(BSS Heartseeker, Coldana System)
“Captain, we have just received word from Admiral Mollen. Operation Starburst has been successful, and the Confederate Twelfth Fleet has opened a path for the rest to follow through.”
Drah Sross nodded to the image of the Heartseeker’s Nomad AI, Adam. “Understood. Patch me through to all Starhunters.”
“Done.”
“Starhunters, this is Heartseeker. Signal Flare is a go. Remember, keep the bugs as far from you as you can. Ready Anchor Drives for double jump, Amazon to Star’s Reach. We still have scouting missions to go on, now that we have a new infiltration strategy, so no one is allowed to die today. Flux Capacitor, send a burst transmission on friendly frequencies when you light up your drives, warning incoming friendlies. The Marines will need targets for their attack, best have the people on the ground get some warning so they know to have coordinates ready.”
“Copy that, Heartseeker.”
“Captain, multiple warp signatures entering the system. Many warp signatures! It is the combined fleet!”
“All Starhunters, Signal Flare on my mark. Three… two… one… GO!”
As one, the five Starhunter scout ships began charging their X’thari anchor drives, lighting off their sublight drives as well, accelerating as quickly as the could in different directions. The X’thari acted as they always did, with the escort ships quickly moving to take up the chase, breaking off into five groups to try and follow the Starhunters. Predictable, as always. At the same time, the combined fleet of the task force entered into the system, all except Twelfth Fleet, which was holding the door open. Tarpits slammed down across the system, locking everyone into realspace maneuvering unless they were suddenly suicidal.
(BSN Thunderfury, in orbit of Coldana Prime)
Twelfth Fleet had kicked open the door, and everyone else ran through it. Slave-Captain Am’rica didn’t know how bad their casualties were, but she knew they had to have taken casualties from intentionally disabling the safety systems that kept a warp-capable ship’s shields from becoming a portable supernova. There was no way that there couldn’t have been casualties, with that much energy running around uncontrolled.
That wasn’t her problem. The Imperium’s Second Great Armada and the Kul’tiran’s First Fleet slammed into orbit of Coldana Prime just as the Starhunters began drawing off the escort ships, trying to give the assembled fleets a chance to take out the heavier enemy ships. The ships serving the Black Star Marines followed in their wake, along with six Consortium Army troop ships.
“Comms! Patch us in on Consortium frequencies. Hail any survivors, and get us drop coordinates! Vicious Return and Acherus are to launch fighters as soon as we have coordinates on enemy ground-to-air weapons, and take them out. Leave the ships to the Fleets, that’s their job. Don’t bother with them unless they start trying to attack our forces.”
“Captain! General Meadbeard sends his complements, and intends to land his forces at the primary spaceport in Coldana City to form a beachhead and attempt to draw off X’thari drones that might be attacking survivors nearby. We are free to engage at will.”
“Understood. Do we have communications from the surface?”
“Confirmed reports from ten survivor enclaves on the northern continent. The intel about the X’thari not wanting to ‘spoil the meat’ must be correct, since all but two of the enclaves are walled areas without underground fortifications. They wouldn’t have lasted two hours against sustained orbital bombardment.”
“Small favors, Lieutenant. Status on the enclaves?”
“All enclaves are under constant attack… Captain, we have word from Darboldor that their defenses are under heavy assault. The Dharram bunker is reporting X’thari inside the defensive perimeter, they are being overrun!”
Am’rica kept a look of calm on her face. Turning to a nearby screen, she said, “Major, I presume you were listening?”
“Yes, Ma’am. First Company will drop directly on Dharram. Second Company will help hold the line at Darboldor.”
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“Very well. Drop ships will deploy your companies directly, and provide close air support. Once an LZ is clear, the Assault Ships and pocket carriers will land. We risk losing the ships otherwise. The Crows have the speed and shields to fill that role, and will orbit the drop zones to provide air support.”
“Understood, Captain. Will the ships be safe from X’thari raiders on the ground, though?”
Am’rica smiled viciously, “Major, without having to worry about fighting gravity to keep aloft, even the Vicious Return’s point defense should be plenty to keep the bugs from doing more than splatting against her shields. They’ll certainly last long enough for one of the Crows to come and assist.”
“Understood. Marines will be ready for a hot drop in five.”
(Fleet Command Cluster, IAS Aclotloxl’s Claw, in orbit of Coldana Prime)
“Warleader! The Black Star Marines and Consortium Army are breaking for the planet’s surface!”
Warleader Keh Dhaka nodded once as the communications savant reported to her. The plan was audacious. There were so many moving parts, so many places where things could fail at any moment, but this was a situation where no one could afford to sit back and stand on old, conservative tactics. Everyone knew that the combined fleet would likely be destroyed in its entirety, and, even if they were successful in driving off or destroying the Harvester, their forces would be severely understrength, if any of them survived this day. And yet, so far, they had made it through with no confirmed ship kills to enemy action. That would change soon, as the battle turned into high gear, but that was why deploying what troops they could to the surface of Coldana was to be one of the first things they did once they reached orbit. The troops would do no one any good if their ships were destroyed in orbit, after all.
“Then may the Ancestors guide their path. The ground fighting is not for us to engage in. We have our own battles to find. All ships, come about to three eight, mark two! Full power to the weapons and shields! Point defense and secondary weapons to fire at will!”
Scanning the tactical plot, she hissed slightly as she saw the X’thari begin to maneuver. The insects were trying to create a pincer movement, and envelop the Ihm and Kul’tiran ships. The escorts had been drawn away, which was a blessing all its own. If – when – she returned to the Imperium, she would make a recommendation to include the X’thari anchor drives in new scout units. These tactics would be invaluable the next time the X’thari approached Ihm space.
Of course, she couldn’t lose herself in thoughts of future plans. For now, she had a battle to fight. The pincer force was mostly cruisers, with the enemy dreadnoughts focusing on the headlong approach. The Armada could not turn and face the cruisers without opening itself up to the dreadnoughts, but taking the cruisers’ fire from the side or rear would still be courting disaster. But the lighter ships on the wing gave her an opportunity.
“Contact Lord Admiral Proudmoore. First Fleet is to turn and advance on the pincer forces. Second Armada will charge on to keep the dreadnoughts at bay. Get in close, and keep them from using their superior maneuverability or numbers to overwhelm us!”
“Enemy fighters have launched!”
“Scramble fighters! All wings, scramble! Interceptors to focus on enemy fighters. Bombers to focus on tail shots, if possible. X’thari shields are weaker at the rear. Focus fire on their engines. A disabled ship is as good as dead, and can be wiped out from a distance.”
“Entering primary weapons range.”
“Concentrate fire, focus on the ships at the center of the formation. The X’thari like to keep their leaders in the center of the swarm. Blast us a hole to take the fight to their leaders!”
If they could throw the Swarm into chaos, then so many things would become easier. Chaotic enemies did not fight with the unity of those led by a single overriding purpose. Robbing the X’thari of their order would cripple their formations and fleet structure, allowing them to defeat individual units instead of formations or fleets.
The first salvoes were away. Because of the scale of warfare in space, the time for their attacks to reach the enemy had some measure of lag to it, but that was unavoidable. It wasn’t until they got much closer that things really got into nail-biting action. But the ranges were closing fast. All too soon, they would be in ‘knife range’, where the lag between their shots firing and the light reaching their enemies was less than a second. Fighting at such close range would hamper her ships’ ability to defend themselves against so many foes, but the Swarm would be limited in how many of their ships could fire at any one time, lest they risk shooting their own people.
Hopefully, it would be enough.
(Flag Bridge, KNS Ashvane’s Pride, in orbit of Coldana Prime)
Lord Admiral Tandred Proudmoore was a professional. He would have preferred to have his First Fleet be one of the ones that were set to take on the Harvester and its guardians, but everyone knew the history between Black Star and Kul’tiras. It was not a slight, or a sign of favoritism either way, he knew this, but that history was why First Fleet was assigned to the forces pinning down the X’thari ships around Coldana, and preventing them from reinforcing the Harvester’s guards. Having his people so close to the main Black Star force would have been… ill advised. It added an unnecessary complication into a situation that had already been hopeless enough that everything would have to go perfectly for them to have a chance of living through this.
Yes, he was a professional, and he understood the reasons. That didn’t mean he had to like them, or that he wasn’t scowling at the sight of the Black Star Marines’ ships making landfall along with the Consortium’s troop ships. There wasn’t anything for it. He didn’t have troop ships of marines to help out with that effort. They barely had enough marines to cover for potential boarding and counter-boarding actions. He was a professional, though, and that meant he would do his duty, and damn his feelings until the job was done. The Black Star Marines were going to be going onto a planet full of X’thari, and fighting them at close range. They were welcome to it. He had ships to kill.
He noticed the envelopment coming, and was just about to hail the Warleader to propose the change in tactics when she sent orders detailing what he had just been about to suggest. No one ever said the scaly bastards were dumb. Well, not the women, at any rate. Their men were hulking brutes who were all less than intellectual titans, while their women were slighter of build and far more intelligent. The Warleader could read a plot as well as he, and knew the relative strengths of their forces. Ihm ships were larger and stronger, while Kul’tirans favored speed and maneuverability. It was the right call.
“All ships, come about to new heading! The X’thari are attempting to envelope the fleet! All fighters and bombers launch! Starbane cannons to full power! Aim for the lead ships. Torpedoes ready to fire on my command!”
He looked at the plot again, striving to see what the bugs might be planning for their next maneuver. “Bombers are to focus their attack runs on marked potential command ships, and then return and rearm. Secondary targets are the enemy carriers, hiding behind the fleet. All ships, take out the enemy cruisers, don’t let them get behind us. The Second Armada is counting on us to watch their backs as they punch it out.”
Wait, one of those carriers was out of position. No, wait, it was falling out of position. Scanners showed it already had battle damage. Probably from the last battle. The bugs hadn’t had a chance to repair all their ships, especially not when the only mobile dockyard anywhere near here that would take a X’thari ship was, itself, damaged. Looking to one of his lieutenants, he said, “Have Commander Shaw ready his men. There is a X’thari carrier that may have intelligence on it, and the technological upgrades it might give us are impossible to predict.”
“Aye, Admiral!”