Council Headquarters, Grand Ramier
Toulouse, Roussillon
10:30 SMT
18 May, 823 AS / 739 AGS
It'll be a long day.
LaFlamme was in the central hub of Council operations within the entire region, the headquarters building, looking through the glass of a corridor window and spectating the landing of a swift red-black ship on the neighboring Blagnac Spaceport. Conference Room 42 has been prepared for the meeting between the two men, expecting it to last a few hours Pierre also ordered some lunch at noon.
Now that the GRN seems to draw forces away from even the Tau-44 defenses in order to fuel their newest attack on California it may look like a good opportunity to finish retaking the system the Crown took from the Republic. If it indeed is and if so, how it will be executed is what still needs to be discussed.
A distinct "beep" signalled the arrival of a message on LaFlamme's own WristComm two minutes later: the representative of the Colonial Republic has arrived, the delegation will be at the HQ in approximately ten minutes. Trés bien. - he said that, though only to himself, there wasn't anybody around. He began his way down to the entrance to greet the arriving people, letting out a sigh when he remembered for a moment that after this he'll also have a meeting in the evening.
Admiral Richard, oddly, chosen a Nyx, The Nighthammer as he calls, to meet with LaFlamme at the Planet Toutoluse. He ordered Ares to stay at Tau-29 and flew to Roussillon silently with Nighthammer. Some of the crew thought this as he wanted some nostalgia like a flight officer. He cursed at the minefield at the entrance and followed the open path. When he engaged cruise engines, he saw a council Light Fighter squad nearing him, under their escort he arrived at the orbit of Toulouse. After docking control directed him at Blagnac Spaceport, he landed his Nyx and some security personnel from the Council HQ came to escort him. While they were walking to the entrance Richard said to himself silently,"With Council's help we will win this war, Royal Navy and the so called king will pay for what they have done."One of the escorts heard him and smiled to himself but didnt say anything. When they arrived at HQ, Richard stopped and took a look at the building for a short time. Then he saw LaFlamme and walked towards him. Shook his hand formally."Greetings General, finally we met."After greetings, they walked towards the Conference Room 42.
The last representative from the Republic I've met in person was Commander Anders, et even that was three years ago. We should discuss matters more often. - he chuckled. A bit of small talk filled the air where they roamed the corridors until they arrived to the conference room: a moderately spacious rectangle-shaped room with a long oval table in the middle and chairs enough for even eight to ten people. Glass wall separated it from the corridor they've entered from and the majority of the opposite wall was covered with two huge 3D display screens. There was also a holographic projector in the middle on the table, next to it were two tablets already prepared, one for each of them. - One of them is yours. - Pierre motioned with his hand towards the tablets. - They are linked to the displays et the projector, handy tools for presentation. Shall we begin? - He did not sit down, instead began his speech once the admiral nodded affirmatively.
Alright, the reason I invited you for this discussion after about half a year after the first attack on the GRN garrison in Tau-44 is because I believe our chances to take the rest of the system are promising again. Back then we had the element of surprise, but it did not help us fully reclaim the system, the GRN stood back onto it's feet quickly.
The general took his tablet, tapped it's screen a few times, then the lights dimmed to half of their luminosity, the projector began displaying a half-year-old state of the Tau-44 system, red and orange dots representing their forces gathering in the vicinity of Malakka, blue the hostiles remaining around Minato Harbor and Sulawesi Citadel, and one of the screens displayed a list of documented events of the conflict like some sort of diary while the other one shown a comparison between Crayter and Council forces and the approximated force the GRN held there at that time. All of these became available on the other tablet as well, three separate tabs showing up in a browser-like window displaying one's content at a time.
As you can see the GRN were quick to respond, although no retaliation followed they redirected significant supplies into the system to ensure at least a stalemate we can't break without losing miserably. Convoys were amassing resources there et repair spacecrafts made sure no dent we put in their defenses remain for long. However quite lot of thing changed since then.
A few more taps on the tablet screen and the projection went wild, playing a movie of the events of six months sped up into three minutes. Blue dots emerged from the Tau-23 gateway to reinforce their own, red and orange ones arriving from Tau-37 for the same purpose, all of them eventually meeting in sectors E7 and F7 to extinguish eachother, may or may not returning to their own after each encounter. The screens weren't idling either, each notable encounters were highlighted in the diary-like list, the highlight progressing downwards as the time passed, so did the list of opposing forces update at the same pace. During these three minutes - and of course afterwards too - LaFlamme continued his speech.
Either they ran out of supplies or lost interest in the system, the GRN defenses et wartime maintenance are far from what they used to be, supplies arrive less often, forces are being drawn out of the system, we have confirmation for at least one battlecruiser, three gunboats, several repair ships, et a few fighter et bomber wings leaving. I however also suspected an other reason, that they need resources et forces for something they find magnitudes more important, et I recently got confirmation on that as well. - he let out a sigh before continuing in a more informative tone - Weeks ago a relatively bigger battlegroup of several Obstinate-class vessels with adequate gunboat et snub support accompanying at least three Valor-class battleships, one of them being the RNS Embuscade, has been witnessed moving through Tau-31 et later Leeds, eventually disappearing in the dense clouds behind the planet. The GRN began another siege of the California system four days ago et yesterday Sergent Etienne Savoie reported that a scout wing of four including him has witnessed the Embuscade itself leading the attack against Liberty.
Here he took a few seconds pause, one if paying enough attention could notice the increase in the pace of his speech as he was arriving to the exciting part of his monologue, the point of the whole.
If Liberty is so much their priority now that they neglect their garrison in Tau-44, our time to take back what was once your home may come sooner than we previously anticipated. What do you think about it, Admiral Richard?
Richard listened carefully, a recap of recent events, that of course with the projection assisting, helped him to analyze the situation easier. He started to think about tactics and opened his PDA, took some notes and tapped screen. Then a Tau-44 map on NeuralNet Interface opened. He quickly drew some patterns and after a short time he raised his head from PDA."General LaFlamme, i agree with you. This is our only chance to retake the system from GRN forces while they focused on California. However we have some problems, We lost our surprise advantage and we know they can moblize their forces quickly, this time we should expect more resistance. It is better to prepare for worst case scenario rather than watching our ships fall one by one. Also i dont think they would run out of resources. Not to mentioning their extreme numerous advantages. They may or may not shift attention as soon as we gather our forces. Before acting we should gather more information about their forces, but this must done fast. This is their weakest time in Taus and we should make use of it as much as we can. "He stopped to take a breathing. Then he continued to speak, eagerness and hope, mixed with rage against the Crown could noticed."We must act swiftly after we gather info and hit them as hard as possible, even more than just possible... With courage and willingness, we can emerge victorious, avenge those we left behind and end their tyranny in Taus once and for all."
Good to have you with me, Admiral. - he grinned. - Et your concerns are valid, we indeed know the surprise is over et they could respond quickly, but the question is: will they? Liberty has been known to be one of the Crown's main targets if not the first, would they risk jeopardizing their current siege of California to protect two stations in the Tau region away from their main supply lines? There could be advantages et disadvantages of each decision, the only way to be certain is to try. Let's force this decision on them. Let's force them decide between losing Tau-44 entirely or retreat from California shortly after they began their siege. If they stay, we are lucky, if they don't, Liberty is, either way the GRN will have to face hostiles on two distant fronts.
Fire burning in his eyes, LaFlamme paused for a few seconds to let Richard process what's been spoken, and of course to calm down a bit. Turning towards his tablet again he tapped the screen a few times, changing the screens to show a full and an empty list of fleet composition.
My proposal is to double our supplies et send extra reinforcements et repair crews as quickly as possible, ideally while the California siege lasts. I'm willing to assign Colonel Jeanne Francois to lead Council attacks on board the CLN La Verite, replacing my CLN Chardonnay as the flagship of Flottille Flamme Rouge which got moderately damaged a month ago. Of course all the five battlecruisers, eight gunboats et snubcraft support of the flottille stays to accompany the CLN Oblique et the Flottille Insurgée Rouge, et of course the forces of the Republic.
During his speech he pointed at the screen displaying the list of forces the Council plans to have there.
That so far are two battleships, seven battlecruisers, fifteen gunboats, almost two dozen bomber et over two dozen fighter wings, three ships per bomber, five per fighter squadron. A dozen repair ships should be able to cover the repair capacity required. It would be also good to know how much forces can the Republic spare on this attack. - he pointed at the screen with the empty list. - That list is for you to fill, Admiral.
He thought...What he can spare, actually this wasnt sparing, this was the main goal of Crayter...Retaking 44. He wouldnt, couldnt "spare" ships in that case...Also he saw the flame in the general's eyes, a man who determined to make their cause a reality: Overthrowing the mighty, barbaric horde of Gallia. He looked at the list, he looked at LaFlamme for a moment, then he decided, who to send, and honor those left behind by avenging them. "General, this is the one of the most important goals of Crayter and i want to be there, i will lead our forces personally onboard CFV-Ares. If can be repaired in time, CFV-Aurora will be with me, as well as CFV-Artemis. Additionally, ten cruiser, twenty gunboat and twenty bomber squad over twentyfive fighter wing, five bomber per squad and five fighter per wing will be our forces."He thought for a moment"Only if Olympia could be there..."After he filled the list, he showed to LaFlamme.
Trés bien. - he grinned as the list on the other screen got filled as well. - According to information from our scouts our overall force will be approximately one et half or two times as big as what is currently garrisoned at Sulawesi Citadel. For some reason the defenses of Minato Harbor are minimal according to latest intel, if a distraction force keeps GRN at Sulawesi at bay for a while, a combined battlegroup of our forces could overwhelm them at the harbor, quickly securing the perimeter et with sufficient boarding force we could secure the station within a hour or two.
He tapped the tablet two or three times while he spoke, after which arrows began showing the planned movements of forces. Arrow width indicated the planned size of forces moving, the one leading to Sulawesi was noticably thinner than the one pointing at Minato later.
The distraction doesn't need to last longer than that, keeping repair teams tightly behind our main force could catch up in time et repair damages, then we can entrench ourselves there. Within that small timeframe however we may or may not be able to reconfigure station defenses to new IFF settings, so we shouldn't count on that yet. - after pondering for a few seconds in silence he spoke again. - In the meanwhile I could borrow some pairs of Geckos from Flottille Lance Rouge to watch over GRN movement in Tau-23. They are stationing in the nearby Tunisia system anyways.
He then took a deep breath and looked at the admiral, who, until now, has been listening silently and patiently: What do you think about these plans so far, Monsieur?
He liked the overall plan, it could work nicely, and their forces overpowering GRN was a miracle. But he didnt like one thing.That distraction force idea, as he saw "bait" forces as waste always... He was a man of more direct engagements, this was his nature and thinking pattern. "If our forces are two times bigger, we could overwhelm the forces at Sulawesi, rather than sending people to a fight that they cant even do considerable damage to main forces, let alone winning at there for distraction's sake. Im thinking the opposite of what you think: attack with full force to sulawasi while sending a small force but enough to take, of course, Minato Harbor. "He was of course aware one small flaw of his plan, he needed to know Minato's communication array capabilities. After some seconds he started to talk again."Of course, first we need to know Minato comm array's status. If it is hackable or destroyable by a small force, then this plan could work. If the array is hackable, we will bring a C.I.S Celestra small transport equipped with comm jammers to prevent Minato to call reinforcements from other GRN forces."He stopped for a second and looked at LaFlamme."What do you think about my plans, General?"
Keep in mind, Admiral, that my claim about outnumber is an approximation, et I do not want to exclude the possibility of GRN deciding to reinforce their garrison on the cost of losing in California. - he reminded Richard. - At the same time, while Minato's defenses are few, they are still not negligible, beating the royals there would require more forces than what I intended as distraction at Sulawesi.
At this point Pierre wasn't looking at the other while talking to him, instead inspected the holographically projected map of Tau-44 in the middle of the room while he continued speaking his mind.
With that we would have less forces against bigger opposition than if we go for the harbor first, et they could just as well flee to reinforce Minato, creating an obstacle between our main strike force et the remainder at the CLN Oblique. At that point all we need are those GRN reinforcements to be crushed in between hostiles. I hope you understand that I like to play safe even in a war et minimise losses as much as possible.
LaFlamme then pondered a few seconds about the idea regarding Minato's communications array, then turned back to the Crayterian Admiral and continued.
Disabling communications could give us a temporary advantage however. If we move in et take over MInato while they are unable to alert the Sulawesi defenses, we could have enough time for the IFF reconfiguration et have the station's turrets on our side as well. On the other hand I'm not sure how much advantage it would mean for us if we make a move on Sulawesi directly.
Richard thought about LaFlamme's plan for a second time. While he was thinking about that, he realised his hatred blinded him and made him to decide an all out assault rather than keeping their forces relatively safe. Then he started to think how to improve LaFlamme's plan."I thought about that again and that plan is more reasonable than mine i admit. I hate GRN by all my heart and this hatred sometimes blinds me, preventing to assess details and make quick, not-so-reasonable decisions, i apologize for it."He tapped his tablet, aside from current Tau-44 map, two more tabs opened. One was a galactic map of sirius, focused on Tau sectors and one was empty, waiting to be filled by Richard's improvements over the plan. He focused on the tau sectors tab and he started to talk."Firstly, we cannot send the main force directly through Tau-23. Instead of that, we go through Tau-37."Meanwhile Richard started to draw paths and dropping marks. Then he opened another Tau-44 map in the empty tab. "There is a Tau-44 Jump Hole in 37 as you know, we should use it. That way we would end far away and safe from any GRN installation. After we arrive at Tau-44, we split the fleet as distraction and main forces. While main force can join at CLN-Oblique, Distraction forces can regroup at CFV-Hades. After that we can start our assault over Minato and distract GRN forces at Sulawesi. The CIS Celestra still in plan to jam communications of Minato by the way. After we seize Minato we can proceed to take their main force and Sulawesi. Here i think we should divide fleet to two group. While one group takes enemy fleet, other group deals with station."Lots of paths and waypoints could be seen at projection when Richard finished talking. He took a breath and turned to The Council General, waited for him to voice his opinion.