If Two Can Do It... (ASA Dominion of Olvan)

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Irys Arist'lar"]

"And here they come."

Profundity escaped him as his focus centered on the flight of little Santhe/Sienar interceptors, their gunship backup, and what looked like a frigate trying to get in his way. Before he could engage with the frigate, or vice versa, he'd have to deal with-

A cold premonition settled into his gut, and he remembered what, exactly, those interceptors carried. The Bullet Time carried countermeasures, and a lot of them, but he didn't want to show his hand this soon.

Then again, if brilliant missiles took him down, he wouldn't have much of an option for a second hand.

The EM field generator roared to life, a dull thrumm that carried through the ship, and the flak cannons got to work. Both defensive setups concentrated on the Vipers' missiles, creating a two-hundred-metre death field that shredded electronics and fuselages alike. The rotary ion cannons, designed for taking down gunships (well, and capital ship turrets, but that was less relevant at the moment), concentrated on the gunship. In open space, he could get the Bullet Time as fast as the interceptors, but not coming up out of a grav well. Not yet.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Wing Commander Dolson pulled his stick hard to starboard, pulling away from an incoming object highlighted by the computer. The canister of flak exploded, his HUD displaying bright lines where the metal shards, unimpeded by any thick atmospheric soup, rushed out to meet him. Warnings flared across his dashboard as his shields absorbed a few hits.

That damned freighter had shredded the full volley of missiles and three fighters in the opening salvo. His comms system was going haywire, deciding that the electromagnetic interference that was clearly incapacitating the missiles was some form of jamming. Counter-counter measures were enacting, leaving him without comms for a vital pair of seconds.

The freighter was accelerating towards them hard. His viper had a relatively low approach velocity, but if that ship kept up the same burn, when they passed he’d have a hell of a job bringing himself about for another run.

“Gee-6, Gee-7, on my wings for a Besh-Three!” he commanded.

“Roger.”

“There goes my lunch.”

Dolson was several hundred metres off the escape vector of the freighter, but he aligned his nose parallel to it. With his left hand he quickly dialled the intertial dampner as high as it would go. Anything less than that would leave the best pilot incapacited, and probably damage internal systems. With a few quick presses he manually cut the feed of matter to the ion engine, but dialled the power up to full burn. The engine glowed hot, but provided no further impulse. He yanked hard on the controls, turning a full one-eighty in an instant. He reactivated the engine feed. Ions flooded the engine chamber, flowing out at relativistic speeds. The ship kicked hard, testing the limits of his control, a metallic groan signalled that he’d perhaps pushed the bird a little too hard.

As the freighter passed their radius from the planet they were already accelerating hard outwards as well, falling in behind her and continuing the pursuit. The three burned hard, spreading out and giving chase. Behind them several fighters were dropping back, but accelerating hard gradually reducing the relative velocity to zero and then edging after the freighter.

A beep on his console indicated that the comm system had stopped reacting to a perceived ECM threat. “Gee-6, fire missile!” Time to see if the missile jamming was down.

[member="Jorus Merrill"] tl;dr pilot realises they're going to overshoot the bullet time as they close. Turns his ass at Jorus and burns hard to fall in behind him. Hasn't got the kit to understand the jammer, but goes off his comms ECCM going haywire. Tentatively has someone fire a torpedo in the jammer's downtime window.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Irys Arist'lar"]

A Brilliant Missile snaked in through the incoming edge of the flak field before the flak guns could fully track around to cover rear, and the fifty-metre microcorvette Bullet Time rocked with the impact. Brilliants weren't large, but neither were proton torpedoes when push came to shove, and Brilliants were higher-grade in many ways.

The rotary ion cannons stitched space in response, but the bulk of their attention remained -- had to remain -- on the small capital ship he'd have to get past in order to find a clear vector. The cannons were meant for neutralizing emplacements on ships that size, but fully shielded...that was a problem. And with the interceptors coming up hard behind him, even this particular overpowered little ship was going to run into a hammer-and-anvil situation.

With a grunt, he made ready to toss the EM field in the capship's face. That might help. A bit.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

"Hold fire!" Dolson shouted before any more missiles could be fired. His comm unit had jumped straight back into ECCM mode as the EM jamming device had started up again. Now he was confused. Why would the jamming be sporadic? Why allow a missile through? "Close up, light them up!" he shouted. The Vipers closed and started trying to chip away at the rear deflectors of the freighter.

The Captain of the Sickle-class paused. Much of the ship's systems were automated, or manned by droids. It took them a few moments to decide what to do about the electromagnetic field being imposed on them. They had never comes across the Mandaltech before, and it took time to override lock downs prepared for significant EMP detonation. Once it was ascertained that the field was too weak to significantly hamper the vessel, it's handful of quad lasers started firing along the Bullet Time's escape vector, aiming to bring them closer. A pair of concussion missiles were fired, but they streaked off ahead, the EMP field knocking out their guidance systems. As soon as the Bullet Time close tractor fields would try to seek her out.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Irys Arist'lar"]

"All right," he said to himself as quad lasers rocked the microcorvette. "Crunch time."

He slammed about eight controls as close to simultaneously as he could manage, and the Bullet Time did a few things, all more or less at once. There was an order, though, and it went something like this.

A tractor shroud module jettisoned and expanded into a sphere of tethered trac-reflective plates. The tractor beam grabbed it, rather than the Bullet Time, and yanked hard enough to skid a couple plates off the shields and put the shroud into a collapsing spin. Not ideal, but it had bought him half a second to engage the emergency vector thrusters. With a mindboggling whump, the Bullet Time jolted half a klick to port. It tried to jolt farther as his targeting systems shut down, starting a fifteen-second countdown that felt about two hours too long, but at that point he keyed on the afterburners. Maneuvering jets at reduced efficiency for technical reasons he didn't quite get, the ship traded maneuverability for straight-line speed. At full interceptor acceleration rates, he did his level best to roar past the frigate before it could retarget tractor beams.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

"Their lines are holding, but we've hit their emplaced weaponry hard. We could do with a strike force undertaking a penetrating action through several key areas. They've got a solid set of defensive positions, but they don't have the numbers to defend in depth. If we push through and lap around they'll crumble quickly." The Brigadier explained. Irys looked over the tactical maps carefully. Orbital bombardment had been ruled out for political reasons, and the Ol'Vann had been supplied with some advanced anti-air weaponry. It looked like they would have to do this the hard way.

They were only a few hours from reinforcements. She agreed with her counterparts in the army, throwing more droids at the problem would only be costly. It was time to bring in an elite fighting force to break the back of the enemy. Perhaps even some Force Users.

"Signal High Command, request the units we need to end this!"

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

"Oh, do we have the Captain of that freight in custody now?" Irys asked idly as she watched more reports roll in from the battlegrounds below. This campaign would probably last a few more days to break the back of the enemy, but probably months to finish dealing with pockets of resistance and insurgency.

"Erm, no Ma'am," someone replied sheepishly.

She turned, ever so slowly to look down at the officer who had replied. "Excuse me?"



The tractor beam officers frantically rushed back and forth. They tried to decipher what had just happened, but being fed information across a number of screens in a small room wasn't the same as understanding what was going on. They expected a level of understanding before the computers relayed events, and they were struggling to keep up with the data being churned.

The tractor beam arced about, grasping towards the Bullet Time, but grabbing nothing more than the handful of molecules that reached this distance above the atmosphere. The TIE Vipers came about in a smooth arc, keeping pace with the vessel, but only just. The firing arcs of their forward weapons were exceedingly limited, and they now needed to remain back on the same vector as the escaping freighter to keep up. Blaster fire peppered the rear shields of the freighter.

The flight of TIE Exacts tried to adjust course, but they didn't have the raw speed to now make an intercept vertex with the escaping craft.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Irys Arist'lar"]

The Bullet Time had been built for 'yeehaw' moments. Having just pulled one, Jorus found his adrenaline rush less pleasurable than he remembered, and more mingled with a sickening apprehension. This could still go all wrong. Sustained fire was sustained fire, and his aft shields weren't happy. He rebalanced them, then again as a fresh barrage came in. The afterburners coughed, sputtered-

And died, ahead of schedule.

Power levels began to drop, and that apprehension took on a degree of greater rationality. He slammed the tractor shroud control again, and another shroud module kicked back. It spread into a wide sphere of centrally-tethered, trac-reflective plates -- aimed not at a tractor beam, but at his pursuers. Relative velocity wasn't nearly high enough to take down their shields, but a big net made of jagged 'stuff' had a decent chance of throwing off the fighters' coordination, forcing course adjustments -- no guarantees, but even a moment of pause was a moment closer to clear skies.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

The interceptors broke ranks, spreading out around the incoming missiles and displaying their incredible agility. However, they could only put down so much power at once, and accelerating off course and back again meant they lost velocity on the Bullet Time. If the freighter carried on accelerating as it had, matching their own, they would carry on a in relative perpetual drift back away from the freighter. Damned laws of relativity.

Wing Commander Dolson, however, had not pulled away. White knuckles clasping his control stick he closed his eyes and ploughed on. He wasn't sure whether the freighter captain had broken his usual calm, or there was just a professional determinism not to be embarrassed by the fat hunk of durasteel he chased. Red lights erupted across his displays as his forward shields took a battering. Several smaller, denser pieces of debris had broken through and torn chunks out of his wings. Good job there was no resistance at this altitude. He thumbed his missile controls and sent his payload ahead of him. One final roll of this dice before this fether escaped.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Irys Arist'lar"]

Profanity filled the Bullet Time, the evacuating family forgotten along with their presumably unsullied ears, as brilliant missiles punched the shields down to 10% and put a hole in the maneuvering jets. Maybe more than one hole. Power flows stuttered. Jorus' invective didn't. For a Jedi Master, he was pretty decent at turning the air blue.

The microcorvette slammed into hyperspace sideways, a turbulent ride about a minute ahead of schedule. Jorus was pissed, and his shame at that wasn't enough to keep him from doing his thing. Damage indicators blinked an atonal visual symphony.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

The whooping and hollering continued on the wing channel all the way back to their base vessel. The ACA navy had a huge number of officers and a tiny fraction of those flew. There were the officers in fleet, with many of those Bothans, given the species' naval traditions. Then the even larger fraction who bought the ships and kept them in the air.

The stereotype of the jocks being the ones behind the sticks wasn't completely removed from the truth. That freighter had entered hyperspace off alignment, knocked off its axis by the last desperate volley. That little vessel had been a tough nut to crack, but they'd done it. Another notch was added to the Wing Commander's hull that evening. He'd likely never know it was a mistake.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys’ alarm sounded after a depressingly small amount of sleep. She was taking just six hours between shifts now. Yesterday she had heard that the small freighter had actually escaped. A few recon ships had followed the hyperspace trail to its conclusion. They’d found bits of debris, but not enough. She had been in a foul mood all day, her officers had been keen to keep out of her notice. A junior ensign had cocked up on a report he’d submitted and regretted it.

Then again, she hadn’t been as annoyed as Wing Commander Dolson. She’d seen him walking back from the flight deck cursing and swearing. Apparently they engineers had just wiped the kill mark from the hull of his fighter.

She didn’t even pause for a sonic shower, she simply grabbed a cup of caff and headed for the bridge. She wasn’t officially on duty for a while yet, but that would give her time to read updates and make notes before people started asking her to make decisions.

 

[Freanne]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Irys Arist'lar"]

Freanne was on one those transports, waiting for her orders. She hated the waiting, then again she hated dropships more. Dropship what really stupid name for durasteel coffin, as more soldiers died on the drop than the battle. She waited in hanger with the rest of the battalion, when do they go into battle. Then again would they need to with this many fly boys out here, after all it would not be first time people gave up without a fight. She cleaned her sniper rifle, as she listened to other officers working out where they should land. Her landing point was always the front, her and her troops were scouts and the skirmishes, the main job was to hold a line whilst the main force got organized.

 

[Raziel]

The crimson spray was soaked up by the surface of the snow. A bright red stain across the pure, untouched surface of the world. Almost symbolic, Raziel decided, as he allowed the guard to slip to the ground. No point covering their tracks, otherwise he would have used a cleaner method. He plunged the blade into the snow, letting it suck the blood from the surface of the matte-black blade.

Sliding it back into a sheath on his belt, he turned off the adaptive camouflage on his hand and signalled his unit. The small team of elite soldiers and Force Users, clad in Nightshrike armour, were picking their way through the enemy lines.

Their armour shifted into patterns of white and grey patches to blend in with their environment, and they moved on full covert mode. Even a race as simple as the locals could detect radio signals with some precision. Under cover of the snowstorm, they advanced through the enemy lines. Soon they’d cross the main regions of pickets and came around behind the main infantry emplacements. The thick snow was keeping many of the enemy’s tracked vehicles out of action, so if they could hit those emplacements hard from behind, the enemy lines would soon crumble and be overrun.

When they hit from behind [member="Freanne"] would lead her forces, including repulsor tanks, from the front.

 

[Freanne]

[member="Raziel"]


Freanne and the rest landing force, got a message through the intercom All military personnel please go to your assigned craft, this is not a drill. She then quickly boarded her durasteel coffin, and hoped she dodged another day. Soon her and whole landing force, was making it's way planetside. Then the defences came on line, and a barrage weapons fired at them. Her pod was skimmed by the fire storm. She know wonder, would die as they entered atmosphere, would the smoke venting kill them first. This was first time her coffin been hit, the engineer was trying to fix the issues. He was cursing as he did, she looked throught the window she wondered if this was it. She saw another drop pod explode, and shrapnel from it cut into another pod. She hated these pods, there had to be a better way. Soon they may make planetside, if the engineer keeps them alive.

 

[Raziel]

[member="Freanne"]

Coming from below the enemy’s main emplacements was a risk. However, they’d occupied a ridge that allowed them to cover a vast distance with their simple, yet effective artillery and machine guns, whilst also keeping the bulk of their forces out of the line of sight.

The snow was deep here, and the storm starting to whither out. Both were bad news. The snow might have cushioned loud footfalls, but for someone like Raziel who could move without a sound, the crunching snow sounded painfully loud.

However, darkness would be coming soon. So far from their point of hiding they’d tagged the location of eight emplaced weapons. Once they started fighting, they’d report their positions and Drones would do the rest.

The thirty or so individuals found cover as the storm blew out, and visibility started to increase. Raziel made a final check of his weapons. He had a simple silenced submachine gun for mid-range combat. Despite being a mediocre shot, they needed to sow confusion in the first few moments. He had his lightsabers and his grenade launcher. He had a string of sunspot grenades on his belt, which could easily deal with any artillery pieces they needed to destroy.

The sound of anti-air emplacements heralded to arrival of the ACA assault force. A large number of infantry were being dropped in now. It was almost time.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys watched the tactical display. Their team had successfully moved behind enemy lines. The group was remarkably hard to follow from satellite imagery with their adaptive camouflage, but the ACA navy picked them out from time to time. The landing force was prepared, and the mechanised force and armoured squadrons were already a few miles out from the attach point. Repulsor tanks would rush forwards as soon as the infantry had overrun the enemy. They would then break out and attack the lines from behind. If all went well the enemy would be broken today. They had limited defence in depth, and they might just be able to force a surrender once their command understood the position they were in.

"Order the close air assault. I want droid bombers and drones making their runs now!"

 

[Freanne]

[member="Raziel"]

Her drop pod came through atmosphere, inside pod began getting hotter. The heat shields were damaged but held, everyone in the pod felt like they were cooking for awhile. Sweat poured of her and her squad, and within a minute it began to cool again. The drop pod was stinking by that point, by the foul smell of their sweat and lose of someone bowel control. They hit snow with a thud, and got out quickly. It was just pleasant to get out the pod, into fresh air and a cooler temperature. She looked back and steam was coming off it, as it cooled quickly in the snow. She then turned and began to try and find who made it over the radio, All squads report in, I repeat all squads report in. She getting messages back, only half of her platoon had made it to planet, durasteel coffins indeed she thought to herself. She then began to get her men into a line, forming up with the rest scout company. Behind the main force, began to organise itself for last push. As they did drones and bombers, went over head to soften up the enemy. Soon the order to march would come, and when it did her team would be the first ones in.....

 

[Raziel]

They moved swiftly and near-silently through the difficult terrain, sowing confusing about them as they advanced. Before the enemy could properly engage them, they would move between firing zones and attack key targets from behind the enemy lines.

Sighting carefully down his submachinegun, Raziel fired a few shots to keep a handful of enemy soldiers pinned. He just had to keep the pressure on as the man next to him held the targeting laser. There was a low “thwoop” as the hunter-killer drone cut through the air overhead and a moment later the group of artillery pieces vanished in a brilliant orange explosion.

Even with his self-adjusting helmet, Raziel was left with auras dancing across his vision. A silly mistake to make really. He could hear thuds in the snow as the enemy soldiers advanced to catch them in a cross fire. He was half-blind, but he didn’t need his eyes to guide him. His smart-grenade launcher was shouldered in one smooth motion and he loaded a smart-mine, set to air-burst within five metre of a life form. He lifted the launcher out of cover and allowed the Force to guide his aim. There was a thud as the grenade launched, and then propelled itself across the field. He heard the explosion and then felt the agony as lives were slowly cut out.

“Keep moving, we have one more emplacement to hit,” he instructed.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys watched the tactical display as the red elements gradually winked out. Their small forces behind the main enemy battle lines moved quickly, targeting and in some cases eliminating priority targets. A spearhead of elite soldiers was directly engaging the main enemy lines, relying on the confusing and air support to hold them without taking heavy casualties.

As soon as the main enemy emplacements were down, the ACA repulsor powered armour would strike. One massive push to power through the enemy lines and they’d break through and mop up.

One by one, those red symbols marked as key were winking out. The enemy armour, on old-fashioned tracks, were barely moving or not moving at all. Several feet of snow had hampered their ability to move or even fight at all.

One last push and the ACA sponsored government would win the war.