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>>2831796
"Dauntless?" You've been so caught up you don't realise Weston has started talking at first, and dedicate some cycles to keep puzzling over what to do.

"Yes, Admiral?"

From the pickup, you can see Weston’s staff working at their various duties. His chief of staff and ops officer are hunched over the flag deck holotable. "Dauntless, I'm not really sure what's going on here, so I'll follow your lead. But if you want to take us in, my engineers have been working on something that might- no, should be able to take out one groups coming for us, if it isn't an entire fleet."
You turn your attention briefly to the plot. Beta, Delta, and Gamma are all coming for you, and all three have activated that damnably effective jamming. Their signatures are little more than a collective hash, but Beta looks bigger than the others. "Dauntless?"

"I think we might have to pull out-"

Dą̵uņ́t̛l̨͢ȩ̸s͘͟͝s̷̡͢!͢͠͝

"Dauntless?" That's Weston, not the faint signal you could've sworn...

>Take out the force behind you and get out, leaving Cabot to cause mischief while you figure out what to do.
>Have Cabot wipe out the force behind you and all of you bug out.
>Go on the attack, ask Weston to take care of one of the incoming forces (which?)
>Go on the attack, but have Weston keep whatever it is hidden away for now.
>Write-in.

>>2831800
>>Take out the force behind you and get out, leaving Cabot to cause mischief while you figure out what to do.
Good to have you back, though I can't stay long.

>>2831800
>>Go on the attack, ask Weston to take care of one of the incoming forces (which?)

Attack Beta and Gamma, allow Delta to slip through so Weston can nail 'em

>>2831800
>>Go on the attack, but have Weston keep whatever it is hidden away for now.

>>2831800
>Go on the attack, ask Weston to take care of one of the incoming forces (which?)
Take out Beta and Alpha?
Was just thinking of this quest the other day.
also going on a navel ship reading binge

>>2831800
Consensus seems to be >go on the attack, not on which you're telling Weston to go for:

>Force Alpha
>Force Beta
>Force Delta
>Force Gamma

Cabot will follow behind you and hit targets of opportunity when able.

>>2831937
Delta and Theta, do a circle around the system i guess.
Not sure what the others are

>>2831937
or beta and gamma then?

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>>2831937
[spoilers]Oops, got distracted by Total War[/spoiler]

>Force Delta

You deliberate for a moment or two, then make your decision. "I don't like how Delta's coming in behind us. If it starts generating a sideways vector, it'll be in position to hit us from behind.

"Roger that." Weston looks away from the pickup, over to the holotable at his chief of staff and ops officer. He starts issuing orders- quickly, but calmly, and you turn your attention to Force Zulu.

As one, all ships capable of firing broad their broadsides to bear. A spattering of plasma comes in as the Legion ships realise what's about to happen, but it's too late. A massed energy broadside rips through their formation, avenging the single destroyer they manage to claim before they're blotted away by the casual wave of carnage. With your flank secured, you form up your ships, 1st OEF on your starboard, and light off your drives. Gravfighters begin to drop from their carriers and move ahead, screening your taskforce in combination with your lighter destroyers. However, only ten minutes into your burn Weston requests you cut accel to launch fighters. Curious, you do so.

As soon as the ships of your combined battlegroup cut their drives, Ranger and Langleyswing around, bringing their sterns to bear in the direction of Force Delta. It's then that the boxy, outrigger-like structures of the carriers become clear. Their drives pulse, and each of the eight structures spit a strike craft at fifteen gees. Not as high as your own can pull, but respectable considering their fragile, human cargo. A few seconds later they spit again, and you wait another five minutes for them to load another squadron each. In total four squadrons, 56 fighters, start travelling down the track. They form up and light off their much smaller drives, but their CM system give them an impressive accel.

"Godspeed." Weston grunts, and looks back to you. "God willing, they'll launch and be back here sometime after Force Beta arrives."
Speaking of... you put the fighters from your mind and focus on the incoming. The hash of Force Beta is being probed and sampled by your sensors. There's definitely some battleships in there, is the best you can tell. Perhaps now would be a good time to deploy Cabot...

>Command Cabot to kill Force Beta.
>Deal with Force Beta yourself, use Cabot to protect your flanks.

>>2832313
>Deal with Force Beta yourself, use Cabot to protect your flanks.
Cabot for the surprise on Zusya

>>2832313
>>Deal with Force Beta yourself, use Cabot to protect your flanks.

>>2832313
>>Deal with Force Beta yourself, use Cabot to protect your flanks.

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Rolled 9, 91 = 100 (2d100)

>>2832313
>You can deal with one stinkin' Legion fleet

No point in tipping your hand too soon. You request a firing solution for 1st OEF, and in a corner of your attention Weston asks his Ops officer. A few seconds later you have one, and you tie in their systems with yours as your fighters screen out ahead. Missiles are checked and loaded into tubes, active sensors try and ping through the jamming hash even as your own EW systems come online.

>Roll 1d00, best of 3.

Rolled 10 (1d100)

>>2832468
>91

OOF

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>2832468

Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>2832468

Rolled 43 (1d100)

>>2832468
forget to roll for fighters, one mo

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>>2832468
>9, 43, 89 vs 91
oof

"Tac systems green, Admiral."

"Thank you, Shannon. Fire on my mark." You listen to the activity on Weston's flag bridge as you run through your own checks and jockey your ships into position. The battleships stack up into a vertical wall, with battlecruisers stacked fore and aft. Carriers and auxiliaries shift to the back of your formation, and gravfighters kick their drive into full accel as the human ships come about and start spitting their broadsides.

The first salvo is purely kinetic, their CM drives kicking in to send them scything through the enemy formation in the hopes of a lucky initial shot. But no dice- no hits that you can detect. The next is packed with big, dirty nukes that blanket the Legion formation's approach vector with EM radiation, shockwaves, and enough explosions to briefly blind any visual sensors. Hot on their heels are your own fighters, loosing their own nukes and spinal CPGs as they throw singularities to one direction or another to come about, shooting through the enemy formation every which way to foul targeting. Plasma follows them anyway, and it seems the Legion seems to have learnt a little from your trick- their targeting is degraded, but nowhere near enough. Power spikes flare on your sensors as fighters go up.

But they've done their job, and the targeting data they send back gives you an idea of what you're facing. At least ten battleships, though a bit sparse on screening elements. You send final course corrections to the missiles that are following in your fighters' wake and go to rapid fire on all tubes as your ships complete their turn. X-ray lasers strobe and slice through the enemy formation, focusing their destructive energies on the battleships alone. One of them bucks as dozens of laser heads make it through the last-ditch plasma defences and detonate just ten thousand kilometres off its bow.

But you're not the only one giving the hurt, and the Legion ships are coming about to present the sides of their ovoid hulls. Their own missiles shriek out towards you across the void, reaching you after you've already launched five of your own. Your escorts start doing their job, launching canisters of counter-missiles at the outer defence zone, engaging pre-designated sectors with point defences in the mid-zone, and finally, as the Legion missiles reach terminal range with their damnably effective gravitic drive, your ships deploy the new shields. Pinpoint pieces of space twists in front of missiles just about to detonate, or ones firing their stand-off plasma weapon. In the former, the missile is twisted back on itself, rendering it suddenly inert. In the latter, the plasma seems to turn into a still ball for a single moment before it dissipates harmlessly in the vacuum. You're sure Flavius will be interested to get the data on his new systems, so you make sure to record it in detail.
cont.

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>>2832540

Two of the Legion battleships abruptly detonate, probably touched off by their power system or drives, three more are cripples, and another three are showing signs of damage. Some of their screen have been destroyed, crippled or damaged, mostly by missiles that lost their lock on primary targets and struck out at secondary ones. In return, one of your battleships are damaged, along with one of your battlecruisers. It's mostly superficial, with missile tubes, energy weapons and primary sensor stations blown out. You've also lost another three destroyers and a single cruiser for good, while almost ten more of your screen are damaged. Almost a third of your fighters have been taken out.

Thankfully, the humans have taken no actual losses, but you note air streaming from several of their ships. Now comes the energy duel.

>Continue accelerating, try and get past Force Beta as quickly as possible. Cabot can clear stragglers.
>Decelerate as hard as you dare, to keep the energy range envelope open for as long as possible.

>>2832549
>Continue accelerating, try and get past Force Beta as quickly as possible. Cabot can clear stragglers.

>>2832549

>Continue accelerating, try and get past Force Beta as quickly as possible. Cabot can clear stragglers.

>>2832549
>>Continue accelerating, try and get past Force Beta as quickly as possible. Cabot can clear stragglers.

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Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>2832549
>Continue accelerating

Damage reports finish coming in, and you're pleased to see that overall, losses were quite low. Your ships with damaged broadsides are rolling to present their fresh sides, and energy mounts report green. You send an order to the humans to move their ships in behind you, and-

>D͟͠à͡͠un̷t̵̀́l̨̀͜e͡s͝s,̕ ̸́͝I̢̛͞ ̸̢͡ca̕n̕ ̛͟h̢̨el̀͠ṕ͞!̡͟

There it is again! A faint transmission on every Order radio channel. You want to investigate but you don't have any cycles to spare from targeting and setting up your energy exchange as your fighters break through the rear of Force Beta, turning on their axis to continue slamming shots from their spinal mounts into the rear of the Legion vessels.

>roll 1d100, best of 3

>>2832549
>Continue accelerating, try and get past Force Beta as quickly as possible. Cabot can clear stragglers.
Hopefully Weston can make a final pass after ours and Cabot if there needs to be one.

Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>2832596

Rolled 1 (1d100)

>>2832596

Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>2832596

Rolled 76 (1d100)

>>2832596

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>>2832616
Whew. Good thing I'm too tired to do crits.

>>2832596
53 vs 72

All systems ready. The last salvo of missiles incoming are fended off by ECM, counter-missiles, lasers and shields, and then you reach the range at which lasers become effective against each other. Your ships discharge their energy broadside in a rippling wave, lasers and the heavier grasers reaching out with their deadly touch to melt and rip at obsidian hulls. But the angle isn't the best, and neither is your targeting. The enemy EW is too good for a good, solid lock all the way from your ships, and too many of them go wide or are wasted against smaller targets. The crippled battleships are picked off, along with half their remaining screen. Then Force Beta is zooming past you to port, desperately decelerating but nowhere near enough as you continue with your own accel.

But again, you haven't escaped unscathed. The new shields have mitigated a lot of the hurt, and you haven't lost any ships. It seems your own EW was effective enough, and they mostly focused their fire on your larger ships. Damage but not destruction, and the humans were kept tucked away to starboard, out of harm's way.

Behind you, flashes of light abruptly come into being as antimatter strikes matter, a sudden series of strikes making sure the surviving ships of Force Beta are too crippled to come after you. You think a quick prayer for Cabot's sake, and turn your attention back to Force Alpha, and the heavily fortified third planet in the system. Because you do, you tune in just in time to catch the massive swarm of ships and the forts start firing at each other.

D̛a̧̢unt͞l̵̀e͘̕ss̛͝!̢͘͟

>>2832679
And that seems like a good place to end this evening. I'm totally wiped, so I'm not sure what shape I'll be in tomorrow, and if I'll continue. We'll see.

Make sure to check twitter if you want to know, and I'll see you all tomorrow (or maybe not).

>>2832679
Oh shit missed the thread
Seems like the guy sending us this weird messages is trapped like how we were like last time?

>>2831796
Welcome back . Take it easy.

>>2833402
Naw its just Rubin's leet hax0r skills.