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Promotheus · 05-28-2023, 10:38 PM,

⧫ Neutralizing the Neutralizer 27-05-830. A.S.
⧫ Discovery
⧫ [Pennsylvania]
⧫ 13:37 Sirius Time.
⧫ ENCRYPTION: Unfortunate[V]

The Erie Blockade

Operation Pesticide turned out more problematic for Liberty than expected. The crew of the LNS-Neutralizer, an Archer Siege Cruiser assigned to the Alma Task Force, had not been particularly worried overall. 'What could go wrong? A bunch of Zoners spouting pacifism at us?'. Indeed, while they did take their assignment serious, the simple fact of the matter was that the might of Liberty was impossible to rival by anything other than other Houses. Things did not turn as expected.
"Sir! We have twenty, thirty...fourty contacts on radar! They're all Zoner! That one realization was all it took to shatter the delusions that this would be a cushy little operation and as the bomber swarms descended upon the Alma's Task Force the crew of the Neutralizer knew they were in for one hell of a fight.

The fight proper

While the crew believed the might of Liberty to be unrivaled, the fact of the matter was that they were not a full fledged battlegroup but an improvised Task Force while the main forces were occupied in Vespucci. A Task Force was apparently significantly easier to rival than they had expected. The Zoners had mobilized just about everything they had with an engine; Nova torpedo's and antimatter cannons peppered the battlefield, putting the agility of the Neutralizer to the test while it was simultaneously fighting off several Zoner Q-Ship cruisers such as the Knossos. Meanwhile Gunboats were chasing down the supporting bombers, seemingly led by a Crayter Gunboat by the callsign of GRG|Gaia. Had Crayter turned against Liberty? It was a possible, if unlikely explanation for the number and performance of their opposition, but there was little time to speculate.

Shortly after the fight ensued it became clear that the Zoners were trying to evacuate...something from the planet. The Alma's captain gave the order to shoot down these transports no matter what and the crew of the Neutralizer, outnumbered as they might have been and despite moral reservations, complied with their new orders. It was difficult to keep track, but roughly 10 transports ended up leaving the planet and while the Neutralizer had to pull back due to significant damage several times, they were still able to get a Grendal tranport in their crosshairs; opening up the fearsome power of the Siege Cruisers Forward Cannon straight into its engines at point blank range.

Unfortunately the defenders quickly realized what was going on and forced the Neutralizer to pull back once more, but at least significant damage had been inflicted.

Meanwhile the Alma had engaged the Zoner flagship infront of Planet Erie; an Aquillon class Carrier, a formidable ship in its own right but certainly no match for a military Battleship.
The fight went as expected with the Alma proving victorious thanks to an ingenious tactic of intentionally presenting itself as heavily damaged. Then, when the Zoner Flagship came in close for the kill, the Alma dropped the ruse and blasted it to shreds. It was an unconventional tactic for sure, not one taught at West Point Academy, but hey there was no arguing with results.

With the Zoner Flagship destroyed and the transports gone all that was left was clean up the remaining Zoner vessels, at least that's what it was on paper.
Unfortunately the reality turned out to be somewhat of the opposite. Once the Alma had provided enough cover for marines to land down on Erie, the battleship left. Without its support the remainder of the Task Force, including the Neutralizer, were quickly driven off by the remaining rabid Zoners.

As far as the higher ups were concerned though; Great success, Erie captured.

Licking wounds

Battered and broken from Operation Pesticide the LNS-Neutralizer found itself near the Meadville Ice Asteroid Field, the very field that the Zoners had been evacuating towards with their transports. Being afforded some time to strategize now they were out of the direct combat zone, the captain of the Neutralizer decided they would skirt alongside the asteroid field on impulse to see if they could pick up anything on long range scanners while they were heading back for repairs. The Asteroid field however would not so easily give up its secrets. Before the Neutralizer could engage its cruise engines a voice suddenly blasted over the comms: "Who the bloody hell let this foolish plonker crawl out from the depths of oblivion? This day, Liberty, will be etched in your memory for all eternity!" Mere seconds later the entire vessel shook and major damage spread throughout the ship; it turned out a Zoner Whale identified as Lacerta had rushed at them from inside the Meadville Field and rammed into them.

Refusing to let such a slight go unanswered, the Captain of the Neutralizer demanded the Lacerta to stand down and to prepare for boarding. This turned out to be a poor choice of phrasing as Zoner Marines started boarding the vessel immediately.
The crew scrambled for damage control, but after having just come out of a battle and still reeling from the ram earlier, it proved to be quite difficult. The crew on the bridge was the first to recover, locking down all entrances to the bridge as an extra security measure while running both a scan on the Lacerta as an internal scan on the Neutralizer itself to assess what they were dealing with. Zoner Marines had somehow piled up in the cargo pods of the Lacerta. 5000! How were they even alive!? Cargo pods didn't have life support did they!?

Several more explosions rocked the ship as deck after deck was swarmed by a seemingly endless tide of Zoner marines. Seeing no other alternative the Captain ordered decks B, C and D to be decompressurized; effectively jettisoning both friend and foe on those decks in an attempt to keep the Zoner boarding party from spreading even further on the ship. As many other turns in the life of the Neutralizers crew, this decision too turned out to be unfortunate. Not only were the amount jettisoned Zoners significantly lower than their own losses, it also barely seemed to slow down the encroaching Marines.

Blowtorches started cutting through the doors of the bridge right as life support suddenly went offline. The bridge crew resigned to making one final stand and opened fire as the doors gave. An explosion followed with nothing but radio static after.
Until, that is, a new voice appeared on the comms. "Aye lads, this is Bulldog! Wae've got control o tha bridge!" With boisterous laughter the mad man ordered the Marines to capture what little of the original crew remained and start with the patch work repairs required to get the cruiser to a station. They'd pose as a normal Liberty Cruiser for now, untill the time was right that is.

Reporting success

Bob "Bulldog" Bobberson the third, esquire. Survivor of Leeds turned Outworlder, (former?) administrator of Livadia Shipyard and certified mad man sat smuggly on the captains chair of the Neutralizer, which was currently laying on the floor as a result of one of the many explosions that had occurred. All in all the ambush had been quite successful, and to think it was all thanks to a little bet he had made on Erie during his vacation. Some fool had claimed it was impossible to retrofit the cargo pods of a Whale without compromising the vessels capacity, well he proved them wrong! Every last one of them! The real trick had been convincing the 5000 marines to plank on top of each other though.

With a boisterous laugh Bob kipped up from the chair and tossed some dog biscuits at the engineers working on installing an ice coffee dispenser in the corner of the room. They had wanted to start with repairing propulsion, but Bob had insisted the dispenser had higher priority. "Excellent work lads! We'll have cold drinks before we get to tha rendesvouz at this point!" Bob let out a howl, prompting several others present to shake their heads in disbelief 'just how did this nutcase get out of whatever clinic they found him at, let alone in charge of this operation?' was no doubt a common throught that crossed their minds.

With a small smirk Bulldog stretched forward towards the corpse of the former captain and took his socks before saying: "Aight lads, ya'll keep up the good work, I'm gonna go report in. Now...where ta find an appropriately high desk and some buttons for these socks..."

DSAce logs

Mephistoles · 05-28-2023, 10:41 PM,

Approved.

Sigma & GMG Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/d4j3W4v

Emperor Tekagi · 05-28-2023, 10:43 PM,

Top tier, better read than actual SRPs.

Jeuge · 05-28-2023, 10:44 PM,

is that GMG Battleship

Emperor Tekagi · 05-28-2023, 10:45 PM,

(05-28-2023, 10:44 PM)Jeuge Wrote: is that GMG Battleship

GMG Cruiser, we start off small.

Jeuge · 05-28-2023, 10:46 PM,

monmarfori · 05-28-2023, 10:47 PM,

want to defect to GMG?

xenomorph · 05-28-2023, 10:49 PM,

What a legendary tale! It'd be a bloody shame if they dare to deny such a high quality SRP! Bulldog, the one-of-a-kind, leading 5k Zoner Marines in cargo pods. A feat never seen before, destined to go down in history! Cool

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