Tales from the Service: A Duel of Giants

2953-01-15 – Tales from the Service: A Duel of Giants 

I have no word on Intelligence estimates of the capabilities of the Incarnation “Cyclops” heavy armor-suit, save that it seems to be designed to engage Kodiak suits on roughly equal footing. If it follows other weapons design programs of our enemies, this system is probably slightly larger than the Kodiak, and its control system is simplified by operating through the cranial implants Incarnation military personnel are fitted with.  

The account I have elected to cover of a F.V.D.A squad spotting one on the field indicates that the Cyclops is mainly armed with high wattage laser weaponry, suggesting a powerful onboard reactor takes up much of its tonnage. Lack of both hard-recoiling weaponry and the airborne capability present in all Confederated armor-suit design allows for relatively thin and nimble limbs, and the heaviest laser carried is the “head mount” on top of the torso on a precision gimbal, probably optimized for long range shooting. 

In time, and in the right numbers, this design could prove quite formidable, but as the remainder of Maruo Sorensen’s account indicates, a lone Cyclops is still not a serious threat to Kodiak units, which are usually deployed in fire teams of four. 

Mauro had just finished describing the arrival of the mechanical titan to the Captain when the air once again began to rumble, this time with the bass thunder of rocketry, not the higher-pitched scream of aero-engines. With a frown, the officer waved Mauro away and bent over the deployed controls of his radio-pack. Mauro stopped to scoop more ammunition into his pack, then ran back to Espinosa’s corner. Several other men had arrived in the meantime, and were taking quick glances over the ersatz parapet and muttering nervously about the Incarnation monster that now threatened to lead the next charge up the hill.  

Mauro handed out ammunition, then peeked out himself. Apparently the enemy troops were as amazed by the huge machine as much as they were; the troops retreating down the hill in all directions were streaming toward it. He could hardly blame them; they had to know that a single isolated company of F.V.D.A. infantry probably wasn’t capable of destroying that monstrosity, certainly not before it was already inside their perimeter. 

The rumble of rockets was getting louder now, and Mauro could tell that it was coming from the north-west. That was a friendly direction. Most of the time, the sound of rockets heralded the arrival of friendlies, but not always; Nate sometimes fitted solid-fuel rocket boosters to its slower aircraft to give them unexpected bursts of speed. 

No doubt the all-seeing eyes on all the vehicles below had also spotted the incoming threat; as one, the gray-clad Incarnation soldiers scattered to find cover and point their laser carbines skyward. The gleaming black titan, of course, could never find cover sufficient for itself; it merely stood there and turned to face the threat, the lasers on the ends of its arms swiveling to point skywards. 

The distant roar built almost in an instant to a rumble loud enough to set the gravel at Mauro’s feet dancing, and then he saw the source cresting a ridge a dozen kilometers away – a V-formation of glimmering motes flying low, with a loose constellation of larger, broad-winged craft occupying the center of the formation. Surprise could never be total in a battle with the Incarnation, but this seemed to Mauro the closest they were likely to get. After all, the enemy never would have deployed this new weapon if there was any chance of losing it. 

In that instant, his blood ran cold, and he realized there was another possibility. Could that monster and its huge lasers be here precisely to protect the troops from the airborne assault that was supposed to be a surprise? 

Sure enough, the titan’s laser-emitter head flashed a brilliant blue-white, the only indication that an invisible beam of coherent light had sliced out across the air toward the oncoming flyers. Mauro turned to see if any of them would fall out of the sky, but as he did the formation thundered overhead too fast for his eyes to track, trailing a sonic thunderclap.  

Explosions blossomed on the plain below, and too late the heavy transport aircraft struggled into the air, slicing through an atmosphere now choked with dust and smoke. It made it perhaps a hundred yards before a loitering seeker missile intercepted it and blew it to pieces. Only then did Mauro really believe the trap had worked. 

Of course, a single high-speed strafing run would never do much to thin the ranks of the troops down there, and that formation of Pumas would be cut to ribbons if it stuck around. An airstrike was not, in itself, the trap; it was just the covering fire for the real trap, which had been the payload of those larger aircraft.  

As the dust and smoke began to clear, the first shape to resolve itself was the Incarnation monster, but others, not as tall but broader and darkly simian, also rose out of the pall. These, of course, were Marine Kodiaks. Initially, the plan had been for two companies of standard Marine armored infantry to drop in, but one fire team of Kodiaks had been substituted just before they’d left friendly lines. At the time the change had not seemed to be a good omen, but that now seemed to be the luckiest break. 

The Incarnation machine recognized the peril immediately, and laser-fire flashed white where it ionized the intervening dust. Heavy cannons belched fire in response, and already all the huge machines were in motion. Kodiaks moved with uncanny speed for machines so big, but their outnumbered opponent was faster – much faster. 

More and more F.V.D.A troopers crowded the parapet around Mauro to watch as it became clear that the next assault was not coming, at least not soon. There was however little more to be seen – the pounding feet of five huge machines and the thundering cannons of four Kodiaks stirred the already dusty atmosphere into an impenetrable beige cloud, lit from within by laser lightning and pyrotechnic thunder. 

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Tales from the Service: Kodiak's Nemesis

2953-01-15 – Tales from the Service: Kodiak's Nemesis 

We have seen the small scale deployment of Marine heavy “Kodiak” suits in this space before (at Masinov most memorably). These machines stretch the concept of an armor-suit to the point where the operator is essentially a pilot ensconced within the torso of a ten to fifteen ton machine, his movements captured by sensor sleeves around his limbs. 

Though capable of engaging heavy armored vehicles one on one, Kodiak suits are far more difficult to use and need far more intensive maintenance than a standard combat vehicle; nevertheless their ability to keep up with standard Rico suited Marine infantry on the ground and in rocket-assisted flight has ensured they are deployed to some degree with most Marine formations. 

Obviously the moral impact on Incarnation infantry of Kodiaks arriving in any engagement is significant, and just as obviously, it was only a matter of time before they attempted to develop a weapon with similar presence. According to this account, which is from mid-December, our enemies have fielded such a weapon on the contested Coreward Frontier world of Montani, a machine the Marines are referring to as the Cyclops. 

The assault renewed just before dawn, as everyone had expected. The perimeter sensors' squawking startled Mauro Sorensen out of his fatigue, and he hurriedly filled his satchel with battery packs and railgun magazines.  

As strong points went, the ruined village compound was more than adequate; Mauro was able to scramble around to all the rifle points to pass out ammunition without revealing himself above ground level. Montani architecture tended toward cellars and half-buried structures with turf slopes to deflect the bitter night-time wind. Even with most of the above ground portions gone, the company had spent most of the night in relative warmth and shelter. The enemy, who had spent the same night on the exposed heath south of the hill, had certainly fared much worse, even with their ring of armored vehicles. 

By the time Mauro had gone around to every position to distribute ammunition, the chatter of railgun fire and the snap-crack of laser fire blasting spall off ferrocrete was all around them. Apparently the enemy had circled around and was attacking from all sides. Mauro ran back to the center for another satchel full of ammunition. This time, he grabbed a carbine too. He wasn’t overly concerned – after all, being attacked had been the plan all along – but even the best laid plan sometimes went awry. 

By the time the local sun was above the horizon, the attack had already started to thin out. Though he couldn’t see it, Mauro imagined Incarnation troops in their oddly shimmering gray uniforms scuttling back down the hill on all sides, chased by desultory railgun bursts from every position. Evidently the enemy force hadn’t brought its armored vehicles up close. This, Mauro knew, suggested they were unwilling to risk them. The company had little that could harm those rumbling behemoths, but that too was part of the plan. The enemy had to know that an isolated post held by a company of F.V.D.A. infantry wouldn’t be left alone without any support. 

“Are they going to commit?” Mauro asked Giovanni Espinosa as he passed the man another round of ammunition. 

Espinosa, occupying an excellent firing position at the corner of the ruins, peered briefly out above the top of the parapet, then ducked back down and nodded. “Looks like.” He waved in the direction of the night’s enemy encampment. “Their armor is circling around toward the west. They’ve still got plenty of men. But don’t worry. We’ve got-” 

At this moment, they both became aware of the rumble of heavy aero-engines in the distance. Espinosa winced. “That's a Nate air transport.” He suddenly brightened, a wry smile crossing his lips. “They think they need more troops to deal with us.” 

A few F.V.D.A. troopers started firing their carbines at the aircraft as it grew closer, but the Captain’s bellowing put an end to that. “Don’t waste slugs, you idiots! Even if you hit it at this range, you won’t do more than knock out a camera.” 

Espinosa popped his head back over the ersatz parapet, then gestured for Mauro to hop up on the ferrocrete block he was standing on. “Have a look.” 

Mauro hesitated; he’d seen troopers have their heads blown off for underestimating the range of Incarnation lasers. Still, Espinosa still had his skull, so eventually Mauro also peeked over the top. 

The flyer, a boxy transport aircraft, was just coming down to a dust-billowing landing near the dry streambed at the bottom of the hill. The moment it touched down, its rear doors slammed down, and a gaggle of fresh enemy troops in darker uniforms milled out. 

Mauro was just about to hop down and start running more ammo around to all the rifle positions when something else stepped out of the transport, something that shone darkly in the morning sun as its stumpy metal feet gripped Montani’s cold soil. As it straightened to its full height, which it couldn’t have done inside the aircraft, Mauro’s blood ran cold – this was a machine that moved like a man, seven meters tall at the least with a barrel chest and oddly spindly arms. It had a head of sorts, but there was no face, only the blank circular void of a heavy laser emitter. 

“Stars around.” Espinosa muttered, then crossed himself. “What is that?” 

Mauro had seen Marine Kodiak suits once as they were being unloaded from a troop-ship, and could see the kinship between this machine and them immediately. Where the Kodiak suit had simian proportions, with arms and shoulders built to carry and direct heavy cannons, the thin arms and narrow frame of this black scarecrow were built around heavy laser weapons with no recoil to absorb. There was also no sign of jump rockets, but the horror’s long legs suggested unnerving speed. 

“Run and tell the Captain.” Espinosa shoved Mauro down off his perch. “If the Marines are going to ride in here to spring this trap, they need to know about that.” 

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Tales from the Service: The Cripple of Force 73

2953-01-01 – Tales from the Service: The Cripple of Force 73 

The first sign of trouble almost went unnoticed; a few gray pips briefly appeared at the edge of the bridge tactical display, then vanished within a few seconds. Had Muskins’s bridge crew not been on alert, they might have missed this entirely, or perhaps regarded it as a sensor artifact caused by damage to one of the ship’s many outer eyes. 

The Skipper, of course, was not so optimistic. The moment someone pointed out the phantoms, Rashid Winton saw all the muscles tighten in his commander’s face, and he didn’t see them relax.  

“They’re probing.” Rashid used his sensor controls to sweep one of the active-beam radars over that arc of the local sky, and just barely caught one of the phantoms disappearing out of range. “Trying to see how badly we’re hurt.” 

“Powered radar means powered gun mounts. They know we’re not toothless.” The Skipper stood up from his chair and rolled his shoulders. “They’ll be cautious. Wait until they can gather overwhelming numbers.” 

The best thing to ward off a slashing attack by Coronachs would of course be the support of friendly Magpies, but Rashid knew enough about the situation not to expect this. Force 73 had at least one small carrier among its hulls, but this ship and its squadrons would be sticking close to and supporting the big cruises. There simply weren’t enough strike units around to send some to guard one crippled destroyer while a battle was still going on. 

After a moment of grim silence, the Skipper turned to Lieutenant Sendai. “How long until we have central fire control?” 

“Too long.” Sendai shook his head sadly. “We’ve lost too many sensor points for the automatics. We’re trying to reconfigure some of the sensors as backups for the director but it’s slow going. Maynard wants to go out on the hull to rig some new sensor points and I think-” 

“No.” The skipper waved a hand dismissively. “He’d still be at it when they made their run even if he finished. No sense throwing away lives.” 

“But won’t we all be killed if-” 

“Possibly.” 

This, it seemed, was the end of the discussion; after a moment of blank staring, Sendai realized he wasn’t going to get any more explanation and lowered his head back down toward his console. 

Rashid winced and returned his attention to his sensor controls. If the Skipper was right, and active sensors were likely to make the enemy cautious, liberal and regular active sensor probing might suggest Muskins was not so badly hurt after all. If the battle were going badly enough to force Incarnation ships to retreat, it would also cause their strike assets to be recalled – at least in theory. He’d heard that sometimes a flight of strike craft would be left to deal with a cripped foe even in retreat, abandoning a dozen pilots to assure a warship would never trouble Incarnation forces ever again. Hopefully, they wouldn’t do this for a mere destroyer. 

“Shear-screen net is reconfigured.” Sorian shrugged. “Efficiency is only ninety points, but there are no gaps.” 

“See what you can do to optimize.” The Skipper paced in front of his chair a few times, then sat back down. “You probably have five minutes. Ten at the most.” 

“Aye.” Sorian, with a haunted look, returned to her work. “What do you think our chances are, Skipper?” 

“Hard to say.” The Skipper was silent for a moment as he shrugged on the crash-padding restraints. “One in ten, maybe two in ten, unless we get a lucky break.” His face, though still hard and tense, was neutral; the odds didn’t seem to worry him. 

Rashid set his jaw; he couldn’t let the odds worry him either. Already another hazy grey pip was showing itself at the edge of the display, this time almost dead astern. He swiveled another radar emitter toward it, and almost instantly it faded away. The longer he kept at it, the more time Sorian and Sendai had to get the defenses ready. It might not matter, but if the ship needed a lucky break, every minute it held out was another minute that break might appear. 

 

Lieutenant Winton (that is not his real name) and the crew of his ship did not have to fight their desperate last stand, as it turned out. The battle turned against the Incarnation, and the strike units closing in to complete their destruction were recalled to fight another day.  

Whether other Force 73 units were lost in this battle, Winton did not say, nor would Naval Intelligence permit us to report it if he had. Most likely, if the enemy force retreated early in the battle, losses on both sides were light. 

As to the fate of Muskins (which is not the ship’s real name), we also have no information, but I would hazard a guess (and this is only a guess) that it was stripped for parts and abandoned, if its drive was badly damaged. Force 73 supposedly has at least one repair and service vessel, but a crippled destroyer might be beyond this craft’s ability to restore. 

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Tales from the Service: The First Test of Force 73

2953-01-01 – Tales from the Service: The First Test of Force 73 

While nobody with this embed team (or any other I am aware of) was assigned to the ships of Force 73, we nevertheless do get some datasphere traffic leaking back to us from this squadron. They seem to have arrived in Kyaroh space in mid-December, but specifics are unclear; their mission is far removed from any active HyperComm relay. I’m not even sure how their message traffic is getting relayed back to us; most likely the fleet has a courier route set up to provide slow communication with this force. 

Naval Intelligence has been holding up several of the accounts from this force for further analysis, but we have one which they permitted, which corresponds with the public announcement of the twenty-ninth that Force 73 has fought an engagement against an Incarnation flotilla over one of the Kyaroh colonies and gained control of the orbit-space as a result. Casualties of this battle on either side were not announced. 

Our source for this story claims to be the first mate of a relatively modern fleet destroyer operating with Force 73 that took part in this battle; while he did proide the name of his ship, Naval Intelligence required us to alter or conceal both his name and the name of his ship as a condition of publication. 

Rashid Winton held his breath as a spread of red spearpoints indicating enemy missiles hurtled toward the center of the tactical display. Fountains of yellow mist indicating railshot and countermeasures leapt out to meet them, and missile after missile winked out.  

It was almost enough. There was a moment of wrenching acceleration that threatened to pull his insides out his mouth as the automatic helm controls threw Muskins into an emerency random-walk evasive maneuver and overpowered even the inertial isolation, then a roar louder than any thunder and a shriek of distant tearing metal. The lights on the bridge flickered, then went out completely, taking with them the tactical plot. 

“All stations, damage report!”  

If it weren’t for the earpiece in Rashid’s ear, he never would have heard the skipper’s order. Shaking his head, he swallowed hard against a spinning head and sudden urge to vomit and looked around the bridge. There was no obvious sign of damage to the compartment, but the other five people at the command stations were all slumped insensate against their consoles or just recovering from the effects of a few tenths of a second of extreme acceleration.  Fortunately they’d all been strapped into the crash-padded chairs, so the worst injury in the compartment would be on the order of cracked ribs. 

“Outer hull breached from frame 38 to frame 72.” Lieutenant Sendai, the damage control officer, was the first to respond. “We’ve got several compartments decompressed on decks four and five. plot We’re on batteries ship-wide, and the gravitic drive is offline. Central weapons control and most of the batteries are unresponsive.” 

“We lose the reactor?” 

Even as the skipper asked this, the lights flickered back on one by one, and consoles all across the bridge went from dim low-power mode to full power holographic displays. The tactical plot came back on a second later. 

“Automatic control cut reactor power and tried to start a scram.” MacGowan, the ship’s engineer, sounded shaky on the comms. “But we managed to abort. Reactor power at fifty percent and climbing.” 

“Missile systems operational.” The voice on the comms wasn’t the usual officer for that station, but was nevertheless cool and professional. “Reload ongoing for all launch cells.” 

“Looks like we lost a ventral shear-screen emitter.” Sorian, sitting directly ahead of Rashid, finally announced. As she did, she turned toward the skipper, and Rashid saw an ugly discoloration spreading across her right cheekbone. “I’ll reconfigure the emitter net to cover the gap.” 

“Axial cannon online, but the auto-loader's knocked out. We are prepping for manual reload.” 

“Hellfire, that was close.” Rashid muttered, already scanning the tactical plot. Since their ship had briefly lost drive power, it had fallen back and out of formation; the rest of the squadron was still charging ahead toward the planet and the cluster of enemy ships trying to block their way. Muskins was, for the moment, forgotten. A crippled destroyer could always be recovered or finished off later, at the victor’s leisure. 

“Sendai, get us central fire control and railguns. Forget the engines.” The skipper made a growling sound in the back of his throat. “How’s our sensor coverage?” 

Rashid sat up and quickly scanned his console. “Warning and search sensors are operational. We seem to have lost a few target acquisition emitters.” 

“Keep those active sensors pinging and all the railguns we have warm. If a flight of Coronachs catches us now, we’re on our own.” 

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