2952-01-17 - Tales from the Service: The Burning Chain
While this week’s Incarnation move into the Farthing’s Chain region is news by any standard, you will not find daily coverage of this development in this space. The embed team controlling this feed is still based in Sagittarius Gate, too far from the situation to provide any meaningful coverage.
What we will do, as usual, is curate and provide what accounts are sent to us by people nearer the situation than us. It seems unlikely that either Fifth Fleet or Seventh Fleet will be able to respond fast enough to get ahead of this attack, and so many of my own contacts are not positioned to provide good front-line coverage of this situation.
The offensive’s goal remains somewhat unclear, even to those Navy senior officers who I was able to speak to about this matter off the record. Fourth Fleet is well positioned to counter any advance into the Confederated Core Worlds, and the reported strength of forces seen at Saunder’s Hoard suggests that at most one-third of the enemy’s strength is participating in this offensive, with the rest waiting to pounce on Maribel if Fifth Fleet moves against the attacking force.
What is clear is that small groups of enemy ships smashed Hypercast Relays and other communication infrastructure in at least six systems simultaneously, briefly crashing Hypercast relay service throughout the better part of the Reach. The network is back up now, including in the theaters of war; Navy backup stations have been activated to patch the hole the Incarnation intended to create. The situation is in the systems hit, however, is still quite unknown. It is unlikely that the enemy has the strength to invade any more than one of those worlds.
Today’s entry does come from Farthing’s Chain, though unfortunately not from those systems most affected. Though I cannot confirm this, our submitter on this account suggests that groups of enemy ships attempted similar destruction in some systems but were prevented, either by notably strong system security forces, mercenaries who happened to be present, or, as in this instance, some combination of both.
Maya Szymanski had never seen an Incarnation warship, and hadn’t particularly wanted to. True, she was in the mercenary business, but the helm station aboard the clunky cargo-hauler-turned carrier Rothschild was probably the safest place in the whole industry, even with a war on. No commander would ever willingly take such an ungainly ship anywhere an enemy warship might conceivably show up.
Normally, it was parked at least two systems away from a conflict zone doing its best impression of an orbital service station, with the dozen strike craft that lived in its hangar escorting transports and supply ships on the dangerous passage to and from their destinations in the theater of combat. Its ancient fusion reactor was so creaky and its gravitic drive so cantankerous that Rothschild spent entire weeks without the ability to even break orbit; its techs spent a whole week checking everything over before they would permit the use of its museum-piece Xiou-Edwards projector array.
For the first time in the ten years Maya been aboard, the battle-stations klaxons aboard Rothschild were blaring, and the strike craft in the hangar were being scrambled for an emergency launch. Four Incarnation cruisers were inbound, barely 150 million kilometers away and closing fast.
Maya’s hands sweated as she gripped the cumbersome ship’s controls, but she knew that there was realistically little she could do to alter her own fate, or that of anyone else aboard. There was hope for syrvival, but not too much of it. This was the Atwood system, one of the most idiosyncratic and independent-minded colonies in a region of notoriously idiosyncratic and independent systems. The system’s militia force boasted three destroyers, five frigates, and a dozen or so heavily armed cutters, an impressive array of hulls even if their crews were of questionable quality.
Rothschild was also not the only mercenary vessel in the system; her competitors Dernhelm and Amit Aliev, vessels of similar provenance, were also scrambling their squadrons. The mercenary light cruiser Callaghan, which had been taking on supplies from its logistics ship, was now charging at emergency thrust to a rendezvous with the local squadron.
“Helm, break orbit as soon as our squadron has launched.” Captain McCreery got up from his crash-padded chair and began to pace along the bridge’s long central walkway. He often did that when the squadron was away on a dangerous mission, when it couldn’t do any harm to him or anyone else.
“Aye.” Maya had already plotted a course that would take Rothschild behind Atwood, so obeying that command would take only the push of a button. “For the record, Captain, we won’t make it.”
“We’ll get behind the planet if Callaghan and the militia engage those cruisers for a few minutes.” McCreery shrugged as he passed Maya’s station. “After that... God knows. Comms, how’s our signal to the relay?”
“We have a strong beam.” Ted Duncan, the comms technician, sounded hopeful. “The Navy knows they’re here.”
Maya didn’t have the heart to point out that even if the Navy had a day’s warning about the attack on Atwood, they’d have no way of moving ships in from Maribel in time to counter it. The cavalry was probably almost a week away, and the forces assembled in Atwood couldn’t hold out for more than a few hours.
“Rothschild, connect your squadron to Atwood tactical network C.” Commodore Meier’s barking voice almost made one forget that he’d never served in any military larger than Atwood’s defense force, or that he was commanding the impending battle from a bunker on the planet’s surface.
“Will do, Commodore.” McCreery waved to Duncan, who started setting up the connection. “For your sake and ours, I hope you guys have some SLAM sites down there.”
“Our surface defenses are secret.” Meier snapped. “Get that hulk out of the line of fire, then get your crew to praying. Never worked for me in the past, but it can’t hurt to try.”
McCreery didn’t bother to dignify that with a response; he merely waved again to Duncan to sideline the channel.
“Captain, we have begun launch.” The voice on the intercom wasn’t that of the hangar chief; no doubt some underling had been delegated to report up to the bridge while the chief sorted out some last- minute issue with one of the rigs.
A moment after the technician had finished his report, a strike-craft flashed past the bridge viewpanel and arced away into the darkness, followed by a second. For all her feeling of helplessness, Maya didn’t wish her place changed with those who had some ability to affect the outcome; the strike crews were in far greater and more immediate danger than anyone aboard the ponderous carrier.
“Hang on. That can’t be right.” McCreery pointed to the secondary display showing Meier’s tactical plot. “Whichever sensor post is reporting that is going haywire, Commodore.”
Maya glanced over at the plot. At first, it looked just as it had – four sinister triangular indicators bearing down on the desperate huddle of local defenders in their way. Only on a second look did she notice that the estimated course of the Incarnation ships was no longer directly toward Atwood; it showed the ships passing one or two million klicks from the planet, far outside conventional weapons range.
“Multiple stations confirm, Mr. McCreery.” Meier sounded mystified, and perhaps a bit relieved. “Op-for is changing course to avoid a battle. I’m going to pull the fleet back toward the planet.”
Maya winced; velocity was protection to any vessel of war, and forcing the defending force to reverse its course would force it to zero out and then start rebuilding the shield of speed. Meier’s duty was to the planet, of course, not to the defending ships; he had to prevent his force from being simply maneuvered away from a world full of civilians.
“There, the course changed again.” McCreery scowled at the display for several seconds. “Are they... Are they running away? From us?”
“Looks all hells like it, Captain.” Ted Duncan giggled nervously. “I didn’t know we had it in us.”
Maya gave Duncan a pitying look. “We didn’t.” She pointed out the forward viewpanel. “They weren’t expecting a fight here at all.”
McCreery nodded. “Whatever they wanted here isn’t worth the risk of a stand-up fight.” His shoulders slumped. “Continue with that course as soon as the squadron is away.”
“Aye.” Maya put her hands underneath her console to hide the fact that they were trembling.
