Rise of the Remorhaz Society

[sachmo]

Highrock Hold Em’

“The way I see it, ma’am, we have three choices,” Rear Admiral Hitcher said.
“One choice is that we abandon Guardian. We’ve done it before, at Nova.”
In spit of themselves, the other officers in the command center stared at him in shock.
“It wasn’t our most glorious moment, but it did allow the fleet to concentrate and then counterattack, and that counterattack didn’t stop until the Rage were crushed.”
He looked around the table, and met the eyes of his commander.
Admiral Gina Jager nodded.
“Go on, Thom. I want to hear everything.”
Hitcher nodded, and continued.
“The second choice would be to split the fleet between Guardian and Highrock. Both forces would be backed up by considerable ground batteries, and might be able to withstand a Ukra-Tal attack.”
He glanced around the room again, and sensed that this was the plan most of the staff agreed with.
“Third option is my favorite,” he smiled. A few of the officers laughed.
“We could engage the Ukra-Tal fleet in transit, see if we can whittle down their numbers somewhat, then fall back to Guardian or Highrock and meet what’s left in a defensive battle.”
Hitcher sat down and waited for the responses to come. Gina tapped the table with her finger while studying the holographic image of the Lenoltris system glowing over the table. On it she saw her battle fleet, Task Force 1, stationed over Highrock. The support task force, under Commodore Santos, was on station near the Yullado wormhole in sector 6-0. In sector 1-6, on a direct course to Guardian, was a fleet of thirty-two Ukra-Tal ships. Most of the ships in this fleet were cruisers, but also mixed in were three battlecruisers and nine light carriers. It was a very formidable force, and it was presenting her with a number of problems.

As she saw it, the biggest problem was that her fleet was not strong enough to defeat the Ukra-Tal force in direct combat. Even with the advantage of phased-polaron beams, the Ukra-Tal fleet would overwhelm her ships with their firepower. If that happened, and her fleet was destroyed, the Ukra-Tal would have a direct path to Remorhaz. Obviously, she couldn’t let that happen.
But she also couldn’t let forty-two million Remorhaz citizens die in a planetary bombardment, either. Then Remorhaz People’s Navy was created to protect the citizens of the society, and it was her job to carry out that mission. If there had been more time, and the defenses of Guardian had been built up a little more, the position would be much more manageable, but time was up. The Ukra-Tal were headed for Guardian, and they intended to destroy the outpost. What she needed was a way to goad them into attacking Highrock instead of Guardian, and subjecting their force to the heavy minefield here.

Commodore Hank Nivend was the first to speak up.
“Admiral, I’d like to second Rear Admiral Hitchers option of moving out to meet the slugs,” he said.
“We could see if we can get them to launch their fighters early, and take them out first. That would seriously weaken their combat power. Then we could close with the cruisers and do as much damage as possible before withdrawing.”
A few of the other officers spoke up in support of this plan, offering their advice on how best to conduct the operation.
Hitcher stood up. “Everyone, there is something very important to consider before we ride out to meet the enemy.”
The room quickly grew quiet, and all eyes were on him.
“We are all that stands between the Ukra-Tal and Remorhaz. If this fleet is destroyed, nothing will stop them from penetrating deep into the society. It will have to be a hit and run attack, because we just don’t have the assets to take that fleet on directly.”

Everyone in the room took Hitcher’s words to heart. It was natural for them to want to engage the enemy in combat directly, but the Ukra-Tal still held a big superiority in numbers and tonnage, and the Remorhaz forces were just not strong enough to do much more than defend what they had, and pick off Ukra-Tal ships when they could. A stand up fight would probably end badly for the Remorhaz side.

In the meantime, Gina thought she had a solution. She typed information into her datapad even as her staff continued to discuss all of their option. Quickly she finished, and the forces on the hologram started moving.
“Ladies and gentlemen, do you think this will work?”
Again, the room fell into silence as they watched the hologram play out Jager’s battle plan. Rear Admiral Hitcher chuckled as he watched.
“Gina, I knew there was a reason you were so good at poker.” The room broke into relaxed laughter.

Commodore Santos watched from the command bridge of RSS Scorpion as Task Force 1.1 moved into Highrock orbit and joined up with the destroyer RSS Firefly and the cruiser RSS Shiro Sakazawa. Once all of ships were in position, he ordered his staff to stand down. It would be days before they knew what the Ukra-Tal were going to do, and so wanted everyone in the task force to have a two day dirt-side pass. If they Ukra-Tal took the bait, his people were going to have company very soon, and he wanted his people to enjoy themselves as much as possible before the battle was joined.

Task Force 1 moved to Guardian, taking the bulk of the combat power in Lenoltris with them. Their course took them into extreme range of the Ukra-Tal scanners, to make sure that they got a good look at the Remorhaz force. They wanted to make sure that the enemy commander knew that they were going to make their stand at Guardian. What must have been outside of their scanner range was the exact composition of the force remaining at Highrock. Admiral Jager hoped that the enemy commander would come after Highrock, and be forced to deal with the deadly minefield that surrounded the planet, hopefully taking a number of their ships out before they came within range of the planet. If they survived that, the survivors would have to deal with the ground defenses and the two remaining combat ships, which she hoped would be enough to keep any remaining ships from tearing into the rest of Task Force 1.1, which consisted of unarmed support ships. Her gamble was that the enemy commander wasn’t aware of the minefield, and he would go after the target that presented him with the least resistance, which would appear to be Highrock, she hoped.
On the other hand, if they went after Guardian, Task Force 1 would make a stand there, backed up by the ground defenses there that would hopefully add some much needed firepower to the Remorhaz side. Either way, the Remorhaz forces had played their best hand. How much they stood to lose remained to be seen.

The Ukra-Tal took the Highrock bait. In the command center, Admiral Jager watched with growing satisfaction as the most effective weapon in the Remorhaz arsenal, the Correlia space mines, annihilated the entire Ukra-Tal fleet.
“No targets remain, Admiral,” one of the sensor officers reported as the Last enemy ship disappeared from the strategic display.
Gina allowed herself a tight smile.
“Alert Commodore Santos that there will be no breakthrough to deal with. Luckily for us, the slugs haven’t figured out how to spot a bluff.”