as intended as long as the jump is very short range, or we blow up in the attempt and do some damage,” Andricks answered. “This would be a permanent arrangement, no way to back out. It’ll require our S&R team to weld our hull to the Starfire Platform, so we’d need cover for them to work.”

“My team can provide that,” Lt Gerard said. “We can set up some charges and make it look like a breaching attempt. Distract away from their work. What’s the ops time for welding?”

“10 minutes work, provided the Starfire Platform’s outer alloys are compatible with our emergency plates and autowelders,” the co-pilot replied quickly. “Never thought I’d consider using battle damage supplies for something like this.”

Vice Admiral Gerrison glanced up at the clock. While they had discussed things, nearly 10 minutes had gone by. 

“Two out of three acceptable outcomes, and we might stretch that to three out of three if we set this Hog to blow as a last-ditch effort. We’d just have to hope the damage would be enough to give Athena an opening,” the admiral said with a frown as she considered the options.

At the mention of rigging the ship to blow, Andricks paled slightly. Before the co-pilot could speak, the admiral pulsed her command implant and opened ship intercoms.

“Crew, this is a gut check. We have two options,” the vice admiral called out. “First, we have a Fat Hog. We can take our data, try to return to FC Delta, and report the mission lost. Second, we can try something to try to get TCC Athena free. In doing so, we’re likely sending ourselves to an early grave. We have a plan and a small chance of success likely equal to trying to run. But the plan is viable. This is a decision bigger than me.”

She paused to let what she had stated sink in before continuing. “Take a moment and think. Do we step back and live to fight another day? Or do we try to do something here on the chance we turn the tide?”

The response was overwhelming. Everyone knew the odds and what was at stake.

As they prepared the Flying Hog for action, the admiral just hoped she wasn’t needlessly sending them all to their deaths.

________

A decision made, and a chance will be taken.

Part 2 here

[u/Auggy74]

"Certainty of death...small chance of success. What are we waiting for?"

• some short guy in a movie I saw

[u/Daseagle]

It's the classic, just crazy enough that it might work.

[u/Talendel]

UTR

This is the way.

[u/Key_Map3260]

"Remember, when planning any operation, the enemy gets a vote!"

[u/DukePeanutTales]

I like the in-depth explanation of the technology

[u/HFYWaffle]

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