Last thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2024/6123499/

All my threads because im a dumbass and didn't make a unique tag for this or my last quest:https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=BrinkQM

>>6156388
>Take your time
No more explosions

>>6156388
>Take your time

>>6156388
>Take your time

>>6156388
>>Take your time
Yeah that while explosion thing was pretty less than ideal.
We should have a couple of the corvettes check what's left of the Breaker station for survivors.

>>6156388
>>>Take your time

We should have the rest of our ships tow the burb wreckage out of the graveyard and make it look it they died to a brawl than an ambush. Then park our ships back inside the graveyard for another ambush in case this fleet misses its check in time. We have no idea when their resupply ships will enter this system. Gotta keep the burbs on their toes with new tactics as we are still outnumbered, out gunned, and surrounded.

Also brinko what is our torpedo, minefield, and fuel counts looking like? Scrapping the barrel or we got enough for ten more fights?

>>6156662
Torpedoes are all gone save for a single combat load for your airwing (They are much smaller than your corvettes fish) Your light cruiser is fresh out of mines as you used them all back in Gazelle and fuel is fine for now but a couple more jumps and your going to be eyeing the fuel gauge a bit

>>6156674
Oh shit so we are down to just coilgun shells left for everyone else? Can we scrap any fuel tanks or search for any mining weapons or material for makeshift mines? We don't need them to be high quality just an attempt and a small explosive load will be enough for the next fight as I got a plan to get the burbs to come point blank at us.

>>6156388
>>Take your time

>Take your time
Turning back to the derelict cruiser you set about scavenging the filtration system carefully while your escorts drag the destroyed enemy ships over to the stations remains to draw and more enemy fleets away from your own hiding spot in the graveyard. Its not perfect but it should give you time to react to anything that turns up while your teams work.


The chief engineer while working on the salvage does report what had caused the explosion that gave you away. The last crew apparently when the cruiser had been decommissioned several decades ago had not properly drained the ships battery system and while removing the water filtration system the lost engineering team had pierced one of the high capacity lithium batteries. Your escorts meanwhile also look for any possible survivors amongst the stations wreck but predictably they find none.

The filtration system is finally brought aboard after nearly a day and your chief engineer informs you he can install it while in transit. The system is a mess and there might be some things left here to scavenge but you also know the rest of your fleet should be arriving in Cartha sometime soon.

>Try to scavenge anything from the system
>Jump to the next leg of your journey

>>6156943
>Jump to the next leg of your journey
God knows they're on the way, might as well pass them mid-jump.

>>6156943
>Try to scavenge anything from the system
Huge D-mod fleet her we come. (why yes I play starsector)

>>6156943
>Jump to the next leg of your journey
Let's not stay here and risk the birbs returning suddenly or sending a reinforcement fleet

>>6156943
>Try to scavenge anything from the system

>>6156943
>>Jump to the next leg of your journey
We need to get out of here

>>6156943
>Jump to the next leg of your journey

>>6156943
>>Write-in: Jump to the next leg of your journey but send only the carrier and two corvettes first with faked stuttering of their power core to look like we were mauled. If enemy fleet is seen limp in system for a bit before panic turning back to the jump point to look like our sensors were damaged and set up another ambush point. I have another ambush plan to think of.

If no enemy fleet send a corvette back to get our fleet.
Okay so we don't got time to scavenge. So I will adjust my plan.

Reasoning: So the burbs know they left a defense fleet behind themselves and seeing the three damaged ships will obviously assume we were mauled and rush us. This should hopefully lower their guard for our follow up ambush.

>>6156943
>>Try to scavenge anything from the system

While you would much prefer to jump from here to Cartha directly the distance is too great for your older ships to survive the stress of that long of a jump as jump space can be very taxing on various delicate systems on a starship. With that knowledge you gather your fleet and make your way to the jump point, the salvaged destroyer in tow of your light cruiser.


The fleet is secured and prepped for jump and you have to make the decision on where you will make you maintenance stop for a short time before jumping to cartha


>Arable a small mining colony best known for probably being a hotbed of smuggling
> Delta 846 an empty system home to three gas giants.

>>6157571
>Arable a small mining colony best known for probably being a hotbed of smuggling

>>6157571
>Delta 846 an empty system home to three gas giants.

>>6157571
>Arable a small mining colony best known for probably being a hotbed of smuggling

>>6157571
>Arable a small mining colony best known for probably being a hotbed of smuggling

Gotta rescue the smugglers as this is an extinction war. Also buy, buy, buy! Get that manpower.

>>6157571
> Delta 846 an empty system home to three gas giants.

>>6157571
> Delta 846 an empty system home to three gas giants.
Seems like a good place to hide

>>6157571
>>Arable a small mining colony best known for probably being a hotbed of smuggling

Arable as a name is ironic in nature the sole survivable planet in the system having no atmosphere and was constantly bombarded by solar radiation making surface settlements impossible therefore everything was underground. It had once during the height of the AI war a prosperous mining world for nearly everything to make a warship, the world's mines sending everything it made to the shipyard at Cartha. The end of the war saw the need of ores decline and therefore the population, now only home to maybe ten thousand people the planet's ruling council had not so subtly turned to smuggling to keep the shrinking colony alive. This is not an unknown fact to you or your predecessor but there are far worse things to deal with on the rim than a colony smuggling party drugs in to see to crazy mormons and the odd tech cult.


While your sure the colony of arable is self-sufficient its still part of your duty as admiral of the sector to make sure they are ok. The fleet enters the jump and you spend the days filling out an after action report for your engagement in the graveyard.

1d100 best of three please

Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>6158282
roll 1

>>6158285
I hope that's good enough for dc

>>6158295
We have 2 more chances so...

Rolled 68 (1d100)

>>6158282

Rolled 84 (1d100)

>>6158282

>>6158301
Oh i meant to roll but after I saw i dumped it, decided not to tempt fate

The only thing of note to happen during your transit to Arable is the water system is finally repaired, which is something you and the crew onboard the Essex celebrate by finally getting to take showers and do laundry. Its finally wearing a clean uniform as you watch as the fleet exits the jump point and honestly you had no real idea what you were going to find on the other side but what you saw was not something you expected.


Instead of a calm and peaceful system or one filled with wreckages and corpses from an attack you see a battle in progress when you arrive. There's two what look like heavily modified freighters dueling with an enemy cruise in orbit of the planet, the freighters trading dummy rocket broadsides from modified cargo decks against the cruisers laser batteries. The battle seems relatively even but it seems like one of the freighters is on its last legs, its engines dying and flaring back to life as something goes wrong internally.

>let the battle run its course
>join the battle against the cruiser

>>6158956
>join the battle against the cruiser
It's Us vs Them. If our last encounter with a lone cruiser is anything to go by...

>>6158956
>>join the battle against the cruiser no reason not to, even if we just use coilguns. Then maybe evacuate the colony?

>>6158959
Oh i forgot to hit enter somewhere

>>6158956
>>6158959
+1

>>6158956
>join the battle against the cruiser

>>6158956
>join the battle against the cruiser

>>6158956
>>join the battle against the cruiser
now its our turn to jump them

>>6158956
>>join the battle against the cruiser

>>6158959
+1

>join the battle against the cruiser
1d100 best of three please and would you liked to deploy your airwing and use the last of your torps?
>Yes
>No

Rolled 83 (1d100)

>>6159523
>No
the cruiser is already distracted by the freighters

Rolled 99 (1d100)

>>6159523
>No
It's only a cruiser.

Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>6159523
>No
Save the ammo for a fleet.

>>6159551
Goodness gracious.

>>6159551
Someone got a railgun round up their nozzles

>>6159523
>>No

You order your escorts along with your light cruiser forward to help the two freighters as the non crippled one unleashes a full broadside of dummy rockets at the cruiser many of which splash harmless against its armor. The enemy cruiser takes the lull after the broadside to sweep its lasers against the crippled ship sending a wave of secondary explosions across its hull.


The enemy cruiser doesn't seem to notice your swarm of escorts at first but they quickly become acquainted when a sheer mass of coil gun rounds begin to impact its armor. The rounds dont do a whole lot until the light cruiser fires a single salvo from its small rail gun turret the round from it slams into the cruisers rear armor and then for a moment its like the ship just hangs there until suddenly theres a spike in radiation and the cruiser detonates in a sudden flash.

Rest of post tomorrow

>>6160312
Hehehe fried chicken

The irradiated hulk begins to float away from the two freighters one of which is venting atmosphere and very much looks like its in the process of being abandoned by its crew, something you realize for the first time the birds do not do. You file that tibit of information away for later and bring your flagship back under the protection of your escorts before you turn to your comms officer.

“Please get me into contact with” You gesture at the image of the remaining armed freighter on the screen “Them”

The freighter is not a ship you recognize and you doubt anyone would either considering not only does it not have a nav beacon it also doesn't have any identifying markings at all but you know full well what they are. Its armed freighters like this that make up the backbone of any pirate operation mix that fact with arables more criminal leaning it makes sense that these two ships are most likely pirates of some flavor.

>Be cordial
>Be demanding

>>6161017
>>Be cordial
Basically, either they'll do what we want or they'll die, no reason to rub their noses in it or start off on the wrong foot. I mean, we're not going to go after them, but the birds will. We should let them know what we're up against, first contact with an unknown, hostile alien species, and then they can decide for themselves whether to second themselves to our fleet.
We also want to make the same offer to the mining colony, the only reason I can see to even be rude to the pirates is if they try to prevent us from evacuating the miners.

>>6161017
>Be cordial

>>6161017
>Be cordial
we already have an entire alien race as enemies, lets not make more of them

>>6161017
>>>Be cordial

"Honest has fallen, the outskirts have been breached, and at least one hundred bird ships are roaming the area. We have more ships at Cartha but not enough to stop this invasion."

>>6161017
>Be cordial

No post today will post tomorrow

>Be cordial

It takes a few minutes but finally the ship answers your hails and even sends you video feed from their bridge. The captain of the ship gives a nervous smile as the feed blinks on and then he speaks. “Ah Admiral! It's good that you are here, me and my fellow freighter captain were in need of assistance against this dastardly pirate!” You know he's probably a pirate or atleast a smuggler but you have far bigger problems than that currently. “Captain, that's not a pirate, it's an invader and I'd like to know if you have the room to take passengers as that was just a scout and the rest of his kind will more than likely be here soon to destroy the colony.”

The captain of the freighter takes a few moments to respond before nodding informing you he can take on nearly four thousand passengers in his suspiciously empty holds. That does leave nearly six thousand people to take on once you get in contact with the colony but you figure if you really pack them in including in your hangar bay you can do it.

The real issue seems to be the colony itself as once you get into contact with them the ruling council immediately refuses to evacuate the colony. They claim they will be able to defend themselves from any attackers and seem to need some convincing thats not the case

Could I have 1d100 best of three please?

Rolled 71 (1d100)

>>6162166
Show them the feed of two battleships lasering a colony full of civilians, and then an evacuation ship, maybe?

Rolled 91 (1d100)

>>6162166
Just show them footage of the destroyed station due to the birds attack.

>>6162180
>>6162188
Supporting

Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>6162180
>>6162188
also supporting

You know you dont have time for this so with a little bit of satisfaction you show the council footage of the massed enemy fleet in gazelle and then the footage of the birds laying waste to the shipbreakers station. The video plays and you watch as horror dawns on the faces of each of the council members as you show them video after video of the sheer number and brutality of the enemy.

Its works almost too well as there's soon a dearth of panicking people trying to get off world. Its while. It takes some time before you finally get them all loaded but your XO Issac brings something up to you. Its navy regulation to not leave anything behind for an enemy force to take which includes the colony you have the time to destroy it but this could greatly anger the former colonists if you do.

>Follow regulation and destroy Arable
>Refrain to destroy Arable

>>6162946
>>Refrain to destroy Arable
Its a mining colony, the stuff the birds would want is still usable after we destroy it. Besides, if they have a smelter, those things take like 4 months to shut down properly and this one is going to be destroyed when we leave (the melted metal goes solid, shits FUBAR)
So no big deal.

>>6162946
>Refrain to destroy Arable
>Sabotage the leftover equipment.
It's a compromise. The birds can't use it and if we come back (with the rate this war is going it will be a long time) the population can restore their stuff back to old working order.

>>6162946
>Refrain to destroy Arable
>Sabotage the leftover equipment.

>>6162946
>>Refrain to destroy Arable
>>Sabotage the leftover equipment.

Fucking brass will punish us for not following protocol but that will take years for it to happen when we reach Earth.

>>6162946
>Sabotage the leftover equipment.
The main worry is any information on humanity, our capabilities, and any location or directional data that could lead to other colonies.

>>6163328
They would assume Humanity is very weak with all the scattered outposts and underestimate us. But yeah we need to burn the star maps and blackboxes to deny them territory knowledge.

The regulations do say you should scorch earth the colony however those regulations were written nearly a century ago during the height of the AI wars and as such you determine that they do not matter in this situation as is your prerogative as the Admiral in command in the region. You arent however going to just leave the enemy everything. The majority of the ming equipment is damaged by marines, with a promise to pay for repairs from the navy and nearly every computer and other machine is wiped of any information save for the colonies life support systems which are just shut down instead. This process only takes another day before your ready and make way to the jump point your fleet stuffed to the gills with refugees from arable and the break clans including the armed freighter who you pointedly keep and eye on.

Next post the jump to cartha

The fleet comes to the point and soon the unsettling but familiar green hue of the tear in reality appears and your fleet begins the final stretch of its trip to its home port.


The colony of Cartha and its status as sector capital is just another product of the AI wars. The desperate situation going into the 2500s meant not only were the high command unsure if they could contain the growing AI rebellion but also whether or not the industrial hubs of human space would survive. With this fear worlds like Cartha were identified, colonised and pushed toward becoming industrial worlds to act as a backup in case the worst came to pass.


The AI were eventually contained and worlds like Cartha did not need to be turned into the last ditch shipyards of humanity. The colony still had some of its industrial roots factories pumping out whatever industrial or consumer products your average rim citizen would want, mostly guns and mining equipment mind you. The two things that saw your predecessors set up their command here and why you kept it were the shipyard, the only one of its kind in orbit of the planet and the now mostly mothballed fortress station that protected the system's only jump point.

The jump point spits your tiny fleet out infront of the old fortress and within minutes of your arrival you begin to receive messages asking for you at both the fortress one from the commander of the fleet you had sent ahead and the other from the civilian governor of the sector on Cartha itself

>See to the governor first
>The commander on the fort first

Merry Christmas everyone

>>6164081
>The commander on the fort first
Getting the fortress on medium to high alert is a priority.
Also Merry Christmas QM.

>>6164081
>The commander on the fort first

>>6164081
>>The commander on the fort first
I mean, we get spat out of the Warp next to the fort so let's just skip a drive. High alert, ready to kill, all that cool shit.
Maybe get the ships that arrived ahead of us ready for another jump point ambush while our current fleet rearms before joining them.

>>6164081
Also Merry Christmas

>>6164081
>The commander on the fort first

>>6164081
>>The commander on the fort first

no update for today or tomorrow due to the holiday

>>6164541
Have a good time

The jump point spits your tiny fleet out infront of the old fortress and within minutes of your arrival you begin to receive messages asking for you at both the fortress one from the commander of the fleet you had sent ahead and the other from the civilian governor of the sector on Cartha itself best if you handle the more military matters first so you arrange for a shuttle to take you over to the station while the rest of your fleet sets about resupplying from the station's stockpile of torpedoes and other supplies they need. The hangar of the station like the rest of it is in a state of disrepair. The cost of maintaining such a large structure is probably more than your entire fleet budget so it had fallen into disrepair with only the most necessary of maintenance having been done. It was your predecessor who had finally decided to mothball the fort with its obscene maintenance cost but it seems since the arrival the captain of the light cruiser True Honor had reactivated the centuries old station.

That very Captain meets your shuttle as it docks “Admiral” He says a grim expression on his face. “Bad news or good news first?” The very to the point question was common of the man you respond “Good news first” He nods “Fleet made it just fine with no additional contacts with the enemy, the bad news is colonies and merchants all over the sector are reporting sightings and engagements, bastards are burning anything that vaguely looks like a human settlement”

>>6165567
Well, our policy of evacuation seems to be correct.

He pulls out a tablet and begins to pull up a list of information. “Ive got nearly a dozen requests for either a protection fleet or for evacuation from colonies all over the sector and thats not counting the ones who only got off half finished distress calls before going dark.” He turns the tablet toward you showing a picture of a large fleet of enemy ships “That stomped out the colony of New zanzibar and trashed the handful of corvettes in orbit, a freighter loaded to the gills with kids was the only thing to make it off world. Simply put Admiral we need to decide if we maintain the smaller colonies or pull back to cartha”

>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated
>Try to defend atleast some of them

>>6166130
>>Try to defend at least some of them
fighting withdrawal. Will slow the enemy down, will keep the refugee flow a bit more manageable.
Sadly at the low low cost of more human lives taken in the short term, but will help save lives in the long term (time is very important for preparations, reinforcements and mobilisation.)

>>6166130
>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated

>>6166130
>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated
Spreading our forces while the opponent can concentrate theirs anywhere is a recipe for disaster

>>6166130
>>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated
We might fight for a few of them but that's not going to stop us evacuating them.
Also while we're at it we should levy volunteers from the breaker clans and the miners to get the space fort up and running.

>>6166130
>Write in: Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated but leave the lights of the city on to attract and distract enemy fleets to buy more time. Also leave behind sensor arrays to track enemy movements.

We know one corvette is not enough to even stop one ayy ship so better to do for decapitation strikes than attrition battles.

>>6166130
>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated
But try to make hit and run raids against the advancing enemy.

>>6166130
>>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated

>Order all colonies save for Cartha evacuated

You simply dont have enough ships under your command to defend even a small amount of the colonies in the sector even if all of your smaller patrols survived and your took all freighters under arms. “See to it that the order for a general evacuation is given to all colonies save for cartha and if they try to refuse show them footage of what happened in Bevel and Honest”. That should start the process of evacuating but your going to need to sortie out of Cartha to help evacuate some of the larger colonies. You figure that will have to wait you need to resupply your ships and offload the civilians you have from Bevel and Arable.


You also have a meeting with the Governor of the Sector Edward Meek so you leave Issac and the captain of the True honor to start working out that plan to evacuate the remaining colonies and you board a shuttle and make your way to Cartha. Cartha itself is somewhat cold compared to most heavily settled planets but the nearly ten million people who call the place home seem to not mind. You land in the capitals spaceport and make your way to the capitol building intending to speak to Mr Meek right away.

You find quite the line outside Mr Meeks and get several loud complaints when you simply walk past them and head into the office; however your two burly marine escorts shut any complaints up with their presence. Mr meek looks up from his tablet as you enter and sighs “Admiral I'm glad you made it when your ships arrived earlier carrying refugees I was worried you'd been killed.” taking a seat across from the aged man you shake you head and sigh “No such luck for you today Governor” He sets the tablet to the side and clasps his hands together “I take it you want to institute martial law?” Its well within your legal powers to institute martial law in the sector and would give you expansive powers such as mandatory evacuation or even forceful impressment of any ships in the sector, however people on the rim tend to be of a more free type and may resent the move.

>Institute martial law
>Keep Civil law for now

>>6167242
>Institute martial law

>>6167242
An alien invasion of an apocalyptic scale is just the scenario to institute martial law.

>>6167242
>Institute martial law

>>6167267
Yeah. If it makes them feel better, evacuation is totally voluntary. If they want to stay put we're not gonna try to stop them.

>>6167242
>>Institute martial law
And yeah, voting

>>6167242
>>Institute martial law
Anyone that refuses will be written off and given to the birds while we save the people that actually follow orders.

>>6167331
>given to the birds
>not turning them into a penal legion to see the birds firsthand

>>6167242
>>Institute martial law

got a bit of a head cold no post tonight

>>6167752
Happy nrrw year

While it would cause problems more than likely down the road with the various groups that called the sector home you needed the power martial law will give you to hopefully stem the tide of the invasion. “See to it Mr meek it's best we get it done now instead of later” He leans over his tablet for a moment and begins to tap away pulling up the necessary forms to enact Martial Law. Its while he does this you study your civilian counterpart. Rim govonours come in to types really the homegrown politician usually someone front he largest group in the sector and the less common mid rim politician who for various reasons were pushed out here. Mr meek is the alter originally form some major industrial hub he had done something to find him welcome worn out and had run here for safety. It didn't take him long to worm his way into the local sector government and now he spends his days doing his best to avoid your gaze.

“I don't envy you when it comes to this Admiral, this is going to piss off the more extreme of the civilian groups in the sector, something fierce” He turns the tablet toward you, the form for you to enact Martial law on the screen. You quickly scroll to the bottom of the page and sign your name with the tip of your finger.


The next few days are hectic as your fleet rearms and does what repairs they can while the system fills with refugees. You also make sure that as much information about the situation is sent to the high admiral but no response is received as such things take time to arrive. Its as the tide of refugees slows to a trickle you are informed that that three colonies lack the ships to evacuate their populace.

Happy new year everyone

>>6168158
>that three colonies lack the ships to evacuate their populace.
Well then, looks like we're making at least one patrol.

>>6168158
What does the system map look like of the estimated burb locations, cosmic terrain, the three colonies, our capital, and the hyper lanes?

I need data to make plans and positioning moves. Also how much time does the station need to be fully functional?

>>6168237
Cartha only has a single jump point in and our of the system and your information about the birds is very scattered and messy, The space station is just about as active as it can be however decades of disuse and partial scrapping has left it with only two battleship dual railgun turrets as armament

You meet with Issac on the fortress to discuss what to do about these remaining occupied colonies. He brings up a map of the sector in the CIC and highlights them. “These are all that's left of the colonies that did not report attacks or went dark” The first of the colonies and the largest of the three was New Garcia a decent sized world that had just finished terraforming and was sent to become the sectors breadbasket in a few years with a population of thirty five thousand of mostly terraforming engineers and the earliest of industrial farmers.

The second world was called Ares and was a desolate world with no atmosphere occupied by nearly thirteen thousand tech “Cultists” or more accurately known as transhumanists their isolationist nature and underground colony should hide them plenty from the birds fleets for a time.

The last world and the smallest is on a small ice moon orbiting a gas giant which mostly gets by acting as a refueling and water stop for travel merchants know as the gas station to locals. It only has a population of roughly three thousand.

“I think we need to decide how we want to tackle evacuating the worlds admiral we can either hit them all at once by breaking up the fleet or keep the fleet together and hit them one by one”

>Break the fleet up
>Keep the fleet together

>>6168838
>Keep the fleet together

>>6168838
>Keep the fleet together

>>6168838
>>Keep the fleet together

>>6168838
>>Keep the fleet together

We cannot afford separation especially if we get hit by another 80 fleet death ball again.

At least with the scattered burb fleets will help us do guerilla attacks and fleet duels with a chance of retreat.

>Keep the fleet together

The enemy seems numerous and you still have no real idea how numerous so breaking your already small force into anything smaller may spell disaster. The best way to go about the evacuation will be from the largest world to the smallest you figure and hand out orders for your fleet to prepare to sail. It while organizing this you realize theres the issue of your scavenged destroyer carthas shipyard had removed the disguise around it and had given its various systems a clean bill of health so that leaves you with one problem with it: a crew. You don't have enough spare sailors to crew the destroyer but you figure you could take the crews from three of your older corvettes to fill the crew however that would drop your overall fleet numbers.

>crew the destroyer and loose three old corvettes
>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew

>>6169585
>>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew
We actually do have crews, potentially. Just like getting the breaker clans and miners on the fortress to get it back up to speed, we need to start leveeing volunteers from the refugees to crew the destroyer. All voluntary, like the new crews for the old fort, but I feel like we shouldn't have any shortage of highly motivated volunteers.

>>6169585
>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew

>>6169585
>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew

>>6169585
>>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew

>>6169585
>>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew

>>6169585
>>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew
Y'all are getting conscripted and any deserters will be spaced.

File: Caricature-1780-press_gang.jpg (690 KB, 1471x954)

690 KB JPG

>>6169585
>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew
Hot press!

>keep the corvettes and the leave the destroyer for when you have an available crew

You really need numbers over quality right now, while in theory you could just find volunteers among civilian ship crews. Warships are completely different from civilian vessels when it comes to operation and of course combat so it will take some time to either trian up a crew from scratch or the unfortunate loss of one of your ships. The decsion made to leave the destroyer behind you prepare your fleet and ready to set off to New garcia

Fleet Comp:
1x Escort Carrier
2x AI ERA Light cruisers
8x Destroyers (2 left behind for minor repairs and to patrol Cartha)
6 old Corvettes
6 Modern corvettes

could I get a 1d100 best of three please

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>6170106

Rolled 26 (1d100)

>>6170106
Here we go.

Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>6170106

No post tonight got off work very late

>>6170809
no worries.

The sickly green glow of jump space envelops your evacuation fleet made up of your warships and five larger freighters who volunteered to come along. The trip takes six days with one day in the middle spent in an empty star system to remove the static build up on the hulls of your ships and do mundane repairs. Your fleet on the sixth day exits jump space into total pandemonium. It seems while you were in transit unable to receive contact from the colony it came under attack by a full dozen enemy ships.


Your eyes trail over the screen in the CIC as the sensor officer identifies and marks each of the enemy ships in turn, four battleships,six heavy cruisers and two light cruisers arrayed in a tight formation and oddly enough nothing smaller than the light cruisers.

The enemy battleships are formed in line astern with three heavy cruisers on their right and left acting as screens with the two light cruisers formed infront of the lead battleship as their leading screen and they for sure see you. Your own fleet is formed into a simple perimeter around your flagship and the freighters. The colony seems still somewhat intact as it appears the enemy most likely just arrived shortly before you. It will take time to prepare the jump point for retreat so you will have to fight for some time before retreat becomes an option.

>Aggressive attack push your escorts and bombers out to keep the enemy at bay

>Hold position and force the enemy to come to you

>write in

>>6171303
>Hold position and force the enemy to come to you

>>6171303
>Hold position and force the enemy to come to you
>write in: but be prepared to launch bombers on mass and get the escorts in packs

>>6171303
>Aggressive attack push your escorts and bombers out to keep the enemy at bay
We still have an advantage at medium and short distance that we don't have at long range

>>6171303
>Aggressive attack push your escorts and bombers out to keep the enemy at bay

>>6171342
+1
chearge we have to close the distance to knife range and avoid getting sniped by staying in place since they don't have small craft our bombers and railcannons can cut deep into them

>Aggressive attack push your escorts and bombers out to keep the enemy at bay

alright going full taffy 3 could I get 2d100 best of three please

Rolled 25, 80 = 105 (2d100)

>>6171799

Rolled 60, 61 = 121 (2d100)

>>6171799
HAVE AT THEM, LADS

>>6171799
I hope I don't regret this

Rolled 58, 54 = 112 (2d100)

>>6171810

>>6171813
Well, i regret it.

Youve defeated fleets larger than this one so far and the enemy has shown a clear inability to react to small ship tactics and waiting still will just give them a chance to figure out how to crack open your fleet. “Comms inform the escorts they may go to work” You stop thinking for a moment “Except for one of the light cruisers and two of the destroyers to act as our screen” you turn toward your CAG officer, he beats you to punch “all strike craft launch for anti ship strikes lets not let the DDs and corvettes have the fun” He says into the ship wide PA and you swear you can hear cheers from down the hall coming from flight operations.

The escorts plow forward in a line abreast formation, their torpedoes warming up and to your somewhat annoyance cries in the clear over the radio of Taffy 3!Here comes some real Tincan Sailors! And one voice you swear is Tobias Cromwells crying out “For Gazelle Station!”. The sailors of your fleet have gained some real confidence over the last few weeks having only lost a handful of sailors in accidents and none but enemy fire so you decide to allow them this brief undisciplined moment.

It's not the birbs
Mark my words, it's someone more competent this time

Rolled 38, 57 = 95 (2d100)

The enemy does do something a bit different this time. Instead of doing their usual thing of charging at your fleet ro get into main battery range they turn bringing the full broadside of the enemy battleships into position to fire. The first few “salvos” from the massive laser batteries swipe out at the escorts thankfully only scoring a glancing blow on one of the destroyers which reports only minor damage.

While the enemy fires away at the escorts, your strike craft launch from your hangar on the magnetic catapult system each launch of one of your attack craft accompanied by a dull thump that can be felt through the floor plates. It only takes five minutes for your entire complement of strike craft to be sent out and form up and they zoom toward the enemy hopefully to make their attack run at the same time the destroyers and corvettes launch their own much larger torpedoes.

Could I get 2d100 best of three please

also rolling for enemy defense

Rolled 36, 60 = 96 (2d100)

>>6173048

Rolled 17, 93 = 110 (2d100)

>>6173048
caheger

Rolled 55, 80 = 135 (2d100)

>>6173048

>>6173136
hopefully that 93 does some work to make up for the low first roll

The timing of the strike with your escorts is a bit off the ships too desperate to get out of range off the powerful flashing lasers releasing their torpedoes spreads once they mit maximum range for them. The lasers continue to fly at the ships even as the destroyers turn and make “smoke” clouds of metal chaff to foul up the enemy targeting.


The full spread of torpedoes from your escorts fly in but the enemy having seen the launch begin to make evasive maneuvers making many of your torpedoes miss but some still do find their mark. With a flash two of the enemy heavy cruisers are caught by several torpedoes and explode sending out debris in a wide arc behind them. The real prize of the attack is one of the battleships getting hit by one of the torpedoes which slows the ship but does not outright kill it.

Your strike craft zoom through the chaos and target the battleships with them breaking up into four teams of six each team targeting one of the enemy battleships.

>>6173615
Well, we cooked up a bit of fried chicken

could I get 1d100 best of three because I forgot to ask yesterday

Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>6174231

Rolled 73 (1d100)

>>6174231
Big money

Rolled 23 (1d100)

>>6174231

The first team to reach their target are the ones aiming for the crippled ship; they loose their fish and turn back toward the carrier and the battleship, like nearly every other one of its kind you've seen before dies when six torpedoes impact its hull. The damage is so great the stricken ship cracks in half with both halves spinning away from each other.

The other strikes dont do as well thanks to the erratic movement of the enemy ships. Its only two more of your strike craft that score hits with each hitting a different battleship with a torpedo one in the aft near where you think the ship's reactor is and another near one of the massive laser turrets. It's with some surprise you notice there aren't the telltale signs of secondary explosions. The birds so far seemed to have had awful damage control which usually lead to massive secondary explosions. The birds also try to actually shoot down the strike craft which is something they have never done before either however the cumbersome laser turrets cant track the agile craft well enough to land a hit.

>>6175190
On the one hand, they're learning. On the other, it seems like their weapons aren't dual-use by design so that means our boys will just need to get closer and fly more erratically, which they hardly need encouragement to do.

>>6175477
We might need to load some of our fighter-bombers with missiles and put them on sead/dead duty where they just focus on killing the smaller lasers

Your escorts still under fire from the battleships pull back out of the enemy's range to reload their torpedo tubes and do what damage control is needed on the stricken destroyer. meanwhile your strike craft return to the essex to rearm. The enemy seeing this reform this time into a line abreast formation with the remaining heavy cruisers forming a screen infront of the surviving battleships with one light cruiser on each of the screens wings.


The enemy are clearly still on the attack and seem intent on pushing the escort line with your strike craft down for rearm the escorts will have to defend themselves alone.

>Try to keep the momentum and attack
>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

>>6175857
bronko do the burb ship have a faster ship velocity than ours or are they the same speed? Are they having more accurate fire now that we are closer or are their shots still missing us by a wide margin?

>>6175956
They seem outright slower than your escorts however they for sure have a higher speed than the Essex and the freighters, Their aim seems better the closer you get to them however you are currently at what seems to be past their max range

>>6175857
>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

>>6175857
>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

>>6175957
What about our max range?
>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

>>6175857
>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

>>6175857
>>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

>>6175957
Worrying. So we can't ever push a retreat without making sure the freighters and carrier have double the distance to ensure they don't get caught out. At least being at max range allows us another turn of strikecraft before we get forced into their weapon range.

>>6175857
>>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

Rolled 1 (1d100)

>Give ground to wait for the strike craft

could I get a 1d100 best of three please

Rolled 10 (1d100)

>>6176420
Big money!
I'm terrified of that 1 lol

>>6176434
God.
Dammit.

Rolled 88 (1d100)

>>6176420

>>6176442
Thanks!

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>6176420
Oh that 1 is going to be fun.

>>6176451
Burbs thought humies are charging full throttle ready to fight only for us to blue ball them as we spray them with another spread.

You eye the oncoming fleet for a moment before turning to your comms officer. “Pull the escorts back dont give them a chance to light them up with those damn lasers” The escorts in line abreast still fall back toward you. While they do this you notice the enemies formation on your right begins to lose cohesion as it seems one of the stricken battleships, the one that took the aft hit begins to lose speed and fall out formation.

Issac whos standing next to you speaks up “Sir that's going to leave their formation a mess” You nod knowing that lone battleship would be an easy target for your much faster escorts or you could use this as a chance to try a full defeat in detail hitting the two still functional battleships and then turning back afterwards to destroy the cripple.

>strike the cripple
>hit the other two

>>6176921
>hit the other two
YIPPIE KI YAY, WELCOME TO EARF!

>>6176921
>hit the other two
Let's hit two birds with one strike.

>>6176921
>>hit the other two
tee hee

>>6176921
>hit the other two

>>6176921
>>hit the other two

Rolled 20 (1d100)

>hit the other two
could I get a 1d100 best of three please

Rolled 32 (1d100)

>>6177495

Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>6177495

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>6177495

>>6177515
nice

You turn toward the comms officer “Inform the picket line I don't like the look of those two intact battleships, Remove them” The comms officer gives you a predatory grin before relaying your orders to the picket line. Issac chuckles “Never took you for a gambler sir” shaking your head you turn to the CAG “ETA on the Strike group?” He looks down at his tablet “Five more minutes Admiral ordnance boys are making running slow”


The escorts save for a pair of destroyers who keep the attention of the crippled battleship and her escorts speed forward again toward the intact ships. The enemies laser turrets sending salvo after salvo at them as they approach this time thankfully not coming anywhere close to your ships. They come within maximum range of their torpedoes and then some and loose their fish at the battleships ignoring the heavy cruisers and the light cruiser nearby.

The enemy, seemingly knowing they can't possibly evade the full spread of torpedoes, keep burning right at the escorts in an attempt to give the smallest possible target for the spread. This tactic works for one of the battleships, one of the torpedoes coming within only a few meters of the dart-like ship. The other ship isnt so lucky, a torpedo smacking right into the nose of it sending a rapid secondary explosion down the length of the ship as the massive nose mounted laser turret detonates the ship floating forward even as it breaks into three separate chunks.


Its as your escorts back off to reload again the enemy stop holding position for several moments and they turn and begin to head toward the other jump point in the system. Its as they turn your comms officer frowns and then speaks up. “Sir we just received some sort of voice comms over radio from one of the enemy capital ships, no idea what it said but we did receive it” The two remaining battleships four heavy cruisers and two light cruisers are burning fast toward the other jump point seemingly to retreat.

>give chase
>let them retreat and get started on evacuating

>>6178565
>give chase
No quarter taken, none given.

>>6178565
>>give chase
No survivors so they can't learn our doctrines.

>>6178565
>>give chase
We should at least try to bump off the first Battleship
And idk i guess we'll need to analyze the message and try to make sense of it. If it's a plea for mercy, it's their fault for not making it in plain English

>>6178565
>give chase
The freighters can start the evacuation without us, can't they?

>>6178565
>>give chase

Rolled 49 (1d100)

>give chase

could I get a 1d100 best of three please

>>6178630
you can would you all like to give them escorts while they do?

Rolled 1 (1d100)

>>6179263

>>6179270
Oh

Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>6179263
We can spare a couple of old corvettes

Rolled 32 (1d100)

>>6179263
Of all the times...

File: file.jpg (233 KB, 1256x861)

233 KB JPG

Can somebody give me a basic rundown of what we have and our capabilities? So Corvettes are basically flying sensors, The Destroyers are just filled with Torpedoes, The Cruiser is alright and Our Carrier right now is mostly a mobile command center with a few strike craft? I just skimmed the previous threads so I'm not so sure.

And we're being invaded by mysterious ships while our wife is missing?

>>6179280
Your corvettes and destroyers are both heavily armed with torpedoes, your light cruisers are gun heavy although they both do have torpedoes tubes and the abillity to mine lay if you had any mines left. your carrier has 24 multi role strike craft that can carry one smaller torpedo each

You are being invaded by a race of unknown aliens piloting dart like ships and your wife is perfectly fine back on Cartha

>>6179270
>>6179275
>>6179278
Well, that's unfortunate

>>6179300
Can you give a brief overview of the capabilities of our ships and strike craft though? Like some basic description on what they can actually do or do we just assume stuff?

Like

Corvette: Fast Glorified Sensor Buoys with a twin coilgun and torpedo tubes. Older variants have much worse Sensor packages while being unable to reload torpedoes mid fight. What are the drawbacks for massing these, it seems like we've had a LOT of luck using them last thread and the seem to actually be better than Destroyers.

Destroyer: Only carrying Torpedos but has a relatively extensive ECM and Chaff System. Does this mean that destroyers have literally no weapons aside from Torpedoes, not even Point Defense Systems?

Cruiser: Relatively well armored with a battery of 3 Medium Coilgun Turrets. Can we just assume out Cruisers are decent All Rounders with no outstanding drawbacks aside from maybe crew size?

Strikecraft: Some of the most advanced ships in the fleet with augmented high skilled pilots. The Strikecraft carry dumb bombs and smart missiles. I heard we had bombers and fighters, aside from the augmentations how good are our bombers and fighter both the strikecraft themselves and the pilots.

>>6179300
Is our carrier up to full capacity for our compliment of strikecraft? Can it only carry 24, two wings of 12 craft? Would it be possible to convert some of the cargo space into a secondary hangar to squeeze in another 12 craft wing or nah?

>>6179593
you got everything pretty close save for the destroyers which do have coilgun turrets like the corvettes which also double as PDS system (Think dual purpose guns from ww2)

Your strikecraft are multi role so they both do strikes and fighter actions depending on their loadout. Your pilots are all graduates of the fleet aviation academy are as good as you can be without extensive combat experience

a lot of your success so far in the war has mostly come down to the fact the enemy simply has had no clue how to deal with smaller craft like corvettes and your strike craft

>>6179599
You have a full compliment of 24 craft currently and you could in theory make room for more craft however that would take time in the shipyard aswell as training additional pilots

If the enemy is going to run your going to chase them down, you order a pair of corvettes to accompany the freighters to the planet while you follow behind the picket screen to cut down on the flight time of your strike craft once they launch. The pickets chase after the remaining battleships which are slowed down by damage and are just about to enter torpedo range when the battleships open fire with the laser turrets that are still bare as they burn away. They launch a few salvos at the pickets expecting misses like before you turn away from the video screen to look at your tablet to check the ETA on the next strike when you hear several gasps and you look up.

While you looked away one of the massive laser turrets had scored a hit striking one of the destroyers, The Honorable Challenge it was called if the video screens tactical notes were correct. The hit wasn't a glancing blow like the last one hitting the destroyer right in its nose burning through its thin armor and bulkheads until reaching the ships reactor blowing the entire back half of the ship off with a bright white flash of a meltdown.

>>6179957
fuck all those hands gone and we can't replace ship losses

>>6180128
>>6179957
If they're in general quarters we should be able to rescue the sailors who weren't in the parts of the ship that actually exploded, at least. I assume I'm General Quarters the ship is sealed off into a bunch of smaller, air tight sectors. But losing a ship definitely hurts, and losing the reactor means losing the engineers.
The real danger is the birds might start getting funny ideas about the relative durability and weak spots on our ships, which they didn't have before.

>>6180224
To be honest I'm way more gutted at losing the crew members than I am the ship, from what I understand this area's full of salvage, derelicts and mothballs we might be able to bring online and we could even refit some civilian freighter to act as simple screens if we wanna fill the gaps but I don't see an easy way for us to get trained and skilled crew members. Civilians just aren't gonna cut it unless they're like retired veterans, smugglers or something wacky like separatists that are willing to work with us during this disaster..

>>6179957
Do we have any Recovery and Logistics shuttles in our carrier? Like the ones you use to transport supplies if the carrier is too large to dock or land and the shuttles you use to pick up damaged strike crafts that still have their pilots alive in them?

The now gutted destroyer is carried forward through the void, her engines gone, the blast having given the ship a bit of vertical motion and it begins to spin lazily. Destroyers and corvettes begin to make evasive maneuvers to dodge the incoming lasers from the battleships, many of your captains electing to move away from the fleeing enemy lest they also be struck.


“Son of a Bi-” You hold up a hand silencing your XO before reaching down and pressing the button for the shipwide PA. “ALL HANDS ALL HANDS Prepare for rescue operations!” You turn the PA off and look to the CAG officer. “Cut off launches of the strike group and get the shuttles launched and clear the hangar after you do” He nods, turning to his console and begins issuing orders. While your carrier was something of a stranger to combat prewar you had more than enough experience in rescue operations thanks to the somewhat dilapidated nature of rim ships hopefully you could save atleast some of the crew.

could I get 1d300 best of three please

Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>6180614

Rolled 133 (1d300)

>>6180614
This won't be good for evac later...

Rolled 237 (1d300)

>>6180614

Rolled 236 (1d300)

>>6180614
Oh my bad, thought it was 1d100

>>6180625
5/6 recovery amount but fuck we cannot let any ayys escape or they will realize how fragile our ship actually are and be more aggressive

>>6180629
What's the plan, our Hangars and Coordination's shot while we're doing recovery?

>>6180632
Bombers, fighters, and our corvettes attack while the destroyers prepare chaff to protect the cruises for recovery ships. Either they charge in seeing we are slowing down or still try to run as our fast ships stab them.

No post tonight however congrats on saving far more people than I thought you would the destroy had a complement of around 320

>>6181150
No worries. I'm also happy about the rolls.

>>6181150
Are there any PMCs or Freelance Pilots we can hire in the area? Since we're in the outter rim I feel like there should be a couple mercenary companies running around.

Rolled 2 (1d100)

The four shuttles you carry, which the men call whaleboats, launch from your hangar even as you burn at best possible speed to the wreck. Likewise the forward of your light cruisers also makes best speed to the wreck intending to begin rescue operations as soon as possible. You turn toward CAg and he nods to you. “We've got time before the first of the whaleboats return with survivors we can launch and make a strike sir” Each of your strike craft are launched from the hangar intent on getting revenge for god only knows how many crew of the destroyer. The picket line doing its best to protect the operation from an enemy couterattack but most of the captains are far to skittish to attempt to make another attack.


The rescue operation even as the strike craft burns toward the retreating enemy goes smoothly as heavily protected EVA teams begin to search through the wreckage. The engineering spaces and the CIC are both completely gone, however it seems like large portions of the crew remain alive at the weapons stations, the reinforced bulkheads meant to avoid flash fires from them protecting the gun crews from the direct blow of the laser.


Could I get a 1d100 best of three for the strike?


>>6181792
While PMCs do exist your sector is pretty quiet for rim sector so none real call your AO home

Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>6181846
Let's focus fire on their aft. They want to turn tail so badly, then we'll have their asses.

Rolled 73 (1d100)

>>6181846
Nearby Sectors then if we can't get reinforced.

Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>6181846

>>6181846
Do we have any sort of machining tools or fabrication facilities in the carrier? I don't think we would but I'm just asking on the off chance.

The strike soars past the picket line as the enemy cruisers and battleships still attempt to hit the destroyers and corvettes at extreme distance. The enemy doesnt even seem to notice them as they draw close to the enemy the smaller but still formidable torpedoes hooked onto their hardpoints.


You are more than surprised when the enemy simply doesn't notice the twenty four armed craft getting well within the range of their torpedoes and they only really seem to notice the attack as the spread of torpedoes are all launched at the remaining intact enemy battleship. It tries, it tries hard to avoid the spread doing a hard burn that you bet liquifies any not strapped down crew. It doesn't save the ship as six torpedoes slam into the side of the ship impacting from the aft all the way to the fore. The explosions ripple across the ships hull tearing it asunder as its consorts and sister ship use the destruction of the battleship as a cover to reach the jump point and activate it.

>>6182360
Outside of basic machining for onsite repairs nothing much although the Shipyard at Cartha has anything you could want for manufacturing

>>6182370
Neato, Salvage Gantries would be nice so we can scavenge some of the Birds' tech and maybe figure out more weaknesses or sell the tech on the black market.

Some Ion Weaponry might be useful too so we can take a few ships mostly intact if we get the chance. Loot's on my mind since we need to resupply.

By the way once this is over we gotta salvage the destroyer for its weapons at least. We can still strap those coilguns to another ship.

>>6182372
that would be nice. we'll also have to take back the boneyard one of these days, once we finish the evacuations

A burning ship isnt completely unheard of in space as there are various things that will still burn in a vacuum and something onboard the battleship must be one such thing as fires burn along the full length of the ship as it tumbles. Your strike craft return to your ship and manage to sneak aboard in between the whaleboats bringing survivors aboard. There are far more survivors on the wrecked destroyer with many of the ships minor bulkheads saving the lives of many of the crew. The majority of the ships higher ranking officers arent as lucky as they were all killed either in the CIC or in the ships engineering spaces save for the Chief engineer who is found alive but rattled inside an airtight firelocker.


The strike craft try as hard as they can to launch again before the enemy goes to jump space however they simply cant launch fast enough with the sheer number of shuttles coming and going from the hangar. The finale remaining battleship and four light cruisers open the swirling green jump point and take their leave from the system. They leave behind the two shattered battleships behind you alongside the two annihilated cruisers as well as the burning battleship infront of you.

>>6182372
A dedicated salvage ship is something you could feasibly build/refit I would hold onto the idea for after the current operation as you will get some time to do refits at Cartha

>>6182851
Fuck too many survivors escaped so now they will know to shoot to cripple and try to swat the rescue shuttles. Also they know our armor is non-existent and try to find ways around our planes and corvettes.

We could strip destroyer crew size and convert them into EWAR suites as they are too big and risk too much manpower for a fat target.

No post today but a decision

Would you all like the majority of the freighters to leave once full and return to Cartha or have them stay with the fleet?

>Yes
>No

>>6183642
>No
not yet. if things get a bit dicey though the should full on evac.

>>6183642
>Yes

>>6183642
>>No
Never split the party as there are now roaming fleets around us.

>>6183642
>>No
>>6183695
>>6183952
agree

>>6183642
>>No

>No

The enemy gone and the rescue operations finishing up you turn toward the colony of New Garcia the colony had known you were coming as such had begun preparations to evacuate however the arrival of the enemy had seen several small scale raids on the evacuation centers. This has caused some chaos however it seems like the operation is going smoothly so far, Its not as fast as the evacuation of Honest but the mormons have always been prepared to leave a place quickly so that's not too much of an insult to the hardy farmers of New Garcia.


It only takes the better part of a day to get the refugees loaded onto the freighter with only one of them still empty which should be more than enough for the much smaller colonies of Ares and the ice moon. You soon move to the jump point and make the trip to ares the freighters following shortly behind you.

Could I get a 1d100 best of three please?

Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>6184357

Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>6184357

Rolled 24 (1d100)

>>6184357

>>6184382
heck yeah

The two day journey to Ares goes fairly well save for a minor dispute onboard one of the freighters where the topic of whether the laws of the colony or general naval law was in effect, you sided on the naval law being in effect as is regulation. Its after your brief foray into the legal situation you exit jump space into the star system holding Ares.


You've grown accustomed to entering a system and immediately having to fight the birds or run from them; however you've lucked out this time and it seems like the system is empty as your fleet deploys into a standard protective screen around you and the freighters.


(slight fun quest fact we just passed 20k words including basic notes the world building document I have brings that up to around 25k)

>>6185006
nice. congrats.
hopefully the place isn't empty because everybody already died

Your worried you had missed the arrival of the birds and destruction of the colony for a short time until you finally received a tight beam transmission from what you guess is a disguised communication satellite orbiting Ares. It simply reads “ALL PERSONS PREPARED FOR EVACUATION, ENEMY FLEET BRIEFLY ENTERED SYSTEM 2 DAYS PAST WILL MARK LAND ZONES FOR SHUTTLES” It seems the underground nature of the colony and the natural paranoia that seems endemic to transhumanists cults like this one managed to save the colony from destruction.

Its once your in orbit you realize just how hard it would be to find the place without the landing beacons that the cultists had activated for you. The desolated rocky surface looks completely unmarred by human activity and even scans for radiation or thermal signatures turn up nothing but the shuttles land and out of hidden tunnels the colonists begin to be loaded.


could I have a 1d100 best of three please?

Rolled 63 (1d100)

>>6185566

Rolled 22 (1d100)

>>6185566

Rolled 38 (1d100)

>>6185566
>>6185006
Good job Brink.

Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>6185566
I know I'm just a tourist here but how long have we been fighting and flying non stop? At the very least we've been constantly fighting and on high alert for weeks, how's the situation looking like? Any projections saying we might find some decent rest and refit time in the near future or is a constant war the major theme for this quest?

>>6185899
You had some time for minor repairs and rest about a week ago, but you are starting to need some real refits

>>6185901
Yeah aside from the ship there's also the gigantic amount of refugees with wildly differing belief systems who seem like they'll start causing problems soon. Especially with the constant Martial Law, which is completely justified but Civvies will still bitch regardless.

I think we'll need to figure out a council of representatives for the colonists if we haven't already so we can figure out what problems we can fix and what assets they can give us.

>>6185905
yeah.
and it doesn't help that we're basically asking them to give us what is basically absolute power over the entire subsector and also believe something that would be both impossible and utterly absurd if it didn't happen to be factually true.
they've honestly just been absolute gems so far.

>>6186004
This mostly stems from the fact almost all civil governance was suspended during the AI war with some sectors having only been returned to self governance in the last 30 years. As long as the war doesn't drag out forever they civvies should be relatively ok with martial law (save for some minor problem people)

>>6186007
>Looks at our outskirts borders and distance from Earth with no reinforcements coming.
Well they should get settled then as this will be a long war.

>>6185566
Can we mine one of the jump points and pick them back up or place down signal bouys for vision if they jump back in?

>>6186016
You are currently out of mines however you still have a significant amount of sensor buoys you can leave

Your luck holds as the day passes and the 3215 colonists of ares are loaded onto the last freighter which they will have to share with the colonists on the Ice moon when you pick them up. The description of the enemy fleet that visited the system before you arrived sends a chill down your spin a full 10 battleships with the same number of Heavy cruisers and nearly 20 light cruisers but once again no corvettes or anything smaller. The cultists stored away with only some light admonishment from the “Pastor” of the cult about the condition of your ships you make your way to the jump point making sure to leave behind a sensor buoy which should inform you the next time the jump point opens. The buoy should last for the foreseeable future and the simple RTG inside it should last.


The jump point swirls and your off again into jump space, your mind drifting to how big the war may actually be. It could be isolated to just your sector or it could be all of your neighbors as well if your math is right you should receive the response to your earlier communication to rim command and you should receive confirmation on which it is.

>>6186114
Ohh hey nice hint we can use some of the technophiles as crew members if we need some extra hands manning ships.

>>6186352
i think it might behoove us to retake the boneyard and get as many warships up and running as we reasonably can, with volunteers from among the refugees crewing them (segregate the crews by homeworld, i guess)

I don't know what the industrial capacity on cartha looks like but we should also start making munitions, especially torpedos.

>>6186477
Cartha when it was initially settled was intended to be large scale industrial world for war manufacturing although the war ended before that was fully implemented. it still has many factories with the right tooling and could output almost anything you would need including the materials to manufacture entirely new warships although this would take a very long time

>>6186477
I dunno, taking a few people from each planet might be good to fill in the gaps but we'll still be limited since we're gonna want officers and leadership loyal to us specifically crewing ships.

Plus a lot of the ships we can salvage is gonna be pretty crap so we'll also likely wanna refurbish them first which will also take a bit of time. I don't exactly wanna just mob rush the birds with rabble. More ships also means much more maintenance and harder coordination.

I think it's better to just choice pick the best scraps from the boneyard, have the colonists refurbish them then take only enough volunteers to fill up only a fraction of non-leadership roles in ships so we can keep the ships mostly loyal to us and without weird cultural bullshit.

>>6186493
yeah that's why I am thinking more of starting with the ones we already have sitting out.
We can also try retrofitting the civilian ships we have with upgraded sensor suites, CIC rooms, and torpedo tubes to create distributed lethality. Basically make it so any ship we have can take down a smaller bird vessel.

the best part is that once we have decent deterrent forces that are composed of crews leveed from the colonies, they can be organized into System Defense Fleets for those colonies, allowing them to resettle their homeworlds, since we might have to look at a period of prolonged warfare and coexistence with the birds before we settle the matter, and we can't just keep retreating all that time. Of course, giving a bunch of radical cultists of varying stripes credible defenses could be problematic for the human empire, but that's somebody else's problem.

The four day journey to the ice moon is quiet and your arrival likewise. This time there's no hidden colony or enemy fleet in orbit, just a happy but worried small colony wanting to escape to somewhere with more defenses than a couple century old coil gun turrets and a handful of security guards. The scant population of 300 people are loaded into the last freighter and the station's scant machinery save for the life support systems are disabled. Its while you are opening the jump point back to Cartha you receive the answer to your earlier wonderings in the form of an encrypted transmission send through jump space


—-------------------------------------------------------------
SENDER: HIGHCOM RIM COMMAND

INTENDED RECIPIENT: ALL ADMIRALS RIM COMMAND

BEGIN MESSAGE

UNKNOWN ENEMY FORCES REPORTED ATTACKING SECTORS 58, 59, 60, 63, 65

SECTORS 61, 62 GONE DARK PRESUMED LOST

ORDERS: HOLD IF TENABLE MAINTAIN CIVILIAN LIVES IF POSSIBLE, RETREAT TOWARD MIDDLE SECTOR COMMAND IF UNTENABLE,

REINFORCEMENTS: IN ROUTE FROM EARTH HIGHCOM ETA 625 DAYS.

GOOD HUNTING -GRAND ADMIRAL MCCOMB
—-------------------------------------------------------------

>>6186694
Well fuck looks like we're on our own.

>>6186694
eeeyup.
Looks like we're gonna have to start turning Cartha into a Fortress World. We don't really have the resources to evacuate everyone further.

>>6186694
What's the point of having FTL if you still take 2 years to get anywhere?

>>6186835
To be fair you are on the edge of nearly a 500 years of outward human expansion

>>6186835
>>6186826
Yeah I figured there was a decent chance this was gonna happen. Need to make some scavenger ships and build up as much as we can.

We gotta regroup with the other sectors too though.

>>6186694
Which sector are we in and who are our neighbours?

>>6186851
You are sector 63 and your direct neighbors are 62 and 63 with sector 63 of mid command behind you

>>6186865
>You are sector 63 and your direct neighbors are 62 and 63
Is there a typo somewhere?

>>6186869
64 instead of 63 I should be asleep right now

You dont outwardly respond to the message, the only other person having seen it being Issac and you know him well enough to know he won't outwardly react either. This is bad five sectors under attack and two even gone dark like large parts of your own sector and that was when this message was sent so assuming average FTL comm delay it's probably two weeks old maybe older. There's panic in your thoughts for a few moments but you tamper them down, there's a lot of people both under your command and civilians who are going to rely on you and you cant panic now.


There's hope though you may be alone but you have Cartha, a fully industrialized world, a shipyard and if you were to guess the single most combat experienced air wing in the entire damn navy at this point although its only 24 planes strong. The potential of reinforcements in around 600 days too and it should be something seriously big too. A 600 day travel time means EarthCom which means the most advanced and powerful warships in all of human space a lot of them too. You have a decision to make right now however do you tell the fleet and by extension the civilians about the full situation or do you control who knows to avoid potential panic.


>tell them
>Keep it secret for now

>>6187358
>Write in: Give a partial truth. "Reinforcements are on the way from core territories. Neighbouring sectors are holding at the moment."
This one is to the public. It's partially true due to the fact that neighbouring sectors are holding. Just a few next door are not.

>Write in: To the really high up ones we show the message and state: "Get contingency plans up and running. NOW."

or something along the line of what was said here.

>>6187358
>>tell them
A whole lot of cooperation so far has been achieved by being open with our men about what we're up against. We're asking a lot from both our crews and the civilians, and that's carried over towards them being willing to go along with our ideas since they know why we're asking what we're asking.
I don't think the news is so bad that it's going to shake their morale; I feel like anyone would have reasonably guessed that the birds were in multiple sectors, confirming it shouldn't be such a huge surprise.
Two years to reinforcements also gives them something tangible to look forward to.

Maybe combine our announcement with a plan of how we're going to secure sector 63, and our plan to turn Cartha into a Fortress World?

>>6186875
How big is a sector? How many planets and how long to travel across?

>>6187358
>Tell them, but spin it as optimistic as realistically feasible

>And immediately contact sectors 64 and 63-mid. We need to coordinate if we want to have a chance

>>6187451
A sector takes about a month to travel the full length of and the number of systems and planets varies wildly your sector is a bit more packed then most

>>6187358
>tell them
"Gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. Good news is: reinforcements are on their way. The bad news: it'll take them 21 months to get here, until then, we're on our own."

I believe honesty is the best policy in these circumstances.

>>6187537
So what do we have in our sector besides the places we've visited?

>>6187358
>Tell them, but spin it as optimistic as realistically feasible
>And immediately contact sectors 64 and 63-mid. We need to coordinate if we want to have a chance

Yeah even if they're still a months away, we gotta share what we know while we can. Start sending in encrypted instructions on what we've found for weaknesses of Bird Ships. Maybe it won't help anybody, maybe it'll save some people but disseminating information is better than nothing.

>>6187358
>tell them and send HighCom and other sectors our combat footages and weapon specs. Tell everyone else that even if we evacuate we would be hunted until our ships breakdown with no resupply.

>>6187358
Agree with >>6187582. We also need to establish a replacement training depot for ship and air crews.

No post tonight will post tomorrow

You turn toward your comms officer ordering him to open a line with all of the ships in the fleet and to patch that line into each ship's PA while you switch on your own ship's PA system. “Attention Sailors, marines and civilians of Sector 63 This is the Admiral speaking. I have just received communication from High command for the first time in over two weeks and the news is grim but there is hope. The enemy has struck six other sectors in our region and have most likely overrun one of our direct neighbors in the form of sector 62 who went dark at least two weeks ago, possibly longer.” You stop for a moment allowing the listeners to absorb the information before continuing “My orders are to hold as long as possible and protect civilian lives which I plan to do with the full might of my fleet, we are not alone however a large relief fleet from earth herself is on the way, the full might of navy will be brought to bear on the enemy and we must hold them here so that might can find them and destroy them.”

You flip the switch for the PA off and nod to the comms officer to kill the comm line and sit back in your chair. The eyes of your bridge crew on you for a few moments more before turning back to their duties. The rest of the trip back to cartha is quiet amongst the fleet save for some minor panic amongst the civilians on the freighters but your sailors are professionals and trust your judgement when it comes to the war.


Your arrival in Cartha sees the freighters off to the planet to off load their passengers while your fleet dock at the jump point fortress which is already starting to look far better maintained than it has in decades. It's after you dock you decide to call a council of war for the purpose of figuring out the next steps. Those who you call for the council are your XO Issac, Governor Meek to represent the civilians and Colonel Resse the highest ranking army officer in the region. The four of you sit down in a small meeting room in the station and you think of what you should discuss first.

>Potential to expand the fleet
>defense of Cartha
>Possibility of retreat
>Calling for reinforcements
>Write in

>>6189047
>Getting gathering Volunteers from the Civilian Population to serve as Ship Crew or Strike Craft Pilots.
>The possibility of Repurposing Civilian facilities like Factories and Dry Docks to maintain, repair and expand our fleet.
>The possibility of Repurposing Civilian Craft to be used as military vehicles by adding sensor systems and basic weapons to pad out our fleet.
>Any problems they think might happen on the Civillian Side of things, the Civies have been behaving pretty well but if there's any problems that might show up in the future it's best if we clean our house now so we can focus everything on the Birds later.

>>6189047
>>defense of Cartha
How hard would it be to make defense platforms that are just a couple of torpedo tubes and a coilgun under enough power to maneuver around the system? Our problem is we've never held ground through a second attack.
We basically need to get Cartha in a place where it can defend itself if we want to start doing seek and destroy missions in the sector.