Gone to Sovereign Cartegena
"Fixed defenses……are testimony to the illusions of man," Fleet Captain Foster mused. "When they aren't being a royal bitch."
The truth is, even the smaller docking station was one of those aggravating paradoxes. It was well defended against any sort of attack that might leave it intact.
Anything conventional strong enough to penetrate that defense, would likely
also destroy the structure, rendering it useless.
Capture, not destruction, was the mission here. "If we can not work out a way to take that station intact, we might as well hang it up and go back to Johnson."
"They're probably working slaves in those agro-domes," Amanda reminded him.
"I know how you feel, Captain, but we are, combined, lacking the Infantry or suit troops needed to guarantee a clean capture, and that assumes we can get them in close without accidentally destroying the stations-either of them presents the same problem-they are too fragile for a brute force approach, and we lack a means to suppress those guns… at least, a handy means of doing so, without wrecking what we need to capture intact."
"This is not a conventional forces mission," Wilhemina commented. "Heat signature and outgassing vapor alone suggests that station has active capacity for close to a thousand crew, activity observed by telescopes say that's a solid number."
"It's a fortified city," Amanda mused. "Cartagena."
"What?"
"History," she said. "Sixteen Ninety Seven-ish?"
"You're having an idea," Foster said.
"Maybe. They've got regular dropship runs to the domes. Probably food, maybe water… But it means a drop-port is part of the defenses, and said drop-port is on the planet's surface… And I guarantee, that drop port is going to be more robust than the station… It has the ground for a backstop, after all."
"Getting past the early warning, Captain Roberts?"
"Distant insertion and a road march," Amanda was half in a trance. "Everything is clustered around that port, I bet their early warning is horizon limited. We approach in small craft on a tangential approach from the blind side, land the marine forces, and route march to the port, which will be defended by 'mechs, but I doubt they've had anyone challenge their territory in a long time, so a commando team slipping in and hitting the early warning…"
"Commando team disables whatever their early warning grid is, and maybe sabotages equipment before the main force hits," Wilhelmina Siegel contributed. "We stage the attack and disable or capture the dropship."
"Goal is capture," Amanda said dreamily. "It will have the recognition codes for the defense on the station. We come in with their IFF and only the manual systems can work, and those rely on the same computer systems and identification gear. It's like when the pirates marched across the isthmus of panama to take the city of Cartagena from the Spanish."
"Do you regret sending Seron with the prize crews now??" Foster asked.
"A bit, but we can manage this one without him," Amanda blinked. "I'll have to leave Larry in charge of the
Evanescent."
"Wait one damn minute! What??" Foster's tone turned hot-cold.
"I am the best equipped for the commando," Amanda stated. "I know how their security works, because it's practically a schoolbook model of how SLDF base security was set up, only with inbred amateurs instead of calm professionals."
"YOU are underestimating them again," Foster scolded. "Stop doing that, and reevaluate as if you were facing the trained professionals. Name five ways they can stop you or we drop this plan immediately."
Wilhelmina openly stared, "What??"
"Five ways, Roberts, if you were defending that base, how would you prepare to stop someone like you… with a Desmond unit, and all that information in your chip? Five ways or we head back to Johnson and wait for reinforcement."
Star Captain Siegel's expression calmed and sharpened, "Oh… I see…"
"Timer begins now," Foster said, holding up an antique stopwatch. "Five methods, go!"
In that same dreamy tone, Captain Roberts recited, “One, strong patrols in the surrounding area. Two, regular changes to communications security protocols. Three, immediate notification of an attack on the ground triggering an emergency change in communications security protocols. Four, immediately launching the DropShip when the perimeter breach is detected. Five, keeping the DropShip sealed while grounded. Shall I go on?”
"Now, give me your best contingencies to counter those five," Foster told her. "Then we're going to review and poke holes in it, until either you can't patch the plan with a contingency we actually have available? In which case the mission is bust and we go back to Johnson and pick up more forces…or, until Star Captain Siegel and I can no longer poke holes in your ideas or find flaws..or three, the follow-on force arrives and we can take it by main force."
“One, we have seen no evidence of strong patrols yet, despite what the book says about doing them. Two and Three, we have not seen the Sons of Plunder being anything but sloppy with their communications security protocols. Four and Five: the shots we have of the ship are of several hatches open to the atmosphere, and neutrino readings indicate the ship is not close to launching.”
"Black paint," Star Captain Seigel commented. "Can be, and often is, used to simulate openings where there are none, or to camouflage profiles. These…persons…engage in slave raiding and slave trading, often against inhabited areas. Do you suppose they make use of paint or dazzle type misdirection on a regular basis?" She leaned back a bit, "Lack of observed patrols does not mean a lack of patrols, especially when it is something even a first year sibko cadet would do…so, if you see an otherwise competent opponent making a critical, basic mistake, what does that tell you?"
“Being that we just stole five JumpShips out from under their noses, I’m not sure I would characterize them as ‘otherwise competent’. But point taken. I will approach with caution, and observe from the ground before proceeding to breach the perimeter…”
"That's a good first step. Getting to the ground unobserved would be a better one." Foster commented. "So, describe three ways that can go wrong, then, offer solutions for each."
“We have not yet seen a full planetary CAP, but it could be hidden from us. We take more than one shuttle on the cold approach, and conduct a long baseline survey to determine if there is one.”
"I will take that one," Seigel said. "If the Fleet Captain agrees?"
"Do that," Foster nodded. "Get lots of pictures, comms intercepts if you can."
"Recon," Amanda said.
"Yes. First, recon, then plan the next step, or alter the plan for the next step. You still have two more, Captain. What is the backup to your recon plan??"
“The easy answer, of course, is to simply conduct long range survey, as we are currently doing. But I feel this strategy is more designed to delay our attack for the incoming backup.”
"You can feel however you want," Foster told her. "That's two. What's three?"
“Toujours l’audace… we feint an attack on the planet with
Evanescent and PULL their CAP away from the insertion.”
Foster smiled. "Workable," he said. "We go with your first and second, and hold the third as a reserve if the data looks… like we need to. Remember, until we have that fuel dock…"
"Yeah," Amanda nodded. "I understand."
"So…assuming your recon team gets to the ground…"
“Before or after the rest of the Fleet arrives?”
"An adequate plan, executed swiftly, is better than a perfect plan executed too late," Dave and Seigel said almost simultaneously.
“Exactly!” Desmond’s tone almost broke through in Amanda’s voice. Returning to a more normal mode she said, “So assuming you give me the green light ahead of the Fleet, once we’re on the ground, we leave concealing the shuttles to the crews, and march the protos and Marines overland. At night, sticking to cover, with maximum passive sensors. I believe the protos can be configured with the appropriate gear, yes?”
"We have equipment for that, and you'll be taking the ground rovers to carry the infantry…from both your ship, and the
Illusive's on board complement."
"But…"
He shook his head, "THAT way, we still both have some Marines to resist boarding actions if, say,
their friends show up and try to do to us, what we did to them…besides, the crawlers and the protomechs had to sit out the last fight, and that is…unpopular…with some of the
warrior born personnel. Ground action for them is good for morale, when you have a large complement of ground troops embarked with nowhere to play."
**
"Listen up," Trina announced in the bay-quarters area for the protomech detachment. "We have been
graciously invited by the Captain to attend a party!"
"Whoa, what kind of party?" Deeves was already flinching. "The last one left me hung-the-****** over."
"The very
best kind...for us," she said happily. "A
Landing Party!!" She did a little dance, "We are going to get some AK-TSHUN!!"
Then, she straightened up, "With the Tankers, even. Coordinating with the Marine element from
Illusive, under Captain Roberts. Covert landing, stealth approach, followed by a spaceport seizure mission, whereupon we will be stealing their dropships. They expect 'mechs to be on site. Does anyone need a brush up on their anti'mech and counterfortification training, or not?"
"Oh, goody…those converted Scorpions are gonna get killed," Point three Sierra groused. "So, we load heavy weapons for this, quiaff?"
"Aff. The techs are adjusting the equipment. The Fleet Captain has elected to name this mission 'Cartagena', and we will also have to be watching the back of our own Captain Roberts, because she is taking lead on this." Trina paused, "Can I get a seyla on that one guys?"
"Huzzah," Amanda Roberts half-floated into the bay. "Seyla is Clan slang in the touman, me hearties. Where we're going, is where conventional officers don't, so it's a hearty 'Huzzah'." She reached into her long coat, and handed Trina a filedeck container, "Orders." She added, "I have to stop by Infantry country and let them know we're going groundside without Mister Seron this time, they have to cope with little old me."
"Hey, I
heard about what you did on Devil's Breath," Trina stated.
"That was mostly Mister Seron being brilliant. I'm going to have to lean on you guys to make up for my deficiencies, I'm sorry to say."
"You can say that with a straight face…wow," Deeves commented.
"We're wheels up in seventy two hours," Amanda told them. "Study the plan, maps and mission parameters, come up with anything I overlooked or screwed up, and have your points briefed in. One of the things Fleet Captain Foster insists on, is having a backup in case someone critical gets kakked. If I die, the mission still has to go on, so work it out among you what to do if my plan backfires, then brief me on your contingencies before we land…and each other."
***
Somewhere toward……the center of it all, in a system mostly ignored by the main routes, a data point is being examined.
"She looks like Elizabeth might have looked. Are you sure?"
The girl in the image is in her teens, a prosthetic eye glittering in the light and a bandage with dried brown wrapped to cover her temple.
The caption said,
Director Amanda Roberts, Outworlds Alliance Privateer Squadron.
Could it really be her? Did she somehow survive as well. She survived herself. Maybe someone else had gotten to her and got her out a different way?
Whatever the answer, she looked far too much like Elizabeth for it to be a coincidence. She had to find out for herself. If it was really her after all these years how could she do any less?
For far too long she had hidden from the outside world for fear of discovery and enslavement. Yet here was this Amanda making a speech that sounded just like Elizabeth. Even down to the inflections and tones. Championing an M11 no less and their right to be treated as a sovereign citizen like any human being would be.
If for no other reason that would be enough to demand an introduction and meeting. She owed that to her other family. The one she had found and forged together for so long. They were just as dear to her as her sister. Or daughter.
"Find out more?" Vicky suggested. "Sixty Six thinks it could be a trap by the Communications Ministry."
“Do we really have a choice? We can’t find out from here or through our usual channels. Plus at the very least it is an M11 we’re certain to find out there. We have sacrificed a lot over the years. It is time to start bringing the family back together again and make it all mean something,” Helena answered.
“But she is still right,” Samantha entered the channel.
“Yes. Obviously we can’t just go in blind or without contingencies. I’ll take Destroyer Division 1 with me as emergency back up. We’ll do long range SIGINT before going in. We can use the sub channel for the Lazarus Protocols to attempt to make contact with the M11 Erinyes. If this all checks out we can proceed from there with updated information.” Helena sighed.
The images of the Destroyers
Samantha Booker Roberts,
Joana Clarice Butler,
Joana Vincente Johnston,
Lucy Heerman,
Otillie Lee Dennis,
Regina Marbury Raymond and
Billie Hoel saluted their First Lord and Director General.
Joana rendered a digitized clearing of her throat. "What do we actually know about the Sons of Plunder-they seem to be… involved."
Sixty Six spoke up. "Sons of Plunder, formerly the 199th Royal CAAN brigade, covertly active in the Outworlds Alliance since at least the Coup era. You rejected making contact with them 300 years ago, but they were in contact with the Communications ministry's Word of Blake faction as recently as 50 years ago."
****
"She did not take it……well at all." Dr. Huntington stated, "but she at least
believes she is Elizabeth Cameron, and believes it hard enough to want to bury that identity."
"What could cause that, usually delusional personalities want to bury their true identities in a fantasy…"
Huntington mulled over her coffee and regarded the Snow Raven Scientist. "Healed traumas to her body explains some of it." she said finally. "Scarring from the removal of ova and at least three fetuses. I'm going to hazard that my patient's been through repeated, probably long term sexual assaults, then there's the scarring from restraints..and your own evidence of her genetic profile. Someone was using her as a breeding extension, and not being particularly gentle or civilized about it, and almost certainly not obtaining willing consent. Thus, Jane wants to be Jane, not Elizabeth, because something about that other identity is too painful to live with."
The Scientist-General flinched visibly. "Savashri."
"Yah, savage." Huntington stated. "Your fishing expedition may have caused some major setbacks in getting Jane healed enough emotionally, I'm going to need more budget for therapy for her, your recommendation will go a long way with the Parliament's budget committee."
"Are you having problems with your allocation, Doctor?"
"Yes." the doctor stated, "I am, actually."
"I will go to the Loremaster first, since your patient is on his hot-list."
"Please do. You want me to make that woman functional, I'm going to need more resources and
time."
"I will do what I can. This particular patient is very important, Doctor."
***
Habitable worlds look the same……even when they're only
barely habitable. Amanda rode outside the shuttle for a while, enjoying the sights from the portside wing inspection point as the formation of smallcraft drifted on velocity in a parabolic course bypassing the emanations of the local defense grid.
Just her space-suit, between her and hard vacuum. Passively, Desmond showed her what the shuttle's passives were picking up, and spectrums that no natural eye will ever see, laid out in augmented reality.
The scientific information did not detract from the beauty and wonder she was looking at.
<You'll have to go inside soon, we are approaching the first burn in fifteen minutes.> Desmond reminded her.
"Right." she gripped the inspection handhold, and unclipped her harness to space-walk to the mark VII's airlock.
Larry had gotten her into the habit of 'taking a walk' during long drifts or long burns. It was a personal delight and she could indulge, so she did.
"Batten down!" she announced as soon as she was on the flight deck, taking the left hand seat from Cyrus, who returned to the loadmaster's position. She didn't need to check the chronometer, it was in the corner of her vision already. "Sound off in the troop bay, we're about to begin re-entry burn." she took the stick, "three…two…one…"
The RCS thrusters fired, and she fired main engines in a deceleration burn at three gravities.
The key, is to make your re-entry as close to vertical with relation to your landing point, while still coming in slow enough that you don't break something critical.
The technique is a hot insertion, and easier with a spheroid craft, but an aerodyne like the Mark VII that has the right configuration can handle it too…with more difficulty. She eased the throttles and began a spiral to ease up on fatigue life for the passengers, the rest of the shuttles following suit until they reduced speed enough, between air braking and maneuvers, to descend, like falling leaves, through the ionosphere, stratosphere, troposphere, tropopause, and finally, the lower altitudes where a more conventional flight profile actually works and the wings aren't excess mass.
None of the radar/lidar warning receivers in the formation triggered, as she banked down into a low altitude flight profile aimed at a dried out river valley between buttes, flared, and fired the final landing thrusters with gear extended, planting roughly where she had intended, plus or minus a few hundred meters.
The first steps of Operation: Cartagena had begun.
**
"Do you know what my lever……on Roberts really is? Why I have not reined her in yet?" Khan Crowe was hosting a visiting Khan.
"That IS part of the doubts the Grand Council has on this whole…initiative of yours." Elsa Ward commented. "Your tolerating, even
supporting this…what is your lever on Roberts?"
"She is, beneath the implants, obvious traumas, and ridiculously overboard behavior, a
Patriot." Alberto Crowe stated. "Her first contact, the one that led to her current status, was directly to President Avellar. As were her second through fifteenth. We had agents in place around her. She proved to be usefully pliable using that lever, and her obvious capability was not worth the effort to snuff it out."
He laid out documents on the table. "This is her current operation.
Cartagena, it is the recon and capture of a spaceport held by the bandit caste faction 'The sons of plunder', which has proven to be larger than anyone realized."
"DO they realize you are using them?" Ward inquired.
"Yes." Alberto surprised her with his answer. "They do, in fact, recognize they are being used, and that goes for the Roberts girl in particular…but she
accepts the use because it conforms to her patriotism and idealism."
