RP: Battlegroup Warden [Battlegroup Warden] Mission 1: The Battle for Trinity

[Nameless]

Beads of sweat betrayed the calm upon Aliasse's visage as her neatly arranged readouts continued to give her complete status reports of her ship, interrupted by the message of commendation from the Immortal She, and pinning orders on them to keep H4 under observation. A click of annoyance was her signal for her sister to acknowledge the message in hear stead.

"Acknowledged. If it shows signs of life, it's gone," Rosetta responded. With people under her command, Aliasse had little issue addressing them. Whatever impressions she leaves them are slowly tempered with her actions and she trusted the bonds that get forged naturally by being stuck on the ship together. But with other ships' crews, she couldn't risk such freedoms as there was just too much distance with them and she couldn't handle the social upkeep of building rapports. That was where Rosetta shined.

"Aww, look at that, they've decided to point back at us!" The pilot said, almost delighted as he gripped his controls tighter. "Adjusting orbiting pattern to the negative in five seconds," he announced, more as a heads-up for the gunners. "Let's see that soft belly."

The Sagacity continued to rise, letting the enemy ship roll. And when the time ran out and the first few shots were fired at them, the gunship pulled up and rolled, making a quarter of a figure eight so it could make an arc that brought its trajectory down, before rolling back and giving all guns a better shot at the underside guns while H2 attempted to correct its course, aiming to take out its guns as previously ordered.

"We have shield impacts!" came tactical's report. "Try not to get us shredded, yeah?"

 

[Damaske]

NSS Rafela
Bridge

Glover nodded to himself on the bridge of the Rafela as he heard reports of the battlepods being thinned out. “Align toward the target H2, ready everything for a full blast onto the enemy ship H2, target exposed gun turrets if possible” Glover would announce as he looked over toward the fire control, as the Warhawk class ship rolled and pulled its nose upward flipping it about as it lined the nose up in the direction of H2. Another said, “Sir, the target ship is rolling and attempting to target the NSS Sagacity.” With a nod, he says “Right, how far are we from them currently the NSS Sagacity? “We are about 10km and closing, Sir? Are you thinking of blocking the incoming fire?“ Glover shakes his head and then says, “No, I was thinking of trying to scramble to target the NSS Sagacity from H2, but I do not think we can get there in time. Fire everything targeting the turrets and exposed weapons on H2. All weapons except the Scalar field, I want that seeking out battlepods and ordinance fired at us. “Yes, Sir!” the bridge crew responds as the missiles, torpedoes, and energy blasts from the charge lance and the heavy pulse laser Vulcan fire and rake over H2’s turrets and exposed weapons. 103 different projectiles all fire from the NSS Rafela toward the NMX Escort Destroyer, trying to disarm it before it can start to hammer the friendly gunship.

 

[Soban]

NSS Invictus
"Excellent work weapons, keep up the fire. Talk to me damage control." Lysander asked.

"We managed to rotate fresh sections during that last barrage, but they’re still flickering as we are taking fire from the smaller ships on that side. We’ve rerouted auxiliary power to stabilize them for now. Armor plating’s torn up bad. We’ve sealed the bulkheads and patched the worst of it it so far."

Lysander pursed his lips as he considered this, the big ship was his priority, but with their main weapon hit, they were less of a threat. But they needed to put them down completely. "Maintain fire on H1, secondary batteries that can't engage H1 should attempt to target H2." He instructed his crew.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

NSS Immortal She

"Ahead Full aye!" The helmsman repeated the command as the She momentarily increased it's internal G's as it went from deceleration to acceleration with a violent rocking motion as the frigate completed it's maneuver and her radial signature shrank. It was both stressful and exhilarating to fight the frigate like it was a fighter but was both stressful to the health of the ship and crew both over extended periods and would require time to tell if anything had shaken loose in the process.

"Status on H1." Miska demanded, his own readings visualizing in realtime as it was fed his way threefold from his interface, the talker, and the ships ACE forming a three dimensional picture on the holo display of the bridge.

"H1 is deadlock-engaged, waters are muddied!" Gunnery declared as Miska also noted the amount of ordinance in the ink between the cruiser and flagship and H1. Crossfire ordinance from the She would have a negligible chance to do so but it wasn't impossible for interception fire from the angle the She had to disrupt or even have a non-zero chance to hit friendly fighters or ordinance in flight let alone bypass the already doomed ship and travel endlessly for thousands of years only to come back and hit something eventually making the end of a fight both as desperate as it was a wind-down.

"Change priority to intercept, Scalar to full on incoming ordinance and be ready to intercept if Sagacity or the Invictus have need. Helm, plot a wide arc on H2 and send our course to the flagship incase the Admiral has need of us in the short term." He ordered as the She came up to speed.

The fight wasn't over yet. But the She was out of place after their strike on H3 and instead of zig-zagging between equally inevitable outcomes the Longsword would take a wide-arcing path onto H2's flank. Either the She would intercept them if they tried to run, or if the enemy destroyer managed to notice them through their ECM would be forced to come about to face the She or risk getting hit in her flanks but would also be exposing it's flank regardless in doing so.

 

[Gunhand4171]

Fire poured out from all the Warden vessels, targeting the final two ships. They never stood a chance. After the salvo from the Spirit, Invictus's bombardment shredded H1 to bits. The vessel's interior rippled with secondary explosions, sending bits of H1 in all directions.

H2 was also in a bad spot. The combined fire from Sagacity, Rafela, and Invinctus's secondary batteries was causing massive damage. H2's weapons were each targeted, blowing each to pieces. In a desperate attempt to flee, H2 turned and ran towards the planet. Aboard the Spirit, Braun cursed. "Oh no you don't. CAG, direct all remaining squadrons to break off and target H2. We can't let it make for the planet. Helm, move us forward to play fly swatter. Tactical, you know what to do. Execute!" The flagship's drives flared to life as all her fighters broke away to chase after H2. The Spirits point defense batteries went to work, tearing into the chasing battlepods. The fighters caught up quickly with H2 and released their remaining payloads directly into her drive section. Just like with H1, H2's hull rippled with explosions, tearing the vessel into three sections.

Valentine watched the plot. H2 was destroyed; however, they needed to ensure the falling debris wouldn't damage the planet below irreparably. The two atmo-prepared squadrons launched, heading down towards the planet's surface. Nodding to the comms officer, the fleet-wide channel opened. "Warden Actual to all ships. H2 has broken up, but she's still too big. If any of those sections make it to the planet below, we can kiss taking the planet goodbye. Work together and turn H2's hull into stardust!" He ordered. He turned back to the comms officer and addressed him once more. "Tell the marines to make preparations for planetfall. Once H2 is completely obliterated, we begin handing out eviction notices to the NMX below." The comm officer nodded. "Aye sir. I will inform the Colonel." He replied before turning to make the call.

 

[Nameless]

Sagacity

"Affirmative, Warden Actual," Aliasse responded, already picking the sections as priority targets. "Gunners. Break up those sections so they burn up in the atmosphere. Helm, keep us in range." With the combat drawing to a close, the officer ever so slightly leaned back into her chair, allowing her nerves to relax a little.

"Tactical," she spoke up once more, this time the sense of urgency having left her cadence. "Confirm ship status."

"Minor damage to the front armor. Three impacts. No internal damage."

"Very good."

Getting away with just minor damage was a good start, but they needed to be more evasive than that. The impacts may have been small that that still took away from the ship's structural integrity. No internals were damaged, but any imperfection on the surface was going to cause some drag on the ship once they enter the atmosphere. They won't be able to buff it out on such short notice and there is a chance that wind resistance might rip out a panel or two. Its hard to tell without having someone to inspect it.

"Would you like me to compile combat data, Commander?" Tactical asked.

"Make it so. Be sure to include Warden ships in the report so we can better calibrate our maneuvers."

Rosetta leaned over the command chair and tapped her sister's head playfully. "I'd say this was a successful first outing with our new group. What do you think?"

Without her eyes straying from her screens, Aliasse replied with a flat, "There is potential. But we had time to coordinate this strike. I'll withhold judgement until I see how well we perform on the receiving end of an ambush."

"You're always so grouchy."

"And you are distracting me."

The younger sibling chuckled as she leaned forward a bit more, pushing the chairback into her sister who remained stoic and focused.

The Sagacity focused all its fire at the closest ship section, holding at maximum range on the off chance a turret might fire at them again. And of course, it kept H4 on the periphery. It wouldn't do them any good if that one decided to wake up and manage to line up a shot at the small gunship.

 

[Damaske]

As the last ship suddenly loses all its weapons Glover smiled and then seeing the fighters and weapons fire hit the drive section he frowned. " not good! Where was that ship heading?" someone spoke up " it was fleeing the battle toward the planet Sir!" that bright flash as the ship died and broke apart. " Nodding as he said " Will it hit the planet or miss the fragments?" it didn't take long till the command came in that they needed to break up the remaining pieces of H2 before it fell into the planet. "ok move in closer and break up those large fragments so they will burn up Target fragments at key locations to break it up with minimal ammo usage. We have to be ready for another fight. "

The Rafela's drives flared as it came in closer and baby torpedos and energy fire lashed out at the remaining fragments of H2 breaking them into smaller pieces if not vaporizing them. Spinning around to look once more at H4 that is drifting nearby locking it with weapons no longer used for breaking up the remains of H2. " give me a scan of the remaining target, I want to know why it went down, where they are going and how soon till repairs bring them back up!