Tales from the Service: Siblings in Arms

2948-09-08 – Tales from the Service: Siblings in Arms

I hoped last week to bring news of a second engagement over Margaux, but as any of you following the war situation through Cosmic Background’s daily coverage (or through any other media outlet) already know, this proved not to be the case.  

In the days following the Battle of Margaux (which I hope is to be only the first), Admiral Zahariev contented himself with probing the enemy fleet with fast cruiser-led formations before (presumably after consulting with his staff and Captain Kirke-Moore) ordering a withdrawal back to Maribel, which is where we sit at the time of this feed item’s completion. Though the Fifth Fleet suffered no heavy cruiser or battleship losses at the battle, and reports put enemy losses (destroyed and long-term disabled) at six of their big heavy cruisers and many hundreds of Coronachs, the admiral believes the ground-side Margaux defenses give him plenty of time to repair the damage to his vessels and return, while the enemy’s losses won’t be made good in the same time-frame. 

Perhaps he is right, but neither Nojus or myself like his decision. We are of course not military professionals – Captain Liao suggests the admiral had good reasons for making his decision. Saint-Lô is currently being swarmed by yard techs once more, examining the damage, and though the battering seemed (from our perspective in CIC) far less severe this time than at Berkant, the officers are not optimistic about getting things repaired quickly. Apparently this old battleship had its primary phased matter condenser blown away in the middle of the engagement, and the reserve unit’s power hookups were also badly damaged. According to the skipper, we limped back to port on the ship’s reserves.  

The phased matter fuel situation aboard Saint-Lô certainly contributed to Admiral Zahariev’s decision, though I did the math on my own and believe the ship had several more days’ worth of phased matter in its reserves, plenty for one more run at the enemy fleet before pulling back.  

More likely to have made his decision is the situation aboard Argonne, which suffered far worse than Saint-Lô and currently occupies a berth in the yards just across from our own. There are dozens of stories of the heroism that saved that ship from almost certain loss; it seems that nearly every damage control tech aboard Argonne performed their duties to a level worthy of merit, and Fifth Fleet brass has evidently been distributing the Centaur Cross and lesser medals liberally among its enlisted crew for their efforts. Sadly, many of these awards will be sent directly to their families, along with the Carmine Bloom, which is awarded posthumously to all Navy personnel killed in the course of duty. 

This week’s entry comes from one of the Centaur Cross recipients who did not also receive a Carmine Bloom. Though he refused to give an account of the actions which earned him the Navy’s highest award for gallantry in action, Renat Dreher did sit down and help us compose an account of his experience and personal loss just prior to those actions. 

Technician Renat Dreher woke to a violent shaking sensation and the distant warbling screech of multiple overlapping alarms. Dizzily, he tried to clamber out of his bunk and toward the locker where his damage-control over-suit was kept. The heavy garment was all but fire-proof and carried a hard helmet and internal oxygen supply vastly better than the flimsy bubble-helmet and tiny emergency atmospherics cartridge in his smart-fabric uniform’s stiff collar. 

Renat’s hand came down not on the yielding foam of his bunk-rack, but on a hot metal surface with the unifomly rough texture of standard Navy deck-plating. The panel’s heat was such that he should have noticed it through his back, and this told him before he even opened his eyes that he had already put on the over-suit. Grasping hold of this detail, he recalled in a moment the previous shift’s events – the general alarm, the announcement of imminent battle, and the thunder of enemy plasma-cannon fire breaking in rolling waves against Argonne’s armored hull as the screen projectors failed one by one, the alarms shrieking in an ever more chaotic and meaningless tangle of sound. It was, he had thought as he worked to rescue a handful of crew trapped by damage in a local gunnery control station, the agonized cry of a dying behemoth.  

Once more, Renat scrambled to get up, but something was holding him down. He didn’t know what had become of the trapped personnel – he had been working to cut open a stuck blast door, and remembered nothing after that. Had the ship degraded so badly that the corridor had collapsed? Was he buried? 

The shaking started again, and he realized that it was coming from a gloved hand gripping his shoulder, and another firmly pressing down on his chest.  

“Dreher!” A voice – Morello's – was shouting, though the other tech sounded tinny and far away. The atmosphere in the compartment had apparently grown thin since he had blacked out. “You okay? Please be okay.” 

Renat slapped the other tech’s hands away and got to his knees. “Hells no I’m not okay.” He looked around for the first time, and saw that the corridor was mostly intact, though several bulkhead panels had blown inward and the stuck blast door, glowing cherry-red with heat from the other side, was now veiled behind a thick web of torn wires and ducts. Feeling his lungs burning from the weak atmosphere, he deployed the oversuit’s heavy helmet and pressure gloves. “What happened?” 

“Compartment on the other side took a direct hit while you were cutting. Blew you clean over here.” Morello helped Renat to his feet and put an arm around his chest. “Atmo’s leaking out through the hole you were cutting.” 

“The gunners-” 

“Stars around, Dreher, they’re all dead. There’s open space on the other side of that blast door.” 

Renat shook his head. There was something about the group of personnel trapped in that gunnery control center that had been important, but whatever it was fled maddeningly from his attention. “Wait.” 

Morello, already dragging Renat toward the sealed door into the less-perforated parts of the battleship's habitatation complex, did not stop. “Wait for Nate to shoot again? Couldn’t make me for all the credits in the Reach, Dreher.” 

“There’s something...” 

Another rumble of plasma-thunder shook Argonne, this time accompanied by the shriek of distressed structural elements and the rattle of bent bulkhead panels falling to the deck around the two techs. The ship seemed about to fall apart under the punishment of enemy gunfire. 

As the enemy salvo ended, Renat wondered whether Alonya was all right. This thought seemed useless given the situation – his half-sister, a lieutenant aboard the same vessel, was certainly somewhere important, either helping direct the fight against the enemy cruisers doing their best to pick Argonne apart, or overseeing the crippled vessel’s abandonment. The ship sounded like a dying beast, but from a corridor outside the portside aft gunnery control station, there was no way of knowing how bad the damage really was. 

A moment after he had that fleeting thought, Renat remembered what it was that was so important. “Alonya!” He wrestled himself free of Morello’s grasp and tried to run back toward the glowing blast-door, but instead he fell to his knees, unable to rise. Nevertheless, he began to crawl. He remembered the comms identifier on the damage report – Alonya had been inside that gunnery control station. 

Crawling as he was, Morello had no trouble wrestling Renat to a halt. “Hold it! Everyone past that door is gone. You hear me? They’re gone.” 

Renat struggled against his compatriot’s grip, using his helmet comms to request the location of Lieutenant Alonya Dreher. Ordinarily, a crew tech would be unable to request the location of an officer they weren’t reporting to, but since he was registered as family, the query was accepted and immediately completed. Alonya Dreher, the computer system reported, was not currently aboard the vessel. 

“No!” Renat managed to push forward another meter along the debris-littered deck before Morello dragged him backwards. Witty, brilliant Alonya couldn’t be gone. She was everyone’s favorite in school, and when father had only been able to afford for one of them to go to the officers’ academy, Renat knew she was the better choice. Everyone knew even before war broke out that she stood an even chance of being the first Confederated Navy officer in almost fifteen years to be fleet captain before the age of thirty.  

Though he struggled, Morello, bigger and stronger even before Renat had been blasted ten meters down a corridor, eventually managed to get them both to the closed pressure door at the far end of the corridor. It was sealed, but as damage control techs, they both had the codes to force it open for exactly two seconds. This proved plenty of time for Morello to haul Renat across the threshold through the buffeting wind of escaping atmosphere. As the door closed once more, Renat made one more feeble attempt to scramble back through – an attempt Morello easily foiled. 

“Get ahold of yourself, Dreher!” Morello shook Renat again. “Every moment you waste on the dead, others are dying. Hells, the whole ship might be dying. You’re concussed and you might have a cracked skull but you’re the only help I’ve got down here. Are you with me?” 

Renat turned to look at the other tech, tears blurring his vision. Alonya was dead because he hadn’t worked fast enough to cut the blast door open. His father would never forgive that – but that paled in comparison to his inability to forgive himself. Still, the small part of his mind still thinking clearly could see Morello’s point. There would be dozens or hundreds of others like Alonya who could still be saved. 

With a shuddering sigh, Renat put out a hand, and Morello took It. 

“Good.” The bigger man hauled Renat to his feet. “Let’s get going.” 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Deadly Decision

2948-09-01 – Tales from the Service: The Deadly Decision 

Firstly, Nojus and I are alive, and Saint-Lô survived the first engagement at Margaux, though once again we have come through with some significant damage. At the moment, Captain Liao does not think the damage excessive, and we remain in the theater of battle. 

While the results of the first part of the action at Margaux, which took place three days before this feed item is set to go live, are being allowed through to the datasphere in the clear by Naval Intelligence, this week it seems rather a waste of this space to provide an after-action report. Instead, given the results, I thought it more interesting to bring you the reader into the conference where the battle-plan was decided, as the “unimaginative” nature of this plan has been roundly criticized throughout the datasphere in the days since. 

Though Admiral Zahariev’s plan was admittedly conservative, I do not personally believe this caused the failure to achieve victory. Indeed, a bolder plan may have met with additional disasters, and after Nojus and I talked with Captain Liao, it is clear that his conservative planning probably minimized the damage. 

Despite the sensationalist reporting, the Fifth Fleet gave as good as it got in the skies over Margaux – several enemy ships have limped out of the battle-area since the two fleets separated, and reports indicate at least a few were destroyed outright. We had losses as well, mainly among light cruisers and escorting destroyers. The Incarnation still holds dominance in Margaux orbit, but it looks like the battle is far from over. Hopefully next week I will be the bearer of brighter news. 

[N.T.B - I am not so optimistic. Can't really put a finger on why.] 

Admiral Reneer Zahariev steepled his fingers and stared into the glowing display that dominated his flagship’s command center. His increasingly lengthy pauses were beginning to cause unease among his eight dreadnought captains and the swarm of staff officers who surrounded them, but if he noticed their fidgeting, he didn’t acknowledge it. 

Captain Jayendra Liao of Saint-Lô glared at anyone in his retinue he caught muttering or shuffling nervously, remaining otherwise silent and still. He didn’t like the atmosphere of uncertainty any more than the next officer, but making that known could only put more pressure on an admiral already facing the greatest challenge of his generation. The Incarnation fleet and the Fifth Fleet were now circling each other around Margaux’s mottled blue limb, and Zahariev alone could decide the next steps of the deadly orbital dance. 

The tall, somewhat stooped figure standing at the admiral’s right elbow silently guided the attention of the Fifth Fleet commander to the handful of newly-emptied Marine assault transports loitering in high orbit. A thin chain of lesser vessels wound down from their bellies to the surface and back as dropships and logistics launches ferried equipment down to Margaux and casualties back up. The cluster was keeping its distance from the twin formations of Tyrant heavy cruisers, but also from the concentrated battle-line of the Fifth Fleet. 

Both sides knew the transports had spent their bolt and were of little real value – their battalions were groundside, establishing the first perimeter in the Causey Plana. Outpost Judicael, the hinge-point of this defense. The ground-pounders could hold their own long enough – hopefully – to let the Fifth Fleet’s battle-line choose the terms of the engagement over Margaux, and the transports’ high orbits allowed them to retreat easily from any large Incarnation move to intercept them. 

“Admiral?” Captain Zan Corti, the captain of the flagship Triasta Asteria, wagered it safe to prompt his commander. 

“Mr. Kirke-Moore is suggesting the use of those transports as bait.” Zahariev replied slowly. “If they commit to an escape vector, the enemy might dispatch ships to run them down.” 

Several officers in the compartment gasped or looked around, horrified. The Incarnation fleet was already split two ways, but in a mutually reinforcing manner. Whittling away two or three of the more than thirty enemy ships in planetary orbit would help, but not enough to make the odds safe, especially given the mauling the fleet’s heavy elements had encountered at Berkant and Bodrogi. Sacrificing the crews and wounded aboard the transports to remove a few enemy ships from the equation was a horrific suggestion of the sort only a semi-retired pirate like Kirke-Moore would suggest. 

“If I may, Admiral.” Captain Jayendra Liao of Saint-Lô stepped forward. “Why rush the engagement? The Marine ships have done their part. The enemy can't win on the ground without a lot more troops, and the Fish have the system periphery locked down. They’ll have to split their forces to-” 

Battles are not won by surrendering the initiative, Captain.” Bozsi Kirke-Moore didn’t turn around. “They will sense the trap and work their way out of it in time, so the Fifth Fleet shall not give them time.” Kirke-Moore famously didn’t take the Fish – the stealth assault cutters, which earned their nickname for being named after aquatic ichthyoids of Earth – very seriously. He thought the vessels’ expensive stealth features irrelevant, and perhaps he was right; any old armed cutter could chase down and carve up an unescorted logistics convoy, and the steath boats didn’t have the acceleration potential to outrun a Tyrant any more than the standard models. 

“What can they do?” Captain Corti replied, his dislike of the pirate who occupied his ship evident in every syllable. “Whether they know it yet or not, their army is trapped on the ground.” 

“They can leave the ground troops and save their cruisers.” Kirke-Moore seemed to think this option was obvious. “And I if they see the trap too soon, they will.” 

How the man could possibly know this wasn’t clear, but nobody present seemed interested in challenging him. The Incarnation, human though its people were, did not operate like any human force. Nobody could be certain they wouldn’t sacrifice their entire force of infantry, including armor, close-air support assets, and thousands upon thousands of elite Immortals, to save the comparably lesser crews of their battle fleet. If the fleet did depart, the victory at Margaux would be incomplete, and the enemy could doubtless draft more troops in a few months, training them as the Incarnation did by implantation and dataload. 

“We should not sacrifice the Marines unless absolutely necessary.” Admiral Zahariev at length concluded. “There is another way.” 

Captain Liao knew this decision to be political as much as practical. Relations between the Confederated Marines and their Navy counterparts had been strained since the loss of Adimari Valis, when the Marines had been prevented from landing to reinforce the extensive mercenary and FDA garrison there by the Navy’s failure to plow through the Incarnation fleet to reach the planet. The Marines had fought delaying actions on worlds like Mereena and counterattacked to raid several small supply outposts along the Coreward Frontier, but the Marines' inability to get stuck into a proper slugging match seemed to be hurting morale among the Marines and FDA alike. The plan had been – and still was – for Margaux to change all that. 

After a long delay, the admiral took a deep breath and continued. “The ground-side batteries can engage one element of the enemy fleet while we attack the other.” 

This idea, though simple, had the major disadvantage of revealing what lay behind the multiple lines of defense on the ground. If the attack failed, the two fleets would be on even information footing, and the enemy would begin to pick off the groundside batteries one by one as soon as they revealed themselves. Orbital fire would not do the trick – the Incarnation ground-side air-breathing assets would have to do it, but the Incarnation force on Margaux was far larger than the defending force and could probably get at the batteries if it did so one at a time.  

Corti shook his head. “Shoot our bolt before they’re fully engaged?” 

Kirke-Moore watched Admiral Zahariev for a long moment, then shrugged his acquiescence. “It is not as bold as our approach should be, but it is better than ceding the initiative.” Whatever the retired pirate saw in the admiral’s face, it was something none of the other captains – who had far less history with their commander than his unofficial adviser did – could not detect. 

Zahariev finally turned around, his narrow jaw set firmly. The plan was obviously one he didn’t like, Liao guessed – it was one he thought he could get everyone to commit to. If the enemy fleet threw one or two cruisers to the wolves on rearguard and fled for the edge of the system, it would be a much-needed victory, and Zahariev, who Liao knew by reputation to play a conservative hand, didn’t want to risk a defeat to gain a greater victory when a lesser win seemed certain. “We will make our move, then the batteries will fire when the second group begins to move to support.” 

Captain Corti nodded, mollified, and at his cue many of the other captains seemed to decide the plan was good enough as well. 

Captain Liao stared past Zahariev at the plot for several seconds. He couldn’t shake the idea that there was a better solution, one which put the enemy in a position of extreme peril, but Margaux was shaping up to be the biggest fleet action in a century; there were simply too many moving pieces for him to see a solution, if it existed. At last, he too nodded his acceptance. 

Zahariev, seeing there were no objections, turned back to the display, suddenly animated as he began to move glowing ship-icons into formations and plan out his line of battle. The hard decision was made – the admiral was quite capable of putting the details in place. “Hercules and Triasta Asteria will hold the middle of the line.” He seemed almost to be talking to himself. “Marseille, Tours, and Tolouse will be in the van.” 

Liao took note that this left his own ship and its two remaining sisters in formation behind the flagship, still unable to shake the sense that something had been missed. There were many details still to iron out, but the tension had ebbed from the room – the assembled officers of the Confederated Fifth Fleet had made their choice, and soon they would find out whether it was a fatal one. 

Details

Tales from the Service: A Conference at Dawn

2948-08-18 – Tales from the Service: A Conference at Dawn

Azure Kulmala graced this feed last week in her thrilling account of flying a dropship down to Margaux following the Incarnation attack on the system (Tales from the Service: The Bumpy Ride to Margaux). This week, we pick up her account the following morning local-time. The Battle of Margaux is developing in the mean time, but this embed team is being forced to withhold all details for the moment.

It seems that Margaux’s garrison – a mix of Marines and FDA – has something to hide, and it honestly surprises me that Naval Intelligence has cleared this story for publication. Perhaps the vagueness of what Azure knows up to this point is sufficiently unhelpful to the enemy (it contains nothing they can’t learn from orbital imagery) that it is deemed harmless, or perhaps not.

[N.T.B. – Naval Intelligence is so tightfisted most of the time that I wonder if someone over there fell asleep with this one. Still, it’s their call. Maybe they are cleverly releasing this to overturn an overly information-restrictive local commander’s decision – but if so, this would be a unique situation: Naval Intelligence advocating more openness with the media than the on-scene officers, rather than less. Maybe they just don't care about this because it refers to ground-side skulduggery. I suppose we'll find out.]

Azure Kulmala woke to a thumping so loud she rolled out of her bunk and leapt up, sure it was a collision alarm or that Gerard Lovell was under attack.

In shipboard gravity, this reaction would have had her standing in an instant, but in the roughly point-nine gee Margaux gravity well, her legs failed her and she flopped down on her knees beside the bed. The dusty fabcrete under her hands and knees brought back into focus where she was, and why she was there. Gerard Lovell was somewhere in orbit, and she was still stuck on a poisonous rock for which a great many men and women were dying. A quick look out the window – a real window, though sealed airtight to minimize invasion by several species of poisonous seasonal pollen – revealed the dim gray of pre-dawn.

The thumping repeated, and Azure recognized that it was not a collision or weapons fire, but the pounding of a Marine’s meat-haunch-sized hand on the metal-cored synthplast door of the lodgings she had been given. “Just a minute.” Azure called groggily, shaking her head as she stood slowly. Point nine gees felt like a lot to a spacer used to point-five or point-six, but she was at least current enough on her exercise regimen that the difference would be no more than a nuisance.

Shedding the skivvies she’d slept in, the pilot quickly threw on the new set of smart-clothes left for her by the Outpost Judicael staff. The at first loose and baggy material quickly adjusted to Azure’s preferred fit, so that when she opened the door, she looked almost composed. “What is it?”

“The Colonel sent for you, Lieutenant Kulmala.” The towering Marine outside the door – a specimen very nearly two full meters tall and almost broad enough at the shoulders to completely block the door – pointed down the hall.

Azure glanced back at the pre-dawn gloom outside her window. Outpost Judicael was awash with light, and though the local primary had not yet peeked its way over the distant eastern horizon, she could hear the murmur of activity as Marines, FVA conscripts, and supporting personnel hurried to their morning duties. “What for?”

The big man shrugged. Reasons were, apparently, above his pay grade. “This way, when you are ready.”

Azure sighed and hurried back into the room to collect her wrist computer and boots. The rest of her possessions which she had unloaded from the damaged dropship would have to wait until she was ready to leave. The mechanics had assured her it would be at least two days before they finished prying all the pieces of Coronach out of her vessel’s dorsal hull and port-side engine cowling, and a full precautionary inspection and nanotech sweep would probably take longer.

Returning promptly to the Marine at the door, Azure nodded her readiness. The man tromped off down the hall, and she trotted behind him to keep up. There was no attempt at conversation during the brief walk – the Marines, for fear of infiltrators and informants, refused to hold even the most routine conversations in the corridors of Outpost Judicael. The Lovell Marines had picked up this habit from the unit already on garrison seamlessly.

Fortunately, this silent walk ended quickly. The big man gestured to a door – an outer door, near which a rack of air filtration masks sat waiting for poison-pollen season – and stood aside, indicating that Azure should continue alone. As she approached the door, it opened automatically, and a gust of air billowing out from the positive-pressure air filtration system swept her sleep-mussed hair over her face as she crossed the threshold.

“Lieutenant Kulmala.” The smooth baritone of Colonel Monoghan greeted her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim outside light enough to pick out the gray-haired Marine officer leaning against the thick fabcrete guardrail around a wide balcony. Beyond him, the eastern horizon was beginning to pale with the beginnings of dawn. “How are you feeling?”

“Well as can be expected, Colonel.” Azure walked out onto the balcony toward him. At both extreme corners of the balcony, rapid-tracking turrets for close air defense had been bolted to the artificial stone, though the rotary-barreled autocannons pointed blankly off into the horizon with nothing to shoot at. Outpost Judicael was not large, but she had seen enough weapons to prevent anything short of an orbital bombardment from overthrowing it. Perhaps they had anti-orbital weapons too, but if they did, those wouldn’t be left anywhere a stranded Navy pilot could see them. “Did you need something?”

Monoghan turned around to face her, and though the usual mask of confidence affected by the commander of Lovell’s Nineteenth Marine Regiment remained solidly in place, she thought it seemed more strained than usual. “Answers, mainly. I think you can help me get them.” The colonel held up his left hand, revealing a surveillance scrambler swallowed up by his huge palm. “Colonel Keo still hasn’t given me a briefing of the situation. He isn’t patrolling the perimeter, and he’s got no local air assets. A site like this one should have at least one full squadron.”

Azure frowned. “I noticed that. A landing field, full staff of flight mechanics, and underground hangars, but no assets?” The sophistication of the base’s landing pad had surprised Azure and the other pilots, most of whom had disgorged their Marines and thundered back into the sky as quickly as they could get clearance. Only Azure herself had remained to puzzle over the question of why the FDA had deployed enough ground crew for three squadrons of space-capable strike launches or four squadrons of combat aircraft such as the Siroccos Colonel Monoghan was expecting.

“It’s more than that. There are at least five incomplete structures on this outpost, but no staff was working on any of them when we landed. The construction crew is preparing to pour a new foundation southeast of the second perimeter this morning.”

Azure was no expert in groundside logistics, but the idea of building new structures outside the main and secondary lines of defense during an ongoing invasion of the planet seemed so foolish as to border on the farcical. “What’s to the southeast?”

The colonel shrugged. “Nothing, as far as anyone knows. That way goes into the most rugged part of the whole Causey. The local datasphere says nobody but a few hermits live out there.”

Azure had seen enough of the Causey Plana on her way down to want nothing of a hypothetical more rugged portion of it. The plateau, cut through as it was with jagged, zigzag canyons, each of which harbored a panoply of toxic and/or predatory life-forms, was as forbidding as any terrain she had ever seen. “You want me to go have a look.”

Colonel Monoghan nodded. “I served with Keo in the Fifth when we were both lieutenants. If he’s not telling me something, it’s because he’s under orders not to.”

Azure approached the railing, resting her elbows on it. Her gaze wandered over to the shadowed southeast horizon, and she picked out the blue-white radiance of work-lights reflecting off a steep crag. That, she decided, must be Keo’s new construction project. Beyond this, the increasingly pale horizon had taken on a slight orange color. “I suppose I can ask for a test flight…”

“And if you should happen to take your test flight in that direction at random…”

Technically, she mused, Monoghan was not her commanding officer. Lovell was a Marine ship, not a proper Navy warship, but its flyers and spacers still answered to its skipper, a Navy officer. She could technically even waive some of the diagnostics and boost for orbit as soon as they’d repaired the critical plating. Blundering into a clandestine project seemed like a good way to take unnecessary fire – hopefully metaphorical, but possibly literal as well.

“Sounds like fun, Colonel.” Azure didn’t turn back to look at the old Marine; she kept her eyes on the work-lights on the horizon, increasingly lost against the light of imminent dawn. “Is there anything else?”

There was no immediate answer. The limb of Margaux’s yellow-white primary crept over the craggy horizon, casting rivers of light down the valleys and creeping down canyon walls toward the toxic abundance below. Forbidding as the world was, Azure grudgingly admitted it knew how to be pretty when it wanted to.

Only after watching the sunrise for a minute did Azure realize that Monoghan still hadn’t replied. She turned, only to find him gone as if he had never been, vanished back into the compound.

Details

Tales from the Service: The Bumpy Ride to Margaux

2948-08-18 – Tales from the Service: A Drop to Margaux 

This week, the Incarnation began an attack on the Margaux system, triggering a response in force from the Confederated Fifth Fleet. As Margaux is very close to Maribel, by the time this feed item is dispatched, I expect Saint-Lô will be in-system at Margaux. 

Despite destruction of the main Hypercomm relay in the Margaux system, we are still receiving reports from the surface, since the Navy set up a series of backup relays in-system which the enemy has not managed to destroy. The best information I have (and this will be several days old by the time you receive it) is that the enemy has about twenty cruisers and five of their big transport ships in Maribel orbit, and that their ground forces have entered Port Mahew to little opposition. This is surprising, as Mayhew is the largest metropolis on the planet and contains most of the ground-side spaceport facilities. The FDA garrison appears to have ceded the city and retreated into the upland Causey Plana without much of a fight, suggesting they are vastly outnumbered. Since most of the extensive industrial base of the planet is found in the Causey Plana region, it seems likely that the enemy will not be content with taking the population centers. 

Several things about this battle seem strange to me already from the reports I have seen, but we can discuss those once the situation in-system has become clear. For now, I will observe that I suspect the Incarnation has overstretched itself to attack a world so close to Maribel and the inner edge of the Frontier; even assuming they are staging their forces at Mereena, the logistics situation for a full-scale battle at Margaux is not in their favor. 

This week’s entry comes to us from the ground at Margaux – a stranded Marine dropship pilot sent us the story of how she managed to get herself and her ship stranded. While I would normally assume the described stunt was the product of brazen flight-crew bragging, she does have Intelligence-sanitized flight logs and a confirmed kill to back up her story, and this pilot does not seem to be cut from the usual braggart cloth. 

[N.T.B. - I wouldn’t underestimate Nate. If they’re hitting a place like Margaux and landing troops in force, it’s because they think they can take it and keep it. I won’t be doubting that until I see some evidence things aren’t going according to their plan. Perhaps the Navy showing up in force with multiple battlewagons will do something to change their calculations, but it certainly didn’t work at Bodrogi.] 

When the outer doors of the launch bay opened, Lieutenant Azure Kulmala had a moment to admire the mottled blue orb of Margaux before the launch system hurled her dropship out into the orbital void. Though it looked tranquil from a distance, she had been well briefed on what she was about to drop a platoon of fully-equipped Marines into. The toxic biosphere surrounding Outpost Judicael, where the Marines would disembark, turned an unprotected stroll into a quick way to buy the whole farm without ever facing enemy fire. 

Fortunately, the environment worked for the Marines at least as much as it worked against them. With their heavy armor-suits, the Confederated Navy’s shock troops could march through the local flora without any trouble, provided they didn’t need to crack their seals before the suit exteriors had been thoroughly hosed down. Combined with detailed maps of the field and pre-constructed fortifications courtesy of the FDA, the Marines planned to make the most of the home-field advantage. 

Gerald Lovell maneuvered sharply in the last moment before dropship launch, and instead of the cloud-flecked planet below, Azure found her forward view occupied by the glinting knife-points of no less than twenty Tyrant cruisers in tight formation around a half-dozen boxy transports. A halo of flashes surrounded the enemy fleet, showing that at least a few of the orbital missile batteries defending the planet had survived the battle’s first twenty-seven hours. 

The battle in orbit was not the concern for Azure or the other dropship pilots, however. Lovell, an assault transport, was not equipped to fight heavy cruisers – it would put the horizon between itself and the enemy formation for as long as possible, keeping supplies flowing down and wounded Marines flowing back up to its medical bay. 

As the high-gee acceleration of the launch system dropped off, Azure kicked in the dropship’s A-grav system and slewed around to follow the pre-plotted course down to Judicael. All around her, the other first-wave dropships and their escorts, Marine-piloted Puma interceptors, were coming onto the same bearing.  

“Orchid, Hawthorn, we read you on course to make landfall at ship time 0755.” The launch controller aboard Lovell always had a calm voice, even in a situation like this one. “Be advised, Coronachs have vectored to intercept.” 

“Orchid lead confirming, launch control.” Commander Trengove’s gruff voice didn’t sound flustered, but it never did. 

“Hawthorn lead confirms. Looks like two groups of hostiles. They’ll intercept about sixty seconds apart.” Commander Vargas, the interceptor squadron leader, did seem nervous, but Azure didn’t blame her for that – this was Vargas’s first combat as squadron leader. “We’ll try to keep them at a distance, Orchid, but get those turrets warm.” 

Without waiting for Trengrove to relay the suggestion, Azure flipped the switch that retracted the protective shells over the dropship’s dorsal and ventral turrets. Unlike the Navy’s gunships, which used rapid-fire railguns, the Marine dropship turrets used plasma lances, which fired slower, but didn’t need to score a direct hit to cripple another small strike-craft. Combined with the practiced marksmanship of her two gunners, Amjarr and Cearra, the weapons should make short work of any Coronachs which slipped past Vargas’s Pumas. 

With the course set in and the gunners preparing their weapons, Azure switched circuits to the troop bay intercom. “Comfortable back there boys?” She had never been considered attractive, but she knew how to sweeten her voice so the Marines in the bay thought they were being piloted by the most beautiful woman on Earth. For the period between launch and touchdown, after all, they had nothing to do but lock their suit joints and pray or fantasize. On most drops, there would be time enough for both. “Could get bumpy before we go atmospheric, but nothing we can’t handle. Turret feeds are on channels nine and twelve.” 

The confidence she used when talking with the troopers was, of course, entirely false. Azure had dropped Marines in combat situations before, including once in a raid on a small Incarnation outpost in January, but this was the first time Lovell and its compliment had faced massed opposition. As the first Confederated ship to respond to the attack on Margaux, Lovell was laughably outgunned, and its 19th Marines could only delay the inevitable on the surface, but nobody had questioned the deployment all the same. 

Ahead, the thrusters of several escorting Pumas flared into sudden acceleration, and Azure checked the plot to see what they were chasing. Though it was too far ahead to see the fight clearly, the plot showed four Pumas tangle with a group of six Coronachs, the agile Marine interceptors nearly able to match the lightweight Incarnation units turn for turn. Seamless teamwork and the Pumas’ heavy armament soon reduced the enemy formation from six to three, and the survivors broke contact and fled. The second group of interceptors received a similar welcome, though Azure did not watch it long enough to see the outcome. 

“Orchid units, we are now tracking a third enemy formation vectoring to intercept.” The launch controller’s warning corresponded with the appearance of four new pips on the plot. Azure groaned; only two of the Pumas were in any position to intercept, and they would have to fight the Coronachs practically on top of the dropships. 

“Gunners, heads up.” Commander Trengrove growled. “Looks like there’s going to be a furball right on top of us. Hit a friendly, and you’re staying with the ground-pounders to dig latrines.” 

Given Margaux’s toxic reputation, the commander’s threat was probably idle, but Azure didn’t envy any gunner unlucky enough to test it. The Pumas, being far more durable than their opposite numbers, could stray close to the scorching plasma lances of the dropships safely, but the powerful turret weapons could still slag a Marine interceptor with a direct hit. 

“Enemy will be in weapons range in thirty seconds.” Azure sent on the ship-wide comm, to both the gunners and the payload of Marine grunts. The false-confidence act sounded so hollow in her own ears that she doubted it did much good for the morale of her human cargo, but she soldiered on anyway. “You might experience some mild turbulence caused by your wonderful pilot keeping all your sorry asses alive. No change in ETA.” 

The timer ticked down until the quartet of Coronachs caught up with the formation of dropships, swooping past the rearmost ships without even bothering to close in to the optimal firing range of their own plasma weapons. Azure had just enough time to see the quartet diverge into two independent pairs before the leading Incarnation interceptor hurtled into weapons range. Cearra’s turret belched a dart of white-hot contained plasma at the leader, but the Coronach snap-rolled out of the way quickly - inhumanly quickly. 

“Damn it all.” Azure double-checked to make sure she hadn’t leaked her alarm into the ship-wide circuit as the Coronachs slashed at a dropship just ahead. The two turrets on the targeted ship spat their own fire, but neither scored a hit on the nimble enemies. “Orchid Actual, these Nates are Immortals.” 

“Concur, Orchid Eight.” Trengrove replied. “Hawthorn is appraised.” 

Even as he spoke, the Coronachs swept around for another pass. The dropship they targeted lurched and gushed a hazy cloud of crystallizing atmosphere as the needling plasma weapons in the interceptors’ noses managed to pierce its weak gravitic screens. A moment later, the stricken ship seemed to simply come apart, without even the dignity of an explosion. 

“Hells.” Someone shouted on the squadron channel. “Orchid Ten is gone. Kicking out a beacon for recovery.” Surely most of the suited marines and the equally protected crew of the ship were still alive, but Azure knew no recovery tug was coming for them. Lovell couldn’t stick around long enough to pick up survivors. 

The swerving Coronachs drifted for a moment into weapons range of her own ship’s turrets, and Azure felt the dropship lurch as both gunners fired forward at almost the same instant. Neither seemed to be hit, but Azure thought one might have had a close enough shave that some of its sensors would be damaged by the plasma flare. Already, the formation had closed up around the space left by Orchid Ten’s destruction, and the enemy couldn’t fly straight for more than a second without running into turret-fire. Despite the danger on all sides and the two Pumas close behind, the Coronachs prowled wolf-like among the dropships, their Immortal pilots seeming almost to live up to the name. 

As the enemy slashed at a second dropship behind Azure’s own, one of the Pumas managed to get a targeting lock and fired a missile. Azure winced at the risk being taken; an exploding missile could cripple several of the tightly-flying dropships at once. Still, it seemed to pay off; the targeted Coronach tumbled skillfully out of the engagement, trying to outrun or outfly the missile.  

Azure lost track of it; by the time it returned to the fight, the dropships would be entering atmosphere, and safe from the lightly built Coronachs which could not survive atmospheric insertion at speed. She looked back to the other side of the plot just in time to see the second targeted dropship explode. Looking up, she saw glowing pieces of its hull tumble past her viewpanel, outpacing the racing formation in their plummet toward the atmosphere.  

A warning indicator squawked, and Azure threw the helm to one side before she even registered which one it was. The second pair of Coronachs zipped past her at a steep angle, and the screens registered glancing hits but no damage. “They’re on me.” She called, though there was nothing anyone could do about it. One of the Pumas was coming about to try to chase them away, but she needed to survive at least one stern-to-bow pass before it could do anything meaningful. 

Acting more on blind instinct than on any knowledge of what the enemy would expect, Azure threw her ship into a series of random jukes and rolls to the extent of what her slot in the formation would allow. One of the enemy interceptors flashed past already in a turn, seeming to intend to head off the rescuing Puma to let its wingman close in for the kill.  

This time, his weapons found a solid hit on Azure’s gravitic screens, and new alarms began to wail. Another hit like that, two at the most, and she would be as finished as their other victims. The turrets spat fire once more, but the superhuman pilot of this final Coronach avoided the shots with a flamboyant maneuver far more elaborate than was entirely necessary. “Show-off.” She grumbled. Naval Intelligence said that the Immortals thought themselves a superior breed of human, and perhaps for once the spooks had gotten something right. 

This time, the nimble Incarnation ship came at her ship head-on, weaving through the spurting fire of the other gunships’ turrets. Azure grinned, despite the expectation that she was about to die. If the smug bastard wanted to play a game of chicken, he could learn that the Confederated Marines didn’t flinch. She flipped the switch for the rotary strafing cannon mounted under the gunship’s nose and aimed it manually. There was no hope of hitting the Coronach with such a clumsy weapon, but she knew it could at least influence his choice of which direction to get out of the way.  

“Boys and girls, you might want to brace yourselves.” Azure pushed the cannon’s firing stud, and glowing tracers zipped out into the void. She had only a second to walk them closer to her assailant, not enough time to see what he did about it. Instead, she fired all thrusters and slammed the main drive into reverse, hauling her clumsy dropship around until its broad back flipped forward in the opposite direction from which she had herded the Coronach with the cannon. 

The rending crunch and screech of no less than five new alarms signaled success, but Azure had no time to celebrate, as she had to scramble to reroute power between her damaged systems and bring the ship back into the proper alignment for an imminent atmosphere insertion. The tough-built gunship had survived a glancing collision with the much smaller Coronach in good enough order to make landfall, but only tumbling debris remained of the Incarnation strike-craft. Getting back to Lovell, she knew, would be another matter. Hopefully Outpost Judicael had a few mechanics on site. 

By the time Azure had wrestled the ship into some semblance of order, the engagement was over. One of the other Coronachs had taken a glancing hit from a plasma-lance turret and limped away, and its unharmed associate had remained with it, keeping the pair of Pumas from closing in for an easy kill. The missile-targeted interceptor was nowhere to be seen. 

“Hope everyone’s all right back there.” This time, the syrup-sweet confidence was less of an act. “That bump you felt was a bit of science up here in the cockpit. Turns out these Immortal guys... aren’t.” 

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