Alpha Corp has
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buy out Denver Corp.
HMS Ranger's Bandit - Savatti System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
VonGrippen had donned a black and red peaked cap, trimmed with the single gold leaves of a Colonel, wearing the distinctive broad shouldered pleather jacket of a mech-pilot, his personal double headed golden falcon on its sleeve, on its red and white crosses. Below it, close to the cuff, the twin-crossed lances of a mech-jockey had been placed. Matching the rest of his outfit. The crossed swords on the collar, and the Imperial pilots wings on the right sleeve rounded out the uniform. The jacket was slung on, and tucked back as he stood resting on his cane, staring out of the high observation dome of the Imperial Mech-transport that was roaring through the Savatti system. Her captain watching nervously as the Dakin ships in the system reacted to the sudden appearance of an Imperial warship with an Amsus Raptor riding piggyback in their midst.
"Colonel?" the Bandit's captain asked, turning her head from where she stood beside her command chair, looking across at VonGrippen. "They have three cruisers out there…"
"I can see that," VonGrippen responded from where he stood, eyeing the strategic display that floated above him. "Advice, Ben?" he asked the young man sitting at a console sipping a cup of tea and looking wholly unfazed by the Dakin cruisers steaming down upon them.
"The Dakin don't care about the Empire," Ben replied, "their interests are in dealing with the Amsus occupying what they consider their territory. I sense an opportunity has presented itself."
"The Dakin are hardly demonstrating that disinterest," VonGrippen remarked dryly. He crossed to the Communications Officer, "Activate the distress beacon, configure it to transmit the following code on this frequency," The youthful Colonel tapped the codes he wanted into the system, "Launch immediately… do we have combat drones?" he looked over at the Captain.
"We have a number of them," the Bandit's Captain replied as she watched the emergency distress beacon blast away from its launch tube, leaping to Hyperspace, shaking her head at the futility of the move, there weren't any Imperial ships within a hundred light years. "But you know there's no one onboard that knows how to operate them."
"That will have to be rectified," VonGrippen stated, looking back at Ben, before thoughtfully considering the tactical display. "They would tie the Dakin vessels up if we had them… however, since we are left with only a few options as a result. I would like to speak to the Dakin Arch-Prelate."
The captain pointed at her communications officer, who bent over the comm. Shaking his head a few moments later. "They aren't responding."
"How long until Zero's hyperdrive is recharged?" VonGrippen inquired, knowing that it had to be a good twenty three hours to go.
The Captain confirmed his estimate.
"Well now," VonGrippen mused limping forward to the command chair. "It seems we have a problem. Bring us about and accelerate us to Flank speed…"
The helm complied, as the Imperial vessel curved about, accelerating away from the advancing Dakin cruisers. And VonGrippen stood, his eyes firmly fixed on the tactical display. "On my mark, hard over and reverse course…"
There was a flicker from the three cruisers as their jump pods extended from their mounts, the vessels leaping to hyperspace, appearing a nanosecond in the Bandit's path.
"Mark," VonGrippen ordered, his hand reaching out to steady himself as the Bandit spun on her axis, her ion engines blasting to full power as they slowed the ship to reverse its course.
Ben lifted his teacup, shaking his head as the ships gravity plating was sluggish to respond to the sudden inversion of course and speed. "Here we go again," he commented with a smile as the Bandit accelerated away from the predatory cruisers. VonGrippen having bought the most valuable of combat commodities, time. It would take twenty three hours for the Zero's jump drives to recharge and he could far-step anywhere, while the Dakin would take twenty-four and would subsequently be left behind.
"Thank you Captain," VonGrippen intoned. "Keep us on this heading, flank speed if you please. And let me know when the Prelate decides he is willing to talk…"
The communications officer turned, "Sir, we have the Dakin prelate on an open channel, he is requesting to speak to our commander."
"Ah desperation," Ben smiled charmingly. "He realizes he has made a mistake, and now he's willing to talk."
"To buy time," VonGrippen confirmed absently as he leaned over the strategic CIC table, examining the distance between them and the planet that was their target. "If we make a tight approach to the planet, we should enter a sensor shadow here…" he picked up a set of dividers, looking at the Bandit's Captain as he demonstrated. "The Prelate is going to be cautious now, hedging his bets to avoid further mistakes, so he will divide his squadron, sending one part after us, the other to try to head us off." He showed the two flight plans using the dividers. "That should give us enough time to initiate a Mech drop, and allow you to break off on this heading…"
The Bandit's Captain inclined her head. "They are going to realize that you are down on the surface."
"But they won't be certain," VonGrippen answered. "They are going to leave one of their Cruiser's in orbit, while the other two try to catch you, which significantly decreases your risk, and mine if we attempt this. A lone cruiser we can deal with, it will take them time to find us. While you tie the other two up in a merry little chase around the system."
"Sirs, the Prelate?" the Communication's Officer chimed in again.
VonGrippen ignored him, tapping the dividers on the situation table. "We're going to have to slow one of those Cruisers, though." He stared over the holographic table lost in his own thoughts a moment.
"What are you planning?" Ben asked, slightly bemused.
"You are enjoying all of this far too much," VonGrippen looked up pointedly. "I intend to force their hands, and make the cruiser they leave behind to land on the planets surface be the one I choose."
"I see," Ben nodded frowning. "You know there were times I missed your particular magic."
"I don't understand," the Bandit's Captain looked confused. "How do you plan to do that?"
"The trick isn't in how," VonGrippen replied truthfully, "but rather in the scale of the damage we have to inflict. Too little and they don't have to set down. Too much and they won't be able to." He bobbed his finger as he chewed on a memory. "Dakin ships, what made them such a bitch for Kardiac?"
"Cannons on a circular track around the cruiser's hull," Ben said standing up as he downed the last of his tea. Getting into the thrill of the battle. "They can pour on a near endless barrage of precise firepower."
"Drains their reserves though," VonGrippen replied, looking over towards the disused drone system. "Drain them enough and their shields will be weakened as they compensate from non-essential systems."
"You have a plan I take it?" Ben asked wryly.
"I do," VonGrippen turned from the situation table and looked over at the Bandit's Captain. "Do you, by chance, have a spare nuclear missile I can borrow?"
"We have two currently onboard," the Captain crossed her arms. "Colonel I have been patient with you, however…"
The Colonel straightened up, affixing her with an emotionless stare that withered her complaint. "I require a nuclear missile, or our chances of actually surviving this encounter will be greatly diminished." He looked over at Ben, "where do you want to be?"
Ben looked grimly around him, before looking back at VonGrippen, "I go with you, Colonel." He said in a way that told his friend volumes.
VonGrippen glanced around at the Bandit, then over at her Captain. "When we drop, I'll need you to draw the cruisers off. Once you have them, you are to depart this system using the Bandit's conventional Hyperdrive and not return under any circumstances."
The Captain looked set to protest again, as the Bandit rocked from a long range shot fired by one of the Dakin ships. Alerts flared, as the shields registered the impact, still too far away to do much damage, but it indicated the lethal precision of the Dakin's weaponry.
"They will take this ship apart," VonGrippen said, his tone cold. "If you remain here, or return, you will die."
"If we depart, it'll be you that dies," the Captain hissed, dropping her voice to avoid being overheard by the crew.
"Just give me the missile," VonGrippen said quietly. "I've taken care of the rest myself. Draw off two of those cruisers for as long as you can, then get clear. Those are my orders."
"Exec," the Captain called, producing her nuclear key from beneath her uniform shirt, swallowing as she looked again at the Colonel. Inserting her key into the armament console as her Executive officer did the same.
"Target Sierra-three," VonGrippen ordered, reaching out to the drone console and activating the drones.
Along the upper armour plating of the Bandit's outer hull, panels jettisoned as the deadly Imperial drones shot away from their mothership. Like a hundred little shooting stars, their small ion engines engaged as they rocketed through space.
"Ben?" VonGrippen called, his hands darting across the console trying to keep up with the complicated flight patterns of a hundred fast moving objects slave-rigged to each other. A cloud of death that was, just barely, under his control.
Ben joined him at the console, taking over the operation of half of the numerous drones. Pulling his wing outwards and tapping to configure them into an attack formation.
It took a special kind of mind to operate so many drones at the same time, and despite their combined intellects, they both lacked the specialized training to make the drones as deadly efficient as an old-Empire Drone-Master had been able to. But then VonGrippen didn't need them to be that efficient.
"I am pre-programming harrying manoeuvres," Ben commented. "But I can only predict about five minutes of combat, beyond that… the variables just become too great."
"Five minutes is enough," VonGrippen stated, forming his own drones up into a long column, four abreast, setting a simplistic pattern for his attack run. "Now…"
Ben's attack drones careened in on variable angles, spiralling around the outermost Dakin cruiser, peppering it with maser fire. The Cruiser turning its bow to meet the attacking drones as it broke off its pursuit of the Bandit to deal with the new threat.
Predictably the other two cruisers remained on course.
VonGrippen tapped his launch command, initiating the second wave of drones, as they roared down upon the cruiser, blasting away with their cannons as they strafed the length of the cruiser, pulling off and breaking away in four directions, streaking to the back of the long column of drones to ready for the next attack run, as the ones behind it initiated a duplicate attack run.
"Here come the guns," Ben stated, sweat beginning to drip down his face as he concentrated.
The Dakin cruiser was a long ovoid vessel bristling with spines and spires, but along its circumference was the deadly zero-point weapon mounts, already spinning up as the energy weapons began to fire. A spiralling wave of weapons fire erupting outwards to destroy the closest drones in a conflagration of un-restrained energy.
"The missile Captain," VonGrippen stepped back from the console and turned to her.
The Captain pressed the firing control, as the nuclear missile exploded from its launch tube, flaring like a brilliant star that shot through space closing on its target.
The Dakin cruiser recognized the threat presented by the incoming missile, its weapons fire ceasing as its Captain diverted full power to his shields. But so heavily drained, its shields wouldn't be sufficient.
The missile connected squarely with the shields flaring into a brilliant wave of light that would wreak havoc on the enemy ship. And VonGrippen folded his arms, watching as the Bandit's tactical computer highlighted the enemy ship upon the situation table, predicting the damaging effects the missile had inflicted.
"She's having engine difficulties," Ben observed, as the Dakin cruiser began to fall behind her sister ships. Her weapons mounts all but destroyed and her shield emitters blackened and burnt from the over-loading effect of trying to dissipate so much energy.
"The question is, too much or not enough?" VonGrippen mused. "Time will tell… Captain we need to get down to the surface now."
Stratosphere - Savatti Prime - Savatti System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
The drop pods hammered through the stratosphere as their parachutes deployed, slamming the heavy pods upwards as it braked the rapid descent that had burnt through atmospheric re-entry. The parachutes cutting away a moment later, their braking job complete. Powering downwards through the atmosphere as the heat shields jettisoned, the drop pods engaged their exo-jets, slowing the descent even further as the pods split away revealing the four Imperial Mechs.
The pods slammed into the muddy, iron rich ground, sending up sprays of red clay and mud as the jets hissed and spat, shutting down, at last their jobs over.
The Mechs activating at once, the explosive bolts ejecting the releases, freeing them from the pods, and allowing them mobility. The ITEs racing down, into the marshy flood plain that they had landed in, only a few miles away from the target drop zone.
In the Δ-07 VonGrippen advanced slowly, the TADS attached to his helmet, causing the heavy Bofors cannon beneath his cockpit to swing too and fro as he moved his head, searching for any sign of a threat.
"Negative RADAR contacts," Captain Jetsenbek stated through the TAC-net as his ITE splashed through the sticky mud. The caking reddish-brown mud splattering up the matte-chrome of the Imperial mech as it sped across the plain, heading for a low series of twisted palm trees that clustered around a small mountain.
"Take it cautiously," VonGrippen adjusted his gloves, turning his head as the Zero shrieked overhead, Vichet piloting their only means of escape from the isolated rock in the middle of nowhere. They only had a few minutes until the Dakin cruisers rounded the planet, and the Zero needed to get on the ground quickly.
The VTOL jets of the Zero fired, as her fan tail swung around. Dropping down towards the edge of the tree-line. Shutting down as Jetsenbek's ITE leapt up, its auto-cannons training skywards to offer limited anti-air cover as it backed slowly into the thicket of trees.
The Δ-07 was slower, pounding its way across the plain as behind it, the drop pods engaged their digital camouflage, micro cameras on the dorsal surfaces, projecting a holographic web over them, causing evidence of the landing to vanish beneath holographic mud.
He made it to the trees, the flayed three toed feet of his mech ideally suited to traversing the slippery ground, as he pulled to a halt, checking the digital TAC-net feed from the Bandit that displayed the two faster Dakin cruisers sling-shooting around the planet's gravity field.
They would be doing their best to search the planet's surface for any evidence of a drop, a cursory examination using orbital cameras and RADAR sweeps of a potential landing area, relaying the information back to their trailing sister ship, who had pulled the arduous duty of searching the planet for them by default.
Detaching the TADS, he popped the canopy of the Mech, clambering down the legs of the mech somewhat awkwardly given his leg. Splashing into the mud, grunting against the pain heavily, he crossed to the Zero, where Vichet and Nick were already working to activate the ships camouflage system and cloak the retrofitted Amsus vessel. He ducked up the ramp, slipping his helmet off as he climbed up and inside heading for the cockpit, falling into the pilot's seat and looking expectantly over at Ben, who was studying the gunnery boards, the displays showing the cruisers breaking orbit and speeding after the Bandit.
"Any moment now," VonGrippen stated, checking his watch.
The third cruiser was entering orbit, already deploying shuttles in a search pattern.
"Good so far," Ben said, "and our invited guests?"
The TAC-net trilled, as the Bandit's sensors detected a jump event. The display suddenly updating with a beeped warning, as the Amsus Battlecruiser entered the system, arriving almost ontop of the two Dakin cruisers, who were scrambling to react to the sudden arrival of a new threat.
VonGrippen scratched his forehead, as he settled back into the pilot's chair. "One Battlecruiser, I'd hoped for more, the Amsus must be stretched very thin in this region."
The TAC-net warbled again, as multiple jump events began to appear. A wing of Amsus Raptors streaking down like birds of prey, falling upon the Dakin cruiser in orbit.
"Better," VonGrippen nodded in satisfaction. "Coffee?"
Ben nodded, smiling a little, "you are a sneaky bastard at times Alex."
"Amsus standard operating procedure upon receiving a distress call," the old-young man replied simply as he fished a thermos of coffee out of a locker beneath the pilot's seat, pouring two cups.
"You're in your element," Ben nodded.
"I know my enemy," VonGrippen responded. "But don't confuse my confidence for under-estimation. The Amsus are still extremely dangerous," he gestured to the flailing Dakin cruiser that was being forced lower into the atmosphere by the Amsus Raptors tearing it to shreds. "Better the devil I know… who has no idea I'm down here, than one I don't who does."
"We're not going to be able to use the Zero as long as the Amsus are in orbit," Ben pointed out.
"Thus, the reason I brought the Mechs," VonGrippen answered. "The Amsus aren't looking on the ground, and that means we should be able to move to our objective reasonably unhindered, and if they do… we have the firepower to deal with a Raptor based assault." He patted the console of the Zero, "the only worry is that Cruiser…" he nodded to the Battlecruiser that was duelling with the Dakin. A large green bird fighting against the smaller, but ferocious ovoid vessels that were pouring firepower into the heavy armour plating of the Battlecruiser.
Vichet joined them inside the Zero, slinging his DT-09 as he stared over the display screen, shaking his head. "What did you do?" he smiled at VonGrippen.
"Playing trans-galactic chess," VonGrippen answered. "Once the cruiser in orbit is destroyed, we'll make for the ruins." He stood, setting his coffee down on the console and hobbling back through the cockpit, pulling down a tablet PC from an equipment locker, displaying the orbital photos that the Zero had taken moment they had deployed.
He used the stylus to circle the ruins, drawing a line back to the drop-zone, looking up at Vichet. "What we're looking for, will probably be located here."
Vichet leaned down, frowning, "it looks like a field of giant mushrooms…"
"Exactly," VonGrippen replied, "three hundred years ago, this was the last Kule outpost in existence…"
"How do you know that?" Vichet inquired.
"Because he destroyed it," Ben turned in his chair, drawing the uniform tunic closer about himself as he shivered in the cool air.