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822 A.S. -- High Planetary Orbit, Leeds System
+6 Days since Planetfall The Coral Sea shuddered as her docking clamps detached from the fleet auxiliary Glenbrook. Standing in the clutter and confusion that was the Coral Sea's jury-rigged CIC, Graham felt the disturbance as one more thing keeping him from the task at hand, organizing his own little slice of military catastrophe.
He took a moment and glanced at the man standing across from him, the two of them huddling over a makeshift holo-table hooked up to their radar system. Lieutenant Commander Chris Rogers was young by officer candidate standards, yet alone the XO of a Defiant. His barely-regulation stubble and attempts at a cool exterior did their best to hide it, yet Graham couldn't help but realize neither of them should be anywhere near their level of responsibility.
He shook the thought out of his head. Everyone on his boat was a greenhorn; everyone in the fleet was. Every naval officer with anything approaching real combat experience had been shoved into the highest command position available. Good captains like Hartman and Baker were now the top brass, and every officer candidate with something approximating a clean record had been pushed up to accommodate the now gaping hole in their command structure.
Commander John Graham had been charge of logistics for Long Island at one point, the commander of his Defiant boat Coral Sea another. Now he led an entire wing of gunboats. He understood the reasons, but everywhere he looked he saw the patchwork nature of the operation - it didn't help that his CIC mimicked the fleet as of late.
His XO cleared the fog from his head, an outstretched arm tapping at a faint red contact on the holo-board. "This was the last contact with them, sir. Glenbrook's got them labelled as 3rd Squadron. Bomber squadron with anti-capital capability, cloaking, electronic warfare... list goes on. Their last strike-" His finger traced a short line to a grey wreck tag, about twenty light-minutes from their position. "Here. Took out the fleet-aux Brighton with a torpedo strike, then vanished."
Graham raised an eyebrow. "Torpedo strike? Even if she was alone and caught off-guard, her shields would've taken a good few of those. And surely some would've caught point-defense..." Rogers waited for him to trail off before cutting in. "No sir. We're unsure on the methods, but we know two things happened - Brighton never fired, and her shields were taken offline moments before impact. It's possible there was internal sabotage, but..."
His sentence carried off to silence, both men now staring at the table with a certain loss for words. Brighton's wreck flickered on the screen, pulsing in their heads as they all realized how the game had changed. Eventually Graham broke the silence. "Well, we'll just need to adapt. Let's split the wing up and start running escorts for all these auxiliaries and troop-haulers. We'll run two boats to start with, maybe one for the safer or smaller transports. Now, " Graham looked up at Rogers, "I'll need you to do final checks before we kick off, make sure our e-war suite is up to snuff. I don't want Brighton happening to us." The Lieutenant Commander simply offered a nod and a "Yessir." "I'll liaise with Admiral Hartman again, get the details on the next transport heading planetward. Let's be ready by then." Graham dismissed Rogers with a nod before sauntering off to his station, taking a little extra time to work up the nerve to contact the Admiral.
Just under an hour later, the Coral Sea and the White Plains set off from the Tenth Fleet group with the LLS Kingston toward lower Leeds orbit. Graham monitored the holo-table and radar closely, suspicious of every minor hitch and flicker, wondering if a Gallic bomber squadron hid behind each. It was in this way that Graham would miss the forest for the trees - and such hubris would become quite evident when the red of Gallic velocity vectors started burning hard for the Kingston group.
At this velocity, the attack group was seven minutes away. His bridge team analyzed the engine signatures and reported back - a trio of Perilous-class gunboats and a handful of support craft. Not counting what little defensive armament the Kingston had, Graham's forces numbered two Defiants rigged for screening, and little more than that. The nearest friendly vessel was the Glenbrook they'd departed from, and already more Defiants from the 22nd were screaming to intercept. The table updated the math - five minutes for the Gallics, eleven for the leading Defiant. The young commander gulped, stood up from his chair, and stared out at the CIC. It took him a few moments to find his voice.
"XO, sound general quarters. We need weapons and navigation ready in two minutes, start running firing solutions on that lead boat." Rogers nodded, near-sprinting for the shipboard intercom. "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. The direction of travel is up and forward on your starboard side, down and aft on your port side." A near ear-splitting klaxon immediately followed Rogers' call, followed by the rush of about a half-dozen crewmen into the CIC.
Three minutes now. Guns were trained, firing solutions and maneuvering plans were ready. Reinforcements were eight minutes now, burning as hard as they could with human beings in the chairs. Graham simply gripped hard on the arm of the captain's chair, already buckled in for maneuvers.
Now, it was just a matter of waiting. He'd always hated that.
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822 A.S. -- Point Channel, Planet Leeds
+7 Days since Planetfall Point Channel was little more than a rough-cut depression in the smog-filled landscape of Leeds, essentially a miniature valley between two rocky hills. Before Gallia took its interest in Bretonia's industrial breadbasket, no Leeds resident had ever concerned themselves with this particular piece of rock.
Now however, Key Terrain Point Channel was a hot zone just outside Wilkinson City, the largest landmark and most vital ground within the entire sector. D Company of the 1st Marines was the first Libertonian unit to take the Point, and over the last four days the Gallics have seen fit to ensure they're also the last. Sergeant Gordon had long since forgotten what it felt like to not be continuously shelled by Gallic indirect, and the occasional probing attack by the ever-assembling hostile armor to their east didn't help matters.
But for the moment, the marines were holding. Shells took chunks out of whatever minimal Bowex infrastructure was scattered around the Point, and the best attempts of the combat engineers were now little more than rubble. Leeds herself was seemingly more suited to taking the heat from Gallic artillery, though, so for now their natural fortifications held.
Under the cover of one of those protective outcroppings, Gordon stood with the other squad leaders of 1st Platoon, as well as Staff Sergeant Lance. Gordon grimaced - he'd hoped the LT hadn't taken that round too badly, but if the Platoon Sarge was running the evening brief, then he couldn't have been doing too well. Lance cut his way through the sour mood with a cough, checking the amplifier on his environment mask. "Ahem. Alright, boys. We've new orders from on-high. Division's sending us another company of reinforcements, plus we've got access to some of the orbital guns for a few hours. Downside," the Sarge paused, glancing around, "is that Eagle Actual now wants us to get good eyes on hostile positions for the big guns." Vance waited just long enough for the point to set in before continuing.
"Sergeant," he nodded toward Gordon. Oh hell. "Your squad will lead the reconnaissance efforts. I want your boys to break north at oh-four hundred, following the ravine up and onto flat terrain. Our scopes seem to suggest there'll be a big dust storm then to cover your movements." You'll need to hoof it miles through smog that'll choke you to death without a mask, and you'll like it, is essentially what he was saying to Gordon. He didn't let those thoughts become words. "Understood, sir. We'll begin prep immediately." He supposed that the one benefit to receiving the death-trap mission at the beginning of the brief was that at least he could tone out the rest of it with his anxiety.
They'd left just before 0400, a full stick of thirteen marine infantry in full environmental gear. Gordon's team led the column down the ravine, the depression shielding them from most of the wind and smog. None of them dared remove their masks, even so. As they neared the cliff face they'd need to scale up to get out of the ravine, he could've sworn he heard a groan or two on the squad-wide net. He let himself ignore it, not exactly blaming the men. It was hard enough to haul yourself over a rock face, harder still carrying what was essentially vacuum gear. Leeds' strong gravity well certainly didn't help matters.
By 0445 they were over, swinging hard north around the Point toward an observation point on the Gallic positions. The intelligence boys had it right for once, which was both a blessing and a curse - the thick enveloping smog of Leeds was out in force this morning, and it obscured their navigation and communications as much as it did their position to hostile forces. Gordon quietly hoped his suit's internal systems were still pointed the right way. If not, it was doubtful they'd come back in one piece. Then again, he wasn't sure reaching their destination would really improve their chances of survival.
He let out a sigh of relief when they came across another rocky outcropping, honestly indistinguishable to Gordon from Point Channel. Near the peak, the smog thinned a bit, allowing them to make out some of the local terrain - and he immediately checked his suit's objective mark. It pointed six-hundred meters east to another one of Leeds' rock formations. If that was right, then, just under a battalion of Gallic armor rested beyond that hillside. Gordon checked the time - twenty minutes early. He decided to spend it letting his men relax for a moment, huddling under the outcropping on the west side of the peak.
He didn't mind waiting. Maybe Gallia would leave in the meantime.
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822 A.S. -- Low Planetary Orbit, Leeds System
+6 Days since Planetfall "On the way!" Coral Sea's gunnery officer yelled out over the roar of her cannon, loosing a shell of superheated plasma toward the gunboat formation. Both rear gunboats peeled off, power signatures spiking as they brought close-in weapons online. The lead GRN gunboat charged forward, taking the plasma round head-on, shield flickering under the impact. The White Plains peeled hard right as Gallic guns began to open up, peppering her shield with rapid-fire energy blasts.
Graham grimaced as the Coral Sea's hull shuddered again, his eyes locked to the flickering holo-map. Two green diamonds tore away from each other at high speed - that would be his gunboats. Three red diamonds marked the hostile gunships, one each pulling hard in the same direction as the Coral and Plains. The third - the lead ship - tore straight down the middle at what had to be his redline. A half-dozen crimson triangles hung slightly further back, a wing of Lynxes that didn't dare get within point-defense range. Finally, four Defiants from the 22nd burned in hard from their rear. Four minutes.
A plan clicked into place. Graham opened a channel to the White Plains. "The lead ship is detached from its escort. If we hit it from both sides, we can cut its shields and take it down while they're split." He took the Plains's rapid velocity shift as an affirmative. The Coral Sea rocked as it loosed a shell into the lead ship's side, followed up quickly by a steady hum. Graham ordered everything deployed on that ship, including the point defense cannons. He eyed the camera feed. The Perilous' shield flickered and faded, taking thousands of rounds of small-calibre rounds punctuated by the heavy thud of both gunboats' deck guns. All Graham could do now was watch, eyes nervously glancing to the rear gunboats. They were turning back now, gaining toward them. They'd be in gun range in seconds.
It didn't matter. A shell from the White Plains overloaded the ship's shields, the blue haze flickering for a moment and then dying outright. It was pure luck, then, that the Coral Sea's shell followed up a half-second later, cutting clean through the flank of the Gallic boat and exiting the other side. Graham didn't bother to check how much damage it did; he just knew it would keep them out of the fight for enough time. That's all he needed. More time.
The Coral Sea was knocked hard to the right. The two remaining gunboats obviously weren't impressed with that particular maneuver, and now were taking it out in full force on the Coral. A flurry of anti-ship missiles loosed from both gunboats, racing toward Graham at top speed. The Coral's PDCs swung wildly, firing small bursts in all directions as the missiles closed in. Graham grimaced and tightened his grip with every warhead that made it through.
"Shield integrity failing, sir." Rogers tried to sound calm. He nearly convinced Graham. "We can take maybe another thirty seconds of this. They're throwing everything and the kitchen sink at us." Graham looked at the holo-map, praying to nobody in particular for good news. Two minutes. It had felt like an hour. He ordered his navigator to evade even harder, as if that was possible. The White Plains was doing a good job covering him from fire, but not even the Jacobi could've done a good enough job. The cacophany of sounds in Graham's CIC reached a fever pitch as the Coral Sea's shield generators whined and groaned, before the entire integrity field broke apart on the bleeding edge of a Gallic warhead.
Graham had only ever had to rely on armor on the Coral Sea once, and that was frankly a trumped-up training exercise. He had almost forgotten what the ship's CIC sounded like without the whine of the shield generators. He even had just enough time to worry about it before a shell tore its way through the Coral Sea's power plant, cutting power to the entire ship. Graham's stomach went to his throat both figuratively and literally as the weight of the Coral's thrust and gravity manipulators cut out, and were replaced with the gentle tug of Planet Leeds. The crew had the good fortune (or bad, depending on how you looked at it) to not be reactor barbeque, but the combination of power loss and heavy structural damage left their ship dead to rights. As Graham switched from intercom to pure voice, now pulling himself up and down the half-ruined Coral to order his crew to get the ship working again, their now-offline navicomputer had no way to warn them of Leeds' more-than-gentle tug toward the surface...
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822 A.S. -- 5.7km NNW Point Channel, Planet Leeds
+7 Days since Planetfall As Gordon counted the seconds before he could start on the second phase of his mission, he briefly let his mind drift to the sound of Gallic shelling back at the Point. The distant booms rattled the earth even this far out, although at this distance it was about as quiet as micrometeors on a viewscreen. He listened to the quiet whistle of the shell in-between earth-shattering crashes, and simply stood there in quiet relief that he was out on this mission, cursed smog and all.
He perked up slightly as he heard a shell that was quite obviously landing closer. Much closer. The whistle wasn't a distant moan but a loud, thundering screech as it tore through the sky. Fuck, it's coming down HERE! his brain screamed out, before the rest of his neurons could catch up and assure him that yes, in fact, they were nowhere near other units - there was no way they were getting fired upon. Nonetheless, he took up more of the shelter the limited outcropping provided.
The chatter in his comm-set was drowned out by noise now. This wasn't an artillery shell, the whine and...groaning?...was far too loud, and far too drawn out. As he turned his face to the sky, eyes darting around for the source of that wretched sound, the smog suddenly cut away with a violent gust of wind. Wind that was caused by engines. More specifically, the flame-sputtering half blown-out wreck of a Defiant's engine. The flying wreck suddenly appeared before them as if a deity made manifest, dwarfing the soldiers taking refuge on the hill as they were torn between scrambling for cover and watching the haphazard descent of the Naval vessel.
The ship twisted and groaned under the weight of the planet, and moreso, of firing its engine. Gordon wasn't sure if it would even stick together long enough to crash in one piece - but it didn't take long to find out. With all the grace of a shotgun blast at a wedding, the Defiant slowly drooped lower and lower in the sky until the rear section suddenly tore itself free, exploding in a violent shower of shrapnel as the remaining front section slammed down hard into the ravine. Gordon barked an order he couldn't hear into the commset and his column jumped off the hill and back into the reforming smog, moving at best speed to examine what - or who - had just fallen into their laps.
The fore section of the Defiant remained markedly intact and accessible, due likely in no small part to its armor plating...but the rest was a loss. The entire rear section had fallen apart like so much paper. Components to various ship systems were torn to pieces and strewn about the bottom of the ravine like discarded gift wrapping. Dust and debris settled out in the air like celebratory confetti on a landing-well-done. Gordon switched to hand-signals, instructing his team to lower themselves onto the front - now top - of the Defiant wreck and cut their way in.
Inside was not a sight they were hoping for. What was left of the CIC was smashed to pieces inside by the force of the crash, anything that wasn't directly welded to the hull tossed around like cheap toys - including the crew. Most of them seemed to be in one piece, but that was perhaps the only good thing about their condition. He let his CLS trained troops go first, waiting for them to step inside the makeshift hole before following in. He resolved himself to find what was left of the CO as the rest of his squad searched the remainder of the wreck, and it didn't take long to manage - but it wasn't what he was expecting.
An impossibly-contorted body was slumped in the corner, arm limply attached by magnetic glove to the access rail heading down the ship's length - or what was left of it. Gordon turned the dead man's arm slightly in his hands, sighing and confirming as he saw the Commander's bars on his sleeve. He detached the man's glove from the rail and quietly muttered into his headset, reaching down and preparing to remove the Commander's effects when the corpse groaned. Gordon stumbled back, in shock for what felt like an eternity before he grabbed ahold of the man's limp head and looked into his eyes. They didn't bother to move, but he was breathing, if barely. He had a weak pulse. His back was spun like a top, but he was somehow still alive. Gordon barked his medics over, backing up slightly to let them work. He was expecting them to sigh, get up, and tell him it wasn't worth the effort. That call never came.
Gordon sighed and looked over at his team leads, freshly returned from coming up empty handed on the rest of the ship. He shook his head as he looked back at the Commander, being slowly lifted onto a stretcher by the CLS team. "Scrap the recon. We just became the first Marine search-and-rescue team. Let's move."
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822 A.S. -- 1.1km NW Point Channel, Planet Leeds
+7 Days since Planetfall Gordon's navicomp let out a low beep as their waypoint to Point Channel slid down to 1.0 kilometers flat. They'd manage to hoof it back across the ravine toward the Point in record time, at least considering the fact they were now carrying a comatose, likely paraplegic Navy commander and that they had to go the long way around given the Defiant-sized obstruction in their original route. Gordon groaned at the chewing out he'd get on return, given that the Navy guns were now going to have to fire blind on hours-old intel data and dead reckoning rather than up-to-the-minute reports. But, he figured as he shot a look back at his CLS team, the Navy boy was worth something.
Eventually they got close enough to see the embattled Point through what was left of the smog, keeping low in the trench-ravine leading into the Point. They kept their guns ready, knowing full well that Gallic assault teams loved to try their luck using this same ravine as an entry point. But there was nobody to be seen - even the perennial shelling of the Point had stopped. As Gordon and his pointman rounded a steep corner toward the last stretch into the Point, they noticed the dirtied white body armor of a dead Gallic assaultman. And then another. And then a half dozen more. Up ahead, where an old bulkhead had been converted into a defensive embankment, there was now only a smoldering crater and what looked like...Libertonian armor pieces.
Gordon gulped and pumped his fist. His troops moved as one cohesive unit, forming at once into battle positions and covering all sides, above and below. They crept forward with the CLS team in the center, checking every corner for enemy forces. At a snail's pace, they approached the compound around the Point, passing by Gallic corpses that slowly turned into Libertonians and Bretonians. Gordon tried not to recognize any of them beneath their smoldering body armor.
The inside of the Point's makeshift complex, assembled out of old Bowex prefabs under the dug-out rock of the Channel itself, was completely dark and silent. Libertonian and Gallic corpses were found here or there, slumped against their emptied rifle or over a defensive position. Blast marks scorched the entire sides of walls and ceiling, and large chunks of the building were simply missing. They slowly made their way to the rear of the complex, which led back toward further Libertonian positions south in Wilkinson.
As they emerged from the complex, it took their visors a moment to adjust to the relatively smog-less mid-day light of Leeds. In that moment, the heads-up display of all thirteen troops flashed with the identification and tag of a dozen Gallic soldiers, fully armored and sweeping their guns around the point - and quickly, directly at the Libertonians. Before the action registered in Gordon's brain, both sides erupted in a haze of fire that blasted both units to shreds. The CLS team dove for cover and pulled out their pistols as the main squads traded fire with each other. Gordon took a glancing blow to the chestplate and dove down, desperately returning fire as his point team evaporated in front of him. Blasts of all types rocked the channel entrance as they traded fire - and by the end, the entire Gallic force, and all but Gordon, a member of the CLS team, and Bravo's team lead were killed outright.
The CLS lead didn't even bother checking his team's vitals - the HUD did that for him. He simply groaned and, along with the Bravo lead, picked up the stretcher and slowly started to saunter with Gordon toward the flaming outskirts of Wilkinson. "Any units, this is Lightning Three-One Actual, radio check." Gordon repeated the message as they slowly crept down the pathway, following the trail of carnage to the city.