You know, I’m kinda convinced at this point they’re spying on us. The moment we have the majority of our fleets stationed in Xavier in preparation for an assault they move into Sol with the biggest warfleet we’ve seen in years. These designs are proven to be dangerous and extremely long-ranged. We can’t take any risks here.
Annoyingly the Chroest Empire witnesses the end of the battle, but our keylock worked fantastic. We killed their engines and sensors pretty quick, shipkilling two and capturing the remaining four with out marines. We lost a handful of marines and nothing else. We didn’t even take damage! You cannot argue with these results!
They also push though what I’m assuming to be a scouting force into Xavier while we position our forces around the gate, which I’m…hoping? isn’t a prelude to anything major.
Now…onto the main show.
I’d be a little much to just give a handful of very basic reports like I’ve been doing, so I’d like to go into a bit more detail than usual. I put my hair in a ponytail for this.
It is March 14th, 0055. Bluntly speaking it’s likely the wrong time of the Finisterre-year for this kind of assault. Every day she gets just a little bit closer to the Clinger gate, and Varaldur reinforcements become considerably more likely to get there fast. We’ll also have considerably less time to settle in to the position once we retake the planet. But, if you recall, the Finisterre-year is about 4.7 Earth-years long, and I’m not willing to wait another six (minimum) years for her to return to the most optimal position. So the assault needs to happen now for the best results. You win some you lose some.
First things first: scouting and troop basing.
This is going to take the longest. Our captured Varaldur troop transports (remember those?) are far slower than I’d like, and dropping our invasion force will take two trips, plus a third to transport the STO which will give us a better chance of holding Finisterre when we take it.
For that purpose I’ve chosen the very angstily-named asteroid of Point Pain. It’s far enough away that we (probably) won’t be detected on sensors when building up our forces, but close enough that our landing window is relatively minimized.
As of now we have four Omaha-class surveillance frigates available to us: the Bendigo, Burnie, Rockhampton, and Starwell. They will, in no particular order, be stationed at positions 1, 2, 3, and 4. Position 1 monitors the gate back to Xavier, 2 Point Pain, 3 Finisterre proper, and 4 the gate the Clinger to give advance warning of any potential reinforcements. No surprises this time. Once the battle has started and troops landed position 3 will withdraw to position 5 (fuel depending) to monitor the gate to Overcast, and once all troops are landed on Finisterre position 2 will withdraw to position 6 and join our support vessels there.
Our naval forces are divided into two portions: Gate Guard, which is lead by Captain Casey Yauger, and Battlefleet, which is lead by the untested Captain Elizabeth Laffey. Both groups will progress initially to position 6 along with the troop transports and wait for refueling. Once our scouts are in place and a general idea of enemy forces established our troop transports will begin landing forces on Point Pain. This is the first phase.
The second phase involves direct fleet action. Once scouting is completed and troops positioned Gate Guard will begin moving into position directly on the Clinger gate. Once they reach roughly the halfway point Battlefleet will move against Finisterre. I am expecting extreme fleet resistance, and destruction of any fleets in orbit is their primary goal. Once all fleets in orbit have been destroyed or otherwise driven off we will begin landing troops to establish a beachhead, shifting our forces into a ground-based fire support role as appropriate. All that’s left to do is fuel up. Let’s go.
They appear to have abandoned the system. Phase one is being accelerated and phase two started early. Gate Guard will move to the Clinger gate immediately while Battlefleet moves to Finisterre until troops are landed. The Stawell will be repositioned at the Overcast gate while the Rockhampton will withdraw back to Xavier Fortress. Out of all the things I was expecting it well and truly was not this. It’s too bad I don’t have any defense clusters prepped, otherwise I’d lock down the system entirely.
Ah. Of course we couldn’t see them with passive sensors. I think what caught me up is the lack of STO emplacements. Curious how they never put them there. But in any case, it’s time to do what any self-respecting navy would do when given total space superiority over a foe: bombard the shit out of them.
Killing them has to come in three phases because we simply run out of maintenance supplies before we can get them all in one go. STO emplacements are really important, guys!
Oh but it is so glorious. The rubble of Finisterre is ours again! A bit of an anti-climatic conclusion to what is, at the point, the seventh battle we’ve had over this planet. I’ll send Battlefleet over to guard the Clinger gate once their done resupplying. With luck we’ll be able to ambush their counterstrike soon. I’ll also send the Bendigo through the gate to see what’s up.
Interesting. Well, losing the ship was to be expected. Hope they had good life insurance.
I’m also making the decision to start moving the Sol-Xavier defense cluster up to the Xavier-Victory gate along with a spare resupply base we haven’t been using. We’re not in a position to do so now (this fleet action has drained most of our fuel and we need a few more maintance bases) but once this incursion has concluded we’re keylocking the system. If we’re able to hold the system after that it might be worth considering some some attempts at homeworld strikes.
I forgot to share this from right after we stopped shooting, but Finisterre sure does have some dust right now.
Months later and no sign of Varaldur ships or anything resembling a countersrike. I’m pulling all naval vessels out of the system for some well-deserved rest and overhauls.
Some of our captains are getting quite decorated.
End date is February 24th, 0056. God it feels good to remove their flag.
