pfft.... limitations there are none to your imagination.
Into February 3110 - I've got a massive thanks for marauder (Dominion) and Vition2 (Raven) sections here both did a marvellous job with their contributions. And for those who think the Combine is beginning to hurt... yes they are.
Surprising as it is both marauder and Vition2 came up with these sections/ideas themselves. I have no idea if they colluded behind the scenes but they just happened to land at exactly the same time. There are reasons behind it. Originally there was a temptation to delay one section or the other but I decided to run them both at the same time.
You'll also note a lack of the SLDF being mentioned in these updates despite it being a "Clan aggression" story exactly what the SLDF was built for. That will be addressed shortly.
Vition2 has also created the Splendid variants below (which we'll hopefully share soon)
Command Complex, Imperial Palace
New Samarkand, Tabayama Prefecture
Midway Military District, Draconis Combine
2nd February 3110Akira paced back and forth in front of the holo-table in the command center, impatiently waiting for the latest updates from the occupied zone. He was particularly anxious to find out the of the state of the Shiro Kurita demi-flotilla, which had disappeared after sending an unintelligible message. But that wasn’t the only issue bothering him; the Ravens had played their hand well, covering their assaults with heavy warship forces and without the warships of the demi-flotilla they were virtually unopposed in the occupation zone.
Intelligence reports placed a heavy star of warships covering both sides of the zone, severely curtailing potential counter assaults in those areas. Meanwhile the only force still capable of carrying out offensive maneuvers was itself under a semi-blockade, with at least three different Splendid-class warships being seen at the various jump points at different times - they’d even managed to ambush and capture a pair of JumpShips carrying support and combat DropShips to where they were needed.
“Sir, we’ve received the reports.” Tai-Sho Stollarude spoke as he entered the command room.
“And…” Akira asked, the impatience virtually dripping from his words.
“Still no word from Cho-Sho Shogura, and the Third Sword of Light’s last transmission said they were about to lose control of the HPG facility on Rushaven.” And with the loss of the HPG the command would be completely cut off and finished as a command.
“We must do something to knock the Ravens off balance, are the Ryuken-go and Second Genyosha ready to go?”
“Yes, my Lord, in particular the Second seems to relish the idea of avenging their predecessor.” Stollarude stated mentioning the elite unit which had been surrounded and overwhelmed during the last conflict with the Ravens.
“Good, send them to take Chirala, detach the Takao as an escort. Then have the Ryuken-go target Pondicherry, let them know they will also have warship support. Concentrate the rest of them on Quantraine, we’ll make it a fortress and bleed the Ravens dry if they decide to test it,” Akira ordered.
“My lord, it is my duty to point out that concentrating our forces like that makes them a very tempting target for orbital strikes. It also won’t be long before they blockade the planet, it wouldn’t take long to starve out those regiments. Not to mention while castled up on Quantraine they won’t be able to participate elsewhere, effectively being off the rolls.”
Akira waved his hand as if the points were worthless, “They’ll only have to hold out until July, with the Katsuragi’s deployment we’ll have the firepower to force our way in and withdraw our troops. Perhaps by then we’ll have another couple of regiments to pressure the Ravens with.”
With that Stollarude left to relay the orders. As he walked away he had similar concerns the heir did, how could the Ravens be so efficient and coordinated, and how can we make that ours.
Little more than a week later, the DCS Takao fought the William Adams, a Raven Whirlwind-class destroyer. The Raven WarShip put up a desperate fight against the larger Kirishima II-class Battle cruiser, but the Takao destroys the Raven WarShip handily, though the forward sections of the DCN vessel suffers significant cosmetic armour damage. On the ground the Second Genyosha faces off against Epsilon Solahma, which fights as though possessed. The Raven war machines wade into battle using tactics aggressive enough to be reminiscent of the the bloodiest medieval battles, to include using trees and even the limbs of the fallen as weapons to batter the Genyosha with. In the end the ferociousness tells on the Genyosha, with them suffering staggering casualties, but coming out on top, with the cluster being utterly annihilated.
On Pondicherry the Ryuken-go suffers a different misfortune. The Raven’s Eigth Garrison cluster quickly goes to ground, and avoids direct contact with the Ryuken. In space the DCS Okimbo, a Tatsumaki II-class destroyer takes control of the orbitals, but a pair of Raven WarShips descend on the world a few days later. The DCS Okimbo comports itself well, crippling the Bradley before it falls. Here the Ravens do not withhold orbital bombardment, causing heavy damage to the Ryuken causing the survivors to scatter through fear of further bombardment. The Bloody Talon functions as a go-between for different elements of the Raven forces on planet and coordinates ambushes. Attrition here slowly going in the Combine’s favor, regardless of Raven naval support.
Dining Room, Cameron-Jones Residence
Regulus City, Regulus
District of Regulus, Free Worlds League
5th February 3110 Life could not be greater for Lester Cameron-Jones he was Captain-General of the Free Worlds League and his District had more money coming into it than ever before, he had a beautiful loving wife and their first born daughter Anita had just joined the District of Regulas military. He moved through his home and found his wife sitting at the dining room table there was something on the table in front of her that he initially didn’t recoignize but what he did see was his wife had been crying.
“Honey what’s wrong?”
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?” She asked before he could question she activated the holographic projector in the middle of the room. It began to play a clip that Lester hoped would never surface. It showed a pair of men dragging an elderly male’s limp body up the side of a Battlemaster BattleMech and into the cockpit before leaving the Mech. Moments later two Wasp BattleMech’s entered the courtyard and opened fire with machine guns strafing the cockpit of the BattleMech as they did charges placed on the legs and arms of the Battlemaster detonated causing enough damage to cripple the arms and legs. “My father was dead before he reached his BattleMech an order that you issued.”
“Yes I did” he admitted looking at the woman he loved more than anything else in the world.
“Why?” She asked staring at him daring him to lie.
“He would never have surrendered McKenna to you or endorsed Regulan’s annexation of the system from Oriente.” He said wondering how she’d gotten that footage and what she would do next. “I needed to ensure that Oriente and the people of McKenna accepted our rule your father was a roadblock in that path.” He said coldly Saadia looked away from him. “If I had not acted then your father would have failed his world, Oriente would have failed that entire system, Regulus was the only way to protect it.” He said trying to justify his actions. History was on his side Regulus had absorbed much of what Oriente had once controlled including the area where McKenna was situated during Oriente’s conflicts with the Capellan Confederation but his actions had caused a rift with his wife.
“And now you have accomplished everything that your family has failed to do. You are the Captain-General of a united Free Worlds League.” Saadia said standing up he knew she was not congratulating him “for the sake of our nation, of the Free Worlds League and of our children I will keep your secret.” She said angrily “but what we had before today” she said staring at him “is over.” Finally she walked past him leaving the room leaving Lester to watch what remained of the recording of his “victorious” Regulan troops seizing the citadel on McKenna. Now he desired more than anything to discover who had dug up this sixteen year old clip and who had shared it with his wife and make them pay.
Bridge, DCS Shiro Kurita, Omi-class Carrier/Quatre Belle Shipyards
Lagrange Point 2, Pluto Orbit
Quatre Belle, Raven Alliance
13th February 3110 “Sensors!” Cho-Sho Shogura ordered as they completed the transition to Quatre Belle using the coordinates located within the OPERATION DANTO orders packet. His navigation officer had calculated that the jump would leave them danger-close to the Raven’s Quatre Belle shipyards. He had the entire ship at the highest ready conditions within the Combine’s combat doctrines waiting for their emergence into the system.
“Sir, navigation’s calculations were very close, the shipyards will be within range in 32 minutes and 14 seconds at maximum combat thrust. More detailed scans are populating the area now… I’m detecting five operational warships in the area; it looks like two of their new corvettes and a trio of Splendid-class cruisers. We’ll have more details on the defenses of the yards themselves in another few minutes.” Sensors reported, reading off the descriptions the tactical computer was giving him.
“Close the distance; prepare the fighters to begin launching ten minutes out.” Shogura leans back, presenting a relaxed facade hiding the anxiety he felt over the operation. Something felt wrong, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end moments before all the sensor-connected screens went completely white. Shooting back up ramrod straight, the anxiety clearly showing, “What happened? What’s going on?”
The sensors station didn’t respond, the three station specialists’ fingers sprinting across their keyboards. It took an agonizing seconds for one of them to speak up, voice trembling, “Sir, 90% of the external sensors have overloaded and been burnt out, the rest of the flotilla reports worse sensor damage… we’re blind.” Shogura paled at the statement in hostile territory and suddenly disaster had struck.
One of the other sensor technicians spoke up timidly, “I might have a solution.”
“Speak.”
“We ought to be able to rig up sensors on some our small craft, and route them through the C3 channels. They engineers may not be able to work under the current conditions though.” The tech suggested.
“Give the order, and reduce acceleration to 1.5 gravities. Have a third of the ASF fighters deploy now to provide overwatch until we get sensors back up. What blinded us?”
The first sensors tech spoke up again, “I can think of two options, the more likely of which is a series of massive neutron bombs. The second is much more worrisome, annihilation devices.”
Shogura paled even further at that comment. Antimatter, no one had been able to reliably weaponise such a device, that the Ravens may have advanced far enough to produce mines like these suggests far reaching and horrible possibilities. “Order the Teibo to reverse course, and set off back to the Combine with the reports, this is of highest priority.” Even if he failed here, at least the rest of the Combine would know of the possibility and be prepared.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Star Admiral, we just detected an emergence wave less than fifty thousand off the yards. Details are still coming in, there are a total of five ships, but one of them is massive, more than 1.5 megatons.” Star Admiral Rhai McKenna received the report as she stepped into the command room in the Quatre Belle shipyards, wiping sleep from her eyes. Rhai’s career had started out strong, having become star captain of the Swiftsure-class’ premier warship of its class before she was twenty-five. But since the last Combine-Raven war and the destruction of her ship, her star had waned, leading her to the command chair of the shipyards. Shortly after the loss of the Sword of Orion she challenged and defeated Adam McCorkell, and in the year and a half since, she had funneled resources to various special projects - the Khan didn’t care, as long as the WarShips were completed on schedule.
“Show me where the mines are” as the display lit up she began running the projected trajectory the interlopers, now known to be Combine warships, including an Omi Kurita-class carrier. “They are going to travel directly through the minefield. Prepare to detonate them when they will have the greatest effect.” She let her staff determine the specifics; they were more knowledgeable about the capabilities of one of her projects. She did not see much use for these in typical combat situations, but they were lucky today, unfortunately the mines were untested.
Noting the Sceptre moving towards an intercept, she commanded them, “Star Captain Gerry, cease maneuvers, you may intercept after the mines detonate.” As an afterthought she added, “You may want to step down your sensors.”
A short time later a score of blasts lit up her screen, small expanding areas remaining cloudy and diminishing the ability for the station to collect details, but the Combine fleet quickly travelled through them, the smallest of them splitting off from the others as the Sceptre begins moving towards the enemy. As it became clear the Combine flotilla was not stopping, an idea occurred to her, and she walked out of the command station.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The first pair of modified small craft are launching now.” Navigation reported, “they should be deploying external naval C3 in another 30 seconds.”
Cho-sho Shogura waited on anxiously, but outwardly calm as the information feed began showing on the screens. The data was grainy, and not entirely consistent, but it would serve for today’s purpose, the flotilla still had a much heavier amount of firepower than the Raven Force. As the screen continued to populate the area it quickly noted single massive object hurtling through the void directly towards the flotilla, travelling at more than 55 km/s, and less than a minute from the flotilla.
“Weapons! Get a lock on that object, it must be one of their Splendids, and find me the others!”
“We’re not going to get a hard lock, we don’t have enough C3 small craft active nor in position yet. A soft firing solution is all I’ll be able to manage.” The weapons officer reported, his fingers flying across the screen attempting to narrow down the firing solution.
“Do what you can, and put a flight of bombers in front of it, order them to open up with everything they have across her path.”
With little more he could do but watch the WarShip’s pass and respond to its damage, Shogura leaned back into his command chair, forcing himself to relax. His eyes remained steady on the screen, he noted the DCS Susanoo, his Kirishima II-class battlecruiser, move to an intercept position, placing itself between the DCS Shiro Kurita and the incoming warship. Shogura made a note to recommend Captain Dougan for the Bushido Blade for his courage.
The Raven warship continued, laying down fire as it drew within engagement range, the Combine warships returning fire. With the DCS Susanoo covering the DCS Shiro Kurita, he was sure the carrier would suffer minimal damage. Four streams of naval autocannon fire and more than a dozen smaller weapons were released from the Raven warship, two of the larger cannons went wide, missing the DCS Susanoo and DCS Shiro Kurita entirely, but the others bore down directly on the Kirishima II. One stream of fire striking through the ventral portion of the engines section of the warship, the other striking just above the bridge the second stream of cannon fire continued on into the carrier, mauling its port side opening several sections to space before internal doors closed. The drive plume of the DCS Susanoo wavered, before flickering out, though power continued throughout most of the warship and the vessel was able to counter attack against the Raven vessel causing damage to the speeding vessel.
Aboard the WarShip damage and warning lights flared throughout the bridge, reports were coming in about hull breaches in a number of sites along the port side. More importantly it looked as if one of the autocannon shells had detonated directly inside one of the hangers, it was entirely unusable and most of the fighters and small craft had been turned to scrap.
Sensors spoke up, “Sir, I hate to layer on the bad news but our small craft sensor net is up.”
“How is that bad news?” Shogura asked as he glanced away from the damage reports and back to the sensor displays. A trio of warships moved towards them, in a triangle formation, the exact size and masses of them were unidentifiable as around them a virtual cloud of aerospace fighters and small craft surrounded them. A fourth warship hung well behind and above, staying near the station.
With as many small craft and aerospace fighters in space as his own when it was fully functional, he realized what he got wrong, “They’re not Splendids, it’s the new classes we’ve received reports on, the one hanging back is the carrier sub-class, the one that just passed us must have been a Sceptre sub-class, that leaves the last as either their cruiser sub-class or the battle carrier. We will need to be careful; their capabilities are unknown as yet.”
“I know how careful we have to be” Shogura snapped back this mission had gone from bad to worse in the space of minutes if the Susanoo could not regain power to its engines then he would be losing at least the battle-cruiser in this fight.
With the small craft sensor net up Shogura ordered the remaining flotilla to remain at ballistic speeds, keeping the DCS Susanoo in formation. Even damaged his force should still be able to defeat the pair of corvettes and cruisers, at which point a massive volley of missiles would overwhelm the defenses of the station - and if the DCS Susanoo could get its engines fully back on line they’d definitely outgun the Ravens and chase down their enemies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the two flotillas closed on each other, the DCS Shiro Kurita slowly fell behind the other vessels, allowing DCS Asuma and DCS Battle of Alshain to take the vanguard, supported by the damaged DCS Susanoo and Dragon’s aerospace fighters with a small number of LAMs and combat DropShips. With the forces coming together, the space between the warships becomes a complete fur ball, with ASF and small craft dodging everywhere and firing every kind of weapon at their disposal. Into this struggle the Kite and Unkindness waded, opening fire against dropships, fighters and small craft with abandon. The Raven DropShips strangely holding back with the Superb as it continues slowly forward.
With the entrance of the two Raven Corvettes the fur ball is quickly turning in favor of the Ravens, as the combat DropShips are quickly destroyed. The DCS Susanoo, still unable to maneuver, lays fire into the Unkindness causing heavy damage to the smaller vessel. It spins attempting to present a new broadside but a lance of Draconis fighters manage to put a couple of missiles into the holes in its hull one of which explodes directly below the bridge.
Noting the fragile condition of the DCS Susanoo, a star of Raven fighters line up missile shots against it, with its anti-missile system down all the missiles hit, finally destroying the power grid within the battlecruiser. With the heavy warship down and the DCS Asuma joining the fray, the Raven DropShips scattered their overlapping ECM shadow diminishing to show a massive battleship. The Arbitration-class battleship Dauntless lumbered forward seeking out the remaining three Combine WarShips. The arrival of the DropShips had swung the fur ball strongly in the Raven’s favor, while the addition of the battleship, Cho-sho Shogura gave the order to do as much damage as possible accepting that this was a fight they could not win.
The remaining combine aerospace fighters turn away from their opponents and begin to drive straight towards the Raven warships. Their singular focus sees many of them shot down before reaching their targets, but quite a few still manage to reach the Raven WarShips. The couple which manage to strike the Dauntless tear off chunks of armor much larger than they should have, the incomplete warship showing some weakness, but continuing on.
Meanwhile the DCS Battle of Alshain maneuvered above the battle and accelerated directly towards the shipyards. The Snow Raven vessel Superb attempts an intercept but is barely able to rake the Combine vessel with extreme range fire before it is out of range. As the Kyushu-class warship continues to near the shipyards, a huge number of capital-scale missiles rise from the station, firing as quickly as they can be reloaded.
The Dauntless with the last operable Unkindness-class corvette move on to strike at the DCS Omi Kurita and DCS Asuma, with the still large number of supporting fighters, DropShips, and small craft, they don’t stand much chance. Though only half of its armaments have been emplaced the Dauntless still has more than enough firepower to decimate the destroyer, leaving the carrier and battleship to pound at each other. The supporting DropShips, though low on munitions at this point target weapons on the hull of the DCS Shiro Kurita as the two massive ships traded blows. As the outcome seems inevitable Cho-sho Shogura overloaded the fusion reactors, ordering the crew to leave in escape pods. The spike in power causes the Raven WarShips to pull back, as the carrier explodes.
The DCS Battle of Alshain seeing the waves of death coming at it continues to maneuver, and releases its last flight of fighters with another companies worth of LAMs, the last in its bays. As they close on the shipyards additional defenses light up, striking down four of the LAMs leaving the eight remaining LAMs to charge down on the facilities below. As they close additional defences light up knocking out half of the LAMs before they can reach their targets. Those that do drop bomb loads of munitions onto the shipyards before converting into their BattleMech modes and opening fire on the shipyard slips causing heavy damage to two of the slips before being brought down by the fixed defences and Snow Raven aerospace forces. In the confusion caused by the LAM attack both the DCS Teibo and DCS Battle of Alshain manage to escape the system.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading through his own damage reports, Star Captain Gerry Harper pondered the amount of damage his ship could have inflicted on the Dragon’s flotilla had his high-velocity tracking arrays been working properly - the primary issue forcing his Sceptre to stay behind. “The Dragon showed its teeth today” he remarked “we can reclaim worlds but they show what they are capable of with this attack.”
Research and Development
Beta VII, Sea Fox Territory
Occupation Zones
14th February 3110 In the heart of the Clan Sea Fox Occupation Zone sibkos of Fowler Bloodhouse Warriors were being trained not as aerospace fighter pilots, like generations before had been, but instead as the next generation pilots of ProtoMech which would serve the Clan. Alongside them the Foxes had created a new Exclusive ProtoMech Bloodname the “Cook” bloodline while warriors would be able to train as aerospace pilots if they wished their future was aligned towards ProtoMechs.
The Sea Foxes also continued construction of a new type of ProtoMech, the Arion, a unit that appears to look like the Shadow Hawk BattleMech but weighs only fifteen tons. The Arion is armed with an arm mounted small pulse laser, a ProtoMech sized autocannon and a triple tube long range missile launcher giving it reasonable firepower for a unit its size. The Sea Foxes plan use the ProtoMech in their own forces and to sell it to any of the other Clans who wish it.
Border Conflict
Clan Borders
Lyran Commonwealth
22nd February 3110 While Clan Jade Falcon continues to raid their shared border with the Lyran Commonwealth. The Isle of Skye opens up a second front by attacking Clan Wolf’s territory in the Gacrux system with the Second Isle of Skye Guards RCT and the LCS Glasgow in support. Unfortunately the Wolf vessel Razor’s Teeth was in position near the system’s nadir point and it was more than a match for the Corvette.
With its superior weapons array the Razor’s Teeth quickly overwhelms the LCS Glasgow and causes heavy damage to two of the Skye Guards JumpShips before they can escape the system. The Skye Guards DropShips attempt to run towards the planet past the Dire Wolf-class Heavy Cruiser and are torn to pieces by the naval weapons of the Wolf WarShip.