Re: Rise of the Remorhaz Society
New Tactics in Iolo
“It looks like they are heading for the wormhole, sir. Even if they try to double back to Correlia, we can intercept them before they come anywhere near the planet.”
Commodore Thom Hitcher tapped his chin with his finger. According to his sensors, two Ukra-Tal cruisers were trying to outflank Correlia and his fleet. After months and months of assaults on Correlia itself, for the first time they were trying to make it to the Iolo-Ultrinox wormhole. If they made it through, they could threaten any number of systems, including Velocitas and Remorhaz itself. However, if they did, they would find themselves in the midst of a Remorhaz minefield, but Hitcher didn’t want them to get that far. It would be a close fight. His task force consisted of three Glory class destroyers, one Nemesis frigate, and a Ganymede class light cruiser against one Gjovik and one Hedmora class cruiser, both which were well armed enemy combat vessels. The Remorhaz ships had a range advantage, but if the Ukra-Tal ships closed to within acid launcher, they would punish the Remorhaz ships. Hitcher had to decide whether to pursue them, or protect his fleet and let the minefield take care of them.
“Let’s go get ‘em.”, he told his staff.
Within hours, the Correlia Defense Fleet was cutting through space at full power, on an intercept course for the two Ukra-Tal ships. It took three days, but the Remorhaz ships finally closed to within engagement distance.
Hitcher ordered his screening vessels to fan out in the front arc, to allow their missiles to be brought into the fight before the cruisers could close range. With his eye on the tactical display, he watched his command fan out before him, the ship’s captains executing their maneuvers with precision.
The Ukra-Tal commanders, with their usual aggressive behavior, charged the Remorhaz ships. Hitcher watched the range tick down as both fleets flew toward each other a full speed. The computers compensated for the closure rate, and once the cruisers flew into the capital ship missile envelope, his ships opened fire.
Three destroyers and a frigate lit up their dark corner of space with a ripple-fired salvo of capital ship missiles. Their captains then reversed course, hoping to open the range between them and the horrible acid launchers that the Gjovik and Hedmora were armed with. Hitcher moved his own ship, RSS Orion, between the retreating vessels and the enemy cruisers. The missiles acquired their target, the Hedmora, almost instantly and accelerated toward it. Anti-missile projectiles filled the space around their ships, disabling or destroying almost all of Hitcher’s missiles, but one salvo broke through and exploded against the Hedmora’s shields, weakening them. By this time, the cruisers were able to close range and fire a few extreme-range shots at Orion, a few of which took down her shields and hit her hull. No major damage was done, but Hitcher was forced to pull back a bit. He fired a few shots of his own with his cannon, but missed. RSS Narvik was able to fire a long range shot with her lone cannon and the shell found its mark, weakening the Hedmora’s shields even further.
The Ukra-Tal commander decided not to press his luck any further and moved to open the range. Hitcher was a bit surprised, because this played to his ship’s strengths, but he wasn’t about to overlook the gift that his enemy had given him. He ordered his ships to again turn and pursue the Ukra-Tal ships while their missiles reloaded.
Seeing his mistake, or possibly counting on the pursuit, the enemy cruisers again turned to close with the Remorhaz ships. Once again, a heavy salvo was launched, forcing the Hedmora to retreat. The Gjovik fired at Orion from extreme range, missing with all her shots. The Remorhaz ships were able to return fire on the Gjovik, hitting her with four cannon shells. The shells tore holes in her hull, but the damage began to repair itself immediately. The Ukra-Tal organic armor was a huge advantage.
The enemy cruisers continued to close range. At long range, the Hedmora fired its acid launchers at RSS Narvik. The shots crashed through her shields, and slammed into the hull, burning a gaping hole in the ship. Compartments were disintegrated as the powerful acid burned through the ship. The crew that survived the barrage worked their way toward the middle of the ship as the acid continued to eat away at the superstructure. Narvik was out of the fight.
Now Hitcher was at a disadvantage. He could no longer afford to fire and sprit, because that would leave Narvik at the mercy of the cruisers. He watched as the Hedmora turned away to recharge its acid launchers and the Gjovik closed in for the kill. It fired at Narvik, hitting her once and wiping out her bridge. Thankfully, the entire bridge staff had already evacuated to the bowels of the ship, sacrificing maneuverability for survival. The Gjovik now faced the full brunt of the Remorhaz cannons alone. Shell after shell crashed into the cruiser, knocking out components. Both of her acid launchers were destroyed in the initial salvo, and were now useless in the fight. It turned to run, while the Hedmora turned back to save its partner.
Another Remorhaz salvo was launched at the Hedmora, and without the Gjovik’s protection, more of the missiles found their mark. She was still in the fight, but she was damaged. Now it was Orion’s turn to withstand another acid barrage. The Hedmora fired a full salvo at her, reducing most of her point-defense battery to melted slag. Still able to fight, Orion returned fire, further damaging the Ukra-Tal ship while the two remaining effective Glory class destroyers raked it with point-blank cannon fire. The damage to its hull was now such that the organic armor could no longer repair itself, and that allowed the cannon fire to destroy a few of its engines. The Ukra-Tal ship was very tough, though, and was still a dangerous enemy. On top of that, its acid launchers were still operational.
Orion was hit with another full acid salvo. This attack burned down the axis of the ship, destroying everything in its path. Weapons mounts, crewmen, anything and everything was destroyed, but the path of destruction bypassed the starboard weapons mounts, leaving Hitcher with one of the ship’s two heavy cannon. With it, Orion was able to land the killing blow on the Hedmora, which exploded as the shells found some vital component deep inside the stricken cruiser.
Narvik and Orion turned for home as the Gjovik was hunted down and destroyed by Shining Victory and Skydancer.
The trip back to Correlia was busy for everyone. Although the damage was extensive to both Narvik and Orion, some repairs could be made. For Orion, it seemed they would be enough to allow her to get home with the rest of the fleet. Narvik was not so lucky, because her damage was too great to allow her to keep up with the fleet. On top of that, there were now at least three Ukra-Tal cruisers within range of Correlia and all of them could beat the fleet back to the planet if they traveled at the highest speed that Narvik could make. With great reluctance, Commodore Hitcher allowed her to detach from the fleet and attempt to make it back to Correlia alone. All of the wounded and non-essential personnel were transferred to the rest of the fleet, and Narvik was left behind.
Hitcher watched Narvik fall behind on the viewer and shook his head. How did Naval Command expect him to interdict ships that were bigger, stronger, and technologically superior to his if they didn’t give him any reinforcements? Hiding behind a minefield and backed up by ground based weapons, they could hold their own against a fleet with many times his number of ships, but if the Ukra-Tal decided to bypass all of those weapons, like they seemed to be doing now, they would quickly grind his fleet into dust. If Narvik didn’t make it home, he would have lost one-fifth of his fleet, while he read reports of the fleet in Bardron assaulting the Last Rage worlds with thirty or more ships! The thought enraged him.
He got out of his command chair and growled, “XO has the con,” as he walked briskly toward his cabin. He was forced to travel two sections out of his way because the direct path to his cabin was open to space, thanks to the acid damage from the battle. This only served to infuriate him more.
He opened his cabin door and powered on his data pad. He began to type out a message for Grand Admiral Urian’s eyes only. He was going to tell the Grand Admiral the truth, and if he didn’t like it, he could come down to Correlia personally and relieve him of his command.
Grand Admiral Urian read the message with a grim look on his face. It wasn’t very often that a Commodore demanded things of Grand Admiral, but Hitcher’s blunt message made its point very clearly. The Ukra-Tal were stepping up their activity in Iolo, but they no longer seemed to be concentrating on Correlia. He had hoped that the Ukra-Tal would continue to throw themselves at Correlia’s defenses, diverting their attention from the other fronts while they prepared for the offensive. If Hitcher were going to have to leave the protection of Correlia to stop Ukra-Tal movements with his fleet, he would definitely need reinforcements, whatever delays that caused for the rest of the Navy. If Hitcher’s fleet were destroyed, the planet was doomed.
He immediately issued orders for two ships from the Home Fleet to move to Iolo and join the Correlia Defense fleet. The Ganymede class light cruisers RSS Xanthe and RSS Odysseus received the orders and changed course at once. Urian only hoped that they were able to make it to Correlia in time to save the fleet.
Above Highrock, Rear Admiral Gina Jager was just settling down for a nights rest when the com unit began to beep. Sighing, she rolled out of bed and quickly composed herself. Brushing back her hair, she keyed the unit to answer. The face of an Army sensor officer appeared.
“Good evening, Captain. What can I do for you?”
The Army captain looked nervous.
“Admiral, I’m very sorry to disturb you, but the duty log says to inform you in an emergency…”
Gina waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, captain. A little lost sleep won’t kill me. What do you have?”
The captain was looking off-screen for a moment.
“Admiral, may I send you the long range feed?”
“Sure,” Gina replied, taking a seat at her desk.
The captain’s face disappeared as the image was replaced by a long-range scan of the Lenoltris system. Five sectors away, and closing, was a fleet of at least twenty-four Ukra-Tal light cruisers.
“Ma’am, we picked them up about ten minutes ago. They aren’t jamming, so we didn’t really notice them until they passed the outer passive sensors. They caught us a bit with out pants down on that one.” He laughed nervously.
Gina replied, “It’s alright captain. A few hours wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Can you show me a course projection?” She asked for the captain to show her where the computer predicted the Ukra-Tal fleet would end up, but she was pretty sure she already knew the answer. In the blink of an eye, the computer calculated their destination…Highrock.
“Thanks, Captain. Looks like they are coming for us again. Get the word to the ground base commanders. We’ve got a few days before they get here.”
The captain looked relieved.
“Yes, Rear Admiral.”
The link went dead.
Gina sat at her desk for a few moments, thinking. If the Ukra-Tal threw themselves at Highrock once more, she felt that she could defeat them. If she had to engage them away from the defenses of the planet, however, she didn’t think she would be able to stop such a vast fleet. They had switched tactics in Iolo, so why not here?
Until they came closer, she couldn’t be sure of what they were going to do. She would prepare to defend the Remorhaz Society, wherever she was called upon to do it.
She turned on the com unit again, and put a call into her chief of staff, ordering him to start getting the fleet ready for battle. Then she lay down to try and get some sleep. She wasn’t sure how much she would be able to get in the days to come.
[ October 29, 2003, 03:48: Message edited by: sachmo ]
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