Approach to Volken
Dragoon XLU-1
The standard type of Imperial Starforce dragoon was non-existent. However, the regulations that covered Starforce units had an extensive chapter on sub-light parasite warships. The most common dragon type was effectively equivalent to vector beam destroyer with faster engines, and much cheaper to build. The most common design was the SF53 Longspear class first designed three hundred and twenty one years ago, by the Forgewright Corporation at the Ring in Starholm. Their base hull was effectively a flying brick that was often customized by the more ascetically concerned noble Starforce officers to look good when fighting, and consists primarily of weapon modules on the fore and side of the craft, a cramped command and engineering space and massive oversize Klayston MK35 dual-core half-drive system which consisted about forty percent of the mass, a price to pay for being one of the fastest real time drive units in space.
However, currently Major Tahminah Mina bint Yasmin al-Lasalle was not using the high speed of her dragoons, as she was currently keeping them in formation slightly ahead but still within the protective envelopment of the Regiment's combine defenses as they sped towards the incoming lancers as they made their way towards the enemy mothership. Already her command plot was picking up three waves of missiles fired from long range, ugly combination of the fact superior Brethen technology and the fact they were closing on them.
In the virtual and holodramas in the Empire, they would make dragoon commanders out like aerospace fighters, controlling the entire craft from a single cockpit. The truth was more complicated, true there was a cockpit in the helm station located in the fore of the craft, Tahminah however as the commander of the dragoon sat in a mini CIC in the middle on wireframe deck over ontop of fire control and sensors in the pit below, surrounded on all side by holographic windows displaying an overwhelming amount of data, though her chair could slide into wall it was backed up against and turn into a secondary cockpit for control if she wanted to take personal command or escape pod if the dragoon blew up, which long ago she had resigned herself to the possibility that would probably happen someday. Dragoons despite her enthusiasm for the concept were ultimately attritional units, quick to build and manufacture compared to a comparable destroyer.
She tapped a communication key and opened up a tacline to her squadron, [[We're quickly approaching weapon range, you all got your assigned targets, keep frosty and do it like we practice, remember no predictable vectors, and once you get them in range try and lure them away from the fleet.]] she pauses, this isn't her first battle she been in, when she was a cornet she saw several weeks of fighting on the Red Line on-board a cavalry cruiser, but this was the first time she was commanding a dragoon squadron in battle. [[Remember, to shoot to kill and show the pirates no mercy. Ad Victorium!]]
She adjusted her long black braided hair quickly before tapping the seal on the side of shipsuit collar, causing the smart material to slide up and form a transparent helmet with HUD features, as the ship began to depressurize for combat. At the moment she can only watched and wait as the first strike of the battle approached, helpless till the lancers got into range.
~~~
Command Cruiser Falymndir
Arguably the Falymndir was the most important ship in the formation. Over one and half times the size of the heavy cruisers if still smaller than the fast battleship the Princess held her flag on, the Command Cruiser was testament to every tech advancement that the Phoenix Empire had put into a ungainly hulk of a ship. Dotted with sensor arrays ranging from mundane radar and lidar, to esoteric drive wave directors and graviometric arrays, the staggering amount of data was feed into supercomputers where several bound limited AIs working in parallel translated the raw information into something that was useful. Which then was feed to the plot of the flagship and to captain of the ship, one Captain Jimba Gulan-Hasert, a rare commoner and non-noble in the Starforce, and one of the rising stars handpicked by Duke Feril some months before sending the Princess out on this voyage.
Captain Gulan-Hasert was painfully thin looking man with premature white hair peppering his dirty blond mop, he kept in some order, and alternated between a martinet with his crew when they failed and good nature almost jester like figure when they succeeded, and so while crew of the Falymndir was one that seemed superficially licentious and wild like many Starforce units, they were also equally very good at their jobs when the time came, as nobody wanted to be punished like the troublemakers where the first weeks of him taking command.
The CIC of the command cruiser looked more control station for a ground base or fortress, seven levels of workstations rising up on top of each other connected by steps cutting through middle of them, to the apex where the captain and several of the chief analysis stood, directing the flow of data to relevant destinations. Right now most of the computing power was directed to organizing the regiment's point defenses. Over thirty heavy missiles in three salvos had been fired by the Rifters and the first were due to arrive... now.
Dedicated point defense vector beams along with main batteries opened fired across the regiment, acetonic blue lights arcing out at the streaking flares of antimatter driven destruction, silencing over half their number, but the first wave impacted into the heavy cruiser Triumphant, shields flaring briefly in a single moment before getting explosively overloaded and shorting out allowing the last remaining to impact its hull, controlled burst of AM, shredding armor segments off its hull, and scorching the exterior. Already damage control systems and teams were out in force, directing drones to replace burnt out sensor and vector beam alignment discs, as the regiment moved to engage the second wave. Gulan-Hastert resisted the urge to bite his fingernails as he watched the ships engage again, unable to affect change.
Missiles came screaming in though on a different target this time, however this time despite the loss of the Triumphant's defenses working with the network was far less successful strike, only smashing the shields of the Terrible and doing minor damage to armor. The third wave then came in aimed at the third heavy cruiser Trident, knocking down its shields again, but again little damage. One look at the plot and Gulan-Hastert could see the strategy, the enemy lancers would soon be on them and while lances were devastating against unshielded opponents, they were merely short range lasers against ship with shields up.
"Captain, we're picking up heat build up on the enemy mothership, its obviously starting the preparation for firing its siege canon." an analyst cried out from the third level of the CIC.
"Lock onto the heat source and tie in the fleet missile targeting coordinates, and initiate launch as soon we're in range." Gulan-Hastert ordered, placing his hands against the plot and leaning against it as the ships crossed the invisible point in space that allowed for reasonable chance of a firing lock.
Across the regiment, even as the lancers were zooming into weapon's range, silo bays and hatched opened up, streaking out of their launches propelled by drive fields that emitted enough radiation and bad exotic particles to melt a person in less then five seconds, flew out past the fleet, and then past the incoming wave of lancers, whose smart systems fired their point defenses as they past, and then the enemy mothership, which distressing had higher then projected levels of point defense. However, the missile strike had caused the enemy reinforce power to the shields, causing the heat-build up to die down, at least buying the regiment time to deal with the lancers.
"Collate data from the first strike, we got lucky to get so many on target and I am pretty sure we were on the verge of the burnout, but I want next strike to go down their goddamn throats. Also move us in closer to the Terrible and..."
"Incoming new missile strike from the mothership target: Triumphant!"
"Damn it how many missiles can it shoot during a battle?" Gulan-Hastert wondered, and would find out to his dismay, a lot.
~~~
Lancer Caller-of-Darkness
Caller-of-Darkness had been born into the Deep Black. Born in one of the off the books Rifter deep space colonies that everybody knew about but never talked about because it wasn't what Rifter society pretended to be, it was a home to radical ultrahumanists that had pushed boundaries beyond even which the more libertine of the Rifter society would deemed allowable, Caller had been born of an experiment to see about melding of man and machine to greater heights and their entire body since they were decanted had been this lancer unit, the pitiful atrophied body floating in a tank long ago discarded and forgotten about.
They felt so much more then their pitiful humanoid brethen and felt sorry for them, let alone the baselines that their brothers and sisters fed upon, so they told themselves that the joy they felt from killing was a good joy that it was merely cleaning up the universe of undesirable sacks of fleshlings. Right now they were leading a pod of three of other its siblings on a course to intercept the enemy dragoons, while the other more human lancers focused on the taking down the weakened cruisers before the shields came up.
Long ranger lasers flared at the pod, whose superior ECM, and maneuverability and instinct from their nature allowed them to dodge or tank the hits on their reinforced shields before shifting power back to weapons. Caller noticed that their more human brethren assaulting the Starforce main line had suffered more, with several damage lancers and two outright destroyed by the impressive gunnery from the battleship. The lancer considered how much joy it would be to kill that ship, but remembered the orders from Tuk that that ship was to be left along to be burnt by the plasma canon before getting boarded.
Their attention was on the incoming Longspears which were coming as their vector beams cycled, however acceleration and distance would mean that the lancers would be on them in range before they could fire again. Then they looked at horror as the lead dragoon designation changed from Longspear to ??? as it fired salvo of three missiles on direct fire sprint mode straight at it.
They were howling at the unfairness of it all as the missile strike came straight home against its unshielded hull before the true darkness over took them. The Starforce had after-all only regulations on minimum standards for dragoons. A dragoon bought by overprotective parents and lords of Douai-Samarkand saw that the dragoon their oldest daughter had brought with her into Starforce career before hopefully returning home to rule could eat anything less than a cruiser alive for breakfast.
~~~
Heavy Cruiser Triumphant
Captain Daryl Everlight, heir to the Barony of Everlight, knew his ship was in trouble as the surprise missile salvo from the Rifter mothership impacted into his battered cruiser again despite the hellacious point defense fire that Gulan-Hastert had been helping to direct, as the wave of lancers that had made it past the skirmish line was dancing around his cruiser firing their lancers sending high velocity armor piercing shards into cruiser's vulnerable interior.
"Combine sensor arrays 1-5 gone, Missile bays one to three are inoperable, vector beam array three is toast, shield generators are not responding to command, presume total burnout, we're losing drive strength and will be slowing down. And the enemy is coming around for another attack after hitting the Terrible." his XO, Senior Lieutenant Lady Samantha Hellstrom-Hou, third daughter of the Hereditary Director of Tulbrain replied in person, clutching the bloody stump where her was lost. He would say she should be in the med bay, but that had been lost along with fire control and her arm. The painkillers and suit autodoc would keep her alive and functional, though if they survived she was going to have a major crash.
"Kill the drives, and direct full power to the vectors and target the lead lancer once we have a clear shot." Between the sensors fritzing out, the loss of the datalink with the command cruiser, and lancers hugging the larger ship closes, and the sensor obscuring effects of battle, they had lost sight of their prey.
"Aye..." she didn't get to finish the statement as the ship shook and the lights went dead as she fell onto the floor, followed by sound of explosions vibrating the deck. Emergency power kicked back on and interior datanet showed up. Half the ship was only reporting in, and for a good reason, a lancer shot had just bifurcated the middle of the Triumphant.
"That lost shot snapped us in half." Everlight winced, and then thumbed all hands channel, "All hands, all hands abandoned ship, repeat abandon ship." he reached down and offered hand to Hellstrom-Hou's good arm, and got her back on the feet before draping it around his shoulder and heading to nearest pod himself. Two terrifying moments later he got to nearest unlaunched pod and maneuvered her inside before stepping out to make sure the rest of the CIC crew was getting to pods, before looking out the porthole and hoping that battle was going better for the regiment then it did his ship.
~~~
Black Brethren Mothership Darselitz's Blade
Gorutian Tuk swore as the last of his first wave of lancers died, having accomplished only killing one of the enemy heavy cruisers and damaging a couple of their destroyers. Thankfully as the battle had started turn against them, it convinced the stragglers on the planet now wasn't the time to steal his loot but band together with him to deal with the incoming threat. He had five left, four from the planet, and fifth one that had been hastily been put back together after it was in his hangar bay for refit when the raid broke. At the moment his mothership was still firing missiles, the benefit of his ship being so huge, it had generous magazines and alot of autofeeders that could keep up a blistering pace of missile fire that would rival some forts. The downside was he had only ten tubes, and the Starforce Regiement's anti--missile capability had pretty much reduced his salvos to annoyance, occasionally he got luck and knocked down shield and maybe do some armor damage, but he had no follow up as they made their last approach to his position.
If he could, he would of made a run for it, but unfortunately the mothership was too far deep in system to escape to the pirate way and Hrang would have his head if he lost everything and came crawling back, so might as well go down swinging and made a critical mistake, his anger at the situation keeping him on a general broadcast. <<Restart the main cannon arming sequence, if I'm going down going to take that piglet of a Princess with me>>
With that proclamation over the net unfiltered, the last shreds of discipline within his ranks vanished, the omnicruiser escorts realizing now would be the time to attempt escape began to change vector away from the last stand of the Blade and the lancers that had been forming up to make a stand turned tail to run and dock with the cruisers, leaving the mothership to its lonesome as it began to charge to fire its plasma cannon, shields dropping to normal rate as point defense went into overdrive to shoot down the Imperial missile strike coming in.
Half the missiles went wide, fooled by superior ECM of the Rifters, and the remaining half shot down by point defense vectors, the remaining impacted against the invisible shield, straining it hardly. In between the front wings of the ship, a ball of plasma began to form. Then another wave of missiles slammed into the weakened shield at full force before he could get the shot off. As the plasma cannon overloaded, Tuk tried to piece together what happened, and came to the conclusion he made a sloppy mistake.
In keeping the plasma cannon trained on the enemy flagship he had to maintain predictable vector and with the hulk of the mothership, it meant the effective range of ballistic sprint fired missiles had increased just enough to fire off a shot before he could. I'm getting too old, wouldn't of made that mistake a century ago. He thought a moment before the plasma cannon generator's overload slammed into his coffin sending him to eternal darkness.
The shooting had yet to finish, there was still enemy units on the field, but the battle was over.
~~~
The battle has been won over Volken thought not without cost. How did the last stage end?
[] The overload knocked power off the mothership, leaving it open for boarding and capture but the omnicruisers and lancers got away
[] The overload blew up the mothership, allowing you freedom to chase after and deal with the fleeing omnicruisers
The battle has allowed you and your officers to hone themselves or shown new officers to appear on you radar. Pick three of the following
[] You gained experience in squadron command
[] Major Hessian gained experience gunnery
[] Major al-Lasalle gained experience in helm
[] Major al-Lasalle gained experience in gunnery
[] Captain Everlight joins your retinue as named character, with skills focused towards defense
[] Captain Gulan-Hastert joins your retinue as named character with skills towards E-War
What complication occurred during this battle
[] A courier from Osakan Reach saw the battle and left to report on your whereabouts
[] A stealthship from the Brethen was in system to check on why Tuk was late saw the battle
[] A hidden enemy [redacted]
~~~Status of the 8492~~~
[All missile units fired 3/4 missile salvos, 2 combat reloads in storage]
[F] Battleship: Raging Phoenix
Heavy Cavalry Cruiser: Duchess of Llyendile
Command Cruiser: Falymndir
Heavy Cruiser: Triumphant [Sunk]
Heavy Cruiser: Terrible [light armor damage, lost a vector beam and some internals]
Heavy Cruiser: Trident [medium armor damage, lost forward sensors, and missile tube and internal damage]
Destroyer (3 Missiles): Archer of Myseina
4 Dragoons (3 Lasers): Hong Ma Cavaliers [1 dragoon damaged]
Destroyer (3 Missiles): Archer of Nosukina
Destroyer (2 Lances): Lancer of Nosukina [Heavy damage, lost a lance]
Triumphant was just a sign that sometimes the dice hate you. Initial missile strike even with fleet defense cutting it down by half was nearly all crits which battered it heavily, leaving it weakened to fall to the lancers despite a heroic effort to fight them off. Your flagship was MVP in terms of offensive, in erasing lancers when they got into laser range despite their speed and ECM thanks to Hessian's gunnery bonus.
