Part XXI: Message Received
Rear Admiral Pontraine, commanding Frontier Fleet’s Task Group 1307.1, was annoyed. Instead of having his Task Group as a unified force he was required to escort a superdreadnaught-sized ‘Mythos-class’ assault transport. Having the transport arrive a the same time as the naval force might be standard procedure, but Frontier Fleet had never tried to take a planet from under the nose of someone as annoyingly capable as the Royal Manticoran Navy before.
Pontraine had contacts inside the SLN’s Office of Naval Intelligence. He couldn’t credit most of what he had heard from there, either it was obviously self-serving and under-rated… or scare-mongering that made out the Manticorans as three-headed monsters. Obviously, neo-barbs like the RMN weren’t going to be as capable as the Solarian League, but some of the ‘intelligence’ community were obviously forgetting that Manticore was a developed, relatively rich star-nation. Manticore was going to be a tougher nut to crack than these folks thought. No doubt Manticore had ships that might almost be considered ‘modern’, even by the standards of the SLN.
Far worse from his perspective were the reports of RMN ships that had incredible acceleration rates, were almost immune to missile fire, threw massive salvos and capable of missile ranges that were, quite frankly, absurd. Oh, he didn’t doubt that the RMN may have developed some superiority in one tactical area or another, they were somewhat educated after all. Across the board quantum superiority was ridiculous though. If such developments were even possible, the SLN would be using them.
Still, having to assign one of his battlecruisers and a pair of heavy cruisers to escort that damned Mythos split his main combat power up in ways he didn’t like. If the Manties had hit his force on arrival, they might have caused significant damage before they were destroyed. He wouldn’t have lost the Mythos, sadly, or either of his two Indefatigables, but his light forces might have taken a beating from a pair of Manty battlecruisers. Losing any ships to the Manties would make him look bad, and even in Frontier Fleet an officer had to be aware of his image if he wanted continued advancement.
The good news was that, having arrived in Nuncio space unchallenged, he could now alter his escort plan to something more tactically sound. Turning to his chief of staff he commanded “Execute Escort Plan Alpha”. That would have Destroyer Squadron 2307 fall back on the Mythos and restore his BC and CA elements to full strength. Now all he had to do was download the reports from Basilica. That would tell him if the ‘spontaneous’ rioting had started yet and, hopefully, what Manticoran forces he was facing. He considered breaking out one of his destroyers to rendezvous with the listening post, but that would slow the re-integration of his forces.
He’d been dithering over this decision for the last two days, but now in Nuncio space he needed to be decisive. Looking at the status display to see which of his two forward heavy cruisers was closer, he decided. SLNS Fujimi was the closer of the two cruisers and he almost decided to send SLNS Tanaka instead. Commodore Prescott commanded the cruiser element from aboard Fujimi and would undoubtedly use his ‘forward’ deployment and ‘first to advance into hostile space’ for all it was worth in the political battles to come. Well, he was welcome to try. The Admiral who slapped down the Manticorans and took a system right out from under them would have more than enough fame to slap down a little upstart like Prescott. He ordered Prescott ahead personally, that should shift some of the credit back where it belonged… to the Flag. Let him think about that!
Aboard Fujimi, Prescott was fuming. He knew what that clown Pontraine had in mind. Prescott’s advance was now ‘subject to orders from the Flag’ rather than on his own authority. Was a Rear Admiral actually so petty that he would try to steal every bit of glory from this mission? Of course he was! Political in-fighting in Frontier Fleet might not be the blood sport it was in Battle Fleet, but it was intense. Pontraine wanted every bit of glory he could grab so that he could climb the ladder to Vice Admiral. There was nothing to do about it now though, nothing but carry out the orders efficiently and try to hitch his flag, literally, to Pontraine’s. Be a good little subordinate and hope for some scraps in the after-action reports. Turning to the comm screen that displayed the Captain of Fujimi he said, “Bob take us to the listening post. Smartly please, the Flag will undoubtedly want us back in position as soon as possible.”
On board Enterprise Thomas watched as the destroyers and their CL commander fell away from Force Alpha. When the BC and the two CA’s started their advance, he figured, correctly, that an exchange of escorts was taking place. For a few minutes he thought that nobody would download the output from the listening station, then one of the forward Mikasa’s advanced… and rapidly. Apparently, someone had lit a fire under the backside of that cruiser’s commander. Thomas smiled a predatory smile. Based on the course that CA was taking, displeasure from the Flag wasn’t going to be a concern for much longer.
SLNS Fujimi crept the final distance to the listening post under low power. The area was part of the Oort cloud of cometary bodies that surround any star system and some idiot had placed the listening post in the middle of a cluster of proto-comets. They had probably figured that nobody would notice one more minor planetoid in the middle of the other trash, but who would be looking in the first place?
The current Mark 47, Mod 6 mine deployed by the RMN was more than just a simple mine. Unlike earlier mines, which would detonate as soon as a target came into range, the Mark 47 waited. As long as a target was closing, the mine would hold fire unless certain conditions were met, such as sidewalls coming up or a radical change in perspective. Such a change in perspective could mean a target was ‘rolling ship’ or turning a vulnerable aspect away from the mine. Multiple mines in a field could also communicate, albeit in a rather limited way. Each mine would forward an acquisition signal to others in its deployed minefield. They would also forward a ‘detonation’ signal if their own engagement requirements were met. These gave the Mark 47 the capability of engaging multiple targets in a minefield simultaneously.
In the case of SLNS Fujimi, seven Mark 47 mines could see her as she approached the listening post. Five of those were in target acquisition when something caused the sidewall generators aboard Fujimi to start to spin up. The most likely reason was that someone had recognized the minefield. There would never be a way to know, five Mark 47’s detonated as one and SLNS Fujimi simply… vanished. The Mark 47 mine carried lasing rods capable of generating forces that could punch through the sidewalls of a modern Havenite superdreadnaught, and through the armour underneath.
Fujimi didn’t have sidewalls, modern or not, when the X-ray lasers sleeted through her hull. Nor did she have armour of any appreciable value. Aboard Enterprise the tactical section estimated that no less than thirty laser rods had scored hits. Thirty hits would have gutted a superdreadnaught, the effect on a heavy cruiser was unimaginable. Forces she couldn’t withstand pummelled Fujimi and her hull broke in two pieces. Both pieces then expanded into glowing fireballs as her fusion generators lost containment. 400,000 tons of starship were reduced to glowing plasma in less than 2 seconds. The were no lifepods deployed.
