War Games: Building the next Cadre [Galactic Republic]

[Gir Quee]

Vinnath-class Pocket Carrier Crescent Light, somewhere in deep space

“Reverting to realspace...now.”

The Galactic Republic warship surged into realspace, the flashing lights of superluminal travel vanished into little pinpricks of light. It would almost be mesmerizing if he hadn't be seen the celestial sights for the last several years as he travelled through space as part of his Academy training. But this was different. This time he wasn't observing or working a specialty station of the bridge under another trainee's command.

No, this time was more real: his first command.

Gir cleared his throat and turned to his right to face a gangly duros.

“Helm, bring us off center of the Evenstar to the port by two klicks,” decided Lieutenant Quee.

The alien mumbled a quick acknowledgement. His pocket carrier easily slid to the left and behind of her sister ship, bathed in the distant lights of a thousand stars. Behind his ship, two other pocket carriers broke the line to quickly form a wedge formation. It had almost become standard operating procedure for the quartet as they had traveled through Galactic Republic space. As boring as such battle drills were, he found himself admiring their efficiency more and more as they traveled through more unfamiliar space farther away from the hyperlanes where they had previously trained. His Mon Calamari communication's officer cleared his throat.

“Sir, message from the Evenstar.”

“Put it on the projector, Toka.”

Toka briefly bobbled his head and slapped a few buttons on his console. The holo-projector in front of him flared to life to coalesce and form the image of sinewly blonde female with emerald green eyes: Lieutenant Kathryn Wells. She glanced down at her wrist chrono.

“Well, your astro-navigation plotting has improved,” mused the woman with a wry grin, “it's almost as good as Kyun's. We shaved about five minutes off that jump.”

“I don't see it improving much more than that, lieutenant,” replied Gir with a sigh, “It's kind of hard to beat that sullustan's at his favorite study. But let's get down to business. Do you have any information from the Captain Ristan?”

“The next scenario is supposed to be a simulation of us attacking the Origin's Hammer and the supply ships. You've got lead on this one, Gir. So, what are you thinking about?”

He briefly glanced up to his left, “Grab a shuttle and bring yourself and your squadron commander aboard the Crescent Light. I'm going to ask the other lieutenant's to do the same.”

“You know Kyun's going to give you crap...”

“I'll survive,” decided Quee, “I want to talk and get a better plan of attack...”

“Still smarting from your last one, it would seem...you do remember this is just a simulation, right?”

“And that's exactly why I want to get this right.”

She nodded, “I'll be onboard shortly.”

The visage of the woman faded away as the channel cut out. He spared a glance at Toka, but the diligent Mon Calamari was already talking into his headset. Gir admired the alien's proactivity, though he wondered if that would cause more problems later on in his career. There was a certain structure that the military followed, especially for those who were led. He turned his eyes to a senior ensign, a short man named Davos, who soon would be in Gir's place in half a year.

“Ensign Davos, you have the bridge. I'll be in the lounge discussing strategy with the other officers. Buzz me if you need me.”

“Yes sir.”

 

[Torill Holgor]

Location: Vinnath-class Pocket Carrier Crescent Light, Louge

Torill sat in the louge aboard the Cresent Light. One of the Navy Pilots [member="Gir Quee"] had graciously permitted Torill to learn under the man some piloting skills. After the Supreme Chancellor's quip about signing on to serve in a military capacity and not just a political one Torill had tracked down the phatom recruiters choosing the Navy instead of the Army as Torill already had some weapons and tatics training from his father.

Whe the Lt entered the room Torill would stand at attention as LT Quee was the Captian of this particular vessel

"Captian on deck."

Torill would remain standing until told otherwise know that while Torill may be a Republic Senator this was most definitely Gir's show.

 

[Gir Quee]

[member="Torill Holgor"]

Hangar bay, Vinnath-class Pocket Carrier Crescent Light, somewhere in deep space

“Even I must admit that you did much better this time around,” said the sullustan, “but you still have room for improvement.”

“Ah…well thanks Kyun,” acknowledged Gir, sparing a brief glance at Lieutenant Wells.

The woman gave him a knowing smile. The characteristic pop of the magcon field announced another vessel had entered the hangar bay of his little warship. Their eyes turned to face the transport of the Calithil, Noonam’s ship. That ithorian was a bit of an oddity, even among the diverse ranks of the Galactic Republic. Gir was not sure how he had broken free of his people’s typical pacifistic bent, though if the quiet alien ever revealed it, Gir would be all ears. The ithorian strolled down his transport’s ramp before it was fully lowered to join his fellow cadets.

“Welcome aboard, Noonam,” said Gir, stretching out a hand to the ithorian.

The hammerheaded being clasped and nodded, “My thanks, captain.”

“Well then, shall we?” said Gir, gesturing towards the Light’s interior, “my comm’s officer is saying that several more ships will be joining us on the exercise, on our team, but I am unsure if they will be conducting their own meeting, and then we’ll conference, or what.”
Wells spared a glance at Gir as they strolled through the blast doors, “What kind of ships?”

“Hammerhead frigates.”

“Well, that’ll certainly help against the Origin,” noted the Sullustan, “they do the heavy fighting, leaving us to do the raiding.”
“Sounds likely,” agreed Gir.

The quartet rounded a corridor and quickly passed into the lounge; the short walking distances being one of the few benefit of serving on a smaller ship. As they entered, someone called “Captain on the deck”, causing everyone to rise to their feet. Gir hesitated and glanced around the room. And usually I’m the one who’s coming to stand up at attention. This voyage gets odder and odder. Quee cleared his throat.

“As you were,” ordered Gir, his eyes briefly resting on Senator Holgor before moving on.

Most of the people began to sit down, including the other Lieutenants, but not Gir. Instead, the man strode over to lounge’s central holo-projector and inserted his datapad into its data socket. After Gir had entered in a few commands, the projector began to thrum, forming a fuzzy holo of their target, the supply convoy guarded by the Origin. Lieutenant Quee’s gaze swept across the assembled ranks. I’ve always hated giving briefings, but it’s one of those things that’s just best to get it over with…

“This is our target, a supply convoy guarded by the Origin. I know many of us here have gone through this scenario before, and Captain Ristan does like to harp on it, but he’s given us a curveball with this one. I’ve just received word that one Taran Holt will be joining our raiding group with a pair of Rendili-built Hammerhead frigates. I would like to think that this will make it easier, but I think we all know Captain Ristan better than that…”

Gir briefly paused, letting a low mumble of agreements pass before heading on.

“…I think it’s likely that other ships that he hasn’t mentioned will be joining the exercise too, but on the convoy’s team. My guess is that we’re near another group of Republic warships undergoing training, who have also similarly been split up. In the past, I think our old raiding tactics would have worked well, the distract the frigate with one corvette while the rest of us smash and grab what we could before we retreated. But my fellow lieutenants and I agree that most likely the Hammerhead frigates will engage the Origin and her sistership in some classic frigate duel, if nothing else than to keep our frigates well-practiced in fighting their own kind.

So given that, the question is what do we think Captain Ristan has up his sleeve? Thoughts people? Speak candidly but orderly, we have a strictly no decor rule for these discussions. After all, we should know better than most that rank and good ideas aren't intrinsically linked...”

That brought a few light chuckles from the audience. Gir began to eye them. Despite the levity, he had really meant it.

 

[Taran Holt]

The command couch of the Hammerhead-class Frigate Tukara was of a spartan design, and uncomfortable enough that Taran found himself pacing the bridge as the clock counted down for reemergence into real space. A shame, he'd always heard that Rendili ships were top-notch.

"Six minutes to exit hyperspace." The call came from a Bothan ensign seated at the comms console. Taran muttered a quiet 'very well' in response and continued his slow circuit of all the various watchstations. Most were manned by enlisted personnel of varying pay grades, all of whom could be trusted to do their jobs effectively, if not exactly with much motivation.

The rest of the bridge crew were officers, mostly of the lower ranks. In his time in command, Taran had learned to trust your enlisted as subject-matter experts, and trust your junior officers to make a mess of things. On every ship he’d commanded, he’d fostered a culture that built from the ‘Chiefs’ on up. Noncommissioned Officers might not have the same sense of pomp and ceremony as Republic Academy graduates, but they knew how to get the job done, and anyway having them as the ‘deckplate leaders’ made things a hell of a lot more relaxed for the Captain. Having a crew that actually liked and respected you too, well, that was an added bonus.

So it was on the Tukara, even though Taran’s tenure there was short so far. He’d reactivated his commission after an argument with the family back on Anaxes. They’d argued that his military service was over and he must be devoted to politics. Taran had objected. This exercise he was now involved in was the result.

“Stand by to exit hyperspace. Exiting in five, four, three, two, one…” At the count of ‘one’ the formless swirl visible in the viewports shifted suddenly, and accompanied by a very slight hum, the bright specs of stars amidst a black background surged up to fill every transparisteel plane.

“New contacts, dead ahead.” This time the call came from a Duros Chief. Before Taran had even made his way over to the seated tech, he had refined the display. “Identified as Vinnath-class Corvettes. IFF response is good, lead ship is the Crescent Light. Looks like our little raiders, Captain."

Taran nodded. The brief he’d gotten had been sparse, but everything checked out so far. This was to be a practice convoy raid, his pair of frigates and the trio of pocket carriers vs. Captain Ristan’s Origin’s Hammer and whatever escorts he had.

It was about time to get to know who he was working with. Taran relayed an order to have the Vigilant form up in parallel, and then signaled the commo to open a channel to the Crescent Light. He paused for a moment, trying to figure how to approach things. Overly formal was the go-to way in the Senate, but out in dead space as a soldier among soldiers…

“Crescent’s Light this is Tukara, hope we’re not late to the party.”

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Camellia Swift]

Location: Aboard the Rendili Skies entering realspace.

Camellia herself had no complaints with the design of the Rendili made warship she was captaining for the day's events. In fact she felt quite comfortable in the command seat on the bridge of the Dreadnought class cruiser as the lines of hyperspace dwindled from in front of the viewport as the vessel reentered real space just shy of the convoy Captain Ristan was covering for the simulation with his Hammerhead Frigate the Origin's Hammer. "All systems stable, no errors in the cruiser maam!"

Well that was exactly what the Rendili woman liked to hear.

"Communications have been established with our support squadrons, all of them have reached the combat zone intact. Captain Ristan's frigate has also confirmed that we have secure transmissions."

Now that was even better!

"Alert Captain Ristan that we will be moving into position according to the convoy's formation and the enemy positions. . . .speaking of, what does our sensor array have to say on their locations!" Turning about to stare at the officer at the sensor suite, Camellia felt a little anxious as her ship began to lurch forward, flanked by two squadrons of Rendili Starfighters, as it began to close with the Origin's Hammer and the convoy they would both be defending. Battle wasn't new to her, but considering this was a large gathering of Republic naval officers she would hate to give a poor show. "Maam the enemy pocket carriers appear to be in formation, with two Hammerhead Cruisers moving to join them."

Excellent. So everyone would have time for posturing before the fighting began. Honestly this seemed like a great set up for the convoy's defenders. Sure the Pocket Carriers were much faster, and the enemy likely had similar fighter supports and more sources of fire with more ships, but any ship that got caught within tractor beam range of the Dreadnought class would likely face a severe pummeling from its vast array of turbolaser batteries.

And since the defenders wouldn't move as much, the Dreadnought's slow speed would not be in the way. Although Camellia did wonder about the shield strength of the Vannaths. They were Mon Cal designs so they had to have thick defenses, but at the same time they probably wouldn't have alarming firepower. . . .what would likely pose a problem would be the Vannaths trying to maneuver around and catch the convoy before the Dreadnought could get into a counter position, but since they had to close the distance first hopefully there would be time each time to keep pace. So long as those Hammerheads didn't bog them down, but hopefully Ristan could handle those in such situations. "Move us into position and have the squadrons stand ready. This promises to be a good fight."

 

[Torill Holgor]

[member="Gir Quee"]

Torill took his seat listening to what Gir had to say. Unfortunately Torill didn't know what had happened last time or what to expect and a million questions sprang to mind.

"You will have to forgive me as I am behind the learning curve but two questions come to mind." "The first being what is the size and make up of the supply convoy, and second what are the specs of the Origin"

Torill paused.

"As it is the Supreme Chancellor wanted every Senator to get in some Military training so here I am diving in head first."

 

[Gir Quee]

[member="Taran Holt"] [member="Torill Holgor"] [member="Camellia Swift"]

Vinnath-class Pocket Carrier Crescent Light

Gir slowly nodded as Torill asked his questions.

"All good questions," mused Gir, "We don't always have the benefit of such intelligence on the convoy's makeup, but based on our last simulations, we're looking at roughly a dozen Rendili transports guarded by a pair of Hammerhead frigates and two more pocket carriers like these two. The transports aren't going to be simple pirate bait either; they're reasonably well armed and can gang up on a ship like this if we're not careful.

As for the Origin's Hammer, its class of vessels has a wide degree of various armaments in small amounts, running anywhere from heavy turbolasers to anti-missile octets. Otherwise, in terms of other performance, it strikes me as a fairly well-balanced design of reasonable speed, firepower, and defenses. I would say based on my experience, that one of them will easily outgun all four of our pocket carriers in terms of pure firepower. Consequently, it will most likely fall to Captain Holt to duel the opposing frigates while we deal with any other escorts and do what damage that we can to the convoy. Though certainly, Captain Holt may draw us in to help deal with frigates or their escorts, which we will do if needed."

Another junior officer raised his hand, "I think that most of us know that the guns of our carriers aren't our strength, but our fighters are. What are our current loadouts? I heard the Calith changed out its fighters recently as a squadron rotated in and out for shore leave?"

Gir spared a glance at the Calith's Ithorian captain, but the alien remained his typical stone-faced self. Gir shrugged.

"Our starfighters are certainly our most offensive power," agreed Gir, "we are currently fielding two squadrons of basic Narra-class Interceptors and one squadron of [url=http://starwarsrp.net/topic/34536-aurek-strike-interceptor/]Aurek Strike Interceptors. The Calith recently traded out Greywind squadron for a training squadron, Flashfire. Flashfire is also flying Narra-class Interceptors, but they're equipped with bombing package, which means a lot of proton torpedoes. Any other questions?"

The intercomm system of his ship buzzed to reveal the crystal clear voice of Toka, "Sir, we have a message from Captain Holt of the Tukara."

"Holo?" questioned Gir.

"Don't know, sir."

Gir nodded to no-one in particular, "Well, loop it down here to the main projector, and send holo-footage back."

"Yes sir."

Gir stood in front of the projector to hear the disembodied voice of Taran Holt come out.

"Crescent’s Light this is Tukara, hope we’re not late to the party.”

"Tukara," replied Lieutenant Quee, "party hasn't even started yet. I am just discussing tactics with other corvette captains and our squadron officers. Do you have any plans for attacking the convoy?"

 

[Silara Varis]

[member="Gir Quee"]

Location: Crescent Light

Two minutes had passed after Silara had hit the alarm shutoff on her cot and now she was suiting up and still groggy from sleep. No one had sounded quarters yet but she knew it was about time as she had been tracking the mission since it's onset.

She was a small woman but a serious one. Having just come out of the flight academy and surviving plenty of freelance piloting jobs she knew that her skill was being put to good use. Walking into the flight brief room she grabbed a cup of caf as the other pilots stood by and chatted. She didn't chat just walked out to the flight deck and waved down the Chief.

"Chief!"

"Yeah." The chief came over at a slow trot which annoyed Silara alot.

"Is my bird ready?"

"Which number?" He asked looking at the manifest.

"Alpha two-zero."

He paused and then nodded.

"Yep have her all fuelled up and tuned up too."

"Good." She said bruquely and brushed himaside making her way to her Interceptor.

 

[Torill Holgor]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Taran Holt"] [member="Camellia Swift"] [member="Silara Varis"]

Torill nodded at the answer to his questions thinking of asking a few more until Gir was interrupted. Instead Torill sat back and listened to the discussion about using fighters to do most of the work. An idea came to his head something he had read somewhere before but was not sure would work. When there was a pause Torill spoke up.

"Sir why not use it all in waves." "The fighters to get their attention, the bombers to take down the shields, and then the larger ships like this one to finish them off." "Stagger them into three separate waves." "Have the first hit and then as they are pulling away the second hits." "As the second is pulling away have the Crescent Light and the other Corvette Captains fire." "Feed off of the initial chaos of the first wave to get the second wave in." "The first two waves taking out their ability to respond to the hit form the Corvettes."

 

[Gir Quee]

[member="Torill Holgor"] [member="Taran Holt"]

Gir let a slow smile blossom across his face, "You're onto something there, officer. We even have a officer slot dedicated to ensuring that sort of thing happens, a flight controller. He typically coordinates such actions with the squadron leaders and our own capital ships. More likely than not, I would say it's a safe bet that our interceptors will, more likely than not, start out doing just that as our first wave. The second and third wave that you're speaking about, in my own experience, happen somewhat simultaneously. When battles get started, there is a chaos that sweeps across both sides, and oftentimes it simply isn't practical to time things exactly like that because your opponent will have plans of his own, which can easily disrupt such timed plans with his own, and vice versa. Consequently, we can generally form loose plans and tactics that we can adapt to a variety of situations. I would guess that our bombers, gunships, and corvettes like this will hammer what we can and we'll pick off targets together whenever possible. That combined arms coordination will fall down to our flight controller, as already stated."

 

[Silara Varis]

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Torill Holgor"]

Silara scrambled into her fighter and slammed the cockpit shut. It sealed off with a whirrr-hisss.

"Alright check all systems for pre flight launch, sound off bloodhawks."

"Red two standing by."

"Red three standing by."

"Red four-"

It went on until all twelve pilots had been accounted for.

"Roger that Bloodhawks, Red one is a go. Stand by for immediate launch."

Silara flipped the comms over to the Fleetcom channel, which would be heard on all major bridges.

"Bloodhawk squadrons standing by, requesting clearance for launch."

 

[Gir Quee]

[member="Silara Varis"] [member="Torill Holgor"] [member="Camellia Swift"] [member="Taran Holt"]

One hour later…

Vinnath-class Pocket Carrier Crescent Light

Gir reclined in his command chair, idly watching the lines of hyperspace travel through the bridge’s viewport. The pilots and other small craft crewmembers were already onboard their vessels. Some of them, such as the Aurek pilots were already in their ships traveling in hyperspace alongside the other vessels of the small flotilla. Others, including the majority of the interceptors, were still safely nested in the confines of their carriers because they lacked hyperdrives of their own. According to their plan, the flotilla would exit hyperspace just in front of where the Origin would be leading at the point of the convoy, where the group could quickly overwhelm the frigate in alpha strike using their overwhelming firepower and numbers. Toka cleared his gravelly throat before he began the countdown.

“Five, four, three, two, one…”

The flowing lines of stars came to stop, turning into distant, distinct pinpricks of starlight among a black ocean. No sooner had the attack group reverted to hyperspace then when they had started to launch the non-hyperspace capable starfighters, notably Bloodhawk Squadron. But the bridge crew turned into a cacaphony of noise as their entire plan of attack fell apart.

There was no Origin, nor were any of her consorts present.

Instead, the Dreadnaught Rendili Skies loomed menacingly in their viewports in the middle of the convoy. Streams of light lit up the space in between them. Almost immediately, the dreadnaught began to fire back at the attackers, which worried Gir. A dreadnaught was a far more powerful foe than the Origin.

Gir quietly swore underneath his breath even as the starfighters charged on out in front of them. The space began to light up around them with smaller streams of laser fire. The Crescent Light’s own quad ion cannon lashed out at the nearest transport in front of them, battering the vessel with streams of cyan fire. The corvette began to launch missiles at the same craft to. He narrowed his eyes. Time to take charge.

“Weapons,” stated Gir, “disable that transport's engines, and as soon as its done, snag it with a tractor beam. We’re taking it with us as an extra shield.”

“Yes sir.”

Lieutenant Quee quickly scrawled over the commands in his console, finally finding a pre-planned battle drill, simply labeled Battle Drill 8. He tapped a button, issuing the order to the other corvettes in his group. The pocket carriers began to disperse from the formerly central formation to take close cover among their prey, the transports. At the distance between the dreadnaught and the outer transports and the corvettes, the Rendili Skies’ gunners would have to be careful in their fire, if they didn’t want to hit their own charges. Still, it wouldn't be impossible for the dreadnaught to target them, and that worried Gir, even if they were using that variation of the Ackbar Slash. The transport's engines in front of them finally succumbed to the corvette’s fire after a helpful strafing run by a pair of Rendili-built gunships. Still, the transport's other systems struggled against the corvette. The merchant ship's lasers continued to spew fire at the Crescent Light, which promptly returned fire with its own light point defense weapons. Quee sighed. It's going to take a little bit more work then to finally bring it down, though the quad ion cannon should eventually render it disabled. Gir’s Crescent Light promptly hauled the unfortunate craft with its tractor beam to place it between the corvette and the dreadnaught, taking care to rotate the craft to cover the widest amount of the corvette as possible while the pocket carrier moved in to engage more of the transports. The helmsman of the Crescent Light promptly began to maneuver the starship in the Calith's wake, traveling around the left edge of the convoy as close to the transports as physically possible while two of its sisterships began to do the same on the opposite side of the convoy.

As they had done that, Holt’s Tukara and Vigilant had also separated from the initial formation, but rather than dispersing laterally like the corvettes, the two ships had changed planes vertically. The Tukara had risen vertically to bear its weapons down on the Rendili Skies’ dorsal shields, whereas the Vigilant had descended straight down and reoriented itself to fire on the Skies’ ventral shields. The maneuver attempted to have the frigates to split up the Rendili Skies’ shield strength while allowing the frigates to concentrate their own to their forward shields. But Gir guessed that ultimately that tactic’s success would depend on the fighter squadrons, as they had the ultimate maneuverability to keep ship’s checked from concentrating their shields equally.

 

[Camellia Swift]

[member="Taran Holt"] [member="Gir Quee"] [member="Torill Holgor"] [member="Silara Varis"]

Well, it certainly was apparent that the enemy was much more apparently prepared for this combat action than initially considered. Camellia was quite used to running defense during battle simulations, it thusly made her feel right at home when she watched the pair of Hammerhead Cruisers come out of hyperspace along with the trio of Pocket Carriers. So these were the Vannath class corvettes up close? They looked rather fragile, she ought to put that assumption to the test! "Direct our quad heavy cannons on the enemy's lead corvette, and then bring our turbolaser batteries to bear on the frigates coming to bear on our starboard side."

Whoever was in command of the opposing fleet was quite tactical about it as well, targeting the lead transport just behind her Dreadnought Cruiser and activating a tractor beam to put a pull on it, meanwhile the Hammerhead frigates had positioned themselves to hit her ship with their heavy cannons together while she could only bring half her firepower on any one of them. With this poor outline of her forces there was honestly very little she could do to interfere with the corvettes trying to snag the transports. . . .except for the one foolishly trying to drag the lead one past her ship. "Focus our fire on the Hammerhead beneath us, and get our own tractor beam on the transport I want it locked in place. Let's see that little carrier try and compete with the power output a ship four times its size can bear. Direct our Squadron Commanders to launch an attack on that corvette as well, its a sitting duck so long as it attempts this game of tug-o-war with us."

The battle between the Dreadnought and Hammerheads would likely carry on for a bit. The Dreadnought was larger than either vessel, better shielded, with a thicker hull, and more guns, but it was alone while the frigates each had adequete firepower themselves and could concentrate their attacks and defenses. It would come down to whether the Hammerheads forward guns broke through first or the Dreadnought's. If the Dreadnought could overwhelm even one of the enemy's shields, which would be easier as it brought more guns to bear on the smaller craft, it would win. The enemy Strategist would probably hear such reports from their own officers soon enough on those logistics.

Meanwhile it was a good point that the other corvettes had almost free reign at the transports, the gunners of the Rendili Skies not wishing to damage the convoy and the fighters having been directed to aid in the attack. However, it would make no sense for just the Dreadnought to be alone, as powerful as it was, being the only ship to defend a whole line against a larger and more powerful force altogether would be foolish.

One had likely wondered where the Origin's Hammer had gone, but they would not wonder long as Captain Ristan would appear with his Hammerhead and fighter compliment to join the battle as well. Entering realspace just behind the convoy and moving with its own squadrons of Rendili Starfighters deploying to engage those pesky little sidewinders.